arbage Day By Daniel Lemieux,BBanana root beer float

 

Garbage Day

By Daniel Lemieux

 

It began in an instant on a Tuesday morning. I know it was a Tuesday because Tuesday was garbage day. Since then, this information has become, for the most part, largely irrelevant for two reasons: first, the garbage trucks - as much as I would like them to - no longer come around to pick up the trash; second, I do not know what day it is.

At one point, Tuesday mornings were fairly predictable. I drank my coffee while watching the sky lighten, then carried the week’s worth of trash out to the end of the driveway. For reasons I cannot explain, it is at this point that this particular Tuesday alternates. I flipped the lid of the green bin and tossed our collection of food scraps when a shrill whirring perked my ears. Suddenly, a speeding red blur came hurtling from the sky like a coal-fired fastball and touched down right on top of last week’s stale bread. It struck with such ferocity that the lid slammed itself shut and sent the green bin flying into a dizzying helix of backflips and pirouettes, hurling a barrage of eggshells and bread crusts all over the lawn.

My foot pinned a blackened banana peel where I stood, overlooking the capsized green bin. For a moment, I stared, aghast at the coincidence of it all. A perfect hole-in-one from the Almighty golf course in the sky! What a coincidence indeed. As a stargazer myself, I anticipated that I’d just won the astronomical lottery, but when I set the bin upright and peered inside, I realized that I was merely the new owner of a pair of smoldering red Converse and the curling stench of burning rubber.

If the fear and confusion I felt were any indicator of the expression on my face, I imagine that I looked a little bit zombified. In the disarray of emotions spiraling around my brain, the only words I could pull from memory in that moment were,

“What the hell?”

I think it was in the silence that formed between the words “the” and “hell” that the school bus landed on my neighbor’s house.

And then came the downpour.

Now the rotting, oppressive junk is a thick layer of icing suffocating the old world, and it keeps piling on. Most of the buildings have collapsed under the weight, and those that are still standing will fall. Out on the road, I’ll occasionally happen upon a survivor like myself. We exchange glances. Thin, disheveled glances. We don’t have bandits or raiders in this wasteland, and no one ever gives me any trouble - there isn’t any need to.

There’s enough food falling from the sky for everyone.

abou the Author 

Daniel Lemieux is a student and writer based in Hamilton, Ontario. When he’s not studying or writing, you can usually find him at the library, partly because he likes books, but mostly because he works there. 

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wake with the Birds by Diane Neilson, morning coffee,

 

A

She awoke early.

She had dozed into an easy slumber around midnight, lulled by the soothing call of the Tawny Owl in the field behind the house, but from about 4am she had slept restlessly, her right hip aching and her mind racing. It was the news that haunted her, the children in particular; their little tear-streaked faces, the dirty drinking water, the flies –– especially the flies! And then, in the next report, bombs being dropped on those same families; grief-stricken mothers, whole families homeless – or lost; boys fighting boys, and for what? All in the name of power or religion. Religion! She was pretty sure that Jesus wouldn’t have approved of all this fighting.

It was no use, there was no sleep in her so she might as well get up and do something useful. The cat was pleased – an early breakfast and cuddle – but she still couldn’t settle. She needed to walk. She crept back upstairs, stealthily avoiding the creaky fourth stair and the squeaky floorboard on the landing. She scooped up yesterday’s clothes and hurriedly dressed before re-navigating the descent in reverse and pulling on her boots and coat.

When she opened the back door, it was still dark, the moon dipping over the hill at the back of the house and the sky clear, a light breeze whipping at her hair. She crossed the bridge over the brook and began to trudge up the lane, just one foot in front of another trying to shake the feeling of frustration that all was not right with the world.

A rustle ahead dragged her out of her depressing contemplation. A shadow, right in front of her. No sooner had she identified it than it leapt the wall – a deer, no more than a fawn, and it had clearly not expected to see her at this early hour. Just a baby and no mother in sight. Why couldn’t people live like wildlife, side by side in harmony? She knew it was not that simple and that there was plenty ‘war’ in nature, but it wasn’t the same. It wasn’t driven by power-mad, money-hungry individuals; rich people trying to get richer at everyone else’s expense and narcissists who all wanted to be ‘King of the world’, it was simply survival.

The sun was starting to rise now, a glorious tangerine and rose sky developing like a photograph in front of her. As though synchronised, a morse code of birdsong broke the silence signalling the start of the new day, and despite her feelings about the world, she felt the malaise slip from her shoulders as though a weight had been lifted.

She turned off the lane at the foot of the moor and continued uphill, the cows in the lower field eyeing her curiously before returning to their grazing. Crossing the stile, she passed through reed-beds, the path unseasonally dry for April, and continued up to the woods above the reservoir, where the trail became twisty and narrow. She crossed a stile to follow a path she hadn’t walked before, beside a fast-running stream that tumbled down the hillside over rocks, like a mini-waterfall. After a few minutes she was in the midst of the woods with only the birds for company. She sat on a boulder, suddenly needing to just be at one with nature, and closed her eyes.

The birds were now in full song; the blackbirds shouting their orders, chaffinches trilling a morning tune and the glorious melody of the song thrush reaching her ears in intricate bursts, from the uppermost branch of the oak tree. She continued on her path, the warning call of the Robin offending her somewhat – she was no threat to them!

Reaching the edge of the moor and crossing another stile, she began the gentle sloping descent. Marsh pipits darted in and out of the heather, whilst curlews glided lazily above her – how wonderful it must be to just soar high above the world, drifting on the breeze, being carried along by the thermals – no wonder they sang.

At the stream she stopped to watch the dipper, the white flash of his breast disappearing and then reappearing, emerging triumphant as he bobbed and searched for food amongst the rocks, water tumbling over him before he swept, glistening, into the trees above.

Through the gate, she was greeted by the horses, nosing in her pockets for apples or carrots. She apologised (the farmer had forbidden feeding) and gave them both a nose rub instead; obviously a poor replacement, as they wandered away to seek out fresh grass.

Suddenly something caught her eye; a flash of brown swooping down in the next field. She crept silently to the wall where she would be hidden from sight, eager to make the most of this rare, if yet unconfirmed, sighting. After a few moments of uncomfortable crouching, she made to move – she must have been mistaken. Then, from the lowland grasses, emerged a hen-harrier – a female, a ring-tale – claws empty, rising almost vertically into the sky. She watched, frozen, as it hovered, silent and still, before dropping again to earth, this time rising with a small mammal, maybe a vole or a shrew, and flying away into the woods. She wondered at its skill, its authority, its speed – a marvel of nature.

Strolling back down the footpath home, she mulled over what she had seen. Why was a hen-harrier a marvel of nature, despite being a ruthless killing machine, whilst human killing was a blatant atrocity? It was a contradiction that upset her, made her feel a hypocrite, and she wrestled with the discomfort all the way home, where she made a coffee and went to sit in the summer house.

From her vantage point in the garden there was plenty of entertainment; wrens and sparrows were darting in and out of the ivy, nest-building she supposed – it was that time of year; two nuthatches were shouting noisily to each other from the plum tree, and a parliament of rooks had gathered in the farthest sycamore. What were they debating, she wondered, they were certainly doing it noisily.  Maybe they were discussing the hen-harrier’s murderous behaviour.

She laughed to herself before rising to go back inside. The world was far from perfect, but as long as she had her garden, and the birds, she would just have to accept that the state of the world was beyond her control.

Maybe she would go and put a cheque in the ‘Red Cross’ envelope that came last week – do her bit. Who knows, there may be a ‘real’ parliament in the world who could sort out the mess made by the billionaires and madmen, and if not, perhaps a real-life murderous equivalent of her hen-harrier was waiting in the wings to swoop down and take out the ‘king-of-the-world’. An evil thought maybe, but she went in through the back door with a lighter heart and her fingers crossed.

About the Author

Diane is a new writer and her aim is to entertain and inform. She lives in the UK and likes experiments with a range of genres including poetry and short stories. She has released five books, and has had several short stories published by Cafelit. 

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The Coast Starlight by Barry Garelick, Sweet iced tea

Thomas was at a time in his life when he felt on the verge of doing great things. What those things might be remained vague. He was tall and thin and looked younger than he was; he had turned thirty earlier that year. It was now mid-summer 1980, a year that saw a failed attempt to rescue American hostages taken in Iran, and the eruption of Mt. St. Helens. He had just spent a week in Seattle visiting a friend he had known since the mid-seventies and had left mid-morning on the Coast Starlight train’s once-a-day run to San Francisco, which would arrive early the next morning.

The train trip was long, and he found the part through Washington mostly uninteresting. He thought he might see the smoke from Mt. St. Helens, but it was cloudy and overcast. The timetable showed that the train would be in Dunsmuir – the stop near Mt. Shasta – by one in the morning, which meant that there wouldn’t be much to see. By late afternoon, the train entered Oregon and what little he could see through the plastic windows that were highly scratched, appeared to be more scenic than Washington. Occasional orange and yellow glints of light giving evidence of a river somewhere in forested mountains.

When he wasn’t dozing off, he tried to read but would lose interest. When he wasn’t reading, he would walk to the snack bar car hoping to find someone to talk to, a pattern that continued into the night when the lights in the cars were off. Sometime after eleven the snack bar car was empty except for a tall woman in her late twenties sitting at a table. Two hours earlier he had seen her at the same table playing cards with two men. She sat with perfect posture staring straight ahead, her lips open slightly as if she were whistling to herself.

She was pretty, he thought, and remembered telling a girl years ago that she was pretty. The girl told him later that whenever she was with him, she felt pretty. He had wondered if there were girls who knew they were pretty without someone telling them and whether the woman at the table was one such person. She looked up as Thomas approached the table.

“Still here, I see,” he said.

“Yep, still here.” Thomas saw what looked like sadness in her eyes, but it may have just been tiredness, he thought.

 “I saw you playing cards here a while back.”

“With the two guys? Yeah, they asked me if I wanted to play so I said yes. It’s not like I had other things to do.” She had a strong southern accent and was more talkative than he expected. She reached in the purse hidden on her lap and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. “Care for one?”

“No thanks. I gave it up,” he said, sitting across from her. “I’m at the four-month mark.”

“Good for you for quitting! I’ve tried to quit but it’s one of those things that I say I’ll get around to doing in earnest someday.” She pulled a lighter out of her purse. “I remember seeing you here. You looked like someone I knew. But now you don’t.”

After taking a shallow puff of her cigarette she looked at him with intent interest and after a moment said, “Those have to be the tiniest glasses I’ve ever seen.”

“Yeah, they’re small. I found them in an antique store, and had lenses put in. People have told me they make me look like John Lennon.”

“Well, I can see why someone might say that,” she said, smoothing the ash from her cigarette against the ashtray.

“So you’ve been here the whole time, since I saw you playing cards?

“Yes. We played for what seemed forever and they were making me uneasy. So I let slip something about my fiancé. And suddenly they didn’t feel like playing any more. But I didn’t feel like going back to my seat. I have trouble sleeping when traveling as it is but the car I’m in is too hot.”

“Same here. My car is hot and I don’t sleep well.”

“So I’ve been sitting here thinking about things,” she said. She looked down and neither said anything.

“What part of the south are you from?”

“I guess my accent gave me away! North Carolina. I can tell from your accent you’re not from the south. Not sure where. Maybe Minnesota.”

“Pretty close. Wisconsin. I didn’t know I had an accent.”

“Everybody has some kind of accent. I used to think I had lost my accent by now but no, it’s still there. I’ve lived away for about eight years. You ever been to North Carolina?”

“No, though I may have to go to the Raleigh-Durham area soon. For my job. Staying in Raleigh. Someone told me there’s not much to do there.”

“Well honey, there’s Durham. Get over to Durham if you can. Lots more to do there than in Raleigh. I mean I like Raleigh, don’t get me wrong. But I love Durham. If you go in the fall, it’s curing season for tobacco; it’s like you walked into a humidor. Might be tough with you having quit smoking. Then you must go to Bullocks for some fried catfish and hush puppies. Best there is, anywhere.” She took a puff of her cigarette, looking sad again.

“Where are you heading?” she asked. “I’m betting San Francisco. You don’t look like the LA type.”

“Yes, San Francisco. I was visiting a friend in Seattle. Where are you going?”

“LA. I know, I don’t look the type. I was visiting my father. He moved to Seattle after my parents divorced. My parents never got along. He was following some lady who he now lives with in Seattle. Anyway, he’s not doing too well. He has Parkinson’s.”

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“Yeah, well, that’s how it is sometimes. His lady friend takes care of him pretty well. His speech is slow and he has trouble walking. But we talked a bit about old times, and I walked around Seattle and saw things. I saw the Space Needle. And the art museum. But mostly I just walked and thought about things.”

She traced an invisible pattern with her finger on the table. Thomas looked out the window but beyond their reflections, there was only darkness and a light shining from somewhere in the distance.

            “My name is Margaret by the way.”

“Thomas,” he said.

She sat back and hummed a tune so soft he could barely hear it.

“What is that tune you’re humming? It sounds familiar.”

“I’m surprised you could hear it. I hum to myself sometimes. I’m not sure what tune it is,” she said. “I think it’s a gospel tune. I’m not religious or anything but certain tunes from church stick in my head.”

She continued humming the tune, and Thomas listened, comfortable with not talking. After a minute or two she broke the silence.

“Did you take the train up to Seattle?”

“No, I flew up.”

“Same here. I thought the train might be a nice way to go back; someone told me it was nice. Which I suppose it is, in a way, but it’s been like a sour milkshake in other ways.”

“Yeah, I thought it would be better than it is. The windows are all made of some plastic material that’s scratched so it’s hard to see out. Except here and in the dining car where the windows are glass. The worst of it, though, is you we’ll hit Mt. Shasta about one A.M. when it’s too dark to see anything. There’s only one train a day from Seattle to LA. I imagine there must’ve been more trains traveling back in the heyday.”

The train swayed and the door to the snack bar car opened, filling the car with the loud rhythmic clatter of the train. An attendant came through the car and looked over at them. “Everything OK here?”

“We’re fine,” Thomas said. The attendant nodded and continued through the car and exited through the door to the next car.

“So why did you decide to take the train back?” she asked, putting her cigarette out in the stub-laden ashtray.

His reason, simply put, was since last November when Iran took U.S. hostages, he was suddenly aware that he was living in an historical time in America. There was a noticeable surge of patriotism as if he and others were suddenly thrust into a World War Two frame of mind – a time when train travel was popular. The country now seemed on the verge of great changes; he wondered whether a resurgence of train travel would be part of them and it was in that spirit that he decided to take the train back. This was not something easily explained. He thought it best not to mention it, but he did so anyway.

“I sort of see what you’re saying,” she said. “It’s like after you see a movie from another time and it makes you feel like you’re in that era for a little while. Something like that, anyway.”

The train rattled and groaned along a segment of tracks that only allowed slow speeds. A freight train passed in the opposite direction creating a whooshing sound when it cleared their train.

She began humming again, and he listened – a different hymn this time, he thought. After a few minutes she said, “I’m glad the seventies are over with.”

“What brought that to mind?”

“I’m not sure. Just thinking about things.”

“I like that you said that. I didn’t like them either. It seemed like the seventies belonged to others and everything was passing me by. People were making it in this or that, artist, writer, rock star.”

“Yes. Sounds familiar. I moved to New York when I got out of school. I wanted to be a writer.” She grimaced. “I know, I know, everyone wants to be one.”

“I wanted to be a rock star. I played keyboards in a band at school.”

“If I had to guess I’d say you look like that would be your instrument. Well, I worked as a secretary. I lived in the East Village in some run-down studio. I got involved with a guy and followed him to LA.”

“Was that your fiancé?”

“Good Lord, no.” She looked down and smiled. “I made that up to get rid of those guys I was playing cards with. The part about following a guy to LA was true, though. He was a published writer and promised the moon to me, he was going to take me around the world, introduce me to writers and all that. He turned out to be a jerk. Putting me down, asking me who I thought I was imitating. He told me once that my writing had a southern flair that seemed exotic outside of the south but would be ho-hum down there. I told him I’d pass that along to Eudora Welty the next time I saw her. He never heard of her, and that’s all I’ll say about it.”

“Sorry to hear that,” he said.

“Well, that’s over and done with. I’m going to nursing school now. LA City College. I still think about writing now and then. Just not as much as before.” She

“I’m a meteorologist in an environmental consulting firm. I like what I’m doing. It feels like people aren’t as pretentious anymore. Maybe it has nothing to do with the seventies. Maybe it’s the people I hang around with now.”

She looked at her reflection in the window. Her face was sullen.“Yeah. Maybe,” she said. Thomas saw that her eyes were filled with tears. She stood up quickly, grabbing her purse. “I have to go. I’m sorry.”

She hurried toward the door; before opening it, she turned around, looking at Thomas. “You’re very nice,” she said and disappeared through the door.

***

Thomas wondered what had brought on her sadness. He thought about her tears and how much she looked like an actress exiting a scene when she told him that he was nice. After a few minutes he headed for the door and once opening it, stood for a moment between the rail cars. It was chilly out and the air smelled of pine trees, grasses, and flowers. A thin crescent moon appeared behind long thin clouds.

In the next car he could make out the shapes of passengers in various positions sleeping in their seats. The car was much cooler than it had been earlier. Halfway through the car he heard his name whispered and looked around. “Over here,” he heard and looked behind him. Margaret was sitting in a window seat; she motioned him to come over.

“I’m sorry I flounced off like that,” she said in a soft whisper as he sat next to her. “A lot of things caught up to me.”

“I’m sorry you’re sad,” he said and the two then sat not saying anything, the dim light from the crescent moon showing the silhouette of her face. After a moment she began to talk again in whispers. She told him she could see that her father was dying; they both knew it, there was no need to talk about it, she said. She missed home and her two brothers; sometimes she thought she belonged back there. Sometimes becoming a nurse made sense to her, and other times it didn’t. There were things left unfinished, like writing, among a lot of other unfinished things.

“I think if you like doing what you do, a lot more things seem possible,” Thomas said.

“Yes.” She looked at Thomas and rested her head against his chest. “That seems right.”

Thomas ran his finger across her cheek feeling the down of soft hairs and they kissed.

“I was wondering when we’d get around to that,” she said.

“So was I.”

“I like being in places where no one knows me. You seemed like the right person to be with in such a place. I like that you sat with me. I like that you kissed me.” She looked at him. “You look different in the dark. Do I?”

“Yes. Not too much, though.”

“Not too much. No. That’s good, I guess.”

She smiled and rested her head once more against his chest. “I’m going to go to sleep,” she said. “Wake me up when we get to Mt. Shasta.”

When her breathing became rhythmic and he was sure she had fallen asleep, he moved her so that her head rested against a small pillow wedged next to the window. He then sat, looking out the window which despite the scratches was easier to see out at night than during the day. After several minutes, he was surprised to see the outline of a mountain, appearing as a shadow, slightly brighter than the night sky. The crescent moon appeared in the upper left corner of the window, tracing a slow path with Mt. Shasta across it. The mountain disappeared from view along with the moon. The car was filled with creaks and groans and the low rumble of the wheels.

The crescent moon and the outline of the mountain appeared again a few minutes later, bigger than before, this time moving from the right side of the window to the left. They were definitely climbing along a winding path. The sky now had almost a bluish tint. Thomas’ ears were plugging up and some of the passengers were stirring in their sleep. 

Thomas nudged Margaret; she looked up, startled. “Sorry, I wanted you to see Mt. Shasta.”

“Oh, yes, where is it?”

“Wait a bit. It’ll show up soon.”

“Is it that dark shape?” she asked when it came into view once more.

“That’s it.”

They sat looking at the moving moon and mountain, her head once more against Thomas’ chest. He thought about what it would be like to be outside right now in the darkness looking at a mountain eerily visible against the night sky. It would be strangely comforting, he decided.

“It’s beautiful,” she said. “It’s so forever.”

They watched the cycle repeat once more and then the train was heading in a different direction, descending, the mountain and moon no longer moving across the window.

“Thank you for waking me up to see that. I’m going back to sleep.”

“Good idea.”

“What time do we arrive in San Francisco?”

“About seven thirty,” he said.

“Well, I guess we’ll say goodbye in the morning. You know we probably won’t see each other again after that.”

“I like that you said ‘probably’,” he said.

“So am I. I’m comfortable with probably.” 

She went back to sleep and Thomas thought about what their conversations in the snack bar car, and then here. He thought about her saying ‘probably’ and how it could mean one outcome or the other. An exchange of addresses and phone numbers the next day seemed unlikely, but he would try.

The feeling of being on the verge of doing something great presented itself. What it was that he would do remained vague; it was more a feeling of possibilities: limitlessness and endless. The past was over, and everything was new, he would remember thinking before suddenly feeling extremely tired. He was enveloped by a comfortable dizziness and began to hear the voices and bits of dialogue that often marked the onset of dreams. Sleep overcame him, gradually, and then all at once, like a blanket that covered them both and held them still.

 

About the Author 

 

Barry Garelick writes about time, memory, and people facing transitions in their lives. His fiction is published in Cafe Lit, Opiate, and Fiction on the Web. He lives in Morro Bay, California with his wife.

 

</ Did you enjoy the story? Would you like to shout us a coffee?. Half of what you pay goes to the author the oher half goes to expense se.g. Maintaining hthe web site and setting up The Best of Café Lit book each year.

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