Touched by Greatness by S. Nadja N Zajdman, hot chocolate

I was born to refugee parents who spoke almost a dozen languages between them, paid their taxes with pride, teared up when they caught sight of the Canadian flag, and put on their best clothes when they went to vote.  Considering who they were and where they came from, it is understandable that my parents would respond strongly to a cosmopolitan and charismatic leader, when he appeared in the form of Pierre Elliot Trudeau.  Trudeau’s passion for social inclusiveness appealed to my mother.  Trudeau’s principles and his straight-shooting gunslinger stance appealed to my father.

As a child growing up in Montreal in the late 1960s, I was of the generation that came to be called “Trudeau babies.”  Trudeau babies were expected to speak two languages, bridge two solitudes, and blend into a multi-cultural mosaic.  It was Trudeau’s vision of our future, and it became ours.

In challenging a journalist, he challenged us.  “Just watch me,” he uttered defiantly.  And that is what we did.  We watched, in wonder, as our Justice Minister transformed divorce and abortion laws.  We watched, in awe, as our Liberal candidate, turning steely eyed, stared down a mob pelting him with rocks and bottles on the eve of his first election.

In the wake of a political assassination we watched, with relief (most of us, anyway), as a grim leader ruthlessly clamped down and stamped out terrorism.  We watched, mystified, as this middle-aged bachelor plucked a flower child and took her for a wife.

We watched with delight, as our P.E.T. became a first-time father on Christmas Day.  We watched, astonished, as P.E.T. became a father on Christmas Day AGAIN, as if he had a contract with Santa Claus!

We watched, with amusement, when P.E. T. traveled to London and playfully pirouetted behind the back of the Queen.  Then we watched him get down to business and bring home the Canadian Constitution.

We watched sadly, and from a respectful distance, as an aging and chastened husband endured, in dignified silence, the agony of divorce.  We watched our P.E.T. come back from defeat to welcome us into the nineteen eighties and then we watched, with mixed emotions, as he relinquished the reins of power and returned to private life before the nineteen eighties were over.

 

Back home in Montreal, Pierre Trudeau took up residence in his mansion on Pine Avenue.  At the time I lived in a studio apartment on Penfield Avenue, which is located one block below Pine.  Though I heard tales from neighbours of what came to be called “Trudeau sightings,” I had yet to experience one.  My turn would come.

It was Friday afternoon in mid-January of 1990, at the traffic hour.  The Christmas break was over, and the city had returned to work.  I was antsy to get outside, after being shut in by a blizzard that hit the city the day before.   I stepped out my door, planning to take a walk around Penfield and Pine.  The air was mild and the snow that had taken the city by storm was fresh and—snow white. 

At the corner of Pine and Cedar, where the crags in the boulders off the mountainside catch falling snow and petrify it into stalactites of ice, a teenage girl swung down the street.  Her hair was thick and dark and flying from her hatless head.  She wore a short vinyl jacket, thin white tights, and a faded jean skirt that stopped above her knees.  It isn’t that warm, I thought.  Watching the girl, and experiencing the sense of vibrancy a crisp winter’s day infuses into me, I had to remind myself that it was still, only January.

I continued along Pine, to the long and steep staircase that connects this elegant and sloping avenue to the entrance of the Russian consulate, at the top of Avenue du Musee.  The snow that had banked seemed to favour the right side of the steps, so I sat down on the left.  A man appeared at the bottom of the landing, directly in front of me.  He started to climb the staircase.  Well, I thought, when he reaches the top he’ll just have to move, because I’m not going to.

In admiration, I gazed at the view.  Ropes of snow rimmed the bare branches like sugar frosting.  Caps of snow perched on spiked fences, like ice cream in cones.  As the light began to fade the street lamps switched on, as though ignited by an attentive elf.

A sudden gust of wind whistled at the snow, startling it off the rooftops.  Particles of snow, transformed into silver sequins, pirouetted under the illuminated lamps.   Headlights and taillights twinkled on cars in the distance, down the hill.  They inched along the downtown streets like dinky toys.  Smoke curled out of chimneys in pearl gray and crayoned swirls.  Dusk smudged the sky, and the scarlet red of the stoplights were the only spots of colour in a magical, monochrome world.

I felt myself smile.  The man who was climbing had reached the halfway mark on the black metal staircase.  He was wearing a high sheepskin hat, and the tails of his long coat, rimmed by a sheepskin collar, flared out and away from him, lifted by the wind.  In one hand, he was clutching a briefcase.  If not for the briefcase, he might’ve been taken for a father of confederation stepping out of a 19^th century daguerreotype.

The anachronistic-looking gentleman looked up and smiled at me.  That is when I recognized him.  My heart leapt and my brain froze.  The smile on my face was frozen, too.  Pierre Trudeau reached the last steps before the top.  He was now so close that I could’ve reached out and touched him, had it entered my mind to dare. 

“Phew!”  Trudeau took a deep and visible breath.  He was almost an old man, and it had been a long and steep climb.  Then he spoke, in a voice as familiar as my own.  “Can I sit with you?”

“Suuuure.”  I was still smiling.  By now, my smile had become so frozen that it was fixed.

In response, Trudeau smiled a warm and natural smile.  Then he bent over and touched my shoulder with his free hand.  He looked down at the right side of the step I was sitting on.  It was laden with snow. Reconsidering his original idea, Trudeau stepped into the snow, instead of sitting in it, and continued on his way, to the family mansion.  Before reaching his door, Trudeau was approached by the teenager I had first seen sauntering down Cedar.  They seemed to know each other.  Was she a family friend?  Trudeau stood outside the entrance of his home chatting with her, a nearly mythical figure in his high sheepskin hat, his long flaring coat with the sheepskin collar, and his briefcase, still in hand.

I leaned against the railing and, one final time, I watched.  I took in the icicles forming sculptures on the boulders off Cedar, the rush-hour traffic whooshing, like toboggans, down Pine, and the elder statesman standing in the twilight who had paused, in his climb, to touch the shoulder of a dreamy young woman and who still took time, in the fading light, to stop and chat with a pretty young girl.  

About the author

S. Nadja Zajdman is a Canadian author. In 2022 she published the story collection The Memory Keeper (Bridge House), as well as the memoir I Want You To Be Free. In 2023 Zajdman followed up with a second memoir, Daddy's Remains. In 2024 Bridge House brought out her essay collection, Between Worlds. 

 

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Saturday Sample: Making Lemonade, home-made lemonade

 

Prologue

October 13th

 

 

Who wants flowers when you’re dead?

Sometimes the last book we read; the last TV show we watched; the last thoughts we had, have a way of staying with us. You’d been reading The Catcher in the Rye. They found it amongst your things. The bookmark a few pages from the end. You never got to know how it ended. There’s something truly heartbreaking about that; about unfinished moments, like unspent coins in a purse, unturned pages on a calendar, unspoken words on lips.

It’s true – flowers are wasted on the dead just as youth is wasted on the young.

There would have been flowers for you last year – there are always flowers.

My fingers bend over the edges of the page – marking the place. They want me to say a few words. They want me to make sense of something broken.

 

The voices soften to an almost-whisper without anyone saying a word. People have a way of sensing things. The old woman, Maisie, in the bright colours, gypsy-like, seems to sense it first. She stops mid-sentence. She’s been talking to Abigail, probably telling her about her latest charity-shop acquisition: another doll she told me earlier. I wonder if she’ll tell her the part about how the hair being blonde and the eyes being blue reminded her of you.

She stops talking right there in the middle of all the bustle in the communal garden and gestures for Abigail to follow her to the rows of chairs. They’re lined up in front on a make-shift ‘stage’ area. Just along from the tree; the silver birch that stands alone showing off its overcoat, leaves predominantly oranges and browns but still retaining some green. It stands as if in salute for what is about to happen. Harriet Smallcroft, our local MP, will say something first. The other speakers are here. I see them talking to people. It’s a nice day for it, people say. And I know what they mean but is it, can it ever be, a nice day for it? There are clear blue skies, a day with crispy edges, but there’s a chill stirring the leaves of the silver birch – a chill that runs through everything.

Not everyone’s here yet.

 

Earlier Carol, she’s the one who sent out the invites, the one who’ll also speak today, was with Maisie and Abigail; they were sweeping leaves. I joined them. They said they were going to make cakes and sausage rolls and the WI wanted to help serve refreshments but Carol was the one who said it wasn’t that kind of thing. They didn’t need to make refreshments and what if it rained? It’s not about food or drink, is it, it’s about all being here.

So, we are.

We are all here.

There are a lot of people. We’re all here huddled in our winter coats. Hats and scarves, stomping our feet to keep warm. Carol asked me to be here. I don’t know how to answer all their questions.

 

I spoke to Edith earlier. Another old neighbour. She’s here with her husband George though she says he probably doesn’t really understand what today is. Made me realise how we’re all fighting our own battles. Edith is making her way to the front now to join Piper – Piper Marigold the actress – I recognise her from the paper. Today it seems she’s sitting alone with her head bowed. She looks glamorous in a long burgundy coat with a gold scarf. Her hair has grown since I last saw her photo. Calcutta Drake’s here too. The MMA fighter. He’s brought his black labrador along with him; the one you used to walk. He’s not exactly sociable but he did tell me about your walks. He’s sitting at the end of one of the rows. He feels it too; I see it in his anguished expression when he shifts his gaze from his knees, as if he’s wondering who else will come. He looks as if he’s expecting trouble. Always ready for a fight, I suppose. I did see him dip his head at Danny the postman, at least I think that’s who he is. I think it was Jada, the teacher, who told me that. He was hovering by the gate, but I don’t see him now. I look along the lines of young faces and I feel something stir.

They all carry a small part of what happened – young and old – and I see the way it adds weight to their smiles and droops their shoulders.

The press is here too, gathered at the edges with their notebooks and their phones; some with cameras. I hope they’re here for the right reasons. This is not about headlines and click-baits.

We are here for you.

 

I find my seat on the makeshift stage and look over at Harriet Smallcroft who is yet to take her position. The hush sweeps over heads and pushes their whispers into the corners of the kempt garden. I watch a solitary leaf fall from the silver birch and float gently to the ground.

And that thing – the thing that had hung between their words and their handshakes and their slightly nervous banter a few moments ago, rises like bubbles to the surface of a glass.

We’re nearly ready.

     

Jada – with her gorgeous braided hair – now raises her hands, ushering more people to take their seats. She also seems to be looking around. Checking if everyone came, I suppose. I see Elizabeth the lovely Greek lady. She lived next-door-but-one to you. She says she’s known you since you were a baby. The whole family is here, sitting right down at the front across from me; young people you used to play with. She has left four seats empty. Carol wrote them a letter. Elizabeth has spoken to them and so did I – but will they come? Will they be able to come?

Behind Elizabeth, I see the two Simons looking very serious in smart grey suits – matching. They were involved in publicising the event. I wonder how they feel living at number 11. Then there’s Adrian who said you were close friends. He’s sitting in the fourth row with his mum and dad and there are so many people I haven’t yet spoken to. Dimitri, the ice cream man, who I do know, is sitting with his daughter, Lucinda, right behind Adrian. I see the boy turn around and glance at her. Something seems to pass between them that makes me wonder. It’s like they’ve found some solace in one another remembering you. Adrian’s lips are pressed into a tight line, expression fixed, stoic and I watch Lucinda lean forward and gently squeeze his shoulder.

I have spoken to as many of them as I can.

Now it feels like a play is about to start. I wish that’s all today was.

You asked Adrian to keep your words safe. I feel the weight of those words now – of the responsibility handed to me.

 

Harriet Smallcroft fiddles with a microphone and taps the end once and then again to make sure. She looks at her wrist, glances at me and mouths, “Give it another minute?” I nod but the second I do, I catch a glimpse of them – so they did make it. It seems all heads turn and all gazes follow them as they make their way to the front – a mother, a father, a grandfather, a brother; all in their winter coats. I see Jada turn to look at the boy, Jimmy. Abigail nods at the old man. They shuffle into the seats Elizabeth saved for them. Now Harriet Smallcroft smiles in their direction. I can only imagine how they all feel.

I sense movement at the back: a man in a suit wearing a black tie. I think that’s the doctor from the old surgery on the corner. He’s standing by the railing with an older couple who I believe were an aunt and uncle. But I still don’t see him.

We’re about ready to start.

 

Today is important and that’s why there are so many people here: many of your friends from school and teachers and even the headmaster from Crompton Seniors.

There’s a sense of shifting feet and poised cameras as the press make ready. Harriet stands more upright now and begins her short introduction and the whole time I’m thinking about what to say, how to start. But I know. There’s only one way to start.

I look out at the sea of scarves and hats and solemn faces while Harriet talks about how it’s one year since the terrible tragedy… I try not to look at the family, not yet.

When finally, I hear myself being introduced, I stand, brush down my suit and I walk to the microphone. I see hope in all their expectant stares, like they need me to make sense of it – even when I know that’s impossible.

My fingers tremble as I open the page to the right place. I’m doing this for you – because you can’t and I wish to God I didn’t have to. I stare down at the neat black handwriting with the dainty loops and the slight lean to the right. There’s a soft muffle of hand taps as if they don’t know if they ought to clap or not. Now the hush returns.

“Hello. I want to begin with something Joanne Wilson wrote in her diary…”

I see their faces fixed on me, draw in a deep breath and begin.

“When I was a little girl, I had an idea that I’d make my own lemonade. I’d use fresh lemons – and mix them with sugar and water. Then I’d fill glass jugs and sell it by the cup. I’d do it during the summer holidays on the square. Only I never did do it because I used to be so shy and there were always too many other things to do with the school holidays.”

Your mum raises her head. I did ask her if I could do this and she gave me her blessing.

That’s when I think I see movement at the back by the railing and adjust my gaze.

He came.

He’s standing right at the back.

He’s here.

I look back down at the page and continue.

“I always wanted to be that little girl who made lemonade. I always wanted to be noticed.”

I see the gravitas of your words on their faces, think how there are many ways to be noticed – but this is not the way.

“Nothing will ever make it right – what happened,” I say, and I wonder for a moment as I look out at all the faces here today on the square, what you would make of all this, of all of these people here – now – for you.

 Then I draw in a deep breath and I continue.

 

Find your copy here 

 

A Welcome Gift by Jane Spirit, a cup of weak tea

The flowering made Susan cry. That wasn’t really to do with grief anymore, though she had been very fond of John’s mother at one time. She had known, even so, that it would not have been right to attend her funeral. Susan and John had once been so in love, but they had fallen out quite sharply with each other at the end. Of course, she had long since forgiven him for the words he’d uttered in anger. It was just that, since then, he had been married and separated, twice, and she had not known how to maintain the link with his mother. Besides, she thought, her turning up at the service would probably just have embarrassed John. Lord, he would have enough to deal with, if both the estranged wives arrived, without her being there as well. Also, deep down, she couldn’t be sure that John had forgiven her for getting so furious with him. She’d barely forgiven herself for throwing that vase at him, complete with the flowers he had just given her and which she had plonked ungraciously into their best crystal. That had turned out to be their final quarrel. They had cleaned up the glass, the water, and the battered tulips together without saying anything at all, before parting their ways.

So instead, she had written a little card to John, expressing her sympathy on his bereavement and telling him that she had fond memories of his mother. This was true. Eileen had never criticised her untidy nature. Instead, she had encouraged her to grow some herbs and to plant out a tub of primroses on the tiny, sun trapping balcony of the dishevelled flat she and John had once shared.

Susan had seen the funeral listed in the local paper and decided to pay her own homage at the appointed hour by tidying up the small flower bed in her little yard. Then she had transplanted into it some of the fledgling seedlings cultivated on her cluttered kitchen windowsill. Later she had raised a weak cup of tea to Eileen’s memory, since this had always been Eileen’s drink of choice.

And that was that, she’d thought, until the next day when she’d come back from her daily outing to the local garage to pick up a paper. Coming in through the back gate, she had seen that something was waiting for her by the kitchen door. As she had got closer, she had been able to make out a tangle of green stems topped by distinctive scarlet flowers. Of course, tulips, she had smiled. She had bent down slowly to inspect them and seen that a little note had been placed underneath the now rather tatty bouquet. ‘Left over from the funeral. Thought of you. John’.  She had laughed then, happy to have the mangled flowers that he had deposited there. She was sure now that he had forgiven her. Carefully taking the tulips indoors and arranging them in a colourful jug, she had thought of how much Eileen would have approved. The tulips had obviously come from an upmarket florist, the sort where they leave the bulbs on the stems to be retrieved, preserved and re-used for planting again. Susan had been determined not to miss this second chance and, in the autumn, had planted out ‘Eileen’s bulbs’, in the well dug soil of her raked flower bed. She waited patiently through the winter for the new tulips to emerge and unravel.  On the day that the first bulb bloomed, Susan wept a little, thinking of John and his mother, and catching just a little hopefulness from the weak spring sunshine as it illuminated the first flower.

About the author

Jane lives in Woodbridge, Suffolk UK. With the encouragement of the local creative writing class which she joined in 2021 she has been writing stories ever since, some of which have appeared on Café Lit. She also enjoys writing about Victorian literature. 

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Monsters by Héctor Hernández, el diablo cocktail

It was my back that needed a good stretch more so than my legs. A stiffness had settled into these old bones of mine, but I didn't dare move, not yet anyway. I don't know how long I had been sitting in the forest—a half hour? a full hour?—but I would have to wait just a little bit longer.

I was hiding behind thick brush, spying on the monster in the distance, and as I waited, I thought of the alien invaders. They had arrived by the millions—or so it had seemed—ships packed so tightly you strained to see the familiar flickering of stars at night.

If I said those ships covered the sky like a thick blanket, I would be far off the mark. It was more like a giant pillow, one that God had gripped with determined hands and slowly pressed down upon His six-day creation.

When NASA's NEO Surveyor spotted that near-Earth object hurtling at an incredible speed toward our Solar System, mainstream scientists around the world assured us with scholarly confidence that there was no reason for concern. The object—6I/NEOS, the sixth interstellar comet to enter our Solar System—was just another comet, they said.

The sun was now dipping below the horizon, its last few rays of light just grazing the Earth. In another minute, it would be time for me to move. I wasn't too worried about the low light. Although my eyes weren't as sharp as they had once been, I was counting on the monster's eyes being even worse or, if not worse, at least not any better than my own. I could still see pretty well at a distance—even in dim lighting. It was the up-close stuff, like reading, that I had a problem with. Of course, I hadn't done much of that these last two years—too busy just trying to survive.

6I/NEOS didn't pass by our planet as expected. Instead, it slipped into an orbit around us, invading our personal, celestial space, cozying up to us like we were intimately acquainted. And then, like a spawning fish, the comet that wasn't a comet spewed forth from its belly thousands upon thousands of ships.

A diffused light moved like a mist through the trees. Shadows, once distinct, blended into a heavy grey wash across the landscape. Twilight had begun. I rose with deliberate care, my sixty-two-year-old knees stiff like rusty hinges. It was time to move into my final position. I had been waiting patiently for this exact moment, the one of transition between day and night. Experience had taught me it would work to my advantage.

Somehow the aliens coaxed our own Sun to turn traitor against us. It spit out billions of tons of plasma right at Earth, a coronal mass ejection of biblical proportions that destroyed electrical systems around the world. Electricity was so deeply threaded through every aspect of our daily lives that the fabric of our modern world fell apart when that thread was pulled. It unravelled quickly, like a loosely knit sweater, and in the blink of an eye, we were all thrown into the past, back into a hunter-gatherer way of life.

My strategy was always the same: find an opening through the brush just wide enough to let two of my arrows fly—one after the other—and then run like hell. I flexed my stiff knees to get the circulation flowing. Hopefully, they would be up to the task.

I started to make my way through the dense brush, and though I proceeded with caution—careful to avoid the dry, brittle leaves and twigs scattered about the ground—a careless step triggered a distinct “snap,” which boomed through the silent forest like a rifle shot. I instinctively dropped on bended knees and held my breath. The monster ceased its activity.

My ears were sharp, and a moment later, I heard the approach of plodding footsteps. The monster was moving in my direction.

I needed to make a decision quickly. I had lost the element of surprise—that was a given—so I had two choices: run away to fight another day or stay and fight. It was an easy choice: in for a penny, in for a pound. I chose to fight.

The brush was too dense for my arrows to get through from where I was, but ten yards ahead I saw a clearing. Quietly, I nocked an arrow onto my string. I took a deep breath and then bolted towards that open ground.

My first arrow struck the monster in the gut, stopping it in its tracks. A puzzled expression splashed across its broad face. It stared at the wooden shaft sticking out of its ample belly, not comprehending how such a thing could so magically appear. That brief moment of confusion was all I needed to launch my second arrow, this one directed at its throat.

The monster dropped to the ground and let loose an ugly, garbled wail that would have sent any forest creature within earshot to run for cover. But there were no forest creatures. The aliens had seen to that.

After our Sun's unforgivable betrayal, the aliens had moved on to the next step of their plan. We watched with curious eyes as their fleet of ships followed a grid pattern of icy cold precision day and night around the globe, hovering a few seconds over a section of land before moving on. It didn't take us long to figure out what they were doing. Any animal entering one of the visited zones immediately dropped dead. Earth was being reshaped.

I caught glimpses of red pulsing out in thin streams from the monster's exposed neck as it thrashed in the dirt and leaves. Its wail had now turned into a pitiful whimpering which sent a shiver up my spine. A flicker of compassion sparked in me, but I quickly extinguished it. The beast had no right to my sympathy. I steeled myself and waited.

A minute later, the sounds stopped, but it was too soon to approach. I would wait a little longer. No sense taking any chances.

It was anyone's guess as to what the aliens ultimate goal was, but one thing was certain, we humans wouldn't be a part of it. Personally, I think the aliens just happened to stumble upon Earth, saw a beautiful vacation home, and—like any new homeowner when confronted with an infestation problem—decided to fumigate the place before moving in. It was as simple as that. We animals, humans included, were nothing more than an annoyance, cockroaches to be exterminated.

Five minutes later I made my way over to the monster. I walked with cautious steps, circling it wide for signs of movement. There were none. I circled a second time just to make sure. You could never be too careful when dealing with these creatures. Satisfied that the monster had been, literally, drained of life, I stepped in close. I saw the angry, desperate gouges that crisscrossed the spot on its sun scorched neck where my second arrow had entered. The monster had clawed at it in vain. It was buried deep.

I planted one foot against the side of the monster's thick neck and gripped my arrow with both hands and yanked. The arrow came out undamaged. I braced my foot against the beast's rotund belly and yanked out the other arrow. It too was undamaged. I returned both wooden shafts to my quiver.

I left the monster where it lay and walked over to its campsite. There was a sleeping bag, a rucksack, cooking pots, eating utensils, and an impressive set of cutting tools: knives, cleavers, and poultry shears.

I had watched with suppressed horror as the monster disemboweled its human kill, watched as it sliced the torso and let the entrails slip out of the cavity and splash onto the ground, watched as it expertly separated limbs from trunk. Most survivors would have continued on their way after stumbling upon such a disturbing scene—one that was becoming more and more common—but not me. It never seemed right to turn a blind eye and just walk away. Even though my days on this earth were numbered, I always felt compelled to take action.

I could now see that the monster's butchered victim was a woman. Had she been a stranger? Or a companion? Perhaps a family member? Cannibalism was becoming more common now, and it made it harder for us survivors to continue to survive when these accursed creatures, these humans turned monsters, preyed upon their own kind.

About the author 

Héctor Hernández received a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering. He lives in California and is now retired. His short stories have appeared or are forthcoming in Flash Fiction Magazine, After Dinner Conversation, Bright Flash Literary Review, Five Minutes, and Literally Stories. 

Did you enjoy the story? Would you like to shout us a coffee? Half of what you pay goes to the writers and half towards supporting the project (web site maintenance, preparing the next Best of book etc.)