The Trapper's Torment

 by Kim Martins

whisky

Small footprints led towards a clump of spruce trees, their branches snow-heavy. The tracks were powdery-fresh but disappearing fast as snow buried the landscape. He slid off the saddle, steadied his chestnut mare and squatted beside the tracks, saw how the ice crystals glinted like glass shards under a weak sun.

Something moved in the trees. A familiar flash of red. He knew she was close but he could only hear his own breathing.  

I want to talk to you he called out. Tell you about the silver bellies of the salmon as they dart in the water upriver, the white fox I caught in the trap just for you, its fur is so very soft.

You should see the cabin I’m building. We can be together.

He stood in the bone-chilling cold, kicked at the thick snow, willed her to step from the shadows. But he was alone with his old mare, her bit jingling in the stillness.

The first time he’d seen her, months ago, he’d been tracking a lone grey wolf. He’d set some snares high up the mountainside and had followed a trail that led into a small field. There she was in a fur-trimmed red coat, untidy flaxen hair tumbled over her shoulders, her face tilted towards a bleak sky. He drank in the gentle curve of her cheekbones, the milkiness of her skin.

He wanted to pull her towards him, take her in his arms.

He rubbed his tired eyes, imagined that he could see each six-pointed snowflake as it spiralled earthward.

A twig snapped nearby. A scruffy white fox darted into a stand of fir trees.

The girl seemed startled.

Who are you? he’d said.

But she turned and ran after the fox.

Where are you going? he called.

Home, she’d whispered.

At the Edge of the World

by Kim Martins 

a hot toddy

May 8, 1912

There it is again. Like a knock on a distant door from an unexpected visitor. It’s closer now. There’s a change in the air, a faint tingle of energy. I feel a dark presence. God help me it’s coming. Every night I’ve heard scratching sounds on the window, scribblings, raspings. I fear I am losing my mind. They told me not to winter-over, that the wretched loneliness would consume me, but I have the huskies for company, their loyalty knows no bounds. I’ve misplaced items: the silver hip flask you gave me, my compass. I cannot remember things; I am not sleeping well.

There! Louder this time. A metallic scraping at the hut door. It’s trying to get in. I cannot say for sure what lies beyond that door, but I must meet it. I pull the door open, and there is…

Nothing.

Nothing but a wind that tugs at me with its thieving hands. Nothing except the huskies wailing, hailing each other, straining at their leads and barking into darkness. Overhead, oh you should see it Marianne, the rhythmic ribbon of the southern lights. Like a serpent of fire - pulsing pinks, purples, golds.

May 9, 1912

I hear the noises again. In the half-light of dawn I think I see….

February 12, 1926

Eriksen’s team reached the hut as a blinding blizzard set in. It was abandoned but would give them protection for a few nights.

“Over here, sir. It looks like Pedersen’s diary.”

The men gathered round a roughly-hewn table, their oil lamp cast amber light across faded pages. A compass and a hip flask, etched with the initials A.P., lay next to the diary.

They felt a change in the air, a faint tingle of energy.

The men looked towards the hut door.

The Food Demonstrator

by Kim Martins

cognac

Swiss Emmental. Provolone. Monterey Jack. I’ll need to learn the names of the fancy cheeses, and know the semi-hard ones and the extra-sharp cheddars. But I’ll certainly need to avoid the blue vein - smells like boiled cabbage or unwashed socks.

Here comes that prissy woman. I can’t make a mistake and offer her soft brie on a salty cracker, when she looks like a Gruyère lover. I bet she likes a rich, slightly nutty cheese. She probably has fondue parties on Saturday nights, and knows Gruyère is the perfect earthy cheese for swirling crusty French bread or an asparagus spear.

I should pick up the platter and step into the aisle. Last minute check; yes, that’s the Gruyère, although the fluorescent lights in this supermarket really wash out its lovely pale honey colour.

“Would you like a sample of our Gruyère?” I say as she passes by me, her fruity fragrance lingering in the aisle.

“No.” Short and curt.

Ah, well. I’m sure old Mrs. Taylor will snap up any free samples I offer. She’s not so picky, and she particularly likes the aged Gouda.

I glance down at my ID - Food Sample Demonstrator - making sure the plastic tag is sitting straight and not hidden by the lapel of my tight-fitting fuchsia jacket. Wandering back to the cheeses, I count
each sample, and then shift from one tired leg to the other. It’s not easy standing around for hours, handing out food samples.

My mind wanders back to when I first saw him in aisle sixteen, right between the confectionery and laundry detergents. Black hair slightly silvered at the temples, and I couldn’t help but notice his shopping trolley was stuffed with canned beans, beer and cat food.

I imagine him to be a Roquefort man: decadent and intense. King of the Blues. Might have to reconsider my dislike of blue vein I think as I pick up a mirrored-compact, fluff my bleached hair, and make sure that my lipstick isn’t smudged (customers love a broad, bright smile, so I’m wearing my favourite Honolulu Pink shade. It matches my jacket oh-so-perfectly).

There’s that irritating bakery guy just down the aisle, setting up his food station. He’d better not have those tiny jam doughnuts that people swarm around. After getting a sample or two, customers walk by the cheese station licking sugared fingers, ignoring the shaved Stilton and creamy Camembert.

No time to worry about it though, because here comes Mr. Roquefort.

“Could I try some ricotta, please?” he asks. A gentle smile, voice low and throaty.

“Ricotta?” I stutter. How bland!

How to tell ricotta from the cottage cheese, though? They both look like grainy lumps.

I offer him the platter, hoping he’ll know the difference, when an annoying kid darts underneath. The platter falls to the floor and breaks. Porcelain shards and cheese samples splatter everywhere.

Bakery guy looks over. There’s a smirk on his face.  “Hey, Irene,” he sniggers. “Still dreaming of that promotion? You’d best get back to aisle two, and serve those tiny cocktail sausages you’ve been serving to customers for years.”

About the author

Kim Martins lives in New Zealand. Her poetry and flash fiction has been published in The Copperfield Review, Furtive Dalliance, Barren Magazine, Plum Tree Tavern, The Drabble, Flash
Frontier, Flash Flood Journal & “a fine line’. A keen photographer, inspiration comes from photos and observations while walking. With a BA (Hons) in History, her stories and poetry often have historical themes.

When Nothing Has Changed

by Kim Martins

margarita

The plane inched through high clouds and she wondered if he was on it, or if he’d changed his mind. He’d emailed last week: I’m coming home. After six months of finding himself, needing breathing space, some time apart. She wasn’t really sure what he’d meant.

She raised her hands to her face, an instinctive reaction acquired over many years of living with Bob and his erratic temper. But she closed her eyes to the past as she watched the plane land and taxi to the terminal building huddled in the corner of the small regional airstrip.

She stood near the smudged windows of Gate One, saw him trudge down the metal stairs. His greying hair was longer, disheveled strands hung shoulder-length, his usual smart chinos replaced with ill-fitting board shorts.

She imagined he’d spent his days on coconut cream beaches that edged into margarita sunsets. She didn’t plan to ask if he’d been alone; she was afraid of the answer.

He stepped through the arrival entrance, rucksack in hand, silver suitcase nowhere in sight.

“Hello Marian,” he said, in that same whiskey-and-cigarettes voice she remembered. She paused for a moment, looked into his tanned face splattered with freckles and forgave him, as she always had.

They talked on the patio that evening. Voices tight and strained. She walked him backwards through their lives together, avoided the damaged memories. But she could see he’d already forgotten.

It’s better this way, he said. The night air was sharp and Marian wrapped herself around the truth of those words.

He left at dawn the following day. She didn’t bother to go to the airport. She waited for the rumble of a small plane as it flew overhead, did a load of washing and hung her false hopes on the line to dry.

These Hands

^{by Kim Martins} 

^vodka

^{It was 3.00am when the call came through. I’d been waiting for it. Come to the hospital, they said. I couldn’t sleep anyway.}

^{I arrived to a room full of people I didn’t know. I craved a cigarette, wanted to step out into the corridor, but they whispered - we’ll leave you alone now.}

^{She was tucked into starchy sheets, razor-thin arms folded across her chest. Her eyes were closed but she wasn’t sleeping.}

^{She knew I was there. Her hands sought mine. I ran my thumb over the splatter of freckles across her knuckles, traced her almond-shaped nails and thought - our life together is in these hands.}

^{I brushed the tip of a scarred index finger. Nearly sliced off when jam sticky fingers slipped on a kitchen knife. I imagined the familiar turn of a wrist when she threaded her fingertips through my hair, her laughter hot against my bare shoulders. Her gentle stroking of our newborn’s flushed skin.}

^{Those moments. Unhurried Sundays curled on the sofa. She turned the eggshell pages of a book while I read the newspaper. Nervous palms held by some fortune teller who didn’t want to say what a faint life line meant. That night we ran barefoot and drunk along the beach. She smelled of coconut cream and sunshine and I tasted her salty fingers. The time she waded through a rock pool and cradled small shells in sand-encrusted hands.}

^{These hands have mapped our relationship from the start. I drew them to my face. They were cold to the touch, light as bird bones. Like a fool, I thought we’d always be together.}

^{I watched her lips.}

^{She said: I’m ready. But I was not.}

^{She almost appeared to be smiling.}

^{I let go of her hands.}

^{Turned off}

^{life support.}

The Carousel

by Kim Martins

beer

The night circus arrives in town every summer with its promises of pink cotton candy and carousel rides.

The painted horses of the carousel always attract Kate’s son. "I want to ride the horses," James pleads, pulling her towards the rides. She can never say no to her tousle-haired boy.

The carousel whirls and Kate catches glimpses of the excited faces of children, ice-cream trickling down their chins as they watch a clown perform.

"Honey, let's get off now, okay?" she says, as the platform completes its final turn and slows down. She turns to look at the brightly-coloured horse her son has been riding.

"James, where are you? We need to get off so other people can get on," she says, searching for her son in the jumble of lifeless eyes and carved manes.

"Do you need help?" Kate sees a young woman staring at her from ground level. She is struck by the intensity of her hazel eyes and puzzled expression.

“My son,” she says. “He is wearing a green dinosaur T-shirt and brown shorts. Have you seen him? He was on the horse right behind me.” Kate steps off the carousel and tries to calm her rising fear.

"I don't think there was anybody on the ride behind you,” says the young woman, her voice calm and measured.

The horses set off on another journey. The organ music cranking through loudspeakers reverberates in Kate's head, making her feel dizzy. She looks for a place to sit down.

"My name's Naomi. There’s a bench over here. Let me help you," she says, gripping Kate’s elbow and guiding her towards the nearest bench. Naomi smiles but there is something about her that makes Kate uneasy. She notices a small galloping horse tattoo on Naomi’s inner wrist and she’s certain she has seen it before.

"Where's your husband? Maybe James is with him or maybe he saw some friends and went to be with them?"

Kate’s dress clings to her back, slick with sweat. "My husband is in the city on a business trip. I brought James here…", she says, feeling hot tears brimming. She wants to find her son, not sit here wasting time talking to this stranger.

Kate feels she is being watched and glances at the carousel operator, a gnarled man with a salt and pepper beard. He is smoking a cigarette between rides, staring at them intently.

"Look, why don't we ask the guy in charge of the carousel ride? He's just over there. He might recall seeing your son,” says Naomi.

Kate hesitates before getting up, unsteady on her feet. She walks the short distance but is frightened by a knowing look that flickers between Naomi and the carousel operator.

"What have you done with my son? Where is he?" she yells. She knows she is losing control but her hands are shaking, her breath short and fast.

"Ma'am, take it easy,” says the carousel operator. His face is lined with wrinkles, his expression detached. “I 'aint seen your son. I don't know what y'all talking about and you best not go around accusing people of things.”

"Please calm down,” says Naomi. "I'll go look for him and you should call your husband".

Naomi sets off in the direction of the large red and white-striped tent. Kate fumbles for her cell phone in her purse.

She calls and waits for Tom to pick up, hoping he isn’t at a client function with the phone switched off.

"Kate? Everything okay? I can't talk for long," says Tom. She can hear the unease in his voice or perhaps he’s just tired.

"It's James. I can't find him.”

“For heaven's sake Kate -"

"He was with me on the carousel ride and then he…".

"I'm calling Geoff. I know where you are. Stay there," Tom rings off.

Kate moves back to the bench and waits for Geoff to arrive, watching the dips and curves of the wooden horses as they glide by. She squints as splintered reflections from the gold lights that decorate the carousel bounce off its mirrored-centre. There are moments when she wishes she had never brought James to the night circus.

Some time later, Kate hears her name being called and senses a man sitting next to her, the familiar smell of his aftershave a welcoming comfort. “You shouldn't be here,” he says, reaching a strong arm across her shoulders.  “It's been two years now.”

Kate’s head is aching and she thinks, not for the first time, that perhaps she needs to go back to the hospital.

"Oh, Geoff. I just wanted to feel like I was with him again, the place where he disappeared," says Kate, almost whispering the words to her brother.

She looks up and sees Naomi and the carousel operator standing together, deep in conversation, watching children ride the painted horses.