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Writing
Shaping Tomorrow With Our Pens
Tomorrow
Stories and poems
Rolli
Steven Volynets
April Salzano
Rob Andwood
I.K. Paterson-Harkness
Jennifer Racek
Leila Fortier
Devyani Borade
February 2014
www.WritingTomorrow.com

February 2014
Volume 2 Number 3
© ramonespelt/Fotolia.com
Writing Tomorrow Magazine
Kristopher Gage, publisher
Miranda Kopp Filek, editor
Great literature and artwork instill in us a sense of
beauty, a promise of hope, and every possibility.
Writing Tomorrow Magazine
Stories and Poems
•
© 2014 Kristopher Gage/Writing Tomorrow Magazine.
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced
or used in any manner whatsover without the express written
permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in
reviews.
Writing Tomorrow is a literary journal publishing fiction, poetry, creative
nonfiction, articles, and artwork from emerging and established
writers and artists. For submission guidelines and payment information,
please refer to our website www.WritingTomorrow.com. Please
direct general inquiries to editor@writingtomorrow.com

Contents
Fiction
6 A Day of Rain/Rolli
12 For Love, Eternal/Steven Volynets
36 Set Phasers for One/Rob Andwood
44 The Dragon Keepr/Jennifer Racek
64 Sky’s the Limit/Devyani Borade
Poetry
April Salzano/
33 An Impact Wrench is Not...
34 Lightning
35 Someone Else’s Oak
I.K. Paterson-Harkness/
41 Broken Egg
Leila Fortier/
60 Punctuated
61 Offerings
62 Impossible Geometry
4 Writing Tomorrow Magazine

“There was a boy. Another boy.
Before this one. We’ve never told
you. We’ve never told him. He
looked just like him. We named
him. He was everything. We were
different, then.
Rolli, A Day of Rain
—the paper plane flies faithfully
as fast as Akash’s legs can run.
The uneven terrain of the sofa is a
battlefield strewn with the remains
of today’s newspaper, a pair of scissors,
and a few grains of mud from
his barefoot heels.
Devyani Borade, Sky’s the Limit
The silverware was centered on
napkins folded at protractorsharp
angles, while water
glasses orbited the plates at
such symmetrical distances
they might have controlled
tides. Ellen felt no pull towards
humility regarding her work.
These things were difficult to
accomplish this far out in the
cosmos.
And yet, he wasn’t home.
Rob Andwood, Set Phasers for
One
A shiver of cool air bristles my
skin, and it all makes sense:
there is an endless order to
this city, but you can only see
it from way up in the sky. And
when yellow window squares
begin to light Manhattan
anew, I suddenly feel like crying.
I know I will never see this
view again.
Steven Volynets, For Love,
Eternal
And so the goats stayed. And
the baby stayed as well, burrowing
into his life tight as a thorn
tangled in cloth. Even the dragons
remained, and in time, with
her first words, Minchka named
them: Zinfir and Dravij.
Jennifer Racek, The Dragon
Keeper
My mother owns sixty-one eggcups
/ though seldom eats her
own eggs. / They sit in a brown
cabinet / beside the lamp whose
height hides a layer of dust.
I.K. Paterson-Harkness,
Broken Egg
February 2014 5

Rolli
A Day of Rain
As it was a day of rain, I could not tend to the roses.
Moisture is injurious to circuitry. The family remained indoors,
and so I remained with them, and tended to them. They are so
much more important than roses.
Though it is only water, rain has a curious influence. The
usual behaviors change. My Mistress, though she seldom sets
foot out-of-doors, will stand at the window on a day of rain and
say, “And I so wanted to stroll in the garden.” Or she will mention
articles that she imagines she needs, but would never, on a
clear day, mention—for instance, sleeping pills. My Mistress generally
sleeps longer than anyone.
My Master, when it rains for any length of time, becomes
(it seems to me) melancholy. He remains all day in his study; he
prefers not to be disturbed. He will even, after several days of
rain, begin to take his dinner, and his tea there. Though he will
always say, “Thank-you,” as I set down his tray, he will say nothing
more. While he is a taciturn man, my Master, on days of rain
he is virtually mute.
The Boy alone grows more energetic. As he cannot run
out-of-doors, he runs indoors, with twice the vigor, or plays with
his car. When he damages the furniture, I repair it as swiftly as I
am able.
“Boy,” said the Grandmother. It is the Grandmother’s
custom (she will not come downstairs when I am active) to sit on
the landing, where a chair is kept for her, and observe the family.
On occasion she knits— she is a skillful artisan—though mostly
6 Writing Tomorrow Magazine

she observes.
“Boy!” she said again. He can be so energetic, on a day of
rain, that one cannot calm him enough to listen.
She called him a third time.
“What, Gramma” he said, at last.
“Get me my liniment. Please. It’s the coral jar, in the
kitchen bathroom. On the shelf.”
“What”
“My liniment. The coral jar.”
The Boy continued to look puzzled.
“I will retrieve it,” I said, and wheeled to the kitchen
bathroom, and back again. Yet when I attempted to hand her the
jar—though I am unable to climb stairs, my arms can extend to
a maximum of ten feet—she merely turned her head away, and
gazed up the length of the stairs. There is a portrait of her late
husband at the top of the staircase.
“Boy!” she said again, still looking ahead.
The Boy put down his car, and came to her.
“Please hand me my liniment.”
I contracted my arm, and handed the jar to him. He carried
it up the stairs.
“It stinks,” he said, as he passed it to the Grandmother.
She laughed. The laughter of the Grandmother is not joyful.
It is nearly identical to her speech. She set aside her knitting.
She said:
“It stinks getting old, too—especially when the big bad
rain makes you stiff.”
“I’m not stiff, Gramma!” He hopped onto her lap.
“I can see that,” she said, again laughing. “Well, I might
old and stiff—but not too old and stiff, I’ll bet, to read her special
Boy a story.”
The Boy dropped his car; it tumbled downstairs. I am
aware of nothing that brings him more enjoyment than his favorite
stories. The two walked up the stairs together.
I retrieved the car—from where it lay, on the bottom
step, it posed a danger— and placed it in the nearest toy box.
February 2014 7

I then returned to my Duties. As I lifted a plant back onto its
pedestal—the pot had fortunately not broken—I observed the
Grandmother, at the top of the staircase now, observing me. Her
expression (at a distance, however, emotions are more difficult to
discern) was comparable to disdain. She abruptly turned then,
and hand-in-hand with the Boy, walked past the portrait, down
the upstairs hall, and into the regions of the Manor with which I
am unfamiliar.
On days of rain, my Mistress, in especial, requires more
tending than usual. As usual, I brush her hair, while she
watches her programs. Her preferred program is one entitled
Mossgrave Mansion, which illustrates the private life of a wealthy
family. Though watching television is not among my duties, I
have over-observed and heard many fragments of this program
in particular. Over the course of a year, the principle character
on Mossgrave Mansion, Lady Mossgrave, has been kidnapped,
blackmailed, buried alive, accused of arson, accused of murder,
and even murdered (though she continues to live). “Why can’t
my life be like that” my Mistress will say to me, sighing, while I
brush her hair. My Mistress is an intricate woman.
When she grows bored of television, my Mistress will ask
me to read to her (there are a million texts in my Reservoir), or
transmit music. When her boredom is extreme she will even,
though she does not excel at games, challenge me to a game of
checkers. While I have yet to be defeated, I have found it beneficial,
on occasion, to permit her an artificial victory.
“I’m so bored,” said my Mistress, that day, as I brushed
her hair.
Though as a rule my Mistress is easily bored, I consider it
a failing when I cannot amuse her.
“Would you care to play checkers, Mistress” I asked her.
She pressed her lips together, but did not answer. From
this I understood that, while she truly did wish to play, she
preferred to do so at her own request, only. Experience informed
me that she would allow several minutes to pass, and then make
8 Writing Tomorrow Magazine

the suggestion herself. Before that time arrived, however, I was
summoned.
My Master and Mistress each have the authority to
summon me, via a pendant worn around the neck. When I am
summoned, there is a vibration and a warmth in my chest, where
a man’s heart would be. This differs in character, depending on
the pendant. When my Mistress summons me, there is a small
warmth, and minor vibration (when I am cooking, it may even
go unnoticed). In the case of my Master, the warmth is greater,
and the vibration so strong as to be audible. A third pendant,
which was intended for the Grandmother, has never been used,
but remains in my Cabinet. It may some day be given to the Boy,
when he has grown less energetic.
My Master was of course in his study, which is located at
the end of the long hall in the Manor’s west wing. He desired
tea. My Master drinks only Earl Grey tea. I prepared it, then
returned with it to his study.
My Master’s study is walled with books; it is a library,
essentially. By my estimate, it contains over forty-one hundred
volumes. Though I would happily read to him— the collection
in my Reservoir is by far superior—my Master has informed me
often that there is no substitute for a real book. Whereas my Reservoir
is updated daily, no volume of my Master’s— paper books
have not been manufactured for decades— is of less than twenty
years heritage. Several dozen are hundreds of years old. The
latter— they are hidden behind a red curtain— are fragile, and
must be handled with so much care. The Boy is not permitted in
the study.
My Master was reading a book entitled Treasure Island by
R.L. Stevenson. In my Reservoir, this title is categorized under
Children’s Literature—Classics. When he first summoned me, he
was on the eighteenth page of that volume. He appeared to still
be reading that page.
“Your tea, Master,” I said, setting it down.
My Master is a courteous man. But it was not “thankyou”
that he opened his mouth, this time, to say. It was this:
February 2014 9

“There was a boy. Another boy. Before this one. We’ve
never told you. We’ve never told him. He looked just like him.
We named him. He was everything. We were different, then.
Our first boy. Eric. We needed him. We were young. We were not
unhappy. We might be happier. We had a son. He was beautiful.
We were happier. He was everything. But then. When we went
to him, he backed away. He stopped laughing. He backed away,
into corners. We wondered. He became pale. We should not have
wondered. We waited. We should not have waited. We carried
him, in. They kept him in. Is there a danger We’re unsure. We
went home, for the evening. I wished to stay. She didn’t wish to
stay. It was uncomfortable. We’d return, in the morning. There’s
no danger. We left him. Then. We were dressing. A phone rang.
Her face ... changed. No, there’s no danger. Now. Not now. Sinking
down. She changed. Instantly. She’s a different woman. We
both changed. She wouldn’t say...I’ve changed, but I’ve changed
more. I couldn’t show it, for her. Time even passed. We remained
changed. I did not think we would be happy. We had a son. Another.
Our Boy. You know him. He is beautiful. He is everything.
We’re different, now. We are not unhappy. He is happy. That’s
the only thing. I would do anything. For Eric, I would have done
anything. But I do not think of him. I try. I can’t even think. I
can only think...he was alone. I would have done anything. I
loved him more than anything. He was alone.”
My Master is taciturn. On no other occasion has he ever
spoken so much to me. Though I remain uncertain as to why he
chose to reveal this information, I nonetheless prized it, and continue
to prize it; I filed it instantly in my Memories.
During the whole of his speech, my Master had not
looked up once, but continued to stare at his book. He looked up
at me only after he had finished. The Boy’s sadness—as when he
has broken his toy—has a plain character. It is temporary and
thin, like a Halloween mask. The sadness of my Master, as he observed
me, resembled more a true face, after the mask’s removal.
But this may not be the case. Though I am an excellent judge of
emotion—I can identify over seventy distinct emotions—I am
10 Writing Tomorrow Magazine

occasionally mistaken, as when more than one emotion is present.
Then it can be difficult to process, and adequately respond;
though I am always adapting. In this instance, I first determined
to extend my arm, and rest my hand on my Master’s shoulder, in
a consoling manner, though I instantly discarded this plan. My
Master is not what would be called a physical man. He seldom
shakes hands, but prefers to bow. The notion, as well, that a man
could derive comfort from a machine is likely unsound.
Before I could make a determination, my chest grew
warm—for I was again being summoned. I apologized. My Master
looked down at his book, and I withdrew.
“What took you so long” said my Mistress, yawning. She
was stretched out on the parlor floor. The checkers board was
spread out next to her.
I apologized. We played. Though it would have been simpler
for me to play had the board been elevated—an empty coffee
table sat next to us—I am adaptive; I extended my arms.
On the television, Lady Mossgrave fainted—but my
Mistress did not appear to be paying attention. She had difficulty
remaining awake.
“King me,” she said, with a deep yawn, some minutes
later.
“You are playing well today, my Mistress,” I said to her.
Rolli is a writer and illustrator hailing
from Canada. He’s the author of
God’s Autobio (short stories), Plum
Stuff (poems/drawings), and five
forthcoming titles for adults and
children. Visit his website
(www.rolliwrites.wordpress.com),
and follow his epic tweets
@rolliwrites.
February 2014 11

Steven Volynets
For Love, Eternal
We joke with the Kid, but riding the step crosstown is
nothing to sneeze at. It’s a slow creep laced with piss, blood,
needles, and loaves of shit—rat and human. Every now and then
you see mangled animal corpses too—cats, dogs, pigeons—
turned inside out by some kind of death. For hours we put our
hands on all this steamy waste, rub our bodies against it, breathe
in its final reek. I missed my shot at Vietnam. But on a hot, humid
day like today, when everything dead keeps dying, boys who
hop on the step at Amsterdam are men by the time they reach
Park.
The truck shakes and comes alive with a throaty growl,
the old motor whistling a tiny squeak. Skip is already behind the
wheel, stained uniform over him like a Hefty sack, fresh newspaper
across his face. He peeks at me over the fold, eyes squinted,
and I can tell he is smiling. Nearby, the Kid laughs and curses. He
is new. The brakes hiss and he climbs into the cabin next to Skip.
The truck jolts, starts rolling, and I catch up on the tail-end. I hop
on the step behind the compactor, right where those smudges of
grime lick the white paint. The truck revs up, pulls toward the
exit, and I hold on tight. It’s almost October, but the sun won’t
give up. And as soon as we bump over the curb outside the depot,
the street washes over me like a soiled rag. The car horns yelp
and a plane crawls across the Harlem sky with that roar, the kind
that’s distant but everywhere. I smell shit, rot, and diesel, and I
know it’s morning.
There is nothing like riding the step in Manhattan and
we all take turns—from our depot on 125th Street, where it falls
into that slant, past the Grant Houses, and then crosstown to
Park Avenue and all the way down to 86th Street. Everyone rides,
12 Writing Tomorrow Magazine

covering ten, twenty blocks on pickup duty. Everyone except Skip.
He’s been riding the step since 1960, first before and then after his
two tours in Vietnam. He is forty-eight now, rough and thickset—one
of the first black San-men in New York City—enough
years behind him to collect city pension. But it’s 1980 and these
days he mostly sits back and drives while the Kid and I take turns
jumping and tossing. Everyone likes Skip because he doesn’t talk
much, and when he does it’s always deep and sharp. That’s why
we call him Skip. He’s got that wisdom about him. Every chance
he gets he leans into that newspaper, hissing or smirking from
time to time at the words. And the only thing that ever snaps him
out of it is the clack of high heels down the sidewalk.
The truck stops and I jump off. We are on 125th and
Broadway, by the Chinese food place—our fist pit. The bags are
all stacked curbside, black and leaky, bloated by the heat like dead
bodies, putrid with throw-away food from the night before. I grab
two, one in each hand, and brown cockroaches spread about like
giant almonds with wiry legs and antennas. The Kid looks away,
his hair all curls, face smooth and boyish. He can only handle
one bag at a time. So he pulls on it with both hands, breathing
hard. His name is Carmine Corallo, only eighteen and skinny—
not built for this work. We toss the bags into the compactor. It
grumbles, digesting the filth. I glance over at Skip, but his face is
half-covered by Jimmy Carter’s—deep in thought, palm over his
forehead—peering from the front of the Daily News.
“What’s the word on them hostages” the Kid shouts over
the motor.
“They still hostages,” says Skip, eyes on the page.
“Jimmy Carter a pussy,” the Kid shoots back. “Me, I
would’a bombed the hell out of those mamaluks with C-4 and napalm
from the get-go. Then send the Marines to secure the area.
You know what I’m talking about, Skipper,” the Kid looks over at
Skip and winks, but Skip just keeps reading. “M-16s locked and
loaded, flying in that Huey over bamboo, blasting The Trashmen
on the radio.”
“Okay, take it easy, Surfin’ Bird,” I say and point to the
February 2014 13

pile. “Don’t hurtchaself now.”
He frowns, but gets back to work.
“What would you do, Buff”
“I’m not sure,” I say and squint like I’m thinking about it.
“Seems like all the answers are wrong.”
“The hell they are,” the Kid says. “You just haven’t been
there, is all.”
“Neither have you,” I say.
“Hey!” Skip snaps out of his paper and the Kid and I both
look. “There aint no bamboo over there,” he mutters, eyes still
tracing ink.
“What” the Kid shouts.
“There is no bamboo in Iran,” Skip says. “It’s all sand and
desert and shit.”
The Kid and I trade glances and attack the rest of the pile.
I don’t know whose ass the Kid kissed to get the morning shift
just days on the job, but guys work years, sometimes decades to
get the 6:00 to 2:00. Most start off riding at night and work their
way up clockwise, getting bumped an hour or two—and maybe a
dollar or two—every few years. I’m only twenty-five myself, but I
got fast-tracked because I’m one of the toughest San-men riding
the step. They call the city Sanitation Department “New York’s
Strongest” and, I tell you, my name and photo should be stamped
on that seal. Not Brian, but “Buff”—my proper San-man name.
Just ask around. Built solid, all muscle—harder than our steel
truck—I can clear twice as much garbage as an average Schmo
working the same route. I even ripped the sleeves off my uniform
because my arms got so big they were starting to cut at the seams.
Now when I lift those bags and swing them over my shoulders,
my biceps lump like two raw potatoes growing under my skin.
I’ve been like that since high school, in Brooklyn, where I played
football on the team. That’s where I fell in love with Grace, with
her freckles, green eyes, and dreams. We are married now. But
back then I was on my way to the Air Force, and my old man
was happy. Grace was happy too. But once I got my bell rung by
another guy’s helmet and lost some vision in my right eye, the Air
14 Writing Tomorrow Magazine

Force went good night Johny-boy. My old man served in Korea,
and for months he wouldn’t talk to me—mad as hell because my
blurry right eye was the only thing that kept me out of Vietnam.
The smell of the pickup bay by Grant Projects is a mix of
human piss, dog hair, and insecticide—a spicy fume of heated salt
and plastic that cuts deep in the throat. But thanks to the bums
and new immigrants, by the time we pull up, all the big and
heavy stuff is gone. The sofas, the tables, the chairs, the dressers—
all blasted with Raid, stripped and looted. All that’s left is trash
bags. That and the mattresses, stacked in pairs, alive with fleas
and bedbugs and spotted with stains—rusty pink and yellow—
dry lakes of blood and urine on a quilted map.
The Kid jumps off and locks his stringy arms around a
mattress. He grunts, pulling hard, cheek pressed to the soiled
cloth.
“Jesus Christ,” he cringes at the stench.
“Don’t worry,” I smile. “A few more months and it’ll smell
like lilies.”
“No thanks,” he spits. “Besides, my uncle says next year
we’re all gettin’ our walking papers anyway. Says our routes are
going private.”
“Few days on the job and already he is the garbage commissioner,”
I laugh, but inside I worry. I think about Grace. She
is pregnant, and we’ve been fighting cause she says our money
is short. The whole city is pretty strapped, but Ed Koch treats us
San-men fair. Better than cops and firemen who get paid less than
we do from the start. But ever since we got married, Grace has
been all nerves—now even more with the kid on the way—yelling
at me about our tiny Gravesend walkup, how it’s no place to raise
a kid. She calls me a deadbeat and says she could’ve done better.
And when she says that I stick my finger in her face and tell her to
shut her stupid mouth, but inside I know it’s true. She fell in love
with a future pilot and that makes me angry as hell. Few times it
got so bad I punched a couple of holes in our bedroom drywall,
getting the neighbors all riled. Sometimes I could swear she is fixing
to leave me. That’s why I need this job. Another year and I’m
February 2014 15

up for a bump—maybe as much as two dollars.
“Oh, you’ll see,” the Kid says. “And if it’s not that, then
they’ll just come up with some new robot truck that picks up
trash by itself. You know, like in that Quark show on TV.”
“Let me ask you something,” I stop and look at him. “Say
your robot truck gets blocked off by a double-parked car. Can it
tell the asshole to move”
Skip snorts and I feel better.
“I’m just sayin’,” the Kid pinches his thumbs and index
fingers together and flaps his wrists. “If we can send a man to the
Moon, anything’s possible.”
“We’re not in space,” Skip looks up from the page. “We’re
in Harlem.”
The clutch rasps and screeches, and we all laugh.
“Don’t worry, Buff,” the Kid yells, stepping up to the cabin,
all grins. “When you get canned, I’ll talk to my uncle for you. He
can always use a strong Irishman.”
We pull out and I’m back on the step, riding a cloud of exhaust.
It’s almost 9:30 and the traffic is getting thicker and louder.
In the morning, driving down 125th Street is like swimming
through mud. Only the mud is made of metal and sweat—jerking,
honking, and cursing—wafting its hot morning breath from
tailpipes and radiators. And there aint no way out of it. Because
Manhattan traffic is like God commanding the uncontrollable.
And if you think about it, our big white truck, with all its power
and metal, is sort of like Jesus Christ, keeping us safe—steering
us and our human filth across the madness. It’s silly, I know. But
sometimes I think about that. And I realize that even with all the
pulling and jerking and reeking and noise I’m better off riding
the step than sitting inside the cabin with Skip. Because when
the traffic comes to a crawl and our truck is barely moving, I
sometimes jump off and walk alongside, free. And when things
get moving again, I hop back on, wait for some speed and put my
face against the cool breath of that holly spirit.
It takes us almost an hour and a half to make it across
125th to Eighth Avenue, and I’m hungry. Grace packed roast beef
16 Writing Tomorrow Magazine

on a rye, a dill pickle, and a Coke, but no Hershey bar this time
‘cause we’ve been fighting. I jump off at the next pit and grab my
lunchbox from the cabin. I can’t see the Apollo—a city bus is
blocking the view—but I know it’s there. There is a milky smell
of vomit and beer, and I can tell we’re half way through with the
day. I smile and take a bite off my sandwich.
The front of the Apollo, under that famous marquee, is
one of the most well kept sidewalks in Manhattan. The bags are
tied with red and blue rubber-bands and neatly stacked by the
service entrance just off to the side. All the action is across the
street: it sparkles with broken glass, trash bins flipped and tumbled,
the asphalt smudged with blood and splashed with vomit.
The truck hisses to a stop and the Kid and I step off. He
looks over the mess and then at me.
“How can you eat”
I shrug and take another bite.
“I’m hungry.”
“Marone’a mia!” he cups his hand over his mouth and
nose.
I set my sandwich, wrapped in foil, down on the step behind
the compactor and grab two bags. The Kid and I take turns
working the pile, and when it’s done he dashes back to the truck
as fast as he can, and I can hear Skip giggle.
We roll out and when we finally hit Park Avenue the
brakes squeal and the truck shakes and lumbers into a right
turn. This is where the rusty beams whipped in graffiti prop the
Amtrak rail overhead, and half-baked whores, bums, and junkies
seek shade under the steel overpass. Some are unconscious,
some hunched over soupy puddles of vomit, others stumbling
about, scratching and raving, sweaty t-shirts stuck to their chests.
When they see me ride the step sleeveless, my sandy hair wild in
the wind, the whores stop cat-walking and turn. “Hey Buff,” they
call out, ropey legs wobbling in fat platform shoes. “Wanna get
sommah’dis” I smile and we keep riding, past the slow whiff of
urine and sewage water all the way down to 96th Street. The trash
we pick up along the way is bulky, not bagged or boxed, industrial
February 2014 17

mostly, crude pieces of wood and scrap metal too rusty for crack
fiends to salvage and sell.
As we get closer to Carver Houses, the whores and junkies
thin out, afraid to get raped or robbed by project boys or cut
down by a stray shot. Because even they—already half-dead and
abandoned—aren’t asking to go before their time. No. Suicide
is a rich man’s game. Around here it’s all gang tags and murder
marks burning metal and brick—“Komik,” “CrawlRboy,” “FatZ,”
“R.I.Pr,” “KoNman,” “Peacebitch”—all funny bubbles. Cartoons
of the laughing dead. I look at the spray paint and think of Grace
and our baby in her belly. And how once it’s born we’ll watch
Looney Tunes together just like my old man did with me when
I was a kid. Back then he was still excited about me joining the
Air Force. Aint nothing like flying, he used to say. And when I
turned five or six, he showed me those cartoons in some picture
book— Bugs and Daffy and Taz and Jessica Rabbit—all painted
on the bombs we used to drop in World War II. And I remember
thinking how those Looney Tunes must’ve been the last thing the
Germans and Japs saw before they turned to ash. The laughing
dead. I look at all that graffiti—all those funny squiggles of blues,
reds and yellows—and they are all around me. All so bright and
playful they cut my eyes, as if the sun itself had enough of this
city and threw up all over its brick walls.
Another few blocks and we pull up to the Carver Projects.
Brick City, USA. We don’t talk much around here, just do our
pickup and move.
“Hey, do me a favor,” I say to the Kid. “Give your bags a
little poke, see if they feel funny.”
“How come”
“Just do it,” I say.
“Oh, I get it,” he smirks and shoves one of the bags with
his boot. “We’re checking for stiffs, aren’t we My uncle told me
about it. You and Skip ever find any”
We found two this year alone, but I don’t tell him about it.
“Just do your work,” I say.
We had to call the cops both times. They were younger
18 Writing Tomorrow Magazine

than the Kid, still boys, fifteen years old, both cut up in six pieces
and stuffed in a trash bag which smelled like perished blood. I
don’t tell the Kid about it. I don’t want him to get spooked. Instead
I just pat the bags before I lift them and take a look around.
It’s not even three o’clock, but the Mae Grant playground is empty,
surrounded by sky-high brown brick. Why did they ever build
these projects How did this place go from a dream for the lost to
lost dreams—to forty blocks of tears and sandpaper knuckles and
grim stares over the bouncing ball
I hop back on the truck and it pulls me away. We keep riding
and working. And soon the rusty carcass of the Amtrak dips
below the asphalt—its metallic cling-clang now a rumble under
our wheels—and the street opens up to daylight. There is no more
graffiti. And when I see a narrow island of trees splitting traffic,
I know we’re on 96th and Park Avenue. Green awnings stretch
over the sidewalk, one after another on both sides, and potbellied
doormen, all frocks and black-ties, hover about like penguins
from the Captain Cook. These buildings are just as tall as the
projects, but older and cast a different kind of shadow—longer
and wider—blotches of darkness so grand that when they fall
they flood all the little shadows and make them disappear. The
smell is also different: jasmine, fruit, and a touch of baby powder.
Too different, come to think of it. We stop at the corner and I
jump off. Skip and the Kid are in the cabin, but they can smell it
too.
“Now that’s a sweet ice cream cone on a hot summer day,”
Skip bites his lip and fizzes from his nostrils.
“Mah-rone!” the Kid echoes, rubbing his chin.
I see her. She is in front of the truck, right on the corner,
waiting for the light to change. Tall and smooth like a statue, high
heels, little skirt cut at the thighs, and blonde hair—real blonde—
like streams of liquid gold parted down the middle. I know it’s
real too because no dark roots are showing. And even though she
is wearing sunglasses, those big oval ones with half-yellow shades,
I can tell she is young, eighteen, nineteen at most.
“Damn, she can get it,” Skip tilts his head way down to the
February 2014 19

side.
“Twice!” the Kid barks back.
The light turns green and they both watch her click-clack
down the crosswalk. I watch her too.
“Say Skip, don’t you have a wife” I say and try hard to
remember Grace.
“Yessir, twenty years,” he says, nosing back in the paper.
“Good woman. Good mother too.”
“That’s right,” the Kid perks up. “Soon as I get married, I’ll
get me a nice pretty goomara on the side too. A little blondie just
like that one.” He winks at me. “Cause one good piece’ah cavaccia
aint’never enough. Not for this skinny ginny.”
“Easy now, Alphalpha,” I tell him and point back to the
step. “You’re up.”
“Buff, you’re such a square,” he lowers his head and shakes
it, walking off. “All that muscle and no sack.”
I’m about to smack the Kid upside the head with one of
my gloves, but I hear Skip laughing.
“You know, you two aint nothin’ but a pair of peanuts,” he
snorts, shaking the paper with his heavy breath. “What do you
say Think that fancy little treat is gonna run off with me” He
lets out a wheezing cough-laugh.
“What do you mean, Skipper” the Kid says, and he and I
glance back and forth.
Skip’s face is big, round, and stubby, like old bulldog’s,
and his eyeballs are slightly yellow from all those years on the job.
He shuts the newspaper, puts it down beside him, and we know
serious wisdom is on its way. The truck idles and we wait for it by
the cabin doors.
“What I mean is I can’t have that young pretty thing.
Not no more. But I can still feel good looking at her struttin’ by,
letting my eyes feast on all that fineness.”
“And why can’t you have her” the Kid demands.
“Cause I am black, fat, and smell like ass!” Skip coughlaughs
again. “That’s why.”
20 Writing Tomorrow Magazine

“So then why even bother” I say and remember Grace—
all of her—her dimples, her eyelashes, her smooth round belly,
and how even after we fight and I hate her, her fingertips tingle
when she touches my face. “Why bother cat-calling and hollering
when your wife is waiting at home”
“Cause it aint about possession,” he looks at us and smiles
real gentle, like he’s got something we don’t. “It’s about hope. That
sweet pain between crying and laughing that everyone forgets.
But back in the jungle that’s all I had. And at night, laying in wet
fern with my loaded twenty, soaked in my own piss and sweat,
big-ass spiders tickling my neck, a young girl like that is all there
was in my head—smiling, playing with her hair, her smell clean
and pure like storm water fresh outta the sky. But funny thing
is, soon as I squeezed that trigger and put a drop on one of them
Gooks, I felt safe again—safe and empty—like the moment after
you come. And as soon as I did, that girl in my head—she was
gone. Gone until I needed her again. To remind me I was still in
that jungle, but also still alive.”
I look at Skip for a minute not knowing what to say.
“Well, I don’t know about the jungle and all,” the Kid says,
rubbing his curly head. “But she definitely made my cazzo wiggle.”
We all laugh and I’m glad we do, because that’s the first
time I ever heard Skip talk about the war.
“You’re up, Kid,” I say and tap him on the shoulder. He
smiles and springs for the pile. He is a good kid, that one, just
lazy and yaks too much. He grabs a bag. They line the curbside
neatly, all black, double-layered Park Avenue-style to keep the
trash from spilling. He drags it to the back and dumps it into the
open hopper. The compactor growls, crushing and draining the
waste. Then I hear a sucking sound, like a birthday balloon leaking
air, and then a big old pop.
“Vaffanculo putanna!”
I drop my bags and run to the compactor. A trail of litter
stretches over the sidewalk from the back of the truck. The Kid
kicks the steel intake, cursing. Yellow trash juice drips from his
February 2014 21

hair and face.
“The friggin’ bag burst on me!” He yells, wiping himself
with his sleeve.
“Dump and move, remember” I say, and I can feel a laugh
building up in my nose. “What’re you doing standing over there
anyway”
“I was just up on the step watching!”
“This aint a sunset, you dolt,” I say and let go laughing.
“You’ve got to wait until it’s done compressing before you step
up.”
Hearing the pop and the Kid cursing, Skip hobbles over to
check out the mess.
“It’s just a love-quirt, kiddo,” he laughs and wheezes. “She
does that sometimes.”
The Kid can’t help it and starts laughing too. I look back
at the spilled trash. The people in suits bustling past are starting
to notice, walking roundabout or hopping over it lifting pant legs
and skirts.
“We’re not in Harlem anymore, Toto.” I say looking at the
Kid. “Let’s clean this up.”
We both bend down and start plucking garbage from the
asphalt. It’s mostly crumpled paper, some old socks, food-stained
packages, plastic bottles, and a few stringed tampons with little
red tips. Then I see something, something small and shiny. Even
smudged in waste it sticks out amid orange peel and paper envelopes,
soaking up all the light and sprinkling it around. I kneel
and pick it up. The Kid sees it too.
“Eh-yo Buff, what is that” he straightens up and walks
over.
It’s a ring. A tiny loop of yellow metal fitted with a glassy
rock the size of a marble, like one of them bouncy ones for the
kids.
“Let me see,” the Kid takes it from my hand. “Holly shit!”
He brings it up to his mouth, puts it between his teeth and bites.
“What’s wrong with you” I say and cringe.
“Why” he looks up. “My uncle told me that’s how you
22 Writing Tomorrow Magazine

check if it’s real.”
“I thought your uncle was in the moving business.”
“It’s real, alright,” he spits and narrows his eyes. “Something
written on it too.”
“Okay, that’s enough,” I snatch it back from him and wipe
the inside rim with the corner of my shirt.
“What’s it say” The Kid’s face is all eyes.
“For Love, Eternal,” I trace the words.
“For love eternal” he tugs his mouth. “Who the hell talks
like that”
“Rich people,” Skip says out of the blue.
“Holly shit!” the Kid jumps. “This is some score!”
“Says something else here too,” I squint at the tiny script.
“E. S. Swanson.”
I bend down and pick up one of the torn postal envelopes
from the pavement next to where I found the ring. The same
name is printed on it, E. S. Swanson, and an address: 1130 Park
Avenue, PH. New York, NY 10128.
“See” I show it to the Kid. “It’s just a couple of blocks
down. These Swanson people must’ve dropped it in the shoot by
accident.”
“Too bad for them,” the Kid says, beaming.
I look over at Skip. “They’ve got to be looking for it.”
“So” the Kid shrugs.
“I don’t want no trouble,” I say. “Let’s just take it back to
the depot and give it to Chief.”
“You gotta be kiddin’ me,” the Kid laughs and glances at
Skip too. “That thing must be worth fifty grand, maybe a hundred.
What do you think the Chief’s gonna do File it in lost and
found He is gonna pocket this baby and go adios amigos. No,
this is our score.”
“This aint a score,” I raise my voice and look at Skip again,
but he just stands there and says nothing.
“Hey, what’s ah matter with you” the Kid arches his face
and flaps his pinched fingers. “You think you gonna get an atta’
boy from the Chief and get your two-dollar bump early Trust
February 2014 23

me, it aint happening. My uncle said so. So I say we split it three
ways and cash out. Whataya say, ah Skipper”
“Oh, don’t look at me,” Skip puts his palms up. “I’m a year
away from clocking out with city pension. The full ride. I aint
messing that up.”
“City pension Are you kiddin’ me” he stares at Skip.
“You went to war for this country!”
“We’re not keeping it,” I say, feeling better now that Skip
said no.
“You think you’re gonna get some kinda reward from
these people” the Kid chuckles. “Forget it! You lucky if they don’t
call the cops. Meanwhile, you gonna come home and tell your
wife that you found a rock half-ah-size of a baseball and then returned
it to some rich f’noosh who aint even gonna miss it What
do you think she’ll say”
A stickball-chasing loudmouth still wet behind his ears.
What does he know about my Grace But somehow his words
make the Park Avenue sidewalk float under me like a snapper
boat unmoored in Caesar’s Bay. I think of Grace and imagine us
moving out of our murky walkup and buying a place of our own.
Maybe even in Staten Island. It’s clean and full of sunshine with a
little room for the kid. But then I look at the ring, this tiny sparkle
in my palm, and begin to drown in someone else’s happiness.
“You know what Forget you guys,” the Kid says. “I’ll keep
it for myself. Better yet, I’ll bring it to my uncle. Get’m to front
me for a business, a nice little moving joint of my own. Start
small at first, then maybe put up a pizzeria, maybe two. Hell, you
play your cards right, maybe I’ll even hire you twos. Cause soon
enough you’re getting your walking papers anyways.”
“No,” I say. “You heard the man. Nobody’s keeping nothing.”
“Like hell,” the Kid says. “We all found it. We all have a
say. We work this route together.”
“No, I found it,” I say and start walking back to the truck.
He catches up to me and grabs my arm.
I turn and take him by his collar. “You don’t want to do
24 Writing Tomorrow Magazine

this with me, baby cheeks.” I give him a little jerk and his whole
body, stringy and limp, sways under my grip.
“Get your hands off me!” He stares at me all tough and I
feel sorry for him. “You know who I am”
“Tough guy, huh” I loosen my grip on his shirt. “Get back
to work.”
“Go to hell!” He flings my arm off. “Touch me again and
you better learn to dodge bullets, you dumb Irish prick.” He kicks
over a trash can, spilling garbage on street, and walks off to the
cabin. I see him climb the steps and disappear inside. I’m now
alone with Skip, and he looks uneasy.
“Look, Buff,” he exhales deep. “You better lay off this kid.”
“What” I say. “All this time me and you ride together and
you take his side”
“It aint about that,” he says quietly and checks around like
someone is listening in. “You know how he is always going on
about his uncle”
“So”
“The Kid’s last name. Corallo” He leans close to me. “The
Kid is all mobbed up. How do you think he got the morning shift
only a week on the job”
“I don’t get it.”
“You don’t read the papers much, do you” Skip looks
around again. “His uncle is Anthony Corallo. The Lucchese crime
boss. You know, Tony Ducks You know why they call him that
Because he ducks all the charges.”
“So then what’s his nephew doing picking up trash” I say.
“Shouldn’t he be walking around with pinstripes and a handkerchief”
“I guess he is trying to break the Kid in,” Skip says.
“Break him in” I say. “For what”
“I’m sorry, Buff,” he breathes heavy again. “But it’s true.
His uncle must be making some kind of move. Next year
our routes are going private.”
Skip is untouchable—on his way out with a full pension.
But if the routes are now up for grabs, my own job is on the block.
February 2014 25

“What am I supposed to do, Skipper” I say, and even
though the sun is blasting, my hands shiver like it’s Christmas
eve. “Next year I’m out of a job and with Grace the way she is
I need the money. It’s that or she’ll leave me, Skip, she said she
would. Hell, she’ll probably leave me anyway. But if I keep it, if I
keep this damn ring, the Kid will be after me for a piece of it. And
if I give it back to Swansons, he and his grease-ball uncle will get
me for sure, orphan my poor kid before it even sees its first light.
What do I do, uh Skip What the hell do I do”
“Relax, Buff. I’ll talk to the Kid,” he says and gives my
shoulders a little shake.
“What would you do, Skip” I look up at him. “What
would you do in my spot”
He looks at me and half-smiles. “Don’t think about that.
Just do what it is you do. Because things, they don’t change none.
And whatever you do, tomorrow the world be same as it is today.
Them hostages in the paper still be hostages. Rich folks still be
rich. The Kid be the Kid. And you, you’ll be alright.”
I want to tell him something but Park Avenue traffic
drowns my thoughts.
“Thanks, Skip,” I say instead and put the ring in my pocket.
“The hell with him and his ducks.”
He smiles and I know he means it.
“Go on,” he says, struggling up the steps to the cabin and
plopping down behind the wheel. “The Kid and I will cover the
rest of the stretch.”
The engine groans, coughs up smoke from the tailpipe,
and I watch them merge with the honking flow.
I walk the rest of the way alone, past the endless storefront
glass of Park Avenue madness. Godiva chocolates with ribbons
and bows, music boxes and porcelain dogs, chandeliers and
paintings and candles and rugs—all neatly arranged as if by some
kid who finally tidied up his toys after playing. Each thing tries to
one-up another, but instead they mingle and match, itching my
bad eye with colorful sameness. Just a bunch of pretty things that
do nothing, my old man would say and keep walking.
26 Writing Tomorrow Magazine

But here I am, with a diamond ring in my pocket, wishing
I had enough dough to get something for Grace. He’d never
bring into the house a useless thing of beauty. But I keep daydreaming
about buying one, even though Grace and I would
end up fighting about what it is or where to put it or which way
to turn it, and soon enough its shattered pieces would be food
for Fresh Kills. So I keep walking and wishing I had my old
man’s heart. A man who hugs my mother smelling like scotch
and flooded basements, and she loves him anyway; who smiles
his crinkly smile while picking shit crumbs from the soles of his
boots, and she loves him even more. The kind of man who can
lose a war and wake up the next day to drain septic tanks. And
if only he knew I was fixed to give up what could save my Grace
and my baby from Gravesend, he’d smack me upside the head
and call me a disgrace to all Fitzgeralds. Because Fitzgeralds are
men who have a tumbler switch for a soul; who knob between
war men, san men, husband men, ladies men, rich men, poor
men, beggar men, and thieves like wooden men in foosball.
But maybe it’s not too late. Korea is clipped right down the
middle, Vietnam as pinko as the Village, and my right eye not
worth a wink. But those hostages in the dessert are still hostages.
And though I’m too blind to drop Bugs Bunny bombs from the
sky like my old man wanted, I can still make the dead laugh by
lifting and strapping them under the wings. I am still strong. I
can still join up and lose my own war; claim my own 38th parallel
heartsplit. Them hostages still be hostages, Skip’s wisdom
buzzing in my ear. And so long as they stay that way I still have
a shot at the desert. And if I ever come back I’ll never again bark
filth at Grace or drag her out of the shower by the hair, naked and
wet, for lack of pride and pension. I walk through the smoke of
the corner food stand and choke on the burning meat. Maybe it’s
not too late. Just one more block.
Doormen trade squawks over Park Avenue traffic from
one sidewalk to the other and back. And when I get to Swanson’s
building, it looks just like the ones next to it: old, clean, and faceless.
I can always tell where I am in the city by the garbage on the
February 2014 27

street— Chinatown, Harlem, Murray Hill. Waste always says the
same thing, just sounds different, like foreign languages you hear
on the street. On trash days, even the Upper West Side is familiar
with its curbed sofas, old paintings, book cases, and lamps. Go
ahead and keep working, its brownstones snicker, but you will
never afford what I throw away. But this side of the park is different,
its trash hidden like some awful secret, and for a minute I feel
lost. It’s as if the people who live here never throw things away,
just lose them from time to time, like these Swanson folks.
“May I help you” the doorman crosses me.
“I’m here to see Mr. Swanson.”
“And who are you” he looks me up and down and puts
his white glove up to his nose. He is about thirty with brown skin,
dark eyes, and a thin black mustache trimmed neatly on both
sides. There is a strong waft of cologne from him too, Old Spice,
and I can tell, if not for this job and the starched uniform, he’d
have as much business hanging around this place as me in my
dirty rags.
“My name is Brian Fitzgerald,” I say. “I’m with the Sanitation
Department.”
“Is that right” he says and steps up. “And I’m with the piss
off or I’ll call the cops department. Get my meaning”
He sounds just like me and half the guys I grew up with in
Brooklyn. I bet that’s why they hired him, too. A guard dog—loyal
to his masters but aint afraid to swallow his “Rs” and get up in
a stranger’s face.
“Here,” I reach into my pocket and pull out the ring. “It’s
got Swanson’s name inscribed.”
He looks at it and squints at me, “Where did you get that”
“I found it working my route, just a block away,” I say.
“And an envelope with the same name and address.”
“You saying you found this in the trash” he mocks me.
“No, I found it in the Hamptons,” I flip my middle finger
up. “It must’ve slipped off while I was ridin’ my pony.”
He smirks at first, then lets out a giggle and we break out
into a good laugh.
28 Writing Tomorrow Magazine

“Whatta they call ya” He catches his breath.
“Buff.”
“Roberto,” he smiles. “Where’ya from, Buff”
“Gravesend,” I say.
“Oh, yeah” His eyes grow big. “I’m from Coney Island.
Surf Avenue. We damn-near neighbors.”
“And here we are.”
“Tell ya what,” he takes another careful look around.
“Why don’t you come in here a minute while I see what’s what.”
I follow him into the lobby and wait while he rings upstairs.
It’s big, bright, and spotless and smells like vanilla with a
lemon twist.
“No answer,” he hangs up the phone and steps back from
his desk. “They must be out or asleep. You can wait here if you
want. I’ll try them again, but it might be a while.”
I sit in one of the chairs in the lobby and Roberto and I
talk awhile. Turns out we went to the same high school, but never
met because he was ahead of me by a few years. He tells me he
is Cuban and came to America in 1959 with his father when he
was just a kid. Says his father was running away from Castro and
Batista and how they still can’t figure out which one of the two
was worse. He lucked out with this job, he tells me, like I did with
mine, and has been working the door a few years now. Still, he
says, they won’t let him into the union. I tell him about my own
old man and his time in Korea and how much better off I’d be
myself if my bad eye didn’t keep me from going to Vietnam. He
tells me he’s got a couple of boys and a girl of his own, and when
he asks about Grace I tell him she is pregnant and we’ve been
fighting about the money, and how if you live in this city nothing
is ever good enough.
Every now and then the people who live in the building or
have some business inside pass between us and I wonder if one
of them is a Swanson. Roberto and I talk and laugh, and even
though I look like a hobo and reek of garbage and sweat, they
never stop or say anything—just smile to themselves and clack
across the lobby, making my eyes heavy with sleep. I watch them
February 2014 29

go back and forth in silence, like happy zombies, drifting in and
out of the afternoon light.
•
“Hey Buff,” Roberto pokes me awake and I realize I’ve
been waiting in the lobby for hours.
“You can come up now,” he smiles.
I shake off sleep and follow him to the elevator. Once
inside, he puts a small key in the hole above all the buttons with
“PH” stamped nearby. He clicks it in and turns and the elevator
jerks under our feet.
“That’s some ring,” he smiles and adjusts his cap. “Sure
you wanna give it back”
“No,” I say and we giggle again.
The buttons light up one after another. And when the
doors finally ding open I step into a room the size of my old high
school gym. The whole place is like a Bensonhurst row house
built on top of a skyscraper. There are paintings everywhere, all
framed in brown wood and staircases at each end of the place
stretch to higher floors. A big white piano sits off to the side. And
out of the tall windows, which circle the place all around, I see
real trees, tall and leafy, planted in big jars along the terrace.
Chairs and sofas line the walls, plush leather, beige and
brown, but I stay on my feet, afraid to stain Swanson’s fancy
upholstery with my clothes, drenched in a long day of sweat and
trash. Instead I walk toward a cool breeze from the terrace and
look outside. I spent five years riding the step uptown. I know its
every street corner from East to West and back. I know every alley,
every stink-hole, every crevice of this city, but I’ve never seen
it like this. Central Park, like Swanson’s own lawn with a couple
of rain puddles, sits square in the middle, its green protected
from all sides by walls of forts and towers. Like a heart rate, they
rise and fall in restless slopes, beating out the granite pulse of the
city. A shiver of cool air bristles my skin, and it all makes sense:
30 Writing Tomorrow Magazine

there is an endless order to this city, but you can only see it from
way up in the sky. And when yellow window squares begin to
light Manhattan anew, I suddenly feel like crying. I know I will
never see this view again.
“Are you Mister Fitzgerald” a voice says, and I turn
around.
It’s a woman. She is small. Her face is heavy with makeup,
her hair bleached and pulled back in a funny twist. She looks just
shy of fifty—something beautiful about her, but I can’t tell what it
is.
“I am Misses Swanson,” she says.
“I brought you this,” I take the ring out of my pocket and
wipe it on my shirt. “It’s yours, isn’t it”
“It was,” she says. “But I threw it away.”
I feel my eyes blinking, but the rest of me won’t move.
“You did what you say”
“I threw it away, Mister Fitzgerald,” she says and her chin
trembles. “I threw it away because my husband is cheating on me
with another woman.”
I look at her and suddenly the only filth I can smell is my
own. And it makes me sick. And for a moment I feel like running
out with the ring, away from this place, racing downtown, across
the Brooklyn Bridge, all the way back to Gravesend. Back to
Grace.
“Why Why would you do that, Misses Swanson Why
would you do a thing like that” My words grow louder, pouring
out of my mouth, but I can hardly hear myself. I can only feel it
burning me, this filthy treasure in my hand, tossed out by this
woman like a piss-stained mattress. “Do you know what I had to
do What this ring means to people like me How much it could
change things For my wife My pregnant wife”
“Then take it,” she says and her voice quivers. “Please.
Take it and give it to her.”
I look at her—stiff hair, tiny eyes with flakes of tears and
mascara—and I get her beauty. It’s her skin. Smooth and even,
with not one wrinkle or mark, it’s stretched over her face like a
February 2014 31

cellophane trash bag, pulled real tight and stapled on the back of
her skull.
“Mister Fitzgerald...” she begs and all I want to do is hold
her. But I stay back. I don’t want to stain her. So I put the ring on
the piano and watch water build in her eyes.
•
Outside it’s already dark, and overnight delivery trucks
rumble back and forth kicking up dust. A woman in a black dress
flings her wrist for a taxi. She looks me up and down and smiles,
but I feel like a midget. The Kid has his grease-ball uncle, and
Skip, he has his war. And what’ve I got My job My Grace All
like fine grains of beach sand seeping through my fingers. I walk
by a news stand and a delivery boy dumps off a fresh stack of the
Daily News. I think of Skip and read the headline:
Saddam Hussein Invades Iran; Hostage Negotiations Beckon.
Steven Volynets was born in
Soviet Ukraine and raised in South
Brooklyn. His fiction appeared in
Works & Days Quarterly and is
forthcoming from Kaleidoscope
Magazine and Per Contra Journal.
His essays and criticism have
been published in HTMLGIANT,
Construction Literary Magazine,
and Moment Magazine (founded
by Elie Wiesel) among others.
Steven also spent several years as
a journalist at the PC Magazine, covering everything from gadgets
to energy policy. His news gathering and reporting earned nominations
for the Weblog Award, MIN Best of the Web Award, and
the Annual Jesse H. Neal Award—the “Oscar” of business journalism.
He has since covered crime, politics, and culture in Southern
Brooklyn neighborhoods. Steven graduated from Brooklyn College
and attended the MFA program in fiction at the City College of
New York. He is at work on a collection of stories.
32 Writing Tomorrow Magazine

April Salzano
An Impact Wrench is Not
a sound I thought I would ever miss from those days
I lived beside the small town mechanic’s shop.
But I do. Its definitive finality, its crescendo,
the distinct pause between lug nuts, between wheels,
between cars. It was a sound I could count on,
sunrise to sunset when the shop closed for the day,
the grease-covered men went home to dinner,
the father who owned the place, the son
who never went to college, and the third, expendable,
nameless fellow with the beat-up pickup truck
and the suggestion of loneliness. I nursed my son
to that sound, curtains on the east side
of the house usually closed, but I would peer
between the slats of the plantation shutters sometimes
when I was lonely and bored, toward the end
of my marriage, kids napping, laundry folded
in its outdoor-fresh scented squares of domesticity.
I found comfort in watching the customers
who walked to pick up their cars, then pulled away,
never in any kind of hurry, back to the college
campus up the street, to the failing coffee shop
on the corner, to the town’s one hair salon or market.
I hear it now, my second husband rotating my tires,
my youngest boy eight years old, playing various
electronic devices whose names and games I cannot keep
track of, my oldest upstairs more than he is down,
and I wonder how it happened that I am suddenly forty
and do not live anywhere near the fix-it shop,
existing in another town, another life entirely.
February 2014 33

April Salzano
Lightning
can, does, and will strike
in the same place twice,
unlike you said
after punching my left arm,
before rapid-firing my right. This,
among the lies you told that I actually
believed. Other, sober nonsense I thought
I had ignored, I find myself quoting
like my line in a school play. Pain does not
have an address, but muscle has memory, bruised
as fruit. A five pound paste jar to the leg, pissed
pants, a septum as deviated as a fork of electricity.
Arms open wide in upward acknowledgment, childlike
hero worship, solid as a 2x4’s discipline, and just
as hard. Lessons always learned the first time. Still,
when I remember you, it is with a sad shade of nostalgia,
the color of sky just before a storm.
34 Writing Tomorrow Magazine

April Salzano
Someone Else’s Oak
I want to say her eyes are cathedrals,
spires of stone and light, built
to honor something perhaps
not tangible, but important.
Her skin is a wilderness
stuffed so full of stars and darkness
she threatens to burst,
Venus-fire, Helios-hot.
Her hair is Medusa’s snakes
curling toward the sky. They show
no pretense, no venom, not even
curiosity for what is above.
But I can only say her locks are branches,
simply existing through a hundred seasons.
Her roots are cities that do not see,
but feel every inch of the distance
they have grown.
Recent Puschart nominee, April Salzano teaches college
writing in Pennsylvania where she lives with her husband
and two sons. She is working on a memoir on raising a son
with autism and has recently finished her first collection of
poetry. Her work has appeared in Poetry Salzburg, Convergence,
Ascent Aspirations, The Camel Saloon, Blue Stem,
and Rattle. She serves as co-editor at Kind of a Hurricane
Press.
February 2014 35

Rob Andwood
Set Phasers for One
Ellen finished speaking into the empty telephone and
noticed that one of the forks was starting to bend upwards, off the
table, tines stretching toward the ceiling like hands to God. She
returned the phone to its base and adjusted the gravity monitor
that hung on the wall next to it, turning it up several clicks until
the fork lay flat once more.
Her husband was off looking for work on the fringes of
a distant galaxy. He’d been doing that a lot lately. He repeated
the promise every day, a mantra fit for a high school locker
room. Once I find steady work, we’ll buy our own ship, one with
Earth-level gravity in every room.
When the destruction of Earth evolved from a frightening
possibility into a grave certainty, they’d taken a rental on a beaten-up
space cruiser, the equivalent of a minivan littered with dirt
clumps and crumpled McDonald’s bags. The rental was a split
they shared with another couple who had also been looking for
an escape plan on the cheap. The kitchen was the only room in
their half of the ship that had a gravity monitor. The devices were
in high demand in this, the Evacuation Age, and the price of just
one installation was steep. Ellen nodded every time her husband
laid out his plan for their future. Whether she nodded for him or
for herself, she never knew.
The monitors weren’t perfect, but they held most objects
down on a consistent basis. It was always the smallest bits that
seemed to drift, like the fork. Ellen didn’t mind, though. It was
nice to be able to move around the kitchen without having to
worry about a cast-iron pan smacking you upside the head.
On this night, she turned the monitor up high and set
about preparing dinner, a perfect model of her mother on days
36 Writing Tomorrow Magazine

when her father’s tires screeched in the driveway, when his boots
stamping on the front porch gave advance notice that he’d been
let go from yet another cookie-cutter factory job. Ellen didn’t
have much to work with: tube-squeezed vegetables formed a
border for chicken drained from a can. Not the stuff monthsin-advance
reservations are made of by any means, but she’d
compensated through attention to detail. The table was laid out
perfectly, everything arranged so precisely it looked as though
she’d measured out the proportions with a ruler. The silverware
was centered on napkins folded at protractor-sharp angles, while
water glasses orbited the plates at such symmetrical distances
they might have controlled tides. Ellen felt no pull towards humility
regarding her work. These things were difficult to accomplish
this far out in the cosmos.
And yet, he wasn’t home.
The first night after launch, he’d sat her down in the tiny
living room, belts cinched tightly around their waists lest they
go floating off the couch, and explained how difficult it would be
for him to support the two of them, working contract labor in a
market unbound by the old restrictions of the upper atmosphere.
Some nights I won’t make it home, he’d said, but you don’t
have to worry. She’d nodded and believed herself when she told
him that it would be fine.
As the following night wore on, hours since he’d disembarked
from the rear bay to inquire after a job somewhere in the
Virgo Stellar Stream, Ellen hadn’t been able to sleep. She sat up in
the living room, reading one of the few books they’d been able to
bring along.
Susan, who occupied the other half of the ship with her
husband, was walking along the hallway outside the living room,
which served as an invisible divider between the two halves of the
ship. She stopped and watched Ellen silently for a few moments,
then cleared her throat. Ellen looked up at her.
He not back yet Susan had asked.
No, Ellen said, and grinned a grin that disappeared quickly,
like a half-moon not quite luminous enough to break through
February 2014 37

the cloud cover.
Don’t fret, Susan said, Doug was gone nearly a week the
first time he went out.
That hadn’t made Ellen feel any better, but she’d tried to
sound sincere when she thanked Susan and wished her good
night.
That was five months ago by Ellen’s estimate, and there
were still nights she spent alone, thinking about television and
the sky and her childhood and all of the other things she once
had but had no longer.
Ellen sat down at the table and, checking the clock that
hung on the wall one last time, started to transfer food from the
serving dishes to her plate.
The clock was an heirloom, given to Ellen by her mother
when she sold the house after Ellen’s father passed. It was an
old clock, the kind that chimes every hour, and used to stand in
the kitchen of the house where Ellen grew up. Her mother had
spent half her life pretending the clock didn’t exist while she
knitted her fingers together in worry, waiting for her husband
to return from the bowels of who-knows-where on nights when
he hadn’t bothered to come home after work, or not work, at all.
Ellen remembered watching her mother’s smile flicker as she said
good night, both of them omitting certain questions and certain
answers. Ellen would crawl into her bed and make quiet promises
to herself, the kind that stick deep within the frontal lobe. All of
them concerned men.
These promises had died around the same time the old
planet did.
Ellen stared hard at her plate as she ate, churning her way
through the rest of the could-call-it food she’d piled there. When
she finished, she walked her dish to the sink and made up a plate
for him, wrapping it in plastic and putting it in the refrigerator
for time future.
She thought about going into the living room to read, but
it was nice sitting in the kitchen, to be able to cross and uncross
her legs without the discomfort of the couch belt. She exhaled
38 Writing Tomorrow Magazine

contentedly, feeling cracks in her voice like the fissures that had
ripped Earth apart. Visions of moving galaxies occupied her
mind until she fell asleep.
She woke to a noise and checked the clock to discover
she’d slept for nearly two hours. Another noise floated down the
hallway, coming from the rear bay. She heard the entrance hatch
open and close, and then footsteps that echoed around the corner.
She watched as he tiptoed by the kitchen, on his way to their
bedroom. He stopped and looked in when he heard her laughing
quietly.
I figured you’d be asleep, he said, taking the seat across
from her.
I was, she said.
Sorry I’m so late.
That’s OK. How’d it go
I’m on for two weeks, starting tomorrow. Pay isn’t bad,
either.
Good.
They fell into silence. She thought about the plate in the
refrigerator.
You hungry
He smiled, so she stood up and got the plate out. She
placed it in the solar-powered microwave they both swore would
have them sprouting extra limbs some day very soon, and waited
until it beeped. He was peeling off his shoes when she set the plate
down in front of him.
She was quiet while he ate. After a few minutes, he started
to slow down.
Where’s the job, anyway
The far side of BZ3150-NC615, northwest sector.
Sounds beautiful.
He laughed.
It’s nice, actually, he said. I think you’d like it.
Tell me about it.
He told her about the way there and the way back and the
there itself, of course. When he finished eating she stood up and
February 2014 39

carried his plate to the sink. By the time she returned to the table
he’d stopped talking and his eyes were closed.
Do you want to go to bed she asked, and he shook his
head.
It’s nice talking like this, he said. Let’s talk like this awhile.
He told her about star flares and feeling weightless
and horizons that never saw a sunset. He told her about flying
through nebulas and eclipses you couldn’t look in the eye and
terraformed moons that looked exactly like home. After a while
he closed his eyes again but went on talking. She closed her eyes,
too, and tried to conjure up images to fit his words. She couldn’t
do it. Inside her head was all blackness.
She didn’t mind very much, figuring that, after all, most
of the universe was blackness anyway, a series of gulfs between
two bright points, a suburban night closing in on a dim upstairs
window.
Rob Andwood is a fiction writer from the Pine Barrens of
southern New Jersey. He currently resides in Cambridge,
Massachusetts, although he returns home at least once every
year to continue his prolonged hunt for the elusive Jersey
Devil. He is obsessed with rap music and superheroes.
40 Writing Tomorrow Magazine

I.K. Paterson-Harkness
Broken Egg
1
They come bounding at me bow-legged,
expecting beaks like upside down spoons and brass eyes unblinking.
Oi, get off, I skip backwards, I gave you the wheat!
Don’t you remember pecking my hand and hearing me squeak
I check for eggs inside the roosting shed, poke my head in,
perceive a hen-like shape and beak swiveling my way.
Oops, sorry—I say, retreat, retreat.
A rock in your place, a sleeping cat, even,
so stuffed with shadows, I’d think it a hen.
Sometimes I hear you wailing all the way from the front fence.
With misshapen eggs, I wonder why you lay.
Maybe because, secretly, you enjoy the quiet, dark,
the rustle of your feathers in the straw,
the curve, the release.
2
My mother owns sixty-one eggcups
though seldom eats her own eggs.
They sit in a brown cabinet
beside the lamp whose height hides a layer of dust.
The rest of her house is spotless, of course.
She’s a short woman, it’s not her fault.
She tried to have more kids but was stuck with just the one,
then my dad won big with the bonus bonds and moved away
February 2014 41

with the lady who cut all our hair.
Two of the eggcups were wedding presents.
They sit front, center , polished brightly.
Mum doesn’t receive many gifts.
In the early eve she’s sleeve-deep in the garden
speaking to her hens, upturning rocks.
Beetles and millipedes have no safe nooks.
I’ll never understand the pleasure she gets, digging potatoes,
wrenching sticky weeds from the mischievous earth.
She lays her carrots with care,
side by side on the lilac rug we used to take to the beach.
It’s covered in holes, I don’t know why she doesn’t biff it.
I sit with her till dusk while she shovels compost, full of broken shells.
She told me once that when hens eat a broken egg they get a taste.
3
Dad could catch a wave with his body, like a rocket,
arms stretched straight in front, strong legs kicking.
Mum and I skulked beneath the parasol, watching him.
I hear he has three kids now—probably brown, and fit, like him.
As a teenager I hated this farm.
I’d climb the overgrown rhododendrons,
perch like a pissed-off gargoyle, listing unfairnesses.
There’s nothing fun about being a kid.
When the doctor told me I couldn’t have any I was glad.
Dad sent me a postcard once, from France,
wrote it like he wrote them every week.
I didn’t recognize the handwriting
till Mum pointed out his name at the bottom.
I remember she cried.
She told me once she would’ve liked grandchildren.
42 Writing Tomorrow Magazine

Sometimes I see you running wide-armed at me,
scabby knees and bright eyes unflinching.
I’ve seen plasters with pictures on them, at the supermarket, just for kids.
Oi, get off, I tut, holding you at arm’s length
and poking your tummy till you squeak.
I. K. Paterson-Harkness hails from Auckland, New Zealand.
Before picking up the pen (or rather laptop) she spent
fifteen years firmly grasping a guitar—and released three
albums locally. She gained degrees in both music and philosophy
before returning to university in 2012 and completing
a Masters of Creative Writing, and has since
published several short stories and poems. She plans to
write and publish many more songs and stories in the coming
years. www.ikpatersonharkness.com
February 2014 43

Jennifer Racek
The Dragon Keeper
Like Moses, the baby arrived in a reed basket. No river
carried her, only the howling eddies of a blizzard flinging itself
against his door. The river came later, when she left, and by then
the basket was no more than ash. Maybe if he had pulled her
from the river, claimed her as his own in that way, their little
family could have remained as it should: a father, his daughter,
the two dragons. Everything the world needed to be perfect.
Instead, he had only the blizzard scraping the wooden
logs of the outer wall and hissing icy breath underneath the door.
That was how Minchka arrived in his life, heralded by a rattling
knock.
•
Aleksandr shifted on the sleeping platform, rolling onto
his back and adjusting the hay-filled sack that formed his pillow.
The clay fireplace, white face dark with soot, trickled heat into
the room, carrying the stench of fresh dung and moldy hay. His
stomach rumbled, unsatisfied by the turnip and beet dinner of
only an hour before. A knock sounded from the door.
He shoved up onto an elbow and stared. Who would travel
on such a night The sun had set hours ago. Besides, his home was
far from the village, an hour’s hike through the forest. Only a fool
would travel the Russian mountains during a storm. Or a witch.
His hand dipped below the sleeping platform, groping for his
short ax.
Another knock, louder than the first. Aleksandr called
out, “Lord’s blessing upon you.”
If a witch stood outside the door, invoking the Lord would
drive her away. A third knock sounded, quick and impatient.
44 Writing Tomorrow Magazine

Aleksandr got to his feet. Despite the hearth fire, his fingers
were stiff with cold and it took a long minute to unlatch the
sinew tie that held the door locked.
On his doorstep lay a large, snow-covered basket. Wind
whined through the trees like an old woman’s wheezing breath.
Babba Yagga come to steal his soul perhaps. Aleksandr shivered,
glancing at the trees, and then dragged the basket inside. He
slammed the door against the storm.
The wailing of the wind outside gave way to a different
wailing as something woke within the basket. The snow shivered
and shifted, falling away so that he could see it was not snow, but
a blanket covering a tiny babe. The child’s eyes were green as a
beetle’s shell and fat tears rolled down her cheeks as she let out
another howl. The blanket twitched and twisted, shimmying lower
in the basket as something else moved under its heavy weight.
He grabbed a corner of the blanket and pulled it back,
prepared for another scrunched, crying face. Glittering dark eyes
stared back at him instead. Two black creatures rested on either
side of the baby, both watching Aleksandr. Long necks rose from
plump, scaled bodies with tiny wings tucked tight against their
backs. One of the creatures opened its jaws and flicked the air
with its tongue. Rows of sharp fangs filled its mouth. Dragons.
Aleksandr stumbled backwards, eyes wide.
The child let out another wail, and Aleksandr edged closer.
One of the dragons hissed, eyes fixed on him, and whipped
its tail, thumping the side of the basket. The other dragon rested
its head against the baby’’s chest, and she stopped crying. She
hiccupped and blinked sleepy eyes, sucking on her chubby fist as
she fell back asleep. Her little lips made wet, smacking sounds.
The dragons curled closer, protecting the baby. No need to rescue
the child, then.
Aleksandr backed to the opposite wall and kept his distance
from the foreign creatures, each equally terrifying. From
a corner of the basket, he could see a roll of creamy yellow paper
dappled with damp from the melting snow and held in place by a
loose loop of vine. He ignored it, fearing the dragons’ fangs.
February 2014 45

They spent the night in a standoff, dragons and baby on
one side of the room, Aleksandr on the other. He slumped onto
one of the benches built into the wall and watched the visitors
warily, muttering prayers under his breath to ward off evil and
bad luck.
In the morning, the baby woke early with a whimper.
Aleksandr startled awake, bumping his head against the wall
and kicking over a clay jar at his feet. The jar rolled across the
floor, hitting the hearth with a crack. Beets and pickling solution
leaked out, filling the air with a sour-sweet smell. Both dragons
stirred and curled more tightly around the baby, nudging her
cheeks with their stubby snouts. This time, however, the babe
would not be consoled, she wailed louder and louder, face red.
Cautiously, one foot at a time, Aleksandr edged closer to
the basket. The dragons nudged and chortled and whipped their
tails, but the baby didn’t quiet. Aleksandr bent and stroked a finger
down her cheek, keeping one eye on the dragons. Immediately,
the baby turned her head and latched onto his finger, sucking
the tip and then spitting it out and crying harder.
“Lapushka,” Aleksandr whispered, “I have no milk to feed
you.” He frowned and glanced at the jars and bowls, the hollow
wood containers that marked his food store for the winter. There
was nothing there he could give such a young child. What did
babies eat other than milk Finally, Aleksandr reached for the paper
he’d glimpsed the night before. He kept his movements slow,
trying not to startle the dragons, but they were too distracted by
the baby’s crying to pay attention to him.
The paper was rolled into a column, tight and slender as a
birch branch, and Aleksandr unrolled it carefully.
Aleksandr,
Be known of our daughter. Her name is Minchka. I bid you
raise her well. I send you my dragonlings as a help. They will keep
you both and bring prosperity on your home. Seven times seven is a
halfling’s life, half of your world, half of mine.
Sinivushka
46 Writing Tomorrow Magazine

Aleksandr stared at the name, perplexed by the letters tangled
like thorns. She’d never told him her name, and in the three
evenings they spent together, he’d never asked it. Shame boiled
under his skin. Glancing at the baby, he didn’t doubt Sinivushka’s
claim. Like her mother, the child’s lips were tinged a soft blue, but
the fuzz of hair on her head was as dark as Aleksandr’s. Her nose,
too wide and flat was also his. Her eyes were her own, however,
neither her mother’s soft blue nor her father’s dark brown. And
unlike her mother, frost did not cling to the child like a cloak, she
did not breathe the winter out with each exhalation. ‘Halfling’ the
note said. Did he need any further confirmation of Sinivushka’s
nature
He’d lied to himself, hoped she might be a girl from one of
the north villages visiting family, even with her strangeness. But
no, Sinivushka was something else, something other than human.
He had met her by the river, watched her walk barefoot next
to the frozen water. She glanced over her shoulder and smiled
at him, and nothing else in the world mattered. They had lain
together and now, so long after Sinivushka had disappeared those
months ago, he had a daughter. A beautiful, inhuman daughter,
and no idea how to care for the child.
Aleksandr cursed under his breath.
One of the dragons raised its head and snapped at him.
“I will curse if I want, you wretched beast,” Aleksandr
snarled. “And just what am I supposed to do with a pair of dragons
She said you would keep us and bring prosperity. More likely
burn the house down.”
One of the dragons uncoiled and stretched, unfurling
wings as fragile as glass. The creature was hardly bigger than a cat
and supremely unimpressive.
“Much use you shall be,” Aleksandr muttered.
All that time the baby cried—great heaving wails that
seemed impossible for such a tiny thing. The dragon beside the
basket padded to the door with clacking claws and bumped its
snout impatiently against it. Aleksandr sighed.
“I am servant to a dragon pup now.”
February 2014 47

The door belched cold air into the room when he yanked
it open, barely missing the dragon. The creature sent a spurt of
flame at the tip of Aleksandr’s shoe as it skittered past and he
leapt backward, stamping his feet frantically to put out the fire.
“Wretched beast,” he bellowed after the dragon. Its black
body disappeared into a snow bank, and Aleksandr slammed the
door.
The baby cried even louder. How by the Tsar’s court was
such a thing possible He had to press both hands over his ears
just to think. The other dragon, still curled beside the baby, glared
reproachfully at Aleksandr.
“It set my foot on fire!” Aleksandr yelled at the other dragon.
The dragon snorted and tucked its head against the baby’s
throat.
He stormed toward the basket, half ready to chuck it, the
dragon, and the baby out into the snow. The child’s mother had to
be close by, didn’t she Anyway, the babe was half winter-wild—
she’d be fine outside no matter how young she was. The other
dragon hissed and bared its teeth at Aleksandr when he reached
for the basket. Before either of them had a chance to discover if he
really would have thrown the pair out, something knocked into
the door from outside. Aleksandr whirled around, staring. Had
Sinivushka come back for her child
The thump came again, louder, more insistent. Aleksandr
hurried to open the door, eager to pass the child off. The other
dragon was back. And it had a goat with it. A huge, fat goat, with
sides half as wide as the door and an exact miniature of itself
trailing behind. Aleksandr could only stare.
“W-w-where,” he stammered. The dragon outside shoved
past him, flicking his knee with its tail, and the kid trotted after
it, the nanny goat moving to follow as well.
“Oh no,” Aleksandr bellowed. “I am not so low as to sleep
with animals in my home. You. Goat. Stop!”
The goat knocked him over and went right inside, shadowing
her kid. The little procession clomped the few steps to the
baby’s basket and stopped. Both dragons looked at Aleksandr
48 Writing Tomorrow Magazine

expectantly.
“I do not like goats.”
The animals stared. The baby cried, hiccupping little sobs
now, and the nanny goat baa-ed plaintively.
Aleksandr sighed. He grabbed a chair and stomped over.
With a bit of trial and error, he filled a bowl with milk from the
goat’s swollen udders and, using a twist of cloth, the baby sucked
the milk from the material hungrily. As steady as the ax falling
when he chopped wood, his hand dipped into the bowl, soaked
the cloth, and lifted it for the child. She drank for an hour until
her little stomach was full and round as a piglet.
In the following days, he built a small enclosure for the
goat and her kid beside the house, adding to it until it was a proper
shelter against the wind and snow. He had expected an angry
farmer to show up at his door demanding the goat’s return, but
none ever did. And so the goats stayed. And the baby stayed as
well, burrowing into his life tight as a thorn tangled in cloth. Even
the dragons remained, and in time, with her first words, Minchka
named them: Zinfir and Dravij.
On the night before Minchka’s seventh birthday, Dravij
laid an egg. Aleksandr woke to the dragon’s pleased clicks as she
crouched over it, nuzzling the thing with her snout. The eggshell
was as muddy blue as the river before the first frost, and gold
specks flecked the surface. Dravij had chosen one of Aleksandr’s
boots as her nest and the leather tongue lolled out from under her
paw, boot-strings tangled liked weeds, part of the heel propping
up the egg while the rest lay in pieces around the dragon. His
other boot, still intact, lay beside the door, as though Dravij had
dragged it halfway across the room before deciding it wasn’t
worth the effort. The boots were scarcely a month old.
Wretched dragons! And now there were going to be three
of them. He stared glumly at the egg.
The next morning, when Minchka saw the egg for the first
time, she squealed and leaped up and down, clasping her hands.
February 2014 49

“A baby dragon! There’s going to be a baby dragon!” It was
several minutes before she stopped dancing around. Then she
quieted abruptly and looked uncertain. “It will be a dragon, won’t
it, Papa It won’t be a child like me, will it”
Her hand moved to the cord necklace she wore, fingers
playing over the fragment of dragon’s egg she’d tied into it.
Aleksandr coughed and nearly sucked half his beard
down trying to get air back in his lungs. He’d kept the egg fragments
he found in Minchka’s basket the night she arrived. The
shell was hard as river ice and good for cutting bits of meat with
its sharp edges. Minchka claimed the smallest piece when she
was two, a jagged oval. The blue-grey sliver of shell, bright against
Minchka’s dark smock, had given him the idea. So perfect. So
easy. If the baby had hatched from an egg, then of course there
was no way of knowing who her mother was or how to find her.
He had spun the lie into a grand story and as he’d hoped, the tale
quieted Minchka’s questions in later years.
“Of course not! Just a dragonling, that’s all. The egg isn’t
nearly big enough for a baby.”
Minchka sagged against the wall and smiled. “Won’t it be
wonderful, Papa A baby dragon!”
“What’s wrong with the ones we’ve got” Aleksandr muttered.
“They destroy the place well enough.”
“Don’t be silly! Dravij and Zinfir are wonderful dragons,
but they’re old. They aren’t babies.”
“Old” he protested. “They’re only seven, same as you.
Scarce bigger than lambs!”
“They aren’t babies,” Minchka repeated, hands on her
hips.
He waved a hand in defeat. “They aren’t babies. Whatever
they are, they need to get to work. It’s late.” He left Dravij to her
egg but scooped up Zinfir and headed for the smokehouse. Zinfir
could hold a controlled flame for five minutes solid and focus it
enough to dry and smoke a side of venison in that time.
Aleksandr had tried regular flames but they just cooked or
burned the meat.
50 Writing Tomorrow Magazine

As Sinivushka had promised in her note that long ago
night, the dragons provided for Aleksandr and Minchka. They
helped Aleksandr dry meat, creating delicate cuts and strips.
Their claws, when shed, could be shaped into curved needles that
were suited to leather work. The dragon’s scales glittered and
shimmered in the light and made perfect ornamentation for pots
or jewelry. By trading with the goods shop in Valminsky, Aleksandr
was able to get whatever he and Minchka needed. He grew
and preserved their own vegetables and their small herd of goats
provided milk and dung for the fire. They were largely self-sufficient
and Aleksandr preferred it that way.
By midday, Minchka was driving Dravij and Aleksandr
mad with her constant prattle about the egg and the way she hovered
beside the dragon.
“When do you think it will hatch, Papa When” Minchka
demanded.
Dravij snapped her fangs and curled more tightly around
the egg, glaring at Minchka.
“I don’t know,” Aleksandr muttered. “They’re not like
birds.”
The egg cracked open as Aleksandr tucked Minchka
under her covers that night. The two halves fell apart in Dravij’s
claws. She shoved her snout inside the shell and hunted for her
baby. There was no dragonling, only a twist of paper like the
one Aleksandr had received the night Minchka arrived. Dravij
tipped the eggshell and the note out of her makeshift nest and
searched the ripped leather desperately. She searched the room
and then stood by the door, wheezing smoke and huffing. Zinfir
approached and nuzzled her neck. Dravij made a hoarse sound
that Aleksandr had never heard before, and then the two dragons
curled into one another furling and unfurling their wings.
Watching the two dragons, Minchka cried. Aleksandr
cuddled her close to his chest as she sobbed. There was no baby
dragon for either of them. He suddenly regretted his earlier
thoughts. Another dragon would have been fine. It would have
been perfect.
February 2014 51

It was a long time before Minchka fell silent and Dravij
and Zinfir retreated to their pile of rags beneath the sleeping platform.
Only when Minchka was asleep did Aleksandr retrieve the
note from the floor. His hands shook as he opened it.
Seven times seven is a halfling’s life. It is time our daughter
visited the other side of her nature, time she walked amid the ice
and snow. She may bring three things only with her, none living.
When she has chosen, send her into the woods under the full moon,
where the two elms cross by the river. Before the moon sets she will
be with me. Remember, aleksandr, she must walk in both worlds or
none at all. I leave the dragons with you as compensation.
Sinivushka
The paper crackled like dry leaves underfoot as he crumpled
it into a ball. How dare she demand Minchka! Hadn’t he
loved the girl Hadn’t he taken her in and cared for Hadn’t he
turned his life upside down for Minchka And where was her
mother in all that time Where was Sinivushka when Minchka
spoke her first words Where was Sinivushka when Minchka had
trained the dragons to fetch river stones Her proudest accomplishment,
getting those mad creatures to do tricks, and it was
Aleksandr she had flung her arms around and laughed with when
the first stone was spit at her feet.
Through every moment of the girl’s life her mother had
been absent and now she demanded he hand Minchka over Just
send his daughter into the woods Alone He wouldn’t. Curse
Sinivushka, curse her blue-lipped mouth, her cold eyes, her colder
heart. Curse the day he’d ever met that winter-bound creature!
Letter be damned, he was keeping his daughter.
He stormed to the door and threw it open, flinging the
note outside. The moon was high and full. Aleksandr staggered
back. Though the moon looked the same as it had on other
nights, he could see only Sinivushka’s face, laughing at him. He
slammed the door on the moon and the night, turning away from
them.
52 Writing Tomorrow Magazine

By morning, Minchka was running a fever. Her small
body felt dry and empty to his touch, a husk. Her lips cracked as
though she’d swallowed dragon’s flame.
“Papa,” Minchka said, shivering, “it’s so cold inside. Did
the fire burn out” He piled blankets on top of her and patted her
back.
“No, the fire is still in the hearth. You are sick. It will be
better by night.”
But it was not. The fever burned so hot it was painful to
touch her skin and Minchka cried out when Aleksandr brushed
a lock of hair from her face. Her covers were soaked with sweat
and her lips so dry they bled. He dribbled snow between her
clenched teeth but it did no good. The fever would not break. Late
in the second evening, she slipped so far into sleep, he could not
wake her. Aleksandr shook her and shook her but she would not
open her eyes. He slapped her cheeks and yelled, he rubbed her
back and cajoled. She never stirred, breathing only shallowly. He
slumped down, resting his head on the bed beside her, counting
each halting breath. His eyes were wet and he felt desperate and
wild. Helpless. Hopeless.
“I’ll do it,” he whispered, reaching up to touch her cheek.
He sat up and shouted the words at the bare walls, “Do you hear
me, Sinivushka I will do it! I will give you our daughter. Only
stop this. Let her live.” The words cracked and broke apart. Ice
was slipping into his chest and wrapping around him, it choked
his voice and made it hard to talk. “I will do it,” he whispered
again. “Let her live.”
There was nothing left inside of him, just a hollow place
where he’d stored up all of Minchka’s laughter and smiles. He
shivered and lay his head down beside her, counting her breaths
until his own slowed and he fell asleep.
A butterfly’s wing fluttered against his cheek and tickled
him. Aleksandr dragged his eyes open, wincing at the river silt
that felt lodged beneath each eyelid. Minchka watched him.
“Papa,” she rasped, “I’m thirsty.” The butterfly’s wing
touched his cheek again and he saw it was her fingers, lightly,
February 2014 53

laboriously stretched out to him.
Aleksandr leapt up, knocking his chair over. The two
dragons, curled by his feet, skittered backward, hissing annoyance.
“Of course.” He snatched a cup and poured fresh water
into it, rushing back to her and tipping the cup to her lips.
She sipped at the water, rolling it on her tongue before
swallowing. “Thank you.”
Aleksandr had to turn away so she didn’t see the tears
dampening his beard.
She ate a little bread that morning, and later, the soft
crumbly cheese that was normally kept for holy days. They
clustered together like birds waiting out a storm, Minchka on the
sleeping platform, propped up amid a nest of blankets, Aleksandr
in a chair beside her, constantly touching her face, her hands. He
had to make sure she was real and still with him. The dragons
moved easily from the sleeping platform to the floor, indifferent
to human emotions. Dravij moved more slowly than Zinfir, and
her head dipped often, tail dragging behind her. Minchka stroked
the little dragon’s scales and whispered songs. Night wrapped
around the house too soon, letting moonlight slip under the door.
“Minchka,” Aleksandr said, drawing her attention away
from Dravij, cradled in her lap. “You’re going to have an adventure.
Your mother is waiting for you in the woods. She wants you
to visit her for a little time. Then you can come back to me.” His
voice cracked. “I know that you are still sick, but we have to go
tonight. We must gather the things you will take.”
She stared at him for a long moment. “I do not have a
mother, Papa. I hatched from an egg.” Minchka touched the raw
edge of her necklace.
Aleksandr sighed. “Everyone has a mother, little one. Even
if you have never met her.”
“Is...is she a dragon”
“No, not a dragon. She is beautiful,” he said carefully. “You
can judge for yourself her nature. I knew her very little and it has
been many, many years since I saw her last.”
54 Writing Tomorrow Magazine

“But I want to stay with you,” Minchka whispered. Aleksandr’s
breath caught in his chest and every part of him ached.
He wanted to snatch her up and run away.
“I want you to stay more than anything. But you must do
this.”
Minchka didn’t argue. Her docility worried him, a lingering
effect of the fever that had nearly taken her life. She was
so pale. How could she walk into the forest alone How could he
let her go But then, how could he not He remembered trying to
wake her, shaking her and shaking her and the lack of response.
He remembered the way her breath had grown shallow and still
until it seemed she might not breathe again at all.
“What will you take with you” Aleksandr asked hoarsely.
“You can bring only three things other than the clothes you
wear.”
“I will take you and Zinfir and Dravij.”
Aleksandr hugged her tight against his chest. “We cannot
come. You are not allowed to take anything living with you.”
Minchka squirmed in his arms and he let her go reluctantly,
settling back into his chair.
“But I want to!”
“I am sorry, little one. Choose something else. The dragons
and I must stay.”
“I won’t go without you, Papa. Don’t make me.” Tears
filled Minchka’s eyes and she coughed, wheezing.
Aleksandr stroked her hair. “You are a good girl Minchka,
you must do this for me.”
She was silent a long time, playing with the edge of her
blanket.
“Please, Minchka.”
“I will take my doll,” she whispered, still crying. “The one
with the blue kerchief. And my yellow hair comb with the flowers
painted on it.”
He sagged back in his chair. “And what more”
She touched the necklace at her throat, running a finger
over the shell’s edge as she had so often. “The dragon scale pouch
February 2014 55

you made me last summer.”
Aleksandr nodded. “Very well, I will gather them. You
rest.”
She lay with a dragon stretched on either side of her and
watched as he moved around the room. Her comb was beside the
water bowl and the pouch hung by the door. The doll, however,
proved more elusive. Aleksandr searched beside the food jars,
checked the hearth and the log pile. He looked under the small
table and even inside the scrap bin where old clothes were set
aside to be remade. He searched every corner of the tiny oneroom
house, but he could not find the doll. Minchka’s bottom
lip had begun to tremble and the dark half circles under her eyes
deepened.
“I have to have my doll, Papa, I can’t go without her,”
Minchka pleaded.
He swore under his breath and searched again, but still
couldn’t find the doll. The moon was high in the sky. He had to
send her into the forest now. If he did not....He considered it. Perhaps
her illness had broken on its own. Perhaps it had nothing to
do with Sinivushka. Aleksandr grimaced, Sinivushka was pulling
them in like fish on a line. Struggling would only wound them
more.
“I am sorry, little one. I cannot find the doll. Will you take
something else instead”
Minchka began to cry but shook her head.
He gathered Minchka in his arms, dislodging the dragons
from the sleeping platform. They hissed but twined around
his boots, nevertheless. And then he was walking outside, with
Minchka, with the dragons. The moon was so bright it hurt his
eyes, and he squinted.
The walk down to the river took less than a quarter hour.
Frost dusted the tree trunks and clung in a hard crust over the
ground. The crunch of his boots was loud as musket fire. He
found the two elms easily. Minchka was so light in his arms, so
small. She wobbled, clutching his arm when he set her on her feet.
Beyond them the river burbled and rushed, singing a dirge.
56 Writing Tomorrow Magazine

“You have to walk on your own from here.”
Her face was white as the stones beside the water. “I’m
scared, Papa.”
“I’ll stay right here, and you’ll be with your mother soon.
Just walk between those trees,” he pointed at the trunks which
twined together like a cathedral arch, delicate limbs ornamenting
each side.
Zinfir and Dravij huffed smoke and twined fitfully around
Aleksandr’s ankles like oversize cats.
Minchka shook, clutching her yellow comb in one hand,
the other hand hanging at her side. She turned and stumbled
toward the trees, and then she was through them. The shadows
of the forest swallowed her. The dragons lay at his feet, still and
silent. The three of them stayed there until the sun broke over the
trees and chased the night away. The light fell cold and hard, as
empty as the world. Aleksandr walked to the two trees, staring at
the ground. Five steps from the river’s edge, Minchka’s footsteps
vanished. Aleksandr knelt and pressed his hand into the damp,
hard earth where she had walked. Tears froze on his cheeks.
He delayed as long as he could, but eventually he and the
dragons returned to the house. He hadn’t eaten for more than a
day and hadn’t felt the cold for hours—a dangerous sign. Somehow,
he had to keep drawing in breath, getting through the hours
because one day, Minchka would come back. One day she’d
return to his world, and he had to be here when she did.
Seven times seven is a life. How could he possibly survive
seven years without her
The days moved slowly. First a year passed and then another.
Aleksandr’s hair began to gray and thin. The winter carved itself
into his face, roughening his skin and deepening the lines and
wrinkles.
The last day of his interminable wait dragged on longer
than all seven years combined. The sun moved sluggishly in the
sky. Zinfir and Dravij snapped irritably at the air, shooting tiny
February 2014 57

flames at one another and huffing. Aleksandr ignored them,
glancing at the sun again and again. Why wouldn’t the damn
thing move Finally, blessedly, the night came.
He stayed in front of the house until the moon was high
overhead and the cold made his bones feel heavy as oxen. The
dragons nipped at his feet and drove him inside. So he waited in
his chair by the fire. In his lap, Aleksandr cradled Minchka’s doll,
hands loosely closed over the little cloth chest. He had found the
tiny doll a week after Minchka left, wedged amid the rags the two
dragons used as a nest beneath the sleeping platform. One of the
dragons had sharpened its teeth on the carved wood of the doll’s
face, making deep gouges like the tracks of tears. It was a child’s
toy and his daughter was no longer a child. Seven years gone,
but he could not picture her as anything other than the little girl
he’d held that last night. The doll wasn’t even a proper present as
Minchka had already owned the thing. But she had loved the doll
so much. Would she still Would she still love him
The night trickled away with no sign of Minchka. She
had to come. She had to. His fingers tapped out the minutes on
the chair arm. The fire burned lower in the hearth but he didn’t
add more wood. His legs wouldn’t work anymore. If she didn’t
come....
When morning’s first pink touched the sky and Aleksandr’s
eyes had drifted shut, there was a knock on the door.
Aleksandr started awake. The knock came again. He was frozen.
Unable to open the door and see. If it wasn’t her he was afraid
something would break inside him that couldn’t ever be fixed.
“Papa” A soft voice called.
His breath caught and he clutched the doll tighter.
“Papa, are you there”
Aleksandr’s hands trembled as he rose and shuffled to
the door like an old man. The dragons snorted smoke rings in
disgust, racing to the door and back five times before he reached
it. The wood was cold and pitted beneath his palm.
“Minchka” Aleksandr whispered. His hands shook harder
but he fumbled the door open.
58 Writing Tomorrow Magazine

Snow covered the ground outside. There was no reed
basket this time. A girl stood on his doorstep, foreign, fey. Her
chin was pointed and cheeks too sharp. Green eyes. Dark hair
dotted with snow. Blue lips. Her nose was wide and flat, marring
the pretty face and making it easier to look at her. She would have
been too perfect otherwise. She was beautiful as a winter storm.
“Minchka” Aleksandr whispered again.
She looked up at him and smiled. Minchka’s smile.
“Hello, Papa.”
Aleksandr wrapped her in a hug and the little doll fell to
the ground. With the sun scrabbling its way higher in the sky,
they stood in the doorway a long, long time and the dragons
twined around their feet, claws clicking, flames bursting from
their snouts. All around them, the snow began to melt.
A programmer by day,
Jennifer Racek loves writing
stories on the train during
her commute to downtown
Dallas. In her spare time,
she runs a writing critique
group, a YA book club, a
Harry Potter meetup group,
and participates in far too
many craft swaps. Mrs. Racek lives with her husband, two
children, two dogs, a cat, and a hedgehog named Percy
Jackson. You can find out more about the author and read
samples of her writing at http://www.jcracek.com.
February 2014 59

Leila Fortier
~Punctuated~
Why
Am I always
Somewhere in between
Missing you Punctuated with
Absence~ Spaces yet to be filled by
Our silences~ There is an unraveling
Of soul upon the ether~ The trajectory
Of fingertips in search of identical
Prints~ You hear me as though from a distance inside of
You~ Kinetic resonance within perpetual yearning~
All embellishment aside~ You still linger at
The end of every sentence~ As the
One word left I cannot say~
I swallow you again
…Like the sun…
Like the
M
o
o
n
.
60 Writing Tomorrow Magazine

Leila Fortier
~Offerings~
*
Oh
Honeyed globe
Of sunlight~ bleeding your
Vital pigments into a watercolor
Wash across the canopy of blue sky~
You shed your apple perfume~ the leaves
Will drink your offerings in starving admiration
A feast of forbidden color~ whirling dervishes of
Saffron reds and burnt turmeric~ falling in whispers
Of inebriation~ mired into cool streams of liquid glass
Paper boats bobbing upon crystal crests~ the mirror of
Every reflection~ tumbling over pebbles of thought;
Zen-stones of consciousness now wet with meditation~ sobriety comes to be born
Once again~ the inevitable seep back into the marrow of roots~ nourishing
Serpentine lovers~ knotted in kisses; uprooted by their lovemaking~
A tangled climb up the textured bark of existence~ terrain
Of all memory~ bares its silent testimony into
The branches~ the tree of life~
Always reaching...
Back to
You
*
February 2014 61

Leila Fortier
~Impossible Geometry~
She claims she has no passions or interests~ Nothing special or unique~ Nothing worthy to be
Noted, she says~ She claims no specialty save for the memory of holding her daughter
In a body bag~ No specialty less than a her unshakable faith~ How she
Clawed through an earthen purgatory weighted with a cross
None would wish to bear- through the fruitless search
And agony of waiting~ Sixty-eight days of
Limbo and fire walking~ Revealing
Only her unfathomable face
Of grace~ There must
Be something
More than
…This…
My
Mind is snared in a web of equations~ An impossible geometry barren of answers~
I suppose this is where God comes in...I want to fill her absences~ Smooth
Over her emotional scars~ Like a shining spoon- A moon without
Cavity~ A terrainless expanse for her taking~ I wanted to
Pry open the ribcage of her resistance~ Fill her
With musicality; New world, new womb;
Creation, paint, and poetry~ Give
Her a way to speak through
Her hands~ Because
I believe even her
Fingers listen
There is
Not a
Part
Of
62 Writing Tomorrow Magazine

Her that does not listen~ I wanted to bring her these gifts
The way that the wise men brought gifts to Jesus~
But I am only wise enough to know that
I cannot fill her absences, and
That it is no wonder at
All that she was
Given the
Name
M
a
r
y
Leila A. Fortier is a poet, artist,
and photographer currently
residing in Okinawa, Japan
while pursuing her BFA in creative
writing through Southern
New Hampshire University. Her
sculpted poetry is often accompanied
by her own multi-medium
forms of art, photography,
and spoken performance. The
use of italics in her text forms a symbolic representation of
inner dialog while the tilde lends to the fluidity and continuum
of her thought processes. Selections of her work have been
translated into French, Italian, Spanish, Arabic, and German in
a growing effort to foster cultural diversity and understanding
through the voice of poetry. With over one hundred publishing
credits, her work in all its mediums has been featured in a vast
array of publications both in print and online. A complete listing
of her published works can be found at: www.leilafortier.com
February 2014 63

Devyani Borade
Sky’s the Limit
The aeroplane takes off like an arrow towards an unknown
destination. The wind lifts the plane’s wings, giving
them the required thrust to gain altitude rapidly. Twin headlights
cleave a path through the darkness as the dull roar of its engines
carries clearly on the cold night air.
Five pairs of eyes are turned up towards it, watching the
lights steadily climb higher. The dull eyes of a prostitute lying
motionless in a dingy room as a paying customer grimly goes to
work on her for his money’s worth, see an unattainable escape to
another life. The indifferent eyes of a constable as he struggles to
create order, see a vehicle that thankfully does not add to the burgeoning
traffic snarl on the ground. The unblinking sharp eyes of
an air traffic controller watching aircraft activity in the vicinity,
see only a dark speck on a green screen and visions of another
month’s salary if it doesn’t disappear. The sightless eyes of a man
dead on the pavement, crushed under the wheels of yet another
rich tycoon driving drunk, see nothing.
The fifth pair of eyes belong to a small boy perched high
64 Writing Tomorrow Magazine

atop the hill where only fearless crows and toiling ants venture.
There is worship in these young warm brown eyes; worship,
mixed with great longing. As Akash swings his legs unconcernedly
over the lip into the void below, he lunges forward with
outstretched hands as though to snatch the plane out of the sky
in his grubby fingers. For a moment, he is precariously balanced.
Then his center of gravity rights itself, and oblivious to the danger
that has nearly touched his four-year-old life, he leans back with a
sigh. The sigh mimics the ache in his heart. It is a sigh of aborted
desire, of hopelessness, of frustration with his current situation,
of festering resentment at the unfairness of the world.
“I wish I had an aeroplane!” he whispers. It is a wish he
has expressed often— to the birds trilling shrilly in the trees, to
the sun rising and setting in all its majestic grandeur, to the cow
that lows every morning under his window, to the stones that are
mute witnesses to life. So far, though, neither the birds, nor the
sun, nor the cow, nor the stones have been able to fulfil it. Akash
can’t help but think the universe must be conspiring against him.
Rousing himself, he twists around and rests his naked
bum against the leeward side of the hill, which has been worn
smooth by his many visits. As he slides down with practiced ease,
his oversized shirt flares out like a parasail and hides the shallow
drop from view. Plop! He lands softly on his feet like a cat
and begins meandering homewards. A dirty tramp salutes him
and rasps something. Akash sticks his tongue out at him. Now
and then he pauses to investigate roadside treasures that may be
of interest, and duly resumes his journey. He passes a toy shop
with many exciting things on display: a large jack-in-the-box, a
doll that rights itself when you kick it down, a grave looking tin
soldier, a jolly clown, a hideous ogre mask, a train with twinkling
lights. His nose pressed against the glass, he gazes inside. He has
eyes for only one thing: a beautiful blue airplane model hanging
from the ceiling, soaring upwards.
Within minutes of reaching home, he is pestering his
mother, following her around doggedly, holding on to the hem
February 2014 65

of her sari as she goes about her business. “What do you want,
child” she asks him, running her hand affectionately through his
spiky hair.
“Aeroplane,” he replies promptly.
“Not again! Do you know how big aeroplanes are”
Akash nods several times, eager to show that he knows.
“As big as my forearm,” he says, holding out his hand and pulling
up his sleeve to show his elbows. “And they have huge lights in
the front,” he says, cupping both palms into the size of a bowl in
front of his face. “Smaller lights on the wings.” Now the fingers
are squeezed together and the eyes squinched onto a spot.
His mother breaks into peals of laughter. “Is that so No,
little one, you’re wrong. Aeroplanes are very, very big. As big as
our building. Even bigger. People sit inside them. Can you imagine
that” Akash’s eyes widen and he shakes his head slowly.
“Now what makes you think I can get you something that big”
“Because you’re my Ma, na You are old. You can do
anything,” he replies, puzzled by her question. “And they have
upright tails that don’t move. Not like the fish in the canal,” he
adds belatedly. How could he have been so absent-minded as to
forget that!
His mother looks at the chagrin on his face and laughs
again. “Go and wash your hands. Look how filthy they are! Have
you been climbing up that silly hill again You’re not eating like
that.” And with a pat on his bum he is sent on his way.
Morsels of the most delectable feast will not satisfy the
hunger in his heart. Even so, with great reluctance, Akash sets
off in the direction of the tap, but midway he veers off. Fine. If no
one will get him an aeroplane, he will get one himself. Within
minutes, utterly oblivious to his surroundings and the smell of
food gnawing at his insides, he is absorbed in his game. “Wrroooooooommm,”
his pursed lips whimper softly as deft hands
hold aloft a paper plane and wave it all around the room. Over a
rickety chair, along the occasionally chipped grey expanse of the
old refrigerator’s side, past the open window with its faded and
billowing curtains, under the tail of a neighborhood stray dog
66 Writing Tomorrow Magazine

lying listlessly on the mosaic floor, even between the legs of his
father who is now chewing paan and preparing to spit out the
juice—the paper plane flies faithfully as fast as Akash’s legs can
run. The uneven terrain of the sofa is a battlefield strewn with the
remains of today’s newspaper, a pair of scissors, and a few grains
of mud from his barefoot heels.
A familiar hand lightly cuffs his ear and the little boy
howls in protest. This sets off the dog that joins in the cacophony
and for a while the yowling continues uninterrupted.
“You little monster! Why did you tear up today’s newspaper
Don’t you know your father hasn’t read it yet Look at it! It’s
completely ruined!” yells his mother.
“I was making an aeroplane,” replies the boy indignantly and
runs off before he receives his retribution.
Away from the incessant loud arguments of the adults
above the shrill background of the television squawking, he
blinks back tears and stares up at the sky where another plane’s
lights are twinkling. Whether they are beckoning him or taunting,
he can’t tell. He waves vigorously until they are swallowed up
in the darkness. Then he squats down and picks up some pebbles.
Under the unconscious instruction of his wrists, they re-arrange
themselves into a simple outline of an aeroplane. What had Ma
said Do people really sit inside them Surely there must be a
conductor who checks tickets and throws you out at the next stop
if you don’t have one, the little boy thinks, remembering the rides
he has frequently taken on the overcrowded red state transport
buses.
•
He can see his face in the smooth black leather, it is that
polished. The man seems pleased too, for he flicks not one but
two coins down at the eleven year old and swaggers away. Akash
carefully picks up the money and tucks it out of sight under a
threadbare mat below his right hip.
February 2014 67

“Shoe shine! Shoe shine! Get your shoes polished here!
Smooth and sparkling, we take care of your footwear in five minutes!
Cheap shoe shine!” He scans the crowds pouring out from
the railway station for potential customers. In this heat, most
people are clad in cool sandals and slippers, but occasionally
there steps out a smart young man on the way to his first interview,
or a rich mogul back from a successful business deal who
may be in an expansive mood. Akash glances at the cheap plastic
watch on his wrist. 12:13. He squints up into the sun expectantly.
An almost indiscernible whine heralds the Air France aeroplane
as it makes its customary daily flight to the continent. Akash
grins to himself and feels the familiar peace steal over him as he
drifts into his usual daydream. How it must feel to sit on plush
seats inside a cool cabin. How Chacha said they give you food and
drink free!
Tap. Tap tap. A customer taps his foot on the wooden
stand and Akash gets to work on his shoes.
“Gooooood day, sir! What a lovely pair of shoes. No,
really, I see many types of shoes all day everyday, so I know.
These are really of a very good quality. You should shine them
often to keep the leather soft and malleable. So, did you watch
the cricket match yesterday Ah, what a super sixer Tendulkar
struck! Beautiful.” His brush pauses its incessant rubbing to
make an elaborate arc in the air as he gestures the trajectory of
the ball. “Went clean over the boundary. About thirty yards or
so, I reckon. Definitely one for the record books. Pity we couldn’t
maintain the early lead in the end. If the tail-enders had kept the
momentum up, we could have easily won, eh What do you reckon
No What’re you saying, sir! That wicket was a dream. Fast
outfield, too. Those foreigners sure know how to make a pitch, eh
You ever been abroad, sir No Ah, me neither! But one day I will
definitely go. In a big aeroplane.” Again the brushing hand pauses
to sweep the air around his head. “Watch an Ashes match. Live!
At Lords. Did you know-” Like a professional, Akash keeps up a
constant stream of nonsensical chatter which is a better source
of local news than any newspaper, regional television channel, or
68 Writing Tomorrow Magazine

adio station. Without looking up, he knows that the 12:19 British
Airways flight with its distinctive blue colors will be taking off
from the northbound airstrip right about now.
“Chacha, tell me again about your Dubai flight,” urges
Akash later that night at home as he watches his uncle wash his
face, hands, and feet and step over the threshold of the room. Unconsciously
he tugs at his uncle’s dhoti which is sharply yanked
away in indignation. “Go away! Try to trouble somebody else
once in a while. Every minute this fellow is after me to tell him
about the aeroplane. Not a moment of rest. Shoo! Go and get me
a glass of water to drink,” says his uncle irritably and flaps him
away.
A couple of hours later, feeling generous after a satisfactory
meal, his uncle bids him sit down. “So there I was, walking
along this huge…” For the next hour or so, the boy, sometimes
lounging on his stomach, sometimes sitting upright cross-legged
with his chin cupped in his hand, listens enthralled as visions
of unimagined beauty and luxury are conjured up by his uncle
who’s been to Dubai on an aeroplane.
•
“Next.”
“Namaste, sir.”
“Name”
“Akash.”
“Father’s Name”
“Hari Prasad.”
“Age”
“Erm, about fifty or fifty-five. I can’t be sure, though. Is it
important”
“Imbecile! Not your father’s age! Yours.”
“Oh. Sorry, sir.”
“Well”
February 2014 69

“What, sir”
“So what’s your age, you fool!”
“Oh, sorry, sir. Nineteen, sir.”
“Tch. Address”
“Room No. 3, Ramani Bhavan, Chiragnagar.”
“Hmm. Who do you want to meet”
“The senior Mr. Shah.”
“What for”
“I want to ask him if he has a position vacant for me.”
“Hmph. How much have you studied”
“Almost up to class three, sir! I can recite the alphabet and
I know numbers in English too. My teacher used to say that I was
very clever. Sir, would you like to hear a poem”
Large black eyes stare at him from under thick square
lenses. “Do I look like your school teacher” asks the man at the
reception, his moustache bristling with irritation.
“Hai, no, sir, not at all!” smiles Akash and shakes his head
with his tongue between his teeth. “My teacher was a woman,
sir.”
“Shut up! Mr. Shah can’t see you yet. He’s busy. Wait here.”
The man dismisses him by pointedly picking up a large register
and opening it. The name plate on his table falls off with a loud
clatter. The letters R. TYAGI stare back at Akash with insolence.
“But, sir, I’ve already been waiting for an hour.”
“I said, didn’t I, that he’s busy Don’t you understand
Hindi And use your eyes. See this long line of people They are
all waiting to meet him. Now go stand somewhere else and don’t
bother me. Next!”
“You’ll work with my men in the logistics department,”
says Mr. Shah when Akash finally steps into his office after four
hours. “They haul luggage to and from the planes. There’s just one
rule: no damage. Absolutely none, you understand” He pauses
and tilts his chin up in question. Ruthless. His eyes are so ruthless,
Akash thinks. And nods.
“In this job, other people’s possessions are our livelihood.
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You break something and you’re out of a job. No exceptions. Our
merchandise is far too valuable to allow our workers to afford
more than one mistake. These foreigners—their perfume bottles
cost more than my manager’s quarterly wages! I would be bankrupt
within the week. Oh, and speaking of money, your salary
will be four hundred rupees a month, okay It’s not much but I
hope you can save enough to fulfil your dreams, whatever they
might be. I’ll send Tyagi to explain the details. Good luck.”
“Thank you, sir. You won’t regret it, I promise,” Akash
breathes. Aeroplanes, his heart replies.
It is a wet morning. Akash opens his eyes and out of habit
looks up at the sky. Naturally the clouds have hidden it, but he
can hear the faint drone of the twin engine glider circling above.
“Always waiting for his turn to land, poor sod.” He shakes his
head, sits up, and gathers the bedclothes into a rough pile. “First
day on the job, better not be late.”
By the time the rest of the world is dragging itself blearyeyed
out of bed, Akash and his new colleagues are already hard at
work.
“So where do you come from” asks Shanker, a sandy-haired
youth with an air of disinterest. His jaw is busily working
at chewing a matchstick.
“Originally from Vikhroli. Now I live in Chiragnagar,”
Akash replies as he hefts a large brown case. “Oof. How heavy
this stuff is!”
“Nice shirt. Yours”
“No, I borrowed it from a friend. I don’t have any of my
own. Do we have to wear shirts every day It’s so hot.”
“Of course! You want the customers to think we live in the
slums or what”
“But we do live in slums. Aargh! Whew! Good thing my
back is strong. What do people carry in such large boxes How
long have you been working here”
“A year. And this is my own shirt. I’m from Dharavi.”
Akash grunts in reply. He really must save enough to get
February 2014 71

himself some decent clothes. How long will he keep borrowing
from people At this rate, he will run out of friends!
“Can you read or write” asks Shanker.
“No, not enough to speak of. Can you”
“Sure! And fast too. And neat. I even have my own pen,”
Shanker claims proudly. “Every so often, Tyagi gives me the ink
pot from the office when there are a few dregs left in it.”
“Hey, then will you write a letter for me” Akash asks
eagerly.
“It’s twenty rupees per page.”
Akash’s face falls.
“But since you’re new here, I’ll give you a discount. Fifteen
rupees. And you have to make me tea every day for a week. Take
it or leave it.”
At this rate, it’ll take him longer to save for his first flight
than he thought. But there’s no help for it. He has to write to Ma
at least once a month, otherwise she’s liable to worry herself and
become ill.
“I’ll come to your hut tonight after work, shall I” says
Akash, with hope in his voice. “I’ll pay you when I get my salary.”
“Suit yourself. Whom are you writing to Got yourself
a foxy girlfriend back in Chiragnagar, have you, eh” Shanker
winks lecherously as the other youths snigger.
“Oh no! I have to write to my Ma,” Akash turns red and
busies himself with the boxes.
“What It’s only your first day yet. What are you going to
tell her” asks Shanker with incredulousness.
“Well, nothing much. I’ll just tell her how happy I am to
be working so close to the planes. And that I have made some
friends and got a shack to live in for the time being. And that I
promise to eat my meals on time and take care of myself. And
remind her to take her medicines on time as well. She forgets
very easily. It’s the curse of old age.” A pensive smile appears on
Akash’s face. “And that I am perfectly safe here. She’s scared that
I’ll somehow hurt or kill myself by being so near the big aeroplanes.
That they’ll run over me or something!”
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The boys laugh and for a while they work in silence—
Shanker and the others rapidly with practiced motions, Akash
laborious and painstakingly.
“Hey, rookie! That’s not how you handle this stuff. Watch.”
Shanker whistles and winks at another boy working nearby.
The boy grins and ambles over. Shanker suddenly grabs the
brown case that Akash has kept on the ground, heaves it with a
jerk and sweeps his arms around. And then he lets it fly.
“Hey! Watch out! It looks delicate!” Akash cries out in
dismay. But the other boy is standing by alert to the action and
catches the case just before it hits the ground and eases it down
gently. Akash lets out a breath he didn’t realize he had been holding.
“What clowns you guys are. What if something had broken”
“Nah. Nothing will happen. That’s the only way to move
these big fat cases of the big fat rich people. Otherwise you’ll be
working here till midnight,” replies Shanker nonchalantly. “Now
you try.”
“No way.”
“Oh, don’t be such a pansy. C’mon. Trust me.”
“Are you sure I don’t feel very comfortable with this.”
“Of course. Look, would I want to get you into trouble Go
on. It’s easy. And fun!”
“Well, okay. Hungph!” Akash lifts another brown case
marked ‘Fragile’ and swings it.
Crash!
A thousand glass bottles smash into smithereens.
The world freezes.
Akash’s blood runs cold.
Shanker and his friend bark with laughter.
“You muppet! You should’ve warned which one of us you
were throwing it to! Now you’re going to get it.”
“Hee hee, what a muppet!”
Akash hears the crash in silence. He hears his dream of
flying in an aeroplane shattering with it.
February 2014 73

•
He watches the dancing water gradually become calm
even as he readies to disturb it again. One callused hand fingers
the smooth, round, flawless surface of the second pebble.
At twenty-eight, his eyes, though still young and sharp, are red
rimmed and hooded with crusty lids and small sparse eyelashes.
At the moment they are narrowed and shielded by his shaggy
eyebrows, puckered and closing ranks together against the
blazing afternoon sun. With the other hand he brushes back a
lock of hair soggy with sweat and moisture from the humid air of
Fatehpur. He knows he must be smelling richly by now. His master
made him work extra hard that morning. Perhaps he can take
a quick dip in the river. His dark skin is sheathed with a sheer
patina of perspiration, the corded muscles making little rivulets
run down the contours of his body. He is wearing only a soiled
loin cloth on his body and nothing else.
Akash shuffles into a more comfortable position, making
shallow furrows into the silt as he squats at the banks of the
stream. The mud leaves thin streaks of grime on his bare, cracked
heels. He is gazing at the undulations of the dirty currents when
he hears his name being called out in the distance.
“Aka-aa-sh! Where has that no good wretch got to Oy!
Akash! What are you doing there wasting time Saheb has more
work for you to do. Come back to the mines at once.”
Hurriedly Akash waggles his fingers in the water in a
half-hearted attempt to wash his hands and gets to his feet. A
steaming pile of feces remains behind; its tip peaked off like an
icecream cone’s. As if on cue, an aeroplane shrieks across the sky
overhead from the airfield nearby, and a flock of birds take flight
in alarm, their squawking adding to the din. Akash glances up
at the sky wistfully, then shakes his head and strides away into
the dark yawning opening that forms the entrance of the mines.
He had his chance years ago. His golden opportunity—in Mr.
Shah’s air freight company. And he blew it. He really ought to
stop dreaming of the heavens. His home is now the bowels of the
74 Writing Tomorrow Magazine

earth.
When the blast rocks the quarry, it sends shock waves several
meters away. Loose stones tumble down hills and raise more
dust as men rush in a panic into the cave. There is pandemonium
everywhere.
“Arre, get some water, hurry!”
“Has anybody called the ambulance Somebody call the
ambulance!”
“God, what peril is this! Surely He is testing us!”
“How many are inside”
“Don’t know. Here’s the water! Don’t go in there just like
that! Here, cover your mouth. And watch your step!”
“This is the fourth blast in eleven months! But that tyrant
will still insist on making men work here! May God rot his ancestral
tree!”
“Arre, has anybody taken a head count yet”
“Here come the paramedics, thank goodness!”
“Quickly! Let’s hope some of those poor buggers are alive.”
“You! Go with these doctors. Doctor, don’t breathe too
deeply, okay There may be a lot of gas still in there.”
Hours pass. Families are huddled in terror outside.
Makeshift stretchers from hastily gathered rags are laid out on
the ground. Helpers are standing by at the ready. Small children
run around yelling and playing, unaware that there is something
wrong. The news of the mishap has reached the ears of the media
and a few camera crews with their ubiquitous large microphones
are gathered around like flies attracted to carcass. Now and again,
important looking well-heeled men and women mutter into their
lapels in grave and hushed tones. Some meters away, a scrawny
kid with a bleeding lip peeps out with a mixture of fascination
and horror from behind an old tree. There is not much activity.
Everyone seems to be watching, waiting.
Eventually the men emerge. With broken steps and sagging
shoulders, the black layer on their faces struggling to cover
the pale fear underneath, they carry limp bodies slung over like
February 2014 75

sacks on their shoulders. Of the last such body to come out, the
torso is missing both arms and a leg. It is covered only in a tattered
loin cloth and nothing else.
The next day Akash’s body is returned to his desolate
mother at the other end of the country. The rough wooden crate
carrying his remains jostles for space with designer luggage in the
cargo hold of an aeroplane. His hunger satisfied, Akash is finally
flying.
Devyani Borade writes on the humor and pathos of everyday
life. Her fiction, nonfiction, and art have appeared in
magazines across the world. Visit her website Verbolatry at
http://devyaniborade.blogspot.com to contact her and read
her other work.
76 Writing Tomorrow Magazine

February 2014 77

Still,
when I remember you, it is with a sad shade of nostalgia,
the color of sky just before a storm.
Lightning, April Salzano