Hope

hope is a pigeon

smoke-feathered

living on scraps

and lies

hope flutters and coos

and is filthy

with human

effluent

hope does not love

hope knows hunger

fear

and the hatred of all

oh to take wing

through smoggy skies

fly to a high perch

and see the sun rise

A Letter to an Astronaut From His Wife

Are you alone up there?

Is it beautiful?

Do you remember our wedding day? You said you would love me until death. I think about that sometimes, late at night when you're not there because you're up there. Or is it down? I forget.

The children are fine. Will you be up there to see their birthdays, I wonder. Will you look down on us from orbit and think of us?

Until death do you part. That's a hard thing to think about on your wedding day. I think most people just ignore it as part of the ceremony. After all, no one wants to spoil such a happy day thinking about how it'll end.

Your mother was here the other day. Brought over some flowers and a casserole. I don't suppose they eat casseroles in space, but we enjoyed it. She put crushed potato chips on top like she said you like. Then she almost broke down. She misses you.

There's not much more to tell, really. The begonias are blooming well this year. Roger Deakin, you remember Roger, said they looked pretty as a picture. Can't think of what picture you could paint that had begonias and space, but I thought of you. How you love begonias. That's why I planted them. You haven't seen them.

I guess I'll be going now.

No,wait. I love you. I loved you from the moment I saw you. I didn't want it to ever end, that moment. But everything ends.

When you go by overhead, the kids and I look up sometimes. Not that you'd know, up there.

I wish I'd gotten to say goodbye.

He's very kind. Roger. You'd like him.

I bet it's beautiful up there where you are. Cold and lonely and beautiful.

This is our parting then.

When the man came to the door, you know... He said you were a hero. He said that to the kids. That you'd saved lives. How we could be proud.

I read up on it. Your orbit will decay and you'll burn up, eventually. They don't know exactly when. And that'll be the end of it. A tiny point of light for a moment, and then nothing.

Did you think of us at all? A hero's death, and not a thought for the widow and children? Did you hesitate one second? You selfish... I didn't even get a burial, a plot to weep on, a single shred of you to hold close...

No. It won't end like that.

I love you. The children love you. But it's time. Time to look away from the sky, for them to grow up without your specter overshadowing them. Time for me to move on. I'm sorry.

Is it beautiful? Tell me it's beautiful up there. I'd like to believe that.

Those Roses

I saw Bigfoot one time. He was reading a copy of Cosmo in a convenience store. Then he bought three packs of Marlboro Reds, a can of Diet Coke, and one of those little roses in the test tubes. Gave me a nod on his way out, I guess just to say, "Hey, thanks for not making a big deal about seeing me."

I wish I'd gotten his autograph, but I didn't have anything to write with. The cashier said she sees him in there every couple of weeks. I guess he's got a meth problem because no one buys those little roses in the test tubes for any reason other than smoking meth around here. His teeth looked okay though. Maybe he just liked the look of it.

They shut that store down after it was gutted when the hotdogs started a grease fire. Haven't opened up another one. I wonder where Bigfoot scores his meth supplies now.

The Hungry Deep

They went down to the sea, and some of them came back again. The ladies of the town knew the waves meant riches for some and doom for others, and they discussed it in their kitchens with each other, weary with the work of keeping house and family in the long months it took for the men to return, or not to return, as was often the case. But some of them came back again, and it was foolish to believe your man wouldn't be among them.

The boys and girls, wearing tattered clothing handed down over seeming generations of their forebears, would run and play in the surf, careful of going too deep and attracting the anger of the ones who lived on below. Many of them had fathers or older brothers who had been taken into the dark crush, who waited now, forever hungry, for their children, or their children's children, to stray too far out and join them. It was just the way of things.

A fair lass or lad might be said to be touched by the sun, but in the dreary shanties on the water's edge, where the families of the divers lived, a different, darker word was muttered. "Shaped by the deep," they whispered of any child dark of mein, which was vanishing few, truth be told. And yet there were some, who differed from their peers in their pale skin and jet-black eyes, who were thought, by the superstitious, to be specially suited to the deep. And who, living at water's edge, was not just a little superstitious?

Maggie Malone's father had gone down to the sea so many times he was an old man when she was born, old before his time. That, said the ladies in their gossip, explained his daughter's form. That he had joined the hungry beneath the waves shortly thereafter was further proof that she was defined by the deep, by the crushing depth beyond which no one dared go. But Maggie, for all her outward appearance, was a sunny child, and if there were whispers, they were quiet ones.

She grew to womanhood, looked after by mother and grandmother, as so many children of the drivers were. The boys would eventually be called to go down to the sea like their fathers, and some would return, enough to keep the population of divers steady, enough to swell the coffers of far-off financiers in far-off capitals of business. The girls would wait, growing older, raising children alone, or together as the case might be, as who among them didn't have a relative or two to share the burden? Maggie was no different than any girl, and it was assumed that she would choose a man, back briefly and gone again too quickly, to be her husband, perhaps give her a child or two, if he was lucky in the deep.

The whispers surrounding her rose in volume as she continued to shun this obvious duty. It wasn't as if no man offered. Even those shaped by the deep, as it couldn't help but be said she was, found suitors, and Maggie was a comely young thing for all her complexion. She greeted each proposal with polite attention but always responded in with a firm negative.

"She'll be an old maid," her mother, the widow Malone, thought, shaking her head sadly. And what was there for a woman alone? It wasn't as if Maggie could hope for something better. No one living at the water's edge had any hope of better. Since time immemorial, the men went down to the sea, and the women waited, and the children grew old and everything smelled of fish.

But Maggie seemed unperturbed by her fate, which was, if the scolds among the ladies of town were to be believed, to be alone forever and die when she had no one to support her. Maggie, it must be said, was unperturbed by many things, so the mutterings of the scolds were unlikely to change that.

What turned the mutterings to shouts was when, one day, Maggie showed up to the work detail about to go to sea, wearing her father's old gear, her charcoal hair shorn close to her scalp like a man. So much like a man was she that her presence at first went unnoticed, until the foreman was counting heads. Even then, she didn't speak up, and it was some time before it was established that she was the new man.

"A woman has no place in the deep," scowled the foreman, already counting the cost of the delay. "Go home and wait, there's a good lass, and leave the men's work to the men."

"I have no man to wait for," said Maggie.

"Then perhaps you should be thinking of that, and not wasting my time with this nonsense."

"Where is the law which says I cannot go?" 

"No law," admitted the foreman, after thinking a moment, a costly moment. "But button your lip and go home all the same. We can't abide your nonsense. There's no facilities for women aboard, and we'll be months out. Think what it'll do to you, lass. We can't stop work for you."

"I don't ask for any different than a man," Maggie said. "And I know my work, same as you. If I were a boy, I'd be a new hand, and so I am one."

But the foreman, thinking of columns of figures rather than people, denied her entry to the ship and there was nothing she could do to make him listen. It was the same with the next party, and the next, until the company put a guard on the pier specifically to turn Maggie Malone away. And that guard's wages had to come from somewhere, or so the ladies of the town said to the widow Malone, in voices which were not quite demands but certainly not requests.

"Maggie, the men go down to the sea," said the widow Malone. "If you want to help them, you'd be best to do the work you can do. Maybe you can mend jackets or some such like. You've no business bothering them."

"But..." began Maggie.

"Maggie, I can't have half the town on my kitchen badgering me for you to leave well enough alone," said her mother firmly, in a voice in parts pleading and forceful. "You'll stay away from the pier, there's a good lass." And no more was said.

Maggie stopped her attempts to join the work details as they shuffled down to the sea. She joined her mother in mending, widow's work to be sure, but it seemed that Maggie was to be a widow before she was a wife. Her hair grew back, slowly but surely. The guard grew lax and then vanished, as the bottom line had to be served. And all seemed to be normal.

But Maggie, in her free moments, walked the shore, and no one could quite fathom what she did. If anyone cared to watch her, she seemed aimless, picking up bits of detritus from the tide line, sometimes stopping to stare for minutes at a time. If anyone listened, they might hear snatches of an odd tune, but who had the time to observe what a strange young woman did in her free time. The suitors dried up, as it seemed fruitless to bargain with her, when all she ever said was no. The ladies of the town only cared that she had found some meaningful employ. No one thought much about her, apart from occasionally finding her odd.

Sometimes the widow Malone would go to her daughter's bedroom at night and find her missing. Sometimes, the next day, Maggie smelled particularly of salt. But the life of a widow is not so idle as to allow for much time for worry, and anyway Maggie always explained that she had been walking on the beach. Sometimes her hair was still damp, but who noticed such things when there was mending to be done?

Children were warned not to go too deep, because the hungry ones below would surely claim their own, but superstitious or not, one grew out of such fancies. So the day that Maggie went down to the seashore and kept walking into the surf, no one was there to watch her. It may be that she strayed out too far. It may be that something called to her. It may be that that's all a bunch of old nonsense, and that tides are tricky things, even for experienced swimmers.

When Maggie didn't return, her mother was sad, but in a lifetime of sadness, what's a little more? There was mending to be done, and after all, folk had been going down to the sea and not returning for time out of mind. She put her grief to the side and only took it up late at night, when all the lights were out and there was no one to judge her tears. She did the same as all the women had been doing since the town was formed, since before that, even, for it is woman's fate to wait and worry and grieve.

And when the hungry deep disgorged its inhabitants on the wider world, and the far-off financiers in their far-off lands trembled at their ledgers, who can say whether Maggie Malone was at the head of the host, a dark fury wreathed in seaweed, eyes like the storm? Who lived to have seen it and report? After all, a woman has no place in the deep.

The Theme of the Park Is Safety

They said you had to be a big man to ride The Wild Walrus down at the pier, where the carnies were uglier than a pack of dogs crammed into a burlap sack and the sodas were spiked with strychnine because the governor said it improved the children's morale to be mildly poisoned. The Wild Walrus was a rollercoaster only in the most charitable sense of the term. It had cars and a track and it went fast. The cars were repurposed trolley cars from the old line that used to run down to The Giggle Factory before it was closed down for dabbling with the Black Arts. You'd probably suppose that the track was also from the trolley line previously mentioned, but it was, in fact, repurposed from the sewer line which used to serve Mortimer's Rancho Deluxe, before that was closed down for failure to pay its sewer bills.

But The Wild Walrus certainly did go fast. The carnies achieved this by the judicious use of lard and lax safety protocols. Some people whispered that the Black Arts were also involved, but the carnies swore up and down that they were good, God-fearing folk who would never, and that was good enough for the governor.

One time, Merton Frink rode The Wild Walrus and when he came out, his hair was pure white. When he went in, his hair was pure white. So you might think that nothing had happened, but what had actually happened was that Merton Frink's hair had turned pure white in the moments leading up to his decision to brave The Wild Walrus. Such was the power of fear. Merton Frink swore off drink and moved to Lhasa to become a monk, but he flunked out of the academy and returned home, tail between his legs, to his wife and five children, who hadn't noticed he was missing.

One time, Hilda Greene-Wyznowski walked past The Wild Walrus and spontaneously gave birth. She hadn't been pregnant before she went down to the pier, and while folks whispered about the degeneracy of the carnies, they swore up and down that they were good, God-fearing folk who would never, and anyway, Hilda was 87 years old and the baby to whom she gave birth was a cocker spaniel, so it was rather miraculous on a number of levels. Such was the power of fear. Or possibly walruses. Hilda named the baby Walter, which seemed apt, and three days later Walter graduated junior college and became a chiropractor.

You may doubt these tales of The Wild Walrus' power, but they were among the many reasons why they said you had to be a big man to ride The Wild Walrus. I'm not entirely sure why the size of the man was relevant, or why the carnies insisted at the gate. It seemed rather bigoted to me, as a small child who wasn't particularly big.

When I got older, I sued the pier for discriminatory practices and got them to amend their requirements to, "You've got to be a big doofus to ride The Wild Walrus," which I felt was more fitting, since The Wild Walrus maimed and killed hundreds of people every year, most of them having sneaked onto the ride to circumvent the discriminatory requirements previously mentioned. Maybe they should have worn safety belts. I don't know. I don't make the rules.

Well, actually, I do. Hi, I'm Greg Reginald, owner and operator of The Happy Funtime Pier Extravaganza: Now With Fewer Carnie Bites! Come on down. You'd have to be a big doofus to miss out on the newly revamped Wild Walrus, now with safety belts! Also, vote for me for governor!

Aquatic Matrimony

When he told her that he was married to the sea, she thought he meant it figuratively. Sadly, Captain Brevard was not a figurative man. He was married to the sea quite literally.

It had happened by accident, not by design. He'd taken his boat, The Red Lord, out for one of his regular cruises. He offered a run around the harbor and down to Monday Island, so called because the townsfolk had long ago decided that life was too short to give descriptive names to everything. The day they decided was a Monday, and to celebrate they renamed Elm Island, which had been named back when the town was founded by a man who had no idea what elm trees looked like. There wasn't a single elm on Elm Island, and it had stuck in the townsfolk's craws.

Captain Brevard had taken this particular cruise to Monday Island at the behest of a couple who, unbeknownst to him, were eloping. They knew that the town charter forbade any captain, boat or ship, from performing marriage ceremonies in the harbor, but through an odd quirk allowed those ceremonies and sanctified them within 100 yards of Monday Island. The town charter was a mess.

However, while marriages could be legally performed by captains within 100 yards of Monday Island, the captains of the town refused on principle. It was a union thing, some agreement with the union of marriage officiants or something, its reasons lost to the mists of time. So the couple had had to be circumspect when hiring Captain Brevard.

They hired Captain Brevard specifically because he was an inveterate drunk and a gambler and it was said he'd do anything for money. Once The Red Lord was within the 100 yard boundary, the couple plied Captain Brevard with spiced rum and promises of cash and found him a willing conspirator in their elopement. So willing was he, once plied with the aforementioned spiced rum, of which there was a dangerous amount, that upon marrying the couple, he promptly declared his intention to marry everything on the boat to some other thing. The life jackets were married to a coil of rope. The bilge pump was married to a seagull which happened to land on the bow. And so forth.

It must be said that the eloping couple had consumed several celebratory portions of spiced rum upon completion of the original ceremony, and that led to several more, and while Captain Brevard consumed far more, he was as has been said an inveterate drunk and so had built up a tolerance unmatched by the young eloped couple. Suffice it to say that they were willing participants and even encouraged Captain Brevard in his rash pronouncements of marriage upon all and sundry.

At a certain point, so the legend says, The Red Lord ran aground on Monday Island itself, whereupon Captain Brevard commenced marrying rocks and trees, none of them elm. The young couple were to the point of inebriation where one can no longer cause one's legs to support one's weight, but they carried on cheering the various ceremonies for a while before lapsing into blissful unconsciousness. And thus it was only Captain Brevard who was witness when he finally ran out of things to marry to other things, sobered up slightly, and realized that he was unbearably lonely.

Several days later, after returning to the dock and calling the still-slumbering newlyweds a cab, Captain Brevard swore off drink and declared his undying love for the sea. They had a small ceremony, just him, the sea, The Red Lord, a random seagull, and the random seagull's plus-one. It's said that it was quite beautiful, if slightly bittersweet.

So if you see a man, haggard from years of loneliness, sitting at a bar drinking lemonade and wearing a captain's hat – if you see that man, no matter how attractive you might find him, know that he's taken. He's married to the sea.

Also, there are a lot of trees on Monday Island which are cheating on one another.

A Missing Family Photo Involving Ugly Sweaters

Gordon Chancery Farquhar Cavendish Thorne IV, Esq. was not the sort of man one kept waiting. Lord Simon knew this, just as he knew that Thorne was likely to sew him up into a burlap sack and dump him into the Thames for this insult. But Lord Simon didn't quicken his pace. He strolled through the late afternoon sun, tipping his hat to passers-by, remarking on the pleasantness of the weather with the doorman, even going so far as to take the lift rather than hustling up the stairs, though it would add several minutes to his travel time.

Lord Simon had just discovered Gordon Chancery Farquhar Cavendish Thorne IV, Esq.'s secret, and he reveled in it. The man was a boor, an upstart of the lowest water, and Lord Simon, with his centuries of landed breeding and the power that only old money could bring, couldn't stand commoners who rose above their appointed station in life. Thorne was one of those, and now Lord Simon had him in the palm of his hand.

Lord Simon was thinking these thoughts, relishing each and every anticipated moment, when his choice to take the lift rather than the stairs, product both of carefree stubbornness and sloth, came crashing down on him like the roof of a device used to transport passengers between the floors of a building without recourse to stairs when said conveyance has dropped from a great height. Ironically, the roof of the lift did the same thing moments later as the cable snapped and sent the car plummeting to the bottom of the shaft.

That's where I come in. The name's Jack Dawson, and I'm the Chancellor of Detection for Her Majesty the Queen. Whenever a toff snuffs it under mysterious circumstances, Her Nibs calls me. When it's too delicate for the bobbies, I'm first on the scene. When Scotland Yard's blood isn't blue enough, I get a jingle.

Unfortunately in this case it turned out to lack of safety inspections and a poor maintenance record. And to top it off, Lord Simon hadn't departed this mortal coil alone. I had to tell the wife of the poor lift operator that he wasn't ever coming home again. Two young kids. It really got to me.

I took a few days off to wash the taste of splattered gentility out of my mouth with a lot of cheap gin. I wound up down the docks at a joint which could only be charitably described as a pub. And it was there that I met Baron Tristan von Deckler, inventor of the transmemrograph, a steam-powered device which allows one to transfer the conscious thoughts of a corpse to paper. Which I promptly used on Lord Simon to complete my report to HRH. She likes dotted eyes and crossed tees. And I then used Thorne's secret to help HRH settle some business with him, though I'm not at liberty to say exactly how.

Anyway, an experience like that makes a man realize that life is fleeting and death is no reprieve from the ills of the world, so the Baron and I destroyed the device, realizing that it was tampering in places man dare not tread. And then we fell in love and got married and adopted two Lithuanian orphans, and we're all doing just smashingly. You really should stop by if you're in the neighborhood. We'd love to see you.

Merry Christmas from the Dawson-Decklers!