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Cranberry Winters Issue 02
From brideb@efn.org Sun Mar 2 08:49:19 1997
Date: Sat, 6 Apr 1996 07:17:30 -0800 (PST)
From: Deborah Bryan/Brian Cochrane <brideb@efn.org>
To: ftp@etext.org
Subject: Cranberry Winters, issue 2 (a little late...)
...---***Cranberry Winters***---...
(hidden faces)
Issue 2, March 1996
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
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_A Note From the Spoiled Mass_
5 March, 1996
Editor Deb speaking -
We now interrupt this program to bring you the second issue of
Cranberry Winters (hidden faces).
Your host is Deborah Bryan, 17-year-old hopeful author, person
suffering from extreme quantities of stress, dishwasher and sophomore.
Sophomore at Lane Community College in Eugene, Oregon, that is.
Yesterday, my now-fiancee proposed to me and - as you can tell
by the wording - I accepted, gladly. I can only wonder how my parents
will react.
The thing is, though, that they are not living my life and not
feeling what I am feeling. Should I please them and spend my life in
agony, or should I do as I would like to do and let them be upset with
me? On top of this, I have been supporting myself for the last six
months.
I am opting to let them be upset with me. I have dealt with
them for years, the sometimes obscene things they have done to me, and
I think it's time to be me and do what I want to do.
harobed
_Chicken Leg Prank_
Ben Ohmart
she'd come home from supporting me
on my ass, i'd eaten everything she loved
i had no excuse and my guilt could fill in Mad Lib books
but i'd do it again tomorrow, because i didn't know why,
until i could never change
_Rita Mae_
4 March, 1996
Deborah Bryan
"When you was a itty-bitty baby, I was so proud of you. You was almost
like my own daughter." Rita Mae laughed, self-conscious, until the
breathe left her and the heat rose to her face. "Ain't that just the
funniest thing? You whiter'n a daisy and me about the colour of the
midnight sky." This time she did not attempt to laugh; the pain was
too great for her to bear.
Tears streamed down Jane's face and she pressed Mae's hand against her
wettened cheek. "Oh, ha," she managed. "Ha ha ha." There was no room
for laughter here next to the deathbed of her best friend and - despite
differences of colour that would have been hard to ignore - the only
woman she could ever call "Mother."
Rita Mae rolled her head toward the window and watched the willows dance
in the summer wind. "I remember your mommy and daddy, sure do. Not much
about your daddy to remember, only his suits and his way of ignoring that
day in favour of the next.
"Oh, and he loved women!" Rita Mae smiled and her eyes glittered. "Your
mommy thought she could get him to settle down by marrying him. Didn't
do her no good.
"One time your daddy was gone on one of his trips and he called your
mommy. No telling what he said but her face turned red and she hung up
then and there.
"Didn't see your Daddy again. I asked your Mommy once if she knew where
he was and all she said was that she had took care of him and went back
to her painting."
Rita Mae turned toJane again and said, "Ain't nothing your daddy was good
at nohow. Only thing he ever did worth a thought was help your mommy get
pregnant." Rita Mae grunted.
"Your mommy, i could never forget her. You prolly don't even remember
her, she died when you wasn't yet five or six.
"She hired me before you were born to take you from her and raise you
however I felt proper. Done a mighty good job if I say so myself." Rita
Mae now closed her eyes and said, "Janey, it's time you got along. I
gots to get going."
Jane moaned and clutched Rita Mae's hand more tightly. "What's come over
you, girl? Get on out of here!" Rita Mae pulled her hand from Jane and
rolled with effort away from Jane. "When you get back to your house, call
the manager and have him check on me."
"Alright, Mom," Jane whispered. She turned and moved to the door, hoping
all the while that Rita Mae would call her back.
Rita Mae did not call her back, but as she stepped through the doorway
Rita Mae said, "Take a look at your mommy's paintings for me. Almost
somethin' magical about them."
Jane shut the door and ran from the house, agony consuming her.
*
Allan was upstairs fixing dinner for Jane, thinking that Jane might need
some time to relax after hearing news of the death of her "mother." He
laughed as he stirred the noodles, amused by Jane's perpetual childishness.
Rita Mae's death meant nothing to him - he had never met her, despite
Jane's pleas.
In the basement of their old house, Jane carefully memorised the details of
her birth-mother's paintings. Most of them appeared to be no more than
various shades of light pinks, blues and purples emanating from hazy central
images.
Jane sighed and rose to her feet, stretched her numb legs. She saw nothing
wonderful in these paintings, nothing even remotely magical.
She stepped over a small pile of paintings and started climbing upstairs.
She caught a glimpse of a large plastic back between the stairs and she
turned back down the steps, her curiousity aroused by this solitairy bag.
Another of her mother's painting. She could feel the texture of the canvas
through the thin plastic.
She pulled the painting from the plastic and was immediately enamoured of
the painting. Rita Mae was bounding across a field, the sun beating down
on her youthful figure. Small figures danced around her, the shimmering
figures of hundreds of tiny figures. Rita Mae's head was tossed back in
laughter.
Tears welled up in Jane's eyes. She could not remember having seen Rita
Mae this happy and now was overcome by a desire to turn time back, to
help Rita Mae have a different life, a lift not filled with day after day
of work.
In the bottom right-hand corner of the painting Jane saw small print.
Peering at it she could make out her mother's signature and the title,
"Rita Mae."
Jane stared at the painting minute after minute until, suddenly overcome
with a desire to join Rita Mae, if only for a minute in her imagination,
she began to stroke the painting. Her eyes lose focus and she could see
Rita Mae in the distance, Rita Mae so happy she nearly glowed.
Soft grass gave way under her bare feet as she ran toward her best friend.
"Rita Mae! Rita Mae!" Rita Mae turned and, seeing Jane, spread her arms
out for a reunion with her daughter.
*
Allan Grier lives alone in the house he once shared with his fiancee Jane,
still sometimes wondering why she left him and where she has gone.
In the basement there lies forgotten a painting titled "Rita Mae and Jane."
_Untitled_
Justin D. Lewis
I don't know
why rain is so often
associated with tears.
The rhythmic chatter
Warms my heart
And takes me back
To growing up.
In bed, awake
Below the light
Of the blurry street lamp
And the soothing banter
Of droplets meeting plastic
Telling me stories
Of wind and water and of Earth.
Singing me to sleep.
_An Alternate Death_
5 June, 1995
Deborah Bryan
The woman sits cross-legged on the burning sand, wooden barrel confined
within the space between her legs. She does not blink, does not move an
inch. She stares at him, burnt and scarred, simply stares.
"Would you like some water, child?" He does not see her mouth move, but
he hears her. So clearly.
He tries to speak, tries to respond, but it is futile. His mouth is dried
out, his tongue swollen. How badly he wants her water, to drink some more
as he tries to find his way out of this wretched desert.
She understands, though he has not spoken. She raises her hand in warning,
for what reason he does not know. Ah, the thirst! It is driving him mad.
"Be warned, child, each swallow takes a year from your life." Her long blonde
braid sways about with the breeze and her face remains passive.
He nods - how he needs the water! She takes off the plug and hands over the
barrel, not moving from her seat on the desert sand. He gulps the water down
without thought, not caring to count as he gulps it down. The later years of
his life vanish with each gulp, vanish quickly with each of his hurried gulps.
How wonderful the water feels running down his insides! He swallows the
water, swallows, swallos.
She observes what he does not notice or feel: as he drinks, his skin turns to
dust, to sand, everything falling away till he is nothing more than sand
amongst a sea of sand.
A smile passes briefly over her face, then fades. It is better this way,
she reminds herself. Better this than the hunger, the thirst, the pain
that would have become his existance. She kisses the sand where he once
stood then rises again. She turns toward the sun; steps once toward it, now
twice.
Her figure, covered in black, trailed by long, blonde hair, now begins to
fade. Now she is translucent ...
... and now she is gone, as though she had never existed.
_Fire & Ice_
26 Septembre, 1995
Deborah Bryan
There is fire in her heart
burning out at times...
Until someone thinks to light it again,
placing with purpose each twig and limb,
or carelessly tossing their lives' journals in
Till the fire burns hungrily, ceaselessly.
And there is ice in her heart,
winter ravages her emotions,
memories
She wanders the frozen remnants,
touching slowly, closing her eyes,
backing away at times
from things too hard to bear
The snow crunches under her red, cold toes
She wraps her arms over her breasts,
shivering, stepping wearily
over broken dreams
There - a small light
she pulls one arm from her breast
Reaching for a light
That perhaps doesn't exist
It is beyond her reach,
this fragile light
Now she stretches out both armys
Reaching with all the energy she can muster
The light blinks,
fades away,
and she curls up in the hardened snow,
her tears streaming, sliding
over the glittering white dust
that spans an eternity
...silence...
then
the soft patter of feet on melting snow
as of faerie's wings fluttering by earside
a gentle hand
on her frozen body
now, warmth,
as the stranger wraps his body around her,
his face on her back
he brings life to the near-dead
and she rises -
not healed,
but able at least to walk on the soft grass
and to share the bitter days
of the past
and someday to leave them there,
in the past
------------------
To contribute, mail
brideb@efn.org or Deborah Bryan
1859 Jefferson Street
Eugene, OR 97402
To receive this monthly, mail
brideb@efn.org
You can find my webpage at
http://www.efn.org/~brideb/Deb
Thank you for reading!
