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Cranberry Winters Issue 01
...---***CRANBERRY WINTERS***---...
(hidden faces)
Issue 1, February 1996
------------------
DINNER TABLE (of contents)
- Statement of Intent (commonly called the 'letter from the editor')
- _Wind_, poem
- _A Child's History_, short story
- _Carin_, short story and awful attempt at humour
STATEMENT OF INTENT
Month after month I have promised myself that I would start this
(maga)zine, and yet only after a spontaneous idea that I should throw it
all together this morning is it figuratively climbing to its feet.
The Net is indundated with 'zines on every topic from every small
town in existance, each editor trying to make a statement or, Goddamnit,
at least be heard even if there is no statement to be made. Do I think
that I can make mine special, interesting enough so that I can get more
than a sigh of, "Oh, another 'zine?" I think I can BUT I also think that
it will take more than one issue, one morning, to reach that point.
In this issue I have a couple of older stories and a rather old
poem, all some of my favourites (though not necessarily the most
well-written). In the future - heck, even by the next issue - I hope to
have included the works of other writers.
So, take a look, tell me what you think.
To contribute, send stories/editorials/poems/random thoughts to
brideb@efn.org or phil@io.com .
--Deborah Bryan, 17, hopefully future author
_WIND_
if only
i could hear
your musical voice
just
one
more
time
_A CHILD'S HISTORY_
12 Septembre, '95
Mummy had been so involved in her magazine she had hardly even missed
him. In fact, she hadn't noticed he'd been gone at all. She'd probably seen
all of the children playing there in the sand - on the merry-go-round, or the
slide, or swinging merrily on the swings - and thought that Adam must be over
there somewhere.
He hadn't been, really, but he jumped back into the playground and
began to jostle the other children as though he had been hard at play the
whole while.
Minute after minute of boring gamery passed by until his mother placed
her magazine in her purse and called to Adam. "Adam - time to leave." Adam
tried his very best to look extremely disappointed, and continued to bother
the younger, smaller children, as he usually did when Mummy tried to drag him
from the playground.
"Adam, you come here right now." Adam continued to play, waiting for
Mummy to quite literally come and drag him, screaming and kicking, from the
playground. When he did not interrupt his pummeling of the younger children,
or destruction of their small sand fortresses, his mother pounded across the
sand and grabbed hold of his small wrist. "When I say come here, I mean _come
here_. I don't mean that I want you to stay and play for another three
minutes, or an hour." Adam started to kick at Mummy as she dragged him across
the sand, wailing and attempting to bite her with every chance he got.
"You quit that, Adam, or there'll be no dinner for you!" Mummy's face
was beginning to turn bright red, something that always amused Adam. He quit
with his tantrum and watched his mother change colours, from pink to red to
white again. He felt quite calm now, and climbed into the car with no excess
prodding from Mummy.
On the short ride home, he stared out the window in silence, thinking
of his meeting with May, and of the things she had promised him.
He just had to keep quiet about it with Mummy. He didn't think he
could do that, but he was going to try his best.
---
Mummy finished with his bedtime story and gave him a kiss on the
forehead. "Sleep well tonight, dearest." Father echoed her sentiments from
the hallway. "Yes, yes, sleep well, Son."
Adam couldn't restrain himself. "Mummy - you know where I'm going
tonight?" Mummy stopped at the door and turned around, a quizzical look on
her face.
"No... where are you going?" Mummy looked confused now, so Adam began
to tell her where he was going.
"Well, May promised me that I -"
"May? May who?" Mummy had a habit of interrupting him before he
could even finish what he was saying.
Adam fidgeted with a corner of his blanket impatiently, rolled over to
face his mum. "Well, she looks like Sam, but she's not. But she said I
was going to be a king, a real live king, and that I could eat all I wanted
and ride horses and swim whenever I wanted, and not have to go to sleep at
8:30 every night, anytime I want..." Adam trailed off, as he couldn't
remember what it was that Sam had promised him anymore. And Mummy looked
worried.
"Where did you see this May?" Mummy didn't waste any time.
Adam blushed, pulled the blanket just a little bit closer to his chin.
"She waved at me from the trees at the playground, so I wanted to see who she
was. She told me I could be king, and that she's going to take me away..."
Adam realised that he shouldn't have said anything now, looking at Mummy's
face, and quieted.
Mummy was pale now, so pale she could almost blend into the wall, if
she were to suddenly become two-dimensional. "She told you that she was going
to take you away?"
"Uhm... I can't remember." Adam pulled the cover up so that it
tickled the tip of his nose. He wanted Mummy to go away now, and quit asking
him questions. He wanted to go to sleep, and when he awakened, be a king as
May had promised. She had said she'd take him away in his sleep, so that he
wouldn't have to deal with the tiresome journey.
"How convenient," Mummy muttered to herself, standing there in the
doorway, light from the hallway haloing her hair and making her seem very
pretty all of a sudden, almost like an angel. "You're sleeping with me
tonight, Adam..." Mummy resolutely marched across the room and pulled the
covers away from Adam's bed.
"Mummy!" Adam whined, wanting more than ever for Mummy to just leave
him alone. Mummy scooped his light seven-year-old body from the bed and
carried him across the hall to her room. Adam could hear the television in
his father's room, probably the news. His father was a very boring person,
to Adam.
Mummy set him down on his feet next to her bed and pulled the covers
away. Adam climbed into the bed and laid down next to Mummy, who wrapped the
covers tightly around the both of them. "You may be sleeping with me for a
long time, Adam," Mummy whispered as she drifted off to sleep.
Adam sighed, closed his eyes, and fell to sleep thinking of castles,
princesses, and sweet, blissful gluttony.
---
Shauna, done with the day's chores, set her weary body down on the
couch, ready to flip through the channels for something interesting enough to
take her from her troubles. Oh, and what troubles they were! She didn't know
how long she would need for Adam to sleep with her, but she certainly couldn't
keep him there for much longer. She could imagine what the other children
might say to her dear son, how they would taunt him. "Adam still sleeps with
his mom! Baby! Baby! What, do you think there's a monster under your bed?"
Those children were malicious, certainly, particularly being so young.
Shauna sighed, rubbed her eyes. Feeling a sudden urge to cry, she
put her head between her knees and began to breathe deeply, in and out, in and
out. "Everything will be all right, everything will turn out wonderfully, and
May will go away... leave Adam alone." Adam hadn't seen May yet for a couple
of weeks, but Shauna wasn't certain that she could trust this as a sign of
acquiescence.
"Kashayana." Shauna's head jerked up at the sound of her long-unused
name, in a language that had after so many years grown foreign to her.
There, a tall young woman, on the coffee table. Shauna did not
question this person's silent entrance; she knew who she was, and could guess
easily how she had got there. The young woman looked passively through her
forest-green eyes, but spoke angrily.
"I must have my brother, Kashayana." Shauna shook her head, softly at
first and then with unmistakable hatred, not of this girl, but of her quest.
"No. You shan't have him," Shauna breathed harshly, face feeling
as though it had caught on fire. She imagined that her eyes might pop right
out of her head any moment now.
"Aren't you even going to ask why I need him so before you turn me
away, Mummy?" Shauna closed her eyes. She did not need this reminder. She
kept her mouth closed, tightly.
"No. I don't care. I've left you behind, you and that whole rotten
kingdom." She was speaking fluently, as though she had never quit speaking
this language, her native language.
The girl, May, nonchalantly flipped one leg over the other, so that
she was sitting as was proper a young woman of her status. "Well, I'm going
to tell you anyway. I'll keep it down; I know you've got pressing matters to
attend to." May grinned malevolently, and began to speak rapidly, without any
sort of emotion showing in voice, gesture, or expression.
"Your other son has grown sick, too sick to be cured. We can not do
anything about this; I am not strong enough to heal him, and I am the
strongest of all healers, and the most experienced. It has been foretold that
he will die, and I was the only one able to think of a solution.
"I only knew of his twin brother, the one you had taken away with my
twin sister." May quieted for a moment. "My sister who has gone on, I know
not where. I will never see her again..." Her gaze turned away from the
ceiling to her mother, eyes ablaze. "The people must not lose faith in the
power of the king and of the gods, and so I said I would come here for his
brother, who is very similar to him, though with different customs and
tongue."
Shauna did not know what to say, and sat in silence for moment after
moment. Finally, she said, "I left it all behind; I was told you would leave
me alone when I came here, to this world. I was _promised_." She spoke
bitterly of this promise, for it had been broken and she had been forced to
live in agony for months now. "I gave you up; I gave Asrial up. Is that not
enough for you? Why can you not take power, and say that it is because your
brother is too young, and that you have sent him to another kingdom until he
has grown more?" Her eyes began to blur with tears. Three children lost to
her, and now one being pulled away. "I can not let you have him; he is all
that I have anymore."
May looked sympathetic, reached for her mother's hand. Her mother
pulled away, not wanting to feel the touch of the daughter who had chosen to
let her go forever, at the youngold age of seven. May shrugged. "I
understand this, Kashayana. And this is why I brought something in exchange.
I will take these memories, memories of our - my - kingdom, your children,
and replace them with memories of one who has lived their life," May paused,
spoke with scorn, "here." She spoke persuasively, almost blinding Shauna.
"No more pain, Kashayana, none. Just a simple life of a wealthy fool."
"I do not want my past to be lost, daughter. There is pain in it, but
it is my past. And you will not take my son. That is all. Leave, now."
The young woman raised her hand as though to hit her mother. She
could easily hurt this woman, this tiny woman who had let her go so short a
while before, her mother who had left her behind. Little choice; stay here,
the place of birth and childhood, or go to another world, live a foreign life
there amongst strange, cruel people. Even at seven, she had been wise enough
to choose for herself. Her mother had born strong, willful children, all four
of them. She stopped herself, berating herself silently. This was not the
way of healers.
"I have offered you this. You have rejected my offer. Remember this
in later years, when pain is all that you have." The girl, thirteen years and
eighty all at the same time, stepped away from the coffee table and right into
the air, disappearing midstride.
Now Shauna could not help it. She leaned her head against the table
and cried. There was nothing she could do. Nothing.
But she would fight, as well and for as long as she could.
---
There, a child too young to notice his mother and siblings in the
corner; mother hunched against the door frame, in tears, sister defiantly
yelling at her mother. In one arm, his mother held a child. In another,
she gripped her other daughter's wrist.
He went about his playing, gurgling and babbling to himself as young
children do, amusing himself with finger, toes, and the best dolls in all of
the kingdom. Somehow, the dolls weren't quite so much fun, but sometimes they
made a good substitute.
Now, a man in deep blue robes hurries into the room, muttering
apologies and excuses. "Sorry to have kept you waiting so long, milady, but
I have been busy with other matters..."
"I don't care!" his mother screams at the man. "Just take me away,
take me away as quickly as possible!" She is tense; she can feel that her
husband is ascending the steps even now. She does not want poor Asigman to
feel the wrath of her husband for obeying her wishes; he must have time to
die before her husband can reach the room. He has made it, somehow, as none
of it is understood to her, so that once she is gone, he will die. No
ceremony, a simple death. Such a kind man, Asigman. She would love him
always, even though no one else would blink upon word of his death.
Asigman nodded. With a kiss to her forehead, she and two of her small
children were gone, to a world she had never seen but had heard Asigman tell
many stories of.
No coming back, ever, that was the promise. There would be no way
that any of them could come back now that they had left.
Asigman, Asigman; forever offering things he couldn't give only to be
kind.
After they are gone, a handsome man steps through the door. "Where is
my wife?" the man demands, black hair falling across his face.
Asigman opens his mouth, attempting to speak, but Death takes him, and
he is gone even as the words try to free themselves.
---
May sits next to her dying brother, stroking his sparse red hair with loving
fingers. A tear falls from her eye; she feels helpless, knowing there is
nothing she can do to stop him from leaving her.
"Don't worry, Asrial. He'll be here soon enough."
She smiles, kisses the feverish boy on the forehead before leaving
him only with guard and bed.
She hurries down the steps, skirt flying about her sandalled feet.
She runs through the kitchen, past the hard-working slave-women, nearly flying
to the spot where she has buried her father's ashes. Such is the way of the
noble men; to die and become part of the earth who has given them up for only
a brief while. Back to the Mother.
"Father... I will have got him in just a little while." She kissed
the ground, let her hair fall over the dust and leaves, the tiny twigs that
made home of the ground. "And mother has hurt as much as you have, all things
are even." She imagines a playground now, and a little boy. Only a little
while, indeed. She runs back into the castle, darting once again through the
noise-filled kitchen and on up the steps to her brother's room.
"Asrial, Asrial, be well only for a little while." She hugs his frail
body to her, and pictures the little boy who is so much like the brother she
has known for all of her life.
In a moment, the bed is gone.
Their world is gone.
Now, a world of pavement, pollution, and metal that moves, carries
people around like slaves.
A slight boy on the sidewalk, dancing merrily and singing to himself
on his way home to Mummy. He stops, seeing May, and this boy who looks so
much like himself. "May?" he asks timidly, and she smiles.
"Yes, Adam. Are you ready to be king?"
He nods excitedly, jumping up and down with enthusiasm. He's been
ready for a long time.
"Just one quick task to take care of, that's all." May holds the two
boys two her, hugs them tightly.
Here is a bedroom filled with dinosaurs and dragons, models of airplanes
that Adam has painstakingly put together over the last months.
"Asrial, you need to play Adam for a little while, alright? And you
need to give this young lad your clothing." May turned away from the young
boys who awkwardly undressed and exchanged clothing, looking at one another
all the while.
"Asrial, lay down." Asrial obeyed his older sister, unable to think
of anything but the comfort of bed, of not having to stand.
For a few minutes, Adam tried his best to sink into the wall. May
held her younger brother and sang softly to him, until suddenly his body went
limp. She kissed the boy whose body would not be dealt with properly, and
held a hand out to Adam.
"It's time to go, Adam."
---
Now, a young man courts charming princesses in a world that has long been his
home. He deals sometimes with pesky things - holds who would like better
security, countries who wish to be allies, fighting the occassional madman who
claims that the king is not really the king at all, but for the most part
simply has a jolly old time, as all young lads should have.
---
But there is, in another place, a woman whose face is permanently streaked
with tears, whose losses are too great to be shared with any other.
She wishes, oh, how she wishes, that she had accepted May's offer; this would
not be her life. To no avail; this is how it will be, here in her room in the
attic day in and day out, until Death has mercifully claimed her.
As it had claimed her son, the ailing son traded for the brilliant, lively
son, down in a bedroom even now decorated with dinosaurs and airplanes.
_CARIN_
18 June, '95
Carin turned and looked at Jay, sitting behind her in the car, grinning.
"You know, I'd bet that rose bush would hurt as a bed."
"Uhm, yeah. I think you're maybe right."
"Do you ever think, as you're falling asleep, of cheese graters on your
genitals?" Carin resumed staring out the window, a near-permanent blank
look on her face; feigned innocence. One might think she was an angel
if they were simply looking at her, not having the benefit of her odd,
off-centre conversation. Jay was certain she was crazy, and he wondered
how she got her license. Especially considering she had a tendency never
to actually look at the road.
But she was alright as a friend. She already had a job, an apartment, a
car. Quite handy in times of need.
"No, I don't. I just ... fall asleep."
"Are you gay? I'm gay."
"Uhm, sure. But, no, I'm not gay. I'm engaged, remember?"
"To me?" Carin began to hum, tuneless monotone. Jay hadn't heard her
hum or sing anything besides.
"Not to you, Carin." Jay closed his eyes and leaned his head against
the seat.
"That's good. You can't be engaged to me, because I'm a lesbian."
"Do you have a girlfriend?"
"No, but I have a cat. Her name is Kiwi." Jay remained silent.
Carin turned to her friend next to her, the one that Jay couldn't see
but was keeping him out of the front seat. "I'm sick of driving, you
silly girl." Carin pulled the car onto the shoulderof the road and
stopped, got out of the car. Jay sighed and leaned his head against
the rear of her seat in resignation. He had a feeling he wouldn't be
getting anywhere for quite a while, and he'd be doing some explaining
to Caroline. "Well, my drive was crazy, you see," he'd say, and then
they would walk into the concert an hour late. How's that for class.
Relying on a crazy woman for rides. Jay felt pretty bright, as he
often did.
Carin opened the door for her nameless invisible friend and climbed
in. "You should make sure your seatbelt is buckled, friend. She's
a crazy driver, miss Karen is."
The engine suddenly roared to a start and they were off. Jay felt
lost now, watching the wheel turning all of its own accord.
What was I saying about Carin being crazy ... no, I mean, I have
something to tell you, dear Caroline. I'm quite crazy. I don't
think you'll ever marry me now. Amd if you do, dear, I think you
are crazy ... Jay felt slightly ill, lost in thought.
"So, Carin, when did you meet miss Karen?"
"She's my twin." The scenery was speeding by now.
"Oh. Why can't I see her."
"I don't know. I can't see her because she doesn't exist." Carin
laughed and started tapping her fingers on the dashboard.
"But she's driving."
"No, she's speeding." Carin turned around and pinched his cheek,
her face flushed. "'You just don't understand, Jay!' Isn't drama
fun? I used to think I'd be an actor. But now I'm not. I'm a
waiter. Waiting and waiting and waiting, but I don't know what
for, because nothing's happening for quite a while. I should just
hang loose, don't you think?"
"Oh, yes, Carin, whatever you say." Jay closed his eyes and tried
to fall to sleep, hoping that those ten minutes would pass quickly.
===
"Caroline, dear, may I move in with you?" Jay looked out at Carin,
waving from the passenger seat as the car pulled away from the curb,
and prayed that Caroline would allow him to share the apartment.
He wasn't sure he could handle Carin or her crazier twin Karen
anymore.
--------------------
To contribute, mail
brideb@efn.org or phil@io.com
To receibe this monthly, mail
phil@io.com
You can find my webpage at
http://www.io.com/~phil/
Thank you for reading!
