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Cranberry Winters Issue 07
From brideb@efn.org Sat Jan 25 15:53:31 1997
Date: Sat, 25 Jan 1997 10:45:37 -0800 (PST)
From: Deborah Bryan/Brian Cochrane <brideb@efn.org>
To: ftp@etext.org
Subject: Cranberry Winters - issue 7
...---***Cranberry Winters***---...
(hidden faces)
Issue 7, Decembre 1996
----------------------
- A River of Thoughts, words from the editor
- _Storyteller_, a story
- _When Tomorrow Comes_, a poem
- _Windows_, a story
A River of Thoughts
8 Decembre, 1996
For your sake, I am fighting off the urge to tell one of the
worst jokes I have ever had the displeasure of hearing. Aren't you
lucky?
Life has been difficult for this editor/student over the two
months since the last issue of Cranberry Winters. I was laid off of
work while attempting to cope with my first term at the University -
a blessed combination, I can assure you. I am still searching for
work, but know that with my wonderful combination of talents, skills
and ability to smile and ask, "Did I do _that_?" I'll have found one
by the time you read this issue of the magazine. (This applies only
for those reading the magazine four months after publication...)
Remember when I mentioned that I was considering printing an
issue or two of Cranberry Winters? I had a job then... But, really,
I will be printing a one-year anniversary issue in February. I will
charge a dollar for this special, if that, and will put quite a bit
of effort into it - graphics and the whole shebang! Drop me a note
if you would like a copy of this special issue.
Ah, back to studying for those cursed finals! Rings circle
my eyes and the side of my face is imprinted into the pages of texts
that have had the pleasure of my sleepy company. Being a student is
such a joy - I don't know what I'd do if I had a life!
I hope you enjoy this issue of Cranberry Winters. Do share
it with your friends...
Deborah Bryan, 18
Cranberry Winters editor
_Storyteller_
4 Septembre, 1995
It looked at her through its one eye, questioning. "And how is it
that you have ended up here, so far from your home?" It hurt her to think
again of her former life, one that she had been forced to leave behind but
could not forget.
"May I show you the images?" she asked it, the sexless somewhat-
human. She knew of their quiet language of the mind, the reason for the
crowded yet silent streets. She was lucky to have found one who could
speak at all - much less one who spoke her language. It made the initial
exchange easier for her; she had never spoken mindwise, as was the way with
these people. Now here was a being who would make it easier for her - one
who would explain things without anger when she was going slowly, having a
hard time understanding.
"Of course, friend." It offered a hand to her, a hand that she
accepted without a thought. She grasped tightly as she thought of the
beginning of the end of the person she had once been, the person Geri who
she had given up.
"This is where it begins, this right here..." her voice trailed
off, and she let the buried images flow forth once more.
---
Here, an image: a child on a swing in the night. Back, forth, back,
forth - her hair flies about her face, and she laughs merrily. She swings
and swings and swings, until she is high up in the air. She launches herself
from the swing now, falling, falling, falling. Just as she is about to hit
the ground, she launches up into the air, shoots past the trees all around
her. Her mother gasps from below, and calls to her. "Geri, come down this
moment!" There is horror in her voice, and also anger.
So little Geri falls down out of the sky, the laughter gone from her
face and her mind. She lands gently on her feet and runs to her mother, who
grabs her arms and pulls her toward her. "Never do that again, Gerin, never!"
Geri looks down at the ground, but her mother pulls her face up once more.
"They'll take you away from me, girl." Geri nods, and puts her head against
her mother's chest.
Blackness. The first memory - so small and yet the cause of so many
misfortunes.
---
It looks at her with compassion, and she sees understanding in its
sole eye. "You could fly," it says in a tone that reflects this understanding
it has found.
"Yes, but that isn't all..." She pulls its mind to hers once again
for the few memories she can muster here, so close to the end.
---
Many years pass in these few moments; there is no need to focus on
these memories - they are irrelevant, only distract from the story at hand.
Here, another memory: she is seventeen now, on her way home after a
hard day of school. She looks beautiful, and tired. She has been studying,
and studying, and studying, making sure she does not lose her status as head-
of-class. There are dark purple and blue shadows under her eyes, but there
is a smile on her face. Two more days of testing, and then a break. It is
a small break - five days, only - but enough time to take her mind off of all
the matters of schooling.
Here she is at the house now. She pulls the door open, steps in. It
is quiet. She finds this odd, but nothing worth a second thought. "Mother?
Mother? I'm home now." She hears no answer, and pauses for a moment in her
ascension of the stairs. There is a tinge of worry in her voice now; her
mother is always home for her when she has arrived, always has something
waiting for her at the top of the stairs.
"Alright, Mum. So you took the day off..." Geri drops her things on
the chair by her door and leaves her room. "Mum?" She thinks she hears
something from her mother's room; she moves to the left of the bannister.
"I know you're here, Mum," she says with a grin. "You've not done this for
some time... Hide-the-Mum. Hmph." Geri passes now a memory within a memory:
when she was a little girl, she had been very fond of sending her mother off
into the depths of their house, and going in search of her. She was very
good at this game, always found her mother within a few short moments. "Okay,
Mum, I know you're in here." She pushes her mother's door open and turns
away. "Oh, no! Mum..." She turns back to her mother's room now, looks
straight on at her mother's body, lying on the floor covered in blood.
A hand grabs at her arm from behind. There is a cold voice, a man's
voice. "Geri; how pleasant. I'm sure you don't remember me, but I'm your
father. Daddykins."
Geri forces herself from the man's grip, turns violently toward him,
away from her mother's corpse. "No, you can't be... Mummy left him behind,
a long time ago."
The man smiles, but Geri can see he is not happy. He is a man who
has not been happy for a long time, perhaps a man who has never known what
happiness is. His hands snap out and catch her wrists quickly, grasping her
there outside her mother's room. He grins. "It doesn't matter. At any rate;
we have been searching for you for a very long time. Now we've found you,
and we can kill you."
"Kill me?" Geri spits out violently. "For what? I've never done
anything worthy of such judgment..." She tries to pull from this man's grip
but can not; he is by far the stronger of the two.
"But you can _fly_," the man who moments before has claimed to be
her father puts a deadly emphasis on the last word, and Geri can hear the
scorn.
Geri has the instincts of a killer; the instincts of her ancestors,
who once all had flown, and fought, and hunted together when things had not
been so easy. She knees the ugly, grim man in front of her, sees the others
climbing the stairs. For last measure, and to make sure that he does not
recover in time to catch her, she kicks him square in the face. There is a
wet crunch as blood falls from his face, and he backs into the bannister,
falls.
Geri turns, runs into her mother's room, steps over her mother's body
with a feeling of unbearable sadness - it has all come to this. She knows now
that she will not be coming back, not again, not ever. Her mother's body will
be tossed into some rotten hole in the earth and forgotten about. She smashes
her mother's closed window, jumps up on the sill. Without a moment's thought,
she is dropping from the window - dropping, dropping - now she rises, once
more above the tress. Even in the years since she has last flown, the memory
has not escaped her. No memory escapes her; this is also one of her many
gifts.
She closes her eyes and thinks bitter thoughts now. These are not her
gifts - they are her enemy, her curse. Why had she not been born like all the
other children, the ones who could not fly, were happy to walk on their two
feet, or crawl on their hands and knees in younger days? Why not have been
born earlier, before the jealous settlers had moved in, those condemned to
miserable two-foot life?
Such speed in the air; already she is leaving, passing the boundary of
her country. She has no choice but to leave, has had no preparation, knows
only a little of what to expect. Her studies remind her of what could happen
to her if she stays - death by fire, starvation, slow decapitation, torture,
anything - for the fact that she has killed, and now that she has flown. But
her studies serve her well; she remembers the multi-colour maps of the two
discovered countries well - geography was her strong suit.
Geri flies for a long while, searching for some small break in the
woods that would serve well as a place to sleep. At long last, she sees a
meadow of sorts, and pulls down to the ground, landing softly with weary feet.
---
"Many more irrelevant memories..." Geri explained as she rushed over
piles of memories of a new country, a new life in a forest unfamiliar, with
simple people who were content to giver her food and shelter in exchange for
her occassional help.
It nodded, and pulled the fragile Geri to it. Geri leaned her head
against her newfound friend, feeling the warmth and kindness of its large
body.
It passed to her an image; Geri laid out in the bed that they sit upon
now, at peace for the first time in so long a time. "Quickly," it warns. "I
would like to hear the rest of your story; it is part of why I have helped
you."
A story-teller and a medicine man, and the most wonderful friend that
Geri has had for years now. She forgot that her story was in exchange for
something she has desired for a long time now, told the story simply to have
someone to share at least a small part of her pain.
"Hold on only a little longer, child." His presence is soothing.
Her story is coming to an end.
---
The memories begin again, the last time that the putrid images will
play through her tired mind.
Here, in the forest that has become her home: a man, a man unknown to
her or her adopted family of sorts. He is much taller than the others of this
country, taller even than her.
"I know of you," he says. "I can see who you are, and what."
Geri stops with her chopping and looks up. "Really?" she questions
without interest. Even here, hidden in the trees, she and her family have
been visited by a stream of oddfellows, wanderers.
"I am telling you to leave, Geri; men from your country have come here
in search for you. Though we will not hand you over willingly to them, they
are looking for you. They want to kill you, judge you. So do the people of
this country. It is a game now, Geri; they are hunting for you."
"Who are you?" Geri demands of this ragged blonde man.
"A man very much like yourself, wanting to help a beautiful friend
from a fate not suited to her." The man launches himself suddenly through the
blanket of the trees, leaving her no time for questions.
She hears this man from somewhere, she knows not where. "Hurry, dear
one; I could come no sooner and they are not far." Now the man is gone, gone
for good.
She hears the sound of feet against the fallen leaves; she looks about
in fear, drops her axe. Raising her hands to the sky, she mournfully departs
from what she had hoped against all hopes would be her home for her remaining
years, into the sky, where she believes she might always find relief.
Many trees, so many that she can no longer tell one from the other.
And then, a glimpse of something else, something not green, nor orange,
purple, yellow.
It is a tower; she has reached the third country. Her stomach is
tearing apart, she is in desparate need of food. She meets with the ground
again, lurches, falls to her knees. Her face rests in the many-coloured
leaves of the autumn.
She lays there on the ground for a long while, not able to think or
to move.
Then, a voice. "A child." She is rolled over, onto her back, where
the humanlike creature may look better at her. "Ah, she has travelled." It
brushes her dirty red curls from her face, nods. It can see in her pain, so
much pain for a human so young.
It is alone at this edge of the forest; it lifts her into its arms
and carries her to a place not far away, on the edge of a village quite
foreign to her.
Here it gives her food, food such as she has never tasted before. She
feels stronger, gives it thanks. She knows not to be frightened of this
one-eyed near-human.
When she wakes on her third day with it, she is met by the nameless
one-eye who has helped her. She knows not what else to call it - she knows
from her former studies that they do not have names. She can not deal with
this, and so he becomes One-eye.
"Child," he speaks fluidly, and grasps her hand. "I would like to
make a deal. It is a very good deal; I would only like your memories, in
exchange for something I think you have perhaps wanted for a long while."
It floods her with calm, and she can see the deal that it desires is
indeed very much to her benefit.
"Agreed," she says, and closes her eyes.
---
Geri puts her head in One-Eye's lap now. It knows the rest of the
story; it is part of it.
The medicine that he has given her - she can think of no other word
to describe it - is affecting her strongly now. Her thoughts are slipping
away from her, her memories, her being; all gone. At any other time, it might
be frightening. But not here, not with One-Eye, her best friend of a lifetime
and of only three days.
"I'm here, little one, I'm here," One-Eye whispers, over and over, as
Geri takes one last look at his pleasant face and closes her eyes one last
time.
---
There is a fire back behind this little house that was Geri's for a
few short days, and a crowd of One-Eyes sits and watches, paying respect to
the woman who it honours.
The One-Eye that Geri knew holds out a hand; all murmuring stops.
Here, an image of a young girl swinging... the crowd is quiet as the
story begins.
---
The One-Eyes pay their respect to the storyteller, and bow a final
time to the two fires that have burnt out this night.
---
The storyteller has done his job; this is the story that he will be
remembered for, forever.
He kisses the warm ashes, and is the last to turn away from this most
beautiful, precious story.
Her story is not lost; in this telling, she will be remembered
forever, and her strength and beauty remembered by these people who she had
never known, but who knew her more than anyone else had ever tried to.
These people, these strangers, were in the end her family.
_When Tomorrow Comes_
29 Octobre, 1996
When tomorrow comes
I will smile
I will laugh
I will remember
but I will not be brought down
by pain
When tomorrow comes
I will kiss yesterday
goodbye
I will wave at the future
But my heart will be
in the present
_Windows_
23 Octobre, 1994
As every other day that Brian walks by the house, he sees the girl
staring out the window. Today, she looks out over the sky, her attention
visibly drawn elsewhere. Brian wonders briefly who this girl is, and yet
really does not care in the least. She is striking, this lonely girl who
always is sitting at her window, but has no direct affect on Brian's life
nor his plans for law school and marriage to (with an abnormally vivacious
sex life, to be sure) Sarah Lee Blayton. So he walks by, awaiting football
practise in a couple of hours. Brian would never think of playing football,
yet a number of his friends do, and it's always fun to watch the coach
scream. (Of course, Brian attributes the coach's temper to sexual
frustration.)
At home, Brian greets his younger sister, gives her a noogie despite
her protests, tosses his bag into his room, and departs. He first scrawls a
note for his father -- "Pop - back by eleven. Brian."
For years he has had a habit of walking through the woods after
school, for a moment's peace and a moment's silence, and he has no plans of
giving this up. So he crosses through his neighbor's backyard, not surprised
to hear her customary threats about trampling her garden, crosses Almaden
Street, and heads up the bike path until the branch at which he can simply
turn and enter the woods. He wanders over a path that exists solely in his
mind after years of roaming through the forest, and whistles.
He remembers a statement his father once made, "your mother once
told me that whistling was a sign of laziness." Brian wasn't sure whether
she had meant it jokingly, or whether she had been serious. He didn't know
his mother, didn't have a chance, really, after she died in childbirth, and
didn't know what context the quote was taken in. He didn't let it bother
him anymore, and let his mind wander once again.
For whatever reason, he thought of the girl at the window, the one
who he had never talked to, and probably never would. He wondered why he
had never seen her outside of the old house, and why she would bother to
spend so much time up there in an attic. As for Brian, his attic was a
frightening place. No home up there for anything with the exception of
rats, spiders, and rather interesting varieties of fungus and abnormal life
forms that he was sure existed solely in his attic.
At one point, he stopped, looked up. And much to his shock, there
was the girl, sitting in a branch, surely not sturdy, observing him.
Brian asked crossly, "What are you doing up there?"
The girl made no comment, simply jumped down from her branch.
Smiling impishly, she gave him a kiss on the cheek. "I want to show you
something."
Brian's first instinct was that this girl must be a bit off the
whack. Of course, she wasn't altogether too horrible in the face or body,
in fact rather beautiful, and he thought of what he might say to his friends.
"You'll never believe who I got in bed ..." Then stopped to question himself
as to whether any of his friends would ever have seen this girl.
"Uh, yeah ... what?"
The girl crouched down and started scraping dirt away from the bottom
of the tree. Her skirt was getting rather dusty, but Brian had a feeling she
already knew that.
In a moment, Brian could see a dim light shining from the base of the
tree, and his curiousity was aroused. He knelt next to this strange girl and
peered at the source of the light. As the girl continued to scrape, the
light shone more brightly. And then, so quickly as the light had appeared,
it was gone. Brian peered at the girl, now looking at him, and asked, "what
was that?"
"Oh, just a trick. Would you like to see something real, though?"
The ground broke open then, consuming Brian while all he could see
was the girl, hovering slightly away from the opening. And then even that
was gone, and he could see no more in the presence of such a blinding light.
Brian openened his eyes now; he could see only a meadow. A number
of people were gathered across the meadow, wearing festival clothing and
making so much noise that his ears hurt even from his point across the
meadow. He rose, slowly, and journeyed across the meadow. Immediately, a
number of eyes turned toward him. The music stopped. With it, Brian stopped.
"Who are you?" Brian yelled with frustration, met with smiles and a nod here
and there.
"Why, I am Death," said one young girl.
"So, too, am I death," exclaimed an elderly man, waving his cane in
the air.
"We are all Death, you see, and we are pleased to make your
aqcuaintance."
Brian understood then that he was dead now, and joined in the
festivities, feeling that there was nothing else that he could possible do.
There wasn't even time to weep as the crowd encompassed him, and
no time to say goodbye to the familiarity of life.
"This is death, sonny. Y'll get used to it after a while. Just
'member, tho', it coulda been worse. Right now, ya could be peelin' taters.
It wouldn't seem right bad at first, but after the first couple thousand
years, ya'd get bored!" The old man clutched his stomach with laughter.
"Boo!" shouted the little girl as she darted past him, and Brian
wept.
-----
There were a boy and a girl up there, playing some sort of game at
the windowsill. Susan stopped for a moment to stare at them, and then
hurried on when for no particular reason, the boy and girl turned their
attention to her, and began to laugh.
And laugh.
And laugh.
It was all they could do to ready themselves for their meeting with
Susan at the river in only an hour.
"Oh, just think of the fun she'll have!" cried the girl.
Hand in hand they looked out the window. Brian paused only for a
moment as he reached out, thinking of all the things that could have been.
But weren't.
--------------------
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brideb@efn.org.
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Thank you for reading!
