Author’s note: ‘The Last Whistle in the Meadow’ is a richly layered, atmospheric short story that explores memory, isolation, and the ineffable bond between man, land, and beast. Told in a meditative tone with impressionistic detail, the narrative orbits around Rahman Kak, an enigmatic, solitary herder who commands an almost mythic reverence in a Kashmiri village for his uncanny control over cattle and the rhythms of rural life.

At its core, the story is not just about pastoral rituals or rural routines—it’s an elegy for a vanishing world and a meditation on habit, loss, and quiet resistance. Rahman Kak emerges as a figure rooted in the landscape, as gnarled and weathered as the willow trees that surround the meadow. He represents an older order, one in which human and animal instincts are synchronized through unspoken ritual. The recurring motif of his whistle—low, uncanny, almost supernatural—serves as a symbol of this mysterious bond and lends the story an almost magical realist hue.

Violence simmers beneath the surface throughout. The meadow, behind the mosque, becomes a silent arena of ritual combat—not between men, but bulls, whose primal clashes reflect the unvoiced tensions of the community. The villagers, complicit spectators, seem to hunger for spectacle, for distraction, for drama—until it spills over, literally, into blood and broken trees. The story critiques this desensitization through the metaphor of the “orchard bleeding”—a moment where nature suffers because of human indulgence.

Behind the village mosque lay a forgotten wedge of land. To one side, the road curled like a drowsy serpent; to another, the mosque’s whitewashed walls stood sentinel, their peeling paint whispering of decades past. And on the third side, the apple orchard hunched, its gnarled branches heavy with fruit that glowed like stolen embers in the dawn light.  

This was no ordinary patch of earth.  

Every morning, as dew retreated from the blades of grass, the villagers came. They drove their cattle forward—great, snorting beasts with flared nostrils and restless hooves—until the air thickened with dust and the scent of warm hide. Then, the gathering began. Old men with tobacco-stained teeth, wide-eyed children balanced on hips, women with their shawls pulled tight—all lined the road like spectators at some ancient, bloodless coliseum. And the bulls, sensing the audience, obeyed some primal script. They clashed, their horns locking with a crack that echoed off the mosque’s walls. Sometimes, a stray hoof sent a bystander sprawling; sometimes, a furious charge splintered the orchard’s fence, sending apples thudding to the ground.  

And then, just as the chaos threatened to swallow the morning, he appeared. Rahman Kak.  No one knew when he had first begun this ritual, just as no one dared ask why the cattle obeyed him. He emerged from his hut—a crooked silhouette against the rising sun—his face carved into a grin that didn’t quite reach his eyes. In his right hand, a stick, notched and polished by years of use, swung like a pendulum. Some claimed he had whittled it himself, shaping it with the same knife he used to cut meat into small pieces. Others swore it was something older, something found.  

Then came the whistle.  

Not the shrill call of a shepherd, but something lower, stranger—a sound that slithered between the beasts’ ears. The bulls stilled. The cows lowered their heads. Even the dust seemed to settle, as if the earth itself held its breath. And with that, Rahman Kak would turn, his stick tapping against his thigh, and lead the herd away—toward the meadow, toward the mist, toward whatever secrets the grass hid from the rest of them.  

The villagers would scatter then, murmuring. But no one ever followed.  

Rahman Kak was in his early sixties—or so he claimed one evening, as we sat beneath the gnarled arms of the ancient willow nursery that stood like a silent guardian at the edge of the grass meadow. The trees here were old souls, their leaves murmuring secrets in the wind, and it seemed fitting that he would choose this place to occasionally unspool a rare scrap of his past. Not that he ever gave much. Even his age felt like a concession, tossed out carelessly, like a bone to a dog.  

He was a man of rigid uniformity. Through the sweltering summers, he wore the same ash-coloured Salwar Kameez, its fabric daubed with the stains of years—mud, sweat, and something darker, something that might have been blood. On his head perched a discoloured white cap, its edges frayed, its fabric sun-bleached to the pallor of old bones. It never left him. Not in the noonday heat, not in the lashing rains, not even—villagers whispered—in sleep. Had anyone ever seen him without it? No. And those who dared to imagine what lay beneath found their thoughts skittering away, uneasy.  

Time had not been kind to him. It had carved three deep furrows into his forehead, trenches where the dust settled like an old curse. On scorching afternoons, you could see it, the grime mixing with his sweat, trickling down in slow, dirty rivulets, as if the earth itself were weeping through him. His body was a paradox: thin, wiry, yet humming with a restless energy that defied his brittle frame. His eyes, small and perpetually wet, seemed to retreat deeper into their sockets with each passing year, as though they were afraid of what they had seen.  

And his face—ah, his face. If you told me, you had seen him smile, I would call you a liar. His cheeks were barren, his mouth a slash of weathered leather. The villagers knew him for his temper, for the way he would square off against anyone—man, woman, even the imam’s eldest son—over some perceived slight involving the cattle. His shoulders would hitch backward, his drooping head snapping up with sudden, venomous pride. Then came the stick—always the stick—lifted and balanced across his shoulders like the yoke of some invisible burden. His words would follow, a torrent of guttural, spiteful syllables, half-lost in the rasp of his breath. No one could decipher them, not at first. It was only at the end, when his voice would fray into something raw and weary, that the meaning would claw its way to the surface:  

“You think I’m a school-bus driver?” he’d snarl, the stick trembling in his grip. “That I should drop your cattle at your doorstep like spoiled children? You can’t even manage two beasts, and I—I have the whole herd to answer for.”

And just like that, the fight would drain out of him. His shoulders would slump, his head would bow again, and he would turn away—back to the cattle, back to the meadow, back to whatever silent understanding he had with the land that the rest of us could never share.  

Every morning, behind the mosque, the earth remembered violence.

It began with a shift in the air—a restless snort, a hoof scraping dirt like a blade being drawn. Then two bulls would lock eyes, their massive flanks trembling with coiled fury. When they collided, the impact shuddered through the crowd like an electric current. The villagers erupted—curses, whistles, laughter—a cacophony that only fed the beasts’ frenzy. The dust would rise in ochre clouds, the spectators’ faces contorted into masks of glee, their voices raw as the bulls rammed horns, their muscles glistening with sweat and defiance.  

Then came the day the orchard bled.  

The fight spilled beyond the trampled circle, the bulls crashing through the frail fence like it was parchment. Apples rained down, their flesh bursting against the soil. A woman, her hands still caked with earth from tending the saplings, let loose a scream that cut through the chaos. She cursed the crowd, the owners, the very bloodline of the beasts, her voice a serrated edge of grief. But the villagers only grinned wider. What were a few broken trees to them? The spectacle was worth the cost.  

Only Rahman Kak could unravel the madness.  

A single whistle—low, dissonant, more vibration than sound—and the bulls froze as if yanked by invisible chains. Their rage dissolved like smoke in the wind. The herd, moments ago a seething mass, now stood eerily still, ears twitching toward that sound. Even the dust seemed to settle in reverence.  

Then he would emerge—or rather, the dust would release him. Some days, the swirling grit swallowed him whole, leaving only the faint outline of his stick, a scythe cutting through the haze. The stench of dung and heat never seemed to cling to him; it was as if the particles themselves feared to invade his lungs. Had the dust fossilized inside him over the years? I wondered. Did his veins run with silt instead of blood?  

His rituals were unvarying. Under the willow trees, their branches trailing like skeletal fingers, he’d take his lunch—always alone, always in silence. But first, he’d lead the herd to the stream that ribboned the meadow’s edge. The cattle drank with an almost ceremonial slowness, as though the water carried whispers only they could hear.  

And it was there, in the dappled shade of those ancient willows, that I first spoke to him. The air smelled of damp bark and something older—something like patience, or perhaps resignation. He didn’t smile at my greeting. He only stared, his teary eyes reflecting the leaves above, as if he’d already seen this moment, and every moment after, and found them all equally fleeting.  

When the weight of the world grew too heavy, I would slip away to the willow nursery, a book clutched under my arm like a talisman. There, even the most corrosive philosophies—Cioran’s bile against existence, his elegies for a godless universe—softened into something almost tender, as if the land itself whispered counterarguments through the sighing leaves. The meadow became a self-contained cosmos, the distant hills pressing close like protective shoulders. Time dissolved. The breeze was a perpetual murmur, threading through the willows’ restless branches, a sound so constant it seemed the trees were breathing.  

Birds were the only calendar the place acknowledged. Winter’s grip might lock the stream in ice, but never silenced them—their songs simply changed key, trading summer’s bright trills for the sparse, crystalline notes of survival. Over fifteen years, I’d memorized the willows not just by sight, but by touch: the gnarled one near the stream whose bark split like an old man’s knuckles; the young sapling that bent as if listening. When loneliness gnawed at me, I’d recite to them—Lear’s ravings into the storm, Whitman’s barbaric yawps—and their leaves would shiver in response, a standing ovation of shadows.  

Then came the day Rahman Kak spoke.

The sun hung white-hot overhead, the meadow shimmering like a mirage. His wife arrived as always, her spine curved under the wicker basket balanced on her head. She served his lunch beneath the willows—flatbread, a smear of curd, the clay bowl emptied in one practiced tilt of his throat. I watched from my usual perch, a dog-eared copy of German Idealism splayed across my knees (a relic scavenged from Srinagar’s Sunday Market, its pages smelling of damp and disregard). When she retreated to gather firewood, I seized my chance.  

“Do they ever speak back?” I asked, nodding to the willows.  

Rahman Kak’s head snapped up. His bones seemed to shift under his skin, quick as a snake’s musculature. For a man so gaunt, his energy was unnerving—a live wire barely insulated by flesh. He studied me with those sunken, liquid eyes, and for a heartbeat, I feared I’d crossed into some unmarked territory. Then he wiped the curd from his beard with a slow, deliberate swipe.  

“You hear them too,” he said. Not a question. An indictment.  

The air between us thickened. Somewhere in the branches above, a bird let out a cry like a laugh.  

“This place has an amazing ambience.” My voice sounded too loud against the willow’s whispering leaves. “It would be so gratifying to pray here, away from the villagers. Tell me, Rahman Kak—do you ever pray beneath these trees?”

The hookah gurgled between his knees as he leaned back against the willow’s ribs, its bark etching grooves into his spine. “No.” A blunt word, sharp as the snap of a twig. “Too many things crowd my mind. Or perhaps—” he puffed, the tobacco’s ember flaring crimson, “—I’ve simply grown accustomed to absence.” 

Thick smoke unfurled from his lips, curling into the dappled light like phantom prayers. His eyes—small, black, glinting with some indefinable victory—never left the burning bowl. It was as if he’d long ago scorched away all capacity for self-reproach.

“When one knows a thing is good,” I ventured, “shouldn’t he strive to change? Even habits can be unlearned.” The words tasted hollow. The willow above us shuddered, as if amused.

Rahman Kak exhaled slowly. “Prayer is good. Like water. Like air.” His calloused fingers traced the hookah’s stem. “But to make a thing your lifelong companion? That requires habit. And habit—” his teeth flashed in something not quite a smile, “—is the cruellest jailer of all. It takes a catastrophe to break its chains.”

“You mean… only a tragedy could make you pray?”

For the first time, his gaze flickered—not with sorrow, but with the cold precision of a man who’d measured his own abyss. “What greater tragedy remains for me?” The hookah bubbled, a wet sound like distant weeping. “Only her death. My wife. If she goes first, the silence at lunchtime will kill me faster than hunger.” 

He tilted his face toward the branches, where sunlight and shadow waged their eternal war. “Better we die together. Right here. No graves, no separation—just the willows to cover our bones.”

The horror of it should have wrung tears, cries, fists against the earth. But Rahman Kak merely tapped the hookah’s ashes onto the roots, as if feeding the tree his regrets. His tone was that of a man discussing crop rotation. 

Yet in that moment, I understood: his love was fiercer than faith, deeper than devotion. And it terrified him. 

“I heard you had quite the shouting match with Karim Kak last evening,” I said, steering the conversation toward safer ground—if village feuds could ever be called safe. “What sparked it this time?”  

Rahman Kak’s lips curled around the hookah’s mouthpiece, sucking in a long, seething drag before answering. “See, boy, my life is a parade of petty tragedies—none worth changing my habits for. But the greatest tragedy of all?” He exhaled smoke like a dragon dispensing wisdom. “The bottomless stupidity of these villagers. They treat me like some school-bus driver, expecting me to deliver their precious cows to their doorsteps. Yesterday, Karim’s cow trampled his neighbour’s turnips, and who gets the blame? Me. That man’s a gifted idiot. If angels descended to teach him, he’d argue with them about the colour of their wings.” He barked a laugh, the sound rough as a saw on wood. “The calves in my herd have more sense than him.” 

His lampooning was a performance—boisterous, venomous, yet strangely joyful. It was as if he relished the absurdity of his tormentors.  

“But this village stubbornness—it’s a habit too, isn’t it?” I pressed. “Doesn’t it take something catastrophic to break collective stupidity?”  

“Nothing will break them,” he said, waving a gnarled hand. “Their minds are like warped timber—no carpenter could straighten them. You know the saying: A dog’s tail stays crooked, even if you bury it in gold.” Then, with sudden sharpness, he curled his finger into his mouth and let out a piercing whistle. The herd, which had begun to stray, froze as if yanked by invisible reins.  

“But the cattle obey you like soldiers,” I marvelled. “Have you ever… taught them this way?” 

A slow, knowing grin spread across his face—the first real smile I’d ever seen from him. “Ah. Now that’s a story.” He leaned back, the willow’s shadow striping his weathered skin. “But I don’t know if you’ve the patience for old men’s tales.”  

“Try me,” I said, shifting closer. “I’m listening.”  

He nodded toward the far edge of the meadow, where a towering wall of poplars stood sentinel. “See those trees? They weren’t there when I first brought cattle to this meadow decades ago. Beyond them lies another field—larger than this one—where the next village’s herd grazed. A narrow canal marked the boundary, and for years, neither herd crossed it. Their caretaker would bring his animals to our stream at noon to drink, and for years, it was peace. Then one day…”  

His voice dropped, and the air itself seemed to lean in.

“Then came the unlucky day.” Rahman Kak’s voice dropped to a gravelly whisper. “A bull—black as a storm cloud, horns like scimitars—charged into my herd. Not for territory. Not for dominance. For her.”  

His knuckles whitened around the hookah stem. “He’d caught the scent of a cow in heat, and madness took him. My cattle scattered like leaves in a gale. I ran after him, my stick cracking against his spine—thwack! —like striking iron. When I finally drove him off, he turned. Looked at me.”

Rahman Kak’s eyes glazed over, seeing it again. “No animal’s gaze should hold that much hate. It was human. Demonic.”  

“The next morning,” he continued, “he came for me.” 

A dry laugh escaped him. “I was young then—fast as a hare. But that bull? He was vengeance on hooves. I barely reached the willows in time. Clung to the branches like a sinner to prayer as he raged below.” His fingers mimicked the bull’s horns, gouging the air. “Tore up the earth like he wanted to uproot the very tree. And that… that became our ritual.”  

The hookah’s ember pulsed as he inhaled, painting his face in hellish light. “Every. Damned. Day. That caretaker laughed—said the bull had ‘spirit.’ Spirit!” He spat the word like poison. “I stopped sleeping. Lay awake, sharpening sticks, plotting. A noose? Too slow. Poison? Coward’s way. Then—”  

He leaned forward, the willow’s shadow slicing across his face. “—I remembered the old story. The one about the djinn who haunted these meadows long ago. They say he took the form of a bull when the moon was dark.”  

A chill skittered down my spine. “You don’t believe that… do you?”  

Rahman Kak’s smile was a blade. “Belief doesn’t matter. Only survival. So, I made a plan.”  

“That night, the idea came to me—clear and sharp as a knife,” Rahman Kak said, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial growl. “The next morning, I enlisted a band of cricket-playing boys to haul a river-smoothed boulder to the willow. It took all of us—grunting, heaving—to wedge it between the branches, a sleeping vengeance waiting to fall.”  

His eyes gleamed with the memory as he mimed the act, fingers splaying open. “When the bull came, I let him rage beneath me, let him gouge the earth like a fool. Then—” He brought his fist down in a swift arc. “The rock fell. A thud like the sky splitting. His horns—those cursed crescents—shattered like clay. For a heartbeat, he swayed, dazed. Then he fled, not like a beast, but like a thing unmoored from this world.” 

A guttural laugh burst from him—short, sharp, more bark than mirth. He seized his stick and drove it into the earth, once, twice, as if hammering the bull’s defeat into the soil. The hookah’s coals flared as he prepared it anew, the smoke twisting into the willow’s leaves like escaping spirits. The gurgle-gurgle of the waterpipe filled the silence, a sound that always made me wonder: How could lungs that breathed such darkness still house such life? 

“The next day?” He exhaled, triumphant. “That demon hid his face in the herd. When I stepped close, he ran—like a coward, like a man.” His grin was a sickle-moon. “Animals learn. But villagers? Their minds are rot.” 

He stood abruptly, hookah still dangling from his lips, his spine unfolding like a rusted hinge.  

“You smoke too much,” I blurted as he turned to leave.  

He paused, glancing back. “Worried about my lungs, eh?” A chuckle. “Every puff of smoke is met by a thousand breaths of this meadow’s air. Balance, boy. Like all things—” He tapped his temple. “—it’s habit.”  Then he was gone, his figure dissolving into the golden haze, an old Kashmiri tune trailing behind him—words half-swallowed by the wind, as if the land itself refused to let them go.  

*********

Years unspooled like a fraying rope. I won admission to university, and the willow forest—with its dappled light and whispering leaves—slipped from my daily rhythm. Occasionally, in the sterile buzz of lecture halls, I’d wonder: Was Rahman Kak still herding cattle beneath those same trees? Did his hookah smoke still curl into the branches like unanswered prayers? A friend assured me he lived, though age had gnawed at him. “Thinner. More bent. But the stick still swings,” he said.  

Then, in my second semester, the call came.  

Autumn had painted the meadows gold when my brother’s voice crackled through the phone: “Rahman Kak is dead. Found in the woods.” The line hissed with static, or perhaps my own held breath. I left campus without a word, the bus ride home a blur of tunnelled vision.  

The village had already gathered. Men washed his body behind the mosque, their hands moving with ritual gentleness over the sunken ribs, the furrowed forehead now smoothed of its storms. But it was the cattle that undid me—their lowing that day was a sound I’d never heard: not hunger, not fear, but grief. Some refused to graze. Others vanished into the forest shadows and didn’t return by moonrise, as if they’d gone to mourn in ways we couldn’t fathom.  

Time, indifferent, marched on. I earned my master’s degree, traded ink-stained notebooks for a teacher’s chalkboard. Meanwhile, Kashmir fractured. The air thickened with rumours—boys crossing borders to clutch rifles, midnight raids dragging sons from their beds, the Ikhwan’s boots kicking in doors. In the schoolyard where I taught, children played hopscotch over cracks shaped like gun barrels. At night, mothers counted heads at dinner tables, their silence louder than the curfew’s sirens.  

And through it all, I’d catch myself staring past the classroom window, toward the distant haze where the willows once stood. Rahman Kak’s stories had died with him, not with a bang, but with the slow suffocation of a people too besieged to listen. His stick, his hookah, his bull’s revenge—all swallowed by an age where even the land seemed to hold its breath, waiting for a deliverance that never came.  

Two more years. The conflict had teeth now.

It gnawed through everything—homes, orchards, the very bones of the village. The Ikhwanis ruled like feral kings, their guns rewriting laws written in the soil for centuries. No one dared approach the willows anymore; their once-sacred shade now sheltered only the click of rifle bolts and the acrid stench of boot-polish and fear.  

Then came the morning they felled them.  

I woke to the news like a gut-punch: The willows—every last one—cut down by Ikhwani saws and axes, sold for lumber or firewood or some petty warlord’s vanity. A witness described the meadow afterwards—naked, shivering, the stumps oozing sap like open wounds. The earth, they said, looked betrayed.  

Years later, the army came. 

They erected a fortress where Rahman Kak once whistled his cattle home—watchtowers of corrugated iron, coils of concertina wire blooming like razor-flowered vines. The meadow, where children once sent cricket balls sailing into the golden light, now bore the tread of combat boots and the sour tang of gun oil.  

Last month, I persuaded a friend to go with me.  

We walked the familiar path, my mind thick with ghosts—the whisper of leaves, Rahman Kak’s hookah bubbling, the thwack of his stick against the bull’s spine. But when we crested the hill, the sight stole my breath: A wasteland.

The land itself seemed to recoil from the barracks’ iron grip. Where the great willow nursery once stood, only hard-packed dirt remained, studded with the pale scars of roots ripped untimely from the earth.  

Then—movement. A soldier burst from a bunker, his beard wild as a thicket, rifle levelled. “No cricket here anymore,” he barked, as if the very idea of joy were contraband.  

We turned back. Behind us, the wind scoured the empty meadow, carrying nothing—no birdsong, no laughter, no stories—just the dull clang of a gate swinging shut on a past that no longer belonged to us.  

Ghulam Mohammad Khan was born and raised in Sonawari (Bandipora); an outlying town located on the wide shores of the beautiful Wullar Lake. Ghulam Mohammad believes that literature is the most original and enduring repository of human memory. He loves the inherent intricacies of language and the endless possibilities of meaning. In his writing, he mainly focuses on mini-narratives, local practices and small-scale events that could otherwise be lost forever to the oblivion of untold histories. Ghulam Mohammad considers his hometown, faith, and family to be the most important things to him. His short stories have appeared in national and international magazines like Out of Print, Kitaab, Indian Literature, Muse India, Indian Review, Inverse Journal, Mountain Ink and more. His short story collection The Cankered Rose is his forthcoming work. Presently, he teaches as an Assistant Professor at HKM Degree College Bandipora, Kashmir.

You can find more of Dr Ghulam’s work here on Ink Pantry.

Paul’s camouflage uniform blended in with the dead leaves that had accumulated around the base of the tree, making him nearly invisible. The only sign of his presence was the bipod and a short section of rifle barrel protruding from the leaf litter covering him. Paul held the rifle stock snug against his right shoulder and cheek, finger resting lightly on the trigger. He waited, relaxed and watchful.

A man in a forest pattern uniform stepped from behind a thick clump of brambles to Paul’s front. The man paused and looked about, wary and alert. Scanning. Listening. To Paul, the man acted as if he knew he was being watched.

Paul put the scope’s crosshairs on the man, saw the flag on the man’s uniform that identified him; an enemy soldier, a scout sent ahead to assess what was in the forest. Paul estimated the distance between them at no more than 200 meters; an easy shot, a piece of cake for a newly trained sniper like Paul.

As Paul put pressure on the trigger, the details of his first deer hunt, still sharp and clear after fifteen years, flashed through his mind. He remembered everything about that hunt; his failure, Uncle Ellis’ scorn, and the humiliation that consumed him afterward.

“I’m buying you a deer tag the day you turn twelve,” Paul’s Uncle Ellis said a few weeks before Paul’s twelfth birthday. “That’s my present to you. You’ll be legal then, boy, and you and me are going hunting.” Uncle Ellis tipped his head toward Paul’s father. “That is, if it’s all right with your old man,” he added with a smile.

The three of them were sitting at the kitchen table in Paul’s house, the two men drinking coffee. “It’s all right with me,” Paul’s father said. “But it’s up to the boy.” Both men grinned and looked at Paul. They knew what his answer would be.

“Then it’s all set,” Uncle Ellis said. “Deer season opens the first Saturday in November. Going to bag you a big buck. Your first kill. Mount that buck’s head on your bedroom wall. Something you can be proud of. The first thing you see when you wake up in the morning and say, That’s my deer. I killed it.” Uncle Ellis grinned at Paul.

Paul smiled, pleased to be with men he respected and loved.

“We sit here,” Uncle Ellis said, pointing at the remains of a tree that had fallen many years ago. They sat on the downed tree, peering into the leafless forest, waiting for their quarry to appear. Small, puffy white clouds formed in the cold air with every breath they exhaled, then winked out as quickly as they appeared. Neither of them said anything. After a while Paul started kicking at the deep leaf litter covering the forest floor. The leaves rustled like small dry bones being shaken in a tin cup.

Sensing Paul’s flagging enthusiasm, Uncle Ellis said, “There’s a salt block in that little clearing in front of us. You can’t see the block. The grass is too high. The deer can smell it, though. They have a hunger for that salt. We got to be patient and wait for them. They’re going to show. They always do.”

“Did you put the salt block there?” asked Paul.

“I sure did.”

“Isn’t that baiting? It’s not allowed. What if you get caught?”

Uncle Ellis laughed. “Who’s going to know I put it there? Are you going to rat me out?”

“No, I would never do that.”

“I know that, boy. We got to be quiet now. Stop kicking those leaves. If the deer hear us, they’ll shy away and you won’t get a shot. They’re skittish this time of year. Animals can sense when they’re being hunted.”

They sat quietly after that, peering into the leafless forest. Waiting. Paul’s feet began to get cold. He felt the chill creep up his legs and rise to his knees. He started to shiver and wondered how much longer he could sit on the downed tree without having to get up and move around to fight off the cold seeping into his body.

Uncle Ellis jabbed an elbow into Paul’s ribs and whispered, “Off to the left. See that buck? He’s heading for the salt block. That’s your deer. You’re gonna take him.”

Paul saw the deer, seventy-five meters away, walking slowly toward the clearing where Uncle Ellis said the salt block lay hidden in the dry grass.

“Now,” whispered Uncle Ellis and elbowed Paul again. The deer stopped. Its ears twitched at the sound of Uncle Ellis’ voice.

Paul stood, raised his rifle, put the scope’s crosshairs on the deer’s front shoulder, then lowered his rifle.

“Shoot!” hissed Uncle Ellis. The deer remained still then turned its head toward them, searching for the source of the noise. Paul shouldered his rifle again, sighted on the deer then lowered his rifle.

“Shoot it!” shouted Uncle Ellis.

Paul raised his rifle a third time but the deer, startled by the sound of Uncle Ellis’ voice, was bounding away from them, its up-raised tail waving like a victory flag. Paul watched the deer disappear into the leafless forest.

“Boy, what happened to you? That was a perfect shot.” Uncle Ellis shook his head, bewildered by Paul’s failure to shoot the deer. “Why didn’t you shoot?” When Paul didn’t say anything, Uncle Ellis said, “We got to go home. No use hanging around anymore. The deer know we’re here. They’re spooked. They’ll keep away now.”

“Worst case of buck fever I ever saw,” Uncle Ellis said to Paul’s father later that day. The three of them sat at the kitchen table, the two men drinking coffee. Uncle Ellis drummed his fingers on the table and looked at the boy. Paul sat with his head down, not looking at either man.

Uncle Ellis shook his head. “That deer stood there, big as you please, begging to get shot, but the boy froze up and that was that. He let that deer walk away. Was a fine buck, too. Had a great rack on him. Would have made a grand first kill.” Uncle Ellis drank more coffee, grinned, put his hand on Paul’s head and mussed Paul’s hair. “I’m going out tomorrow. I know where to bag me a big buck with a fine set of antlers.” Uncle Ellis stood and looked down at Paul. “You’re not cut out to be a hunter, boy. To be a hunter, you got to be able to kill something. You got to be able to pull the trigger.”

After Uncle Ellis left, Paul and his father remained at the table. Paul’s father put his hand on Paul’s arm and said quietly, “It’s all right.” They sat at the table and neither one said anything more for some time.

Finally, Paul looked up and said, “I’m sorry, Dad. I really wanted to shoot that deer. I really did. I raised my rifle and had it in my scope, but I couldn’t pull the trigger. I don’t know why.”

“Sometimes these things happen, son. I know you feel terrible right now. I know you do and there isn’t anything I can say to make it better, but it will get better, Paul. It will.”

“My mouth went all dry and I couldn’t even swallow. I just stood there, holding my rifle and not doing anything.” Paul squeezed his eyes shut, trying to keep the tears from coming out. “Uncle Ellis thinks I’m a loser. I let him down. I know I did.” Paul turned a stricken face toward his father. “I failed, Dad. I blew it. I’ll never be a hunter like Uncle Ellis.”

Paul kept the scope’s crosshairs on the enemy soldier. The man held his rifle at an angle across the front of his body. Leaning slightly forward, the man started walking in Paul’s direction, slowly, deliberately, as if every step required an enormous amount of effort and determination. Then the man stopped. Paul wondered if he had alerted the man by making a noise, by rustling the leaves or by making an imperceptible movement. No, not possible. He hadn’t made any noise, hadn’t moved. The man continued looking toward the tree where Paul lay hidden in the leaf litter. As if sensing something wrong, the man turned and started to go back the way he had come.

Not this time, Paul thought. “This one is for you, Uncle Ellis,” Paul whispered as he pulled the trigger.

Robert P. Bishop, an army veteran and former teacher, holds a Master’s in Biology and lives in Tucson, Arizona. His short fiction has appeared in Active Muse, Bright Flash Literary Review, CommuterLit, Fleas on the Dog, Friday Flash Fiction, Ink Pantry, Literally Stories, The Literary Hatchet, Lunate Fiction, Scarlet Leaf Review, Umbrella Factory Magazine and elsewhere.

You can find more of Robert’s work here on Ink Pantry.

For the past three years, I have kept telling Hua that we are never in the limelight in this world of red dust, not even for a fraction of a second. The only exception was the vague possibility that certain readers of my love poetry may have recognized my relationship with her as extramarital, but they would probably take it as an inspiring romance rather than condemn it as a moral crime.

Each time I asked Hua about her worries, she said what she was most afraid of was our affair being found out by her husband, my wife, or anyone else who happened to know both of us.

“Not exactly,” I said. “Your most deeply-rooted fear is no other than the loss of your ‘face’ when people know of your unfaithfulness. To me, this is part of the human nature, but to you, infidelity, as people call it, is morally wrong and thus socially fatal, especially in old age.”

“Whatever you have to say,” Hua has told me again and again, “I just cannot stop worrying, not even for a single day.”

To help deflate her hidden fear, I assured her that nobody around us had actually paid any attention to our emotional lives. While all our mutual acquaintances in China were English illiterates or had no access to my English writings, my family and friends outside of China never showed any interest in what I had written and published.

“So long as we kept our relationship strictly under the rug and always acted like two old zhiqing comrades, the cat will never be out of the bag,” I said.

“How about Za?” Hua asked. “As your former fiancée now living in Holland, she must’ve been your most loyal fun.”

“I doubt she’d be so nosy as to search for me online.”

“Put in her shoes, I would, out of curiosity, if not of concern.”

“Sooner or later, you could tell this by yourself,” I replied. Having paid a visit to Za’s mother and had a long chat with the couple several nights before, I was sure that Za hadn’t the slightest idea about what had been going on between Hua and me in recent years.

The opportunity propped up when Za invited me for a dinner with her husband Wei and a couple of our mutual friends shortly after I moved to a rented room in Songzi. To show my appreciation of their kind offer, I insisted that I treat the couple to the famous local hotpot of the Du rooster instead.

Around eleven thirty on October 17, Pan arrived at the restaurant first, then followed by Za, Wei, Hua and Wang in sequence. Once seated around the table in a small but cozy private dinning room, we began to enjoy the local gourmet foods, chatting and laughing excitedly.

It was the most special party I had ever hosted or attended. For one thing, all the attendants had a close relationship with me. While Za was once engaged with me, her husband Wei had been not only one of Hua’s unprofessed admirers but my closest associate in the Mayuhe Youth Station, who succeeded me as the youth leader after I left the farm for university.

As the host, I started by thanking everyone for coming. After proposing a toast to our own health and longevity, I declared the Za couple as my main guests, while Pan, my best zhiqing friend, and Wang, Wei’s relative, were our main “accompanying guests,” as the local custom would have for every dinner party like this one. On the surface, I put much emphasis on my gratitude to Wei for his friendly support while working at the Mayuhe Youth Station, as well as for his effort to fulfill my wish to hold a grand gathering to celebrate the 50^th anniversary of its establishment. But in the depth I hoped to extend my ‘regret’ to Za, the only attendant who was not from our Mayuhe station, for having broken up with her in 1981 because I found it neither viable nor desirable to live a married life with her in Wuhan back then. Though I said nothing to this effect, I had mentioned this to her on several occasions. This regretful feeling she and I were ready to understand without having to exchange a single conspiratorial glance. During a Tête-à-tête, I once told her that if I had married her, I would have been able to enjoy much more spousal love and support. In return, she had admitted to me in a proud tone that each time when asked how she would compare Wei and me as her man, she would say, “Either’s fine to me!’

As for Hua, I re-introduced her to the party as my newly found relative. Hearing this, Za felt quite surprised, while Pan asked, “How’re you actually related?”

“Hua’s mother’s mother and mine came from the same Zhang family living beside the high school in Jieheshi, the townlet between Songzi and Weishui Scenic Park,” I explained. “But because all our grandparents died long ago, I’m not sure if I’m her uncle by blood.”

“Or I’m Ming’s aunt,” Hua corrected me in a teasing voice.

“So you’re distant relatives,” Wang pointed out, “just like Wei and me.”

Since our parental families originated from the same small place, it was not surprising that we were somehow related, but we all wished to have discovered our relatedness sooner.

As we kept eating, drinking and talking, Za appeared to be particularly high-spirited and asked me if I and my wife had already retired in Vancouver and when we two would visit Europe as tourists. Realizing this as an excellent opportunity to sound out if Za had any updated knowledge about my literary endeavors or, rather, if she happened to know my true relationship with Hua through my English writings published online, I asked her if she knew I had been busy writing not only poetry but fiction during the past few years.

“So, you’re writing novels now?” Za asked in a voice carrying a strong note of amazement. “All I know is, you have published a lot of poetry.”

“Have you read any of my writings online?” I asked further. In so doing, I hoped that Hua would get an answer for herself about whether Za was aware of our affair, since she was the only person among all our mutual acquaintances that might happen to know our secret through my publications in English, which were readily accessible online to anyone who could google outside of China.

“Nah. Except when doing some online reading in Chinese, I seldom turned on my computer. You know how poor my English is,” Za replied, more to Hua’s satisfaction than to mine.

“Our English is not good enough to read any literature,” Wei confirmed, “though we two do have a quite good working knowledge of Dutch.”

“Way to go!” Hua exclaimed. “Having lived in Melbourne for so many years, I’m still an English illiterate.”

From Hua’s response, I knew she was more than delighted to realize that neither Za nor Wei was capable of discovering our infidelity even if they had had such intentions. Seeing how relieved she was from her great fear, I had a strong whim to pinch her right thigh under the table. Dressed in black in mourning for her late mother, Hua looked particularly decorous and graceful today. Since her husband joined her for her mother’s funeral, I hadn’t been able even to take a walk with her, much less enjoy intimacies of any kind. However, probably because she wanted to avoid any suspicion, she deliberately sat much closer to Wang, her neighbor on her left side, thus making it impossible for me to reach her without being noticed by Pan, who sat right beside me.

When we turned our attention to one another’s family situations, we congratulated the Za couple on the success of their outstanding son, a highly accomplished young surgeon in Rotterdam, who married a beautiful Dutch girl and had three sons within five years.

Beaming with smiles, Za told us several anecdotes about how she had brought up his son. Each time she recalled something to her own credit, she would look at Wei’s response. Her carefulness and sensitivity reminded me of Kang, our mutual friend’s comment, “Za doesn’t have much status at home, because she earns little money in Holland.”

Though I fully understood that everyone’s social status was determined by their economic basis, there should be equality within the family. In Za’s case, her relationship with Wei was based apparently on money instead of love. A marriage of convenience in the first place, I thought.

When we began to see Pan’s family photos on his cellphone, we all felt amazed at how well his wife carried her years and how she had become an online influencer in her own right. More impressive were his daughter and grandchildren who looked much more handsome than he was. Though he was both ugly and poor as he himself had often said, his wife and daughter thought highly, and took good care, of him. This fact made me feel particularly envious, resentful and puzzled at the same time. In comparison with him, Ping and even Wei, I had been striving really hard to bring wealth and fame to my family and, as a father and husband, I had done my very best to protect and look after them, but I never felt respected, much less cared for, within my own family.

No matter what, by the time we stood up and got ready to leave the restaurant, my old flames must both have come to their conclusion that the jig is not up yet.

Author’s note: This prose work is inspired by Helena Qi Hong (祁红) 

Yuan Changming co-edits Poetry Pacific with Allen Yuan. Writing credits include 12 Pushcart nominations for poetry and 3 for fiction besides appearances in Best of the Best Canadian Poetry (2008-17) and 2149 other publications worldwide. A poetry judge for Canada’s 44th National Magazine Awards, Yuan began writing and publishing fiction in 2022, his debut novel DETACHING, ‘silver romance’ THE TUNER and short story collection FLASHBACKS available at Amazon.  

You can find more of Yuan’s work here on Ink Pantry.

Agent S was sitting in a dingy hotel room staring at his service revolver on the table in front of him. The hotel was in a nondescript part of a town in a tiny, neutral country (Z) that bordered his (X) and another large country (Y), the enemy. His country and the enemy had fought several wars over a long period that dated back to his grandfather’s time as a foot soldier in the Army. The grandfather had died a few weeks after receiving commission in a desolate, cold, high-altitude outpost. His father, who served in the Air Force, had a distinguished career marked by quite a few distinctions for valor shown on the battlefield. In retirement, he often recounted what sounded like embellished versions of the dogfights he had been a part of. Agent S followed the family tradition and joined the Navy and then, after a long stint as a sailor, became part of a special forces team. By the time he joined the special forces team, he had already been through two wars. When his commander heard rumblings of another war, he decided to leave the special forces and join the intelligence services (XII). Agent S followed him. That was where the trouble began.

When Agent S was with the special forces team, he had worked closely with many in XII. The success or failure of the special forces teams’ missions depended on the quality of the intelligence provided by XII officers. They cultivated contacts in the enemy country, identified safe crossing points and plotted the routes to take, once in enemy territory. So, Agent S felt he was making a natural transition into his new role as a spook. After several months of high-pressure training and shadowing veterans, he was finally ready for his special assignment; to oversee the defection of an Air Force pilot from a base not far from the border. The pilot had been corrupted and compromised to the point where there was no likelihood of a double-cross.

The plan was for the pilot’s wife to leave her country on an early morning bus and commence a 10-hour journey to the neutral country where Agent S was supposed to meet her. Once she had crossed the border, he was supposed to alert his air-defense units to stand down, to ensure safe passage for the defector plane. He was then supposed to transmit the Go Code to his undercover operatives in the enemy territory. The pilot’s task was to change the path of a test flight and make a mad dash to the border, flying low to avoid detection by the enemy’s air defense system. It was a plan with so many moving pieces and any single piece out of place could have possibly doomed the entire project. Yet he was confident he was going to be able to pull it off.

When the station chief showed up at his hotel room early that morning (04.42), he felt a gut punch. He knew the news couldn’t be good. The station chief handed him a cryptic message. Decoded, it read, ‘Talks at critical stage. Cease all undercover operations.’ It came from the national security chief. Agent S was crushed. He thought of the poor woman who was on the bus on a strange journey. In a country where most women lived behind a veil, he imagined she was only doing what her husband had asked her to do, not knowing anything about her husband’s convoluted plot. Now, instead of meeting her husband’s ‘friend’ on the other side of the border, she was going to walk into the waiting arms of the military police on her own side. Her husband, in the meanwhile, would soon be either sitting in the stockade, head in his hands, or being whisked to an interrogation room in a special facility.  

Agent S thought he should feel guilty for thinking that his mission was more important than peace between two war-prone nations. But he didn’t. He told himself he was not going to apologize for thinking what a successful mission would have meant for his career. Maybe it was not the career that he cared about. It was his word. A lot of lives depended on his word: the pilot’s, the pilot’s wife, and those of the undercover operatives. Now they’re all going to be dead because he didn’t hold up his side of the bargain. Should he pick up the gun and blow his head off?

He wondered, what would George Palmer do?

Meanwhile, at Vauxhall Cross, intelligence officers were poring over information they had received on the border situation between countries X and Y. Fresh to arrive that morning was an intercept that read, ‘Talks at critical stage. Cease all undercover operations.’ Alerts went out to MI6 agents in countries X, Y and Z. Within hours they had pieced together details of the defection plot. It turned out that many of the operatives working on the defection plot were also on MI6 pay. The chief wanted to minimize damage all around, but didn’t want any of his agents involved in the mess. He sent for Peter English; said he was golfing that weekend with the PM, so would Peter be a trooper and give it some thought? ‘Have your ideas on my desk by Monday AM. Much appreciated, that’s a good fellow!’

English, somewhat at sixes and sevens, drove his Healey up to Bywater Street, for a rendezvous with his old mentor, George Palmer.

‘Well, George,’ asked English, ‘this is something of a fiasco, I’ll say! Am I allowed to pick your brain for any possible solution?’

‘Well, Peter, this Agent S has found himself in the kind of pickle I experienced in Sofia, Bulgaria, 1953. The whole operation was rolled up by Gala and chums, virtually overnight. Lost a lot of good agents to Moscow Central. Only narrowly escaped myself. Had to rely on the local ju-ju man to get me back through the curtain in one piece. Left by way of the old mole run. Popped up into Greece. Physically fine but dead inside.’

‘I don’t like moles.’

‘Me neither, Peter. Bill Blunt was responsible for the betrayal, though I didn’t suspect him at the time. Nobody did. Like when one crosses the road at Picadilly Circus, my head turned this way and that looking for a culprit.’

‘I once nearly got run over by a bus, there. A big, bloody double-decker! The number 37 to Pall Mall. I’m sure the driver was reading a newspaper at the time.’

‘Hope it was The Times.’

‘Quite. Anyway, what happened next, old chap?’

‘Director kept me at the Big Top for a month or two. Household chores. Light duties. He could see how shook up I was by the whole affair. Gave me a desk in a quiet corner and a bottle of Scotch.’

‘Shame about Director; dying like that at the cricket. Heart failure, wasn’t it?’

‘Yes; but Director wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. I kind of envy him; sitting there at Lords, watching the test match with the sun on his face; a glass of Pimm’s in his hand; the sound of leather on willow.’

‘Indeed, if you put it like that, old bean. How would you like to go, George?’

‘With a bullet in the back, of course. What more noble way for a spy to die?’

‘My thoughts, exactly. Say, George, you’re on fire today. It must be this whiskey; dammed fine stuff.’

‘It’s from Angela. Another sorry gift.’

‘Oh, and I’m sorry for asking, George. I didn’t mean to…’

‘No, no Peter. We are both men of the world and then some.’

‘Where is Angela now?’

‘My sources inform me she’s shacked-up with a young Italian army officer in Rome. Speaks fluent Italian, did you know? Clever girl.’

‘She’ll be back. You’ll see. It’s always the case. But returning to the story; continue with the narrative, if you will.’

‘Ah, well, sure enough, not much later, Director invited me for tea and crumpets at Fortnam and Mason. Y’know, to soften me up. In pretty much the same sentence, he said he could see I was my old self again; and that was fortunate because I was needed in the field. Prompto. Berlin. A veritable holiday park in those days. Never a dull moment.’

‘Good old Director. A golden heart below that cold, grey exterior. And did that do the trick; helped you recover from the Bulgarian fiasco?’

‘Yes and no. Being busy kept my mind off things but the hurt remained. Still does; as from other things, too.’

‘Of course, ‘Slowly the poison the whole blood stream fills.’

‘Yes, ‘The waste remains, the waste remains and kills.’ Empson. ‘Missing Dates’. Very good, Peter. You studied literature at university, didn’t you?’

‘And Arabic.’

‘A double First?’

‘Naturally.’

‘And was Cambridge to your taste?’

‘Stop messing with me George, you old devil. You know we both did our time at Oxford.’

‘Sorry, Peter; one whiskey too many. These cigarettes: strong flavour.’

‘Ukranian. I know they’re a little earthy, but I developed a taste for them whilst out there last summer. Only two packets left, unfortunately. So, what are we to do with this Agent S? By the look of this transcript, he’s feeling somewhat sorry for himself, poor darling. By the way, I hear Agent S is an Anglophile who hates whiskey; whilst his father, a Sandhurst graduate, had a weakness for Johnie Walker. Black label.’

‘Admirable taste for an army man. As for Agent S: fly a Scalphunter over. Persuade him, one way or another, to come work for the Circus asap; before he does something rather silly, such as batting for the other side. After the de-brief, give him a little tea and sympathy; a little R&R at the Circus won’t do any harm. Provide him with one of those mindful people, if need be.’

‘A counsellor?’

‘Yes, that’s the word I’m looking for.’

‘And then?’

‘Send him back out into the garden, of course. Get him to tend the flowers again. Stiff upper-lip and all that. A modest monetary donation from the Reptile Fund might be an incentive.’

‘Will do, George. Another tipple?’

‘Maybe that would be rather unwise. I’m rather on the wain, as they say. A little besotted by the bottle!’

‘Oh, don’t be a stuffed shirt! Hold out your glass.’

‘Okay, if I must.’

‘To the Service, George! Chin-chin!’

‘To the service, Peter. Bottoms-up!’

Balu Swami lives in the US. His works have appeared in Flash Fiction North, Ink Pantry, Short Kid Stories Literary Veganism and others.

You can find more of Balu’s work here on Ink Pantry.

John Caulton is the editor of the website ‘Flash Fiction North’. He is the author of a short story collection entitled ‘The Grass Whistle’.

You can find more of John’s work here on Ink Pantry.

Confession time. Let’s skip the fake remorse and start with the truth:
I’m a scammer.

Not some weepy, misunderstood grifter with a tragic backstory. No. I’m a specialist. I provide a premium service. Companionship with emotional flair. For a price. Sex and money. Sometimes one, sometimes both. It depends on the mark.

I charm. They disarm and are open to my racket. That’s the equation. Simple math..

And let’s get one thing straight right. There’s no wounded crying inner child. No broken home, no shadowy uncle, no addiction in the family tree. I had two stable, loving parents who packed my lunch, kissed me goodnight, and told me I could be anything. I had a golden retriever childhood. Big backyard. Siblings who didn’t hate me. I passed the marshmallow test for delayed gratification. I would have waited five hours for the second marshmallow. Please…. I have it in aces.

School? I did it all: sports, rocket club, debate club, model UN? Check, check, check, and absolutely.

So no, I’m not a broken man looking to fill a hole. I’m a man who sees what women want and give it to them in the exact currency they crave. Attention. Intimacy. The illusion of safety. The hope of everlasting commitment. And I take my fee like a professional.

Romance internet scams were my early portfolio. Sweet messages. Gentle flirting. Tailored promises of forever. Some I bedded. Some I borrowed from. All believed in my sincerity, until I ghosted them. I never felt bad. If anything, I felt noble. Teaching them a lesson: never trust too quickly, never believe in the Wizard of OZ.

But then the amateurs flooded in. Idiots with bad grammar and fake military IDs. They ruined it. Too obvious, too greedy, too soon to snare. The six figures I’d grown used to started evaporating.

So I pivoted.

Christmas dinner lit the match. My brother’s girlfriend mentioned she was in recovery, something about twelve steps and finding serenity. She spoke like it was church and therapy and family all rolled into one. I feigned empathy and extracted everything I needed: meeting formats, the “Big Book,” slogans like “easy does it,” “one day at a time,” and this delightful gem: “normies”—the word they used for people like me.

Except I’m not a normie. I’m their Higher Power.

I’m the First Step they never saw coming.

Alcoholics Anonymous. Goldmine. Women there are raw, cracked open, starving for connection. They’re taught to be honest, to trust, to work the steps, and to confess in front of strangers. They practically hand you their playbook of vulnerabilities.

I infiltrated. Sat in the circle with my most remorseful face. I shared “my story”—all fiction, perfectly paced. A few tears, a fake DUI, the “moment of clarity” sloppy drunk in a parking lot behind a gas station. It worked. They welcomed me like the prodigal son.

Now I’m hunting. Quietly. Respectfully.
I tell them they’re beautiful when they don’t feel it. I listen more earnestly than their ex-husbands or partners ever did. I know when to touch a hand, when to back away. I speak their language. I study them. I’m patient before I pounce.

They think I’m their savior. But I’m just collecting payments.

There’s no guilt. No shame. No need for therapy or jail time or a higher purpose. This is a business. My business. And business is good again. I waited patiently for two months.

Then I roped in my first new member. Easy peasy.

She was overweight, eyes red from crying, shoulders permanently slumped like she’d spent years apologizing for existing. Perfect. The kind who’s starved for kindness and hasn’t been truly seen in years.

I sat next to her in three meetings before saying a word. Just long enough to make her wonder if I might. On the fourth, I complimented her sharing, gently, respectfully. She gave me that puppy dog look. Hook set.

I played a long game. Walks after meetings. Long walks on the beach with deep, soulful eye contact. Museums, because they made me look sophisticated. Cozy romantic restaurants. I told her she was fascinating. That I loved how real she was. That her pain made her radiant. She had never been called radiant before.

When we finally had sex, she cried. Said it was the first time it felt like someone wanted her. I made it the best night of her life, slow, attentive, enough to pass for love.

Thirteenth stepping.

It’s an unwritten rule in AA: don’t date new members. Don’t prey on people just finding their footing. It’s not official doctrine, but it’s sacred. The group thrives on safety, trust, shared vulnerability. Break that, and you taint the whole well.

I didn’t break it. I bent it. I asked her to keep our relationship secret, too sacred to share with others.

***

3 Months later

Hooks set and I was reeling them in. The next months I was juggling three relationships. Not in the same group meetings but meetings far enough away not to slip up. I used the old borrowing con. Money was again flowing into my coffers. Sex was a bonus.

I didn’t see it coming. I didn’t count on women blabbing to their sponsors. You may have guessed by now that my perfect scheme unraveled.

I found out too late.

Unbeknownst to me, word had gotten around that a con artist had been preying upon AA members. Women I had previously courted—read: seduced, drained, discarded—compared notes. The pieces clicked, the anger boiled, and they formed a plan. They brought in a ringer, a woman who knew exactly how to play a man like me.

Her name was Delilah.

I know. I know. You can’t make this stuff up. The irony practically sweats off the page. Delilah was a professional actor. Older than she looked, younger than she acted. Gorgeous in that old-school Hollywood way: red lips, perfect posture, and a dynamite figure. She didn’t stumble into AA. She descended like an angel.

At first, she did the rounds like any new member. She sat quietly in the back, clutching her Styrofoam cup. But when it came time for cookies and punch, she stood out. The dress hugged her curves. The room of thirsty men, all dry from booze but parched for something else, circled her like moths.

But she had eyes for me.

After the meeting, she casually strolled over. She tilted her head and smiled just enough.

She said, “Let’s go for coffee. I’m dying for a cigarette.”

Coffee and cigarettes, the standard high for the AA losers.

Over the next few weeks, she let me believe I was running the game. She cried once during a share, about abandonment, about needing protection. I stepped in like a knight. We went on long drives, even a meditation retreat. She never let me touch her, said she was Catholic and saving herself for marriage. I thought it was a quaint boundary; one I could eventually bulldoze.

But here’s the thing: she had already bulldozed me.

While I was busy fantasizing about what would happen when she finally “gave in,” she had already gained access to the one thing that mattered to me: my online banking. She didn’t ask for it—no, she acted like she needed help setting up her own finances. I volunteered. Then she “accidentally” logged in on my phone. I had left it unlocked just long enough.

By the time I realized I’d been had, my accounts were drained. Every cent I had milked from my previous conquests was gone. The withdrawals were all legal. My passwords had been changed.

I still loved her. I tried to call her. Number disconnected.

She wasn’t at my next AA meeting. I looked around the room—sponsors and sponsees chatting, sharing, sipping coffee—and for the first time, I felt what my victims must’ve felt.

Naked. Duped. Powerless.

Delilah played me better than I’d ever played anyone. She didn’t just take my money; she took my delusion of superiority.

But the story doesn’t end there. Not even close.

I was exposed, humiliated, stripped of my pride, and left with barely enough to pay for a bottle. Then I did what most cowards do, I drank.

I drank until the sound of my own name made me wince. Until mornings came with tremors and nights came with blackouts. Until I found myself slumped behind a gas station dumpster, half-conscious, my pockets empty, and my pants wet. Call it karma, divine payback, or just gravity pulling me to where I belonged.

That was my bottom. And it was darker than anything I’d imagined.

The next morning, I attended the nearest AA meeting. I didn’t say a word that first day. Just listened. I hated everyone in that room. The earnestness. The chipper sobriety slogans on the wall. The way people clapped when someone said they’d gone thirty days without drinking and got a stupid chip, as if it was an Olympic medal.

But I kept going.

Week after week. Something about the rawness in their stories, their pain. They just… spoke it. And they listened. No one flinched when I said I’d manipulated women, stolen from them, lied about love. No one excused it either. They just kept saying, “Keep coming back.”

One of the old-timers who looked like he’d been carved out of a Camel commercial took me aside after a meeting. “You’re not unique,” he said. “Just sick. The good news is sick gets better if you work the steps. But only if.”

I started working them. I went back to school. Social work, of all things. I figured I should do something useful. I should try to help people I once saw as marks. I volunteered at the local domestic violence shelter. At first, the staff wouldn’t let me near anyone. I just filed papers and cleaned bathrooms. Fine. I deserved that.

But it was Step 9 that nearly broke me.

Making amends. Not just saying sorry but doing the work of apology. Owning it without asking for forgiveness. I spent weeks tracking down names I remembered, numbers I wasn’t sure were still good. I made lists. I prepared speeches.

One woman screamed at me before hanging up.

Another called me a sociopath and reported me to her therapist.

Only one agreed to meet me at a diner. She threw a glass of water in my face the moment I sat down. She said, “That’s for who I was when I met you. That girl deserved better.”

Then she got up and walked out. I never saw her again. But something in me changed that day. I didn’t feel vindicated. I didn’t feel punished. I just felt clean for the first time in years.

And now?

I still go to meetings. I still listen more than I talk. I sponsor a few guys who remind me of my old self.

Sobriety hasn’t made me holy. But it’s filled a hole.

Most days that’s enough.

Dr. Weiner has over 40 years’ experience as a clinical psychologist who
specializes in trauma recovery and anxiety disorders. He enjoys using stories
to help readers harness their resilience within to aid them on their healing
journey. He has been published in a variety of professional journals and
fiction in magazines. His psychology books include Shattered Innocence and the
Curio Shop. Non-psychology publications are Across the Borderline and The Art
of Fine Whining. He has a monthly advice column in a Portland Newspaper, AskDr.Neil.

“Don’t answer that,” I told my wife, when the house phone rang for the fifth time early that morning.

When she had answered the first four times, whoever was at the other end waited long enough for her to know someone was on the line, then disconnected. This had been going on for several weeks and had become a growing irritation. Caller I.D. had been blocked, so we couldn’t tell who was harassing us.

“We may as well let the answering machine pick up,” Madeline suggested. “This way we can screen the calls and only answer those we want to.”

It was a sensible, practical solution to the problem and I tried to suppress my anger at this persistent phone intruder. It took another two weeks for the frequency of the calls to diminish, then they became sporadic and we thought the situation was resolved. We started answering the phone again, but a few days later the anonymous calls resumed. We had to be at the office by 8:30 a.m., so we didn’t have much time for our daily routine to be distracted by annoying phone calls.

We both worked at the Outreach Center. Madeline was the executive director and I was the program officer. The Center provided social services to homeless families with children who were placed in temporary shelters, without services. We provided referrals for housing, medical and dental treatment and other needs. Somehow we began giving meals and life skills workshops to several of the family’s children and we needed a social worker to deal with a case load that kept growing.

Madeline and I met at Gotham University, in New York City. We were very different people. She was a dedicated jock who believed in liberal causes. I was a computer and gamer type who believed that child molesters should get the death penalty. My sister had been molested when she was seven years old and it took her a long time to get over it. Madeline was opposed to the death penalty and we argued about it often, never reaching a compromise.

But we found many things in common. She loved poetry and got me to read her favorites, Blake, Emily Dickenson, Whitman, Rimbaud, Rilke and others. I liked them. I introduced her to the world of gaming and she actually got involved in a series of women’s war games and was a fierce competitor. One big quality we had in common was we both wanted to serve the needy.

In our junior year, a close friend, Warren, inherited a huge amount of money from a trust fund when he turned 21. He half jokingly asked our opinion what he should do with his new fortune and Maddie instantly replied:

“When we graduate, fund a program to help the homeless. Charlie and I will run it.”

‘Wait a second! What do you think you’re doing, committing me to some kind of project?’ But I didn’t say it. I only thought it. From that moment on she took charge of our lives, which now included romance and marriage. Warren didn’t know how tenacious Maddie could be. After graduation and our wedding, where he was our best man, she persuaded him to put up $150,000 a year for five years to start a not-for-profit organization to serve homeless families with children. After that we would be on our own.

We rented an office and workshop space in the East 30’s, in an old commercial loft building. Then we reluctantly gave up our dorm rooms that had been so comfortable for the last four years, rented an apartment in an old walk-up tenement building off Third Avenue in the twenties, and began a new life. We quickly got more and more involved with the homeless children, many of whom we discovered were gifted and talented. So we started a computer learning center and more and more kids came to us. A lot of them weren’t in school, so one of our goals was to get them all into classrooms. The problem was we didn’t have enough time or personnel to deal with all the needs and services the kids required.

If we wanted to continue working with the kids, we needed someone capable to help with them. That’s when the complications grew. $150,000 a year may seem like a lot to some people, but after rent, $2,600 per month, Madeline’s executive director salary, $30,000, my $28.,000, we’d have to hire a social worker, at $35,000. All the other expenses, insurance, electricity, the list went on and on. This meant we didn’t have much money for a project coordinator. After some quick grant writing and Mad’s funding efforts we raised $15,000, so we could pay someone $24,000, which would mean our stretching every dollar for the rest of our expenses. But we started interviewing candidates.

The kids were mostly black or hispanic, so we wanted to hire someone who could relate to them. However, the only qualified applicants wouldn’t work for that low salary. And I couldn’t blame them. We finally hired a bright young black woman, a recent college graduate, on a two week trial basis. She seemed to be afraid of the kids and quit after the first week, without explanation. Then we hired a young latino man, but we found out he was bribing the kids to participate in life skills workshops, with trips to McDonalds and promises of new sneakers. Mad fired him. We were getting desperate. I was leading most of the life skills workshops, which I enjoyed immensely, even though I didn’t always know what I was doing. Yet I didn’t have time to do program development, grant writing and outreach to all the agencies and services we needed. Then Michael Donnigan applied for the job.

Michael was in his 40’s, with a history of working for not-for-profit public service organizations. He had a great resume, outstanding references that Mad called and he made a very positive impression. So we hired him. He started his two week trial period on a Monday and spent the first few days going through our records and program guidelines, which seemed to take a lot of time away from the kids. Then somehow he always had a conflict when it was time to do something with the kids. This was disturbing, but I talked to him and he seemed to understand what was required. On Thursday he took the kids to Madison Square Park, then he didn’t come in on Friday. We only found out later that day that while they were in the park he yelled at the kids for making too much noise. Some local parents tried to calm him, but he cursed them and stormed off abandoning the kids.. Of course we decided to fire him.

He didn’t come in Monday. I phoned him, but only got voice mail and left a message asking him to call me. He didn’t. When he didn’t call or show on Tuesday, I phoned him and left a message firing him. I would have preferred to do it face to face, but he didn’t give me any choice. Our good judgment was confirmed when some of the kids told us he ordered them around nastily and treated them disrespectfully. He finally came to the office on Friday and wanted two weeks pay, as well as severance. I told him we’d pay him for the first week, even though he walked off the job on Thursday, but there was no severance, since he wasn’t a regular employee, but was hired on a trial basis. He took his check, told me he’d sue us for wrongful termination and stormed out. We were relieved to see him go.

We hired a young black man who wanted to get children’s services experience and he fit right in from the first day. He liked and respected the kids and they really took to him. We forgot about our previous employee, until we got a subpoena to appear in court. This was a new experience for us. I had never been to court and Mad’s vast experience had been when she paid a traffic ticket once. We did some quick research on the internet, learned we needed a lawyer and Mad contacted a legal referral agency. They told her to ask large law firms for a pro bono attorney who would handle our case. Mad called several firms and one responded, assigning a young associate to meet with us. After a mutually satisfactory meeting, Mary Takagawa took our case.

Mary, a recent Columbia Law School graduate, was barely 5 feet tall, but full of energy and resolve. She had played the cello since childhood, the instrument almost bigger than she, and was sensitive to the plight of her clients. She admitted she knew nothing about labor or wrongful termination law, but researched enthusiastically online. The first hearing was to determine if the plaintiff’s case had sufficient merit to proceed. The judge, actually a lawyer doing court service, an older white woman with an abrupt, almost nasty manner, terrified Mary, who was almost tongue tied. We had hoped for a dismissal, but this was not to be.

The judge scheduled a hearing in a month and Donnigan cordially said goodbye to us, as if this was nothing personal. Mary apologized for her inadequacy, admitting she never appeared in front of a judge before, and vowed to do better next time. Mary was more confident at the next hearing, which had a new judge, a very pleasant, reasonable woman, who stated that not-for-profit public services groups deserved a fair chance to be heard. Mary presented a basic case, outlining the terms of employment and the circumstances that led to termination. Donnigan contradicted those facts, raved about how he was injured on the job and exploited. He presented an alternate scenario and claimed there was no two week trial period. It was our word against his. The judge scheduled a hearing in a month, at which time we could present evidence proving our claims. After abusing us verbally in front of the judge, he bid us a courteous farewell, assuming a lawyer’s persona, which Mary thought was crazy.

At the next hearing we brought letters from former applicants and our current employee, attesting they were told of a two week trial period. Donnigan, citing case law, insisted that the letters didn’t allow cross examination, accused us of forgery, and insisted we were colluding against him. He accused us of nepotism, husband and wife getting government money and exploiting the children. He called us dirty names and when Mary objected to his tirade he told the judge he was being persecuted by a big firm lawyer. Mary’s heartfelt declaration:

“Your honor. This man has more experience then I do,” gave us a laugh, but another hearing was scheduled.

Now that Mary was in an actual courtroom fight, her samurai spirit emerged and she was determined to prevail. She persuaded her supervising attorney at her firm to give her the services of an investigator. The investigator discovered that Donnigan’s employment history and references were false. He had a pattern of either being fired or quitting previous jobs, then suing for wrongful termination. He had worked for the Department of Sanitation, was constantly late, out sick, or walked off the job after disputes with his supervisor. In one ugly incident, he dumped a load of garbage on a supervisor’s lawn and porch. He was dismissed and filed a wrongful termination suit that was still going on. The judge learned these facts, dismissed the case, Donnigan thanked her politely, then said goodbye to us politely, as if this was just a lawyer’s lost battle, not an involved individual.

We promptly forgot about him and went on with our lives and work. Until Mad told me she thought she saw him following her when she left the office to go to a meeting. We talked about it and finally shrugged it off, until she saw him again. And we started getting phone calls at night, just like the earlier ones. Mad started to see him every time she left the office and I knew she wasn’t imagining it. We were playing Pokemon-Go one afternoon in front of Macy’s, at 34^th Street and Herald Square, and we both saw him. I decided to confront him and went towards him, but he disappeared into the crowd of shoppers and ‘pokies’.

We decided that this was becoming a problem and went to our local precinct to file a complaint. The sympathetic desk Sergeant informed us that since Donnigan had made no overt threats and we had no evidence that he was making the phone calls, there was nothing the police could do.

“You should file an official complaint, so if he ever crosses the line in any way, we’ll have a record that can be used against him.”

“Thanks, Sergeant Paxton,” Mad said. “Any suggestions how we should deal with this?”

“Yeah. Don’t go anywhere alone for a while. Be more aware of your surroundings and monitor things more carefully. If there’s any kind of incident call 911.”

“Thanks, Sergeant Paxton,” we both said.

This was a new experience for us and we had a long talk about whether or not Donnigen was dangerous. I dismissed him as a nut job, with nothing better to do at the moment.

“As soon as he gets a job and gets on with his life we’ll have seen the last of him.”

“I hope you’re right,” Mad replied. “But there’s something wrong with him. I think he’s mentally disturbed and we should take the cop’s suggestions seriously.”

“Agreed.”

We kept seeing him at a distance, but as soon as he saw that we noticed him, he quickly departed. The phone calls continued at night, sometimes going on for hours. We talked about the problem, but couldn’t figure out what to do. When Mad suggested we get a gun I couldn’t tell if she was kidding, or not. We were playing Pokemon-Go one evening and we went to the subway station at Park Avenue and 23^rd Street. We were on the platform and Mad suddenly poked me.

“Look. It’s him.”

I made eye contact with Donnigan and he grinned…. No. He smirked at me, letting me know he was getting to us and it would continue. I started towards him, anger changing to rage, just as the train came in. He waved at me dismissively, turned to melt into the crowd and I don’t know if he tripped, or was jostled, but he fell on the tracks. People started screaming and the train came to a stop. A lot of the crowd left the station realizing the tie up could be for hours. I stood there stunned, then turned to Mad, who didn’t know what happened.

“Donnigan fell in front of the train.”

She was shocked, but said: “Is he dead?”

“I don’t know. Should we stay and find out?”

“No. Let’s go.”

“We could tell the cops who he is.”

“Did you push him?”

“Of course not,” I replied indignantly.

“Then let’s get out of here.”

We left as the cops and emergency personnel came thundering down the stairs.

That night there was a short article on the internet about the man who fell on the subway tracks and was killed, but nothing after that. Someone had been devoured by the ravenous city, quickly forgotten in the throb and pulse of continuity. There were no phone calls that day and none after that, a definite indication that Donnigan was the culprit and could no longer call out from wherever he was.

A few days later we got a call from Sergeant Paxton from the local precinct. He spoke to Mad and I listened in.

“Did you folks know the guy you complained about was killed in the subway?”

“No. When did it happen?”

“A few days ago. He fell on the tracks at the 23^rd Street station. Some eyewitnesses said he tripped and no one pushed him. I guess he won’t be bothering you anymore.”

“Those phone calls stopped.”

“Then your complaint will just be filed away somewhere. Funny how things work out sometimes.”

“Isn’t it. Thanks for calling, Sergeant Paxton.”

“You take care,” and he disconnected.

We looked at each other for a few moments, then I said:

“I almost feel sorry for the guy, dying like that.”

“Well I don’t,” Mad responded. “I’m glad he’s gone, before he did anything worse to us.”

“That’s a bit harsh.”

“What if he got crazier and violent and hurt us? How would you feel then?”

I thought about it, then answered:

“I’d never forgive myself if he hurt you.”

“Then forget him. It’s time to get on with our lives.”

“Weird how things work out sometimes,” I mused.

“Yeah. Now come to bed. I want to celebrate being alive.”

“Is that an order or request?”

“Whatever brings you to my arms.”

Gary Beck has spent most of his adult life as a theater director and worked as an art dealer when he couldn’t earn a living in the theater. He has also been a tennis pro, a ditch digger and a salvage diver. His original plays and translations of Moliere, Aristophanes and Sophocles have been produced Off Broadway. His poetry, fiction, essays and plays have appeared in hundreds of literary magazines and his traditionally published books include 43 poetry collections, 18 novels, 4 short story collections, 2 collections of essays and 8 books of plays. Gary lives in New York City..

You can find more of Gary’s work here on Ink Panty.

He was dead. Yet he wasn’t. He went from a physical self to a conscious self. Even that is not quite accurate. He went from a bundle of particles to a single particle with a conscious self. There is still something missing. Take three: He became a single particle that may be a wave with consciousness. What happened to the bundle of particles? Totally incinerated. Completely disintegrated. That’s what a CME can do to you.

He was out there working on a malfunctioning satellite tethered to the interstellar space station on Planet Gi that was strangely close to Earth but within Venus’s gravitational pull. He was eight hours away from the station when the alarm sounded: “G5 storm.” His first thought was all his work was going to go to waste: the satellite communication system was going to go haywire. His immediate second thought was: “Do I have enough time to get to the safety of the radiation shield module inside the station?” He knew G5 storms – solar flares – travelled fast and he had no time to lose. As he sped towards the station, a second alert sounded: “CME.” Control confirmed that G5 had bypassed Venus’s orbit and was headed towards the Earth. At the same time, Control was tracking massive oceans of plasma engulfing Mercury and hurtling towards 51° south latitude and 21° east longitude, the second rock’s location. Hence the CME alert. He breathed a sigh of relief. CMEs – coronal mass ejections that erupt from the Sun’s corona – didn’t travel as fast as solar flares, so he had plenty of time to get to the safety of the station. This particular CME – 10^22 – had other thoughts. When he was an hour away from the station, a wave of plasma enveloped him, and he was entombed in his spacesuit.

His first thought was to go check on his wife. His other first thought was not to go check on his wife. Of late, their marriage had ceased to be a marriage. He claimed she had stopped loving him, so he threw himself at work. She claimed she had stopped loving him because he threw himself at work. No matter the cause, something inside had died for both. But curiosity got the better of him and he went to see her. When he hovered at the bedroom door, she shrieked: “who is out there?” She pushed the man on top of her – his fellow astronaut Dome – and went to the hallway to make sure. She returned to the bed muttering, “I swear I saw someone.”

He had an irresistible urge to go see his mother. But she was away. Far, far away. In a different galaxy, a different universe, a different dimension? He did not know. So he looked inward for his superposition. No luck. He went frantically digging up all about shape-shifting deities of the past: Bull or Swan, Raven or Coyote, Boar or Bat. Then it hit him. He needed a cat – a Schrodinger breed. The very moment Schrodinger entered his consciousness, he shifted to a wave. And he took off! He was racing – a billion kilometers an hour.

Subconsciously he knew his being was entangled with his mother’s. So he went in search of the qubits that carried his mother’s markers. He flew all over the Milky Way looking for a flicker of a photon or a pulsing electron. He spent quite some time on Kepler-47 convinced that he would find signs of life in at least one of the three identical planets. He flew past Gilese 1061, L-98 59, and many others whose names he had forgotten. No life, no dice. He left the Milky Way and was the lone voyager in an inky black void for a very, very long time. He could not tell how long since Earthly measures had lost all relevance in spaces far, far away from the solar system.

His conscious self had lost consciousness. He regained it when electromagnetic waves showered him with charged particles. A distant star came into view and disappeared. As he started to feel the futility of his search, he sensed the faint energy of an unknown and, yet familiar, electrical field. Could this be his mother’s biofield? He headed in the direction of the void where the mysterious star had appeared. He sensed life. There’s promise after all. The atmospheric pressure told him that he was entering the orbit of a planet. From up above, he saw the contours of a planet-like object and then the object itself – a blue and white marble much like Earth. He was picking up stronger signals from what he presumed to be his mother’s biofield.

He wandered along an ocean shore and entered the jungle. He had barely advanced when he heard his mother call out: “Son.” A big drop of water hit his head, and he turned around to face a large tree. “Mother, it’s you,” he cried and hugged the tree. He wanted to know about her transmigration from human to dendron. She told him she was a pharmacist in the same community where she was now long before she had become his mother. A massive asteroid had hit the planet and annihilated everything in and out of sight. It forced her to seek life elsewhere and that elsewhere happened to be Earth. After her death on Earth, she wanted to return to her place of origin. He was about to ask her about her work as a pharmacist when he saw a possum clamber up his mother’s trunk, chew on a bark and then scamper away. He asked her about the inhabitants of the planet and all she said was “No humans. No malevolent creatures.” He trekked around and saw a Raven-beaked Coyote, a Bull-faced Swan, and a Boar shaped like a Bat. They went about their business and appeared to live in harmony. He liked the world where there was neither predator, nor prey. He asked his mother what he should do to become a part of her community. She said, “Pick something you like and make sure what you do helps others.” It’s the same advice she had given him when he was thirteen, long before he became a space voyager.

Balu Swami lives near Phoenix, AZ, USA. His works have appeared in online publications in the US and the UK. His main interests are sci-fi, folklore, fairy tales, and myths. Many of his stories explore the area where the paranormal intersects advanced science.

You can find more of Balu’s work here on Ink Pantry.

‘The fence bit me,’ the kid thought as he struggled to run through the dusk and the tall grass.

That’s what he would have said to his grandfather, Bud, if he’d ever come home with a leg wound like the one he was trying to run with. Bud would’ve thought it a kick.

The kid felt the blood trickling down his leg, and the bottoms of his pant legs were getting heavy with mud and what-not. He remembered how his grandfather used to put sand in his pant cuffs where he snuffed out his cigarettes. He was glad his grandfather wouldn’t see how he’d turned out.

The wounded boy stumbled onto a shed, nearly ran into it. He smiled because the shed was real, not a prop in a fever dream. He fell to his knees then reached for the shed’s door handle and snagged it first try. Somewhere he could hear the dogs getting smarter. His wound stung with sweat. He pushed the shed door and dragged his body inside, welcoming warm air.

When he looked up, he saw an old woman in the corner sitting on a stool in front of an easel. Her hair seemed unending.

‘She doesn’t even care that I’m here’ he thought.

The woman snarled, “I got nothing for you!”

The kid lay quiet. He could see her eyes, could see she was blind.

“Go on I said!” the woman growled, “I smell blood and there’s nothing here that can help you.”

“You can’t see what you’re painting,” the boy said.

“Can’t see anything,” the woman barked.

The boy lowered his head then looked up through a dirty window at barren trees.

The pain in his leg was becoming unbearable. The boy managed to sit up.

“You don’t know who I am or what I’ve done,” he said.

She waited, then shrugged:

“Don’t much care. Ain’t what you’ve done anyway, but what you’ll do and I’m thinking not much.”

“You don’t know me.”

“True, but if I had to guess I’d guess you’re just another fool who’s let their horses get away, and now that they’ve wandered off, you’re too stupid to know how to get them back so you’ve carved out a world of trouble for yourself. Just a guess.”

“Shut up!” the kid shouted.

The old woman clenched the paint brush.

“And seeing as it would take different thinking to get your horses back, well, that pretty much closes that case.”

She dabbed her brush in a palette on her leg.

“Red smells the best.”

She asked, “Are you, what is it they say? Bleeding out?”

“Am I?” the boy shivered.

“I’m no doctor.”

The kid stared at a scythe hanging on a hook.

“How can you even know what you’re painting?”

The woman laughed. The boy tried to straighten his leg.

“What’s it like to be blind?” he asked.

“You tell me.”

She pulled the brush from off the canvas.

The kid took a breath then slowly, painfully got to his feet and limped over to the woman.

“I smell fear,” she said.

“I killed someone,” the kid whispered.

The woman sighed.

He noticed more tools hanging. Curious, he dragged himself over and put a hand on a pitch fork, testing the sharpness of the prongs.

“Could I have this?”

“Your kind don’t ask,” the woman grinned.

The boy turned.

“I’ll spare you because you’re old and blind.”

The woman wiped the tip of the brush with a rag.

“I’m an artist. You’d think I’d be good enough to kill, but have it your way.”

“Who are you?” the boy asked.

“Another one of those crazy seers,” the old woman replied.

The kid thought for a second.

“My grandfather used to talk about seers when he talked about the old country.”

The woman nodded.

The boy held up 2 fingers.

“How many fingers am I holding up?”

“Two,” the old woman replied, “Most put up 2. People aren’t that creative.”

The kid lowered his hand and turned his attention to a finished painting hanging on a wall. He studied it.

“Why waste your time painting a field?”

The woman turned, showing the kid her marble eyes again.

“It was the last thing I saw before they came for us. I paint the world that can’t be killed.”

“Everything can be killed.”

“Sez you,” the woman said with calm conviction.

The kid looked at the painting on the easel.

“That’s nice – an apple.”

“Found it this morning on the path where they say the deer like to sun themselves. Not another apple tree for miles, just this one.”

He looked out the window.

“Almost dark now.”

“I know. I smell it.”

The kid stood silent for a long time then whispered.

“I’m scared.”

The women plucked a rag from a pile of rags she kept in a basket by her side and offered it to the kid, who took it and wrapped his wound.

“Does it hurt?” she asked.

“Like crazy.”

“Good.”

The kid turned to the pitch fork, then back to the old woman, who was holding one hand in the other; the one that didn’t work. The boy stood at the window, then turned but was stopped by the woman who held her arm out. In her hand was an apple.

“Thanks,” he said, taking it. The woman said nothing.

The kid shoved the apple in his pocket.

“What will you paint next?”

The woman sighed.

“Never know. Something good. Always something good.”

The kid left the shack with a bandage and apple, but not the pitch fork.

The landscape was somewhat moonlit. Dogs were becoming smarter and closer.

He made his way slowly across more tall grass, limping and stopping only once to catch a glimpse of ordinary life through an ordinary window.

He found the road then began limping toward the gathering of lights.

Joe Ducato lives in Utica, NY.  Previous publishing credits include; Adelaide Literary Magazine, Santa Barbara Literary Journal, Modern Literature, Avalon Literary Review and Bangalore Review and among others.

The minute they walked into the store I knew they were cops, but not locals. Some kind of state boys come up from Cheyenne by the look of them. I started for the bathroom to avoid them, but the meaner looking one, in a blue suit that looked like he found it in a thrift shop, called me.

“Just a minute, sir. We’d like to talk to you.”

I turned to my assistant, Bobby Runs-with-Elks.

“Why don’t you help these gentlemen, Bobby.”

“We need to speak to you, sir,” the oilier looking man said, taking off his sunglasses, revealing black eyes as soulless as lumps of coal.

Bobby, a full-blooded Shoshone, had been working with me for several years, as his father and grandfather before him. He got a small salary and 50% of the profit from the store at the end of the year, which went to his family. We outfitted a lot of hunters and tourists, so it sometimes added up to a good sum of money. I met his grandfather, Joseph Shiny Elk, at Parris Island, in 1968. We served two tours together in Vietnam and saw and did some terrible things. We were both wounded in a sapper attack and invalided out of the Corps at the same time. He didn’t want to go back to the reservation and I didn’t want to work on the oil rigs. So we formed a partnership and opened the general store in the Great Divide Basin, near the Killpecker Sand Dunes, a wild and beautiful place.

Joseph was a part-time deputy on the reservation and late one night on his way home was killed by a drunken driver. His son, Daniel Speaks-to-Elks, took over his share of the business and we got along real well. I never married or had a family, so Daniel was like my son and Bobby like a grandson. They would get the business when I died. I had been around for a while and was pretty fit, still working as a hunting guide now and then, and in no hurry to check out.

I saw there was no way to avoid them and put on my dumb storekeeper face. Bobby had already sensed something and was playing stone faced indian.

“What can I do for you boys?” Which immediately riled them since they expected to intimidate me.

“We’d like to talk to you in private, sir,” Oily grated.

“Bobby knows everything that goes on here…”

“Alone, sir,” meanie insisted.

“Well we can go out back, though the winds a bit stronger then you Cheyenne boys are used to.”

“What makes you think we’re from Cheyenne?” Oily asked.

“You got that townie look, like you’re used to telling folk what to do,” which annoyed them.

I wasn’t going to take them through my living area, so I led them outside and around the back. There were several wooden chairs and a bench sand stripped down to a smooth surface. I gestured for them to sit. They declined, but I sat, willing to let them think they had an advantage towering above an old man.

Meanie looked at oily, who said:

“I guess this will do”

“Alright, boys,” I said pleasantly. “Who are you and what do you want?”

They both pulled out wallets with badges and oily said:

“We’re criminal investigators from the governor’s office. We’re investigating the accident that destroyed the Grand Teton Resort and Hunting Lodge and led to a number of deaths.”

“What has that to do with me?”

“We heard you know Sam Zona. He may have been involved somehow in the destruction of the place.”

“I don’t know anything about that.”

“But you know Sam Zona,” oily insisted.

“He’s dead?”

“We don’t know. Now you know him.”

“Yeah. Casual like.”

“You know him better then that. He worked for you for several years when he was a teen-ager,” oily stated.

I just shrugged and meanie glared.

“We can make things difficult for you if you don’t cooperate,” meanie threatened.

I guessed they could and it would hurt Daniel and Bobby, so I decided to tell them whatever was common knowledge.

“What do you want to know?”

“Tell us about his background,” oily said. “Start with his parents.”

“I don’t know much about them. Manny came from up North someplace and married a Shoshone woman. They lived on the rez for a long time, but didn’t have kids. There was a story that an old medicine man told them they’d have a son, if they left the reservation and saved the injured animals.”

Meanie laughed. “We don’t believe in witchcraft.”

“Well they started a small ranch in the Great Divide Basin and they took in all kinds of hurt critters, birds, antelope, wolves, they even had a bear for a while…”

“Sounds like a fairy tale to me,” oily sneered. “How’d they make a living?”

“Manny captured wild horses and sold them… Now do you want to hear what I got to say? If not, go back to the city.”

“Go on,” oily said.

“Sam was an exceptionally strong and bright kid. He rode to school on the rez on his pony five days a week. At first some of the older kids tried to bully him. Calling him a half-breed, but he fought back and beat them until they left him alone. He was twelve years old when he was riding home one day and his pony stumbled on a rock. Sam got off to check his hoof and a big cougar went for the horse. Sam grabbed the cat and they fought and he killed it…”

“Bullshit!” meanie growled. “No kid that age could kill a cougar without a rifle.”

I concealed my growing anger and replied:

“I don’t need to talk to you…”

“Ray didn’t mean to insult you,” oily said. “The story seems a little far-fetched. Tell us the rest.”

“Sam got bigger and stronger. When he was about sixteen he went to town, which was mostly owned by Mr. Phillips’ oil company. He met a waitress at the diner and he really liked her, but the riggers and roughnecks told him to leave her alone. There was a big fight and he whipped a lot of them, but she was scared and wouldn’t be with him. One of the roughnecks said she had a younger sister, if he’d wait for her, but Sam refused. Then someone from the oil company offered him a job. When he said ‘no’, the man said wildfires could burn his family’s ranch. Sam didn’t like that and punched him. That night he caught a couple of coyotes, tied torches on their tails and sent them into the oilfield. A couple of rigs burned, costing the company a lot of money, but they couldn’t prove it was Sam.”

“You’re saying he did it?” Meanie demanded.

“It was just a rumor.”

“What happened next?” Oily prompted.

“His mother and father were attacked in town one day. Some say the oil company was behind it, but no one knows. Then a bunch of men went to their ranch and tried to burn it, but there was a big fight and Sam chased them away. Nothing happened for a while, then the oil company started pressing the ranchers to sell. A couple of them went to see Sam and asked for help. He set up a nightwatch system to warn them if there was an attack. One night a bunch of thugs from the oil company came to a ranch that Sam was guarding. He ambushed them, beat them, then sent them back to town naked. They complained to the sheriff, who owed his job to Mr. Phillips, who said he’d look into it. On the advice of his friends, Sam joined the Marine Corps and went away for a while.”

“But something else happened before he joined the Marines,” oily prompted.

I quickly reviewed the event to be sure I told the same story that was in the record.

“He came home from school on the rez one day and found his parents dead. There had been a gun battle and there was a blood trail heading back to the oil rigs. He followed the trail and found three men wounded on the side of the road. They were trying to decide whether to go to the hospital, or go ask the boss to get them a doctor. They fought and Sam killed them. The sheriff, who was owned by the oil company, ignored the murder of Sam’s parents and started building a case against him. That’s when Sam joined the Corps.”

I didn’t tell them that he came to me for advice. I told him to join the Corps and that Bobby or Daniel would take care of his ranch. Oily kept eyeing me, trying to figure out how smart I was, but I made sure to look as dumb as possible.

“So how long was he gone?” Meanie demanded.

I shrugged. “Maybe two or three years. He was wounded in Iraq or Afghanistan and they discharged him. He came home to the ranch and did the same thing as his dad. He tamed wild horses and sold them and took care of injured animals.”

“The record shows he got into trouble sometime after that,” meanie said and pulled out a tablet and looked at the screen.

“He got into a fight, but the charges were dismissed.”

“He’s a real troublemaker,” meanie remarked, “always getting into fights.”

“Not so,” I snapped. “He was seeing some girl who worked as a bartender at the Last Chance Saloon. Her ex-boyfriend and some of his oil worker buddies jumped Sam one night. He beat them so badly they went to the hospital. The sheriff wanted to arrest him, but witnesses saw what happened and defended Sam and said the hooligans started it. Friends of the injured oil workers wanted revenge and they went to the ranch one night. They brought an old pickup truck, set it on fire and aimed it at the ranch house. Sam stopped the truck and pushed it back into their jeeps and trucks and they blew up. A lot of the men got burned, but nobody died. They couldn’t complain to the sheriff and they were afraid of Sam, so they left him alone after that.”

“Are you telling us he pushed the truck by himself?” Meanie sneered.

“Sam’s a strong guy,” I said softly.

“What happened after that?” Oily asked.

“Things were pretty quiet for a while.”

“Until Mr. Phillips wanted to build his resort,” oily stated.

“I don’t know about that,” I muttered.

“Bullshit!” meanie yelled. “Tell us what you know.”

I briefly considered giving them the shock of their lives when this old man kicked both their asses. But I realized they’d be back with reinforcements, so I told them the public version.

“The oil company took over most of the land in the Great Divide Basin for their oil rigs. Nobody who cares about the land wanted that, but Mr. Phillips is a rich and powerful man. One way or another he got what he wanted…”

“Talk more respectful about him,” meanie demanded. “He’s a friend of the governor.”

I was getting fed up with these hired badges, but before I could respond, oily said:

“Alright. Take it easy, guys. We’re just getting to what brought us here.” He looked at me and said: “Go on.”

I guess I decided to take the easy way out because I didn’t want any more trouble for Sam. It was probably a waste of time trying to make these jerks understand how some of us felt about the land, but I made one last effort.

“The Red Desert is the largest unfenced area in the 48 continental states. It’s got all kinds of animals and birds and should be preserved.”

“Yeah. Nice Dream,” meanie muttered. “But there’s oil there and money to be made.”

“There are more important things than money,” I responded.

Oily held up a placating hand. “Go on.”

“Mr. Phillips decided to build a big resort. I don’t know how he got the rights to public land. Probably bribery and threats…”

“That’s slander,” meanie yelled.

“Take it easy, Ray,” oily urged. “Hear the man out.”

By this time I was resisting the temptation to go inside, get my 1911 Model Colt .45 and send them on their way, but it would have meant trouble. So…

“One way or the other Mr. Phillips got a hold of most of the property he wanted. Sam led the fight to protect the environment and supported the hold outs who wouldn’t sell. About this time a woman came to town, Delia something. I don’t know her last name. She was real high class city type, and the sexiest looking woman I ever saw. Sam fell for her hard. I don’t know how she did it, but she cast a spell on him or something and he followed her around like a puppy. She got into his head and started him on drugs. He went downhill fast. He stopped protesting the land sales and challenging the building permits. He got weaker and weaker, ran out of money and lost his ranch. Then she dumped him. Some of his friends claim they saw her with Mr. Phillips.”

“What do you think?” Oily asked.

I shrugged. “What do I know? But it was a little strange that a slick woman like that would come here and get involved with a guy like Sam.”

“Are you accusing Mr. Phillips of using her to get him?” Meanie challenged.

“I’m just telling you what I heard.”

“You know about the explosion that destroyed the resort and killed all those people, including Mr. Phillips.”

“There was some talk about that, but I haven’t been there.”

“But you heard about it,” oily said.

“Yeah.”

“Do you know where Sam Zona is?” Oily asked.

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

“I said no.”

Oily said to meanie. ”Let’s go.”

As they were leaving, meanie turned to me. “We’ll be back.”

I didn’t say anything, watched them get into their SUV and drive off. Bobby came outside and stood next to me, watching the dust plume recede in the distance.

“I was listening from the back window. Is there any way those guys can find out that Sam bought that load of black powder from us?”

“Not if we don’t say anything. There’s no receipt or anything is there?”

“No.”

“Good.”

“You think Sam blew up the place?”

“Yes.”

“Where is he now?”

“Dead along with the others.”

“How do you know that?”

“I know Sam. He was reduced to a wreck of a man who had nothing left. They laughed at him on the streets and weren’t afraid of him anymore. They took away everything he had, then built that temple of luxury to destroy the land he loved. I knew what he was going to do when he bought that powder.”

“Why didn’t you stop him?”

“It was his choice, Bobby. He pulled himself together for one last fight and took his enemies with him.”

“That’s it? That’s all you got to say?”

I smiled. “Too bad the governor wasn’t there.”

He stared at me wide-eyed for a moment, then laughed and I laughed with him.

Gary Beck has spent most of his adult life as a theatre director and worked as an art dealer when he couldn’t earn a living in the theatre. He has also been a tennis pro, a ditch digger and a salvage diver. His original plays and translations of Moliere, Aristophanes and Sophocles have been produced Off Broadway. His poetry, fiction and essays have appeared in hundreds of literary magazines and his published books include 43 poetry collections, 18 novels, 4 short story collections, 2 collection of essays and 8 books of plays. Gary lives in New York City.

You can find more of Gary’s work here on Ink Pantry.

Alice was not expecting any adventures. She was just going to Slumberland. She was after a new mattress because she wanted to get a good night’s rest. The old mattress had lumps in it and the springs and coils within its interior had given her more than a few sleepless nights.

Getting to Slumberland was fairly straight forward even though it entailed a fair amount of walking from the bus stop. It was one of those places that was just outside of town in a big retail park. She stopped to check the street atlas every so often to make sure she was not taking a wrong turn. On one of these occasions, just as she was folding away the map her attention was distracted by the sudden appearance of a white rabbit wearing a waistcoat. It was a lovely rabbit and it reminded her of her childhood. Spotting a white rabbit in your path was supposed to bring you good luck and urge you on toward new beginnings. The rabbit spent some time looking at her with its whiskers twitching. She assumed it must be somebody’s pet that had escaped from the confines of its hutch. She looked around but there was no one else there. The rabbit turned on its heels and bounded off but then it came back to her feet again. What was it trying to tell her? The next time it bounded off she decided to follow it. As it happened, the rabbit did her a favour because it led her down a ginnel which brought her out right opposite the entrance to the retail park. In other words, it had shown her a shortcut to Slumberland.

‘Thank you, rabbit’ she said and then hoped that nobody had heard her, except the rabbit of course. An adult caught talking to a rabbit would look a bit odd, she thought, but the rabbit seemed pleased to have been of help to her and bounded back the way it had come.

For some reason she had difficulty getting through the revolving door at the entrance to the store. It was not that she was large, it was more to do with the doors being small. After a great effort, she managed to hold herself in and walk through the door.

Once she was in the store, she was greeted with a plethora of beds. There were bunk beds, ottoman beds, divan beds, guest beds, sofa beds, day beds, beds of all sizes that were just waiting for her to try them all out. The same could be said of the vast range of mattresses: hybrid, spring, foam and queen mattresses all seemed to vie for her attention. There was not a salesperson in sight. In fact, she seemed to be the only person in the store. After walking round the beds for a while and sitting on them to test them for their comfort, she settled for one of the queen beds, 60 x 84 inches which, according to the label, was for two people. It was certainly nice and roomy.

It was not long before she fell into a deep sleep. You might by now be thinking that she was as mad as a hatter. Who would walk into a store, sprawl across a bed fully clothed and fall asleep?

A lot of people seemed to come into the room which by now had turned into a milliner’s shop. Couples seemed to be mingling together in high spirits. She couldn’t see their faces but she could see their hats. Every one of them, despite being indoors, was wearing a hat. There was a man with a baseball cap with a rounded crown and a stiff, frontward-projecting bill who was handing a cup of tea to a woman in a bell-shaped hat from the Roaring Twenties. Someone who was wearing a fascinator made with feathers and flowers was pouring tea into a cup and passing it to a man in an Australian brand of bush hat. Two teenagers, one in a sun hat and another in a rain hat were conversing with one another in the corner. She couldn’t make out what they were saying but she wondered why one of them thought it was raining while the other one was enjoying being in the sunshine. The whole group erupted when a harlequin appeared in a brightly-coloured, conical party hat emblazoned with patterns and messages. He seemed to be inciting them to throw custard pies at each other. To Alice’s amazement, everyone ransacked the tables and started hurling cake crumbs, cherries and whipped cream at each other’s faces. It was absolute bedlam but nobody seemed to mind at all. It was a complete free for all. Even the gentleman in the bowler hat from Lock’s of St. James’s was joining in and seemed to take great delight when he succeeded in knocking his acquaintance’s top hat straight off his head. A woman in a pill box started to bombard her friend with fruit which finally dislodged her peach basket dashing it to the ground. A boy in a beanie was shivering in the corner, trying to stave off the cold. A long-legged girl in a flat-topped straw hat was strolling through the proceedings as if she were at a regatta. It was all most extraordinary.

Dreams are, of course, quite illogical.

*

In the next room, Alice found herself in maternity. The midwife was urging the Duchess to push.

‘Push hard,’ she said, ‘you can do it.’

The Duchess was not so sure. She thought that she was too posh to push.

‘Keep pushing,’ the midwife exhorted, ‘you’re almost there now.’

All this, despite the unbearable pain.

Eventually the pig appeared with all its trotters intact. It squealed and squealed and squealed.

‘Oh what a lovely piggy you are,’ cooed the Duchess, as the midwife handed her the pig.

‘There, that wasn’t so difficult was it?’ said the midwife.

Alice was shocked but everyone else seemed to think that this was perfectly normal.

*

Out on the croquet lawn, everything seemed to be fine.

‘At least it’s a mallet and not a flamingo,’ she said.

‘Not a what?’ said her friend.

Alice looked embarrassed. Where did the flamingo come from? She clearly wasn’t thinking straight. A mallet was nothing like a flamingo. You could strike a croquet ball hard with a mallet. A flamingo would just get in the way strutting round the hoops with its long pink legs. How absurd would that be?

‘A mallet is a mallet is a mallet’ she said, much to the growing consternation of her friend.

‘You’re talking gobbledygook,’ she said, ‘or was that jabberwocky?’

Either way, they both knew it was not plain English.

There was something wrong with the object she was trying to hit. Yes, it was round like a ball, but it appeared to be curled in on itself and its surface, far from being smooth, was quite spiky. She didn’t want to pick it up because its spines were sharp and looked as if they would draw blood.

‘That’s not a ball, that’s a hedgehog’ she said.

‘What on earth are you talking about?’ said her friend.

‘How did that get here?’ asked Alice.

She looked in horror as her friend whacked the hedgehog with her mallet. It was a gentle whack, of course, more like a tap really, because this was croquet, not golf. Alice felt for the hedgehog.

‘Hitting hedgehogs is wrong,’ she said, as if pronouncing some sort of official announcement. ‘There must be a rule about this. Anyone found hitting a hedgehog…’

‘What are you talking about?’ said her friend, ‘that isn’t a hedgehog, it’s a croquet ball.’

Alice peered closer. Her friend was right. It was indeed a croquet ball.

The white rabbit, who had been watching the proceedings from the long grass, chuckled to himself. It was all so highly amusing.

*

When Alice woke up she was surprised to see that she was still in Slumberland. Several customers were looking at her and talking among themselves. Flustered, she got up, smoothed down her skirt and walked over to the payment desk.

‘I’ll have the queen mattress,’ she said.

‘Very well, madam,’ said the floor assistant. ‘There’s no charge for delivery. Will you be paying by card?’

‘Yes,’ she said, and pulled out the Joker.

‘I’m afraid we can’t accept that,’ he said, ‘but we’ll take the Queen of Hearts.’

Just as she was leaving, she noticed the name badge on his lapel. It said LEWIS CARROLL.

Neil Leadbeater was born and brought up in Wolverhampton, England. He was educated at Repton and is an English graduate from the University of London. He now resides in Edinburgh, Scotland. His short stories, articles and poems have been published widely in anthologies and journals both at home and abroad. His publications include Librettos for the Black Madonna (White Adder Press, 2011); The Loveliest Vein of Our Lives (Poetry Space, 2014), Finding the River Horse (Littoral Press, 2017), Punching Cork Stoppers (Original Plus, 2018) River Hoard (Cyberwit.net, Allahabad, India, 2019), Reading Between the Lines (Littoral Press, 2020) and Journeys in Europe (co-authored with Monica Manolachi) (Editura Bifrost , Bucharest, Romania, 2022). His work has been translated into several languages. He is a member of the Federation of Writers Scotland and he is a regular reviewer for several journals including Quill & Parchment (USA), The Halo-Halo Review (USA), Write Out Loud (UK) and The Poet (UK). His many and varied interests embrace most aspects of the arts and, on winter evenings, he enjoys the challenge of getting to grips with ancient, medieval and modern languages.

You can find more of Neil’s work here on Ink Pantry.