We were heading to our wedding and were sweating clammily,

For to falter at the altar would insult her family.

She suggested that we rested and ingested Xanax pills,

And her noted poise eroded–she was loaded to the gills!

In the aisle, all a-smile, she beguiled all the clan,

But they dissed her when she missed her mark and kissed the preacher man.

I carved a cobra walking cane

From diamond willow wood;

The willow’s fluted edges feign

A cobra’s flaring hood.

And though it had a spongy pith

And plies of tricky grain,

When sanded well and coated with

A polyurethane,

My willow carving seemed to glow

With bands of golden wood,

And no one ’round me seemed to know

I’m really not that good.

The grass-fed fleet of mowers stilled

The bright red leaves of maples spilled

Our chilly little town is filled

With sounds of schoolyard play

And yet my favorite part of Fall

Is not the leaves nor children’s call

But just the simple fact that all

Mosquitoes go away

I was walking along a path through the woods in the middle of the night on the way to my deacon’s house. I didn’t want to wake him up at such a late hour, but I really needed to talk to him about my  wife, and the feelings I was having. The grief that had enshrouded me since her sudden death was turning to anger. I didn’t know why or how to deal with it; I was hoping he could help me.

Deep in the woods, under a pale moon, I suddenly came upon three white-robed figures. As I got closer, I could see they were holding a spindle, a measuring stick, and shears; I knew they were the Fates.

At first I was afraid, but then the anger surfaced again, and I went right up to Atropos with her shears and asked,”Why did you have to cut my wife’s thread of life so short?”

“I can only cut the thread as long as it’s been measured,” came her reply, with just the slightest hint of compassion in her voice.

So I turned to Lachesis, and said, “Why did you measure her life-thread so short?”

“I can only measure out the length of thread given to me.” I thought I could hear pity in her words.

So then I turned to their sister Clotho, the spinner, and before I could say anything, she held up her spindle, and, with neither compassion nor pity, she said, “Even Gods and Goddesses cannot deny their destiny.”

I knew she was right, so I went home and let the deacon sleep.

The eloquent Calliope,

The Muse of epic poetry,

Who whispered words while Homer wrote

The Iliad and Odyssey,

Inspires men from every age

To put the pen upon the page,

And with her wondrous rule of words,

She turns the fool into the sage.

The summer of 1970 promised to be a great time, and I was happy because I was going to get it all on film. For my fifteenth birthday, my folks had bought me something I’d always wanted: my own video camera, with a tripod and the works. My best friend Paul and I had great plans to film all sorts of crazy stuff that summer. But now, here I was setting up the camera on the tripod to possibly film his death.

You see, it all started a few days ago, when I was video-taping Paul and his twin sister Pearl playing on the monkey bars at the park. Pearl was an exceptionally beautiful blue-eyed blonde, and Lars, a big fat bully from down the street, was hanging around, trying to flirt with her until two older boys, Rick Brantz and his brother Kyle, pulled up in their old Chevy, and started harassing Pearl themselves. Paul, though small for fifteen, walked right up to Kyle and told him to leave her alone. Kyle acted like he was going to back down, and then suddenly hammered his fist as hard as he could into Paul’s guts. As Paul lay gasping on the ground, Kyle stood over him and said, “Sucker punches for suckers. Don’t forget it!” Then they pushed Pearl into the car and drove off.

Well, Paul felt like shit after that, having proved what a coward he was in front of his sister and his best friend, not to mention Rick and Kyle. But what was worse, I had it all on film. And what was worse than that, Pearl had managed to get away from the Brantz brothers on her own, and word was spreading that Paul was a coward.

And that’s how we got here now, at Killer Cliff, setting up to film the jump. I say jump because it’s 75 feet to the water, and the water is only 6 feet deep, so to dive from here is suicide. At one time, they called this place The High Dive, and it was a kind of rite of passage into manhood for the local boys to make the dive; but the water level in the pit was much higher back then, and now there was a solid rock ledge just 6 feet below the surface. There was the story around town of a kid that tried it and broke his neck back in the fifties, but no one knew if it was true or not. But someone painted Killer Cliff with a red spray can on the rocks, and no one had tried since.

Paul said it could be done. When he was a young kid, his dad took him to a circus where he saw a guy jump 100 feet into 4 feet of water–by belly-flopping! He went to the library and looked up everything he could find on high diving–yes, it could be done, and I could get it on film, and he would prove how brave he really was.

I got the film rolling, so to speak (this was the seventies), and Paul held up the sign he had made beforehand, which basically said that he was going to do this whether I filmed it or not, so, should things go wrong…. Then he stood on the red footprints painted on the rock, and held out his arms. He was just about to leap, when a car pulled up.

It was Rick and Kyle. As they got out of the car, Paul started to lean forward to jump just as Pearl screamed,”Paul! Don’t jump!” She popped out of the backseat, and ran to him.

He stepped back.

“Let me explain,” she said, grabbing his arm. “I went with Rick and Kyle of my own free will. I thought if I hung out with them, I’d be safe from Lars. He’s the one that’s really trying to get me! He’s been after me for weeks!”

“That bastard,” Paul said, “I’ll kill him.”

Kyle walked over to the car and popped the trunk. “We brought you a little something,” he said, “here’s your real chance to show you’re not a pussy, sucker, not by killing yourself.”

Lars jumped up out of the trunk and went straight for Paul. “I’m gonna kill you, you little shit!”

They were about to go at it when Kyle whispered,”Remember what I told ya.” So Paul acted like he was about to turn away, and then suddenly lunged with all his strength, planting his fist hard into Lars’s fat guts. He went down like a ton of bricks and Paul stood over him fuming. “Sucker punches are for suckers!”

Lars finally managed to get up and started staggering down the road back to town, and as we watched him go, Paul gave me a knowing look, and suddenly leaped off the cliff. The others rushed over to the edge just in time to see him surface and yell,”I told you I could do it!”

So Pearl was happy because her brother was safe, Paul was happy because he had proved he wasn’t a coward, and I was happy because…well, because I got it all on film.

A man sits at a table reading a book. It’s early in the morning, and he rubs his sleepy eyes. His finger traces the words down the page as he silently mouths the sentences. The phone rings.

Sheldon and Jamian were brothers cut from the same cloth, so to speak; yet in some ways they were as different as night and day. Sheldon, five years Jay’s senior, had gone off to MIT, and was currently teaching an astronomy class. (He had only come home now for his father’s funeral–which happened to be on the day before his birthday.)  He loved books and learning, and he was always pointing out the constellations and telling their stories, or, on a really hot day, he would point up at the sun and say,”That one star over there is just too damn close!”

Jay, on the other hand, hated books and learning–it gave him a headache. He never finished high school, and  could barely read, but he was not stupid. Jamian had a different kind of smarts. Since his mother had turned senile and the old man fell ill, he had been running the farm by himself, and he was good at it. And like Sheldon, he could make people laugh. He could make up a funny song off the top of his head, or tell a story that would have the boys roaring. He wore bibs all the time, which only lent to the down-home kind of boyishness about him, something the ladies seemed to find irresistible.

Now that the funeral was over, there was one thing left to do: spread the ashes. The old man had certainly mentioned wanting his ashes spread at a plot he referred to as Valhalla–because of the rows of huge pines–enough times for the boys to know they had a mission. And even though Valhalla was half-way up Pike Mountain, the old man hadn’t foreseen any problems with it. Of course, he hadn’t planned on dying in the winter, or right before a Minnesota snowstorm, or a few days before his eldest son’s birthday. Still, they had confidence that they could ride up there on the mare, and get back before the snow fell.

They left early in the morning with an eye on the darkening clouds. With two riders and two feet of snow on the ground, the mare lumbered along, painstakingly slow. By noon, they figured they were about half way. The snow started to come down; lightly at first, and then in huge quarter-sized flakes, falling softly and silently.

“Sheldon,” Jay said, tapping him on the shoulder.

“Yea?”

“Did you ever pretend that the snowflakes are like an army of tiny aliens with parachutes invading the Earth?”

“No, Jay, I can’t say I ever did. But I think that aliens would have to be a bit more advanced than that to traverse interstellar space…you know, come from another star system.

“Do you think they would attack us? I mean, they might be really hungry after a long trip in space.”

“Well, we’d like to think that they would have to be so far beyond our technology, that we would be the barbarians. On the other hand, Indians. Look what we civilized folk did to them.”

“Smorgasbord Earth, next right. Gas, lodging, and all you can eat.”

They rode on in silence for a while. Until Jay said, “Sheldon.”

“Yea?”

“How come humans are the only animals that need glasses?”

“I’m not even going to answer that one. You should pick up a book some time. I mean it; reading enriches your life, Jay. I know you’re no dummy.”

Finally, they reached Valhalla. The snow was coming down heavy now and the wind had picked up. When Sheldon opened the urn to dump out the ashes, the wind whisked them away, and Mother Nature put the ashes where she wanted them.

Even so, they had accomplished the mission and carried out their father’s last wishes, so they began the journey home.

When it started to get dark and they still had a ways to go, Jay suggested they stop and build a little snow-cave like they used to as kids, and spend the night in it. “C’mon,” he said, “It’ll be fun, Sheldon. I’ll dig it out.”

The snow seemed to be subsiding now, and Sheldon would rather have kept going, but this would be a real opportunity to drill it in his brothers head that a proper education is essential in today’s world. And a chance to get closer to his brother. And his toes were freezing. “Yea, okay,” he said, getting off the mare, “my toes are freezing anyway.”

Sitting back and watching Jay dig the snow like a gopher in a garden made him smile. Maybe not everyone is cut out to be a scholar, he thought for the briefest of moments.

It wasn’t long, the snow-cave was carved, and the two brothers were comfortably nestled inside. The snow had ended, and now the sky cleared, revealing the stars like shining jewels on an inky black velvet sky. Looking up out of the cave entrance, light pollution was nil, and the boys had a view seldom seen by modern man.

“Wow.” Jay was the first to speak. “I never knew there were so many stars!”

“That’s just it, Jay. You miss out on so much by refusing to read a book. Just think of all the wonderful things you could learn. Like, for example: you see that bright star over there?”

“Yea, I see it.”

“Did you know that we can tell exactly what that star is made of, how hot it is, how far away it is, and which way its moving by its light? Or that some stars are so far away, that their light, traveling at six trillion miles an hour, still takes billions of years to get here.”

“Amazing.”

“Somewhere out there,” Sheldon said, pointing into the vastness of space, “two black holes collided and sent out gravitational waves when we were neanderthals living in caves. During the waves’ journey here, we evolved into modern man, discovered science, and built an interferometer just in time to measure those waves.”

To the north, curtains of green and scarlet light danced across the sky.

“Sheldon,” Jay said after a while.

“Yea?”

“I’m sorry I don’t have a birthday present for you.”

“That’s alright. I’ll tell you what. I’ll considerate it a present if you promise to try to educate yourself a little, okay?”

“You got it.”

“Those are some awesome northern lights, hey Jay? Do you remember when ma used to tell us that the northern lights were caused by Eskimos walking on the reflecting ice of the North Pole?”

“Yes I do, but I know what really causes them now.”

“Like hell you do. But you could, if you would just pick up a book sometime. That’s what I think. But then, you never did care what I thought.”

Jay sat up straight and cleared his throat. He said, “When charged particles from the sun strike atoms in Earth’s atmosphere, they cause electrons in the atoms to move to a higher state. When they drop back to a lower energy state, they release photons, creating the aurora, or northern lights.”

Sheldon was dumbfounded. He stared at Jay in disbelief, and then remembered the book he’d seen on the table. “You dipshit,” he said, grabbing his brother around the neck, “I think you just might have given me the best birthday present ever!” His toes were beginning to warm.

I like to write my poems and prose

To try to entertain,

And so from politics I’ve chose

To usually refrain.

But now I feel the time is right

To properly address

A trend I see of late that might

Be stirring up this mess:

So many people get their ‘news’

From Thisisfake.com,

Whose posts begin with BREAKING NEWS

And end with PASS IT ON.

The Newsfeed on their Facebook page

Is fraught with blatant lies,

And every day their growing rage

Ferments and multiplies.

They simply do not know this stuff

Is made to get their goat;

Unfortunately, they’re smart enough

To get out there and vote.

FADE IN

The Starship Enterprise, circling a planet

DISSOLVE TO

The bridge of the Starship, the CREW doing routine work

SPOCK, First Officer, Vulcan

SPOCK

Captain, may I be excused to go to the head?

KIRK, Captain

KIRK

Again, Spock? Damn, that Vulcan bladder must be the size of a walnut. Go ahead.

SPOCK leaves the bridge, CREW resumes work

SULU, Helmsman, Japanese

SULU

Hey, Cap, now I gotta go too.

KIRK

What the hell? Well, go ahead. And tell Spock to quit playing with it and get his green ass back here.

SULU

I believe he would be in the Alien latrine, sir.

KIRK

Oh yea.

SULU leaves the bridge, Spock returns, CREW resumes work

CHEKOV, Navigator, Russian

CHEKOV

I don’t know what was in that Klingon hotdish, Captain, but its running right through me

KIRK

Go, go go. And tell SULU to get back here pronto.

CHEKOV

Ah…he would be in the unisex toilet, sir.

KIRK

Oh yea…that.

CHEKOV leaves the bridge, SULU returns, CREW carries on

UHURA, Communications, black woman

UHURA

Well, I don’t want to be left out, sir…

KIRK

Go for it. Might as well. And tell Chekov to shag his ass back right quick.

UHURA

I think Chekov is in the Men’s can, sir.

KIRK

Dammit! Wait…in that case, I’ll tell him myself.

FADE OUT

End of Scene 1