Menage_a_20_-_Tales_with_a_Hook

by Twenty Goodreads Authors

  O’Hara stood and looked around for a weapon, though he knew he had none. The noises eased and then intensified, as if the prowler had lost his bearing. From behind a pile of books, O’Hara rescued an old baseball bat he’d confiscated from a DiMaggio wannabe, after he’d shattered his garage window with a dismal lob. Then he remembered his flashlight was in the garage. He paused at the door and listened. The noises stopped.

  Perhaps the intruder had heard him and fled. Hefting the bat, he grasped the handle and opened the door a couple of inches. Silence. O’Hara closed his eyes, recited the Lord’s Prayer in fewer than twelve seconds, and pushed a tentative hand through the door gap to reach the light switch. Still nothing.

  Feeling a little foolish, he yanked open the door. With the bat at ready, he stepped forward.

  The first thing he noticed was the light. It moved. O’Hara jerked his head to the overhead corridor lamp, a dusty wrought iron affair with amber glasses. It swung like a departure light in a stationmaster’s hand. Then he saw the air ripple.

  At the end of the corridor, the brown paint in the canvas resolved in concentric whorls, stealing glints from the dancing light.

  O’Hara felt a groan welling up inside and dropped the bat when the passageway darkened abruptly, as though a great hand had smashed the light against the ceiling. Then, angry wind howled in the corridor.

  CARLOS J CORTES

  Although born in Madrid, Spain, on a wonderful 14 February, I’ve lived in a handful of countries: England, Brazil, Africa, you name it. Hang on a minute... but Africa is not a country, someone will say. Right you are, and I wouldn’t call countries some of the places I’ve lived, so let’s leave it at that.

  I’ve spent most of my life enlightening the lives of others. No, I’m not a man of the cloth, rather a lighting designer, light scientist and fiber optics systems design engineer and writer. Now I live in Barcelona and tomorrow... your guess is as good as mine.

  Besides ten non-fiction titles in light physics, lighting, fiber optics and bridge (excellent to use as door-stops or to save your life in a cold winter night if you run out of fuel) Bantam, an imprint of Random House, has recently published two of my novels.

  PERFECT CIRCLE Bantam Spectra 2008 ISBN: 0553591622 T P

  M Y VALENTINE and SPRING SPRUNG are from a collection of fifty short stories titled THE FOLKS NEXT DOOR and prefaced with:

  ‘Whenever the news unveil a new horror to afford us a glimpse into the darker aspects of the human soul, we often forget the actors in these tragedies are people like you or me; the taciturn bus driver, the affable hotel porter or the prim lady walking her poodle. People who awake under the same sun, dream under the same moon and harbor secret yearns. The folks next door is a collection of short stories about ordinary people; someone’s neighbors, mine or, perhaps, yours.’

  http://www.carlosjcortes.com

  My Valentine

  Carlos J Cortes

  Copyright © Carlos J Cortes 2001 ...and everywhere, rough concrete walls, damp—as if weeping with insufferable sadness. Irregular pillars, crowned with rusted and gnarled steel bars, jutted from the ruins like avid fingers. Weeds forced their way out through the rubble in a forlorn bid to lick the sunlight seeping through low clouds. The bleak landscape begged mercy from the heavens...

  Brenda paused; Mr. Schatz knew how to paint depression. After inserting a bookmark, she closed the volume. ‘Loud Silences’ by Bernard J. Schatz. I wonder what the ‘J’ stands for, Brenda pondered. Joshua? John? No, not John, perhaps Jason or James. She sighed, deposited the book on the side table, and stood. “Tea, dear?”

  John lowered his newspaper a fraction, and peered over his reading glasses. “Are you having some?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then I’ll join you.” He puffed at his pipe and continued reading the paper.

  In the kitchen, Brenda filled the kettle and set it on the range. From a low cupboard, she drew a small rattan tray. After fitting a gingham cloth on the tray she prepared a tin of Earl Grey, spoons, teapot and two cups and saucers.

  During the liturgy, she had avoided looking over the sink. Now, with anticipation, she narrowed her eyelids and raised her gaze to an explosion of color on the window ledge. Bunched in a crystal vase, Sweet Violets and Wild Columbines competed for space among Solomon Seals, Baneberries, Turtleheads and Jack-in-the-Pulpits, cradled in White Woodland Milkweed and Wild Ginger.

  She stared transfixed at the humble wild flowers she had lovingly arranged in her best vase.

  For the past six years, every February 14, an Interflora van would deliver a bouquet to her doorstep, no card, and no details of the sender. Brenda smiled, peering at the bottom of the vase where a fragment of aspirin had crumbled into white dust. They will last longer.

  Anonymous Valentine? Six years, six bunches of flowers and over two thousand love-letters ago she had met Antoine. Hardly anonymous; my sweet Antoine, love of my life...

  When the kettle whistled, Brenda poured boiling water in the pot and returned the kettle to the range. After sloshing the water around to warm the pot, she emptied it in the sink and dosed three teaspoons of tea leaves, filling it afterward with boiling water from the kettle.

  With a last longing look to the flowers, she carried the tray to a low table between the easy chairs.

  Brenda poured the tea and sat again at her chair, opening her book once more.

  John, glanced at her, puffed his pipe, and smiled. “Thank you, honey.”

  After Marcia and Fiona—their twin daughters—had left home to work in Europe, Brenda had plunged headlong into a tunnel of depression. In her early forties and with little hopes of planning a new career, she retreated into her rockery garden and joined ‘Astilbe’, an Internet wildflower group. Corresponding with unknown gardeners on the best mulching for Lilys-of-the-Valley or the demands of Ligularia had done little to ease her despair. John, her husband, had doted on her in his own clumsy ways at first.

  Later, as if he understood she needed breathing space, he had retreated into his sempiternal newspaper and pipe. He would drive home straight from work. After dinner they would share a silent interlude, reading, before retiring for the day. On weekends, he would watch her potting about in the garden from the porch’s shadow. Later they would attend the services together at the local church and resume reading.

  She didn’t question his lackluster. John had always been a quiet man, drawing a word from him took considerable effort. Brenda supposed he was happy—in his limited way—to vegetate and enjoy a monotonous existence with an eye on retirement.

  One day, she saw a glimpse of light at the end of the tunnel; in her inbox there was a letter from a new flowerlover. His name was Antoine, from Lebanon and his lines oozed passion ‘why am I so cursed? I’ve chased sisters and cousins by the side of Ba’lül Lake and raced them to Al Habbärïyah, admiring along the way Toad Lilies behind every clump of rock. Now that I no longer chase or race, I long for their mysterious orchid-like blossoms in the fall, when my garden takes a barren look.

  I planted my lilies a few years ago. Their unhappiness was evident by late spring: ratty looking sad foliage. Next year I persevered, and provided company to soothe their melancholy: Hostas, Hellebores and Erythroniums. All seem happy but my lilies. I have heaped kindness and attention upon them, I’ve read to them Omar Jayyam’s ‘Rubai’ and sung Fairuz Rahbani’s melodies, to no avail.

  Forgive me if I appear forward. Can you help me raise my lilies?

  She recalled his first letter literally, like most others. The following day she had gone to the local library and looked up the little town of Al Habbärïyah in the southern reaches of La Bekaa valley. After browsing through the tiny ‘Rubaiyyat’ by the ancient Persian poet Omar Jayyam she had ordered a copy.

  Naturally, she had answered his query, and advised deep shade, and a good, moist soil rich in organic matter. Every day there would be a letter waiting in her in-box. He hadn’t missed a day in six years.

  Four mon
ths after their first communication, on February thirteen, in Antoine’s letter there was a George Herbert poem.

  I got me flowers to strew thy way;

  I got me boughs off many a tree:

  But thou wast up by break of day, And brought’st thy sweets along with thee.

  The following morning a wonderful bouquet of wild flowers arrived at her doorstep.

  Brenda had felt a turmoil of confusion. She tried to delude herself with the innocent nature of her letters, they had written solely of gardening. As she arranged the flowers in her prize vase, Brenda smiled. Antoine had reached halfway around the world with a bunch of flowers. Of course, she knew the flowers would be local, but the order had traveled from Lebanon, the Phoenician land of milk and honey.

  Afterward, truth fought its way, crumbling her hurriedly piled defenses. There was nothing innocent in their letters. Brenda sat at her computer and opened the files where she stored his mail. It was all there. Between the lines, passion, subtle lover’s play, and carefully contrived innuendo played hide-and-seek in prose’s lyricism.

  ...yesterday Oconee Bells bloomed, like foam over waves of lavender, and my soul foamed other waves across the ocean...

  It suddenly dawned on her she had been unfaithful. She had cheated on John.

  ...crossing the desert from a cousin’s wedding—there had been wine and song, joined by the wind rustling the tents’ canvas—I stopped and lay on the sand, my eyes pregnant with stars, as I dreamt of flowers in distant lands...

  The discovery left her speechless because she had refused to acknowledge the obvious. It was all there, in black-and-white. Flirting, gentle teasing, and above all other consideration: desire. Her ensuing reaction had been even more surprising. Suddenly she laughed and felt warm and deliciously wicked, wanted, desired, worthy of arousing platonic passions with her words. The lunacy of a metaphysic affair washed over her like warm water and left her unsoiled like a naiad. Then she wrote like a woman.

  Brenda turned the page with an automatic movement; unawares to how long she had sat with her eyes staring at the page before her. She reached for her tea and sipped. It was stone cold. Sudden staccato noises issued from John’s direction as he tapped his pipe on a wooden ashtray. He relit it and puffed contentedly, a cloud of blue aromatic smoke spreading through the living room.

  She could never leave John. He was a good man; different, but a good man, a solid companion for a long trek. A long time ago, she had wished John could metamorphose in Antoine, her suave Antoine. But they were like oil and water; like a thoroughbred Arabian stallion and a shire horse.

  John cleared his throat and stood. He donned his sleepers and folded the newspaper, depositing it on the magazine rack by the floor lamp. “I’ll turn in. It’s getting late.”

  She nodded and stared for an instant into his gentle, cognac-colored eyes. John leaned over, caressed her hair once, and pecked her forehead lightly. “Goodnight, honey. Don’t stay up late.”

  She gazed at John’s retreating silhouette, a faint haze of smoke trailing behind him, his slippers dragging slightly on the polished wooden floors. Yes, a shire horse, an old tired horse. His shoulders slumped. She felt a pang of guilt and bit her lower lip.

  Her love affair was a chimera, the stuff from which dreams are made. She knew next to nothing about Antoine, not his age or appearance or marital status or religion. She had hinted a couple of times at the beginning but he never answered or asked anything in return. Theirs was the perfect platonic relationship, a communion of the spirit. Antoine had opened to her his poet’s heart and bared his delicate soul. At times, she’d been speechless at its beauty.

  I walked on the beach and sat on an overturned boat. Fishermen ground their boats upside down on the sand, over their nets and oars, away from the sea’s undertow. It occurred to me the boats looked like beached feelings, secure in their anchor but yearning to meld into the water’s embrace.

  Under my fingers, I felt a limpet, solidly stuck to painted wood. Dearest, I would to lay at anchor with you in timeless sands, impervious to the seasons, enmeshed in your hair, drunk of long kisses...

  Probably he was married, with many children. Perhaps his wife ignored his sensitive spirit, a trait men hid jealously like bad teeth, fearful of baring their frailty, worried about their masculinity. Brenda had fantasized what it would be to live with a man like that. An intelligent, suave, and perceptive man; a man with a fragile soul and unafraid to share it with her. Heady. Delirious. The thought peopled her waking dreams often nestling in her chest, leaving her breathless.

  Carefully she deposited the book on the table and dipped her parched lips in the cold tea, the bitter liquid surprisingly refreshing. Antoine, my love, how can a yearning be so painful?

  Tomorrow there would be another letter, even on weekends or holidays; his mail would be there. At first she had pondered how could a married man, if he indeed was married, take time everyday to write long letters. She was at home all day, and could sit at the computer any time, but a working person would be different.

  One day, a Thursday, she had asked a simple question about Lebanese flora. Not until Monday did he address the issue, although his daily letters didn’t fail to arrive over the weekend. It had happened other times. Brenda deduced he wrote his weekend letters during the week and programmed his computer to send the mails at predetermined intervals. Once she had suggested they speak on the phone. His answer had been unequivocal.

  ...We both have our beds to sleep in, dearest, beds of our choosing, at times uncomfortable, even inhospitable, but our beds they are. Everyday, a string of nothingness reaches us, to shape feelings and thoughts, on windows of unreality. Oh, I know we can print our letters, and hold them in our hands and enjoy a fallacy of reality, a corporeality accomplished by us because they didn’t exist until they were on paper. A voice is real. It would follow an image. Suddenly we would exist. Existence brings pain, my dearest.

  An aroma is close to being virtual. We can smell, and take it with us, treasure it forever. We can add shapes and colors in our mind, build a fantasy flower in a dream garden. The fragrance is perennial but dreams... are only dreams.

  Brenda stood, her heart heavy, collected the tea service and made for the kitchen. She would do the dishes in the morning. It was late. John would be asleep, but his breathing would not slow and deepen until she lay by his side.

  As she bent over the low table to switch off the floor lamp, she noticed a small folded paper on John’s seat; it must have fallen from his pocket. Brenda picked it up to leave it on the breakfast table. She unfolded it and glanced. It was a cash receipt. As she placed the paper on the table, something caught her eye. Back at her easy chair, Brenda switched on the lamp and froze. She couldn’t make most of the text because tears blurred the paper, but a line shone like a branding iron.

  One large bouquet of wild flowers $35.95

  Spring Sprung

  Carlos J Cortes

  Copyright © Carlos J Cortes 2003 First, he was aware of his body; but besides volume, darkness and time, Jonathan did not feel anything in particular. He sensed his chest rising and falling at intervals. Later, reddish light seeped through his closed eyelids; a pleasant sensation. As his awareness sharpened sluggish senses, he heard faint pattering sounds from the window.

  A faraway tap dancer launched into a Double Buffalo, paused, and burst with a Cramp Roll. Jonathan kept his eyes shut. He lay savoring the new day, as a miser would his treasure, absorbing the perception of his surroundings, opening his eyes, a little at the time: first, a slit to let in a trickle of light filtered by thick lashes, then fully to shapes, colors and shadows. Then he saw the bird.

  Jonathan smiled.

  The robin was busy on his window ledge, pecking at seeds on a tin can lid, oblivious to anything but his bounty. Jonathan gazed past the feathered harbinger and, for the first time in many months, felt a clear impression of happiness. The air through the half-closed window was crisp, with a tang of new life and damp
earth. Past wrought iron grilles, he peered at a clear blue sky and the trees’ incipient greenery.

  Spring!

  Spring sprung....

  Jonathan chortled, recalling a preposterous verse:

  Da spring is sprung, da grass is riz;

  Ah wundah where da boidies iz. Da little boids is on da wing. Ain’t dat absoid?

  Da little wings is on da boid!

  He tried declaiming it aloud—in his finest gangster’s voice—but laughed himself to tears before the second verse.

  When his eyes cleared, Jonathan gazed with a pang of grief at the abandoned lid, the spring messenger startled away by his laughter. He frowned, looking in turn at the lid, the half-open window and the drawn curtains. Then his face broke into a grin. Maria. It must have been Maria. She must have laid the seeds on the windowsill.

  Jonathan closed his eyes and relaxed, filling his mind with Maria’s image, her shapely lithe body, her garçon hairstyle and her gorgeous legs. The tip of his tongue licked parched lips, as he thought of her legs, smooth, soft, and with delicate clefts behind her knees.

  A long time ago, in a Victorian novel he’d read, the hero would stand for hours at a tram stop, to catch a glimpse of his love’s ankle. Ankles are important, Jonathan thought. From the shape, texture, and grace of an ankle, a shrewd observer could gather a wealth of information about a leg’s evolution all the way to the waist. He chuckled at his lustful thoughts. Fillies could also be appraised by their ankles.

  Maria’s ankles were slender but shapely. How can something be slender and shapely? Jonathan frowned. Well, perhaps not slender as in bony, slender as in nice.

  Jonathan sensed that something strived to stir underneath the sheets and reddened at the thought. Spring.

  An idea nibbled at the edges of his consciousness, vague at first, slowly focusing, like shapes seen through gauzy silk. When the concept gathered substance, it whisked away his last vapid threads of sleep. Jonathan pursed his lips. Maria. “The difficult we do immediately; the impossible takes a little longer.” Wasn’t that the army proverb?