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My cousin told me a story about her parents. They met in kindergarten in New Jersey. My Uncle spotted a blonde girl sitting in the next row, two seats ahead. As my cousin told me about this, I imagined the girl’s hair in braids, sitting up stiffly in her chair. This was because when she was old, she consistently maintained perfect posture. My Uncle Dudley—yes, that was his name—was just begging for a whack on the hand for slouching, with his brunette hair a chaotic mess of a bowl cut. When the teacher’s ruler responded to his supposed insolence and swung down with a Catholic thwack, the girl turned to Dudley with tears in her eyes. Later that day, Uncle Dudley approached her, blurting out, “Someday, I will marry you.” After the end of the school year, the girl moved to New Jersey. According to Aunt Vivian and Uncle Dudley, the following years passed long and complexly. Those times were rough on Dudley’s family. They moved eight times in nine years, partly because it was often impossible to keep up with the rent on income from the gas station my grandfather ran in Hackensack, New Jersey, during the Great Depression. In the summer before junior year, the family moved once again. Again, a new high school. On the first day, Dudley and Vivian (who turned out to be the blonde girl from kindergarten) ran into each other in the hallway leading to the school entrance. Three years later, carrying their ragged and stained engagement portrait in his pocket, Dudley was fighting off banzai charges in the punchbowl of Bougainville. *** October is the first storm from the Canadian north, leaves falling like ripples at low tide, high school football under the Friday night arc lights as competing marching bands blare, blast, and drum staccato from the stands. But what really sticks as your memory travels from teenage morning until the night of old age is the first girl you fell in love with. She is more than just the first—the person you knew from the first gaze was the One. Kim Wickham is known for wearing eccentric outfits at her cashier job at the Winns on West 34th Street. This particular day, she dressed as an Apache dancer: black beret, red striped cotton pullover, and a mid-length black A-line skirt. Kim is considered a weirdo, even by the freaks at school. Earlier in the day, on the way to third period English, Kim was called out in the hallway as being a cute culty Christian. “Actually,” Kim responded, “I’m a witch.” Then, went into the classroom, third seat, the last row. Next to me. I think she was a rebel against the rebels, which I found appealing. Leaning against the counter, I told her that. “Makes sense to me,” Kim said while rolling complicated multi-patterned fabric. “There was something I read about fashion expressing individuality,” she said. “If outward appearances matter, make the most without turning it into a uniform.” She paused with an enigmatic smile, adding. “But it is true. I am a witch. However, not just yet, really. I’m learning, though.” “I’ll tell you more later.” *** I learned a lot from Kim. In the following week, monarch butterflies followed her before they migrated. Occasionally, she would hold out her left hand, and a butterfly would settle on her finger. We took walks through the neighborhood. Both of us had single mothers and barely knew our fathers. We looked forward to next quarter and taking Drivers Ed. We desperately wanted to learn to drive and be free to leave when we could and go farther without taking the Northcross Mall bus. Sometimes, Kim wore an ankh around her neck. Other times, a pentagram. A teacher demanded she take it off. Instead, Kim pushed it under her black turtleneck. I asked her if this made her mad. “I am mad, but things have a way of working themselves out.” The teacher was gone the next quarter. She failed an English competency exam and was immediately dismissed. I tell her. Kim responds with a look denoting this was how things work themselves out. *** During the winter, Kim taught me Tarot, keeping it simple by reading a three-card spread. Explained how to build my intuition and work on developing my subconscious. We discussed dreams and their meaning. She told me about the vital nature archetypes and gave me books to read that often were hard to understand, but she made a point to ask questions. Kim does spells but remains secretive. I’ll save that for the future, she said. She showed me her simple bedroom altar: two candles in sleek candlesticks on a black cloth. Sewn on the fabric was an interlaced unicursal hexagram with a small flower at its center. I already knew about Aleister Crowley and Thelema. I had just finished reading The Book of the Law. Afterward, she handed me another book by him. Moonchild. *** After Spring quarter dismissal, Kim and I climbed the cliff and ran across the Expressway. I followed behind her, entranced by the flow of her long peasant skirt and the skip-hop sounds of well-worn leather sandals. Outside Spellmans, we bummed a ride from a junior we knew well enough to take us to the public library. Instead of going in, we walked to the park across the street and stretched out on the grass near the gazebo. Staring into the sky, I sensed that the park was shaped like a punchbowl—the same as Bougainville. Kim climbed over me and intertwined her fingers with mine. “Okay, I trust you now. We share a creative alchemy.” She leaned in closer. I stared into her wolfish eyes, my gaze tracing the lines of her chin, lips, the arch of her eyebrows, and the braids against the sides of my face. I thought about Uncle Dudley in kindergarten. “Solstice is next month,” Kim said. Her grip tightened. “Then.” Mike Lee is a writer and editor at a trade union in New York City. His work appears in or is forthcoming in Roi Fainéant, Drunk Monkeys, The Opiate, Fictionette, Brilliant Flash Fiction, BULL, and many others. His story collection, The Northern Line, is available on Amazon.

Finished in Dreams Deduction of the general from the specific is no longer needed, the evidence is in— The ice caps are melting, oceans rising, refugees on the move. How many wails for the earth slide out in the lowlands until even the most self-made individual will raise their eyes, hazed at first, to receive the news as it arrives and arrives. We remember the way it used to be, all those drives across country while we said we’d do what we want, when we want, touting our freedom, we even shot fireworks. That turned out to be a waste. So no more puffing ourselves up, no more crazy weekends on the coast, we’ve got to live smaller, become less. And you know what? The work still gets finished in dreams. Hamlet In A Climate Silly boy, at first a character in Shakespeare’s mind, that he puts on a page, then on a stage, who’s wondering if he should be or not, portrayed over and over in varied climes each allowing the slightest nuance of a word, that later becomes a major theme, it takes over the play. I write these words as I react to heat, cold, wind. Aren’t I one person in one context then unrecognizable in another, the way I get handsy with you after the sun goes down, and wake in the night, looking into blackness for a sign. . . So, like Hamlet, I’ll go on from here into the next clime, feeling my way into the firmament, remembering that what I carry is everything I’ll know. A Globe My story seemed as fulsome as real time could make it. I saw storm fronts arrive bringing wind shifts on the flats. I heard rustling in dark corners that I tried to enlighten, enliven. There were conversations that I couldn’t forget, and now they’ve grown gargantuan, I listened, I heard. And the voice of Miley Cyrus wafted the hall: was it a moan? Why did her loss of love matter so much? Maybe she projected herself in the melody, wanted to become a moral or two. Which is what we try to make of ourselves, don’t we? And when the lawyers arrived, I felt like a soldier in a portrait of Waterloo: so much to be comprehended, all that running into the breach, some salutations offered, then the breaths die away. Luckily, there were survivors, or did I make that up too? Wasn’t there a stenographer who made a record so later we could examine the wreckage, offer our critiques. Those lines we shot across the conference room were a sad cover for our grief that flooded the place. At the end of the day, we just left. Yet, once outside we confronted surrounding heat, swelling the air like a harsh idea filling the earth, and despite pillow talk or the private speech I heard in my head, I never tried to stop it, at least not much, not then. And whether I ran the silly streets or took leave to the coast, I couldn’t escape it. For surprise, on this planet, everything is connected to everything. So, buckle up, strap on the strap on, we live on a globe. Stories in Smoke As though in Bosch’s Descent Into Hell he swans the lowlands swamped by smoke from fires on the coast, the temp on his car AC turned down as the heat heats up, unaware that the climate is taking his measure. The radio bursts with Winona: why did her entanglement with a man cause her to wail so much? I mean, she’s a star? Doesn’t she have it all, the cars, the place with a pool, receive texts from exotic venues, or does she struggle like the rest of us. We go on, try to be happy, as we further make our descent. Once the meeting Tee’s up, I feel like one of Napoleon’s soldiers looking from the trench, barbs lobbed across the table, glaring looks given, wondering how it came to this or that, and how my children, one who asks do you love me, one saying of course you love me, and one who doesn’t give a rats ass if I love them or not, could clear the air, and you know what, even if I tried or thought about it, or wanted to, I couldn’t keep people from driving around, or prevent the population from swelling. I went to sleep to the sound of traffic, meaning we shouldered through brambles, we made the brambles. We did not give up no matter how complicated the ornery kerfuffle. So hold on to your undies. We are still on our own. We are on the loose. Taking Stock She looks from her door. Hadn’t she thought by now she’d have found a cure for some loathsome disease, written a compelling oeuvre, found a way to save the planet from us. From here she’ll turn back to her desk, find the email she was writing, focus on it, be as granular as she can. The lights will burn brighter as dusk comes on. Parked cars will remain where they are. Meetings will drone on. Still, from inside she’ll hear music, it will be like wind blowing in tall grass, it will be just like that. Cottingham has published poems and reviews of poetry collections in many journals, including Prairie Schooner, Ashville Poetry Review and Rain Taxi. He is a Pushcart Nominee, a Best of Net Nominee, the winner of the 2019 New Millennium Award for Poem of the Year and was a finalist in the 2022 Great Midwest Poetry Contest. His debut volume of poems Midwest Hymns, launched in April, 2023. It is a finalist in the 2023 Best Book Awards for Poetry. He lives in Edmond, Oklahoma.

sitting poolside at a Dominican resort an older couple guessing mid-80’s shuffles by my wife turns to me and asks will that be us someday? I tell her No she’s hurt by my answer mid-forties is painful doubling it sounds awful I explain that I simply no longer desire a long life a good one will suffice Jason Melvin writes words. He puts Doritos on ham sandwiches. To read those words, visit jasonmelvinwords.weebly.com.  Make your own sandwich.

Check-in was smooth, baggage drop easy. The absence of belts, buckles, coins and earrings meant she cleared security having expended a fraction of the psychological effort she’d set aside for the task. It was a good start. But, in the buffed marble and strip lights of the terminal building, she was stopped short by the idea that it had all been too simple, that although nothing so far hinted at the potential horror to come, there would still be a price to pay, and that days that started as well as this could just as easily end as badly as her imagination would allow. The ledger of life would have to be squared and tallied, her universe brought back into balance. She was scared of flying. Illogical, she knew. Flying was the safest form of transport; statistically, empirically, anecdotally. Planes didn’t just fall out of the sky. No, she thought. They never made it off the runway. When they did, they ran out of fuel and glided serenely into housing estates. They got lost in fog. Engines were wrecked by whooper swans at thirty thousand feet. Crews forgot or never knew which flashing warning lights meant what. Captains fell asleep. First Officers were still leafing through instruction manuals when the fuselage hit the tree-line, or belly-flopped down a motorway in a shower of sparks. It wasn’t incorrect to say that flying was the safest form of transport, she thought, but it was disingenuous. Walking was much safer. No-one had ever walked into the side of a mountain and exploded. They may have fallen off one, but that was something different altogether. She bought a magazine. She tried to think about something else. She couldn’t. She resorted to logic. Apples and oranges. She wasn’t comparing like for like. Safety was a calculation based on distance travelled versus frequency of incident. Flying was safer than walking because you couldn’t walk as far as you could fly. Although you could. And the further you walked, the greater the chance of an accident. But the accident would be the result of external forces, not something intrinsic to the act of walking itself. You might get run over. You might freeze in a mountain pass. But walking in and of itself wouldn’t kill you. Aviophobia. The fear of flying. The big one. The last to overcome. All others had been skirmishes in the foothills; small victories and easy wins, picked off and banked before the final assault. Tactics. Name her fear. Seek it out. Engage. Emerge stronger. And when the going got tough, keep going. And think of something else in order to get through. She bought a cup of coffee. She drank it. She went to the toilet. Arachnophobia – spiders. Ophidiophobia – snakes. Close cousins in terror. A one-on-one in the flat with Rocco from Collette’s Jungle Party Experience had gone a long way to seeing off both. “You’d be surprised how often we do this,” Rocco had told her. It was a Tuesday afternoon. Collette was his sister. It had been her day off. “She’s having a break,” he confided. “From the children, not the animals. “Avoid Pinner,” he warned. A bristly tarantula formed a black and orange epaulette on his shoulder. He cradled a four-foot Royal python in his arms like a sleeping puppy. He angled his spider-shoulder forward. “Pick it up,” he said. “Go on.” She had. “The Colombian red-leg,” Rocco announced. “Aggressive, but not particularly venomous.” She felt her heart race, her skin cool and wrinkle at the thought of what she was doing. She focused on the frame of the living room window, wondering how much it might cost to get stripped and re-painted, what value doing so would add to the flat, whether or not she should sell the flat, and where she would move to if she did. The Colombian red-leg scampered weightlessly from her palm to her elbow, from her elbow to her shoulder, and back to her palm. “We used to have two,” said Rocco, devotedly stroking the tiny dome of the spider’s head. “But … Pinner.” Seemingly exhausted, the red-leg padded gratefully onto the back of his hand. He shrugged the python towards her. “Touch it,” he urged. “It’s not slimy.” It wasn’t. The snake’s body arched upwards as if welcoming her attention. Silently running through a list of direct debits and standing orders, she accepted it into her arms. Softly, she held it, respectful of its weight and power. After a minute, it flexed and began circling back towards the comfort of Rocco’s chest. As it left her arms, its head hovered briefly in mid-air. Rocco leaned forward and kissed it gently on the snout. “Don’t tell Collette I did that.” Spiders. Snakes. Easy. Acrophobia. Heights. She’d booked excursions to five-hundred-plus-foot seafront observation towers in Portsmouth and Brighton. Rehearsing recipes for vegan lasagne, and chicken on the bone with paprika and green peppers, she’d ridden to the top, and made herself look down onto the cities below; the roads and houses, the lead and asphalt roofs of office blocks, the heaving sea and the narrow, white backs of gulls gliding beneath her feet, identical in either location. When her eyes swam and her head turned heavy, she’d made herself keep looking, calculating portion sizes and cooking times in order to reach the other side of the feeling. When the sensation had passed, she’d quietly punched the air. Heights. Piece. Of. Piss. Of course, she’d told herself, that had been low-hanging fruit. More abstract fears would be a different challenge. Atychiphobia; the fear of failure, which she had had to work hard to define and defuse. Being specific helped. Degree? She had one. Career? She earned a living. Relationship? Robert had turned out to be a prat. In fact, finding that out had been a significant success. Failure, she’d decided, was an external construct, a function of other people’s minds. The trick was to stop it from getting into hers. Allegrophobia. Being late.  For what, she decided to tell herself? She resolved to live in the moment and let whatever happened, happen, when it did, whether she was in time to see it or not. Getting to that point had required focus and dedication, but that was what she was good at, allowing her to loop back to failure, to the concept of which she administered another, thorough kicking. Other fears she’d approached philosophically. Coulrophobia. Equinophobia. She’d been kind to herself about clowns and horses, giving herself permission to avoid them both. Clowns on horses were unlikely, she had decided. If she saw a clown on a horse, she’d emigrate. Aviophobia. The fear of flying. Why she was here, roaming departures before she embarked on a nine-hour journey she thought would either cure her or dissolve her mind forever. She passed a sushi bar, a pub chain outlet, bureaux de changes, signs for airline service desks. The multi-faith prayer room was closed. Flying. Statistically, it was safer than driving. She wasn’t disputing that. But that was because there were several tens of thousands of times as many cars on the road than there were planes in the sky. And yes, she realised her ratios were screwy, that the aircraft she was counting only belonged to commercial fleets, like the one she was making herself travel with later that day, and that the cars she was counting were all cars, everywhere, belonging to and being driven by anyone. Also, cars drove on roads, often into each other. Planes flew in the seemingly infinite sky. The safety record of a billion-and-a-half cars, being driven by at least that many people, in the crowded constraints of what was effectively two dimensions, could not be compared to that of thirty-five thousand aircraft, with windows and radios and lights, being flown by crews of professionals adhering to pre-agreed protocols, in the vast, three-dimensional expanse of the air. And still, planes managed to crash. She bought herself breakfast. The garish, manic café she chose promised an average wait time of twelve minutes between order and food. She wondered why. If you were in that much of a hurry, would you really order a meal? Peeved and unnerved, she thought about punishing the irrelevance of the claim by taking her custom elsewhere. But she was hungry, and something related to but not quite about her adopted mantra of living life in the moment meant she felt obliged to stay. She was also at the front of the queue to be seated. When her food arrived, after a wait of twenty minutes which seemed to prove a point, she treated herself to a bout of nit-picking to calm her anxiety. The coffee was lukewarm. When the sausages were cooked was anyone’s guess. The baked beans had sought safety by fusing themselves together. The scattering of flash-fried mini croutons was pointlessly difficult to eat. The meal as a whole had the appearance of having been assembled some time ago, to a pre-ordained, pre-approved pattern ticked off by a focus group, and stored somewhere hot, but not quite hot enough. Why the staff had taken twenty minutes to bring it to her table was a mystery. Perhaps they were waiting for the coffee to cool down. She laughed out loud at her own joke. “Everything OK?” The waitress was at her table. “Lovely, thank you.” She left a tip. Generosity felt like a tribute to a higher power. Rounding up her bill was buying luck. She felt better. She went to the toilet again. She bought an ironic Toblerone. She told herself that if – when - she got on the plane, she would steal a pillow, some branded headphones, or a copy of the laminated safety card to prove she’d actually taken off. She would keep it in a drawer in the kitchen and look at it whenever she questioned her resilience. Wait. What kind of idiot was she? Of course she couldn’t steal the laminated safety card. What could invite disaster more effectively than planning to steal the aircraft’s laminated safety card? If she’d wanted to tempt fate, could she have done it any more effectively? She set about making amends, She took the escalator to the lower concourse and pushed a ten-pound note through the Perspex dome of the charity collection point. If she ever got on the plane – and suddenly it wasn’t at all clear that she would - she would put a similar amount in the little good causes envelope she’d find in the netted pouch of the seat in front of her. She’d recycle properly. She’d sponsor a goat. She bought herself a coffee. She sat in an empty row of moulded plastic seats in front of the towering glass wall of the departure hall. Her head spun. Her ears felt hot. She began to search for something to occupy her mind. Outside, she could see a low, flat, yellow vehicle, pushing aircraft from one part of the terminal apron to another. Its dimensions, its rectangular flatness, made her think of a very large paperback book on wheels. The way it moved, slowly, humbly, reminded her of a tugboat guiding bigger, more glamorous vessels in and out of port. A road-tug, she decided, although its tiny wheels and proximity to the ground meant the perfect level of the runway apron was possibly the only surface it could actually operate on. For a few minutes, she couldn’t work out how the thing was finding its way from one aircraft to another. Then she realised it was being operated remotely by men in orange hi-visibility jackets. One walked behind with a hand-held controller the size of a shoe box. The other walked in front, beckoning the yellow vehicle towards him like a compliant farm animal. When it successfully docked with the front wheel of a parked aircraft, he clapped. When it began to pull the aircraft towards a stand, he clapped some more. The man’s enthusiasm made her wonder about his relationship with the machine, whether he worked with it every day and understood its strengths and idiosyncrasies. He would have given it a name, she decided – something wry perhaps, like Steve - and secretly begun to look forward to seeing it each morning. She imagined how sad he would be when Steve began to wear out or was replaced by a more advanced model. She wondered if he would have decided to retire at the same time and take Steve home with him like a superannuated police Alsatian. She wondered if the bond between them would begin to fray once the man fully understood the commitment he’d made. Assuming Steve was electric, would re-charging him all night in the garage prove ruinously expensive? Would he lose patience when Steve became stranded on speed humps? When Steve malfunctioned, would he attempt to mend it himself? Would he make a mess of it? And would his wife gently tell him he’d done everything he could, and suggest it was time to let Steve go? If that happened, how would he get Steve to the dump? She drank her coffee. She acknowledged the sheer size and internal volume of the departures hall; its light and structure, the mammoth steel columns, the giant bolts and washers that reminded her of ocean-going anchor chains; the arrogant waste of opportunity represented by an eighty-foot gap between the uppermost level of usable floor-space and the curving steel roof, filled with nothing except warm air and sparrows. What was paint, she wondered, looking at how much of it had been used to colour the icy white interior of the cavernous hall. Water, obviously, but what else? Where did its ingredients come from, and what were the costs to nature of extracting them? She was sure it couldn’t be recycled. What if the contractors had ordered too much? Was the workforce entitled to what was left over? Would they want it? Did hundreds of houses in this part of southeast England boast the same polar white interiors? Would frequent-flyers invited to Sunday lunch be suddenly triggered, and find themselves rifling pockets for boarding passes to present to their puzzled hosts? She sat back in her plastic chair. Spooling, internal voyages like these made her calm. She made her way to the departure gate. On the way, she was overtaken by a cluster of men and women in distinct uniforms; blazers, pencil skirts, cream blouses; white shirts, tapered grey trousers and waistcoats; ties, ascots in airline livery; dark, fitted suits, peaked caps; briefcases, overnight bags on wheels. The flight crew. The cabin crew. Something about them reassured her; their air of confidence but lack of complacency; the care they took over their appearance; the way they walked in lockstep. It was going to be OK. Instantly, unchangeably, she knew it. She would fly today. She would vanquish her fear. She would take her seat on the plane. She would watch the safety demonstration and absorb the laminated safety card. The aircraft would taxi into position on the runway, pause, then accelerate to the point at which it lifted smoothly into the air. The light green and grey fields would unfurl below them. A red-brick farmhouse would reveal itself in the fold of a hill. The aircraft would break cloud cover and she would see the sun reflected off the sheer white of the elegant wing outside her window, its sturdy rivets, its rakishly upturned tip. With the cabin crew’s permission, she would unbuckle her seatbelt and order a gin and tonic, the first sip of which she would take as they crossed the English Channel, the last drop of which she would tip into her mouth as they cleared the Belgian Ardennes on their way south and east. Twice, there would be turbulence; once over the Tirol and again just past Pristina. The plane would shake and judder, but the passengers would laugh, and whoop and clap the biggest dips and rolls. Someone would shout, “Again! Again!” and everyone would laugh. “That was what we call ‘clean-air turbulence’,” the captain would advise over the intercom. He would speak almost melodically, in an accent she would ponder for several minutes, and eventually place somewhere in south Wales. “Basically wind-shear off the Alps and the Sar mountains.” Penarth, Pontypridd, Pontypool. Somewhere thereabouts, she would decide, triangulating. Although she wouldn’t see it, she would imagine the flight crew behind the cock-pit’s locked door; giggling, shaking heads, dabbing at uniforms with scented wet wipes. “What are we like?” the First Officer would snort, remarking on the idiocy of opening a flask of soup after – after – being specifically warned by air traffic control of bumpy patches ahead. “Us! Of all people!” he would opine, to gales of laughter. “I mean … really!” She would think about falling asleep, but before being able to, a tiny girl in a plum, crew-neck cardigan would escape her parents and stand next to her in the cabin aisle, her minuscule hand on the armrest of her seat. The child would stare and smile. She would smile back. The child’s father would join them, full of doting exasperation, making a point of rolling his eyes. “I see you’ve made a friend,” he would observe, looking at her, not his daughter. “Is she being a nuisance?” “Not at all,” she would reply. An hour later the child would be back, solemnly handing over her father’s mobile phone. Chuckling, he would come and retrieve it. She would watch two films; one she hadn’t seen but thought she should, and another she had, but thought she’d like to see again. The first would make no sense but prove hugely enjoyable. The second, infused with significance by speed, altitude, and just the right amount of alcohol, would this time make more sense than anything she had ever watched before, and in some way change her life. Hours later, nestling in the debris of long haul, she would pull the complimentary synthetic airline blanket around her shoulders and sleep, seatbelt fastened and visible for the benefit of the cabin crew. Shortly before landing, and without waking her up, someone would gently raise her seat to the upright position and tuck her in. She would open her eyes as the aircraft jolted onto the runway at their destination, exactly on time. Her fears would have been proved irrational. Her misgivings conquered forever. Or, the plane would have barely penetrated the first band of wispy cloud before it began to violently pitch and yaw. As it did, she would sadly acknowledge that her primary instinct about air travel had been correct; statistically, flying was the safest form of travel, but on a personal level, it only had to go wrong once. Mystery red light in the cock-pit. Canada goose in the starboard air intake. No one would scream. No urgent alarm would pulse through the cabin, underscoring imminent disaster. Whatever happened would happen very quickly and be over before anyone had realised it had begun. Except, perhaps, the more experienced or observant members of the crew. Except, of course, her. Basophobia. Fear of falling. Thanatophobia. Fear of dying. As the aircraft began to corkscrew downwards, she would sigh. “Obviously …“ she would whisper to herself, allowing that thought to run into the next: something around the question of who would clear up the wreckage and how it would eventually be disposed of. Those sorts of things didn’t happen by themselves.

It was raining when I gutted the shed, crystal balls swinging from spider’s webs long vacated, crusty arachnid shells punctuating graves within a woodworm’s gable house. The vintage scent kissed me first. Denial. And sap and dust and all the years my father haunted here, every surface smoothed, soothed by the meat of his tender hands, short nails, split finger screws. Everything was in boxes. Neat. Unlike the nook he’d filled at home, paper-strewn, feet up every time mother vacuumed his crumbs away. Glue had set in rudimentary containers: washing up bottles, label-scarred jam jars, thimbles. It was as if he had wanted to bring a handful of mundanity in with him,                 as if he inhabited a space shuttle rather than a box in the garden. I felt his distance now. There was a peg on the back of the door. A worn, green apron hanging on    I died a little when I found an old smile in the pocket. Mother said to donate it. Why was there no warning? With a warning, I might have coped. If only he had hung a sign on the door to inform me that do not disturb would be forever. And I was disturbing. Rummaging. Grave robbing. But it all had to go, a life in boxes. Neat. He would have appreciated that. Green bottles, an assortment of screws, washers, bolts, I sifted them through my fingers like flour and butter. I could not make in the way he made, create in the way he created. Grey-bearded Santa Claus with hints of a child’s God. I did not wish to judge the things he’d left half sanded, unfinished, joints jutting out like the bones of a leg. Everything reminded me of him, and the world was weeping but not inside, as he had felted the roof last month. I was not felted or prepared for winter. For once, there was a doll his tape could not fix, a wire could not hold straight, or a hammer lovingly tap back into shape. Broken. Tell no one, but I piled dusty shavings onto the vice. In desperate communion, it became his hair and stubborn old head. He had to fix the guttering. The broken rungs of his ladder jutting out like the bones of a leg. I pressed myself against the block of wood still clamped within. I imagined his arms around me one last time. He told me I was the best thing he ever made. Zoe Davis is an emerging writer and artist from Sheffield, England. A Quality Engineer in advanced manufacturing by day, she spends her evenings and weekends writing poetry and prose, and especially enjoys exploring the interaction between the fantastical and the mundane, with a deeply personal edge to her work. You can find her words in publications such as: Acropolis Journal, Livina Press, CERASUS Magazine, Full House Literary and The Poetry Bus. You can also follow her on X @MeanerHarker where she's always happy to have a virtual coffee and a chat.

Sunday at the Farmer’s Market Once upon a long time ago, Helena wore low heels, but now even orthopedic sneakers don’t keep her feet from hurting hours before the end of a school day. She tracks children’s tears, vomit, spilt milk, loose teeth, and the frequency of peanut appearances in her nut-free kindergarten classroom. These days, her kids look like fresh copies of the old Polaroids hanging on her “Math Facts” Wall of Fame. Sally C’s little girl looks so much like her mom that Helena never quite remembers her name and since she refuses to call students sweetie or honey, she didn’t call her anything at all for three weeks, which was the time it took to start making them practice penmanship by printing new name tags every day. Kindergarteners need all the practice they can get. Retired, Helena could sit at this park bench and watch children play without worrying about arguments over plastic dinosaurs. (She’d worry. But, retired, Helena wouldn’t be responsible.) Instead of listening to endless iterations of how Sam caught the biggest fish ever or that Lulu’s pet tortoise almost died five times, she would be able to hear herself think. She would hear herself think. She would hear herself think. A fly circles and threatens to land on Helena’s orange juice, but she waves it away, a lesson plan for insects and adjectives hatching in her mind. Flies: tenacious, unsuccessful and, ultimately, short-lived. RSVP If this town were bigger and the mail carriers didn’t know everyone’s name (and dog’s name and the possible name of their unborn children) and take pride in knowing what was in the mail from locals so they’d know an invitation when they saw it and be delighted that it was going through the system with a legitimate stamp instead of just being walked over, unaddressed, and tossed on a porch or delivered verbally at a run-in at the market because you can’t not run into people in a town where a family moving in or out would require numbers to be repainted on the city sign and an announcement to be made in the flyer that went out every week with local news that covered everything from how Timmy’s latest lost tooth got an extra five dollars from the tooth fairy to a request for nobody to plant squash this year because Ms. Bea had overdone her garden again and odds were squash would end up in the wedding dinner for the person you should have been brave enough to say yes to before an outsider came and swooped them away and everyone knows so even though you wish you didn’t have to go, there’s no way they’d believe you if you said the invitation never arrived. Amy Marques has been known to call books friends and is on a first name basis with many fictional characters. She has been nominated for multiple awards and has visual art, poetry, and prose published in journals such as Streetcake Magazine, South Florida Poetry Journal, MoonPark Review, Bending Genres, Ghost Parachute, Chicago Quarterly Review, and Gone Lawn. More at https://amybookwhisperer.wordpress.com.

I attended mass with my son. His first time, my second. My first time was my boyfriend’s niece’s first communion. My boyfriend said the sanctuary might spontaneously combust when I walked in. I wasn’t sure which way his meaning went, but he, a former Catholic school boy, seemed pleased I was religion-averse. Now, we’re married, and this mass was my sister-in-law’s funeral. I loaded my son with too many instructions, more for my benefit than his. I’m an ex-Fundamentalist. Decades have passed since I was a churchgoer, but I’ll always be recovering. Catholicism, with its ancient rituals and international hierarchies, intimidates me. I grew up with dunking baptisms and 20-something year old elders, like my father once was, gatekeeping the path to heaven. Catholics used profanity and drank and smoked and would not make it through the gates, I was told. I instructed my son: We’re not Catholic, so we’re not allowed to touch the holy water. Don’t touch the stack of anti-abortion pamphlets. Really, let’s not touch anything. Stand when everyone stands, sit when they sit, kneel if they kneel. We don’t need to sing. We won’t know the words. We have to sit at the front, but we can’t go up for the crackers. It’s going to look like juice, but it’s not going to be juice. I followed the program with my finger so he could see how much longer it would be. We stood and sat and no one kneeled. I tried to observe as someone who’d never been in a church, to see what my son might see. The sanctuary was adorned with art depicting torture, a stabbing, blood, a dead man: things I wouldn’t let him watch on TV. The priest: a man with whom I  would never leave him alone. The priest dipped a brush in holy water and flung it across the coffin. My son nudged me, a panicked whisper: Some got on my hand. He showed me a drop on his thumb. That’s ok, I said. But I didn’t wipe it away with my own hand. The altar boys’ hands shook as they filled the thurible and lit the flame. Flame: something else we don’t let him touch. The youngest, just a few years older than my son, was about the age I was when I chose to be baptized. The youth pastor pushed me under so fast I didn’t have time to hold my breath. When I emerged, choking, water slipping from my body, I felt a change spread through me. I felt clean, stripped of the filth I blamed myself for. I didn’t tell anyone what I felt, because it confirmed I needed to be forgiven, it proved I was dirty and needed to be cleansed. It proved I wouldn’t make it through the gates my father helped guard because of the very things he had done to me. There are things they have in common, my former religion and this one. My father: another man of god I would never leave my son alone with. Later, I asked him what he thought of mass. He was sad he hadn’t had a chance to get to know his aunt before she died, but he thought the art was interesting. Stephanie Frazee's work is forthcoming from Bayou Magazine, The Evergreen Review, and Door Is A Jar, and her work has appeared in ONE ART, Third Wednesday, Juked, SmokeLong Quarterly, and elsewhere.

When Simon blew out the candle it still wasn’t dark enough the stars splashed I could see through the window the black on black untidy shrubbery and the grey lake I couldn’t close my eyes against. He fell asleep and all the tricks I used to play on him cascaded dim through my mind, small things like feathers beneath his nose or how I used to whisper-shout as scared as I could muster did you hear that? We were in the front room at the cottage, our bedroom and our parents’ bedroom were stuffed with whatever had been in the boathouse which had decayed slowly, my father said I’ll have to get on that before long which is some pretty vague timeline, isn’t it? Anyway the thing had toppled in a storm, the roof came off he said it first opened like a mouth, he called my mother in from the kitchen and the two of them stood at the window and watched it chatter a bit (I told you so?) before it went Kansas and flew off, landing upside-down in the lake they lost sight of it eventually. The boys from next door came over the next day he said and hauled the stuff out of the boathouse where he declared what was and was not ruined, borderline objects were left in the sun to reassess when dry, the good stuff was dried and piled into the bedrooms, sorry for such a long story to explain why we were on the couches, which really requires no explanation at all – we were on the couches – you’d call them retro now, they were simple low wooden framed beauties with pilled cushions from back when everything was shades of golden brown, and just in case you need any further useless information, the carpet was orange shag. We thought they’d sold the cottage. No. We were told they sold the cottage and I mean why on earth would we think otherwise? Our mother considered it all along just another house to clean, another set of everything to wash, a place for her second-rate dishes, the chipped figurines, frayed towels, faded linens. Even the preferred version of herself she left in the city for every Friday night we dragged a haggard complaining stranger who right away got out the broom and swept up mouse shit, a couple of dead ones which she screamed about, the three of us heard her and shared goofy faces we stood stunned and sleepy on the dock under the stars and talked about the next morning, how we’d get up at dawn and quiet quiet quiet go fishing. They told us together, ceremoniously, that we’d have to give up our second-rate life our father said I had no choice, boys, it’s what your mother wanted they sold it furnished, the only thing that made it back to the house was a single gone fishin’ plaque my father grabbed in a tragic way and it hung on the wall at the bottom of the stairs in the house in the city where it stayed until they sold that, too, before they moved into the retirement home where two weeks later my father died and two weeks after that my mother, like in a ballad, died too. They’d reversed the mortgage we learned and had been living off the house for years, since my father retired from the department store where he sold fur coats, jackets, stoles – my mother the beneficiary of a few second-rate ones which had been found flawed and returned. There was nothing much left for me and Si after the funerals, just a bunch of stuff to decide what was and what was not. But two weeks later, let’s keep this ballad going, we got a call from the lawyer who had discovered the deed for the cottage which our father never sold at all but kept, the lawyer said, for his boys, and right away I got in the car, on the drive I wondered if I’d remembered to shut my front door, and I picked up Simon from the university, he was standing there all Captain My Captain at the bottom of the steps, books under his arms, he was wearing a cape which I immediately teased him about you’re Batman I said and he smiled, said fuck off, and we got right away on the highway and for two and a half hours we resurrected the cottage in our minds, a lot of remember thisses and remember thats, and by the time we turned into the driveway which was not a driveway at all but forest, it was like any given Friday of our youth, the place stood just as it always had, we went first to the dock and stood back-to-back Simon said we should go fishing in the morning. Quiet quiet quiet we unlocked the door it was clean as if our mother had just swept, darkening, I switched the light but of course it didn’t turn on, Simon walked beside me we twirled around the small place, opened the bedroom doors and shut them again, we stood at the window looking out, darkness was coming fast like gravity, Simon reached to the shelf beneath the coffee table and pulled out a candle, lit it, placed it on the table, flicked a few mouse turds carefully in my direction. He’s asleep on the couch he always preferred although it’s identical to the one I am stretched out on, we are beneath matching afghans we pulled unscathed from the hall closet, and it’s not that I can’t sleep but I don’t want to. Sherry is from the wilds of Ontario. She writes the kind of stories she longs for and can rarely find. feelingfunny.ca litbit.ca

Spires & Skyscrapers are Shrouded in November fog Rolling in with Techno from traffic from down river Obscuring the Boulevard & Taillights & Detroit City's historical Objet d'art of Mosaics & Marble & Frescoes & Chandeliers A golden & glowing Beacon giving Gotham vibes... James Schwartz is a poet & author of various poetry collections including The Literary Party: Growing Up Gay and Amish in America (Kindle, 2011), Punatic (Writing Knights Press, 2019) & most recently Motor City Mix, Sunset in Rome (Alien Buddha Press, 2022), Long Lost Friend (Alien Buddha Press, 2023). literaryparty.blogspot.com @queeraspoetry

Beau Hogan: We have an extra special guest with us today, Jesus of Nazareth. In the flesh. We’ll get to that in a moment. Welcome. Jesus: Bless you. Beau Hogan: From you, that means something. I’m sure listeners are wondering if you’re really Jesus. I know our program director checked you out. Jesus: His name could be Thomas. Like with the first doubter, I flashed him a bit of aura, which stopped him from wanting to put his fingers into the nail holes. Beau Hogan: Glad for that. Nonetheless, our audience are a bunch of skeptics. Could you do something to prove it’s you? Jesus: I was accused of being a magician. You can convince all of the people some of the time and some of the people all of the time, but you can’t convince all of the people all of the time. Beau Hogan: That sounds like a paraphrase of Abe Lincoln. Jesus: Who do you think gave him that line? The point is, I raised people from the dead, yet I suffered plenty of non-believers. For some, no proof is sufficient. Beau Hogan: Like the Sanhedrin and the Romans. Jesus: They were interested in worldly power. and any threat to their authority had to be extinguished. In the twenty-first century, they’re gone and I’m here. Beau Hogan: Let’s talk about that. You’re not appearing as a spirit but in your corporal form. I thought you ascended into Heaven. Jesus: I knew the apostles would face some tough trials, including martyrdom, and I had to rely on them proselytizing, often in hostile communities. I staged a big exit to steel their enthusiasm for the future, floating up until I was out of sight. Beau Hogan: That’s a fascinating revelation. Where has your body been? Jesus: On Earth. Where would I store a body in Heaven? Doesn’t happen. Plus, I wanted to witness events as they unfolded. I flew over to Rome and made a bet with myself on how long the empire would take to convert to Christianity. Beau Hogan: How did you keep from being recognized? Jesus: People noticed the stigmata, but I blamed them on a weird carpentry accident. Beau Hogan: Did you take up your trade? Jesus: I faked it. It’s not like I needed money to keep body and soul together. I didn’t age. One of the positive aspects of resurrection. Beau Hogan: So, what happened? Jesus: Admittedly, I got bored watching all the crazy cults take hold in Rome, like the Magna Mater and castration for priests. Beau Hogan: Whoa. Jesus: Barbaric, until you think about the appropriate worldly punishment for pedophile Catholic priests. After a few hundred years I flashed Constantine the chi rho Christ sign at the Milivan Bridge and ensured his victory. A smart guy, he got the message and converted the empire to Christianity. Beau Hogan: But he was on his deathbed before he himself was baptized. Jesus: He hedged his bets. Emperors get their hands dirty. A last-minute conversion targeted to achieve the Kingdom of Heaven. Beau Hogan: So, there is a Heaven? And a Hell? [Jesus shifts in his chair but stays quiet.] Beau Hogan: Heaven features angels singing to the music of harps? Jesus: More like that wonderful day you wished could be bottled. Feelings of joy and well-being. Beau Hogan: What do souls do? Jesus: Self-development and self-expression don’t end just because you’re dead. Think of it as being on a permanent sabbatical. Shakespeare has written some great plays. Euripides continued to get weirder. Chaucer is composing verses you don’t need a gloss every three words to understand. We listen to great music. Like the Righteous Brothers’ verse, we have a hell of a band. Beau Hogan: You keep up with current music trends? Jesus: Well, I have that omniscient thing going. Beau Hogan: Of course. What about Hell? Burning for eternity – really? Jesus: I liked Dante’s conception, if not his specifics, of a gradient of consequence. Sinners feel the fear and pain they inflicted on others. Infinity is a long time. When egregious predators have paid their dues, I send them into a black hole and don’t bother with them anymore. Beau Hogan: Wow. Not good to piss you off. Jesus: I’d use different words. Beau Hogan: I want to point out to our listening audience that Jesus looks like modern depictions with long hair and beard. Jesus: [chuckling] Actually, both the beard and hair are false. People have an expectation, and I didn’t want to disappoint. I travel incognito, which is another reason for me to disguise myself for this broadcast. Beau Hogan: Why have you revealed yourself now? Jesus: My first inkling that I needed to step forward came after I saw the musical Jesus Christ Superstar. By the way, Ben Vereen’s performance as Judas was incredible, asking why I came in such a backward time with no mass communication. I began to preach outside a Greenwich Village Café and a guy offered me a joint. Told me people weren’t ready. Beau Hogan: Interesting. But obviously, you changed your mind. Jesus: When the Kardashians became a hit reality show I realized how empty people’s lives had become and decided I had to come forward. Humans need to believe in something bigger than themselves. Beau Hogan: Will we be hearing a lot more from you? Jesus: I decided to appear on your show because of the reach of your podcast. But this will be my only public appearance, perhaps for quite a while. Beau Hogan: I’m honored. C.S. Lewis famously said that the only possible conclusions about you were that you were either liar, lunatic or Lord. What do you say to doubters? Jesus: Free will permits everyone to draw their own conclusions. My message is simple. Regardless of your belief system, strive to live a virtuous life. Joe’s stories have appeared in more than one hundred magazines including The Saturday Evening Post, and Shenandoah, and his short story collection, Stories and Places I Remember. His novels include, Birds of Passage, An Italian Immigrant Coming of Age Story, and the Anthony Provati thriller series: Appointment with ISIL, Drone Strike, and The Art of Revenge. Visit Joe’s website at https://joe-giordano.com/

He’d pushed his cart to the 6:00 a.m. bar, just down the dirty boulevard, to escape the cold, and the dark clouds building out east and north in his head. He’d drown the fucking rat that ran across his stank army blanket when sleep was a cunt-hair away, his head resting on a chunk of concrete broken free from the underpass, a joke gift from God. He’d find her sitting on the far stool, cutting darkness, a slight glimmer of shine still left from when she fucked frat boys for good money and blew new dads in the backseat of their Volvos after their wives stopped fucking them. Well before the pipe took her, and her teeth joined the bottle shards in the dead dirt where the bridge pilings met the culvert. They’d drink his last rumpled bills, earned hardscrabble, with sunburned palms and a tattered Sharpie cardboard sign after Heavy Hand Jim poured out two double vodka and cranberry sippers from the bilge. In the glow of neon, chocking on stale beer and piss air, four feet stuck to the floor, they’d toast to warmth and silently curse the tease of a better day. JD Clapp writes short form stories and poems. He's based in San Diego, CA. His most recent works appeared in PovertyHouse, Revolution John, and Literally Stories.

Excerpt from letter dated January 13, 1957: … I’ve been haunted from the moment I arrived in this place.  It’s different here, away from the movement in the city. There’s a quiet that I can’t quite grasp but somehow it has taken hold of my heart. I find that I’m searching for something that is just beyond my reach, a message embodied in everything. In the rocks, the trees, the sharp air. In the dead weight of the snow that covers everything. In your absence… When I first read those words, I was aware that something extraordinary was unfolding. In what way? How could I possibly have known? Nor could I perceive how it would remain with me all these years later, lasting my entire life, until these final moments. I’m not here to explain or to even say that I somehow understand the occurrences that followed. I simply hope that what I have to share may provide some blessing for those who may read it. We only have a brief moment in time to share, to hold, to cherish. What we give to this life is all that remains after we’re gone. I have offered so much of myself over the years and, when necessary, taken what I needed but this is something I’ve yet to give. It’s my story, the one that I’ve kept closest to my heart for so long and even though I’ve made a living putting stories down on paper, other people’s stories, I’ve always known that eventually this day would come. I’ve waited, hesitant for what now seems like an eternity, because once a story is told, once it is given to the world, then it no longer belongs to you. It is taken by the forces of nature and cast out until it becomes something else entirely. I think I’m ready for that now. ●●●●●● I was barely eighteen the day I received that first letter. It was only a year earlier, in the spring, that we were married. My husband Donovan was ten years my senior and though that type of relationship may seem improper today, we were very much in love. He grew up down the street from my mother in our hometown of Middleton, Connecticut. He was an only child and our two families were close, with my mother like an older sister, or more like an aunt, to him. It's strange because from the moment I met him, I never thought of them as belonging to the same generation. My mother was very young when I was born and by the time he went off to college, I was already a little girl. When he returned ten years later, having fought his way through the journalistic ranks that culminated in a position at the New York Times, I was unaware of the rushing tide that would sweep me away. I was enchanted and surely made a fool of myself with my eager attention. He was a gentleman, of course, and it soon became apparent that he was enamored as well. It didn’t take long before it was impossible for us to look away.  Our courtship was sudden and unexpected, but eventually embraced by all, even my parents. For six months, he traveled back and forth from New York to Connecticut practically every week. Soon it was clear that our hearts were entwined. With a ring on my finger, Donovan took my hand and we made our way to the big city. He was cavalier and earnest almost to a fault, but I thought it was so attractive. He spoke his mind so freely in an age when most people simply accepted their stolid existence. I felt a strong desire to sing along with that resolute spirit and our relationship grew into an intimate and expressive friendship. I never questioned my decision to become his wife, the difference in our age notwithstanding. Donovan treated me, not only as his physical companion, but as an intellectual equal. He listened to my ideas, rejoicing at my buoyant spirit and earnest desire to set the world anew, but he was also so kind when some of those thoughts needed further clarification. His entire ethos was that the discovery of knowledge was the greatest virtue of human development. The search for truth was the only real purpose of life, regardless of the path. Scientific, spiritual, creative, political, personal, communal; all worthy endeavors that simply required a bit of research and dialogue, along with dedicated minds to focus on the cause. Donovan liked nothing more than a heartfelt conversation and I was more than willing to engage with him. Growing up during the war, he was too young to enlist and, by the time the fighting was over, he had discovered his calling in life. He regaled me with tales of his youth, where he spent endless nights parked in front of the family radio listening to the exploits of those courageous men. For him, the stories in the paper enhanced every skirmish, every engagement that lay between the words, amidst the avenues of imagination. In his mind, those reporters were out there with the soldiers, in the action, revealing the vivid details to the public. They were vitally important in shaping the perspective of the war at home, which created just as crucial an impact as the bullet being expelled from the gun. Donovan became so obsessed that he began to tell stories of his own and those around the dining room table were his primary audience. By the time I met him, his passion for storytelling was so vibrant and alive, I felt that I had finally discovered a kindred spirit. In the summer, we moved into a home that we could afford on Staten Island, a small two bedroom with a view of Manhattan out the picture window in our living room. It was idealistic, though there were days when he was at work that the distance felt enormous. I found myself staring out across the water wondering what he was doing. Who was he talking to? Was I ever in his thoughts? At night he would return to assuage my concerns and feed me all the gossip, my open arms eager to pull him back to me, devouring his words, his mind, his spirit. That’s the way it was for us, days spent apart, yet our hearts still mingling, while our nights were held ensconced, every breath focused on each other. I know that I may sound like a hopeless romantic regarding our life back then but that’s exactly how I remember it to this day. Every moment, every thought and memory brings about such bliss, that it's a struggle to hold back the tears. When he was across the water, he wrote for the paper but when he was at home, in the evenings and during the weekend, he wrote for himself and for me. I read everything that poured from his precious mind; every sentence, every essay, every poem, every burst of emotion. He gave it all to me and I relished every word. He became a loving mentor and provided a valuable education with regards to the rules of writing. Back then, hardly anyone earned a living writing books. Most of those who tried would often struggle through long barren nights, barely surviving the empty dreams that could chase even hope away. Some of those who managed to find success in some fashion either went crazy or ended up in Hollywood. Or both! Donovan’s career at the paper and our nights writing together provided fulfillment and kept us grounded. The time we shared together was full of sweetness in so many ways. We cherished each other, body and mind, and well… I'm sorry, but I’d rather not go into detail about how delightful it could be at times. That’s not to say that our marriage was perfect. We had our fair share of disquieting moments. Every couple must learn to live with one another and that means navigating some turbulent waters. I am quite aware of who I am, especially my tendency toward stubbornness. Donovan loved to say that I was the most willful person he ever met but that was simply his way of appeasing me. I’m not a fool. I know that I can rub some people the wrong way, but that determination has served me well over the years, let me tell you. It almost saved us, if I had only listened to the voice in my heart from the very beginning. One of the most difficult facets of our marriage, perhaps the most challenging of all, was when Donovan was sent away on assignment. Usually it was just a day or two, to interview someone crucial for an article or to follow up on some research. It happened once or twice a month and the first time almost destroyed me, though he was only in Pennsylvania overnight. I survived, of course, and each new assignment provided another opportunity to understand our relationship in a new way. I'm sure that it may sound quaint, or maybe even ridiculous now that I'm saying it, but I was still so young at the time. I was still growing, still coming into my own. Donovan was a crucial foundation for me, especially with my ignorance of solitude, that I mistook for loneliness. His presence was a force of protection for me, indeed, and that made what occurred so harrowing. When he was given the story in New Mexico, we had only been married for eight months. He was to be gone for more than a week, and I became very anxious as the date for his departure grew near. At the time I couldn’t explain the reason for these feelings but despite his assurances, they remained in my heart. I'm even ashamed to admit that when he said that he would give up the article due to my concerns, I immediately wanted to beg him to stay, to keep him close. But how could I ask that of him? This was the real deal, the type of story that every writer yearns for, the kind of story that he loved. It was a tale of the human spirit, where he could really connect with the hearts of the readers. And it would be a front page feature in the Sunday edition! The eyes of the nation would be focused on his words. In the mountains of northern New Mexico there is a waterfall. It’s not as spectacular as those found in the Yosemite valley or as massive as those in the Pyrenees, but it is grand in its own way. It also carries a different kind of mystique than any other waterfall on the planet. You see, there are some winters when it manages to freeze completely for a couple of months but even though it appears to be solid on the surface, it's a trick, a sleight of hand, for it isn't really holding its form. For some strange reason the ice becomes a tricky substance that shifts and sways as the water trickles through it, as if the heart of the river continues to breathe life into this fantastical entity. Nowhere else in the world has this phenomenon been observed, so as a challenge of human endurance and determination, every time this phenomenon occurs, a few brave souls attempt to climb it. Some don’t make it to the top. During those few weeks, the world of mountaineering sets up base camp at the small town of Aurora near the falls. By the time it drew the attention of the New York Times and my husband, there was a legendary quality surrounding the place. The impetus for the narrative was already unfolding, and I could see the magic working within Donovan even before he left. The very idea that these people would risk their lives to chase a ghost, to dance with a mirage on that delicate floe, made it seem like they wished to challenge the devil to a duel. There aren’t many souls who can so brazenly follow through with such a confrontation and expect to survive the ordeal. Perhaps that’s the reason the locals referred to the waterfall as the Devil’s Breath. It was the perfect setting for Donovan, plus he had a unique twist to unravel. For the first time ever, a woman was going to make an attempt on the falls. Samantha Cross, a Brit and one of the most skilled climbers in the world was heading to New Mexico. It was turning into a buzz-worthy moment in some circles, though in reality most of the planet had little idea that the place and what was occurring there even existed. I had certainly never heard of anything like it before it crossed Donovan's desk, but he was hoping that would all change by the time he completed this new chapter. You must remember, it was an oppressive era at the time. The Cold War had consumed the minds of all, and there were many of us out there who earnestly wished to find a way to lessen the bite. It's true that Donovan had grown up worshiping the heroes from the Battle of the Bulge, but the devolution of our military aspirations toward inhumane ideals was hard to stomach. The surge of development toward nuclear weapons cast a massive shadow across our hearts, and the only antidote to that pervasive ill was to denounce them with as much vehemence as we could muster. We spent a cold winter morning or two among crowds gathered outside the United Nations, our voices growing hoarse as fiery chants jumped from our lips. Donovan and I had even worked on a few anonymous tracts pleading to connect with the conscience of humanity, the greatest weapon of all against the atrocities of modern warfare. All of this, unbeknownst to Donovan's employers, of course. Even though the Times was considered a liberal perspective on the news, there were limits, lines that you simply did not cross. It was a divisive and turbulent time back then, the political climate filtering all the way down into the local communities. Neighbors closed their doors on relationships that were supposed to last a lifetime. Families that had always shared everything turned their backs on one another. It was an ugly chapter in our nation's history. Fortunately, Donovan had the ability to straddle both worlds, keeping those that he loved close to heart and those who made him wary at a respectable distance. I often joked that it wouldn't be long before he would go into politics but that sort of teasing always upset him. He was clever and careful, but it was all for the cause of the scoop. The idea of standing before the nation to guide the masses was a noble cause for those who were true servants, but it just wasn't for him. He would never play that game for personal ambition. Donovan always felt that he could do so much more staying above the fray, using the power of words, especially when those sentiments came from the heart. I had complete faith in him, of course, and never imagined that a situation would arise to cause him to teeter and fall from his life's purpose, which made what occurred in New Mexico all the more disturbing. ●●●●●● Excerpt from letter dated January 15, 1957: ...Not one climber has attempted the falls since I arrived. One man, an East German of all people, was going to try it a couple of days ago but he backed off once all the media arrived. How an East German mountaineer ended up in New Mexico in this day and age? I couldn't tell you. Everyone is waiting for Samantha to take the plunge now. Oh God, what a horrible cliché! So inappropriate! But you should see this place, Bea. The woman must feel like royalty with all the attention. Although, she hasn't come out of hiding very often. And who could blame her? I'm going to have an exclusive sit down with her this evening, so it looks like someone is doing their job back home. I met her briefly at the informal press conference the day we arrived. Apparently she was on the same plane heading west, since her team came into New York the day before. Did I mention that Samantha is English? I was completely oblivious, of course, even with the bit of research I've done. She's so unassuming, Bea, almost like a librarian. I actually thought that she was someone's assistant when she entered the room. I know, I know, how chauvinistic of me! But it feels like she is the last person on Earth who would seek out the spotlight. She must have a real passion for the mission. I'm looking forward to discovering what truly motivates her. God, listen to me! But, I have to admit that I almost feel like a kid again! Oh, you don't know how much I wish you were here with me. I miss you dearly! I wish to hear your thoughts and throw some of my ridiculous ideas around, knowing that you would grab them and mold them into something beautiful. But mostly, I wish you could see this strange and mystical place. Also, I can't help but wonder what you would say about Samantha? I must say that when I saw her a couple of days ago, I had this strange feeling that the two of you would become fast friends. But you have a knack for that sort of thing, regardless of the company... This letter was so much like the Donovan I knew. Where the somber tone of the first letter caused me some concern, the curious and mirthful cadence here revealed his true spirit again. He surely had gotten caught up in the story and the heightened atmosphere that was building all around him as the day of her grueling ordeal drew closer. I could sense the child in him bubbling to the surface. His eagerness for the story and his bright eyes clearly came into my mind as I read the letter. I savored the precious union of the moment. To say that I wasn't jealous of this woman who had captured my husband's attention would not be honest. The fact that he was already on a first name basis with her was a bit disconcerting, as well, since he usually was so formal in society. I reminded myself that a personal letter home to a fresh-faced wife was far from the typical social situation requiring such civil modicum but once again, something wouldn't allow the nagging disquiet I felt to go away. I desperately wished to go with him, of course, having never passed beyond the Appalachian mountains before. It was exciting to imagine the incredible vistas of the west, but I was restricted from traveling. You see, only a couple of weeks before Donovan received the assignment in New Mexico, I discovered that I was pregnant. I was about ten weeks along when he left, and my condition was the determining factor that forced me to remain behind. Like I said, there was a different mentality back then, and our doctor was adamant that the first trimester was the most crucial. I was told not to exercise, definitely no stress, and there was no way I would be allowed on a plane. It felt like even the most insignificant incident would trigger a miscarriage. There were days when I could hardly get out of bed from the concern. Yet, I was completely ecstatic at the idea of starting a family! I had only turned eighteen the month before and it seemed like the perfect age for motherhood. I was very ambitious at the time and all of my dreams felt infinitely possible. Yes, I may have been a bit naïve, but it was like all those girlhood fantasies were coming true. I'd found love, marriage and now children! Little did I know how soon it would all change and in just a few short months I would have no time at all beyond my motherly responsibilities. The jubilation I felt for the pregnancy counteracted the misery that afflicted me with Donovan's departure. So, I threw myself into preparation. I bought all the books I could find on the subject. I began my plan to convert the study into a nursery. I read up on nutrition for my health, if only to get out of bed in the morning without fear. I even found a group of young mothers in the park near our home who were eager to impart their knowledge upon a young student. Also, I began to write about my experience, musings regarding my journey toward motherhood, along with stories that enticed my imagination. I often stayed up late scattering pages across the kitchen table, filled with all my frivolous thoughts. Donovan's absence in my bed was having a deleterious effect on my sleep, the cold emptiness creeping into my heart. There were many late nights spent huddled under a mountain of covers with only a book in my hand for companionship. I never imagined that I would ever feel so alone as I did during those ten days without him. This is what I meant when I spoke earlier about not truly understanding the nature of solitude during my youth. Until I came to know him, how could I possibly relate to this heavy feeling of reliance? But when you lose your best friend, even if only for a few days, it feels like you're missing an important part of yourself. I found that I would speak out aloud as I prepared meals, as if he were sitting at the table watching me. When I went for a walk, I would surprise myself as I reached for his hand only to discover the empty space beside me. But it was our quiet evenings together that I missed the most of all. We would talk about any subject as if it were the most interesting thing in the world. We would write together and share our work aloud, because you learn so much about writing when you hear it coming from your own mouth. It was a warm environment we created, critical at times when needed, but also where any experience was valuable, regardless of where you were from or how much of the world you had seen. A great poet has the power to turn a life of squalor into a beautiful dream, as we all know. Oh, to think how I've kept those nights, these thoughts and sentiments, deep within my heart after all these years! I realize now how it informed so many of my decisions and eventually helped me to discover a life of peace. I find that now, it fills me with appreciation. There's so much joy in discovering such elation in the shared time, in the presence that remains, still. I look back and there’s such comfort in the memories but… yes, I do still miss him so! Towards the end of those days alone, I began to feel disconnected from everything. It was like I was stuck in a strange waiting space, a purgatory that swept away any sense of order. I began to feel scattered, exhausted. I would jump at the slightest sound. I would drift off into absent reveries and leave the sink running or come back into the kitchen after a time to find the stove-top burner still aflame. I would curl up on the sofa and simply allow the tears to pour out of me. At first, I told myself that I was being ridiculous, acting like a little girl who couldn't handle being alone. I scolded myself and tried to pull my chin up, face the situation with strength. Then it came to me, a crucial message. I understood that what I was feeling went beyond my immediate circumstances, beyond these puerile feelings of the heart. I became acutely aware that the anxiety that was growing around my heart seemed to have another purpose. It began to feel like something preternatural was happening with Donovan, over there. I don't know how to explain it but there was a moment where I knew, as if struck, like lightning straight to my brain! That my husband was in danger! I simply wish that I had listened. I doubted myself and thus didn't respond immediately. It's one of the greatest mistakes of my life. If I had left then, with that premonition coming on so strong, I may have been able to reach him in time. But, when his next letter arrived, It was already too late. ●●●●●● Excerpt from letter dated January 18th, 1957: Devastating News, Bea! I almost don't have the strength to write about it. I know it's hard to imagine that I would ever feel that way but that is how far I've fallen! Yesterday was the day. Samantha made her attempt on the falls and, though it was only a day ago, it feels as if weeks or months or even years have sifted through the cracks. Like water, the flow of time vanishes along the natural veins of our lives until we hardly recognize the days that have gone by. Good lord, listen to how I sound! Such melodrama! If you haven't yet determined by my tone how the climb ended, I'll just say that it was not successful. It was a terrible tragedy! And I watched the whole thing! She was so close, Bea! But then, in an instant, she was gone. I was one of the few who actually saw her fall. She was on the ascent for the better part of four hours before it happened and by then most of the reporters and spectators had taken a break or gone home to start their work. She was on the final third, which is considered the easiest part of the climb this year. It had nearly been an hour since she overcame the most harrowing place on the falls, the one spot that many regarded as the ultimate peril. No one expected her to fall once she survived that! To say that the congregation is shocked by the events that took place here yesterday is putting it rather mildly, indeed. I couldn't look away for even a moment. I was mesmerized by it all. I must have appeared rather naive to all the old fellows in the crowd but after the exclusive meeting I shared with Samantha two nights ago, I was completely enamored with the story. You know how I am, Bea, and Samantha charmed me to no end with her confidence and determination. I believe I mentioned her humble nature before but that's her public face. Behind closed doors, she's almost as magnetic and personable as you, my love. I was convinced that you and her were long lost sisters from a previous life. But, now that she's passed on to the next life, I don't know what to make of it all. I know that this all must sound rather maudlin of me but I truly felt that this was a story for the ages. I'm completely at a loss with this new outcome. I hope that I don’t sound demented or am causing you any concern, but I haven't had a moment's rest in the past two days. Everything seems to be unraveling around me. Please, be assured that I'm telling you this because I don't want you to be frightened or give you the wrong impression, I know how it all sounds. I only hope to alleviate any worries you may have. You must understand that the mystery here, the wild tone of despair that seems to shadow every word I put down, has nothing to do with the life we have built together. I have stumbled upon a different world here in the mountains and it's almost as if my soul is splitting in two. I know how strange that sounds but you, of all people, must see that I have to find out where this story goes. I know that it's out there in the cold terrain that has captured my imagination. I must find it, Bea! So I am going to have to stay on a bit longer than I planned... I was terrified. I was jealous and angry. I wanted to tear the letter up into a million pieces. I wanted to cry out with such anguish that it would somehow destroy this nefarious force that had taken control of my husband. Despite his best efforts to ease my concern, these are the thoughts that consumed me after reading those words. My mind was all over the place, my thoughts racing. How could I possibly reach him stuck in our drab home in Staten Island? How could I have imagined that these ten days apart would have no effect on us? In an instant the luster was gone. The magical sheen of our partnership suddenly seemed like a hollow grotesque apparition. What else could I do? The next day I bought the first plane ticket out of New York. I flew out of LaGuardia bound for Albuquerque Municipal. I told no one of my plans and paid for it with the money we were saving for the nursery. Nothing regarding our old life seemed to matter, as my only thought was toward bringing Donovan home. I felt no concern for the baby and the thought that I might harm him by traveling did not affect my decision in the slightest. All he was at that point was a dream anyway, a pleasurable idea about the future. But what kind of future would we have without his father by our side? I was only two months along at the time and felt no different than before. The only true indication for me was a break in my cycle and the promise of a doctor's analysis. I didn't even have morning sickness for goodness sake! Who knew if I was even pregnant at all? As you can see, trying to rationalize when you’re in the grips of such desperation quickly turns an eye blind. I knew in my heart that I was with child but I also felt that I was a healthy, vibrant young woman. How could I possibly harm the fetus by simply sitting in the seat of a plane for a few hours? Especially considering what I was facing. Now we know that the stress I was dealing with could be far more damaging than boarding an airplane but at the time, I didn't think about it. I followed my intuition and left as quickly as I could. I arrived in Albuquerque late that afternoon, eager for the next step, but outside the sky was already growing dark, even though the sun was not scheduled to set for a couple more hours. A heavy storm was headed our way and the urgency that I felt expanded into an inexplicable force. I was on edge, to say the least. From Albuquerque it was almost three hours to reach Aurora, the old town at the base of the falls, and I wanted to get there immediately. I hired a driver to take me the rest of the way, but by the time we reached Santa Fe, the storm had descended. All of the roads going into the mountains were closed. That night was the worst night of my life. It had been four days since he wrote that last letter and I'd had no news of my husband since. God alone knew what had happened to him. As I sat at the window of my hotel room watching the snow swirl through the dark, a sense of foreboding overwhelmed me. The wind and the cold that swarmed in the night was a menace that I had never known. It was clear how deadly the heavens can be and the angels that rode those blustery waves did not carry mercy under their wings. I couldn't move from my seat. I simply stared out at the darkness and an immense sadness fell over me. I wept until my body was dry and still I watched. It may sound foolish, and I knew in my heart that it was nothing more than wishful thinking, but I was waiting for a sign. Then, I slowly began to realize that something was being conveyed to me. I could perceive it in the way the snow danced, a magical display. What was the message I was supposed to see in that picture frame? Was there some precious language playing out against the black-drop for my benefit alone? Ancient hieroglyphs from the Gods? I couldn't say for sure but I remained in that seat far longer than any sane person ever would. Eventually I lost consciousness to it all, though my eyes never wavered from the movement of the night. When I woke in the light of dawn, slumped over in my chair and barely able to move from the stiffness, I felt ridiculous. The ominous tone of the night before seemed to have been washed away by the sun. Yet, as I rubbed my eyes and welcomed the crispness of the new day, a reckoning overcame me with intense certainty. Something did come to me in the night, like a dream. It was a presence that communicated with me, an essence that was no longer of this life. Though I can't explain it clearly, I'm sure that it was human, or at least it wanted me to have that feeling and it brought me comfort. Was it Samantha? An unburdened soul that wished to connect with the living again? Could it have been Donovan in some form? Not dead, god forbid! Anything but that! A soul traveler, perhaps, come to set my mind at ease? Was this really a ghost story that I had stumbled upon? I tried to shake away these thoughts, rubbing at the goosebumps that had settled upon my arms. I needed to prepare, because surely the roads into the mountains would be cleared soon and before long I would be reunited with my love. That’s what I needed to focus on, not some childish fear about supernatural forces communicating in the air and snow. Surely he would be waiting for me up there and all my concerns would dissipate the moment he took me into his arms. Oh, you don't know how badly I wish those words were true. ●●●●●● Excerpt from piece found on January 23rd, 1957: ...What is destiny? An Idea? The fulfillment of a dream? Is it a path that is predetermined? Or one that is forged from a desire in our hearts? How can we comprehend the massive forces that guide us along the roads that unravel before us? One simple choice, one slight turn, one false step and the course is altered forever. Could it be that we were meant to turn aside? Were we meant to push through the dark undergrowth where the shadowy path is hardly visible instead of continuing along the broad open highway? These are the questions that are driving me mad. I know the reasonable, the responsible answer to all of them, of course, but somehow that response has become the most reprehensible, as well. I have fought my entire life to discover the truth. It is the only reason I do what I do. It is the sole purpose of a writer of integrity, the true honor of the fourth estate, after all. I cannot turn my face away from that responsibility. The future of humanity is relying on it. So how can I not take the road less traveled? Isn't it the only path forward for me? I know how wretched I may seem. I haven't showered in days. Every hour my clothes become more disheveled, more damp and dirty. I can't sleep at night, can't stay awake during the day. I shiver uncontrollably before the hearth and cast off my clothes in the elements. Reality has grown unfocused and I feel that I may be at my wit's end. Yet, it all makes perfect sense somehow. How do you forget the life you've known in order to follow an apparition? Oh, but I haven't, don't you see? It all leads back to the truth and there's nothing more true than the love in my heart for Beatrice, the hope I feel when I think about the child she carries with her. I could go home tomorrow as easy as the next day. Just two days ago, I stood in line at the airport to return to New York. But how could I go back to her with this distortion in my soul? Oh, how would I ever be able to look her in the eye again, unless I finish this? There's magic in this place. It's not difficult to see. You don't have to send out a search party to discover it. It's out there, drifting in the dark, just a quick shake and it comes loose. So much comes from my nightly jaunts, my trips above the treeline. How I float above the stars. Have I seen her, felt her presence out there in the night? I don't know for sure but when I wake the next evening, as the sun drops behind the western mountains, I imagine a presence beside me. Only for a moment, then the brief essence is gone. Do I feel unfaithful? No, and I must avow this point. No, this goes beyond such superficial thoughts. It's simply a different idea, a tone that reaches toward a faith that goes so much deeper than anything bound by this life. I know that if I simply traverse the hint of reason then I will find something truly profound. It has nothing to do with the faith I have toward my wife, my occupation, my purpose. It's unswayed by those ideals. Somehow, it touches nothing but the spirit, the soul, in a way. I haven't quite gotten there yet, or seen or heard or felt what that truly means. Maybe it's not something that is known in such a way. But it's close. Oh, it's so close that I can almost feel it! It's like the caress of a shadow. Tonight I've been given a sign. All the power has been knocked out by the storm. There's a massive fire in the hearth and I have lit every candle that I can find. The room is dancing with light. An ancient saga shall come for a visit and share its vital message. There is only one way for me to hear it. I must grow unseen. I have to be blind to this world. So the longer I stare into the flame, the more these beautiful beings come out of the woodwork. Come and dance with us, they breathe. They wish to take my hand, to take me out into the night... We left for Aurora as soon as the mountain could yield our way forward, with the cool morning light flashing bright above the eastern hills. I had never seen such a glorious morning before and my heart expanded with awareness. By the time we reached our destination, the sun was above the jagged horizon, glistening off the bright snow. As I stepped out of the taxicab, I was blinded by the brilliance of it and, for a moment, I was transported into a fantastical realm where shimmering shapes sparkled all around me while sweetness filled the air. I held up my hand and a precious being fluttered before me, settling upon my finger. It appeared to me as a fairy creature bringing forth a message of joy meant for me alone. I blinked and saw that it was a golden butterfly, perched delicately upon my wedding ring. It flexed its wings and lifted off, drifting up toward the trees that seemed to be everywhere. I felt that I must have imagined it. How could a butterfly live up in this extreme land? But a pleasant contentment washed through me following the incident. I felt like I had finally reached a place without concern. By the time I discovered Donovan's room, the pleasantness had passed and I knew that I was too late. I was struck with despair the moment I stepped through the doorway. I looked around at the mess. Clothes, paperwork and used food containers were scattered about everywhere without a sense of place. Candles, dozens of them, were burned to the end, stained black in the bottom from the strain of their heavy wick. Old ash floated out of the fireplace, where a thick aroma of neglect filled the stuffy room. I swiped at one of the curling black tails as it swam across my vision and my stomach rolled with a queasy shudder, forcing me to clutch at the desk chair in order to stop the sudden swoon that wanted to take me down. I felt one of his shirts lying across the back of the chair and I pulled it to my face. I was hungry for him and the musty smell that clung to my nostrils was so familiar, yet so strange, as well. Who knew when he had worn it? When had he been here last? Yesterday? The day before? What remained of him in this room was so far from the memory that was still alive within me. I wanted to feel the vibrant, wonderful man that I married but that was not what I had found. I traced the room slowly, taking in each item with the patient purpose of an investigator and my escorts soon left me alone with the remnants. So many emotions swept through me during that solitary time. Everything I saw or touched brought forth a different memory. His well worn overcoat that went everywhere with him, the softness of use so familiar beneath my fingers. His cigarette case brought a hint of smoke, floating about his head as he contemplated another verse. The ratty edges of his notebooks that caused me to recall how he always clutched at one in his pocket, ready to record any vital discovery that might come about during the everyday fascinations of life. I admit that I was afraid to open one and find what lay between the pages. His undershirts were piled on the floor, which stoked the fire of domestic patterns that once brought me comfort. Instead, I felt the urge to crumple down with them, collapsing into his essence. I was damaged by every little taste that I was given that morning, yet it also reminded me of the life we had built together and that gave me more comfort than I ever could have imagined. All of the concerns and questions regarding the stability of our love that I had felt over the last two days disappeared. I knew that even though he was lost, God only knew where, his heart was still with me. I went to the typewriter that was firmly planted on the desk. The room may have been chaotic but his desk was as proper as ever. He always kept his workbench clean. I found the last pages that he had been working on and I read them many times. It was then that I knew he was never bound to return, to New York or to me. He had found something more profound than the mundane and it had taken him. He sought it out. Of course he did. No matter where it led, he had to look and even our love, the last belief he held onto, wasn't enough to keep him from it. In the end, he let go of the railing. I wept. I fell into a heavy sadness that set me down upon the bed. The ruffled sheets brought his aroma to me once again and it overwhelmed my senses. I buried my face in the dark fabric, my tears mingling with his essence and I lost myself in sobbing. My mind went into a shadowy corner to ride out the storm, the thick walls shaking against the strain of emotional thunder. I must have fallen asleep because the next thing I recalled was the porter rousing me from the senselessness that had overtaken me. They had retrieved a police constable to hear my tale and set about processing the missing persons report. I must have purged quite a bit because speaking about the ordeal with the officer wasn't as difficult as I thought it was going to be. In fact, it actually felt good to talk to someone else about what I had been dealing with, especially someone who was so willing to help. Things were being set in motion. Action was being taken on my behalf and that alone brought me some relief. I was always a person who needed the machinery to work effectively, to finish what was begun, even if the inevitable outcome appeared to be hopeless. Fulfilling what he set out to accomplish was one of my husband's most endearing traits, as well. Just listening to him speak of his goals, his ideals, was one of the reasons my heart opened so freely toward him when we first met. It was also the reason the last two weeks were such a nightmare. I didn't recognize the person in the pages of these letters, where scattered words became so easily lost in the wind. It wasn't the Donovan who, the night before he left, touched my belly in order to feel the vibrant life of tomorrow's tale. If I could only go back to that moment, his eyes open and wet with such hope. This place, this cold and treacherous place had ensnared his heart somehow. I needed to understand what he saw, to feel what he went through, and over the next two days I came precariously close to catching his image in the mirror. What I saw was terrifying, yet full of wonder. If it wasn't for the child in my womb, I may have easily fallen into the abyss along with him. But it felt like I was wearing an amulet that kept the real horror at bay. That and what Donovan left behind for me are the only reason I am still here continuing on with this tale. The rest of that day was filled with activity, busy work. I must have told my story to ten different people and by the time a search party was organized it was long past noon. In winter the sun sets early when you're in the mountains and it quickly became apparent that nothing was going to be accomplished that day. Yet, as we plodded back to town with snowshoes on our feet and prodding stakes in our hands, a strange luminescence came out of the canopy of the forest and settled all around me. I stopped for a moment, out of breath from the exertion. My guide, a young deputy my own age named Brian, continued on unaware. The sun was at the horizon and a mystical golden light was cast across the valley. I was leaning on my stake, for a faintness had come over me, causing dark swirls to dance before my eyes. I thought that I might pass out but that's when the music came. It was a faint melody, barely audible, but so much more beautiful than anything that ever graced my ears before.  At first I thought that it was coming from the town, which I could glimpse through the trees but then I was aware that it was coming from something else. It was of the earth. It was the sky. The clouds. Beyond. It drew from everything all around. The rocks, the snow, the wind. It was the very heart of my surroundings and it vibrated with a symphonic pulse. It was the orchestra of existence. I've come to know that there is an essence in all things, an attractive force that is constantly communicating, a universal connection to all manifestation. When I was lost in that moment, among the trees and thin air, feeling the burst of expression from every leaf, seeing the crystallization in every drop of water, I became intimately connected to the source of it all. It was transcendent, a state of being that lay far beyond the terrestrial domain of our consuming thoughts. Voices rose through the music and they felt familiar, almost as if I were embracing the universe with the long tendrils of my heart. I have never felt more loved in all my life. More so than when my mother held me deep in my arms during a feverish child illness. More so than the ecstatic moments when Donovan and I were as close as any human can ever be. More so than those moments when knowledge settles inside like a blessing. More so than becoming intimately aware of the delicate way that the world works. It was more than any human awareness could possibly convey, and I'm ashamed to try now. It was inexplicable. The essence of the song that drifted all around me became so clear that I could see every face of every story ever told. In it all, I perceived my Donovan. Here, he was lost but not gone. Here, he no longer lived, but was also not dead. Here, his spirit was more alive than I had ever known during our short time together. Yet, none of what I felt about him in that moment diminished what I already knew. He was everything I ever dreamed of, from the moment I first looked into his eyes to the ache in the letters that brought me to this miraculous place. I don't know exactly how I was able to see or communicate with him in such a way, but I can say that it was more enticing than ever. A desire rose within me that was excruciating, and so terrifying. I shuddered and collapsed into the snow. Brian revived me. I was in his arms and he spoke with a softness that brought me out of my feverish haze. I didn't know why he was so scared, but I could see it clearly on his face. Perhaps the tears in my eyes amplified what I was experiencing, but he seemed to be using all of his power to bring me back from the edge. For a long time I hated his face. I felt like he'd stolen something valuable from me but later, when my son was born especially, I was more grateful than ever that he was there for me that day. When Brian finally got me back to my room, a gentle feeling came over me. I sat quietly by the window and watched night descend on the town. I felt no urge to eat or sleep as all ordinary human necessities no longer were important to me. I simply hoped to catch a glimpse of what I had experienced out in the wilderness. The constable came to fill me in on the details of the search for my husband but I already knew what he was going to tell me. Nothing. And he clearly became concerned about my inattentive state, even pointing out to me that I had yet to remove my muddy shoes. I was keenly aware of everything he said and noticed the disarray throughout the room, but it was like I was perceiving it through the eyes of someone who was sleepwalking. He soon left, as I sat on the bed to remove my shoes, letting me know that we would speak in the morning since it appeared that I was tired from the long day. I stared at him, uncomprehending. I wasn't tired. I simply needed to see. Something useful needed to be done, and the only way I was going to find out what that meant was to prepare myself, to watch and wait. There would be a signal. I was never more sure of anything in my life. Donovan would come and we would be together again. But in the end, the man was right. I must have been exhausted because the next thing I knew, it was morning and I was lying on the bed still wearing one of those shoes. ●●●●●● Excerpt from piece found on January 24th, 1957: ...We travel across the planet to discover the harshest of environments, to scale beyond any imaginable plateau. The ingenuity of human endeavor is a dynamic accomplishment. But what does it mean when we climb into bed at night to dream? There is something more awesome than any height we can climb, any depth we can descend, any limit we can control. It's not something that exists out beyond the clouds. It's not shimmering within the light of the moon. It's not hidden in the shadow of the sun. It is infinite, a tiny speck of life that can be found if you search deep enough, climb down within the essence of all matter. It is the heart of every cell that makes up all that is known. It is the ultimate frontier and we carry it with us every moment of every day... I sat at the window all the next day as the search continued. Others must have been informed of my collapse the day before, because I was strongly encouraged to remain behind, to rest, of course. I was assured that they would keep me informed of all the proceedings and, for the most part, they kept their word. I could sense the lack of hope that lay hidden behind each report but it didn't upset me. I was resigned to wait until they deemed it safe enough to remove the guard outside my door. I had a plan and I was looking for an opportunity to enact it. I sat at the window, hoping for another clue out there among the trees and shadows that might set me upon the proper path. In my heart, I thought that I knew where it led. I'd caught a glimpse of it, some mystical trail in the fading light of the day before, and the thought of what lay waiting out beyond the shine filled me with a strange euphoria. Eventually, though, I became aware of life's demands, noticing how hungry I was, having not eaten for almost two days. No matter how badly I may have wished to give up all earthly desires, the physical needs of my body had something else to say about it, especially with a child developing inside. As I ate, my focus turned inward and I sensed the conflicting emotions of motherhood bursting through my resolve. Another future became clear to me as I placed my hands upon my belly. A new light opened up inside me and when I looked up, the room appeared different to me. Donovan was present. I was surrounded by all of his things and they spoke to me with his voice. The rest of the day I went through everything. I folded his clothes. I organized his belongings, taking the time to appreciate all of it. Many of the items brought a surprising delight, some a new bout of sadness. Yet, the despair I had felt the day before seemed to have vanished. My spirit was elevated, somehow. Eventually, I was at his desk, the last deluge. I discovered his notes for the story and read them. Slowly at first, taking in every aspect of the tale. Then I began to devour it. I was ravenous. I learned every detail, every angle that he examined and digested it all. I studied until the day waned and I had to turn on the desk lamp. By then I knew what I had to do. I couldn't leave my husband's name in tatters, swirling in the icy gusts. I had to save him. I wrote deep into the night. I added to his musings, completed his false starts and fleshed out the scars of emotion that he had dumped out on the page. I carried the man I knew, hoisted him upon my shoulders so that his voice could reach across the mountaintops. I made notes of my own, using all that he taught me, along with my intuition, and the more that I wrote, the more confident I became. Even though it was his story that I was telling, I could feel a new beginning spreading out so effortlessly from my flowing hand. It was like a sprout rising up out of the earth. By the time I paused, the pile of papers at the desk had doubled in size, Donovan and me, held side by side. We were together again, mingling among the words. It was about three in the morning when I went to the window to get some fresh air. The night was cold and still, even without the wind, a quick chill washed over me. Only twenty hours before I had made plans to open that window for a different purpose. So much had changed since then and the reach I felt from the darkness beyond did not beckon me now. Instead, it was grateful, thankful for my efforts. I stood and listened to the quiet. It was completely absorbing. There is nothing as silent as the wilderness in slumber. I felt a calm that I had never known and a kind of hypnosis overtook me. In this altered state I came to understand that there are two sides to every story. The fork in the road either leads to despair, horror, hopelessness or it moves toward growth, beauty and appreciation. When I finally closed the window, there was a glimmer of enchantment that flowed through me. Something in the night approved of my decision, a chorus of delight that gently laid me down to sleep. In my dream, Donovan came to my bed and climbed beneath the covers to snuggle beside me. He held me with warm arms and when the morning came, we woke together and left that remote town. He held my hand as our son was born, joy framing his face. We were side by side as we watched him grow, sharing the parental responsibilities, so thrilled with each step of our child's development. Before I knew it, wrinkles began to dominate our features and no matter how turbulent the times, Donovan and I were always together. Our son left home to discover his own path and came back a proud man, bearing the gift of grandchildren and our hearts opened again. It was all a blessing, these visions and as I sat by the fire in our old den, my delicate bones tired with age, I noticed Donovan standing in the doorway with a book in his hand. The look on his face was one of admiration. It was a life that I so longed to have, full of happiness, but the smile on my face in that final moment came not from all the hopeful yearnings conceived throughout this ethereal tale. It came instead, as I looked at the book Donovan held in his hand and realized that the name on the cover was my own. ●●●●●● Excerpt from piece discovered found on January 24th, 1957: ...I am so lost that I don't even know which direction I am facing... I slept until noon the next day and those who were in charge of my case were so concerned about my behavior that they wished for me to leave. I agreed with them. Once I awoke, I knew that I needed to get home. My path was decided the day before and I had work to do. I gathered all of our things, most importantly Donovan's papers along with what I also had put together, and departed while the sun was still high in the sky. Brian offered to drive me down the mountain and even though we hardly spoke during that long trip, I felt a kinship developing with the man. When we parted I perceived a deep kindness in his eyes, then something more. As our eyes met, I sensed that he knew more than he was willing to share. One thing seemed certain about his gaze, he was searching for some assurance that I was going to be okay. I don't know what I conveyed to him that day, whether he was comforted after we departed, but we each held on to our secrets. At the time, it was enough for us to simply allow the shadows to remain hidden underneath. I went back to Staten Island and I wrote the feature for the New York Times. It was the last article under Donovan's byline and it came to great acclaim, a tragedy of the modern age, in more ways than one. I never told anyone about my role in the story and no one bothered to question the yarn that I had spun. I was simply a supporting character in the larger drama that had unfolded, the long suffering witness who managed all the pain. Donovan's body wasn't discovered until the beginning of May. It was a bitter winter that year and a few more storms buried him beneath a mountain of snow. My first reaction to the news was avoidance. I didn't want to see him, the image that came into my mind was enough to cause a wave of depression to overwhelm me, ensconcing me under a mountain of blankets for days. God knows what would have happened if I had witnessed his final turgid state. So, when his body was shipped to me, after being identified through dental records, I knew exactly what I should do. I put the crate back on the train and took him home to his family in Connecticut. It was a somber affair even though most everyone was already well aware of the outcome. I was clearly showing by then and the idea of Donovan living again through an heir lightened the mood somewhat. I didn't realize how much I had missed my childhood home until my mother held me in her arms. It was numbing to think that I was still a teenager after everything that had happened. My parents convinced me to move back in with them and returning to their care was one of the best decisions of my life. It was an Eden of comfort where I was allowed time for my nurturing body to develop. Then, when my son Donald was born three months later, my life changed overnight. I can't even fathom how it would have been if I had tried to raise him on my own during those first few years. My life was full of fortune but there were also times when my heart wandered into the abyss. To yearn for love when it is gone forever is debilitating, but also miraculous somehow. I would go from wishing the sun would vanish from the sky to being filled with an effervescent energy that encouraged me forward, urged me to blaze a path of my own. Often, this feeling would come when I would look into our child's eyes. Donovan continued to bless me, his presence remaining in my heart seeking growth, knowledge and betterment. I signed up for journalism courses at the local college, and my time was spent between books and diapers, nothing else mattered. Before I could appreciate it, years had vanished and the events that occurred in New Mexico seemed like a fading mirage. I knew that I would eventually return to the Big Apple. For me, New York will always be home. In a way, your life becomes woven within its intricate design. I made my way back to the house I shared with Donovan in Staten Island. I had rented it out to a newlywed couple when I left, and the small amount of income it provided helped to pay for my studies back in Connecticut. Tom and Angie were the perfect tenants and had just given birth to a child of their own when I returned. We decided to live together, so Donald had the chance to be an older brother for a while. It worked out well and we all became good friends. It even felt like a family somewhat. But I never pictured myself as the spinster aunt, awash in the memories of a life that could have been. I had maintained contact with some of our literary friends and I immediately caught up with them. I needed work and was hoping that these connections, along with a fresh journalism degree would open a door for me. One of those doors turned out to be Cecille Lyon, the wife of the editor of the New Yorker. She took a quick liking for me, eventually becoming a true mentor and good friend. When a spot became available at the magazine, she made sure that I was hired on, and my dreams of becoming a professional writer were fulfilled! It was amazing, hardly a day going by without running into great intellectuals of the time. The city was so magnetic, pulling dynamic figures from all over the world to its core and there I was, thrust into the middle of it all, barely in my twenties. Don't get me wrong. It was difficult, but working hard was never a problem for me, which served me quite well in my new environment. There is no greater headache for an editor than worrying about whether or not a writer will meet the deadline. I soon became a favorite at the magazine and before long I was writing more than I ever could have imagined. Reviews, interviews, gossip about town, even a feature article at times, my words spread across the pages almost every week. It was a tireless and wonderful time in my life that shaped the person I would become. In the midst of it all, I came to meet my second husband. Harry was a lawyer who worked for the firm that represented the New Yorker and in 1962 the magazine was in dire need of their services. The scandal surrounding Hannah Arendt and her article on the Eichmann trial caused quite a stir. Yet, it was truly empowering for me to watch a great philosopher defend herself against the wolves that came out of the dark. She faced some of the harshest criticism from some of her oldest friends, yet she stood forth with such conviction against the storm. I remembered Donovan talking about how the act of exposing the truth can bring out the most vicious attacks. I saw that first hand with Hannah’s experience. Harry came around the office almost every day during that time. I began to notice that he was stopping by my desk more and more, and before long, he was taking me out to dinner or drinks or dancing, whatever my wish. It was fun and I adored the attention. I hadn't thought about another person in that way since Donovan and it all happened in a natural way this time, almost frivolous in a sense. I barely thought about what I was doing, a little jaunt of distraction, a pleasant desire in the touch of another. It was unexpected but needed, as I came to realize that I'd forgotten to embrace the joyous and pleasurable aspects of life. I had been working so hard for years, as a mother and then, a writer. Harry was a pleasant change from all that and it wasn't long before I was shocked to discover that I was pregnant. Well, not that shocked, obviously, and I was far from disappointed by the development, though it brought hushed whispers from behind cupped hands. I liked Harry and enjoyed his company, but being pregnant again? My heart expanded with such delight! The endorphins ran through me with enthusiasm and I couldn't wait to become a nurturing parent again. I hardly thought about what was going to happen with this development, though Harry insisted that we get married. I had no interest in fighting with him, so before I knew it, everything was unfolding and I became a wife preparing to give birth. Contemplating my new role, I simply decided to embrace it. It wasn't until much later that I realized how unnecessary all of it was, that I could be in complete control of my life with or without a man by my side. That may sound abruptly dismissive, I know, but at the time I was genuinely excited. I was twenty-three and my life felt more full than I ever imagined, especially after all that had occurred just a few years before. Little Donnie was six years old and Harry seemed to embrace him like he was a child of his own. I sold the house in Staten Island to Tom and Angie, who were sad to see us leave, but we moved in with Harry to begin our new life together. Sadly, it wasn't meant to be. After Bethany was born, the euphoria wore off and it wasn't long before our idyllic existence began to deteriorate. I struggled to manage my time with Harry at the office, my days focused on the two children. I barely found time to write, often working into the night, which kept Harry and me apart more often than not. I must say that what I missed most those evenings was having a person to discuss ideas with, passing the cue back and forth, noodling each detail until they were soft at the edge. Donovan's absence began to seep into my life again and I'm sure that there were days where I could care less whether Harry knew it or not. But it wasn't all terrible and for a few years I could see that Harry really did try to make an effort to work on our family at times. Unfortunately, he began to focus only on what his version of family was supposed to be. He'd received a promotion at work and that seemed to allow the domineering side of him to come out, which caused him to become more insistent on what he wanted from us. Well, mostly what he wanted from me. As I've said before, I'm quite capable of handling myself and, for a while, I succeeded in balancing many plates in the air. But I wasn't about to have someone tell me what I could do with my own time. It all came out in rather dramatic fashion when Bethany finally went off to school. There were times, before this, that I tried to discuss my plans with Harry about returning to the magazine full time, but I never managed to bring it up properly. Perhaps I knew in my heart what would become of such a discussion. I continued to write for The New Yorker without actually going into the office everyday. They respected that I was busy with the children and newlywed life, but I was itching to expand the sound of my typewriter. I spoke with William Shawn, lead editor at the time, and they were eager for my return. I could tell that Harry was not pleased by this turn of events, but what could he say. I was always there for him, the dutiful wife, doing the best I could to provide what he may need from me. We rarely fought and though he hinted, he'd never truly attempted to put his proverbial foot down. It was only when I broached the subject of steady work again that he expressed how he really felt. I was furious, of course, and would never accept such behavior from him. From anyone, for that matter. And we had a row or two about it, believe me. As I've mentioned, my stubborn nature is not for the weak of heart, and he soon realized that my will could not be turned. Don't get me wrong, I'm a reasonable person when it comes to most things, but regarding my children and my writing, nothing can make me sway from the true path. It should have ended then but for a couple months we tried to pretend that nothing had changed. Then, we connected again following the holiday party at the magazine. We both had a bit to drink and I was feeling so comfortable after spending a pleasant evening with my colleagues. Harry was such a doll that evening, attending to my every need. I did love him, after all, so we embraced again once we returned home that evening. It felt like years since we had touched each other in such a way but the next morning, as I lay in bed staring at him, I knew that it wouldn't last. I enjoyed the peaceful moment but my heart was already lost. A deep sadness lurched through me, touching something that I hadn't felt in many years. The children and I left that day and now it was Harry’s turn to not put up a fight. Once we were settled, it was like a veil was lifted. The constricted feeling in my chest that had been coiled there for the past couple of years eased suddenly and, though I was very successful in life to that point, I soon realized that I had not been true to myself. When I wrote the article under Donovan's name, I recalled a reverent sensation that overcame me, filling me with the knowledge that no matter what I may face, there is a place I can find within myself that allows peace to flow through my heart. When we moved into our new apartment, I began to feel that way again. I went through my days as if I were soaring and nothing could harm my place in the world. It was a true blessing that came out of a difficult time. With a sense of contentment guiding me, the next few years passed like a summer wind and before I knew it, Donald was going off to college. He was accepted to UCLA with a full scholarship to study mathematics. I know that may sound ridiculous, the furthest thing possible from his heritage, but each of us have our own path, after all. Bethany and I drove him out to the west coast in August of 1975 shortly after his eighteenth birthday. It truly felt like a page was turning in my life. He was as old as I was when our story had begun and I was stunned by the thought of it. As I stood by his side looking up into his bright face, I was surprised to feel an old flame springing back to life. Here was the image of the man I fell in love with so long ago, but now it was shining forth from the eyes of my child. For a moment, it hardly felt as if two decades had passed and a nebulous melody weaved through my soul causing tears to spring forth in my eyes. Donovan had remained by my side all these years in the most wonderful way imaginable. It hurt to embrace my boy that day, to turn away and look upon another empty page. This time it felt so different, so beyond anything I had yet to imagine. It wasn't until Bethany and I were on the road back east that I realized how I was going to fill that blank page. ●●●●●● Excerpt from the novel “The Melody” by Beatrice Reilley, published in 1980: ...When she returned to that place from her youth, a blessing came to her, a distant memory welling up from within, a melody of repose. Into her mind she fled, a walk down a dusty path holding hands with a boy her own age, neither one of them old enough to understand the foundation that was being placed beneath their feet. He was precious, she recalled, even at nine years old. He was a blue star in the sky, a light that filled her heart and his voice came like a song... Before I knew what was happening to me, we were driving through New Mexico. I still don't know if it was a conscious choice on my part or if some other force was guiding me, but I soon became acutely aware of the proximity of our journey. I could no longer keep it in my heart, so I began to tell Bethany everything about what occurred in the mountains that loomed outside our windshield. She was fascinated. She was discovering an entirely different person from the one who had always been there by her side and encouraged me to turn aside on the detour that I needed to take. I must admit that part of me was terrified by what I might find after all the years, but the beauty of our summer surroundings were so welcoming that all of the apprehension soon left me. We climbed the steep grade through the trees and as the air grew thinner, our hearts were lifted. The town of Aurora had not changed much from when I'd been there years before, but it had a completely different hue in the summer. Where the snow brought a heavy damp atmosphere during the winter, an uplifting display of radiance spread across the valley during the summer. The natural beauty resonated so profoundly that I found it hard to look away. I knew that places like this existed around the planet but to immerse yourself within the glory is an entirely different affair. I remember going to Southford Falls when I was a child, thinking it was the most majestic display in the world. Then, when I traveled to New York with Donovan on my arm and walked among the buildings! You can't help but stop until the shock subsides, until your heart and breath return to you. Or you leisurely waltz through Central Park without ever coming close to knowing the map of the place and new avenues form in your mind. That's what happened when Bethany and I spent that afternoon exploring this tragic spot that echoed with pain, the years vanishing with every glance, every beat of my heart. As we walked, I kept catching a glimpse of movement behind the trees but when I turned to look, there were only empty shadows shifting in the dappled light. We came to the waterfall and I was taken aback. What a glorious sight and the heavy wind from the crush of water on the rocks drove right through me, hurting my bones. There was a feral presence within the churning noise but I never felt threatened. It was simply a place where you could go to lose your mind, to give in to the cacophony that surrounds us all. When we finally retreated from that conflicted zone, my head was so full of sound. Every time I closed my eyes, I could differentiate something within the midst of it, a faint whisper of haunting music that twisted around inside me, curling up like an old tree root clutching at the veins in a pile of rocks. By the time we returned to our car, night was beginning to descend. We were both exhausted physically and emotionally, and I didn't realize that I had been crying until I felt the tears cooling on my cheeks. Bethany never said a word, allowing me to cherish the time with my memories, simply aware that a subtle caress upon my shoulder, or a gentle hug, her head leaning against mine, was what I needed the most. There was no possibility of driving down the mountain after that, and we were famished. We found a pleasant place to eat and to my surprise, a familiar face approached our table shortly after we sat down. It was Brian, the deputy who escorted me out of town when I was eighteen. I recognized him immediately and I can't tell you how happy I was to see him again. He invited us over to share the table with Mary, his wife of sixteen years and their two daughters, Amanda and Grace, the oldest almost the exact same age as Bethany. For the rest of the evening we visited together as if we were old companions. Brian was the Sheriff now and they invited us to stay over in their guest room. Bethany was so happy, for Amanda had already become a fast friend. I was pleased, as well. It would be good to spend the night inside the warmth of a friend's home, and that's what Brian and Mary became, true friends. He had always been concerned for me, all those years ago, as well as the years since. I saw it in his eyes, just like the day we parted at the airport, a protective force looking out for my well being. I learned so much more later that night when I had trouble sleeping and went to the kitchen for a glass of water, only to discover a restless Brian sitting at the table. He told me that he had just awoken from a nightmare about that first night when he stood guard over my room so long ago. I didn't know until that moment that he had been the one outside my door, waiting and listening to every furtive movement inside. He had been terrified of what I might do then, though we all know now how it turned out. But in his dream, all his fears came to life. He saw me climb out the window and disappear into the cold snowy blackness never to be seen again. He grew frantic with search, despair quickly rising in his heart. He woke suddenly with the strange idea that it had all been true and that our visit that night was the real dream. He was only reassured when he peeked into his daughter's room to see Bethany curled up against Amanda in a sweet embrace. I confided in him about how close I came to following through with everything that happened in his dream. Then I told him the entire story of my life with Donovan, up until the morning that Brian drove me down the mountain. I didn't realize how long I spoke until the cold light of the dawn began to creep into the room. Again, my eyes were swollen from tears, but I felt a gentle sigh escaping from within me. I needed someone like Brian, a witness who truly understood what it all meant. Then he spoke, told me about the magic of this part of the world and every word resonated with me. People come here and can never leave. They fall in love with this place. His grandparents were like that, building a home here after his grandfather passed through scouting for the railroad. Brian also stayed, fulfilling a need after staying for the summer following his high school graduation. Mary, too, before she was his wife. Her family vacationed nearby one summer and when they came to see the waterfall, she instantly knew that she belonged here. It was a common story with many of the residents. There came a moment of wonder that changed their lives forever. But there were other tales, different reasons for people coming to this place and never escaping. This was the story that I knew so well, Donovan's story. There’s an esurient nature deep within the heart of the mountain and it yearns to consume. A person lost in a sudden blizzard, swallowed by an avalanche, stumbling over a ledge, slipping into the rapids, or attacked by an animal in the wild. A volatile wilderness sits alongside all of the peaceful beauty that is found here. By the time Brian and I finished commiserating, Mary had come down to start the coffee. Her presence pulled us back and the world had somehow changed for me. I shed the years like a thick skin and could perceive life through a fresh filter. I was in a delicate state, though, and Mary paid special care to me that day. There was no resentment in her for the past I shared with her husband and what that had drawn from us the night before. She was keenly aware of where she lived, loving and fearing the place in a healthy manner. We had come a long way to get to this point. We shared it together, and now there were others that we had to look after, to nurture and protect. The children soon came down for breakfast and they, too, could feel that something had changed. Bethany noticed that I needed some comfort because she immediately hugged me and stayed by my side longer than I would have expected. Grace, their youngest, jumped in her Dad's lap. We were truly blessed to have such beautiful creatures to come alive every morning and remind us of who we had become. Otherwise we might find ourselves drifting effortlessly into a dream from which it would be difficult to awake. When she finally left to go off with Amanda, my daughter's eyes found mine with an imploring concern. What's going on, she seemed to be asking. When I told her about her brother's father the day before, I tried to avoid most of the terror that I felt the last time I visited Aurora. The starkness of how it affected me must have been splashed across my face that morning. I was exhausted but I let her know that I was going to be okay, so that she could spend time with her new friend. Despite the trauma, I was tranquil, comforted by the resolve of compassion that flowed from my daughter's heart. I had never enjoyed all the years of motherhood more so than in that moment. I also felt blessed by the presence of a new companion, for I realized that Brian was bound to me in a profound way. Our paths had converged, and I now had a confidante with whom to share all the wonder and apprehension about this place. Something had awoken in me that night, a resilient determination to understand what these mountains meant to me. I sensed that my life belonged here, which, to my surprise, was completely exhilarating. ●●●●●● The snow continues to fall outside my window as I write. It hasn't stopped for days and the weather reports have grown more inconclusive with each new dawn. Whispers have started to be heard throughout the town. Strange tidings seem to have befallen us, almost as if a powerful spirit has spread its wings over the mountain. What does it want? Who does it seek? Once I felt the barometer drop, It didn't take me long to come to my own conclusion. I had much work to do. So I've spent every moment in front of this computer. If I was a younger woman, I may have already finished my story and spared the other residents some of this wrath. But I'm seventy-nine now. I have grandchildren that have grown to have children of their own. Only a few weeks ago, I held a baby boy, who my granddaughter Janeen named Donovan, after a man she's only heard about in stories, only seen in grainy photos. When I looked into that tiny face, I could feel how alive his great-grandfather was, after all these years, his spirit touching my heart in a grave new way. Now I'm here in Aurora, contemplating the next phase of my evolution. I've lived here for the past three decades. After both of my children left home, life suddenly became less complex for me. I was still working at the New Yorker but I had been tinkering with the idea for a novel, so I decided to take some time off to make the attempt. It turned out that I had a voracious appetite for the format and I finished that first book very quickly. The novel was only a moderate success, but I had discovered my new voice. Over the next few years I completed at least one novel every winter with each new offering bringing more people into the stores. Before I knew it, I was on the bestseller list, and my life was forever changed. I officially left the magazine, though I was rarely seen inside those halls by then anyway, and I traveled the world promoting my books. It was a whirlwind of excitement, every day engaging, but after a few years, that locomotive lost steam. I needed a break, to find a place where I could slow down and get some rest. I was exhausted from all the activity, and the first place I thought of was the mountains of New Mexico. At first, it was simply going to be a long vacation, but I soon found that I felt very comfortable, as it was a natural place for me to write. With the wealth I had been afforded due to the success of my novels, I bought a home in the town and settled into a satisfying existence. I always thought that I would return again one day, but I never imagined that it would be with such a sense of serenity. All of the fears that lingered in my heart washed away when I took a walk a couple of days after I bought the house. Though I was alone, I felt someone take my hand, but instead of becoming startled by the abrupt sensation, my heart flooded with such a warmth that it was almost as if I had never known happiness before. I felt like I could walk forever through the day and never look back. Yet, before I became lost to such fancies, the impression vanished and I returned to the world around me. There was still so much time to share and give. This type of occurrence began to happen on a regular basis as I settled into my new home. A mysterious touch from nature would come to me as I walked the hillsides and valleys. A caress across my cheek, a lightness upon my shoulder, even a sigh next to my ear was a signal that I was no longer alone. There was no consistency to the interactions or some greater purpose to them that I can attest. It was simply a feeling that overwhelmed all others, and I knew that it carried a profound truth. Believe me, I'm quite aware of how this all must sound. How fantastical or ridiculous some of you may think I was behaving. I'm not trying to convince anyone of some supernatural order or spectral beings that may live and walk among us. I never actually saw anything that would suggest something of that nature. All I can say is that there was some type of essence that came to me during those moments. Whether that was from something or someone that was truly there or whether it was from some new emotion that sprang out of my heart, no one will ever know. What I do know is that I came to expect these connections whenever I went out on my isolated excursions. I traveled all over the county by foot and these little detours became a blessed respite from my writing. Otherwise, I did little else during those years. I would dine with Brian and Mary on occasion, which would inevitably lead to long conversations with him at the kitchen table after his family would retire for the evening. Like the night he heard my confession, Brian became a good listener. We developed a heart to heart connection, a symbiosis focused on the joy of dialogue between two friends. It was as simple as that, nothing more. The door to the sensual side of my heart had been closed decades ago and though I could feel a small light squeezing through the crack everyday, with each walk, I knew that there was no one in this life who would ever open it again. I went down the mountain a few times a year to visit with Donald, Bethany and their respective families as they developed over the years. They would also come up the mountain now and then to disrupt the monotony, usually during the summer when they could stay for weeks at a time. The winter visits to frolic in the snow were much shorter, only a couple of days long. It was a fierce season up in our small community, especially hard on outsiders, the weather abrasive and overbearing. Yes, the misty mornings and crispness in the air could be refreshing but there were times when a heavy canopy spread wide across Aurora, from peak to peak shrouding our valley in darkness. This oppressive force seemed to rise up from the earth and, at times, could not be explained by natural atmospheric conditions. It was as if the sky and the earth went to war and everyone was stuck in the midst of the battlefield. Many people fled the area like refugees. My first winter in that town was just as torturous. All the pent up anguish rose from my heart with a vengeance. I felt guilty about turning my back on my husband, taking his notes and going down the mountain. I felt deep sadness for my loss and a chasm broke open within me so wide that the voice of reason disappeared like a whimper in the bitter wind. I felt shame at giving up on such true love, then having the audacity to believe that it could be replaced by another. I felt a despair that had been decades in making. It clouded all hope for the future, for the next day, the next minute. It was so overwhelming that I began to struggle with the lower realms of my soul. It was a terrible conflict, one that was forever simmering beneath the surface, yet which I had never acknowledged before, in any real sense. I didn't know the name of true cowardice before that winter and once I was buried in the weight of it in this mountain terrain, I could do nothing else but face it. Nature is so polarizing. Summer turns to Winter, then before all is settled, it grows so dark again. Then, there’s the tiniest hint of a blossom that will soon warm your heart like nothing ever could. Day follows the lull of night and then, after a long day filled with activity, we descend into slumber. These are such simple examples of that fundamental balance, ones that we all know, but if we go deeper, we can perceive this equilibrium in all things. For every smile there is a frown. For every moment of heartache there is a love that is so profound the universe vibrates with it. This duality plays out in all of our lives in unique ways responding to who we are and where we are, with all that we bring to the equation. For every incident there will be those who come out stronger and there will be those who may be destroyed by it. That first winter on the mountain almost destroyed me. There were many nights I found myself staring at the bleak world swirling outside my door, tears streaming down my face. I even begged for Donovan to come and take me, to comfort me, but I never felt his presence. Instead I was visited by nightmares and icy compositions that left me shivering even as I lay huddled before the fire beneath a mound of blankets. It wasn't until we had a break in the weather that I finally managed to settle down. By then I was coming apart at the seams and may have abandoned all hope if it wasn't for her. I was contemplating how to escape, or maybe how to simply disappear, if I must be honest. Then, she came to me. The clouds allowed a bit of room for the sun and it seemed like a miraculous event, for it had been weeks since we had seen the blessed brilliant light. I went outside to see if it was even possible to leave this place once and for all, and that's when the beauty of the world caught my eye. It was like crisp white linen. You know the feeling. The anticipation of laying down in that blessed freshness. I paused to allow the warmth from above to kiss my cheeks. I listened to the sigh of the snow beneath my feet and little bubbles began to burst in my heart. At first I could make no sense of the euphoria that overcame me, then I looked through the light. A presence was all around me, a soft sheen I could perceive when I no longer observed. Then, it came to me, a dawning that I knew this from somewhere, recognized it, had experienced it before. I recognized the signature, like deja-vu, this was a spiritual connection that was all too familiar. My heart and mind went back to that dreadful night many years before when, in Santa Fe, I sat before the hotel window all night calling in desperation for my love to return. As we know, my prayers were never answered, but something did come to me out of the night to communicate with my soul. It was very clear to me now that it was Samantha Cross, or some essence associated with her, that had visited me then. And again, like that night long ago, she began to comfort me. I heard thoughts so distinctly that it felt like they were coming from another place in my mind, a room that I had never accessed. Images appeared to me in a fluid way that could never happen with a camera or film projector but they gave me a beautiful new awareness of life. There is nothing so amazing as the terrestrial workings of the world. Just look within the blossom of a flower or through the act of the bumblebee that harvests its pollen. Beauty is conveyed within the intricate connection of one life transferring through another. That day, I was able to perceive this profound energetic experience through the filter provided by Samantha's gift to me. I know what you may be thinking. Why can't she just call them ghosts? It simply didn't feel like that for me. Ghosts were always something that connoted fear, a story told to scare little children, but that wasn't what happened. Everything I felt that morning was the opposite of fear. It was comforting and elevated me above any of those base feelings. That was the moment that everything about this story truly changed. All of the terrible aspects wrapped up in this place that I'd harbored deep in the tendrils of my heart left without a trace. That morning I followed the echo of her voice as it brought new meaning to my life. I saw the landscape all around me, almost as if I had never really perceived it before, even though I had walked among it for months. Eventually, I came to the base of the falls again and stood in awe of the frozen monolith. I couldn't look away and recalled Donovan's letter describing the moment Samantha made her attempt. I listened close, half expecting to hear her scream as she fell, but only the voice of the natural world filled my ears. Then, like a distant dream, a soft reverberation began to come to me, like jewels dangling in the trees, touching each other when they swayed and between the chimes, a creaking groan of struggle. My life transformed, moving into an intimate connection with this strange song. And I could see it. How the waterfall was alive, even though it appeared frozen. It forever moved, shifting, creaking, just as Donovan had explained, and it communed with the forces all around, only allowing an unseen footing for the favored. Then, for a brief moment, there at the top, I could see a figure moving in a slow delicate dance with the music that flowed out from beneath the surface. The person was climbing the last precious feet to the summit, then with the gentle gust of the breeze, she was gone. I was so grateful that I was allowed to see such a blessing and from that day forward, I embraced this place.  All of my interactions with the environment, spiritual and natural, became loving and honest. To truly connect with an aspect of yourself that allows meaning to all phenomena is one of the great human mysteries, and here I was doing that every day! A tree had the power to provide a gift, a soft whisper of its leaves falling into my ears. The wind could lift me up beyond the reach of despair until I was truly flying above the clouds. Standing at the foot of the falls, exposed to the explosion of water, I could feel the devil's breath cut though my body and fill me with its creative force. Then, I would sit for hours at my keyboard, writing until dawn. And to hear the birds in the morning greeting the new light. There is beauty all around us, within every aspect of life and appreciation is the seed. The sprouts that give form to everything we see and touch, all that we know and believe, comes from that benevolence. No matter where I look, I can perceive it, like an embrace that stays with you long after you have disengaged. There is a residue within the yearning desire to survive, a miraculous voice spread wide across the universe. It's even in the howl of the wind that I can hear outside my window. The most powerful storm gives as much as it takes away. I must admit that I find it hard to end this tale. My heart is light and free, but my mind still clings to this world. Every story must end and I know that mine has finally reached that moment. It's okay. I've left nothing behind, taken care of those I've loved. They'll remember me in their own ways. I have this page, this word and my only hope is that it has provided some meaning. After all the years, I still long for the piece of myself that disappeared the day Donovan went away. I suppose that I shall reacquaint myself somehow. In the end, Brian's dream shall come true, after all. I will turn out the light, open the window and fall in love all over again. ●●●●●● Excerpt from article in the New York Times, Sunday edition, dated January 27th, 1957: Into The Wilderness By Donovan Reilley “...and I, I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.” -- Robert Frost Famous words that have inspired a nation, given voice to a generation. Also a profound truth that lives within the heart of each person, for we cannot live a meaningful life unless we find our own path. There are moments in a person's life when the attraction is too powerful to look away. An opening in the world that wasn't there before but now calls out to us. It could be a word, the play of language that somehow communicates meaning in a forest of confusing symbols. It might come in a song, the way fingers grasp the melody upon the strings, or in the urge of a voice as it sprouts wings. It may be found in the struggle of battle, a protective force springing forth to save a comrade in arms. It could be in the truth of a sermon, a powerful light that reaches out with a guiding hand to bring peace to the soul of humanity. It may also come in the reflection of another, two people locking eyes, their hearts ablaze with connection. It can also be found in a place, a holy ground or sacred monument, architecture built from the hands of the earth. For Samantha Cross, that place was this small town in the wilderness called Aurora and the need to climb the ice falls they call “The Devil's Breath”. It brought me here, as well, and I know not whether it was a demon or a saint that caused the key in my heart to turn, but I shall be forever changed by this haunting landscape… THE END