The Footstool: A Christian Short Story Collection Read online

The Footstool: A Christian Short Story Collection

  By Kim Bond

  This short story collection is dedicated to our Lord Jesus Christ.

  “…The heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool…” —Isaiah 66:1 (KJV)

  Copyright 2013 by Kim Bond, all rights reserved. Contact Kim Bond at [email protected] with questions regarding permissions.

  IMPORTANT NOTE TO READERS

  The works contained within this publication are purely fiction. They have not been written to teach Christian theology or doctrine.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Scripture taken from the Holy Bible: King James Version.

  “Gumdrop Alley” is based on true-life rescues by the International Crisis Aid organization. Learn more at www.crisisaid.org.

  “Green Filter” was first published in Torrid Literature Journal (October 2012).

  “Annette’s Café” was first published in Dead Mule School of Southern Literature (December 2008).

  “The Other Me” was first published in Foliate Oak (November 2010) and was later anthologized in Best of Foliate Oak (2010).

  “The Van Table” was first published in Midwest Literary Magazine (July 2010) and was later anthologized in Green (2010).

  Table of Contents

  Gumdrop Alley

  Old Kal’s Cave

  Mud Maker

  The Baths of Cadara

  Janine’s Condition

  The Fine Line

  Life’s Equation

  Skin Deep

  Green Filter

  Jerusalem Happened

  Annette’s Café

  Good Deed Collector

  American Balloon

  The Van Table

  Pesky Specters

  What I Saw

  The Other Me

  Food-o-phobia

  The Collector

  Death’s Countdown

  Petition

  Fickle Humans

  The Sinner’s Prayer

  A Christmas Gift

  Note to Readers

  Gumdrop Alley

  We lived on the east side of Peru. Mother would send me to the market on account of her sick leg. I went frequently and became friendly with a man named Pedunk. He seemed genuinely interested in me—asking all kinds of questions. Later, I understood he was only calculating how much I would be missed, if my family would search for me, and with whom he must contend if he was caught.

  I guess my answers made me a good kidnapping candidate. He offered me a piece of gum; I do not remember much after that. When I awoke, my body was being lifted by unfamiliar arms from an old pickup truck to a hut in Gumdrop Alley. I never knew the exact location. I only knew it was where a mountain curved into a slope. We were hidden away in thatched huts shaped like gumdrops.

  Pedunk and the Missus kept a close eye on us from the windows of their stone house. The Missus concerned herself with our cleanliness, food, and clothing. At times, I got the impression she viewed the twelve of us girls as her children in some twisted way. Pedunk considered only our behavior toward the clients to be of any weighty significance.

  The clients were part of an underground ring. Men from all over Peru came to see us. They saw us greet them at the doorway with long black hair cascaded over one shoulder. They saw us remove bright colored skirts and lay down with them on mattresses.

  The guard sat in a chair outside of Pedunk’s home day and night. The machine gun’s strap was draped around his neck, his hand always on the trigger. He paid little attention to us. He was paid to watch over the clients—not to protect us girls. They did not fear us leaving either. We were too scared to flee, and the village was too isolated for us to travel to any town on foot.

  All the girls lined up every morning to be inspected by his wife.

  We held out our hands for inspection—palms down. The Missus walked down the line, scrunching her freckled nose now and then. At the end, she turned around. We flipped our hands in unison—palms up. She inspected them again. If we had clean hands and nails, she gave us a small ration of rice and fruit, usually a pawpaw. If a girl’s hands appeared dirty to her, she denied that girl’s daily food ration. She approved my hands daily—almost smiling as she handed me the food.

  That is every day until March. It started when I laid in bed half asleep and heard the crunching of leaves underfoot. I assumed one of Pedunk’s clients had come to receive my service, but it was Pedunk himself. His familiar silhouette stood in my doorway, lit up by the moon like a ghost.

  At first, I felt relieved to see him. Maybe he wanted to ask me to fetch an extra jar of water from the well by the road because Mara was sick again. But the way he leaned against the wall and stared for so long gave me an uneasy feeling. He said nothing as he began unbuckling his belt and unbuttoning his jeans.

  I treated him as I would any client, laying still and spacing out. My thoughts drifted away from my usual hope of returning home and turned to a new, more desperate hope: one of the clients might haggle with Pedunk to take me away and make me his wife. Together, we would have children, and I would never let them out of my sight. Ever. I envisioned this so fully that I only snapped back to reality as Pedunk walked out the doorway of my hut.

  The following morning, I scrubbed my hands same as always. However, the Missus shook her head as she walked past for inspection. As she walked past the second time (palms up), she smacked them down and said, “Put those filthy things away. No food today.”

  It was then I realized the girls who failed inspection in the past did not fail because their hands were literally dirty. And I had not passed inspection prior to this moment because I scrubbed my hands so adequately. All this time, she had been punishing us for Pedunk’s wandering.

  Still, her cruelty was kindness compared to that of Pedunk’s behavior, especially in the company of his guard. Together, the two men behaved inhumane. I discovered just how humane the following night.

  I laid in bed and listened to my stomach growl after not having eaten all day. I clutched the handmade doll I had stitched together. Salwa’s face was shaped like a pancake with black thread stitched in the shape of X’s for the eyes, and the shape of a minus sign for a nose, and a smiling mouth. She was made of old material—dull brown coffee color for the face and a floral print for her undersized torso, floppy arms, and understuffed legs. I had been careful to stitch a belly button right where a belly button would go. It made her more lifelike. I needed Salwa to be lifelike and sweet. The girls seemed too coarse for my liking, too callous for a best friend anyway.

  Mara’s hut was beside mine, so I heard everything perfectly. Pedunk yelled something about how long she had known she was pregnant and kept it secret. I considered how well she had hidden it under baggy dresses because I never noticed. Pedunk said his customer requested a new girl since he had accidentally chosen the pregnant one.

  I hugged Salwa tighter and slid further under my cover as the first smack echoed in my ears. Pedunk demanded to see her belly.

  “Oh man, oh man. What have you done? Six months. You have to be six months pregnant, Mara. I might have been able to fix this for you. I could have made it disappear painlessly, but now….”The next sound was more thuddish like a punch. Though my whole body trembled, I commanded myself to get out of bed.

  I stood there wanting to go next door and defend Mara but either out of cowardice or honest prediction, I convinced myself I would only make things worse for her.

  Pedunk’s voice started again. “The baby’s too strong now to go easily. Might as well shoot her.”

 
Another voice cackled. That is when I realized the guard was in there with them. I imagined him taking aim at that moment. I jumped back in bed and covered my head completely with blankets. Under there, Salwa and I hid and listened to Mara try to explain.

  “I just wanted to keep my baby. I want someone for my very own, someone to love. You do not understand how it is to feel the baby grow inside you.”

  Afterwards I heard a loud crack as if the gun had slammed against her head or something else. I did not hear Mara’s voice any more that night.

  For the next two weeks, I thought she was dead. Then one morning Mara appeared at lineup. The Missus said her hands looked extra clean and gave her more food than usual.

  That is when we heard a baby’s cries from Pedunk’s house. The Missus set down the pail of rice and rushed away.

  I leaned forward in line and strained to see Mara’s face, about three girls down. Her face was stone. She dropped her jar of rice on the dirt and walked back toward her hut. I chased after her, careful not to spill one grain of my own rice. By the time I reached her doorway, her face was buried in her mattress. She sobbed without pride; her tears absorbed in her blanket.

  I returned to my hut next door and set down the rice. Salwa smiled from where she sat in the middle of my mattress. I wrapped my two hands around her torso and lifted her up to my face. I stared into her little X’d eyes.

  “I am sorry, my dear friend, but it is time we part ways. I do love you. It is just Mara needs you more right now.”

  Dragging her by the hand, I marched over to Mara’s hut. The sobbing mound did not acknowledge my presence. I placed Salwa by Mara’s arm. At that, Mara seemed to have been startled. She grabbed my arm and pulled me close. She embraced me though my arms hung lifelessly at my sides.

  In my soul, I knew I could never understand what she had gone through. A chasm of maturity had been formed in such a short period of time. She had become a mother and become childless all in one day. I had nothing to offer her—no advice or words of comfort. No bridge ever built could close the gap between us at that moment in time.

  Mara did not seem to notice the chasm. I doubt it mattered who I was, only that I was a living being—warm and near. She eventually stopped squeezing me so tightly and simply let go. She looked down at Salwa, who was still laying on her mattress, then back at me again. “Thank you.” After that, she laid on her mattress, face first as she had been when I entered, except now she wrapped one arm around Salwa.

  I backed out of her doorway and into the morning light, once again hearing the baby fuss. My hut seemed the right place for me to go even though Salwa would not be waiting on the mattress for me.

  I retrieved my hidden sewing kit from a stack of clothes. With the sewing shears, I cut a shirt into the size of a pancake head. The rest of the afternoon, I threw my focus into making a new Salwa, a better Salwa—a Ximena.

  After that day, we saw less and less of the Missus and of Pedunk. The guard was there, same as always, and the clients came and went as usual.

  That was until an unusual client entered my hut. He looked like the medical missionaries I used to see in the marketplace. He spoke better Spanish though. His first words were, “Do you like it here?”

  I pondered the question as I unbuttoned my shirt. It seemed an absurd question. He placed his hand on mine to prevent me from unbuttoning my shirt.

  I dropped my hands to my sides. “It is alright.” I did not want to say the wrong thing.

  “What if I told you that you could be free?”

  My heart skipped a beat. I thought, “Could it be my dream come true? Has this man come to buy me, rescue me, and marry me?” I said aloud, “Oh yes, I want to be free!” I wrapped my arms around him as he stood like a statue. The moment had a strange resemblance to the embrace I endured from Mara. The man’s seriousness quieted my heart about the hope of becoming his bride.

  I scratched my arm. “Are you a medical missionary?”

  The man sat on the mattress. “I am a missionary of Jesus Christ.”

  Suddenly, it occurred to me he was not speaking about a literal freedom from Gumdrop Alley but a spiritual freedom from something or other.

  “Oh.” I could think of nothing more to say, so we sat in an uncomfortable silence for a few moments.“So why do they call this Gumdrop Alley?”

  I inhaled deeply, much relieved to discuss something definite. “I think it started with the huts shaped like gumdrops.”

  The man leaned forward and put the tips of his fingers together as though he pondered his whole life’s burdens in that one instant.

  “Look, the man who took my money to sleep with you…”

  “Pedunk.”

  “Yes, Pedunk. He says I have thirty minutes with you. We need to get to business.”

  “Right,” I said, unbuttoning my shirt again.

  “No, not that kind of business.” This time he put his fingertips on his forehead and then through his full head of hair. “I mean getting you out of here. Today is the fifth of April. On the twentieth, I will have a car waiting at the road alongside the well. Can you be there just after dark?”

  My heart started beating right out of my chest. “I cannot. The guard…”

  “We will take care of the guard. Will you be there?”

  “We? We who?” I felt my eyes squinting. Everything seemed so confusing all of a sudden.

  “I know people that can help us. First, I want to talk to some more of the girls. You might see me around in the next few nights. Just act natural. Most of all, be there.” He stood and walked out, leaving me with so many unanswered questions and the doubt I could make it outside of Gumdrop Alley alive.Time moved slowly until the twentieth of April, but it arrived nonetheless. I stood in my doorway scanning the landscape. Just as the man had said, the guard was not in his normal spot.

  Just then, Pedunk came around the side of my hut. “Where are you goin’?” He smelled of liquor and pushed me back in the hut into my stack of clothes. My heart hammered in my chest so wildly, I wondered if he could see it beating through my shirt.

  Still looking into his eyes, I reached my hand under the clothing stack behind me to feel for my sewing supplies. I felt a needle, a spool of thread, and shears! I pulled the shears out of the pile. I jumped to my feet. In one swift movement, I jabbed him in the left eye with the scissors.

  Pedunk pulled out the scissors from his eye and covered it with his hands. As I backed out of the hut, I said, “When a girl has hope in her heart, she has already been set free. Nothing can stop someone who is free!” I burst into a sprint to the well. I heard others around me, but I did not look back. One of the girls darted past me.

  When we arrived at the well, there was five of us. Mara was not one of them. I thought, “Why didn’t she come? Of all people, she must hate Pedunk the most. The baby! She wants to see her baby grow up.”

  A large black car, larger than any I had ever seen, coasted slowly up the road without any lights on. The back door opened. Two girls crawled inside. I was the third. As I stepped inside, I glanced at the well. I had to pause when I saw Mara starting over the hill.

  “Wait, here she comes. Mara,” I whispered.Just then, I saw she was not alone. First, I saw Pedunk’s short figure through the darkness, and then the guard’s huge frame. Mara stopped and pointed in our direction.

  The girl behind shoved me in the car and dove in next to me.

  Shots rang out. The fifth girl cried out and fell. We reached out and dragged her in the car and slammed the door shut as the car sped off.

  In the backseat was the man who visited my hut. “Are you alright?” he asked the girl bleeding from her leg. She made no reply.

  “You are safe now. This limousine is bulletproof.” Turning his eyes to me, he said, “I told you I know people.” He smiled contented with himself and began dressing her with supplies from the car’s compartment. />
  It seemed so strange that a ride with a stranger was how I got in this mess to begin with. My heart sank as I allowed skeptical thoughts to entertain my mind. I thought, “What if he is only kidnapping us to take us to his own Gumdrop Alley? Or worse.”

  “Man of Jesus Christ, where are you taking us?”

  The man continued to bandage the wound with a certain gentleness that suppressed my apprehension about the future. “There is a safe house for victims of sex trafficking. They will give you a bed and hot food until you feel ready to return to your families.”

  I wondered if my family would recognize me. I felt like a different person than the girl who was kidnapped a year ago. I relaxed in the velvety soft seat and closed my eyes until thick warm tears welled up in them.

  The man of Jesus Christ probably assumed they were tears of joy. I might have cried from joy if my heart allowed it, but the feeling seemed too strange and unnatural. Honestly, I cried from sorrow because I realized I had forgotten Ximena—my sweet half-made doll.

  Old Kal’s Cave

  On July 25th 1983, Daniel turned eleven, which meant a small party and a cake decorated with a green tractor—like the one his father used to plow the soil. His mom was there, and his Gramma, too. His dad stayed until the birthday song was over, but then he went to get some work done. When there was no cake left and nothing to do, Daniel walked down to the lake to skip stones.

  He saw Jay there, leaning on a rock and holding a book. Daniel could make out some of the words on the cover: The Red Badge of…, but Jay’s hand covered the word on the bottom.

  “Your momma lock you out again?” Daniel asked.

  Jay did not look up. “Yep.”

  Daniel reached in his pocket, pulled out a lighter, and started flicking it over and over. “What does she do when she locks you out?”

  Curious about the flicking noise, Jay looked up at Daniel. “I do not know; I am locked out! Duh! Where did you get that?”

  “Oh, this?” He held up the disposable lighter. “Found it on the road. Don’t ya ever spy on her? Look in the window to see what she’s doin’? We should do that. Let’s go.”

  Looking down at his book again, Jay said, “You go. I don’t care.”

  Daniel returned the lighter to his pocket and walked closer to the lake to survey the rocks for a good skipping stone. Without turning around, he said, “You’re no fun.” He inhaled deeply—taking in a familiar dead fish smell—before exhaling loudly. He quickly spun around, “I know where a cave is! My dad told me

  ‘bout it. It’s behind Old Kal’s barn.”

  Jay closed the book. “You are full of bullhockey, Daniel. I have been in back of Old Kal’s barn a million times and have never seen a cave.”

  “Is too! Old-old Kal, Old Kal’s dad, covered up the hole with a rock before he died. My dad was in his twenties back then. He said they all used to go down there. That’s why he covered it up, all the kids trespassing on his property. I betcha we can move the rock together.”

  Jay stood up and tried to look Daniel right in the eye, even though he was a few inches shorter. “You don’t even have a flashlight. How are we gonna see?”

  Daniel took the lighter out of his pocket again. “With this! You ain’t scared of the dark, are ya?”

  That is when Jay started walking in the direction of Old Kal’s barn, and Daniel was at his heels. The two strolled in silence past the cornfields until they turned the corner of the wooden barn. Jay’s eyes widened a little bit when he saw there was actually a fairly big rock, hidden partially by overgrown weeds.

  Daniel pushed the weeds down with his hand. “Told ya!”

  “We can’t move that rock. You’re crazy!” Jay turned and started walking back the way they came.

  “Bawk. Bawk.” Daniel folded his arms in like wings and flapped them.

  Even though Jay was shorter and less developed than Daniel, he felt empowered by his intelligence and irritation. He shoved him down.

  Daniel rolled on his knees. “Jay, you’re stronger than ya look! Why don’t you just help me move the rock?” He tapped on it. “Then you can leave if you really want to.” Daniel pushed the rock as hard as he could. “See, I need ya, brotha.”

  “I am not your brother or anything like that. We are hardly even friends. We are just stuck out here together because we have nothing better to do.” He sat down next to him and picked at weeds that smelled like onions.

  He laid his hand on Jay’s shoulder. “If anybody says they’re your friend or your brother, you shouldn’t argue with ‘em. You need every friend you can get. Now help me move this rock!”

  Daniel was right, and Jay knew it. He did not have a lot of friends, but that never bothered him. Still, he felt inspired from the book he was reading to do something other than go home and check to see if his mom unlocked the front door yet. “Your leg muscles are stronger than your arm muscles. If we can move this rock, it is going to have to be with our legs, not our arms.”

  The two boys put their dirty boots on the rock and counted to three. The rock budged. They counted again and again and again and again until they uncovered a hole the size of a basketball. Daniel disappeared through the hole into the darkness. He fell back, but he was not hurt. As quickly as he could, he flicked his lighter and looked around.

  “C’mon,” he yelled to Jay. “It’s really rad.”

  Jay took a deep breath and jumped through the hole. He grabbed for the lighter, but the metal burned his hand. It fell to the ground. It was pitch black.

  Daniel crossed his arms. “I thought you were a genius. Now, we can’t see anything.” Jay fumbled on the ground for the lighter. “Ow!” The lighter’s metal tip burned his hand again, but this time he did not let go. “Got it.” He flicked it. The flame seemed to give off so little light in the grand room of the cave. The two walked around looking at litter left down there.

  Daniel kicked a pile of soda cans, which gave off a loud crashing sound that echoed in the cave. “These are prolly my dad’s.”

  Ignoring him, Jay explored the walls of the cave and saw it branched off in several directions. There were piles of string leading down each vein of the cave and chalk arrows on the walls.

  Daniel promptly followed after Jay and the lighter that was truly his. “Let’s go down this one,” he said pointing to a narrow opening.

  “Just for a minute. Mom usually opens the door around dinner time, and my stomach is starting to growl.”

  The boys were only in that tunnel a minute when it split into another tunnel and another. At times, the walls were wide apart and the ceiling was high. Other times, they had to trudge like army men to get through. Jay felt he was living out the character of his book and kept going deeper and deeper into the cave until they came to a ten-foot drop off.

  “C’mon, let’s jump,” Daniel said as he looked over the edge. “You can see the bottom even with that little lighter.”

  “The cliff has a flat face. How would we get back up?” Jay turned around.

  “Oh yeah.” Daniel followed after Jay.

  “Duh. We have to turn back.”

  Jay led the way back the best he could but nothing looked familiar. The chalk arrows on the cave walls pointed in opposing directions. Eventually, Daniel snatched the lighter back from him and started leading. It seemed like hours and hours they walked through that cave.

  Jay stopped and sat on the ground. “I am scared, and I do not even care what you think about it.”

  “Me too.” After a moment, he said, “God, if you are up there, me and Jay—remember us? We are stuck down here and would appreciate some help finding the way out of this place. That’s all. Amen.”

  Jay stood up. “I did not know you believed in God; I don’t.”

  Daniel started walking. “I don’t know if I do either. If he gets us out, I will believe. Maybe.”

  The boys walked and walked. St
ill, nothing looked familiar, but Daniel spotted some chalk words on the cave wall. He read them to Jay, “Jesus saves. This way out!”

  The boys started running in the direction of the arrow underneath those words. Before long, they returned to the big room of the cave. Daniel stood on Jay’s shoulders to escape into the fading sunlight. Daniel wedged his foot behind the rock they had moved to get inside and pulled Daniel up.

  “Thanks, brother,” Jay said to Daniel.

  The boys pushed the rock back in the same way they moved it to uncover the hole—with their feet. They ran together past the cornfield and all of the way to the gravel road where Jay’s house was. Then, Daniel walked home the rest of the way alone.

  The two were friends for the rest of their lives, even after Jay became a preacher and Daniel became a farmer like his dad. In all of that time, they never returned to Old Kal’s Cave. No person ever did. Old Kal never told Little Kal what was hiding under the rock, not even when Little Kal became Old Kal and Old Kal became Old-old Kal and Old-old Kal was long forgotten.

  Mud Maker

  The halls of Maple Hill High School buzzed with the type of excitement that only the first day of school brings. The nauseating wafts of Salisbury Steak from the cafeteria at nine a.m. did not detract from the students’ enthusiasm to reconnect with old friends. Nor did the September day’s dreariness weaken puberty’s propulsion toward the opposite sex, which brought about exertion of one’s own superiority in various ways. For a freshman named Scott, the advantage over his fellow students was gained from a careful choice of wardrobe: the most expensive jeans his mother would buy, name brand shoes, and a second-hand tee shirt to give the impression none of that mattered to him. His clothes, combined with his longish hair, won him a conversation with a girl more beautiful than any he had known in middle school.

  Scott surprised himself with this small victory and was determined not to ruin the opportunity. His determination to say something clever drowned out her words. Her words also neglected to take precedence over his fantasy of kissing pouty lips, lips that he imagined tasted like watermelon gum. If not for Scott’s daydream and pressure to say the right thing, he might have noticed his neighbor, Cameron, approaching.

  The sight of Scott as he talked with the young beauty unleashed Cameron’s method of clamoring to a higher social position, which was to demoralize other students. To him, everyone in middle school was “stupid” and “an idiot.” These insults, somehow, secured him a loyal group of subjects, a group he intended to expand by adding nasty schemes to his repertoire. Spurred on by jealousy, Scott became his first high school victim. Cameron snuck up behind Scott, grabbed the sides of his expensive jeans, and yanked them down to his name brand shoes.

  The crowded hall of students roared with laughter as Scott stood there with his pants down, transparent and frozen with fear.

  Even Miss Watermelon Lips giggled and retreated without hesitation, betraying her tongue-tied and blushing acquaintance. The long moments required to drop his books and free his hands to pull up his jeans magnified the humiliation. In his mind, it seemed like slow motion.

  When Scott regained his mental faculty, he ran down the halls to the nurse’s office. The truth was that he did feel nauseous, so his plea to go home because he felt ill was not exactly a lie. Even though the thermometer read normal, the nurse excused him from the remainder of classes, admitting he looked a little pale. The valuable piece of paper that allowed him to leave campus unchallenged was as critical to Scott as anesthesia is to open heart surgery patients. He could not get home fast enough.

  He jogged most of the way in the mist that had begun to fall. When he reached Cameron’s house, he stopped and stared at it bitterly. He cut through Cameron’s yard, wondering if morning glories normally stayed in bloom this late in the morning and why they bloomed in his yard at all. In Scott’s opinion, the flowers falsely announced the potential for a favorable creature to reside within, but he knew better. Well, he thought Cameron’s parents were alright.

  As he approached his front door, he debated whether or not he should tell his own parents the truth. On the one hand, he could perpetuate the lie that he was ill and suffer their excessive coddling. On the other hand, he could tell the truth that Cameron humiliated him and endure their inability to understand. He chose the latter, based on the hope he could persuade them to let him change schools.

  Even though he developed his plan of action, it would be hours before his parents returned home from work. He marched directly up to his room and reclined on his bed. He stared at his wooden desk and his action figure collection, which up until high school were referred to as “toys.” When he grew tired of looking at those, he watched through the window as the mist turned to rain. The intense sound of rain pelting on his pane inspired him to rise up from his bed and also from his attitude of self-pity. He took up his drumstick and began to play a violent tune, one that expressed the hatred he felt for Cameron, the betrayal he felt towards his would-be girlfriend, and the anticipated frustration with his parents.

  Time passed quickly while he drummed and before long, his father and mother were knocking at his bedroom door. Scott welcomed them and sat on his bed to tell them about the day’s events. He promptly followed the story with a desperate plea to change schools.

  “Embarrassing things happen in every school, Scott. It will be alright. Everyone will forget by tomorrow,” his mother said as she pushed the hair out of his eyes.

  Scott stood up abruptly. “No they won’t! Not this!” he yelled and knocked a stack of books off his desk for emphasis.

  “I better handle this, Doreen. Go to our room and relax awhile. I got it,” Scott’s dad said to his mother. As she closed the door behind her, he turned to Scott with a sympathetic look. “It’s not real.” He placed a hand on his shoulder.

  “Dad, how can you say that? I was there. It’s real. That’s all there is to it.” It wasn’t Scott’s intention to flail his arms and point his finger as he spoke, but the surge of uncontrolled emotion seized him.

  His dad boomed, “Nothing is real, Scott. I did not want to have to show this to you, but you forced my hand.”

  His father’s blue coveralls transformed into a strange robe made of gray rags knotted together. An image emerged on his face suddenly; it seemed an invisible hand was sketching bizarre designs with henna. His nose became like a beak. His boots changed to enormous bird claws.

  “I gave you these things…” He reached up and pulled away the wall as if it were an actual sheet of paper. Gone too were the action figures, desk, and drum set. He crumpled it all up and dropped it on the floor.

  Then, Scott could see right through the hole, where his wall had been, to his mom in her bedroom. “…and I chose your mother to protect you….” He reached up, pulled her and the rest of the house and all of its contents, from its proper place and crumpled it. This, he also dropped on the floor.

  The two stood together on the grass, and Scott could see Cameron’s house and yard with its morning glories. “I gave you these obstacles to overcome…” His father reached up and pulled away Cameron’s house, along with the rest of the neighborhood, and added it to the pile.

  Scott could now see the school. “…and these friends to support you.” He added it to the pile.

  Finally, he reached down and pulled the grass away. It ripped right up to the moon and stars. He crumpled those up too. At that point, the papers were piled on cracked, dry dirt. It was so dark that he could hardly see his dad anymore, but he could make out his silhouette.

  “Now, let’s see what you are without them!” The creature bent over to pick up the crumpled paper with his beak, and he ate them. Then he flew away. It was too dark to see the direction.

  Scott assessed his desolate surroundings. If he could see an outline of a mountain or hill or any hope of landscape other than the dry dirt, he would have explored it. As it was, he had no hope
, so he sat down on the dirt. Feeling forlorn and non-existent, he began to trace the cracks in the dirt that splintered off like veins when he noticed he was still clutching his drumstick.

  He began to drum a beat on his leg to distract himself from the pervasive loneliness. He thought the tune was pretty good and wished he had his drum set. He wished the girl was there to listen. He wished he had someone to talk to, even if it was Cameron. After considering these things, he realized his drumming was making him even lonelier.

  He stopped and laid down on the ground and looked up. When he was confident there was not even a single star in the sky, he felt tears swell up behind his cheeks. He took pride in the fact he had not cried since sixth grade, so he held them back until the buildup of tears began to hurt. Then he realized he no longer had anyone to impress or disappoint. He relented and began to cry. He rolled over with his hands on his face to hide his tears from himself.

  The tears rolled off of his hands and seeped into the dry ground, making mud. Scott reached deep within himself to find any source of strength and emerged with an ounce of defiance. He stopped crying and sat up. Scott yelled angrily up to the sky, “You want to know what I am without my room or my friends or my enemies? You thought I would be nothing, but I am not. I am a mud maker, you see? That’s what I am!”

  Silence boomed back in answer. No crickets or any other noises, just dull silence. With his last morsel of defiance exhausted, Scott felt more vulnerable than ever. He stood up and yelled desperately, “Come back, Dad. Come back.”

  Again, there was no answer. He fell to the ground, almost pushed by the sheer absence of will. He doodled with his finger in the mud he had made. As he doodled, he began to see streams of colors. He began to dig. Soon he could see the green grass. Then he dug harder and faster. He could see the school and Cameron’s house. He dug further and saw his dad standing over him in his room. Then he stopped and looked at his hands. They weren’t even muddy.

  “A mud maker, huh?” his dad said, standing over him. “So, did you learn your lesson? Will you be ready to return to school tomorrow?”

  “Yes, sir,” Scott replied with a sincerity he had never felt before.

  When he returned to school the next day, he stood a little taller. He even shook Cameron’s hand and told him that his joke was “a little funny.” Cameron was relieved Scott did not tell on him, and the two bonded over the experience. Scott found out later that her name was Lillian. He also discovered her lips actually tasted like cherry cough drops, but no one knew about it because he didn’t kiss and tell.

  He did not even tell anyone about his strange experience, which was a hard secret to keep. He wanted to ask his dad about it, but his dad died before he gained the courage. He hoped his dad knew a special kind of magic or the secret to unlock a parallel universe. Scott needed every part of the real world to be real. His mother. His friends. And even his obstacles.

  The Baths of Cadara

  Tuning out the soldiers’ argument just outside of the Cadara library, Gaius reached for the papyrus covered in mulberry linen. With a tug of the corn silk string closure, he loosed a world of exotic lands and distant wars. Many of the other Evorans, even other citizens, were illiterate so Gaius could often enjoy these hours of peace until sunset somewhat in seclusion.

  By a mandate of the general, all Evoran guards were given formal instruction in reading as well as their physical training due to the worsening conditions with Pleuthoria. Guards briefly inspected the letters carried by messengers with a strict command to intercept anything suspicious. Gaius hadn’t discovered a letter of treachery breaching the city, but he treasured his literacy more than the coins he earned. There was something he treasured even more than the pleasure of reading: Aemilia.

  Standing at post one day at the city’s gates, Gaius spotted capers rustling in a large bush forty paces off. A closer examination revealed two unkempt women with dark olive complexions. One of the women looked fortyish, and the other woman seemed to be in her early twenties. Hoping to retrieve a reward for runaway slaves, he stowed them in his mud-brick home. During the months he sought their owner, Gaius grew to appreciate the older woman’s skills and resolved to keep them as his own slaves.

  Though the younger of the women possessed no particular aptitude, she cleaned and served Gaius wine-drenched bread adequately. Amelia was not even particularly attractive in comparison to the Evoran women strolling through the marketplace. Those women wore vibrant-colored cloaks, smelled of cloves, and glittered with flamboyant jewelry. Aemilia wore only her beguiling charisma and hypnotizing appeal, but Gaius’s attraction to her escalated. Even now as he carefully turned the pages of the papyrus, his thoughts drifted to her silky hair.

  In frustration, Gaius closed the book and deposited it back on the wooden shelf among the others. He opened the library door and proceeded down the long marble hallway past the disputing soldiers and various rooms devoted to preening his fellow Evoran citizens.

  This particular complex, the Baths of Cadara, was exclusive to Evoran citizens and boasted a costly admittance fee. However, it offered the best collection of books so Gaius preferred the Baths of Cadara.

  The modest changing room Gaius entered consisted of a wall of stone alcoves overflowing with robes and sandals. Gaius spotted an Evoran soldier by the name of Filo who frequented the baths regularly. Since soldiers’ incomes loomed over the incomes of most Evoran citizens, the Baths of Cadara complex pampered much of the Evoran army.

  Rather noisily, Filo complained about his missing robe and sandals before he turned and greeted Gaius. Chuckling, Gaius told him to use a leaf. Filo grunted, looked down both hallways, then snatched up the robe from a neighboring alcove. Laughing harder now, Gaius entered the bath area.

  About forty men, some nude and some scantily clad, stood in the bath area and talked in small groups. The baths and social stimulation normally pleased Gaius, but today he rushed. He longed to be home with Aemilia. Gaius emerged from the water and allowed the attending young man to pat Gaius’s feet and sinewy legs with the towel before strolling down the marble pathway alongside the bath. Gaius dressed in his robe and sandals and quickly walked home.

  When Gaius entered, Aemilia noted his early arrival and apologized for not having the meal prepared. She quickly sliced some cubes of cheese and placed them onto his bronze platter.

  After she served the platter, she giggled and sat on his lap.

  “Take me to the baths,” Aemilia said whimsically as though she were the master and Gaius the servant.

  Gaius’s eyebrow furrowed as he replied, “You are free to go to the baths any time I am at my post, Aemilia. You do not need me to take you to the baths.”

  “No, take me to the Baths of Cadara with you,” Aemilia pleaded.

  Gaius sighed, “It is just not that simple. You must be an Evoran citizen, and you are not, my dear.” In fact, to make Aemilia an Evoran citizen was his intention. With all of his heart, Gaius wanted to free her and be wed to her. The monogamy between them drove him crazy, but he did not want her to sleep with him because he was her master. The only way he would know she loved him was to set her free. But what if she received her freedom and left him? This fear sealed his lips about the intention to free her even in this opportune moment.

  Gaius finally spoke, “Tonight, late at night, I will sneak you in.”

  Aemilia clapped her hands and said, “Oh, I cannot wait. Maybe I will do a dance for you in the pool.” Gaius covered his face with his hands and walked to his bedroom hoping she would sleep all through the night and forget the whole thing.

  Aemilia did not forget the whole thing. When the moon was high in the sky, she sat next to Gaius on his bed and stirred him. The two ran through the streets of Evor and climbed the gate of the vacant Baths of Cadara. Aemilia seemed breath taken by the grand statues and large pillars on either side of the pool. The shimmering waters gleamed with moonligh
t negating the need for candlelight, but Gaius went in search of candles anyway when Aemilia began to disrobe.

  Gaius was gone only a few moments, but he thought the silence peculiar as he returned to the bath. Then he saw her. Aemilia’s body lay next to the steps of the pool. The blood from her silky black hair mixed with the water on the gray marble walkway. Gaius grabbed her tiny body and held her to him sobbing like a child. Gaius reasoned she must’ve slipped.

  Aemilia was a woman and a woman slave, at that. There would be no trial. Gaius was not concerned for himself in the least, except they were in the Baths of Cadara. He would be barred from ever entering again if they found his slave here. It would be difficult enough to live on without Aemilia; the library could not be taken from him too. So Gaius scooped up her body and threw it over his shoulder. He struggled to climb the gate bearing the weight for both of them, but he managed.

  Gaius took Aemilia home and apologized to the older slave for her close friend’s death. The slave woman seemed fearful as if Gaius had murdered her. While her master wept over Aemilia’s body, she gathered a few belongings and fled through her window. If Gaius were not in this wretched state of mourning and loss, he might have noticed the older slave had left him—maybe even cared.

  In spite of the pain, Gaius reported faithfully to his post every day. He intercepted the letters and read them rather stoically until he came across Aemilia’s name one day in a letter from a Pleuthorian general to his general. Gaius read, “Following this messenger is an army of four hundred thousand Pleuthorian soldiers sent to avenge the death of King Pzan’s cousin, Aemilia. Aemilia was murdered at the hands of an Evoran guard while on a special mission to Evor. This news has been brought to us by a worthy informat, the Duchess who accompanied her on her mission.”

  Janine’s Condition

  Derrick sensed something was wrong as soon as he turned into the driveway. Janine did not wait for him on her front porch as she did every morning before school. She obsessed about arriving on time, and he avoided agitating her due to her condition.

  Derrick’s mind raced with possible scenarios as he banged on the front door. He repeatedly attempted to force the lock. Hope nearly slipped away when he remembered Janine had given him a key. Janine had snuck him a copy of the key for emergencies such as this.

  Sweat beaded on his face upon entering the Baton Rouge home. He reckoned Janine had switched the thermostat to heat after her parents left for work that morning. After thoroughly searching the house, he found her laying in the fetal position under a desk in her parents’ bedroom—curled up on a vent. Gusts of air caused her long T-shirt to flutter. Still Janine shivered, teeth chattering.

  Derrick tried to conceal his panic. He kneeled by her side. “Honey, is something wrong? We are going to be late for school.”

  “Who can care about school at a time like this? Two kids are missing. I saw it on the morning news.”

  “Janine, do you know the kids who went missing?” He brushed the bangs from her eyes.

  “No.” She sniffled and pulled her hair back over her eyes. “But what difference does it make? They’re missing. They might be alone and scared. Or worse.”

  Derrick could see why she empathized with the children; she was fragile like a child herself. His friends called her “”damaged goods,” “psycho,” and “unstable” when he began dating her, but Janine’s condition intrigued him.

  As a freshman, Derrick dated a girl—a polished, intelligent girl who possessed an uncanny wisdom. She outwitted him at every turn. Her explosive temper reduced him to a mouse. When he did not assume the role of her play toy, he felt he had no role at all.

  With Janine, he always played the hero role. She would need him eternally—or at least until she got better, if that was possible. No one informed him specifically what mental illness she suffered. He only knew they needed each other.

  Derrick knew talking sense into her as she lay under the desk was impossible. He figured if he tried to remove her by force, she would start screaming or muttering examples of how the whole world conspires against her. He could not call her parents because they would send her back to the Baton Rouge mental institution, maybe for good this time.

  If he could help her finish her senior year, he could marry her. He would protect her from everything. Derrick wished they could begin that life today—run away together. At last, he stumbled onto a viable appeal to Janine’s twisted logic.

  “What if we went missing too? Then you could not feel sorry for the kids because you would be in the same situation as them.”

  Janine ruffled her brow. “We are not missing though. We know exactly where we are.”

  A smile widened on Derrick’s face. “Let’s get lost. C’mon, get your parents’ tent. We will drive until we are lost.”

  Janine crawled out from under the desk. She disappeared into the basement while Derrick filled his arms with canned goods and sodas from the pantry. When they finished packing his Volkswagen Jetta with camping gear and supplies, Derrick drove south on I-10 for an hour or so. He exited onto another road and another. They crossed bridge after bridge until the paved road ended. Derrick followed the dirt road past swamps, grand antebellum homes, and homes on stilts. After nearly three hours of driving, he parked the car on a small sandy beach.

  Derrick turned to his girl. “We will end up in the sea if we go farther, darling.”

  Janine opened the door and stepped out. She looked at the tree barrier that lined the beach and separated her from the rest of the world. “We are isolated. It is perfect.”

  The two wrestled with loops and poles until they erected the tent. “Tada! Our new home,” Derrick announced proudly.

  Janine giggled and opened her arms wide as if she were about to present an upcoming act. “We are officially missing.”

  “Let’s celebrate with a soda.” Derrick and Janine walked to the Jetta holding hands. As Derrick rummaged through the car, Janine watched the wind hasten. It began blowing the tent, making flapping sounds. The tent lifted in the air, as if carried by an invisible force.

  “Derrick.”

  “Hang on; I have dug down to the diet soda. One second…” He stood up and presented her with the soda. As he did, he witnessed the wind carry the tent over the waves like a kite—an offering to the sea.

  “Our home went missing now.” He sighed. “What do you want to do now, sweetie?”

  Janine kissed him tenderly on the cheek. Derrick closed his eyes and bathed in the moment. Rain started to fall and lightning streaked across the sky.

  “The missing kids would go home if they were able. Let’s go home for their sake.”

  Thunder cracked in a strange fragmented way. “I think that is a great decision.” He hoped the compliment would elicit a smile.

  She did not smile. She simply said, “I will never forget you…no matter what happens.”

  Derrick’s heart felt heavy. His soul cringed as he pondered, “Will she leave me for an institution? For someone else? A better hero.”