Christmas Time! is a collection of short stories that reflects the mood of the season-Christmas-as it affects the lives of people who have its worth appreciated. From children to young adults, it mirrors, in the form of stories, the ordeals people go through to observe the yuletide but the encouragement they get, the courage they summon, the inspiration and the motivation they receive leave footprints of happy endings-celebrating the season in delight.
From one of our regular contributors, based in Lagos, Nigeria.
“A Christmas to Remember” tells a story of a certain couple, Frances and Sean, whose over-the-years Christmas celebration routine was cut short by the inability of Ron, Sean long-time friend , to pay back his debt as at the time stipulated. His whereabouts weren’t known and this subsequently brought hopelessness to Sean (though he had some ‘belief’ that something would happen) until the eleventh hour miracle…barely two hours before Christmas-the 25th day of December. His twin daughters witnessed it!
Chapter two shows the sudden end of a relationship that existed between Sandra and Grace when a Skater, disabled in physique, hit Sandra on their way coming home from the shopping mall, after the purchase of their favorite cloth- The Grant’s Designer’s Blouse. This was seven days to Christmas. Grace’s sudden departure from Sandra’s life paved way for James, the skater, whose life experienced a meaning…seven days to Christmas. It continued afterwards…
Chapter Three’s “I Love Christmas” portrays the boy-in-a-man figure in Mr. Ted whose ‘boy-child’ manner was inspired by the statement his five-year-old son, Grant, made, ‘I Love Christmas’. The way Mr. Ted and his wife celebrated Christmas as their son had fun with his peers, was a scene to behold!
“Your Christmas View” is a play depicting how the long-held ‘tradition’ (yearly hosting of the event-twenty four hours before Christmas and whose venues were held at their various apartments) of meeting of Yates and friends not only ensured the proper view of Christmas to readers or listeners but enabled he and his wife, Michelle, to be in the ‘business’ of putting to proper perspective the view of Christmas in the life of their twelve –year-old daughter, Jasmine using what we recorded the last time the event was hosted- ‘Your Christmas View Hosted by Yates’.
The feel of sensuality in the stories harmonizing with their “messaging” undertones, and the unveiling of the article: “Christmas: Recognizing its true worth” birth…Christmas Time!
Mulled cider has been a mainstay of December celebrations for centuries. This month, Synchronized Chaos is full of ‘mulled’ thoughts, reflections percolated over time and infused with spice and creativity.
Some writers ruminate for a time on a certain topic, considering its various angles and implications.
J.D. Nelson experiments with words, running fragments and concepts together so that an internal rhythm emerges, perhaps even approaching a kind of sense.
Romance shows up in a few pieces. John Culp writes of the often calming effect of love, how a happy romance can smooth the edges of existence. Syrian poet Moustafa Dandoush acknowledges a mysterious, yet undeniable attraction and revels in the exquisite intricacies of emotional connection.
Bangladeshi poet Mahbub gives us pieces of anticipation, where lovers look forward to time with each other and children approach their smiling parents. Yet some of Mahbub’s speakers seek relief from violence and trauma alongside life’s joys.
In her monthly Book Periscope column, Elizabeth Hughes reviews books with a definite mission: S.G. Jack’s The Only Book a Kid Needs to Read about the Coronavirus Ever, and Paula Hayes’ What If? The first title educated children about biology, health, and safety, and the second urges peace and compassion through an unusual character who speaks up for those values.
Along the same lines, Ian Copestick writes about his human frailty: injury and addiction. Still, in his work we see him discover his life’s purpose and source of meaning, creative writing.
We hope you enjoy mulling over the muddle of words and thoughts in this issue and we wish you a beautiful, redemptive and joyous holiday season.
blue
light
saturates
a bird
*
face
in
paint
the ceiling
*
losing my spot
in the rotation
for testing positive
may change
everything
*
What You Can Count On
lost boots
and the morning sun
was blinding snow
I had to get food
what was I to do
those shoes didn't go
out last night on their own
I started with the shelves
used a ladder for point
of view but nothing showed
up in which I could put
my toes I got systematic
removed the boxes from the closet
found letters, sweaters, slippers,
more dust than in a filter
but no boots where I put them
last winter which goes to show
you can't count on the inanimate
either
so
*
In Order that
next comes
after again
breathless
and practiced
as expected
you'd think
someone would
alter the order
but no, not around here
it's the same, damnit
you might as well
use acid to lubricate
the gears of a motor
it's that corrosive
how change is greeted
it's like we're still using
a zoetrope to figure motion
and clapping shouting
it forward I know
every moth hole
in my wardrobe
and every street
where there is a pothole
that's all folks
To tell thee, from outer skies the city of the giant
Will once again come to the coast of time.
1.17.2015
时间的海岸
粉红色 白色 金色的词语
来自天外的诸神的花园
那儿是你灵魂的故乡
这世界还没有诞生之前
史前的巨人在黄金之上
镌刻一部未来的史诗
告诉你天外的巨人之城
将再次来到时间的海岸
2015.1.17
The Prehistoric Giants
I live in the very eyes of the stone
I am the light of the light,
The core of the universe.
Out of water and fire I emerge
Yes, churning water, turning fire.
There was a time, in black and white, when
The space of the galaxy was resplendent with colours.
The world is a book of dreams
The city of the future is above the clouds.
The prehistoric giants thence I saw
They are solemn as mountains
Living in the city of gold, transparent in body,
Synchronous with the sun and the moon and the stars.
1.7.2015
史前的巨人
我在石头的眼睛里居住
我是光之光 宇宙的中心
我幻化出水与火
于是有了时间 黑与白
五光十色的太空之星系
世界是一本梦幻之书
未来之城在云朵之上
我看到史前的巨人
他们庄严如山岳
居住在黄金之城
透明的身体 旋转日月星辰
2015.1.7
The Temple of the Gods
Original words –
A picture of the heart and the spirit
A breeze blowing through the silent music
That which grows in the palm of your hand
The sun, the moon and the stars singing in form
God’s bosom, the ups and downs of the earth
The river is fragrant sweet nectar of life.
Original words are stars in the night sky
Shining bright and light upon the soul.
Plaiting along the bridge of light
Can arrive at the Temple of the Gods.
01.02.2015
诸神的殿堂
最初的词语
是心与灵的图画
是微风拂过寂静的乐曲
是万物在手掌上生长
是日月星辰在身体里呤唱
那起伏的大地是诸神的胸膛
河流芳香是生命的琼浆
最初的词语是夜空的繁星
无不闪烁灵魂之光
沿着光芒编织的桥梁
可以抵达诸神的殿堂
2015.1.2
Golden and Transparent
When the dainty of dawn lights up your body
You shall see the golden country in stone.
The Giant is walking in the sky
His hand holds aloft a Diamond City.
In the garden outside the sky
The other one robed in transparent gold;
He’s smiling at you.
And behind him, is a huge palace.
03.15.2015
金色透明
当黎明之光在你体内醒来
你看到了石头里的黄金之国
巨人在天空行走 手托一座钻石之城
你看到了那天外的花园
那另一个你 金色透明
他在向你微笑
身后是一座巨大的皇宫
2015.3.15
Bio: Yuan Hongri (born 1962) is a renowned Chinese mystic, poet, and philosopher. His work has been published in the UK, USA, India, New Zealand, Canada, and Nigeria; his poems have appeared in Poet’s Espresso Review, Orbis, Tipton Poetry Journal, Harbinger Asylum, The Stray Branch, Acumen, Pinyon Review, Taj Mahal Review, Madswirl, Shot Glass Journal, Amethyst Review, The Poetry Village, and other e-zines, anthologies, and journals. His best known works are Platinum City and Golden Giant. His works explore themes of prehistoric and future civilization.
About the Translator
Manu Mangattu
Manu Mangattu is an English professor, poet, editor, director and rank-holder. He has published 7 books, 73 research articles and 36 conference papers apart from 14 edited volumes with ISBN. He serves as chief editor/editor for various international journals. He has done UGC funded projects and a SWAYAM-MOOC course (Rs 15 lakhs). Besides translations from Chinese and Sanskrit, he writes poetry in English as well as in Indian languages. He was named “Comrade to Poetry China” in 2016. A visiting faculty at various universities and a quintessential bohemian-vagabond, he conducts poetry readings, workshops and lectures when inspired. After an apprenticeship in Shakespeare under Dr. Stephen Greenblatt, he currently guides 23 research scholars and mentors NET English aspirants.
My Night
4'O' Clock on an early
Winter evening, I'm
walking home, with a
bag full of cans of beer,
and a frozen ready
meal, hoping they'll see
me through tonight. I don't
fancy a half drunken
wobble to the off license
later on, when it wil be
dark, and wet.
Yet, if it comes to it,
that's what I'll have to
do.
......
So, here I am, 3 hours later,
having gone to the shops
for a frozen pizza, and a
big bottle of cheap wine.
I'm not wobbling too much.
thank God, and I could
easily pretend to be sober.
My dodgy hip is playing up,
and this walk is beginning
to feel uncomfortable, not
quite painful, but definitely
not fun.
About 25 years ago, I fell off
some scaffolding at work.
I didn't fall far, only about 6,
or 7 feet, but I landed badly
onto my right hip. I spent
all day in hospital, having
various X-rays, and scans.
Eventually they said there
were no broken bones, and
got ready to send me home.
They gave me a shot of
morphine that was supposed
to kill the pain.
They couldn't understand why
I was still in agony, so off I
went for another lot of scans,
and X-rays. This took up about
another 3 hours.
I didn't know how to tell them
that the reason their morphine
shot didn't work was.because I
had a raging smack habit, and
their tiny, pathetic shot wouldn't
have even have had any impact
at all.
It wasn't until I got home and
sorted out a proper shot, that
I felt even any slight relief.
I was off work for nearly two
weeks. I really should have
sued them, but in those days,
it wasn't quite the done thing.
It's not too bad, but sometimes
in damp weather, I get a nasty
pain in my right hip.
......
Well anyway, now I'm back at
home. My pizza's in the oven,
and I'm making short work of
my first glass of wine.
Now I can relax, and put my
feet up.
I'm done for another night.
Insomnia
Night after night,
I twist and turn.
Staring at the
green numbers
on my digital clock.
Counting down the
hours, thinking, " Oh
shit, only 5 hours to
go until I have to get
up. No, only 4 hours
until I have to get up."
And so on... Until I've
only slept for an hour
or so, and I feel like
shit.
And I'm stumbling
around in a fucked up
mess, feeling like I've
drunk a bottle of whisky
the night before, even
when I haven't touched
a drop. Well, hardly.
Sleep is such a natural
thing, we spend a third
of our lives completely
oblivious to everything,
if we are lucky,
Insomnia is a total
bitch !
There's nothing worse,
nothing I can think of.
Making you feel tired,
brain damaged and
like a frigging zombie.
Here I am, it's 3 a.m.
counting down the
hours again.
Tomorrow, I'll be a
shambling mess,
with a headache.
A hangover, without
the fun of getting
drunk.
Heading Towards 50
As I sit here, on a
Winter's evening.
Heading towards
50, I think back
on my life. The
many defeats, and
the few, too few
victories. It's still
surprising to me,
at times, the fact
that I am still alive.
I honestly never
expected to reach 30,
so as I sit here looking
down the barrel of 50
years, I suppose
I should be grateful to
the Gods who have
kept me going. They
must have their own
reasons, but it's not
anything that I can
understand.
Well, if I'd died aged
30, I never would have
written a book. I'd
been knocking out
crappy 3 chord songs
on my guitar since I
was 15, but I know
I am no musician.
After reading Charles
Bukowski, and Raymond
Carver in my late 20's,
I started to think;
" Maybe I could do
something like that.
They write poetry about
drinking, and feeling sad.
That's my everyday life."
So I tried it, and here I
am 20 years on, and
still getting the best
buzz ever, every time I
write something, or
get it published.
But still, that's not a
proper reason for the
Gods, or fate, keeping
me alive.
Perhaps upon reading
my mediocre scribble
someone who is going
to be important will
become inspired.
If that is the reason,
then I'm more than
happy, and so I should
keep writing more of
my shit.
Mr Memory
I don't know if it's because
I've had a stroke, or just
that too many years of drug
and alcohol abuse have
mangled my mind, but it's
happened twice this week.
Guys come up to me, it's
always guys, and talk to me
as if we are long lost best
friends, and I haven't got a
clue who they are.
I know that I've got a dodgy
memory, but twice in one
week !
That's bloody scary !
The one today was really nice,
he even gave me cigarettes,
although I didn't ask him to.
As we were talking, he kept on
saying. " I know you, man. I
KNOW you."
There I was keeping my answers
to his questions as vague as I
possibly could, thinking " Great,
but I don't know YOU."
He said that he'd been clean for
five years, so I must have met
him through a drug buddy, but
I'm fucked if I can remember
who, or when, or how, or why.
Sometimes, it really does worry
me that this is the start of
early onset Alzheimer's, it's
always disorienting, and
disconcerting.
I'm scared that I'll end up like it
with everyone. Looking at
loved ones with unknowing
eyes, it's hard to think of a
more terrifying nightmare.
At the moment I think, " If
they meant anything to me,
I'm sure I'd remember. "
But the more it happens, the
less sure I am.
Did he really pull the trigger, so his grave could be the freshly dug out snowbank on the outer rim of a pond; spring washing away earth loosening fleshing into fishmeal?
Let the brains spattered on the knife struck bark on the fall-downtree decide. It never fell but always stood, split by lightning seven times, remaining intact bearing the last will and testament of one Jakob Blake. Not fully gone and buried but found out in the open abandoned by wolves and the son wounded of pride.
The horses were starved munching on fence posts, when Cody approached the farm his mom bought years ago.
“A hobby farm, to work the stress away, it’s hard at the office…physical labor, nature and animals does a body and mind good,” she queerly smiled with an awful sadness, forcing invisible wires to pull the mouth wider and tighter.
Cody shuffled his feet, pulling down maroon slouch beanie further down to hide his eyes. The skeleton boy dancing for the next great cancer host hoping it’d be him since Nexus the cat died. He tugged at the oversize sleeves of his flannel shirt, rolling the cuffs up and down, nervously contemplating sex and death in front of his mom.
Josh in algebra had filled his head with stuff of sticky fingered wet vaginal entry, describing a texture of shaved slick, shave deli-styled ham. The girl his friend had fucked he wanted to momentary fuck in this moment forgetting the loss of furry best friend who would sometimes watch him jackoff imagining stray pussy, horror show pussy, cop pussy and intergalactic pussy…then he remembered Nexus and his curious eyes watching, feeling shame, climax onto the sheets…
Images in his brain as his mother sat at the table in front of him, smoking again like she used to before he was born. Lost, lonely, and desperate, needing love and some sort of affection he couldn’t give as she was just living toward death.
“I think…I think he didn’t leave. He’s coming back…just wanted to get a drink, maybe something to eat…good God, I hope he’s not with that whore.”
Cody knew all about the whore.
“My Gypsy-Moonpie,” the Wolf howled drinking out of a jug of something of gasoline and cinnamon, needlessly smashing it against a set of dead landscaped rocks.
“My wild bride and I, we fucked like drugs! Chemical addiction enticements…a cock at three a.m. inside her…our dopamine receptors on fire, sweat, cum, spittle and cunt-juice intermingled …in those blue eyes I saw the wild blue flame of God!”
Cody snuck his hand in his pocket, getting hard, working himself beside the fire, watching melting snow licked by the flames. He wanted a girl who tasted like peaches and cherry pie.
“Carol tastes like key-lime pie.”
“What?” Cody jerked up realizing he had said aloud what he was thinking.
The Wolf got in his face acid sweat bathed and screamed.
“YOUR MOM’S PUSSY TASTES LIKE KEY-LIME PIE!”
It was their first “family” bonfire.
Carol was appalled by Jacob’s language, but something mysteriously drew her to this “wolf” which inflamed her most primitive senses and hyper sexualized inclinations. Carol had “…fallen from stark gray skies, wings aflame, flesh rooted veins singed clutching broken halo…” Jacob had told her tugging at the back of her jeans as she sat next to some bland businessman at the bar.
“I like you,” he whispered as she turned around and became The Angel of the Flame.
Then came the whore…hungry for a wolf’s cock at three a.m., three months leaving her half past dead with the farm she just bought and the horses nine days into starvation carrying the memories of their ancestors running through middle eastern fields along the Tigris and Euphrates millennia ago where food and water were plentiful…or so Carol imagined, for that is what Jacob The Wolf had told her.
“Each animal shares a singular soul with all those who have come before and those who live now, sharing the dreams and consciousness mindscape of other’s lands away.”
It’s probably why she was letting the horses starve outside, leaving them unsheltered so that they could access the memories and experiences of their ancestors and somehow survive on the future tense might of their far flung descendants sustenance, all they needed to do was focus, so that she could see if a dumb animal lacking an individually fully refined soul could it, then she could do so and find out if Jacob did indeed run away with the whore he referred to as his “Gypsy Moon”, for she was his “cougar” three years and a decade past his senior, who would claw through mountains to protect her wolf who seemed to care not despite sacred devotions and the underlying suspicions she had regarding the “ghost-boy” who stood in front of her.
“Beware the boy, he haunts us…he’s phantom body not unlike a succubus drawing energy from our totem ways to sustain his own presence since he was born without one, as his mother you should really have known this all along.”
All Carol could do, nude on the floor covered in a baptismal pool of vodka and sex sweat could do on her knees was weep knowing this was true as the Jacob the Wolf howled giving revealing to Carol her true wild cat nature who yet couldn’t under stand the scent of her own son.
Of course she knew about the body, could the ghost really have done such a thing, to have the capability to reach out and kill the record of a living being for the sake of pretending to be alive?
Cody wondered if his mother got sick of bowing to the Wolf’s whims as it followed the trail of it’s seemingly ever shifting moon who sometimes came in and out of their life at sporadic violent closed door movements making him think of sex with his friend’s girlfriend in class bringing up the image of his dead cat and the sickening feeling of his cum splurging inside a dirty sock so his mother wouldn’t find out the shameful thing he did because he was supposed to be quiet and studious so he could be someone one day, unlike the Wolf who somehow was man his mother would ordinarily condemn but fell down on her knees for when given the chance, throwing her own status quo life away for some sort primal matrix narrative but what sort of thoughts of these were like this for a boy to have?
Somedays he didn’t feel real or perhaps it was the way everything it was. If he tore the flesh off from the German girl’s face at the coffee shop would circuitry and wire be exposed? Why did he have these thoughts? No one really made him feel alive, was he already dead? For a time he drifted from home to home, never really noticed; shortly living with his dad when Jacob entered the scene he was ignored as his father paraded young woman after young woman into the living room leasing in a new in unison followed by various stays at friends houses in various rooms sometimes being mistaken for said friend who wasn’t really friend but an acquaintance one day going too far and being mistaken for a stranger’s long dead son but that’s another story for another time when he learned about balance and what was deemed the true nature of god and real title of witness…it’s when he knew the Wolf, Cougar and Moon were soon to be drawn into a bloody showdown and someone would be made to witness it, or halt it or even accelerate, he knew not purpose has as he not even figured out puberty as the day of knowing grew nearer.
Carol looked at him, eyes glazed over with crystalline tears, something clawing to get out of her throat.
Cody shuffled his feet, haunted by the prospect of what needed to be said.
Both opened their mouths in a natural sequence of verbal violence which would render their entwined lives forever changing the course of each one’s world.
“The wolf is dead. Did you kill the wolf?”
“Ghost or not Cody, I am the cougar, I will rip your heart out if you’re lying to me.”
“Mom, I can’t kill what I found dead.”
“He wouldn’t kill himself like that.”
“That’s why, I thought you did it.”
“That whore made him do it, made him stop loving me.”
Cody got nervous, shuffled his feet, and shrugged his shoulders.
“I hope everything just wastes away hungry and dies.”
“What if it doesn’t?”
“You have nothing to worry about Cody you can’t even love, I’ve seen your empty eyes, you’re not even alive, may as well be an abortion that lived.”
“Mom, can’t we just start over or something?”
“I can, you can’t.”
Cody took his hat off , wringing in his hands hoping to get some sort of cosmic liquid out to rend this universe askew right for what else can a young man do without being brave or bold in a world he never asked to be born into let alone feel welcomed.
Carols shrieked, pushing the bottle of bourbon onto the floor, tearing pages from some sort of esoteric text, her body contorted into something not quite humanoid nor feline.
“Get out, ghost! I ban thee from- “
The door flung open and a Lycan shadow cast over mother and son, the form of man holding another man stood there with a big old familiar grin bearing more apparent canines than ever. Jacob dropped himself Jacob the corpse on the floor as he himself Jacob the Wolf leaned against the door gesturing toward the body not fully him on the floor.
“The problem with being Schrodinger’s Bastard is that you can both be alive and dead at the same time ‘cause God doesn’t actually have a witness in the unstable molecules of it all , ‘cause y’all mixed up with bunch of your own mumbo jumbo to realize what’s what.”
The moon rose and shined brighter than it normally did, lunar light flood the room with blue like the color the flame of god or rather what was considered the infinite-eye.
The boy faded into the ghost he was dispersed into the magnetic field of the wild and crazy eternity.
The mother turned into a cat that was no cougar but a broken three-legged tabby. It scampered out.
Jacob laughed as the husk of man began to drool, bones cracking, hair sprouting to fur, given it’s true free form of something lost and ferocious…a wolf graying of age, ribbed and starving following the cat for consumption.
The light went dark as Jacob laughed.
She came in a blue dress and silver jewelry, put her arms around his neck.
The Moon had found her Wolf whole just as he said they could do together, if they could only rewrite the lives of others or show them what a fragile construct their world could be.
