Let's celebrate Christmas!
Let's Celebrate Christmas!
Where?
In a place where Christ has its domain
In a place where the reason for his celebration is not in vain
In a place where the savior of the world is the main
Let's celebrate Christmas!
Where?
In a place where the is mistletoe is evident
In a place where Christmas Trees are prevalent
In a place where the Santa Claus is always present
Let's celebrate Christmas!
Where?
In a place where merriment abounds
In a place where sober reflection surrounds
In a place where resolutions for the New Year mounts
In all, Let's celebrate Christmas!
Harpies!
Positioned on my back, I lay upon the sofa and observed the world around me. The first thing I saw was that the light fixture in the center of the ceiling had grown longer and was swinging pendulously, making me quite dizzy. The living room walls, it seemed to me, were now breathing, swelling and then contracting in turn.
I thought back blearily to the evening before, when I had, at least in my own mind's eye, been both a sexual athlete and a chaste Don Juan in service to vulnerable--and beautiful but very, very young--women. To the best of my recollection I had dropped the acid, in the company of some hippy friends I'd net at the bar, at about ten thirty that evening. They had told me that they always congregated at the same time every night. They said they liked my company and would return. Then had followed a riotous, puerile bacchanalia with anyone and everyone. I wondered briefly, blinking, if I were still a virgin in any sense of the word. What a night! I shook my head. Curiously, I couldn't remember a thing. Just wisps and traces of memory.
I felt something, then peered down at my feet, where Baby, my cat, was nibbling on my big toe; it didn't hurt at all, but it was an unusual sensation. I glanced at the windows at the east end of the house, where the morning sun was just breaking over the horizon, turning my white shades a golden hue. I wondered if I should get up--I had to go to the bathroom--but that would have required standing. I weighed the pros and cons of going to the toilet, decided against it. I looked back down my body to Baby, who was sttill busy with my toe.
The room felt chilly. I checked my forearms: gooseflesh had blossomed ever the surface of my skin. I thought I detected a draft. I looked at the windows again and the curtains were fluttering in a fresh breeze; had I forgotten to close them? I felt a mild pain in my foot and saw that Baby had bitten clear through the flesh to the bone and was licking the white metatarsal or whatever they're called. Still no pain, however. I grunted.
I heard footfalls over the carpeted floor and suddenly there was a man in my ;livmg room: it was my dentist, Dr. Numbnuts. He grinned down at me and proffered a huge, menacing pair of pliers and a cordless drill, probably a half inch device.
"You missed your appointment this morning," he scolded. "I'm concerned with your teeth and I wanted to make sure they got the care they needed." His black mustache twitched furiously. "The dentist is your friend, you know," he insisted. With a sigh of resignation I opened my mouth in order for him to proceed. The procedure was long and complicated and loud but again, I felt no pain. When he had finished, I looked at him questioningly and he said, "Your teeth are fine, Mr. Tubs, but I'm afraid that the gums will have to come out! I'll be back tomorrow," he added My eyes must have opened wide, for he said reassuringly, "I'll just transplant your teeth onto your hard and soft palates; you'll never miss your gums!" I nodded uncertainly. From where I lay I could see into the kitchen and the edge of the refrigerator. Numbnuts walked briskly into the kitchen, opened the refrigerator door and disappeared inside. Would he have enough air in there? I wondered. I had plenty of beer in the fridge, so he wouldn't go thirsty.
Baby had by this time consumed fully half of my foot and was developing a little tummy from all she'd eaten. She had rolled onto her back and was lying there with her paws in the air.
I sighed. I was really tired. The dental procedure had exhausted me. Not to mention the wild evening I'd probably had. I really needed to pee, but I wondered if my psychedelic experience would go away if I got up off the couch. No, I decided I couldn't chance it. I'd paid it no mind before, but the television was on. On one of the 24/7 news channels the program host was talking. I edged up onto an elbow and listened intently.
"Alien spaceships have landed in Edgewood, Washington," she announced briskly, referencing a city just outside Seattle. "When law enforcement personnel investigated the craft, a portal was opened and the police officers were disintegrated by Harpies wielding a powerful space ray!" Yikes! I thought. Harpies! But as I peered at the TV screen, I noticed a certain familiarity. Those were the same young women who were at my apartment last night, dropping acid. "That's it!" I said aloud. I was doped up by Harpies from the planet Exxon and now everyone's paying the price. And that wasn't really my dentist, Dr. Numbnuts, it was just another Harpy in disguise! Everybody knew that Harpies were shapeshifters!
On the TV the Harpies seemed unstoppable! At one point they cornered a woman going through a dumpster and collecting cans of stewed tomatoes and they disintegrated her, tomatoes and all. What if they started making demands of the federal government. The president might be forced to remove LSD from the National Strategic Reserve of Hallucinogens. I forgot where they were stored, but I knew that Dr. Fauci was in charge of it. I glanced at the clock: it was nine a.m., just a little over a dozen hours till the Harpies returned to party. I made up my mind then: I got up and went to pee.
I just read this in a newspaper: “After long months of futile attempts and several expeditions, a group of Argentine scientists has succeeded in capturing an Ushuaia rabbit, thought to be extinct for over a century. The scientists, headed by Dr. Adrián Bertoni, caught the rabbit in one of the many forests that surround the Patagonian city. . . .”
As I prefer specifics to generalities, and precision to transience, I would have said “in such and such a forest located in such a spot in relation to the capital of Tierra del Fuego.” But we can’t expect blood from a turnip or any intelligence whatsoever from journalists. Dr. “Adrián Bertoni” is yours truly, and of course they had to misspell my name. My exact name is Andrés Bertoldi, and I am, in fact, a doctor of natural sciences, specializing in Zoology and Extinct, or Endangered, Species.
The Ushuaia rabbit is not actually a lagomorph, much less a leporid. It’s not even certain that its habitat is the forests of Tierra del Fuego. Moreover, not one has ever lived on the Isla de los Estados. The rabbit I caught – I alone, with no special equipment or help from anyone – showed up in the city of Buenos Aires near the embankment of the San Martín railroad, which runs parallel to Avenue Juan B. Justo where it crosses Soler Street in the district of Palermo.
Far from looking for the Ushuaia rabbit, I had other worries and was headed down the sidewalk of Juan B. Justo, a bit downcast. It was hot, and I had some unpleasant, not to say worrisome, business to do at the bank on Santa Fe Avenue. Between the embankment and the sidewalk there is a wire mesh fence supported by a low wall; on the other side of the fence, I spotted the Ushuaia rabbit.
I recognized it instantly, how could I not? But I was struck by the fact that it remained so still, for this animal is normally jumpy and restless. I thought it might be wounded.
Be that as it may, I backed up a few meters, climbed the fence, and lowered myself catlike to the ground. I advanced stealthily, fearing at each moment that the Ushuaia rabbit would take fright, and in that case, who could catch it? It is one of the fastest animals in creation; though the cheetah is swifter in absolute terms, it is not in relative terms.
The Ushuaia rabbit turned and looked at me. Contrary to my expectations, however, it did not flee, but kept still, with the sole exception of the silver tuft of feathers that shook as if to challenge me.
I took off my shirt and waited, stock still and bare-skinned.
“Easy, easy, easy . . .” I kept saying.
When I got close I slowly deployed the shirt as if it were a net, and suddenly, in one quick swoop, I had it over the rabbit, wrapping it up in a neat package. Using the sleeves and the shirttail, I tied a strong knot, allowing me to hold the bundle in my right hand and use my left to negotiate the fence once more and return to the sidewalk.
I could not, of course, show up at the bank shirtless, much less with the Ushuaia rabbit. Thus I headed home. I have an eighth-floor apartment on Nicaragua Street, between Carranza and Bonpland. At a hardware store I picked up a birdcage of considerable size.
The doorkeeper was washing the sidewalk in front of our building. Seeing me bare-chested, with a cage in my left hand and a restless white bundle in my right, he looked at me with more astonishment than disapproval.
As bad luck would have it, a neighbor followed me in from the street and into the elevator. With her was her little dog, an ugly, disgusting animal. Upon picking up the smell –unnoticed by human beings – of the Ushuaia rabbit, it erupted in earsplitting barks. On the eighth floor I was able to rid myself of that woman and her stentorious nightmare.
I locked the door with my key, prepared the cage, and with infinite care began unwrapping the shirt, trying not to upset, or worse, to hurt the Ushuaia rabbit. However, being shut in had angered it, and when I opened the cage door I couldn’t stop the rabbit from hitting my arm with a stinger. I had sufficient presence of mind not to let the pain induce me to let go, and I finally managed to maneuver it safely back into the cage.
In the bathroom I washed the wound with soap and water, and, right away, with medicinal alcohol. It then occurred to me that I ought to head to the pharmacy for a tetanus shot, which I did without wasting any time.
From the pharmacy I went straight to the bank to conclude the cursed business that had been postponed because of the Ushuaia rabbit. On the way back I picked up supplies.
Since it lacks a masticatory apparatus during the day, the most practical thing was to cut up the food into little pieces and mix in some milk and chickpeas; I then stirred it all together with a wooden spoon. After sniffing the concoction, the Ushuaia rabbit absorbed it with no problem, just very slowly. Its process of expansion begins at sunset. I therefore transferred the few pieces of living room furniture – two modest armchairs, a loveseat, and an end table – to the dining room, pushing them up against the dining table and chairs. Before it was too big to get past the door, I made sure it left the cage. Now free and comfortable, it was able to grow as needed. In this new state, it completely lost its aggressivity, and now became apathetic and lazy. When I saw its violet scales pop out – a sign of sleepiness – I headed for the bedroom, went to bed, and called it a day. The next morning the Ushuaia rabbit had returned to the cage. In view of this docility, I felt it was unnecessary to shut the door. Let it decide when to be inside or out of its prison. The instincts of the Ushuaia rabbit are infallible. Every evening it would leave the cage and expand like a fairly thick pudding on the living room floor. As is well known, its feces are produced at midnight on odd days. If one collects (in the spirit of play, naturally) these little green metallic polyhedrons in a sack and shakes them, they make a lovely sound, with a rather Caribbean rhythm. To tell the truth, I have little in common with Vanesa Gonçalves, my girlfriend. She is considerably different from me. Instead of admiring the many positive qualities of the Ushuaia rabbit, she thought best to skin it in order to have a fur coat made for herself. This can be done at night when the animal is elongated and the surface of its skin is broad enough that the cartilaginous ridges are displaced to the edges and don’t get in the way of the incision and cutting. I did not want to help her do this operation. Armed with only dressmaking scissors, Vanesa relieved the Ushuaia rabbit of all the skin on its back. In the bathtub, with detergent and running water, a brush and bleach, she washed off any amber or bile that remained on the skin. Then she dried it with a towel, folded it, put it in a plastic bag, and very happily took it off to her house. It only takes eight to ten hours for the skin to completely regenerate. Vanesa had visions of a great scheme: each night she could skin the Ushuaia rabbit and sell its fur. I would not allow it. I did not want to convert a scientific discovery of such importance into a vulgar commercial enterprise. However, an ecological society reported the deed, and a paid announcement came out in the papers accusing “Valeria González” – and, by association, me – of cruelty to animals. As I knew would happen, the onset of autumn restored the rabbit’s telepathic language, and although its cultural milieu is limited, we were able to have agreeable conversations and even to establish a kind of, how shall I say, code of coexistence. The rabbit let me know that it was not partial to Vanesa, and I had no trouble understanding why. I asked my girlfriend not to come to the house any more. Perhaps in gratitude, the Ushuaia rabbit perfected a way of expanding less at night, so that I was able to bring all the furniture back to the living room. It sleeps on the loveseat and deposits its metallic polyhedrons on the rug. It never eats to excess, and in this as in everything else, its conduct is measured and worthy of praise and respect. The rabbit’s delicacy and efficiency reached the extreme of asking me what would be, for me, its ideal daytime size. I said I would have preferred the size of a cockroach, but I realized that such a small size put the Ushuaia rabbit in danger of being stepped on (though not of being killed). After several attempts, we decided that at night the Ushuaia rabbit would continue to expand to the size of a very large dog or even a leopard. During the day, the ideal would be that of a medium-sized cat. This allows me, when I am watching television, for example, to have the Ushuaia rabbit on my lap where I can stroke it absentmindedly. We have formed a solid friendship, and sometimes we need only look at each other for mutual understanding. Nevertheless, these telepathic faculties that function during the winter months disappear with the first warm spells. We are now in the last month of winter. The Ushuaia rabbit is aware that for the next six months it will not be able to ask me questions or make suggestions or receive advice or congratulations from me. Lately it’s fallen into a kind of repetitive mania. It tells me, as if I didn’t know, that it is the only surviving Ushuaia rabbit in the world. It knows it has no way of reproducing, but – though I have asked many times – the rabbit has never said whether it is bothered by this or not. Moreover, the rabbit continuously asks me – every day and several times a day – whether there is any use for it to go on living like this, alone in the world, with me yes, but without other creatures of its own kind. There is no way it can kill itself, and there is no way I could – and even if there were, I would never do it – kill such a sweet, affectionate animal. And so, as long as we experience the last cold spells of the year, I continue to converse with the Ushuaia rabbit, stroking it absentmindedly. When warm weather returns, I shall only be able to stroke it.[Original title: “El conejo de Ushuaia.” First published in the magazine Proa, No. 70, Buenos Aires, September 2007, pp. 33-38. Included in El crimen de san Alberto, Buenos Aires, Editorial Losada, 2008.]
Peonies of poesy
Peonies of poesy
acting as a parasol
from the scorching heat of reality.
Amaltas dreams peep through
gossamer veils.
Emotional myalgia,
somnolent hours,
a sudden bazooka of rainbow syllables
shot through the syntax of memory.
Sunflower renditions,
The wind in her hair.
She wanted a bougainvillea
I gave her dreams
chiseled out of my bones,
Epitaphs of proclivity,
sands of time.
A glass window and
Autumn sauntering on my lacerated bosom.
Ballistic oxymoron
Seeping through leaked rhymes.
The world is but a granule of sand
seeping fast through my fingers.
The mountains echoed luminous ballads
on starry nights.
Mist-wreathed hilltops hummed verdant dreams
As October bid goodbye
wrapped in a silken thread of memory.
Clouds waltzed in front of my window.
The turf is filled with leftover poems
that fell prey to the sands of time.
I bit the side of the moon and kept the rest for dinner.
My poems lay tired like the old armchair.
They gave me a weary smile.
The smell of dreams percolated my senses;
gestured me with a happy articulation.
Life is a conundrum
but we must move on
Shaking off problems like the little girl shaking off the sand from her sandal.
October bids goodbye
October bids goodbye
Wrapped in the discarded moiré thread of memory.
The autumn leaves fall
humming a baritone
Of love and longing in tandem.
The golden tinge paints a carnival
like Van Gogh's acrylic landscapes.
It acts as a placebo for my tainted soul.
Amidst the concrete jungle of monoliths
Autumn’s amber tincture renders an ebullient vista.
The gleaming sun shimmering through the azure sky
reminds me of our clandestine tryst
on one such magnificent October afternoon.
Verdant dreams glitter on mist-wreathed hilltops.
I jettisoned my fears into the darkness of the night
and waltzed with the wind's saccharine lullaby.
Parable of forsaken dreams heap once again at my study table
enchanted by an alchemy of reminiscence.
As autumn gradually drifts away
making way for the chilly Northern winds.
Dreams flutter in unison.
October bids goodbye
wrapped in the discarded moiré thread of memory.
Debarati Sen works in Presidency University Kolkata as a Junior Assistant. Her debut poetry book called 'Blurred Musings' has recently been published. Recipient of the Tagore Award 2022 and the Sylvia Plath Women's Literary Award, Debarati finds emancipation in her poetry! She has also been the winner of the International Poetry Writing competition held by the Elite Book Awards in November 2021. She has also grabbed the third position in the National Poetry Writing Month 2022 contest hosted by the Elite Book Awards. Debarati features in the Council Year Book launched on the occasion of Women's Day 2022 by Literoma in association with the Public Safety and Security Council of Bengal.
She has also been declared as an Empalled Author in the International Author's Conclave held by Literoma in December 2021. She is one among the top ten poets of the Women;'s Day poetry contest organised by Delhi Poetry Slam. She has co-authored more than 15 anthologies and is recently compiling her first anthology as a compiler with the Quill House Publishers. Her poems have found shelter in prestigious websites like The Antonym, The Yugen Quest Review, The Kolkata Arts, Lapis Lazuli, The Das Literarisch, to name a few.
Sugar Window
it [comes]
[tripping]
[tripping]
[tripping]
DOWN THE...
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along again along with machine
a marching band
and a
H*O*R*S*E
quaalude to take the cake
the wheel has come off the
[FIT]
[FIT]
[FIT]
[FIT]
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.
.
.
Nebulous Time[stamp]
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this is the sound of THUNDER (something)
only on the better
spring
clouded
semaphore
semaphore
semaphore
semaphore
[[[barked down in
nightdress as the soldier
grovels with
lids in the basket]]]
WHAT A case:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
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Insubstantial Lamplight Callisthenics
hoof and
hhhhhooooooooopppppppppp
waging on the shore
B
L
A
N
K
MISS-ALIGNED
[soup][swing]
!
the coast is cold
&
volume is apprehension
&
&
&
.
.
.
Glass [half] cut [half]
brother can you spare a...aluminium aluminium aluminium...
a constant swab of...falalalala...how much is the cash back...
long long long long long long long...sheepskin rug...I
bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb
uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu
bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb
uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu
!!!
and the same to you
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--lift--[to say it[[
--left--[leg[[to say it[[
--lift--[to say it[[
--right--[leg[[to say it[[
ARRANGE IT ALL AGAIN
Anxiety Measure (wa wa)
consignment
ever
t
h
i
s
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
a l
i
n
e
in the
u
p
p
e
r
c
a
s
e
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
crustacean
i want my elbows back
i want to stand in summer
i want a nightdress and a telephone
i want
i want
i want
i
i
i
i
i
i
i
i
i
w
a
n
t
what
you've
..................
..................
..................
Bio: Nathan Anderson is a poet from Mongarlowe Australia. He is the author of Mexico Honey, The Mountain + The Cave and Deconstruction of a Symptom. His work has appeared in Otoliths, BlazeVox, Beir Bua and elsewhere. You can find him at nathanandersonwriting.home.blog or on Twitter @NJApoetry. Nathan is a member of the C22 collective, you can find more about it at c22press.wordpress.com.
The Terror of Tulips
By Chris Butler
The cock of the walk. The early Saturday morning's sun beamed through the gray overcast of night with the rays of golden gods. The college campus's freshly barbered lawns glistened. The acoustic melodies of an older generation echoed from the insomniac stoners' room, playing the soothing soundtrack for coming down. The birds chirped their harmonious courtships. A college junior, with his combed hair parted to perfection across his head and his brand new satin shirt hung across his plateaued shoulders without a wrinkle, had the stride with the pride of a royal lion as he smirked fondly across his kingdom.
Leo strolled past the mailbox built within a block of individually selected bricks and up the winding driveway of his fraternity house. Alpha Beta Gamma was a century's old mansion that was formerly the home of the university's founder and first dean. His body swaggered with the fluid swing of each arm. He inhaled deep, free puffs that filled his bagpipe lungs to capacity. He skipped up each of the three concrete steps that led to the massive oak door. He paused for a moment, the sly smile of the recollection of satisfaction smeared across his face, lifting the corners of his lips just below his bloodshot, bright blue eyes. His sure hand gripped the iron doorknob as he took one last breath of fresh air.
Leo reminisced of the evening before, and massive celebration at his friend's parent's house, who left their son in charge as the caretaker of their home as they flew south for a lavish vacation. His friend had decided that the Friday evening of that week was the opportunity of a young lifetime to throw the perfect keg party, along with a shapely array of plastic bottles of clear and brown alcohol. Since Leo the had the earliest date of birth of everyone in his class, he had been placed in charge of procuring the drinks for the epic celebration. Most of the girls who had arrived at the party with promises of free liquor and beer had already spent an evening with Leo, and were aware of his predatory ways. They were lionesses, and knew all too well that it was the female of the species who brought home the dead meat. They were more interested in spending their precious evenings with anyone else.
But from across the room appeared a girl Leo had never seen before. She was as fully fulfilled and developed as a woman, yet naively younger than college age, she must be eighteen he thought to himself. But these numbers weren't of any concern to him on this evening. He seduced her with a special cocktail of his own concoction, mixed with his special secret ingredient of a little white pill. After she chugged his drink of choice as he whispered in her ear his favorite rehearsed lines to impress girls with a lower maturity level than their age, he offered to give her a refill. As her cup drained down her throat and below halfway mark of the plastic container, her body began to sway and she had to use his dominant body to help her equilibrium stay balanced. He had no intentions of carrying a passed out girl upstairs in front of the rest of the party's participants. He lifted the cup from her hand and placed it on a table. He grabbed her by the hand and pulled her towards the stairs that led to the second floor. She said something about her friend Lily, and Leo assured her that they would find her. And they should start their searching upstairs. With minimal resistance, he pulled her into the dark guest bedroom. He assured her that they would find her friend, just as he plopped onto the bed, pulling her down on top of him. Frenetically pulling off her sweater and jeans, he kept saying sweet nothings over her drifting voice. Flipping himself onto her, he pried open her legs. After the climax of his conquest, he pulled his underwear up and put back on his jeans, and as she squirmed in what he assumed to be as blissful dreams. He left, closing the door as quietly as a home invader behind him.
As Leo turned the iron knob to enter his fraternity home, a honeybee landed on his hand. His other hand went upward to callously swat it, when the bee's wings lifted it towards the bushes that grew around the exterior of the lavish house. He noticed that the annual tulips had spread open their closed petals for the spring season. The bee flew into the moist center of the flower. It crawled up and down and all around the sweet, sticky insides, fleeing with the bright yellow pollen clinging to its appendages. He nodded with approval towards the busy bee in its desire to master all the flowers in all the gardens around him. He removed his hands from the knob to smell the sweet, sticky insides that were still clinging to his fingers. He opened the massive door and disappeared from the daylight.
-----
The walk of shame. The Saturday morning sun hid behind a tarp of gray cloud cover. The spring air was moist, leaving a foggy glaze on the car windows across the suburban neighborhood. The early birds chirped with the hunger of hunters. A young high school sophomore, with long, bedraggled hair, strands dangling from the ponytail barely held together by a scrunchie, and her brand-new turtleneck sweater with a tear across her shoulder, she shuffled her feet down the street, arms crossed, her eyes staring downward at the asphalt before her feet.
Rose almost walked past her home before she noticed the mailbox painted with an array of colorful floral arrangements at the end of the driveway. She hugged herself harder until she wasn't inhaling enough air to catch her breath. She stepped onto the brown, worn welcome mat with "Home Sweet Home" embroidered in black lettering laying before the front door. She paused for an eternal moment, taking prolonged, bottomless breaths, until her head felt like a helium-filled balloon. Her shaking hand clenched the doorknob to steady her body tremors.
Rose hesitated. She remembered through the hammering headache, the queasy nauseousness in her stomach and the thorny pain in her groin about the lie she had rehearsed the night before. She had convinced her parents that she was spending her Friday evening at a slumber party at her best friend Lily's house. They were going to binge watch the newest episodes of their favorite show about fashionable, quick-witted high school girls and their everyday high school girl problems that claimed complete control over their lives, record themselves jokingly following the latest social network trends and uploading the results online, and staying up until dawn talking about the clear-complexioned boys in class they thought were cute, the girls they thought were sluts or bitches and the homework assignment they had to finish before Monday's classes were back in session.
The night before Rose's long, lonely walk home, the best friends had learned of a kegger hosted by college men at a house only a few short miles from Lily's house. Not boys, but men. The allure of leaving the same old high school boys that made juvenile jokes and always talked about subjects that made the girls' eyes roll around in their heads and instead spend their Friday night with a gathering of mature, intellectual men. It enticed their imagination of a party without lightweights who could not hold their alcohol inside their teenage tummies and by the end of the evening wouldn't spread sprinkles of vomit onto their shoes. But once Lily became separated from her friend, she met and conversed with her first college man. Tall, with golden hair perfectly parted to the left side of his handsome head, a man named Leo introduced himself to Rose. He offered her a drink, returning from the bottles of booze with a red solo cup full. The drink was cheek sucking sweet, but with a strange aftertaste. She noticed the college women staring in their direction, likely glares of jealously because they weren’t flirting with the hottest piece of man at the festivities. From then on, the rest of the night was a spinning blur, as the young virgin eventually found herself away from the crowd she was so interested in meeting, to a private room with a guest bed, the first time she had ever been alone with another man, or boy. She had tried to say no, more than once before and after she fell onto the bed, but she wasn't aware that her words slurred when they left her lips. But her refusals didn't slow him down, but instead sped his libido up by a thousand horses of power. Her pushes were too weak to express her displeasure. She thought of screaming, but his tongue was licking her tonsils as her lightened head spun out of her control.
Rose remained still at the front door of her home. She released her grip on the knob. She collapsed on the mat with her back against the door. She saw the crotch of her jeans glimmered with a spot of fresh blood from her hymen that was busted by that man's battering ram. A buzzing began between her ears. A honeybee hovered over her head for a long moment, looking like it was ready to sting. It then flew around the flower bed next to the concrete path from the mailbox to the front door. It landed on a tulip next to her. The bee penetrated the unpeeled petals and burrowed its way inside onto the virginal anther. It began molesting the unadulterated stamens until it was caked in yellow pollen. The hairs covering its twiggy legs pillaged the pollen. Then the bee's wings fluttered as it flew away, hunting the next flower for a taste of nature's nectar.
When I was a kid I got invited, to my buddy Marty's Bar Mitzvah, it was for his thirteenth birthday, his parents were throwing him a big party, to celebrate a rite of passage, ya see Marty was a Jew.
I told my parents and was so excited, the Bar Mitzvah was at
Shedd's Aquarium Downtown Chicago, my Old Man said he didn't care, if it was at fucking Disneyland, I wasn't going, and forget about being friends with Marty, he didn't want him hanging around, ya see Marty was a Jew.
I was more than disappointed, I was righteously pissed off, the only reason he had for not letting me go was because of his religion, ya see Marty was a Jew.
His family didn't seem to mind that I was a Christian, you're telling me that's why I can't go, what's so bad about being a Jew, my mother put in her two cents worth, did you know Jews don't believe in Jesus, what does that have to do with anything, why does it matter, maybe Jews don't believe in Bigfoot, it's not a logical reason,
I knew somehow in some way Jesus would get involved, why in the hell would Jesus care if Marty was a Jew, and there's more pressing world issues Jesus should be attending to,
hold on here just one minute, you both have your facts mixed up, you don't want me to be friends with Marty or go to his Bar Mitzvah, just because of who he doesn't worship, Marty is a Jew
Yet we go to church every Sunday, except the Old Man,
and pray to Jesus, who died on the cross for our sins, and both of you should be grateful he did, because what I'm about to say, you may find it hard to believe, I guess you forgot this Messiah named Jesus, or maybe you just never knew, I read it in the Bible, so I'm sure it must be true, ya see Jesus just like Marty,
was a Jew.
