The Transplant by G. K. Brannen

Time is of the essence here,

To live, someone must die.

God’s breath must return to origin

for that same respire to continue.

The body must return from which it came

for another to remain.

This knowledge is aggressive, and

thought by some to be against the

Laws of God and Nature.

It is stated that man is born in God’s own

Image. In Genesis, the Image is plural.

Therefore, man has the right to live in

duality. The time thread of the gods may be

clipped and retied. The time thread of man

may be clipped and reshaped.

Fate is our fate. It cannot be: altered, bent,

reshaped, or undone.

If spare-parts are necessary, so be it.

The path is written. The die is cast.

We, who have been left alone to strive

forward, can only guess as to the details.

All is not final until the finish line is

crossed.

_____________________________________________________________________________

Blessed

Blessed? … I’m not sure. That’s such an awkward word for me. I’ve searched back through boyhood, young manhood, adulthood, and now. Like I said, I’m not sure.

This question of religious epiphany struck me at the oddest moment. I was lying on a gurney just outside the O.R. at The Transplant Center. The time was late evening. I remember lying there listening to the banter between the surgical nurses and other personnel. Why won’t my attention act right? What? What did they say? I felt I was moving in and out of the conversation; my mind wandered back to earlier.

I’d been prepped for surgery by a big seasoned nurse who had no shame at all. Honest to God, you’d have thought I was a piece of pork being prepped for a bar-b-que pit. “Turn over, spread your legs, you’re such a baby, there ain’t no reason to be shy now … you ain’t got noth’n I ain’t never seen before, … don’t you get none of that on my clean sheets, … you ain’t never give yourself an enema?

GIVE me that!”

What were they saying … something about a party? I kept wanting to become part of the conversation; but I was like … the “invisible one.” Lying there with IV’s hanging out of my arm, no clothes on except that sheet, my head in a nylon bag … Hell, I wanted to go to a party. My thoughts were bounding like jack rabbits. It sounds like a great idea to me. It was probably just the premeds kicking in. … What was that about a thong?

Lights turned on. I was being rolled into the operating room, with a gallery, I might add. Being I was at a university teaching hospital, they had asked if I would sign a waiver so any intern interested in liver transplantation could watch. I figured it may be interesting to look at people that were looking at me ─ anything for science. Everything had happened so fast since I got to the hospital, I would have signed anything. And then, there was that prep nurse … jeeze ─ talk about irony. I was rolled around and jostled up next to the operating table and: “1-2-3” hoisted across, then gently arranged on, what kind of table is this? It was like being laid on a piece of stainless steel with an enormous rise in the center about lower mid-backbone. One of the surgeons introduced himself and his team to me. He asked me a few basic questions: “do you know where you are, do you know why you’re here, and are you comfortable?” “Comfortable?” I remember asking. No, I wasn’t comfortable. I would find out later after surgery that the table used was specially shaped to maximize the opening of the torso after they cut across the abdomen. They would then use a special medical hoist to lift and separate the ribcage. I figured it was kind of like opening up a “top fuel” dragster, so they could get at whatever they wanted to change out. And, then there were all those folks up there in the gallery. I wanted to wave, but … no, no sense in being my normal smart-ass self now. I did however look at a guy working at a shallow basin nearby, and the surgeon who was talking with me said that the newly acquired organ they were about install was “a good fit, and it would serve me well.” I was then draped, masked, and drawn on.

So, with that, we were ready. It was show-time. The young nurse that had been outside talking about the party leaned over me and told me she would be doing the catheter. How weird. Then, with a little snicker, she whispered that she was wearing a bright red thong … What… not now!

* * *

Is somebody crying? I can’t quite figure out … is somebody crying? I remember it was dark and I kept hearing that crying and it was so far away. I figured someone had died. Hell, maybe it’s me. … Is somebody crying?

* * *

“George …George … can you hear me?”

Now, who the hell is that? … Yeah, I can hear you. Why is it so dark? Where is that voice coming from? The voice I heard was close ─ wasn’t it? My mind could hear him. Why couldn’t he hear me?

“George … can you hear me? Try to open your eyes. I’m John, your nurse.”

Thirsty! My lips felt like … parched and cracked … like those river beds you see in Africa during the dry season … parched and cracked.

“Here, try this.”

There was that voice again. Who is that?

John, whoever he was, had placed something damn cold, ice on my lips. My mind wouldn’t let me open my eyes … it’s so dark, the ice … wonderful. That ice cube was the best tasting ever. Talk about bliss.

“George, you’re in ICU and you came through the surgery really well.”

Why is it so dark? Why can’t I see you? That ice is … awe-man … give me some, “More.”

“Not so fast … easy … a little bit at a time.”

I think I’ll leave my eyes closed. … Yuk! “What was that?”

“What was what?”

That’s not what I had before. “What is that? …Yuk!” Bitter … so bitter. I didn’t know what he gave me but, it wasn’t like the last. I think he was just messing with me. I never did find out.

“George, how do you feel, does anything hurt? Can you open your eyes?”

I feel pretty “good … comfortable … tired … can’t open my eyes … they don’t work. Did you hear anyone crying earlier … I did? Tired, it’s weird being here, I can’t open my eyes. … I think I have to go now.”

* * *

Jesus, what’s all that noise, where am I? Who’s tugging at me?

“George, George, Mr. Brannen, can you hear me … wakeup? It’s Laura.”

Laura, my post-surgery nurse, was right beside me. I recall, I couldn’t figure out how in the hell she got into this dream. Opening my eyes, she was smiling and informed me everything had gone really well and I was in recovery now. There was another nurse on my right dealing with the IV’s. I couldn’t read her name tag; she leaned over, smiled and whispered in my ear: “You are blessed.”

A Visit from the Avon Lady

Excerpt from Lily’s Odyssey (print novel 2010) published with permission by All Things That Matter Press. Its first chapter was a finalist for the Eric Hoffer Award in Best New Writing.

http://www.amazon.com/Lilys-Odyssey-Carol-Smallwood/dp/0984098453

In the spring I located an Avon Lady to help make me feel more at home.

“Do you know you have a wasp’s nest out there?” the Avon Lady asked scurrying inside. When I’d called, she mentioned her grandson and how many years she’d been an Avon representative, so I figured she’d be about my age and looked forward to seeing her.

“Oh, is that right? My goodness!” But I didn’t mind it by the doorbell because it kept solicitors away.

The Avon Lady, in a pink dress, had a cap of close fitting dark hair that looked just like the wig called “Caesar’s Wife” in a catalog I’d received. I remembered it in particular because a girl with the largest hoop earrings I’d ever seen (and in the smallest bikini) had modeled it. Caesar’s Wife wore perfectly applied matching dusty rose lipstick and nail polish. In Nicolet City, the most visible member of the country club was a handshaking insurance agent with his well-dressed wife at his side in high heels with matching lipstick and nail polish.

She said, “I know it’s late for a calendar, but aren’t they delightful? This year they did them in such delightful pastels and I like them so much better than brash colors. I always wished I’d had a girl to dress in pink.” When she pointed to the pink skeins of yarn piled in a basket with some kittens for the month of February, I noticed she had whiskers like the woman in Nicolet City who’d quivered for bits of gossip—the Avon Lady’s round bright eyes were like hers too.

I thanked her for the calendar and took the stapled bag holding my order she presented like crown jewels. Smiling, I said, “Please have a seat.” When I returned to the living room with my credit card I told her, “I try and put as much on the card as I can because the Doris Day Animal League gets a percentage of it,” hoping she’d might be interested in getting one.

“Oh, yes. I use mine to get frequent flyer miles to visit my other son. I see him so often you know.”

When she was filling out credit card information, I asked, “Is it hot in town too?”

The way she said, “Well, I think you have more of a breeze here,” I knew she’d gotten a good whiff of the neighbor’s cow manure. Caesar’s Wife sat very straight, her small feet precisely together. Her high black pointed shoes were like the kind that were buttoned with a buttonhook in earlier times; she sat with her back not touching the couch like a proper lady doing a needlepoint sampler. When handing my Visa receipt she said, “It’s been warm going to my grandson’s baseball games. He’s nine years old and looks just like my son at that age.” She glanced around before putting her copy of the order in her purse and said, “I’m sorry your order’s a bit late, but my husband and I are going on vacation and I’ve had so much to do you know.”

I could tell she was trying to figure out where I fit in the scheme of things, just like I pegged her kitchen as one with a teddy bear cookie jar on a spotless white counter always cleaned with antibacterial wipes—the kind advertised as killing 99.9% of bacteria. She probably had pastel Pennsylvania Dutch paper toweling, doormats with pastel teddy bears for her grandchildren, and proper eyelet (white) tieback curtains. Yes, Caesar’s wife “must be above suspicion.”

“I’m so glad to have found an Avon lady again. I’ve used Avon for over thirty years where I lived before.”

“Where was that?”

“In Nicolet City.”

When she tilted to one side and asked, “Why did you ever come here?” I tried to tell if her hair was really a wig, but just the curls on her forehead moved–curls like the picture in Jenny’s book on nursery rhymes about the girl with the curl in the middle of her forehead.

“Oh, I wanted to take classes. I guess I wasn’t finished with school.” Yes, I believed in reason and enjoyed the smell of it in rectangular classrooms with rows of desks facing a larger desk. A projection screen with a string, that, when partially down, reminded me of Kitty forgetting to pull her tongue back in. You could tell a lot about a teacher by how they dealt with the string dangling in the middle of the blackboard. Classrooms had blackboards with smudged words much more intriguing because of their vagueness–whole banks of fluffy erasures with tails of “Y’s” and “J’s” still showing. I remember reading that if someone from the 1800’s walked into a classroom they’d feel right at home because classrooms had changed so little.

I recalled another kind of school–a homemaker’s school in Nicolet City where you could select: how to grow mung beans, how to make curtains from percale sheets, how to make your own baby food out of green beans. Mark had been in school and Jenny stayed with other kids in a room with some 4-H girls. After a cafeteria lunch, I saw a film on how Lee’s carpets were made and a demonstration on cleaning Sears’s ovens. I returned loaded with Wisconsin Consolidated Gas recipes on cards; each card had a blue tear-shaped flame of gas in the upper left corner.

“Why, you sound like my sister who doesn’t know what she wants. She’s an ex-ray technician and wants to change jobs at forty-five.” Caesar’s Wife shook her head, “Still doesn’t know her place. Single, too,” her eyes trailing to my left hand. And as if she still couldn’t pigeonhole me, asked, “You work?”

“I retired after twenty years from Parisburg Public Schools.”

“Oh.” She looked a bit surprised but lost no time in replying, “You probably never had much time to bake cookies did you? My sons loved oatmeal cookies like my grandson does, you know. I make them with coconut, raisins, and walnuts,” and proceeded to give me the recipe.  

When I’d ordered men’s talc and aftershave on the phone a few weeks ago, she’d said, “It sounds like you know what someone likes,” but I hadn’t replied. When I examined the Friktion and Uomo talcs now, I almost said they were for myself to see her expression. Truth was, they were. I liked the solidity, the calming masculinity. Especially the citrus tones because they reminded me of the men I liked remembering.

I’d have to see if Honeysuckle was in the new catalog. I wanted to order it even after telling myself I was wallowing where I shouldn’t. Ah, there was nothing like the pale cloying sweetness of Honeysuckle! When I needed to remember what being in love was like, Honeysuckle brought a hint of the perpetual spring back. I recognized the look in the Avon model dipping her hand in a stream floating with daisies: she was smiling—no, glowing with anticipation in her eyes and sunlight on her hair: “Every moment’s to be lived. Your rush to greet the dawn…and love.” And to live the moment you just had to rub your wrist on the sample. You didn’t even have to unfold samples anymore. The next page showed a model wearing a night gown (I think) with rose petals falling on her matching those on the gown if the Avon Lady’s nail and lipstick shade—Love’s Promise.

It was funny though, what I bought looked smaller than it did in the catalog; the shower gels that hooked on the shower weren’t really much bigger than tubes of toothpaste. And Avon was selling so many other things now like cell phones. But it was reassuring once again to have an Avon catalog even it they were so much thicker now. Size 6 models still had tangles of curly hair, perfect teeth, matching lipstick and nails, and trailed pale pink scarves on pale pink beaches. Toddler models with chubby legs held peaches in pink baskets. I saw a woman walking into a fluffy lake with upraised arms with her hair blowing one way and her gown the other, featuring the new fragrance, Perception.

Still, I’d look at the next catalog that the Avon Lady said she’d hang it on my door knob if I wasn’t home and give the bag an extra twist so the wind wouldn’t carry it off. Avon made me feel a part of things: it was as American as McDonald’s, the Fourth of July, or the Reader’s Digest.

When debating what to do with the calendar, I wondered if the photographer had used a pink screen over the lens or if the muted look was part of the developing. The look was warm, romantic, real and yet just out of reach–and I understood why the Avon Lady had said: “Women like the pastel look. It’s such a delight. So feminine and flattering, you know.”

Welcome, literary family and friends, to January 2014’s issue of Synchronized Chaos Magazine! We invite you to pull up a chair and a mug of ale or tea, and take a cup o’ kindness with your fellow creative souls.

This month’s theme is Scouting Parties, about the little personal expeditions we take to learn about our world. How we cope with not knowing everything, where we go to discover our world, each other, and ourselves, and then what we do afterwards with the information we have gathered.

Fran Laniado reviews Adam Brown’s Astral Dawn, where a young man finds himself on a surprise journey, wandering into a fantasy realm, which he must use his strength and insight to protect. As Laniado points out, one of the novel’s strengths is the development of the main character. He’s neither tragic nor perfect, and he has goals and strengths, although like many real-life young people, he isn’t sure how to achieve them.

W. Jack Savage shares a lengthy piece, “The Beginning,” where love gradually develops between a couple in an unusual arrangement, when they work through their problems, including their lack of knowledge about each other.

Roger Charlin, idealistic journalist at the heart of Daniel Jacobs’ The Eyes of Abel, as reviewed by Elizabeth Hughes, also means well, but faces a lack of knowledge. He must decide what to do when what he sees appears to contradict what he has come to believe over the years.

Hopefully, as people re-think their preconceived notions, our world will overcome prejudice, imperialism, racism and the desire to control others. Then, the Jews, Muslims, Christians and others in the Middle East, and elsewhere, will be able to coexist in peace.

Bruce Roberts discusses such a coexistence in his review of Every Christmas Story Ever Told (And Then Some)? Written by Michael Carleton, James Fitzgerald, and John K. Alvarez, this play, performed at the Town Hall Theater in Lafayette, California, presents a mishmash of classic holiday stories, including Dickens’ Christmas Carol and the movie It’s a Wonderful Life. 

Christopher Bernard reviews the play Edward Gant’s Amazing Feats of Loneliness, by Berkeley’s Shotgun Players, that also illustrates in a fun way how our minds work to combine and synthesize narratives and information. As in Every Christmas Story Ever Told (And Then Some)?, characters make sense of interspersed, overlapping stories from various genres.

Some contributors describe physical journeys and explorations. Laurette Tanner shares vignettes from her time in San Francisco, and Berkshire, Massachusetts. Full of sensory details, her writing encourages readers to learn about and notice the details of their city and wilderness environments. ‘Enjoying nature’ becomes a lot more interesting when one knows what to look for.

Emily Burns, of the Save the Redwoods League, offers a portrait of California’s coastal redwood ecosystem, affected in various complex ways by climate change. As described by Cristina Deptula, her talk at Oakland’s Chabot Space and Science Center also focuses in on the ways nature can act as a storyteller, reflecting past events and broader changes through tree rings, geology, and the changing distributions of different plants and animals over time.

Mitchell Grabois presents poetry about a trip to France, where his narrator gets jolted by thoughts and encounters with people he’s met, along with the river rapids. Jeff Rasley’s travel essay about visiting Basa Village, Nepal also explores cultural dislocation, but in a gentler way by a narrator who desired a change of scene.

In poet John Grey’s work, the characters blend with the rough landscape, eking out existence amidst the rocky paths, crackling ice and coyotes. There’s a sense of isolation in Grey’s writing, of thoughts and desires unspoken, just out of reach.

Emma Bernstein’s lush piece about the light and sound of dawn, the natural environment, offers personal sanctuary and solace.

Artist Tim Davis turns in another direction in his quest for creative escape and inspiration, presenting work inspired by a video game.

It has been said that we should not turn to nature and imagination just to escape reality, but to create it. Hopefully, this month’s contributors will inspire a new and heightened world of enlightenment and beauty.

Happy New Year and enjoy the issue!

**San Francisco Bay Area folks** We have a get-together scheduled for the evening of Thursday January 23rd, 6-9 pm drop-in at San Francisco’s Cafe Enchante, 6175 Geary St. near the corner of 25th Ave. All welcome, please feel free to bring writing and art to share! Facebook event page coming soon, RSVP appreciated but not required.

NOAA National Archives Photo Library [LC-USZ62-24481]

Every Christmas Story Ever Told

(And Then Some): Review by Bruce Roberts

A collection, a collage, a cornucopia, a bubbling cauldron of laughter—how does one describe a play that literally encompasses Every Christmas Story Ever Told (And Then Some)? Written by Michael Carleton, James Fitzgerald, and John K. Alvarez, this story is anchored around tradition—Dickens’ A Christmas Carol—but because most of the three man cast does not want to do A Christmas Carol, they spin off into every other Christmas story and tradition imaginable.

Michael Storm is the director of this brilliance at the Lafayette, California, Town Hall Theater, and aided by three outstanding comic actors—Henry Perkins, Liam Callister, and Justin DuPuis—has crafted a masterpiece of non-stop wit, satire, and slapstick, all on a somewhat demented Christmas theme.

Henry Perkins—actually a brilliant understudy for the ailing Dennis Markham– has prepared to perform A Christmas Carol, drawing the audience deep into the somber plot with “Marrrrrley is DEAD,” orated with all the ponderousness it deserves. And he keeps trying to carry this out, but each time he tries, lighthearted rebellion bursts forth from his co-actors, Liam and Justin—all three known by their actual names since they play so many parts, naming them by their roles would be ludicrous.

In fact, Henry plays the center of this comic whirlpool beautifully, for no matter what he tries, he’s resisted, satirized, and put on the spot. In one skit, he very logically, with absolutely unrefutable statistics, proves that Santa does not exist, only to be forced to backtrack at the heartbroken wailing this brings out in Liam, playing one of his youngest myriad characters. In his final attempt at A Christmas Carol, Henry’s again forced to reconsider because his fellows are bouncing back and forth between Dickens and It’s a Wonderful Life. Inevitably, he too is bouncing: one second he’s Scrooge, the next George Bailey, then Scrooge again, with all three distinguishing the stories through accents, from Dickens 19^th century British, to George’s 20^th century New England

As the antagonists here, Justin and Liam are sensational, showing incredible talent. Every voice, every expression, every posture possible is handled deftly with comic intent. They are old, they are young; they are meek, they are aggressive; they are male, they are female. Whatever’s needed for the plot to defy expectations, they do, and oh so well.

The Lafayette Town Hall Theater is a cozy scene with great seats everywhere, the home of many amazing performances. Everyone in the Bay Area should keep alert for the next play here. But for Christmas laughs, no matter where performed, watch for Every Christmas Story Ever Told (And Then Some).

Bruce Roberts is a recurring writer and reviewer for Synchronized Chaos Magazine, and may be reached at brobe60491@sbcglobal.net