Side Effects

Last week, A.M. Harte submitted a stunning story based on the ABC Challenge. The rules are this: write a story that is 26 sentences long. This first sentence must start with the letter ‘A’, and every following sentence begins with the subsequent letter of the alphabet, ending with ‘Z’. Here for your reading pleasure (or revulsion) is my version written for a short story class last summer. One addition: we had to incorporate one sentence that exceeded 20 words. Guess which one it is.

Audrey worshiped pharmaceuticals. “Benadryl saved my life when I had anaphylaxis. Cymbalta takes away that blue feeling. Duloxetine does its part in lifting my spirits. Excedrin mutes my migraines. Fosamax cements my porous bones.”

Grabbing a beer from the fridge, Zach shook his head. “Hold on, now, mama. I believe that there’s more to feeling good than popping a pill.”

“Jitters can only be calmed by a good dose of valium,” Audrey continued. “Klonapin keeps my nerves in a restful state, too. Let me tell you that I couldn’t live without my Midol.”

“Mama, some subjects are off-limits!”

“Now you’re a grown man.”

“Oh, say, can we change subjects…?”

“Prednisone takes care of my incessant itching."

"Quaaludes got you through the 80s, ain’t that what you said?”

“Richard Zachariah, don’t bring up my youthful indiscretions!”

“Sorry, mama, I didn’t mean…”

“Two pills a day tame that restless leg syndrome.”

“Unless you are me, and I don’t need any of these, since I jog and I swim and I eat three reasonable meals a day and visit the chiropractor, and practice meditation and sing in the choir and take all my vitamins and occasionally go to Jazz-and-tone classes and work out at the gym and floss my teeth and make sure I get my five fruits and vegetables every day and limit my intake of carbohydrates and fried foods and stopped smoking and chewing and switched from Coors to red wine and make sure to stretch and don’t forget my weight-bearing exercises, so what more do I need?” Zach asked.

“Viagra.”

“We are stopping this conversation right now.”

“Xanax keeps me from panicking when my son wants to cut off all communication.”

“You got me there.” Zach held out his hand and said, “Give me a couple of those Excedrin cause you win.”

If you would like to cleanse your pallet with a better story, please select one from the panel on the right.

The Virgin and the Priest

The woman arrived at the priest’s office on a Saturday early, soon after the priest normally started his day. She stepped inside his office and stood her ground. “I’ve found a virgin.” The package she carried in her withered arms was enormous, though she didn’t seem to struggle with its weight.


The priest looked at her over his wire glasses. “Pardon me?”


“A virgin, Father. By the creek just a mile or so from the church. Surely you know…”


“I’m aware, Mrs. Abernathy of the creek.” And what a virgin is, he opted not to add.


Just then, the woman set the bundle on his fine mahogany desk and slipped off the burlap cover.


The priest studied the poorly made replica of the Holy Virgin constructed from a mottled and discolored material resembling Plaster of Paris. Most off-putting of all was her face, nothing like the beautiful countenance of most renderings. “And what would you wish for me to do with this, Mrs. Abernathy?”


'What priests normally do, I suppose. Build a shrine to it on the creek with a small garden to be enjoyed by all who pass by her.” She raised then lowered her silver brows. “That is what I would do.”


All the joggers and bicyclists and their dogs would destroy it, if it were even possible to raise the money to build the structure. “That is public land. It’s not likely…”


“Suit yourself.” Mrs. Abernathy dropped the burlap back over the object, then left without removing it from his desk.


After the door shut, the priest lifted the burlap once again to study the face just below the head covering that cast a shadow down to the stern eyes. The joggers, bicyclists, and animals might destroy it, but that would be less an affront to the Holy Mother than whoever cast her with this expression. He replaced the cover and lifted the heavier-than-anticipated object, took it to his car and slipped it into the trunk. Slapping his palms together, the priest quickly forgot his isolated passenger and took off to finish the day’s chores followed by an afternoon of golf.


On Sunday morning, on the way to church, he noticed that the object no longer made noises as it rolled around. After he arrived, he opened the trunk and found it empty of all but the spare tire and his golf clubs. He checked every nook and space, but still no Virgin. He’d left it at the greens. Or possibly Mrs. Abernathy’s anarchist grandson must have taken it. He pondered other logical explanations, then went on about his day.


Monday morning was particularly satisfying. This regular homily, “A Woman’s Place,” was well delivered and received. A parishioner served him a lovely lunch and sent him home with a dozen chocolate-chip-walnut cookies. He headed home to spend the day tending to his garden, with a break at midday for a well-deserved nap.


The priest gave the Virgin no further thought, until he stepped out into the garden and felt eyes upon him. That’s when he turned and saw her there on top of the air conditioning unit staring through the trailing roses. Her expression mirrored a disapproval more stern than his sternest teacher in school.


The priest startled, then relaxed when he realized that it must be a prank. Anyone could access the rectory courtyard with little trouble. His relief lasted less than a day when the Virgin turned up three times more in the same place, finding its way from the garden of the nearby convent, the hallway outside one of the classrooms at the parish school, and, finally, the dumpster at the golf course.


In two weeks’ time, the priest raised the money to build a shelter appropriate for a Virgin with a small garden along the creek bed where it stood. On the day he placed the statue in its shelter, after the small ceremony planned for it, he stepped out and looked down at the neighborhood of simple frame houses at the foot of the hill. At that moment, his eyes met those of a woman mowing her lawn. She shielded her face from the sun with one hand as she stared at him, then hesitated briefly before returning to her task.


It took the priest more than a month to recover from the whole effort and the unsettling appearance of the Virgin in his yard. Once the building to house her was constructed he never went back to see her there, though he did receive reports that her expression had changed to peaceful satisfaction.


To the priest's surprise, all summer a surprising number of women and men came to the parish to volunteer to serve the areas of most need in the community. Almost all were joggers and bicyclists, and a fair number of dogs accompanied their masters.


One day in early fall, the priest prepared for a game of golf in that late afternoon of cool fall crispness. Someone knocked on his door.


“Mrs. Ogilvy.” He could say no more once his eyes fixed on the bundle in her pillowy arms. Her sweater was tied round her waist, and her face glistened.


“Oh, Father.” She placed the burlap covered object on a stack of papers on his desk. “I’ve found a Virgin.”


A pain stabbed through the center of his skull and the priest reached up to rub it away. “And where did you find this, my child?”


The woman grinned broadly. “In a taxi cab, Father. I found it in a taxi cab.”

Ending

A ghost witnessed the end of the world and whispered words that no one could hear.

Magnificat

A brutal cold struck against the people huddled at the bus stop, lashing their skin and piercing the threads of their clothing. Just after the bus pulled up, Miriam among them reached for the slick metal handrail and pulled herself up onto the bottom step. Someone pushed her from behind, but not to be helpful. She eased her weighty body into the slurry of people just before the bus moved away.

The air thick with soot and snow coated the windows barely visible in the slivers between the passengers. Oil from last night’s lamp still coated Miriam’s fingertips making it hard for her to hold on to the railing. The bus navigated the bumpy road to the backwater neighborhood where she now lived. The vehicle’s motion tossed her from side to side until she slid into one man, then slammed abruptly against a woman. She murmured a low apology. The muffled thump of a heart softly beat against her own.

At the end of the line, a scattering of collapsing buildings, hills of rubble, and muted light through broken glass welcomed the bus as it disgorged its passengers. A figure in tattered clothes paused to help Miriam step down and then dissolved into the void. Miriam had no coat and only thin layer over thin layer—sweater over sweater under a hooded sweatshirt—protected her from the harsh winds outside. A frayed knit cap over her tangle of curls, the color of night, held the warmth close.

Miriam looked over to see another woman as round as she was ambling slowly, a bag slung over one shoulder.

In this neighborhood, only a few of those born will live through the routine rain of metal and the clawing of hunger, the crunch of small bones, and the bad fortune of being born too small and undeveloped. The survivors will find their ways to a prison cell, or will only leave the confines of a tiny apartment to collect cans along the street to trade for something to eat, or will find moments of comfort in unknown arms and a breath that takes them to an altered state. Only a few will walk the cracked street to its end to find their way to a fate better or worse.

The snow covered the brutally treated fruits of the day’s harvest, those who would not rise again. As she passed, Miriam placed her hand on her belly to still its inhabitant, the owner of the steady beating heart that thrummed against her own.

Reaching the open door of a building a few blocks away, Miriam found the steps and concentrated as she climbed each one, putting out of her mind that there were six flights to ascend. She did not allow herself to worry that she was alone, that someone with evil intent would follow her or wait for her at the top of the stairs, or that the building’s owner might find her there amidst the squatters huddled in each room for warmth.

As Miriam climbed, she softly sang a song of a woman who came before her: The one who makes poor and rich raises up the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap.

Miriam reached the top step. The floor groaned as she moved into the hallway. A rectangle of gray light bled into the corridor from a door ajar and a shadow preceded a figure into the hallway from the open room. The gangly figure made its way toward her and she hesitated, waiting for her eyes to adjust. The rhythm deep inside of her slowed. Jose in a threadbare sweater took her into an embrace, pulled her close to him and did not say a word. A moment passed and he took her hand to lead her to a safer place.

Mrs. Stopheles' Revenge

In the Southern United States, when the sun shines while it rains, it’s said that the devil is beating his wife. This is the wife’s story.

You all stood around while it happened—mouths gaping and drops sizzling on your burnt shoulders. No consideration for my bruised skin, my dazed expression, or the slap of his red palm. You were amazed and mildly amused and fully aware of the cause.

Your picnic baskets open, lazing on beach towels, skimming over the surface of a lake—what you thought was a meteorological phenomenon briefly caught your attention. But unlike you I take no pleasure in this day, in this sun shining and this rain falling. I take only abuse. How would you like to share your bed with a barbed tail and a horned head on your breast?

It’s gone too far. I’ve had enough.

Hold tight to your piece of ground. I’ll pluck the earth’s core—his domain— send it hurdling through space and dash it against that forehead, between those obsidian eyebrows, over those inferno eyes.

When I’m through, just call it the second big bang.

Friday Flash: Exile

The wooden sill below the third floor window bears the scars made by his coffee cup. One ring joins another, each one etched into the peeling paint. The most visible appears alone at the window’s edge.

Each morning she awoke to find him there with his fresh-brewed coffee, his eye trained on something in the distance. He was illusive, a specter, a ghost made up of diesel smoke from city streets and dust from rural dirt roads.

He never learned to pronounce her name, even after months of knowing her and weeks of sharing her life. She suspected that the name he gave himself was fiction, a name created to avoid detection, connection to family in that place far away. In that faraway place, he taught at the university. Sociology, she thinks. When she met him, he worked at a gas station where he washed grease away from the concrete and scrubbed human waste from the bathroom porcelain fractured like bone.

She will always remember him as the moon. Lines, ridges, tiny craters marred his body. Her eyes feasted upon it only during those nights that white light illuminated the room. Her hands were always afraid of what their touch would find.

The window is now empty. He no longer works at the gas station, leaving behind a week’s worth of pay. He is not at the shore staring at boats going out to sea, a place she found him once before. The window now is empty both day and night.

She never expected him to stay forever. There is so much distance between the moon and where she plants her feet each day. Now, under crisp sheets, she sleeps alone. And each night, she waits to be bathed in moonbeams.

Short Story Class in Taos with Pam Houston and Fenton

I was fortunate last July to take a short story class with Pam Houston (Cowboys Are My Weakness, Waltzing the Cat, Sight Hound) and her Irish wolfhound Fenton. One of the class assignments was "write a story based on a list." I decided to create a story based on a chronological list of events in the life of a troubled writer who makes all the mistakes that writers can make but somehow parlays a fourth grade essay into a successful conclusion.

And here it is...