Four Ways to Prepare A Fish

Here’s another in my series of short-short story experiments. I hope you enjoy it!

 

Four Ways to Prepare A Fish

Lemon and Garlic

The waiter delivers me on a fancy plate, covered with what I think they call a cloche—that shiny dome you see in old movies where people have servants. Chef Reginald Erlach steamed me himself, with a little lemon and a mild garlic sauce. The place is nice, and the man picked a good table, one isolated enough so that the other patrons aren’t going to notice when his girlfriend starts to cry. It’s a classic—another woman. A fellow lawyer. Tall, slim, Ivy-league educated, although he isn’t going to mention that. He’s going to play the “grown apart” card. I know, because I see it. I always see it ahead of time, just before I reincarnate. The vision comes either as I’m dying, yanked from the water with a brief but horrible burn in my lungs, or it comes as I am born, in a glorious salty rush of new life. Either way, I always see my future, indelibly bound up with the next doomed couple. I’m the break-up meal. I can’t comprehend what karma has led my soul to this fate, but I have long come to accept it. 

The crying starts, then the yelling. She’s making a scene to embarrass him, but also because she’s hurt. She considers throwing her water in his face, but decides he’s not worth that level of drama. Also, a part of her is secretly relieved. She met another man a few weeks ago, a scruffy, curly-haired potter with glasses and a sprawling laugh. She felt fully at ease with him, natural, herself. She sees herself laughing with him, throwing off the mask of pretention she’s so carefully maintained for this man.

Cedar Grilled

The woman is an avid outdoorsy type, bare-faced, what they call nowadays “crunchy”. They’re camping. The man hates camping, but he loves her. At least he thinks he does; he’s never been in love before but he figures this is what it feels like: Amiable attraction. There’s been something heavy and unspoken between them for a while now. The tension has been growing on this trip. She’s been uncharacteristically irritable and stand-offish. He’s been spending a lot of time on his own at the lake, drinking cheap canned beer. She grills me on a cedar wood plank with a dash of dill and black pepper, and divides me up carefully between two biodegradable paper plates. He finishes me in two big bites, and she yells at him for being an unconscious consumer, thoughtless, deadened to the natural world, an automaton obsessed with filling his spiritual void with useless material goods. He suspects this is about the car. Last week, he bought an acid-yellow Porsche Turbo S new off the lot and drove up to her llama farm, honking proudly. He was puzzled by her disgusted look and refusal to jump in and go on a joyride with him. He drove home and spent the evening alone, polishing the car in his driveway. 

She vanishes into the tent and thrashes around for a little while. When she emerges, she has a full pack on her back and the LED lantern in her hand. She throws him the keys to her truck. She’s going to hike back to town and call her friend Ellie to pick her up. He can finish the trip without her. She hopes he will take advantage of this time alone to think about his life choices and reconsider his values. She doesn’t kiss him or hug him before clambering down the hill into the deepening dusk. He eats the rest of me from her plate and settles into the tent to listen to the game in peace. 

Baked and Breaded

She breads me and bakes me in a shallow casserole dish with a mushroom cream sauce. Her mother’s recipe. Over the years, she’s become an expert at timing meals to coincide with his arrival home at 6:20 on the dot. This is one of the last meals she’ll have to time. She sets me on the table just as he enters, and carefully moves the envelope of papers away from where it might get soiled with food. She lets him get halfway through the meal before handing him the papers. She wants him to know there’s no shame in this, no failure. The kids are on their own now, and they’ve had nothing between them for a long time. They did what they were supposed to do—married young, bought a house, built a good life for their children. She can’t face one more meal eaten in glum silence, one more weekend of politely ignoring each other. She doesn’t want anything but her fair share, enough to get a condo, a car, and a little to live on as she reinvents herself at the age of sixty-seven. His face is pale and immobile, but he doesn’t argue. They finish me efficiently, and she clears the plates. As she sets the dishes in the sink, he comes up behind her and touches her, for the first time in years, gently on the back. 

Three weeks later, she is in a nice first-floor townhouse with a garden patch and a picture window. He’s fixing the house up to sell, and considering a hiatus to travel. He’s never been to Europe. 

Broiled with a Honey Glaze

He broils me with a honey glaze, because his man loves a good coating of sweetness on everything, as evidenced by the soft paunch of his once-slim belly. A little sugar to soften the blow, he figures. He packs it in an insulated carry bag along with a bottle of mead, and meets his boyfriend in the park at “their” spot. He’s struck in the chest with sharp blow of pain, knowing that this is the last time they’ll meet here, but it’s short lived. He sets a strict timeline on all of his relationships: Exactly eleven months from start to finish. It’s eleven months to the day since they became official. Time to nip this thing in the bud, before needless complications set in, and talks turn to moving in together and “deepening their commitment”. He warned him, he warns all of his lovers, but they never believe him. They think they’ll be the one to change his mind. This one is no exception. He never even eats me. He throws me on the grass in a rage and stomps on me, takes the mead, and stalks off to get day-drunk by the river. I hate it when my flesh is wasted, but that’s the way it goes. 

As for myself, I will never have a lover to break up with, a spouse to leave. It is for me to spawn and respawn, to rise up on the water, to be plucked from the cold depths over and over, to live with these visions, these memories. The sweetest moments are the ones in which I am considered, and thrown back. 

--Kristen McHenry

Bite-Sized Story Special: “Alarm”

I’ve started playing around with the short-short story form just to see what happens. Here is today’s effort. I hope you enjoy it!

Alarm

Leviathan Customer Review: Slow Wake Liquid Sunlight Alarm

by Binarystar673

I’m extremely displeased with this product, and I’m sending it back. I need to keep my body clock strictly regulated. I don’t like to throw my name around, but without revealing too much, let’s just say that six years ago, I sold a very popular start-up to a very large tech firm, and now I’m a target for the CIA. They send spy cam drones to my compound at irregular intervals, so I need to have my wits about me at all times. This clock claims to wake you up slowly, but it didn’t wake me up at all. It just sat there eking out some feeble little “beams” and as a result, I overslept by forty-five minutes and my whole morning was shot. My Clover espresso was cold and my neuromodulation chip misfired, so as I write this I have tremors. My Gluv Box doesn’t get here until tomorrow, so my hands are ruined until then unless I can re-configure my chip, and I don’t have time today because I have a text session with my remote therapist, and I have to reorganize my bitters cabinet because Buoz Box sent me the wrong shipment again. In short, this product in no way lived up to its promise to “gently awaken you to the world with natural pineal-gland stimulus.” One and half tentacles only because I liked the brushed metal.

Leviathan Customer Review: Professor Irena’s Apt Sleeper Smart Alarm

by Binarystar673

Another slickly-marketed device that fails to fulfill its promise. Putting “Professor” in its name does nothing to disguise its pathetically weak so-called challenges. Its website says that it “smoothly brings you to peak lucidity by asking you to solve a series of increasingly difficult mathematical equations until you are fully alert, mentally sharp, and prepared to meet the challenges of the day.” I don’t know what kind of moronic first-grade teacher wrote its “mathematical equations,” but its laughably simplistic multivarious calculus is beyond a joke. Worse than that, if you happen to have less than 20/20 eyesight (mine is almost perfect, but not quite,) you might accidently hit the wrong answer selection, and therefore have to endure this product’s exponentially shrill and discordant screeching. Thanks to this train wreck of a product, once again my entire day has been set off course. I have to schedule a remote emergency session with my audiologist because I’m pretty sure I sustained not-inconsequential damage to my cochlea, and instead of enjoying my weekly biome-balancing juicing session, I spent the morning picking glass out of my foot when I accidently stepped on the broken shards of this disaster after I slammed it onto my marble floor. I will not take responsibility for its cheap and shoddy design, so I am returning the pieces to the company, complete with the literal blood of my suffering. Fortunately for them, I don’t like to mention this, but six years ago, I sold a very popular start-up to a very large tech firm, so I could throw my name around if I wanted to, but all I’m asking for is a refund and a sincere apology. One tentacle.

Leviathan Customer Review: Wake-and-Bacon Fryer Alarm

by Binarystar673

Where do I even begin? I followed the instructions exactly, but nonetheless, I awoke choking on the stench of smoke and flawed product design. Tragically, the organic grain-fed thick-sliced bacon I ordered from Virchew Farms Collective had been shriveled to a black husk of its former glory, and I have contracted what I’m almost certain is Black Lung. When an alarm clock is sworn to “rouse you into full consciousness with the irresistible aroma of perfectly-cooked bacon at the ready,” I expect it to do exactly that, not to transform my artisan slabs into charred clods. I’ve had to fumigate the master suite and send all of my clothes out for specialty dry-cleaning. Thanks to endemic national incompetence, I’m now going on my fourth day without adequate REM cycling, and I can already feel the deleterious effects on my neurobiology. My biofeedback data is showing a distinct down-curve in arterial flow to my cerebral cortex, and this afternoon I had a terrible time remembering where I put my augmented reality goggles for my virtual spinning session. One tentacle, and I am demanding both a refund for the clock, plus financial damages sustained by the loss of my bacon.

Leviathan Customer Review: Loving Voices Wake-Up Call App

by Binarystar673

I try to restrain my umbrage in my reviews, but I find myself shaking with rage, unable to hold back. Simply put, this company is chockful of criminally incompetent frauds. This alarm “service” purports to pipe the mimicked voices of your loved ones into multiple speakers throughout your domicile, so you awake surrounded by the dulcet tones of your friends, family and beloved. They promise that you can program both the verbal content as well as finely calibrate the percentage and audio levels of each voice. I spent the two hours leading up to my bedtime aggressively fine-tuning and maximizing their online tools for an optimal waking experience. Since I don’t remember the sounds of my parent’s voices, and I have chosen a life of solitude, I selected the voice of Ariel Dean, my favorite character from the obscure and short-lived science fiction drama, “Sage Ship.” Imagine, then, my abject horror when instead of Ariel’s voice, I was roused by the soft timbre of Mariel Jean, that traitorous viper who left me six years ago to the day. Mind you, I am completely over her, but the cognitive dissonance between expectation and reality was a shock to my already over-wrought system. Mariel, dear Mariel, and her wake up kisses. Mariel and her sweet morning song. I can’t fathom how supposed professionals allowed such a colossal cock-up. Zero tentacles. I shall be returning this product post-haste for a full refund, and will have my lawyer contact the company immediately to negotiate a settlement for emotional damages.

But right now, I find myself fatigued in the extreme, so I’m going back to bed. I won’t be setting an alarm. 

--Kristen McHenry

Therapy with Savages

My short story Therapy with Savages is up now at at FreezeRay! You can read it here at:

http://www.freezeraypoetry.com/kristen-mchenry.html

The Gibbon Remedy: Today, I Got Nothin’, So You Get a Short Story!

I’m pretty knocked out from a big week at work, and I’ve been fighting off a tension-induced migraine all weekend. Ergo, I have no scintillating or witty takes on any topics today.  (“But what makes that different from any other day?” you may justifiably ask, but please don't.)  Since I’m drawing a complete blogging blank here, I figured I’d toss up one of my short stories that was published last year in Big Pulp’s anthology, “Apeshit!” I hope you enjoy it!

The Gibbon Remedy

They said these gibbons were special, just for the girls, and to Sweeny this made sense. Girls and monkeys went natural together. The gibbons were going help them feel better about the war, the teacher said.

“They are called ‘therapy monkeys’ and they are very costly to train,” Sweeny explained to her mother, who was having her day in bed. Sweeny had rehearsed this on her way home. It made her feel knowledgeable. “Monkeys have diseases in their spit,” her mother said. “Stay back from the cages.” She signed the permission slip, turned to the wall, and covered her head with the quilt. “Now be an angel and bring mommy an egg-and-toast.”

It was hard for Sweeny to sleep, thinking about the gibbons. The encyclopedias had almost all been used for fire, but they still had F-G. She read that gibbons are frugivorous, diurnal and arboreal. She repeated these words in a whisper: frugivorous, diurnal and arboreal. A mystery. The libraries were long-gone and now Sweeny had to find mysteries wherever they presented themselves: A glass tube of vanilla lip gloss skittering down an alley, two long wrinkled hands cupping a lighter, a blue foam roller stuck in a raspberry bush. But the monkeys would have real mysteries; eye mysteries. Gibbons, she read, went together each morning to the edge of the woods and sang to let everyone know which part of it was theirs.

Sweeny put the book down and pulled the rags out of the hole in the floor to see if it had gotten black-dark outside yet.  The hole was left over from the war, but Sweeny couldn’t remember if had been there years or only months. It was black-dark, and Sweeny smelled the comforting burn of pesticide. Through the hole, she sang a high, meek song about their frailty, about her mother’s days in bed and how little they could ask for nowadays. She crammed the rags back in and fell asleep with F-G open on her stomach, the gibbons hugging her ribs.

They were taken to the monkeys in a dirty mint-green bus with ripped-up seats. Sweeny sat next to Fionna, who wore boy’s plaid shirts and used to chew gum all of the time back when you could get it anywhere. Sweeny had always admired Fionna’s easy-going ways. “What if a gibbon tried to kiss you?” Sweeny asked Fionna. “If he took you in his big fat arms and pushed you against the cage bars and tried to kiss you?” Fionna yawned. “I’d scream,” she said.

They all had to get out of the bus and be counted and put T-shirts on over their clothes before going into the low hut that held the monkeys. The T-shirts were green and yellow and read “Go, Go Gibbons! Experience for Youth.” Sweeny was proud of hers. A full-hipped young woman in glasses and a baseball hat came out from the hut and waved at them. “Welcome!” she shouted. She said her name was Patty! She told them not to strike the monkeys, throw things at them, make noises, or mock them in any way. She told them to keep their hands to themselves and be respectful of the monkeys because they were shy, just as shy as people could sometimes be. She told them that these monkeys were specially trained to be loving towards children, but even they had their limits. She told them that they were not to wander off on their own and they were to do what their guides told them at all times. Sweeny listened impatiently to the woman’s preamble about their cutting-edge monkey therapy program, and finally found herself heading into the odoriferous hut. She looked around for the gibbons but at first there was just museum stuff, a boring man talking when you pushed a button, and a life-sized diorama of monkeys in a rain forest.

But they kept heading down some straw-covered stairs and Sweeny felt dizzy when she could actually hear the snorts and grunts of the gibbons. “Your gibbons,” said Patty, “have been hand-selected for you based on your personality type.” Sweeny didn’t recall telling anyone about her personality, but she figured maybe they watched of that sort of thing now because of the war. “We would like you to interact lovingly with your gibbon. To trust him or her. To explore the joy of sharing with them.”

Sweeny was assigned to Apartment 18, “Roland.” They unlatched the door to his pod and let her walk right in. Two smiling young people in polo shirts, a man and a woman, stood outside, clutching clipboards. The room was empty, but she could sense a lurking, musty presence nearby. She sat down in the thin straw on the floor and ducked her head demurely. Then she began to sing again, her weak, high song. She felt a brightness upon her; a rustle from above the platform, two black eyes. Then, a thick rubbery hand, pressing into her tiny bones. Sweeny was crying from fear now, but the hand stayed. She opened her eyes and looked at Roland. He pulled his lips back and patted her hand. He released her and ran to a wooden box in the center of the room, where he pulled out a blue spinning top and pushed it at her. Sweeny took the top and spun it hard. Roland shook and made hooting sounds as the top hummed and blurred across the floorboards. There was a clatter as the top sputtered to a stop on a soft spot in the wooden floor. Roland clapped and screeched.

Sweeny crawled over to the top, curled her fingers around the rotted wood, and pried it loose. A cold green rush of air filled her mouth. She glanced at the clipboard people, but they were looking down and writing something. She yanked again, and again, and peered down into a windy vacuum through a hole about the size of her nine-year-old head. She quickly grabbed some straw and the old wood and shoved it all back into place, then made the “come here” gesture to Roland, all while watching the clipboard people closely. Roland lumbered over to her and hunkered down. Sweeny pointed to the hole and put her finger over her lips in a “shhh”. Roland hugged himself tightly and sucked on his lips. Sweeney whispered to him and moved back to the center of the room.

“What else do you have to play with, Roland?” she asked loudly. The clipboard people smiled and made a notation. After they had played with a beach ball, an abacus, and a pop-up book, the clipboard people blew a whistle and Roland began dragging all of the toys back into the chest. Sweeny winked at him when she shook his hand goodbye. Afterwards the girls got rice cream and a free book mark at the gift shop.

That night, after her mother had fallen asleep to the radio, Sweeny took the rags out of the hole in the floor and leaned in. This time she sang of Roland the Guardian, the great monkey protector and God of all Guardians. She sang of his devotion and his suffering. She sang of his courage and selflessness. She sang of his cleverness with counting and his gracefulness with beach balls. She stuck her head far down the windy hole and howled for Roland, guiding him with her voice. She shone her penlight into the hole and winked it on and off. But Roland didn’t come, and her mother slept all of the next day, even when Sweeny got back from school.

Sweeny went out the stoop and sat in the cold, sour air, watching for a mint-green bus to take her back to the monkeys. But very few vehicles came down the street since the war, and Sweeny got hungry. She went inside and made egg sandwiches, but when she went to wake her mother, her mother didn’t move or open her eyes. Sweeny covered her back up and went to the living room and sat her on bedroll. She ate both of the sandwiches and fed the crumbs to a trio of ants.

The next morning Sweeny stayed home in bed with her mother, waiting for her to open her eyes. But throughout the day, her mother’s skin grew cooler and her eyes never opened. Sweeny knew that this was death, that this is what it did to a body. She took a clean rag from the basin in the bathroom and carefully washed her mother’s face with it. She brushed out her hair and covered her up to her chest with the quilt. They didn’t have a phone, so she wouldn’t be able to call anyone until she went to school. She would have to tell the teacher. Sweeny made a glass of powdered milk and sat next to the hole in the floor. She wanted to sing but she couldn’t open her throat even to drink the milk. She only wanted to sit as still and rigid as she could. She would not move again. No matter what, she would not sing, just sit. She would take only the number of breaths needed for bare survival. She would not allow thirst or hunger to sway her. She would let the mice scramble over her legs and wouldn’t move a muscle on her own behalf.

Sweeny woke up in the night, cold and uncovered. Her hair was wet and matted, and her eyes were crusty. She decided to try to scream. She sat up and opened her mouth, but she could not make noise. If she could not sing again, Roland would never come. She put her head into the hole in the floor and managed a weak whistle. The whistle gave her strength and she found herself able to make a small grunt, then another, then, finally, a long, resonant bellow. She screamed and screamed into the hole, until she began to frighten herself and stopped.

In the morning, she got on the bus for school. She had not taken her sink-bath or combed her hair or changed out of her clothes. She sat in the back alone and turned her head away from Fionna when she tried to sit next to her. At lunch, she told Mrs. Morgan about her mother. Mrs. Morgan took Sweeny to the sick room and there were phone calls. The other kids got to go to the gym to play for the afternoon. Someone brought Sweeny a cheese sandwich and a sliced tomato and hot chocolate. Mrs. Morgan was crying. When the hallways were clear, Sweeny opened the door to the sickroom and left the school. She left her book bag and ran and ran and ran, stopping only to vomit up the tomato and chocolate.

When she unlocked her apartment, her mother’s bed was empty. Sweeny made up the bed and went back to sit on her bedroll. She imagined Mrs. Morgan opening the door to the sickroom and gasping. Everyone asking where is Sweeny where is Sweeny oh where did Sweeny go. Sweeny thought it would be a good song: Oh where oh where did Sweeny go, well a-hunting with her monkey-oh, heydy-hiedy-hiedy-ho. Where oh where did Sweeny go, well she went a-swimming with her gibbon-oh. Sweeny began to sing. She felt gut-punched with a wild joy. She spun and cackled and did her mad-woman dance, a dance she only did alone in the night when they had a fire and there was thunder. When she began to cramp, she stopped and laid down, her ear on top of the rags on top of the hole in the floor. The sun moved across the ceiling then across the back wall, going sticky and thick then vanishing altogether. No one came for her, but they would. She would be adopted, or go to a Home. There would no gibbons because of their diseased spit. They wouldn’t have a hole in the floor or any mysteries.

In the night, her heart began to thud so heavily that it hurt her ears. Her heart tripped like heavy feet on a bad floor. Thunder sounded in her head but it was not weather-thunder, it was monkey-thunder, blood thunder, it was the song of the gibbons claiming their stake in the world, massing in hordes to sing their song of boundaries, of home. She thrust her hand into the hole in the floor and waited for Roland. When finally his clumsy, dry, familiar hand found hers, she held on.

--Kristen McHenry

Kitty Grief-Watch, Publishing News, and Poetry: A Gateway Drug?

We’re going to keep it on the upbeat side at the Good Typist this week, after last week’s sniffly pet-loss story. For those of you who read it, thank you, and I’m sorry it was such a downer. Home doesn’t feel the same without Zoe, but we’re all doing our best to adjust. The boy cats are hanging out together a lot more now, and they’ve stopped wandering around looking for her. We’re watching them for signs of kitty grief and depression, but after some initial confusion and sadness, they seem to be holding up okay.

In better news--the long short story that I wrangled with all summer, “Cheesehead”, has been accepted for publication and will be honored as the Story of the Month on Fiction on the Web! You’ll be able to read it when it comes out on November 19^th. I’ll post a link as soon as it’s up.

And, “The Acme Employee Handbook” is getting closer and closer to publication! You can see a sneak preview here. The publisher is still sorting out some changes to the cover and doing a final edit, but it should be ready to go to print very soon.

Way back in August when Mr. Typist and I went to Montana, I started writing notes for what I was determined would be an epic narrative poem about the Yellowstone River, Calamity Jane, hawk medicine, ancient geysers, and spiritual and emotional cataclysm. The notes have been sitting on my desk for months, and I finally felt called to dig them out today and start working on it.

I journaled for almost an hour, but my beautiful, sweeping vision for the poem simply wasn’t coming together. Everything felt out of tune and disjointed. I couldn’t “hear” the music of the poem and I felt like I was engaged in an endless verbal taffy pull. I kept writing through it, and as I did, the vision suddenly re-formed itself in a flash that left me breathless. I realized with a jolt that I couldn’t write the poem because it’s not a poem. It’s a short story. As soon as I recognized that, the entire narrative fell into place, and I knew exactly what I needed to do. My fingers got that itchy, excited feeling, my palms filled with energy, and I heard the sound and rhythm that felt “right.” I’m excited to start on the story, but I’m still left with a bit of sadness, because I had been looking forward to writing poetry again, and was hoping this would be the idea that started that idling engine back up.

It may be that poetry was simply my gateway drug into exploring other forms of writing, and that I won’t ever go back to it. It may be that I need to continue writing fiction for a while before poetry returns to me. I don’t know. I just keep remembering the John Steinbeck quote, “Don’t think of literary form. Let it get out as it wants to. The form will develop in the telling. Don’t make the telling follow the form.” So, that’s what I’m doing—just trying to get my visions out there in whatever form they want to be expressed in.

“And how,” you are no doubt dying to ask, “is the novel coming along, Ms. Typist? After all, it is National Novel Writing Month!” It’s fine, thank you. I hate all of my characters and my plot is falling apart and it’s fist-gnawingly dull and not nearly as funny as I’d hoped, and it’s all just a big mushy mess and I suck, I just suck and my novel sucks and I never should have even given birth to the monstrosity, but it’s fine. It’s just…fine. In fact, it’s so fine that I haven’t had to do any work on it all in days and days and days. And I’m going to keep not working on it just a little longer, because that’s how confident I am.

--Kristen McHenry

My Book, "Tender Vessels", is Available on Amazon Now!

Tender Vessels

My short story chapbook, "Tender Vessels", is available on Amazon now! You can purchase it for Kindle today, and in paperback starting tomorrow! 

The book is made up of two short stories, "Grandma" and "Bite Wing". The Kindle version is only $2.99! The paperback version will be coming out tomorrow. You can preview the book here by clicking on the "Look Inside" link.

Thanks to Loyal Stone Press for taking a chance on me with  my first foray into short fiction!

--Kristen McHenry

Why I Hate Chocolate Commercials

“What was The Good Typist thinking about today?”, you were no doubt obsessively wondering. Well, I’m going tell you straight up what I was thinking about. I was thinking about how much I despise chocolate commercials. Specifically, the genre of chocolate commercials that utilize this ridiculous yet pervasive plotline:

Montage of a slim white woman in a tailored suit, dropping off her children, then rushing around a big office nodding her approval at things, clapping her staff encouragingly on the back, talking on the phone with reading glasses on while scrutinizing a graph, etc. Suddenly the light softens and dims. The camera zooms in on a bowl of pre-wrapped chocolates, then back to the woman’s eyes, which have gone all dreamy. Then, a close-up of chocolate-consumption foreplay: the woman reverentially unwraps the chocolate, gazing upon it with dewy desire. Then finally, the money shot as she slowly takes the first, orgasmic bite, usually leaning against a wall, limp with the overwhelming pleasure that this minuscule treat provides her. As we watch the woman staring softly into space, a small, secretive smile on her face, The Voiceover begins: “For all you do for others, you deserve this moment. A moment of luxury and pleasure. A moment to enjoy (Insert Name of Shoddy Supermarket Chocolate Brand Here.)

Everything about these commercials annoys me, from the pre-wrapped servings (portion control, ladies! If they weren’t wrapped, we all know you’d snarf down the whole bag), to the over-the-top yet lady-like expressions of “pleasure” on the actress’s face (chocolate orgasms must be appropriately dainty), to the implication that thirty seconds alone eating a tiny square of third-rate chocolate constitutes adequate self-care for women who are all things to all people 24/7. The underlying message is, “It’s okay for you women to enjoy yourselves, as long as it doesn’t inconvenience anyone, make you fat, or mean that you stop serving everyone else’s needs for any length of time.”

That’s my gripe for the week. It’s Sunday and there are dishes to do and bathtub tile to clean. I’m going to grab myself a Ghiradelli square and get back out there! 

--Kristen McHenry

Post-Script Bonus Irritant: Women Laughing Alone with Salad.

Writing by Dreamlight, Toeing at Boundaries, and "The Swim"

Writing by Dreamlight, Toeing at Boundaries, and "The Swim

Lately, I've been dreaming about writing a lot. Waking up, catching a thread of narrative or a line of a poem that I am determined to hold onto, only to have it vanish only seconds later. Dreaming of writing short stories. Dreaming of expanding my writing horizons into short stories, novels, or some form other, mysterious form that only makes sense to me only in dreams. Sometimes I dream that I have written entire short stories or long poems. I see them on the page but they vanish the moment I rise to the surface of consciousness. 

I see myself--now at least--as primarily a poet. I've dabbled here and there with short stories and even novels but nothing much ever came of them. As I have begun to write a new series about work, I am feeling an expansion within me, a strong urge push beyond limiting myself to "only" poetry, and to explore some more expansive forms of writing. Short stories? The now defunct and oft-slighted form of Magical Realism, which I am only now beginning to discover and love, long after its heyday? I don't know. I just know that there is a voice that is rising up and pushing my writing past "just" poetry; a need to push past some boundaries I've set for myself. This is probably very foolish and possibly even vain, but it's also very compulsive, and the more I fight it, the less I am able to write, to flow with what's going on in my head. 

I've written only one short story I've ever been happy with. In the spirit of nostalgia and longing and mid-winter angst and my own desire to delve back into my past longing to write short stories, I'm posting the story in it's entirety here. It was written at least four years ago, before I started writing poetry. It came out of a larger concept of linked stories, none of which I have completed, of course. 

Enjoy!

--Kristen McHenry

The Swim

I’m furious. Lucretia, that gother-than-thou little bitch upstart, got the Saturday night shift and she’s only been here a week. Drake knows I’ve been after that shift for months, that bastard. I’ve paid my dues around here but he’s still mad about the time I called in sick three days in a row. He’s thinks he’s showing me, but what’s going to happen is that I’m going to show him. I’m going to shove a drink tray right up his pleather-clad ass and I’m going rip his stud out with my bare hands. But what happens is I cry. When Sean left me, I got behind on rent and I need those tips, but that doesn’t soften his heart any, no sir, not Drake. Lucretia upsold more in her first week than I have in a year, and the primo shifts go to the peak performers. Drake is a capitalist yuppie pig in filed canines, and I hate him. I leave his stud alone but I do flip him off and on my way out I knock a full bottle of Maker’s Mark off the bar onto the concrete floor; splat. Fuck ‘em. I’m going to get a job at Dante’s and clean up on Slave Nights. They’ll love me. I light a cigarette in the parking lot and key Drake’s Mazarati. 

On the bus a pregnant woman is hogging the last empty seat. “Excuse me,” I say. “Just so you know, I have cancer and I’m very weak from chemotherapy right now.” I glare at her until she gets up and waddles to another seat. Sucker. “What the fuck are you looking at?” I snap at the passengers. “Haven’t you ever seen anyone dying of cancer before?” I flop onto the seat and crank up my I-Pod. Stupid people everywhere. Someone left some stupid brochure stuffed into the seat crack. I pick it up and look at it so I don’t have to look at people’s bland idiot faces.

On the front is the giant slick gray nose of a dolphin, bright black eyes and a big embecile smile, with a rainbow coming out its head. “Essence of the Dolphin Experience” is scrawled across the top in curly writing.

"Imagine being bathed in the warm, gentle, aquamarine waters of Bimini, flowing in complete synchronicity with your dolphin friends in a new and magical environment. Feel the alignment of every nerve and fiber of your being, and a heightened ability to take charge of your life and guide it by design, accessing your 'Super Self'. "

"Essence of the Dolphin Experience is a blend of exhilarating physical and mental activities which expand self-concept, clarify life vision, and provide tools with which to achieve that vision. This powerful combination adds up to the ultimate in a transformative vacation."

I need a trip. I need a vacation on the water. That fucker Sean owes me a trip to Essence of the Dolphin Experience so I can get over him dumping me for that vapid blonde skank. I get off the bus two stops earlier than normal and walk around the back of Sean’s place; a shit basement apartment in a duplex with rotting wood and old sliding windows. The blinds are still bent in the same place and stained piss yellow with cigarette smoke. He always keeps the window open, even in the winter. He’ll be playing his gig at Sonick and then be out with his friends sucking down shots at Atlas all night.  I reach my hand through the gap and slide the window open all the way, easy as grease. I brace myself on the wet grass and work my way in, feeling for the pull chain on the Rainier beer light. It clicks on just like old times, and I can see the mirrored closet door glowing blue and orange in its light. The little chip on the left side that I used to stare at during sex is still there. I open the closet and find the sport sock where he keeps his emergency stash. I count out all the cash. I go through the apartment for signs of the blonde skank, but I don’t see anything of her. I pop the top off a Bud in the fridge and chug it, then for good measure I swipe the dime bag in the cupboard behind a row of dusty soup cans.  

I’m going. I’m going to have the biggest experience of all of them all. They’re all going to be in awe of my deep connection to the dolphin force and the instructor will say, the student has surpassed her teacher, and I’m going to get special privileges and live out my days on the dolphin boats in Bimini, blowing whistles and bossing around encounter groups. 

I start making calls and then I’m on the plane and then I’m in a cab and then I’m standing in a tiny room with a fat woman named Luminous. Luminous has long grey wavy hair and is the type who wears purple caftans. 

“Did you make that name up or were your parents hippies?” I ask.

 She just looks at me calmly. “Can we have a conversation about establishing some boundaries for our time together?” 

Luminous has special needs around the lighting, Luminous doesn’t want any meat brought into the in the room because the smell lowers her energy vibrations, Luminous would like her morning and evening meditation times respected, and Luminous is sensitive to “all manner” of chemically-based hygiene products. “Would you be willing to respect those requests?” asks Luminous. 

“Whatever.”

She smiles like she’s fucking St. Teresa. “Do you any have requests of me?” 

“Yeah. Leave me the fuck alone.”  I flop onto the bed and cover my eyes with my forearm. 

At night after Luminous finally falls asleep and starts snoring, I take my baggie of weed and go out on the deck and look over the water. I look for the dolphins. I want to be the first to spot one. 

In the morning, Luminous wakes me up with her Patchouli stench. I’m slow and congested from a pot hangover and my mouth feels sticky. “Awareness group is starting” she informs me.

The group leader is Teddy. We’re supposed to close our eyes and tune in to the energy of the dolphins. We’re supposed to ask the dolphins for a message. Teddy has a hemp bracelet on his arm and long brown hair. He’s kind of hot. I stare at him, thinking of ways I could shock him in the sack. Thinking of things I know about sex that he probably doesn’t on account of his being on the boat all the time communing with dolphins.

As we suit up, this skinny girl named Haley looks over the bow and shrieks, and there they are, four of them, following the boat. I’m scared of the dolphins and I don’t know how to swim, but I dive over the rail and after a minute in the cold my muscles burn and I’m short of breath. And one of them is here, suddenly, right next to me, with its wrinkled charcoal eye and its downturned smile. Its skin is slick and blue and it’s looking at me with this awful kindness, and I feel my chest fill up with hurt, so much hurt I feel like I’m going blow apart. I hit him at hard as I can on the nose with my fist. He shrinks back like a flame and then he’s just a quicksilver trail, his wake washing over my ribs.

"Wait!!" I scream. I push as hard as I can against the water, trying to find him, trying to chase him, to get him to come back to me, but he’s far ahead, gone.

I’m in my quarters spraying Aqua Net on Luminous’s pillow when Teddy shows up in the doorway. He looks indignant and stricken at the same time. “Were you aware of our rules about interfering with the dolphin’s natural environment?”

“I guess.”

“I need to let you know that by hitting the dolphin today, you violated those rules. And anyone in violation of those rules is asked to leave The Essence of the Dolphin Experience.”

“Do you even care about my side of it?”

“We’ll have a cab waiting to pick you up when we get back to shore. It would probably be more comfortable for you if you had your belongings packed and ready to go at that time.”

“What about the encounter group? I’m entitled to be at group. I paid fair and square like everyone else.”

“I’m sorry Evie. I think it would be best for the group and for you if you just focused on packing your belongings before we dock.” Joseph nodded and turned to leave.

“You know that shitty little bastard tried to attack me, don’t you?” I screamed. “He came right at me his big stupid smile and I thought he was going to rip me to shreds. I felt violated!”

But Teddy had already vanished to the deck. I throw Luminous’s bottle of Eucalyptus oil after him, which cracks and slithers down the door in a wet thud instead of ear-splitting shatter I was hoping for. 

At the airport, I drink three mimosas in the Space Lounge, and lurch onto the plane, sore and irritable. I tipped my chair back and curl up on my side, looking out the tiny window at the gray tarmac. When I fall asleep, I dream of the dolphin. He swims back to me, his eyes black and bright, and I follow in his wake, flowing along in the water, momentum moving me forward, blending, no effort, space opening up around me, the deep blue rushing into my ears.

--Kristen McHenry