Deep Space Stag

“Are we ready to dock?”

“Yes, ma’am, Commander, ma’am!” the squad answered. And after a good 525,600 minutes in a craft with men who didn’t appreciate a de-gravitation shower enough to utilize it, journey’s end was about time. Stink of unwashed bodies was bad enough on Earth, but when the odor circulated and bounced back off the walls of the craft and wouldn’t die . . .

Arleta sighed. “’Yes, Commander’ will do,” she informed her subordinates.

Rapid tapping echoed through their little metal enclosure like fifth, sixth, seventh heartbeats. The flickering monitors all in use were like glaring eyes. One little man with a shiny bald head that had meant trouble when they traveled beside the sun glanced up from his monitor. “T minus sixty seconds till we enter Earth’s orbit, Commander.”

“Very well, Lieutenant Byron. Begin countdown.” Arleta slumped in her chair and enjoyed the rhythmic drone of her subordinates’ voices. Stars and meteors narrowly missed colliding with them but their stubborn vessel kept up her pace, just as she was born to. A silver blimp to the left of a swirl of space dust caught Arleta’s attention.

“Lieutenant Bronk, what was that, off starboard?”

Arleta waited as Bronk scrolled through system data. “USO. Unidentified space object, ma’am, uh, Commander.”

Too many of these lately. And they could mean trouble. “Is it in pursuit?” Arleta asks.

Bronk is bonking his keyboard with his stubby fingers again. After a minute he says, “can’t be sure ma’— Commander.”

“Keep an eye out, all of you.” But there was no need for that command, come five seconds later, countdown time: t minus thirty seconds . . . twenty-nine, twenty-eight.

There it was at bow, the USO, metallic silver feelers and all. It ground its six legs together the way people rub their hands before an exceptional meal. Its eyes glowed red. “This one’s taken stag beetle shape,” Arleta thinks aloud. She turns to her squad. “Are thrusters in preparation for Operation: Flight?”

“We can’t, Commander.” Vice-commander Hisami informed her, her only other female companion on this voyage through hell. Hisami was what some would have called a tomboy in a primitive era, here and today she was what she was: a woman. “We’re too close to Earth’s orbit. Accelerating would deplete our chances for a successful landing.”

“It’s that or get eaten,” Arleta said. “Care to quarrel odds when we’re in the beetle?”

“No time now!” Byron shouts. The beetle jets to them, is just on them with its cannons aimed and ready to sink them and gorge on their ship and her innards. Then it disappeared.

“Status on the USO?” Arleta asked.

“Eaten, Commander,” Vice-commander Hisami reported. “Our vessel got hungry.”

“I thought Kyrsta had already eaten, back when we passed all the satellites.”

“Still hungry I guess,” Bronk said. “I can empathize with that.”

Arleta laughed and patted her dashboard. “Good girl, Kyrsta, head on home. Just try not to let the extra weight slow you down.”

Love is an Apple

Lydia stood in her white-walled kitchen, working a knife back and forth like a saw. As her knife connected with her cutting board, two halves of fruit fell away from each other exposing a nest of seeds in their center – the two halves of an apple.

“There!” Lydia exclaimed to herself. “No celebration without a proper fruit salad.” Lydia picked up another whole fruit, dewed with water droplets.

Love is an apple.

As she turned the fruit about and about in her hands, Lydia knew this; she felt the glass like texture that provided a clean sheen – mirror reflecting her smile back at her. She could see the red, a color of passion, singing with the heat of lust, the romance of love. It was like looking into the feral flames of an inferno, ready to eat her alive. She brought the apple up to her nose. A smell sweeter than nectar filled her, a smell that, to her, equated to the mix of sweat and cologne on a man’s skin.

Love is an apple.

Lydia brought her lips to the fruit, grazed them with its glossy coat; a kiss made sweeter when she sank her teeth in. The juices danced on her tongue, wetting the back of her throat – all in a kiss.

More chopping was conducted. Apple, cantaloupe and watermelon sliced and diced to perfection. Dappled in the sun beams penetrating the kitchen window, Lydia’s hair fell like a golden shawl over her head; her work done, Lydia swiped a hand across her forehead to remove a few strands hanging hazardously close to her eyes. A smile lit her lips.

“All done,” she proclaimed, gazing down at her masterpiece.

In a glass bowl, on a silver platter, Lydia carried her fruit salad into her bedroom. Red drapes descended from the bedroom windows; a white lacy bed skirt played in the shadows on the floor and in the center of the bed laid a man. Lydia stepped lightly to the bed, laying the tray on the man’s bare stomach. Even with the cold tray on his sensitive flesh, the man didn’t move.

“Bona petite,” Lydia says, forking a slice of watermelon into her mouth. Good, but nothing topped the apples. She laughed as she took an apple wedge from the mix and began crunch, crunch, crunching on it. “Who says that a single girl has to spend Valentine’s alone? And you’re such great company.” She compliments the man, but he can’t hear her.

The man – Dan – can’t hear; he can’t move or feel . . . or breathe.

Lydia, devoid of chocolates and large teddies and roses for years, saw a golden opportunity in her co-worker, Dan, leaving work as late as she last night. With no observers, a whack to the head in the parking garage went unnoticed. She hadn’t meant to hit him so hard, had only wanted to get him to her apartment unconscious; perhaps the hammer she carried around for protection had been too heavy a tool for the operation, but regardless, she was happy. Now she wouldn’t have only a moment of bliss, a day in a whirlpool of disappointments. Now, she had something permanent.

“Happy Valentine’s Day,” Lydia whispered, planting a kiss on Dan’s still brow.

Love is an apple.

Too sweet to be sinful, too bitter to be pure.

Faint

I journeyed to another world. A place no one else has ever been. It’s a locale that is virtually impossible for another living soul to enter—at least not without my permission, as if it has a KEEP OUT UNLESS YOU’RE SARAH JANE sign at its entrance. (An old-fashioned name, I know. Blame the folks.) You see, it is my soul, the depths of my being where all of my strengths and weaknesses reside, my hopes and desires. I didn’t plan on conducting this journey. It was subconscious, if you will.

One morning I stood at the bus stop on my way to school. That year I was a freshman in high school. Unlike most girls my age, I wasn’t concerned with boys or the latest fashions or being in the “it-girl” crowd. I was just me, a girl who loved to read, to lose herself in her imagination.

I was a kite, books my wind, lifting me higher and higher to an atmosphere vast and free. My love of books came from my father, though he was more of a scholarly reader while I was enamored with fantasy, from quixotic fables to retro sci-fi. Perhaps my interests had something to do with my experience, influenced my mind somehow, but I’ll never know.

It was hot that day at the bus stop. No, not hot, that would be an understatement. It was smoldering as if someone had put their oven on high and put me in it to bake for an hour. No, more like someone had opened the gates and sent me spiraling into the fiery pits of hell. Well, anyway, it was beyond hot . . . I was waiting as patiently as I could for the bus that, of course, was running behind schedule that day.

At the time, I was cursing the bus in my head, but I’m thankful now. If the bus were on time, I may not have ever gone on my journey.

Sweat formed pearls on my forehead that trailed from their point of origin to the base of my neck. The more I tried to wipe them away, the more pearl beads I managed to accumulate. That’s when it began. I wasn’t fully aware of what was happening. The memory is still shrouded in mist for me now, but I know one thing—for those few moments, whether they were mere seconds or the span of a lifetime, I was gone. Gone from the world as we know it and enclosed in my own mind.

It started with a dizzy sensation. I could feel the blood rushing from my head to my feet, as if my blood molecules were feeling the weight of gravity while the rest of my body remained numb to it. The rest of the journey I wasn’t fully aware of; I could say that I noted the black drape that fell across my eyes and the uselessness of my legs as my muscles gave out, however that would be inaccurate. I knew these things were happening, but at the same time I didn’t. A wire had been cut in my brain circuit. Instead of registering my body’s responses, a melody played repeatedly in my head; a melody that I couldn’t recite if I tried, for it was both continuous and transitory.

Then I entered my soul. I have no visuals for this place. I saw nothing, yet I was greeted by the song whose lyrics escape me. And I felt peace. Peace that could only be felt away from the world we inhabit. I don’t believe that there is no peace on earth, mind you. There is peace and beauty in many things: the sights and scents of fresh flower blossoms, the sunrise or sunset over the ocean horizon, or even closer to home, the smiles and laughter of young children who have yet to lose their sweet innocence. All of these things, pure and simple, are the epitome of peace, but truly they can be hard to come by and when you do experience these moments they can be fleeting since, often times, something interrupts them.

As I previously stated, I had no way of knowing how long I was trapped within myself. It could have been an infinitesimal amount of time or an eternity. Except for the song playing in my head, there were no sounds. I know now that my sense of hearing had shut down, just as my vision had. I was then deaf and blind to the world around my body left crumpled on the burning sidewalk.

Wondering how I broke free from the prison of my soul? I can’t tell you that. I don’t rightly know. I just woke up. The shade lifted from my eyes and my ears were unplugged and my brain’s circuit was reconnected. I awoke and suddenly I was the opening act of a circus. A crowd of kids were staring down at me. All of the faces, some I recognized, others that were brand new, were etched with concern. I, the outsider, was now in the midst of their circle.

None of this concerned me, though. I had gone where they couldn’t . . . unless I allowed them to. I have a firm belief that I can share my experience with someone, not merely through words as I am now, but through a bond, a bond that can showcase the forgotten melody of my soul, a bond so intimate that it can transcend time and defy possibility. After my journey, I changed. I began to strike up; conversations, share my interests. I hope to one day discover the sort of bond I described. Until then, and even after, I shall continue living as me, a hidden rhapsody.