The sun set below the tree line creating a luminous glow over the swamp lands. It was the first Wednesday of September and alligator hunting season had just begun. The sound of airboats vibrated the murky, algae filled waters of the Atchafalaya river. With each vibration the water would ripple, and the enormous bald cypress trees swayed their branches into the sediment riddled waters. As the boat’s propellers came to a stop the swamp became quiet and it was only broken with the occasional gator call. In the middle of the swamp a tourist boat sat, and two tour guides faced their audience welcoming them to the swamplands. Both tour guides wore camouflage from head to toe, one with a gray wiry bear stood up, giving his speech in a thick creole accent, “ Welcume to Cajun Pride Tours. Tuday we will be showen ya the swamp lands of Louisana. This here is Nolan and he’ll be fipinn us around to fin us sume gator”. The beared man sat down letting, Nolan speed the boat around towards a thick portion of the cypress trees. The airboat made its way through the thick branches coasting away letting the branches swing behind them. Behind the curtain of branches an area surrounded by large tree trunks shot up out of the water. The bark of the trunks peeled showing the different shades of brown. Inside the canopy the weather had cooled drastically, and the humidity seemed to dissipate from the air. High in the trees hanging down were hundreds of green and blue colored bottles.The hint of sunlight that beamed through the canopy penetrated the colored glasses shining beautiful colored light all around the enclosed space. The tourist were in awe of the bottles and began clicking away at their cameras. There clicking away was interrupted by the tour guide with the white wiry beard, “Oh, these are called bottle trees. How they work is you trap your enemies in the bottle and then hang them from the trees so the sun can destroy them. Although people beleve they are fun and games…”. His sentence was interrupted by the drop of one of the bottles, startling the tourists. A voice from the trees came down and recited,

“Some amongst we

The evil will take over

They done forgot what the ancestors taught we

We hang the bottles for a trap the evil spirits that threaten us

To keep we people strong

This here who we be

This sacred tree can protect we

If we protect one another

It be the ancestor way

Be we way

It gwana be the children way”

The voice stopped and another one of the bottles hit the water. The two tour guides looked at each other with wide eyes, under their breath they both began to recite the Lord’s prayer in creole French. Nolan tried to turn the engine on the boat, but it came to a stall. He said voice still shaking “It ain’t workin, the boat”.He continued to try to turn the engine on with every time resulting in failure. As he continued, the voice became louder and the chant became faster, and multiple bottles began to drop down into the murky water splashing the tourist and the tour guides in the boat with muddy water. PLOP PLOP PLOP!!! With the splashing of the water then boat moved forward towards the portion of land directly in front. The slow movement of the boat swayed with the waters own organic movement and the sound of the bottles plopping into the water slowed. The tourist and their guides, all waited in terror for the boat to hit the land, but this never happened. The boat was trying to move forward but was tugged back by something underneath. Every time the boat tried to move it would jerk back to its original position, simulating a rubber band effect. Both the tour guides got out of the boat looking for the trunk or branch that had been preventing them from moving onto the land. They moved the boat backwards trying to release the boat. They kept pushing both still reciting The Lord’s Prayer in their native tongue. With three big pushes the boat moved backwards and unveiled the cause of its sudden stop. A light brown colored object was floating. The men moved closer toward the object now with more curiosity on their faces than fear. There bodies immune to the cold swamp water and dodging falling bottles as they moved closer to the object. The man with the wiry beard was holding a bang gun, normally used for hunting gators. As they approached the object the bearded man poked it with his bang gun. The object rolled over revealing a white colored bloated body. The men let out an “AAARH” sound and began to swim towards the boat. The tourist was confused too far away to see the body of the old wrinkly pale bloated lady in the water. Then men swam back and lifted themselves onto the boat. The boat turned on suddenly and Nolan reached for the gears, and they drove off into the dark sky, towards the dock interrupting the silence of the swamp.

Please let me know what you think

Soooo...I am a recovering stress eater. I do not have to be sad or angry, I handle stress very well. Well, how do I put this. I handle stress very well, I do not sweat when the heat is on and I stay calm cool and collected. I have grace under fire as my bosses have told me.

But see, in doing that, and this is coming from years of therapy...I put myself in an imbalance. If life were a teeter-totter, it would be weighted on one side, so I do something to balance it out...I eat. And boy can I eat.

My go to is not candy or salty chips...no it is the chip's cousin...

The golden, deep fried, seasoned with salt and pepper french fry...

I love the taste, the texture...crinkle cut preffered, and as I like my women, thick cut steak fries. With or without ketchup, bar-b-que sauce, or even hot sauce. I'd take as I could get them. Usually after a major incident at work happened and I walk people off of the ledge. Then I would take all of the stress that I endured and let it out...replacing it with my fries.

And as I am writing this, I wish I had a basket of them right now.

But I don't...I practice mindful eating and I try to look for other outlets when the stress hits. Or I look at the impulse to binge head on...foolishly, of course.

These days I win the majority of the time...sometimes I lose. Like everyting else, its no fun when I do, but then my basket is waiting for me...seasoned well...with no judgements...waiting to comfort me.

You never fixed the door. It hung on one hinge for the entire four years I lived in this pit. Every time a storm came it banged and banged and banged, spooky drums of the damned. On summer days it squeeked and groaned, a rusty mockery and a reminder of the impotence of my repeated complaints.

When the pipe broke I called right away. It was raining in my living room. My late grandmother’s painting was ruined. So was my TV. You showed up in an instant to turn the water off. Then I waited six days with no shower or toilet, buying drinking water at the grocery store and hoping to see the promised repair van arrive soon. You did not offer to replace my belongings.

The virus hit. Apparently I am a non-essential worker. I asked if I could pay the rent late, for the first time in four years. I told you my mom was willing to mail me a check to help out. Surprise registered on your face. I wasn’t sure if you were surprised I had a mother, or that my mother was willing to help me. Yes, black men have mothers, too.

You gave me 24 hours to vacate. You sent this eviction notice. The stores are out of toilet paper. This will do.

My name is Alice and I ran away from my home at sixteen. I was born in Fargo, North Dakota to a mother who loved me less than she loved the fentanyl she was addicted to and to a father who left the second he heard I was a girl. The only way I survived as long as I have is because my mother’s husband, Frank, who will never be my daddy, found us a month in January a month after I was born. He said he would help us if my mother worked for him, mom never knew what the work she would be doing was, she just wanted more money for drugs. Frank turned out to be the only pimp living in Fargo, North Dakota and started forcing my mother to sell herself to the small number of clients that would pay for prostitution.

By the age of five, Frank stopped caring about me and only let me live with him as long as my mom kept doing her job. At ten I realized I was asexual, I saw what my mom was doing just to keep us warm and I never wanted to do that. The clock started ticking as to when I would have to leave, so at sixteen I decided to run from Fargo as far as I could. I ended up in Savanna, Georgia working in a cafe to pay my rent and going to high school during the day. Because of all the trouble that I had at home in Fargo I had learned to spend most of my time in either the school’s library or the public library down the street. I was a perfect student, top of my class in both of my high schools and knowing that I would have a better future than my mother.

When I was applying to colleges I knew I had to put myself out there and I applied to Vasser and the University of Georgia. The only two places I had time to apply to with my studies and work at the cafe. Vasser accepted me! I was thrilled, and I got almost a full ride for my four years there. At Vasser, I founded the asexual awareness club so I could meet people like me and so that I could increase the acceptance of asexual people on campus. By senior year our club had twenty members and we were the most respected club on campus, we were finally able to buy a house off-campus and are known to throw killer parties to this day providing a safe space for all. After my senior year, I didn’t know what I would do with myself, I got a bachelors in English and Theater arts but I didn’t want to be a teacher so I started writing. I got published in the New York Times and the New Yorker, both offered me jobs and I accepted the New York Times’s offer and I began to write about war and conflict. The Times sent me off to South Sudan so that I could write about the conflict there. I went to South Sudan and got shot at so many times I lost count, but I wrote a Pulitzer Prize-winning series of articles. I finally called my mom and she invited me back to come to see her, she said she had gotten clean and out of Frank’s influence and she was a teacher at the local elementary school now. I decided to fly out to see her, I landed in Fargo and decided to take an Uber, we were pulling out of the airport and got T-boned by a drunk driver. I was brought to the local hospital and started feeling better when I decided to write this, but I don’t know if something feels a little off with me lately. I’m going to ask my doctor about it, Doctor!

Alice died of an infection she got during surgery to fix her broken arm, she was 34.

Except for Sundays, Jason Hawkins drove his diesel Dodge Ram emblazoned with his company logo, ABC DISPOSAL, scouring every neighborhood in the Salt Lake Valley. ABC, at the top of the alphabet, stood for Acme Bird Cleaner, or as Hawkins liked to joke, Assorted Bird Corpses, and Hawkins was hustling to snatch up as many dead birds as possible. Each bird brought him $9.00 if it was clean. If it was diseased, the bird fetched $15.00. His list of clients was growing and his new wife loved it that his perseverance was bringing welcome financial relief, paying down their debts.

The first stop was Piccadilly and Curl’s, a quaint, old-fashioned barbershop that did its best to keep its parking lot clean after recent upgrades to laser, wind, and solar tech. The adverse effects of these newfangled technologies resulted in more and more birds killed weekly. The numbers continued to climb, especially after local zoologists bred and released more birds to counteract their otherwise declining numbers. Yet, the recent Bird Flu in the east worried many. Quarantine suspicions grew, as did Jason’s wallet.

His watch rang. His wife’s concerned face was there and she said, “Jason, Aunt Jill called.”

Aunt Jill was the receptionist at a chiropractic office. His wife didn’t like to talk about work, so clearly the call was important.

“They need a bird cleaner. Today,” she said. “Aren’t you heading to Millcreek this afternoon?”

“Yeah. Okay. I’ll fit them in. You told them our prices?”

“Yep. Sixty dollars a week, and that you dispose of the birds free!”

“I hope my clients never find out I sell the dead birds to Designer Corp to reuse. I’ve started to see some reanimated birds.”

“How can you tell? Don’t they all look the same?”

“They have a different shine to them. Almost like an oily sheen. Greasy in certain angles of light. They also feel different. Like paper that’s been recycled too much. They feel rich.”

“I think the word is oleaginous.”

“My thesaurus wife with the English degree! Is that big belly going to get the smarts from you, too?”

Jason Hawkins, Bird Cleaner, got out of the truck at Piccadilly and Curl’s and grabbed a shovel and five-gallon paint bucket. Anticipating the imminent arrival of their first child, he worked quickly. Every dollar of extra income would not only offset their debts, but would also help pay for the baby’s delivery.

“Honey, I’ve got to get to work. Love you!”

“Love you, too!”

Jason scooped up eleven birds at Piccadilly’s and Curls. One reanimated, two diseased, the rest clean. The usual gulls, jays, magpies. There was even one hummingbird. He was still awaiting a deal on reanimated birds, which were of an indiscriminately mixed species.

Driving from appointment to appointment could get boring. Yes, there was a constant playlist of music to listen to, but when even that got old, he had switched to podcasts. Though the flood of entertainment had its ups and downs, his inspiration for the business had grown out of that sea of free information. His self-appropriated learning and his burgeoning experience helped him grow his YouTube and Instagram pages as the leading voice in the Bird Cleaning Industry—an industry that a couple of years ago no one had thought of.

Hawkins, wearing his hazardous material suit, arrived at Aunt Jill’s chiropractic office in the afternoon. It was clearly in desperate need of a bird cleaner. Dozens lay in the parking lot underneath wind turbines, several on grass with cut-off parts from the laser mowing service, and several fried from the solar tech attached to the roof and sides of their building.

The chiropractor, dressed in an untucked Hawaiian shirt and short khakis, approached Hawkins as he attached his face mask. He didn’t actually need it since he had the shovel and gloves and washed himself routinely. However, the COVID-19 pandemic a few years before taught him that the mere perception of cleanliness was a prudent business practice.

“You here for the birds?” asked the chiropractor.

“Yeah, I’m the bird cleaner.”

“Good, I can’t risk any of my patients getting sick from these things. And with the tax write-offs I might as well do all the environmental tech stuff. Who wouldn’t? It’s a good deal.”

Hawkins nodded his head since the man couldn’t see his cheek muscles hook his smile into a falsified grin of agreement behind his face mask. He got to work and shoveled up dead birds. It was almost the end of the day and he still had to drive to Designer Corp Labs in West Valley City to drop off his collection. Before arriving there, he stopped for a restroom and snack break at a local Maverick Gas Station, where he organized the birds between clean, diseased, and reanimated.

The laboratory’s campus was surrounded with a ten-foot brick wall with razor wire and glass on top. The secrets the lab held rivaled Willy Wonka’s or Apple’s. Security scanned the tag stickered inside his front windshield. He headed for building #26A—Birds.

Hawkins parked outside the loading dock and the bay door lifted open. Per routine, the lab operator, Hedge, was there to greet him. Like Hawkins, Hedge was dressed in a hazmat suit and facemask.

“If it isn’t Mr. Hawkins, our favorite bird cleaner! What do you have today?”

Hawkins, exiting his Dodge, responded, “thirty-five clean, thirteen diseased, and three reanimated.”

“Not a bad haul, Hawkins.” Hedge began to collect them in the lab’s hermetically sealed plastic containers.

“Hey, Hedge, I need to talk about money. I’m hearing from zoologists I can get the same fee, plus a tax write-off, if I go to the government, since they release the bred birds into the valley. Also, we haven’t agreed on rates for reanimated birds yet. I want $20.00 for reanimated.”

Hedge tightened his shoulders. “You don’t negotiate Designer Corp rates with me. I have no say. You know that.”

“I beg to differ. People learn about the trade from me, so you know very well that if I ditched Designer Corp and I posted it on social media, you’d lose a good seventy percent of your bird business. Look Hedge, we aren’t friends. This is purely business. I don’t really care for Designer Corp, and I know all about the whole Designer Baby project. I have a kid on the way that we did the natural way. So I think it would be in your interest to pay me a little of your tainted money.

Hedge pulled out his phone and typed into an app.

“Okay, it’s done. You’ve got a deal. Let’s take those damn birds off your hands!” said Hedge, with the same smile Jason didn’t have to expose behind his own face mask.

Stephen Hughes is a freelance percussionist in Utah who has written stories since he was four years old. Please consider purchasing this story in the collection "Getting Through: Tales of Corona and Community" on Amazon. All proceeds will go to the American Red Cross. https://www.amazon.com/Getting-Through-Tales-Corona-Community/dp/B086PLNMYB/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=getting+through%3A+tales+of+corona+and+community&qid=1586439943&sr=8-1

Here I am,

watching in manic delight

as my world once again,

goes up in flames...

watching in giddy triumph

at my own inevitable ruination...

I wanted this to end, didn’t I?

Yes, I did.

~Love.

Loss.

Now I wait...

for the remnants

of my catastrophe

to make sense...

I search for

a silver lining

so that I may have

at least, even

the narrowest sliver

of indemnification,

or a solatium in the form of

a complete obliteration of

every painful memory

I’ve ever had....

And if I don’t find it,

maybe I will

at least

find solace in the familiarity of

this endless insanity...

comforted only by

deep resentment

and silent rage....

And maybe then,

I shall be able to accept

the fact that

I don’t

and won’t ever

know what I am

or who I am

outside of this angst and grief

and pain...

and maybe then,

I’ll someday find a way

to forgive myself

for being too broken

to even try and rewrite my destiny.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this.

But it is.

But it is.

But it is.

~Love.

Loss.

He cautiously stepped inside, and looked around the room. The room felt cold~ it was quite strange since it was a bright, & sunny day.

‘‘Sire. I have received word from the messenger. He says that the house of Svorth is ready to form an alliance.’’

The Lord smiled and sighed. He took his sword and placed it in his most trusted friend and knight’s hands.

He tried to speak, but his voice was weak. ‘‘I don’t have much time— I need you to make sure that my family is ready to live without me.’’

The knight shook his head. ‘‘There’s still time, Sire. You can make it to see the shaman.’’

The King then heard voices calling to him. He gazed at the knight and told him to hurry.

The knight helped the King to stand on his feet. The King chuckled, and said, ‘‘You’ve always been so kind to me my friend.’’

The King tried to keep up in step with the knight. The knight led the King to the enchanted forest.

There they sat by the edge of the forest and waited for the sun to set. The King watched his last sunset. He began to weep and asked the knight to take him further into the forest.

The knight helped the king move closer to the shaman’s turf. They watched in awe as they moved further deep into the forest that each place they left a footprint- a flower bloomed. It was such a beautiful sight!

They soon came across a tiny cottage and before they even stepped by the front door, an elderly woman came to greet them. She beamed with joy and clapped her hands.

‘‘To what do I owe the pleasure of King Tarin the wise coming to seek my advice?’’

The King laughed and then clapsed his hands. He asked the shaman to find him a cure for his malaise.

The shaman began to chant. A gust of wind swirled around the King and he was carried off the ground. The knight tried to pull the King, but the shaman raised her hand and the knight found himself on his knees.

The King felt a wave of energy surge through his body. It made him feel filled up with new strength. He felt the wind’s power begin to slowly fade.

The shaman then bowed her head. Her work was done.

The knight rose to his feet and as soon as he did the King was standing right by his side. The King’s face seemed to be shining like the sun.

When they looked for the shaman, she was gone. Even her cottage had vanished into thin air.

#LaCura.

4/4/2020~Sat’rday

One planet~ for all to have and enjoy every beautiful being on it. See how each life flourishes within it’s own environment—

Well, that’s not the case in this part of town. Making ends meet, trying to find help from others who call themselves humans & yet it seems there’s no act of love, or any humanity left on planet earth.

If given a chance- I guess I’d ask for my guardian to show up and take me to a better place-- where I won’t have to worry about dealing with this tough crowd that always act as if I’m a problem to society. Apparently, since I have no current reputation, or known task that makes the place grow with more money, the final solution for me is: decapitation!

As I watch the guillotine being put into place- I fail to hear the chants of the pleased onlookers. ‘‘Off with his head!’’ Some folks try to quickly look away and not make any eye contact with me.

The executioner drags my body up the platform and places my head right below the blade. ‘‘Any last words.’’

There’s nothing I can say to save me now. My cries seem to fall on deaf ears.

With a quick motion, the blade descended before I could even say a prayer for all those eyes watching, and waiting— for my head to be chopped.

I hadn’t been given a chance to dive and dig in one of the wastes lying about the town. Hmm, maybe I should have asked for some rum.

#DECAPITARE.

29th March, 2020