From the Empirical Archives: The Offer by Jennifer Hanno

The Offer

Jennifer Hanno

Originally published in the February 2013 issue of Empirical

Bob clutched the rifle and considered that this might be a turning point of some kind. He had never been so close to such a great specimen . . . even he could not miss a shot like this. He froze into the background, the cold metal of his rifle burning into his clenched hand.

Watching the animal move with majestic grace, he was reminded of the basketball games of his youth, of the strong, young athletes whose fluid movement with the ball seemed a mystery to him as he sat on the bench. His grip on the rifle tightened and it seemed as if the animal could sense that imperceptible movement.

It lifted its head, suddenly alert and on edge. Yes, this could be a turning point, Bob reasoned, one shot here and he would be the hero of the hunting lodge tonight. They would be telling tales about it for months. This was what Darwin was talking about; this was survival of the fittest. Maybe not actual survival, but social survival, which was more important anyway.

His finger on the trigger, he raised the gun slowly, ever so slowly as he had seen his companions do. It was, after all, the chance of a lifetime. Suddenly, he knew his companions were near. He sensed them even as the animal seemed to become aware of danger. It was now or never, one shot and it would be over and any guilt he may feel would be diminished by the praise of his hunting partners.

He could almost see the pictures of him holding the antlers of the dead beast, its eyes a glassy and still window into death. He could feel the other hunters bearing down on them and he felt more like the prey than the predator. His hand cramped as it held tightly to the instrument that would bring death to one of them and an assertion of manhood to the other. Sweat collected on his brow, his chest tightened. Not too far off, he heard a footstep. The animal heard it, too, but seemed frozen, as though Bob held it immobile in the scope of his gun.

Suddenly, he lowered the rifle.

“Run, you idiot,” he hissed to the majestic beast. “Get out of here.”

Like the bullet that might have been fired from his gun, the buck shot through the woods and out of Bob’s life. Later on, his companions would ask him how he could have missed it. He would make up a story about how he fell asleep, drowsy from the drinking the night before. They would laugh and jest at his expense for some time to come, but he would dish out the mushroom stew he had meticulously prepared and all would be well. He would settle back into the bench.

Ah well, he sighed. He went to the woods so that he could live deliberately, he told himself, as he shivered in the tree stand. With a sigh, he took out the tattered copy of Walden he always carried with him when he went hunting.

*

“I went to the woods so I could live deliberately,” Bob read to his second period class, his deep voice resonating with what he hoped was the power of the written word. “To front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach and not, when I came to die, discover I had not lived.”

He paused for effect and a deep silence settled into the room, like a blanket of snow over the Adirondack hills. Then it was broken by a loud belch from a student in the front row.

The room erupted into laughter as Bob set his book down on the podium and gave the student an icy glare.

“This is gay,” the belcher said, more to his audience than to Bob, and his classmates heartily expressed their agreement with high fives and more laughter. Bob felt that familiar tightening as his anger rose to the surface.

“Really, Mr. Pearson?” Bob said, “What is it about Mr. Thoreau’s writing that you find homosexual in nature?”

This caused a round of sneering and laughter and Bob knew it was Darwin time again. Survival of the Fittest. Only one of them would emerge with control of the class. He suddenly felt a wave of anger wash over him as he surveyed the battlefield. He was becoming reckless as his retirement neared, caring less and less about the consequences.

“You seem to use that word a lot, Mr. Pearson. Tell me, why would a young man like you see so many things as gay?”

The boy twisted uncomfortably in his chair, squirming under the laughter of his classmates. Bob watched as the boy transferred the tobacco he was chewing to the alternate cheek.

“Cause all the stuff you have us read is gay,” he countered, angry defiance flashing in his adolescent eyes.

“What’s so gay about it?”

“Going into the woods just to sit there for no reason . . .” the boy sneered and Bob could feel him pulling the class away from him. The young man seemed to feel it too and it was gaining him confidence. He continued, pushing further.

“It’s not like he is going in to shoot something. The guy’s a fag. Maybe this guy Thoreau is gay. . . . ”

“Maybe you’re ignorant,” Bob could feel thirty years of anger bubbling to the surface.

“Maybe you’re gay,” the boy sneered.

“And you are a horse’s ass. . . . ” The laughter stopped and Bob acknowledged the sinking feeling that is common when one recognizes one went too far.

*

“Did you even consider the ramifications such a comment could have on the developing personality of a child, Mr. Jazinski?” she asked, her expression promising infinite patience. Bob’s jaw clenched as he sought a professional and confident retort.

“He started it. He called me gay!”

“Now really, Mr. Jazinski,” she said with a sad, complacent smile. “Who is the adult here?”

Bob had a comment all prepared for her, but his union representative seemed to sense that and interjected. She was an old friend and they had taught together for twenty years.

“In Bob’s defense,” she began, “He has a very challenging class. If you recall, I have spoken to you about seeing if we couldn’t balance it better. Over 50% of his class are chronic discipline problems and most are reading 3 grades or more below grade level.”

“All the more reason why a little compassion and empathy are needed if we are to change these youngsters’ lives around,” spoke the voice of administrative optimism.

Or idealism. Or fantasy, depending on your outlook, Bob thought.

He made a conscious effort to control the look of incredulity that crossed his face, but he knew he was doing a bad job of it.

His union representative tried again. “I am sure Bob understands that his comments were inappropriate, but Jason Pearson has been a discipline problem for years here. He has been a disruption to Bob’s instruction for five months now and …”

“I understand that, Mrs. Hayes, but how can we ask considerate behavior of our students if our staff do not model that behavior?” She did not wait for a reply, but continued on. “Therefore, I am directing Mr. Jazinski to apologize to Jason for his unprofessional and hurtful comments…”

“Apologize?” Bob sputtered. He was so angry his chest clenched and his words came out garbled and strained. His friend reached out and nudged his leg in silent warning as he visibly fought for self control.

“In addition,” the principal continued, “I have spoken with the superintendent and he agrees that, because this is the third infraction in the past five years, you will be registered in an Employee Anger Management class.”

He watched her overly white teeth smile at him through her overly tanned face. She was a slim blonde but she began to resemble an eight-point buck.

“Do you really think that is necessary?” his colleague was saying, trying to choose her wording carefully to defuse the situation. “After all, this is Bob’s last year teaching. As long as the settlement is passed, he has already decided to retire this June. I mean, anyone can have a bad day and suffer a lapse of judgment.”

The principal smiled at her with benevolent patience.

“We have our rules for discipline, Mrs. Hayes. Consistency is always the key.”

*

In the faculty room later, Bob’s fury began to slowly dissolve in the warmth of conversation. The tightness inside was loosening, but he was still mad at his friend.

“This is partly your fault,” he grumbled at her. “Literature for the Outdoorsman…what kind of a class is that?”

“Well, we were trying to make it more student-centered…you know, engage the student and all that. Besides, I thought you would like teaching it,” she said a little sheepishly. “I just thought you would choose different pieces of literature to do with them…”

“Like what? Deliverance?” he said.

Was it wrong to try to give them a little culture? Was it wrong to expose them to the greatest thinkers of our time? Most men lead lives of quiet desperation, Thoreau had written and Bob knew he was one of them. But awareness wasn’t enough. How do you change the plan at this point? It was easy to advise others to “simplify, simplify,” but what about health insurance? Two kids in college? A retirement fund? No, once Bob retired he would live deliberately and until then, he only had to hang on. It was strategy, not cowardice that kept him here.

After all, one might argue that it took certain courage to try to teach Thoreau to a class of four-wheeling rednecks . . .Pearls before swine, he thought. Pearls before swine. Maybe there were always students like Jason Pearson, but they were the exception not the rule. There was a time when he shared Steinbeck and Emerson and he could feel at least one or two students connecting with him. Now, they sat, their eyes on him, but their fingers under the desk, busily texting their friends even while he lectured. Their insults became more disrespectful, more biting, and more frequent. There were days he dreaded facing them and looking into the eyes of a world he feared and could not understand.

Now, he sat trying to put his grades into the computer that perched on his desk and mocked him daily. Back in the day, he did his grades by hand, with a calculator and entered them neatly into his black covered grade book. He smiled at the thought, as he remembered his neat and clear handwriting gracing the blue columns. He loved all things ordered and neat. Technology was supposed to make it easier, but instead it wound up taking him twice as long as he pecked his way around the keyboard, muttering curses not loud, but deep.

When he retired next year, he would regain that sense of peace and security that escaped him. He would buy a season ticket to the theatre and go every month, with the exception of the month he would go to Italy. His coveted trip to Italy now hovered just within his grasp. He had been planning it for years, researching old churches.

He had purchased some CDs on learning Italian, but he couldn’t figure out his CD player in the new car, so they had sat, unused. There would be time for all of that, he thought, once he retired. He felt that uncomfortable feeling in his chest ease a little at the promise of the voyage. Just the thought of his retirement cheered him.

A short month later, with the state budget in desperate straits, discussion of retirement incentives dominated union meetings. He had waited, licking his lips in anticipation until it was decided. When his friends asked him if he would definitely take it, he smiled. It was an offer, he told them, he could not refuse.

*

The letter signed, his grades submitted, his career roasted, he stood now looking out at the vast lawn that stretched before him. While he was teaching, he had hired a lawn service to mow as it was a huge task and he had not invested in a riding mower. Now, however, there would be no need to waste money on that when he had all the time in the world for lawn maintenance.

Well, eventually, he would. For today, time pressed gently but insistently on him. He had to get the lawn in shape for the party tomorrow.

He had plenty of time, even though he knew it took a full two and a half hours to finish the job. No matter, the sun rose high in the sky on an unusually warm June day. He was sweating already as he fumbled with the earphones of the iPod his children had given him as a retirement gift. They had preloaded it with Italian operas and Jimmy Buffet and now he concentrated carefully on their instructions regarding its use. It took a few minutes for him to adjust the volume, then he tucked the small device into his chest pocket and revved the mower.

Looming before him was a field of green that beckoned like the Mediterranean Sea. It was his time now. He marched toward his destiny with a determined stride, the sounds of the Italian tenor mingling with the whine of the mower as he peeled away the overgrowth, one row at a time. He hacked away the excess, leaving only fresh green grass, peeling away the past with a sweep of metal. He relished in the power of it all, despite the enormity of the task. It warmed his soul to see the fresh growth he left in his wake.

And this was what it all was about, he sighed with contentment as the scent of summer reached his nostrils, and the roar of the tenor battled with the whine of the mower. This was his time. And the sun beat down on the older man and the mower, with no malice or forethought. But, this time there was no warning. It snuck up on him, so intent was he on peeling away the old and releasing the new. The sweat had begun to drip down his back and forehead, and the heat rose up in him as the tenor’s voice rang clear and true.

So when the unseen hand seized his heart in its vice-like grip, he froze for an instant in surprise, his sweaty hand clutching at his chest, even as his other hand held fast to the mower. He saw it all then, in the haze of the early afternoon sun. He saw the joy in his dog each time he arrived home, the laughter of the faculty room, and hunting lodge and his grades as he carefully arranged them in alphabetical order. He saw the deer raise its majestic head and look into him before he disappeared into the woods. He saw that empty spot on the bench where he had waited to enter the game. He understood then, in the final seconds, the futility of his plans, the random and incomprehensible arrangement of life, and his struggling heart accepted with regret the greatest betrayal of all.

Momentum. That’s how it all ended. The mower shifted under his weight as the song ended, pushing through the last four feet of grass at the mercy of the unseen force. And momentum propelled Bob’s body to follow as he hit the freshly mowed grass with a dull and gentle thud, the earphones dislodged from him, settling in the grass a few yards away. Dimly, he could hear the rattle of the mower and the dog’s alarmed barking eclipse his own anguished gasps.

The half finished lawn loomed just ahead, just out of his grasp.

And so the quiet desperation crept out of him, seeping into the green grass. He was not alone, though. In his ear, he heard the whisper of gentle reassurance, “Simplify, simplify…”

Be sure to visit the Empirical website to subscribe!

If you are a writer and are interested in writing for Empirical, check out this link to find out how to submit.

From the Empirical Archives: Trees by Sayuri Yamada

Trees

Sayuri Yamada

Originally published in the February 2013 issue of Empirical

Somebody is coming at last.

It has been a long time. Who is it? Is it a man or a woman? Young or old? It is still too far to see it clearly. The trees have been hungry for people. They have been alone for a long time, because of the incessant rain. How long has it been? A week? Ten days? A month? They aren’t sure. Time passes without touching the trees.

They stand there without consciousness.

A week ago or two, a girl carrying a blue umbrella with a dog came in through the gate. The sodden dog with the water dripping from its long fur trudged after her, with its head down. When she’d walked to almost the center, she slipped and fell into a puddle, splashing muddy water into the moisture-heavy air. She shrieked.

The dog whined. They soon left the park.

Two days ago or three, the rain stopped for a while. The sun shyly peeked from the grey clouds. A mother with a baby on a pushchair came in and went to a bench by the gate. She jumped up as soon as she sat there. The bench must’ve been still wet. She wiped the bottom of her skirt and left. The rain started again soon after that. It has been good for the trees and underbrush. 

The birch tree leaves shine with the water.

They have been growing so much. The pass from a clearing to a clearing has been almost disappeared, covered with the long boisterous leaves. But nobody has come. The leaves are curled with sorrow. Their barks have splintered with misery. The dead leaves on the ground are rotting with loneliness.

The person who is coming now is whistling with his/her hands in the trousers pockets. S/he kicks a pebble on the ground along with some dead leaves. S/he must be relaxed with no worries.

It is good. The leaves on the trees shiver with anticipation. A person is coming, a person is coming. The information has spread rapidly from a tree to a tree through the leaves.

It is a man, the trees can see now. He has short black hair and pale skin, medium height, medium weight. He stops now. What is happening? Is he going to change his mind? No. He is smiling to himself. He must be remembering something good. He is a happy person. It is a good sign. A grey pigeon flies above him and drops its poo onto his shoulder. He jumps and looks up, cursing to the bird that has already flown away. 

Does he have a temper? In that situation, anybody could curse. Don’t worry. He is a nice person. He produces a white handkerchief from his trousers pocket and wipes the mess on his shoulder, and then sniffs the handkerchief and winces a little. Not many people carry handkerchiefs nowadays, as far as the trees can see. He must be a neat person. His room could be tidy, all books arranged alphabetically, all shirts stacked by colors, all dishes in drawers, the kitchen sink gleaming. Or he is neat outside and messy inside: dirty dishes stuck in the sink, empty take-away food packages piled on the coffee table in the living room, old newspapers strewn everywhere on the floor, an unmade bed, dirty socks dangling from a chair. Which one is he? He is coming near. He must be long-sighted, since his black-framed glasses show big eyes as if they were about to tumble out of their sockets. His t-shirt says, ‘Just Do It!’ Is that what he does or what he wants to do? His blue jeans have sharp creases. Not many people wear creased jeans. Is he old-fashioned? Or is he strange?

He is now almost under the trees. He stops again and looks around. Nobody else is around. The park is deserted except for a lone dog sauntering by the gate far away. The man trots into the trees, looks around, and goes behind a thick pine tree. And he starts peeing there. That is what he has come here for. His penis isn’t circumcised. He pees for a long time, sighing, ‘Ahhh.’ Then he zips up and walks away. Lucky pine tree. It’s got bonus nutrition.

*

The next day, the sun is smiling in the blue sky again. No trace of black rainloaded clouds. It is good. The trees have had enough water from the long rain to keep going for a while. Two squirrels chase each other from this branch to that branch.

They are always busy running. But they don’t do anything else. Boring. 

The trees prefer people, who do all sorts of things.

Who is coming today, if anybody comes? Of course, somebody will come. The rain is gone.

A middle-aged man comes through the gate, carrying a skateboard under his arm. He puts it down on the paved path and starts riding, or rather practicing. He is clumsy, must still be a beginner. The trees haven’t seen many middle-aged people riding skateboards. He rides for a minute slowly and stops. Then rides again for a short time and stops. He should try to keep riding longer, the trees think.

Behind the man, a family comes in: a fat father pushing a push chair with a big bag of McDonald’s in his right hand and jingling keys or something in his left hand, and a fat mother with a fat toddler in her arms. The toddler is fingering a dreamcatcher at the end of a leather necklace on her mother’s huge breasts. They are all in tracksuits.

Those clothes with stretching waists are for fat people, the trees know from watching many kinds of people.

They come in the trees and sit on the small clearing with the thick pine standing beside it. Lucky pine. Its position attracts many people.

The mother puts the toddler down by the pine, where the man with creased jeans peed yesterday. The toddler is a girl with very long hair, that drapes onto the dark soil, where the man’s pee soaked happily yesterday. Lucky girl. She will get good nutrition and get big like her parents.

Not many small people have hair that long. She must have kept her hair without cutting it since she was born. She laughs, punching the pee-soaked soil with her chubby hands. The mother and the father laugh with their daughter. The father gets out hamburgers, fries, pies, muffins, and cups of coke and puts them on the ground. The trees know people usually spread a blanket on the ground and then put their food on it. But this family doesn’t bother to use one. They must be relaxed people. That could be why they are big. They must have eaten whatever they wanted.

The trees like happy and relaxed people.

The mother gives a couple of fries to her daughter, who eats one and drops the other. She looks at her mother with big eyes, ready to wail. The mother hurriedly picks it up from the pee-soaked soil and blows the dirt away and gives it back to her daughter. She eats it with a big smile on her face. The parents smile as well.

They keep eating. The father licks ketchup from his fingers. The mother licks mustard from around her lips. They keep feeding their daughter. They keep talking. The father’s voice goes among the trees. The mother’s voice goes to the sky. They keep feeding their toddler. 

They keep laughing. The father’s big stomach wobbles. The mothers big breasts sway. They keep giving food to their child. Before they have finished all the food, the toddler vomits by her chubby legs. She looks up at her mother. She looks up at her father. Then she starts crying with a big open mouth that still has some half-digested food from her stomach.

The mother hoists her to her chest. The father pats her heaving back. Then they pack everything into the big McDonald’s bag, put the daughter into the push chair and walk away, leaving the vomit on the ground by the lucky pine.

They are a happy family.

The trees look at them with glee.

The sun is shining. The air is warm. The birds are chatting.

It is a nice day.

*

The dew on the trees’ leaves and undergrowth sparkles in the next morning.

By lunch time, the park is full of people, lying on the grass, sitting with their hands on the ground, sitting on benches. The sun shines on the unwinding people.

An ice-cream van comes in and parks by the gate. A man in a yellow t-shirt hops out and starts connecting a couple of cables to a green box on the ground. People start queuing there. The man doesn’t pay any attention to them. Now he is moving some boxes in the van. Two people leave from the line. Three people join the queue.

At last, he is ready. The two women at the front of the line order soft cones and argue about who will pay. Both try to pay for the other. The next one is a man with a black briefcase, who buys a tub of chocolate ice cream. He sits on a bench and puts the briefcase on his lap as a temporary table. He then produces a sheet of paper from his trousers pocket and starts reading it and eating the ice cream on the make-shift table. The next is a woman in a pink sari.

She gets two soft cones and carries them to her friend sitting on the lawn.

The ice-cream business is going very well today.

A young couple with soft cones with chocolate sticks poking out from the top come to the clearing and sit where the happy toddler vomited yesterday. The woman has a pink sleeveless shirt with green bra straps on her shoulders. The man is in a dark t-shirt that used to be black.

The trees now believe that people can smell the good nutrition, so they keep sitting there to absorb it. Good for them.

The young man licks his girl’s soft cone.

The young woman eats a part of her man’s soft cone. He pats his cone to her face. She shrieks and does the same to the man’s face. He licks the ice cream on her face. She does the same to his face. Then start kissing. The soft cones are abandoned on the ground by the pine. Lucky pine. More food. They lie down with their legs intertwining like tree branches. They pant, not like trees. They gasp, not like trees. He gets on her and starts moving fast. She starts crying out in her mouth that is cupped by his hand. They move together. Good harmony.

With a shrill high-pitched cry at the same time, they stop. He gets off her and lies next to her with his still biggish penis gleaming with semen.

The trees have watched their joyful pollination.

They wish them copious reproduction.

When they leave, leaning against each other, a little semen is left on top of the girls’ vomit by the pine. How lucky the pine is! They silently cheer the tree’s fortune.

*

At night, two people, a man and a woman, come, carrying a big sack and shovels. They start digging a hole by the pine. The man’s pee, the girl’s vomit, and the man’s semen are put aside. They keep digging. It looks they need a big and deep hole. The trees hope they won’t damage the pine’s roots.

White stars are in their positions. The full moon peeks out from the clouds. The moonlight greets the sack by the digging people. It has some dark stains about the middle and from the top a foot salutes back to the moon. The foot is big and pale even in the dark, with a long second toe that is the same length as the big toe.

The man’s forehead drops his sweat into the hole. The woman’s cheeks let her sweat fall down into the hole. Lucky pine. It’s got more nutrition.

Somewhere deep in the trees, an insomniac pigeon coos. A candy froth moon comes out from behind dark clouds. The wide-awake pigeon blinks its eyes.

Finally, the hole is done. The man and woman push the sack into the hole, with their hands thrusting the bag, their legs kicking the soil, and their bottoms high.

The sack goes down into the hollow with a thud. The couple draw breath. The pigeon stops blinking. 

Silence.

The fuzzy moon scurries behind the clouds.

Big sighs from the people. Blinking from the pigeon.

They start filling up the hole with the black soil with pee, vomit, semen, and sweat.

With the ground smoothed out, they leave the dark trees without looking back. The trees know what is in the sack from the smell. Lucky, lucky pine. And lucky, lucky trees around it. That big nourishment is going to be sucked into many trees there.

Lucky, lucky trees. It is a very good night.

Be sure to visit the Empirical website to subscribe!

If you are a writer and are interested in writing for Empirical, check out this link to find out how to submit.

From the Empirical Archives: Small Change by Richard Hartwell

Small Change

Richard Hartwell

Originally published in the January 2013 issue of Empirical

Like so very many kids raised and suckled at the beach, particularly those reared in the Newport Beach of the early fifties–descendants of divorcees and married boredom–my cousin and I learned to build sand castles repeatedly. It’s too bad that relationships can’t be rebuilt as easily as sand castles. The lap and lapse of waves did not trouble or defeat us, as day upon day our moods changed in the early summer from the somber gray of dawn in May or June to the brilliantine of cobalt blue and then to gold by mid-afternoon in August and September. By then our rosette bodies were speckled with the whiter dots and dashes of the Morse code created by un-rinsed salt and sand.

Salt-matted blonde hair was usually strewn to the left of my cousin’s face, revealing her right-handed cowlick, balanced by a small mole on her left cheek that she tried to hide. My own hair then was always cut way too short to hang anywhere but straight up, like a severed shock of hay, each stalk raised in supplication to the sun and sky. Like my back and shoulders and nose, my scalp too was pitted with the itchy white shadows of sand and salt and the inner red glow of sunburn almost matched the outer beacon of what they called carrot-red hair, much too short to hide any of my outside blemishes.

I have no memory of our clothes; perhaps swimming trunks or bathing suits sometimes, but most likely cut off jeans for both of us and an old white tee shirt for my cousin’s blooming modesty. I only remember the bodies; both growing lithe and strong, chubby fat giving way to stretched muscles, elastic and elongated, pulled by years and adolescence, like taffy lying bulbous in the pan and then stretched out and thinned and fine and resilient.

We shared much together, my cousin and I: our interwoven dysfunctional families; our money-making scams; a love of the beach and sun and air and sea; and, of course, the company of each other, separated only by eight months in age. We had even been enrolled in kindergarten together until the educational power brokers realized that the dissimilarity in last names didn’t cancel out the similarities in build, features, temperament, or sanguinity. I was quickly hustled away and into another classroom. I remember we both cried. Still, other than at school, my cousin Jocelyn–Josh as she was called then–and I were most often inseparable boon companions; at least inseparable by others until the time when I created a chasm in our youthful camaraderie into which we both slipped and from which we never escaped.

That day of our distancing started much the same way as any other early summer day did for us at the beach. That dawn was inseparable from any other gray dawn. Our interests for that day were as like-minded as those of the day before, and, as far into the future as we could see; they were as alike as those expected of the days to follow into infinity. The only anomaly that seemed to mark that day different from all surrounding others was the fact that we had money.

Now, by money I don’t mean to imply we were flush and fulsome with loose spending change donated happily or begrudgingly by others, be they parents or guardians or other relatives or unsuspecting bystanders. No, what I am noting is that we had between us that day money acquired by ill means and, therefore, needful of immediate use. It was burning holes in our pockets!

Usually the two of us spent just enough time after surfing to scavenge the beach and collect the few overlooked bottles left by the tourists and daytime pleasure seekers, those too solvent or too hurried or too lazy to collect them and return them for the deposit. At two cents per bottle, we only needed five bottles each to cover the ferry both ways, the Island to Balboa ride and then back again. Anything else was donut and soda money. This was the era of only glass containers when both bottles and relationships could be easily broken.

But yesterday, the day before that last day, after we’d returned to the Island, we had cut down the alley behind the market intending to hit Turquoise Avenue. We’d spotted an open garage in the alley with stacks of empty Coke bottles in wooden trays on the side near the door. No one was around. The lure of found money was just too much for us. On impulse we grabbed a flat each and ran. We ran down the alley and then dodged down an unblocked walkway between two houses. We knew the Island well together.

We took the bottles to the Island Market, down on Marine, and cashed them in, acting furtive and guilty the whole time, so that the clerk had kept a wary eye on us but could detect nothing. He probably thought we were shoplifting. The total refund had come to a buck-ninety-two, plus twenty-five cents each for the bottle flats. That was two-forty-two, or a dollar-twenty- one each. We realized we would be flush for once and didn’t have to worry about change for the ferry the next day.

The next day, that last day, we followed routine. Josh tapped lightly on my bedroom window about five a.m. to wake up only me and get a start on the day. I didn’t need to dress. I was still in cutoffs from the previous day. I gently closed the back door then ran down the back alley to meet her on the corner. We walked down to the ferry, using Park and then cut over to the South Bay sidewalk, careful to avoid broken glass and dog poop, and careful to avoid the alley near the market across from the ferry landing. We caught the second ferry of the day, paid and passed across to the Peninsula without incident. The bay was a deceptive, oily calm.

We hit Mabel’s Balboa Donuts behind the Pavilion, as we always did, agonizing over our choices until I settled on the usual, not really fooling anyone but myself by my constancy. Only Josh made different choices from time to time. I settled on the cherry-filled and took it without the tissue paper or a napkin.

Rather than sucking the donut from the side with the filling hole, I bit the donut from the wrong side. The cherry filling oozed and dropped to my chest just above the left side of my chest near my heart. For a moment it appeared like an augury of things to come. I deftly wiped it off with the tops of the fingers of my right hand that still held the unfinished donut. With my tongue I lapped up the red jelly from my fingers and swallowed the remains of the premonition. Josh paid the tired woman behind the counter, not Mabel today, ignoring the straggles of hair that fell from under the paper cap and matted to the sweat coursing down her cheeks. She was pleasant, but not pretty.

“See ya tomorrow, guys. Have a good day,” and she turned her back to serve the next customer, a fisherman tourist, probably just returned from the midnight sailing of the Frontier.

“Yeah, thanks,” we chorused and Josh shoved her remaining change deep in the front pocket of her faded jean cutoffs.

I was thinking out loud, “Five cents for the ferry back. Ten cents for a soda later. And an extra nickel just for the heck of it.” I might have said “hell” in other circumstances, just to impress someone, but Josh wouldn’t have been much impressed, so I said “heck” instead. I didn’t know how much money Josh had left. She’d paid extra for a cinnamon twist today, as well as a jelly donut. Even at that, she must still have had thirty or forty cents left from yesterday’s bottles. I remember casually thinking she’d puke after eating all that and then going surfing. We headed across the two blocks to the beach.

We spent the rest of the lazy, overcast morning near the Balboa Pier. We surfed and sunned and talked and didn’t talk until we had our fill of our immediate environment. We were now filled with a need for a sense of movement, or passage, or relocation along the beach; a need for change. We took our bikes, and with the towels wrapped around the handlebars, we started pedaling north along the wide beach sidewalk. We pedaled slowly, soaking up the day and dodging joggers and skateboarders. We were past the Newport Pier, somewhere up around 17th, when I spotted Gail walking up the beach toward the boardwalk. It was early afternoon, perhaps about one, and the sun had burned off the overcast.

She was tossing her hair to one side, toweling it dry, and the beads of water glistened on her brown body and emerald-green two-piece. Her hair sprang back up in ringlets of black curls. I was captivated by the vision. I stood on my rear pedal, nailing the brakes, and skidded sideways to a stop. I heard a distant commotion behind me. I dropped my bike to the edge of the sidewalk and started walking towards Gail. 

Somehow I managed to stammer out, “Hi.”

I was totally unaware of my cousin’s plight behind me. She had swerved to avoid hitting me, struck a trashcan, and fallen against a concrete bench, cutting open her right leg with a long gash below the knee. To all of this I was oblivious. I only had eyes and thoughts for the girl in the sea-green suit, the new vision in front of me.

Gail was the first to notice the blood coursing down my cousin’s leg. Josh was stoic. Gail was politely concerned. I was, well, I was just stupid. I told Josh to go in the water and rinse off the wound. I never said, “Sorry,” or even showed concern or regret. I guess I was saving all that up for later, when it would be too late. I probably mentioned something about how the salt water was good for it and such. Such were the myths before polluted beaches and the contagion of televised news. Gail wasn’t so sure and suggested that Josh go to the lifeguard stand for some basic first aid. I continued my stupidity and just said, “Nah. She’s okay. Right?” never taking my eyes from Gail.

Josh didn’t answer and she didn’t go to the lifeguard. She went off, into the water, and left me alone on the beach with Gail. I don’t know how long we talked, perhaps an hour, perhaps a bit less. Eventually Gail stood up and said she had to go. She’d spotted someone in the crowd, a tall sophomore who was, so I was to learn much later, her boyfriend of many days. He was one link in a long chain in which I was to become entangled. Gail left me standing there and I could only stare after her longingly.

Eventually I closed my mouth, turned and scanned the surf line for my cousin. I couldn’t see her anywhere and, eventually, I walked back up to where we’d left our bikes, at least where I had left mine, as hers was nowhere around. She had gone. Like I had abandoned her, she had now abandoned me and left me to myself.

Somehow I had lost my money for the ferry. Somewhere it had dropped from my pocket. Perhaps I lost it when I was surfing. Perhaps I lost it sitting on the sand talking to Gail with my knees tucked under my chin. But the fact was that I had lost it. Because I had my bike, I couldn’t just swim across the South Bay back to the Island. I could have done it, had done it in fact on a dare from Josh, but I had my bike.

Slowly, over the course of that afternoon, I rode my bike down the rest of the Peninsula, past Lido Island and over the bridge to Mariner’s Mile. I turned south on the highway and eventually cut off past the bluffs and the Mummy and back over the bridge to the Island. The inside of my thighs were rubbed raw from the sand in my cutoffs.

I didn’t think to check on Josh when I got back. Perhaps that was a mistake too. It was late afternoon and my back was scorched with sunburn from the bike ride and I just sort of collapsed from exertion and disappointment. It was after six when I woke up the next morning. There had been no tapping on the window at five, to wake me up, to continue our routine.

I went over later to check on Josh. My aunt answered the door and said that Jocelyn didn’t feel like going surfing today. Instead, she said that they were going to go shopping for a new swimsuit. I didn’t see Josh, Jocelyn, for about a week after that and then only in passing. She was on her way to a pool party with some new friends.

She looked sort of strange, in a bright orange swimsuit covered by a white blouse with matching orange trim. Her hair was combed back in a ponytail. The scar on her leg was almost healed. I couldn’t figure out what was wrong with her, but something was different besides her calling herself Jocelyn.

Slowly over the next few months, perhaps even over the course of a year, I began to figure things out. My disappointment with Gail and then with another, sort of broke up my routine. I began to realize I had to change and Josh, Jocelyn, had just changed sooner. Sometimes I can catch my ideas before they get away. 

Sometimes.

Sometimes I can’t or I’m too slow. I guess that’s as good as it gets. Most of the time I have trouble working in absolutes anyway. So, I guess I’ll just settle for–sometimes. I enjoy the suspense anyway.

Be sure to visit the Empirical website to subscribe!

If you are a writer and are interested in writing for Empirical, check out this link to find out how to submit.

From the Empirical Archives: Deadly Dreams by Laura Rittenhouse

Deadly Dreams

Laura Rittenhouse

Originally published in the January 2013 issue of Empirical

The unrelenting heat pounded against the side of her car as Ellen drove the well-worn track to work. She absently stabbed her finger against the bottom of her sunglasses when they slipped down the fine layer of sweat coating the bridge of her nose. The back of her cotton shirt stuck to her skin, imprinting the pattern from her seat cover across the damp material. Though Ellen didn’t hold much store in intuition, she had one of those nagging hunches that this wasn’t going to be a good day. She turned up the fan on the air conditioner in her old but reliable car knowing as she did so, that it wasn’t up to the task of the morning’s heat.

A thump followed by a whump, whump broke Ellen’s pessimistic contemplation. The car started to veer off the road so she pulled over to the gravel shoulder, turned off the engine, yanked on the hand brake, switched on the emergency flashers, and got out. She walked purposefully around the car to find the source of the problem; it was the back left tire, flat beyond repair.

It definitely wasn’t going to be a good day.

Leaning against the back of her undrivable car, Ellen now faced the equally unpleasant options of phoning for help, or digging around in the back of her car for a jack and the spare. There was nothing that Ellen hated more than a woman who needed a man to help with the more physical tasks of life–unless perhaps it was figuring out how to stabilize a jack on the crushed red gravel of the shoulder.

As Ellen pondered her choices, she gazed back at the traffic traveling the same road she had been on only moments before. A white SUV was headed toward her and a tiny green car was trying to pass it. She heard and felt the semitrailer coming in the opposite direction and spared a moment to wonder how all three vehicles were going to manage to pass her parked car.

The tiny green car accelerated the best that it could and the SUV hit its brakes. Ellen heard a soft screeching sound and anticipated the smell of burnt rubber that would soon reach her. At the last minute, the green car swerved, its back bumper just brushing the front of the SUV. This slightest of nudges sent the SUV straight toward the shoulder and Ellen’s car.

She barely had enough time to stand and draw in a deep breath, as if she were about to plunge head first into an oncoming wave. When the SUV reached her, she felt it come into contact with her thighs. Then, in a prolonged instant, she felt her feet lagging behind the rest of her body while her legs snapped like crispy bacon. Her torso was hurled into the back of her parked car and she was dead before she heard the grating of the metal that collapsed on impact.

Ellen opened her eyes, squinting at the sun pouring across her pillows. As on just about every other morning, she cursed renting an apartment that had a bedroom with an eastern-facing window and thin curtains. But then, as her dream resurfaced, she decided the warmth of the sun was a welcomed intruder today. An inner chill ran like thick treacle down her spine. She untangled her legs from the python-like grip of her blankets and flopped back on the sun-drenched pillow. Two, deep, calming breaths did nothing to erase the creepy feeling that had now pooled at the base of her spine. Ellen slammed her fist into her pillow and bounced out of bed.

Irrespective of the accepted myth that dying in your dream means you’ll die in your sleep, Ellen had a habit of surviving her deadly dreams. This car crash was not her first such dream and she doubted it would be her last. These days she couldn’t turn out her bedside lamp without expecting that her sleep would be filled with dreams; some horrific, some dramatic, and some boringly mundane. Those mundane dreams were all too rare as far as Ellen was concerned.

But mundane or horrific, Ellen would resignedly take what she got as long as the dream only visited her once. What she had a hard time dealing with was dreams that repeated themselves. These made her fear she’d missed the point of something her unconscious mind was trying to tell her.

To minimize the terrors in her nights, Ellen had developed a system of satisfying her psyche. Every morning she would make a truce with her unconscious mind by spending her rushed shower trying to figure out what had caused her last dream. On good days, this was a quick process where Ellen could easily identify what had triggered her nightmare, what conflict at work or news headline her psyche was mulling over.

Unfortunately the death-by-crash dream didn’t have any obvious source–she hadn’t watched a movie with a car chase scene lately, nor had she had any near misses herself. This meant it probably was something too complex to be unraveled in the amount of time a shower lasted, time that she’d gladly spend when she had it free. If she didn’t find the time, she dreaded that her brain would make it for her in a not-too-distant dream. But that time was not now, now she needed to race out the door or risk being late to work.

Ellen didn’t have an overly challenging job but it was a busy one. Make-work kept her mind occupied and helped the day pass quickly. By the time Ellen met Lydia for lunch, she’d almost managed to forget her deadly dream. Almost. It was still hanging around uncomfortably at the back of her mind so she mentioned it as casually as she could.

“I don’t know how you can talk about your own death so calmly,” Lydia said over the top of her iced coffee.

Ellen wasn’t exactly happy with Lydia’s attempt at infecting her with fear. “It’s not my own death, it’s my dream. Big difference.”

“Okay, let’s say it’s not about your death, what is it about then?”

The two women discussed as many options as they could invent in the remainder of their lunch hour–everything from the fact that the tiny green car might represent environmental protection squeezed out by consumerism symbolized by the SUV to the most obvious of interpretations, that the dream was a prophecy.  By the end of their break they’d resolved nothing but left Ellen worrying whether her dream was telling her to reduce her carbon footprint or, alarmingly, foretelling her future.

That night Ellen poured a glass of red wine and took it and a book to bed. She knew there was no way that Bridget Jones’s Diary would trigger a nightmare and red wine generally helped her relax into a dreamless sleep.

The next day was another bright and humid morning. As Ellen drove to work she felt her irritation grow every time her sunglasses slipped down the sweating bridge of her nose. She heard a thump followed by a whump, whump. Her car started to veer off the road so she pulled over to the gravel shoulder and got out. She walked around the car to find the source of the problem; it was the back left tire, flat beyond repair. A sinking feeling formed in the pit of her stomach. Looking up she saw the white SUV heading toward her with a tiny green car passing it. She barely had enough time to draw in a deep breath before the SUV reached her.

Be sure to visit the Empirical website to subscribe!

If you are a writer and are interested in writing for Empirical, check out this link to find out how to submit.

From the Empirical Archives: The Corpsman by Kenneth Weene

The Corpsman

Kenneth Weene

Originally published in the January 2013 issue of Empirical

They called him Doc. It wasn’t his title or even his nickname, but it was what they called him. He knew if he were ever hit, killed, air-vacced out, they’d call the next guy Doc, too. Doc was better than the other name, “Medic, Medic.” That was what they called when somebody was hit, hit bad, bad enough to need him. Some nights it still woke him–in his dreams, them yelling, “Medic, Medic.” Him paralyzed, unable to help.

He is a bright guy. Career Navy, he’d worked his way up from corpsman to officer, gone to school–college. For all that education, he still didn’t have any insight, no self-awareness. Self-awareness isn’t something that comes easy with PTSD. Too busy reliving, too busy trying to keep his shit together.

Retired, going a bit to gray and pot, he and his wife were on a trip; they were staying at the same Bed and Breakfast as my wife and I. The ladies had gone to bed; so there we were: just two guys sitting in a comfortable living room in small town Arizona.

He starts out telling me that he doesn’t much like being with people, being part of a group, doesn’t really join in, stays to himself. Then he spends the evening talking. Talking and sharing and talking some more. Guess what he really doesn’t like is listening. If the other guy is talking, how can he be back there, back then, reliving?

He starts by telling me about PTSD.

I don’t interrupt–to tell him that I’m a shrink–not until he finishes telling me about what a Navy psychiatrist had explained to him–how if you take a cat, nice little cat, and put him in a backyard and start shooting at him and blowing shit up around him and then you take him back into the house, why that cat will be changed and that was how post-traumatic stress worked.

Then I told him about my background; I mentioned there was usually something else about Post Traumatic Stress–something that cats couldn’t figure–not just the being scared but the guilt that somehow you should have changed things.

That’s when he talked about the ambush.

He was supposed to go out with this patrol. They were going to do a sweep and set up an ambush, a standard night operation in Vietnam.

Bunch of kids; oldest, the corporal leading it, wasn’t any older than nineteen–kids, just kids. So this corporal tells me, “Doc, you ain’t coming with us.”

“Of course I am. You got to have a corpsman.”

“You ain’t coming,” he says again.

“Yeah, I am.”

They go back and forth a bit before the corporal tells him that the patrol isn’t going anywhere, that they’re just too damned tired so they’re going to get a little way out of camp, and hunker down for the night. Just call in like they’re really out on patrol.

Get a night’s sleep before they fall apart.

Well, he isn’t happy about not doing his job; so he decides that the least he can do is take a radio shift back at HQ, do something instead of taking the night off. At two, he takes over the CP radio. Everything’s quiet. The corporal calls in, his scheduled contact. Everything’s fine. A few seconds later, he hears hell breaking loose over that radio. First there’s a single shot. Then that patrol, the one he was supposed to be on, is screaming for help. Over the radio he hears the firing. Deep shit!

He’s one of the team that goes out for the rescue. Four medics, couple of officers, a bunch of riflemen. By the time they get to where this platoon is hunkered, every last one of those Marines has been hit. But everything is quiet, quiet as death.

“Where the hell are they?”

“Sneaky bastards.”

Then they figure it out. The corporal had called in at two, just like he was supposed to. Then he decided to check his men, make sure nothing was wrong. Damn kid forgot to put on his helmet. In Marine world after dark and no helmet, you’re the enemy. Shoot to kill. That first shot he’d heard over the radio.

Well, that shot and the other Marines had jumped up–still no helmets. More fucking shooting.

All those guys hit; all by their own friendly fire.

Friendly fire. Jesus, who could have thought. Too damned tired to know what they were…

His eyes clouded. He was someplace else. 

I should have been there. Never could figure out why I wasn’t. I should have been out there with those guys, but … but I wasn’t. Why? … Why? The thing was, he was serious. He didn’t understand why the corporal had told him to stay in camp.

“You were too valuable to waste,” I offered.

What do you mean?

“They knew they weren’t going to be fighting so why waste a corpsman’s time? Just like if they needed to dig a hole or some other grunt work, you’re not the guy to hand the shovel. Medics were too valuable to  squander that way. Why have you waste your energy when you might need it to save one of them some time?”

Shit, I must have asked a dozen doctors why; and nobody ever… He sat–quiet, nodding his head from time to time.

Thing is I came back. I was never even wounded.

“That was damn lucky. Corpsmen, you guys–only ones more likely to get it were Second Lieutenants.” I hadn’t served, but I wanted him to know that I understood. 

Yeah, butter-bars. You see a Lieutenant with a map and you knew you were in shit. Fresh from training and not knowing a thing about what they was doing.

I laughed. He smiled wanly.

When I was fresh in the field, you know maybe six weeks in, I noticed something strange. There was this snapping noise. I’d be working on a guy and suddenly I’d hear this snapping. I’d look around, but there wasn’t anything breaking–no sticks or anything –just that sound. I asked this Gunnery Sergeant, “Gunny,” I asked, “There’s something I want to ask you.”

“So ask, Doc.”

“When I’m out there and I’m working on a guy, I hear this noise, this snapping, any idea what it is?”

“Sure, Doc, that’s bullets. Those sons-ofbitches are shooting at you. When a bullet gets close enough it snaps. Most of the time you hear a whine, but when it gets close enough.”

“After that, when I was working on a guy, I’d kind of dart around.”

He acted it out, reaching for something quickly, changing direction, moving suddenly in another direction. He stopped moving, sat still and looked at me.

“It sounds awful,” I said to break the silence.

Nothing.

“You must have…”

Some, a lot didn’t make it. Some I didn’t think would, but they did. Worst one, one I saved but I didn’t think he’d make it–there was this kid. We were on patrol and all hell breaks out. I’m working on some other guy, nothing too bad, when one of the Marines comes up, says, “Doc, you got to come.”

“I’m working on this guy,” I say.

He grabs me; pulls me right away, right down to his buddy.

This grunt is leaning against a tree. His arm is broken in two; he’s holding it up, and it’s just hanging down from here. 

He gestures to show that the bottom two thirds of the guy’s left forearm is hanging down like everything inside it is broken, like it’s held on by skin.

“And his right leg is gone right to here.” He indicates the hip. “I could see his hip joint. The leg is a couple of yards away, lying on the ground like it’s waiting for him. And blood. Shit, you ain’t seen a femoral until you’ve seen a femoral. A femoral and a radial and both going at once.

He jerked his hands in different directions like they were supposed to be the spurting blood.

First thing I need is a tourniquet. I dump my pack right there on the ground, but I don’t have another one. None of the guys have one either; we’ve just used them all. So I think about it, and we’re wearing these new uniforms, not the cammies, those hadn’t come in yet, but these green nylon uniforms.

At least we were out of the cottons–sweat to death in nylon, but they dried faster. These new uni-s, they got pockets on the legs, and there are these cords sewn in to tie those pockets tight so your shit doesn’t jiggle around in there. I never put anything in those pockets, but I grab the cord from my left leg and pull until it rips free.

Again his hands are flying around.

I use the strap to tie up that stump of his. Use some stump pads and there’s all this jungle shit right in the wound, but I got it tied off … and the arm, and I say, “Call a dust off; we got to get him out of here.”

That’s when this guy–his leg gone, his arm gone–he says, “Hey, Doc, you looked down there.”

I nod yeah.

“So is it all there. Do I still got what I need?”

“Yeah,” I tell him and that son-of-a-bitch smiles back at me like there’s not a damn thing wrong in the world.

Course we’ve got that chopper all ready coming in; and he starts coming down, but then he pulls away.

“What the fuck?” I ask.

“Taking fire, can’t land,” the sergeant explains.

So we load this guy on a poncho and his leg and we carry him down to an LZ not too far off. But the chopper still can’t land. Sarge says, “They’ll lower the basket. We put him in fast, and they get the hell out of here.”

So they get about a hundred feet above us and they lower this drogue, and it starts rotating like a crazy-ass pendulum, but then that pilot–damn he’s good–he gets it under control and sets it down gentle. Somebody yells, “Get him in.”

We get that guy and his leg into the bucket and the copter takes off.

“Shit,” I yell, “We didn’t get him tied in.”

That basket is swinging around again, and we watch it gyrating as the copter pulls up and meanwhile I guess they’re pulling him in, too; but for a minute I expected to see that guy flying out of that bucket and…

Couple of months later, we get back from patrol and the shirt whose in charge of our platoon calls a meeting. “We got a letter,” he says, “from Clere. You guys remember him?”

Well, most of us–except the new guys–say yeah, and he reads the letter. How this guy’s back in the states and learning to use a prosthetic arm, one of those things that go across the back and you can move them around with your other shoulder and you can open and close these hooks.

He illustrated hunching his shoulders and clawing with two fingers of his own hand.

“They can’t do anything about a leg, too much of that was gone. But I’ll be going home and that’s what counts. So, I just wanted to let you guys know I made it out okay.”

The shirt gives us a piece of paper and a pen and tells us we should all write something back to this guy. Being I’m Navy, you know a corpsman and not a Marine, I get that piece of paper last and there isn’t much room; so I just write how most of us would give an arm and a leg to get out of Nam.

He nodded in appreciation of his own little joke. I tried to smile in response.

Didn’t hear from that guy for years. Then the VFW puts together a list of all of us members all over the country. Computers you know; they’re great. And each of us has written down his information. Forty bucks and you got a great big book to tell you where all your buddies are. It was brand new; my copy hadn’t come yet, but I was looking forward to it, maybe looking up a few of the guys.

Meanwhile, it was first day of deer hunting season and I’d spent it out in the swamps, wandering around and not seeing a single animal. I get home tired, hungry, out of sorts. Last thing I want is to talk to anyone. Just as my ass is finding my favorite chair, the phone rings. I don’t answer; but it keeps ringing, and my wife can’t stand it so she answers: You know a woman, can’t leave a crying baby or a ringing phone.

“Tell them we don’t want any.” He says it while making a cutting sign across his neck.

Don’t you hate those telemarketers? I figured nobody else would be bothering with us.

Anyway, my wife gets to talking, and I tell her again, “We don’t want any.”

Then she hands me the phone. “It’s for you.”

“Who is it?”

“I don’t know. Ask him.”

So I kind of shout into the phone, “Who is this?”

And this deep, rough voice says, “Did you use to be in the Navy?”

“Yeah. And I still am. Who…?”

“A corpsman?”

“Yeah. But…”

“And you served in Vietnam?”

Now he was getting into some painful water, “Look, I don’t know what you’re selling, but who the hell are you?”

“Shit, Doc, now that ain’t any way to talk to a guy who gave an arm and leg to get out of Nam.”

“Clere, is that you? You know I never could find you, find out…How the hell are you? Wondered a lot of time, but couldn’t find you in any reports.”

He laughs. “That’s ‘cause my name’s not Clere, it’s Lehr.”

“So where are you? What are you doing?”

“We still live in Missouri. I work for the IRS.”

“Shit, I saved your life so you could go to work for the IRS? What the fuck?”

He looked at me and shook his head like something worried at him but that nothing mattered. We sat quiet  for a while. We both knew there were no answers, no reasons, just the randomness of war. But on that night, that one night: yeah, there had been a reason.

Be sure to visit the Empirical website to subscribe!

If you are a writer and are interested in writing for Empirical, check out this link to find out how to submit.

From the Empirical Archives: Maman, Maman by Jaime O'Neill

Maman, Maman

Jaime O'Neill

Originally published in the December 2012 issue of Empirical

It is bitter cold on Omaha Beach two weekends before Christmas, and so my daughter, Sionann, sits in her car, watching her Paris friends survey this site she knows so well, having brought a succession of visitors from her Normandy house here to this old killing ground to share in the homage she pays to all the young men who died on this stretch of sand so long before she was born.

Her friends sprint near water’s edge, running against the cold wind that cuts across the channel and through their winter coats. Even in the car, she can feel that wind. She turns up the heater, and she turns up the music, too–Joan Baez singing “Ave Maria” in German. It is music my daughter has known since she was an infant, a Christmas album we bought when she was three months old and have listened to every Christmas since then, more than forty years. She is, at first, swept up by nostalgia and it takes a few moments before she even realizes the language Joan Baez is singing in, and how that particular song sung in German must resonate with the ghosts who inhabit this gray seaside terrain, all those young German men who died here more than half a century ago, calling out for their mothers with their dying breaths.

Then her friends–the four of them part of a choral group Sionann has invited here to sing carols in her village–run back up the beach to where she sits in the car. Their cheeks are red with the cold, and they bring that salty Atlantic cold into the car, a gust of it on their coats and the surface of their exposed skin, but they are all aglow with laughter and vitality as

Sionann starts the engine and they turn away from the beach to drive inland where they are expected, where they will sing carols at the retirement home in my daughter’s village, just a block from her house in a town called Cerisy Le Foret–Cherry of the Forest–a place liberated by some of the men who survived the landing on this beach weeks after their comrades fell here, turning the water crimson and staining the sand where they bled their young lives away.

The place my daughter drives to is on a street renamed, in fact, for the infantry division that pushed the Germans out in that summer of 1944–Avenue 2 “e” Division Indian Head, an unwieldy name, but an honor no post-war Norman would speak against.

At the retirement home, the old people are assembled in the large common room, in wheelchairs and on sofas, awaiting the arrival of this odd American girl and her friends–British and American ex-pats, and a Parisian, plus a couple of people from the village who spent the evening before rehearsing the songs in my daughter’s living room, singing around the fire in her hearth, all those old songs of hope offered up for so long in the dead of winter, songs sung against the cold and the dark–“O Come, O Come Emmanuel,” “Away in a Manger,” “Petit Papa Noel,” “Stille Nacht.” And they sing more recent holiday songs, too–“Blue Christmas,” for example, with my daughter vamping an Elvis impersonation that makes the old people clap their hands together and exclaim in French.

And, when they pause in their singing–this unexpected invasion of young people come to sing them the season–one of the old women begins to sing a song in French that translates to “We’ll Never Be Twenty Again,” and when her singing is met with delight, she sings the song again, all the way through, with the visitors joining in, the sentiment as true for them as it is for the octogenarians who live in this place.

There is a tree in the corner, sparsely decorated, but the lights blink on and off–red, blue, golden–and the pine smell does battle with the odor of urine and antiseptics that hangs wherever the elderly are warehoused, in France just as everywhere else.

Then there is an interlude for punch and petit-fours and my daughter, who is–you’ll forgive a father his pride perhaps the sweetest human being in either France or the country of her birth, notices a stricken old woman, well over 90, slumped in a wheelchair, her face an utter ruin, tears spilling down the slack flesh of her wrinkled cheeks.

Many would ignore those tears, of course, and many would turn away from the obvious pain in this woman’s face. Many would join the conviviality of the nurses and the attendants around the punch bowl, would pretend not to have seen those tears, would avoid the uncomfortable proximity to a stranger’s sorrows, especially the sorrows of an elderly woman who may be addled, and who is, in all likelihood, beyond solace. But Sionann, bless her heart, is not such a person. She goes and sits next to the woman, hears her muttered calls for her mother–“Maman, Maman”–and takes the woman’s bony old hand in her own while she tries to think of what to say, of what there is to say.

Finally, she says something, words in French meant to be soothing. They are universal, the sentiments my daughter expresses in that moment, words meant to bring comfort, though they feel dry and hollow in her mouth.

“But,” the old woman replies, her voice hoarse and hushed, “I am so very sick.”

Sick enough to call out for her mother, long, long dead. Sick enough to grip the hand of this stranger who, though not her mother, has come to her in answer to entreaties that echo those she made when she was a little girl with a scraped knee, calling for her mother to come and take away the pain and make the fear go away, back when her mother was alive and young, long before German soldiers came to this place, or American soldiers either, and clashed in places near here where she had played as a child.

“It’s all right,” my daughter says, “you’re going to feel better soon.”

And then, in the way such words get spoken, she says it again, and still again, stroking the limp and mottled hand with each repetition, herself now become, in this moment of grace, the mother to this now motherless old woman.

The choir re-gathers at the front of the room, beckons my daughter to join them, and she bends to kiss the old woman’s cheek before taking her place with her friends who sing Schubert’s “Ave Maria” in Latin, though none of them knows exactly what the words mean.

The young people who came to sing in this place raise their voices again for those who draw near death, for those who live less than a stone’s throw from an abbey dating back a millennium, where people of this region have gathered in the dead of a thousand winters to raise voices in song and supplication, singing praises to a child, and to that child’s mother.

In Greek meter, in Russian mate, in German mutter, in Sanskrit matri, in Irish mathair, in Spanish madre, in Mandarin ma, in Swedish mor, in Arabic umm. Across the sorrowing globe we call out for our mothers in prayers secular, or prayers religious, offered to our mothers, or our idea of mothers, or to the mother of us all.

Then it is time for the residents of the home for old people in the cherry of this forest to go to their separate rooms and their beds, and then it is time for the younger ones who came to sing for them to leave, to return to the world where the young will gather for a late dinner around my daughter’s table before they, too, take themselves to bed and offer their whispered or unspoken prayers in the darkness, just before sleep, seeking comfort, seeking peace, seeking to push back the bad and troubling things for yet another night, yet another day. The hopes and fears of all the years. The prayers of untold billions of hearts on thousands of unrecorded winter nights like this one my daughter knows on that cold Norman coast so far from her own mother, so very far from home.

Be sure to visit the Empirical website to subscribe!

If you are a writer and are interested in writing for Empirical, check out this link to find out how to submit.