“Country Life” by Reyna Vergara


Abuelita stretches out her index finger. A simple request follows, “Mija, llévele este almuerzo a su abuelito,” ‘Sweetheart, take this lunch to your grampy.’When abuelita would call me mija, she spoke to my soul; to the part of me that was reserved for a special kind of love. I look around at the acres and acres of wilderness in front of me. I am afraid to go alone, but how can I say no? I take a step forward. When I pass the threshold between the house and the open field, my heart begins to pound. I’m a 10-year-old city girl, but today, on my grandparents’farm, I must become a grown country woman. I hear the rusted gate closing behind me, and even though I want to run back to the safety of their mud house, I know I cannot. As I glance backward, I’m reminded of the strength of my grandparents’. They built the house with their own hands. Yet here I am, their granddaughter,trembling at the knees. The lunch pail is heavy.

As I walk, I mentally mark my path, recording every shrub and stone, not realizing the futility of my endeavor. But soon, everything begins to look the same. My mind starts to play tricks on me, and I have visions of being attacked by snakes. My cousin, José, on his way to the well, was bitten by one. Fortunately, his boots saved him. Darn! I’m wearing sandals! I’m as good as dead! But maybe I won’t be attacked by snakes, wolves are far more common around here. I still remember the ones that walked next to Mami, papi, and me when I was a very little girl. The colorful bus had dropped us off on the side of the road, several miles from the farm. I could hear the wolves moving in the shrubs along the road, but it wasn’t until they howled that I felt a warm droplet of water in my panties. I cried for papi to carry me on his shoulders, but now, he’s not here.

The dreadful scenarios of my demise continue haunting me, but to my great relief, I find abuelito. I’m elated to see him! He has always been Mamis hero. So, he’s mine too. But something stops me from jubilantly thrusting myself forward. I read my surroundings carefully. I realize that I’m standing on a dry piece of land, the very dead ground that abuelito is tilling with a homemade hoe. He’s sweating profusely and making very little progress. The tool in his hands seems to be overpowering him. His clothes are worn out, patches upon patches. I can’t take my eyes off this tiny, indigenous, old man. In my distressed, I feel immobilized. My hands almost fail me, as I catch his food pail mid-air. Did I think that abuelito worked in an office? I wasn’t sure what to expect, but this was not it. I stand there watching him, like a ghost. I feel the need to take it all in, but I can’t grasp it. Everything in life seems to happen too fast for me, and I often find myself in the middle of something that I wish I had more time to think through. I’d like to talk to someone about this, but it’s useless. Mami would scold me or give me orders. This is what the adults do, so I continue to live in my head.

At this moment, I want to hide and reappear only when I have understood, when it all makes sense. But, abuelito needs his lunch now. So, once again, I have no other option but to keep moving forward. I take slow steps, and when I’m at a short distance from him, I stop to watch him intently until he notices me. Smiling, he takes the food and thanks me. Although he’s wearing his sombrero, jeans and long sleeves to protect him from the sun, his burnt skin looks leathery. I can see the wrinkles that adorn his face and the indentation of his lips at the places where his teeth have fallen out. He finds a spot under one of the few trees that have survived the draught, uncovers his pail, and stares at the food. Finally, he realizes that I’m still there. So, he tells me that I don’t have to wait because it’s too hot and the field is no place for a little girl. I’m charged to go, but I hated to leave. I’m betrayed by my sense of obedience. The good little girl I am does as he says. However, everything inside me tells me to stay, keep him company, and give him a hug. Despite tripping over several stones, because I’m not paying attention to the path, I continue to stare at abuelito, sitting helplessly, leaning his back against a solitary tree. He has so much work to do. It feels overwhelming.

The last time I looked back, I saw him dossing off, with his tortillas by his side. I wanted to pick him up and carry him to the home he built when he was young and newlywed. He deserved to rest a little. But once again, I felt as I often did, helpless and confused. Life seemed so unfair.


Reyna Vergara is an Assistant Professor of Spanish at Mississippi University for Women. Her writing focuses on the struggle for redemption of the colonial subject, exploring the transmission of oppression. Writing short stories is also a way to connect to her ancestors and find her way home.

“Something Happens When We Die” by Mark Antony Rossi

When you serve your country in the armed forces, especially during times of duress, you discover many definitions of death. I list a few examples for the sake of argument:

the death of Manhood for not standing up in a fight.

The death of a Decision for fear of making a decision.

The death of Innocence—rosy replaced by reality.

It never occurred to me I was dealing with the latter. The onset of mental illness was a nasty shock to my system. I let that tough-guy macho thing disguise my feelings to the point of denying the truth. Exposure to the trauma of others has a cumulative effect. In the time, it produces a debilitating open wound in your subconscious until you inevitably break down.

I held on to innocence far too long. Then, thinking about the force of willpower reinforced by brandy, I could keep the best parts of me alive. But some things can’t be unseen no matter how much we bury them. And the corpse that is childhood is a funeral no sensible adult wants to attend.

Something happens when we die. The internal. The invisible. The irreversible momentary death of being someone we are not. Of being something we know is wrong. We move ahead for expedience. We step forward in deference.

Something changes the spiritual furniture. We become strangers in our homes. Daylight feels like an intractable foe. The night feels like a robe meant to hide transparency. Every word sounds like an unsharpened weapon. And former objects of desire are now soulless idols standing beside you in battle. You’ve traded sexual intimacy for a better-looking squad of soldiers.

It’s not wise to fight Death.  Yet fighting is how I arrived in this world. Spun through mother’s womb a catacomb of miscarriage and mental anguish. My birth beat death and death has never let me forget it. A missed sniper in the Philippines. A plane crash in the Azores. A missed disaster in West Germany. Three appointments of death I have missed. Not from strength. Not from luck. Certainly not from grace.

Something happens when we die. We hear death as a clarion call to make better choices. We learn the old fight must end. And we finally see most struggles first start in the battlefield of the mind. And victory is an ill-conceived military term forgotten by those facing fear with conviction. And finding the courage to walk the long way home.


Mark Antony Rossi is a poet, playwright and host of the literary podcast “Strength To Be Human” where he creates episodes on art, creativity and working with depression. He is a Cold War USAF veteran.

“Faulty Wiring” by William David


The elevator doesn’t go all the way to the top,
the maintenance man blames it on faulty wiring.
It will start, sometime stutter, then stop.
After a time, it gets old and quite tiring.
Some wires were crossed,
all functions were lost.
A short circuit ensued,
all the exits were secured.
All because of faulty wiring.

The porch light is on, but flickers all night,
I believe it’s got to be some faulty wiring.
We had an electrician out to try and make it work right.
He made it worse,
it flickered faster, and he said with a curse,
he didn’t know how to fix my faulty wiring.
So, we decided to throw a 70’s style strobe light party.
With rock and roll music in the background playing loudly,
we decided to make the best of our faulty wiring.

The car won’t start on a chilly winter morning,
when I turn the key, it just clicks at me,
then gives me a yellow idiot light that says: WARNING.
My mechanic checked it out, and you know what it’d be,
yes sir, that’s right, it was caused by some faulty wiring
I knew it might cost a lot to repair,
so I didn’t ask, I would not be inquiring,
I didn’t want to think about it, I didn’t want to go there.
Another day ruined by faulty wiring.

The house down the street caught on fire the other day,
everyone got out safely and the whole house didn’t burn down.
The family felt they were lucky,
no one was hurt, and was glad it stayed that way
When the town fire marshal came around,
he needed to investigate the cause of this near catastrophe.
It was no surprise to him what had been transpiring,
he wrote in his report what the obvious cause to be,
“Blaze was the result of faulty wiring.”

There are some folks that you wonder what they use for a brain,
sometimes they flicker in and out.
When asked a question they seem like it’s far too great of a strain.
Their thoughts won’t start to form or are incomplete,
You can see with their eyes all filled with doubt.
While some put on a real good pretense,
I’m afraid their stupid ideas make no sense.
There are those among us that go out screaming in the street,
like raving lunatics with no clue at all.
At some point, intelligence came calling,
and they missed the damn call.
Their mind was somewhere else wandering,
perhaps incapable of correctly working.
In my humble opinion, it’s my belief,
like everything else that causes too much grief.
They just might be afflicted with “faulty wiring.”


After a successful career as a Senior Designer working with international mining companies, William David is retired now and living in Tucson, Az. He likes spending time now devoted to his passion: writing poetry. William writes for his pleasure and for the pleasure of those who might read his poems.

“The Lunchbox” by Lauren Ostrander


“Excuse me? Excuse me, sir! Can you tell me where I am right now?” The man Billie directed the question toward continued past her as though he hadn’t heard her. He stepped up into his truck and drove off.

Billie tried, again, to pull up her Maps app but it wouldn’t load. Her phone stopped working once she took the unmarked exit. She needed to pee but once she pulled into the gas station, an overwhelming urge to leave consumed her. Her heart started racing and she had a hard time regulating her breathing. She tried turning her car back on but the key just clicked in the ignition slot.

Just stay in the car and lock the door, the logical part of her brain directed.

Billie took a deep breath, and decided to go inside. Sitting in her car that wouldn’t start wouldn’t help her get out of here any faster. She didn’t need to pee anymore.

The gas station was a Shell, but it had no words on the sign. Not even to list the price of Regular versus Diesel. It was just a large yellow shell outlined in red. It looked innocuous enough. Billie could see through the large floor to ceiling windows a stack of what looked like Coca Cola 12 pack cases, alongside a large pyramid display of 7-UP and Mountain Dew bottles. The colors were right, but there were no labels. Just lots of red, yellow, and green.

She pushed open the door, and a bell tinkled to signal her arrival. The cashier, a woman with brown hair in a braid, sat with her elbows propped up on the counter. She stared off into the distance. She didn’t blink or move when Billie let the door slam behind her. On the right, there was a small end-table and on top of it was a lime green metal lunch box with swirls of red and yellow and the initials E.B.D printed on it in light blue. Her mouth went dry.

“That yours? It’s been there for a while now.”

Billie whipped around. It was the cashier. She was in the same position but her eyes were fixed on Billie.

“No, it’s not mine.”

“Sure looks like yours.”

A wave of nausea washed over her. She felt hot and cold at the same time. What is that supposed to mean?

Billie swallowed and nodded. “It’s not. I’m sure of it.”

“Sure.” She sounded as bored as she looked. The cashier resumed staring off into the distance. Billie pulled her phone out of her back pocket. It wouldn’t even turn on.

“Those things don’t work around here.”

She looked back toward the cashier but she sat in the same position, her eyes zoned out on the drink displays at the back of the store.

Billie gripped her phone even tighter and moved away from the counter. The fluorescent lights beat down on her and made her eyes hurt. She glanced at the candy that lined the shelves. Gum, Nutter Butters, Skittles, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, Hershey’s, Sweet Tarts, Sour Patch Kids. She tried to distract herself. You can only pick one candy, Billie, so make it count.

Her mother told her this when she was little. Her brother had no trouble at all, grabbing the first thing he saw and running to the front with their father to purchase his choice. Billie, on the other hand, saw all of the options. So many different candies. Did she want chocolate or something sour? Or maybe fruity? Should she get a Reese’s or a Kit Kat? Or maybe some Mike and Ike’s? And what about a drink? Coke? 7UP? Mountain Dew? The decision was too much and Billie broke down. There were too many choices. Her mother ended up letting her fill up her lunchbox that she took everywhere with her with as much candy as it would fit, but she had to split it evenly with her brother.

That lunch box was metal and lime green. She had painted on red and yellow swirls with nail polish one night after she’d gotten grounded for something her brother did.

Yeah but your initials weren’t in blue. I’m pretty sure anyways.

Billie looked down and saw she was gripping three pouches of Skittles and some Sour Patch Kids. She put the Sour Patch Kids back and grabbed a water, eyeing the display of Cokes she saw outside.

She went up to the counter and put her stuff down. The counter was white linoleum and had writing all over it in different colored pens. James + Lydia were here in green. Baxter Smith, 2015 in red. E.B.D. in blue. It was circled and underlined.

“Do you know who wrote this?” Billie asked, trying to sound as uninterested as the cashier looked. The cashier scanned her water and looked at what she was pointing at.

“That was here when I started working here. No clue.”

Billie exhaled through her nose. There are probably tons of people with those initials. It’s really not that weird.

“Do you need a box?”

She looked behind her and the lunchbox was gone. Her head moved imperceptibly, as if she shook her head from side to side.

“What?” She looked back at the cashier.

She stared at Billie unblinkingly. “Do you need a bag?”

She looked down at the counter, at her initials. “Uh, no, no. I’m good. Actually, do you have a bathroom?”

“Out of order. Some girl died in there last week.”

Billie looked up. “What?”

The cashier sat back down and propped her elbows back up on the counter but continued looking at Billie. “Yeah, she OD’ed in there. That’s at least what I assume after what we found in her lunchbox. She walked in there and never left. The guy on shift didn’t even notice until multiple people kept complaining that there was a horrible smell coming from one of the bathrooms.”

“That lunchbox was hers? Why’d you ask me if it was mine?”

The cashier shrugged. “I saw you looking at it. Thought maybe that girl stole it.”

“Did you ever get her name?”

She shook her head. “Police found a bottle of coke and some skittles in there, too.” She passed Billie’s bag across the counter.

Billie’s face felt slack. She opened her mouth to say something, anything. To ask another question she knew the answer to, to make conversation so she didn’t have to go back out to her car, but instead she just grabbed the bag. It felt like nothing, like it was empty. She wished she’d gotten a Coke when she’d had the chance. She stepped outside, and saw a car pull in. She started walking slowly back to her car.

A man approached her, looking confused, almost panicked.

“Excuse me, miss? Excuse me! Can you tell me where I am?” He waved his hand frantically.

Billie walked past him, thinking of how that Coke is going to haunt her, got in her car, and put the key in the ignition. She turned the key and it started immediately.


Lauren Ostrander is currently an MFA student at Mississippi University for Women studying short fiction. She is also a fiction and nonfiction editor for MUW’s in-house literary magazine, Ponder Review. Her short fiction is forthcoming in In Parentheses magazine.

Issue 4: September 2020


It has been a hot summer and it’s not over yet. We hope that the heat makes you write faster and not less. We have been busy here trying to get our own house in order and some regularity to our publishing schedule.

We now have five platforms we publish to: Rue Scribe, Underwood, The Purpled Nail, True Chili and Black Works. And we are getting ready to add one more for you mystery writers out there.

We are fans of Arthur Conan Doyle and Sherlock Holmes and Mr. Watson, too. So, what better name for our newest venture than “Baker Street.”

We are, however, still putting it together. Gather your mystery and suspense stories together and look for the submission window to open in January, 2021.

“Last Meal” and “Waltz” by Francis Fernandes


Last Meal

Risotto requires the garlic fried golden brown
in a dollop of butter and then some grains
of sea salt mixed in before you add
the cup of white wine that steams up with
a sudden whiff of those hills between Chablis
and Châtillon-sur-Seine. Everyone knows this
of course, so here I am stating the obvious
to warm up the chopping block. What’s not
so obvious is the fact that my girlfriend won’t
be joining me for the wine (in a glass)
and the dinner (on a plate) on this rainy
evening in June. Things are where
they should be, people too, because you
can’t say it often enough: you are bloody
accountable for your actions and those sharp
words you wield, none of which can ever
be taken back, just like the barrel-flavoured
sips and the tangy mouthfuls that go into you,
not to mention the trip you never shared through
the French countryside or the saffron you
forgot to buy on the way home. Of course they
can’t. How can you take back something that
doesn’t exist, unless for some reason they –
the saffron and that trip to France – sidled
into the poem like one of those portentous
sunsets from any of the June evenings in 1789.


Waltz

Taking stock is not always easy
if you’re a man of action,
but that’s what we’re asked to do
stuck at home in isolation.
The list is far too long to ponder
of all the things gone wrong,
the parts of you scattered,
freely given, and left behind.
You’ve been on the run far too
long. It’s more straightforward
to work out on the floor,
or go to the kitchen and froth
up an espresso, just one more
you promise yourself, before
coaxing a more stable self to
chill and nibble at those seeds
on the mind’s window sill,
trying not to pay excess heed
to who will pay the bills,
or how to immunize the past –
in the end reaching for the music:
a consolation to sift through
the measures and bars of your
kind of jazz: a trio, of course, with
bass and drums and that smiling
Steinway mouth, all wistfully
stirring their parts to play
a tune of vanished love,
what once was: a home with
wife and child, and open mirth,
the hymn that kept it all alive.


Francis Fernandes grew up in the US and Canada. He studied in Montréal and has a degree in Mathematics. Somewhere along the way, he discovered that poetry counts, too. Currently, he lives in Germany, where he writes and teaches.

“Something Going Round” by Joseph Darlington


“Mum, it’s alright-”

“But it’s so small!”

“Muuum!”

“…and dingy!”

“It’s alright, Mum. God!” and Joan dropped her last suitcase onto the garret floor, “it’ll be okay. It’s what I can afford. It just needs tidying. If I need you I can always ring.”

“And you can visit whenever you want, Joan love. You can come back any time in fact! Whenever you feel lonely I’ll jump straight in the car and come get you.”

“It’s two hours drive, Mum!”

“It doesn’t matter, I-“

“Mum, it’ll be fine and that’s the end of it! Come on, let me see you out.”

In the now empty room Joan Gonne had left her cases. They were filled with clothes, some records and pamphlets. Lots of pamphlets. She was twenty nine years old and had left Avon Murray for the first time that morning. God had come to her when she was twenty four and now, five years later, she had finally been accepted onto the theology course in Manchester. You must stop your writing, her mother had told her, until we know it is in line with the Church.

Her mother hit the bollard on the way out. Joan had been giving her the “halt” sign with her hands, then shouting it, but it hadn’t helped. Her mother was seventy six years old and had left Avon Murray for the second time ever that morning. The first time she left, some time in her forties, she had come back with Joan.

The door opened again and Joan was now sitting on the floor, unpacking her record player. She would put on one of her favourite gospel records. Washington Phillips. The one with all the fiddly bits that wriggled in the air like angels’ fingers. She put it on and stared out over the industrial night, the darkness of the tram depot, the far light of the cricket field. The music played over it. She would write about loneliness tonight. That loneliness is the sin of abandoned life.

            Her classes started on a Tuesday. She was scared and alone, surrounded by new faces, each of which moved into and out of the lecture theatres without ever meeting her eye. The church was filled with packed-tight backs of heads like a holy shag carpet. They never turned to see her and as the reverend shook her hand at the door he seemed to launch her out onto the street with it. She told herself that she didn’t mind. That her mum had told her about it,

            “I told you it would be like this, Joan. Come home, love, it’ll all be fine. We can see about a distance course… no, stop mithering, Joan, have you even asked them if you can do a distance course? Well maybe you should ask-“

            “It’s alright, Mum! I’ll see you at Christmas! I’ll be back at Christmas!”

            “Oh yes, Christmas!” her mother loved Christmas, “what is it you want this year, love?”

            “I don’t know, Mum…”

She hadn’t known what she had wanted. Not a single thing. Not until Stanley turned up, that is. She had taken to handing out her pamphlets in front of the library. Her mother had warned her not to, and that everyone would laugh at her. But being laughed at would at least break the silence of these weeks. She realised that in the past five weeks in Manchester she had written more words than she had spoken. She realised it when he spoke to her,

            “What’s this then?” he held her pamphlet, Our Lord it is on Whom you Tread in Light, loosely between two fingers.

            “It’s about… Jesus?” she offered. She’d never been asked to explain her writing before.

            “Oh yeah?” he opened it at a random page, furrowed his brow, “I’m Jewish but-“

            “I’m sorry!” and she tried to snatch it back. Too late. He’d pulled it away.

            “It’s alright. Hey! Hey, I didn’t mean anything by it! I was just going to say I like your drawings is all,” he opened the pamphlet again, pointed to an illustration of St Margery rubbing her tears into the cobblestones. He was smiling. Sincerely, she thought, through his thick glasses. “You draw like a real middle ages… person, artist? Like a Gothic… artist.”

            “Oh,” she didn’t know what to say.

            “Can I have it?” he held it up to the light. As he did he was suddenly overcome by a fit of coughing. He bent double, his coughs viciously hacking. It was like his whole insides were trying to wrench out of him. He spat and she noticed a thin trail of clear mucus pour out of him. His glasses fell to the ground. It seemed he would follow them too but thankfully stopped, still bent double. He was shaking, roughly dragging air into his chest, his chest which heaved in and out like an accordion. Joan bent down to pick up his glasses. She cleaned the mucus off on her cardigan. She wanted to rub his back but didn’t dare to touch him. His hair was curly.

            Soon his breathing slowed back to normal. He looked up at her, first purple with shock then, wiping his mouth, red with embarrassment. Turning white, she passed him his glasses. He put them on. Looked down at her pamphlet. He’d scrunched it, coughed on it. He looked back up at her, his eyed filled with contrition,

            “I’m so sorry.”

            And then he scurried off, the pamphlet still in his hand. She could have sworn she saw? No, it couldn’t have been. But she felt like she’d really seen blood in his tears.

She knew he was called Stanley when then said it on the news a week later. Stanley Cadman was the first person to contract and die of the Ebola virus in the UK. Whoever had brought the virus to Manchester was unknown. It was only known that Stanley had never left Manchester, not in the past six months, not in his entire life. He was a quiet, god-fearing boy, they said. He wrote psalms in his spare time. Joan listened to the radio all night that night, waiting for them to say more about him. At about two a.m. they moved on to talk about an American convoy ambushed in Libya.

            She knew they would talk about him again. She stayed up late every night waiting. She watched the dark tramyard where sometimes small groups of lights would move. She watched the lights move over every tram in the darkness and she would listen for the news but none would come. She wrote pamplets; Stanley Cadman and the Breath of God inside Him, and For Whom Disease brings Death is made Life. She drew his picture in the pamphlets and couldn’t remember the nice things he’d said to her about her drawings. She liked to draw his curly hair.

            She wondered if the lights in the tramyard were angels bringing her Stanley Cadman, but knew that this is not what angels do.

            Eventually she heard his name again on the radio. It was only in passing but it was there. She had known he would return to her,

            “…sixth victim of the Ebola outbreak in Greater Manchester. The origin of the first victim’s contraction of the disease, the victim revealed as 21 year old Stanley Cadman, remains a mystery. None of the subsequent victims appear to have been connected to Cadman. ‘Not even tangentially,’ according to the Secretary of State for Health. This ultimately means that experts are no closer to identifying the source of this terrible outbreak. For now the health advisory committee is recommending-“

            But Joan Gonne knew where the disease had come from, or at least felt she knew. The Lord acted in mysterious ways indeed. She had shown him her pamphlet. Stanley Cadman had seen her drawing of St Margery weeping and he himself began to weep tears of blood. She kept this in her heart, of course. She mentioned nothing at church. Nothing in class. Who would she speak to anyway? She wrote it in her pamphlets but no one read her pamplets. Not even the LGBT society who campaigned to have her banned from campus.

            “…but Joan I’m so worried! I’ve emptied the car, there’s room for everything. All your stuff will fit in there. We can get you back in one trip. Please!”

            “Mum, no! I’m telling you, I’m fine. It’s fine. Everything’s fine!” she held her mouth over the receiver, trying to control the anger in her breathing, “-no. No, Mum, I’m not coming home. No, there’s hundreds of people here, thousands even. Only six have… okay seven now, but only seven have got Ebola. That’s seven out of thousands, Mum! It’s totally safe. No, calm down. It’ll be okay. I like it here now. Yes, I’m making friends. I’ll tell you about them at Christmas, Mum. Yes, Mum, yes! Of course I’m coming back for Christmas. All my friends are going home to their families too so no, I won’t be going off with them, I’ll be coming back to stay with you. It’s great here, Mum, it really is. No, I still don’t know what I want. I’m sorry, I’ll try harder to think of something. Are you getting my pamphlets? Okay, love you, bye.”

            She sent a copy of every pamphlet home. Her mother hadn’t mentioned Stanley though. Joan suspected her Mum hadn’t been reading them, just filing them away. Never mind. She had her records and her pen. She worked late and watched the lights move around the tramyard.

“I read one of your pamphlets. I thought you should know…”

            She’d received the phone call at six in the morning. It was the reverend. She had said barely a word to him before, had presumed he didn’t know her. But he had read a pamphlet about Stanley. He knew Stanley’s rabbi and he knew that his funeral was that morning. He’d spent all night wondering if he should tell her and then, struck by a decision in his earliest waking hour, he reached for the pamphlet and rang the phone number she had printed on the back page. She had included it so curious readers could ask her questions. Now the reverend was asking one, “do you think you’re going to go?”

            “Of course, reverend. It’s only…”

            “What, my child?”

            “Do they wear black like we do? I don’t have any black clothes.”

            “We have some in the church. Donations. You can pick them up on your way.”

            “Thank you, reverend.”

            And thanks to that she saw him again. She saw his bloated coffin. It was twice the size of a normal coffin. The hospital had insisted he be wrapped in layer after layer of plastic. This was sealed in metal. The metal sealed in rubber and the rubber in more plastics. Finally, around it all, they had built the pinewood coffin. Even then they had to hammer it down. A line of nail-heads studded the lid and it looked like something was in there which the coffin-maker feared would escape. Joan watched silently from the back and wished it would escape. She wished she could free his body from those wrappings. In whatever state it was in, it was life of a kind. The sightless, undifferentiated life of disease… but still life.

            She hadn’t cried at the funeral but she had cried all the way home. She sat up at night and heard that ten more had died. They didn’t know how many more had been infected. It was increasing by factors, they said. Life was spreading through life. Undifferentiated life. She watched the lights as they moved through the tramyard. They moved carefully, slowly. She watched as they moved from tram to tram, entering each and working their way systematically up each carriage. They were doing something in there. Carrying lights that twinkled in the dark like the reflections from broken glasses. She knew what she wanted. She wanted to finally live. To have life in her. To have Stanley’s life fill her up and overtake her.

            She tried everything. Wandering around the city centre she would breathe in people’s coughs until they shooed her away. She would watch through restaurant windows and when she saw someone turn from their plate, clutch their stomach and run to the bathroom, she’d sneak in, lick the knife and fork, drink their water and mop up the last of their meal. She would ride on buses at rush hour and suck on the handrails. She wore no underwear, sat on benches where tramps had slept and pulled up her skirt. She hugged raggedy rats and foxes. She tried everything.

            Nothing worked.

            It was December and she was still rosy cheeked and radiant. If anything her constant deep-breathing walks around the city had made her healthier than ever. Some shy Christians, too scared to stand out at the start of term, had quietly begun to take her pamphlets. They liked what she said about the sickness. It was taboo. So wrong but somehow right, especially now that twenty-three students had all died simultaneously in their halls. When the Student’s Union found out about her they reinstated their ban, but it didn’t stop her. She went from strength to strength, which is exactly the opposite of what she wanted.

            “I’m having a great time, Mum. There’s no need to worry. No, I didn’t know those students. I’m fine, I don’t even live on campus. I’m miles away in fact. I’ll see you at Christmas, yes? Okay. No, I still don’t know what I want. I don’t want anything really. I’m sorry, I’ll think of something. You’re getting the pamphlets? Good, good. Thanks Mum. Love you, bye!”

            They woke her up at six am. At first she thought it might have been the reverend ringing her again. She hadn’t heard from him since the funeral. But as she rubbed her eyes and slipped back into the daytime she realised it was coming from outside. Sirens! She stumbled to the window and yanked open the blinds – yanked so hard they shot off the curtain rail and came crashing to the floor. Stepping over the mess she looked out, blinking. The tram yard was gone. Hidden totally. In its place there was a huge white tent. It was surrounded by a slightly larger, clear plastic tent which bent like a series of bubbles. What was going on?

            She turned on the radio but heard nothing. Only that the trams had all been cancelled due to an “emergency incident”. The trams must all be in the tent.

            She brought out her binoculars. No good country girl would every travel without binoculars. From her window she saw figures emerge from the tent. They were wrapped all in white with yellow gloves, boots and a gasmask. They stepped into a smaller tent where they were blasted with fluorescent pink sprays. Around the perimeter were armed police. They waved in a strange van marked with official colours and the sprayed-pink figures climbed inside. They sealed the doors and then, the doors sprayed, a second team in yellow plastic this time sealed the outer doors, pulled over a series of thick adhesive layers to coat the door and finally retreated back to more pink showers. It was all done with military precision. Joan watched. She heard the helicopters before she saw them. She saw them release a small squadron of drones who all buzzes their way in through vents in the tent’s roof. By half eight in the morning they had the whole place locked down. Nothing moved.

            You’ve missed it, Joan. You idiot. She remembered the lights which flashed in the night. Moved through each carriage as if they were painting them, coating them in a green goo. Why had she never paid the extra to ride the tram? She’d missed her chance. The tram was where they’d been spreading the Ebola. They’d spread it every night in a torchlit procession as she had watched, thinking only of Stanley Cadman.

            She would write a pamphlet: The Eye Lustblind for Life sees not Light in Darkness.

            The council would eventually cover the tent in Christmas lights. They never officially announced its function, but the Ebola outbreak stopped.

            “I’m so glad you’re home, love. I’ve missed you so much”

            “I’ve missed you too, Mum. How many times do I have to say it!”

            “Ooh, my love!” and Joan felt her Mum’s soggy lips on the side of her head. She shoved her away.

            Normally she loved Christmas but something was off this year. The little life of Avon Murray seemed lifeless compared to the big city. The ground was crisp with cold and the little houses twinkled with light, but she couldn’t help feeling separate from it all. She had been lonely in a city. To now be lonely in a town like Avon Murray… she didn’t feel like she could even feel it anymore. It seemed dead. Everything here dead. She went to church and her vicar smiled at her and welcomed her back. They’d been reading her pamphlets, yes, her Mum was sending them, and yes they could really see the impact that big city theology was making on her. They were all very impressed, though they couldn’t say they understood all of it. A bit over their heads some of it.

            And she played the organ as they all sang, but didn’t really feel like singing herself. She hadn’t the life in her. That’s all she had wanted after all. As foolish as it must seem. She’d only wanted to be full of life, as much as Stanley must have been when he cried red tears at her drawings. Poor Stanley. Full in his full coffin.

            “You seem down, love.”

            “I’m sorry, Mum.”

            “Downright miserable actually!”

            “Sorry Mum.”

            “Here, have some extra spuds and cheer up. It’s Christmas!” and she added three more roasties to an already swelling plate. Joan’s mum always cooked enough for a family of four and they’d do their best to eat the whole thing, just them two. It was wasteful but it was tradition. Joan crunched down on a couple of Brussels sprouts, some turkey and cranberry, piled high a lump of delicious mash and scattered peas over it. She filled a Yorkshire with carrot and sausage, dumped a boiled spud in gravy and wolfed the lot down. Her mum was smiling.

            “I’m sorry I never asked for anything for Christmas, Mum,” Joan mumbled through a wodge of stuffing, “I’m happy with just this. I really am.”

            “Oh love, I am glad,” her Mum laughed.

It wasn’t like her to laugh like that. She was all giggly suddenly. What was that about? Joan kept on pushing more and more food into her mouth, feeling giddy herself now, noticing her Mum was glimpsing at her out of the corner of her eye, then peeping at her out of the side of her her, now plain watching her with two eyes wide.

“What is it, Mum?”

“Oh, nothing dear,” she giggled, “How’s the turkey?”

“It’s great, Mum,” Joan munched, pushing more of the bird into her mouth, “It’s a shame that you’re a vegetarian, it really is!”

“Oh, it’s not that bad…”

Then, from nowhere, Joan felt herself doubling up. Her sides were in agony. Her eyes streaming. She was coughing, spluttering, choking on the food. She felt her Mum guide her to a bucket on the kitchen floor. Where had she got that from? “Come on, love, that’s it. Get it all up!” “Wha-“ and she felt her dinner pouring out of her. More and more fell out of her and wouldn’t stop. Her insides were on fire, felt like they were rupturing. It kept going and going. She realised she was crying and lifted her hands to her cheeks where the warm tears ran down. She blinked. Looked at her fingers. Between the puke she could see it, blood!

“Oh Mum!,” she was ecstatic, smiling through the vomit, filled with life and filling the floor around her with that life undifferentiated life, “How did you- ?”

“It was in the turkey, love!” she grinned, holding the mop up over her creased-up daughter like an angelic shepherd, “I read every one of your pamphlets. You didn’t have to spell it out for me, love. I consulted with the local vicar too, he said this would be what you wanted. It is what you wanted wasn’t it, love? Ebola?”

“Oh, Mum!” and Our Lady Joan wept blood from her uplifted eyes, “It’s all I wanted! It’s everything I wanted! All I ever wanted for Christmas was Ebola!”

And Lo she did not need heaven for she had lived as pure life. She was free of the world and made of only Love. She felt Stanley moving within her, and her mother, and the good reverend. She was finally alive. And her Mum went to get a sponge.


Joseph Darlington is from Manchester, UK. In his day job he teaches people how to make cartoons, and has written for comics and film. He can be found on Twitter at @Joe_Darlo where he writes poems about noodles.