A Letter to Colleen

Over the last couple of weeks, I've tried and tried to write a fitting memorial to my old friend Colleen. I failed. Everything sounded like an obituary. Fact is, I still can't believe she's gone. When I left Colorado two Fridays ago to see family and friends in the Midwest, my plan and hope was to visit with Colleen, provided she was up to it. I'd be in the area for three days and kept my plans loose, hoping that on at least one of those days I'd be given the go-ahead by the Powers That Be to stop in. Instead, I had lunch with another one of our friends and got a chance to hug her tightly.

Every time I think about Colleen, it's like I'm talking to her in my head and because there were things I wanted to tell her, my good-bye won't be a good-bye. It'll be a letter, a letter I should have written long ago.

Hey Colleen,

In the 35 years we've known each other, I don't think I ever told you how much I admire you. Yeah, that sounds way too sentimental and let's change the subject and all that, but it's true. And here's the thing, that's exactly what you are: true. True to yourself. True to the ideals you've held all your life. True to the friends you've gathered along the way.

I think I was a bit intimidated by you when we met, but you know how my memory is. You were so damn sure of yourself, so amazingly smart and perfectly at home in the world. I could tell just by watching you walk. Your loose-limbed amble belied your sharp eye, taking in the stories that surrounded you. And, for you, everything and everyone had a story, even if you had to make it up. Of course those were the best stories, but it took me a while to figure that out.

Still, you befriended me and I count myself lucky to be included in the posse of characters that pepper your life. I wish I'd recorded some of our marathon phone sessions from the early days. What the hell did we talk about for hours at a time day after day? Our kids? No, too mundane, unless they'd done something off-the-wall. But I do have every one of our party invitations for the Winter Solstice One-Size-Fits-All Sing for Your Supper parties you so loved to host. Every once in a while I take them out and read them, always ending up with tears of laughter streaming down my face. I can hear your voice; I can see you sitting at the typewriter(!) pounding them out as we tossed off ideas. It was easier, though, if I did the typing because you liked to pace and wander about the room.

Wandering has always been your specialty, one of the things I most admire about you. (I know, I know, stop with the praise already!) In my own travels I was never as mindful as you about how important the journey is as compared to the goal. The journey, after all, is fodder for new stories and introduces you to countless interesting folks that you can either turn into the heroes of your stories, or kill them off. Killing them off is so much fun!

We lost touch for a while, but when we reconnected, I was sad to know that you had a place on the city council and that I was no longer there to dutifully document its foibles for the newspaper of record. How much fun that would have been! I can see the worst of them rolling their eyes and gritting their teeth every time you called them out for a stupid idea. And there, right there, is one of the best parts of Colleen Sutherland: your ability to point out flaws in someone's reasoning with calmly stated logic. Often, they don't get it and while you never suffer fools gladly, you often choose not to waste your time. The patented Colleen shrug and a mumbled "idiot" have to suffice.

Misfits, though, misfits always have a friend in you. Anyone who has been deemed too odd, too complicated, too scary to be taken seriously can count on your advocacy, if not your friendship. And if some sacred cow needs to be slayed, you're always there to pick up the knife. Remember how we took a bottle of wine out to the cemetery to watch the Perseid meteor shower? I was all for just lying on the top of the car, but nope, it was a grave or nothing for you. I forget now whose graves you chose, but we spent a few giddy hours lying side by side in the dark, sipping wine and watching the skies.

Then there was my 30th birthday party. It was back in your old house and you even made a cake; cucumber-shaped with sickly green frosting. Only a few of us knew why. One of my relatives showed up and completely ruined the party, at least for me. You rather liked that relative at first, found her stories fascinating. But you saw how distressed I was and wasted no time asking the woman to leave, politely, but pointedly. Later, you took me aside and asked me why in the world I would allow such a person in my life. That was long before the phrase "toxic relationships" was part of the lexicon, but you knew all about those.

You also knew I wouldn't listen. Not then anyway, but some months later I excised that particular poison from my life and have had 30 years of peace. You're the only person I never had to explain it to. Thank you for that. Thank you for making me crazy with your logic and your honesty. Thank you for teaching me how to shrug and walk away. Thank you for pushing me to write, to do what I love and how to push through fears. And thank you most of all for your love draped like a loose arm around my shoulders, never too tight and always ready to set me free ... and to let me back in.

With love,

Betty

This week's story Lightening the Load

- Bettyann

Colleen Sutherland, Storyteller

This week, we lost our friend Colleen.

In the almost eight years I knew her, Colleen was the bohemian writer and provocateur that I aspired to be. Her life was like a series of short story hooks: getting married on a lunch break, waiting out a riot in a bar, living in a house cut in half, or living through the Summer of Love. She was woman whose only regrets were never having been arrested, and not writing her stories earlier.

She was my greatest cheerleader, and often said that our writer’s group meetings were important because while family and friends could be sympathetic, they could never truly understand the maladies of the daily writer. We celebrated getting our stories published by magazines no one knew existed, thumbed our noses at rejection letters from even more obscure publications, held book sales in supermarkets, and challenged each other’s boundaries. I consider getting Colleen to kill a dog in a story to be one of my supreme accomplishments as a writer. She taught me that a writer’s voice develops naturally from writing, and writing, and writing some more.

She told me she used to be afraid of death, so she started hospice volunteering and got over it. I like to believe that at the end, she stared at the reaper and was not scared, only curious. Maybe she flipped him off. The cancer took away her words first, so I will never know. She didn’t want a funeral; she said that when you’re dead, that’s it. I urge you to keep that in mind when you read her story this week and know that while she was writing it, she was laughing the whole time. 

This week's story:  The Funeral

-Wade 

Seasonal Employment

By Colleen Sutherland

Morton Gallagher almost reached the office of the Glen Valley Middle School when the stream of retching green teenagers swarmed toward him, their urgency forcing him toward the exit. They pushed him out the big entrance door. He joined them at the plastic lined barrels that served as trash containers. They all leaned over and began to spew out the contents of the school lunch. Beanie Weenies, some kind of Michelle Obama green vegetable, followed by what looked like blood but was probably cherry gelatin that had served as dessert. Steam poured out of the receptacles as the hot vomit met the frigid January air. It reminded Mort of fog scenes in British railroad stations in film noir post war movies.

Morton pushed a snot-nosed boy aside he had last seen throwing spitballs in third hour World lit class. Together they cleaned their stomachs into the barrel while Mort held his substitute teacher paperwork up high to protect it. Spewing up his lunch was not part of the substitute deal and he sure wasn't going to give up payment for his day at the middle school.

The school librarian and head of the teachers' union found him there.

“Did you hear?” she called out to him. “School's being closed for the next month because of the flu outbreak.”

“I figured it would be,” Mort said.

“Well worth the cost,” Mrs Ergot said.

“Might as well finish up then.”

She followed him to his Mini Cooper. It was at the edge of the ditch on the highway. By the tracks he could see that his little car had been carried there by husky farm boys. Another prank pulled on the substitute teacher. It made him feel better about the transaction he and the librarian were carrying out.

He pulled some paper toweling out of the trunk, handed a few pieces to Mrs. Ergot and used some more to wipe off his face.

“Always a gentleman, Mort. You think of everything, don't you.”

“Well, if I want to be asked back, I have to be efficient,” he said.

He pulled out a thermos jug and poured her some hot tea and two capsules. She swallowed them down with the tea.

“It should work in about an hour," he said, and took his own capsules.

He dug out a box containing more capsule in vials. “You can share these in the teachers' lounge," he said. “There's enough for everyone."

“What about the kids?”

“They're on their own.” Mort pointed to the row of yellow buses chugging up the drive. “I hope the school bus drivers have the mops to clean up afterward. I did leave instructions about that.”

The librarian held out a brown manila envelope to him. It had been marked “Lesson Plans” with a black Sharpie.

“Nice touch,” Mort said as he plopped the envelope on top of his substitute paperwork. That should impress the principal. Thank your co-workers for putting together good lesson plans,” he added.

“I thought it was time for them to be exposed to Poe and when you suggested "The Masque of Red Death", I thought, how appropriate!”

“I was particularly glad to see the DVD of the Ken Burns documentary on the 1918 flu pandemic for fourth hour world history. If they weren’t feeling nauseous before, that got to them. Tell Mr. Peterman thanks for the good lesson plan.”

Mort handed Mrs. Ergot another packet. “Here's your itinerary. Plenty of copies for everyone You all just meet Kate from Midwest Tours at the airport tomorrow and you're on you way. You should be in Cancun by 4:00 tomorrow afternoon. I enclosed more of my cards, too."

“Great, Mort, we'll be sure to hand them out at the state teachers' conference next October."

Let Your Hearts Be Gay at Christmas

by Colleen Sutherland

Dear BFF and you know you are! Couldn't text a story this long and talking on the phone won't work until after Christmas, so I'm putting it all in an e-mail to you. Maybe I'll run over in a couple of days.

Kate, you wouldn't believe it. It was epic! Ma's gone mental and Pa is laughing. He knew all along, he says.

I knew it was going to happen. I got to the mailbox before Ma a week ago and opened up Luke's Christmas card. He wrote the whole thing down in a letter. I removed it before I showed the card to Ma. It's OK for him, but I didn't need to hear days of ranting. Let it be a surprise, I figured. I just told her Luke was coming home for Christmas and was bringing a friend he met in Boulder.

She went all sunshine and moonbeams. You know how she is. Her pet was coming home. She went straight to his room and cleaned it again, dusting all the furniture, and taping all the half naked Brad Pitt posters down where they were coming off the wall. The next day we had to announce the great news at the True Christian Community Church and they all rejoiced with lots of loud Hallelujahs and songs. It was so embarrassing. With my family, I'm surprised you hang with me at all.

Luke should graduate in June. Ma thinks that next he will go on to a seminary. All her life she thought he should become a preacher. She prays on it all the time. Maybe one of those big mega churches for him, she thought. He could even be a television preacher on the Trinity Network. “He is so handsome so presentable.” She thinks he would be so popular if he did that. Could happen, I suppose. Some of them are less than what they appear to be.

Ma did everything to give him a good start. We were home schooled, you know that. She kept anything educational out of our education. I knew the Bible back and forth before Pa finally told her to let me go to high school to meet some boys. He said I would never go to college like Luke, they couldn't afford that, so I might as well start meeting young men. Ma thought I would meet enough at the True Christian Community Church but the congregation is mainly silly old people and guys like Luke.

First day of the freshman year I met you and that made all the difference. You taught me how to dress. Of course, the clothes we got are all at your house so I can change on my way to school. Ma would be horrified if she saw them. Even more if she saw the tattoos, but as long as I wear good Christian clothes at home, she'll never see them. You also saved me from making a fool out of myself in science classes. It was the first time I even heard of evolution. And boy, have I evolved, thanks to you, BF.

Thanksgiving

by Colleen Sutherland

You ask, how did I wind up here? Well sir, it all began with a turkey.

A year ago I announced to my seven children that I wanted to go to a restaurant to avoid the annual Thanksgiving dinner “At my age, I shouldn't have to put up with this.” I meant it. After 59 years of drunkenness, abuse and infidelity, my husband was finally gone. I wanted quiet and time for myself in my remaining years.

Then in mid-November, I got the call from the local television station to congratulate me. I had won a 25 pound turkey.

“I didn't enter any contest,” I told Ruth, my eldest.

“Oh we all entered your name for you,” she explained. “We figured this year you wouldn't have to pay for it and we could have Thanksgiving at your house after all.”

“It didn't have anything to do with the cost! I didn't want to do Thanksgiving ever again!”

“Too late. All the travel plans have been made. Lois and her family are flying in from Idaho. Paul is driving overnight from Minneapolis. We'll be there as usual. But don't worry about it, you make the turkey and we'll bring the rest.”

And so there I was at 5:00 on Thanksgiving morning, a seventy nine year old woman preparing a 25 pound bird. I waited for one of the children or grandchildren to come to help, but they never did. I wound up cramming it into the oven on my own. I felt my muscles tear. I would have to schedule a trip to the chiropractor.

They began to arrive at 11:30. The first was Ruth who came in with a pumpkin pie. She was followed by Mary-Margaret with another pumpkin pie.

Christmas Spirit

“Bill! Get those pumpkins off the porch and take down the orange lights.” It was November First and Beatrice was ready.

Bill had promised to love Beatrice until death did them part but he thought he should have inserted an exclusionary clause exempting him from Christmas and the months preceding. But there was nothing he could do about it after forty years. He had his marching orders.

He packed the plastic pumpkins and orange lights into boxes and drove his pickup over to their double storage unit to pick up Christmas. The boxes and bins he loaded up were marked numbers from 1 to 40. Nos. 1 through 25 had to be delivered to the spare bedroom for Beatrice to sort through. For the two months, forget about the calendar. It was Christmas.

His next assignment was to open the first box which held the big inflatable turkey beside the house. It was a mere sop, a side show to the spectacle that was about to follow. Beatrice had given up on Thanksgiving which is more about food than decor. That last Thursday in November, they always took their sons out to the Country Buffet until they married. Her daughters- in-law rebelled and took over the feast in their own homes. None of them felt there was any point in going to Bill and Beatrice's house at all until until Christmas. That was fine with Bernice. Her eyes were set on bigger things.

By the second day in November, Bill was on a ladder putting up the exterior lights. There were the icicle lights that dropped from the eaves. There were the strands of big bulbs that had to be wound around the nine spruces. Each year the trees got taller. In another year he would have hire a cherry picker to wind them to the top where the golden stars waited. As long as he was up there he hung the giant ball ornaments Beatrice collected each year at the citywide rummage sales. As it grew darker, Bill set up the dozen small pre-lit trees that lined the driveway. It was only day two and he was exhausted and wishing he only had twelve days of Christmas to contend with.

Lifeguards - Conclusion

by Colleen Sutherland

The women's shower room was in a fog of steam from the water still pouring down from the shower column. Brittany and Savannah peered at the massive bulk that was Gladys, then looked at each other. Their brains synchronized.

“Troy!”

Troy was still watching a mother and two children in the small pool. It wasn't his job to go tearing into the women's locker room.

Savannah came to door. “Troy, it's Gladys. She's on the floor passed out. What do we do now?”

“Call 911.” It was the first thing lifeguards learned in the CPR classes. Savannah should have known that.

“Okay. I can do that.” Savannah sped off before he could give her more instructions.

Brittany was at the door next. “What should we do?”

“Did you start CPR?”

“Well … no. “

“Well start now!”

“I took that over a year ago and I didn't pay much attention then. Plus, I don't want to.You're the one with EMT training. You do it.”

Troy sighed. They were right, he was the logical choice. He began to bark out instructions. “You take over here. These people will have to leave. Tell Savannah to put a sign up at the door that the pool is closed for an emergency. Then she should lock up. When you do that, come and help me. Bring towels.”

Troy went to the locker room door, took a breath and went in. He had never been in the women's locker room before, even for a cleaning.To add to that, he had never really that much experience with girls. He was going to get some lessons on female anatomy today but he would have preferred it to be on a date.

The shower was still running. The girls hadn't even thought to do that much. Troy turned the knob. It was so hot he thought he might have a minor burn. The fan was running but it would take a while for the steam to dissipate.

Gladys was where the girls had left her. Troy didn't recoil. He reminded himself he was going to be a doctor. He would see plenty of obese women by the time he was an intern.

Lifeguards – Part One

by Colleen Sutherland

The old woman toddled out of the woman's locker room to stand beside the arthritis pool waiting for a lifeguard to come and watch over her. She couldn't go in until somebody was there to watch. That was one of the posted rules.

In the pool office, Troy, Savannah and Brittany knew that one of them had to go out do their lifeguard duty. It was their job.

“I had her yesterday.”

“Yeah, but I had to guard the old hag three times this week.”

“You know she'll hang around for an hour so we'll all have to listen to her. What difference does it make?”

“So you go.”

“Wait a minute, if she stays over an hour, the first to go would get her twice.”

In the end, they rock, paper, scissored and Savannah had to go.

The Glen Valley Fitness and Aquatic Center was open seven days a week. When the city fathers wrote the federal grant to build it, they said it would encourage people to move to Glen Valley, bring in new business and help the citizens with health issues. In fact it was seldom used except for occasional students who came over from the high school and the toddler swimming lessons held in the evenings. After five years, the center was still new and shiny, white tiles shining from the sun that shone down from the overhead windows. To keep costs down, the lifeguards served as janitors to keep the floors spotless.

There was an eight lane Olympic pool that sometimes was used by the swim teams from other towns. The small shallow pool for arthritis patients heated to 90 degrees. That was where Gladys waited.

Gladys used the pool every day not only for her arthritis, but also because she was trying to lose weight. It wasn't working.She waddled into the building every day in sweat suits that strained to keep up with the folds of fat that encased her tall skeleton. At the front desk, she signed in, never bothering to show her pool card. She had bought a life time pass when the pool opened which had seemed silly to some, but five years later, it had proved a wise investment. She came to use the pool five or six times a week. The guards never even knew she had arrived until she showed up at the arthritis pool draped in a suit Savannah claimed a tent company had manufactured for her.

William

By Colleen Sutherland

The following is based on the third chapter of the novel I plan to publish by January, 2014. It began as a dream sequence exercise and expanded as I learned more about William Arden IV.

The day passeth, and is almost gone,

I know not well what is to be done.

To whom were I best my complaint to make?

What if I to Fellowship thereof spake?,

And showed him of this sudden chance?

Everyman

William Arden IV caught sight of his face in the mirror behind the Heathrow airport bar where he was drinking coffee and researching morality plays. He teased his neat, white mustache. He trimmed it himself, using a silver mustache trimmer. It was a slow process of snip here, snip there, to prevent mistakes. He should shave the whole thing off or have it trimmed when he got his monthly haircut . . . but he’d read too much medieval history to allow anyone near his throat with a razor. He could think of no way to direct his barber to trim the mustache without getting a shave as well.

He enjoyed his shaves, the ritual of them. He used a porcelain mug his grandfather and great-grandfather had used before him, re-filled with a soap bar purchased on his yearly trips to England. His pride was his brush of badger fur and an Italian polymer handle. He expertly applied the foam to his face is if he were brushing on oils. Then the safety razor, nothing plastic, but safer than a straight razor. He abhorred blood, quite squeamish really. Like Lady MacBeth’s guilt, blood spots wouldn’t wash out. It made him think of death.

He picked up the paper cup with his coffee and left the bar. He had been sitting there for two hours and the bartender was as bored with him as he was with the bartender. But what else should he do? The plane he was waiting for was already three hours late. It had been held up at O'Hare Field in Chicago because of a terrorist threat.

He wandered down the terminal to the place he was to meet the students he was to lead on a tour of England. He found one of the more comfortable chairs and settled in. He put his briefcase on one side and piled some paperwork on the other side to keep people away from him. There weren't that many but he hated making polite conversation with strangers . . . and there were always travelers that wanted to talk.

He held his book on medieval and Tudor drama, and tried to concentrate on Everyman, but distracted by the terminal noise, finally put it down. Surreptitiously, he glanced around and pulled out a popular magazine from his briefcase to read about a current celebrity scandal he had heard about on Entertainment Tonight. A flight arrived with people pouring out of the plane’s silver canister. He hastily dropped the magazine back into his briefcase. No, it was the wrong flight. He watched the passengers pass through, first class, business class, tourist class, finally the people put in wheelchairs, each headed to the luggage area. He fingered the pass that would allow him to join his students there when they arrived, to help them through the process. The arrival board gave no good news. The flight had been delayed another hour.

            He put on his glasses and pulled out his book again to read about the Crucifixion in one of the medieval mystery plays they would see in Lichfield, a village near Birmingham.

My sorrow it is so sad,

No solace may me save;

Mourning makes me mad

No hope of help I have.

           How depressing. He had to bone up on the mystery plays for the upcoming tour but wondered why he bothered. It wasn't like the students would pay that much attention. He glanced at his watch again. What difference did it make, after all? The time wouldn’t make the plane arrive any faster. Soon he would meet the dozen graduate students that he would chaperone in a tour of medieval sites. They had paid a pretty penny for this tour, thus paying for his own trip. All he had to do was get them to the hotel, and next morning, they would all board a bus. The guide would do most of the talking. He merely had to add the informed voice of a history professor to the proceedings from time to time. He intended to take digital photos of the mystery plays at Litchfield to use in his medieval history classes, making the trip not only free but useful. He only took graduate students so he had no worries about their drinking or sexual flings. They were of age so they could do whatever they wanted. This was his fifteenth tour. He had it all down pat.

Aesop's Fable

By Colleen Sutherland

That first day of first grade, Miss Algard read us an Aesop fable about the grasshopper and the ant. The grasshopper fiddles away the summer while the ant works. At the end of the story, the ant is secure in its home with plenty of food while the grasshopper starves to death. Other versions would have the ant taking the grasshopper in but that was not how Aesop wrote it Miss Algard said She didn't believe in messing with the classics.

After Miss Algard finished the story, she asked the first grade class: “Which would you rather be?” We all dutifully said, “The ant,” which is what she wanted to hear. We promised we would all be good little workers. All but Sallie Mae. “No, the grasshopper. The grasshopper has all the fun.”

“But in the end, he starves,” Miss Algard said.

“Worth it,” insisted Sallie Mae.

Sallie Mae did have fun and got into trouble for it. On nice days she was down by the river splashing around, playing hooky. Once the police picked her up as she was riding her bicycle around and around the park and deposited her at school. She was there ten minutes and was out the door again. “Good days shouldn't be wasted,” she said.

The Farmhouse - Conclusion

by Colleen Sutherland

He grabbed the seeds and ran out the door. “I ain't a fuckin' farmer,” he screamed at the tractor though the guy couldn't hear him over the engine noise. He threw the packets at the machine but the wind picked them up. They flew back in his face and on into the marsh. Later he realized he didn't even know if the farmer left those seeds but he was the only other human around.

That night it rained as hard a rain as he had ever seen. Lightening shot across the horizon. The lights flickered but stayed on. He decided to take a break from escaping. He roamed around the house. There was an old television but analog TVs no longer worked in a digital age. He tried a radio that dated from a time when FM didn't exist but got only static. Nothing electronic was working except for the lights and the stove. There were books, mostly old classics, and a bunch of Readers' Digests. He wasn't much of a reader anyhow.

He looked through the cupboards. There were cracked dishes and cups and rusted cast iron pots. He took inventory of the food. For some reason most of it was tuna. There was a lot of it for an abandoned farmhouse, but then nothing about this place made any sense. There were a lot of bugs, too. He found an insect guide among the books and amused himself identifying them: box elder bugs, lady bugs and earwigs. As fast as he killed them, even more appeared on the walls. Somewhere inside the walls he could hear rustlings, rats or mice he thought. He hoped not bats. He didn't like bats.

He slept half the day and into the night as the rain clattered on the roof. He woke in the night and wandered around trying to find something to do to pass the time. Perhaps someone left maps behind, that would be useful. The only map he could find was from New Jersey and as far as he could figure out that was five states a way. It was thirty years old anyhow. He settled down to read the jokes in the Reader's Digests.

The sun rose on a cloudless day and the constant sound of the tractor. That farmer never let up.

The Farmhouse – Part I

by Colleen Sutherland

He'd been running for hours it seemed, and maybe in circles. He'd escaped from the bus that was supposed to take him to prison, slid right out the emergency door at a stop somewhere out in the country. Easy, he'd thought. Damn fool guards can't guard worth a damn. They even forgot to cuff me. Then the cop cars came out of nowhere along with the damned dogs. Dogs scared him, always had. He slipped into a ditch full of water and waded, hoping he would throw off his scent, but they kept coming after him. That was bad enough but then there were more cops, more dogs, coming from the other direction. He slipped off the road into the darkness of a marsh.

Cold and wet, he kept moving on and on through the dark night in the only direction he could go, thorny bushes on all sides. He came out of the marsh once, but more dogs came at him from the north, too. At least he thought they were dogs. The yapping might have been coyotes, or maybe even wolves though he didn't think there were wolves in this state. He was a city boy, what would he know? He went back into the swamp and kept moving on through the nightmare horrors of nature. It began to rain. He cursed and struggled on. He knew he would fall if he didn't find a place to rest soon.

With a start, he woke up as he slammed into the side of a building and fell to his knees. He reached out to see what it was. He could feel the wood siding. That could mean it was a house. He felt his way until he came to a door. He tried it. Unlocked. He listened to the night sounds. An owl hooted. He had to find shelter. He had to find a place to sleep.

He slipped inside and listened, afraid there would be a dog. As good a place as any to hide out if there weren't any dogs. He hated dogs. There might be people, but he could handle that with his big hands and a knife. There were always knives in a kitchen. He'd used them before but knives were too bloody. A gun was neater and faster. Strangling was even better, no sound, no blood.

He reached beside the door to see if there was a light switch. There was but could he use it? Would the cops notice? They might think it was the owners up late. He didn't have much choice. He flicked the switch. By the light from a single bulb overhead he could see he was in a kitchen, an old fashioned one with painted wainscoting and cupboards that reached to the ceiling. He hurried to the cupboard drawers and pulled them out spilling contents on the floor until he found a butcher's knife. Now he was ready. He had a weapon.

A Beautiful Day

by Colleen Sutherland

Glen Valley's business district, like that of most small Midwestern towns and villages, is slowly shuttering down. Business after business have closed their doors over the past thirty years. There doesn't seem to be much the village board or the Chamber of Commerce can do to stop it.

Two doors down from Aggie's Diner, almost to Mike's Hardware, is a closed storefront, the windows dirty and cracked, the paint peeling off in big flakes. The painted letters in the window are faded but through the grime of years, passersby can read “Bunny's Bakery”. An old placard in the door reads: “Closed, Come Again.”

When it was open, Bunny was famous for her desserts. Need a wedding cake? Bunny provided it. Need sweet rolls for a morning meeting? Call the night before and Bunny would have them ready early the next morning to be picked up. And her cupcakes. Now those were a treat for all ages, in every flavor one could imagine and frosting for the season.

After lunch at the diner or after the Friday fish fry, Aggie's customers refused dessert and she knew they would stop over at Bunny's to pick up something to take home. Aggie didn't mind. She liked Bunny, as did everyone else. Bunny was there behind the counter, all chirpy and smiling, her hair tucked up in a pony tail. She was a skinny little thing who must never have tasted her own cheesecake, muffins and tarts. Customers took their treats to one of the little tables at the front of the shop to have coffee and watch Main Street goings on. Bunny's was gossip central in Glen Valley.

She greeted each customer with a cheery call, “Oh hello, Mike. Isn't it a beautiful day?” “Mrs. Cleary, so glad to see you! Isn't it a wonderful day!”    

Be My Valentine

by Colleen Sutherland 

She peered down the row of booths to the audience of the big screen TV at the end of the restaurant. The little chairs were filled with children watching cartoons. On a spring day the same children would be climbing on the play equipment outside, but this was frigid February. Cartoons were all the Jolly Burger could offer to keep the kiddies from running riot.

Her Davy was one of those children. As soon as he had his hamburger and juice, he abandoned her for the cartoons. She didn't blame him. She didn't want to be anywhere near herself either. She shoved the last melting ice around her cup. She could go to the pirates serving at the counter up front and order another, but this outing was Davy's treat. He wanted to pay for it all and she knew he didn't have any more money.

He looked back at her from his pre-school sized chair. She lifted her glass, cupping her hand to hide the lack of beverage and gave him a big smile. He grinned back and turned back to Disney.

***

It wasn't meant to be this way. Last week, Arnie was in the garage for hours as he worked with the children next door on some project.

“What's going on?” she asked when he came in for a beer.

“Grace and Billy are making a present for their mother. I suggested a window box and got dragged into it.”

“How sweet.” Olivia had been mooning around the neighborhood since her husband left her at Christmas. Poor thing, but then she let herself go after the kids were born. Some women did that. What could she expect? Though she had been losing weight since then and was looking pretty good these days.

Snow

by Colleen Sutherland

“The snow covers all.....”

Who said that? she wondered, as she pushed her walker up the hill ahead of her, the tote bag swinging back and forth, the thermos bottle sticking out. “One step at a time,” her doctor told her, after her last fall. “Take it slow. You can accomplish anything if you take your time.”

She would see about that. She pushed on. The little wheels caught in the dried grass. She jerked at the walker, caught her balance and pushed on.

“The snow covers all...or was it the grass?” She couldn't remember. Some poet....

She could see Robert ahead, the green green wreath with the cheerful red ribbon waving in the wind above the headstone.

“Why bother with a wreath this year,” her son asked at Christmas Eve. “Nobody goes up there to see it anyhow.”

He was right. The Old Settlers Cemetery hadn't seen a burial in years. But it was where her parents were buried, where her grandparents and great grandparents lay. And it was where Robert was buried, so many years ago. She insisted and on Christmas Eve, she and her family placed the wreath there. But that was a month ago. It was time to take it down...but they could do that later.

Garlic

by Colleen Sutherland

Sometimes the best way to end a relationship is with a quick and nasty knife to the gut.

Kathy met Bertrand at a library book club. He was one of the few men at gathering and the only one who read the books and could discuss them. She thought most of the male readers were there to meet women. Bertrand was skinny and balding with an oversize nose but at her age Kathy had developed the knack of looking inside to see what she might find. Within a few weeks, she was meeting Bertrand for coffee after the library closed, their discussions going on until the coffee shop manager shoved them out the door. They disagreed on most of the books they read. He liked history, but nothing after the Civil War. She enjoyed novels, especially modern novels by good authors. They debated each book, tore into it as no one else in the book club did.

In time, they moved to a bar after the coffee shops closed to continue their arguments. One night, more than a little inebriated, Kathy did what she really hadn't planned on and woke to find him in her bed. Well, she thought, nothing for it but to make him breakfast and send him on his way. The book club was finished for the winter and she wouldn't see him again until the fall and then only if they both signed on. 

Breakfast changed all that.

Besides the book club, Kathy's other nights out were spent at classes at the local technical college studying the culinary arts. Her long term plan was to become a chef but so far, all she got were offers at fast food places frying chicken. She continued to practice her skills at home, inventing new recipes, trying out spices, and testing everything herself. Perhaps a catering career was in her future. She didn't see herself in a corporate setting forever.

When she served Bertrand a blue cheese and bacon omelet for breakfast with hazelnut coffee, he was smitten and she finally had someone to test her recipes. He was now part of her life.

A Perfect Christmas

by Colleen Sutherland

(This is my last depressing Christmas story of the year.  Next year I intend to put all of them into a book.  Those who have been following along will by now realize though each story stands alone, they are interconnected as well. They are meant for those who really don't like the holiday and they are legion. CS.) 

       Joe was snoring out big beer breaths. It had been another one of those nights with the boys, but why did it have to be Christmas Eve? The kids were sleeping so Janine still had a chance to give them that perfect, memorable Christmas.

       Janine had big plans for Christmas 2012. She had lists of things to do, checklists to be checked and consulted. Her plans seldom worked out but this day would be different. There were places the family had to be, relatives to visit, church services to attend, and above all the riotous opening of presents under the tree. 

 
      So Janine planned, beginning with Black Friday.  She had her lists ready and was waiting at the front of the mall at 3:00 a.m. She must have broken her wrist when the door open and the crowd charged but she never broke her stride. She threw her purse over her shoulder and grabbed little Freddy by the other hand. She found Joe's gift in the electronics department, a doll for Eloise on a special display rack. She even nabbed a Shooter Scooter from under the Santa throne at the mall while Freddy was on Santa's lap. Maybe that old guy wanted that gift for somebody he thought special, but store employees shouldn't hoard the good stuff anyhow. The doctor said the cast would be off by New Year's.

Black Friday

by Colleen Sutherland

(Note:  I've returned to my series of depressing Christmas stories intended for those readers who really hate the holidays.  By next year, I hope to have enough for a collection.) 

“What can you do well?”

The caseworker at the Schmallen County Human Resources office wasn't all that much interested in Jackson's answer but she had a form to fill out. She had been talking to unemployed old guys for years. He had been looking for work at her office for two years. They both played the game. He had seen her before but doubted she remembered him.

“I was good at stuffing Twinkies,” Jackson said.

“You're kidding, right?”

“No. That's what I did for thirty years. Just stuffed Twinkies.”

“Not much future there. They closed the last plant this week down in Tennessee.”

“I know.”

“Maybe you should look into training for something else.”

“I've already taken two re-training courses. The feds won't let me sign up for another. Even with new skills I never get past the first interview.”

The caseworker stared at him. “Maybe if you presented yourself better.”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“Dress better for one thing.”

“I have one good suit that I save for interviews. I'm sure not going to wear it out when I come down here every week.”

“OK, but how about getting a haircut and shaving off that beard.”

It was a luxuriant growth, his beard. It was deep brown, full and curly, a thing of beauty. He trimmed and combed it daily. “They can't refuse to hire me because of a beard. It's unconstitutional.”

“No, they can't give that as a reason, but they'll sure as shooting hire someone clean shaven instead of you and say he's more qualified. And face it, you're not all that qualified for much of anything. So, tell me, do you anything else well?”

“I grow a great beard. That's about it.”

“If it was white, you could work as a Santa and get seasonal work. Too bad.” She finished the form, handed it to him and crossed his name off her list. “Next!”

Roses

by Colleen Sutherland

Portia. Constance. Bianca. Sydonie. At night, their images waft through my nightmares. By daylight, their scent lingers throughout this apartment. I rush through my morning rituals to leave them behind, but even on the streets of this small town, they are there, mocking me, always a presence.

It was Great Aunt Chloe who introduced me to her flower world. She took me in when my parents threw me out. I was only a teenager but was already trouble. I came to live in her old house, so old and useless that ramshackle was too good a word for it. The rusted old kitchen plumbing, the old light fixtures, the old furniture. It was too dreadful. I never brought friends home.

When I first arrived I thought the many plants growing in Aunt Chloe's windows were an attempt to hide the awfulness of the house, but soon I realized the house existed for the plants, at least in my aunt's mind. They were only there to pass the time until spring.

In mid-March it all began with the first snowdrops pushing up through the spring mud. Aunt Chloe dragged me out of the warm house and through the slush crying “Come see!”

The snowdrops were followed by crocuses, daffodils, tulips, and hyacinths. Each new arrival demanded my presence. I laughed silently as she bent over them, her butt the perfect model for one of those plywood lawn ornaments. I detested the gardens but tolerated her and her damned flowers because while I hated the house, it was a place to hang until I turned eighteen. With all those plants, no one noticed the marijuana I grew in my bedroom. Though Chloe recognized each leaf her garden, she didn't know what weed was.

“Ah, you're catching on,” she said. “You'll be a gardener yet.”

The Funeral

by Colleen Sutherland

(Note: The Funeral began as part of a mystery novel I wrote during NaNoWriMo a few years ago. Unfortunately everyone that read it knew whodunnit by Chapter 3 so I put it aside. I still liked the funeral, so I changed the sex of the deceased, her back story, the past tense to the present, and added a few other touches. In other words, I recycled.)

Autumn is coming to Glen Valley. Sugar maples vie with red oaks for color along the river trail. The days are warm, the nights cold. Glen Valley is far enough north to be visited by wild creatures. Down on the trail five eagles perch on the old “eagle tree” watching for carp. The loons are still around calling and fishing as they have for thousands of years. Their calls are a ghostly wail as they get ready to get out of here and be on their way to more pleasant climes. I know exactly how they feel.

          I spent my youth trying to get out of Glen Valley and my adult years doing everything I could to stay away from it. Once I left for college, I only came back twice, for two funerals, one for my mother and one for my father. And here I am back at the cemetery on a sunny September morning being laid to rest beside them.

          Rest is not the proper word for a phantasm who hovers over the proceedings, watching because there is nothing else for anyone living or dead to do in this no horse town. Plus living or dead, I am a writer and writers observe. So I float around the empty excavation, the coffin, and in and out of the souls of the mourners. Mourners is not the right word here.Writers should always use the appropriate word. Gawkers would be more accurate.

          It is not often in this town that somebody of note dies and remains to be buried here. More accurately, within memory it never happened before. I am not terribly well known in high brow literary circles, but I cranked out romance novels for three decades and to Harlequin readers I was a star, I suppose. I was particularly good at the mandatory sex scenes two thirds through each book. Matronly readers who scoffed at porn skimmed until they found those naughty bits, read them over and over until the book fell open in the same place, then hung around the book racks at the local supermarkets until the next cheap romance came out.