City of Wonders

Photo by By lafleur, via Wikimedia Commons

My name is Michca, and I live in a city of wonders. I live in a flat on the highest floor of my building. It looks down on the mansions, ski lodges, and expensive shops across the river. Some days, I watch the little people ski down the mountains right to the edge of town, and dream that I am a queen surveying my subjects. To either side, identical flats in identical blocks to my own form a kind of castle wall. I wonder sometimes if in the hundreds of families lucky enough to have a view like mine, if there is a girl that thinks she is a queen too.

My cousin came to stay with his worn suitcase and old person’s clothes, reeking of animals and diesel. I wondered if we could find him something else to wear before we went out to meet my friends. He almost looks Roma, his clothes are so worn. The Roma pick through rags and live like peasants. The city makes them live away from us, which is good, because otherwise they would steal from us all the time. Every year, the Americans and British come to give them food and toys at Christmas. Why, I do not know.

We have fine Western clothes, with the names and logos of many American sports teams. My cousin looks like he is from the country, but I look like I could have just come from New York City, or been in a hip-hop music video. Someday I will be a famous model in the magazines and I will live on the other side of the city. My cousin will never be this; he will always be a pig farmer.

The Stalker - Part II

Read Part I here.

By Bettyann Moore

It took him a while and he had to use the flashlight in the darkening gloom, but Digg’s heart raced with joy when he saw Bo lying on the porch as he approached the house.

“Hey boy, hey Bo!” Digg hollered. The dog raised his head and Digg could see his tail thumping, but the pit bull didn’t get up. Digg rushed to his side, unsurprised to see a large, bloody gash in the dog’s side.

“Oh, Christ. Oh, God,” Digg moaned. “My poor boy.” He sat down next to the dog and scratched him behind the ears. He poked a tentative finger into the wound, but Bo snarled at him.

“It’s okay, buddy, it’s okay,” Digg soothed. “Fucking lion, fucking cat! Bet you put up a good fight, huh, boy?”

It was 15 miles to the nearest vet and Digg hated doctors of all sorts, but he gathered the dog into his arms as gently as he could and carried him to the truck, which he’d left parked on the culvert. By the time he climbed into the driver’s seat, though, he knew Bo was gone. Digg never cried and he didn’t cry now. He pounded on the steering wheel and screamed for the blood of that big cat. And her brats, too.

The Stalker - Part I

By Bettyann Moore

Bo and Cleo watched in anticipation as their master pulled his Browning from the top of the refrigerator. When the Browning came out, it was time for their walk. Their tails thumped, thumped, thumped on the kitchen linoleum as Digg Dunham sighted down the short barrel cop-style, gun resting on his left arm, right trigger finger ready, feet wide and hips pivoted.

“Ready, kids?” Digg said as he straightened out and holstered the handgun. Cleo’s huge front paws clicked a tap dance while Bo stretched and started pawing at the corner of the door.

“Hang on, hang on, you two!” Digg commanded. “It’s frickin’ wet out there.” Digg grabbed a rain poncho from the rack on the wall and pulled it on. It was September in the Rockies, for Pete’s sake, he should be worried about smoke coming up the ridge, not about keeping dry.

The rains had pounded down for almost two weeks now. Not all day, but every day. Like clockwork, by 2 pm the clouds moved in and began the night-long soak. Colorado’s dryness was one of the reasons Digg had moved there; that, and the ethnics that peopled the streets of Baltimore. His neighbors in the canyon, though, were all white as far as he could tell and few and far between. 

Blocked

Phot by Deborah Tilley via Wikimedia Commons

Carol wasn’t prepared for the day to break into sunshine. She had already completed her daily Sudoku in front of the sunlamp, taking her daily dose of St. John’s wort with a cup of green tea. Her walk to the post office chilled her through layers of wool, down, and Gore-Tex, a walk that took her through the cloying gray world of snow, salt, and sun-blotting clouds. Custom demanded she wave and nod at the other bundled souls she met along the way, recognizable only by context. That man with insulated coveralls with the shovel in front of Earl’s house was most likely Earl, nobody but Tina would ever wear purple hat and peach scarf. The whole town could have been taken over by aliens and Carol would never know; not that she cared. Maybe an alien invasion would be just the thing to keep her distracted until spring.