The Harping Tree by Karen Sorce

...From the Dark Fairy Tale Series

A man hears beautiful harp music playing from somewhere in the woods.  Following the sound, he finds that it comes from a tree with ancient, twisted limbs.  Entranced he studies the tree, he begins to see a woman’s face within the bark. He feels the strong pangs of love as the music plays.

“I’d give anything to hear your voice,” he whispers to the woman in the tree.

He is so enchanted that he forgets his work, the day, the night, the rain. Time means nothing to him as the days go by.

“I’d give anything,” he begs the tree, hearing the graceful tunes of unseen harp strings.

He lays flowers at the base of the tree, entwined with ivy.

“My Irish rose, please, I beg to hear your voice,” he pleads.

Only the fair tunes sound to his ears. What gift does she desire, he beseeches, to make her speak to him?

He brings the prettiest ribbons he can find and ties them to the tree limbs, brightly-colored offerings to blow in the gentle Connemara breezes.

“My love, please,” he pleads.

But still, only beautiful music reaches his ears.

“Perhaps it’s coin you desire,” he says.

Coming back with as many coins as he can, he starts to dig a hole near the roots of the tree, careful not to cut them.

He finds his way, deeper and deeper beneath the tree, unable to stop his digging, like a man possessed.

He hears the music, on and on, as he digs. His soiled hands cannot stop digging, as the music plays.

All at once, as he stands deep within the roots of the tree, the soil and leaves cover him, bury him. As much as he tries to move, the earth and tree roots will not let him go, though music still reaches his ears.

Words start coming through as well, a voice, a woman’s sweet song reaching him at last.  

He hears her words, bewitched singing to accompany the sound of the harp strings.

“My love forever, come, lay with me, my love for all eternity…..”

Copyright 2015 – Material may be reprinted or distributed only with author permission.

Fairytale – The Harping Tree.docx

Dark Fairytale series – June 27, 2015 – Karen J. Sorce

FROM: Patient A-240 by John McGuire

An Alternate Response to George Orwell's 1984

Dear Death Panelists of the Mental Hygiene Department:

I am in receipt of the Euthanization Determination Appeal Form.

Do not await my submission. Await anything else. Await springtime or sunrise. Await grace or peace. Await roses or rainbows. Await snarks or grumpkins. Await nymphs or dryads. Await hobgoblins. Await Jove. Await all manner of mystery and life-giving wonder.

Be sure that you see that me you have not known, and you I have not needed. You I consider unreal, a zombie entity, a puppet propped up by your education monopoly you shamelessly leverage to instill counterintuitive nauseas and paralyzing terrors. All this you do to cultivate a few emotionally crippled dependents and useful idiots whom you ridicule privately and call on occasionally.

Feel free, then, to keep your audience captive, but do take care, if and when our paths cross. If they do, then I am happy to report there will be something you can expect from me, so do not tempt me to part that veil for all to see the diminutive dog-and-pony showman it harbors.

They call you “Big Brother”, but in truth you’re neither big nor a brother, but simply a hybrid of small-time con artist and sanctimonious control freak, that is, a classic gangster (or more appropriately “bankster”). You so loved the bribes, the lies and the insurance that you gave up all hope of Purpose, much less Meaning, consigning these and all subtle sensibilities to the file you psychopathically labeled “UNPRODUCTIVE AND ANTISOCIAL OBSTACLES TO PROGRESS”. You never honestly intended progress to connote common improvement but strictly elitist dominance, didn’t you? We both know better than the worker bees, you and I, don’t we?

As such, esteemed Panelists, if hypothetically I valued your well-being any more than you value mine, I would ask you to lock it in your mind that all those you despise as livestock, I cherish as neighbors, and they can always count on me.

Sincerely not yours,

Patient A-240

Copyright © 2015 John McGuire, www.untrain.org

Material may be printed or distributed only with author's permission.

Her Final Request by Joe Guastaferro

She awoke, ecstatic to see us after we rushed to the hospital from our Christmas cruise.

The e-mails were candid, ‘Mom in hospital. Home can’t deal with outbursts and rudeness!’ This was inevitable after three strokes and a heart attack.

Facilities for dementia? Where?  Mortal health and emotional complications, copious drugs, delusional dreams, faltering hope.

At age forty-one she had been widowed with six children and no job. She was resolute.

Her family dismantled.  Suicide for one, alcohol for another, and a breakdown for her, yet she persevered.

Now, at 90, she heard her husband calling. Her last request was for dignity. All was removed. She smiled, then let go.   FINIS.

Spring Came Softly by Diane Jones

Spring came softly, on a warm bright morn,        

Buds beginning to budge their way                                

Out of the branches which greeted the day                                           

With changing garments no longer worn.         

                                   

Snowdrops were fading, dropping their heads,           

Tired of winter and sitting in snow.

Stalks began bending and listing so low;

Blossoms, no longer white, took to their beds.

                                   

Primroses peeked out, their petals so bright,

Colors so brilliant they seemed quite unreal;

Leaves hugged the ground, and were soft to the feel:

Pillows of green nestled closely and tight.

Daffodils daintily danced in the breeze,

Trumpeting loudly their songs of great cheer,

As tulips and hyacinths bravely appeared,

Determined that sunshine would trump any freeze.

Spring has arrived, and, determined, shall stay!

Winter, begone! You have had a long run;

Now it is time to replace you with sun,

And brighten our mornings, and lengthen our day!

© 2012 and 2013 by Diane S. Jones     

MURIEL’S CIGAR by Carol Creswell

I thought it would be a good joke on Muriel.

My nursing school classmates, back in the ‘50s had been studying or on call all week and that Friday night we needed a good joke.

Confined to our rooms at 10 p.m. while silence reigned, we crept down the quiet polished halls of St. Joseph

nurses’ quarters in Detroit. Bathrobed, curlered, slippered and silently giggling,

 we spied our classmate Muriel’s room straight ahead.

“Have you got the Muriel cigars, Mary Lou?’ Jeanine whispered.  “All of ‘em right here in this pillowcase,” Mary Lou shot back.  

“You ready with the matches, Carol?” I nodded.

“Okay gang, let’s go. Caroline, you knock on the door.’

We stepped into the room, woke Muriel and locked the door.  “Don’t let old Gimpy the hall monitor hear us” whispered Mary Lou. We formed a rag-tag chorus line and lit our stogies.

 Puff puff. Our arms entwined, we we kicked in unison—slippers went flying—and sang the Muriel cigar radio ditty:

“We’re today’s new Muriel, the fine cigar,

“Our luxury lined wrapper is better by far.

“We’re today’s new Muriel, only a dime,

“Why don’tcha pick me up and smoke me sometime?’

Oh the laughter. Lots of inhaling and blowing smoke rings.
After all, they were little cigarillos and not much more than cigarettes and we were 17 and knew everything.

Then came the coughing.  Gasping.  Gagging.

A panicked run for the bathroom ensued.

 We didn’t know enough not to inhale.

Next day---

Muriel, freshly awakened from sleep, laughed herself silly.

She was the ONLY ONE who wasn’t sick on duty that day.

The Eccentric Doughboy by Eileen Wegman

It is never easy to unpack boxes after a major move. It is unsettling to embrace the sentiment attached to each object.  I found an ordinary light bulb in a box the other day. It reminded me of Uncle Clarence and the reverie began.

For the Thanksgiving holiday of my tenth year we all went to Grandma’s for the weekend.  Dad just had to go hunting there in California. Actually, there weren't enough beds to go around. My mother was sleeping with my two sisters in a double and who knows where the other relatives would nap.  After much family discussion, it was determined that I would spend the night in Uncle Clarence's bed, since I was the smallest.

Uncle Clarence’s bed was actually a cot. In fact, it was an army cot. Uncle had rigged it up with a box- shaped tarp surrounding the pillow to protect him from drafts. Compared to our old farmhouse, I never felt any drafts at Grandma’s house.

Hanging down from this canvas tent was a single light bulb. Uncle Clarence read at night. His entire bookshelf was filled with medical books. And what's more, he had memorized most of them. As a self- educated physician, he was the go-to person for any ache, pain or general malaise. The neighbors came over regularly for his advice. He was good at diagnosing their complaints, often mentioning the page of which text the information could be found on. Later, their doctors confirmed what he knew all along.

Uncle Clarence became interested in medicine when he was in the Army, I guess he'd seen quite a need for it there. In fact, his service made such an impression on him, that he kept his World War I uniform hanging on the back of his bedroom door, just in case he'd be called into action again. Occasionally, he'd dust it off a bit, try on the hat, pose for pictures.

Maybe it was his knowledge of the human body that led to his appreciation of the female sex. Not females in general, of course. There was only one that stood out from all the rest who required his ultimate devotion. Marilyn Monroe. Pictures of her surrounded the doorway of his room. He had seen every movie of hers about twenty times. Along with the autographed shots, there were handwritten letters from her. After all, he was the only one who truly understood her. It went without question that Uncle Clarence remained a bachelor. To marry anyone else  would have amounted to adultery.

Clarence kept his life simple. He worked in a box factory, topped at the tavern on the way home for a beer, and brought home tiny bags of bar pretzels for us. Uncle C. took care of Grandma. He religiously stuck to a diet of dried bread and raw carrots for himself, long before such things became popular in California. Uncle was always so very kind to me. I was the only one in the family with blonde hair, and you know who that made him recall.

It was with some guilt that I more or less betrayed him. The unforgivable happened ten years later in Strong Memorial Hospital in Rochester. My aunt and I went to visit a relative who was being treated in the Psychiatric Unit for Depression. A Social Worker called us into her office to get a little family background. She wanted to know if anyone else in the family suffered from Mental Illness. After giving it some thought, I said, "Well, there was Uncle Clarence..............".  My aunt was aghast and never forgave me.

To the family, Clarence was just eccentric.