The Refreshment Tent by Gary Hewitt

The corner dark of wooden settee

In brightest spark of inky inn

The mood lightened by laughing buddha

Followed soon by tipsy clown

Who swiped a bottle of sweaty gin

And sat beside forgetful chimp

A curious look snared forgetful chimp

Who flopped onto wooden settee

He swigged heartily on sweaty gin

A scene most lively in inky inn

A flagon of ale for tipsy clown

Eager to share with laughing buddha

More raucous became laughing buddha

Yet scratching his head forgetful chimp

Another round demanded tipsy clown

He looked for room on wooden settee

A landlord concerned from inky inn

Lest someone complain about sweaty gin

He offered free lemons with sweaty gin

An offer accepted by laughing buddha

Echoes rebounded around inky inn

‘Is this the circus?’ pondered forgetful chimp

Who danced on hands on wooden settee

And parked himself down the tipsy clown

Head topsy turvy tipsy clown

Greasy hand holding sweaty gin

Puddle formed on wooden settee

Finger pointed from laughing buddha

Accused of piddle, forgetful chimp

Bucket and mop for inky inn

Trade booming for inky inn

Another round ordered by tipsy clown

Only water for forgetful chimp

For he could not handle sweaty gin

‘Whisky chaser’ cried laughing buddha

He swamped the middle of wooden settee

The inky inn swayed with sweaty gin

‘Booze’ cheered tipsy clown and laughing buddha

Somersaulting was forgetful chimp on wooden settee

Biography:

Gary Hewitt is a raconteur who lives in a quaint little village in Kent.  He has written two novels which are currently being edited. His writing does tend to veer away from what you might expect. He has had several short stories published as well as the occasional poem.

He enjoys both writing prose and poetry. His style of writing tends to feature edgy characters and can be extremely dark. Some of his influences are James Herbert, Stephen King, Bulgakov, Tolkein to name but a few

 He is also a proud member of the Hazlitt Arts Centre Writers group in Maidstone which features an eclectic group of very talented writers.

He has a website featuring his published works here: http://ghwt9996.wix.com/tales#!

Addie~ A Chapter from The Russian Girl by Dan Spanton

Addie McKenzie exhaled a shaky breath and pumped a shell into the shotgun chamber.  She was praying she’d make the shot, but in case she didn’t, she’d persuaded herself that skeet was a hillbilly sport, anyway.  A granite crescent at her feet had been notched with six shooting positions, and two ugly trap towers lobbed rabbits at a silver sky.       

She sighted down the gun barrel, feeling a sting in her wrist as her heart rate climbed.  In front of her, tattered trees flanked a clearing that sloped downhill for a quarter mile, and an insect chorus swelled from the brown swaths of mowed hay.  It was the raggedy butt-end of autumn.  Far below, where the woodland began, mist was pooling in hollows that would be frosty by midnight.

                “Pull!” 

            She braced for recoil and squeezed the trigger.

“You suck!” shrieked Tulip Turnbull.

The clay bunny flew unharmed above the dying alfalfa.  Addie ignored the sickening roil in her gut.  One more shot.  Keep it together.

“Pull!” 

The skeet target disintegrated.  This time Tulip kept her fat mouth shut. The instructor called Addie’s score and she turned over the twelve-gauge and rotated out.  No one high-fived her.  She caught a couple of half-hearted “way-to-go-Addie’s,” and Kyle Fowler, the dumbest jock in Portland High’s senior class, clapped briefly while staring at her sun-browned legs.  Near the clubhouse she spotted a patrol car squeezing into a parking space.  She pulled off gloves and safety glasses and sank onto grassy earth.

Kyle stepped up to shoot.

Addie sprawled.  She squinted heavenward through a weave of oak branches, heart racing.  She counted breaths, focusing on the distant, rhythmic clack and rumble of an Amtrak train, syncopated by Kyle Fowler as he shot positions.   Easy, she urged herself, no worries.  Nothing mattered.  Nothing….

Minutes passed.  Anxiety waned, and mischief raised its feral head.

She remembered the patrol car, slipping into a parking slot. She pushed up onto an elbow and called softly to Tulip Turnbull, who crouched near the trap house firing up a hand-rolled.  Addie jabbed a finger toward the cop car and mouthed “For you, Cupcake.”  Tulip scowled and exhaled smoke in her direction.  Tulip Turnbull had no sense of humor and Addie never tired of baiting her.

Addie knew the patrol car hadn’t come for Tulip.  She flashed back to the night before.  Her sinuses burned from acrid chemicals, and if evil-doings had an aftertaste, the flavor of bad behavior coated her tongue.

Skeet practice wound down as a half dozen kids chose to shoot a final round, and others headed out.  When Addie reached the parking lot Kyle Fowler passed, making a point of brushing against her, and suggested: “Me and you should hang out.”

 “Never gonna happen,” Addie retorted.   Kyle smirked and continued toward his car, and her mood ticked up a notch.  The fumes of fresh asphalt tarred the air, and nearby a weed whacker snarled with raw hostility.  She unlocked the Chevy Camaro and slung her backpack inside. The used Camaro, boasting a V-8 engine, white leather interior, and 26” wheels, had been acquired by cashing in a ten thousand dollar savings bond from her grandfather, intended for college tuition.

  She stole a look between vehicles.  She’d encountered most of the cops in the Portland Police Department, but this one had a fresh face.  A short black woman leaned against the hood of a cruiser.  At her feet lay pine cones flattened by tires and she swiped at them with the side of her shoe as if she was clearing a doorstep.  She looked up in time to catch Addie’s eye, and beckoned her over.

“You McKenzie?”

Addie turned and pointed out Tulip, climbing into Blind Billy’s truck.    “That’s her, Officer.”

A faint smile.  “Sure it is,” agreed the cop, not fooled.  “They told me to look for a tall blond who’d be a lot prettier if she wasn’t planning who to beat up next.”

“Everyone’s a critic.”

The officer smiled again, this time displaying teeth.  “You swing by Dicky’s Lobster Pound last night?”

“No reason to.  I quit over the weekend.”  As Addie spoke Blind Billy trawled past in his Ford F-150, his sister Tulip Turnbull riding shotgun.  Billy wasn’t actually blind, just fumbling and shortsighted.  Somebody had bashed him in the
skull when he was younger, possibly causing brain damage.    Right now he was gawking out the window like a lame-ass.  “Baddie Addie Waddie,” he brayed, almost steering off the pavement.  Tulip Turnbull screeched from the passenger seat but Addie didn’t turn her head.  Neither did Officer Martin.

“According to Richard Bailey, he fired you.  Just coincidentally someone entered the business after hours and activated a fire alarm.”  Office Martin studied Addie for reaction. “The pound got sprayed with flame retardant foam.  Worst part, it contaminated the holding tanks.  Piles of dead lobbies.”

“Sorry to hear it.   Any witnesses?”

“No, Miss McKenzie, I was hoping you’d shed a ray of light.”

“No ma’am, wish I could.”

Officer Martin sighed theatrically, opened the door of the black and white, and maneuvered her sturdy bulk inside.   

“I figured this for a long shot,” she confessed through the half-open window.   “Only reason I bothered is the lovely foliage.”  She waved toward the hillside above the parking lot, where naked branches clawed the sky.

“Sorry I wasn’t more help.”

“Hold up a sec.”  Through the car window she passed Addie a brochure.  “I worked a job fair last week,” said the cop. “Why not check this out?”

Addie accepted the brochure and eyed the cover.  “Law Enforcement Careers.  This a joke?”

Officer Martin regarded her soberly until Addie got the idea it wasn’t a joke. “It may help you get your head straight if you start planning your future.”

The patrol car backed onto the access road, tires crunching new gravel, and abruptly sped away.

Addie McKenzie experienced a rare moment.  People rarely proposed that she might have a future, and she was caught off guard.  Even she wasn’t sure what happened next, but she knew that fistfights and petty vandalism didn’t cut it anymore, they barely scratched the itch.

She heard a distant howl of triumph.  Above the skeet range rosy clouds bled down the silver autumn sky.   She remained rooted in place, listening to wind and gunshots, and the jarring tempo of hard, desolate thoughts.

                                                                               ****

Author Bio:  Dan Spanton lived in Colombia for five years, teaching English in Bogota, Cali, and Medellin. He now resides in Maine where he's been a clamdigger, sail maker, and restaurant cook.

Dan is also the author of Waiting for Natalie available at these links.:

http://www.melange-books.com/authors/danspanton/waitingfornatalie.html

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009GBTV36

My Child and I Say ~Two Poems by Sopphey Vance

My Child

Her face with two eyes

Reflecting the fire's 

Groans and crackles

A nose made to sniff

Every last bit of chocolate

And peanut butter sweets

And her lips, my darling's

Favorite obsession;

Always singing, always laughing

When she's happy her eyes

Turn in wonder absorbing

Every last speck of sunshine

Her nose twitches and flares

Leading to a crescent smile

Her body elegantly curtsies

But when she's sad

When my dear child cries

And whines of heartache

Her eyes reddened

A stream of tears

Dragging her down

When she's sad I pull

At the edges of the universe

Shielding her from all

...

I Say

would i be able to type a paper

holding a lit cigarette?

oh how do you do it?

you lost your vision 

and rummage through a pile of androids

hoping to find the closest physical proof

that you are a descendant of Adam and Eve

would the ashes chemically change 

the plastic on my keyboard?

oh, how did I do it?

I lost  track of time

and now I relive our moments in nightmares

my sole existence is proof

come on Mom I say, let's go sisters

would a burning laptop

set the fire alarm?

remnants of guilt

embedded deeply

no burning possession, no cigarette

will ever relieve or erase the past

around the corner lies no salvation for me 

why were we allowed passage?

we lit each other on fire

and raged through nights

modern technology divided us

one waited and escaped to college

one will graduate from high school soon

the last one is autistic

...

Sopphey Vance is a poet. She creates poetry with letters, words, sounds, and colors. writing has appeared or is to appear in Cram Magazine, Every Night Erotica, Filthy Secret Books, and in Felt Tips Anthology by Tiffany Reisz. Poetically speaking, Sopphey released her first collection of poetry Rose Colored Lenses; Jaded Prescription on August 2012. Find and connect with Sopphey Vance on her blog (http://sopphey.onimpression.com), Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/poetsopphey), or Twitter (https://twitter.com/sopphey).

Fictitious but Reality by Mudasir Nazar

     I have a story to tell, vague but interesting and concern of my both past as well as present. My ancestors were pious, gentle and without ill-will and because of their ignorance of Darwin’ principle, “big fish eats small fish “and of its recognition as being ‘small fishes’, fell prey to the slavery of aliens. Living in a closely knit society but not self governed, become victim and my grandmother was caught by aliens in war; because her chest was barren, after humiliating her honour, was sold to the Grahak (owner) for a paltry sum of rupees. She was sold in a broad day light but all were sleeping; family members too, except some were awake but their hands were roped. What could have been the atmosphere: pleasant and highly enjoyable not for us but for the aliens and the Grahak of my grandmother. It was the night of mid march, breeze everywhere and they have a party of drinking wine, my grandmother was naked in their hands in a deep slumber. Nobody knows that she and her children will be used as bulls to dig the land, as horses to pull the cart and as donkeys to build the pyramid. This feeling comes only after undergoing such slavery for next several decades.

Her Innocent children without underwear were dragged from clay houses and introduced to their new master, Noor Shah, a man with long moustaches and stick in his hand, fascinating to them because he was after all a man wearing full cloths; an event of climbing sun from the west. Immediately the word from the mouth of children comes out ‘mara hukum kar-rev’ (Sir Order). My grandmother and her children again expected good life but illusory for a short span of time. Now they have to bear the burden, when the reply comes to them, ‘’ if you want to live here, work, but if you want to live life, work hard”. From morning till evening her children were working, spinning, weaving and mostly tilling, without knowing why they were doing all this and for whom? The autumn comes, the Mara Noor Shah, finally ordered them to present their flesh and blood, which has to be deposited and sent to my grandmother’s majesty. Collection started and nobody could escape, even sometimes resulted in anemia and death. Now the material is ready, party had to be started and it started at 9.30 pm, at the majesty’s house, exactly at the time of dinner of children of grandmother. Majesty’s Party opened with music, everybody is enjoying with a plate having different varieties of flesh and wine and by singing, dancing and loudly voicing, party turns into night club festival; but interestingly, my grandmother’s children too had observed similar musical party at that time. Party opened with dinner; red chili powder on their plates with watt (wheat), mouths inevitably opened with sounds phai, phai. One child, Raheem kak unconsciously took lot of chili, he started to beat his head, and music starts which was no less than the music of royal family. This continues till winter, but now situation goes worst. With snow from every side, it was too cold but very worst to children, who were seen in the Siberian forests doing beggar (forced labour). Their footprints were red on white snow, used as donkeys to carry load.  Nobody resisted, fearing that their freedom could be annoyed. Nobody was listening, Alas, it was too cold and even GOD too was sleeping. So my grandmother’s family was left high and dry during chilly winter, while their flesh was sewed in to yarn blankets to be worn by their masters.

 Cruelty went on, summer comes, and the discretion of holy box ignited demonstration. On 13^th July during demonstration fight started, but failed with the funeral of young children. Nobody loosed courage, cruelty led them to continue. Some experienced children were given mandate to publish manifestoes and lead the agitation, to liberate old grandmother at any cost and movement went through different twists and turns but unfortunately my mother was mature for marriage. Nobody could have imaged which happened in the mid night of last week of October, when history repeated itself, at the time of death of  grandmother, my mother too was sold during the night against her wishes, though married yet resisted by her body and children. Some fighting occurred but then peace prevails, because the mediator promised to liberate them from the land, though arbitrary distribution took place yet everybody enjoyed the day. Children were provided with different rights like right to become shepherd etc. very late children recognized that this freedom is myth which has been curtailed through different doses. Unrest started and children again refused to cooperate with their neo-master.

In 89 children prepared to kill their master, and carried knifes on their shoulders. The master reacted first slowly but then harshly, turned my mother’s cloths red, her breasts were tortured by knife….’knife responded with knife’. I was born in 89, the child of violence in the mid of fighting. I was beaten and my brothers killed on the roads. For many years I did not understand anything, except violence. Rebellion went on but slowly I become fed up with violence and decided to remain calm after giving promises that your matter will be solved. However, nothing happened till my leg was sold for religious body but when I resisted, violence started. Again I remain silent but till what time, when I found graveyards of my offspring’s and again conspiracy death of my one child led me to revolt and when the help of my children, I went to stone pelting demonstrations, different from previous knifes fighting. This roar awake my master sitting outside, and promised with me to listen my grievances and fortunately three comrades were sent to meet me. Unfortunately they did not meet my face but my legs, foot, fingers and so on. Still I expected solution to my sufferings. I waited on and on, at last my grievances were shown to the master, ironically in a reversed form and my wounds, sufferings reflected in none of the papers presented to master. Unlike my ancestors, I understood that it is Darwin’s principle and Morgenthau’s dictum, struggle for power, so remained calm from last two years except sometimes I become frustrated and pelt stones over walls. Now my children decided to work hard and engaged with their own. The feeling of defeat is in my heart which led me sometimes to pelt stones over masters.

        Today I am being sold every day and cheated every night, used as bargaining chip, even by my parents and certain things are visible before me. I am now compelled to take a knife over my shoulders again and consequence will be red blood all over my body. But one question always pinches my mind, why my master is unable to recognize my sufferings? To whom I want remedy and safeguard of my rights. Some want to sell me another master. My master did not want to left me but what I want nobody tells but everybody sells me. Why there is such complexity in my career and what will be my future?

Mudasir Nazar is a research scholar at south Asian studies, JNU, New Delhi and can be mailed at:   mnazar00@gmail.com