Issue May 2012 Flash Fiction Online May 2012

Lizzie was sitting in a corner counting her money. “Thirty-five, Kitty, thirty-five cents.” When Lizzie’s mother was away, washing, she made her kitten her confidant. “Talk about mamma’ll be surprised when she gets this birthday present, My-i! Third one I’m giving her — when I was five I gave her peanut candy; only she didn’t come home till the peanuts were picked out. Second time I gave her a blue hair ribbon; blue looks nice on my red hair. Now I’m seven — twice seven and I won’t have these freckles and long skirt’ll cover my skinny legs, and,” she continued, getting up and trying to stand dignifiedly, “my name’ll be Elizabeth. Then I’ll give mamma a album! So long, Kitty.”

Out of the door she skipped, and down the alley toward the market. She forgot about the market when she reached the corner of the alley, for there stood a cart loaded with clocks, vases, jewellery, everything to satisfy one’s birthday wish — even an album.

Lizzie joined the crowd that had gathered to hear what the owner of these articles had to say. She listened a moment and then danced for joy — the man, who seemed to be all stomach and voice, was actually inviting them to take a twenty-five dollar watch for five cents.

“Now, ladies and gentlemen,” said the stomach and voice, “any article on this counter for five cents — every piece of chewing gum wins something. You want to try, mister? Now, folks, watch him read the name of one of these handsome presents from the slip of paper around that gum. Gold-handled umbrella? Here you are. Who’s going to win the other one? Nothing faky. That’s right, try your luck” — to a man who was edging to the front. “Diamond stud? You’re lucky — only a few more diamond studs left. Next! Anyone else? Don’t stop ’cause you won an umbrella. That’s it. What you got now? Gold bracelet? Five rubies and four emeralds in it, ladies and gents.”

Lizzie began to realize that she wasn’t dreaming — three prizes gone already!

“Lady, don’t you want this linen tablecloth? Fifteen dollars retail. Or this album that plays music when you’re looking at your loved ones?”

Lizzie gasped — there was only one album. “I want to win the album,” she shouted.

“Come right up with your nickel. Here’s a gal knows a good thing even if she did swallow two teeth.”

Had this remark been made about Lizzie’s teeth at another time she would have fired a red-headed retort, but now she thought only of the album.

She exchanged her five pennies for the gum, and with trembling fingers unrolled the tissue paper and let the stomach and voice read the name from the slip of paper — “Lead pencil,” was announced.

Poor Lizzie’s heart sank, and the stomach and voice was telling the crowd that there were a few pencils in the lot, and showed them a box containing five pencils.

At this Lizzie cheered up — she decided that if no one else won those pencils and she was unlucky five more times she would still have five cents left with which to win the album.

She won five more pencils, had given a last look at the last five pennies, unrolled the slip of paper and given it to her nearest neighbor to read — “lead pencil,” was read.

“Since they ain’t no more pencils I’ll take the album,” announced Lizzie triumphantly.

“Got more, sissy,” said the stomach and voice, taking a few from his pocket and placing them in the box, handing one to Lizzie.

The crowd jeered and left. Lizzie was too dazed to go, and, sitting on a soapbox in the alley, stared at the album. She heard the shrill whistle the stomach and voice gave, and a few minutes later saw the winners appear, returning the articles they had won. She wondered why they did this, and, as a new crowd was coming, drew closer to the cart.

She listened again to the same harangue and saw the umbrella winner take another chance. She gave a start when he thundered “umbrella” — she saw through the performance, and her cheeks glowed with indignation.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” she screamed, “this is a fake business — that man won a umbrella and brought it back, and so did the other man.” By this time she was out of reach of the stomach and voice, who threatened to knock two more teeth down her throat. But Lizzie’s voice was not out of reach, and the crowd could hear her yelling, “Everybody else wins penny lead pencils.” The crowd laughed and left.

Lizzie waited for the next crowd, and, coming from her hiding-place, gave them the same information.

After the crowd had gone the stomach and voice caught Lizzie, who, while trying to free herself from his grasp, bumped her lip, and the blood oozed from her tender gum.

“Policeman, policeman, help!” she screamed.

Seeing the people in the neighborhood coming to Lizzie’s rescue, the stomach and voice promised to return her money if she would keep quiet.

“I’m gonna tell them all you knocked my teeth out unless you give me the album,” snapped Lizzie.

“All right,” meekly answered the stomach and voice, who had been collared by this time, but was released when the men received Lizzie’s invitation to come up the alley and see her album.

“Good-bye, mister — thanks awfully for the gum and pencils, too,” and away she ran, the album in her arms.

When in the room, she locked the door for fear the album would be taken away.

“Kitty, look! A album, and me only seven. They’ll just have to call me Elizabeth, freckles and legs and all.”

The night the sea came in at the windows with a roar like a thousand drumbeats, I was abed and dreaming of my dead husband.

Riauk had been gone nigh on two years, pitched over the side of our fishing boat, where he’d disappeared (I was told) with scarcely a splash. Punishment, the villagers said. The sea mother’s retribution. I did not believe it.

I missed Riauk most in winter, when the rain off the sea slipped through the cracks around the windows and the wind moaned beneath the thatch. The thin woolen blanket was no comfort from the mist, and the forlorn cries of the gulls picking clams along the beach were echoes of emptiness.

I dreamed that he called to me, though not in a human voice. It was a sound like a cry from deep underwater, a shout laced with bubbles and seaweed, muffled as though by immense distances.

I dreamed of him often. For a while it was the horrific dream of the bloated body that had washed up on the shingle beach, skin the color of chalk cliffs, nibbled bits of flesh as pink and clean as scrubbed hands. Dreams in which he walked up from the beach, ashen-gray and swollen with seawater, trailing kelp like long green tethers. His eyes empty as miniature moons, bleached of color and life. Those dreams would heave me up out of the cot, a scream swelling and dying in my throat.

Those faded eventually.

For months after, I dreamed images of our youth, night after night. Hardscrabble winters and autumn sunsets. Quiet evenings of stewed mussels and weaving. The days spent trimming and gathering palm fronds for our hut. The time he’d struck me with the flat of his palm so hard that the imprint of his hand lay like a shadow on my face for weeks.

But most often I dreamed of nausea and sore breasts and bulging bellies. Four times in four consecutive summers I had quickened, felt the churning butterfly wings of movement, proudly watched the doughy rise of my navel. Each time but the last it had ended in blood and sickness. The one tiny scrap of humanity that had emerged stayed only a season, leaving behind its fragile body like an empty coconut shell.

The villagers feared the tiny girl. Small and dark, the color of oiled mahogany, with four long slits like gills behind each ear. I called her Eketi — “little fish”.

For a thousand years, those born twisted and infirm, those with split faces and too many limbs, had been given back to the sea. They were the sea’s children. Hatchlings of the storm.

I held her to my breast. I did not relent. The village women avoided me, making a sign over their mouths with closed fingers to prevent the demon that had taken me from entering their body.

Shortly after came the night my husband struck me. The Old Man of the village had come and spoken to him. My husband lifted the baby gently — he was always gentle with her, even then — and made for the door, but I stood in his path like a windblown tree and would not move. He did not meet my eyes. He spoke softly, insistently. Words as dull and meaningless as surf-washed pebbles. I screamed. He slapped me across the cheek with a sound like a tuna dropping on the empty hull of a boat.

But he did not go. The anger passed from his face. He helped me back to my feet and wept like a child in my arms, stroking the infant’s head with a hand grown rough and callused from hauling lines and patching nets. I did not weep. I cradled Eketi in my lap, cooing quietly though I tasted blood.

Her life had burned quickly, fiercely. Dry grass in a strong wind. Her eyes were old, incredibly old, as if they had viewed the rising of the islands like the tortoise shells from the depths. I had known she would not last, known it from the first moment I had seen her bunched face. Riauk had known it too, I think, though he never spoke of it. He turned his back on the villagers, sheltered Eketi and I like a boulder at the verge of the storm-tossed sea.

The night when the sea came in at the windows with a roar like a thousand drumbeats, I was dreaming all these things. Of a baby that had not died, but had grown into a beautiful, dark-haired child with ancient eyes. Of a husband whose hunched back bore the lashing wind and rain. Of a voice that called to me in the speech of the sea.

Then all was water, a froth of sticks and foam and swirling debris, a quickly muted thrum like a drawn out roll of thunder. It picked me up, spun me a slow circle like a cautious dancer. I opened my eyes to light, a shimmer like moonlight on calm waters. I saw villagers, those I had known my entire life, men and women with skin the color of palm bark, wrinkles netting their faces. Eyes open, mouths wide in silent screams, struggling frantically against the weightlessness of water, while precious air like pearls drifted upward.

The current lifted me on pillowing arms, caressing my face with plumes of soft light. I did not struggle. I listened as the muffled rush fell away and there was only a submarine stillness, an eerie and blissful silence without birds or insects or rustling grass.

I saw them, Riauk and Eketi. They swam toward me. Bright eyes and sleek bodies, scales like drops of molten silver. I knew them. They called my name with the soft insistence of waves lapping the shore.

I left it then, that cumbersome body. Shed it like an empty seed pod. Abandoned it to the mud-stained darkness.

A flick of tail, a slant of fin. Cool, cool water tickling the tongue.