Issue 63 December 2018 Flash Fiction Online December 2018

There is an emptiness that creeps into you when a major project is completed. Because you define your life by work, accomplishment, and completion. When you’re not working on a novel or a history project or some other creative exploit, when you’re only working the day job, you find yourself questioning your identity.

You call this The Big Empty.

And this is how you fill it: with doubt, self-hatred, redoubled efforts to promote, brainstorming projects, revising old ones, bugging your agent, reading other people’s success stories, gaming a strategy for the future, checking in with friends in similar circumstances.

Some of these are bad. Some good. Others, meh. But you are old enough to know that there is no precious time in your life where only good things thrive. In fact, most of life is riddled in decay and failure as much as success. Everything at all times is a dance of emotional highs and lows. How we react to them, so say the Buddhist, Stoics, and others, is where we have a modicum of control.

You remind yourself of this because the Big Empty is here. And the biggest waste in this space is one word.

FAILURE.

Whatever success you’ve had is matched by a negative. Got a book out? The sales suck. Good sales? Where’s the next major deal? Good deal? Shouldn’t you be working on improving your dayjobbery?

There is no good in your life that can fill the Big Empty. Because it is bottomless.

Beside the Big Empty is a laptop and a good chair (though not a great one). On your screen is the infinite horizon called Next.

You create a constellation. Novels. History books. Short stories. Each is a black star against the infinite white.

With the Big Empty at your back, you map what’s next against the infinite to see what fucking shape will emerge.

And the Big Empty starts to shrink.

As the story goes, a smattering of years over 2000 ago, a young Jew and his wife sought refuge in an inn in the town of Bethlehem–a donkey-back journey of about 4 days south-southwest from Jerusalem. Instead, they found a place in a stable.

Many stories have been written–mostly fictional–of exactly what went down that night. But we do know that out of this story came a man who, from that day to this, has been both worshipped and villified, studied and parodied.

Assuming the historical record is at least somewhat correct, what we know about this man is that his life was one of refuge sought, refuge offered, refuge lost.

As a child he was taken even further from home–to Egypt–where his parents sought refuge from an edict that would have taken the boy’s life. His teachings offered spiritual refuge from the troubles of a broken and frightening world. In the end, any refuge he might have taken he refused–he gave himself up to authorities who, ultimately, put him to death. In the very act of dying, he secured a refuge for his mother, beseeching one of his friends to take care of her after he was gone. His ardent followers believe that his life, his teachings, and his death, have provided a way by which we might seek refuge from death itself.

This month, Christians the world over remember his birth in that stable a smattering over 2000 years ago. And now, as then, people seek refuge anywhere they can find it.

A friend of mine once told me that even the most broken and downtrodden people–even the most hateful and unlovable–in our lives are doing what we are all doing–seeking a refuge in some kind of happiness. The trouble is that some of us seek happiness in things, ideas, or habits that eventually bring only emptiness or misery. The spiteful old woman in the apartment across the way may be achieving that through her sense of self-superiority over others. The guy sleeping in a cardboard box in the alley may have once thought he could find it in a needleful of heroine.

Do any of us know where we can find the refuge of true happiness?

Psychologist and lecturer, Tara Brach, wrote: “True refuge is that which allows us to be at home, at peace, to discover true happiness. The only thing that can give us true refuge is the awareness and love that is intrinsic to who we are.”

This month’s stories are about people seeking refuge in different ways. Some find it, some don’t. Some have help along the way, some must find their own path. All face obstacles, because without obstacles we wouldn’t need refuge. Nor would we have much of a story, because that’s what stories are–characters facing obstacles and sometimes succeeding, sometimes failing, always getting under our skin and into our hearts.

Like young Pigeon, whose older sister wanders, and who looks for solace in her makeup and her hand holding his. Na, who finds refuge in music as her son and husband come to blows in front of her. Mrs. O’Reilly, who, in the wake of unspeakable tragedy, looks for peace in thoughts of what might have been. And, finally, a refugee of a different sort, but whose experience speaks for all refugees everywhere.

We hope you enjoy, and that you find peace and happiness this season and always.

Suzanne

When he left that morning, it was the first morning in a while that she hadn’t thought he’s gonna turn that bike over today. She would say godammit eddie what’s gonna happen what’s gonna happen when you turn that bike over. Then it’ll read on my gravestone that I turned that bike over.

It was sunny that morning and it was sunny that afternoon just before supper when she got a phone call saying just that: that he turned that bike over. And it was sunny on the day they put him in the ground and she thought what the fuck kind of universe makes it sunny on a day like that. And his gravestone didn’t read that he had turned that bike over, it read “Eddie O’Reilly, 2000-2018.”

And she’d say Liam get up and tell your fucking son he can’t ride that goddam bike he’s gonna turn it over. His own goddam fault if he turns that fucking thing over. And now there was one less person in the house but that bike still sat out on the driveway, collecting dust. She felt like she was collecting dust herself. The dog had died and the cat was so old he had stopped preening himself and now just sat on his chair with matted black fur. And that old horse Caspar was so old his back hung down and his stomach just about touched the ground.

She remembered reaching a point when she knew what her life was gonna be and felt like she could guess just about enough what each day would be like. And she didn’t like thinking about it but she especially felt that way nowadays. In the past, when she was feeling that way especially bad she would think about what Eddie’s life was gonna be and what kind of girl he was gonna marry. Because he really was such a sweetheart and that girl Marcy was so sweet and maybe if he had gotten her pregnant would he have gotten on that bike?

Yeah. He would have. He liked to run yellows and now she liked to wish that he had been running a yellow and had gotten cut in half by a truck coming the other way. Because then she’d be able to wonder what would have happened if he hadn’t run that yellow or if he’d been going a little slower or a little faster and that truck cut someone else in half instead. But there was no point wondering about what had happened and what his body looked like. She knew it already. There was no other car and no other person and it wouldn’t have mattered if he’d been going a little slower or a little faster or whether or not he was running a yellow. He turned his bike over drunk as shit going 85 and his body looked like, well, like it’d been thrown off a bike going 85. His own goddam fault he turned that fucking thing over.

And now she just watched her TV shows and thought about what each character’s life was gonna be. She liked watching the children’s beauty pageants and Liam would say goddamit why are you watching that junk again so she’d wait until he went out for his cigarettes and then flip the channel back because oh the girls were so lovely and just so sweet and what were their lives gonna be like? But she knew what the rest of her days would look like and the rest of Liam’s days and the cat and Caspar didn’t have many more days to be like anything. All because he turned over that goddamit fucking bike and goddamit Eddie why’d you have to turn over that fucking bike goddamit?

Kelly, the dispatcher, sent the call my way, but Nick caught it too, so my squad car arrived at the empty beach parking lot seconds after his.

By the time I’d grabbed a shovel from my car trunk, he was racing down the bank, skidding in the oyster-shell scree. At five hundred dollars a pair, the alien toe bounty could be a lucrative second income for us cops. “Watch your step, Allie,” he called back, his voice full of glee.

“Alaa,” I corrected, wearily. He could have pronounced it right if he cared. But if he cared about stuff like that then I wouldn’t be running full tilt through the salt grass behind him.

It was easy to spot the dull blue of the shattered spacepod, the size of a bar fridge, way down the gray beach near a cluster of seaweed-streaked rocks.

I began to jog once I hit the hard pack. One foot after the other over this seemingly endless stretch of northern Washington coastline. Fleeing from Syria, sliding into America under the wire, becoming a naturalized citizen, qualifying for state trooper, my personal foot race never seemed to end.

And then the Veldars had come.

And kept coming. And coming.

Ahead, Nick whooped. He’d reached the crash site already.

I slowed, my bad knee flickering with pain. No hurry now. I’d lost.

And so had the Veldar.

The alien, slightly larger than most, squatted next to a rock in shadow, its face-tendrils taut. Translucent down to lean gray bone, like a jellyfish that had swallowed a miniature Halloween skeleton.

I jabbed the shovel upright in the sandy muck.

The alien raised a stick-like arm and then let it fall. Did it know what Nick was about to do?

Nick’s shirt was still tucked in and his fake sandalwood odor indicated extra-strength deodorant. Maybe I could work with that.

“Have fun,” I said, stepping back. “Last time I shot a jellyrat this big, the guts stained my uniform. Even drycleaning didn’t get it out.”

He laughed uneasily. “Hey, five hundred dollars covers a lot of drycleaning. And, remember, you officially caught this case. Don’t try to weasel out of the paperwork.”

I snorted and took another step back. “Damned paperwork. Tell you what. You get the toes, and I’ll dispatch the jellyrat afterwards. And I’ll bury it. But only if you do the friggin’ paperwork for me.”

A jerk of his head. “What, cut ’em off while it’s alive? Seems kinda cruel.”

“Shift’s almost over. You can get to Sweeney’s in time for Happy Hour. And it’s not like the ‘rats feel any worse pain than a cockroach or something.” I held my face tight and kicked the Veldar in the kneecap. It deflated into the muck and moaned like a ghul. I shrugged. “And I’m in no hurry. I don’t go to mosque until sunset.”

Nick grinned. “Deal!” He drew out his bowie knife and sliced off each bulbous pinkie toe in turn. The Veldar screwed up its many-wrinkled face but only moaned once more. I tasted bile but held it in.

He stuffed the glistening toes in a sandwich baggie. “Next jellyrat gets called in, we can do this again, if you want, Allie.”

“Sure.” I began to dig, sending grit, muck, and seaweed flying.

He hastily jumped back. “Okay, I’m outta here.”

Between shovelfuls, I watched him trot away. I’d have to time the gunshot carefully.

The Veldar lay clutching its bowling-ball belly–like the malnourished toddlers back in Turkey. Drying gel clung to the two stumps on its narrow feet. Tired, yellow eyes stared at nothing.

After a few minutes, I drew my pistol. Nick should be almost out of line-of-sight.

The Veldar watched me carefully.

I aimed straight out into the ocean and squeezed the trigger.

The retort made the Veldar scoot back against the rock.

I drew out my blackmarket English-Veldar phrase book and flipped through it. War. Enemy. Run. We humans might not understand the reasons behind other alien races invading the Veldars’ home planet or how the Veldars could keep stealing motherships full of thousands of these spacepods, but some of us understood the fallout. In the tent camp in Turkey, Baba had massaged my shrapnel-scarred calf muscle while he pointed out words in his little green Arabic-English phrase book. Soldier. Injury. Lifeboat.

Now to try greetings in the several dozen Veldar languages. “Tern ka?”

A blank look in its yellow eyes.

I sighed. This could take hours. Maybe I should just drag it to the squad car without its consent. Like border guards had grabbed seven-year-old me. Damn it all, anyway! I ran a finger down the page. “Tennin bran?”

One ear flap twitched.

Familiar, perhaps, but not its native tongue. I flipped a few pages. “Vronah kro?”

The Veldar’s opaque organ sacs vibrated in excitement. “Hrran, vo narhh, hrran!”

Ah, that was it. I made a mental note to tell Kelly to tag this one as Veldar XII in the underground database. “Kravv voolah,” I pronounced carefully. Don’t worry.

“Vrahhah?” it croaked. By now, I knew that word by heart in several languages. Safety?

“Hrran,” I said. Yes. It was sort of true. Kelly and I, and a few other folks scattered across the Veldars’ vast northwestern drop zone, tried hard to make things safer. Sometimes, we succeeded.

The Veldar tendrils slackened in relief.

A few more minutes of shoveling and I’d mounded a plausible gravesite. Tonight, I’d drive to Everett and drop the Veldar off at a safe house so it could begin yet another journey.

A cold wind had sprung up and clouds threatened rain. I lifted my burden awkwardly, bracing my bad leg against the rock. The Veldar breathed the odor of burnt raspberries into my neck. I half-smiled, feeling better than I had all day.

I hunched to protect us both from the wind and began the long hike to the parking lot.

Previously published in Writers Resist, 2017. Reprinted here by permission of the author.