I saw a girl in a red velvet hat with feathers to one side.
Meeting her eyes, I smiled.
She grinned, but shyly turned her gaze.
So I studied her young silhouette
and thought of long past days.
Of ladies in fabulous hats and fitted suits,
with cigarettes and smart comebacks
for men in Fedoras, white shirts and ties
who secretly longed for the sassy, young ladies
in red, velvet hats with feathers to one side.
Tag: Fiction
The Light of Day
The following short story was inspired by the hauntingly beautiful winter scene pictured. I found this small, 4 x 6, unsigned, pen and ink on paper at a barn sale in Wisconsin many years ago. It remains one of my very favorite pieces.
Katie keeps the meager fire burning in the small cottage at the edge of the woods, watching her mother twist and turn. Hearing her quietly moan.
Looking around the cabin, she’s desperate for something to do – some way to be useful. But all’s been done in the last two days since the contractions began. So all there is to do is be there when her mother calls, and wait.
Motionless at the kitchen window, she watches the rising sun slowly define the intricate silhouettes of the barren trees behind the barn.
What will the new light bring?
But she’s exhausted and the light is dim. Wiping away the frost and the fog with the apron she’s been wringing in her small hands, Katie watches her father through the kitchen window as he prepares the wagon to fetch the midwife from town. Hitching the horses in the pale light of the lantern, she marvels at his ease and compassion. Patting each of theirs rumps and their necks, and rubbing their broad, long noses, he gently rouses his team to their unexpected task.
Clouds of breath rise from their nostrils and disappear into the cold and still of the mid-winter’s morning as he moves swiftly around the massive beasts, laying the harness as he has hunderds of times before. With bridles slung over each shoulder, he warms both metal bits beneath his thick coat before putting it in their mouths; and for his daily thoughtfulness, each horse lowers his high, heavy head toward him when he holds out their bridle.
Katie smiles.
Until another moan comes from behind and she’s at the side of the bed before the contraction ends and her mom can see again. Gently wiping her brow with the apron, she squeezes tight when her mother grabs hold of her hand and clutches it to her chest.
Smiling again when her mother turns toward her.
Opening her eyes to her daughter, no pain can blur the struggle she sees in her young heart and old hands. She wants to hold her, to hug her tight and tell her everything will be well, but another bolt of pain seizes her thoughts and intents, and she releases her daughter’s hand, clutching the bedsheets instead.
Twice the dawn has come and gone and still the little one is all turned around and stubborn to leave. But I’m stubborn too, she repeats as she squeezes. And the midwife will be here soon.
Pacing the room, Katie hears a horse whinny and looks through the glass and the ice to see the foggy figure of her father climb to his seat, lift his collar against the cold, and call to his team. Running out the door to the edge of the yard, she watches her father disappear into the expanding light.
The horses’ hooves and wagon wheels crush the thin, icy layer that’s formed on top of yesterday’s heavy, wet snowfall, and the sounds of the departing wagon cut through the silence, the winter and the morning, like a tear in the universe.
His universe.
His happy home.
“Click-click,” he urges his horses, while urging himself to peace; to steady his breathing and steady their pace.
All will be fine. She’s a strong woman. Far stronger than me.
“And what would she say of this mood beyond hope?” he calls to his team, resting his eyes on the road up ahead, as the dim and grey of the dawning, winter day becomes brighter and whiter with the strengthening light.
Just West of the Midwest Chapter 13: A Very Short Story Loosely Based on the Truth
With a book that held no interest sitting open in her lap, she sat on the train bound for Shintomi-cho, quietly taking in the faces of the passengers surrounding her.
The conflicting smells of bento [box lunches] and local chicken farms filled the air, creating vastly different sensations that ranged from cravings to queasiness.
The idle train, which had been stopped for quite some time at Kawaminami Station waiting for a freighter to pass, sporadically shuddered and rattled. The taunting motion made her more and more anxious to be moving.
It had been a long and exhausting weekend and the only exercise her mind would allow was staring out the window at the Japanese countryside with the same glazed intensity of a mannequin in a store window.
Acutely focused.
Seeing nothing.
Until, from the murky depths of her gaze, she saw something strange in the woods just fifty feet from the train’s window. At first, all reason told her that what she saw was simply a pile of garbage. After all, just a short while ago, as the train rattled down the tracks toward home, she had mistaken ugly, metal silos for primitive grass shacks, attributing the error to her tired eyes and all but drained mental faculty.
Still… she stared at the object beneath the tree for quite some time.
She wiped her glasses.
Then looked again.
There, lying against an old, gnarly tree was an old man, dressed in the traditional, ancient attire of a Japanese farmer, sleeping.
His face was blackened and worn from the years of working all day in the fields. His rough, bony hands held tightly to a walking stick, as knobbly as the tree itself.
Squinting in an attempt to refocus, she waited for the scene to change.
Or, for the old man’s eyes to blink, his nose to twitch, his body to jerk – even slightly – in order to give life to this strange vision.
Or was it an illusion?
But there he slept.
Motionless.
Turning her attention back to the truth of the train car, where she hoped her mind would find a tangible distraction, she found nothing and no one which held the same interest than what she was sure she was imagining on the other side of the window.
She turned back to the object beneath the tree, expecting to see her ancient farmer replaced by a tarp or some fallen branches.
She shuddered as she focused again on the old man as he slept.
“This can’t be,” she laughed quietly and whispered to no one, becoming more and more uneasy at the sight of it.
Sliding to the edge of her seat, she looked around the train car for a friendly face who would lay this apparition to waste, but hesitated.
“Exactly what would I say?” she thought to herself. “Excuse me, but do you see that ghost beneath the tree?”
So, she remained silent and turned, once again, toward the window, intent on dispelling the strange manifestation once and forever.
Just as she turned, the train began to pull away.
Her heart began to beat faster, as she pressed her nose against the pane. She watched her one last chance to dispel the vivid vision fade into the distance.
The old farmer licked his lips and rubbed his tired eyes.
He stretched, long and slow, then rose from the shade of the tree.
As he righted his ragged straw hat and steadied himself with his walking stick, he cocked his head to hear a strange sound.
A steadily accelerating drumbeat.
The old man looked all around for the source of the sound, but it soon faded into the day.
And the day was fading away.
So on he went.
Down the road.
Toward home.
Dog-eared Stories 