Spying a baseball bat in the carport, he sprinted toward it as his feet tried to keep up with his head. Too slow to get the message, he tumbled across the driveway smashing and scraping his elbow. Warm blood trickled down his arm. Back on his feet he grabbed the bat and raced successfully toward the first mailbox in sight. Taking a left-handed stance he swung. The wooden bat struck the metal box. The second swing knocked it to the ground. He yelled toward the mailbox owner’s house. “How about that you blind complacent asshole?” Morgan strutted toward the next mailbox as he changed form and smashed it like he was chopping wood. “I want my best friend back!”
Feeling an incredible wave of nausea, he stumbled back to his yard and fell to his knees. The neighborhood and world began spinning as he felt his liquid breakfast beginning its journey out of his body. Feeling a hand on his back he turned to see his concerned mother staring into his eyes. She rubbed her fingertips up and down his back as he watched the grass dance and twirl before him. Morgan’s stomach contracted. He dug his fingers into the grass as pure liquid emptied itself from his body. His mother continued to caress his back as his body heaved again, dispelling more of the alcoholic breakfast. Sweat poured from his face and tears began to run down his cheeks as he mumbled Crimson’s name over and over. A colorful array of profanities followed.
Turning his attention to his mother, with his head still facing the ground, he began to speak. He gave her a figure of how many people he possibly killed in the jungle and what a savage he’d been. He told her he’d shot, stabbed, and beat other men to death with his bare hands. She listened and never stopped rubbing his back as he babbled on as if he was at confession.
Every so often he would stop for a moment to throw up, but he always picked up right where he left off, laying his sins out at his mother’s feet. She never interrupted or said a single word until he was entirely finished. When she sensed he was, she kissed him on top of his head and said, “Thank you, son.”
*
Jason Deas has taught art in elementary schools for over a decade. He is a songwriter, sculptor, and makes a mean pot of chili. Most of his writing used to take place at Georgia campgrounds, inside a three-man tent or sitting at an uncomfortable concrete picnic table. He wouldn't have had it any other way until he one day found a 70's-model camper where he now writes in luxury. After writing Birdsongs, a mystery for adults, his nieces asked him to write a book for kids. He granted their wish and wrote Camp Timber View. He had so much fun writing it he wrote another middle grade novel titled The Big Stinky City. He recently finished the Benny James mystery series with books titled Pushed and Brushed Away. Jason is currently putting the finishing touches on a new mystery titled Private Eye.
www.jasondeas.com
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How to Knit Yourself a Husband in Five Easy Steps
Traci Tyne Hilton
Step 1
Heidi Lowe fingered the soft skein of wooly yak yarn. It would give her a rash but it was the kind of yarn the professionals used. The puce-y greenish color, a sort of heathered nuclear vomit washed her out, so she wouldn’t want to wear whatever she could make with it, even if she hadn’t been allergic. But it was on clearance, so if she wore non-latex disposable rubber gloves while she worked with it, she’d definitely fit in at the Knit-In for Peace.
She wanted peace, in theory. War meant a lot of people getting maimed and killed. But with her double major in economics and history she saw the need for war. It built economies, (for the winners and the losers, in the end.) Germany wouldn’t be the EU powerhouse it was today if the Nazi’s hadn’t lost the war.
She put the green yarn down. Thoughts of Germany brought a pang like heartburn to her chest. She had left Wolfgang in Germany. She grabbed a skein of grey yarn. She didn’t care what the price was, or the fiber content. The puce-y nuclear vomit green was too cheerful. She was knitting for peace, not for the circus.
At the checkout she regretted not checking the fiber content at least. Silk blends didn’t come free.
The yarn store professional (sales person? yarn guru? knit-master?) stared at Heidi over her half glasses as she counted out her quarters. At least the silk blend would lighten the load of the sock she carried her change in.
She was good at knitting socks.
The saleslady (whose nametag said Purl) licked her lips. “Need a little extra to finish your project?”
“What?” Heidi jerked her head up. She had lost count on her quarters. She reached across the counter to start adding up the little piles of four again but the floppy sleeve of her peasant blouse spilled the stacks with a rattle.
Purl sighed. She looked at her watch. She rolled her eyes and looked to the heavens. “That’s a tiny little bit of yarn. Did you need it to finish something else up?”
Heidi dropped to her knees to gather her scattered money. “What? No, I just needed something for the Knit-in.”
“Well that little bit of yarn isn’t going to last you long. What are you going to do when it’s used up?”
Heidi poured her armload of quarters back on the counter and then spilled the rest of the sock onto it as well. “I’ll unravel it and start again.” She waved the empty-sock at Purl and ran out. With the quarters gone her lunch plans were busted, and she’d have to walk home, but the five mile hike up Soggy Hill suited her mood. If Wolfgang was in Germany and she was stuck here, what was the point of ever trying to be happy again?
Step 2
The real knitters had established huge territories for themselves. The most serious of the protestors had brought their recliners. All of them had rolling luggage as big as Heidi’s apartment filled with yarn.
Heidi squeezed between two larger groups, hoping that she’d be taken as a member of one or the other by any passers by. The group to her left sat in beach chairs with attached umbrellas and wore matching tie-dye t-shirts that said Knitting for Paradise.
The group to her left were younger. Most of them were nursing babies while they knit. One of them was nursing a preschooler while the preschooler played angry birds on an iPhone. They were protesting in their rocking chairs, though one of them was relaxing on the seat of a recumbent bike.