By Rod Hamon
Steven opened his eyes, sat upright in bed, reached across, took a notepad from the drawer, and scrawled a few words.
Have to remember it while it’s still fresh in my mind. He wrote the words, Dr W Rosen, and then the word Sabium.
Damn it, what was that last word. Sabium Serif…come on think, it’s important, Serif… He sighed. “Probably never remember it now.”
____
At breakfast, Steven was so absorbed in his thoughts he heard little of his wife’s conversation. Brenda talked about nothing else but horses.
When she paused to sip her coffee Steven cut in. “I had the strangest dream last night, Bren.”
“You know how I hate it when people want to tell me their dreams,” she snapped. “By the way, did I tell you about my new saddle?”
“But Brenda, this wasn’t any normal dream: it was so real, like it really happened.”
“But it was still just a dream,” she mumbled, her mouth full of toast.
“I’m telling you….”
“Call it what you like, Steve, but a dream’s a dream, that’s all it is.”
“But it was the most vivid dream I’ve ever had. I can still see that newspaper headline, Cure for Cancer At Last. I wrote the details down when I woke up. The person who made the discovery was a Dr W Rosen.”
Brenda stared vacantly out the window then got up. “Anyway it’s late, got to go.”
Steven remained immersed in his thoughts. He recalled how the newspaper had said that just a small quantity of this herb stopped cancer immediately. Just wish I could remember the full name of that plant.
Over the next few days Steven, spend hours poring over the Internet.
____
Brenda raised the subject again a few nights later. “How’s the miracle cure going? Any sign of the mysterious Dr…?”
Steven ignored the sarcasm. “I’ve been trying to find out if there really is a Dr W Rosen.”
“And?” she replied.
“I can find only two people with the name Rosen and the initial W: an elderly man and a prominent lawyer.”
“Said it was a waste of time, didn’t I?”
Steven continued, “It seems that herbs with names starting with the word Sabium grow mainly in Bolivia.”
“You’re serious about this stupid dream aren’t you?” Brenda replied.
____
Steven’s chest pains that started as a mild irritation had become worse. He called on his doctor and a few days later, received the bad news.
The doctor peered over his glasses. “The survival rate for this type of cancer is good provided you undergo immediate treatment.”
Steven thought it best not to tell Brenda just yet; he had something else to tell her first.
“You’re going to Bolivia just because of a crazy dream? You’re mad. I don’t even know where Bolivia is!”
“Nor do I!” Steven replied.
Brenda shook her head and walked off.
____
Steven’s hours spent trawling the Internet had at last paid off. He discovered that an expert on various tropical plants including the Sabium variety was working from the La Paz University in Bolivia. He contacted her claiming to be a journalist. The scientist, Wendy Heller, replied saying she’d be pleased to see him.
____
He phoned Wendy on arrival in Bolivia saying he’d call on her that day.
The University of La Paz was large and it took him some time to find Wendy’s laboratory. Among benches, containing different plants sat a petite woman in her late twenties.
She looked up at Steven. “You must be the journalist,” she said. ”I must say I’m puzzled that my work should be of interest to the press?”
“On the contrary… Miss Heller, people are very interested in biological science. May I ask how long you’ve been working in this field?”
____
After ten minutes of talk, Steven decided it was time to be more direct and took a notepad from his wallet. In it, he’d written the names of various plants.
“A scientist I interviewed recently mentioned that you might be researching some of these plants. I’m afraid I didn’t get the full name of this one,” he said, pointing to the word Sabium...”
She looked at the notepad. “There’re probably thousands of plants with names that start with Sabium. Can’t help you I’m afraid.”
Steven was disheartened, as his probing had yielded nothing.
____
The flight home was depressing. Brenda met him at the airport but left it until dinner to bring up the subject.
Steven frowned, “Okay, so you were right!”
She smiled.
“Bolivia was nice, but the trip a failure. Probably never live this down will I?"
“I’ll make sure you don’t!” she said.
____
Steven’s health deteriorated rapidly. Within three months, he was confined to bed hardly able to raise his head.
____
Brenda stood looking down at the frail figure of her dying brother. “Are you awake, Steve?”
“What’s that,” he mumbled.
Brenda held a newspaper. “You’d better take a look at this, Steve.”
“What is it Brenda?”
She began reading, Cure for Cancer. South American Scientist, Wendy Heller is author of a research paper appearing in journal Nature where she announces her discovery of a prevention and cure for all cancers. Scientists who have studied her research claim it the greatest discovery of the century.
Steven opened his eyes. “But…”
Brenda interrupted, “I haven’t read the last bit yet.”
She continued, this was a big week for Wendy; she also married the wealthy lawyer, Walter Rosen, yesterday.
Steven raised himself up and with a croaky voice cried, “So… she became Doctor W. Rosen, just like in my dream!”
“Something else,” said Brenda, “a parcel came for you this morning.”
“Open it up,” He croaked.
Inside attached to a small box was a note.
Dear Steven, I hope I haven’t left it too late to send you this. It contains an extract from the plant ‘Sabium Seriferbia.’
I could see you weren’t a journalist when you visited me and guessed you were looking for a cancer cure for yourself.
I couldn’t tell you then because it would’ve my research. Please forgive me for that. Take some of the herb straight away; it will cure you.
Someday you must explain how you knew I was working on a cure using this plant.
Hope you’re well soon –
Wendy.
____
Three weeks later Wendy received a reply thanking her. It concluded by saying,
Must go now, must be at the squash courts in five minutes.
Regards, Steven.
To date I have had 16 short stories published. This month my non-fiction 4 page article dealing with Dark Matter was published in the international magazine Nexus.
By Kelly Whitley
Max dropped the paper on his tongue, and slumped in the ratty orange recliner, waiting for the drug to hit his system. Nothing else had shaken loose artistic inspiration. This was a technique of last resort, the result of an internet search and a visit to a back alley downtown.
His mental vista widened in front of him. Max stepped into the space, landing on spongy red ground. A miniature square beckoned in the distance, emitting silent sound waves rolling across the flat field, tugging on him with a million tiny hooks, inviting him forward.
“Coming, coming. On my way, Sunshine.”
His feet paradoxically thwacked on the squishable landscape as the miniature square accelerated toward him. In an instant, the shape grew until it took up a vertical plane he somehow knew was precisely 51 3/16 by 38 3/16 inches in size.
A palette knife materialized in his right hand, and a loaded palette leaped into his left. An octet of reflective oils opened micro mouths and demanded to be used: Burnt Umber, Sepia, Cobalt Blue, Alizarin Crimson, Windsor Green, Cadmium Yellow, Oxide White, Lamp Black.
Max’s knife hovered over the Oxide White and he lifted the paints.
A naked woman stepped through the canvas and the white surface folded into a camelback sofa the color of overripe apricots. The lady reclined on the couch. “Paint me, Max.”
“But you’re laying on the canvas.”
“No, Max. Paint me. My skin is your canvas.”
Max dipped and swirled and smoothed and spread. Soon the model lay covered with paint, a three dimensional masterpiece. The palette and spatula jumped to the ground and melted away. Pride in his work had Max smiling.
She blew him a kiss. “Sleep, Max.”
He stretched out on a scarlet field and closed his eyes. A deep satisfaction pulled him under.
Something hard shoved his back. Max awoke on the wood plank floor of the studio, the legs of an easel five inches from his nose and the scent of linseed oil in the air. Max gazed up at the back of a canvas. He struggled to his knees, then his feet, and tottered around the easel.
Blank.
“Ah. There you are.”
Max whirled. The naked woman from his dream approached, still clothed in her coat of colors, carrying a palette of eight oils and a paint knife.
“What are you doing here? I finished your painting.”
“I’m here to paint you, Max.”
Max’s clothes evaporated. The blank canvas folded itself into a chair, drawing him down into its white cushions.
The lady dipped the knife into Alizarin Crimson and stroked it onto his arm. Instead of a patch of red, the painted area vanished. Max held up his arm and viewed her through the new window in his skin.
“I’m vanishing.”
“Not vanishing. Changing dimensions.” She expertly applied the paints, dissolving him piece by piece.
Max looked down to see the planks of the floor where his feet had been. “Why are you changing my dimension?”
“You were going to take credit for my painting.” She gestured to her colorful skin.
“But I did paint you.”
“Ah, but you came looking for me and invited me in and I inspired you. It’s my painting.”
“Who are you?”
“I’m LSD, Max.” She swiped paint across his face. As he took his final breath, she blew him a kiss. “Sleep.”
- - -
Kelly has been writing for years, and is new to flash-- the shorter the better.
By Leila A. Fortier
- - -
Leila A. Fortier is a writer, artist, poet, and photographer currently residing on the remote island of Okinawa Japan. Her poetry is known to be a unique hybrid form in which her words are specially crafted into visual design, often superimposed over her own multi-medium forms of art, photography, and spoken accompaniment, lending to the full bodied expression and intensity of each piece.
Her work has been published in dozens of literary magazines, journals and reviews both in print and online. She has appeared in several books, anthologies, and other freelance publications including Treasured Poets of America, Satiated Sunrise, and A World of Love: Voices for Carmen. She is also the author of Metanoia's Revelation through iUniverse.
A complete listing of her published works can be found at: www.leilafortier.com
By Troy Manning
Marcus returned from space with a severe cold. At first the physicians he consulted were flummoxed as they had never seen a bacterial infection quite like his. Because of the top-secret nature of his mission, he was unable to tell them which planets he had visited. However, even if he did say for instance, “I visited Saturn and Mercury,” it probably would have made little difference. The samples they took revealed a cheese-like substance that was slowly eroding, as though being eaten by an invisible rodent. In the previous century, such a discovery would have been evidence that Marcus had been on the moon. Today it was far less obvious where the cheese was.
Dr. Bartholdy quickly yet studiously severed the cheese sample with his scalpel before it disappeared completely. It wasn’t exactly jack and neither was it Swiss, but shared their coloration. He wondered if it was even cheese, but Marcus assured him the effects it had on his body were quite the same as those he experienced when consuming more than an ordinate amount of said substance.
The less convinced Dr. Evans secured another sample and set it before Brenda. Brenda was one of his more finicky lab mice who would settle for nothing less than the finer cheeses and wines. She eagerly consumed the entire sample then fell into a severe sneezing bout. After several futile efforts to stabilize Brenda, Dr. Evans finally obtained favorable results with a 2004 Petite Sirah.
The physicians entered into vigorous debate as to how best to proceed with Marcus. As Marcus was a former alcoholic, Dr. Bartholdy feared that by prescribing wine, they would only be exchanging one disease for another. He suggested instead that the cheese disease would soon run its course and disappear, given how quickly it seemed to erode without interference.
Ever the skeptic, Dr. Evans took another sample and increased the microscope’s magnification. While this didn’t make the actual culprit more visible, it did distinctly show the marks of incisors that were gnawing into the cheese. He solemnly surmised that when the cheese was gone, the invisible creature would start in on Marcus’ pancreas. When Dr. Bartholdy asked him why the pancreas, Dr. Evans replied that he was just throwing that out as an example.
A further complication arose when they discovered that, while cheese would disappear from one locale in Marcus’ innards, more would inexplicably appear in another area. The doctors agreed that such seemingly indeterminate behaviors were more characteristic of quantum physics than biology, even if the specimens were clearly more like cheese particles than cheese waves. They concurred that another specialist should be recruited for the project.
Dr. Beatriz Fuhrmann was a reputable experimental physicist. In lieu of Nobel Prize-winning physicist Hadrian Lothar’s still being on sabbatical, she was the next to be recommended. Dr. Fuhrmann, though ghastly fearful of mice, consented to the assignment since the repulsive pink tail would be invisible anyway.
Having secreted more than a liter of mucous and engrossed in the current issue of The Daily Planisphere, Marcus remained sufficiently occupied, if rather light-headed. He did notice, though, that Dr. Fuhrmann wore no wedding ring and that behind her rather gargantuan lenses was a woman possessing more than a pedestrian beauty. While Marcus, given his prestige as an astronaut, was generally quite unafraid of initiating discussions with women, he knew the fact that rodents disgusted Beatriz didn’t bode well for him. He immediately regretted having begun his conversation with her by asking if she thought he mightn’t be able to just pass the rat and cheese. She replied very formally that the series of appearances and disappearances they were detecting suggested that his body was riddled with rats and cheese, and that they wouldn’t be so easily moved. Still, by crying, Marcus was able to somewhat soften the bespectacled object of his interests.
Marcus was quarantined for several weeks while the doctors undertook their endless series of tests and experiments. By this time, the sneeze had vanished and the cheese had long since been devoured. So had an appendix that was due for removal anyway. Drs. Bartholdy and Evans placed indiscretionary bets as to which organ was next to go. Meanwhile, Dr. Fuhrmann had unexpectedly bonded with Brenda as she discovered they shared many of the same tastes in wine. And as a result, she became increasingly accepting of the rodents Marcus housed.
To Marcus’ great relief, these too eventually passed. And when they did, the pretty physicist stood right at his side, fanning the electrifying air.
- - -
Troy Manning is a graduate of Westminster Seminary California. He has recently been taking literature classes at Cal State University, San Marcos where his stories "Edgar's Telegram" and "Head Knowledge" have been published in the creative writing program's Cat Ate My Chapbook and the Spring 2010 issue of Oh, Cat!
By Ron Koppelberger
Nate Mill always minded the dull drum, the crawl of minutes in pass, the whisper of a hundred breaths in expectant endeavor. He sat perched in waiting desire of drama, he judged the dust in bored fascination and sleepy eyed confessions of stagnation and in this conscious effort to stimulate the hour, the dirge of a passing day, he found the twilight and the Raven wild.
Nate averted the gaze of the setting sun for the bleeding edge of an indigo horizon. He listened and sighed, “Caw, caw!” The Raven had perched itself near the top of a tall pine on a gnarled bough. “Caw, caw!” the Raven sang in wild yells of autumn essence. Nate cupped his hands and called back.
“Caw, caw!” The Raven spread it’s wings and danced in circles on the tree limb.
“Caw, Caw!” it sang in pointed reply. Nate grinned and sang back,
“Caw, caw!” The Raven swooped down to Nate and landed near a rose in full bloom, blood red and candent in silhouette by the orange twilight.
“Caw, caw!” it breathed and invited. Nate whispered in passionate reverie,
“Caw, caw, my love.”
The sky faded to darkness and pinpoints of starlight. The Raven flittered like a moth near Nates face finally resting beside him. In chance and fated change the Raven became a beauty, a princess in person, in coquette and gentle corn silk tethers.
She opened her mouth to sing the Ravens hymn and found words instead, “ My love, my husband, my reason for being, I’ve come to rescue you from your boredom.” Nates heart pounded and the blush of an obsessive desire overcame him.
My love in dreams of confessed bliss and wanting affection, my companion in endless love and forever a jeweled twilight…..”
They found each other in measures of drama, passion and love, and for the rest of the world the song was eternal.
- - -
I have been submitting poetry and short stories for the past several years. I began writing when I was ten years old when my grandparents gave me my first typewriter. I love to entertain the reader and give the gift of insight.
By Lord Dunsany
When the advertiser saw the cathedral spires over the downs in the distance, he looked at them and wept.
"If only," he said, "this were an advertisement of Beefo, so nice, so nutritious, try it in your soup, ladies like it."
- - -
Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, 18th Baron of Dunsany (24 July 1878 – 25 October 1957) was an Anglo-Irish writer and dramatist, notable for his work, mostly in fantasy, published under the name Lord Dunsany. More than eighty books of his work were published, and his oeuvre includes many hundreds of published short stories, as well as successful plays, novels and essays.
by Henry Gaudet
It was bound to happen eventually.
You have, I’m sure, at some stage heard of the parable of the monkeys: the hypothetical room filled with monkeys hammering at typewriters leading inevitably to a case of accidental plagiarism.
God has his own hypothetical room, filled with an infinity of chittering universes bashing out nonsensical worlds until one inevitably produces a primate capable not only of mimicking Shakespeare, but translating him into seven languages – two of them non-human – and offering a detailed analysis from a simian viewpoint. This ape (no, not a monkey, thank you very much, but a chimpanzee born and raised in Cincinnati) might even be a gifted writer in his own right, perhaps put forward as a potential poet laureate. Is it such a stretch that this hypothetical ape might not care for the Bard’s work?
Had I been born in another age when the sonnet still spoke to the masses, I might feel differently about Shakespeare. I might be content to continue in his tradition, as my first agent suggested, and become the first chimpanzee to write in iambic pentameter. Certainly, the media were eager for me to take up my punch line destiny and generate their easy headlines.
Instead, I chose a career path peppered with roadblocks. Had I chosen the academic path, I have no doubt that I would have been readily accepted. Rather than hinder my progress, the novelty of my non-human perspective might well have opened doors. Even in fiction, I had easier options available: horror, science fiction, political thriller. These were all acceptable genres for a chimp trying to make a name for himself. In the conversation that led to my first agent’s dismissal, buddy pic screenplays were repeatedly suggested.
Even in these enlightened times, it seems that some people just aren’t ready for a male romance novelist.
Friends, editors, agents and even one late night television personality all tried to steer me away from romance. They said if I was determined to continue writing romance, I should at least adopt a feminine pen name. As you can tell from this book’s cover, I refused. What might be less clear is my motivation. Why make my life more difficult? Why not just take the easy path? After all, it’s only a name, right?
I came into this world more alone than most, with nothing to call my own. I never knew my parents, never met a single family member. My earliest memories are of the Moorehouse Research Lab in College Hill. There, Dr. Swanson gifted me with my first possession: a name, and with it, an identity.
It was also there that I acquired my love for language, and where I first encountered Danielle Steel.
By the time I was four, I was literate in three languages, but the texts available to me were children’s schoolbooks and the occasional daily paper. Reading was a practical matter, a method of passing on information. I didn’t discover recreational literature until much later. Until my dear friend, Bess.
Bess joined the team as an intern when I was eight. She would bring books with her to pass the hours of tedious monitoring on the night shift. She kept her backpack on the table next to my cot. Out of curiosity, I helped myself while she was looking after the lemurs or timing rats or some such. There were three dog-eared paperbacks, and chance directed my hand to the work of Ms. Steel.
It was a bit racy for one of my tender years, so of course I was riveted. This was to be my introduction to the facts of life, and while some of the euphemisms escaped me, I managed to get the gist. The book’s appeal, though, wasn’t merely its informational value. This was my first glimpse of something missing from my life: this tenderness, this passion, this fire.
Bess was eager to share, and we discussed her books over grilled cheese and orange pekoe. She brought them by the armload which I devoured in hours. Soon, I was writing my own romances, short stories mostly. Two days before my tenth birthday, I sold my first piece. Others followed and, eventually, I began writing novels.
The most important relationships in my life have been with humans, and while over the years most have been very caring and friendly, there is always a distance, a species gap that cannot –and, quite frankly, should not – be bridged. Unfortunately, due to my unique mindset, I have similar difficulty relating to chimpanzees. Even in maturity, intimacy, passion and romance continue to elude me.
And so, I write.
You have in your hands a collection of my earliest stories, written while I still lived in Cincinnati. I’m afraid that this young novelist’s limited understanding of the human heart was exposed from time to time, but overall, I think these stories hold up well. I am especially proud of Savage Land, Savage Heart – the first appearance of Monica Crandall, and the first hints of her dark past.
I hope that you enjoy these tales, whether reading them for the first time or returning to an old friend.
Yours,
Solomon Nine
- - -
I am a newcomer to the world of fiction, professionally at least. I have pieces due to be published in upcoming issues/episodes of Outburst magazine and the Drabblecast podcast. I am, in no particular order, a husband, a father, a Kevin Smith lookalike, a Pennsylvanian living in Ireland, and a bad dancer.
