C. B. Auder

“I need a transplant,” Dad said, and before I could even back up my spreadsheet, the old man had tripped over the coffee table and windmilled into my lap.

I’d always thought of my father as a person only in the abstract, of course. But once that cruller-loving flesh bag was slumped across my chair, pinching my carpal-tunnel arm? Well.

Then the spark left his eyes and it hit: I was alone in the world. Just me and the family’s creeping ficus.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying the idea of losing my parents ever bothered me. But at that moment, with everything seeming so — what’s the word, real? — and his elbow crushing my esophagus? Yeah, I felt sheepish I hadn’t thought to offer a parting wheeze.

What kills me is that I could so easily have slipped something in. That moment right after he’d clutched his chest, just before high-fiving the choir invisible. His hairy ear so close to mine I could smell those funny little balls of wax. . . .

I could have murmured, “When’s dinner?” or “Whoopsie-daisy!” or “What kind of transplant?”

What do they say? That when you’re in the middle of it, that last moment always feels so penultimate?

Luckily, I’d learned the fireman’s carry as a kid. I heaved Dad over to the dining room and rolled him onto the buffet table just seconds before the surgeon steamed out of the kitchen, clutching her sterile tray.

She fussed and clacked her shiny silver utensils, and then hacked a panel out of Dad’s sternum.

Seeing that cross-section of ribs, that was a weensy bit too CSI for my blood, so I averted my gaze to the Gauguin. Which I never take the time to appreciate because it’s always hanging over my head, and — don’t tell my boss, but — I prefer Van Gogh.

After the organ harvesting, the doctor disappeared again, and I peeked over.

Dad lay there, like a giant napping open-faced sandwich, and I had to smile. He’d always been such a quiet person. And he loved mustard!

Well, I figured there wasn’t anything more I could do — the embalming machine was making its little gloopy noises — and by then that goddamned sunbeam had arced onto my computer screen. All four of Gauguin’s Tahitian buttocks went peachy-cheeked in the light as though to say, “Hello? This project is on a double-deadline.”

I don’t know, for some reason I was drawn back to Dad instead. Maybe I was curious to see if I’d get any feelings from glimpsing his lifeless corpse? I didn’t expect any miracles, but they say death changes people.

It was a good thing I turned. Dad had risen and was rolling over, mumbling something about having to get back to the office — his hair a bird’s nest as usual — and I lunged in (making sure to bend at the knees, not the waist) and grabbed his wrists.

“You’re semi-retired, remember? You need to relax,” I said — probably too loudly, now that I think back.

I hoped he wouldn’t see my attempt at a casual smile as patronizing, the way the neighbor’s asshole Akita always did. But Dad was so drained by that point, he didn’t even notice the embalmer in the room.

Then again, when had he ever? I took heart in that normalcy and had to chuckle even as I leveraged my leg against the wall to press his earnest cadaver back down.

“Stop flopping around,” I grunted. “You have to stay still or all the tubes will pop out.” (Whether or not this was true, I confess I don’t know, but I wasn’t going to spend the next six months eating my meals above a formaldehyde-soaked rug.)

Then things got weird. An urge came over me: to rock Dad into a slumber with little chuffing noises. I was like, what the hell? Just creepy.

When the doctor returned, I asked, “What kind of transplant had he needed?”

“Brain.” She scowled at a vial of some bubbling purple liquid.

“Ah, of course. That makes sense,” I murmured. Soothingly, I hoped. I mean, people don’t go into the healing professions because they’re well adjusted and happy with their own lives, right?

But the doctor had already forgotten me. Which was a comfort, because it reminded me of Dad.

Funny. It was all so long ago. Two years, now? Three? I think I don’t even own that buffet table anymore.

C. B. AUDER is the Associate Editor at freezeframefiction.com and has had work published in Asinine Poetry and A cappella Zoo.

Marcel Harper

He had the butcher’s apron strapped on like a suit of armor: proud and tight. He wore it dirty. The stains from previous chili tournaments were intact and crusted brown, like barnacles on some ancient leviathan from the deep.

He liked to hee-haw and back-slap with the tough old fucks who sought out these backwater festivals. Men with calloused hands from working too damned hard all their lives and calloused tongues from smoking cheap cigars. They offered their stogies to him, and he accepted with grace but never smoked.

He made a good chili. In the clapboard, shit-heel smokehouses that most of the festival regulars claimed to have made pilgrimages to but had never actually seen the inside of, he was known. The old ones who tended those outside-of-time, hickory heavy smoke pits knew him by his apron or Panama hat or just the way he dipped a short rib into their chili sauce. Made them think of the pastor dunking a new convert in the muddy waters of the local river.

His chili was hot and honest and contained about a baby’s crib’s worth of smoked poblanos and a quart of Sazerac Rye. First, though, he would decant the expensive whiskey into an empty bottle of Old Crow. He drank half of that to get in the mood and poured the other half into the chili to finish it off. His competition buddies liked booze mixed in with their heat and liked that he never had all the alcohol cook off before serving time.

He won as often as he wanted but always shared his prizes. After the main ceremony he would dole out cups of the prize-winning dish and watch the small town folks line up because God knows that everybody loves a winner. During such times the story of Jesus and the fishes and loaves would come up strong in his mind, and it made him forget about the small towns and the small townspeople with their rough hands and lives of mindless labor.

He liked the way the forgetting burned through his mind, nice and slow.

The losing cooks always wanted to know about his secret ingredient, and he would always tell them to go fuck themselves. They liked that sort of talk and rewarded him with much back-slapping and some genuine affection. Their faces, red and alcohol-fueled, would remind him of Noah and that shit-filled ship the old codger had steered into the side of a mountain.

When his opponents won, not often, but it happened, they would also offer him a share of the loot. Maybe a skillet endorsed by a has-been football hero or a plastic cooler big enough for a six-pack of longnecks or the head of a murdered spouse. He accepted such offerings with grace because that’s what was expected of him.

On his way out of town he would take their gifts and heft them out the window of his Chevy and watch the worthless junk roll and jump and shatter against the asphalt. It made him smile to see the pieces later on, like dried bones, lying open to the sun when he passed by there the next day.

He always doubled back. Liked to see his handiwork because that’s what his Pappy had taught him: you have to be proud of your work. And he was.

On that day, when he came back into the festival town, he tipped his Panama at the banner strung across the now-empty main street. Small towns loved themselves a good banner, and this one was no exception. On it was advertised the hellfire heat of the chili contest along with some sage advice like, “Come hungry!” and, “Bring your own fire extinguisher!” He enjoyed the home-spun humor and chuckled when he passed underneath, riding his Chevy like a chariot charging down some unfortunate Christians caught in a tough time and tougher place.

He drove down the street and thought about the story of Sampson’s honey-filled lion. How the sweetest delights were so often distilled from decay.

He stopped off at the festival grounds, got out and walked to the judges’ table. The place was mostly quiet, but the main tent’s loudspeaker was still plugged in, hissing like a snake chopped in half. He took up the microphone like an old-time crooner and breathed in the scent of stale beer and stale meat that clung to it. Then he belted out one long and hollow, “Well howdy, folks!” and waited for a response, even though he knew there wouldn’t be any. He liked the sound of his own voice.

The greeting bounced around the grounds in such a way that two stray dogs and a few crows scattered away, abandoning the objects that had held all their interest up to that point. He was glad to see the crows and dogs. He thought of them as his kin and liked to mess with them from time to time. He knew that they liked him more than they could tell.

After a time, the vagrant animals returned and took up their previous occupation. So as not to disturb them, he walked slowly to where his chili still stood, seething in the sun with a halo of midges and flies competing for a scrap of the meaty sauce. He dipped one slender finger into the pot and ran it around the rim to properly sample all the goodness and then brought it up to his nose and smelled the complexity of the poblanos and whiskey. He licked his finger clean, taking care to catch the grainy bits that had gotten stuck underneath his fingernail.

The chili tasted like the freshest of small-town virgins. Those vacant-eyed country boys and girls with big plans in their tiny heads and even bigger disappointments waiting up ahead. As the sauce burnt a trail of fire down his throat, the image of the great fish came to him, and he imagined how close and tight and hot it must have felt for Jonah when that big maw inhaled him out there in the deep blue sea.

He savored the heat. The burn would last for a good long while. As he surveyed the quiet festival grounds, he stretched straight and popped the bones of his back with a sound of hailstones on a tin roof and stared up into God’s sky. He tipped the Panama in the direction of the smoldering sun. He remembered a time when it was still freshly put up there. A time when he hadn’t been compelled to mingle with flies and dogs and the people who now lay (some sat) all around.

He dwelled on the memories for some time. If some lone survivor or late-in-the-coming dog or crow had been there to see him, they would have marveled at how still he stood. How he resembled a statue or carving. Only the hint of a smile on his face and the way the sun caught his eyes providing clues that this was a living thing not made of stone or wood.

When the memories had faded along with the daylight, he turned his back on the place forever and took up his pot of chili and walked back to the Chevy and headed off to the next town. He didn’t mind driving through the night; he rarely slept these days.

He drove without a map or a purpose. He knew that the best towns and the best chili contests they had to offer would find him. The ones that promised hotter than hell and all-you-could-eat fiery goodness. The ones that made him think back to times when he knew what he was put on this earth to do.

Towns like that found him real easy.

MARCEL HARPER lives in Johannesburg, South Africa, where he communes with dark forces and tries to avoid being killed by his cats. His writing leans toward the speculative and weird. You can connect with him at www.marcelharper.com

Maria Pinto

When he notices I haven’t moved from the spot in the backyard where the swing set used to be, he tries to ignore me. He goes about his work and play around the house, causing undue commotion. He wants me to notice how much life he’s living. He prunes the palm tree. He fishes for toothy Florida gar in the lake. He whoops in triumph each time one of the prehistoric creatures waggles at the end of his line. He learns to play my steelpan, poorly. He sweeps at a mound of dirt near to where I sit, pretending his sidelong looks are meant for something just beyond my left shoulder.

When he realizes I’ve been eating dirt, he comes out to yell. My dreadlocks are tossed horizontal with the force of his objection. I remind him that he used to make mud pies for his younger sisters. He still feels bad about that childhood tyranny. He breaks down and prepares a mud pie for me, presumably following an old recipe. His lips tremble with the effort it takes to remain quiet. I imagine he resents me for reducing him to the role of enabler, once again.

I have not eaten anything but soil in weeks. My loved ones think they can remedy my invisible illness. Mom brings vitamins and cans of ackee; friends bring vintage-shop dresses beautiful enough to wear to a wedding. I will not be changing my clothes. This hospital gown is it for me. The only words I spare, between bites, for those with offerings are, “I cannot participate.” He brings out teas of stinging nettles, pennyroyal, Queen Anne’s lace. “I am not trying to abort a fetus,” I say. “I am trying hard not to do anything.”

He comes home late one night. I expect him to keep his vigil at my side, but he doesn’t. The lights never come on in the house. He’s in there, though, feeling around for the stairs, maybe stubbing his toe. I don’t need him. As I sift black soil between the roof of my mouth and tongue, I imagine him sleeping naked, whiskey-spent, the length of him soft against our scratchy alpaca comforter.

It is on the fifty-second day that he comes out to sit with me just as I chomp down on an earthworm. I’ve eaten a crater into our once-perfect landscaping. My nails have separated from their fingers from all the digging, and I smile to think of my blood in with the dirt. “You’re purple as a plum,” he says, his hungover breath tickling my neck, and I wonder if he means to bite my shoulder. Like he used to. He does not. Exhaustion has gouged deep rings under his eyes. He watches as I eat and eat. He wonders aloud what the attraction could be, tosses a clump of dirt into his mouth. He spits out what he can, coughing like a new smoker. He sees that there can be no solidarity between us. But that’s just fine. Even if we couldn’t make anything lasting from this life, he will be at my side when I dig deep enough to find the next.

MARIA PINTO’s recent work has appeared in Word Riot, The Butter, FLAPPERHOUSE, Hermeneutic Chaos, Small Po[r]tions, and elsewhere. She was the 2010 Ivan Gold Fellow at the Writers’ Room of Boston, in the city where she cares for dogs and does karaoke. Her debut novel is in search of a home. She’s working on her second.