101 Words

In 1989, I made my oddball Cornish, New Hampshire, pilgrimage.

I learned of his midday saunters to the post office from a local scandal sheet. Asking him to sign The Catcher in the Rye would look awkwardly amateurish. Instead, I’d stroll alongside, conspicuously clutching The Satanic Verses. At the time, Salman Rushdie was eluding those deranged fatwa adherents. This might be the key.

Zero hour. The face was worn but recognizable. We were abreast. Out came the book.

“Mr. Salinger. Have you read it?”

“Goddamn shitty fame,” he murmured, glancing both at me and my now failed conduit.

He bolted away.

Billy pedaled, huffing, “I hate cycling.” He needed to hurry home for his feeble grandmother.

He cornered a hamlet of trees. At the base of Monster Hill, he grunted, attacking the slope. A tractor passed him. Billy hit a wall half-way. He cranked, rolling backward. His grandmother flashed through his mind.

“No!” He thrust feet downward. He visualized reaching the summit.

Cows mooed, ambling uphill.

“If they can, I can.” He stomped into the final climb. Slipping over the crest, he coasted downhill. “Yes!”

At the bottom, the farmer clapped. “You didn’t beat the hill; you experienced a moment of truth.”

Small footprints mar the layers of dust.

He sits in the corner of the restaurant, eyes squeezed tight to make a wish.

The door opens. A gust of wind extinguishes the candle and he pushes the tiny cake into his mouth. Curdled icing coats his chin. The gun is heavy, so different than the Nerf version he received on that last birthday, before the world fell apart.

He fires only once. The creature crumples to the floor.

If the pack is here, he must distance himself before nightfall. Fingernails scrape the window.

He grabs his blood-stained Spider-Man backpack and runs.

Despite being lined up for execution, the doomed men could not resist the urge to tap a foot to the unusual music being played. One by one, all fifty men began moving in unison, subtly at first, then gaining momentum and whipping into a frenzy. The dust kicked up as a whirling human cyclone formed. Bodies began crashing together, limbs and guts ripped apart. The executioner’s head banged up and down. When the last of them had fallen, the executioner turned off the music and removed his hood.

“What the hell was that?” his new assistant asked.

He smiled. “Death Metal.”

Fighting off the familiar feeling of panic, Jane followed the maître d’ across the restaurant, stick tapping against table legs.

“What’s the gentleman’s name?” he asked. “I’ll bring him over.”

“Bob,” Jane whispered, hoping no one heard. “I don’t know his surname.”

It was years since she’d eaten out. Robert hadn’t liked other men staring at her; said she embarrassed him. Don’t look back, she told herself. She’d escaped, and now, on her councillor’s suggestion, was on a date.

Hearing footsteps approaching, she braced herself, hoping he wouldn’t be disappointed with her.

“Hello, Jane,” said the icy voice of her ex-husband.

Ringing in my ears when I wake from a misshapen sleep, when I walk to my car, when I order my sweet mocha.

The barista nods sympathetically. I can’t hear what she says, but I smile politely and tip her more than usual, then walk to the river path outside with the warm, sweet steaming coffee.

Geese fly in formation, swift and powerful. I taste my coffee and see the river dancing over the rocks below. Sight, smell, taste, touch. It is almost enough. I shake my head. Almost is not music or laughter.

Hearing aids can’t be avoided any longer.

Frodo the retriever dashed back and forth in the park as his owner threw the stick. Frodo retrieved the saliva-coated, tooth-indented stick, dropping it at his owner’s feet, panting, only to chase after another weak throw. His owner, Al, never had a good arm, even as a Little Leaguer years before when playing shortstop for a team called The Newtown Bluebirds. The oaks and elms were familiar with the dog. Al again threw the stick end-over-end for a few misdirected yards. Following its erratic course until it struck the ground, Frodo wondered whether being man’s best friend was really worth it.