Seeking, searching, trying, Jim's brain jogs through multiple paths. The harder he tries to find his way, the more he feels as if he is going in every direction simultaneously. Lost. Confused. Disoriented. He longs for one easy, clear route to complete his journey. He stops moving and sees the souvenirs he has collected from his journey. There is a wealth of color, texture, patterns, faces, memories, and feelings that rain around him. A rainbow sweeps through the room and pulls him out into a forgotten, distant, imagined, forest of stars, cartoons, and rainbows. He sees a fortress on a hill. Jim races toward it. When he reaches the walls he climbs up and stands high above the landscape of sparkling, quilted fields. For one second he sees it all as one. He stops trying to take aim. He realizes that there is no target. There is only experience. He dives off the fortress walls back into the sea of color and change. Only now he does not swim. He floats.

She sprang from the roots of a large tree that plugged the sidewalk in front of her parents house and bumped people out of the way. "Hurry up," she said to the cement that rose in waves with thin yellow sprouts of grass making an effort to grow between broken concrete. The pink haired woman plunged into the ocean of tropical plants and ran across stone steps toward an enormous red, round entrance. She didn't ring the doorbell. She twisted the huge knob and flung the door aside as she swooshed over white, furry strands of carpeting, green wallpaper flecked with gold and ornately carved white tables decorated with paintings of yellow field flowers. She threw herself down onto the avocado colored sofa that curved in front of a picture window that would have had a view of downtown if it hadn't been foggy. The mist behind her shrouded her cotton candy colored halo of hair and made her dramatically painted white mask of make up look grotesque in dim daylight. "Clubbing again," An old woman sat in front of a tiny antique desk in the corner. She didn't move to look at the young woman who had just entered. "Beverly," the old woman said, continuing to write on a note pad. "You are really too old to be staying out this late." "Who says I've been out. Maybe I just came from my apartment. Maybe I stayed home last night reading a romance novel, went to bed early, got up at dawn and came to visit my dear old mother because I missed her." "How much do you want?" The old woman stared straight ahead at a copy of a Dutch painting that hung in a white, French provincial frame. She knew her daughter thought she was mad or rude or cruel or uncaring. She didn't feel like explaining that her neck had been so sore lately that to turn her head caused her great pain. If she made the slightest motion a pain like an electric current charged up her spine and twisted around her neck in hot flares of jabbing slices. She knew she should call her doctor. But fear kept her from that and fear made the sensation worse by causing her to tense even more with hesitation and denial and longing for escape. She kept staring straight ahead.

The room was silent and crowded with memories and failures and fights and death. "Well?" the woman asked. "What is it Beverly?" Beverly grabbed the edge of the sofa and noticed for the first time that it was frayed on the edges of the seams. She saw that the carpet below her black high heels was worn in front of a Chinese coffee table that was covered with many coats of black lacquer. Chipped at the corner. Beverly suddenly noticed that the glass in the windows was not only dirty, but vibrated slightly in the wind from outside. A tree in the distance waved through the fog that was just beginning to lift. She realized that several homes on the hillside had been torn down and replaced with newer architecture that reminded her of a mall or hotel. She wondered when that had happened. She wondered how she had missed it. Beverly saw, for the first time, that, despite her Mother's usual perfect posture, there was a slight stoop or slope in the shoulders and her neck seemed thinner under her hair that was in the same simple style that it had been for thirty years, but somehow, today appeared slightly slept on. "Beverly, are you there?" "Maybe if you'd turn around and look at me for once you'd know." "I can't." "Why?" "It hurts." "What do you mean?" "Nothing. It just hurts too much." She wanted to explain, but didn't want to appear to be desiring pity.

"Fine, then," Beverly said, standing and swinging her body through space to the doorway.

She felt like slamming the door when she left, but it seemed to sensational and too obvious. A waste of energy. What was the point? A repeat performance. And the audience was asleep.

So she simply stormed to her car which was parked across the street instead of the driveway because the hadn't wanted her mother to see the way the side had been damaged.

As she got in, she caught a glimpse of herself in the rear view mirror. She shuddered and turned away to the manicured lawn and stately colonial columns that surrounded a neighbor's house.

If her mother couldn't even stand the sight of her how could she look at herself? If it hurts her own mother to look her in the face than how was she supposed to face herself in broad daylight? "It hurts," Her mother had said.

Did that mean the pain of having her for a daughter was so great that she couldn't even stand to acknowledge her existence? Or was it a judgment of her daughters physical appearance? Was she so disgusting to see that the mere sight of her own daughter was repellent? She saw her forehead in the edge of the rear view mirror. Dirty was the only word that popped into her head. Beverly turned the key and pulled away from the curb. She wondered if she had enough gas to get home.

"One," the gentleman said. Then he repeated it two times while I looked at him with a puzzled expression.

I waited for some explanation. None came. I stared up at the yellow sky and tried to trace the outline of an orange cloud in my mind. I looked back to him, hoping he had left.

He hadn't. Not only that, he looked as if he were starting to be angry. I shuffled my feet, thinking maybe I could walk away without him noticing.

"Well, I just don't understand," I finally said.

"Two," He replied.

"Ho, ho, so that's how you want to play," I said, suddenly thinking I knew his secret. "Three," I loudly blurted out.

His face grew red and his hands clenched at his sides. I suddenly noticed that his sideburns were greenish and wondered if it was a kind of punk dye job or mold. He raised his arm, grabbed the side of a pole that appeared to be holding up the red and white striped awning that we stood under. The pole was wooden and it shook. Then he scraped the side of the building with his fingernails and locked his exposed teeth into a snarl.

"GRRR," The sound he made was that of a dog who had someone's hands holding its muzzle shut tight. Suddenly a puff of smoke popped out of a pore on his forehead and his eyes swirled around like the hands of a clock in an old fashioned cartoon when they are trying to show the passage of time.

"Better be off now," I said, stepping away and into the curb. I heard him growl even louder as I felt my foot slip out from under me. The screech of car brakes blasted into my ears and I felt myself being flung across the sidewalk.

I dreamed. I passed through a gate and held out my hand to a mist. I heard music and felt like dancing. I realized I couldn't move. I opened my eyes and stared up at horrified faced.

The gentleman cried out, "I was just trying to tell you you won, too."

Why didn't you say that?" I asked in a rasping voice. "Why be so mysterious?"

"I didn't trust that man behind you. He seemed to be following you." He pointed to the dark shape on the wall that blended with graffitti and stains. "There, there, over there."

"That's just my shadow, you moron," I said, with my last few ounces of breath.

"You never can trust those shadows," he said. "Oh, well, I'm going to go cash in my ticket."

He started away, then paused and turned. "If it's just a shadow, why is it still on the wall?" he asked.

"Maybe it wants a cut of the winnings."

"Up yours," he said and walked away. His black derby hat bounced like a ball on top of his bald head. His baggy pants weighed him down as if he had pockets filled with rocks. As I watched, my shadow twisted itself from the wall, jerked across the sidewalk and followed him. I smiled and closed my eyes.

John Freeman Fish

A SHORT STORY

Country Rain sat by the window and pushed an empty pack of candy playfully around on the weathered wooden window sill with long lavender nails. She liked the way the plastic glittered in sunshine that was drifting behind an ancient, weathered cottonwood tree. The tree had been struck by lightening the year before and half of its burned branches were black against the setting sun which sent long bright streaks through shaking leaves and dark dead limbs. Reflections bounced onto a metal garage door that wasn't connected to any garage, but was instead leaning against one side of the tree.

Bright yellow grass drove up through cracks and crannies in the stack of rusted pipe that lay next to the door. The garage door.

"What in the heck are you fooling with now?" Her mother, June, stood at the entrance to a kitchen. The light behind her glowed with butterscotch stickiness. June leaned against the door frame making her loose, pale yellow dress shift and drape over her full figure. She dried off a large bowl decorated with pansies and pale, delicately painted leaves. The light from a dim hall fixture highlighted the lines on her forehead. Between brilliant pale blue eyes a deep crevice had formed because of June's constant frowning to see better. She refused to wear her glasses. She also worried constantly about money since her husband had walked out on her after 17 years of marriage. Yet, she was glad he'd left. The two females had a comfortable, happy life.

"Nothing," Country spoke with a chill that also broke apart, hummed and refracted into mellow vibrations. All with one word.

The odor of baking oatmeal cookies drifted into the room. Outside the newly trimmed grass was wild and pungent. The smell of fried chicken lingered from their simple dinner.

She turned to look at her mother's silhouette in the door and thought to herself how beautiful she was. Country wondered if she would retain her looks as she grew old. The idea was oddly disturbing to her. She suddenly felt time slipping forward and away like a wave receding into dark, distant waters.

She pushed her bronze hair back in a nervous gesture that was unlike her. She was always so sure of herself. For a second the sense that her personal universe was changing made her feel out of control. But she shook the thoughts away as she stood and straightened her back as if she could rise above immortality by having good posture and a steady stance.

"Plane'll be here soon. Better get ready. Know it won't like to wait." June spoke as she simultaneously turned and brushed a cobweb from a cupboard shelf. She glanced at her hand and realized it wasn't a cobweb, it was simply light and shadows. The thought occurred to her that maybe what she saw was not real at all. Maybe everything she was so sure of was just a mistake in her vision.

"Mother, I have my timing down by this time. And it's not a plane. Sometimes you are such a hick," Country flicked the package off the window sill and watched it bounce, first onto a small carved table covered with a lace cloth and cluttered with various ceramic Disney characters. Then the pack plopped into a corner of a worn leather chair, bumped against the side of a pillow that had the letters B.Y.U. in needlepoint stitched onto faded green velvet. Then the package flew across cracked leather and landed onto the linoleum floor that was lumpy and bumpy and had several areas that had worn through to show other layers of floor coloring.

Country liked the worn spots. She imagined other people who had lived in the old house with different colors surrounding them, other styles, faces and sounds. Sometimes she could feel them in the room with her.

"Is that what you're wearin'?" June asked. She turned without waiting for an answer and headed back to the kitchen where she stepped with thick ankles onto a wooden step stool and placed a bowl on the top shelf.

"It's not my clothes they care about," Country said as she lazily sauntered across the room. "It's my voice." She brushed dust off the seat of her tight jeans and went out the front door, slamming the screen. She stood briefly on the creaky boards and popped a candy into her mouth. She sucked on it for a second, went down the steps and spit it out onto the dirt path.

Clouds were forming in the horizon. She knew it wasn't rain. The old hound dog waddled over and let Country pet the top of his head briefly, then whined and walked slowly on wobbly legs to a shady spot under the huge tree. A swing hanging from a twisted tree branch swung slightly, though there was no wind at the moment.

Country waited.

A cloud of dust appeared in the distance over the tree tops. She watched as the dust became shiny and began to sparkle with tiny flecks of gold. The air became denser. The light around the farm began to take on an odd quality that was somewhere between opaque and shiny and yet made everything else look transparent.

Country saw June wave from the window and then walk away. The old dog limped to a cool, calm place under the house. A whirring ripped through the air and then was suddenly still. More still that is earthly possible. It was a stillness of space or lack of space. It was a stillness that contained everything and nothing. It was so void that it was solid.

A bright pink glow landed on the farm yard.

Country began to sing.

Her singing rose from a distant, hidden memory of ancestors and ancient ceremonies that Country was no longer aware of. Her voice raised and lowered and careened up and down the scales in a waterfall of notes. The lyrics she sang had no meaning to her. Yet they held emotional resonance. As she sang, the air glowed, moved and throbbed as if atoms were being pulled apart and reformed into jello. As a matter of fact that was the way she always described the experience.

"Mom it's like sittin' inside a bowl of green jello and feeling that the whole world is in there with you and doesn't know it."

Suddenly it was gone. Over. She sputtered slightly. She grabbed her throat. It always felt as if they took a little bit of her with them when they left.

The steps creaked as she neared and she saw her mother come out of the shadows.

"I do wish I could get to see it sometime. Just once," June whispered, guiltily.

"I doubt if they'd come if you were watching."

"Just once." June squinted at the sky as if trying to see something just behind a curtain. She brushed the back of Country's hair and they both sat down on the front porch. The yard was beginning to fade into dark purple shadows. A gentle breeze fluttered across laundry that hung on a clothesline.

"Hope it's cooler tonight," Country said. "I had trouble sleeping last night. Even with all the covers thrown off."

June smiled slyly. "My little songbird," she said and looked lovingly yet with a puzzled frown. "You don't even know what you're doin' do you?"

"All I do is sing. Big deal. I always have."

"That's right," June said. "Every since I can remember. I think you sang before you could talk."

"I mean it's a nice thing to have happen," Country continued. "It feels good. But I don't really see what good it is. It's not like they're hiring me to sing over at the hotel dining room. It's not like they're signing me to a record contract or anything. That would be cool. Now that would be something really important."

The two sat until the sun crashed behind the distant hills. Bugs began to flit around the porch light. The dog whined and began to slowly make its climb up the three wobbly, wood steps as it did every night so that it could be closer to the two women. The traffics sounds from the highway a mile away seemed to get louder as it got darker.

"Lemonaid and cookies," June said. "That would be real important if you ask me. And I just so happen to have some in the kitchen. Fresh baked."

She got up and once again patted the girl on the head. As she closed the screen door it suddenly struck her that Country wasn't a girl anymore and hadn't been for quite a while. She was a woman. She glanced back and watched through the wire screen that made her daughter look fuzzy, patterned and unclear. A slight fear rose up from deep in her chest as it dawned on her that Country would probably leave home soon. She felt a tear start to pop up in the corner of her eye. She quickly turned and headed to the kitchen. Behind her the air was still and warm. Country smiled to herself.

This time she still felt it. Again. Much more. She felt the lingering beauty. It was as if she were exchanging something. They were taking a little bit of her and exchanging it with a little of them. And it felt good.

John Fish

and escalated together. They were like two strangers staring at the same waves on a beach. "What is the problem?" "You know." "Why would I ask then?" "Just to be irritating." Sometimes Jack wondered what it would be like to escape. That was pretty much either of them thought about. At least that's what they would say.

Actually they were in the process of living. But they viewed their actions as temporary, unimportant, and always felt whatever they were doing

would result in escape. They no longer remembered what they were escaping from or where they actually wanted to escape to. It was just the desire

to flee that fueled them. "Nice work," Jack said. "I like the way your fingers drag in the dust and make those circular patterns." "It's just fun. You know I wouldn't do it if it was work. That wind feels good. It was getting hot in here." "You and your wind. I think you're having hot flashes." The odor of lunch still lingered from empty cartons of take out food. Onion and green pepper scents drifted across the tabletop and blended with a

body odor of each man. One slightly sour, mixed with citrus cologne, the other heavy and laden with cigarettes and alcohol. The sky moved several inches to the right and the two men shifted in their chairs. A bright green cloud settled over the silhouette of a purple frame house in the distance. The home was abandoned and neglected. Sharp, broken wood

with weathered paint poked out from collapsed walls at angles that gave the building a threatening quality. "Shall we just wait?" Jack scratched his arm. First one, then the other. He picked at the edge of an empty plastic cup. His nail ripped at the edge

creating a lacy piece that fell to the floor and mixed with flower petals, hair and dust that sometimes shimmered with gold flecks and at other times

just sat there as a dense, dark brown pile of waste. "Don't have any choice, do we?" "Yes." Jack frowned slightly and looked past the clouds and the slit of sunshine. He sniffed the odor of water. Ocean, rain, faucets, bath water,

floods, sewers, gutters and the sweet scent of wells gurgling from inside a hillside cliff and falling over sprouting vegetation. "Green." "Blue." "I suppose we do have a choice." "I've forgotten." "So have I." The green cloud fizzled over the landscape and swept the two into an evening that was both eternal and immediate.