New Work Out, Zen Garden

 

My short story, Zen Garden is out now at Rock and a Hard Place

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D9CRNTPM

The cover art is a bit like a corny horror mag—not sure why because the magazine mission statement is

Rock and a Hard Place Press is an independent publisher of literary noir, crime and dark fiction.  It focuses on characters that are struggling in a world in which they may feel powerless.  We’re interested in narratives about poverty, mental and physical health challengers, individuals challenged by expectations, racism, bias, prejudice, coming to terms with their own sexual or gender identities, cultural challenges — all of the above, and what these characters do next.  The flagship publication of Rock and a Hard Place Press is Rock and a Hard Place Magazine, a literary noir journal that serves as “A Chronicle of Bad Decisions and Desperate People.”

I submitted to Stone’s Throw, a subpublication. The story is a feel good Zen piece (peace). Not sure if it is available for online reading.

Be sure to check it out! Thanks!

opening lines:

After Dad died Mom moved closer—but not too close. It was agreed that we all needed space, especially as Randy and I were busy setting up the coffee shop post-pandemic. We wanted nothing more than to get back to normal.

Whatever that was.

It was hard to imagine normal when it seemed all we’d ever known was chaos and hecticity. That’s what she, Mom, called it, our lifestyle of hustle and bustle, dropping off the twins at school, soccer, figure skating, play practice, 4-H. Now add Mom to the mix.

To be fair she moved closer to help out. Once everyone could move about. When it was okay to remove masks, maybe not okay, but safer, better, whatever the health officials were saying. I’m not a denier, I stayed inside, ordered our groceries, did nineteen months of Zoom school, tele-appointments, etc. I get it, got it, got vaccinated.

Truth be told things could have been worse. Many of my friends are dealing with Fox News parents, Q-Anon cult family members, MAGA mom/dad, subsumed by reactionary social media. Maybe it was because Mom loved gardening, the library, birdwatching, NPR. She eschewed (her word) Meta or whatever they want to be called. I have an Instagram account and Mom doesn’t follow me. In the evenings when we called to check in I could hear classical radio in the background, while here it was the stupid TV always on. We had so many devices wired to the internet that we experienced broadband slowdown and had to up our package. Real estate on the charging strip was at a premium. The kids argued about who unplugged who. Everything felt heightened, the sound turned up to high, so that when she suggested relocating, I burst into tears of gratitude. Yes, yes, yes.

***

Then came an ice storm. We were warned for days leading up to the weather event, so much so that the grocery store shelves were picked over. People were desperate for snacks. It was just like lockdown during the pandemic. I called Mom to check on her and heard voices in the background. “Who’s there?” “Milo and Steve are over.” “Who’s Milo and Steve?” I could hear it in her reply, a kind of exasperation that I didn’t already know, that I’d forgotten to pay attention and listen whenever she talked about her life. Truth. “The neighbor boys,” she said.

Wait! The stoners you were complaining about just a few months ago!

I didn’t say it, but felt better when she said they were there helping her with the shelves. She wouldn’t be sitting around worrying about feeling cooped up during the ice storm and overeating (like some of us). I told her if she needed anything to call. She assured me she’d be fine. The boys were just next door.

After this she’d talk about her babies, the seedlings in her basement, where they were in their germination, how she was tweaking the amounts of light and watering. Come to find out Milo was a botany major, the uni has an excellent turf/grass program. When spring hit full-force as it seems to here in the upper Midwest, she mentioned that she went with Milo to the sod research farm on the outskirts of town. I was glad, really, that she was getting out and meeting people. For our part the café was doing great with students back in class and on-campus study. It felt a bit like normal, a post-apocalyptic new normal. I’d joined a gym. As a family we were starting to enjoy each other, a bit. Joke around, even. About Milo, Grandma’s new boyfriend. Not funny.

Mom told me about an evening, a few nights ago, at the Turf Research Center, after Milo had finished at the library. Around midnight. I listened on the phone in the car. One of the twins leaned over the seat, their ear’s pricked up. She went on and on about the moonlight on the fields. All the students took turns being out at the experimental farm and he liked to invite her so that he didn’t have to be out there alone. She had a headlamp and fingerless gloves as it was still cold and loved the smell of the damp earth in the cool night air and the milky atmosphere under the lights, like gauze or walking in a dream. That feeling of not knowing what will happen next. I heard notes of a younger woman in her voice.

“Umm, it sounds lovely,” I said, but also weird, I thought.