Hello Fall-Photography by Stephanie Daich

 

3-D ORGANS -Microfiction

 

DO YOU STAY TRUE FOR YOU -Poetry

  DO YOU STAY TRUE FOR YOU

Cry, and you cry alone.

Spend money, and you have many friends.

For the shallow man cares not for you.

When you are in need, no one lends.

Don the brands, and others envy.

Wear the fake mask, and others flock.

Be yourself, and everyone flees.

Speak your heart, and others squawk.

So, is there room for a unique you?

Will others see your glory?

Do you stay true to who is inside,

Or, for others, do you change your story?

I SHOULD HAVE PAID ATTETNION -Short Fiction

 

Curiosity took me there. The movement seemed so asinine at the time. I never believed it wouldn’t amount to anything; rather, it would stay a root grass movement representing a ton of angry people shouting at the wind.

“What is more dangerous than guns?” the lady screamed at the crowd. Her face twisted in hate as the color in her face matched the blood pudding I had eaten for lunch. “What is more dangerous than the atomic bomb?”

Sharp drops of rain pelted my face as I pulled my parka tighter around my body, wishing I had worn a coat instead of choosing the parka for looks. The wind picked up, and I wasn’t sure I would last long at the convention with the unpleasant weather. The people who were dedicated to the movement didn’t seem affected by the nasty weather, perhaps propelled by it.

The lady bent down, then burst into the air, her arms flailing everywhere for dramatic effect. “The dissemination of thought. That is the true danger that threatens our democracy and our safety.” The crowd roared in approval. “And how does that thought spread? How do the crusaders of hate spread their thoughts?”

Wasn’t she a crusader of hate? If she hated free thought so intensely, wasn’t that the very platform she used to share her thoughts?

“The internet! Yup, I said it. The internet is the most dangerous vehicle in our world.”

The internet? Really?

“We must control the internet!”

The icy rain morphed into little pellets of hard hail. This lady wasn’t selling ideas that I cared to stand in the infernal weather for. I shoved my blueish fingers into my pockets and continued walking to my car.

That was the first time I had heard their radical idea; again, I hadn’t given it much thought. I guess if I had, it wouldn’t have the frightening course of events.

Seven years later, life changed.

The lobbyists, the radicals, the government took the idea of a dangerous internet and ran with it. The fear and control spread like a fire in a meadow of dry grass.

“These gatekeepers will monitor the internet and stop the spread of dangerous movements.” That was the first step, and the world bought into it, like a fish swallowing a deadly hook adorned with shiny bait.

The Internet Safety Committee (ISC) was born. Most countries have embedded monitoring controls on all of their products. Somewhere in a dingy warehouse, I imagined thousands of bored employees monitoring everything that went over the internet. Most programs and apps had governors built in that stopped most of the passing of information, but the ISC filtered anything the programs might miss.

Suddenly, social media took on a new look as most political thoughts were halted—well, the political thoughts that went against the main governing ideas.

At least half of the nation was angry, but what could we do? We had lost our place to voice our anger and our concerns.

It only took a year for the regulations to increase.

“We do not believe that social media outlets are in the nation's best interests,” the whore-mongering government cried. And within months, all social media outlets were disbanded.

The new generation of adults lost their minds. They had been raised on social media, hand fed the idea of posting every minute of their lives across the electronic grid.

The next step of control came in the schools when the government forced all educational systems to use the ISC’s carefully curated internet provider. It regulated absolutely every aspect of education. No longer were institutes allowed to create their educational programs. The power to decide what aspects of study was removed. They were only allowed to use the information and curriculum that the ISC deemed appropriate. History was changed. Science altered. Thoughts removed, while new theories formed.

But that wasn’t enough.

“An improperly educated person is the most dangerous thing to society,” became the new tout. “We can not allow people to form dangerous opinions.”

ISC became the worldwide internet provider. Each country had different versions of the ISC internet, each service tailored to the country's dictator.

But that wasn’t enough.

Soon, all access to information was removed, and platforms to share thoughts were shut down. The only information available was what the dictators wanted you to know.

We were given access to online stores from which we could shop, but there was no access to contact any of the stores. We were given literature to read, but only what the ISC deemed appropriate.

A little over eleven years from the first time I heard about regulating information, everything was taken from the citizens. The internet no longer represented a form of information or connection. It was a highly regulated form of government control.

Today, I stumble into another movement underway. This time, it is a man, yet he has the same vigor and determination as the lady I saw eleven years ago. The weather is decent this time as I listen to his frightening screaming.

“What is more dangerous than guns? What is more dangerous than the atomic bomb?” Had he copied the lady’s speech? He turns in my direction, and our eyes lock. “Free access libraries. They hold the danger in every book on their shelves. We must tear them down!”

I had done nothing to stop the seizure of our internet. I had idly stood by while my freedoms had been stripped from me. And now, they want more.

I must do something.

I must take action.

This is a new movement, but the same idea—the removal of our freedom.

And so it begins again.

THE UNEXPECTED ADVENTURE -Memoir

 THE UNEXPECTED ADVENTURE

 

I fulfilled a dream that day. I never thought I would have the adventure of swimming in a Florida lake, and the threat of alligators was a genuine concern. Yet, there I swam with my three kids. The water enclosed us in its incredible warmth. My tense arm and back muscles relaxed, although I fully couldn't calm my trepidation. Feeling an alligator might come to meet us, I needed to have a little vigilance.

Just moments earlier, we had gone on a memorable kayaking trip around the canals of Fort Lauderdale. The hot sun parched our skin as we paddled our vessels along the sides of yachts that, if sold, would be enough to buy a small country. What would it be like to have that much wealth? As we sliced through the water using bicep power, the massive yachts towered above our insignificant crafts, and we strained our heads upwards as we passed them. 

"That one is mine," my daughter proclaimed at the most prominent yacht there. Princess of the Sea seemed big enough that our entire extended family of fifty could comfortably ride on it and still have room for a million other people. I wanted to sneak inside, if just for a moment.

The yachts docked in front of equally impressive homes. How do people earn money to afford such luxury? We thought we were living the high life by renting six kayaks for two hours.

"Can we swim?" my son begged. He pulled his yacht next to mine and gave me puppy dog eyes. Surprisingly, at sixteen, they still worked.

I closely observed the water, wondering if the guide had told us was true.

"There are no alligators in this water," the guide had said.

"How can there not be alligators? Alligators are everywhere in Florida."

As if on cue, a noisy boat passed by. "There is too much activity in this water. Alligators don't want to be here." The guide reassured.

I couldn't believe him. "Yeah, but surely there are still alligators."

"Nope. You could swim here and be fine." He said with the confidence of a Florida expert.

That had planted the idea of swimming in my son's head.

I looked at my watch. "I don't want to waste our kayaking time swimming. We are paying for the minute."

"Come on, Mom. Just picture swimming here. It would be wonderful."

At that moment, large trees fanned over the canal. I could imagine diving under the leaves and playing swimming games with my kids. It would be a treat to swim there, but we kept kayaking.

Two hours disappeared like seconds. How come church never went by that fast?

We pulled our clunky plastic kayaks out at the water's edge and dragged them to the bamboo kiosk. A different worker helped us. My son didn't hesitate to ask, "Is it true that there are no alligators in the water?"

"Yup," the guy said, hardly paying attention to us beyond his duties of checking in the kayaks. Sadly, we turned in the plastic boats, not ready to end our adventure. 

The rental shack stood at the edge of George English Park. They returned our collateral, and I gathered the kids. We walked through the park, passing tons of lizards and iguanas. They darted around the prickly grass. As we approached the car, my son ran up to me.

"Can we swim here, please, please, please?"

"Hmm," I said, thinking about it. It would be lovely to get into the water. The day's heat drained us, and a swim would restore our vigor. The thought tempted me.

A group of iguanas scuttled out of the way. I watched the giant lizards, with their varying colors, add a tropical feeling to the park. I liked spontaneity, and my son offered me a chance to do something that felt dangerous. What if there were alligators in the pond?

"Let's do it," I said. Would I put our lives in danger? I could see us on the news. "Stupid mother takes her kids swimming in a Florida pond. All the kids get eaten by an alligator." I shudder as I push the possibility aside.

The three younger kids squealed with delight as they ran into the lake. I sauntered to the edge with my young adult daughter at my side.

"Join?" I asked, even though I knew the answer. My daughter, dressed in her summer best, already had looked too fancy for a kayak ride. No way she would submerge her outfit in a dingy-looking lake, dark and black.

"Haha," she laughed. "As if?"

"Oh, can't get my clothes wet," my son mocks. "I am too good to have fun."

He doesn't come close to tempting her.

My husband, not the adventuring type, also turned us down. Too good to join us, the two sat together on a bench. I turned to the three younger kids already splashing around. They are having fun. If I don't swim, I will never share the memory of this fun.

"Oh well, your loss," I say to my husband and adult daughter. I join the others for a new adventure.

I plunged into the water, still fully dressed.

"Ahh, this is the life.". The temperate water cooled my Florida-baked skin. Immediately my energy returned as the water refreshed me. I float onto my back while the cares of the world washed away. Swimming in a Florida lake was heaven I never thought I would experience. I come from the north, where all water freezes me within seconds.

The kids dove under the water, but I kept my head out of it. Although this was fun, the water did seem a bit on the gross side. What did we expect from a swamp? I tried to ignore the awful stuff that floated by. Meanwhile, I stayed on alert for a possible alligator.

The kids sucked in mouthfuls of water, becoming fountains. They sprayed the water out of their mouth, then slurped in more.

"I wouldn't put that water in my mouth," I warned. There might not be alligators, but surely there were parasites.

A clump of dark mud floated by us. "That looks like poop," my son said.

"It's just sediment from the lake floor, but do you want that in your mouth?"

To defy me, as he likes to, my son sucked in more water and squirted it above his head.

"Eww," I reply.

"Do you remember when we swam at Fort Buenaventura? What if this is like that?" He laughed.

That would be gross. Fort Buenaventura had been condemned because of e-coli, but we had swum in it because of the lack of warning signs. Only after we had swum for an hour did the workers at Fort Buenaventura yell at us. "Get out! The pond is condemned from e-coli!"

"Where is your sign?" I growled.

With nowhere to cleanse the bacteria from our skin, I made the kids strip naked and wash in the sprinklers. 

-What a memory!

As we played in the George English Lake, the sound of a boat motor caught our attention. A boat headed toward us.

"Why is that idiot coming at us? What a jerk," my son groaned in his typical teen fashion.

"He probably has something to tell us." 

The captain of the boat looked straight at me. I wanted to hide. I felt sheepish. The boater was on his way to yell at me for swimming there with my kids. He would tell me about all the alligators and chastise me for being such an inept mother.

The boater came within yelling distance and killed the motor.

"Hey, you don't want to be swimming here!" He yelled.

I am such an idiot. Why did I believe I could swim in a Florida lake? At least an alligator didn't get to us before he had.

"They had a pipe break here. -Over 200 million gallons of raw sewage was dumped into the lake."

His words almost knocked me over. 

We are swimming in sewage!

That earlier sentiment was poop.

We screamed.

My son was right. This was like Fort Buenaventura but worse.

The four of us swam out of the lake faster than if there had been an Alligator in it. Human feces-water drenched us.

I can't describe the sensation of uncleanness I had. Every inch of me felt disgusting with the idea of billions of harmful bacteria clinging all over my skin. Just like Buenaventura, there had been no signs.

We ran to the bathrooms and tried to bathe in the sink. The accessible stall had someone in it, and I wondered what she would think when she came out and saw a mom and two girls taking a sink bath.

The sink bath wasn't close to cleansing us. We needed to burn our clothes and then be washed in hydrogen peroxide and bleach.

"Screw it," I said, tossing my favorite shorts and shirt in the garbage can. I like modesty. I wasn't the type that flaunted all I had on the beach, but these were desperate times. I didn't feel so gross with just a bra and panties on. 

The girls couldn't scrub themselves enough. After doing all I could in a sink, I decided to check on my son. I didn't want him to see so much of my skin, but at least my sports bra and underwear looked like a bikini—more modest than most bikinis we had seen on the beach.

My older daughter cheekily watched us, happy for her decision to stay clean. She laughed at me, and I had no response. She had been right not to swim. I should have followed her example.

I was walking with my son to the car when I heard the girls scream at a pitch higher than when we discovered we were swimming in poop.

They ran to us. I thought they were still experiencing trauma from our unfortunate experience.

"There was a homeless man in the bathroom with us," they huffed, out of breath.

"What do you mean?" I asked, my emotions heightened and scared for my daughter's virtue.

"You know that person in the bathroom stall. Well, when you left, he came out. It was a homeless man."

I felt my spirits drop. Why had I left them alone? I should have been there to protect them. How did I know the person in the stall was a man?

"Did he hurt you?" I hadn't been gone that long, had I?

"No, he just walked out of the stall and left."

I hugged their soggy bodies, relieved that nothing more had happened in the bathroom.

How could I have left my precious daughters alone with a homeless man? I would win the mother-of-the-year award for this day.

I reflect upon that day we swam with sewage. Thankfully, we didn't get sick. After it happened, I had been convinced we would all die of e-coli or something equally as nasty. Thankfully, we didn't come down with a parasite. It was probably naive of me to swim in that pond. There most likely were alligators in it. The kayak guides probably only referred to the canals being free of alligators, and besides, why had I risked it on their word?

There are risks to having an adventurist spirit. 

If there weren't, then it wouldn't be an adventure.

__________________________________________________

The Unexpected Adventure

by Stephanie Daich

 

 

 

 

 

GLADIOLUS ON FIRE- Photography by Stephanie Daich

 

HIGH VOLTAGE -Speculative Fiction

 HIGH VOLTAGE 

 

I feared lightning before I moved to Florida, but could you blame me? Three hundred million volts, possessing my body and flinging me around like a marionette puppet. No one ever forgets such a traumatic event. My nerves sometimes replay the pain in my sleep. 

“You’d be dead if it weren’t for me,” my cousin Todd reminded me. He was the first grandkid born into the family by two days. We competed for our grandparent’s adoration and our aunts’ and uncles’ spoiling adventures. Todd scored many points the day lightning hit me because he used CPR to restore my life. The lightning bolt had stopped my heart. Thank goodness Todd, a ten-year-old boy scout knew first aid. If the lightning had hit him instead, he would have died. I wouldn’t have known how to restart his heart.

“Florida has around 3,500 lightning flashes a day. Did you know that is like 1.2 million a year?” I rattled to the now-adult Todd as he tried to convince me to move to Florida.

“So what?”

“How can you say so what? Lightening killed me once. I am not about to allow it to kill me again.”

“Listen, get over it. You survived. And don’t forget, I saved your life. You will be living with me, so if you ever need it, I can save your life again.”

I gave Todd an uneasy look, purposely squinting my eyes melodramatically.

“Besides, it is so rare to be striked by lightning and even more rare to be striked twice.”

“Yeah, but…”

“No, yeah, buts. We are going to the spring break capital of the world. It is like spring break every day of the year. Imagine all the chicks we will pick up.” Todd draped his arm over my shoulder. He had dark Cuban skin. His dapper manner didn’t match that of our family. He had no problems getting girls with his handsome face and appealing way, in contrast to me, the ugly-duckling, tag-along cousin. 

We were both twenty-three, and I was more than ready to move out of my parent’s basement. Todd provided the way. Despite my trepidation, I left to the land of party with my best cousin.

I had anticipated storms, but not multiple times a day. That was too much for me. Yet, it always stormed in Florida. Why had I let Todd rope me into moving there?

 I had never been professionally diagnosed with PTSD, but those lightning storms did something to me. My whole body reacted negatively during each storm, as if the adrenaline of a bear chasing me hit me each time. But I had to look cool in front of Todd, so I tried not to let him see my fear.

“Where are you going?” Todd asked one morning as I gathered my things. We had lived in Florida for three months, and I had yet to acquire a girlfriend. Meanwhile, Todd already had established a harem of girls.

“My company has a big job in Naples,” I said as I tied my boots. I didn’t mind doing landscaping work. I had lost ten pounds from the physical labor. Maybe soon, I would look as sleek as Todd.

“That’s a long drive from Deerfield Beach.”

“A job is a job,” I said as I left the apartment.

Of course, a nasty storm picked up as I entered Alligator Alley. The rain poured down as if the angels held a hose over the road with the faucet on full blast. My hand gripped the wheel to the point of jacking up my muscles. I slowed my speed to twenty miles an hour. 

“This sucks,” I lamented as I crawled along I-75.

BOOM! BOOM! Thunder echoed overhead.

“No, no, no,” I panicked. This stretch of road had no stores to duck into or rest stops to cower at. I had only done the adult thing for three months now. I needed my mom to tell me how to handle the storm, to hold me.

Lightning flashed in the sky, and I saw a large object on the road ahead of me. Stupidly, I slammed on my brakes. 

The car fishtailed to the left, right, and left. Suddenly, my vehicle hovered above the road as it hydroplaned. I spun dangerously close to the bumper of another car as it successfully swerved out of my way.

My heart pounded, and my fingers pulsated.

“What do I do?” I cried as my car spun more. Then, it happened.

A bolt of lightning hit the car.

The metal all around me glowed red. The hot rubber on the steering wheel stuck to my hands.

“What?” I let go of the steering wheel. “This ain’t lightning,” I proclaimed as I tried to take it in. The metal had cooled. My car spun in 360s down the interstate.

The volt that hit my car passed through my vehicle. Why hadn’t it affected me? I hadn’t felt it. I put my hand on my heart to make sure it still beat.

Another bolt hit my car. 

“This defies odds,” I screamed. Again, the metal went red, then cooled. Even though I had not accelerated on the gas since I started spinning, the car seemed to rotate faster.

Boom. Flash. Bolt after bolt pelted my car.

The bolts sprayed brilliant colors of orange, purple, and green.

“This ain’t lightning,” I argued with no one. “I know lightning, personally.”

When the next bolt hit my car, I looked up and saw it come out of something of a rectangular shape. “That ain’t a cloud.” My fear shifted to curiosity.

The shape reminded me of one of those Tic-Tac mints. 

Boom.

Boom.

Boom.

Three executive hits pounded my car. All of them had come from the Tic-Tac cloud.

“That ain’t no cloud.” It had a solid shape, and it stayed directly above me.

“What is going on?” I cried.

The electricity moved through the car each time, yet it never bothered me.

I looked out the window as my car sped down the interstate in wild circles. My head spun in the opposite direction, and I couldn’t stop the puke that splattered everything inside.

“Oh, oh,” the nausea and headache seemed even worse than my most debilitating migraine.

I looked down at the road.

“AHHHH!” I screamed. I hovered above the road.

More lightning hit me. The Tic-Tac glowed white, then zipped away at a speed more stealthy than man can create.

My car dropped to the road with a force that shook everything inside, especially me. The dark that created the storm disappeared, and the lightning ceased. The sun returned in its Florida blazing shine. Besides the puddles on the road, there were no other signs of inclement weather.

***

“Tell the ladies about your alien mint again,” Todd said a few days later at his small get-together. Several girls had joined us at our apartment’s pool. I looked at the lovely faces that tuned into me. I wasn’t about to squander any chance with them by telling them my story. I instantly regretted telling Todd about the strange lightning. He constantly teased me about it.

“I am fine,” I said, looking away and wrapping my arms around my chest.

“No, no, this is great,” Todd said as he dunked a chip into the clam dip. “Ruben saw an alien a couple of days ago on Alligator Alley.”

“I never claimed it was an alien,” I countered.

“Oh, it surely was. It was one of those Tic-Tac spaceships.”

I hadn’t even heard about a Tic-Tac spaceship until Todd teased me about the ordeal.

“Oh, so are you like one of those conspiracists? You know the type who still lives at home in the mama’s basement?” A super-hot girl said, but I could tell she wasn’t asking it to score points with me, more mocking me.

“I just pulled Ruben out of his mama’s basement,” Todd said, laughing at my expense. The ladies joined him.

“I never said it was an alien,” I pouted.

“He said the alien ship set lightning bolt after lightning bolt to his car. He said they had many colors, like a light show. He said that his car had turned cherry red with heat. Sounds like an alien to me.”

Todd made me look like an idiot.

“That’s enough, Todd,” I said.

The girls giggled.

“He said his car floated above the road.” Todd just kept going. 

Shut up already.

“It didn’t float, more like hydroplaned,” I said, underplaying the incident.

“I hydroplaned once,” one of the girls said.

“Hey, alien boy, how about another Pepsi?” A girl asked.

“Yeah, alien boy, go get Lacey a Pepsi. How about you bring out at least twelve of them,” Todd demanded.

I went into the apartment. Without changing out of my swimsuit, I grabbed my keys and took off to the beach. I wasn’t going to stick around and be the brunt of their jokes all night.

***

If I thought I had PTSD from lightning before the storm, it had intensified afterward. In fact, a strange occurrence occurred during lightning storms. Whenever electricity was in the air, I felt an electrical charge hum under my skin, and a slight magnetic affinity took place. I could stick metal items to my skin by bringing any body part close to them. Todd used me as a side-show attraction to his parties. Our guest saw me as a freak and not a potential date option. It got to the point that storms brought me so much anxiety. I panicked about being hit and dreaded Todd degrading me to others. 

The anxiety debilitated me, and even one time, I ended up at the hospital, thinking I had a heart problem. They diagnosed me with a full-on anxiety attack.

Then, to add hell to hell, Todd came home with the grand announcement.

“You will never believe it. I got you on the Joe Carriage show!”

“What are you talking about?”

“Joe Carriage. Surely you have heard of him.”

I picked up a pile of empty pizza boxes and put them in a garbage bag. Todd turned out to be an awful roommate. He partied almost every night, and he never cleaned his messes.

“Nope,” I said. Annoyed, I pulled out the vacuum.

“Joe Carriage. He is like Jerry Springer.”

“You got me on the Joe Carriage show? Why so?”

“To share your alien story.”

I shoved the vacuum at Todd. “Oh, no way.”

“Yes, way,” he said, clapping his hands.

“That wasn’t meant as a good thing. I am not going to go on any show so people can turn me into a freak.”

“Come on. I’ll be there with you.”

“No!”

Enough was enough.

I packed my bags and moved to San Diego, which has only five lightning storms a year.

I don’t know what happened that day on Alligator Alley. The more I read up on Tic-Tac alien ships, the more I believe alien life watches us. But my experience seems unique to me, so I am not sure an alien Tic-Tac ship visited me that day.

Maybe I had a psychotic break after the first bolt of lightning hit my car, causing me to hallucinate. Perhaps, a strange phenomenon happened, and I did indeed get hit with lightning, one bolt after another. 

All I know is that my life improved by moving away from Todd. We keep in touch on social media, and we have no hard feelings. We make far better cousins than roommates.

As for my nerves, I have significantly settled in the virtually storm-free capital of the US.

-No more lightning storms for me.

But San Deigo might be the Tic-Tac sighting capital.

 

__________________________________________________High Voltage

by Stephanie Daich