“Did it hurt much, in the end?” He asked her. “I wondered that.”
“Not so much,” she assured him. “I was surprised, mostly.”
“Was death such a marvel?”
“I had the sense of being an actor,” she told him. “I expected you wanted to give me a fright, that's all.”
“I did,” he told her, laughing.
She did not laugh. Her eyes were pensive. It was a moment before she spoke again.
“You are still a king I see.”
Henry shrugged. Without his fine clothes, his paunchy belly hung down over his groin, and his legs spread at oblique angles to support his stance. “My crown is all rusted, but I call myself king.”
“Did you have to kill me?” Anne asked. “For that Seymour woman...that silly fool.”
“She was such a nice little girl,” sighed Henry. “When I passed, she dropped her eyes and blushed. She stuttered and trembled. She said she longed to kiss my feet, but dared not.”
“Obedience,” said Anne.
“Yes, the illusion of control. An open door.”
“Do you want to hear about the day I died?” asked Anne, sharply.
“Yes,” said Henry. “I do.”
“When I died, I became a bird. A falcon. I flew in the air and looked down at the crowd. I saw a woman, picking someone's pocket. I saw a man on his knees, a stranger. He was praying for me. I saw a bored child with a ragged wooden doll. At first that was all I could see.”
He was silent, listening.
“Then I flew higher. Now I saw the scaffold. I saw my head in a puddle of blood, separated from my body. I saw the cross, how it had fallen out of my lifeless hands onto the wooden boards. I saw the executioner, staring down at me, contemplating his work.”
“Did he do a bad job of it?” asked Henry.
“Not such a poor job. I died, in the end.”
“And what did you see, after,” said the king, changing the subject quickly.
“I flew higher, in a wider circle. I could still spot the gruesome scene, my pathetic state, but now I could see the fortress walls. The womb, my dungeon womb that I had so longed to flee. Now at last I was beyond it. It seemed to me, with my falcon eyes, I could spot my fellow prisoners watching the bloody scene, out of slit windows cut into the stone. I could make out their faces and clothing. Some of them wore sackcloth, and some wore gold. I looked again at the crowd. I was flying so high, I was starting to lose perspective, but now I could see the very edges of the crowd, reactions to people who only heard the news that day, but could not see it happening. Some people wrought their hands in anguish, and some grinned. A woman fainted. I thought I saw Katherine, but of course she was long dead. I thought I saw her, though, on the edge of the crowd, near the Tower Bridge. I thought I saw her running towards the scaffold. What does she want, I wondered. She was dressed in black. The sun caught the red-gold tints in her hair. Her hands were outstretched, reaching. What is she reaching for, I thought. Reaching for my hands, maybe. Reaching to take my hand and lead me away, to a quiet place. Or perhaps, still reaching for my neck, to put those hands around my neck.”
“And next?” Asked Henry. “With all your old ambition, did you fly higher still?”
“I did. I grew tired of those little people. I was flying so high, I could no longer tell the expression of their faces. They were just...things...tiny things. I caught a flash of the sea. Now I reached towards the clouds. I was looking for God.”
“And did you see him?”
“No,” said Anne, shortly, tossing her red curls. “I saw only you, Henry.”
And with that she turned, sighed, and walked away, leaving him where he stood.
The Gingerbread Man
Joseph Buehler
The Gingerbread Man says that he wants to be your friend. He sidles up to you and pats you on the back and shakes your hand warmly, but there is no warmth or sincerity in his coal black eyes. He has an upturned white mouth made up of small round pieces of gingerbread dough, but you get the feeling that you can’t trust that mouth. The Gingerbread Man smiles at you in church, but he preaches a false sermon. Later he tries to sell you a used car that he knows is defective. He gladly hauls away your furniture for non payment on your installment plan (you’ve been out of work for a while through no fault of your own). He gleefully raises the interest rates on all eleven of your credit cards and then kicks you out of your warm and cozy home into the cold mean streets because you missed two mortgage payments in a row. (He tried to steal your mate away from you back in nineteen eighty seven and has been trying off and on ever since, usually successfully). He is that slick and serpentine salesman who screams at you on television and thinks you are an idiot and who wants to sell you everything NOW! He is determined to try and steal your identity and he thinks it is great fun to try and hack into your computer and screw it up completely.
He is a very busy Gingerbread Man, always scurrying around on his thin gingerbread feet that sometimes threaten to break off. He goes from one phone or computer to another, conducting business. He has a large staff of subservient gingerbread men to do his bidding and he tries to cheat them out of most of their salary. He lives in a gingerbread house down by the water (very fancy) with his staff of gingerbread servants and employees. He has a sixteen foot high iron fence (with razor wire on top) all around his property and, of course, a state of the art alarm system with a control center full of television screens that show every square inch of his property. He even has armed bodyguards. Even so, he has been assassinated seventeen times, but all he has to do is apply fresh gingerbread dough over the bullet holes and re-bake himself And he’s fine again.
Recently the only time that you could ever see the Gingerbread Man was at night or in the early morning darkness, but by then you are no doubt fast asleep. That’s when he likes to stand over your bed in your fleabag apartment (the one he has reduced you to) with a knife and a gun stuck in his gingerbread hands. He likes to stand over you just because he knows he can. He could murder you at that time, of course, but then he wouldn’t be able to keep on bleeding you dry financially any longer or deceive you in some way or other, so he wouldn’t be able to have any more fun with you if he just murdered you off, would he?
An a.m. Lament
M. E. Mitchell
Every morning, before daylight intrudes on solemn thoughts, I set the racing equipment outside each horse’s stall and recall a time when my body could withstand winter’s subzero temperatures or the blistering heat of a July afternoon. Self-medication dulls the physical pain a bit, but I just haven’t hit upon the right concoction that will ease the disquiet in my head.
I find myself peering down a dimly lit shedrow, hoping to see familiar faces emerge from the shadows to greet me with an ebullient hello or doff of the cap. Dawn arrives with its companion reality and reminds me the pleasant images I seek are long gone, absentees because of forced retirement and death. The once tender waltz fades to a Dance Macabre. I toast the event with rum-laced coffee while a verse from my ancient youth comes to mind: I’ve taken you by the hand, for you must come to my dance. How does the rest of it go? Too bad I got stinking drunk that day and tossed all my textbooks in the dumpster or I’d be able to look it up.
As I post the training schedule on the chalkboard, the help begins stumbling in. They are a dispassionate lot, interested only in collecting a paycheck so they can hand it over to the clerk behind the betting window. They curse the work, curse the long hours, curse their four-legged charges, and curse me. My boss has this stupid idea that any groom in the stall is better than none, so my hands are tied when it comes to firing anybody. Horsemanship has taken a back seat to appeasement these days.
I chastise one of the help for screaming at a filly that is reluctant to get up from its lush straw bedding, then instruct him to tack up another horse instead. Walking away, I hear the words “old bitch” sandwiched between other choice expletives.
I say nothing and return to hollow
duties until the time comes to comply, for you must come to my dance.
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