Aiko and Hiroki shared the same first memory. When they were three, he wanted to play with her wind-up mechanical rabbit who wore a colorful suit and stood on hind legs. The young friends became inseparable. In the quiet village, their bedrooms faced each other across a narrow alleyway, so close that either child could wake in the night and hear the other breathe.

Over the next eleven years, their toys shifted from innocent curiosities to tanks and fighter planes, yet their make-believe world included only playful scenes because peace was all they knew.

In June of 1944, with the rest of the world at war, the youngsters didn’t fear. Their Emperor would protect them. And Saipan, their beautiful green island at the edge of the Philippine Sea, was impenetrable.

But those lies were shattered the night Americans introduced themselves with heavy artillery before coming ashore and burning soldiers in caves, bunkers, and pillboxes.

Surrender meant dishonor, each American death equaled victory for the Emperor, so the Japanese commander decreed any civilian still alive must participate in a suicide raid, pitting bamboo spears against howitzers and machine guns.

Without words, Hiroki and Aiko agreed to neither surrender nor kill. Instead, they held hands and love guided them away from the hostilities. Through the night, they raced across fields and beneath a canopy of trees. Mud from an unseen puddle found its way into Aiko’s shoes. The squishing sound betrayed weakness, yet she kept running. Sweaty hands embarrassed Hiroki but he would not let go. They fought exhaustion and continued toward the northern cliffs, believing their souls would release a blinding flash as their bodies burst upon rocks below.

But a shouting soldier stood in their way, his foreign uniform visible through the darkness. They’d heard Americans raped and ate whoever they captured, yet this unarmed man looked weak, tired, and small. His unintelligible voice lacked hope.

Unwavering in their rebellious desire to die in an act of pure love, Aiko and Hiroki ran toward the soldier. They instinctively released hands and rushed in opposite directions around him. While the American hesitated, not knowing whom to pursue, Hiroki dried his palm on his pants and Aiko kicked off her shoes without missing a step. At the cliff they rejoined hands and made a spectacular leap. Supported by trust and love, they hovered in mid-air, became one with open sky, until gravity intervened.

Though mortally wounded, both survived the fall, cushioned by the soft tissue of hundreds who plunged before them.

Disheartened by the absence of flashing light, they took their last breath together, under a deep blue predawn sky, and watched silhouettes of islanders fall like hail.

The ardent young couple became two brushstrokes in a macabre canvas of eight thousand bodies. Each hoped their death held meaning. Some leapt for love, others out of fear. Scores refused to kill and many succumbed to outlandish propaganda. The rest dreaded capture before they could take their own lives.

Yet the baffled invaders understood nothing. The meek American soldier, who’d begged Aiko and Hiroki not to jump, couldn’t comprehend the horror, meanwhile the generals barely shook their heads before congratulating themselves and plotting their next step toward atomic victory.

THE END

Originally published in Firewords (UK). February 10, 2020.

You can also watch my video reading of this story on my YouTube page.

Note: This flash fiction accurately depicts real events. I visited this island and these cliffs in 2009. Below are some photos from that visit. The locals jumped off several different cliffs and memorials abound.

At low tide, mighty Atlantic waves crash onto the sheltered beach where fifty physically fit, unclothed youths lounge in brilliant sunshine, enjoying a pristine and elemental paradise: nothing but rock, water, and a two hundred metre stretch of sand the ocean pummeled from surrounding cliffs over the centuries.

The beach will vanish at high tide.

Not far south, a lone traveller photographs Europe’s most westerly point. On a whim, he wanders a rugged trail hugging the coastline, atop the dramatic ridge. The hilly, uneven ground tires him but he rambles onward, drawn by natural beauty. Arriving at a remote, improvised parking lot, filled with two dozen dusty mopeds, jeeps, and compact cars, he guesses the owners must be at a beach below, so he tracks a faint, steep trail to the golden sand.

A faded wooden sign lies in the scrub, its post rotted. An amateurishly painted yellow bikini and blue speedo hover inside a red circle with a slash drawn through. For the first time, the lone traveller, the only single person on the beach, notices bare skin. Two couples are pale, ignorant tourists like himself but the rest are dark, olive-complexioned locals who understand and accept the beach’s capricious nature.

Undressing, the wanderer reads that Praia da Ursa translates into Bear Beach, named for an eroding, one-hundred-metre-high, white and grey rock formation. Looking north, he notes a vague resemblance but guesses most of the stone face collapsed into the waves long ago. Similar limestone stacks abound, with precipices so bold and striking even seagulls – who must find aerial views humdrummingly mundane – are awed by the vistas as they soar above the cliff.

Using board shorts as a beach towel, he sits, longing to blend in.

Offshore, patient fishermen in black swimsuits stand on smaller stacks of dark, reddish-brown rocks to the south. Resembling bronze statues, their long tendril-like fishing rods rise and dip but no other signs of activity or success are evident.

It is Thursday. On another continent, lurk the lone traveller’s stalled marketing career, dusty apartment, and friends and loved ones, who gradually forget him, memory by memory, as the days pass. Yet his feet remain planted in the sand, in carefree solidarity with this exclusive club of unemployed romantics. He envies their confident laziness. They simply exist, effortlessly merging with their surroundings, disappearing into them – unlike the cocky, restless, and oblivious surfers dominating the waves from Guincho to the mouth of the Tejo River.

As the sun drifts farther out to sea, the beach grows narrower. Idlers barely notice the changing tide until a brazen wave soaks a few towels laid out on formerly bone-dry sand. A half-dozen people shift their basking selves closer to the rocky bluff and resume their recumbent posture. The rest merely judge the distance from their toes to the high-water mark. Feeling confident enough to flip over, they wipe sand and salt off their legs, bury their faces in enfolded arms and drift back to sleep.

Only three brave souls attempt swimming. Several wade up to their knees but a rogue wave inevitably reaches up and slaps their bodies, full length. Some laughing, some panicking, they jump to escape the ocean’s fury. Flung without mercy through the air, they find themselves deposited flat on the beach as foamy white surf drains away behind them.

The tide pushes sunbathers higher along the gently sloping seashore, where they find rocks and boulders large enough to lie upon. Solid surfaces make their bodies appear fatter, heavier. No one thinks of leaving but everyone becomes possessive of diminishing territory. Proximity makes them conscious their conversations can be overheard, flaws and body hair more visible, exposed private parts more vulnerable.

The sun recedes and the temperamental ocean rises. The last couple abandons the sand and climbs onto the jam-packed rookery. Spray from crashing waves dampens the clustered bodies. Nerves fray. Aggression bubbles to the surface. Lines are drawn, teeth are bared. Fur rises on the backs of necks as the largest member of the pod grows more vocal. Barking, heard at the periphery, spreads like a ripple across the undulating mass. Their domain shrinking, they wail louder and howl at the sky, heads bobbing for dramatic effect.

Wind increases and temperatures cool as the sun flirts with surrender to the sea. Blue horizon fades to pink and orange as the ocean darkens. The largest bull in the colony chases a foreign couple off the rocks and continues the assault until they scurry up the hillside. Swinging his fat neck, he turns his attention to the solo outsider. Snarling, shoving, the aggressor tries to bite.

It isn’t worth the fight. The lone traveller grudgingly heaves his blubbery body to the edge of the rock and rolls off. Splashing into the sea, he swims, liberated but ravenous after a long day of lounging. Determined, he dives deeper, seeking the nearest prey. He thinks, I’ve got to catch those sardines before the fishermen do.

THE END

Originally published in Levee Review (USA). Issue 1. November 30, 2018.

Also published in To Be or Not To Be a Writer (USA). January 28, 2021.

I knew him less than twenty-four hours. But when he died, fifteen years later, I considered him a friend.

The night we met, he had the nerve to tell me, “You’re trying too hard.”

My right eyebrow leapt halfway up my forehead. “Excuse me?” I was in a small but crowded hotel bar on the Greek island of Syros, ordering a second round of drinks for some women in the corner. Beside me, on a stool, sat a short, dark-haired man with sun-drenched skin.

“They’re backpackers. They seek adventure, not potential husbands.” Clipped sentences were the best anyone could do above blaring speakers. “You’re bragging about law school. They won’t remember who studied where. Or who bought drinks. They’ll remember who had the cojones to dance with them.”

He had a point. “Maybe. Puts me at a disadvantage, though. I can’t dance.”

“Madre Mia. Everyone can dance.”

He dismissed my helpless shrug, told me to forget the drinks, and led me to the quieter, cooler terrace. A dozen hotel guests, talking and drinking beer, occupied tables and chairs beneath a sloped white awning. Some sat on stools at the long counter, watching reflections of city light shimmer across the bay.

“I’m Joran, from Mexico. I’ll teach you moves any white boy can do.”

His smile reflected innocence. I was intrigued rather than offended.

“Can you shop?” he asked.

“What?” That eyebrow again.

“Show me how you push a cart.”

I played along and extended my arms, elbows slightly bent.

“Now to the beat.” Joran balled his fists and reached out. His voice changed to song. “And shop. And shop.” He bounced to the music coming from inside the hotel. “Top shelf on the left.” He acted each line. “And put it in the cart.”

I followed. Keeping one arm steady, I raised the other and reached for an imaginary overhead item, then dropped it in the pretend cart.

“Now, top shelf on the right. And put it in the cart. And shop. And shop.”

Long aisles of boxed cereals, jarred sauces, and canned vegetables materialized around us.

Joran kept bouncing, every reach was a dramatic flourish until his hands returned to the tubular handle of the make-believe cart. “And shop and shop and shop,” he continued singing, pushing, and selecting groceries.

Three backpackers on the terrace stared and laughed. Joran’s moves looked absurd until I peered through the windows and noticed the dance steps, the ones everyone inside the bar had been doing all night, weren’t so different from those Joran had just taught me. His were funnier but no less graceful or rhythmic.

“Now sprinkler.” Joran put the palm of his right hand behind his head and pointed the other arm in the same direction as his right elbow. “And sprinkler. And sprinkler.” Pumping with his bent arm, he watched the fingers on his left hand sweep in a steady arc. Joran twisted his upper body as far as he could without shifting his feet, then stopped pumping.

“And back. Dft-dft-dft-dft-dft-dft-dft.” Lips vibrating to the sound, his head bobbled. In one fluid motion, his left arm swung back to where it started.

I conjured a lush green lawn, dappled with sunlight. A thick stream of water pulsed through the air. A rainbow hovered in the mist. When I tried the move, three hotel guests accompanied me, ‘sprinklering’ in unison.

Next came manual lawnmowers. Joran reached low and across with one hand, then pulled back to shoulder height. Every movement seemed real and mundane, yet closely echoed the confident gyrations of those on the dance floor.

The remaining travellers on the patio moved aside tables and chairs to join us. A slight breeze drifted past. Joran’s soothing voice, filled with laughter, marshalled us in time. “And start the mower. And start the mower. And shop. And shop. And shop and shop and shop. Now sprinkler. Now sprinkler. And back. Dft-dft-dft-dft-dft-dft-dft.”

Our circle expanded as more joiners emerged from the bar, including the women whose drinks I’d meant to buy.

Joran declared us ready for Window Washer, Forward Thrust, and Booty Slap, which we easily perfected. If I’d known dancing could be so easy, I’d have avoided many awkward moments in darkened high school gymnasiums.

“A few more beers and you’ll figure out Nipple Rub and Helicopter Shirt on your own. ¡Ándale!” Joran led his followers inside. “This is how they’ll remember you, amigo,” he said to me as we stepped onto the dance floor, which we dominated for the rest of the evening.

Most guests at Hotel Chorós woke late the next morning. Tourist season was ending and many backpackers planned on catching the four o’clock ferry to Athens. Because our rooms had to be vacated by midday, nearly two dozen travellers gathered on the terrace after checkout. Many were bored, some stared across the bay, others revised or reconfirmed travel plans. Maps and guidebooks rustled; laptops and cell phones glowed.

With the bar closed until evening, no one had anything to drink except tap water in reused plastic bottles – until I burst onto the scene, carrying a case of Amstel. “I had to bribe the cleaning woman but beer is now being served.” I set the case on a wood-slatted table and ripped the cardboard open.

My friends cheered – but we lacked a bottle opener. Again, I sought the custodian but she’d disappeared and the storeroom was locked. On the terrace, several people rifled through their backpacks, conducting a futile search.

Joran arrived, his smile as bright as it was the night before. Hair slicked back, he wore white pants and a light grey, button-down shirt with pink palm trees. “I may have a solution.”

Removing his pack, Joran took a beer from me, then another from the case. Inverting one beverage, he wedged one cap under the pleated edge of the other and flicked his wrist. The upside-down Amstel remained intact, while a trace of mist seeped from the upright spout. Its cap bounced on the floor.

Though I’d tried the technique before, I’d never mastered it. An Australian asked, “What happens when you’re down to the last one?”

“Amigo, look this way.” Joran took three steps to the low stone wall separating terrace and sea. Against the edge, he hooked the cap of his remaining beer and smacked the top. With a satisfying clink, the cap fell onto the beige ceramic tile.

Joran handed both beverages to the closest adventurers, then scanned the rest of the group. “Más cerveza, por favor,” he gestured with upturned hands. “Keep them coming.”

The same Aussie asked, “How many ways can you open a beer?”

“I never counted.”

“Let’s see if you can open each one a different way.”

Joran pointed at the Aussie. “I accept your challenge.”

Over the next ten minutes, caps accumulated on the floor. The smiling Mexican opened one by wedging it into the doorjamb and closing the door. A fork was also used, then a knife, wedding band, coin, key, belt buckle – even the prongs from a North American computer plug. Each time, the same flick of the wrist sent a bottle top rolling across the tiles.

For the final Amstel, Joran asked if anyone had a twenty Euro note. I reached for my wallet. “As long as I get it back,” I said, before handing it over.

“Of course, señor.” Joran folded the bill in half, rolled it tight, then folded it again to make a v-shaped wedge. There was just enough strength in the compressed paper to pry the metal cap free.

Everyone applauded, thrilled to have cold lager on a hot day – our final day of an amazing summer on the Greek islands.

Joran sipped his beverage and returned my money. “A shame there is no more beer. Once I opened a Corona using my eye socket.”

I believed him.

That afternoon, I learned Joran came from a wealthy family but had no interest in their textile business. “My goal is to never stop travelling,” he said.

His next destination was Crete, the opposite direction from the rest of us. At the port, his ferry loaded and departed before ours arrived. As the boat pulled away, Joran appeared on the upper deck. Leaning against the rail, he waved across the water.

“Joran deserves a salute,” I said to those waiting with me. “Drop your backpacks. It’s time to dance.”

Everyone followed my lead as I sang Joran’s song. “Start the mower. And start the mower. And shop. And shop. And shop and shop and shop.” Standing in a long line at the edge of the crowded pier, we glided through the choreography. “Now sprinkler. Now sprinkler. And back. Dft-dft-dft-dft-dft-dft-dft. Window wash, and squeegee. Nipple rub, and thrust. Take off your shirt and twirl it in the air.”

While we danced, in the steps he taught us, Joran roared with laughter. We were in hysterics as well. Some locals looked away, some smirked, others scowled with disgust. We didn’t care.

I never saw him again but we stayed in touch. Countless pictures emerged online of Joran in various bars, never the same place twice. Over time, a growing number of videos surfaced of people performing his dance moves. When they started trickling in, I’d forward each clip to Joran and recall our evening on that sultry terrace. My friend often claimed to recognize the dancers.

Recently, Joran was among twelve Mexican tourists killed in Egypt’s Western Desert. Army officials mistook a convoy of jeeps for jihadists in a restricted zone and ordered an aerial strike.

The tour company later proved the group was in a ‘safe’ area, where they brought guests daily to photograph shifting sand.

Joran once said I would be remembered for my dance moves. Instead, that is his legacy. I hope that, before the Apache helicopters raced in, flying low over the dunes, Joran’s desert convoy stopped for a break and he had time to open a beer for everyone, using as many different methods as there were people gathered round.

I also hope he had time, there in the arid, windswept landscape, to teach his group to dance. They’d be unlikely lessons – in a desert – but I picture Joran, high on a sandy ridge, happy and uninhibited, leading a line of laughing travellers in the unforgettable dance moves he taught the world. “And shop. And shop. And shop and shop and shop. Now sprinkler. Now sprinkler. And back. Dft-dft-dft-dft . . .”

THE END

Originally published in Pulp Literature (Canada). Issue 27. July 19, 2020.

This story was also a winner at the 2019 Eden Mills Writers’ Festival - Read at the Fringe Contest.

There is also a video reading of this story:

Gwen is one hundred and twenty feet above the swift flowing Twelve Mile Creek when the train whistle blows. It rattles her bones and echoes across the valley. She turns. The steam engine has crossed Glenridge Avenue and is headed her way. The single-track bridge is eight hundred feet long and rests on two supporting piers. She’s closer to the Glenridge side but can’t fathom running toward the train. She grabs her older brother’s hand and yanks him in the opposite direction.

He resists. “It’s nothing. Don’t panic.”

“You’ll get us both killed,” she screams and tugs harder.

He doesn’t budge.

Gwen wonders how fast she can run on railway ties without tripping. She considers jumping into the shallow creek. It would be suicide but so is standing still.

“Don’t worry. I know what to do,” Harry says.

It’s the summer of 1929. Gwen and Harry cross this bridge every day at noon to pick fruit at Horton’s farm. The shortcut shaves thirty-five minutes off their travel time, each way.

Harry has memorized the passenger train timetables but this must be an unscheduled freight run. He also knows the trick of putting an ear to the rail and listening for vibrations but, as an invincible twelve-year-old, hasn’t bothered.

Every sibling contributes to the family finances but Gwen’s five sisters fear the bridge, so they work closer to home. They sew, teach, wash dishes, and do laundry without the slightest threat of dismemberment or annihilation.

Dampness builds in Gwen’s armpits, behind her knees, and between her toes.

“It’ll pass right over us if we lie on the tracks.”

It’s the most ridiculous thing Gwen has ever heard.

The whistle sounds again. Longer, this time. The locomotive is on the bridge. She can feel the vibration in her knees. In her teeth.

“Just get down.” Harry makes his sister kneel, then flattens her, face first.

She covers her head with her hands.

“That won’t protect you. It only raises your profile. Keep your hands at your side.”

Gwen obeys. Her eyes water.

“I’ll be in front. The train will roll over me first. You’ll see how safe it is.” He adds, “It’s fun.”

A bead of water rolls down Gwen’s nose, hangs for a moment, then falls. She loses sight of the droplet before it splashes into the creek. Her body shakes. Noise builds. Rumbling, whirring, and grinding. A screech of gears. Metal on metal.

She expects to hear Harry scream and crunch. She imagines the train impacting her skull, snapping her neck. Her whole body is wet.

Everything is so loud, she assumes the train is on top of her but is afraid to look. Far below, shadows form a pattern of alternating light and dark stripes, caused by sunlight streaming between closely spaced railway ties. She spots her own darkened form, then her brother’s. The long, shaded streak of the massive train hungrily consumes the last few slats of light in front of him.

Gwen raises her eyes and sees Harry on his back, feet facing the train. She’s an arm’s length from his wavy brown locks. Elbows tucked neatly within the rails, his hands are beneath his head, as though he’s lazing on a grassy hill, watching clouds pass.

His head moves. Perhaps he’s nodded and winked at the engineer.

Gwen ducks in terror as shadow covers her brother. Rails dip and air currents shift as she goes under. She smells oil. Fluids exit her body and rain upon the valley. She trembles, cries, and prays.

The rumble of boxcars is endless. Wood pulsates beneath her and numbs her body as the wheels swoosh with demonic rhythm. Gwen fears a low-hanging section of undercarriage will strike and crumple her. Wanting to scream, she disgorges her lunch instead. Wind carries it to the western riverbank.

When the song of steel loses tempo, Gwen knows the train is slowing. She registers a human voice, mid-sentence, saying something about the locomotive reaching the station. It’s her brother. She wonders how long he’s been speaking.

“Might be late for work if it stops on top of us.”

Summoning courage, Gwen raises her head. Her brother is still lounging on the tracks. He unfolds one arm until two fingertips graze the bottom of the train and are blackened. He rubs away thick dirt or dark oil with his thumb, before retucking the hand beneath his head.

He sings and tells the world he’s been working on the railroad.

Harry reaches the second verse before Gwen sees a glimmer of sunlight, marking the end of the train. It illuminates Harry’s boots, his face, and then liberates her with its warmth. The music fades, her brother’s song ends. Her legs shake when he helps her up.

“You’re soaking wet, girl. I told you there was nothing to be afraid of.”

Although she adores her older brother, Gwen is infuriated by his fearlessness.

That same fearlessness leads Harry to enlist with the Royal Air Force, in 1940, and takes him overseas for training.

For the rest of her life, well into her nineties, Gwen pictures him, wounded in the Battle of Britain, parachuting over the English Channel as his plane breaks apart. Hands behind his head, he sings about the white cliffs of Dover. Drifting downward, he reaches for England, notices blood on his fingertips and wipes it with his thumb. Harry keeps singing until he splashes into the frigid water – and bleeds to death.

THE END

Originally published in Existere (Canada). January 18, 2022.

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On that sunny, summer afternoon when I should have died, I was eleven, almost twelve, and about to start seventh grade at junior high. In other words, I was old enough to know better.

In July, a classmate introduced me to a public-school kid named Mark. Both boys cut grass for their neighbour, Don Zanetti, who paid them five dollars an hour – a lot of money in those days. He could afford it. The subdivision where they lived had been Zanetti’s vineyard until he sold everything except two acres overlooking Martindale Pond.

One evening Mark stayed late to finish cutting grass, so Zanetti gave him twenty dollars and told him to split it with the other boy. Since Mark did more work, he kept fifteen and a fight started when he handed over the remaining five. I thought he was being fair but his mistake was mentioning how much he kept for himself.

Because I sided with Mark, I was his best friend once the fight was over. Neither of us spoke to the other boy again. From then on, Mark cut grass alone.

“Want to go fishing with me?”

I agreed, thinking my new friend meant at the lake but Mark had permission to fish on the pond behind Zanetti’s house. He needed baby minnows to feed his oscars, two large, brown and orange fish kept in an aquarium in Mark’s bedroom.

Early one morning, we met at Mark’s house. He handed me a large white bucket, while he carried an old broomstick with a dented strainer tied to one end. Setting off, we turned at the corner and cut through the estate. Pear trees shaded the long driveway and grape vines clung to the fences.

Between the house and garage, a grassy slope led to the water’s edge. Branches from a willow tree blanketed the flat roof of a small, unpainted, wooden boathouse that never contained any boats. In fact, the only “boats” in sight were rowing shells from Henley Island, quite a distance away.

The minnow’s tiny, translucent bodies were almost invisible. Crouching, we stared into brownish-green water until their minute black eyes gave them away. Once they came into focus, hundreds of miniscule fish appeared, zigzagging in unison as though their movements were meticulously choreographed.

Filling the bucket with pond water caught half a dozen fish but the strainer was more effective. Mark slipped it below the surface, frightening the skittish minnows away, and held it steady until they returned. With a quick jerk the strainer was in the air, looking empty, until he banged it against the rim of the bucket. Dozens of little black eyes appeared. Within twenty minutes we had enough minnows to feed Mark’s oscars for a week.

According to Mark, the pond was filled with bigger fish. “Real fish,” he called them. Carp, catfish, trout. He said we could catch them with make-shift fishing rods, so we found line and hooks in a tackle box in Mark’s garage and picked two long sticks off the ground by the shoreline.

Worms abounded near the boathouse. Mark plucked a fat, slimy one and impaled it, twice, on his fishhook. “That’s to be sure it won’t fall off.”

I speared a worm crawling on the ground and tried piercing its wiggling form again but it was too quick. Squeamish, unwilling to touch it, I figured that would have to do.

Climbing onto the boathouse roof, we brushed away willow branches and sat at the far end, dangling our legs over the edge. For an uneventful half hour, we waited in the heat, staring into murky water, then gave up and never tried again.

I’m not sure who thought of it but we began making daily trips to the Avondale variety store on Ontario Street. We bought E.B. Eddy wooden matchsticks. Thirty per box. Or maybe fifty. With the matches, we built miniature log cabins inside the boathouse, then set them aflame to watch them burn. Twenty seconds later they were charred ruins. Brushing these into the water left a smear of ash across our palms and the boathouse floor.

Good value for five cents.

Soon we were buying matches by the carton – which was cheaper. Our log houses grew taller and more complex. I came up with the idea of adding a lean-to and Mark tried an overhanging porch roof, supported by matchstick columns. The simple, square houses blackened and shrank as they burned but the overhangs collapsed and broke away, increasing the devastation.

By day’s end, the boathouse smelled like burnt seaweed and our hair reeked of smoke. My parents probably thought I’d taken up cigarettes.

Later, we started playing in Zanetti’s hot, stuffy garage. The roll-up door was closed but the smaller, hinged door didn’t lock. Nothing but junk was inside – no car, just scraps of wood, the lawnmower, assorted tools, broken furniture, and a headless, limbless, greenish-blue dressmaker’s dummy, which I particularly remember because her breasts were the first I ever touched. Mark suggested it, so I tentatively caressed the swell of her bosom.

“Not like that, you pansy.” Mark clawed her left breast as though tearing meat from a roast pig. Unsatisfied, he pushed her to the ground, claiming real women were softer. I believed him but suspected they’d prefer a gentler touch.

The plastic gas can sat in a corner, beside a stackable metal chair with a bent leg. Less than half full, it was red with a black cap and long yellow spout. This, not the dressmaker’s dummy, was our reason for entering the garage.

Mark poured gas on the concrete floor, making a wet spot the diameter of a softball. When he threw a lit match, the fluid burst into flame, blue at the bottom, orange at the top. The smoke was black and brown.

The pure, pungent odour of gasoline permeated the air, settling into our hair and clothes. It was an intoxicant, yet the sound appealed most. Pwoofff. Loud and sudden. We were surprised it made any noise at all.

Gasoline-soaked circles grew larger – the diameter of a Frisbee, a basketball, a beach ball. Flames grew higher, hotter, brighter. The pwoofff got louder.

After the fires burned they left rings on the floor, slightly darker than the rest of the concrete – almost invisible unless you knew they were there. Unlike minnows, no little black eyes gave them away.

We never burned the same place twice. Mark’s idea. He believed we were doing Zanetti a favour by igniting a flame over every inch of concrete.

“This cleans the floor,” he explained, wiping sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. “It burns off all the dust and crap.”

“Right,” I said, pretending I’d known all along.

To keep the novelty from wearing thin, we became more daring. Mark sat in one corner soaking matches in fuel, while I splashed a hula hoop-sized pool of gasoline and set it alight.

In a move of staggering stupidity, I lifted the canister above the blaze, tilted it and poured some more. Stepping back to avoid the burst of light and heat, I looked at the gas can and noticed a line of flame had climbed the liquid stream, or maybe the fire leapt that high – I couldn’t be sure – but the yellow nozzle was burning. Astonished, my instinct was to blow but the tiny flame persisted.

In that moment of terror, time stood still as thought impulses flashed like lightning through my brain. I knew what must happen, and saw it in a millisecond, though it scrolled by with casual determination, showing me the horror as it would’ve appeared outside the garage.

On a quiet, sunny day, a small cinder block building with a green, shallow-pitched roof is rocked by an explosion as a ball of fire – black, red, orange and loud – erupts through the open door. Two figures emerge, their human forms barely recognizable beneath coats of flame. Running, they cross the pavement. One stumbles and rolls beneath a pear tree but is still ablaze when movement stops. The other runs downhill, toward the pond, collapsing halfway there. At regular intervals behind the body, burning patches show where footsteps set fire to dry grass.

Miraculously, that vision never materialized. By some fateful mystery, I was granted time to blow again, hard as I could. The flame went out. Instead of dying, I stood there, shaking, sweating, staring at the nozzle, wondering why there’d been no sudden blast.

But what could I have known when I was eleven, almost twelve? Not to play with gasoline, for one thing. But that was all. I was as ignorant of death as I was of life.

THE END

Originally published in The Lindenwood Review (US). May 1, 2019.

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Maybe one day I’ll have a clearer purpose for this Substack but, right now, I’m thinking about all those great stories - of mine - that I’ve published in print-only journals, or with online publications that are now defunct, that I’d love for people to be able to read. Sure, there are many journals (like Doric Literary, for example) that publish reprints but I’d rather just put the stories where there is a chance a reader might find them, read them, & love (or at least like) them as much as I do.