Janee: Fifteen Minutes Of Fiction

The Fable of Snow White and the Frog Prince

There was something about the fresh pine smell of the enchanted forest that made Snow White want to sing, and something about the way the sunlight streamed through the branches that made her want to dance.

It was a beautiful day, filled with that satisfying confidence that anything good could happen, and nothing bad could ever infringe on her contentment. So she sang. And she danced.

The dancing was quite short-lived, for the forest had very thick underbrush that caught at her feet, her ankles, and her skirts. Moments after her cheerful jig started, it ended with a whump!, and she landed face down in the prickly bushes.

Still, it was one of those days when anything good could happen, and Snow White had no intention of letting a couple small scratches and a bloody nose dampen her spirits. She wiped her face on the sleeve of her blouse and she laughed. Nothing would spoil this lovely day.

As she sat in a heap in the prickly bushes, laughing at her small misfortune, she heard a strange sound emanating from the bushes to her right. It sounded like snoring.

Curiously, she pushed the twigs and leaves aside, scoring four more scratches across her hands and arms, and searched out the source of the snoring sound.

It was a tiny little frog, fast asleep on a lump of sod, with his legs stretched out and his mouth wide open. But it was not just any frog. No, this little fellow in the thorn bushes was wearing a tiny, kingly crown upon his warty head.

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Poverty

Oh, the season of Christmas will serve to remind
That the Christ child was poorest of all of mankind;
For we honor his birth running hither and yon
And we shop till we drop and our money is gone.

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Lord, Haste the Day

Lord, haste the Day
When raindrops nevermore shall fall,
When sun and warmth will e'er endure,
And cloudless skies are bright and blue -
Forevermore.

Lord, haste the Day
That does not fear the midnight gloom,
Nor hides itself from shadows grim,
But stands against encroaching night -
Forevermore.

Lord, haste the Day
When hatred dies a thousand deaths,
And greed shall follow to the grave,
And every evil vice is gone -
Forevermore.

Lord, haste the Day
When Death himself at last falls prey
And gasps a final rattling breath,
Then falls into unending sleep -
Forevermore.

Lord, haste the Day
When gates of pearl and golden streets
Replace the dismal prison bars
And littered byways of this world -
Forevermore, and evermore.

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Rosita

When I awoke this morning, the tattered orange blanket covering our doorway was flapping madly in the bitter wind that blows down off Andes and across our sprawling, ugly neighborhood. Three of the children are sick this morning; they are lying on cots in one corner of our home while the others, wanting to stay warm, are huddled together in the corner furthest from the door.

Miguel is working for a bricklayer, but the work is unpredictable, and the pay is even more so. In this neighborhood, no one can afford a carpenter, and homes are constructed by pirating materials from vacant homes. Bricks, beams, sheet metal or tar paper to tack across rafters, and - for the lucky ones - a door or two.

Since there is no work here, Miguel's boss takes him over the long, dry plains to the big city where they will work for three weeks, possibly four or five. I don't know how long he will stay, but one day, when I have nearly given up hope of seeing him, I will hear him calling a farewell to his boss and then he will push aside that ratty blanket, and join us once again.

In the meantime, I do my best to comfort the children who are sick. The oldest one, Maresol, tries to smile when I speak to her, and the toothless gap on her upper gum makes her smile look weak, pathetic and unconvincing. Arturo is just a baby still, and when he is sick - which is more often than not - he doesn't yet know how to do or say anything but wail. The rest of us try to ignore the sound, but in a single room hovel that houses seven children, such things are not easily avoided.

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One or the Other

Coarse and wilted grass,
Dreary rain in endless streams -
We're never satisfied.

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Orcas and Sketchpads

The islanders live life in a different time flow from the rest of us. Time on the islands is measured by the grand sweep of the sun from east to west, rather than the more prosaic sweep of a clock's minute hand in a tiny circle. Life comes as it will, and the islanders care little for the steady march of time which propels and restricts the lives of those on the mainland.

At occasional intervals, however, the flow of time catches up with the islands. Those who are departing for the mainland or returning to the island are forced to come to terms with the precise, structured schedule of the ferry, which makes only a handful of runs per day.

Then, once the scurried activity of the ferry has ceased, time raises its white flag of surrender once more to the casual, almost whimsical schedule of island life.

Between the two of them, Sue and her mother - who were not islanders - had a combined understanding of the time flow of the islands. Sue, who had just finished a very relaxing, stress-free year of life in preschool, had a natural comprehension of the islands' carefree disregard for time. Laura worked a nine-to-five job as an administrative assistant in a local law firm, and lived by the perpetual, relentless ticking of one second following after another in stubborn progression.

On occasion their varied perspectives on time flow caused problems, and this morning was starting out to be one of those days.

Today was Sue's birthday, and she had announced several weeks before that she wanted to go to the lighthouse and marine museum on her birthday. There aren't many five year olds who think a day at a lighthouse and museum is a great birthday present, but Sue wasn't entirely usual. She had, a few months earlier, developed a strong fascination with all things nautical. Laura blamed this marine addiction on Sue's grandmother, who, last Christmas, had given her a stuffed orca puppet named Ollie, never realizing that this would instigate a flood of questions about the things that live in the ocean. "I have to know what to feed him," Sue had explained, perplexed at her mother's reluctance to answer the deluge of oceanic questions that faced her every day.

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Karen

Her name is Karen, and yesterday I kicked her out of the house.

I suppose, now that I think about it, that's actually the end of the story, which is not really the best place to begin. So let me start over.

Her name is Karen, and she is a short, middle aged woman, a bit stout around the middle, with crinkles at the corners of her eyes from years of squinting out of glasses that were not quite strong enough for her shortsighted eyes. She is, in almost every respect, quite the opposite of me. But in the one way that really matters, we are identical.

We share a brain.

Don't ask me how it happened. Well, okay, you can ask me, but you won't get a satisfactory answer. Not even the scientists, doctors, and psychic quacks can explain it. All we know is, it was a freak accident involving a chicken burrito, a neon sign that read, "Pawn Shop," and a large quantity of electric eels in a vat of seltzer water. And when it was all over, Karen and I had the same brain, filled with the same experiences and the same memories.

Having her own thoughts and memories replaced with mine made things a bit awkward for her; she really didn't feel comfortable returning home to a husband and family she didn't even know any more. It seemed only logical and compassionate for me to invite her to stay at my house until she got her life sorted out. After all, she was me, after a fashion. So she moved in that very same day.

Our first evening together was filled with awkward silences and uncomfortable glances, and occasional questions like, "How does it feel to be short?" or "Don't you wish you didn't have to wear those glasses?" These questions were usually answered with one or two words, and then we would lapse into silence again.

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Inheritance

To my eldest son I leave my sword and armor, bearing the magic charm of invincibility, with which you can defeat all the enemies of the realm, and provide safety and security for all our people.

To my second son I leave my land, and all the wealth of fertility it contains, with which you can provide not just for yourself, but also for those who suffer from the triple scourges of famine, disease, and destitution.

To my third son I leave my silver and my gold, the earthly possessions that have outlived me, with which you may finance great and noble undertakings.

To my youngest son, though you shall receive no sword, no armor, no land, and no wealth, I leave to you my most prized possessions: my honor, my integrity, and my compassion, with which you will surely change the world.

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Field Hockey

When little Sue was born, I was so excited. Dance and piano recitals, gymnastics competitions, soccer and field hockey games - these would all be so wonderful to experience for the first time as a grandparent.

Sometimes reality doesn't match expectations. Sometimes family life is a minefield waiting to destroy everything and everyone with emotional shrapnel.

As I walk onto the athletic fields, the first thing I look for is my son-in-law. Jerry was supposed to take both Sue and Micah on a three day camping trip during Labor Day weekend, but in the end he canceled those plans because his new girlfriend wanted him to go with her on some sort of trip to Baltimore that weekend. To make matters worse, Jerry is currently insisting that the kids need to be with him this weekend, even though (first of all) it's Laura's weekend, and (secondly) Sue has a school dance that she will have to miss if she spends the weekend with Jerry.

That means that this week Sue is declaring her eternal hatred for her father.

I scan the stands, looking for Jerry (all the while trying desperately to look as though I'm not looking for him), so I can be sure not to sit near him. I don't want to be guilty by association. Also, I'm really not interested in meeting the new Jerry-girl.

Once I've found him, sitting in the seventh row, next to the parking lot, I walk quickly by. I know that Laura, if she is here already, will be on the far end of the field. It's not a truce exactly, but an unspoken agreement that wherever one of them sits, the other will make their way to the extreme opposite end of things.

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Time and Eternity

When people start talking about chickens and eggs, and ask that age old question: Which came first?, the human brain begins spinning horribly out of control, imagining one generation following after another, which also follows after another, in a mind-numbing progression that never ends.

It's the same sort of brain freeze people get when they try to imagine an infinite God without beginning or end, or the cramps we get in our noggin when we try to conceive of a heavenly realm that lasts forever and ever and ever.

To be honest, there's only one thing that I find more mind-boggling than a universe that exists forever: one that doesn't.

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