Could John Donne Bat .300?
The other day a friend grabbed a dog-eared collection of John Donne’s poetry – a 30-year-old graduate school relic – tucked into my bookcase. My late professor, a leading scholar of metaphysical poetry and an acclaimed published poet himself, had written the book’s authoritative introduction. Yet all that remains with me is his passion for playing slow-pitch softball, something he often weaved into his Donne lectures. One semester he batted over .600.
My friend, looking up from the pages, asked: “You’ve kept it ever since?”
“Yup,” I said. “That and a profound longing to feel – about anything – like he did about softball.”
Bing Miller is a public high school English teacher who, in a previous life, worked as a daily newspaper reporter. Lately he's been trying his hand writing flash. This is his first piece of published writing since his newspaper heyday in the 1990s.
The Imp of the Perverse
This is excerpted from a longer version of the story, first published in 1845.
For weeks, for months, I pondered upon the means of the murder. I rejected a thousand schemes, because their accomplishment involved a chance of detection. At length, I found an account of a nearly fatal illness that occurred to Madame Pilau, through the agency of a candle accidentally poisoned. The idea struck my fancy at once. I knew my victim's habit of reading in bed. I knew, too, that his apartment was narrow and ill-ventilated. I need not describe the easy artifices by which I substituted, in his bed-room candle-stand, a wax-light of my own making for the one which I there found. The next morning he was discovered dead in his bed, and the Coroner's verdict was -- "Death by the visitation of God."
Having inherited his estate, all went well with me for years. The idea of detection never once entered my brain. I had left no shadow of a clew by which it would be possible to convict, or even to suspect me of the crime. It is inconceivable how rich a sentiment of satisfaction arose in my bosom as I reflected upon my absolute security. For a very long period of time I was accustomed to revel in this sentiment. It afforded me more real delight than all the mere worldly advantages accruing from my sin. But there arrived at length an epoch, from which the pleasurable feeling grew, by scarcely perceptible gradations, into a haunting and harassing thought. I could scarcely get rid of it for an instant. It is quite a common thing to be thus annoyed with the ringing in our ears, or rather in our memories, of the burthen of some ordinary song, or some unimpressive snatches from an opera. Nor will we be the less tormented if the song in itself be good. In this manner, at last, I would perpetually catch myself pondering upon my security, and repeating, in a low undertone, the phrase, "I am safe."
One day, whilst sauntering along the streets, I arrested myself in the act of murmuring, half aloud, these customary syllables. In a fit of petulance, I remodeled them thus; "I am safe -- I am safe -- yes -- if I be not fool enough to make open confession!"
No sooner had I spoken these words, than I felt an icy chill creep to my heart. I had had some experience in these fits of perversity, and I remembered well that in no instance I had successfully resisted their attacks. And now my own casual self-suggestion that I might possibly be fool enough to confess the murder confronted me, as if the very ghost of him whom I had murdered -- and beckoned me on to death.
At first, I made an effort to shake off this nightmare of the soul. I walked vigorously -- faster -- still faster -- at length I ran. I felt a maddening desire to shriek aloud. Every succeeding wave of thought overwhelmed me with new terror, for, alas! I well, too well understood that to think, in my situation, was to be lost. I bounded like a madman through the crowded thoroughfares. At length, the populace took the alarm, and pursued me. I felt then the consummation of my fate. Could I have torn out my tongue, I would have done it, but a rough voice resounded in my ears -- a rougher grasp seized me by the shoulder. I turned -- I gasped for breath. For a moment I experienced all the pangs of suffocation; I became blind, and deaf, and giddy; and then some invisible fiend, I thought, struck me with his broad palm upon the back. The long imprisoned secret burst forth from my soul.
Having related all that was necessary for the fullest judicial conviction, I fell prostrate in a swoon.
But why shall I say more? To-day I wear these chains, and am here! To-morrow I shall be fetterless! -- but where?
Edgar Allan Poe (1809 – 1849) was an American writer, poet, editor, and literary critic who is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales involving mystery and the macabre. He is widely regarded as one of the central figures of Romanticism and Gothic fiction in the United States and of early American literature. (Biography borrowed from Wikipedia.)
Baby Blue
Bella’s snores spoke to the hospital walls – murmuring a language of anguish. I struggled to comprehend.
Finally, she can sleep.
Five hours of labor. I waited with her. I mopped her forehead with a clean washcloth. I held her hand; her grip was as forceful as a pipe wrench.
“Her cervix is dilating,” the nurse said. She turned to her assistant. “Call in Dr. Sales.
Bella bellowed boisterously.
I stared at the fent between her legs, her vagina, the spot I devoured and caressed, was bulging and red. Her lips were swollen and bloody. Nausea tightened its fingers around my throat, stifling back the sourness mounting from my stomach.
The crown of the baby’s head emerged.
My mind raced to Dolly, my Brown Swiss. Only four months ago, I watched her push her calf out. It landed on the ground, covered in jelly. A coppery scent filled the air. I grabbed a clean towel and wiped the membrane from its nose and mouth. Its eyes blinked back at me. He was the ninth in my herd. The veterinary check was A-OK.
Bigger now, Dolly’s calf had a tuft of hair, a cowlick, that sprang up between his ears. It made me chuckle.
“PUSH!” the nurse screeched at Bella.
I tightened my intestines and pushed along with her.
A boy! My heart exploded.
Then my gut petrified.
Blue.
The baby was blue.
The doctor whisked him from the room.
“Bastien!” Bella howled at me.
My heart pounded, a stampede stomped across my body.
Bella shook. The bed shook. I jumped to her and held her shoulders.
Bella’s sobs, violent at first, subsided to raspy whimpers. Her eyes blinked up at me. I swept a drenched lock of hair off her forehead with a washcloth.
Neither of us spoke, as if the question tumbling around behind our tight lips would become real if it took a breath.
I thought about Dolly’s calf, number 9. I had parked him with his brothers in a Sorghum field when Bella first went into labor.
Did I fill the water trough? It’d been beastly hot lately. They’d need water soon.
Dr. Sales walked in.
I sucked in all the air my lungs could hold.
He pulled off his scrub cap and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand.
“He’s going to be okay,” he said.
Bella squeaked.
My breath escaped.
“He needed oxygen, but he is breathing on his own now.” Doctor Sales’ eyes were glassy. “We are going to monitor him for a few hours; you should use this time to rest.” He smiled at Bella.
I held Bella’s hand until her snores entered a private conversation with the walls.
I let her sleep. I had to get back to the farm.
What day is this? September 8. I pictured birthday cakes, balloons, and children’s laughter.
Two round, brown eyes.
I looked at my watch.
The livestock hauler was due in an hour.
My heart shrieked.
Lucy Carr Icard is an MFA student at Southern New Hampshire University. She has published short fiction in several literary magazines and she is working on her debut novel. Icard’s writing is influenced by her adulthood in France, her childhood in Maine, and her zealous imagination.
Third From the Sun
*CLICK*.
We have received your request for transfer based on your claim that we erred. We do not make errors. You requested assignment to the third planet from the sun. This is what we granted.
Correct, but not this sun.
You did not specify either the galaxy or its solar system in your petition.
Sorry. My bad. But these creatures are simply intolerable!
Is their crystalline refraction offensive in some way?
Not crystalline! They’re colloidal. Organic!
Are they not collective, then? Do they not grow by accretion? As do we?
Individualized. They grow by creating flawed copies of themselves. The means of their reproduction is too obscene to describe!
Oh, dear! Are they of good character? Have they threatened you in any way?
Their kindness is aspirational. They are motivated by competition to develop increasingly effective methods of self-destruction.
They destroy one another?
More of them regularly become extinct than survive. I beg you to reassign me before they achieve the final solution!
Your request has been approved. Do you still desire the third from the sun?
Yes. But a distant sun, please! In a galaxy far, far away!
Agreed.
*CLICK*
Ron Wetherington is a human, non-crystalline colloid in Dallas. He is a retired anthropologist, which should not be held against him. He has published stuff. Read some of his drivel and drabble at https://www.rwetheri.com/
Pepper
by Bethuel Merritt Newcomb
The following is from a biographical sketch of Captain Asahel Newcomb (1779-1862), published in 1923.
Capt. Newcomb had the reputation of being a practical joker. Upon one occasion, when away from home and in attendance at court, he took dinner with others at a public-house. The meat having been served, one of the men arose and, taking the pepper-box, plentifully sprinkled it, saying, “Gentlemen, I suppose you are all fond of pepper.” Capt. Newcomb, who disliked even the odor of pepper, immediately arose, and, taking his well-filled tobacco-box from his pocket, scattered its contents over both pepper and meat, remarking naively, “I suppose, gentlemen, you all like tobacco.”
Bethuel Merritt Newcomb (1848-1924) was a teacher and businessman who published a revised version of John Bearse Newcomb's history of the Newcomb family in America.
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