October 2007

     From the Editor
     Submissions
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     Poetry by
           Julian Jason Haladyn
           Guadalupe Garcia McCall
           C.S. Reid
           Rob Taylor
           Paul A. Toth

     Fiction by
           Elena Kaufman
           Christopher Meades

     Artwork by
           Scott Malby
           Steve Bunyard




     Ian Rose, Editor
     Tom Corcoran, Assistant Editor
     Edie Ferlan, Assistant Editor

     Readers:
      Todd Heckler, Melanie Dempsey,
     and Paul Rabinowitz

The Rosalina Parlour
by Christopher Meades


     Brenda placed her hand on the old man’s shoulder. He looked good for his age, having maintained the muscular physique of a man 40 years his junior. Every single hair remained on his head. Even now it was combed as though he was going for a night out on the town. A silver fox out on the prowl. Brenda could see her breath in front of her face as she walked over to the little girl. She looked like one of the twins in the Shining, her body waif-like compared to her head. Her eye sockets were so round and defined, they could have been carved into her face with a chisel. Across the room was a woman of 28 years. She was beautiful, with almond brown skin, a button nose and slim, tight body. Brenda gazed down at the woman lying still on the metal table. She reached up and touched the scar across the left side of her own chest. Still fresh, her clothes didn’t allow it to breath. Brenda let go as though she’d touched something she wasn’t supposed to, and then turned to leave the room. Brenda reached deep within herself and forced out a frown. There were people to greet.

      “Hello,” Brenda said, extending her arm. “Thank you for choosing the Rosalina Funeral Parlour. My name is Brenda. I’m so sorry for your loss.” For an hour Brenda stood at the entrance of the funeral home, greeting the grieving on their way in. There were weary brothers and crying cousins, aunts who smelled like apricot perfume and uncles who betrayed the scent of Old Spice. A teenager wearing a Coldplay concert shirt had clearly forgotten to dress for the occasion. Brenda waited for them all to arrive then walked through the solemn lot, towards the coffin at the far end of the room. Lying there amongst the silk sheets was the old man from the back room. Hours ago, as the day began, Brenda had pulled his naked body from a refrigerator in the back and dressed him in the sharp pinstriped suit and red tie his family provided. Gazing down at him now, she could muster no feelings of her own, so desensitized was she by years of doing this work. She lifted her fingers to her nose and, as subtly as she could, inhaled the lingering scent of embalming fluid on her fingers. The aroma was intoxicating. Her chest felt that familiar warmth. She clicked her neck to the side, cracking that one spot in her vertebra which always needed cracking, then settled her head into place.

      Beside her an infant was crawling on the floor, its developing limbs struggling to climb the sarcophagus. Brenda saw the meeting of the two worlds, young and old. One had just been sent into an eternity of darkness while the other had just escaped from its grasp. The child slid off the table’s wooden leg, wide eyed and curious, without a thought to the prenatal abyss which had held on so long and so tightly. Turning from the infant, Brenda searched for the one most in need of comfort. There, centered by two enormous wreaths of white flowers in the far corner, was a lone grandson. He was sitting on a chair with his head in his hands, awash in a sea of tears. As she started towards him, the young man looked up to reveal a set of bright blue eyes, the whites of which had turned red through crying. Brenda sat down at his side.

      “How old are you?” she asked in the gentle tone she reserved for work.
      “Twenty,” the young man’s voice warbled.
      Brenda placed a compassionate hand on his shoulder, the young man rubbing his face in an attempt to compose himself. “Did you know my grandfather?” he asked.
      “I’m sorry, I didn’t. I work here. My name’s Brenda.”
      “David.”

      They shook hands and sat silently for a while, their quiet enveloped in the other sounds of mourning. In front of them a woman wept at the casket, shaking her head and clutching her chest. One of the man’s cousins was describing how the deceased had once killed a man in the war. ‘He was a proud soldier.’ The others nodded in agreement. Further still from the silence, a group of children were at play, chasing each other around an oval desk, the gravity of the occasion lost on them. The dead man’s sister walked about in a daze, mumbling to herself and hitting the wall with her cane. Intermittently throughout the room there were sad greetings and tears, a pocket of grief here and a smattering of loneliness there. But nowhere was the sorrow more pronounced than in David. His lips quivered and his face had reddened with anguish. Beyond the redness, a pasty, diluted white betrayed the young man’s exhaustion. He looked as though he was about to pass out.
      “You know, we have cookies and juice upstairs,” Brenda offered.

      David bit into the double-stuffed Oreo tentatively, the sanguine taste of sugar filling his mouth. He took a second bite and then a third, drinking down his juice box as though he’d been thirsty for days. Brenda just played with her cookie, prying it apart with one hand, her other hand resting on her leg where through her pants she could feel the mole that had cropped up out of nowhere last month; white and evil and unexpected. She hadn’t slept three hours last night, so worried was she that this mole might be the one which killed her. She watched David’s eyes well up with tears again, the whole while imagining herself as a corpse dangling from a rope above the city gates in a medieval town, with nothing to do but stare at the living, powerless to warn them as they wandered aimlessly into town. David had set down his drink and stopped eating, the sadness overtaking him again. He was handsome, this young man. Even in his grief, he looked strong to her. His hands looked full of power. Brenda reached over and placed her hand on his shoulder, bringing him closer. She embraced him, his tears touching her neck, his body warm against hers. Her hand stroked his hair. Brenda searched the large empty room with her eyes. They were alone.

      Placing her hands on either side of his face, Brenda brought David’s eyes up to meet hers. She stared deeply, her eyes imploring, her teeth biting her bottom lip. David’s expression shifted from surprise to confusion to realization. Neglecting his tears, he returned her gaze with what would slowly become an ardent, deliberate stare of his own. Brenda closed her eyes and leaned forward; imagining how his wet lips would feel against her mouth. She pursed her lips. A surge of heat swelled inside her as she felt his touch. Tentatively at first, then passionately, he kissed her, exploring her mouth, his hands reaching up and touching either side of her face. To Brenda it tasted like pink marshmallows and butterscotch and everything good. They stood up suddenly, clasping hands, David pushing her back against the wall in the empty room. His strong body held her up against the hard wooden surface. Reaching out, Brenda rubbed her hands in ecstasy against his muscular chest. Quickly, in a fervent swell of passion, David unbuttoned her blouse, caressing her neck and then reaching down lower. Lost in his touch, Brenda felt released. His hand grasped her right breast and then moved to the left There was nothing there.

      Only a large pad and a scar with the stitches still attached.
      Terror shot through Brenda’s soul. She grasped his hand and forced it away, pushing the young man off her and falling in a heap to the floor. Her eyes, stunned at first, quickly welled with emotion, the panic of the moment spurring in her the memory of the life-threatening, I-would-rather-die-than-hear-this panic she first felt when her doctor explained her diagnosis. Brenda remembered wondering whether her mother would have been disappointed in her. She thought of god – how she had never known him and how she still felt no urge to meet him. She thought of that boy long ago who had promised he would love her forever. He had sworn under cherry blossoms that she was his one and only. Brenda didn’t even know what he looked like now. She broke into tears and let out an anguished cry. Above her, David stood dumbfounded, his grandfather forgotten, his grief having passed to her.

      An hour and forty minutes later, after the family and friends had left the viewing, Brenda sat down on a chair in the front hall of the Rosalina Funeral Parlour. She had refused to say goodbye when David approached her downstairs. How could she explain herself? How could she even speak through this thick, drenched-with-rain melancholy? Brenda hovered in the main room. She turned on the television and stared at it blankly for a half hour until her mind was finally distracted. It was getting late and her empty apartment beckoned. Brenda stood up and walked over to the casket. She shut the lid on the old man without looking at him, then pushed against the case with all her might. The wheels underneath began to roll and Brenda navigated him all the way into the cold room in the back. There in the frigid air she stood between the bodies of the woman and the child. Brenda looked from the little girl to the woman, alternating her gaze between the two of them. Hesitantly, she reached her hand up to her chest and felt the scar through her blouse. A smile made its way to her lips. Brenda found it impossible to hold back. She raised her arms in a V, her smile slowly contorting and spreading itself wide. Brenda, who lived nothing but sorrow, had escaped death. And now she laughed. She laughed until her heart ached.






Christopher Meades is a writer living in Vancouver, Canada whose work has previously appeared in Bird & Moon. He has completed a novel, The Pathos of Daliala, and is currently at work on a second. Christopher can be reached at chrismeades@yahoo.com.