Maria Scott Herndon: Fabric Of Being

  We are not quite knowing how to feel. It just isn’t clear. We're numb from this continuing tragedy. Can we feel fear? Now the whole world waits with nowhere to hide. The rising death-toll crescendos, just like that rising tide, Now years pass as the virus sucks our collective breath. No one is spared; dreams and loved ones succumb to death. We ride the surges and waves of this black wicked water Only to be left scared and sorrowful; lambs to the slaughter. Imagination can't picture what each victim felt and has to face, Our loved ones are suddenly gone and impossible to replace. Grand inequity threads throughout all our attempts to thrive. This is a global threat. Without fairness we will never arrive. Many say that time heals, but will our hearts remain lost? Can we find our way, move forward? But at what cost? Fright and rage scream both silently and out loud. Young and old taken by an evil smothering cloud. Nobody is spared. There is more sick, always more and more. More t...

Take down all your troubles, And wrap up your regrets. Tie them to the rays of light, The sun sheds as it sets, Whisper all that was, To fleeting seconds as they pass. But hold onto your hope, For something new is here at last. Beg your own forgiveness, And then grant it in one breath. Lay the year down softly, As it waits to fear its death. Then sit with eyes turned skywards, As the night-time comes alive. All that's been is over, And a new year has arrived.

  Inside a ramshackle house, before a dying fire, a weathered armchair stood. The man called Santa was staring into the flames, nursing a half empty glass of vodka. His white beard was stained and his red robes were faded. He nudged the embers remaining in the fireplace back to life. Eventually, he gave up. Throwing the poker away, Santa took a healthy swig of liquor. The vodka burned in his belly. "Boss?" Santa peered owlishly at the little elf standing in the doorway. "Ah, Bernard." He slurred. "Did you bring the list?" From a tiny pocket, Bernard pulled out an even smaller book. When he handed it to the drunken saint, the minuscule manuscript expanded into a massive written tally with gold lettering. The not-so-jolly man ran his hands over the cover with reverence. "Thank you. This is just what I needed." Opening the magic book, Santa ripped out some sheets and tossed them into the fireplace. Bernard winced with each torn page. "Will t...

  At moments like these, David tried to remember that going out on nonsense stories was part of a reporter’s job. His beat was a mix of investigative and human-interest stories, which were often strange, and this one was. A man had called in to one of the city’s all-night radio talk shows several nights in a row with tales about what was going to happen that day. In his first call, he had claimed that a large meteorite would be seen flashing over Albuquerque, New Mexico, at 5:03 am that morning. That happened, right on schedule. The next night, he called and told of a small earthquake that would occur in Peru at 11:08 am, centered on the town of Caleón. That too happened, right on schedule. David took a deep dive to figure out who this man was. At this point, the radio station contacted the newspaper and David was put on the story. He asked the host to ask the caller, if he called again, to meet David for a drink, off the record, at a bar in the city’s lawyer district. The caller c...

When Sylvie sang the men at the bar would stop and turn on their stools to listen. The bartender would dry his hands, move to the end of the bar and light up a cigarette. The waitresses would huddle by the wall and hug their trays flat against their bosoms. And the drunken man who cried softly to himself in the corner by the door would lift his eyes and rub his hands together underneath an invisible spigot. "When Sunny gets blue, her eyes get gray and cloudy." When Sylvie sang she never really heard the music or thought about the words. She was far away in a small town by a riverbank, holding onto someone she loved...someone she lost. She only heard his voice, felt his heat, and the nightclub disappeared. But the song always has to end and when the music stopped the men at the bar would turn again and start to laugh and talk. The waitresses would rush to cover their thirsty stations and the drunken man would close his eyes again and descend inside himself. Sylvie would go out...

 

  Elinor was at a point in her life where she had met a lot of her goals professionally, and made peace with the loss of her only child over a decade ago. She finally got to the point where she could live on her own without feeling anything else missing from her life. Her father's birthday was coming up and she wanted to do something really special for him. He was a great dad and would do anything for her. He was approaching eighty years old and she wanted his birthday gift to be really unique to him. Suddenly it dawned on her. Elinor's plan was to give her father his specific story – the story of his people and their history. Elinor completed a DNA kit using her own DNA and sent it off. This would be especially thrilling for her father, Max that had always been quite braggadocios about his extensive Irish ancestry. Elinor was eleven when her grandparents took her on a trip to Ireland. They were able to trace the different cottages and churches her family had occupied over a pe...

  I used to be Marilyn Monroe.  I’m sitting in a bedroom with white curtains and pale walls that remind me of coffee with heavy cream. Not quite brown but not quite beige either. I’ve been sitting in this room for twenty years, staring at the same rotten, dried landscape all day, every day. It gets quite boring, but it passes the time. The time always passes, no matter what I do. On Wednesdays, I get to go for a ride to the park. The big gray bus that picks us up smells like rotten potatoes, and the driver sometimes forgets that we’re old. The way he flies over those bumps and potholes is enough to make anyone dizzy. Sometimes we get to feed the birds. We watch the waves rise and fall, and they look so beautiful. The waves can swallow you whole and drag you to the depths, if you’re not careful. Yet the deep blue of the water calms me. One day at the park, a group of school children were visiting, and we crossed paths. There was a little boy in the group with mousy brown hair...