My Daughter's Closed Eyes

Jennifer DiCamillo

There are some who suspect that I write to escape my five kids. Not so. I write to open their eyes, to give them vistas they never knew they were missing. To send them to the moon, or a fantasy land, or back in time. And maybe that returns a little peace to my soul. Do you see what I'm saying?

I plot to take them out.

Out to places they could never go otherwise. There is more to this world, and living, than the blended background of life that we tune out.

What is it about children?

Is it the way they challenge us outright by ignoring everything around them? The way they insist on making us see things their way?

My biggest challenge, and greatest accomplishment in this life, has been getting a clue to their skew and making them see things my way, or, as I call it--conveying images to the vision impaired. Painting vibrant, emotion-chocked--poetic literature--to the deaf, dumb and blind.

That said, I must admit that I learned more about writing from my kids than anywhere else. Through them, I found definition to "what's important". They taught me humor, whole truths, and obsure trivia--and how those small details make the world come alive. They complained at bad endings to bedtime stories, and demanded well-rounded heroes that had good motivations.

But more, they elasticized my imagination and pried open my eyelids. I discovered the blank cancasses and empty WORD documents that existed, dusty, inside my brain, and the brush of the artist hidden there, too.

I realize, now, that I am a painter of worlds and I give that credit to my oldest daughter. She read Helen Keller's story during the sixth grade, and became enamored with the desire to experience hidden nuances of the mundane. For years, off and on, we, as a family, went through her, "Pretend I'm Helen" phases.

She bumped blindly around home and school, asking family and friends to lead her places, and describe the things and textures of our everyday world: what the people we met were wearing, carrying; the expressions on their faces while they spoke. She recalled nuances that we hadn't picked up on: scents, inflections. Everything became tactile.

Life took on depth.

Colorful explanations of the meals served, and even outfits I wore--had me self-consciously working on my presentation. My other children became snitches, saying things like, "I know you can't see this, but so-and-so has their finger up their nose by a half-inch." Vignette reality. I'm sure that little "taste of Helen" taught me more about visualizing and encapsulating my surroundings than anything else.

Picture my Italian beautyL voluptuous, olive-skinned, dark-haired, black-eyed, wearing chic fashion, and upscale fragrance--swatting gnats, sipping tea in a lawn chair on the patio beside me, her antithesis--a pale, freckled, over-weight, flat-haired, make-upless mother of five, worn out from house cleaning, in jeans, T-shirt and old tennis shoes.

She sighs, "The sunset is absolutely awesome."

Then promptly, she closes her eyes, and reached, fumbling for my bare arm, smoothing it one with cold fingers, and begging, she squeezes. "Describe it for me, Mom."

Tired, I groan, I ache. I lean back; look up at the sky, inhale, and my heart melts--savoring her touch, the moment, the sweet smile of joyful expectancy on her face.

Mona Lisa with her eyes closed. She urges. "Come on, I'm waiting."

I looked at the western sky. Sunset in Death Valley is...breathtaking, a sweep of cotton candy clouds banking a blob of flaming rays over the purpled mountains.

Lazy, I offered up, "Pastel fluff over majestic peaks?"

There's no cheating her. She peeks at it with one eye, then at me the same way, insisting with a frown. "Come on, you can do better than that. I'm blind, and even I know you haven't done it justice."

I had to laugh, and do it better.

All I can say is--teasing tickles please people. Remembering that moment always makes me smile. It's what life is all about, loving the seconds as they pass.

Creating snapshots filled with emotion.

It's all about imagery, isn't it? Who makes us see and feel? And how? From each character in our life, we absorb point-of-view--focusing, skewing. Sensory words give impact. Depth of emotion is only relayed when words are calculated, and clutter cleaned up. Add a gasp, a sigh, a whisper, a pause--and we are there.

"What color is that?" My daughter was relentless.

And, I'm here to tell you, you can squint all you want, it doesn't make better descriptive words appear. Peruse color charts, like I did. Saying a sunrise is orange, rather than blazing "neon" melon, or cantaloupe" dawn--is--laziness, elementary. Sundown, where the sun simply goes down, or gets darker, is so blah compared to a periwinkle dusk, star-studded twilight descending, or a nightshade being drawn. Find the magic in the picture. Do it justice.

And the other scene? He touched her becomes enthralling when the back of his fingers skim over her flesh. Goose bumps? Bad fish are more disgusting when the rot of three days decomposing in sweltering humidity, feeding maggots, rises up with milling flies.

Wrinkled noses? Triumph, you see.

I have brought you through your Helen Keller phase. And, like little children, you can wonder anew at what you'd call that next sunset...or bean...or squishy stuff between your toes. Whatever it is, you'll be seeing it through my daughter's closed eyes.

Jennifer DiCamillo is an award-winning writer, playwright, and poet. In the last two years, she has won over seventy writing awards. Her work has been published in Grist, Turquoise Feathers, Museletter, Ozarks Monthly, The Storyteller, The Binnacle, The Poisen Pen, Whispers of Insporation and Cup of Comfort for the Women in Love. Ms. DiCamillo lives in HIghlandsville, Missouri.

The Traveler

• I am a traveler. A traveler in words.
• I can show you places you've never been,
• tell you of things never seen
• and walk with you down paths no human
• has trod.
•  
• I am a traveler. I can make you laugh
• or I can make you cry.
• I can pierce your soul with cries of hungry
• children
• and the exhaustion of battle weary
• soldiers.
•  
• I am a traveler and in my travels,
• I can take you to secret hidden treasures.
• I can share with your the glory of a sunset
• and leave you cowering after a storm.
•  
• I am a traveler. I can show you wind
• swept mesas
• where ghosts tread on silent feet.
• I can show you oceans where old ships lay
• in the water,
• their masts reaching up, all weathered and rotten.
•  
• I am a traveler. I can create old worlds and
• new worlds
• tell of human existence on far away stars
• and lead you by hand through mazes
• where only the brave dare enter.
•  
• I am a traveler. A traveler in words.
• Read these words and share with me the
• wonders
• of the human experience, of heart rending
• sorrow and joy.
• Travel with me.

Emily O'Neill

WINNER OF THE October 2006

NO ENTRY FEE CONTEST

Barbara Quinn

Crab Lines

Barbara Quinn

    Ripping the green backs off live blue-claw crabs is not an easy task. My grandfather taught me the technique when I was twelve.

     “Grab from the rear,” Grandpa said, dangling a helpless crab before me. “It can’t get you.” He tore the two large claws away, then grasped the flailing creature’s four smaller legs. I didn’t think I would ever clean a crab the way Grandpa did.

     With his right hand, Grandpa ripped off the back exposing colorful insides. “Get rid of this,” he said pointing to the gray gills. “Don’t rinse them. It kills the taste. Work fast. Otherwise they drop their legs.”

     He tossed the crab into a pot on the stove, where it sizzled loudly. The nutty smell of hot olive oil merged with brine. In spite of what I’d reluctantly witnessed, my mouth watered.

     While I liked cooking crabs with Grandpa, I loved catching them much more. To find our prey, we headed a beat up skiff out to Grandpa’s favorite place in the Great South Bay. Once there, he anchored and set to work. Our crab lines were not the fancy store-bought kind. Grandpa fashioned his lines out of coat hangers that he snipped and molded into a circle. His gnarled fingers slipped a fish head and sinker onto the ring. Then he bent the contraption shut and attached a long, white cord.

     We threw the lines overboard and watched the weight drag them down. Tethered to the bottom, we crabbed in silence. Waves lapped the sides of the boat and seagulls hovered on a nearby piling, occasionally calling loudly in hopes of an easy meal. Eventually, a tug on the lines signaled a crab dining. I pulled the line up slowly and Grandpa netted it, his blue eyes shining with joy.

     Years later, when my son turned twelve I decided to take him crabbing. Afterwards, I prepared the catch the way Grandpa taught me. As the smell filled the kitchen, I felt a tug in my chest.

     “Grandpa is still here,” I said. My son laughed aloud, his blue eyes reminding me of the way the sunlight reflected off the waves at Grandpa’s favorite spot to crab.

     My son and I ate crab till our stomachs could hold no more. As dusk fell, all I could think about were the thin, white, crab lines, anchoring me to my past.¨

     Ms. Quinn is the Publisher & Managing Editor of The Rose & Thorn E-zine, www. rose andthornezine.com and online zine that show- cases fiction, non-fiction and poetry from around the world. Ms. Quinn is an award-winning short story writer and the author of three novels. Barbara learned to crab in the bays of Long Island and spends much of her time at the Jersey shore. You can read more of her work at The Rose & Thorn.

BAQuinn@aol.com

WINNER OF THE OWL SHORT STORY CONTEST 2006

MOBY HARRY

Jerrel Swingle

(With heartfelt apologies to Herman Melville)

     Call me Ishmael.

     My real name is Raymond, but ‘Ishmael’ has a kind of romantic quality. Sounds profound.

     I’m a natural boatman and I’d been traveling into the middle of the country to a big lake in the Ozark Mountains in hopes of catching on with some excursion vessel or something just so I could work around water. I could have gone to one of the coasts but I can’t stand the ocean. Makes me seasick.

     More intriguing, though, was that I’d heard of a monstrous fish that lives in this lake, one that fishermen spoke of with awe and respect in hushed voices. It’s the stuff of legends, the kind that lives on in tales told by the natives of the region, the kind tailored especially for incredulous outsiders.

     I began hearing these stories as soon as I entered this beautiful country. The timbered hills and deep shadowed hollows around the lake seemed ideal for harboring strange tales and mysteries.

     I found that the residents tended to agree that Moby Harry was a huge white catfish. Even though they may not have seen him personally, they vowed that he had barbels fifty feet long and was graced with sharp fin spines like full-grown pine trees.

     One old-timer said in all seriousness that the fish once jumped clean out of the water chasing a low-flying airplane and that the lake had dropped three feet while he was still in the air.

    Another aged native I talked to told me the mind-numbing tale of a traveling photographer who managed to get a good picture of the great fish. The photograph itself, he assured me without smiling, weighed three pounds, eight ounces.

     And even before I had a chance to digest this improbable bit of information, another elderly gentleman volunteered to tell me the story of how an ambitious local fisherman tried to catch Moby Harry using log chains and grapnel hooks baited with a dead steer. The result was an uprooted oak tree and about seventy-five pounds of Harry’s upper lip.

     I was subject to many other stories like this while I wandered on around the lake seeking work.

     It wasn’t long before I began hearing an even stranger story-about a big name local fishing guide named Marvin Ahab who had become possessed with the idea of killing Moby Harry. The locals told me that, frankly, they thought he was nuts, but that he was trying to recruit other fishermen to go with him to search out and destroy the giant catfish. I got the story behind this man’s obsession while sipping a little ale at a local watering hole.

     Seems Moby got on Ahab’s wrong side when the fish finally got tired of Marvin trying to capture him with hooks, traps, nets, spears, even dynamite every time he saw him.

     So one day the irritated giant turned around and smashed the guide’s fancy bass boat to smithereens with one swipe of his huge tail. Then, while Ahab was floundering in the water, Moby grabbed his struggling tormentor in his mouth, raced across the lake to the marina, and spit the man out in front of a gaping group of tourists, thus humiliating the renowned fisherman and practically destroying his lucrative guide business. The incident, I was told, left Ahab a little unhinged.

     I listened to the story and had just finished my drink when I heard a rasping voice behind me. "You’re new here, ain’t you?" I turned and saw a tall menacing figure looming out of the shadows. A haggard visage regarded me with curiosity and vague distaste. One eye was turned about ninety degrees to starboard.

     "You talkin’ to me?" I sneered in a way I hoped sounded tough, but couldn’t be sure. My throat had tightened up.

     "Yeah, I’m talkin’ to you, meatball. Want a chance to become famous?" He paused, his right eye luffing to port as he tried to look urbane. "My name’s Ahab, Marvin Ahab. I like my Pink Squirrels shaken, not stirred."

     "Good for you," I answered. "What’s the deal?"

     For a moment Ahab’s bad eye oscillated in a spasm of lunacy before it focused in on the bridge of his nose.

     "I’m going after a fish, a really big fish. I’m going to kill a really, really, really big fish. He’s called Moby Harry! Want to come along and get in on the action? It’ll be exciting-clean your arteries.”

     Before I could answer, the doors of the taproom burst open and a wide-eyed local rushed in, almost out of breath. "Where’s Ahab?" he bawled. "She blows! She blows!" "What blows?" someone at a back table demanded. The agitated messenger was dancing up and down in his excitement. "The fish! The big fish! Moby Harry! I just saw him!" There was a moment of silence.

     "Hell," a laconic voice said from the end of the bar. "Catfish can’t ‘blow’. They may talk a little, but they don’t ‘blow’." There were some muffled chuckles in the saloon, but Ahab wasn’t laughing.

     His wandering eye was now examining the inside of his skull. He grabbed the man by the front of his bib-overalls and lifted him off the floor.

     "Where? Where did you see him?" he snarled.

     "Across the lake, over by Turtle Bluff," the man chattered. "Go outside! You can see him from here."

     There was a general rush to the door led by Ahab himself. I ran to follow. Once outside, we all stopped and stared in awe. Sure enough, far across the big lake we could see what appeared to be a large white island floating in the distance. I turned to one of the older men who was standing beside me.

     "What’s the fish doing?" I asked. " He’s not moving."

     "Oh, he’s just resting on the lake bottom. Probably takin’ his afternoon nap." I considered this.

     "Just how deep is the lake over there?"

     "Pretty deep," the man answered.

     Ahab, meanwhile, had raced down the street and disappeared around a corner in the direction of the marina. Moments later we heard the thunder of powerful marine engines and a naval torpedo boat appeared from behind a screen of trees and buildings. We could see Ahab in the cockpit as the boat picked up speed and tore across the lake, throwing up a huge roostertail and leaving a violent wake. We could hear maniacal laughter over the roar of the engines.

     "My God," I gasped. "Where did he get that?"

     "Navy surplus, I think," my companion answered.

     Our eyes followed the attack boat as it sped toward the middle of the floating white mass that was Moby Harry. Before our consciousness could absorb it, there was a blinding cauldron of light and a tremendous explosion rocked the village and the surrounding hills. Debris filled the sky, flying in all directions above the lake before hitting the water in thousands of random splashes.

     We all stood stunned. The boat, Ahab, and the white island had all disappeared in a cascade of smoke and water. The surface of the lake slowly settled back to its normal placid state and an unnatural silence fell over the entire scene. No one said anything.

     A pair of mallards flew overhead.

     I didn’t hang around the lake very long after that, finally picking up my ditty bag and moving on in search of watery locales less disturbed by legends. But even months later and many miles away I began to hear strange stories originating from the Ozarks about a lake where the apparition of a great white catfish could sometimes be seen on moonlit nights, floating in the midnight mist.

     Stranger yet, the fish appears to be ridden by a frenzied human figure.

     Stranger still, they both appear to be laughing.¨

     Jerrel (Jerry) Swingle is a retired art teacher who, post-retirement, has pursued a life-long interest in creative writing?humorous short fiction, poetry, and essays. He has since had work appear in Sweetgum Notes, Applecart, eClips, and Woman’s Corner e-zines, and in The Storyteller and Good Old Days magazines, along with several regional anthologies. His wife, Judy, understands.

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