Tag: stories

Of Aunts and Thank You’s

by Stephen J Frankenberry2 Comments on Of Aunts and Thank You’s

“Steve, I have some news” Beck said as I poked my head in the living room to her on the Beck couch to say “Hi” after what had been a frustrating but finally muddled through Friday.

“Aunt Anne passed away”

I was going to joke about something totally silly in my poking corners of living rooms with sisters on couches and then …

… pause … “Oh no … no” and I flashed to the late 90’s almost 00’s and felt guilty, immediately, as I hadn’t talked to Aunt Anne in too long.

//////////////////////////////////////////

There were thank you cards that I would never send for wedding gifts I never kept (though there were a couple I would like to have, that fully loaded tool box filled with shit I would never need or know how to use for one) and feel guilty of for the longest of time and there was paperwork eventually that said the magic had passed well before its time or thank you card expectations suddenly no longer a thing, plus divorce numbers in graphs and charts and over multiple demographics helped me explain, painfully, fast endings and also just being lazy and hurt.

“Hey what time is it?”

“It’s now and you still haven’t sent those thank you cards and, oh, try again sometime, maybe, on this whole marriage thing if you can or wish?” Another thought entirely there, and a nonstarter.

And then there was Aunt Anne.

I needed a place, a spot, a wherever that wasn’t this whatever now, I needed, really, to just run away.

Cue Aunt Anne and Uncle Don and Florida sun and unintended but welcome beaches and Mouse dreams. Yes, I went to the beach and Yes, I worked for the Mouse, even wore tights and big ass floppy shoes and baggy shorts and plastic heads on the weekends.

I know, kinky huh? Just minus the soft light and candles and knotted rope.

She offered me a room, in a welcome home when I was at a loss as to what to do after my unexpected sideways step replete with those Thank You cards I never sent that I kept in a box on a new nightstand as a reminder of my lacking’s but also of my refusals (that was my justification anyway).

But Aunt Anne and Uncle Don and that huge living room where I would sit, cross-legged watching TV with them and commenting together on new shared favorite shows as a part of the family still sits cross-legged with me, along with remembrances of Benny the Cat who catted along with me to this new stead and who Aunt Anne, to her sure consternation, and unneeded pressure, kept an extra eye for “Hey that’s Stephen’s cat, keep an extra eye or i’ll never sleep and then be forced to hurt you … “

My cats have always had that effect.

We’re all, obviously, older now, shit catches up eventually as it will, as it does as it must but there are Aunt Anne’s and Uncle Don’s along the way who give you place, comfort, friendship, if you are lucky enough, a place to lay your head and regroup and even go to the beach or wear big ass plastic heads on the weekends (no, not in a kinky way … freakin’ wierdo’s) and breathe for just a moment.

Lubs Aunt Anne.

JJ and Me

by Stephen J Frankenberry5 Comments on JJ and Me

Got a call from a friend of mine (Friday) while I was still toiling away in the radio salt mines (yes I know, I can be so dramatic). It had been a been a day of pounding that salt into fine powder, one that had lingered longer than the usual, giving me a right on angry headache, even more headache than the usual Friday where shit always lingers and aches said head, salted, longer than any other day of the week. “production Fridays”.

Yeah, they are a “thing” in my small salt production world, with so much stuff, last minute, that just “HAS” to start on Monday.

But when I got that phone call I realized I wasn’t on my way home, and that was my cue to be done. damn the torpedoes Tom and the Mondays, as when these phone calls happen we are usually on our ways. Just some talk while we have our quiet time through some short time drives. There is something to be said of our time in cars.

But I adjusted, just paced instead into a studio where I could talk loudly outside the morgue quiet of my digs on a Friday night (I talk loudly, like wake the dead loudly, so I try to be respectful if I can even if no one may be around)

These calls are check-ins, have always been check-ins, sometimes more for one side than the other, depending, make sures of still breathing (with the hopeful picked up phone for confirmation) make sures of things that friends check in on for a bit of normalcy like how are the cats, what about that game and the latest gimmick that pisses you off or how is the better half or the newbie and his ever growing feet and newfound baseball fascination and new working, ever evolving mind and new singular habits doing?  

I have been lax lately on new stuff in the Attic, other than my latest “poem” (poem in quotes as I am not quite sure of it), but I just haven’t “felt it”, haven’t felt need to anything new, I just haven’t for reasons, reasons I couldn’t tell ya of as I don’t know them.

But this friend was checking in with me, this time, really, for just that.

You see, he’d actually listened to me when I have said, to him and to others in the past, you don’t need worry or to call, you don’t need to concern. If you are for some reason curious as to a me, just check the Attic in the dust and musk and piled things in newly uncovered cardboard boxes, piled things of still breathing thoughts in an upstairs this is where I’ll be.

He listened, he’d noticed. Shit, I didn’t think anyone would actually listen to my entreats.

What a wonderful discovery … that someone would actually check in with me via the Attic, that they would notice my recent ebb.

It was a good phone call, there are still cats, there are always cats and stories of dogs now in his case, and there are better wives and growing feet and Happy Meals and growing minds and new baseball fascinations (no, I  won’t be a dick as to my current opinion of the game in the new rules era) and there are lives to catch up on even in small talk windows.

In studios instead of cars? No matter.

Just a blip JJ. Just an ebb. Still breathing my friend.

While Thomas Went Mad (part one: Balance)

by Stephen J FrankenberryLeave a Comment on While Thomas Went Mad (part one: Balance)

While Thomas Went Mad (part one: Balance)

Thomas thought of madness quite often or at least what madness would allow. I mean it’s madness after all, he thought, would I, me, he or that beleaguered soul in a muddied street below seen from a high window who could be me even know?

No, he walked the halls leaning, for balance, sliding his left palm on those ancient and smoothed stone walls over words not quite worn, though he knew that would take more time, well beyond his, well beyond his imagined, words he only partially understood (were they of Master Pembroke, of his stories of devout guidance or were they of Saint – he so wished to meet Saint someday) but only the good parts of the words of course, he hoped, assumed, thought, wished through his unrelenting stark dark visions, or dreams, instead, as he was more inclined to call them, simple dreams, yes, that was a bit easier to couch, much more benign but what if he were backwards in thought, a pretzeled logic instead where that what which was are would could seemed stitched together with a thread of hope, assumed good, are actually not that at all, meant only to distract instead and merely to just be the bad, awful wanderings of his head?

Thomas thought hard on this, as hard as he could, as hard as his fractious mind would allow in shoulds and woulds and coulds and maybe’s though, he was sure, as absolutely sure as he could be expected to be in his me’s, I’s, he’s that still existed somewhere in that me, I, he, he knew, primally at the base of the hairs on the back of his neck, the ones on his arms, the ones on his legs even in the shorter ones below that just confused him as they made no curling sense, especially when they gave way to tall, that this wasn’t actually madness after all as right side up becomes wrong side down while sliding his left palm, for balance, along smoothed walls, with words inscribed that he was erasing over time, he just knew … plus I can’t be expected to have madness make sense now can I he thought? I must just treat it, address it in simple maddened minded maddening terms. Maybe even embrace it.

And Thomas waited this madness and walked and leaned for balance, and smoothed those words over time with his left palm of he or a his or a mine and he waited. There would be a time … that was all he knew … there would be a time.

//////////////////////////////////////////

Master Pembroke watched his halting, hiccupping screen, tapping it like that would help “What do you think?” he said to Minor Pembroke “can we proceed?”

“I don’t think so, not just yet sir. He is still smoothing the walls”

“Oh, the walls Minor, it’s always with the walls”

“But he needs to see, or feel that he is rubbing them smooth, alter his perception of time, let him know that this is the only real”

“Ok, I will defer to you then, but when does it just become, you know, cruel?”

“Have you your sash Sir?”

“No, I don’t … have you seen it?

“It’s right under your chin sir”

Fumbling his neck “Oh it is, it is right here, thank you Minor … such a funny thing … it was always right here wasn’t it?”

“You are always welcome Master. Now time to rest”

“Indeed Minor. I am a bit tired”

“How about we let Missive Pembroke here get you to bed?

“That would be nice”

//////////////////////////////////////////

Thomas had dreamt again, all of his Thomas’s, the he’s and me’s and I’s and even the them’s, the one of the house, no, cottage, yes cottage with painted window flats, is that what they were called, of the one where it got closer, again, though seemingly imperceptible if anyone else were to witness or even join his dreams and go mad with him, all of the him’s, but they knew, he knew, that the grass was just a little taller, he could actually count the spokes on the cart now and the former blur in the window now had eyes and blue, no, brown hair.

//////////////////////////////////////////

“C’mon Thomas time to wake and take you for your walk”

This Missive Pembroke was different from the others, the ones that beat him and made him make promises he didn’t understand, even signed in blood sometimes on paper they wouldn’t allow him of his own, and she was taller too, tall enough that she wouldn’t need a ladder or even a simple stool in the orchard for an apple. He found himself, all of his selves liking her, though he realized it was most probably that she just didn’t beat him or ask of him things. She just put him to bed and then, lifetimes later, would wake him for his walk.

“Take your time Thomas” she said with genuine patience and an even seeming care, this is where the bruises and even blood would come with the others if he wasn’t spry enough. He didn’t know what he had done, or hadn’t done, to deserve this new Missive Pembroke but it, she, was most welcome.

“Thank you”

“Did you sleep well?”

“You know we did not”

“Sorry Thomas”

“What? What? WHAT?!! Apologies, the others are demanding me to ask if you have name?”

“Yes, it’s Missive Pembroke of course”

“No, What? WHAT!!?? I’m getting to it … sshussh … no, an actual name. You surely had a mother? A one who called you something, even just in the fleeting early moment, something coy and cute, just between she and you?”

“I don’t know what you mean Thomas”

“(Sigh) it’s just that you call us Thomas, and so sweetly, but all I can call you is Missive. It just seems so … we don’t know … so distant, so impersonal”

“But I am not distant Thomas, I am right here, is my name really a matter?”

“No, you’re right Missive Pembroke, you are right here and that’s all that matters and blah, blah, blah (all the while all his selves went to the cottage in search) blah, blah, blah, blah  …”

“Wow, you are quite chatty this morning Thomas”

“Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah (then, suddenly, one of his me’s, his him’s, found a two-wheel in the ever talling grass, a one they knew for some reason, a one that had a name scratched name on it’s body, like with a nail or a sharp sprig) Ok … Lilly?”   

The Missive stopped short, taken aback, she hackled suddenly “what did you say!?”

Thomas flinched, scrunched “What? I am sorry” and hemmed and hawed while all his Me’s scrambled for unified thought “I just thought we could go into the garden today … to maybe … maybe there are … Roses … yes Roses there, or Lilies, Daffodils maybe too, something to smell in a bit of our suns new third”

The Missive shrunk the hackles “Yes, Thomas, that would be nice and is a fine idea, there are Roses there and Daffodils and even Petunias, so pretty right about now as you say, in this third”.

All of the Thomas’s noted that she didn’t say Lilies.

//////////////////////////////////////////

Something of a Cat Named Arthur And of Backups (post post)

by Stephen J Frankenberry5 Comments on Something of a Cat Named Arthur And of Backups (post post)

My Sis, Beck, at the end of last week was down in Wallkill, a few hours south of us here, for a couple of days and when she is gone for day or two, or possibly more, I will happily be tasked with being the caretaker (or cattaker if you will) of her three, Sephira, Arthur and Rikki (Rikki the oversized Cat Weeble who wobbles, wobbles, wobbles and wobbles with a bit of a jiggle, jiggle, jiggle wobbled in there for good measure, but doesn’t fall down …

… unless she’s tired and just plops, but that is NOT a Weeble wobbling AND falling down thing as, well, they just DON’T, as clearly evidenced above here in this piece of Weeble commercial history. No, that would be just entirely of a cat’s own free will and something cats are wont to do which Rikki will surely remind with a raspy cigarette “been hard times Man” sounding meow and a side-eyed glance if you even raise the question.

Nephew Matt can also be tasked for the assist here but he works nights and isn’t up in the mornings because of that, unlike me, so I can easily get both ends of the feeding schedule and gladly slave tirelessly over a hot cracked can of fancy feast stove and help keep them in meowing good fed health and spirits too as I will also throw some petting and conversation in the mix and, though, I am surely a poor backup for “Mom”, they muddle meow through with me anyway (the whole selfless hot can stove cracking food thing helps a great deal in this regard).

I’d like to think, though, that after 8 months or so of me being around, of me being simply an “extra guy”, a one from up the basement like some sort of troll, that maybe it is less of just a muddle, meowing around but maybe a welcome change of feeding pace and welcome extra company.

Cats do love themselves some extra company after all. “Who you? … well, got a forehead and a belly for a scratch here if you are so inclined, oh, this is a test by the way”.

Arthur is fine example as when Mom is away, and his backup human, Matt, is at work, I become the backup, backup human, and I will often find him at my feet, damning the dire world of possible trolls and possible stories of them eating cats, maybe in a Grimm Tale somewhere and, instead, find him trolling, lolling, lounging around behind me at my feet while I’m doing a bit of laundry.

I have mentioned before, in a number of posts, that I am the stereotypical pathetic single dude with a couple of cats who lives in his Mom’s basement, but the not quite stereotypical pathetic single older brother and uncle dude with a couple of cats who lives in his SISTER’S basement and that I just weather the cliche. But I got to change my short-lived roommate attempt at saving a few dollars situation from 8 months or so ago, to instead reconnect with family in an immediate daily way and my Sis and Nephew have been afforded the glorious opportunity to live with me, surely throwing parties in their heads every day at their good fortune but where I never ask of either of them their definitions of glorious or what they may find to be good fortune.

This though, really, has been a Godsend if whoever he is, is actually in the business of sending sendings. I have been able to give my Bella and my Cricket some much needed space in this troll’s new spacious basement place, away from the tiny bedroom in that aforementioned short-lived roommate dollar save attempt while giving my Sis a backup human to be able to turn to for some cat assistance and maybe some welcome long lost conversation between us at a dining room table or in the living room over some greenish, English accented reality show and also give her a few extra dollars while saving me quite a few at the same time, something that is most welcome believe me (I may love what I do to death but I ain’t flush).

I’d also like to think, just as with Beck’s cats, (it’s sill just a test but you are passing) that maybe my company is alright, I mean I am not an unlikable fella, I can be pretty entertaining, sometimes unintentionally in a slapstick or dad, dog joke kinda way, pretty entertaining even intentionally on occasion, I sometimes even say things that can be considered to be quite smart and prescient and Bella and Cricket get some extra hello’s and attention that they wouldn’t have gotten otherwise, living alone minus me during the day, without this new situation, especially Cricket.

She is blind and deaf and a bit older and where, in the past she may have meowled to the cat heavens in her heartbreaking sounding way, during the day, maybe feeling lonely and afraid she now has some backup humans if they are around to hear her pleas, to come downstairs to give her a pickup and a hug and some warm assurance.

Matt even took her out front of the house recently on his shoulder just to feel some breeze and some life.

Something I myself can do as well with her on a little back porch.

And Bella? She comes upstairs to just say what the fuck while also knowing this is Ok.

Plus, as a landlady, which Beck is when ya get to the nuts and bolts of it (hey, what of that water pressure by the way lady?! hehe) what better troll of a tenant can you ask for than one who will never be bringing any girlfriend relationship drama around and poundings on the wall or ceiling or floors (that kind of need has flown and really isn’t even understood anymore which I find quite strange and yet makes so much sense) but a tenant that wants just a cool place, with family for company, some extra cats to mind and a spot to sit in, in a comfy troll’s basement stringing together some words while also having and being some backups.

And, oh, before I forget, back to Arthur, of said post title.

He and Sephira are inside/outside cats so when the wrangling has you having Arthur being an in? The one who is usually the much harder grab?

Apologies my little Orange friend … now how about we wrangles that sister of yours and be done for the night?

Headstone … The Walk

by Stephen J FrankenberryLeave a Comment on Headstone … The Walk

Headstone continued … The Walk

Headstone

In a graveyard nearing dusk the groundskeeper came upon Death, leaning heavily on his knot gnarl anguish handled scythe as he knelt at an almost hidden, fallen stone, shunned, just outside the cemetery, alone, at the edge of a large forest. He wept quietly.

“Are you alright old man?”

Death was startled

“What?!” as he tried to stand

“No need. Pay your respects”

“Why don’t you shudder cold at the sight of me, cringe, run to escape who I am, maybe to you?”

“I know death. I have been here as long as you have searched … for your mother right? How did you know?”

“I had this inscribed in her stone I pray to God that she may lie forever with unopened eye hoping she would never see my shame and what I had become and wrought”

The groundskeeper said “Let’s walk my friend” …

//////////////////////////////////////////

Headstone … The Walk

The groundskeeper walked his common with death in tow

“I knew her”

“I knew him, he was an ass, he was having an affair and was found out with a jealous bullet”

“She was the find in a weird way, but still buried together”

“He was a sad case of life cut short … on a Tuesday I think”

“That one was an unfortunate result of small minds”

“This was a way back where they wore masks … “

Stop!

What?

We’re just walking here, so stop.

But?

You know all of them, of course, we know that. Jobs are jobs and you have yours but I have mine … look to the distance, the Lily fields. These are my keep, some come to cry, to anguish and blubber, some come to just sit and wonder of talk to other places as if their words can be heard, some come to be seen for talk of why they were late today on someone’s birthday

That is Angie, talking to her dad

Those are flowers left by Peter who feels better now even though he was an awful son and knows he hastened his dad’s death

That is Bart, off to the left, who comes here only because he feels if he doesn’t he will lose whatever semblance of sanity he has left

That’s Michelle, after years away, who feels that wiping off the dust and dirt of time will somehow make everything better

Then there is Thomas, who I truly feel for, his loss that just destroyed him as that headstone is the last thing he has left in whatever it was that tried him in his world. Know that your job has consequences.

But what are we to do?

Nothing, we can do nothing, but we can have a little respect. I take comfort in some genuine words spoke at knelt stone, when there are some, when loss is so profound that it brings a tear to even this old groundskeeper’s eye

This is what you do?

It is, but I don’t fault you for doing what YOU do. Now stand …

But I don’t even remember having knelt

… use that scythe for balance and stand up from your creaky knees and let’s go over to that corner and to Maribel

Why Maribel … is she?

No, leave her be, she has time, still has a daughter to come, but she sings, she even extols your virtues

Me? My virtues?

She sings of what is done and understands, as do I, though in a lesser chord, I am no singer, and in such a glorious voice

Her loss?

Doesn’t matter, she just comes here, twice a week, sometimes more, and just sings along with the trees and the breeze and the sun and short lived birds through the stones underneath her feet that look out over the hills that this place, all of these places, are as they always are intended to be

Oh my, that is heaven

I know

You said she still has a daughter to come?

STOP!! My expanse can still include you, death can die. There will be another. It just won’t be you.

‘Tis the Creepy Season (some posts for such)

by Stephen J Frankenberry1 Comment on ‘Tis the Creepy Season (some posts for such)

Not that you asked for it (I mean, who would?) but a handy dandy all in one spot, easy reference, to some things of mine for the Halloween season, oh, and watching some albino looking spider with a seeming translucent head scurry about the walls behind the PC who, I swear, is the same spider that was doing quick spidery translucent head scurry things at my desk at the Latham office yesterday and I think may have hitched a ride on something of mine because, well, I don’t know, he is here now and considers us pals?

“What’s up fleshbag?”

//////////////////////////////////////////

From a creepy old Halloween pic meme a college friend posted …

… and a Dad looking for a costume for his kid at a Spirit Halloween store

Costumes Are Hard

//////////////////////////////////////////

From a “Haunted Harvest” prompt at dVerse Poets and to write something of such, a Haunted Harvest, a poem in this case for me

Third Eye Harvest Moon

//////////////////////////////////////////

A Frankenberry lost toenail story with blood and forgetting

If A Forgetful Serial Killer Lost A Toenail And Got Postcards

//////////////////////////////////////////

A poem of a dead motel and truck stop I pass on my now thruway drive

Exit 21B

//////////////////////////////////////////

A flash fiction prompt response with madness

Of Moms, Sons & Assorted Friends

//////////////////////////////////////////

Another flash fiction response with a man in a black hat story

The Scrapbook And The Man In The Black Fedora

//////////////////////////////////////////

And one more flash fiction prompt, this one of Death and the Groundskeeper

Headstone

//////////////////////////////////////////

Scurry, scurry, scurry

“Really?”

“What? I’m a spider, it’s what I do. I scurry, plus, I have to figure my new surrounds here and people will, hopefully, be so engrossed with your stories of the season to not notice time spent on my part to prepare you”

“Prepare me?”

“Things ta do, webs ta spin, d’ya feel stuck yet? You’re just an extra large, blood filled, fly”