Casserole Diplomacy and Other Stories

by Various

  Devin leaned back against the Dawson, breathing hard. “Elaine? Elaine?”

  No answer came. Devin searched the ground near the Dawson, scrabbling in the gravel with his hands and finding nothing save a boot left by one of the castlings. He found one of the oil lamps, relit it with shaking hands, and went to the edge of the hill.

  He saw her right away, lying at the base of an oak a hundred feet down.

  Without feeling the branches tearing at his skin, he tumbled down the hillside, half running, half falling. She was lying face up, eyes open, staring at the sky without blinking. Devin grabbed her hand and called her name, but she did not move. He felt her body with his hands, and there were broken bones, and blood that stained his hands and mixed with the blood from the wound on his arm. He tried to find a pulse, a hint of breath or some other sign of life. Then he sat with her and rubbed her still hand for a long time.

  At last he rose and carried her—how light she was, compared to the heavy load of the bar—back to the track. He found the woollen blanket and wrapped her in it, as if to keep the failing warmth within her.

  The Dawson was not to be moved, since not even Devin’s arms could budge the heavy iron machine. He rested in the lee of the deck, out of the cold wind, until the first glimmers of dawn lit the opposite hillside. Then he rose, stiffly, and walked half a mile down the track to the nearest signal tower. With the red flag every railman carried he sent the distress signal Herman had taught him, repeating the motions until the sleepy signaller noticed him and repeated the signal in confirmation.

  The tower’s big signal flag went up, a slash of red on an oaken boom. Almost immediately it was answered by its fellow on the next hill, and soon the message went spinning away over the mountains. Devin walked back to the Dawson to await the rescue crew. He slumped to the ground next to Elaine and let his eyes close at last.

  The birds were just beginning to sing.

  The Dawson had been damaged beyond using, so the road mechanics hooked it to a ten-man Witherup and hauled it up the mountain to Asheville, still bearing Elaine’s body. Devin did not need to concern himself with alerting Mrs. Pittman, he was told. The railroad had men who did such things, usually for the families of railmen or haulers killed on runs. Devin argued, but he was tired, and the steady insistence of the Asheville manager wore him down.

  Devin was outfitted with a single-man Walter, an old model no longer used outside the mountains, for his return journey to Greensboro. The old engine squeaked and clacked; but the road to Hickory was downhill all the way, and Devin hardly needed to do more than squeeze the brake. Now in the daylight he could see the empty villages in the valleys, desolate houses with broken windows and sagging porches, where the sun shone through and lit the debris that always accumulates in abandoned buildings. Twice he saw castlings scurrying away from the tracks. He thought of the pistol in the iron box, but did not move to get it. The car rolled on, with Devin’s eyes fixed on the rails that rolled beneath him.

  He stopped at the place outside Hickory where he and Elaine had eaten the day before. Such a rage overtook him that he tore the railman patch from his sleeve and flung it into the woods. He screamed and yelled, though no one was around to hear, until his anger was spent and he slumped to the deck of the Walter, too tired to do anything but coast downhill to Greensboro.

  At seven in the evening he sighted the peaked roof of the station. Some part of his mind remembered to ring the bell, and the station door opened like a great mouth, swallowing him up into the din and chaos inside.

  Devin had gone perhaps fifty yards when he noticed several figures following his car. He recognized friends from his old crew, and saw with some astonishment Alan waiting at the end of the line. Devin forgot to push the bar, and the men following him pushed the Walter with their hands.

  Devin hit the stop at the end of the line with a light bump, and looked down at Herman standing before him.

  “Take him,” Herman said, and hands reached up to help Devin from the car. He found himself standing before his old foreman, wishing he could be anywhere else. He waited for the inevitable rebuke.

  “The plague is back,” Herman said.

  Devin looked from one man to the next, finding confirmation of the awful truth in each face. Alan had been right, after all.

  “It started in Durham this time,” Herman said. “The road is stopping all commercial runs to take doctors and medicines into the city. You’ll be going to Hillandale. They’ve lost three there already.”

  He motioned to one of Devin’s old crewmates. “Find the manifest for Devin,” he told the man. “He needs to know what time he’s leaving.”

  Devin stared at his old boss. “I’m not going out again,” he said. “I’m done with the road.”

  Herman regarded him closely, and for a moment Devin was sure the big man would strike him. “Wait,” Herman called to the crewman he had sent away. The man turned, eyes questioning.

  “Get Devin a new patch,” Herman said. “He’s lost his.”

  Devin opened his mouth, but Herman shook his head. Devin did not protest when they took his coat to sew on another patch.

  “Come on,” Herman said, flipping through the papers of Devin’s manifest. “We don’t leave until morning.”

  They took him to the railmen’s quarters, where there were strong drinks waiting, and they stayed up singing and telling stories of the road until the small hours of the morning. In the haze of drink and exhaustion, the men’s faces blurred together in Devin’s vision until they looked like the same man, the Railman, who had felt this pain before and would bear it again. They were all incarnations of the same thing, and Devin knew he was that thing too, and would be for the rest of his life.

  At eight the heavy fist came to pound on his door. Most of the other crews had already left when Devin reached the station floor, groggy and with an aching head, but Herman and the Lady Wales were there. Devin nodded to them across the floor. Herman returned a solemn wave, and then cracked his whip, cursing at his charges to get the Lady Wales moving. Devin heard the Lady’s bell clang as he turned away.

  Devin boarded the single-man Walter again, taking the brake key from the mechanic on duty. There were four large boxes in the cargo cage at the front of the engine. Devin signed his name in the log book, and the great door opened to let him out into the daylight.

  The car was heavily loaded, much more so than the Dawson had been when it carried Elaine, but Devin was strong, and he drove the car across the flat ground with ease. Soon he could only see the thin trails of smoke from the houses where breakfast was being cooked, and the people of Greensboro were waking to another day.

  By midday he was miles away.

  Originally published in On Spec Summer 2010 Vol 22 No 2 #81

  Corey Brown is a mechanical engineer residing in the sunny climes of South Florida. Originally from North Carolina, he used his native land as the setting for “The Asheville Road.” In addition to On Spec, Corey’s work has appeared in Electric Velocipede, Space and Time and the 23rd Writers of the Future anthology.

  Buddhist Jet Lag

  Christian McPherson

  I was living

  in the now

  but then I fell

  a few seconds behind

  I would just miss

  the elevator

  the bus

  and before I knew it

  I was living

  in the 30-minutes-ago

  I would

  burn my rice

  be late for work

  then things got worse

  I started living

  in the two-hours-ago

  I was missing

  doctors’ appointments

  lunch dates

  it crept up on me

  and all of a sudden

  I was living

  in yesterday

  I sang Beatles songs

  and got fired from work

  I became depressed

  hit the bottle


  ended up living

  in the past

  babbling on my couch

  about the good ole days

  then came the intervention

  people said “you can’t live in the past”

  people said “you need to think about the future”

  the men in white coats came

  as did the pills

  the rubber rooms

  the drooling

  now I’m all better

  now I’m back in the now

  now I might actually be a few seconds ahead

  I catch things before they fall

  people think I’m just moving things around

  but I know the future

  because I live there.

  Originally published on On Spec Winter 2011 Vol 23 No 4 # 87

  Christian McPherson is the author of Cube Squared, My Life in Pictures, The Sun Has Forgotten Where I Live, The Cube People (shortlisted 2011 ReLit Awards), Poems That Swim From my Brain Like Rats Leaving a Sinking Ship, and Six Ways to Sunday (shortlisted 2008 ReLit Awards).

  A Taste of Time

  Scott Overton

  The tinkle of the bell announced a customer.

  That was unusual—there weren’t many customers anymore. Gabrielle had owned the Shop & Smile dépanneur for thirty-five years, and in the early days the bell had rung like a wind chime on a March day. But no more. Most of the people on the concession road now shopped at the new Price-Well—even the ones who smiled to her face and wished her a good day as they drove quickly past.

  It took an effort to rise from the old chair in the backroom, but she tried to hurry. The bell-heralded arrivals might be some of those young smart-alecks who stole her candy.

  Not this time. It was Mrs. Simm from the neighbouring farm. Marjorie. And she had a little girl with her: eight or nine, with dark hair and a short sun dress that was covered in a print of some odd-shaped orange blotches. No, maybe a cartoon character? There was a single word that looked foreign.

  “Hello, Gabby,” Marjorie said. “Amanda, this is Miss Dufour. She owns the store.”

  The girl gave a polite curtsy and said, “It’s nice to meet you,” making Gabrielle smile in surprise. Not many children were taught such manners anymore.

  “Amanda’s come to visit us for the summer,” Marjorie said. “From the States. Her mother—remember our daughter Sandra? She lives in Michigan now.”

  Gabby used to hear a lot about that daughter, especially when Sandra went off to university, but that was before Marjorie got the job at the library in town. Since then she’d been too busy to drop by for gossip. Her husband, Edgar, had to handle all of the chores on their small farm himself, dawn to dusk. How did they expect to look after a child for the summer?

  Marjorie said, “Amanda’s looking forward to roaming around the farm, but I’ve told her she mustn’t go anywhere else on her own. Except maybe here, if we send her to pick up a few things.”

  So that was it. They expected Gabby to be a part-time babysitter. She ought to say something to quell that notion tout de suite.

  But the girl spoke first. “Gramma says you know lots about the farm property. And the town that used to be there. Gramma says it’s covered with blueberries.” She said the word the way she’d speak a magic spell, her smile revealing small teeth that were just a little crooked, but sugar-white.

  “Blueberries. Yes, there are blueberries,” Gabby huffed. “You can hardly walk without stepping on the things.”

  “Don’t you like blueberries?”

  “Everybody likes blueberries.” Her grandmother patted her shoulder. “We just dropped in to pick up some flour and brown sugar and butter.”

  “Blueberry muffins, I bet. You’ll need baking powder, too,” Gabby said. “It should be fresh.”

  “You’re right. I haven’t baked in a few months. Better give me some, please.”

  Gabby made up the order and accepted the money.

  The child was fascinated by the whole process. “Everybody loves blueberries,” she repeated, as she and her grandmother waved goodbye and made the bell ring again.

  But that wasn’t true—Gabby didn’t love blueberries. Had not since she was a girl herself, perhaps about Amanda’s age. Her father had hurt his back and couldn’t work. They had no money. So the family spent the month of July picking blueberries, and ate them for months afterward. Little else.

  Blueberry muffins, of course, but also pancakes and porridge. Fritters and frying-pan bread. Buckle and grunt. Chutney. Cobbler. Even blueberry soup and blueberry shrub made with vinegar watered down for drinking.

  That was long before the days of itinerant vendors selling berries from the backs of pickup trucks along the highway.

  Blueberries tasted like poverty to Gabrielle.

  She dusted a few shelves while she was up, and made sure the mousetrap was fully hidden behind some cans of celery soup that nobody ever touched. Then she hobbled back to her magazine, surrendering once more to wastrel Time.

  The next day was Sunday, a day for the Simms to be home with the little girl. She didn’t visit the dépanneur Monday or Tuesday, either. It wasn’t until Wednesday morning that she appeared, wanting more muffin cups and shortening.

  “Amanda. Do people call you Mandy?”

  “At home, and at school. Gramma and Grampa don’t. Gramma had a cousin named Mandy, but they don’t talk about her.”

  Gabby nodded knowingly. Then the silence became awkward. She didn’t talk to children very much anymore. “So . . . what have you been doing with yourself? At the farm.”

  “Exploring. And eating blueberries.” The bright crescent smile was all the more winning because it wasn’t perfect. Soon her parents would take her to an orthodontist and some of her childhood would be sacrificed. “There are so many blueberries. Everywhere. Just like you said, Mrs. Dufour.”

  “It’s Miss, and you can call me Miss Gabby. You be sure not to eat any other berries there. The other kinds could make you sick.”

  “Gramma told me. There’s a big bush with juicy red berries. Near the bottom of the hill. I won’t eat them.”

  Gabby nodded, remembering. That would be where the great pin cherry tree had stood in the churchyard. The tree burned to the ground in the fire that took the town. Pin cherries wouldn’t hurt the girl, but other shrubs had grown up around the spot. “There used to be a church right there,” she said.

  “I know. Beside the post office, and the li . . . livery stable.”

  Gabby’s head snapped around. How could . . . ? Oh, but there were probably some remains of the foundations still left, overgrown by weeds. Maybe the Simms had tried to plough there and were stopped by the blocks.

  It had been a fine church–the steeple stretching skyward as if competing with the hilltop to be closer to God. The pastors who came and went every few years eyed the crown of higher ground with envy.

  “The hill would have been a good place for the church,” Mandy observed.

  “Yes. Yes, it would.” But the hill had belonged to the Laclé family for generations, and young Armand Laclé . . . well, he’d had very special plans for that hilltop, once he could finish his studies as an architect.

  Plans he’d meant for Gabby to share.

  She coughed and dusted invisible flour from her skirt as she hoisted herself to her feet. It took a few moments to find the muffin cups. Then she fetched the shortening, took the money, and sent the girl on her way.

  When the tinkling call of the bell beckoned her from the back room on Friday, Gabby stopped cold in the doorway.

  It was the girl again, a red scarf at her neck, tied in just the way old Mrs. Landry had worn her scarves, and no one else Gabby could ever remember: the knot pulled to the left side, and the ends spread apart with the upper one pinned to the top of her shoulder. Silly, some thought. Distinctive, Mrs. Landry had insisted.

  “Where did you get a scarf like that?” Gabby asked, without even saying hello.

  “Gramma helped me wit
h it,” the girl announced proudly, pivoting from side to side, cross-eyed from trying to look at the scarf. “I thought it looked . . . distinctive.” She smiled as if pleased with the grownup word.

  Gabby found herself reaching toward the countertop for support. “And what do you want this time? Sugar? More muffin cups?”

  “No, thank you. I just wanted to show you my scarf.”

  “I suppose you’re going to wear it blueberry picking. You’ll catch it on the bushes, you know.”

  “I’ll be careful. I found an old one like this under a bush yesterday. But Gramma said it was too faded, so she gave me hers.”

  “There could be bears out there. Maybe you should leave the blueberries alone for a while.”

  “But they’re so good. I like the light blue ones best. As if they’re painted with blue Jell-O powder. Those are sweet. The others—the ones that are almost black—they’re kind of pasty. If you use them for jam you need more sugar. They’re better for chutney.” She nodded her head wisely. “You get to know blueberries. The little crunchy ones. The fat juicy ones. Some with just a few berries in a clump. Others in clusters, like grapes. Sweet in the sunshine, fatter in the shade. But the tangy ones are good, too—maybe they wish they were oranges or lemons. A few bushes grow next to pine trees, and you can taste that in the berries.”

  “My, you’ve become quite the expert.” Old Mrs. Landry had sounded just like that sometimes, too, showing off with the things she knew about food. She had been the best cook in town.