Long ago, far away, a wizard named Atticus was troubling his neighbors in the village of Calpurnia. For Atticus liked to build contraptions. His wizardry job consumed most of his daylight hours, leaving him only the quiet night in which to work. Clank! Crash! Shooble-shooble-shooble-shooble… Really, Atticus made quite a lot of noise every night! His neighbors could not sleep.

            The Mayor wrote a great proclamation in elegant gold lettering on a long scroll tied in a bright red ribbon, forbidding Atticus to make such a racket, and tacked it to Atticus’ front door. Still, Atticus clanged and whirred all night! The next morning, when the sheriff went to arrest Atticus, the wizard greeted him at the door wearing the red ribbon on his cap. The sheriff couldn’t bring himself to arrest Atticus when he learned that Atticus couldn’t read. Atticus had thought the proclamation was a love letter from a lady of his acquaintance.

Next, the professor visited Atticus in his workshop. “Really, Atticus, you must cease and desist your nocturnal cacophonies! Terminate, discontinue, and abstain from such behavior in future endeavors!” Atticus smiled and nodded. “Absolutely!” Again, the galonking and virble-virbles continued throughout the night. Atticus hadn’t understood a word of it.

The villagers were in an uproar. They liked Atticus, and they depended on him for medicines and potions. They didn’t want to hurt his feelings, but the noise had to stop.

            The next morning, the little girl who lived next door went to see Atticus. The first things she noticed were the cotton balls in his ears. When she pointed them out, Atticus plucked them out and whooped with joy. “I thought my hearing was failing! Why, I’d forgotten all about them! Thank you, little lady! Now, is there anything I can do for you?”

“You can stop making so much noise at night,” she suggested.

“Your wish is my command!” And from then on, Atticus was quieter when working on his contraptions, with only an occasional fwoosh or thlonk. The villagers slept better at night. And when Atticus’ lady friend, whom he’d thought sent the red ribbon, came to stay, the village wizard found he preferred to do other things at night altogether.

Copyright 2006 Amy Frushour Kelly. All rights reserved.

Reproduction by any means prohibited without prior written consent.

Ruben Valtez-Garcia was old, and he would die soon. His daughter, Eva, tried to remember this as she dealt with the inevitable problems that arose every day as his body broke down. For instance, the urine smell that permeated his bedroom and the hall outside the room, no matter how many times she changed his sheets. She didn’t understand – he wore a diaper at night. How could so much urine escape? Or his habit of carrying odd household objects around the house and leaving them in strange places. Eva had become accustomed to finding silverware in her potted plants, a hammer in the refrigerator, a book in the sink. And then there was the forgetfulness. Poor Papa. It must be so difficult to deal with growing old. She didn’t have the heart to complain about having to deal with his behavior when he had to cope with it from the inside out. Still, it was gratifying to know that he was being cared for here, in the family home, rather than being sent away to an assisted living institution with strangers, and that when the time came, it was here that he would die.

Ruben Valtez-Garcia was old, and he would die soon. He feared nothing, and inwardly cursed everything, up to and including his daughter, Eva. That cretin! No matter how he explained it, she would not accept his wish to move to the Vallejo Vista Elder Home. Idiot! He often thought of his friends Gabriel and Jose, relaxing, playing cards, listening to music, flirting with the ladies at Vallejo Vista. He missed them. Getting up from his chair in the bedroom, he went to the door and called out softly: “Eva!” She didn’t come. Good. He unzipped his trousers and peed a little in the corner behind the television. Keeping a watchful eye on the door, Ruben crossed the room and got a few drops into the closet for good measure. Then he reached into a drawer for the eggbeater he’d stolen from the kitchen the night before and settled back into his chair. “Eva! Eva! Come quickly!” Footsteps sounded on the stairs. “Yes, Papa?” Ruben looked up feebly and ran the eggbeater through his hair. “Oh… Did I call you?”

Eva Valtez-Garcia gently took the eggbeater from her father and kissed his forehead. There was no point in embarrassing him by pointing out that he had combed his hair with an eggbeater. Let him keep his dignity intact. For Ruben Valtez-Garcia was old, and he would die soon.

Copyright 2006 Amy Frushour Kelly. All rights reserved.

Reproduction by any means prohibited without prior written consent.

Well! The doody hit the you-know-what over by Maxine’s place the other night. Seems Stan was passing the time with some of the fellows from the Badger Lodge, when he came across a new game with which to preoccupy himself – dice. Zap, to be exact, the game in which you roll three of a kind, four, straights, and so on, and if by chance you come up with zip, you say, “zap!” and give up your turn. Some say that in shady dice parlors, players use stronger language than that, but “zap” gets the message across. So as I was saying, Stan became a regular Zap dynamo, rolling those babies like there was no tomorrow, and before you know it, he’s telling Harry about it the next day. Now, you know Stan, he’s got a heart of gold, but he’s not so bright sometimes. And Harry may not see so good since the war, but he’s sharp as a tack, he sees this so-called “zap” for what it is, a cheap come-on, a scam, a gateway to the gambling fever. If he lets Stan continue in this vein, why, he might start out rolling for pennies, but soon he’ll be playing quarters, then dollars, and where do you go from there but a life of cheap cigars, sour brandy and loose women, sleeping in the gutter! No, no, Harry couldn’t let his old pal down. Soon as Stan’s off the telephone, Harry rushes next door to Maxine. Maxine realizes right off the bat that this is blasphemy, or heresy – a sin of some high order, anyway – and she sets the stage. So that evening, Stan shows up for their regular night of bridge. They’re playing three-handed, Stan playing dummy. Well, naturally Stan starts babbling about Zap, how fun it is, until Harry says, “Why, Stan, I thought being an upright citizen meant something to you! But I suppose I was mistaken.” Stan blinks, like, and Maxine replies, “Why, if I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were ‘up’ on marijuana!” And before Stanley can say anything, their old pal Ethel from down the street, who just recently recovered from bein’ dead, but Stan wasn’t wise to that, she comes moaning and groaning out from under the table wearing a muslin curtain from Maxine’s hope chest, crying, “Stannnnleeeey… Where’s your morals, Stannnnleeeey…” Why, Stan’s so overcome by this display that he yells out, “By gum, Ethel, you’re right! Can you ever forgive me?” So Ethel takes off the curtain and says she does forgive Stan, and Harry claps him on the back and says he’s glad Stan saw the error of his ways, and Maxine brings out a big tray of devilled eggs and pickles she made up just for Stan’s salvation. Ethel sticks around for a hand, but she has a date with that tall fellow, so that still leaves them without a fourth next Tuesday. Do you play?

Copyright 2006 Amy Frushour Kelly. All rights reserved.

Reproduction by any means prohibited without prior written consent.

            All of the caterpillars were excited about making their cocoons except Horatio. “Not everybody can become a butterfly,” he protested. “You guys go ahead.”

“Don’t be silly,” replied Maureen. Astrid agreed. “Is it that you don’t feel special, Horatio? We think you’re special.”

“Hey, if everybody got to turn into a butterfly, it wouldn’t mean anything, would it? Being a butterfly wouldn’t be something extraordinary. It’s okay, you two go on and get your chrysalises ready. I’ll stand guard.”

Maureen and Astrid were so impressed by Horatio’s gallantry that they cheered and made him a big salad of his favorite leaves and pollens so he’d have plenty to eat while he protected their cocoons. Then they began to spin silk, intricately weaving layer upon layer until their soft shells were complete. Horatio lounged idly by, munching his salad and watching clouds cross the sky.

It was a nice day. The salad was great. It was lonely without his friends. He wondered what it was like to be in the cocoon. Maybe it felt wonderful. Maybe Maureen and Astrid were growing stronger, to emerge more powerful as butterflies than they had been as caterpillars. Goodness! Maybe when they came out, they would eat him! Horatio had never met a butterfly. It was possible, he reasoned, that butterflies were raving beasts with gaping jaws and dreadful fangs. Terrified, Horatio climbed up onto the stalk that held Maureen’s chrysalis to tear into it and find out what was really going on. When he reached the top of the stalk, he lost his grip and fell to his death, landing in the salad.

A week later, the cocoons rustled, and out popped Maureen and Astrid.

They yawned and stretched, flexing and admiring their new appendages. “Astrid, you look beautiful!” Maureen marveled.

Astrid was quick to return the compliment. “Your wings are fabulous! Oh, they feel so nice, I can hardly wait to fly!” Smiling, Maureen and Astrid turned to Horatio.

Lying dead, face-down in the bowl of salad.

            Maureen and Astrid were sad for a moment, but after all, Horatio had always been a bit of a glutton. The poor dear had overeaten. At least he’d died happy. And he had clearly done a good job of protecting them during their metamorphosis. Silently, they bowed to their protector and flew away.

Copyright 2006 Amy Frushour Kelly. All rights reserved.

Reproduction by any means prohibited without prior written consent.

Dawn rose bleak and colorless in the mist by the railroad track and the weathered outbuilding. A car stood lonely by the side of the road, its engine cold. Somewhere in the distance, a crow mourned. Condensation clung to the pavement, to the dirt, and to the broken body splayed across the cracked concrete.