Holiday Greetings: Free Reads!

As we turn to a new year,

we wish you

Good Health

Happiness

Hands to hold

A healing planet

World-wide peace

And above all,

Hope!

Happy Holidays!

With all our love,

Ellen and Irwin

 

 

 

Contents

Page

 

3. To Santa from Abby, Age 8—A letter from an eight year old with an attitude.

 

5. Leaving Eden—The snake's eye-view of the Book of Genesis

 

9. The School Slut—People of my generation will feel at home in this story…

 

12. The Competition—A peek at the future?

 

13. Death by Editing—Writers will understand.

 

15. Remembrance—Everyone seems to empathize with this poem.

 

16. The Builder—Some thoughts, in fiction form. You'll agree or disagree, but no one will be neutral!

3 blank pages. Only my computer knows why. Sorry.

 

 

 

 

 

 

To Santa from Abby, Age Eight

Dear Santa,

    I hate you. Mrs. Porter says we have to write you a letter and say what we want. I want you to go away--you and your fat belly that's going to give you a heart attack, I hope soon. And I hate your silly laugh--don't you know what a ho is?—and your stupid beard that maybe will get caught in a fire, and your sweaty hot red suit—only a crazy would wear a suit like that here in Florida.

    Most of the kids here hate you. Judy hates you because she's Jewish and you don't come to Jewish kids, but you don't say it's because they're Jewish because that would get you sent to Time Out or jail, so you say it's because she's bad, but she's my best friend and I know she's good. You won't come to Omar either because he's Moslem, and same thing—you say he's bad and I know he's not—he shared his M & M's with me last week. You won't come to Peter because he lives in his mother's van, and vans don't have chimneys, and besides, how would you ever find it?

    Chris hates you because it's Christ's birthday and he should be who everyone in his religion is excited about, not you poking your beard into Jesus' special day. And I hate you triple for all those kids all over the world in wars and droughts and poor places where Mrs. Porter says we're lucky we're not. You don't come to them either. I'm so sure you don't I'd bet all my Harry Potter books including the one I'm still waiting for and maybe you'll bring it but you probably won't.

I was good last year and did you bring me anything? No. And you know why? Because I happen to know you're not real. Know how I know? Because last year, my mom was saving to get me a Harry Potter and then she saw this outfit and bought it for herself and then you didn't come to our house. That's how I know.

So I hate you because you're not real and because you made Judy and Omar and Peter and especially the kids in poor places feel bad because you or whoever's wearing that dorky suit tells them they're bad and they're not.

So here's what I want for Christmas: I want you to go away and never come back, at least until you're ready come to all the kids all over the world with what they want. And bring Mrs. Claus with you because it's not fair for her to have to sit home alone and freeze in the North Pole while you're traveling all over the place and getting to see all the interesting places and everything.

Then, maybe I'll like you and maybe even believe you're real.

                    From,

                    Abby, age 8

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Leaving Eden

The Snake

    They've got it all wrong. Yes, I told that stupid woman to eat the apple, and yes, she learned something when she ate it, but it was absolutely, totally, not what they think she learned.

    Look, sooner or later the man and woman were going to discover each other, if you know what I mean. Fact is, they discovered each other and were quite knowledgeable in the way the scholars all think of knowledge, way before I suggested a bite of the apple. That's not what the apple is about. In fact, I suggested she try the apple because I was getting pretty tired of the constant fornicatings, and getting pretty scared that all the fornicatings were going to lead to begettings, which would lead to more fornicatings, and then more begettings—which made me downright terrified the garden would get so crowded it wouldn't be pleasant at all.

    So the apple. You see, I'd already tried it, and I knew exactly what it would teach.

 

The Woman

    She walks through the garden, swathed in nothing but wonder. Each breath brings a newness, a freshness. Something is different about each one—the scent, the temperature, the dampness. Each different, and each perfect.

    Her eyes can barely take in the wonder of the colors, textures, shapes around her. Each time she blinks, or turns her head, or takes a step, some new marvel, some new perfection, fills her senses.

    Each taste of food brings her taste buds to orgasm. How is it possible for anything to be this good? And yet, the next taste, in its uniqueness, is as rare, as marvelous.

    And the man! The ecstasy of their couplings! She is moved to tears each time their bodies and souls touch, certain that nothing could be better, but then they couple again, and it's different, and every bit as miraculous.

 

    She is enraptured by the reptile, resplendent, with the sun shimmering on his scales; is delighted when he speaks to her.

    "Have you tried the fruit of that tree, yet?" he asks.

    "But I thought that was the one we were not to taste," she says.

    "Oh, that's because it's so beautiful, so radiant, so tempting," the snake says. "If you were allowed to eat it, would you ever taste the fruit of the other trees? Look what you would have missed. Now, you know how scrumptious they are, so if you eat it and like it, you'll continue to eat all the others, because you've had time to learn that all fruits are good. Here. Try it."

    She reaches out her hand. What the snake said makes perfect sense. She looks at the fruit, sparkling in the sunlight, beads of juice almost bursting through its skin. She takes it, bites into it.

The Snake

    What she learned from that bite was—well, more of an unlearning. Before the apple, everything was fresh, and new, and perfect, because every experience was lived as the first, experienced wholly as itself. What she learned was to compare, to judge, to set standards. What she learned was eternal disappointment.

    Let me put it another way. She bit into the apple, let that man she hung out with take a bite, and together, they walked out of the garden. Good riddance, I say.

The Woman

    She bites into the apple. It is—what words are there? Nothing she has experienced can approach this. What she thought of as perfect is as nothing compared to this. This is perfection.

Something this stupendous must be shared. She runs to her mate, hands him the apple, tells him to try it. He does.

    He hands it back to her, she takes another bite, but—What is wrong? It is still sweet, but, not like before. Not like the first bite. Something is missing. He tries another bite, and yes, he agrees, the first bite had a juiciness to it, or maybe an undertaste of salt—something isn't quite there.

    They run to the tree, pull down apple after apple, try a bite of this, a bite of that, but none has the perfection they remember from the first. Perhaps they have the wrong tree? They try tree after tree, but find nothing but disappointment.

    "It's your fault," she says. "It was fine, until you sank your teeth into it. Something about your teeth, or the way you held it. Your fault entirely." She looks at him, and wonders how it is she never noticed the bump on his nose, or the way the hair on his hands look like patches of dirt. How silly his genitals look.

    Quickly, she gathers leaves and vines and winds them into a garment to cover the most grotesque parts of him. He does the same for her. It's better this way, she thinks. Together, they walk on, finding fault with each other, finding fault with their surroundings. Never noticing when they leave the garden.

    
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The School Slut

    Liane Lester was the school slut. Not too many kids knew it—I didn't until she turned what was supposed to be a session working on a class project into a sex-ed lesson. Ask any student at Fieldrock High in 1959 who the most Biblically known girl was, and you'd get an easy "Angie Howeveryoupronounceit." Angie, with her shabby clothes, level three classes and parents from some country that twisted syllables and strung together consonants, was the get-it-for-free girl.

    Talk about sluts, and no one would think of Liane Lester, who was pretty—but pretty much unknown before the afternoon of the project. A complete non-standout. Her dark brown pony-tail was the requisite length, her plaid pleated skirts hit her calves in exactly the right spot, her bras were just pointy enough—unknown whether natural or padded—her cashmere sweaters were appropriately clingy. Some marking periods she made low honor roll, some she didn't. Enough clubs to look good on college applications, but not a cheerleader, editor of anything, or class officer. Lived in the right part of town. Mother stayed home and belonged to the sisterhood of her father's organization, father wore a suit to work. As I said—as average as you can get. Until the day:

    

We were divided into committees for a social studies project. The teacher grouped us according to the elementary school we'd gone to, so we could walk to each other's houses and he wouldn't be responsible for some irresponsible sixteen year old driving into a tree. So Liane and I ended up on the same committee, along with Susan, Karen, Jane and Myrna. We wanted to be assigned "Literature of the Westward Movement," but the boys, who wouldn't know a good book if it were served for dinner, were assigned it. We got "The Geography of the Oregon Trail."

    We met in Myrna's basement on a Saturday afternoon. We'd finished the report—we'd each written a chapter. Now we had oak tag sitting on top of the newspaper that was covering a ping-pong table. Andy Williams crooned on the genuine juke box in the corner. Liane, who it turned out could draw, was outlining a map of the U.S. onto the oaktag. Myrna was playing hostess—trying to get Rice Krispies Treats that had baked too long out of the pan, and ice cream that hadn't been out of the freezer long enough into the bowls. Susan and Jane were mixing the plaster of Paris while Karen and I tried to pry the tops off paint cans with pennies.

    I forget who started it, or who said what, but the conversation began with Kruschev banging his shoe onto the podium, and went on to whoever it was saying "What would you do if they did bomb us—if you heard the bomb was headed for New York and there were only a few hours left?" Most of us started out with good-byes to family and stuff like that, until—was it Karen?—said "I'd grab the nearest guy and ask him if he wanted to have intercourse." That's what we called it—intercourse, or It, or all the way.

    No one said anything for a minute, then we all started talking at once. Agree, agree, agree. "I want to feel what it's like before I die." "At least once." "It's supposed to be. . ."

    "It is," Liane said. Sudden silence. We knew she was dating a college guy, but still. "It is." We put down whatever we were doing, and clustered on the floor with our hard-as-rock Krispies Treats, and bowls of now-soupy ice cream. Liane swore us to secrecy—OK to tell girls—she'd be happy to answer questions—but absolutely no guys. She didn't want to get a reputation. It became clear as she talked that she probably already had one. The college guy was far from her first.

    Worlds opened up that afternoon, for the five of us on Myrna's linoleum floor. Petting, kissing, French kissing ("yuck!" "for real?") and It. All the way to orgasm. ("What's that?" Susan asked. Liane told.)

    The plaster of Paris hardened in the can. We all piled into Karen's car to go for more. Karen could have gone alone, but who can blame her for not wanting to leave the group—for not wanting to leave Liane—for even ten minutes. So we scrunched into her ancient Ford, and picked up a pizza along with the plaster. We all got into trouble for getting home late for dinner: We put too much water in the plaster of Paris and it took forever to dry, and the paint showing the Oregon trail kept seeping into the background, but somehow we finished it and got it into the trunk of Karen's car. I think it got an A. It hardly mattered then, and not at all now. We formed "lifelong" friendships that day, which ended less than two years later, when we went off to college.

    But on the day, that Liane opened up, worlds of possibility for all the rest of us, Liane stopped being just another Fieldrock junior, lost in the crowd, and became the most venerated girl in the school, the highest rung on the social ladder.

    I never stopped then to wonder what made her different from Angie Howeveryoupronounce it, the lowest. Only in looking back, do I understand.

 

 

 

 

 

The Competition

    There is no way. Simply no way. One day left before the competition, the whole world tuned in, and nothing—simply nothing to present.

    Joeli listens to the thoughts of her Caltech teammates, and their minds are as blank as hers—at least with regard to a new communications invention. Lots of chatter about what the hell are they going to do, but beyond that, nothing. It doesn't help that Mitch hacked into the MIT team's thought-cell, and learned that they're as lost as Caltech's team. In fact, Joeli thinks, that makes it worse. Sara agrees—the best and the brightest, and all that crap. How can both of the finalists come up with nothing?

    But what's left, Todd asks, and they all scan the history of communication, from smoke signals to telephones to the internet to the present implant-chips. Where is there to go when you can send your thoughts to anyone anywhere, and call up any person or information you want, Sara asks.

    And then Joeli screams. Her teammates shake their heads and send "come on—a little consideration" messages.

    "But I've got it," Joeli shouts. "What about turning it off?"

    "Silence?" Todd asks.

    "Why not?" Sara asks.

    "You mean, totally out of reach?" Mitch asks.

    "Totally!" Joeli says.

    "What are we waiting for? Only twenty hours left," Sara says.

    "Piece of cake," Todd answers.

    The next day, the whole world tunes in to see Caltech win. Within a year, phones that may, or may not be answered are ringing, again.

 

Death by Editing

 

    The first draft is always easy, Mona thinks. Just put down the story, let the words flow. Editing is the hard part—reshaping the story, fine tuning it, fixing the grammar. She hates everything that happens after the first draft, but it must be done. First drafts by definition are, well—drafty. She laughs. Insubstantial. Full of holes.

    She sits at her desk, opens her computer, and starts to write. The magazine wants a story about a trip taken by an adult, to a place that was important during childhood but has not been visited since. Her fingers fly across the keys. She finishes the three hundred or more word story in time to watch Dancing With the Chimps.

    She prints it out, takes it with her to edit during the commercials. The magazine deadline is tomorrow.

In the first commercial, she takes out her red pencil, and crosses out all the ands,
that, buts and becauses. It's a long commercial. Mona opens her notebook to the list of Don'ts, and sees "adjectives and adverbs." She quickly runs red lines through every one on the page.

    During the next commercial, she scans the story for things that could get her sued. Felice Rappaport, Pete Lipman and Susan Pratt , kids she went to school with, probably wouldn't be too happy with the way she used their names. She crosses them out. She's reluctant to do so, but she also deletes Starbucks, Coca Cola and Marshalls. You can't be too careful when it comes to potential lawsuits, her writing teacher told her. She goes back and scratches out Chevrolet.

Then there's the matter of plagiarism. It breaks her heart—it is, after all, the punch-line of her story, but you can't go home again has got to go. She almost sobs as she realizes the assholes who run her town could also sue.

    It hits her, as a chimp swings his partner over his head, that she once read something about prepositions and things like that being indicators of amateurish writing. In the next commercial, she circles everything that would hang down below the line in a diagrammed sentence. "Keep it simple, nouns and verbs," Mrs. Jones used to say in English 101.

    Next, she attacks every passive verb—all the is makings, had comes, and the like.

    When the show ends, she reads what she has left: a collection of unrelated nouns and verbs that make no sense at all when she reads them aloud, no matter how much expression she infuses them with. There is nothing to do but cross them out, because everyone knows you can't submit words that don't fit together in a meaningful way.

    She looks at what remains, puts a blank piece of paper into an envelope, and addresses it to the magazine, sure she has finally produced a piece no editor can reject because it has not been fully edited. She lets out a crow of delight. She can't wait to see her story in print.

 

 

 

 

 

Remembrance

I hated your guts:

    the way you twisted my words

    or made them disappear on a whim;

    the way you froze

    and refused to hear a word;

    your hardness, coldness—

    the way you knew the motions

    but knew nothing of emotions

    behind my words.

 

I loved your mind:

    the way it held onto thoughts

    when I'd misplaced them;

    your flexibility and willingness to change—

    to forget what I'd said and accept

    revised intent;

    the way you would respond

    to the slightest touch,

    exactly as I'd dreamed it;

    the way we could be together

    and never tire of one another.

 

Until you did the unthinkable:

    closed your eyes,

    closed your self off from me,

    and died.

 

I have tried to find another

    I could know with the intimacy

    we shared.

    I have only met frustration.

 

I miss you, Compaq,

    Windows XP, Word 2000.

 

 

The Builder

"Something there is that doesn't love a wall..." R.Frost

"Imagine..." J. Lennon

"If there's any hope for love at all, some walls must fall" Some Walls by M.A. Kennedy, P Rose, R. Sharp, sung by Peter, Paul and Mary

 

 

We've never been introduced, but you know my productions. They're everywhere. You help me build them. My walls. My fences.

    It's you who give me the raw materials to actually create the bricks, mortar, boards, cement. You, who feed me your need to separate yourselves into discrete groups. You who nurture me with your need to prove your little group better than all others. You give me the words I pile up to build my wondrous walls, my fabled fences.

    Words: Bigotry, hate, war, anger, enemies—oh, the list goes on and on. You know them all. No need for me to belabor the point.

    But there are other words, and these are even more precious to me. These are the words that make my walls and fences the most dangerous things in the world; that make me the most dangerous creature alive. Potent words, reeking of demonic power. Words that give the spark of life to wars, riots, pogroms, ethnic cleansings, or merely the sad separation of people who could have loved, could have befriended, could have lived in peace.

    Chant these words along with me, as I point out their consequences:

        Patriotism         Religion     Team         

Creed     Cult Club Community

Lovely words devised to denote inclusion, when their only effect is to exclude.

    

You know me, the Builder of Walls, as dangerous a spirit as you will ever meet. Think of me when you speak the words I mold into fences, think of me when a slight difference causes you to turn your head, cross the street, or simply, not hold out your hand in welcome.

 

    And then imagine what the world could be, if my favorite words were deleted from your lives.