From brideb@efn.org Sun Mar 2 08:49:19 1997 Date: Sat, 6 Apr 1996 07:17:30 -0800 (PST) From: Deborah Bryan/Brian Cochrane To: ftp@etext.org Subject: Cranberry Winters, issue 2 (a little late...) ...---***Cranberry Winters***---... (hidden faces) Issue 2, March 1996 ------------------ TABLE OF CONTENTS c h f i r e a n d i c e c e k b e u l t n i o t l f i e l e t g y l p e r d a n k _A Note From the Spoiled Mass_ 5 March, 1996 Editor Deb speaking - We now interrupt this program to bring you the second issue of Cranberry Winters (hidden faces). Your host is Deborah Bryan, 17-year-old hopeful author, person suffering from extreme quantities of stress, dishwasher and sophomore. Sophomore at Lane Community College in Eugene, Oregon, that is. Yesterday, my now-fiancee proposed to me and - as you can tell by the wording - I accepted, gladly. I can only wonder how my parents will react. The thing is, though, that they are not living my life and not feeling what I am feeling. Should I please them and spend my life in agony, or should I do as I would like to do and let them be upset with me? On top of this, I have been supporting myself for the last six months. I am opting to let them be upset with me. I have dealt with them for years, the sometimes obscene things they have done to me, and I think it's time to be me and do what I want to do. harobed _Chicken Leg Prank_ Ben Ohmart she'd come home from supporting me on my ass, i'd eaten everything she loved i had no excuse and my guilt could fill in Mad Lib books but i'd do it again tomorrow, because i didn't know why, until i could never change _Rita Mae_ 4 March, 1996 Deborah Bryan "When you was a itty-bitty baby, I was so proud of you. You was almost like my own daughter." Rita Mae laughed, self-conscious, until the breathe left her and the heat rose to her face. "Ain't that just the funniest thing? You whiter'n a daisy and me about the colour of the midnight sky." This time she did not attempt to laugh; the pain was too great for her to bear. Tears streamed down Jane's face and she pressed Mae's hand against her wettened cheek. "Oh, ha," she managed. "Ha ha ha." There was no room for laughter here next to the deathbed of her best friend and - despite differences of colour that would have been hard to ignore - the only woman she could ever call "Mother." Rita Mae rolled her head toward the window and watched the willows dance in the summer wind. "I remember your mommy and daddy, sure do. Not much about your daddy to remember, only his suits and his way of ignoring that day in favour of the next. "Oh, and he loved women!" Rita Mae smiled and her eyes glittered. "Your mommy thought she could get him to settle down by marrying him. Didn't do her no good. "One time your daddy was gone on one of his trips and he called your mommy. No telling what he said but her face turned red and she hung up then and there. "Didn't see your Daddy again. I asked your Mommy once if she knew where he was and all she said was that she had took care of him and went back to her painting." Rita Mae turned toJane again and said, "Ain't nothing your daddy was good at nohow. Only thing he ever did worth a thought was help your mommy get pregnant." Rita Mae grunted. "Your mommy, i could never forget her. You prolly don't even remember her, she died when you wasn't yet five or six. "She hired me before you were born to take you from her and raise you however I felt proper. Done a mighty good job if I say so myself." Rita Mae now closed her eyes and said, "Janey, it's time you got along. I gots to get going." Jane moaned and clutched Rita Mae's hand more tightly. "What's come over you, girl? Get on out of here!" Rita Mae pulled her hand from Jane and rolled with effort away from Jane. "When you get back to your house, call the manager and have him check on me." "Alright, Mom," Jane whispered. She turned and moved to the door, hoping all the while that Rita Mae would call her back. Rita Mae did not call her back, but as she stepped through the doorway Rita Mae said, "Take a look at your mommy's paintings for me. Almost somethin' magical about them." Jane shut the door and ran from the house, agony consuming her. * Allan was upstairs fixing dinner for Jane, thinking that Jane might need some time to relax after hearing news of the death of her "mother." He laughed as he stirred the noodles, amused by Jane's perpetual childishness. Rita Mae's death meant nothing to him - he had never met her, despite Jane's pleas. In the basement of their old house, Jane carefully memorised the details of her birth-mother's paintings. Most of them appeared to be no more than various shades of light pinks, blues and purples emanating from hazy central images. Jane sighed and rose to her feet, stretched her numb legs. She saw nothing wonderful in these paintings, nothing even remotely magical. She stepped over a small pile of paintings and started climbing upstairs. She caught a glimpse of a large plastic back between the stairs and she turned back down the steps, her curiousity aroused by this solitairy bag. Another of her mother's painting. She could feel the texture of the canvas through the thin plastic. She pulled the painting from the plastic and was immediately enamoured of the painting. Rita Mae was bounding across a field, the sun beating down on her youthful figure. Small figures danced around her, the shimmering figures of hundreds of tiny figures. Rita Mae's head was tossed back in laughter. Tears welled up in Jane's eyes. She could not remember having seen Rita Mae this happy and now was overcome by a desire to turn time back, to help Rita Mae have a different life, a lift not filled with day after day of work. In the bottom right-hand corner of the painting Jane saw small print. Peering at it she could make out her mother's signature and the title, "Rita Mae." Jane stared at the painting minute after minute until, suddenly overcome with a desire to join Rita Mae, if only for a minute in her imagination, she began to stroke the painting. Her eyes lose focus and she could see Rita Mae in the distance, Rita Mae so happy she nearly glowed. Soft grass gave way under her bare feet as she ran toward her best friend. "Rita Mae! Rita Mae!" Rita Mae turned and, seeing Jane, spread her arms out for a reunion with her daughter. * Allan Grier lives alone in the house he once shared with his fiancee Jane, still sometimes wondering why she left him and where she has gone. In the basement there lies forgotten a painting titled "Rita Mae and Jane." _Untitled_ Justin D. Lewis I don't know why rain is so often associated with tears. The rhythmic chatter Warms my heart And takes me back To growing up. In bed, awake Below the light Of the blurry street lamp And the soothing banter Of droplets meeting plastic Telling me stories Of wind and water and of Earth. Singing me to sleep. _An Alternate Death_ 5 June, 1995 Deborah Bryan The woman sits cross-legged on the burning sand, wooden barrel confined within the space between her legs. She does not blink, does not move an inch. She stares at him, burnt and scarred, simply stares. "Would you like some water, child?" He does not see her mouth move, but he hears her. So clearly. He tries to speak, tries to respond, but it is futile. His mouth is dried out, his tongue swollen. How badly he wants her water, to drink some more as he tries to find his way out of this wretched desert. She understands, though he has not spoken. She raises her hand in warning, for what reason he does not know. Ah, the thirst! It is driving him mad. "Be warned, child, each swallow takes a year from your life." Her long blonde braid sways about with the breeze and her face remains passive. He nods - how he needs the water! She takes off the plug and hands over the barrel, not moving from her seat on the desert sand. He gulps the water down without thought, not caring to count as he gulps it down. The later years of his life vanish with each gulp, vanish quickly with each of his hurried gulps. How wonderful the water feels running down his insides! He swallows the water, swallows, swallos. She observes what he does not notice or feel: as he drinks, his skin turns to dust, to sand, everything falling away till he is nothing more than sand amongst a sea of sand. A smile passes briefly over her face, then fades. It is better this way, she reminds herself. Better this than the hunger, the thirst, the pain that would have become his existance. She kisses the sand where he once stood then rises again. She turns toward the sun; steps once toward it, now twice. Her figure, covered in black, trailed by long, blonde hair, now begins to fade. Now she is translucent ... ... and now she is gone, as though she had never existed. _Fire & Ice_ 26 Septembre, 1995 Deborah Bryan There is fire in her heart burning out at times... Until someone thinks to light it again, placing with purpose each twig and limb, or carelessly tossing their lives' journals in Till the fire burns hungrily, ceaselessly. And there is ice in her heart, winter ravages her emotions, memories She wanders the frozen remnants, touching slowly, closing her eyes, backing away at times from things too hard to bear The snow crunches under her red, cold toes She wraps her arms over her breasts, shivering, stepping wearily over broken dreams There - a small light she pulls one arm from her breast Reaching for a light That perhaps doesn't exist It is beyond her reach, this fragile light Now she stretches out both armys Reaching with all the energy she can muster The light blinks, fades away, and she curls up in the hardened snow, her tears streaming, sliding over the glittering white dust that spans an eternity ...silence... then the soft patter of feet on melting snow as of faerie's wings fluttering by earside a gentle hand on her frozen body now, warmth, as the stranger wraps his body around her, his face on her back he brings life to the near-dead and she rises - not healed, but able at least to walk on the soft grass and to share the bitter days of the past and someday to leave them there, in the past ------------------ To contribute, mail brideb@efn.org or Deborah Bryan 1859 Jefferson Street Eugene, OR 97402 To receive this monthly, mail brideb@efn.org You can find my webpage at http://www.efn.org/~brideb/Deb Thank you for reading!