by Barbara Zapson

I am a night person and a late sleeper, which is something I’d looked forward to all my working years. My husband, on the other hand, is usually asleep by 9:30 and wakens about 8 AM. We have phones in every room of our one-bedroom apartment (including the bathroom), and the ringing often awakens me out of a sound sleep.
___After a few years of being loudly woken up before I was ready that was turning me into a grouch, my husband decided to mute the bedroom and bathroom phones to keep me happy. He could answer the ringing phones in the kitchen, dining room or living room. Then, for some reason, during the pandemic, he decided we needed all the phones ringing “in case of an emergency”!
___“What kind of an emergency can we have?”, I asked. “Our parents are no longer living, our children are all grown, for goodness’ sake even our GRAND children are grown, so leave the phones muted”, I said.
___“You never can tell, Julio answered.” “Maybe a fire or one of our neighbors has a problem, or one of our grandkids is in trouble and afraid to tell their parents.”
___“A fire or a neighbor’s problem would cause a knock on the door or the doorbell to ring, and our grandkids are more afraid of me than they are of their parents! Do you remember what one of them said about me ‘yelling at him with my eyes’?”
___The argument was dropped for a few weeks. I had several weeks of peaceful mornings and he had a happy wife. Then it started again with “It could be any kind of problem or emergency!” I finally gave up and told Julio, “OK, OK, you win! Unmute the phones!”
___The phone did not ring early in the morning for four days. On the 5th day, it rang in the middle of the night. Needless to say, we both nearly jumped out of our skin. The call went something like this: “This is the Social Security Department calling to tell you that we found someone fooling around with your Social Security Card. Please press 9 to speak with a representative.” Of course, we hung up. The next day at 5 A.M. the phone rang again, and that call was from an insurance company, threatening to end our insurance and repossess our car! We do not own a car.
___But it was the call from China, in Chinese, at 3 A.M., mentioning Bank of America in English, that finally convinced Julio there was no reason to keep the phones ringing overnight or early in the morning.

How does this story end?

He kept trying to get a date with her–– not once, not twice, but for a few years. They would get together as friends but had never even held hands. Of course, when they danced, they would hold each other, as this was in the days of close dancing and they had become dance partners, having coincidently always frequented the same places. Or was it subconsciously on purpose, for one, or both?
___“I can’t go out on a date with you, you are like a brother to me and you’re one of my best friends! You know ALL about me, my strengths, my weaknesses, my life, she always answered when he asked her to go out on a real date with him. “How could I ever DATE you?? Where is the MYSTERY? The challenge?”
___Why does there have to be mystery or challenge” he wondered? Isn’t being close friends a good reason to start a romantic relationship?” To him, it was the best reason.
___This situation went on for about five years. He was her confidante during a few small (or not so small) challenges in her life, like when she lost her job, when she found out a guy she was dating was married, or when one of her children didn’t call her for a week or two. She went to him to vent, for advice, or for a little sympathy, all of which he was very good at supplying.
___One night, they ran into each other at a club. When the club was closing, they were in the middle of a conversation.
___“Why don’t we finish this conversation over breakfast?” he said. She accepted his invitation. Of course, in her mind, this was not a date. After breakfast he insisted on taking her home by cab, saying “You can’t go home alone at four in the morning!” Once again, she accepted his invitation, and he hailed a cab.

How Do We Stop World Destruction?

Wildfires
Earthquakes
Hurricanes
And wars.
Hunger
Violence
New viruses
No cures.
Insurrection and looting
Old diseases arise
Is God telling us we’re bad in his eyes?
Water rises
Fires roar
The Earth explodes
And there is more.
Famine, plagues, tsunamis, disease
Is there no staunching the rising seas?
How do we stop global destruction?
Can’t anyone shed light on
what has become a worldwide plight?
Can humans survive with all the deception,
-OR –
Is it too late for human correction?

By Allan Yashin

Margo wondered how many more nights Marty would be spending sleeping on the ferry instead of next to her in her apartment in Greenpoint. Yes, the vaccine had started a slow rollout, but everything seemed tentative…and if it was effective, how much longer until Marty felt the hospital he worked in would no longer leave him at risk of contracting the virus…and so, give it to Margo also.
___Was it really 6 months since he had been home? Time felt so elastic…the days sped by…the weeks dragged on. Talking and zooming had sufficed for their relationship…and perhaps Marty felt better able to settle for that since he also felt the satisfaction of knowing he was doing the right thing by working at the overwhelmed hospital.
___But Margo didn’t have that sense of accomplishment in her life. No, zooming in for her. Meetings at the corporate real estate office she worked for were joyless sessions of handwringing at the horrid state of affairs of the present and foreseeable future, with prospects of greatly diminished incomes for all.
___So, combine that with Marty gone…and what did she have? Hard to quantify…but emotionally it came up definitely on the red side of the ledger. And so. Margo began to wonder…maybe it was time for her to walk on…put Marty and real estate behind her. And to be honest, at this point, she wondered how much Marty would really care. Yes, Margo felt this was the time to look for something new and nourishing in her life, God knows, whatever that might be.
___And then she heard a knock on the door. It took Margo out of the thoughts swarming though her head and directed her to wondering who it might be. She couldn’t remember the last time someone was at her door. Oh, yes, it had been the building superintendent, ringing her doorbell to let her know he was leaving an announcement advising that composting efforts in the recycling room had been halted due to concerns regarding the virus.
___This was no doorbell ring, but a knock…and there it was again. Margo did the wise thing…don’t open the door until you’ve looked through the peephole to see who it might be. After all this was New York City, not Kansas. But when she moved the little metal cover and peered into the hallway, she saw nothing. She thought whoever it was must’ve left already…couldn’t have been very important, or perhaps they realized they had come to the wrong apartment.
___But then she heard the knock again. What was that? How could it be? Who was out there hidden from view? She unlocked the door and opened it…to find? A tiny man standing there…why, no bigger than an elf.
___Before Margo could think of anything to say, the elf held up his hand and piped up in a little voice. “Here…it’s a present to you from Marty.” And he handed her a bag and dashed off before the thought of a tip even occurred to her.
___She held the paper bag in her hand. Before she opened it she already knew it was an everything bagel and lox because she had smelled that glorious smell a million times before. After all, this was New York City not Kansas.
___And inside the bag, nestled close to the still warm bagel, was a note from Marty, written on stationary embossed with a drawing of Santa on his sled, clearly purloined from the Pole…green collar theft.
___“My dearest Margo…there’s no way I can express how very much I miss you. Every night when the ferry takes me to the Navy Yard I think of our first date there, and I long to be with you. This bagel and lox is a token of my love for you. Please put it in your freezer, so that we can share it together when I’m able to be back home with you again.”
___Tears formed in Margo’s eyes…and she didn’t think it was from the onion on the bagel. How stupid of her to doubt Marty’s love for her. Of course, she would wait for him. And how romantic to send that bagel so she could freeze it and they could eat it together. Such a delicious smelling everything bagel too. Oh, yes, and that combination of the lox, cream cheese and onion. If there truly is a Jewish heaven, this must be what they serve there.
___And as Margo’s eyes teared…and her mouth watered she thought “Freeze it? What the hell, he’ll never know. I’ll buy another one tomorrow.” And she ripped open the bag, settled down on the couch with her bagel and started to binge-watch Friends for the millionth time …imagining Marty was there with her.

By Antoinette Carone

Two days before he died, Julian experienced a surplus of energy. Not like a power surge, it was really more of a gradual build-up. He barely noticed it at first.
___It started around eight o’clock in the morning, right in the middle of his second cup of coffee. He had the impression that someone was stroking his hair, and this enlivened him.
___Years ago, when he was a child of five, his mother would stroke his hair when she woke him up or when she picked him up after kindergarten. Many years after that, his wife would often stroked his hair when they made love.
___Now it was an alien yet familiar sensation, like an almost forgotten secret greeting. His mother had died ten years ago. His wife, three years later. His mother, of course, stopped running her hand over his hair when Julian was about thirteen and wouldn’t stand for any “baby stuff.” His wife – well, the last time was just after her diagnosis. Then she couldn’t bear to be touched.
___So at eight-thirty in the morning, two days before he died, Julian’s spirits were uplifted, although he didn’t bother to search for a reason. He felt like working. He walked into his studio and began to paint. He was working a study of a house, but he could never get it right.
___The house was made of yellow brick, an unusual kind of brick, but often used in parts of Appalachia. Most important to Julian, the painting was asymmetrical. One could see part of the house from the street, but half was obscured on the left by an overgrown hedge. A bay window occupied the center of the field of vision. A small portico extended it on the right.
___Julian had no idea how this image had originated. It felt like someplace unexplored. He wanted to enter but didn’t know how.
___The walk from the street to the portico was barren, stark in its emptiness. The ochre of the brick and the dusty brown of the yard rendered the painting too monocratic. Julian decided to add color. He roughed in a rose bush beside the entryway. He filled the space under the bay window with white and purple irises. It was lost on him that his mother’s name was Rose and his wife’s Iris.
___Julian painted all that day, and all the next, stopping only when the daylight did. He liked natural light. He died believing he was on the verge of something new.

The Imperfect Child

Ann watched Joshua quietly playing with Legos. It was a good day. He was calm and content. No tantrums. Thankfully, they were becoming fewer and farther between. No medication. Just creation of structure and a calm environment.
___Joshua was a beautiful little boy. Light brown hair. Dark brown eyes. He was a difficult child and had been from birth. He had cried for the first six months of his life. Loud noises, stiff fabrics and too much activity going on around him caused him to be irritable.
___Ann loved him. Beyond reason, according to her husband. When Joshua was two, Joe wanted Ann to put him in daycare and go back to work. Ann’s instincts rebelled. She felt she could do better than daycare.
___Nevertheless, Joshua went to nursery school five mornings a week. He was tired when he got home, so became easier to manage. Unless he was overtired. Then he was hyper, bouncing off walls.
Joe had a hard time coping with this bright little boy diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder. It took Ann two hours to coax Joshua away from toys, into his bath, out of his bath, into bed, and then to have “one more story.” Joe began leading a separate life. No girlfriend. He just became absorbed in his hobby. He set up a photography studio and worked until late each evening.
___Ann took care of Joshua. She helped with homework. She took him interesting places on Saturdays.
___Joe was disappointed in Joshua. He didn’t like pictures or baseball. He liked climbing and especially building with Legos. He liked taking things apart and putting them back together. He could focus for hours on end and could not be distracted. All part of ADD. Joshua was not the child Joe had wished for. Joe felt his life should have “been free to overlook this sadness.”
___Ann embraced the sadness of an imperfect child. She saw Joshua’s joy in building, in making connections from disparate things. Sadness and imperfection are, after all, part of life.