Stillborn

The driver pulled up to the curb where Cassidy told him to stop, then told her to have a good night. She didn't answer, but dipped her head before getting out in case anyone would see her. The driver had no clue what she would want in the Undergrowth, but understood why a woman like her wouldn't want to be seen in the dank of Angel City. She kept wide plate sunglasses over her face, and wore veils over her head. For once she even kept the jewels and custom tailored clothing kept away for something more humble (to her). A blouse and skirt with a fatigue trench coat concealing her pregnant midriff. She wore ruby red heels that clacked against the wet pavement as she stepped from the car into the misty streets. The driver asked if he should wait outside, his voice shaking as shadows murking among the mist seemed to stop and eat up the sharp black limousine with their eyes. Cassidy leaned back into the car and told him to wait, then shut the door. Part of her wished she had never involved the help. She wanted to keep this secret, and the help liked to gossip. She opened the door once again to tell the driver that if he keeps quiet about this adventure then she would slip him some extra money when the night came to an end. He agreed and she shut the door again. With one hand on her purse and the other on her engorged womb she went down the sidewalk, looking up for street signs.

Being in the Undergrowth made her feel like cold water had been poured over her. The sound and smell of putrid water rushing beneath the gutters, the steam rising from the manholes, the spilling bags of garbage blowing from the alley ways and the dilapidated buildings made her wish she was back in the limo. But there was no turning back. This is the place she had to go. Rain poured down the gutters onto the sidewalk. Only one street light every few blocks shined, and it flickered, causing the yellow haze it created in the fog to remain dim. The sidewalk tilted and broke open. Her heel got caught in a crack, and she would've broke an ankle if her foot hadn't simply slipped out. She knelt over to latch it back, hating herself for being foolish enough to wear heels to a place like this. Under ordinary circumstances she never would have come, but it's where her friend had told her the only Doctor that could solver her problem lived. She had been so relieved so have a solution, but she felt numbness when none of them offered to come down with her. She didn't blame them, but wish they would've given more more accurate description as to where the place was. Cats ran from an alleyway she approached. A man hunched over in rags waited by the corner but made no notion to notice her. He reeked of urine and booze. She felt sick looking at him, but thought better of it.

“Excuse me,” She asked him. A single green eye appeared from a mass of black and gray hair. “I'm looking for Ashgabat's House of Smoke.”

The eyes didn't move or blink from the net of hair, but a long arm stretched from the rags and pointed down the alley. The end of it seemed to fall further and further away, but she she could see his black finger nail on a short stair case leading into a basement. She thanked him and walked away, shuttering away the feeling that his eye remained on her as she turned her back and walked to the stairs. She took hold of the railing and she descended with caution. Each step felt uneven and loose under her feet, though in the dark she couldn't see for certain. A rusted metal door stood at the bottom. A slot cut into the middle covered by a slide. She rapped on the door until the slide opened and a pair of black eyes appeared. She told the pair of eyes that she had business with Ashgabat. The slide closed, four locks hollowly clacked through the door, then it opened. The man didn't look at her, and stepped aside for her to enter.

She kept her chin up as she entered. She walked down a dark hallway towards a mantel with a row of candles burning above another set of stairs. Her heels thudded against the hardwood floor. Chills went up her spine as the door creaked shut and slammed. The cold drift passed her and dissapeared, leaving only dry air and the smell of smoke. Faint fumes rose from the stair case. She took off her sunglasses to see better before she descended. The way down seemed long and black before orange light on layers of stonework.

As she made her way down, the chamber revealed itself. Lit by torches and candles, smoke rose and twirled along the dark corners of the room and fell flat against the floor. A few wooden tables scattered around, each with a candle and sets of pipes. Hooded folk gathered around them, silently smoking. At the far side was a bar and a raghead cleaning glasses. She watched herself in the mirror behind him to make sure she looked like a proud woman, not one confused as to what time period she had got herself lost in. The raghead stopped wiping the glass when she asked for his attention. His dark eyes sunk deep into his head, and the wrinkles and cracks along his face told her the story of a long life.

“I'm looking for Ashgabat.” She told him.

“In the back.” He mumbled to her.

She looked around the chamber, and noticed one man at a table by himself, counting money and smoking. He kept his hood down, revealing a hairless scalp,and a scarred face. She came closer, taking notice of the white marks running down his features. His nose bent inward, and dark rings circled his eyes. He looked up and grinned as if he knew she would be showing up.

“Are you Cassidy Dawnson, wife of Leland Dawnson the Third?” He asked, his voice rough and metallic, like a winding clock.

“Yes. I came to see Ashgabat.”

“Here he is, my lady. I can't say we've had the pleasure of hosting a woman of your substance before. Please, take a seat.”

“I'll stand, thank you.”

“Fine with me. So Mrs. Dawnson, what can I do for you this evening?”

Her hands wrapped around the bulge in her abdomen.

“I need a doctor. I hear the only one that can... help me knows you.”

“You've come to see Dr. Fairfax?” He blushed with joy some surprise. “First...” He pushed forward an ash tray, and rapped his fingers against the table. Each finger wore a jeweled ring. She reached into her purse, and dug around, picking up every ring and jewel that she had brought. She dropped them into the ashtray, and watched nervously as he picked each one up and inspected them.

“Is that enough?”

“Oh yes, this will do. Now, Mrs. Dawnson, I have to know that we can trust you. After all, there is no turning back once you've made this decision.”

“Please, anything, I need this done.”

“How old are you?”

“I'm twenty three.”

“I love the intrepid deeds of the young.” He laughed. “How old is Mr. Dawnson?”

“Fifty-four.”

“I'm sure his wealth didn't distract your love for him. What happens if you don't get to see my friend Fairfax tonight?”

“He's been trying for so long to have a son. He has no children, and he's already divorced three women.”

“Is it a girl?”

“No, it's a boy... he died this morning.”

“How do you know?”

“A mother knows. Please, if he finds out he'll leave me for another. This is my only choice.”

“I see.” He set the ring in his hands back into the ashtray and dumped the contents into his pocket, then stood up. “Follow me.”

He lead her to farthest corner of the chamber, to a wall of black. He drew out a lynard with dozens of keys, and reached with one into the darkness. A lock clicked, and a thin light cut through the dark and widened as he opened a door to a tunnel. Wind moaned as cold air pushed is way up. Two flickering torches lined the way down a decline. Ashgabat went down first, taking one torch from the wall and not looking back to see if Cassidy followed. She stepped in after him, bending her neck to keep it from sinking into the dark cieling where she imagined low rafters. Dusty sheets of plywood covered the floor, and strange alien markings labeled the walls. She could hear rats scurry away from Ashgabat's kicking feet, but Cassidy only saw their feces and paw prints in the dancing orange light. She tried to keep her watch on Ashgabat's twisting black robes. He didn't slow down for her. A moment in which she would take to notice the unfamiliar characters or chase a noise, Ashgabat would disappear down into the dark depth of the tunnel. Cold air filled the tunnel, and it grew colder the further she dug. Her heels sank into the soft plywood. Smells of sawdust and raw earth filled the space. Like a grave.

Her steps became heavy. She took slow breathes trying to remain oriented, but she knew that the tunnel extended with a declining angle, slightly but certainly she had sunk beneath the sewers. She held onto the knot of flesh hanging from her body, wondering how these men had managed to dig, how long it took, how they got away with it. She used to hear that the Chinamen in China town had dug a network of tunnels to smuggle drugs through, but nothing like this. Not this deep, not this old. A sprinkle of dirt rained on her. She muzzled her hair trying to get it out, but only more came down. Ashgabat stopped, placing the torch onto the wall. As Cassidy drew closer she saw that he stood before a cellar door, bound in chains and padlocks. Ashgabat reached into his cloak and pulled out the ring of keys, and then bent down to unlock the door. Each one had a different key, and Cassidy began to shiver.

Ashgabat looked back, half his face concealed under the hood, the other in the flickering light of flame.

“Dr. Fairfax is a good man...” he assured her. “I've known him for decades... comes from good blood. He tells me... that his family was among the first to bring slaves to America.... though he's never disclosed how his family accumulated such wealth... he likes to stay down here... he pays his rent so I don't ask questions.”

Once he finished Ashgabat took hold of the handle and pried the door open. The rust creaked as white light, cold wind, and the smell of anesthetic spilled into the tunnel. Cassidy had to hold her hair back so it wouldn't blind her. The screeching of a saw buzzed beneath, paused and muted by the sound of a running engine before the screeching came back as something more was pushed through the blade.

“Follow me,” Ashgabat beckoned as he flew down the stairs into the luminous chamber.

Cassidy took caution as she approached. The sawing stopped, only pipes pumping and water dripping and equipment humming came from the room. From the stairs she saw white tiles, reflecting white orbs of light hanging from the ceiling. She went down, unable to see Ashgabat, but with a scene revealing before her as the steps whined beneath her feet. Lights hung from the black ceiling, slowly swinging to and fro. The white linoleum covered every square of the floor. Stainless and perfect, and reflected the lights so well that each step she was sure would land her foot in a puddle of spilled water only to clack against solid surface. Curtains of fogged plastic divided the chamber into rooms. Stains of red, blue, green smeared across them.

Cassidy crossed her chilled arms, wishing that she had worn something warmer. The cold made her body feel frail, as if her bones were glass. She turned, looking in any direction for a sign of Ashgabat so she asked aloud if anyone was down there. Her eyes caught onto something moving a shadow emerging from the curtains. A latex glove reached from a fold in the plastic, and pulled it aside to reveal and older man, his bland scalp and skin white and wrinkled. He wore thick plate glasses that covered his cheek bones, and glared in the fluorescent lights, distracting from the overbite that hid his chin behind a row of teeth. His white jacket fit nicely over him, with a red tie tucked underneath and a clipboard tucked under his arm. He stood up straight, and though age and weariness scarred his face, he carried himself with a comforting professionalism as he approached Cassidy.

“Mrs. Cassidy Dawnson?” He held out his hand for her to shake. She stared as his gloved hand, but didn't move, so he let it drop back to his side. He spoke with a dreamy steadiness, a lullaby rising to its optimal strength to let her know that he meant business. “I am Doctor L.P Fairfax. Ashgabat tells me that you're in need of my services.”

“Yes, I have a problem... my friends, they're the only ones that know, they told me about you... that you might be able to help.”

“I see,” Fairfax examined her. “How long has your child been dead? I know it's painful, but time is of the most crucial essence, if your asking me to do what I think you are.”

“This morning... please, do anything you can.”

“This morning? Good. You exercise? Smoke? Eat balanced meals?”

“I don't smoke. I jogged three miles every day, and I don't eat meat, but have extra servings of vegetables with protein.”

“Very good. Come with me.”

Fairfax turned his back and led Cassidy through a plastic curtain to a small operating room. A mattress strapped onto a table awaited her. Fairfax gestured for her to sit on it as he pulled up a chair. She kept her hands in her lap, as the doctor leaned forward on one leg. She could see the groundwork across his brow, jaw, and smell the must of his age. White hairs dangled from his chin, and once close enough she could see a pair of heavy yellow eyes under the glasses.

“Now, Mrs. Dawnson, please don't be nervous. I am a legitimate medical professional. See those diplomas?” He pointed to three frames and a plaque over a counter hosting rows of glass jars with masses of flash floating inside. “Harvard, Stanford, and Oxford. That plaque? From Saddam Hussein himself for my work in his research facilities.”

“Did you say Saddam Hussein?”

“I've been all over the world,” He laughed. “I met my good friend Ashgabat while working in Iraq, then we traveled to all corners. Bhutan, Nicaragua, Russia, I've even met your husband. I want you to know, that I too have suffered the loss of a child. The pain that the mother and I felt was unbearable. Since then I've dedicated my life to finding a way to reverse the process of in utero death.”

“How is that possible, doctor?”

“Simple. I have access to tools, methods, and medicines that are prohibited in most countries. Since Ashgabat trusts you, then so do I. First, you will be sedated. Second, I will operate on the fetus while it remains in the womb. Third, I will sew you back shut, apply antibiotics and bandages where necessary, and by morning you will be with Mr. Dawnson with a healthy, living, boy growing inside of you.”

“You have done this before? It works?”

“Yes. I'm so close to uncovering this mystery. I believe I can revive your child. Now as Ashgabat has probably told you, there isn't any going back.”

“Yes, I'm ready.”

“Good.” Fairfax smiled, his teeth caked in plaque. “Just lay back. We'll begin the operation shortly. You're in safe hands.”

Cassidy laid on the bed, her womb slushing down on her organs. The stone inside became colder and colder. A light hung directly over heard. She looked past it into the darkness overheard. The doctor had left. She could hear his feet patter away, then his voice. She couldn't make out the words, but she heard a gargling reply to each pause he took, then- Snap- The lights went off. The glowing ring of the light remained burned in her corneas, slowly fading away as she shivered on the mattress. Her hands gripped the iron of the table as she curled up her toes. Metal clanged against metal, as the squeaking of wheels came closer. She heard heavy breathing, falling harder and harder until the squeaking wheels stopped. Warm, moist breathe fell over her as a leathery hand caressed her neck, her arms, her legs. She tried to speak but a hand took hold of her head to keep it still as another placed a cup over her mouth. The taste of iron filled it, and insulated throughout her body. Her fingers tingled, her toes went numb, then her legs, arms, neck, then she floated on a cloud in this blind world as the leathery hands left her head and tightened belts around her arms and legs. Squishing, she heard. Lots of squishing, mashing, and dripping. Then the gurgling voice,

“The patient is ready, doctor.”

Metal scrapped against whetstone as water ran, and a jar popped open. Cassidy tried to lift her head to peer through the darkness but the drugs did their work. She let her head rest on the mattress.

She woke up in the back seat of her car. Groggy, tired, suffering a nightmare hangover, the early morning light causing tremors to roar through her head. She took a look at the driver. A different man then before, but she recognized the neighborhood the car drove through as her own. She wiped her eyes, sitting up with struggle because of the weight in her womb. She paused, shivers tingling her spine.

The driver asked if everything was OK.

She took a hand over her engorged womb, and pressed it softly over where the last morning there had only been ice. She held her breath, a bead of sweat dripped down her face, cleaning her ruined makeup. A tiny heartbeat. She laughed, and told the driver she was OK. She felt again. Another tiny heartbeat. Her abdomen felt sore. Stitches and bandages wrapped the underside of her pregnant womb, and hurt when she moved, but she didn't care. She laughed more and more. When the car came to the front of the house Cassidy promised the driver for a bonus, but he winked and told her it wouldn't be necessary.

Cassidy cuddled up next to Mr. Dawnson as he slept, as if nothing had happened. She felt like the perfect criminal, no one would find out. No one would ever know.

She sat in her circle of book club friends, and talked about her child. The other women gaped at her when she said she would've need a nanny or help. They scoffed, sipping their wine, keeping comments of Cassidy's youth and unemployment to themselves, but she remained convicted of this new appreciation of her child. She painted the nursery herself, she went out and bought the supplies needed herself, and even picked out books that she would read to the child each night.

The months went on. The baby grew. Her womb expanded to the point where she found it difficult to move. The baby kicked, and when it kicked it kicked with precise blows in many different directions. It stomped on her bladder, causing her to pee herself a little bit every now and again. Still she imagined the baby's life, growing up healthy and happy. Going to a prep school as she did, then private college, and finally a career. Maybe he'd become the next great scientist, curing diseases and discovering new technologies. He'd have a beautiful wife, and even have kids of his own.

She would teach him lessons, morality, she would give him a cookie when he was good, but decided not to slap him or spank him, none of that. Nor would she spoil him. The little boy, destined to be named Leland Dawnson IV, would grow up to be hard working, self reliant, and humble. Every night she would sit in the nursery, and sing to her unborn child. Her fantasy the handsome face of a young man vising an old woman on Christmas day warmed her heart. The holidays, she planned, would be the only times when he'd get spoiled. Toys, video games, whatever he asked for Santa would provide. Except for a car. He would have to pay for his own car, when he turned sixteen.

Her womb continued to grow. Nine months crept nearer and nearer. Mr. Dawnson spoke little of his son, but Cassidy could read his thoughts as if they were notes. He worried about their son. He even told her one night that if the boy were weak, he'd still love him, but he'd might as well have died in the womb because the world would eat him alive if that were the case. Cassidy assured him that the boy would be strong enough to take on the world. He laughed at her, but she assured him that under her motherhood the boy would grow up square and able to embrace the complexities of the universe.

It took convincing, but Cassidy persuaded Mr. Dawnson that the best thing for them to do was have the baby born in the house. Old fashioned, the way they both liked it. She wouldn't use drugs or an epidermal. She wanted to know what the pain felt like, how women of old used to have their children, and be able to tell people that she understood the real pain of childbirth. Mr. Dawnson had an old unused room converted into an operating room. He even found a doctor that would come to their home to help deliver the baby.

She knew she was giving birth when her water broke as she made breakfast for herself. The help rushed her into the operating room while Mr. Dawnson called the doctor. Cassidy was taken into the room on the upper floor, where she stripped her jeans and shirt for a nice free flowing dress. She lay on the mattress, doing the breathing exercises that she had read about, and preparing herself. She had read all about giving birth, she didn't even think she needed a doctors help at this point. The lights dimmed as Mr. Dawnson came in, and took hold of her hand as three masked men came in. Two in blue scrubs. Their eyes glowed like fireflies. The other wore a white apron over a checkered suit. His black hair mushed under a cap. People swarmed the room, watching and cheering on the house's lady. Cassidy pushed and squeezed. The pain caused her head to ring. Her legs went numb, and she could feel the veins pressing against her forehead. This was nothing like she had read about. The baby wasn't just spreading her birth canal and hips apart, it ripped them open. Yet she pushed, and pushed until at last a great relief came as the baby came from her body into the arms of the doctor. The child was quickly wrapped in a towel. People seemed to come and go. She heard so many voices that she couldn't distinguish a single one. The pain in her body didn't dissipate. Moisture pooled beneath her. She figured that she mustn't urinated, but as she drew fingers over the wetness and back to her, Cassidy saw the blood on her hand.

“Let me see my baby,” She said over and over.

“He's so beautiful... so perfect..,” Mr. Dawnson took the bundle of baby over to his lady. “Here Cassidy, isn't he perfect?”

Cassidy head still rang, her body remained numb and fatigued beyond anything she had experienced. Still, a smile cut across her lips as she raised the bloody hand to the blanket in her husband's arms. Something small gripped her fingers, and pulled them into a pulsating hole where rough flesh bit them over and over. She pulled her hand away, blood from her hand trickling down her arm. A twin pair of black claws stuck from the blankets, as the baby kawed like a crow, over and over.

“Congratulations, everyone.” The doctor said, patting his assistants on the back. Only then did she notice the fur sticking from behind their masks, the pus weeping from their eyes, and the hooves where there should be hands. Two men stood in the dark corners of the room, their heads down and hands patiently folded.

Mr. Dawnson got on one knee to show Cassidy. She saw the wet fur and sharp needle teeth above a single pus-glazed eye.

“What happened to my baby?” She pleaded

“Cassidy, this is exactly what I wanted. I couldn't be prouder right now.”

Mr. Dawnson, the doctors, and all the people that seemed to watch in the door way and in the darkness filed out and left her alone, bleeding, legs spread out on the mattress, sweat cooling as everything became fainter and fainter. The two dark men stepped into the light. Both wore matching suits. One man, white scars and brown skin, Ashgabat. The other, thick glasses and red tie, Fairfax. He held another jar containing what looked like a fish with the head of a horned raccoon suspended in green fluid.

 “Fear not, Mrs. Dawnson, about the bleeding. I wouldn't let the perfect host body die just yet. Ashgabat, the lights please.”

Old Graveyards of Nebraska

Old Graveyards of Nebraska

Two tourist drive through the country

Neither has been to rural America before,

Yet they are now. Their car doesn’t stop often. They won’t linger.

Their only desire is get through the bounding plains.

They see the barns, the crops, the vigilant windmills, the small towns,

They throw garbage out the window

Yet at the end of their journey they’ll comment

-“How quaint”

-”how peaceful”

-Nebraska: “The good life” as the sign told them.

Well, come, enter my Smokey tent, and let me show you

The real Nebraska.

Look into my hands, at the cards I hold

Secrets, darkness, shame, deceit.

Look into this one- what do you see?

A grave from past a century age

No date. Only a name. Earl.

Another is written in German.

1866-1886

Another is for Thad.

Aug 8- feb 12

The latest- buried in 1971

Weeds cover the walkway

Rust eats the gate.

Look into this card

Road kill lays squished on the strip of pavement

Tire tracks cross its belly

Innards spill from its mouth

Its eyes look into yours

Flies eat from the broken skull

In this this card, we see a cat with a broken spine

Crawl across the dusty floor of the barn.

The farm boys laugh.

One year ago they both adopted the amphetamine habit.

They have in mind a treasure of copper wires,

Untapped veins in an abandoned farm house

Cash for their addiction.

They laugh as one’s boot crushes the cats head.

In this card, we see a silent car ride.

A van with the back sealed. The driver speeds by the barn,

Over the road kill,

Through the leagues of undisturbed night

The moon is full, and white fog flows

Over the muddy fields

Do you see the real Nebraska yet?

The driver takes his van down the country road,

The tires crush litter.

A page with the image of a small girl

Missing: call xxx-xxxx with info

It’s from a decade ago.

The driver takes the road until

Wet branches and thick trunks conceal the sky

The gravel becomes dirt. The dirt becomes weeds.

He passes the lost cemetery as his way takes him to the abandoned home.

A skeleton of a once great house

A clan of rich German outlanders,

A furtive bunch, long vanished from the modern world,

Now decayed, reclaimed by nature

Branches stab through the broken windows

The porch collapsed

The walls slanted inwards

The farm boys parked in the dark so not to be found.

Their senses are amplified, their scabs bleed,

They haven’t eaten in days but they think only of harvesting the copper.

They kick in the back door, and walk into the dark with only lighters to show the path in the dark

Flashlights being noticeable from a long distance.

Fools make poor thieves, after all.

The van parks in the front of the house

Out climbs the driver

Star light clears the path to the back of the van

Out he pulls a dripping canvas bag.

7 piglets disappeared from the facility

That night but under the heavy blanket of night

He would never be discovered.

He takes the bag to the cellar door, but stops at the sounds of-

The cropper strippers. They hear moaning from beneath their boots.

A brief spat splits between the two, but they find the

Stairs down, and the moaning becomes crying

One follows the other down, curiously, the steps creak,

The flame from the lighter dances on crumbling cement walls

A shadow emerges

One gasps, and curses at what the flame reveals,

Slithering, crunching, dripping,

The other drops the lighter…

Do you wish to see the last card?

I hold it my hand, faced away,

Be warned, there is no unknowing what is discovered

Nebraska Gothic

*The first half of this was titled"Tangled Roots" on this blog. I decided to post the second part, but then I remembered that after I finished this in may that I had changed the name to Nebraska Gothic. But this is the whole story under the name that I prefer. Please comment, leave feed back, give me something to think about if I have done the same for you. Written spring of 2015*

Rainer sat alone, burying his head in his arms, trying to drown out the lyrical steel guitar  music of Chet Akins that the bar keep stood and listened to while he wiped off the bar. The plain ordinariness of the dimly lit bar came to an utter disappointment. The fan spun around, mixing the salty bar air with the country dust blowing in from the open door. A fly landed on his hand. It buzzed, rubbing its little hands together, before shifting a little further. It tickled his hairy arms. He blew on it and it retreated, circling like a plane with a broken wing. Akins yodeled. Rainer sighed, leaning up on the bar, taking the glass once more, and sipping it. The beer in this country tasted like piss water. Some strangers sat at a table on the other side of the room laughed, and clashed drinks together. Rainer watched rising bubbles. He imagined them drowning. Reaching out, trying to take hold of something, only to grasp empty liquid and sink deeper into the abyss. The fate would be fitting for a such as this. Rainer thought it ironic that the bar keep rubbed so tirelessly his counter and glasses, when dirt and dust clumped together in roaming balls of filth over the floor. In the lamps hanging from the ceiling, dozens of insect corpses speckled the yellow glass. The mirror behind the bar, shaded as Rainer preferred, spotted with black dots and streaked with white marks. The barkeep had no hair on his head, but his face was wrinkled and scaled- burnt by sunlight. A white moustache, the same shade as the apron he wore. His eyes deep in his head, only faint blue sparks could distinguish them from dark holes. His age perhaps contributed to the status of the bars maintenance. He thought of the bar he enjoyed growing up back in the fatherland. Ran by an Italian man who stayed behind the bar much like this old man, wiping glasses with a dirty rag, smoking a fat cigar while his daughter, Abelia, pristine and hospitable, cleaned and brought men their drinks. She might have been his first crush, he tried to recall. Her flowing black hair, endless amber eyes, her Mediterranean soaked words. Once a drunk Austrian slapped her ass. The girl, only a soft faced teenager, didn’t know she could pour his beer over his head. So Rainer stood up, and did it for her. He wondered about her, what she was doing, if she had survived the war… the bubbles rose and dissipated. In the glass of putrid beer, he imagined her lungs being filled as she gasped for breath. Sinking lower, kicking and grabbing, eyes popping from her skull, head feeling like it would pop off. Into this fantasy Rainer became to involved that he didn’t notice the stranger plopping into the seat next to him. All her felt was the tap on the shoulder that interrupted his concentration, and drew him to look at a young Aryan. Blue oil stained jeans, and a white shirt also stained with grease and oil, his voice twinged with the slur of the uneducated.

            “Hey there, pal. Mind if I sit here?”

            “Is zer somezink I kan helf you wiz?”

            “Well, not really. Just lookin’ for some company. Couldn’t help hearin’ your order that from ol’ Gus. That accent of yours, you from Berman by any chance?”

            Rainer smirked, and turned his head to the American.

            “Klose. How kan you know?”

             “I just came back. The beer is here isn’t as good anymore,” The man was young, blonde. He laughed was if he knew the kraut he spoke to. “But I know what you’ll like. Gus, Give our foreign friend here some Klienes…”

            A glass of swimming gold was placed before Rainer. He sipped it. Then took a mouth full.

            “Is not zo bad actually. May I ask vat your business in Germany vas?”

            “The war. 13^th armor.”

            “Ah. Congratulations on your save homecomink, and ze fictory earned by Allied forces.”

            They clashed their glasses together.

            “Yeah it was somethin’. I’m glad to be back home.”

            “Zis town ist your home?”

            “I grew up in a farm south of the limits. I’m workin’ on cars now. That’s what I did back in Europe, worked on engines. I didn’t kill no one.”

            “Hitler’s deaf pleases me.”

            “You seem to be in the dumps, buddy. Is something eating you?”

            “A voman. I haf searched all across zis vasteland, but kan’t find her.”

            “Women… can’t live with ‘em. Can’t kill ‘em.”

            Rainer laughed, first a chuckle, then threw his head back, patting his new friend on the back.

            “Perhaps you’fe zeen her. Sche is zomeone I vas acquainted wiz back in Germany. Older woman. Aged at forty five, though she looks younger. Dull brown hair that curls at her shoulders. Dark eyes. Alvays wears a nice dress. Maybe a ruby necklace. East Germany. Goes by Ada, I beliefe. Maybe traveling wiz a kompanion.”

            “I… did see two women come in to get an oil change. One was young, like a teenager. She did all the talking.”

            An eye brow shot up, Rainer turned his head. He reached into his pocket, drew out a wallet, and flipped out a photo.

            “Vas zis her?”

            In the frames was a woman with brown hair at the beach.

            “That’s her. She a friend of yours?”

            Rainer tipped his glass up and drained it.

            “Did you zee vere zey ver goink?”

            “They went west. Can’t say where they were headed. That was a few days ago though. Sorry I can’t be much help.”

            “No, no, no, friend, I’m fery glad to hafe met you. Here,” He slipped the American a bill with Benjamin Franklin’s face on it.

            “Wow, buddy, I can’t take this.”

            “No, I insist. It’s rude to refuse a gift.” Rainer produced another hundred into the American’s hands. Gripping onto his hand. Tight. “You never met me.” Then he got up, and hurried out.

            Leaving the bar was like passing into another world. No clouds in the sky. The noon sun stabbed him in the eyes, and everything glared with its radiance. He kept one hand over his brow, while leaving the other in his pocket, digging for keys. The gravel crunched beneath his loafers. A black Volkswagen waited for him, its rear facing the windowless structure, its front facing the open road spilling into the west, drawing a strip into the spanning rows of growing sprouts. The square divisions bounded onward, until the road became a faint line over the blurring heat waves. Above it, the dome of blue of sky watching over everything.

 Slamming the door of his Volkswagen, he decided to have a cigarette. He pulled one out from the pack he kept in his breast pocket, but couldn’t find a lighter. He looked in the side compartment, checked the dashboard, checked the space by the clutch. Finally, he opened the suitcase on the passenger side. Flipped through his black uniform until he found it. Besides his medals. Sliver box, crested with a wolf over an iron cross. He lit his cigarette, but before he closed the suitcase he pulled out the luger, and snapped in a clip of 9mm. Put in the glove box, took a deep drag. Smoking helped him drive while a little intoxicated. He pulled out, with plenty of gas in the tank and hurried away from town. He had a long way to go….

 “Where are we going?” Esther asked her first question. The trees had disappeared. The telephone poles too. The fences. The cattle, the crops. The land that flashed by the Ford she drove had gone from vibrant and green, to an ocean of yellow, stiff, dry grass poking out from dust and sand. The further she drove, the less grass, and more mounds of sand, more flat, cracked, empty land, interjected only by ridged, fat stalagmites biting from the ground. Even the road had become neglected. Large cracks shook the car. Esther couldn’t take her eyes from the road. Every ten minutes, she needed to swerve to avoid pot holes and gaps in the road. Yellow weeds peeked from the cracks. Cow bones littered in the dust. Esther blinked.

Nothing lived however. Not even birds or snakes. No rubber skid marks on the road. The only signs of civilization being the occasional prairie home, with the roof caved in and log walls crumbling. Stone obelisk, carved up with unreadable markings reaching towards the sky, hung on the horizons. In the distance, a ring of dark clouds gathered.

            Ada put her letters down. Esther could see the handwritten German, but didn’t have time to read any before she had to swerve around another grassy hole in the road. More and more cracks shook the car. In the distance, she could see the road ending. Esther looked back at the stack of letters. One photo stuck out. A postcard, with the image of a towering tree being struck by a flash of white lightning. Similar to what she had received in the mail the day she met Ada…

            She woke up at dawn. The rooster in the house woke her up. It kept crowing, and crowing until she got up from her mat. Odd enough, it had taken her away from a dream she had. The feelings in the dream felt so real, so strong so pleasurable. Along a dirt road she walked, until she found a lone mailbox. She waited, until a cloaked figure carrying a black suitcase approached. He stood quietly. Clothes covered in mud and dark stitching. The corn danced in the wind, blowing away the unforgiving heat. He drew back his hood, revealing peeling white skin spotted with open sores and swollen knots over a patient expression. Gray hair ringed around his bald head, hanging down like a wispy net. Purple fumes emitted from his shadow. He held out  something for her to grab. His hand flaked and dry, dangling a postcard from his contorted fingers. The image of the tree facing Esther. She took it from his cold hands, than the rooster woke her up. All the animals lived in the coop. Usually the roosters stayed in their pen in the back, but this big red guy got out somehow. Esther kicked at the rooster, herding it over the dirt floor back to the pen, but found it locked.

            Mom wasn’t home. She spent maybe one day every few months at the farm. Esther concluded that maybe she came home, and locked the big red guy up. The girl went over to her mom’s mat in the upper loft of the shack, but found it empty, the blankets nicely folded the way Esther had left them. Her stomach rumbled. She opened the ice box. Grabbed a been sprout and chewed on it. For dinner, she planned, chicken feet again. The rooster cawed again, outside of its pen, standing in the doorway. Esther looked back at the pen, cage still locked. Roosters and hens scrambling about. She stepped to the cage, and unlatched the gate. The chickens needed exercise, while she did chores. But the rooster kept crowing, until she looked at it. Frustrated, she stormed at the bird, but it hopped away out the door. She followed it outside. Kissed by the sun, the land consisted of dirt. Nothing grew for miles. Except for the measly bean garden and the patch of dwarf sized turnips. Her attention wasn’t to the desolation of the land or the poverty that her family had abandoned her in, but to the mail box down the trail that lead to the road. She could see it over the lip of the hill. The red flag erect against the black paint. The rooster crowed. She jogged over to it. Maybe a letter from mom. Maybe a letter from brother Johnny who stopped writing her shortly after going to the war. Her dress, once pink, now faded and caked in filth, clung to her legs. Her hair, tied into a tight knot on the back of her head, didn’t bother her, but she missed the way it bounced when she ran. That would’ve been before dad died. Maybe there would be catalogue in the mail, like she used to get. She could browse the fashions of Hollywood, and write in her journal about how she thought she would look in the gowns and with the hair styles of her favorite actresses. She saw a movie once. When she had been in Chicago. She didn’t remember the name, but she thought the lead female was the most beautiful woman she had ever seen. Not that she would ever look like that, own any of that glamour, or meet anyone who even had that luster of a movie star. Only being fifteen, Esther thought it a silly idea to imagine herself on the silver screen. Who had the time to put on makeup and style their hair when the chickens needed feeding? Beans needed catering. Turnips needed to be sold. Laundry needed to be done. Linens needed to be changed. The chicken coop needed cleaning. The floor need new hay. Dad’s truck needed an oil change. Maybe she would search the creek for discarded lumber. Flat sheets of plywood, she could place on the dirt and use as a floor. Dad would be so impressed, she imagined. Mom would be too, when she came back. The woman had gone off with preacher Cat O’Maly, a traveling evangelist. Mom used go on and on, spending breakfast praising the man. Repeating his words, how he said their problems would be solved with prayer. Just pay to be in his congregation- but the next month he said god called on him to move to another town. Mom went with him, taking her savings with her.

            The mailbox flag stuck out like a red thumb on a hitchhiker. She opened the mail box, its hinges squeaking. Heat escaped out, cobwebs hung over it, a spider crawled over the mouth and crept inside to lay its eggs. One paper slip waited. She reached in, gingerly pulling it out, holding her breath. She hadn’t noticed how thin her wrist had become. How sharply her bones stuck out from her skin. The bracelet she wore hung like a rope. It once clung like a vice. Her arm was like a pale snake biting the slip, then retracting from the infernal box. The rooster stood across from her, watching. She looked at it. A photograph. A towering tree, watching over a wasteland, higher than anything else. Any plateau in the background. Any hawk flying around in. A white bolt of light night flashed into it. On the back, handwritten in German, drive to town today and wait by the war memorial. You’ll know when you see her, - a loved one. The only people she had known that knew German were her parents. Immigrated before she was born, when they were fresh faced and clueless about farming. The ideas spun in her head like a Ferris wheel… She didn’t do any of her chores. She went back to the shack, stripped her dirty old dress and left it on the mat. She opened her mom’s chest, but she had taken the prettiest dresses. Only thing left was a tulip colored shawl, a thin blouse, and a ragged pair of jeans that belonged to her brother. She put them all on. Hanging from her body like loose bags, she had no mirror to assess herself. She took the pair of her father’s boots, and his truck keys, and went down to the creek to clean her hair, and her hands. Dirt washed out. The acne and sores on her skin relieved. She than put on the boots, and ran to the truck.

The town must’ve been Wild Creek. The closest for miles. The biggest in the county. Ten thousand people, five thousand houses, three streets of downtown with lights always on. The war memorial stood in the center of town. A tall bronze structure of a man on horse, pointing his sword at imaginary Indians. The inscription below, in memory of the Battle of Wild Creek, 1813. Esther sat at the bench. Around noon, a single woman approached. Tall, older looking, but stoic, majestic, dignified. Like a movie star. Long brown hair, a flowing gown. Sparkling black shoes. Leather gloves, and a cigarette burning in a long white holder- just like in the movie all those years ago.

            The woman spoke German. She told Esther that she was an immigrant, coming through to meet family in the west. She needed someone to drive her, and her luggage, and since she spoke no English, needed someone to do so for her. Ask no questions. Keep speaking to a minimum. She would be paid three hundred American dollars a day. Esther did the math in her head the moments the sentence had been said. After she got to the far west, a place beyond the panhandle of Nebraska, she would have accumulated nine hundred dollars… even more on the return journey. She agreed, concerns over the chickens and turnips pushed back in her mind. Mom could come back, and need them. But a part of her no longer expected she wanted to show back up. Esther drove her employer to the Wild Creek hotel, and they both waited inside as bus boys carted out bag after bag of luggage. Enough to fill the bed of dad’s Ford. The woman gave the bus boy a hundred dollar bill, and pointed down the road before investing herself in  a pile of handwritten letters.

            Once out of town, and on the road, the woman plainly stated in German,

            “My name is Ada.”

“Esther.” The girl replied. The whole way, Ada kept her nose in letters. Page after page of letters. When she wasn’t reading them, she wrote in a journal. Like they agreed, they didn’t speak. Esther stopped to fill the tank with gas, to eat, and at the end of every day they slept at a motel. Esther tried to interject Ada, and explain that they could get their faster if they just drove all night, but the woman cut her a cruel glare and shushed her. Esther didn’t try to argue anymore, keeping her comments inside. It worked out. This way she would accumulate more money. With that money she could find her mom, and together they could live in a nice house. One in the country, one in the city, didn’t matter. Nice clothes. Indoor plumbing. Wood floors. Steak for dinner every night. A fluffy pet cat.

            In the motel that night, Ada paid the bill while Esther moved in the luggage. Laid it all out by the bed closest to the closet, like Ada had instructed. Then, she hoped in the shower. Then curled in the bed. Ada took out all of her dresses, and hung them up. Beautiful, everyone custom tailored to her body. Blow drier, make up, jewelry, the woman put on the nightstand. Esther wanted to talk the night away. She never believed she meet a woman like this, and a German one at that. She cuddle her pillow, imaging herself wearing the gown of Gothic princess exiting a castle. The lights flickered while Ada showered. Esther became curious. She got out of bed, tiptoed to Ada’s luggage. One case, she opened. Inside, stacks of worthless Riechmarks. She closed the case, sealing it, and fitting it just where she had left it. Then, she noticed one suitcase apart from all the others, under Ada’s bed. She got on her knees and palms to look at it. Black, with silver lining. He took it by the handle, dragged it out. Heavy like bricks. A code was needed to open it. She shook it. Something clunked. Then she heard the shower water turn off, and she shoved it back under the bed and jumped beneath the covers once more. Anxiety wore off fast, and the girl slipped into sleep. The mattress felt like a cloud. Ada, however, twisted and rolled all night long.

            In the morning before they left, Ada took the sweet time to put away everything she had taken out. Esther waited outside, sitting by the curb, poking rocks with a stick. Ada stepped out.

            “Come in.” She ordered. Hair rollers in.

            Esther followed.  Ada stood before the luggage, half of the clothing still out.

            “Did you touch anything last night?”

            “No. I’d never.”

            Ada rolled her big blue eyes, turned around the closet and pulled a small dress from a hanger.

            “You dress like a peasant girl. It shames me. Wear this.”

The dress fit perfectly. A bit like a maid outfit, it was black with white laces, and white ruffles, but Esther had never worn anything so comfortable. While Ada finished packing her things, Esther rolled her hair into a knot on the back of her head, and stood in front of the mirror. Music played in her head. The kind from a music box. She imagined herself as the turning figure.

               On the last day of their journey, they had crossed the Missouri river. East Nebraska rolled with hills. Forests, groves of yellow flowers. Fenced off prairies filled with cows. They followed telephone poles, dotted with birds. Deer tip toed over open fields of grass. The sky stretched on without end. Esther’s ass became sore. No matter what position she moved to, it remained sore. No matter how far back she had moved the seat, her spine pinched. She kept going anyhow. About an hour of driving and she had taken Ada sixty miles inland. That’s when the engine began to stutter. Smoke puffed out. The power behind the accelerator had faded. The pedal sank beneath her boot, but the speedometer didn’t change. The truck chugged along, wheezing like an old smoker. At last it, died by the side of the road. Esther clung to the wheel, breathing through her nose, thinking of what to do next. Kept speaking in German, Esther didn’t listen. She was too busy thinking of what could be wrong with dad’s truck. Remembering times it had broken down while he drove with her as a small girl. Ada stormed out of the car, screaming at the top of her lungs- like a cat being bit by a dog. Esse Schiesse und Sterben! She commanded, kicking the truck with her heels. Turning away, to the country, diese verdammte Ödland! Esther blushed, climbing out of the car to check under the hood. So quickly Ada’s face had deepened into a furious red from a quiet pale. So fast, from the majestic beauty to a snarly toddler throwing a nightmarish tantrum. She had to giggle a little. 

               Smoke bellowed from the hood. She shut it, took off the parking break. Decided the rules needed to be broken. 

               “Misses, we need to push the car to town. It’s the best thing we can do.”

               Ada sat in the grass, fatigued, breathing and sweating like she had finished a marathon.

               “I refuse to touch that peasant machine. I will recruit a new driver with a superior automobile.”

               “Look around, Misses. There is no one for miles.”

               Ada stood up, and starred into the distance, wiping the sweat from her brow, brushing her perfect fluffy hair from her shoulder. Esther couldn’t be certain because she had begun to push the truck, but the lady may have been crying. Inch by inch, breath by breath, dad’s truck moved. Ada looked on,

               “You dumb girl, what do you think you’re doing?”

               Esther didn’t answer. She had seen a sign not too far back. Elkhead pop 230 10 mi. She needed to push. Time couldn’t be wasted. Her shoulders burned, her ankles ached and tightened. Her legs quaked where she had never felt them before. With each breath however, dad’s truck went forward. The machine moved slowly, but progress was being made. She could do it, she kept telling herself, body heat raising, sweat pouring from her hairline. It reminded her of the time, back when the family had cows at the farm, when her favorite cow had been stuck in the mud, and how her dad had put a rope around its fat neck, and pulled, and pulled until the cow was free. Ada followed, watching, walking on foot, anxiously shifting her eyes around the plains. The cows behind the fences mooed to each other, looking at the two ladies and dad’s truck.

               “These beasts are mocking us. Stop what you are doing.”

               “Moo” said the cow.

               Esther couldn’t hear. Blood rushed through her head. All she could hear was the crackle of rock beneath the turning wheels. 

               “Mooooooo,” the other cows replied.

               Birds on the telephones wires scurried away. The sun moved across the sky. The clouds came and went. Over the horizon a red hot rod appeared. Ada stopped, elated, hollered, jumping up and down, waving her hat at the speeding vehicle. Like a bullet, it sped by, leaving the woman standing in the violent gust of wind, crestfallen. Esther kept pushing the machine down the road. In the distance, poking over a grove of trees, a water tower stood like a toothpick against the backdrop of the sprawling land. The birds came back, landing on the power line before Esther. Black crows, they each cawed to each other. Ada didn’t pay attention to where she walked, her attention so attached to Esther. A dead raccoon lay before her, its organs squished from its mouth, tire tracks over its belly. Her heel hung over it, but she caught a glimpse before she planted her foot into its gooey body. She took a step back, observing in disgust, the flies, the maggots, the creature’s bulging white eyes looking straight at her.

               The crows flew off into the sky once more. Esther looked up to notice the clouds fleeing to the horizon, exposing the sun hanging in the middle of the sky. Heat exhausting the land. The heat waves sizzled the cement. Blurry squiggles shook the road before her. The machine creaked but kept going. Sweat poured into her eyes. She wiped it off on her shoulder. She wished for that refreshing breeze that she had dreamed of what felt like years ago. Then a shadow fell over her. She looked over to see Ada, coat and heels tossed in the back of the truck, pushing it along. Her red face pouting as she put her delicate weight into moving the machine. The water tower ticked closer.

               Elkhead appeared sooner than either of them anticipated. A small collection of buildings. Quiet, still. A “welcome to” sign appeared. Their muscles burned and strained like weathering belts being pulled over spinning limestone. Esther’s boots felt like a marsh of hot, wet sweat. Ada’s stockings tore, her feet black with debris, small cuts gauged her heel and the flesh between her toes, and despite her heart feeling like a cooking grenade, she kept pushing the car. 

               “Kaw,” Heckled a crow.

               They passed a white picket fence, with a single tombstone sitting within. Crossed over a small bridge laid across a thin creek. Closer they came to the road that pulled into Elkhead. A bar sat near the entrance. “Gus and Company” The sign said. Down from its parking lot, laid out like a tongue, was a strip of street rimmed with buildings. Each about the same height, some thicker than others. Broad windows bracing the face of each one. The car rolled past Gus and Company. A few trucks parked in the front. No noise came out. A dog barked in the distance. No other cars parked on the strip. No other people walked out. Esther pushed the car a little further, taking a look into the plate glass of the candy store. A display of baskets filled with wrapped candy, but dark emptiness the rest of the way through. A hardware store, some other dark places until at the end the road, a garage. Also, at the mouth of the town is a hotel. With three rooms. Connected to it is an old railway station. The mechanic, a young blonde man, told the car needed an oil change. The two women spent the rest of the night in the hotel. 

               The caretakers, clearly bored from lack of customers, kept the room clean. Ada bitched and moaned the whole time about its condition. Esther thought it was fine. No rats. Carpet vacuumed. Mirrors clear without spots. Hot water. Two soft beds. Ada didn’t shower. She walked into the room, took a look around, and collapsed into bed. Esther bathed, came back to the room, clicked the lamp off and laid down. Her notion of the movie star beauty next to her faded into a dark spot in her mind. No audience clapped for her. No flashing lights pop from the bulbs of cameras. Yet she felt a satisfaction that kindled new feelings within her. The relief of being free from pushing dad’s truck. The comfort a soft warm bed, and the strangest feeling that she didn’t need the cameras, the lights, the applause. She laid still, her muscles aching, constricting and tightening. But she felt like she could’ve pushed dad’s truck another ten miles. Ada ruffled in her sheets, moaning in an exhausted agony. She rose, grabbing her pillow and punching the hell out of it before laying back down. Make up ran down her face like an unskilled clown. The sun had begun to set, a pale haze of blue remained in the room. The shadow of dying light. She sat up again, taking a tissue from the table between the beds and wiping the black streaks from her cheeks, and the smeared lipstick from her mouth. Turning to Esther, curled around her pillow, she spoke in English.

               “Zis I love about your country… flat land. Kan puch kar wiz no hill.”

               Esther froze, feeling the woman’s dull eyes pushing down on her with the anticipation for a response. She felt so stiff, so judged, that she couldn’t bear to move or to speak. She lay there, and pretended to sleep. The next morning they would part, drive from the fertile east half of the state to the dry west, until the roads they drove on disappeared from the map…

               …The road had disappeared. Esther slowed dad’s truck down found a path cutting through the fields of prickling brown grass. Ada pointed. “There.” 

            On a ridged decline of land, sticking out like thumb.  Thousands of tentacle like roots twisting and screwing their way over each other into the dirt beneath a thick cluster of torn stumps crowned by stump that mastered them all. A massive tangle, with gaps open mouthed, wide enough to swallow a person whole. A chill fell into the air, as if the heat had been sucked up into the sky. Clouds gathered like roaming cattle. Ada wasted no time. The minute Esther hit the brakes, she jumped out, grabbing the black suit case and striding to the stump.

Esther got out after her and followed. The wind blew harder. Colder. With a frustrated voice behind its push. Her skirt pulled against her, the folds flapping with the wind, blowing through her shirt and throwing her hair into a blooming tussle. Ada hustled nearer. Holding her chest, forgetting the car and its driver, looking away as if they were a broken promise. The tree had been colossal, a stem towering over the plains. Watching over the bounding land, shadows spanning miles. Esther followed Ada up to the mighty stump. She called to her,

            “Misses! Climb down,” Esther didn’t anticipate a response.

            But Ada looked back to Esther, then beckoned before turning her attention to digging a heel into a gap and climbing over tangles of roots. Esther made her way, her skin prickling with the long gust of wind, and dust. Small needles of cold fell from the sky in transparent crystals. The clouds became darker. Ada hurried to the top, suitcase in hand. Esther followed. Her mind not on the money, but on the strange woman’s safety. The chunk of tree couldn’t be real, even as she stuck her shoes where she had seen Ada’s, and pulled herself along the same path, holding her chest close to the wood, she didn’t believe it existed. She was dreaming, climbing a jungle gym, enduring false illusions of freedom. But the roots began to move. She felt them pick at her ankles like a small dog. She felt them try to wrap themselves around waist. The contact scratched like sand paper. She didn’t look down, but held her head straight up at Ada, who disappeared over the edge. Esther pulled herself a little further, the roots constricted tighter, and pulled with ferocity. Her muscles burned, more so then when she had been pushing the ford. But she inched closer. But with every ounce of resistance, her body began to fail. Her stomach boiled with putrid acid. Her shoulders shook, her vision blurred, and her legs became numb. The tree seemed to stretch on to the sky, she reached with one last grab, thinking she saw the gloved hand of Ada reaching down, but she caught nothing. Down she went. Dollars in her purse, safely sitting in her father’s Ford. Thunder brewed in the distance…

            Ada jumped at the flash of another explosion from her window. The hum of the bombers never stopped. She dropped her suitcases, but scrambled to pick them up. She called for the servants, but no one came.  She sighed. Maria had been around that morning, but she began to believe that maybe it was understandable for the maid to be away from Bormann’s mansion at a time like this. More bombs went off, pounding like thunder. Strobes like lighting. Her skin felt stiff and she trembled. Sweat dripped down her back. The luggage pulled on her muscles. The other bags she had left at the door. Her car she had to drive herself. It waited at the driveway. Despite her flushes of heat, the mansion felt chilled as a rainy night. She left her bedroom for the last time, turning into the dark hall way. The lights popped off hours earlier. None would turn on. She could only see the window at the other end, a pale square against blackness. The beam exposed the corner of the hall the closer she got. Her heels clacked against hard wood. Despite the bombing, despite the fires riding alongside the buildings of Berlin, she found time to do her hair, and put on a fabulous white dress. At the window, she pressed her cheek against the glass to feel the cold wetness. The moon was full, the night was clear. Like triangles of birds flying south for winter, the planes flew overhead. The sirens sang, their song calmly warning citizens to seek shelter or be blown to pieces. Her head jumped at a bang that echoed throughout the house. She looked around the corner. A door was open. She waited, anticipating a follow up sound but nothing came. She continued, walking softly. The sound of her clacking heels made shock ride up her spine. She could see something in the dark before the door. Muddy tracks. She looked inside, pushing the door wide open and stepping in.

            Hello? She called to no response. A pale window elicited a small parlor. The muddy tracks were twice her size. Not the petite triangle of a heel, but the stamp of a jackboot. Against the wall, sitting open on the makeup table was a bottle of vodka. A glass beside it, tipped over. The bottle reflected in the mirror of the table, Ada could see it was half empty. A couch sat in the dark across from it. Something stuck out like a twisted branch from the front. Ada turned away, leaving the door open. Her stomach tightened. Cold flushed through her guts. Boot prints lead from the room to the stairway. She made her way, peered down. The front door was open, the way she had left it. Foot prints led down the stairs into the entrance way. Her bags sat undisturbed. Beneath the chandelier, something sprawled out. It wasn’t there before. She made her way down. Nothing happened. Her eyes stuck to the door, to the Volkswagen sitting outside. Ignoring the mass behind her, she proceeded- but gasped when a shadow came from the porch, with both hands against the doorway, his frame a colossus against the moonlight. His black hair neatly parted to one side. His cold steel eyes shining through the dark, not at her, but at the black suitcase in her grasp.

Rainer worked for her husband. Bormann always had him over. They would smoke cigars, discuss business, joke over the lack of challenge that Rainer’s duties pertained to. Performing public executions. He kept a score sheet. He would track mud inside, drink their booze, harass their help. He never spoke to Ada. She never spoke to him. Word got around. Rainer didn’t just enjoy his job, he found it to be great sport. He also brought over prostitutes to be his dates, and they would smoke and play poker in the den. Each time, a different whore. Coinciding with the accounts of mysterious women turning up in the Liebenwalde, cut to ribbons and unidentified. The last time they had spoken to each other, Ada had gotten sick of Rainer bringing ladies of the night into her home. Bormann wouldn’t do anything she told him, so she took Rainer away from his poker game into a separate parlor. He lit a cigarette, and listened as she told him to get the whore out, and never bring another. He blew the smoke into her face. Licked his lips as they curled into a vicious smile. He pulled out the tally sheet, holding it up for her to see. She balked and swept at it, but his reflexes swiftly pulled it from her reach. I hate you. He told her. I don’t have to do a damn thing. All at once, his perceptions, his beliefs spilled from him. He let her know every opinion. He enjoyed playing games, exploring the art of killing. Loved it. He told her that he didn’t like the way she treated her husband. No respect. Only in a world ran by men like Bormann would people such as himself, and her, be allowed to exist. Only a man like him would marry a woman like Ada, and let her exist peacefully. Her face burned red. Veins in her throat throbbed, but she could find no words. She slapped at him, but his black glove caught her hand and squeezed it until Ada thought the bones would shatter, but he let go. Neither of them spoke of one another after that. He came over only to talk business, and his visits were brief. They avoided one another, and she had almost forgotten about him, if it weren’t for his damn boot prints.    

“What’s in the suitcase?” Rainer demanded.

            Ada said nothing. A gun handle limply hung from the hoslter on his side.

            “See your maid behind you? She didn’t know what I was talking about. Your driver napping on the couch upstairs? He certainly didn’t. So why shouldn’t I kill you?” He lumbered in, steps heavy. Body lurched forward, dragging his shoulders like a caveman.

            “You can’t shoot straight.”

            He stopped to laugh. The way he cackled made her stomach turn. Giddy like a school girl, hehehe but always ended in long drawn out breathes and knee slapping. He reeked of alcohol. 

            “Because you are my master’s wife. His property, and until his remains are properly disposed, there is no way an honorable man such as myself can do any insult to him.”

            “Honorable men don’t desert their duties. The loyal Romans stayed in the city and burned with it.”

            “The Reich is gone. But it will rise again. Until then, it is my duty to remain hidden.”

            “You’re not taking Bormann.” The black suit case was firmly in her hand.

            “If you want me to chase you,” an explosion lit up the entrance hall from outside as his grin spread from ear to ear. “Then I’d be more than happy. I’d love it.”

            He stood aside, and bowed…

            Ada hurried away from the roots. She could hear them bending and twisting like rope. The thunder caused her to jump and cover her head. She didn’t look back, but the image of Esther’s outstretched arm poking out from the roots burned into her mind. The sound of her organs being grinded and mixed into the dust, winding, squishing beneath the howl of wind and cracking of ancient wood. The black suitcase rested inside. The remains within went with it. She only needed someone to hold the attention of the roots while she climbed to a safe distance. She dumped the ashy contents out, and dropped the suitcase then leaped and ran to the car. The ruby necklace dangled from her throat. Heels still laced around her feet, she moved awkwardly through the yellow grass. A flash of lighting struck and thunder roared over the plain. The daylight had been eaten by the dismal clouds. Yet everything maintained stillness. The world was inhaling. The clouds overhead twisted into a stew of black and purple. Ada threw open the truck door and got in. The keys still in the ignition. The engine revved, and she backed up, straightened out and aimed back East. Her heart quaked. Free of any evidence linking her to Bormann. She could be whoever she wanted to be now. Go to Cuba, Venezuela, Brazil, wherever she wanted. Ada wiped tears of joy from her face. In the rear view, the roots still waved and drifted, still hungry, still yearning for more. They slithered through the frail shell of grass, crawling in the mud, bending, twisting, screwing. It wanted to grow. The tree wanted to grow once more to its former glory.

 Then in a following flash of lightning rain began to drop like iron rods.

She reached around the steering wheel, turned a knob. The wipers began swiping back and forth. Streaks of water divided the windshield. In the dark world facing her. More thunder pounded onto the plains. A heavy hammer being dropped over a steel drum. Her hands floated from the wheel to cover her eyes as cold tingles riddled her body. The car swerved, but it inched so sluggishly that she had time to reassume control of the vehicle. The car moved slower. The rain fell faster and faster. Her heel sank onto the pedal. The wheels spun like a cyclone, but the truck slowed. More thunder dropping like explosions. She had to stop. She had to scream. Grabbing at her face, scraping her nails down her cheeks. In the windshield, her ruby necklace refracted. Her earrings, the same red. Her heels, red as well. The car felt like it was sinking. The roots reached through the mud. Slender fingers feeling for the truck. Lapping its tailpipe, prodding the back wheels, coiling around the interior and caressing the inner workings.

The clouds spiraled, constricted tighter and tighter. Ada could feel their weight on her head. In her throat. In her lungs. He tore off the necklace. Took off her heels. Existed the truck. The wind hadn’t begun to blow. The rain found her, and drenched her, but it mattered no longer. She took her things from the back of the truck. Every bag. Inside, every jewel, every Riechmark, every piece of custom tailored clothing, every device, every convenience. Totting them herself, like back in the mansion, she stepped around the roots running along the mud like oscillating pipes. Her toes sunk into the soupy brown cocktail of earth. It felt cold. The sores on her feet burned, but at the same time felt cleansed. She didn’t feel lumbered or heavy, but light as a snowflake. Her agility impressed her. The swiping roots dug beneath her feet, but like playground jump rope she shuffled over them before they could reach her. The stump was close. So close. The roots flailing like loose hair settled into the mud. A bright light exposed itself like a great all seeing eye from the center of the spiraling clouds. At the thick the roots, throbbing and pumping like veins, she throw in each bag. One by one, the roots took them, grinded them up like cement, devoured them. Then her heels, then her necklace. All of it consumed, loose Riechmarks spilling out and getting pulled under by thorns. As if she could feel the lungs of the clouds holding in breathe, she leaped over the husk of roots, shifting her feet like a cat until she was at the stump. Climbing up, the peeling bark clipping at her flesh. Her feet finding gaps and pulling herself up. Roots pulled at her ankles, biting into her legs like snakes. She kicked at them. Her legs burned just like when she was pushing the truck down the road. Her shoulders felt like balloons inflated inside. Warm blood tricked down her legs, dripping into the roots. He graps slipped against the wet wood, but she never lost control. Water spilled from the surface into her face, washing off the rouge and tears. She found that she could trust her strength. The storm no longer scared her. Something new brewed inspiration within her. Fear, she realized, is an illusion.  

Up she went, until she found herself at the top of the stump. Divots wide enough for a person to lay in sacred the surface. Satellites of the master tree, each one big enough to be used a dining table, crowned the stump. The sky rumbled. The exhale of energy came as a deafening explosion. The earth shook. Lighting flashed like a net over the clouds, and dropped down on the plains like a bed of nails. Ada looked up as the flash of light whipped from the sky…

The rain cleared up. Rainer sighed with relief. Hadn’t lasted for ten minutes. Her car slid on wet roads. This one grew thin, broken and neglected. He drove slowly, passing the empty plains. His hands sweating, knuckles white against the wheel. His luger on the passenger seat, waiting. The car shook on the shattered pavement, but it didn’t break his focus. He could see the end of the road. Hope had been dim. When he turned onto the unmapped road, he feared that he had misled himself, but the truck sitting by itself caught his attention. The road ended. He stopped his car, and got out. The ground remained a pool of mud. He stepped right, his loafers sinking in, his slacks becoming cuffed in layers of mud, he marched to the truck.

            He inspected the tires. Sunken into the mud, no way a person would be driving it away. One door hung open. He peered inside. One purse, nothing else. He climbed in, scraping the mud from his shoes onto the edge, then taking the purse and thumbing through it. Some dollars, some paper, nothing intriguing. He throw it down, and climbed out. Some farmers old truck no doubt. He put his hands on his hips, and looked around. Nothing for miles. No wind. No animals. Even the clouds had retreated to find other lands to shade. The only thing that intruded on the singularity of the plains was a massive stump sitting on a tangled salad of roots. He approached it, lifting his knees to move through the mud. When he got to it, he marveled at its size. Felt like he had seen it before- almost like he had lived here once. He could imagine its full length, scraping against the clouds, rivaling the kingdom of birds. That glory appealed to him unfulfilled. The stump felt like an empty promise made long ago. He kicked the root. Hard and stiff.

“Verdammt.” In German, he muttered to himself “I guess you get away.”

 Rainer looked at his scorecard. Scratched off a name, and erased a tally. Then flipped it over, and studied the photo on the other side. A massive tree towering over a wasteland, with a bolt of white lightning slashing through it. He scowled, sniffed his sinuses clean and spat onto the ground. He reached for his lighter, pulling the box from his pocket he held the photo by the corner and held it over the dancing flame. The color faded and a hole ate away at it until the flames caught on and rose along the edges. Ashes peeled away and dropped to the mud. In moments the whole thing became ash. His chase had ended. Rainer sat alone on a clump of roots, contemplating his next action. Along the horizon, he thought he saw a person walking towards him. A black cloak, the tail fluttering, the arms loose, not walking, but floating over the mud towards him.