Cyberia - The City of Ladies

In Memoriam…..

Lori Gloyd (c) 2006, photo taken circa early 1990’s.

posted by aletta mes - all by herself

Sit by the tree and lean in its branches
Let thoughts settle and quiet, hush and still
As day becomes night and night becomes day
All that is past is whispered away

It folds you within
Listen to its story
The story is yours, your path revealed.
‘I will be your guide
All that you need you will find inside’
‘Which way to go?’
‘Let me show you the way
All that you need you will find here today.’

So be still and listen
By the listening tree
From roots in the earth
To leaves in the sky
It shows you the way
and your soul starts to fly
Know it is yours
and whatever your need
Will always be answered by the listening tree.

posted by Peace Bird

By Anita Marie Moscoso

Inspired by The Soul Food Alphabet Project

“E” Is For The Cosmic Egg

http://www.dailywriting.net/Alphabet/E.html

” Revenge is a kind of wild justice “

-Sir Francis Bacon

In a town called Dunning a woman named Embelia Felonwood took her revenge on an entire town with an ax. She did it alone and she nearly chopped off her own foot and she did loose her hand, but she’s never complained about it.

You can ask her for yourself.

Go ahead and take Highway 64 out of Seattle and head straight into up into the Cascade Mountains. There’s lots of roads and old logging trails up there but you’ll want 64 and when the road disappears and you hit brick, keep going.

When the brick gives way to dirt look for the rail road tracks if you don’t follow the tracks you could end up in one of those little towns with a population of 15 and everyone looks the same and has too many fingers.

Go ahead and laugh, but the Cascade Mountains are full of those towns and don’t fool yourself into thinking that it was shallow gene pool that changed those people.

It was those things that lived in the trees from Felonwood

Embelia’s family lived in Felonwood Valley, now days that’s this dusty dried up scab of land that use to be full of trees  and it had a houses and a cemetery and a schoolhouse and a Saloon and even a train station to connect it to the rest of the bigger towns in the Cascades.

Only nobody ever got on the train in Felonwood and when the train for some reason had to stop there the conductor would more likely to pull the shades down in the windows and the passengers were likely to not lift them until they were far away from Felonwood.

All of those buildings were made of stone, and none of the buildings had windows and if anyone would have even gotten off of the train and tried to open one of those doors that led into those little gray buildings they would have found the doors were fake.

Window dressing.

Fooled you.

The little Mills and Farms up in the Cascades had  a pretty good life up in those Mountains but they did have one problem…time.

They had way to much time on their hands and it seemed like all they had to do up in those mountains was cut down trees and gamble and drink and gamble and drink some more and on Sundays they’d stagger into their Churches and swear to God never to do that again.

Which to their credit they managed until…well the more determined ones managed it till Tuesday, sometimes even Thursday. In fact it was on a Friday that someone from Dunning staggered off the train in Felonwood at Sunset.

His name was Jacob Olson and Dunning probably would have been a better place to live had Jacob never shown up in Dunning to begin with.

Jacob Olson didn’t exactly walk off the train into Felonwood on that Friday just before sunset. He was getting sick over the railing and when the train jerked and started back down the tracks he went over the side and landed face down in the dirt.

When he turned himself over he was looking up into a dark face framed by black hair and dominated by a set of  black eyes and teeth so white they almost glowed blue.

The woman drew in a breath before she spoke and Jacob wouldn’t have been at all surprised had she howled like dog and sprouted horns from her forehead.

Instead she looked down at him with the same look his wife had when their cat brought home half-chewed still alive mice and birds and dropped them in the middle of their kitchen floor.

” Wonderful ” she said, ” this is just wonderful.”

When Jacob tried to get up the woman put the heel of her boot into his neck and shook her head. ” Move and I’ll cut your heart out. I’ll bury it here, and trust me. You don’t want that.”

As the woman spoke the air chilled and Jacob didn’t care at all for the way here black eyes seemed to be seeing more then what was in front of her nose. ” We’re waiting here for the next train. You’re going to be on it. Give me your word you won’t come back and I’ll let you go.”

The Woman was good to her word and she did put Jacob on the train. However, anyone in Dunning could have told you what Jacob’s word was worth so it shouldn’t surprise you he was back 72 hours later and when he was done the ground of Felonwood was sown with salt.

Felonwood started to die after that, and I don’t mean the plants and the water and the animals.

Remember the things that lived in the trees of Felonwood that I told you about earlier?

These shadows and shades and half alive creatures use to have names and homes, some of them had even spent time in Dunning.

Anyway, they started to die and if any of them thought dieing the first time around would make it easier the second time around they were wrong.

After Jacob and his friends came into Felonwood, waving around their silver crosses and salt the residents of Felonwood started to get sick.

Then one evening a  Shade, it’s face and hands eaten away by the poisoned ground of Felonwood burst into flames at Embelia’s feet.

Embelia did something she had never done before.

She Panicked.

She ran from tree to tree screaming up into the darkness that always hung above the trees of Felonwood “Stay in there, do you hear me? Stay in there and don’t come out until I say it’s okay!”

Then Embelia  went into her cabin and came out with an ax she looked back up into the trees and yelled ” Hang on! “

She whistled the entire time she worked.

Months later something came down from Felonwood on the flatbed, the last car on the train that ran the Cascade Loop.

The ’something’ was nothing unusual. On the flatbed were logs…lots and lots of logs.

Being that Dunning was a lumber town, they did what they were supposed to do.

They cut and processed the lumber and most of it ended up staying right there in the town.

They used the logs in the new houses they were putting up; they used it in the little hospital and the new Church as well as for the additions to the lumber mill.

With the new buildings came new problems.

Like people saying they were hearing voices in the Church, horrible voices telling them to do horrible things. Children would come home from school and insist that they were seeing faces in the floors and on their desk tops and at the hospital, well, they couldn’t keep staff there either because the Doctor and nurses were spreading stories around town about how patients who died there at the hospital seemed to be coming back.

And they were dieing over and over again.

Those stories weren’t as bad as the ones about people claiming to see the Malloy Sisters walking down Main Street-the same Malloy Sisters who were hung for Witchcraft and who all strangled slowly because the hangman wasn’t exactly  a professional and the Sister’s necks didn’t snap the way they were suppose to.

Then Mr Mayer said he was positive he had seen Marcus Spurges at the Library walking up and down the aisles arm and arm with his wife and whispering into her ear.

Mr Mayer was very surprised to see the both of them there in the Library because Mr and Mrs Spurges were both executed shortly after the Malloys for, big surprise…witchcraft.

The Spurges, The Malloys, a man named Simon who had been accused of Werewolfery. All accused, all imprisoned, all executed by hanging and all buried up the road in a little town called Felonwood.

Lots of people were left wondering why these Ghosts should be coming to Dunning of all places, how of all the towns in the Cascades they chose this one to return to.

Wondering was enough to drive you crazy and it did there in Dunning. Dunning was destined to never win any Mental Health Awards.

So before you go over the edge with the rest of the residents of Dunning, if you’re really that curious go ahead and talk to Embelia Felonwood- if anyone knows how that town fell apart and why she does.

But do me a favor.

She hand carves these little figures, animals and people and such from the trees that grow on her property.

Buy one from her.

 By Anita Marie Moscoso

based on the Soul Food Cafe Exercise:

Creative Conjuring

http://www.outbackonline.net/choc%20box/choc_magic.htm  

We thank with brief thanksgiving
Whatever gods may be
That no life lives for ever;
That dead men rise up never;
That even the weariest river
Winds somewhere safe to sea

-The Garden of Prosperine
by Algernon Charles Swinburne

Clover Boonan takes the bus to work, she’s taken the same bus..the 477 for the passed ten years. Before that it was called the “S-4″ but it was the same route and much like the town of Larkspear it hadn’t changed much in a very long time.

 She tries to sit somewhere in the middle and she listens to tapes she recorded herself; they don’t follow any musical style or artist. They’re just sounds and voices and phrases that the Mortician likes to fill her head with before she turns the key to the Prep Room at the Funeral Home she’s worked at for over 20 years and disappears from the world of the living into the home of the dead. 

When she was about 12 Clover wanted to be a writer, she wanted to write about demons and ghosts and cemeteries and the living dead. She wanted to dress in black and never smile and she wanted to live in one of those old Victorian style Mansions on Basam Hill. 

Then one summer, after she turned 18  her Mother’s friend offered her a job at the Leaning Birches Cemetery in Larkspear.

Had Clover thought it was cool in those days to smile she would have.

Instead she looked up from her book (must’ve been something by Anne Rice…of course) and she shrugged, “Sure.” Was all she’d said from under her heavy black shadowed eyelids. “ I think I’d fit in there.”

 That of course turned out to be so far from the truth it was a joke. 

The  Morticians Clover worked for were two brothers that inherited the Funeral Home from their Father.

Hunter and Calvin liked to sing Elvis and Frank Sinatra Songs while they worked, they attended every single Science Fiction Convention to come to town and they always dressed up as the bad guys from a show called “ Doctor Who” 

“ You know Clover, “ Hunter suggested one day “ you’re looking a little pale around the gills. Why don’t you go out and walk through the Memorial Park? All that sun, all that white marble. That’s put some color on you really fast.” 

“ No thanks” Clover said from the supply cabinet where she was taking inventory. 

“ Hey Clover” Calvin said with no room for debate “ why don’t you go out to the Memorial Park and do some maintenance? Rake up the leaves, clean up the dead flowers. That sort of thing. In fact, you should probably hop to it before you loose the Sun.”

Then Calvin opened a package on his desk and pulled out a little toy space ship that hoped you would live long and prosper when you pushed a little button on its  underside.

He held the toy up to his brother, “ Score.” He said with awe.

 Score. “ Hunter echoed back with reverence.

Clover was odd and pale and wore too much black but in the end she found out it was impossible to be around Hunter and Calvin Larkspear and not end with some color in your life.

It took a few years but Clover made it all the way through Mortuary College, she attended Comic Book Conventions and she even got it into her head that she might start writing some day.Mysteries were her thing now and the only horror books she read anymore were true crime novels.

Over the years she couldn’t read or watch a horror movie with out laughing out loud, so she have them up ages ago.

But when she put her headphones on and took that bus ride to work it was music she thought about. She loved the way the notes went together and the stories the songs told and she loved the voices, those lively colorful voices that wanted to tell you their secrets.This was the world she was in the day the lady in the gray linen shirt dress got on the bus.

The woman dropped some change into the fare box and carefully made her way down the aisle as the bus pulled away from the stop. As she walked towards Clover Boonan, something about the dress yanked out of her day dream of rock stardom and to the little black belt that circled the woman’s dress.

It looked like one that Clover use to own.

The edges of the belt were finished off with purple thread and because of that the belt had been considered flawed and she had bought it for less then dollar.And the dress…that dress looked like one of four shirt dresses her Mother had donated to the Funeral Home last winter. They had a closet full of donated clothes that they dressed  Jane and John Does in. Jane and John Doe were people the County brought to Leaning Birches, which had some years back devoted at least 20 acres of the Cemetery to the surrounding cities less then fortunate citizens to be buried.

Calvin and Hunter had started the “ Closet” because the idea of burying people in sheets and plastic bothered them. “ I’ve buried Gold Fish with more dignity then this, “ Hunter had mumbled one day as he prepared John Doe 21704 for his casket. The next day the brothers brought in some clothes and the closet grew from there.Clover decided it was nothing, the belt and the dress weren’t unique. But the thought raced around her head all the same, “ no they’re not unique but those things are yours Clover. You know it…that’s your Mother’s dress.

The woman took a seat across the aisle from Clover and she smoothed her dress out before she sat down and Clover  just knew the woman was going to look over at her and smile.

She snapped her eyes forwards and tried to concentrate on her tape where a man was growling into her ears that he could do dirty deeds for cheap.

Clover could smell the faint sweet odor of Jasmine, her Mother’s perfume. The thing of it was Clover’s Mom has worn that scent for so long she can’t smell it on herself anymore and she has a tendency to wear too much of it now.

So all of her Mother’s clothes, no matter how many times you wash or dry clean them the always smell like Jasmine Delights by Lucia.

Lots of ladies that age wore that scent, Clover told herself,  lots of women that age wore that style of dress and lots of them had that hair style too.  Clover did hair and makeup at the Funeral Home and of all the things she had to do that was the task that worried her the most.

“ It’s cinchy Clover,” Hunter explained on the afternoon she had finally run out of excuses for not doing  hair “ it’s a pretty basic style just take the small barrel curling iron and make three curls on the top, two on each side and brush it out.”

It was  called it the Granny  Brush Out and even though it turned out it was an easy do Clover usually had to cheat and use bobby pins to hold the waves above the ears  up.

Clover’s eyes shifted to her right, and of course right  above the woman’s ear were two crossed bobby pins with a tiny bit of cream colored thread to hold them in place.

As the bus slowed down and pulled over to the next stop Clover hoped the woman would do what most of them did when someone got on the bus, the seated passengers  looked out the window. And the Grey Lady was no exception. She turned her head too as the next passenger started towards the back of the bus and when she did Clover’s eye went to the woman collar bone.

Just under her white linen collar it was there, just like clover knew it would be because she was the one who put it there.

The little line of puckered skin held together with string.

Clover had made that incision herself and she had gently reached inside of this woman and found the artery .

And then Clover embalmed her.

She was sure of it as the woman turned and looked at Clover and smiled and when she did Clover decided she knew this woman.

Clover after all had shaped the woman’s mouth into a small smile with her own hands and she had brushed her hair and put blush on her cheeks and colored her pale lips with a soft shade of red.

The Gray Lady was a dead Lady and she was riding the bus with all of the other morning commuters like she belonged there. She fussed a little more with her dress and her hair and then she reached up and pulled the yellow cord and the bus slid to a stop.

She got up and before she could pass Clover, Clover reached out and touched her hand, still bearing traces of the power she had dusted on to give the woman’s hand’s some color. “ Where are you going? “ was all Clover could think to ask.

The Gray Lady looked down at Clover and smiled and she leaned towards Clover a little and said, “ I’m just visiting dear, just like everybody else.”

“ Just Visiting. “

Water Bearer

Look,
there is none more lithe than she
in striking form or spirit kiss;
the water girl with crowning vase
and face aglow with inner peace.

Aye,
she may be fat or honored crone,
or winsome lass or withered hag;
the task requires a nobility
of posture tall and footsteps small.

See –
how better to see the chaotic world
than head held high and back erect;
to then stoop onto bended knee
to help a stranger e’er a friend.

Behold,
a transformation rare indeed
where task and spirit blend as one;
and any women is young again –
sandaled Goddess of golden dreams.

Thirst,
never more from dust-gristed soul,
or heart encased by other’s rules;
but carry passion where all can see
and know the maiden ever be.

faucon

I know this is a bit off topic but anyway…

I wonder about death. I wonder, if on the day that you are going to die, you know. A twang in the stomach, an ache in the heart. You may not take this a sign that death is knocking, but its still there. They say that you die the day you stop dreaming. I don’t believe that. Steve Irwin died today by being stung in the chest by a stingray. Now I know he must’ve had dreams. He was out, shooting his show, which he did to save innocent animals. He had two small children, who he must’ve dreamed about going to their weddings, playing games with them in the park, watching them grow. Now they will grow up without a father. Terri will have to take up the zoo and take care of the children on her own. Steve was a kind, loving, happy person who only wanted the best for his family and the animals around him. May god be with him and his family.

by Natz

by Anita Marie Moscoso 

Inspired by the Soul Food Cafe Alphabet Project

” G ” Is For Grail

http://www.dailywriting.net/Alphabet/G.html

Cebu Alacantara buries people for a living.

He digs the graves and puts in the liners, he lowers the coffins into the ground  and then he covers the graves and he does it quietly, quickly before the next family shows up for services and of course before the sunsets.

It’s at sunset that Leaning Birches Funeral Home and Cemetery closes for the day and opens for the rest of the night and like the rest of the Cemetery staff Cebu has learned that’s when visiting hours are over.

For everybody.

Cebu has been at the Cemetery for over 30 years now, and it was on his first day back in November that he and a Mortician were outside the gates waiting for their rides home.

Kousso Eyebright was new to the funeral home too and Cebu liked her right away. He had heard from the other three Morticians that Kousso was good with the families, handy with a needle and on her first case had rebuilt a dead woman’s face with a sculpture’s hand and a surgeon’s skill.

To be honest, that didn’t mean a thing to Cebu but he also heard that Kousso knew some wicked jokes and he was hoping to hear a few of them for himself.

Instead Kousso asked, just like you’d ask for the time of day or in the same tone of voice you’d use to order a hamburger and fries, ” So Cebu, tell me, what’s the best part of your job?”

” I dig graves Kousso, I don’t think there’s a good part to that. “

” Oh sure there is, you just haven’t figured it out yet. I mean, none of us come to a place like this without being invited in you know.”

” And your point is? “

” Well, if you were invited and you showed up there must have been something that called to you…some little signal that you tossed out that said ‘ hey, I could really enjoy burying dead people for a living. I could show up in the heat and the cold and shovel dirt all day long’. And that’s to say nothing of the fact I’m the last person with the corpse before it’s planted.”

” Now, I had to embalm a guy today that I could swear had brown eyes, but when I put the eyecaps on they were green. Now that was creepy enough, no way would I wanted want to be with him…alone outside here when he goes into the ground.”

” Kousso? “

” Yes? “

” You’re weird, do you know that? “

Kousso shrugged and said,” as a matter of fact I do.”

Then Cebu thought about it a little more and he asked Kousso, ” So you think we’re called to do this work, is that right?”

” You bet I do.”

” Who do you think is making the call Kousso?”

Kousso didn’t answer; she was looking across the street.

There was a lot there and in the middle of it was an empty building that over the years housed a hardware store, a pharmacy and until a few months before had been a flower shop.

The Cemetery Grounds Keepers had taken to going over there to cut the grass and keep the place looking halfway decent because they didn’t want an eyesore in their otherwise nice and quiet neighborhood.

But today there was someone out in front of the building.

A cat.

It was a small black cat that reminded them both of an owl.

The cat’s head was large and round and it’s body was plump and compact and it’s eyes were a deep dark orange.

And it was looking right at them.

” You don’t come to a place like this, you don’t just show up. I mean think about it. No one comes to a place like this without being called in…do they?”

” None of us ” Cebu agreed.

The little round cat uncurled it’s tail and stood up and stretched and then it started to walk towards them.

It crossed the street in the slow easy stride all cats have and when it got to where Cebu and Kousso were standing it sat back down in front of them, curled it’s tail back around it’s body and looked up at them expectantly.

Kousso, the woman born to be a Mortician said down to the cat, ” We close at sunset.”

The cat looked up at her and blinked and Cebu who knew this was no joke stayed quiet…but only because he was afraid of what he might do if he opened his mouth.

The Cat could have easily gone under the fence but it didn’t. It looked up at Kousso and twitched it’s whiskers at her.

Then Kousso reached into her purse and took out her keys, She unlocked the gate and pushed it opened and the cat walked through.

” Take your time, I’ll wait. ” Kousso said in her Funeral Directors voice.

” We both will. ” Cebu whispered.

And they did.

The flame we carry within –
that spark of Passion’s intent
that barely flickers with our vanity,
for it cannot be extinguished by any will;
hold it high, not close — not hid away.
I know that it is not a cross that I must shoulder,
but a lantern to be carried in firm hand and heart.
As Diogenes sought truth in shadows of humanity,
and Albinus fueled the lamp of knowledge and order,
and Mother Theresa carried a flame behind her eyes,
so shall I find a lantern of protected flame to share.

What then?
Is it possible I am this to be;
to drop the shuttered casings, –
and let the light shine through
and burn ever so brightly,
until consumed
and pass the
torch
on?

By Anita Marie Moscoso 

This is, without a doubt, is my favortie prompt at the Soul Food Cafe: I’ve used it more then once and written about four stories based on it.

Give it a try sometime! 

The Deserted Farmhouse

http://www.dailywriting.net/Farmhouse.htm 

Back along on Deception Road is a little farmhouse that no one lives in.

After the house was built and then put up for sale the orchard out back died, the little vegetable garden died and all of the pumpkins and squashes and tomatoes rotted right on their vines.

Even the flowers in the window boxes shriveled up and turned to dust within a day or so after they were set out and all the little farmhouse could do was slam its doors open and shut and make the clock in its kitchen strike twelve over and over again.

The man who built the farmhouse, Travis Janosik, use to stand out at the road and wonder what the hell was going on in there, why was it that nothing could live near that place without giving up the ghost.

There was nothing about Travis that would make you say, ‘you know that killer house? The one on Deception Road? It was built by Travis Janosik” and the person you would be talking to wouldn’t reply, “ Well of course it was a strange house. Look who built it.”

No, the house turned bad all by itself and this bothered no one more then Travis. What bothered him most of all  happened when the house was two years old.

That’s when someone actually bought it and moved in.

The ‘someones’ who bought the farmhouse were the Korbar Family.

Travis use to drive out to Deception Road and park across the way from the Farmhouse and watch it. He’d see Darius Korbar working the vegetable garden or see him sitting on the porch with one of the many children he and Mrs. Korbar had and they acted like any other family living in those hills.

Unless of course you really watched them the way Travis did.

At first he had no interest in the Korbar family. His interest was in that house and what it was up to now. It didn’t have to settle for killing plants and the odd field animal that got to close to its walls. Now it had the Korbar children who scuttled around the property in their ill-fitting clothes.

At least that’s how it looked but then Travis realized it wasn’t the clothes that didn’t fit right, it was the bodies inside the clothes that weren’t right.

The children’s heads were to large for their small bodies and their hands and feet didn’t seem to be the same size and when they talked Travis felt the hair rising up on his arms and the back of his neck and that’s when he’d cut his daily vigil off.

Once Travis saw Mrs. Korbar come down the front steps with a tall glass in her hand and make her way to the garden to where Mr Korbar was working. She handed him the glass and he kissed her cheek and then she made her way back up the steps and Travis watched her but didn’t notice that as she climbed the steps her head was tilted slightly backwards and her back was straight as a pole and she never bent her knees.

It was like she was gliding up the steps and not walking up them at all.
Towards the end of the summer the gardens were dead and rotten and Mr Korbar was out there working it like it as if it were alive and thriving. The ground was water logged and moldy with green slime. The vegtables were rotting and decayed and you could actually smell it when the wind shifted.

On top of the fact that Travis was watching a man harvest from a garden full of rotten vegetables he was also sure that some of that smell was coming from Mr Korbar too.

Travis promised himself after that visit he wouldn’t go near the Farmhouse on Deception Road. Something was wrong with it, something was wrong with the people living inside of it and Travis was certain if he didn’t stop going over there something would be wrong with him too.

Of course, it was too late because that something had already happened to Travis and he found himself standing at the end of the drive leading right up to the Farmhouse the next day.

He was in plain view and Mrs. Korbar must have seen him from one of her windows because he wasn’t there for long before she came down the steps and met him with a basket of rotting carrots and maggot filled tomatoes on her arm.

“ We never got the chance to thank you for building this wonderful house Mr Janosik. Its perfect and we love it so.”

Travis was looking into the basket of dead and decaying vegetables and he said, “ How could you love it so? Nothing can live inside of that thing…”

And Mrs. Korbar said, “ Well, Mr Janosik nothing does…”