short story : Apollo's Phaeton

Apollo's Phaeton, by Marie Lamb

 It was the oddest job request I ever had.  It was literally 'out of this world' and right into the next one.  The little silver car didn't seem like much, so I signed off on the contract to take it to Mount Olympus, Georgia, and deliver it to a man named Apollo Zeiss.  I got in, turned the key, and at first thought there must be something wrong with the transmission.  The vehicle glided smoothly through all gears entirely by iteself, and with a strong odor of honey in the air.  Then the little car put itself in reverse and I was no longer in control of my limbs.  I imagined my name burning away from the contract in the back of my mind - all evidence of my existence being destroyed by some supernatural force.

I knew this area quite well, but, after a while I had lost track of the twists and the runs, the hills and the little dirt roads winding over creeks and through fields I had never laid eyes on before.

I was already quite worried by this time, but no moreso than when the little car began to climb a hill that seemed to go to nowhere - and kept climbing, until I could have sworn it had no tires on the ground and it was simply pedaling through the clouds on a full tank of ambrosia.  And that , my friend, is when the lightning began to strike.  Inside, the well-upholstered coupe sedan I was insulated, but the flashes of light cracked everywhere, pink and purple arcs that then became blindingly white.  It left little red streaks in my vision that faded to green slowly.  Then the clouds began to converge around me, like vaporous horses pulling along a chariot toward its awaiting master.

The car came to an uncertain footing at the edge of a white sand beach that spread out for miles.  I had been at least half the country away from the nearest ocean - so I immediately began to crane my neck through the windshield trying to see any landmarks, houses or other roads.  There were none.  White sand stretched out unblemished in either direction.  Then, the door of the car opened up with a shot and I could feel the tendrils of the air itself form tiny whirlwinds about my arms and legs.  I was fully and completely jerked outwards and held down into the fine sugar sand.

 

I got up spitting, only to see a flashy young man in a white suit and bright gold lame tennis shoes stroking the side of the car with obvious affection.  I've seen men fawn over numerous things, including vintage machines worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.  If I had not just been taken for a completely inexplicable ride in said car, I would have wondered even more what a mid-2000s sedan could do to evoke such tenderness.  In fact, most people would have called the car a dog, but I knew for a fact that it was quite the opposite.  I could swear, having had that trip, that if a car could arch its back and purr like a cat, this one definitely did.

The man dropped his shades for a moment and peered down at my kicking body.  None of my extremities were entirely cooperative yet.  He stooped down to get a closer look at me and cocked his head.  He laughed a strangely musical noise at me and then thwacked me with his finger and thumb right between the eyes.  The world looked very bright for a moment and I felt like there was a fish inside my brain gasping for air, flopping uncontrollably, and then disappearing.  

"Miss Madison, I presume?" he said with a voice that could cure all ills.  'Ye..e...s..sss', I stammered in return.  He reached a hand down and now carefully took me by the hand and pulled me to my feet.  "I am so happy you could take the position and bring my transportation with you.  It has been a LONG time since he had a good run through the countryside.  And if you knew how long it took to find him and then get him to agree to a new form in the first place... Well, what he lacks in pizzazz he has always made up for with enthusiasm."  He was, of course, talking about the car.

"What WAS that?  What IS that?  Who are YOU and..."  Although I wasn't sure what I wanted to hear for answers... I saw his joy turn to slight annoyance and stopped in my tracks.  The distant summer horizons were turning a little dark, and the air had a crackle about it that I did not want anyone, or anything, to elaborate upon further.  He had dropped my hand and was beginning to heap the sand from the beach up in great net-like swathes around the little car.  I had no idea how he was doing this with just his hands, but any questions would have fallen more productively upon a brick wall at that point.  "Are you Apollo Zeiss?"  I asked, pulling the crinkled contract out of my pocket.  "Miss Madison.  You know I am.", he said, and removed his shoes, one by one.

I was still staring with  what must have been a fly-catching expression as he set one shoe on the back of each side of the little sedan's trunk and then gave it a huge slap on the trunk.  The car reared up on it's hind wheels and shot off into the sky before I could barely blink.  What in the world, or at least this place, was going on?

"Well, now we have to figure out what to do with YOU, Miss Madison.  I have to admit, most of the contracted help don't actually make it much past the first few miles.  They err.. disintegrate."  He said this last bit while staring at some bit of sand caught up under his fingernails, but then immediately flashed a huge blinding smile back at me.  "But NOT YOU, my dear girl.  I think he likes you."  I felt taken aback, horrified and a bit relieved all at once.  I took a step back from this avant-garde Greek God and looked soulfully up and down the desolate but stunning beach.  "So, I lived.  Is that a good thing?  Do I get to go home?"  

Apollo looked me in the eyes with a slow smolder and said 'You could.. perhaps.. I could pluck this memory out of your mind and send you back with a nice bankroll.  But, then you'd right back to where you were, running 'important' things around the country back and forth, back and forth... is that what you want?  Or are you interested in things of a less.. mundane.. nature?  It isn't every  day I find a mortal brain that can withstand electrically conducive embrosia AND form a complete sentence afterwards."  He raised two very shaped and sculpted eyebrows at me from beneath his shades, struck a pose against a car that was no longer there, and waited for my response.  My eyes drifted down, uncontrollably, to his bare feet that did not actually sink into the soft white sand.

I had to admit, the offer was out of this world.  And, so was he.  Could it hurt to try at least one more job?  Mr. Apollo Zeiss held out my contract, smoothed and only still slightly singed at the edges.  He handed me an expensive Italian pen.  "Sign on Miss Madison, and we'll get you your wings."  I set the tip of the pen to the paper and a silver ink came out nearly of it's own accord and signed my name.  "Welcome my dear... let's go meet the Family.  But first, these CLOTHES...'

short story Shadows in the Lens

 It began several years ago, the white shadows. I would see them, walking across the room - from here to there, every day, the same ones, shadows of a past gone by. I began to realize, the older the place, the more populated it had been, the greater the number of shadows. In some places, they were stacked on each other so deep it was like looking through a London Fog. 

For example, the airport. The first time I had to go through O'Hare to get to a plane they thought I was having a panic attack. I don't know how I made it through - mostly by following the feet of the people in front of me. When they called our plane, I knew the number, and it was only by luck and chance that the man and woman who jumped up and began to run for the other gate were really going the same place I was. The plane was not old, but while it was on the ground the shadows continued to walk through, around, and up and down. When we left into the air, things cleared. When we landed, I was so glad to have someone there to pick me up and take me home. 

Now, I actually have to employ someone to walk me through the crowded places. I bring a cane, and dark glasses. Sometimes they are in the know, and sometimes they really think that my panic attacks render me blind. But mostly, I try to find the quiet places - the out of the way places, where few have come before. It isn't an easy life, trying to photograph the beauty through what is invisible to most - to see only through my camera lens that which, when I view it with the naked eye, is nearly obscured. 

 

I guess that is why I have thrown myself into my work so completely, and why it has shown in the sheer number of awards that I have now raked in. 'Most Remote Photograph of the Year', yes - that's me. 'To Go where None have Gone Before', yes, I'd love to. For someone who once was so entranced by history, by the bright lights, the stages and the exuberance of life, now I seek solace, vast empty spaces and the quiet of the midnight and dawning hours in the places where most would have been asleep and dreaming. 

 Perhaps I am dreaming all of this. It is hard to prove that Mr. Alistair came down these stairs one night at two a.m., and yet, I see him - just once - carrying the lantern. It is hard to know or investigate who the little girl is running up the mountain path, on this farm that has been abandoned for a hundred years - or that she also sits on the beach down there by the rocks, huddled against some storm that no one remembers. 

Perhaps one day I will wake up and there will be no fog in the social places, no strange things to catch the corner of my eye when a reporter is asking their questions on the phone, no mysteries that I really do not wish to solve. 

Tomorrow I will take these bandages off and we will see if the surgery has made any difference at all. I am ready to wake up from this dream into a new day. But if I stop seeing the past, what will I do with my future? If I see nothing at all, will I have a future? If I start seeing the future, will it be black or blindingly white? //fiction -- first draft, thoughts floating through my mind today

In the Grove (c) 2019 Marie Lamb

Another preview from the short story book I am working on.
This is a myth retold, after a prompt asked to take a piece of music and reinvent a story for it.
I wrote this to the music playing of 'Masks' from Romeo and Juliet, Sergei Prokofiev

In the Grove © 2019 Marie Lamb

In the grove there is a tree
where Eternal Summer waits for I
beneath her branches love awaits
desire burns brightly in her eyes

And down, down, below the earth
a hunger greater lurks and spies
to feed upon my bones, my blood
where none nearby can hear my cries.

It is a fine spring day, warming into summer. I have begun walking along the path, from the places I know well, to those that are more in the secrets of the Wild. There is a sweet girl waiting for me in the Valley, and I will take her to the Fair in Bethel. I am dressed in my finest, with a strong dagger at my side and a few coins in my pocket. I have confidence that today will be warm and bright, with no chance of a summer storm.

My step is light and even a bit joyful, the road fairly easy with lots of interesting things to pass by in the woods beside me. There is a bright green to the trees and the shafts of sunlight coming through the leaves is warm upon me. I feel almost like I could take a little spin here and there, but my grandfather’s words remind me: " Perhaps should be looking more at the woods around me than my feet, fine though the boots may be."

And then, I realize why.
But perhaps, I should not have listened to grandfather.
Perhaps I would have passed her by with my boyish glee.
But now, I see her, a forest sprite, one hand on the tree a few yards in front of me. She is the very picture of beauty, freshfaced and wearing only a shift of shimmering gossamer. She is toying with a vine, long wispy grasses playing about her legs while the air remains still and balmy. I can not take my eyes away, she is so striking.

Her hair is nearly green. I know she is no village child or girl lost or hunting mushrooms. As I stop she leans forward, peering towards me, beckoning. As I approach, she swirls around the back of the tree, looking at me, peeking and then returning to the other side. Her voice is like bells, and she seems to know my name, although I have not given it to her. She is playful as a young forest creature.  I am delighted and entranced.  But, I worry about what teeth or sorcery might be revealed in the shadows. I think about Rosalie, waiting for me.  Still, there is this quality to this sprite that I cannot look away.  I am drawn as a moth to a flame.

As I near to her hand, stretched out to me in welcome, I feel the forest warm even further and the wind that was only for her has come to dance about my neck. I am taken with her, with the motion of the world, and the spiralling nature of Time itself. I touch her hand and feel warmth and taste honey.  Her skin is so unnaturally soft.  Her tongue curls around perfectly white teeth, pointy and numerous.  She seethes my name and lovely words, encircling me with her arms, whispering poetry into my ears. I suddenly feel I want to stay here forever, and a day, and the next after that. It would be Eternal Summer.

I can feel that I am falling, and in all of the warmth there is a tiny stab of ice. It has entered through my skin and pricked the heart within. Something deep inside me screams that danger has many faces. A pain cracks deep in my heart that seems to fill with sand and weigh me down like a thousand burdens. I struggle to stay upright, to see her face, to reach for her as I am falling. And then, the tree is my blanket, and the ground my bed. I am wrapped in it, secure and blissful. The hand of the nymph passes over my forehead, as my mother’s once did when I was abed with fever as a child. The colors are beautiful. The music is swirling, marching, slowly and in time. I am drifting. I am asleep for the ages, another grave for the grove, unmarked and unremembered.

I will hear the calls of my searchers through muffled ears, unopening eyes, and never answer.

My last thought before the sleep becomes solid and unyielding It was going to be such a nice warm day, if I had ever made it to the Valley.

Preview from the House of Sunlight book, (c) Marie Lamb

'Susan', short story by Marie Lamb (c) 2019

The sun is rising where it once set. I look at it only out of the corner of my eye. It is not the only thing today that has gone wrong. I saw a frog swallowed today, not by a snake or a bird, but by a flower with honey-sweet petals and no visible sign of malice. The water from the rock wall crept upwards through the cracks, and wandered back down the other side. I did not have time to examine it all. It was all so strange. But, most of all, most of all, Susan woke up.

And that was the only good thing that has happened all day.

All these few hours of it, so far.
It was barely after midnight.
The clock had begun ringing out the bells
I was still holding the bloody rag.
The one from the coughing that wracked her frail body.
The one she dropped to the floor, and I brought it back.
For some reason, I had not been able to accept the silence.
And then it was silent no more.

I sit here in awe of it.
And in fear of it.
And she looks at me.

I think it will take a little while, as it did before, the other way.
And then I will have to decide how to feel about it.
I will have to decide what to do with her, with me, with everything.

I took a walk through the garden, and it was brutal.
If we are living in the Unknown, so be it.
I came back, and still, she looks at me, beseechingly.

I know nothing, can say nothing, and am only quite small.
Maybe someone else will come through our doors before long.
If there was anyone left at all, and how will we know?

How long could it take, and what rules is Nature playing by
now that she has thrown her book out the window?

Perhaps, I only need to wait a little longer..

I curl up at her side and slowly, with one thin finger, she strokes my ears. Perhaps I have dreamed it all. The Death did not come in the night as I had imagined. Everything will be all right. The sun will reach it’s noon point and Susan will rise from her bed and begin to make tea. I think about the cakes, and they taste like frogs. I think about the frogs and they taste like chicken bits.

I think I’ll go have another turn around the garden.
And hope there are not any birds large enough to swallow me.