FICTION
Contact: Carol Bryant
Phone: 570-540-3341
Email: CarolBWriter@yahoo.com
24-Hour Short Story Contest
2nd Place Winner
Same Time Next Year
By Carol Bryant
Alice waited for this day her entire life. She played it over and over in her mind, waiting for mister tall, dark, and handsome to walk into the door of her heart. Who'd ever marry a waitress from a small town, she'd questioningly doubt herself 364 days a year. Now he was late for his own wedding.
"Someone call for a postman from a small town?" Carl beamed as he bolted through the church doors that cold December night, jostling his postal cap while wiping freshly fallen snow from his raven locks.
Alice ran so fast into his arms, her backdraft extinguished the dim light from the candle nubs.
"Oh Carl, I thought I was a jilted bride," Alice imparted, gently caressing his face as if stroking away a 5 o'clock shadow.
"Doll, you know the train doesn't run tonight, not at this hour anyway. Do you realize how long it took me to walk from the post office to the chapel? Age is creeping up on me." Carl reminded her.
"Silly, to me, you look just like the day we met."
Carl laughed, "You remember that far back? What was it, 1952? 53?"
"You ordered a cup of coffee, two creams on the side," Alice daydreamingly recalled.
"Gee, for a gal in a hurry to get hitched, you sure talk a lot." Carl mused, brushing wet snow from his pants.
"What in tarnation am I thinking? We've got to do this before it's too late! Reverend, we're ready!" Alice called out in a panic.
The small wood stove normally kept the tiny chapel warm, but the minister's wife couldn't keep the logs burning long enough to emit much heat.
Carl glanced over at Martha, the weathered hands of time etched across her skin.
"Let me help. You two sacrifice for us year after year, trying to get us wed. It's the least I can do," Carl said as he sprang for the wood pile.
"Dearie, you say that every year, and every year I tell you I need the exercise. Now go gather yourselves. You haven't much time."
"Oh, look at me, I'm a mess," tears mistily fell to Alice's apron, "Who in their right mind gets married in a waitress's dress?"
"Looks like you drew the short straw. Twenty-five years delivering mail to Forrest Circle's residents, and I can't do better than a letter carrier's uniform." Carl reminisced.
All four turned abruptly when they heard a cough by the door.
"Oh no, it's starting! I just can't bear losing you again, Carl!" Alice blurted and shook her fists to the high rafters.
"Maybe they'll just go away this time," Reverend Joe offered.
"We haven't time to waste." Carl glanced at his watch.
The sounds outside the church doors came closer. Martha stuck her head out to see if she could determine what creatures this way had come. Snowy footprints had melted by the door.
"Keep them away. It won't take Reverend Joe long!" Alice desperately pleaded.
Alice rose, soothed the invisible wrinkles from her dress, and scurried to Carl's side. Reverend Joe relit the candles and read silently from his prayer book.
"Tell me again, Carl. Tell me how our honeymoon will be. It won't be long now..." Alice begged.
With his arm around her, Carl began, "On our way out tomorrow morning, we'll stop at Harry's Pharmacy for sundries. Next, we'll make a stop at the five and dime so you can pick out some dresses. My doll deserves nothing but the best."
"Oh Carl, can we really? Truly and really this time?" Alice pleaded longingly into Carl's eyes.
He squeezed her closer and glanced back at the empty pews.
"You wanted our family and friends here, didn't you Carl?" Her sunken eyes followed his gaze across the barren rows.
"You insisted this is your dream wedding. You picked the worst night of the year to marry this old letter carrier. We're here and that's what counts."
Thunder rolled over the village and the lights went out.
"Get out! You don't belong in here! You'll wreck everything! Go wake up Timmy!" Suzy ordered.
"Carl, Alice. If you plan to wed, it's now or never!" Reverend Joe shouted.
The minister's voice bellowed, "Do you, Carl, take Alice to love and hold forever and do all the things I've said the 24 other times we've tried this?"
"Yes, I do, again and again!" Carl shouted.
"Me too," Alice cried.
"If any of you can show just cause why they may not lawfully be married, speak now or..."
And the chapel toppled on its side, bodies tumbled out onto the train platform, barely missing the diesel engine that wasn't running that day.
"Carl!"
"Alice!"
Charlie's Butcher Shop jackknifed to the left. Buddy's TV Repairs tumbled in the snow. Kegler's Lanes rolled down the tracks. Trees bent and townsfolk skidded onto the ice skating rink.
"Mama, get Shadow out of here! His big paws just toppled over the village! He's ruining Christmas morning!" Suzy yelled.
"Shadow, come here big fella! A Christmas village isn't a playground for dogs. Chew on your rawhide from Santa," Suzy's mom giggled as she lovingly stroked the Labrador's floppy ears.
"And Suzy," her mom continued, "stop messing with those villagers. You know your father likes the waitress kept in the diner and the letter carrier in the post office!"
"Yes ma'am." Suzy solemnly picked up the villagers, placed each figure upright, and returned each building to its proper location.
"Carl?" Alice's voice cascaded across the train tracks as she waited to be picked up.
"Yes doll?"
"Same time next year?"
"Same time next year."
Women on Writing Fiction Contest
Honorable Mention
Verboten
By Carol Bryant
"Verboten"
Some words just stay with you. Perhaps from fear, perhaps from repetition. These words are yours for life. Forbidden was that word for the little girl with the tiny blue flower perched over her right ear. In just the right light, she'd have inspired Rembrandt or Monet. Some things aren't meant to be.
"Miss Mary Mack, Mack, Mack. All dressed in black, black black," the two girls clapped their hands together, crossed over, slapped their laps, and continued in unison. Cecilia giggled so much that she managed to tumble sideways.
"Silly Scilla, hush," the little girl reprimanded her and continued, "Mamm will hear us. You know laughter is forbidden."
"How we supposed to play?" Ceclilia mustered.
"We don't, Scilla. Children are to be seen and not heard," the little girl reminded her.
Cecilia's eyes wandered in frustration to the door.
The little girl followed Cecilia's eyes. "Don't even think about it. The answer is no. The garden is off limits."
"Let's just go see, if only for a few moments. No one will know we're gone" Cecilia pleaded the way only a 13-year-old with her mind made up could.
The little girl was hungry and she knew the garden would fill Cecilia's curiosity as well as her own belly. Lookng down at the meager celery seeds that had been spilling out of her apron all morning, she halfheartedly agreed.
The two held hands, sneaking down one stairwell, then another, and finally pushing the heavy metal door to the outside.
Looking both ways to avoid the traffic that hadn't been by in years, they darted across the street and headed for the abandoned garden.
"My book," the little girl remembered and beckoned aloud. "Scilla, I have to go back!"
"There's no time. We've already made it this far," Cecilia reprimanded her fretting friend.
"Here we go round the mulberry bush, the mulberry bush, so early in the morning!" Cecilia danced around a topiary bush and plucked at its refinement, her voice echoing to the darkening skies above.
"Scilla, quiet! They'll hear us," the little girl warned.
"Silly, we're free to play! Free to laugh! Free to dance and..."
The siren blared. That horrid, bone-chilling, so deafening you forget what you were thinking, nightmare of a loud siren that wailed morning, noon, and night. Always waiting in the lurches, startling without warning.
Bereft of a way back, the little girl sighed and settled down in an empty row, digging her toes into the cold soil. She screamed suddenly when her foot bumped into something hard.
"Now who's the loud one," Cecilia chortled.
"Something's buried here!"
"It's a garden, not a cemetary. Of course something's buried here!" Cecilia dimwittingly reminded her.
Cecilia scooped some dirt aside in a gopher-like fashion, deep enough to unearth a tattered purse.
"What's there," the little girl whispered.
"THEY CAN'T HEAR US," Cecilia shouted over the sirens. "And I've got a secret!"
Tears pooled in the little girl's eyes. She raised her palms to wipe her face, and a tiny dirty handprint tatooed itself across her cheek.
"Chicken, bok bok. Now who's curious," Cecilia teased her sobbing friend.
"How about you pull with all your might and I grab you from behind, Scilla," the little girl offered.
"Perfect. On three, then?"
"1-2-3," as the treasure tug began.
"Hurry, Scilla. I can't pull any harder," the little girl struggled.
"It's stuck, as if something's holding it down. Like its roots are planted deep," Cecilia gasped.
With sweat beading up on the little girl's forehead, the now tattered blue flower fell from her hair. Without warning, her tiny jaw dropped open at what wicked this way had come.
"Mamm!" The little girl exclaimed with fear.
Startled, Cecilia let go, got up, and ran back home.
Mamm's face the color of vine-ripened tomatoes, she began shaking the little girl's shoulders.
"How many times have I warned you never to leave?"
"Many, Mamm. I know, please. Don't be mad. I didn't mean it. I found a treasure." She sobbed and pleaded.
"A treasure? Well, why didn't you just say so? Let's have a gander, shall we?"
Mamm hit her knees and began burrowing furiously, dirt flying in the air, back and forth like a machine. She gasped and grunted, as the little girl slowly edged away from the spectacle.
Mamm suddenly stopped and wept.
"Child, come see. Come look at what you've found," Mamm lamented.
A purse. Beneath it, what appeared to be tiny fingers grasping the handles. The little girl bent down to examine. Mamm stepped back. A child grasping a purse. A child with one round hole in the center of her forehead, as if someone drew a perfect circle. Her eyes wide open.
"Now do you see why we cannot wander from the attic, Anne? Little Jewish children have no place roaming the streets. Do you see where they end up? Do you hear the sirens? They hunt us, Anne. We will come out once the war is over. For now, come child. The gestapos will be here soon. We must hide."
Anne touched the lifeless hand with her own tiny fingertips, then took her Mamm's hand into her own, and they darted toward safety.
April 5, 1943
Dear Diary,
Today I learned the meaning of the word forbidden, a horror of which I cannot write. Tomorrow there is hope.
Until then,
Anne
Carol Bryant
Writer/Blogger & SocialMedia/PR Guru
Professional Writer and Editor
