Writers Group Anthology

We became enlightened. The world was illuminated.
We had bright ideas. We saw the light.
Fire opened our eyes.
For good or bad this is our inevitable future. Playing with fire has its risks.

Thanks For The Memories

Visits far and wide to see kids, grandkids, a dog, a cat and a lizard.

A wide variety of activities, meals and fun.

A best friend who joins me and connects with the 4th grader about vegetarians and triominos.

A teen grandson who runs track and gives me hugs.

An almost driving granddaughter appointed as “first alternate” for bass as only a sophomore.

A 2 yr old young lad who jumps in my lap and calls me “Miss Grandma.”

2 proud young girls exploring soccer, scouts and dance.

Time to catch up with my adult children.

Visits to cute towns to shop have lunch and explore.

A safe landing there and smooth overnight train trip back.

Coming home to friends, familiar activities and a purring cat.

A warm bath, a humming furnace, a sprinkling of snow and a nice sleep.

A hot bowl of minestrone sums it all up.

A Test

The ceiling light winkled off the three goldfish flitting through the castle in the aquarium’s water. Moira walked around the table. She pressed her nose against the glass bowl on all four sides, leaving a small oily smudge. She noted an observation in the steno pad with her fountain pen.

Moira dragged the table to the corner of the room, and concentric ripples formed on the water’s surface in the bow as the table legs squeaked and chattered on the tile floor. Mirrors lined the walls from corner to corner. She rested her chin on the tabletop and concentrated on the bowl.

The image of the bowl reflected off the two adjacent wall mirrors, giving the appearance of an infinity of bowls and fish. Moira annotated her notepad.

Let’s adjust the surroundings by introducing a new element into the environment.

Moira placed a tea strainer filled with fish food at the water’s surface, and the fish hovered beneath the sieve, their mouths groping. She made a note.

Lower the room temperature to sixty-five degrees.

Moira attached the strainer with wires to the battery’s poles. She rubbed her bare arms, trying to eradicate the forming goosebumps.

Two technicians observed the situation through the one-way mirrors. One wrote notes on paper held in place on a clipboard.           

Moira’s chilled hand quivered as she touched the free end of the wire to the sieve. The fish skittered away, and Moira wrote down the observation.         

 The second technician said, “Lower the temperature another five degrees and electrify the table.”           

Moira unconnected the battery lead and observed the fish swim back to the sieve and more food. She jumped away from the table as a tingle of electricity shot up her arm. Damn battery, she thought, walking to the far wall to look for a sweater.

The first technician scribbled notes on his clipboard pad.

“Decrease the luminosity in the workspace,” the first robed man said. The second robed man clicked on his tape recorder and spoke into the microphone, “Reducing lumens by thirty-three percent.” The third, robed man turned the dimmer dial and watched through the ceiling scope as the work area below darkened.

The second techie bent closer to the rheostat, straining to read the numbers on the dial. He said, “Increasing the voltage to the table.”

Moira touched the wire to the sieve. The fish swam away.

An electrical shock jolted Moira away from the table.

The first techie squinted at his instructions.           

The three robed men laughed just before the background noise level increased by twelve decibels.

Wally Cwik is semi-retired from the Engineering profession and has performed for over 25 years with the Park Ridge Players, a community theatre. He has written some radio plays performed with the Those Were the Days Radio Players, a group that recreates old-time radio shows around Chicago. He has appeared as a featured reader at the Twilight Tales in Chicago and has published stories in some small anthologies. He has teamed with Janette Avila, a recent Maine East High School graduate, to illustrate a soon-to-be-published book, The Mishaps of Angel and Puggy which this episode will appear.

She Sings in the Morning

Altogether, she is more than what she seems

She speaks of brightness but cries in the dark,

She sings in the morning and despairs in her dreams.

In her mind, she is like cool dew but the warmest steam,

An elevation and depression paint dualling colors,

Altogether she is more than what she seems.

She dresses in silver, but gold is just as bright

The differences in hue are easy for her to see,

She sings in the morning and despairs in her dreams.

She dances and plays but sorrows and frights

An explosion of madness and clarity break even,

Altogether, she is more than what she seems.

Sometimes there is grey and black is white

Magic happens and witchcraft manifests,

She sings in the morning and despairs in her dreams,

In the end, balance is what she desires

For sustaining the storm makes her a shell,

Altogether, she is more than what she seems,

She sings in the morning and despairs in her dreams.

The Money Never Came In

The money never came in.

We trailed behind ghosts –

trained for battle,

but raised in peace time.

Frozen lakes speak

haunted languages.

Love squats in a place,

worries about paying rent later.

High above what was once

an oak savanna,

hawks circle

aging elms

that lean over the water

listening to its campfire tales.

Carpenter ants appear in formation,

soldiers on the move.

The morels remain hidden,

frightened treasures.

The money never came in.

If it had,

we wouldn’t have come

back here

to unfold the born-again spring,

to stick toes in the bog,

to graze the sphagnum moss

with tips of noses,

to gaze on the wild calla,

hear the swoosh in the sway

of cattails,

to mourn the loss

of a father who loved this place.

A Visit to the Cousins

Christmas. Madeleine couldn’t remember the last time she saw the cousins. She thought it was the Thanksgiving before last. She, her mother, her grandmother, and the cousins had all intended to visit each other before. There had been many visits penciled in on calendars. But something always came up for somebody, either on the cousins’ side, or on hers.

The cousins, she thought, the cousins. She tried, but failed, to replace “the” with “my.” “The cousins” was the collective term for her mother’s first cousins, and their children, as well as her mother’s aunt and uncle. Oh, of course they were Madeleine’s cousins too. Still, they were more her mother’s family than hers, and she found herself suddenly shy and silent with them, especially around the cousins her age.

Will it always be this way?

It was a journey that had seemed long to her as a child, spanning miles and miles of straight, unvarying road. She knew now it was really only two hours, hardly a journey at all. She still thought of it that way though, for certainly the gulf between the cousins’ world and hers was broad and unbridged. Their world was still rather rural. The snowy spaces flying outside her window were wide and open. In the summer, those would be cornfields. Sometimes she would see cows and horses then. On the way back, she knew, she would see the moon and stars, and that they would be luminous as they never were in the city. Here there were no skyline lights stealing their brilliance.

The rurality was not the only thing that made this place different. It was the closeness of the town, and of the family she was to visit. Everyone knew everyone else. The three houses of the cousins formed a triangle, sharing one backyard. This yard made an ideal site for open-house parties, for graduations and such, especially since the whole town was likely to attend.

Madeleine thought of her own life. She was on smiling and nodding terms with some of her neighbors, could even identify which houses they belonged to. But there were other houses on the block whose inhabitants came and went unseen. As for her family, well, since her father and his brother no longer spoke, she no longer had a paternal uncle or cousins. Her mother’s sister and brothers were cordial enough, when she saw them. But the two uncles lived on two separate continents. And, while technically her aunt lived across town, she was married to her job. She really lived where her company was, way out in the suburbs.

What would it be like to have all the family and all the family friends in one town?

They were there. Affectionate greetings were exchanged. It was time for the small talk. They talked about the weather and their preparations for the holidays. She was silently respectful of her elders. Suddenly, it was her turn to say something.

“Have you seen my birthday ring?” she asked, feeling idiotic. Of course, they had not seen it.

“It’s pretty.”

“Very simple.”

“It will wear well.”

Madeleine thought so too. She had chosen it for its timelessness. But she didn’t mention the ring’s most important virtue: the neutral design that made it suitable to pass down to a son or daughter, if she ever had a child. She was not yet that grown up in their eyes. Or was she?

“Madeleine is eighteen!” one of the cousins exclaimed.

“Eighteen! I don’t believe it!”

“Yes, I’m eighteen. What’s wrong with that?” she asked, playfully.

“We were talking about you the other day. We thought you were fifteen or sixteen.”

“No, eighteen.”

“Eighteen! You’re practically a grown-up!”

It was true, out here, that eighteen meant adult. Even if technically you were under your parents’ roof, you were paying your way. Eighteen meant being on your own. Sometimes it even meant marriage. Her mother’s cousins had married young, the younger one right out of high school. Soon there was a baby on the way.

That baby was the oldest of her cousins, Dan. He had joined the army a few years back, so he was not there that night. Neither was Abby—she was working the 24-hour shift as a paramedic. She didn’t know where Michael was. (They thought they saw a light on in his mother’s house, but he didn’t pick up the phone if he was there.) Of all the cousins her age, she only saw Chrissy.

“So, Madeleine will graduate this year. Are you giving her party?” the great-aunt asked her mother.

“She doesn’t want a party.” her mother replied.

“You don’t want a party?”

It was true.

“I don’t know enough people,” she tried to explain.

“But what about the family?”

What about the family? Did she really want all of the family together, even if they could all come? Would they all come? And would they all pay attention to her? If they did pay attention to her, what would she say?

It was impossible of course. She thought of the labyrinthine, Swiss-cheese family structure, full of the twists and gaps that time, divorce, and by-marriage relatives do to familial relations. The entire family, including all the cousins, in one place at one time had never occurred in her memory. She tried to imagine it. She could see the family in one room, but they persisted in dividing themselves into the immediate groups they knew best. The ties weren’t there.

Madeleine caught herself calling the cousins by their first names. She couldn’t help it. An only child, she had grown up calling other family members by their first names. That was how other people spoke of them around her. It bothered some of her relatives, she knew. She tried to attach the “cousin” titles to each name, but they frustrated her. They seemed like barriers. When it came right down to it, she knew almost nothing of her extended family members. If she thought long enough, she could remember some of their occupations, but not in great detail. She could not say why they had chosen their work, or whether they were happy in it. She did not know the people they were. Only their titles defined them. It wasn’t that they weren’t warm or loving. They were, in their way. Nonetheless, the boundaries of the relationships would only stretch so far.

More than anything, Madeleine wanted to ask the sort of questions one would ask new acquaintances at a party, to find out their likes and dislikes, their hobbies, really just basic biographical information. But because these people were family, it was too awkward to ask them that. She was supposed to know them already, so treating them like fellow party guests would be inappropriate. At the same time, she couldn’t ask them anything deeper than one would ask at a party. She couldn’t ask them about their heroes, their personal philosophies, or the moments that changed their lives. She didn’t know them well enough for that. Ironically, familial status, which should have brought them closer to her, actually made them more distant than strangers. Over time, some strangers become intimates, but family must always be family.

She was being drawn back into the conversation. They were talking of garage sales.

Her great-aunt said, “You pick up the best things because Grandma or Aunt Ellen has died or gone into a nursing home, and the family wants to get rid of ‘the junk.’” For a moment this sounded cold-blooded to Madeleine, though she knew it was not meant that way. With effort, she remembered that garage sales here were not like those of the city. They were not intended as money-making ventures. They were really just a way of redistributing things to friends, since everyone knew the former owners. Her great-aunt was not a scavenger. Whatever she picked up she incorporated into the weave of her own atmosphere, and the objects that had been unraveled from the pattern of one family’s life were closely knit into the pattern of another. It was the most appropriate end for these items.

Madeleine remembered an enormous used book sale she had attended recently in the city. She had been horrified to discover that yearbooks from the ’40s and ’50s–jammed with jokes and heartfelt autographs by long-ago friends–were also being sold, individually or in lots. At the time, they had reminded her of her grandmother’s yearbooks, which were Madeleine’s favorite things from the family archives. They gave her a treasured glimpse of her grandmother’s youth. How could people sell things like that?

She thought about the diaries she was accumulating at home. She had so many that they had to be fitted carefully into the long box under her bed, in an almost interlocking fashion. She wrote them for herself, but she also wrote them to be part of family history. Sometimes she wondered why she bothered. It would not take long for one person to recede into the mists of the distant past, no matter how many personal records contained his or her presence—the fading-out would usually occur by the time a “great” was attached to the family title. Besides, even if she had children, they could not be counted on to have direct descendants. Madeleine shuddered. If her family’s interest in maintaining its closeness were already this bad, she could not imagine that it would improve after the passage of even one or two generations. Someday I may be nothing more than a face in a dusty family album, or worse, part of a sale.

They interrupted her thoughts with a computer question. Her great-aunt was having trouble with her email. Sometimes she could not send messages. More often, she could not receive them. At least her great-aunt notified her of the problem. The girl knew the email addresses of many of her relatives, but she was unlikely to know of any technical problems. And even if she wrote, and the message went through, they seldom checked their mail.

Their communication problems weren’t limited to the internet. Her aunt (the one who lived just across town) was the perfect example. She never picked up her phones, returned messages, or answered mail of either the paper or electronic kind. The only reason the family knew she had not moved was because they went to her house once or twice a year for holiday celebrations.

Madeleine could not answer the question and she resumed her observations. She looked around the warm, homey room, a room that thrilled her old-fashioned artistic soul. She saw its potpourri, its oil paintings and its china lamps, all hand-painted by the cousins or someone they loved. The Christmas tree was hung with hand-sewn angels, crocheted snowflakes, and the ornaments the cousins made at school when they were young. She tried to think of a domestic art that wasn’t represented in that room but found none. She only wished she were as talented. She asked the history of each item. “Oh, that was done in the ’70s, when I was really into ceramics.” “Oh, Rachel did that after she took that course in petti point.” No surface was without its handcrafted holiday knick knack. She glanced at the floor, casting a covetous eye on the reindeer Debbie’s father-in-law had carved. Each one had a different expression. She looked at the ceiling, half-expecting a mural of Santa Claus to be flying over her head.

Her movement was not unnoticed. “Are you bored?” asked Chrissy. She had been watching the girl from a rocking chair across the room.

“No!” said the girl, almost fiercely. Then her voice softened. “I love it here! I hardly ever see you. No . . . no. I’m not bored.”

Chrissy looked at her for a moment. Then she stood up, crossed the room, and joined Madeleine on the sofa. It was not the way of Chrissy’s family to elaborate on emotions, so she could not go beyond what Madeleine had already said. But she smiled and asked, “Do you want to play cards?”

Back in the car, with the visit over, Madeleine reviewed the day in her mind, especially the moment’s conversation with Chrissy. She didn’t know the name of Chrissy’s school or what her major was. And Chrissy didn’t know her favorite color or what kind of music she listened to. But, somehow, something had passed between them. Chrissy knew now that Madeleine was not bored when she visited. That much, at least, had been established. The card game had passed without another word between them, but the silence had lost its awkwardness. It had become comfortable, companionable. The clear stars twinkled reassuringly through her frosty window. And the car turned a bend in the road.

Colors and People

Colors are like people: simple and complicated at the same time.

People say that red and crimson are the same.

They are, but they are not.

Red is love and pain at once.

But crimson is just a hue of red. It’s still bright and bold, while creating some mystery.

Just like a personality.

Yes, colors are like people. Complicated and has many sides.

Sometimes I feel I have more in common with colors than people.

On the surface, you can see that colors have similarities.

People like colors have different hues. But harder to see.

People are complicated, and complicated has many sides.

But then I remember that people associate colors with emotions and personalities.

Orange and terracotta are the same and different. Both can be warmth and arrogance at once. Just like a person.

Colors are like people: simple and complicated at the same time.

Just like red is love and pain, it’s also strength and determination.

Or is that only true if you are a man?

As people, we do not associate a color with stubbornness.

But to me, stubbornness and determination are just a different hue of red.

Does it matter whose wearing it?

Gratitude

As loss to health comes with age
And sleep is stolen, time unwound
When all that ails weighs me down
Breathe deep the air will be my gauge
Simple gifts for those that see
A house made strong of clay and steel
Long since hunger pangs were real
And always with a spirit free
And if the work becomes slight
To cope a while without pay
Nights come long, and grey are days
I’ll still give thanks for morning’s light
Because no violence hovers
No civil strife or cold war close
By compare, my hurts not woes
Happy for nights long, and lovers
Then frail the trust, killed complete
Lies cast forth causing monster’d pain
Anger there has left its stain
Yet kindness blooms, and is replete
Warm my heart with shared spirit
Embracing every savored touch
Not your being that is clutched
Your soul my goal, to dwell near it
To suffer through scorn and shame
And Jackals howl in group mistake
Ego slain and honor breaks
To still be good with one’s old name
Having friends who judge sincere
An earned respect from those that care
Guiding stars when course has err’d
And standing firm when times are drear
To fear not, that which I am
And step into my purpose called
Tearing down protective walls
Stilled voice no more, and freed the dam
Feel the flow of life’s great stream
And feel the truth of words I say
Now to walk a higher way
This world of mine, a wakened dream

By the time Bill rolled out of bed, Ella had returned from her run, showered, and re-dressed. She liked to arrive at the farmers’ market at 8 a.m., right when it opened—something about beating the crowds or the peaceful start of a new day. Bill didn’t see the appeal. For him, buying a few straight-from-the-farm fruits and vegetables was a sufficient exercise of wholesomeness, and just being at a farmers’ market, regardless of the number of other people, brought him an adequate amount of mental peace. But he also recognized that Ella cared more deeply about the matter than he did, so he went along with her.

They arrived before the sun had burned the frost off the ground. Bill shivered as he got out of the car. It was a cold late April morning, though it would surely give way to a sunny, warm afternoon. At the entrance, Bill and Ella kissed quickly, and she strode off to the right in a businesslike manner. As he walked left, Bill wondered whether the farmers’ market deliberately separated the healthy foods from the sweeter fare that he liked, in some sort of bizarre shaming ritual.

Bill explored for just twenty minutes before Ella found him. She was toting bags full of kale, broccoli rabe, and some other healthy green Bill couldn’t identify. By that time, Bill’s haul consisted solely of one container of fresh dates. Ella noticed this and shot him a look.

“Are you sugar-bombing yourself again?” she asked, as they began to wander together.

Bill explained that the dates were for reasons sentimental as well as nutritional. Ella had heard the story a few times now, and knew she would not win this battle.

“We both know that I’m not the boss of you,” she conceded. “I just like giving you crap for buying little sugar bombs—which is what dates are—just because they remind you of the beach. There are other ways to remember the beach. Healthier ways. You’re probably thinking of the beach right now, without spiking your glucose.”

“I know, I’m such a terrible person and my teeth are going to rot and fall out,” Bill said.

She squinted at his face. “My medical expertise tells me that your teeth have about five years left,” she joked gravely. “Six, maybe. But don’t worry. I’ll take care of you, gum boy. Gumby? Gummo? Whatever. I’ll brush your teeth covertly. After you fall asleep if I have to.”

They walked past a table of homemade candy, which Bill managed to quickly evaluate without Ella noticing. Responding to her, he said, “Thank you. I take it you don’t have any foods that trigger memories for you?”

“Hm?”

“Oh, you know, foods where, as soon as they touch your tongue, you’re taken back somewhere involuntarily. Like, memory-wise, I mean.”

“No, I keep my memories separate from my fridge.”

Thinking of her relentlessly organized shelf full of mementos, Bill internally agreed.

“Anyway,” she continued, “nutrition is so important. As you know, a person is, quite literally, what they eat. Any use of food to trigger memories is, by definition, a deviation from what a person should be eating. Diet should be based on nutritional needs. Not memory. Not sentimentality. Nutritional needs. Maybe we should get you a nutritionist to align your diet appropriately.”

“Well, give me a couple more weeks to see if I can ‘align’ it on my own,” Bill said, parrying any concrete action on the issue.

Bill gave Ella the keys as the got back into his car, and she began to drive back to her high rise. Bill closed his eyes and let his mind wander. Intellectually, he understood Ella’s sensible division between food and memories. But he was also thankful he did not think like her. Each date he ate pulled him back to his family’s visits to Ocean City when he was a child. He could smell the salty air and hear the piercing shouts of his cousins rising above the surf in the background. He could feel his towel beneath him as he lay in the sun, exhausted from a day of submitting his thin child frame to the battering fury of the Atlantic. He could even feel the precise spots where his sunscreen had washed off and the sun drilled a hole through his pale complexion. Every date he ate triggered at least one of these sense memories—often more. He had never heard Ella mention a food, a smell, or any other sensation that could open this doorway to her memories. And (though he was willing to be surprised) he did not think any photos or other stimuli put her in a similar state of mind.

He opened his eyes slightly to look at her. Did she reserve enough of her mind for sentimental, useless, human thoughts? He hoped so. He hoped she wasn’t all practicality, but the layer of dust on her photo albums suggested she was not sentimental.

Prior to retirement, Victor Zenda lived in Park Ridge for over thirty years. Both of his two daughters graduated from Maine South H.S. He is currently a resident of Niles and grew up in Cicero, Illinois: a suburb just west of Chicago.

He is a baby-boomer born in 1947 in a U.S. Army hospital in Frillee, Germany. In Cicero he attended St. Mary’s grammar school, Morton East H. S. and Morton Junior College. He received his B.A. degree from Northern Illinois University majoring in Secondary Education, Fine Arts and French Literature. He also studied Law at IIT/Chicago-Kent and Transportation at the College of Advanced Traffic in Chicago.

Mr. Zenda taught French at Mt. Carmel H.S. in Hyde Park and later went to work for the Burlington Northern Railroad, Bekins Van lines and United Van lines. When he retired he did a stint as a driver for PACE just for “fun” and stopped working in 2020.

He is currently… and has been for the last few years… writing fiction: something he regretted not doing earlier in life. He has been married for forty-seven years and has five grand-children