Musings

What If Cows

by Shanti Boyle

I often stop and wonder about very silly things,
Like what the world might be like if butterflies had wings.
Or if cows had many stomachs, for what I do not know.
Wouldn’t that be quite a long trip for one tiny swallow?

What if humans let other humans drive around the streets,
In vehicles made of heavy metal and five or eight backseats?
They’d only need to take one test and then be on their way.
Now doesn’t that seem funny?  And a big waste of x-rays? 

What if the leader of our land was once a game show host,
Who yelled and screamed and sweated lots, and of his wealth he’d boast?
He’d tell us all he’s doing great, and wave his hands around,
His face’d go red, his hair recede, and his mouth purse small and round. 

What if justice put a law in place that stipulated that
Corporations are like people?  Don’t tell the Democrats! 
Corporations would have religious rights, and on religious grounds,
Could refuse to cover birth control, and give to campaigns abound. 

What if people on Facebook fought verbal wars online,
Against boys who put on makeup, or even an innocent canine?
They’d copy and paste their articles until the comments section brimmed
Full of negativity, and hope for humanity dimmed. 

All these “what-if”s sound very silly, but it’s necessary to
Make sure we’re being careful, or these things could all come true. 
Take your voice to the ballot box and say across the land,
“Vote for a better world, and please, please wash your hands.”

_________

The Shipwreck: Part One

By Shanti Boyle

    William didn’t mean to go to bed at the same time every night.  It was just something that happened.  By 10:39 PM sharp, all the best television shows were over, and he was beginning to get sleepy.  A couple years after graduating college he stopped pushing himself to stay up past that time during the night when your eyelids gain sentience.  There was no need, he realised, and he had become disenchanted with social media timewasters anyway.  Plus, Infinite Jest was not proving as scintillating as his co-worker at the publishing house had said.  But he would never say that aloud. 

     So at 10:39 PM on Wednesday night, he shut off his light.  Staring at the popcorn ceiling above him, he contemplated the interaction he had had that morning with the coffee lady.  On a whim he ordered his customary large coffee with a newly advertised Irish Crème and sugar.  The lady asked him if he wanted any cream, and he said, “Just the Irish Crème.” The lady explained, “It’s just a flavouring.” Flustered, because he thought it was real cream, he said, “Uh, yeah, cream and sugar as well please.”  He couldn’t have been more grateful to be talking through a drive-thru speaker.  Unfortunately, and expectedly, his coffee was much too sweet.

 

     William rolled over and checked the time.  10:51.  If he fell asleep at 11:00, he would get a full eight hours.  His gaze wandered back to the popcorn on the ceiling.  No, the popcorn ceiling.  What a silly slip of the mind—he must be getting tired.  He rolled over and checked the time again.  Midnight.  This would not do.  He ran his tongue over the roof of his mouth.  Squirrely.  Maybe a glass of water would help him.  His limbs were loath to leave the bed, but he tottered out of his room into the kitchen.  The apartment at midnight had a strange aura, like he had unwittingly become privy to a secret he wished not to know.  The microwave blinked the wrong time, a few hours behind.  Feeling out of place and hyper-aware that he was well past the socially acceptable age of being scared of the dark, he shuffled back to bed.

     “GET DOWN!”  A gunshot blasted in his ear.  His head started ringing.  His vision clouded, brown and blurry.  He collapsed to the ground.    

     “Take this!  You’re bleeding.”  William’s hand filled with raspy cloth.  He put it against his head where he felt the most pain.  He wiped blood from his eyes and his sight returned.  A glaring scene of white greeted him, extracted from his high school textbook.  Three men flanked him on either side.  His sightline was partially obscured by a snowbank and trees.  The gunshots had stopped, and the snow had absorbed most sounds, save for the ringing in his head.  His pulse threatened a heart attack.  Glancing around him, he saw men, clearly soldiers, bleeding, dying, gasping.  Five of the six men surrounding him, he realised, had simply been propped up by the soldier who had told him to get down.  Most of them were dead.  William started hyperventilating.

     “Don’t act like you just got here.  Pick up your gun!  There’s no way those fucking Germans are gone for good.”  William felt grateful for the command, so he did not have to make any of his own decisions.  He picked up the gun, or tried to, but the weight of the weapon surprised him, and he accidentally had not been to the gym in a month.  It slipped from his hands, caught on a rock, and autonomously fired.

     “You IDIO—”

     The soldier did not finish punctuating his insult because he could not because a bullet (not William’s) blew through his temple and cut off his words.  The spray from the bullet’s path through the soldier’s skull dusted William’s face and open mouth.  The salty tang reminded him involuntarily of ocean water, but it still tasted very much like blood.  He vomited.

     William rested his arm against the toilet bowl and heaved.  He never understood why people in movies always gripped the sides of the toilet with both hands; an upset stomach does not take precedence over proper sanitary practise.  And besides, he was just as stable hanging over the toilet this way.  Wait, thought William, what?  A carbonated silence met his ears.  The kind of silence that has been there all along, quite unlike the ringing silence following a gunshot.  William would have blinked, but the bathroom was dark because he had not turned on a light.  Any previously felt eeriness was overpowered by the sour-sweet lining of his throat and mysterious fatigue.  He rested his forehead on the sweaty bowl of the porcelain in pathetic supplication.  He didn’t remember entering the bathroom, but maybe he lost consciousness on his way back from the kitchen and somnambulist muscle memory carried him to the bathroom.  But why did he lose consciousness?  He thought about calling an ambulance, then dismissed the idea—he wasn’t sure if his insurance covered ambulance rides.  Taking a moment to chastise himself for adopting such an alarmist attitude to the current situation and swallowing another wave of nausea, he crawled back to his room. 

     The clock on his nightstand read midnight.  Again.  William tried to piece together the events, but lost focus when he remembered the disturbingly vivid dream, specifically the soldier’s blown-off head and the fact that he caused it.  He sat on his bed and stared at the wall, hoping that if he stayed still and breathed that the stomach acid gurgling in his belly would stop.  It did.  William didn’t want to be alone in his head anymore.  Teddy will still be awake, he thought.  Or he might have said it out loud.  Going into his messages, he pushed on the phone icon with a shaking finger.  His phone only rang once before Teddy picked up.

     “Isn’t it past your bedtime?” Teddy answered in a smug tone containing no malice.  William immediately felt warm.

     “I was craving human interaction, Teddy… Something strange just happened and I’m scared.”

     “You make everything sound like a YA novel.  Let me put my paints down.  What’s wrong, honey?”

     “I don’t know if I had a dream or a hallucination, or—”

     “Did you do drugs?”

     “Teddy, no.  I only smoke when I’m with you.”

     “I know, I just like hearing that.”  William could hear Teddy’s smile.

     “My god.  Anyway, I was getting a glass of water, but then I decided not to ‘cause I felt eerie, and then I was… I guess, transported to this forest scene in the winter—”

     “Wait.”

     “What?”

     “… Never mind. Go on.”

     “No, what?”

     “I forgot!  Keep going.”

     “Whatever.  I was in this winter forest scene, and there were gunshots and soldiers everywhere, a lot were dead, but one told me to get down and he gave me a rag for my head because I was bleeding and then said that there was no fucking way those Germans were gone for good—”

     “So you were ‘transported’ to a World War II battle scene?”

     “I guess.  I’m making it sound a lot more cavalier than it was.  Teddy, it was so awful.  I was given a gun and I accidentally dropped it and it went off.  The commander solider yelled at me, but he didn’t finish yelling ‘cause his head got blown off and… Some of it went into my mouth.”  William mashed his lips together to stave off his need to throw up again. 

     “William, oh my god.  Are you okay?  What could have triggered that?”

     “I regained consciousness in my bathroom, and I was throwing up.  It was vile.”

     Teddy was silent for a bit.  “Was it something you ate?”

     “I don’t think so.”

     “Do you want me to come over?  Do you want to come over here?”

     “No, I don’t want to be annoying.  I think I’ll try to go back to sleep.  Thanks for talking to me.  I’ll see you tomorrow.”

     “Wait, I lo—”

     But William had already hung up.  He glimpsed something on his face in the full-length mirror hanging over his closet door.  Crusted in the corner of his mouth, too red and congealed too perfectly to be anything else, was blood.