Amber's Beach Adventure

Amber's Beach Adventure   by Micki Morgret-Goldberg





Amber had been building a sand castle for the better part of the morning packing a pail with scoops of the beach. The grumble in her tummy told her it was almost time for lunch. The sun also revealed that it was high noon as it hung high above her head in the haze.

Sizzling in the sun's stare she had yet to notice her small shoulders were turning red because the ocean breeze caressed her skin and kept her cool with goose pimple kisses. Especially when she returned to the powdery white beach after frolicking in the foamy tide of the turquoise colored water.

Seagulls squawked in the distance. Wide waves lazily folded against the shore creating a lulling symphony of murmurs. Amber danced to the maritime melody sprinting from spot to spot in search of sea tumbled rocks and bits of glass, smoothly rounded by years of being battered between the ebb and flow of the tide. To Amber, they weren't just pieces of glass. They were treasured jewels pillaged long ago by pirates. Lost for centuries at sea when their ship capsized in a storm stranding the crew on a deserted island. Hurricanes are scary and destructive. Yet she found it beautiful that something horrible actually released a bounty held by bullies, so that the booty could float towards those worthy of such a reward. 

From afar one might mistake her for a mischievous sea nymph. Unkempt curls of her flowing red hair seemed to chase after her delicate limbs which gracefully flailed around her as she floated and frolicked about the beach. Shoveling the sugary sand into a bucket that was almost half her size. Whisking it back to her castle paying no attention to the weight of the world she literally lugged with her.


If you get a little smile out of this quick escape to the beach please share that light with all those you meet today. Thank you for reading ~MIcki
                                                                 

Rosy Matters by Micki Morgret-Goldberg

Rosy Matters by Micki Morgret-Goldberg

It’s one of those hot days in summer. So heavy even the wind can't move. Luckily today I got assigned to cashier the snack shed near the fountains at the park.  A splash from their spurts every once in a while catches the breeze from one of the oscillating fans rigged up to blow on the window of the stand for the customer’s comfort. It’s about the only relief I get from those K-Mart fans today. Without the splashes all they are really doing is panting up hot breath like my Aunt Judy’s St. Bernard. My stomach turns as I recall the sour smell of his drool. Blech! A drop of fountain water flies into mouth. I gag.

I look across the way at the ball diamonds. My friend Ramona is running the beverage cart by the bleachers. At least I get to sit on a stool if I want. Ha! She’s stuck standing there by a cart like a chump. And all’s she has for cover is an old cotton beach umbrella with a RC Cola logo on it. Stupid thing is so old that even from here you can see light stream in through the worn out threads even in the middle of it. It streams in and seeps around her. It illuminates her bright yellow hair. It looks like her head is a night light even in the middle of the day. She’s resting her chin on her palm, bent over at the hips, perching her left elbow on the top of the cart. I think she sees me, I wave. Rather than wave back she subtly pops her left hip to the side without moving anything else. She shrugs her shoulder a bit too as she wings her hip back. Ha! She’s pissed. May be tomorrow I will bring my little brother’s walkie-talkies. At least we could try and talk with them and then I wouldn't feel like I ditched her somehow. Why didn't I think of that last week when we started these jobs?

Suddenly a bunch of boys come around the corner of the snack stand. Oh shit! Nathan Baker! I've been dying to see him since school let out. His nose is turned up kind of at the tip. His cheeks have tiny freckles on them. I like how when he wore a polo shirt the collar hugged his long neck. He was with his baseball team, I wondered if he would be playing here this summer! Oh goody! I hope he doesn't talk to me. I would just die! I blush at the thought. 

 One of the boys on his team, Tommy the leader, snapped at me. “Hey! Get me a bag of Big League! Grape.” He stared me down. Tommy was a creep. More than a bully. I felt unsafe around him somehow. I just wanted him gone. “We only have strawberry. We should get more grape Thursday.” I managed. I tried to hide my gulp, “Want strawberry?”

“Want strawberry?” he mimicked. “Fuck no dyke I don’t want no strawberry.” Glaring at me now he paused and forcefully thrust the napkin holder from the counter into the shack. Every one jerked with a start. He pointed at me and clenched, “You better have Grape Thursday.” Without turning his back to me he slid away from the stand then kind of slithered away in a way that his followers, all of them, filed in behind him even if they had intended to buy something. They all walked away following him. Nobody was going to stick up for the girl? I was too embarrassed to look at Nathan for his reaction and the day was dark and cold for a moment. “Why did he call me a dyke?” I wondered. “God I hate that guy” I stated to no one. 

A couple of cars pull up and park across the street. The people who got out of them were dressed up pretty good for a regular Friday afternoon at the park I thought. The women and young girls were wearing flowing white dresses decorated with bouquets of turquoise and purple flowers tied with dark green and yellow bows. Every style was different but the material matched. All of the men were wearing nice suits. They didn’t match like the women at all, but they looked nice. I see the last person get out of the back seat of the 2nd car and I see that she is a bride. Oh! A wedding! 

They all seem more nervous than joyful. I find that odd but what do I know? I am only fourteen. One of the regular aged looking lady’s gets into the trunk of the first car and pulls out a shallow cardboard box. Like the ones at Grab and Bag that hold like 4 six packs. I can’t tell yet what’s in the box but suddenly everyone begins to gather around her while she holds it. Peering into it like there could be anything of magical value in that box of their choosing, somehow too it reminds me of when a box of bakery fresh doughnuts is opened on a Sunday morning. The oldest of the two little girls within the small group tips up on her toes and just reaches in and grabs , what I can now tell is, a giant flower corsage.  A giant puffy cluster of red carnations surround a silky, snugly curled up white rose bud sprinkled with baby’s breath. I see the reflection of the pearl tipped corsage pin catch the sun. For a second it sparkles. The lady who is holding the flat box snatches the corsage back from the girl’s docile hand and barks at her. The little girl doesn't seem fazed at being chastised. The lady puts the large cluster of flowers back into the box and retrieves a similar, but much smaller version of the decoration. She hands it to the little girl and scoots her off into the direction of which I can only guess is her grandfather, a tallish man with kind of graying hair. He helps her put it on and taps her on the head when he is finished.

One by one the lady holding the box passes some type of flowered ornament to everyone who is standing around her. All helping each other pin them on or tie them to their wrists. 7 adults and 2 kids. I see that the youngest girl, 3 maybe 4, is milling about their feet like a cat at feeding time, jumping up trying to look in the box which the lady has now sat on the trunk of the car. Suddenly the grandfather stops her by placing his hand on her shoulder, looking down he speaks to her. I see her rub her hands together while talking to him and then she points to his lapel. He looks down, frowns, and looks in the box and turns to look for the lady who was just holding it. He calls to her, I faintly hear him say loudly to her something about a flower for the little girl. The box lady freezes. Almost as if she got caught in time. Her hands pull her arms down like they are suddenly dumb-bells. She gasps out and shakes her head like a swarm of bees are buzzing her brow thinking about invading her head to make a beehive. “No! I didn't  she lobs back holding onto the “I” like surely now, she was going to be offered a cigarette and a blind fold. Like what happens in the action movies my old man watches when they execute a bad guy who may or may not have done something deserving of getting executed.

“What’s the matter?” the grandmother seems to ask. I’m pretty positive it’s the grandmother because even though she looks like she is barely 40 her hair IS a beehive. I didn't know people still styled their hair like that anymore. “Nobody got a flower for Marcy” one of the guys piped. They kind of seemed to care. At least I heard some moans from the crowd. That’s when I realized that everyone had a flower of some kind except the baby. How sad! 

It wasn't like there were a lot of people there who needed flowers.  So who could forget that little baby? She was cute! She looked like a Strawberry Shortcake doll!  She kept pointing at her grandfather’s flower. But now she was crying. I heard her wail something about everybody. Apparently she just figured that one out too. The bride squatted down and rubbed the cherub’s little back. I could tell she was talking nicely to her and the girls tears let up a bit. Then the crowd broke up. The men headed for shade under the trees. The women were fused to their billowy dresses. The material just clung to their steamy legs with no breeze and buckets of humidity all about them. The dresses now kind of remind me of the wet t-shirts that the models wear on the Snap-On Tools calendar that hangs in my neighbor’s garage. I like to look at it when no one is around. I hope I look like those girls when I’m older.

I hear a crack of an aluminum bat echo across the ball field. I turn to look. That’s when I notice I have a customer. “Hey lil’ rosy, if you could help me out sometime today that’d be great girly.” It is some dude with a pint of booze poking out of the rear pocket of his cut-off Levi’s. He isn't wearing a shirt. He has been tan forever apparently. At first I thought he was being rude but he flashes a grin and leans into the shack a bit. I notice he is missing a front tooth. Wow! He is kind of hot! He is old though I think. Like 23. Someone told me smokes weed. I think he makes money by mowing lawns. “Can I get a Sprite?” he chimes.  I think I say “Sure!” as a response. But I’m not sure that is really what I said.

He already laid two quarters down on the chipped Formica counter. I sweep them up with the side of my palm into the open palm of my other hand and toss them in the money tray. I shrug my shoulders and sputter out some kind of word. Actually it’s more like a sound a seal would make if someone was strangling it with a loosely looped garden hose. “Real slick…GOD!” I heard a voice in my head say. I turn away from him. May be he will go away and come back another day if I ignore him now. May be I’ll have something cool to say to him if he comes back then. He snaps the cap off the emerald green glass bottle with an opener from his front pocket. “See ya’round” he says and kind of salutes me with the pop. He steps to the side of the shack and pours half the Sprite out and replaces it with the liquor from his shorts. I wonder if he wears underwear.

Another car pulls up behind the two cars already situated across the street. A photographer gets out and hurries around the front of his car towards the group gathered on the lawn, now all under the trees. The way his camera is dangling around his neck by its strap, he looks like an ostrich saddled up without a rider. Late! Dork! The grandfather is still standing with the little girl between the first two cars. I think she is still asking him for his flower. He picks her up in his arms and shakes his head no. As he talks to her he points his finger around at the other family members and the photographer. She isn’t crying anymore but she still looks sad. Distracted.

I can only suspect he explained that the flowers were for the people in the wedding party or that the adults needed to wear them for the pictures or whatever. But I can see even in the watery white hot day her little lungs are still heaving. He marches over to the group and puts her down on the ground. The photographer calls at her and begins waving his hand in a way to imply he wants her to come stand over by him. WHAT!? Weird! Why wouldn't they let her in the picture! The little girl looked so defeated to me. It was like she didn't matter. I wonder if it will matter. Will she feel she mattered later because when she was three the adults she trusted chose to give higher value to a flower than to her tears? Nah, she is just a kid. She is probably already thinking about Candy Land or Sesame Street or something like that.

I hear a chaos approach the stand, around the corner comes Tommy and his clan. Nathan isn't with them anymore. Tommy stops and turns and looks at me. Suddenly it feels like it’s freezing out again. He cocks his arm and makes a fist. “Got any Grape yet” he growls. His flock quiets down except for Jim. He snickers. Jim is a dick. And come to think of it. He looks like one too. 
“Go fuck yourself Tommy” I wanted to say. Maybe he will just go away and come back another day. Maybe I’ll have the coolest thing to say to him by then and I won’t be afraid.

“C’mon Tommy.” a kid named Stu said. Grabbing Tommy around the neck and lugging him off. “You are a fucker you know it asshole.” They all start laughing. Though I think it’s because they are relieved, like me, that nothing actually happened just now. Stu Morris. Why haven’t I ever noticed Stu Morris before? 

I gaze across the park to look at my friend. Wait till I tell her about Stu! She’s sitting down on the ground now. Trying to hunker in what little shade there is from the cart upon which she sitting against in the midday sun. Her legs are pulled up to her chest bringing her knees almost to her eye level. I then realize she is picking at the scabs on her knees and looking at them before she flicks them aside.  Ramona is so gross!
I think to look back at the wedding party to see if they took her picture yet. The cars were loaded up and were pulling away. Strawberry Shortcake was hidden away now. I could no longer see if she was still crying. Maybe her grandpa finally gave her his boutonniere. May be it didn't even matter in the first place.

The Light Inside

(The following short story was "inspired" by the famous painting Nighthawks by Edward Hopper. I was asked to create a story reflecting what may be occurring within the portrait between the people painted within it. ~Micki)

Outside, where no one asks you how you are, it is dark. And no one strolls by anymore. They just blow by! In a flash! Then, boom! They are gone. Their distant hurried footsteps echoing a whispered thunder down the street, proof the silent storm of sadness rages around them. While they race by they once again missed the light inside. 

A special vision comes from stillness. It takes a special vision to see past the repressive color scheme of army green. Most people are afraid to peer past the past while searching for some kind of light at the end of the tunnel. Questioning if it is there, by chance lurking somewhere in the future. It seems too daunting a task to think of waiting it out in measures of time. That was the real burden of war. Waiting out the darkness. Others, though, were just as anxious waiting out the darkness but rather than ponder the light they just accepted the fact it was indeed there. Even on the longest night, when just the idea of light was hidden by the distance of a million miles, they knew it was there. Therefore they allowed themselves to be led by it. They knew they didn't need to rush towards it. It was there waiting for them knowing when it was the right time shine. Time is an unatrual measure to these kind of people. This is how they have special vision and so it was this way that people could see the light from inside.

Inside buttery yellow light melts from the ceiling, drips down the walls, oozes out the window panes and glazes the sidewalk around the front of the building. Sonny is the proprietor of Phillies, a kitchenette. Inside Phillies is where the light that trickles out, begins. Engage Sonny in conversation and he may give you a piece of day old pie on the house. "Given the night hour and all" he'd chimed with a cocked smile, twinkle in his eye. It was his way of thanking one for adding to his day. He knew time and kindness were free to give away yet, "Folks seem to hold onto those things like they were gold today", he pondered "they must be convinced the stakes are too high I suppose." 

Ester watched Sonny plate the last piece of tart cherry pie for the loner seated at the other end of the counter. She had seen the man hanging around Phillies for years yet the only thing she knew about him for certain was that his name was Cal. 

He never added much to conversations. He didn't seem to take much away from them either. If someone asked Cal a question he usually answered with a cliche`. Something boring like "Well, if the shoe fits." Or, "As they say in Sardinia .." with which he always padded with a pause as to imply he was exceptionally clever. Everyone in the diner knew that there was no such saying. Including Cal but it didn't stop him. His co-workers could only describe Cal as an awkward orangutan.

Although the diner still casts a slight glow from the inside out into the gloom it isn't as bright as it used to be. It's heartbeat ceased when The Service became a demand and not a calling. Until 3 months ago Ester was a waitress inside. Eventually however customers became a commodity  When the men left to fight, families were forced to relocate away. There weren't any factories nearby so riveters weren't gunning for seats at the counter either. There just wasn't enough business to keep Ester AND Sonny busy. He had to let her go.

But she kept coming back because Sonny made a decent cup of joe. She would bring different friends at different times. Maybe one took her dancing. Maybe another to dinner. Sometimes both. Some helped her pay rent too. It wasn't something she was ashamed of nor did she let it define who she was. She never lost sight of the light inside.

Keeping time with the swing songs playing on the radio she tapped her fingertips on her coffee cup. Radios were everywhere these days. Tuesday she heard one playing in the library. Radios had become a tether to their reality. A droning voice always in the background acting as a generic conscious  reminding them that perhaps it still wasn't the time to think about the light at the end of the tunnel.Between the war reports every quarter hour though, the radio would also play Big Band numbers. Catchy songs punctuated with blaring bursts of trumpeted sunshine. Even sad songs and longing love ballads were punch drunk with their staccato. The songs contrived happiness for them and played on their sub-conscious as well. Reminding them that if they dared, they COULD dream of better days ahead. Their faith would be rewarded. They just had to wait.

Ester began laughing. "I used to wait tables for tomorrow" she said "Now I wait for tomorrow at tables." Ester stopped laughing. She glanced out the giant plate glass window and into the darkness. Outside wasn't that far away.

"Sonny" she sighed while leaning in to lounge on the counter with her elbow, "tell me about the good ol' days.""Sure! Say, you ready for some pie? Just made it this morning" he sang, "at the crack of dawn!"