Cheek

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Music, lights, a warm smile: the moment was right, he was certain. Felix cupped Madison’s cheek, leaned forward, and—

She jumped, eyes wide, and squawked like a chicken.

“Uh . . . what?”

“Sorry,” she said, forcing a chuckle. “Er . . . what were you just doing?”

“I thought . . .” He hesitated, wondering how he had misread things so badly, “I was going to kiss you?”

“Oh, that makes sense.”

“Is that okay?”

She tried to nod, tried to smile, but couldn’t quite do either. “It’s just . . . you didn’t eat the garlic bread.”

Felix glanced over at his plate of cold bread, and his face grew red. “I . . . well I was worried about my breath.”

“Right,” she said. “Of course.”

“Can we try again?”

Madison nodded with a smile that seemed completely genuine. Once more Felix leaned in, reached toward her face and—

“Don’t touch my neck, hellspawn!”

Felix nearly fell backward in his chair, arms raised in alarm. Yes, he had definitely misread this whole situation.

“Oh god,” she groaned, flush with embarrassment. “You’re not a vampire.”

“No?”

Madison winced.

“Look, maybe another time we can—”

SMACK!

Felix reached up to the red handprint on his cheek.”

“Had to make sure you weren’t a ghost.”

* * *

Dream

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I stand in a long dark shadow, giant novelty scissors clutched in my hand. The fake gold plating is cold in my grip. I’m pretending to be happy.

“What do you see?” my father asked.

“A . . . hole?” I was used to these sorts of visual lessons and knew he would get to the point eventually.

For his part, my father barely seemed to register the sarcasm. “It’s a beginning,” he declared proudly. “Someday people will stand here beneath the gaze of a dream made real.”

“Okay,”

“Never stop dreaming, son,” he said clapping my shoulder. I was staring at a hole. He was staring at the sky.

“It’s so tall!” I declared a year later.

My father wore a sly smile. “It’s only half way up.”

“Dad, you made this?”

“Well, I designed it,” he said. It was a modest statement, but I could tell he was proud. “Remember what I said, son. Never stop dreaming.”

I cut the ribbon as cameras flashed. Polite applause. Handshakes.

It’s all wrong.

Above me stands a monolith of concrete, metal, and glass: the dream my father made real, but never got to see. And no dream of mine can ever bring him back.

* * *

Story by Gregory M. Fox

Escape

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“Cait is coming into town this weekend,” Aria said, hoping she sounded casual. “So, I was going to get dinner with her Friday or Saturday.”

“That’s short notice,” Erik said. “What about the kids?”

Aria felt a pressure in her chest, heard a ringing in her ears. She swallowed, and the sensations receded. “I think they’d be alright for one night,” she said. Erik grunted. “It’s been such a long time since I’ve seen Cait,” Aria said brightly, like she was introducing an entirely new topic.

“She really should have given you more of a warning,” Erik said.

“About two years.”

“I guess that’s how she’s always been though,” he said with a shrug. “Only thinking of herself.”

The pressure returned. A deep breath. “I want to go.” She hated that it came out sounding like a question.

“You’re putting me in a really hard spot here.”

“I’m sorry,” she said automatically.

Her face must have betrayed some emotion, because Erik suddenly spoke gently, “I’m just trying to think of the kids.”

Shrill noise, burning in her ears. The pressure in her chest rose, swelled, erupted. The noise kept getting louder. She couldn’t swallow, couldn’t breathe. Her scream had escaped.

* * *

Story by Gregory M. Fox

Underwear (XI)

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“This was a stupid idea.” Sam only realized he had made the declaration out loud when the man at the other end of the aisle looked up sharply then walked quickly away. “Great,” Sam muttered, “as if I didn’t feel ridiculous enough already.”

At least now he was alone. Just him and an entire wall of underwear, each plastic sealed package printed with a picture of, well, a package. Men with single digit body fat and glossy six pack posed on each one. Sam worked hard to keep in shape, but he knew that he looked nothing like any of these models. He briefly started to speculate on how he measured up to them in other areas, but quickly decided not to dwell on it. He was already thinking far too much about underwear – better to stick with color and style than to think about how it shaped his own package.

“Not that anyone is going to see it anyway,” he grumbled.

The other customer, who had apparently been lingering at the endcap, peaked around the corner to see what was really going on with the strange man talking to himself in the underwear aisle. Perhaps it was when he saw the sidearm at Sam’s hip that he decided it really wasn’t the best time to pick out new underwear and nearly ran to the other end of the store.

Sam barely noticed him. He was too busy trying to figure out whether it was significant that the model on the package of boxers had a beard. Were boxers more rugged? His department still didn’t allow full beards, but maybe he could grow a mustache – something he had always resisted before. Mustache’s seemed to scream either hipster or cop. He definitely didn’t feel like a hipster, and while he wasn’t ashamed of being a police officer, but he also didn’t like broadcasting “cop” to the world these days.

He shuffled down the aisle, checking what other offerings were available. Here he was right at home with the boxer briefs he always bought. He almost involuntarily reached for the same pack of grays he typically bought. It was almost impossible to reconcile the image of the sculpted glutes on the packaging with pudgy middle aged form he had found dead on a living room floor. But it was the same underwear, and it was the same he was wearing now. He adjusted his motion, picking up a set of black underwear instead. Would changing the color of his underwear change him? Would it change him enough just to change the color? Did he even want to change? Sam put the underwear back and continued down the aisle.

Briefs: what he had warn as a child and stopped wearing in middle school because of the chaffing. It was what Kit thought he should wear for some reason. What reason, was it sexy? Hadn’t he read an article about it being too restrictive? Maybe even lowering his sperm count? But why did THAT even matter?

Printed boxers: Weren’t cartoon underpants for kids? He had never had a pair of Superman underwear like one of his friends in first grade, but he had never felt like he was missing anything either. Now he could get any number of superheroes. Also donuts, sloths, galaxies, rainbows, paisley, and more. A deep part of him cringed away from the flashy images. Even if no one would ever see this, he worried he would feel uncomfortable with so much color.It’s just underwear, right?

Why do we need so many choices?

Sam’s phone buzzed in his pocket. He checked and saw that his father was calling. The phone continued to buzz in his palm as he red the name “Dad” over and over. Then he slipped the phone back into his pocket. He knew what his dad would have to say, and it wouldn’t make him feel any better. Worse, he didn’t want to answer the questions his father would ask.

So, Sam turned back to the wall of cotton and nylon. “Fine,” he muttered. “One of each.”

* * *

Story by Gregory M. Fox

Underwear is an ongoing series:
First // Series

Leaves

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“It’s the worst,” Penny groaned. “His lectures just go on and, oh—”

Shade crept over their table as a slender tree stomped up beside them. “You ordered the tea?” a low, creaking voice asked.

“Yes,” Shay answered. Then to Penny, “So are you going to drop the class?”

Meanwhile, a branch reached over, set a steaming teapot onto the table and delicately lifted the lid. A cluster of green leaves shriveled and dried out, then fell gently into the water.

Penny shrugged. “I don’t know how else to get my transmutation requirement before graduation.”

A small mint shrub clambered up the tea plant and onto the table, then shook xirself so that a few green leaves fell into the pot as well.

“Give that four minutes,” the tea tree said, “and it will be perfect.”

“Cheers,” Shay replied.

But their servers did not leave immediately. Instead, the leaves rustled like a whisper and fanned out, like a curtain of discretion. “Pardon my eavesdropping,” that woody voice said, “but Ms. Delvaux, sometimes does independent studies for transmutation students.”

“The shop owner?” Penny replied, “Really?”

The plants nodded together enthusiastically.. “She’s very good,” the tea tree said. “After all, she made us!”

* * *

Story by Gregory M. Fox

By Franz Eugen Köhler, Köhler’s Medizinal-Pflanzen – List of Koehler Images, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=255290

Reliability

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Doug marveled.

No one would have described Doug as artistic. Very few would have described him at all. The former mechanic was an oddity at the theater where he worked, if only because he was so mundane. But avant-garde dance and eclectic productions of Shakespeare still need someone to raise the curtain. Doug had strong arms, deft hands, and never missed a cue.

Reliability can be easy to overlook.

Doug was there for every show. From his post at the fly rail, far from the stage lights, Doug watched. Doug listened. Doug saw.

No one would have described Mazie as a star. Few would have described her either. But every night, Mazie found a fresh rose at her place in the dressing room. She was just the understudy. But soon she had more flowers than she knew what to do with.

Sometimes, reliability means everything.

When Mazie took a bow her first night in the lead role, Doug marveled at how the light danced around her face. From his spot off stage, he whispered, “Oh, that I were a glove upon that hand that I might touch that cheek.”

Then Mazie turned to look at him and blew a kiss.

* * *

Story by Gregory M. Fox

Photo by Emily C. Fox

Scouts

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“We should go back,” Lobu said, trying to sound decisive instead of scared, “fetch the warriors.”

“And attack travelers unprovoked?” Tayin replied, “You would break the second directive?”

“N-no,” Lobu stammered. “I . . . it’s just—”

“Those aren’t simple travelers,” Akiley interjected. She perched on a rock as still as a warding stone, watching the shapes moving below. “They’re monsters.”

“The look like people to me,” Tayin said, unable to keep the derision out of her voice.

“But their hall,” Lobu said uncertainly. “It—it flew! And it’s shaped just like . . .”

“Like Casket,” Tayin admitted. She had been as scared as anyone when that gleaming metallic form crashed through the sky with fire in its wake. But unlike most in her village, Tayin had actually visited Casket. All she had found there was a ruin. Now she knew what it had once been.

“They came from the darkness above,” Akiley spat. “What else could they be but monsters? Emissaries of the evil stars come to poison the Promised Land.”

Lobu was backing away, eyes wide. Akiley glared from her disdainful perch. Tayin shrugged. “Our ancestors came from the stars too.” she said. And she climbed down the ridge to greet her kin.

* * *

Story by Gregory M. Fox

Puzzles

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I never understood how you could just walk away from an unfinished puzzle. You never understood how I could keep staring at one for hours, even when I was barely making progress.

“You’re rushing me.”

“No, I’m saying come back to it later. That’s like the complete opposite of rushing you.”

“Let me just put in this one piece.”

Sometimes, I look at you and see an unfinished puzzle. It’s the moments when you catch me staring and ask if you’ve got something on your face. I always answer, “No, you’re perfect,” and you smile back. A sweet, sad smile. And I think, What am I missing?

“There’s always one more piece.”

“Well at least I care enough to actually try.”

“Stop acting like it’s a crime for me to have my own opinion.”

Sometimes, in the middle of an ugly fight, I look at you and see a jumbled mess: pieces missing, pieces hidden, pieces that don’t fit together the way I thought they did. And I think, How did I get it so wrong?

Some of our worst fights have started with puzzles. We keep doing them together anyway. And together we fill in each other’s missing pieces.

* * *

Story by Gregory M. Fox

Evangelical

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“Wait, you never threw your secular music in a bonfire?” Ash asked in exaggerated shock. “Are you sure you grew up evangelical?”

“Please,” McKenzie replied. “I was wearing WWJD bracelets before and after they were cool.”

“Are we competing for something?” Ryan asked, looking around the circle at his friends.

“It’s easy,” Ash explained. “Since we all met at a Christian college, that means we’ve had some very niche experiences. Like, how many of you went to that Acquire the Fire rally?”

Groans and cheers in equal measure as more than half the group raised their hands.

“Weak,” said Hope.

“Excuse me?”

“This is all casual stuff,” she said. “I was getting into religious debates in my public high school.”

“Oh no,” McKenzie said. “What class?”

“Biology of course. Someone had to inform the teacher that the textbook was wrong about evolution.”

“You got me,” Ash admitted. “I was never that intense.”

“Alright, your turn, Ryan,” McKenzie said, “you were a pastor’s kid. You’ve gotta have something that can beat Hope”

“Oh. I . . . uh,” Ryan floundered. “I’m gay.”

. . .

“Wait, what are we competing for?”

“Honestly,” Ash said, “growing up evangelical and then coming out as an adult: pretty legit.”

* * *

Story by Gregory M. Fox

Gravity

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“What do you mean, no?” Denise couldn’t quite keep the panic out of her voice as she asked the question. Alarms for two different patients chimed loudly, the phone she carried was ringing again, and she still hadn’t had a chance to clean the puke off her shoe.

Monica, meanwhile, remained unmoved by the chaos of the busy surgical unit. “That’s Dr. Melnik’s patient, right? The kid with the double mastectomy?”

“Right,” Denise said. Her eyes flitted toward the bed just a few feet away from them where the patient slept. “They’re ready up on the floor, and we’ve got another—”

“Yeah, someone else can take her,” Monica said, turning away.

“You have to,” Denise insisted, voice growing almost as shrill as the chimes that surrounded them. “Just because you’re uncomfortable with—”

“I’m not taking her,” Monica announced with a glare of finality over her shoulder.

“Him,” a soft voice replied. The patient’s eyes were open, staring fixedly at Monica. No animosity. No challenge. Just a calm demand for dignity. One word spoken with a gravity that could change orbits. Monica realized this sixteen year-old understood himself better than she had ever known herself. Face red, eyes wet, she fled.

* * *

Story by Gregory M. Fox