Eternal Bliss at Dawn's Light: GNU Journal Winter Other Works Issue 2017

By Multi-Author Anthology

Eternal Bliss at Dawn’s Light is a multi-author literary fiction body of work that contains poetry and prose.

Contributing Authors:

NON-FICTION SHORT STORIES

AYERS, MEGAN: Two, Too, To, Tu

CIMMONE, C.: The Common Man

GONZÁLEZ, MIRANDA: A Lesson in Guilt

McDONOUGH, PATRICK: Taal Volcano

RAE, DAVID: Slight Ghosts

NOVEL EXCERPT

SMALLWOOD, CAROL: The Sermon

ART WORK

DE LA GARZA, VALDEMAR: Butterfly, Lizard 5, Orange Rose, and Pink Flower Burst

DUESING, ALEX: She Considers

LaDEW, KATE: Subway 1

MADDOX, STACY: Beaver Dam Paradise

MARSHALL, DENNY: Folds of the Dream Master and Stem Dreams

THOMAS, B. G.: 1962 and Fight for the Fish

YOUNT, SUSAN: Mother Ludlene’s Hole

ONE-ACT PLAYS

BYRNE, JOHN: Romeo Revised

FISHER, MARK A.: Moon Rabbit

GRAJNERT, PAWEŁ: The Punk

NAGLE, ROSA: On The Death of June

PISARRA, DREW: Mother’s Day

• Language: English
• Publisher: GNU Journal
• Release date: Jan 15, 2017
• ISBN: 9781386204541

Book preview

A Letter from the GNU Staff:

We would like to thank the writers who sent in their piece(s) to the GNU Staff for the Winter 2017 Publication. Writing is a solitary endeavor, and it takes a whole lot of sweat, tears, and angst to put one’s words on paper—let alone the self-talk and confidence required to share and/or submit completed work for publication consideration.

The dedication and continued support of the GNU Staff made the creation of this body of work a reality. Without the assistance of the editors/readers, as well as the unwavering support and guidance of Professor Frank Montesonti, this publication would not have been possible.

ETERNAL BLISS AT DAWN’S LIGHT

GNU Journal: Winter Issue 2017

Non-Fiction, Novel Excerpt, Art Work & One-Act Plays

NON-FICTION SHORT STORIES

TWO, TOO, TO, TU

By Megan Ayers

I take myself on a date, a weekday, in the afternoon. I wear a dress, but jeans underneath because I don’t want you to think I’m trying too hard. I know you hate that. First, predictably, we go to the bar and order something strong. Best to start like you mean it, you always say. We’ll sit at the stools, kick our feet, make too much noise, talk to strangers, and bum smokes. When you pay our tab, you’ll tip the same amount the bill reads because you believe those who work in food service put up with too much shit, and I think this is sexy. Point for you.

Power to the people! I yell from the open door on our way out, fist thrust into the air.

It will still be daylight, so we’ll move to another venue. You’ll suggest the museum because you know I took AP Art History in high school. We drive, even though we probably shouldn’t, in heavy construction-zoned traffic and smoke a bowl, laughing the entire way there. Once we stop, you produce a single OxyContin, expertly halving it with your driver’s license. We down it and grin, swaying into the museum. Thank goodness it’s free, because I’m doubting my ability to have a regular transaction with another human being and even though it’s payday, you tell me funds are pretty much spoken for. I get that. Another point for you. Already, I’m making plans to sleep with/marry you.

The museum is empty, save a couple school groups, retirees, a stray docent, and bored security guards who perch on high stools in corners. Their demographic ranges from puny-faced art students with complicated hair, to those who look like they leave this job and then go to another job where they might drive busses. Security sometimes gets up and strolls casually through the galleries; I feel policed when they match our tempo.

You say out loud as we stand in front of a Giacometti, don’t touch that! and slap my hand.

I howl and hush.

The Oxy is blurring edges and we learn harder on one another, propping each other up in a hopeful osmosis. We amble past Van Gogh, the Giacometti, Johns, Ernst, under Oldenburg, Chihuly, and Calder. We roam to a larger room with moving-van-sized photos of curated domestic scenes both mundane and terrifying in their close and familiar loneliness: Crewdson. It is at this point in the date, I know we’ll never be together, that you will make me miserable forever, and that I’m going to sleep with you to make this echo in my gut go away.

I get a little trembly and sensitive and hope you don’t realize I’m about to cry. In public, no less, like some fucking girl. And then you suggest we go get another drink, and now it’s night and harder to find our car than it had been to find the building the first go around, but then we’re magically behind the wheel and making out furiously to the point where I think maybe we should just head straight to my place, when you stop and tell me Enough! still holding my hands.

THE COMMON MAN

By C. Cimmone

I’ve always been a friend to the common man.

My father was a common man—blue Dow shirt bent and stretched, stained and smeared with yellow powder and black, tacky grease. When his rectangular patch peeled away, my mother was kind enough to embroider his last name over his heart in smooth, red stitches—no white background required for visual perfection—everyone knew his name and where to find him.

My father’s last name was shouted across many Kmart parking lots. His first name was used most of all at our driveway, both incoming and outgoing.

Hey, Ralph! The hands would wave pulling in. Thanks, again, Ralph. And again as they waved goodbye.

Everyone was kid to my father, being that he was at least thirty years their senior. He told everyone to stay out of trouble, and not to work too hard, despite the crisp, healing slices of skin on his knuckles.

I hear ya . . . he would trail as they worried about this shift and that boss.

Every solemn paragraph concluded with a joke; and his voice laughed alongside the visitor standing in our living room.

Handshakes were not required, but displayed respect and friendship. The kids on the bus laughed at me for my handshakes; and teachers stared strangely as I walked back to my desk.

The teachers’ clothes were clean and fresh—hair always curled and pinned atop their heads. Perfume was their favorite accessory, and they didn’t have call outs in the middle of the night or dirty fingernails.

The janitors at school were kind and quiet, and I wondered what kind of jokes they grinned at. I saw them cleaning and scraping, sweating and moving. They pushed this, pulled that, fixed this, and then they carried away that. I wondered if they watched Three’s Company and if they laughed like my father when Mr. Furley found Jack with three ladies on his hands—three different rooms, respectively.

I knew life was hard for the common man. I paid no mind to the kids with polished shoes, but I worried about the boy on Old River Road when his house burned down, and the flames left him crying at the bus stop with nothing more than the cold air on his hands. I wondered about the little girl who had dirty hair and a painful stare when everyone dodged her on the school bus.

I too was a common man, despite what anyone saw on the outside. I was not a little girl with pink, laced dresses and overflowing bowls of hair bows and clean perfume. No. I was the common man.

I grew up to be a common man, despite my fancy shoes and shiny fingernails. And I wrote my jokes for the common man. I sang for the common man, in a low voice, with curse words sprinkled through. I talked to the painter, who mended the walls, and I dumped the trash for the janitor.

Thank you, the janitor grinned.

I told her, Don’t work too hard, now.

I will always be a common man. I know nothing other than such. I only hope my children steer past my fancy face powders and creams, and see the common man I pray they will become.

A LESSON IN GUILT

By Miranda González

It was early in the morning in Mexico City, and I was watching my one-year-old son struggle to breathe. My husband, Rafa, had left us at my father-in-law’s while he went to the Mexican Social Security Institute hospital to give platelets as is required of family members of inpatients. At some point while he was strapped to a machine cycling and separating his blood, his mother breathed her last in the next building over. Back at the apartment, I lifted Kaleo’s shirt every few minutes to observe his body trying to suck in air so forcefully his little ribs would stand out. In our haste to get on the plane to catch my cancer-stricken mother-in-law alive, I had forgotten my son's asthma medications in a city notorious for its air pollution.

I heard the phone ring out in the living room and opened the bedroom door to answer it, but my brother-in-law beat me to it. I hadn't been aware he was home.

When did it happen? Okay. I'll be there as soon as I can. He put the old corded phone back onto the grooves in the base and stared quietly at the floor.

Irving turned to me. What's the matter? He squinted at my blotchy face. Are you okay?

It's Kaleo. He's really sick. I think I need to take him to a hospital. I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand. Who was on the phone?

My dad. My mom just passed away.

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