Within Reach: My Short Story Published Fall 2018

Borrowed Solace published my story back in 2018 and has since closed. They do not maintain an archive of stories so I am making Within Reach available here. I hope you enjoy it.

WITHIN REACH

 by David H Weinberger

Simone was frantically shaking all over, stepping back and forth in the same space, and jerking her head in all directions trying to find where the dragon had gone. She had never seen a dragon this close before. This one was so close she could see its individual metallic-colored scales, its bat-like wings flapping in the air, its serpent’s tongue jutting from its mouth, saliva dripping from sharp, yellowed teeth. She could smell the damp, earthiness of its cave from which it came and the lingering briny scent of ocean water still on its body. She was overcome with happiness at this unexpected visitor.

 “Did you see that? Tell me you saw that awesome dragon. It flew by just inches from us! He was so close I could smell him.”

 “Simone. I didn’t see any dragon. Perhaps it was a hallucination. Please. Try to calm down.”

“Calm down? With a real live dragon buzzing us? You’re kidding me!”

“You know I didn’t see the dragon. Come on Simone. Let’s keep walking and then get some lunch.”

“I don’t want any lunch. I want to see the dragon again. Let’s just wait and it will come back. I’m sure of it.”

Simone’s visions and her insistence on their reality were symptoms of her schizophrenia. The symptoms, hallucinations and hearing voices, started just two years ago, right after Simone started college. Simone’s mother and father had been seeking help since then and were assured that with the right combination of drugs and therapy, she could lead a fruitful and productive life. But Simone’s doctor told them it might take some time to zero in on the right combinations. She had recently started new medication but the symptoms continued.

Simone’s hallucinations consisted of dragons and their environments. The doctors had informed Simone and her parents that hallucinations usually revolved around aliens or government spies intruding into people’s lives. However, there was no telling exactly with individual hallucinations. Upon waking, walking with her parents, or sitting on the porch drinking coffee, Simone often saw dragons in the distance. Sometimes, there was a verdant forest, with sunlight filtered through the dense foliage giving the setting a subdued, ethereal feel to it. Other times it was a dark forest surrounded by imposing mountains. Most common were seaside cliffs, high above the water with dragons flying along the cliffs and wallowing in the sea foam.

More recently, Simone had been hearing voices telling her that the dragons were there to show her where she really belonged. That she was to return to them. ‘Please come home’ and ‘We are waiting for you’ were constant refrains Simone heard the past six months.

Since the onset of symptoms, Simone had dropped out of college and her mother had quit her job as a lawyer. Simone’s father continued to work in finance but with reduced hours so he could help out with Simone. They moved from Portland to Netarts, a small town on the Oregon coast, where they had a vacation cottage. They visited the cottage a few times a year, but Simone’s mother and father both felt the scenery and serenity were better for Simone than the bustle of Portland. Her parents had improved the cottage before they moved in to make it more comfortable and roomy for the three of them. They had installed a new, wide open kitchen where the three of them could cook meals and talk. They removed a wall into the dining room so whoever was not cooking could sit and still enjoy the company of the others. Her room was repainted and filled with all new furnishings. They had painted it together, shopped together, and now Simone had a private place of her own.

Simone and her mother went out together on a regular basis, the doctors recommending keeping Simone busy to lessen the impact of the hallucinations, delusions, and apathy that go along with schizophrenia. Today they were visiting Oceanside to walk around the town and do a bit of window shopping, two activities Simone found enjoyable.

“Simone. We’ll have lunch just here on the corner. If the dragon appears, we’ll be sure to see it. Does that work for you?”

“Alright. But I swear, if that dragon returns, I’m hopping a ride.”

They sat down at Brewer’s Corner and began to read the menu. The small Oregon beach town had a handful of restaurants, but Simone always liked this one and could enjoy an hour of peace as she ate her meal. Today, however, after having seen the dragon, she could not calm down enough to get any kind of pleasure from her meal.

Simone ordered a salad but simply moved it around on her plate with her fork. She had no desire to eat in spite of being quite hungry. The effort to lift the lettuce and tomatoes seemed too great.

“Mom, I don’t really feel like eating. I think I’m done.”

“But you haven’t eaten anything yet Simone. What’s wrong?”

“It’s just, I don’t know, I feel like I don’t belong here. Like something is missing. You guys have been great, but I’m just not comfortable.”

Simone pulled her knees up to her chest and looked sullenly at the horizon. She wanted the dragon to reappear. She wanted to show her mother that she was not hallucinating but was being visited by a dragon, a creature from her home. If she could show her mother, prove that there really was a dragon, then she would be saved from the constant misguided interference: the pills, the ongoing visits to doctors and shrinks, the insistence on saying hallucinations and delusions. But there was nothing but undulating waves, blue sky, and a few downy clouds.

 “I want to go.” Simone declared. “Can we go, please? Let’s go.”

Simone’s mother packed up their few things, put money on the table, and they left the restaurant. This was a common occurrence: Simone suddenly changing her mind and demanding a different activity.

“Where do you want to go Simone?”

“Home. I want to go home.”

Once inside the Audi, Simone’s mother headed down the coast towards the cottage.

“You’re heading for the cottage.”

“Yes, baby, we are.”

“Not the home I meant. I meant my real home.”

“Simone, I’ve tried to understand, but I just can’t. This is your home. Mine too.”

“My home is different.”

“You already have a very nice home and we keep quite busy. We go on outings almost every day. On the weekends the three of us go hiking or boating. Last weekend we were canoeing at the lake. Your dad and I love you very much and would do anything for you. You have everything you need. But we need to stick together to deal with your illness. Does that make sense to you Simone?”

Simone lowered the window and stuck her head out into the warm air. With her hair billowing in the breeze, she was excited to see the dragon following along with the Audi. He was not as close this time but he was still quite clear to Simone. She smiled as she watched him cruise along above them with his large wings effortlessly gliding through the air keeping pace with the car.

Simone saw this dragon as a sign that she was going home, that this dragon was here for her. It made sense to her with the voices and their messages that this was true. And she looked forward to this return. Simone had come to love the dragons: whether evil, friendly, or shy and withdrawn. They were godlike creatures to her and she longed to run among them, to watch them battle, jet through the air and rampage through the forests, and to have one of her own. They were more real to her than the cottage, the towns she visited, the restaurants she ate in.

The only thing keeping her from this home of hers were her parents. She knew they meant her no harm, that they were looking out for her and wanted to help her. But they didn’t understand that this all kept her from returning. Simone knew she should be grateful and appreciate the life her parents were trying to create for her. But all the same, it was not home for Simone.

Worse still, they insisted that they could not see what she could see. Regardless of how clear things were to her, her parents and her doctors continued to call them hallucinations, simple sensory perceptions that only she was privy to.

“Come inside the car Simone, that’s dangerous.”

Simone did what her mother asked after taking a long last look at the dragon. She still wore her smile as she entered the car and closed the window.

“Listen,” Simone’s mother said, “I know you think you belong somewhere else. But you are home here with us. You’ve nowhere else to go. You remember, don’t you, your doctors told you that the things you see and hear are not real. You have to accept that only you can see them. No one else can. It’s not your life, it’s like a fantasy.”

Simone did not answer. She stared out the window and thought how frustrating it was that her parents could not see what she saw. She was saddened to know that her home was inaccessible to them. Simone had a such a clear vision of her place in the world. Her parents and her doctors could not change that. Medication could not change that. Simone knew she belonged among the dragons and she was just waiting for the right time to return.

Once they were at the cottage, they both sat on the porch swing drinking lemonades. Simone closed her eyes and began to doze off thinking of the dragons that were visiting her and thinking how lucky she was that they were now approaching her. She fell asleep listening to the voices only she could hear.

“That looks refreshing,” Simone’s father exclaimed as he came home from his early Friday workday. “How’d things go today?”

Simone awoke with a start.

“I saw a dragon today, Dad. But mom didn’t. She thinks it was a hallucination.”

“It probably was Simone. Your new meds will kick in soon and the dragons will be gone,” her father tried to comfort.

“You’re just like mom. I don’t want dragons to be gone. You know I love dragons and finally one actually tries to meet me and you two tell me to forget about it. I wish you could just believe me.”

Simone’s father leaned over to kiss his wife and whispered in her ear, “Tough day again?”

“It’s just getting worse.”

“I can hear you,” Simone interrupted. “And it’s getting better, not worse.” She stormed off to her room and her father took her seat.

“What happened today? She seems upset.”

“We were up at Oceanside. That’s where she saw the dragon. We were walking by Maxwell Point before lunch and apparently, a dragon appeared in the sky right in front of her. She’s been like this ever since.”

“Is she still taking her medication?”

“Of course. I give them to her every morning.”

“I thought the new meds would get rid of her symptoms; obviously, that’s not happening. We’ll talk to the doctors and get their opinion. Maybe they can adjust the meds again.”

“OK. But I still don’t get it. I mean, she could smell the dragon. That’s not normal, is it? When she was little, she was never interested in these things. Why now? I don’t understand this disease.”

“That’s just it. It’s the disease. There is no rational reason for her hallucinations. The doctors all said it would be difficult on Simone and on us. Lord knows that part is true. How ‘bout we take her for a walk tomorrow up at Cape Meares. The walks and the woods always seem to calm her down.”

“I don’t know if I want to go back up there.”

“But we’ve been to Cape Meares lots of times. She’s never seen a dragon there.”

“It’s different now Paul.”

“Sure it is, but I still think we should head up north with her. We have to keep her busy, get her out of the house. If she sees dragons, that’s fine. We’ll just let it go.”

Simone didn’t leave her room that evening. She ignored her parents’ calls and their gentle knocks on her door. She wanted to be left in peace. Simone sat at her desk looking out the window. She was surprised to see a small, dark blue dragon, no bigger than a crow, sitting on a tree branch. The dragon was looking back at Simone, gently flapping its wings and bobbing its crested head. Simone fell asleep at her desk staring at the dragon.

The following afternoon, Simone and her parents went for a walk on the cliffs at Cape Meares. It was a place of magical beauty for Simone, reminding her of the home she longed for, with pinion pines, Sitka spruce, and cedar surrounding the trail to the cliffs. At the end of the trail, the cliffs overlooked the Pacific Ocean. The cliff top was so far from the water though that it was like watching a silent movie. One could see the waves in the ocean and crashing upon the shore but hear nothing. It was as if it were another world down below that the family was lucky enough to spy upon.

Simone always liked these walks and would often hold her mother’s or father’s hand while strolling through the pine-needled pathways. Regardless of her age, she never outgrew the warm feeling of this forgotten childhood gesture. This Saturday afternoon was just as wonderful as always, with the greenery and the pine scent tickling her senses. When they left the all-consuming crowdedness of the forest and approached the expansive ocean, all blue water and blue sky, the same magnificent and powerful dragon which she had seen the previous morning came cruising up from the cliffs. His mystical eyes locked onto Simone’s as he swooped past the family and turned around in mid-air for another pass.

“He’s coming back!” Simone yelled.

The dragon flew along the edge of the precipice and approached the family again. Simone dropped her mother’s hand and ran towards the cliff’s edge as the dragon approached.

“Simone!”

With her toes perched on the pebbly edge, Simone stretched out her arms towards the dragon and jumped for home. 

End

Fragility

I am now the proud owner of a rare print edition of The Slag Review, Issue 8, Spring 2018 in which my story ‘Fragility’ was first published. I was very pleased to see the story in print and remain very thankful to the editing team for including it. Unfortunately, I learned recently that the Review has closed down and is no longer online, meaning my story is no longer floating around out there looking for readers. Unless you happen to be passing by my Bremen apartment to read the physical copy, you will need to make do with the pdf of the story below. I would say enjoy the read but it is not really an upbeat read. Sorry about that.

Backstory: Thought It Was Enough

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Counterclock Journal kindly published my story ‘Thought It Was Enough’ in the June 2020 Issue 9. I finished a different version of this story in March 2018 and began submitting it as ‘It’s All a Test.’ After receiving very helpful critiques from two journal editors and a writing colleague, it went through three more major rewrites before acceptance. The story received a total of 41 rejections. And one acceptance! Thanks, Counterclock!

The story was inspired by families I got to know while teaching kindergarten. Despite the challenges the families faced, they were generally resilient and eager for their children to progress in life through schooling. I was impressed how families, specifically young children, accepted difficulties and worked so hard at exploring and learning. Sadly, their positive attitude was not always enough to overcome the systemic oppression these families faced. Through my story, I tried to portray a young mother’s thoughts as she saw these real-life hardships engulf her child. 

The Book Avenger; Dark Ink Press, Volume 1 Issue 2

I wrote this story in 2017 and it appeared in Dark Ink Magazine in Spring 2018. They have since changed ownership and I cannot find the magazine anywhere online, so I am making it available here. This is my only foray into speculative fiction. The picture below is the cover of the magazine when it was released.

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The Book Avenger

by David H Weinberger

Ravaillac sat meditatively in front of his overflowing bookshelves preparing for his forthcoming activities. He had just woken from a five-millennium slumber and was eager to get busy. Ravaillac was born during the third millennium BC, at the time clay tablets came into being. It was as if he was born in the spirit of the written word to protect it from its distractors and opponents. After the rise of papyrus, he slept, and only in the twentieth century did he awake. It was a time rife for book desecration.

Ravaillac had an endless list of retributions he was anxious to finally mete out. Over the course of his slumber, humanity had participated in a vast desecration of books, from overdue or unreturned library books, to book burnings and censorship, and he was ready to uphold what he saw as the ultimate justice. He knew he could not travel to the past to make up any wrongs done but he could attack the present and today’s book desecrators. A busy and productive night was planned, starting with Gretchen. 

Gretchen read thick paperback fantasy novels. She only read these novels in bed before sleeping for the night. The books, however, were fairly heavy for her and their bulk in her small hands was difficult to keep upright in her prone position. Her developed habit after purchasing a new novel was to repeatedly crack the spine until the stiffness of the book was softened a bit. She would then fold the front half of the book completely over the second half. She grabbed the top of the first half in her left hand, the top of the second half in her right hand, and with all her limited strength tear the book in half. Not only was it easier to read half the book in bed, but she also thrilled in the tearing sound of paper and cardstock as she ripped through the spine.

Gretchen climbed into bed with the first sundered half of her newest fantasy. Ravaillac entered her bedroom, startling Gretchen who screamed and dropped the mutilated novel on her chest. Ravaillac silenced her with a finger to his lips, climbed on top of the bed, and straddled Gretchen. She was frozen in fright with the only sound in the room the dull thud of the first half of the book hitting the floor as Ravaillac lifted Gretchen by her head. With superhuman strength, he began vertically folding Gretchen back and forth by grasping her shoulders and repeatedly bending her on the axis of her spine so that each shoulder blade touched the other, followed by her breasts and shoulders touching each other. He continued folding Gretchen until her body lost all rigidity and fell lifeless in his hands. Finally, Ravaillac grasped each side of Gretchen’s head and tore her body down the middle so her left side was severed from her right side, her entrails spilling to the bed. Once she was completely halved, he gently lay her back on her bed, picked up the first half of the book from the floor, the second half from the nightstand, placed them together, and ceremoniously lay the violated and now restored novel between Gretchen’s two halves. He left the bedroom and found his way to Michael’s flat.

Michael read literary fiction from around the world. While attending university, he had the typical habit of highlighting passages or dialogue which spoke to him or answered existential questions which consumed him. Upon leaving university, he became unsatisfied with highlighting as it was difficult to thumb through each book to locate the page containing the sought-after passage. He continued to highlight but added to his routine the activity of tearing out the page from the book which contained the highlighting. Once pulled asunder, he posted each divorced page on his wall under specific labels, such as, Death, Justice, Happiness, and A Life Fulfilled.

Ravaillac entered Michael’s flat as Michael was posting an especially lush page from Crime and Punishment. Ravaillac stealthily approached Michael and calmly placed his hands on Michael’s shoulders. Michael, abruptly awakened from his thoughts, turned around and looked aghast at Ravaillac. Ravaillac lead Michael to the reading lounge chair and forced him to sit. Michael obeyed wordlessly. Ravaillac took hold of Michael’s left arm, and with supreme strength, violently tore the arm from Michael’s torso. Michael screamed through the pain and watched his sinewy stump squirt blood which flowed over his lounge chair. Ravaillac hung the lifeless arm on the wall under the Crime and Punishment page Michael had just posted. Next, off came the right arm, the left leg, and finally the right leg, all hung on the wall under one of Michael’s postings. Ravaillac generously left Michael’s head attached, allowing him to view his appendages scattered along the wall with all the violated pages. He gently patted Michael on his head and then left the flat so he could gather his writing utensils for his next visit. 

Thomas was radically addicted to marginalia. He simply could not read a book without writing in the margins. He wrote his interpretations of the text, connections to other writers and stories, and future readings which sprung from the text. Every margin, header and footer of every book Thomas owned was littered with his red, blue, black, and green marginalia. He did not so much read as annotate. 

Tonight, Thomas was writing marginalia in Dante’s Inferno. Ravaillac approached Thomas as he was sitting at his desk. Ravaillac took the book, silently shaking his head with a look of disgust on his face, and placed in on a shelf. He told Thomas to completely undress and to lie down on the desk. Tears of fear flowed down Thomas’ cheeks as he wordlessly followed directions. Once Thomas was prostrate on the desk, Ravaillac removed a small wooden box from his jacket. Upon opening it, he saw his prized 1865 Mabie Todd sterling silver dip pen with gold nib. The dip pen requires the writer to dip the tip of the pen in an ink bottle but Ravaillac did not need to dip as Thomas would be supplying the ink necessary for writing. All Ravaillac needed to do was press firmly on Thomas’ skin with the point of the pen to draw blood. He started by piercing Thomas’ neck just below his left ear. Then, in the finest script, he wrote the entirety of The Inferno on Thomas’ body. As he wrote his impeccable cursive on the neck, the chest, the arms, trails of blood followed the nib of the pen spelling out Dante’s words. When he was done, Ravaillac stepped back and looked at his masterpiece. The epic poem was realized in blood all over Thomas’ body. Thomas had fainted as Ravaillac reached his lower arm so he did not as yet realize the text he was now marked with. Ravaillac cleaned his pen, stored it in the box, and left Thomas’ apartment. 

            Ravaillac did not like distributing justice. He would much rather see people treat books respectfully. He remembers decades ago during the book burnings taking place throughout the world and how he had retaliated. It was no pleasure for him to turn that fire against the desecrators. Their howls of pain still echo in his head along with the crinkling burning of hundreds of thousands of pages. Censorship left him with the same uneasy feelings. He had sewn up the mouths of so many people censoring books so they would suffer the same torture the forbidden books suffered. Their silent cries continue to play in his mind. But Ravaillac knew he existed simply to watch over the books of the world. He could not get caught up in worrying about the pain and anguish he unleashed on people. Linda would be no different: it would be painful but necessary for him to act.

            Linda removed her robe and placed it on the stool next to the filled bathtub. She stepped in and slowly slid down into the warm soapy water. She took a sip of wine and then leaned outside the tub to pick up the newest novel she was reading. From lying on the floor next to the tub, the dust jacket of the hardcover book was wrinkled from the water. She took it off and dropped it to the floor. She flipped to page 184 where she had stopped reading the previous night. The pages were warped and no longer laid flat upon themselves. Linda was used to reading novels in the tub, where the water and heat did their corrosive damage. Every book on her shelf contained a wrinkled cover and warped pages. Linda was not concerned. She liked nothing more after a long day at the office than to luxuriate in a warm bath with a good book.

            Ravaillac looked at Linda in the tub and the damaged book. He had watched her for some years causing untold damage to personal and library books. He entered the house and then the bathroom. He rushed to Linda’s side and covered her mouth with his hand, demanding her to refrain from screaming. He restrained Linda in the tub by tying her hands to the faucet and the legs to the clawed feet of the tub. He pulled up the stool and watched her bound body in the water. After a mere half hour, Linda’s skin began to wrinkle. In an hour, when the water was reaching room temperature, Linda had larger creases and was starting to shiver from the cold. Ravaillac watched as the hours passed and the wrinkles grew in size and texture. Her body began to look like a white topographic map with undulations forming from her ankles to her neck. Knowing that her skin would be waterlogged within hours, he gently caressed her feet, smiled, and left Linda alone to soak in the freezing water.

            It had been a long evening for Ravaillac, yet he had barely made a dent in his retribution duties. There were more of the same violators he had already dealt with, as well as people who ate while reading and spilled food and sauces on books, people who stacked books horizontally, people who dog-eared pages instead of using bookmarks, and people who used e-books instead of the traditional printed books. All of this needed attention and Ravaillac would definitely attend to them. But tonight, he was exhausted from meting out retribution. The books would have to wait for another night. Another night when his strength was at its fullest and he could concentrate on justice.

 

End