As You Pass By

Forever an Echo in our hearts.

I first saw him walking on a Friday. I was bored, which happens here quite often. Everyone is just dead here. No interesting conversation, everyone is old as dirt it seems. I mean, really old. And the only things to read around here feel like being stuck in history class; names and dates, dates and names, blah blah blah. Boring. Only a few poems are worth reading.  So when I saw him walking past the gate carrying a guitar case, I got excited. He had long hair and a leather jacket, and his blue jeans were torn. 
I quickly went to the gate and hoped he would see me. Even if he just saw me, without even having to talk, it’d be more fun than I’d had anytime recently. I leaned against the brick gate pillar and let some leg show under my dress. I hope he sees me. 
I could hear his footsteps approaching now. He was sure-footed, walking with confidence. He must have somewhere important to go, a show perhaps, or band practice with his friends. He can’t be late for that. I’m sure they depend on him. He looks so cool. He reminds me of Eugene, he was in a band and played guitar too. He played so well, everyone would dance all night. I thought he might even be famous one day. Eugene had long hair too, and kept it slicked back. He always tried to look tough, but I knew deep down he was just a big sweetie. Whenever he’d get in a fight, he’d say to me afterward, “didn’t mean to scare ya.”
The boy was getting closer, almost to where I was standing, and he stopped, set down the guitar, and crouched on one knee to tie his shoe. Eugene wore those kinds of shoes too, black basketball shoes. His laces were always coming undone too. As the boy looked down at his shoes, I could see his hair flow down around his shoulders, like root beer pouring out of an overflowing glass. Eugene’s hair was not that long; this boy’s hair was as long as a girl’s, but I liked it anyway. I bet his parents weren’t happy with that, they probably gave him a rough time about it. 
Eugene’s parents gave him a rough time all the time. He’d complain about them to me, told me they always yelled about his hair, staying out late, his friends who looked like trouble, all that. Sometimes, he’d get real sad, and he wasn’t truly a bad boy or hoodlum, but then he’d start drinking, especially if his friends were around, and tell me “If my folks think I’m bad, I might as well be bad.” That’s when he would truly be bad, break out windows, get in fights, that kind of thing. 
And drive fast. Boy o boy, when he’d been drinking, he loved to drive fast. He’d get a wild look in his eye and tear down the road, taking curves on two wheels nearly. I’d be so afraid I’d shiver, and he’d turn to me and say “didn’t mean to scare ya there, Echo darlin',” and slow down and take it easy. He never meant to hurt me, honest, he was a real sweetie deep down. 
The boy finished tying his shoe and straightened up, picked up his guitar, and started to walk again. But then he stopped. Right about when he was about to pass me, he stopped! I got so excited, maybe he sees me there, waiting for him. Oh I hope he likes my dress, Mother was so careful picking it out for me. 
The boy looked straight past the gateway, as if he didn’t even see me. He grunted, and with a free hand, zipped up the zipper of this leather jacket. Once it was zipped, he kind of hunched down inside his jacket and brought his hand up and blew into it, just as he would as if it were cold, but it wasn’t. It was a beautiful October afternoon, at least sixty out, maybe sixty five. 
I thought of calling out to the boy, but I thought it’d be best to let him get where he was going. I know how important it is to be on time. It made me kind of sad though. 
I watched the boy go all the way down the street until he turned the corner and disappeared. Once he’d gotten past the cemetery, he wouldn’t hear me if I called anyway. Maybe he’ll pass by again. Pass by. It reminds me of one of the poems I learned since I’ve been here:

Remember me as you pass by,

As you are now so once was I,

As I am now, soon you shall be,

Prepare for Death and follow me.

---

--Echo Chambers

The Honeymoon House

The honeymoon house was free. Anything can be free if no one knows you're there. Don't call us squatters, that's derogatory. I wouldn't call you that, even though the bank probably owns your house.

I'm a practical man. I see an opportunity and I take it. Getting in wasn't the hard part. That was the animal carcasses. But I had plenty of time to clear those out.

The electricity wasn't on either, but isn't that why candles were invented?

There was a good amount of furniture and whatnot left behind by the previous occupants and it hardly smells at all. "That couch doesn't stink", I say, "that's just the aroma of settled memories." The fridge stank, though, they always do. So I lugged it down to the cellar where I use it as a tool cabinet. I'm a practical guy, see?

Borrowed a broom off a porch down the street (I will return it, I promise). Swept that place out from stem to stern. Patched a hole in the kitchen ceiling with a road sign I found. See? Practical.

Her name is Ingrid. She's my bride. She has a good sense of humor. Lets me call her Offgrid.

We think it's funny.

---

--Cleemis J. Mudd, Man of the People

She Rides By Every Day

Her perfume is lovely in the passing

breeze.

She has a husband who never smiles. He makes her wear ankle length skirts, and a frumpy hat that nearly covers her head. She utters not a word when he's near, and moves like a spooked and timid animal to let him pass. I hear her dinners are to die for.

He leaves for work every morning, getting in his Caddy with the dent in the door; it's not new. My friend Madeline, she's a neighbor of hers, lets her keep that bike in her shed. Every morning, not long after he leaves for work, she walks down to Maddy's house and lets herself in to the shed. It's like a different girl emerges from there, as the door swings open and she rides out, confident as the day is long, in that bathing suit and refreshing quality about her. She won't come back until shortly before he's home, and somehow has dinner waiting for him.

We all wish he would go away.

---

Willard Cooper is a self-taught ward of the state.

The Fog

Now it's got patina.

Last autumn I went for a drive to clear the cobwebs. I was driving my Grandfather's old Chief; I loved that car. He sold it to me for a dollar shortly before he died. It was flawless; garage kept for the majority of its existence, there wasn't a spot on it. Beautiful.

I was planning to watch some television that evening, to relax a bit and tune out the stress that end of semester finals can bring. But no channels would come in. So, I decided to take a drive, maybe pick up some fast food on my way home and finish reading the Stephen King book that I'd been working on.

Part way down the road, I found that the radio was picking up nothing but static as well.

I stopped at the Taco Bell and got a Mexican pizza and a nacho supreme and headed home with it, and that's when I noticed the fog.

The fog was like nothing I'd ever experienced. It looked like you could literally cut it with a knife it was so thick. I ended up rolling up the windows as well, because it had a smell that felt like it crawled down into your lungs like a super-strong Menthol cigarette, sticking to everything inside you.

I figured there must be a chemical spill somewhere, but there was no way to know, since the radio and television weren't picking up any stations.

I arrived home, parked the car, wrapped up my Taco Bell goodies so they wouldn't get whatever was in the air on them, and went home.

The next morning the television worked fine, but no news about the fog. I found the morning paper on the porch, and no word was written there of it either.

Later on in the morning, I went out to the garage to mow the lawn. When I opened the garage door, I found the car had aged forty years. Surface rust covered what was once a pristine, well-kept automobile.

No one spoke of the fog. I started bragging about the car's patina, to keep other folks from looking at me strange when I tried to explain The Fog.

---

--Cornelius Hatch, International Pan of Mancakes, or Mouse of Handshakes, or Land of O'Lakes, whatever (quit looking at me)

Vanished!

The last known photo of the boys.

Back in 1935, two boys set out on their bicycles. They took camping gear, some food, a map, and the appropriate tools to service their machines. It was a brisk autumn evening when they kissed their mothers goodbye and set off down the long dirt road that led out of town. They each got a hamburger at the corner diner at the edge of town and stopped long enough to have this, the last known photo of them, taken.

About a week prior to their ill-fated trip, Johnny Lockjaw and Clyde Loveless listened to a radio program that told of the mysterious Changawang. The Changawang is a long-fabled creature much like a loup-garou, or werewolf, but it differs in that it completely erases all traces of its victims after it has dined upon their misfortunate flesh. One account given by the only living soul who had survived the attack of the Changawang, also said that as it prepared to eat him, it worked itself up into such a state of arousal that the victims laugh themselves to death at the sight of it. This further angers the feared Changawang, and fuels its desires and hunger. He survived only by his personal lack of a sense of humor.

Did Johnny Lockjaw and Clyde Loveless anger the bloodthirsty Changawang and find deadly levity in its aroused state? We may never know.

To this day, though, late late at night, sometimes one can make out the sounds of uncontrollable laughter ebbing and flowing in the wind coming from the woods at the edge of town. Johnny? Clyde?

---

Hester Begoris holds a Ph.D in folklore and taffy-making from the University of Maxwell House.

Pickers on My Pant Leg

Her laugh was like sweet music.

One fine day I was walking in the woods by my house, the ones across the overgrown field that used to be owned by Mr. Kooser. There is an abandoned farm house in the back of the field, just before the woods. There are stones in that field, and trash strewn about. 

I had been walking, or rather, parkour-ing, my way through the woods toward the farm house, hopping over logs, swinging from vines, leaping across streams as is my wont to do in order to stay nimble, when my pant legs had collected a coating of pickers. You know pickers, those damned things that stick to your pantlegs. I'm no botanist or naturist, I don't know what plant they're from. Burrs. Whatever.

Anyhow, they were coating my pantlegs. Such a bothersome attachment. I suppose that's how nature chose for them to pollinate, or procreate; they stick to the legs of a hapless traveler, who carries them elsewhere, then they drop to the ground and propagate the continuation of their subgenre in life.

I approached the house and I saw her sitting on the porch step, looking rather forlorn. As I drew near, her eyes fell to the pickers on my pant legs, and it seemed to cheer her. She said not a word, nor did I.

I drew closer and she reached out and plucked one of the burrs from my trouser legs. She giggled. She plucked another; and laughed. She began pulling them from my pant legs with both hands, and soon was teary-eyed and breathless with laughter. Her laugh was like music, smooth and rich, and made my heart flutter. When there were no more to be removed from my pant legs, she looked up and smiled at me, rose, and walked into the house. The door creaked behind her.

After she had gone in the house, I brushed the bits of forestry remaining on my drawers to the ground, and knocked on the door. No one answered. I knocked again. Still no one answered.

A man walked by as I attempted a third knock. My knuckles were about to connect with the door when he called to me.

Hey! He said. No one lives there. No one for five years now. What are you up to? He said.

There was a girl. I said. She was just here.

Girl? He said. There's no girl. Not anymore. There used to be. He looked down the road and sighed. Say the dresses in the closet, he said. He took a deep breath and sighed another sigh. He began walking down the dirt road, looking over once, and nodding. Another one, he said, under his breath, and continued walking.

I looked down at my clean trouser legs, stepped off the porch, and walked across the field toward home. She sure had a nice laugh.

---

--Jasper Handysides

Elizabeth

She'll make your heart flutter, that's a fact, but she'll always be out of reach. 

There have been many days, many days indeed, when I'll have her over to my old farmhouse for beans and rice. We'll have a nice time, good conversation, and often a nice little sit on the back porch swing, looking up at the stars. My heart fluttered. Oh, did my heart flutter. I'd invite her up to my second floor bedroom, the one with the canopy bed, and the energy between us was enough to electrify a whole neighborhood of houses. I'd sit on the bed, heart pounding, and beckon her over. Every time, a look of infinite sadness would drape itself over her pretty countenance, and she would just stare out the window, as if waiting for someone.

Elizabeth, honey, I'd say, please come away from there and tell me what is wrong.She wouldn't say a word, just sigh. Oh the sighs. I could almost see the sadness accompany her breath that fogs the window.

I cannot, she'd say. My heart belongs to another.

My own heart would break each time. But always I pursued her. Dinners of beans and rice. Songs on my guitar. She smiled enough. Until the end of the night, when she brought out that sadness and set it on the windowsill for all to see.

--Horatio Bean