The Revolt of the Garden Hose

by Lane Bushmeyer

It happened on a hot summer morning

after all the dew had burned off, leaving

my front lawn dry as split ends.

I gathered its worn rubber coils in one hand

and began my rounds.

It sputtered and grumbled complaints about the early awakening

but consented to dribble a warm stream

onto my flowerbed, the soil shriveled and cracked between

stooped-over plants.

I urged it to get serious with a few good shakes,

its only response a snide remark

issued with the flow from its rusted lips.

This would not do.

I turned up the pressure.

A frayed spot in its skin puckered, snapped open,

and a cheap up-spray caught me in the face.

It leaped from my hands and whipped like

a snake with a grand mal seizure, lost in a wet-mouthed rant.

It soaked me from uncombed hair

to garden crocs and pounded trenches in the soil crust,

uprooting my new pansies and scattering their shredded Mardi Gras masks.

Then it turned its rage on the front of the house

and sprayed it down before I shut the water off.

Afterward it lay in the grass muttering obscenities with

its last trickle and no doubt scheming of social movements

that would change the world.

Change of Plans

by Abby Logan

  

    It was a hot day.  Blistering hot, but of course, Alastair Brant didn't know the difference.  He was sitting in a Taxi, the air conditioner turned up high.  Next to Alastair was his charge, an exuberant and enlivened four year old named Hazel Delaney.  Hazel sat beside him, her legs dangling haphazardly over the seat, her tongue stuck out slightly as she drew a picture.

   "Yes, it's finished!" shouted Hazel, startling Alastair from his thoughts.   Her crisp, babyish Irish accent was different then his own British one, and he was still getting used to it, plus her  hyper and emphatic character was extremely unpredictable.

   "Look! Look Alley!"  She squealed with delight.  He cringed.  He didn't know what to make of it when she called him Alley.  He looked down at the picture she had devised with her thick and chubby hands.  It was two stick figures, one tall and lanky, the other short and stout.  They were holding hands.

   "What is it?" he asked gruffly.  The little one laughed.

   "It's you and me!"  Hazel set the picture down and hugged Alastair's waist as best she could, being in the sitting position that she was.  She looked up at him her eyes large and shining.

   "I'm so glad you came and got me."

   Alastair had picked up the child from a rundown orphanage that had been disbanded.  He had been merely escorting her to a new orphanage in Dublin, but the plans had been abandoned when some vital information had been disclosed.  He felt sympathy for Hazel, having been an orphan in his early life.  It could be very lonely.  Alastair sighed and turned to look out the window.  What met his eyes was downtown London, all bustle and business.  Scores and scores of people peppered the sidewalks, gazing into shop windows or haggling with street vendors.

 Her father and mother had been murdered after Hazel's birth.  The entire situation had been kept hush-hush, up until the procuring of the child.  Now, Alastair was escorting Hazel to a secure location where she would be kept safe and more analyzing  of her past could be done.  They had made an seven hour drive to London, then caught a taxi to take them the rest of the way.  Their previous driver, an agent named McGreevy, had been called off to "more important work" and left them stranded in the huge city.

   "Here's your destination, sir," called the taxi driver, who had been silent the entire time. The taxi pulled up to the curve.  Outside was a tall dilapidated building that housed secret headquarters underneath.

   "Are you sure you gave me the right address?" asked the driver, eying the building.  His face bore an expression of obvious confusion.

   "Yes, thank you."  Alastair pulled at Hazel's short arm as he opened the car door.  "Come on Hazel.  Time to get out."  He paid the taxi driver and watched as he drove away, making sure he didn't stick around.

   Alastair was extremely thankful that the car ride was over.  Throughout the long journey,  Hazel had been loud and curious, asking questions about everything.  The only moments of peace had been when she took a two hour nap, exhausted by the day's happenings.  Even then, Alastair and McGreevy had dared not to make a loud noise or even talk with their voices above a loud whisper.  The stakes had been too high.

   Hazel followed, as close to docile as Alastair guessed she could get.  She made a scrunched up face.  "It's hot out Alley."  There it was again, that pet name.  She was indeed an audacious child.

   "Yes, come Hazel, we'll go inside where it will be cooler."  Hazel followed him, holding tightly to his large hand.  He thought of the picture she had drawn.  She was a sweet child, despite her energy.  She had also attached herself quite securely to Alastair.

   Alastair had a fleeting image of life with a child.  It seemed to be more interesting and colorful.  His own life had been getting drab as of late.  Being a secret service agent could at times be exciting, but Alastair had not been assigned to an exciting job in ages.

   Maybe Hazel could come and live with him, in his own house in London.

   Alastair stopped with the sudden revelation.  He turned on his heel, Hazel right behind him.  He hailed yet another taxi.

    "Where are we going now?"  There was whininess in Hazel's voice as she stood, waiting with Alastair for the taxi.  Her hand was still tightly clamped around his.

   Alastair looked down at her.  She was, he realized for the first time, very cute.  Her eyes were vividly green and round.  Her mouth was slightly puckered with complaint.  Her hair was mussed about in frizzy, blonde ringlets.

   Alastair smiled at her.  "We're going home."

The Tree Community

by Lane Bushmeyer

I have come to learn that Christmas, like almost everything else, is a process of change rather than a constant.  Its meaning shifts focus as we grow up.  Over the years decorations break and lights burn out, and we replace them with new ones.  Schedules vary, so that no two Christmases are the same, as much as we might like to repeat a particularly memorable holiday season.  The gifts change as we mature.  Perhaps saddest of all, we lose the zeal and excitement of a child’s approach to Christmas, with its attendant sense of wonder.  But for me, one feature of Christmas at our house has stayed relatively fixed, and that is our Christmas tree, which is the subject of a tradition that has remained almost unchanged, and that seems to be ever more important as the years go by.

To begin with, I’ve always had the uneasy feeling that we’ve been committing the Cardinal Sin of Christmas Trees year after year, because our tree is artificial.  Now, I know that plenty of people have fake trees.  They’re on the shelves of Wal-Mart every year, which probably means they’re socially acceptable, but to me, lugging the tree down from the garage attic instead of venturing into the winter air to seek it out is a task that carries with it a faint sense of sacrilege.  Besides, I hate artificial plants.

So why do we have it?  When my brother and I were younger, we were allergic to quite a few things (and I still am), and bringing a needle-shedding conifer into the house made us flare up.  Although we’ve improved, we all fell into the fake tree habit.  Ironically, the notion of a real tree ousting our traditional pre-lit affair is one I would now approach reluctantly and with some distress.  As much as I dislike fake plants, I like change even less, and it brings out the obsessive in me.

The reason for my obsession in this case is our vast collection (I might venture to call it a community) of ornaments.  With a new tree coming in to host them every year, I would worry that they wouldn’t all fit, that the tree wasn’t tall enough, fat enough, full enough.  Because in our house, the ornaments aren’t decorations, they’re the main attraction.

At first glance our tree looks heavy, even overloaded.  If it was a work of art, it would be called garish, unbalanced, in very poor taste.  If it was a city or a town, it would be called “diverse.”  Aside from a few colored balls dimly reflecting the light, practically every object on the tree is an individual, distinct from all the others, with all the variation of an international airport.  There are, of course, snowmen, angels, and various renditions of Santa Claus.  But surrounding them is an unlikely multitude.  There is a delicate glass bird, a glittering nest complete with eggs, and a tiny wreath made of bells.  Pom-pom mice lie in walnut shell hammocks.  A tree frog and a salamander lurk among the branches.  There are Nativity scenes made of glass and of wood from the Holy Land.

Some of the ornaments are simple, like a handmade paper star with my name on it and a piece of twine to hang it with.  Then there are others like a little wooden Noah’s Ark, with a moveable elephant and giraffe and a whale suspended below.  The Batmobile hangs next to a golden T. rex skeleton and a grill.  The Star Wars logo looms heavily in the branches.  SpongeBob makes an appearance, as does Spider-Man, slinging a present from a rope of webbing.  Undersea life swims in midair—a humpback whale, a sailfish, and a jellyfish.  Other animals include a fox, a koala, elephants, and penguins.  Bigfoot peeks through the branches beside a large pendant ladybug.  There is our long-surviving pickle, which nearly shattered in a fall some years ago.  Among many others hang a piano, a guitar, and a knight with a feathery plume.

In my family there is a tradition in which my brother and I each receive new ornaments every year, and the community is often further diversified by additional ornament gifts in addition to these.  Fitting them all on the tree is an interesting challenge, and this year, for the first time in living memory, we’ve left some off.

It is the memories, I think, that make our tree community such a significant facet of Christmas, coupled with the novelty of discovering it anew each year.  I’m always amazed at what I’ve forgotten when we open the red and green plastic tubs.  But when all the ornaments come out, I can remember each one from previous years, as far back as I can remember Christmas.  Some are as old as I am, others even older.  As a child I would pretend they were alive.  I imagined them arguing over the best spots on the tree or hoping desperately to be placed beside their best friends.  They would assess any newcomers, sometimes with suspicion but more often with welcoming.  And in a way they were like friends, even though I only saw them for a few weeks each year.  Yet they’ve always been nearby, in the house or in the garage, and when I look at them they compel me to pause and remember previous years and, like a calendar with unfilled days, to look forward into the future.

I treasure the variety on our tree.  To me it serves as a reflection of the variety in the earth and in life and human beings.  I think this panoply of variation is one of the greatest blessings in this earthly life, and our tree and its ornaments remind me, every once in a while, to stop and wonder at it.