From Time to Time

From Time to Time

By Cooper Baltis

“Will you read me that story?” he asked, closing his eyes and adjusting his head on the pillow.

“Which one?”

“The one you have been working on. You know, the one loosely based on us.”

“But it’s not finished yet,” she replied, turning her body towards him and tracing her finger along the outline of his chin.

“But you’ve been working on it for almost a year now,” he said, yawning.

“I know. I just…it’s just that, well, the story is still in a developmental stage. It’s still premature.”

“Developmental stage? Premature? You writers are so crazy. How are other people supposed to read your work if you’re afraid to read it yourself?”

“I’m not afraid to read it. I’m quite proud of it actually. I just want it to be perfect, that’s all,” she said, dropping her hand and rolling to her other side.

“Alright, if you say so. I’m tired anyway.”

The next morning came and went.

The next week came and went.

The next month came and went.

The next year came and went.

Still, she never revealed to him the story she had been working so diligently on.

“Well can you at least tell me the name?” he asked one cold winter day, pouring himself a cup of coffee.

“The story is called Two Lovers,” she replied.

“And you say it’s loosely based on us?” he smirked as he added creamer from a plastic container with a bright red top. “Sounds like it’s tightly based on us.”

“I’ve never heard someone refer to something as ‘tightly based.’”

“You’re a writer. You should be used to new phrases.”

“Antimeria and neologisms?” she asked, leaning over the kitchen counter on her elbows and smiling.

“If you say so.”

As he slurped from his cup of coffee, he reached out to graze her elbow with his fingers.

The winter changed to spring.

The spring changed to summer.

The summer changed to fall.

The fall changed to winter.

It happened all over again.

Time passed quickly and slowly, as it is prone to do from time to time. The days merged together, the seasons blended, the arguments came and went, friends appeared and disappeared, the actors on television aged, clothes grew tight and threadbare, newspapers yellowed.

He proposed to her one evening after taking her to a small sauce-stained Italian restaurant on the edge of the Bronx.

 He had thought to call ahead and have the restaurant participate in the proposal but quickly tossed the idea out. She was a consummate critic of excessive sentimentality, a minimalist with a disdain for kitsch. She was the type who didn’t want to live in some fantastical movie existence, didn’t care for a Disney ending. According to her, those things existed only in fiction. He knew her well enough to know that. At least he thought he did.

The dinner went well, the food came and went as if it were on wheels, the wine in their glasses stayed full, the bill continued its steady climb up the credit card ladder to an unknown peak. He didn’t mind, money comes and money goes.

She wondered why he’d decided on this restaurant, wondered why he was wearing his best suit, wondered why he’d shaved, wondered why he’d put on cologne. He seemed nervous, glancing back and forth across the restaurant as if an ex-girlfriend sat in a booth nearby. As if there was something she couldn’t see. He kept wiping the sweat off his brow and readjusting his posture, harrumphing and looking down at his watch.

She took the last bite of tiramisu and watched in slow motion as he dropped to one knee.

A ring was procured, her hand was softly grasped, a black velvet box snapped opened, she found herself saying ‘yes’ before the question could escape his mouth, she found herself giggling, she found herself with a sparkling ring on her finger. She found herself with a husband.

Time continued to slide by as if someone had hooked it to a rope and dragged it through the warren streets of transient memories.

They moved in together, they married, they honeymooned, she published her third novel, he got a job promotion, they redecorated the apartment, his father died, they prepared a room for the baby, they had a girl named Elle.

One day, after putting Elle to sleep, she cuddled in next to him on their living room sofa.

“You still working on that story?” he asked suddenly.

“Which one?” she replied.

“Two Lovers.”

“You haven’t asked me about that in quite some time,” she said. “What made you think of it?”

“It just came to me. I’ve been meaning to ask you about it. So…”

“So…?”

“Well do you have anything to read me? You must be finished with it by now.”

“No, but I can tell you the two characters have had a child.”

He laughed, “Sounds familiar.”

“Most things do.”

“So is it a boy or a girl? Let me guess…” he sighed.

“Ok, guess,” she smiled faintly up at him.

“Why can’t you just tell me? It’s been…I think almost seven years now. Eight years maybe?”

“I want it to be perfect, that’s why,” she said.

“Will it have a happy ending?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“You should know by now,” he sighed and laid his head on top of hers, smelling her freshly shampooed hair.

Days continued to fall like dominos.

Hours blended together, clocks ticked incessantly, morning yawns, movies before bed, expanding waistlines, new wrinkles, new bills, new worries, new triumphs.

Time skipped like a stone thrown across a vast stream.

She published her fourth novel to rave reviews and he received another promotion at work. They had a son named Elijah and Elle grew into the dresses her mother used to wear when she was a girl. A family dog was purchased, a car was leased, computers, televisions and cell phones were replaced. The years piled on like sacks of flour.

One day, while having a heated discussion at work, tragedy struck, as it is prone to do from time to time.

He fell to the floor, his right hand on his heart, his trashcan toppled over, his pencil holder swiped off his desk, his co-worker’s mouth agape. He was rushed to the emergency room. Hands in starchy plastic gloves moved him onto a bed. Doctors hovered around him. He closed his eyes and drifted away.

He awoke with a plastic tubes sticking out of his nose and chords taped to his arm. She rushed to the bedside and grabbed his hand.

“Hi sweetie…” he whispered with a hoarse voice.

“Oh,” she sobbed. “How do you feel?”

“Pretty good for a guy waking up in the hospital with tubes sticking out of his nose,” he said, trying to move.

She laughed through her tears, “Don’t move, just relax. I’m right here. The kids are with my mom.”

“Hey, whatever happened to that story you were writing?” he asked, closing his eyes and resting on the pillow.

“Why? Why are you asking me right now?”

“It just came to me…while I was out.”

“I couldn’t finish the story,” she cried, holding his hand.

“But why?” he asked, looking down at her from his hospital bed.

“Because it was about us.”

“You’ve told me that for years now…”

“I didn’t want the story to end. I mean, I don’t want the story to end…”

“All stories must end, you know that.”

“I know, but not like this.”

“Well, you should tell me about it someday,” he said faintly, resting his eyes.

“I will…someday when it’s finished.”

Cobwebs from an Empty Skull (revisited)

Cobwebs from an Empty Skull revisited

The following are updated fables from Ambrose Bierce’s 1874 short story collection, Cobwebs from an Empty Skull. They have been updated by myself to introduce their messages to a new audience. The epigrams remain unaltered.—Enjoy, Cooper Baltis

Published on Wednesday January 11, 2012 in the UB Post. 

Timon never knew he would end up in the Gobi Desert, stuck with nothing but a camel, the shirt on his back, a large knife attached to his belt and a pair of scratched sunglasses. His throat was parched and the skin on his nose and the back of his neck was blistering. He was hot and lonely, grief-stricken and scared. Having no one else to talk to, Timon asked the camel what his thoughts were on turning back and going to the last oasis they had passed.

            “Personally, I have no desire to go back to the oasis,” said the camel, spitting at a lizard scattering nearby. “That was two days ago and truthfully, I’ve seen better oases.”

            “I agree. I too have visited better oases,” Timon said. “Maybe if I carried two tanks full of water on my back, I wouldn’t be dying of thirst. Listen camel, I can’t go on any further.”

            “Well, I’m not going anywhere but straight. I have enough water in my two humps to last for quite some time,” argued the camel. “It looks like we have ourselves a little problem here.”

            “Well, if you won’t go back and I won’t go forward, we can only remain here in the middle of the desert,” Timon said, hopping off the camel.

            “True, but soon enough you will die of thirst,” the camel replied.

            “Not so,” Timon said, looking at the camel over the rims of his sunglasses.

As the camel dropped to his knees to rest, Timon pulled the knife from his belt, assassinated the camel and appropriated the water from his humps.

            A compromise is not always a settlement satisfactory to both parties.

_____________________________________________________________________________

The same man named Timon was trying to cross a rather large wall after escaping from the Gobi with a belly full of camel meat. As he neared the top of the wall, a slathering bull ran to his assistance. The bull struck Timon’s backside, catapulting the tall man over the fence. Timon stood, dusted off his slacks and turned away from the bull.

            “You are welcome,” the bull called out, upset that Timon had forgotten to thank him. “Assisting you was my duty.”

            “Some duty,” Timon said, turning back towards the bull. “Next time, keep your horns to yourself. I did not require your services in the least bit.”

            “Seriously? Out of the benevolence of my beefy bull heart, I helped you get over the fence and all you can say to me is good riddance? Did you not want to reach the other side?” the bull snorted, the thick ring from his nostril gleaming in the countryside sun.

            “Of course I wanted to reach the other side of the fence,” Timon said, waving his hands at the bull, “but I could have done it better myself.”

            This fable teaches that while the end is everything, the means is something.

A young rooster was flirting with a pretty hen one morning at a barn outside Nashville, Kentucky.

            “Layin’ eggs isn’t that hard,” he boasted, leaning against a rusty pick-ax. “Heck, I once laid four eggs in three days.”

            “Did you?” she laughed, battering her lashes. “How did you manage to do that?”

            Not answering her, the young rooster turned his back on the hen and addressed himself a couple young chicks that were pecking at a worm.

            “Hey, pay attention to me,” he said. “I once laid an egg...”

            The chicks chirped, ripped the worm apart and passed on, ignoring him. The young rooster, red with ire, strutted his way up to the oldest rooster in the barn. He puffed his chest and looked the big bird straight in the beak.

            “I once laid an egg,” he began.

            The old rooster nodded gradually, as if a rooster laying an egg were an everyday occurrence.

            “Well?” the young rooster asked, ruffling his feathers again and standing taller.

            “I once laid an egg next to a watermelon,” the old rooster said wearily. “I compared the two. The vegetable was considerably larger.”

            This fable is intended to show the absurdity of hearing all a man has to say.

@Fool: You tweeted the other day that happiness is the sole aim of man.

@Philosopher: True, it is.

@ Fool: But how can you be certain? The sole aim of man has always been disputed.

@Philosopher: Most men find personal happiness in disputation.

@Fool: Socrates once said…

@Philosopher: Stop it right there! I detest foreigners, especially foreign philosophers.

@Fool: Wisdom, they say, is of no country.

@Philosopher: Yes, of none that I’ve seen.

@Fool: I’ve been thinking about what you said. Why do you hate foreigners?

@Philosopher: I hate them simply because I am human.

@Fool: Yes, but so are they.

@Philosopher: Excellent fool! I thank thee for the better reason.

            A hippopotamus drinking at a sandy river bed in Africa was surprised to see an alligator lying with his mouth open. He huffed and stopped directly in front the gator.

            “My toothy friend, you may as well shut that ugly mouth of yours. You are not large enough to embrace me,” the hippopotamus said, wagging his little curly tail in agitation.

            “I really wasn’t expecting to attempt it,” replied the alligator. “I try and extend my hospitality to everyone I meet here.”

            “You remind me,” said the hippopotamus petulantly, “of a certain zebra who was far from vicious. He went around these parts kicking the breath out of just about anything that passed behind him. After the other animals got wind of it, everyone around here just made sure never to walk behind him. Easy enough.”

            “It’s not important what I remind you of,” the alligator replied, sinking his teeth into the Hippo’s leg.

            The lesson conveyed by this fable is a very beautiful one.

Victor's Stain

Victor’s Stain

By Cooper Baltis

Published January 4th 2012 in the Wednesday edition of the UB Post

“Oh it’s just a small stain,” Victor said, glimpsing down at the tiny red blotch opposite the cufflink on his left wrist.

He glanced at himself one last time in the mirror, smoothed his hands through his hair, adjusted the collar on his shirt, and made sure his tie was just a little loose to appear as if he didn’t care. He fixed the bottom of his shirt, tucked into his dark blue Simon Spurr jeans and held tightly by a thick Brioni belt. He grabbed his glass of wine and carefully opened the restroom door.

            His home, a recently built condominium overlooking Central Park, was filled with lively guests and coworkers. The company he worked for, CDO Limitless, had just posted an unheard of quarterly profit gain and it was Victor’s turn to host the party. It was September 2008 in New York and the streets below were finally starting to cool down. Inside his apartment, people hovered around an elaborate cheese and wine set up fluttering their socialite wings.

            “Here’s to us!” Jeff said, running past him and sloppily toasting his wine glass against Victor’s. The wine from Jeff’s glass sloshed onto Victor’s shiny lacewood floor. “Sorry about that buddy,” he said, wiping a bit of cracker off his fat lip. “At least it won’t stain!”

            Victor gave Jeff a small, curt smile as Jeff pushed past him into the bathroom. Jeff, a North Carolina native, had yet to figure out how to hold his alcohol. Victor secretly despised him. He looked down at the stain on his cufflink and noticed it had spread a little.

            “How is this possible?” he said, setting his wineglass down on a small nightstand he had ordered from Asambienti. As he examined the stain, Sarah, one of the fiercest analysts he had ever met, scooted next to him and whispered something into his ear. “What?” he asked.

            “Do you want me to fill your glass?” she asked louder this time, steadying her gaze on Victor.

            “Do you see this stain?” Victor asked, still shocked at his own clumsiness.

            “Oh it’s so small Victor, don’t worry. Here, let me fill up your glass,” Sarah, wild eyed and with a slight snarl on her face, bent forward to fill Victor’s glass. “Forget the stain. Just have fun.”

            “It just appeared…” Victor said, scratching the stain with his fingernails.

            “How did it happen?” Sarah asked, checking her Blackberry and smiling at a text message she had received. She chuckled and stuffed the phone back in her cerulean blue Herme’s purse with off-white stitching.

            “One minute I was standing in the restroom, the next minute I noticed the stain,” Victor thrust his wrist forward to show her. “I’m quite sure I didn’t cause it. I think it’s spreading.”

            Indeed the stain was spreading. It had made its way from the tip of the cuff past his wrist now. Sarah examined the stain curiously as she sipped from her glass of wine. She took Victor’s wrist in her hand like a mother examining an injured child. She turned the wrist over as she took another sip from her glass.

            “It is spreading. Strange,” she said, dropping his wrist.

            “Have you ever seen a stain do this?” he asked, watching as the red stain quickly spread to his forearm.

            “I’m sure it’s happened before, stains have a way of trickling down.”

            “Maybe I should change shirts,” Victor said as Jeff exited the bathroom behind him.

            “Looks like you got yourself a spill there, buddy,” Jeff said, patting Victor hard on the back.

            “Please don’t call me buddy,” Victor said, disgusted at the stain and at Jeff.

            “No worries ol’ Vic,” Jeff laughed and slapped Victor on the back again. “Say, is your stain spreadin’?”

            “I don’t know,” Victor said, crossing his arms in front of his chest.

            “Looks like it to me,” Sarah said as she pulled her Blackberry out of her purse.

            “No use cryin’ over spilt milk. Just go and change your shirt,” Jeff said, burping.

            “I think I’ll do that,” Victor said, frowning and turning towards his bedroom. After shutting the door, Victor looked disgustedly at the red stain in the mirror. He hated the stain. It had spread to his chest and tie. The shirt must be cursed, he thought, taking off his cufflinks and flinging his shirt into a bamboo clothes hamper.

            He pulled out another shirt from his closet and removed the plastic dry cleaning sheet that had been carefully draped over it. Staring at his reflection in the mirror, he began to button the shirt. It was light green Borrelli shirt with tangerine stitching. He went back to his closet and found a thin checkered tie to go with it. He affixed the tie, making sure that its tip hung to his belt, and tucked in his shirt.

            “Better,” he said aloud. Just to reassure himself, he looked back at the cuff where the stain had been on the original shirt.

            Sure enough, the stain had spread to his new shirt.

            “Impossible!” He yelled, rushing to his closet and grabbing a random shirt. It too had stains on the cuff.

            “What’s happening?” Sarah asked, opening the door slightly and jiggling the wine glass in her hand. As she closed the door, the din from the party in his living room diminished.

            “I can’t…it’s not possible. Someone is playing a prank on me,” Victor said, unbuttoning the green shirt.

            “The stain…it is on all my shirts. Look!” he led Sarah around to his closet and began pulling out the shirts. “This one, this one, this one, this one…”

            “Oh wow,” Sarah set her wineglass down on his mahogany armoire. “They are all spreading too…”

            “What do you think it is?”

            “I don’t know, but it’s spreading to the floor now,” Sarah stepped back as the red stain spread from the cuffs of Victor’s shirts to a puddle on the floor. The look on her face changed from one of mild amusement to shock.

Victor and Sarah watched as the stain spread from the closet, past their shoes and under the door. They heard someone slip on the stain outside the door. More bodies started to fall in the living room as the stain breached those hallowed grounds, each thud vibrating the floor. Victor watched in horror as the stain crawled up his shiny Bellò shoes to the legs of his pants. He touched his jeans and watched as the stain spread to the tips of his finger. Sarah screamed as the stain spread from her heels to her Hermes purse.

The stain quickly metastasized from Victor’s posh apartment overlooking Central Park. Through the coffee shops, high end clothing boutiques, pubs, the carts of street side food venders, spreading left and right, through the Wall Street financial district, to the Jersey shore, spreading north and south, into the water nearby, across the Atlantic, through the aged stones of the Tower of London, to the European mainland, climbing the Eiffel Tower, into the cerulean waters of the Rhine, over the Alps, past the Coliseum and the cobble stoned streets of Greece, into the Dead Sea, spinning around the Dome of the Rock, up to the elaborate cathedrals of St. Petersburg, through the crumbled buildings of Baghdad, to the tip of the Pyramids, across the Horn of South Africa, through the Indian Ocean, to the peaks of the Himalayas, north to the Great Wall, across the steppe, back down over the Potala, down the Ganges River as holy men bathed, through the wheels of rickshaws on their way to the Taj Mahal, spreading east into the Mekong, passing a fisherman on a long boat wearing a thatched hat and smoking a yellow cigarette, across the crisp green rice paddies of Thailand, through the dazzling streets of Tokyo, over the Sydney Opera House, across the Pacific and its myriad islands, through the vast Canadian countryside, south through the plains and farms of North America, west through the hills of Hollywood, past the Pyramid of the Sun and Moon in Mexico, down the crests of the Andes, swimming with piranhas through Amazon, under the widespread concrete arms of the Jesus statue in Rio de Janeiro, back into the Atlantic on the tailfin of a killer whale.

Victor’s stain spread far and wide. Victor’s stain spread far and wide.

A Christmas Baby

A Christmas Baby

By Cooper Baltis

 Published on December 21st in the UB Post

“The gift of life is a precious thing Pete, I agree. But the gift of an iPhone will suffice,” Jim joked, spilling some of his pint onto his silky blue tie as he raised his mug to toast. He sat with Pete at a small booth in the back of The Crown, which had recently been festooned with 10 year old Christmas decorations.

            “That’s for bloody sure,” Pete bellow, his fat jaw like that of a hippopotamus and his jagged teeth like that of a crocodile. The two men clinked their mugs together and increased their jolliness.

            “You see, if I didn’t know any better…” Jim stopped mid-sentence. His eyes grew large and his eyebrows curled inward.

            “Whatchoo see mate?” Pete asked, noticing the glazed over look in Jim’s eyes. “Jim?” he said again, touching his arm.

            Jim’s eyes flickered, as if they were a computer screen trying to refresh. “Can’t be,” he said, ignoring Pete. Following Jim’s gaze, Pete turned slowly, looking over his shoulder.

            “Santa?” he said, turning back towards Jim. “Is that what this is about?”

            Santa sat alone at the bar, his beard stringy and dirty, his cheeks puffy, pot marked and red from the cold, his bulbous, rhinophyma nose dripping, his white-cuffed red trousers filthy and threadbare, his red coat loose and hanging like a giant icicle off his bony shoulders, his scratched boots. He was a pitiful sight.

            “It’s not him…just some bloke,” Pete said, taking another gulp from his mug.

            “No, I think it’s him,” Jim said, his eyes still fixed on Santa.

            “Why would Santa be in a bar on Chapel Street two weeks before Christmas? How many pints did you have?”

            “Maybe three, but you very well know it takes me at least four to get good and sloshed. Besides, I had some friend chicken about two hours ago.”

            “What’s that have to do with anything?”

            “I’m just trying to point out that my stomach is full,” Jim touched his belly to emphasize his point.

            “It’s not the only thing that’s full.”

            “With a full stomach it should take at least five to get me good and hammered,” Jim reminded him.

            “Ah, I see…”

            Jim paused as Santa screamed something incoherently at the bartender, “You hear that? He just asked for cookies.”

            “Asked for cookies?” Pete shook his head and looked back over his shoulder. “Stereotyping Santa now are you?”

            “Santa always eats cookies. Every bloke in Merseyside knows that.”

            Pete listened intently as Santa yelled again at the bar tender.  He turned and looked at Jim, “Don’t be daft, he’s saying check please not cookies!”

            “You expect me to believe that? Here we are, sitting in this steamy lil’ pub and Santa’s sitting right there and I’m supposed to act like it’s just any old day? Brilliant, Pete, brilliant.”

            “Are you mental? The man is homeless,” Pete’s face grew red his agitation rose. “Just look at the poor wanker! Holes in his red pants, scruff marks up and down his black boots, a despicable Viking beard. Besides all that, he’s wall eyed! Which way is Santa looking? You tell me ‘cause I can’t bloody tell. Since when is Santa sitting at a pub drinking?”

            “He is probably dirty from shimmying down chimneys, and what’s wrong with being wall eyed? Mr. Bean is wall eyed! Who says Santa can’t have a drink at a pub? You act like he’s a saint!”

            “He is!”

            “He is drinking milk, clear as day,” Jim said with a huff.

            “Baily’s makes milk these days does it? Since when is milk the color of a cappuccino? Just drop it. You’re sloshed.”

            Jim took a deep breath and stared into the froth that hung like old dirty frost around the rim of his mug. “Yea, maybe you’re right. What would Santa be doing at a shabby place like this?”

            “Exactly. Why would Santa even want to visit Merseyside?” Pete started to laugh, noticing the defeated look on Jim’s face.

            “I guess I’m just a bloody idiot…” Jim lamented.

            “Ho! Ho! Ho!” the man at the bar bellowed, putting his hands across his stomach. Jim’s ears shot to attention as he looked from Pete to Santa. His cheeks puffed with excitement and a grin spread like butter across his face. “You hear that?”

            “Ho! Ho! Ho!”

            “He’s bloody coughing, Jim. The man is coughing. Probably has a disease.”

            “I’m going to go ask him,” Jim said excitedly.

            “If he is Santa or not?”

            “Why not? What’s there to lose if I am wrong?” Jim asked, burping loudly.

            “Well, we should talk about that. I bet you a fiver, no a tenner, that the man sitting at the bar isn’t Santa.”

            “A tenner?”

            “A tenner,” Pete replied.

            “A tenner and a round and you’re on.”

            “Best deal I’ve ever made,” Pete said, shaking Jim’s hand.

            “So here is what’s going to happen. I’m going to walk over there and ask him and I’ll tell you what he says.”

            “Go ahead and come back with the round while you are at it,” Pete said, folding his hands in front of his nearly emptied pint.

            “Just watch, my reaction should immediately give it away once I ask him.”

            Jim stood, burped one more time, and made his way to the bar. He walked around a couple dining on fish and chips and nearly ran into a waitress carrying three mugs in each hand to a boisterous table over by the window. Jim sat down next to the suspect Santa and slowly looked him over. The man, feeling someone’s eyes on his shoulder, turned and looked at Jim.

            “Something wrong?”

            “Nope, nothing. Just got off work, ‘bout to enjoy a few pints,” Jim said.

            “Nothing wrong with that,” the man said, laughing in a jolly way. His beard jiggled as his cheeks moved up and down.

            “Name’s Jim, Jim Moore.”

            “Kris,” the man said, extending his arm which was draped in a red sleeve with a filthy white cuff. “Kris Joulupukki.”

            “Joulupukki, huh?” Jim said, not sure where he had heard the name before. “Well listen Kris, don’t look now, but over my shoulder, to the left a bit, there is a bald man with a fat face staring at us intently. Just glance quick, you see him?”

            “I see him.”

            “Well, we have a bet going that you are Santa.”

            “Santa? As in Santa Klaus?” the man laughed.

            “Yes, Father Christmas himself. So, what I need you to do is just nod at me, ok? And if he comes over here to verify, I need you to vouch for me.”

            “Vouch that I am indeed Santa?”

            A smile formed on the man’s face as he began to slowly nod his head.       

            “That’s it.”

            “And what’s in it for me?”

            “Well, you see, my friend here was born on Christmas day so he has always had a bit of a thing against Christmas—”

            “—because it interferes with his birthday,” the man dressed as Santa commented, picking up a pair of Ben Franklin glasses and placing them across the bridge of his nose.

            “Exactly, and anyhow, he has won—”

            “—the last five or six bets between the two of you,” the man said.

            “How did you know?”

            “Lucky guess, anyhow, continue.”

            “So, I think a little prank like this will be just what he needs—”

            “—to lose some confidence by being proven wrong for once,” the man said, scratching his beard. Jim noticed his eyes twinkle slightly.

            “Yea…how did you know?”

            “Oh that’s beside the point. Anyways, you are on. I’m nodding my head right now,” the man said, reaching into a red bag he had strewn across the seat next to him and pulled a long scroll out.

            “Alright, thanks mate,” Jim said, clapping the man on the shoulder and turning around.

            “What did he say?” Pete asked as he sat down.

            “He’s Santa, that’s what?”

            “You expect me to believe that?”

            “Look for yourself,” Jim said, smiling.

            Pete turned around and looked at the man. He sat at the bar with a very long list that wrapped all the way from the bar to the front door. He was placing checks next to some names on the list and scratching out others. Next to him sat a plate full of cookies and a tall, slender glass of milk. The light around his head what lighter than the light around his body and clothes were fresh from the cleaners. The man looked up at Pete and smiled, a warm smile topped like ice cream with two cherry red cheeks.

            “Your round mate,” Jim said, finishing his pint.

Six Minutes 'til I Love You

Six Minutes ‘til I Love You

By Cooper Baltis

Anything to make her happy, he thought, as he lit three Christmas candles in the bathroom of his small apartment. He checked his watch again for the umpteenth time. Six minutes, she would be there in six minutes and in six minutes, give or take a minute or two, or not, he would tell her that he loved her for the first time. The first time. The big bang. The first hurrah? In six minutes she would be standing in front of him, in the flesh, in the black dress suit she always wore on Thursdays. She would probably have a Christmas tree pin affixed to the collar.

            She was a scrupulous woman, raised in on military bases around the world, an army brat, the type of girlfriend who made your bed and tucked the corners with sniper precision while you were shaving in the other room. This is why he knew she would be on time. She hadn’t been a single minute late in the year since they had started dating. Curiously, she had never been a single minute early either. One time, he even set his cell phone clock ahead by five minutes, just to play devil’s advocate. Somehow, be it divine grace or a clever taxi driver, she arrived five minutes early that day—on time as always.

            He poured a package of green apple Turkish bath salt into the bath and started the hot water. A Frank Sinatra Christmas album softly wavered in from the stereo in his room. He heard the oven timer go off in the kitchen and closed the shower curtain. Spinning on his heels, he left the water running and went to check on the casserole. He grabbed his oven mitt, the mitt that she had bought him with the gimlet-eyed rooster’s head at the gripping point, and opened the oven to pull out the casserole.

 “No,” he said aloud. “No,” he said aloud again, just to make sure someone said it.

With his mitt-less hand, he felt the top of the casserole. It was lukewarm at best, partially cooked. The corn still sat on top of the casserole in the cream of mushroom soup that had yet to harden and the cheese that had halfway melted. He looked at his oven temperature: 250 degrees. He could have sworn that he had set it to 350. He glanced up at his microwave, which sat on top of his refrigerator, and nodded like mad professor. He would have to nuke it.

            Searching through his kitchen utensils, he found a spatula with a blue rubber handle. He used the spatula to slice a gold bar sized hunk out of the casserole. This should do for now, he thought, slopping the casserole onto a square plate and shoving it into the microwave. Five minutes until her tiny wrist knocks at his door. He set the microwave to four. Better to give the casserole a minute to cool. Make it just right. He smiled at his own genius.

            He heard the water filling the bathtub and made his way back to the bathroom to check on his makeshift spa. If this isn’t romantic, he thought, I don’t know what is. He breached the bathroom door and looked at the candles. One had fallen to the floor but had stayed lit, leaving a small puddle of purple wax on his shaggy bathroom rug.

“No…”

            He panicked and bent forward to retrieve the candle. He overshot his quick gesture and hit his forehead on the bathroom counter, whipping his hands instinctively in front of him and swiping the remaining candles onto the floor. As the candles fell, they doused his left arm, exposed by his rolled up sleeves, with hot wax. He jumped, and in mid curse, noticed the oven mitt was still on his right hand. He used the mitt to try and wipe away the wax but it had instantly dried. He took the mitt off and set it on the counter, trying his best to pick at the wax stuck in the hairs of his arm. He grabbed some toilet paper and started to scrub at the wax but quickly gave up.Rubbing his forehead in frustration, he gazed down at the waxy mess on his bathroom floor. He looked at his watch. Three minutes.

            Tonight is the night, he thought, determined not to let the candles or the microwave casserole ruin his plans. He had waited exactly a year to tell her that he loved her. One year the words weighed heavy on his lips. There was no way he was going to let a pan of botched casserole and a few stupid candles stop him from saying the most powerful three words in the English language.

            The bath, he thought, noticing that it wasn’t making the metallic sound of water hitting water, as it should have after filling for a few minutes. He opened the shower curtain and nearly screamed. In his hurry to catch the oven timer, he had failed to plug the drain. All the green apple sea salt had completely dissolved and escaped down the drain. Stuck in a mildew circle, he spotted a long forgotten bottle of kiwi shampoo. In a fury, he jammed the plug into the drain and emptied the bottle of shampoo into the tub. He stuck his hand in the water and mixed the shampoo in. She won’t notice, he thought, stirring his hand in the water, and if she did, at least it would smell nice. Two minutes remained before she arrived. He quickly placed the candles back onto the counter and carefully lit them.

As he reached to turn the bathroom light off, he heard a small explosion in the kitchen. The casserole. His microwave. The mess to follow. He burst into the kitchen, clipping his right foot on the pale olive trashcan that sat in front of a barrier that separated his kitchen from the front door. He barreled forward but caught himself on the kitchen counter. The trashcan fell sideways, spilling a couple empty cans of corn, onion peels, the receipt from the grocery store, an empty bottle of Heinz ketchup, and a few soggy tea bags across his floor. The ketchup bottle slid across the lacewood floor, slapped into the leg of a bar stool, and spun five times before finally giving up on its escape. Spin the bottle.

He looked slowly, dejectedly, vehemently, from the ketchup bottle, which was practically mocking him, to the microwave. The dinger on the microwave went off. The light inside turned on. The casserole had been splattered like Jackson Pollock painting inside the microwave.

“No….”

He started to pick up the cans. He stepped over the trash, looking at his watch—less than minute—and with spite for all the world’s microwaves, opened the microwave door to curse at the bloody mess. Strings of cheese hung from the ceiling of the microwave, one string held a single piece of corn like lone trapeze artist.

He reached to touch the plate and burnt his hand. “No!” he yelled.

He started to search for his oven mitt, and realized he had left it in the bathroom. As ran to the bathroom to retrieve it, he heard a knock on the door. He grabbed the oven mitt.

Don’t panic, he told himself, just take her out to dinner. No, tell her someone just robbed the house and left a mess. No, just…just…tell her you are sick! Yes! Tell her you are sick. No. She will know you are lying. He heard her knock again. He took a deep breath, steadying himself in front of the door. With the oven mitt in hand he opened the door, accepting his fate like we all must do one day.

She stood holding a pizza with a big smile across her face. Her Christmas tree pin glimmered in the light from his hallway. He could instantly smell the cheese boiling inside the cardboard pizza box.

“I thought you might be hungry…” she said, her smile turning a little as she noticed his oven mitt, the contrite look on his face and the wax stuck in the hairs of his left arm.

“I love you,” he said, sighing loudly and dropping the oven mitt.