Jenny Yates Fiction
Jenny Yates Fiction
Check Out Some Short Pieces by Jenny Yates
Flash Fiction
Her Blue Suit
Her blue suit had just come back from the cleaners. Torina remembered how joyfully she’d worn that suit, on the morning she got the job as a space station usher. It had a little fitted jacket with arrow epaulets on each shoulder and zigzags on the legs.
It was a very rewarding job. She stood there in the wide-ceilinged atrium and greeted all sorts of people, many of them from distant solar systems. She pointed them to the transfer office, the ticket kiosk, the soda machine, and the various restrooms designed for beings with an infinite variety of body parts.
The creature that slid into the atrium was at least nine feet tall. Torina had been told how important it was to make eye contact with customers, so she pushed the elevator lever on her shoes, until she was close to the being’s face. There was a little breeze up here, but she could stay upright by keeping one hand on the creature’s ear, which was luckily quite large. She hoped it wouldn’t mind. As it grumbled something, she took the universal translator out of her jacket pocket, pressed the button, and glanced at the results.
“I need a gun,” it said.
Torina blanched. She tried gently to explain to the being that weapons weren’t allowed, as this was neutral federation space. The being shook its large bulbous head. Torina leaned over quite precariously, but she anchored herself with a firmer grip on its ear.
Torina glanced down at the translator. Now it said, “I need gummies!” Torina had to explain that drugs of all kinds were also illegal in the shuttle station, but once it got out on the planetary surface, there would be venders for many different substances in the streets.
The being was now shaking all over and dancing on one foot. It seemed to be in a hurry. Torina noticed that its grumbles were now being translated as, “I need to have fun!” She asked if it had a bumper car license, and then described some of the other games in the gallery, most of which involved hurling projectiles at various moving objects. The being was changing color. She stopped and looked down with fascination as its whole body turned a brilliant shade of purple.
If she had looked at her translator then, she might have seen it say, “I need to release gas from the cylinders in my kneecaps.” But she didn’t have time, because that’s when its head exploded. And that’s why Torina’s suit had to go to the cleaners.
Pancakes
Chango was a moon goddess. She spent most of her time living happily on the moon with her seven sisters and her pet rabbit. They passed their days dancing, with long ribbons of cloud trailing behind them as they leaped and whirled.
She didn’t really envy humans, as she saw their lives as often silly and overly dramatic. But there was one thing that would tempt her to go down to the earth’s surface. She loved pancakes.
Sometimes things would get very quiet on the moon. The sun would hide itself behind the moon’s back, and Chango’s seven sisters would fall asleep. Even the rabbit would be snoozing.
That was when the hunger for pancakes would fall over Chango, and she would drift slowly down to the world below. She always went to the same place, Old Joe’s Pancake Palace in Peoria.
Old Joe was very particular about the ingredients he used. The wheat for the flour was only harvested in starlight. The eggs came from the wild chickens of Borneo. The milk flowed from an enormous white cow who stood in the middle of the River Ganges. The butter came from a local sungod who was Apollo’s understudy but had never gotten his big break. Old Joe’s cast iron griddle was pounded into shape by claps of thunder and fired by lightning, and it sang like a rainshower when the butter landed in it.
So Chango walked into Old Joe’s Pancake Palace, plunked herself down on a red pleather banquette and ordered pancakes. They were delicious. As fast as Old Joe made them, she ate them.
After a while, Old Joe realized he was running out of ingredients. So he sent his nephew Morty out on his bike, to get more of everything. Morty had to travel pretty far. He had to go north, and cut through high stalks of wheat nurtured by starlight. He had to go west, and wade into the Ganges, while trying not to get stomped by a cow six times his size. He had to go south, where he got into an argument with the sungod, who was feeling petulant. He had to go east and steal the eggs from the elusive wild chickens of Borneo.
Finally he was finished, and headed back to Peoria on his bike. But by now he was so tired, he dozed off. He didn’t even notice that his bike was levitating until he reached the moon.
He was startled when the seven sisters and the rabbit all looked up at him. They woke up hungry, and asked him to make them pancakes. He said he couldn’t do it, because he didn’t have the right skillet, but they didn’t seem too pleased with his answer. So he jumped off the moon.
He landed right at Old Joe’s Pancake Palace in Peoria, and hurried in to give Old Joe the ingredients he needed. What Morty didn’t realize was that the seven sisters and the rabbit had all followed him.
There was Chango, who was waiting for the next batch of pancakes. All her sisters followed her lead, and arranged themselves on the red pleather banquettes, while Old Joe fired up the griddle. And they all agreed afterwards that these were the best pancakes they’d ever eaten.
People in Peoria still talk about that night, when the moon was especially dark and cold, because all the moon-goddesses were chowing down at Old Joe’s Pancake Palace.
You Will Be Issued A Body
Welcome, everyone!
After this talk is over, you will be issued a body, just one. They’re fairly sturdy, but they only self-repair superficial damage, so be careful with them.
Some of you have never been in biped bodies before, and so you might want to practice locomotion in Exercise Room 85. However, you’ll emerge as a neophyte, so you’ll have time, at least one solar orbit, to pick up some motor skills. So don’t feel bad if you’re not proficient going in.
I’m so pleased to see all of you, since as you know, this is not a trendy selection! It seems like everybody is going to that famous indigo planet off of Lambda, in Andromeda. The octopods, with their wonderful singing voices, are quite a draw! But you, intrepid ones, have chosen this short-lived race in the Orion-Cygnus arm of the Milky Way!
You’re here because you love a challenge! 97% of these time-lines end in fiery conflagration. But you’ve all studied the uncertainty principle. I am quite certain of that! Ha ha. And so you know there is no way to predict how any specific timeline will work out. You may even be able to affect the outcome! These particular creatures are highly active and often quite unpredictable. You should check out some of the folklore circles before you go. You’ll be rolling on the ground! Such imaginations!
And as unstable as the creatures are, the landscape is also quite volatile. Interestingly, this planet was one of those pacified by the Liquid Crust Program several billion solar cycles ago, and the work was quite successful. It’s one of their single moon modules, very elegant, and has been home to a wide variety of species. But this particular bunch, the apex predators of this era, have done a thorough job of destabilizing the environment & in most scenarios, it won’t support life much longer.
Do I see a hand raised? Is that a question in the back? Mm hm? Oh no, it’s not too late to change to a different species, or a different time period. I hear there are many lovely flying forms to choose from.
Ok, any more questions? No? Before receiving your bodies, you might want to check out one of the break-out rooms, so you can talk over your plans and expectations for this corporeal emergence. There are separate rooms for missionaries, researchers, and reality show contestants.
I realize most of you are just vacationers, and don’t need that much preparation. Go and enjoy yourselves! Have the time of your lives!
Poetry
Age
Age is an accumulation of years,
Each one the spirit’s thumbprint
On paper and wood, on iron and cloth,
On each other.
Each year a labyrinth
Of found and lost selves,
The high thorny hedges curving above
The center invisible, and yet still
We happen across it.
We don’t stay there, we never do
Because the years teach motion
They teach rhythm till even
Our fingernails know the beat.
I have held nothing.
I have given away every moment I’ve lived
And every moment has returned to me
Its apron full of bread and fruit
With offerings of jeweled liquids
With winding skeins to follow
More than I could follow in three hundred years.
I accept it all. I live another moment.
They say that we diminish with age
But that’s one of their lies
How can this abundance make us less?
How many names have we taken?
How many tears? How open they were.
How sweet the kisses, too many to count
How can they discount
The morning flutter of eyelids
The first choice, the body moves,
The choices bend a little
Towards one longing or another,
Pulling us towards the wheel of noon.
Every day is deep and wild
Long long stories hidden inside epigrams
And sometimes we run fast, we run over them,
And sometimes we fall into them.
When they say we diminish with age
They say our years are thieves.
They say this moment
Which has never been explored
Which lies like an unbroken shell
At my feet, this moment I pick up
And touch, its pearly skin,
Its faint striping, its open hollow,
Its million cousins, its absolute oneness,
They say it’s taken something from me.
How can something so new be a thief?
How can it steal from me
When we’ve only just met?
It wasn’t here, and then it was.
My moment, my time,
Come to me in your infinite forms,
Keep coming, come forever.
This pleasure can last longer than you think.
There is really no limit,
Only the sudden itch to see what’s next,
Only a desire to finish one story
So that you can begin the next.
Why do they tell us this lie?
Why do they say our years are thieves?
Because our creations always eat us.
Our children devour us.
Our students cross us in the ring.
They will always remember
How it was between us,
And so they will always fight us.
We were the ones who built the labyrinth,
Each stone a story.
We planted the encircling hedge.
Our blood and our bones held all authority.
We were the thread of the tribe,
Before computers, before paper,
There was the memory of the old women
Twisting through the generations.
We loved them, we still do,
The young ones,
Running, crushing the shells underfoot,
Leaping into the tallest trees.
We know that in them
There is another kind of aging,
The cells folding their old wisdom
Into new forms.
We loved them and we told them
To pause, to pick up the shell,
To turn it around, to really see.
They have learned in their own way,
Dividing and conquering each other,
Splitting off to build forms of their own.
So many shells encircling other shells
That some people live whole lifetimes
Without ever sticking a finger
Into that cool center space.
We say to them,
Do what you like with it.
If you want to play with anger and fear,
These things are not strange to us.
We’ve walked through many gates.
But don’t tell us that the years diminish us.
We will not become the shadow you create.
We do not wait for you in cold rooms,
Where glossy magazines erase us.
We move on, turning like the sun.
We will keep teaching them
It’s what we do.
We will share our pearl,
Our most prized skill.
We will teach them how to die.
It isn’t a myth, that creature in the maze.
You hear her pawing the ground.
She is the elements that form you,
Nothing less, held together
Only for you, only for this moment.
You turn the corner, and there she is.
Her roar is the echo that flies through your cells
Jarring loose the false selves
You’ve pinned to the walls of your mind.
And the moments are there
Each shiny as a needle
And the years are all there
Each brilliant as a fork of lightning
And each cleaves you in the exact same place
In the center
Until, radiant at the end, you know
There were never too many.
Back Home
8.43 am. Scorpio rising.
Meg Christian song playing on my phone,
music my morning signature.
Tuesday morning after vacation,
a time of sand and sea,
feeling loved like a fresh peach.
Identity has to work harder upon waking.
I make a to-do list
Some of these items are daily nags.
I tell myself there is spiritual value
in procrastination, it’s zen to wait
for the right time, the time
when all things will come together
when nature will have its way, open my eyes
and point me exactly where I need to go.
10:19 am. Sagittarius rising.
Sitting at the kitchen table
on a dank day. In front of me
an empty teapot, and 3 bruised apples
which are valiantly trying to look like breakfast.
They’ve travelled from here to Florida and back
while their companions were eaten
with a pocketknife in hotel rooms.
My wife just left for work.
I went out with her with my clippers
and chopped off the branches
in her way, the wild growth.
She’ll come home with ribs,
so I won’t be cooking tonight.
I just added “unpack” to my to do list.
I feel a little overwhelmed with new chaos
added to old chaos.
But that’s life, right?
A surface of daily maintenance
over a wild expanse of overgrown branches
that can slap you silly on your way out.
12:44 pm. Capricorn rising.
It may be impossible to get into poem mode
It may be there is nothing loose in here.
I’m at my desk, wheels and dates showing,
updating my website, drinking tepid tea.
Marisol just called me for some financial info
and I sent it to her on WhatsApp,
well encrypted.
I feel adult. My mind is striped, banded,
held in like old-fashioned women’s underwear.
The poems are like the body parts underneath,
sloshing around, squishy, unsupported.
I must go back to work
before my computer screen goes dark
and I have to call it back from some secret place.
2:55 pm. Aquarius rising.
That was a good lunch. It’s quiet.
Outside, it’s raining lightly but persistently.
The house is sealed up, and unless the heat comes on,
there’s no sound but this poem.
I listen for it.
I wonder what this house
has been doing with itself all the weeks
we’ve been away. Was it meditating,
feeling its creaking bones settle,
breathing changeless air?
Did it wait eagerly to be inhabited,
or did we wake it up from
a dream of echoes and fountains?
4:16 pm. Pisces rising.
The day is slipping into a dark afternoon.
There was never any sunlight.
I wasn't tempted to go out and replenish the fridge.
though I thought I should.
There are still some things to do on the computer
but maybe I should put on music and unpack.
Unpacking could be a sporadic process.
I could take out a few things everyday as needed,
leaving the black suitcase
splayed across the bedroom floor,
blocking access to the closet,
but reminding me of highways,
sand, conversation.
Unpacking means arranging my life.
If I don't unpack,
I can be anywhere.
I can stay immaterial,
at least until I stub my toe on the way to the closet.
5:15 pm. Aries rising.
Oh my god, Aries is rising,
how did that happen? The day is almost over,
what’s left to do? I check.
The only important one is to work on my novel.
It calls me to that place
where everything from the color of the sky
to the fate of humanity
is entirely of my making.
7:18 pm. Taurus rising.
It’s fully night. The curtains are closed.
The porch light is on.
Marisol’s on her way home,
and she’s bringing ribs.
Some things are done. I'm unpacked,
my website is updated,
I’ve added a little to my novel.
Some things are not done.
The fridge is still pretty much bare.
I haven’t started the calendar for H.
The curtain’s drawn on the day –
it's resolutely, coldly, wetly, darkly done.
Now I wait for my wife,
for words after silence,
a different rhythm: choppier, more vital.
A certain excitement, even when it’s just
ribs, TV, book, sleep.
And the puzzle is that I noted the day
but it still vanished.
And this yellow light around me
will be swallowed soon enough
in that dark blue anonymous blur.
It’s astonishing to me that
there can be such a thing as tomorrow.
It would seem that one would be enough.
10:59 pm. Cancer rising.
Clean, naked, warm from a shower,
I slide into bed.
I hear Marisol yawn downstairs.
She’ll be up here soon.
I take off my ring. I set the alarm
for 7 am because tomorrow
they’re coming to lop off some high branches,
the ones I can’t reach.
I’ll read a while,
lose myself in someone else’s fantasies
before I slide into that
soft blue-green wash of night.
After that, anything could happen.
Sleep could take me to strange places,
and waking up could surprise me even more,
with its procession of nudging hours
always the same, but promising
a slow, slow evolution.
My Mom
When my mom was alive
last month
I didn’t think about her all the time.
She was there.
Now she’s become a wise and forgiving
spirit, forever beyond neglect,
kindness, exasperation, protection,
ordinary words, birthday presents, murder mysteries,
appointments books, handicapped parking,
meals, breathing, sleep,
forgiveness. She’s a dream,
a photograph, a memorial service,
a favorite poem, a sense of someone
flying by my head
calling goodbye
in the language of the stars
while I stand
flat-footed on the turning earth,
left behind, wishing I could tell her
how I think about her
all the time.
Random Musings
Hope
I’m a big believer in positive thinking. I don’t think it can instantaneously cure all ills. And I don’t think it correlates to blaming those who suffer, saying that they’re insufficiently positive. That’s the shadow side, called toxic positivity.
But I do believe that positive thinking can add to a positive outcome. I believe thoughts have a vibration, and strongly held thoughts and feelings can influence others. In addition, hopeful thoughts make for a better mood.
Hope is an art. It’s not always easy to ferret out the kernel of positive possibility in any situation. Sometimes you have to dig deep to find it. Sometimes you can’t find it, and there’s no sin or blame in that. But there are few skills in life more helpful than the ability to find hope.
There’s always a part of my mind that’s afraid to hope. I’m afraid of being set up for disappointment. There’s also a strong cynical streak in society, and we all drink it in, without asking who benefits if we ignore our fondest dreams.
Our society also likes to set up false polarities. On one side, there’s practicality, pragmatism, realism, “the way of the world”. From this angle, hope is equated with fuzzy thinking, sentimentality, denial and pretense.
But it doesn’t have to be that way. Hope can be gritty, realistic, and down to earth. It takes rigor and concentration to believe in possible beneficial outcomes, especially when they seem impossible in the moment. It takes more discipline than just falling backwards into the dregs of despair.
Hope is a skill worth learning, worth practicing. It doesn’t need to be perfect, seamless, or absolute. Every time you summon hope, a little bit goes a long way. It takes you far from the limits of your own mind and introduces you to a universe of wonder and miracles.
Justice
They talk about divine justice, but I’ve never been sure I really believed in it. I do believe in gods, goddesses, angels, trickster spirits, and all kinds of higher powers, though. But I’m not really sure of the intentions of all these exalted beings.
Do I believe justice prevails? If there’s a choice between making things right or causing a pratfall, I’m not sure which the gods will choose.
If the gods are like us, they’re entertained by a lot of different things. After all, we watch, sometimes holding popcorn, while people fight in the streets, murder each other, frighten each other in bathroom mirrors, and die lingering deaths. We also watch them chase each other, make love in the surf, ride on horseback in whipping winds, play with puppies, and cuddle cute urchins. We like to laugh, to go “awwww”, and at times we also like to cry, scream, or shudder.
Of course, we know it’s not real. They’re just actors. But maybe the gods think this about us. These lives of ours aren’t long. We’re on and off stage in an instant. And these selves are just the masks we wear, our costumes.
Who knows? Maybe in between lives, we’re given awards for our dramatic performances. Maybe there’s a ceremony in a big auditorium, and we all dress up and wear diamonds, and then listen to speeches all night while we wait to find out if we’ve won.
Awards could be given for funniest life, or most romantic life, or a host of other things. Maybe divine justice is one of the categories.
Resistance
There are times when resistance is the path of nobility. I think of the French resistance in World War Two. People were careful and focused, forming networks that foiled Nazi plans and rescued their Jewish neighbors.
I knew many draft resistors during the Vietnam War. These were young men who chose a variety of ways out, rather than adding to the slaughter.
Recently, we saw the resistors in Minneapolis. Using every tool at their disposal, including community solidarity and media attention, they fought against people armed with guns, chemical agents, and the power of the state. Enormously brave, they’ve been very effective.
Resistance is the act of standing up against something unwanted. When it comes to our personal lives, though, it can be hard to know what we’re resisting. Many women resist aging, because we see with our own eyes that old women are valued less. And yet instead of resisting age, or our own bodies, we should resist the toxic social beliefs that cause women to disown ourselves.
I’ve caught myself resisting natural processes. I used to be angry at time, and the limitations it imposed. But really I should have protested the dysfunctional ways time is used in our current world. Why does everyone have to be useful every minute? Why does every moment have to count? Time has no numbers attached to it. Those are human inventions.
Resistance can be important, but it’s crucial to know who or what to resist. Where is the enemy? Is it another person, an institution, or a belief system? Is it the imbalance of power? Is it our shadow selves?
It may be all these things. It may be the strong winds of fate that bowl us over. And yet, even in a hurricane, you can sometimes find ways to keep standing.