Diane Arrelle          Lost in the Seasons

Conan Young           To Make Himself a Prophet here to add text.



Diane Arrelle, the pen name of South Jersey writer Dina Leacock, has been writing for more than 20 years
and has sold more than 150 short stories and 2 books.
When not writing, she is the director of a municipal senior citizen center.
She is married with two sons in college and a husband and cat at home on the edge of the Pine Barrens in Southern New Jersey (home of the Jersey Devil).





LOST IN THE SEASONS
By Diane Arrelle

    Absently, carelessly, Iris reached to rub the dangling heart between her thumb and forefinger, just like she always did. Then she remembered, the gold charm wasn’t there anymore. Hadn’t been since last summer, when it fell off the bracelet she’d worn every day for the last 45 years. She felt naked whenever the missing trinket didn’t hit her wrist.
    She sighed, blinked back tears, and kicked the leaves burying her feet. The red, gold and brown foliage lifted into the air like resurrected fairies flitting upwards. With each kick she’d glance down, looking without hope for her lost youth, her lost love, her lost heart until the leaves fell back down, dying all over again.
    The bracelet on her wrist moved with the rhythm of her searching steps, but it gave no comfort, an empty charm holder representing an empty life. Where had all the time gone, she wondered. Ever since the charms disappearance, she was more acutely aware of time flying by. All those wasted decades passing as she toyed with her golden heart. Now, without that heart, her life was totally meaningless. It had represented the only time she’d ever really lived. She had to get it back. Without it, there was only emptiness. She sighed again and continued to look down, hoping against all hope to reveal that sparkling flash of gold on the ground.
    “I swear, if you let me find it, I’ll stop living in the past,” she said, then realized she didn’t really have any idea who she was trying to make a deal with. She didn’t really care. All she wanted was her heart.
    The leaves stirred around her shoes and started to dance, just for a brief moment, then settled back down. She shivered from the unexpected movement and resumed her search.
    Walking through this park, Iris recalled how it was just a copse of trees when she’d been given that bracelet back in the spring of her junior year in high school. William had said that the diamond chip on the puffy gold heart was a promise and when they graduated he’d get her a real ring.
    Dear, sweet William, she remembered how she’d loved him, but was too foolish to actually know what love was. They’d had such good times, summers in the sunshine, winters keeping each other warm as the cold winds blew. Even when he’d left for college in the autumn after graduation, she was still his girl.
    She fingered the bracelet again, mourning the missing charm that represented the love she’d thrown away. “Maybe it’s better that it’s gone. Maybe now I can finally let go and move on. I think four decades is long enough to pay for a mistake.”
    And what a mistake, she remembered the bitter winter day as she and William walked through these woods as she told him she’d met someone new, someone exciting, a man, not a college kid. She explained that she needed to start living her life, find adventure, move on.
    William stared her in the eyes. “If that is what you think you want--”
    “It’s what I know I want,” she interrupted him.
    “Well,” he continued, wiping the tears off his cheeks with the back of his glove, “if you want this to be the end, I won’t hold you back, but if you ever change your mind, I’ll always love you Iris. If you ever want me, I’ll come back for you.”
    Those last words he’d ever spoken to her still echoed in her head.
    He’d kissed her on the forehead and walked away. She never saw him or heard from him again. Sure, she never stopped wondering where he was, if he was happy. But he was gone. William remained with her always as a bittersweet memory and he’d never come back for her like he vowed.
    She’d left the woods that day so long ago and went to work. It had been a Saturday and the office where she was a secretary was closed, but she knew Howard would be there. Howard owned the company and was there every day. Howard who had asked her out discretely several times, didn’t seem surprised to see her come in.
    She hadn’t given William another thought for the next three months as Howard, 20 years her senior, wined and dined and bedded her, always very discretely, always in out of the way places. Howard, who had promised her the world that William couldn’t, was married of course and eventually Iris learned a harsh lesson. So harsh that she stopped looking for that exciting life and settled into a dull routine of work, television and books.
    Still mumbling to herself in the forest that had been saved and preserved as a park, Iris looked down and kicked the leaves as hard as she could. “That heart is everything to me! It holds the only good memory I have of my entire 62 years. What am I going to do when I retire next month? I can’t even visit memory lane without it.”
    She stopped, watched the leaves settle back down, and barked a brittle chuckle, “Yeah, my memory lane has been torn down and a strip mall is being built in its place!”
    She bent, scooped up the leaves and looked under them in once last effort. All she saw were more leaves. On impulse, she threw the armful she was holding into the air and watched them flutter down, making tiny, crispy, crunchy sounds as they bounced off her head and shoulders and landed back with the others.
    “Excuse me?”
    As the last leaf touched down she saw the man standing before her. She started, and looked all around, searching for someone to help if she needed it. No one else was about. Her heart was hammering so hard and so fast, she was glad her jacket hid it. Fighting to keep her voice from quivering, she said, “Yes?”
    She studied him with fear, and awe. He was a really handsome man, a businessman in his sixties probably, wearing a rich, wool camel coat and he had the most remarkable eyes. They were kind and yet twinkled with an inner joy. Happy eyes, she decided and relaxing, smiled a little at him.
    He smiled back and her wildly pounding heart felt like it was going to explode as it picked up the pace even more.
    It was William’s smile. She looked into those eyes again and saw William’s eyes. Time and age couldn’t change that. “Excuse me, ma’am, I couldn’t help but notice you’re searching for something. Could it be this?”
    His extended hand held the worn heart with her engraved initials almost erased by the habitual rubbing of her thumb and forefinger.
    She gingerly reached for it, “Yes, it’s… it’s my heart.”
    His smile softend, “I know, Iris, I’ve always held your heart. I knew that someday you’d want it. I have been waiting for you to come. This heart was always meant to unite the two of us.”
    She moved her hand from the proffered palm to his face and touched it gently. “I made a terrible mistake all those years ago.”
    He dropped the heart to the ground and grasped her hands. “No you didn’t.”
    The wind suddenly picked up almost to gale force and the leaves began swirling in a mad whirlwind. “Yes, I did, I wasted my entire life.”
    The leaves continue to be swept upward and around until the only thing she could see was him, the rest of the world obliterated from sight. She could barely hear him as her gripped her hands almost painfully and yelled. “No, you didn’t! I’ll prove it.”
    Just as suddenly as it stared, the leaves dropped back covering the ground and the now lost again charm. She gasped and raised her hand to her mouth. “My heart!”
    And she saw it dangling.
    On the bracelet along with other charms.
    In confusion, she studied them, name charms, date charms, charms she didn’t understand.
    She looked up at William who smiled and said. “So I was thinking, how about celebrating our 40th anniversary in Bermuda, go back to the same place we honeymooned?”
    She wanted to answer, but her life seemed to be disappearing from her memory. One by one, pieces of Iris dimmed and vanished and became replaced by new pieces. She had memories of a life well lived, with children, homes, events both good and bad, William always beside her. She had time for one brief thought as her old life faded completely. These memories, had she lived them?
    Then the diamond ring on her left hand glittered in the sunlight and Iris grinned at her husband. “Bermuda again? Wonderful idea!”





The author is a student at Bergen Community College, majoring in Literature.  He has had two stories My Annoying Roommate and Butterfly Over Vienna published in their Labyrinth journal, both of which have won Best Fiction in successive years.  He has also had a short story published in Black Lantern, and numerous flash horror stories published in Microhorror and Flashes In The Dark under his penname Conan Young.  The author is currently working on a YA fantasy novel series called "Lunar Realm."


To Make Himself a Prophet

By Conan Young


The bombs fell for days on end.  They fell minute by minute, hour after hour, without pause or mercy.  The incessant rumbling that reached the underground bunker did not disturb Ben Jenkins.  He had known this was coming for a long time.  There were enough Food Insurance backpacks and water bottles to last for ages.  Some laughed at him for being paranoid, but they were surely dead by now.
Ben had his followers, his legions of devoted fans.  They would be grateful.  He had warned them of the coming apocalypse.  He didn't want to be right, but every day the signs of impending doom mounted until he couldn't ignore them.
And then when the hellstorm had died down, when the fallout had settled, he would emerge from his shelter to greet them.  They would hail him as their leader—no, as their savior.  After the year was up and his food supplies were almost out, he knew it was time.
Ben strapped on his last backpack and climbed the steel ladder.  It was warm to the touch.  His Geiger counter indicated that radiation levels outside were safe.  He seized the locking wheel and turned.  The heavy door groaned as he threw his weight into it.
"I'm alive!"  Tears ran down his pudgy cheeks.  He took a deep breath of freedom.  Freedom tasted somewhat dry and dusty.
The sun was setting and night would soon be upon the desert wasteland.  Ben had far too much grit in his teeth for his liking.  He poured his water bottle over his face to wash off the sand and cool down after a half hour of hiking.  It soaked into his shirt collar, which was already damp with sweat.  Ben crumpled the plastic bottle and tossed it away.
New York City would be just a short hike over the horizon.  That place he once called home.  How much had survived the war?  The poor black and Latino families living in the inner city must have been wiped out, but he knew in his gut that his friends must be alive.  And he would find them.  Their reunion would make his entire ordeal worthwhile.
The rest of the journey would have to wait.  It was getting late.  Ben dropped his backpack against the brittle husk of a tree and sat down in the sands.  As he'd gotten closer to the remnants of civilization, the landscape had changed.  The ground was smoother underfoot, like glass tiles.
It was time to lighten the load.  Ben set out his Food Insurance rations.  He had enough freeze-dried Salisbury steak and mashed potatoes for a feast.  The contents of his last water bottle went into reconstituting the meal.
Ben had eaten his fill and discarded the scraps.  His pouch of orange juice was half-finished, but he didn't like pulp, so he threw that away too.  Before he went to sleep, he needed to find a suitable bathroom to move his bowels.  There was a small pond of muddy rainwater nearby.  Perfect.  But what about paper?  He searched his belongings.  There were two books he always carried with him, the Holy Bible, and Common Sense by Thomas Paine.  Oh well, the latter would have to do.
Several hours passed when the first footsteps approached along the crunchy sand.  It was close to midnight.  The visitors waved their flashlights until they found him asleep on his backpack next to the tree husk.
"It's him?  Are you sure?"
"It looks like him."
"Is he sick?  He seems bloated."
"Smells terrible, I have to say."
"Well, better wake him."
A few pokes with the end of a walking stick roused Ben Jenkins from his slumber.  "Wha--?  Where the--?"  His first instinct was to cover his backpack in case someone was after his rations.  "Oh."  He scratched himself and let out the pent up flatulence that had been cramping his abdomen.
Ben's eyes focused in the dim light.  Something was off about these visitors.  Their clothes were torn and ragged, which was understandable.  Yet their flesh was badly burned, taking on a dark green or brownish black shade.  Their ribs stuck out, in some places poking out through the abdominal wall, and their bones had the bare minimum of exposed muscle.  A woman among the group was missing half her cheek, and the leader had a lidless eye in his crusted face.
"Are you... survivors?" said Ben.  The fact that they could still stand, let alone walk, was incomprehensible.
"Yes, barely hanging on, but the worst is over," said the leader.  He did not act as though his injuries inconvenienced him much.  "My name is Harold.  What's yours?"
"Ben Jenkins," he declared.  When the name didn't register at first, the grin faded from his face.  How could they not recognize him?
"Not the?  Well, I never would've expected..." said the woman, examining his features.  "Of course I remember you."
"Yeah Martha, you only watched it every day," said another survivor, a teenager so gaunt that his spine was visible from the front.
"Hush up, Reggie," said Martha.
Ben coughed to hold back the nausea.  These people, these hideous people.  Were they the only ones left?  The war must have been worse than he thought.
"What happened to you?" he asked.
"Oh, the radiation," said Harold.  "Most of the people we knew died of cancer after six months.  But some of us... I guess if you can call this surviving.  We'll find a way to manage, I suppose."
"We should get moving again." said Martha.
"Yes, it's not safe out here.  Come, we'll take you to our camp."  Harold offered Ben a bony hand to help him up.
"Uh, no.  I'll manage."  The last thing Ben wanted was to touch him, that hand that was probably maggot-infested and diseased.  He zipped up his backpack, tight as it would go, and clamored to his feet.
From the distance came the howling of wild packs of mutant dogs.  The visitors shut off their flashlights to avoid attracting attention.  A crescent moon cast faint light through the glowing clouds above, and the desert was awash in shifting viridian hues that strangled the natural blackness.
"So then, you were fans of my show," said Ben.
"Not all of us," Harold replied.  "I never liked talking politics.  Always upset the relatives at Thanksgiving."
"Count me out," was all Reggie had to say.  He showed Ben the back of his head as they walked.
"Now Reggie, he was right, wasn't he?  Mr. Jenkins predicted this would happen."  Martha laughed, a wry cackle of futility.  "Wish I'd listened to those Food Insurance commercials."
"But uh..."  Ben didn't have to say it.  How did they end up like this if they'd heeded to his predictions?  More people should have listened to him.
"It's your goddamn fault!" Reggie snapped.
"Oh for the love of... Here we go," said Harold.
"You were the one who said that unrest in the Middle East would cause the world to implode.  And it did.  I hope you're happy!" said Reggie.
"Come now, can't blame him for his concern."  Harold pressed together what remained of his lips, not wishing to escalate the debate any further.
Reggie wasn't done yet.  "And another thing.  You told people to stock up on food, and guns, like the world would end tomorrow.  So nobody cared when it did.  Like what we had wasn't worth saving."
"Hey, I'd have done it.  If I could've afforded it," said Martha.  "Seems silly now.  Raising my children alone, just living one day at a time.  Never set aside anything just in case."
"I'm sure it wasn't all bad," said Ben.  "In the America I grew up in, you work hard, you get ahead.  Everyone can succeed if they try."
"Son, things were hard before the war."  Nobody had expected Harold to speak up, but he couldn't remain silent.  "Many families living paycheck to paycheck.  Not enough to go around."
"Yeah."  Reggie snorted.  "That's why we had to invade other countries, I'm sure.  But it just made things worse for us, while the fat slobs profited off it."  He glared at Ben.  "You'd know all about that, wouldn't you?"
"I don't know where you're getting that."  Ben wasn't used to hearing people disagree with his opinions.  His tongue fumbled over his words.  "I only said the poor should pay their share.  They already got all kinds of government programs to help them out."
"Heh, not anymore.  Not after the war started and everything had to go into that," said Reggie.
"I was out there with the people, rallying for lower taxes."  Martha sighed and scratched the edges of her cheek wound.  "Even after the war started."
"By the way, we've arrived," Harold announced.
Other survivors emerged from the remains of dilapidated buildings as their leader returned.  They also bore burns and signs of severe radiation exposure.  A number of children were among them.  At the center of the crude settlement, where the survivors had cleared away the rubble, a campfire burned beside a rusted steel beam.
"You found him?" said one.
"Ben Jenkins?  The TV host?"
"You actually found him?"
"We've waited so long."
"Too long, far too long."
"Yes," said Harold.  "Our people have long been waiting to see you."
Ben gave them a wide-dimpled grin.  "Well now, that's more like it.  Finally, some people who appreciate me."
"Yes, appreciate..."
"Waited too long, far too long..."
They took Ben to the center of their settlement, by the fire where it was warm.  They helped strip off his grungy clothes.  They invited him to stand before the steel beam.  Dozens of hungry eyes fell upon him, awaiting his words of wisdom, he was certain.
"Friends, fellow survivors," Ben began.  "The world has changed, and we face new challenges ahead.  But not all is lost, for we are now free."  He spread his arms.  "Free from the oppression from the elitists who would tell us how to run our lives.  Free from the tyranny of ideas and encroachment from foreign cultures.  Together we can rebuild America!  Together we can—"
Several of the survivors had seized his flailing arms.  His back and neck slammed against the steel beam.  He tried to resist, but a length of cable was binding his wrists.  They did the same to his ankles to keep him from kicking.
"H-hey, what's going on?  Is this some kind of joke?"
"Nothing of the sort."  Harold's voice had turned as icy as the look in his eye.
"But I thought you'd be grateful."  Ben started to plead.  "W-what's the meaning of this?"
"Don't get me wrong, we are grateful you've turned up," said Harold.  "More than you'll ever imagine.  Now justice can be served."
Reggie took out a long knife made from desert glass.  It was razor sharp.  Other survivors wielded similar implements.  They crowded around their prisoner.
"What would you know about justice?"  The former TV host contorted his face into a look of pure contempt.  "You filthy sub-human mutants!"  A wad of his spit landed by Harold's foot.
The screams of Ben Jenkins drowned in a crimson gurgle.  A multitude of knives hacked away at the offering.  The miracle of transubstantiation had come full circle.  They divided portions of bread and wine among the needy.  Like the prophet who came centuries before, his sacrifice brought their salvation.
We do this in remembrance of him.