Central Park

Ashley Etzel, Ashley Lyons, Scott Kilgore

Serenity
Ashley Etzel

Finally, he’s home. Claire could hear Brian entering their apartment, and she sighed in relief. She had fallen while trying to change a light bulb about eighteen hours earlier. She hadn’t been able to move since. It hadn’t been that bad, for the pain didn’t last long before a strange numbness spread throughout her small body. But, she was glad he was back. She listened as his footsteps neared, trying to think of a way to calm him once he saw her lying there. He spazed out when she got the flu. She could only imagine what he would think now. She stared at the sun filtering in through the window, waiting for him to see her, and wondered how busy Central Park was that afternoon, wishing she could be there. It was always so peaceful there.

“Honey, I’m...” Brian’s voice stopped as he entered the kitchen. “Oh my God, Claire!” He rushed over to her side.

Here we go. “Call the ambulance and then I will explain.” This last part she had to speak to his back for he was already running to call for help. “Brian, it’s not as bad as it seems!”

Claire was beginning to feel annoyed listening to him pacing back and forth on the linoleum. If only she could move! He was ranting, “five minutes, it’s going to take them five minutes to get here! That’s such a long time!” His voice was now shaking.

Claire chuckled to herself. Five minutes is nothing compared to the eighteen hours she had been there. He came back to her side and started stroking her face and smoothing her red hair off of her forehead. How strange it was to not feel it, she thought as she listened to the sirens approaching.

Such a circus. Couldn’t he have just taken her to the hospital himself and saved her the embarrassment? Now the neighbors are going to want to know what happened. She could see Momma, her next door neighbor, right now. She would create a huge fuss while her creepy dog, Binky, circled her feet.

Brian was in the other room talking to three men. What were they saying? When they came back, a young man with a shaved head knelt by her left side. His eyes were a bright blue that contrasted with his darker skin. He frowned as he looked over her.

“Tell us what happened here.” He stared into her eyes.

“Well, I was changing a—” Claire began.

“How could she be so careless? That light is so high!” How rude of Brian to interrupt her!

“Brian, calm down!” She shrieked as he fled the room. He never listened to her before; why would he start now? She saw an older paramedic follow him out. The young man looked back down at her, moving his hands. She couldn’t see or feel what he was doing, so she assumed he was checking for broken bones.

“You poor lady, that was quite a fall.”

“You’re telling me!”

She could hear a stretcher being wheeled in and she started feeling nervous. What if everything wasn’t going to be okay? What if she was paralyzed? She pushed her thoughts aside as Brian came back into the room, and they began to move her onto something. The three men left the room, leaving them alone again. He leaned over her really close, his eyes filling with tears.

“Oh, Brian, baby, what’s wrong? I’m going to be fine,” she said trying to reassure herself as much as him. She wanted so bad to touch him, to console him. Tears trickled down his cheeks as he leaned in to kiss her.

“I will be alright, Brian.” She tried to speak out but found her voice beginning to wobble. “I love you, honey.”

“I love you so much, Claire. I do. I do.” He stepped from her and moved out of the paramedics’ way. She wished he hadn’t left her side so soon. Claire lay there waiting for the stretcher to start wheeling her out. Trying to distract herself, she stared at the metropolitan medical patch on the young man’s shirt. He was part of ambulance crew MSH035. She wondered what the numbers stood for.

Wait, what are they doing? Her eyes looked downward as she heard a loud zipping noise. What is going on? Claire began to panic, but by the time that she could see, the black bag was already being closed around her. This can’t be!

“Help! What are you doing?” She wailed at the paramedics as the last bit of light started to flood her mind. All Claire could do was stare at the opening, wishing for it never to shrink. Yet, slowly, it completely closed, leaving her world black.

 

Hunting Ground
Ashley Lyons

There it was. His hunting ground. Just across the street, a park full of females he couldn’t wait to violate. In his excitement, he dashed across the road, forgetting to look. He didn’t see the ambulance until it bumped into him, practically knocking him down. He stood up, slightly dizzy, the ambulance number MSH035 slightly blurred as his world spun. Gathering himself, he took off again toward the park. He was too intent on his next conquest to be deterred by some bumps and bruises.

“Watch where you’re going!” the bald-headed ambulance driver screamed after him.

“Fuck you!” he barked back over his shoulder as he entered the park. The day was gorgeous, blue sky, tall grass. A perfect day to be outside. It was the scent that hit him first. The enticing smell of fresh bitch. He loved it, soaking it up, reveling in its pleasures. Taking a glance around, he began to search the park for his first victim. There wasn’t any one kind he liked any better than the others. There was no type; that was what made it so hard to catch him. He liked them all. There were so many opportunities today he could hardly stand it. He practically began to drool at the thought of having one of these fine bitches today.

To his left, something caught his eye. A blonde, long-legged with brown eyes, was playing Frisbee. She was young, graceful as she ran. He was immediately drawn to her. “Perfect,” he thought to himself. Now it was a matter of gaining her trust.
He never had any problems getting them alone. He just didn’t look the type that so many of them feared. He was pretty short. The extra weight he had gained lately made him look a bit ‘roly poly,’ and people had always said he had a friendly face.

“If they only knew,” he thought to himself, sneering. He began his approach, casually walking in the general direction of the blonde. She hadn’t noticed him yet. As he got closer, he began to limp, dragging his left leg behind him. He kept his eyes straight ahead, giving the impression he saw nobody, but out of the corner of his eye he saw her notice him. He kept walking, looking as pathetic as possible, toward the small patch of trees. He stopped just in front of them, and turned in the direction of the blonde, looking for someone to help him. They locked eyes, and he flashed her that winning smile of his, quickly turning it into a frown.

“Miss? Excuse me, Miss?” he said politely. “I’m so sorry to ask this of you, but would you mind helping me through these trees for a moment.” The blonde looked uncertain and stayed where she was at. “It’s just that the ground is so uneven through there, that I’m afraid I may fall and hurt myself.”
She still looked a bit skittish, but he could see in her eyes that she didn’t really think he was dangerous, just a slight annoyance to her day. “Sure, why not?” she said as she jogged over.

“Thank you so much. It’s so nice to have such a pretty lady join me on a short walk.”

“She’s mine,” he thought to himself gleefully. “Stupid bitches fall for it every time.”

Suddenly he felt a hand close around his neck and yank him into the air. “Binky! There you are! I was so worried about you! Don’t you ever run away from Momma ever again!” He squirmed out of her grasp.

“Godamnit! Stupid woman!” he barked at her angrily. “I was this close, damnit! I was going to get some serious tail this afternoon. Look at this bitch; I can’t believe you’re screwing me out of this!”

The blonde looked at him, shocked. He had forgotten she was still standing there. Well, it was pointless now. His cover was totally blown. “Sorry, babe,” he said as the old lady in the big hat put a new, tighter, collar around his neck. “But a dog’s gotta do what a dog’s gotta do.”

 

Exodus
Scott Kilgore

From the twelfth-story window of Mt. Sinai Hospital, Central Park looked like the Garden of Eden. People wandered out from the protection of trees into an open field, bustling like ants. I had been brought here three days ago, and I was now locked away in the neurology ward with a horrid plate of turkey and carrots wafting fumes behind me. When the police found me, they tell me, I was lying under a bridge in the park, fallen unconscious while jogging. Overexertion and a nasty concussion, they figured, but what had started out as routine here at Sinai had become the better part of my week, testing and retesting.

Breaking my fascination with the window, a knock tapped on the door and it creaked open

“Momma!”

“Wilson, honey, how are you doin’?”

“Fine. Just fine,” I said, patting the dog at her feet. “Binky, you screwed up little pooch, I never thought I’d be so happy to see you.” Momma laughed and tossed a tied bouquet of lilies onto the bed. She pulled the leash tight, bringing Binky to her heel, still smiling. She crossed the room and sat in the chair at the window, removing her hat with flourish.

I met Momma five months ago shortly after my real mother died. She said, “Just call me Momma. Everyone else does. Even my Binky.” Then she pulled out a glossy-finished photo of a smiling pug. We met at lunch, and I told her all my problems. After meeting her at lunch day-in and day-out, we shared the depths of our lives. We had become inseparable.

I was looking at Binky when Momma spoke, “I brought you flowers, hon.”

“I know. They’re beautiful, and they smell amazing.”

“Good, I’m glad you love them.”

“I do.” I looked into her face. “Momma?”

“Mm-hm?”

“They let you bring a dog into the hospital?”

“Mm-hm,” she smiled, “They said, ‘A small dog as cute as that one can’t do much harm in this ward.’ So I brought him up. He’s happy to see you. Are you happy to see him?”

“Of course.”

Momma and I sat for a while. She told me about her friend, Claire, whom she had been unable to contact for the past few days. She rose and headed for the bathroom to wash Binky’s paws in the sink.

A knock came at the door, and a doctor entered.

“Mr. Levy? Hello. I’m Dr. Rotter from neurology,” the man said tucking a chart under his arm.

Momma’s tinny voice echoed out of the bathroom, “Funny name for a doctor.”
I laughed.

“Something funny, Mr. Levy?”

“No. Sorry.”

The doctor sat in the chair by the window and opened the chart to several colored photos. “Now, Mr. Levy, I have some bad news. I was looking—”

“Excuse me, do you want Momma to leave?”

“Momma?” Dr. Rotter asked, glancing around the room before returning to my chart with a furrowed brow, “Uhh, no, that won’t be necessary.”

Momma called from the bathroom. “Let the doctor speak, hon.”

I looked over my shoulder at Momma peeking from the bathroom doorframe. I nodded at Dr. Rotter. “Go ahead.”

Dr. Rotter stared at the doorframe. “Right. Well, if we look at your MRI, it indicates loss in the parietal, temporal, and occipital lobe. Normally this could mean any number of things but look here.” He turned the chart for me to see a picture of my kaleidoscopic brain. His finger moved over the picture. “Everything points to here.” His finger halted. “A brain tumor; malignant, I’m afraid. Sorry.”

“How long?” I sighed. Momma sobbed against the doorjamb.

“A week, maybe two. You must understand this is just a conservative –”

“No. I mean, how long have I had this?”

Dr. Rotter spun the chart around on the end of his knee, “Hard to say, perhaps a month? Two? A glioblastoma of this type doesn’t take long to...” He trailed off.
I shook my head in disbelief. “Chemo?”

“Sorry.” Dr. Rotter asked more about my condition. “Headaches, nausea, hallucinations?”

“Headaches and nausea. No hallucinations.”

“The headaches will subside with meds. Did you need to talk to someone?”

“No, it’s alright. I’ve got Momma here. Right, Momma?”

Dr. Rotter’s voice rose cautiously, “Mr. Levy? Not to cause panic, but there’s no one here but you and me.”

Binky ran from the bathroom. Momma put her hat back on and frowned. I shook my head, the scent of lilies thick in the air.

“But what about the lilies?”

“What lilies?”