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Acuff, Gale |
Ahern, Edward |
Allen, R. A. |
Alleyne, Chris |
Andersen, Fred |
Andes, Tom |
Appel, Allen |
Arnold, Sandra |
Aronoff, Mikki |
Ayers, Tony |
Baber, Bill |
Baird, Meg |
Baker, J. D. |
Balaz, Joe |
Barker, Adelaide |
Barker, Tom |
Barnett, Brian |
Barry, Tina |
Bartlett, Daniel C. |
Bates, Greta T. |
Bayly, Karen |
Beckman, Paul |
Bellani, Arnaav |
Berriozabal, Luis Cuauhtemoc |
Beveridge, Robert |
Blakey, James |
Booth, Brenton |
Bracken, Michael |
Brown, Richard |
Burke, Wayne F. |
Burnwell, Otto |
Bush, Glen |
Campbell, J. J. |
Cancel, Charlie |
Capshaw, Ron |
Carr, Steve |
Carrabis, Joseph |
Cartwright, Steve |
Centorbi, David Calogero |
Cherches, Peter |
Christensen, Jan |
Clifton, Gary |
Cody, Bethany |
Costello, Bruce |
Coverly, Harris |
Crist, Kenneth James |
Cumming, Scott |
Davie, Andrew |
Davis, Michael D. |
Degani, Gay |
De Neve, M. A. |
Dika, Hala |
Dillon, John J. |
Dinsmoor, Robert |
Dominguez, Diana |
Dorman, Roy |
Doughty, Brandon |
Doyle, John |
Dunham, T. Fox |
Ebel, Pamela |
Engler, L. S. |
Fagan, Brian Peter |
Fahy, Adrian |
Fain, John |
Fillion, Tom |
Flynn, James |
Fortier, M. L. |
Fowler, Michael |
Galef, David |
Garnet, George |
Garrett, Jack |
Glass, Donald |
Govind, Chandu |
Graysol, Jacob |
Grech, Amy |
Greenberg, KJ Hannah |
Grey, John |
Hagerty, David |
Hagood, Taylor |
Hardin, Scott |
Held, Shari |
Hicks, Darryl |
Hivner, Christopher |
Hoerner, Keith |
Hohmann, Kurt |
Holt, M. J. |
Holtzman, Bernard |
Holtzman, Bernice |
Holtzman, Rebecca |
Hopson, Kevin |
Hubbs, Damon |
Irwin, Daniel S. |
Jabaut, Mark |
Jackson, James Croal |
Jermin, Wayne |
Jeschonek, Robert |
Johns. Roger |
Kanner, Mike |
Karl, Frank S. |
Kempe, Lucinda |
Kennedy, Cecilia |
Keshigian, Michael |
Kirchner, Craig |
Kitcher, William |
Kompany, James |
Kondek, Charlie |
Koperwas, Tom |
Kreuiter, Victor |
Larsen, Ted R. |
Le Due, Richard |
Leotta, Joan |
Lester, Louella |
Lubaczewski, Paul |
Lucas, Gregory E. |
Luer, Ken |
Lukas, Anthony |
Lyon, Hillary |
Macek, J. T. |
MacLeod, Scott |
Mannone, John C. |
Margel, Abe |
Martinez, Richard |
McConnell, Logan |
McQuiston, Rick |
Middleton, Bradford |
Milam, Chris |
Miller, Dawn L. C. |
Mladinic, Peter |
Mobili, Juan |
Montagna, Mitchel |
Mullins, Ian |
Myers, Beverle Graves |
Myers, Jen |
Newell, Ben |
Nielsen, Ayaz Daryl |
Nielsen, Judith |
Onken, Bernard |
Owen, Deidre J. |
Park, Jon |
Parker, Becky |
Pettus, Robert |
Plath, Rob |
Potter, Ann Marie |
Potter, John R. C. |
Price, Liberty |
Proctor, M. E. |
Prusky, Steve |
Radcliffe, Paul |
Reddick, Niles M. |
Reedman, Maree |
Reutter, G. Emil |
Riekki, Ron |
Robson, Merrilee |
Rockwood, KM |
Rollins, Janna |
Rose, Brad |
Rosmus, Cindy |
Ross, Gary Earl |
Rowland, C. A. |
Saier, Monique |
Sarkar, Partha |
Scharhag, Lauren |
Schauber, Karen |
Schildgen, Bob |
Schmitt, Di |
Sheff, Jake |
Sesling, Zvi E. |
Short, John |
Simpson, Henry |
Slota, Richelle Lee |
Smith, Elena E. |
Snell, Cheryl |
Snethen, Daniel G. |
Stanley, Barbara |
Steven, Michael |
Stoler, Cathi |
Stoll, Don |
Surkiewicz, Joe |
Swartz, Justin |
Sweet, John |
Taylor, J. M. |
Taylor, Richard Allen |
Temples. Phillip |
Tobin, Tim |
Traverso Jr., Dionisio "Don" |
Trizna, Walt |
Turner, Lamont A. |
Tustin, John |
Tyrer, DJ |
Varghese, Davis |
Verlaine, Rp |
Viola, Saira |
Waldman, Dr. Mel |
Al Wassif, Amirah |
Weibezahl, Robert |
Weil, Lester L. |
Weisfeld, Victoria |
Weld, Charles |
White, Robb |
Wilhide, Zachary |
Williams, E. E. |
Williams, K. A. |
Wilsky, Jim |
Wiseman-Rose, Sophia |
Woods, Jonathan |
Young, Mark |
Zackel, Fred |
Zelvin, Elizabeth |
Zeigler, Martin |
Zimmerman, Thomas |
Zumpe, Lee Clark |
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Duke by Daniel G. Snethen My first dog cost me $3.00. He was
part Collie and a mix of who knows what
other breeds. Duke was territorial and protected the
home front. His bite, literally was worse than his bark. Duke never
bit family, but everyone else was an intruder. I trained
him in basic dog obedience for 4-H and we
received a purple ribbon, but we were forbidden to advance to the
SD State Fair because Duke was prone to biting. Typical
dog, he loved chasing cars. We discouraged
this by
chaining him up at night, but you have to
give a dog some freedom. One evening, the neighbor girl’s boyfriend went zooming
past our place with rags locked
into his hubcaps. Duke chased and grabbed on. The next
morning, I found Duke— dead on the
shoulder of our township gravel road. At fourteen,
that was likely more grief, than I’d ever
before experienced. And my mother was livid with an
anger I’d not seen in her before or
since. Mother
looked up at God and said, “Damn him, Yahweh!” To my
knowledge she never swore again. A year
later, on
a hot humid summer afternoon, the neighbor
girl’s boyfriend drowned, while swimming in a stock dam.
Freedom by Daniel
G. Snethen What next? She
was naked and free. Covered in blood spatter like the bathroom
walls. He lay on the tile floor, prick-less
and dead. Blood still flowing from whence his
member came. The straight razor still clenched
in her right hand. She, still in shock, wondering what next?
Fly Collector by Daniel
G. Snethen Blue-bottle
blow flies & sarcophagic flesh flies neatly mounted—skewered
with nylon-headed Bohemian pins, by the thousands,
filled tens of dozens of professionally made Cornell entomological
specimen drawers. On display, neatly dispersed, throughout
his country cottage. Filled with expertly pinned, captive-raised
flies. Nurtured from blood-fed maggots collected
at crime scenes. Each encasement a sacred mausoleum: a
genetic gene pool of human DNA, labeled with taxonomic information; locality; date;
collector nomenclature and corpus delicti identification.
Pickles
Butte by Daniel G. Snethen
Named after a farmer's dog,
the highest point in Canyon County, Idaho is an ecological treasure. Black-tailed
jackrabbits play tag and chisel-toothed kangaroo
rats leave tail drags in ancient volcanic ash. Rear-fanged venomous spotted
night snakes and desert hairy scorpions venture out after dark
in search of xerarch sustenance. Giant turquoise blue centipedes slither
and slink like many-legged diminutive serpents overhauling
slower, often larger prey, killing them with venom before dining. Black
widows spin high tensile strength silk over lava creating
sticky traps for ensnarement. Rock wrens, woodrats, lizards,
ground nesting hawks and mound- building formicide ants thrive
on barren rock devoid of water. Jerusalem crickets and Mormon ones too,
eat what vegetation there grows in this dry wasteland,
predated upon by habitat-destroying dirt bikes and four-wheel drive trucks. But
the strangest creature, to sojourn across this magma-
hardened bluff, the solpugiid, or camel spider, looks like
a tailless tarantula-scorpion hybrid. An odd arachnid, inviting
the heat of the Idaho sun to get hotter
and even hotter, parching every other living thing as he crawls unimpeded through
the moisture-less Idaho dust hunting undeterred for whatever
prey he can capture in his massive hideous
exoskeleton crushing jaws of death.
Native American Male
Kills Caucasian Teenager at Hardee’s: Rapid City, SD by Daniel G. Snethen “The
court finds the defendant Maȟpíya Kimímila Lúta
(Cloud Red-Butterfly) guilty of third-degree manslaughter and hereby sentences him to 10
years of imprisonment.” And, just like that, the 19-year-old Indigenous teenager
from Potato Creek, SD, was sent off to the state penitentiary. Eleven
months earlier, Cloud had entered the lobby of the 6th & St. Joseph
Street Hardee’s near downtown Rapid City, SD. What Red-Butterfly didn’t realize
is that he was walking into the midst of a clandestine anti-bullying campaign. What he
first saw were three non-native teenage males picking on an overweight native girl. “What’s that on your
fish, baby? “Looks
like tartar sauce—bet you wish it belonged to me—don’t ya?” Another
grabbed a handful of her fries and with a mouthful, exclaimed, “Damn bitch, these
sure taste good—just like you, I bet.” The third spit a wad
of chewing gum into her Dr. Pepper. The girl started to cry. The
surrounding patrons appeared to be a bit disturbed by this blatant display of disrespect
but ultimately chose to ignore it. And the bullying antics continued. But as the clientele
began to unwrap their sandwiches, they seemed to become more and more agitated. Finally,
they started to approach the front counter to complain. But
they were not uptight about the horrible behaviors being perpetrated upon the young native
girl in plain sight. Oddly, instead, they were upset because several of their food
items had been deformed. Buns were flattened, burgers had no meat and fries were served
mangled and broken in two. The customers were both puzzled and outraged and demanded satisfaction. Finally, after much consternation,
the manager started to explain that this was all part of an anti-bullying awareness campaign
to show just how easy it is for people to become ambivalent and ignore the plight of others
while at the same time becoming extremely defensive when they felt wronged. “Hopefully, you all now
realize that none of us should ever stand around complacent while others are being harmed.
Naturally, we will refill your orders and reimburse you your money and we thank you for
your participation and understanding.” But
while this was taking place, Cloud Red-Butterfly—with the noblest of intentions and
totally oblivious to the ongoing campaign, asked the three teenage males to please
leave the young lady alone. And
that’s when they called him a fucking prairie-nigger.
Dallas County Phone Calls by Daniel
G. Snethen I knew
a Native gal in the Dallas jail who called me, her Dad. Apparently,
I was the only father-figure she’d ever had. I
put money on her books so we could have our weekly phone
calls and so she could call her mother too. One
young black woman, a fellow inmate of my friend, was lonely and
apparently had no one to talk to on the outside
of prison. Amber gave her my number, and
before I knew it, I was talking to some young African American
woman from inside the Dallas County Jail. She
thought I was nice and funny too. Wanted me to check her status
on Facebook. I think she thought perhaps
we could hook up once she left County. I
checked her out, half my age, and a booty that’d make Sir
Mix-a-Lot’s anaconda smile. How the
hell was I going to hook up with her, there’s
a thousand miles separating Dallas, Texas and Dallas, South
Dakota.
Two Old Ladies Arrested for Feeding Feral Cats by Daniel
G. Snethen
Damn shame Yellow Mama is retired. Wetumpka
law enforcement is
in dire need of her assistance. Beverly
Roberts, 85 and Mary Alston, 61 were found guilty of feeding
feral cats near the courthouse lawn. Several
thousand dollars of damage was claimed by Elmore County
officials. Both cat molesters were fined,
arrested, sentenced and released on two years
of probation. Both claimed they weren’t really
feeding feral cats, but were capturing them to be neutered
thus reducing the feral cat problem plaguing parts
of the Nation. Apparently, it’s illegal to stand on
private County property enticing feral cats with a can of
Fancy Feast in your wrinkled hands. Besides,
such mutilation and the denial of a cat’s reproductive
rights just ought to be illegal. And apparently,
in Wetumpka, Alabama it is.
Her Name Isn’t Margo, but It Should
Be by Daniel G. Snethen She
never talks about feelings. It is as if they do not exist. If they do, they
are to be repressed. But how can I repress such things? Ours,
is clearly a nebulous relationship, obfuscated by shadowy concrete differences. I
am the Yang for her Ying. To most, I am a mystery shrouded in smoke. Best
understood thru Eastern mysticism. She helps stem
my rage. She is my soothing opiate. She completes me. To
her, I am a child—yet complicated. When I need her most—she knows. But
does she know why she knows? Does she really
know who she is? Does she really know who I am? Does she even
understand who we are? I doubt it, I doubt it, I absolutely doubt it. I
doubt she understands the answer is deeply spiritual—not empirical. She
doesn’t know that our essence should be inseparable, uncontainable. That
one cannot divide darkness from midnight, or hold mystery and love in a locked box. Like
time, we transcend all these things. But she knows not these truths and I dare
not tell for fear of losing her.
Yorick by Daniel G. Snethen I
stare into your eyeless sockets, remembering how I used to torture thee. How
I’d make you carry me barefoot through the creeping thorns infesting
the courtyard cobbles. How I would beat the hump on
your back with my wooden club urging you to greater speed. You loved me poor Yorick, and I treated
you as less than a dog. You were the court jester and I of royal
lineage. Your disregard was my birthright. You drug me from my castle room when a fire raged
mere feet from my door. Dove out through a window fifteen feet
to the frozen ground. Cracked your brainless skull and
broke your collar bone, but cushioned my fall. You watched over me, entertaining me with silly feats of
acrobatic antics as I lay sequestered away, quarantined from
the rest of humanity. Ah Yorick, you were an idiot to
have loved me so, and I, I was the royal buffoon.
In Search of Ghosts by Daniel G.
Snethen Near midnight, in search of ghosts, I visited
the memorial For the unnamed Katrina victims. I
felt no cold clamminess nor any bodily aches and pains. I
saw nothing, I sensed nothing, I felt nothing, out of
the ordinary. But when I visited Ground
Zero, during the dead of day, I smelled the stench of death.
Seven Hanging
Trees by Daniel
G. Snethen Seven giant gray
snags stood stoically erect in the Mississippi woods beside
the 1867 Coombs cabin. Under the shadow of darkness, I
witnessed eleven hooded silhouettes eerily dangling from ancient
tree limbs. The morning dawn almost
convinced me I was mistaken—almost.
My Addie by Daniel G. Snethen Her casket was natural wood and
beautiful. My twin sister was carefully loaded into the back of a U-Haul truck,
nestled behind what meager belongings she still owned.
Anything of any real value had already been lifted by faux-friends,
grifters. Her vehicle trailed behind on a dolly. They
told me, the grifters that is, that I couldn’t
take Dawn’s car out of the state of Ohio…said it was in probate and that it
would be illegal. Acted shocked when they heard I was going to transport her to South Dakota
myself and were astonished to find that all it took was a $5 permit to legally take a body
across state lines. What I didn’t tell them is that in the small print of the U-Haul
contract was a disclaimer forbidding the transport of a corpse. They didn’t believe
me when I said I’d be gone by morning. I left the quaint little town of Lebanon,
Ohio during the dead of the night shortly after 2:00, but not before first reporting a
missing handgun from my sister’s belongings. Daddy Grifter, an oily Pentecostal and
his bipolar daughter questioned how I could know my sister owned a handgun. Dawn told me
she did. I found the holster and the ammo in her belongings, but no firearm.
The police said, she could have loaned it to someone. But I know better and so
does Jesus and no doubt, you do too. The magnitude of this ordeal
was unexpected. My son-in-law procured a round trip flight
for me with points. I expected a quick trip, albeit a sad one… knowing the inevitable…but
still I held hope and I knew Dawn would not expire before I arrived. And I knew this, because
Dawn was Dawn, and because she loved me. And well, I loved her too. Saturday, January 22, 2022 along I-74 near exit
102 exactly 283 miles from Council Bluffs, where my daughter lived, an inside dual had
a blowout and there, Dawn and I were stranded on the shoulder of the interstate at 4:32
in the late afternoon waiting for a tire exchange which had to be contracted through U-Haul. For nearly three hours I waited, barely
noticing the traffic passing by, as I contemplated what would happen if we had
to unload the U-Haul before changing the tire. What would happen when Dawn was discovered,
openly sequestered beneath cover of the U-Haul, and then I realized that Dawn and I had
somehow unwittingly become interred into the grotesquery of a William Falkner Southern
Gothic novel. Dawn was my Addie and she was paying me back for all the pranks I’d
pulled over her the past 56 years. When I first arrived at the airport
in Ohio, I was picked up by a preacher-man, the husband of Dawn’s
self-proclaimed best friend. The bipolar one had been beside Dawn the entire time. Had
rehydrated Dawn and was carefully monitoring everything. I questioned why they had not
taken her to the hospital immediately upon first discovering her failing
condition. But they assured me, they knew what they were doing and as a family
unit had gone through the same process several times already of successfully
battling Covid. Still, I did not understand, and when Dawn’s oxygen level fell
dangerously low and they finally called the ambulance, I just trusted they were doing
their best…but now I know the truth…they were creatures of the lowest kind—grifters
and Pentecostals. My first inkling of their diabolical
nature was when I found out that Dawn’s best friend was filing
for medical power-of-attorney over Dawn while I was still in midflight. The entire ordeal
was surreal, entirely unfathomable and yet I know it was true. Dawn was there
and I was too and I believe I may have noticed Rod lurking in the shadows. It took less than seven minutes to completely change
two tires and be heading on down the road. No unloading of the U-Haul, no opening
of the door, just nearly three hours of antagonizing anxiety, followed by a quick exchange
of tires and nothing more. As I approached Council Bluffs,
Iowa, in great need of rest, I wondered why my two older sisters had never
informed me of Dawn’s earlier bankruptcy. Of how her best friend used her. Ran up
over $10,000 of credit card debt with the promise of paying her back. Of how there had
been an earlier falling out because they grifted her after using her as a free
babysitter, enticing Dawn to sell her home and move from Sioux Falls to
Lebanon, promising to pay her for taking care of Grandma and then accusing Dawn
of abuse and dismissing her with no job or place to stay. Why didn’t my older sisters
tell me this? If they had, perhaps I would have been prepared
upon arrival to Ohio. Instead, I walked into a buzzsaw. I arrived in Council Bluffs, Iowa at 6:30 Sunday
morning, slept for six hours and headed for Winner, SD at 12:55 in the afternoon. I
was tired, but I was focused. The funeral home and my brother were waiting for me in Winner.
They needed the body that evening in order to have a burial on Monday. My mind was focused
on many things, one of which was why? Why did Dawn reconcile with the Ohio grifters…but
the answer was obvious…Dawn was lonely and Dawn loved unconditionally. There was
nothing fake about her Christianity and she exemplified the commandment of loving thy neighbor.
She truly believed in forgiving seventy times seven times the sins of man…hadn’t
her Lord and Savior done the same for her? The needle
approached empty as I neared Tyndall, SD. A large buck
materialized as a phantom from the blackness of a South Dakota night, running head-on into
the side of the U-Haul. I did not stop, kept driving toward Tyndall, wondering how much
damage was caused, thanking God that the deer had not run into Dawn’s car. Oddly,
I noticed no discernible damage while filling the tank of the U-Haul truck. We arrived safely to Winner, South Dakota at
8:15 Sunday evening. Dawn made us sweat beneath her casket as I and my Parkinson’s
afflicted brother, my wife and my daughter and some poor laborer from the Funeral Home
struggled to extract her casket from the U-Haul truck. Dawn must have been enjoying the
carnival ride she endured during our final journey together. I’m sure she was laughing
at the hell I was enduring but I know too she was happy that I was saving her from the
demons who tried to keep her ensnared in a grifted Ohio hell.
Wereworm by Daniel G. Snethen After the early morning storms, Mr. Melon walked out
onto his concrete steps, witness to unbelievable carnage. Night crawlers were strewn about
everywhere. All of them appeared to be dead or dying. Some had managed to crawl upon the
upper level on his front porch, escaping the drowning rains and whatever else precipitated
such death the night before. Some had managed to wriggle halfway across his driveway, but
they too were twisted up, either in postmortem, or the slow twitching death throes of
the dying. Not one annelid could Melon find which was not harmed. A few of them appeared
to have succumbed to drowning, caused by the outbursts of torrential rains, but most were
inexplicably mutilated near their anterior ends, none of which had been visibly preyed
upon by predators or opportunistic scavengers. Two weeks earlier, during a
half-moon, Percy, an anorexic worm, had happened upon the underlying soil of a
burnt-up patch of dandelions which had been severely overdosed with poison from
an herbicide spill Mr. Melon had made when recharging his hand-sprayer. Percy consumed the tainted dirt, while recycling nutrients, and aerating
the soil as a vermiform is supposed to do. This time, however, the earth tasted unfamiliar
and Percy, already undernourished and not at all robust, became very ill. Sickness was
not new to poor Percy and had been his plight since hatching. Though there
were literally thousands of Percy's kind, residing in Melon's lawn, Percy was lonely and
had no family. All of his species were gender-fluid but that didn't matter when it
came to offering Percy love. He was shunned and shamed and never given the
chance to procreate, because of his diminutive size and sickly nature. After discovering thousands of contorted corpses, Mr. Melon's gaze fell
upon a wiggling deformed worm which caused him to laugh. "I'll be damned," he chuckled,
"there it is, the scrawniest, most pathetic-looking one of the whole entire bunch—and
it’s still crawling." That previous evening, though it
could not be seen, the moon was completely engorged, and its invisible moonbeams
had reacted with the weakened body of Percy, invigorating his musculature . . . metamorphosing
him into a robust creature of immoral turpitude. Lumbricus terrestris, the common earthworm, is a
hermaphroditic creature, and in his newly found vigor, Percy unleashed all of
his pent-up sexual frustration. In this morph, Percy could out-crawl, out-eat, and out-mate
all of his comrades. And Percy had no control, no inhibitions, and no willpower over his
newly formed obsessive-compulsive disorder, to have sex with whatever looked desirable.
Even the twigs beneath the boxelder tree were not safe from his amorous advances. And,
in the morning, Mr. Melon scratched his head at what he saw. Dead worms everywhere, but
only on his lawn, none in the neighbors' yards. All of his soil miners apparently dead,
except one pitiful example which surely would be dead before the day's end. And Percy, Percy was slowly dragging his pathetic form,
across the well-manicured lawn, with one goal in mind . . . to reach the neighbor's lawn
before nightfall for another session of nocturnal debauchery.
A Woman
and a Rabbit Daniel G. Snethen Hase
was a rabbit. A white rabbit. A very old white rabbit.
He hopped about my classroom chewing gum off the bottom of tables and desks. Eating paint
from the wall. Jumped up onto a desk and then a table and ate the bottom edges of old schoolhouse
maps which had been repurposed as window blinds. All of my students loved Hase, except
for one young lady, who for some odd reason had a phobia of hares. And Hase must have
known this, for whenever she was in class he would always hop to her desk, as
though he had some strange rabbit crush on her…and she hated it…feared it…so
much so, that whenever her class was in session, I’d have to banish poor Hase
to the wire cage like some hardened criminal. My mother loved animals,
all animals, especially rabbits. When she lived in the country, Mom had all
kinds of animals. Sheep, goats, cows (even a miniature one which she trained to
pull a cart), horses, ponies, dogs, cats, chickens, ducks, turkeys, geese, turtles
and rabbits. But she did not like snakes, which I took great pleasure in catching
and showing her. She disliked bumble bees and would scream a blood- curdling cry at them
to scare them off while she was working in her garden…apparently it worked as I do
not recall her ever being stung by one. But what Mom hated most, and was very frightened
of, were spiders. She claimed she could smell a spider, even before she saw one. When she
was a little girl, her mother kept a spider in a jar and would chase her around the kitchen
table with it. Apparently, Grandmother got a great chuckle from this. But it is evident
to me now, that this caused life-long trauma for my mother. I regret the few
occasions I brought a spider home for mom to see. I was young and did not
really understand that irrational fear and trauma is not something one has any
control over. Forgive me, Mama.
I was a rascal, a rapscallion. Mother came to
expect anything from me. She once told me that nothing I did ever surprised her. She simply
came to expect the unexpected. Even when I told her I went swinging naked from the tire
swing while courting Anne, she laughed and said, “I’m not surprised.”
Mom claimed that I had multiple personalities, at least six or seven of them and when I
scoffed at the notion, she immediately replied, “That’s another one.”
Mom spent hundreds, no thousands, no tens of
thousands of hours laboring in the hot SD sun. She wore layers of clothing and a pink pith
safari helmet to try and stop the damaging rays of the sun, but in the end, all of those
long hours exposed to solar radiation took its toll upon her aged soul and she contracted
skin cancer. Horrible sores and tumors arose on her skin. Her bedding and mattress soaked
in blood and other bodily secretions which oozed from her compromised
integumentary system.
She lived alone then, several hours away from
me and the farm. Her final dog had died of diabetes, she buried Tisha in her back lawn.
Snooky the cat of 17 maybe 18 finally succumbed of old age and joined Tisha. Even the painted
turtle I’d given her was no longer. Mother was old and lonely and in pain and the
doctor wanted to put her on chemo-therapy, but Mom said, “That poison is worse than
the cancer. I just want to live as pain-free as I can and die when it is time.” And though some protested, I agreed with her. Her
health declined rapidly, as did her weight…and my rabbit, Hase, was getting thin
too. It became apparent to Mom that she could no longer live the solitary life she’d
gotten used to. We brought her home in her frail condition. I was working out a plan to
move her in with me but she was placed into a care facility and needed to rest and
recover before any such plans could be realized. I visited her. I read the
fairy tale The Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig to her, changing
the ending and she exclaimed in a weakened gravely voice, “That’s not what
happened.” And I laughed, knowing that Mama wasn’t a bit surprised by my
antics. I helped her to the restroom, so that she could pee through her
catheter. It embarrassed her so, but I just reminded her of the many times she did
similar things for me as a baby and a child and reassured her that I loved her. I
fed her and she vomited on me and again she seemed chagrined but I laughed and said it
was payback for the many times I’d puked upon her, all the while my twin sister was
gagging in the background. Apparently, Dawn had a great disdain for vomit or being vomited
upon. That was the last time I saw my mother alive.
I went to my classroom only to find my dear Hase
dead in his cage. Some say a student had kicked him hard a few days before. I don’t
know, I hope not. Why are some people so cruel? I choose to believe otherwise. I choose
to believe that God was in control the entire time. Mother died that same day. The day
my rabbit died. I had a carrot box in my room and I put Hase in it. I transported Hase
back to the farm. The neighbor had opened a grave, the first and only one on Hill Top Cemetery.
Mom and I had already discussed this, and that is where she wanted to be buried. On
the grassy hill at the northern edge of the horse pasture where she used to lay
and rest and watch her sheep as they grazed. She thought this would be a
peaceful place, her favorite place for an eternal rest. And, I made it happen. No
one believed it could be done, not in such short order, but it was done and my mother
was laid to rest there but not before, under the cloak of darkness, when no one could see,
I took a ladder and a carrot box, with my rabbit, and buried Hase in the center of her
grave. And I’m pretty certain my mother was pleasantly surprised.
Cauliflower Ear by Daniel G. Snethen Great
was his pride. His hair long
and his words that of the Indigenous. Great
was his pride. He occupied the Stronghold. He squatted on
the stolen allotment of his Matriarch. Great
was his pride. He helped facilitate suicide prevention. Great
was his pride. His focus was on traditional teachings nearly
lost, like the throwing of the ball ceremony. Great
was his pride. He was an AIM warrior. He helped scatter the
ashes of Russell. Great was his pride. He had
many children. He had many Hunka daughters for whom he served as
surrogate father. But his wife, his wife had
cauliflower ear.
Daniel G. Snethen is an educator, naturalist, moviemaker,
poet, and short story writer from South Dakota. He teaches on the Pine Ridge Reservation
at Little Wound High School in the heart of Indian Country.
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