But now we will never truly be apart, will we my darling? For I stole your heart, didn’t I? Despite the cruel and misguided efforts of all those ordinary people to whom romance and true love mean nothing, the people who were determined to keep us apart (As if that were even possible!), I was able to take your heart, wasn’t I?
You knew all along that your heart would one day be mine, didn’t you my love? I offer this solemn promise: that I will hold it close to my own, darling, forever. I will treat it with the utmost reverence. I pray that though you now sleep the eternal sleep, somehow you are aware of the enormity of my regret that I must utilize an ordinary glass jar as the receptacle for such a divine organ; such a perfect example of our lasting commitment to one another.
If nothing else, though, we may now rejoice in the knowledge that your heart will be near me always and forever. And that is what we both wanted, isn’t it my darling Valentine?
The Wheels on the Bus
We’ve all seen the reports we aren’t quite sure we can believe, of people who possess the ability to move items using only their minds. It’s a hard thing to wrap our minds around and a hard thing to believe unless we see the proof with our own eyes. Now imagine you are the mother of a four year old child who appears to possess this ability. But you can’t tell anyone, not even your husband, because a child with telekinesis is the least of your problems… “The Wheels on the Bus” first appeared in the print anthology MAUSOLEUM MEMOIRS, released in December 2009.
“Mommy, mommy, I want the salt!” Jonathan Weingarten slapped his tiny four year old hands on the kitchen table as if to punctuate his demand. The resulting noise was surprisingly loud, reverberating through the kitchen and causing the boy’s mother to jump. Of course, she jumped a lot lately.
Deborah Weingarten responded sharply. “That’s enough, Jon! I told you once already I’ll bring you the salt when I’m done picking up. Now, eat your breakfast and try to exercise a little patience.” She was almost finished cleaning the stove after cooking the boy’s favorite meal—scrambled eggs and toast—and wanted to get everything straightened up before crossing the kitchen to hand the salt shaker to her son.
She watched and waited as the towheaded blonde bundle of energy scrunched his face up as if preparing to scream bloody murder. But he didn’t scream bloody murder. He didn’t do anything at all, in fact. He just sat on his booster chair with his face scrunched up, staring with fierce concentration at the offending salt shaker, which at the moment sat innocently across the table, far out of reach of the little boy.
“Here it comes,” she mumbled under her breath, not even realizing she was talking to herself. Right on cue, the salt shaker began quivering, almost imperceptibly at first, then more and more violently, as if the world’s tiniest earthquake was taking place under just that one isolated portion of the kitchen table. Then the salt shaker moved. It moved in fits and starts initially, before sliding smoothly across the table’s surface, gathering speed as it went, finally stopping in Jonathan’s tiny outstretched fist.
He turned his head to smile at his mother, his face lighting up like a Fourth of July fireworks display. “I got it!” he exclaimed, as Deborah Weingarten rubbed her arms against the sudden chill she was experiencing. She winced at the pain from the bruises on her arms but continued rubbing them anyway.
This wasn’t the first time she had seen her son move small objects with his mind, he had picked up the “talent” after the family moved into this damned old (haunted) house, but every time he did it she had a hard time convincing herself that what she had seen was real after it ended. What did they call it? Teleportation? No. Telekinesis? Maybe. Yes, telekinesis sounded right.
She wondered—not for the first time—if she should tell someone about this special gift her son had lately begun manifesting, then almost laughed out loud. Tell someone, indeed. That was a joke - who could she tell? She didn’t have any close friends; Mark didn’t allow them. His standard answer when she said she wanted to get out once in a while was that she should be so busy taking care of their huge (creepy) house and their little boy that she shouldn’t have time for friends; at least not if she was caring for her family properly.
She had to concede that he had a point there. This house, which had stood empty for nearly two decades after the previous owner killed himself inside it, was so monumentally enormous that it took almost every waking second of her day just to keep the damned thing clean. Why Mark had picked this big white elephant to buy eluded Deborah, but of course he hadn’t consulted her before buying it; he never asked her opinion on anything.
And telling Mark was definitely out of the question. You would think that her husband would be her first option, the obvious person to confide in, but he was rarely home, working seventy to eighty hours a week managing mutual funds. Even when he was there, Deb’s main goal was to steer clear of him and hope she didn’t inadvertently set him off and suffer a beating like the one he had inflicted on her last week which resulted in her current colorful collection of extensive bruises on both forearms.
At first she had thought her left arm was broken; that was how hard he struck her with the metal softball bat he liked to use when he felt she needed punishing. Mark called his bat “The Persuader,” but she just called it painful and humiliating. Fortunately, the swelling had gone down after about three days and she was gradually regaining the full use of both arms, but they were still extremely tender. Her left arm resembled the color of the late-afternoon sky just before a violent thunderstorm. That was quite fitting, Deborah thought.
Deb’s main concern during these violent assaults was for the well-being of little Jonathan. She didn’t believe her husband would actually go so far as to injure him physically, but when Mark administered her beatings he wasn’t even discreet enough to send the little boy to his room most of the time. The four year old was forced to endure the sights and sounds of his mommy being manhandled and she feared the unseen but very real damage it was doing to his psyche.
Every awful episode played out in largely the same way. When the beating started, Jonathan would hurry to his tiny rocking chair, the one molded out of plastic to look like a green cartoon turtle superhero, and sit in front of the television while his favorite DVD played a collection of children’s songs. The wheels on the bus go round and round… Smack, as Mark delivered a blow with the softball bat… round and round, round and round… a scream of pain and anguish from Deb… The wheels on the bus go round and round… a lamp falling off a table as she crashed into it… All through the town.
To Deb, the most frightening thing about these episodes, even worse than the physical damage that she suffered, was the way the little boy’s eyes would glaze over, becoming blank and vacant as he tried to ignore the horrifying scene being played out again and again in the formal dining room under the massive cut-glass chandelier Mark had overpaid for. His head would loll back on the chair as he stared up at the ceiling, or maybe at an imaginary friend, or maybe at nothing at all, Deb wasn’t really sure. All she knew for certain was that he steadfastly refused to talk to her about it.
She knew the day was rapidly approaching when she would have to take Jonathan and escape, just leave Mark and this awful (haunted) house behind. The problem was, she had no idea how she would manage it. Everything was in her husband’s name—the credit cards, the cars, the savings accounts and investments, everything. He had all the money, all the connections, all the standing in the community, all the power. She was trapped, but she knew somehow she had to figure out some way to protect her innocent little boy, despite her growing realization that she could not even protect herself.