Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet No. 16 (16 page)

He had no means of knowing exactly when, so he waited. The clock suddenly struck, the bell making a thunderous noise. A cloud of white doves exploded from the belfry; their sounds could not be heard for the clamor. Below, the people stopped. He saw the looks on their faces, and felt pleased.

They pointed to the clock.

Someone said, “It isn't right."

Someone else said, “It hasn't rung for half a century."

As if spellbound, the crowd stood beneath the clock listening to the peal of the great bell. From against a wall, Henry could watch them without being seen. He saw the door of the school open, the students filing out. There was a brief flurry of activity as the students found places in the crowd; and then they too stared silently at the unseen face.

Henry saw Kelly and made his way beside her. He touched her hand briefly. She glanced at him, turned away, and then turned to stare at him. “You did this. I can't see your face in this light, but I know you did this.” When he said nothing, she said, “Why?"

Softly, he said, “My mother used to tell me everything had a purpose. A person is where they are because they should be; and yet, I am not. The clock has a purpose but because it cannot be seen it is not used. But look how they respond. You,” he said. “You are not what you should be either. Your place is in the school, not on the streets.” He pressed something into her hand. “I never paid you for the last time. This, I think, should be enough."

She stared at the thin gold chain, at the small gem in the center. She shook her head “I can't. I would like to, but I can't.” She tried to press it into his hands but he held them closed tight.

He said nothing for the space of three peals. Then he said, “Use it to become what you should be.” He bent suddenly and kissed the top of her head.

"Where are you going?” she said.

"Home.” He meshed his fingers together, and then said, “These were made for other things."

June 25, 2005

Dear Editors:

I would like to withdraw my six thousand word feature article, “Born for the First Time: Black

Sabbath's Missing Album."

I have recently come to realize the article's premise—about a long-forgotten Black Sabbath album entitled
Born
to which Sabbath's
Born Again
(1983) was a sequel—is neither funny nor

"in sync” with your readers’ interests.

Although I had made heavy use of the thesaurus in my attempts to match song titles from the non-existent
Born
to Sabbath's criminally underrated thirteenth album (partial listings below), I

see now that I could not approach the heights reached by the members of the band themselves in titles such as “Digital Bitch” or “Disturbing the Priest."

The idea and the article may have survived as a humor piece if it were not for my clumsy and ultimately disappointing illustrated timeline for the
Born
recording sessions leading up to the 1981 release date. Even casual Sabbath listeners would be aware that legendary Deep

Purple screamer Ian Gillan did not join Sabbath until January 1983. It was out of line to suggest that Tony Iommi (number one heavy metal guitarist of all time,
Guitar World
, March 2004),

Geezer Butler (bass), and Bill Ward (drums) had managed to work with Gillan during the period ex-Rainbow lead singer Ronnie James Dio (5/79-11/82) was attempting to fill future MTV-star

Ozzy Osbourne's shoes.

I still cannot fully explain why the idea of a prequel to
Born Again
has had such a hold on me. I have spent most of the last three months working on it and am shattered by the realization that it has come to naught. (I still find myself going through my source material looking for links between Sabbath and Gillan tour dates.)

What inspired this article? Although I have long known Sabbath's Stonehenge stage set for
Born Again
was the inspiration for the set in
This is Spinal Tap
, it was the success of
Fargo Rock

City
, Motley Crue's biography, and Metallica's therapeutic documentary
Some Kind of Monster

which led me to my belief that 1980s heavy metal had somehow managed to attain a new level of cultural relevance.

I am withdrawing my article to save everyone involved any possible embarrassment on publication and offer my apologies for any time you may have taken on it and this follow up.

Sincerely,

[Name Witheld]

[Back to Table of Contents]

Jenny Ashley
is married to a man with beautiful feet. She lives in San Luis Obispo,

CA, and teaches freshmen how to fall in love with words. Her stories and poems have appeared in
The Allegheny Review, Mars Hill

Review, Oxford Magazine,
and
The Peralta

Press.

Gwenda Bond
communicates to us through the local MI5 dead letter office. She is working on a young adult novel. She is funnier than you. She did not write this bio.

bondgirl.blogspot.com

Chris Fox.
Aries. Born: Cincinnati, OH.

Attended Appalachian State University.

Resides: Greensboro, NC. Employed:

Benjamin Branch, Greensboro Public

Library. Fiction:
The Bishop's House Review
,

Slave
, and the
News and Observer
. Poetry:

Wavelength
and
Rosebud
. Guitar: political ghoul-punk band, Crimson Spectre.

Scott Geiger
lives in New York. The

Fall 2005 issue of
Conjunctions
includes two of his stories, “The

Frank Orison” and

"Walpoliana."

Eric Gregory
lives in Abingdon, VA, and enjoys writing about himself in the third person. When he's feeling particularly frisky he changes a few names and settings and calls the whole kibosh

fiction. He is inestimably grateful to Liese Markle and Sam Mills for their input and support on this particular arrangement of paragraphs. To be honest, words fail him—

Michaela Kahn
is an indentured servant tied to the slavingmeat—wheel of mindless, meaningless labor.

She's heard there's a ritual you can perform out in the desert with a penny, a piece of yellow legal paper, sage, a fountain pen, mouse-droppings, and the recitation of a few choice phrases that will put an end to global capitalism. She's currently searching for the correct words.

After his brief stint as the Dalai Lama,

John Kessel
earned his living exclusively by selling kelp to passengers of the

Orange Line in the 14th Street IRT station.

www4.ncsu.edu/~tenshi

Matthew Kirby
lives in Brooklyn, NY.

He is a frequent contributor to the film criticism journal Metaphilm.com, and his fiction has appeared in
3rd Bed, Diagram,
and
The

Brooklyn Rail.

Ursula K. Le Guin
is the author of twenty novels, ten short story collections, six books of poetry, four volumes of translation

(including Angélica Gorodischer's
Kalpa

Imperial
), and thirteen books for children.

She lives in Oregon. ursulakleguin.com

Yoon Ha Lee
's fiction and poetry have appeared in
The Magazine of Fantasy &

Science Fiction, Lenox Avenue, Strange

Horizons, and Star*Line.
She was born in

Houston but lacks the accent to prove it. She used to make her own paper dolls.

Sandra Lindow,
officially past her

55th birthday, takes the responsibilities of apprentice cronehood seriously. She has published three poetry chapbooks,
Rooted

in the Earth, The Heroic Housewife Papers
, and
Revision Quest
, and a longer collection,

A Celebration of Bones
. She is working on a chapbook,
Walking the Labyrinth: Poetry of

Conflict and Resolution.

David Lunde
is Emeritus Professor of

English, SUNY at Fredonia, where he directed the creative writing program for 34 years.

He is a poet and translator whose work has appeared in more than 200 journals, including

Poetry, The Iowa Review,
and
TriQuarterly.

His books include
Blues for Port City,

Heart Transplants & Other Misappropriations,

and
Nightfishing in Great Sky River.

Christina Manucy
directs exhibitions on the nature of light and weeble-wobbles.

She has been neither to Ireland nor Egypt and is kind to cats. She lives in Baltimore among the “Hons” with her sculptor husband.

Kat Meads
's novel,
Sleep
, was on the

2004 long list of works recommended by the

Tiptree Award jury. She lives in California.

Sean Melican
is a stayhome dad, husband, adjuct prof., editor and reviewer for ideomancer.com. He wants you to read his upcoming stuff in
Aphelion
and
Fictitous Force
.

He is reading
Telling Tales
(Nadine Gordimer

(ed.),
The Complete

Essays of Mark Twain,

and Pynchon's
Mason

& Dixon.
Well, and magazines, pamphlets and newspapers. And blogs. Go read
The

Prodigal Troll.
And

Wild Things.

Eric Schaller
is a member of Storyville.

He lives in Lebanon,

NH, with his wife, two hedgehogs, and a turtle. He has had work published in N
emonymous,

The Silver Web,

The Year's Best Fantasy

& Horror,
and
The

Thackery T. Lambshead

Pocket Guide to Eccentric and Discredited Diseases,

and illustrations in Jeff VanderMeer's

The City of Saints and Madmen.

Cara Spindler
lives in Michigan and teaches high school English. The story is for

Morgan, who shot god in the sky, and asked about the netherworld dreams.