Fiction Attic Press: Serial Fiction

Center of Center (32)

Fiction Attic Press — Sat, 13 May 2023 15:26:53 GMT

CENTER of CENTER is a serialized novella-in-flash by Chris Wiewiora. Go here to start at the beginning.

Center of Center (31)

Fiction Attic Press — Tue, 09 May 2023 15:25:53 GMT

A Divided student runs up as I’m closing my doors. The only reason I spot him is a group of guys who have already boarded point and laugh. I open my doors and they groan.

Hey guys, I holler over my shoulder. I don’t even get on the intercom. You’d want me to stop for you.

As I roll along to the Rec Center, the chord is pulled and the STOP REQUESTED bell b…

Center of Center (30)

Fiction Attic Press — Sat, 06 May 2023 15:23:52 GMT

I still had more than enough time before my shift so I took a walk to C.U. A bike path cut from H.Q. into central campus.

Huddles of parents stood with their new grads. A mass of black gowns and khaki pants and pastel button-ups and lighter hued sundresses took turns assembling by the planters of hybrid TorBrid tulips. Their petals streaked with C.U.’s colors of blue and white.

Everyone squinted in the bright afternoon light with their sunglasses off for recording vid-scrolls. People from other families took turns with their digi-cuffs.

I looked out of place in my black pants and blue polo and ball cap. But I used to fit in as one of teacher of their students. A lone sentinel.

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At the Student Union, Elizabeth Yoder (B) steps on my bus, smiles, and says, Hey, Mr. W. There’s no pity in her face and she doesn’t condescend to say something like, So, this is what you’re doing now?

Center of Center (29)

Fiction Attic Press — Thu, 04 May 2023 15:54:35 GMT

Red

Before I got assigned this RED extra shift, I thought I knew how driving Torideo felt. I was told to arrive earlier since this Saturday is commencement and move out of C.U. and then Sunday is Mother’s Day. It’s not the same as any particular day of the week, or even a combination of a weekend, but all the days compressed together into the center of C…

Center of Center (28)

Fiction Attic Press — Wed, 03 May 2023 00:15:35 GMT

Even though these days anybody could be found and everyone could find someone, it seemed like nobody was fully here, everybody was always elsewhere.

I didn’t think that there was a time before the Panoptic, before digi-cuffs, or whatever when the good old days ended. I thought that people always were lonely and lost, whether linked or served. Pop had left his mother for an entire summer and moved as far away as he ever would all so that he could speak the language of a woman he crushed on, without any contact between them, but whose disappearance would leave him crushed.

Would it have been any better if it happened now? What if he knew exactly where she was? What if he could contact her? Wouldn’t their love still be lost? And wouldn’t he still be left lonely?

Center of Center (27)

Fiction Attic Press — Tue, 25 Apr 2023 16:03:23 GMT

What language is there for love? It isn’t Russian or Polish or English. Love is rescue. It’s not spoken, it’s done.

How are you doing? Lenny asks. He actually buckles one of the seatbelts on my mini-bus.

O.K., I say. Nothing great, nothing terrible. I won’t share my life with my passengers even if they divulge theirs.

I know that Lenny offers small samples of the bulky buys at Asterisk where I drop off Wiry Man. I know that Lenny believes it’s a deal to ride Torideo with his senior discount roundtrip to the Senior-Plex. I know this because Lenny tells me every week in case I’ve forgotten.

You’re not great? Lenny asks.

I’m fine, I say. The mini-bus is not a place to have a conversation. Maybe Lenny tells me the same thing about himself because he doesn’t know if I hear him. The wheelchair lift bounces and jostles in its steel frame.

Well, I’m great, Lenny says.

Great, I say.

See, that’s what I’m talking about. It’s easy. You can say it. You’re great.

Basha sloshed water on the floors of the Arts Building as Lake Mitten’s waves lapped at the seawall a block away. She mopped the creaking wood floors in the studios where working artists rented space to practice their craft. She heard the brush of oil on canvas, the bows pulled across strings, the toots pushed through wetted reeds, the clack of the alphabet on keys, the air vibrated against vocal chords, the shush of clay churning around wheels, the slide and tap of on-point along the floors; her floors that she cleaned.

All the artists stood on Basha’s floors. Her floors shined from the basement where a newspaper press used to run all the way to the top ballroom with a chandelier casting a brilliant glow. Her floors wafted an initial acrid, throat-burning bleach wash and then a rejuvenating tinge of lemon-scented water that evaporated into the air.

Center of Center (26)

Fiction Attic Press — Sat, 22 Apr 2023 15:55:29 GMT

Once when Babcia was reading me the duet, she said she believed that a translated poem was a new poem; sometimes something couldn’t be remade with another language.

Orange

ORANGE to Base, I radio.

Base copy, Miles says.

10-9. Miles asks me to repeat my message.

10-87.

87?

10-4.

Base copy.

I load my mini-bus with a wiry man who shuffles behind his walker from the GREEN to my ORANGE. His T-shirt is too large for his torso. The tail snaps in the wind. A ring of keys clipped to a belt loop of his jeans jangles against his bowed thigh. I wonder how many locks he can open.

Wiry Man stands on my lowered wheelchair lift’s platform and sets his walker’s brake. I activate the hydraulics and he rises as slowly as he shuffles. I stand by as he gets himself seated. I’m available to help, but I won’t unless he asks for it. He plops down and cinches his walker’s brakes. I stow the lift, close the door, and then go.

Before my shift, Babcia holo-linked with me. She probably thought I was done teaching for the week. So much time had passed. She didn’t ask why I hadn’t visited, let alone linked with her, during spring break. I didn’t say. Instead, I apologized for how long it had been, and then she updated me on Pop’s condition.

Pop had suffered a stroke, but Babcia said that the specialists at Loop Hospital now said it had been a series of mini-strokes. Pop didn’t know Polish or English anymore, but Babcia said he had forgotten more than that. Pop had no memory of Ma.

At least he doesn’t have to remember that she’s not here. And I’m here for him, Babcia said. But I don’t want to hear him.

She laughed and then I laughed.

Center of Center (25)

Fiction Attic Press — Thu, 20 Apr 2023 16:22:44 GMT

How do you fall in love with another person? Do you find each other in the rain? Do you spin each other until you’re dizzy? Do you eat casseroles? Do you watch hilarious comedy? Do you go to each other’s places? Do you feed a pet? Do you get high together? Do you feel high with the other person? Do you ride each other? Do you tell stories about your chi…

Center of Center (24)

Fiction Attic Press — Tue, 18 Apr 2023 17:21:46 GMT

I walk back to Prairie Pizza girl and crouch down with a dusty brochure that I found under my seat. We’ve passed the Polis school twice now, I say. I unfold the old brochure to reveal the map of Center.

The girl whispers.

Even though I can’t hear her, I say, Yes, the Polis school—

—Nah, man, she’s going past the school, O.G. says.

I must look confused.

The u…

Center of Center (23)

Fiction Attic Press — Sun, 16 Apr 2023 17:00:29 GMT

At the Parade Mall, a guy sucks on a cigarette and blows smoke away from my door when I pull up. He asks me how long until I leave. I say he can finish his cig.

He puffs away, the cherry burning to the pitted filter. The tobacco is realer than the staticky e-vapers that people still huff despite the link to nose cancer. He stomps out his butt, hikes up h…

Center of Center (22)

Fiction Attic Press — Sat, 08 Apr 2023 16:05:48 GMT

Photo by Noah Morgan on Unsplash

Yellow

Rain mists my mini-bus’s windshield. I set the wipers to a soft sway. The streetlights bordering Center Circle flare in the wet Saturday night.

My only passenger on YELLOW through campus is a girl in a black sheath dress. Sparkles studded over the material dazzle under the dome light inside my mini-bus. At Jay Gym, s…

Center of Center (21)

Fiction Attic Press — Fri, 07 Apr 2023 17:26:38 GMT

Photo by Joy Real on Unsplash

At H.Q. in the break room, I mostly feel at ease. Torideo is a throwback. We get our inter-office mail in a wooden grid of cubbyholes. We read paper announcements tacked on a bulletin board. The simple realness is necessary. Drivers keep the buses on time without a hack, since driverless vehicles were totaled after a Panoptic simulator piled up deaths.

Above my locker, Danny Wocowitz opens his with a casted arm. Danny’s blond hair drapes over his shoulders and I’ve seen it flash through his driver window like corn tassel. One sec, Danny says, putting away The Way of the Fist.

All yours, he says, slamming his locker shut. I’m off to Tae Kwon.

I’m glad to know another member of the reading tribe, even if his recommendations for me are off. When I first met Danny, he stuck out his hand and introduced himself first and last name. So I did the same. He was glad to know another Pole. He thought we shared common ground. Then, he saw that I was taking a book out to read and asked what I was reading. I said, Selected Poems. Danny didn’t ask whose poems, he said I should read any selection of poems by Bukowski.

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Danny is cordial, but he’s not asked me more about myself. He just talks about himself. The last time I saw him at our lockers he told me about competing in a Tae Kwon Do tournament. He had already earned his orange belt from a spin kick test. In match up, another guy roundhouse kicked his arm and Danny blocked, but missed positioning his pad to absorb the blow. The guy’s leg fractured Danny’s wrist, but Danny ended up beating the guy, breaking another guy’s leg, and finishing the tournament. No big deal, Danny said.

I woke to Myszku meowing. She was so much louder since her ears had healed. The pain subsided and the volume she would hear lowered. She wasn’t quite deaf, but she made up for hearing less by being noisy.

I would roll out of my bed tucked into one corner of the all-in-one and then go into the nook of a kitchen with her rubbing my ankles. It didn’t help to shush her, or really say anything unless I was holding her and she could feel my voice box vibrate. She kept looking up at me, making sure that I knew it was a new day and she should eat again.

Center of Center (20)

Fiction Attic Press — Sat, 01 Apr 2023 15:40:12 GMT

For Polis Day, I stayed in my backyard waiting until dark. Before sunset, I worked in my garden. Every day I was filling up a mop bucket. I either filled it with weeds or with tomatoes, and sometimes one and then the other, since it was high summer, humid and hot. The weeds drawing moisture from the air, the tomatoes blushing in the sun.

After dark, I sa…

Center of Center (19)

Fiction Attic Press — Thu, 30 Mar 2023 15:32:51 GMT

I don’t check the photos on C.U. cards to the faces showing me them at my bus’s front door. On GREEN, it’s too much to force students to stop on the stairs in the chute-like line and take their cards out of their wallets and move their thumbs away from the square portrait set in the corner of the blue plastic card and then look up at their face and back…

Center of Center (18)

Fiction Attic Press — Tue, 28 Mar 2023 15:24:01 GMT

GREEN

In a cul-de-sac on the west side, I’m in line to run a GREEN extra. I’m just another bus that will fit somewhere before or behind the regular GREEN. I will clear out the either the students who are early to their pick up or the late runners. The passengers are almost entirely students on the west side of Center along all the high-rises lining Field…

Center of Center (17)

Fiction Attic Press — Thu, 23 Mar 2023 16:30:37 GMT

At the intersection on University Boulevard and Field Avenue, I spot the regular BLUE in my rearview. I’ve read too long at the Alumni Center and left late. I speed through the off track of Field Avenue. My tires skew over the white dotted line. I need more room for my wheelbase the faster I go.

I skip the first stop at Towers to a protesting line of stu…

Center of Center (16)

Fiction Attic Press — Tue, 21 Mar 2023 16:29:40 GMT

These are new rocks, Roger says outside my bus. I place my finger in Selected Poems and eye him. His mustache twitches into a smile. Several other drivers stand behind him.

Through my front door, I see Roger bend over by the pile poured around one of the lamppost planters in the Alumni Center parking lot. My bus ticks, the engine off, but the power on with the electricity coursing through the hull, parked in a line of extras waiting for their runs all linked by two radio channels.

I uncross my feet on the tally counter and set them down to stand up. Roger selects a few rocks. Round, dense-looking, the size of a fist. He holds one, peers out into the empty eastern lot, and hurls it at one of the poles topped with a banner.

Roger misses.

Rocks lay scattered across the lot.

The Cossacks came on horses. They invaded, but they didn’t torch the Poles’ cottages. The thatched roofs didn’t burn with flames that crackled up, blackening the sky. Instead, they brought in teachers who taught in Russian.

Josef had taught Polish and he was just married to Basha, an orphan girl who used to clean the school. The Cossacks believed Josef would join the Polish resistance. Several men came to the cottage for Josef. The men blocked the door, the only way in or out. They took Josef outside and made him dig a body-sized hole and shot him and made Basha bury him.

After, they grabbed Basha. They grabbed her hand. They opened her fist. They put her fingers in the doorframe. They asked who she pledged allegiance to.

Center of Center (15)

Fiction Attic Press — Sat, 18 Mar 2023 20:18:38 GMT

I park well behind the stop for Towers—the dual brown brick dorms on the southern outskirts of C.U. I don’t switch my destination sign to BLUE because I’m so early before I need to run my extra route through campus. I’ll drop off students to class and clear the way for the regular BLUE that will be a few minutes behind me so it can stay on schedule.

On route, I have to have an atomic watch with a second hand, pen, run sheet, and transfer packet. I need to have a snack, water bottle, Sauvé Salve, and a book. I’ve learned to use the 30 seconds waiting for usual connections and transfers and timepoints to expire. Thirty seconds is a munched handful of peanuts, a swig of water, dab of balm, or skimmed stanza.

These additional minutes behind Towers feel like a dangerous luxury to just sit and think. I try to empty my mind and just appreciate the landscape. I look out at the snowy cross-country field to the west. The sun glares down on two balls of snow rolled into boulders at the base of a tree trunk. At least the students didn’t add sticks for pubes. The tree cock’s snow balls glisten in the melting light as a woman jogs on the cleared asphalt track parallel Field Avenue. Her black tights cling to her bouncing butt.

I think of Vanessa Reed. Vanessa had this great big butt that she acted like she didn’t like. She also had a seemingly perfect sounding last name for being a reader like me, something that made her seem so rare and made me like her more than her butt. I began to see Vanessa when she neared the end of her PhD in Texts and Technology at C.U. I don’t know what to call what we did except seeing each other again and again until we didn’t.

CENTER of CENTER is a serialized novella-in-flash by Chris Wiewiora. Go here to start at the beginning. Paid subscribers have access to every installment of our serial fiction.

Center of Center (14)

Fiction Attic Press — Thu, 16 Mar 2023 17:53:23 GMT

BLUE

You’re new, this middle-aged guy says as he hops on at the intersection of Bloomington Road and University Boulevard. He wears a T-shirt of Jay with one strap of his backpack slung over his shoulder. The strap pulls the screenprinted bird down further into the tornado.

I’ve gotten no other riders along Bloomington from Parade Mall. From this stop, I’ll ride southward into C.U.’s campus. I’ll loop around the school buildings and then return to the Mall before setting up for an extra route.

This guy could be a father of a student or an alumnus or a C.U. arenaball fan with his Jay’s T-shirt, but he’s carrying a backpack. I say, Hello and the guy says he’s going to the Knowles Library to study for an engineering exam but says that he used to be a driver. He says, It’s not worth it. It’ll feel like it is, but you should always remember it’s not. It’s all about the customer, the passengers, the students.

Center of Center (13)

Fiction Attic Press — Tue, 14 Mar 2023 15:05:40 GMT

The rain comes down and students cram onto my bus. There is more than a usual load on this usually busy BLACK route that circuits around campus and back to the Alumni Center’s parking lot. I’ve got over 100 passengers on board already.

I accidentally close my front door on a girl’s arm. She slips it through the rubber and back out into the wet. I’m leavi…