Entitled: No Seat at the Table

by M. James Cooper

Eat your bread children.

And we do but sibling complains that she don't like the ends of freshly baked bread.

The slide-clank of the plate moving towards me, hitting my teacup; the ends now belongs to me- and a mothers silence so loud.

I wasn't hurt or mad, not really, I was mostly happy that I got to eat that day.

I would grow accustomed to people's lack of regard, their non-relevant treatment of me.

But it did not break my spirit; rather it was made strong.

In the song she says it all falls down, I say it doesn't have to.

I eat my bread, ends and all, not worrying about the so called victories that others feel bolstered by.

New excerpt: This story is about hope and the power of dreams. It is also the story of a family who feels that they have no desire to hope or dream as a result of some harsh realities. It is, in my opinion, a simple and brief tale, with a lot to say.

Somewhere Behind God's Back
by M.James Cooper

Crafted, purely out of moods. She had diamonds in her heart and thorns beneath her feet. Velvet skin, a deep plum-like color and teeth as fresh as goats milk. She was new. She was fine. She opened her eyes to the morning and fell in love with everything under its blanket. Forgetting to cover her mouth to yawn, when she did, specs of gold fluttered out and she thought nothing of it. A common occurrence, she wiped some spit and the remaining particles from her lips. Sitting up she watched the large birds, the spread span of their wings waking the dried leaves, feathers fell with every flap and the mouths, resembling flowers, opened to give sound for they too rejoiced in the gloriousness of dawn. Up from her resting place, she stood, leaving behind some of the velvet. Leaving it so she could go and greet the day.
Cursed. She decided, good things only happened when she dreamed of a home she'd never been to, of some sort of living death she might never go to. The girl was willing. The only effort put forth, the need to rest, the want to close her eyes and escape what was hard living. Wake up, said the already burning sun; creeping up from its hiding place to pull her out of her dreams. Diamonds, replaced by cold little pieces of ice, shocking her to the reality, frozen edges poking at her blooming chest, frightened and gave way to the blessing of a Good morning.               Already melting under the warm of the climbing sun, the cold water slid across her consciousness, I don't need it, dreams required heat nor water. Then the velvet was ripped from her: Woman standing over her, hands pulling what use to be the smooth cotton coverlet. Get up! Tidy dis room and wash yuh'self. Cold water, a harsh block of Lifebuoy soap, salt against teeth, scrubbing the white fresh, minus goats milk; hot sugar-less tea, two day old bake with butter, pulling comb, threatening to rip the scalp from her young tender head, the deep plum-like color, now covered in coconut oil would soon be dry and hard by days end, its richness replaced with gray. Off again, and out into a world she'd rather not be in. No sky-bound bird, just clucking fowl low to the ground, silly flightless thing, and a long dirt road leading somewhere, but she was behind God's back and away from paradise...

This excerpt from another short fiction piece is simply about a sisters' love for her brother. It can also be a tale about the need to move on and away from old norms that sometimes tie our hands, disallowing change and healing. Sometimes life is not about what we want, but what is forced upon us. The trick is figuring out what feeds our spirit and deciding when it is ok to do more than just simply survive.

Against the Dark of Yesterday's
by M.James Cooper
...Lincoln, the man she called half brother in her head, he was a down-floating feather, rays of light stretching, finger-like, eventually reaching her skin through the bedroom window in the morning, or a glimmer in her morning coffee. Not sadness just remembering. The brother that had come about as a result of her mothers affair with a man with no name and no face. Remembering a time when her parents were estranged and all within the house walked in fear, breathed in fear and cried silent tears. Who would leave and when? For some reason he stayed and she loved with rediscovered intensity. Waiting, mother was, for the so-called other shoe to drop, and it never did. Lincoln was accepted into the family, the son her husband thought he would never have. Love is mysterious pain, holding back with restrained effort; it is resentment and surrender, complacent and unsatisfied. A common thing that seems so strange and hope-filled, especially when it enters in the form of a prepubescent boy. Gangly arms and knotted hair populated with fibers and dirt. No combing, no washing maybe. An adulterous mother returning home with a more than unexpected thing. Carlene was hoping for a bag of jub-jub candy or a pack of animal biscuits upon her mothers return, instead, she got him. He was not like Paula the older sister; selfish, never sharing her toys or her snacks. He was new and adaptable and full of giggles. His boney chest filling out in time, his crooked and damaged teeth rearranged and healed, his wheezing at night during sleep passed and then forgotten. Life, and the complexities of it, overstated, like rattling noise for the ignorant ears of children, but living isn't...