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    All Our Loved Ones Together: Odd Stories
    All Our Loved Ones Together: Odd Stories
    All Our Loved Ones Together: Odd Stories
    Ebook118 pages1 hour

    All Our Loved Ones Together: Odd Stories

    By Sheila Johnson

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    About this ebook

    Plenty of new friends are waiting for you inside this collection of eleven strange short stories. The boy with the tree branch growing out of his ear is there, as is the woman who runs the after-school group for the children of shapeshifters. Death’s there, too, of course. He’s on the porch, firing up the barbecue grill as we speak.

    Come along, then, won't you?

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSheila Johnson
    Release dateAug 26, 2016
    ISBN9781370096497
    All Our Loved Ones Together: Odd Stories
    Author

    Sheila Johnson

    In addition to working in such behind-the-scenes fields as copywriting and proofreading, Sheila Johnson has also digitally restored the artwork in the classic comic books reprinted in a number of the Marvel Omnibus and Marvel Masterworks collections. An avid fan of magical realism in fiction and science writing in nonfiction, Johnson lives outside of Chicago in a home that's in a perpetual state of chaos. You can learn more about her at her website, www.sheilacjohnson.net.

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      Book preview

      All Our Loved Ones Together - Sheila Johnson

      All Our Loved Ones Together

      Odd Stories

      Smashwords Edition

      Sheila Johnson

      Cover illustration by

      Wesley Wong

      Copyright © 2016 Sheila Johnson

      www.sheilacjohnson.net

      www.weswongwithyou.com

      Credits

      Earbuds appears in Allegory, Volume 28/55, Fall 2015. www.allegoryezine.com

      There Are No Carriages or Footsteps in the Suburbs appears in Black Denim Lit, January 2016. www.bdlit.com

      The Adult Thing to Do appears in Cemetery Guardians, October 2016. cemeteryguardians.com

      Super appears in Beyond Science Fiction, Issue 2, January 2015. www.facebook.com/BeyondImaginationMag

      Open Arms Steady Hearts... is based on an organization in Salt Lake City, Utah, called The Sharing Place. For more information on the grief support it offers children and adolescents, please visit www.thesharingplace.org.

      Acknowledgments

      Thanks to Michael Penkas, who not only read, edited, and provided feedback on almost every story in this book, but also offered friendship and plenty of honest yet somehow reassuring thoughts about what it means to write stories. Michael is a writer himself, as you probably guessed; you should see what he does for yourself by going to www.michaelpenkas.com.

      Thanks to Jeanine Vaughn, who also read, listened to, and shared thoughts on these stories, in addition to being a friend and the host of the No Shush Salon. Jeanine is a writer who does about two thousand other things besides. As a result, you can find her in plenty of places in the real world and online; j9vaughn.blogspot.com is a good place to start.

      Thanks to my former co-workers at The Place That Shall Not Be Named for putting up with my awkwardness, lack of sociability, and obsession with finding the right words. Being employed there gave me the time and money to work on these stories, and the people were easily the best part about being employed there.

      Thanks to anyone I call a friend, also for putting up with my awkwardness and lack of sociability.

      Thanks, as always, to Wes. He drew a beautiful cover for this book, and I’m forever grateful. I’m even more grateful, though, that he’s still willing to call me his partner.

      And thank you, a thousand times over, for reading.

      Contents

      Earbuds

      Open Arms Steady Hearts: A Supportive Place for the Children of Shapeshifters

      Everything's Changing

      There Are No Carriages or Footmen in the Suburbs

      Moving Day

      The Last Time Lucia Made Sense

      Runaways

      Home

      One Morning at the Burger Jr.

      The Adult Thing to Do

      Super

      Earbuds

      We've got a doctor's appointment tomorrow morning. Let me put that out there right now.

      You probably wonder why I waited almost two days for one, or why we didn't just go to the urgent care. Because why would a grown man who otherwise seems pretty reasonable let his son go around with a tree branch growing out of his ear?

      Because it makes Brian happy, that's why.

      Brian is a bundle. Of what, I'm not always sure, but he's got this curly hair with strands that are always popping out and trying to escape, like a sweater that's been washed and worn for a few years, or a teddy bear that's been hugged every night. Hell, yes, I'm biased; he's a cute kid.

      For a while now, though, he's been spending a lot of time sitting by himself, thinking, gathering dust bunnies. I don't blame him. When a kid loses his mom, dust bunnies probably start to look to him like pretty easy company to keep.

      Yesterday—Sunday—I took him to the playground. I got the feeling that Brian kind of wanted to be by himself, mostly because that's the feeling I usually get these days. So I let him go off by the swing set. He went for the swing farthest on the right and sat, never swinging too high, always looking off toward the grass past the rocks. Do you know what it's like to watch your son watch the world go on without him?

      A woman passed on the path close to where I was sitting. She had some kind of little brown broom-bristle dog on a leash; it bounced from spot to spot like a bag on the breeze. It came up to my toes and sniffed. The dog was a bundle, too, a swishy little mop full of sunshine and summer, and all of the excitement you think of when you think of those things. Of course, I reached out to pet it. It couldn't even close its mouth, it was panting so hard. Its tongue was a deep pink, almost as red as a strawberry.

      I swear I only played with the dog for a few seconds. As soon as it left with the woman, I looked up. There was Brian, standing on the rocks in front of me, a smile gone off on his face like a thousand-watt firework. Look what happened, Dad! he said, pointing at the tree branch curving up from his left ear.

      Even for an eight-year-old, Brian isn't a tall boy. The branch didn't add a lot of height, either; it stopped maybe an inch above his head. What it did add were flower buds. All along the length of the branch, there they were, alternating along each side, a series of pearl white buds the size of fingernails.

      What can you do in a situation like that? You take a few little breaths to try to catch everything that just rushed out of you. Then you rocket up off of your ass and grab the branch sticking out of your son's head. Brian, what are you even thinking? I asked. I placed one hand on the side of his head and used the other to grasp the branch at its base. Get that out of there right now.

      Ow, he said as I tugged. Ow, ow, ow.

      I rocked backward onto the ground. How far in there did you shove that thing? I whispered.

      His smile came back softer, became something more serious. I didn't, he said. It just showed up. Like a sprout. Dad, watch. He pursed his lips, and just as matter-of-factly as if he was trying to get his ears to pop, he made some of the buds open and close, one second a flower, the next a secret. Little breaths. He laughed.

      Does it hurt? I asked. Can you feel it?

      It tickles, he said. Right then, I saw a toddler standing nearby, pointing, his mom or other responsible guardian not far behind. While the mom figure was rushing forward to rescue the little gaper, Brian turned and approached him, coming to sit a few feet away. He leaned forward and popped a few buds open, just at the moment a butterfly came by to inspect them. The toddler squealed and clapped his hands. The woman squinted, frowned, and scooped up her kid. In the distance, the mop dog panted at Brian and wagged its tail. I decided it was time to go.

      We got pizza delivered for dinner—Brian's favorite, pepperoni and sausage, plus an order of cheesy bread. I had him stay in his room when the delivery guy arrived, which actually wasn't too hard, since his room has a mirror, and my tablet (which I let him borrow) has an encyclopedia program on it. He said he thinks the flowers are magnolias. I didn't tell him that I thought they looked like some of the we saw last year at the funeral home.

      Brian slept all the way through last night, and he did a good job of not turning over onto his left side. I know. I stayed up to make sure. As long as I could, anyway.

      I was going to tell him he didn't have to go to school this morning, but it ended up not being an issue. I woke up in the chair I had placed outside his bedroom door and found him poking my arm. Did you stay here all night? he asked.

      Well, you know. When you get older, some nights your bed's not comfortable.

      Oh. He glanced down at the floor. I don't want you to worry about me, he said. Then he looked at me, right inside of me. I want to go to school today. Can I?

      When I tell you that Brian's a remarkable boy, I want you to know that it's not just because of the tree branch.

      I looked my son over and considered what was going on. You want a hat for that? I asked, pointing with my chin where one flower bloomed. Or a scarf? That one got me an eyeroll, along with a groan and a sharp "Dad." Very sassy.

      We walked into his school together, through a sea of wide-open eyes. I kept my arm around Brian and waved to his teacher, Ms. Aviles, through the classroom door, gesturing for her to come join us. Oh, she said, jumping back a bit when she saw Brian.

      I don't want to talk about it, I said. I don't even know what to say about it. But we're taking care of it. I wanted you to know that. And Brian's the one who wanted to be here.

      Ms. Aviles is young still, younger than I am, but you can see her shoulders being pushed down under the weight of everything she's already had to deal with. She shook her head like someone shaking

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