Hulltown 360 Literary Journal

Hulltown 360 Literary Journal Volume 1 Issue 1 – September 30 2010 Featuring stories by: Erika Wright – When the Bough Breaks Jonathan Golden – Robots!

www.hulltown.com

Welcome to the first issue of the Hulltown 36o Literary Review. We are fortunate to have two brave souls with us in this issue, Erika Wright and Jonathan Golden. Thanks to them we don’t have as much white space as we originally feared our product would reveal.

Do we need illustrations? Perhaps one of our readers has an idea for a cover?

The reader will fortunately only need to use his or her imagination to view Jonathan Golden’s robot CATE or the nicotine addicted mother in Erika Wright’s story.

Enjoy the words of these two hardworking writers! Please check back for updates. We publish the last Thursday of each month.

Thanks JiMB Thursday, September 30, 2010

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When the Bough Breaks

By Erika Wright Scritch. Hiss.

She inhales a breath of sulfur and lights the cigarette dangling from her full lips before tossing another match into the baby blue diaper pail. Just one long lung full of smoke this time.

Exhale. Wave it away. Tamp the butt. Lay it down.

She is on her knees, placing the butt in position across the doorway to the nursery where she paints. A thousand white sentries throughout the house are standing in formation on brown filter boots with ashen helmets pointing toward the ceiling. They march seamlessly across the slope of floors, over furniture hills, crossing smooth as ice countertops, and down into the valleys of sinks and tub.

When she rises, she brushes stringy, black hair from her tired eyes. Opening a new pack of smokes, she places it on top of the Humpty Dumpty quilt in the cradle.

She dips her paintbrush in the carmine red paint she makes herself, by crushing the bugs that feed on the cacti out back, and swabs it across the wall. It drips long tears down to the floor and she leaves them there.

The other rooms are finished. Even the bathroom has been painted. She’d like to look at it all again, but she isn’t brave enough to cross her sentry line.

An hour passes and she has added more paint to the wall. Her arms are aching and her stomach is an empty cavern. She rummages through the drawers of a low white dresser, looking for the 3

stash of food she has hidden there. An old box of melba toast and a container of apple sauce are all that she finds. She rips the foil wrapper from the apple sauce and for lack of a spoon, eats it all with her fingers. She picks up a yellow washcloth from the changing table and wipes clean her sticky cheeks.

There is still plenty of wall to paint and she returns to her brush, adding eggshell blue. The icemaker in the kitchen cuts on, and she jumps at the sudden intrusion of this noise. Frightened, she lights another cigarette, sucking in more of the acrid smoke.

Exhale. Wave it away. Tamp the butt. Lay it down.

She adds another sentry to the doorway.

Humpty Dumpty sits on a wall inside a musical snow globe on a lacy, white dresser scarf. She winds the key at the bottom and listens to the tinkling notes of Rock A Bye Baby, singing along tenuously.

She tucks in the quilt in the cradle, careful not to disturb the child lying underneath it. He doesn’t move an inch as she lovingly strokes his dark head of hair, so like her own. A tightly clenched fist rests under his chin and she wonders what innocent dreams he held fast.

Another Humpty Dumpty extorts a litany of ticks and tocks from his clock perch, reminding her of the work yet to be done. She rubs her eyes with paint stained fingers and picks up the brush once again.

The first two walls are complete; it’s time to begin the third. Her brush tipped in rich gold swaggers across the wall. She works feverishly, centered on her painting. A phone rings

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incessantly in another room. She flinches each time, looking from door to baby. He doesn’t waken. She grabs the pack of cigarettes and lights another.

Scritch. Hiss.

Exhale. Wave it away. Tamp the butt. Lay it down.

She places this one at the foot of the cradle.

She turns to survey her work. Each wall is the same, and she knows she should be pleased, but she can’t dredge up that emotion. She carefully moves the cradle in order to complete the fourth wall.

Outside the window, daylight is fading. She doesn’t want to work in the company of shadows cast by lamp light. There is a knocking on the front door, but she ignores it. Beginning again with the eggshell blue, she fills up the space in front of her. Someone is yelling her name, but she doesn’t respond. The hammering on the door makes her head ache, and her tired eyes burn as she puts the final touches on her painting.

She steps back from the wall, hugs herself tightly, rocking slightly back and forth on her feet, as she views the finished room.

Gracing the walls are four identical portraits of a grieving Madonna, robed in eggshell blue.

Deeply shadowed eyes dripped carmine tears onto an empty golden blanket.

She picks up the cold, stiff, dead weight of her own baby, kisses his closed eyes, and shows him her work.

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(Erika Wright, a housewife from Midlothian, is dusting off an old journalism degree, polishing up her wit, cleaning out her cobwebs and writing once again. Previously published online at molyworld.net/laughterloaf).

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Robots!

By Jonathan Golden Hello, gentle reader, I would like to tell you a story about my friend Jason.

Is it too much to assume that you, being at least somewhat smart and logical, would find absurdity in a man falling in love with a machine?

I hope so, but

at the same time I'm going to ask that you cast off your prejudices and presumptions as you listen to my tale, and place yourself in Jason's shoes.

Think back, if you will, to your first love, and the feelings that that situation

evoked.

I,

myself,

have

been

in

love

only

understand Jason, even if I don't condone what he's done.

once,

and

I

can

Between Jason and

me there was a certain type of love as well, you see, but a love of respect and friendship.

My first feelings of my friend were not of love, but of

jealousy.

Now you must believe me that in my 27 years of existence I've never thought a single

evil

thought

about

a

single

evil

person,

much

less

a

less

than

honorable wish against a fine, upstanding individual, and Jason was both fine and upstanding.

Even if one were to ignore his impressive physical stature

and chiseled physique, there was still his towering intellect and undeniable charm.

He had to merely walk into a room and already no fewer than half the

women (and probably a good deal of the men) would be hopelessly smitten with him.

Let him open his mouth, whether to talk about the latest theoretical

developments at the forefront of inflationary cosmology, the current status of the Welsh economic infrastructure and how it relates to the industry of Central Europe, or to recite the scores from last night's cricket match, (he was, you see, equally versed in all three, as well as countless more), and the

other

half

would

follow

suit.

He

was,

for

lack

of

a

better

word,

perfect.

It was by mere fortune of chance, you see, that Jason and I became friends: We had been roommates at university.

And since we were both studying the

same thing, robotics, much of our free time was spent in the library and in the study, bouncing ideas off of one another, then waking early the next morning and going to the parts laboratory to try to assemble that which we had discovered the night before, meeting failure more often than not.

It was

from these late night sessions that we both became masters of our respective

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disciplines, he in programming and I in assembly.

We became partners, to a

degree; Jason coming up with an idea of how to make a robot do something, and me trying to build it to accomplish what he had envisioned.

After several

years of refining our respective crafts, we were set free upon the world, and because of his immense talents, Jason was immediately recruited by the top medical robotics firm in London.

As a condition of his hire, he demanded

that I be brought on as well, convincing them by saying, "Gentlemen, ten years from now, I am going to discover a way for a robot to think on its own, and unless Jonathan is here to build it for me, it will be lost to the world.

Hiring me without him would be the same as hiring the greatest pianist in the world, but cutting off his hands." And so, with those fateful words, it was decided that I should play a part in this tale.

As it turned out, Jason had lied about figuring out a way to make robots think.

It only took him three years and seven months to do so.

I still

remember the night when he burst into my room (we lived together at this time as

well),

quickly!

sweaty,

his

I've done it!

eyes

barely

focused,

whispering,

"Jonathan!

I can't believe it, but I've done it!"

Come

And so I

rose, still hazy and disoriented, still wondering if I were dreaming, and followed him as he scampered first down the hallway, then down the stairs, into the makeshift office we had set up to be used when we weren't at the laboratory, and tried to focus on a piece of paper he was desperately trying to show me.

I had been accustomed to Jason's hysterical outbursts. Once at

university, Jason had discovered the method necessary to make a robot solve simple word problems, and he spent three full days pouring over his equations and notes until he fine tuned it enough to be produced, then gave me the assembly

procedure

and

asked,

"Jonathan,

I

trust

you

can

have

this

implemented by the time I wake up," and promptly fell asleep for 48 hours.

As per his request, upon his wakening, I had a simple robot constructed that utilized his program, and we watched over and over again as this robot solved problems from a high school mathematics textbook we had acquired from a used bookshop for that very purpose.

For his achievement, Jason and I won a

scholastic award and received a grant for further study. discovered the true thought algorithm was different.

But the time he

Jason was manic, that

was certain, but it was somehow more subdued, more refined.

As he shoved

paper after paper of meaningless gibberish at me, he had the posture and mannerisms of a man who had made a discovery that would change mankind, mixed with those of a child who had finally figured out how to solve a particularly

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difficult crossword puzzle all on his own and with no help from Dad.

I was

suitably impressed, but I told him that in order to properly appreciate the magnitude of his discovery, I needed to wake up, and so excused myself to take a shower and make a pot of coffee, but before I left, Jason gently placed his hands on my shoulders and said solemnly, "Jonathan, tomorrow we will change the world."

I nodded, and felt the first tinge of jealousy

toward Jason.

The next five years were something of a blur, as I look back on them now.

Conferences and symposiums and interviews, sprinkled far too sporadically with

actual

assembly

time

made

the

bulk

of

those

wonderful

years.

The

patents alone made Jason and me rich beyond our wildest dreams, and we soon moved from our modest flat on the east side of London into a sprawling multilevel mansion in the country.

At no point was it even an option for the

two of us to consider not living together; we were too involved with each other’s work, Jason sensitive to the physical constraints I had made clear to him, and me frustratingly acquiescent to him as he tried to push them to their limits. symbiosis.

And so it was, Jason and I living in a muted, brilliant

That is, of course, until Ava happened.

I met her one sad day, as I walked home from the laboratory. lack of a better word, perfect.

She was, for

A gentle tousled shock of sandy blond hair

resting adorably upon a round, utterly beautiful face, punctuated by a slight button

nose,

forgettable

because

of

its

astounding

symmetry,

yet

unforgettable for that very same reason, two round, red lips that parted to expose teeth, angular and straight at all the proper places, all placed delicately on a small neck that ran painstakingly downward to her two ample breasts.

Tantalizingly lower my description could go, but there are some

memories,

gentle

himself.

One aspect of this pristine goddess that must be mentioned is her

reader,

perfect, dainty hands. and

professional

in

that

this

tortured

soul

would

like

to

keep

to

I must confess that although I consider myself stoic

nearly

every

regard,

there

were

many

nights

that

I

appeased my licentious cravings by imagining her long, coquettish digits sensually

relieving

my

turgid,

throbbing

passion,

always

capped

with

an

astute "Thank you, sir," and a kiss that under the proper conditions could be considered sisterly, or even motherly, you see, in order to cleanse myself from my lecherous indulgence.

It was because of these sweaty, late night

quorums that I believe my longing for Ava crossed the chasm that separates

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working relationships from romantic ones, and, had my timing been slightly less atrocious, perhaps Ava and I could have enjoyed many nights of passion and relief, but the Gods saw it fit to give Ava's heart to the one closest to me: Jason.

Many a lonely night have I kicked myself for introducing the two.

I can

think of too many times shutting my light off to go to sleep, only being unable to because I could hear the muffled voices of Jason and Ava as they stayed up talking and falling deeper in love.

For the first time since I had

known him, Jason had shown an interest in something other than his robots, and if I had to pick something to distract his attention, I would have chosen Ava.

Our tepid symbiosis was giving way to their gentle and mutual longing

for each other.

For a man who could have chosen any woman he wanted and a

woman who had the same luxury among men, it was amazing that they had found each other, yet, reflecting upon how amazing Jason's life had been, it seems fitting, merely a bright dot on the "i" as Jason stands alone in a empty field and screams "I am alive!"

Ava fit seamlessly into our life, taking care of both of us as a sister takes care of sloppy, disinterested, younger brothers.

She cooked and cleaned for

us, pressed our clothes before we were to give an important interview or lecture, tidied up our rooms, did our laundry, and life was perfect.

Jason

seemed invigorated by having the lovely, doting blonde around, and I was not one to fault him for it. exactly what we needed.

She was vivacious and lovable and altogether

My longing for her slowly dissipated into a kind of

respect that only she could have earned.

She was, in yet another sense,

perfect.

Life was good during those years, but as is the case with most good things, there is a point where they start to change, and our perfect life was no exception.

It began one seemingly unassuming day, as I headed downstairs to

the lab after making myself a cup of coffee from the pot which Ava had left for us that morning before she left to complete some errands. the laboratory to find it empty.

I walked into

Strewn about were various papers and parts;

for all the cleaning and tidying she did, Ava knew better than to disturb the laboratory.

I casually walked to Jason's workbench to look for a paper on

which I had written a particularly challenging assembly procedure and saw something curious. Lain atop the pile was a single piece of notebook paper

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with a crude sketch of a woman with the letters "C.A.T.E" written under her, followed by the gibberish and scribblings common to Jason's work.

I picked

it up and had just begun to look it over in greater detail when I heard Jason behind me.

"Jonathan!" he shouted, "if you would, please leave that alone!"

I stood, slightly taken aback, as he rushed toward me and grabbed the paper.

"That is private," he said as he folded it and put it in his pocket.

There

was a moment of awkward silence before Jason finally said "Forgive me, it's something special I'm working on for Ava. read it," and smiled at me.

I'd be embarrassed if you were to

I smiled back, nodding in understanding, briefly

wondering what he could possibly be working on, but immediately put it out of my head.

Regarding work, Jason had never kept anything from me, so I forgot

about it, and we began our work routine for the day.

As the days went by, Jason began to act more and more strangely. secretive and sullen.

He was

Ava, ever perceptive, also noticed, often asking me

when we were alone if I noticed it as well.

I did not want to ruin any

secret that Jason had in store for her, so I deflected her questions as much as I could and when that ceased to work, I assuaged her concerns saying "Jason's working on something big, I'm sure he's just distracted." But I too began to become worried, so much so that I confronted him one day while she was out.

"Jason," I began, "Ava is becoming concerned about your recent demeanor.

I

think you should tell her what it is you've been preoccupied with before things get worse."

"Jonathan, I have been meaning to talk to you about this, I really have, but I feared that you would think it foolish."

"I've never thought you foolish."

"Then please, I need your help, but you mustn't tell Ava," he pleaded, completely unlike Jason.

"Please, tell me what's wrong, I will help you if I can."

"I've fallen in love." He said, solemnly.

"Jason..." I began.

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"But she's not complete.

I need your help to make her complete."

"What are you talking about, Jason?"

"Come, look at her."

He led me down the basement stairs and into the dank underbelly of our house.

We twisted and turned through a virtual maze of cement columns and cardboard boxes, and it occurred to me how infrequently I had visited this part of the house.

We arrived at a hidden corner in which stood a human shaped figure,

covered by a dark sheet.

He paused for a moment, grabbing hold of a corner

of the covering.

"Jonathan, this is C.A.T.E.," he said dramatically, and lifted the sheet.

Before me stood a grotesque mannequin.

She had all the essential features

that a woman should have, but in hideously improper proportions.

Her hair

was matted and unkempt, clearly a wig from a second hand costume shop.

Her

eyes and mouth were drawn upon an opaque mask, forming an absurd, questioning face.

She had no nose and wore nothing save what appeared to be a rather

expensive red dress that fit terrible on her angular and metallic body.

"It stands for Cerebral Atonement Technology Experiment, Jonathan.

Do you

understand what that means?" he asked, excitedly.

"Jason, this is...this is absurd..."

"Absurd?" he sounded dejected.

"Jonathan, this is what I've been working on

since we discovered artificial intelligence!

She can actually FEEL! She

EMOTES!" "She's a robot Jason."

"No!" he exasperated, "she's more than that!"

"Jason, you're saying that you're in love with a robot..."

"Yes, I've fallen in love with her.

But that's why I need your help.

I need

you to build her."

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"I...what...."

"She's perfect, Jonathan, but she's ugly.

She needs to look perfect too."

"You've gone mad, Jason."

"No, you don't understand.

She feels.

We talk and have conversations and

she understands me."

"But, you have Ava, who is a real human."

"Ava doesn't understand me like CATE does," he looked, longingly, at the robot, in an almost comical way.

"Look Jason, we're going to go upstairs, have a cup of coffee, and talk logically about this."

"Jonathan, I've never asked you for anything, why are you fighting me?"

"Please Jason, let's talk upstairs."

"No, forget it!

Just leave me be.

I will figure out a way to build her

myself," he said through choked tears.

I stood and watched the most brilliant, logical man I had ever met collapse, completely powerless to help him.

After a few painful moments, I turned and

made my way back upstairs.

The next few days were awkward to say the least.

Jason and I did have

projects that we had been working on, so we were forced to spend long hours in close proximity to one another, but neither of us said a word about our bizarre encounter in the basement.

Things went on like his for almost two

weeks, and I had begun to think that he had realized the idea was ludicrous, until one morning, I was approached by Ava. "Jonathan," she began, and I could tell she was trying hard to fight back tears, "I found something I'd like to ask you about."

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I immediately stiffened, thinking that she had found the CATE robot in the basement, and was about to begin speaking when she pulled out a piece of paper and gently handed it to me.

"Do you know anything about this?"

I unfolded it and my heart sank.

It was clearly a love letter from Jason,

written to CATE. "Who is Cate?" she asked, unable to hold back her tears any longer, letting one roll down her beautiful face.

"Ava, I..." but she cut me off.

"Jonathan, just answer me this: Is he being unfaithful?"

Why, oh why did she have to phrase it in that manner? to her, but I did not want to hurt her either.

I did not want to lie

Looking back, I was at the

time grateful for the semantic loophole she unknowingly allowed me to exploit.

After a moment, "No Ava, Jason is not being unfaithful to my knowledge."

Tears now openly streaming down her face, she looked at me and said "Thank you Jonathan, for being truthful with me."

The word "truthful" stuck in my chest like a dagger, the scar of which is still there to this day.

The next day will be the one day that I remember for the rest of my life.

Ava's scream, the police, the local television news and camera crews, the interviews, the paperwork, the endless phone calls, and at the end of the day, just Ava and I in each other's arms, not as lovers, but as two friends who had just lost the person closest to them. She wept and wept until there were no more tears, and finally, after the confusion and pandemonium of the day, as she held me, I wept as well.

We slept that night, in my bed, never

letting go of each other.

A few days later, after the funeral and burial procedures were complete, I began the painful process of tidying up the laboratory, a room which I had been purposefully avoiding in order to avoid the memories.

I grabbed a

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handful of papers in order to straighten them out when an envelope fell to the ground.

It was plain and white with one word written on it: Jonathan.

I opened it and took out the folded piece of paper that had been tucked inside of it, and began to read: "Jonathan.

I am sorry indeed that it has come to this.

Please know that it

was you, not Ava, that gave me the most doubt about whether or not to go through with it. more.

I truly loved Ava, deeply and profoundly, but I loved you

You were my partner and my brother, and I'm sorry that I kept this

from you.

I had been working on the emotional technology for quite some time, unwilling to go to you until I had perfected it.

But as things went, I became selfish

and once I created CATE, I was loathe to share her with you.

I hope that

your last thoughts of me were not of a selfish person.

CATE confessed to me last night that it was not me that she was in love with, but you.

Looking back, it makes sense; most of her and my conversation

revolved around you, and when you were going to be able make her beautiful, and I can't blame her for loving so gentle and loyal a soul as yourself. with this, my true suicide note, I give her to you. but the fullest and brightest future.

So

I wish you both nothing

As for me, a world in which CATE loved

another was not one I could see myself in, and because of that selfish reason, I took my life.

Please, whatever you do, cherish CATE and all that

she has to offer.

And please, old friend, do not judge me too harshly.

I am simply not strong

enough to watch my love love another.

Until we meet again, you have my love and respect.

Goodbye."

I stared at the paper, not able to believe what I had read.

The note

discovered by the police mentioned nothing of CATE, or even anything about Jason's work.

He'd have had everyone believe that a deep depression brought

on by feelings of inadequacy were the reason he took his life.

I dropped the

paper and as if moving through a fog, found myself down in the basement in front of the human shaped figure, covered with a dark sheet.

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I pulled it off and stared at CATE.

Something inside her, some of her inner

workings that only Jason understood, thrummed.

She still had the grotesque

facial features I remembered from the last time I had seen her.

"Hello Jonathan," she said, in a robotic voice.

"What have you done?" I asked tersely "I haven’t done anything," she answered, unemotionally.

"You convinced Jason to kill himself."

"No." "Jason is dead!

"I love you.

He killed himself because you didn't love him!"

That he is dead is of no consequence.

What would you like to

talk about?"

I stood and stared at her. stairs into the laboratory. a hammer.

At long last, I turned and went back up the Rummaging through some work tools I came across

I picked it up and walked to the top of the basement stairs.

Taking a deep breath, I started back down them, back down into a part of the house which I had visited far too infrequently.

(Jonathan Golden works full time AND is working hard to get published. He says: Storytellers are a valuable asset, and I would be humbled to be considered one.�)

The Green Man of Amaranth

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When you look past the commercials, the sales, the nauseating TV specials, the real meaning of Christmas may or may not bare itself. So sometimes you need to dig down past all the scribble-scrabble of daily life and reach for a story.

No, this not tale about a visit from the portly Al Gore. Nor is it a story about the Green Man of Celtic legend (although inspired by the GM of British lore). As you know, every rural community has its share of mysteries. Any grouping of people near the foot of a mountain, the banks of a river or lake, or a dark forest is subject to tales of bogey men, strange beasts, witches, werewolves, trolls or ghosts.

Amaranth has those stories, too (check out the book Weird Virginia by Jeff Bahr and Troy Taylor from your local library). More on the Golden Swan, the Witch of the Lake and Quimby's Lost Ghost another time. During the days leading up to Christmas, the story of the Green Man is told and discussed around town at any gathering of the curious or cynical. These discussions are usually in hushed tones because the Green Man is seen as curse on decent people by the decent people of Amaranth. As a matter of fact, the congregation of the Amaranth First Baptist, led my Preacher Willis Lawson Sr., fan out about town and attempt squelch any such discourse. Why, you might ask? Is it the paganism? The overtones of nature's virility? The earthy, hippy 1960's subculture that still exists as a lifestyle for a good portion of Amaranth's population?

Well, yep, it's all those things (although the Green Man image can be found in churches, abbeys and cathedrals around the world). But it's mostly the Cannabis. Years ago -- yes, in the 1960's -- Cary Thalbron started the Amaranth Renaissance Faire. Each June, hundreds attended a weeklong festival of Renaissance-inspired plays, theatrics and food. Cary was a drug dealer also. He introduced pot to the Amaranth Players, a five person ensemble that presented the Ye Olde Mud Wrestling show twice daily. These guys were so stoned by the end of each day they were eating the mud instead of wrestling in it.

Soon everybody was getting happy. Word spread throughout Virginia and the East Coast that Amaranth was the place to get high. Cory was raking in the dough. He was pulling in the green backs. He was in the green. The town was bursting at the seams and loving all the tourist dollars, Cary was the Green Man. Attendance at the Faire doubled and tripled. But Amaranth had been invaded by undesirables. The Amaranth First Baptist Congregation called Cory the Green Devil.

On the first day of what would be the last Cory Thalbron sponsored Faire, Cory married Annie Shum. He had fallen hard for her at Randolph Macon College, both were history majors, and together they created the Faire. Annie was an introverted, pale, waif prone to wearing black ribbons in her ginger-colored hair that matched her black cat eye glasses. She was Cory's princess.

With pressure from Lawson's close chum at the Attorney General's office in Richmond and due to the lackluster law enforcement effort by the local Sheriff, the National Guard was called in to knock some heads around on June 14th, 1968. At first, nobody was seriously injured. However, Cory's growing fields, his Renaissance Faire and his 17

freedom were all taken away on that day. Not until the next morning, Cory already on his way to Richmond, did they discover Annie's body. Her skull had been crushed. No one knew how or why. Sheriff Papps just shrugged his shoulders.

Cory soon became a legend. Many today think he is still in federal prison breaking boulders and whiling away his free time writing minstrel songs about Annie. Others say he escaped to live in the woods around Amaranth in 1980. The consensus is that he is alive and well and delivering the best quality cannabis to Amaranth each Christmas eve.

Everyone receives a quarter pound square of nature's finest, wrapped in green tissue paper, and tied with a black ribbon, including Preacher Willis Lawson, Sr., retired, his son Preacher Willis Lawson, Jr., the entire congregation's of the AFB and the entire congregation of the Amaranth Community Church, the Sheriff, his minions, all members of the Local 808 Veterans Lodge, etc.

In the 1980's, the town council, peppered with both AFM members and the ex-hippy ACC members, fought hard for three late night sessions on the matter of the mystery of the pot. The why's and how's were never determined. Even after the council coughed up enough funds to hire a retired FBI agent. Nada. The 'who' was never unquestionably determined either. But everyone thought it was Cory. By 1985, a compromise: Each recipient of the green gift was required, by local law enforcement, to give up their gift at several collection sites around town. No questions asked. No embarrassment. No arrests. The chief of police was then responsible for preparing and monitoring a cannabis bonfire, to be set at least one mile from town, preferably downwind, before the New Year struck.

So, as legend goes, on New Year's Eve, you can sometimes hear Cory the Green Man, his Christmas duties over, singing his love songs near the lake's edge. Take a deep breath and enjoy. (from Amaranth Stories by Jim Burfoot) Jim Burfoot is the Editor of the Hulltown 360 Literary Journal.

Of Which the Angels Sing 18

Casting upon them These things That will cover All over (even the sides so free) Upon them a spell Spell of all spells cast Those things That the sides wish for No more Because all is cast.

(Please visit our web site: www.hulltown.com for submission guidelines, to leave a comment or suggestion. Thanks.) ŠCopyright 2010 Hulltown 360 Literary Journal

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