Donna's Muse Papers

They set out on a winter’s day, heading south. They’d had enough of winter with its cold winds, snow and ice. That was no way for a bird to live. Maxine fussed around packing her suitcase while mallard looked over the map one more time. South covered a lot of territory and he had to be sure he was leading the flock to good feeding grounds. He’d heard the Carolinas were nice in the winter. And all he had to do was follow the coastline. The marshes at the point of Cape Hatteras and further south on Core Banks were game refuges and his flock could bask in the warm sun while they fed on tiny shrimp and grains of beach grasses. He could hardly wait to start. “Did you hear the weatherman? There is a nor’easter blowing on the Carolinas,” Maxine shouted from the bedroom. “Drat. We will have to wait till that moves off shore to start, then,” Mallard called back to her. “No way, Mallard Q. Duck. I am ready to go, and go we shall. Just lead us around it. We can skirt the edge and go on down to th...

I saw her standing there with vacant eyes; blood all over her white organza dress. Taylor lay at her feet in more blood. I backed away slowly, the way they say you should move away from a rattlesnake about to strike. I prayed the privet hedge shielded me from being noticed by Virginia O’Donald, but I don’t believe she’d have seen me if I’d been standing right in front of her face. She was totally out of it, in another world. I saw and heard the whole thing. Taylor and Virginia were engaged to be married. The wedding date was set for mid June, just a few weeks away. Everyone knew Taylor was a womanizer and had only asked Virginia to marry him because of her money. Everyone knew except Virginia, and really she knew deep in her heart all these things were true. But she was head over heels in love with the heel, and like they say, “Love is blind.” If only tonight Virginia had been blind. Virginia was walking in the garden to get away from the crowd for a moment. I had done the same and was...

Donna Campbell Smith Monty He was the epitome of the word mutt. A medium sized dog covered with beige, curly hair. He had a long tail that wagged incessantly. He took up at our next-door neighbor’s house and they generously “gave” him to me. Mama let me keep him, but he had to stay outdoors. I don’t remember how old I was, but I was in school and I think old enough to have read Lassie Come Home. I was in love with this dog. For some inconceivable reason I named him Monty. He was just like the dogs I’d read about in books. Monty followed me everywhere I went whether I was on foot or my bicycle. But the thing that clenched our relationship and told me this dog truly did love me was this: Monty was always sitting at the corner of our block waiting for me to come home from school. Now, that is love. That is also when I began to know that animals had a gift humans did not have. He knew the time and didn’t even have a clock. Monty was my introduction to responsibility. I had to feed him myse...

“What do you mean, what makes me tick?” Mary stirred the coals in the campfire. “I don’t know. I just have a hard time reading you. I mean, one minute you are telling me you are happy living alone, free to go and come as you please. Then the next minute you are saying how lonely you are. I don’t know what you want? Where do you want us to go? What do you expect out of me?” “Expect? Nothing. What do you want me to expect? Here we are, on a mountaintop, cooking our supper on an open fire with a sky full of stars. What more can I say? I love being here with you. I love making love with you. But, I’m not expecting anything anymore. Been there, done that. “Besides, isn’t that what men want? Benefits without commitment? Tell me, what makes you tick? Is it the idea of not getting to make the choice whether to love me or leave me?” Mary looked at Kevin, tried to see his eyes, but he was looking off in the distance, avoiding her scrutiny. So, there they were, both trying to read the other witho...

The mayor, Woody Woodchuck, stood outside the mercantile and took a long puff on his corncob pipe. “Yep, its going to be a fine day,” he said to the standers-by. Freddie Fox ignored the mayor. He didn’t think much of Mr. Woodchuck and wondered why they needed a mayor anyway. Sugar Hill had a town manager and that seemed enough leadership for one place. Of course, those silly mice could care less and Jeremy Whitetail had his own agenda. As long as he could jump fences and eat with the cows that lived the life of Riley, what did he care about city politics? The cows had a farmer from outside come in, cut down trees, dig up the land – and you’d think Mayor “Chuckie” would see the danger in that – and plant grass, so they didn’t have to hardly move from one spot to eat. Meanwhile, the deer families jumped right in and ate that processed food, getting fat as the cows while everyone else had to work for their food. Freddie Fox had to sneak around all over town to find his food, and then catc...

Through the blue night haze she felt her way down the hill. She knew the way like the back of her hand, even without the moon lighting her way. Old John’s licker still was across the ridge, and she could smell the mash cooking in the crisp predawn air. Soon she’d be able to wash away the pain and maybe survive one more day. She stopped to catch her breath, leaning on an old gnarly oak tree. Its roots clung to the side of the steep ridge. She was almost to the top and then her walk would be down hill. Then she’d get her breathing back and only have to be careful her knees didn’t give out as she negotiated the rocks and tree roots. A sharp left at the twin pines, then right at the spring. That spring water was what made John’s shine better than most. The crawl through the blackberry thicket was the last leg of the trip. She emerged covered with bloody scratches where the brambles tried their best to hold her back, keep her from deadening the awful pain. She laid flat on the cool earth an...

The shovel crunched through the hard packed sandy soil. It had been near drought all summer. Cathy tossed the dirt aside on the pile that she’d accumulated next to the hole. Silly wasn’t a big dog, at least it didn’t seem so while she was alive. Cathy felt stupid crying over a mongrel that she’d not even known but a few weeks. The dog just showed up on the back porch steps one morning. It was thin and wiry, black, without a speck of white anywhere. Cathy gave her some left over scrambled eggs and filled a bucket with water. She named her Silly because the dog was just that, silly. Her rear end wiggled constantly and she would bark at Cathy when she came outside to hang the clothes or put out the trash as if to say, “Stop that work and play with me.” Cathy was seventy-five years old, to damn old to be out in the back yard playing with a dog, but she’d throw a stick and Silly would run like hell and bring it back to her, then sit there wagging that tail, begging to do it again. Cathy was...

It had been over a year since they’d taken a long weekend to the mountains. Kathy had insisted on this one. She hoped getting away alone would set the stag for talking about the stresses in their marriage. She hoped Paul would open up to her and let her in on why he had distanced himself from her. Paul was taking the turns a little faster than she felt was safe. She clinched the edge of her seat and braced herself through every turn. “Paul, you’re scaring me,” she finally said. Paul didn’t answer, but slowed down. The vista below was beautiful. Kathy relaxed and enjoyed the view. “I packed a picnic. Your favorites: fried chicken, three-bean salad and some deviled eggs. Oh, and I made brownies,” Kathy said. “Fine.” “I was thinking we could stop at one of the overlooks and have lunch,” she could feel the tension radiate from Paul. Why? What was on his mind that they couldn’t talk? They had always talked until the past few months. Now it was like living with a granite statue. She could no...

Mary Lou’s feet ached and she could feel her back trying to cramp. It had been a long time since she’d had to work on her feet all day. It had taken a while for her to come to terms with being a single mom since Jack died. Even the money from selling the house had not lasted very long. Now, here she was, three years later working at Tom Peele’s Dry Cleaners. She didn’t even get a lunch hour, but had to eat her sandwich on a fifteen-minute break. Her task today was checking through the drop-off to make sure the pockets were empty, mark stains, and take off any safety pins or jewelry. She was always surprised at things she’d find in pockets. You’d think it would occur to folks to empty them before dropping them off at the cleaners. Dirty tissues, candy, cigarettes, lipsticks, ballpoint pins, baby pacifiers, and once she found a thong in a man’s suit jacket pocket. That’s one of many reasons she wore latex gloves to do this distasteful job. Most of what she found went into the trash bin, ...

The Methodist Church had the oldest and biggest cemetery in town. Most of my ancestors are buried there, and one green parrot. The parrot belonged to my Aunt Gussie who lived to be ninety-nine, but the parrot out lived her by some years. When it died my grandfather sneaked in the night and buried it next to Aunt Gussie. The Methodist Church Cemetery was not a scary place. It surrounded the church, wrapping it around the back and both sides like the loving arms of Jesus. We children played there between Sunday School and Church, and I walked there with Mama while she pointed out various relatives’ graves, explaining they were not really there, but in heaven. We read the dates and epitaphs, picked violets and then walked back home. The cemetery was the best fun at the Annual Easter Egg Hunt the church sponsored on Easter Mondays, which is a holiday in North Carolina. All we children brought our baskets and dyed hard-boiled eggs. We turned the eggs over to the Sunday School teachers to hi...

He was the wizard of Peachtree Bend. At least that’s what his friends called him. He could tell you facts about anything that came up in conversation, and that irritated them, his friends. It didn’t matter if you were talking about the weird bird that had come to Bonnie Sue’s birdfeeder, or what was under the hood of Jimmy Johnson’s race car, Harold could go on and on with little known facts on the subjects. Most of the gang believed he was making it up. Harold, the wizard, also loved to look at the stars. That is why he often brought his telescope to the park at night. He didn’t look like a wizard, but wore the garb of a biker: leather jacket, dew rag, jeans, and black boots. He strapped the telescope to the back of his bike, and after dark when most of the people who crowded the small square during the day had moved down to the riverfront clubs and night life, he drove to the square and set up the scope. The park had a statue of a figure on a horse. Harold knew it was General Braxto...