FICTION BY ANN WUEHLER

Ann Wuehler has written six novels: Aftermath: Boise, Idaho, Remarkable Women of Brokenheart Lane, The House on Clark Boulevard, Oregon Gothic, The Adventures of Grumpy Odin and Sexy Jesus and Owyhee Days.

She also writes short stories. “The Blackburne Lighthouse” appears in Brigid Gate’s Crimson Bones anthology. “The Snake River Tale” was included in Along Harrowed Trails. “The Ghost of John Burnberry” appears in Penumbric. “The Caesar’s Ghost Quest” made it into the October 2023 World of Myth. “Dora of Boat Landing Road” was just accepted by Stygian Press for publication. “Cassie’s Story” was accepted by Great Weather for Media. 

MOUTHPIECE
by Ann Wuehler

I take the same route every day to both of my jobs. A line of overgrown rose bushes marks part of the way; they are wild rose bushes with the delicate little spring blooms that smell fantastic. I want to stop and sniff the air when the yellow, orange and sometimes pink flowers work overtime to cover the leaves and thorns and branches—not to pick or destroy them; just to sniff the air for that wild, sweet perfume.

There’s a reason I’m waxing on and on about some near-giant wild weeds that grow along my work route. Mouthpiece tells me, on a regular basis, I will die by moonlight and roses, from jet ice and careless dreams.

The doll, even now, sits on my pillow, wiggling her toeless feet in their small black velvet shoes that can be removed and put back on. She hums to herself, waiting for the goddesses that run everything—her take on the universe, not mine—to impart yet another prophecy about some poor schmoo.

*****

I put my knitting down and move aside the curtain to peer out the window at the night. Snow chokes the air; the weather forecast predicts a “mild disturbance” will dust the roads but it will clear by midnight or so. Moon expected!

For nearly five months, Mouthpiece has been spitting out that I will die by moonlight and roses, on jet ice and careless dreams. I must drive to work on bad roads to reach my destination by one in the morning, for a shift that lasts until nine or so.

I’ve already done eight hours at the Red Lion Inn, plus the driving time to get there and back. It’s almost eleven at night. I need to get ready to go to my second job at the group home.

“Just don’t go,” Mouthpiece advises me. Her giant, flat blue eyes regard me with real worry. Perhaps she is supposed to save me. But then again, she has not been able to save any of the others she told would die through flowery and useless phrases.

I hate when her scarlet-stitched mouth opens and forms words. I can hear the stitches rip. I can hear them repair themselves. She says it does not hurt but I do not believe her.

“I need to pay rent at least every other month,” I speak lightly but my car breaking down and needing an alternator wrecked my bank account. I’m trying to live on ten bucks until my next set of pay days. Two weeks away. I have no more sick days—at either the group home on Third Street or the Ontario Red Lion on Goodfellow—after a nasty bout of actual flu. “Stay home, we’ll cover for you” was turning into “one more day gone, and you’re fired.” Car and flu problems were reducing me to living out of my barely-working vehicle. Again.

Living in your car is not the romantic adventure you think it might be, by the way. Where to park. How to sleep and yet guard against serial killers all night. How to discover change under the seats that might buy you a dollar burger with nothing on it. That’s okay at thirty, not at fifty-five, when you’re supposed to have your life figured out, on course and your retirement fund in the millions.

“Just don’t go. It’s tonight,” Mouthpiece warned.

“Kitty Boom-Boom might be lying. Yeah, I’ll pass.”

“That’s what her name sounds like. The goddess, I mean. She’s nicer than her other sisters. At least she gives warnings before stuff goes bad, instead of giggling when it does. You’re wearing that?”

“It’s the graveyard at the group home. Sweats are fine. Maybe death wouldn’t be so bad. No more worries about paying bills, if I can pay bills, when I can pay bills. The rent’s due all the goddamn time, everything due all the goddamn time.” I stop as Mouthpiece twists her head about on her stuffed neck. “I’m fine. Just tired. I need both these jobs.”

“You’re not fine. You’ve got hours to live. Why don’t you take me with you? Maybe Kitty Boom-Boom won’t let anything happen if I’m there. I’ve never gone with any of the other women who owned me—or stayed so long with any of the others. They normally freak out and throw me away, whatever form...am I boring you, Darcy?”

I try to stop yawning, I try to stop wanting to go back to bed, just not show up, get fired, be able to really rest for the first time in months or even years.

“No, no, I love when you babble. A talking doll telling me I’m gonna die every day for the last few months. I give you a home; I fix your little green dress. This is the thanks I get? Oh the humanity!”

Mouthpiece stares up at my ceiling. She does not get my hilarious humor.

“Last time I lived in a sheep figurine. With a crack. A small crack but still. The time before that I lived in a paper weight shaped like Idaho. I can list all of them, back to when Kitty Boom-Boom scooped me out of her...”

“No no, don’t wanna hear your origin tale. Again. You change it. Sometimes it’s her ear, sometimes it’s her arm pit. Sometimes it’s a hollow in her thigh? What does that even mean?” I sip coffee, the last of it but I need it. I need it. It doesn’t seem to work anymore but I still need some coffee at least once a day. “Sure. I can take you to work. You can go in my purse. Lucky you’re small.”

“You’re not crazy,” Mouthpiece tells me in her small doll voice; that same voice from the Talky-Tina Twilight Zone episode.

It’s a bit softer, a bit nicer, however.

“I am crazy. I still have to go to work. I work graveyard tonight and swing tomorrow for Red Lion. And then a day off. When nothing happens to me tonight, do you go away?”

Her big, flat eyes met mine. “Kitty Boom-Boom is always right. Her sisters might play jokes and lie to you poor schmucks, but she doesn’t. She’s terribly truthful.”

“Have you seen my other tennis shoe?”

“I see a lot of stuff, Darcy, but haven’t seen that ratty thing for ages. Maybe call your dad? He’s your dad.”

My mouth pops open to rage and scream about my dad, but it closes. A doll being used as some conduit for goddesses isn’t really the best option to unload some daughter-fury over a dad turned awful in his declining years. No sense, really, to try to speak to a man who thinks I’ve been a burden to him his entire life. Can’t beg for help from a man who discovers he might have been right about his only daughter. Or even shoot the breeze about the weather and what to get Aunt Carrie for her birthday.

Would Aunt Carrie like a ham?

He asked me that for so many years, before he just bought my mom’s sister a ham. As if my answer, either way, meant nothing. I suppose it did not matter.

“No thanks. He can read about me in the Observer. Local near-homeless loser flips her car on ice on a moonlight night while wearing rose perfume.”

I laugh but the image of those wild rose bushes, now stark in their winter state, swims through my brain’s strange waters. The road does seem extra slippery there. I’m starting to freak myself out. Even thinking of going by the highway, though it takes longer.

“I wonder what I’ll go into next? I’d love to go into a statue. Something big and grand, that people like to look at. In a garden. With toads and dragonflies all summer. And it will be a nice death. To fall asleep in the shade of that cherry tree, die: the end. Wouldn’t that be a nice prophecy?” Mouthpiece sighs toward me but I’ve heard her summer garden statue fantasy at least sixteen times.

“A marble statue? One of those cheap Civil War ones?”

“Marble. White marble with veins of gray and black. Classy. I’d like to be a classy object, a thing of beauty, if not a joy forever,” and she laughs, this conduit, this funnel of a made-up deity or a real one…who knows by now. I do not. A soft-bodied doll speaks to me on a regular basis. I have no grasp on reality and she’s been somewhat good company. If she didn’t speak about me dying, she’d be like one of those sitcom roommates: somewhat annoying, easy to dismiss, and always there when times got so hard you considered leaving the planet a bit earlier than fate planned.

Except fate seemed eager to murder me tonight, instead of drawing it out over many years to make sure I suffer plenty. It seems I skew a bit toward the bitter and negative when alone with Mouthpiece—or just alone. I don’t have to pretend I’m a chirpy team-player eager to work harder for less money. I don’t think I’m very American anymore, which is probably why my dad gave up on me.

I put my back to Mouthpiece, wipe at my face before the tears leak. I sniff them back, put a smile on my face—pretending for a possessed toy to be all right, to be stronger than any crap thrown at me. I’ll clean and make lunches all night, go to the Red Lion to deal with customers wanting towels and answers as to why they can get a room online for such and such a price but we charge a different price...!

My mind wants to snap; my body wishes to curl up beneath the ratty old sleeping bag that I use for a comforter.

I look out my window and see that the snow has slowed down.

*****

My Toyota takes a bit but it starts. Mouthpiece moves about in my roomy cloth purse trying to get comfortable amid my wallet, pack of gum, assorted debris that accumulates in a woman’s bag. The heater blows warm air…finally. I note my gas tank stands at nearly empty. God damn it. There goes that ten bucks. Maybe I’ll dare use my one credit card but it’s near maxed and I can’t make the payments on it.

It’s always something. It’s always something when you’re poor.

“Don’t,” Mouthpiece peeks over the edge of my bag, reaching out her fingerless hand toward me.

I drive the back way to work to the group home. Holiday to Railroad, turn onto Onion after turning off on the beet dump road the trucks use. My tires seem to find no ice or anything much at all as I creep along. I remain cautious but the moon is out, the clouds fading, the snow so sparkly and gorgeous at night. A deer bounds into the trees by the river. An owl flashes through my headlights, carrying what looks like a large mouse. I see the row of old wild roses just ahead. I need to get gas somehow. Roses and moonlight.

My dad asks me what to get Aunt Carrie for Christmas this year. A ham? Should I get her a ham? I say yes, get her a ham as he starts doing that dance from “Singin’ In the Rain,” the one Gene Kelly did with the umbrella and the puddles. Dad, I didn’t know you could dance. I can’t but Aunt Carrie might like a ham or maybe one of those popcorn tins? Give her some rose bushes, dad. Along with the ham.

My foot presses down, just enough to raise the speed limit about five miles or so. My hands grip the wheel, my teeth clench. I try to take my foot off but it bears down even more. I still see my dad whirling about waving an umbrella, going from puddle to puddle. My foot slams down as if not part of me at all.

I hear Mouthpiece saying something silly like no, watch out, no.

The Toyota slews toward the rose bushes, the moonlight lighting up the world like a spotlight.

I wake up just as my Toyota smashes into the tractor parked in the driveway of the house that sports some of the wild rose bushes. A plow attached to the front attests the owner will use it to clear the road at some point if so needed. The tractor is not much hurt or harmed but I am.

I am.

Mouthpiece, yet in that small doll form, sits beside me as we watch over the mangled car, the still form that is me inside yet and the house lights coming on.

The universe stretches over our heads, a long room dotted with chaise lounges. Not thrones at all.

I see goddesses watching this little bit of a tragedy at the far tip of Eastern Oregon. Mouthpiece gazes upward, points at one of the deities, who shakes out her purple hair, puts her back to us.

“Is that her? Your Kitty Boom-Boom? I have to get to work. I’ll be late.”

“I told you to stay home. It could be her. We’ve never met! She’s just a voice in my head. I should be moving on, I should be in a teddy bear or a decorative vase. I won’t remain in this ridiculous ugly doll. I won’t!”

Mouthpiece stands, turns to me, the wild rose bushes now a tangled mass of roots and broken branches. They might not make it to spring. The people in the house stare at my Toyota that lost against their hefty John Deere but I cannot hear their words. I seem to be deaf.

I notice others have gathered near us. They wear overalls or dresses or just clothes. We do not get pretty garments after we die? Hands reach out but draw back before they touch me or Mouthpiece. Eyes resigned and tired as those behind barbed wire in a camp. My heart doesn’t beat in my chest, my breath seems absent.

I try not to panic.

“Mouthpiece? Do we go with the others or what? Do we try to get up there, to the goddesses?”

“I don’t know,” poor Mouthpiece says to me, to all of the others who stop, their faces so hopeful and waiting now. The resignation fades a bit from their eyes.

We all look upward but the goddesses have their backs to us. Only one still peers down, her purple hair short and shot through with snow white. Is this Kitty Boom-Boom or just a goddess that still has a bit of sympathy left for those yet on this planet?

She smashes her giant hands together.

She points toward what I believe is the west or maybe it’s north.

We all, this crowd of others and myself and Mouthpiece, trudge in the direction of that pointing finger, toward a faint glow. It’s not the moon. It might be the end of a tunnel or a fire to burn us all alive or a glowing eye of some beast that will devour us or something cozy and sweet. We trudge onward, praying for luck, for that final happy ending. I wonder when our walking will cease.