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The Township To The East Is Called Paradise (September 20, 2010. Issue 21.)
Despite her setbacks, Jilly continued looking for a way to end her marriage with the imaginary man she had met a year ago Sunday on her way to First United Church in Montville, Ohio. Jilly had just lost her job as an assistant at the Willow Creek branch of Geauga County’s public libraries. Her 
father had recently passed away. Her first child Elizabeth failed kindergarten the previous year. And the Datsun had conked out on Highway 422 on her way to an interview two Thursdays before.
Still, she kept praying for a viable way for Palestine to live peacefully with powerful Israel in the coming millennium. Her mom thought she was a bit nuts. The previous week, she had told her about this new guy and how she loved him and couldn’t find a way to break up with him even though he did not really exist. She kept telling Gertrude how she really did love him, that he was really nice, and that his kisses were the best she had ever experienced in her many years of dating the “barbaric, opposite sex.” Gertrude said, “But honey, remember, YOU are married to the man. It is not easy to get a divorce these days even if he isn’t real.” Jilly did not comment other than, “Sure.”
Elizabeth liked staying in her room. Jilly had a two bedroom apartment in the “downtownish” section of Parkman right next to the Marathon Gas Station. The other building there was a hardware. Elizabeth’s dreams were more paramour that her surroundings. She wanted to live in a larger, small town when she grew up. She wanted to own a horsey. She wished she was pretty. She dreamed of nice boys. She wanted to drive faster than thirty five miles an hour when she grew up. And she wanted to have a bigger family of two cute boys and a husband when she reached the age of twenty five.
In the end, these three females were all destroyed by the man in Jilly’s dreams. Of course the event happened on a dark night in the middle of winter. And no one ever caught the murderer.
It was Feb. 4th, one day away from Grandma’s birthday. The three had decided to go to the Marathon station and have hotdogs and a bowl of chicken soup that they had gotten from the gas station and microwaved there. In the middle of their supper in walks a woman who was tall. This woman was masquerading as a man in a black trench coat. He/she said right off the bat, “You three live around here?” Jilly became the leader and replied, “Yeah, next door. Who are you?” The woman/man said, “I am a dream to some, and to others, I am their worst future.” Jilly seemed happy with the unique answer and asked the man/lady to have a seat at their booth. The odd, generic person asserted, “No, let’s go to your place, now! I want to show you three something.” Jilly, nor did the two others ask what. There he/she knocked them out with a hammer Jilly had put by her door in case evil persons lurked outside. He/she tied them up face to face in a threesome and wrapped duct tape around their legs and their asses. Their one mass of womanhood (grandma, mother, daughter) looked funny lying on the linoleum floor. The women were not found for six months when Jilly’s lease was up and the landlord knocked at her door. By then they were skeletons. The murderer was never found since he/she was not really a human being. Motive was investigated for a few months, and then, tossed aside. The pastor never said a thing about any of this to his congregation because a good pastor never brings up bad news. The community kept growing. The Marathon station made more room for those who thought the place a restaurant. The hardware added a small addition that consisted of a lumberyard. Lots of people were moving away from the city and finding that Montville and Parkman were quiet places to live if you minded your own business and made no assertions.
Dialogue Between Lovers At Home (July 20, 2009. Issue 7.)
Shit, she says, want to fight again?
Hell, you started it, didn’t you? I
Did. And I’ll start it again and again.
Until you change. She says, why,
You don’t like me cheating on you?
No, I quipped, I don’t like you
Rubbing it in how you cheat on me.
Can’t you let your evil die a natural,
Quiet death? This gets to her, but
Still, she plods on, no, I like everyone
To know, not just you. I like sex. You,
You’d rather go to church, or read
Dumb ass books about the Civil War.
What about our two kids? He says.
She is standing now. She ends it
By saying, one of these days I just may
Conform when men start to think
Being a good woman is being good.