Free Greetings from the Vodka Sea by Chris Gudgeon Page A

waves licked her toes. Monica squatted. She dipped her hand into the sea and, almost without thinking, took a sip. It was awful stuff, horrible. How could anyone . . .
    She took another drink. From across the water, she heard the shouts of men, some angry, some, it seemed, frightened. Women too were screaming, and children, she thought she could make out the sound of children crying for their mothers. It didn’t matter that she couldn’t speak the language; the sound of children crying for their mothers was something you just instinctively understood. Now she sat and wondered, where was Bruce? Perhaps he’d gone for swim. Or a long walk along the beach? He liked to do that when he’d had a bit to drink.
    There was another crack . The gunshots were getting closer. The marauders were sweeping down from the hills, and where was John? She wanted him there with her. She wanted to hold him. She wanted him to be angry at her, to reproach her. She wanted to be hated and forgiven. She rolled onto her hands and knees and reached into the water for another drink, then she bent forward and began to lap the water like a dog. Nearby, a stone’s throw, really, a whale surfaced. It was close enough for Monica to look into its eyes, to read the blankness, and she realized for the very first time that these friendly whales weren’t friendly at all.
    â€œI know your game,” she said, then lapped another mouthful of water. She felt around for a rock and found one almost the size of her fist. She pulled it towards her, nestled it in her lap, held it tighter. Bruce would come for her soon, she was sure of that. She wanted to be ready.

The Klingon Opera

    M urph found the kit at the back of the basement walk-in, in a plastic storage box stuffed to the gills with memories and other shit. Why he hadn’t disposed of the kit years ago, simply thrown it away, he couldn’t say. He was a pack rat. You never knew when you’d need something. He’d asked Rudy to help him, but the kid was on his computer and refused to get off. Murph got pissed and started into one of those lectures about allowances and certain teenagers who never lifted a finger to help around the house, but he kept his cool in light of the fact — the irony, hypocrisy even, that he was asking his son to participate — indirectly, in a major felony punishable by up to twenty years in the federal penitentiary.
    Leave the kid to his conversational Klingon, Murph decided as he started to reorganize history, one box at a time. “Wedding Stuff” . . . “Misc. Photo” . . . “Xmas ’96” . . . “Income Tax” . . . “Marg’s Office.” In “Rudy” he found Baby’s Memory Book . It listed the stats of the boy’s birth: weight, 6 pounds 8 ounces; length, 20 inches; hair colour, none; eyes, yes; and on and on. Murph’s wife had even updated the book: first tooth, first steps, first haircut, first words. Sometime before First Day of School, Marg had petered out. She was good at that.
    Twenty-five minutes into it, Murph reached “PM: Personal.” He peeled back the plastic lid and swept aside the packing of old Penthouse and raunchy letters from ex-girlfriends and found the kit still wrapped in a striped tea towel, the way he remembered it, the way it had always been. And once he had reinterred his past, all but the kit, a holographic shard revealing more of Murph than seemed possible, he returned to his study to finish the job. Muffled synthesized music trembled from Rudy’s room. He was working still on that damned opera. But such was adolescence, Murph supposed, all about obsession and the creation of tinkly epics never to be heard outside inner space. Besides, it kept Rudy off the streets, away from their wantonness and dangers. The kid, thank God, wouldn’t know Colt 45 from a Colt .45.
    The product was spread out on the table. While it hadn’t exactly cost