Autobiography

By Eric Heppner

The air was far too cold for it was a late march blizzard outside. The confining blanket of blue was not the same for it was not alive, it felt abrasive and rough compared warm softness from which I had just come. All twenty-two inches of my body shivered slightly from shock. My journey had been difficult to Fergus Falls, Minnesota, maybe because I had tried to take too much with me. Ten pounds and three ounces is a lot of baggage. My face was bruised something awful, my mother had always called me a prizefighter for that. I recognized a few of the voices surrounding me though I saw little besides soft white light and shades. I noticed one shade in particular. His voice was deep and frightening yet familiar and warm. I heard my name called out in song, I knew it because I had heard it all my life, Eric Ole Heppner. The shade spoke as if he didn’t expect me to be there to receive it. I heard singing for the first time. It was praise, praise to God that I had been born. I did not know this. When the tremendous shade held me in his arms, as a reaction, my body, without my consent, released my stored waste upon him. This only dampened his mood for a second as his strong arms held me all the closer. His name was Steven. I learned from a far a more familiar voice that called me away from his arms. Her name was Joan. I had heard it many times throughout my journey yet her voice was my voice, her breath mine, and her love was mine. She held me gently to her breast and I could hear her heart, the heart that I had heard for nine months. That moment on March 27, 1987 was the greatest moment of my life.
My older brother Jon had spoken for me for the first year or so of my life. This made life very simple. I ate when he did, slept when he did, and got changed when he did. But I never had a first word. I had a first phrase. “I read a book.” What I wanted was for my parents to read to me. This was my first individual want, and I am glad that it was dedicated to a search for knowledge. My first actual word then would be “I” and for the life of speaking afterward, I would be trying to explain that word to others. Even though I was now speaking for my self, Jon was still wanting for the both of us. We did everything together. Early in the morning Jon would climb into my crib and when I had more wants I would say to him “Jonston leave me alone!” as I couldn’t pronounce Jonathan. This would never abate him and I would soon be awake and on an adventure whether it was eating various berries outside or flying imaginary planes made out of large cardboard blocks in the living room. There was no limit to my imagination and Jon’s thirst to never sit still.
One particularly large adventure came when we found the special advantage that men have over women. We found that we unlike women could pee any place and at any time we desired. This magnificent freedom sent us on a quest to water every plant outside our Staten Island, New York parsonage. We built a small following in this venture and our best friends from church, Marcos and Luis, would ease the burden of our quest and passion. Yet with this help there came a terrible cost and her name was Maria. She was old yet I can never remember her getting any older, and she was little. She had had six boys and a girl; seven children in all and I remember thinking that each one of them must have taken a piece of her to make because there wasn’t much altitude left. Yet this had been attributed to her as her greatest weapon against our small band and our free ways for the closer she was to the ground the closer she was to her sandal. She wore leather sandals with everything, and it only lay at the most two feet from her hand that must have been made of wind. On one of our front lawn escapades, Maria caught us giving fluid to desperate shrubbery in the flowerbed. There she stood, all four feet of her magnificent power ready. As one can recall in the midst of great danger the motions of something so fast that it is uncaught by the natural eye. I shall recall her motion. She flipped the leather weapon off her foot into the naked air in front of her and leaped forward. The sandal spun twice in the air and Maria caught the heel in her hand. She relinquished a scream that froze us dead to our very souls even if we had had time to go anywhere. I saw the face of Marcos get slapped and pushed out of the way as it headed like an arrow for its next target plowing Jon’s face back wards as he fell into the flowerbed. Louis next received the punishment and I saw saliva rocketed from his mouth as contact was made. I watched with terror unfelt in my young mind as with a helpless stare I saw the sandal close in inevitably on my tender jaw. The contact didn’t hurt at first yet surprised me as my slow motion vision had ended and those long mille-seconds ended as I spiraled through the air into the flowerbed in an instant. The pain rushed to my cheek as if I had no skin, muscle, or tissue of any kind left and the pain was simply flowing out onto the ground to create the next flood that would destroy the world. Luckily my cheek was still there. The shock of this left me dry for several days and nearly ended my infamous peeing crusade. Yet I have been notorious for not knowing when I have been vanquished.
It had only been a month after the Maria incident and I peed alone. Groups where to conspicuous. On occasion Jon would help but I didn’t feel safe with anyone else anymore. My legs were crossed when Marcos and Louis came. On this day I felt the irrepressible urge to water the honeysuckles that traipsed the fence of our yard. I stood on a solid fort built by my father to house Jon’s and my adventures. On this second story hideout I did the dastardly deed again. My golden arch reaching the honeysuckles, the fence, and the sidewalk. This was my error. Luckily I did not make the apocalyptic error of hitting a passerby in NYC with anything more liquid and warm then a sideways glance, and even that was dangerous. My ramifications for my sin came from across the street. Gwenn, one of my dad’s parishioners, happened to see my pernicious deed and I had barely gotten my fly back up when my mother, ear fresh from the phone, brought swift ramifications upon my backside and ears. Thus ended my illustrious urinating career and routed the last urination threat left in the community. I was to reform and forever after have been forced to use the head.

The Lilies of Connecticut

By Eric Heppner

Jordan flipped his car off the road during a late clear night in Connecticut. He got out and walked toward a house in the center of the woods. It was a small house, yet when he opened the door it showed a huge open plain that contrasted the night outside with the day within. He entered and the door stood open like a cut in the wind, bleeding wind and leaves through. Jordan walked through the tall grass to a large flat pool in the center. He bent over to the pool and lifted some water to a cut that had appeared on his head from the crash, the cut stopped bleeding and then disappeared. The crash left him covered in bruises and cuts and his arm was badly broken, in hope to placate his pain he slid into the placid pool. The walls of the lake were sheer and the clarity of the water betrayed the depth. He fell through the water as if it were thin cotton sheets. The water finally thickened and he gasped for air as he had been holding his lungs. The water slid into his through and the sides of his neck soothing him. He stopped moving and the water stopped flowing and he felt out of breath again. He kicked his legs but they barely moved and in desperation he arced his back moving a massive tail behind him propelling him forward at a great speed. He reached forward with his hands which were webbed to the first knuckle and very smooth. His ailments had passed away. He swam forward at an incredible pace, the faster he went the clearer his mind. Soon his tail burned as the muscles strained.
He saw a light below him and fled toward it. As he approached he could make out a city,
a massive golden city surrounded by awe giving fields of purple and blue and green. The base to the golden city was coral that was nearly transparent as tiny creatures moved in and out strengthening it. He swam to the city and the men and women in the field approached him with awe on their faces. They kept they're distances and whispered among themselves. Several young children raced to the city yelling in a strange melodic voice, that Jordan strangely understood, they yelled victory, victory, he returns, he returns. The city poured with people of every size age and build all of them had wonder etched plainly on their faces. One old man came to him and held an old rusty metal rod. A worthless lump of rust that looked hewn from the car Jordan used to drive, the axle maybe that was so horrible it had cracked and flipped him. The elder presented Jordan the gift. He tried to refuse but the aged man was insistent. He reached out with his strong purple hand and lightly touched the metal and the most marvelous thing happened.
As his fingers lightly caressed the jagged metal the flakes of rust melted into silver metal beneath. He grasped the growing bare silver spot with a familiarity that was returning to his hand from a long forgotten dream. The pole transformed into a flowing silver color that looked like a waterfall of platinum without the crash simply a steady beautiful stream. The scepter was fluted on all sides and at the summit was a grand pearl, the greatest in the ocean it held a slight pink hue within its swirling white wonder. From the staff his arm was coated in silver plates that decorated him. His chest was adorned with a single silver banner that flowed with the water around him, and on his head was formed a stunning gold crown that reached to the surface with seven fingers each crowned in a little pearl. He looked over his people of which he was king.
They chanted his name yet in their language it took enough syllables to be a chorus of intense melodic beauty.
Jordan looked toward the old man that had brought him and he saw the face of his greatest friend. He touched the face of the elder and the age passed from him. He found in the old man the general of his armies, the advisor to his thrown, and the keeper of the city in his absence, his name was Mathew. Mathew became not unlike himself in the beauty and grace of a people of a great age.
Finally came to him one ragged old women. She had a tear in her eye that surpassed the beauty of the city, and the fields, and the pearls. He saw greatness in her. He reached out and touched her face with wonder and mystery and the hope that he would reveal her true beauty. The women shattered and fell away too the ground. The king was devastated at the loss of this beauty and chased after the shards. As they fell to the ground they broke again and again into a fine dust and as they touched the ground. They were eaten by the seaweed that then grew together and formed a glorious white bulb. The bulb broke and pedal upon peddle fell away before the kings eyes. Finally at the very core of the now heavenly flower there sat a maiden rained in white foam with a crown of purple fish swimming above her head. He swam to her and held her head in his strong hands. He lowered his head to hers and as their lips touched all the flowers in all the fields in all the oceans of the world bloomed a glorious white flower
The king married his new queen that day on a platform of pink coral under a tent of translucent silver cloth. He then sat on his golden thrown and ruled wisely in ageless beauty with his glorious queen. Every summer after that glorious year the lilies of Connecticut yield white flowers in their honor.

Lifewright

By Eric Heppner

It was the forest Lifewright
With boughs of green and gold
That held the stars of heavens
And shaded the men of old

Through it ran river faithful
Which flowed through every root
That quenched every fire
And washed away the soot

The insects of Lifewright
The mantis and the bees
Kept the order of the forest
And flowered all the trees

Still it was the druid
Who sparked live in the wood
Who loved the forest
As only its father could

His eyes saw all the corners
His mind foresaw the wind
His hand started the beat of the heart
And could stop deaths painful singe

He guided the trees of Lifewright
Crafted each branch with his hand
He brought up the golden kernels of grain
And gave the fruit to the land

The forest grew tall and glorious
Its roots grew down to core
They filled all the soil with grasping hands
And still they wanted more

They stretched the bounds of the river
Their roots reformed the soil
Its bottom sank into the waste
And sunk its might to spoil

As the water fled the sun grew hot
And turned forest plush to hard
It dried the leafs to fire
The forest’s face forever marred

Now the forest was ablaze
The faithful all were gone
The trees fell quietly around him
The druid was now alone

He gripped the last seed
From when the trees were young and grew
He groped his fingers through the blackened ground
And hoped the forest would grow anew

He dug at the base of the river
For the scent of a drop
He dug till his strength left him
But the water was for naught

He pleaded with his servants
The mantis and the bees
They flew far away
Yet never found the trees

His strength was gone
And his tongue was dry
His eyes were heavy
He was about to die

He buried the seed
Still clenched in his fist
His last tears fell
For the forest he missed

For an age he lay
Unspoiled by the world
His hand tightly closed
As the seed unfurled

Watered by the tear
That it had stored so long ago
Its roots ran through the ground
And the faithful began to flow

The tree grew slow and strong
The faithful steadily poured
And watered the trees first fruit
The cycle now restored

"Havelock's Underwood puts mistakes away, just plays the game"

By Corey Friedman

HAVELOCK, N.C.--A short memory isn't necessarily a bad thing for Janiece Underwood.

Full Story

Published Thursday, Jan. 22 in the New Bern, N.C. Sun Journal

Moving On

By Heide Hoffarth

Our time has come, a time to move on;
A time to reflect on the past and look to the future.
As we leave this place, may we be filled with a sense of His grace,
As we embark on this new journey in our lives.
When we think about the past, we laugh and cry,
But now we have to leave, and I don't know why.
We will leave our mark on the world,
As doctors, painters, and businessmen.
And as we think about the latter, we think about when
We will see eachother again
Face to face, after we have left our mark
And come to realize that the real world
Isn't all we thought it would be,
But that we have the strength in and of our
God to help us see that we did the best
That we could- thank you Class of 2003.

The author is a student at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa.

The Last Bough

By Eric Heppner

Crash, falls the second to last
One last limb, one last branch
Just one arm
Holding dear to the sky
One more cut
And the tree will die

One hundred years
The tree has stood
A few more seconds
Dead rot of wood

End as beginning
Death like birth
Just one leaf
Tying life to the earth

The last bough now
Is bending down
Soon to be scraping the leafy ground

Sweet

By Eric Heppner

The days outside
Spent in the sun
When the days were long
And life fun

The cherry juice
That stained the lips
And sped life along
On sugars whips

The secret hugs
Behind sheds of wood
When love was young
And understood

The awe that’s felt
At the spread of wings
When it is realized how
Big life really is

The speed that is found
When pedal is moved
Where freedom is born
And confidence proved

The strength of atlas
The softening bliss
The simple sweetness
Of just one kiss

Faith

By Eric Heppner


I’ve never seen the wind
I’ve never smelled the breeze
I cannot taste a zephyr
But I’ve seen it move the trees

I’ve never seen my heart
I’ve never felt its heat
I’ve never seen it break
Yet I can hear its steady beat

I haven’t seen a thought
Thought pictures I can see
I cannot hear my mind
Though something talks to me

I haven’t seen the weight of time
I cannot hear age
I do not have its great wisdom
But I’ve seen an elder’s cage

I’ve never heard love
I cannot see through its mist
I’ve never smelled that sorrow
Still stones beat when they are kissed

I’ve never seen God
I’ve never seen his streams
Which wash away the sins of men
But I’ve seen him grow the trees

ABOUT THE RHUBARB CULT

The Rhubarb Cult is a for-profit organization of freelance writers based in Holiday, Fla. The members' affinity for rhubarb pie sparked the unusual name. Primarily, this blog will host poems, short stories, news articles and other works of fiction by Eric Heppner, Corey Friedman and other featured contributors.

The Rhubarb Cult accepts editorial submissions, but does not guarantee publication on the Rhubarb Cult Blog. Responses to political and social commentary are encouraged, but we have one rule--nasty letters must be written in limerick form.

Excelsior,
Corey