CREATIVE SUBMISSIONS: 'Bursting Hearts' by Janette K. Hopper
- Janette K Hopper
- 1 day ago
- 8 min read
A Note from the Author and Artist
I deeply appreciated my readers and especially Barbara Waxman and Charles Kernan who made valuable suggestions and supplied some helpful editing. Thank you to Encore for publishing this story. The plant that is so important to the story is a native North Carolina plant that I saw for the first time in the forest hiking. It is identified as Euonymus Americanus and is commonly called “Hearts-a-Bustin.” In the fall, the flower bursts open as my illustration shows and orange seed pods make a showy exit.
The nice man with the boy reaches up over her to take some of the weight as she pushes her suitcase on the rack above her seat. She thanks him, welcoming the unexpected, unsolicited aid. She settles into her seat and the boy dives into the seat across from her, his dad pushing in next to him. Noticing the boy’s excitement, she thinks of her own daughters, now adults, who were as excited as that boy when she took them on the same trips years ago. She hopes she is sitting in the correct direction so she will move forward through space as she doesn’t want to be nauseated. As the movement starts, she gazes out the window and everything is disappearing behind her, just as she had hoped.
The conductor stops, takes her ticket and punches it and moves on. How strange time passed so slowly when waiting for the future, but at this moment private backyards, broken down vehicles, overflowing bins, industrial vestiges, and fragmented crates fly by so fast. Her eyes rest on the distant fields between brief interludes of flashes of trees and fields and bushes. Her book, an unusually structured novel by Eloisa Diaz, “Repentance," is probably not a holiday read, lays ignored on her lap.
The small boy is squirming and his dad places his hand on the child’s shoulder and looks down into his eyes to quiet him. The youth points at each cow or horse as they whirl past, the quaint cottage with the multicolored clothes hanging from the line in the exposed backyard is cluttered with toys and a swing. She notices an old barn with a ghost-like tree leaning towards it coming up next. Then, a group of silent houses and sheds with broken glass for windows and a door blowing in the wind. A stray cat is apparently abandoned in the forgotten space. Dry grass is in the yard and wisteria, blooming purplish blue, is fighting for its life just beyond the fence. What happened to the dream? Where did the people go?
There are hills now. Suddenly it is dark, and inside the tunnel the roar of the huge iron force breaking air seems even louder. She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath and counts to five. She repeats, meditating until she sees the light through her eyelids. She tries to get started on her book and succeeds for a while until the small boy breaks her concentration and his dad sees her look up and says, “Come, son, let’s go to the platform and look out.”
As they leave, she thinks about her own children, and how kicking the doors, they ran to the back to see the receding perspective of the tracks. The experience had made all of them laugh, unconcerned with the jerking movements, full of enthusiasm for life to come.
She reads now and again while noticing gardens, green spaces, rivers and bridges zooming by. A bit startled, her reading is interrupted by what she sees. Shadows of former glory and lost prosperity loom in the form of giant silent plants, of broken-down bricks with empty parking lots, once symbols of progress and prosperity. The industrial institutions that were once stable disappear and are followed by an outdated station down the track. Coming into view are other trains, trapped on disconnected tracks. Colorful graffiti smothers the stranded cars and infects the surrounding concrete structures, creating a dramatic art installation.
The boy is back again with a drink and treat, munching loudly. He looks over at her and asks his dad, “Why does she have so many lines on her face?” His dad looks apologetic and whispers, “Hush and eat.” Setting her book aside, hungry, she reaches for the lunch she made at home. These days, she hates to stand and be unsteady, weaving her way precariously to the dining car. Train-processed food isn’t her favorite anyway. She reads a bit again, trying to absorb the difficult material.
Suddenly tired, her mind drifts, weaving and recycling, once-thriving places transform into fallen memorials, then again into symbols of daily life alive with children. She guesses that fate is passing to us the task of redemption through transformation, reactivation and renewal of nature, and the love of life. The task is beyond her. She sighs, yawns, then closes her eyes and drifts off.
Part 2
She wakes up in the dark with her legs cramped from being confined in a small space. Bodies press into her on both hips and human smells she prefers not to know about engulf her. She hears again the clanking and crashing that most likely woke her up. They are stopped. She automatically reaches for her purse to grab her compact and refresh her lipstick. In the dark, she can’t find anything anywhere. She had fallen asleep with her book on her lap. It isn’t there. All is lost.
She hears the clank and clunk as the boots on the gravel ballast grows louder and louder, coming closer and closer. Everyone, whoever they were or are, quivers in fear, huddling together, fragile. More feet stomp over and over, in the distance, approaching gradually. Except for that, there remains only silence and darkness. Then someone mutters, “They’re here." The boots are at her door. The pin is brutally removed from the hasp. The jarring door rattles, then bangs as it crashes into the stop, opening and allowing blinding light to stream in—and blessed fresh air. The dark shadow of huge men with M16s and black masks looms over the hopeless as they slowly climb out and struggle to stand up.
Someone she doesn’t know gives her a hand as she stumbles, startled. The masked men push them forward like empty refrigerators; they have to march on uneven ground towards the sound of a waterfall. As they slip into the fog of times, they are all lined up along a deep chasm. The river is far below and huge with white rapids and dark holes. What a beautiful view, but not now as they are wavering, wishing they had been left behind, but unescapably trapped on the edge, hearts beating. The only way out is a long Eiffel-like trestle built of rusty iron and dilapidated wood continuing as far as the eye can see. If they had resisted or stayed, who knows what evil would have befallen them or those they loved? Would they have separated their families? Immediately, someone needs to decide what to do, to make a decision.
According to her daughter, there are always choices. Who will be the brave person to take the first step? A man steps out. Others follow. She thinks maybe it would be safer to go early before more weight piles on the trestle and brings probable collapse. As the first woman, she steps out on the wood between the ties, separated only by air and hope from the deadly dark below. She concentrates on balance, walking step by step, testing, hoping to notice rotten wood or missed ties.
She avoids looking clear down to the river until her heel gets stuck, but then, when she lifts her foot, the shoe slips off and escapes, catapulting down to the raging river below, crashing and disappearing under water. Horrified, she feels unsteady with one shoe on and one shoe off. She pauses and tries to kick off the other shoe, but someone is pressing her from behind. She has to continue with the stuck shoe. One shoe on and one shoe off; diddle, diddle dumpling, my son John.
She talks to herself, “Be present. I’m OK, you’re OK." There was an old woman who lived in a shoe. The goose who laid the golden egg. Three blind mice run in the gumdrop candy mountain. Don’t be discouraged and don’t be misled, they all went to Neverland, where we’re painting the roses red, the color of Pippy Longstocking’s head. Oh, beautiful for spacious sky, everything is coming up roses. She danced along the dingy days with the wings of a pure white dove. Her spirit grew robust. Take flight 234 from California to the New York Harbor, the home of the free and the brave.
A narrative for a rainy day. The itsy-bitsy spider crawled up the water spout and down came the rain and washed the spider down the drain. I’m singing in the rain just singing in the shower until all hell freezes over in Minnesota. One misty moisty morning she chanced to meet an old man in the emperor’s new clothes. This nation doesn’t want to play in your yard anymore - you can’t holler up my rain barrel. Til Johny comes marching to the music of the grand old duke of York who has ten thousand men. Heads up you win. Flip the coin you’re in the army now. Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. The bigger they are, the harder they fall.
I am king of the hillbilly blues, green eggs and ham. I’m a little teapot short and stout; here is my handle and here is my spout, don’t step on your lip. Little black sambo, please come to my party, mother may I. No, you may not. Little boys made of sticks and stones, will break my bones, but what are little girls made of? She had a little curl. She was very, very, merry Mary quite contrary. Ding a ling. The bells. He is not dead nor doth He sleep. Here comes Santa right down and out in Portland.
Little bow peep has lost her sheep. Blue moon now you’re no longer alone. Marching to Pretoria, I’ll take the high road; are you sleeping? Tic tock, Marjorie Dock, it stuck twice when the old man died then never again. Dust thou are, to dust returneth. The cow jumped over the moon and the dish ran away with the spoon. Somewhere over the rainbow blue birds sing a sweet old melody of love.
At last, she steps on the opposite bank and looks over to a beautiful forest. She slips off the stuck shoe. The black horde is there too standing guard off to the side. Some men are on their knees separated out. The menacing controllers are standing surrounding them and are laughing and joking and sneering – Schadenfreude. Some others are standing heads bowed. Children roam trying to find someone.
The little boy who was across from her on the train appears next to her and shyly grabs her hand. He murmurs, “Let’s skip into the forest.” She shrinks down to his size and responds, with her hand hiding her mouth, “what about the big bad wolf.” He blurts, “Look, they are looking the other way.” Go, Jane, go. Run, Dick, run. Hand in hand they skip, then run as fast as they can into the forest and then keep running until they see a meadow on the other side of the water. He takes off his shoes and together, both barefooted walk across the cool water. On the way along their path, they stop briefly to see a beautiful plant. It looks like “hearts a bustin,” red and full and beautiful, so they want to stay, but look back frightened and continue to run once they catch their breath again.
Crossing the next clearing they discover some trees circling a grassy area, a secluded temple. Huffing and puffing, with hearts bursting, they lie down side by side in the tall grass looking up at the clouds drifting by in the intense blue.
Janette K Hopper
IG: @janettekhopperart
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