Calysta was born with a telescopic eye. She was always getting it caught on things, slammed in drawers. In the theater she had to sit in the back row just to keep the entire screen in focus. Here greasy men in dirty trench coats would stroke her thighs and whisper promises that she knew they never intended to keep.
Calysta was a character that I created for a short story when I was in college. The above paragraph was the first paragraph of that story. When I sent it to a magazine it was returned with a note that said it was “nearly perfect,” that I should “take out what needs taking out and add what needs adding,” then I should resubmit it. Over the next several weeks I spent most of my spare time writing and rewriting that story. In the end every attempt felt like a weak and flawed imitation of the original. At last I gave up. The story, as it was written, was the best that I could make it. If the magazine did not want it as is, then it was not for them.
Maria Scheerhorn was a woman whom at the age of sixteen was won from her father by Daniel Scheerhorn in a backroom poker game in Tijuana Mexico. Maria was smuggled across the border into New Mexico where she was given false identification which declared her eighteen and allowed Daniel to marry her. Although Daniel truly loved Maria, he soon discovered that she was a headstrong and demanding woman. Daniel bought Maria the Wachiga Café so that…
