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Brenda Jacobsen
Somewhere over at the Children’s Home
And the dog was strange. And the dog’s bark was silent. And the orphaned girl had trouble hearing. And she kept the dog close, touching his black, coarse coat with the tip of her tiny fingers. And the dog knew her presence by the sound of her tight, crackly voice. And a little boy kept her laughing. And she watched him inside the sandbox. And he drove his yellow truck from here to there. And he banged his toy against the rickety sides. And he raised his toy over his head and said, “Look at me, I am Superman.” And the dog wagged his tail. And the girl looked away. And she found a floating feather and tied it in her hair. And the boy rode his truck towards the street. And the boy was a happy monster on clown wheels. And the delivery truck was on its way. And the dog’s ears stood at attention, and his legs set in motion. And the girl smoothed her hair and sang a rhyme to herself. And her eyes followed the dog and the yellow plastic truck streaming by. And the dog ran and threw himself in harm’s way. And the boy kissed the dog and pushed his toy away. And the boy hugged the dog. And the girl resumed her singing in a brighter tone, they say.
Over at the Temple, People Were Born with Eight Hands
When I turned eighteen, my father had given up on me watching TV all day. His empty beer cans littered the yard as I hollered and ran to the front gates of The Word Of Faith Temple. They said at the Temple, people were born with eight hands: one for reading, one for writing, two for sewing, two for smoking, and two for playing the old pump organ. Writing was my thing, and the Temple’s billboard messaging promised a swift transformation from the hell I was living in.
The head prophet, Jeremiah, wore a long robe and Birkenstocks and taught me to memorize his Bible. I sat for hours in my assigned room above the meeting house, poring over the Old and New Testaments like a crazed fanatic. When I should have been pulling potatoes from the field, I chain-smoked cigarettes and wondered what my dad was up to. I stayed at The Word of Faith Temple until I turned twenty. I learned to hold fistfuls of dirt instead of a plastic remote. Farming and caring for animals grew on me. When I was not recruiting folks in town at our shady Sunshine Restaurant, I spent time with Nellie, the three-legged goat, two sheep, and a bevy of cats, named Mercy, Holy, and Chosen.
Inside the hall, six members sewed our flowing oatmeal-hued garments, complete with a thick belt ready for knotting. Knots held a secret meaning, for what, I did not know. There was a young woman named Rejoice, who was good enough on the keyboard. Rejoice dusted off the organ and played Nearer, My God To Thee in the slowest of tempos. We sang that hymn for hours. We prayed on our knees for hours. We had to fight the urge to sleep. We were becoming little Jeremiahs.
I started to reconsider my decision to join the Temple because I was tired of the strict schedule and how always busy we were. I was told that, to exit the commune, I had to write an essay and face a tribunal of elders. After a while, when Nellie had ceased her bleating, I grabbed my pen and started writing. I wrote until my hand was ready to fall off, which was a far better existence than remaining stuck forever.
Brenda Jacobsen lives and writes by the beach in Norwalk, CT. She received an M.A. in Education from Sacred Heart University. As a trained writing facilitator through the Amherst Writers & Artists Association, she has studied at the Westport Writers' Workshop and online with Kathy Fish. Brenda's work is published or forthcoming in Gone Lawn, Journal of Expressive Writing, FlashFlood UK, Pathos to Play Anthology & Wordrunner Chapbook, among other places. She is also the founder and active facilitator of the Purple Sofa Writers. When not writing, Brenda enjoys playing the harp and bagpipes, just not at the same time. Follow her on Insta @brenpiper Substack: @brendaliceinherpalace
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