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A square building with a familiar roof design in the Southside district of Birmingham, Alabama was abandoned about 20 years ago by the Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise that built it and occupied it for some years. Since, it has had a number of tenants come and go, passing through on the way to bigger and better enterprises or, in most cases, I suspect, bankruptcy. First was a series of Chinese restaurants. The longest-running was “The Happy Buddha.” The demeanor of the proprietor was problematic for customers. Instead of “May I take your order?” he would bark “Wha’ you want?!” This and related behavior caused locals to rechristen the establishment “The Hostile Buddha.” It closed and was replaced for a time by a restaurant offering a strange hybrid of Chinese and Algerian cuisines. It was named “Wok the Casbah.” The business name was fully hip, but the cuisine predictably bombed and the owners learned that a clever name won’t pay the rent. Subsequently, the empty building became home to a series of spirits, including the ghost-like bodies of certain ideas and concepts. It is not yet widely known that ideas and concepts live as sentient beings, seen only by elect humans. For a time, the building served as the headquarters of competing ideas regarding the best policy approaches to crime. Because the building served only a three-county area in North Central Alabama, there were only two or three ideas in residence in the building. The Idea of Preemptively Executing Troublemakers dominated all of their meetings. He farted openly, offending, particularly, the frail specter named Let's Try to Understand These Poor Misguided People. For some time after, the building was occupied by fears women have of turning out to look like their mothers. To cut down on the rent, these fears shared the space with the fears men have of disappointing their fathers. Romantic relationships popped up in pairings of these fears, but none lasted. As the condition of the building deteriorated, the rent decreased and it then sheltered a range of psychotic delusions. Among these was the conviction that a conspiracy of Masons and high school Young Republicans were seeking to control the menstrual cycles of local waitresses. Another was the belief that Daughters of the American Revolution had had their adrenal glands surgically removed by a black-ops division of the Hallmark Corporation. Ultimately, the owner of the building could no longer locate paying tenants. It was given to a charitable foundation and now houses the spirits of people who weep and mourn with no friends and family to console them. With them lives the pain of those who are hospitalized and waiting in terror for the results of their medical tests and who keep on a brave face for their loving families. Also, there reside the moments in the lives of nuns in which they wonder if they had chosen the right lives for themselves. Floating near the high, vaulted ceilings are the spirits of those who have died in streets of the Southside of Birmingham, Alabama, the souls of the faithful departed. __________________________________________________________________ Dale Wisely has poems and short fiction in America, Birmingham Poetry Review, National Catholic Reporter, Poet's Canvas, Salt River Review, The Hiss Quarterly, Radiant Turnstile, Thunder Sandwich, Main Street Rag, Birmingham Arts Journal, and elsewhere. He is the author of a print chapbook, Visitation. Seven Stars, a narrative in 13 poems, is available online at the Dead Mule School of Southern Literature website. He is particularly pleased to have had a poem published recently in a textbook--a 9th grade literature anthology. He had visual art recently in Unpleasant Events Schedule. Dale is the editor of the on-line literary journal, Right Hand Pointing. Right Hand Pointing, now four years old and full of mischief, specializes in short poetry, very short fiction, and peculiar art on an attractive and appetizing orange background (patent pending.) Poetry and art editor by founder Dale Wisely. Short fiction edited by F. John Sharp, who is not a licensed electrician in several states.
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