Crack the Spine Issue forty
Crack The Spine Issue Forty September 18, 2012 Edited by Kerri Farrell Foley Collection copyright 2012 by Crack the Spine
Contents Nate Musser Breaking the Bread Rich Ives Self Portrait, In Absentia Seagulls Marching Before the Tide Amanda McNeil Closest Thing to Heaven Whitney Reinhard It Started in a Crack Tamara Madison The Rose That Lupe Justin McDaniel Joseph Fitzroy Paul-Victor Winters Stockpile
Cover Art by J/J Hastain J/J Hastain is the author of several cross-genre books including “Riding the Lace Barometer” (ISMs Press), “Trans-genre Book Libertine Monk” (Scrambler Press), “treoOA” (Marsh Hawk Press (with Eileen Tabios)), “Approximating Diapason” (Spuyten Duyvil Press (with Tod Thilleman)) and “Anti-Memoir a Vigorous” (Black Coffee Press/ Eight Ball Press (forthcoming)). J/J’s writing has most recently appeared in Caketrain, Trickhouse, Housefire, Bombay Gin and Aufgabe.
Nate Musser Breaking the Bread My vision kept switching between clarity and haze. I could feel redness in my eyes and the waves of last night’s liquor sloshing in my stomach. Through the back window of my grandmother’s cottage, I saw my brothers arranging lawn chairs into a perfect circle beneath the grapefruit tree. My older brother James, who’d already broken the bread two years back, wore a sapphire shirt and his best Sunday pants. He looked handsome. Riley, just 14, looked tiny in his clothes, probably Christmas presents from my aunt or uncle. Behind me, I could hear my mother and the other sisters scurrying through the kitchen and den like field mice. One of the children could not tie his shoes. An old woman needed help using the restroom. The bustle made my head sweat cheap tequila. I shifted my weight to my heels. I hadn’t worn my buckle-strap Church shoes since the week before I left for school. My mother had to dig them out of my closet, dust them off and shine them. She asked me how I could have left them behind. I pretended not to hear her. My dress made me uncomfortable. It hung loose off my shoulders, dark and plain gray, with a white belt and frilly lace that tickled my ankles. The belt pressed the fabric against my skin at the waist. I wondered if anyone could tell I was wearing a thong. Bright pink. A few of the eldest men walked outside carrying a small table with a covered, woven basket on top. They all wore black from head to toe, neatly tucked and finely-pressed shirts, looking like Johnny Cash if he’d straightened up and found Jesus. One of the men, whose name I often forgot, danced a second when a ripe grapefruit fell from the tree to his feet. Maybe he did have a little Cash in him. My grandfather, the leader of The Meeting, came up behind me and placed his arm on my shoulder. I turned to look up at him and noticed his eyebrows first as I always did. They stretched forward and out and curled up; got a little bit of the devil inside of him, my grandmother would say. “This is a blessed day, my dear,” he said through a wide smile. “Great strength comes when one accepts His Spirit into one’s body.” “Yes, grandfather.”
He began to walk out towards the yard and I followed him, quickly tying my veil around my head. I sat down silently beside my mother who brushed at my leg, straightening a wrinkle. She smiled briefly; perhaps it was a wince. All eyes turned toward my grandfather who looked like a giant among the seated crowd. “Thank you, oh Lord, for bringing Your children before us today.” Everyone bowed their heads, but I tilted my neck back when I saw a massive grapefruit dangling from a branch above my mother’s father. “To accept You as their Savior, their Shepherd in this life and the next.” There were dozens of them, spread throughout the tree, some in clusters, some alone, all golden and glistening in the rising Minnesota sun. The tree branches hung like a willow under the weight of the orbs. I glanced over at Mr. Cash. They went down, down, down, and the flames went higher. “My own granddaughter is here to allow You to guide her, oh wise God.” My grandfather motioned to me and I quickly dropped my head. “We pray You guide her and all Your children with Your love, Amen.” The congregation echoed in unison; I forgot again to say it with them and my mother gave me a nudge. My mother was a feeble woman, born with a fearful heart and sad eyes. Her lids drooped towards the outside of her sunken cheekbones, and made her always appear on the verge of tears. I could tell she was worried. Not just about me, but my soul. When I told her I wanted to go to school in California, she laughed for a second and then cried for a week. It was as if I had slapped her across the face. She held her cheek and kept repeating words I hated like, “fornicators” and “sanctity.” They poured from her lips until the day I finally left. She still believed that I was breaking bread by my own recognizance, that it really was the gospel, not the Sex Pistols, that I listened to on my headphones. She smiled big now, and it made me suddenly feel guilty about my choice of underwear. Several men rose, their heads surrounded by grapefruit halos, and spoke briefly about God’s love and their children and the joy of the day and the glory and the grace and the Rise and the Fall. The women were silent. After Mr. Cash read a verse, it was time for the ceremony to begin. There were four of us that day who were breaking for the first time. My grandfather stood and lifted the cover off the basket of bread.
He poured red wine with a torn label into four small Dixie cups with blue dinosaurs on them. A snort got stuck in the back of my throat. I recognized the cups from my grandmother’s bathroom. She would fill them with mouthwash for each of us kids on nights when we would stay with her. We’d swirl the minty liquid in our mouths then spit it out, clearing out all the bacteria. That day we were not supposed to spit. That day it was not mouthwash. It was the blood of Christ, or Two Buck Chuck really, and it would clear away our sins. The thought of more alcohol made me sway. It hadn’t been two hours since I’d sworn off the stuff completely, like I’d done so many times before. The “new” children were told to form a line in front of the table. I stood behind a girl named Maddie, who used to play house with me when we were younger. She was in her first year at seminary school, the pride of The Meeting. I stared and wondered what kind of panties she wore. Something told me they were white, pure. Maddie stood behind two tall boys I didn’t know. I looked up at the cowlicks struggling to break free on the backs of their hairsprayed heads. My grandfather began the ceremony. My eyes wandered up again towards a small cluster of grapefruit. They looked so heavy. If Newton had been hit on the head with one of those babies, he might not have lived to tell his theory. Gravity seemed to be doing all it could to draw the fruits down to the ground, but after all, there was little belief of science in this group, so they hung tight. Grandfather’s voice was passionate and deep, but I paid no attention. I started to envision a sudden, terrifying shower of ripened fruit. My mind filled with the thought of them falling from the trees like tart hand grenades. The first boy knelt, drank the wine, and ate the bread. I imagined the pink, pulpy shrapnel exploding on contact, spewing all over the congregation’s spotless attire. I could see the juice squirting into the eyes of all the ones hell-bent on heaven. The second boy knelt, drank the wine, and ate the bread. For the ones lucky enough to avoid the spray, I imagined them being clunked on the head by the massive spheres crashing down like meteorites. It would be Revelations, but with more pastel colors, a golden apocalypse. Maddie knelt, drank the wine, and ate the bread. My mother looked at me, her white teeth clenched tightly in a nervous smile. My grandfather grinned from ear to ear, reached forward, and offered a crumb of crust and a cup stained red.
I thought I could feel the ground shaking from all the falling grapefruit. I wished for the pandemonium. I prayed for knockouts from fists of fruit. As my grandfather offered me Jesus in a Dixie cup, I couldn’t help but imagine the downfall of every last one of us. What a sweet, sweet escape it would have been.
Nate Musser is currently a student writing out of Long Beach. His works have been published in The Legendary and with Bank-Heavy Press. At the moment, his purpose in life is to find his purpose in life.
Rich Ives Self Portrait, In Absentia we skinny girls never left intention in our paintings stumbling wind from which somebody’s drunken Geographic’s Amazon became second wind for third and we were
the late strewn cold crept quickly to father throwing down National Rwanda for first base the albino hummingbirds migrating home to white Antarctica
home where nobody else wanted us never alone together everyone but myself I have and I put the wrong books in it ancestors those bloated streets of Petershead and hagus and acting out
but always lonely attracting a busy library my distinguished bloody bagpipers celebrating Aberdeen with grog and off-color jokes
so inexperienced no one understood charging slowly into each intricately ornamented sheep’s bladder while hiding a dirk in every fold of big morbid unopened death so often it’s difficult
battle still blowing melody out of a yelling in Gaelic and flagged wool with one history of family to catalog the fallen in
our thin dreary book so we created beautiful lies in another section of in between where content seems sometimes to show my connections to them tenuous mutual interests and proximity and I often find
books on happiness squeezed dry to ignore neighbors the ones I should be ignoring which contain not only confused opinions but mere invalid considerations
concerning the pleasures that exist between death and ancestors instead I prefer the stack of romance I forgot to take to the exciting the awful world outside which I am missing by reading I’ve discovered gravities
comment at length upon magazines in the corner shut-ins who need to know how sleep appears and fits among possibility such glorious garbage but the miracles
that occur when the community disperses and the individuals rise to meet the dust beyond its apparent station talking it over realizing growing heavy and cold with nuances of thin air and skinny young girls like me
already gently voyaging that’s when they all start again what they’ve done and this burden they wish to share but a muscled flank or a kind word or all three would fly if they could and
sometimes they awaken according to legends and fairytales we haven’t ceased telling propositions I intended to drop eaten from me while considering how to not come to any conclusion sympathetic the whole thing you’d want to wear to bed
I’m still offering up the cool I’m a plate you could have clean up after yourself and you could have been that anticipated jewelry something in case a star visited or maybe
it’s enough if something friendly wants to participate in our undergarments
Rich Ives Seagulls Marching Before the Tide big big sadness you live in comes out and says Not Now and Maybe Never like you haven’t met them undone I exist beyond bits of bud and eye of pollen generously gendered and air-railed (aural mist lifting its tentative engine from grass throats and avian tinnitus) bigger than the box I put big in to hold it in my possibles nobody knows me inside myself but something horrible for a while now what interests me is not me it’s the place where I am when I’m not here I tell the bird not to open itself but it has me to absent welcome feathered being-warmth that means no return such as involuntary rocks for example
or the war there is swept inward and not released until the sand lifts towards shore and separates salt water greens and tears open a succession of ancient pacing we refer to as renewal
Rich Ives has received grants and awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, Artist Trust, Seattle Arts Commission and the Coordinating Council of Literary Magazines for his work in poetry, fiction, editing, publishing, translation and photography. His writing has appeared in Verse, North American Review, Massachusetts Review, Northwest Review, Quarterly West, Iowa Review, Poetry Northwest, Virginia Quarterly Review, Fiction Daily and many more. He is the 2009 winner of the Francis Locke Memorial Poetry Award from Bitter Oleander. His story collection, The Balloon Containing the Water Containing the Narrative Begins Leaking, was one of five finalists for the 2009 Starcherone Innovative Fiction Prize. In 2010 he has been a finalist in fiction at Black Warrior Review and Mississippi Review and in poetry at Mississippi Review. In both 2011 and 2012 he is again a finalist in poetry at Mississippi Review, as well as receiving a nomination for The Best of the Web and two nominations for both the Pushcart Prize and The Best of the Net. He is the 2012 winner of the Creative Nonfiction Prize from Thin Air magazine. The Spring 2011 Bitter Oleander contains a feature including an interview and 18 of his hybrid works.
Amanda McNeil Closest Thing to Heaven Brother sticks his head into my bedroom where I’m playing with my horses. Daddy never talks about my room but Mama says it was supposed to be her pantry before I came along. When I fold open the front of my desk and sit at it, my desk chair touches my bed. I think it’s funny. I’ve been playing herds with my horses since Mama yelled at me to stop pestering her. I’m not sure exactly what pestering means, but I know that when I ask lots of questions Mama gets mad and says that’s pestering. So I guess that’s what pestering is. Asking lots of questions. I have two herds of horses, and they’re led by the biggest and prettiest ones. The stallions. There’s one stallion for each herd. They fight over the bestest field right at the base of the mountain. Ok, so really the mountain is my bed, and the best field is the most open patch of floor, but it looks like a mountain range and fields. It’s awful hot. My hair is stuck to my forehead, and I’m playing in just a tank top and a skirt. It’s ok to wear tank tops around home, but not out, so we haven’t gone out this week. We don’t really go out much at all. It’s safer here. “Hey,” Brother whispers. He’s big and tall and strong. Mama says he’s gangly, but I just think he’s tall. I’d never say so to Mama though. “Hey, Mama’s asleep.” “Oh yeah?” When Mama’s asleep, Brother’s in charge. Sometimes I like that. Sometimes I don’t. Sometimes Mama stays asleep all day in Mama and Daddy’s room. She says she’s sick. She didn’t say she’s sick today though. “Is she sick,” I ask, tugging a brush through my pony’s purple mane. Brother wrinkles up his nose and thinks for a second, “No, she’s not sick; she’s just napping.” “So I can come out now?” I like playing with my horses, but it’d be nice to get a freezy pop and maybe run in the sprinkler with Brother. “Yeah, you can come out now,” he rubs the top of his foot against the calf of his leg. His cargo shorts reach his knees just like my skirt. He’s not wearing a shirt. Boys don’t have to wear shirts all the time like girls do. He has an outie belly button that I think is funny. It sticks out all wrinkly all the time just like your fingers after you’ve been in the water a long time, and Mama never reminds him to wash it like she always is reminding me. I teased him about it once, but he got all upset so I don’t no more. “Hey, kiddo, do you wanna go swimming?”
I love swimming! I jump up and start to squeal but slam my hand over my mouth real quick. Mama hates her naps to be bothered. Taking my hand from my mouth, I whisper, “Of course I wanna swim, but where? We aren’t allowed to play at Pat’s no more.” We used to swim all the time at Pat’s, because he’s just a quick walk down the road, and Brother is old enough to make sure I don’t drown. We don’t gotta have grown-ups around. But Mama got mad when Pat gave me one of his old troll dolls. She said, “Trolls are demonic. I won’t have you playing with kids with demonic things around. It’s dangerous. You could get hurt, or worse, possessed.” Then I had to put the troll in the burn can out back and burn it with the rest of the garbage. It always smells gross when we burn the trash. Ain’t nothing else smell like it here, but Mama says Hell smells way way worse, and ever since the troll, we can’t play at Pat’s no more. “We don’t gotta go to Pat’s,” Brother says, talking real quiet. “Where then?” “We can go to the swimmin hole. It’s right down the road, and I know how to find it in the woods.” I look at him real close. He’s standing there all strong and confident-like. Still and solid like the safe big brother I know he is. The only thing not all strong is his foot still running up and down on his calf. “We don’t got permission to go to the swimmin hole.” Brother chews on his cheek for a second then grins at me, “Ain’t nobody said we can’t go neither.” I think on that for a second, squatting to set down my horse while I do. “Sides, Mama’s sleeping, and I’m in charge when she’s asleep, and I say we can go.” It’s so hot. I think on how good the water will feel all around me. How I feel all safe in the water, wrapped up in it like the day I was baptized, only without Pastor’s hand covering my mouth. The water washes you clean. Swimming is the closest thing to Heaven, I think. “Yeah, you’re right. You’re in charge,” I bump brother’s arm with my fist. He bumps me back. “Get ready, k?” “K.” Brother leaves, and I close my door and hurry to my drawers. I open my top dresser drawer and pull out my swimsuit. It’s one piece and red white and blue just like all the decorations for the 4th of July, and I hate it because it always feels too tight. Mama says I have a long body, and it ain’t the swimsuit maker’s fault, but I still hate it. I beg for a tankini; I know I wouldn’t never be able to have a bikini, but what’s wrong with a tankini? But Mama says no. I pull it on, and it’s tight on my legs and arms, but I just think on the water all around me and feeling cool for once this week. It’s been so hot, even at night. I lay in bed wishing I could just be naked instead
of in my summer nightie, and then I have to ask for forgiveness for thinking such wicked thoughts. So I lay there and imagine it’s winter, and I’m in a drafty log cabin with my brave pioneer husband, and we don’t got much firewood, so we gotta be under piles and piles of blankets and furs just to keep warm. It helps me not feel quite so hot, but it’s still hard to sleep, and I wish Mama hadn’t taken away my flashlight so I could still read when I can’t sleep. But Brother’s a good big brother, and soon I’ll be in the water and cool and happy and just swimming around all free. Closest thing to Heaven. The middle drawer has my tshirts, so I close the top drawer, open the middle one, and take a tshirt from the top of the pile. I pull it over my head. My hair goes in my face and gets stuck to it, so I brush it back, re-clipping my red plastic clips in it. I wish it was in braids, but Brother can’t braid it and Mama didn’t do it this morning. I tug my same skirt back on. It’s bright pink. I hate pink, but Mama says girls wear pink, and I’m a girl so’s I need to learn to like it. But my tshirt, it’s orange just like a sunset. I wear it as much as I can. Brother’s outside already waiting for me. He’s got his swim trunks on; they’re just plain ole blue. He wanted this blue and back pair, but Mama said no, them tribal designs was pagan and super dangerous, so he just got the blue ones instead. Boys’ clothes don’t got as many colors to pick from as girls’. He’s wearing his camo shirt on top; the one that says “God’s Army” in big black letters. That shirt always gives me the goose-pimples cause it reminds me how Pastor says we’re all fighting this war against darkness and evil, and the world is a wicked wicked place. The men gotta protect the women. The women gotta protect the children. The children gotta obey the adults and get ready to be the protectors one day. Brother always says he’s gonna be ready. He practices a lot. He shoots guns with Daddy and learns survival at boys’ club on Friday nights. I wish I was as good at girl things as he is at boy things. I’m the worst sewer in girls’ club. Mama’s petunias wilt in the heat, and our driveway is all dust. The van looks light blue instead of dark blue even though Brother just washed it a few days ago. Mama always says that it’s impossible to keep anything clean around here. The only thing she likes less than a dirty van is a dirty me. We walk down the driveway toward the road not saying nothing. The oaks, pines, and maples beside the driveway give some shade but no breeze, and it’s almost as hot in the shade as in the full-on sun. I’m hotter now than I was in the house and tug at the neck of my swimsuit under my tshirt. Brother notices, “It ain’t that far.” I nod.
At the bottom of our hill we turn left on the road, wandering down the middle of it. We’re allowed to walk down the middle of dirt roads, but not the paved roads. This dirt is less dusty than our driveway. “Why isn’t it as dusty as our driveway,” I ask. Brother picks up a stick by the side of the road and drags it along after him, “Because more cars drive here. They pack the dirt down.” “Oh.” On the left is the big hill we live on sloping up away from the road.. Sometimes me and Brother run up and down the hill pretending to be Davy Crockett and his fighting men. We whoop and holler and wave sticks around. On t’other side the ground slopes down to the brook. Sometimes Brother or Daddy take me brook fishing there. Brook fishing is almost as good as swimming. It’s cool down in the holler and fun climbing around on the rocks looking for good spots to cast the line. The brook and a couple others all come together to make the swimmin holler. I seen it before, but wouldn’t be able to find it again. Good thing Brother knows the way. Brother drops his stick in the road, and I pick it back up, poking at the potholes in the road that used to be chinamen’s holes in the spring. I still don’t believe they actually go all the way to China on the other side of the world, but the big ole rocks and sticks I stuck in the ones Brother found for us sure did disappear. And now they’re nothin but regular ole dirt. Maybe instead of going to China they go to Hell. I know Hell ain’t supposed to be in the middle of Earth like folks used to think, but maybe it’s more like a portal to Hell. Like the wardrobe in The Chronicles of Narnia. I don’t really like much about Narnia except the portal to someplace else, someplace better, but it’s the only books they’d read us at summer camp. “Hurry up!” Brother calls. He’s so far ahead of me. Almost up to the top of the big hill the road climbs. That means we’re gettin close. The swimmin holler’s in a gully, I remember that. I sprint to the top of the hill, and the dust around me sticks to my sweaty skin. My legs feel real strong as I take super long strides to get up the hill where Brother’s waiting for me, and for a second I’m Calamity Jane, charging on up the hill to save the day. Course, Calamity Jane wouldn’t be out of breath at the top like I am. I’m panting and wheezing in the heat. Brother rolls his eyes at me. “You didn’t hafta run,” he sighs. “You said to hurry.” “Yeah, but I meant stop staring at potholes, not run in this heat.” “Mama always means run.”
He opens his mouth then closes it, looking at me for a second. “Yeah, she does. But I’m not Mama, alright?” He ruffles my hair. “Hey!” I stick my tongue out at him. “Pest,” he gives me a light shove. “Weasel,” I shove him back. He starts tickling me, “Snake!” Lost in a fit of giggles, I sprint down the hill with him after me. His legs are long, and he can catch me whenever he wants, but he lets me get to the bottom before catching up with me, wrapping his arms around my waist and slinging me over his shoulder. “Put me down,” I giggle, lightly pounding my fists into his back, but careful not to do it too hard. He fakes pain, “Ow! This little girl’s strong, folks! She must secretly be a boxer or something.” I’m lost in a fit of giggles as he sets me back down on my feet. I cock my head to the side, my wispy hair a tangled mess around my head. Brother suddenly scowls and scolds me, “Straighten out your skirt.” I just obey. No point in sayin nothin about it. Brother gets moody sometimes. He trots on ahead of me off the road into the woods, and I hurry to catch up. Seems I’m always tryin to catch up to somebody. The woods is a bit cooler than the road, and if I wasn’t so grimy from all the sweat and dirt I’d probably be happy to just play Indian with Brother and make a teepee around one of the pine trees. I’d gather pretty rocks from the brook to make a fireplace and cooking spot, and Brother would whip out his knife and whittle somethin then pretend to go hunting and come back with his deer. “Right good venison, here, little sister,” he’d say while throwing the load off his shoulders. “I’ll cook it up real good for us, Chief,” I’d answer. He’s always the Indian Chief, and I’m his wise little sister, respected by our whole village. Sometimes he even lets me be a medicine woman, but I had to promise never to tell anyone about that. Usually we’re from the Abenaki tribe, cause they lived in woods like this and hunted and fur trapped and stuff. Sometimes though we’re the Sioux, and Brother paints his chest to look like blood, and he dances around a tree pretending to do the Sun Dance. When we’re Sioux, I get to help in the buffalo hunt and with skinning the buffalo, and I make up really good recipes to use all of the buffalo, because that’s what the Sioux would do. Maybe I can get Brother to play Indian for a little while after we go swimming. He’s not in the mood right now, though, I can tell. He’s walking real quick and keeps checking around him. “Hey, wait up,” I call out and scurry to catch up with him, “You playin tracker?” He looks at me funny, “No.”
“Then why d’you keep looking around?” “I don’t know what you’re talking about. You ask too many questions, you know that?” I nod solemnly. Everyone always tells me I ask too many questions and think too much and worry too much and really just need to let go and let God. I don’t mean to bug anyone, least of all God; it’s just that there’s so much I wanna know. But Brother is taking me swimming, so now is not the time to pester him, so I shush. The old, dead leaves and pine needles make our footsteps real quiet as we go down the hill toward the holler. It’s what books call a “forest carpet,” and I like it much better than the real carpet I have to vacuum at home. If I could, I would live out in the woods all the time where you don’t gotta worry about keeping things neat or quiet and you can do whatever you want whenever you want. The sound of running water, splashes, and laughing sound in the distance. Brother looks at me, grins, then bursts out at a run. I whoop and run after him. The forest carpet turns gradually to rock, what Daddy calls “shale.” Brother holds out his hand to show me to slow down before I get to the edge. I know that, but he worries anyway. I come to a stop, and we stand staring down into the swimmin holler. Two boys and a girl from our road are playing down there. A brother and sister and the little boy they keep an eye on sometimes. The older boy waves at Brother and yells “Howdy.” Brother returns it. “How do you know him?” Brother’s pulling off his tshirt, getting ready to jump in. “We play in the woods sometimes. Boy games.” I touch his arm, “But we’re not supposed to play with them. Their family don’t go to church.” He sighs, bends down, and looks in my face, “He’s not a bad kid, and I never go to their house. Don’t tell? Pinky swear?” I’d put up more of a fight if we were home. If Mama was right in the next room or my Bible was staring at me from my nightstand, but all I see right now is the holler calling to me and Brother’s nervous face and the smell of the cool air rising up from the water, so I ask, “You swear you don’t go in the house?” “Swear.” “Ok then,” I hold out my pinky finger, and we lock them together, shaking, “Pinky swear.” He lets go, whoops, and yells, “Hurry up slow-poke!” and with a flying leap cannonballs into the water below.
The other three sides of the holler are low and easy to climb in and out of the water from. This side though is high. Perfect for jumping but a long climb to get safely up there. I know Brother picked it just so’s he could get a good leap right at the beginning, but I wish he’d picked one of the other sides. I’m scared to jump, and now I have to or he’ll have to come get me and be all mad. I pull off my tshirt and neatly fold it, placing it under a nearby tree then do the same with my skirt. “Come on, scaredy-cat!” the boy calls up at me. His sister joins in. Then Brother does too. I wish he hadn’t done that. Now I really have to jump. I come to the edge and glance over. Brother looks up at me, “It’s the fastest way into the water, kiddo!” I smile at that thought. I can’t wait to be in the water. “Just say a quick prayer if you’re nervous and jump,” he turns to the boy treading water next to him and says something. The boy nods. “Ok,” I call down. I back up a couple of steps and look up at the sky toward Heaven and Jesus. Dear Jesus, I pray in my head, Thank you for such a nice holler right down the road from us. Thank you that Brother can take me swimming even when Mama isn’t feeling well. Please help the nap make her feel better. Please give me the strength and courage to make this jump. Thank you. In Jesus’ name, Amen. Then I run and jump. There’s no reason to aim. I ain’t that good at jumping far; there’s no way I’ll miss the holler. I hang in the air for a second then gather my limbs up into me like I’m curled into a ball sleeping and slam a perfect cannonball into the water. Suddenly, I’m wrapped in a clean cocoon. For a second, I stay under, opening my eyes, looking around. Some legs are nearby. The giggles from above are muffled. It’s the nicest, calmest thing in the world, being underwater. Just like Heaven will be when we die, and for the first time ever I realize something, and it’s the truest thought I’ve ever had ‘cept for how much I know I love Brother: I can’t wait to die.
Amanda McNeil is an energetic, masters degree educated, 20-something happily living in an attic apartment in Boston with her shelter-adopted cat. She writes scifi, horror, urban fantasy, literary fiction, and paranormal romance. She has previously published short stories, as well as a novella, Ecstatic Evil, and a novel, Waiting For Daybreak.
Whitney Reinhard It Started in a Crack
Despite depths, the lack of brains, origins began here. Translucent secrets crystallized, took action. Advanced over flecks of lead paint, black tar. Waited & woke with almond breath – a peach-fuzzed tongue, agitated by the smell of oxygen.
Whitney Reinhard is a graduate of Bowling Green State University. Writing has always been her passion. Her other works can be seen in Catfish Creek, scissors and spackle, Mad Swirl, and Prairie Margins. Her letters can along be read in The Letter Project.
Tamara Madison The Rose That Lupe
The rose that Lupe gave me perches all day on my desk, in the lip of my blue commuter cup for I have no vase to put it in. It wilts through “le jour et la date,” the conjugations of aller and the English class admonitions to Shut the mouths up and Get your face back in your seat. And every time I rest at my desk its deep and worldly sweetness reminds me of the gardens outside where hunched abuelitas and retired longshoremen proudly tend their flower beds. I don’t think they would mind that a young girl not yet worldly has plucked one in its prime and given it to her teacher who then, day-battered, brings it home
and places it in a half-inch of water in a wineglass where its petals smash against the glass, look like a flamenco dancer’s cast-off magenta skirt and smell like everyone’s idea of earthly love.
Tamara Madison is the author of the collection “Wild Domestic” (Pearl Editions; July, 2011) and the chapbook “The Belly Remembers” (Pearl Editions, 2004). She was the featured poet in Pearl 43, and Moontide Press’ Poet of the Month in February, 2010. Her work has appeared in numerous small press journals, including Chiron Review, Spot Lit, Hobble Street Review, Tears in the Fence etc. Two of her poems were also recently featured on the Writers Almanac. Tamara has two grown children and teaches French and English in a high school in Los Angeles.
Justin McDaniel Joseph Fitzroy Chapter One Joseph Fitzroy lived his life like a sidewalk. His dreams, although very ragtag in nature, were much more interesting; however, the chestnuts of joy liberally presented in his dreams had much with which to contend: “The Jar of Cobweb Tears.” This jar of cobweb tears spatially cruised within a phantom cloud of cigarette smoke that interminably lingered through Joseph’s window from across the street. Old man Orwell, a geriatric war vet, smoked a pipe as long as an alpenhorn and the smoke proceeding forthwith rode the wild wind like a wicked witch. That the tobacco he used was littered with fantasy and perpetrated by bizarre doppelgangers is an understatement. Each puff was stuffed with vexatious unpleasantries, negligently torturing youthful souls with sadness. Nevertheless, despite the convoluted war waging in his midst, Joseph always found the time to dip his feather quill (with which he chronicled his dreams) in a pot of golden honey. Upon completion of this pious ritual, his purple paper pad sprouted holiday clovers and peppermint grass. Weaving around these spirals of December foliage, Joseph would write. On December 1st, Joseph awoke from an undomesticated dream and dashed over to his nightstand with the deliberate intention of writing an entry. Journal Entry #1 FRANCIS, a wealthy law maker, had an eerily offbeat belief in Santa Clause. He counted to four and shut the door every Christmas eve affording the oak end table, on which he retired a self help book every evening, a pair of chocolate chip cookies and a glass of milk. A toadstool smile would wrap around his aged face as he tip toe to bed; and, not for an altogether explainable second, thoughts of trepidation would vaguely bob in his mind like an ornament on a Christmas tree. However, morning relieved all apprehension as the treats repeatedly vanished. After journaling the dream, Joseph splashed back into his bed and fell asleep. After eight hours of motionless rest that had placed him deeply in the cradling arms of restful serenity, Joseph arose. He rolled over and spilled himself into the rest of the day.
Chapter Two As the day unraveled like the last twist of yarn off of a dowel rod, Joseph noticed his window shaking. More violently it shook, and less relenting became the stubborn glass. Finally, in a great moment of deviant power, the pane loudly crumbled and the glass contained therein stiffly fell over like an unreliable brick wall. Crashing through the open hole in the wall, which had been created by means of excessive command of persuasion, came the jar of cobweb tears. It effortlessly surfed the smoke of old man Orwell’s pipe, and was, with angry intentions, prepared to steal Joseph’s soul. It swirled over his head like the circling colors of a lollipop, taunting him with the tears of 5,000 years. The jar of cobweb tears angrily hissed and groaned as it inched toward Joseph’s frozen head, committed to the mission for which it was destined. Joseph sat perfectly motionless, partly because of a very piercing sense of terror and partly because the jar of cobweb tears began slowly sucking the life out of his body. Then, just as the last teaspoon of Joseph’s soul was about to be slurped out through his fingertips, Old Man Orwell dropped his pipe in a puddle of lukewarm water causing the flame to burn out. The cranky pot of noodles no longer had a foggy vapor on which to ride, which, incidentally, caused it to fall from the air like a planet out of orbit. It, with a great thud, landed on the carpet in Joseph’s room and assumed a small crack. As a blurry consciousness crept its way back into Joseph’s head, he motionlessly gathered a vague perception of the events that had unfolded before him. The microscopic crack in the pot, to Joseph, was analogous to a tiny bruise on a brave warrior and gave him the sense that his encounters with the jar of cobweb tears were far from over. This realization pounded away at him, nearly disintegrating the last drop of life left in his anxiety riddled skeleton. So, in a state of drowsy ambulation, and nearly taking on the physical qualities of a noodle in his limbs, he stood up, loosely clutched the jar of cobweb tears, and, with every ounce of energy left in his muscles, tossed it out of his window. Landing in a muddy pile of brown mire, the jar relaxed and awaited the fortune of its future. As Joseph stood completely exhausted, staring out of the hole in his wall, he desperately tried to synchronize his breathing with the will of his lungs. Harmony, although it was an intensely labored process, was finally achieved – at which point Joseph realized that it wasn’t any one particular thing at which he was staring. Instead, layered thoughts were coating his eyes like one hundred filmy sheets. They all seemed to indistinguishably leak into each other, forming a sort of flat blurry binocular through which he could only see confusion. So, he went to sleep. The next morning, Joseph collected every last morsel of his turbid night vision and chronicled it in his notepad.
Journal Entry #2 ORLO, a poet of sorts, enjoyed entertaining blank pages with highbrow alliteration. After hours of looming over his own thoughts, which perhaps were exceedingly above his own ability, rambles like the following would ensue: “It occurred to me that today was a day when a rioters rambling riot was ruined and a passer by’s peaceful passing was presumptuous. Lackadaisical liars lurked in and/or around the lairs of motivated learners. Futile phantoms that forego fashion and fame for forgery and phony falsification were placed upon society’s perpetual pedestal.” Post creation, Leon wouldn’t exactly cackle and beam a pleased grin, but rather a simple widening of features would befall his cavalier face illustrating his “best bib and tucker” mindset. He was cocky and, void of his acquiescent apprentice, everyone sneered at the mere thought of him. Chapter Three A couple of cold days later, Joseph saw Old Man Orwell chewing on a screen door. Considering that Joseph had, in the world outside of his dreams, never witnessed such deranged behavior, he was subconsciously spurred on to animalistic activity as well. Within a matter of seconds, Joseph waywardly de-socked himself, duck taped shiny butter knives between his toes, and dashed out the back door — all of this took place, seemingly, without any authority of psyche. It was as if diminutive spirits had barbarically submerged themselves inside of his vulnerable bones and were ghostly manipulating his senses and deeds. In an untouched corner of Josephs yard, between a fast fox whisper and a twisty airstream kiss, grew an old oak tree. The bark was sweet like a setting sun and sparkled fast, popping and crackling like a hot firecracker against a dark sky. And it beautifully sang the bright tune of the zephyr with perfect pitch, leading on the neighboring Pine across the decades. Reflections of the long history between the two grew sturdy in the slanting roots, spreading out under the Canadian thistle like wide sycamore leaves. Joseph was escorted to the area (by an unusual outside force) like a cat and mouse game. He marched straight for the tree, creating a relationship between the ground and his feet that could only be described as aggressively confrontational. Once he stood toe to toe with that old oak, he reached out and twisted it, ringing it out like a wet rag. With his bare hands he stalwartly coiled that whale of a tree into a crying curlicue of embarrassment. The blubbering sadness of a song bird oak was suddenly and unexplainably jam pressed between the mad hands of a younger, less vocalizing, less charming breather of available oxygen. Joseph was relentless in his barbaric attack. But why? After the unruly moment had
passed, Joseph walked confusedly back to his house, asking himself this fitly question over and over. The second Joseph crossed the promising threshold between his short hallway and quiet bedroom, he collapsed – knees first, then the rest of his body. As his hands met the hard floor, archaic tears launched out of his young eyes and inaugurated a puddle below his head. These aged tears were old and had been accumulating like interest on a loan behind the masks on his eyes. All in one moment, the heavy weight of every savage three wink occasion that he had encountered flooded his nerves and passionately washed out the strength he had built against them. Joseph, throughout his early years, had seen some things that no one had ever seen; however, he wished, just for a day, that he could live a normal life – one without such unhinged fantasy, one that entailed, perhaps, a youthful conversation about love and the consequences thereof. The next day, Joseph awoke and remembered, in perfect clarity, that his dream was about a man subjected to an environment in which unnatural feelings were unavoidable. Anything common, in a world of mystifying abnormality, was an expensive taste to Joseph; yet, his dream (and the simple recollection of it) had secured a small bit of hope – if not forever, at least for a day. Journal Entry #3 LOUIE POPPINS, a man of little finish in composition, worked unnaturally as a newspaper journalist. Each day of his seemingly troubled life, he would knock about the small village in which he lived, hunting for a heady story to report. Consequentially, due to the emptiness of his geographic location, he got into quite the habit of casting troubled looks about him. Nothing interesting had happened in ‘Higginsbrier’ since Markle, the underappreciated Sheppard, marched the anniversary day parade in his white under shorts. Had there not been a town’s elder, he may have just gone around quite naked like the young of birds. But one day, as Louie’s intentions gave audience to his desires, a story was borne – mothered entirely by desperation and soaked to the neck in lies. His appetite for a compelling chronicle far exceeded his regard for virtue, which, as some say, paved the way for his lonely walk on the green mile. The people of Higginsbrier soon debunked his endeavor of catty fiction and fired him.
Chapter Four During December, Joseph had been reluctantly embarking on a grotesque odyssey through the dark lonely streets of seclusion. Despair, like a tsunami, had persistently washed up broken lily pedals on the shore of his bleak and irresponsible consciousness. The interior of his skull was fetching a life with which he was at odds; he lived like an intoxicating germ that always shot a sharp poison hook through the short noses of budding choir boys with whom he longed to sing and shout. Joseph desperately wished for a solid cadence – a rhythm in life that would smooth out the ragged tempo of his staccato reality. Sometimes, during the lowest of moments, he felt like a brown insect that had unknowingly crawled into a mason jar and died from drowning in a pool of wax. Joseph then decided to go on a walk. The night hosted a charming starry sky, but the land sleeping beneath it was a dank cast-iron leftover of storms gone by. Joseph’s stark neighborhood gave residence to only three homes, and was composed of rocky pathways, grassy hills, and a hope for the purest form of Mother Nature. Avoiding old man Orwell’s house was, primarily, the only mission on this evening stroll; however, he did envision something greater than what he could write on paper. He longed for an interesting experience that would venomously exterminate the funky cancer that infected his life. By ambling across the warn gravel pathway, he knew that he would only be a subject of travel conformity – which would severely lessen his chances of experiencing the unknown. So, he voluntarily trekked across the waist high thicket just beyond the four sleeping pines, allowing his nose to follow the scents of a lion’s dream. As Joseph cheerfully gave himself up to nature’s fishing lure, he was slowly transformed into a flourishing component of the secret earth (an extension of its magnificent beauty and brilliance). Beneath every wet step he took, a sunflower grew quietly and colorful. The rusty trashcans that were sprinkled across the rolling hills dissolved into Celtic carriages that rolled over and wheeled out leaving a trail of white piano keys in their wake. And the ivory musical shards told the song of a mystic wonderland. Angelic grace and sublime majesty were surrounding Joseph, and the more deeply he became immersed in the pleasing situation, the more his eyes resembled a bottomless sea. The green and yellow grass – uncut and unharmed by the turbulent hand of man – began burning a picture in the horizon. The picture commenced with a large circle filled with charged lines that wriggled and didn’t know an edge and laughed at the mud of genesis that awoke from its slumber for the skin of the first man. Extending out from the chaotic circle were nine razor blades that put shiny cuts in the sky. Just to the left of a cloud rested a closet full of classical dresses that spun high-speed on top of a fish
bone that had been dried out from the high wind. And the moon’s thermometer attended the square dancing broom that ran a high fever but didn’t understand what it meant to break. Petrified numbness within Joseph painted the whole fantastic scene with sweet black ink. Joseph felt, for that timeless moment in which watched nature transform itself, that he experiencing the moment for which he desperately longed. Unfortunately, his round of ecstasy was finally (and inevitably) broken by the taunting screams of old man Orwell. The sounds spilling off of that geriatric bomb’s tongue were square enough to extinguish the most enchanting vision, regardless of how beautifully lofty. As reality eventually melted the fantasy of his eyes, Joseph exasperatedly traipsed back to his front door. At the punctuation of this evening, Joseph drifted off into a wonderful dreamland that made real life seem like a cardboard parody. After a tranquil eight and a half hours of sleep, Joseph rushed to his notebook. Joseph entitled this one, “Dr. Dingus – The laughing professor.” Journal Entry #4 DR. DINGUS, a man of whom many people spoke highly, delivered three speeches per semester to the college of liberal arts. Each one, as though they had been plucked right out of a timeless shine box, was crafted with certain grammatical and poetic brilliance. He was not one to labor over word choice, or knock knees at the thought of proper syntax; but, rather, each flawless sentence rolled off his tongue with ease so as to willingly fall victim to the atmosphere in which prior speeches had long since become stale. Furthermore, it wasn’t altogether uncommon for Dr. Dingus to orate with his tongue-in-cheek. His ability to accompany powerful prose and academic enlightenment with daft humor won him the hearts of those listening. However a fateful August morning soon arrived. On this day, Dr. Dingus was to present his recent endeavors of scholarship to a panel of marine biologists – a group with whom he had only a few similarities. Needless to say, Dr. Dingus’ appetite for authoring a cancerous brand of laughter overshadowed his ground breaking presentation on the truths of the biblical story, “Jonah and the Whale.” In trying to win the hearts of those with whom he had little in common, he occasioned failure. Sometimes it’s not acceptable to make light of historical figures in a rawly concupiscent context: Dr. Dingus said, “Jonah was, indeed, hot with a cursive T.”
Chapter Five The next day, Joseph facilitated a discussion between his ten-member gang of garden gnomes (living just outside his window) and the wise rabbit that frequently hopped around his yard. They said, with much confidence, that there had been lengthy talk of a major uprising by the jar of cobweb tears. Anxiety and terror gripped Joseph. He knew that a plan needed devising, but the means by which that would be accomplished were hidden from him. For the remainder of the day, and deep into the night, while the fangs of the future were biting down hard on his ability to freely think, Joseph strenuously worked to hash out a plan. He tried to think forwardly, but the brake-pads of his mind seemed to become all the more patriotic to a mission of stoppage. It was a miserably exhausting exercise and, fittingly, Joseph started to dose off at his desk. Then, startled into consciousness by the abrupt ending of a dream, Joseph jerked his head up from the position it had occupied on his arm and reached for his quill. With blurry eyes and a bright recollection, he energetically jotted down the vision. Journal Entry #5 LAZARUS BROWN was born into the world by way of a yawn. Quite matter-of-factly, grass would grow beneath the feet of his neighbors as they tried to understand how such a characterless human go about life without as much as a notice of how boring he was. Lazarus’ mind had two limps, a notion previously void of reason until the day of his birth; but he didn’t care. With rags in his ears, Lazarus peddled through life on a supernatural cloud of absence. Pumped full of naive idiosyncrasy, he climbed over the sleepy mountains of life and peered into the foreign unknown with vague interest. His thoughts, being rather divorced from the possible categorization of a dog and pony show, were bankrupt and paralyzed. The career of his creativity could be, in a dimly comprehensible way, illustrated by sticking a finger in a pie. But, one day, he brushed his teeth with a Siamese pair of fast-forward wrenches and an amputation of his listless personality transpired. Suddenly, his lips turned blue and his mind did too. Lazarus, in turning the word boring upside down, legislated terror in a fashion so terribly severe that mountains would, relatively responsively, run like lambs. Furthermore, at the drop of a hat, he could barrow the night and inaugurate ripples in a small puddle without the previously requisite toss of a pebble. By simply housing a good bit of gravel in his mouth, he could, with unabridged rhetoric, force the most confident men to cash in their chips. However, in the winter of an old age, Lazarus’ princely fortune of
commanding power was slapped with the paintbrush of unfortunate fate. The white fluffy towel of magnificence he had once so delicately hosted on his forearm had become a deadly fastened pelt of thorns and hardship. In his last hour, shortly before he vacuumed his last breath, he said thus: “I wish I had never sprained my brain on those fast-forward wrenches.” Chapter Six Joseph leisurely tied the laces of his mind thereafter, inhaled a deep breath and took to the outdoors. His last occasion with nature was, by a great degree, an experience of a lifetime. And since, for the past couple of days, he felt somewhat stale and defined by the circumstances around him, he wanted to relive that memorable encounter. As he briskly stepped off of his crumbling back patio, he began thinking about his life in a macroscopic way. Quickly deducing that, in terms of a fitly metaphor, his life was a brimming cup of bile, he initiated an introspective solution session. In overcoming his current episode of life, he thought a postponing of his common associations may be in order. In other words, Joseph unquestionably needed to avert his habits of weakness. Confident of an awaiting world in which rich tapestries of human experience were plentiful enough for quick happiness, he planned to train his mind for the better. And the unshackling walk on which he was about to embark would be, perhaps, the perfect instrument through which that end would be satisfactorily accomplished. Joseph’s first impulse was to walk alongside the rose bushes that were seasonally sprouting attractive red buds towards the north side of his property; however, if any change was going to be submitted on this walk, he would surely need to tread against his natural inclinations. So, he confidently pointed his nose in the opposite direction and walked hard. This felt, as he predicted, somewhat alien to him in that he had never so strongly opposed his own will. But, there was something interesting to him in the substance of internal conflict. He wisely concluded that, throughout history, no man had ever changed without doing war against his personal appetites. So, there he found himself, on the amply warn and rugged course of intimate re-direction. And he liked it. As he lovingly embraced this goal of fine revolution in his soul, the walk, unlike that which he had experienced the first time, became an exercise in metaphysics. The surroundings, although particularly beautiful and certainly worthy of admiration, weren’t the key to unleashing his mind. This time, he deeply pondered the concept of change and the freedom that seemed explicit and openly accompanying.
As he heedfully walked on, feeling the earth breathe beneath him as if it were out of breath from years of taking the blunt force of gravity, he felt an escalating tendency to revert back to his safe cradle of reassurance; however, with the impending collision between old man Orwell and himself hanging dreadfully in the balance, he knew that change was highly needed. As the hour grew near for Joseph to head back to his quaint little room and rest for the evening, he, in a scattered manner, collected his broken thoughts and organized them in his mind; then, lazily crawled into bed and closed his tired eyes desiring a needed hibernation. Chapter Seven Joseph awoke in perfect synchronization with the rising of the sun, and, as was his custom, recounted the mysterious events of his dreams. They read thusly: Journal Entry #6 SHILOW PENNYFINGER, in the most authentic sense of the word, was a dwarf; however, this deficiency made only vague attempts at tarnishing his enjoyment of life. In fact, it could be very easily said that he rolled up and wheeled his way through existence with a level of rhythmical design much different than that of his more standardized counterparts. For illustration purposes, consider the following excerpt from his scribble paged journal: “Today, while parading the keys on my portable piano, my ears became the audience to an anomalous whisper. In an effort to quench my curiosity, I evicted my hands from the keyboard and dedicated the ensuing moments to the discovery of this puzzling undertone. I swiftly dashed out the door. At the dawn of the conjugal matrimony between my feet and the passively sharp blades of grass in my back yard, I was greeted by the phantom vendor of said whisper. He was the very personification of a nursery tale. And, after my initial aesthetic appraisal, I realized that he had been dipped in golden honey. Furthermore, musical notes were leaking out of his surgically removed fingertips and the spoils of five billets-doux landscaped his ticklish neck. Not long after we had both acknowledged the physical presence of each other, the phantom danced off into the melting horizon. At the genesis of his ebb-like retreat, I hustled after him but only managed to step on a lullaby rose and frighten a patchwork scarecrow. ….in retrospect, the whole affair seemed to be so tangible and real that all else in the world dissolved into an artificial sketch. Was it a dream, though? I suppose I’ll be at 6’s and 7’s until our next rendezvous. Back to the ivory keys.” Journal Entry #7
GRADY, a diagnosed schizophrenic, spent the greater part of his adult life in an institution for the mentally unstable. Although the conditions were painfully bleak, it gave him sufficient time to satisfy his burning pleasure: studying the shift of seasons. Year after year, Grady would gaze out of his small window, perched (like a monkey) atop an old wooden stool on which he laboriously scribed all of his disjointed thoughts. Through the course of much cataloging, the stool became so busy with knife carved words that its load barring capacity came into question. This inevitable, yet amendable, fact annoyed Grady desperately insofar as it would impede his ground-breaking research on the seasons. So, without hesitation (and nearly without deliberation), Grady began a top-secret plan by which he would escape the asylum through a glitch/hole he had discovered between winter and spring. The dimension found between the two seasons, though very colorless and depraving of the senses, housed a living fairytale in which wooden stools were in no particular shortage. Upon retrieving the necessary goods he desired, he would return to cell 308 thusly: It had been said that in Wooden Stool Land there lived a camel that juggled razor blades and was capable of irrigating newcomers with the fertilizer of season glitch travel. The wise camel’s secret involved dining with pink panthers, pulling a rose from the concrete, ripping a hole in the seventh sun, and viciously roping up snotty baboons. These bazaar tasks would, with certain custodianship, unlock the door through which one could travel back into the real world. As Grady meticulously finalized these plans, and stood most confidently on the shore of an ocean full of promise, there was a gentle knock on his door. “Yes,” questioned Grady with bewilderment. Visitors were seldom permitted on the third floor (and dinner was not for another hour); therefore, a knock seemed heavily peculiar. “It’s Dr. Granowski,” exclaimed the unexpected quest. Grady met with Dr. Granowski, the head psychologist at Rush Valley Institution, once a week; however, Wednesday wasn’t the scheduled date on which they would medicinally converse. “What do you want,” asked Grady with penetrating skepticism. “I have something that you might find useful,” replied the doctor. As Grady moved from the window to the door, which was equipped with padding for flagrant occurrences, thousands of thoughts raced across his brain. Perhaps they had unmasked his diabolical plan to replenish his wooden stool stock, which, unfortunately, would result in more therapy; or, he thought, maybe Dr. Granowski had spent his suspicions on the thesis entitled “A Discourse on the Death of Autumn” that he had turned in a week prior. (Was he prepared to accept it, resulting in being lauded on an international stage?) Yet, when the door was opened, Grady’s wild and unlikely speculations were buried with a charitable gift: a brand new wooden stool. For a few minutes Joseph, with an objective averse attitude, sat at his desk indolently hosting a blank
stare. Then, as if a god had graciously sent gift, a black spider calmly swung across his face, attached itself to the wall, and began dexterously spinning a prophetic web. The trail excreted from its lower abdomen was unusually glossy and possessed striking similarities to the shapes of letters from the alphabet. When the black spider had finished its scholarly business of spinning, a message was left that read: “Power in the Quill.” Of course, Joseph was immediately bewildered by the note and took to deeply thinking in hopes of arriving at an answer. Joseph did, to his eternal credit, realize that the quill with which he penned all of his dreams contained a special property unlike all other utensils in his house; however, he could not piece together the significance of his ownership of it and the circumstance in which he was involved. With trembling hands, Joseph tightly clutched his feather quill (as if it were the dagger drawn from the stone) and hesitantly inserted it into the message written in the spider web. In a violent reaction, the quill flew out of Joseph’s hand and darted towards his purple notepad. Immediately, it began scribbling lazy rhymes across the blank pages, all of which made vague references to Joseph’s night time parties. Some of the lines read….
“Five freckled shadows drip down the moon, One o’clock limped away beaten from star-shine croon. “Eyes get raspy from late night charm, Thoughts form constellations, camps, and farms. “One star glitters loud like a diamond across ice, The sun throws dice risking dawn considered a vice. “Hot coals are snap tossed on the sky’s tongue, Time holds its breath with a punctured lung. “My mind is rent by a parliament of dreams, Imagination sick with a haunting host of screams.
“Orion plucks its eye out and sticks it on his thumb, Looks around the corner at a war gone numb. “Slash comets ride horseback on a ghoul, Fluster, flurry, flip, the belt lost its tools. “An incubus fights a god near the crest of the twilight, Spirits never when with a jest and a highlight. “Morning takes a yawn ignorant of the passing, The day stretches on blind to the midnight harassing.
Subsequently, the quill started tracing faces around each of Joseph’s journal entries, making sure to append a long slender neck to each head. The neck, in the most confusing style of art, slid perfectly into a wooden cradle filled with patchwork blankets. Near the end of this hurricane of insanity, the quill drew an eyeball with an iron nail through it (signaling to Joseph that he should close his eyes). So, in humble obedience, Joseph closed his eyes and waited for a bomb of uncertainty to explode. When Joseph opened his eyes, standing before him (in the flesh) were seven familiar characters — all from his dreams and exactly as he remembered them. Francis (the law maker), Orlo (the poet), Louie Poppins (the unnatural journalist), Dr. Dingus (the professor), Lazarus Brown (the boy conceived by a yawn), Shiloh Pennyfinger (the dwarf), and Grady (the schizophrenic). As Joseph slowly wiped the thick disbelief out of his eyes, the seven sergeants of serendipity spoke in harmonious unison: “Joseph, we are here to collaborate with you in your liberating fight against Old Man Orwell and his jar of cobweb tears.” As potent nausea weaved its way through the atmosphere dangling between Joseph and his seven militant friends, a nightlight flashed in Joseph’s head giving birth to a victory scheme.
Chapter Eight Although the supernatural squad of seven assigned to Joseph were less than desirable in terms of valor, they all had something in common: they were the undeniable objects of his dreams. So, Joseph carefully sprinkled them all with the golden honey from his feather quill container. He brilliantly reasoned that the source of magic used on his purple notepad could also be used to write out exactly what he wanted the characters to do against Orwell (as if they were marionette puppets linked to the stroke of his quill). So, Joseph quickly sat down, dipped his feather quill in the honey that remained, and began rapidly writing the script for his day of vindication; the script that would, perhaps, alleviate his slavery to a lacking social life. Script of Vindication: Francis (the law maker), Orlo (the poet), Louie Poppins (the unnatural journalist), Dr. Dingus (the professor), Lazarus Brown (the boy conceived by a yawn), Shiloh Pennyfinger (the dwarf), and Grady (the schizophrenic) formed a circle and clutched hands tight enough to ensure whitening of the knuckles. This bond magically unveiled a matrimony between the strangers that caused their veins to pleasantly sing a hymn of three wishes: (1) That their actions would be propelled by the desirable hope of peace (2) That peace would be the unrestricted outcome (3) That Joseph would eventually regain his freedom. The longer they stood in the circle holding each others hands, the closer they grew together, experiencing, at length, the dreams in which each character was created. As they learned more and more about one another, their hearts became silk meadows, rich with cooperation and unity. Once the serendipitous seven had become keenly familiar with each other and the obstacle set before them, a thick cloud of nectarous fog swept them off of their feet and smoothly spiraled them towards Old Man Orwell’s house. Upon arriving at his worn down abode, the fog cleared and fifteen hundred strangers militantly marched out of the ears of the serendipitous seven. The fifteen hundred strangers, people with whom the seven were unfamiliar, were small enough to ride on the wind of a whistle. And so they did. As Old Man Orwell whistled an old war tune, the strangers glided onto his mustache and began hacking down his whiskers like they were trees in a forest. The serendipitous seven followed the trail left behind, which felt like calcified milk to the touch, leading them into Old Man Orwell’s life just as haphazardly as they were led into Joseph’s. As they made eye contact with the old war vet, who happened to be somnolently sitting on the remains of a rusty piece of
scrap metal from a sunken submarine, they voiced their displeasure with the malicious acts conducted by the smoke of his pipe. Instead of apologizing, which would have been an act of human sensitivity, Old Man Orwell pulled the pipe out of his pocket and lit it up with the quick flick of a liter. Within seconds, the smoke tracked down the jar of cobweb tears and summoned it for a surf. And the cranky pot of noodles ferociously growled when it saw the militia of strangers, understanding quickly what their mission involved. So, the jar spun quick and unleashed a congregation of tears, set in route for the serendipitous seven and the fifteen hundred strangers; however, this angry act of disharmony was put to a halt when the opposition initiated their plan. The serendipitous seven gathered up the fifteen hundred tiny strangers (after they had retreated from the upper lip of Old Man Orwell) and strung them through the wrong side of a red safety pin. They softly set the result atop a butterfly and sent it into the air, heading directly towards the jar of cobweb tears. To the great luck of the serendipitous seven, the red safety pin laced with tiny strangers slid off the wing of the butterfly at the perfect moment allowing it to fall precisely into the gaping hole of the jar. While the strangers were breaking the plane of the cranky pot’s opening, the serendipitous seven attached four jumper cables they had found out in the front yard of Old Man Orwell’s home to the scrap metal on which the old man sat motionless. (Note: Old Man Orwell’s senility was dramatically doing a great disservice to his ability to retaliate.) On the other end of the jumper cables was an outdated turn box radio playing French opera music. Once the needed connections were complete, a surge of gnawing musical notes blasted through Old Man Orwell’s tired body, starting in his callused toes and making its way up to his stained teeth. The charge continued into the airways of the pipe and shot out into the smoke on which the jar of cobweb tears rode. This menacing surge knocked the jar of cobweb tears off of its safe wave of smoke; yet, for the strangers on the safety pin, it was just what the doctor ordered. The impact was so great that it wound up the safety pin and spun it fast like a helicopter blade, sending the jar of cobweb tears out of the window and out of sight. In order to clean up the remaining barriers to peace, the serendipitous seven grabbed the fourth volume of an encyclopedia and tossed it at the pesky pipe that fell out of Old Man Orwell’s mouth. To the delight of the seven dream characters, the contact between the two objects created a magnetic pyramid of confusion that vanished after five bizarre seconds. Old Man Orwell sat dumbfounded and, with eyes full of tears, vowed to plunge his attitude of aggravation into the deep depths of forgotten history. He admitted that, apart from his nightmares, he had never seen anything so tremendously appalling in all of his life.
Joseph dotted the last period on his script of vengeance and felt a large pocket of relief dart through his veins, creating a national park sized plot in his heart — this plot, of course, was of the good variety, waiting to be filled with the rich harvested crops of his redeeming future; however, before he could start the long awaited business of making a new life, he had to return the characters that aided his efforts against Old Man Orwell to their rightful place of dwelling. So, he made a victory march across the street to Old Man Orwell’s front lawn and rounded up the serendipitous seven. Avoiding Old Man Orwell himself for the time being, Joseph gathered the essentials and made haste back to his room. Joseph then cautiously repeated the steps he took to render the characters fit for battle; but, instead of writing the sequence of events in the future for them, he let them write their own future (which seemed like a fitting reward for the service they submitted). So, the seven sat down at his desk and wrote themselves right back into the attic of Joseph’s mind.
Justin McDaniel, a graduate student at Eastern Illinois University, is a student of business; however, his in-depth exploration of this professional discipline doesn’t keep him from engaging the arts. Writing songs, short stories, and poems are the fabulous extension of his essence. Exercising his creativity, which he claims is granted him by an infinitely eternal source, ensures that he remains honest and connected to the hidden shadows in his soul.
Paul-Victor Winters Stockpile
I buried one of my hearts in the dense soil of the side yard near my home, patted the ground down hard. I checked it daily, watered it, not knowing what would or would not grow.
I took another heart and sun-dried it on the concrete back step. I sliced it into paper-thin medallions, little sallow slices for a windchime, something to decorate the place with.
A heart left beneath bleachers, another on a garage roof in the moonlight; one heart dropped to the sticky floor of a dark theater.
I dried another and ground it with wild berries and flowers. I sliced yet another heart into long strips, made a paste, fashioned a plaster cast of my face. I thought I might decorate the face, but then left it plain. I have been wearing it for years and years.
The constant thumping and crying out from the trunk of the car? Another heart.
I took a hollow heart and set it on a river current, hoping it might float. For another one, I devised a set of Twelve Labours, thinking it might survive heroically. I thought I would use a stockpile of my hearts to feed an army of fruit bats.
One heart waits around a surprise corner. One heart gives out during surgery. The vein and the artery and their perverse love for one another.
Both the raven and its broken talon. Both the frightened gasp and the suddenly-parted lips. Both the dream and the nightsweats. The gist of the eulogy and the heft of the casket in the pallbearers’ sweaty hands. The clamor and then the resonant ringing in the ear—definitive, resolute, and indefinite.
Paul-Victor Winters is a teacher and writer living in southern New Jersey. Poems and essays have appeared widely in journals such as TLR: The Literary Review, New York Quarterly, and in the Jane Street Press anthology of writing prompts from Peter Murphy, Challenges for the Delusional.
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