From the Depths, Spring 2012: A Literary Journal

from the depths a change will come

spring 2012

Copyright © 2012 HAUNTED WATERS PRESS. All Rights Reserved.

No portion of this periodical may be reproduced or used in any form; printed, electronic or mechanical, without the express permission of the publisher. The only exceptions are by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review, and to the contributing author to whom all rights to individual works revert back to the author sixty days following publication. From the Depths is a quarterly publication of Haunted Waters Press.

Cover Design by Savannah Renée Warren, a derivative work based on Hisakazu Hayashi’s own work, Dacalana treadawayi male upperside, permission granted via Creative Commons Attributions, Share Alike 3.0.

Works contained herein are works of fiction. Characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to any actual places, events, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Printed and published in the United States of America.

First Printing: March 2012 For more information please visit: http://www.hauntedwaterspress.com Or email us at: editor@hauntedwaterspress.com From the Depths is a quarterly literary journal released on the 1st of March, June, September, and December on the internet, and periodically in print form. All submissions should be sent through our online submission manager.

Please visit the Haunted Waters Press website to review our submission guidelines.

This publication is made possible through the hard work and determination of the contributing editorial staff who gave their time so generously. Funding and support for Haunted Waters Press provided by The Man. Thank you for encouraging us to follow our dreams.

Haunted Waters Press is proud to present

from the depths spring 2012 EDITORS Savannah Renée Warren Susan Warren Utley CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Coree Reuter Donna Parkman ART & SPECIAL CONTENT Savannah Renée Warren DESIGN & LAYOUT Susan Warren Utley

contents fy

poet ry

i

From the Editors 6

ever changing

by Linda M. Crate 18

#1 poem Thistles

by John Stocks 8

Surviving Winter

by Ed Byrd 19

fic

tio

n

Gossamer Boy

by Amy Saia 10

Flood’s Coming

by C.S. Sheridan 20

At Saddler’s Creek

by Danny P. Barbare 16

Wakes

by Hillary Lyon 24

rebirth of the year

by Linda M. Crate 18

A Conversation with Hillary Lyon 26

r ho s t a u ght i ins

I Am As I Imagine, Therefore I Exist

by Nita Sembrowich 28

The Puddle

by Craig Smith 44

a bit of flash Here I Come!

by Victoria Jane Wirkkala 29

On the Farm

by Kent R. Warren 46

The Division of Time in the Suburbs

by Nathan Heigert 30

The Black Film

by Maria Stanislav 48

The Color of Tomorrow

by Patricia Koelle 32 A Conversation with Patricia Koelle 40

r’s o t e d i oice ch

r ho s t a u ight ins

f

ion t ic

The Jump

by Margaret Telsch-Williams 56

The Materialist Prayer

by Larry Gaffney 42

The Contributors 62

The Circle

by Robert E. Petras 43

Production Notes, Credits & Permissions 64

letter from the editors Dear Readers, There is a star on the calendar today. It marks the six month anniversary of Haunted Waters Press and the second issue of From the Depths. When we embarked on this new chapter in our lives, we knew it would be a struggle. We knew there would be money going out and little or none coming in. There would be friends and family who would support us, and sadly, those who secretly hoped we would fail. There would be writers eager to jump on board, and others who would snub us for being too new. But we accepted the challenges and pushed forward. A penciled list of goals and a loose timeline served as a business plan. We designed a logo and claimed our little virtual spot on the web. We embarked on a marketing campaign to get our name out there, and soon we were accepting submissions for the first issue of our literary journal, From the Depths.

So why the star? Rejection. Yes, as we discovered, even publishers and editors get rejected. As part of our marketing campaign, we applied to several listing sites providing resources for writers. We were rejected. We were told that the vast majority of small, independent publishing companies won’t survive beyond the six month mark. “Write us when you publish your second issue.” It felt like a slap in the face. We couldn’t help but be reminded of the first rejection letters we received as writers. They expected us to fail, to give up, to walk away. We placed a star on our calendar and moved forward.

Well, here we are, six months and two issues later, defying the odds and not even close to closing our doors. In fact, things are moving along at an accelerated pace. We are moving beyond our little virtual spot on the web and into a designated space with walls, furniture and our name in little gold letters on the door. We’ve purchased a printing press and a large assortment of type, ink and other printing sundries. Still, there is more money going out than coming in, and there are those who still expect us to fail. But, there are others more important. Those who support us and have faith in our endeavors. They are our friends, our family, our writers, and our readers.

Thank you. We couldn't have done it without you.

This issue of From the Depths is about change. What better symbol of change than the butterfly?

Much like the journey of the caterpillar, Haunted Waters Press is in a constant state of change.

We set out on our journey inching our way along the branches of the indie publishing world. As we checked off items on our penciled list of goals, we entered the cocoon. And now, as we progress along our timeline, we are beginning to emerge. We don’t know what color our wings will be, but we know are getting ready to fly to unexpected places. Thank you for taking this journey with us. Enjoy.

Best regards, Susan Warren Utley Savannah Renée Warren Editors, Haunted Waters Press

6

“The only constant is change itself.�

The Greek Philosopher Heraclitus, 500 BC.

7

iting sandwr

Thistles It came to morning and we were both baptised Rolled in thistles of forbidden joy Dazzled by sun rise. Sorrows deferred Choosing to cherish, the fleeting ache of love.

When later we stood, empowered, exalted If a little bruised by the smear of words We crouched and wrote our names in the sand Knowing the tide would wash them both away.

John Stocks

Crisis thistle) n o m m o (c

8

k thistle

9

iss

gossamer boy

by Amy Saia 10

T

he story goes I was found in a bathroom trash bin covered with paper towels women had dried their hands on and Kotex wrappers and used tampons. I guess my mother lost it when she saw my defect. A baby herself really at fourteen, and now a freak to take care of. Unwanted, unplanned. But I’ve never spent any time blaming her. She was, after all, only human.

These things, they confused a lot of people. Made them question life and God and even science. County services worked like crazy trying to get me adopted, but it was useless. Before long I was in the foster care circuit where people could make money taking me in. Home after home, town after town for a couple months at a time, sometimes even a couple of years. I learned to keep quiet and to stay out of the way. I’m shy by nature, but being invisible was instinct.

One foster, she was all worried about my deformity. She’d run hot baths every night and scrub away. She wanted me, you know? Real bad. She couldn’t have kids herself. With a loofah and a bar of Ivory soap she’d work away, trying to remove the stickiness and the stench. “I swear I’m gonna to fix you!” she’d moan, perspiration on her forehead. But my deformity was too much even for her.

That was me in metamorphosis, I guess. They did stop smelling so bad, and they sat smooth after a while. I learned to keep them down, and let her wrap cloth bandages around them so they were almost untraceable. But in a few years they’d grown, and it became obvious I wasn’t gonna be that perfect kid, the kid she could keep, and show off, and walk to school. So, when the case worker came around again, the lady said she was done being a foster, and she let me go.

After that I took to hiding them myself. No one would ever see these things again. I wore thick sweaters. I learned to turn every lock on every bathroom door, to shimmy sneakers into door frames, to crank spigots all the way so steam spewed out and filled the room with a thick, white fog. Then, secure, I’d swipe a trail across the mirror and look at myself naked.

11

In gym class, I always had a note. Perpetual athletes foot. No showers for me. No jocks in their jockstraps staring away—the same ones who called me Quasimodo. In a black trench coat bought at the Salvation Army, I’d sneak off to the library, all sweaty underneath, and read fucking everything.

And girls. Well, sure, I wanted one of those. There was this one chick who didn’t seem to think anything about my problem. She was always hanging out in the library, and one day she began to make a point about sitting next to me at my table. At first I thought maybe she just enjoyed sitting there for the hell of it or something. Without a word, she’d slip in next to me and read whatever book I was holding, and I’d be real careful not to turn the pages before she was done. Finally one day she introduced herself, long red hair hanging down and biting her lip. Kri, Kri, I loved her name. But there was no hope. I knew an end was coming, to her, to us, to everything.

Fucking hell I loved Queen. Every afternoon I’d race home on my twelve speed to the house I was staying in, an old brick two-story at that time, and run upstairs to inject my ears with loud —so fucking loud it was criminal—Queen. Freddie Mercury sounded like he was an angel, and he knew all the shit I was going through. Somehow he understood. The way he sang those notes, and the sound of Brian May’s sweet electric guitar, it helped to erase every rotten, disgusting day, and me, and these things.

One afternoon I told Kri how much I loved Queen, and she said she wanted to come over to hear some of the records. I kept telling her no. I told her my room was a wreck. Mice, lice—all that junk—but she kept saying she wanted to come over. So one Friday I told her she could, but only for half an hour.

She showed up wearing an outfit that was kind of sexy, kind of casual, I don’t know what you’d call it, but it really made me hot looking at her. I couldn’t believe she was in my room. I gave her an extra set of headphones, and we sat there waiting for Freddie’s voice to come wailing, and when it did, she smiled at me. I saw something in her eyes, it made sense to me, for the first time ever. The next thing I knew I was leaning in to kiss her, and she didn’t pull back.

We listened to every song on that record, then I reached to put on another and she stopped me.

“Kiss me again,” she said. I did. And then we were on the bed, but a voice kept screaming in my head—idiot, scum, freak, freak.

She tried to touch my back, but I stopped her. “Don’t, okay?” “Are you worried about your hump?”

“Yeah, it makes me uncomfortable.”

“Please David.” She looked at me with soft eyes that were about to fill with tears. “I don’t care about your back. You’re perfect to me.”

I wondered if she really meant those words. God, I wanted her to. I wanted her to, but I knew she didn’t understand the truth about anything, had some stupid idea in her head of what I was,

12

or what she thought I was. But she, like everyone else, had no idea. So I shoved her away, and I tore off three layers of t-shirts, and spun around so she could see how hideous and deformed human life could be, the possibility of mutation, beyond anything she’d ever been trained to understand.

I heard her gasp, and then told her to get the fuck out of my room. But she didn’t leave right away. I felt a hand touch them real soft, lift them up so lamplight illuminated all the tufts, and quills, and ridges with veins running through.

Then she came around kind of angry and grabbed my hand. She pushed it into her shirt and I felt bare skin and only one breast. The other side of her bra was stuffed with a sock or something, and under that, a hard, knotted line. Then she pulled away, and she left.

The concert was July 7th, 1977. Had to work my ass off to get a ticket. A whole month at Brown’s Service Station filling cars, checking oil, washing windows, all with this black trenchcoat on. But I got one, and there I was climbing high above the crowd onto the rafters like a spider, a lone black spider. I wanted to be close to the speakers, and I didn’t want any stupid idiots getting drunk and high all over me.

Do you know they sold every ticket? Do you know that? I saw a few people from school. I even saw Kri, standing in the front row. She didn’t know I was up there watching her.

The band appeared and everyone began to cheer. I could feel the vibration of their clapping, then the pulse of an electric guitar being plugged in.

Freddie’s voice was brilliant, I wanted it to heal me somehow. With every song, I listened from up there in the metal scaffolding, hoping it would take all this desperation away. But it didn’t work. I was still the same, dying, me. The same fucked-up embryo in a hot wool trench, skin coated with perspiration like a yolk that could never be washed away. I kept watching Kri, she was so beautiful and free down there.

Hours went by and when Freddie announced the last song something in me clicked. I would take off my coat now, and be free. No more hiding, no more suffocating myself. This was the last time I would ever cover them. The world could reject me, could hate me, dissect and crucify me.

But no more hiding.

A guitar began to strum, and the drums picked up. Freddie sang the first note so sweetly, it was amazing, really amazing. I stood up, barely clinging to the metal poles, and let myself sway just a bit. What if I fell, what if I leapt?

Someone saw me dangling like that, and they pointed. A few people looked up, then more, and more. Pretty soon the whole crowd was looking at me, and not at Freddie. Watching their lips I saw over and over, “He’s gonna jump! Look at that guy! He’s gonna jump!”

“Freak!” someone yelled, so loud I could hear it through the music.

I laughed.

13

Kri looked up and I saw her face change from bland to horrified. She threw her hands up to cover her eyes. That made my stomach go all weird, and I thought maybe I would barf, right there over the crowd.

The last note of the last song. Freddie gave it his all, and a breeze ran across my neck. It almost whispered to me, Do it, Do it. They ached, these things ached, to be set free.

I ripped off my coat, and all the t-shirts, and watched as they floated down into the crowd like little black clouds, then I was shoving off the scaffolding caught inside nothing but air.

Then came a loud scream, like the whole word had let loose at the same time. Quasimodo had nothing to hold onto, and where would he go, who would catch him? The boy they all hated.

They should have been ecstatic, but instead they were horrified. They screamed, and even cried. I was falling, falling, and Freddie’s voice held fast to one, long note of ecstasy.

And then, it was silent. Except for the sound of them opening, like a parasail catching air. A loud rush and a flap. The rushing of wind through a million tiny feathers. The crowd held its breath, and I swooped down over them, over their faces, so close I could see pupils and pimples, so close, over Kri. She smiled.

“You’re beautiful,” I heard her say.

14

15

At Saddler’s Creek Walking a quiet road. Summer Crickets’ loud then dying chirps.

Black snake coiled in a tree.

The wind and the lake are just Ahead. Waves tumbling Lapping against the muddy pinnacle Of the shore. It was always Fun in a boat. The hull clapping On the deep blue water. Especially In the evening, riding with my Family, into the big water.

Dragging fingers through the White spray, as the sun lay orange At the end of the day, as if it was Following us, the roar of the Inboard churning behind us And the dam was like going Into the infinite blue twilight.

Our lights on, heading back to To the dock, silent dark water As the boat lay back down, And we turned in, listening To the bug zapper and watching TV in small condo by the lake.

Danny P. Barbare

16

17

Ever Changing your moods are as mercurial as the weather; there’s always a metamorphosis of spring, autumn, winter, and summer; I never know which one will strike, you’re always changing like the sands of the desert, and I don’t know how to read you; you promise me that things will change, but I’ve heard that mantra before; I can’t stand around and wilt because you haven’t decided whether you want joy or misery.

Linda M. Crate

Rebirth of the Year winter is the rebirth for the year, washing us with the stain of a new dance — a promise for new hope and new dreams to flourish under the heading of a new year; I pirouette against the snow, letting it’s ribbons wash away all the grains of yesteryear.

Linda M. Crate

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Surviving Winter It’s cold out now, the wind strips me of my fingers as my arms fold and smack together, I shiver.

I remember summer, fireflies wrapping their glow into a cricket's song, while I walked through the shade of the trees.

It was a time when a ruffling rabbit stirred dead leaves from bushes, as it ran away from a fox and then froze at my feet.

I saw winter before me, shaking white hairs from its shedding body, each time one landed it got a little colder, the sky and ground slowly merged through the snow.

Its black eyes watched my hands, waiting for the slightest movement, the gentlest wind, to bring the fall.

I gave up and let go of summer when the fox sprung from the bushes. And by the time I hit the ground, the rabbit was gone.

Ed Byrd

19

flood’s coming

by C.S. Sheridan

20

wheat

fly

S

ure is beautiful out here in the wheat this time of year, isn’t it? What with the sun shining like it's proud to be up there and the sky clear as glass, it’s hard to believe this'll all be under water a week and a half or so from now.

When my daddy's people settled here back in 1868, I bet they saw that river over there as a good thing to have nearby, but that river’s a taking thing. Someone, somewhere, every day loses something to it.

I'm pretty sure Sheila ran off on it. Someone would've seen her on the road. I wasn't being a very good man back then and she got stuck deep in bad sadness after that boy of hers got swept away. Folks around here said they thought she jumped in the river and killed herself, and maybe she did, but nobody trusted me the same after she was gone.

She saw her boy fall off that little cliff from inside the kitchen, you know, and by the time she ran out there all she could see was his head screaming away. We never did find that boy, just like we never found her. That river doesn't like giving up what it takes.

He was a strange boy, that one. Probably best he died young. He liked hurting the dogs and killing the chickens more than a boy should. You couldn't tell him anything on account of him believing he knew it all already. He would've been a hard man.

I used to say it was Sheila and her hot ways that set me to drinking. That girl, I swear, she was always looking for it, and I married her thinking she couldn't get enough of me. Having that strange boy around was a small price to pay for living with a dirty thinking woman. Of course, that kind of woman isn't really ever happy, and an unhappy woman in your house makes it an unhappy place. Drinking was my way of not being there.

21

And drinking all day is easy when you grow wheat in the same place your daddy and his daddy and the daddy before him did. You don't have to think about what to do in a day. You’ve been doing it since you were born.

Now, drinking all day has a certain effect on a man, the kind of effect a woman like Sheila doesn’t like tolerating, always looking for it like she was and even hungrier for it after losing that strange boy. She'd have had no trouble finding a taker, and that's what I like thinking happened.

Franz Eugen Kohler, Kohler's Medizinal-Pflanzen

I lost my brother to that river, too. We didn't know each other growing up. Jed was twenty years older and out of the house by the time I was born. They'd come to visit every few years, him and his pretty little wife and their two boys, and he came to stay after that pretty little wife died from a bad cancer. He was an old man by then but he hadn't forgotten how to grow wheat, and I was glad to have him. I'd been running the place on my own long enough.

He came into the kitchen one night about a year after he got here, and he was carrying the biggest bottle of the good stuff I ever saw. He told me to go ahead and drink it all up and fall asleep with a pillow over my face and just get it over with. He told me to stop dicking around, that killing myself little by little every day was wasting everybody's time, that I was a coward for taking so long. Had to show him he was wrong about me, and that's how I stopped drinking.

And I stayed not drinking because of how Jed was that whole next year. See, the one good thing about drinking is that you don't have to remember too much while you're doing it, but all that's waiting for you when you stop. He kept quiet but stayed around.

I'd be dead today if it hadn't been for that.

22

It was the hundred-year flood of '92 that took him. Flood water is filthy, full of everything from along the way and a lot of that is dead, and something bad got on the inside of his lungs. He was too close to gone when help finally got here and didn’t live out the week. He told me while we were waiting in that old attic with the river right under us that he thought our granddaddy had died the same way. I should've buried him next to that pretty little wife of his instead of here.

I'm the same age now he was when he died. It's his oldest boy's youngest boy, Trace, who's getting the spread after me. Growing wheat isn't in his blood yet, but farming sure is. Got himself some fancy ideas about organics and rotation and something he calls ecotourism. He'll do just fine.

Eight hundred miles north of here is having their third day of rain in a row. I'm having Trace come on out next week so he can live through a flood, see what it's supposed to smell like, learn what to do. Not his family, just him. Shouldn't be too bad, not this one, since the snowmelt's already been through here and the weather service is calling for that rain up north to let up tonight. The house and the barn and the chickens are all up high enough for a little flood and we probably won't even lose much of the wheat, but you don't know for sure about these things until they're over. Safe is better than sorry when it comes to a taking river.

Weiz en

And what kind of crazy name for a boy is Trace? He says his mama saw it in a book she was reading. I say he ought to be glad she wasn't reading Moby Dick, and we always get a good laugh out of that. Maybe there'll be time after the water comes up and the power goes out to talk about how this river takes what it wants and is never going to care how you feel about that.

23

The breach in the dyke at Houtewael

by Jan Josefsz van Goyen (march 1651)

Wakes your finger slices parts the surface of the water a scalpel dividing smooth skin swabbed sterile and taut across the belly the small waves roll back to the bank nudge the sleeper lick his hand his breath is a stone in his chest heavy cold filled with stars everyone who ever loved him pulls the darkness out of the night sky stuffs that sad linen into canopic jars into hearts baked so long they broke here on the slick banks we finger the shards puzzle the pieces back together tick off the stars as they fade into the luminous breath misting the mirror of the morning sky

Hillary Lyon

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25

poet a conversationwith

Hillary Lyon

HWP: What inspired you to write Wakes?

HL: The anniversary of my father's death; we were very close. The poem is one of several I wrote in an attempt to reconcile his death with, well, everything else going in in the world, in my life.

HWP: Where do you find your ideas and inspiration?

HL: Music more than anything. Ambiance music in particular. The music sets a mood, the mood conjures emotions and images, the images become poems.

HWP: Are there any authors/poets who have influenced your poetry?

HL: For me, Ann Sexton's works were immensely influential when I was in my early 20's. I'm partial to the works of Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Albert Goldbarth, and T.S. Eliot. Not necessarily in that order, though.

HWP: What are you reading right now?

HL: The House on the Borderland, by William Hope Hodgson. It's one of the books that influenced H.P. Lovecraft. Considering when it was written, it's astounding.

HWP: How long have you been writing poetry?

HL: I started when I was a preteen; I loved to create new lyrics for favorite pop songs. It was a word game, basically; the flow and rhythm had to match the song's original. In high school, thanks to an outstanding English teacher named Diane Darr, I discovered the works of Sylvia Plath and Ann Sexton.

That changed everything; I didn't know you were allowed to write that.

HWP: What is your writing day like?

HL: The conditions have to be just right -- no distractions, no worries, no obligations hanging over my head; I have to be in the right place mentally. Making myself write when there's no inspiration is pointless, and produces garbage.

HWP: Where do you find yourself writing the most?

HL: On my netbook, in the kitchen. Usually early morning, before my family is up.

HWP: What did you pursue as a career? Has your career influenced your writing?

HL: I've had several careers, really. Secretary in Fortune 500 company, English teacher for the local community college, personal assistant. For the last 12 years, I've been editor for Subsynchronous Press, publisher of two poetry journals (The laughing Dog and Veil: Journal of Darker Musings). I can't say that my careers have influenced my writing; it's more like my writing persevered (and thrived) in spite of my careers.

26

HWP: What words do you live by? Do you have a personal motto?

HL: I don't have a personal motto, but if I did, it would be along the lines of: Shut up and dance.

HWP: Where can we find other works from Hillary Lyon?

HL: I have poems currently online at Red River Review, Shot Glass Journal, Shadow Train and EOAGH. HWP: What’s next? Do you have any writing projects on the horizon?

HL: At this time, I'm finishing up a chapbook of 13 poems based on imaginary woodcuts; very Danse Macabre sort of thing.

HWP: If you could share any advice for aspiring poets, what would it be?

HL: Write what you want. Don't be afraid to experiment with form, subject matter, or vocabulary. Don't let other people's opinions torpedo your drive. There are lots of petty souls out there who will try to do just that.

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I Am As I Imagine, Therefore I Exist “Never wish away time,” my mother said And though I see her sometimes in dreams In reality she’s been dead ten years.

Is time a thought that we cannot escape?

Time scours my face, Yet I cannot believe in it.

To me it seems I live in my imaginings beyond here and now, there and then.

Reality is incredible so I dwell in the impossible.

There I can be me and not-me a fabulous entity outside that river, time, that washes me away.

Nita Sembrowich

28

Here I Come!

Bound by the shackles of your ugly truth Frozen in time as the World continues on I want to break free How can I break free?

This can’t be me It’s time to change My will is stronger My confidence endless The shackles of what used to be melt away I rejoined the World Its beauty is captivating The sun warms my face Wind blows through my hair Ground steady below my feet I have emerged from the depths of what I used to be To rejoin the World that once happened around me Here I come!

Victoria Jane Wirkkala

29

The Division of Time in the Suburbs The seconds, first, are kept with clicks from the old square clock propped on the window sill.

gear

The minutes pass —if husband’s had them fixed— from appliance to appliance. (...At 9:01 the freezer clears its throat At 9:02 an ice cube falls At 9:03 the furnace takes a breath...)

Hours move with TV shows, sprinkler cycles, and laundry loads.

Single days are measured by the postman’s steps— Every third by an empty gas tank.

New weeks are marked (and old ones removed) by curbside garbage cans, filled with the remains of 20-minute meals and two-hour shopping trips.

And the months are split by two payday checks, which buy the smaller bits of time and ensure that everything stays divided.

Nathan Heigert

30

h ns whic o i t p e c r pe ents or v e f ust be o m n , e o i m s i s t e r of “A prog ch ca s e easure u m s a n y I l . ar supp r d regul n would a events o e m r m o a f s i e n e th tely u ions of ts of th t n i i t o e absolu p p e o r tw e ber of l of tim een any a w v t r e the num e b t n d n ei re of th enon fou u m s o a n e e m h p the hem>� t ecomes b n e s e e i w r t e s be elapsed s 5-6 a h h olumes V whic , t r a d ence an i c s f o seum -The mu

31

the color of tomorrow

by Patricia Koelle

32

A

ll week long, the storm had tossed salt-seasoned air about, driving it up Ella’s nose and way into her lungs. For a precious while she didn’t worry about her breathing. The wind took over the responsibility, making her forget the void inside her.

This morning she woke to a world wearing something new. A tentative sweetness underlying the ocean scent whispered of spring. The writhing waves had been wiped from a now still and sparkling blue expanse. Like an aquatic animal, the northern island lay in it, waiting for Ella to explore its skin. She hadn’t seen much of it in the week she was here. Fog and rain had swathed the landscape in mystery.

“You’ll feel much better after two weeks in the cottage, Ella, you’ll see!” Harriet had insisted. “Just the thing for you. Fred and I are not using it this time of year. Too cold for his bones. You’ll do us a favor being there, looking after it.” And Ella did what she had always done in the forty-five years of their friendship – she yielded. Packed a suitcase, braved the train and the boat. The cottage seemed forlorn, but friendly, and she was quite happy to be there. But her problem had followed her all the way, and in the stillness after the storm, now stared her squarely in the face. She went to the narrow mirror, struggled to draw deep breaths and stay calm, and watched her chest rise and fall. Then she bolted, grabbing a jacket and almost running from the house.

There was a path of flagstones along the crest of the dunes. The days before Ella had preferred the beach. Fighting against the storm up here had been too much. Now she followed the path, looking admiringly at weather-beaten cottages. Each had a character of its own, a unique and lovable face, disheveled by winter. Ella tried to distract herself from counting her breaths by imagining who lived in them. She set an army of make-believe-families against the feeling that there was not enough air for her, that even spring had not enough of it to give to fill the gap in her chest. It was all sucked into the black hole she felt was there, like one of those they said the universe was full of.

33

sc

hw

ar

z.

The doctor had told her to imagine a festive balloon in its stead. He had noticed Ella was good at imagining things. Yet she failed to picture the balloon that could catch the air she needed and cheerfully inflate. Silly as it was, she simply couldn’t decide what color it would have!

Ella was passing a wooden gate to a garden that lay snuggled in a sharp dip behind the dunes when she heard the cry.

“Help!”

At first she thought she had imagined it, or that it had been a seagull, one of those beautiful huge ones whose cries had harshly drawn her out of sleep this morning. But the call came again.

“Hello! Can anybody help me?”

Ella peered over the gate. It was flanked by a hedge on each side. A narrow flight of rough stone steps led down the slope to a green hollow, and there she caught sight of a shed from where the voice might have issued.

.. n u r g

“Hello?” She was surprised at how strong her own voice sounded.

“Oh, good! I’m in the shed. Please come in!” The answer drifted up the slope on a breeze that carried an unfamiliar but alluring scent. Ella opened the gate, irritated that it didn’t creak though it definitely looked as if it should. Carefully she descended the stone steps. The shed door stood partially ajar. Hesitantly, she pulled it open to reveal a view of a pair of enormous, bare feet protruding from under some sort of bush.

“Thank you so much for coming to my rescue!” a polite voice greeted her. She liked its sound, deep with a hint of rolling thunder in it.

sil ber

Ella walked around the bush. She discovered the feet and voice belonged to a substantial man with a mop of silver curls and toffee-colored eyes. He was lying on his back, his knees pinned to the floor by the trunk of a tree in a heavy terra cotta container that had fallen over.

.

“Glad to see you. I’m Silas Whitmore”, he said calmly, smiling at her.

“Ella Dennison,” she said, bending over and taking hold of the slim tree trunk, hoping she had the strength to pull it upright.

“No, stop! Stop!”

Ella froze.

“Please don’t do it that way. It will break off, and it’s my favorite tree. Pull on the rim of the pot. Sorry I was so clumsy. I was trying to push it onto that cart, but it flipped over, and well, you see where it got me.”

Ella, fighting to take a deep breath, bent over and pulled the rim of the heavy pot towards her with all her might. At first, nothing moved. Ella pulled harder. The pot tilted. The tree rushed upright as Ella straightened in surprise. The tree settled and stood, rustling. Ella found her nose buried in its bushy top. “Oooh!” she said, her voice muffled.

34

gelb

Silas Whitmore struggled to his feet. “Are you all right?” he asked, alarmed that Ella just stood there with her face among the leaves, making no move towards taking a step back.

“It’s yellow! I just realized it’s yellow!” Ella’s exclamation hung among the branches for a moment like a spider web, trembling a little, fragile, then dissolved into the dusty silence.

Silas brushed off his pants. “What, exactly?” he asked cautiously.

Ella emerged from the tree. “The balloon!” she announced. Then she noticed Silas’ puzzled expression and burst out laughing.

“It’s not easy to explain.”

“I’ve got time. You look pale. Let me get you a thank you drink and we can sit in the sun while you tell me about it.”

“What kind of tree is it? I never smelled this heavenly scent before.”

u n.

..

“A lemon tree.” Silas tenderly straightened the twigs, uncovering small, unassuming white blossoms and some green fruits, then pointed to a corner of the shed. “There are some ripe ones gr on its twin.”

Ella discovered an identical tree in the shadows. Ripe, unusually large lemons hung from it among more blossoms.

“Pick one”, Silas said. “I’ll make us lemonade the likes of which you’ve never tasted.”

“Pick a lemon? I never did that before.” Ella went over to the tree. She felt she had to push through the invisible cloud of scent to reach it. “This one?” She pointed to a lemon that seemed perfect in it’s shape, though twice as big as she had ever seen them.

“Sure. It’s plenty ripe.”

Her hand closed around the glowing fruit, pulled. It fell into her hand as if it had been waiting just for her.

Yellow, she thought. It felt yellow. And in spite of the dry, dusty air in the shed she sensed the imaginary yellow balloon in her chest inflating, quenching the darkness and the void for a gleaming moment.

Outside, Silas offered her a chair in a sheltered nook between two grassy dunes. Ella noticed bluebells and daisies. A childish happiness rose in her. Bluebells and daisies in March, in a northern climate! After the surprising fragrance of the lemon blossoms they took even more weight off the day and her fears. “Isn’t it too early for them?” she asked.

“Spring always arrives early in my garden,” Silas said. “I like to think it is because of the lemon trees. Their perfume doesn’t belong here, so it makes the flowers curious and they come out sooner to have a look. Of course, it’s a very sheltered garden, cuddled against the dunes as it is.”

35

He went into the house to fetch the drinks. Ella leaned back in her chair, exhausted, thankful for the tentative March sun on her face.

“Here. Cheers. And thanks again.” Silas handed her a mug.

Ella tasted. “Wonderful. What is it?”

“Nothing but juice from the lemon you picked, with warm water and just a bit of brown sugar.”

“But it’s nothing like the lemon taste I know. Well yes, it is, I mean, it’s clearly lemon, but…”

“It’s because the lemons you tasted never grew on a northern island. In their taste there is a trace of snow and lots of storm. There are the flavors of salt and seaweed. And the toughness of a struggle won by surviving against all odds. The tang of triumph and the joy of simply being alive. Of taking root in spite of everything. The surprise of South meeting North. The memories of a past and the hopes for a future.”

“All that in a taste?” Ella sipped carefully. “There is certainly something special in it. It makes me feel – more alive myself.” Eager and ready for a future, she thought. Strange.

Silas saluted her with his glass. “Now tell me about the yellow balloon.”

“It’s silly. It’s just – when I had my nose in your lemon blossoms, it was such a – a wonderfully yellow smell.”

“That’s not silly. Would you think it funny if I told you I live here because it makes me feel so blue?”

“Well, yes.”

Silas grinned. “Yes, but my sort of feeling blue is not what you think. You say the scent of lemon blossoms is yellow. You thought that before you even knew they were lemon blossoms.

Well, I say the scent of the mornings and evenings here is blue. And not just one sort of blue. It makes me feel light and gloriously happy and young and impossibly free, all at once.”

He rose, taking her hand. “Come, I’ll show you!”

.S

She noticed he was still barefoot. He followed her glance. “I rarely wear shoes. Only in the ir h city. I need to feel the sand, the grass, the water.” ap

He pulled her up the slope, not back up the stone steps but on the far off side, where the dunes rose higher. “Now, smell the blue!” he ordered, spreading his arms in a gesture meant to give her the horizon. Ella saw they were near the lighthouse. The sea was visible on both sides of the island from here. Dark blue pooled next to swirling greens of all shades around a sand bar, copper-colored seaweed edged streaks of turquoise, muted sapphire faded into violet depths. The sun, not aspiring to summer heights yet, threw a school of sparkles across this lively canvas, and

36

a haze in the distance softly melded sky and water so there was no break between both realms of blues. Ella felt light-headed, as if the next breeze would carry her easily out of reach of the fragment of land she was standing on. Maybe she should take off her shoes too, to feel more grounded, she thought, struggling to take a deep breath. This chorus of blue, she anticipated, would smell of childhood mornings, of long-ago bonfires in the dusk, hopes and laughter, dreams and sand castles, and maybe of a future. But she felt her throat constrict and the void in her expand again, and sat down abruptly.

Silas squatted next to her anxiously. “What is it?”

b

lau Ella closed her eyes and concentrated. Yellow. She fought to recall the scent of the lemon en blossoms. It was so generous, so soft, so alive. Full of light. She tried to imagine filling her lungs with it, all the way.

She looked at Silas, speaking carefully around the fear. “They had to remove a part of my lung. The doctor says I can lead a perfectly normal life. It’s just in my head. The feeling there is a void in me, a hole that sucks up all the air. The fear that I can’t breathe because there is nowhere to breathe into. The doctor told me to imagine a balloon instead, that fills and deflates in a healthy way, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t picture it because I couldn’t decide which color it would be. Then your lemon tree stuck its scent in my face. And I knew the balloon is yellow.”

“Does it work?” Silas was holding both her hands encouragingly. “Blow it up, the yellow balloon. Feel it, round and happy. Then let go again.”

He listened to her breathing until he was satisfied the color had returned to her face.

“I visited a friend once who had moved south, you know,” he told her. “It was wonderful there, but I got homesick for the cold winds and the mud flats. Only I had fallen in love with the scent of lemon blossoms, and I took three baby trees with me. They didn’t take well to the climate here. I sent one back south with a tourist because it was so crippled and sickly it would have died. The other two hung on. I experimented with all kinds of citrus tree fertilizer and light bulbs and filtered water, but they were struggling. Not happy, hardly growing at all. Then one early summer day I went for a walk and came upon a clearing in a pine wood, where heather grew among dunes by an old tide pool forgotten by a storm. It was a sunny spot, full of pungent scents – heather and pine, you know, and warm sand, and then the still water, half salt, half sweet, where algae and microorganisms, tiny crabs and worms were at work, turning the fallen pine needles and last year’s debris into earth. There were wild ducks and seagulls, mixing their droppings and bits of fish with all that. Somehow I knew this was the soil my lemon trees needed. I collected some – only bits here and there, not to cause any damage. Two weeks later, both trees began to show tiny new branches and fresh young leaves. I discarded the light bulbs and took the trees outside, to a sheltered sunny place where they still had plenty of the northern winds, and occasional salty sea spray with them. The trees never looked back, and the spring after the first blossoms opened. That was ten years ago.“

37

e zitron Ella listened the way she had listened to her Grandfather telling fairy tales half a century before. Silas’ voice grew softer as he shared his love and admiration for the brave out-of-place trees with her. His delight with having turned the improbable into a truth, craziness into a wonder. The blue of sea and sky had deepened while they rode the late afternoon on the dune, then became touched with gold and apricot by the setting sun. The breeze grew crisp, tasting of dew and new grass.

Wrapped in the gentle dusk and held by the bright pinpoint of the evening star, Ella felt anticipation rising in her. If it was possible for lemons to blossom and ripen here and turn into something better for the strange taste of salt in them, other things were possible. She would still feel breathless and panicky at times and get sucked into her own void. Yet there would also be her new power over the yellow balloon, of the airy and glowing memory of a magical fragrance and a compelling taste of life.

In bad moments, she knew she would think of Silas Whitmore’s lemon trees fighting and winning in a ruthless climate, and of his huge and careful hands tending them. She would remember his voice and the thunder in it, rolling comfortingly across her soul the way the spring fog was rolling in from the ocean, softening the rocky shoreline.

She rose, taking his offered hand. “I have to go before it gets dark. But weren’t you meaning to bring the trees out of the shed when you had your accident? I could help.”

“Do you think you’re up to it? It could wait another day.”

“No.” Ella decided the trees might wait, but she couldn’t. She wanted to see them outside.

She wanted to move things again.

Together they pushed the trees onto the cart in the remaining echo of light and heaved them onto their spots in the shelter of a dune, with daisies at their feet. A moth rose and circled them, lured by the sweet scent. Ella wished she could do the same. The tiny white blossoms were suspended sparks in the falling darkness.

Silas broke a twig, gave it to Ella. “If you can’t breathe tonight, just rub the leaves and your room will be full of fragrance. Fill your yellow balloon with it.” we i B She clutched the twig in her hand as she walked back to the cottage. Behind her, the lighthouse winked on, throwing a slow rhythm of brightness in front of her to escort her shadow.

She met Silas several shimmering times throughout the week. He took her to the pines where the pool and the special earth were, and they got caught in a March thunderstorm that should, on the weatherman’s map, have carried Silas’ name, Ella thought. She began to walk barefoot. He cooked her a dinner of crabs with lemon sauce, and they experimented with lemon peel in cookies and cakes. Silas gave her back her laugh and the darkness in her greyed, then brightened to a dawn with lemony streaks of yellow.

38

When she had to leave, he saw her onto the ferry. “Here,” he said, thrusting a pot into her hands. “It’s a sapling; I grafted it from my tree last spring. Coming along nicely. In two or three years, you’ll pick the first lemon.”

There was such certainty in the way he said it. Ella realized he was not just giving her a lemon tree. He was giving her the trust that she would make it, that her breath still had the strength to carry he through years.

She saw him standing on the dock, barefoot, and knew that lemons would always taste not only of salt and other surprises, but of his smile and the spring thunderstorm in his voice - and that Tomorrow would carry a scent of yellow.

gelb

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or h t u a h t i w n o i t a s r e a conv

Patricia Koelle HWP: What inspired you to write The Color of Tomorrow?

PK: Three things. First, I love lemon trees and have two in my garden in Berlin, Germany, although I have to lug them into the shed for winter. The fruits do have a special and somewhat unusual, northern taste. Second, there is an island in the North Sea, called Amrum, where I spent happy times. It keeps smuggling itself in the background of many of my stories. Third, the older I get the more I find that often it is a very small thing, a flower, a word, a smell, that gives people a sudden impulse of strength or turns their thoughts towards new possibilities.

HWP: Where do you find your ideas and inspiration?

PK: A writer friend of mine once told me he answers that question this way: "Nobody would ask a lumberman where he finds his lumber." I agree with him in that it feels funny to me to be asked that. A writer's lumber is life and so inspiration lies everywhere. In the face of the mailman, in the tracks of the neighbor's cat, in the song of the blackbird that copies the ringtone of a mobile phone. In the flower lady who sits crying behind her flowers. Inspiration doesn't need to be found, it needs to be dodged sometimes because otherwise no story would get finished before the next one clamors to be written. I don't know whether this is a typically German trait, but people around me always ask me, "Where on earth do you get all these ideas?" in a tone of deepest amazement, as if an idea were a sickness or something no less unlikely than a little green alien inviting himself to breakfast and asking for strawberry marmalade. Maybe it just strikes me as funny because I grew up in a family where ideas were a natural part of everyday life. My father’s job was to plan rockets and spaceships and colonies on the moon, my sisters crafted everything from dollhouses to leather handbags or enamel and silver jewelry, my mother had her own darkroom and bred turtles in the basement. I was raised on ideas, so I really can't help it.

HWP: Are there any authors who have influenced your writing?

PK: I don't know whether they influenced me. If so, I would probably be a better writer. I can only say reading them made me desperately want to be a writer. John Steinbeck, William Saroyan in My Name is Aram, and Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury. A german philosopher called Ernst Bloch. Madeleine L'Engle in A Wrinkle in Time. There must nave been more.

HWP: What are you reading right now?

PK: If I want to write, I unfortunately have almost no time at all to read these days. The book I just pulled from my shelf again is William Least Heat Moon's Blue Highways, which I reread every few years.

HWP: How long have you been writing?

PK: Since before I went to school. My big sisters were tired of reading to me, so they taught me to read and write very early. My mother tells me I used to sit in the shopping cart and pick out my baby food by reading the labels. My favorite toy was my father's old typewriter. I typed long rows of o's and x's and insisted it was the language spoken on Venus. My first stories played on Venus, because my sisters had installed a ghost family on Mars and my father was planning the moon colony.

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HWP: What is your writing day like?

PK: Well, I only have two hours a day, if at all, and those mostly around dusk, which seems to be the best time for my writing flow anyway. It seems for me there is something special in that time between light and darkness that gives stories space to grow.

HWP: Where do you find yourself writing the most?

PK: Sometimes in the garden, but I can concentrate best at my desk. I leave notes all around the house during daily tasks, though. A weird thing is that I can best write summer stories in Winter, Christmas stories on hot summer days. Just now I am very happy to have discovered the software "Scrivener". It is perfect for the chaotic way I work. I also use "Dragon Naturally Speaking" which means I can dictate my stories to the computer. This is faster and fun and less tiring than typing. I tell my stories to the machine and notice when something sounds unnatural. Or so I hope.

HWP: What did you pursue as a career? Has your career influenced your writing?

PK: I studied social work, worked for a few years both with old people, small children, handicapped children and disrupted families. Then I married my husband, who is in a wheelchair because of muscle dystrophy and by now needs a respirator. All this has influenced my writing because I am fascinated by people, and because I have learned how precious and big simple things like being able to walk, sit, eat, talk, or even breathe are and that they can never be taken for granted. What also influenced my writing is probably that I grew up in Berlin, Germany, which was at the time divided by a wall where people got shot if they attempted to climb over it to be free or see their families. It made life and people seem more astounding, more fragile, more crazy, more bittersweet and urgently alive. On the west side, people defiantly hung their garden hoes on The Wall, on the east side, there were mines and barbed wire, with howling watch dogs and soldiers patrolling with ready guns. Then I saw that wall fall in a peaceful revolution and a torn country slowly come together and heal. Such things reveal a lot about people and make stories happen.

HWP: What words do you live by? Do you have a personal motto?

PK: There is that well-worn line by Hermann Hesse, "Und jedem Anfang wohnt ein Zauber inne" (In every beginning there lies a magic). This works for life as well as for a new story. It helps me not to be too afraid - either of changes in life or of an empty piece of paper. Of course, I still procrastinate...

HWP: Where can we find other works from Patricia Koelle?

PK: On Amazon :-) But, though I am American, I grew up in Germany and still live here, and so most of my works are in German, for instance a novel (creative nonfiction) and several volumes of short stories.

But I am rediscovering English and will try to fit in an English story now and then in the future. There are two Kindle ebooks (A dream's nest, a story for children and grownups, and Christmas Stories).

HWP: What’s next? Do you have any writing projects on the horizon?

PK: I am having great fun working on two german novels. They will probably be published as ebooks this year. And I have a treasure box full of ideas which whisper to themselves and multiply in the night.

HWP: If you could share any advice for aspiring writers, what would it be?

PK: Sit down and write, finish your stories, don't be afraid, and listen to colleagues who criticize, not to your friends. Set yourself daily goals small enough to be able to fulfill them. If you honestly like what you've written, believe in it and find a home for it against all odds.

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The Materialist Prayer Let us do away with silly dreams, For life is nothing more than what it seems.

Atoms, molecules—their quiet hum; A purling brook, a booming kettledrum; Red sunset, the smell of mint or mace; A lover’s lips, or sleet upon your face.

Everything your senses can absorb While you traverse this blue and spinning orb, Constitutes the sum of what exists.

No need for prophets, preachers, exorcists.

But when the mournful bell tolls in the night, And fills my heart with longing, or with fright, The soft, mammalian segment of my brain That wants to blot out misery and pain Imagines that there is a paradise, Where all is temperate—no fire, no ice; Where laughing spirits in green meadows loll, And astral pleasures titillate the soul.

When death attends, I hope to have such dreams, For heaven’s nothing more than what it seems.

Larry Gaffney

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The Circle You say we our dead before we are born, dormant in the husked silence, drifting like spores in the Circle, drifting, suddenly to rise from our cauls, shedding our larval existence only to wither in the cycles of light and to return to the nesting Circle— you who has risen and fallen countless times in this passage of eternity, you who have fallen again, you who sleep with the seeds, you who call herself Mother.

Robert E. Petras

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the puddle

by Craig Smith 44

T

he puddle in front of my house was a very peculiar puddle indeed. Splash around in it for a bit and you transformed into anything you desired. I discovered it by accident one day when it was very cold. I stood in the puddle thinking the chill wouldn't be that bad if I were a polar bear. Suddenly, bang! I transformed into a polar bear.

Luckily I kept my wits about me and hid in my tool shed, there were a few blackout moments and the neighbor's cat went missing, but I doubt there's a connection. I was mightily relieved when it wore off. For the next few days I avoided the puddle that never dried up, fearing that I may have lost my mind.

Then an idea hit me, making sure no one could see me, I splashed in the puddle and wished that I could fly. Sure enough I sprouted wings. Donning an overcoat I drove to an abandoned industrial area. I had so much fun I didn't want it to end.

The wife soon spotted my weird behavior. I explained it to her, she just laughed and thought I was crazy, but she soon changed her mind when I went outside and came back looking like Brad Pitt. We took role playing to a whole new orgasmic level.

It was all fun and games until the neighbors had a huge party and one of the drunk revelers came along and turned into a massive pink elephant. Not only were a few people trampled to death, and cars and houses damaged, but worst of all the garden wall was knocked over, filling in the puddle.

My wife and I tried for days to clear it up, but it was a hopeless cause, all the magical properties of the puddle were gone. It took a while for us to get used to our mundane lives again, and we soon moved thanks to all the reporters and gawkers banging on the door looking for answers. Not that it ever helped them, they never did find that pink elephant.

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Roseus Pachyderm

on the farm

by Kent R. Warren

F

eedin' the hogs is always more fun in the springtime. Hogs will eat anything and if you can get them to eat free stuff, you make more money when you sell 'em.

In the spring the creeks back up and the carp are easy to get. I go to the backwater with a spear and stick me buckets full.

It's always fun to watch. They start tearin’ at them as soon as you throw them in the pen.

Doesn’t take long before they start to choke and wheeze when they get the small bones stuck in their throats. Funny as hell and they never die over it.

Mable and I been livin’ on this farm since '42 and loving it. She was only 12 when I married her, but then I was only 56 at the time and we love each other to pieces. Mable is my life.

It was a Wednesday when the blue car pulled into the driveway. On the side of it was a shield saying that it was the REA. That would be the Rural Electrification Association or something like that. A government outfit.

Mable and I were in the driveway to meet “Tom” as he pulled to a stop by the barn.

“Hi folks,” Tom introduced himself as being a rep for the REA and said he was there to make our lives easier.

“We’re going to run a power line by your house and we’ll send an electrician by to do some wiring so you have electric lights, a stove, and a water heater. How would you like that?”

“Tom, we don’t need none of that,” I replied.

“Bud, you’ll love it and it’s free.”

os m Ho

i ap

en

46

“Anything we can do, just ask.”

“Well Tom, can you give me a hand with the pigs?”

of a cr

“I guess okay,” I said rubbing my chin.

Su ss

After the electricians left Tom stopped by again, “Well, how did they do?”

“Sure, you just tell me what to do.”

“Oh, I just need a hand movin' 'em to another pen,” I said as I turned away.

Tom followed me over to the hog pen.

“Tom, I’ll hold the chute if you can just shoo 'em over in this direction.”

“No problem.”

As Tom stepped into the hog pen, I moved behind him and tapped him on the back of the head with the post driver. Not enough to do serious damage, just enough to put him down. The hogs took notice and began to snoot and nibble.

This afternoon Mable can give me a hand.

47

ti c

do me s

Over the next month Tom kept showing up at our place. Sometimes I was out in the field when he came to see Mable. I knew what was going on. I hated that. Mable’s young and I ain’t the man I used to be, but the thought of her runnin' off with Tom was something I couldn’t live with. Not gonna happen.

us

I saw how Tom was looking at Mable and I didn’t like it.

t

e h

k c a

fi lm

l b

by Maria Stanislav 48

a

â€œâ€Ś nd, owing to our company's long-standing commitment to maintaining our status as a shining example of social responsibility, we have donated several million to the efforts aimed at restoring the environment at the site of the incident to its natural, pristine form. Because that is what Northwest Atlantic Petroleum stands for – strength in the face of adversity, and passionate dedication to fulfilling our part of the generation contract."

The room full of bare shoulders and bow ties erupted in applause, diamond rings and gold watches catching the light as their owners brought their palms together in honor of Donald Stephenson's masterfully delivered speech. The speaker smiled at his audience with the gratitude of a man needlessly reaffirmed in his own brilliance, and left the podium, moving with the elegant gravitas that is normally brought about by the knowledge of being the wealthiest man in a room filled with millionaires. Doling out greetings, sharing handshakes and receiving laconic accolades, he navigated through the crowd towards the bar, where a glass of fine scotch was presented to him within mere seconds of his request.

49

"Mr. Stephenson?"

He turned towards the sound of a pleasant female voice, leaving the bartender with his richly deserved tip.

The owner of the voice could not have been older than twenty. Undoubtedly someone's daughter. And undoubtedly beautiful, just like the voice that made his name sound like the whisper of the waves. He smiled.

"Donald, please." He was never usually this quick to move to first-name basis, but the sudden wish to hear his given name spoken in her voice was too great.

"Donald." She seemed to elongate the n-s, and the sound of his name on her lips now made him think of a tolling of an underwater church bell, something normally found in ancient maritime legends. Donald Stephenson knew plenty of ancient maritime legends. They added an unmistakable charm to any talk, and were anyone to point out how well-versed he was in sailor folklore, he would always reply that after everything the sea had given him, the least he could do was learn all about its magic. That line never failed.

"That was a wonderful speech," the girl continued.

"Oh, just doing my job." Standard flattery deserved a standard response. What followed, however, was a refreshing deviation from the usual conversation scenario.

"I'm afraid I barely understood a word of it, though."

He chuckled. "And yet you compliment me on it."

"You don't need to know everything about the workings of the muscles in the body to appreciate the beauty of the dance. Your speech had beautiful shape, even if I lacked deep understanding of it."

Donald Stephenson found himself unexpectedly impressed. It was not every day that he encountered honesty bordering on innocence combined with rather eloquent wisdom, let alone finding a combination like that contained in a vessel this fine. The more he

50

observed the girl, the more he was able to appreciate her beauty, the features that initially appeared soft and almost child-like to him turning out to be more refined and noble, worthy of the chisel of a marble sculptor. Still, a man in his position could hardly afford indiscretion and the insult he could unwittingly deal to one of his partners by flirting with their child. The water would have to be tested first.

"I would love to tell you more, but I wouldn't dream of monopolizing your evening, Miss-" "You can call me Tara. And please, feel free to monopolize me as much as you like."

"Despite several accusations, that isn't anywhere among my company's policies." He'd made better jokes before, but this one earned a pleasant throaty laugh.

"There is no competition for you right now. I am here alone, and I am terribly bored. That is, had been until recently."

She had clearly moved from mildly interesting to openly flirtatious. What further encouragement could be required? He smiled genially.

"In that case, dear Tara, allow me to buy you a drink."

An evening that started out well for Donald Stephenson was turning out to be nothing short of incredible. It had not seemed possible that the first impression Tara had made at the banquet could be outshined – yet she appeared more enchanting the more he got to know her. Beautiful beyond description and amazingly intelligent, she never wasted her breath on unnecessary prattle, but when she did speak, each word rang with wisdom that defied her young looks. As did her voice, low and velvety, more suited to belong to an opera singer in her fifties rather than a startling young beauty such as Tara. On top of everything, she turned out to be an excellent listener, and he actually found himself pausing more often than he usually would, so as to hear a comment, or as little as a thoughtful 'go on', spoken in her magical voice. She was unbelievably easy to talk to, so unlike the sycophantic socialites that would hang on to his every word in hope of currying favor with him, or the journalists who lived to find something in his words that they could turn into a bestselling heading. Tara, on the other hand, combined her genuine interest with such deep understanding of him that he found himself talking with more freedom than he had felt in years.

As they sat on a moonlit beach, he pointed out a few constellations to his companion, only to be shamed into silence by the knowledge of astronomy she displayed moments later. Under any other circumstances, his being humbled like that would have robbed his evening of any further enjoyment. Yet Tara's voice was free of any notes of glee at her superior knowledge, and he allowed himself to relax and lie back. Listening to the magical voice next to him talk about the stars, Donald Stephenson no more cared about the impact that the pebbles and sand of the beach

51

would have on his suit than about the fact that he had not seen any member of his security team ever since they had left the banquet room several hours ago.

"Your knowledge of the stars is unparalleled, my dear Tara."

"You, on the other hand, seem to know so much of the sea." He could hear the smile in her voice. "Its legends in particular."

"The sea has given me so much. The least I can do to repay it is trying to learn all about its magic."

"That is lovely." As she sat up and looked down at him, he could now see the same smile that had lent additional softness to her voice. "Would you like to learn more about it?"

"Always."

Still smiling, she reached behind her head and pulled a pin out of her hair. It shone in her hand, catching a moonbeam, but he only saw it in the corner of his eye, distracted by the hair that she had let loose. Silvery in the moonlight, it cascaded down her shoulders, reaching as low as the pebbled sand she was kneeling on. He had never quite realized how long her hair was while it had been pinned at the back of her head, woven into an elaborate seashell-shaped knot.

Perhaps he would have noticed her movement, had his gaze not wandered to the beautiful waves of her hair. Then again, the speed of her hand could only be compared to the strike of a serpent. Either way, Donald Stephenson was now able to gain an undistracted, if brief, view of Tara's hairpin, its jeweled handle protruding from his chest.

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"Mona? Mona, where are you?" called my sister's voice.

"I'm here," I called out as loudly as I could. My voice still came out barely above a whisper, and it was not my feeble attempt at shouting that caught Tara's attention, but the coughing fit it had plunged me into. She knelt by my side as I lifted myself halfway out of the water, and held my hair back as I coughed up black clots. When the fit was over, Tara gently ran her hand across my mouth and held her fingers up to the light.

"No blood this time. You are getting better, sister. And you will be better still once we leave this place for cleaner waters."

"When can we leave?"

"Tonight."

The smile on my sister's face left little room for my meager hope that perhaps she had failed in her intentions and decided to leave her plan behind. Nevertheless, I could not help but hope despite all odds and evidence and the knowledge of Tara's implacable nature.

"Were you unable to find the man you were looking for?"

"On the contrary. I found him."

"Tara‌" "Don't look at me with those reproachful eyes, sister! Have you forgotten our home, buried under their cloud of death? Have you forgotten all of our friends, choked on the blackness? Have you forgotten the burns on my skin and the black film in your lungs?"

"I have not, Tara. I have not."

"Why do you judge me, then? All I did was punish the man who was responsible for all those deaths, for all that pain, and felt none of it. He did not care, and if I ever regret anything about this night, it would be that I lacked the strength to bring him to the place where it happened. So that I could see if, once he managed to rub the tainted water out of his eyes and spit the oil out of his mouth, he could still call what had happened 'an incident'. Are you ready to go, then?"

"I am."

"Please help me with the lock on this dress, then."

Tara leaned back, low enough for me to reach the lock on the back of her dress. Once I had succeeded in pulling it all the way down, she slipped into the water, leaving all of her garments on the shore.

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"Oh, I don't know how I even survived all those hours on land," she moaned softly, letting water wash over her face. "Especially the last one, with the ocean so near, yet myself stuck on the shore. The legs were not as bad as I had been expecting, however. If you forget about those horrible things humans stuff them in. Still, enough was enough."

She flicked her tail a few times, then moved the flippers around slowly, getting the feel for them, just as she did every time after coming back from the land. I reached out to touch the skin between her shoulder blades, still redder and rougher than it should be, but no longer the angry livid burn it had been a few days ago.

"You are healing up well."

"I will heal even faster now. Mark my words, Mona."

We headed off into the open sea. The larger distance we covered by night, the safer we would be, as my gills had still not healed enough to breathe water. Still, among the injuries we had received at the hands of humans, it was not mine that worried me. It was my sister's.

We were the children of the sea, and it took care of us better than any mother would. It sheltered us, it provided for us, and it healed every hurt, given enough time. It would heal the burned skin on Tara's back. Eventually, it would wash away the rest of the black film covering my lungs and gills. Yet I could not help but fear that not even the sea would ever fully wash away the oily blackness that now enveloped my sister's heart.

54

lka Rusa

55

the jump

by Margaret Telsch-Williams 56

M

arilyn felt her son’s cold fingers tuck inside her gloved hand as they hiked through the woods. His small touch tempted tears, but she kept moving. They climbed over downed timbers, and Dalton shuffled his feet through the hard crackle of dried leaves exposing coal-colored crickets to late winter. After an hour, she still hadn’t found the right words to crush his world.

“Are you sure you brought a turkey and mustard sandwich?” he asked.

“Got it.” She squeezed his fingers three times, the soft pads of her palm crushing in on his eight-year-old fragility.

“And apple slices—“ “And apple slices.”

She adjusted the increasingly heavy picnic basket on her arm, letting go of Dalton’s hand as she did, and flipped her braided, brown hair over her shoulder.

Dalton rubbed his palms together, cupped them, and blew air onto his fingers. March was always unpredictable, but this morning was chillier than the one before. They pushed through the forest, weaving the bare trees together with their trail until the slope of the hillside grew too steep to go in any direction but down.

She peeked at his face, tight and focused on not slipping. “Be careful.”

He yanked a twig from a tree and tossed it to the ground, stepping on it with a crunch. “I know, Mom. You don’t have to tell me.”

She sighed. The shores of common ground between them eroded more and more each day.

“I’m only saying it because I want you to be careful. I’d hate for you to tumble into that monster’s mouth.”

“Where?” Dalton grasped her arm and dragged her down with him as he fell.

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She chuckled at his frown. “I’m kidding, Dalton.”

“It’s not funny.” He smacked at his pants and craned his neck toward the bottom of the hill.

He crossed his arms over his small chest, and drew his knees in to meet his elbows.

“I’m joking with you. Remember how we used to play?” She stood and inspected him. He refused her gaze. “Let’s keep going. We’re not far now.”

Dalton rose, stepped alongside her down the hill, and stuffed his hands deep into his jean pockets. These days, he lingered in the in-between; not a baby, yet not grown enough to be released from her wing.

He wiped his nose. “How much farther until we reach the jump?”

“Five minutes. Maybe ten.” She peered at his shaggy hair, the tips of his bangs nearly reached his lashes. At birth it was blond and bright, like strands of butter. Now he sported thick, chestnut locks like his father’s. “Honey, you shouldn’t call it a jump anymore, it–” “Why aren’t you wearing your ring?”

She glanced at her left ring finger and immediately to the trees before them. “What ring?”

“Your wedding ring.” Dalton shook his head and groaned. “Duh.” “I... left it at the jeweler’s for cleaning. Everyone does that from time to time.” She wanted to pick him up, and carry him like she did when he was younger, when all he cried for was her.

“Your father loves you very much, Dalton, and I love you. You know that, right? It’s important you know this.”

He snapped off another naked branch from a white pine and whipped it around, sending sharp whistles into the air. “There’s a pirate ship toy at the mall, and the pirates have real swords, just like in the movie. Dad said if I save my report card money, I can have it.” He swished the stick again, and acted out swashbuckling moves, narrating what he would say to his captives.

The woods broke and a flatland spotted with crushed clumps of silvery-brown, dew-coated grass stretched before them. They trudged over the thick dormant grasses toward a tall oak tree centered in the field.

“Why didn’t Dad come today? He always comes.” Steam billowed from his lips as he spoke.

“He’s packing for your trip.” Her heart squirmed into her throat. “You know, Dad. He doesn’t want to forget anything.”

Dalton stopped in front of an arm-thick limb, crouched, and leapt onto the branch, breaking it in two with a loud, splintery pop. “Me and Dad saw a big jump when he took me to Lexington,” Dalton said. “Real wide, but shallow. He said we could probably walk across if we wore boots.”

“Is that right?” She wanted to take his hand, to hold some last piece of him before the custody judge made his ruling. None of it looked to go her way. “Must have been Buffalo Creek.

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m foliu We used to take the dogs out there.” She scanned the horizon, beyond the fence line and the lump of a rundown gray barn in the distance.

If he was older she would tell him. Take him to the bridge and tell him how scary it was to drop through the sky strapped in the driver’s seat of the Jeep. An older, adult Dalton might understand how sometimes you feel safe enough to drive even when you aren’t; how sometimes, by accident, people aren’t who they used to be.

At the stream, a large hunk of the bank was washed away by the thaw. The clay bank frozen, folded over the water like a solid red wave. Dalton stepped to the edge. A few tiny fish, no bigger than paperclips, darted through the water. Beneath them, brown and gray pebbles coated the bottom of the creek bed.

She took her place beside him. “Here we are. Happy birthday, Dalton.”

“You say that every year.”

“Well, this is where we are every year.” She lowered the wicker basket to the ground and wiped the stray pieces of hair from her lightly sweated forehead. “Shall we?”

His focus shifted from the water to her angular face. “What does ‘shall’ mean?”

Despite his efforts to appear independent, he was still a child. How could she break his heart and not have it hurt? “It means, do you want to. Shall we go to the mall? Or, shall we eat the birthday brownies I packed to surprise you?”

“You did? Brownies, really?” He rushed toward her, teeth framed by smiling pink lips, and wrapped his arms around her waist. She held on for dear life until his arms released.

She spread a plaid blanket over the chilled grass, sat cross-legged, flipped open the basket, and pulled out a metal tin painted with multicolored daisies. With cold fingers, she eased the lid off, and revealed the perfect chocolaty cubes of brownies inside with the sweeping gesture of a The Price Is Right model.

Dalton ripped a brownie from the set and bit off a chunk. “Awesome.”

She handed him a napkin and tucked a second under her thigh to weigh it down in the light breeze. The constant gurgle of the creek, the crisp air, and the smell of damp earth flowed around them as they ate. She focused on taking in every last thought, sight, and sound. Her boy, her skinny little boy with long limbs and dashing eyes, stood before her munching down the last homemade treat she might ever give him.

He couldn’t know that, but she did. In her mind, she begged time to stop, to freeze like the ice-chipped edges of the riverbank. She wanted something to keep even if it couldn’t be him.

How do you prove you’re a fit mother without a child?

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Dalton tucked a grin behind his napkin as he wiped his mouth, brownie crumbs falling to the ground. Tears crept into her eyes. She gazed at the clouded sun, let the moisture spread over the surface of her of eyes rather than pool along the lower lids.

“Is it good?” she asked.

Dalton swallowed hard. “Yeah. Better than last year.”

“I’ll accept that answer.” She smiled and took his used napkin. “Have a seat.”

He squatted, knees nestled under his chin, his bottom hovering inches from the blanket.

She thought of a million words she wanted to say. Last words before the end of their final weekend together, before his father drove him north to upstate New York. “To be with family,” he’d said. “To give him stability.” There were cousins in New York, other kids. Dalton would hardly have time to think about his mom. “The boy can read, Marilyn,” Dalton’s father had said.

“But, at least the papers up there won’t be printing stories about you. The people up there don’t know my wife’s a drunk who got so hammered at Mulligan’s she forgot her kid at the mall and drove off a cliff.” A stiff pain stabbed inside her chest.

But nothing really happened. Did it? A wrecked SUV. She was fine, relatively. Hell, Dalton was still in Playland when the cops looked for him.

No harm.

No foul.

“Can we take the jump yet?” he asked as he pressed his fingers to the blanket to balance himself. She couldn’t resist staring at him, like a science experiment. No matter how many times she’d kissed his head she never felt satisfied. By eight, he still needed a mother, but not mothering.

She stood and swatted her backside to remove the chill. “Yeah, let’s jump and then we’ll eat lunch.”

He rose and stepped to the edge of the creek bank. She moved behind him, setting her fingers on his warm, slender shoulder.

“This good?” she asked.

“Nah, too wide. We need a jump that’s only...” He spread his arms wide, hands angled in like paddles. “This big.”

They strolled along the pebbled sidelines of the flowing water. Trickles shifted to bubbling pools of trapped leaves, and then to shallow rapids rushing over helmet-sized rocks.

“This jump is way too deep,” Dalton said, “But up ahead looks like it might be right.”

“Honey.” Her voice drew out the word in sympathy. “It’s a creek, a river, a stream, a puddle even, but you’re too old to call water a jump.”

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arbor Dalton kicked a rock a few feet in front of him and stopped walking. “This is a good jump.” He swallowed and a tiny Adam’s apple flashed forward under the soft skin of his throat.

“You have to grow up sometime, Dalton. I’m not always going to be here—” He nodded. “A real good jump.”

Trapped in a split-second moment, she watched as Dalton’s arms flung out to his sides, his legs spread into an inverted V, and his feet sailed over the creek to the other side, his red and brown striped scarf trailing behind him.

“One,” he said, then jumped again and floated back to her, landing solidly on the unsteady rocks. “Two.” “Three.” He leapt to the other side.

“Four.” He returned.

“Five.” He moved away from her and waited to catch his breath.

She remembered when he was too little to jump alone.

“Six.” He came back and panted, hands on his knees.

There were years when she carried him over. And years when she only clutched his tiny hand.

“Seven.” Dalton’s voice wheezed. He smiled in the frosted morning across the creek from her. Capable of taking the jumps alone.

“Here I come,” he said. He paired his feet and bent his legs into a hard angle. Arms swinging, he straightened his legs, and his shoes left the sand and stones behind. He glided over the clear, running water, and landed with a solid thud into the rocks only feet from her. “Eight.”

She clapped and shouted cheers from the imaginary crowd. “Eight years old. Hurrah.”

“How many jumps do you think there will be in New York?” he asked, grinning and winded.

She tousled his hair and absorbed the memory of how it felt slipping through her fingers.

“Too many to count, Dalton. I wish I could see them with you.”

“What?” His face twisted, the corner of his mouth stretched up into a held wink.

Bending, she wrapped her arms around his back and squeezed until his ribs stopped her. “I’m not coming with you. I’m not sure how long I have to...” she hesitated. “New York is Dalton and Daddy time.”

He stared at her. His blue eyes watered, clearly seeking something she couldn’t say. It wouldn’t be okay. It couldn’t all be the same. The same was different now.

“Eight years old,” she sighed. “You’re going to be a grown up before I know it.”

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contributors John Stocks - Thistles John is a widely published and anthologized writer from the UK. Recent credits include an appearance in Soul Feathers a poetry anthology, alongside Maya Angelou, the English poet laureate, Carol Ann Duffy, Bob Dylan, Len Cohen, Rimbaud and Verlaine. This anthology was the second best selling poetry anthology in the UK in January, is raising money for cancer care, and can be ordered online from Waterstones UK. He also features in This Island City, the first ever poetry anthology of poetry about Portsmouth, also available from Waterstones. In 2012 John will be launching a collaborative novel, Beer, Balls and the Belgian Mafia, inspired by three of his primary interests.

Danny P. Barbare - At Saddler’s Creek Danny P. Barbare resides in Greenville, SC. He works as a janitor at a local YMCA in local Simpsonville, SC. He has been writing poetry for 31 years and has been published locally, nationally, and abroad. His poetry appears under his name "Danny P. Barbare" on the internet.

Linda M. Crate - ever changing & rebirth of the year Linda Crate is a Pennsylvanian native and graduate of Edinboro University of Pennsylvania. She has a Bachelor's in English-Literature. Her poetry has been published in Magic Cat Press, Black-Listed Magazine, Bigger Stones, Vintage Poetry, The Stellar Showcase Journal, Ides of March, The Blinking Cursor, The Diversified Arts Project, and The Railroad Poetry Project.

Ed Byrd - Surviving Winter My name is Edward Byrd. I am 18 years of age and a senior in high school. I started writing when I was about 14 or so and I haven't stopped since. I live in Pennsylvania with my mother and two brothers. Looking forward to college with both excitement and fear.

C.S. Sheridan - Flood’s Coming C.S. Sheridan lives in southeastern North Carolina, cuts men's hair, thinks big thoughts, believes humanity matters, occasionally blogs at www.css7756.wordpress.com, loves telling true stories and is proud to be published here.

Hillary Lyon - Wakes Hillary Lyon is editor for the small press poetry journals The Laughing Dog, and Veil: Journal of Darker Musings. She holds an MA in Literature from SMU. Her work appeared recently in Shadow Train, and Tales of Blood and Roses.

Nita Sembrowich - I Am As I Imagine, Therefore I Exist Nita Sembrowich writes in a variety of forms and genres. Her work has previously appeared in Eclectica, Lalitamba, and The Temenos Review. She currently works as a copyeditor and transcriber in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where she has lived for over thirty years.

Victoria Jane Wirkkala - Here I Come!

Victoria Wirkkala is an Administrative Analyst and closet writer. Though her inspirations can be few and far between, when pen hits paper, the words flow free. She grew up playing in the monkey trees with her friends and running through the fields on her grandparents' farm. She lives now in the suburbs with her husband and recalls the great outdoors for most of her writing.

Nathan Heigert - The Division of Time in the Suburbs Nathan Heigert is an English literature student at Utah Valley University. This is his first publication.

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Amy Saia - Gossamer Boy Amy Saia lives in Kansas where she spends her time as a mother, writer, artist and singer-songwriter. Her first novel The Soul Seekers will be released in 2012 by WiDo Publishing.

Patricia Koelle - The Color of Tomorrow Patricia Koelle, born 1964 in Huntsville, Alabama, grew up and lives in Berlin, Germany. She is married and besides her husband loves the sea and all forms of water. She has published a novel, a children’s book and four collections of short stories in German language as well as two recent eBooks in English language. Visit Patricia online at A Dream’s Nest.

Larry Gaffney - The Materialist Prayer Larry Gaffney has been a sportswriter, tennis instructor, and professor of English at Penn State University and Lock Haven University. His novel, One Good Year, published by Level 4 Press in 2007, was a finalist in the Indie Excellence awards for Best General Fiction. Short stories, poems, and satires have appeared in Rosebud, Light Quarterly, Opium, Chronicle of Higher Education, Underground Voices, YPR, Thieves Jargon, Eclectica, and Rumble. His short story, Lost Dog, appeared in the debut issue of From the Depths and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize by Haunted Waters Press. His latest novel, Abbadon, published by Post Mortem Press is available on on Amazon.

Robert E. Petras - The Circle Robert E. Petras is a graduate of West Liberty University and a resident of Toronto, Ohio. His poetry and short fiction have appeared in more than 70 magazines, most recently, in The Bijou Review, The Midwest Literary Magazine, Magic Cat Press and The Yale Journal for Humanities in Medicine.

Craig Smith - The Puddle Craig Smith lives in South Africa, and spends his days working, writing, and reading. He has had several short stories and two novels published The Red Stone and Zoolin Vale and the Chalice of Ringtar.

Kent R. Warren - On the Farm Kent Warren lives with his wife Karin on five beautiful acres in southwest Washington. In addition to being a loving husband, father, and grandfather of three, he is a skilled builder, master inventor, expert marksman, true patriot, and talented writer. Recently, his short stories have appeared in two anthologies from Pill Hill Press. He is currently working on his first novel.

Maria Stanislav - The Black Film Maria is a fugitive from the finance industry whose main ambition in life is to keep running. She has been inventing stories since before she can remember and using a typewriter since before she learned how to hold a pen. Her second passion, as well as the biggest inspiration in every aspect of life, is music, the forays into which she details at http://www.thecoffeeclef.com.

Margaret Telsch-Williams - The Jump Margaret Telsch-Williams is a fiction writer from the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. While her short stories are generally slice of life tales, she’s currently working on a fantasy novel series as an exciting change of pace.

Margaret wrangles cats on an expansive quarter-acre farm with her husband and amazing daughter. She blogs about writing and life at http://www.mtelschwilliams.blogspot.com.

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production notes, credits & permissions Production Notes Cover Design by Savannah Renée Warren, a derivative work based on Hisakazu Hayashi’s own work, Dacalana treadawayi male upperside, permission granted via Creative Commons Attributions, Share Alike 3.0.

Page markers are a derivative work based on E. W. Robinson’s Different females of Papilio memnon, 1869, a public domain image. Page linens are derivative works based on the 1840s Rhopalocera of Ceylon watercolor plates of renowned naturalist, artist and entomologist, Robert Templeton. Text is Times New Roman. Cover, Titles, Headers and Authors are Fluoxetine font by Apostrophic Labs. Journal notes are UCU Charles Script by Charles Whiteside. Layout was done in Pages from Apple. Artwork was created in ArtRage Studio Pro from Ambient Design. Artistic image manipulation on PostworkShop from Xycod. This issue was created on a Mac. Credits & Permissions Much of the digital artwork throughout this issue are derivative works based on images, illustrations and photographs which exist within the public domain. We at Haunted Waters Press would like to acknowledge the original creators, artists, and photographers, for without their contributions, this issue would be incomplete.

Page 7-8, 66 8 9 10 11 11-14 15 16-17 18-19 19 20-21 21 22-23 22-23 24-25

Credit Derivative work based on E. W. Robinson’s Different females of Papilio memnon, 1869.

Thistle, digital artwork, © 2012 Haunted Waters Press. Image created in Artrage Studio Pro using stencils created by Leah at Paperplayday.

Two derivative works of Chris Wortley’s photograph, Thistle Kiss, released by the photographer to the public domain in 2009.

Feathers, digital artwork, © 2012 Haunted Waters Press. Image created in Artrage Studio Pro using stencils created by artist Tamas Barony.

Sheet music of "Indiana", page 2 of 2. Source Library of Congress. Music by James F. Hanley, lyrics

by Ballard MacDonald. Published by Shapiro, Bernstein & Co., New York, 1917.

Wings, digital artwork, © 2012 Haunted Waters Press. Image created in Artrage Studio Pro using stencils created by punksafetypin.deviantart.com.

Popular Science Monthly, artist unknown. Skeletons of bird and man, drawing. 1888-1889. Public domain.

Derivative work of Jan van Kessel’s untitled oil on copper painting. 1653. Public domain.

Popular Science Monthly, artist unknown. The Silent Winter Wood, drawing. 1899-1900. Public domain.

Derivative work: Seton, Ernest Thompson, artist. Northern Plains Foxes Fighting, drawing. 1909.

Public domain.

Background image map: Report of the Superintendent of the U.S. Coast Survey, Sketch E No. 2 showing the progress of the survey in the vicinity of Savannah Georgia 1850-52, 1854. Public domain.

The American Cyclopædia, v. 16, p. 589, Drawing of the wheat fly, sketch. Artist unknown. 1879.

Public domain.

Franz Eugen Köhler, Köhler's Medizinal-Pflanzen. Weizen, sketch. 1897. Public domain.

The breach in the dyke at Houtewael by Jan Josefsz van Goyen. March 1651. Public domain.

Derivative work of photograph Capillary wave/Ripple effect by Agustín Ruiz, January 2009.

Permission granted via Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic.

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24-25

Derivative works: Klinge, Wechselklinge, von verschiedenen Herstellern, photographer. Various Scalpels, photograph. 2006. Public domain.

30-31 Clockworks images & Quotes: The museum of science and art, Volumes 5-6 edited by Dionysius Lardne. Walton and Maberly, 1855.

32-39 Backgrounds and images derivative works of Scott Bauer’s photograph, Citrus fruits. United States Department of Agriculture, 2005. Public domain.

33 Artist, Wolf Helmhardt von Hohberg’s inllustration, Landwirtschaft & Gartenbau & Pflanze, 1695.Source: Deutsche Fotothek, Saxton State Library, gifted to the public domain.

39 Derivative work of photographer, Abhijit Tembhekar’s work Yellow lemons, dated March 8, 2009.

Permission granted via Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic.

41, 58-66 Individual butterflies derivative works of William Chapman Lewiston’s 1865 Illustrations of diurnal Lepidoptera.

42-43 Overlays: Robert Templeton’s Rhopalocera of Ceylon watercolor plates, 1840s.

44 Winged Polar Bear, digital artwork, © 2012 Haunted Waters Press. Image created in Artrage Studio Pro using stencils created by punksafetypin.deviantart.com/ and image of 1964 Soviet Union 4 kopeks stamp, Moscow zoo.

45 Roseus Pachyderm, digital artwork, © 2012 Haunted Waters Press. Derivative work of artist Franz Marc’s Elephant (Elefant) dated 1907. Medium chalk.

46-47 Background image is a derivative work of Alexander W. Galbraith’s photograph of Kennedy Road, looking north from the farm of Alex Doherty, circa 1925-1940. The location is one mile south of Ellesmere, Scarborough Township. The modern street of Munham Gate would be located where the second-closest telephone pole stands.

46 Reproduction of a lithograph plate of a two-dimensional work of art Bones of the Right Foot, Plantar Surface from from the 20th U.S. edition of Gray's Anatomy of the Human Body, originally published in 1918.

47 Sketch of various nail walkers toes dated 1885-1886. Source Popular Science Monthly Volume 52 Author Unknown.

47 Derivative work of Irving Rusinow’s photograph described as Shelby County, Iowa...."You can't raise 5 cent hogs on 60 cent corn." Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Agricultural Economics, Division of Economic Information. May 1941.

47 Derivative work of Alexander W. Galbraith’s photograph of Kennedy Road, looking north from the farm of Alex Doherty, circa 1925-1940.

48-49 Background image is a derivative work of artist Katsushika Hokusai’s (1760–1849) The Great Wave off Kanagawa Part of the series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji (no. 1). First publication: between 1826 and 1833. Medium color woodblock print.

49 Hairpins, digital artwork, © 2012 Haunted Waters Press. A derivative work of sample picture of a hair stick, author Sunshinegirrl|PurpleMoonDesigns, released to the public domain December 2008.

50, 52-55 Illustrations in a collection of Anderson's Fairy tales. Date 1899. Source The fairy tales of Hans Christian Andersen (c1899) Philadelphia: Lippincott.

56-61 Background image: U.S. Geological Survey map of Scout Trail which connects Mt. Burnham to Mt. Baden-Powell. San Gabriel Mountains, California, US. 56 Derivative work based on photograph: New York botanical garden forest, dated 1900. Source Popular Science Monthly, Volume 57. Author Unknown.

57 Derivative work of Wilhelm Launches’ illustration from Deutsche pomologie by Edition Paul Parey Berlin, 1883.

58-59 Sketch: Tree leaves adaptations to air and light, dated1884-1885. Source Popular Science Monthly Volume 27. Author Unknown.

60-61 Sketch: Tree leaf arrangement promoting natural growth, dated1884-1885. Source Popular Science Monthly Volume 27. Author Unknown.

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From the Depths is a publication of HAUNTED WATERS PRESS For more information please visit: http://www.hauntedwaterspress.com Or email us at: info@hauntedwaterspress.com