Volume 49 Issue No. 1

How to Make Pesto 3 - Abby Henderson - Graphite and Digital Media

EX NIHILO

Cover: Taking Up Space (Growth Mindset) - Sam Bearden

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Editor’s Note

Blood, sweat, and tears have gone into the making of Volume 49 Issue No. 1. I am grateful to my staff who crossed the Rubicon with me into ex nihilo.

Ex nihilo is Latin for “out of nothing.” After the events of the past few years, many of us have found ourselves rebuilding from the ground up in multiple aspects. As creators, we turn to art, writing, and music— creation—to develop a new vision of healing. In Volume 49 Issue No. 1, we hope to convey whatever ex nihilo means to creators both here in Birmingham and around the world.

Anna E. Ulrey, Editor-in-Chief

Elaina Solano, Submissions Editor

Table of Contents Alea iacta est.

Female Model - Nicole Wong VIII - 8 Material Mind - Thomas Piekarski IX - 9 Climb On - Abby Henderson X - 10 Out of the Blue - Edward M. Cohen XI - 11 Constructed Pleasure - Cesar Herrejon XIII - 13 Pandemic Summer - Caroline Myers XIV - 14 A Slice of Cheesecake at the End of the Universe - Abby Comey XVI - 16 Safety and Security - Sam Bearden XVI - 16 Tap the Ashes - Madi Claire Richard XVIII - 18 Snip, Snip - Nadia Johnson XIX - 19 Shattered - Savannah Williams XX - 20 A Sentiment - Avishai Goldberg XXI - 21

Credo quia absurdum est.

Life of the Party - Katie Davis XXIV - 24 A good summer evening - Nancy Yang XXV - 25 you got some pussy, it changed you - Wes Ladner XXVI - 26 Shrinking Capital - Perry Genovesi XXVII - 27 home is where the heart is and i seem to have dropped mine - Wes Ladner XXIX - 29 Headspace Triptych: There’s Comfort in Denial - Jessica Swarts XXXIII - 33 Halo - Keilicia Parker XXXVI - 36 Self Portrait - Keilicia Parker XXXVII - 37 Beached Jellyfish - Lindsey Hand XXXVIII - 38 Kneeling Beside My Body - Bradley Samore XXXIX - 39 What We Know - Ivan Pelley XL - 40 hellmouth - Katie Davis XLI - 41

In absentia lucis, Tenebrae vincunt. family tree - Katie Davis XLIV - 44 Whore of the Forest - Sam Smith XLV - 45 Trapped - Kaitlyn Avery XLIX - 49 crawlspace - Wes Ladner L - 50 Return to Dust - Emily Collins LII - 52 Unsaid - Nancy Yang LIII - 53 Sanguine - Sam Bearden LIV - 54 Between Bad and Worse - Peycho Kanev LV - 55

Itinerant - Bradley Samore LVI - 56 (TW: Suicidal Ideation) Futility - R.C. Rawlins LVII - 57 Insight - Madyson White LVII - 57 CYCLE (2021) - Delaney Howlett LVIII - 58 Residual Efflorescence - M.A. Schaffner LIX - 59

Ex cinere.

Pentimento Self Portrait - Caroline Myers LXII - 62 If I was a bird, things would be different - Angelina Scuffle LXIII - 63 Daniel 1 - Nicole Wong LXIV - 64 Daniel 2 - Nicole Wong LXV - 65 Return to Nowhere - Marco Etheridge LXVI - 66 Magnified - Madyson White LXVI - 66 Out of Nothing - Kaitlyn Avery LXIX - 69 Glory Day - Caroline Myers LXXII - 72 I hope - Julia Springer LXXIII - 73 Sarah’s Hair 1 - Jenna Clark LXXIV - 74 Always the Question - Emma Lewis LXXV - 75 A New Creation - Madyson White LXXVI - 76 Ash - R.C. Rawlins LXXVII - 77 Nonetheless - Carol Barrett LXXVII - 77

A Note About Alabama Prison Arts + Education Project.

Note From the Editor LXXVIII - 78 Trapped: Mind, Body, & Soul - Datondra Mitchell LXXIX - 79 (TW: Domestic Abuse)

Staff

LXXX - 80

Contributors

LXXXIII - 83

Acknowledgements

Illustrations by Ashley Frith

LXXXV - 85

.TSE ATCAI AELA

ALEA IACTA EST.

8

VIII

9 Material Mind

Thomas Piekarski

I exist in the shadow of fear, welcome it because at times fear warns of potential doom, allows the chance to defend.

Yet if I should let fear’s shadow blaze a path of tears I’d trample invaluable memories. I often rely on such recollections as days when the sun came up gently just above the teetering mountain range, and I would have liked to stare at it all day if I could, invoke Zeus, as if released from suspended animation to the melody of brook water that runs over little pebbles while I fling my robe to the ground, and puff a peace pipe.

Puff a peace pipe and fondly recall college years when spaced-out hippie Cocaine Katy would pack her nose before attending classes, who since she couldn’t afford a Porsche named her snow-white husky Borsh.

Those years of long hair, cheap wine, rock n’ roll, drugs and loose sex. Who thought that era would end so soon?

At present I feel pressure mount considering what invisible aliens populate the air, perhaps bear pathogens that could do me in.

When I contemplate this hazard my shadow of fear creeps in and temporarily takes hold, the same as when I drive past the state capitol and observe National Guard soldiers stationed, their automatic weapons at ready, and instantly wish I could transfer to someplace quite a bit safer.

Female Model - Nicole Wong - Oils

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Climb On - Abby Henderson - Oil and Acrylic on Canvas

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Out of The Blue Edward M. Cohen

This quote from the Broadway opening of “Lady in the Dark” was told to my acting class by Maria Piscator when I was a star-struck Jewish boy from the Lower East Side. I treasured it for years as an example of the blasé sophistication of European theatre royalty. It wasn’t the way we talked in my family.

In 1944, an opening night was a dream-like affair. Gentlemen wore tuxes; ladies came in gowns and corsages, trailing furs. The house was packed with the press, backers and stars—competitors hoping the show would bomb. The streets were lined with ordinary folk, watching and dreaming.

After the performance everyone headed to the party, which was huge and expensive. At midnight, the show’s press agent raced to the New York Times building for the first copies of the morning paper, back to the party, up on a table, to read the Brooks Atkinson review—which could make or break a show. If the opinion was positive, the festivities lasted all night. If the show was a dud, everyone vanished and the waiters packed up the left-overs.

“Lady In The Dark” arrived at the tail-end of the Great Depression.

F.D.R. was making headway against the economic slump but still there were soup kitchens and bread lines and ex-millionaires selling apples on corners.

My family had suffered badly. But, as always, the entertainment world flourished when the economy went sour because people so desperately needed escape and still enough of the wealthy had emerged unscathed to sell out a glamorous opening night.

All the newspapers covered the opening of “Lady In The Dark.” The night was bitterly cold, but still the crowds turned out because the show was the peak of the theatre and social season. Book by Moss Hart. Gossip had it that it was based on his own psychotherapy—the fad of the moment. Everyone knew about Hart’s plunges into depression and how he found his way out with dizzying spending sprees. Lyrics by Ira Gershwin, still finding his way back after the tragic death of his brother, George.

Score by Kurt Weill, a composer who had escaped Nazi Germany, married to the legendary chanteuse, Lotte Lenya.

The star was Gertrude Lawrence, who trailed gossip like that array of furs she wore in the show. Gossip had it that the costume budget was enormous and, during previews, the designer wanted to give Gertie a new picture hat to wear in a scene. Gertie requested a special rehearsal so she could work with the hat. The producer exploded. A rehearsal with full cast

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and crew was too expensive! Gertie smiled and said with British disdain, “All right, Darling. But does the hat know the lines?”

New York never seemed as glamorous or as rich with possibilities as it did that night. The audience strode into the night for the party, humming “My Ship,” the haunting song which promised that dreams do come true. Maybe mine would.

At the head of the line were composer Kurt Weill and Lenya, accompanied by Erwin and Maria Piscator, a foursome with impressive Broadway resumes as well as European pedigrees, classy avant-garde credits and the socially advantageous ability to rake in the dough while sneering at American materialism.

While waiting for their limousine, the four were startled out of their laughter by a blind beggar who had emerged out of the blue.

“Gentleman in the dark,” he sang, rattling his tin cup, shocking some out of their make believe world. “Gentleman in the dark…,” reminding them of the real pain of the moment.

Only Lenya was not fazed. She took one look and announced that, on Broadway, even the beggars make money off a hit.

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Constructed Pleasure - Cesar Herrejon - Mixed Media on Tar Paper

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Pandemic Summer - Caroline Myers - Oil on Canvas

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A Slice of Cheesecake at the End of the Universe Abby Comey

Scientists were right. I’ve seen all the way. Everything collapses back to where it began—a single point, high in density and calories. Graham cracker crust. Strawberry preserves. Creamy finish. It sits on golden china with little pink roses along the edge. The plates belonged to my great grandmother, and now Mom only pulls them out for special occasions like this one. Like the end of the world.

“Remember when we used to make jam out of the strawberries in the backyard at the Massachusetts house?”

My sister’s mouth is full as she speaks. A wet, beige lump on her tongue.

A scrap of stuffing in her hair from dinner. No one fishes it out. They don’t want to embarrass Maggie, or they don’t notice or, like me, they’re too tired. She remembers 2002, the Massachusetts house. I see bookends, the birth of the universe and its demise, two congruent specks.

She takes another bite of cheesecake before she swallows the first. She is a black hole. Soon, everything will have retreated from whence it came. I run my fingers over the linen tablecloth. I catalog chipped teeth and new haircuts. My eyes devour. Dad’s argyle sweater. A tissue crumpled in Nana’s fist. More wine in Maggie’s glass.

Mom remembers the strawberries in the backyard at the Massachusetts house too. She remembers apple picking in Connecticut when we visited our cousins. This reminds Nana that Aunt Hazel got a job in Fort Lauderdale. The information is met with gasps. How exciting. How nice for them. How warm. Miraculously, the conversation continues. There’s a slice of cheesecake in front of me, untouched, because who would dare touch the death of the universe?

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Mom gets up and asks me if I want a glass of milk. I tell her no.

I’ve seen the end, and there isn’t any milk. (I don’t say the second part.) When she comes back, she has some for me anyway. She sets it on my left even though glasses go on your right because your first three fingers make a D for Drink. I move the milk to the other side. She means so well. She looks so worried. She doesn’t know how the universe will die, and so she wants me to take a bite of this cheesecake that she made just for her family. She doesn’t understand that this cheesecake will kill me, because when the universe ends for some, it goes on for others.

Maggie’s plate is clean. She wets her finger and dabs at the crumbs to make it so.

My sister is beautiful. The wine has turned her lips burgundy. A strand of dark hair falls across her forehead. She laughs, and, somewhere, new life blooms.

When I was thirteen, Sadie Phillips told me that there are six-hundred calories in a single slice of cheesecake. We were in her kitchen. I’d come over the day before to make the batter and sit on the floor in front of the oven to watch the cake rise.

Then I’d come over the next morning to try our creation that had slept overnight in her fridge. She pulled out two plates. She cut our pieces. She handed me a fork.

We each took a bite.

Then she told me how the world would end.

Six-hundred calories.

They all finish. Every few minutes, someone’s gaze flicks in my direction, or maybe I imagine it. In front of me sits an entire slice of cheesecake. Either they’re lingering in the final glow of the evening or patiently awaiting my apocalypse.

It’s Mom who rests her hand on my forearm.

“Are you too full from dinner?” she asks.

Safety and Security - Sam Bearden - Mixed Media

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Tap the Ashes

Madi Claire Richard All I have to do is take one step back and there I am. Shrouded in the warm orange glow of the past that I breathe in with relief. The hot air filling up my lungs turns the heavy weight in my chest to vapor. I’m light, at last, shining like before. Floating in a dream that reminds me more of my memories than anything.

A smile cracks onto my face. A sin for the clinically downtrodden.

My lips tear across my face for the first time in months. The skin of my cheeks crumble like plaster, and my face grows nearly as warm as my chest. I lean back, touching my hands to my cheek, trying to place the pieces back as they were. But, it’s too late. Dust and blood lingers on my fingertips as I pull my hands back from the holes.

My lungs heave, attempting to laugh at the state I was crumbling into. My tears had rotten the walls of my skin so horrendously. And now, they had nowhere left to drain, except through a small cavity that they had rotted out near my shoulder bone that trailed into my lungs, filling them up drop by drop until it took tremendous strength to heave in air against their sloshing weight.

I gazed above me at the orange cloud that had begun to fade, swirling out of reach alongside my growing anguish. I pushed myself up to the sky, stretching my arms and neck as far as they would reach.

Cracks shot up my arms beneath the unbearable weight of my tear-filled chest. If someone were to find me in this state, they’d fear the universe had accidentally formed me out of porcelain and spackle. I pushed harder until fractured pieces of myself began to scatter down beside me as delicately as the first snowfall in winter. The pain lingered, and its familiarity frightened me more than the fractures and holes themselves that were dredged across my skin.

I sucked in a big, hot breath of the orange wisps until the ocean of tears was churning violently inside me. It felt as though hot coals had been thrown inside my chest. I held the fire inside of me until hot steam shot out of my throat with a searing pain that was almost unnoticeable as the warm figures trapped inside the cloud came back into view. I took a step back and slumped down with relief, not minding the new pieces that had broken off. That laid in front of me now. A sacrifice for an alter to that warm past that never disappointed. I laughed again at this thought, breathing it in again. The coals smoldered in my chest. My tears fumed out of the holes in my chest and cheeks like vapor. My chest felt light again. At last, I could feel myself shining.

Just like before. Taking in more. Just like before.

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Snip, Snip - Nadia Johnson

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XX

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A Sentiment

Avishai Goldberg I understand that sometimes your words flow more quickly and with more eloquence than mine. I understand that your life has been difficult, and that those scars on your back are evidence of a life that stews in bleak misery. I understand that sometimes, you stand taller than I do, and when you can’t, you stand on a hill or on a chair just so your head greets the mighty sky before mine does. I understand that your voice could be clearer and concise, and are quick to others’ laughs or agreements, I understand that sometimes, when a cloud hangs over your head, it’s best to leave you alone, lest I torture and fumble over myself like a flounder, again and again, until I’m at the bottom of a ravine and you’re standing at the top of a mountain, flag in hand, and victory in your tired eyes. I’ll cede to you that you have the miraculous ability to rip wallpaper as confidence off of walls, you have the power to physically belittle, the power to punish, the power to throw scalpel blades with merely your tongue. And I’ll cede to you a final sentiment: Your hill will eventually erode by the time my feet feel the tenderness of the flora just below it, and the wood that makes up your chair is rotten from the inside and can’t support your weight. You’ll fall before you can take an adequate breath. And, at the end of the day, the world will even until we find ourselves on the same sliver of land that’s miles away from anybody and anything else. And by that time, I’ll be walking away, further and further, into the windswept night, and you’ll be sitting on the one patch of grass that isn’t swelled with dew by the time the sweet morning sun rises, and you’ll be wondering where it all went wrong. And I have an answer for you: it happened when you etched your initials into my skin with teeth and tongue for the very first time.

Shattered - Savannah Williams - Oil on Canvas

XXI

.TSE MUDRUSBA AIUQ ODERC

CREDO QUIA ABSURDUM EST.

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Life of the Party - Katie Davis - Acrylic on Canvas

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A good summer evening Nancy Yang

Well, a good summer evening to you, dear tall, gentle flower, rousing just enough along the air so not to bend or sway too far, keeping with your rhythmic song.

I see you standing true with your stem enduring, yet you stand alone with your violet tinge buzzing alive with sunlight, by its warmth sustained.

With the glowing light and the mild air, the barely there breeze brushes your softness as you radiate with gentle movements.

And I just want to shake with you to whatever ever-moving song that’s keeping you – and even me here, eager to dance slowly and forever and closely to the light, its arms wide before my body abuzz with desire.

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XXVI

you got some pussy, it changed you- Wes Ladner - Ceramic, Human Hair, and Cat Fur

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Shrinking Capital Perry Genovesi I

Shirley composed herself for the crowd, taking comfort that she had the most beautiful face among everyone there. She stood near a hatbox-sized statue of a blue fox. It sat behind a gallery window tinted yellow by pollen.

“Ms. Berks,” said Stram, “You’ve been renting a room in Ed’s Sculpture Gallery… tell the people… for how long now?”

“About three years, starting in 1896,” said Shirley.

“Would you tell the folks here how much you pay to rent?”

“About two dollars and thirty cents a week.”

Stram feigned surprise. “For that kind of money, wouldn’t you prefer a bigger space?”

“Of course. And you know what’s stopping me.” She flared her arms.

“Too crowded here. Popularity has led to a glut.”

“She’s right, folks,” said Stram. “The Street of Statues is too dense.

We need to stretch our wings.” Stram stepped over to his wheelbarrow, lifted out the hydrant with both hands and clanked it into place. Then he braced his wrench onto the nozzle. “Expansion!” he cheered. The wrench grated; yellow paint flecks fluttered onto his boots.

At first the only sound was a shop door clapping shut. A horse whinnied. Then the small street quaked. A straw crate of eggs tipped off the sidewalk and the yolks bled.

Shirley dropped a cigarette into the street; it quivered and fell into some new rift.

The crowd thinned. The sculptors filed out of their galleries and surrounded the hydrant with black pedestals cloudy with fingerprints.

Some kids stayed to walk along new, warm, bone-white sidewalk stripes.

The shop window Shirley had stood before had rippled like water.

The fox statue blurred. The letters on the window, ‘Edwin J Mattson Family Sculpture Gallery’, were drifting apart from each other. But nothing like that had happened with the last hydrant in February.

As far as Shirley’s assistant, Fain, was concerned, Shirley called herself an artist but only worked her society connections. Shirley was rearranging an ivy halo on one of the smaller gargoyles. She wiped sweat from her hairline and turned to Fain. “I have some work for you if you’re finished wiping the pedestals,” she said. “The celebration pennants—let’s string them across the street from the windows. It’ll look divine!” She pointed to one of the three-story galleries. “They’re on the second floor up there. I’ll meet you on the other side.”

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Fain wandered into the gallery and up the creaky, paint-smelling staircase. She leaned out the window. Her belly kneaded onto the cool sill.

Fain bound the window pull with the pennant cord. She aimed, and lobbed the bundle into the warm spring morning. The pennants pinwheeled, crested, but then dropped. Green, blue and yellow triangles sprinkled the cobblestones. The line’s too short now, she thought. The Street of Statues had indeed grown: the pennants only reached half of their original length.

“Should’ve known,” Shirley called, “these won’t do now. Let’s get some more, chop-chop.”

Inside the Dressing Manufacturer, the street stretching had squeezed the aisles to a shoulder-brushing tightness. Crates of fabric had crushed together. Displays of swatches on the wall, once evenly spaced, were now a demented patchwork. Fain chirped at Walter, the clerk, “We’d like a few yards of your pennants, please. We’re going to display them across the Street of Statues. An exhibit for the whole city!”

“Bah,” barked Walter. “Look at this place. Everything far enough away from that hydrant’s getting pushed even closer. It’s worse the further out you go—and I live way out in the Outskirts.”

“That’s where she lives,” said Shirley, turning to him.

“And for what?” he said. “Bigger lodging for that fancy gallery?”

When they finished he slapped the wrong change into Fain’s palm.

After they left, Fain said to Shirley, “May I ask you something? I’ve been helping you for nine months. I believe I’ve been diligent. And, I was wondering, since there’s more space, if there’d be space enough for me to live on the Street of Statues.”

Shirley paused. “I don’t mean to sound presumptuous, but you’re not really an artist, are you?”

“Of course I am! More when I was younger… I mean I…” “But you’re not currently practicing?”

Fain said nothing.

“I’m sorry. We’re trying to foster a community of artists here.” Shirley set the mess of pennants on the platform. “There isn’t space for you.”

“What about the hydrant? The new space?”

“Practicing artists are our patrons. They need the space,” Shirly said.

She whisked herself away cradling a gargoyle with a raspberry head.

II Stram Abram was a machinist who lived two blocks from the Street of Statues, next to the Loan and Storage Company. He was well-liked

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enough so that sometimes, chat with his neighbors would rise, and he’d learn of their lives. That was why he thought he was a good person. That evening he was standing three yellow bolts on his workbench when a knock at the door startled him.

Shirley bent her head to avoid the hanging pipe. “Stram,” she said, peering at a hydrant sketch—Stram had chalked it on a tablet askew on the radiator—“are you trying to make me upset?”

“What?”

“The hydrants. Expansion for all, you said? Look at it now.

It’s the gallery owners who got what they wanted. The big capitalists. I heard you told Saiquot to expect one. The rest of us are getting pushed!”

The stubble on his chin blurred as he shook.

“God you’re dim,” she said. “Why the statues? Why their block?”

He whirled to face her. “Because—listen!

It’s not a my block or their block issue! I made this beautiful thing.

home is where the heart is and i seem to have dropped mine - Wes Ladner - Ceramic, Steel, and Human Hair

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Something that would make life around here perfect. I’ve actually manufactured more space! And I thought: if I could choose one part of the city to expand…” Stram stammered, “w-why not pick the most aesthetically pleasing block? Some very gray spots in this city, yes?”

Her face stayed sour. “Aesthetically pleasing. You’re always saying that. Is that it?”

“That and I thought you’d enjoy it.” He hated she’d made him admit this.

“Well, I can’t enjoy it. You’ve shrunk my apartment! Remember where I hang my self-portraits? I walk through that hall sideways now it’s closed so much.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t plan on all these side effects. The pushing.”

“It’s all scrunched! The walls are rumpled like a damned accordion.”

“I said I didn’t plan that! You want things back the way they were?

Streets… stuffed with horses… no room on the sidewalk to move there’s so many people?”

“No.” “You…can’t entertain guests because only stout old Walter fits in your living room?”

“Stop. What are you going to do about this?” said Shirley.

He raked his chin. “I’m raising money to build another one, yes?”

“Where?”

Stram’s answer satisfied her. “Please,” he said. “Try to enjoy the art.

I’ll have another fête when this is ready.”

After she left, Stram paced around his footstool. Then he kicked a ceramic orange—part of a gift from one of the sculpture house owners.

Accepting lavish gifts took him some getting used to, but now they crowded his life. The orange rolled into the bathroom and banged against the clawfoot tub.

III Fain peered out her brown-speckled window. A field of brambles and thorns shivered. She was about to sip coffee, steam warming the wings of her nostrils, when the city quaked. The installation of Stram’s fourth or fifth hydrant—she couldn’t be sure which—had caused this tremor. She set the mug on the table and steadied herself on a chairback. A scritching sounded behind her. Fain turned. Stram’s hydrant had shifted the brambles; they used to only sprawl across the crooked dirt road. Needles now scratched her window.

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When Fain opened the door, vine clots dumped in, a tangle of fingernail-yellow and green. She unsheathed her pruning shears.

As do all newcomers to a city, Fain used the skyline as a compass.

But now there were telescoping disks of gray sky obscuring her view. Each lens dimmed progressively darker. They shrouded the taller turrets and church spires. It was like looking into binoculars from the wrong end.

On her walk Fain noticed new parts of her blighted neighborhood deformed by downtown’s stretching. From the side of the junk dealer’s house, bricks leaked and clanked onto the storm cellar doors. She had to get out of this neighborhood.

Fain hurried downtown to make her shift at the farm stand.

IV Shirley was sure the Dressing Manufacturer where Walter worked was on this corner. Where had it gone? The fact that these streets and shops were separating depressed her. So too the clots of automobiles. In fact, parked across the street, the ends of an acorn-brown one had pulled apart. There was an abscess in the side door, through which she could see pipes and a rusty engine. The car reminded Shirley of her time at the women’s art school, of viewing an anatomical diagram of the face’s muscles. What big-headed classmates, what a pompous asylum. She shook off the memory.

As the days elapsed, the curb, like overproofed dough, had started to slide into the street.

Shirley stepped over it. Then she saw where the Dressing Manufacturer once stood. Bricks littered the sidewalk. She ran toward the rubble.

She veered off the curb to avoid two boys swinging around a drifting streetlamp. Then, flailing, Shirley tumbled into a gaping street hole. She landed in something soft.

The boys appeared around the pit. “Is that Shirley Berks?” they jeered. “What happened? So rotten they flushed ya?”

White flecks clung to her legs. One stuck to her fingers. She smelled bitter, burnt wood: paper cigarette ends. She was stranded in a cellar of cigarette ends.

Shirley was alone with her thoughts for a half-hour. Then a round shadow cloaked her. He reached into the pit. His torn shirt hung down from his elbow like a flabby wing. His grip was tight; Shirley was fearful he’d rip her sleeve.

“You ok?” he asked.

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She thanked him and hurried off.

Walter had looked concerned, but Shirley hated chivalry. And after an accident such as this, she was the kind of person who believed everyone she passed had seen what happened. And now she had to face them.

This might explain what happened next.

Shirley stumbled to the South 2nd Street Market. In front of a chain link fence stretched tight as high mandolin strings, with a yellow squash hooked over her apron, stood Fain.

“I’m sorry for what I told you earlier,” Shirley moaned.

“Oh,” said Fain. “Why did you say there wasn’t space?”

“Please, remind me, do you paint or… are you creative in any way?”

“What? Why does everyone ask me that? I’m uncreative, mundane.”

“Forgive me. I don’t mean to be rude. I’m asking because then you could help me with my paintings. A community of compatible people… helps, yes? It… gets the ideas…gets the creative lagoon splashing.” She stared at her boot’s tassels.

“I can tell you don’t believe that,” Fain said. “You’re being unfair. I can still see your art even if all I have’s my opinion.”

“Well, what’re you selling?”

“Radishes. Root crops. I grow them in the Outskirts.”

Shirley looked off the table. “Forgot that’s where you live.”

Fain said, “Excuse me! Why is everyone pushing to live here when there’s so much space there? Is it the prestige? Or just the snooty artists?”

Then she bent behind the table. “Look, I have these too. From the first expansion.” She presented a spangling radish that had warped to the size of a cakepan. “Go ahead, taste it.”

Shirley bit the crisp, peppery vegetable.

V That final night, Stram’s brand new horse-drawn carriage, a curricle, clopped toward the hordes of people. Cops crossed their arms and leaned against freshly-lit streetlights.

Fain had been to this neighborhood twice before the expansion.

But now Stram’s hydrants had tripled her journey. The trek had tired Stram’s other followers too. Families, angry and sleep-shorn, raised infants by their armpits, yelling that they needed space the most. “Think of my baby,” came a pair of dirty hands strapped to an infant’s ribs. “We need space!” The baby writhed over a herd of hats.

One of the bank partners whispered into his wife’s hair, “I’m glad

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Headspace Triptych: There’s Comfort in Denial Jessica Swarts - Paper Craft and Digital Collage they’re moving. The Outskirts people. Always thought they were too close.”

Stram sat on a throne wearing three necklaces of twinkling beads.

His carriage stopped and the beads rattled. He stood and squinted into the crowd, hoping to see Shirley.

Then, from across the street, glass squealed. Encroaching characters in a wire Printing and Publishing sign were squeezing out letter ‘b’.

The letter popped out and against the sidewalk it clanged.

Then the letter ‘I’ dangled like a low note on a score.

Stram began, “We…all know why we’re here, yes? To see the expansion of Sauquoit Silk Manufacturing!”

As jarring as someone hurling a glass pane into the street, another letter, ‘n’, shattered.

“You made it this way!” shouted a gravedigger.

Stram eased his palms toward them and tried to grin but grimaced.

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“Perhaps mistakes were made—but that’s not going to stop me from trying to fix them!” He should’ve said fix instead of trying. His speech collapsed into a heap.

Stram still insisted on lifting out the hydrant himself. He embraced his invention. His shoe tweaked and sank one step from the carriage.

Then, the iron’s coolness left him.

Walter had squeezed the hydrant away and zigzagged down the sidewalk. He hurdled over a broken teal broomstick. His bare shoulder bucked toward the crowd standing like tenpins.

Kids and families tugged at Stram’s hydrant. Boot-scraper-high dirt clouds seethed. Cops beat citizens indiscriminately. A frayed denim suspender striped the sidewalk. The gravedigger swerved, shielding his stomach from a kick. Then a tall woman burst into the crowd and reached for the hydrant.

The hydrant forced Shirley into a strained step where her knee had to guide. Her lower back burned. She dropped the hydrant and tried dragging it. But the crowd closed in. Then it departed her grip. It was the Silk Company owner, Mr. Sauquoit, with Stram. The men were making a show now of posing with the invention. Then Saquoit’s face twisted. Down he went with a pruning shear to the shoulder. Fain pulled Shirley up.

Stram gripped Shirley’s other arm. “I’m doing this for us!” he pleaded.

But the crowd tore Stram away.

Fain and Shirley carried the hydrant for a block, but it was too heavy. Then an engine roared. An automobile veered so close that Shirley had to tip the hydrant to avoid popping out its mirror. But the car… kept passing? Glossy streetlight bobbed and forked over it. Shirley’s reflection dredged her memory. It was the vehicle which had looked so much like muscle. Its front tire ran over a wrench, and then she saw, out the front window, Walter. He yelled back, “Let’s go!”

The hydrant wobbled in the backseat with Fain. The police blazed behind them.

It was a convoluted ride to the Outskirts. The area was one of the only neighborhoods which hadn’t received a hydrant. It had also become the most neglected. Service-alleys sealed; sidewalks pushed together, damming up roads. The trio passed brick pillars lurching out of city limits.

More stores had suffered the fate of Walter’s: he would never work at that Dressing Manufacturer again. But he’d be entrepreneurial with this novel,

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long automobile, he explained to his new friends. He’d call it a stretch limousine.

Fain and Shirley straddled the hydrant over a clump of dandelions.

They plugged it in place. Walter mopped his brow with a nearby cabbage leaf. Then, a cavernous rocking rumbled throughout the Outskirts.

Neighbors appeared in their pajamas and Walter, Fain and Shirley greeted them. Then a long hush unfolded. Shirley let Walter hold her hand.

Surrounding Stram’s hydrant the next morning, the sidewalk plates cracked open. Overgrown trees toppled and their hairy, star-shaped roots beckoned. Snakes sleeping on fault lines swelled and hid in overgrown cabbage patches.

VI Using the new space, Fain planted more vegetables. The land needed inordinate amounts of work. But she had help. Stram was right: new people were settling in the city every day. And, like Fain, having zero choice or opportunity forced them toward the Outskirts.

In the cleared field next to Fain’s home, Walter, Shirley, and the transplants helped build a community garden and gazebo. Fain shared her vegetables with the community. True, the soil’s poverty malformed the crops. Hurt potatoes and carrots caged in vine blistered from the dirt. But those moving near the Outskirts depended on this food. With the stretching they, like the sculptors on the Street of Statues, had cast off from what used to be so close.

Walter found smashing success with his limousine idea; he and Shirley bought a farmhouse in the Outskirts and grew to bicker like schoolchildren.

As for Stram, he’d survived retribution from his fellow citizens. But soon other cities wanted to stretch too, and they persuaded him over with promises of fortune. He sank hydrants all across the United States. Cities sprawled. Stram abandoned his old rowhome. Wooden panels were nailed on his doors and windows to keep out trespassers. And that’s how his house stayed until—sitting on the fault line which would eventually swallow the Street of Statues—Stram’s house undocked itself from the sidewalk and sailed away from the city like an iceberg.

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Halo - Keilicia Parker - Digital Photography

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Self Portrait - Keilicia Parker - Digital Photography

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Beached Jellyfish - Lindsey Hand - Graphite, Charcoal, and Ink

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Kneeling Beside My Body Bradley Samore

I wish I had never been clever enough to sever myself into whatever they wanted.

I thought (therefore I wasn’t) that was the condition for love.

Will the organ in this cathedral of ribs still play? Breathing through the pipes, I hear myself dilate the vaulted ceiling.

40 What We Know Ivan Pelley You know I swear aliens are real I was by the roadside wishing I could live sea side that is where I’m headed anyway Hawaii, baby But there I was when This big thing finds me Zaps, zaps, zaps, me: up, up, up, 2 hours later there I am by the seashore wondering what I’m even here for you know

You should really get a new car. These jeeps are so unreliable which makes sense, since they’re federal they took my job & house, you Know

My last boyfriend hated the snow not my fault his job took him to Toronto but now his

House is ash and

his hair turned to specks You know

Out here in well, what used to be here

they said anything goes. honest to God, sounds crazy I know It could still apply, though we should be careful

You know since after all, both of us now know Anything goes.

XL

hellmouth - Katie Davis - Bible Pages and Acr

rylic on Canvas

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XLI

,SICUL AITNESBA NI .TNUCNIV EARBENET

IN ABSENTIA LUCIS, TENEBRAE VINCUNT.

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Whore of the Forest Sam Smith

Occasionally, Mother was okay. Lynne cherished moments like this, sitting on the couch and enjoying her company while it lasted. Mother spoke from a genuine place, laughed and smiled; nodded her head, interjected… like normal. But it was always temporary that she was okay.

Eventually something in her switched off, or on, in her brain and her eyes went dead, her face rigid and her body stiff. Then her long, complex sentences turned short, turning inside themselves and eventually unraveling again as adulterations of what came from her mouth before. They were cruel and strange, with no clear meaning, just cryptic warnings and judgement. Mother was fleeting.

Lynne and Mother sat across the couch this time, facing each other.

She had been okay for a few hours now. Lynne knew at some point this would turn sour, as it often did, as Mother couldn’t be kept in reality for too long, and whenever she surfaced it was never too long before she was buried again. Lynne sometimes wished Mother would surface and gasp for air, reach for a rope, but Mother seemed to take her trips back to reality as a child might view their time on a swingset.

Lynne felt reluctant to talk about anything too serious. They talked about the most harmless things, and Lynne would get glimpses of who her mother was, glimpses of love, throughout her life, but nothing too profound and nothing too comforting. This time though, she knew she needed to ask for help on her own. Deep down, she knew it was risky, and just might flip the switch. But she was sixteen now, and Mother was all she had. If Mother could stay around to teach Lynne about her period when she was twelve, maybe she could handle this.

Lynne had a recurring nightmare most nights. It never started the same. She went on about various mundane situations in the surrealistic distortion of dreams, but it always ended with her choking, gagging, and retching. She always ran right to her bathroom to spit up acorns. Sometimes Lynne could swear her throat hurt when she woke up each time.

Lynne wanted to forget the recurring dream and think it was nothing, as she assumed most people did, but she found herself plagued by it, frustrated with it, even frightened by it.

Maybe Mother could understand, and while she was on the surface of herself, she would tell her she had a dream like that, too. Or maybe she had some kind of knowledge about the role of dreams hidden somewhere and could tell her what message it was trying to plant. Lynne didn’t know that much about Mother but she liked to think that the woman behind the agony of her life was capable of such wisdom.

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But as Lynne retold the dream which captured her those nights, regret grew. Mother lost her smile first. Then her gaze emptied and strayed to a single point far from Lynne’s face. As she went on, she felt that Mother was leaving. Mother sunk into the couch slowly until her body’s power had completely left her. Lynne trailed off. There was no need to finish.

Mother was gone now. And here came the other side of Mother.

The one which Lynne believed was her real mother was the one which lay most dormant.

“You were born with a scarlet letter,” Mother began.

Lynne shattered once more. It returned now, and Lynne braced to hear the words Mother infected her with so often, and always the same way.

Mother continued coldly, “After you ripped through me and the doctor showed you to me, I saw it between your legs. In the shape of an ‘A’, at the root of you. Promise me you won’t give into it, Lynne.”

“I promise.”

Lynne had heard it over and over. There’s a scarlet letter between her legs. Mother was given a scarlet letter as a cruel joke in high school when she was pregnant with her. For as long as Lynne had been alive, Mother looked for signs of the letter in everything. She pitied Mother, more than she ever pitied herself for being so alone. Mother never took Lynne to school. It wasn’t until social workers arrived (on Mother’s best day) that she was enrolled in homeschooling. Being at home all the time under the care of Mother, Lynne didn’t feel protected like Mother reasoned. And no matter how many times Lynne had heard about the scarlet letter before, she still closed up every time. She squeezed her thighs together and lowered her head to her feet, rubbing an elbow with the other hand. She weaved a cocoon around her legs and hoped that it would keep her letter safe from further mention as Mother’s voice slowed to a stop.

They were both ready to be alone, now.

— Tonight’s dream was no different. Lynne rushed through some classroom she had never seen while people she had never seen before laughed at her as she opened it and found herself back home in her bathroom, in front of her mirror. She threw up the acorns in the sink, aching as she retched, the acorns stretching her esophagus and bursting past the opening of her throat. By the time she finished, she could feel she had busted capillaries under her eyes. The mess of acorns, some whole and some missing their caps, some missing stems, were covered in some sort

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of acid and mucus from her throat. She turned the tap on to run the slimy coating of the mess down the drain. She wiped her face with the black sleeve of a sweater she never owned and looked into the mirror.

She woke each time she looked into the mirror, but her worldly eyes didn’t move fast enough to keep up with her consciousness. She was desperate to open her eyes in those three seconds between awakening and the fading paralysis of sleep. Some nights, it was easier to fall back asleep, but she remembered reaching out to Mother about the dream, being left to deal with it on her own, and began to whimper a soft cry. Lynne sat up and turned on her lamp as she let the tears fall. It had begun to rain while she was asleep. She could hear thunder rolling over their house.

Through the glare of the lamp, almost compulsively, she looked outside the window.

The view from Lynne’s window looked a bit like a new artist’s first attempt at a landscape painting. Perpetual mud filled the bottom of the canvas followed by a hill that climbed through the middle. On top, there was one prominent tree against a background of woods and mountain.

The tree was etched so clearly in Lynne’s mind it could be recalled at any moment. It was the tree she could see most clearly from her window while she lay in bed, and the closest one to the house. Mother cut down any tree that got too close to the house, but this one was allowed to remain just outside the perimeter.

She always checked the forwardmost limb first because it seemed the most hand-like, despite the endless twisting. It was bare to the bone this deep into autumn. When she was a child, she was afraid it might grab her, and that fear never really faded. In a flash of lightning, she caught a glimpse of something wrong. Near the base of the tree was a face embedded in the bark. A face so clear, even from so far away, it made her scream.

She screamed in a small burst, as she was more afraid to wake Mother than she was of the face bulging out of the tree. Her heart pounded, and she froze, waiting for another flash of lightning to confirm that it was not there. Mother stirred slightly in the living room but did not wake.

The next flash of lightning which Lynne hoped would clear her mind only revealed the face once more. Lynne cowered under her blanket for what should have seemed like an eternity. Slightly before the sun threatened to rise and reveal the face again, she had finally exhausted herself and fell asleep.

— She woke only a few hours later to the sound of chopping. Mother

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stood outside in perfect view from the window, wielding the axe which normally rested in the kitchen, in front of the tree.

She struck the tree again and again, body alert and in perfect form, having to work harder on this particular oak than she did on the saplings before. The face, so small at this distance yet more noticeable in the sunlight, seemed unbothered.

Lynne dove from her bed immediately, floundered to slip on some shoes, and bolted outside to investigate.

“Mother! Did you see? Did you see it too?!”

She called out, anxious to get closer to check on the situation as she bolted around the corners of the house.

Mother was panting and when she turned to answer Lynne, she could see that Mother was weeping. “What I did, Lynne… You can’t make the same mistake; I won’t let you!”

Lynne watched Mother turn her attention back to the tree and chop again, striking a few feet below the face. It seemed to be that the bark was stretched in that spot and had revealed its human skin that was underneath all along. It also might have been that the face was just the head of a foreign body, a parasite, reaching to rip through its host. Lynne stammered to catch Mother as she stiffened and wobbled back, collapsing onto her.

Struggling to sit up with Mother on her lap, Lynne looked at the tree, and in the spot that mother had been chopping, dark red sap leaked out and the tree bled a slow trickle from a cut so perfectly in the shape of an ‘A.’

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Trapped - Kaitlyn Avery - Oil on Canvas

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crawlspace - Wes Ladner - Intaglio

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Return to Dust - Emily Collins - Plaster Carvings

53 Unsaid

Nancy Yang Once in Beaufort, I met my father for fish tacos.

Discreetly, I extracted small bones from my mouth, spit them into my napkin, navy blue like the walls.

We noticed a used bookstore across the street, and I tried to use another word for “delicious” since I’d already said it twice.

We continued with our pleasantries.

He smiled nervously, then blotted tiny crumbs from the table with his fingertips, took a deep breath like he was about to say something important.

Just then, two boys rode by on their bikes, one looking back to utter words which made them both laugh, at ease.

The soft distraction claimed his moment, and I never learned what my father had started to say, but he did search for old books with me.

We ate ice cream under the sunset, and he shared with me the name of his favorite song, and then his top three.

As we said our goodbyes, the distant mountains seemed to wink at me, like the night decades before when I threw my scribbled pain into the bounteous fire.

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Sanguine - Sam Bearden

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Between Bad and Worse Peycho Kanev

That time when it was time. The rope that lifts us towards grace. The emperor crossing the tiny river. The one way path to heaven. The loneliness of the turtle. The plane with the passengers, their heads lolling in a doze, the ocean beneath.

And the black clouds that envelops it, hiding it from our sorrow.

And you, my friend, watching the news and eating soup from the old bowl chipped like a tooth, mumbling a prayer toward the sky.

And then the prophet on the hill, gathering his flock, showing his empty pockets.

And my mama lying in the dirt for the last time, beneath the flowers, beneath our tears. Waiting patiently. Waiting my father to come to her and bring her that old photo of their wedding so she can be happy again.

LV

56 Itinerant

Bradley Samore

TW: Suicidal Ideation Sometimes I walk from my apartment and go any direction for a few hours the way I would in Spain where I’d sit among the cows and write bad love poems to a woman back in America or look into the valley thinking of home where every few months as a kid I’d yell at my parents and run as far as my anger what am I running from now seven months into Fresno into dance socials and meetups with still no close friends what do I expect to find down these streets lit with nightly sirens and the rattle of a shopping cart pushed into a canal weeks later still on its side half-submerged a cage for drought-land water when I come back to the apartment the neighborhood cat emerges jingling usually out from under a car and stretches knowing I’ll let her in for ten minutes to cuddle the way we do every night then carry her back into streetlight littered with cracks of video game guns from upstairs windows I ask my grandma how she survives and she tells me to try on what she’s worn Don’t make other people’s problems your problems Figure out yourself first What choice do you have but to move forward I don’t tell her I almost killed myself a couple years ago some days I drive out of town and walk to the horizon but never get any closer it replaces itself it surrounds me on all sides it circles me open in art class I drew it as a line I walk barefoot through layers of hills spring grass reacquainting I ask the sky how it goes on with infinite color I ask the earth with my toes in its hands I lay my fear in the cradle of two roots

LVI

Futility

R.C. Rawlins I am rage Said the flame reaching for the stars I am reality Said the rain

Insight - Madyson White - 35 mm Film

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CYCLE (2021) - Delaney Howlett - Ink Pin and Digital Media

Residual Efflorescence M.A. Schaffner

Last night the bats returned however briefly in a spate of frenetic cursive round a street light.

No, everything is not an omen but I’d worried about white nose, the old trees eaten by McMansions, and which other parts of my life might end before inevitably I do.

Their writing might be Arabic or Elvish in the blue light of the neighbor’s screen, or in the prison escape glare of the other neighbor’s security light.

Which of these things seems essential now depends on one’s portfolio I guess.

Preferably some creatures that aren’t afraid, visiting offices like the one I worked in for early voting or permits.

Or in malls, those dying mazes, trying to mimic the sprawling screens on sale.

These aren’t the environments anyone’s chosen, not for themselves. They’re only designed for the abstract consumer none of us ever envisioned as our end.

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.ERENIC XE

EX CINERE.

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Pentimento Self Portrait - Caroline Myers - Charcoal on Paper

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If I was a bird, things would be different Angelina Scuffle

I know little of heights But I find myself afraid.

What little I know, Devotes itself to fear.

And the fear devotes itself To being human.

If I was a bird, I wouldn’t fear heights, I couldn’t fear the sky, And devotion to fear, wouldn’t be mine.

It couldn’t be mine.

I would refuse it at the door And tell it to go home.

I watch the birds from a window And wish I could trade, My face, My hands, My aches, My pain.

My arms, My legs, My life, My name.

So I didnt have to be afraid anymore, Of the heights and the sea; All the things casting shadows over me.

LXIII

Daniel 1 (left) and Daniel 2 (right) - Nicole Wong - Graphite and Charcoal

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LXV

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Return to Nowhere Marco Etheridge

Two riders materialize from a shimmering mirage of heatwaves that dance on the blasted surface of this desert wasteland. They are men of legend, El Sombrero Blanco, the Pistolero de Puebla, and his faithful companion El Burro. They plod through the shriveling heat, drawing closer, and dust floats behind them.

True to his name, El Sombrero Blanco wears a hat as white as innocence. The wide brim shades his hawkish face. He is a gaunt man, tall and lean, with piercing eyes, an aquiline nose, and great black mustaches that frame his thin lips.

He rides a white Arabian, the horse fiery and restive beneath him, even under the wilting desert sun. Two massive revolvers hang from his tooled gun belt, one on each side. Silver spurs jingle from the heels of his boots, but they are only decorations. He has never set a spur to the Arabian’s flanks. One word of command is enough.

At El Sombrero’s right hand, always at his right hand, rides El Burro. The rotund El Burro is mounted on a tall black mule named Pedro. Under his black hat and beneath his bushy black beard, he is the dark shadow to El Sombrero’s white light.

Known to his sainted mother as Paco Valdez, El Burro’s barrel chest is festooned with bandoliers of bullets. A rifle protrudes from a saddle scabbard beneath his fat thigh. A short-barreled shotgun hangs across his broad back.

The pair of riders draws near, and a voice breaks the brooding stillness.

“I am telling you, Paco, the hills ahead don’t get any closer and the mountains behind us don’t get any further away. This goddamn desert goes on forever.”

“Same as always, jefe, every time we come back.”

“Then why do we go this way?”

“What do you mean why? We always ride this way.

How else are we going to take the good news to the villages?”

“But why across this pestilence? Why not ride around it?

There must be another trail.”

“This is the way we always go. The villages are in the green hills, ahead of us, right? The bandits or monsters, whichever bad guys we gotta chase, they always head for the mountains back behind us. That’s the routine.”

El Sombrero shakes his mighty head, peers toward the green hills that mark the horizon ahead.

“I think I remember, Paco, but it seems like something in a dream.”

“Sure, jefe, and you say the same thing every time we reach this spot.”

“You think so?”

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“Yeah, that rock looks familiar.”

El Burro tries to hide the smirk under his beard, but he feels El Sombrero’s fierce eyes boring into him. Unable to hold the laughter, it bursts out of him like a gale, startling the mule. Then El Sombrero is laughing as well, and everything is fine.

Paco slips his right boot from the stirrup and, with a fat man’s agility, swings his foot over the mule’s head, crossing his leg over the pommel of the saddle. He loops the reins over the toe of his boot and slips a small muslin bag from inside his dusty black jacket. Fishing inside the bag, he produces a fistful of roasted seeds.

“You want some sunflower seeds, jefe?”

“No thank you, Paco. They will only make me thirsty.”

El Burro shrugs, lifts a seed to his teeth, cracks it, and spits away the hull. The fragments flutter to the ground behind the mule’s rump.

The two men ride without speaking. The hooves of the animals plod along in rhythm. The green hills hover in the far distance, never drawing nearer. The desert floor slides beneath the riders as if the land itself is moving and they are floating above the wasted surface.

When he has crunched his last seed, Paco turns to look at El Sombrero. The boss seems the same as always and yet not the same. The lines etched a little deeper in his face, maybe. He’s getting older. And you too, he thinks to himself, you too hombre.

“Hey, jefe, I was just trying to count it up in my head, but I’m not so smart like you. How many years have we been doing this, chasing bandits away from villages and such?”

El Sombrero Blanco looks down at his horse’s mane, then up into the searing white sky. He turns to look at Paco and shakes his head.

“It’s very strange trying to recall any time before. I remember a small village tucked away in the green hills. I wasn’t El Sombrero then. My name was Raul Garcia. Yes, that’s it, they called me Raul.

And you were there too. We were friends, I think. Does that sound right to you?”

“Yes, that’s it, I remember now. Only, there were flames and shooting, children crying and women screaming. Then we were riding together, you and me. You were racing ahead, your blood young and hot, and I raced after you. We were chasing after revenge, but we called it justice.”

“That is how I remember it as well. We killed for the villagers, for our

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mothers and our fathers, our sisters and brothers, as if killing the bandits would redeem our loss. Or maybe we killed for ourselves, slaying the bandits to wash the shame of our dead families.

“Whichever the reason, we rode those bandits down to death.

When our killing was done, we came back to that village, to our home, but they did not allow us to stay.”

El Sombrero Blanco, the Pistolero de Puebla, stares out across the barren desert and shudders as if suddenly chilled.

“Dios mío, Paco, how many times have we crossed this desert? How many decades have we been out here?”

“I think it has been many years, jefe, many different bandits, many monsters.”

Then El Sombrero, who was once Raul Garcia, smiles a rueful smile.

“I never told you this, old friend, but I prefer the monsters to the bandits. They are harder to kill, most certainly, but easier afterward. Easier on the soul if you understand me.”

El Burro slaps his thigh and raises a small cloud of dust.

“Do you remember that feathered serpent monster? The villagers told us he carried off all the virgins and ate them. So we rode off to the mountains, found his cave, and killed him. He was one tough bastard.”

“Paco, they were lying to us, those goddamned villagers. You know how I know this?”

“I don’t know, jefe, tell me.”

“I know those peons were lying because if we searched every single one of the southern villages, we couldn’t find even half a virgin. That monster would have starved to death.”

The two riders laugh long and hard.

“Sure, jefe, it’s always the same when they need us.”

He changes his voice so that it is high and squeaky.

“Look there, muchachos, on the horizon! It’s the White Hat! The pistolero of the people! And his faithful companion rides with him! Viva El Burro! Viva El Sombrero Blanco!”

El Sombrero joins in, imitating the frightened villagers.

“Save us from the bandits. Save us from the monster who eats our virgins. As if they had any virgins. Same story, over and over.”

Paco nods his head, his hands spread wide in supplication.

“That’s exactly what they say. But when we ride back with the good news, they sing a different song. We tell them the bandits are vanquished or the monster is dead. Then they don’t need us anymore. They cork the mescal, hide the women, and pray that we go away.”

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Out of Nothing - Kaitlyn Avery - Oil on Canvas

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El Sombrero’s face goes grim under his huge hat.

“They do not know what we suffer, the danger, the risk. I tell you, Paco, I am sick to my heart with this endless desert.”

“Don’t worry, boss, we’ll get to the end of it. We always do. Hey, do you remember that bandit, what was his name, the one who rode that pretty pinto pony?”

“Sure, you must mean El Guapo. He wasn’t as bad as some of the others.”

“That may be, jefe, but he almost did you and me both. He had that shotgun pointed at your heart, point-blank. And one of his stinking thugs had a knife to my throat, making me watch. First El Guapo kills your jefe, then I kill you, muchacho. That’s what he said to me. I was sure we were going to die.”

El Sombrero Blanco begins to chuckle, and the chuckle turns into a giggle that chokes off his words.

“But then… we didn’t… because…”

“Because I was so frightened, I farted the greatest fart in the history of the world!”

The man in white is laughing so hard he almost loses his hat.

“A volcano of a fart!”

“A hurricane of a fart, jefe.”

“The last fart El Guapo ever heard.”

“Right, because he looked over at me, his handsome face twisted with disgust, and you pushed that shotgun into his face and yanked his hand. Blew that bandit’s head off with his own shotgun.”

“No worse than you, Paco. While that hombre was waving his hand in front of his nose, you snatched his knife and stabbed him in the heart.

The rest of the gang ran like rabbits. I don’t know whether it was your stench they ran from or fear of death. Either way, they ran, and we lived to tell the tale.”

Their laughter slows to nothing as the two friends stare out across the endless desert. Paco shakes his head at the emptiness.

“Si, si, we always live to tell the tale, jefe, but who wants to hear it anymore? Not the villagers. You make them nervous, jefe. They fear you, and me too. If there are no bandits for us to chase, the villagers think that we will become the bandits. That is what they fear the most. So they keep us busy. Bah!” El Sombrero, Raul, fingers the brim of his hat, then points a long finger at the far horizon.

“I say we go somewhere else. I say fuck those villagers. What do you think of that, Paco?”

“I say, Viva El Sombrero!”

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“No, no more of that crap. I want to be Raul, Raul Garcia, and nothing more.”

“Okay, Raul it is. But tell me, old friend, where shall we go? There’s no retirement ranch for old heroes.”

Raul Garcia grimaces at the thought.

“No, and it’s a good thing there’s not. Think about it. You and me, the Cisco Kid and Pancho, maybe the Lone Ranger and Tonto, sitting around in rocking chairs on the front porch. It would be awful.”

“Maybe so, but it wouldn’t last long. You heroes would start bragging about who was the best and the fastest. Pretty soon you’d be shooting each other. Then it would just be us sidekicks.”

“Okay, Paco, we forget about the Old Hero’s Home. Do you have any suggestions?”

“Maybe, but first I must ask you a question. And I want a serious answer, okay?”

“Hand to my heart, Paco.”

“Raul, you got to swear to me you’re not going to regret this. You know, like when the villagers start chanting. Oh, here comes El Sombrero Blanco, the Pistolero de Puebla, father of one hundred sons, husband to no woman. Are you sure you’re not going to miss that kind of thing?”

“No, my old friend, I am not going to regret or miss that crap. It was horseshit anyway. I never got laid more than once a year.”

“Well then, if you’re sure, I’ve got an idea. Do you remember that little cabin hideout we had? It’s west of here, over that way. A snug cabin in a beautiful little clearing. Piñon pines up and down the sides of the valley. There’s a good trout stream running through that valley. What do you say, Raul?”

“Paco, I say those villagers are on their own. Those bandy-legged bastards are going to do their own bandit chasing from now on because you and I are going fishing. Come on, I remember it was over that way, to the southwest.”

The two riders, Paco Valdez and Raul Garcia, veer off to their right.

They were once men of legend. Perhaps they will remain so, but only in the memories of others. Now they are ordinary men, old friends riding together through the shriveling heat.

The horse and mule sniff the air as if smelling distant water. Without their riders urging, the animals break into a trot. The two riders disappear into a shimmering mirage of heatwaves. Dust floats behind them.

Ahead of them, the green hills draw nearer.

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Glory Day - Caroline Myers - Oil on Camvas Board

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I hope

Julia Springer I hope that the person who convinced you that you were unworthy of love sees their own emptiness when they see the flourishing happiness you had planted within yourself the day they left I hope that when the wounds of your past and mistakes begin to reopen and you feel the pain – i hope that you remember the person you were was the one who learned how to stich your wounds, the one who kept you from bleeding out, the one who gave you the ability and time to heal I hope that when you find the ability to love yourself it is a love that is so vast that No galaxy or infinite amount of universes can compare. I hope that it is a love that overflows the most baron parts of your heart that others failed to fill

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Sarah’s Hair 1 - Jenna Clark - Fabric, Transferred Image, Thread, and Human Hair

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Always the Question Emma Lewis

What do you want to do with your life? a solitary leaf floats in a rapid and rising river, not knowing when it will be able to find solace.

Here it is!! getting caught on a log that protrudes from the mossy bank. it stays. the seasons change and neither the log nor the leaf chose to move from their stagnant home. Dandelions and milkwort grow from the moss, bringing beauty to the scene. the leaf is happy.

Okay, I understand you’re trying to use the leaf as a metaphor, but who’s the leaf? a bird floats and flaps high high above the tree tops. too close! Too close!! your wax will melt!

Oh it is alright, you were just too close.

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Ash

R.C. Rawlins A Phoenix rises from ash, Immortality is its curse.

Yet, who asks the Phoenix, If it ever hurts?

What if the Phoenix wants to rest?

What if it needs a break?

Recreation from ash is hard.

But yet, its own life is at stake.

So truddle forward and recombine, Make mistake after mistake.

Soon the Phoenix won’t burn anymore, And ash will take its place.

Creation - Madyson White - Pen and Pencil on Paper

Nonetheless Carol Barrett

On the last day of the world, I would find mosscovered words by the creek where I grew up, mix them with some I came to know in distant cities, also round and small, like stones, smaller than the human heart, but able to connect, nonetheless, in a beating motion, a chant, bringing gifts of the stream into alignment with air, with what is left of an aching sky that calls to me: roll your small hard words on my tongue, and live.

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A NOTE ABOUT ALABAMA PRISON ARTS + EDUCATION PROJECT

In the fall of 2021, the University of Alabama at Birmingham welcomed the exhibit “Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration” to its Abroms-Engel Institute for the Visual Arts. The exhibit highlighted more than thirty artists whose works interact with the experience of living under punitive governance to create new perspectives of justice and healing. Accompanying the exhibit were multiple community programs and performances, including a reading of poetry written by individuals who are incarcerated in the State of Alabama through the Alabama Prison Arts + Education Project (APAEP). The works shared were both inspiring and impressive, and Aura’s staff reached out to APAEP to facilitate submissions for Volume 49 Issue No. 1. We are pleased to have the opportunity to publish this work and look forward to continuing to build these connections in the future.

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Trapped: Mind, Body, & Soul Datondra Mitchell

(TW: Domestic Abuse) The abuse shatters her soul, leaving her mind locked in turmoil. While staring at her reflection through the mirror, Jane wonders how things got that far between them. She tries to get a grip on the love they once shared, but the pain pierces her heart. She grabs hold of the sink to catch her balance, taking in deep breaths to stop the ache. She hears her lover’s voice and knots form in the pit of her stomach. She looks back in the mirror, anticipating her next move, afraid of triggering him. She throws water on her face to wash the evidence of pain etched on her face.

Sam walks through the bedroom door with a heavy sigh and screams out for Jane.

She stands in the bathroom doorway and clears her throat to announce her presence. She can tell by the lines in his forehead that he is stressed and looking to lash out. Sam motions for her to come to him with the wave of his hand. Jane hesitates for a moment and begins shuffling slowly towards him. He grabs her by the wrist and forces her body against his. She closes her eyes, fighting back tears. She inhales the cologne she used to drown in when she was in love with him. He leans back, grabs her face in his hand, looks in her sad eyes and kisses her softly on the lips. Her tears come pouring out hot down her cheeks, and Sam feels the tears on his face. He gives her a questioning look that she ignores because the pain is threatening to rip her heart apart. Sam asks her what’s wrong and tries to hold on to her, but it is too late. She is already broken.

Jane breaks from his hold to catch her breath and sits down on the bed. She leans into her hands as she cries harder. He reaches out to her, but she jerks her head away. Above a whisper, she tells him that she can’t do this anymore. He gets down on his knees in front of her, pleading for her to stay, laying his head in her lap. Jane rubs his head while sobbing the words ‘I can’t’ over and over again. He grips her thigh and raises his head with a distant look in his eyes. She tries to get up, but he is quicker, catching her by the throat. Then he throws her up against the wall. Jane felt in her heart that she wasn’t making it out the door this time. He then places his forehead against hers, whispering, “Why did you make me do this to you?”

He loosens his grip on her, allowing her limp body to slide down the wall. He squats in front of her, shakes her body, then panics because she didn’t move from his touch. Sam leans over, placing his ear against her mouth and is satisifed that she’s still breathing.

Sam picks her up off the floor, carries her to the bed, and she begins to stir. He lightly touches her face and pleads for her to open her eyes. Jane opens her eyes slowly, only to tightly close them again, wishing he would’ve taken her life this time instead of having to live the same nightmare over and over again. Jane winces from the pain when she touches her throat, so she rubs it to soothe the ache. Sam hovers over her, repeating the same apology she’s heard since the first time he hit her. She stares up at him with fear in her eyes as she listens to him plead. Jane reaches up and touches Sam’s face, pleading with her eyes for him to let her go, but the rage in his eyes tells her that he will never allow that to happen.

He kisses her hand, asking for forgiveness and she finds her voice saying yes. He kisses her forehead, tells her to rest and that he’ll be back to check on her later. She turns on her side, feels the bed move, letting her know that he got up. Then she hears the door slam shut behind him. She allows her tears to fall and wraps her arms around herself for comfort. While she lays in the dark, finally alone, she prays to the Lord for another day and closes her eyes.

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GILLIAN ELAINA

CHEYENNE LAURA NELL

KAITLIN CAYLIN

RILEY

ASHLEY

EMMA OLIVIA

ANNA

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DALIA YESHA

SADIE

KAFUI

BRYCE

ADDIE HANNAH

LILLY

ROBERT

CAMRYN

LIZ SAVANNAH

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MEET THE STAFF

Editor-in-Chief: Anna E. Ulrey Managing Editor: Olivia Blanton Digital Manager: Emma Lewis Multimedia Editor: Ashley Frith Events Coordinator: Camryn Reese Socials Coordinator: Robert Rawlins Submissions Editor: Elaina Solano Poetry Editor: Caylin Kyzer Prose Editor: Kaitlin Harris Art Editor: Riley Donlon Social Media Coordinator: Laura Nell Walker Social Media Assistant: Gillian Acker Website Coordinator: Cheyenne Hollowell Lead Writer: Kafui Sakyi-Addo Podcast Coordinator: Will Cooley Podcaster & Prose Copy Editor/Writer: Bryce Hampton Podcaster: Rebecca Brooks Art Copy Editor/Writer: Hannah Enskat Art Copy Editor/Writer: Savannah McCartney Poetry Copy Editor/Writer: Addie Knight Poetry Copy Editor/Writer: Sadie Libby Poetry Copy Editor/Writer: Liz Murray Prose Copy Editor/Writer: Yesha Vyas Prose Copy Editor/Writer: Lilly Prestridge Prose Copy Editor/Writer: Audrey Womack Prose Copy Editor/Writer: Dalia Arafat

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CONTRIBUTORS Abby Comey is a teacher, writer, and graduate student from Williamsburg, Virginia. She has forthcoming short stories in I-70 Review and Flora Fiction. She’s penned essays for The New York Times and The Washington Post.

Abby Henderson is a fourth-year BFA student concentrating in graphic design. She enjoys nearly every medium she tries, but finds the most joy in painting, graphic design, and drawing. She often combines drawing and digital media to create drawings with vibrant colors that could not be achieved with traditional media. She finds the most joy in bright, vibrant, flat colors which can be seen throughout most of her works.

Angelina Scuffle is a junior at UAB who has published with Aura previously and has been spotlighted for her work “Time and Brushstrokes.” She enjoys poetry as a way to let out frustrations and work out things in a way where she can also be creative. Although her poetry doesn’t always follow a formal beat and tends to lean more towards a free form structure, it is still created with the purpose of most art: to make something out of nothing, because we can and because sometimes we need to—and if it makes you feel something, great. If not, thats okay too.

Avishai Goldberg is a California native and student of the arts attending the Alabama School of Fine Arts in the creative writing department. President of his school’s GSA (Genders and Sexualities Alliance), Avishai takes on an engaged role in activism. In his free time, he enjoys traveling, visiting museums, and reading.

Bradley Samore has taught English and writing in Spain and the U.S.A. and also has worked as a school service worker. The Palm Beach Poetry Festival named him a Thomas Lux Scholar in 2022. Bradley’s poetry was shortlisted for Aesthetica Magazine’s Creative Writing Award and River Heron Review’s Poetry Prize. He likes to go for walks, meditate, learn how to reduce his carbon and plastic footprint, garden, play basketball, and listen to jazz.

Carol Barrett coordinates the Creative Writing Certificate Program for Union Institute & University. She has published two volumes of poetry and one of creative nonfiction. A former NEA Fellow in poetry, Carol has lived in nine states and in England.

Caroline Myers is a figurative painter from Mobile, Alabama. She graduated from UAB in 2021 with her BFA degree. Currently, she is a MFA candidate in painting at Clemson University, where she also teaches Beginning Painting to undergraduate students.

Cesar Herrejon is currently exploring materials foreign to academic artistic expression that seem tied to his cultural heritage.

He often uses defamiliarized quotations from culture in his work like the surrealism that he finds deeply rooted in street art of Mexico. He uses mixed media in his work to express freedom and emotions.

Datondra Mitchell is very passionate about writing short stories and diving deep within the characters. Mitchell was born and raised in Chicago, IL and now resides in Alabama.

Delaney Howlett likes to focus on the realities of our world in a surreal way. Their work is philosophical in nature, covering topics like mental health, complex emotions, and human suffering. They use their own experiences to create works that can speak to other people in a way that they can relate to. In the past, they’ve made works revolving around neurological disease, parasocial cycles perpetuated by technology, and the inner conflicts of bettering oneself.

Edward M. Cohen’s story collection, “Before Stonewall” was published by Awst Press; his novel, “$250,000,” by G.P. Putnam’s Sons; his novella, “A Visit to my Father with my Son,” by Running Wild Press; his chapbook, “Grim Gay Tales,” by Fjords Review.

Emily Collins was born in Kings Mountain, North Carolina. She has experience with various mediums such as oil paint, charcoal, digital and film photography, but is currently most interested in sculpture. Her variety of mediums have made their way into multiple exhibitions including the Annual Juried Competition at Winthrop University, earning the Dalton Award, and a group exhibition titled Perspectives​at her local arts council. She has earned her BFA from Winthrop University with a dual discipline in sculpture and photography. She is currently continuing her love for sculpture at Clemson University working towards her MFA where she is also gaining curatorial experience through multiple future exhibitions.

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Emma Lewis is a third year psychology student at UAB minoring in Spanish and English literature. She participates in and has a passion for research in developmental and genetic disorders. In her free time, Emma enjoys weaving while watching reality TV competitions, playing with her cats, and going to the farmers market.

Ivan Pelley is from Key West, FL and is a freshman at the University of Alabama, studying international relations and Japanese. A member of the Blount Scholars Program at the university, he is fascinated by the way that the written word and language interact with consciousness and the human condition. Ivan is a graduate of Interlochen Art Academy’s creative writing department, and writes primarily fiction and creative journalism.

Jenna Clark is a muralist, mixed-media painter, sculptor, and collage artist. Her artistic interests are a combination of subjects such as domesticity, ecology, industrialism, and craft. Her work is characterized by using hybrid materials, vibrant colors, playful designs, and fusion, that often blur the lines of two and three-dimensional art. Such works include colorful large-scale murals, textured paintings and collages featuring found objects, and mixed-material sculptures. Jenna creates multi-media pieces through her use of visually interesting combinations that provoke thought.

Jessica Swarts is a senior graphic design student at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Swarts’ work often incorporates narrative and seeks to give 2D illustration new dimension by combining digital and traditional techniques. During her time at UAB, her work has been selected for the 46th Annual Juried Student Exhibition, received two ADDY awards, and exhibited in several group installations; including UAB’s Art Lab and Solar House, the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa, and the Alabama State Council on the Arts.

Julia Springer is a junior at UAB and is studying English with a concentration in literature. She is a Birmingham native and spends her time hiking or laying around watching crime documentaries with her dog, Betty. Using her painful family history, Julia wishes to use her work to connect with others in her writing. Julia plans to pursue a MA in education in order to pursue a career in secondary education.

Kaitlyn Avery is a recent BFA graduate from UAB with a concentration in painting. Her work focuses on the figure and human experiences through large scale oil paintings. After graduation, Avery began working as a project manager with Gallery Services in Birmingham. She hopes to continue her art career through graduate school in the next few years.

Katie Davis is a Master’s student at UAB with a major in art history. She creates art using different mediums such as acrylic, ink, oil, conte, graphite, and charcoal. Her inspirations stem from horror film, novels. and her subjects of study.

Keilicia Parker is a senior in the BFA program studying studio art with a concentration in photography. Their art centers around the idea of gender dysphoria, race, and feelings of being an outsider by using costumes, masks, and various props.

Lindsey Hand is a senior who transferred into UAB in 2021. She is a multidisciplinary artist with a preference for drawing and face or body painting. Her works often focus on themes of mortality, anxiety, and sacred symbolism.

M.A. Schaffner lives with spouse and pugs in a house built cheaply 110 years ago in Arlington, Virginia. Their work has recently appeared in The MacGuffin, Illuminations, The Writing Disorder, and the anthology Written in Arlington. Earlier appearances included Poetry Wales, Poetry Ireland, and The Tulane Review. When not avoiding home repairs through poetry, M.A. wades through the archival records of the Second United States Colored Infantry (1863-66) with a view toward compiling a regimental history.

Madi Claire Richard is an undergraduate student at the University of Lafayette at Louisiana. She is majoring in French and Francophone studies with a minor in African-American studies. She has had a passion for writing since she was young, and hopes to pursue a career in literary translation after completing a Master’s in French.

Madyson White is a senior at UAB majoring in art studio with a concentration in graphic d.esign. While her professional trajectory prioritizes brand identity and logo design, Madyson enjoys exploring photography and utilizing the medium for creative depth within her work. Madyson’s favorite thing about being an artist is being a visual storyteller.

Marco Etheridge s a writer of prose, an occasional playwright, and a part-time poet. He lives and writes in Vienna, Austria.

His work has been featured in more than sixty reviews and journals across Canada, Australia, the UK, and the USA. Marco’s volume of collected flash fiction, “Broken Luggage,” is available worldwide. When he isn’t crafting stories, Marco is a contributing editor and layout grunt for a new ‘Zine called Hotch Potch.

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Nadia Johnson is seventeen years of age and currently in her first year of college. However, a previous work of hers was featured in the Spring 2017 issue of Aura. Her focus is usually digital art, but she is adept in many other mediums such as drawing and painting, crafting, crocheting, sewing, etc. Many of her works reflect her ideals which is why one may find influences of feminism, racial equity, and social justice among them.

Nancy Yang is a Georgia native who resides in northern California. When she is not teaching literature and writing to high school students, she enjoys walking pathways by the redwood trees and spending time with her husband and two sons, along with their two cavapoochons.

Nicole Wong is an Asian Canadian painter and illustrator from Toronto who specializes in human portraiture in both traditional and digital media. Throughout her life, Nicole has always been fascinated with portraits. Through her works she celebrates the diversity of people from different cultures and hopes to bring more representation to people of colour.

Peycho Kanev is the author of 10 poetry collections and three chapbooks, published in the USA and Europe. His poems have appeared in many literary magazines, such as: Rattle, Poetry Quarterly, Evergreen Review, Front Porch Review, Hawaii Review, Barrow Street, Sheepshead Review, Off the Coast, The Adirondack Review, Sierra Nevada Review, The Cleveland Review and many others. His new book of poetry titled A Fake Memoir was published in 2022 by Cyberwit.

R.C. Rawlins is currently a senior undergraduate student at UAB studying neuroscience. While he focuses on science, the arts have always called to him. Whether that be poetry, prose, or any other mediums, he loves to express and help others express themselves.

Sam Bearden is an artist from Birmingham who uses her art, in the form of visual art and poetry, to discuss topics such as mental health, identity, personas and perception, and the human condition.

Sam Smith is a senior at UAB majoring in English with a concentration in professional writing. Sam is serving as the president of the Professional Writing Club for the 2022-2023 academic year where she hopes to show others the value of storytelling in professional contexts. Sam’s pastimes include spending time with her daughter and husband, playing video games, and reading a questionable amount of non-fiction books.

Savannah Williams is graduating this spring with her Bachelor’s of General Studies with minors in art studio and biology.

Recently, her art has found focus in themes of femininity, masculinity, and witchcraft. With these themes she tackles much of the stigma related to these topics. Savannah hopes to have her work exhibited throughout the world within five years of graduation.

Thomas Piekarski is a former editor of the California State Poetry Quarterly. His poetry has appeared in such publications as Poetry Quarterly, Literature Today, The Journal, Poetry Salzburg, Modern Literature, South African Literary Journal, Home Planet News, Modern Poetry Quarterly Review, and others. His books of poetry are Ballad of Billy the Kid, Monterey Bay Adventures, Mercurial World, and Aurora California.

Wes Ladner is a junior in the BFA program, with a concentration in sculpture. Their work explores ideas surrounding home, identity, and anxiety. They see all their work as part of an over-arching narrative and self portrait.

Special thanks to: Jackie Alexander Adam Vines UAB Department of Art and Art History UAB Department of English Alabama Prison Arts + Education Project

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