Wayward Literature Issue 3: Journeys

JOURNEYS

Editorial Letter

Thankyouforjoiningusforthisthirdeditionof WaywardLiteraturemagazine.Ithastruly beenajourneygettingtohere. Whilethis issueisoursmallestoneyet,itisbynomeans anylessimpactfulthanpriorissues.

Forthisthirdinstallment,wewantedto prioritizethetheme“Journey”andjustwhat thatwordmeanttoeveryonewhoreadit. Fromcrackingopenabooktotakingasingle stepoutside,journeyssurroundus,however, it’suptoyoutomakeitsomethingmemorable andoutstanding.AllofusatWaywardhope youfindthatineachofthepiecesinthisissue.

Wewanttothankalloftheamazingand talentedindividualswhosubmittedtothe magazinethistimearound.Wealltruly enjoyedreadingyourwork.Asalways,itwasa struggletofindwhichpiecestofeatureinthe issue.

Sincerely,

ShaniaN.Soler Editor-in-Chief

REVIEWERS

NOLA PREVOST

NolaPrevost(NolaMarleyinsomewrittenworks) isapoet,writer,andeditorfromBangor,Maine. ShehasaB.A.inCreativeWriting,fromthe UniversityofMaine,andhasbeenpublishedin BeyondWordsandTheOpenField,later becomingitseditor.ShereceivedtheNellieRuth PillsburyKingMemorialScholarshipfor outstandingcreativewriting.Currentlyshe’s workingonacollectionoffeministfairytales.

SHANIAN. SOLER

ShaniaN.Solerdabblesinmostgenresbut hasagenuinelovefor,andconnection with,historicalandcontemporaryfiction. Sheaimstobringfemalevoicesand culturallydiversecharacterstothe forefrontofherworks.Throughthe challengesshecreatesforhercharacters, Shaniahopesherreaderswillbeinspiredto alwayskeeptryingandnevergiveupon theirdreamsandgoals.

ALEX CHAND

FromCalifornia,Kentucky,andTexas,Alex Chandisawritercurrentlystudying EnglishLiteratureattheUniversityof LeedsonaFulbright.SheisalsoaBarbican YoungPoet.In2022,Chandgraduated withaBAfromLawrenceUniversityin physicsandEnglish,whereshewas awardedtheDiderrichPrizeinCreative Writingandearnedsummacumlaude honorsforherthesis,ChartingAutistic Voices.

CONTENTS

NightinaNewCity byAnnHowells

I have drunk too much wine, meander narrow streets in deepening dusk –a quiet neighborhood where balcony flowers are spilled light, street names bonbons on my tongue I murmur: Rue de Madelaine, Rue de Solange, Rue de Genevieve. Each named no doubt for a lovely woman.

Tonight, I clasp this city to my heart. Moon tosses her silver shawl beneath spring trees. Small boats are silhouettes on the river.

Laughter and conversation drift. Beautiful words in a musical language I do not understand and do not need to, every word a love song.

I pass a bridge gated by giant horses, lips drawn, furred fetlocks, riderless. Lampposts shed golden petals onto the river. Mist endows each with blurred luminescence.

Weary at last, I return to my small hotel –doors locked but each guest provided a key. Maison Denique contains but ten rooms, mine on the second floor. Sheets are tuned down, and a carafe rests on my bedside table.

I leave balcony doors slightly ajar, savor street names on my tongue once more. A distant police car wails two mournful notes, a dog howls, single pair of stilettos taps past my door and down the hall, where a door opens, closes.

TheEndOfGaisEctorius

bySarahMay

“Shoulders high, chin high.” thought Gais Ectorius as the captive army was marched towards the cliff.

Sea spray and the salt air stuck to the men’s hair and clothes making them damp and uncomfortable. In the gray sky, gulls hovered, turning their gold eyes to observe the passing troupe. Nearly 400 feet below, the ocean pounded angrily at the sea cliff, reaching and ripping with its watery fingers. One day, far into the future, the ocean would win and the land would give way. Today was not that day, and the sea would have to accept a different tribute.

The men who forced them onward were strange; covered in indigo ink and furs. They spoke no language Gais could distinguish; their words a garbled mystery. They had captured Gais’s army in the woods near Arbor and the ones they had not slain in that short, heated battle stood now, a short distance from the cliff.

Gais turned his eyes skyward as the indigo men gathered and spoke among themselves. There was no sun in this country it seemed. They should never have come this far north. Out to sea, a dark smear betrayed a storm’s progress. Thunderheads billowed and within them lightning flashed. A strong breeze blew, the one that carried the rain, and Gais took a deep breath. They had stripped him of his armor and sandals and he stood now only in his tunic. He closed his eyes. He was almost home.

In his bare feet, the earth he stood upon might easily have been the dirt in the courtyard of his home. The coming rain would be welcome upon the crops. The crash of the waves became the merriment and banter from the marketplace beyond the wall.

A push from behind: his children bumping into him, wanting him to play. He stepped forward, evading their novice swings with their wooden swords. His boys still had so much time to grow; to learn the ways of the world before they too would become soldiers in the Imperial Army.

A voice near his ear: his wife chiding him as one of the children’s attacks struck. He smiled. How he missed her laughter and her lavender perfume. If he could just run his hands through her chestnut curls one more time.

The push came suddenly with a painful jab and Gais’s dream faltered. He could hear a sob from one of the men, a shout from another. He turned his head as a scuffle broke out, three of his soldiers had attempted to overtake the indigo men. They were beaten down with clubs and spears and one of the indigo men slit their throats with a stone knife.

They preceded him to the cliff edge and their bodies were cast down to the hungry waiting ocean and the jagged rocks.

Gais closed his eyes once more and recalled a vision of his boyhood home. Meadow flowers had grown thick in the fields and when he leaned forward to fall into them, he was embraced by their scent fleetingly before his body broke against the tide.

SailingFromAtoZ

byKatyMcKinney

Actually, it wasn’t from A to Z

But M to B, Mazatlán to Baja. We

Crossed the sea, having dreamt of smooth sailing, but

Despite the forecast, wind smacked us silly (Please,

Ease!) 30 knots on the nose. New to boat life,

First passage ever – phew! Hard to catch a breath,

Get a grip, at first. Two eyed the leeward rail,

Heaving seas finally getting the best of one.

Ill-prepared – The radio’s not working?? – but

Jaunty – Ditch bag? Great idea! – we learned the ropes

Kind of – trading watches through the long slow hours.

Labor: what a vessel is said to do when

Making its way through high seas, tense, under strain.

Not our boat – just us, exhausted from holding

On against the constant jerk and roll. Eons

Passed. Finally, a relaxing, a letting go,

Quixotic journey more than halfway done. With

Radar showing only distant boats, we dozed.

Suddenly: moonrise! Round, full, lighting up the

Transient path before us, our silver wake.

Unrested zombies, we drowsed again through noise:

Vague vibrations, auto-pilot’s squeak. Sunrise

Windshift brought calmer seas, a steady course. Soon

Xeric Baja appeared on the horizon –

Yahoo! Land ho! Uh-oh – practice anchoring?

Zero times so far. Now where’s that how-to book?

TennesseeintheRain byAnnHowells

We cross the Mississippi at Memphis: barges three abreast and seven deep. Mud Island. Glass pyramid, Incongruous red poppies line the road. We forgo Graceland, pass through foothills. Our aging Honda groans as we climb 60 degrees up, sprouts wings as we plunge back down.

Sky is gray as a stone, a mean little drizzle falls, and overcast obscures the view from every overlook.

Slick-sided eighteen-wheelers spray muddy water in our faces, hold us in claustrophobic embrace –insects trapped in still air beneath a bell jar. Pines new growth curves upward, extends middle fingers in our direction.

We grow snappish and road weary. Tennessee seems interminable. And the radio . . . only country and Christian rock –which we question as a music category. He muses the possibility of agnostic jazz while I improvise on Croce:

. . . steadily depressin’ low down, mind messin’ secular humanist blues.

Road mist vanishes with a flap of the wipers as we cross the state line. Shafts of dazzling light strike through cloud tufts of pink, orange, and dove grey. Sky has all the splendor of a rococo altarpiece.

MarryMeinMontana

byTerriWatrousBerry

What kind of people travel from Michigan to Montana in January to get married? Crazy people that’s who, which is what I told him when he first proposed marriage, as well as where he thought we should go to get hitched. And was he crazy? Oh, let me count the ways . . .

For starters, we had known each other only a few months and he was still in the process of a divorce. I had been so myself not too long before, and now had sole custody of and responsibility for my three small children. And although he already had two of his own he was only twenty-two, young enough to maybe want more someday, while I was quite certain I did not. Finally, I was almost nine years older than him, so how long would it be before he left searching for greener (read: younger) pastures?

The first time he asked me to marry him I laughed out loud before saying, “Honey, how could I do that to you?” to which he responded, “How could you not do it for me?”

It was true that we had been having a wonderful time; everything about us seemed in sync. Especially our love of music both guitar players since we were teenagers and loved singing together. He was already in a country/rock band when we met and soon the leader of that band allowed me to join as well, just one of the lifelong dreams of mine in very short time he managed to make come true.

Before long I was terrified I’d met my soul-mate, because I no longer believed in soulmates, or in marriage either for that matter, jaded and certain love rarely lasts. Besides that, I had begun enjoying my own unexpected freedom at thirty years old, having married young myself when I was just twenty.

But then there were my kids to consider, who had grown to like this guy who eventually had been hanging around for more than a year, and I began to reason that if we did it and things didn’t work out, well, divorce surely must be easier the second time around, right?

So that is how, in spite of everything stacked against a relationship like ours, I found myself kissing my kids and my babysitting mother good-bye one frigid Michigan January morning, before hopping into the cab of his old blue pick-up to head west. Montana was well over a thousand miles away; he was only able to get a week off work before we had to be back.

Why Montana? Because soon after we met I mentioned once that sometimes, when feeling particularly overwhelmed, I yearned to be dropped somewhere in the middle of Montana and he laughed before confiding that had always been his fantasy as well. Shortly after that, Marie Osmond’s Meet Me In Montana appeared on the jukebox, where Merle Haggard’s Big City already contained the lyrics: “Turn me loose, set me free, somewhere in the middle of Montana . . .”

Funny thing is, people don’t often ask why we chose Montana to get married, more amused by the fact we did it in the tiny town of Terry because that happens to be both of our names. And, since we didn’t really care where in Montana we got married, and since the town of Terry sits just off I-94, the route we would be on when we reached the Montana state line after crossing the state’s border with North Dakota, we decided to at least check it out.

And so, following two long days of riding, we turned off the highway at the exit sign for Terry and slowly began to make our way into town, stopping only to take a picture of a billboard claiming that Terry was home to the world’s largest Jim Beam bottle collection. Beginning to realize just how tiny a town Terry was, we weren’t holding out much hope for getting married there. But then, after rounding one last corner, surmising we had seen it all, at the same time we spotted a low one story stucco building clearly marked with big black scrolling letters Prairie County Courthouse, later to discover that Terry is the county seat.

Would this be the place after all? Time to find out, so we pulled in and parked in front of that bright little white building, adjusted the cowboy hats we were used to wearing when our band, Willow Creek, performed, got out of the truck, and went in.

The old door creaked ominously as it swung open. Two women, both seated at desks, looked up as we made our way across the bare wooden floor planks, our cowboy boots echoing far too loudly I thought as we approached the counter. One of the women rose and met us there on her side.

“Can I help you?” she pleasantly asked, no doubt thinking we were there to ask directions, but when Terry replied, “We want to get married,” she hesitated only slightly before responding, “I see.”

She crossed the room to a file cabinet then, pulled it open and returned with the proper paperwork. After she saw the names on our driver’s licenses, she seemed to be suppressing a smile, and was perhaps a little curious that our home state was so far away, but proper civil servant that she no doubt was, she didn’t pry, just told us there was a three day waiting period in Montana, so if we still wanted to get married on Friday, to come back there about two o’clock. Both of us thanked her profusely, before clomping back across the room and out the creaky door.

The following three days were spent mostly in the cozy warm cab of the old pick-up, gazing at Montana’s snow-covered hills and undeniably wide open skies. Traveling west across the state, we made it as far as Butte where the Rockies there rise majestically, much higher than the ones in the eastern part of the state. We would have loved to explore much longer, but when Friday dawned we headed back to Terry, to do what we had come to Montana to do.

The same ladies who had been there the previous time both greeted us with wide smiles when we walked in at ten to two. We were told it would be just a few more minutes, because the fellow who could legally perform our nuptials had to be fetched from his other duties making sausage somewhere nearby.

When he finally arrived, our witnesses rose from their desks to come stand with us and the two minute ceremony began, both of us in our cowboy hats of course, mine tumbling from my head when, as instructed, the groom kissed the bride.

The vows sounded a bit redundant I Terry take you Terri followed by I Terri take you Terry but, as most women at weddings, myself included, our witnesses had tears in their eyes, with one inexplicably declaring, “That’s the most beautiful thing I ever saw!”

A few weeks later following our return to Michigan, a copy of The Terry Tribune showed up in our mail. On the front page was an article about us and our decision to marry there, under the bold headline: Terry and Terri Tarry in Terry To Tie The Knot.

As for the remainder of our wedding day, we had lunch at the Roy Rogers Café, danced to a tune on the juke box there, and toasted each other with beer glasses the barmaid presented to us as a wedding gift when we rose to leave. We left Terry late that afternoon under a glorious pink and purple sunset, heading for Miles City about forty miles away.

Our last night in Montana, our wedding night, was spent there. Following dinner and hot buttered rum served in The Hole In The Wall restaurant, we slept at The General Custer Motel, an irony not lost on us since we lived in Monroe, Michigan, the town in which General Custer once lived and who is still, by some, revered.

Five and-a-half years later, on a camping trip to Yellowstone, we stopped in Terry again to show the kids where we got married, leaving a note on the door of the courthouse since it was the week-end and it was closed. Twenty years after that, just the two of us went back to Terry to celebrate our silver anniversary. We toasted each other again at the Roy Rogers Café, using the same glasses gifted to us on our wedding day that I’d packed and brought back for the occasion.

It was on that visit we learned the Prairie County Courthouse had burned down years before, still standing in our memories though, as well as in a frame on our living room wall. This year we celebrated our fortieth, and are thinking about going back to Terry when our fiftieth, God willing, rolls around. But who travels from Michigan to Montana in January? The answer, of course, is we do.