355 fall2016 contrast,no cover

A Black T Publishing Book Copyright 2016 Š Black T Publishing The publishing team of Black T Publishing reserves all publication rights Managing Editor: Kayla Celello Production Director: Connor Kennedy Acquisition Editor: Lane Chasek Copy Editor: Taylor Brown Design Director: Amelia Werner Marketing Director: Bud Wooten The reproduction of this publication, in whole or in part, is restricted without express permission from the publishers (or their representative, Dr. Beverly Rilett) All Cover Art and Internal Design is Original Copyright 2016 Š Amelia Werner Printed by UNL Print, Copy, Mail & Distribution Services

i

Landon Valle

TAblE of CoNteNtS Invocation to the Muse....................................................2 Open Letter to Santa Claus...............................................3 Hair of the Dog Star..........................................................4 Your Apartment..............................................................5 Dolled Up........................................................................6 Human Zoo......................................................................9 Home............................................................................10 The Aftermath of Sexual Assault..............................12-13 The Drowning House................................................14-19 Florida Man..................................................................20 Coup..............................................................................21 Visiting Hagia Sophia with a Turkish Lawyer.................23 Pinstripes................................................................24-25 Stiverland....................................................................27

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Bergen Johnston

1

IntRoductioN When we first started Contrast, we didn’t know what kinds of writers and artists we would attract. What we received was a mixture of literary fiction, poetry, and even a few science fiction pieces. After comparing our submissions, we realized that a number of our science fiction submissions bordered between literary and speculative. Many of the more speculative pieces that we’ve included in this issue are therefore meant to act in dialogue with the more traditional pieces. Our emphasis isn’t what makes these pieces different, but how these pieces complement each other through contrasts, and in turn unify different genres.

Dan Helfman’s “Invocation to the Muse” was a refreshing take on the traditional invocation to the muse, and we couldn’t have asked for a better opening piece. His piece “Open Letter to Santa Claus” acts similarly by providing a modern, adult spin on the classic childhood letter to Santa.

Landon Valle’s paintings range from the realistic to the abstract, depicting nature and musicians in ways that focus on the contrasts between shadow and color.

Bergen Johnston’s photography captures a variety of natural landscapes and cityscapes. These contrasts help to showcase the vast differences in style and subject we tried to capture in this issue.

Courtney Collin’s poems, “Hair of the Dog Star” and “Your Apartment” provide a human touch to both astronomy and a lover’s apartment.

Christian Wirth’s artwork explores astrology and animal life in surreal ways, demonstrating how versatile simple drawings can be. Morgan Mallory’s photographs convey striking images of human fragility despite their simplicity.

Regan Chasek explores a wide range of topics in her poetry, spanning from the standards placed on women in American society in “Dolled Up”, to social outcasts at an anime convention in “The Human Zoo”, and to the meaning of home life in “Home”.

Taylor Brown explores trauma and alienation in “The Aftermath of Sexual Assault”. Her use of dissociation and trauma throughout her narrative parallel Richard Cochnar’s “The Drowning House”, which tackles the issue of past family trauma in an elusive and shocking way.

David Sample’s artwork provides a surrealistic element that we wanted to incorporate in this issue, with pieces inspired by science fiction and fantasy. Austin Kilgore’s graphic design redefines the self-portrait, while also demonstrating an impressive attention to detail. Ben Huss is also meticulous in his paintings.

His graffiti incorporates playful designs, offering abstract elements and demonstrates an eye for the grotesque.

Lane Chasek’s pieces include the playful poem, “Florida Man”, “Coup”, which was written in response to the Paris terror attacks of 2015, and “Visiting Hagia Sophia with a Turkish Lawyer”, which focuses on the divide between past and present.

The final stories in this issue are Grant Varney’s “Pinstripes” and Maisie Habron’s “Stiverland”. “Pinstripes” explores a young narrator’s past with his ex-girlfriend while “Stiverland” looks toward a post-apocalyptic future. The contrast represented by these two stories, we believe, exemplifies the ideas behind Contrast. Past and future, realistic and otherworldly, real and unreal, all have found a place in this issue.

2

Invocation To The Muse Daniel A. Helfman

Sing to me, Muse, of the timeless dance we shared in our starry-eyed youth, of the multihued melodies you hummed in my receptive ear, of the transcendent glory that was our unfettered creations‌ and of what the hell happened to us in the meantime.

Why have your gossamer gown, lustrous locks, and ocular twinkle been effaced with a terrycloth bathrobe, hair curlers, and rheumy eyes? Why have I traded my poetic license for a corporate badge? Why has our silvery laughter faded to stagnant silence?

The fear of failure and rejection has paralyzed us more than any of the beasts we once envisaged. You sing tales that others by the campfire want to hear, while I seek the counsel of guilds that offer me no fealty in return. And yet, even as the number of our winters increases, I perceive a productive summer approaching.

We stand at the threshold of a new marketing demographic, and I espy new challenges, new tasks. Perhaps the quests are fewer, but they seem more vivid than those upon which we embarked in less discerning times. We can learn to embrace our flaws and weave them into the fabric of our adventures.

With wisdom comes simplification, and with simplification comes contentment. Take my hand, dear Muse, and let us inspire each other again.

Bergen Johnston

3

Open Letter to Santa Claus

D

Daniel A. Helfman

ear Santa,

It has been so many years, and so many significant events have transpired to challenge my beliefs since I last attempted communication with you that I hardly know where to begin. I could invoke the grownup symbolism I studied in the meantime and compare you to a Vodoun Loa who expects tribute; however, blathering about things I do not fully understand is not my intent here. I prefer to spend time questioning answers and in the process, I hope, attain greater understanding. Please bear with me, old friend, and think of this as a longer, more introspective note left on the fireplace beside your milk and cookies.

A consequence of getting older is that the things I desire most cannot be purchased or easily procured. (On the other hand, if I learn you could fit a satisfying romantic relationship or lasting artistic accomplishment in your sleigh, then we just might need to take this conversation offline.) So rather than inundate you with yet another wishlist of ephemeral desires or demonstration of my decreased naughtiness and increased niceness within the past fiscal year, I want to acknowledge what I already have. In other words, I want to focus not on the what if, but instead on the what is.

Most importantly, I recognize no single status update, post, essay, or even compendium of those items could possibly provide me enough space to list everything for which I am thankful in life. It will be through my ongoing actions that I strive to reciprocate. In my attempts to encapsulate gratitude with one concept or phenomenon, however, a clear victor emerges: sentience. I am grateful to be cognizant of being this person, and no one else, at this time, and no other time, at this place, and nowhere else, sharing this series of thoughts.

Without sentience, I would be unable to enjoy the memory of my father and the company of my mother. To be their son is, literally and figuratively, the honor of a lifetime, as well as irrefutable proof that the universal spirit of giving you represent does exist. It is because of my parents that I will continue to believe in you for the rest of my days.

Until the next epistle and tray of milk and cookies, love,

Dan

Christian Wirth

4 bleary eyes pried open ruthless fluorescent light limbs askew around a porcelain base Scorpio’s tail choking the toilet pull the dead weight of roadkill to the sink mirror interrogates explain the bruises handle of The Big Dipper speckling my forehead

HAIR OF THE

DOG STAR Cortney Collins

no cigarettes left half-smoked pineapple Bidis littered in dunegrass light ‘em up telescope toppled over in the sand oh yeah. gin with hot water and lemon clouds on Venus swirl to the taste of juniper did we ever find the Horsehead Nebula? sun swallows stars my hands quake turbid stomach gin bottle empty seven dollars crumpled in my jean pocket enough for hair of the Dog Star

Your Apartment Cortney Collins

Carpet like a dirty martini Jeans and pajama bottoms and sweaty t-shirts strewn about the floor in organized,

rumpled piles A TV with no Cable Linoleum with greasy spider-vein cracks An electric stove with lopsided burners that cause yellow egg guts to slop over the side of

the skillet I bring (because you don’t have one) The junk drawer with dusty cards, letters in another woman’s

handwriting, paperclips and screwdrivers A bed with no bedding where we sleep under a threadbare maroon blanket Naked, smoke-stained walls Toilet I inspect for bloodstains Misted green bottles of O’Douls hidden under cherry sodas in your refrigerator crisper (Did you know O’Douls actually contains .5% alcohol?)

On the kitchen counter next to at least six dollars in pennies, a painting of the

white Jesus in a wooden octagon frame Jesus watches everything Jesus sees you fish your glass pipe out of the Stein mug on top of the freezer Jesus sees me throw your empty cans of Keystone against the wall Jesus sees the coffee we share out of the mug your daughter made you when she was nine

and the cigarettes we light and the incense we burn (Jesus turns water into wine.)

5

Morgan Mallory

Dolled Up Regan Chasek

When I was a child, my grandmother let me look into her special mirror that exposes every flaw, every pore, every hint of humanity.

You have to find them to hide them.

My mother took it upon herself to remind me that if I ever dared to leave the house with a naked face, the world would always remember how hideous I was in my true form.

6

The first boy to declare that he loved me and truly, terrifyingly mean it told me while I wore no makeup.

Every blemish, every defect was bared.

He held me to him and kissed the salt off of my cheeks while I cried in confusion.

Bergen Johnston

Christian Wirth

7

Ben Huss

9 Regan Chasek

Human Zoo Midnight.

We lock down our smiles and shuffle into the anime convention dating panel.

The room is half-full, scattered with nerds either alone or in small groups.

Hushed conversations cut out when a young man in a suit steps to the front of the room.

He loads a PowerPoint presentation.

Red-rose background, romantic.

He wets his lips and begins to speak.

The first part of the presentation is a list of reminders:

1. Shower

2. Brush your teeth

3. Don’t stare at people

4. Don’t make unwanted sexual advances To be fair, lots of people seem to forget that last part.

Moving on.

The speaker tells the hopeful, sweaty masses that confidence is the key.

One brave soul raises his hand and takes the microphone.

He tells the room about his endless cycle of rejection and low self-esteem.

The shaky foundation of optimism crumbles like a young child’s shoddy sculpture.

Despair is tangible in the atmosphere like the distant vibrations from an earthquake.

The speaker takes the microphone back.

“Those would make some pretty good My Chemical Romance lyrics, huh?”

Silence.

He scrambles to salvage some light from the situation.

He creates a human moment.

“Okay guys, I know a lot of us have had a rough time in life.

Raise your hand if you were bullied in school.”

Nearly every person in the room raises their hand timidly with eyes cast to the floor.

The speaker raises his hand too.

Solidarity.

“See? None of you are alone.”

Some eyes raise, some timid smiles emerge.

“Okay, I won’t discriminate. Who here was a jock?”

One guy.

One guy raises his hand with the biggest shit-eating grin on his face.

The entire room spears him with their beady eyes.

He is shameless.

He is the embodiment of self-assurance, the key they have never found.

Loathing.

For once, it isn’t directed towards themselves.

10

Home Regan Chasek

The living room floor is pink in the least romantic way, pink like the insulation under the roof raining carcinogens.

The linoleum in the kitchen has given up even trying to look like tile.

Every spill is a modernist disaster that obscures the blood-orange squares.

Nobody can remember if the bedroom walls were always this off-white.

Pray that the room was always meant to look like an old book so that a new coat of paint isn’t necessary.

The hallway carpet is faded and stained like acid-washed denim.

It could be described as “character”, but a realist calls it weariness.

11

Bergen Johnston

Austin Kilgore

12

The Aftermath of Sexual Assault Taylor Brown

It’s September 21st. It’s a Wednesday night and you’re hanging out in your apartment after a particularly difficult day of class.

You get a text from someone that you previously dated in the summer, but it didn’t work out. The good thing is that it wasn’t so serious, so you two are amicable. You’re even friends.

Are you going out tonight?

This sounds like a lot of fun and you haven’t been downtown in so long. It’s only for a couple of drinks. What is the worst that could happen?

I wasn’t planning on it, but I can for a bit. It’s Wednesday! Why you down here?

Yeah we are going out its my friends 21st so we are going to O street.

You haven’t showered in a couple of days and look a little disheveled, so you throw on something decent, put on a little bit of makeup, and head downtown.

Where are you all at now? About to leave.

The Downtown.

The bar is dingy and dark. The sound of the bass from the DJ is reverberating off the walls, sending vibrations starting from your feet and amplifying themselves out of your chest. Everything around you is cement — cold, unfeeling. It’s a little musty from the sweat of people dancing. The smell of alcohol permeates the air. This reminds you of the many fraternity parties you attended, and you get a little uneasy.

You see him sitting there. The person you called your friend — the person that isn’t supposed to hurt you.

You go up to give him a hug. He pulls you close by the belt loop of your pants so that you’re standing between his legs. He says hey. The smell of alcohol on his breath is heavy. You feel a little uncomfortable, but you ignore that feeling.

He’s always been a little aggressive, you think to yourself. You brush it off. You move from between his legs to the chair next to him and start a conversation. He introduces you to all of his friends. He buys you a drink.

I saw your profile picture of you and your new man, he says. I bet he doesn’t fuck you like I do.

You’re stunned. You laugh a little bit because you’re unsure how to respond. Your mom told you never to be rude to someone. Why would he say that, you think.

Well, does he fuck you like I do?

You respond: I’m not going to talk about him like that. I like him a lot and I’m happy.

He leaves it alone. The night continues on and you both have a couple more drinks.

He’s incredibly wasted, but not incoherent.

He’s in control. He knows.

Hey, I need a place to stay. Can I crash at your place tonight?

You say of course. You care about this person. He’s your friend. Why would you ever leave someone without a place to stay? You make one thing clear: I have a boyfriend. I’ll definitely let you stay at my place, but I’m not looking to hook up with you tonight. I just want to make sure you’re safe.

Of course. I understand.

�

You leave your apartment and your empty, lifeless body collapses into your car. You You drive him back to your place since shake uncontrollably and try to hold yourself. you’re for all intents and purposes, sober.

It’s okay it’s okay, you repeat over and over You fiddle with your keys a moment before again as if to convince yourself of something unlocking your apartment door. He’s trailing you know to be untrue. But he didn’t rape close behind you. He’s 6’2 and so big. You’re you, you think to yourself. It’s not the same.

5’3 and weigh 108 pounds. You hardly come You aren’t another number. It’s not the same up to his chest. thing. You’re lying. You’re lying to protect him You open the door and turn the corner, and and yourself. that’s when he moves. He pins you against You sob. You sob for a shattered life and the wall with his entire body. He takes your sense-of-self; you sob because you’re unsure face with both of his hands. of what the aftermath of this will be like; What are you doing? you say. You can barely you sob because you don’t understand what happened and why it did; you sob because get it out. Your throat is so dry from a mixture of alcohol and fear. You try to push him, a part of you died in that apartment. In that moment, you knew you will never be or see but he’s so big. You never had a chance. any remnants of the person you were before the assault again.

Kiss me, he demands. As if you two were together. As if you were his. As if he had any And just like that the night ends, as if it never right to violate you. even happened. After a sleepless night, you still get up and go to class. You become deYou try to move your face away, but he has an iron grip. Your lips forcefully touch his. He spondent. There is nothing left, you whisper reeks of alcohol and lust- no, power. You’re to yourself as you ironically listen to Self Control by Frank Ocean on repeat. Everything mine. Your man has nothing on me. He around you is continuing and moving on, doesn’t fuck you like I do. You’re mine. His but you’re still stuck in that moment. Even hot breath sends shivers down your spine. though your body is physically walking, you Stop, you plead. No, don’t do this. I have are not present. You are not there. a boyfriend. Because men respect another man’s boundaries more than they respect Your professor calls on you in class. It’s your own. obvious you are not there. It’s obvious that your body is sitting in your desk, but you are He continues sliding his hands down your not in it. Your soul died last night, remembody. He goes for your pants. No, you cry. ber? You can’t answer his question. After Time is moving so slow and so fast all at class, you tell the professor because you once, but you’re stuck in this moment. You can’t move. He’s just so big. He’s just so ag- don’t know what to do. You don’t know what gressive. He continues sliding his hand down to call it. further. He pulls down your pants.

I think I was sexually assaulted last night.

The words leave your mouth quietly, so Your instincts kick in. You try to push him quietly that they almost can’t be heard. You away, but to no avail. He’s going for your get hot. Your face turns red from shame and underwear now. Your stomach is in knots. embarrassment, and you look down to avoid Everything around you is spinning and you feel nauseous. He’s moving down there. He’s eye contact as tears silently roll down your face. pulling down your underwear now. They’re on the ground. Your breathing quickens and tears start rolling down your face. He starts You’re taken to a victim advocate to discuss the events and the options you have in movtouching you down there. Your stomach ing forward, of which there are almost none drops, you feel your blood rush throughout your body. The walls begin to close in; you’re because he didn’t rape you; because there is no proof; because it’s your word against his; so sweaty and scared. NO, you say. I said STOP! and with one final shove, he backs off. because he only grabbed you by the pussy.

Moving forward, you think incredulously- alYou pull up your underwear, pants, and what most spitefully. How can I move forward?

How can I move forward when the shattered little dignity you have left off of the floor as quickly as you can. You leave the apartment. pieces of me are too small to even grasp, let alone pick up? How am I supposed to move forward when nothing will change? �

14

Richard Cochnar

The Drowning House Alex climbs down the embankment and into wet, soft dirt. A corn field? Maybe soy?

Right next to the interstate? Surely not. Just grass here— just undeveloped land.

And as she walks toward the trees, she remembers high school the summer between junior and senior year. She remembers how she and Rory got their community service hours done. Rory’s uncle worked for Natural Resource Conservation in St. Paul. She remembers the five-hour drive east on Highway 92, staying at the Super 8 and eating Pizza Hut every night for dinner, rationing out their case of PBR to make it last all week. In the daytime, Rory’s uncle would give them the keys to an old government pickup and mark a spot on a map.

They’d tour the area, eyeing the fields and notating what crops were growing and what crops had been growing the previous year: Corn into soy; Soy into corn; Soy into soy; Corn into corn. Just that for a few hours.

Rory couldn’t believe that anyone got paid to do it.

Neither one of them knew how to tell what crop had been planted the previous year.

Well what about this field? Alex asks herself.

Grass. Grass into grass.

She glances over her shoulder, but the fog has already swallowed her car. It would have been foolish to keep driving.

Alex opens her purse and feels around for her cell phone, fancying herself the enterprising type who is going to get some use out of that mandatorily installed compass app. But her purse is empty aside from a few cough drops and a little packet of tissues from the last funeral she’d attended.

No phone. No compass.

Oh well.

Live a little.

She continues her trek toward the trees, through the trees.

No cars in any of the driveways. No one around?

Alex walks down to the water’s edge.

There stands a young girl. Maybe she’s 8 or 9, or 12 for all that Alex knows. The girl looks up to Alex.

“Hello,” she says.

Doesn’t she know that she’s not supposed to talk to strangers?

“Hey,” Alex says.

The girl smiles and Alex looks away.

A gravel nature trail winds through some nearby trees, lined with moldy old wooden rails. There is a wrought iron park bench She finds herself at a lake, around which under the trail’s sign. Then there’s a patch stand four summer homes each with their of flowers. Alex thinks they are azaleas, but own wooden docks jutting out into the she thinks all flowers might be azaleas… or murky water. There are a few jet skis and a roses. She always has trouble investing in couple of moored dinghies. the ephemeral.

She thinks of her little sister and smiles.

“Whatcha got in there?” the little She remembers the lakeside rental girl asks, pointing at Alex’s black purse. place in Michigan . She always used to “Worms?” pinch Alex’s arm and chastise her for look“What? No. Cough drops.” ing at all the dinghies.

“Can I have one?”

“Perv,” she’d call Alex, before scurrying “No.” away. She had such an uncanny ability to The girl fakes a cough. embarrass her big sister, especially when “You shouldn’t take things from people there were boys around. that you don’t know,” Alex scolds. “You She didn’t remember there being many shouldn’t be so trusting.” lakes in Central Nebraska. Certainly not any “Why wouldn’t I be able to trust you?” that could support seasonal tourism. the girl asks, confused.

But you’ve been away for a while.

Alex ignores the question. Who the hell The fog has begun to dissipate. raised this kid, anyway?

15 The houses all look the same. First story brick, like the chimneys that run up the side of the structures, past the cream colored siding of the second floor, past the shingled roofs with their skylights—or maybe they are solar panels?

If it were Michigan, if it were twenty years ago, they’d be skylights.

“This place takes me back,” Alex says.

“Even though I don’t think I’ve been here.

Where, uh, is here anyway? Where are we?”

The girl shrugs.

“The lake,” she says.

“Is anyone looking after you?”

“Not right now. My sister used to look after me, but she went away.”

Some ancient guilt resurfaces.

Alex’s little sister had such a hard time with high school… and other things, like life. Alex’s weirdo goth, or punk, or whatever-the-hell little sister.

Should have been there for her. Been a shield for her.

But Alex had her own life to lead and she sure as shit wasn’t going to hang around Scottsbluff after she graduated. She had a full-ride academic scholarship to UNO that she was going to piss away after three semesters.

“Aren’t you lonely?” Alex asks. “With no one looking after you?”

The girl shrugs again, momentarily looking as melancholy as Alex feels, before puffing out her chest and announcing that she can look after herself.

Alex lightly scratches at her cheek in an attempt to hide her patronizing smirk.

“I can,” the girl insists.

“Okay.”

“I can cook for myself and everything.”

“Got me beat.”

“Well, it just so happens that I’m an accomplished chef. Follow me,” she demands.

She attempts a regal voice, producing a middling Michael Caine impression. “I’ll fix you a meal that you’ll not soon forget.”

The girl spins on her heels and immediately trips over her own legs.

Alex waits for the girl to regain her footing and dignity before following her to one

of the lake houses.

Well someone has to keep an eye on this damned kid.

Alex hesitates.

“Mommy cereal,” she answers carefully.

“A fine choice,” the girl says. The Michael Caine accent is back… the storebrand Michael Caine accent.

The girl leads Alex into the house via the The girl darts to the refrigerator, opens backyard sliding glass door to the kitchen, it, and finds a gallon of milk. the hardwood floor gleaming. A thick, lush Alex notes that the bottom shelf of the carpet underneath the table, like the kind fridge is entirely stocked with beer cans and that rich Grandma Lois always had hanging bottles. from her walls.

When the refrigerator door closes, a “Have a seat,” the girl says. puddle appears from underneath the unit Wooden table, wooden chairs. Looks and slowly begins spreading. expensive.

Alex stands, instinctively.

Alex does as she’s bid. Her host climbs “Where are your towels?” she asks. a step stool and removes a bowl from the “For what?” cabinets hanging over the marble coun“The water,” Alex says, pointing. “You’re tertop. Real marble, probably. Not like the standing in it right now.” marble contact paper that Alex applied to The girl doesn’t look down. Her eyes stay her Goodwill kitchen table. locked on Alex.

Spoon in hand, the girl skips into the Her lips move, trying out a few responses pantry. Into. It’s a big pantry. before settling on, “Forget about it. Eat your Money, money, money. breakfast, Sweetie.” She floods Alex’s bowl The girl returns with a large bag of cereal with milk. and Alex feels relieved. It’s a familiar sight, That stench. Rotten milk. the off-brand breakfast of her youth.

The puddle is no longer just a puddle; The girl pours too many Honeyed it’s two inches of standing water, spanning Squares into the bowl, spills a whole meal’s the entire kitchen floor. The spilled Honeyed worth onto the floor. The grahams crunch Squares float. One big cereal bowl. under her feet as she crosses the kitchen “Eat,” the little girl commands. and sets the bowl in front of Alex.

Alex stretches her legs out under the “You want Mommy cereal or Daddy table, propping them on the seat across cereal?” she asks. from her to keep her shoes from soaking

Bergen Johnston

Bergen Johnston

through.

The water silently pours from the refrigerator now, from its hinges, then from the freezer. It’s gushing, but quietly. Alex strains to hear.

“Ignore it,” the girl says. “We were having so much fun,” she whines.

“It could cause some serious property damage,” Alex says.

Strange talk from a girl who has only rented for her entire adult life. These

people are loaded anyway.

“You forget your swimmies?” the girl teases. “Ignore it.”

But Alex can’t.

The girl, clearly vexed, gets an idea and climbs out of her chair and into the water.

“I have something to show you,” she says. “Follow me.”

Alex obeys, trailing her host into the living room.

Wet in here, too.

16

The beautiful hardwood flooring is beneath the clear water. There are more fancy rugs like the one she’s stepping on now. Her sneakers sink into it, water rising around them as they do.

At least she had the sense to wear comfortable shoes for the drive. Even that half-mad, grief-stricken version of her still didn’t want to be in heels for a moment longer than was necessary. Alex finds some comfort in that. Heels were for funerals and weddings, neither of which she enjoyed.

The room smells like stale beer… liquor sweats.

Water runs down the sides of a big, pillowy recliner in pretty sheets like a decorative fountain.

The girl splashes through the ankle-deep water, to the couch, to the easel set up there. She dips a paintbrush into the rising water and sets it to the page.

“Come see,” she says.

Alex shivers.

“In a minute,” she mutters.

Alex’s nose lights up as she draws nearer to the recliner. It smells like booze, and also the rotten vinegar smell of movie theatre trashcans. She lifts the arm cushion, trying to trace the source of the flood.

There’s water welling up from the stitching.

She touches the water and then touches it to her tongue.

Instant revulsion.

She feels on the verge of dry heaves.

Cancun. It was the spring break after she failed out of school when she tried to drink herself to death. Retching in that hotel bathroom, her body bucking the orders from her brain, her brain still clinging to the fantasy that she’d be some rookie cop’s first stiff; that he’d be gentle with her as he checked for a pulse; that he’d give stern looks to the paramedics and their gallows humor; that he’d take care of her.

She wipes the tears away from her eyes.

Haven’t thought about that for a while, huh?

“Jesus,” she whispers. Hands planted on knees, Alex turns her head and comes face-to-face with the out-of-time CRT TV. Guess they spent their whole budget on these rugs.

She had a TV like that in high school. In her room. She thinks of all the televisions she’s known. Her favorite is still the bulky black and white portable one that her mom gave to her when she was little. She’d sleep with it on the bed, next to her head, watching whatever the antenna would show her.

She had to hold it so close, so intimately.

She remembers the Y2K infomercial, commercials for the animated Dilbert series, and the surreal movie where people spoke in French—when they spoke at all. She’d almost seen a nude butt in that one.

There’s a small collection of DVDs beneath the TV. Alex recognizes the titles.

They’re John Wayne westerns. Her dad had those, too.

The water keeps rising. It crests the top of her sneakers and spills into her socks.

It keeps rising, over the raised hearth of the fireplace, floating ancient ash from burned logs. Photos line the mantle. Family photos? Who the hell brings family photos on vacation?

Who the hell are you to judge?

She sees scenes of the family at the lake’s shore, the family posed in front of the house, in the surrounding woods, on the nature trail, in a boat, sitting around the fire roasting hot dogs on honest-to-

God sticks. No father? He must be taking the pictures. The little girl is at the center of each shot. The older sister’s face is obscured by a branch, an arm, an oar.

“Don’t make fun of my Mommy,” the girl calls from her easel. “She’s blind. She can’t help it.”

In each photo, the mother has her hands clasped over her eyes. Like she’s playing hide-and-seek.

The water creeps up Alex’s leg. It’s warm, familiar. It’s up to her knees now.

Is this all from the refrigerator? From the recliner?

Alex sloshes through the water to the couch, to the girl, to the easel she’s dragging her brush across.

“Wanna see?” she asks.

The first page of the sketchpad is just black. Deep, deep black. It’s not watercolor black or even acrylic. It’s outer space black. It’s unknowable black. It’s a void that has never seen light. It’s the bottom of the ocean.

“What is it?” Alex asks.

The girl just looks up at her, like she should know. Alex flips the page. More black. Alex flips the page. There’s a black so dark that it makes her chest tighten, awaking in her some animalistic fear of night.

The crystal clear water is up to Alex’s lower thigh. That’s a problem. She searches for the front door.

There it is. Right next to the lamp made out of deer antlers, the shade patterned with all manner of wildlife. The lamp that’s still plugged in. The lamp that’s turned on and floating.

Okay, time to get out of here for real.

Alex’s hands are too slick with water to get a good grip on the doorknob.

Horror-movie panic takes her.

This right here? This lamp? This is how people die.

She lunges at the nearby curtains, ripping the entire fixture from the wall.

“What are you doing?” the girl shrieks.

“You’re going to get me into so much trouble!”

17

Her sketchpad floats nearby, face down, spilling its dark contents into the water, slowly turning it black.

Alex finds a dry patch of curtain and wraps it around the knob. It turns. But she can’t pull the door open. There’s too much water, too much pressure. She plants her feet and pulls to no avail. She just slides along the hardwood floor. The water is at Alex’s waist, cloudy now, on its way to full darkness.

Alex wades over to the window and fiddles with the two locks keeping it sealed.

She can never make any sense of these damn things. Are they both supposed to be moved in the same direction or opposite ones? Nothing is working. Was it even locked in the first place?

You probably made it worse. Just by touching it.

Something about the scenery outside catches Alex’s eye. It’s…wavy? She presses her face to the glass and gasps.

It’s flooding outside, too.

The world is flooding.

She’s fogging up the glass. Alex cranes her neck and searches for the water’s surface.

There!

There it is just above the house. She could make that swim.

With no arms!

She balls up her fists and slams them against the window. Desperation should be making her blows furious, but her arms move with such sluggishness as if they are already underwater. As if she’s fending off attackers in a dream.

And the water rises past her belly button.

It’s too high. Jesus, this is too high.

The girl stands on her tippy toes just to keep her neck above the water. Her expression is blank. Her eyes don’t move.

Alex trudges through the water sending out waves into the kitchen. She’s breathing heavy, exhausted. She fits her fingers into the grooves of the sliding glass door handle and pulls. Nothing. Not a budge.

Where’s the lock? Do these things even

have locks?

Surely.

But also, like, a plank of wood or something to prop in the frame?

How do you not know this stuff? Maybe you’d know if you had a house… If you owned like everyone else your age. You’re still single, too… single and not even willing to mingle.

Alex pulls on the door with all of the force that she can muster, but it doesn’t move.

So it is locked, right?

It has to be.

Why don’t you know how anything works?

Alex calls the door every curse word that she knows; even the really hateful ones that make her feel bad. She feels doubly bad when she remembers the child in the other room.

Better go check on her. Someone has to look after this damn kid. And maybe apologize to her for your nasty language.

Moving through the water really takes it out of Alex. She’s exhausted— Should have exercised more.

Lapsed gym memberships.

If only paying for it meant you’d use it.

—by the time she joins her host in the living room.

Lazy.

That girl on the running shoes ad gets up before dawn. It’s just an ad, but you just know the actress does it too.

Gets up before noon.

Runs. Endures.

“I think,” she says, gasping for air, “I think we’re stuck.”

The girl’s eyes widen.

“Did you hear that?” she whispers.

“Hear what?”

“Garage door.”

She tiptoes to the bannister, her little arms attempting something like a doggie-paddle. She climbs the stairs out of the water. Alex follows.

The now pitch-black water chases her up the stairs with alarming speed, air pockets on the first floor disappearing within

the blink of an eye.

When she sets foot in the second floor hallway, when her dress and limbs rain a hurricane down onto the otherwise perfect white carpet, only then does the water abate. It stops rising. It waits.

Alex’s head turns, slowly, taking in the hall before her. She feels nostalgia, but also mystery like that dream where you find a new door in your apartment.

That means you have cancer.

That’s what ALL the dream analysis sites say.

Cancer. Cancer.

Should have spent more time in the gym and less time in the bed.

The big C. The biggest.

The second floor doesn’t match the first. There are none of the earth tones and hardwood. There is none of the wilderness.

This is not the second floor of a summer house by a lake. You couldn’t rent this out to someone. A family lives here. There are stains on the worn carpet. There’s another birthday present instead of a Rug Doctor rental. This floor is a home, not a house.

A room at the end of the hall, one to her left, one to her right.

“Uhh,” Alex nearly shouts. “Little girl?”

Silence.

What spooked her anyway?

You mean aside from the fact that she nearly drowned in her living room?

Her living room?

The living room.

Alex pushes open the door to her left.

Bathroom. She steps inside and the door slams shut behind her.

“Shit!” she squeaks.

Her heart is racing, skin is crawling as she scans the innocuous bathroom.

Not many places to hide in here.

Alex pushes aside the shower curtain.

No one in there. But she feels a pair of eyes on her. She’s too scared to turn around. She wishes that she were wearing more clothes, and not just because she’s soaked. Whatever is watching her makes her feel naked.

18

“I’m turning around now,” she announces to the empty room. And she does.

Nothing.

No one.

Fine. Good.

A bad habit—she opens the medicine cabinet hanging over the sink, averting her eyes from the mirror. As the door swings open, she’s still afraid to look behind her.

No medicine inside. No aspirin or ibuprofen. No allergy medicine. No suntan lotion or aloe vera. Not even any antibiotic ointment or bandages for boo-boos. No Adderall or Prozac or Paxil.

There’s a variety of massage oils.

There’s a bottle of vodka and a few packets of Cherry Kool-Aid mix. There is a digital camera.

Alex turns it on. Low battery warning.

She manages to make out a picture of the little girl—staring into the camera lens, looking terrified—before the battery dies.

She stops.

Stops like Dad stopped.

She steps back into the hall, regarding the black water still patiently waiting on the last stair, its surface broken by the handles of her purse-- her mourning purse.

You can have it. The cough drops and the tissues. The prayer booklet. The memories.

The straps slowly sink beneath the surface, the water appeased.

Alex nods to it before she turns away and marches down the hall, to the room opposite the stairs.

As soon as Alex’s feet cross the threshold, the black water begins to rise again, much faster this time. It’s ankle-deep by the time Alex scampers into the girl’s bedroom.

“Close the door,” the girl instructs.

Alex obeys.

The water stays in the hallway.

Toys litter the floor. Stuffed animals with smears of red around their mouths.

She realizes it’s faded lipstick. There’s a risk board laid out in the corner. She sees green army men line the coast of the Americas, aiming their plastic guns across

the Atlantic at the red Barrel of Monkeys figures lying on their backs, scattered all across the Eurasian continent. There are naked dolls under the bed.

“Quick,” the girl says. “Get into bed.”

She pulls back the comforter and climbs onto the mattress.

The water creeps under the door and begins filling the room, overtaking the Risk board, dishing out the same nihilistic fate to both armies.

“Hurry.”

Alex climbs into the small bed. The girl pulls the comforter over both of their heads. The door creaks open… slowly… purposefully. Hinges shriek. Someone else is in the room.

Alex listens for footfalls and splashes of water. Alex hears none.

And yet, there’s a pressure at the edge of the bed near her foot, as if someone’s sitting there.

“Close your eyes,” the girl whispers.

“Pretend that you’re dead.”

Alex feels the comforter slowly being lifted, exposing her feet. She closes her eyes and pretends that she’s dead. The blanket resettles on her feet and the pressure lifts from the bed. She’s breathing slowly. At least she’s trying to. The comforter lifts from her face. Now she’s exposed with no blanket to protect her. She waits, and waits, and waits. Nothing happens. The water rises.

Soon, it too shares the bed with Alex and the girl.

Alex opens her eyes and finds the room empty aside from she and her host, and the water.

God, how did it get so high so fast?

Alex rolls off the mattress and splashes through the waist-high water. There’s the window. But as with the windows on the first floor, she can’t unlock this one. She can’t break the glass either. She gazes out at what would have been a perfect view of the lake. But there is no lake anymore. The lake is everywhere and everything.

She’s close to the surface. So close.

She can see the dinghies floating up there.

You perv.

She looks down. What was once the lake’s bed is now a cavernous abyss. It’s darkness like the sketchpad, like the water filling the room; the kind of darkness where the fish have see-through skin and eyes that no longer work—vestiges of previous evolutionary steps, tonsils.

The summer home across the chasm slides down into it and disappears.

“We need to go higher,” the girl says.

She wades through the water, back into the hallway.

She already has the attic hatch open by the time Alex joins her in the hall. The little girl climbs the ladder.

Alex climbs the ladder.

The water does too.

Alex is completely submerged before she makes it to the top. But she does make it to the top and gasps for breath in the dusty, small, attic.

She can’t stand straight up. The ceiling slants with the roof. The water is at her heels again, carrying the soaked scraps of cardboard from Hallmark Christmas ornament boxes and pre-school art projects.

19

She sees macaroni glued to cardstock covered in gold glitter. There are crayon portraits featuring people that look more like keys than people.

Out of time.

Alex needs to get out.

She dashes to the attic window and tries to pry it open. It moves.

Alex can’t contain her excitement, an indistinct cry of relief, catharsis manifest.

“Come on,” she shouts to the girl.

She doesn’t move.

No time for this.

You’ve got no time for this.

Alex tries the window again and it opens.

The lake water rushes in, mingling with the black water, also rising.

“Come on,” Alex yells again, barely able to hear herself over the flood.

The floor beneath them lurches once. Then again. Alex realizes that this house has begun its descent down the embankment, down into the deep lake bed.

You have to get out now. You’re getting further and further from the surface with every wasted second.

The girl is crying, shaking her head.

“I don’t get out,” she says. “I don’t make it out.”

“You will get out,” Alex screams. “Just come to me. We’ll both get out. I promise.

Pinky-swear.”

Alex is crying too.

“Not me,” the girl says. “You learned how to swim. I never did.”

Get out. You need to go.

NOW. But Alex isn’t leaving this time.

She goes to the girl and wraps her arms around her tiny frame.

“I’m sorry,” she sobs into a tangle of wet hair. “Oh God, Judy, I’m so sorry.”

The girl hugs Alex tightly.

When the water rises to her chin, Alex lifts her up and holds her. Her little head resting on Alex’s shoulder, their hearts beating against one another, the blackness takes them both.

When Judy turned 18, she fled to Florida searching for a sun that would never be quite bright enough.

David Samples

Florida Man Lane Chasek An authentic Florida Man incident should involve some, if not all, of the following: boneheaded criminal schemes, an outrageous disregard for common decency... alligators and/or other reptiles... [and] bizarre supernatural beliefs...

A true Florida Man combines a number of these to create an act of delinquency that simply could not have occurred anywhere else.

-Jack Holmes, “The 47 Wildest Florida Man Headlines of 2015”

Florida Man bitten by dog Florida Man bites dog Florida Man eats clutch of shark eggs Florida Man endorses Jeb Bush Florida Man cannibalizes Florida man beneath overpass Florida Man grows four horns in prison Florida Man’s horns by new, larger horn on forehead Florida Man: “My new horns predict the coming of a great empire...”

Florida Man escapes prison Florida man hijacks plane to Greece, arrives in Athens Florida Man terrorizes Athenians, orders temple constructed in his honor Florida Man wins love and adoration of Greek people after lengthy war Florida Man: “I demand a personal harem!”

Florida Man receives life-sized ivory-and-gold statue of himself Florida Man demands animal sacrifices in his name Florida Man imports pet leopards for peach orchard Florida Man purchases crocodiles for gold-coated swimming pool Florida Man: “I grew three extra heads last night” Florida Man’s heads revolt against each other Florida Man’s heads reach truce after bitter civil war Florida Man’s heads: “We’re all king now!”

Florida Man’s heads create new tetrarchy Florida man’s heads: “Our new kingdoms will all be named Florida!”

Florida Man’s heads: “It’s getting hot here. Can we move north?”

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Landon Valle

21

Coup Lane Chasek

If he were alive today, Voltaire would scoff at the idea of God and an ideal world.

Drinking another coffee in his ivory tower outside of Versailles, he would laugh as Paris burst into flames.

Camus, on the other hand, would still live in Paris at the forefront of the action.

He’d light another cigarette, stare down at the madding crowd, the riots, the car bombs, Shrug and say, ça m’est égal.

That’s how they are: On balconies, in alleys, terraces, and cafés, they’re still smoking, drinking espresso, shrugging triumphantly.

A little undisciplined, a little hard-to-handle, the French do what they want and nothing can change that.

Bergen Johnston

22

Visiting Hagia Sophia With a Turkish Lawyer Lane Chasek I’ve tried to write one of the grandest churches in all of Christendom into a series of golden breasts held aloft by lecherous, splayed fingers but realize I’m less of a poet than I thought. I’m visiting Hagia Sophia for the third time on this week-long vacation, mostly because this is the final evening of my stay in Turkey, but also because as a Christian-ish poet I have no choice but to visit it and write about it the same way I’m somehow obligated to pay homage to Milton and cite Matthew or Leviticus whenever I’m brainstorming. With me is the only friend I’ve made on this vacation, a Turkish lawyer named Emir who can’t go ten minutes without lighting another cigarette and waving it in my face to emphasize his words.

Inside the church, Emir points a finger and smoldering ember at the golden Arabic splayed across the grand rotunda of the church. He says these domes used to carry Greek prayers before the Crusades and before the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks. Emir is triumphant as he indicates portraits of Emperor Justinian and Theodora standing at Christ’s sides.

He points an accusing finger at the dead emperor and his empress, retelling the seldom-told tale of how Justinian bankrupted his empire after rebuilding the aqueducts and churches, and made the sands of Knossos and Armenia damp with the blood of Jews, Samaritans, and Monophysites. Emir and I will never see each other again after this evening, but he continues to wave his cigarette through the annals of Byzantine history, the setting sun on the horizon smoldering like the scarlet eye of his latest cigarette. The sunlight recedes from Constantinople (but I guess it’s Istanbul now), except for the golden glow of Hagia Sophia (literally God’s Wisdom), a new sunset, the red star of an ember slowly nearing the flesh of this Turkish lawyer’s fingers.

23

Pinstripes

Grant Varney

I had been thinking of Kate and how she used to say how much she liked to touch my skin. I was thinking if she would still like to. I was thinking if my skin had changed. I was thinking if I had changed. I was thinking that I think too much.

I dried myself, dressed, and hauled upstairs.

My first instinct was to look outside and see if Charlie’s car was still parked in front of the house. I parted the shades to reveal the old blue Hyundai sitting there ominously insinuating his presence somewhere within the house. It’s not that I have a problem with my mom dating anyone, I just don’t respect her reasoning and methods she goes about doing so, or the fact she expects me to get along with them. At least I don’t have to hear them fucking like when we lived in the apartment.

I opened the fridge and took out the gallon of cloudy water they call skim milk. I hate skim milk. In the pantry I pull out a box of cereal and empty the remains into a bowl and apply the appropriate ratio of milk. It was the last of the cereal so my bowl consisted of approximately ten whole Wheaties and a plethora of crumbs floating on the surface like algae on a lake. As I ate the meagerly nutritious breakfast, I stared at the wedding invitation on the fridge with the picture of the soon-to-be-joined couple smiling and jumping into midair. I was happy for Tom. He found someone he thinks he loves. At least there’s going to be an open bar, was my primary thought. I’m going to need a drink… or seven.

Charlie walks into the kitchen from my mom’s bedroom with my mom behind him in a bathrobe giggling about something while taking small awkward steps. I hate the way she acts like a little girl when he’s around. As though her attempted cuteness would distract from her large cellulosic ass.

“Good morning, Rory. How’re ya?” Charlie asks.

“Tired-” I deny him the privilege of eye contact.

My mother places and English muffin in the toaster and removed the blackberry jam from the fridge. “Have you decided what you’re going to wear to the wedding?”

“I’m probably going to go buy a vest. Vests are nice. I feel like someone’s hugging me all day. I just hope it doesn’t improve my dope ass swag too much or I won’t be able to get the bitches off

me. Ya know what I’m sayin’?” I say jokingly.

“You know I don’t like it when you talk like that.” She responded.

“Yep.” “Charles, do you happen to have any vests Rory could borrow? I know you’ve got enough swag to get me all over you.”

At that point I get up and leave the house without waiting for a response from Charlie.

Regardless of how laughable it was for my mother to use the word “swag”, I didn’t want any charity from that man. It’s unbearable to hear my mom talk about him or their relationship around me, if you can even call that a relationship. He only comes around, or I should say my mom only allows him to come around, when she needs some work done on the house or if there’s some show in town she wants to see and no one else will go with her. In all honesty I pity him. She flirts with him until she gets what she wants, and then she’s done with him for the month.

The relationship is all on her watch. She has control of the intimacy like a thermostat and the AC is almost always on. Only when she realizes she is cold enough does she crank up the heat, but that lasts as long as a hot flash. She attains a sense of companionship and he occasionally gets laid. If that really works for them then I suppose I shouldn’t be one to judge. I’ve only been in one failed long-term relationship myself, so my views on such matters are distorted from hers.

My biggest issue is that even though it’s been ten years since the divorce, my mom’s attempts to replace my father’s existence always appear fake and ultimately temporary. Whatever, I shouldn’t care so much about what she does. I’m only privy to it as I live in the same house. At least I don’t have to pay rent.

I drive to the nearby outlet mall. Walking into the department store I was immediately struck with the nausea from the over-exposure of perfume in the atmosphere. I’ve never thought that new clothes smelled poorly enough that such an excessive application of olfactory deceit was necessary. Within the department store there was only one clerk, and she was assisting a pair of middle-school girls picking out jeans with an obnoxious amount of rhinestone embroidering on the back pockets. I glanced over at them and my eyes lingered on the clerk. She looked about 22

24

years old with long wavy hair akin to the color of freshly-stained mahogany. She was wearing tight pinstriped slacks that had no slack at all. The pinstripes left an impression. I need a pinstripe vest.

I was moving across the women’s section on my way to the men’s part of the store. My eyes caught a pair of women’s sandals. They had silver straps and a thin brown sole with a slightly faded quality that provided a hand-me-down look. They were exactly like the sandals I bought Kate the month before we split up on ambiguous terms.

They were $200 back then, now they’re $22 on clearance. Their depreciable value seemed equivalent to the value of my feelings for Kate. If only they were free.

During our relationship I felt underappreciated and did all I could to reconcile that fact. The drawn-out days in her dorm room included either watching her study or laying down with her head on my chest for a nap. Occasionally I’d bring flowers or take her out on surprise dinners. We never had sex. She was religious and felt we should wait, and I was respectful of that notion. After I came down with mononucleosis I didn’t have the energy to keep up the relationship and she didn’t have the time. At least that’s how she made it seem. I suggested we break it off for the time being. She agreed. I cried during the break-up.

She didn’t. I wasn’t too upset about the breakup itself. What had got to me was how quickly and coldly she agreed to it, like she was agreeing with a server offering her bread with her meal.

“Can I help you find anything?” The clerk asked as she walked up to me after the middle-schoolers had cashed out.

I realized I was still in the women’s section staring at those sandals. Pulling myself out of my head I turned to her, she looked back with eyes the color of tea leaves. “Looking for something for your girlfriend?” she asked.

A sigh escaped my mouth followed by a chuckle, “God no!” I replied with a smile. “Sorry, I was just daydreaming. I’m actually here looking for a vest. Gotta look spiffy for a wedding.”

“Nice! Well our selection is a little slim but you’ll find them in the back of the store. My name’s Samantha if you need any help.”

“Thank you,” I said with a nod and walked

to the back. She was no liar; they only had six vests to choose from. I despise a prolonged shopping experience so I was positive one of these would have to be the one. Only one of them had pinstripes and a matching tie. Without much hesitation I decided destiny had brought this garment and me together, picked out a medium, and approached the cashier’s desk.

“Find everything alright?” Samantha asked.

“It was easy, thanks for the help.”

“No problem.” She said and displayed the barcodes in front of the infrared scanner. “I love pinstripes,” she said suddenly. “I just think it’s cool that no matter how ruffled the fabric gets the lines are always the same distance apart.

Silly, I know… That’ll be $43.27.”

“Here you go.” I said handing her my debit card. “Yeah, I noticed your pants and figured they were a good idea.”

She smiled, handed me my card back and a bag with the vest and tie inside. “Thank you, they’re supposed to be noticed. Have fun at the wedding, Rory.”

“Thanks again,” and I strolled out the door.

I took a few steps out into the outdoor mall when I realized it. Was she just hitting on me?

I’ve never been very skilled at picking up when that happens. Trying to start another relationship never seemed like a good idea even though she did look mighty fine in those pants. A chilly wind made my skin prickle, so I brushed off what had happened and continued walking out from under the awning. It was one of those spring days where as long as you’re enveloped in the blanket of warmth provided by the gaze of the sun, the wind wouldn’t be such a bother. It was a day like this when Kate broke the news to me.

It was a sunny day in late April, and I texted Kate happy birthday. We had been broken up for five months. She had already gained another boyfriend for three of them, but I wasn’t going to be a jerk and ignore the occasion. Her new boyfriend was a mutual friend from our high school that I had always thought got unnecessarily close to her while we were dating. I do my best not to hold grudges, but it’s so damn hard sometimes.

It was a little over a month after the breakup that she started sending me texts saying how she missed me and how great of a boyfriend I was. I responded by texting, “that’s the benefit of hindsight.” I hated those texts. They were ultimately meaningless to me.

On this particular day she responded to my birthday wishes, saying she wanted to talk and asked if I was free. I had two hours until my next class so I agreed to meet her at a park bench on campus. We hugged, exchanged greetings, and sat down on opposite sides of the table.

“So...” She says, as though she were hesitant to say what she felt she must.

“You’re pregnant!” I joke, trying to be ornery.

“Yeah.” She replies with eyes containing sorrow.

My heart drops. “Oh my God! I’m so sorry I said that. How’re you doing?” A whirlwind of rage, frustration, and sympathy erupt within me but I am unable to release it. There were too many torturous things I could have said right then.

Instead I get up from my side of the table to sit down next to her. I embrace her and comfort her while she starts to cry saying it was all an accident. I know she’s keeping the child; she’s not the type to have an abortion. I sit there holding her head into my shoulder as she weeps. She

says she wishes I were the father. The chaos of emotion within me reaches a breaking point and suddenly everything neutralizes. I feel sterile-emotionless. I’m not mad, I’m not happy, I’m not jealous; I just don’t care one bit.

The mist from the mall fountain speckles my face; I have to squint to contain the irritation.

If the groom wasn’t such a good friend of mine there would be no way I’d be going to Kate’s sister’s wedding tonight. Shortly after the birth of Kate’s child, she and her fiancé separated.

She would call or text me from time to time when she needed someone to comfort her and talk to her, or sometimes when she needed a ride home from downtown, but nothing more than that. I hated the way she used me, but I was helpless to stop myself from obliging. I wish I simply pitied her. Something in me wouldn’t let me leave her when in need. The last time she texted me she was kind of drunk and going on about how she wanted to see me and how she missed me. I was tired of her games; she must’ve needed someone to feed her ego at that moment. I blatantly said that if she wanted to see me, she might as well come on over. She replied she was too drunk to drive, so I offered to pick her up just to push the envelope. I knew she wouldn’t accept the offer.

“Maybe some other time.” That was the last text I received from her. That was a month and half before the wedding, and I felt that my mission had been accomplished. I guess I had finally pushed her away for good. That is, until I got into my car and threw the bag Samantha had given me into the back seat. I checked my phone.

There was a text from Kate.

“Do you have a date for the wedding?”

Morgan Mallory

25

26

Stiverland Maisie Habron

David Samples

Footsteps echoed sharply in the darkness. They were lonely, talking only to themselves. Then two other sets of footfalls, tentative at first, called Wait! Stop! I’m coming too don’t leave without me! The frantic scuffling of tiny feet being left behind bounced off the concrete walls, clamoring over each other to be the heard. Piercing cracks of little sneakers shouting as they slapped the pavement whimpered away into a bashful tempo, in time with their father’s footsteps. The parade of shadows made their way through the tunnel, in silence, save for the haunting trio of echoes. The steady rhythm erased the need for conversation, but the two smallest shadows waited for the story. The story of the end of the world. The story their father promised them.

Drops of water bounced musically off the tile floor as three sets of human eyes grew accustomed to the dark. The cadence of steps was broken by the splash of a sneaker in a puddle. The parade leader, the largest shadow, paused. The calming spell of the echo rhythm dissipated like warmth from a blanket. As the pause lengthened, musty cold silence seeped up the shadow’s spines and settled around their necks. The atmosphere was right now, to tell them. The largest shadow crouched down and sat on the ledge, swinging his legs out over the forgotten tracks. The two sons sat as well, but despite the cold, sat away from the warmth of their father.

“Where do you want me to begin?”

The raspy human voice sounded foreign in the underground orchestra of water dripping and footsteps falling and silence singing, but it echoed softly off the walls as well. It floated around the pillars and drifted softly back to the boys, again posing the question: “Where do you want me to begin?”

“When everybody left.”

One of the boys recoiled at his own voice.

The juvenile brightness of it was shockingly out of place in the humming of ancient underground sounds. It was like blowing a whistle during a symphony. Heartbreaking in a way. But he needed to know.

The largest shadow paused without

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looking at the wide eyes of his sons. How did he explain something he did not even understand? How did he explain a history he was not there for, that no one alive was there for?

“Have I ever shown you a picture of flying fish?”

The question would have warranted a giggle if the heaviness in the air had not suppressed it. Two little heads shook no, and a weary one let out a sigh.

“They are regular fish, except they have wings.”

He waited for a question, but there was silence save the primal whisper of the darkness drifting through the air. His voice was strangely at home with the murmuring, likely because his story was as old as the earth itself.

“Not for real flying, just enough to know what the sky feels like, but never to truly fly. You would think they are lucky at first, having the best of both worlds, but then you have to ask which world they belong in.

They cannot survive anywhere other than the water, but that doesn’t stop them from jumping out into the sky. They yearn so much for more than what they have, more than the glimpse they were born with, that they work themselves into a frenzy. The fish group together in these giant schools that swim throughout the whole ocean, unhappy with everything they find.”

The large shadow hunched over further to gaze down the tracks. They disappeared into another tunnel, but the man stared like he was looking for someone to finish the story for him. He was not good at stories, that was Carol’s job. He sighed and continued.

“So they swim around and swim around until one fish jumps into the air. Just for a quick taste of the sky. Just enough to remind him of what he can’t find in the sea. A few others take a quick bite of the air too. The taste of freedom is so sweet and intoxicating that they leap from the sea as they swim. It becomes a consuming pattern, swim, jump into the sky, dive back into the sea, swim long enough to survive, and fly back to the world that cannot sustain them. They twist between worlds so fast they don’t know

which one they are in or where they are going, so they just follow the first fish who leapt into the air.”

He straightened up and ran a hand down his face. He placed his hands on either side of him and leaned back to stare at the cracked ceiling. The boys looked up too.

Even though their eyes were used to the dark now, they could make nothing out, save for a few bats clinging to the cracks.

“There have been cases documented of flying fish so worked up that as they come upon little boats out at sea they crash right into them. The fish don’t swim around, they fly right into the people standing in the boats and fall to the deck. Imagine being that fish, being so happy, following the first fish, not really knowing which world you were in but not really caring. Imagine floundering on the deck, staring up at the sky, and finally understanding that all you want is the sea.”

The last word hung like a bell toll in the tunnel. The man hadn’t even realized that his voice had risen throughout this story.

He took one last look at the ceiling and got up slowly to take his sons home when the youngest burst out: “But that doesn’t explain anything.”

Once more the steady tempo of heavy footsteps echoed through the tunnel as the man turned into a shadow once more.

He glided further into the darkness as he went deeper into the tunnel. As the rush of scuffling feet scrambling to catch up quieted once again, the two boys heard their father whisper all he knew about the end of the world.

“People are the same way. We build machines and perform experiments trying to reach for the sky. That’s all fine until we forget that we are fish, not birds. Eventually we crash into a boat and get trapped in the sky. We learn that we all need to return to the ocean.”

The man stopped for a final time and waited for his sons to pause beside him. The three shadows looked around at the abandoned subway, dilapidated and forgotten.

“Unless we drain the sea. Then we can never return home.”

ThaNk YoU to Our CoNtriButoRS Brown, Taylor....................................................12-13 Chasek, Lane...............................................20, 21, 23 Chasek, Regan.................................................6, 9, 10 Cochnar, Richard................................................14-19 Collins, Courtney..................................................4, 5 Habron, Masie...................................................26-27 Helfman, Daniel....................................................2, 3 Huss, Ben.................................................................8 Johnston, Bergen.......................iii, 2, 7, 11, 15, 16, 22 Kilgore, Austin........................................................11 Mallory, Morgan.................................................6, 25 Samples, David.................................................19, 26 Valle, Landon......................................................i, 20 Varney, Grant....................................................24-25 Wirth, Christian...................................................4, 7