STARWHEEL
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MASTHEAD Cyn Bermudez Managing Editor Yvonne Morales-Lau Fiction and Poetry Editor Candace Melgoza Art Editor Š 2016 The Riding Light Review/Riding Light/Starwheel Magazine
This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission from individual authors or artists. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or any other means without permission of the author(s) or artist(s) is illegal. www.starwheelmag.com
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TABLE OF CONTENTS Cover by Barbara Ruth Interior art by Brian Michael Barbeito and Kyle Hemmings Contributor Biographies Authors 6 Artists 9 Poetry by AJ Huffman Art by Brian Michael Barbeito Death of a Mermaid 12 Micro-fiction by Matthew Harrison Art by Brian Michael Barbeito Encounter 14 Art by Kyle Hemmings OMG! 18 Micro-Nonfiction by Charlie Reed Art by Brian Michael Barbeito Departing is Such Sweet Sorrow 22
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Micro-Fiction by Denny E. Marshall Art by Brian Michael Barbeito Not Farmers 27 Quick Service 29 Poetry by Richard King Perkins II Art by Brian Michael Barbeito Never and Suddenly 31
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AUTHORS
A.J. Huffman has published twelve full-length poetry collections, thirteen solo poetry chapbooks and one joint poetry chapbook through various small presses. Her most recent releases, Degeneration (Pink Girl Ink), A Bizarre Burning of Bees (Transcendent Zero Press), and Familiar Illusions (Flutter Press) are now available from their respective publishers. She is a five-time Pushcart Prize nominee, a two-time Best of Net nominee, and has published over 2500 poems in various national and international journals, including Labletter, The James Dickey Review, The Bookends Review, Bone Orchard, Corvus Review, EgoPHobia, and Kritya. She is also the founding editor of Kind of a Hurricane Press. www.kindofahurricanepress.com
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Based in futuristic Hong Kong, Matthew Harrison is reliving a boyhood passion for science fiction. He has published numerous SF short stories and is building up to longer pieces as he learns more about the universe. Matthew is married with two children but no pets as there is no space for these in Hong Kong.
Charlie Reed is a free-lance writer in West Chester, PA. His short story, “Conduct after Capture,” was published in Riding Light Review’s Winter 2015 issue, for which he is forever grateful.
Denny E. Marshall has art, poetry, and fiction published in various publication including Pound Of Flash, among others. Denny mostly draws and is a plain person. www.dennymarshall.com
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Richard King Perkins II is a state-sponsored advocate for residents in long-term care facilities. He lives in Crystal Lake, IL with his wife, Vickie and daughter, Sage. He is a threetime Pushcart nominee and a Best of the Net nominee. Writing for six years, his work has appeared in more than a thousand publications including The Louisiana Review, Bluestem, Emrys Journal, Sierra Nevada Review, Roanoke Review, The Red Cedar Review, and The William and Mary Review. He has poems forthcoming in Hawai’i Review, Sugar House Review, Plainsongs, Free State Review, and Texas Review.
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ARTISTS
Barbara Ruth dances with precarious grace in Silicon Valley, a location in which she often feels like a Luddite and dreams of being a saboteur. But where to throw the shoes to halt the startups that contribute to Bay Area homelessness, including her own? When in doubt (and she is usually doubting something) she writes. Her work is widely anthologized and appears in QDA: Queer Disability Anthology, Tales Of Our Lives: Fork In the Road, Barking Sycamores Anthology, The Spoon Knife Reader, Biting the Bullet: Essays By Women Of Courage, Lunessence: a Devotional For Selene, Les Cabinets Des Polytheistes, and Garland Of the Goddess.
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Brian Michael Barbeito is a Canadian writer and photographer. Recent work appears in Fiction International. Brian is the author of Chalk Lines (Fowl Pox Press, 2013) and a two time Pushcart Prize Nominee.
Kyle Hemmings has art work in The Stray Branch, Euphenism, Uppagus, The Bitchin' Kitsch, Black Market Lit, Red Bird Press, Snapping Twigs, Convergence, and elsewhere. He loves pre-punk garage bands of the 60s, Manga comics, and urban photography/art.
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P r a i s ef o r
: “ At ouc hi nge xpl or a t i onofi de nt i t y . . . ” –Ki r k u s Re v i e ws ( S t a r r e dRe v i e w)
“ …de e pl yc a t ha r t i c …” –S h a wnM. , A ma z o nRe v i e ws
“ . . t hei nt i ma t epor t r a i tofme ndi nga he a r tbr oke nbyl i f ei t s e l f . ” –I n d i g oWi l ma n n , V i s u a l Y a r n
“ . . . s t a y swi t hy ou…” –S a r a T . , Go o d r e a d s Re v i e ws
“ Awhi r l wi ndt r i pa r oundt hewor l d…” –T r a c i Mc Do n a l d , A u t h o ro f Ki l l i n gC a s a n o v a
Ha i l e da s “ On eo f t h eb e s tt e c h n i c a l p a i n t e r so f o u rt i me ” b ya nL. A. Ti me sc r i t i c , 2 7 y e a r o l d Au b r e yJ o h n s o ni sf i n a l l yg a i n i n gt r a c t i o nwi t hh e rwo r k . Bu ta ss h ewe a v e st h r o u g hwh a ts h o u l d b eac e l e b r a t i o no f h e ra r t , as i n g l en a g g i n ge c h oo f h e rd o c t o r ’ swo r d sr e f u s e st os t a ys i l e n t —t h e r ei sn oc u r e . I nl e s st h a ne i g h twe e k s Au b r e yi sg o i n gb l i n d . T r a v e l i n go nao n e wa yt i c k e ta r o u n dt h ewo r l dwi t hc h i l d h o o df r i e n dJ e f f An d e r s o n , Au b r e yi si n c o mp l e t ed e n i a l . Bu tab l i n d f o l d e dg a meo f t a s t i n gf o r e i g nf o o d si nCh i n aj o l t sh e ri n t o c o n f r o n t i n gt h er e a l i t yo f h e rs i t u a t i o n . S ob e g i n sh e rq u e s t . I nt h i sa d u l tc o mi n g o f a g es t o r y , Au b r e ys t r u g g l e st oma k es e n s eo f h e rc r i p p l i n gd i a g n o s i s . Bu t o nh e rj o u r n e ys h ef i n d sad e e p e ru n d e r s t a n d i n go f h e r s e l f a n dh e rl i f e —s o me t i me sf r a g me n t e d a n dc o mp l e x , b u ta l wa y swi t hr e l e n t l e s st r u t h .
Ab o u tt h ea u t h o r : J a mi eJ oHo a n gi st h ea u t h o ro f BL UES UN, YEL L OW S KY . He rd r i v e r ' sl i c e n s es a y ss h el i v e si nLo s An g e l e s , b u ts h et r i e st oe s c a p et of o r e i g nl a n d sa so f t e na sp o s s i b l e . S h ei sawr i t e r , t h i n k e r , e x p l o r e r , l o v e ro f t e a , c e r t i f i e da d v a n c e dd i v e r , a n dn e v e rf a rf r o ma no c e a n . S h eb l o g sa b o u th e rl i f ea n dt r a v e l sa t : www. h e y j a mi e . c o m. T we e t sa t : @h e y j a mi e . An dp o s t sp r e t t yp i c t u r e so nI n s t a g r a ma s@h e y j a mi e j o
DEATH OF A MERMAID AJ Huffman Shoreset. Tangled and topless, death-gripping conch shell, last lifeline to deeper world. Silver scaled drying in mid-day’s glare, flaking, falling, brittle as autumn leaves. Distant tides begin to rise, trickle in, teasing, twisting tail in final surge of strength. 180 managed. Bitter-sweet triumph allows final view, seascape crashing, reflective gaze locked in suddenly sightless eyes.
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ENCOUNTER Matthew Harrison On Sundays, Benjy liked to play in the playground with his toy truck, pushing it over the bridges and platforms of the apparatus there. Today a cold wind was blowing, making his nose run, but absorbed in the game he just sniffed. An odd little figure appeared. Benjy continued pushing his truck back and forth across the plastic bridge making chuff-ing noises to help the truck move. The newcomer watched him silently. Then Benjy noticed the visitor. “Hello,” he said. The newcomer’s face twisted, and there was a kind of grunt. Benjy peered. “Hel–lo,” he said again, rather less certainly.
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The figure’s face changed shape, became indistinct, and then re-formed. It gave another grunt. “Alien?” Benjy asked. The little creature said nothing, but in its posture, there seemed a kind of acknowledgment. “Spaceship broken?” Again, the tacit acknowledgment. It is perhaps worth mentioning at this point that Benjy was a generous boy. And he showed that now. He picked up his toy truck and, with another sniff, held it out. The figure stood there for a few moments. It did not take the truck, but its image stabilized. Then it produced something white from a pocket. It was a handkerchief.
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A Magazine of Literature and Art (photograph by Lavinia Roberts)
OMG! Matthew Harrison Nate was chortling over his Whatsapp messages when the door of his room opened and Tim’s face appeared, wrapped in scarf. The two young men were students at Oxford’s Bodley College—Nate in English, Tim in Philosophy. “Don't know why you waste time on that." Tim indicated Nate’s phone. "How do you know the people you chat with are real?” Nate laughed. “Just look—hundreds of texts and photos; how can that not be real?” Tim took the phone and scrolled down the chat. “‘Hahaha’, smiley faces, ‘OMG!’. Not a very distinctive reality.” Tim sat down on Nate’s sofa. “Suppose, while you’re asleep aliens whisk you away. You wake up apparently in the same bed in the same college, but it’s all a reproduction, with an algorithmic apparatus to generate your 19
social media world. How would you know the difference?� The scarf hung loose. Nate tugged it and resolved the argument by wrapping it quickly around his friend’s face. Later that morning, Nate felt hungry. Looping a scarf around his own neck against the cold, he went down the ancient stone staircase to get some bread. The Buttery in the college vaults was open, but old Bill the Buttery master was not there. Nate walked past the shelves of packaged food. To his surprise, there was an opening in the floor with stone stairs leading further down. He called but received no reply. Nate had expected the lower room to be full of stores, but strangely, the stone flags were bare. He touched one with his foot. Somehow, it slid away. Nate gasped. Here, beneath the ancient vaults of his college was a metal chamber. The floor of the chamber was glass, dimly reflecting the 20
light from the Buttery and beyond the glass was darkness through which stars slowly wheeled.
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DEPARTING IS SUCH SW EET SOWING Charlie Reed Everything we know in the universe was seeded by self-destructed solar systems that we can't possibly know anything about. The ground we walk on is the eroded, melted, and morphed material of the Earth’s original rock, which was itself recycled from the pollution and refuse of older a supernova or two. We wouldn’t be here if some previous sun, perhaps carrying an advanced civilization on one of its planets, hadn’t littered and blighted the Milky Way with carelessly discarded elemental remnants. Given that, who are we to think that our pollution is a bad thing? The layer of bottles, bags, candy bar wrappers, and pen caps we’re forming across the oceans’ surfaces may yet serve a purpose other than destruction. Sure, we’re killing birds and fish and coral and whales and, in the end, ourselves, but think of all the possible life forms that will arise! The ocean-borne plastic-eating microbes who 23
survive the looming global environmental collapse may yet evolve into a species that figures it all out. It’s only ego that makes us think our self-destruction is a bad thing, that we are the end result of all that evolution, when, as is becoming more apparent, we are only an indecipherable layer of plastic buried in the sediments that will fold across the sides of future mountain ranges, just a few meters above that iridium anomaly, making whatever follows us wonder how it got there, where it will go, and what it has to do to stave off its own terrifying demise. When you take the billion-year view, you can actually watch yourself erode into someone else’s untaught history, and none of our current struggles are the least bit depressing.
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NOT FARMERS Denny E. Marshall Arms, legs, torsos, and other body parts litter the fields. Henry spends the day in an abandoned barn. He’ll wait until dark to travel. As the sun sets, he departs for his destination. He doesn’t want to take any chances, since the alien’s floating farm combines have arrived.
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QUICK SERVICE Denny E. Marshall Doug waited two days, and then the serviceperson finally shows up. Courteous and professional, the company representative finishes the job quickly. In most cases, Doug would have used the stairs. At the current location, he couldn’t do that. Doug will never forget his time stuck in an elevator to the moon.
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NEVER AND SUDDENLY Richard King Perkins II I belong to nothing else though I’ve tried belonging to you— placed myself within the space of your keyboard desires; sought a subtle catharsis amidst your internecine personalities. The final time for anything usually comes without fanfare; I don’t recall when last we interlocked precious seconds or how your mandolin played for me in spiritual consummation. We’ve tried so long to love— through distance and echolocation but we can’t resolve the secrets of transmission and reception, standing fearless in our acrid labyrinth, where forever comes never and suddenly.
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“Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.” – Albert Einstein
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