LEVITATE Magazine Issue 7

L E VI TA T E

THEMED DOSSIER: ELDRITCH

ISSUE 7

Copyright © 2023 by LEVITATE literary magazine

All rights to the material in this journal revert back to individual contributor after LEVITATE publication.

LEVITATE Literary Magazine

c/o Creative Writing Department

The Chicago High School for the Arts

2714 W. Augusta Blvd

Chicago, IL 60622 www.levitatemagazine.org

LEVITATE accepts electronic submissions and publishes annually. For submission guidelines, please consult our website.

2023 STAFF

Editor in Chief Inti Navia

Editor in Chief Jocelyn Rivera

Managing Editor

Bessana Kendig

Lead Fiction Editors Ezan Charo

Qeter Chromy

Lead Creative Nonfiction Editors

Trinity Matias

Halle Grey

Lead Poetry Editor

Lead Themed Dossier Editor

Ayva-Renee Morales

Halle Grey

Lead Art Editor Ava Dean

Contributing Fiction Editors

Kevin Duran,

Savannah Harmon

Spookie Zigler

Contributing Creative Nonfiction Editors

Ava Dean

Inti Navia

Kimberly Valle

Contributing Poetry Editors

Mordekai Del Giudice

E Coughlin

Greyson Crider

Contributing Themed Dossier Editors

Jocelyn Rivera

Inti Navia

Contributing Art Editors

Savannah Harmon

Spookie Zigler

TABLE OF CONTENTS

The Angel and the Puppy artwork

Art

But The Moon Was Alive

夜之魅 Night is Coming

夜之将至 Charm of the Night

Creative Nonfiction

Are We But Leaves

Dilapidated artwork

Maggotland

Abbie Doll p.188

Ari Cubangbang p.190

Abbie Hart p.191

The Waffle House Speaks Nothing of Nourishment

Esther Sadoff p.192

I Have Kieren Orndorff p.193

Forsaken. Urja Shah p.194

Over in Intoxication Anon Baisch p.196

Nine Lives Ezra Sun p.197

Tell Me About Nothing

Maya Jacyszyn p.199

Beautiful Wretch Margaret Marcum p.201

AND A CITY WAS BORN

Feast in the Sun artwork GJ Gillespie p.202

Anguish Of Achilles artwork GJ Gillespie p.203

Friendship is a Love Language Maggie Bowyer p.204

North Burma Temple Kenneth Kesner p.205

Hug Me artwork Shu Tu p.206

Gut Feelings artwork Shu Tu p.207

Received artwork Shu Tu p.208

Main Character artwork Shu Tu p.209

Yet Another Post-election Day Abbie Doll p.210

Present Situation Peycho Kanev p.212

King of the Park in Jackson Heights Brenna Manuel p.214

Meander Leonardo Chung p.216

Laundromat Callie Crouch p.217

Normal Dry Elizabeth Mason p.218

Meat Department Savannah Jackson p.219

Steam Fresh Elizabeth Mason p.220

When It Happens Again

THEIR LAST WORDS

Juggler artwork

Ky Davis p.222

GJ Gillespie p.224

Monster Tries to Write but Finds Only Compromise

Chrisitan Lozada p.225

The Boy with the Broccoli-shaped Hair Tells Me I’m Beautiful

Esther Sadoff p.228

Countless Shards Leonardo Chung p.229

Report From a House Which May or May Not Have a Crime

Who

Consequent Rhythm

Symphonies of Dissonance

Art

Soul

Contributors Notes

Art Townscape on Tablecloth with Cat

JJ Williams-Presley

The angels job is to guide good humans to the afterlife, surprisingly this time it must guide a dog

The Angel and the Puppy

TRIGGER WARNINGS

trig·ger warn·ing

noun

A trigger warning is a particular action, process, or situation that causes emotional distress and typically as a result causing traumatic feelings and memories to arise.

Fiction

Duwende Challenge violence

A Curse of Fate A Gift of Death graphic

The One Who Finally Arrived death

How Valerie Got Into Wellesley

Where we Store Our Flesh

Creative Nonfiction

bullying, mention of suicide

gore, self-harm

Not My Name bullying

High Bottom Girl addiction, alcoholism

The Body’s Betrayal death

Janet suicide, violence

Genesis suicidal ideation, self-harm

Psychosis psychosis, eating disorder, suicide, self-harm

Letter to My Younger Self

Poetry

Nigrescence

In the Details

Call Me Space Cowgirl

Monster Tries to Write...

Edible

sexual assault, harassment, stalking, anxiety, depression

slur (n-word)

mention of alcohol

sexual language, guns

mention of mental illness, covers discrimination

drugs, alcohol use, addiction

Themed Dossier: Eldritch

Body Functions blood

Consequent Rhythm death

Pickled vomiting

Field Report from a House murder

The Demeanor of Human Monsters

depression, anxiety

This House is Not Haunted blood

Saturn, Inverted cannibalism, sexual assault

Poison of Hate body horror, blood

Take Me death

Trigger warnings originated in psychiatric literature, notably about those who experienced post traumatic reactions, for example “re-experiencing symptoms” such as intrusive thoughts and flashbacks due to sexual or physical trauma. Over time, the term has expanded to include potentially offensive or disturbing material.

We do not want our readers to feel uncomfortable without warning while reading. This page is to alert readers beforehand of triggering content and where in our publication it is found.

Healing begins with understanding. Thank you for reading.

- LEVITATE Editorial Team

But The Moon Was Alive Robin Young

I love landscapes that are out of the ordinary. I took small pieces of grayscale images from magazines and put them together to form something different adding an upside down eye in the distance, a place you would perhaps like to visit.

And Millions

Rachel Berkowitz

Rachel Berkowitz is currently working on paintings for a solo exhibition February 2023, called “Biophilic Harmonies”. The work brings attention to the innate human desire to be close to natural elements within everyday life. Light as an energy source plays a strong role in the aesthetic and spiritual nature of the work, as the contrasting techniques lead into visual meditations for the viewer. The work includes painting, printmaking and photography. Her travels across US National Parks have been used as inspiration for her most recent paintings, placing a need on the heightened concern for conservation and preservation. Previously, she has exhibited in solo painting and photography shows, group Fine Art shows and at global artist events in Los Angeles, London and Japan.

Ember Storm

Rachel Berkowitz

Rachel Berkowitz

Tidal Waves of Good Times

Rachel Berkowitz

Nothing But Love

Rachel Berkowitz

Meine Liebe Anthony Chatfield

Mary untangles the leash from her wrist and tugs on it gently. She whispers in mediocre German, and the Leonberger slows his ambling gait, tongue lolling in the cool autumn air. He starts to fold his legs under him, but a back leg buckles, and he plops to the ground in a wave of chocolate fur, resting his head between two meaty paws. The silver halo around his snout quivers as he sniffs a patch of dead leaves. Mary observes all of this, looking for new signs of deterioration in Buster’s health. By the standards of his breed, he’s ancient, defying their vet’s prognostications for half a decade. In the end, he outlasted Lukas. She carefully lowers her own creaking joints onto the weather-worn planks of the bench overlooking the Willheim Fountain, renamed since the park closed and the Technical School opened on the hill, but to what she cannot remember. She recalls the first time she spoke German here.

“Guten Morgen, meine Liebe.” Mary worked the unfamiliar sounds in her mouth, practicing her greeting for Lukas. She smoothed her dress and warmed her knees, close to shivering in the unseasonable early-summer chill. A spray of fresh water blew against her bare ankles from the nearby fountain, and she hopped away instinctively. She smiled as she thought of Lukas and the tiny wrinkle above his lip as he tried to remember how to pronounce a particular phrase in English. Looking towards the entrance, she saw that a man with a cart hawking peanuts and balloons was blocking part of the gate, but no one else was there. She sighed and hopped up from the bench, wrapping the basket around her left arm and returning to the entrance, practicing the German under her breath.

“Buster, leave it.” Mary scolds in English this time. This one he knows, at least.

Lukas had always trained their dogs, and no matter how often

she’d asked, he insisted on his native tongue. Buster’s ears flatten, and he drops a mouthful of bark into the grass, whining softly but following Mary toward the school entrance. Mary steps gingerly over a patch of missing asphalt. She misses the fresh pavement and carefully manicured hedges that used to dot the landscape. Now it’s nothing more than the backyard for Marian Technical School, a training ground for electricians and HVAC repair men. Several young men and women in gray jumpsuits eat lunch on a picnic bench further up the hill. One waves toward Mary, but she ignores them. What once reminded her of the warmer, brighter days of her youth now smells of stale exhaust and coolant.

Leaning against the brick pillar by the park’s entrance, swinging the basket from arm to arm, Mary tilted her head back and soaked in the sun. It was a beautiful day—a bit cold for early June, but it would otherwise be exactly what she wanted from a Sunday morning if not for Lukas’s tardiness. He was supposed to be here. Gritting her teeth, she shook her head—no, this will not ruin my day.

Mary and Buster stand at the end of a long, rugged driveway atop a hill overlooking the rest of the campus. To the left is a narrow path leading to Marian Dog Park, a half-acre donated back to the city when the technical school opened. It’s now home to young professionals and their designer pets. To the right is the brutalist concrete block that is Marian Technical. She can still see Willheim Fountain below, where Lukas would meet her before their walks. Buster pulls on the leash, knowing where he wants to go. She almost lets him, but she tugs and commands him to follow. “Diesen weg.” He follows her toward the chain-link fence.

“Mary!” A slight man with an auburn hat tucked under his right arm ran down the sidewalk. “Es tut mir leid…I am sorry.” Lukas said through the curtain of whiskers hanging from his upper lip, his voice as soothing to Mary’s ears as the early summer breeze was to her skin. She handed him the basket to hold with one arm and wrapped her arm around his other. “Don’t be silly. Let’s go.” They started into the park.

Buster sits facing the entrance to Marian Technical, his backside leaning against Mary’s trembling right leg. It’s time, Mary thinks, recalling how much her husband had loved this spot before Angus Marian bought the land. “Rest, Lukas.” Mary pours the urn into the breeze over the lip of the hill. A cloud of ash dissipates in the wind,

coating the trees below in a lifetime of memories.

“Where are you taking me, Lukas?” Mary gripped the hem of her dress to keep it from flying up as they walked briskly down the freshly paved path. Gone were the mud and brambles of her childhood. The city’s planners had long since tamed the once unruly wilds of this land.

“To the overlook. I have a question to ask, meine Liebe.” He absently palmed something in his breast pocket. She smiled and stepped quicker.

The One Who Finally Arrived

Doug Smith

John. Joseph. Jacob. Joshua. Jonah. Marjorie’s five sons. Who would now come to visit their mother?

For the last fifteen years, Marjorie has lived in an apartment at the retirement complex of Moon Lake Village—ever since her husband Bill’s death. Each of the boys—always separately, never together— manages to visit her once every two or three years. The family had never been close, the boys scattered around the country, very rarely communicating with one another or their parents by mail, phone, or computer. Although Marjorie would have preferred considerably more interaction throughout the family’s history, that had not been in accordance with Bill’s personality or wishes, and he was the one who established and controlled the family’s policies, procedures, and customs.

None of Marjorie’s surviving sons had arrived to see her since her dramatic downturn in health; none of them had visited her now that she was actively dying in the skilled nursing unit of the complex. Marjorie’s sister, Virginia, spent time with Marjorie every day for fifteen years. Virginia moved to the Village soon after her husband’s death, Marjorie joined her three years later, after Bill died. The two sisters were rarely seen apart from one another, many of the residents at the Village referred to them as “the Bobbsey Twins” even though Marjorie was six years older than Virginia. Marjorie’s purpose in life centered upon her five sons. Although an admiring and faithful wife, her true vocation was motherhood. For her, motherhood was a physical, emotional, and spiritual commitment. Evidence of the devotion she possessed could be found in the nineteen volumes of scrapbooks she had assembled; the scrapbooks included mementos of her growing up and her marriage to Bill, but at least ninety percent of the contents of those books was dedicated to her children—baby pictures, their birthday parties, their activities and awards at various schools, their marriages, their accomplishments at work, and their children, Marjorie’s grandchildren.

Virginia wrote to her sister’s four surviving boys about Margorie’s

recent health status, however she had yet to get a response other than one from Joseph, who said he hoped to be able to get there soon. There was no elaboration on what “soon” meant. Virginia even mentioned in her letters that their mother’s doctor indicated she might not be living much longer. Yet, still, none of her sons had arrived.

After Marjorie entered the skilled nursing unit, Virginia spent most of each day sitting in a chair at her sister’s bedside, occasionally holding her hand or stroking her hair or saying something she hoped would be comforting. Other than going to her own apartment to sleep, Virginia usually only left her sister’s room to get meals in the dining hall or collect her mail. She wanted to be at her sister’s side during this crisis as Marjorie had been at her side during many of her own crises.

Marjorie spent a great amount of time sleeping while in that unit. When conscious, she could only utter barely decipherable, cacophonous speech. Because of Virginia’s long history of being with her sister, she had little trouble figuring out much of what Marjorie was trying to say.

Marjorie spat out, “Ja ana ana ge nawwa ja ana awaa antta ja wor wuh woksha da ge whe aers he whe aers he whe aers ja ana?”

Virginia responded, “Where’s John? Is that what you’re asking, Margie?”

Marjorie gave a quick affirmative movement of her head and sank back into the bed, relieved to have her sister understand. Virginia said, “He’ll come. Don’t worry. I wrote to him. He’ll come.”

In a less frantic babble, Marjorie said, “Awa a wuh wuh woksha woshop woksha wor ke shop ke eke cre ink ing criking criking beb beby.”

“Yes. I remember. The time you went down to San Francisco for one of his workshops.”

Marjorie nodded in the affirmative.

Virginia recalled some of the things she had learned from Marjorie about her oldest son. John had been a star high school football player—Bill was excited to attend all his games. Though an accomplished offensive guard and defensive end, John did not have many accomplishments in the classroom—being in the bottom quartile of his graduating class. After dislocating his right shoulder in the last game of

his senior year, he had considerable trouble getting into college with his academic record, settling upon a small teacher’s college in Louisiana. He eventually improved academically and became a financial planner upon college graduation. Shortly after that graduation, Marjorie had designated him as her financial power of attorney, soon followed by designating him her healthcare power of attorney as well.

The incident that Virginia had just deciphered from Marjorie’s utterances regarded one of the workshops John did on financial planning, those workshops being his primary source of income. He went around the country giving presentations on financial planning for people of retirement age. Marjorie had never seen him do any of his workshops, and she so much wanted to see him do one. So, she traveled sixty miles by bus down to San Francisco when he was scheduled to do a workshop there. A woman attending had brought her six-month-old granddaughter with her because the child’s mother had to work, and the child was fussing in the beginning of John’s presentation. Marjorie, disturbed that the child’s fussing might bother John, went up to the child’s grandmother and offered to take care of the child out in the hall. Consequently, Marjorie was only able to attend fifteen minutes of John’s presentation.

“He will come, Margie. John will come. Just get a little sleep now. You’ll need some energy when he arrives,” Virginia said.

A nurse from the facility came to check Marjorie’s vitals. The nurse was in a hurry since her shift was about to end. She moved around the bed quickly, maneuvering around Virginia as if Virginia were one of the room’s pieces of furniture—an out-of-place piece of furniture.

The nurse wrote down a series of notes and numbers on her clipboard and rapidly left the room without acknowledging Marjorie in any way. Nor did she say a word to Virginia.

Later that day, Marjorie gathered enough energy to let out, “Joa

set joa set aa whe whe aers he?”

“Where’s Joseph? Is that what you want to know, Margie?”

Marjorie nodded and repeated, “Joa set whe aers he?”

Virginia patted her sister’s hand. “He’ll come, Margie. Don’t worry. He’ll come.”

Virginia recollected the couple times Joseph had visited Marjorie at Moon Lake Village. He was Marjorie’s second oldest son, so different from all the other boys. Joseph was skinny and non-athletic—all the other boys were muscular and participated in multiple sports. Joseph was the intellectual in the family. As he was growing up, he could often be found hovering over his chemistry set or reading a science fiction novel. Marjorie, though she would not normally have any interest in it at all, read a book by Isaac Azimov that Joseph appreciated. When he showed interest in cooking, she showed him how to cook several dishes.

Virginia remembered how Marjorie would occasionally sneak Joseph away from the house when the boys were young, taking him out for ice cream, treating him special when the other boys treated him poorly. She had often defended him before his brothers. She also defended him before the boys’ father—which sometimes took a great deal of courage on her part: Bill often created fear in the people who met him. Bill did not care much for Joseph—not as much as the other boys, and made more demands upon him than the others.

Marjorie expelled, “Joa set whe aers he?”

Virginia said, “He’ll come, Margie. Don’t worry. Joseph will come.” ***

Sometimes Marjorie’s rackety speech was so loud it made people uncomfortable who were walking by in the hall. Upon hearing her cacophonous attempts at speech, some people would look into her room, make an accusatory frown, and quickly walk away. ***

The next morning, Marjorie blurted out, “Eka prega eka prega eed uv eed uv jaek ba an jaek ba.”

Virginia responded, “Rebecca and Jacob?” Marjorie nodded.

Jacob was Marjorie’s middle child. He had colic as an infant and demanded a great amount of time from Marjorie, but she always spent it without complaining. Much of Jacob’s early life was spent fighting various illnesses. His mother did whatever she could to help him.

Jacob married three times before he reached the age of forty, Marjorie never criticized him or judged him for that. She even made a point of finding something positive to say about each of his wives, though Bill and all the other brothers could find several negative things to say about them. Bill and the other boys would even make jokes about the number of ex-wives and Jacob’s lack of ability to discern suitable mates.

Rebecca was Jacob’s daughter by his first marriage. She got pregnant her sophomore year in high school and moved in with her much older boyfriend. Jacob refused to interact with his daughter after that. Marjorie had felt Rebecca needed to feel love from someone in Jacob’s family, so she arranged to take Rebecca on a special weekend trip to Chicago. They stayed at the Palmer House, visited several Chicago tourist sites, and ate at a couple fancy restaurants. Jacob had harbored some resentment towards Marjorie because of the Chicago trip, which he interpreted as some kind of unjustified reward for Rebecca.

Marjorie: “No? No? No jaek ba?”

Virginia: “No, Jacob’s not here. Maybe he’ll come. Let’s hope, Margie. Let’s hope he comes.”

That afternoon, Marjorie’s pain appeared to greatly increase. Her face portrayed perilous discomfort. The tone in her utterances echoed her internal struggles even more. “Aers joesh a? Aers joesh a? Aers joesh a?”

Marjorie had often talked to Virginia about Joshua, her backup healthcare power of attorney. Marjorie felt a particular attachment to him because of his comfort in talking about feelings, sharing much of her personal thoughts whenever he came to visit—much more than she shared with any of her other boys.

Of the boys, Joshua had the most turbulent time during his teenage years. He heavily experimented with drugs. On two occasions an ambulance had to be called to pick him up at his parents’ home. Bill ended up throwing Joshua out of the house, telling him to never come back. Marjorie shared with Virginia that it was the most difficult time of her entire life, feeling she had to support Bill’s decision and say goodbye to Joshua.

After being away from home for five years and not in contact with Marjorie or Bill during that entire time, Joshua wrote a long letter to them asking for forgiveness. Marjorie stood up to Bill’s objections and demanded that they let their son come home—a great accomplishment for Marjorie given her husband’s history of uncompromising control over all family matters. After returning home, Joshua got his GED from high school and went on to get a degree in architecture from Cornell University, and eventually opened his own architectural firm in Sedona, Arizona—none of which would have been possible without Marjorie standing up to Bill.

“Aers joesh a?”

“He’ll come, Margie.”

“I ne eed joesh a. Aers joesh a?”

A fellow Moon Lake Village resident stopped by Marjorie’s room. She asked Virginia several questions about her sister’s health status. Knowing the woman well, Virginia suspected she only wanted the information so she could share it with others, to pretend to have a closeness with Marjorie to get people to sympathize with her—not Marjorie.

Virginia wondered about some of the other Village residents. What about the members of her sister’s bridge group? Why had none of them stopped by? Marjorie played bridge with them regularly for three years.

Marjorie had also been editor of the Moon Lake Village weekly newsletter. Yet only one member of the newsletter staff had been by and that was the assistant editor, merely wanting to know if Virginia could let her into Marjorie’s apartment so she could see if there were

any notes in the apartment regarding the next scheduled issue of the newsletter.

The following morning a nurse at the nurses’ station reported to Virginia that Marjorie had not slept well during the night, sharing that she was under the impression Marjorie had been hallucinating much of the time.

When Virginia entered her sister’s room, she found her squirming under the bed sheets like she was trying to discard some uncomfortable clothing. Marjorie’s eyes were closed. Virginia sat down on the chair next to the bed, holding her sister’s hand.

Marjorie’s eyes opened. Wide open. She pointed at the doorway with her free hand, “Se see se joe joe nah se see.”

Virginia: “You wish you could see Jonah?”

Marjorie pointed again. “No nawa nawa do se see do se see joe nah se see. Ees eer.” She sunk back in her bed in frustration, as she often did when Virginia was unable to figure out what she was saying.

Jonah was the youngest of the five boys. Of the five boys, Jonah spent the most time trying to determine which college he would attend. Marjorie had helped him with his research and had even accompanied him on three trips to some of the campuses. He eventually chose Colorado State University, wanting to major in forestry.

While at Colorado State, Jonah received weekly letters from his mother, as she did with all her sons when they were in college, sharing the latest news from home and declaring her love for them. During his junior year, Jonah was critically burned in a forest fire. He was rushed to the emergency room of Fort Collins General Hospital.

Bill and Marjorie flew to Fort Collins to be at his bedside.

Bill could not be dragged away from the bedside of his unconscious son as he poured out words of affection he had previously withheld from Jonah. Marjorie stood by in tears as she listened to her husband. She knew Bill had to do this, but she was terribly sad he had waited so long to do it.

Virginia leaned forward to wipe her sister’s forehead as Marjorie continued to squirm, seemingly trying to discard the bed sheets that

covered her.

Marjorie raised herself up in the bed, pointing again at the doorway: “Ees eer ees eer joe nah ees eer se see.”

Not knowing exactly how to respond to what she finally figured out was behind Marjorie’s hallucinations, Virginia simply said, “It’s okay, Margie. Just lay back in the bed. It’s okay. You need to rest.”

Marjorie collapsed back in the bed, exhausted.

Virginia left to get breakfast and pick up her mail, afterwards talking to a friend she hadn’t seen in a long while. She then returned to her sister’s room. The bed was empty. Numerous thoughts simultaneously crowded her mind as she tried to figure out where her sister was. She went down the hall to the nurses’ station.

The nurse on duty said, “I’m so sorry, Virginia. She’s gone. Your sister died, and the funeral home just took her body away. They took her body away just minutes ago.”

Surprising the nurse, Virginia smiled. She smiled over the nurse’s choice of words. Virginia believed—a belief that could not be shaken— that the funeral home did take away Marjorie’s body, but they did not take away Marjorie. Marjorie the “person,” the sister she had known all her life, the woman who had cared so much for all her sons, had been taken away by one of her boys. Virginia smiled because she believed her sister’s youngest son, Jonah, had finally arrived.

DryDay

Jack Thome

A minor tribute to the rural use of nature’s dryer.

New You

Jill Nied

“Hey Sadie,” I said, falling onto the firm plastic-covered couch in front of her. “Having a good day?”

She didn’t respond.

I plucked the romance novel, the one with the shredded cover, off the coffee table and began to read aloud. I couldn’t make myself discuss the trivial events of my day. Monologuing to my close-eyed catatonic sister was exhausting.

I read, each syllable I enunciated echoing off the walls of the vast empty house. Dust hung low and thick enough to clog pores and line throats. I only read a few sentences and my throat was already sticky and dry. I needed to get around to cleaning the place.

Even after months, it was still strange being back in my childhood home. My departure for college had been a great escape. The moment I had waited for through all four years of highschool. A real God-given miracle. I finally escaped the twin sister who had held me down for so long. She didn’t ever mean to keep me down. Especially not when we were little. When she was the loud, rambunctious life of the party, and I was her shadow, invisible to everyone but her. She was at the top of the cheerleading pyramid and I was in the back, the pom poms falling out of my grip. She was the Halloween princess, smothered in glitter and Mom’s makeup and I was the frog. I hardly noticed what she was doing back then, how I was suffocating under her.

I read a chapter and a half before Sadie’s eyes peeled open. Now that I felt her gaze, I read deliberately, pronouncing each word with intention and even doing a little voice whenever Mr. Rochester spoke. Anything to keep her engaged and awake.

I think it surprised everyone that it was Sadie who became this thing instead of me. I had always been the one in the back of the crowd, only brought into the light by Sadie’s confident voice calling for me. When Sadie stopped speaking, stopped going out, being Sadie Furmanski’s sister took on an entirely different meaning.

I was Sadie Furmanski’s sister so boys wouldn’t talk to me. I was

Sadie Furmanski’s sister so I had to miss the homecoming game to drop her off at that institution in Boston. I missed junior prom because another miracle doctor insisted on family therapy sessions. Graduation wasn’t even on my mind because my sister got so crazy, my mom took a trip to the grocery store and never came back.

A dozen pages later, Sadie shifted in her seat and produced an off-white business card from where it had been wedged between two cushions. Without making eye contact, she slid the paper across the coffee table.

“Unhappy?” the card read, in bold Comic Sans lettering. Underneath, in smaller font, was an address. I turned the card over, but there was nothing else. No logo, or slogan, or anything helpful. There was no way of even knowing if the business, whatever it was, was still operational. The card was paper thin and the corners were velvety and rounded. Sadie had it for a long time.

I glanced back up at Sadie, but her eyes were closed again, her fist knocking against the armrest, like a ticking clock.

“Should we check this place out?”

She nodded, eyes still closed.

The office was not at all where I’d imagined it’d be. It wasn’t in some shining glass tower, its height compensating for some architect’s fragile masculinity, nor was it in some modern artist dream structure, all sleek lines and sophisticated curves. The miracle office, that was the object of my sisters’ fascination and motivation for non-verbal communication, was in a strip mall, wedged between Hilda’s Hair Salon, and a failed fast-food knockoff.

The storefront itself was well maintained. The windows were sparkling clean and a small flower pot sat outside the door, though the purple flower inside had begun to droop.

We stepped into the waiting room and Sadie fell into the first seat available while I stood over her. It was lit like a high school, fluorescent and white enough to exaggerate unpleasant features. It was the type of lighting that provides pubescent and adult insecurities a ripe feeding ground. The walls were painted an unassuming beige and the floors were sterile. The room’s only pop of color was the receptionist, who had pink hair of the cotton candy lollipop variety.

“Welcome,” a booming voice called, “to the New You,”

The door behind the receptionist’s desk swung open to reveal an elderly man with a halo of shocking white hair. He held a cane and wore glasses, but didn’t seem to rely on either.

“My name is Montgomery. Montgomery Clearwater. And you,” he said, gesturing to my sister, “must be Sadie Furmanski,”

I knew the look of a salesman, and Montgomery Clearwater hit every nail on the head. His suit was cheap, his voice was as animated as a kid’s TV puppet show, and he had a slightly crazy gleam in his eye. My first instinct was to grab my sister and bolt.

“Yes, this is Sadie.”

The man, with grace counterintuitive to his wrinkles, lept atop the desk. His legs swung against the side like a toddler on a swing set. The receptionist barely looked up. She flipped her hair over one shoulder, popped her gum, and continued typing.

“How wonderful,” he said, oblivious to my discomfort, “Ready to get started?”

Sadie blinked.

“I’m glad to see you’re as excited as I am.” The man hopped off the desk, “Follow me please.”

Sadie obeyed the man, following him behind the desk, through the door, and into the nondescript hallway painted the same blinding color as the waiting room. He bowed as she passed through. “My lady.”

I was halfway behind her desk when the receptionist grabbed my wrist.

“Please,” I knew I had lost this fight, “I need to know what you’re going to — “

The door slammed shut.

It wasn’t until I replayed the conversation over and over in my head that I realized I’d never told any of them Sadie’s name.

The sun was setting when the man, Montgomery, appeared, his glasses crooked and his cane nowhere in sight. He threw a clipboard onto the desk and crossed in front of it, as if heading for the door.

“Sir,” I stood, “Where is my sister?”

His white eyebrows shot up his forehead. “You’re still here.”

His reaction wasn’t fake. His voice was no longer that of a children’s puppet. He had genuinely thought I would leave my sister with him and his techni-colored receptionist.

I craned my neck, as though I’d be able to see Sadie through the door behind him. “I think you now know as well as I do, that Sadie can’t be left in strange places unattended.”

“Yes,” he said, “she was rather ethereal,”

He had to be joking. “No sir, she’s sick. Now, I’m not going to ask you a second time. Where is my sister?”

“The operation worked sweetheart,” the man smiled, “You’re free.”

My heart beat against my ribcage so hard it was painful. I was seconds away from storming his office and stealing Sadie back for myself. “Take me to my sister. Now,”

The receptionist handed Montgomery one of his business cards without looking away from her computer screen.

“Remember, your sister chose this. There wasn’t anything either of you did wrong. It was simply a choice,” Montgomery handed me the card and helped me into the nearest seat. “Why don’t you read over our card again to help jog your memory,”

He flipped the card to the back where words, words that had not been there before, were sprawled in a familiar obnoxious font.

When I finished reading, my head spun. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t even hear the words coming out of the man’s pinched little mouth.

I didn’t know what to do with myself. If I stopped moving, if I thought too hard, even for an instant, I doubled over, the guilt and fear was overwhelming.

Weeks passed. Finally, I reached a breaking point. I stopped at the real estate agency and the Goodwill and I was rid of everything that reminded me of my guilt. She was no longer my problem, no longer my responsibility. One day later, I stepped off the plane and into New York, a single backpack slung over my shoulder.

After a month I found a job as a barista in a small coffee shop, the type that plays the Smiths, burns lemongrass incense, and has a million and one different milks except the kind produced by a cow. It was a good job if you didn’t mind teenagers who wore oversize t-shirts advertising bands even you, an adult, don’t remember, and debating over politics even you, an adult, don’t understand. I worked there for almost five years, and slowly the pain was beginning to fade.

I was halfway through a shift, steeping tea for a woman wearing only a bandana as a shirt when a phantom walked into the shop. She was stunning. Her hair was ironed straight and tied into a half up style that would make anyone jealous. She wore large sunglasses, a silky pantsuit, and held a designer purse. But what really set her apart was her toothy smile. A smile like that wasn’t only uncommon amongst New Yorkers, but also wholly out of place on this particular face.

I dropped the recyclable cup and tea spilt on my ancient boots. “Sadie?”

The woman’s expression twisted for a moment before smiling at me again. “Sorry to disappoint,” she laughed, “My name’s Eloise.”

I knew she was wrong. There was my sister standing right in front of me, less than an arm’s length away, without a care in the world. She was in New York City. She wore pantsuits and studied chalkboard menus at hole-in-the-wall coffee shops. She spoke. Her name was Eloise and she didn’t remember me.

My gut lurched into my throat. I ducked under the counter, my face flaming, and began sopping up the spilt tea, not bothering with my shoes.

I couldn’t touch her. I couldn’t tell her my name or explain that she was my family, my sister, my twin. I couldn’t reminisce about Halloween nights or our elementary cheerleading days. I couldn’t apologize for not keeping a better eye on her and taking care of her the way she deserved. I couldn’t scream at her for abandoning me or beg to know why she had chosen to forget me and forget Mom and Dad. I couldn’t risk stealing away her voice.

“Excuse me?” she asked, her voice angelic. “Could I have a large coffee please? No cream or sugar or anything like that”

My sister still liked her coffee black.

I took my time brewing her drink. I couldn’t speak to her or touch her, but I could brew her the perfect cup of coffee. It would be one last gift to her, to thank her for everything she had ever done for me and apologize for not doing the same for her.

She thanked me when I handed her the warm cup, slid three dollars into the glass tip jar, and left without a moment’s hesitation. I watched her through the large fingerprint-stained window, her purse swaying and her steps tiny and even, until she vanished into the city.

Conspiracy

Mickie Kennedy

Clouds scatter to the north, an expanse of indigo darkness with stars as speckled blossoms on an unseen vine. Somewhere out there, life might exist, likely a few cells reproducing, unsure if something greater, more evolved, like the grays from Area 51. They are not really aliens but humans that evolved for fourteen-thousand years, breaking temporal protocols in stolen crafts, ending up here stuck in the past.

A guy on a private forum, Mike1993, says we aren’t really supposed to study them because of timeline integrity, but we do, analyzing the changes that they’ve accelerated in their DNA. With heads so large they are grown in artificial wombs, their reproductive urges stripped out—without lust and attraction, years of wasted mental and emotional space recovered for higher thought and technological advances.

Explain why addiction is still a thing? Cravings so great that as they are removed from the genome, a few rogue members create new molecules to stimulate the part of the mind that triggers euphoria. If they survive the trip back here, they live devoid of such chemical pleasures, subsisting on a fat and protein paste, no solid foods, watching Netflix and Hulu on a screen in a small cell, needing their diapers changed.

Mike1993 says he used to work there, helping the survivors detox. One was obsessed with Roger, the alien from American Dad. He would point at the screen and laugh, saying something that loosely translated to “that should be him,” wigs and outfits, serving mixed drinks from an attic bar.

The gray explained he used to make clothes despite fashion being outlawed as superfluous, back room pop up fashion shows, where gaudy makeup and colorful dresses were revered. He stopped when the criminal sentence was increased to delimbing. After a few days, he died like most of the others, researchers unable to synthesize each changing designer drug.

One of them from Roswell in 1947 was kept alive nearly 14 months, thanks to a mixture of heroin and an early form of meth.

Mike1993 says he doesn’t understand why they come here, nearly all the time-crafts were heavily regulated and only allowed forward-bound jumps and returns. He suspects they are getting help from others, fed up with their way of life, a mix of apathy and oppression. He said one told him that the far, far future is fucked, everyone left earth for greener pastures like Mars or one of the orbiting cities. Everyone has lost the urge to create, they just sleep and watch old recordings, old songs, old shows. Art and entertainment have ceased being made. It was never banned but very few cared anymore, so it has been forgotten, relegated to back-server archives. Systems are breaking down as no one knows how to fix things, or exhibits the desire to fix them. Culture demanded uniformity until all differences were smoothed over: one language, one way of life; a government that is your family and your captor. No need for travel as all monuments and architectural differences have been erased.

Despite initially living to 200 years, very few make it to 100 years of age anymore due to a regression simply labeled failure to thrive. What our government is learning from the grays, says Mike1993, is the need to hopefully prevent this shit from ever happening.

Island in the Sun

Based on ancient Greek hero statues, these figures stand guard in an abstract landscape.

GJ Gillespie

A Curse of Fate A Gift of Death

Alex Hulslander

Languages:

• Cat

• German

• Old Norse

Germany 2017

It was 1 a.m. on Friday when a woman found herself wandering the streets of Cologne, Germany, looking for entertainment. She normally was out during this time to watch people get thrown out of pubs; it was always more dramatic than necessary. She made her way down a popular pub street just in time for a show, as the doors were kicked open and three large men threw-out another man. He fell to the ground in a drunken stumble after a failed attempt to keep himself up. The three men laughed and shut the doors behind them, leaving the man to groan in pain. Slamming his hands to the ground, he hoisted himself up enough to make eye contact with her.

Both stared at each other in shock. They hadn’t seen each other in centuries, and she thought he had died. Yet here they both were, alive. Her face remained unchanged though, shoving down any emotions she felt. He however, sobered up quickly and made no attempt to hide the shock and slight fear on his face.

Time stood still as they stared at each other. Without a word, she shook her head and walked away, leaving him confused on the street. However, she was focused on a thought repeating itself in her head: I want to hit him with a truck. Though she wasn’t one for violence anymore, something about seeing him sparked a fire within she hadn’t felt in centuries.She remembered seeing a decent sized truck a few blocks away and was rapidly making her way towards it. She found it quickly, caring not for the law, and busted in through the window. She hot-wired it and hauled ass back down the narrow street searching for him.

He wasn’t hard to find.

Slamming her foot on the gas pedal, she drove straight towards him. He turned around just in time to see the blinding lights of the truck before getting rammed through the nearest building. She strengthened the impact with a bit of her magic, something she rarely used these days, creating a large hole in the pub as she rammed him through. She backed out and rubble fell off the truck and from the hole in the wall. She got out of the truck, slammed the door causing the glass to shatter, and walked through the rubble to him.

“Out!” she yelled. Panicked, the patrons grabbed their drinks and ran out. Their memories of the event were gone once they left because of a spell she had upon herself to be forgotten by everyone she met. The man had smashed a table in half during the impact and was lying amongst the damage, groaning.

“What the actual fuck,” he groaned and looked at her.

“Traitor,” she said with pure spite. With her left hand, she summoned her Berserker staff, shifted it into a sword, and impaled him with it. The staff was something Berserkers could summon with their weaker hand and it was used for magic, battles, and defense.

He stared at her in disbelief, unfazed by the weapon that was now sticking through his chest. She yanked it out and watched him heal, knowing nothing she did would hurt him since he was like her. Frustrated, she turned and walked out of the giant hole in the wall, dragging the sword along the cobblestone.

“Wait!” He stood and followed her out. “You’re just gonna run me down with a truck, impale me, and walk away?” He tried to keep his voice level but the rage was noticeable.

“Yes.”

“You can’t just attempt to murder someone and walk away!” He bumped into her as she stopped with no warning. She spun around and kicked him in the chest, causing him to fall on the ground.

“I can do whatever the fuck I want and I’m not going to waste my time trying to kill someone who can’t die, especially you,” she said with pure spite while she pointed her sword at him. She turned to leave again.

“Hell of a way to say hello to someone you haven’t seen in centuries.” He stood and stretched out his back. “That fucking hurt.”

She rolled her eyes and stopped again, glancing back. “You shouldn’t feel any pain. The Norn’s are cruel but they’re not that cruel,” she huffed. Her sword faded into nothingness.

“Must be nice,” he rubbed where she kicked, “to not feel anything.” As much as she didn’t want to stay, as much as she hated him, something was keeping her from walking away. Turning around again, she crossed her arms and eyed him.

“It is actually, thanks.”

“I wasn’t cursed by the Norns like you were,” he said bitterly, but his bitterness was not directed at her. Her eyes widened slightly and she looked over him closely.

“By whom then?”

“Hel. For every life my men took, another was added to mine. And for every life I took, 100 more are added to mine. That includes lives I still take, for as long as I live,” he glanced to the ground.

“Well, that sounds like a fair punishment for what you did.”

“Ylva…”

“Don’t call me that.” She stepped forward and her voice was filled with rage. “You’ve no right to use my name or even talk to me. Don’t follow me. I don’t want to see you for the rest of time.” She walked away quickly and he watched her go. His heart hurt as she left, but he couldn’t leave it like this. He had to speak to her again.

She returned to her small home, feeling the ache of his betrayal once again. It shook her to her core, and the silence in her home resembled the silence on the field that day.

Norway 26 B.C.E.

The field was full of bodies. Warriors from both sides had fallen after fighting against their enemies. What was left of the Berserker’s enemies stood off in the distance, watching the Berserker Queen herself stare at her people on the ground.

Slowly, she fell to her knees and watched as one of the enemy warriors walked up to her with confidence, wielding his sword in his right hand. She looked up at him and waited to join her people in the halls of Valhalla. With a single motion he impaled her with his sword. She felt nothing.

The warrior stared at her as she stood and slowly pulled the

sword out, watching herself heal and staring in disbelief. Afraid he had angered the gods, the warrior ran back to his men. She dropped the sword on the ground, running her eyes over the enemies. She knew who she was looking for but prayed to Odin that he wasn’t there. But he was. Standing next to their leader. Vidar stood watching her with pain in his eyes. She couldn’t hear him, but she could read his lips.

“I’m sorry Ylva.”

She snapped. Every ounce of her magic was unleashed as she yelled her last battle cry. It swept over the land, killing everyone who had fought against her. She thought it had killed him too. But Hel had other plans.

Germany 2017

Ylva lay in her bed staring at the ceiling, lost in memories. So many promises had been made between them growing up, but they had all been broken. She knew mother’s death was his fault; he would have returned that day if it wasn’t. But she always had hope he wasn’t the one who killed her.

There was a small scratching noise at her window. Smirking, she sat up and slid the window open. A fairly pudgy, green-eyed black cat entered and rubbed its head on her hand.

“Well good evening to you too Pudge. Did you eat today?”

“Meow.”

“Sure you didn’t. Come on, let’s get you some chicken.”

Norway 42 B.C.E.

Ancient halls were lit by torches whose flames danced whenever someone walked by, echoes of two young children could be heard throughout the kingdom as they chased each other through the halls. The girl, age 7, was chased by her brother, age 11. Both lived as royalty, but only the girl was born to the Queen.

“Ylva! Vidar! Come to bed! It is late and you are disturbing the kingdom!” The Queen called out to her two children who scurried to their shared room. They crawled into their beds and the Queen sat between them in a wooden chair. There was only one torch still lit in the room between the beds, providing just enough light to see her young troublemakers.

“Momma! We want a story!” Ylva exclaimed.

“Yes Helka! A story!” Vidar agreed. Helka sighed and brushed some hair out of his face.

“My child, when will you stop using my name? You are mine, even if I did not have you myself. As for you,” she turned to face Ylva, “It is too late for a story, you must sleep. How will you two ever grow strong and lead our warriors, if you do not sleep?”

“Vidar will help me be strong! He promised he would always protect me,” YIva smiled widely and looked over to him.

Helka sighed; there was a part of her that feared he would return to his people one day, but she hoped that his bond with Ylva would prevent this from happening.

“As he should, he is your brother. It is his duty to care for you,” she stood and grabbed the torch, “Sleep, or else Fenrir will come chop you up!” She imitated the growl of a wolf and left the room.

Vidar rolled onto his side and whispered to his little sister. “I will always protect you, and mother.” He yawned and she giggled a bit.

“I know Vidar…” she drifted off to sleep.

Germany 2017

Ylva made her way to a local bookshop, as she always did in her free time. It was a peaceful place full of adventures within stories. The smell of books filled the air as she flipped through the pages. Nothing was more relaxing than an old book smell. Unfortunately, footsteps made their way towards her aisle and stopped near her.

“What’s up?” Vidar said with a grin. Irritated, she grabbed the nearest book and chucked it at his face. It landed on the ground with a thud and his hand flew up to rub the spot it hit. “Accuracy, but that fucking hurt.”

“I will hurt you every damn time you bother me, which should be none.” She began to walk away but he followed, determined.

“That seems fair. So, this is what you do with your free time? Go to local shops and review them online? Seems boring.” He glanced around the shop.

“It’s peaceful.”

“Says the former murder Queen,” he smirked.

“May the gods help me...why are you stalking me?” She stopped in a new aisle and began browsing the books.

“Not stalking, observing. Honestly though, compared to killing this really is boring. When was the last time you killed someone?”

He pretended to look at the books but was watching her reactions to everything he said.

“Stalking. Piss off Vidar.” She grabbed a large book and was about to chuck it at him but hesitated. A voice rang inside her head: Ylva, he may not express his concern, but he cares for you. You mustn’t argue so much. Mother hated it when they fought, but walking away didn’t work and she didn’t want to cause a scene here. He watched her face.

“Ya know, you still make funny faces when you’re debating things,” he chuckled. Setting the book back on the shelf, she sighed and ran her fingers through her hair.

“World War II. Nazi Germany. Saw too much red, blood red. Had to do something about it,” she said in a low voice.

“Bet it felt good.”

“Fuck off. Where were you anyway? Cause I didn’t see you doing anything about it.”

“I was a pilot for the Americans thank you very much. Love America,” he smirked.

“Of course you love that place. You fit right in,” she rolled her eyes.

“You don’t like it?”

“The first time I went I was burned at the stake for being a witch. It was horrid. Went back again later, got hit with a cannon ball because the damn country was fighting themselves! They’ll fight anybody!” she rolled her eyes again and moved farther down the aisle. He followed.

“You’re not wrong. But you need to kill again, it’s what we were born to do!”

“I don’t kill anymore.”

“You ran me down with a fucking truck with every intention of killing me,” he said flatly.

“You’re different! All there is with you is pure rage, not with others though. Others are no longer my concern,” she shook her head.

“You can’t tell me you don’t see red anymore! There are so few innocent people left in the world and they are being drowned out and ruined by the bad! If you just looked for a moment, all you would see is red,” he lowered his voice, “You can help them!” he paused, “Look, I

know I fucked up, but you can’t spend eternity ignoring what you were born to do. What you’re destined to do!”

“Fucked up? You fucked up? That’s all you think it was? A fuck up? You betrayed me! You betrayed us! You were supposed to protect our family!”

“I was never a part of your family! She wasn’t my mother! ” Their voices were beginning to raise and their old language was causing them to get some funny looks.

“She was our mother, and you were my brother. She is dead because of you.” Ylva shoved him and stormed out while he was trying to think of a response. He tried to follow her but she was long gone, using magic to disappear. He sighed and wandered off, he would find her again soon.

Norway 48 B.C.E.

The sun was setting and the night air was settling on the land. Creatures had stowed away in their homes and the people had fires going to keep warm. However, for the Queen and her warrior party, the dark of the night provided them with an opportunity.

There had been rumors of enemy clans camping in the Berserkers territory, so the Queen took a few warriors and set off to investigate. Many thought the Berserkers were too harsh in their ways and found their magical practices to be an indication of evil rather than a gift from the gods.

Traveling at night would provide them with the element of surprise on the resting enemies. It didn’t take long for them to find a small camp hidden in the dense forest. Without hesitation, the Berserkers killed most of them, leaving one barely alive to return to his people as a warning.

Helka looked around the destroyed camp and noticed a small figure hidden amongst the trees. Cautiously, she went over to the figure to investigate. Realizing it was a child, she crouched down and reached her hand out.

“It’s ok, I won’t hurt you. What’s your name?” Cautiously, a young boy peaked his head around the tree trunk.

“Vidar…”

“Vidar, a fighter in the woods, fitting. Did you know these people?” He shook his head. “Do you have a home?” He shook his head

again. “Would you like a home?” He smiled shyly and went up to her. Gently, she picked him up and mounted her horse with him on her lap. She knew he was lying about knowing the warriors and having a home though. Often the enemy clans would bring young boys to a battle to learn to fight, or die trying. Where his loyalties would lie was unclear for now, but she wanted Ylva to have a sibling, and that was something Helka couldn’t give her naturally. She would teach him to be a Berserker and pray to the gods that he would never return to his people.

Germany 2017

The next day came as an unwelcome presence. Pudge had rolled over onto another pillow and Ylva’s heart ached. All she dreamt of was her mother. Begrudgingly, she got dressed for the day and went outside. The sun was forcing its way through some clouds as she locked the front door. She made it about two steps down the sidewalk before a voice stopped her.

“Ylva.”

“God fucking dammit,” she mumbled under her breath. Turning around, rage and pain burning in her eyes, she looked at him. But this time was different. She looked at him through her second sight, a sight that allowed her to see if someone was worthy of life or not based on the things they had done. If someone was red, they no longer had a right to live. If they were white, they were still good, pure.

“Ylva, please just listen to me, please,” his voice was begging, full of pain and regrets.

“You, you’re not red...you’re not even white you’re, black…” She stepped closer, curiosity getting the best of her.

“Yea well, I’m not technically alive. I told you, Hel cursed me, not the Norns,” he sighed, “I’ll show you what that means.” With that, he changed himself to show her what he had become. He took the form of a half-man, half-skeleton. The half-skeleton part was engulfed in flames. A true curse of Hel, one that matched the god themself.

Both of them used magic to mask it for others though, afraid of causing panic. There was more to it though, more than just the looks. His abilities had changed as well.

“You’ve changed, changed too much. What can you do now? Do

you even still have your staff?” she asked. He nodded. He did, but it no longer changed into a sword like it used too. It had become a more violent weapon, a chain on fire, with a large spear for impaling others on the end of it.

“It doesn’t matter. Don’t you see? None of this fucking matters! I found you again, it must be for a reason! I know what I did. Every day I relive it, regret it. I know there is no way for me to make it up to you. I know there is no way for you to forgive me. But I know I found you for a reason, and I’m not going to let you go. Not again.” He shifted back. “These people, all around us, they’re terrible. All you see is red, isn’t it? We, you, were born to be a Berserker. You were born to cleanse the world of people who shouldn’t be alive. I will swear myself to you, I will follow you until we are the last two people on the planet, but please just, don’t waste eternity doing something meaningless.” Tears were peeking out of his eyes. For centuries he felt the pain of what he had done. Now that he found her again all of those feelings were bubbling up inside of him.

“You swore yourself to me before! How will this be any different?”

“Because I’m the reason you’re still alive. I begged and begged for the gods to spare you. I knew what I had done and I knew it was too late to go back, but I couldn’t have your death on my hands. The Norns answered me, but I didn’t know they would make you immortal. I thought they would just spare your life…” This information had weighed on him since the night the Norns had answered his prayers, but in a way, telling her hurt more. She just stared at him in disbelief.

“You-, why couldn’t you just let me die?”

“Because I swore to protect you. I never broke that promise, I know you think I did, but I didn’t,” his voice was shaky, true regret was painted on his face.

“Vidar, I don’t know what to say to all of this. You just dumped a shit ton of stuff on me and are expecting me to know what to say. Please leave me alone now.”

“Just, please, consider meeting me tonight, so we can talk,” he handed her a paper with a time and location on it. “Think about what I said, please.” He watched her for a moment before running off.

Norway 25 B.C.E.

Helka and Vidar rode into the woods alone for a sparring session. Despite Ylva’s protests, Helka didn’t want guards with her because she wanted to talk to Vidar privately.

They stopped in a small break in the trees and dismounted. Vidar cleared his throat and glanced around nervously.

“Something bothering you?” Helka asked.

“Just wondering if Ylva had a point.”

“Curious,” she remarked, “You can drop the act my dear Vidar, I know you’ve been speaking to those who were once your people.” She unsheathed her sword and examined it. “Our enemy has moved on us with skill, with information only someone from our people could have given them.”

“And you’ve assumed it is me? Because deep down I’m not a Berserker?”

“No Vidar, I’ve had my men follow you,” she pointed her sword at him, “I raised you as my own, I gave you a weapon, taught you our magic, I trusted you with my daughter, and yet here we stand. Why?”

“Because the ways of the Berserkers cannot continue! Your enemies are closing in on you and your ways will be your doom. I am not your child, I am not your people, I will not fall alongside those who will not be remembered,” he said angrily.

“Those are not your words Vidar. You have spent too much time with them; they have tainted you. What will Ylva think when she finds out? Is she not your sister anymore?”

“She is no more my sister than you are my mother!” He drew his weapon. From the trees some men emerged, wearing the colors of the enemy.

“You may not consider me your mother, but I consider you my son, and I will not take the life of my child,” she threw her sword to the ground in surrender. “Your instincts are to survive, which is why you came with me that day, but in your heart you know this is wrong. Should you continue down this path then may Hel put a curse on you to suffer the pain you will cause your sister, and the pain you have caused me,” she said angrily. Vidar said nothing. Instead he turned and left so he would not have to see her fall, he couldn’t bear to watch it.

Helka didn’t fight, she accepted her death silently. Vidar was told to return to the Berserkers and report her death but he refused, he couldn’t lie to Ylva about that. He knew they would find her body in

the woods within the day, and they would declare war.

Germany 2017

It was freezing outside, a brisk wind misting the empty docks. Why he had her drive across Germany to meet by the ocean was beyond her, but his entire existence in her life again was beyond her. Sighing, she made her way to his figure standing at the edge of the water. She waited a moment before speaking coldly.

“Alright, what do you want?”

“My life has basically been pointless this entire time. Yours hasn’t. You once led the greatest army the world had ever seen.”

“That army fell,” she said flatly.

“Because I wounded you emotionally, but you’re stronger now. You can kill those who are red again.”

“I can’t just go around killing people like the old days. There are laws in place, societies have their own way of dealing with these things.”

“But they’re not really doing it effectively. I know the ways of the Berserker’s were considered harsh and cruel, but your magic was a gift from the gods.”

“Maybe back then, but not now. I told you, I can’t just go around killing people like the old days. I can’t throw the world into chaos because I lost my way after I lost everything,” she shook her head.

“I believe the gods brought us back together. I believe the time of the Berserker is coming again!”

“And what of us?”

“I never stopped being your brother. I don’t expect you to trust me, but I know you believe the gods brought us together again for a reason. I will follow you until we’re the last two people standing, if that’s what it takes,” his voice was genuine.

“Say we do this, really, truly do this, others might follow. What’s your plan then?”

“Then, you have your army once again. You’ll be the Queen you were born to be,” he paused, “What do you want?”

She stared at the water for a moment. An ancient fire burned within her once again. The feeling of being a Berserker was a feeling she had missed.

“To fulfill our destiny.”

Duwende Challenge

E. P. Tuazon

Boy found the duwende by the dumpsters while he was taking out the trash. The mall parking lot where they were kept was underground, but the upper level wasn’t completely covered up. Sometimes, things from our neighborhood where all the Filipino workers lived above fell through the gap between the ceiling and the back wall. Trash mostly. Receipts for bangus and Datu Puti, losing lotto tickets. In the most severe case, a neighbor’s dog or cat. Occasionally, a coyote. Never was it a person. And, according to Boy, it still wasn’t.

We caught our breaths, having rushed from the inside in hopes of reaching it before it died. But, by the time we got to it, it wasn’t moving. At first glance, it looked like the body of a child: a youthful, smooth torso twisted one way; slender legs strewn in an unnatural L-shape in another. I was worried we had stumbled across some lola’s poor apo until the abnormally large nose came into my view. Its open mouth exposed jagged teeth like broken glass, a long dry tongue like a ribbed roll of bubble gum tape. Its eyes were closed, and a purple bruise stretched the wrinkles of its face to the brow of its third eye in the middle of its forehead. One pointed-ear folded inward on the asphalt, the other stayed demonically erect.

Boy began to mutter “tabi tabi po” and an “Our Father” for protection. However, he was still in our Happy Bee costume (save the head), and, when he clapped his hands together in prayer, they made a ridiculous squeak. Still, there was nothing to excuse. No need for absolution. We had done nothing and deserved nothing in turn.

“Will you stop that? You look ridiculous right now.” I said and smacked his hands down.

They squeaked again before falling to his sides. “Hey! We need to do something. Don’t you know what this is?” He pointed, his rubber stinger pointing in the other direction.

“It’s not polite to point.”

“Aye!” He jumped and squeaked into prayer position again. “Tabi tabi po! Tabi tabi po!”

I squatted down and got a closer look at its face. “Looks more

like a dwarf than an elf.”

“Aren’t those the same thing?”

“I think there’s a difference. Haven’t you watched The Lord of the Rings?”

“They’re all elves in Skyrim. They’re all the same but different. They just play by different rules.”

“Skyrim? What the hell’s that?”

“It’s a game.”

“A game? Come on, Boy!” I said, but what did I know? For all we knew, he might’ve been correct. For all we knew, these things played by very different rules from the kind we usually dealt with. For all we knew, they were something different entirely. “Aren’t these things supposed to come with a hat?”

“I didn’t see one.”

I looked up between the wall and the surface. The bright wedge of horizon that sloped between our dying mall and our fledgling homes behind it. “It’s probably still up there.”

“Should we go get it?”

I looked at its face. What I thought was the last expression it would ever make told me it didn’t mean to be here like it did not mean to be found. It had simply made a mistake. Nothing else to it.

Before I could respond to Boy, it coughed, black blood staining my purple uniform shirt. “Fucker!” I said and shot up.

Boy fell back but his stinger shot him on his feet again like a spring. “It’s alive! Thank God!”

“No shit!” I said and looked down at the warm blood on my stomach already beginning to dry into the fabric.

“What do we do? Do we get the others?”

“No!” I felt its blood cake and crumble in my fingers. The duwende slowly curled into itself, its limbs retreating, correcting themselves like measuring tape retracting. “We’re not telling anybody else right now.”

“Why not?” Boy said, shaking. His wings began to flutter. His stinger waddled.

“You find one of the greatest discoveries of the modern world and you don’t want to profit from it?” I took out my phone and started recording. It took shallow breaths. It sounded like it was breathing

for two: one breath for itself another for its miniature double on my screen.

“Where do you think it came from?”

“I don’t know. They’re not supposed to be here in the States, right? Probably snuck into someone’s balikbayan box from the Philippines.”

“We should help it.”

“I don’t think it needs our help.” I said, watching it reanimate like a movie played in reverse. Eventually, I thought we’d see it fall up from where it came from. Watch things end where they began.

“Are you sure you should be recording this?”

“Why not?” I said, already thinking about what networks to call. I made a note to google the number to CNN, Fox News, ABS-CBN, and at least the local newspaper.

“It’s disrespectful.”

I adjusted my grip. I tried thinking about what my tweet would read, what text should appear on my TikTok. “Chill. Everything’s on video these days. It’s not disrespectful. It’s just normal.”

“We should do something.”

“Get something for it to drink if you’re worried so much.”

Boy left and while he was gone the bruise disappeared. Its tongue recoiled and its mouth closed. I settled on “Duewende estas?” for Twitter, “Dwunde Challenge” for Tiktok, but all of that would have to wait until we got paid.

“Which kind do you think it is?” Boy asked when he returned. He bent down and placed a small cup of water, one of our store’s mango pies, and a carton of American Spirits before it.

“You took my cigarettes?”

“My lola once told me they liked cigars.”

“Those aren’t cigars!”

“I left you a twenty.”

“Never mind. What do you mean, what kind?”

“I mean, is he the white or black kind?”

I looked at its color. In the dim light, I couldn’t tell. On the screen and in real life, they were neither. “It’s green, I think. What’s that supposed to mean?”

“The white kind is supposed to be good; the black kind is

supposed to be bad.”

“That’s racist.”

“Hey, that’s not what I meant! That’s just what I was told!”

“It looks a little pale, but probably because it just, you know, died.”

“And now it’s alive again. Are you still recording?”

“Yeah.” I said, and the duwende sat up. Its head cocked back and shot forward. Its ears straightened and its left eye opened.

Boy began to pray again, but he had learned not to squeak anymore.

The eye probed what was in front of it, then it reached for the carton of cigarettes. We watched it slice the top with the razor-sharp tip of one of its nails then squeeze the carton open until the cigarettes popped out. Boy’s prayers stuttered on until the duwende had one in its mouth and it gestured to us with its fist and the flick of its thumb.

“What do you want, sir?” Boy asked, his hands still clasped together.

It did the gesture again, frowning.

“I think it wants a light.” I grinned, feeling my nerves tremble in my teeth, still filming. It looked at me and the phone recording, but it didn’t seem to mind. I brought out the lighter from my pocket forward and flicked it on. The light pulsed as the tip lit on the screen and in the reflection of the duwende’s huge eyes.

When the two of us withdrew, I exhaled while the duwende took a drag. Boy didn’t breathe.

By the time I stopped filming, I had recorded nearly half an hour of straight video. We watched in silence as the duwende slowly sucked down his cigarette, periodically tapping its ash in the cup of water. When it was finished, it threw the butt in the cup and ate the mango pie along with the carton. The entire time, its one eye watched us.

The right eye and middle eye remained closed, as if a part of it was still asleep. That or it was saving them for later.

“Hey, where do you come from?” I asked, but it merely looked past me when I talked. When we were quiet, it paid more attention.

“Speak to it in Tagalog or something.” Boy said. The neck of his costume was drenched in sweat by then. The yellow had turned a dark, wet orange. A tangy odor wafted from a mixture of the suit and

his body spray.

“You know I don’t know how.” I said and got down to its level, ready to leap back up at any sign of aggression. “Did you come from up there?” I pointed at the sky that peered between the ceiling and the wall.

It looked back at where I pointed. It nodded and went into its pocket with a hand. When it came out, the hand had grown larger and now revealed an assortment of tiny origami animals, each made of a hundred-dollar bill, standing in its open palm.

“For us?” I asked and the Duwende nodded again. I reached out and took a tiger, my zodiac. I looked back at Boy. He nodded and took a butterfly. We continued taking turns picking out animals. A zebra, mantis, rabbit, grasshopper, elephant. Then, before Boy could take another, the duwende closed its fist and returned its hand to its pocket. It pointed back up to where it had come from. It shook its pocket, hissing and rattling with how full it still was.

“What does it want?” Boy said, admiring its work in his hands. I unraveled each animal, their folds tightly packed and hard to pull apart: the work of tiny hands. I had heard they could change to any size that met their needs. I wondered how small it needed to be to make such things so detailed while the bills crunched and folded again into my wallet. “I think it wants a ride up there.”

The duwende nodded and took an open hand out of its pocket again. It pointed at its emptiness.

“I think it’ll give us more of these if we take it back up.” Boy said, cupping what he had been given as if they were alive and could easily slip through his fingers if he wasn’t careful. “I don’t know, man.”

The duwende made a sound. It was either a snarl or a chuckle or a cough. It repeated the gesture again. The hand grew and so did the emptiness, the promised reward.

I smiled back, picking up my crushed pack of Spirits between us. I bit a cigarette out and put another in the duwende’s open hand. I took out my lighter and, when the duwende had theirs in their mouth, I lit theirs first, then mine. We dragged. I dropped the carton between us again, and it exhaled a grin. “I’ll bring my car around in a bit.”

“Wait, work’s not over yet. It’s payday. We can’t leave without our checks.”

I clicked my tongue and let a pocket of smoke pop in my cheek. The duwende and I tapped our ash into the same cup. Our soot swirled and sank. On the ground, we were the same height. Equals, if only in that moment. “Excuses.”

“They’re not excuses. I’m just being careful. What if there’s more of them? What if there’s a whole gang of them waiting for us like the end of Predator 2 with all the predators waiting for Danny Glover? What if they’re just here now, watching us, testing us? What if,” Boy stopped himself and beckoned me with his white glove, but I shook my head, knowing already about his doubts and fears.

I took one long, last drag and threw what was left of my cigarette in the water. I got up and started walking to the mall. “I guess we’ll just leave it here for someone else to find.”

“But!” Boy gasped.

I turned around and Boy’s stinger wagged back and forth between me and the duwende. “What? You said to drop it.”

“I didn’t say that. I’m just saying we gotta work. We gotta take him home. Or else.”

“Or else what?”

“We lose our jobs. We lose our lives!”

Then the duwende put its cigarette down and tried to get up, but it fell back down like wet clothes from a line. It tried again but fell over a second time. It didn’t try a third.

“What’s wrong with it?” I said and came back. “I thought it healed itself.”

“It probably just looks healed, but it isn’t. These things draw their power from where they belong. It’s probably why it wants to get back up so badly.”

It picked up its cigarette. I lit it again. “Isn’t this thing from the Philippines? How can this thing have any power up there? Where’s its hat?”

“I don’t know!” Boy said and began to squeak another prayer. The duwende groaned.

“Hey now. Stop that. You’re upsetting it.”

“I don’t know what else to do.”

Between us and it, there was very little choice. It took something from us, and we took something from them. That was our relationship

“We’ll figure something out.” I said and went to pull my car around.

The plan was simple: we’d finish the hours left on our shifts then take the duwende back up to our neighborhood where he belonged. Meanwhile, it would wait in my car with the windows partially rolled down. We taught it how to use my radio and the car lighter, and I put my Happy Bee hat on it to make it look like an old man waiting for his son to finish shopping. Boy said they liked music, but it learned fast and settled on the AM news station. When we left it, it seemed to understand that we would be back and not to get the cigarette ash on the seats.

By the time we got back to work, I had two hours left on my shift and Boy had an hour. The plan would be that he would head back to the car first to keep it company and make some calls. He would let them know what we had, what it was, why it mattered. The highest bidder would meet us in our neighborhood and make us all famous.

“You think we should’ve left it some water?” Boy said. He was standing in front of the counter with his full costume on. The Happy Bee smiled down at me, Boy’s face hiding behind its teeth.

I played with the touchpad on the register and flipped through the meals. Bee Burger, Happy Chicken, Happy Bee Spaghetti, Happy Burger and Bee Gravy over rice or fries. “It’s not a fucking dog. I don’t think it’ll dehydrate.”

“It seems to like to smoke a lot.”

“Yeah, I hope one pack will keep it satisfied for the time being.”

“Maybe we should’ve brought it another Mango Pie.”

“Brought what another one of our Mango Pies?” Our manager interrupted. She dropped a stack of clean trays by my side. “What happened to your shirt and where’s your hat?”

Boy faced back to the empty food court. It was three. Things were dead until four, but, even then, it was just a few people. I’d wear the costume then but putting it on didn’t make work any easier or harder.

And it didn’t make a difference either, sales-wise. Yet, the manager insisted we have the mascot out from open to close. She called it a trademark thing. Like, if you go to Paris, you expect to see the Eiffel Tower. People expected to see the Happy Bee when they went to Happy Bee. It didn’t matter what the Happy Bee did or who was inside.

I rubbed at the stain on my uniform, but whatever could come off was already gone. “Bloody nose. I bumped into Boy helping him with the trash and got blood all over my shirt and hat.”

“Aye Talaga. Always bring an extra change to work just in case. Kasi you don’t want the customer thinking you are bleeding on their food. We aren’t selling dinuguan.” She snorted. We snorted along. She wasn’t amused.

“Now what were you feeding Mango Pies?”

Boy turned around and I waved him off.

“There’s a mall cat. A tabby. It’s pregnant.”

“You pay for those mango pies?”

“No ma’am. But we will.”

“No charity. We throw away extra. Giving it away is not fair to our customers. That’s the Happy Bee motto: Bee Happy, Bee Fair. Deba? Imagine the tsimis. Tsimis is bad for business.”

“Right.” I nodded. Our community wasn’t small, but most of them worked at the mall, and all of them came to the Happy Bee. Tsimis, that Filipino gab, could make or break anything here: a heart, a spell, even the bank. Our mall, our neighborhood, our world, all of it was held together by a word.

The manager threw a rag at me. “Make yourself busy and wipe down the counter. Remember: malinis is close to Godliness.”

I nodded, and, when our manager went to the back and I was sure the fryer was loud enough for no one there to hear us, I reminded Boy about the plan. “We’ll be rich and famous, Boy!”

Boy didn’t say anything. In front of us, the empty food court seemed to sigh.

“What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know. It just doesn’t seem right.”

“We’re doing it a favor. It’s not charity. It knows that.”

“Yeah. But why do we gotta call the news?”

“This is bigger than us, Boy.” And looked at the seafood market,

karaoke kiosk, panderya, and ticket arcade. No matter the size, they were just as empty as we were. “People should know!”

“They do! That’s how we know about them!”

“But that’s just our people. I’m talking about everybody else. I’m talking about the world.”

“I don’t know. I don’t think they should know.”

“Boy, don’t be an idiot! We need this! Let’s do this. It’s in my goddamn car already!”

Boy didn’t answer and I should’ve known from how often he paused that he’d screw things up. I should’ve known from the start.

“Boy! You with me? This is going to go viral. People are going to pack this place. People are going to know our names.”

“Yeah.” He said in his suit. The stinger stayed. His wings didn’t so much as wave at me. “That’ll be good.”

By the time my shift was over, I didn’t bother taking off the bee costume. I rushed out, the head of the Happy Bee under arm, expecting Boy to have a camera crew ready to roll with us. But, when I finally got out to where my car was supposed to be, it was gone.

Furious, I picked my cell phone out of my pocket and fumbled through dialing. After calling my ex twice by accident, I finally got a ring on Boy’s phone, but it droned on as the bar of light above me dimmed. The third time, I started walking to the exit ramp leading up to our neighborhood and left a message.

“You putanginangmotherfucker! You better be ready!” I said and hung up. I squeezed my phone so hard in my fist, it squeaked, and the sound only fueled my anger. My legs pumped through the fuzzy fabric and nylon tights. I ascended into the violet asphalt of our street. It was a staggering journey most of us made at the end of the day, wrung dry from working as long as we could, the weight of what we put on wearing us down. I could feel it sway and drag behind me. I could feel my tired wings wither at its weight.

Drenched in my sweat and the revitalized musk of all its past wearers, I tried not to gag through my pungent stench, my aching lungs, my throbbing calves. Tired of holding it but unwilling to pay the

hundreds of dollars to let it go, I put on the Happy Bee head and swallowed my pride, bile, hopes and dreams, and trudged along. Several times, a car honked at me, the lights flashing toward home, toward where the duwende lived.

When I finally found my car, it was parked before a tall mound of dirt on the lawn of a great red house. I had passed the home many times, but I never saw a mound of dirt. Boy would explain later that we didn’t see it because we weren’t looking for it before.

I heard a knock and I turned to find Boy still inside my car.

Before I could say a word, he knocked again and pointed to the top of the mound where our duwende smoked, my Happy Bee hat still on its head.

I looked at it and then back at Boy. “Fucking Boy, why didn’t you wait for me?”

Boy rolled down his window to a sliver. “I didn’t want to anger them! I didn’t want anybody else to know!”

“Anger who? What’s buried under the mound? Is that our money?”

“Look!” He pointed and I turned around.

All of the dwende’s eyes opened and it stood up from the mound. The left eye never took its gaze off of us. The right eye looked down at the mound. The middle eye looked up at the sky. It descended and flicked its last cigarette into the gutter. It opened its hand before me but there was nothing, just its three eyes glowing above in the dying light. I looked there and tried to figure out what it meant, but by the time I blinked it was gone and suddenly an empty rage filled me. I furiously dug through the dirt, turning my white gloves brown, the yellow an orange gold like a crayon sun. But, there was nothing buried underneath, just more dirt.

Then, one after another, the duwende appeared. They appeared from behind our car, up the street, above a fence. They were big and small and tall and fat. They were white and black and red and green. Some had three eyes, some two, some only one. We were surrounded by duwende.

They watched us watch them.

Boy behind glass and myself with nothing but the Happy Bee’s smiling teeth between us.

One by one, they all disappeared into the hole I dug. One by one, they shrunk down to size until there was nothing of them left. One by one, they walked past me and left me smoldering in the dirt.

It was like watching coins drop into a bottomless well. It was like letting go of what you could never get back again.

When the coast was clear, Boy opened his door and I moved out of the way to let him out.

It wasn’t until the streetlights came on when Boy finally uttered some words. “What did I say? Predator 2!”

“Yeah.” I said and punched him in the face. My hand squeaking, aching.

Boy fell to the ground, but the punch didn’t hurt him. “Hey! We’re ok!”

“We’re not ok! I can’t believe you let him go.” I said, yelling down at him beside the hole I made.

“I didn’t let him go! He let us go! Did you see that? There were others!”

“Fuck that!” I said, “What do we get for this? Where’s ours?”

And even when I asked the question, I already knew the answer. Through my mask, between the wedges of our homes, even above our roofs, the mall stood tall like a sentinel. Now, when I look across the food court, all I keep seeing are more reasons for them to exist. There was something here that kept them alive. Up above and down below, day and night, there was no escaping their shadow.

How Valerie Got Into Wellesley

Robert Wexelblatt

In the second half of junior year, we all had to see our guidance counselor. As ours was a middle-class suburb, the counselor’s function was to help us get into college, the more selective the better.

Valerie and I had the same counselor, Mr. Shrewsbury. I was pretty much Valerie’s only friend and, even so, I wouldn’t say we were especially close, certainly not confidantes. Valerie wasn’t big on sharing her feelings; she usually stuck to facts and even those were doled out with an eyedropper. But I guess sometimes she had to get things off her chest and I was the only candidate as she didn’t have a cat or dog. Valerie wasn’t a giving sort of person, and she was useless at gossip, the lubricant of high school life. Why did I bother with her at all? Maybe it was because she wasn’t like anybody else, and I was. Anyway, we ate lunch together most days and we did on the day we’d both had our session with Shrewsbury. Mine was brisk. He had my record in front of him, made a few unmemorable comments about my grades and test scores, then suggested three schools. It was obviously a formula. One was “safe,” the second “a bit of a reach but a good fit,” and the third he called “aspirational,” meaning I wasn’t good enough to get in, but you never know.

Valerie had told me where she wanted to go, but I asked her which three schools Shrewsbury recommended.

“He said I’m free to apply anywhere but he wouldn’t be providing a recommendation.”

“Huh? What? That’s incredible. You ask why?”

Valerie seemed completely unperturbed, as she always did, at least outwardly. She said that she had asked Shrewsbury for the reason. She might well have asked why, given her lofty grades and even higher Board scores, plus, only three days before Mr. Glatthorn, the principal, was on the PA system proudly announcing that the school had three National Merit Scholarship finalists. Valerie was one.

“What did he say?”

Valerie had this gesture, a little shrug. The bigger the thing she

was dismissing, the smaller the shrug. She gave me one of those. “He said I just don’t fit in.”

“Only that?”

“No. He explained that when he asked the teachers if they’d write recommendations for me, they all declined.”

Mr. Shrewsbury always wore a coat and tie and favored argyle socks. He kept a leather-bound triptych of his wife and two tow-headed daughters on his desk and a certificate from Harvard Extension School on his wall.

“Jesus. How could he say that?” I knew why he’d said it, but I was still flabbergasted that he did.

“With a smear of regret over a thick layer of satisfaction.”

I first became interested in, or beguiled by, Valerie in tenth grade. We were both new to high school, but Valerie was new to our town. We had two classes together, including Art. In November, the teacher assigned us a project for Thanksgiving. Our work would be displayed on Parents’ Night. Ms. Rowalt showed us two slides: Jean Gerome Ferris’ famous First Thanksgiving and Norman Rockwell’s even more famous one, which has a lot of names: I’ll Be Home for Christmas, The Thanksgiving Picture, and Freedom from Want. She told us the last was because it was the third of his illustrations of the Four Freedoms. She suggested we do something like Ferris or Rockwell but a collage or even a clay sculpture of a turkey would do.

Valerie was good at pretty much everything, including art. She made an amazing painting, way beyond what the rest of us produced. But Ms. Rowalt wasn’t pleased at all. Valerie did a mash-up of Rockwell and Ferris. She painted a big family of happy, talkative, well-fed white people seated around a loaded table as an enormous turkey was being served by two kindly grandparents who didn’t appear a bit senile. Standing behind the celebrating, chirpy family were an equal number of Indians painted in a gray so light that they were nearly transparent. These ghosts were emaciated, as if they had all starved to death. When Valerie turned her picture in, Ms. Rowalt frowned and said angrily, “No, Valerie, this won’t do at all.”

Later, after we became semi-friends, I asked Valerie about her Thanksgiving picture. She didn’t say much about it, just that it was

about Thanksgiving as she saw it. But the next day she gave me her dog-eared copy of Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee.

Every Friday afternoon during football season there was a pep rally ineers; the the gymnasium. Attendance was mandatory. The cheerleaders led cheers; the football team paraded around; the marching band played “On Wisconsin,” and the coach made a speech. Valerie was obviously disgusted by all this, but she didn’t say anything. She got hold of some butcher paper and brought it all rolled up to the big rally the Friday before we played our archrivals. As the band struck up, she unfurled it. It rolled down over the kids below. The boys roared when they saw it then tore it to shreds. She’d made a series of equations:

Gridiron = Battlefield

Game Plan = Strategy

Offense, Defense, Blitzes, Bombs,Taking Territory = Tactics

Coach = Field Marshal

Quarterback = General

Football = War

War = Hell

Cheerleaders = Valkyries

I wondered what could account for Valerie’s intractable, arrogant, whimsical rebelliousness, her determination to annoy, rankle, to isolate herself, to be the smart-ass nobody could stand. I thought about why she took up the attitude of an aggrieved princess in exile who, while she had to go to high school, wasn’t of it. At first, I told myself it was just her contrary nature. Then I thought she wanted everyone to know how far they fell below her standards. When I learned more about her, I hatched more theories. One day when I was complaining about my mother, she disclosed that hers had died in a stupid car accident when she was nine. She told me the accident happened the day after her parents sat her down and told her they were going to get a divorce. Her mother wanted her to know that it wasn’t her fault and to make it clear that the divorce was her idea. And then she was dead the next day. What did that do to her? What would it have done to me?

Valerie was left with one parent, maybe the wrong one, then she was ripped away from her home and friends at just the wrong moment.

I tried to imagine her situation. Valerie couldn’t blame her mother because she was dead or her father because she depended on him. Her mother had said it wasn’t her fault, so maybe she just blamed everyone. It was over our lunches that Valerie gradually let out her abbreviated biography. She told me that she had grown up in Boston where her father was a history professor. Then there was the trauma of the divorce that, as she put it with a wry smile, “never became legal, but was lethal.” When she was about to start high school, her father applied to become provost at our local college. She called it “going over to the dark side.”

I asked Valerie to help me with algebra, which I was failing. She invited me to her home one Sunday afternoon. The house was nice but felt far too big for only two people. I thought there were too many books in it. I was naturally curious about her father. He took little notice of me, his daughter’s only friend. After meeting him, I thought I understood her a little better. My impression was of a man strict and demanding, more busy than loving. I figured it was from him that Valerie got her high standards and for him that she got her perfect marks. Now I’m not so sure about my first impression. Her father couldn’t have been prepared for his wife’s death and suddenly being a single parent. What I took for distance might have been terror, the fear that he would make some terrible mistake with Valerie, something that would come out with bitter words and sobs on a shrink’s couch in twenty years. Or maybe he felt guilty about her unhappiness and gave her lots of space. It occurred to me that Valerie and her father had the same aim: that she should stay alive until she could get away to college and they would both be liberated from one another. Because she didn’t share her feelings, even when I’d shared mine, Valerie never said being uprooted just when puberty hit made her feel displaced or resentful. But I noticed that she kept one of those big desk calendars in her room. The days were crossed off. This made me think of a prisoner counting down her sentence on the dungeon wall. I entertained then revised a lot of hypotheses about Valerie—for instance, the one about her perfect grades being a way to win her father’s attention and approval. But, after I met him, I thought it more likely that her grades were a way to keep her father off her back.

Valerie must have used some of her father’s books to aggravate Mr. Wolfe, our American history teacher. Mr. Wolfe was a Democrat, a progressive one. He devoted three whole weeks to Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal at the end of which he assigned us a research paper. We were to write eight pages about one of the ways Franklin D. Roosevelt rescued the country and saved democracy. Valerie handed in a twenty-page, thoroughly documented paper about how redlining was started by Roosevelt’s Federal Housing Administration and the disastrously durable consequences of that policy. She showed that the Federal Housing Administration subsidized builders who produced subdivisions for white people on the condition that none of the homes would be sold to African Americans. She included a section on how the menial jobs to which most Southern black people were relegated were cut out of coverage under the Social Security Act. For good measure, she added an appendix on Franklin D. Roosevelt’s private antisemitism and public refusal to rescue Jewish refugees.

Mr. Wolfe returned the paper with a set of defensive comments. Valerie let me read them. He cautioned Valerie about falling into the easy cynicism of looking at holes instead of donuts. He pointed out that Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Treasury Secretary and that he appointed a Jewish man to the Supreme Court. He reminded her of Jewish voters’ solid support for Roosevelt. He said that she should understand that his idol had to make certain compromises to hold on to the Solid South. He gave the paper an A. I suppose he had to.

Francis Sullivan, president of the Chess Club and star of the Debate Team, was one of the three Merit Finalists. I hardly knew him; we moved in different circles. But one day he cornered me at my locker.

“You’re friends with Valerie Schlauer, aren’t you? I mean, you eat lunch together, right?”

“That’s true.”

The great debater stumbled a bit, regressing to junior-high shyness and insecurity. “Do you think she’d, you know, like to go out with me? I mean, if I asked her?”

“No idea.” I doubted Valerie would. She never talked about boys. Her unpopularity made her undesirable, if you know what I mean. She was pretty enough but I think the impregnable scorn she exuded

scared boys off.

Maybe Francis figured that since they were both Merit Finalists they ought to be dating. Anyway, he did work himself up to try. I never asked Valerie what happened, and she didn’t tell me, but Francis did. The following week he accosted me at my locker again. This time he wasn’t shy but angry.

He made a mean face and said, “Your friend’s so stuck up. Does she like girls?”

Ms. Ginsberg, our English teacher, liked hearing herself talk as if she were a misplaced university professor who ought to be addressing an auditorium full of rapt English majors. She wasn’t as sharp as she thought she was. High school teachers are seldom challenged. Valerie hit on two ways to alienate Ms. Ginsberg.

We were studying Hamlet . Ms. Ginsberg walked us through the play scene by scene; it took forever. Then she gave us a test. Where does the ghost first appear? How was Hamlet’s father killed? What university did Hamlet and Horatio attend? Why does Laertes come back from Paris? Name three characters who are still alive at the end of the play.

It was that sort of test, the kind meant to see who had done the reading rather than who understood it. I was surprised that Valerie took the whole time. She usually finished tests long before everyone else and handed them in early just to annoy everybody. When I asked about it, she said that she’d finished in about ten minutes.

“What were you writing then?”

“Oh, I wrote some questions for Ms. Ginsberg.”

“You didn’t!”

She gave that little shrug. “It seemed fair.”

“What did you ask?”

“I asked how old Hamlet was and why, if his father was dead, he wasn’t king. I asked how Hamlet could say ‘from whose birth no traveler returns’ in Act Three when he’d just seen his dead father in Act One. I asked why Ophelia hands fennel and columbine to Claudius. Stuff like that.”

“Did she answer?”

“What do you think?”

The next semester Ms. Ginsberg had this unit on young women.

We read a bunch of short stories and Jane Eyre. We were assigned a book report on a book of our own choosing, but one where the main character was “a spunky female.” Ms. Ginsberg suggested Little House on the Prairie, Anne of Green Gables, Pride and Prejudice, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn .

Valerie scoffed at this list and observed contemptuously that all these books had happy endings. She wrote a report on Nathanael West’s Miss Lonelyhearts . Apparently, Ms. Ginsberg didn’t know the book and had to look up a plot summary. When she figured out that Miss Lonelyhearts wasn’t a female, let alone a spunky one, she made Valerie write another report. Valerie wrote about Virginia Woolf’s three suicide notes. This was the only time Valerie didn’t get an A.

When Valerie told me she’d been accepted by her first choice, her dream school, I was happy for her but a little surprised.

“How did you do it, I mean without any teacher recommenda–tions?”

Valerie looked happier than I’d ever seen her. I thought of her calendar and how few days remained to be crossed off, that in a few months she would be free of our high school, our suburb, her father, and also me.

“I guess it was my essay.”

“What was the topic?”

“Oh, not very imaginative and maybe a little pompous. You had to write about all your reasons for wanting to be admitted. Not to exceed four thousand words.”

“What did you write?”

“Just one word.”

“What?”

“I thought the admissions people there might have a sense of humor.”

“Just one word? What was it?”

“Location.”

Crossroads Approaching Lawrence Bridges

The Eight Proposals of You and Me

Devin Mainville

Gorgeous golden hour light streams down on the beautiful couple. She has a ring of flowers in her hair and he has the kind of smile that can only be created by an orthodontist. He lowers himself onto one knee and she raises her hand to her mouth which is already forming the word yes.

“Will you build a beautiful life with me?”

I pause the film here, leaving the lovers suspended in that glorious moment of anticipation, their young eyes aglow with love. I rub my own old, tired eyes and turn back to the empty page and the mocking, blinking cursor in front of me.

Why did I think this would be helpful? Watching this sanitized, Hollywood version of our story. What does this offer that my own memories can’t? Maybe I just wanted to remind myself that I could write about us. That I have for many years. Seven books and three movies, each male protagonist another shade of you. Not to mention all the interviews and features, each one designed to position our own love story as a selling point for whatever project we were pushing. It was gross but was also so far removed from our actual love that it never seemed to matter.

Today it matters. Today, if I fail to adequately eulogize the most important person in my life, the audience will fill in my gaps with the ideas they have created about the life we led, fueled by the fictional pieces we’ve sprinkled into the narrative. No one will leave this funeral actually understanding what I have lost in losing you. Or maybe I can’t write this eulogy because I don’t want to. After decades spent peddling our love to pay the mortgage, I want to keep the truth of it to myself. Only two people ever really know what the inside of a relationship looks like and now I have to do the remembering for the both of us. When I’m gone all that will be left is the lies. Or maybe all eulogies are awful because it’s impossible to put into words how one person shaped your life. How do you explain that? Ah, yes, this is why I decided to pull out this dusty DVD. Because when I sat down and tried, all I could

think about were the proposals. The ideas and plans that created the blueprint of our life. There were a million ideas, but only eight stand out. The proposals you made that I said yes to and the magic we created as a result.

The first proposal was traditional in the sense that it’s what one usually imagines when one hears the word “proposal.”

“Will you marry me?”

Because we were sitting at the end of a bar, our feet sticking to the floor and yelling to be heard over a brain-rattling beat, I only rolled my eyes.

I also rolled my eyes because the proposal was actually pretty insulting. You had been talking about Ingmar Bergman, about to explain to me who Ingmar Bergman was, when I cut you off.

“I know who Ingmar Bergman is.”

Your eyes lit up. You smiled. You asked me to marry you. It had the tinge of “you’re not like other girls” that I didn’t appreciate. And wasn’t even all that true. I knew who Ingmar Bergman was but at that point I’d never seen any of his movies. But then, neither had you. We were young and on our third date, both trying to impress each other with our sophistication as we sat in an overcrowded bar drinking cheap booze and falling in love.

It did feel a bit like magic that in this medium town we had met, introduced at a party (if one can call driving around fields in golf carts a party and in this medium town they did) and end up staying up all night talking. We talked about everything and nothing and in those hours, I think we realized how incredibly lucky we were to have stumbled across each other at all.

You felt it enough to ask me to marry you on our third date. Even if you framed it as a joke. Even if it didn’t feel serious.

“Will you marry me?” you asked, and I rolled my eyes and sipped my fruity drink.

But I didn’t say no. And I never did.

“Will you marry me?”

This time it’s serious. There’s a ring. You’re not down on one knee because it’s twenty-two years later and you have bad knees, but we are sitting. Sitting on the terrace of our hotel in Paris, this is the first time we’ve been back in two decades, and its vast improvement in accommodations from the first trip thanks to our movie. Our Movie. Based on my book, which I wrote when you were gone. It’s a dangerous box to open so we don’t. It’s just become Our Movie. The ring is nice because Our Movie has done well.

I smile at the ring and I smile at you. I smile at the work you have put into making this proposal nice. The planning you have done when planning is not what you do best. But this was perfect. And so, I smile and I slip the ring onto my finger and I say yes.

But, as I lay in bed that night listening to you sleep as I have for the better part of twenty years, I wonder. I wonder if this perfectly planned proposal–the one we waited for until everything was just right, until we had done everything else we wanted to do–wasn’t quite as romantic as the joke. The spur of the moment question that slipped out because you felt a spark. I wonder what would be different, if anything would be different, if I had said yes that first night.

The summer after we graduated from college, we went through an intense French New Wave phase. We spent almost all our time tangled up in bed in front of the window air conditioner watching black and white films on your laptop.

“We should go to Paris,” you’d say as you ran your fingers through my hair, and I would nod. We should go to Paris. In Paris, much like in this bed, we wouldn’t have to worry about what we were supposed to be doing. About what steps we should be taking to fully embrace this mantle of adulthood that everyone outside of this bed, outside of Paris, was trying to thrust upon us.

In Paris we could aimlessly roam the streets having existential conversations all day and making love all night. We could watch the world pass by as we sipped coffee in sidewalk cafes and chain smoke even though I was trying to convince you to stop smoking and I only ever smoked to look cool and never actually inhaled, because it was gross. In Paris, none of that would matter because Paris, as it was

presented to us in stylistic 60s cinema, was magic. Three years later I was ready. “Let’s do it. Let’s go to Paris.”

“What?”

I found a time we could both take off from work. I saved enough to make an initial payment on the trip and made a plan to save the rest by the time we’d leave. I had a list of sights we needed to see, neighborhoods to visit and restaurants to try. I had all five days scheduled down to the minute.

You laughed. “It doesn’t need to be that structured.”

“What?”

We went to the Louvre. We toured Notre Dame. We walked the entire length of the Champs Elysees. We saw a film at Le Champo, had café au laits at Café de Flore and visited Jean Seberg’s grave. We also wandered aimlessly through the streets and stopped at nearly every stall along the Seine. We went back to the hotel every afternoon to rest. We laid in bed listening to Beyoncé because I got to pick, half napping, half reflecting on the day, just happy to have our feet up for a while. No matter how many times we’ve been back to Paris since, this is how I remember it. When I think of Paris, I think of us tangled up in sheets, basking in the magic.

3

It was just another sacrifice. One in a long list. Like a lot of life defining choices, it didn’t feel monumental at the time. If anything, it felt mundane. It was logical, it made sense. We were simply continuing to place one foot in front of the other on the path we’d chosen. It was only later that I saw what a pivotal decision it was.

“Come with me.”

It wasn’t even really a question. Maybe that’s why I didn’t question it. You’d been working towards your masters for two years in the hopes of landing a job teaching at a university and now the job had been offered. These were logical steps forward. For you.

And what did I have to stay for? I was working a dead-end job I didn’t care about. Although it had good benefits and paid well enough to support you through graduate school. But I didn’t feel passionate about it and wasn’t passion the point of life? I didn’t realize how passionately I would someday feel about a dental plan and 401k matching.

You found your passion. A way to support yourself that creatively fulfilled you and left your summers free to make your own art. I felt passionate about you. About us.

I mistook your passions for my own and I went.

At first, I found it funny. The college girls hanging back after class to gain an extra minute of your time. Their youth didn’t bother me at first because, at first, the difference was minimal, but as a wise man once said, I kept getting older and they stayed the same age. On days I didn’t work I’d meet you for lunch and they were always there. Hanging back, hanging out. You always liked attention and it didn’t seem like anything more. In my worst moments I thought to myself, “at least there aren’t that many women in the film program.” But all it takes is one.

Late nights weren’t unusual, yet I knew these were different. When you’re with someone long enough you become attuned to them, but it was like I couldn’t hear you anymore. You were right there next to me but you were gone.

I ignored it because I didn’t want to deal with it. “Don’t ask questions you don’t want to hear the answer to,” my mother used to say to me. So, I didn’t ask. I stayed quiet. I waited for you to make the next move.

“I think we should take a break.”

Again, not a question. And so, again, I did not answer it.

As I drove away, through the small country roads with Joan mewing from her crate on the passenger seat, words filled my head. At first the words were meant for you, scathing retorts I hadn’t thought of at the moment. I planned to write them in a letter and send them as soon as I got wherever I was going.

But as the miles passed the words morphed into a story, or at least the beginning of one. A story that would one day become a book. Become my passion. And then become Our Movie. And then become our redemption.

As I began to write it in my head in the middle of a corn field, it was still just mine.

You turned to me one night in bed to ask. What is it about the bed that brings on these questions, is it the dark? Our heads close together, but not necessarily looking at one another. Close to sleep, does your mind move slower than your mouth? What is it about bed that lets us ask the questions we shy away from in the daylight?

“Do you want to get married?”

“Sure,” I said, because sleepiness had me feeling freer too and because “do” felt very removed from “will.” More hypothetical.

You rolled over, eager at my immediate response. “When?”

I shifted away and deflected with a joke.

“Wait, was that an actual proposal? I’m gonna need to see a ring before I give my final answer.”

There was so much more to do. Surely, this wasn’t really you talking. Surely, this was a result of the endless questioning of our friends and casual acquaintances. Everyone around us was settling down. It felt like every week brought a new engagement announcement from a couple who’d been together for far less time than us. If you weren’t strong in your convictions it could begin to feel like you were falling behind.

As you know, once any couple has been together longer than five minutes everyone decides their marital status is open to conversation. After every family function and gathering of acquaintances, we would laugh together at all the prying. The veiled interrogations to other people’s lives in the hopes of validating their own choices. They got married, but if you don’t, if you somehow have a successful relationship without a legally binding contract, what does that say about them? Did they not need to get married either? Are the life goals they strove for completely arbitrary and essentially meaningless? No one wants to feel like they did it wrong, so they assume anyone doing it differently is doing it wrong. Oh, how we would laugh at them, secure that our love and our commitment to each other didn’t need to be legally recognized. At least that’s how I saw it at the time.

The next day, I made a list of all the BIG things we wanted out of life; a house, paying off our student loans, traveling to Greece, to Italy, to Morocco, marriage, making a movie, another house. I had each of us rank these things in order of importance and urgency. Then we

compared our lists. Marriage sat at the bottom of each. So, the case was closed and remained closed for a very long time. At least for me.

I guess I never asked if it stayed closed for you.

It almost opened once. After we had first settled down and you started teaching. I found a job I could tolerate. We bought a cute starter house and settled into relative domestic bliss.

I bought tchotchkes to place on the mantle and even tried my thumb at plants before accepting that watering was too much for me to remember on a daily basis. We went to farmers markets on the weekends and joined a pub trivia league that played on Thursdays. We adopted a red tabby and named her Joan. Then we decided Joan was lonely and adopted a silver striped cat and named him Sterling. We were happy.

Then you started getting restless.

You didn’t have the time you thought you would to work on your own projects. You were stressed and unfulfilled and regretting everything. You had big dreams and you thought the path to those dreams was through this small town, but what if you were wrong?

I woke up one night and you weren’t in bed. I wandered out and found you hunched over your desk working. Always working. I made my own proposal.

“Come back to bed.” But I meant: slow down, be still. Come back to me. Let contentment be enough.

But I guess I wasn’t as good at proposals as you.

“I will. I just need to finish this.”

I went back to bed alone.

Reconciliation.

It’s not easy, not always pretty, but absolutely breathtaking. The beauty of it is something I’ve never been able to properly convey in anything I’ve written. The movies always end when the lovers find their way to one another. We want to believe all it takes is a grand gesture and a passionate kiss that fades out as the credits roll. No one wants to see the lovers going to therapy, having difficult conversations, crying, learning how to communicate effectively.

I’ve tried so many times to write those scenes, but they always end up on the cutting room floor. The fantasy lives on.

Besides, I could never really write about what healed us. It’s too pretentious to have your lovers reconcile over their own movie.

“Let’s adapt your book.” We were in bed, of course, in the early stages of the reconciliation. I didn’t think it was a good idea.

“But it’s about…”

You waved it away. “It’s about us, so who better to make it?”

It wasn’t so outlandish. In our time apart you had generated some buzz on the festival circuit and my book had made a reasonable splash on the charts. My agent had already fielded a few inquiries over film rights.

If they wanted it to be a movie, why shouldn’t we be the ones to make it? For perhaps the first time, our dreams and our passions were completely in sync. The path we faced was wide enough for both of us to walk down side by side.

We broke the script together. You added your voice where only mine had been, and the result was a more balanced narrative. In writing for characters, we were able to say the things we might never have said to each other on our own, to explain ourselves to each other and to ourselves, to work through those feelings and come out the other side.

It might be a rare therapeutic opportunity, but I highly recommend it. In telling the story of our demise we built something even stronger.

We would spend all day on set, working, re-writing and then come home, drop that baggage off at the door and climb into bed. Cocoon ourselves in the cool, crisp sheets and watch mindless reality shows to decompress. Maybe it wasn’t quite as romantic as the French films of our youth, but we still held each other tight in the glow.

We gave the world our story, and in the process created a love that no one would ever get to see.

8

I didn’t wear white. After forty years a bride in white looks a little sad. Plus, white is a hard color to pull off. But I did wear sparkles. A woman is never too old for sparkles.

You wore a sharp gray suit, tailored to perfection and a smile that

lasted all day and long into the night.

Only our closest friends and family were invited to the ceremony, less than ten people including the officiant, but many uninvited people still showed up. After all these years they couldn’t believe we’d actually done it. They needed to see it for themselves.

I felt a little silly walking down the aisle, the pageantry of it all. Even now, I can’t remember the particulars of the day, all I remember is your smile guiding me.

When I reached you, you pulled me close and kissed me without instruction. You whispered in my ear.

“Let’s build a beautiful life.”

I whispered back, “We already have.”

I see now that I have not written a eulogy. At least not one that I am going to read in front of an audience of people from all corners of our life. Instead, I have written you a letter filled with things you already know; events you were there for and would likely argue with me over the details anyway. But then you won’t be reading this.

So, I guess I’ve written myself a letter. A testament to what we had in case the time comes when I can no longer remember. Someday when I am gone and some poor sap has struggled through the task of eulogizing me, this letter will be found amongst my things and someone will read it and will understand something about us, something about love that lasts a lifetime, something about love that’s filled with as many lows and mediums as highs, and how beautiful that can still be. Or maybe they won’t. Maybe this will be one more entry in the story of our love that will be misremembered. I’d be okay with that. We were there. We know.

On Eiger by Jesi Halprin

The ground surrounding the house was a wasteland of things collected during a lifetime shared. Every window was open, letting in the early fall breeze, the smell of neighbors’ wood stoves coming out of hibernation, a mix of seasoned oak and dust. With the wind came the sounds of neighbors gathered outside. Like a conversation, I would throw small pieces of furniture, stacks of books, rugs rolled into logs, appliances we hadn’t touched since their novelty wore off, anything I could reach, and they would respond in audible astonishment. And then I’d do it again, but with more flourish. The bulky body of a sofa stripped of its flattened cushions and worn-out pillows and a wall of framed magazine covers were all that remained—Al’s life, archived by every climbing, mountaineering, and outdoor publication at one time or another. He was quietly proud of them.

He was dead less than a week before new issues started to arrive. I’d already gotten mail with his name on it, but this was different. Addressed to Al, a magazine in his dedication, his face brilliantly lit and contrasted in a spectrum of black and white, forty years of a life lived. I wasn’t interested in reading words telling me what I already knew, but they kept coming, and each time I was caught off guard.

“What are you doing?” William asked, as he came in through the front door with his arms full of pots and pans covered in dirt.

“Put those back outside and help me move the couch,” I said, tossing the rest of the silverware out the backdoor.

“Mom, people are looking.”

I waved his comment away as I walked toward the couch, the tread of my sneaker catching on a deep groove in the floor. I grabbed Willam’s arm as I fell, the pots and pans clattering around me, adding to the dents and depressions in the wood. Rugs were good at covering the wear and tear, the scars of a clumsy boy taking after his mother. I’d forgotten we didn’t always have the shed in the backyard. Al used to clean and prep his equipment on the kitchen table. William was four when an ice tool was left out. Thankfully, he only damaged the floor.

Late that spring, Al built the shed with William’s help, who was happy holding tools and relaying messages while I worked in the garden on the opposite side of the house. I planted rows of herbs and vegetables while listening to them work. I remember thinking, this is the moment I would like to freeze and stay inside forever.

But by the time the shed was complete and all his gear was moved in, the funding came through for the documentary Al and his team had been working on, an expedition on Mount Logan. Three years before Al died, a group of climbers attempted the same route, getting caught in an avalanche caused by the collapse of a cornice and lost underneath snow as hard as cement.

I haven’t been out to the garden since the day his partner called, about a month, long enough for it to have been looted by the deer and rabbits, insects and fungi working hard to decompose. The phone rang just as I stepped outside to collect the last of the summer vegetables. I’ve heard people say that they just knew. They felt something was wrong before they even picked up the phone. But it wasn’t like this for me. I picked up because the ringing ruined the quiet of the early morning.

“Hello,” I said.

“Lucy?”

“Who is it?”

“Chuck,” he said. “There’s been an accident. I’m sorry.”

It was like a gust of wind blew through the kitchen, the white of the wall swallowing me, and I was on a false summit, the peak towering above as bits of frozen granite started to break off—the sound of rocks against rocks. The clock above the phone was ticking, and Chuck was saying my name. “Bring him home. Please, bring him home,” I said, before I hung up.

Someone knocked on the door. William answered it, and I snuck upstairs, stepping into our bedroom, my bedroom, just as someone asked if everything was okay. The room looked too square, the symmetry almost nauseating. Opening each window on either side of the bed and punching the screens out, I listened to them clatter to the walkway below. We didn’t wash the screens as often as we were supposed to, but

I’ve never heard of anyone that does. The crowd outside had thinned, my unplanned intermission offered a false end to the show they’d dedicated their afternoon to watch. “You’ve been such a lovely audience,” I yelled to those that remained.

I started to throw things from the window, not thinking about what I was grabbing. Everything had to go. I emptied the contents of the nightstand onto the front lawn and sent the drawer out after. I listened as it splintered and stuck my head out to see how the wood burst apart. On the walkway below, I saw a lanyard, light green with dark green x’s hand-stitched into it; a Father’s Day gift made by William during a visit with his grandmother when he was seven. Al loved it so much; he said it reminded him of a view of pine trees from above. He used it to hold keys to the shed.

Downstairs a small pile was forming on the kitchen table of things William was trying to save from the landfill that had become our yard. A woven blanket with a patch of melted synthetic fibers from when he sat too close to the fireplace as a teenager, a pair of Al’s reading glasses, road maps, National Park guide books, souvenirs from places traveled, a decorative vase, and a prayer candle sent by one of the neighbors with a note that said, “His light will guide him home.” I didn’t believe in God or a higher-connecting power, but Al was a spiritual person, and I understood why: all the places he’d been, the nights he’d slept suspended in a portaledge thousands of feet above the ground or in tents on frozen mountain tops. The moments when the margin of error seemed to swallow him whole, when believing in something was the only thing to keep the mind from going to the dark places—to all the friends he’d lost along the way.

The air in the shed was still and heavy like an attic in summer. There were twos and threes, if not more, of everything, all exactly where he left it; hiking boots and climbing shoes of different kinds, some worn and some never used; ice tools, some with dull blades he never got around to replacing; harnesses; and carabiners; and ice clips and ice draws; rope, so much rope all neatly coiled and hanging from pegs on the wall; and crampons, a pair he was fixing still on his workbench as if he only stepped away for a moment. The thoughtful organization made obvious the empty spaces where equipment was missing—lost on the north face of a mountain in a whiteout expected

to last the entire season.

I held one of the unused ice tools, the serrated edge against my thumb, the bite of the metal as blood vessels stretched and skin whitened. I thought about how easy it would be to let the teeth sink into me.

The sun was just above the horizon and the street was empty. Everyone returned to their homes, their most pressing matter was what to eat for dinner. Inside it was quiet, the clock ticked and the refrigerator hummed. The pick broke through the drywall easily but went too deep. I planted one foot against the wall and pulled, dislodging the ice tool and falling back against the kitchen table, disturbing William’s collection. The prayer candle and vase rolled off the side, both shattering upon impact. I hit the wall again, this time with more control, and it didn’t get stuck, so I hit it again and again. Pink insulation came through the gashes, and drywall particles hung in the air. “Are you serious?” William said, as he came down the stairs.

“I couldn’t find the sledgehammer.”

“Why’re you doing this?”

“I’m redecorating.”

In the month since Al died, William started his junior year at the University of Colorado. I was already used to being alone. The first two years William went to school, although he was less than two hours away, we encouraged him to stay on the weekends, even when Al was out of town. But these past few weeks have been different. The smallest of things, a sock found underneath the bed, the sound of a lawn mower, the frozen stew I had to move each time I wanted ice cubes, pervaded the house. And Al was there, in all of it, and like a flood, no, like an avalanche , was the crushing weight of the snow, the weight of being alone in a house with nothing but memories.

The first time it happened, I sat at the table waiting for William to wake up. I debated going to his room, waking him as gently as I could to tell him his father was dead, but each time I ran through the conversation in my head, I could see his tired face, trying to discern if he was dreaming. I heard William’s bedroom door open, the bathroom door shut, and the shower turned on. I focused on the sounds of my son’s last few moments of normal when, to him, his father was still alive. I ran my fingers over the table, over the nearly complete circle

worn into the wood from Al’s favorite mug, which he placed in the same spot every morning–a man of habit. The sound of him unfolding and refolding the newspaper. The smell of the dark roast he drank black. The water dripping from his hair, still wet from his morning shower, like-father-like-son. What had I been doing as he died? Was I sleeping or washing dishes?

I wondered where he was as I was tearing down our house. A mountain’s size is deceiving when looking at a picture or even in person from a distance. With no trees to obstruct the stretch of snow and rock, how could someone be up there and you not see them? After I told William his father was dead, I told myself he was alive. I didn’t believe in God, but I believed in Al. He was the best of the best; he would find his way out and come home. But the weather window was closing faster than expected, and the threat of avalanches was too great to continue the search. And now, I had to tell William the funeral would be with an empty casket; his dad, still on that mountain.

Christmas Mourning

Jonathan Owens

The townspeople make merry in front of the Catfish Inn’s double doors. The warnings from weathermen did not stop them from driving down the slick back roads that night. Grandparents rest on patio benches. Sitting on their laps are bouncing grandchildren playing peekaboo. Dogs tug at their tight sweaters and scamper in the snow. The mayor unlocks the double doors and invites the townspeople in with a high-five and a hug for all. The warm cinnamon smell kindles and softens that black freezing night. The crowd siphons into the log lodge for their Christmas Eve dinner. Except for Nicolas, who is scrunching and shivering inside an antique phone booth, forgotten in an alleyway.

An oily stench rattles a dry cough out of him. He unwraps a folded piece of paper and pulls his phone out.

The cold chamber muffles the Inn’s cheer and laughter. It is only Nicolas and a dialing tone. Nicolas had imagined this phone call many times in his head and rehearsed what he would start the conversation with. But once he hears the dial tone, all previous rehearsals are forgotten. Smoke rises from the Catfish Inn’s backyard. The chefs prepare to cook the whitefish. The mayor of Fish Creek high-fives the last family to file in, squints at the phone booth, and shuts the double doors. The dialing tone halts. Nicolas perks up.

“Hello? Johan speaking, who is calling?”

“Muh, muh, muh…Merry Christmas Johan!”

“Nicolas! Oh my goodness! Is something the matter?”

“No! I just wanted to check in! Merry Christmas!”

“Oh, Merry Christmas!”

“How are you doing?”

“Tired,” says Johan. “I was sleeping earlier.”

“At 7 P.M.? Geez. We aren’t that old yet!”

“Why are you yelling? No, I’m in London right now. Remember that time zones are a thing?”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were out of town,” Nicolas laughs.

“I’m on tour right now. I have an early morning tomorrow or I

guess…today now.”

A mini-van skids on the slick road and parks crooked. Two kid brothers leap out of the car and roll on the snow like laughing fanatics on fire. Their mother hobbles out of the mini-van, tottering on high heels. She yells out to her kids to come, but their laughter is louder than her call.

The kids’ chubby cheeks were red like the season. Their uniform for the night was a snug sweater adorned with a turtleneck collar. From where he was standing, Nicolas thought that they looked like identical twins.

Nicolas and Johan Head had the same stature, eyes, voice, and red hair. Differentiating between the two was initially a nightmare but as their friends played with them more, distinguishing between the two brothers became easier. They knew Johan was the one with the protruding butt chin and Nicolas was the one that gave out compliments like candy and had the wit of a cartoon.

Whenever Nicolas scratched his nose or whenever Johan cracked his knuckles, it translated to we need to skedaddle! Johan often exhausted his knuckles because Nicolas could spend an entire evening talking to anyone he finds along Fish Creek’s main street. Because of Nicolas’s charisma, the Head brothers often arrived late to the places they needed to be, like to Mr. Leenhouts’ house.

Every Tuesday and Thursday starting in November, the twins’ mother dropped them off at Mr. Leenhouts’ house for private music lessons. They loved their instructor but dreaded the steep stairs that preceded his door. The ten stone steps felt like a million especially when one needs to kindly carry a fragile cello case. The ascension up the stairs was an unspoken ritual. Johan handled the cello and trusted Nicolas to handle the rest of his things, like his sheet music and to open the door for him. Nicolas was the lead vocalist accompanied by Johan on the cello. The two spent many hours of their childhood in Mr. Leenhouts’ house practicing. The lessons were free because Mr. Leenhouts knew what they were rehearsing to play in front of all the townspeople at the annual Catfish Inn Fish Boil.

Every Christmas Eve, the Catfish Inn cooked every Fish Creek local a free feast of freshly boiled whitefish and seasoned red potatoes. The meal was followed by musical entertainment, provided by the Head brothers. The twins needed Mr. Leenhouts’ expertise so they could enthrall the audience every year because no Christmas classic could be relied upon too often. The front-row ladies threw a fit one time because the twins played “Jingle Bells” too much.

The performance was a special occasion but nerve-racking for Johan. Whenever the crowd started to eat their food, Johan consistently panicked and hid at the Criste Lighthouse a few blocks away. Every year, the audience spooked him in new ways. Johan never believed that his talent was real and that someone else was rosining the bow for him.

Nicolas memorized his brother’s hiding spot and often delivered a hug and a heavy plate of steaming fish to help calm his brother’s nerves. Johan’s tears dried as they walked back toward the Catfish Inn to begin the evening of music.

Generations of children bounced to the Head brothers’ duet. Even if the twins were performing “Silent Night,” the audience would accelerate into a little elf mosh pit. The twins did not need words or cues when playing. It was as if they had an unexplainable telepathic bond with each other on that stage.

Those nights, the fireman would toast with the sheriff and forget about all their grudges (at least until the New Year.) The entire waitstaff delivered trays of steaming hot chocolate crowned by whipped cream and chefs chopped up more fresh fish filets. Many moms carried booster chairs and dads drank eggnog cocktails with other dads. No checks were placed on the tables because the Catfish Inn wanted to thank everyone for making Fish Creek great.

After their performance, the townspeople applauded the twins as the waiters carried away plates of abandoned coleslaw. Every Fish Boil concluded with the mayor toasting to the town. Holiday mugs were raised with the town’s spirits. Both twins (especially Johan), after each performance, wore a grin that wouldn’t dissipate until the New Year. This was what the holidays looked like for Fish Creek until the Head brothers’ sophomore year.

Despite being a sophomore attempting a mustache, Johan still carried a child-like love for the holiday season. He secretly planned

their Christmas Eve performance even when the air was still sweltering. Johan was practicing “Frosty the Snowman” on his cello when most others were jamming out to Sublime and the Beach Boys.

That year, their mother carried the Christmas tree from the basement with green garlands wrapped around her arms. Johan bolted downstairs to help. Their mother yelled for Nicolas three times until he departed his man cave and joined them with headphones in his ears. His face was unshaven crowned with a 3 p.m. bedhead. Their mother plopped a giant Tupperware of ornaments. Johan sat with every ornament, asking about their origins. Nicolas tossed ornaments on the tree’s branches while looking off into another world.

Not a lot of rehearsals were remaining until the upcoming Fish Boil and Nicolas had missed every one of them. The family was halfway done decorating when Johan heard his brother’s jangling car keys. Johan stopped everything.

“Hey Nicolas, when do you think you are going to start practicing for the Fish Boil?”

“I don’t know,” Nicolas shrugged. The headphone wire still sits in his ears.

Johan stood in front of him, blocking the door. “Well, how about Friday nights? I imagine Mr. Leenhouts could fit us in,” Johan said.

“Friday nights with that loon?” Nicolas chuckled. “That’s the last thing I’d want to do on a Friday!”

“Loon?” Johan paused. Nicolas grabbed his jacket and ran out of the garage while Johan stared at another world.

The next day, Johan knocked on his brother’s door and reiterated to him that it wasn’t too late to start practicing, even if it truly was. Nicolas promised that he’d think about it if Johan would shut the door and throw away his pile of Monster energy drink cans.

Later when Johan asked again, Nicolas told him that he had pickleball or chess club or homework on those nights. This fact confused Johan because he remembered Nicolas’s off-color comments about the chess club kids. Johan left Nicolas alone and continued to stagger up Leenhouts’ staircase for the remaining rehearsals. He often spilled his sheet music on the wet turf while trying to keep his cello steady.

The remainder of Johan’s Fish Boil performances turned into a chore. Fewer moms lifted booster chairs and fewer dads drank eggnog

cocktails and Johan had to dry his own tears backstage. When his solo performances ended, the mayor high-fived Johan like he does to everyone else and waddled off. No families hugged or complimented him. Even his parents stopped attending. The only thing they wanted to know about the performance was when to pick him up.

Johan’s last Fish Boil performance was hours away and he hadn’t mastered his solo yet. He wanted to end his senior performance on a good note, literally and figuratively. The ritardando measures of “Good King Wenceslas” forced him to spend the entire weekend in front of his music stand. Those same ritardando measures frustrated Nicolas too. He lay in his bed with a nasty hangover. The incessant screeches of cello strings kept him awake. He barged into Johan’s room. “Can you cut it out? I’m trying to sleep.”

“It’s only three P.M.,” Johan said.

“Just stop playing those measures all the time!”

“I got to get this ritardando down before the Fish Boil.”

“No one goes to that anymore, only the old hags. Just play Jingle Bells a bunch. They won’t care and if they do, screw them,” said Nicolas, before slamming the door.

Johan breathed deep breaths through his nose to conceal his shaky voice. Johan wanted to ask Nicolas if he would perform at the Fish Boil with him one last time. He didn’t care if Nicolas sounded rusty. He just wanted to stand on stage with his brother before college started and their childhood vanished. He wished to reclaim that old Christmas nostalgia that hung in picture frames throughout their house and in their memory. But now he knew his brother’s answer without needing to ask.

Johan stopped playing and Nicolas slept until Christmas morning.

“Did you need anything?” Johan says in a yawn.

“No, I’m just at the Catfish Inn right now. I was thinking about our old show.”

“Wow, that place is still kicking! That’s great. Who is being forced to perform this year?”

“Some weird fifth grader with an accordion. He isn’t as talented

as us back in the day!” Nicolas winces at how high-pitched that remark sounded. Being excitable and giddy isn’t his character. “Man, we were so groovy up there!”

“Yeah, we were…” Johan stifles another yawn.

The mother lifts gift boxes from the back of her minivan and heaves them into the building. Her tiny kids scurry down the dismal street of sleet.

“I suppose you have played in bigger arenas since then,” Nicolas says.

“Yeah.”

The toddler of the two kids wears a bright orange knit hat and staggers along the road. Remnants of snow conceal his twig-like legs. His taller brother runs toward the gleaming lighthouse leaving his smaller buddy crawling. Nicolas turns around repeatedly to check in on the little guys, but desire kicks him like a baby in the womb and he remembers the original mission. He remembers the real reason for the phone call to his estranged brother.

Those brothers will stick together so no need to worry, Nicolas tells himself and turns his back on them.

Nicolas read an article declaring that coding was the future, so he took computer science classes in college. He hated all the programming languages he needed to learn so he majored in Legal Studies. He wanted to be the swanky lawyer on television, but he hated all the readings that the professors assigned. He cycled through many interests until he had to drop out of college. The only job he could find was guiding nature tours on some friend’s boat back home in Fish Creek. Johan dropped out of college too but not for the same reasons that Nicolas did.

Johan was playing cello in his dorm room when a fateful pair of ears eavesdropped on him. Once Johan finished, a pair of clapping hands startled him. They belonged to a fiddle player wanting more.

One connection led to another and within a few months, Johan was playing cello in a recording booth rather than a messy dorm. Johan dropped out of school not because he was failing in his courses but because he couldn’t attend class with all the tours his band had planned.

In a few years, Johan Head and his new band of brothers transformed into a household name. Their first single, “A Fish Creek Christmas,” leaped to the number one spot on many music charts. Listeners were so enthralled by Johan’s music chops that even in the blistering heat of July, “A Fish Creek Christmas” was somehow in the top 20s of the Billboard charts. Johan Head’s new smooth voice and protruding butt chin were adored by both baby boomers and millennials.

Nicolas believed that Johan’s success in music was a fad and that Johan was just lucky and that his fame could’ve been easily attained by him too. He was waiting for the day when Johan would arrive at their parents’ house with his cello case in hand and his head down, embarrassed and in squalor like the Prodigal Son. All that fame isn’t healthy for a guy like Johan, Nicolas told himself, ignoring all the billboards, interviews, and commercials that featured the success that wasn’t his. It was a fluke, Nicolas kept hoping.

Nicolas was forced to recite background details of Johan Head for a paycheck as he steered his boat for seven days a week. Thanks to Johan, Fish Creek became a music fan’s mecca. None of his passengers wanted to know about Fish Creek’s fauna and flora anymore. They wanted to know about Johan Head’s shoe size, what his favorite meal was, and what it was like growing up with such a talented guy. Whenever Nicolas stepped outside of his apartment, he had to be a happy Johan Head expert. All the locals asked Nicolas the same question: “When will your brother be in town?”

Inside his apartment, Nicolas can only stand in front of the mirror for a second because if he looks at himself for a while, the mirror will transform into the gift-shop posters that he tries to avoid. Nicolas stopped dating because the first date always turned into a Q&A session about Johan Head. Nicolas couldn’t escape Fish Creek either. He would have to deal with bureaucratic red tape and fees if he wanted to boat commercially in a new town. For years, the men at the marina looked the other way when it came to Nicolas’s boating certifications.

Despite having a Ph.D. in Johan Head studies, Nicolas saw his twin once since he became famous. When the brothers were in their early forties, Johan hosted an album release party at one of his mansions in Palm Springs.

The paparazzi surrounded Johan as he stepped out of his Rolls

Royce. Camera flashes shown upon his extravagant cowboy hat and mink fur coat. The cowboy hat was etched with thin silver and a quarry of shining diamonds bordered its brim.

Instead of looking at Johan, Nicolas was looking at Johan’s head. The diamonds on that cowboy hat reminded Nicolas all that he wasn’t, but when he looked underneath there was a face that looked like his. Could it still be possible to attain fame like Johan? The two looked and sounded the same. They were twins after all, so why couldn’t it be? He lusted for the diamond crown, imagining himself in it. Johan bounced around his private ballroom, shaking hands with celebrities and senators until his eyes linked up with Nicolas’ eyes. Johan ran and smooched his old mother and trapped his father in a great big bear hug. Nicolas forgot what Johan said to him during their hug because his attention was elsewhere.

“That’s quite a hat you got there,” Nicolas stuttered.

“This thing? Yeah, it is impressive. It’s super heavy though,” Johan summoned a charcuterie board for them and vanished into a swarm of celebrities. Nicolas shook hands with all the singers he listened to during childhood but the sole thing he remembered from that gala was the gleam of Johan’s cowboy hat.

On the flight home, Nicolas plotted. He believed that if his nervous twin could host galas and wear diamonds, then so could he. Nicolas squeezed private lessons out of retired Mr. Leenhouts. Nicolas relearned his crooning capabilities, but he wasn’t satisfied with his rate of progress. He also hated all the homework that Mr. Leenhouts assigned to him. Nicolas placed a bin of his CDs on his boat and played his original songs on tours but the tourists commanded Nicolas to turn his music down and ignored all his CDs.

Nicolas stopped meeting with Mr. Leenhouts and tried other vocal coaches but none of them understood his desires. Many nights, Nicolas hunched over his computer combing through interviews searching for steps to transport him to star status. He had already created a plethora of social media accounts and placed flyers in every café. He had already mass-emailed news outlets about his songs. He wanted to know why he wasn’t becoming famous like his twin. Then he thought of an idea, which became a plan.

“Is there anything else you need from me?” Johan yawns.

“Yes…I wanted to ask you something. I started singing again and just released my LP,” Nicolas says.

“Oh, that’s good.”

“And I think you should feature me on your next Christmas album!”

The tapping of snow on the phone booth glass accelerates into a powerful pelting. A snowplow’s roar diminishes as it barrels toward the lighthouse. Toward those two kid brothers. To the toddler making snow angels, lying flat on the road, waving his arms, probably unaware.

“Um, that’s quite a request to make, Nicolas.”

“It’d be like the old Catfish Inn days. You on the cello and me back on the mic. I’ve gotten so good at singing! I think your fans would really-“

“Nicolas?”

“Yes?”

“Let’s talk about this later. I need to sleep.”

“No. No. No! Hold on, I’ll sample you one of my songs,” Nicolas pats his pockets. “Oh shoot. I don’t have anything to play it on,” Nicolas trembles as he laughs, “I guess I’ll just sing it to you!”

“Um. Okay.”

The mother barges into the phone booth door screaming. “Have you seen my babies?” She shivers, cries, and almost collapses into the booth. A tragic thud.

“No. Get out of here!” Nicolas shoves the mother out, reclaiming the phone booth.

“Jesus Christ, what was all that screaming? Look, I’m tired. I’m hanging up. Enough with this sudden nonsense,” Johan says.

“No! Stay right there,” Nicolas scowls at the trembling mother and slams the door. She runs away, nearly sliding with each step across the ice. “Sorry about that. Here is one of my original songs.”

The snowplow bulldozes back from its journey from the lighthouse, its maw accumulates a dark chunky collection. It shoves a mountain of black slush across the street. Nicolas’s first note is interrupted when he sees an orange knit hat churn in the snowplow’s maw.

Nicolas covers his mouth.

“Nicolas. I’m going to sleep. Good night,” The dial tone returns and startles Nicolas, his eyes bulging.

“Damn it!” Nicolas steps out. Those two kid brothers are not back from their jaunt in the dark.

He runs toward the harbor, looking through each alleyway for the confirmation of life. Nicolas’s knees slam down on the sidewalk but that doesn’t slow him. Christmas lights beam and blind him, making him sick. An animatronic Mr. Grinch stings his eyes. His breath slows into crisp sore wheezes.

Nicolas cries because he knows the cruelty of brothers. He knows how easy it is for brothers to leave their blood behind. Leaving them to suffer in the cold cruel world.

He pauses at the old seesaw in front of the Criste Lighthouse. His sobbing stops.

The two kid brothers cuddle each other on top of a seesaw seat. The toddler lost his knit cap, so the other cradles his head, protecting the toddler’s ears from turning bright red like his own.

“Mommy will get us,” the older kid brother says. Nicolas thinks about the last time that he reassured Johan like that, back when they were kids, now he is nearing fifty.

Nicolas wraps the children with his coat and helps them back to the Catfish Inn. The brothers wouldn’t let go of each other. Nicolas thinks about the last time he hugged Johan. It was back at the gala before his red hair started to gray. He had hugged him, not to get closer to him but to get a better glimpse of his diamond-crested hat.

The children loosen their grip as they approach the Catfish Inn, but their hands remain tethered together. Nicolas thinks about Johan, his brother, in London. Next time, Nicolas promises to himself that he will be more considerate of their time zone differences.

Skull and Shrooms

Jack Thome

Where We Store Our Flesh

Kendra Marie Pintor

We hide our flesh in the sink, shoving it down the drain, deep into the garbage disposal where mother won’t see. My sister flips the switch and I run the water, watching it sweep potato skins and orange peels into the hole where the pieces of us are already being ground into sewer sludge. Quickly, we scrub the blood from the vegetable peeler and shove it back into the kitchen drawer from whence it came; the place where our family keeps all of our sharp edges. Mother will no doubt be looking for it, later. Still, she will be none the wiser, she will not know what we have done, she will go on thinking we are good girls, that we have learned nothing from her.

It all started when our mother was a little girl, long before we were born. You see, no one is born a skeleton. Either the world makes us that way, or we save everyone the trouble and do it ourselves. Our mother was a little of both. Her parents–our grandma and grandpa, or, Ma and Pa for short–didn’t know how to love their children without flaying them alive. I won’t pretend to know the details, but our mother projected enough onto us that I think I get the gist; Pa never said ‘I love you,’ but he was fond of carrying scissors in his back pocket, and Ma expected too much, and failure was usually met with fingers splayed on a cutting board. In her youth, our mother drank beer and sold weed and married a boy who liked rock n’ roll–a boy who she knew Ma and Pa wouldn’t like very much–and even though this caused her parents to pin her down and rake the vegetable peeler down her bare arms, our mother saw her rebellion through to the end.

Eventually, our mother did move out of that house, but by then it was too late, she had already learned how to skin herself. Now, it was a habit. It was a necessity. Tearing herself apart was the only way to hold herself together. It began with nail biting; teeth tearing into the loose flap of cuticle like a succulent cutlet, devouring all that flesh until the

tips of her fingers were worn down to bloody nubs. By the time I was born, our mother’s hands were nothing but bone.

If I’m being completely honest, it was embarrassing to have a skeleton for a mother. No matter how she dressed herself up, or how wide she smiled, it was painfully obvious. Our mother was dead and everyone could tell. The worst part was the way their eyes grew wide with pity when they looked upon us , the daughters of a dead woman. To this day I am convinced that the only thing that had kept our mother alive at the time was the compliance and adoration of her children, the inferiority of her husband, and the determination to make Ma and Pa eat every last word they ever spoke against her.

As previously stated, our mother’s hands were all bone by the time I was born, but the rest of her was still covered in flesh. The pieces her parents had stripped from her arms, her legs, had turned to scar tissue. This made it easier for her to forget, to pretend it had never happened, would never happen again. I can still remember the chill of her hands gripping mine whenever we crossed the street, the rattle of her fingers whenever she wiggled them over my eyes, the way I could always see her whenever we played peek-a-boo. When I got a little older, I asked her, what happened to your hands? Our mother just smiled and tucked me into bed. The next morning, a meaty strip of flesh had been peeled from her wrist up to her elbow. A wound reopened. But, I was just a kid in pajamas, so all I could do was gape. Our mother was still smiling, as if she had never stopped, and she poured pancake batter into a pan, asked me, “one or two?” As if there weren’t rivulets running down her arm, as if beads of her own blood weren’t sizzling as they dripped into the skillet.

I never asked about her hands again.

By the time I was fourteen, the flesh began peeling from her lips, exposing the mouth of her skull. Simultaneously, her kneecaps had become exposed. My guess was all that time she spent praying, but my sister disagreed. Don’t blame God, she told me, defensive, itching at a patch of red around the base of her neck. None of us talked about our mother’s missing skin, not even dad. We let her go on cooking dinner, washing dishes, doing laundry, as if she wasn’t deteriorating right in front of us. This was around the time when she started to make

eye contact with me whenever she began peeling potatoes, cucumbers, apples. The shriek of the metal blade against the skin of vegetables, various fruit, bidding fresh gooseflesh to rise over the skin of my arms. You’re making a mistake, my sister tried to warn me, but I wouldn’t listen. When I asked our mother to show me how to shave my legs, she handed me the vegetable peeler. No , I said. I want to shave, not strip. My mother laughed nervously. Are you sure? She asked. Once you start, you can never stop. I am still uncertain if she was talking about shaving. Reluctantly, she showed me how to lather my legs in warm water and baby oil, and how to gently guide the razorblade. Only shave up to your knee, our mother instructed me, the exposed bone of her kneecaps staring at me between the ripped flesh, like distressed jeans. The only reason to shave any higher is if you plan on letting boys touch you there, she went on, her skeleton smile unable to reflect the frown in her voice. In front of her, I shaved up to the knee, but later that night I returned to the razorblade and proceeded to shave the rest of my legs. The hem of my Catholic School skirt went slightly above my knees–I was tall for my age–and what about when I wore shorts to P.E.? I set my foot on the edge of the sink, got my leg wet, slathered baby oil from knee to hip, and didn’t stop until everything was slick and smooth. I did not notice her standing there, knife in hand. I did not notice, until I was finished, that my mother’s skeleton was looming in the doorway raking a kitchen blade–coated in vegetable shavings–up the length of her thigh. It took approximately one month for all of the flesh to be carved from my mother’s legs. She didn’t bother to hide the mess. There was so much blood that all of the houses’ carpet turned red, and everything began to smell of rot. It’s those damn cats, always pissing in the house, my mother said as she stripped herself of the skin coating her chest. If your father could just hold down a job, maybe I could buy some nicer clothes, she said, stuffing the washing machine with heaps of flayed flesh. You’re just like me when I was your age, I could hear her saying from the kitchen, I know exactly what you’re going through, between the chops of the knife against the cutting board. Truthfully, I wasn’t like our mother at all, not until I began to worry over the cut of a blade digging into my skin. I started to drink. I’m going to tell mother, my sister said, burying her nails into the raw, red line around her neck and pulling herself apart, piece by piece. There was a brief period of time, when I sought the peeler from

where it rested in the drawer of our kitchen, my sister egging me on. We snuck out of our beds in the dead of night and tried it out. From me, a cut of thigh, from my sister, a cut of throat. For me, once was enough–but my sister wanted to keep going. I had to wrangle the peeler from her hands, had to hide our scraps in the sink, and had to hurry before our mother found out that her children had grown a curiosity for dismemberment. Our mother did not want this for us, despite the way her skeleton hungered for it. I knew that if she found us pulling ourselves apart, our mother would despair. I knew that as long as there was still some flesh left, our mother cared. For years afterwards, I waited. I knew that one day, our mother’s skeleton would come for me. By the time I was an adult, but before I left home, our mother was all bone, save for the skin hanging from the crease of her forehead to the bottom of her nose. That was all she had left. She had plucked out her eyes the year I started dating, and ripped off her ears the day after asking me, should I divorce your dad?

Yes, I told her. Yes, you should. She didn’t. He still lived in the house, fat with flesh. Somehow, I managed to keep all of mine. It was when I caught myself biting my nails that I decided to leave. When I told our mother that I was going, she just sat there in silence; a head with hollow sockets gnawing on the boney-tips of its fingers. Beside her was my sister, pulling off the flesh that still covered her feet, as if she were merely taking off her socks; settling into the couch as if it were a coffin. It seemed that no one cared whether I stayed or went, but as I made for the front door, I heard it; the sound of the kitchen drawer, where our family kept all of our sharp edges, opening and closing. When I turned to look, it was there, the skeleton, the last shred of our mother falling off her face and a vegetable peeler in her grip, ready to rend the flesh from her daughter’s bones.

Scrubland (top)

Omphalos (bottom)

These memory-scapes aim to impact viewers to think about their world, our environment, and their place within it.

Mark J. Richards

夜之将至 Night is Coming

Jiaojiao Liu

夜之魅 Charm of the Night

Jiaojiao Liu

上海是一个人口密集‘现代化的大都市。因此注定它的夜晚不会是漆 黑一片。我晚上出门散步的时候，经常被色彩丰富多变的夜空所打 动。总让我感觉有某位看不见的精灵在掌控它。我想用画面表现这 种神秘和丰富。

Shanghai is a densely populated modern metropolis. Therefore, it is destined that its night will not be pitch black. When I go out for a walk at night, I am often struck by the rich and varied colors of the night sky. It always makes me feel like some invisible spirit is running it. I want to express this kind of mystery and richness with pictures.

Janet Cassie Wells

She smelled like cigarettes and Big Red gum. Lady Stetson and Aqua-Net. A beauty parlor and a basement. She was the cause, or maybe the delivery driver, for what I would later spend years working out in various forms of therapy. The family matriarch, a compilation of ghosts, my grandmother. Janet .

She leaned back in her velvet, tufted rocker; the springs worn to the point that she was in a full recline with each lift of her delicate heel. Tall and slight, yet somehow her 90 pound frame carried much more weight in her small, ornate living room. Her nails were long and mauve. Tools, really. She used them like a pic, to fluff her short auburn hair that she had permed every other week. She would run her thumbnail under the nail of her middle finger, clicking like an insect everywhere she went. But she mostly sat when I visited. And rocked. Or shuffled around the kitchen pulling out Tupperware after Tupperware of chocolate chip cookies, the chips now white with age, served with a jar of warm RC Cola gone flat.

Everything in the room was old. Clean, but old, and barely holding itself together. Everything would be used, spit shined, and used, until it disintegrated. I watched the dust in the filtered light streaming through the heavy blue curtains. Skin cells, particles, and pieces of all things, sloughing off slowly and floating into the ether.

“I leave Friday,” I said, pulling at a loose thread on the inseam of my cut-offs. I was eighteen and my heels were cocked. In just a few days I would be getting out of Indiana. I planned to run, maybe even soar, as far as I could, face forward into oblivion.

“You do, do you?” she said, smiling like she knew what I was in for, but continuing to placate me. “And just what do you think is in store for you out there in Arizona? What’s a naïve girl like you gon’ do

with herself out there in the desert, hmm?”

I hated when Grandma asked questions, because she never cared for the answer. She already knew the answer, silly . She saw me squirming there on the couch. She adjusted the sleeve on the arm of her recliner and her dark beady eyes took me in with the confidence of someone much closer to God.

“I’m going to take some classes at a community college and look into film school,” I said, meeting her gaze, painfully, trying not to blink or show any sign of wavering doubt. My cheeks grew hot and I realized I was holding my breath.

“Now what in the hell is a film school?” It wasn’t a question, more of a declaration. She steepled her hands and cleared her throat in anticipation of me to say more stupid things.

It would be my last visit to my grandma’s house, before she passed. She wasn’t in awful health then, but she knew, somehow, asking us if we wanted to take anything before we left: that deviled egg tray, that box of records, that entire dinette set. I’ve come to see this time and again after her passing; the slow shedding of someone’s belongings, so it’s not a burden to take them all at once when the day comes.

She was a wonderful woman, probably. As long as I could remember, the way my mother talked about my grandmother was almost as bipolar as my grandmother herself, although undiagnosed. Grandma didn’t trust doctors or the many medications they prescribed. She didn’t have a problem, she’d say, and light another cigarette, exhale, and rub her chest at the top of the scar that ran from her clavicle to the end of her sternum. She had open-heart surgery when I was young. She didn’t trust those doctors either, but the family convinced her to have the operation, and her heart beat on to see another 29 years of life.

As a child, I would often find my mother crying in her bedroom, the cordless phone still warm in her hand. Grandma. My mother never felt good enough for her, in a constant pageant for attention and validation. She was the 4th of 5 children to parents born on the cusp of the depression, which meant every category counted. Talent: how’s nursing school panning out for you, Kathleen? Perhaps, instead, you should get

your priorities straight and take care of those brats and that god-awful house; or are you waiting for that man-child you married to get his act together? Eveningwear: Is that a new sweater, Kathleen? You can’t afford a new sweater and who do you think you are, trying to pull off pastels with that skin tone? It does nothing for you. Interview: How’s your day going, Kathleen? Now that that’s out of the way, I’m going to ask you a series of questions before you know what kind of mood I’m in and honestly your guess is as good as mine. Physical fitness (the swimsuit competition): Where do you stack up amongst your sisters, Kathleen? Your nieces? Your own daughters? It looks like someone’s been hitting the Christmas cookies good this year.

These pageants were ongoing and unforgiving. Who would win her loving gaze today? And who would feel the cold depth of her shadow? It seemed my mother was seldom crowned. These phone calls were a stark contrast from the memories made on her upswings. Thick summer evenings with my cousins, playing in our grandparent’s pop-up camper that sat year round in their driveway. We’d eventually lose track of distributing our weight evenly between the 2 pop-out beds on each end of the camper and send the thing back on its hind legs. The skinniest, lightest kids, the ones Grandma liked best, would be sent screaming into the air, a puddle of dirty knees and bare feet. Then we’d quickly scramble to right ourselves and the camper, nervous of what Grandma would do if she saw us running amuck. She was known for doling out spontaneous bowl haircuts and bangs, neither of which would make me popular at school. Vengeful, she was. She took us garage sale-ing and made sun tea on the back porch. She gave us clothes from other decades and treasures forgotten deep within moth-balled closets. She let us play with her makeup and ride in the back of Grandpa’s truck bed. It was almost easy to forget about how she made my mom feel on occasion. Almost.

Grandma leaned over and pulled up the hem of her pajama pants to check the progress on a massive bruise cascading down from her knee to her mid calf. The dark purple blotch gave way to sepia tones and skin speckled like a robin’s egg. She didn’t mention it. Instead, “Do

you have a place to stay? Money?”

She wasn’t asking to offer assistance. She was asking to determine how soon I would be calling my mother for help.

“Yes and yes,” I lied. I had $250 and a room to stay in with a friend’s cousin, but rent was $200 and I still needed to drive across the country from Indiana. I wondered if she could tell I was lying. But I knew it didn’t matter how prepared I was or not. This move was an out, and I was getting out.

“Well, let’s hope college works out better for you than it did your cousins. And I hope you’re not going out there for some boy. Don’t end up like your mother, married at eighteen to a brainwasher. Or your sister, knocked up by that dope head. There’s some devil in him. Her, too, I guess!” She laughed like she meant it, her eyes disappearing underneath folds of her skin, and asked me to warm up her coffee. ***

When she died, the family found her washing machine filled with a sterling silverware service for 12. In her dryer, a serving platter and a tarnished gravy boat. She ferreted away anything of value. She wasn’t a hoarder, she was just…resourceful. At Grandmas, nothing went to waste and to prevent waste, few things were ever bought. She read Forbes and cut coupons. She shopped second hand and barely ate. A few Christmases back while our family gathered at her house, I found a newspaper clipping that shared a glimpse of my grandma’s own parents and events that made an impact on who she became and why. It fell out of a photo album she kept on the hutch of her dresser, sealed in a zip-lock bag. When I showed it to my mother, she shot me a look of disbelief. Grandma didn’t talk about these things and she certainly didn’t share their public record. We read it together, in silence, and without a word, slipped the zip-lock back into the photo album and never spoke of it again.

8/21/62 Portage, IN: Woman was reported running into Traynor’s Tap on Cavender St. at 8:30 p.m., Wednesday. Woman appeared distraught, bleeding from the neck, shouting “he cut my jugular, he cut my jugular.” Woman was taken to Portage Hospital and treated for flesh

wounds, and is said to be in stable condition.

My great grandfather was a drunkard, not the kind that’s fun at parties, and had come home very drunk and tried to kill my great grandmother by cutting her throat. When she ran out of the house still living, he decided he would end his own, but not just yet. No, he would give it a few more decades to leave his mark before doing that. She survived with a scar across the skin of her porcelain neck. She ran a tight ship up until the few years before her death. Keeping her house in tip-top shape and bicycling around town, until just shy of a month before, when she couldn’t physically make her way home anymore. But even when she wasn’t in the same room as me, she was in the air. She was in my mother, methodically tightening and releasing her grip. When her health started to decline, my mother said she became sweeter, somehow subdued, but the mean-streaks, although fewer, had entered a new circle of hell.

Grandma potentially being bipolar bobbed in and out of conversations, but remained at the surface above our heads. My mother and her siblings couldn’t separate the woman from the mania. And Grandma seemed to thrive in her mania. Like a tornado, she ripped through phone call after phone call, laying into her children with gale force winds. I often watched my mother retreat into the safety of her depression and I’d sit outside her bedroom door and wait for the skies to clear.

To balance out the mayhem, there was my grandfather, Jack. He was one of ten, plus two stillborn, and grew up in rural Alabama, later moving to Indiana to work in a steel mill. He had a grade-school education and his drawl was so thick that I barely understood him when he spoke, harder still with his emphysema and rolling of the toothpick in the side of his cheek. I don’t remember him speaking much, but my mother loved him desperately. He loved his kids, just the way my mother needed: unconditionally.

My mom kept a black and white photograph of my grandpa and his brothers on our mantel. The boys in the picture must have been in their early twenties. They were tall and lean with light colored hair, crystal clear eyes, and sideways smiles. The boy in the middle had thick waves of hair swooped back and away from his face, drawing attention

to his earnest gaze and chiseled bone structure. He was a timeless sort of handsome. He was my grandfather, and this I just couldn’t believe.

What happened to him, I would wonder. I knew smoking was bad for your lungs, but it seemed to affect my grandpa in such a way to nearly puff and melt his features like a marshmallow left in the microwave too long. I swore never to smoke.

My grandfather made coming up with my grandmother bearable. He was the eye of the storm that gave you a small moment of reprieve before the mania started up again. He was still a stern man, but he provided a type of calm and clarity my grandmother was incapable of possessing.

I didn’t see my grandparents’ affection often, but I knew they slept together every night and my grandmother took care of him with every ounce of energy she had, up until he passed. And I remember in the last days, my grandmother asked my mother to get in bed with her and hold her like my grandfather used to. Love can look like this.

“Buttons. Git the bawl from the bawskit,” my grandpa would garble.

“Buttons. Walk like Hillary.” Buttons was my grandparent’s schnauzer. He knew a handful of party tricks and performed for the praise of my grandfather, not for treats, as Buttons had horrible gum disease and bad allergies. With each sneeze came a tooth, a surprise to be found later, snared in your sock. Buttons stood on his hind legs and sauntered around the room in a circle, limping slightly from hip dysplasia and years of being asked to walk like Hillary Clinton. Visiting my grandparents over the span of my childhood and into my adulthood always came with an undercurrent of anxiety. Some days it would feel like storming a battlefield and I’d wonder who she would take down first. Or perhaps she’d surrender at the sight of our rusted out Buick pulling into her driveway, waving a white flag from her porch before lighting up a cigarette. I just never knew. But a big difference between myself and the rest of my family is that my grandmother’s words never held. Even in grade school I could see she was hurt and mentally ill. She would scoff at the idea of attending college or opening a business. When I was twelve she nearly had a second heart attack when she discovered I didn’t know how to iron my clothes, telling me I’d never find a husband, and then what would

become of me? At twelve I was still wishing for my period and a new pair of jeans. I always just let her talk and counted down the minutes until she needed to go lay down. Then, I’d take whatever she said to me, throw it in the wastebasket in the back of my mind, and torch it. She was from a time when you could smoke cigarettes while pregnant and give bourbon to your children for most ailments, so I didn’t expect her to think much about therapy, but I could never understand the people after her. Just hang up the phone, mom. Better yet, don’t even pick up. Start a phone-tree between your siblings and sound the sirens when the tornado is coming, so others have time to evacuate.

“Well, Cassie, come take a look at Grandma’s tomaytas. I can’t seem to keep that dern rabbit from chewing up all my tomaytas,” she said, dropping the subject of my move completely. She was exiting the room before she finished her sentence and I guess I had done it. I had told Grandma I was going to college and I still had long hair and all my teeth. A Christmas miracle. I followed her out the back door and into her garden, my shoes disappeared into the overgrown grass, a small chicken wire fence hovered over a plot of tomato plants, rotten from the sun.

“Do you want some tomatoes, Grandma? I can pick some up from the Kroger if you’d like,” I offered, regretting every stupid word.

“Now why would I pay for something I can get for free right in my own yard, Cassie Jean? You’re sure going to need a lot of college!” she laughed.

I was then walked through the atrocities that were my family’s inability to spend and save wisely. My cousin Josh spent $27,000 on his wedding. I know this, and so does everyone else in my family, because Grandma let everyone know how stupid it was to spend that much money on a wedding, adding that it wasn’t even a great wedding, and neither was his wife.

I stared at her as she fussed with the chicken wire, making sure no one could get their paws on the exploded, rotten vegetables. I wondered if my mother would slowly morph into this person, perhaps myself. I wondered if she knew there was really no rabbit and that she

was just losing her grip on the life around her.

I searched her face for signs of crazy, looking for glimpses of myself in someone I feared to become, but all I could see was life slowly deflating from a body. The parts of her I wanted to know had long since receded behind the stones one must stack to prevent oozing out onto the carpet in front of guests.

Before I left, she gave me a bag with a few old sweaters, two spools of yarn, and a nativity set. I hugged her and rubbed the bumps of her spine through her sweater. I thought of the bruise on her leg, the scar on her chest, and her long mauve fingernails. I thought about what the rest of her looked like, but was terrified of the thought. I didn’t want to get old. I didn’t want to shrivel and sag and slump and for blood to pool under my translucent skin like a summer sausage. But more than anything, I didn’t want her to be right.

Genesis

Kathryn Lauret

Perhaps the worst part of a very terrible experience is the first moment you recognize it, like when I realized I was unable to stop my ball python, barely four months old, from disappearing into a space I would not be able to retrieve her from. I was sitting in my Toyota Prius in the parking lot of a vegan cafe where I was meeting my friend Kelsey, with my new pet snake, Cynthia B, whom I took everywhere because she was small and I was obsessed with her. I failed to calculate, however, that beneath the steering wheel was a small space that would appeal greatly to a young overstimulated reptile, eager to escape this strange human who did not yet know how to feed her. I desperately gripped my snake as she pulled herself deeper into my car. My hopeless hands were powerless against this being of pure muscles, scales and determination. I tugged until I worried that I would seriously injure her, and the tip of her yellow and black tail disappeared inside my car as I let go. Then I really lost my shit.

My iPhone flashlight illuminated the underside of the steering wheel, glove box, gas and brake pedals. I began to hyperventilate. With each passing moment, I knew my beloved pet was inching her way towards my car’s engine, and she would explode the moment I turned on the car, or perhaps fall out the bottom and get run over. Why didn’t I just grab her? Why didn’t I stop it? I watched it happen!

I jumped out of my car and popped the hood, squinting for a glimpse of yellow and black. Ugly sobs broke out of me as I crawled beneath my Prius. The pavement was hot, it was July in San Diego, and I was wearing a black t-shirt dress and flip flops. A woman walking by asked if I’m ok. I nodded but couldn’t stop my weeping or quiet my wailing. I checked the driver’s seat again, but my snake was gone. Really gone. I stumbled into the restaurant, heaving through my loud sobs and slumped in the doorway until I spotted Kelsey and waved to her. Then I staggered back to my car and continued searching beneath the hood, barely able to see straight through my tears.

It took Kelsey a minute to process the scene, but once she was up

to speed she helped search the car. Kelsey had been my best friend since highschool. This past semester we both lived at home and attended community college after dropping out of University, which bonded us in a way that only having each other through tough times can. In two months, I was moving to Colorado to attend a new University and the snake was supposed to help me feel less alone.

Kelsey was there when I first realized I wanted my own python, about a month ago, an afternoon following a night of suicidal contemplation (which I confessed to no one). The next day, like nothing happened, I met Kelsey at another friend’s house and held their ball python, which climbed me like a tree. As the creature wrapped around my head and face, I enjoyed the cool sensation of its scales expanding and contracting against my skin. With a wrist covered in white scars from a razor blade, I imagined a snake tightening around my arm as motivation to let my skin heal. Thus, an ancient union between woman and snake was born again, for good or evil, better or worse.

In the hot parking lot, Kelsey rubbed my back as I cried for all the world to hear. We were out of solutions. I called my dad. My dad was a hospital chaplain, meaning he provided spiritual care to people in the hospital, meaning at any moment my dad could be answering impossible questions about God from someone watching their loved one die. I knew I was being selfish, but I had to.

My dad answered, “Kate, can I call you back in a bit?”

I replied, gulping through my tears, “No, Dad, this is an emergency. I lost Cynthia B in my car.”

“What happened?”

“She went under the steering wheel into the car and I can’t get her out.”

“Do you know where she is?”

“No, I can’t find her! I don’t know what to do!”

“Ok, wait there, don’t turn your car on, I’ll be right there.”

Kelsey waited in the passenger’s seat next to me. I cried the whole forty minutes until my dad showed up in his light blue button up shirt. Forehead slicked with sweat, he checked all the areas of the car that I first had, and when he came up with nothing, told me, “There’s a mechanic over by the high school that can help us. Drive very carefully.”

Doomed if I drove and doomed if I didn’t, I turned on my car

and cried the whole drive to the mechanic with Kelsey holding my hand. It was an agonizing eight minutes. We pulled up to the mechanic, who was slightly amused by the downcast group of us.

“The snake went under the steering wheel,” I explained between snotty sobs.

“Ok, I’ll have a look,” the mechanic replied lightly. As I stood next to my dad, I was reminded of a similar situation from childhood with my transitional object. While most children were attached to a blanket or stuffed animal, mine was a strip of fabric from a very old pillowcase, knotted several times in the middle, which I liked to nuzzle and couldn’t go anywhere without. Its name was Lumpy. I lost Lumpy almost every week, usually in my bed, and every single time was the absolute end of my world. Every time, at least one of my parents dropped everything to help me find Lumpy. One time, I lost Lumpy at a grocery store and realized it in the checkout line. My mom asked the cashier to make an announcement over the intercom to ask shoppers to look around for a gray string with knots in it. As an eight year old child, the whole world stopped in that grocery line. Then the woman behind us in line pointed to the bottom of our cart and asked, “Is that it?”

Lumpy was returned to my trembling hands and my mom released a huge sigh of relief. From then on, Lumpy had to stay in the car. Looking back, I wonder if that was a normal childhood experience. The mechanic found Cynthia B in just a few minutes. She was curled up beneath the driver’s side footrest. The mechanic and the manager couldn’t stop laughing and even took my picture as I held my baby snake and continued to cry. I made it to their Facebook page. Many thank you’s were given, especially from my dad, who established a new rule that Cynthia B had to stay in the house from now on. Kelsey and I rushed home to return my pet to the safety of her cage. Shortly after that experience the dreams started. Cynthia B a hundred feet tall destroying the neighborhood. Dozens of snakes filling up my room; I can’t tell which one is mine so I have to get rid of all of them. Taking a bite and looking down to realize it was from my snake. That last one particularly disturbed me, but also felt primally maternal so I tried to reassure myself.

I left for Colorado two months later, with my snake in a travel cage in the passenger seat of my Prius. It was a tough transition for both

of us. The arid climate made it difficult for Cynthia B to shed on her own. I was eager to shed my old life and begin my new one, but the pieces fell away in patchy flakes like my snake’s old skin. Similarly to how I had to assist my snake with her shedding process, I met others who helped me bloom into my new world.

The snake was lost several more times, found snuggled in a snow boot, curled up in my roommate’s rock collection, squeezed between my mattress and wall. My first winter in Colorado I returned home for Christmas, not realizing my two other roommates would do the same and not leave the heat on. I came home to a very cold reptile who promptly did a massive poop on me when I picked her up. Her whole heating system was updated the next day.

We survived all the hard things together. Attracted to my body heat, she was happy to curl up with me in my bed for hours when I cried or napped. Because she was well socialized to people, I loved showing her off whenever guests came over. Many friends and boyfriends were mystified by my exotic creature, as if by extension she made me seem interesting and cool, when really I bought her because I was so sad that I needed something else to care for to get me out of bed each morning.

Seven years later, Cynthia B is almost four feet long and much harder to lose in my one bedroom apartment. Her yellow scales have faded slightly ever since I switched from a UV lamp to a ceramic one, but despite my occasional ignorance (it took me a while to understand the heating in my apartment), we both have grown to thrive, with dark places a distant memory and ideas for a bigger cage on the horizon.

High Bottom Girl

Susan Sanders

Alcoholism has always been our family secret. A cousin on my dad’s side went to rehab when I was in high school–it was something we whispered about at Christmas time. An aunt on my mom’s side took out a lamp as she drunkenly staggered through the living room at Easter. We never discussed alcoholism openly–just in our usual dysfunctional ways. My dad was his usual silent self, but my mom did bring it up once. One night I came home from a junior high dance and she was drunk. She told me that she would break my arm if I ever came home and she found out I had been drinking. I was eleven, and quickly added this to the list of mistakes to never make, which is how this whole thing started for me, and requires us to go back a few years.

When I was in 3rd grade I was in an after-school group that was going on a field trip to a hayride. This was a big deal in Indiana, and I dressed up in my cowgirl shirt ready to ride! I walked to school to meet the group to ride together to the farm. I waited and waited. It was cold and lonely in the way school feels after everyone has left. After about twenty minutes, it was clear I messed up. Turns out everyone met at the farm, not at school. I slowly walked home with tears streaming down my face. When my mom came home, I ran out to her car crying my eyes out in my gingham cowgirl shirt. Right before I reached her to receive a hug to soothe my anguish at the missed hayride, she pushed past me telling me, “I guess next time you’ll read the details closer.” Message received–don’t make mistakes. And by all means, if I made a mistake, I certainly should not TELL anyone about it. The opposite was also true. Same 3rd grade year, my mom and dad made a huge deal about an athletic achievement I earned at school. I was good at something–the best–and that sure made them happy. Eight-year-old me quickly learned how to keep score in this game. Achievement equaled love.

I got better at the game as I got older. I achieved then exceeded. I took all the hardest classes offered and got A’s. I played multiple sports and was the captain of each team. I was on the yearbook staff,

then the editor-in-chief. I kept piling on more activities and accolades while letting nothing slip. Gripped by the fear of not being special, I spun all the plates. I could not be average. Average did not equal love. Achievement equaled love. So I achieved, acted happy to do it, and made it all look effortless. It was all fake.

It is exhausting being a plate spinning dancing monkey. The fear of being found a fake caused great anxiety. That anxiety made me socially awkward to say the least. Then I found alcohol soothed those rough, anxious edges.

The summer before my freshman year in college, I was hanging out with several guy friends (not boyfriends, I was too awkward for that) who were a couple years older than me. Someone fired up a porn video and passed around a bottle of some grossly overly sweet alcohol. Suddenly I felt like I was wearing a too small wool sweater on an August afternoon. I was hot with embarrassment and discomfort, but too frozen to say anything or leave.

The only thing I could think of to do is what I had always done–do what everyone else did, but more and better and with less friction. So I took a loooooong hard pull from that bottle when it came my way and made sure my face did not betray the revulsion I felt at the thick, syrupy taste. The effect was instant. All the rough, anxious edges smoothed out. By not speaking up about my discomfort, I became the cool girl who drank and watched porn with the boys. Alcohol had made me socially acceptable. For a long time, it worked.

Alcohol drowned my anxious feelings through college where I was a varsity athlete at a Division 1 university, an honors student, and president of several campus organizations. I was terrified that someone would find out how little I knew, so I drowned all my fears with beer. Alcohol smothered my feelings of being less-than through graduate school. I never felt like I was enough, as I worked to finish my Master’s degree with zero debt at a prestigious university. They told me my first week that my entrance exam scores were under what they usually accepted. While drinking to black out several days per week during that time, I still had friends, excelled, and landed a good job.

In my twenties and thirties I climbed the corporate ladder, eventually managing teams of fifty to sixty professionals in a healthcare setting. My imposter syndrome was crippling at times. I hid the real

me–I never let friends or colleagues get too close because they might realize I had no idea what I was doing. By then, I thought I was fancy so I switched to wine. I drank with others trying to fit in, then drank alone when I failed to feel like I fit in. I got married and became a stepmother to two preschool aged kids. This is when I learned about the pain of being a mother. Especially a stepmother in a blended family. I thought my kids would do what I said because I always did what my mom said. Spoiler alert–they did not. My husband did not always do what I wanted him to do either. I felt rejected and like a failure. I did not know how to blend into this family, how to be a spouse, or how to be a parent. All of my fears magnified each other. So I did what I always knew–I hid my feelings. I drank daily and in increasing amounts. I drank mad or sad or celebratory or angry. I was so angry all the time because I could not figure life out. I felt like I deserved to drink. My justification was, “If you had the life I do, you would drink like I do.”

Eventually the alcohol was no longer working–I knew I needed to stop. Instead of alcohol reducing my anxious feelings, I woke up in the middle of the night with a racing mind and night sweats after passing out early in the evening. At one point in time, alcohol greased the wheels of social interaction,but now I drank so much I lost hours of dinner parties to blackouts. While at one time in my life alcohol gave me courage to do things I was too shy to, now I spent more time hiding from people or apologizing for my words and actions while drunk.

I approached my project as I always did, with a project plan and a spreadsheet. January 1, 2017, I started a spreadsheet where I tracked the number of servings of alcohol each day. This was the only place I was truly honest about my alcohol consumption. If I had a giant beer at the Mexican restaurant for dinner, I entered 2.5 on the spreadsheet. I measured shots so I could track them. I knew once I got a baseline I could start my reduction plan.

February came and went–no reductions. I could not stop. Same for March and most of April. I rationalized black out drinking on special occasions and events, and promised to do better next month. Mid-April of that year things shifted.

I was awake in the middle of the night like usual. I would often be nauseous all night. This night was no different. I went to the bathroom and sat on the floor by the toilet prepping to vomit,quietly to

not bother anyone with the consequences of my drinking. I did not want anyone to actually know I drank so much I was sick. Then things shifted in my gut, and I knew I had to get my bum on the toilet fast. I had my pajama pants around my ankles and the trash can in my lap for the coming vomit. The bout of diarrhea was swift and intense. I felt sweaty, nauseous and shaky. The next thing I knew my husband was calling my name as he yanked open the bathroom door. I had passed out in all my gastro-intestinal glory, pitched forward off the toilet with my naked bum in the air.

Of course I called it food poisoning, but I did lay off the alcohol for several days. I made it almost a week without booze. Writing in my journal during that time, I remarked about how proud I was of myself. How I could not remember when the last time I had been this many days dry. On the seventh day I went to a fancy dinner with my husband and did not want to “ruin it” by not ordering a drink. Martini in hand, I restarted the cycle. I distinctly remember not wanting this drink, yet not being able to not drink it either.

Every alcoholic has a rock bottom. My son was playing middle school football in 2017. I pretended to be a good wife and mother and always volunteered to do the pick up after practice. The truth was this gave me significant time to drink while I drove from my office to the field, then again while I waited for him. Most of my drinking was done in the car so I could hide it from my husband easier. I knew which quickie marts were on what routes and always had cash on hand to pay for booze in a way that would not show on our monthly card statement. I even stole money from the kids’ piggy banks to have cash for road booze.

I knew a good wife and mother does not drink from a bottle in a brown bag at her kid’s school, especially when it is alcohol bought with money stolen from her kids.

This was a shift in why I was drinking. Before I was drinking to hide. Now I was hiding my drinking and the related shame and fear. This was my rock bottom, but I was not ready to quit drinking yet. I just felt like I needed to try harder. I had always been able to use willpower and discipline to succeed. I shoved down those feelings of failure and was determined to just try harder.

I am a certified Project Management Professional and I got busy creating my game plan rules. Only drink alone. When that failed, never drink alone. Only drink beer. When that failed, only drink hard alcohol. Only after dinner. None after dinner. Only while watching TV. Never while watching TV.

The rationalizing during this time was insane. My drinking was not manageable. I could not believe that I could not quit. The shame I felt was extraordinary.

Thanksgiving of 2017 my parents came to spend the holiday with us. I was quite shocked at the physical and mental deterioration I saw in my mom due to her drinking. Where just a few years before she walked half marathons with friends, now she could not walk a block and a half. One night my dad and I had a frank discussion about my mom’s drinking. He said he was concerned when he came into my house and saw our bar cart. “This is it!” I thought. “Someone is going to finally see how much I am struggling and help me!”

My dad continued on. “But after spending a few days with you, I can see you have everything under control.”

I remember something inside me collapsing. I just wanted to be seen. Yet I was terrified to reveal myself to anyone. I thought I was going to finally get some help, but yet again I stuffed down my mistakes, unable to admit needing help. This comment from my dad was as devastating as thirty years before when my mom pushed me away after the missed hayride.

The day my parents left, my husband and I were driving to the grocery store and he asked how I thought the visit went. I was quiet for a minute then said that my mom’s decline had me worried, that I was really shocked at what I saw. I continued on that it made me think that maybe I wanted to cut back on my drinking. I told him about the new fad called Dry January and how I was maybe thinking I might want to consider whether I wanted to attempt to try it. I wanted to act committed to quitting, but was very wishy washy about actually doing it. His response made my blood run cold, “If you think you should quit, why wait–why not do it now?”

I was incredulous, “How in the world do I get through the coming Christmas and birthday blended family events in December if I am not drinking?!”

And here is what he said to me, “If you think you can’t get through it without drinking, isn’t that a sign you need to?”

I was not interested in common sense nor truth. I angrily shut that conversation down. When we got to the grocery store, I immediately went to the Beer Den to stock up while he did the rest of the shopping. The topic was closed.

I was in counseling during this time. I had left a counselor of several years in the spring of 2017 because I was lying to her about how much I was drinking. I started seeing another counselor who specialized in addiction so she could help me deal with my parents’ alcoholism. About five days after my husband’s truth bomb, I recapped my Thanksgiving and told my counselor I thought I needed to cut back on my drinking. She asked me if I thought I was an alcoholic.

I felt my face flush with anger, and I broke out into a sweat. I JUST TOLD HER that I thought I needed to cut back, WHY was she making me say it! I was quiet for a long time. Then something broke loose inside of me and I said yes, I was an alcoholic.

It was freeing and terrifying. I had so much hope and shame intertwined that I was frozen. I could not believe I was about to become one of “them.” Was I really an alcoholic if I had a well-paying corporate job? What if I had a home and friends? I tried to justify it. I had no DUIs or other legal issues. I was not divorced. My husband had not lost custody of his kids because of any drunken nonsense of mine. But it was in my first several AA meetings that I learned about “yet.” I had not lost my job… yet. We didn’t lose custody of my husband’s kids… yet. No divorce… yet. AA taught me that we all have our own rock bottom. No one’s bottom is better or worse than others. Each one is right on time–our Higher Power’s time. The idea of a relationship with a god of my understanding has been the most powerful part of AA for me. I brought a lot of religious baggage with me into AA, and it muddied the recovery waters for me for a while. Working with my sponsor and listening hard in meetings helped me gain, then strengthen, my relationship with my Higher Power in several ways. First I learned that flaws of religion and churches are related to people–not to my Higher Power. People will always be flawed, luckily my Higher Power is more than people. He is quite the opposite of people.

Then I learned that the language of the steps is there for a reason. “… God of my understanding” means the understanding I have today. I don’t have to be perfect. I don’t have to have it complete. Each day I have an opportunity to deepen and widen that relationship with my thoughts and actions. More will always be revealed. That does not mean my understanding was wrong, it is just a different understanding today than it was before. And I am comforted to know that it will be different tomorrow than it is today.

Before I got sober and in early days of recovery, all I could see was what was going to be subtracted by not drinking. I was convinced I lost the ability to have fun, be social, or ever celebrate again. I knew I lost a significant coping strategy. I grieved the loss of alcohol. When I was drunk I was able to numb feelings of failure, anger, discomfort. I was unsure what the future held as a sober woman–I did not know anyone like that.

Today in sobriety, I have had an incredible amount of gifts, energy, and relationships added to my life that I never would have discovered if I had not gotten sober. Some of it is just basic math:the time I gave to drinking, I now give to the garden, my health, writing, creativity, authentic friendships, and more. But there is also more than basic math. I think that alcohol was blocking who my Higher Power truly knows I can be. As the alcoholic fog has lifted, more has been revealed to me. Life has not been all unicorns. My mother died a brutal alcoholic death, I lost my job, my dad is currently dying of his own addictions. Oh,and a global pandemic. But fundamentally I am ok. This means I am a sober woman on the path her Higher Power wants for her. I don’t ever have to drink again.

First Impressions

S.J. Adler

I have always had a great relationship with nudity. I can’t say the same for sexuality, but I have become more comfortable with that as I’ve gotten older, and by comfortable, I mean I’m down for sex with the lights on. As such, I’d make a case that a penchant for taking off one’s clothing and sexual openness are not mutually inclusive.

Growing up, I annoyed my parents with surprise nudity. I’d take off clothing and toss it out our old Caprice Classic’s window as we drove across the Beverly-Salem Bridge. Once, on a walk with my dad through deep snow, we arrived at the local breakfast place to horrified glares from diners. Somewhere along the short trip, I’d kicked off my boots and socks and stood in the doorway with bare, wet feet. Momentarily puzzled, it quickly dawned on my dad that I was up to my usual shenanigans. Hand in hand, we headed out amidst a chorus of judgmental whispering. I doubt he located the abandoned boots, but it must have been some relief not to arrive with a fully naked kid. If the walk had been longer, he might have gotten a visit from social services.

In my mid-to-late-teens, my predilection for nudity evolved into exhibitionism. I’d get dressed in front of open windows. A skinny dip with friends wasn’t out of the question. I’d pose nude for my boyfriend, who snapped grainy, black-and-white pics with his old Canon. I wasn’t raunchy or insistent. It was a cavalier attitude about social norms and a refusal to live by them. I simply don’t like clothing. It inhibits movement, and I want to move, slink and expand, curl up like a napping cat, or stretch long and strong like a lioness.

Becoming a stripper wasn’t yet on my radar. I never considered nudity something to commodify. I knew that stripping existed, and there had always been the presence of naked, dancing women in pop culture. We didn’t have songs about strippers in the eighties and nineties, none to which I was exposed to. There were fewer films representing the work, and they weren’t exactly accessible. No Netflix, Prime, or Hulu. You might catch Showgirls on Skinemax late night, but it was rated NC-17, for chrissake. That shit wasn’t on demand. I didn’t

know anyone who stripped or knew a stripper even secondhand. My parents didn’t talk about it. I’d be shocked if my mom and stepdad ever went to a club. My father is gay, and I’m sure he frequented sex clubs, but not strip clubs. He never talked about that stuff anyway. Strip clubs used to be shadowy buildings, hiding in plain sight. Riding in the backseat up Route One north past the massive sign in front of the Golden Banana, it never occurred to me that the neon banana on the bottom was a giant yellow phallus.

I visited my first club when I was twenty-two. It was the Cabaret Lounge in Peabody, Mass. This place wasn’t a hole in the wall, nor was it high-end. It’s a townie place where the bar takes up half the room, and the stage seems a sort of afterthought, as if the owners said, “Well, now that we’ve got the bar in, there’s a shitload of empty space over on that side. We could fit a stage over there. Not for music though—for strippers .” They served bar food: pizza by the whole pie or slice, hot dogs, burgers and fries, chicken fingers. On recollection, the entire place seemed to play up the strip club angle on the outside, but once you got in, it was more of an average bar with a side of pussy.

I remember my first impression clearly. At the Cab (local nickname), the bouncer checked IDs once you were already inside. This meant that an adventurous under-ager could get a peek at the girls for at least thirty seconds before the club turned them away. I was legal by then, and while the door guy checked me and my boyfriend’s IDs, I caught my first glimpse of a stripper in real life. Directly adjacent to the entrance was the stage. It was large and shaped like a plus sign with a brass pole smack-dab in the middle. I saw the girl on stage, and she was already naked. Just heels. That’s it. My jaw hit the floor. She was naked! In front of strangers! It felt voyeuristic to see her like that, but she looked glad enough. The music was loud as hell, and disco lights dappled the stage and seating area.

We went to the back of the club and ordered two slices and a pitcher of Bud Light. I was tingling with excitement. I wasn’t attracted to the girl in a traditional sense. I didn’t see her nudity as sexual; I just loved to see a girl’s body that wasn’t mine. We sat at a table, poured a beer, and watched the first dancer gather her clothing and exit as another burst through the fabric curtains separating the stage from the dressing room.

The next girl was petite and pear-shaped. Cherubic is an excellent way to describe her. She wasn’t chubby per se but curvy. Her hair was a frizzy mess of brown ringlets, and she looked exhilarated to be on stage. Where the first dancer was sensual and seductive, this one was a powerhouse, all smiles, and wild hair. And she was barefoot. I didn’t know it then, but it would be the last barefoot dancer I’d ever see on stage. It’s unheard of. We wear heels. Usually clear or solid-colored Lucite, with five to eight-inch heels. The platform under the toe is between two to four inches, significantly reducing the foot’s angle. The point is not just to look taller but to have a better posture, stick your tits out more, and lengthen and accentuate your musculature and curves. That it makes a dancer look more formidable is a happy side effect. No heels, gleaming white smile, bronze skin, velvety soft. I wanted to lean in and stroke this new dancer’s leg from bottom to top and down again. The DJ announced, “Here’s Barbie!” and I laughed at the ridiculous name. How crazy, I thought, to be born with the name Barbie and then to end up a stripper. Only after we left that night did I point out to my boyfriend, “Did they all seem to have, like, incredibly sexy names?” He told me they weren’t their real names, and WOW. Did it get any better than this? It was like tits & ass theater. Barbie’s first song was “Sad But True” by Metallica. I was transfixed as Barbie glided around the stage, her dancing style in the center of a Venn diagram with circles labeled “Ballet, Can-Can, Contemporary, Tawny Kitaen on a white Jaguar.” She climbed the pole and held on with one hand just like they did in the movies ( Striptease and The Player’s Club come to mind). We dumped our paper plates in the trash and made our way to the stage with about twenty one-dollar bills each. As a side note, twenty dollars is not enough to have a good time. It’s not enough to warrant a seat at the stage for more than two girls’ sets. But we didn’t know that. I figured twenty bucks, a buck a song, twenty songs. Shit, I’d stay all night.

What was most amazing to me was when Barbie stripped everything off. I was no longer watching from afar. This was close up. She approached us and stood, naked as a jaybird, her toes pointing and flexing as she extended her leg. I wasn’t stealing a glance at her; she was giving it, and I could see everything. She turned and bent over, her curls pooling on the wood-planked floor. I gulped down my beer,

nervous and enthralled. I may have given her a buck or two before she winked and moved on to the next patron seated at the stage. Barbie was something special. She didn’t act sexy; she was sexy. The way she moved with skill, joy, and wild fucking abandon; I was in heaven. Not once, though, despite my personal inclination towards nudity nor my delight in watching strippers, did I envision myself up there on stage. Barbie was my first impression of a stripper, and I imprinted on her like a gosling to its mother. I watched her, and I thought: These women are fearless. They are more beautiful than the rest of us. They are confident. They are strong. They are different from everyone else.

Phobophobia

Joanna Acevedo

I can’t sleep. Tell B— I’m afraid of a man in the wardrobe. There’s no man in the wardrobe, he says. Turn on the lights, open it and go look. It’s bolted shut, I tell him. His voice on the phone is confident, strained. I can’t get in there. Well if you can’t get in there then neither can he, he says, and I love his practicality, his rational sensibility. In the middle of the night, you can’t think like that, I say.

Nomophobia: fear of being without your mobile phone. I lie in the dark, scrolling. Sometime in the early morning, I have a dream about my iPhone charger starting to burn, simmering into a cinder. Not sure what the Jungian interpretation of this is.

More dreams: I have a dream that Anne and C— come to my parents’ house and cook me a shrimp pasta. In the morning, I email them and tell them. Anne emails back: in iceland there is an annual award given to the most valuable citizen and the prize is you get to catch the first fish of the salmon season. the guy who won this year is a vegan. he let the fish go. it was subsequently killed by another fish.

I am constantly anxious—afraid of people, afraid of sharp objects (aichmophobia), afraid that a ghost will appear in the house that I am staying in. I am worried that people don’t like me. I am nervous that stories that I tell fall flat; the odd silence when I finish talking is loud and telling. I am concerned that British people don’t get my humor.

Hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia: fear of long words. Writing is all I can do to calm myself down. Fruit seems somehow dangerous. I over-caffeinate to compensate for poor sleep, which only feeds the manic energy. Everything has become ironic. Just existing takes effort and energy, effort and energy I cannot spare. I don’t remember which I like better, red or white wine.

From Google: Vertigo is a symptom, rather than a condition itself. It’s the sensation that you, or the environment around you, is moving or spinning. Hypochondria: fear of illness. Often, I diagnose myself. The only issue is, often, I’m right.

So I go a bit feral. Walk along the side of the road with a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc in one hand, waiting for a Scottish cop to stop me and ask to see my American ID. None comes. I drink too much coffee. Cross against the light.

The sun sets at 3:45 p.m. here, the gold light stretchy and pliable. B— and I argue about what’s most important, observation or detail, to good writing. I keep expecting something to happen—I’m not sure what.

Dystychiphobia: fear of accidents. Expect the best, prepare for the worst, the old adage says.

Phobophobia: fear of phobias. B— gets into a fight with his parents. He is fragile, for once, I am the strong one. I wake up in the middle of the night to see a dark hooded figure above my bed, and can’t get back to sleep afterwards. It’s all going to work out, B— says. Decidophobia: fear of making decisions. I can’t go forward, can’t move back.

Convinced the castle is haunted, I sleep with the lights on. Everything feels like a dream, or a memory. I can no longer distinguish between the two. I sit in front of the heather, eating Skittles. This unglamorous life.

I want to go home, I tell B—. I just want to be warm and sleep normally. In adults, I read, ADHD is diagnosed when it affects two or more

regions of a person’s life—professional and personal, for example, or personal and executive. If you’re successful at work, have a lot of friends, but have a messy home, you probably don’t have it, you’re just a poor house cleaner. Somehow, this information is soothing to me, a person who can respond quickly to emails and texts but can’t be bothered to do laundry or clean the kitchen. What do we do when we feel depressed? my therapist asks me.

Osmophobia: fear of smells. A lot of managing fear is just avoidance, but how can you avoid everything? In exposure therapy, you’re exposed to the thing you fear. I don’t know how to face what I’m afraid of, when what I’m afraid of is life itself. I don’t know what to do with all this living.

Having drunk the bottle of Sauvingon Blanc, I now have a headache. Catagelophobia: fear of being ridiculed. I’m concerned that my Spotify: Discover Weekly is the only person who understands me. I drink coffee to mitigate the pain of loss.

Genuphobia: fear of knees. I have a hard time imagining this is a real thing, but whatever works, I guess.

I get as close as I can to the heater without burning myself. I write everything in list form, so that I don’t forget anything. I have trouble, consistently, opening doors and closing windows. I tell someone embarrassing personal details about myself. I start all of my sentences with “I” statements. I find myself obnoxious, but can’t figure out how to be anyone else. I have intrusive thoughts. I wonder if Bad Bunny would go out on a date with me. I try to figure out ways to live with grief.

Haphephobia: fear of touch. I feel a slight shock when K— brushes my arm. I want to live in that slight shock, forever.

I don’t think fear will solve my problems. I don’t expect anxiety to go away, but I don’t want it to rule my life. The most important thing I’ve learned this year is that sometimes, things do go as planned. Sometimes, you can be prepared. And sometimes, you can’t. Philophobia: the fear of love. I have so much love in my life. I have so much life. What is there to fear? There is only this: a hand reaching out for another hand, a door opening, closing, sliding on its hinges, swinging open, flipping shut.

The Scopophobia Jester

JJ Williams-Presley

This serpentine-like jester is the embodiment of the fear of being watched or stared at.

The Personification of Stress

Ronald Walker

I work in a style I call “Suburban Primitive” this style combines my interest in the origins and functions of art along with life in the suburbs. The Personification of Stress deals with the most popular friend “Stress.”

Box of Polaroids

Niles Reddick

When my grandmother was in the kitchen, I opened the box that had its permanent home under her coffee table, and the black wrought iron oscillating fan cooled the sweat from anxiety as I pulled out the Polaroids of the grandfather I never knew. Donned in a black tie and suit with his thin-lipped smile, he was posed for the last photos, eyes closed with a thin layer of makeup for color. The next photo showed the casket right where the coffee table was near the fireplace, flower funeral sprays flanking each end of the silver casket.

Family photos of deceased great aunts, uncles, cousins on my grandmother’s front porch revealed dreamier, younger, and thinner times when everyone smoked, dipped, or chewed tobacco, and I wished they, their children, or grandchildren had kept and stored the classic cars parked willy-nilly in the yard, careful though not to crush my grandmother’s daylily beds surrounded by rock, carefully weeded, and arranged by variety and color. A convertible Mustang, a Land Rover Defender, and a Karmann Ghia would have made for a great collection of classics that could have been restored and converted to electric and worth more than they ever would have dreamed when they purchased them new, but I supposed they were in Frank’s junk yard, a cemetery for cars just down the highway, after their valves went bad, their transmissions failed, or their systems just blew out in one final ride and were hauled to Frank’s by the ambulance of a tow truck to harvest and salvage what parts could be used to keep others running smoothly, unlike my grandfather who could not be saved back then. When I hear my grandmother’s pumps tick-tocking across the wooden floor, I close the box of polaroids and put it back before she catches me and becomes sad again.

Autopilot

Aluu Prosper

Abfillage is an intricate technique and a body of works by Prosper Aluu which began in mid 2022. The term “Abfillage’’ can be seen as a portmanteau of “Abstract,” “figure,” and “collage,” which refers to an exquisitely made artwork that involves the painting of a figure on a newspaper or magazine collage on canvas or paper that has been decorated with colors. These figures are mostly painted with some or all of the attires neglected. The purpose of Abfillage is mostly to preserve the written stories or actions of the present in the artwork and sometimes highlight its effects and actions in figurative forms. The beautiful application of colors on the texts is intended to mollify some of the negative stories and happenings within. Mercurial Abfillage figuratively describes the psychological effects of bad governance, political, social, and economic instability on the mental state of the people dwelling in the geographical region. It explores themes of anxiety, depression, self-hate, self-harm and other mental and physical states reflected in these powerful works.

Letter to My Younger Self

Lisa Kuhn

At age fifteen, you are dreamy and curious while discovering yourself and your identity. Starting a band is your main goal (other than finding a boyfriend) because you love music more than anything. Most of your friends are in your life because you share musical tastes (not so much in adulthood, partially because you are now unafraid to admit when you like a pop song). You bond over bands like Nirvana, The Cure, Babes in Toyland, and Nine Inch Nails. The fashion aesthetic you develop is based on your musical tastes as well, something you also share with many of your friends (comfort is not your main focus like it will be when you are forty and your boobs have gotten somehow bigger and underwire feels like torture). Those friends love that you carry around a giant notebook you fill with poetry and quotes. It makes you feel smart and inspiring. It also established your habit of dragging around a bag with any item you could possibly need at any given moment. Useful, but this habit also makes doing anything away from home a pain, when all you really want is decent pockets for the essentials. Freshman year of high school was exciting because you discovered a whole new social scene that welcomed you as one of its own. You are officially one of the Freaks, or as one guy put it, an “alternative chick.” For the most part, you are close to living your fantasy life. If only you could hurry up and turn eighteen so you can move out and be an adult. Really though, if only one of these cute Freak boys would ask you out, that would be even better. Specifically Romeo, the quiet and mysterious junior you see walking down the halls between classes. Too bad you’re too shy at this point to talk to him. The only thing you know for certain about him is that his mom is the school nurse. Sophomore year will be different because you’ll become actual friends, but you will never end up dating him. You pine a lot for him, but it isn’t a bad thing that you never get romantically involved. He isn’t nearly as cool as your imagination makes him out to be. On a casual date with him after you graduate, you will confess your crush and discover that he merely thought you had potential. He also hates music with political

lyrics, which is a turnoff. You prefer well-informed men who care about the state of the world. Other boys will get your attention because they are more emotionally invested in you as a friend, like Agnostic Skater. Even though he goes to a different school in Georgetown, you hang out with him a lot by the time summer arrives. He’s a much better conversationalist than Romeo anyway.

You will go to Lollapalooza that summer, your first major concert. There you will meet your guy friends from Georgetown, including Agnostic Skater. Your friend Paranoid Android is also there, which is a relief because he will be a social cushion for you when you feel awkward as the only girl. They will be with Cringe, that older guy who is annoying, and he will spend the entire day hitting on you relentlessly, despite your protests. Agnostic Skater and the guys will do nothing to protect or defend you against this, so you have to fend him off yourself. You are still bound by the misogynistic belief that you have to be nice, so your rebuffs won’t seem to be landing. Luckily, Paranoid Android goes to the same sets as you, so you have someone who pays platonic attention to you without making you feel on guard. He is still funny and cool (unlike the narcissist he becomes later), so you get along like siblings who actually do get along. The two of you discover an energetic; Japanese punk band called The Pugs, who will be one of your favorite bands of that day. After listening to their CD later, you learn that a band’s live set can sometimes be way better than their recordings. You two will also bond over DJ Pollywog, a blue-haired, blue-clad DJ you immediately decide is the coolest person alive.

Agnostic Skater looks really good that day, and you will be glad you chose to wear that tie-dyed tank top that shows your generous cleavage. Unfortunately, his eyes are not the pair you catch that day (at least, not that you noticed). Cringe will not stop saying gross things to you. You ask yourself, is he serious? Does this actually work on anyone? Pickup lines never will work on you because you are too in love with language to accept such a lack of imagination. As you and the guys are watching some dancers perform a feminist interpretive pole dance to Tears for Fears’ “Woman in Chains,” you will casually comment, “I can dance like that.” This will be a mistake because Cringe will take the opportunity to be gross again. He asks if he can see a demonstration, to which you answer “NO.” You will wish you had the ability to become

invisible, although what you truly need is to be a bitch to him. Later in life you will not hesitate to shut down a pervert, but you haven’t built up the confidence yet.

Your final straw will be later that night. It will rain before one of the headlining bands takes the stage, leaving the grounds muddy. The audience will decide to throw the mud, so you and your friends will end up filthy and wet. The set will be entertaining, with the vocalist painted half orange and half silver in only a thong, but you will be disappointed to learn that the other headliner you came to see had to cancel due to the bass player coming down with meningitis. You have no idea what meningitis is, but it sounds terrifying. The rest of the music will still be good. You and the guys will sit under the colonnade and let the night wind down. Cringe will sit next to you. You will be annoyed because you wanted to sit next to Agnostic Skater, and you will suspect that Cringe knows this and is purposefully blocking you. He will babble on and on about whatever crap he thinks girls like (nothing remotely of interest to you) and attempt to put his arm around your shoulders. Finally, you will draw back your fist to punch him, which is the signal he apparently needed to finally get that you are not interested. He will have the audacity to be surprised and offended that you have agency over yourself. Years later you won’t remember if anyone else witnessed this act of self-defense. It matters that you did it, even so late in the day. Agnostic Skater will have your affection the rest of the summer, but you will be too shy to mention it to him. Lonely and feeling desperate to get some romantic attention, you will sink to your lowest and ask for Cringe’s phone number. You will call him and end up briefly dating him (mostly over the phone, because he is a sleazy asshole who is dating a minor and living with his mother). Oh yeah, he will be an actual adult who is totally fine hitting on teenage girls. Only later will you truly realize how wrong it all was from the get-go. He will meet you after church on a Wednesday before the Tobacco Festival. Your youth pastor’s wife will warn you about him, but you will ignore her. She did the same thing at a music festival earlier the previous summer, where you made out with a cute boy against a barn. On some level, you will know she is right, but your pride will win this round. The second warning will come the next night. After walking around the festival with him and his creepy, Unabomber-esque wingman

(seriously, they talk about building pipe bombs and other alarming activities); in full view of your classmates, you will run into your friend Siren. She is with his ex-girlfriend, Artemisia, who you already know about. Siren will ask you to take a walk with her in private. You will consent, and as you walk together, she will ask you to keep a smile or at least a neutral expression while she tells you something horrible. Cringe raped Artemisia when they were together. You will be scared. Siren will offer to take you home that night. You won’t remember whether or not you took her up on the offer, possibly because you will foolishly decline and block the memory out of shame.

The next day you will unfortunately still hang out with Cringe and Unabomber Wingman along with your girls and Agnostic Skater. Your best friend, Jane Lane, will end up dating Agnostic Skater, thanks to your own masochistic matchmaking. This masochistic act will be really irritating to think about in a couple of years when she comes out. They don’t stay together for that very reason. On the plus side, when you are eighteen and enjoying your first time at a dance club, Agnostic Skater will say to you something sexually charged that you later suspect wasn’t a joke. You kind of wish you had responded to it instead of sputtering and giggling like it was just a joke. You will be ashamed years later that seeing Agnostic Skater with your best friend is what prompted you to dump Cringe, not learning that he was a predator. He will take rejection poorly because he is dangerous and evil. The Cringe Twins will stalk away angrily with looks of purpose on their faces. Those looks will not escape the attention of your girls, who will then stick close to you the rest of the night.

One nice thing about being newly single will be the opportunity later that night to talk to Draven, the cool guy who is best friends with Romeo, who hasn’t even been part of this scenario because you only know him by association at that point. It will be clear to you that these are your people: people who look dangerous but are actually decent, do their homework and care about their future (you have always been a goody-goody for someone so left-of-center, and it will continue to confuse people into adulthood.). You will remember talking to Draven about how to tell if someone’s breasts are surgically enhanced. You will never remember how that topic came up, no matter how much you question it. While you are composing this very story, it will occur to

you that he may have been checking out your REAL AND FANTASTIC cleavage on the sly. Perhaps that was the inspiration. Later in adulthood, he will see a vulnerable and worrisome social media post from you regarding alarming mental health struggles, and he will message you to give you some comfort. You will never forget this.

After the entertaining chat with Draven, you and your girls will go to Medusa’s house and spend the night. Medusa will fall asleep first, leaving you, Jane Lane, and Siren to stay awake having girl talk. Although you will never be a smoker, you will accompany the two girls to the patio so they can have secret cigarettes while the house sleeps. Medusa lives on a remote hilltop, guarded by several dogs who bark at every car or person who shows up. While you are chatting in the breezy night air, you three will hear a resounding CRACK, immediately followed by aggressive barking. The three of you will then hear something running in the sticks and brush over the hill, and you will escape terrified into the house. You will hide, shaking, under the window of Medusa’s bedroom until you no longer hear barking. Sleep will not come easily for many nights after that. The next day you will tell Medusa and her mom what happened, leaving out the part about smoking. The unshakable feeling that you are being followed and watched will last until after you graduate high school.

When you are forty, you will forgive the bad decision you made at age fifteen because you will be mindful of how little emotional support you had at that age. You will finally love yourself and know that you don’t need validation to do so. You will never again apologize for taking up space or need anyone to approve of your existence. Watching and reading about people and fictional characters who do those things will make you angry because you will not be able to control the narrative for them. Instead, you will be a mama bear for anyone who needs protection against their own wounded heart.

Psychosis

Tara-Marie Gaulin

Psychosis is to me a constant battle of good vs. evil, except you’re Joker AND Batman. No, not in a “we live in a society” way. A way that puts you on trial with yourself, against yourself. You’re also the lawyer, you’re the judge, you’re the juror who just had his first day off in a while. Your loved ones sit in horror as they eagerly wait for your sentencing.

It’s dog-eat-dog out there—psychosis feels like that dog is over your shoulder, breathing down your back. Waiting to rip out your fucking neck when it gets the chance. You’d be lucky to have yourself in one piece, you’d be lucky to be alive. It’s been hard for me, but I’m lucky to be alive.

Psychosis took my sense of identity, who I thought I was, and who I should be. I wanted to scream, I wanted to shout, and I did. All it did was terrify my loved ones and create an awkward environment between me and my neighbors. My grandmother had never seen me in such a broken-down condition. I was defiant, angry, filled with grief and self-hatred.

Psychosis convinced me that every morally gray thing I’d done wrong was jurisdiction for death. Offensive jokes? Please. put. me. down. Said the wrong thing at the wrong time? No sleep for me! Argument on the internet? I’m a loser who wasted their time on someone who won’t even remember in a few months. This is called delusion of sin, which is funny for a former Catholic. My mom jokingly wished I’d gone and stayed in Catholic school sooner/longer.

I simultaneously begged for forgiveness from myself, from people who couldn’t “absolve” me of the bad things I’d done. I’ve been known to be quick to forgive an ex, but I’m very timid in forgiving myself.

It all started when I lost my appetite; over time, I ate less and less. I’m a habitual emotional eater, so it was surprising to me and my grandmother. My grandmother thought maybe I didn’t like the food she was making, so I immediately shut that down. I love Grandma’s cooking, especially her maple salmon.

The paranoia began creeping up on me, and every little cringey moment became painful. My heart felt strained all the time. I began to get obsessively paranoid about accidently dislocating or breaking my bones. Then my jaw became wired shut it seemed—I couldn’t move it past a certain point. I talked with a weird speech pattern because of it.

The most painful part was my jaw would involuntarily shut and grind, triggering my fear of losing or chipping my teeth. It was very painful. My dentist couldn’t really pinpoint what caused it and told me I needed to relax. Hm. Easy for them to say.

I was increasingly suicidal and had at least one breakdown a week, sometimes two. Flashbacks became more frequent. I lost twenty pounds so fast unintentionally. I had nightly nightmares and woke up with an anxiety attack. Day in and day out, during the pandemic, my life was like this.

When I was hospitalized, I heard the first time that me (Tara) and Delusion were used in a sentence together. It was something I thought I never imagined, fearing that I was completely schizophrenic. I thought I was going to feel like this forever, with no ending in sight.

I kept staring into the mirror while I was dissociating. Just a lack of awareness, a head-out-of-body experience. I lost feelings of sensation, numbed to the core emotionally and physically. I couldn’t muster up the feelings, internally and externally. I couldn’t think—my mind was in limbo, somewhere between the lines of catatonic and comatose. It was just static. With words mindlessly seeping out my mouth, disregarding what I wanted to say, or may have wanted to.

The face in the mirror became unrecognizable. There were times when I forgot my name and who I was during my “outbursts” or breakdowns. I became an object, not a person. A spirit, perhaps, longing to reunite with its body. Even with my contacts in, I still couldn’t make out who the person was on the other side of the mirror.

I was given at least four or five medications, and none of them seemed to work for dissociation. However, I changed for the worst, but in a strange sense, also for the better. I was happier, greeting people as they came into the psychiatric ward and getting to know everyone. This is unlike me, as I usually and still coward away from people. This seemed like a win, no?

Absolutely not.

I began to develop a friendship with a lot of people there. Elderly people who gave me valuable advice, while intuitively assuring me that I was a great woman who was about to do great things. I made friends with a few people my age, bonding over smoking weed and video games.

I wish I kept in contact with some of the people there. Even though I was given a phone number of one of the sweetest old ladies I ever met, I was told I wasn’t allowed to contact people after being discharged, though one of my friends there said nobody follows up with it. I regret it now and hope all my friends from there are doing well.

Over my stay at the hospital, I lost control of my movements. I began to develop some sort of dystonia. I shook my hips without control, I flung my hand and wrist in the air, my upper lip kept twitching, my fingers kept contorting. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t keep myself together. I developed low blood pressure from the medications. If I stood up too fast, I’d get dizzy.

I was reassured that I didn’t have dystonia, that it was psychosomatic. Which was a fancy term for “It’s all in your head.” They ran all these tests on me, blood tests, muscle reaction tests. They couldn’t come up with anything and were persistent on keeping the medications.

I stayed for two weeks, much to my family’s and my own chagrin. They were trying to convince me to stay an extra day to figure out what was wrong with me. I couldn’t be bothered to stay any longer; I missed my family, my friends, and who I used to be. I returned home to my grandmother’s home, unpacked and cleaned a bit. I missed my own shower and toilet. I missed not having to share a room with someone three times my age and who snored. I went to my mother’s soon after to celebrate Halloween with my sister, her boyfriend at the time, and her friend. My mother grew concerned with the way I was still jerking around, especially while I was driving.

I remember having my blood drawn or having IVs so many times that I began to have track marks and bruises from where they injected me. I always hated needles, unless it was a piercing or tattoo of course. I was so embarrassed and was worried of being looked at as a heroin addict. I began to cover my arms with my sweatshirt; thankfully it was the fall time. I remember sitting in the drive-thru of Dunkin’s with my step sister, and my hand kept twisting and contorting with no control to it.

While in the hospital, I missed my mom and step dad’s first anniversary and had to wish them a happy one over the phone. I missed my cousin’s sixth birthday as well, and had to talk to her over the phone with my grandma. My grandma had both her home and cell phone and was holding them together so we could talk to each other. I think that’s one of the saddest moments of my life that I sometimes still get upset about. My cousin knew I was in the hospital but was told that I was sick since she was too young to understand. When I was clear of hospitals, she was happy to see me again on FaceTime.

I was hospitalized again, at a different hospital. This time I have little to no memory of it. I have only a few videos I took of myself. Flinching compulsively, twitching my upper lip, my hand contorting almost as if I was making gestures. I remember having so much knee pain in the middle of the night and hollering. I remember sleeping a lot. The doctors said I had a toxic combination of medications from what the original hospital gave me. I was detoxed from it and given another medication. I was sent home again but was still dealing with paranoia, extreme anxiety, and now flu-like symptoms.

When my mother and stepfather went to vote, I threw up outside the car. I thought the woman next to me was laughing at me, so I began to threaten her, my mom yelling at me to close the door. I felt permanently drunk. I stopped that medication fast and spent most of my days sleeping at my mom’s house with flu-like symptoms.

There was this one nightmare I had during a nap—I dreamt this random woman kept sitting on me and trying to cuddle with me.

I yelled “GET OFF ME BITCH!” out loud in my dream, which unbeknownst to me, I also yelled out in waking. My parents and sister ran to me immediately to see what happened, just to see me groggily wake up. “I had a nightmare,” I said.

After a few months, I began to slowly recover. I continued my regular therapy appointments, saw my doctor every three months, and was given a set of medications that I now take and are much better for me.

My psychotic episode was the driving force for me to come to Keene State College. I knew I wanted to go to school for writing but wasn’t sure where exactly. I originally wanted to go to school at Salem University in Massachusetts. I always liked the idea of living in a busy

city, as I grew up in Manchester.

When I moved to Allenstown, New Hampshire, it was a big change for me. I was used to everyone minding their own, but now everyone wants to see how I’m doing. I should be more open to it, but between my city ways and social anxiety, I am not fond of it.

Once I arrived at Keene State, everyone was so friendly and wanted to help me, something that seemed to fade as the time went on. As much as I believe that masks are essential to beating COVID, I loathed wearing them all the time. I couldn’t remember names that well, and it was hard for people to understand what I was saying due to me speaking so quietly. I also found it hard understanding what people were saying. I am also known for not being a good listener.

I love being in English classes; I feel like I’m fulfilling my life’s purpose.

It’s hard being twenty-five in a college filled with seventeen to twenty-three-year-olds. I’ve lived much of my life and find it hard finding someone to date. Tinder is still a shithole, and I’d rather not return to that wretched hell. I feel so behind in life; even today, I still struggle with it. One of my close friends from middle school is married. Everyone seems to be moving on, having children. By the same token, not many people are doing what I’m doing or have the chance to.

I just have to teach myself gratitude and appreciate all the hardships and adversity I’ve overcome.

I’m happy to report that I am doing much better than before. I still deal with CPTSD and have been diagnosed with major depressive disorder a few times. I met who I believe is my soul friend group. My roommates are wonderful women who inspire me each day. I’ve also met a group of guys through my stepsister who I proudly call my brothers. I have a closer bond with my stepsister and family. Today, it’s great to say I’m doing much better. I handled it my way. It wasn’t ideal, but I just kept afloat on the ocean of life. The thing is, if I don’t move, I sink. Not only do I sink, but I hit rock bottom with my middle finger to the sky.

I am planning on saving my money to move in with my guy friends after the spring. Eventually I’ll get to have my cat, Tobias-Gene, that’s been staying at my dad’s, back. I’ve been working on controlling how much I eat, avoiding emotional eating, and working out. I’m going

to graduate in May of 2024 but finishing my last semester next fall. I don’t plan on staying in Keene forever, as I miss the city life, but anything to get my cat back and gain my independence honestly.

The Body’s Betrayal

Sharon LaCour

1 / The Betrayal of Skin

In the end my mother’s skin is what took her life. Her skin which had over decades thinned to the point of transparency where the blue veins mapped a complex pattern of tributaries as intricate in design as the spider’s web, as tenacious and as fragile.

The skin is the body’s vastest organ, the warm pool through which the sensations of this glorious earth seep inside us, move us, bring us both pain and ecstasy. It is like our body’s motherboard as its receptors connect, through these sensations, our hearts with the input of the outside world. Other boards can extend from the mother and, as it turns out, are called daughterboards: children as extensions of the mother, their bodies connected in an eternal exchange of giving and receiving, rejecting and welcoming.

The skin allows us the warm breeze lifting hairs behind the neck, the shiver of a finger stroke inside the elbow, the quiver of the sex at first light touch. Then there are the scrapes and bruises, the asphalt playground, the cut when chopping onions, all the breaks and fissures and burns, and the pressure sores of old age and immobility that invite rot and ruin.

2 / I said yes before I knew your name

Your tiny body held to my chest, my eyes and yours, an absorption of love, a connection of flesh. The piece of flesh that connected us, the bridge of fluid life, became a silent nub at your belly, soon to disappear. Yet the hollow spot at the belly remembers; we were there together, you and I, as I was with my mother.

Your dark eyes held mine for an eternity. I said yes to you before I knew your name. I should have thought more of it, of the name. The world gave you your name, but inside me you went without, you were Self, pure and loved, loved beyond all imagining by something other than I, my body being only a vessel to bring you forth. You were loved and you were Love.

When I held you to my breast, your hunger, a giant rising out of the water, screamed that it was life you wanted, life you craved, and

you said yes with every mouthful. Did you know then that it meant all of it? All the suffering that this earth invites? I suppose Mary knew it when she agreed to carry her baby, knowing the glory and the brutal end. But if we humans knew at birth, would we cling so to the breast, would we still say Yes?

3 / Eyes to Eyes

I have watched you endlessly, Mama, studied you from infancy, trying to discern moment to moment your moods and needs, to learn your heart and history. Around the kitchen singing, lifting your legs like a chorus girl. Riding a bike, the first time at age fifty, through the woods, crashing over roots. Climbing to the end of a fallen log over a hollow. Bouncing babies to the window , See the birds? See the leaves? Loving everyone else’s babies when they could not.

Then I watched your body dissipate, the tortured skin turning black, the pain deep inside the bone. Slipping you into pajamas, the hollow around your collarbones, the wires of your arms, the transparent skin, the breasts like small, weathered bird’s nests hung on a fence. Did you feel betrayed by your body? Or is it the other way around, that you gave up on it finally, stopped fighting to keep it going?

4 / My body is not my own Daughter, did your name feel wrong even then? At the very start? I should have waited to name you, to let you grow into a body of your choice.

You grew up curious, investigating with your body every hiding place, every crevice. You climbed trees and loved cats. Played music. Read books. At home you asked a hundred questions a day. At school the teachers said, he has not moved from parallel to cooperative play, he plays alone, he is quiet, he does not raise his hand, he does not ask questions, he is not curious. Now I think they expected certain things from boys, extroversion, mischief, restlessness. Some teachers complained, others were confused, sympathetic.

At seven, you grew ill at the thought of school. You grew pale. In adolescence you acted out, escaping at night to bum cigarettes, to spray-paint walls, to walk the streets alone while I slept, still praying to keep those dark eyes safe.

Then you said: My name is wrong. My body is not my own. It belongs

to another soul. Not to mine.

5 / The Naked Helplessness

At age ninety you understood. You said , he feels trapped inside his body, how sad to feel that way, that you were given the wrong body, the wrong skin.

How did it feel when your body began to go wrong? When you could not walk, or use the toilet, when eating became a chore and only the memories of food once enjoyed remained? What the people at the place where you died, who were really strangers, remember was your kindness. You gripped their hands, looked into their eyes and said, thank you for taking care of me, of this old body . Almost an apology. Even after moments when you had to give up all pride, all modesty, the humiliation of naked helplessness.

6 / I knew you before

Now, child, your she-body is soft and round, sensuous and womanly. A grown-up body, more separate from me in its adult form. Yet your eyes have the same depth as the child I held at my breast. Your sheeyes speak to me in the same way. Bright and eager, sad and wounded. I did not know your name then, but I Knew you, in the way we are known in the womb and at the one moment we enter the atmosphere, breathe air, and are claimed by the earth. The earth took you, as it takes us all, and dictated its dual nature upon you. Male. Female. Boy. Girl. Blue. Pink. Groom. Bride. The body and world engage in this two-sided classification of Self and Other. It separates us from each other, from our true selves, from the universe or God, and we are meant to swim back over our lifetimes, back to the source, where all is one.

7 / Floating Away

There are thin places where the body finds the stillness that it takes to know the true Self apart from all earthly definitions. It can be felt deep inside until it no longer relies on the body for its existence and feels as though it were floating outside the flesh.

Is this how you felt at the end? Floating away, you would ask me to wait, your eyes closed, wait, I’ll be back in a moment. Where were you in those moments? Moments when I tried to wrench every second of

looking into your eyes, hearing your voice.

At that point, the rootedness of things, the grounding to earth, seemed to disappear. The sensations of your body, the motherboard of skin stitching all together, no longer functioned to keep you anchored here. I saw the slow departure in your eyes, saw you leaving your body behind, yet your eyes never lost that bright invitation, they never stopped saying yes, even to what lay ahead, especially to what lay ahead, because what lay ahead was all that you had left.

8 / Love is not bound

To be human is to be earthbound inside a body of flesh and blood. There is no other option for our spirit, our consciousness. Yet, the spirit does not know gender. If the body is wrong, being on earth can be a prison, a torture. What the spirit craves is something whole, something unified where there is not one or the other but a trans-lucence, a gradual and all-encompassing grade of color, light to dark, inclusive and beloved, all within all.

Love is not bound by earthly rules. Love is not purchased or gained through the body’s shape and color, the angles of its limbs, the function of its organs, by the wrinkles of the aging face or the smooth action of the genitals. Yours are the same deep eyes, the same mouth that suckled, the same blessed soul as at birth. Your hollow spot will always be that place of connection to flesh that brought your spirit into this realm. I am connected there to my mother’s body which is gone now, has moved on beyond itself.

9 / Thin Places

The thin places are stillness. Near an endless sea, or under the arms of a thousand branches, beneath a river’s current; holding the hand of the dying, or a newborn animal, or a nervous chickadee. In the cosmic life dance, form is only secondary; there is no male or female, black or white, only a rush of energy, even in the worst circumstance of pain and bleak suffering. The dance of love is a dance of loss and pain but a dance nonetheless, inside and outside the body. For in the end the body fades, and what is left is the solitary, skinless Self.

West Austin Farber

Ride Em, Cowboy

Michael Cannistraci

The gloves were the most splendid I had ever seen. They almost glistened, and the fringe moved with a cowboy grace even when I was blowing my nose. The rest of the outfit was dazzling: a white Stetson ten-gallon hat, tan leather chaps that looked like eagle wings over my legs, and cowboy boots. The designer on the Miller Lite commercial had found a red gingham shirt and a leather vest that looked just like the one John Wayne wore in Red River.

I stared out over the set, watching gaffers, sound editors, and still photographers working in rushed motion like they all had a plane to catch. An old wrangler, his weathered face carved in flint, brought out the white stallion, his shiny black saddle like an emperor’s throne. I imagined the glory of riding while the cameras rolled, filming me in cinematic glory.

There was just one problem.

I had lied on my resume. I couldn’t ride that monster if my life depended on it. I began to get the hiccups and was dizzy with fear. On the other hand, I had taken some riding lessons when I was sixteen. I mean, how hard could it be?

I loved doing commercial extra work, and I had a good relationship with this production company in particular; sometimes they gave me small roles to play. The money was good: three hundred for the day, plus on occasion you would get union bonuses for smoke pay if they used effects, wet pay if they used rain, and danger pay if you were at risk for being trampled by a horse.

The assistant director, a handsome Irish guy with a ponytail who always dressed in stylish downtown black, had suggested me. His name was Neil.

The shoot was scheduled for near sunset, somewhere in the wetlands of Jersey City with a picture-perfect shot of Lower Manhattan. I was told that three of us would be on horseback, with our backs to the camera shooting us as we rode through the field and over a small hill

to show Manhattan glistening in the light of the setting sun. We would ride, dismount from our horses, and take in the magnificence of New York; what this had to do with selling Miller Lite beer, I had no idea.

I got to the production office in Tribeca around one in the afternoon for the drive to the set. I sat in the waiting room with two ruggedly handsome guys who looked like farmhands in a Ralph Lauren commercial. One of them had jeans and leather boots distressed to perfection; his uncombed hair looked great. The other one, with jet-black hair and gray snake eyes, looked around at all the film crew scrambling to get ready like he was watching monkeys doing a tango.

“So, what happens now?” the distressed jean guy asked.

“They drive us to set, dress us in costume, and we do the shoot,” I replied.

“Oh,” the black-haired one said. I waited, but that seemed like the end of the conversation.

They sat in silence looking at me.

“You do this a lot?” the black-haired one asked me.

“Yeah. So did you audition for this, or did you know someone in casting?” I asked.

“They saw Curly and me in the competition.”

“What competition?”

“Bull riding. We do the circuit when we aren’t doing the rodeo.”

A van took the two rodeo studs and me out to the wetlands of New Jersey, and the crew began to set up the shot. Fredrik, our German director, came over to say hello to us and showed us our starting and ending marks. Fredrik, his blond hair slicked back, was wearing black leather pants, a tight gray knitted shirt, and ballet slippers. He had a dance instructor in an S&M club vibe. Fredrik kept reminding us, “We can’t lose the light for this shot,” meaning that we only had a limited amount of takes and time to get the horse-riding sequence filmed.

The horse trailer pulled up, and the set wrangler opened the back and brought out the white stallion, his muscled flanks and flaxen mane flowing; his nostrils looked like two parentheses breathing fire. One of the gaffers had told me that this was the same horse from the Alan Alda movie Sweet Liberty, and I recognized the colossus immediately.

The weathered wrangler walked the horse to me and gave me a big smile, showing off all of his four teeth. “He’s a beast from Hell,

mister,” he crowed while he stroked the bulging tendons on the horse’s neck. “His name’s Firecracker. You should have seen him throw the stunt double on Sweet Liberty. His ass was flying like a pole vaulter’s. Shit, he could barely walk for a week.” He chortled, then spit on the ground. “Come on, cowboy, time to saddle up.”

He held the stirrup for me to get on.

I got on the horse and trotted out to my starting mark. My thighs felt like they were wrapped around a Buick. The horse looked back at me and gave me a dirty look. “Who do you think you are, little man?” his gaze said to me.

“Okay, let’s roll. We got the light!” Neil shouted out to the crowd. The Ralph Lauren cowboys trotted over to me, moving their horses with ease that made me want to vomit. We were set, three in a row, ready to ride into history.

“Action!” Fredrik shouted. I barely pressed my thighs into the stallion’s flanks, and we were galloping at nosebleed speed. I held onto the stirrups and prayed to God that I didn’t fall off.

“Cut, back to one,” Fredrik shouted.

Fredrik walked over to me and gave me a severe look.

“Michael, let’s try not to have your ass bounce so much in der shot, bitte ?”

I nodded glumly and looked over at Neil, who was giving me a quizzical stink eye. I felt as if I had been walking around the set with my fly open.

The stallion snorted and stamped its hooves. I thought I could see sparks flying when he flicked his tail.

“Action!”

We galloped up to our ending mark, but I couldn’t get the damn horse to stop on the mark.

“Now Michael, let’s try to get this right, okay, liebchen ? The sun is setting, ja ?”

“Was I better with my ass bouncing?” I asked.

“No.” He walked back to his director’s chair.

My two cowboy amigos were looking at me like I had leprosy and two heads. I gritted my teeth and thought to myself, Come on, Michael! You can do this, damnit. Now show this horse who’s boss and get this shot in the can.

“Action!!”

Firecracker and I burst into a gallop and suddenly became joined, horse and rider, in that beautiful dance, my head down with my butt in the saddle, the wind whistling in my ears, his mane flowing, and as I guided him to the end mark looking out over lower Manhattan, I was giddy with joy and thought, I’m doing it, I’m doing it, I’m riding this fucking horse just like a real cowboy!

It happened so fast. One minute I was high in the saddle, and the next thing I knew, I was sideways on the horse, in an exact perpendicular line with the beast; my feet were where my ass should have been. I later found out the back billet strap, the cinch that holds the saddle on the horse, had come loose, so I was galloping sideways through the set, the toothless wrangler and the film crew chasing after me and Firecracker, who was really pissed off. We barely missed a light pole; the crew was scrambling out of our way as we galloped toward the wetlands. The only two things I could see were Firecracker’s penis and the ground rushing past me.

So this is how my life ends, my spine severed and the last thing I see before death are horse genitals, I thought as I bounced sideways like a basketball.

Firecracker began to canter in circles and slowly came to a stop. It took four of the film crew and the wrangler, who was cussing and spitting the whole time, to get me untangled from the saddle. When I stood up, every part of my body hurt.

We ended up just shooting the three of us holding the reins of our horses with our backs to camera, gazing out as the sun set over Manhattan.

Neil walked over to me as we got in the van to go back. “Nice ridin, Tex,” and he walked away.

The ride was quiet through the Holland Tunnel. My two cowboy pals were giving me the cold shoulder. The only thing I wanted was to be dropped off at my apartment and soak in an Epsom salt bath. We pulled into the city, and the van stopped at Canal Street. “Out,” the driver told me.

“No, there’s a mistake; I live uptown,” I said.

“This is the end of the trail for you, pardner. We’re taking these real cowboys to Brooklyn. Looks like there’s a subway with your name on it.”

I grabbed my backpack and limped out of the van, which left me in the dust. I was bowlegged and waddled to the subway a couple of blocks away.

As night fell over the lonesome town, I wondered if my bodega sold Ben-Gay.

Between the Womb and the Tomb

Cebo Hadebe Dear sisters,

You’ve always been such beautiful things, your bodies so cared for by us. It brings me unspeakable joy that, for the first time in all your twelve years under the sun, you now know this too, because your father has decided to take responsibility, has decided to love and care for you. Now you are coming into the knowledge of just how precious, how perfect, how painterly your bodies and souls are—knowledge vital to have because I was beginning to see how it had traumatized you witnessing how indifferent the world was to your bodily deaths.

Words couldn’t describe how glad I was for the two of you when you came back from eJozini . There you were, with mouths full of praise for your father and fistfuls of crumpled Mandela smiles from his wallet and eyes ripe with light from the misadventures you’d gotten up to with your other siblings from your father’s side. But, my sisters, my gladness had nothing to do with any of those things.

I care nothing for currency, for your hours-long bus trips, and for all the junk and drinks eaten till you vomited, for fills of laughter, and for memories shared there. My happiness was for you two as young girls. Because, at one point, I had witnessed those same lips curse and disown the deadbeatness of your absent father, who’d last bought anything for you when you were only seven months. I had lived through seeing your hands constantly empty and without anything from him for you to remember him by. I had seen both your eyes glaze over in sadness and loss whenever a father kissing his daughter appeared on TV. Even though at twelve you were both too young to voice your feelings, I was old and close enough to you (I used to feed, burp, and change you, hey) and your experiences to know you’d long made peace with the understanding he didn’t care. Not giving a damn to be there someday when your bodies had to be accompanied to the grave by the shaky notes of amagugu and by the sturdy shoulders of pallbearers. How could he be there when he—a working man with a car—couldn’t even pick up his cell and ask how well you were, what you’d eaten, and how

many pairs of shoes you still needed.

One of my saddest life memories isn’t even of personal failure— it’s as your eldest brother. I remember the day. It was you, Snazo. You at twelve, a few months after your birthday on the nineteenth of February. You said something that tattooed your pain on me.

Our little brother Njabulo had just exchanged goodbyes with his dad over the phone. He’d had this huge, silly smile that normally came over him after watching The Boss Baby or Teen Titans Go! You stood there and said: “Me, I don’t want a baba, me.”

These words broke me, shattered me in ways I don’t feel I’ll ever be able to translate for you because I remember myself once saying the same about my dad a distant past ago, one boyhood ago.

Those words had been my own in 2006. Grade two. Toybox Primary School, like you.

It was lunch break. This specific detail lives fresh in my head because the pain I’d felt that morning, as those words (mine) came out, was particular. My friends were speaking about their fathers. About how their dads had done this and that. I think something in me snapped, something unnameable to me at the time since I was still so new in the world, and I said: “At least you have fathers. Mine has never really cared about me.”

These were the words. I recall them with precision because they are a part of me. Fossils and archaic drawings etched deep into the caverns of my mind—stark impressions of how the now-extinct sevenyear-old me had lived and felt.

Keep in mind this was during an impressionable time in my growth, a period in my relationship with my father I believe you’d have related to had you put it next to you and your dad’s. Unfulfilled promises, rare to no phone calls, no birthday visits—standard absent father protocol. So standard, so expected, that even our TV is a cloying buffet of shows like uTatakho and No Excuses, Pay Papgeld —junk foods specially prepared to feed us paternal absenteeism, the vacuum of maintenance, and the total impotence of fathers with no sense of pride and duty. And in the years that came and went, bitterness took root in my body. So did the low self-esteem and declining self-worth, the sense of feeling abandoned, the vague emptiness of being an incomplete boy, and the dizzying hangover from the mix of lovelessness and absence of

fatherly attachment, which kept my head forever spinning with existential confusion.

The resentment reminded me daily how failed I was. The first to point at my friends when they bragged about the coolness of their dad’s new car. Not that mine didn’t have one, but when your father’s a stranger at worst and a cameo at best in your upbringing, there are just no bragging rights. Or how girls noticed them and complemented their branded sneakers on civvies days—then there was me. How I’d rued never being able to boast that iTimer bought me this and that. Little moments. Small things in my young mind distilled into one soul-numbing feeling—mute loneliness.

And I was beginning to realize, growing up without your father, that the same thing was befalling you. Resentment. Disappointment. Lovelessness. A sense that you both weren’t beautiful and worthy enough to be given the life you deserved. Like me.

It crushed me.

I knew from where your words had risen, Snazo: a place of profound pain. Yours were the words of a child who knew how important, how beautiful a father was supposed to be, and how much she longed for such but was starved of this basic need. All this because we are products of isintu and amasiko , traditions and generational faults as Black people, which for aeons have conspired against us to convince us real men among us—who’d be there, who’d care, and with whom this gift of life should be shared—were mythical. There. That’s why your words broke me, Snazo. Your words were a spell that opened your body, turning it into a time portal bound for Toybox School. To a boy during break time. All this connected by one thing: the commonness of being a child failed by a father who hadn’t given a damn about what she’d eaten or where she’d rested. Lack of visits. Total starvation of the physical security of hugs and daddy kisses and paternal presence and presents. The same fate I’d suffered. That’s why I felt for you two—and continue to. While our fates may have been similar, your futures were shaping up to be infinitely bleaker.

The mute loneliness was a worse quicksand for you—ironic since both of you have always had each other as twins. Curled up in this dark world just as you were before birth. I can’t even begin to imagine how

devastating it must be to live in a world where the news and TV inserts are hardly ever hungry for stories about young girls and women getting hunted, getting abused, getting slaughtered. Only to have a father who is thoroughly destroyed, to the point of him being hopelessly insensitive to your struggles and numbed by distance to your fears as young girls. His young girls.

Thankfully, you never have to experience it any longer—living with a dead living father would’ve been tougher dice for you. Much more ruthless because the world says one thing to all women who live in it: “Your body means nothing, so do your fears of being destroyed and dumped into a nameless mass grave where so many other girls and women get thrown.” This is The Between.

The Between is the limbo where your existences mean nothing.

S’nqobile, do you remember the day I asked about what was happening outside when I saw one of the omalume groping Snazo’s arm? I’m sure you don’t remember. You too, Snazo, even if all this happened to you.

I asked you, S’nqobile. About the incident at the play area. Lutho , you said. I could tell, though, from your uncomfortable shifting and lack of eye contact from your naturally half-hooded gaze that you knew well I wasn’t having it. You’ve always known me to be someone who doesn’t take nonsense. For that sake alone, I let things go and chose to take your word for it instead of causing a scene.

But I was wrong.

Wrong to have done nothing. In my cowardice, I’d been apologetic. Turning a blind eye because nothing serious had happened for me to deem it “offensive.” How different had I been from the police? The same police who refused to take an abused woman seriously till there was only her corpse to speak for her?

My rage would’ve been justified. Justified because where we came from and lived, boys learned from the men around them how fine it was to touch you (or any girl and woman for that matter), even if you are visibly uncomfortable about it (and verbally expressive about the discomfort). The same place which grooms more little girls for this by teaching them to be cool about non consensual touching and fondling. Implicitly instilling in you that to be touched and brushed and caressed without your word is natural and good—that it’s a compliment about

your body you should always be polite enough to meet with a smile. Speechless from the stroke of feeling torn, I stood disturbed. In your squirming, Snazo, I’d not only seen a grown man holding you anyhow; I was witnessing vignettes of violations and violence I’d seen many times over.

I saw it all. A boyfriend not letting his girlfriend go till she switched her “I’m not ready” to a leg spread. A stranger in the streets who refused to let a woman’s wrist go till she gave him her WhatsApp tens. A random stalker at the groove, making himself a pest to a woman until she forfeited her will and agreed to be bought a drink. An ever-flowing stream of YouTube comments from men calling a hip-hop video vixen a “psycho” and that she was “bitchy” because she didn’t smile all too much.

I saw these things—and more—in a paralyzing mini trance. Bearing witness of how worthless your beautiful bodies were to be afforded any sort of accord is a truth I know you learned early from the unworded understanding that because your father left you, it meant he had no love for you. I already told you this in the beginning. And if he, of all people, couldn’t love you, how could any other man from The Between with no love for strangers have any for you?

These men in this fast-moving vision are normal people with a not-so-normal sense of love towards you and your bodies, a perversely selfish love that gives only for its sake and gain. People that somewhat believe they have the total right to do as they please with your feminine bodies. All because it was instilled in them from the time they were tender boys that whatever they did—whether right or unfair to any female body—was justified. That “boys will always be boys.” Then people scratch their heads when it comes to answering why boys morph into ingrates who see girls like you and women like ma and gogo as baby-making chattel and unpaid housekeepers, not as girls and women. The phrase “boys will be boys” is, in essence, another one of society’s cruel, ignorant jokes gone bad. A translation that reminds you that a certain Beyoncé song means nothing, no matter how many times you can dance and sing along to it. This is a world run by boys, and girls aren’t co-heirs to this world bequeathed to us by our forefathers. See that? Forefathers. Even the words erase all that is feminine. Our ancestors are fore fathers , never fore mothers . See? Even the women

who carried our mothers (who then carried us) for nine months lived in The Between—and were unrecognized by it. No different from undocumented natives, completely invisible even to the people they birthed—dead in the eyes of the same people who owe their lives to them. Simply put, being born a girl means you inherited exactly that from those that came before you. To exist, but not to be recognized. To be, but not really. To be servants, not co-heirs. Because you’ve been made to be maids in your own home. Yes. This world is your home as much as it is also mine. Yet, you have been made to clean up after our messes. This is to say that to be female is to be inferior; that you deserve to have your bodies twisted, held, broken, put together, broken again, and done things to. This is why I’m ashamed about my reaction the day you were groped, Snazo. Because your body, as a girl (much like any other woman), was reduced. So when you said you didn’t want a father, I felt your grief. As girls—and women-to-be—you are grieving. Mourning your deaths on both a visceral and literal level.

Grief. Women and girls are in mourning. Grieving for their lost innocences; for other women they knew personally and through televised memorial services; for the lost family members who were still alive but who didn’t believe them; for lost friends they still knew but who insisted it was all their doing; for the loss of their selves; for the loss of their future sexual pleasures; for the loss of justice in police stations that easily dismissed their realities, whether or not a rape kit existed; for the loss of self all over again whenever they saw their smiling perpetrators walking scot-free (or out on bail) as if they’d done nothing so horribly inhumane. A loss of hope in totality. The Between is never sorry for your losses.

This is why you have the full right to say no. “No” to anyone wanting to have their way with your arms (and all parts of your body, for that matter). “No” concerning your social media details. “No” to anyone you don’t want anything from. “No” to anyone who wants you to smile for them when you don’t feel like it. Own your “no” without apology.

Have no reservations because this is your humanity on the line. Yours. It’s neither disrespectful nor snobbish to own yourselves. It’s self-preservation. Self-love. I want you to know there’s nothing normal,

nothing human about being violated, only to have no say about it. I want you to know that.

There are many places where your fates are decided. In shebeens, on beaches, in hangouts of ishisanyama —whenever guys, from the youth to the elderly, form cliques to play the political game of what it means to be a man and how you relate to their standing. They aren’t eating ishisanyama and aren’t drinking beers and exchanging innocent in-betweens. They are Draculas and Hannibals who turn these places into secret churches and tables into unhallowed altars. They convert your flesh and the red flowing beneath it into centrepieces of their Unholy Communion, desecrating the wine that is your blood with rapey “jokes” before drinking it and cursing the bread that is your body before breaking it by hand and then by tooth. But it shouldn’t be so.

You. Are. Not. A. Consumable.

You are live people. Organic memory chips of the years behind you and those yet to come. People with names—names to be called by and respected because of. Not because you are your respected mother’s daughters or because you are your respectable brother’s sisters.

You both deserve respect and a respectable place because you are you. Your names are worth all the dignity on their own.

Your destruction—when I say your, I mean from all the girls as old as you are to women who are old—is a loss of portals to other whole worlds. Existences in which are hidden are the possibilities of the future, the divinities of the unknown, the mysteries of life waiting to be unlocked, and the lives (of loved ones and their experiences) invested, which make the rest of ours worth living.

I wish I could share some secrets about how to prevent these terrible things from ever befalling either one of you. But I can’t. I fail because I don’t know. I fail also because I do know. Or I might. Every lead to what could be the answer are all in this letter, but admittedly my answer is as good as none. So the question of what happens to your bodies will remain unanswered till… till maybe forever. But there is one thing I remain convinced about.

The issue about the evilness of The Between has never been you. It will never be.

I have girls and women, young and old, who have shared their

tragedies with me. My sisters, whatever will happen to you is on neither of you. I know my saying this will be hard to swallow because while growing up you were taught to watch and correct your own “faults” in a way I never was when I was your age. But, again, I have to stress this: the issue’s never been you and never will be. Because when a man date-rapes a woman, there’s always the talk of: “She should’ve stayed home and not gone clubbing,” when it should be: “He shouldn’t have done that.”

It’s never about how you dress, how you carry yourself, where you choose to go, or what you do with your trusting nature. It’s not those things responsible for abuse, for rape, for murder. There’s nothing to being born female to be ashamed of. I feel I should let you know this too. I feel it’s important I say this. This must come from a man. I understand just how much you yearn to be admitted to that you’re not in the wrong—and never have been—with all honesty, and that innocent boys growing to become sick adults and men who abuse alcohol as much as authority and women and girls have nothing to do with you. The fault points squarely away from you.

Speaking of authority, do you know Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie? Renni Eddo-Lodge? Mariama Ba? Malaika Mahlatsi? Dr. Frances CressWelsing? I used to rent out books for you two before COVID captured libraries and pretty much the world at large. Not because of the alliterative adage: “Books before boys because boys bring babies.” No. I did it to start you off early in reading and developing sound reasons. I hope you fall in love with them as time goes by. Because your learning and getting educated shouldn’t have anything to do with the male gaze; it should be because you want to become better girls and to be great women someday in your respective rights. To assume authority over yourselves through knowledge, like these women I listed above. Knowledge is power, right? In books, you will learn more about yourself than from other people, me included. Libraries are the cosmos, and the shelves are galaxies where I found wondrous worlds. Your Chimanandas and Rennis and Malaikas. Worlds of consummate feminine authority I know will grow you because they know and have learned the way of The Between without losing the respective strengths of their voices.

It is my sincere hope that you open your bodies, your portals, and

travel to these worlds. Because you both will continue to be questioned. To be bossed around. Doubted. Don’t be like this. Be more this way. All these other things I don’t even need to tell you about. As your eldest brother, I hope you won’t bow. Never fold your backbone for the sake of making a spineless masculine nobody stand taller and better than he truly is. Because nothing is more important, especially in The Between, than being able to stand up all by yourself.

Do you know Rosa Parks? Another strong world. You probably know her as the owner of the most powerful “No” in world history. My wish is to see you thriving in The Between with her strength and her undying will and the knowledge of how lovely your bodies and souls are. To be girls and women capable of shaking the foundations of history and the future with their say. Capable of living lives worth remembering between the womb and the tomb.

Yours truly, Your big brother

Not My Name

Benjamin Wang

Leaving the noisy hallway, I lugged my backpack into the classroom and sat in the back row. A line of clerestory windows cast boxes of sunlight onto the chairs, the fall breeze rattling the windows. I thought my T-shirt and shorts were the perfect outfit, but sitting in the sixty-degree classroom, I regretted my decision. Surrounding me were the unfamiliar faces of students I would spend my science class with for the rest of the year.

Our teacher, a smiley woman wearing a magenta scarf, produced a clipboard, introduced herself, and read off the list of names one by one. Then she paused and curved her lips into a frown.

“Benben?” she asked.

Is she calling me? She can’t know my mother’s nickname for me! No one does! Nicknames are strictly for the family. They’re for when your mother feeds you while singing, “Here comes the airplane!” For when you trip on the curb and get a boo-boo on your knee and you need your Mommy! Not at school in front of the big kids.

My chair transformed into a crib and announced to the class, “Look at this big baby!”

I meekly raised my hand and responded, “Here.”

A room full of students erupted into laughter. My friend Craig turned to me and smirked while mouthing the word “Benben.” The kids who laughed the loudest were the other students who spoke Chinese too. They knew what Benben meant: Dumb dumb in Chinese.

It is a common Chinese practice for parents to nickname their kids what they didn’t want them to be. I almost wished the teacher would have called me Zhū, which is my father’s nickname for me. It means “pig,” an appropriate title since I was born in the Year of the Pig. My cheeks felt slathered with hot chilies, and my blinking eyes held back tears.

Why did it bother me? Why was I so upset? Would they picture me as some toddler whose mother chased him around the playground

shouting, “Benben, Benben!”? Did they know that my parents expected me to be smart? And did they laugh because they thought I wasn’t?

I wanted to be known for being successful at everything: golf, school, math, and even my social interactions. But I was the typical insecure teenager. The minute I got home, I escaped my life by playing Brawl Stars on my phone or listening to my playlist: Girl in Red, Wallows, or Clairo.

As soon as the bell rang, I fled science class, almost hyperventilating. I cursed my culture and its complex nickname usage. I remembered how my parents nicknamed my sister “Dai Dai,” which for most of her young life, she thought meant “Stay stay.” She assumed my parents wanted her to “Go go.” In reality, some Chinese words often have four definitions based on pronunciation, and “Dai Dai” also actually means “Dumb dumb.”

Thankfully, I put the whole situation behind me. But then in English, the teacher called out “Benben?” again, and the kids laughed. And again in history. It was just like that time I had hives for a week and thought they would never go away.

During lunch, I picked a spot far away from everyone else. As I pulled my PB&J sandwich out of its Ziploc bag, Craig shook my shoulders and shouted, “Hey Benben!” Without a word, I glared at him and munched on my sandwich. “Hey, don’t feel bad. My mom calls me “ Xi ǎo pàngzi ”.

I knew it meant “short fat kid.”

“So she wanted you to be thin and tall?” I replied.

“Yeah, but that didn’t work out for her, did it?” Craig said with a laugh.

At the end of the day, Mom’s white car idled outside school. I’d practiced all day the speech I was going to give her: How could you humiliate me like that? Do you know anything about being a teenager? How am I supposed to go to school now when everyone knows me as Benben? I want to become a doctor, but what kind of doctor is named Dr. Dumb dumb?

When I hopped in, she asked, “So, how was your first day?”

I glared out the window scowling at kids walking past. She asked in Chinese, “What’s the matter?”

“Why did you register me as Benben? I spent the whole day having

teachers calling me Benben and the kids laughing at me. Now they think I’m a baby!”

She burst into laughter. My own mother! The treachery!

“Why are you laughing? It isn’t funny!” I said.

“But it’s a cute name! Why would you be embarrassed?”

“It actually isn’t. Now I’m a dummy to everyone who can speak Chinese and a toddler to everyone else!” I turned away from her, thinking about running into the wilderness to live like the Boxcar Children and rummaging through dumpsters for furniture and clothes. My face twitched as we passed the library, the farmers’ market, and the park.

“Why does what other people think of you matter?”

How was I supposed to tell her that of course it mattered what people thought of me? Did it not matter to her what others thought about her? Did she not care how her colleagues at Tech Day saw her? For years I’d wanted to scream at her, “Stop calling me that. I hate it!” And now was the perfect chance. But I couldn’t get myself to say that to her, especially when I thought about all those times she came home late from work and called Benben down for dinner. The name was a piece of my family culture. It was the duck inside steamed buns on Chinese New Year and mooncakes on the Mid-Autumn Festival, it was too big a part of my life to let go that easily.

The next morning I walked up to the mirror and looked at my floppy hair. How many people would actually notice it? And even then, why would it matter if they did?

That morning, I entered my science class. In the classroom, I saw Jack who spelled taxi T-A-X-Y in the fifth-grade spelling bee. I saw Caleb who peed his pants in front of the school while reading a poem. And Mike who bragged about being able to reach the fourth monkey bar and broke his wrist and elbow trying to show off. We all had our share of embarrassing moments, and we all knew about them.

This time, the Benben jokes rolled over me like a soft wave, dissolving into the ocean.

Maybe I had to just accept my culture and who I was.

That’s what I told myself.

Idiot Karma

Tyler Baron

When I got my jacket back from the dry cleaner’s, there was a dollar bill in the breast pocket. I used it to buy a loosie from the deli, which I stored in a toothbrush container I swiped from my roommate. I needed to keep my gift safe; I’d met the soon-to-be recipient the week before.

The initial encounter was on a Thursday. That morning I had gotten a parking ticket. It filled me with the kind of aimless yet venomous discontent that occurs when you realize for the millionth time that you are your own worst enemy. And not just because I forgot to move my car. People forget to move their cars all the time in Brooklyn. Sometimes you get a ticket, sometimes you don’t, but this time I did. So, the question presented itself: What other sin had I committed over the past week to deserve this?

I like to think that I achieved enlightenment the first time I went to a Buddhist meeting during my senior year of college. However, the sorry truth is that I still had a very Western, transactional view of karma. Good things happen to you as a result of good things you did five minutes earlier, in a real-time call and response that proves the economic and social benefits of being a good person. It’s clean, simple logic. It’s also painfully anxiety-inducing and can lead to mental trainwrecks like “I didn’t give that homeless person a dollar. How is this gonna wreak havoc on my dating life?” So I try not to think about it too much.

On the flip side, at the liquor store, my boss and I talk about financial karma—when you really need money, the universe will give it to you, but as soon as you get it, it’s gone again. Fair enough. I was undoubtedly in the “needing money” category that morning. To make matters worse, I was nursing a severe addiction to chicken cutlet heroes. So while I was standing in line at the Tribeca “deli” near work, I decided the universe owed me some money. I was once again liberated from the toxic mindset of doing good so good things happen to you and resolved to wait for some cash to drop in my lap.

Boy, did I wait. The store was slow, so my manager, Checo, and I

cycled through our usual topics of conversation: how the Mets sucked, how the last few Star Wars movies sucked, how the lack of customers sucked, and when customers occasionally did come in, how those customers sucked. Sometimes I would take a delivery, which cut the monotony. Still, none of the tips was the winning lottery ticket I was hoping for.

Our liquor store is in Tribeca . Everyone should be tipping me one hundred dollars all the time, but this is unfortunately not the case. The one woman who gets a pass is the geriatric rent-control survivor on Greenwich Street. She gives me a plastic cup with two dollars worth of nickels and gets points for creativity. Everyone else can go to hell. So we made and remade all of our points and watched the hours melt away until it was 7:55 p.m., five minutes till closing. Checo excused himself to go to the bathroom, and I counted my daily tip earnings. Even though the shift felt glacially slow, I somehow still managed to pull together forty-five bucks. Not bad at all, but I needed to at least break even on my sixty-five-dollar ticket to not feel like a total jackass. Oh well.

Then the phone rang, which, in and of itself, was nothing special. People “forget” what time we close all the time and always think they’ll be the ones to sneak in a last-minute delivery before we pack up for the night. It’s a pain in the ass, but at this point, we’re familiar enough with our regulars to know who tips and who doesn’t, and we answer the phone accordingly. However, there was something about how this ringing hit my ears. It felt like God was calling.

I scurried over and checked the caller ID; the number wasn’t in our system. Checo is the one who always answers the phone, and an unknown number at 7:55 p.m. would always be enough to warrant an immediate “pass,” which is usually fine. As much as a new customer could mean a crazy tip, the odds aren’t generally in my favor, and it would take a lot of money to match the sweet thrill of going the fuck home. But a lot of money was what I needed that night. Plus, Checo was in the bathroom.

“Hellochurchwineandspiritshowcanihelpyou?”

The typical croak of a confused-sounding old woman replied. “Are you still open?”

This was a mistake. All my hope was dashed in an instant. What was I thinking? She’s just like every other crusty Tribeca leach, and the

three-dollar tip I’ll make is not worth the twenty minutes of overtime it’s going to take to prep and deliver this order.

In the back of the store, I heard the toilet flush. I knew I could hang up the phone right now, and Checo would be none the wiser. I could go home and wait for my money in peace. It’s just that… it felt like bad karma to hang up on an old lady.

And so I went through the motions and processed her order for two magnums of Gato Negro Cabernet Sauvignon, an order that costs about eighteen dollars total. I felt Checo’s disapproving eyes burning a hole in my back as I built to the million-dollar question.

“Would you like to leave a tip for the delivery guy?”

“…”

I was clutching the phone so hard it was about to break when she said: “I’m sorry for calling so late. Leave him a twenty-dollar tip.”

And just like that, I was walking across Tribeca, in the opposite direction of my train stop, to deliver some cheap red wine to one Audrey Tassle. I even passed a homeless guy on the way there and gave him a dollar—a little thank you to the universe for my good fortune.

As I walked to her apartment, my mind raced with all the exciting possibilities that could await me. Maybe she was in league with the devil, and Satan chose me over all the other delivery guys in New York to be his sacrifice. Perhaps she had a hot nurse with whom I was going to fall madly in love. Maybe Audrey herself was a cougar. Even better, a sugar mommy! What if twenty dollars was just the beginning? How quickly I’d become unsatisfied with the cash she’d already given me. Finally, I was at her apartment, 16L. The door was bolted open. I knocked.

“You can come in,” I heard her croak from deep inside the apartment. Cougar senses tingling. I opened the door, and as soon as they appeared, my cougar senses were erased by the stuffiest fucking odor. I thought of the movie Harold and Maude , which I’ve never seen, but I know it is about a romance between a young man and an old woman. And while I’ve never seen it, one thing I can be sure of is that Maude opened the windows of her house to air the place out every now and then. Nothing is more repulsive to a young person than the smell of an apartment that hasn’t gotten fresh air since last spring.

I crept inside across some garish red carpeting toward a tiny woman hunched over a tiny kitchen table, preoccupied with something

I couldn’t yet discern. The kitchen floor was white tile, and I noticed the big toes of her bare feet dragging across the tile in circular patterns. Gross.

“Do you know who this is?” she asked. I paid attention to the music and realized it was “Purple Rain” by Prince. I responded affirmatively and expressed my admiration for her music choice.

“Fucking genius,” she rasped.

Inching closer to off-load her wine, I saw her hunched over a tarot card deck.

“Would you like a reading?” she asked. I have mixed feelings about tarot cards, but any reservation was steamrolled by the thought of getting a clue as to why I’d gotten a parking ticket that morning. I quickly agreed and sat down. Audrey opened one of the bottles of wine and poured each of us a glass.

“Remember,” she said, “There are no bad readings, only things to be aware of.”

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Audrey turned the first card, and… well, I’d like to create suspenseful reveals for each card, but I do not remember those details on account of how stressed out they made me. Everything was so vague but so mean? I don’t know. I blocked it all out, except for the last one—the ten of pentacles upside down. Despite all her explanations about what it could mean and how it could relate to my current habits, the point that stuck out was the loss of wealth. A.k.a., more parking tickets, a hole in my pocket, and ConEd inflating my bill. Ahhh!

I got so mad at myself for entering this situation—for not just going home and forgetting about everything—that I was overtaken by the sudden urge to get the fuck out. I spun around to grab my bag, stood up, and spilled my glass of wine all over my jacket.

“It’s okay, it’s okay!” she exclaimed, but I was already a goner. I hastily cleaned up, thanked her for everything, and left.

Halfway through my long march to the train, someone called out to me. In my periphery, I became aware of the homeless guy from earlier walking toward me. At first, I thought: Whatever. I’ll walk and talk for a second until he gets bored, and that’ll be the end of it. But then I remembered the inverted ten of pentacles.

I didn’t change my outward demeanor but internally prepared

myself for some fuck shit as he got closer. My anxiety and rational thought were locked in a fierce struggle. “Ah fuck! This fucker’s tryna rob me!” I worried. But of course, it didn’t happen like that. He just looked me straight in the eyes and said: “Remember, son. Players play the game.” Oh. Oh.

It made so much sense! Then he asked me for a cigarette, which I didn’t have. I told him the bad news, and he shuffled off.

Fuck. Sometimes you need to get a lesson a million times before it makes sense. Hello, Millionth Time! I had thought about Western karma. I had thought about financial karma. I forgot about actual karma. Simple cause and effect, positive and negative, stretching across lifetimes. Sometimes it’s obvious, but often it’s not—not a code to crack, just a game to play the best you can. The best baseball players slump sometimes, but they still play. I mean, they’re under contract, they have to, but that’s beside the point.

I felt light at that moment, and I thought, “I owe that guy a cigarette.”

Sacrificial Sacrament

Josh Stein

What Rough Beast (left)

Josh Stein

My work creates unexpected moments of precariousness. I use metallic, iridescent, and fluorescent acrylics, textures that lift the paint from the canvas, and a variety of hot glues which add dimensionality to the surfaces. The goal is creating what I call deep patterns, which elicit a Jungian sense of collective knowledge and connection. I seek a reckoning with the artwork as a presence unto itself, and the use of these more “exotic” mediums in concert with natural and UV lights and self-created soundscapes produces a moment of active tension both in person and via digital reproduction. I create work which collapses clear distinctions via Aufhebung, the negation of negation: both paint and sculpture, both presence and absence, both expectation and result.

Movements out of flat planes create multivalent pieces: sculptural mixed media using canvas or wood as a base for horizontal presentations, painterly mixed media intended to be hung from vertical surfaces, and modular work on multiple substrates which can combine infinitely through the structural use of magnets. The goal is the substantiation of imagination: fooling the eye into seeing things it never imagined could exist, and then going beyond to ask for willing participation in a different way of seeing the world around us, externally and internally.

POETRY: THE DAMNED DIVINE

Clear Curtains

Robin Gilespie

In the Details

Cecil Sayre

God is in her left breast. His right index finger points into her left arm.

Mastectomy. Lymphadenectomy. And yet, He will return.

A year later, He is in her left calf,

He is nestled in the curve of her right hip bone, He is worming His way up through her spine.

God burns brighter than radiation, exploding bursts of light dotting her brain;

He is more searing. He is more intoxicating than her daily drug cocktail.

This is God, tenacious through all the vomiting.

This is God where her liver, stomach should be.

Bald, bloated, wandering: this is God

moving her out of herself, away from pain.

God

Oh God

Bloodstained Gowns

Lindsey Bryant

You wanted to stay in and work on our finances— go through the closet and get rid of all the junk

I wanted to go out and dance— fuck these dishes they’ll be there tomorrow

Sharp pain

Pressing my wound with my hand so I can predict and control the sting

You were busy picking off hair I’d shed on my sweatshirt and the chair

“Your hair gets fucking everywhere! I can’t stand it”

I want to get out of the house

“You go— some of us got shit to do! Laundry isn’t going to fold itself”

Ah the perfect crimson sequined party dress

I unfold and slide into Shimmy shimmy Light bounces and shines as unpredictable fireflies tease of wonder

Sharp pain Each twist sequins slice more cuts deeper

If I can just make it to the dance floor the bass will synch with this throbbing and drown out the ache

To bleed out in a party or night gown?

Rather die dancing than budgeting my own funeral

Or maybe a hospital gown?

Was warm sponge bath healing salve thoughtful bandage happy ending massage an option?

I thought the cost of asking might be—

“Omg look you’re bleeding everywhere! So much to clean up!

How could you let this happen? If only you would have [insert responsible precaution] then you wouldn’t have gotten hurt in the first place. This is why I always say [insert directive]”

too high

Sharp pain

Am I the one twisting the knife?

Ebbs & Flows

Jillian Thomas

i ebb and i flow and sometimes i hemorrhagei forget that i am far too comfortable letting things pass me by until they bleed through my ears

i will grin until my cheeks are numb and i cannot even feel the blood leaking through my lips i will stand and look pretty and pretend that i do not even exist i will stand before everyone i know and let them see me in a way i refuse to see myself

i will flex my phalanges until they are bruised on the inside and then i will flex them some morei relish in the pain it brings me i am a calf still streaked in amniotic fluid i am barely more than placental but i try to exist in the way my mother does //

i never could have predicted these tidal tsunamis that erode until they are destroying themselves instead i never could have pictured an ocean drowning in itself

make no mistake- i do not burn bridges just to smell the flame, no, i burn them because i can no longer let them rust and twist and mold i must

put them out of their misery

i am doing it for you, don’t you see? right. i am doing it for you.

Edible

Zoe J. Gianfrancesco

i. a girl is her mouth: an amalgamation of how her lips purse, her tongue darts, her teeth marks. how can she lap it up for you? having a tendency to cry at restaurants. realizing you are a body. you are a space being occupied. you are, you are, you will be—

ii. scared of aging but terrified of forgetting. i wonder if my mother is struggling. if she has aged enough to be her soul. to pass her mouth, to be her exception. if your gums are dark, if your teeth fall out, are you still a body? are you idle? are you afraid?

iii. the fires in her soul devour and leave growth in their wake. i wonder if the greeks felt the fetishization was beautiful. if they knew that wine was good for the soul, if the liver was simply a limitation. if the mind is trapped in the body.

iv. the body is ajar doors that need closed before another opens. the women i know are wilting— they are explanations for the men in their family. i hope they don’t cry. i hope they weep.

v. how much of yourself can you pour into someone else before they become what you need? how long until they become what they feared, what you desired?

Antibacterial

Elizabeth Mason

I’m afraid to touch anything. After school, I send you to your room and make you shower. The water bottle you took to school goes straight into the dishwasher. I haven’t let you carry a lunch box this year. It’s all paper bags and directives to throw the garbage away at school. I don’t want anything from that building coming into this house without being cleaned.

I run the washing machine every afternoon. I run the water over my soapy hands all day. I am trying to be brave. It’s not really working.

I’m THAT lady. The one with a drawer full of Clorox wipes, rolls and rolls of paper towels. It’s a temporary insanity. I think. I hope. I hope that this is temporary. I hope that hope is still a thing, because it feels far away. It’s like my eyesight in the morning. I can see the letters, but they’re blurry. I can’t make out the words. I can see the outline of hope, but I don’t feel it. I don’t know it anymore.

The entire world is blurry, and it’s hard to make out what’s right in front of me. There will always be the laundry. I do it more and more often. And that’s a comfort. But, It’s also a calamity. I keep washing my hands. I keep washing the masks, our clothes. I keep gazing in praise of clean surfaces. Can anything be clean enough? Can I keep my precious boy safe

without terrifying him? I run hot water over our clothes, hot water over my soapy hands, rinse them though they are cracked, though they are bleeding.

Sweet Sixteen

Hannah Weisz

You have glitter in your hair. When you spin, your lavender dress Floats around you, double-helix Claire’s earrings twist around themselves, Bracelets jingle a bell-adjacent melody. Your heels rocked easily, finding home in every beat you knew What you were doing. Your friends said they loved me, Your mother asked about the nature of our friendship, Your father blessed your strength in Jesus’ name.

I can taste sweet-sixteen cake on your tongue, Our well-worn skin glistening through the blur of doubt. Can I miss our hands and hiding in practice, not just theory?

Can I love you when I don’t know if I will reach your sixteen?

What is love if I can’t see it clearly in the midst of this century?

Getting déjà vu from daydreams of our future, I want to touch you like we have time, Hold your hand over the table, over our heads, Miss you for an endless meaning, Love you like we were never a secret.

This fog reminds me I can never feel you precisely, But from the distance a lavender beacon shines through, Flashing a message I must decode.

Pedestal Evy Smith

Since I was born, I have been set on your pedestal. Your feelings about yourself reflect on me as if I’m a mirror; Your flaws are projected like they’re mine. I’m a broken image of you, A picture frame shattered into pieces of our relationship. I live in a routine of people-pleasing and high-achieving, A song put on repeat by your overbearing presence; Your image of self-beauty is synonymous with pain, The pain of being almost enough for your unrealistic standards. Off the pedestal I step, Done being a victim of your poking and prodding, So tired of barely missing the finish line you set At an impossible distance no one can reach.

Adrien Lee

I focus on life-scale contemporary portraits in clay that work toward accessibility and community influenced by concepts in brutalist architecture and the imaginary. In my most recent collection, I combine elements of the human figure and animals to compose each piece. My process of working the clay is rooted in motion-based composition. The work is built solid with an internal armature to secure the form. The sculpture is then hollowed out with the goal of finishing the piece within two firings.

Medusa

Choir Boy

Kieran Orndorff

I was a choir boy singing about things I didn’t really mean

Forgiveness, fortitude, sacrifice, adult words from the mouths of babes

Carried across the air to the ears of parents fantasizing about trading places

Too young to understand the amount of blood needed for a proper sacrifice

Too innocent to understand how the gut contorts when placed in the position of pried forgiveness

There’s a cute awkwardness in the way a child shuffles their hands while singing about such things

The way their feet stomp in place, ready to explode as if Someone’s shaking their bodies like a champagne bottle

The lights cascading down as if God himself is lifting the chin of each face

All are devils hiding in plain sight, like the liquid poured into the last cup of Socrates

The bear will tear the flesh of the fawn, the wolf will collapse the throat of the lamb, there’s no need to blame God or the Devil

Each is forever necessary to the other, yet we all hope one wins

As adults we slowly find that a sacrifice to the light provides Satan with his shade

The collapse into hell brings forth an even stronger applause when reaching the gates of heaven

Too scared to admit that good and evil both bring pain

Too lazy to accept the turmoil necessary for a simple rain

Therefore, stand in applause, spare the child the revelation of sacrifice we choose to ignore

I was a choir boy singing about things I didn’t mean

I was a child given fruit from a forbidden tree

I was a man unwilling to pay the fee

When You Find Out Where You’re Going to Steep Your Tea

Eroldi Idlore

When you find out where you’re going to steep your tea, it’s all gonna end. This is the only holy place, my friend.

When the birds bitch like, I’m too tired to enjoy the dawn, they’re right. Let me build a roof so I can fuck it up.

Beyond my skill set, get me some clay; my hands will morph out of my brain and into a cave.

My childhood wouldn’t be surprised. Out of the rain and into the dirt, now mud please the landfills

How do you make the pieces fit? It’s all sexual, every fucking thing. I just figure: leave it alone, and put the characters outside of you. Make it about Jan or Jane; put the quotes in quotes like a story.

“She went to the market.” Wait, that’s not a story. “She said she wanted a friend.” That’s still not it.

“She stood on the emptying banana stand

and cried, ‘These hardening green ‘nanners ain’t like how they used to be!’

And the farmer took her home rather than carried her out.

The potatoes followed, the celery watched, and the strawberries took notes.”

That’s it, said the earth. Stone in your hand feels good.

Are We But Leaves

Abbie Doll

the self s c a t t e r s (itself) as a tree molts & the process will always feel like depositing fragments of our essence

we drop them everywhere we go it’s too easy (to feel only the loss with no recall— the body rejuvenates) & i always worry what’ll become of me when i’m both bare & barren, what will remain beyond my splintered bark & trailing roots

but that’s neglecting the whole notion of growth, this system of biological s h e d d i n g & i can’t help but

stash/hoard tension, bundled in my slumped shoulders like limbs straining to support the weight of the whole damn sky one big gust of wind & flimsy whimsy me will tumbleweed away all

Dilapidated Ari Cubangbang

I work with traditional Ink on mineral paper. Ink is my favorite drawing medium because like life it is unforgiving in nature and the harshness of one’s mistakes can linger within the work itself.

Maggotland

Abbie Hart

there is shit in the sink as there was shit on the bathroom floor and someone has added a new sign to scold the perpetrator but this is the maggot’s land now and he has decided that he has waited long enough. communal sink become wasteland. wasteland come back to maggot. maggot come back to earth. earth come back to food. food come back to communal sink. communal sink come back to wasteland. wasteland goes to maggot. wasteland always goes to maggot.

The Waffle House Speaks Nothing of Nourishment

Esther Sadoff

And yet I’m nourished by shoulder-to-shoulder contact, a wind outside flaring under the yellow awning, a fountain of syrup slipping through the once-shiny hatch of the amber bottle, and I’m perched on a distant nook in my mind. I wonder who is pulling the strings, making these limbs move, making my eyes open and shut like window blinds. I always imagined some smaller, better person pulling the levers and pressing the gas to make me go. I want to order banana pancakes with crumbled walnuts and whipped cream, but I hold myself in, pretend my mouth is decoration. When I open my lips, another voice comes out, the self I’m striving for, a voice as thin as the string that binds me from lips to heart to feet. I want someone to lead me. I want someone to tell me where to go. I want to feed a body. I want a body worth feeding.

I Have Kieran Orndorff

You keep talking like you haven’t been here before Time and touch raptured in the brilliance of an atomic flash Talking like you’re not scared to die Will I find you in the garden, drying the blood peeking from your pores Look up and stay tight I have a part that wasn’t made for woman Designed by my mother under false pretenses of holy union and a blond fucker I have a joke about God and time When a million years zip in a blink, patience is removed of virtue Love the attention but in a fantastic frenzy surrender the punch line Each hair numbered but someone plucks them out; is it God or the Devil You keep talking like you caught me in a lie Bashful with a sprinkle of white across the peaks of each sentence Talking like we can cure it if we bleed it dry Don’t think my lights are off, although the lamp is broken Are dreams the reality or just a flash of figurative lightning

Forsaken.

Urja Shah

Could you weave through the ebbs of vowels and flows of consonants gushing from my lips to

burn my face with the warmth of your own?

To lie down with you in the bath, the arms of my lover. For the water beneath us to turn into glistening rivers and gently float us into the oceans as your fingers feel their way through the rifts of my own. Yet as the sun shines brighter I must realize that your arms were never really yours but instead were sensations of currents on my skin. I had been in love, overcome by the profound sense that I had lived. Yet as currents slashed my skin, I felt sick.

How could you take me for a fool, the ditsy little fool.

Now I cry for the little girl; plastic slides in the scorching heat.

I see her untainted.

If I held the knife to my heart, my aching heart, she would bleed red. But would you hold her, hold her, and cry for her.

For what you did to her. How can I look into the eyes of my mother and see the end of the girl. Ironic.

Over in Intoxication

Anon Baisch

Fragile cuts of sound over the binary city :: landscapes rotting and surrounded by bowed heads disappearing in :: the intoxication of false haloes :: the featureless whiteness :: it doesn’t matter

how deeply it is etched in since we don’t understand the definition of smiles :: the broken

crowds walking in coincident clusters :: no one is waiting for gray fingerprints ::

but they are losing their bodies :: faces hiding in blind rooms without the softness for imprint ::

we are running into invisible and never touching :: the deadening will continually be forgotten until the next one

Nine Lives

(nine pieces of Japanese jisei poetry)

Ezra Sun

I. Within the white daisies

I float, tears waiting to fall over distant seas.

II. Leaves on the forest floor. Every whisper kneaded into soft-brown dirt.

III.

Head beneath water as stars lace the quivering surface. So I ascend.

IV. Ink strokes in feral patterns—my pages, unfurling, reaches its epilogue.

V. Marinate me in sweet sake; let the fat render off my bones.

VI. Let life thaw my arctic soul for just a little longer.

VII. The roots of my body: growing bitter towards gnawed corkscrew ends.

VIII. I came bare-assed into this world, and I shall leave it nude as well.

IX. Now the smog looms over a dissolved me, a lone puff of summer smoke.

Tell Me About Nothing

Maya Jacyszyn

I promise that someone will tell you they want to fuck, write, and frolic with you, spend the rest of their life with you. Perhaps, maybe even a few people, depending on where you’ve pitched your tent.

As any stray dog will tell you, I never thought I would find home, a love kettle-warm and hissing, as are tickles behind my ear from rose-hip lips pursed to kiss, bite a bit.

My love, if you are of the breed that carries a black trash bag behind you, full of chalked hearts—broken and beaten—from all your past lives and parents’ failures, I hear you. I know you’re older and can’t handle one more disappointment.

There is no reason for you to trust me, but trust this.

Mother nature sings her sad song every day, when chicklings fail to hatch and grandparents die, but I remember watching the news after Hurricane Katrina, and there was no more New Orleans, just splintered wood and calloused spirits.

Tell me about nothing. How you lost everything and now have nothing. What is nothing like? says every bouncing reporter.

And that grizzly woman stood on her blended house under the open sky

whose berry face never swells after tear fall and heartbreak. Her wrinkles tumble dried, she spoke of many houses before this one, all with the same wrecked fate.

But she and her little dog hid in the hall bathroom every time, nuzzled in the sage-colored tub on a wiry box-spring twin, and into the blender they went; and then, the woman woke up on a bed of

jagged wood and chaos, calling out for Bessie whose answer was nothing.

Terrible, but how does nothing make you feel? What do you think of all this nothing?

Can you grasp that this is your neighborhood, this nothing?

“Well, that’s life,” her wisdom strikes, filling that black trash bag once more, and still, after seventy years it never seems to get full. “But I’m alright—”

until she was interrupted by chants of “dog, dog, dog!” Mixed in the shreddings and shrapnels was a furrowed face, wiggling out of the debris.

“Bessie, oh Bessie,” the woman crawled on her knees, digging through rusted pipes and couch cushions until she held home in her hands. “I thought God didn’t answer one prayer to let me be okay, but he answered both of em’.

Because it was here and it was gone. Then, there was light. Now, there’s Bessie.”

Beautiful Wretch

Margaret Marcum

i heard a terrible thing today. “when i wake up, something awful happens, i wake up”—the universe inside of my chest clenches. what am i to you? kneeling, soul retches.

i feel the thunder ripple under the covers, there is a storm inside me, idleness and boredom make for toxic lovers, wickedness loves company.

too scared to care, for you each breath propels death. it is a hard lesson to learn— love cannot tear. and i tell you, “suffering stems from our addiction to yearn.”

happiness you say is what you seek—but first, my dear, riddle me this—how is it that one may gaze upon one’s own eyes? you crave to be free, and yet you are so full of fear. and I’m beginning to realize the lows were never worth the highs.

POETRY: AND A CITY WAS BORN

Feast in the Sun

GJ Gillespie

Anguish of Achilles

GJ Gillespie

Friendship is a Love Language

Maggie Bowyer

How are you doing? How are you feeling? How is the puppy and how is puppy love? / Here’s a meme that made me think of you / We need to FaceTime soon / Let’s form a coven and create a commune so we don’t have to communicate with anyone but each other / We can create our own holiday traditions and cobble together the family I never had / Six texts a day but I still feel how much I miss you in my aching bones / Can we Snapchat more? I am afraid of forgetting your face or not noticing the way it changes / Snagging everything in the Dollar Tree that reminds me of you, stockpiling them for the next time I see you / Bringing me espresso beans so I can make you a latte / Laughter roars over the sound of milk frothing / Our pitch drops when we talk about old crushes and rises when we squeal about our future / The only thing time apart has created is longing / Distance is the miles between us and that is all / I reminisce on the simple days of smoking Js sitting on your shingles while rearranging furniture and buying you edibles for when you come home / I’m pretty sure soulmates actually come in friendships and we’ve spent sixteen lives together, but I still won’t waste a second of this one

North Burma Temple

Kenneth Kesner

an october wind burnt its walls to ochre some look there to look away

see their hearts among autumn leaves in a dawn travelling towards home

as colors of its roof have started to fade shadows paint lines you try to follow

has the sun eclipsed itself into a grey sky an ocean you can never bear to overcome

watch a nun falling from the eaves of noon and you’ll sense infinity in her hands

nothing left to touch or feel anymore everything’s moving even out of reach

maybe some are hiding—no one’s alone so you think of the lost and forgotten

who’s that glancing around so many times hoping to be there though she already is

the evening’s monks turn their eyes to ghosts people will burn money to keep them alive

waiting to be covered in chants and incense

Hug Me

Shu Tu Life is a work-in-progress, and my work leads me to clarity.

In a world of meeting expectations and reaching for achievements, it’s easy to lose the sensibility of our own voices. My art is my way to discover, document, and reclaim phases of my life, as well as a constant reminder for how beautiful the ordinary and the truthful can be.

Received Shu Tu

Main Character

Shu Tu

Yet Another Post-election Day

Abbie Doll

where i encourage my pups to piss in the yards with conservative signs still staining the streets with their filth

’cause if these constituents are so committed to chiseling this country into a rubbly right-less mess, the least i can do is wreck a few blades of their precious grass

on these g-d groundhog days, any voice of reason feels muted & unheard, despite its supposed importance [and so,] i give in to these tiny acts of passive aggression /but/ relief arrives only in these emptied bladders

because the feeling that amerikkka is broken warped & skewed like a knotted slinky (which my intestines mirror) never quite dwindles

& the discarded pregnancy test i spot on the street pierces my heart as direct proof of another kid born in some god-forsaken place that claims to want it

with parents who don’t in a country that refuses to develop a good & proper system for appropriate caretaking

& i see the red the red of the map the red of /fury/agony/&/pain/ & it’s flooding these streets i walk, dousing them in needless blood.

Present Situation

Peycho Kanev

You can always find us at the bar or in the library, reading or drinking until the lights fall off— shelves full of books and rows of bottles, like a purgatory within the purgatory, we wait for the last call.

Reading the classics or drinking the chalice of forgiveness— equally bitter. Blinded by the sun of noonday, we walk down the avenues with sunken pupils past someone’s girlfriends and parked cars covered in dusty light. Cafés with drawn blinds and red-brick banks with tinted windows show us the way to the big clock that will strike the last hour when even God will go to sleep,

when all the beautiful women will blend into one, when we, finally, will start to read alone.

King of the Park in Jackson Heights

Brenna Manuel

Four hundred finches in rollers like straightjackets packed inside his suitcase emerge and sing, wail their hearts out to a crowd in Jackson Heights.

Michael Jackson could sing and do the moonwalk better than any other.

I stopped my car to absorb the touch of violins and cellos thrusting through haze in the bog this spring. I rolled down the windows on both sides to let my car drown in a stream of bellowing frogs at 6:10 p.m. precisely.

I made a note to pass by the next day to hear the symphony with my son. We made the turn and slowed where two doves held tight with talons and invisible rings to each other and the wire above the grass that swallowed filmy shallow water.

This year cicadas rumble through,

push the underground turf away—their scream, a scrape of sanding blocks across endless hardwood boards.

Banneker waited, claimed the number seventeen years as his.

Stolen finches in a cage on a park bench raise their voices high, part aside the clouds. Their tiny toothpick bones, half an ounce from a wormhole, sing each pitch with quantum splendor.

And Michael Jackson sang and did the moonwalk, unsurpassed until the end.

Meander after “Floaters” by Martín

Leonardo Chung

Espada

like a beer bottle thrown into the river by a boy too drunk to cry,

i do not shatter when i hear the words hurled in my direction;

i only gently float down the river of marred dreams,

but still thrash about when the waves smack me in the face.

when i walk on stone-lined paths snaking fox river park,

glass shards of last night’s addicts puncture my shoe soles.

i don’t mind when country clubbers shout insults in my direction, or when a disc golf patty slices my throat,

and my head rolls down the hill like a soccer ball, knocking down the bowling pins of slurs.

i couldn’t be bothered to shout anything back besides, because what gives me the right to return those kicks in the teeth

when i don’t even know if i belong here?

Laundromat

Callie Crouch

I guess I want to know what your mother’s laundromat was, what her go-to place looked like when the power went out or the washer started to shake once a month. In my memory-pile of dirty laundry she’s still sitting there, stacked on a love seat beaten down and broken in somewhere, only growing fonder of the gas station view next door. With each rinse cycle and every fallen cent on the floor offering itself up to a stranger, she dreads the machine groan that means her clothes are dry and so is her peace. Would our mothers have run into one another and never spoken, only exchanging fingerprints through change dropped on dirty tile or clothes swapped by mistake? Or do you and I really have nothing in common at all?

Normal Dry

Elizabeth Mason

There is this certainty: There will always be the laundry and all of its puzzles: a blue ankle sock to match with a blue ankle sock, the old-man pajama top to be buttoned before folded and set aside until the pants emerge from the mouth of the dryer. Hope is slippery. Outside this laundry room, the world is dangerous even if my lawn is impossibly green. The modernists believed they could restore order to a chaotic world with the stroke of a pen. The narrative, the unified force of the story. I used to write every day. I used to write every day. I used to write occasionally. I used to write. Now, I suture the broken pieces of a messy world, here, with detergent and patience, with a perfectly folded sheet, two matching socks at a time.

Meat Department

Savannah Jackson

I shuffle down the cement ramp gripping the rolling trash bin in front of me. Tonight across the parking lot the car wash beeps and groans, the train drones by behind the dumpster, my hair blows. I open my palms, sticky from the blood of the carcasses in the bag. I heave the bag over the edge. Small houses line the train tracks. Behind sleepy yellow windows, men and women carry spatulas and baskets and dish towels and babies. I wipe my hands on my apron and go inside, back to the sink to scrub the dried, waxy fat off silver trays. I hear the others manning the counter up front. They don’t wear gloves. They caress the steaks and finger the food. Delicately, like the meat are women, like they want to be nice. They are gentle with it. One, the tall pale man, especially likes to touch the meat in the case, point it out to me, rub it with calloused fingertips. Sometimes I can’t help but blush. Certainly kills my appetite. I wash my hands. Don’t touch the food. Stick to the sink.

Steam Fresh

Elizabeth Mason

I know that if I look hard enough, there’s a poem in here somewhere, like the matching sock that gets left behind in the washer when I transfer the clothes to the dryer (teetering on tiptoe because I can barely reach the bottom), or that slips onto the laundry room floor, mixed up in another laundry basket, or that never made it to the laundry basket because it’s on the floor in the closet or tucked between the sheet and the comforter in my son’s bed. Maybe it’s morseled in the hem of my husband’s jeans. I will find it

I have to wiggle it loose from wherever it’s hiding, the way I flatten stubborn wrinkles from the pajamas that have been abandoned in the dryer for too long, Steam Fresh: three minutes and then a few minutes longer on Speed Dry. There has to be a magic button. There must be a special cycle, a trick to finding my voice again. There will always be the laundry. There will always be sheets to fold and matching socks to find and shirts to hang, but I’m starting to wonder what happens if that’s all there is: piles of dirty clothes, sheets, towels

to sift through and arrange, lunches to pack and dinners to make, teeth

to brush, dishwashers to empty. I have to keep looking. I will empty my pockets, turn my closet inside out. I will empty the glove compartment in my car, check the spaces where I keep things in shopping bags when I “quick clean” for company. I will clean the lint trap and then I will find something in the crevice between the machine and the floor. I will make myself that small if that’s what it takes, because I know that there is, that I am, more than this.

When It Happens Again

Ky Davis

When It happens again. our anger will be broadcast again.

Blamed again. It will happen again as sure as the sun will rise, it will be justified. Again.

Just another mistake, just another uproar, another life. Another nigga.

Echos from the past anger warn us.

Curses from the present indifference kill us. When It happens again, when the

Fires start again.

I hope they burn a trail, Light the way toward an end. To this cycle.

Juggler

GJ Gillespie

POETRY: THEIR LAST WORDS

Abstract figure collage in the style of mid century abstract expressionism.

Monster Tries to Write But Finds Only Compromise Christian Lozada

Teacher, with a soft vowel ending his name, feels a heat in the cool classroom, props open the door to let the air no one asked for in. sweating, he talks about: being civil being evenhanded being mentally ill

Teacher, with his skin like mine, with compromises I haven’t made yet, with his eyes slow scanning from person to person, eyes that make one, random, hop before and stick the landing after me.

sweating, he talks about: agendas fairness complaints being mentally ill

To my fellow students: Thank you for diagnosing me and seeing me as a writer with “some sort of mental illness” because I call you out on how you write me and people like me, the Brown the Black the others

Thank you for diagnosing me and erasing my skin with “some sort of mental illness” because my critiques are laser focused on how your characters of color

are the first and only and often

Thank you for diagnosing me by giving me the same benefit of doubt you give your lone gunmen and murderers

I never wanted to pay for this benefit by losing my skin and masculinity

And thank you, Teacher, for letting me know this is the second compromise I need to make; the first was joining their program,

Neither fish nor fowl again

No, I don’t have an agenda when I say your character shouldn’t be proud of General Lee, when I say the slick-backed hair and switchblade are not a Latinx uniform, when I say Asians don’t occupy spaces of silence

We went to the same high school, and if this is all you saw when you looked at us the others then the agenda, the lens layering reality, is yours

When you see us, you erase us to prove it: the quiet Asian in the back is me saying no

But you can’t hear it because I’m too big, too male,

too loud for your eyes

Your eyes clog your ears

And everything visual about me says I cannot be one of them But sure as shit ain’t one of you

The Boy with the Broccoli-Shaped Hair Tells Me I’m Beautiful

Esther Sadoff

I see myself shatter in his eyes as soon as I’ve read it. This note will self-destruct in 5, 4. 3. 2. Suddenly a familiar head nod and grin feels like I’m walking on a tight-rope. Beautiful means you are beautiful until you are not. It’s a constriction, a construction made by a momentary lapse. To be beautiful is to be trapped like a fly in honey, a mosquito in amber, the ooze of sap swallowing an ant. I know infatuation is next to obsession is next to blindness.

I don’t want to be the image under the microscope’s glass. I want to be transparent like the beakers and vials at the back of the class.

Countless Shards

Leonardo Chung

i didn’t mean to drop your trust in me into the trash.

it floated down like a piece of paper carried by a breath of wind

and settled in the remains below of dark, unknown materials.

it wasn’t in my control. i don’t understand what you want me to do.

because when something’s dropped into a black hole, it explodes, engulfed into nothingness, blinked out of existence.

the remains spin around the black hole, forming a disc, one i cannot put on my cd player to mend our vexation.

Two Truths, One Lie

Shijoon Bae

You said that you loved me

You said that you wanted white Vans

You said that you liked green tea—just like me.

You said that you enjoyed walks at the foot of the stars

You said that you liked the tingle Korean food gave you

You said that you thought I was beautiful.

You told me of your passion for baking—genesis of pastries

You told me of the time you had a biking accident—gashed knee

You told me of our future together—grief is my embrace.

You told me that I reeked of arrogance, I say a moth to a lamp

You told me that I was the lucky one, I’ll buy a lottery ticket

You told me to keep your hoodie, I can still smell the axe.

You promised that I was the one

You promised that we were meant to be

You promised that you love me.

My movement and discipline towards sustainable fine arts has allowed my unconventional approach to develop eco-mindfulness. With Enchanted, I explored using textured paste while repurposing and priming old painted canvases. The intention was to create a whimsical eco-conscious series to play on one another, yet each piece expresses its individual narratives. The use of pastel pigments of peach, lavender, pink, and white add a feminine touch of dreamy fairy dust.

Radio R&B Singers

Alan Keith

I need more than just their hearts, souls, blood, sweat, and tears carelessly dumped in. I need there to be at least a dash of truth in these mellifluous radio songs. They’ve been guiding my love life since pre-manhood, so I hope a few took the time to verify a verse or two before moving to the next ballad. They sound so lovely, so authoritatively lovely—how can you not believe their words? I mean, if they were singing falsehoods, they couldn’t sound so good, right?

Call Me Space Cowgirl

Lisette

Boer

when you see me in my red thigh-high leather boots and pistol matching my shellac as I shoot at the black hole in your eternal tar heart

call me space cowgirl

when you see me after the whole world seems drunk and I announce that I dumped a fifth of honey whiskey into the Milky Way

call me space cowgirl

when you see me on the dance floor and the flash of my bedazzled trigger as I make Scorpius my bitch and Orion owe me life favors

call me space cowgirl

when you see me with saucer plate pupils after taking rattle venom looking up at the crescent moon asking about heaven and how it got up there

THEMED DOSSIER: ELDRITCH

Themed Dossier

noun

A themed dossier is a collection of artistic pieces, written or visual, connected by a central idea.

Eldritch is grotesque in beauty. On a broader spectrum, it can include metamorphosis, supernatural, otherworldly, fantastical, and post-apocalyptic concepts. We acknowledge some elements of the early origins of eldritch writing are rooted in vile beliefs, such as H.P. Lovecraft’s racist works. However, we’re looking beyond this and trying to redefine the genre to be encompassing–to embrace the unknown and humanities differences.

The

Endless Eion Magana

This House is Not Haunted

Jacob Mack

The floorboards do not creak in the middle of the night. My ears deceive me, latching on to any perception to keep me from sleep. They dream up fiction to probe my thoughts and stave off dreams. If the noise is real, it is just a mouse. It is just the house settling.

There are no shadows staring out of the windows. It is a trick of the light, a flicker out of the corner of my eye. The shadows do not watch me leave each morning and return each evening. Their cold stare does not prickle the hairs on the back of my neck as I walk to my car. I do not refuse to look back for fear of their harsh gaze. I do not avoid their eyes and keep my head down when I approach the door. It does not smell of burning flesh in the kitchen. It is a smell sustained in an old house, a queasiness I have not become accustomed to. The smell does not flood my nose each time I attempt to enter, bringing visions of screaming and hands reaching out for a source to extinguish. My appetite is not spoiled, negated. I do not starve in my own home as I think, each time, what purpose the flesh has been burned here for. There are no noises coming from the basement. I do not hear deep moans nor the clanking of chains. It is only a primal fear of the dark below. I do not dread walking past the open mouth, the stairs a downward tongue. I do not fear discovering what is down there and never returning.

There are no words written in blood on the walls of the living room. It is an illusion, the manifestation of an anxious mind. It does not remain no matter how I scrub and wipe. The blood does not drip, day and night, without staining the carpet. The words do not repeat the name of a lost loved one.

This house is not haunted. It is not swallowing me whole.

English Fog

Austin Farber

Ghosts

Adonis Macasieb

You ever try to talk to ghosts? They love to linger in the dark corners of your mind and offer not a thing, through so why not drag them conversation. They’re fine listeners, though they tend to interrupt your thoughts when they hear you lying to them or yourself.

died long before

At the Gate

Frankie Lord

John Slater had died. It was recent, he thought. One moment, he was a week from retirement, at dinner with his family, with a strange feeling in his left arm, and the next, he was here. Though he didn’t know where “here” was. Or what it was, for that matter.

With no signs of life or death in front of him, he looked around, already standing on his feet, trying to discern what the walls were made of, or what color they were, for that matter. He supposed the human eye couldn’t discern it and then wondered how it could be that his soul was limited by the mortal human eye. He looked down, surprised to find himself in a suit, not the Hawaiian shirt and khaki shorts he had passed in. Upon closer inspection, he recognized the suit from when his father remarried. When he was six years old. Yet it fit his adult shape exactly the same. He lifted his foot and looked at the toe of the sole, where he’d etched “J.S.” John hadn’t known the shoes, the whole outfit, were a rental until his dad came home screaming.

He put his foot down, looked onward, and now something had appeared: a man at a desk, far out in front of him. The man’s brown suit matched the brown desk in front of him, contrasting enough against the non-color to be visible enough to eliminate brown as the possible color around them.

The two stared at each other for a moment, John frozen in place. The man, aloof but a touch impatient, waved John toward him. He nodded his head with a rapid bounce before walking toward the desk.

When he approached, he stood in front of the desk. He thought this moment might feel like getting to the front of the line at the DMV only to realize, like dream logic, that you have no idea why you’re there.

“Am I dead?” John asked, with instant regret.

“Yes, Jonathan,” the man said. Though he’d already figured as much, John’s stomach dropped at the confirmation. He realized he’d asked for a reason after all—the human need for validation.

“Who are you?”

“A bureaucrat,” he answered. “Here to give you the bad news.”

“Bad news?” John blinked.

“Yes. You’re going to Hell, Jonathan Slater.”

“What?” Not only was John an agnostic in life, he was certain from research that Hell was a metaphor gone wild, a tool used to control the masses that had never been in the original Bible. Now it existed, and he was going there? “How?”

“Your kind always acts so surprised by this. Yes, Jonathan Slater, you were a killer. You took the lives of eight million, four hundred and seventy-two thousand, nine hundred and sixty-one.”

John began to laugh. “No, no. You must have the wrong John Slater. I worked—”

“You worked in human family law, handpicked cases to help formerly battered women gain custody of their children and legal disentanglement from their abusers; you were born January 26th, 1958, to Henry Slater and Jeanine Slater née Thomas; you married once to Naomi Slater née Marra, had two sons both on June 8th, 1992, named Robert and Darren,” the bureaucrat read off the data of John’s life like a grocery list, “and you murdered eight million, four hundred and seventy-two thousand, nine hundred and sixty-one.”

“No, this has to be a mistake, this can’t—” John began to pace. “Is this like that one show, is this a compliance to capitalism thing? I shopped at Walmart for five years, were the slaves in the chain treat—”

“You directly killed eight million, four—”

“Four hundred and seventy-two thousand, nine hundred and sixty-one, yeah, I’m getting that. I don’t remember this, how—”

“Well, Jonathan Slater, you’re wearing the outfit from your first murder spree now.”

John stared at the bureaucrat in shock, trying to remember the day of his father’s marriage. The morning had been chaotic; he was the ring bearer, and his stepmother insisted he wear makeup for the pictures, which brought him great embarrassment at the time, and he resisted to no avail. He was certain someone would notice, but they never did. The marriage ceremony went fine, and they went from the church to another venue for the reception.

At one point, John got bored, and he snuck out. He had been a real troublemaker, never mean spirited but constantly pushing boundaries. He wanted to see if he could leave with an open bottle of wine,

and he did. Kids were invisible back then; stranger danger would mean nothing for another couple decades. He snuck around to the back, took a mouthful of the red liquid, and immediately spat it out.

John looked down in front of the bureaucrat, and sure enough, the tiny dribbles of wine that didn’t clear his chest were still there on the now too-large suit.

He’d gagged and wretched, never throwing up but absolutely appalled at the adults for drinking this stuff on purpose. He stood up and wandered around the field behind the venue, stumbling to imitate the adults inside. Eventually, he found an ant mound. With little thought, he poured the wine down the hole—

“Ants!?” John exclaimed, looking up over the desk. “You’re talking about fucking ants!?”

“Not just ants,” the bureaucrat said, a tinge of incredulity in his voice, “all insects, arachnids, the general bug community.”

“I’m destined to an eternity of suffering for that!” John began to pace again, kicking off the oversized shoes. “I saved countless lives, I intervened in life-or-death situations, redirected a court system set up against victims, I volunteered at soup kitchens, and I did it all without even believing that it would do something for me long term.”

“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “You did nothing for bugs.”

“Nothing!” John exclaimed, thinking of the bee feeders he kept in the backyard.

“Well,” the bureaucrat corrected, “so little it barely matters.”

John began to laugh, mirthless. “So,” he began to argue, his voice dripping with sarcasm, “you’re telling me the only thing that matters in the life of any creature on planet Earth is whether they contributed to the well-being and prolonged lives of bugs??”

“Yes,” the bureaucrat said, flat and sincere.

John froze midstep. He ruminated. The anthill, the wasps’ nests under the roof he used to have to poison and tear down two or three times a year, the cockroaches he killed before his college apartment could be fumigated, the mosquitos, the fucking mosquitos, the ticks he took off the dog after hikes. The spiders. A butterfly that startled him once, and he felt guilty all weekend.

“I purposely killed that many bugs?”

“Oh, no. Most were accidental.”

John felt his eyes getting hot, tears blurring his vision. “Accidental??”

“Yeah. You stepped on, sat on, drove over, ate, so many lives. You were mean sometimes, sure, but mostly you were careless.”

“How was I supposed to be constantly aware of something a millionth my size all the time? How was I supposed to see a beetle from INSIDE my CAR?”

“Prevention is not my problem, it was yours.”

He stared into nothing, drained. His mind raced.

“So what, most bugs go to hell too? They’re always fighting and killing each other.”

“Rules are different, that’s a fair fight,” the bureaucrat responded.

John stared on still, wanting to cry and scream and protest and somehow die again and please, please see his wife once more, warn his children, something. But instead, he glazed over, dread eating him from the inside like a swarm of its own.

“You can take your time, but when you are ready,” the bureaucrat spoke, John detecting a hint of compassion. When John looked, barely able to see over the desk now, the bureaucrat had his arm stuck out to a gate, a gate that wasn’t there before. The gate wasn’t pearly, as it’s always described, closer to gnarled wood than anything else.

John stared at the door for a long time. He contemplated asking the bureaucrat what was coming but figured he’d have an eternity to learn the answer to that one. John tried to sit in the uncertainty of standing in front of this gate, to not guess at the answer. A strategy that once brought him a sense of groundedness and radical acceptance now only brought him nausea.

Though he’d been aware for a while, he finally acknowledged to himself that he was shrinking and what that could mean for him. He took one deep final breath. Then, he stepped through the gate.

Field Report from a House Which May or May Not Have a Crime Scene, Compiled By Someone Who Watches Too Many Crime Shows

Mary Christine Delea

I. Introduction

The rope claims to have been taken from the shed but cannot identify the person who grabbed tightly, transported quickly.

II. Description of Activities

What: I observed several knives, a hammer, an axe, and a rifle at the scene. Where: I was led to the bedroom. When: I do not know the normal routine in this household, but on this day, there was no blood, no signs of a fight, and no warmth from the grandfather clock that stood in the hallway like a prison guard. Who: I asked the rope if it was alone. Before I got an answer, the room swarmed with the homeowners.

Why: I have no doubt of the rope’s truthfulness, but I don’t think the knitting needles can be trusted. Those scissors look rusty and filled with rage as well.

III. Interpretation and Analysis

There is no reason for me to be here. I am not a cop or a handyman. What I have observed has no meaning. There is nothing to analyze except perhaps my own behavior,

which is never typical or expected. People looking at me, asking me why I am in their house, need to get off my case.

IV. Conclusion and Recommendations

I have learned nothing beyond knowing that I hate the sound my body makes when homeowners toss me out of their houses.

V. References

Nope. Not one recommendation. Just handwritten fan letters I have written to Mariska Hargitay and S. Epatha Merkerson that remain unacknowledged.

Acute and Obtuse Angles

William

Doreski

Another day of acute and obtuse angles dueling.

Rain sozzles the village view. We agree that cosmic forces

distilled from old comic books have revised the gray perspectives

to account for changes in taste. You suspect that California

will eventually crumble with drought and spill millions of citizens

into the ocean where they’ll drift until minesweepers rescue those

still undigested by sharks. I’m certain that New England

in an era of rising water will rumple with newborn fjords.

Why do we torture ourselves with cruel scenarios when friends

are birthing children shaped like pottery, their brittle cries

referring to fresh imperatives?

We should indulge in their indulgence,

coo over little forms, pet every passing dog. The treble

of weather mustn’t dissuade us. The wrinkles we earned by teaching

three unteachable generations mustn’t discourage our lust

for the finer points of view. Those include standing on rocks

by the river, watching the current ruffle past. Also climbing

the hill in the graveyard to enjoy autumn hills rimming the lake.

We meet at acute and oblique angles at once and anchor ourselves

to a vanishing point created by an artist we greatly admire.

The Motel Room

Mary Christine Delea

You are given the worst room, the one where the vent broke years ago. It’s the room farthest from the office. Upon entering— before putting your suitcase down—you recognize the choking stench of unfiltered Camels. The few towels are just a mass of woven threads, their odor unfamiliar. The closet door doesn’t open, thankfully keeping its secrets to itself. The window has a crack shaped like a broken finger; the carpet has no pad but sports brown, circular stains in a line from the bed to the door. Or the door to the bed.

The remote’s batteries are almost dead. The sink has no water pressure, but the shower’s powerful stream slams you into the wall, causing your back to feel sticky all night. The clock sends random static noises into the room, as if trying to contact someone who never answers. There’s a landline phone with loose parts, but the flies seem at home in its cradle, which was hot to your touch when you called for the maid to bring a pillow. She never did.

Every time you look out the peephole, a skinny man with few teeth is standing just feet from your door, grinning at . . . what? Your room?

You?

His plans for you in that room?

He is there throughout the night. He came with the room.

Saturn, Inverted Trinnity Sistrunk

“ Six months ?”

“I’m telling you, man. The paycheck is worth it.”

Francisco sucked in a sharp breath. “I don’t know, Thomas, that’s a long time to be away from home. I don’t think I can leave Katie alone for six months. I mean, come on.”

“For Christ’s sake, Frankie, Katherine is seventeen. She’s been just fine when you go on work trips!”

He frowned, stirring the rice with one hand while holding the pan still in the other, phone balanced between his ear and his shoulder. “Yeah, for two weeks. Not half of the fucking year! I mean, she’d have to worry about groceries, chores–”

“Which she already does.”

“Taking out the dog, taking care of the yard. And what if she needs me? I have to–”

“Jesus, man. Quit hovering, she’s nearly eighteen, you know.” He knew.

He knew from every moment she smiled at him and he no longer saw a mouthful of electric yellow braces or a head with pigtails he used to neatly braid. He knew from taking her prom dress shopping and holding his tongue as she gushed about potential dates. He knew from talks of graduation and college visits. He knew from looking at his sweet baby girl and wondering how in God’s name she grew up so fast. Francisco sprinkled red pepper over the pan. He always added extra when he was making it just for himself and Katherine; she had inherited her father’s love of spicy foods. He taught her the same recipe years ago, but she always insisted it tasted better when he made it. Deep down, he thought she was just trying to make her father feel needed.

“Listen, man–” His friend sighed. Frankie could picture him now, running a hand through his hair and one hip jutted out like a frustrated mother. “I know it’s hard. I mean—Shit, I was there when Lydia left. I’ve seen that kid grow up the same as you. I’m just saying that–”

“It’s not the same.”

“What?”

“It’s not the same,” he ground out. His knuckles turned white, grip tightening on the pan handle. “She isn’t your fucking daughter.”

“Frankie, come on. You know I didn’t mean it like that.”

“She’s my daughter. Not yours, mine. ”

“I know, man, I just meant–”

“You didn’t raise her alone. You didn’t go sleepless nights with an infant praying to God her fever went down. Or rushing a twelve year old to the emergency room with a broken arm or teaching her about periods and dating, and fucking algebra. You don’t fucking know, Thomas. You aren’t her father, I am.”

“Alright, Frank, I get it, I was just–”

“And last time I checked, you don’t even have any fucking kids of your own. So don’t start talking to me like you understand what it’s been like. Okay? Because you don’t.”

All that could be heard was the sizzling of the pan he still held with an iron grip.

“I’m–” Thomas’ voice turned quiet, soft and broken at Frankie’s outburst. “I’m sorry man, I didn’t mean it like that.”

He looked at the fridge. A picture of her hung on the door pinned by a magnet shaped like a pineapple. Thomas stood on one side of her, Francisco on the other. A ten year old Katherine Gonzales stood between the two men, grinning wide as she held the trout she had caught that day in the lake. She was still missing her front tooth.

At the sight of her, bright and sweet and innocent, his anger simmered away just as quickly as it arrived. A hot wash of shame waved over him and sank into his skin. “Fuck, man. Don’t apologize, I shouldn’t have snapped like that. I’m sorry.”

“No, no. You’re right. I was out of bounds–”

“I’m just– What if–” Horrors ran through his mind. Fire, robbery, home invasion, each one growing worse and worse with the same image of his Katherine scared and alone, crying out for him to no avail. “What if something happens? I can’t… I can’t let anything happen to her, man. She’s my world.”

“Nothing is concrete,” Thomas promised him. “Just, think about it, alright? Mull it over for a bit and I’ll get back to you.”

He nodded, suddenly feeling drained. “Yeah. I, uh, I’ll think

about it.”

Thomas was right, Francisco thought to himself, piling food onto the plate. Katherine was seventeen. He couldn’t coddle her forever. No matter how much he wanted to.

He trusted her, he raised a smart young woman with a good head on her shoulders. His daughter wasn’t the issue. God, she never was. It was him. He just wasn’t ready for the day where she would no longer need him.

Testaments of his love, of his devotion to her, lined the walls as he walked through the house. Framed photos of her first theater performance, despite her having no speaking lines and only being a tree in the background. Honor society certificates, report cards, soccer trophies and debate plaques presented on an oakwood bookshelf built by the same hands that put bandaids on her scraped knee when she was seven. Francisco came to his daughter’s tightly shut door.

A closed door in the household was something many parents would outright ban. Not him. He wasn’t the type of father who would punish her for finding her own place of comfort, he didn’t snoop through her phone or take the door off the hinges for shutting it.

Katherine was seventeen, after all, she needed a place of comfort. He was just grateful that it was at home and not anywhere else.

He balanced the plate in his open palm and knocked with the other.

“Got your dinner, kiddo.”

He waited for a noise. Usually a holler of “Come in!” or an incoherent mumble, if she was watching a movie. But there was nothing. Maybe it was because of her music.

He could hear the soft singing of her favorite artist that he could never remember the name of, Lana something-or-other, crooning about heartache and cigarettes.

“Katherine?” He knocked a second time. “You hungry?” Nothing.

“Katie-Kat? Can I come in?”

He pressed his ear to the door. Beneath the soft, melancholic trills of the music he could hear something. Faint, but still present.

Wet noises and muffled voices stuck in the air, digging into his ears like a rusted nail and twisting until it stung.

A voice, his daughter’s voice, accompanied by another, groaned. Was she with someone? Did she sneak somebody in?

He was a good father –perhaps a touch too protective at times–but he still let her have her freedoms. As long as she respected his rules. Be back home before curfew.

Tell him where she’s going.

Keep her grades up.

And no boys over without his permission. Especially behind closed doors.

His face grew red at the implications, the betrayal of his rules, of his trust.

The rational part of him whispered that it was normal. Teenagers lied, they snuck out, or snuck in, and kissed in secret. They drank and had sex and lied to their parents. Hell, he did far more than that when he was her age.

But he couldn’t hear the logical murmur over his own booming voice as he swung her door open and shouted.

“Katherine Helena Gonzales, what the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Francisco had lost his sense of smell years ago. While he was deployed, he had taken a hard fall that left him concussed for a month, and in the process damaged the nerves of his sinuses. Since then every spice, every perfume, every sweet spring breeze was numb to him.

But when he burst open her door, even his fried nerves prickled at the overwhelming smell of rot.

Blood stained the entire front of her body, his old college sweatshirt that she loved to wear so much clung to her shaking form, wet and red and vile. The moment Katherine saw her father, her eyes widened and she began to shriek.

“Help–Please–” she choked out, delirious and shouting at her father. “Help him! Daddy, please help him!”

The plate fell from his hand and shattered, sending food flying and scattering among the viscera already on the floor.

His daughter sat over the tangled mess of limbs and shredded clothes, shaking and stained red. Tears streamed down her face, mixing with the crimson that caked the bottom half of her face.

The sight of his daughter’s bloodied and shaking body made his

heart drop into his stomach.

He fell to his knees and pulled her to him, checking her over for wounds as his heart beat out of his chest. “Are you okay? Where are you bleeding? What happened?”

“Something– Something happened and I don’t–” She choked and heaved on her words. Stammering before she collapsed against his chest and sobbed. “I think he’s really hurt, daddy. I don’t know what to do! What do I–”

Francisco found no cuts on his daughter, no open wounds or scratches as she wailed in his arms. He realized then, that none of the blood was hers.

Her father saw the sports jersey that sat on the corner of her bed. Too big to be her own.

Katherin sobbed like she was the victim. A sad, wet wheeze rattled her body every time she tried to breathe between words. What she was saying was damn near unintelligible, just frantic wailing and heaving that he had to strain his ear to find each word in.

“I don’t know how it’s just. One second we were on the bed and then-” She wound her fists in her hair and pulled, curling into a ball and whimpering. “Please, help! I’m sorry! I’m sorry, daddy, I don’t know how this–”

Francisco quickly grabbed her wrists, forcing her to let go of her hair and pull her into his chest. “Katie. I need you to look at me.”

She continued to cry and shake against his body.

“Katie… Katherine. ”

The sudden hard baritone of his voice made her look up with scared eyes. But she saw no anger, only the same concerned frown she saw when she had failed her first algebra test.

“Honey, I need you to listen to me, alright? Can you do that for me?”

She nodded, numb.

He cupped her face in his hands and his thumbs stroked back and forth, back and forth, spreading the blood against her skin.

“It’s going to be alright.”

Her breath stuttered. “Wh-what?”

Her father was calm. Why? It wasn’t in a way that made her think he was in shock, like when she had gone out for a sleepover and come

back with her hair dyed orange in the sixth grade.

No. There was no shake in his hands or tremble in his voice, even as his eyes glanced at the mutilated body torn open on her bedroom floor.

“It’s going to be okay, baby. I’ll take care of it.” He pressed his lips to her forehead, blood smearing from daughter to father. “I promise you.”

Everything was fuzzy. She tried to remember what happened. How she got to this point, trembling and bloody with something foreign sliding down her throat but try as she might, she didn’t know. What she did know was that her father was there, looking at her like she was his world, as if the carnage laid at her knees hadn’t changed it all. It hadn’t changed the fact that she was his little girl and he loved her. At that moment, she believed him.

His knees popped as he stood to his full height and held a hand out to her. “Do you trust me, Katherine?”

His daughter said nothing, she didn’t trust her voice yet. So she simply took his hand and quickly curled into his side as he led her out of her room, not once looking over her shoulder.

The rest was a blur. She didn’t move so much as her father moved her. One arm wrapped tight around her waist and rubbed small soothing circles into her side as he guided her to the bathroom.

“It’s alright, honey. It’s all gonna be okay.”

He repeated it like a prayer. Everything melted away, except for her father’s voice.

The sound of rushing water roared in her ears. She watched him move around the bathroom with a routine. One he hadn’t had to do since she was a child.

Dragging his hand through the quickly filling bath to check the water. Grabbing a towel and washcloth from the closet. Running the cloth under the faucet before bringing it up to her face.

When she was little, he would be cleaning off the remnants of dinner from her cherubic cheeks as she wriggled and fussed in his arms.

Now Katherine sat still, eyes unfocused and glazed over as he wiped away the blood from her mouth. Her father said nothing about the pieces stuck between her teeth, but he was slowly beginning to put together what had happened.

He didn’t ask yet, of course. About the body, or its name or story or why it was in her room. No, not yet. She was still trembling, confused and in shock to the point where he wondered if she could even give him a cohesive answer if he asked.

Not yet.

“Just leave your clothes in the hall and I’ll take care of them.”

She wasn’t sure if that meant cleaning or burning them.

He stepped out of the bathroom, closing the door behind him but freezing when she called out for him in a rasping, broken voice.

Francisco turned around and Christ–

She looked so scared. So small.

Sometimes he got so caught up in his baby girl growing up, he forgot just how young she still was.

“Dad?” she whispered.

“Yeah, honey?”

“What’s–” A weak sob ripped from her throat. “What’s gonna happen to him? Is he gonna be okay?”

She was seventeen years old. Old enough to drive, old enough to go out with her friends with no chaperone, old enough to make Francisco wonder if she still needed him.

But seeing her now, scared and shaking, looking up to her father for guidance, for safety, he knew his job as a father was far from done.

“I don’t… I don’t know. But we’re gonna figure this out. Okay? I promise you, it’s gonna be alright.”

Even given the carnage Katherine witnessed, the blood that stained her trembling hands, she believed him.

“Just rest for now, alright, honey? Settle in the bath and I’ll be back with some fresh clothes for you in a little bit.”

“Okay.”

The door creaked.

“Hey, dad?”

“Yes?”

She sniffled. “I love you.”

“I love you too, honey.”

“I’m… I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright, Katie. It’s all gonna be okay.”

He shut the door behind him with a soft click.

As Francisco turned away from the bathroom, from his daughter, from his everything–

His eyes went flat.

The carpet would have to be trashed. That much was obvious. He could take her to Ikea for a new one in a week or so, enough time for it not to be suspicious.

Basement steps creaked and groaned under his weight as Francisco descended into darkness.

The reigning question on his mind, as he gathered his tools and tucked a roll of saran wrap under his arm, was why.

She didn’t just kill him. She fucking ate him. Cracked open his ribs and ripped him apart like a wild animal.

He thought back to the way he found her. Sobbing and crying. She was horrified and confused. The way she looked up at him, eyes wide and asking him to save him with his flesh still in her teeth and blood on her tongue.

It was involuntary. An instinctive, primal need that she couldn’t fight against no matter how hard she tried. She didn’t even know what happened.

Yeah.

Francisco curled his fingers around the handle of a bleach bottle that was halfway empty.

He would have to look into that later.

The fairy lights of her room bled out into the hallway, their pink glow creeping along the doorframe. The music was still playing; in all of the shock and chaos he never bothered to turn it off. Francisco didn’t mind it much. It was her favorite, after all.

He set his bag down next to the body, back turned from it as he started pulling out tools.

Just as his hand wrapped around the polished wooden handle of a saw, he heard it.

A faint rapsing wheeze.

A cry for help.

A sign of life.

Francisco turned to the mess of torn clothes and open limbs. It was hard to tell at first. The ribs were cracked, open and like a blooming flower of the macabre. It was hardly human anymore. He held his

breath and watched.

Slowly, the chest rose, and blood gurgled from its open neck.

The one eye that could open darted around the room frantically. A twisted hand began to twitch and spasm, the two fingers connected to it scrambling against the carpet, despite bending at an odd angle.

Francisco sighed. “Well, fuck me.” His fingers curled into a fist. “You’re a resilient one, aren’t you?”

Blood trickled from the body, jaw snapping open and shut in some attempt to speak.

“I’d save your breath if I was you, uh–” Frankie frowned. “Sorry, I don’t even know your name.”

He crouched over the groaning mass, rooting through the blood and slaughter until his deft fingers clasped around a leather fold.

He pulled the wallet free, the leather fold making a slick pop as he flicked it open, blood smearing on a crumpled twenty dollar bill inside. Standing to his full height, he pulled out a driver’s license.

Brady Madison. Eighteen years old. Caucasian. 6’1”.

“Brady?” he asked aloud. More so in shock than to expect an actual response. The head jutted up with a groan, then dragged its chin down.

Brady Madison was a boy from Katherine’s school. A basketball player, if he recalled correctly. The type of boy with wandering eyes and foul humor that made teenage girls giggle and their parents frown. Katherine had a boy over without telling him. With her door closed.

What happened? Did he scare her? Hurt her? Try to force her to–Brady groaned. His arm, bone broken, exposed and raw, jutted out, shaking fingers just barely grasping at Francisco’s pant leg.

Maybe that was it. His Katherine, his daughter, his little KatieKat was just trying to defend herself. From this monster. This sack of shit and filthy hands who tried to force himself upon his daughter.

He looked down at its broken jaw, hanging ripped and crooked from the rest of its head.

She was just defending herself.

Several fingers missing, nowhere to be found. She didn’t do anything wrong.

Her attacker moaned again. Twitching against the floor, it’s hand

catching the pant leg of the vigilant father staring down at it.

“That’s enough.”

Frankie pulled his leg free before bringing his boot down on the hand and emitting three loud crunches.

It cried out, a desperate plea rippling from its open chest. Panicked eyes darted around the room, searching for anything, anybody, to save him, to help him.

To put it out of its misery.

Francisco pulled the saw out of his bag. His fingers fit into the well-worn grooves of the handle.

He looked down at Brady without any sign of disgust or fear before bringing the saw down with hard-earned strength and precision.

Katherine’s bath would be lukewarm by the time he was done. He would bring her a fresh change of pajamas with her favorite hoodie and guide her to his room. Put on a movie that they would both stare at, but not truly watch. A plate of untouched food sat on the nightstand next to them, but she didn’t bother to grab at it. Not when she could still feel bits stuck between her teeth when she pressed her tongue to the roof of her mouth.

“You need to eat something, honey.” His voice was quiet. Concerned. “It’s been hours now, Katherine, please.”

With her fingers curled in the collar of his shirt, she would finally find her voice and speak.

“Is Brady okay?”

Francisco looked at the dried blood still caked underneath her nails. “No.”

She sniffled and tucked her head into the crook of his neck.

“We were gonna go to prom together,” Katherine whispered. “He was gonna ask me at the basketball game next week.”

He thought of his daughter at prom.

Surrounded by her friends. Ethereal, dress moving with her as she twirled and laughed like a little fairy. She would come home, tired from dancing, voice hoarse from singing but still smiling wide. She would tell him all about it, hug him tight, and go off to her room. Later, he would find her asleep on her bed, so exhausted from the night that she hadn’t bothered to get under the covers. He would smile, before

grabbing a blanket and draping it over her sleeping body. He would press a kiss to the crown of her forehead.

Then, he thought of her at prom with Brady.

Dirty hands on her waist. Eyes leering at her in the dress that Francisco had argued had a neckline that wasn’t appropriate for a young lady to wear but still caved in after an hour of arguing because he just wanted to see her happy and she promised to call him right after the dance when she was on her way home. His foul mouth sinking into her soft skin in the back of his parent’s truck after prom, rotted tongue slithering against her neck, her broken voice crying out. Mascara running down her face when she came back home, arms drawn in around herself. That bright smile he loved so much, nowhere to be found.

He clenched his jaw.

That would never happen. Because Brady wouldn’t get the chance to touch her. He was gone. Cut into pieces and stored in the freezer tucked in the dark corner of the basement. He couldn’t touch her. He couldn’t hurt her.

“You can go with your friends instead. It’ll be fun.” She curled her face into the crook of his neck. “I’ll take you all out to dinner beforehand, we can take pictures.”

“But Brady–”

“Brady isn’t the type of boy I want you around. He hurt you.” She pulled away from her father and frowned. “Brady didn’t hurt me, dad.”

Francisco took this moment to turn the conversation toward what had been avoided. “But didn’t he…”

“No. He just–”

“You were just protecting yourself. And he–”

Katherine furrowed her brows and looked down at her shirt, then her nails. Her breathing grew heavy. “He didn’t hurt me.”

“Then how did–”

“He didn’t hurt me! I just…”

Francisco sighed. “I need to know what happened, Katherine.”

“But…” Tears welled up in his daughter’s eyes and her lip began to tremble. “I don’t want you to be mad at me.”

Francisco sighed and pulled her into his arms. She whimpered against his neck.

“I...” She looked up at her father with ashamed eyes. “I broke a rule.”

“Damnit, Katherine.”

His sweet little girl.

“I promise you I’m not gonna be mad, okay, honey? I just need to know what happened so we have the same story. Just tell me what you can remember, alright?”

“We were on the bed together, talking about the upcoming game. And then he looked up at me and we–” Her breath shook in her father’s ears. Painted nails fisted into his t-shirt, digging into his back. “And we… We started kissing.”

He shut his eyes, as if to will-away the image from his mind.

“After that it all gets hazy, but I remember being hungry. Really hungry. Like I was starving. And I’ve–” Her voice cracked. “I’ve never felt like that before, dad. It was really scary.”

“When you say hungry…” Her father’s words were slow. Tentative, like approaching a frightened animal. “Do you mean… Did you?”

A broken sob fell from her mouth and she nodded. She was scared.

“I’m sorry, daddy!”

Scared and confused and still in need of her father.

“Oh, Katherine. ”

In some twisted way, he was happy. Happy that his daughter still needed him to hold her tight as she cried into his chest.

“I was so hungry–”

Needed him to keep her safe.

“I know, sweetie. It’s alright.”

To bury the bodies and wipe her clean of the blood.

“Did I–” She hiccuped. “Did I hurt him, daddy? Did I kill Brady?”

Francisco didn’t answer her question. He only sighed and tucked a hand under her chin.

“You need to eat, Katherine.”

Her stomach churned at the thought of eating. If she focused on it too hard, she could remember a little bit of what happened. Fleeting sensations and tastes. She could still feel the tearing of skin and bone

breaking against her teeth. The sweet iron on her tongue, the way her stomach lit on fire in a way she didn’t even know was possible. It was horrifying.

So she lied.

“I’m not hungry.”

But Fathers can tell when Daughters lie.

He pulled away and for a moment Katherine panicked. Did she upset him? Disappoint him? Scare him? She couldn’t handle the thought of upsetting him after it all. She couldn’t lose him. She needed him. More than she thought she ever could.

Her father turned back toward her, a ceramic plate balanced in one hand and fork outstretched in the other.

“Please, Katherine,” he begged softly. “Eat.”

Like she was once more a child, eagerly waiting in a highchair babbling with joy, she opened her mouth and let him feed her.

“It’s gonna be alright Katherine, I promise. I’m gonna keep you safe.”

Nose to nose, her father looked down at her. Her jaw shifted with each breath. She moved her tongue within her mouth. Pressing against her teeth, moving to the root of her mouth and running over her lips. Savoring the phantom taste of the body still inside of her.

As her father began to stroke soothing circles on her back and whisper reassurances, Katherine’s eyes slowly began to close before she finally fell asleep in his arms, the one place she truly felt safe.

You Laugh and I Don’t

Sarah Parmet

You laugh and I don’t.

ISaid the wrong thing and scissors snip away at the words that emit like smoke from my lips. Ribbons that hit the ground in scarlet red.

I diverged from the chosen path— Snakes of thread that wrap around me, coils that slink through my limbs and pull tighter. I couldn’t run so I crawled instead, felt the chemicals burn my lungs and the sun fizzle pale gray.

I kneel before the altar, Just another social pariah. The kind that has their bones strung up as ornaments To decorate that tree of fear.

The needle glints silver in candlelight, The thread colorless.

I ask for forgiveness and you smile—

But I think you like it

When I don’t understand

The needlepoint rules that you stitch Out of tasteless conformity.

Like that my refusal Is a reason for you to sew me into your picture.

And you tried, stitch by stitch. The point pierced through muscle and bone, Each thread yanking at my “mistakes.”

I won’t pretend like it didn’t hurt when The needle sliced up ligaments and nerves, Each thread barbed wire that stings and grates. It did hurt. Hurt so much that

I took the needle and thread into my own hands.

I have already tasted blood. Besides, a droplet is barely an ocean in the grander scheme of things, and

Blood tastes sweet when you’re the one sowing it.

I draw it up from the ground, watch it pool at my feet. Cup my hands and raise them to my charred lips. This time

I laugh. You don’t.

Fever

Sarah Parmet

Fever

Carries me in its Burning arms, Mine

Like strings.

My marionette body

Sways

With each turn and stop, Head

Pulsing under Fever’s gentle touch, But my mind is silent with Sick.

From a distance

This music

Reverberating, This music I can’t control.

Wrists aching as Sick crunches up the bones, My dry mouth sweet with Tears.

Chills run races up my spine, Fever’s sharp nails

Prickling my Ashen skin.

Sick laughs, a soulful laugh, And I laugh with it, Weakly, of course, For I barely have the strength to mutter

“No more.” But isn’t this what I wanted?

To Feel the blackness wrap me In a blanket of nothing, Leaving Fever and the marionette girl behind.

Never Made it Home on the Range

Terril Shorb

I grew up on a ranch and we always took good care of the cattle and gave them a proper burial when one died on the range, usually from lightning strike or rattlesnake bite. When I came across these remains strewn carelessly by the road on a regional ranch it made me sad and inspired me to record it so that in some odd way the departed cattle would be memorialized for having lived.

The Great He-goat Master Study

Donald Patten

This is master study drawing of the oil painting Witches’ Sabbath The Great He-Goat. Painter Francisco Goya made the painting around 1820 as a part of his Black Paintings series. I make master studies of master artworks as a form of practice to improve my drawing skills.

Quinn of County Cork

Michael Bemis

Hails from an isle of plain and crag

This Quinn of the crimson tresses

With her silk and satin dresses

All as green as the Irish flag

First saw her in a misty room

Beat of drum, fiddle, pipes o’ pan

Sad and sweet the melody ran

Then sudden parting of the gloom

There sat Quinn in emerald gown

Playing her notes both flat and sharp

While caressing a golden harp

Voice soft and warm as eiderdown

She sang of druids, ancient rites

That ethereal voice on high

What sounded like an angel’s sigh

Intoned she of the soul’s dark nights

Break time: Quinn drifts off to the bar

I soon followed, watching her there White flesh; torrent of red, red hair

Spied ‘neath a wayward lock a scar

Took a seat at the polished oak

Bought her a Dublin cocoa crème

All slow motion, like in a dream

She looked at me through haze of smoke

Pierced me through with hazelnut eyes

Then said in a most lovely brogue: “A wee dram is always in vogue,

But will ye tell me truth or lies?”

“Honesty is best policy

Or so I’ve often heard it said.”

Replied I, then a tear she shed As if it were a fallacy

“I’ve been hurt more than once before By men. I hope you’ll understand.”

She drained her glass, and then she ran When she bolted for the door

I quick gave chase, but she was gone Nothing to do but to go back To my cold, lonely, empty flat To sleep, await another dawn

In restless dreams, I held her near “And when you hear the banshee cry, Then, my sweet, is when I shall die.” Her words, in truth, my soul did sear

“Nooooo!” I wailed, the sheets soaked with sweat

Flash of dagger, must stay her hand Mark on her neck, burns like a brand No sin will I condone, abet

First light of dawn, I shaved and dressed

Stumbled across a filthy floor

Half fell from out the splintered door

Half-mad it is to be obsessed

Sore surprised was I. Standing there

Was Quinn. “I heard you calling me.”

Swathed in a shade of ripened pea

“Escort me to the county fair?”

Arm in arm, did we gaily go Down the long, winding gravel way

Sun shone down on two hearts at play

Henna tendril in breeze did blow

She told me of a dream she had

“From this, I’ll write a vision poem, ‘Aisling’ as said back on the loam, To free my soul from irons clad.”

Strange, I thought, for this made no sense No matter, for I held her hand

Some day to wear a bejeweled band?

Festival nigh, let mirth commence!

Games of chance. Barker: “Try your best!”

I to Quinn: “I’ll show this carny.”

“Begorrah! Bit o’ the blarney!”

Playfully slapped me on the chest

Hell After Hieronymus Bosch

Laura Vitcova

What is this frosted pit of hunger where eggs expel like feathers—

Study this eviscerated stillness where brimming unduly is never enough—

Where each the cardinal profane remains nihility left untouched

Look this with eyes pinned and naked watch the marching skinned and affixed

While monks share a chalice of roasted oblivion keeper and convict share pig

The Guardian

Rachel Coyne

I Dream Someone Stands Outside and Inside the House

Merridawn Duckler

Someone stands outside the house, face downcast, reading papers. I say to you, is that person praying, what are they doing out there? I close the curtain. Now they are inside. I see more have wandered in, emphatically ordinary but also like an infestation I can’t contain. They are at home, examining dishes and household items, taking things out of cupboards, causing disorder. I try to dial 911 but cannot get all the numbers to display. I go around. There are more and more of them. Some begin playing cards at a round wooden table. Some are children. I’m afraid to interact with them. I get the feeling that they want me to engage but only so it can deepen their hold on me. They are very ephemeral, and at the same time it is clear they are real people. Some have old-fashioned dresses, like a cult. I go upstairs, looking for you. You are submerged in a tub with wooden sections squaring the top, nailed down. I try again to call 911. You have given up. By now these people are crowded into every part. There are many more in the yard, I see from the window. I go back into the kitchen. They have scattered some items on the floor, in a pattern. Before they only touched items. Now they’ve started to move them. Escalation. Previously I recognized an emergency. Now I wonder if there will be anything I can ever do.

Nguyen Paints

Brian Bruso

Nguyên Paints, En Plein Air, a Maltese Dog in The Bow of Monet’s Boat Studio

Binh Nguyên arrives in Giverny soon after Saigon fell on her parents. Ghost boats up and down the Seine; anchoring, picnicking beneath September moustiques in mist.

ninety-nine years earlier she is brushstroking Camille’s white Maltese dog photobombing the studio boat. Rudderless and slightly adrift as canvas ripples with every moist Fall draught rushing

through the cabin. Plein air oil as medium predates Impressionism by as many years. Landscapes and foxhunts~bloodhounds working (not photobombing) across the

Champigneulle hillsides for Desportes. Sporting rubber missionary conquests of Binh’s familial tree, branches dripping mist. Mystical Maid of Orléans stroking linseed across unfinished

stretched sexcentenary linen filigree. Jeanne d’Arc, Alexandre-Francois, and Monet canceling Nixon’s Vietcong promise. When poplars kneel spiritually, with praise, all falls fail public humility.

Tour of the Castle

Merridawn Duckler

A scarlet fox follows our taillights for eight miles. The bridge is weak, says the sign.

The guide waits for our silence, pulls the punishment chair tilted slightly forward.

Maids slept four to a bed. Eyes scarlet. The smallest was tasked to stay awake.

In the woods, where no children run, birds perch on the spikes.

Our car door slams against the rain, sweeps the neglected garden like a backward clock.

We drive on the wrong side. The face of the maid, small and pale, a bump over the bridge, her hair trails down the castle’s red and narrow stair.

Oshibana

Erica Berquist

Detective Kate Reid sat outside the house, eyeing it from her cruiser. The engine of the vehicle was clicking as it cooled, then fell into silence after a few minutes. As she looked over the writing in her notebook, she knew there was nothing there she hadn’t already memorized before leaving the precinct, yet she looked anyway one last time before knocking on the door. Her captain had trusted her with a big assignment, since she was just a rookie detective.

What had at first seemed a mundane missing person case from first glimpse at the file had quickly become more complicated as her captain explained the case. Today, she wouldn’t just be checking in with the wife of a missing person and delivering an update, she’d also be looking for signs of suspicious activity while trying to find a lead.

Sighing, she shut her notebook and looked at the house, a small white ranch-style house surrounded by roses in every color. Just then, the curtain twitched, and Kate knew it was time to go. While she didn’t particularly mind making a suspect wait, in all likelihood this was just an innocent woman wondering where her missing husband was. Kate knew that the police cruiser in the driveway was either filling her with dread or hope. More likely dread.

She might as well hurry to deliver the news and gauge the woman’s reaction. The detective tucked her notebook under her armpit as she exited the vehicle and strode up the walkway to the front door. Kate had her badge ready at her hip to flash at the door. Before she could knock, the door opened, and a woman in her midsixties stood in the doorway. She was wearing a large sweater that swallowed her small body, and her faded blonde hair, streaked with silver, was pulled back in a barrette. Gesturing to the badge, Kate said, “Hi ma’am, I’m Detective Reid, I—”

“I think I know what this is about,” the woman said as she cut her off, swallowing heavily.

Kate didn’t think that was entirely true, knowing the unusual contents of the notebook she held. She said, “Ma’am, I know how you must be feeling, but would you please allow me to finish? I need to

verify your identity before I can say anything. Are you the wife of Dr. Archibald Taylor?”

She nodded. The gesture made her head look very large on such a small neck. “Yes, my husband is Archie Taylor. I’m Ruth Taylor. Has there been news?”

Following her training, Kate kept her face neutral, not giving the family false hope and also not playing her cards to a potential suspect who had yet to be ruled out… as unlikely as Kate found it that this woman might have killed her husband and hidden his body, when it looked like a stiff breeze might blow her over. That wasn’t just Kate’s hunch either, since if the captain really suspected this woman, he’d be here doing the interview himself. Kate asked, “May I come in, ma’am?”

“Yes, of course,” Mrs. Taylor said, stepping aside to invite Kate into her home. She looked like she still wanted answers as quickly as possible, but she was willing to bite her tongue momentarily as she shut the door behind the detective and led her through the house. The woman walked slowly, like there was a lot weighing on her shoulders, which had just started to bend with age. When they arrived in the living room filled with antiques and outdated patterned furniture, she gestured to a plush sofa. “Please, detective. Sit.”

As Kate crossed the room, her eyes were drawn to the art hanging above the sofa, a realistic rose drawn in earthy browns. It wasn’t until she got closer that she realized it was a pressed flower preserved under glass, and a finely done job as well. Returning her attention to the woman in the room with her, Kate sat and opened her notebook. She tapped her pen on the side of it as she said, “Mrs. Taylor, I just want to make sure I have the facts straight before I get started, so I’m going to talk, and I might be going over some information you’ve heard before or asking questions you’ve answered before, but this is just part of the process.”

“Of course, detective, and you can call me Ruth,” she said wearily, like she’d expected this. “But detective, may I ask first… have you found a body?”

“No, Ruth. We didn’t find a body,” Kate said, keeping her eyes fixed on the woman’s face as she answered. She didn’t see anything she’d expected. No exhalation of relief. No loosening of tension in the shoulders. Ruth just nodded, like she’d expected to hear that.

Interesting. Kate made a tiny note on the page before continuing. “So, just to get started, your husband is employed as an experimental physicist at the local university. You reported him missing approximately a year ago. Have there been any updates on your end that you haven’t reported to the police since the last time you spoke to them? For example, has he attempted to make contact? Have friends told you he reached out to them?”

“He hasn’t contacted anyone,” she said and swallowed heavily like the words hurt. “Now, will you tell me the update? What’ve you come here to say?”

There had been more questions—facts that the police procedurally go over during each interview to see if a suspect’s story had changed since last time—but Kate turned the page. She could return to those if needed, but for now there was a woman in pain, and Kate wanted to help her if she could. She said, “There’s been an update. We found his cell phone. The investigation is ongoing, but I just wanted to let you know about it.”

Ruth blinked. She clearly hadn’t been expecting that. She asked, “Where was it found?”

The detective stared down at her notebook, unwilling to say the words due to their absurdity. Finally, she said, “This is going to sound strange. We’re still looking into how this happened. But the cell phone was found inside a time capsule.”

“Time capsule?”

“Yes, you might have seen a story about it in the paper,” Kate explained. “A time capsule is a collection of objects put together to preserve the memory of a place, experience, or group of people at one point in time. This particular one was a centennial time capsule, buried in the courthouse steps for a hundred years. It was opened earlier this month. Everything looked to be in order in the capsule, except for the one addition to it—the phone, which was confirmed to be Dr. Taylor’s phone once we got it working.”

Ruth was wringing her hands in her lap, and the bulky silver rings spun idly beside her large knuckles. After absorbing what the detective had said for a moment, she asked, “How would my husband’s phone have gotten inside a time capsule? Were there any clues about his disappearance on the phone?”

“That’s what we’re trying to find out, ma’am. The police have been looking into this from the start, at first thinking that public property—the time capsule—had been tampered with. And then the phone was handed over to Missing Persons once the connection to your husband was made.” Kate reached into her pocket and pulled out an evidence bag containing the phone, which she laid down on the coffee table. “Our forensics team has thoroughly looked it over. Apparently, the phone was in rough shape. It was full of dust, some components needed replacing, and the battery had been removed. They got it working. Unfortunately, after all of that, there was nothing on it. Our biggest lead now is the phone itself and how it came to be in the time capsule.”

Ruth’s entire body froze when the detective pulled the phone out of her bag, and her eyes stayed fixed on it. She sucked in a shuddering breath and asked, “Can I see that? Please.”

“There’s not much on it. No photos, nothing on the calendar,” Kate said, but as she spoke, she recognized that this was more than a desire to snoop through the device—this woman just wanted to touch the only piece of her husband that had finally resurfaced after all this time. Relenting, she slid it across the coffee table toward Ruth and said, “It’s been unlocked by Forensics. You can look at it, but please keep it inside the bag.”

With a grateful smile, she picked up her husband’s phone and started tapping at the glass screen through the plastic bag. It only took a few moments before she stiffened, and Kate could tell she’d found something. Glancing up in anticipation of the detective’s question, Ruth said, “There’s an undelivered text on here. He tried to send me a message.”

Kate nodded, looking at her notes since she had been planning to ask about this. “January 25th, 1920. We haven’t been sure what to make of that. Does it mean anything to you?”

She shook her head and said, “That would have been a few years before the time capsule was buried…”

“Well, yes,” the detective said. Her pen had been poised to make a note about the wife’s reaction to the text, but she didn’t bother with this. It seemed like Ruth was reaching to make a connection between two unrelated events. Kate continued to her next question. “Ruth, did your husband have any colleagues at the university who might have

known something about how to hermetically seal and preserve the contents of a time capsule?”

“I’m not sure I understand the question,” Ruth said, shaking her head. “Are you implying that my husband had a contact at the university who tampered with the time capsule to put the cell phone inside before resealing it? Why would someone do that, even if it were possible?”

The pointed question made her uncomfortable since the suspect had so quickly caught on before she’d volunteered any information, but Kate read from her notebook, “The theory is that this person put the phone there intentionally, in an attempt to get the police to revive their investigation of the disappearance. This person was well-intentioned and just wants Dr. Taylor found.” Kate turned the page on her notes and added, “But the thing is, we don’t know how they did it. There was organic plant matter preserved in the time capsule, and all of our expert consultants have said that this plant would have been discovered in a damaged state if the capsule had previously been disturbed to put the phone inside, even if hermetically resealed… we can’t make sense of it. Which is why I was wondering, was your husband friends with someone in this field?”

Ruth’s face got an odd color to it, which Kate didn’t understand until the older woman burst with a cackle she had been suppressing. Once she settled down, Ruth said, “Darling, this is science we’re talking about. It’s not magic. If something is impossible, it’s impossible. Just accept what your experts are telling you. My husband didn’t know anyone who could have opened that capsule for him.”

“Then how do you think the phone got in there?”

Ruth shook her head and said, “All I can tell you with any certainty is that my husband isn’t here and it’s not within his power to get back to me. There are thirty-nine rose bushes in the front yard. You can count them if you want. Just thirty-nine, yet we’ve been married forty years. He would have brought me my anniversary present if he could’ve. That’s how I know he’s not here.”

The yard suddenly made a lot more sense, and that wasn’t something Kate had to put in her notebook to remember. She shut the book and asked, “Would it be possible for me to walk around for a moment? I’d like to see if there’s anything that might give me a better impression of who your husband is as I look for him. Maybe there’s something the

previous investigators missed. Is there a particular room in the house he spent a lot of time in, like an office?”

“He called it his lab, not his office, but you can see it if you like,” Ruth said, and she rose slowly like her limbs were heavy. Rather than bringing her hope, the news Kate had brought was weighing on her.

Pausing only to collect the cell phone in the evidence bag, Kate followed as Ruth led her down the hallway and gestured to a room at the end. The door was open, but the lights were off, giving no hint to what was inside the gloom of the room. Either there were no windows in there, or the curtains were drawn.

“The light switch is on the wall to the left,” Ruth said. When the detective hesitated, the older woman noticed and continued into the room with a shrug, switching on the lights as she went. Looking around the room, she said, “I haven’t been in here for a while.”

Kate also took in the room. There was shiny lab equipment and computers, which she knew any school would covet. Some of the machines looked nicer than the ones even the lab tech at the police department had. More than anything else though, the room was filled with whiteboards, and every inch of them was filled with equations scrawled in small handwriting with markers of various colors, almost as much variety as there were in the roses in the yard. Having not studied much science since high school, Kate couldn’t make sense of any of it. She commented, “Your husband must be a very smart man.”

“Smartest man I ever met,” Ruth said, reaching out to touch the text on one of the boards with a light touch, careful not to smudge the writing. Now that she was looking closer, Kate saw that there were actually two types of handwriting on the boards, one a bit neater than the other.

Spinning in a slow circle to take in one last look of the room, Kate said, “Thank you for showing this to me. I feel like I have a better sense of who your husband is now.” This was usually the part where the family member asked the police detective to do everything they could to bring back the lost person, but Ruth didn’t do that, almost like she knew it was pointless to ask. She just stood there, staring at the writing her husband had left on the board. Kate cleared her throat to break the woman out of her trance and said, “Mrs. Taylor, I don’t want to take up any more of your time. Thank you for speaking with me today.”

Ruth blinked for a moment before returning to the present. “Yes, of course. Thank you for bringing me the news. I’ll walk you out.” They walked in slow silence down the hallway, and the detective could tell that the older woman was thinking very hard about something, but she didn’t say anything until they reached the front door. Rather than opening it, Ruth hesitated before asking, “The organic plant material they found in the time capsule with the phone… was there any information about what plant it came from?”

The detective looked down at her notes, though she already knew the answer, and said, “It was a rose. It had been dried and preserved, so it didn’t decay in the capsule and didn’t disintegrate until after being removed from it.” Kate looked up, seeing the older woman leaning on the wall by the front door for support, and her brows knit together as she asked, “Are you okay, Ruth?”

Ruth closed her eyes and swallowed heavily, but she nodded. After a moment to collect herself, she reopened her eyes yet didn’t seem to completely focus on Kate’s face. She said, “I’m fine, detective. Today has just been a bit overwhelming. I think I need to rest.”

“That’s probably a good idea,” Kate said, though she knew this was just a polite way of asking for the cop to leave her house. There was something off about this that made her think leaving this woman alone was a bad idea, yet Kate couldn’t come up with an excuse to stay. Instead, she extracted her business card from a pocket, handed it to Ruth, and said, “My personal number is on the back. Call if you think of anything that might help the case, or just call if you want to talk. I’ll be there to listen.”

“Thank you, detective. I’ll do that.” The older woman still had a faraway look in her eyes, and she held out a hand to accept the card without really seeing it. There was something about her eyes that Kate hadn’t noticed until now, finally looking at Ruth in this moment that the woman was refusing to look back at her.

“Thank you for your time, ma’am,” Kate said as she reached for the doorknob, unsure if the woman had heard her. Ruth was in an entirely different place now, looking in her memories at people who weren’t there, and Kate felt like if she reached out to touch Ruth’s face that she wouldn’t be able to feel it.

“Look at the mess you’ve gotten me into, Archie…” Ruth said to the empty room. She had to shake her head at herself for talking to someone who wasn’t there. She’d been raised by a widowed grandmother who spent her days walking around her house, talking to an absent husband. Her grandmother hadn’t been insane, Ruth knew that now, she’d just been trying to keep the memory of the husband she loved alive. At the time it had looked so strange, and Ruth had never wanted to end up an old woman talking to a missing man. Yet Archie had done this to her. He had known the risks. He knew their experiment wasn’t ready. But he tested it anyway, perhaps worried Ruth would step into the machine first and get hurt.

“If you were just here, I wouldn’t be talking to myself,” she mumbled under her breath. These days, she felt like blaming everything on him. If it rained too hard, it was Archie’s fault. If the rabbits ate the lettuce in the garden, Archie had sent them. If her toast burned, that was Archie’s doing too. Being mad at him for trivial things was easier than missing him, and she told him so.

“And now after all this time, you’re finally talking to me again…” she mumbled as she walked down the hallway once more. As she turned on the light in the lab again, she said, “1920, was it? That number wasn’t written on your part of the board.”

The numbers on the whiteboard stared back at her, confirming what she’d said. This had been the piece of information she was missing, and Archie had finally given it to her in the most unexpected of ways. All this time, she had known where he was, the past, but not when he was. “You darned fool,” Ruth grumbled. “I can’t believe you’ve done this to me. You left me all alone, and now you tell me 1920? After a year? What do you expect me to do?”

Still, she wanted some confirmation. Ruth wasn’t just the wife of a scientist, she’d been one as well. Scientists don’t assume things. She sat behind Archie’s desk and turned on their computer. It only took a few minutes of searching to find the news article about the centennial time capsule when it was buried. A photo published in the historical newspaper showed a crowd in the town gathered to see it

being interred at the steps of the courthouse.

“You darned fool….” Ruth repeated, but hollowly this time, and with no force behind it. She slapped the button on the computer to shut off the screen and looked away, but when she turned her head, another photo of Archie faced her on the desk. It was taken ten years ago on their anniversary, and Archie was hugging her from behind. “You got yourself into this mess, not me,” she snapped but then regretted it. She continued to look at the photo as she spoke with less heat, “I know you didn’t mean to get stuck. I know you were trying to take the bigger risk to keep me safe. But what is it you expect me to do now? Are you just trying to let me know you survived? Or do you want me to go to you? Leave this life behind? Sacrifice everything for you? It’s too much, Archie. You’re asking too much this time.”

She didn’t realize that she was crying until she felt the tears on her cheeks and wiped them away. It occurred to her that if Archie were here, he’d be doing that for her. Once again, she repeated hollowly, “It’s too much.” Turning her head, she looked back to the screen where the historical photo she’d found had been displayed, but the screen was black since she’d shut it off. Yet she didn’t need it on to see the photo that was now burned like an afterimage into her memory. She said, “Archie, you’ve made a mistake. You were always the one who made me brave, and this is the scariest thing I’ve ever considered doing. I know where you are now, but I can’t follow you.”

Ruth stood and turned in a circle in the room. Since her husband had vanished, she had felt him all around her, as she was surrounded by the things they’d gathered over a lifetime together. But for the first time, now knowing when he was, the house felt different without Archie in it. She hugged herself and rubbed her arms for warmth. Any words she’d had for her husband suddenly halted on her lips. She couldn’t shout at him. She couldn’t call out for him. She couldn’t even cry to him. He wasn’t here, and it felt wrong to continue pretending otherwise.

Ruth felt the emptiness of her house echo inside of her chest, and she stood swaying indecisively for a moment. She felt like a leaf fallen in a stream, waiting to see where the current would take her, and that bothered her, as she’d never been the type of woman to hand her fate over to another. She took a step forward. Just one step. But it felt like after a year of standing still, she was finally walking somewhere. Some

place. Some time. And that was an improvement.

Detective Kate sat once more in front of the house in her cruiser. Unlike last time, she wasn’t lingering in the car to look at her notes—as she eyed the house, the ominous vibe of it kept her away. She had last been here in summer, and the roses had been bountiful. Now, an early frost had crisped the leaves that were about to fall from the bushes. Kate didn’t believe in omens, but it seemed a bad one somehow.

Ruth’s neighbors had reported not seeing the older woman in some time. Her newspapers were collecting on the sidewalk before becoming pulp in the rain, the lawn was overgrown, and mail was starting to spill out of the letter box. The sight had concerned the neighbors, who requested a wellness check, and now Kate was concerned too. It had been months since she met Mrs. Taylor, but she had never forgotten her—the unsolved case file on her desk was a constant reminder.

After daydreaming for so long about when she’d finally return to this house with more news for Ruth, perhaps even with the missing husband in tow, she was here again. But not under the circumstances she’d hoped. Kate walked up the sidewalk and smiled professionally at Ruth’s neighbor, who had already unlocked the door with a spare key but had been too wary to go farther into the house when Ruth hadn’t responded to any attempts to call her name from the threshold. The neighbor had the look of a busybody, eyes in a permanent squint from peeking through her drapes at others’ houses, but that curiosity apparently ended at the possibility of discovering a body. Kate didn’t blame her, as she was already holding her breath. She’d made enough of these wellness visits to know what she was likely to find inside. Car in the driveway. No relatives the woman might be staying with. This looked bad. After walking as far as she could into the house without encountering anything, the detective took a cautious breath, but there was no hint of decomposition in the air. There was no Ruth Taylor either though. She continued deeper into the house, down the dark hallway that led to Dr. Taylor’s lab. Not much had changed about the house since her last visit, so when she flipped on the light switch, Kate was surprised to see something

new—a dress form had been moved into the room. Kate stepped closer to take a look. There was no dress on it now, but she would guess that one had been here recently, if the pins, scraps of fabric, and pattern on the table were any indication. Kate turned the paper to get a better look at what Ruth had been working on, and she saw a vintage dress pattern, something from around the turn of the century.

Looking in the room for any other signs of activity, she saw a notebook near the computer. She flipped it open and saw printouts from newspapers tucked inside. The one on the top of the stack was related to the time capsule, which didn’t seem odd to Kate given where she had found the cell phone, since of course that would have piqued Ruth’s interest in the event. Kate had started to move away from the printouts in the notebook when something out of the corner of her eye drew her attention. Picking up the photo of Archie Taylor on the desk for comparison, she held it up beside the photo printed in the historical newspaper of people gathered beside the time capsule the day it was buried. There was a man in the back with white hair and a mustache, sort of a Mark Twain-ish look about him, but… no, it couldn’t be.

There’s an odd sort of perspective that comes with being a modern person. People of this era are too jaded to believe in magic and mysticism but not futuristic enough to believe in a world where technology can solve all of humanity’s problems and fulfill their wildest wishes with the push of a button. It’s like being stuck between two eras in time where nothing truly incredible is possible. As Kate turned in a circle, taking in the room once more—the inconceivable photograph, the empty dress form, the theorems scribbled on the whiteboard, and the machinery cluttering the room—she had to wonder… But no, she couldn’t let herself believe.

Rejecting the idea, the detective hurried out of the lab that was hurting her brain the more she thought about it. She just focused on doing her job, searching each room of the house for a sign of where the wife might have gone. There wasn’t much food in the fridge. There were no upcoming appointments on the calendar pinned to the fridge. Her closet was full of clothes, and her purse was on a table near the door. Her jewelry box looked half empty, but that was hard to judge since Kate had never seen it before. There were no signs of a disturbance, no sign at all that anything was wrong except for the houseplants

that had dried to a crisp in Ruth’s absence. Everything else looked like she had just stepped out for a moment and would return any second.

Shaking her head, Kate started to walk to the front door. She had no theories and hadn’t made a single mark in her notebook, as she had no lead to follow… no logical lead, that is. Something stopped her, though, on her way through the living room before she reached the door. She turned, seeing the sofa where she’d sat and talked to Mrs. Taylor, and she pulled out her work phone as she walked closer and flipped through the photos. It must’ve been that this was the last thing Ruth had asked her about since it finally clicked now. The organic plant matter from the capsule had been confirmed to be a rose, and not just any rose but a pressed rose.

A photo had been taken of it when the capsule was opened before it degraded. It had been perched at the top of it, a fleeting beauty that had been preserved, a wondrous hundred-year-old rose. The pressed roses hung on the wall in frames were considerably younger, but as Kate held up her phone to compare the roses, she swallowed heavily at the sight. They looked so similar they could have been cut from the same bush… or more likely, had been preserved by the same person.

Kate tucked her phone back into her pocket with shaking hands. Her mind was already composing her report with the usual words: missing person, no leads at home, will follow up with contacts. She didn’t expect to find anything. She couldn’t bring herself to think of the impossible, the unthinkable words time travel , though she struggled to come up with another theory about what had happened.

In the same way that Archie Taylor had vanished, Ruth Taylor had just done the same. No one would find them. And yet, they had found each other.

Poison of Hate

Priya Chouhan

White foam on the outer edges of lips, stains of foul red at the center, disgusted words forming the saliva.

The tongue adapting to the taste of poison of hate, throat repressing its anger, tonsils all over.

Nerves pounding the thin skin of envy, blood flowing half-heartedly, the air of optimism stilled, grew heavy, suffocating the lungs.

Ash-gray rust seated on once a beautiful mind, poison seeping down the already bloated abdomen.

Nose bleeding with darkness, skin hair falling, dehydrated pores of affection, a purple soul.

A severe cough of defeatism, nails painted with hues of aggression, Will I ever change?

The tongue - - -- all over!

The Demeanor of Human Monsters

Anshi Purohit

In some deep well within ourselves, we are empathetic to those who lap the traces of blood in our souls. This time, we meet an individual passing her Self-Assessment.

I. Detachment

The individual is hard-pressed for an answer as the love that once circulated alongside her cells is purged from her skin and examined in a small orange test tube. Our skin may be of different shades, but blood runs from our bodies the same way Nature runs from us. The doctors ask her why she is here, if she has been experiencing any… strange thoughts. The room becomes more claustrophobic by the minute.

How does the individual tell the doctors holding vials of her blood up to the light that she is both a negative and positive charge? She is anything but neutral. The world is constructed of atoms, but the individual does not feel constructed out of insignificant particles. To exist is not enough for her, and such beliefs defy the physics of reality. She is tested for abnormalities and passes, triumphant with her strange thoughts and hollowed mind. The doctors jot down numerical figures that don’t look like her.

In some place on the other side of the Earth, the individual realizes as she settles on an umber couch, somebody’s sun will rise as hers sets through the window in the testing room, smudged with handprints, a small square in the wall for the individual to seek refuge. Life challenges the unquestionable, and “human nature” is but a scolding term giving an identity to the first creatures willing to accept that they will never accept what they don’t know. Yet we name hurricanes, label robots, and cannot help but bury barbaric creatures in a grave finer than ash mounds of corpses that once called themselves “humans” before wartime. The door opens and closes like the subtle swish of a guillotine.

One of the differences between humans and monsters is that humans don’t address their complexities without an otherworldly,

often gothic creature as a backdrop. Our ethics are not values; they are fickle comparisons we will argue about until we are eradicated from the universe, along with the planet we have squeezed life from. We make monsters to debate the morals of our existence.

The individual is subject to a number of tests, and during the intervals of time between each examination, she allows herself to dream her bloodlust away. She does not know why she is like this. She does not know why she doesn’t want to change. A doctor comes back with a result: she is the only one who can help herself.

II. Rebuttal

The woman who brought the individual in for treatment argues with the doctor because sickness is relative. She paces in the waiting room while the individual sits inside the small brown room, her hands twitching in her lap. The woman knows she did not give birth to the child staring out the window.

In some deep well within ourselves, we are breeding monsters who thirst for entropy and salt water when we lie on our sides, letting the wetness staining our cheeks slip through the parting of our lips. The individual is ashamed of the fabrics she has wet with her failings, or the neat stacks of paper she is compressed between like a shriveled leaf.

The orange test tube matches the fabric of the stricken woman’s coat as she strides in, patting the individual’s shoulder. The individual remembers it was that shoulder on which she slept the previous night, sinking into cold bedding.

Who did she hurt? Who was she responsible for?

The woman smooths the individual’s hair and waits for the doctor to sign her out on a spreadsheet that seems to scroll down for eternity.

Yesterday, the individual was afraid to breathe in the same room as the woman because the individual does not know how to define boundaries. On some days, they embrace, laugh, make tea for one another, or watch movies. She never entered a room like this. The woman never sprouted daggers from her eyes like this. You weren’t sick until— excuses. Let us hope God is merciful to the parents of abnormal souls.

III. Cleansing

There is another way , the woman repeats during the car ride home

as she said in the session, whispering to herself as she rocked back and forth. Self-Assessments were not final. The individual did not see the pain behind her mother’s tinted sunglasses.

The individual is scrolling on her phone, her feet up against the seat. Guess what, she wants to tell the world. I was right. I passed.

Maybe intolerance is the problem, for what else is a brute but a human who does not know what to feel?

All this was confirmed by a vial of blood, through trials progressing after years of mistakes and false promises.To be freed is a fantasy; there is no reprieve from persistent dissonance. The individual looks out the car window at a blurred world and sighs because she will never be content.

The scarred woman keeps forgiving, and to forgive is to succumb to a silent degradation they both are beginning to tire of. At the optometrist, the individual switches perspectives without problems, moving the black patch from her right eye to the left.

But now, the world prefers dragons, princes, and a wooden stage that does not forget pairs of dancing feet. To cleanse is to replace the floorboards and extract the fragrance of the roses that once graced the stage. To cleanse is to forget the wonder of the performance.

The individual plays a solitary game—what will she do today?

Whose blood will she spill?

In the bottomless well within ourselves, we are empathetic to those who reflect evil through mirrors. Peace dies when it is scavenged by those who once searched for it, its blood pooling under a pile of unnamed corpses who died at the hands of their monsters.

The House of Pale Friendship

William Doreski

Preparing to leave the house of pale friendship, I choose one of seven bathrooms in this wing and polish my teeth, prune my beard, and scour my hair till it sparks. When I emerge, I’m immune to plague that killed the other guests, rendering them hollow and flimsy. Packed into coffins, they folded like rag paper. Their lives left no residue, no biographies keening at the ivory moon.

I made no friends among them except the woman cast in rhinestones who bounced all night on my bed while I sat in the only chair and read a novel by Stephen King. In the breakfast room everyone ignored each other except to gripe about prices and food. I liked the soggy omelets, burnt wheat toast, and stale cornflakes, so I didn’t share that small talk. I can’t afford to pay, so plan

to mount a cloud and dissipate. The landlady reads my poverty the way I read that eerie novel, but since I’m the only survivor, offers me a final breakfast.

The house creaks like a downpour. The glass doors to the patio bleak with vapor, so I step outside into that vague embrace and feel the pale friendship for which the house was famous for a moment or two while the paying guests were alive.

Take Me

Laura Vitcova

Put yourself inside me like a devoted knife cleans a wound, use me to teach surgery, make my life matter.

I want to ride shotgun on that tethering thread,

I want to leave a trail of shimmering golden spit dripping,

I want to be transport for your connective tissue,

hear your blood rushing against my ears, listen to emptiness like a flame stares—

die to be uncoiled like a snake pulled out, a loyal puppet salvaged.

Nature is amazing enough without augmentation, and some of the most mind-bending aspects of it is in the finer, almost microscopic details...the structure of a leaf, the color patterns of a gourd. They deserve as much attention as a sunset over a mountain range.

Fire Gourd

Steve Zimmerman

Pickled

Laila Ali

It struck me with curiosity, a relic of the times, archaic and almost mysterious. It had made its ecosystem inside the fridge, mold spreading across its bottom.

The vinegar was thick, and its impact spread across the jar. Cracks in its surface—who knew pickled vegetables had so much to them?

As crazy as it seems, the curiosity about what it tasted like left me with the longing of trying it. I could almost feel the damp crunch of each bite. The thought of juice spilling across my mouth.

No one was watching me; I didn’t mind the sickness that was bound to come after it. I wanted to get out of going to school tomorrow anyway. My hands slowly gripped it, feeling a rough edge.

My mom hated anything dirty—the thought of mold in the fridge would drive her insane.

I remember someone’s old quote, “One person’s trash but another’s treasure.”

I picked it up, strings of green gripping onto it. With one strong pull, they reluctantly let go.

My hands touched the calloused cap, and I spun the lid, aromas of spice and tanginess filling the air.

My hands jumped from the sound of a strong beeping that ruined my concentration.

My hands juggled the jar, and in a couple of minutes, my peace would soon be replaced by worry. My father’s voice already crept into my mind: “You’re late for school again!” I don’t know what drove me to open the cap and pick out a small piece of smelly cucumber from the box. But I did, my hands quivering slowly as I placed it in my mouth.

Beauty, flavor, a rhythm of sweet and loud and calm, I now understood the true meaning of good food. Something that had aged and gained wisdom through time.

I sighed and felt happy as I chewed on, walking towards the door. Content, I never gave it a second thought.

“You’re sick,” my dad stated, looking baffled. I would have smiled if I hadn’t been in so much pain. Those pickles must have been more spoiled than I thought. I had been throwing pickle juice all night. My mouth was coarse and dry, and the taste of vinegar seeped into my tongue.

I turned away from him and was about to drift off to sleep until he uttered those words: “Your mom is cleaning up the fridge today!” I bolted straight up out of my sleep. “What?” I questioned.

My dad stared at me in curiosity. “You are sick,” he concluded. I had to save those flavors and that experience, which would soon be thrown away. My mother wasn’t going to throw away a pickle jar, she was going to throw away a rare and beautiful moment, a relic.

I ran downstairs, eluding my dad, and opened the fridge. Reached towards the end of the endless void and found it. I slowly picked it up. I looked at it and opened it, took another bite. I ran outside before anyone saw me and ran into the forest behind our house. My pj’s catching twigs and leaves, I settled down and placed the jar on a tree. The sprouts of green on the jar settled on the grass.

My hands nestled it down; I had protected an artifact. I was Indiana Jones protecting the lost treasure of fermented vegetables. I looked at my achievement—it seemed to shine with pride. I understand it must be weird for someone to hold on to a food like that. But everyone has something that they have knowledge about, that they have a special comfort looking at.

They have aged their knowledge and carry it like a special memory. In some ways we are all pickled.

Consequent Rhythm

William

Doreski

A house of dusty bedrooms. No one’s ever home. Braving the vacancy, I step inside to face the wind blowing down long wainscoted corridors where detached voices whisper.

A few sparrows trapped inside flutter through the opened doorway. They’ll find the season depleted in depressing shades of brown. I enter a bedroom at random and find a Rolex watch ticking

on a table with a book facedown. Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens I read a couplet: “Is it bad to have come here / And have found the bed empty?” I reject such consequent rhythm, the film of filtered light sculpting a form in the rumpled sheets. I resist stealing the watch and tempting fate by brandishing obvious crime. In the next bedroom the scent of a couple coupling lingers.

On the floor, a bloodstained pillow. I don’t want to picture the drama, so withdraw in a huff and sigh. At the end of the corridor tinsel drapes a lamp that if lit

would shiver and crack the spectrum.

I try to reason my way out, but a blank wall saddens me and the rhythm of the afternoon forbids retreat. The wispy voices struggle to gather strength enough to shout me down in my tracks.

Symphonies of Dissonance

Jillian Thomas

symphonies of dissonance

rippling from the wide-open mouths of liars and mothers and men

i am mad

at the way their bloodstained teeth smile while their lips shine metallic—

the dog only knows the hand that feeds it but i know the red wine pooling around taste buds

i smell it every time my ears are lit on fire the blood in your mouth now somehow gasoline i am no longer a child of god but i slip on your

melting fluids &

i am on my knees praying i am not blessed by a swash of red for by the time it burns through my own crooked teeth i will be just the same as you nurturing cruel words until i can

reap their harvest

your bones are swelling with the once upon a time of telling fairy tales garbled by latent rhymes ones that are lost to the minds of

flitting mockingbirds // and headlighted deer // and me

Tomislav Silipetar

Artwork is the part of my cycle ‘my modern manifesto’ made up of nine paintings. It’s all about finding yourself over and over again.

Melancholic Soul

CONTRIBUTORS NOTES

Joanna Acevedo: is a writer, educator, and editor from New York City. She was nominated for a Pushcart in 2021 for her poem “self portrait if the girl is on fire” and is the author of three books and chapbooks, including Unsaid Things (Flexible Press, 2021) and List of Demands (Bottlecap Press, 2022). Her work can be found across the web and in print, including or forthcoming in Litro USA, Hobart, and the Rumpus. She is a Guest Editor at Frontier Poetry and The Masters Review, Associate Poetry Editor at West Trade Review, and a member of the Review Team at Gasher Journal, in addition to running interviews at Fauxmoir and The Great Lakes Review. As well as being a Goldwater Fellow at NYU, she was a Hospitalfield 2022 Interdisciplinary Resident. She received her MFA in Fiction from New York University in 2021, teaches writing and interviewing skills through the nonprofit system, and is supported by Creatives Rebuild New York: Guaranteed Income For Artists.

S.J. Adler: is Massachusetts-based writer, mother of two daughters, and a teacher. She is currently putting the finishing touches on a collection of poems, essays, flash, and plays about her nearly two decades of work in the sex industry. As such, she hopes to add her voice to the soft murmur of representation in published literature about sex work.

Laila Ali: is an aspiring writer who wants to spread her thoughts to the world. She finds that simple objects that we pass every day have a deeper meaning. Life seems like a shallow puddle but if you look closely there is an ocean of thought expression and resilience. Pickled is a memoir of her experiences, and adventures during the summer. She hopes that you too will find an unforgettable experience in a simple task.

Shijoon Bae: is a student at the Orange County School of the Arts. Born in South Korea and currently residing in California, he

spends his days reading and playing with his family’s four cats

Anon Baisch: is currently a data analyst working in the semiconductor industry. Anon’s poems have been published most recently in Defunct, 2River, OxMag, and are forthcoming in Mantis, Nat 1 LLC – Audience Askew, and Waxing & Waning. Anon’s collection w/Ashes is forthcoming from April Gloaming.

Tyler Baron: is originally from Long Island and currently lives in Brooklyn. He works at a liquor store and fumbles his way through various artistic media, including film and music. His writing explores how biggest stressors are often the means to strengthen our connections to the world around us and move with more kindness. You can find his work on instagram @tyler.baron and @libbyquinnband

Michael Bemis: is an aspiring poet and short story writer. His most recent credit, prior to LEVITATE, is his poem, “Lizzie, in a Tizzy: A Meditation on Murder and Madness,” which has appeared in the pages of The Literary Hatchet (issue #32, fall 2022). Bemis resides in the St. Paul, Minnesota metropolitan area with his wife Jill.

Rachel Berkowitz: Rachel Berkowitz’s paintings were recently displayed in a solo painting exhibition February - May 2023, called “Biophilic Harmonies”. The work brings attention to the innate human desire to be close to natural elements within everyday life. Light as an energy source plays a strong role in the aesthetic and spiritual nature of the work, as the contrasting techniques lead into visual meditations for the viewer. The work includes painting, printmaking and photography. Her travels across US National Parks have been used as inspiration for her most recent paintings, placing a need on the heightened concern for conservation and preservation. Previously, she has exhibited in solo painting and photography shows, group Fine Art shows and at global artist events in Los Angeles, London and Japan.

Erica Berquist: Since graduating from Towson University in 2014 with a BS in English, Erica Lee Berquist has worked for KnowledgeWorks Global Ltd. as an Editorial Associate and Cloudmed

Solutions LLC as a Recovery Analyst. Erica has been published previously in Grub Street Literary Magazine, volumes 65 and 71, and has an upcoming publication in Nat 1’s anthology Star-Crossed and Other Tales of Intergalactic Love. In her free time, she enjoys making jewelry, researching family history for herself and others, and spending time with her cats.

Lisette Boer: (she/her) is a Poetry and Fiction MFA candidate pursuing graduate minors in Impact Entrepreneurship and Digital Storytelling at The New School. She works as a freelance digital media manager for The Poetry Society of New York, The Poetry Brothel, Statorec, Milk Press, and Pen Parentis. Additionally, she serves as a poetry editor at Milk Press Books and Statorec, the Marketing Director at Ohm Journal, an Event Specialist at The New School, and a research assistant to the Director of The New School’s Creative Writing Program. Her creative work centers itself in themes of girlhood and can be found in 12th St. Journal, Medium, Opus, Pandemic Poems, Thought Catalog, and elsewhere in the ether.

Maggie Bowyer: (they/them/theirs) is a poet, cat parent, and the author of various poetry collections including Allergies (2023) and When I Bleed (2021). They are an essayist focusing on Endometriosis, chronic pain, and trauma. They have been featured in The Abbey Review, Chapter House Journal, The Elevation Review, The South Dakota Review, Wishbone Words, and more. They were the Editor-inChief of The Lariat Newspaper, a quarter-finalist in Brave New Voices 2016, and a Marilyn Miller Poet Laureate. You can find their work on Instagram and TikTok @maggie.writes.

Lawrence Bridges: photographs have recently appeared in the Las Laguna Art Gallery, the London Photo Festival, and the ENSO Art Gallery in Malibu. He created a series of documentaries for the NEA’s “Big Read” initiative, including profiles of Ray Bradbury, Tobias Wolff, and Cynthia Ozick. He lives in Los Angeles.

Brian Bruso: Once considered an up and coming Chef de Cuisine, Brian Bruso simply did what all humans do — aged. As the

past couple years have been filled with convalescing, he reached out for inspiration from a former mentor, Michael Waters. That singular act of reaching has propelled Brian to put teeth back into his writing. He recently had his ekphrastic poem “TMA” named Honorable Mention by Passengers Journal in their Autumn 2022 visual art contest.

Lindsey Bryant: (she/her) is a professional daydreamer, age 40, living and working on a small farm in Alaska with her wife (Meghan) and Old English Sheepdog (Chloe). Follow Lindsey on Twitter @ lindseyleighllb.

Michael Cannistraci: began his creative journey as an actor; he worked for thirty years acting in theatre and television. In midlife he answered a new calling and completed a Master’s Degree at Hunter College School of Social Work. He currently works as a clinical social worker and psychotherapist. His essays have been published in Entropy Magazine, Briar Cliff Review, Ravensperch, Literary Medical Messenger, The Evening Street Review, Bright Flash Literary Review,The Bangalore Review, The Dillydoun Review, Quibble, Stonecrop, Glacial Hills Review, and the 34th Parallel. He was finalist in the Pen2Paper Literary Contest, the New Millennium Writings, and The Good Life Review Literary Contest.

Anthony Chatfield: lives in Philadelphia with his family and recently completed his M.F.A. at Drexel University. His work has been published in Bricolage and Hare’s Paw. You can find more information on his website at www.anthonychatfield.com .

Leonardo Chung: is a young aspiring poet who has attended several programs such as Iowa Young Writers’ Studio, Sewanee Young Writers’ Conference, and Juniper Summer Writing Institute. He is the founder and editor of Clepsydra Literary and Art Magazine. His work has been previously accepted by Sheila-Na-Gig, Sweet Lit, Rigorous, riverSedge, Vermilion and others. He merges the subtle observations noticed in life with words to delicately express his emotions. He has dedicated his time musing the art of poetry through life experiences and imagination.

Rachel Coyne: is a writer and painter from Lindstrom, MN. Her books include Whiskey Heart, The Patron Saint of Lost Comfort Lake and the Antigone Ravynn Chronicles

Callie Crouch: (she/her) is an undergraduate English major at Saint Joseph’s University. She is the Editor-in-Chief of the university’s literary magazine, the Crimson and Gray. Her work is currently featured in Olit Magazine’s 2022 winter Issue and Wingless Dreamer Publisher’s anthology Dulce Poetica. She is from Florida, but now lives in Philadelphia, and spent this past summer studying travel writing under poet Dr. April Lindner while living abroad in Rome, Italy.

Ari Cubangbang: is a visual artist based in Calgary, Alberta. She draws with ink based mediums and brushes. As an artist living with complex and rare diseases she feels as though she fades away into the background of life. However, Ari is resilient living life within the safety bubble of her home; she draws strength from creating art that evokes emotion in the viewer.

Ky Davis: is a Black queer poet from Alabama. They’re work typically revolves around the certainty and uncertainty of being Black in what they would call an anti-Black world, the level of performance that Black people all over the diaspora must commit to when existing in white spaces, and the struggles and complications of Blackness and queerness.

Mary Christine Delea: has a Ph.D. in English/Creative Writing, and is a former university professor. She has also worked as a social worker, an AmeriCorps VISTA, a Girl Scout leader, a domestic violence shelter counselor, a retail manager, and an improv comedy performer. Her publications include 1 full-length poetry collection (The Skeleton Holding Up the Sky) and 3 chapbooks. Delea’s website (www.mchristinedelea.com) includes a blog, where she posts writing prompts each Sunday, and poems she loves on Sundays and Wednesdays.

Abbie Doll: is an eclectic mess of a person who loves exploring the beautiful intricacies of the written word. She resides in Columbus, OH and received her MFA from Lindenwood University; her work has been featured or is forthcoming in Door Is a Jar Magazine, Ellipsis Zine, OPEN: Journal of Arts & Letters (O:JA&L), among others. Follow her @AbbieDollWrites.

William Doreski: lives in Peterborough, New Hampshire. He has taught at several colleges and universities. His most recent book of poetry is Dogs Don’t Care (2022). His essays, poetry, fiction, and reviews have appeared in various journals.

Merridawn Duckler: is a writer from Oregon and the author of three chapbooks, most recently MISSPENT YOUTH (rinky dink press.) New work in Seneca Review, Posit, Plume, Painted Bride Quarterly. Winner of the 2021 Beulah Rose Poetry Contest from Smartish Pace. Winner of the 2022 Invisible City CNF flash contest, judged by Heather Cristle. Winner of the Elizabeth Sloan Tyler Memorial Award from Woven Tale Press, judged by Ann Beattie. She’s an editor at Narrative and the philosophy journal Evental Aesthetics.

Austin Farber: is a writer and photographer from Utah. Austin is a Wichita State University alumnus where he studied English literature and writing. Austin’s writing and photography encompass different perspectives of people, time, and space. This submission, ‘Wonders,’ embraces a multilayered combination of travel, landscape, and altered reality. Austin currently resides in Denver, Colorado.

Zoe Gianfrancesco: (she/her) is a poet/editor/nerd from Pittsburgh, PA. She’s the EIC of Spillover Magazine and tends to spend more time watching aquarium build videos than writing. Her work has been previously published in PULP: A Literary Magazine, Stone of Madness, Sledgehammer Lit, and others. You can find her at @ sweeetzoejane on Twitter and Instagram.

Robin Gillespie: is a freelance artist from Chicago. In her free time she enjoys sketching and spending time with her two kittens.

GJ Gillespie : is a collage artist living in a 1928 Tudor Revival farmhouse overlooking Oak Harbor on Whidbey Island (north of Seattle). In addition to natural beauty, he is inspired by art history -- especially mid-century abstract expressionism. The “Northwest Mystics” who produced haunting images from this region 60 years ago are favorites. Winner of 20 awards, his art has appeared in 57 shows and numerous publications. When he is not making art, he runs his sketchbook company Leda Art Supply.

Cebo Hadebe: is a South African writer, speculative storyteller, essayist, critic, social commentator, and editor from Pietermaritzburg, KwaZulu-Natal. He is a three-time Honours recipient for the SA Writers College Short Story Competition, and he has been awarded an Honorable Mention in the L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future Contest. The Shallow Tales Review named his contribution on Issue 38 as the 2022 Best Essay of their inaugural Best of a Shallow Year selection. A host of his works have been placed in various publications such as Kalahari Review, oranges journal, Salamander Ink, and elsewhere. Additionally, he has appeared in The James Currey Anthology Vol. 1 and 2017 In Focus Anthology, published in the UK and Canada, respectively. He can be found on Twitter and Instagram: @cs_hadebe.

Jesi Halprin: received her MFA from Stony Brook Southampton, where she worked with her thesis advisor, Amy Hempel, and second reader, Paul Harding, on an early version of this piece.

Abbie Hart: (she/they) is a queer 18 year old poet from Houston, TX currently living in Worcester, MA. She has been published over 20 times, including in BRIDGE and Millenial Pulp, she is the editor in chief for the Literary Forest Poetry Magazine, and she was previously a semi finalist for the Houston Youth Poet Laureate. In her spare time, she learns many useless skills and does her best to be like a nice warm soup. Her website is abbiemhart.wordpress.com.

Alex Hulslander: (she/her/hers) has been writing creative genre fiction for over 10 years now. In May 2020 she received her BA

in Creative Writing and English from the University of Arizona. She is currently working a full-time job, doing freelance beta-reading and editing, working on short stories, and running her personal blog.

Eroldi Idlore: (they/them) is a Jewish writer from the Chicago suburbs. They’ve been writing as a freelance artist since 2012. Their artistic intent is to reflect pure and liminal earth-based spiritual growth through the use of interpretive story. You can find other writings of theirs in the Lake County Bloom and WordSwell’s Literary Journal.

Savannah Jackson: is an 18-year-old high school student from rural Iowa. She uses her local landscape and experiences to write on realist themes like animal brutality, men, and women. In 2021, Savannah was recognized as an Honorary Mention in the Nancy Thorp Poetry Contest out of Hollins University. She has also been published in the online poetry journal The Weight.

Maya Jacyszyn: is a recent graduate of Saint Joseph’s University where she served as Editor-in-Chief of the literary magazine titled, Crimson & Gray. More recently, her work is featured in the Sigma Tau Delta Rectangle, Wingless Dreamer, Poet’s Choice, The Ignatian Literary Magazine, Quibble Lit, and Clepsydra Literary and Art Magazine. Maya resides outside of Philadelphia where she works as a Professional Writing Tutor.

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

Alan Keith: is a substitute teacher working out of Toronto, Canada. He tries to keep his writing honest by only writing about what he sees, but if he’s being (really) honest, he actually makes a lot of it up. Alan has printed two short story collections and a novel; they sit

anonymously on his bookshelf... A poetry collection is his next project.

Mickie Kennedy: is a gay writer who resides in Baltimore County, Maryland with his family and two feuding cats. A Pushcart Prize nominee, his work has appeared in The Bangalore Review, The Pinch, Plainsongs, Portland Review, Wisconsin Review, and elsewhere. He earned an MFA from George Mason University.

Kenneth Kesner (肯内思 ): has lived and worked in Asia for several years. He’s twice received a publication award from National Cheng-chi University (ROC) and accepted academic placements through the State Administration of Foreign Experts (PRC). He received but declined a one-year appointment to the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Some recent works are featured in: Arlington Literary Journal, Quail Bell Magazine, San Pedro River Review, Sleet Magazine, and The Woven Tale Press.

Lisa Kuhn: is a Northern Kentucky University graduate, where she earned her B.A in English with a focus in Psychology and is working towards her Master’s in English. Two of her critical analyses were published in Pentangle, the campus literary magazine. She also served as a Pentangle editor in 2021. In 2017 she was a contributor to an online humor journal, Sneer Campaign. Tarot readings are her current side-hustle. Her dream is to write cult classic novels and pop culture literary criticism while also becoming the next Stevie Nicks (or perhaps PJ Harvey). When she isn’t writing, Lisa enjoys intense, fandom debates about fictional characters and cosplaying said characters at conventions. She is originally from Cincinnati, Ohio and currently lives in Kentucky, where she takes moonlit walks and pretends her neighbor’s cat is hers.

Sharon LaCour: was born in New Orleans and most of her writing takes place there and around the Gulf Coast. Her novel, Light in the Woods, unfolds within the rich Acadian culture of the Louisiana coast in the 1920s. Her stories can be found in the Xavier, Arkansas, Blue Lake and Sheepshead Reviews among others. Most of them are available on her website at www.sharonlacour.com. She lives with her husband, dog and cat and works as a piano teacher.

Kathryn Lauret: lives in Colorado with her snake, Cynthia B and two cats. She earned her bachelor’s degree in creative writing from Colorado State University. She currently works with children with special needs. This is her first nonfiction piece to be published.

Adrien Lee: was born in Anderlecht, Belgium. He has lived in both the United States and France. He was introduced to art by his father whom first showed him how to hold a pencil and would go on to show him woodworking techniques. He learned about ceramics in high schoo land focused on hand building and sculpture. After high school Adrien enlisted into the military as a combat engineer and would go onto deploy to Iraq and Afghanistan to search for IED’s. It was here he realized the military was not his career. After four years of service and an honorable discharge Adrien went on to pursue his dream of a career in the arts. Graduating from the American university of Paris in 2016. Adrien needed a vacation and went on to sail up and down the east coast of the United States of America. In 2021 Adrien became a member at red heat ceramic studio and regained the momentum for work on large scale sculpture.

YS Lee: was born in 2006 and now is a student at Dulwich College Seoul. She is an emerging artist based in Seoul. She is interested in expressing human emotions through drawings and paintings. She always tried to capture the moment of her daily life.

Jiaojiao Liu: graduated from the Department of Environmental Art and Design of Donghua University in 2002. In 2005, they graduated from East China University of Science and Technology with a master’s degree in design and art.In the same year, they joined Shanghai Art and Design Academy as a lecturer. They resigned in 2011. They’re now full-time painter. Their works have been exhibited many times and are in private collections. They have several series work, for example: Dream Space, Nights, Mark, and Stones.

Frankie Lord: (they/them) is a writer and performer out of Sacramento. Their work is dark yet absurd, as one would expect of

a comedian turned horror writer. A large swath of their work can be found on the STAB podcast, which they’ve written for over thirty times, mostly credited as Melony Ford. Additionally, they are all over the internet @oopsanonbinary.

Christian Hanz Lozada: authored the poetry collection He’s a Color Until He’s Not (Moon Tide Press 2023) and co-authored the poetry book Leave with More Than You Came With (2019). He lives in San Pedro, CA and uses his MFA to teach his neighbors’ kids at L.A. Harbor College.

Adonis G. Macasieb: is an undergraduate senior studying creative writing at the University of North Carolina Wilmington. Adonis pursues writing both out of a love for literature and as a way to interact with his many unpredictable interests (a consequence of growing up with three brothers and three sisters). Though originally from Catawba, North Carolina, he now resides in Wilmington as he seeks to conclude his undergraduate career.

Jacob Mack: is a writer from Macon, Georgia. He is an undergraduate at Mercer University majoring in Secondary Education in English with minors in Creative Writing and Religion. He enjoys writing in all its forms, from poetry to fiction and creative nonfiction. He is also part of a podcast called Pages of Discourse, where he discusses books with his partner, Evelyn Johnson. His work has also been published in The Dulcimer, Mercer’s literary magazine.

Eion Magana: My work is the crack in the door that separates the ordinary world from a world of mystery and horror. I channel the unknown to make stories and birth creatures. My artwork focuses on myth, folklore, speculative biology, and creatures in general. I use organic shapes, natural and contrasting colors to make these things come to life. I use traditional and digital approaches to flesh out my art and design its features and quirks. However, I use sculpture to actualize my work and to make it become tangible. The texture, form, weight, and size can be seen in real space. It then truly becomes alive.

Devin Mainville: graduated from Columbia College Chicago’s television writing program. She has written about TV and film for PopMatters, Screenrant and The Watercooler Journal. Her short screenplays have been included in several festivals and she have been published in The Brushfire Literary Journal, Write City Magazine and selected for the 2021 Rockford New Words Festival.

Brenna Manuel: childhood began with reading Dick, Jane and Sally and ended with watching riots in Detroit. She later received her B.F.A. in Painting, her M.F.A. in Sculpture and taught Humanities at Franklin Pierce University for sixteen years. She frequently writes stories and poems in New Hampshire now.

Margaret Marcum: lives in Delray Beach with her three cats, Angel Clare, Alice, and Adam. She recently graduated from the MFA program in creative writing at Florida Atlantic University. Her poems have appeared in Amethyst Review, NonBinary Review, Scapegoat Review, October Hill Magazine, Writing in a Woman’s Voice, and Children, Churches, and Daddies, among others. She was a finalist for the 2021 Rash Award in Poetry sponsored by Broad River Review.

Elizabeth Mason: is an Associate Professor at Mount St. Joseph University in Cincinnati, OH where she teaches composition, literature and creative writing and serves as faculty advisor for the student-operated literary magazine. When she’s not grading papers or in her office, you can usually find her with a pen in her hand, her nose in a book, cheering at a baseball game, or more often than not, doing the laundry.

Jill Nied: age seventeen, is a junior at Danville Area High School. She has been a bookworm since birth and is currently the managing editor of her school’s literary magazine. Outside of the literary world, Jill is an active member of her school’s marching band, soccer team, and drama club.

Kieran Orndorff: is an Assistant Project Manager with Century Kitchens. He’s currently pursuing a bachelors in business administration

at Western Governors University. Kieran lives in Winchester Virginia with his wife and three dogs.

Jonathan Owens: is a new writer who lives in O’Fallon, Missouri. His first short story “The Bigfoot Race” was published by the Belmont Literary Journal. He can be found on Instagram at @ owens_jonathan2424.

Sarah Parmet: is a high school sophomore who lives off caffeine mints, adrenaline and very little sleep. When she’s not struggling in chemistry, she can be found writing, dancing and making music. Sarah, who now lives in LA, draws inspiration from a childhood spent in Hong Kong, and the academic challenges she faces (see the note about struggling in chemistry). She enjoys writing poetry, which has been published in The Weight Journal.

Donald Patten: is an artist from Belfast, Maine. He is currently a senior in the Bachelor of Fine Arts program at the University of Maine. As an artist, he produces oil paintings and graphic novels. His art has been exhibited in galleries across the Mid-Coast region of Maine.

Kendra Marie Pintor: (she/her/hers) is an emerging author from Southern California, with work appearing in Lunch Ticket Magazine’s “Amuse-Bouche,” series, Fast Flesh Literary Magazine, CRAFT Literary, and one coming soon to FOLIO Literary Journal May 2023. Kendra’s creative nonfiction piece “THE SLUAGH,” was recently nominated for Best American Science Fiction/Fantasy and Best Small Fiction of 2023. Kendra studied creative writing at the University of La Verne, and is also a graduate of the 2022 UMass Amherst Juniper Summer Writing Institute.

Aluu Prosper: Born and raised in Nigeria, West Africa, Prosper Aluu makes figurative and expressive paintings. His usually stylized figures show the use of the artistic devices of elongation and exaggeration, as well as his unique style of painting the iconic afro hairstyle. These are his ways of celebrating and negotiating African identity. Prosper grew

up drawing comics and characters which enabled him to understand the human figure and expressions properly, after which he became a full time studio artist in 2017. In traditional African art visual codes, the exaggeration of the head in comparison to other parts of the body is a well-known visual strategy to establish the head as the seat of wisdom and intellectual prowess according to the beliefs in parts of Africa. Prosper plays with the size, forms and presentation of the head of the figures in his paintings as a visual pun to challenge what he considers a one-sided narrative about the size of the head in traditional African art. His style of painting rich afro hairstyle and golden crowns on the heads of his figures are meant to ennoble and dignify the subjects in his work.

Anshi Purohit: is a 15-year-old freshman from Maryland. She has published two books and is published in Cathartic Literary Magazine, the WEIGHT journal, and the Eleventh Hour anthology. She aspires to become a psychiatrist and is very passionate about mental health. You can find her cuddling with her dog, playing viola, or going on hikes when she’s not reading upside down or writing.

Niles Reddick: is author of a novel, two collections, and a novella. His work has been featured in over 500 publications including The Saturday Evening Post, PIF, New Reader Magazine, Forth Magazine, Citron Review, Nunum, and Vestal Review. He is a four time Pushcart, three time Best Micro nominee, and a nominee for Best Small Fictions. He works for the University of Memphis, and his newest flash collection If Not for You has just been published by Big Table Publishing.

Juheon Rhee: is a 17-year-old writer residing in Manila. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Indolent Books, 580 Split, Lunch Ticket, and Cleaver Magazine among others. She has also received nominations for her works, such as the Best of the Net Nomination.

Mark J. Richards: was born in Euclid but grew up in Toledo Ohio. Early on he has practiced and participated in numerous American realist and plein air studies. His education at Ohio State University and graduation with a B.A. degree in Studio Arts from the University of

California at Santa Barbara launched his Fine Art career.

Esther Sadoff: A teacher and writer from Columbus, Ohio. Her poems have been featured or are forthcoming in Little Patuxent Review, Jet Fuel Review, Cathexis Poetry Northwest, Pidgeonholes, Santa Clara Review, South Florida Poetry Journal, among others.

Susan Sanders: writes and teaches at SustainableSue.com where you can find more information about Sustainable Productivity and its three dimensions: Health and Fitness, Mental Well-being, and Environmental Surroundings. Susan’s Master’s Degree in Exercise Physiology, MBA, Project Management Professional Certification, and Professional Organizer experience give her a unique foundation to help you create a life with more fulfillment and less need to escape.

Cecil Sayre: is a Visiting Lecturer for the English Department of Indiana University. His work has appeared in the Naugatuck River Review, Falling Star, Main Street Rag, The Cape Rock, and many other fine publications. He is always surrounded by cats and dogs.

Urja Shah: is a senior in high-school living in Australia, far away from her home in Vancouver. She aims to write enough about the female dilemma to leave an impact someday and loves curling up with a good book, especially those written by Sylvia Plath or Franz Kafka. Her favorite season is winter, and she detests leaving the house unless it’s to spend hours browsing through aisles in any bookstore.

Terril Shorb: has been a rancher and photo-journalist and teaches Sustainable Community Development at Prescott College where he founded that program. He and his wife, the poet, Yvette A. Schnoeker-Shorb, co-founded Native West Press. Terril’s photography and writing appears in The MacGuffin, Cargo Literary Magazine, bioStories, and Range Magazine, among others.

Tomislav Šilipetar: was born in Zagreb. In 2014 he graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb- Painting Department. In 2015 he became a member of Croatian Society of Fine Artists. In

addition to many group exhibitions, he had a number of solo exhibitions in Croatia as well as in the other countries. He is the winner of the rector’s award for excellence in 2013. The paintings are mostly made in acrylic, and the themes vary from solitude and isolation to the very existence of human existence in the society that condemns. It favors the simple colors, and the line that goes perfectly with the total preoccupation of getting out of the ‘box’ of academy restraints. In 2016 he gained the status of an independent artist.

Trinnity Sistrunk: is a senior undergraduate pursuing a bachelors in creative writing at University of Mary Washington. She specializes in horror, leaning toward science fiction and slasher sub genres in both her writing and her love of fiber arts. She has yet to be published for her writing.

Doug Smith: After training hospice workers in all fifty states and having published several nonfiction journal articles and books on care for the dying, Doug Smith is now converting his patient stories into works of fiction. He teaches at Northern Michigan University.

Josh Stein: (b. 1973, Hammonton, New Jersey; currently residing in Napa, California) is a lifelong multi-mode creative artist, musician, writer, professor with multiple advanced degrees from the University of California and the University of Liverpool, adult beverage maker, and current MFA candidate at School of Visual Arts in New York City. With formal training in calligraphy, graphic design, and color work; more than two decades as a researcher, teacher, and writer in cultural analysis in the vein of the Birmingham and Frankfurt Schools; and a decade and a half as a commercial artist and designer for multiple winery clients; he brings his influences of Pop art, Tattoo flash and lining techniques, and Abstract Surrealism and Expressionism to the extreme edge where graphic design and calligraphy meet the Platonic theory of forms.

Ezra Sun: is an 18-year-old poet and physicist from Windsor, CT and Flushing, NY. When he’s not writing poetry, you can find him playing the guitar with his band Inertia or going on long, aimless jogs.

Janine Tang: founded by Los Angeles based artist Janine Tang, utilizes a discipline towards sustainable fine arts: My unconventional approach envelops an eco-mindfulness based upon my childhood upbringing. With Enchanted, I explored using textured paste while repurposing and priming old canvases. The intention was to create a whimsical series to play on one another, yet allow each piece to convey its individual narratives. The use of pastel pigments of peach, lavender, pink, white add a feminine touch of dreamy fairy dust. IG: @jatelier9.

Jillian Thomas: is a 16 year old poet from the East Coast. She enjoys music, skiing, and photography. She writes about mental health, outer space, and sometimes Taylor Swift. She has been previously published in Footprints on Jupiter and The Weigh

Jack Thome: DMV based artist, LeRoyJacks; started his artistic professional life as a fully trained and licensed architect named Jack LeRoy Thome’. After numerous completed structures and a few unrealized designs he soon realized that he could not express his full artistic passion & other worldly vision working solely with the materials & constraints of the ‘built environment’. This, of course, inevitably lead to other forms of expression; some good some not; as seen in the continuously evolving technique, changes of media and style of presentation. even practiced as a serigraph (screen printing) instructor for the Virginia Beach Art Association in the mid 80’s. Current work involves cutouts & spray paint on paper which is over lain with cut and/or torn painted paper and completed with hand painting ( usually acrylic) markers and/or colored pencil. As he says “ the idea or image can be expressed in depth by color but better by layered color and actual separations adding texture as well as depth

Shu Tu: is an artist working in multiple disciplines. She has a BFA from Parsons School of Design, and studied fashion accessories at Cordwainers at London College of Fashion. In the past 25 years, Shu worked as a creative director, including as a creative leader in the advertising and beauty industry. She has now returned to her roots in

creating personal work, communicating her story through many different mediums— traditional, digital, fabric, floral art, and metalsmith.

E. P. Tuazon: is a Filipino-American writer from Los Angeles. They have work in several publications and their newest novella called The Cussing Cat Clock was released by Hash Journal in 2022. They were chosen by ZZ Packet as the winner of the 2022 AWP Grace Paley Prize in Short Fiction for an upcoming book with Red Hen Press (2024). They are currently a member of Advintage Press and The Blank Page Writing Club at the Open Book, Canyon Country. In their spare time, they like to go to FIlipino Seafood Markets to gossip with the crabs.

Laura Vitcova: is an emerging writer living in northern California. She is a multidisciplinary artist with a love for language. Her poetry has appeared in The Shore, Rue Scribe and Tangled Locks. In her spare time she travels, hikes, and looks through the lens of a camera. Twitter @lauravitcova Instagram @startlinglaura

Ronald Walker: An artist living in the Sacramento area of California. They work in a style which they call “Suburban Primitive.” Their style combines their interest in the origins and functions of art along with life in the suburbs. Their work has been shown in more than 50 solo exhibits over the years and they hold both a MFA as well as a MA in painting.

Benjamin Wang: is a sophomore at Dougherty Valley High School. My free time is usually split between golfing, writing non-fiction and news articles, and doing math. Attached please find my creative nonfiction piece entitled “Not My Name.” Thank you for taking the time to read my piece, I hope you enjoy it!

Hannah Weisz: (any pronouns) is a student at Golda Och Academy and the writer of You Are Cordially Invited To Elika Strauss’ Birthday Celebration. Outside of creative writing, Weisz enjoys musical theater, drag, and cosmetology. Weisz wrote short plays, poems, short stories, and other pieces at Columbia University’s Pre-College

Summer Program. Additionally, they won the Writing Award when entering Golda Och Academy. She is the Features Editor of the Scholastic-award-winning newspaper, the Flame, the Editor-in-Chief and marketing manager for the student-run literary and art magazine Nuts ‘n’ Raisins, and the Marketing Manager for the student poetry slam competition Battle of the Bards.

Cassie Wells: was born and raised in Valparaiso, Indiana, and now resides in Apex, North Carolina with her husband and 4 year old daughter. She has lived all over the country and traveled to many countries, but writes mostly about growing up with a pack of feral children in a small town USA, while navigating years of cystic acne and unfortunate haircuts. She enjoys comedy, taking in too many animals, and thrift stores.

Robert Wexelblatt: is a professor of humanities at Boston University’s College of General Studies. He has published ten collections of short stories; two books of essays; two short novels; three books of poems; stories, essays, and poems in a variety of journals, and a novel awarded the Indie Book Awards first prize for fiction.

JJ Williams-Presley: is a young African American artist who specializes in character design in the form of monsters. He likes to turn the things he sees in everyday life into monsters, such as something small like a shoe, to something big like a dog.

Robin Young: Based in Borrego Springs, California Robin EchoYoung works in mixed media focusing mostly on collage and contemporary art making. Using magazine clippings, masking tape, wallpaper, jewelry, etc allows her to develop deep into the whimsical and intuitive. Repurposing a variety of materials into lighthearted and sometimes disquieting messages, Robin’s artistic universe is strange, funky, and sometimes perverse.

Steve Zimmerman: story can be most favorably summarized as ‘quirky.’ Despite being raised in a family of teachers, he never enjoyed speaking in public. He double-majored in the lucrative fields

of Anthropology and Creative Writing at Miami University. Immediately following, he moved to Seattle and immersed himself in the world of retail while also pursuing some semblance of a career in photography. His work has appeared in venues such as PhotoSpiva, Target Gallery and the Tacoma Art Museum, as well as being published in the Bellingham Review, 3Elements Literary Review and the Evansville Review, amongst others.

Townscape on Tablecloth with Cat

Robin Young

Aftermath

Robin Young