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.

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.