Hulltown 360 v2 i2. Dedicated.

Hulltown

360

Dedicated.

Hulltown 360 Literary Journal Volume 2 Issue 2 Summer 2011

Editor Jim Burfoot Managing Editors Tom Vanderlinden (Visual Art) Sandra Zona (Poetry and Fiction) John Duffy (Fiction) Rick Burfoot (Nonfiction) Journal Design Tom Vanderlinden Grammar Lady Sandra Zona Hulltown 360 is published online biannually. Please check the web site for publishing schedule and submission guidelines: www.hulltown360.org Hulltown 360 acknowledges the encouragement and support of our families, friends, and the outstanding literary journals we read online and in print.

Hulltown 360 holds First Electronic Rights and First North American Rights. We are the first publication to feature the works online and in print.

ISSN 2158-1363

Hulltown

360 Volume 2 Issue 2, Summer 2011

Joseph Farley 5 A Change at the Bottom

Valery Petrovskiy 6 Autumn Ahead

Tanja Softić 10 Migrant Universe: the Heart of the Matter

11 You are Not Here 2

Joanna M. Weston 12 Visiting

J.S. MacLean 14 Cliché

Wendi E. Berry 15 Poles

Keith Moul 22 561 NV Valley of Fire

fiction

Francis Raven 23 A Perception Sunil Narayan 24 Future Fun Time Andrew Kozlowski 26 Location is Everything

Konrad Solberg 28 The Way It Was

William Doreski 34 A Tide of Red Curry

Janet Yung 36 Greetings Thomas McKinlay Vanderlinden 40 .liaf sdroW Erika Wright 42 At a Loss William D. Hicks 45 a driftwood scene Lily Murphy 46 Understand Your Man Francis Raven 50 About the Given John Grey 51 Good Boy to Not-So-Good Lady

52 Where is Hulltown 360?

54 Authors and Artists

Sandra Zona 56 To One Who is Elsewhere

art

poetry

Welcome to the Summer 2011 issue of the Hulltown 360 Journal. Inside, you’ll find some return visitors like J.S. MacLean, Erika Wright, William D. Hicks, and William Doreski. We thank them for their submissions and believing in H360.

From down the road a piece, we bring you Wendi E. Berry, Francis Raven, Sunil Narayan, Janet Yung, John Grey, Joseph Farley, Joanna Weston, Keith Moul, and Valery Petrovskiy. Again, welcome to all these incredible writers and artists.

Thanks to John Duffy for his brief stint as Fiction Editor. Sandra, in addition to being our Poetry Editor, has agreed to take over the fiction editing duties, as well as continue her grammar lady role. Please read her dedication to her favorite English Teacher on the back cover.

Several months ago I asked Tom to give H360 its own sense of artistic style. For this issue he has brought along some friends. Take a look at the work from Tanja Softić, and Andrew Kozlowski, and Tom himself.

A special thanks to all of you who waited patiently for our next issue.

Please send us your comments and suggestions: hulltown360@gmail.com JiMB

Joseph Farley A Change at the Bottom The devil has died of overwork.

His minions squabble over who Will get his desk.

Outside in the sulfur rain,

Stalagmites are blossoming, Glowing spikes of stone.

No one really wants the job.

They just want the pay and perks, Not the aggravation.

It’s just too much for one demon, Chasing mortal souls around And hounding them to hell,

So much easier just to sit back,

Shoot the bull and drink coffee While waiting for all, Or most of them,

To simply fall of their own weight Into the pit below.

5

Valery Petrovskiy

Autumn Ahead...

6

and

Autumn… …So long have been drawing an autumn that I chanced to forget the summer.

Nothing could be recalled but that I pricked my foot. It was injured because of a crow. Ugly it flew away, and limping I emitted a moan. I would endure it in silence if anybody was there but the others were bathing in a river. So I moaned loudly and swore, perhaps.

Before that I had been running, Ugly it flew away, shouting about and splashing as the limping I emitted a moan. others. Then I hurried to the bank to take off my jeans not to get them wet.

And the crow occurred there all at once, snapped at a barbecue and hurried away as if a duck. It amazed me and I overlooked a sharp cramp-iron in sands.

Such a pity — we came to the country with girls and now this! I found a half unfilled first aid kit in the car and dressed the wound. I didn’t walk down to the water any more, on the contrary, I beckoned a girl to wander in the forest.

White wine was drunk down and the red one we spilt accidentally on the sand in brown stains. There was no my blood about, but my leg ached.

So we walked to the forest — with her in a wet dress and me limping in a leg. Still it was great — green fir trees, a businesslike anthill and her smiling eyes against mine. The lovely day was cut short not by me. My friend got in touch on the phone, started fussing and took us back to the town. And I asked him to give me a lift to an accident ward. My leg felt heavy by the evening,

Valery Petrovskiy

there was no more a high day about. I was left to wait for my turn in a corridor smelling medicine. A doctor on duty changed my foot’s dressing, a nurse gave me a shot, and then I could leave.

I had no wish to go home, and my leg started to hurt while walking. And I had to hobble back in a rotten mood; it happens so after a good occasion. And still I felt a taste of holiday and desired to go on. I limped to Natasha’s block of flats.

A very nice and clever girl, she was unlucky with men. We were old friends but didn’t match well, yet I could sit for a while and have a talk to her. It would happen some day that I found myself in bed with her. It would be when there was nothing to talk about.

I liked her to laugh, she had nice white teeth. Most likely, they had the right water there when she was a child. I know she had grown up where the Don River starts. Her lights were on, and I climbed in her last floor. I was drinking her tea and she rang up home, where the Don started. She was eager to return there, and every summer intended to leave. I would miss her sad eyes and nice teeth. She liked Oleg Mityaev, I liked Francoise Sagan, and we didn’t match.

She was calling home at one hour to midnight to ask her sister, a twin, if she liked Sagan. Sister was in bed and displeased. She liked Sagan, I know.

Some day I had happened to be in love to Natasha’s sister. I had a shadow of it now when she was married. And Natasha was a widow already. Then it was different — Natasha was married and her sister not. Now we were on friendly terms with Natasha. But I couldn’t sleep with her for they were sisters however, though there would be no difference — they were twins.

So, I went away. Something was wrong with my leg and there was no seat in the courtyard. There occurred a bench when I had parted there with her sister, at the bench in the yard. No bench, whom did it hinder? I had to go on walking, no pause. And then I had been about to marry her, Natasha’s sister.

You see, it was once in my life, because she was strange and incomprehensible.

And she didn’t answer my proposal, neither for nor against. It was striking, yet it was nevertheless her choice. Then why did she weep here before she went home where the Don runs?

I left the courtyard. It was late, rather dark about and my leg still was hurting. I went to a cold night and reached a solitary bench. I sat there

7

Valery Petrovskiy

8

waiting till the pain left me. From somewhere in darkness appeared a black figure, a girl. She came to my bench in a birdlike walk. She sat down on a bench edge and asked for a cigarette. I had none. I invited her just to sit with me, for no particular reason. She had been sitting for a while. I had nothing to add. She stood up and left me, the fallen leaves rustled under her foot at dusk.

So, there is nothing to recall about the summer, just a shadow on a bench. …Summer For sure, they were sisters — one hold a baby in her arms and the other carried a basket with some milk for baby and a book of Francoise Sagan in - “A bit of sun in wet grass”. In my shop a sun beam would play about when one wiped a ficus leaves dry. In a vast tub it stood against the door and caught the sun rays whenever one entered in the morning. So they were sisters, very much alike.

A wedding ring flashed on one’s finger and the other, with a book, had it not.

They don’t walk with a book in my town, even in summer. A newcomer?

They were not after shopping then. Just entered, shone with their teeth and were off: “Thank you”. “You are welcome any time”, — we said that to any girl passing. “Or you can call me”, — I was joking then but uttered my actual phone number. The ficus being touched on stirred its leaves, and then there clinked good bye a bell on the door.

The Friday evening we stayed smoking by the closed shop for a while. We made hubbub there and were about to run home for the weekend. There a summer stood around. She came up quietly, with the same book in her hand, confident as if we had agreed to meet.

- You know, you had given me your number but I forgot it, - and she smiled at me like a pin star. What could I say then? I utterly didn’t remember my number. She had a particular voice and after the stuffy shop it refreshed me ever like a shower. At that time we had a walk round the town. I took a bottle of champagne and we dropped in at my fellows place. While the green bottle cooled down in his freezer we had coffee. After hot coffee a sip of champagne felt shivering cool. One has such a sensation when Turkish coffee is washed down with ice-cold water. There we took champagne with hot coffee, a sip of fizzy champagne following.

We got to me near midnight. She warned me that there would be no sex the first night and called her sister not to be lost. Long she had been brushing her teeth. She had much more teeth about than her years. I got tired and fell

Valery Petrovskiy

asleep. In the morning there was nobody in. On a sofa lay her book “A bit of sun in cold water’. In the evening she came back — for the book. We never parted with her for a month. The sun found us in the country once, on the Volga River bank next, but more often — nude in my bedroom at sunset. Soon I proposed marriage to her, if I put it right. I was ready to marry once in my life and was excited about it: yes, or no?

She simply asked if I could to keep her. I waited for an answer not a question and nothing said back. In the morning she departed for her sister and in the evening she left for home. That was the end!

I never expected her to call me but on a early Saturday morning she did. Why any trouble is to come on holiday? She was speaking confused and sobbed there in a long-distance phone.

—What’s up?

She had no monthlies, it had been delayed for some days. I had to calm her down and asked her to consult her elder mate there. With a hope she was choking back her tears. Half crazy she called me next at night. She was rather to take her life. She wouldn’t hear about an antenatal clinic in her town. So I asked her to come back and solve the problem here at once. Well, she called me back on Sunday to say she was leaving her town.

A hot summer went on, and all familiar doctors were on leave then. What was to do? In the morning I hurried to the train station. Why do people rejoice at meeting? People bring problems with them, don’t they? A conductor said that the last passenger left the coach. I wouldn’t Why do people rejoice at meeting? believe it. But there was People bring problems with them, none on her berth. There I don’t they? was taken abashed by her sister. The same white teeth smile, and wide open blue eyes were alike. The sister said that she wouldn’t come — it all got right! …Soon my shop closed down, it never was a success. I took out the ficus with me. It is set by the sofa she had spent the first night on. I don’t drink Turkish coffee any more, too much of sensation.

Francoise Sagan died that summer.

9

Tanja Softić

10

Migrant Universe: the Heart of the Matter

11

You are Not Here 2

Joanna M. Weston Visiting for Jack Hicks along the straight roads of a prairie town

I’d walk every month

careful of right-angled corners watching the line of shadows fall from trees

step over through them trying not to disturb

their length of darkness the school caught my attention where students lingered 12

beyond recess

before I crossed the street at a precise angle

holding to childhood’s pattern of regular crosswalks until I came to Jack’s block

Joanna M. Weston

where I’d count off the houses turn onto his level path up the two steps

ring the bell beside the blue door and wait for the poet

to open his mouth and recite remembered poems that curved and danced out of memory

along roundabout ways to our greeting

13

J.S. MacLean Cliché I took the train

home that spring.

My first love

walked with me along

those platform planks, to say goodbye.

As the whistle omened

on the tightening twilight

raindrops began to patter, framing her face

in cute black curlicues.

14

Her blue eyes were crying.

A shudder echoed “Aaall abooarrd!”

down a hall of steel and, oh, a forlorn newborn poet

footed the stoop

of that rollin’ coach.

Wendi E. Berry

Poles

Given the option to go to The Church by the Sea and attend family services or stay at home on her birthday, Diane chose to stay at home, act like a pagan, and have pancakes. The best, she hoped, was yet to come. For weeks, she had a picture …Diane chose to stay at ripped from a Sears catalogue of the banana seat bike she wanted pinned to the bulletin home, act like a pagan, board in her room—she was lucky to have a and have pancakes. board, her mother was proud to inform her.

When Elizabeth was growing up they pinned old newspaper clippings to the wall, and their walls had holes all over them.

“You should have filled the holes in and painted over them,” Diane said, doing her best not to worry that her mother’s past of not having anything would affect her birthday wishes.

“We couldn’t afford paint,” her mother said. Couldn’t afford this, couldn’t afford that; Diane was tired of hearing about the Great Depression. She wished her mother would talk about peace again and ending the Vietnam War. That was much more interesting than hearing about the shoes they didn’t have and the food they didn’t eat because there wasn’t much.

For months, Diane had pictured herself riding through the neighborhood, just like the other kids. They all pedaled with their hands free, except for her moralistic friend Carol, who refused to do anything to exert herself beyond turning pages in a book, Aesop’s Fables, preferably.

15

Wendi E. Berry

16

Diane’s family seemed grateful for Diane’s pancake decision. Elizabeth especially was relieved not to have to get dressed in nylons and a skirt and to parade herself around church filled with snooty Episcopalians. Growing up, she was Baptist. Elizabeth’s mother, Diane’s Grandma, still practiced and whenever they visited, they went to her church in Westminster where they didn’t have to dress up and could wear slacks. It was Dad’s people who were the Episcopalians and gave discerning glances about skirt length and hosiery.

This morning Elizabeth kept on her light blue velour robe and her terry slippers and granted one of her daughter’s birthday wishes by adding chocolate chips to the pancake batter. Diane was allowed to squirt whipped cream from the can and place the candle in the middle. She waited for her family to hit the high notes as they stood around the table singing the birthday song around the golden fluffy stack. Before Diane could blow out candles and take a bite, Elizabeth said, “Don’t forget to wish for peace.”

Diane had her fork poised to dig in, and Elizabeth said, “Pass me your pancakes.”

“Why?” “Elizabeth, just let her eat,” Frank said, rising to get more coffee.

“No, she needs a birthday blessing.” Elizabeth held her hand over the stack. Diane wondered if Elizabeth’s new zeal for blessing food came from her Saturday morning trips to the Institute of Light and Betterment, a place with a reading library that offered yoga and medicinal massage. The idea for blessing didn’t come from “Bless this food that it their agnostic neighbor Suzanne who smoked while she ate, if she ate, anything. More likely, she cursed may not harm Diane her food. and provide her with Holding her hand over the syrup, Elizabeth nourishment.” mumbled, “Bless this food that it may not harm Diane and provide her with nourishment.” By the time she passed back the plate, the pancakes were cold and the whipped cream was just liquid white stuff floating around the sides, but Elizabeth was oblivious, dousing her own stack of pancakes with syrup.

“What did you wish for?” Elizabeth asked after one large dripping bite.

Diane shook her head.

“You’re not going to tell me.”

Wendi E. Berry

“Cut her a break, Elizabeth. It’s her birthday.” Taking a strong cup of coffee with him, Frank disappeared into the garage.

“What’s he doing?” Diane asked.

Elizabeth shrugged her shoulders before shoving another dripping forkful into her mouth. Something about a twitch in one of her mother’s cheeks as she chewed, told Diane that Frank was up to something and this something had to do with a banana seat bike. Freedom, that’s all Diane wanted, the liberty to ride with her head back, hair wind-blown, and maybe even down a hill without hands. There would be no need to wait around for a school bus anymore, and if she slept late, she could hop on her bike, ride herself, and not have to wake Elizabeth.

Her chances of getting the bike seemed higher than ever, although not everything was adding up. The day before Diane had watched her father climb out of the family Skylark and slam the door. Long wooden poles stuck out from the trunk that didn’t seem to have anything to do with the picture she had shown him in the Sears catalogue of a purple banana seat or the one she liked in the hardware store with the flowered seat and silver tassels. She walked up to the car and leaned over the trunk to see if there was anything else, besides the poles.

To her disappointment, there was no banana seat, but it could still be hiding somewhere else. Diane had picked up her sister’s bright orange pail and swung it trying to get Frank’s attention, but he hoisted the bouncing poles over his shoulder.

“Can I help?” she said.

“Not with this, pea pie.” The ends of the poles bounced as he walked.

Diane put her feet together and looked down at her blue Ked sneakers, wishing not for world peace, but for what all the neighborhood kids had, shiny bikes.

“Okay, I’m going to go play in the field now.”

“All right,” he said and gave her a short wave.

The swaying, feathery tops of the marsh grass came up to her waist, and the insects were making their last dim sounds before the first freeze set in.

She saw their square reflective eyes and their rigid, stick-like bodies balance on the tops of grass. She reached down with the bucket and when she pulled

17

Wendi E. Berry

18

it back up, inside were four grasshoppers that made a sound like “Ech. Ech.” In captivity, they were not above climbing on top of each other to escape.

The glowing orange of her pail made the last one on the bottom appear to have an otherwordly glow. In school, last week, Mrs. Winterson had asked their fourth grade class who would be in charge in the event that a nuclear attack suddenly happened.

Carol, raising her hand, said, “The president.”

“What if he was missing or had been killed?” asked Mrs. Winterson.

“Our parents?” Randy, with the curly hair, said.

“Which one? That’s what I’m asking, who’s in charge?”

The nightly news showed college students with long hair, tie-dyed T shirts, and crocheted vests shouting, “LBJ, LBJ, whose kids you going to kill today?”

Diane asked Frank at the breakfast table, “Where would we go if the bomb were dropped?”

“What brought that on?” he said.

“We would all go to the library,” her mother said, reaching for more butter, “on Virginia Beach Boulevard. They have a shelter.”

“Dear, I don’t think we’d make it that far.” He lifted his coffee to his lips.

He’d only been in the garage for five minutes when Elizabeth began nagging Diane about how to eat her pancakes. “Use your fork,” she said as Diane tore off another piece of pancake, rolled it into a small log, and popped it in her mouth.

“It tastes better this way. I don’t like biting onto metal.”

“Well, then use a plastic fork, but don’t eat your food with your hands. Primates do that.” Kat, Diane’s little sister, had syrup dripping from her chin but “…don’t eat your food Elizabeth wasn’t saying anything to her. with your hands.

Diane leaned over to wipe the stickiness off Primates do that.” her sister’s face but Elizabeth said, “Hands off your sister.” She pulled Kat’s chair closer and brushed the silky bangs from her eyes. Diane was no longer hungry since she had to use a fork, so when Frank came in from the garage and asked, “Wanna see your surprise?” she leaped up.

“Frank, let her finish.”

“It’s her birthday. You ready?” He asked and Diane nodded.

Wendi E. Berry

She dropped her sticky plate into the sink not bothering to rinse it. She hoped that he had been putting her bike together. Yes, that’s what he had been doing, assembling it in the garage. She jammed her feet into her spare Keds with holes that gave more room for her big toes.

“I want to see, too,” Kat said, her chin still shiny with butter.

“Okay, you can both come, but you have to shut your eyes until I say open.”

Elizabeth shook her head, but she said Kat could go as long as she put on a sweatshirt because it was fall outside. At the side door, Frank held hands with both girls and walked them down the four steps to the garage and out the door to the backyard. Diane squeezed her eyes tightly and wished for a bike.

Banana seat, banana seat, she was thinking …Banana seat, banana seat, and once more imagined the shiny fender, she was thinking and the bright reflectors, the tassels, the long once more imagined… flowered seat, the white-lined tires, and passing boys on the street, racing right by them, including Randy.

“Okay, you can open your eyes.” Frank opened his arms to their backyard with no trees.

Diane looked up. She looked around. For as far as her eyes could see— and that was pretty far because there were very few trees in the marshy neighborhood—there was no bike. She was seeing something—what? Frank was holding out the two wooden poles she’d seen earlier in the trunk of the car. The only difference was these had two triangles of wood screwed on about a third of the way down and a little square of wood beneath to support the triangular wedges.

Where was the bike? Where was the banana seat?

“Do you like them?” Frank asked, indicating that he did not understand that his daughter was expecting a bike.

“What are they?”

“They’re stilts. You walk with them. I will now give a demonstration.” He held up the two poles at an angle and wrapping his arms about midway up the poles, he bent one knee and braced his foot of one of the wedges before saying “Humph” and pulling himself up. Each foot on a wedge, he stood several feet above. Frank was always tall, but now he was a giant.

19

Wendi E. Berry

20

Was this the way Diane was to go to school, on giant stilts, like a circus performer? She tried to hide her disappointment as Frank walked around, his arms and legs moving in unison, his lips making a whistling tune as if it was the best thing that could happen. What was he whistling, “Swanee River”?

She’d heard him sing that before when he was in the garage tinkering with something, making a small bookshelf or repainting their old desks to make them look new again. He made two giant steps and advanced onto the asphalt driveway, where the wood made a clunking sound.

“I guess I should try,” Diane said.

Frank was having so much fun, clunking and whistling, he didn’t hear. He clunked around the back and started toward the front of the yard. Elizabeth jerked open the curtain and glared at her husband clomping around their newly seeded front yard that was still muddy from recent rain and the marsh near the bay.

“I want to try, Dad.” Diane shouted again and followed him. Kat followed, too, even though she was busy picking at the warts on her fingers. Where her little sister contracted those things, Diane did not know. Where Frank got the idea that stilts were a substitute for a bike was another mystery. He did another full loop around the yard and reappeared with mud on the bottom of the stilts. He jumped down next to Diane and a small clod of mud splattered into her eyes.

“Make sure when you dismount, no one else is around.”

She rubbed her eyes with the backs of her fists and that made them sting.

He didn’t seem to realize what had happened. Her eyes hurt but she took the poles anyway. The first couple of times she could not get on, so Frank held the stilts for her. Her eyes were blurry and she was trying to hop on, but even with him holding the poles steady, her feet would not stay, her arms shook, and her knees wobbled. One time, she was almost on, he let go and said, “You got it! You got it! Keep going!” That lasted all of a second before the stilts crashed to the side. If Diane could see, she would have fallen the other way, away from Kat. Elizabeth raced outside and checked Kat’s head for bumps and bruises. Kat was fine, and stood up right away.

“Let Kat try,” Frank suggested as Diane helped brush Kat off.

“Frank, no. Kat should come inside with me.”

Wendi E. Berry

Kat, even though she’d been beaned in the head and Elizabeth was fussing over her, reached for the stilts. Putting one foot on a wedge and keeping her arms low instead of trying to reach up the way Diane had been doing, Kat sprung up on the first attempt, gripped onto the poles, and began moving. Her steps were small but they were fast. In no time at all she had crossed the “That’s my girl!” back of the yard and was about to make her way Frank shouted. around the front.

“Be careful,” “That’s my girl!” Frank shouted.

“Be careful,” Elizabeth said behind them.

Elizabeth said “It’s all in the technique,” Frank pointed out enthusiastically, as his youngest did another lap before dropping the stilts at Diane’s feet. “My Favorite Martian’s on,” she announced. They were all going in, but Diane wanted to give the stilts another try.

“Stay away from the asphalt,” Elizabeth warned. “You’ll crack your head.”

That should have been the least of her worries, because her daughter was now plotting how to steal a bike.

21

Keith R. Moul

22

561 NV Valley of Fire

Francis Raven A Perception I know there are eight potatoes but can see only four. I fill in what is behind

each whole thing

(but only each whole, each idea) but how do I know that a potato is whole?

That is, what is the unity behind such a tuber?

You know, for the longest time

they were not considered proper food.

23

Sunil P. Narayan Future Fun Time As if the streets no longer exist‌the blue sky is gone too!

All one can see is the never-ending black vortex with bright stars disappear one-by-one

Sunlight no longer exists so the trees have fallen into the abyss Down, down they go without a word uttered by onlookers People with no homes lay under the ground as skeletons

Their flesh eaten by dogs before the priest read from the bible Relatives did not cry or speak for they were silent as terrified children

Faces smeared with the ashes of massacred ancestors Gas chambers were used to dispose of every soul of our world Civilizations banished due to shameless deeds 24

No creed could withstand the relentless greed swallowed by all

God came to reclaim his suicidal children and to banish everyone else to hell

A river of sadness flowed from his eyes into the streets of every city

He watched the buildings turn into mush and the creatures that speak drown without squeaking

he could not bear to listen to their pleas of mercy each face painted with horror!

Sunil P. Narayan

When the apple trees nearly touched the sky God smiled

When they drooped over the ocean till nearly touching the cold surface God became sad

One world of his bent to the will of his deranged children

His paradise is not a toy to be twisted and pulled for anyone’s delight Yet, no one acknowledged his screams for attention

If his fingers fell towards the earth’s forest, breaking countless of trees We would assume nothing but an odd event had come to pass The concerns of a previous world did not match our own We were in denial, for our faces are covered in deep cuts Bled a river of regret that darkened minute by minute Water like oil can annihilate life with one spark

The children stood before the stream with lit candles To be sorry for disobeying one’s parents

To be sorry for not saying “Yes” to cruelty

No more liberty, only fear is what we know

No more food or water, it’s time for us to go

25

Andrew Kozlowski

26

Location is Everything

27

Konrad Solberg

The Way It Was

28

Cold grey ashes drift to the ground. Before us is the burnt skeleton of another building. The frame is reduced to dirty shards of charred aluminum stabbing upward into the dull sky. The cold gnashes its teeth against my neck just above the collar of my coat. Standing next to me, my little sister stares at the carcass of metal framework and machinery. Today is her birthday.

“Go on,” she said. I peer down at her porcelain face, now smudged. Her eyes still sparkle blue though, penetrating my heart.

“Well,” I choke, clearing my throat. “From what Mom told me, they stopped making other stuff. She said they wanted things that would fulfill the needs of us all.”

“And Mommy wanted to help?”

“Kind of. I mean, everyone knew there would only be a few ways to work, to make money. So they all got jobs making stuff to help the country.”

The trees begin small circles in the breeze. We turn and head across the deserted parking lot, leaving the wreckage behind. Ash dances across the hardened tar.

“I’m getting hungry,” my little sister chimes, suppressing a whimper.

“Okay, we have to go back then.”

I stop, looking her over once more.

“Do we have to go inside?”

“Yes.” “I don’t want to then. It’s always scary in those places.”

Konrad Solberg

“Well, we have to find some food eventually” I say, kneeling down so that my eyes were level with hers. “I’ll be with you the whole time.”

“So will they.”

“Why don’t you keep your eyes closed?”

“No.” She presses her lips together. “Last time, I had to stop because I couldn’t see nothing.”

“It’s either go in with me or wait out here. I need to get us food.”

My stomach had balled itself into a fist, grinding its sides together. She never gets too hungry, or has never complained.

“Okay!” She pouts. “I’ll go in with you. But you have to finish your story.”

“Where was I?” “Deal!” I stand, smiling. My cheeks feel stiff, I ask, rolling my eyes a mixture of the enduring cold and the first real toward the sky. smile in— “Three weeks,” my sister sings.

“What?”

“No. Three and a half weeks. It’s been three and a half weeks since you’ve smiled.”

“You must be kidding,” I huff. “I smile all the time.”

“Yeah?” she challenges. “But those aren’t real. You just do that for me, so I’ll be happy.”

“No I don’t,” I lied.

We start walking back toward the factory rubble.

“You said you would finish your story.” She stops, jerking my hand toward her.

“I know, I know. I’m going to. Come on.”

The trees around the factory glare down at us as the wind lets out a distant howl. I flip the collar of my coat, urge the front of my wool cap down a bit with my free hand, and turn to check on my sister’s clothes. Her hood was already up from the sweatshirt under her coat, though she kept a wool cap on under that too. I start walking and she yanks my hand. I smile again. Her eyes are closed just enough for a sharp glare, lips pursed, nose wrinkled.

“Where was I?” I ask, rolling my eyes toward the sky.

She relaxes her face and we continue walking.

29

Konrad Solberg

30

“Oh yeah. So, everyone was starting to work at these factories. They were all pretty much the same. Some made weapons—“ “Like guns? Or knives?”

“A little bit of everything really. There were even places that made stuff to go with weapons—” “What do you mean stuff that goes with weapons?”

“Well, like controllers and computers and things that people had for using the weapons.”

“Oh. You don’t just shoot them?”

“No. There were all kinds of weapons being made.

They could drop some from the sky using guns that “They could drop some flew, they could shoot them into the sky and hit from the sky using guns something really far away, there were even had ones that flew… that nobody had to be in or near to use, all kinds of ways to kill the guys we were fighting. Eventually the only things that people made were for fighting wars.”

“I thought fighting was supposed to be bad,” she says, innocently.

“It is. Everyone knew that, too. But they all thought that they were doing the right thing. They had to work to survive, and those that didn’t build stuff for fighting couldn’t find work anywhere so they couldn’t buy food or find help when they got sick.”

“Oh.” She stares at the ground as we approach the factory walls once more. The stink pushes its way into my nose. My eyes sting as they begin to water. I try to keep my breaths shallow.

“So then people all over the world started fighting again. Nobody trusted anybody because all that people everywhere were doing was making stuff to fight.”

“Why did they start fighting again?”

“I don’t really know. Mom just said it wasn’t important.”

“Well, we’re doing okay and we aren’t making anything bad,” she boasts.

“Yeah. I guess we’re doing alright.”

We easily make our way into the grounds of the factory. What remains of the walls are only a few sections, the tallest stands a little over my head.

Bits of concrete block dot the heap of destroyed alloy. Passing through the

Konrad Solberg

outer area of the diminished building, we head for its bowels. I search for a basement door, remembering the other factories we had been to. All of which had a place to keep emergency supplies.

“By this time though, nobody lived in houses. They all started to live in the same building they worked in. This one is pretty small, not like where we lived.”

“Yeah.”

“A lot of people lived there, so it was big. Nobody had to leave the buildings either. Everything they needed was made in the same place they worked, so they could all focus on building these weapons. People didn’t have to worry about buying food; the companies did that for them. Everything outside the factories got really expensive because companies with lots of money were buying it all up instead of people with just little bits of money.”

The stench grows stronger. Her hand tightens around mine and she pulls her entire body close to my arm.

“Anyway, back to the war. This big fight broke out and people started shooting at other countries. Some people had to leave the factories so that they could go fight. Those who did stay had to work all the time, building material for fighting.”

As we round a hunk of scalded metal and concrete, we see the first mass of people. Still, their bodies long since empty of life. My sister flinches, every muscle in her petite body tensing. I wrap my arm around her, guiding her past the grisly scene. She buries her face into my side, leaving only enough space to peer through with one eye. The thick steel door leading to the basement is covered with a layer of rubble. This is the best one so far. At the last two we had seen, I had to shove the singed corpses of people away from the door.

“So, when people were shooting off bombs, they were only aiming for the places the other sides made their weapons. They all thought that they made the buildings strong enough to withstand anything, but the weapons kept getting better and better since that’s all people did.”

“So Mommy and Daddy made weapons too?”

“Yeah. It was the only way they could keep us all alive, and since people were bombing weapons factories--“ “That’s why we’ve never seen anyone else? They were all killed?”

31

Konrad Solberg

32

“Maybe not everyone. After all, we are still alive.”

The door is the same as all of the others, a steel frame sunken in the center of the factory with a scanner on the outside of the door. Through the scanner people would swipe plastic cards telling the door that they were part of this place. The doors of every factory require a card swipe to get in. I dig a handful of plastic cards from my pocket, slide them through the scanner one by one.

None of them work. I clench my teeth and close my eyes for a second, taking in a slow breath.

“We have to find another one, huh?” my sister asks.

“Yeah.”

I turn and face a small group of bodies that lay a few feet from the door. I pull away from my sister, holding her shoulders for a second. She nods, saying nothing. I walk over to them and gently roll over the first body. It makes a crisp peeling sound, tearing its flesh away from the remains of the one under it. Whatever melted possessions the first body had on it most likely wouldn’t work for us. I pull off one of my gloves and search the second one.

“Were you working?” my sister asks, still at the door a few feet away.

“No. I wasn’t old enough.” I dig through the cold, stiff pockets.

“But you are now. Right? I mean, today?”

I find a card in the shirt pocket. I stand, lose myself for a moment in the twisted expressions on the bodies’ faces. I can almost hear their terrified screams, see them reaching out to me for help. A small draw of my coat snaps me back to reality. I spin to see my sister standing next to me.

“Yeah. I would have started today.” I tilt my head back and close my eyes for a second.

The odor clasps my throat, forcing me to stifle a gag as we head back to the door.

“Okay. Let’s hope this works.” My sister steps behind me as I kneel down to the door.

I slide the card down through the scanner. A small green light on the scanner’s side glows, signaling the door’s innards to come to life with a mechanical chunk. I put the card in my coat pocket with the others I had collected, wrap my sister up in my arm again, and tug on the cold handle of the door.

The basement looks the same in all of the buildings. They are all clean and

Konrad Solberg

orderly. The rooms are always a few feet taller than me with rows of metal shelves standing alone on the white concrete floor. The cinderblock walls form a kitchen and a couple of bathrooms in the rear corner of the bunker.

They are all made for emergencies like this, but every basement we have been through contained only food and perfectly preserved bodies. Some bombing methods were developed to dump gas down into bomb shelters, leaving the shelter intact. What we see is the end product.

My sister had already tied her scarf around her face, covering her mouth and nose. I did the same. It doesn’t take us long to find a few cans of food and rinse them off with a bottle of water. We emerge from beneath the ground, arms full of wet cans and plastic bottles.

I hate going into those places. I never tell my sister though. She probably hates them more than I do.

“Can we eat in the parking lot?” my sister begs, pulling her scarf “Can we eat in the parking down. my sister begs…

“Yes. We can eat wherever you want to.”

We leave the cold dead factory and set up a small picnic on a patch of grass in the middle of the parking lot. I scrounge up dry wood, dig a crumpled book of matches out of my pocket, and start a fire. The warmth bathes our faces, popping and crackling, spitting out glowing specks occasionally. I use a small metal shard and a rock to punch holes into the tops of a few cans and place them next to the fire. The ashen light loses its weak grip to the night.

What little color there was slowly fades to black.

“Happy Birthday, Christopher,” my sister cheers, beaming. I look at her across the fire.

Her white face glows a faint orange through the flames, which sparkle in her eyes. The few years that separate us seem to fade in an instant, leaving me her age once again. I smile back to her, happy we could share the warmth in a day surrounded by such cold nights.

“Happy Birthday to you, too, kiddo.”

lot?”

33

William Doreski A Tide of Red Curry Your Indian childhood returns

in a tide of red curry. Your friends dote on your elegant cooking,

and even your tiny dog slobbers as the ripe fragrance blossoms.

You didn’t invite me because

my large pale indecorous face

saddens every woman you know, and in men evokes the pity

commonly seen down a rifle sight.

As I stand outside your rented rooms

and breathe a thousand years of spices 34

my quiet desperation creeps

into your bedroom and under

the blanket, forming a lump the size of a soccer ball. You’re busy

in the kitchen where your friends crowd the old Formica table

and drink nonalcoholic cider.

Outside I’m nursing a pint

William Doreski

of whiskey. October drizzle

chills me. I walked ten miles but you wouldn’t admit me

because I’d spoil your party

by talking in too many tongues and grinning like an empty carcass.

You know I’m crouching in the rain and will probably cough and faint

and neighbors will have to drag me to shelter. They won’t realize

my desperation is safe and warm

in your bed, and after your party will cuddle you like a kitten

although by then the bulk of me

will have given up and gone home.

35

Janet Yung Greetings

36

“Happy Birthday, Jesus” signs were popping up all over the neighborhood along with garish lights and decorations including inflatable snowmen, penguins, and Santa’s in various forms of repose and action and it wasn’t even the first Sunday of Advent.

Harriet was half-tempted to knock on doors where the happy birthday signs appeared and tell the well intentioned occupants, struggling to keep …some scholars were Christ in Christmas, that some scholars were of of the opinion the opinion Jesus was born in April not December.

Jesus was born in April An Aries rather than a Capricorn which made not December. sense to her, but doubted anyone so devoted would be interested in her spin on events historical or Biblical. So, she kept on walking tripping over a cord, stretched across the pavement, providing electricity to an outdoor light display.

“Shit,” she muttered as she tumbled to the ground, hands outstretched to break her fall. After a moment, she stood and, brushing leaves from the knees of her sweatpants, inspected the fabric for any rips or holes. Satisfied nothing was torn or broken, she resumed her early morning walk careful where she stepped along the sidewalk leading back home.

Fumbling with her key in the lock, she glanced around, noticing the number of decorations that seemed to have sprung up on their own street, a street normally not jumping on the holiday bandwagon.

Inside, she felt a rush of warm air as the furnace kicked on, wondering when the bows and wreaths had gone up, and the neighborhood void of activity the previous weekend, the weather cold and wet, not conducive to outside work.

“How was your walk?” Brad called from the kitchen.

“Fine,” she replied, hanging her jacket on the front closet doorknob and slipping out of her walking shoes.

Janet Yung

“Do you think we should put up some Christmas decorations?” Brad drained the contents of his coffee cup, an indication he was close to leaving for work.

Harriet’s first response was “Why?” but seeing the eager look on Brad’s face, she didn’t have the heart to discourage him or bring up the unfortunate reindeer humping incident which had been the last time they’d bothered with decorations.

She’d been the one who’d goaded him into buying the lit up reindeer and after spending a fair portion of a Saturday afternoon trying to determine the best location for the pair, adding red ribbons and bows to set them apart from the crowd, couldn’t believe her eyes the next morning going to retrieve the morning paper.

“What?” had been her first reaction on seeing the newly positioned duo, one on the back of the other. Brad had been the one to pull them apart, repeating it had been a prank pulled by some kid on Saturday night, but Harriet couldn’t get over it and the reindeer had remained confined to the attic since.

“Where’s your Christmas spirit?” Brad asked and Harriet supposed it wouldn’t hurt to put up a few things although it hardly seemed worth the effort.

“I guess we could,” Harriet conceded, not mentioning what role, if any, the reindeer would play in the winter landscape.

“Good. We can start first thing tomorrow. The weather is supposed to be perfect.” His cup landed in the sink and, with a peck on her cheek, he was out the door “Great,” she called …it never failed down the empty hall, then hurried to get ready the forecast would only be accurate for work. on a day she wished otherwise.

Saturday morning dawned warm and sunny just as the weatherman had predicted the night before. Harriet had hoped he’d be wrong, but it never failed the forecast would only be accurate on a day she wished otherwise.

Harriet was clearing away the breakfast dishes while Brad rummaged

37

Janet Yung

38

around in the attic, periodically calling down questions about where the outdoor lights were and what should he take out to use.

“Maybe we should buy new,” he suggested when Harriet emerged through the opening, aghast at the sight of boxes and bags pulled from beneath the rafters and strewn over the floor.

“No, I think we have plenty here.” He’d managed to find the box marked ‘outdoor lights’, buried in the deepest corner, covered with dust “You used to love from the tuck pointing job of five years ago.

Christmas,” he said, “Are you sure you want to use all those lights?” sliding next to her Harriet studied the boxes, “especially the net on the top porch step . lights?” Then there was always the threat of melting snow sliding from the roof undoing all “What happened…” their work before the season ended. The shrubs would sag beneath the weight. Wires would come unhooked from branches and the tiny lights would be left to illuminate mounds of snow in an erratic pattern.

“Those are the easiest to put up.” Then, Brad was sliding the boxes to the landing and telling her they had everything they needed.

“Okay.” She said.

“We’ll get the reindeer later,” he said once he’d begun stretching strands of lights, checking they all worked.

Four hours later, her stomach was growling and she was having trouble keeping up with Brad’s pace. He’d strung lights along the porch railing, trimmed the Dogwood and was halfway through the shrubs.

“I need a break,” Harriet said, taking a seat on the porch, worried about the decorating frenzy that had been unleashed in Brad. It must be contagious.

“You used to love Christmas,” he said, sliding next to her on the top porch step. “What happened to you?”

“I don’t know. Things change. The years get shorter and it seems like a waste to drag all this crap out for a few weeks.” She remembered how she’d looked forward to the holidays, finding something for every room and window in the house.

“Maybe that’s why people start decorating earlier and earlier every year,” he offered with a grin.

Janet Yung

“Maybe.” She stared at the leaves that had collected between a clay pot filled with geraniums that had yet to be cleared out and the iron bench. She would have added that the holidays didn’t seem happy any more, but then couldn’t remember a holiday when someone in the family wasn’t feuding with somebody else, or disappointed about what they’d found or didn’t find under the tree.

“Well, let’s finish up the lights and you’ll feel better.”

“If you say so,” she stood while Brad stretched more net lighting along the top of the overgrown shrubs. “Where do you think we should put the reindeer?” he asked innocently and she laughed.

39

Thomas McKinlay Vanderlinden

40

41

.liaf sdroW

Erika Wright

At a Loss

42

Perdita was at a loss for conversation. Words flew from her mouth, dripped from her eyes, blew out of her nose and ejected from her ears. She caught them in an old greasy hairnet and ate them quickly, trying to save her story, but her pores sweated consonants and her bowels discharged vowels rendering them quite unusable.

She tried to snag them with flypaper, but that didn’t work either. They pasted themselves in such odd combinations that her story was all muddled, puddled and befuddled.

The air around her crackled with the sound of nouns and verbs bumping into each other. Shooting off tiny Roman candle explosions, whole paragraphs burned to cinders leaving a stinking wake of ash behind her. Scavenger birds sifted through the ash trying to steal her thoughts and dreams to line their nests, but the words were friable, no longer viable or desirable, even for them.

She could no longer ride in cars because strings of accusative cases and strands of alienable nouns piled up high. They blocked her view and smothered her with her own unspoken thoughts. They drowned her in direct illocution.

Her family was at a loss to help her.

As soon as he saw them, her father penciled lists of all manner of articulation: adverbs, adjectives, direct objects, and internal relations. The speed at which he wrote was not enough to keep up with Perdita’s decamping descriptors. His wrist ached and his fingers callused, but still he kept on.

Erika Wright

Each Thursday they walked to the village green to buy their necessities and visit with the other promenading families that gathered on the sidewalks at the cafes and park benches. They were largely ignored. Neighbors turned their backs and snickered. Strangers stared and stepped back quickly.

Young children with billowing butterfly nets followed Perdita at a distance, attempting to capture her words. They piled their catch in towers of letters that teetered and tottered on the aggregate sidewalks. Some of the letters were wet with her tears and slid clumsily down the sides of these towers like slow motion suicide leapers.

Her mother held an oversized obsidian umbrella over her head in a feeble attempt to keep her words down to earth. Over time, sharp retorts and cynical comments shredded the umbrella into raven-like wings of tattered cloth. Her daughter’s story, an ode to reticence, bounded to the heavens despite it all.

They always returned home quickly, unsuccessful in their search for social intercourse. Their daughter was a very unhappy young woman. She cried herself to sleep most nights.

Every morning Perdita’s family woke to the alarming sound of blasting B’s and quaking Q’s. The rat-a-tatting of R’s, the shattering of S’s and the detonation of D’s echoed throughout the rooms of their bungalow. Breakfast was a chaotic mess of pancaked P’s and scrambled E’s. They were all exhausted by mid-day.

Perdita, languid in her loneliness, longed for companionship, camaraderie and some plain and simple conversation.

Her parents conspired to place an ad in the Village Gazette in order to hire a live-in companion to help pick up the wreckage of words in the wake of Perdita.

One evening, soon after, as they ate Reuben sandwiches at the grey formica table in their kitchen, the front door bell sweetly chimed its rendition of Clare de Lune. Perdita smiled and burped up a series of M’s and O’s. They landed in the mustard pot near the edge of the table and immediately she frowned. Her

43

Erika Wright

44

mother’s look said tsk-tsk, not to worry, dear, and cleaned up the mess while Perdita answered the door.

There on the stoop stood a man, tall and straight, curly dark haired and mustachioed. His eyes were the deep blue of Bombay sapphires and India Ink wells. He would have been handsome were it not for the oversized trumpet in his left ear. It was a most peculiar ear horn.

Golden curlicues and fleur-de-lis marched in a band around the rim of the burnt umber trumpet bell. Lapis cartouche circumscribed mysterious star shaped pictograms. Amber, citrine and fire opals interrupted rambling lines of hieroglyphs, untold secrets in plain sight. A most peculiar ear horn, indeed.

For just one moment—one clear and simple moment—Perdita’s alphabet ammunition cease-fired.

From behind, her mother spoke, “What may we do for you, dear sir?” Her voice resonated, sound waves nearly visibly bouncing off the outer edge of the ear horn.

The tall man didn’t seem to hear her, but the echo of rebounding inquiry startled Perdita. An array of question marks and exclamation points hurtled through the air in all directions.

Her mother ducked. The tall man just smiled, pocketing her punctuation and clearing the air.

“I am here for the housekeeping position,” spoke the tall man in a baritone voice as deep as the ocean and velvety smooth. “I’m sorry my trumpet startled you.” His smiling blue eyes were alert and darted about, waiting and watching for some kind of answer. “I don’t hear well, but I can read lips.”

Moments passed. Perdita smiled shyly at the tall man and for the first time in her life managed to aim her words. An entire paragraph of pleasantries flew straight up the bell of the wondrous ear trumpet.

“Thank you,” he replied, “It is lovely of you to say so.” He stepped inside the bungalow connected to Perdita by a string of X’s and O’s.

William D. Hicks a driftwood scene where frozen hearts of sharks in gritty graphite seas tie witches to kings

and bloody scabs don’t congeal from staccato gunshots that end in death

all because someone believed in the myth of meth

45

Lily Murphy

Understand Your Man

46

This town is gritty, it stinks of stale lives, it’s covered in run down abodes and the wind that blows through it is as bitter and cold as those who inhabit this place. Frankie and Donna used to live here.

They lived in a rundown shack on the outskirts of town, not too far away from the bars where Frankie drank his demons and Donna sipped on her sorrow. Frankie was in his late twenties, he never showed the youthful side of his age because his face was worn hard and his attitude was even harder. Donna was nearing her forties. She was not a haggard old hay bag in appearance but the first sign of middle age she found was a grey hair she came across one day and from then on she dyed her hair religiously a bright peroxide blonde. Frankie failed to take any notice though. He didn’t take much notice of Donna in the months after they first met, Frankie only took notice of one thing; something in his soul was longing to be elsewhere.

Frankie was a rambling man but he never thought his wandering ways would be halted by the likes of Donna, a woman over ten years older than him.

Donna met Frankie over a year ago when his tall lean structure arrived in town with just his old duffle bag swinging from his broad roving shoulders and his breath stale with cheap whiskey. He came across Donna in the first bar he walked into. Frankie pulled up a stool next to the blonde haired woman whose lips never went far from the Budweiser bottle she cradled in her hand. He liked the way she drank and she liked the way he talked but twelve months later the straggling stranger she fell in love with was now slipping through her fingers

Lily Murphy

and she knew she would ultimately lose him. Frankie didn’t do too much talking in the months after his sweet speech soothed Donna at the bar that night, but what talking he did do, Donna didn’t like it. In the many months that passed, the words that came out of Frankie’s mouth were ones full with notions of taking to the road again.

Donna had been married before she met Frankie and when he saw the ring on her finger the first night they met he asked her where her husband was.

Donna assured Frankie that her husband was sleeping soundly in his grave. She had …something in his soul married her child hood sweetheart shortly after her eighteenth birthday but by the longing time she was twenty four she had become a to be elsewhere. war widow.

In the twelve months since they met in that juice joint, Frankie became a permanent fixture in the town. He took his talking skills to smooth over the local garage owner whom he persuaded to give him odd jobs on cars and such. He also became a popular part of the bar scene in town. Frankie frequented all the bars on the main street every night, with Donna at his side most nights. But after many weeks and a few months he had began going to the bars alone, drinking alone and coming home alone.

Donna had experienced an awaking inside her since Frankie came into her life. Since her husband took a bullet for his country all those years ago, she had lost all appetite for life. Frankie reminded her of her husband, he had the same black as night hair albeit a lot scragglier than her dead army husband and his build was just as big and his features just as handsome. There was no doubt about it but Donna adored Frankie. Even after all the fights which got hotter and hotter as the months rolled on, she still adored him. After too much drinking he became a mighty mess of a man but she still adored him.

Donna used always say to him that devils are just fallen angels, but Frankie wanted to take those angel wings and take flight, he was after all a rambling man. Many times she questioned him on marriage but rows would be the only result of such questioning, he reminded her that he wasn’t the type to turn up for a wedding and stay for a christening, she knew he was a rambling man.

One night towards the end of the summer Frankie came home early from the bar. Without saying anything he went straight into the bedroom, passing

was

47

Lily Murphy

48

Donna who sat waiting for him at the kitchen table. He went in and began packing what belongings he had into his big old duffle bag. She knew the day would come and now she realized that that day had arrived. In the first few weeks after she had first encountered Frankie, Donna thought she would have him for the rest of her days but as the time went by, Frankie began talking of wanting to head out on the road again. Frankie’s notions of going back to his wandering ways stirred up a worriment in Donna’s soul, that she would lose the second man she loved, not to war this time, but to the road.

Donna remained seated at the kitchen table and when Frankie had finished gathering up his minimal belongings and packed them into that rustic duffle bag of his, he walked into the kitchen with it flung over his shoulder. He stood for a while as he waited for the words in his head to form into a sentence and release it through his mouth. ‘I am leaving now’ he declared, ‘leaving like I said I always would’ he continued, his tone of voice very firm and confident.

Donna took herself up from where she was sitting, all slow and steady, her face looking downwards to the floor as she made her way over to Frankie. She cast her arms around his neck; he kept his hands at his side and stayed standing in a regimental stance, ensuring he would show no sign of emotion. ‘I am happy here, I want to stay here, this is my town, I want to see out the rest of my days here and if you go then I am just going to follow you and bring you back, please don’t go, you’re my man!’ she said in a very low tone touching on tears.

Frankie fixed his eyes away from Donna’s face which stared up at him. He said nothing and neither did she for a brief moment, and then he took her arms away from around his neck. Frankie then moved back, ‘you’ve got to understand your man, he’s leaving right now and whether you come along or not I don’t care and I don’t know, but what I do know is that I am leaving right now’ he informed her. Donna backed away also and leaned against the sink for support. There was another brief silence before Frankie turned to walk out the door.

Donna realized how fast her man was slipping through her fingers so she took a knife which was near the sink behind her and she plunged it into Frankie’s back. He fell forward, the only sound he made was a very deep and hollow thud as his imposing frame hit the ground. Donna knew what she had done, but she couldn’t understand why she had taken such an extreme measure to stop Frankie from going back out on the road.

Lily Murphy

After much sobbing over his corpse, Donna came to the realization that she would not see out the rest of her days in the town she loved, instead she would end up the rest of her days staring at the four walls of a cell. After she had cried herself into the dawn, she cleaned up the scene where she stopped Frankie from heading back out on the road. She gathered up her own belongings along with whatever money she had and stuffed them all into the duffle bag which once was full of the belongings of a rover named Frankie.

Donna took one last look at the ramshackle house she used to call home and then walked out the door leaving her dead lover’s body behind. She took to the main street of the town, the town she had been happy to spend the rest of her life in. She walked down along the main street all eerily quiet on a summer’s dawn and she turned and took one last look before she made her way out on the road, not to ramble but to go on the run from the law.

49

Francis Raven

50

About the Given

John Grey Good Boy to Not-So-Good Lady I am polite. Always have been. I’d even step aside to let a serial killer go through a door before me.

Especially if she was a lady. And they’re all

ladies aren’t they. Once they’ve stopped being girls.

Look at these legs. They’ve stood in more buses than some rock stars have had cold turkeys.

My seat on public transport is no more mine than

the air I breathe. Here, Charlie Manson underling, sit.

You should see me at the dinner table. I can

use the word “please” three times in a sentence.

People who pass even the lowliest condiment to me are under threat of being knighted.

It’s the way I was raised. A little courtesy doesn’t hurt.

Just think how different she’d have been if Emma

Goldman had been brought up as a gentlewoman.

No, my mother never said that. She, bless her soul, wouldn’t have known Emma Goldman from the woman next door. And I was always courteous

to the woman next door, old hag that she may have been.

By the time I was six, I was already a young gentleman.

Even when my thoughts were ruffians, my tongue was civil. And I am polite. Even to this day.

So I apologize for being so respectful to you.

I am sorry that you don’t know what I’m really thinking.

51

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53

Where is Hulltown 360?

ht Wrig Erika USA n, VA lothia Mid

If you take a great circle heading (the theorectically shortest path between two points along the surface of the earth), from the middle of Hulltown to the home city of each of our authors and artists, these are the angles you would depart from, and how far you would travel. Our most distant contributor, at 5,213 miles away, is Valery Petrovskiy, whose heading line runs over to page 54 on the next spread.

= 500 miles = 1,000 kilometers

Authors and Artists

writing at the University of Richmond. She has an MFA from Queens University and is published in storySouth.

Joseph Farley A Change at the Bottom C h e bo ks

Joseph Farley edited Axe Factory for many years. His books include Suckers, For the Birds, and Longing for the Mother Tongue (March Street Press).

ary ,C R , Ru ssi a

Valery Petrovskiy Autumn Ahead

Valery Petrovskiy is a journalist and short story writer from Russia.

He studied English at Chuvash State University, Cheboksary, and journalism at VKSh Higher School, Moscow. He has been writing fiction since 2005. Some of his flash fiction has been published in The Scrambler, RustyTyper, BRICKrethoric, and NAP Magazine.

Tanja Softić Migrant Universe: the Heart of the Matter and You are Not Here 2 54

Tanja Softić grew up in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, where she received her Undergraduate Diploma in Painting from the Academy of the Fine Arts of the Sarajevo University. After immigrating to the United States in 1989, she completed her MFA degree at the Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia.

She is a recipient of the PollockKrasner Grant, National Endowment for the Arts/ Southern Arts Federation Visual Artist Fellowship and Soros Foundation—Open Society Institute Exhibition Support Grant. Her work is included in numerous collections in the United States and abroad, among them New York Public Library, Library of

Congress Print Department and New South Wales Gallery of Art in Sydney, Australia. She participated in 12th International Print Triennial in Cracow, Poland and won a First Prize at the The 5th Kochi International Triennial Exhibition of Prints, Inocho Paper Museum in Kochi, Japan in 2002. Recently, she completed print projects at Flying Horse Press, Tamarind Institute and Anderson Ranch’s Patton Printshop. She is Professor of Art and Chair of the Department of Art and Art History at the University of Richmond.

Joanna M. Weston Visiting Joanna Weston has had poetry, reviews, and short stories published in anthologies and journals for twenty-five year including her middle-reader, Those Blue Shoes (Clarity House Press); and poetry, A Summer Father, (Frontenac House), Calgary.

J.S. MacLean Cliché J.S. MacLean is a Canadian of Celtic extraction. He has been published in a variety of poetry publications in Canada, USA, UK, and Australia.

See his poem Barns in the January 2011 issue of Hulltown 360. He tries to write poems that are at once accessible but that will continue to reveal themselves over time. His writing goals are his own enjoyment and to leave a record.

Wendi E. Berry Poles Wendi E. Berry teaches college composition at J.Sargeant Reynolds and critical reading and analytical

Keith Moul 561 NV Valley of Fire Keith Moul tries to achieve 3 results with every photo, whether panorama, plant, building, or person: high resolution; high saturation of color; and depth through contrast. He likes dramatic images; theme can take care of itself.

Francis Raven A Perception and About the Given Francis Raven’s books include the volumes of poetry, Architectonic Conjectures (Silenced Press, 2010), Provisions (Interbirth, 2009), Shifting the Question More Complicated (Otoliths, 2007) and Taste: Gastronomic Poems (Blazevox, 2005), as well as the novel, Inverted Curvatures (Spuyten Duyvil, 2005).

Poems of hers have been published in Bath House, Chain, Big Bridge, Bird Dog, Mudlark, Caffeine Destiny, and Spindrift, among others. Her critical work can be found in Jacket, Logos, Clamor, The Journal of Aesthetics, and Art Criticism, The Electronic Book Review, The Emergency Almanac, The Morning News, The Brooklyn Rail, 5 Trope, In These Times, The Fulcrum Annual, Rain Taxi, and Flak.

Sunil Narayan Future Fun Time Sunil’s work has been a long, enriching journey that absorbed the world’s eccentricities to create a masterpiece of color, surrealism and human emotion. The past two years witnessed a climactic moment in which his writing churned out emotionally-inducing poems. It is his intent to help people access feelings they rarely get to experience.

Sunil Narayan’s works include My Hushed Story (awarded Editor’s Choice-II certification) in The Enchanting Verses Literary Review Issue VIII, December 2009, http://theenchantingverses.weebly.com/ issue-viii-december-2009.html ; And Then The World’s Darkness Swallowed Itself (manuscript); mentioned in a Wikipedia article on Modvanii art: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mdvanii .

Prominent artists who use his work: Alberto Acosta (Classical Music composer and symphony conductor based in New York), Kingsqueer de Kingsqueer (Electro-clash band based in France); Collaborated with: Sabrina Mahi (Singer/Songwriter based in Germany).

Contracted member of the new literary/visual arts company: Aaduna, Inc. (based in New York); produced haute couture poems for: BillyBoy and Jean Pierre Lestrade; Mentor: BillyBoy (an elite artist and one of the foremost pioneers and legends in the European artistic community).

Andrew Kozlowski Location is Everything Andrew Kozlowski is an artist, writer and teacher. His work has been included in shows at the International Print Center in New York, Transformer Gallery in Washington DC, 1708 Gallery in Richmond, VA, and the Contemporary Art Center of Virginia, with solo exhibitions in 2010 at the Philadelphia Print Center and in 2011 at Mary Baldwin College in Staunton, VA. In 2009 he was awarded a residency at the Frans Masereel Center in Belgium, and his work in printmaking was honored with a 2011-2012 Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Professional Fellowship.

More of his work can be seen at www.andrewkozlowski.com .

Konrad Solberg The Way It Was

William D. Hicks a driftwood scene

Konrad Solberg quit high school, graduated from a top-ranked college with mediocre grades, and now devotes his time to selling his writing skills to second-graders so they can collect as many gold stars as possible. “Am I contributing to the decline of American intelligence? Hey, I’m just trying to get someone to read my writing...”

William D. Hicks is a writer who lives in Chicago, Illinois by himself (any offers?). Contrary to popular belief, he is not related to the famous comedian Bill Hicks (though he’s just as funny in his own right).

Hicks will someday publish his memoirs, but most likely they will be about Bill Hicks’ life. His poetry has appeared in Outburst Magazine, The Legendary, Horizon Magazine, Breadcrumb Sins, Inwood Indiana Literary Magazine, The Short Humour Site (UK), The Four Cornered Universe, Save the Last Stall for Me, Mosaic, and Hulltown 360. His art appears in The Legendary and as cover art in Anti-Poetry and Sketch.

William Doreski A Tide of Red Curry William Doreski’s work has appeared in various e- and print journals and in several collections, most recently Waiting for the Angel (Pygmy Forest Press, 2009) and Hulltown 360 (January 2011).

Janet Yung Greetings .

Janet Yung says she is “trying to improve writing, while looking at life, hopefully, with a sense of humor.”

Thomas McKinlay Vanderlinden .liaf sdroW Tom is Art and Graphics Editor for Hulltown 360.

Erika Wright At a Loss Erika Wright works as a copy editor and lives in Midlothian, Virginia, with her husband and two daughters. She has previously been published online at www.molyworld. net/laughterloaf/arch/circusact.htm and www.hulltown360.org.

Lily Murphy Understand Your Man Lily Murphy is twenty-four years old and comes from Cork City, Ireland.

Her work has appeared in Sleet and Flash Party magazines. She also contributes articles to New Politics magazine. In 2010 she graduated from University College Cork with a B.A. in history and politics. Since then, Lily has been trying, in vain, to relive her student partying days during the weekends.

John Grey Good Boy to Not-So-Good Lady John Grey is an Australian born poet and US resident since the late seventies. He works as a financial systems analyst. He was recently published in Connecticut Review, Alimentum, and Writer’s Bloc with work upcoming in Pennsylvania English, Prism International, and The Great American Poetry Show.

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To One Who is Elsewhere Isabelle Waugh was my 6thgrade English teacher. On one of my report cards, she wrote, “Skip high school. Go directly to college.” I appreciate how she acknowledged my strengths.

My mother always reminded me of those written words.

For me, Mrs. Waugh helped bring out my love of words. I am quite sure that she shaped many lives as a teacher and that she touched many hearts as a poet.

Thank you for all you did, Mrs. Waugh! Your spirit lives on.

— Sandra Zona