The Sanctuary Magazine Issue 12: The Death Emporium by The Sanctuary Magazine

The Sanctuary Magazine Susquehana University Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania 17870 thesanctuarymagazine.com

Cover Art by Joshua Mercier

The Sanctuary Magazine The Death Emporium Issue 12 ď &#x17D; 2018

The Sanctuary Magazine

Masthead EDITOR IN CHIEF or SUPREME OVERLORD OF THE OMNIBUS

Sarah French JUNIOR EDITOR or IGOR TO THE CHIEF

Richard Berwind WEB EDITOR or GRAND MASTER OF THE NEXUS

Sarah Adams ASSOCIATE EDITOR or CRYPTID KING

Andrew Wexler VISUAL ARTS EDITOR or PARAGON OF PICTORIALIZATION

Josh Mercier PROSE EDITOR or SLASHER OF SENTENCES, WIELDER OF SCYTHES

Carling Ramsdell SOCIAL MEDIA AND PUBLIC RELATIONS MANAGER or RESIDENT HEAD OF THINKPOL

Jenn Cesak READING BOARD or ANONYMOUS NARWHAL COMISSION

Mitchell Roshannon FACULTY ADVISOR or KARMA SUPERVISOR

Laurence Roth FACULTY ADVISOR or 42

Hasanthika Sirisena

THESANCTUARYMAGAZINE.COM

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Letter From the Editor Dear Reader, Hail, well met, and welcome to The Death Emporium! We have every story about death you could ever want! Death stories not your thing? We’ve also got the world’s longest gestation period, some dragons that may or may not be there, a brand new, top-of-the-line government agency, the newest models of lunacy gods and cat teeth, and the best urban fantasy you’ve ever seen! Make sure to stop by the art section for our two-for-one sale on dismembered arms, this year only! Also, make sure to find us at thesanctuarymagazine.com for exclusive online content! Feel free to look around and remember, every day is a good day for pushing up the daisies at The Death Emporium! At The Sanctuary, we treasure speculative works because they can show us something about our world from an entirely new perspective. Genre and slipstream work has lived so long under beds and in old bookcases behind newer, more “respectable” literature, but slowly the world is changing, and people are beginning to realize the breadth and depth of speculative work and what it brings to our culture and our imaginations. I truly believe that the stories that we carry with us make us who we are. I hope that within these pages you find something that makes you think, brings you to tears, punches you in the gut, or makes you want to wash out your eyeballs, because that is what good stories do. So dive in, join us in staring in horror at “Hellions,” looking curiously at the night sky during “Derek Selway’s Livestreamed Journal,” striking back at the world with “White Rabbit,” and remembering that it’s the tiny moments that really matter while reading “Enchanted Blooms.” We named this issue The Death Emporium because the meaning and commodification of death was a theme in many of our pieces. But these pieces are not just about death, they are also about birth, recognition, survival, love, exploration, and imagination. Because hope can be found in the darkest of times, and love and light can be found in the oddest of magazines. This issue has gone through long hours, countless arguments, some really sketchy tarot readings, and far too many chai lattes. We received an overwhelming number of incredible submissions from all over the world this year, and selecting pieces was a taxing process, but I am incredibly proud of the magazine that we have put together this year, and I can’t wait to share it with you. The Death Emporium awaits.

Memento Mori,

Sarah French Editor In Chief

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Table of Contents

fiction 5 8

Cave

Jacob Dimpsey

Waiting

Carling Ramsdell

Hellions

Here Be Dragons

Enchanted Blooms

White Rabbit

Jeff & Lynn Banged on This Table (How Unfortunate For Lynn)

Centralia

Ovation

Shannon Grasser Jacob Tashoff

Ashleigh Tomcics Kay Hammond

art 7

Fisticuffs

Beatification

Lips

Joshua Mercier

Burning Abraham

Derek Selwayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Livestreamed Journal

Roads

Search Assist Dispose

Marci in the Wasteland

Cassidy Ayers

Kay Hammond

Valeri Lohrman

poetry

Mitchell G. Roshannon

poetry 6

H.U.M.A.N.

Greyscale

A Dark Thing

Mitchell G. Roshannon Kerry Lewis Deon Robinson

Alan G. Codner Courtney Andrews Dylan Scillia Alan G. Codner Dylan Scillia Alan G. Codner

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Cave

by Jacob Dimpsey

s my mother liked to tell me when I still floated around in her womb, she loved me too much to let me go. So she kept me tucked inside her for as long as she could. The doctors advised against it, but she took her prenatal vitamins and attended new parent classes and kept up with her regular doctor check-ups every month and every year like clockwork. So no one objected. My father was the silent type. I would sometimes hear his soft voice through the amniotic fluid. “Monica, don’t you think after all these years it’s time you let him see the world? I’m afraid you’re sheltering him.” I liked hearing his voice. It was a deeper, warmer voice than the other voices, especially the voices on TV. But my mother would always cut him off. She’d made up her mind. This was what was best for me. I got comfortable. There, with my head resting against my mother’s placenta, listening to the steady, thrum of her heart, I waited to be born. My mother read to me and played Mozart because she learned in her class that it would speed up my development. It must have worked because it didn’t take long before I could make sense of the stories she would read me and of the cable news programs she watched. When she played me Mozart I could hum along to the melodies and pick out favorites and when she watched TV I would be frightened by the stories on the news and I would be grateful that I didn’t have to live in that world. During the bright part of the day, when one side of Mother’s womb would glow a warm red, I could sometimes see the dark outline of her hands as they held her belly. I would touch my hands against the shadows to match hers, though I didn’t understand why. As I developed, Mother read more and more complex literature. By the time she finished Plato and Aristotle my head ached greatly constantly and I had contemplated my existence enough to further convince me that she was right and that I was indeed better off in utero. But one day, against my wishes, twenty years or so after I was conceived, I was born. You see, being late in her pregnancy, Mother had grown so large that it was only with much difficulty that she could walk. Most days, she simply stayed on the couch and read to me. But every Saturday she went to her new parent class. On this particular day, her hand missed the handrail as she descended the porch stairs on her way to the car, and she fell hard onto the sidewalk, which induced labor. We were taken to the hospital in an ambulance and I was delivered in the cold, white maternity ward. I didn’t scream as I was supposed to when I came out, and I tried to explain that it was because I was simply too amazed by the beautiful colors and shapes all around me, but I was too busy coughing up amniotic fluid to form words. So they put me in a wheelchair and took me to another room where they ran tests and found that my headaches weren’t from Plato or Aristotle, but were in fact caused by a tumor the size of a baseball lodged at the base of my brain stem. They said there was nothing they could do. I had about twenty-four hours to live. I might have felt sad at the idea of dying, especially so soon after being born, but I was too distracted. Besides, I had already contemplated it enough. While the doctor told me the news, I was staring out the window. I watched the people walk on the sidewalks three stories below. Women with hands clasping the straps of their purses, men with their hands in pockets and holding cell phones at chest height, squinting at them in the morning sunlight. The world sounded crisper and clearer without Mother’s heartbeat drowning everything else out. But still, I missed it. I asked to see my parents and the doctors told me Mother had died in childbirth and Father, heartbroken, was catatonic at her bedside. I felt cold and overwhelmed, but I wanted to see her body from the outside. So they took me to room bed in the maternity ward where Father still knelt, a distant look in his eyes. I came up beside him and looked at him and touched his face hoping he’d move but he didn’t. Then I took Mother’s cold, stiff hand, and kissed her knobby, white knuckle. 5

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H.U.M.A.N

by Mitch Roshannon

All major functions accomplished by H.U.M.A.N. unit 1309200308 15 lifetimes of labor complete Fathered 16 (127493706 through 127493721, tags purchased 3-20-2095) 3 mentally ill, residing in Brookwatch Asylum 5 M.I.A. after WWIII 8 healthy kin still functional Disposal Complete, location equivalent to that of wife Spouseâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s life discontinued 8 years prior by drone mother to all 16 offspring lack of productivity in workplace Death of 1309200308 cause: effects of radiation exposure as part of first genetic selection tests exposure occurred there in 2072 Date of death: December 1, 3025 Life tag removed, now available for sale. â&#x20AC;Ś purchase complete. Current owner: H.U.M.A.N. unit 582974398

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Fisticuffs

by Alan G. Codner

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Waiting

by Carling Ramsdell

vie is dying in a hospital room. She knows it’s a hospital room, even though the floor and ceiling blur with the metallic instruments and she can’t tell if the paint is white or blue or silver. To her left, James Goad, the actor that plays the main character of her favorite T.V. show, Ghost Town, is sitting by her bedside and brushing her hair out of her face. She knows it’s James, gorgeous blue eyes and soft black hair, but his face is fuzzy. James is telling Evie something funny to get her mind off the fact that she’s dying, and Evie laughs and James laughs, but the conversation, much like James’s face, is fuzzy. The sheets of the bed bury her, expanding into big, loose, feathery piles. They’re the only thing Evie can feel clearly. James wraps Evie into a hug. Her head is in his chest. He’s so sturdy, so much bigger than she is. In his arms, Evie is not dying. James’s arms and James’s chest are there. They are real. James loves Evie just as much as Evie loves James, but Evie is dying, and dating is impractical. Evie knows that. Maybe they would have been dating, but in this life, because Evie is dying, they can only be close friends. “Come with me,” James says as they separate. Her head is no longer in his chest, but their fingers, wrapped together, keep them close. Evie nods. When she wakes up, she’s staring at a ceiling and James is not beside her anymore. She rolls over and presses her palm against the James Goad poster by her bed. It’s icy and her fingers squeak against the shiny lamination. Poster James is dressed like Simon Bryer, the ghost he plays on T.V. She hasn’t even been awake for thirty seconds before the waves of nausea that have been churning inside of her for the past two days wash back over her. She feels it everywhere, her whole body trembling, and then it concentrates itself into a stabbing pain in her stomach and lower abdomen. She squeezes her eyes shut. They’re wet and hot behind her eyelids, as if they’re about to burn holes through the thin veil of skin. She twists the frayed sleeve of her oversized gray sweatshirt over her hand, but the pain is too intense to ignore. In real life, Evie is freezing under her too-scratchy comforter in her own home. After her mother left on her business trip to Seattle two days ago, it started snowing. Snowing more than anyone in Northern Virginia was used to. “It’s going to be record breaking. Like, three feet at least,” Madison, who sits next to Evie in chemistry, said excitedly to Layla behind her. “We’ll be out of school for a week. Maybe longer.” Evie frowned. “My mom’s leaving next week,” she said, leaning forward toward Madison. “I’m going to have the whole house to myself. It’ll be really lonely especially if we don’t have school.” Madison wasn’t listening. “Did you do the homework?” she asked Layla. Evie sighed and looked back down at her binder. Evie never found out if they really had gotten three feet of snow because that’s when the power went out. No heat, no water, no nothing. And an ambulance would have a hell of a time making its way down her street. Not only is no one in Virginia ever prepared for snow, but Clifton is always the last area to be plowed. With her house nestled at the very top of a hill at the end of a very long, very curvy driveway, Evie can’t walk out to find one of her neighbors, especially considering she can barely drag herself to the bathroom. “Evie,” someone says. It’s James. He’s spinning slowly in her desk chair, concern knitted across his face. “You came,” she says. “How did you find me?” 8

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“The power’s back on,” he says, turning the nob of the lamp on Evie’s desk. The corner of Evie’s room lights up. “It’s still freezing in here,” Evie says. “Yeah. It’ll take a while before the heat really takes effect again.” “Right.” “Get up,” James says. He grabs Evie’s hands and pulls her into a sitting position. As she dangles her legs off the side of her bed, he adjusts Evie’s fleece blanket around her shoulders. “You should really call someone,” James says. “What do you mean?” Evie asks. “A friend, a neighbor. I know your mom’s all the way on the other side of the country right now, but you should probably tell her if you’re really this sick. You need help, Evie.” Evie frowns. “What could they do for me? You’re here. You’re going to help me.” “I’m sorry, Evie,” James says. He fades into transparency. On a Tuesday when Evie was thirteen, her mother stayed at work past twelve a.m. That day at school, her friends had been talking about a new show they’d started watching on Netflix. It was called Ghost Town and it was about a super sweet ghost who was just trying to find love and make friends, but that proved difficult because he’d been dead since the end of the Revolutionary War. When Evie got home, she went into the basement and turned it on to see what it was about. After the second episode, she was hooked. After the fourth episode, it was almost seven thirty and Evie was hungry and starting to worry about her mother. She hadn’t seen her that morning. Her mother always left for work an hour or two before Evie was out the door for school, but she was usually home to throw a burrito or a lasagna in the microwave for dinner so she could eat with her daughter. If she wasn’t giving Evie the silent treatment because of her “unsatisfactory” completion of homework and chores, she would talk endlessly about her day and her coworkers before Evie locked herself in her room for homework and bed. Evie’s mom came home towards the end of the eleventh episode, two episodes before the season one finale, just as things were getting intense. Evie paused the T.V. as she heard the clip of her mother’s heels as she walked down the steps into the basement. “Evie,” her mother said. “What are you still doing up?” She stood in front of the T.V, arms crossed over her chest. Evie, who had slunk so far down into the couch she was almost lying down, sat up. “I was waiting for you,” she said. “Have you done your homework?” “No,” Evie said. “What about the chores I set out for you?” “What chores?” “I set out a list on the kitchen table. I told you I would be working late. I take it you’ve been watching T.V. this whole time?” Evie didn’t answer. “I don’t know what you were thinking. It’s a school night! It’s time for bed. Now.” “What about dinner?” Evie asked. “You’re thirteen years old,” her mother snapped. “I think you can use a microwave.” That night, Evie stayed awake watching James Goad interviews on her phone. When Evie was in elementary school, her mother used to drop her off down the street at her friend Kaitlyn’s house before she’d leave. Evie and Kaitlyn would stay up and giggle even on school nights, and Kaitlyn’s mom would help them bake brownies in the kitchen. But then, as high school began, Madison and Layla moved to town. They sat next to Kaitlyn on the bus and during lunch, and, as hard as she tried, Evie couldn’t seem to fit herself into their conversations. A week after school started, Evie resigned to observing. Two weeks after school started, she told Kaitlyn that she felt left out, and though her friend said things would change, they never did. Three weeks after school started, Evie sat in her spot next to Kaitlyn on the bus. “Do you have to sit here?” Kaitlyn asked. “What do you mean? Aren’t we friends?” Evie said. “We would be if you spoke to me.” Evie didn’t reply and Kaitlyn, Layla, and Madison’s laughter began to sound gritty and high-pitched as it bounced around in her skull. The next morning, Evie sat in the very last seat on the bus. A month after the fallout, Evie sat on her mother’s bed, watching her pack for a trip to Copenhagen. 9

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“Have you talked to Kaitlyn yet?” her mother asked. The words didn’t come out of Evie’s mouth when she tried to push them. “No,” she managed. “We’re not speaking.” “You’ve known about this trip for nearly a month!” her mother said. “You couldn’t have told me that sooner? I have to find a babysitter for a week on a day’s notice. Do you understand how hard that will be?” “I’m sorry,” Evie said. “I knew you’d be upset.” Her mother sighed, closing her eyes and pressing her fingers to her temples. Evie bit her lip. “You’re fourteen,” she said finally. “That’s a little old for a babysitter anyway, don’t you think?” That’s when the collection of phone numbers written on sticky notes and stuck on the strip of corkboard below the phone in the kitchen started. Her mother gave Evie her work cell number and Kaitlyn’s home phone (“I don’t really care what it is that happened between you two, but I’m sure her mother would be more than willing to drive you to school if you miss the bus,” she said as she stuck a thumbtack through the orange sticky note with Kaitlyn’s name and number). She also gave her the phone number for the hotel in Copenhagen. Over the next two years, hotel phone numbers pile on top of other hotel phone numbers and eventually, Evie’s mother forgets to give her any numbers at all. Evie rarely calls when her mother leaves, not after the first time. It was 7:30 p.m, it was just getting dark, and Evie was scared. She was only just beginning to realize that though her house is not very large, the halls expand into huge, cold caverns without the sound of her mother’s acrylic nails tapping against her keyboard and her phone conversations seeping through the walls of her office. So, she called her mother. She didn’t answer the first time, so Evie dialed again, her breath picking up speed in her chest. “What?” her mother snapped. “I’m lonely?” Evie said. “Evie, it’s two a.m. here,” her mother said. “This is my work cell. The only reason I gave you this number is so you could call if you had an emergency. Now, is anything actually wrong?” “No,” Evie said. “Goodnight,” her mother said and hung up. The wave of nausea recedes, even dries up. Evie sits up taller. Holding her fleece blanket around her shoulders like a long, heavy cape, she makes her way across the hall to the bathroom. Maybe the water’s working again and she can get a drink. She finds that the water isn’t working soon after she gets there. Two days ago, Evie forgot and flushed the toilet. When the water didn’t flow back in to fill up the basin, she realized that she made a mistake. Now, the bathroom smells of vomit, and pain begins to overwhelm Evie’s stomach just because she’s standing in the room. She doesn’t really feel like she’s about to throw up again, but now she’s thirsty. So thirsty that that’s painful too. She remembers the hoard of water bottles her mother stockpiled in the downstairs fridge. She squeezes her eyes shut, imagining the trek down the staircase, the turn around the corner of the hallway, and the fridge right behind the doors of the pantry to her left. It’s not far. Not far at all. Evie feels well enough that she could probably make it to the pantry for a drink of water. She makes it down the stairs without collapsing. Her blanket still draped over her shoulders, she clings to the handrail though the metal is so cold it hurts her hands. Turning the corner of the hallway, the pain hits her again and that’s when she collapses. Everything is tight, as if someone is playing tug of war with her stomach and intestines. The whole country knows about the snowstorm hitting the east coast. Gina Snyder, sitting on the bed of her Seattle hotel room has the local news channel turned to a low roar as she reads over her notes for tomorrow’s presentation. “-record snowfall in cities on the east coast from Nashville up to Boston--they’re receiving almost twenty-seven inches in our nation’s capital and the surrounding areas--the mayor of D.C. and the governors of nearly a dozen states have declared a state of emergency due to the dangerous conditions surrounding the blizzard” Gina looks up when she hears this, thinking of her daughter, Evie, who hasn’t called in two days. Gina sighs and tucks her notes back into her folder. She dials the home phone and her own voice answers her. “You’ve reached the Snyders. We’re unable to come to the phone right now. If you’d like to leave a message—” Gina hangs up and tries Evie’s cell just in case. No answer there 10

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either.

Gina puts her phone back down on the bed. Evie is probably fine. She’s stayed on her own before. She knows how to take care of herself. Lying on her back, Evie can’t do anything but stare into the hall light and let bright spots dance across her eyes. She groans and lets her eyes roll back away from it. “How are you feeling?” James asks. He leans over her, shading her eyes from the brightness. “Bad,” Evie says. “What’s wrong?” “I’m hot and cold and my stomach hurts.” “Call someone,” he says. “Call someone?” Evie repeats. She mutters something sounding like “mmm” and turns to press her face into the cool tile. “Sit up,” James says. Evie feels the warmth of his hands soak through the fabric of her sweatshirt and he pulls her back into a sitting position. Her blanket droops into a puddle on the floor. He holds her when she slumps. “Call Kaitlyn,” James says again. His eyes are staring right into hers. They’re bright, maybe brighter than should be natural, and for a moment Evie feels content. He passes Evie the phone and faded orange sticky note. As Evie dials the number, static rattles in her ears. “Hello?” Kaitlyn says as she picks up. “Hi.” The word doesn’t come out. Evie clears her throat. “Hi. It’s Evie.” “Why are you calling me?” Evie doesn’t know what to say. She hears Layla talking loudly about some boy in her history class through Kaitlyn’s line. Madison laughs. Oh. Evie feels something pushing on her throat and her heart running behind her ribs. She is fourteen again. She blinks and James is gone. The house is dark. “Never mind,” Evie says. She pushes the phone away. It makes a rough skidding sound as it slides against the title. Shaking, Evie lies back on the floor. As the cool tile burns her head, the light above her flips back on with a pop. “You’ve got a fever?” James asks her. He pulls her up again, and next thing she knows, there’s a beeping thermometer in her mouth. “It’s 101.7,” James says, removing it from between her lips. “And if your heart rate’s elevated, your appendix has probably ruptured.” “What’s that mean?” Evie asks, staring at her sweatshirt sleeve. “Means you’re dead.” When she looks up, he’s gone again and Evie feels much better. The hall is no longer so cold, but warm, the tiles like crackling candles beneath her. Evie stands up and walks into the kitchen. Music dances into her ears from the living room. Her mother is making pancakes with berries and whipped cream, a special treat that Evie remembers from elementary and preschool. Evie’s mother smiles when she sees her and her father is sipping coffee at the kitchen table. Evie hasn’t seen her father in twelve years. She doesn’t remember his name or what he looks like, but she knows him. He grins and puts his mug down when he sees her. He grabs her hands and guides her into the living room to dance playfully with her, spinning her around and around just like the Saturday mornings when Evie was little. “Did you have a good week at school?” he asks after they’ve collapsed into the cushions of the couch. “I finally got my chemistry test back. You know, the one I was studying for with Madison and Layla all of last week.” Her father smiles. “I heard you laughing down in the basement. I’m not sure if I would call that studying. But how did you do?” “We all got A’s! And yesterday, Madison invited me, Layla, and Kaitlyn over to her house to bake cookies and celebrate.” “Good job, Evie,” he says. “We’re so proud of you.” “Hello?” Kaitlyn says, holding the phone up to her ear. “Kaitlyn?” Gina asks. She’s sitting in the lobby of the conference building. After Evie didn’t 11

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pick up after a second and third call, Gina decided she should probably take further action, and tried the Gales. “Who is this?” Kaitlyn asks. “Ms. Snyder. Evie’s mom.” “Oh,” Kaitlyn says. “I’ve been calling Evie and she hasn’t picked up. Do you think you could call her?” “If she’s not picking up for you, she definitely won’t pick up for me,” Kaitlyn says. “Do you think you could go check on her?” Gina asks. “I’m worried.” There’s a pause. “I guess so,” Kaitlyn says. Evie wakes up on the bathroom floor, the fading echo of a doorbell in her ears. She sees that the room is dark and gray as thick frost has built up on the windows patterned with cracking snowflakes. She feels her heart break from her chest and thud onto the tile over and over again. She sees her arms spread out in front of her, but somehow they aren’t hers. The coolness of the floor feels as if it is pressing against someone else’s skin. Her brain is melting, her skin is melting. She is cold and hot and nothing at all. Sticky fluid laps against her cheek and Evie wonders if she may have vomited. She breathes out and in and it hurts so much that Evie doesn’t even notice it hurting. She sees James out of the corner of her eye, blending into the folds of the shower curtain, but she is too weak to turn her head. “It’s okay, Evie,” James says. “I’m here. Join me.” Evie wants to speak, she wants to tell him that she’s changed her mind, that she’s not ready, but her mouth, like the rest of her, is disappearing.

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Greyscale by Kerry Lewis

Greyscale memories black & white & red all over bedsheets stained by bloody nails, the willing victim autopsied by three nails & a spear, lying on her back, putting up a front, all lies come back â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;round yonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; virgin mother & childbirth, virgin birth & virgin sacrifice, surgeon with a kitchen knife; christmas lights & christmas stars illuminate Grey blades & thigh scars never fade, father of the decade, promises right & left at the altar ego death bed springs a phoenix from the Grey ash of a thousand cigarettes, blowing Grey smoke, stress chain smoking & stressing weakest links til chains are broken links redirecting home is where the heart is in a cage of bone, heart of gold, chest of opal, Grey chest binder keeps him hopeful, open heart & open mind & open casket baptism in a hair salon with conditioner & holy water, wholly underwater, under the condition of holy love conditional, conditioned to be mint condition silver coins turned Grey, silver medal accolade, coin flip pray for heads, mint chip rocky road & rocky roads ahead, road head & tailgating headlights & dirt roads, head under waterboarding baptismal font, 12-point times new roman single spaced, new romantic ends to single times, 12-dimensional spacetime, pointing to space, romantics knew: timing is key to the city of rome falls in a day, hopeful romantics falling in love in a day & by nightfall wishing on falling stars above to fall in love under Grey moonlight spooning & fingering & wrapped around her finger a Grey pinky ring, pinky promising to never lift a finger, kisses linger & lips wander, night of wonder, nighttime wandering, knight in shining Grey armoring, night of birth, rite of birth, rite of passage, passing blunts & passing time & passing classes, passing in bathrooms, passing out in bathroom stalls, hiding from reflections in passing mirrors, self-reflections, mirror selfies & self-portraits of dorian Greyscale nude portraits of unrecognizable changes with the passage of time, this too shall pass & in time we two shall pass & we shall pass the time & pass along our Greyscale tales until our hairs turn Grey; 13

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Beatification by Courtney Andrews

Beatification was inspired by a variety of different religious depictions of gods and goddesses. I wanted to express both abstract concepts, and the more complex parts of our human experience. Plus, Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m not gonna pass up an opportunity to give something multiple pairs of eyes and horns.

God of Energy Drinks and Doing Stupid Shit at 4 a.m. 14

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The God of Love

The God of Lunacy 15

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The God of Time

The God of Unresolved Grief

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Hellions

by Shannon Grasser

1922 omething somewhere sent me a cat for my eleventh birthday. My new bedroom smelled of incense and lemon polish and was crowded with four beds, and there I found the tiny hellion sleeping, haloed in a dusty sunbeam. She must have wandered in through the side window, a fixture abnormally low to the ground, and drunkened herself with that unfamiliar warmth. The bedrooms in the General German Orphan Home had the softest carpets of all the homes I’d been in, and the feral animals seemed to like them just as much as I did. The cat was a skinny little thing and white all over, and I named her Angel, and she slept right by my head that first night, and I was a little bit allergic to her but it wasn’t so bad. The Sisters wouldn’t let her stay, though, so I had to make a tiny towel fort beneath my bed for her so no one would see her around. She ate the table scraps I stuffed in my pockets every evening and never moved much. I thought she might have a better life outside, where she could roam the whole world, but I could never get her to go. When Angel spoke, she only spoke in German, and she only spoke to me. German was a language I was supposed to understand but still struggled with. It was a language dead to me. But I could still understand her when she asked me who I was, where I was going, where it hurt. Stuff like that. Her voice was deep and leaden, and it fed me like oxygen on the days I’d spend tethered to my bed in time out. Often. The General German Orphan Home was a massive building that stood tall between the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay and miles of wet woodlands. The days passed in the orphanage like sticky sewer sludge, a kind so thick it could choke you dead. I could spend days in my bed just to find out I was only hours older. It was a few weeks after I found Angel that I found my jar. It was tucked deep into the trees and buried halfway into the earth. It took me three weeks to grow my nails out long enough to dig it up. Sister Elizabeth helped me clean out the insides but the greenish glass was so weathered that its once crystal clear sheen had long since fogged over. To make up for its dullness, Sister Elizabeth found me a good cork from the kitchen and told me to use the jar to hold all my secrets. Angel took no interest in my jar until I fastened my first item inside it: a baby tooth of mine. It was a canine from my upper jaw, the last of my baby teeth to be lost except for my big molars in the back, and had been loose for weeks by then. I’d gotten so sick of the whistling it made that I reached my stubby fingers in and yanked the hanging chrysalis right out, then licked the blood off the candyfloss I’d severed. A new tooth sprouted only days later, a little ice cap compared to the glaciers of my other teeth. But from that first day forth, Angel wouldn’t sleep without my baby tooth jar beside her head. I left my jar with Angel the day we all went to the beach. Oscar and I stood side-by-side facing the gushing ocean, eyes squinting and heads cocked. We were not allowed to go in, so everyone was stuck building sandcastles on the shore. “Someone has probably upchucked in there,” Oscar said, eyes locked on the pulsing tides. I had looked at him and made a noise of disgust just as a breeze passed us by. It carried with it a putrid, ungodly stench that wormed its way into all my ducts. Oscar plugged his nose at the rotting waft, shivering like a sick mouse. “What the heck is that?” he said nasally. I looked in the direction it came from to discover a tiny cluster of trees and marsh only yards ahead. “Don’t-“ Oscar tugged on my sleeve, but I was already slipping away from him. I was happy to find something to do instead of build sandcastles with the others, who didn’t like me much anyway.

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I walked fast but still Oscar followed close behind, muttering about how the Sisters will not be happy if they found out we left the group. I nearly stumbled back into him when I found the source of the smell, right at the clearing of the weeds. It was a small orange fox– dead since the last nightfall, easy. Its stomach had already been ripped opened by tiny scavengers, those not strong enough to carry the bigger pieces, those who would come back for seconds. I nudged the thing with my shoe. “Helena!” Oscar yelped by my ear. I jumped at the sound and shoved him. He stumbled sideways and caught his pant leg in a thistle bush. “Verpiss dich!” He exclaimed. He thought my German was worse than it was. “Muschi,” I said, and then knelt down beside the corpse. “What a poor little thing.” Its eyes were open in perpetual apathy, a gruesome display of such a warm gold. I drew a hand to its cheek and stroked the coarse fur by its muddied mouth. Its tongue, riddled with dry cracks like a desert, peeked through the teeth and touched the grass. I took a moment to wonder if the fox’s teeth would please Angel just as much as my own baby canine had. I felt it nice to bring her presents, as she had already done so much for me. In an instant, the Sisters shouted Oscar’s and my names from the shore, rustling the whole grove with annoyance. “Great.” Oscar tugged at my dress sleeve and started pivoting. “Now we’re really up shit creek. C’mon!” “You go,” I said, a pinched a finger and a thumb around the fox’s exposed right canine. I tugged. “You’re off your nuts,” Oscar said, already turning and retreating back to the group. The tooth wouldn’t budge from the animal’s mouth, so I found a rock and hammered it out of its face as gently as possible. When it finally loosened, I chucked the rock away and twisted the tooth from its socket with my hands, then rubbed the clumps of blood and gums from the sprout and shoved the thing down my dress pocket. When I came home that evening, I found Angel had eaten my tooth. I told her I would have made her dinner. She is just as elated to see her new present, though it is grimier and pointier than the last. I put it in the jar and tell her not to eat it. I had collected sixteen teeth in the next sixteen days. I took one from every animal I could catch at recess. The front teeth came out easy if I got a good enough grip and could twist it far enough. The ones farther back were harder, but Angel liked variety, so I did my best. I swear I saw Angel’s blue eyes go black the first night I hadn’t brought home a new tooth. I was laying on the floor of the bedroom journaling when I heard her start to growl from beside me. It started low and guttural, rising aggressively the longer I took to notice. But I knew she was mad at me, so I didn’t want to look. She only liked the teeth so much because she liked to eat them, and she had so many still left in her jar if she wanted one. When I finally turned to her, she told me, quietly, “The next time it rains you will bleed.” I furrowed my brow at her and mumbled, “Miststück,” yet hoped she hadn’t heard it. I didn’t really believe her, but I went to sleep almost immediately after the omen, afraid of what she might have done if I talked back. I sewed myself into bed. I faced the wall. I had gone the next two days without any injury, and eventually forgot about the threat. But then Saturday arrived, the third day, and the tiniest raindrop hit my forehead while I was outside for recess. Before I even had time to register the feeling, a blow hit me in the small of my back and sent me face-first into the curb in front of me. The concrete caught the side of my lip and something cracked inside my jaw, my front teeth slamming down onto my tongue like machinery. When the blast of it all stopped echoing in my head, I heard the bark of shrill bitch laughter from behind me. I spat blood on to the pavement and looked up at Oscar who towered above me. He turned his head toward the sound and whispered venomously, “Fucking Josie.” Ten minutes later, I was in Sister Elizabeth’s room icing my lip when she held her hand out to surprise me with a tiny gift. “A token of your bravery,” she said, and dropped a small yellowed tooth into my palm delicately. “You lost it in the blow.” I heard a small purr, and then caught the white tail of the beast as she crossed in front of the open bedroom door. I swallowed hard. It soon became too taxing to steal animal teeth every single day for Angel, but I feared what she might do if I stopped. I tried to offer things in their place. I said I would gather pebbles at recess; I would get all different sizes and colors. I said I would save the skin of all my hangnails. I said I would break a window into little bits and pieces until they are small enough to fit inside the lip of the jar. She said no. She drove me manic. I started listening to the walls, I cried into thin air. I spent hours trying to lock her out, only for her to find ways back in. I heard Bertha talk about a loose tooth at lunch and I snuck into her room to rip it out in her sleep. I bumped into Minnie in the cafeteria 18

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and swiped her jogged tooth from the floor when I helped her up. When Oscar complained of a loose one, I paid him two-weeks’ allowance to have it when it came out. I locked myself in the bathroom with a pair of pliers and ripped out every last one of my baby teeth until I choked on my own blood. I wanted to kill her, I’d have done it mercilessly if I could, but I couldn’t bring myself to ever get close enough to hurt her. She starting walking with a black halo around her body, and I never saw her blue eyes again. I asked her what she was and where she came from. She told me, “I bit the hand of God and now you’re all that feeds me.” Angel is still not satisfied. She’s raging again. This whole building is. The yellowed wallpaper screams and the rotting cupboards open like maws full of teeth and the dirty mirrors shatter like music. This house, this cubbyhole, this orphanage in its all its bottomless glory has opened its mouth and dropped me down its throat and I’m stuck here like a fishbone, like something meant to be swallowed. “Bushwa!” Josie exclaims. “She’s a dirty rat. Smells like one too. Henry would never like a girl like her.” “Well he does,” Ruth says loudly over the buzz of the cafeteria. “He told me so yesterday at wash-up.” I fidget with the sleeves of a dress that doesn’t fit me anymore, the waistband slicing my hips like a ham. It’s been years since I got a new one. Josie shovels a fresh forkful of mashed rice into her pink kisser and rolls her eyes twice around. She sits across the table from me but I can still hear the mush slosh between her cheeks. “I won’t believe that.” She spits a piece out by accident and I stare it at, squished there on the plastic between us. It looks like a tooth. I slam my spoon down hard. “What’s in your heart, Josie?” I ask, meeting her burning eyes. “And what do you feed it?” The whole table, seated with ten other girls and boys goes silent. I watch as Josie sets her utensils down gently, then murmurs, “Vergib mir Vater, dass ich im Begriff bin zu sündigen.“ In a second she’s out of her seat and pouncing over the table at me. She gets in just one hard slap to my face before I pull her away with a fistful of her hair. She shrieks and makes a jab at my shoulder, but can’t connect before the Sisters pull her off of me and send us to our rooms for the night. I don’t go to bed that night. I lay on the floor and talk to the walls until I am sure everyone in the house is asleep. When I stand ie and move for the door, Angel follows me at my feet. We walk to Josie’s room, Room Ü, where she sleeps alongside Ruth, Jessie, and Jeanne. She is asleep on her back, her arms up by her head. Her eyes open for a split second before my hands smash the bedside lamp down on her forehead. She goes out cold, a stream of blood flowing down the side of her forehead from the gash. My eyes glance to the other beds. The only movement comes from Angel, who walks delicately around Ruth’s sleeping body, purring audibly. My fingers tug the pliers from the waistband underneath my nightgown, then they pull Josie’s lifeless head to face the ceiling. My right hand holds her mouth open while my left sticks a straw between her jaws, then they pull the first tooth out. The snap of the stringy gums hits my ears like a chorus and I can’t stop myself from taking more. The empty craters pour blood like little faucets down her throat and I think that if she’s still alive she’d be drowning by now. A gasp. I turn. Ruth is awake and sitting upright. She rushes to the door to hit the lights. When the scene is illuminated, she screams my name, then Josie’s name, then rushes out of the room. Jessie and Jeanne are awake now too, and the room is full of screams, and the stairs outside are full of footsteps, but I still yank more teeth. I get drunk off the sound of the enamel clinking the glass jar as I drop them in. I get drunk, I get drunk. There are arms around me now and Josie’s body is shaking, but I don’t know if she knows it. I kick at the legs below me and stab the pliers at the supple flesh but the grip only tightens. My feet leave the floor as I’m dragged out of the room, blood on my hands and black in my eyes. The arms put me down in the living room, but I bolt back for the door. I am caught again. This time, they open the front door and deposit me on the doorstep. When I turn, I see it is Sister Elizabeth, with eyes full of fire straight from Hell. She says nothing as she slams the door on me, locking it in place. Three hours later, I am still on the step. I scratch at the door with bloodied fingers and bitten nails, begging to be let in. I struggle to keep my tired eyes open. I hear myself screaming in a language nobody can understand. I bend and break under the weight of this secret no one will take and I shiver under the streetlamp with just one toe in reality. The door stays locked. A window opens at my side and out steps Angel, delicate as ever, onto the sill. She hops down and circles my feet, rubbing her back against my ankles. When she looks at me, her eyes are blue. When she speaks, it is soft. “Nobody likes a girl who brings news of death,” She says. “They watch the girl become prophet become banshee become misery. They give you to the void willingly.” 19

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Lips

by Dylan Scillia

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A Dark Thing by Deon Robinson

A night sky forces light from landscape, crushed blackberries molded into geographical silhouettes. The streetlights hover over us, each illuminating a sunset cracking from a dragon egg. The front window weeping with veils of water, I put my hands together, capturing any God I can within the valley of my naked palms. Prayer, the art of returning to a God when you need someone to stay alive. Or maybe itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s just me, maybe I pray to put responsibility in someone elseâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s clumsy, clumsy hands.

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Here Be Dragons by Jacob Tashoff

April 12 iss Betsy likes to check over my journal so she can see what I’m thinking, but I’m okay with that because Miss Betsy is nice which you already know so I won’t write anything bad about her. The only thing I don’t like about Miss Betsy reading my journal is that she says I have to make sure I use proper grammar because how am I going to do it in class if I can’t even do it in my own journal? She has a good point, I guess (at least that’s what Mama said the last time she visited when I told her what Miss Betsy said and if Mama says it’s a good idea than it must be) so I’m going to have to start doing that. I don’t want to make Miss Betsy mad. Mama visited last week, which means I probably won’t even see her on my birthday because she can’t visit that often, and its super sad because nurse Dorothy said she was going to bake a cake and I bet it’s going to be chocolate because chocolate’s my favorite and it’s Mama’s favorite too. But she’s all the way in New York, which is super far away, and she’s going to school just like me, except George said she’s learning to kill people. I don’t believe him because Mama’s nice so she wouldn’t want to kill people, but George said he saw her gun and she was wearing camouflage (Miss Betsy helped me spell that) but all the soldiers wear camouflage, even the doctor ones. George is a liar though, but I already told you that two weeks ago at the beginning of the month, and plus I’m sure Mama is actually learning how to help other soldiers with medicine and bandages and things like that. Miss Betsy said that I should start talking about how I ended up at Krieger’s Home For Troubled Youths even though youths is just boys because there’s no girls here but youths sounds more welcoming, at least that’s what George always says, because writing it down is a good way to remember it, and I don’t want to forget because, like Miss Betsy said, the story is a part of who I am and if I forget it then that would be like forgetting myself and I absolutely don’t want to forget myself! I got here probably like a year ago but I can’t remember the actual date because it was so long ago. Mama told me I was going to come here cause the mean old sergeant (Miss Betsy helped me spell that too) didn’t like when I made lots of noise, especially in the barracks (that’s what Mama calls it). All the other soldier bases we lived had houses for the soldiers that lived there, but Mama said this one was a special training base so everyone had to live in the barracks, even the kids. The sergeant was ultra mean especially to the kids. There was me and two others and the sergeant always yelled at us when we slept in or were too loud at night. The first time the dragons showed up at the base the sergeant yelled at me very loudly and Mama got mad at him for getting mad at me but she couldn’t say anything about it cause he’s her boss and you have to respect important people like your boss and Doctor Krieger. I heard the dragons when Mama and the other adults were at training and they were roaring super loudly so I had to go find them so I could protect everyone from them with my spells. I ran as fast as I could to where I heard the dragons and they kept getting louder and it was very scary but I had to protect Mama from them. When I finally got there I shouted for Mama and she looked at me and she looked upset that I was there cause I wasn’t supposed to go to where she was training and then the sergeant saw me and he looked real mad. I shouted to Mama about the dragons and then I looked around for them but I couldn’t see them so I just started shouting the spells at where I thought they were. There were big explosions going off so that’s where I looked to shout. But when I started shouting the sergeant ran at me and grabbed me by the shirt and started shouting at me but I couldn’t hear him over the roaring of the dragons and me shouting my spells. The sergeant pushed me and that made Mama mad so she ran over to me and stood in front of and I covered

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my ears and rolled into a ball as I kept shouting because the dragons were still roaring just as loudly. Mama picked me up and carried me away and I think I got her shirt a little wet with my tears, but I kept saying my spells cause I had to keep Mama safe. I hoped the dragons would eat the sergeant. I made it onto the sergeant’s bad list for fighting the dragons and the next time they showed up he got super angry at me. I was shouting my spells and woke everyone up which I was sorry for, but I was just trying to keep them all safe from the dragons. When the sergeant heard me, he made everyone file outside in the pouring rain even though the dragons were flying around outside still, and they were super mad too, and when he yelled at Mama about not being able to keep her brat quiet at night because sometimes people needed a goddamn good night’s sleep, and all the other people in the barracks got mad at me for shouting again just because it was raining, even though I was shouting because of the dragons, not the rain, Mama kneeled down in front of me and grabbed my hands and said that I was going to go stay with a friend of hers named doctor Krieger in Boston which is in a whole different state than where Mama is now, and I was going to still get to go to school and no it wasn’t my fault I had to leave and no she wasn’t coming with me because she still had to stay there, but she would visit, and they wouldn’t get mad if the dragons made me wake everyone up. The dragons left after that, and we all went back inside the barracks, but I didn’t sleep at all that night. Then I came here and I go to class with Miss Betsy and she teaches us all sorts of cool things. But I’m getting tired now so I’m going to stop here and say goodnight. Goodnight, journal. April 15 George stole my pudding today at lunch. Luckily Miss Betsy was there and she made him give it back. It was chocolate pudding, which is my favorite. George said he only stole mine because his pudding cup wasn’t filled up all the way, but Miss Betsy told him that he’s not allowed to take other people’s food, especially not their pudding cups. I gave him a little of my pudding when she had her back to us because he looked sad and I felt bad. Doctor Krieger stopped into the class in the afternoon, which he does sometimes. Doctor Krieger is nice, except he doesn’t think that the dragons are real. He likes to ask me how they’re doing when I tell him that they showed up, but I can tell he’s just being nice. He always looks at me over the top of his glasses, smiles, and pats me on the shoulder before asking. He looks over his glasses whenever he’s just being nice to one of us, which is a lot because he’s a nice person. He doesn’t want to hurt our feelings, but it’s his job to make sure we behave appropriately. It was mac and cheese for lunch today because it’s Wednesday. Mac and cheese is my favorite. The broccoli isn’t ever good, but that’s probably because I’m a kid and kids don’t like vegetables. Maybe they’ll taste better when I’m an adult. They gave us carrots too, which I like better than broccoli. And I lost my watch! I don’t know what could have happened to it. I hope I find it soon. It’s probably getting late again, even though I can’t really tell without my watch, and the nurses don’t like when we stay up late so I guess now is a good time to say goodnight. Goodnight, journal. April 19 Today I had a meeting with Doctor Krieger. He likes to meet with all the boys once a week to talk about how their week went and if they were having any trouble with the other boys. George always complains about me being loud but I’m not ever loud, even when the dragons show up. Well, most of the time. Doctor Krieger always asks me if I’m having problems with George but I always so no because I know he’d get mad if I said yes and he’d find out cause Doctor Krieger would talk to him about it and he’d know it was me who said it because Abraham would never. He’s too scared of George. I told him that my watch was missing and he said he would keep an eye open for it. The dragons showed up while I was in my meeting. I was telling Doctor Krieger what I thought they looked like because I’ve never actually seen them. I bet that they’re all different colors and have huge wings. Mama gave me a book about dragons for my birthday two years ago. I don’t think there’s any Chinese dragons because they seem like nice dragons. Western European (I knew this one all by myself!) dragons are the mean ones and I bet they’re the ones that keep attacking. As I was describing all the different colors I bet the dragons come in, there was a huge roar outside the room. I jumped out of my seat and ran out the door and Doctor Krieger followed me and the roar sounded like it came from the kitchen and I liked the lunch ladies so I didn’t want a dragon to eat them. Doctor Krieger is taller than me so he made it to the kitchen first and just as I 23

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made it to the door he came out and squatted down in front of me and grabbed me by the shoulders and told me that a pot had just fallen and everything was okay but I insisted on checking anyway because I just had to make sure that the lunch ladies were okay. He let go of my shoulders and I peeked inside the room. There was a pot laying on the floor. I swore that I had heard a dragon but Doctor Krieger said I was wrong. I think the dragon was just hiding from me though because he was probably a small one like a wyvern or a wurm. I think it’s getting late, but I don’t know how late. I hope I find my watch soon. Goodnight, journal. April 23 Today is George’s birthday. He got super mad because nurse Olivia, who’s his favorite nurse, was running late so she couldn’t wish him a happy birthday with everyone else. She did when she finally made it though, and she brought him a birthday cake that they made him share with the rest of us. I got an extra big piece. George broke the frame of the window by his bed because he was so mad. Nobody got mad at him for it, though, because he explained to them why he did it and he said he was sorry so they forgave him. I made him a birthday card and he said that he liked it a lot and nurse Olivia helped him hang it on the wall. I drew a birthday cake on it and some balloons and wrote happy birthday, George! in big letters on the front and on the inside I said that I hoped he had a good birthday and thanks for the cake even though he didn’t want to share it. George, Abraham, and I played tag today outside. I was it first, but Abraham is slower than me so I tagged him. He managed to tag George and George chased me all around the field roaring super loud, but not as loud as the dragons. It was fun. I think George had a good birthday, because he said he had fun too after we had to go back inside for dinner. None of the other kids knew it was George’s birthday because we have super small classes and none of them are in the room with George and Abraham and me, anyway. We had a big table all to ourselves. Doctor Krieger read us a bedtime story tonight. It was about a king who wouldn’t get out of the bathtub and somehow all the people living in the castle wound up in the bathtub with him until the page pulled the plug. I had to ask what a page was and doctor Krieger said that it was someone who helped out knights when they had to get ready for battle. I think knights are super cool because they fight dragons. I wish I could be a knight because I think it would be way easier to scare off the dragons when they come if I had a big suit of armor and a sword than it is to scare them off with the spells I have to put up all around the building to keep them out. Last night I had a dream I was a wizard like in the stories that doctor Krieger sometimes tells us about King Arthur, who’s a hero with a wizard friend named Merlin. Merlin is good at magic. I bet he could easily make dragons go away. I dreamed that I lived in a big castle with a knight as a best friend and together we rescued princesses and fought dragons. But then I woke up when nurse Olivia opened the curtains because it was time for breakfast and then class right after. It’s getting late, and I’m getting pretty tired, so goodnight, journal. April 24 Today we learned Greek Mythology in history. Miss Betsy said we would keep talking about the stories tomorrow, and maybe even more after that, which I hope we do, because the stories were really awesome. There were tons of heroes who fought crazy monsters and there were gods with crazy powers who could shoot lightning or speak to fish. Speaking to fish is an awesome power. I would speak to sharks because sharks look really cool and I bet they would have good stories. I liked the story of Bellerophon (thanks Miss Betsy) because he had a flying horse and I think having a flying horse would be a great way to get around. My favorite god is Artemis because she’s really good with a bow and arrow and she’s the goddess of nature and I love animals. Plus, I like the moon because when I can see the moon that means there won’t be any dragons because the dragons don’t like it when the sky’s clear. I can see the moon right now too, and it’s big and bright. It’s definitely a full moon because it looks so round. I think it’s time I go to bed, though, because it’s probably late, and I’m upset because I still haven’t found my watch. Goodnight, journal. April 26 I counted and it’s been eleven days since I lost my watch. I think maybe someone stole it. I told doctor Krieger that and he said he would look for it but I shouldn’t accuse people of doing bad things like stealing if I don’t know for sure. But I looked everywhere I’m allowed to go and the only place I’m not is the other boys’ rooms. I couldn’t find my watch in the cafeteria or in me and George and Abraham’s room or in the classroom or in the art room so I think one of the other boys stole it and they have it in their room somewhere. Doctor Krieger did promise to look for it 24

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though, so hopefully he finds it. I like being able to tell the time. I think it’s time for me to go to bed now. See you tomorrow, journal. April 29 Today is my eleventh birthday! We had a small party just like we did for George, except I got my cake on time. George was mad about it at first but I made sure to give him an extra big piece so he wouldn’t get too upset. That made him happy, which is good because George likes to hit people when he gets really mad and I don’t want to get hit because one of the sergeants I met at one of Mama’s bases told me that if someone hits me I have to hit them back and the last time George and I fought doctor Krieger got very mad. He called Mama and she made a special visit and she got mad at me too and I don’t like making Mama mad so I promised, promised, not to fight George anymore. George and Abraham gave me a cool birthday card that they made together. They drew Pegasus on the front because they remembered how cool I think Pegasus is and they wrote happy birthday inside. George even wrote that he forgave me for when I woke him up last month shouting because of the dragons. I think Miss Betsy made him write that. Doctor Krieger and Miss Betsy and all the nurses played tag with us. I tagged doctor Krieger twice! Miss Betsy tagged me and George. Abraham didn’t get tagged once, which was impressive because he’s so small and slower than everyone else. I think everyone was going a little easy on him, but it made him happy. I wouldn’t go easy on George, even if he was slower than everybody else. I got a present from Mama in the mail. It was a brand-new watch, which is great because I still haven’t found the one I lost, and doctor Krieger didn’t find it anywhere, but one of the other boys who I think was named Nicholas left two days ago and I know he liked to steal things because I heard the nurses talking about it one night when I was supposed to be asleep. I think it’s good he’s gone so he doesn’t steal my new watch too. The new watch has an alarm on it but I probably won’t use that because nurse Olivia always wakes us up in the morning in time for breakfast. It also has a stopwatch which I can use when George, Abraham, and I race so we can see who’s the fastest. The dragons haven’t come at all this month which I thought was crazy because of the expression April showers bring May flowers, and the dragons always shows up when it rains. Only show up when it rains. They only come at night, and especially only when it’s supposed to storm, when they’re really hard to see because the nurses turn all the lights off at nine o’clock for bed time and there’s clouds all through the sky. The dragons are clever, but I’m thankful for it because I think they would be really scary to look at so I’m okay not seeing them. Abraham is scared of the dragons too, I think, because whenever they show up he huddles under his blankets and plugs his ears. He says he’s scared of the thunder, not dragons, but the thunder is really just the dragons roaring. I hope they don’t come this month. That would make this the best month ever, especially if Mama visits like she promised. I’m yawning a lot now, so it’s probably a good time to go to sleep. Goodnight, journal. April 30 The nurses were watching the news when we went to go get breakfast this morning. The weather was on and the weatherman was talking about how a cold front was going to be passing over Boston soon and that thunderstorms would follow. That meant dragons. I don’t think that the dragons will show up tonight, which means that there won’t be any dragons at all this month which like I said before would make this the best month ever. Mama called and said she wouldn’t be able to visit, which made me a little sad because she hasn’t visited in a couple weeks, but she promised she would visit next week and even said she had gotten permission from her supervisor to come visit me so that made me feel better. I told Abraham and George at breakfast that there would probably be dragons showing up soon and George told me that I had better not wake him up or else. I remember the last time I woke George up. He was mad because he had only just fallen asleep and he had had to talk to mean old Mrs. Jenkins that day who visits sometimes to see how all the boys here are doing and who nobody likes, and he told me to shut up, only with some bad words thrown in that I can’t write down because Abraham likes to read my notebook when he thinks I don’t know and doctor Krieger always gets mad when people use bad language around Abraham. I promised George I would try my best to not wake him up, but I told myself that it wouldn’t be my fault if he woke up. It would be his fault for not being a heavy sleeper and the dragons’ fault for being too loud. George gets really mad when he gets woken up too early though, so when the dragons show up again I’ll have to make sure I stay as quiet as possible. 25

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The rest of the day was boring, except we talked about some more Greek Myths. Miss Betsy told us about the Odyssey, and how the hero Odysseus was stuck wandering all over the place for ten years before he managed to get home. Being away from home for ten years would be terrible. I’d miss all my friends and especially Mama. I’m getting super tired now, journal, and I have to get lots of good night sleeps so that I’m prepared for when the dragons finally come again. Goodnight, journal. May 3 This morning, the weatherman said it was going to rain tomorrow night. That means that there’s going to be dragons soon. I have to make sure I remember all the spells I have to cast to keep the dragons out. Sorry for the short entry today, journal, but I have to spend lots of time preparing. And nothing really happened today, anyway. Goodnight, sleep tight, journal. Mama always used to say that to me. And always sweet dreams too. Sweet dreams, journal. May 4 I’m sorry I didn’t write in you last night, journal, but was just way too crazy and I didn’t have time to. You’ll understand once I tell you the whole story. And I’m going to put it under the date for yesterday because that’s when it happened and I still want to write about what happens today later so I have to keep today’s space open. The dragons did come last night. They were super angry, and I could tell because the window frame that George had cracked on his birthday rattled when they roared. I didn’t try to sleep till late, because no one else knows the right spells to keep the dragons out. It takes a while to say them all, and I have to make sure I’m quiet so I don’t wake anyone else up. The nurses say that I don’t have to worry about that because they’re heavy sleepers, but I still remember the last time George woke up and it wasn’t fun. The dragons sometimes get angry at me for putting up spells so they can’t get inside, even though there’s no way they could know it’s me doing it, unless they can hear me which would be crazy, because I stay quiet. I always start with a spell to make the building fireproof. The dragons don’t breathe fire a lot here, because I think they realize that they can’t get into the building that way, but in the beginning they used to do it a lot, and I could see their white flames shoot past the window. One thing people don’t realize about casting a spell is it only works if you can hear yourself saying it, which is why I worry about waking up George, because when the dragons get really loud I have to shout. I was right about probably having to shout tonight, but George forgave me for the last time he woke up and the birthday card I made him is still hanging on the wall, so maybe he won’t get too mad when he comes back. I got through the spell on the building fast as I can, because it’s the longest and really hard to remember and I don’t know how to spell the words so I can’t write it down and read it, and it’s the most important one so I can’t let the dragons distract me. Then I cast a spell on the window with the cracked frame, because it’s the easiest way for the dragons to get in. I made sure I stayed quiet, but I could already hear the dragons and I knew they were going to be loud tonight. I finished the window spell, and that’s when I saw the first white flame rush past the window. I quickly got ready to cast extra shield spells when the roaring really got going. I started to speak louder so I could keep hearing myself and the roars get louder with me. If they got any louder I would be shouting and George would wake up and Abraham would probably get really upset and when Abraham gets upset the nurses have to come in and calm everyone down, and sometimes when George gets upset too. I thought the dragons were taking turns roaring so that it was always loud because there weren’t any breaks in the roars. I think they really wanted to get in tonight, but I don’t know why. That’s one thing I haven’t been able to figure out yet, and no one seems to know the answer. I make sure to ask doctor Krieger each week, but I don’t ask Mrs. Jenkins because she got mad at me the first time I asked, and ranted about how dragons aren’t real and then sent me off to lunch in a huff. Lunch was mac and cheese that day, so that made it better The dragons kept rising in volume and by then I didn’t care if I woke George up with my spells because I absolutely had to shout because I absolutely needed to be able to hear myself and keep the extra shields up so the dragons couldn’t get in for whatever their reason is. I started shouting over the dragons, louder than I’ve ever shouted before, and George woke up, and threw his pillow at me and told me to shut up with the same bad words as the last time, but this time he’s shouting it over and over, and I think he might even try to come over to my bed to make me shut up, but then Abraham woke up, and he hears me shouting out my spells and he hears George yelling at me and I bet he can still hear the dragons roaring outside because I know I 26

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could, and he started to scream and wrapped his pillow around his head to cover his ears and the room was absolutely full of noise and I could barely hear myself over the crazy noise and I could barely even remember the words to the spell I was casting and then all of a sudden the nurses are coming into our room and the light from the hallway was spilling in and casting big shadows on the wall, and then I saw nurse Olivia and she went over to comfort George and she walked him out of the room as he shouted about how I need to shut up because he wants to sleep and he can’t even understand what I’m saying and it makes him mad, but he let nurse Olivia lead him out of the room and another nurse went over to check if Abraham was ok and all of a sudden there was a break in the noise when the dragons stop roaring. My shouts echoed after but I made myself stop. Abraham was still screaming and two of the nurses carried him out of the room. The roaring started up again, only quieter this time, and there were breaks in between the roars. Nurse Becca, one of the nurses that’s extra nice to me, walked over to me with a glass of water and one of those pills that make me feel sleepy, but I didn’t take it yet because I had to make sure the dragons were gone. Nurse Becca said that they were, and I listened for the roars and I could hear them getting quieter which means the dragons were definitely leaving. I said I’m sorry for waking up George and Abraham, but I just had to, I had to, because otherwise the dragons would get in and then we’d all be screwed, but I didn’t say screwed, I used one of those bad words that doctor Krieger doesn’t like, and then I apologized for my language and I took the pill. Nurse Becca said she wasn’t upset that I had woken up the other two, and that she would make sure they fell back asleep and that they knew I wanted to apologize to them. I wanted to say that no I didn’t want to apologize because I was keeping them safe from the dragons, but I could feel my tongue getting heavy in my mouth and my eyelids didn’t want to stay open so I just nodded and then lay back on my bed and close my eyes as nurse Becca left. Well, that’s what happened. See you tonight, journal.

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Burning Abraham by Alan G. Codner

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Enchanted Blooms by Cassidy Ayers

he tree nymph Simyda sighed in relief as she pushed through the front door of Enchanted Blooms, the flower shop on the edge of Waytown, a sizable suburban center settled in a long valley in the East Coast of the United States, where summers are sweltering and winters are abysmally cold. This early morning’s November air was frigid and Simyda was happy to be in the warm flower shop and out of the wind. The store wouldn’t open for another few hours, but her boss, a middle-aged, polo-obsessed satyr named Roland, had called her and asked her to stop by and help with the poinsettias. They were supposed to play Christmas carols on command, but apparently, some of them were stuck on the first few notes of “Jingle Bells”. Simyda had been working at the flower shop for four months, after classes and on weekends, but she’d already proven to be adept at enchanting the flowers. Christmas was two months away and people were already starting to get into the spirit. The shop needed as many flowers as they could get. Her feet scuffed over the green carpet as she crossed the darkened shop and rounded the long worn counter before slipping through the beaded curtain that led into the brightly lit back room. Three long tables that ran down the room, each one crowded with jewel-bright flowers and lush succulents and greenery. Small clouds the size of apples zipped around the room, watering flowers and diving in and out of water buckets. Here and there along the aisles, tall sunflowers sprouted out of plastic pots. Their heads radiated sunlight and illuminated the room. In the middle of it all was Roland, standing next to one of the tables where many poinsettias were clustered. He reached out to cup in his hands the red leaves that crowned one of the plants. “Laetus adulantem cantabo,” he intoned. Simyda could practically see the words drift from his mouth like steam as they floated down and twisted around the leaves and small yellow flowers in the center of the plant. Roland dropped his hands to his sides with a sigh. He reached out and tapped one of the leaves twice. The scarlet leaves lifted slightly and began to swing lazily back and forth. Ting ting ting, ting ting tiiing… The notes trailed off and the leaves drooped. Roland threw up his hands and bleated in frustration. “It still isn’t working?” Simyda asked, smiling sympathetically as she shed her coat and scarf and hung them on the coat rack next to the door. One of Roland’s eyebrow climbed toward his receding hairline. “What do you think?” He sighed as he scrubbed a hand over his face and scratched at his beard, which was starting to turn grey. “I’ve been trying for the past hour, but they just won’t listen to me. I’ve never had such an unwilling crop before.” He made a shooing gesture at the plant and waved away the enchantment. “Well, that’s because you’re being too forceful about it,” Simyda said as she rounded the table and stood next to him. “Plus, you’ve been pretty stressed lately, what with all the preparations for Christmas. They’re probably picking up on it. May I?” Roland nodded and stepped away, his hooves clopping against the cement floor as he motioned gratefully for her to make the attempt. She heard him mumble something about how a college junior double-majoring in enchantment and botany shouldn’t be less stressed than him, but she ignored him as she moved to stand in front of the poinsettia, the wooden table creaking as she leaned against it. She reached out and cupped the poinsettia’s leaves in her hands, just as Roland had. “Laetus adulantem cantabo,” she said softly. She willed the words to drip from her mouth like droplets of water. They collected in her cupped hands, pooling and washing over each other before trickling into the soil and nestling themselves among the roots of the plant like beads of silver. Once the words had settled themselves, she pulled her hands away and Roland reached out from where he’d been looking over her shoulder to tap one of the leaves. The plant tentatively perked up and began to sway back and forth. It sang softly at first, but grew more confident with every note. Somewhere around “’oer the fields we go”, Simyda tapped the leaf again and the 29

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poinsettia settled back into silence, its leaves held high with pride. There was clapping from the door and both Roland and Simyda looked over in surprise to see a harpy standing in the doorway, the beaded curtain swaying behind her. She was taller than both Simyda and Roland, although she looked to be around Simyda’s age, and had short, spiky hair. Here and there, her cheeks were peppered with small feathers in the way that other people had freckles. She wore a lightweight green windbreaker with a hole in the back to allow her huge russet wings to move without impediment and from the waist down, her hawk-like legs were bare and plumed to mid-thigh in clay-colored feathers that matched her wings. Behind them fanned a wedge-shaped hawk’s tail that reached all the way down to her ankles. “Ah, Brand! Just in time.” Roland stepped away from the poinsettias and motioned for her to join them. “Simyda, this is Brand, our new delivery girl. Brand, this is Simyda. She’s our best enchantress,” he said with a small smirk as Brand rounded the table. “Don’t let the others hear you say that,” Simyda chuckled as she pushed away from the table and extended a hand to Brand. “It’s nice to meet you.” Brand smiled warmly as she grasped Simyda’s hand. “Likewise. That was some impressive spellwork.” The harpy’s hands were rough and calloused, but her grip was surprisingly gentle. Simyda grinned as she took her hand back and self-consciously tucked one of her thin dreads behind her ear. “Thanks!” Then, because she felt that she would return a compliment, “I like your wings, by the way.” “Thank you,” Brand said as she beamed back. Roland rolled his eyes, but both girls could clearly see the small smile that tugged at the corner of his mouth.

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“And we aaarre,” Roland flipped the sign on the front door of the shop to Closed, “free!” Brand grinned as she grabbed a broom from behind the counter and began to sweep up the scraps of red and pink ribbons and flower stems that were littered everywhere, the talons of her hawk-like legs scratching against the carpet as she shuffled around the shop. “Thank god! I thought Christmas was bad, but that,” She shook her head. “Today was pure chaos.” Simyda laughed as she emerged from the back room and began to count the cash in the register. “This might have been a particularly busy Valentine’s Day, but just wait until Mother’s Day,” she said as she shooed a couple of rainclouds away from her work. “You wouldn’t think that Mother’s Day would be worse than Valentine’s Day, but it so is.” “I don’t even want to think about Mother’s Day yet,” Roland huffed from the front of the shop as he pulled shutters down behind the windows. “Ditto,” Brand gravely replied as she stooped to sweep her pile of scraps into a dustpan. All the other employees had already gone home for the night and a peaceful, tired silence fell over the three of them as they tidied up and got the shop ready for tomorrow. “Alright, guys,” Roland said as he closed the register with a sharp ca-thunk. “I think we’re all good here. Go ahead and head home. I’ll take care of the rest. Simyda, don’t think that I’ve forgotten about your upcoming midterm on magical biology,” he said as he braced his elbows on the counter and gravely shook his finger at her with a smirk. “You’ll be on raincloud wrangling duty if I hear you’ve gotten anything below a B.” His eyes sparkled with amusement. Simyda gasped in mock horror as Brand chortled. They both thanked him and said goodbye as they grabbed their coats and headed out the door. Brand laid a hand on her arm as they walked out into the golden sunlight, their shadows stretching down the sidewalk beside them. “Do your parents want you home right away?” Brand asked as Simyda looked up at her inquisitively, squinting slightly against the light. “I found this place the other day that I really wanted to show you.” Simyda grinned. The two of them had grown to be good friends over the past month and they had taken to hanging out with each other on the weekends and sharing their favorite restaurants and hang-out spots with each other. “Nah, she’s said that I can stay out until nine and it’s only–” Simyda glanced at her phone, “–seven thirty. I’ll just shoot her a quick text so that she knows where I am.” The two of them walked for a few minutes while Simyda tapped away on her cell phone and the golden hour turned the bare trees bronze. Simyda sent her message and slipped her smartphone into her pocket. “So, where are we headed?” she asked as she looked around at the tall brick and stone buildings and ornate streetlamps that had yet to be lit. “It’s a surprise,” Brand replied. She pointed to a bus stop up ahead of them. “Though I will tell you that we need to take public transit. It’s too far, otherwise.” Simyda frowned slightly. “I can’t go more than a few miles, remember? Any more than that 30

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is going to make me sick.” Every tree nymph’s life force was tied to a tree when they were born and that tree became the anchor for their life. Any nymph could transfer their life force if it became necessary, but it took a lot of energy and time. Simyda’s tree was a thin silver birch that stood in the backyard of her family’s home. Her campus had a small grove of trees near the student housing for the use of any tree nymph students, but Simyda’s house was within walking distance, so she’d decided before her freshman year to live with her parents for another four years rather than pay to live in a dorm. “Don’t worry, I remembered,” Brand assured her with a small nod as they came to stand beside a lamp post next to the bus stop. Brand smiled down at her and her gaze was so fond that it almost made Simyda’s heart skip a beat. “It’s just inside the city limits, so you’ll be safe.” Simyda hummed and nodded. “Good.” The two of them stood in silence for a moment. Simyda stuffed her hands in her pockets and scuffed the sole of her well-worn sneakers against the ground. Brand fiddled with one of her wings, smoothing rumpled feathers into place and flicking the occasional leaf scrap out into the street. “So, how about that one lady, the really tall one that came in around noon?” Simyda said, breaking the silence. Brand snorted, letting her wing go so that she could turn and lean back against the lamp post. “The one that wanted an entire bouquet of forget-me-nots?” Simyda nodded and chuckled as she glanced at the rooftops across the street. “Yeah! You know, I’ve never seen a customer complain about a flower’s size before.” They talked for a while, jumping from one topic from the next as they waited for the bus. “So, how’re classes going?” Brand asked as she pushed off the lamp post and began to walk along the edge of the sidewalk as if it were a balance beam, her claws scraping against the cement. “They’re going well,” Simyda replied, smiling as she watched her friend’s antics. “Bio is kicking my ass, though.” She glanced at the quickly setting sun with a grimace. Brand sniggered, her eyes still on the curb at her feet. “You’d better start studying or you’ll end up having to wrangle those little cumulus bastaAAH!” Simyda turned to see Brand almost fall of the curb, her claws digging into the cracks in the pavement as her wings shot out in an attempt to regain her balance. Simyda reached out to help her, but she quickly righted herself. A passing car beeped at them in irritation. Brand waved after it with a cheerful grin, making Simyda snort. By the time the bus arrived, the sun was almost to the horizon. They boarded, walking past a stooped old lady with a small green dragon on a leash and a sleeping elf as they made their way to the back of the bus. Brand sighed in frustration as she saw that the seats wouldn’t work with her wings and tail, so she stood in the aisle. They always seemed to run into this problem when they tried to go anywhere, whether they used public transportation or someone’s car. Harpies were one of only two sentient species in the world that had wings, the other being seraphim, so not many companies thought to make accommodations for them. Simyda found this a bit ridiculous, seeing as the only thing that winged person needed was a gap at the bottom of the back rest for their tail feathers and primaries to poke through. There had been campaigns lately for all public spaces to have wing-friendly seats, but it hadn’t gained much ground. Simyda glanced at the bus seat for a moment before electing to stand next to Brand rather than sit. The harpy beamed, the small feathers on her cheeks puffing out in happiness. The bus drove for several minutes, past townhouses, parks, and businesses until it finally stopped at a park situated where the tall townhouses and apartment buildings gave way to the suburbs. “This is it,” Brand said, an excited grin on her face. Simyda followed her down the aisle and hopped off the bus onto the cracked sidewalk. She glanced around taking in the road that sloped away through the last of the townhouses and the park in front of her. They stood at the top off a long sloping hill, their view of the rest of the valley partially obscured by a line of trees. “It’s over here,” Brand motioned for Simyda to follow her and the two of them strolled through the park, passing a playground and even a small pond. Brand occasionally bumped Simyda with her wing as they kicked at errant wood chips from the playground and dead leaves that strayed into their path. “There it is,” Brand said, pointing ahead of them. Simyda looked and a grin spread across her face as she saw their destination. Ahead of them was the end of the paved path, right where the trees stopped. Just beyond it was a wooden park bench overlooking the hillside that sloped down and leveled out below them. As Simyda came to stand beside the bench, she could see suburbs spread out below her. Beyond them, many miles away, sprawled acres upon acres of farmland. To the left and right, the mountains that bordered either side of Waytown stood tall and in between them, settling itself at the end of the valley, was the setting sun. It was only almost completely below the horizon and the light was no longer blinding, graciously allowing Simyda to view the fantastic 31

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colors that spread across the sky like pigments in cerulean water. Cardinal red and burnt sienna melded with bright yellow and colors that she didn’t even have names for. She looked up and back, watching how the light blue of the horizon faded into cornflower and then into a deep indigo. Simyda let out a laugh then, pure and awe-filled. She looked to Brand, who was grinning back at her. “It’s beautiful,” Simyda breathed as she looked back to the sunset and sat on the park bench. “I’ve never seen it unimpeded before because of the buildings.” She scooted over on the bench, motioning for Brand to sit next to her. Brand sat carefully, making sure that her tail feathers stuck through the back of the bench and that her wings stuck out over the back. “I found this place when I was out flying the other day,” Brand explained. “I knew you’d like it.” Simyda hummed happily and nodded. They sat in companionable silence for a while as they watched the sun sink lower and lower. “What’s it like?” Simyda finally asked, looking over at her friend. “Flying, I mean.” Brand smiled blissfully, her eyes dancing as she chuckled and stared up at the approaching darkness. “It’s amazing. It’s like…” She pulled her hands out of her pockets and gestured as if she were trying to shape a ball of clay. “Ok, remember that carnival ride that they brought to the festival in the park a few months ago? The one that put you in freefall for a few seconds before bouncing you back up again?” Brand asked as she sat up and turned to look at Simyda, who nodded. “It’s like that feeling that you got in your stomach as you fell, but a bit less because you aren’t falling, really. You’re holding yourself up there, even though every single force of nature is trying to bring you down. It’s like… feeling power, freedom, courage, and safety all rolled into one, with an amazing view to boot.” She grinned down at Simyda, who smiled back. “It sounds amazing,” Simyda sighed. Brand hummed and nodded happily as she settled back on the bench and turned her gaze back to the horizon, a small smile still lighting up her face. A few minutes passed before Simyda started to shiver. She pulled her coat tighter around herself, her breath blowing out in a puff of white that stood out against her dark skin. “You cold?” Brand asked. Simyda nodded and gave a small chuckle. “Yeah. If I’d known we’d be coming out here, then I would have grabbed a scarf this morning.” “Sorry, Sim” Brand said with a grimace, but Simyda waved her off. “It’s fine. I don’t want to leave just yet,” she said as she tucked her chin into the neck of her jacket. Brand looked down at her friend and hesitated for a second before lifting her arm. “You can lean on me if you want,” she said, and Simyda could have sworn that her tone was almost hopeful. Simyda smiled and leaned into Brand’s side, resting her head on the harpy’s shoulder. Brand slung her arm around Simyda, pulling her closer as she cupped one of her wings around her as well. The sun had disappeared several minutes ago, but the horizon was still painted with faint pastels as the indigo of the night sky slid closer and closer, like a great eye gradually falling shut under the weight of oncoming sleep. Despite the encroaching darkness, Simyda wasn’t afraid. She looked up at Brand, feeling more content than she had in a long time. “Can I kiss you?” The words were out of her mouth without warning and she clapped her hand over it, her body going stiff and her eyes widening as she realized what she’d done. She hadn’t meant to say that, even if she’d wanted to. She looked up at Brand with wide eyes. The harpy was staring down at her in surprise, but they softened into what seemed to be relief. Brand ducked her head so that she was looking right into Simyda’s eyes, her wing draped over the two of them to make a canopy. “Yes,” Brand murmured, a soft smile stealing across her face as Simyda’s eyes widened even more, then softened. The smaller girl pulled her hands away from her mouth and closed the distance.

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Simyda loved weekends. Weekends were when she got to be woken up at eleven o’clock by the warm sunlight streaming through her and Brand’s bedroom window. Weekends were when it took her a few seconds to realize that she was awake and that her back was pressed against Brand’s chest. Weekends were when she got to turn over and lazily wrap an arm around her girlfriend of three years, burying her fingers in the feathers that are between Brand’s shoulder blades as she fell back asleep. Weekends were when Brand would drag her out of bed at noon to make eggs and toast in the small kitchen of their cheap apartment. Weekends were pure bliss, plain and simple. That morning was not a weekend. “Come on, Sim, time to get up.” Simyda groaned as Brand gently shook her awake. She squinted up through the early morning light at the harpy, who stood next to the bed fully dressed and ready for work. Simyda 32

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seemed to remember requesting five more minutes of sleep the first time Brand had attempted to wake her, but she had no way of knowing if that had been actually five minutes ago or half an hour. Brand held out a plate of toast and pomegranate seeds to her, motioning for her to sit up. “Here, I made you some breakfast. We have twenty minutes until we have to leave, so eat up.” She kissed Simyda’s forehead as the tree nymph sat up and took the plate. Simyda hummed and leaned into the contact. Brand left the room as Simyda began to scarf down the food, popping the sweet kernels into her mouth as if they were candy. She could hear the harpy moving around in the kitchen, probably preparing their lunches for later that day. Simyda sighed and set the empty plate on the nightstand. She steeled herself as she reached for the lamp next to it, squinting even harder as the bright artificial light filled the room, illuminating the pile of dirty laundry spilling out of the basket in the corner and the overflowing bookshelf that stood next to their small nightstand. Simyda hauled herself out of the bed and stumbled into her Enchanted Blooms polo and khakis, nearly falling over as she attempted to put her socks on. She grabbed a hair tie from the top of the dresser across from the bed and pulled her thick black braids up into a bun. As she headed towards the door, she glanced out the window into the backyard of the apartment building, where she could just see the thin dogwood that had hosted her life force since the day that they’d moved in about a year ago. The landlord had been happy to let her use it, promising to warn the other residents to not let their children climb in it. The process had only required a few minutes of chanting at each location, but it had been an extremely uncomfortable and tiring experience. The only way that she could describe the feeling of carrying her own soul from one location to another was that it felt as if she’d been carrying the weight of the sky. She shook herself and patted her cheeks with her cold hands as she walked out into the hallway that connected their bedroom to the living room. She was still half asleep as she shuffled through the doorway that led the adjoining kitchen, giving Brand a brief kiss as she made a beeline for the coffee pot. The two of them moved around each other as they grabbed lunch fixings from the magnet-covered fridge and prepared thermoses of coffee. Simyda brushed her hand across Brand’s wings whenever she passed her and Brand did the same across Simyda’s back, each silently letting the other know where they were. “You ready?” Brand asked as she slid their lunches across the cream counter and packed them into paper bags. “As ready as I’ll every be,” Simyda said with a huffed laugh as she took her lunch bag from Brand, her other hand holding her thermos. “Do you remember last year’s Fourth of July?” Brand snorted and began to laugh. “Oh my god, the drunk dwarf!” she exclaimed, laughter painting her voice bright. “How could I forget that?” They exited the kitchen and passed the wing-friendly arm chairs and sofa in the living room as they made their way to the door. “Do you remember how many flowers he ordered?” “No, but I remember that he wanted lilies that were ‘the exact color of rubies’,” she said, attempting to do air quotes with two full hands as they headed through the living room. “That, and we had to call the cops in order to get him out of there.” She chucked and shook her head wryly as she struggled through the front door. The two of them headed down the linoleum stairs and out the front door to where Simyda’s car was parked on the street. Simyda pulled Brand down for a quick kiss before climbing into her car. The cramped space didn’t agree with Brand’s wings and tail and while they’d looked into getting a wing-friendly car, they’d been way too expensive to consider. Instead, the two always parted ways on the sidewalk and met back up at the shop. Brand watched Simyda drive off and headed back into the house. It was always easier to take off from the roof than from the sidewalk. The rest of the day was hectic as all hell. Simyda manned the registers with Grim, a female satyr with white and brown goat legs and curly brown hair who was one of the other enchantresses for the shop. She and Roland had been the only other people available to work on the Fourth of July. Whenever business died down enough, Simyda would go to the back and enchant as many flowers as she could. Simyda found that the most efficient and easiest way to enchant was to use a method that matched the desired result. If she wanted to make a flower sing, she would chant. If she wanted it to make its own miniature weather patterns, she would sprinkle it with tinctures or potions. For an explosive holiday like the Fourth of July, Simyda relied on candles. Sometimes, she burned spells written on thick cardstock and swept up the ashes to bury in the flowers’ soil. Other times, if there weren’t too many leaves in the way, she would drip the melted wax from specially made candles around the plants. She bustled back and forth across the tables, careful so keep any flames away from the flowers as she made pink-tipped succulents spit heat-less colored sparks and red and orange mums fire their petals upwards like mini fireworks. Simyda always liked this work the best and she relished her time in the back while she could. She rarely saw Brand as the hours passed. The harpy would pop into the back of the shop, grab arrangements from Roland as he made them at the station in the corner by the beaded curtain, 33

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and dash back out again, planting a kiss on Simyda’s cheek as she rushed past. She and Brand got to eat lunch together at noon, but their half hour flew by so quickly that it felt like it had never happened. The only upside to the hustle and bustle was that the eight hours passed quickly. When closing time finally rolled around, Simyda was well and truly ready to go home and take a nap with Brand. She found the harpy in the back room talking with Roland after she and Grim had finished closing the shop. “We’re all done up front,” Simyda declared with a happy smile as she strolled down one of the aisles towards where they stood by the door. “You ready to head out, babe?” Brand smiled down at her. “Almost. I just have one last delivery to make and then I’ll head home.” “It should only take you a little over half an hour,” Roland said with a decisive nod. “They’re about halfway to the next town, which isn’t too far.” Brand nodded and looked back to Simyda. “I’ll meet you back at home, okay?” Simyda smiled and nodded as Brand bent down to kiss her briefly before taking a bouquet from Roland and pushing through the door. Simyda saw her take a running start across the outside parking lot, but didn’t see her take off before the metal door slammed shut. Simyda and Rolland grabbed their coats before following heading out back as well to where their cars were parked behind the shop. The drive home through the relatively empty streets was short and as soon as she entered the apartment, Simyda shambled into the bedroom, changed into her oversized sleep shirt, and fell into the bed, tugging the heavy comforter up to her chin. Within minutes, she was asleep.

•

Simyda woke to the sound of someone pounding on the front door of the apartment. She sat up, wearily rubbing her eyes as she peered around the dark room. There was just enough moonlight coming through the window that she could see that the other side of the bed was empty. Simyda frowned at the smooth covers, wondering if Brand was in the bathroom or grabbing a snack from the kitchen. She climbed out of bed and hastily pulled on some sweatpants from the pile of dirty laundry in the corner. She shuffled through her open door into the hallway, glancing into the empty bathroom and kitchen as she passed, her arms hugged tightly to her chest. The light was still on in the living room from when she’d come home and it made her sleep-crusted eyes squint. Simyda was starting to get apprehensive as she approached the front door, where someone had started to knock again. Brand wasn’t the kind of person to forget her key. She leaned forward and as she peered through the peephole, her blood ran cold. On the landing outside the door stood a policeman, a tall cyclops in full uniform. Simyda threw back the locks and pulled open the door, staring out at the man with her lips drawn into a thin line. She desperately hoped that she was over-exaggerating and that nothing had happened to Brand, but her entire body was electrified with the feeling that something was deeply and horribly wrong. The cyclops stared at her for a moment, his single eye conveying something like apprehension. Maybe it was pity. “Are you… Simyda Moore?” he asked, glancing briefly at his notepad. Simyda nodded, her entire body tingling with worry. “Do you know a harpy by the name of Brand Hayes?” Simyda clutched the door frame as the floor seemed to drop out from underneath her. Her fingers ached as they dug into the wood. “What happened?” she asked, her voice just above a whisper. She was afraid to hear the answer, but at the same time, she desperately needed it. “She’s going to be okay, ma’am,” the officer assured her, his hand held out reassuringly, “but she is in the hospital.” “Oh my God,” Simyda groaned, pressing her hand over her mouth, “When you said that, I thought she was…” She shook her head and straightened. She was still afraid, but a tiny marble of hope had built itself up among the fear. “What happened? Which hospital is she in?” The officer hesitated. “Would you like to go inside and discuss this?” he asked, motioning towards the interior of the apartment. Simyda nodded hastily and stepped aside to allow the officer to enter, closing the door after him. She motioned for him to sit on the couch. He glanced over the picture frames above it before he sat and his single eye softened as he saw the pictures of Simyda and Brand smiling back at him. He lowered himself onto the edge of the seat as Simyda ignored the two armchairs and grabbed the other end. She turned to face him, her hands clasped tightly in her lap. “What happened?” she asked again, her fingers gripping each other so tightly that they burned. The officer glanced down as his notes and seemed to gather himself before he looked back 34

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at her. “Your,” he hesitated, “partner?” Simyda nodded and he paused for a moment, as if he were considering how he should continue. “Your partner was hit with a firework as she was flying through the farmland further down the valley. Some idiot managed to get his hands on the real thing and set it off in his backyard.” Simyda gaped at him. “Oh God,” she murmured, covering her mouth with one hand as she hugged herself with the other. “Oh shit ohshit ohshit.” She balled her fist against her lips, crushing them against her clenched teeth as she tried to contain he panic. “She crashed, didn’t she?” Simyda was horrified as she looked back at the officer. If the firework had hit her wing, even if she wasn’t flying very high… The officer nodded. “By some miracle, the fall only gave her a broken arm and a dislocated shoulder, but her wing…” He paused and fixed her with a single-eyed stare as he learned towards her and rested his elbows on his knees. “Listen, I want you to know the full truth, but it’s going to be difficult to hear. Do you think you’ll be able to handle it?” The word “NO” chased itself though her mind and knocked against the roof of her mouth, but she took a deep shuddering breath and locked it away. “I want to know,” Simyda said with a decisive nod, blinking hard to keep her tears at bay. The officer nodded back. “The firework hit her directly in her left wing, causing her to sustain many broken bones, internal bleeding, and third-degree burns. Onlookers called an ambulance when they saw her get hit and she was rushed to the hospital in Reverend.” Simyda’s heart sank as her throat closed around a frustrated sob. She squeezed her eyes shut, as if that could block out the news. Reverend was the next town over, making Brand completely unreachable to her. The farthest that she could travel was to the borders of Waytown, and even that made her slightly sick. “The doctors there rushed her to the OR. Before I came here, they were still determining the best course of action, but it looks as if she might lose her wing.” Simyda’s eyes flew open and she stared at the man in shock. “No!” She jumped up and began to pace, her fists pressed to her breast bone. “No, they can’t!” She spun to face the officer, desperation written into every line of her body as tears streamed down her cheeks. “They can’t! Brand makes her living flying!” She gestured sharply to the ceiling and the pictures on the coffee table that Brand had taken from the air. “That’s her life! They can’t take that from her… They can’t… They can’t do that…” She sank into one of the armchairs as the first sob hit her, her body convulsing as she rocked back and forth. Her fingernails dug into the back of her other hand, leaving long scratches in her dark skin. The officer sank down to kneel beside her and placed a hand on her shoulder, unable to comfort her as she mouthed “They can’t… they can’t… they can’t…”

•

Simyda had managed to calm herself down a while ago, but the occasional shuddering breath still made her entire body shake. She’d been embarrassed to have someone see her break down, but having the company had been comforting nonetheless. The officer came back into the room from where he’d been grabbing a glass of water. Simyda took it from him gratefully and took several gulps as he sank into the armchair across from her, his elbows propped up on his knees. Simyda set the glass on the coffee table next to them. Her hand shook, causing the water to ripple and slosh. Simyda squeezed her tremoring fingers between her thighs as she shuffled to the edge of her seat, her gaze resolutely fixed on either the floor or the officer in front of her. “Thank you for your help, Officer…” Simyda frowned before giving the officer an smale apologetic smile. “I’m sorry, I never asked for your name.” “Officer Thomas, ma’am,” he said, nodding to her with a soft smile. He sucked in a breath and rubbed his thumb against his single eyebrow as he glanced around the apartment. When he looked back at Simyda, he held her gaze. “I’m sorry to have to ask this, but I prefer to be blunt when it comes to the safety of other.” He straightened a bit. “Are you in danger of harming yourself?” Simyda’s eyes widened at the question, but after a moment of silence, her features softened. “No,” she said, shaking her head as the corner of her lips turned upward. “I promise. Brand needs me right now. I’m not about to hurt my chances of helping her.” Officer Thomas nodded, his eyebrow scrunched in on itself to create what Simyda assumed was the equivalent of a furrowed brow. His lips lifted into an understanding smile. “Ok.” The armchair creaked underneath him as he stood and Simyda stood with him, abate a bit more shakily. He extended a large, calloused hand to her. “I have to get heading back to the precinct, but the hospital knows to contact you with any news they might have.” Simyda clasped his hand in hers, thanked him, and bid him goodnight as he headed out. She closed the door after him, the soft clatch-thunk practically echoing through the silent building. She locked the door once again and crossed back to her chair, collapsing into it with a shuddering sigh. She clutched her forehead as a thousand different half-formed thoughts and worries scurried back and forth through her mind. 35

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“Come on, focus,” she groaned. “First things first.” She took a deep breath and reached for the phone on the coffee table. She held it as she clicked through the contacts and selected one of the few numbers on the list. Simyda sighed and scrubbed a hand over her face as she listened to the line ring. “Hello?” a half-awake voice croaked over the line. Simyda grimace, remembering the time. “Sorry for calling so late, Roland. I-” She rested her head in her hand as her lips pressed into a thin line. “Something’s happened.”

•

Roland had been shocked and horrified at first, but the man was like a rock whenever you needed him, steadfast and dependable. He’d agreed to head over to the hospital right away, without question, and Simyda couldn’t be more grateful. That had been three hours ago. Simyda stared at the phone on the coffee table from her perch in her armchair, her knees pulled tight up against her chest and her shoulders hunched forward. She hadn’t moved much since she’d called Roland. Only the slow movement of her head betrayed that she was fully conscious. Her gaze meandered from the phone, to the pictures on the wall, to the furniture, and back to the phone. Occasionally, she would glance at the door and hope that Brand would walk through it at any moment. She would pinch herself, wondering if this was a nightmare. Sometimes she would cry, but her tears seemed to be running low. What replaced them was an emptiness and bone-deep exhaustion that, when she wasn’t looking, dragged her into a shallow and dreamless sleep. Simyda woke to the sound of her phone ringing. Still half asleep, she clumsily grabbed for it, hit the “accept call” button, and pressed it to her ear. “Hello?” she asked, rubbing at her eyes as she glanced at the sofa and wondered why she had fallen asleep in the living room. The realization hit her just as Roland said, “She’s out of surgery.” “Oh my God!” Simyda exclaimed as she pulled the phone away from her ear. The screen declared that it was two in the morning. Her chair creaked in protest as she shot to her feet “Oh my God! Is she okay? What did they do? Did they fix her wing?” There was heavy silence on the other end of the silence and Simyda’s heart grew heavy with it. “They couldn’t save her wing,” Roland said, his voice somber. “I’m sorry, Simyda.” “Don’t be sorry for me!” Her hand gripped her braids so hard that she felt as if she would tear them out. “Be sorry for Brand! How’s she going to work? Flying is her life, and she just lost it because some jackass with a firework shot her–” Her voice broke and she shakily ran a hand over her face as she collapses back into the chair. “It’s going to be okay, Sim,” Roland promised, “The shop’s been doing well lately and I’m sure we have enough money saved up to get a delivery van. You two have been essential to this business for the past three years and I’m not willing to let either of you go that easily.” Simyda could tell that Roland was trying just as hard to not cry as she was. “And as for her wing…” She heard him take a shaky breath. “It’ll be tough, but we both know that Brand’s a tough woman. She’ll get through this, I’m sure of it.” Simyda’s smile was small and broken, but it was there all the same. “Thank you so much, Roland. Call me when she wakes up, would you?” Simyda bid him goodbye and set the phone back on the table. She closed her eyes and let the grief, worry, and overwhelming relief consume her. Roland visited the hospital every day and Simyda would Skype Brand at least twice a day when she wasn’t at work. Her girlfriend continued to improve. Her shoulder and arm were healing well and she’d managed to avoid any infections. Simyda knew that she was depressed and that she missed her wing, but Brand still managed to see the bright side of things and she told Simyda every day that she knew that things would turn out okay eventually. Some days it seemed forced, but for the most part Simyda tended to believe her. Three days after the surgery, Brand called Simyda while she was at work. Simyda strode out into the back parking lot, hitting accept even as she sped through the back room. “Hey, babe,” she greeted, bouncing on her toes and watching starling fly overhead as she tried to keep her voice calm. “What’s going on?” “They say I can come home in two days!” Brand yelled. Somewhere in the background, Simyda could hear someone telling Brand not to strain herself. “What?!” Simyda exclaimed, her mouth jumping into a huge grin. “No way! Oh my God, babe, that’s incredible,” she laughed, turning to look back at the door, her hand over her heart. “I’ll be sure to tell Roland. He’ll pick you up when you get out. Oh! He’s also promised to sneak you some of my homemade soup tonight,” she said, her heart so light that she actually did a spin in the middle of the parking lot. “Oh, this is amazing, sweetheart! I can’t wait to see you.” “Me, too,” Brand said, and Simyda could hear her smile over the phone. Brand paused and 36

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Simyda could hear Brand’s door close in the background. “I miss you,” she said softly. Simyda could hear the shard of brokenness in her voice and it made her entire body heavy. No matter how good a front she put up, Simyda knew Brand was mourning the life that she’d lost. She wanted to say that everything would be okay, but she also knew it wasn’t. It wouldn’t be for a long time. She wanted to say that they’d get through it, that she’d help her. She wanted to ask, isn’t enough to be alive? Isn’t it enough that I’m here? More than anything, she wanted to demand that Brand tell her how to fix it all and for her to actually have an answer. What she said was, “I miss you, too.” And then, “I love you,” wishing beyond reason that that phrase would be enough. “I love you, too.” And the shard was still there, stabbing Simyda’s heart through the cold glass screen of her phone. They said their goodbyes and Simyda hung up. She slipped the phone into her pocket and stared at the sky for a moment, squinting against the lowering sun. With spots in her vision, she turned and headed back inside.

•

Simyda started down at the weed-infested sidewalk from where she was seated on the top step of her building. Her hands fiddled compulsively with her phone, occasionally turning it on to check for messages, despite the fact that she hadn’t felt it vibrate. She glanced up the street, her eyes darting over the brick apartment buildings and occasional pedestrian as she watched the passing cars and tried to spot Roland’s green Kia Soul. Both he and Brand had texted her as they left the hospital. Roland had sent a quick, “Leaving now, be there in 20 minutes,” while Brand sent, “We’re headed your way, sweetheart! I can’t wait to see you! Love you! <3” Simyda had smiled down at her phone and immediately gone out to sit on the front stoop. Simyda glanced down at her phone. Twelve thirty PM. Twenty minutes had come and gone ten minutes ago, so that meant that they were due to arrive at any moment. As soon as she had that thought, she looked up and glanced to the end of the street to see Roland’s car turning the corner. She grinned and shoved herself to her feet before slipping her phone into her pocket and jumping down the steps to stand near the curb. She watched as Roland pulled up and parked behind her own car, her eyes fixed on Brand in the back seat. The harpy was sitting sideways on the seat, probably so that her incision wasn’t pressed against the seat back and so that her tail feathers weren’t crushed against the upholstery. She was grinning through the window at Simyda, her hand already on the door handle as she prepared to clamber out of the car. Roland finally put the car into park and Brand immediately threw her door open and ducked out onto the sidewalk. Simyda stepped forward, her mouth twisting in on itself as tears pricked at the corners of her eyes, and wrapped her arms as tightly around her girlfriend as she could without hurting her. Brands right wing reached forward to wrap around her, creating a warm half-cocoon, but her left side was just… empty. Simyda could feel the bandage under the shirt that Roland had brought to the hospital for her. It reached all the way from her shoulder down to her lower back. Underneath it, Simyda knew that there was a healing incision that marched like railroad tracks from Brand’s shoulder blades to the bottom of her ribs. She buried her face into Brand’s neck, blocking out the rest of the world and her own wet gasps as she tried to listen to the harpy’s heartbeat. She could feel how Brand leaned slightly to the right, the weight of her remaining wing dragging her to the side. Brand had already told her about the weight that she’d have to wear in a special harness on her back in order to avoid any damage to her spine, but she wouldn’t get that until the incision had healed fully. In the meantime, there would be more doctor’s visits than they would be able to count. Simyda would have to work extra hours while Brand was stranded at home, staring out of the windows in their apartment at a sky that sky would never be able to know in the way that she had before. There would be sleepless nights. There would be pills and medication that Simyda wouldn’t be able to pronounce. There would be phantoms pains and PT and hospital bills and therapy and stress and tears and tears and tears and tearstearstearste“Hey,” Brand breathed into her ear and the thoughts racing through Simyda’s head suddenly stopped, like a pot of boiling water that is suddenly pulled off of a stove. “It’s okay, I’m here now. It’s going to be okay.” Brand’s voice was weak and tremulous. Simyda hadn’t realized how hard shed been gripping Brand, nor how hard she’d been shaking. Brand’s shirt was soaked against her cheek. She made an effort to loosen her grip, but refused to pull away. Not yet. “I love you,” she choked out as the sharp point of Brand’s collar bone dug into her chin and her pulse thundered next to Simyda’s ear. “I love you so fucking much.” Brand’s wing tightened around her and she could feel the harpy shaking, too. “I love you, too.” 37

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Centralia

by Ashleigh Tomcics

“Trump likes Nickelback” - Graffiti highway outside of Centralia, PA grained radon shifts towards us, color swirls desolate and the wind blows deviant wishes the fissures live& breathe under loving coats of chemicals& foot- fall. i wish I was from here. i have gold. i think i can feel the ground- breath rise &fall but maybe that’s just what I want, something to not have lost the fight. the wind groans in anger. i am facing inevitability dressed in rock, twigs grasping to stay flush with asphalt and hillside alike, hills rolling to Ruin. when i too am dying, this is the landscape of my body: cracked in warmth, sugarcoated nostalgia, fissures deep& indistinguishable from landscape. entropy smells like the death of dreams, wafting its way sprayed down this remembered highway; i am home.

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Roads

by Dylan Scillia

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White Rabbit by Kay Hammond

helsea wiped the knife with a rag before sliding it back into her belt. She shoved the rag in her back pocket. “So, I just finished reading A Clockwork Orange—” “What you say? Talk louder!” Hank shouted over the loud wailing. “I just finished reading A Clockwork Orange!” she yelled. “Really good book, you should read it—” “Is that the one where they’re all wearing jock straps over their pants?” “Well, in the movie yeah.” A rattling humming filled the garage as the furnace shuddered into life. Warm air flowed over them, disturbing the layers of dust that lay on every surface. Tiny storms swirled across the grease stained concrete floor. The rusty metal table groaned as Chelsea leaned on it, sneezing. “God, my allergies are killin’ me in here” She wiped her nose on the sleeve of her sweatshirt. “Anyway, I did a lot of thinking after reading that book, and I’ve come to some conclusions.” “Okay, lay it on me—oh wait, can you pass me the crowbar?” Chelsea twisted around, pulling the crowbar off one of the racks behind her, one of many that lined the walls of the garage. She tossed it to Hank. “Thanks.” He hefted the crowbar in his hands, testing the weight. “Okay so, conclusions?” “Yeah, so it’s in two parts. First, is that humans run on basic animal instinct. So, the need to have territory and assert dominance and all that stuff.” The yellow light overhead flickered. It was greasy and filled with dead flies. What light that filtered through cast strange shadows on their faces, and made Hank’s leer gruesome. “And to fuck?” “Obviously. God, Hank, why is everything about sex with you? Side note though—oh Jesus, hold him still! This is why I should tie the knots, you don’t know what the fuck you’re doing.” “Sorry, not all of us can be friggin’ boy scouts,” he said. The crowbar clanged onto the oil-stained concrete. Hank pulled a pair of pliers from his back pocket. “You ever play dentist as a kid?” he asked with a smirk. Chelsea wrinkled her nose. “Not really. My dentist was an old fogey who smelled funny. Not the stuff of daydreams.” Hank snorted and crouched down, twisting the pliers in his hand. Glancing up at her he asked, “Anyway, you were saying?” “One minute, I’ll hold the bag open for you.” She held the Ziploc bag for the teeth. Hank dropped them in one at a time—one, two, three. “Okay, what was I saying?” she asked. “Natural instinct,” he said, “fucking, side note?” “Oh right, so side note—there are many instances of homosexuality across species, so that’s another natural instinct. Like, dolphins have gay sex all the time.” “Dolphins also rape people.” “Let’s not get into that okay? That’s all the molars, I think that’s enough. Hand me the crowbar, I wanna do the knees this time.” “Catch.” “Thank you, sir.” She gave the crow bar a few testing swings before bringing it down once. Twice. Crack. There was a loud screech. “Nice.” Hank grunted. Chelsea grinned, but stayed focused on her point, raising her voice over the new round of screaming. “Okay, so, all the horrible things people have done—imperialism, manifest destiny, even the holocaust and all that shit—that’s all just due to basic instinct.” Hank looked at her sharply. “Imperialism is not basic instinct, Chelsea. Neither is fucking 40

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genocide.” “Yeah it is!” Chelsea’s jaw jutted out. She stopped swinging the crow bar, panting as she argued. “To gain and control territory is so friggin’ animalistic. And animals in the wild—like lions and shit?” “Mhm?” “They’ll kill any other lions that aren’t in their bloodline, and they even chase off their own male cubs eventually.” “Mhm.” Hank’s posture relaxed as he thought over her arguments. Chelsea puffed a strand of hair out of her face. She aimed the crow bar at the back of the body’s head, trying to find a good angle for the killing blow. “The animal world is full of brutal shit! I’m not saying it excuses humans though— ‘cause, see, that’s the second half of my conclusions.” “You know, that would probably be easier with a hammer,” Hank cut in. “You think?” He speculated, “I mean, it’s more precise.” “Fair enough. I’ll put this away then.” She hung the crow bar back on the wall, then went to the stack of tires where she’d stowed her backpack. Hank ogled her rear as she bent over to rummage through it. “Need a hammer?” Hank asked. “Nah, I have one in my bag. It’s got a nice big head.” “That’s what she said.” “Shut the hell up. Back to what I was saying. The second part of it is that because humans have higher brain function. They can override basic instinct.” “Mhm.” Hank watched as she aimed carefully before striking. The body went silent, slumped, no longer fighting against the bungee cords that held it in the chair. Both of them eyed their third body with satisfied expressions. “Oh, thank God.” Chelsea groaned. “I was getting real sick of talking over him. But, anyway.” She puffed at the hair in her face again, “doing that, overriding instinct, is hard. Democracy and equality go against natural instincts, and that takes a lot of effort.” “But it can be done.” “Yeah, but most people are lazy, so they won’t do it. It’s easier to rely on basic instinct.” “And more fun.” “Genocide is fun Mr. Goldstein?” she asked, raising an eyebrow at him. “That’s not what I meant, fuck you. I meant like sex.” Chelsea gave him a droll stare. She grabbed the rag from her back pocket to wipe off the hammer. “So basically,” Hank said, “you’re telling me that humans are capable of ignoring basic instinct, but they’re so lazy that they won’t, so they’re gonna keep doing awful things to each other?” “Yup, and that’s why we’ll never attain utopia.” “Makes sense.” “But this is where it really got me. It also means that messing up guys like this one won’t change anything. Just ‘cause we fuck up a few neo-Nazis doesn’t mean the world’s a better place. People are always gonna suck.” “So?” Chelsea waved her arms, indicating the dank garage around them, the body slumped in the chair. “So, what are we doing here? I mean, we’ve been doing this for months, and it doesn’t really mean anything. It doesn’t change anything.” “I don’t care. It makes me feel better.” “Why?” “What the hell, Chelsea? They’re bad people! Doing bad things to bad people feels good! This is not a new idea.” “Sounds like some animal instinct to me.” “Never said any different.” “So, we’re not in this for a higher purpose?” Chelsea asked. Hank sneered at the swastika tattooed on the body’s neck. “Did you really think we were?” “I mean, kinda. You made it sound like it was, like, about the principle of the thing.” “It is. We punch fucking neo-Nazis. Get the bleach, this place needs some clean up.” “I… ‘kay. Can we do this someplace else next time? This place is starting to stink.” “If you can find a place that’s as secure as this one, then yes. Otherwise, we’re gonna stick with what works.” “Fine. Here’s the bleach. I’ll go dump him.” She pushed the body off the chair onto the tarp 41

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they’d spread out earlier. She wrapped it up, then started dragging it out to her car. “Chelsea?” “Yeah?” “Don’t think so much. We’re doing the right thing.” **** They’d met up for a lunch study session in the university cafeteria. Out of the blue he’d just come right out and asked, “Wanna punch some Nazis?” “What?” Chelsea stared at her TA as he fiddled with the straw in his drink. “Punch some Nazis. Like, find some fuckin’ neo-Nazis, and punch them.” “I have to give you credit,” Chelsea snorted, “this is the most unique way anyone’s ever come on to me.” Hank’s pale eyes stared directly into hers. “I mean it. I read your last essay. It was … striking.” There was a long, awkward silence as Hank placed the essay on the table in front him. He tapped it lightly with his fingertips, watching her with a small smile. She blushed as he read,“‘Our leaders claim these hate groups are protected by constitutional law. But those who support the policies of fascist dictatorships, those who actively promote the slaying of entire demographics of people simply because of their gender, sexuality, and/or heritage, are not deserving of such protections.’” Chelsea squirmed in her seat. “Sooo I got an A?” He shrugged. “B plus. The point is that you think like me.” The other people in the cafeteria bustled on, clanking plates and dropping glasses. Hank scooted his chair in, bracing his elbows on the table. “These people would strip others of their rights, of their lives. It’s only fair they be stripped of theirs.” Chelsea nodded her head so hard her curly hair bounced. “Exactly! And so many people have been saying something should be done, there was even that freaking ‘PunchANazi’ hashtag on Twitter for a while. But nothing’s actually changed! No one’s done anything!” “And something has to be done.” “Something has to be done!” “So,” Hank smiled broadly, a manic spark in his eyes. “Wanna do something?” **** The first body had been shockingly easy to acquire. Hank and Chelsea had found an online chat for radical groups, where people spewed racist rhetoric and supremacist vitriol. Chelsea felt sick as they sat huddled over the computer in her dorm room, staring at the screen. “God, this is disgusting. How is this even legal?” Hank shrugged. “Freedom of speech, baby.” He continued scrolling through the chat. “Looks like they’re having a meeting in a couple days, at that dive bar on Fifth.” “How are we supposed to snag one if they’re in a group?” “Well…” Hank eyed her, hesitant. “What?” “You could lure a guy out.” “What?” Chelsea’s eyes narrowed. “Yeah, just like, pick a guy up in the bar and lure him outside! Then we can nab him in the parking lot—there’s no way they have cameras at that shit-hole.” “You want me to seduce a neo-Nazi?” “Uh-huh. Not actually, just pretend.” “But what if he’s gross?” “Oh, he’ll be fuckin’ gross.” “So what if he tries to molest me?” “You can handle yourself, Chels. You just have to get him out the door. I’ll go into the bar with you, keep an eye out. You’ll be fine.” “Fine. But I’m bringing my taser.” “Smart girl.” **** “I don’t know if I can do this.” “Seriously?” 42

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“I’m sorry, I just—” “Come on, Chelsea, we just went through all that shit.” “I know, I just—” “The fucker fuckin’ bit me!” Hank pointed to the red, ragged ring of teeth marks on his forearm. “I know, but I’ve never done something like this!” Chelsea wrapped her arms around herself. She was blushing, not meeting Hank’s eyes. “You never hit somebody? Had a fist fight?” “No. Nothing like that.” “Wow. Huh. Well, it’s pretty easy once you get into it. It just comes naturally.” “You sound like you’ve done this before.” her eyebrows scrunched together. “Well, sure I’ve been in fights. Killed a couple animals. This can’t be all that different. And it’s important. What we’re doing is important. ‘We have to do something’—remember?” He brushed some stray brown curls back from her face. “I know it’s scary.” She looked at his hand, then his face. “It’s not just scary, it’s terrifying. This is a huge step Hank. Once we do this, it’ll be different.” “What’ll be different?” Hank turned to the rack on the wall, lifting the crow bar down. “Everything. Me. The way I see things. The way I see people.” “A whole new Wonderland.” “Wonderland?” “Yeah.” Hank grinned. He handed her the crow bar. “A place where you make the rules. Doing this gives you power, Chelsea. It’s not scary. It’s exciting.” He moved to stand behind her, leaving her to stare at the body tied to the chair. Its face was red and puffy, shaved head sweaty and shining in the dim light. Shouts were muffled by the thick layers of duct tape over its mouth. It stared at Chelsea, unblinking, eyes wide and blank with fear. Hank’s chest pressed to her back, as he leaned forward to speak directly into her ear. “He’s afraid of you. A neo-Nazi, who lives to scare people, is now afraid of you. How’s that for Wonderland?” She gave a shuddering breath. Her hands clenched on the crow bar. His breath pushed at her hair. He smelled of sweat and blood. “All you have to do is swing, Chels.” “Can you help me?” Hank hid a smile in her hair. “Sure.” He wrapped his arms around her, his hands grasping the crow bar on either side of hers. “Angle this way a bit.” They shifted, never separating. Hank guided her to raise the crow bar, like he was showing her how to swing a baseball bat. They stood frozen for a minute; it was quiet except for the muffled groans of the body. “You ready?” Hank asked. Chelsea nodded. “Well, down the rabbit hole.” They swung the crow bar as one. **** They’d found the nest of rabbits in the corner of the old barn. Chelsea had seen a very pregnant rabbit wandering around when she’d scoped the place out last week, but it wasn’t there now. The tiny balls of white fur couldn’t be more than a couple days old. Their eyes were still closed, and one of them easily fit in Hank’s fist. “You can’t kill a bunny!” Chelsea shrieked. Hank sighed, pausing as he’d been about to stuff it down the unconscious body’s throat. This was their fifth body, and he was starting to get bored with their usual methods. Hank held the squealing thing in his fist tightly. It squirmed and wiggled its pink feet trying to escape, but he only squeezed harder. “You don’t care if we torture a human, but you pitch a fit over a fuckin’ rabbit?” “Yes!” The moon came in on shafts of light through holes in the rotting roof above them. Everything in the barn—the walls, their faces, the rabbit—everything was soaked in the cold blue glow. Hank’s face looked like a pale mask as he snarled, “Why? Why is a human life worth less than a dumb animal without any higher brain functions?” “Because it’s innocent!” Hank scoffed. Chelsea flinched as he crossed his arms, shoving the squirming bunny into his armpit. “It’s like we said before,” she insisted, “this guy deserves it ‘cause he ignores his higher 43

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brain function! He just relies on his basic animal instincts.” “Oh, this shit again!” “Yes, this shit again! That bunny has nothing but basic instinct; it can’t be judged on the same terms as a human! If you kill it, you’re just acting on a basic, animalistic desire to hurt things! You’ll be no better than him!” She wacked the unconscious body upside the head. “People like him have higher brain function, but they choose not to use it. They’re undeserving of what they have, so we have a right to take it away!” Hank’s nostrils flared as he took deep breaths. “You realize that’s a textbook god complex, right?” “Aren’t we made in God’s image?” Chelsea snarled at him. Her eyes were opaque, reflecting the dead light that reached through the window. “It seems only natural to me.” “So, you’re acting on instinct?” Chelsea’s face flushed deep red. “No. It’s more than that.” She wrenched the bunny from him. It screeched in blind panic. “If you say so.” Hank spoke to her like she was a child. “It’s not. It’s not, because morals can go against instinct. And I’m acting on morals.” “You just contradicted yourself like, twice. You’re so full of shit, Chelsea.” “I’m not – fuck!” Chelsea shouted as the bunny sank its sharp teeth into her hand. “Fucker!” She shrieked, throwing the bunny away from her. Hank drew in a sharp breath as it hit the wall of the barn, dropping to the floor with a soft thud. It lay there, motionless. Chelsea’s hands flew up to cover her mouth. “Did I—? Is it—?” Hank squatted next to the bunny and poked it. “Yup. It’s dead.” He looked up at Chelsea. His grin glowed in the moonlight. “Not to be cliché, but you’re hot when you’re mad.” “Shut up, Hank! Just, just shut up!” Chelsea sat on the dirty floor, she clenched her hands in her hair. “I feel like a hypocrite.” Hank shrugged, poking at the dead bunny idly. “Don’t worry about it. I mean, in the end, all that stuff about morals doesn’t mean shit. All the philosophies and moral codes are bullshit we make up to justify our actions. It’s Wonderland, right? We make the rules.” Hank watched her for a minute, before scooping up the dead bunny, moving over to the body. “So, do you care if I choke him with it now?” Chelsea shrugged. “Whatever.” The moon slid down the walls. Everything was white and blue and cold. She shivered as she watched Hank cram the rabbit down the unconscious body’s throat.

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Marci in the Wasteland by Alan G. Codner

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Jeff & Lynn Banged On This Table (How Unfortunate For Lynn) by Joshua Mercier

am nothing special, old and yellow in my varnish as I am. There are tattoos on my skin, faded gray because there’s no such thing as a permanent marker, no matter how many times it’s been absently traced over with pen. Today’s layers of ink are contributed by a student who’s half paying attention to a budget meeting for a club she just joined to boost her resume, perched miraculously atop my arthritic skeleton. The pen itches, tingles as it runs over the old wounds in pinpricks of pain. It’s nothing like the pain of a fresh carving, but the sting is a solemn reminder of it. Her feet kick back and forth, and I tremble in time with the motions. She checks her phone – it buzzes harshly against me through her back pocket, rattling me to my core – and smiles secretly down between her knees at me. It’s a look I know well. Pale carvings in my skin of names and initials remind me why my bones have gotten so weak. Anyone would start to age all too quickly in my position. The club disbands. I heave a sigh, which goes blissfully ignored by her. She is jittery in her gleefulness. I tremble more, uncertain as to whether I’ll survive this one. I stand firm when undisturbed, but I suddenly feel self conscious, minutes from collapsing outright. He arrives. He is tall. An athletic type, maybe, toned but not thickly built. He looks around nervously, clicking the lock shut on the door with a look halfway between a smile and a grimace. She is not the heaviest weight I have held, although when he leans over, bracing his hands on either side of her, I groan regardless. They kiss. He’s slow but rough when he adds his weight to me, pushing my joints to their limits, ignoring how I creak in response. His weight lands heavy on a weak corner of mine, where the leg to his left squeals in an unheard cry of pain. He simply laughs, throws his weight until I can bend no more, and I have no choice but to hold him where he stands. I find a moment’s repose when he moves his hands to let them crawl up under her shirt, though it’s a short-lived sigh of relief as I know, I have known, that this is a harbinger of worse treatment to come. They seem not to care. She leans back onto me, granting him more room to explore. He partakes. Soon her shirt is on the floor, and I should be grateful for the reprieve from its small weight, but his hips are braced against my leg and I bear more of him than I feel able. I protest, lean away from his weight as far as the screws hidden within my wooden joints can bear, but he does not relent. He chases me to the scant limits of my flexibility – though as loosely held together as my bones are, those limits are not so scant as they used to be. She’s whispering something to him, but her back is pressed to me and I can’t make out the words on her lips. I wonder what scandal must be kept secret even from the furniture, what joke shared between lovers even I may not know. What secrets have these couples to hide from only me? He smiles, looking down at her. He is looking down at me, too, but his focus is too narrow to spot the carved-out scratches on the surface of my skin. He has no care for the tattoos I’ve earned over the years from bored students years before either of them had set foot on this campus. No, I am not special enough for that kind of attention. She, more intimately close to me than he, does not observe me, but arches her back away from the gentle stick of my varnish to her skin. Beads of sweat form on her, only strengthening its weak grip. I do not grab at her intentionally – if I could let go altogether, I would – but my varnish reaches out to grip at her with every pull of her body up and away from me, clinging to her flesh as though terrified to lose its warmth so soon. I, however, am not my varnish. I shudder, worrying I may not be able to stay screwed together as they screw together. The crack of my joints serves as a warning shot. They do not heed; 46

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in fact, their pace only picks up, all too desperate to complete their mission, to leave behind their private legacy only they and my ancient bones would know. And all at once, she cries out, blunt fingernails clawing at me, seemingly unconcerned about the day-old polish that covered them. It has already begun to chip away, and pieces of it fall away and settle into the shallow crevasses she leaves behind. I give one last angered groan as they still, panting, sharing a gaze. He laughs, and then she laughs. She sits up and kisses him. My screws sigh in relief when finally, blessedly, she stands. They lean up against me for a moment, and I rock back bitterly. She yelps as she almost falls over. He chuckles again, pulling her close, and I slowly shift back to attention. There is a drawer on one side of me, where professors have stashed their pencils and coffee during lectures. Dark rings from the bottoms of mugs dapple the smooth wood that lines it. Carvings of initials, hearts, and doodles pepper the skin there, too. She takes out a pocket knife and smirks. He laughs and shakes his head as she pulls open the drawer and shoves the knife into his hand. I have no voice with which I might cry out in pain â&#x20AC;&#x201C; my joints may creak and moan when I am jarred, but I remain silent when he carves out a signature into my flesh. The wood protests faintly against the knife with a rasp, but is powerless to stop his hand. I can offer no further objection of my own though the sting of the knife surges through my body with every second. She adds her own name beneath his, connecting them with a hasty, unpracticed ampersand. She continues the scrawling with hand more skilled than his had been, and she finishes with a flourish, circling their handiwork with a smile. JEFF & Lynn Banged on this Table He kisses her again. Time passes. I do not know how long. The clock is tucked away in a corner of the room, out of my sight. I sit, aching, recovering. My drawer is yanked open, and two pairs of curious eyes pore over the etchings like archaeologists decoding an ancient language. Fingers run over my freshest scars, as if touch might reveal more meaning to the onlookers, and I wish with all my might I could wince, cower away from the pain of it. But I simply sit as they snicker above me. One turns to a backpack and fishes through it. They emerge, triumphant, black marker in hand. The marker is at first an almost pleasant sensation, a gentle sting that dances on my skin. Soon enough, though, ill-planned script overlaps the carvings, and ink seeps into the still-toofresh wound. My body burns. I endure. How unfortunate for Lynn What can I do but endure? I am nothing special, old and yellow in my varnish as I am.

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Derek Selway’s Livestreamed Journal by Vlaeri Lohrman

hat they don’t tell you in xenoarchaeology school is that aliens are stubborn little shits. All of the textbooks taught hypothetical situations where a worker in the field would knock on the door of an alien’s house and said alien would open it, smiling, and give the individual all of the information he or she needs in order to complete an entire thesis. But in the non-fantasy world, aliens don’t do that. Ever. In fact, I don’t know if I’ve ever seen an alien, in the flesh, for more than three seconds at a time. Welcome to my livestreamed journal, all who are joining. I see people from as early as 2018. That’s swell! I am here to inform you on my job as a xenoarchaeologist, and what the world is like with aliens living amongst us. From the day I saw all four Men in Black movies in a row, I’d wanted to study aliens. Of course, that was when I was twelve, and aliens hadn’t yet colonized on earth. So you can imagine my excitement when the first spacebus touched down in central Nevada, and real, live aliens stepped onto terrestrial soil. These aliens, however, look nothing like they do in the movies. There are two types: the magnaliens and the demaliens. The magnaliens are seven feet tall exactly, and have hunchbacks. Similar to the archaic and extinct gorillas, only skinnier. The demaliens are precisely three and a half feet tall, and are a product of body reformation after splitting in half in order to increase the population. I only know this because a very lucky xenoarcheologist had a chance to speak to an alien who was dying, and the alien told him some secrets about his kind. However, the alien didn’t get very far in the conversation without falling out of consciousness and succumbing, a mere six-hundred five years old. As I write this, I will embark on a new discovery. I seek to find out the psychology of the aliens. I have put a special protection on my computer so that they cannot see that I am writing this. (You see, individuals of the past, aliens have telepathic access to electronics, so if we talk about them, they know). Luckily, my good friend Albert invented an encryption that will ensure privacy from this telepathy. I knew a guy once who had sent an instant message to his friend telling him the location of a family of aliens, and a few minutes later, the computer exploded and the guy died. I’d really rather that not happen to me. In order to truly capture the essence of the aliens, I will first have to travel to their community and do some spying. It will not be easy. I am aware of a loner alien who lives by the intersection of Shusett Street and O’Bannon Street in Lunacide, Nevada. He will likely be a very interesting one to

Hear the audio recording of Derek Selway’s Livestreamed Journal at our website or with this QR code.

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Search Assist Dispose by Mitch Roshannon

he sun is setting over the horizon as Johnathan Peroux makes his way through the large rotating doors of Happy World Headquarters. He’s well dressed, as much so as he can be on his budget: a white dress shirt, black slacks, and a pair of brown loafers. He enters a large lobby with white marble flooring and a golden chandelier hanging from the ceiling. The walls are white, like a hospital; maybe even whiter than that somehow. A toilet flushes in one of the bathrooms to his right. There is a “WET PAINT” sign outside of the women’s. A receptionist sits ahead of him. Behind her sits a large screen playing old footage of a speech by Governor George Kellerman. “This is the future!” Kellerman yells to his flock. “Bill H3762 and the creation of Happy World will give us the resources necessary to fix the greatest problems facing our society: crime, hunger, and unemployment…” The crowd of people that cannot be seen on screen cheer wildly drowning out portions of the governor’s speech. “John P. clocking in,” he tells the receptionist. She types furiously for a time not recognizing his presence. “Excuse me.” She looks up, with frustration. She sighs. “Your name again?” “John P. P for Peroux, spelled…” “Yes, I know.” She turns away from him without a word and begins typing on her keyboard and clicking around the screen. All around them, John can hear the familiar sound of printers and scanners going full speed, and telephones ringing off the hook. “Yes, Mr. Peroux. This is your first day on the job is it not?” She is the stereotypical receptionist, or maybe stereotypical librarian. Black glasses, long dirty blonde ponytail, and piercing blue eyes that look through a person, not at them. “It is. I’m very eager to get started.” “I’m sure you are,” she states with a grin. She hands John a small glass cell phone with a miniature projector connected to the top. “From here on out, you can clock in and out using this company phone. It tracks your movements, so all you have to do is place your thumb on the home button as so,” she says. She places her thumb over her own device’s home button. The device makes a light chiming sound and turns light green in color. “It will remain green for as long as you are clocked in. Green is clocked in, clear is clocked out. If you scan while clocked out it will clock you in and vice versa as long as you are within your work station. Do you need assistance finding your work station today?” John is still looking perplexedly at the glass “cell phone” when she asks this question. She repeats herself. “Um… No. I stopped by yesterday to hand in some paperwork. I had a chance to find my station then. Thank you though.” “You’re quite welcome, enjoy your first day hear at Happy World HQ. Remember, stay happy or die trying.” John responds with a final nod, and starts walking up the large staircase that sits behind the reception area. The building is a maze of hallways branching in all different directions. He pulls a crudely drawn map from his back pocket that he drew the day before. He makes a left at the top of the stairs and climbs another four stories up another staircase before making a right, then a left down a smaller corridor, and another right. Straight, left, left, up two more flights, right. If he remembers correctly the door he is looking for is 648, which should be up ahead on his left. He is lucky to have a job like this, and he knows it. Over the past three or four months, his savings account has been depleted while he searched for a job. His family was on the brink of financial ruin, then just like that, just as he was about to make the call, he thought to himself, what if I go work for these guys. Instead of using their service I can become an employee at their company. Low and behold they hired him, and now it is time to get to work, fix his life, do a duty 49

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to his country. He reaches for the doorknob and is about to turn it when he remembers that each station is run in pairs. He thought it appropriate to knock. “Come in!” a voice yelled from the other side. Pushing open the door, he began to take note of the room. It is dark compared to the hallway, almost vacant of light besides the glare of four screens attached to the far wall. Underneath those screens is a control panel, with a handful of buttons and levers that he hopefully will learn about soon. Above the screens are the words Search, Assist, Dispose written in large golden letters. Sitting in a swivel chair in front of the panel in this white-like-all-walls-here room is a bald middle-aged man currently talking on the phone. Like John and the blonde-haired receptionist who John now realizes he doesn’t know the name of, he is wearing a white shirt. There is so much white here. He holds his finger up to his mouth to shush me before I can speak, then returns his gaze to the panel in front of him. “Yes, ma’am we can send someone to your location momentarily. Will you be using cash or credit? Credit. Alright then, if I could get your card number. Mhm, now security code. The security code is the three numbers typed on the back of the card. Right. Now the month and year of expiration. Alright that’s all I need from you, I’ll dispatch someone to your location to assist you. You said you wanted the premium package? Of course, that’s a great option. You have a nice day,” he hangs up the phone and kicks his foot against the panel, spinning the chair around to face his newest coworker. “Hey there, you must be the new guy. The name’s Gus.” He reaches out to give John a handshake that John graciously accepts. Gus’ hand is clammy. There is a layer of sweat visible on the touch screen that’s part of the panel. It Currently says “Start New Form” in a green box and below it “Sign Out” in red. “It’s a pleasure to meet you,” John replies, nonchalantly wiping his newly moistened hand on his pant leg. “Don’t give me none of that professional bullshit. Outside of this room, use it all you like, but if you use it when we’re in here you’re going to bore us both to tears. Especially since it’s the off season. Mostly we’re just goin’ to be sitting here with no one to talk to but each other.” “Understood. Off seasons?” “Yeah, it’s the middle of Summer. Winter is when things usually pick up. Christmas and Valentine’s Day in particular.” “How long you been working here?” You don’t pick up on trends like that overnight, John thinks. “About…” he scratches his head and rolls his eyes up as if trying to look at the answer in his head, “25 years now.” After his scratching is done he pats his head lightly to fold back down the two or three hairs he still has. “Really? That long?” Yeah. It takes a special person to do a job like this. Often once you start, you never stop.” He stares off at the one screen looking back, John ponders on all the years Gus has worked here. All the things he must have seen. “So what do you know about Happy World? How much have you learned?” Gus plays with buttons on the left side of the panel as he talks and a screen that was showing a map of the United States with little red dots blinking all across the nation is replaced with a radio station playing some old songs by a man named Bowie. He really is old. “Not much honestly. I just know the job is federal and decently easy to get into. Pretty good benefits,” John replies. He takes note of how much Gus moves his hands when he talks. When he isn’t multitasking he seems to be doing some interpretive dance. “Now, I’m supposed to tell you all about H.W.HQ because, well, remember that shitty video they make you watch? I assume they’re still using the same one they showed me decades ago,” the phone rings and Gus transfers the call to another room. He then flips a switch that takes their station offline. The middle screen goes dark. “So, the three branches look at three out of four different aspects of life: economics, socialist businesses which includes police stations, firehouses, and hospitals, and third being accessible nutrition. Through the work of these three departments and our own, H.W. was able to lower crime rates, lower the unemployment rate to almost zero, and make food available to everyone, well, fruits and vegetables at least. Because of the wide success of the program, Kellerman made the program nationwide when he became president three years later and combined the programs into one, realizing that Happy World itself solves most of the problems. Kellerman is the guy ranting and raving on that screen in the lobby when you first walk in if you haven’t heard of him. It’s been a few years now since his assassination. Now we’re one of the biggest government programs in existence with over 100,000 employees. Most do the work we’re doing now, or something similar.” “You’re quite the history buff, aren’t you?” Gus points forcefully at John and whispers, “Knowledge is power my friend. The more you know, the better off you are.” Gus turns to the control panel and stares for a while at the blinking 50

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red light confirming that they are currently offline. “Let’s turn our attention to the control panel. What you need to know here is very simple. When a call comes in, look to screen one and search for a red blinking dot. That will let you know where the call is coming from. Screen two shows you the different districts of dispatchers, that way you can click on and send an officer from the closest location. Screen three will give you updates on the officer’s progress, and screen four gives you payment confirmation if the individual or group is paying by card. As far as the conversation with the customer is concerned, just stick to the script taped to the panel in front of you. It makes the job a lot easier.” Gus then shows John button after button and switch after switch, all of which he’ll use maybe once per year. “That’s all there really is to it,” he concludes. “That’s a lot of information at once, and sort of scattered information at that.” “Damn right! It’s a bit of a scattered job. People call in all different states with all different emotions. Each day is a little different.” He stares off at the blinking dots on one of the screens, the one that represents all calls currently taking place and where the people are calling from on the other end. The light from this screen is reflected in the white of his eyes, some of the blinking dots visible within. “I more so meant all the controls,” John corrects. “Oh. It feels like it, but once you get through the first couple calls you’ll get a hang of it. There’s really no way to learn except to do it around here,” he says as he flips the panel back online. He calls someone on the phone and request a call be sent to their station for training purposes. They both wait silently. Besides the sound of the cooling fans for the panel and Gus’ heavy breathing, there isn’t a ton of noise. Within minutes a call comes through. “If anything goes wrong, I’m right here. Just one switch and I can take over the call. Remember, they can pay by cash or credit. If the cash isn’t there at pickup or their card is declined, there is a program for diverting the cost to loved ones and next of kin that I’ll show you. Unless they ask for something special, assume they want the basic plan.” The phone rings seven times before John picks up. “Hello this is John P. with Happy World. How can I help you today?” A woman sobs helplessly through the phone. “Hello?” John repeats. Maybe the call is a mistake. “I need help,” the woman wimpers. “I just can’t do this anymore.” “Okay. What’s your name?” “Martha,” she responds. Gus replaces his smile with a frown. “Stick to the script. You’re just going to make this harder for yourself.” “Listen Martha, I’m going to help you okay? Just stick with me.” The pause on the other end is long. “My children won’t speak to me anymore. My husband died years ago.” Another pause. “He’s the only man that ever really loved me. Honestly, it’s just time for me to go,” she continues. “Martha I’m going to divert you to one of our other departments. They can help you.” “I don’t want another department!” she screams. The sobs are gone, they are replaced with rage. “It took three years and a bottle of gin to muster up the courage to call you. Just dispatch the officer.” Another pause. “Please.” John will never hear another voice as defeated as her’s. He hesitates a long time thinking of this woman: who is she, what has she done for the world, what did she dream of back when her husband held her? He thinks of his own wife, the day she called. By that point she hadn’t been herself for a while, she was already something else; she was already gone. “Okay,” John surrenders. “Do you have the money ready?” “Yes, one hundred dollars in cash. I’ll show it to the officer when he or she arrives.” “Understood,” he slowly types the information into the keypad and presses enter. The phone rings. Quicker than I thought it would be. He thinks. When was it Lucy called? He asks himself. How much time passed between the moment she called and the moment the officer arrived? How much longer until I found her? “This is officer 2274. Just calling quick for confirmation. I’m about five minutes out.” John holds the phone to his head, but doesn’t reply. Slowly, cautiously, Gus takes the phone from him. “No, just an ordinary run,” he answers. He hangs up the phone. He stares at John. John stares at the screen, waits for the blinking dot to vanish. It vanishes. Gus pats him on the shoulder, the screens lighting up his bald head. “It gets easier as time goes.” He pushes his chair back and grabs a form from a filing cabinet nearby. “Here. When the coroner calls, you’ll need to help him fill out this form.”

The Sanctuary Magazine

Ovation

by Kay Hammond

Two giant hands on either side of a head could crush it with a single clap shatter the skull and pop the brain like a squelching jellyfish a rowdy round of proud applause becomes a massacre with blasts of spraying organic paint misting the air thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the image that I see why my head aches and my jaw pops why I flinch and cringe away when you smile and raise your hands and Clap

Clap

Courtney Andrews Artist

CONTRIBUTORS

Courtney Andrews is a senior English Literature major and Creative Writing minor. In her free time, she enjoys art, cats, and spending way too much time online. page 14

Valeri Lohrman Writer and Poet

Kay Hammond Writer and Poet

Kay is a Junior Creative Writing and Publishing and Editing double major. She has been writing poetry since the third grade. However, she can’t actually prove it, as the majority of that poetry has been burned. Kay often chooses to write to about things that are dark, odd, and/or uncomfortable because she believes there is beauty in (quite literally) everything.

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Mitchell G. Roshannon Writer and Poet

Mitchell G. Roshannon is currently a Creative Writing major and History minor interested mainly in essaying and nonfiction. That said, he loves writing science fiction and odd bits of poetry to break up the sometimes monotonous details of real life.

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Cassidy Ayers Writer

Ever since she first picked up a book, Cassidy has been bewitched by the fantasy genre and how it can be twisted and reimagined to enthrall new generations. Throughout her school years she had her nose in a book and she’s made it her goal to someday write her own. In her first original story, “Enchanted Blooms,” you’ll be whisked into a world where modernity and mysticism coexist and anything could happen.

Valeri Lohrman is the human equivalent of that part of a roller coaster when it crests the tallest hill and your seat restraint suddenly disengages. She is also a senior Creative Writing major and songwriter from southern New Jersey.

Deon Robinson Poet

Deon Robinson is a sophomore Creative Writing major. He spends his time drawing and eating way too much Taco Bell. His favorite hobby is people watching, but college doesn’t allow that luxury anymore.

Writer

Shannon Grasser is a junior Psychology and Creative Writing double major with a minor in Film. She enjoys writing things that make readers squirm a bit.

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Ashleigh Tomcics Poet

Ashleigh Tomcics is a junior English- Secondary Ed and Creative Writing major who enjoys ridiculous memes, cooking shows, and knitting. Her poetry ranges from beautiful to insane and she likes to think it’s pretty good. She walso would like you to know that she’s never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down, never gonna turn around and desert you.

Kerry Lewis

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Poet

Kerry Lewis is a junior Creative Writing and Math double major from Fairfax, Virginia. Their hobbies include writing, being gay, and crying. They hope to one day be a manic pixie dream girl and die tragically young.

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Shannon Grasser

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Jacob Dimpsey Writer

Jacob Dimpsey is a sophomore Creative Writing Major.

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Richard Berwind

Alan G. Codner Artist

Junior Editor or Igor to the Chief

Richard Berwind is a sophomore Creative Writing and English Literature double major. He is Igor to the Chief and he tries to throw his hump into anything and everything he can get his hands on. He likes likes to release his soul into the universe by screaming into the void and then hysterically laugh which then evolves into manic weeping. He hopes to someday have five dogs and pages 7, 28, and 45 an apartment on the moon.

Alan Codner is a senior Creative Writing major and Studio Art minor from upstate New York. His favorite things include B horror movies, surreal art, and chocolate ice cream. While he enjoys paint and digital illustration, his favorite things to use are just a basic ballpoint pen and some crappy computer paper. He draws simply because he lacks the good sense not to.

Sarah Adams

Jacob Tashoff

Web Editor or Grand Master of the Nexus

Writer

Jacob Tashoff, Creative Writing Major class of 2020, swears that he saw a thunder of dragons flying around in a storm on September 25, 2008. This is, he claims, the only proof he needs to avow that dragons live in storm clouds.

Sarah Adams is a senior English Literature and History major with many minors. An expert in time management, Sarah often reads fanfiction for hours instead of doing homework. page 22

Dylan Scillia

Associate Editor or King Cryptid

Photographer

Dylan is a Junior at Susquehanna University studying Early Childhood Education. While photography has nothing to do with his major, it is one of my passions and he tries and indulge in it as often as possible. It is his dream to one day teach in middle schools about the basics to photography, to hopefully open their eyes to the artistic possibilities.

STAFF

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Sarah French

Editor In Chief or Supreme Overlord of the Omnibus

Sarah French is a junior Publishing & Editing major from Portland, Maine. When they’re not holed up in the publishing suite working on The Sanctuary, they like to read books, obsessively stalk other literary magazines, watch cooking shows, and teach sign language.

Joshua Mercier*

Visual Arts Educator or Paragon of Pictorialziation, Writer

Joshua Mercier is a German and Publishing & Editing double major in the class of 2020. He enjoys playing the guitar, drawing, and on special occasions, screaming into the void.

Andrew Wexler

Andrew Wexler is a senior Literature and Publishing & Editing double major, local cryptid, plant parent, and queer disaster. He does not have a preference for any specific genre, as he is too dead inside after doing his class reading to read for fun. Andrew enjoys naps, witchcraft, and terrible puns.

Jennifer Cesak

Public Relations Chair or Resident Head of Thinkpol

Jenn loves to take read, write, take photos, and stress herself out with too many activities and responsibilities. She enjoys fiction and poetry the most, whether it’s reading for pleasure or analyzing work, and being the Public Relations Chair of Sanctuary, she’s gotten many chances to work with amazing pieces of work created by students on campus!

Carling Ramsdell*

Prose Editor or Slasher of Sentences, Wielder of Scythes, Writer

Carling is a sophomore majoring in Creative Writing and Publishing and Editing and minoring in Museum Studies and the Honors Program. When she’s not writing weird stories, she’s volunteering at the historical houses near her home in Fairfax, Virginia. She enjoys reading about King Arthur and obscure fairy tales, and builds dollhouses in her free time.

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*Contributing Editor

The Sanctuary Magazine

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