Stork Magazine Issue 30 (Spring 2021)

STORK 2020 ISSUE • VOLUME 29

STORK 2020 ISSUE • VOLUME 29

Stork Magazine is a fiction journal published by undergraduate students at Emerson College. Initial submissions are workshopped and discussed with the authors, and stories are accepted based on the quality of the author’s revisions. The process is designed to guide writers through rewriting and provide authors and staff members editorial support and an understanding of the editorial and publishing process. Stork is founded on the idea of communication between writers and editors—not a simple letter of rejection or acceptance.

We accept submissions from undergraduate and graduate Emerson students in any department. Work may be submitted at stork.submittable.com during specific submission periods. Stories should be in 12-point type, double-spaced, and must not exceed 4 pages for the “flash fiction” issue. Authors retain all rights upon publication.

For questions about submissions, email storkstory@ gmail.com Stork accepts staff applications at the beginning of each fall semester. We are looking for undergraduate students who are well-read in contemporary fiction and have a good understanding of the short story form.

Copyright © 2020 Stork Magazine Cover design done by Haley Brown Illustrations done by Katherine Fitzhugh and Diana Willand Typesetting done by Amy Yang

MASTHEAD Co-Editors-In-Chief Maya Meisenzahl Thomas McCorkle Managing Editors Abigail Michaud Sadie Hutchings Design Team Haley Brown Amy Yang Katherine Fitzhugh Diana Willand Head Copy Editor Jack Newton Copy Editors Taylor McGowan Charlotte Drummond Maggie Lu

Faculty Advisor William Orem Prose Editors Jack Newton Garrett Speller Emma Kaster Chloe Aldrich Staff Readers Mackenzie Denofio Sara Fergang Brianna Jackman Kate Rispoli Shannon Lawlor Jade Edwards Natalie Vasileff Michelle Moroses

LETTERS FROM THE EDITORS With the end of Spring comes yet another issue of Stork Flash Fiction Issue. We’d like to start by thanking all of the amazing and hard working individuals on Stork’s editorial team. You guys are incredible to say the least, and have put in so many hours scanning over the many fantastic manuscripts we received this semester. Your input during our weekly meetings was always insightful and played a huge role in making this organization as great as it is. To our design and copyediting teams as well, your diligence in getting this issue produced was astounding to watch. Despite continued hardships with Covid-19, we were all able to push through and persevere to get this issue made on time.

To any author that submitted to us this semester, we want to say thank you for sharing your work with us. We understand that it can sometimes be nerve-wracking to send your art to be critiqued by another community or group, and so we appreciate you making that leap for us.

We received so many engaging pieces this semester, and the ones that ended up making the final cut are some of the best. Contained within the pages of this issue, you will find stories filled with laughs, hardships, and many odd characters.

To the readers currently perusing through this issue, we hope you enjoy some of the best that Emerson College has to offer. We had a blast getting to know these stories, and now we hope you will too.

Thank you, and enjoy the Stork Magazine Spring 2021 Issue!

Maya and Thomas Editors-in-Chief

CONTENTS 13

Impurity

By Melanie Lau Illustration by Katherine Fitzhugh

17

Gargoyle

By Lily Mac Hugh Illustration by Katherine Fitzhugh

23

Sellout

By Emma Kaster Illustration by Diana Willand

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Aisle Eight

By Amy Yang Illustration by Diana Willand

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Little Strands of Platitude

By Connor Reich Gibson Illustration by Diana Willand

Impurity

by Melanie Lau illustration by Katherine Fitzhugh

We have heard whispers about you. We have heard that you go out in the dark, into the dense and endless woods, unafraid of the night’s deathly silence. And we are so afraid. You do not live like us.

We are the women of clean skin and fair hair. We live by daylight. When we step outside, we close our eyes for a moment, letting the sun pinch our cheeks the faintest red.

Our fingers smell of herbs, spearmint and lavender, and when the sun reaches the highest point in the sky and our dampened skin sticks to our clothing, we rub rosemary leaves on the backs of our knees, under our breasts, on the pits of our arms. "You smell of the garden,” our husbands say, pressing their noses to our necks.

Through the day, we tend to our gardens. When freshly picked, flax smells like toasted nuts, and the fragrance grows stronger once we pinch open the stem of the plant and pull the thin fibers from within. We often sew together, our spinning wheels arranged in a perfect circle, feet stomping in rhythm on the treadle, the hushhhhh of the spinning wheel lulling us into daydream.

We daydream of sunny days with our husbands, their chests sturdy and smooth beneath our drifting fingers.

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Happy, obedient children, fresh with the scent of lye soap, hair tousled by the wind. The crackle of a fireplace.

The golden crust of baked bread. Full jars of dried pears, plums, and apricots.

We sew underwear and bed sheets through the winter, linen thick enough so chilly drafts do not cut through the cloth. When we wake to blood stains on the white fabric, we press our hands in between our legs as if to hold ourselves in, as if to keep more blood from spilling. Then we replace the soiled sheets. Sometimes, if the sheets are rank with our odor, if the brown patches cannot be washed out, we simply burn the sheets in the fireplace.

The smoke is a light gray and smells of leaves. All evidence left by our monthly bleed is turned to white ash.

Our husbands say they have seen you, that you look as these bed sheets when you emerge from the forest: bloodied, stained. We will never admit it, but we are curious about you. What do you do in the forest? There are plenty of myths. That you hunt as an animal does, sniffing at the muddied floor. That you eat strange roots and mushrooms, and pustules grow upon your face, oozing with poison. When we think about the threat of following you in, we are too petrified to imagine such a nightmare.

We know your lowly, lonely cottage. We can see it from afar, its boarded-up windows, the overgrown grass that surrounds it, and the willow trees which hang low enough for the leaves to graze the ground. None of us have seen you before. None of us know your husband or children. You mustn’t have any. You are a repulsive sort of woman.

The sagging skin under your eyes is purple like midnight, they say. You look like a hog, dirty and flushed pink with shame, they say. In the fall, hogs are butchered. We 14

drain them of blood, a thick stream of red that pools in the weeds. We lay the meat out on woven cloth to dry, and we turn the fat into tallow candles. When we light our homes, the sweetest smell of burnt pig’s meat drifts through the rooms.

When you are accused of witchcraft, our husbands tie you to the cross. They wrap you in a linen sheet. They lay dry twigs and logs at your bare feet, which are gnarled like roots. You burn at sunset. We are pure and proper women. We are not allowed to watch. We cover our noses at the stink of your burnt body. We bow our heads at the hoarse screams that pierce the evening. A punishment as gruesome as this turns our stomachs, sends a flash of pain down our spines. We know you deserve it. We know you are otherworldly. We know all about you, the whispers, the stories. But as the flames lick higher and higher, as the black smoke crawls across the orange sky, we know that one misstep, one misconception, could cost us our lives just as it has cost you yours.

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Gargoyle

by Lily Mac Hugh illustration by Katherine Fitzhugh

It was wet. It was often wet that high up, clinging to the parapet of the abandoned church in the midst of the Amazon. But it wasn't cold, which was something.

Besides, the thick layer of florescent green moss coating its hide would have been decently insulating if the fug of humidity ever dropped away.

The gargoyle twisted a kink out of its neck, setting off a cascade of lichen and crawling insects with the creaking movement. It peered with glacial slowness down through the hole in the partially collapsed roof, pitted limestone eyes swiveling with a low grinding noise as it surveyed its terrain. The church teemed with small movements: dart frogs making their way across the moldering leaves that coated the stone floor, uncountable insects going about their tiny lives. And the beasts.

It watched the slow rise and fall of the capybaras’ chests as they slept beside the pulpit, its stone face crinkled with disdain. The church had gone through many changes of occupancy over the past few hundred years, since the old priest disappeared, and now this. In the years after the priest there had been generations of golden lion tamarins residing in the hollow of a tree that had grown 17

straight through the floor. They had been noisy, constantly chattering and screeching, their movements like bursts of orange light that flashed across the shadowy room. Before them, the church stood silent for years.

The villagers had ransacked the stone building, moving through it like a haunting, the church a ghost itself. Their steps were creeping and careful, wordlessly avoiding the spot where the old man had made his sermons. The priest had never learned the tongue of the village, though his parish had tried to teach him. He had clung to Latin as a drowning man clings to a raft. That last night he had merely nodded as they told him the secrets of the frothing, coppery drink they each took in small and careful sips. Ayahuasca they called it, but he drank it like communion wine and soon even the gargoyle could see his pupils from its perch on the roof. They were big as black moons, his mouth wide and smiling when it was usually so dour and thin. And it had watched the man walk with stumbling steps into the deep forest, past the boundaries of the village, past the sight line of the gargoyle. And he did not walk back.

It waited, and watched, but the priest was gone and no other came to replace him. Perhaps that was for the best.

The village returned to its old ways, leaving the indelible sins and droning hymns to rot along with the pews. They took what was beautiful, pulling free the stained-glass windows built into the wall below its parapet, carefully smashing the fragments of Jesus. They divvied up limbs and ears and the pained grimace, all of the colorful pieces displayed in altars throughout the little huts mushrooming along the river. The bibles they stripped and stitched back together to patch roofs, pad beds: relics remade. The children wet the pages with tacky mud to build strange 18

figures and masks with gaping mouths held over their own as they chased each other about the village. One mask even resembled the gargoyle, though with a friendlier face, the child’s mimicking movements slow and stiff.

It watched them through gaps in the trees, at their leaping play, and wanted to hate them, to resent them for the loss of the priest who had brought it with such care from home, as his only companion in the strange place, because no church was complete without a gargoyle. But now the children didn’t play in the church, and it was truly alone. No one came back after everything of use had been brought out; the church had been left to its own devices.

The Amazon took it back readily, greedily. The insects, which the priest had never been able to ward against, were the first to settle in and were followed by hungry things that were happy to be out of the rain. One such creature brought in breadnuts, smashed each green fruit against the cobbled floor till the brown nuts jettisoned in a great arc. A few slipped between the cracks, to find dark, waiting soil beneath.

The ramón tree grew faster than it should have, bursting forth to dislodge the painstakingly laid flagstones, rising till leaves brushed the arched ceiling, then further still. The gargoyle had been forced to sidle slowly along its perch over many days as the branches punctured through the ceiling. It watched in dismay as the stone roof caved in, the collapse burying the moss-coated crucifix on the wall. But with the tree came the tamarins and birds like living colors, climbing vine green and achiote red. They were loud but beautiful, their gilt and flash reminiscent of the embroidered hems of the old priest’s robes.

Those were gone now, too. And the capybaras were 19

boring and slow. The eleven or so lumbering beasts spent most of their time half-submerged in the deep pool of stagnant water that had formed at the center of the room, growing wider with each rainfall. The most exciting thing the creatures ever did was to consume their own excrement each morning when they arose. It hated them.

It missed the stupid monkeys.

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21

Sellout

by Emma Kaster illustration by Diana Willand

There were few things in this world Betty Jean cared for more than her humble farmhouse and its surrounding cornfields. Her husband had left her for another woman decades before, and her children were all grown and gone away. All that remained was Betty Jean and her little farm, the farm and little Betty Jean.

Despite her size and age, she was not a woman to be underestimated. Though she was small, Betty Jean was as strong as any other farmer and had hands just as calloused, too. Though her hair had long since faded to gray, Betty Jean needed no extra help with her cornfields.

During the academic year, she worked as a school bus driver; she was always careful to save money in case yields weren’t as profitable as anticipated. Betty Jean was a wellto-do woman, an unwavering and true Nebraska farmer, and so when her doctor broke the news that she had bone cancer, she asked, “Well, doc, how long do I got?” The doctor told her she had a year. She said that was enough time and was on her way.

One year was enough time for Betty Jean to have one more corn harvest. A year would be enough for her to get her affairs in order at the bank and draft her will. A year 23

gave her enough time to do repairs in the house so that it was all fixed up for whatever her two children decided to do with it. Bone cancer aside, she decided her final year would be no different from any other. She wasn’t one for dramatics. While some might call her cold or unusual, she always did what she needed to for her survival. Betty Jean knew the world was not kind; the world did not care this way or that; the world was the way it was, and she learned long ago to either adapt and move on or be left a fool.

What Betty Jean did not expect was for her body to fail her so quickly and for the splintering, shattering pain to keep her from driving bus for the second half of the school year. She did not anticipate that she would not be able to plant corn in April nor harvest it in September.

She had never once thought her final months would be spent in and out of the hospital for treatments or stuck in bed drowsy from painkillers.

The world was not kind, this she knew, and so when her hospital bills outweighed her life’s savings, Betty Jean needed to make a decision. At this rate, she would be gone by Thanksgiving, and her children would then be left responsible for her funeral costs and her impossible medical expenses and her farm. Her farm. She loved her children in her own way, in a way that wasn’t obvious, and in fact many criticized her seemingly cold way of parenting, but she had always been a farmer, even before she was ever a mother. She didn’t much care for what the busybodies in town had to say about that.

With the crushing weight of her debt looming over her brittle bones, Betty Jean made the only decision she could, one she swore she never would, and called up James Hitchman.

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“Hello? I need the number of that investor of yours.

Yes, the one that turned up at your place while back. How much did they pay you again?”

“My, oh my, Betty Jean. Isn’t this a surprise…”

James lived half an hour south in a yellow farmhouse surrounded by soybean fields. Five years ago, a burly man in a suit and a slick cowboy hat had shown up on his porch with a proposition: sell the land to his investors, work on the farm like he normally did, use their equipment and products, receive a reasonable percentage of the profits, and rest assured he would never have to worry about the farm ever going under—because it would no longer belong to James. After five generations of the Hitchman family farm, James sold to the investment group and had been living well ever since. Betty Jean thought him to be a sellout and a disgrace to his family name.

But now, after hanging up with James, Betty Jean understood that it was too good a deal for anyone, especially in her position, to pass up. She was dying. She owed more money than she had ever made. She needed to get in contact with that corporate fellow. After years of her sly jabs and covert insults, James was all too smug while listening to Betty Jean explain her unfortunate circumstance and gleefully passed along the investor’s telephone number.

It was a last resort, the only way for her to do as she’d always done and make sure her children were provided for, whether they realized it or not. Within two weeks, she called the telephone number from James and signed away her land to the investment group. They contracted James and his workers to take over the corn operations since she was no longer able.

Betty Jean succumbed to the sickness picking away at 25

her bones and passed away in her sleep, in a house that was no longer hers—all debts paid.

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27

Aisle Eight

by Amy Yang illustration by Diana Willand

“Clean up on aisle eight.”

Dread. Stomach-dropping fear. That can of corn had never felt so heavy in Bethany's hands. Snapping her head up, she looked around frantically. Across the aisle she spotted Joey's lanky frame standing uselessly around half-opened boxes and rows of dried pasta on the shelves.

Bingo. Bethany pulled herself off the floor and slowly approached the new recruit. She couldn’t tell when he sensed her presence, but Joey suddenly turned around, his fear-filled eyes meeting hers. To outsiders, it may have seemed like a moment of understanding. Unity. Passionate and forbidden love, even. But Bethany knew better.

This was war.

In moments like this it was always imperative to strike first. Flashing her best Head Sales Associate smile, Bethany spoke: “Hey Joey, how’s it going?”

“Uh, good? I—” “Great! Do you mind doing me a lil' favor and deal with aisle eight today? I can help you finish unboxing the pasta in the meantime. I’ll even put the pallet back for you!”

“I’m good,” Joey muttered, going on the offense. “I 29

mean, I cleaned up the coffee bean spill last week, so I think it's your turn to deal with it, right?”

Bethany parried, “Well, here at Ralph’s Grocery and Goods, we sales associates usually don’t count personal messes in the rotational cleaning schedule, especially personal messes that take two hours to clean!” Joey flushed red. Perfect. Time to go for the kill. “However, as Head Sales Associate I can totally teach you how to work the coffee dispenser later today! That way, you’ll know not to stick your hand up the machine to get the beans out next time!”

Silence. Bethany had won this fight—with underhanded tactics, of course, but such was the way of retail.

Her mind wandered back towards the cans of corn, her body about to follow suit when Joey spoke up.

“First of all, head sales associate is just a dumb title that doesn't actually make you the boss of me. Secondly, it only took me two hours to clean up the beans because I had to use my hands. Because someone else was using the broom, Bethany.”

Crap. He knew about her sins. “I told you, I needed it!

For. Y’know. Purposes.”

Joey snorted. “Like using it to break into the manager’s office with a cartful of SOLO cups and soda cans—” Joey stopped, courtesy of Bethany covering his mouth and holding him in a headlock.

“Shut it,” she hissed into his ear. “Do you wanna get me fired today?”

“Mhgphh?”

“Fine,” Bethany sighed, letting go of Joey as he tumbled onto the floor. “I’ll deal with it. But not a word to anyone else about the soda prank. Got it?”

Joey could only muster a terse nod. She gave him a 30

glare and spun around, leaving him on the ground. Time was of the essence as Bethany raced towards aisle eight, armed with a mop from an unattended cleaning cart.

Loud wailing began to echo down the aisles.

“I want key lime yogurt NOW!” The unholy screeching pierced her ears before Bethany even rounded the corner and saw her. Caked from head to toe in key lime yogurt and rolling on the floor in discarded yogurt cups and rage was Deborah Daniels. Lil’ Debby, as the neighbors lovingly called her. The workers at Ralph’s simply did not refer to her by name in fear of invoking her wrath. Every week the gremlin was brought into the store, screaming about Biffy the Dragon branded yogurt and wreaking havoc upon the poor employees scheduled that day.

As usual, a small crowd of shoppers had gathered to marvel at the destruction. Lil’ Debby’s mother stood to the side, so exhausted that she may as well have been a corpse. Seeing Bethany, she merely shook her head as if to say, Don’t. There’s nothing any of us can do.

Even so, a job’s a job and money’s money. Bethany steeled herself, then inched slowly towards the screaming child.

“Hi there, miss,” she whispered as she crouched down.

“I’m gonna need you to get up and get off the floor.”

“But I. WANT. YOGURT. BIFFY LIKES YOGURT, SO I WANT YOGURT!” Lil’ Debby smacked her fists onto the floor, hard. Bethany wiped some yogurt off of her own face. Key lime. Biffy’s favorite.

Feeling her Customer Service Smile becoming more of a Customer Service Grimace, Bethany inched closer and reached out to Debby to pick her up. “I know Biffy is green or whatever, but I think you’ve had enough for now.

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So let’s just get up and—” “NO!” A disgustingly slimy slap echoed through the dairy section.

An audible gasp filled the otherwise silent aisle. Before she could start screaming again, Lil’ Debby froze. Her eyes widened, staring at the woman in front of her. Bethany’s once-pristine Head Sales Associate face was now marred by a smear of yogurt that dribbled down onto her uniform. She could hear someone familiar behind her cackling at her plight. Joey.

Y’know what? Fuck it. I literally don’t get paid enough for this.

“Hey kid.” Bethany’s voice was dangerously quiet as she stood up, towering over the quivering child. “Y’know what? I’ll tell you what Biffy likes. Biffy likes coffee.”

“He does?”

“Oh yeah, he does. He loves that stuff. Drinks that crap every day. Do you want to know who can help you get some coffee?”

Lil’ Debby nodded.

Bethany turned around and pointed squarely at Joey.

Joey's face morphed in fear as he realized just what Bethany had done, though by then he didn't even have the time to curse her out as Lil' Debby approached him.

Siccing a rabid child on a helpless coworker may have been a bit much, but hey. That's retail for you.

With the problem now outside of her jurisdiction, Bethany returned to the mess in front of her. She began to mop almost robotically, trying to ignore the screams coming from a few aisles away.

But then, she heard it.

The crash. The screams. And, like a storm in the distance, the sound of something cascading down onto the 32

floor.

The beans.

Bethany cackled in delight, unable to keep up her Head Sales Associate persona any longer. Finally. Maybe now Joey will learn who's really in charge here. She leaned on the mop in triumph only to feel herself slipping and— Bethany opened her eyes. Dazed, she was now on the floor, green gunk smeared all over her face. The only thing she could mentally register was the taste of yogurt in her mouth. Key lime.

Biffy’s favorite.

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Little Strands of Platitude

by Connor Reich Gibson illustration by Diana Willand

You’ve worked in customer service for long enough. You don’t need to remind yourself to put on the persona when a customer walks in. It slides on and off, worn smooth over time, like wood sanded as soft as skin.

Phrases you were taught to repeat blur into long words.

They fall out of your mouth as easy as your own birthday, your friend’s name, your phone number. hiwelcomeinwhatcanigetforya You’re chipper and bubbly with some, falsely nice with others, simpering or abrupt whenever you need to be. You can tell which voice to use as soon as a customer enters.

You can tell who wants a receipt and who doesn’t. You can tell who to ask for a tip. They don’t have to tell you. largevanillalattewithoatmilkgreenandnuttysaladpistachiocroissant Your fingers fly on the register. You no longer need to look. You know the menu better than you know yourself.

You’re not supposed to take longer than you need to.

You’re supposed to strike up a conversation with the customers. You’re supposed to keep the line moving. You’re 35

supposed to recommend all of the specials. Every time you mess up, you apologize out of habit.

You straighten stacks of flyers knocked askew by real Coach bags. You can tell they’re real Coach bags because the owners don’t tip. hiwelcomeinwhatcanigetforya The winter menu rolls out, then the Valentine’s specials, then the spring menu, then the summer menu, then the Fourth of July specials the fall menu the Halloween specials the Thanksgiving specials the holiday season specials the winter menu the almondmacchiatoturkeyblatkouignamannandamueslicup You wear no nametag. Only twice in your months? years? weeks? working here has anybody ever asked your name. he first one was a man, older than your father but younger than your grandfather. You brought him coffee, black. He wanted cream. You apologized profusely. You brought him coffee with cream and no sugar. He wanted sugar. You apologized profusely.

Is it that hard to remember something like that?

You were very sorry. He asked for your manager. Of course you’d get your manager. He apologized to the man, offered him a free coffee, and gently ushered him out the door, sprinkling sorrys as he walked. He patted you on the shoulder, told you you did nothing wrong, told you to shrug it off. You tried your best, but isitthathard rang in your ears for the rest of the day. You double- and triple-checked orders. You checked in with every customer.

You told yourself you didn’t have the room to make a mistake. hiwelcomeinwhatcanigetforya 36

The kitchen is loud, bustling, with overflowing shelves.

The cooks’ uniforms are stained, splattered with cooked spinach, tomato sauce, garlic aioli, lemon juice, and mashed avocado. Your work shirt is pristine and white.

Your apron is pristine and white. The bandana that keeps your curls off your forehead is pristine and white. You feel a bizarre urge, when you walk in from the snow, to shine your shoes. halloumisaladcanyouaddchickentothatglutenfreeoatmealcookieandacheesecakeandcaniha veaglassofwaternoice You say corner. You say behind. You say careful, the floor’s wet. You and your coworkers develop a language.

You perform your closing shifts in elliptical orbits, passing close enough to ask for coffee filters or Multi-Clean or cutlery packets. hiwelcomeinwhatcanigetforya The second one was a young woman on her way to the bathroom. You were speed-walking from one station to the next. You had a coffee cake in your hand and three receipts tucked into your apron. You turned a corner and bumped into her, barely avoiding dropping the coffee cake.

Um, excuse me?

You apologized. You apologized again. You hoped she was okay.

Where is your manager?

The cycle repeated: your manager apologized, apologized again, walked her out the door, reminded you to be more careful. You promised you would. Every time you made a mistake for the rest of the day, you heard umexcuseme?

The pastry case arrives. You know you have five trays of 37

desserts to wrap and put away. You know you have four shelves of cold case to restock. You know you need five crumb cheesecakes nine blue seven red two lemon tartsmaybethreebecausetheybreak two chocolate mousse lemonmintmeringuetiramisuespressomousecakeyouneedthreeofthose You wipe down a table. You mop the floor. A woman spills her coffee while racing out the door to catch an Uber and flings a sorry! behind her. The cold wind, rushing in as she throws open the door, catches it. It’s tossed around, a ball of yarn in a cat’s paws, unraveling as it flies.

Little strands of platitude spin and twirl to the floor.

Sorry! they whisper as they land. Sorry! Thank you! Have a good one!

You sweep them into a pile, then into a dustpan, then tip them into a trash bin. You wipe down a table. hiwelcomeinwhatcanigetforya A man walks out of the bathroom, pulling his thick winter coat back on. You’re in the middle of racing back and forth between the expo iPad and the pass. The floors need to be swept and mopped. The trash has to go out.

The sandwich bags need napkins in them the plants have to be watered the waste log needs filled out the bathrooms need cleaned the need the need the need and you almost bump into him. Sorry comes out of your mouth, a reflex by now. Easy as your friend’s name. Easy as your birthday.

What’s your name? he says, and your heart sinks into your stomach.

You did another thing wrong. The manager will hear about it. You’ll be fired. You fucked up. You’ll be fired.

You fucked up. You’llbefiredyoufuckedupyou’llbefiredyou fuckedupyou’llbefiredyoufuckedupyou’llbe He asks for 38

your name.

Connor, you say.

Connor. You’re doing a tough job, man. I appreciate it.

Thank you.

He walks out. The wind tugs at the thank you, but you’re holding it close to your chest. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you.

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About the Authors Melanie Lau is a senior at Emerson College, working towards a BFA in creative writing. Although she specializes in fiction, she loves to dabble in nonfiction and poetry. In any case, she writes emotional stories, ones that strike the heart and linger in the mind.

Lily Mac Hugh currently lives in Connecticut and is an MFA candidate in Fiction. She is a writer, illustrator and new dog mom. You can find more of her work on her website, www.lilymachugh.com Emma Kaster is a publishing major in the 4+1 program at Emerson. She writes fiction, nonfiction, and will read just about anything. Trees make her emotional.

Amy Yang is TV Production major at Emerson, with a focus in screenwriting and animation. She’s been drawing and writing since she was alive, which is a very long time.

Her free time is consumed by composing bad MIDIs and pretending she knows how to play video games.

Connor Reich Gibson is a freshman at Emerson College studying creative writing and art history. In his free time, he likes to bake bread and explore Boston.

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About the Type The running text for this issue is set in Adobe Caslon Pro, designed for Adobe by Carol Twombly based on specimen pages by William Caslon between 1734 and 1770.

The display types for this book are Ubuntu, designed

by Vincent Connare for the default type for Ubuntu OS in Ubuntu 10.10; Bitter, designed by Sol Matas; and DIN Condensed, designed by Manvel Shmavonyan and Tagir Safayev.

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