Issue 4: Mirabilia

KingFisher THE

MIRABILIA.

MAGAZINE

A QUARTERLY LITERARY JOURNAL. ISSUE IV

SPRING 2024

TRIGGER WARNING - THE WORKS IN THIS MAGAZINE MAY CONTAIN REFERENCES TO THEMES OF VIOLENCE, SEX, AND TRIGGERING OR TRAUMATIC SITUATIONS WHICH SOME INDIVIDUALS MAY FIND DISTRESSING. READ AT YOUR DISCRETION.

COPYRIGHT © 2024 BY THE KINGFISHER MAGAZINE ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. NO PART OF THIS PUBLICATION MAY BE REPRODUCED, DISTRIBUTED, OR TRANSMITTED IN ANY FORM OR BY ANY MEANS, INCLUDING PHOTOCOPYING, RECORDING, OR OTHER ELECTRONIC OR MECHANICAL METHODS, WITHOUT THE PRIOR WRITTEN PERMISSION OF THE PUBLISHER, EXCEPT IN THE CASE OF BRIEF QUOTATIONS EMBODIED IN CRITICAL REVIEWS AND CERTAIN OTHER NONCOMMERCIAL USES PERMITTED BY COPYRIGHT LAW. FOR PERMISSION REQUESTS, WRITE TO THE PUBLISHER, ADDRESSED “ATTENTION: PERMISSIONS COORDINATOR,” AT THE EMAIL ADDRESS BELOW. THE KINGFISHER MAGAZINE LONG BEACH, CALIFORNIA, 90814 WWW.THEKINGFISHERMAGAZINE.COM THEKINGFISHERMAG@GMAIL.COM

s ’ r n o o t i te d e

I appreciate that we are honest about liking the Middle Ages for its aesthetics. We have made beautiful stories out of the Middle Ages ever since they were the present day, and that sense of

performance has remained in both casual and professional accounts of the period. This is why I

find mirabilia as a genre so interesting: in a world where everything is an exhibition, what still stands out as a spectacle?

I can see practically anything in the world with an hour of time to kill and a strong internet connection.

There is, impossibly, nothing new under the sun.

Everything has been documented and explained and made inert. So I take heart in the wide-eyed appreciation these medieval writers encourage.

Think of mirabilia as an engagement with the otherwise unknown and unknowable. It is a guide to the fragmentary (re)discovery of the world, and it

gently stretches the boundaries of our certainties. I

hope it encourages you to engage curiously and

sincerely with the wide world. I continue to believe in the possibility of miraculous things, and I hope you do too.

“I find myself drawn to portraits in my photography, captivated by their intimate allure.

In this particular piece, I sought to highlight David’s beauty, challenging the misconception that masculinity and beauty are mutually exclusive.

I utilized tulle to emphasize his features and evoke an ethereal quality.”

Jayla Neret.

The image is a monoprint made by painting directly on to a silkscreen and then pulled through like a regular screen print.

Lou.

Present Archeology: Funnel Cake Batter Pouring Vessel, (2023) series of slip-cast porcelain vessels, dimensions vary.

With Present Archeologies: Funnel Cake Batter Pouring Vessels, I bring attention to the making process of injection molded plastic objects by drawing the viewer’s attention to the mold lines. With this fabrication method, the mold lines are difficult and costly to remove: they become a physical memory of how the object was made. Mold lines are present in the objects we surround ourselves with; they are so commonplace that they become unnoticeable. In the future, will be a visual marker of our time, where capitalism pushes us to rapidly produce cheap and disposable objects. By leaving the excess material from the slip casting process untrimmed, I turn this accident into a choice, a decorative element.

Thalya Jouin.

ANNIE HART. O Slow the Hand and Fleet the Hoof Upon the Mountainside Where Men Within Their Prisoning Hills Have Stayed (2024)

This piece is titled after a line from James Still’s poem, “Journey beyond the Hills” from the 1937 book, “Hounds on the Mountain” a personal reflection on Appalachian life, and is part of a 10-painting series. The hands are raised as if in prayer to nature, to the plants surrounding them (great rhododendron and bleeding hearts). The composition is intended to mimic a handmade quilt.

I

HELD THE

SUN

IN

MY

HANDS Jenna Miller.

held the sun in my hands. It was cold.

My calloused thumbs rubbed up and down against its grain. Up and up, toward the sky. Down and down, toward the Earth.

I was blindfolded. But beneath the layers of gauze wrapped around my eyes, all I saw was red. It was sunlight, pure sunlight, filtered through the blood in my eyelids.

“We found it in one of the mines out East. We’re not sure what it’s called,” the Priest said.

“Who found it?”

Up and up.

“A child. The poor thing lost her vision.”

Down and down.

“Do you think you can do it?”

I turned the stone in my hands, feeling its weight. “Yes, I think so. It will be difficult, however, to craft by touch alone.”

“Sure.”

“Can I ask a question?”

“Of course.”

A soft hand touched mine and took the stone. Away went the red, toward the other side of the room. I heard quiet footsteps, quieter, quieter – then none at all.

“I’m happy to do the work. But I wonder – why make something like this, something that can’t be seen? Or at least, can’t be seen without causing great injury?”

I heard the click of a box lid. Hands were on me suddenly, gently, to remove my blindfolds. Layer by layer, I found daylight. The Priest stood before me. I could tell by the white fog in her eyes, she was forged, not born to this work. She held her hands against her abdomen.

“It will be an offering to our Lady of Light,” she said without further explanation.

I nodded. And then I said, “In her name.”

My wife was pleased with the assignment. For she was blind, and an expert navigator of all things unseen.

“Is it enough?” she asked, wrapping gauze over my eyes.

“One more layer, please.”

She obliged. “How about now?”

“Good, thank you.”

Her hand in mine led me to my workstation. I found my seat and settled there. She rested my palms on the table and then began her instruction. One by one, she guided my hand over each tool. “Your grinding stone,” she said. “Your hammer.

Some tea.” And on she went.

It was dream-like, the way each object retained my memory of it. I held my hammer by its smooth leather hilt – which I recalled was walnut brown - and imagined a hundred gems, a thousand gems, all chiseled by this hammer, all shaped by my hand.

I heard the click. And then the red came and drenched me.

“Your stone,” she said, with reverence, placing it in front of me.

I reached out and took the coarse thing between my fingers. The first step would be rounding: finding symmetry. But this stone was harder, I could tell, than the turquoise I had cut yesterday. I needed my sharper tools.

I set the stone down and began my hunt for a worthy chisel. It was clumsy, the way I navigated the next.

With my elbow, I knocked the hammer off my desk. And although I bent down quickly to get it, it was lost to the clutter. I patted my hand in careless circles, bumped my head on the wall shelf, seeking and seeking – Then I met my wife’s hand. Soft and steady, she placed the hammer back in my palm.

“I’ll be here if you need me.”

Between every sunrise and sunset, my world was red. It was a burden, this blindness – there were days I soaked the grinding stone in my own blood.

Every time I yelled out in fleeting pain or exasperation, my wife rushed to me.

“You poor blind man,” she teased, caring for whatever minor wound, bringing more tea.

With enough ritual, with enough trial, the stone soon took shape into a round, flat disc.

I liked it when my wife stayed nearby while I worked. She hummed melodies from our childhood, melodies I had forgotten.

She enjoyed being my supervisor.

“How is it going, honey?”

“Good.”

“Let me feel it?” And she came over and took the thing in her hand. She was very quiet, then offered criticism.

“There’s a rough edge here, do you feel it?”

“I do.”

We repeated scenes like this, over and over, until I learned this new language. Soon, the stone was soft like butter, soft like jade.

“Perfect,” she said one day, “Smooth like a pearl, smooth like running water.”

The time came to work on the metal setting that would hold the stone. I drafted my designs in the usual way, by daylight.

I found myself distracted by all of it: the lily-white paper, the squid ink, the winestained tile on the floor, the window – especially the window.

On the solstice, I climbed to my rooftop and laid with my back flat to the slope, chin toward the sky. Up above me, the sun beamed, and underneath my eyelids, I found red again. I watched the red dance along my horizon, East to West.

That night, I dreamed of an elliptical collar, round like the arc of the sun. The stone was set at its center: at high noon.

The priest was quick to approve the design. She requested I use Sunrise Gold, which I agreed was the most fitting tribute to our Lady.

When I went to the market to purchase the gold, I closed my eyes whenever I wanted to hear the wind, or smell fresh herbs, or taste – really taste – my favorite knotted bread. I even chose the gold bar by touch, by criteria of texture, temperature, hand-feel, and soul.

That night, I dyed our linen curtains in lamb’s blood under moonlight.

I melted the gold over orange fire in the early hours after sunrise.

As I waited for the metal to cool and set into its shape, I sat with my wife under red glow as she folded our laundry.

“Is it red for you, too?”

“No, but it’s not – well, it’s not a color.”

“No color?”

“Sometimes I remember colors, but I don’t see them.”

“Do you ever miss it?”

She put down the dress and held the question in her hands. “Sometimes.”

The completed work now rested in my hands. I traced the curve of the cool metal, the silken stone with my calloused thumbs.

I smelt something spiced and felt the heat of our oven from a room over.

I heard footsteps. They were soft, then grew louder and louder. Closer and closer.

“More tea, honey.”

I heard her pouring, her setting the pot down when she finished.

“It’s done.”

I felt her move toward me, refiguring the gravity of the room. She took the necklace in her hands, with reverence.

“Beautiful.”

She was, I thought.

“Put it on,” I said.

She just laughed and shoved it back to me. “This is a trick.”

“No trick. Try it anyway.”

I pulled out the stool for her and waited as she found her seat. I set her palms upon the table.

I grazed my hand up and up her arm, her shoulder, her collarbone. I moved away her soft hair – which I recalled was walnut brown. With delicate precision, I set the sunlight collar upon her neck.

I stepped back and admired the red glow, now radiating from her chest. I was thoughtful.

I unwrapped my gauze, layer by layer. I kept my eyes shut until the end.

“How does it look?”

The gauze fell from my face, and I opened my eyes.

“Beautiful.”

This piece showcases a chronological collection of photos taken through either a microscope or stereoscope.

These pictures were taken from January-December 2023 during two different lab classes at the University of Minnesota.

Many of the images show results of Gram stains, and several others show bacterial colonies grown on a variety of media.

Hattie Heiland.

UNDER SUMMER’S LAST FULL MOON. 24x20” (2023) Oil on Canvas

Olivia Juliet Taylor.

Dispatch from the

Path of

Totality

by Alexa Lewis

Notes on my 3 minutes in darkness.

Cheers echoed through the streets as the city was plunged into darkness. Thousands of voices rose to meet one another, melting into a single chorus. I sat on my porch, my jacket pulled tightly around my shoulders to fend off the sudden drop in temperature and stared with disbelief— directly into the sun.

For weeks, even months before the total solar eclipse in Burlington, Vermont a sense of excited preparation pervaded. Public offices unpacked boxes brimming with thousands of protective glasses, their cardboard rims splattered with the logos of local sponsors. Window displays lining Church Street Marketplace gradually filled with eclipse-themed merchandise. Sun and moon jewelry, t-shirts with images of cartoon cows gazing into the sky, and commemorative bottles of maple syrup. Government officials called in mobile satellites and cell towers to increase the bandwidth available for emergency calls in anticipation of massive crowds. Eventually, nearly 160,000 eclipse chasers made their way into the state.

Hotels with zero vacancies. Roads and grocery stores closed. Shops and restaurants packed wallto-wall with bodies, made stifling by a collective human heat. These were the things that characterized the weekend before April 8th, the day of the prophesied event. My excitement began to dwindle as I stood pressed against other patrons in a coffee shop I typically value for its relaxed atmosphere, beginning to wonder how badly I was actually craving that espresso milkshake. After a few shifts at Crow Bookshop spent clinging to the cashier’s desk like a raft in a sea of people, I began to think cynically about the entire affair.

For weeks, even months before the total solar eclipse in Burlington, Vermont a sense of excited preparation pervaded. Public offices unpacked boxes brimming with thousands of protective glasses, their cardboard rims splattered with the logos of local sponsors. Window displays lining Church Street Marketplace gradually filled with eclipse-themed merchandise. Sun and moon jewelry, t-shirts with images of cartoon cows gazing into the sky, and commemorative bottles of maple syrup. Government officials called in mobile satellites and cell towers to increase the bandwidth available for emergency calls in anticipation of massive crowds. Eventually, nearly 160,000 eclipse chasers made their way into the state.

Hotels with zero vacancies. Roads and grocery stores closed. Shops and restaurants packed wallto-wall with bodies, made stifling by a collective human heat. These were the things that characterized the weekend before April 8th, the day of the prophesied event. My excitement began to dwindle as I stood pressed against other patrons in a coffee shop I typically value for its relaxed atmosphere, beginning to wonder how badly I was actually craving that espresso milkshake. After a few shifts at Crow Bookshop spent clinging to the cashier’s desk like a raft in a sea of people, I began to think cynically about the entire affair.

The crowds I had days ago found electrifying had outworn their novelty and any excitement I had felt simply fizzled into exhaustion. As I wove my way around strollers and tourists wearing their freshly bought flannels to reach my apartment, thoughts about the eclipse shrank to the back of my mind. My workday concerns moved to the forefront: the schoolwork I needed to do, the articles I needed to write, the apartment I needed to find for the fast-approaching first day of my first real adult job—in a town I’d never been to. By the time I pushed my front door open with its characteristic squeal, all I wanted to do was begin to whittle down my list of to-dos. Or take a nap.

I was greeted by my partner, Dylan, with a kiss. And by our dog, Bubby, with a shoe. I sat down, flipped open my laptop, and watched as my many windows of responsibility sprung to life. It began to feel like any other Monday afternoon. I still had things to do, and a class in a few hours to prepare for. The din of the crowds, the atmosphere of anticipation—all of it felt suddenly far away.

But then the light streaming in through my window began to change. Gone were the bright, golden rays of early spring sunshine. Instead, a sterile, grey haze reminiscent of hospital corridors blanketed the room. A glimmer of childlike anticipation fluttered in my stomach.

I drifted onto the porch, where Bubby already sat staring intently through the wooden slats of the banister. Through the black film of my eclipse lenses, the sun floated above me as a distant but dented orb of light. A perfectly round disc with a tentative bite taken out of the lower right corner.

Such a small section of the sun obscured, yet such a dramatic change to everything below it. The shadows cast by trees became scatterings of crescents. When Dylan held a pasta strainer up to the building’s white siding, dozens of little semicircle shadows winked back at us.

The moon continued to crawl almost imperceptibly in front of the sun, and I began to pace back and forth in and out of the apartment. To my laptop to send an email, then back to the porch.

Inside to jot something in my planner, then back outside to stare into the sky, to estimate the minutes separating us from totality.

Eventually, the sliver of sunlight became precariously thin, the moon warping its glow to create strange orbs that wavered in its path. Everything went silent. No cars passed on the streets below.

No birds called into the false twilight. The buildings themselves sprawled before me seemed to draw an intake of breath.

That last ray of sunlight slipped into blackness and was gone.

Whoops and cheers rose from every direction. Music blared from stereos and a few dogs howled in the distance. Not without hesitation, I let my protective glasses fall from my eyes and like everyone else, I looked up.

What I saw alongside so many others that day was nothing short of magic. I understood with newfound assuredness why ancient civilizations hailed celestial events like this one as harbingers of doom or symbols of rebirth. A ring of fire stared down upon us like an unblinking eye. It was like every professional photo and rendition I’d seen on posters and websites leading up to that day, but with an indescribable gravity. An immensity that made all my earlier worries seem small and insignificant. It was like seeing a murmuration of starlings or a bloom of bioluminescent plankton for the first time; a breathtaking reminder that there is beauty in the world and that our planet, our universe, is far vaster than the individual lives we so often fail to look beyond.

A frigid breeze rolled over the rooftops, and I shivered in the absence of sunlight. The beating of wings drew my attention to the large brown owl that flew overhead. Bubby sniffed the air anxiously, his blue eye flashing in the dark as he glanced around him. Dylan and I craned our necks upwards, like sunflowers straining towards a black hole where the sun should be. The three minutes of totality passed like seconds, and we were snapped inevitably out of our trance by a newly exposed corner of the sun which blinded us momentarily with its white-hot light.

The greyish haze and scattered shadows returned. Receded. Masses of people scattered from the banks of Lake Champlain, meandering back to their hotel rooms and college dorms while Dylan and I took Bubby for a walk around the block. After all the preparation and anticipation, it was over. Everything was the same as it had been before, but everything felt lighter. My mood was lifted. My anxieties about deadlines and moving more distant. I passed the smiling faces of neighbors and students whose movements seemed looser, their laughter giddier.

Moments of sheer amazement are rare, but they leave their mark. Lifting the lid from our small realities to let a little air in—a little darkness to let us appreciate the light.

Brief

Naomi Madlock.

MI RA CL ES

Summer happened overnight – everything primal green and vertical at the old millpond.

Reeds and rushes shaking off countless insects. Pond skaters scintillating the surface, while whirligigs weave through a hush of algae. Here, there, the damselfly’s electric blue dash punctuates its flight with moments of perfect stillness. Everywhere: caterpillars, like an epiphany.

You kneel before the water, a world unfurling beneath your shadow.

Newts. Nymphs. A Neverland of tadpoles; too late to conclude their chapter, they pause to overwinter as commas. Amid them,

stickleback fry hide in plain sight, so slick and slight, they are barely there. And, slow and steadfast, the snail glides upside-down, parting the duckweed like a plump thumbprint wiping grime from a window.

IS THIS WHAT IT MEANS TO FLOURISH: NOT AN INCESSANT FLUSH OF VITALITY BUT A BROCADE OF BRIEF MIRACLES? When the time comes, the worthy damselfly lays down. the needle of itself to shudder in the grass, it’s flitting days, drawn to a close. with the grace of a deity.

a n o t h e r t i m e

I - First Spring Without you, I find myself home again, and the theme is resurrection – good old evil joke Nobody comes back Everyone is still singing about it, the sumacs standing guard in their bunches and the silver grasses flattened by their bygone burden of snow How to tell the red-winged blackbird that you are no longer here? He has never heard of that place Easier, to say that they burned your body. He knows hungry, lonely flying, calling, water, dust Say nothing to him of another time

Lydia Mills

II – Last Winter I found myself back home, and you were laying in a pool of light, very hot, holding your son’s hand

III – Before All This But after they obliterated your marrow, violence most intimate and least personal, we went to the lake

We saw you go in pieces, so much you couldn’t speak

You had hair like fresh shoots of grass, many parts of you multiplying, many cells hungry to do their work

Only you knew the details. How to ask if you were hungry, lonely flying, calling

We ate berries, no longer needing to be boiled, no more fear of pathogen and plastics permeating your body Still, I know how full it was with the terror of loss, suspended in that pool of water, you were out longer than anyone

THE MOST BORING PLACE IN THE MOJAVE

DL.

THE MOST BORING PLACE IN THE MOJAVE The Mojave Desert, east of Death Valley, nine miles south-southeast of Shoshone.

Buried in Inyo County, California, creeping along the border of Nevada, is a “census-designated place” named Tecopa, and it is a weary dustscape that you can’t write much about. I know this because after poring over articles written for tourists, hikers, the government, foodies, the spiritually ravenous, and geologists, I concluded that there are four formats in which it is acceptable to write about Tecopa: 1. Entertainment article 2. Informational/educational article 3. Government article 4. Review on Tripadvisor or Yelp!

None of these are particularly inspiring, of course. The reason for this is that there’s nothing new to discover in that western corner of the Mojave. Tecopa’s history is simple. Established as a silver mining town in 1875, it was originally named “Brownsville'' after its founders but was renamed “Tecopa” - after a chief of the Paiute, a keeper of peace - when it was purchased by one Jason Osborne in September 1876. It went through two periods of bureaucratic drama after the rush for silver ore came to a close, and was finally parceled out to residents with the Small Tract Act of 1938.

Beyond a thrilling history that stagnates toward the middle of the last century, this pit that lies in the Amargosa Valley is entombed in abundant nothingness. A Redditor on /r/AbandonedPorn (boasting SFW imagery of abandoned places) and I both interpret the landscape the same way: “The Hills Have Eyes vibes”, barren, rocky, deserted, eerie.

But, sure. Tecopa has restaurants. Fewer than five. It has bars and breweries.

There is a date ranch - the fruit kind, not the romantic kind - there is hiking, and there are hot springs, the main attraction. There is nothing new in Tecopa. You discover it but once, because everything it has to offer is on the table already.

You just can’t write much about it.

You can only experience it.

I beg you to see it for yourself.

For how could I make you, reader, understand that the ground is hollow near the springs and that in every step you take, the oral tradition of the Earth and its geothermal splendor crawl into your spirit, right through the soles of your feet? It is useless for me to explain the opulent night sky, lavish with dripping stars and silk scarves of Milky Way, for how will these words make you understand the instantaneous knowledge that you, yourself, are constructed of precious flecks of universe? You would feel your own celestial nature roil beneath your skin if only you were there.

And how could I adequately demonstrate rebirth in the fonts? I cannot take your hand to lead you into the hot springs, brimming with the boiling blood of the Earth.

You cannot emerge from these waters unchanged. You feel it as the cool blanket of night winds itself about you, pulling you, coaxing you deeper into itself. It is stricken with awe. You are seraphic.

I visited Tecopa just once, though I’ve found once is enough to be permanently moved by preternatural tenors. My port of call was the Tecopa Hot Springs Campground and Pools, in an obscene turquoise trailer that menaced the infinite brown of the Mojave. Memory drifts there, hundreds of miles away from me now, in a cloud of my partner’s cigarette smoke, dripping with the vinegar of fermented tea, cloaked in arid desert.

Rather than suffer further entanglement in the smoldering nets of heat cast by the autumn sun, we determined to go to the hot springs under the shadow of night.

Only the stars would observe us then, and cool seas of nighttime air would be a balm for the heat of the springs.

Before dark fell, we were fed at the Tecopa Brewing Company and we patronized the China Ranch Date Farm, fated to decimation by the Willow Fire that would erupt the following spring. In their own right, these places are worth meditation.

Tecopa Brewing Company is a kitschy restaurant with a humble menu and homely atmosphere that sees waves of faces caught in granules of time. The owners are the keepers of history at this crossroads. China Ranch Date Farm, like the hot springs, is fed by the Amargosa River. It is a shocking green oasis folded into the walls of the badlands and is home to abundant wildlife; its pond is a known refuge for the endangered Amargosa speckled dace, and it is a hallowed bird-watching spot. We saw coyotes frolic through a grove of date palms there, cool in the shade and grass. But we were not there for the cuisine or the ranch. We were there for the springs.

Afternoon light waxed then waned; dusk made our acquaintance, then fled; the moon called, we answered.

A concrete sarcophagus housed eerie azure-painted pools, the size and shape of large jacuzzis, that were filled with pumped-in spring water. The brick walls were coated in glazed and bloated white paint, the concrete floors were clad in filthy rubber walking mats, an angry fluorescent light cast our shadows onto the ground with violence, and whispers were cacophonous in the empty space. The pool house was ugly, and it betrayed contempt for the springs and their underground caverns.

My senses were insulted in that atmosphere, but it was forgivable all the same; any resentment I felt would soon be cleansed. Besides, we hadn’t been seeking plush treatment in the first place.

Although magnificent in retrospect, experiencing the pool moment-by-moment was agonizing. The scalding water could have soft-boiled rocks; it was a temperature that required my partner and I to submerge and emerge, resubmerge, and re-emerge, in five-minute cycles. We were naked, which compounded the sting of the heat and lent a sense of vulnerability to the space.

The concrete shelf I sat on scraped the backs of my thighs with vengeance. It took grit to suffer one hour, and it was with a sigh of relief that we emerged for the final time.

Nighttime was a salve.

A river of Milky Way that rippled with glistening stars cut through the opaque sky.

Our immolated skin, still radiating with heat, soothed in the currents of night air.

The Mojave shivered and echoed beneath our feet, whispers of subterranean streams finding our ears as water rushed to the springs. The second skin of tension from my suburban day-to-day life peeled away, and I tried to not think about my inevitable return to modernity.

Between the cosmos and the deep faults that warmed the Amargosa waters, there was me, a nexus between two boundless entities that only know their own beauty through human eyes. There was me, a corporeal crumb of universe. I wondered whether the reaches of man might snuff the stars out in this surreal place, drain her of her waters, render her barren, never again to call us Home. My partner lit a cigarette. I drifted away into the nighttime sky.

No, you can’t write much about Tecopa, but perhaps you can find something there, a secret between you and the infinite.

feeling like time is warping, seeing your mother in all things, wonderful & mundane & being really hungover

I see god like patterns (i am not religious)

I see go d like (I am n p ot reli atte gio u

s n r ) s the day I found god it was 6:24 am on July 2nd 2023

I was dry heaving under the awning of a cheap hotel in Austria the boy from the night before was sleeping inside soundly

mournful nausea wearing my entire body like a heavy cloak

by Sarah C.

hair slicked to the acne of my cheek with vomit & saliva & sweat & tears I wanted my mom

I lay on the soothing cold pavement & watch an ant it was carrying a bit of carrot I spat up an ant can carry 15 times its own body weight I remember my mom told me that

I remembered the day I learned that at 6:24 am on July 2nd 2009 when I was hiding behind the front yard tree of my parents house the boy from the house next door was counting quietly behind the fence ignorant bliss wore my entire body like a shiny gown hair slicked to the rose of my cheeks with juice & saliva & sweat & hose water I smiled at my mom I rolled in the yellow grass & watched an ant it was carrying a cheerio I had dropped like it was some sort of god “an ant can carry 15 times its own body weight” my moms knowledge of the world amazed me, now she was some sort of god & I’m tracing the ants path with my finger on the pavement & everyone I’ve ever been is peering over me, tracing its path with her finger

& the sun is in my eyes & I vomit one last time the time that gives your body relief for half a second I go to to sleep in a twin sized bed & I curl into fetal, like a reptile under a heat lamp & I figure, it is so trapping that my body is only here, wrapped in white hotel sheets while my brain is everywhere it will ever go I wonder if the ant is afraid of me & I wonder if my moms home & I feel my cells trying to regenerate & my mind is so fucking sickly ubiquitous but that ant is still carrying 15 times its own body weight & I can still watch & my mom still knew that before I did the day I found god it was 6:24 am on July 2nd, again & again & again (i am not religious) the little girl who just learned this fact, the twenty year old girl who ponders this fact & everyone I’ll ever be is peering over me, the seventy year old grandma who misses her mom when she remembers this fact is tracing the ants path with her finger

THE GNARLED GRAVEYARD TREE.

The gnarled tree understands the birds in the sky. The corkscrew branches reach skyward in loop de loops, like a swallow dive. Wild and unbridled, the tree has grown centuries old. Restrained souls seek rest under boughs, unable to return to the earth and be home.

Guardian of the soil beneath its roots, water as lifeblood up its shoots, earthworms and mushrooms diverse, with wooden coffins interspersed—the silent voyeur to your sorrow. Standing there tomorrow–until it too returns to earth. - This tree is located at a cemetery in Edinburgh, Scotland, at St. Cuthberts beneath Castle Rock. This place filled me with a unique sense of melancholy and wistfulness. This tree among the graves gave me pause; I could not leave without sharing it with others. Looking up at the tree looming with a grey clouded sky, the branches meandering through the air filled me with wonder, a haven in a grim place.

Katie Tapper.

Sasha Takoo.

ARJUNI

Arya Vishin

NOTICE OF VIOLATIONS To Whom It May Concern: We have obtained footage from the desert (“Desert Footage”) documenting numerous violations. According to our records, you were scheduled to go to the desert in 2020 and provided no official explanation for your delay. An accounting of your infractions is as follows: Day One: The waves from your sound bath could be felt by neighboring coyotes and insects. All meditative procedures – no matter how therapeutic or restorative – must be cleared with us. The insects enjoyed the experience; however, the coyotes had just sat down for dinner.

Day Two: You communed with the tallest Joshua Tree. Marched right up to them, shook their tentacled branch like an extended hand and asked several illegal questions. (“What is fulfillment?”, “Why try to control the uncontrollable?”) They provided supernal secrets that are highly classified. Such information should have been reported upon receipt.

Day Three: You had French toast and a Bloody Mary. Those flavors do not complement each other and, frankly, they sound gross. Additionally, you made unauthorized contact with the stars. This irreversible breach, may result in health concerns.

Side effects are not common but may include:

an immersive journey through the Major and Minor Arcana bejeweled fingernails shimmering blood and lucid dreams Consult your primary care provider for more information. Should the moon attempt to contact you, please alert emergency services immediately.

Day Four: You stuffed your backpack and sports bra full of glimmers. Those glimmers are property of the Mojave (Not the desert itself but a multinational corporation that owns the sand and its glimmers) and must be returned immediately.

Please provide a detailed explanation for your transgressions to the undersigned in the next ten (10) days or there will be cosmic consequences.

Lauren Phyllis Buford.

.Miracle of the Valley.

Mary Nest Lawrence.

A mother goat is yelping in the stable; under the clear night sky she pushes a child out, alone, and collapses in the hay exhausted; there is silence, just for a minute, before this child begins to cry, begins to herald its existence in the world. * The morning, while the cow’s head still hangs heavy, and the birds flit on the wind from tree to tree in the forest behind; a soft mist lies gently on the valley. The farmer’s daughter goes out singing with a dewy hem and a wooden pail to give fresh hay and feed the chickens; and into the stable.

The bucket falls from her fingers, and the daughter runs back to the house to fetch her mother and father, and brother who comes along too; a mother who crosses herself as she enters the stable where the sickly hot smell of blood and birth has incubated overnight; the father who, silent as ever, takes off his hat; and the brother who stops in his tracks, who senses this is not a regular day in the haze of his childhood, for the mother goat lies, still, on the hay, blank eyes staring up through the cracks in the wooden roof onto blue skies of brilliant day; and her child, nestled beside and matted with bits of her insides, looks up; single eyelid opening in the centre of its head. Beneath the eye, no nose; the tongue hangs grotesque; furred ears lay on its mother’s body. That single eye, in the very middle of its skull, stares straight and without fear at the four, and lets out a single grating bleat that echoes in the valley.

And so the boy is sent with a letter in most basic writing, a farmer’s hand, on the pony to the village. The priest is waiting on the stone steps of the church, taking in the morning air before his congregation arrives, and the panting breaths and running footsteps of the boy as he enters the churchyard bounce off the gravestones where daisies lie. Sticky palm outstretches, the priest takes the letter and reads; he goes inside at once to fetch his aspergillum and to bless the water. The boy takes off, running through the street, between houses, shouting to wives pegging clean white laundry in gardens and to sons who sit and polish boots on the steps of houses, to come at once. A man speeds on his brown horse over country fields, all the way to the nearest town. It is market day: cobbled streets are filled with carts and people, and the mayor is found, and the message is shouted over capped heads in Sunday bests to come, to come and look. And so, as the poor orphan kid sucks sweet milk off the thumb of the farmer’s daughter, all across the valley families are packing their children on wooden carts to make their way down beaten paths to the farm.

The mother is outside sweeping when the first cart arrives; the son, waiting anxiously at the wooden fence, shouts out, and the farmer comes to the door to rest against the doorframe and watch as the people arrive. Chickens run scattered as husbands help their wives down from carts. The father stays back with the shadow of the house behind him, leaving the mother to greet; the boy lurks behind her, nervous around so many people; the daughter hears the hubbub of conversation but never leaves her post, alone in the shed, with the small creature cradled in her arms. By midday the sun is beating down on a few dozen families who stand in front of the house; small children play chasing games in the dust and the horses stomp their feet, and everyone waits for their invitation to go inside the stable. It is the farmer’s daughter who finally appears in the doorway and takes the country folk in to meet the little one.

They are curious in nature, these meetings; it feels like the people are paying their respects, but the goat breathes still; and so it seems the respects are paid back by that single impertinent eye that stares at each person with idle curiosity. But the hushed voices on this crisp Sunday afternoon; even the rowdiest sons stand still and keep their mouths closed; even the common farmer and his wife bow their heads in reverence. For them, this beauty, the divine, has come before only through the streams of coloured light that pour in during service and bathe the faces of the congregation while the man in white speaks in a language set apart from the hills and rivers; and that same sweet sunlight filters now through a crack in the hastily nailed wooden boards of the stable and blinds the small goat’s single eye. It waters, and a stream of tears flows down its chin. If they were more well-read, or perhaps read at all, they might have seen this bundle of angled limbs and delicate white fur as a sign of the devil (the priest has come with his holy water, for he alone knows the meaning of the goat); but they are not, and so instead perhaps they see this beautiful mutation as a translation, of gods, finally showing not telling, the powers of creation. And what wonder; how the old man, who has never left the village, nor the valley, marvels, with his weathered cap folded between laboured fingers, at the loveliness of his home, where such a thing could happen; how the young girl with a ribbon in her hair sees that this animal is alive and breathes just like her; she jumps and hides in her mother’s skirts when the baby lets out a noise; how the child-bearing mother, due any day now with her swollen ankles, wonders what this augurs for her daughter or son, and at the very back of her mind, silently questions where the kid’s mother has gone.

For before the parties came, the father was given the grim task of removing the newborn from his mother’s stiff embrace and into his daughter’s arms; of lifting the mother’s weighty body over his shoulder.

The child averts its only eye. The son in the yard looked away also, not quite the man his father expects him to be, not yet; and the mother and father made their way to the woods, where she would be left to be eaten by the forest animals, and for the soft bed of moss to reclaim the rest. * The day is spent in this quiet praise, where the young sing and play and wonder at this strange little thing that had been sent to the valley, a place never important before now. But as the sun begins to fade, sinking behind the green hills, the older villagers begin to question the fate of the child; for never before has this happened, and most likely in their lifetimes will it ever happen again; how best ought they approach this beautiful monstrosity? In a small, huddled group with hushed voices, the father listens to men who share stories of similar things, of crops failing, of water drying up; and the priest stays silent and heads home early to his church to pray. How could they possibly turn on something that lies so defenseless, so entirely strange, that cannot even yet support its own weight under spindly legs? No solution is found, for they are farmers and villagers, whose necks burn in the sun as they mend fences, and whose knees creak as they bend to milk the cow; they cannot judge whether this small creature deserves to live or die. They are spared, however, as after all the carts have been packed up with dozing children and are sent off to their homes along muddy roads in purple dusk; when the morning comes, the daughter awakes under a coarse blanket on the bed of hay and her arms are empty; the child is gone. Now, the old man with his hat is buried in the graveyard with the daisies; the girl with her ribbon is grown up and thinking of marriage; and the child of the mother with her swollen ankles has been born and plays with twigs in the yard of the house in the village; and the day on which the baby goat is born is thought of from time to time, fondly, as the small miracle of the valley.

i l b i a a r i M de e (Sa ) Lo Lif

el Perilous (Mi hap l d ) C Hi g on

e) ak Dr ie m

I Just Wasn’t Made F or

O fficial

list

lovelove ( e v

lesh (Blondie) the F W o nd ) In er ys ( Bo Ja

) Spotless Min d ( Jon nae Mo B ri lle

ea) Fl

ne) K i s s tien of tE

rong (David an is W Byr M ne) sa e m Ov i t e er m tu o Boys) Cons S h r c a e B t a w e n tC Th s( ra e v m i T e nn ) Gui evere (V b u ale Cl h

h ac

Love) Don’t Worry k n Bab u y( -Dr h Th c n eB u (P e e ) Sir Greendow g n a .l n( Ja k.d ( ne g n i Spring (S re) ain o D e ri

y a l P

Th es

I K no

Meet The Authors Sarah C (she/her) is an amateur writer, poet, and general fraud girl blogger. Sarah self-published her first poetry collection "I am Not a Poet; I am Sad & I Cannot Draw,” in 2022; a dissection of the contradictory feelings that come with growing up.

She was also featured in Crazy Bastard Magazine issues 4 & 5.

DL is a forever student living in the arms of the California coast.

Lou (she/her)

is a british artist whose work is Alexa Lewis (she/her) concerned with catharsis, vulnerability and connection- opening out and is a journalist for the Daily Hampshire inviting in. Her work spans across Gazette and a graduate student at mediums including printmaking, Johns Hopkins University. She loves collecting houseplants and eating typography, poetry and writing.IG: celiac-safe baked goods. @michelletranthamwrites

Mary Nest Lawrence (she/they) is from Dorset, UK. Mary currently studies Philosophy in Manchester.

Naomi Madlock (she/her) is an exhausted poet from Bristol, UK. Her work is featured or forthcoming in The Shore, LEON Literary Review, The Madrigal, and others. Her work draws inspiration from nature to articulate themes of stagnation, resilience, and surrender.

Lauren Phyllis Buford (She/Her) is a poet, Black, a lawyer, queer, hungry and very tall. She lives in California with her poodle Sula.

Sasha Takoo (she/her) is a work in progress, curiously experimenting through mediums to learn how to properly share the facets of her inner world.

Arya Vishin (he/him) is a mixed Kashmiri-American & Jewish writer from California.

He's really into Hindu mythology.

Jenna Miller (she/her) is a writer inspired by love, nature, and myth.

She lives in Los Angeles.

Lydia Mills (she/her) is a queer woman who lives in Tkaronto. She works as a nurse.

Meet The Artists Thalya Jouin (she/her) is a French-American artist based in Chicago, Illinois. At the heart of her practice lies a fascination with relics— artifacts that transcend the confines of time and usability.

Katie Tapper (she/her) is a photographer and Wildlife Ecologist. She has reclaimed her creativity after an arduous struggle with imposter syndrome and is ready to express herself freely and wholeheartedly.

Jayla Neret (she/her) is a San Francisco based artist and photographer studying design and film.

Annie Hart (she/her) is a visual artist currently pursuing a BFA in Painting with a minor in Printmaking at SCAD. She is passionate about the beauty of nature in Appalachia, which reflects in her pieces. Her work has appeared in YNST Magazine, a publication for and by Appalachian artists.

Hattie Heiland (they/them) is currently a senior in college studying microbiology, and working in an immunology lab. They hope to share Olivia Juliet Taylor the wonders of science with as many (she/her) people as possible. is a Brooklyn-based mixed media artist.

She is interested in the themes Hannah Rose Balke of nature, memory, mysticism and (she/her) connections to others and herself. is an artist and muralist currently living in the SF bay Area. Her art typically explores modern themes through the use of intricate details.

Thank you to our patrons for making it all possible.

Taylor Aune (she/her)

Harper (Founding Member)

Taylor Milton (she/her)

Harley White

somethingtobetold.com

CEO of Taylor Milton Homes

Annabelle David

Samantha Diaz (she/her)

Joe Wisher

@_sammylamb

Kamille Sloane

Estelle Phillips (she/her) @estelle_writer44

Haley Tyrell

Jens Astrup (he/him)

Asha Marie

www.yenszz.com

Megan Barnett

Rin Chertei (he/they) Artist: @sirseapigeon

Jessica Thomas

Mark Sorace (he/him)

Mack Flynn

www.marksorace.com

Jhameika Bradford (she/they) @Jhameikabradford Kesic Schafer (she/they)

Kamille Sloane

James Ferguson Oli Villescas + MORE

Elektra Durkee Katie Tapper Lovinia Reynolds Kaneischa Johnson Ari Greene To have yourself or your business featured here, become a paid subscriber to our Substack:

"Your work cares first. Then produces. And it's so rare to see this, really. " - Jens Astrup

"Independent publishing is a must for any thriving literary culture. It is only a shame that there are not more of these out there. " - Jacob Smith

Meet The Founders

Marley Aikhionbare (Right) Editor-In-Chief | Director of Operations is a Long Beach local, queer, autistic writer of color whose work explores mundanity and the things we see but don’t notice. They love history, and graphic design, and are on the board of The Long Beach Conservancy Nonprofit Organization.

Rowan Lester (Left) Editor | Art Director is a UCSC Senior from Long Beach, California. She is a big fan of poorly disguised true stories and overusing adjectives. Besides writing, Rowan is very interested in fiber arts and textiles.

@thekingfishermag @thekingfishermagazine

MIRABILIA 2024

The

KINGFISHER MAGAZINE. FOR EXCLUSIVE CONTENT AND A DISCOUNT ON EACH ISSUE SUBSCRIBE TO OUR SUBSTACK: SUBSTACK.COM/@KINGFISHERMAGAZINE

SPRING 2024