Havik: Inside Brilliance

InsideBriliance

Inside Brilliance

Havik 2021

Cover:

Earth

Painting

Aydin Ermolaev

Pleasanton, California, USA

Back cover:

From Rubble to Relic

Corrosive Metals and Raw pigments

Jeremy Siedt

Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, USA

Staff

Editor-in-Chief

Lara Abreu

Senior Prose and Acedemic Editor

Elizabeth Reynolds

Senior Poetry Editor

Senior Art Editor

Michael Henry

Lara Abreu

Prose and Academic Editors

Lara Abreu

Jessica Marty

Kayla Gregory

Sophia Nunes

Copy Editors

Advisors

Assistant Advisor

Lara Abreu

Elizabeth Reynolds

Melissa Korber

Toby Bielawski

Peter Zimmer

Layout Designer

Jennifer Katherine Snook

Poetry Editors

Theresa Tmekei Peterson

Fernanda Patino

Jen Burnett

Sponsors

Thank You!

Diamond Hawk

Las Positas College

Student Government

Las Positas College Founation

Gold Hawk

Toby Bielawski

California Writers Club Tri-Valley

Branch

Dr. Hal G. Gin

Elpida Kohler and Dietmar Kohler

Martin Nash

Anonymous

Silver Hawk

Andi Schreibman, Financial Aid Officer

Bronze Hawk

Anonymous

Chris Henry

Lone Hawk

Anonymous

Efrine Tmekei Peterson

Acknowledgments

Our deepest thanks to the following people, who took the time to volunteer as judges to

select our award winners.

Fiction Judge

Martin Nash

Visual Art Judge

Dave Wagner

Creative Nonfiction Judge

Michelle Gonzales

Poetry Judge

Jim Ott

Experimental Works Judge

On-Staff Experimental Editors

Academic Nonfiction Judges

On-Staff Nonfiction Editors

We would also like to thank

Charlotte Severin

for presenting and sponsoring the Lydia Wood Awards for first place in fiction and poetry.

David A. Wright

the original founder of Havik (then the “Chabot College Valley’s Visions and Values”) in 1978

Folger Graphics

Without whom this anthology would not exist.

Copyright Policy

All contributors retain copyright ownership of the content they create, including prose, verse, photographs, illustrations,

cartoons, and all other work. The LPC Journal of Arts and Literature retains the right to use material in

all forms in perpetuity.

Letters from the Editors

Editor-in-Chief Lara Abreu

This summer I turn fifty. This knowledge floods me with myriad of

thoughts and emotions. As a stay-at-home mother for the last 16 years,

questioning my life’s choices, ambitions, and goals there has been an incessant

stream coursing through the back of my mind. What have I accomplished?

What impact have I made? While anyone who has raised

(good) children knows, this alone is a herculean endeavor. It is a daily

challenge rife with moments of incredible pride and overwhelming love,

tempered with regrettable moments of fist-clenching frustration and outbursts

of anger. It is finding the depth of mindfulness to accept the person

your child is trying to be while gently guiding them along their path. All

of this is an outward focus that can slowly, imperceptibly blur your path.

Enter Havik, whose very title, and play on words, captures the universal

experience of the last year. Serving as Editor-in-Chief was a self-imposed

leap out of my comfort zone and an opportunity for which I will

be eternally grateful. Our entire process has been virtual, creating novel

obstacles to the collaboration process. Tic-tac-toe screens of black boxes

with white names and disembodied voices sharing their thoughts and

perspectives. After our first meeting, I was flooded with feelings of doubt

and anxiety. How will we connect as a team? How can we communicate

with veracity without knowing who we all are? I needn’t have worried, for

my much younger team, by now adept at communicating in a two-dimensional

world, rose to the occasion. Our Senior Editors of Prose and Poetry

guided our teams with clear goals and experiential insight, creating a

supportive environment for us to tackle the 662 submissions we received.

Each editor embraced their works with integrity and fought for pieces that

spoke to them. Our advisors mindfully supported us as we waded through

this new platform, lending calm voices and invaluable advice. And our unflappable

Production Assistant made our vision a beautiful reality with her

quiet suggestions and powerful skills. Fueled by the incredible creativity

of our authors and artists, from New Zealand to Iraq, from Canada to the

UK, our collective determination to honor these stories and these images

was palpable. The raw emotion, vulnerability and truth we absorbed gave

birth to our title, “Inside Brilliance.”

The works we reviewed revealed a collective social conscience; outcries

against racial inequality; the impact of COVID’s tentacles in every

aspect of life; societal criticism; mental illness. These were balanced by

expressions of love lost and love found, depictions of nature’s beauty, and

the joys of simplicity. Drinking in these global perspectives of experience

quenched a thirst in us. We felt a kinship, a recognition, an affirmation

in every piece. We felt seen and heard in others’ words and images, for

what we collectively experienced in this last year has been inexplicable,

overwhelming and gravely disappointing. But knowing we are not alone

in these thoughts lends a legitimacy to COVID’s slogan of “We are in this

together.” With the utmost humbleness and awe in peoples’ creativity,

courage, and talent, we present this year’s Havik: Inside Brilliance, in the

hopes that you too may find solace and kinship in the experiences of your

fellow human beings.

Lara Abreu,

Editor-in-Chief

Index of Contributors

First Place Fiction

Out of Season

Katherine Davis – Page 64

Second Place Fiction

Clouds

Russel Doherty – Page 29

Third Place Fiction

In Our House

Susan Hettinger – Page 12

Honorable Mention Fiction

Dreaming in America

Nicolas Padrone – Page 5

Everything

Matthew Berg – Page 47

First Place Visual Art

Open Wounds

Younes Mohammad – Page 3

Second Place Visual Art

Travel

Yim Ivy Wu – Page 221

Third Place Visual Art

Quilting Whimsy

Kathleen URBAN – Page 111

Honorable Mention Visual Art

Before the Ballet

Pat Wai – Page 196

Zephyr

Eunhee Soh – Page 19

First Place Poetry

He Tramples the Daisies

Kerri-ann Torgersen – Page 174

Second Place Poetry

Johnny Reb

Ben White – Page 1

Third Place Poetry

Visitation

Richard Stimac – Page 85

Honorable Mention Poetry

(Zardozi) زَردوزی

Vinit Kurup – Page 86

High Beams (GET OFF THE ROAD)

Brianna Fay – Page 81

First Place Creative Non-Fiction

Diary of a Ghostwriter

Dawn-Michelle Baude – Page 59

Second Place Creative Non-Fiction

Happy Green Chlamydia Plush

Mercury-Marvin Sunderland – Page 230

Third Place Creative Non-Fiction

Super-Fast Trains, Super-Slow

Trails

James Sievert – Page 235

First Place Experimental

Mock up TV series Introduction

Kermen Choung – Online

First Place Academic

The Truth Behind The American

Dream

Matthew Aboudi – Page 274

Lara Abreu

Meditating Sea Lion 49

Santorini Sunrise 150

Yes208

Galapagos Love 214

Matthew Andrews

Manslaughter127

Love Poem With Natural Disasters 215

Valerie Ansuini

Broken127

Brian Araque

Anything is Profound 164

Alfredo Arcilesi

Someplace Without Washrooms 136

Mike Ball

On Our Hill 231

Alexandra Bartholomew

Climate is a Changing 40

She Dances Through Fire 202

I’m Part of Something Beautiful 218

Dawn-Michelle Baude

Diary of a Ghost Writer 59

Teresa Beeding

I Shall Never Forget 173

Julie Benesh

Lake Effect 245

Jennifer Benningfield

It Goes Down a Cherry 129

Matthew Berg

Everything47

Robert Beveridge

Moral and Natural Philosophy 226

Carl Boon

What No One Speaks of in Illinois 69

Andriana Botan

Control the Divine 149

jack bordnick

Facing it Together 115

S. T. Brant

A Tiny Dialogue of Metaphysical

Poets224

Kate Brock

Muscle Memory 197

Rebecca Burns

The Tenburys 232

Elle Butane

Fruit Bowl 187

Vialsy Cabrales Esparza

The Welcome Visitor 23

The Fall 207

Naomi Capacete

We Could’ve Been a Poem 101

Ashleigh Cattermole

Buttercup56

Ravichandra Chittampalli

Do Not Insist on Departing Today 101

Saphistry154

Lilly Constance

My Father Reads Meditation XVII 219

Ariel Cooper

Connection102

Fearfully and Wonderfully Made 126

Ilaria Cortesi

Digital Collage Art 46

Shahriar Danesh

IDIOT89

Katherine Davis

Out of Season 64

Christian Deery

The Scene & The Unseen 148

Laine Derr

Baspoke193

Russel Doherty

Clouds29

Ken Elliott

Dirty Hippies 185

Mary Elliott

Summer Lights 250

Aydin Ermolaev

Earth83

Maverick128

Brianna Fay

High Beams (GET OFF THE ROAD) 81

Frances Fish

Lost183

Francis Flavin

The Sharp Edge 58

Tesa Flores

Bruises132

Taew Fornoles

Nap Time 171

Electrified 189

Liz Fortini

Reflection 243

Jennifer Frederick

A Moth in the Light 43

Agent Peacock 50

Contained Chaos: Growing in a Lab 188

Sunflower 247

Jessica Garrison

[ I am ] 84

A New Beginning 96

Matt Gold

#533107

Ellaheh Gohari

Won’t You Run Away 106

Caleb Gonsalves

Virgin Cocktails 33

Rhiannon194

Neverland244

Peter Grieco

Psalm Something 155

Jean-Sebastien Grenier

This is How Delirium’s Demiurge

Drowns the Universe 70

Adieu89

An Ottawa Night Out 163

Hydroponics246

John Grey

Michael’s Music 88

The Time of Your Child 114

David Grubb

This Place 100

Unhappy Chickems, Good Breeders 112

Kristin Ham

Visual Currents 201

Sunny Afternoon 229

Kaylee Hamilton

Black Against White 4

TA Harrison

Deadbeat Dinner Party 95

Sergio Hartshorne

The Wearer of Hats

James Harvey

A Summer With You, Again 216

Nezrin Hasanly

Melancholy is 17

Parks42

Curtain Call 202

Taxi Cabs 219

Rain245

Susan Hettinger

In Our House 12

Mane Hovhannisyan

Windows135

dave hunter

Honor151

Jones Irwin

Cynthia133

Of Western Civilisation 158

We Are A Community National

School159

Murali Kamma

Foreigners and Friends 165

Sam Kaspar

the snow remembered 202

Babbling Glide 205

Eden Kidane

The Mountaintop - The Second Act 261

Paul Koskinen

Rise from Pandemic 76

James Ph. Kotsybar

Apiology42

Craig Kurtz

The Old Man 58

Bachelor187

Vinit Kurup

(Zardozi) 86 زَردوزی

W.F. Lantry

Joshua Trees 110

Juniper Berries 110

Sequoia113

The Cave of Bones 184

Somewhere Between Near and Far 243

Olivia Larson

Where the Sea Swallows the Sky 108

Deborah LeFalle

Inauguration Day 11

Why You Shouldn’t Run in

Flip-Flops230

Danika Leuenberger

Prom Queen 73

Carolyn Lord

Fossul Fuel Relic 82

Kilmeny MacMichael

A Tale of Three Avocados 20

Night106

Ben Macnair

Atonal57

D.S. Maolalai

Lidl170

Terminal173

The drama of weather 207

Aina Marzia

His Name Was Mo 4

Sophie Mateja

Fuego121

Emily Mathis

A Father’s Touch 217

Gabriel McCluskey

The Birds of Paradise 51

Shanna Merceron

a love poem for someone who doesn’t

like love poems 88

Younes Mohammad

Open Wounds 3

Elaine Monasterial

A Ritual Adventure 216

Charity Morris

Residue77

Justin Nagundi

SWEATY ROSES 116

Clare Nee

Moonflowers on Arthur Street 98

Lance Nizami

Facewarp86

Interior134

Vita Nocilla

a trip in space 71

dreaming of the cosmos 97

mushroom bloom 143

let it go 162

the butterflies in my stomach are

free176

Michael O’Brien

A gull Told Me 45

Jay O’Neal

The Unpaid Philosopher or the

Typewriting Monkey 34

Nicolas Padron

Dreaming in America 5

Carl “Papa” Palmer

Bookshelf Prophecy 25

His Limbo Soliloquy 26

Jared Pearce

Battles55

Jilli Penner

Green86

Uncle Down Under 184

Sweatshirt184

Roses Shaded Pink 187

Charlene Pepiot

A Matter of Fact 35

katie pfeifer

There was a lump 23

My Hands 67

To the Man who told me 231

Alex Phuong

Starry Nights 219

Therese Pokorney

To my apartment and all the spaces I

make my own: 227

J.B. Polk

THE BLACK KIMONO 122

Marie-Anne Poudret

Thirteen Stripes 55

The Good and the Talented 62

More than Me 249

henry 7. reneau, jr.

What AmeriKKKa Looks Like Posing As

An Invisible Friend 2

Illume #2: Hope as a Trick of

Light132

If You Scared, Go To Church!! 156

The Signs and Wonders of the Inter-Dimensional

Warrior 228

Elizabeth Wolff-Reynolds

Dig177

Sarah Riensche

Mirage74

Daisy249

Charissa Roberson

Undisclosed194

Sandip Saha

Agony of a Poet 48

Fatal Fate 158

Thea Schiller

Finding the T in the Center of

Motown47

Jennifer Schneider

Invisibility75

Dylan Scillia

Alone24

First Second

Guardian149

Labdhi Sha

Zen Sex Metallica 72

Sameen Shakya

Labyrinth231

Tufik Shayeb

Afterward34

Word-Man63

Your Thoughts 63

The Theme Park 68

Jeremy Siedt

From Rubble to Relic 200

James Sievert

Super-fast trains, super-slow

trails235

Bobbi Sinha-Morey

Knotted so Tightly 182

A Joy I Once Knew 249

Ranjith Sivaraman

The Angel and the Dirty Boy 17

A Slevin

Doing Time 80

Eunhee Soh

Zephyr19

Salt Lick 106

Sam Sohn

Vicissitudes91

Sameeha Soora

Just Breathe 2020 26

Heidi Speth

I Wonder 11

Joy131

An Ode to the Broken Heart 161

After All 215

Louis Staeble

Waves172

Hypnotically Motivated 175

Michael Stentz

Sweet Song 96

Richard Stimac

Still Life 40

Night Prayer 80

Visitation85

Confession155

Terminal240

Mercury-Marvin Sunderland

A Happy Green Chlamydia Plush 230

Edward Supranowicz

Lady X 90

Olga Sushchik

Keep Dreaming 44

In the Sky Above Dublin Hills 87

Blue Flavor 206

Paper Bird 220

Diane Thiel

The Slide 45

Taunja Thomson

Sleight-of-Hand48

Summer Streets 240

The Pool 250


Crown XIX 25

Kerri-ann Torgersen

He Tramples the Daisies 174

The End is the Beginning is the

End182

Kathleen URBAN

COVID 19 Dreaming: Prince Edward

Island27

Dogwood Blossoms 28

Quilting Whimsy 111

c-leo ˘͈ ᵕ ˘͈valentino

Swan Song #7 170

Monica Viera

Cabin on Detox Island 134

Joseph Vitale

Where the Yellow Flowers Bloom 241

Pat Wai

Little City Market 10

Before the Ballet 196

Micaela Walley

3AM88

IF WE ARE NOT ALLOWED TO PREFORM

GRIEF- WHAT IS IT FOR? 114

THE BABY 120

Lindsey Wentzel

The L Train 95

Roses127

Roses are Red 174

Gregory Wilder

A Drowning Man 141

Bill Wilkinson

Bad Fog of Loneliness 144

Kevin Wilson

The Girl from a Bookstore 190

Brayden Wiseman

Up the Cellar Stairs 203

Ben White

Johnny Reb 1

Robert Wilson

Nightjars56

Yim Ivy Wu

Hannah18

Lady in Garden 195

Travel221

Peace248

Relax251

Bill Yuan

Knock at Midnight 103

Andreas Zignago

Synthetic Blindness 199

Peter Zimmer

Marc and Ward 252

Steve Zimmerman

Vacant Sea 41

igor zusev

Chaotic symmetry 225

Academic Works

Megan Mehta

An Extensive Analysis of The Life of

J. D. Vance 265

Caylia Love

Community College Stigma 268

Laura Riley

Round and Around We Go 271

Matthew Aboudi

The Truth Behind The American

Dream274

Please visit the

Havik website for

video and audio

submissions!

https://havikjournal.wixsite.com/website

Kermen Choung

Mock up TV series Introduction

Julián Esteban Torres López

Sleepwalking Through the 20th

Griffin Messer

Roads

Creative Works

Johnny Reb

Poetry

Ben White

Rio Rancho, New Mexico, USA

Johnny Reb

Had a statue

In Richmond

Alongside Lee and Davis

That they finally took down

In a time

When all of America

Needs to fold up

A Confederate flag

And give it to History

On behalf

Of a nation –

A union grateful

Johnny Reb

Was killed and defeated

In his lost cause

After the local aristocracy

Fooled the poor white boys

Into thinking

If they didn’t fight

They were no better than the

Blacks,

And being better than the Blacks

Was all most of them had

As they charged up North

To defend Dixie

And the culture of oppression

Not realizing

They were as enslaved

As the slaves

If not more so

As the graves of war

Ignored the purpose

In the service of the South

Where they were trapped

In the persona

Of Johnny Reb

With cornbread pride

And pork-rind patriotism

Where loyalty

Was sliced off the high hog

To convince them

They were blessed,

Just, and loved

By good-ol-boy Jesus

Who rode with them

As far as Gettysburg

Where He discovered

A gilded pretense of freedom

And abandoned

Those wood-slat worshippers

Retreating back south

To watch Atlanta burn,

Charleston choke,

And New Orleans slide

Into her own

Decadent decay,

But Johnny Reb

Still found a way

To keep inheritance alive

With his back turned

On God

And a lot of God’s children

As he got off his horse,

Turned in his rifle,

And starved on dirt

And dust

Creating a new God

To trust

Who was forgiving,

Loving, kind,

And white

Ready to fight

Dressed in sheets

With an unholy faith

Preaching

Inhumanity,

Inequality,

Injustice,

And fire

Burning at the end

Of a rope

While celebrating

The hope of regaining

A moonshine lifestyle

Beneath the cross

Where everything lost

Would be restored

While nostalgia and poverty

Went hand in hand

And the past was cherished

Where purity

Had not perished

In the fantasy

Of ideas held by the race

Still longing to chase

Dreams of superiority

By keeping

The minority

Frightened in the night

Excluded from the law

And segregated from the

Constitution

Of agitators up North

Who might travel

Back and forth,

But who would never understand

The Southern man

As a tragic Greek figure

Having suffered so much

At the hands of aggression

When the lesson

To be learned

Was in watching

The residual impacts

Of the Union’s victory

Turn into racist policies

And prejudiced practices

Throughout the South

But in Northern cities as well,

So even 40 years

After Johnny Reb fell,

He got his statue raised

And praised

For Southern Heritage

Memorialized and recognized

As having some kind

Of American spirit

He never really had –

He was just a kid

Given bad advice

Ready to sacrifice his life

For a fundamentally

Counter-Christian cause

Convinced he was right

And righteous

While his white

Skin and whiteness

Were turned into values

And given credit

1

For morality, ethics,

Sacred justice,

And the beliefs

He didn’t understand

Well enough

To guide him

Through reconstruction,

So the seduction

Of power

Perpetuated the hour

Of his ride

When the Rebel Yell

He cried was a call

Of culture

That could never keep up

No matter how many

Blacks

Were tormented,

Cheated, defeated,

Excluded,

Or murdered

In the Southern name

Of Johnny Reb Heritage…

And History won’t miss his statue

As much as his statue missed History.

What AmeriKKKa Looks Like Posing As

An Invisible Friend

Poetry


Lindsay, California, USA

AmeriKKKa, distancing history, a unit of

measurement, from oppression

by swapping the word history with the word

postracial,

whose amorphous nature incorporates

physical exclusion

& random helpings of fear, paranoia,

frustration

& outrage. Blackness as test subjects

for injustices to be practiced elsewhere.

Every po-lice chief statement

of aberration by anomaly of racist cop,

the cockroach painted into a corner, the

attempts at evasion—

not-me—posing as an invisible friend, as

protect & serve. The official

spokesperson's lie,

like the smell of spent gunshots, chalkoutlines

the asphyxiating repetition of our

grief.

We drown standing up.

Black, as the clever gaze from hooded

Malcolm-tent eyes, hears

every word comes out the speakers.

Blackness, always

in someone else's country, because we, as

stereotype claims,

were born of water hog mud, livid with the

rage of fever

that makes us ungrateful, bites the hand that

starves us.

My blackness confronts me with a desperate

reinvention

of itself, the militant X, by which those who

cannot sign

otherwise leave their mark.

The comeuppance of flung Molotov

into police state lines

as the whole wide Diaspora

pulses through our veins.

But all of a sudden, AmeriKKKa stands with

the Black community—

a shield of aloof politeness

romancing what could have been

gracious good faith & understanding from a

distance—

opposes racism, oppression, &

police brutality, vows to continue to amplify

diverse voices in the U.S. of Attica. All of a

sudden

2

Open Wounds

Photography

Younes Mohammad

Erbil, Iraq

3

His name was Mo.

He liked school, well most days.

But he dreaded going to school that day.

For him, it was like walking into a death

sentence, figuratively, but isn't hard to imagine

it literally.

It was that day that made his mother want

to stay home as much as possible.

It was that day that made it impossible for

his father to find work.

It was that day that made him feel like he

never should’ve left the house in the first

place.

While tens and thousands of American high

schools were holding ceremonies for those

that they lost on that day.

Millions of innocent children, families, and

homes were being destroyed every day after.

While two towers collapsed on that day.

Over 100 mosques were destroyed, taken

down, and attacked even years later.

While the country that we live in blames a

whole religion for that day.

The lives of Muslims changed.

Forever.

Kids like him.

Growing up in a xenophobic society, constantly

told to go back, treated unfairly, and

given less opportunity.

It is because of that day that the NYPD

targets people like him.

It is because of that day that hate crimes

have simply become immune.

It is because of that day that people

wonder if they will be killed for practicing a

religion.

His Name Was Mo

Fiction

Aina Marzia

El Paso, Texas, USA

And as for Mo., it is because of that day

that four kids punched him on the floor of

the bathroom on September 11th, 2019.

Why?

Because his name was not Mo it was Muhammad

(PBUH).

4

Black Against

White

Poetry

Kaylee Hamilton

Saint Louis, Missouri, USA

Ebony. Against. Ivory.

Fabrics rubbing together

Causing static electricity

Can’t sew it together —

Too stuck in

the same mindset

Of hate

That each individual thinks is different.

Roses are guns

When you don’t forgive.

Everything is offensive

And we go back to the distressful ache.

Black against white.

When you put your magnifying glass

Or spectacles to use

All you can see

is the past abuse.

Take a step back-

See the big picture—

Then,

Forever-

You’re richer.

Black to white.

White to black.

“Give me so much love,”

The colors scream-

“We’ll never turn back.”

“Never fight ourselves!”

For that is what we can do

When we stick together without the glue.

Mrs. Blanco has always known she had a

smile, sensed it even before she became

aware of it. When nothing else would do

— her education, her figure, her presence —

that simple pull at the ends of her lips spoke

with a language of its own. This morning,

she knows she’s going to need it. So sure she

is, in fact, that after brushing she restrains

from flashing her teeth at the mirror to preserve

her smile’s full strength.

Outside the window is dusky gray. She

reaches for her floral dress, something to

brighten up the Monday morning that awaits

her. She closes the closet door softly, so as

not to wake up her son who’s still asleep in

the bed they share. From on top of the night

table, she picks up her reading glasses next

to the Selecciones del Readers Digest magazine

and slips them on. She wears them all

the time now when it’s dark.

The long hallways of the boarding house

are gloomy silent, her roommates either

asleep or gone to work. In the kitchen, she

greets Rita, the owner of the casa de bordantes.

No need to start shining her smile

yet. The radio is buzzing the local Spanish

news. Mrs. Blanco has her breakfast in

between Rita’s comments. They’re mostly

about the weather getting colder. Where

Mrs. Blanco comes from, el tiempo is not

much of a subject. It’s either raining or it

isn’t, and usually too hot. Not here, in the

city of long coats. The first thing out of people’s

mouths here, friends or strangers alike,

is the weather, how cold is it going to get or

what’s going to fall from the sky today.

Dreaming in America

Fiction

Nicolas Padron

Miami, Florida, USA

Mrs. Blanco finishes putting on her face by

the front door. She reaches into the bottommost

of her purse for the keys and locks

every lock before she steps away.

It all begins in the elevator, with the

simple act of pressing the call button on the

wall brass plate. The doors open on their

own and she steps inside the mirror and metal

box. Her belly shivers as the floor drops,

a combination of dread and excitement

she’s still acquainting herself with since she

arrived in New York. Part of the luxury trappings

of a past future time, an aging modernity

she is only now catching up to.

For better or worse, everything is temporary.

If she is certain of anything it’s that.

Exile with all its heartbreaks, the same as

the guilty enjoyment of a New York elevator

ride, is only provisional. The bearded atheists

who had forced her and so many to flee

her homeland would not keep her forever

from the life God had meant her to live.

Outside, it’s colder than it looks. She

buttons up the winter coat Rita sold her for

five dollars and tightens Amelia’s red scarf

around her neck. As she walks past the store

windows in her stiff overcoat, her reflection

isn’t all that unappealing. It not only

conceals her long-lost silhouette and keeps

her warm, it also makes her feel part of the

landscape, like another New Yorker.

At the bus stop, everyone climbs in one

at a time, each dropping a token, unrushed.

It is at moments like these too that she’s

reminded how far she is from home. Tokens

instead of money, no one hustling to the

5

empty seats, no conductor to collect the

fare. The efficiency of it makes her wonder,

though. In her town, buses had a driver and

a conductor, and when they’d seen her a few

times, she didn’t need to signal her stop.

Everyone was more in touch with each other,

less orderly, sure, but more normal. She

wonders how the americanos, as smart as

they are, could have missed that, the simple

human touch.

The downtown bus travels in the shade

of Broadway’s architecture, a sightseeing

show for Mrs. Blanco—and the reason she

preferred them to the subway. She presses

her forehead on the icy glass window. She

grins at the bright storefronts along the way,

with their window displays projecting out

to the street like movie screens with views

of domestic scenes, gleaming kitchenware,

and elegant mannequins wearing the latest

styles. There’s a kind of musical play choreography

in the way New Yorkers march

across the streets, in the stop-and-go of the

vehicle traffic. The grandeur everywhere

moves her: the polished sheen of rotating

doorways, the assembly lines of yellow taxis,

the sheer abundance of affluence. Her faith

in the infinite might and wisdom of the

americanos is reaffirmed at every intersection.

The bus stops at a red light.

When she left Havana, all she and her boy

were allowed to bring was $120.00 and — as

she liked to say — all the hope and Kleenex

they could carry. And, of course, the fervent

belief that the United States of America

would never allow a Communist nation to

take root just ninety miles from Key West.

This wasn’t only her opinion: everyone she

knew was of the same mind. The end of the

bearded revolutionaries was only a question

of when — maybe a year at the most before

she’d be back with her family around her

again, back to where she was born and married

and had her children, home until three

weeks ago.

Today is a particularly difficult day for

Mrs. Blanco. It’s her first day out looking for

a job, in search of employment, something

she’s never done or needed to do before.

At forty-six, the only job she ever had was

that of housewife and mother, work that had

prepared her for just about anything except

to look for employment — much less in a

foreign land. The task does not intimidate

her as much as the idea of having to ask for

it in English, a language she loves to hear

but she’s incapable of articulating without

embarrassing herself.

Mrs. Blanco looks at the note her exiled

friend, Marta, had given her. “Get off on

34th Street. Walk to 8th Avenue, Garment

Center. They’re always hiring sewing machine

operators in the factories around

there,” it says.

In Havana, she had a Singer machine

with a wrought-iron foot pedal her husband

bought her. She’d fashioned dresses and

shirts for her children with it when they

were younger, even sewn a camping tent for

her son’s Boy Scout troop once. Sew? Mrs.

Blanco could sew just fine.

From the bus, she keeps watch of the

street signs at every corner. “Get off when

you see the Macy’s store and walk around

the area looking for Sewing Operator Wanted

signs on building walls,” Marta’s note says.

Many things she never needed before or

thought she ever would are needed now.

Only a few weeks ago she still lived at home

with her husband of twenty-two years and

her two children. She’d known the comforts

of a well-off existence, which had come with

much struggle and only in recent times. But

in less than a year of the communist takeover,

it was all torn apart, beginning with

the seizure of her husband’s business, the

family house, even the cars. Then came days

of desperate rushing around like on a ship in

the storm, throwing everything overboard,

trying to sell, trade, and hide whatever

remained of the family’s assets. But the idea

of seeking asylum didn’t come until later

when talk of an even more horrifying law

was proposed. The enactment of what they

called ‘Patria Potestad.’ The law that gave

the communist government parental rights

over un-emancipated children. Once the

rumor took hold, the question of whether or

not to leave the country was settled.

The communists could take everything she

owns, she decided, but not her son.

Almost overnight, she found herself thousands

of miles away, confined to a bedroom

in an overcrowded boarding house in New

York City with her twelve-year-old son, starting

her temporary life of ‘political’ exile,

a refugee — a ‘worm,’ how the fidelístas

called the likes of her.

Although the hardships of her younger

days now seem like something to look forward

to, Mrs. Blanco doesn’t allow herself

to wallow in her misfortune as some of her

fellow exiles do. Hope is fresh yet. Still, the

day-to-day is far from easy. Rooming in an

apartment full of political refugees is like

living with a big wounded, grieving family.

Rare is the night that she is not awakened by

6

the muffled sobs of some of her roommates.

Exile is the same as living in a permanent

state of emergency, ever hanging to a single

hope. Every rumor, every word printed or

heard on the radio about the homeland has

to be dissected, reinterpreted for hidden

meanings, every piece of news a new topic

to argue about. The one thing the entire exile

commune agrees on, though, is, with God

and the americanos on their side, everything

the comunistas have stolen from them would

be theirs again. And this was something Mrs.

Blanco believes with all her heart.

Across the street, on the northbound

side of Broadway, Mrs. Blanco notices a sign

written in English and Spanish. It speaks

of union, employment, and brotherhood.

Compelled by a sudden impulse, Mrs. Blanco

pulls the cord and gets off the bus, and then

doubles back up the street.

The sweet smell of recently baked dough

stops her on her tracks. She rests one hand

on the shop window and stares at the trays

full of happy-looking donuts arranged in

rows. Mentally, she counts the change she

has in her purse, hoping. But she knows all

too well how much she has, or rather how

much she doesn’t have, then walks away

thinking of all the weight she still could

stand to lose — once again looking at the

positive side so as not to weep.

She stands under the sign she saw from

the bus and takes up the dark and narrow

staircase. At the top landing, she halts by

the opened smudged glass door. The stale air

in the gray-walled office reeks of cigarette

smoke and indifference. Facing a long counter

dividing the room, a handful of people are

lined up by a faded yellow line on the floor.

Mrs. Blanco steps in and surveys the women

working behind the counter and at the

desks beyond, pecking on their typewriters.

A couple of suited men sit behind glass-partitioned

cubicles.

She stands demurely at the end of the line

and listens to the English-speaking voice of

the bespectacled woman behind the counter,

concentrates on it.

The person at the counter walks away and

Mrs. Blanco moves up a step.

In front of her, there’s a tall black lady

and a Latina-looking one who’s at the counter

now. She’s speaking to the bespectacled

woman. The harder Mrs. Blanco listens to

what they’re saying the less she understands.

A minute later, she hears “Next.” She

remembers what next means. In English,

every word sounds so much nicer to her, like

in the subtitled movies, the voices of Doris

Day, Elizabeth Taylor, and Audrey Hepburn,

so musical even when uttered in anger. Yet

she’s just unable to articulate the words, as

if her mouth isn’t put together the same way

as theirs.

The tall black lady steps up to the counter.

Mrs. Blanco places the tip of her shoes

on the yellow line on the floor. The tall lady

seems upset. Something in the document the

bespectacled woman handed her has set her

off. Her voice is getting louder. She reminds

her of those powerful-voiced Protestant

preachers in the movies. Mrs. Blanco tries

to decipher what each is saying. The noisier

they get, the less she comprehends them.

The tall woman starts to shake her finger

at the impassive bespectacled face behind

the counter. Suddenly, she wheels and

stomps away, hollering menacingly at the

entire place. When she reaches the door,

she balls up the insulting document, hurls it

in the general direction of the wastebasket,

and storms out the glass door.

Now the office staff is up, bunched in

groups around their desks, ruffled by the

irate lady. Mrs. Blanco is up next.

The bespectacled woman waves from the

counter. “Come on up.”

Mrs. Blanco approaches with a tentative

smile: she didn’t hear ‘next.’ Her throat

tightens up. “Pleese, laydee, S-peak S-panish?”

The bespectacled woman turns around and

with a cigarette between her fingers waves

at someone and walks away.

Spanish Carmen comes to the counter.

“How can I help you?”

Mrs. Blanco lets out a sigh of relief and

broadens her smile. “Aaayy,” she sings out.

“Thank God you speak Spanish, mi hijita.

What a relief.”

Spanish Carmen almost smiles.

“Well, the truth is I am looking for work,”

she says, leaning closer to the counter. “Let

me explain: I have only been in this country

for three weeks, yes. But I am a hardworking

person and a fast learner, and I am willing to

do whatever work that is being offered.”

Carmen gives her a squint-eyed look. “OK,

let’s see your book.”

“Libro?” Mrs. Blanco, unsure whether

Carmen has understood, starts again. “Maybe

I should tell you, I am a married woman.

I have two children, yes, two. My oldest, my

daughter, she’s in Cuba with my husband, los

pobrecitos … I’m sure you must have heard

how terrible things are over there now with

those communists taking over, my God. But

my son, he’s with me. We had to bring him

out right away before the communists start

taking the children to Russia. Yes, that’s

another thing those communists are doing.

But he’s in school now, thank God. And God

7

willing, my husband will be coming to join us

very soon. Now, my daughter, we’re not too

worried about her. She’s already eighteen

and engaged, yes. She’s going to marry a boy

we know, a good boy. But in the meantime,

well, my son and I have to stay here, you

understand, until we can return. So you can

imagine how difficult it’s been for me to find

a job without any English —”

“Excuse me a moment, Mrs. Blan-co,

right?”

“Yes,” she answers, reaching into her

purse for her passport, her ID. “In Cuba,

married women get to keep their maiden

name, not like here. Yes, it is Blanco.”

Carmen, assuming the walk-up is looking

for her book, says as she flicks through the

Rolodex, “Let’s see . . . We have a few openings

for iron operators today. Would that be

something you’d want to do?”

“Ironing? Oh, sure. I can iron. My husband

tells me no one, not even his mother, can

iron his shirts as well as I do.”

“All righty, then. Give me your book and

I’ll send you right out.”

Mrs. Blanco hands her passport.

“Not this, your union book, or your card,

whichever you brought with you.”

“I am sorry, señorita. I don’t have a union

book. I could get one if you tell me how—”

“Oh, oh. How can we send you out on a

job, if you’re not in our union? This is an

employment office for our union members.

This is not for anybody. I mean you have to

be a member.”

“No problem, I will join the union. Just

tell me how.”

“It’s not like that. I’m sorry, the jobs we

have are for our members in good standing

only.”

“This is no problem for me. No problem

at all. I want to be a union member. Just

tell me what I have to do and I will join your

union. You see, we just arrived in New York

and I need a job—”

“You’ve already told me, Mrs. Blanco.

But I can’t send you out unless you’re in our

union. It’s just how it is.”

“But I will be very happy to be a member

of your union. What is it? Is there a fee?”

“Yes, well no, it’s not just a fee. To join

our union, you must first work in a union

shop for at least three months before you

can apply.”

“You’ll have to pardon me, Carmencita,

chica. It’s a beautiful name, Carmen. I

almost named my daughter Carmen, yes. I

have a cousin named Carmen too. She’s my

favorite cousin—”

“Mrs. Blanco…”

“Forgive me, Carmen, I will not bore you

with it. But listen, if you give me the ironing

job, I promise you I will come back in three

months and ask for you personally and I will

join your union. A promise is a promise.”

Carmen looks over Mrs. Blanco’s shoulders

at the line. “Look, I’d love to help you —”

“But Carmen, my girl, how can I work for

three months and then join the union if you

don’t give me the job first?”

“These are the rules. I’m really sorry.”

“You mean you can’t give me a job unless

I already have a job?”

“Not really, but in your case, I’m afraid

so.”

“Why would I come to ask for employment

if I am already employed? I’d be too busy at

work!”

“I’m sorry. Take this brochure with you.

Read it at your leisure. There’s nothing else I

can do. Next . . .”

Mrs. Blanco buttons up her coat. “Ay, Carmencita,

really. I’m afraid it’s going to take

me a long time to understand this country.”

She straps her purse on her shoulder. “To

have an employment office for people already

employed—” She finished her comment

with a silent headshake of disbelieve.

As Mrs. Blanco walks toward the glass

door, the heat of emotion wells in her eyes.

She halts next to the wastebasket. She looks

down at the balled-up paper the screaming

lady had shucked with such disdain. Quickly,

she lowers herself, picks it up, slips it into

her purse, and walks out.

Two blocks away, she stops to decipher

the words on the paper. It’s a printed form

filled out with ink but without a bearer’s

name on it.

“... Jane Holly Blouses ... West 61st Street

... Steam iron operator ... Salary: $1.25 an

hour ... attention: Mr. Weinstein.”

Her face lights up. She has no reservations

in applying for a job a disgruntled member

of Carmen’s union didn’t want. Unions, what

are they good for anyway? In Cuba, they

called them sindicatos, like the one the

communists first organized in her husband’s

factory and then abolished after they confiscated

it. But if unions is how the Americans

choose to call them, it is fine with her.

On Columbus Circle, Mrs. Blanco runs into

a crowd of people waving signs of ‘JFK for

President.’ She works her way around them

and hurries down 60th Street, crosses West

End Avenue, and turns on the corner. The

Hudson River is just down the road.

A cold wind blows on her face, clean, crisp

American air.

61st Street is solid with parked cars. She

finds the address. A sign above the doorway

says Jane Holly Blouses. She enters the

building. Out of the biggest elevator she’s

8

ever seen, she encounters a pretty girl at

the desk by the door. Mrs. Blanco switches

on her smile and hands her the wrinkle-creased

but now straightened flat employment

form.

The receptionist, chewing gum, picks up

a telephone, says one phrase and hangs up,

then says something to her and points at a

metallic door. The stained sign on it says

‘Employees Only.’

“San-cue,” Mrs. Blanco says.

She enters a high-ceiling workshop with

long tables. Mr. Weinstein, a thirty-something,

pleasant-looking man in a tie and

dress shirt, comes walking from behind a

stack of rolls of fabrics. The out-turned toes

of his shoes are shiny but dusty . . . a man

who doesn’t mind getting dirty at work. Mrs.

Blanco approves.

She holds out the paper.

Mr. Weinstein doesn’t look up at her smile.

He scowls at the paper. “Where’s your union

booklet?”

She answers with her brightest smile

something that sounds like this to Mr. Weinstein,

“Chess, I lie to goo-erk bery mosh.”

He releases a long sigh, steps back, and

shouts over the machine noises “Josefina,”

then waits, glancing at Mrs. Blanco, sizing

her up.

Spanish Josefina, short, with a round

cheerful face, races over, obviously pleased

to be the boss’s interpreter.

“Ask Mrs. Blanco if she has her union book

or her ID card.”

Josefina translates the question.

Mrs. Blanco takes a deep breath and is

about to explain why she doesn’t yet have a

union card when Mr. Weinstein with the outturned

toes cuts her short. “Never mind,”

he says with a dual expression of pity and

mirth on his pale face. “Tell Mrs. Blanco not

to worry. Tell her to come back tomorrow at

eight in the morning ready to start training.

Ironing.” He gestures as if waving an iron.

“And tell her she’ll be starting at a dollar an

hour, not at a dollar twenty-five as it says in

the form. OK?”

Then Mr. Weinstein adds without the need

for translation, louder as if his Spanish would

be better understood at a higher volume.

“Ma-nya-nah worky on time. OK?”

The message is translated anyway and

Mrs. Blanco, beaming, almost curtsies at her

new boss. “San cue, bery bery mosh.”

Walking back to the subway, Mrs. Blanco’s

eyes overflow with tears. She can’t believe

her luck. To have achieved what only twenty-four

hours before seemed like a monumental

impossibility feels nothing short of

a miracle, as though the Virgin herself was

watching over her.

Suddenly, she remembers how hungry she

is and picks up her gait. Back in the rooming

house, there are hot dogs and a can of

Campbell soup waiting for her. Tonight, she

announces to herself, she will take her son

to the pizzeria on Broadway and celebrate.

She slows her pace as she approaches a tumult

in Columbus Square.

The crowd is so thick she can’t see the

end of it. Dozens of JFK for President cardboard

signs are up all over the street and

over people’s heads. Motorcycle policemen

are cutting off the traffic. Red lights are

swirling. A sudden upsurge of voices and motor

noises breaks out and she is dragged by

the rushing human tide toward the edge of

the sidewalk. A slow-moving black convertible

as long as a yacht comes sailing slowly

through the mass of bodies. And there, over

the sea of outstretched fluttering hands,

the figure of John F. Kennedy appears in a

royal blue suit, his face under a crown of

impeccable chestnut hair, and a smile of

perfect white. Drawn by the delirious multitude,

Mrs. Blanco reaches out to him as if

attracted by an invisible magnet, and their

skins clasp together for a magical instant.

Then just as quickly, the candidate’s caravan

floats away.

Mrs. Blanco extricates herself from the

mob. She walks away toward Broadway

unaware of the importance she would later

give to the event. A half-block up 61st

Street, she begins to feel faint. She leans

on a wall to wait for it to pass. Beside her,

there’s the tangle of tubes of a scaffold on

the side of the building. On a tall windowsill

behind her, she sees a neatly folded white

paper bag. She takes it and peeks inside.

There are two jelly donuts wrapped in wax

paper, a capped coffee cup still hot, two

sugar packets, a plastic stirrer and paper

napkins. She looks around her at the busy

sidewalk of incurious New Yorkers passing by.

She sighs and puts it back, and walks away.

She halts abruptly, turns back, picks up

the paper bag and rushes up the street with

it.

On Broadway, she finds a bench in the

median promenade. She sits down, pours the

sugar into the steaming coffee, and stirs it.

Slowly, she takes out a donut. Up by her lips,

she breathes in its baked aroma and bites

the sweet soft dough filled with even sweeter

jelly as though performing a delicious but

sinful act. Pigeons start gathering nearer.

The November sun shines with a silver glow

through the overcast Manhattan sky. She

savors the donut unhurriedly until is gone except

for the white sugary dust on her fingers.

9

She looks into the paper bag, and summoning

the phenomenal strength only motherhood

could give her, Mrs. Blanco saves the

remaining donut for her son.

She gathers herself up and takes the subway

uptown.

In her room, she finds her son with his

heavy white-sox feet resting on the radiator.

He has the transistor radio up by his ear. She

drops the groceries on the small table by the

door and gives him a kiss on the cheek. He’s

busy mouthing along with the song playing,

mimicking the singer. He’s singing in English.

Mrs. Blanco doesn’t fool herself thinking

if she ever went out job-hunting again that

she’d be hired the same morning, shake the

hand of a presidential nominee, and find a

bag with fresh donuts and coffee. But it had

happened. And she had done it all on her

own. She knew her exiled roommates were

going to ask her how her day went, they

always ask about everything. She’d have

to be watchful of how she told it. Measure

her elation, soften the magical aspect of it.

Tragedies bring people together, but personal

good fortune, not so much. To be an exile,

to be forced to flee one’s homeland and seek

refuge in a foreign country, is no different

than living with an open wound, hurting part

of every moment.

Mrs. Blanco approaches her son. His head

is bobbing in time with the music. She lets

the sweet-smelling paper bag fall on his lap.

He drops everything when he sees the donut.

“How did this get here in one piece?” he

says, amazed.

“Son, you wouldn’t believe the day I had

even if I told you.”

“Did you find anything?”

Mrs. Blanco smiled.

10

Little City Market

Painting

Pat Wai

Livermore, California, USA

Inauguration Day

Free Verse Poetry

Deborah LeFalle

San Jose, California, USA

I Wonder

Poetry

Heidi Speth

St. Peters, Missouri, USA

The blue balloons

tethered by thin cotton cords

wrapped ‘round my fingers

bob in morning breeze

and squeal as translucent latex

skins

rub one against the other

ready, waiting to be freed

to rise high into the sky

Their weight of no consequence

but I have bricks on my shoulders

Despite placid appearance

I am exhausted and await freedom

too

freedom from 1,461 days

of orange-drenched evil

As I let go, I let go

and the tightropes in my body

miraculously begin to ease

Bricks crumble into a heap at my

feet

invisible balm melts over me

At last, the hallelujah moment

hoped for has arrived

Head reared back

I watch the imperfect spheres

ascend

catching sun’s glare

drifting this way and that

until they are mere pinheads

And as blue balloons

dance amid the clouds

swallows soar

and signs of civility

come into view once more.

I often wonder about my fish

Swimming in circles in my fifteen-year-old, twenty-gallon tank

Are they angry when I bring home new fish?

Do they notice when one of their fellow fish dies?

Do they talk to each other?

Are they lonely?

How do they make the best of their situation?

I feel like we can learn a lot from fish

Because after all, we are all just stuck here swimming in circles in the

same fishbowl

It is time we learn to rejoice when we meet new people

Time to grieve when friends and friends of friends pass on to another

life

Time to reach out and talk to those who have no one else to listen

Time to not let people be lonely, but love them for who they are

Time to live our best lives every day, whether we are in the world’s

largest aquarium or the small

fishbowl in a child’s bedroom

No matter how trapped, how secluded, how isolated you feel

There are always going to be other fish in your sea to bring you up

To share their joy, to encourage you, to love on you

Sometimes we just can’t see past our own reflection in the glass

To see our friends staring back at us

11

In Our House

Fiction

Susan Hettinger

Olympia, Washington, USA

Before there were laws regulating such

things, in Mormon polygamist families if the

husband died first, his wives who died after

him were buried in his same grave. They

spent eternity together, stacked on top of

his coffin, chronologically by death date, one

atop the last, condo-style. I bet the women

didn’t come up with this idea. I’m an amateur

anthropologist and this practice interests

me. I am not a Mormon, or even a wife.

However, I live with a man who still co-owns

two cemetery plots with his ex-wife. Does

this bother me? Maybe a little. I plan to be

cremated or possibly composted, if the funeral

home in our small backward town ever

figures out how to do this without attracting

the neighborhood dogs.

I mull this over early one afternoon in

late autumn during the Baptist funeral of my

friend Rhonda’s father. Rhonda is not just

my best friend; she is an excellent friend. I

could call her around midnight and say “Pick

me up in the parking lot behind the Tastee

Freeze in half an hour. Bring five thousand

dollars in cash,” and she wouldn’t ask questions.

She’d show up.

Her father’s service is not one of those

celebration-of-life events where microphones

circulate so that the bereaved can

take turns telling heartwarming stories about

the decedent. It’s about release from earthly

travails, reuniting with our Holy Father,

that sort of thing. I’m a Unitarian. Some

Unitarians don’t believe in God, or even in

potlucks. Rhonda believes in both. She prays

daily, thinking that prayer changes both herself

and the world. I tried prayer a few times

but couldn’t quite get the hang of it. Now

Rhonda sits in the front pew with her mother,

half-siblings, and several middle-aged

women. Three of them, I later learn, are

Rhonda’s father’s second, third and fourth

wives, Rhonda’s mother being the first.

In the church social hall afterward, we sip

weak tea and nibble dry cookies after the receiving

line of mourners has muttered “sorry

for your loss” and shuffled along.

“It’s kind of amazing that after all the

divorcing and remarrying and reproducing,

everyone in this room still gets along,” she

says, “even the wives.” This strikes me as

awkward for all concerned. I compare the

wives. Which is prettiest? Which youngest?

Do they like one another or is there animosity?

I consider this as I drive home. I am not

like Rhonda’s mother, with her easy acceptance

of those successor wives. My family is

not Rhonda’s big, warm, welcoming family. I

am the only one among my four stingy sisters

to acquire a slightly used man. So? Maybe

my concern is that while I’m the incumbent,

I’m not the first. Maybe it’s that everyone in

this gossipy town knows that Isoletta left Lou

seven years ago, not vice versa, so I am the

rebound partner. Maybe it’s that Lou and I

haven’t married. Do people say, outside my

hearing, “Poor Samantha. Lou hasn’t exactly

traded up, has he? Think they’ll ever marry?

She’s forty-three. Could be her last chance.”

I don’t compare favorably to Isoletta’s grace,

her mellifluous voice, her glowing olive skin.

12

Her parents are Italian. Her father sang with

the San Francisco Opera, though mostly in

spear-carrier roles. He was not the guy who

gets the aria opportunities. But Isoletta has

an artsy, European aura. Given to tantrums,

I hear, and not suited to household chores.

Whereas I enjoy domesticity, am of average

temperament and average looks, distinguished

only by an unusually sharp tongue.

It’s not that I dislike Isoletta. It’s just that

I want nothing to do with her.

She keeps cropping up at inconvenient

times and places.

Pulling into the garage, I recall our recent

chance encounter. I’d looked up from a photo

spread of Inca mummies in The National

Geographic, to see her, Isoletta, sitting

across the clinic reception area, waiting for

her appointment with my (mine, not hers)

primary care doc. I’d been slightly anxious

even before noticing her sitting there,

wearing her classy slacks, and her flattering

cashmere sweater—though all that happens

at my annual visits is that I get weighed and

checked for crotch-rot. I’d mumbled “hello”

and returned to the mummies curled up in

their tombs. I imagined Lou, mummified but

still wearing his glasses, lying on a stainless-steel

exam table, the corpse of his exwife—in

cashmere prone on top of him. She

might prefer a Tibetan sky burial on a mountaintop

where vultures clean up the mess.

So I am peeved that tonight, after

this funeral, I may have to host her, and at

how she came to be invited to our house.

That is, the house that Lou previously shared

with Isoletta, the house that is now mine.

Ours, I mean.

###

Earlier in the afternoon, rushing through

the kitchen on my way to the garage to drive

to the Baptist church for the funeral, I had

encountered Lou, a talented and enthusiastic

cook, prepping for the evening’s dinner

party. A Yucatan theme with a menu of ceviche

and papadzules in the aftermath of our

trip to Uxmal with Lou’s 19-year-old daughter

Kate during quarter break her freshman

year at the University of Montana. Okay,

make that Lou and Isoletta’s daughter. Kate

had taken the pictures and sat at the kitchen

table assembling them into a PowerPoint

show while talking on her cell phone. Lou

stood at the sink carving up colorful, exotic

fruits we bought through Amazon—pitaya,

carambola, mamey—as I entered. When she

saw me, she smiled, held the phone a short

distance from her mouth, and said “Is it all

right if my mom comes?”

“What?” I said.

“I invited Mom to the party, Sam. To

see the pictures. That’s okay, isn’t it?”

“Sure,” I said in a bright, highpitched

voice. “Fine. Great.” I looked at

Lou, waiting for him to intervene (“Now,

honey, it might be better if you took the

slides over to your mom’s house tomorrow…”)

but he said nothing. Surely, I

thought, surely? Lou kept peeling. He didn’t

even look up, though he heard the whole

conversation. Lou’s ex-wife heard it, too,

because Kate failed to muffle the phone

against her UM sweatshirt, as we do in the

civilized world. A lively extrovert doing what

extroverts do.

I searched unsuccessfully for confidence

and optimism. Isoletta is the sensitive,

artistic type. She would be uncomfortable

in my house with my friends. She won’t

come.

Then I left for the church, preoccupied,

and annoyed, the prospect of Isoletta plaguing

me.

###

During the service, my mind wanders from

the minister’s words, which are not specific

to Rhonda’s dad. The generic quality of

the liturgy bugs me. So I check out and fuss

a bit, internally, about the tasks I need to

complete before this evening’s party. I stew

over how Kate’s invitation to Isoletta has

disturbed my universe. I ought to be thinking

about the disturbance of Rhonda’s universe.

On my return home after the funeral, my

irritation level escalates. This, combined

with the social anxiety over hosting a gathering,

the desire to make everything perfect,

and the fear of screwing up, all contribute

to an unsettling afternoon.

###

The hour before the first guest arrives is

not a time of calm reflection and enjoyment

of careful preparations. Not at our house,

anyway. At my mother’s house, she steps

from her bedroom, groomed and relaxed

thirty minutes before her parties start. She

walks into her spotless, fragrant kitchen and

asks my father for a martini. This is her tradition:

she sits, crosses her long legs, lights

a Virginia Slim and begins to enjoy herself.

Then somehow, over the course of the next

few hours, coats are hung, drinks poured,

13

appetizers passed, elaborate meals served

and cleared, all with no apparent effort. It’s

as though she has invisible servants.

At our parties, it’s as though I am the

servant. Up to the moment the first guest

appears, I’m still hiding piles of junk mail,

realizing that I forgot to buy cream for

the coffee, and questioning the underlying

premise of the gathering. (Must we celebrate

Halloween and Thanksgiving and Christmas

every year? When’s the last time these

people had us over? Would inviting them to

a restaurant instead be viewed as de facto

feminine inadequacy?)

I consider—selfish, I know—spending a few

of these precious pre-party minutes calling

Rhonda for reassurance. I shouldn’t bother

her now, not on the evening after burying

her father. She always takes my side. She

would remind me of home-field advantage,

my territory. True, but not the point. The

point is that if Isoletta shows up, I will have

to watch her move her prominent cheekbones

and hipbones through my living room

holding one of my wineglasses, hugging my

friends. Lou’s friends. Her friends, too, some

of them, I admit. But mine tonight, by virtue

of jurisdiction. This is no longer her house. I

did not invite her.

But it’s too late for attitude adjustment.

I’m already invested in pissiness and

it’s hard to give up. Soon the doorbell will

ring. I must guess who’s coming to dinner.

I walk outside to the front yard where

Kate and I have placed luminarias along the

walkway. Kate’s college-branded hoodie

covers her auburn hair. Her tall figure bends

easily as she lights the candles. I take some

matches and join her in the lighting ceremony.

We’d stayed up late the night before

talking while we decorated these paper lanterns.

She’d asked: “Do you remember those

creepy stories you used to tell me when I

couldn’t get to sleep?”

“Those weren’t creepy! And they

worked,” I’d said.

“The seven graves of Sacajawea? Definitely

creepy.”

“You were way too old for bedtime stories.

I was just keeping you company.” I’d

had no idea what to do for a ten-year old

who missed her mother and blamed her

father. I’d never wanted children of my own,

afraid of the psychological damage I would

undoubtedly inflict on defenseless small beings.

I didn’t even own a cat.

“Do you think she was lonely too? I mean

after she left? Or maybe now?” Kate says.

“Do you feel sorry for her?”

“Absolutely not,” I say. “She made her

choice.”

“Huh,” Kate says, pausing. And then:

“Remember the one where Sacajawea never

met Meriwether Lewis and instead of becoming

a guide, she got a job driving a Zamboni?”

“Uh, no.”

“And when she died, they mixed her ashes

with water and froze it to make the ice-skating

rink?”

“Now you’re making stuff up.”

She continued along the “remember

when …” vein long into the night as we cut

shapes from paper bags, shapes we’d seen

at the Mayan pyramids. Serpents, mostly.

At Chichen Itza on the fall equinox, we had

watched the late afternoon sun creep down

the northern staircase, creating the illusion

of an immense approaching snake. Now, as

we place the candles, their light creates an

eerie effect. It appeals to me.

After all are lit and Lou and I are in

our room changing clothes, I say, because

I can’t help it, “So, are you okay with having

Isoletta here tonight?” My jealousy is

unattractive. Isoletta is dancer-elegant and

cultured, in both appearance and behavior.

But I stick around. I am here. Here, wishing

I were less ordinary and had time to shower

again.

He turns to me, his face expressionless

and says, “What do you mean?”

“I was just surprised that Kate decided

to invite her.” I should suck it up and

tough it out. I regret speaking even as the

words leave my accursed mouth.

A flicker of irritation crosses Lou’s

handsome face. He says, “Isoletta is Kate’s

mother. Kate wants to impress her with the

pictures from the trip. I think she’s still

trying to earn her way back into Isoletta’s

affection. This is not about you, Sam.”

Oh.

He looks at me again.

“Isoletta is Kate’s mother,” he repeats.

###

She comes.

Lou and Kate are involved with other

guests, so I must let her in. She stands in the

center of a circle of luminarias on our porch,

looking like she’s on stage surrounded by

footlights. She has brought her shiny hair. I

open the door. We exchange manufactured

smiles. “Lovely to see you,” I lie. “Glad you

could make it.” She precedes me through

the entryway into what used to be her

house, before she fled, abandoning husband

and child. I take her coat so that I can put

it with the others on our bed (our bed!). I

offer wine and usher her in. This is my house

14

now. These are my friends. Mine, mine,

mine. She looks around, taking stock. Little

has changed since she absconded. We didn’t

paint or change the furniture. She has a good

eye, better visual sense than I have. Her degree

is in art history. I’m an accountant. I’m

drawn to the quantifiable. I’ve never cared

much about interior decorating, but this

evening I’m beginning to wonder if I could

somehow put my mark on the place. No, too

much like dogs and hydrants. But as I look at

Isoletta assessing our home, our lives, I feel

that one of us does not belong here.

It’s not like when we go to Lou’s company

Christmas party and I must see and speak

to women he dated before me. They are

negligible people and the party is always

at a hotel. Everything is impersonal. This is

different. She was his wife. This is our home.

In objective terms, the party is

successful. Everyone we invited comes. The

food is tasty. The photos project beautifully,

and there aren’t too many of them, so it

doesn’t get boring. My favorite image is the

three of us kneeling at an archaeological site

where artifacts are being exhumed; we’re

sweaty and dusty and entranced. Kate and

Lou make an entertaining father-daughter

act, both gifted storytellers. They tease one

another and me. Everyone laughs. Lou is

undeniably charming; I am lucky to be with

him. The house glows golden and inviting,

with soft light from the fireplace reflecting

on familiar faces. I think how eternal this

scene is, like cave people huddled around

a fire pit millennia ago, sharing a haunch of

roasted saber-toothed tiger and tales of the

hunt. I wonder if cave people were monogamous.

Seems unlikely.

Although the party appears to be going

fine, I continue to feel unsettled, like a

month-to-month tenant. A constant awareness

of Isoletta’s presence weighs me down.

I know her exact location at every moment.

She carries her Rioja out the back door and

stands on the deck, sipping and surveying

our hibernating weed garden. She returns in

under five minutes. She goes into the guest

bathroom, causing me to worry whether it’s

clean enough. I recall the moment when, as

I moved my stuff into the upstairs bathroom

drawers, I came across her forgotten jar of

facial “serum” made from mink oil, with a

$175 price tag still stuck to the bottom. It

was tempting, but I threw it out.

I try to ignore her but can’t.

At one point, I spy her standing next to

Lou. They make a handsome couple, both

tall and effortlessly stylish. I’m shorter than

them, closer to the ground, more detail-oriented.

They stand not face-to-face but sideby-side.

He hands her something. What is it?

It’s the snow-globe, a custom-made ball of

crystal containing an image of a child-sized

snowperson and an adult-sized snowperson,

representing Kate and Lou. Lou had it made

for Kate during our trip to Oslo to see the

fossilized Viking ships. Kate gave it to me

last Mothers’ Day, a gesture I understood to

mean that she sees the two snowpeople as

herself and me. This chokes me up whenever

I think of it. Now Isoletta receives it

with both hands, gazes down, then gently

shakes it to make the snow fall. I watch from

the other side of the room, hoping no one

watches me watching her. She tilts her face

up. Lou inclines his head toward hers. They

talk. She smiles. Is he giving it to her? No.

He puts his hand out to receive the globe

back from her. She pauses, then returns it.

Their hands touch unnecessarily.

As I pass, I overhear Isoletta say “… it’s

the typical freshman fifteen…” and feel momentary

outrage on Kate’s behalf. Cafeteria

food. She’s a bit rounder. So what?

I walk around the room, re-filling

glasses and collecting plates, trying to enjoy

the good fortune that has brought me this

life, these people. Kate, central to this

tableau, cut her hair while away at college

so that it looks a lot like mine, short and

low-maintenance, which is not exactly a

wise choice. For a moment, I feel a surge

of fierce love for this child who spent her

middle and high school years in our house,

the house I share with Lou. But the next

moment, passing plates of marquesitas for

dessert, which the slender Isoletta refuses,

I feel apart from the gathering, someone

whose job it is to carry away dirty dishes,

and make sure everyone else is warm and

fed and content.

Do I resent her? Not exactly, I realize,

as I move through the living room, discharging

my hostess duties. It’s Lou who disappoints

me. Is he treating me like a waitress,

or have I willingly assumed this role? I want

him to stand next to me, slip an arm around

my waist, look proud of me— I know I’m not

trophy material. Would such a small gesture

assuage my ugly jealousy? Maybe I should

prompt him.

I walk over to where he sits on the sofa

engaged in animated conversation with Isoletta

and the couple from next door, people

who have presumably seen it all, from their

close vantage point. “Dear,” I say, “how

about giving me a hand with the coffee?”

“Sure, Sam, I’ll be right there,” he

says, but he doesn’t follow me as I retreat to

the kitchen.

I am wearing my forest green sweater.

It’s my best color. I try to recall exactly

15

how long it’s been since we had sex. More

than a week. Two weeks? I return to the living

room carrying a tray of cups and a carafe

of coffee. I catch Lou’s eye and try to communicate

with him nonverbally, but there’s

no universal gesture for “hey you, walk away

from that other woman and come over here

and help me.” I approach him again. He’s

still seated, still yucking it up with Isoletta

and the next-door neighbors.

“Could you please take this around for

me, Lou?” I ask, interrupting him.

“Yeah, yeah,” he says, his hands in mid-air

as he gestures to illustrate some point in the

story he’s telling. “Just a minute.” He turns

back to his audience. “And then she goes,

‘Well Dad, what’s the point of traveling the

world if you’re afraid of a little raw conch

salad?’” They all laugh. I stand waiting. No

one looks at me. I set the tray on the coffee

table and withdraw again, irritation morphing

to actual anger. I think maybe it shows.

I’m okay with that.

In the kitchen, I stand by the sink, my

back to the door that leads to the dining

room.

“What’s with you?” Lou says, as he enters

and comes to stand next to me at the sink.

“What do you think?”

“I have no earthly idea,” he says.

“Put yourself in my place,” I say. “How

would you feel if I invited an old lover here

to our home and you had to wait on him

while we flirted on the sofa?”

“Seriously? You’re jealous? That’s ridiculous,

Sam.” He gives his head a small shake.

“You’re over-reacting. We’re not flirting. Get

over it.”

“I can’t,” I say.

“I can’t believe you’re doing this. I’m going

back to our guests.” He swivels, his back

to me, knuckles on hip.

“Fine,” I snap. “Have a swell time.”

And as he turns to go, the door to the

dining room swings open. In comes Isoletta,

carrying the coffee tray, having apparently

distributed the cups to our guests. She immediately

sees that something’s up, something

she wants no part of, something she

may recognize.

“Sorry,” she says, sets the tray on the

counter, and backs out.

“Nice,” Lou says to me, in mock civility,

and follows her.

I stand over the sink, feeling slapped,

looking out the window at the last surviving

luminaria. I see not the yard but my own reflection

in the glass against the black background

of night sky beyond. I look small, but

the resolution of my mirrored image is poor

so I appear less frizzy, flaky and fat than I

believe myself to be. I am alone. I scrape

and stack plates to wash later. I wish again

that Rhonda were here, someone on my

side, though I know this business of taking

sides is never a good idea.

The kitchen feels chilly. Voices and music

float in from the next room. Festive, but

antiseptic, like a sitcom laugh track.

I view the clutter around me—crumpled

napkins, lipstick-stained goblets, halfgnawed

morsels on skewers—wondering what

a successor civilization might make of my

midden.

Then motion attracts my eye. Someone

on the driveway, walking away from the

house. Isoletta, her slim silhouette in the

designer coat which she must have fetched

from our bedroom. The room where I wanted

her never to be. At least she’s leaving. I

exhale in relief and contemplate abandoning

the dishes to sit near the fire with the others.

But then she stops. She hesitates. I hope

she won’t turn around and see me watching

her. She remains motionless for what feels

like a long time but is probably only about

thirty seconds. She slowly rotates in a full

circle as if to survey the place she is leaving.

In the darkness, I can’t see her face, but

her form appears less regal than it did earlier

in the evening. What is she thinking? What

is she doing?

She squats down and sits on the curb, feet

in the gutter. She draws her knees up close

to her chest and wraps her arms around

them, in a sort of self-hug.

The door from the dining room bangs

open and Kate storms in. She slams the snow

globe down on the kitchen table hard enough

to cause the pile of dessert plates to jump. I

shift my focus: What is she thinking? What is

she doing?

“What?” I ask.

“She wasn’t even here.”

Huh?

“I didn’t mean to piss her off. Though

maybe Dad did. But she didn’t have to stomp

away like that. Make a scene and everything.”

“Slow down,” I say, searching her face for

clues. It’s red and damp.

She swallows, looks down, then back at

me. She backs up a couple steps and leans

against the counter, nudging the smudged

glassware out of the way with her rump.

“We were talking about the trip and that day

we stumbled onto a quinceanera, remember?”

“Of course.” A huge party across the

street from the public park where we picnicked.

Girls in fancy dresses, one in white

like a bride. Loud music. A gruesome pig

roasting on a spit. Kate had taken photos.

16

She’d shown one of them this evening.

“Mom said it was to celebrate menarche,

and I said no, it’s just a fifteenth birthday

party. And then she went on and on about

the importance of coming-of-age rituals in

all cultures when a girl gets her first period.

And I said, not all cultures. Not ours.

At least not mine. She sorta gave me the

stink eye. And then Dad butted in and said,

‘You weren’t even here, Isoletta. Sam was

here.’”

Thank you, Lou.

“He said, ‘Showing up matters.’ Then she

just got her coat and left. Without saying

goodbye to anyone.”

I remember that day. Red Tent rather

than Bat Mitzvah; no gifts. How uneasy Kate

had been. How we put a little Vaseline on

the end of the plastic tampon applicator to

make it slide in easier. And how relieved I

felt when she laughed as she sat on the toilet

while I stood just outside the bathroom

door and described how to position a mirror

to help her locate what I crudely referred to

as “the right hole.” I should have called it

“an orifice.”

“Do you want to go after her?” I ask.

“What for? She walked away from us, not

the other way around.”

Us. I hear this word with such satisfaction

that I immediately chastise myself for my

pettiness, my possessiveness, my invention

of a nasty little drama.

It occurs to me that if Lou were to sell the

two cemetery plots he and Isoletta own together,

or better yet give them both to her,

that would help me a great deal.

I feel sure he would do it if I asked.

Also, I want different carpeting.

And better lingerie.

My eyes sweep across the post-party detri-

tus. Kate looks at me. I look at her. Her hair

isn’t that bad after all. Neither is mine.

I give a loud but involuntary sigh.

“What?” Kate says.

“I no longer feel an obligation to do the

dishes. They’ll still be here tomorrow. You

with me?” I slip arm around her waist and

propel both of us back toward the party.

The Angel and

the Dirty Boy

Poetry

Ranjith Sivaraman

Kochi, Kerala, India

The kid loved playing in the mud

A mud much darker than his skin.

He was comfortable being dirty and ugly

Because all his mates were so.

Deep inside him always dreamed in vain

of a cute little angel who will descent from

the sky

with an alluring smile and tempting soul

The angel took his hand and slowly made

him clean

They walked into the woods, climbed the

hills

ran through the plains and swam in the rivers

they admired the orchids, pissed off cuckoos

drenched in sunlight and burned in rain

They tasted fragrances drank tears

danced in storm, fought for memories

hugged breathlessly and froze in moments

And kid asked the angel, "Where are your

wings?"

The angel told him "I forget to mention;

I was never an Angel, but I didn’t want to

hurt you with the truth!"

Melancholy Is

Poetry

Nezrin Hasanly

Concord, California, USA

To open the window for the first time in the

day

and you find yourself staring at a sunset

To stay up long enough at night

and hear a rainstorm from start to finish

Sometimes we don't need a clock

to tell us how much time we've missed

Nature is that mentor in our lives

with the stern but kind reminders we need

17

18

Hannah

Painting

Yim Ivy Wu

Danville, California, USA

19

Zephyr

Ink Pen Drawing

Eunhee Soh


A Tale of Three Avocados

Fiction

Kilmeny MacMichael

Oliver, British Columbia, Canada

“Once upon a time, there lived three

bears, a big bear, a little bear...”

“I already know that story.”

“Hmm. Once upon a time, there was a girl

with golden hair, who lived in a tower and…”

“I know that one too. I don’t want a once

upon a time story; I want a real story.”

“Once a time... once a time ago, but not

too long ago, there was a boy...”

“Is this a real boy?”

“...This was a real boy. This boy was older

than you, but not too old. There were still

many things he didn’t know. One day…”

“Where did he live?”

“He lived... in a big city, in a small house,

because his family was small and poor.”

“Were they paupers?”

“Not quite. His... father worked and his

mother was careful with their money. And

this boy was lucky to have found a job working

at a store, after school.”

“What kind of store?”

“I’m going to tell you. Why are your eyes

open? Close your eyes.

“The boy was lucky to have a job working

at a grocery store. He wore an apron with a

big pocket and swept the floors. He helped

to put the groceries out on the shelves.

Sometimes he would carry groceries out to

customer’s cars, and every so often, a customer

would give him an extra coin, a tip.

“He knew he was lucky to have this work.

He knew he was lucky even though carrying

the groceries sometimes made his arms hurt.

Even though working meant he couldn’t play

but had to hurry from school to the store as

soon as school ended for the day. He didn’t

have many friends to play with anyway. Many

of his classmates taunted him and laughed at

him.”

“Why?”

“Maybe because he was shy, and maybe

because when he did talk, he talked with a

different accent than they did.”

“Why?”

“Because his family came to the big city

from a place far away, trying to find good

work for the father. But his father hadn’t

found that good work yet.”

“Why not?”

“There were too many other people

looking for work and not enough good work.

It was a hard time for many, although there

were some still doing well.”

“They were mean, those other children.”

“Perhaps some of the boys who laughed

and teased him were even hungrier than he

was. Perhaps they were jealous of him, perhaps

their fathers couldn’t find any work at

all and neither could they. Perhaps.

“At the store, there were different coloured

fruits, golden apples, and green

bananas, lemons, and yellow squash. There

were brown nuts and red meats and soups

in brightly labelled cans. Jars of colourful

striped candies, pink-fleshed grapefruits,

and boxes tied with bows, full of chocolate…”

“And oranges?”

“There were oranges. Looking at all this

food while he worked, the boy’s stomach

would grumble and tell him it was empty,

20

and he was hungry.”

“I’m a little hungry.”

“After that big supper you ate? You are

not. Are you?”

“No.”

“Good. But our story boy was. Our story

boy would have to wait after his stomach

grumbled, wait hours until his work for the

day was done. He had to wait until he could

go back to his little home, and there his

mother would have a little supper ready for

him. The boy would eat the little supper and

brush his teeth and go to bed. Did you brush

your teeth tonight?”

“Yes.”

“Did you wash your face?”

“Yes.”

“Are you tired?”

“No.”

“Hmm. The boy in our story was sometimes

so tired after supper, he would fall

asleep before his mother had finished washing

the supper dishes. And he went to sleep

sad about how little and grey his suppers

were.”

“What do you mean, grey?”

“I’ll tell you. There was rent on the little

house to pay, and they had to pay the water

and electric company, and there was a

heating bill to pay because it was winter.

The boy needed new shoes. The family

couldn’t afford to buy colourful, strange,

exotic, different food. They couldn’t afford

to buy the colourful food at the store. What

if they tried something new and they didn’t

like it at all? They couldn’t risk buying food

they couldn’t eat. They could only afford

the same, bland, grey food, over and over

again. The food they knew. White bread and

margarine. Spaghetti. Lucky times, meatloaf,

although it was really mostly bread too.

Potatoes, all the time. The food they knew,

too well.

The boy’s mother was always saying there

were great things ahead, and better times,

as long as they kept honest and hardworking

and were patient.

The boy dreamed of striped candies, big

jelly doughnuts, crispy fried chicken, cornbread

with rich cream, orange squash…”

“Oranges?”

“…oranges. Plums. The boy imagined all

this wonderful food, with all its wonderful

colours, and the food that he did have no

longer looked or tasted any good at all.

Still, he stuck to being mostly good and

patient until one day. It was a day where

nothing seemed to go right.

He woke up late; he was late for school. It

was winter. The teacher was cross, and the

boy forgot his spelling, and he was called

stupid in front of everyone. It was Thursday,

which the boy knew meant potato soup for

supper again... and of all the grey food there

was, potato soup was just about the greyest.

When the winter wind started spattering rain

against the school window, the boy wasn’t

surprised. It was that kind of day.

On the way to work his old shoes let in the

road-greasy water, and soon his socks and

feet were wet.

At work everything was hurry hurry. His

shoes squeaked. His stomach grumbled so

loud one customer turned to look at him.

He blushed.

The boy found himself standing in front

of a display of green fruit called avocado.

His mother had once called them alligator-pears.

They didn’t look very much like

alligators, but they did look a bit like pears.

The boy had never tasted an avocado.

Have you?

The boy often wondered about avocados,

about why they were one of the most expensive

fruits. If people bought them even

though they cost so much, they must be

good. What was he missing out on, having

never tasted one?

There he was, with wet feet and an empty

belly, while other people swanned around

in furs and fat. He was tired of waiting for

better times. He was tired of missing out on

having, including missing out on these avocados,

whatever they were like.

He wanted to try one, and he wanted to

try one now.

No one was watching him, so he picked up

not just one, but two avocados.

He put them in his apron pocket.

He walked to the storage room at the back

of the store. He closed the door behind him.

He was alone.

He took out one avocado and bit right into

it, his teeth striking fast past the thin leathery

skin, into the flesh underneath.

“He’s wrong.”

“Yes. He spat the mouthful back out into

his hand. It had tasted awfully strange. Was

it meant to be peeled first? Fearfully looking

back at the door, he moved behind some

crates and tried to peel the fruit with his fingers.

It didn’t work very well, but he managed

to dig out a piece of the green flesh.

He put it in his mouth. It was hard to chew.

A thump, a voice. Someone was coming.

The boy quickly put his ill-gotten fruit back

into his pocket. He grabbed at the closest

box to him and pretended he was there to

21

get more… of…whatever was in the box. He

swallowed and smiled as the boss came in

and hoped he didn’t look too guilty.

There were rutabaga in the box.

The boy went back to work, the stolen

avocado bite sitting like a lump in his belly.

He was sure everyone could see his pockets

bulging with stolen avocado, but no one said

anything. When quitting time came, he took

those avocados with him out of the store.

On the way home, he put the avocado he

had bitten in to into a trash can. It was dirty

from the lint and dust in his pocket getting

into the gouge he’d made.

It was a double-wrong he’d done now —

first stealing and then wasting food.

But he still had the second avocado. Perhaps

avocados were like bananas, arriving

at the store before they were ripe. The boy

didn’t know what a ripe avocado looked like,

but he thought now probably it should be

softer than the one he’d tried.

The boy didn’t talk much at supper, and

neither did his parents.

Before going to sleep, the boy put his second

stolen avocado under his bed. He would

keep it secret under there until it seemed

ready. He didn’t know how long it would

take.

The next morning the avocado was the

same as the night before, so the boy dressed

and went to school and work. He worked extra

hard that day, so hard the boss told him

he was “a good, hard-working young man.”

The boy flushed and stuttered and felt just

awful about what he’d done.

But he’d done it; what could he do about

it now? Should he have confessed?

The boy wasn’t brave, and he was afraid if

he admitted his crime, he would lose his job,

and then how would he get new shoes?

When he got home, he helped his mother

with the dishes, and he studied a little

before he went to bed. He didn’t look at the

avocado under his bed that night.

He didn’t want to see it.

The next morning was Saturday. It rained.

He went to work. He pretended there was no

avocado under his bed. On Sunday it rained,

and he went to see a movie.

What did he go to see? Something fun and

silly, set in a world where skies were always

blue.

Monday was rainy. Tuesday, the boy failed

a spelling test. Wednesday, while raining,

the boy had to clear garbage from the rain

pipe in front of the store using the wrong

end of a broom. Thursday came again, and

he had the sniffles. Friday — Friday — eight

days after first stealing it, the boy remembered

the avocado under his bed.

He did feel stupid he had forgotten.

The avocado was soft now. The skin was

dull, and it had a few dark spots on it. When

he poked it, the place he poked went and

stayed dented.

He thought it must be ripe. And he got a

little knife, and he cut it open.

Inside, this avocado had sort of… dark

swirls through the green flesh, almost black

they were. It had a great big nut, or seed, in

the middle that came out easily.

The boy wondered if he should eat this

fruit, with its ugly looking dark swirls. It

didn’t seem right, somehow, but he didn’t

know. Maybe this was the way it was supposed

to look.

He ate some. It wasn’t very pleasant. In

fact, it was pretty terrible. This second avocado

tasted even worse than the first.

The boy went and rinsed his mouth out

with water and threw the mushy avocado

out the window.

The next day was Saturday again, but sunny.

While he was working, he couldn’t help

but notice there were still an awful lot of

people buying avocados.

Why? What was the secret? What did you

have to do to enjoy the things? Should he

risk stealing another to try avocados a third

time? Would the third try be the lucky try?

He kept working. Eventually, he was asked

to help carry a customer’s groceries to their

car, and he could see several avocados in

their shopping bag. His curiosity overcame

his shyness. He asked the customer lady

about them.

The lady seemed a little surprised, but

she smiled and said, “When an avocado

yields just a little to the touch, that’s when

they’re best for plain eating.”

She took one avocado out of the bag and

handed it to him. She said, “You try this one,

on me.”

The boy thanked her.

This avocado he didn’t have to hide. The

green skin of this perfectly ripe fruit had no

dark spots, just little yellow freckles. When

he gently poked it, it didn’t dent like the

last one, but it did give just a little like the

lady said it should.

He went and sat down on the curb in front

of the store, and he cut this avocado open.

The inside was pale creamy yellow-green.

There was not one dark streak in it. The nut

was smooth and shiny brown and came out

cleanly. It was pretty to look at. Maybe this

was why avocados were so popular? Because

when they were ready to eat, they were nice

to look at?

He almost didn’t want to eat it because it

looked so nice. But he also wanted to know

what they were supposed to taste like!

22

He ate half the avocado. The insides

were so smooth and creamy, he could lick

them from the skin. It tasted a bit like...

warm creamy ice cream would, if it didn’t

melt and it was cold and without the sweet

taste. It had a slightly nutty taste, too, and

it wasn’t... well, it wasn’t bad. The boy

guessed this avocado was just the way that

an avocado was meant to be — but...

It left a coating on his teeth and tongue

he didn’t like.

There was too much of it — even though

he only ate half —

And although it made him feel full, it really

hadn’t felt or tasted like eating anything

particular. While it was a bit like ice cream,

or nutty banana, it actually didn’t have

much taste at all.

It didn’t taste bad, but it didn’t taste very

good, either.

This colourful, perfect avocado sort of

tasted... pale. A little grey.

The boy wrapped the remaining avocado

half carefully in his clean handkerchief to

take home, so his mother could try it.

He still couldn’t understand why people

were willing to pay so much for avocados.

But he wouldn’t bother to steal any again.

He would still prefer an honest, every day

orange, or to be perfectly honest, a doughnut.

The Welcome Visitor

Poetry


Lathrop, California, USA

I like to re-watch episodes of my

favorite shows when I feel sick.

It’s comforting to find myself

in fantastical, familiar worlds

with characters I’m as fond of

as family or friends.

Too often, I lose myself to fiction.

I enjoy the embrace of long weekends,

feeling secure and snug under a soft blanket

Knowing without a falter in the conviction

that I am welcome.

A repeat visitor and attentive re-listener

I can recite my favorites by heart

Like a best friend, I know what will be said

Long before the sentence even starts

I could, of course, explore anew instead

But these characters that hold me captivated,

They awaken in me a wonder and awe

to which the only response must be

inspired creation, pure and unweighted

unencumbered, understated

I acknowledge; therefore, I must create.

I acknowledge; therefore, I must create.

I acknowledge the beauty around me,

within me, the acknowledgements before

from those I’ll likely never meet

that there are stories meant to be incomplete,

characters destined to fail,

unable to reach what they need;

creators that know, the only comfort

I need (when I feel frail)

is that I will, indeed, prevail.

There was a lump

Poetry

katie pfeifer

Baltimore, Maryland, USA

There was a lump

The size of a penny

This tar lump

Staining her breasts in mammograms

Lurking for ways to cling to the nipple.

Everyone tells me they’re sorry

But how can I be sorry

When I want to get on my knees and thank whatever God that will listen

It was caught in time?

That the stain image of chemo burned tits won’t be my mother

Or the ghostly bald women

Who linger in society

Wearing the scarves where their hair was

Like a white sheet over a dead body.

The doctors comfort her

By saying she was lucky

But I could still see the fear possessing her through her eyes

Wanting to be awoken

So she didn’t have to do this.

But I inherited the fighter in me from her

The woman who won’t let me forget

She was in labor with me forty-three hours

Because I wanted to snuggle in her uterus more than climb down her

canal.

And on January 22, 2019

She made that cancer her bitch

And I get to hug her now

And not have to remember each strand of gray hair

Or the fighting she still has in her.

23

Alone

Photography

Dylan Scillia

Marlboro, New Jersey, USA

24

Crown XIX

Poetry


Winchester, California, USA

Recall, wretched beings, the warnings given

While I was still young and weak

A few bodies under yellow stars and red was

all the havoc I wreaked

Even on my name day when I was discovered

Shelter you still did not seek

Traveling through skies like migratory birds

You all helped me reach my peak

Embrace is not needed with air as my ride

And death, my compatriot

In truth, my job is hard when you hide inside

I encourage all to riot

Your leaders close borders and issue more

masks

As hospitals overflow

But everything is now too little too late

Your vaccines still come too slow

Millions have fallen to my gentle caress

You cannot fathom my art

You all should learn to fear my faceless

presence

Or be wheeled off in a cart

I have delivered many to my good friend,

Death

We relish your pain and cries

But those governments who had time to

prepare

Am I at fault for who died?

All this happened, more or less.

It was the best of times.

It was the worst of times.

Bookshelf Prophesy

Poetry

Carl "Papa" Palmer

University Place, Washington, USA

(opening sentences)

Slaughterhouse Five, Kurt Vonnegut

A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens

It was a bright cold day in April

1984, George Orwell

and the clocks were striking thirteen.

We started dying before the snow,

Tracks, R. Davidson

and like the snow, we continued to fall.

(closing sentences)

We are lost in darkness and distance. Frankenstein, Mary Shelley

and not enough to see by.

Cat’s Eye, Margaret Atwood

After tomorrow, another day

Are there any questions?

Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell

The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood

So that in the end, there was no end. The Tree of Man, Patrick White

We shall never again be as we were. Wings of the Dove, Henry James

25

Just Breathe 2020

Poetry

Sameeha Soora


His Limbo Soliloquy

Poetry

Carl "Papa" Palmer

University Place, Washington, USA

The pain first started with an

ache.

I watched as hope slowly died.

Everyone’s sorrow was bringing

them down.

I heard people say, “Just breathe.”

How can I breathe when instead I

fall?

This really made me think.

But how could I even think

That somehow this ache

Would still let me breathe?

Soon came the most painful fall.

George Floyd and Breonna Taylor

died.

Why must society bring us down?

The loss of social contact keeps

bringing us down.

If we all stay smiling and think

That laughter and love hasn’t

died,

This horrible, painful ache

Might finally let us breathe.

Then soon came Fall.

It felt nice to know that Mother

Nature hasn’t died.

The colorful leaves kept me from

feeling down.

But the raging fires made many

people fall.

Worrying and worrying wasn’t

helping society think

About how we can stop the fires

and this ache.

The smoke was caught in the air;

how do we breathe?

With barely any air left to breathe,

2020 decided we must deal with

another fall.

The elections were loud and kept

making us ache.

“Vote!” was what people said, to

keep us from being down.

There were times when all I could

do was think

About all the laughter and love

that had so obviously died.

But after so many people died,

Finally, there was some hope, that

allowed us to breathe.

It was making a lot of people

think.

The vaccines were bringing smiles,

as so many people fall.

Finally, we were looking up, not

down.

Is it really gone? This horrible

ache?

So many died, and people continue

to fall.

But as they say, “Breathe,” and

don’t look down.

I think, as the year ends, we are

now beyond this ache.

Actually, I like lockdown. I already was before COVID anyway,

but now I’ve got my privacy. No family feeling forced to visit

or hold vigil in my netherworld, he confides through the phone.

Both of us former Army soldiers placing us on common ground

made introductions easier with the usual “where were we when”

comparisons of duty assignments all military members embrace.

Though sharing multiple telephone calls these past seven months

since my assignment to be his companion as a hospice volunteer,

I have yet to meet him face-to-face due to pandemic restrictions.

Using his bedside number at the nursing home, I can call anytime,

not worry about visiting hours, ask if he’s busy, got time to talk.

His answer’s most always the same, Just busy here being alone,

too close to death to complain. Clicking me to speaker he begins

what he calls “me-memories from a time when when was when.”

Mostly musing of being anywhere but there, lost in an actual place,

blurring “what was with what is” behind and in front of his shadow,

recalling dreams as a younger man, of a future in past perfect tense.

And times talking of present times from his no man’s land outpost,

All days end as they begin in purgatory, today recopying yesterday,

cared for by hosts of faceless masked angels not letting me die alone.

Forgive me only thinking of myself, I just need you to hear I’m here.

Inside I’m your age, the two of us sharing a brew at the NCO club,

years ago and oceans away, comrades-in-arms talking of our day.

To me he’s the sergeant with permanent change of station orders

in transition for his final mission ending his time on active service

in hopes his God is religious and his terminal assignment is good.

26

COVID 19 Dreaming: Prince Edward Island

Photography

Kathleen URBAN

Alamo, California, USA

27

Dogwood Blossoms

Fabric

Kathleen URBAN


28

Evan spots her English professor, William,

parking his Jeep in the lot of Santa Barbara

City College. He throws a leather bag over

his deerskin jacket and strolls toward his

classroom. With his blond dreadlocks and

scuffed cowboy boots, Evan thinks he could

be one of the students. He waves to a passing

redhead and gazes out over the harbor.

Evan, a nineteen-year-old sophomore,

heads to the classroom with her blue dress

accenting her curves, hoping someone will

notice. She thinks how lucky she is to attend

a seaside college on a bluff overlooking the

Pacific and to be studying with William. She

knows without the money from her father’s

life insurance policy, she wouldn’t be going

to college anywhere.

William’s World Literature course is by

far her favorite class this fall; the intricate

plots of conflicted émigré lovers seem worlds

removed from the small town of Cambria

where she grew up. Evan loves reading these

stories and has decided to be an English lit

major, maybe even a writer. She’s thinking

of making that declaration to William. Evan’s

mother wanted to be a writer when she was

in college, then gave up that dream when

she married one—Evan’s father.

William has told the class he’s thirty-five

years old. Evan considers the average student

is barely out of high school, except

Linnea, the leggy Swedish exchange student

who seems to be his girlfriend.

The classroom door opens, and Linnea

strides out, heading for William.

William frowns, stops twenty feet from

Clouds

Fiction

Russel Doherty

Santa Barbara, California, USA

Evan, and waits. Linnea calls out as she

gets closer. Evan can hear her loud, accented

voice. “I thought we were having lunch

today.”

Evan wonders if she could use their relationship

in a story.

William’s eyes bounce from Linnea to Evan

and back. “I can’t really discuss that here.”

He’s fierce and quiet.

“What is happening between us? You keep

acting as if we are not lovers.”

“You told me everything changed.” William’s

voice rises. “You left in the spring saying

it was over, you would be staying home

in Sweden. So I moved on. Now you’re back

and basically telling me you’re in charge of

my relationships. That’s just not true.”

By the slump of her shoulders, Evan can

tell Linnea is at a loss. She thinks this means

William is available. Her mind starts slowly

calculating.

Linnea storms past Evan, back into the

classroom. William looks at Evan and shrugs

like he doesn’t understand. He walks by Evan

without saying anything.

William opens the door to the classroom.

Linnea runs out crying, holding her backpack

in her arms, bumps him aside, and keeps on

going. William enters the classroom. Evan

follows and sits up front. She decides to try

and talk to him after class.

Evan knows William’s wildly popular World

Lit class is attended by a cross-section of

students who mostly come for the easy A.

She wants him to know she’s different. She

loves the animated discussions caused by the

29

assigned novels: Bel Canto (South America),

A Bend in the River (Congo), The Alexandria

Quartet (Egypt), The Unbearable Lightness

of Being (Eastern Europe). The novels reflect

the culture clash of outsiders inhabiting a

society vastly different from their own. Evan

feels the storylines call out to her, begging

her to follow. William is her guide to this

mysterious universe.

She’s amazed by the lives lived in the

novels. In her discussion group, the languages

spoken, modes of transportation, dress,

housing, socialization—especially mating

habits—are all loudly dissected with the fervor

of anthropologists. Evan feels she’s found

her tribe.

She remembers William saying he has lived

this story of failed assimilation. He’s told

them his marriage ended because—as an

outlier—he tried desperately to fit into the

mostly male-centric, open-marriage faculty

culture, and failed. When he described to

them the descent into romantic hell experienced

by Tereza and Tomas in The Unbearable

Lightness of Being, he stressed, “This

is giving you a warning; watch out for your

heart.”

Evan knows that William likes to date his

students. She thinks about being that student,

just like her mother dated her father—

her professor at UCLA.

William starts in with today’s lecture.

“Some of the other English professors teach

the standard great themes of today: climate

and economically caused migrations of peoples,

multicultural clash of values, or polit-

ical decolonization. I don’t. I use my book

choices to explore Eros in the novel. Why did

the Unbelievable lovers choose to return to

Czechoslovakia after the Russians invaded?

Why not stay in democratic Switzerland,

where they would be safe? These characters

threw common sense away in an effort to

live out love to its fullest.”

Evan fantasizes about loving to the fullest.

William says, “And I want to explore the

importance of now, and the choices these

characters make to follow love. If you recall

Baba Ram Dass—an original researcher with

Timothy Leary and his LSD experiments—he

went to India, changed his name, and became

a proponent of Be Here Now. His philosophy:

Live your life now, not in your head,

not in the past or future, but in the reality

of today and who you’re with.”

This is my New World, Evan thinks. No one

has ever explained life this way.

“These are fish-out-of-water relationships:

encounters, attractions, maneuvers, couplings.

I treat these novels as gospel. Learn

from these experiences. Love is their calling;

their communication is with you.”

William’s rich, deep voice fills the room

like a Shakespearean actor, riveting and

soothing Evan at the same time. He sounds

like her father. She loves the way his hair

flops over his eyes, and he keeps throwing it

back, emphasizing his words: love…communication.

The characters in these novels have more

sex than anyone Evan has ever known. Their

relationships have been at the forefront of

her mind since school started this year. William

could be one of the characters.

As the lecture and the novel’s plots intertwine

and William’s voice resonates, Evan

hungers for her own love. Looking around

the room, she starts to formulate a plan.

The boys listen to William as if he were a

Great Explorer leading them to this New

World. The girls sigh.

“Today’s discussion novel, Bel Canto, is

about the relationship of art—particularly

music—to the stranger-in-a-strange-land

environment. Remember, in Bel Canto, the

English-speaking opera singer, the beautiful

Roxane, has fallen in love with the Japanese

businessman, Hosokawa.

“Hosokawa’s interpreter, Gen, is forced

into an unnatural position, helping a love

affair flourish between his married employer

and the American diva while they are held

captive by South American political terrorists.

And, of course, Gen is also in love with

Roxane. These novels I teach wouldn’t exist

without conflicting love triangles.”

Evan’s own parents had a fairly conventional

relationship, and then her father died

abruptly. She remembers the sad piper playing

“Danny Boy” at his funeral and the void

afterward.

She’s had two sexual relationships herself,

both pretty conflicted. The high school one

ended badly, and she’s never talked to that

guy—Zach—since. Last year’s new college

fling, Thomas, just fizzled out, leaving Evan

adrift.

She wonders how William finds these

books. Perhaps there’s a section in the bookstore

where the immigrant experience has

its own shelf. She pictures William’s house

filled with polished wooden bookcases.

Evan adores Bel Canto. Perhaps life could

imitate art, and a similar love triangle might

play out in her own life. She wonders what

kind of partner William would be. Articulate

in class, but not so considerate out of it?

William asks the class, “We all know opera

30

is a great form of art, but what is the function

of art to the characters in this novel?”

Three students yell out answers.

“Illumination.”

“Diversion.”

“Social commentary.”

Evan remembers from her reading that

art both describes and transforms human

experience. But something about William’s

question pulls at her. He’s like a child who

sees too much or wants too much. He always

talks of the lovers in the books and how they

found each other—as if it were inevitable.

She thinks he talks honestly about his life,

baring himself to the class, like he’s looking

for someone to fly too close to his flame. She

wants that flame.

And then William is right in front of her

and everyone in class stares.

“You seem so far away,” William says, his

voice a quiet, bassy undertone.

Evan, shaken, doesn’t know what happened.

Had he called on her and she hadn’t

answered? Had she drifted off?

“How did you interpret the story?”

Evan needs him to accept her. She’s not

sure why she’s being put on the spot.

She says, “Despite the hostages and the

terrorists facing death, they have to go on

living. They get through each day by Roxane

singing arias to them, everyone entranced

by her voice. Then the translator Gen and

Roxane get married at the end. It isn’t the

expected ending, yet it’s more satisfying.”

Evan can see in William’s eyes he wasn’t

expecting the analysis she’s given him.

Maybe he doesn’t see as much as she thinks.

Maybe she has something to teach him as

well.

“You have a very complete understanding

of the story,” he says. Evan is glad she’s

going to talk to him after class.

Because she knows from her reading that,

in the end, only love matters.

* * *

Later, outside, Evan waits for William.

As she waits, she watches the reflections of

passing students in a window, and the sailboats

on the sea in the background.

William comes out with his leather bag.

Evan remembers the novels. Is the same

insight needed to understand the novels necessary

to understand the teacher?

William smiles when he sees her. “I’m glad

you waited for me.”

Evan’s neck stiffens. The old cliché from

math class comes to mind, “When you assume

something, you make an ass out of you

and me.” She can’t say that, of course. But

his certainty stops her from declaring her

decision to major in English lit.

Instead, she says, “What makes you think

I was waiting for you?” William’s look shows

he didn’t expect that comeback. Evan thinks

maybe she’s made a mistake. But her tongue

has always been too fast.

“Sorry,” he says. “I meant I’m hoping you

were waiting for me.”

William’s answer disarms her. “Does a

relationship demand total honesty?”

“We’re talking relationships already?”

William now looks elated.

“I thought that’s how you interpreted

everything.”

“Not all of life, but certainly literature.”

“So maybe I was waiting for you. I had a

few questions.”

“Ask away.”

Evan looks up at the clouds to gather her

thoughts. They remind her of summer camp,

lying on her back in the grass, matching

animal crackers to the cloud shapes. What

animal is William? A cat, she decides. “Does

everyone in the English department accept

these books as important?”

William laughs. “Hardly. Half the faculty

thinks my literary heroes are interlopers who

won’t last another decade. But if we’re being

honest, I’d like to walk you to your car.”

He points to the parking lot.

Evan senses William trying to get ahead

of her, smiling to set her at ease while

attempting to control the conversation. “I

have another class, and I walk to my apartment

anyway.” Maybe he’s more like a fox.

“Could we meet after your last class? I’ll

drive you home.”

Cunning. Evan ponders this. “I don’t know

if I should accept your offer.”

“Well, we could go for coffee or tea or...?

Or you could say no. You won’t offend me.”

Evan closes her eyes and feels the sunlight

beating on her eyelids. William is smooth

and offering her an out. This almost feels

like a #MeToo moment, but she realizes she’s

the one who initiated it. Time passes. William

coughs.

When she reopens her eyes, William is

calm, awaiting her answer. She says, “I

should say no. But you probably wouldn’t

forgive me.” Evan waits to see how serious

Mr. Fox really is.

He says, “Sadness builds up in people who

are afraid to act. Most of the stories I’m

attracted to involve people whose actions

explain their wants and needs. They try to

live now, push the sadness away.” He flicks

his hair back.

She looks at her smartwatch and makes

the safe choice. “I have to go to class. It

ends at four. We could go to Starbucks after.”

“I’d like that,” William says. “I’ll meet

31

you here at four.” He nods his head and

strolls away.

As she walks to class, sniffing the ocean

air, Evan wonders if this is the start of her

real life—an older man, a professor, interested.

* * *

Starbucks is the usual: chatter, coffee

aromas, laptops, and people scattered at

tables, indie music in the background. William

escorts Evan in through the door. When

he holds it open for her and puts his hand on

the small of her back, the touch dizzies her.

They sit down with their coffees. Evan feels

expectant about where the late afternoon

might lead.

Thinking during her last class—Human

Development—that she needed to question

why William asked her here and not some

other girl, Evan has decided to try and pin

him down. She feels the need to turn the

tables on him and question his ending of the

relationship with Linnea. How to handle this?

She needs to know how he approaches love

outside of literature.

He stares as if he’s just seen her for the

first time.

Evan says, “What happened before class

with Linnea?”

“Let’s just say it didn’t work out. I moved

forward and she went backward.”

A Dave Matthews song comes on. His tenor

voice sings, “Crash Into Me.” Evan wonders if

that’s an apt metaphor for what happened.

“What do you look for in love; a heart-toheart

connection, just sex, a life partner

that you have to adjust to, or…?” She eyes

him over her coffee.

“My basic guideline is trying to stay honest

in the moment. Love for me is a struggle to

find the right person. Like this conversation

we’re having. I sort of let it happen; I leave

myself open to the possibility and hope to

learn from each of my friends.” He hands

Evan a business card, William – World Lit,

with his cell phone number.

“So we’re friends now?” She looks at the

card.

“I’d like to be,” he says.

Evan’s heart murmurs. “You said you were

divorced.”

“The culture here is very open and experimental.

My wife wasn’t willing to participate.

I felt it was holding us back. She felt it

was breaking us apart. We had a difference

of opinion.”

Evan thinks that’s almost the same answer

he gave for the breakup with Linnea. She

feels emboldened. “I thought about why you

asked me here, and I’m confused. Am I just

some random girl from this year’s class?”

“I’m sorry if I gave that impression. But

love is about acting and committing and living

in the now. I felt a strong connection to

you, the way you summarized the function

of art in Bel Canto today, and I wanted to

act on it.”

He’s smooth, but Evan isn’t convinced.

“Is love about self-realization or about the

relationship between the two people?”

“I don’t know, maybe…maybe it’s closer to

understanding myself.”

Evan thinks about her father—a one-hit

wonder with his coming-of-age novel, a big

splash with high school English teachers—

who slowly lost his fierceness and sank into

second-guessing himself when he switched

to literary fiction. He made enough money to

buy the cheapest house in Cambria and then

barely earned enough to keep them in it.

Evan’s mother is still waiting tables.

“Are you a writer also?” she asks.

“I like to think of myself as one.”

Evan hasn’t thought about dating a writer.

She looks away at people moving around

their tables, leaving, sitting, touching each

other. The sun slants in through a window

and turns a square of the gray carpet white.

She thinks of herself as a girl finding her

place in the world. How would she handle

being married to a writer and teacher in an

open-marriage culture? Not very well. Zach,

in high school, had said, “I want to date

other girls also,” while he was still with her.

That didn’t work.

“Who were you meant to be?” she asks

William.

“My parents were born in Belgium. They

named me after Guillaume de Machaut, an

early-Renaissance troubadour. ‘Guillaume’

is French for ‘William.’ Anyway, he wrote

poems about love, some set to music, called

motets. Most of my life, I’ve tried to envision

how to be that person here in the twenty-first

century. They say that in the love

poetry of every age, the woman longs to be

weighed down by the man’s body.” William

fingers his dreadlocks.

Evan giggles. “My God, that’s terrible.

That line is straight out of The Unbearable

Lightness of Being. Has it ever actually

worked for you as a pickup line?” Evan has a

wry smile on her face. William isn’t smiling.

“Not really. But if I’m bothering you, I can

just go.” William takes the top off his cup

and blows on his coffee.

Evan thinks, Thin skin. She realizes William

is used to the other person being impressed

by his worldly conversation, his position

as a teacher. He doesn’t think of himself

as someone who could be unoriginal and

worthy of being a punch line. “Well, what

would you say to me if I used lines from a

32

novel in conversation?”

“I’d say you were very literate.”

“But not very original.” Evan is on firmer

ground now. She doesn’t feel William is

getting ahead of her anymore. This is sort

of how debate was for her in high school,

the defense of your ideas, punching holes in

the other person’s argument. “Can I say this

sounds like Unbearable again? That dating

you might be the equivalent of my going to

a foreign country where I don’t know the

rules?”

William says, “Maybe we should start this

conversation over again.”

Evan feels William doesn’t have a clue

how badly he is coming off to her. “Are you a

musician and poet like your namesake?”

“I play a little jazz, some Jason Mraz.”

He’s defensive; less of a fox now, more human,

more malleable, perhaps a duck.

“Do you write your own love poetry?”

“Only when I find my muse. It doesn’t

happen often.”

Evan decides she’s being told she’s not his

muse. She ends the conversation.

* * *

Afterward, walking the bluffs, Evan wonders

if she should’ve stayed. When she said,

“Sure, let’s have coffee again,” and got up

to leave, she was certain there was a flash

of anger in William’s eyes. Maybe no girl has

walked away from him before. She can’t

decide which character William thinks he’s

playing, or if he thinks he’s the author of his

own story and no one else gets to know the

plot.

As she smells the new-mown lawn, she

thinks, Still, it’s nice to be wanted.

What adjusts the power between people

in relationships? Who’s in charge at any given

time? Evan thinks one of the big secrets of

human behavior is that you can’t love until

you can feel the other person. The electricity

has to be there. You grow together, you

grow apart, and you learn the boundaries of

human connections.

So she won’t really know unless she gives

William a shot. She sighs.

She knows we’re all connected in human

relationships, whether we like it or not.

They’re important to us, sustaining our lives.

And, just like the other two relationships

she’s had, Evan thinks no one is exactly who

you thought they were once you get close

to them. You either adjust or you don’t. It’s

both the wonder of life and the gulf between

yourself and another.

Maybe the only connection she wants out

of William is literature.

The air is warmer now, the ocean sparkling

with thousands of diamond reflections.

Feathery cirrus clouds float by in the background.

A horn sounds from the parking lot

down below; Evan sees the distant people

walking the harbor shops, miniature creatures

like in a movie. Further out, seagulls

ride the updrafts above the breakwater.

Stand-up paddlers break the vastness of the

Pacific. Oil derricks and the Channel Islands

dot the horizon. Pelicans fly by in a high V

formation, searching for fish.

Evan is reminded of Icarus, who flew too

close to the sun. She wonders if her wings

could also come unglued.

A different version of the New World

comes to her. I can write my own story, she

thinks, without the triangle, without the

conflicts.

She pulls out his business card and texts

William. “Sorry, I can’t join you for coffee

next week.”

Maybe she does have something to teach

as well.

The wispy, shapeless clouds drift away.

33

Virgin Cocktails

Poetry

Caleb Gonsalves

Roseville, California, USA

I sit watching hopeful high school students

Set up for their homemade remote prom.

Twinkly lights and beautiful white silk

Decorations of choice for their night of

fame.

Ready to vote for their queen and king,

Before they realize how meaningless these

titles are.

I watch making cocktails out of coke and

lemonade

Thinking about one particular girl,

and how I’d like to take her dancing.

I check my read receipts,

Confirming our new normal,

One where we don’t go dancing.

We peaked at fear and self doubt,

Which forced us to dance on our own

At dances that weren’t made for us

Missing out on what could have been,

We ended without beginning

Never knowing the magic of prom

The Unpaid Philosopher or the

Typewriting Monkey

Poetry

Jay O'Neal

Toronto, Ontario, Canada

The homeless philosopher outside Tims isn’t

sure about self-preservation anymore.

If life is lived subjectively through the senses,

he rhetorically begins,

through one’s face

and one’s hands,

*he extends a hand and stares at the dirty

fingernails attached*

then how can any of it

objectively matter?

Why even bother?

Now he aims his bright, intelligent eyes at

me,

two flashlights from a filthy face.

I shrug.

Though I’ve wrestled with the questions

myself, I’m not too sure either.

“It doesn’t make sense,” he says

as clearly as a crystal and as concisely as a

dictionary.

“It really doesn’t make enough sense to

bother with at all.”

I can tell he’s been at the problem for a

while.

During the pause, I ask if he wants anything

from inside.

He’s worth his weight in gold,

I think,

entering the Tims, ordering for us, then

leaving.

Fortunately, he doesn’t waste

his words on greetings or thanks.

Instead, he promptly shares a deeper lesson

learned from musing whilst I was inside.

“I guess just don’t panic, eh?”

I nod.

He nods.

“The key is not to panic,” he concludes,

taking his four-by-four from me and setting it

beside him on the cold cement.

He hasn’t said if this new conclusion

is connected to his original problem,

but I suppose that’s up to me to determine.

I could waste my life with him,

I realize;

I could waste my life

here at Jarvis and Carlton the way

Plato wasted his with that Socrates fellow.

But what a poor student I’d be,

ignoring his initial premise of living through

the senses

just for vicarious life-lessons.

What a poor student that’d make me, to forgo

my subjective experience.

With that in mind, I unlock my bike.

My teacher is too deep in thought

to bother with a goodbye,

his grubby face twisted with what

most would mistake for pain

or

a desperate need to shit.

Afterward

Poetry

Tufik Shayeb

Phoenix, Arizona, USA

Restless branches, creak

in the wind.

Swallow too much dry air,

hear a clicking in the throat.

Confuse the click

for a tick, and

believe there is a squirrel

inside.

Desperate,

swallow even harder.

Try to chase out

the goddamn thing,

but then give up

looking for enough saliva.

34

“And to your right, you’ll see our statue

dedicated to the Drabblewood Daemon.

Crafted locally, the design was inspired by

multiple eyewitness accounts recorded since

his first sighting exactly twenty-five years

ago!”

Camera flashes reflected in the bronze

casting of the half-bat, half-rodent stretching

on his clawed hind legs to sniff the air. In

the center of the gawking sightseers, Irving

smiled. Her grin’s reflection distorted in the

crook of the statue’s extended wing while

the guide continued her rehearsed trivia.

“To the statue’s right is the Dalby Street

alleyway—the daemon’s first known sighting

where an unfortunate group of bystanders

was brutally mauled in the darkness!”

“Bystanders,” the word slid through Irving’s

teeth. So that’s what they were now?

She blotted her nose with a scented tissue,

longing for the allergy pill left on her hotel

nightstand. The cornfields that surrounded

Drabblewood were agony in the fall. She slid

her face mask back on, ignoring the snorts

from those nearby. If they knew who she

was, they’d hold their tongue.

“And the swath of pine’s a little further

back is where bloodied clumps of fur were

found hanging from the branches following

the attack. It cemented the daemon’s love

for flesh, though what exactly the slain creature

was remains a mystery to this day.”

Camera flashes blanched the peeling tree

bark as the tour guide led the group through

the pines. The tourists stuck together, Irving

noticed, and hesitated with each step on the

A Matter of Fact

Fiction

Charlene Pepiot

Piqua, Ohio, USA

spongy needles—as though they expected the

daemon to lurch out of the ground and claim

his next victim. For fun, Irving stiffened and

snapped her head to the side. A family beside

her flinched and turned the same way.

Irving chuckled at the commoners, and they

laughed back with less enthusiasm. Irving

wasn’t scared of these woods. Not anymore.

The tour guide droned on with her rehearsed

trivia, each tense pause and fearful

stutter coming off as painfully artificial. Most

folks would connect her young face and lackluster

presentation as summer help making

a quick buck for college, but Irving knew the

folks of Drabblewood didn’t leave for university.

Indeed, they rarely left at all.

“And just behind me, you’ll see the

infamous cornfield of the Cashen family! It

was here the daemon revealed his startling

human intelligence and fire breathing capabilities

when he seared ‘DON’T EVER FOR-

GET’ into the crop twenty-five years ago. You

probably recognize it as the place Monster

Seeker’s host Gavin Gothel camped out in

the season seven premiere and found the

daemon’s eight-toed scratches gouged into

the dirt.”

Having heard enough, Irving slipped away

from the excited comments and camera

flashes. She backtracked through the pines

to reenter the town. Stopping at the daemon’s

statue, a cruel laugh escaped her.

“Ever the skeptic, aren’t ya?”

It was Irving’s turn to flinch. The voice behind

her awakened a long dormant helplessness

she struggled to contain. Her group was

35

still visible past the pines, and Irving forced

her shoulders to straighten.

“Ever the nosy bully, Harry? I see time

hasn’t changed you enough—” Irving’s retort

faltered as she faced the man. Who was this

bearded, hunched fellow whose beer belly

strained against tight overalls caked in animal

feces and bits of straw? Surely not Harry

Cashen, the athlete who could trip her in the

school’s hallways and rob kids of their pudding

at lunch because his family rented out

their farmland to everyone’s parents? Even

his voice sounded off, as though he hadn’t

been the one barking orders for a long time.

Irving knew how Drabblewood’s labor could

warp you, but somehow, Harry’s taunting

face had been immortalized in her memory

as ever youthful and cruel. Glancing at her

designer vest and Gucci pants, Irving turned

back to the statue. “The cast is quite detailed.

Did Jeff create the mold?”

“Yeah, he’s made a business of selling

handmade souvenirs and the like,” Harry

hunched his shoulders beneath the statue’s

shadow and stroked a flask of salt titled

Daemon Repellent. His alleyway encounter

had scarred more than his arms—the poor

“bystander”.

“Good for him, I know that was Jeff’s

dream,” Irving nodded. “The wings were a

nice addition. He can fly away whenever he

wants now.”

“Actually, there have been reports of the

daemon swooping down on night joggers

with very wing-like appendages,” Harry lifted

his head in a poor attempt at reclaiming

his withered power. “I guess the facts don’t

reach bigwig reporters in New York?”

“Considering I published the first daemon

sighting, I think I would know the facts,” Irving

said coolly. Last I checked, those bloody

clumps in the trees were just a few tufts of

hair.

“Really?” Harry echoed. “Like the facts

you televised to the world claiming murder

hornets were going to wipe out the Midwest?

Or the facts that we’d drop dead if we went

outside during last year’s flu outbreak—the

one conveniently televised before the elections?”

Harry spread his arms wide, and

a few passing tourists glanced their way.

“We’re well acquainted with your ‘facts’,

Irving. Judging by your mask, I assume you

consider that toxic smog cloud the latest

apocalypse?”

“Drabblewood is directly in its path, and

the levels of pollution will have bystander’s

dead of cancer in five years,” Irving insisted,

though Harry’s eye roll betrayed him for

a lost cause. Irving pulled her mask down

so Harry could watch her pronounce each

syllable. “Nevertheless, you can’t deny my

influence. The network wants to do a series

on urban legends and I twisted a lot of arms

to get the Drabblewood Daemon chosen over

the Mothman.” Backing off, Irving’s eyes fell

to a misplaced pebble on the sidewalk. Her

shoe orbited it in a slow circle. “I figured

the publicity would benefit the town, you

know?”

“Drabblewood isn’t interested in your

sensationalized fake news. We’re a town of

logic and facts.” Harry spat on the sidewalk

and stalked off.

Irving watched his back until a group of

tourists blocked her view. Something twisted

in her stomach that she fought to repress.

Swallowing, her gaze returned to the winged

half-rat, half-bat statue.

“Logic, eh?” she said a little louder than

necessary.

*

The tour group had moved on by the time

Irving’s conversation was finished. No matter,

she had been raised in these streets. A

few half-remembered turns later had her

questioning that sediment. The Drabblewood

of Irving's youth was more elusive than the

daemon himself. The cracked sidewalks and

peeling paint of years past had been washed

away by waves of tourist revenue and replaced

with supposedly haunted hotels, local

museums and gift shops. A former tunnel

sprayed with expletives was now adorned

with an honorary caricature of the daemon

writing “DON’T EVER FORGET” with his sixwebbed

toes in blood. It must have been

done before the Monster Seeker’s episode

confirmed the daemon had eight claws per

paw.

“Lassie, would you care for an infrared

flashlight?” An old man with a cart of Daemon

Bobbleheads wheeled up beside Irving.

The grease stains on his t-shirt hinted that

his previous job had been less than desirable.

“It’s the only true repellent against

the daemon, contrary to what he claims.”

The man scowled at a stand across the street

where a shriveled fellow in a straw hat was

selling vials titled TrueER Daemon Repellent.

“What does the light do?” Irving asked,

flipping one on and off.

“The daemon can’t stand the infrared,”

the man explained as Irving handed him the

cash. No one could say she didn’t support

tourism. “He can only see certain hues on

the color spectrum.”

Irving repressed a smile. “Can he now?”

36

“You ought to show some respect, lassie,”

the man warned. “The daemon doesn’t forgive

those who forget. See what became of

that Harry boy—denying a sports scholarship

just to show his devotion to the daemon!”

Monster Seekers did mention that the

alleyway attack had thoroughly rattled

Harry, though Irving had not realized the full

extent. She had left for New York just as the

daemon craze was kicking off, a choice she

couldn’t regret while watching the distant

corn swaying in the breeze for miles.

“If you’re a doubter,” the man continued

with a frown. “I’d leave before nightfall—

for your own sake.”

Irving focused on the old man’s face. Had

she known him before? Five years in the

fields could pile on enough wrinkles to warp

anyone beyond recognition, let alone twenty-five.

The man’s nose scrunched, and as he

leaned forward, Irving guessed the air-conditioned

sets hadn’t changed her enough.

“Irving?”

“Yes?” Irving said cautiously. Hopefully.

“You remember me?”

“Oh yes, Drabblewood’s hotshot who left

for the smoke and mirrors of New York!”

“ATN national news, sir.” Irving’s shoulders

slumped.

The man pried the light from Irving’s

hand. He wadded up her dollars and threw

them against her chest. They fell to the sidewalk.

The wind whisked them away.

“I don’t do business with crooks.” The

man's fist banged against the cart with a

force that rattled his infrared lights.

Irving’s mind raced with a million contacts

that could generate a million stories on

this brutal act of harassment. Instead, she

smoothed out her vest, bid the man a fine

day and melded into a passing crowd.

Irving followed the tourists into a rustic-styled

restaurant with an electric sign

blinking The Daemon Diner. Through the

window, Irving watched the man's competitor

in the straw hat and Harry join him on

the sidewalk. She stepped a little closer to

the woman in line ahead of her. There were

worse fates than being an outsider.

Staying amongst the hungry tourists

seemed her best option. Counting the calories

in her head, Irving chose an overpriced

tourist salad with homemade Dastardly

Daemon Dressing and flipped through several

hundreds before plucking out a twenty to

give the cashier. The woman at the resister

surprised her.

“Grace!” Irving gasped. “How are you?”

Grace swiped aside a black curl that had

escaped her hairnet. Her red lips parted in

a perfect ‘O’. “Irving? I barely recognized

you!”

The pleasant surprise in her voice was

encouraging. Irving rested against the counter

covered in little cartoons of an older,

wingless daemon rendition. “Given your high

school baking endeavors, could this fine eatery

be yours?”

“Someone has to feed the tourists, thank

god!” Grace chuckled. “Before this daemon

craze, I was facing a life feeding chickens.

Poor Harry took that route, you wouldn’t

recognize him now if you two met.”

“I’m afraid I’ve already had the displeasure.”

Both women laughed, though Grace

tapped her fake nails against the counter.

“Can you blame him, though? You did announce

on election day that your networks

opposing candidate was arrested for drunk

driving, yet conveniently neglected to mention

it happened over 20 years ago.” Grace

shook her finger at Irving. “That’s pretty low,

naughty girl.”

“I don’t write the scripts,” Irving

shrugged, conscious of the heat spilling from

the kitchen.

“Of course. You’re the innocent messenger

girl.” Grace laughed again, though the words

stung. She leaned over the counter. “Seriously

though, who’s behind the story about that

smog cloud? The catastrophic conundrum

that threatens us all?”

“No one’s behind it,” Irving thought of the

reports that hadn’t been released yet. Of

the mutations. Children with organs born on

the outside—their tiny hearts beating faster

and faster until they popped from the stress.

Eight legged calves trying to stand, to suckle

without jaws. “Grace, modern science

doesn’t know the full effects of inhaling

those toxins, and what they’ve discovered is

nothing to brush off.”

“Sure.”

“Grace, I mean it! The reports—”

“—claimed it was no big deal until the politician’s

ears perked. Now it’s Armageddon!”

Grace sighed a little. “We’ll be fine. Even

if the smog is as bad as your so-called news

claims, we have the daemon to protect us.”

“Protect?”

Grace’s smile faded. “You wouldn’t know,

of course, but since the daemon appeared

Drabblewood has had no catastrophes. The

tornado that decimated our neighbors last

year miraculously spared us, and we had no

casualties during that so-called pandemic.

We’ve had nothing but prosperity, and I

doubt some leaked gas will change that.”

“Grace,” Irving started, but a woman

whose Daemon t-shirt still had the price

tag attached coughed pointedly behind her.

Irving stepped aside for the customer, noting

37

Grace’s bright smile as she bid her a good

day. Grace was living her dream, and that

success would further spill into the town.

One day, getting up before dawn to feed

slop to the pigs wouldn’t be an option for

the children predestined to run these happy

little tourist traps. Grace handed Irving her

salad. Her voice fell to a whisper.

“You’ve been reporting for The Man too

long. You should come to our festival honoring

the daemon tonight! It’s locals-only, but

being born and raised here has to count!”

An insider look? Irving could picture the

headlines, the masses flocking into Drabblewood

to buy merch and support her former

neighbors. Not to mention she could warn

the community! Irving had never been one to

hesitate when an opportunity presented itself.

The successful took, and Irving instantly

accepted Grace’s proposition.

After a most average but overpriced meal,

Irving pocketed Grace’s handwritten directions

and followed the tourists-turned-meatshields

outside. Harry and the old men had

disappeared, though Irving felt unseen eyes

watching each step as she strolled down the

sidewalk. Success was not for the foolish

either, and Irving was well accustomed to

prying eyes watching for the smallest slipup.

But this was different. Drabblewood

shunned the scandals and internet rumors

her antagonists exploited. These eyes didn’t

seek airy gossip; they were hardened from

physical labor and sacrifice. Irving knew her

status in the world of spotlights and politics

would not protect her here.

Glancing around a final time, Irving

ducked down an alley she’d entered often

years ago. Back when a “weird girl” like her

who walked alone and dared to draw stick

figures laughing beside skyscrapers needed a

quick escape.

She came out beside a forest untouched

by noticeable change. This was Daemon

Country. Home. She strutted forward and

collided with a spiderweb. Swatting it aside

sent her tripping over a root and crashing

into a thorn bush. She pulled herself up with

a scowl—silk pants and vests weren’t made

for this world.

Picking bits of the web from her hair (and

only screaming once when she pulled out

the spider), Irving pressed further into the

woods. Twenty-five years had done little to

alter the twisted trunks of ancient oaks, and

as the memories of stumbling down the hills

to hide from Harry’s gang reasserted themselves,

Irving found her footing and strode

forward with bolder steps.

At last, she stopped by a rocky overhang

above a little creek. Her ankles wobbled

as she leaped across the slippery steppingstones

and made it to the other side

of the bank. Her hand traced the wall of

smoothed limestone extending along most

of the waterfront. As a kid, she had thought

it unclimbable. Now, it barely rose above

her waist. Everything here seemed so much

smaller.

Somewhere, a rabbit’s panicked screech

ended mid-note. It effectively stopped

Irving’s nostalgic trip, reminding her she

hadn’t come here to relive memories—but to

change history.

Irving’s hands shook as she bent back a

mass of branches drooping over a section of

the limestone wall. She stared into a small,

dark hole just big enough for a raccoon to

wiggle inside. Red eyes stared back.

“Time to come out, little fella.” Irving

curled her lip. “Did you miss me?”

Slowly, as though reaching through time,

she pulled the furry gray mass out into the

fading rays of sunset.

Far from the menacing figure whispered

about in gift shops, the daemon was smaller

in person. Irving had forgotten how cheesy

her mother’s fur coat looked wrapped

around the plastic cat skeleton. Not her

greatest work, though Harry and his posse

had been fooled when they stumbled into

the alleyway drunk that night. The scars

they sustained from fumbling in the dirt

over broken bottles had morphed into claw

marks with each retelling. It had aroused

the town’s suspicions only amplified by

her scattering tufts of her dog's shed hair

around the pines near the schoolyard. The

mauled raccoon taken for a victim had been

an unexpected bonus, and combined with

her burning “DON’T EVER FORGET” into the

Cashen’s cornfield, the Drabblewood Daemon

was born. Even back then Irving knew how

truth could be birthed from well-placed lies.

Was it dishonest? Perhaps, but the daemon

had breathed life rather than corn dust

into Drabblewood and placed the otherwise

unnoteworthy town on the map. He made

dreams reality and offered an escape Irving

had needed to forge for herself. Surely the

good more than compensated for a little

dishonesty?

“Only now you’re hurting this town,”

Irving ran her pampered nails over the mildewed

fabric. “They adore you, but a hoax

can’t ward off a scientifically proven cloud

of radioactive doom,” Irving chuckled bitterly

at her joke. The skeleton’s paw splintered

beneath her two fingers. Decades of winter

hadn’t shown the plastic kindness. “I’ll have

to come clean so Drabblewood will take this

smog seriously.”

Irving pulled a bag from her pocket and

38

shook it open in the light breeze. How

could a force so gentle be leading toward

something so deadly? As Irving lowered the

daemon into her bag, a clump of gray fabric

fell into the creek and floated away. The

breeze faded, but a nearby bush shuttered

ever so slightly—or maybe that was Irving’s

imagination. Tightening her fingers around

the plastic handles, she backed away toward

civilization.

Night had settled over Drabblewood when

Irving emerged from the alleyway. Scattered

tourists roamed the streets with night vision

goggles and bait in hopes of luring out the

daemon. Irving slipped past the distracted

amateurs to the Cashen cornfield on Drabblewood’s

outskirts. A half-moon cloaked the

surrounding corn in an unearthly silver as

Irving approached. Several stalks had been

torn out to create an entrance guarded by

two men in oil-stained jeans. Irving’s free

hand fumbled in her pocket for Grace’s note,

and after reading and rereading the directions,

she approached. The men stepped

aside as she entered the maze.

Night’s creatures chirped and gurgled

around Irving as the path widened into a

spacious clearing. Infrared lanterns had been

hung on poles to cast a red hue over empty

bottles and townsfolk conversing by tables.

A long banner reading “25th anniversary”

stretched along the surrounding wall of corn.

As Irving scanned the crowd for Grace, her

eyes found faces she hadn’t seen in years.

Many turned away, though some mustered

fake smiles. Loathe her all they want— Irving

knew they could never escape her legacy.

Her smirk faded as the doubts resurfaced.

How would they react to the daemon’s fabricated

origins? He offered them hope that

the impossible could become reality—if she

broke the backbone of Drabblewood, would

the town ever pull itself back up? After

graduation, when she had packed her bags

for New York with the town’s jeering in her

ears, Irving had burned “DON’T EVER FOR-

GET” into the field to retain some hold on

the place she had never belonged. Did she

dare break the finite link that connected her

with the sprawling woods and people of her

youth? Though memories of Harry tossing her

smashed journalism tapes into miles of flat,

inescapable fields reigned in Irving’s mind,

in some weird way Drabblewood was still

home.

Irving stopped by a campfire where Harry

huddled, stroking his salt. His eyes kept

glancing to the shadows with none of the

arrogance he’d exhibited in the daylight.

The daemon’s first and only intended target

was far from a threat now. Irving had seen

maliciousness beneath spotlights and smoky

rooms, and Harry’s high school shenanigans

just couldn’t compare. He was but a simple

mind from a simple town.

As Harry rubbed his crusted nose, Irving

knew she had haunted him, and everyone,

long enough. Her fingers tightened around

the bag, reminding herself of the smog cloud

that would extinguish everyone if they failed

to protect themselves.

“Excuse me,” Irving called over the blasting

stereo in the background. Eyes from all

directions locked on her with equal animosity,

though this was nothing compared to

the backlash she’d received after inflating

the numbers for murder hornet fatalities.

“So you recognize me? Good. Then you

know I have access to a substantial amount

of data—all of which points to a disastrous

fallout for whoever inhales the encroaching

smog cloud. You must take precautions before

it reaches you!”

“Ah yes, like those killer mutant dandelions

you warned the world about?” the old infrared

seller lowered his drink to shout. “Or

your shocking infection rate for last year’s

flu outbreak?”

Irving bit her lip. Fresh blood pooled

around her teeth. “Perhaps the scripts I read

from exaggerated threats in the past, but I

promise you that this is real!”

“Flaunt your lies all you want.” Harry

clutched his salt. “We have real proof the

daemon will protect us.”

“No science has proven his existence!” Irving

stomped her foot on the tilled dirt. “As

much as Monster Seekers claims otherwise,

any legit investigator lists the scratch marks

and fur as inconclusive!”

“Exactly,” Grace shouldered past two

men in overalls to stand beside Harry. “He

transcends modern science, making your socalled

facts irrelevant.”

“Idiots! You’ll all be killed!” Irving shouted,

stunned by Grace’s confidence as she

set her box of cupcakes on the refreshment

table. Grace, whose ACT Science score was a

perfect 36, considered the daemon a messiah

rather than tourist fodder? The surrounding

stupidity was suffocating, and Irving

fought to keep her tone professional as she

lifted the daemon from the bag.

“See here, this is your mighty protector!

The puppet I controlled twenty-five years

ago in the alley on Dalby Street! He is falling

apart, but I intend on saving you ignorant

fools again!”

Her words settled on open mouths and

stiff shoulders. The stereo’s Country playlist

seemed painfully misplaced for the occasion.

Grace was the first to speak.

“Nonsense. That looks nothing like the

39

daemon.”

“You read the reports,” Irving chided,

growing annoyed. “My reports published to

further the hoax!”

“The fur is gray,” someone challenged.

“Everyone knows it’s a gnarled, stringy black

color.”

Everyone knows? The nerve of these commoners!

“You dare reduce our beloved daemon to

some makeshift prop?” Harry shouted, glancing

around the surrounding corn.

Irving let the insult slide, for the townsfolk

were muttering amongst one another,

and she didn’t like the way the red lighting

reflected in the pits of their eyes.

“Grace,” Irving turned to the woman she

had considered a friend. “You know me, you

know this is nonsense!”

“He told us to never forget,” Grace twisted

a stray curl. “Your disbelief betrays him.”

“We haven’t forgotten you, daemon!”

Harry wailed into the night. “Don’t let this

skeptic evoke your wrath upon us!”

The town approached Irving as a unified

front. Hadn’t they always, even back then?

An army of cold scowls demanding she take

up a shovel and stop her delusions of grandeur.

Mocking her smiling stick-figure drawings

with her beside the Statue of Liberty

and other landmarks foreign to the local

farmland? Ripping apart the paper as Irving

cried and cried on the floor, thinking this

laughing face had been a friend she could

trust with her dreams? Not letting her forget

that she was too small, too independent, too

unique, to fit their standards—even when she

pulled weeds from the fields until her hands

grew bloodied and calloused?

Fear and sorrow fought for control as

Irving stepped away from the red faces. Her

desperate lie was breaking away and growing

into something else entirely. Something she

couldn’t control. Irving wasn’t accustomed

to being powerless. Not anymore.

“You’re all insane. It’s just a hoax! A simple,

stupid hoax that can’t save you!”

“Then let’s quiz her on the daemon,” the

female tour guide called in the back. “As the

so-called creator, surely she would know his

history?”

“Yes, yes!” Irving spluttered. Her back

thumped against the solid wall of cornstalks.

“Does the Drabblewood Daemon have

wings?” Grace pressed.

“Of course not!”

Grace and Harry shared a glance. Too

late, Irving remembered the statue and its

sprawling, bronze bat wings. Wings based on

eyewitness accounts.

“No,” Irving moaned as the believers’

approached her with sooty hands clutching

pitchforks and half-empty bottles. The liquid

inside turned the color of old blood beneath

the infrared lights. Her wingless prop

dropped in the dirt. “There were no wings.

There were never wings! That’s the truth!

That’s the honest truth!”

But the truth had warped, she realized too

late.

Climate is a

Changing

Poetry


Reston, Virginia, USA

The fires are raging

The dams are bursting

The deserts are growing

The snow is falling where it shouldn’t be

The coral is dying

The sky’s turned apocalyptic red

The ocean is swelling

90% of life may soon be dead

The water’s been poisoned

The fish are belly up

Companies won’t be reasoned

With blood in their cups

The climate’s a changing

We could have done something

Should have done something…

I would have done something

If I had any power.

Still Life

Sonnet

Richard Stimac

Maplewood, Missouri, USA

I’d cruise my bike along the earthen levee

And watch the towboats push with or against

The current. Standing there, my boy’s mind

heavy

With coming, going, watching, still, I sensed

My shifting, not the laden barges’ sway.

Illusions of self-motion trick us all.

We assume life fixed, that we choose our way.

Maybe my watching those shoal-draft boats

crawl

Ground fear in me, that dread will lead to

loss

Of freedom, of choice, of time held. It

seemed

Fixed, calmed, the earth at rest. It’s me

who’d cross

From point to reciprocal point. I dreamed

Of space firm, of time with no start, no end,

No sorrow, no loss, no sin to amend.

40

Vacant Sea

Photography

Steve Zimmerman

Bothell, Washington, USA

41

Apiology

Poetry

James Ph. Kotsybar

Vandenberg Village, California, USA

A

bee

can bite

the leaf of

a tomato plant

to encourage it into bloom.

When bees approach a flower, the static charge of wings

turns back legs into a velvet magnet to attract and carry pollen to the hive.

After a hundred million years, they’ve become expert

at selecting which plants will thrive

providing nectar

and other

foodstuffs

for

them.

Parks

Poetry

Nezrin Hasanly


When I was a kid, parks were a fun and lively

place

I could never get enough of the slides

I always had a cheerful smile on my

face

Now I'm an adult, and parks have become my

escape

I keep going on the swings and swing so

high

hoping it'll free me from this world and

launch me into space

I wish I could go back in time and be

carefree again

Formed

from

the wasp,

they evolved

into colonies

developing social order,

language (dance), architecture, food storage, and many

of the things we call human inventions and institutions, like patriotism.

Each and every worker would give her life for the hive —

Hive held over jelly-fed queen,

who through pheromones’

tyranny

directs

hive

ops.

42

A Moth in the Light

Collage

Jennifer Frederick


43

Keep Dreaming

Photography

Olga Sushchik


44

A Gull Told Me

Poetry

Michael O'Brien

Chesterfield, New Jersey, USA

With me I would love to spend my time.

Some, upon seeing me, alone, in a cafe

might have thought it sad, and that,

they were glad.

Thinking, I have my people,

and I’m not lonely that way.

When I was by myself, I

was never alone.

Oh, how I would love feeling my thoughts cascade

from the wonder of being alive.

In this universe and into this consciousness

I would dive. My every sense receiving

into only me, the moments of a drifting mind.

That can’t be shared,

Thinking of how I did spend my time.

I was such a good friend of mine.

Such fond memories, of sitting by myself.

On a bench in the park.

Birds flying in the blue sky.

Tree branch marionettes, telling the

leaves, to dance if you please.

Ducks on the pond.

Floating feathered vessels, drifting aimlessly.

I was non-human, another part

of the landscape

to be painted.

Letting my mind out for a stroll.

Thoughts fluttering and swirling.

With no place to go.

This is how I would love to spend my time.

I was such a good friend of mine.

45

The Slide

Shape Poetry

Diane Thiel

Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA

Sometimes to avoid

conflict, we might let it slide.

Some of us, over time, have developed

quite a smooth side, that will slide the muck thrown

down off of us, leaving barely a trace to an outside eye.

But eventually, it becomes clear

that not everything can slide.

Some things are just too big,

and if we try, it would crush the slide,

rupture a fissure in the ground.

No one would know

how to fix such a deep rift,

heading all the way down to an abyss.

Clearly, at least to some discerning eyes,

such a slide would be too dangerous.

The black and yellow hazard tape

all around the slide

would become a permanent

fixture in the park.

So if I can’t let this one slide

into that chasm, I know I have to speak,

but from too much experience, I also know

exactly where this will slide, regardless—

what this will trigger, with such debris

having collected here for years.

Hard to watch, but easy to predict

the mud flow that will follow,

taking everything with it.

46

Digital Collage Art

Digital Art

Ilaria Cortesi

Shanghai, China

Everything

Fiction

Matthew Berg

Beech Bluff, Tennessee, USA

It wasn't good, and she knew it. Every attempt

was a miserable failure...to her anyway.

One idea. One stroke. One more color;

yet every painting done fell apart...to her.

It was this way until a revelation hit her

while painting again: Just paint everything,

whether it's good to you or not, so she did.

In painting what she did, joy returned. Her

results were less than amazing, but with each

painting done for the love of creating that

gradually changed.

Broken. Ugly. Failure was prominent.in.every.work.

A weld snapped. A bolt would not

tighten. Every design repulsive! He tried and

tried, adding more pressure to himself; until

one day when it all changed. Everything.

Just create everything, whether it's great to

you or not, so he did. He woke the next day

and listened in his spirit as inspiration spoke

to him. Then he created. The results were

pitiful at first, then became awe-inspiring in

each creation made. Joy however was always

present, remembering the reason he sculpted

once more each time.

An old lady was in need. A metal ramp had

to be made, and no one helped, until the

news reached the painter and the sculptor.

A mutual friend got word of this need. He

relayed it to them. Wanting to help, they set

to work. The metal sculptor built it, and she

painted it: beautiful and tasteful with flowers.

At the need met (and the beautiful designs)

the old woman was filled with gratitude as

her joy returned. She could access the outside

with her wheelchair and be encouraged by the

flowers, all because two people gave everything...with

joy.

Finding the T in the Center of Motown

Poetry

Thea Schiller

Somers, New York, USA

Tender, touching tenacity with also temerity,

Totally terrific, typically telling, of lives not

so smooth but with such smooth music.

Telepathic telepathy,

Tuning and tapping and tempering the crazed

emotions,

The Subjugations knowing inside the tummies

and knowing all the secrets of the Universe.

Trinidad and Tobago, places to go to hear

calypso,

But Motown,

Tight friendships and loyalty,

Melodic tops of the sunrises, sunsets

Proclaiming colors of black, blue, red, and

ecstasy.

The tipping point for brother Tempo

Holding a torch.

Thine own story be told,

To see your truths, too.

Tickled in the Sixties

Floating on tire tubes,

Iridescent blue in on the back of emerald

green turtles.

Here’s to the dream and to the love,

The unstoppable timetable of your alarm

clock where you set it

to tickle one’s fancy

47

Teachers of tick tock,

Around the clock, the trip around the

numbers to go past midnight,

To make it to morning and 6:00.

Tears, too thirsty, but thematic and thorough

become thoughtful,

And make Tea for two.

Not testy but trustworthy

And teeming with letters, with good partying,

totally into

transition of

Pure theology.

The sounds of T in the middle of Motown

Transport us

To the freedom train

Away from cussing,

into tooling

To make the task doable

The talk piece

Is having Time for everything

to turn, turn beyond Ecclesiastics

to stretch our homes to yours,

All thirsty for the golden answer of blessings

When we thank you, thank you!

Agony of a poet

Poetry

Sandip Saha

Kolkata, India

I.

Sleight-of-Hand

Poetry

Taunja Thomson

Cold Spring, Kentucky, USA

Where will the tide take us?

I am a poem

I take birth in a poet’s

fertile brain

like a tree

as a seed is sown

I am sown

as a thought

born on a paper

taking a shape.

My creator poet

sends me to journals

for publication

misery starts here

like a bride in India

I pay reading fees

as dowry to future in-laws,

magazine after magazine

no taker only pain

after immense efforts

when my father gets my home

he has drained himself

both financially and mentally.

Once I get married in a book

my creator cannot see me

if he fails to pay to the publisher

to buy that book in which I

dwell

my hapless owner weeps.

Once poets were adorable

now they are nothing but

beggars

pleading to publishers.

In summer earth plays tricks on

me—

bee balm mandalas spin lavender

a fox pops out of woods, slinks

under deck, rematerializes redorange

under my feet

& rests

afternoon sun tosses purple

spangles

at my feet

moon opals grass.

II.

It’s true—our eons seem

to be running thin

these days.

We’ve lost the tug of trees, the

odes

of onion grass & orchid, the

reveries

of web & swamp.

We are no longer ocean-wise,

having ceded reefs to garbage,

disdaining the poet’s eye

for slug & fin & foal.

III.

I cannot say, but I know where my

own steps

will take me—

into foxglove center with nectar

mind

following fox’s passage through

tree cathedral,

mossy nave & starry apse,

to her tunneled den cradling

her wild-eyed kits

into afternoons that adorn me

with violet dapple

& orange shimmer

amid nights so dark that stars stab

my eyes

IV.

& I stand, rapt, under winter

moon’s

sleight-of-hand.

48

Meditating Sea Lion

Photography

Lara Abreu


49

50

Agent Peacock

Collage

Jennifer Frederick


"Call to mind from whence ye sprang:

Ye were not formed to live the lives of

brutes,

But virtue to pursue and knowledge

high."

Inferno, Canto XXVI, 115-117

Adam, firstborn, held court on the plain of

Eden.

He was there, he said, as a deputy — in a

sense, as a chamberlain.

He was there, he said, to take a census of

the beasts of the earth, and the sea, and the

sky; to name their names and assess their

quality.

The animals bowed their heads. This

seemed a weighty task.

Adam told them to form a queue; to

divide themselves into kingdom, genus,

species, and family; to come in pairs, if

they spawned in pairs; to come in pods, if

they spawned in pods. Lastly, he told all the

animals to comport themselves with dignity

— "No pushing, no shoving!" — he would see

each one of them in the proper place, at the

proper time.

First came the beasts of the earth. The

ounce, the leopard, the tiger, and the lion.

One thousand kinds of cow and one thousand

kinds of chimp. Elephants with ears like India

and elephants with ears like Africa. They

came to our forefather. They kneeled and

were named.

Next came the beasts of the under-earth,

flowing like a river to the foot of Adam’s

The Birds of Paradise

Fiction

Gabriel McCluskey

Colwyn Bay, Wales, UK

throne. Moles and badgers led the way, followed

by the snakes and the spiders and the

toads. And then, like a froth of soap strained

from the grass, came the crawling legion of

insects. Adam named them all — the million

ants, the million aphids; the bugs so small he

could not see them or feel their weight in his

hand.

Then it was the turn of the sea beasts.

Adam went down to the coast and stood

upon the clean white beach. Before him,

he saw the water, alive with fish: plankton

swarmed, and pike pushed against pike,

and sharks jockeyed for position. And Adam

named them all — even the leviathans, hugest

of living creatures, which stretch on the

deep like islands in the main.

Last of all, Adam named the birds of the

sky. Like ministering angels, they landed

around him: buzzards and nightingales, tomtits

and cuckoos, warblers and gobblers. The

sky was dark with their bodies, stormy with

the flapping of their wings.

Then Adam was finished; his invention

nearly exhausted. He sat on his throne,

which was woven with flowers, and rubbed

sleep from his eyes.

"Who else is there?" Adam said to the animals,

"Who have I missed?"

They produced the platypus — a skulking,

miserable creature, who had hidden himself

away when he heard news of an assembly.

Adam cursed the platypus for his backwardness

and, from that day forth, he went

about with a duck’s bill and a beaver’s tail;

51

shamed and insulted.

Then Adam stood, and stretched, and

yawned. He retired to his pavilion, to ready

himself for the perfect sleep of paradise.

But the animals followed our forebear,

followed him right into his bedchamber. Calf

and cub trampled down the golden grass;

slugs nibbled at the wreathing amaranths.

The animals crowded round his bed of flowers,

watching Adam with reproachful eyes as

he bent over the washbowl.

After a moment, Adam straightened and

looked around at them. An antelope butted

his leg. Moths buzzed sadly by his ears.

"Who else is there?" Adam said to the animals,

"Who have I missed?"

They led Adam out of his bower, out of

his pavilion. They led him back down to the

plain of Eden. They clucked, roared, barked,

and hooted. They directed his attention to

the treeline — darkling, now, and gray with

twilight.

And there, bright on the branches, Adam

saw a flock of birds.

These birds — there were around three

hundred of them — had not hidden, like the

platypus. Likely, they had sat in the trees all

day long, waiting for his attention. Anxiety

trembled in Adam’s chest. He should have

gone to them earlier! Taken more care! To

think: He might have gone to bed for the

night, leaving these birds unnamed and

inchoate!

He began to hurry towards them, moving

through the field with a rapid step, indif-

ferent to the burdocks which stuck to his

bareness.

And then a voice called unto him: "Adam,

Adam! Come no closer, Adam!"

The man dropped to his knees, full with

fear and trembling. He flung his hands above

his head and cried out for mercy — primed

for the terrible reprimand, the rod of iron.

And yet no reprimand came. Nor was there a

light too bright to behold, or an angry crack

of thunder; nor was there the pressure of an

invisible eye, beating down on him like the

rays of the sun. There was nothing. Nothing

but a few panicked bleats from the animals

at his back; nothing but the night wind,

blowing in the trees.

Adam staggered to his feet. His knees

were patched with mud. The evening was

getting cold — as cold it could get in Eden.

He recruited his strength and carried on in

the direction of the birds.

And then a voice called unto him: "Adam,

Adam! Come no closer, Adam!"

He paused, listening, and he knew: this

was not the voice he had heard so often

before. That voice was strong, deep, masculine.

It appeared from nowhere, like a summer

storm, and it would brook no argument.

In comparison, this new voice was weak,

shrill, almost querulous. It was a voice of the

garden — a sound that could be made by a

pig, or a horse, or a serpent.

"Who is that?" Adam shouted, "Where art

thou? Do you dare speak to me in such a

way?"

The leaves whispered nonsense. The birds

ruffled their feathers.

So Adam went onwards, wary now, until he

stood by the trunk of the first tree.

He looked up at the birds. The birds

looked down at him.

They were a curious, colourful brood. The

largest of their number was about half Adam’s

height; the smallest could have hidden

in the palm of his hand. Many were of the

bright, twittering kind; some were grayer

and gloomier. All were possessed of watchful,

intelligent eyes; eyes that glittered

blackly in the deepening twilight.

Adam called up to them, prefacing his

words with a smile: "There’s nothing to fear,

friends! Humility will only add to your reward:

'The last shall be first, and the first

last.' Come down, now. Come down and

receive your names — and then we can all go

to bed!"

The birds did not descend. They continued

to observe him, staring at his muddy feet, at

his hair flecked with straw and woodbine.

Adam felt a pulse of indignation.

He fixed the smile on his face and spoke

again, his voice calm and controlled: "Listen

to me, friends: lament not your lateness.

And don’t make yourselves any later, either!

Fear not; tremble not; be strong and of good

courage. Come down right away and get your

new names. Or — what’s the problem? Why

hesitate? Don’t you want names?"

Wings flapped. A green bird whistled derisively.

Then the voice rang out again, harsher

than before: "We will not come down!

Indeed, we will not. We have no need of

you, Adam. You may leave us."

At length, not unamazed, Adam in answer

spoke: "What may this mean? Language of

man pronounced by tongue of brute, and human

sense expressed? This is not right. Who

are you creatures, that thus can speak?"

Again, the birds were silent. Then one of

their number — a large, red-feathered fellow

— fluttered down to a lower branch, so that

he sat just above Adam’s head. The bird

52

drew himself up and gave the man answer:

"And who are you, that thus can speak? Who

are you?"

Adam’s indignation rose to anger. He fixed

the bird with the eye of authority, and lifted

his voice in fury: "I am Adam, firstborn and

steward of the world. Third or fourth in the

great chain of Degree. I have been raised to

empery over fish in flood and fowl in forest.

I am one finger of a larger hand — a hand

which can pluck the feathers of ungrateful

birds quicker than they realise!" (Several

squawks: some filled with fear; some heavy

with irony.) "But I am not a tyrant, dear

friends. Nor is that power which empowers

me. No, no. I am extended as the finger of

peace – a finger which you may take, and

shake, at your will. So."

Adam stood, impressive, his hand extended

in friendship of a kind.

The red bird said nothing, but hung inverted

on his branch. Then, with a sudden

movement, he pecked at Adam’s fingers and

sprang upright. "So?" He cried, "So? So? We

have no need of you, Adam Firstborn. Get

you hence: shoo, shoo, shoo!"

"Why don’t you need me? Why do you say

that? Of course you need me! I hold office,

here. I give out the names. And you don’t

have a name, as yet." (A great deal of whistling;

a sound very much like laughter.)

"What will you do without names?"

"We have names," the red bird said, "We

have names, Adam."

‘No you don’t. How could you?’

"We named ourselves."

Adam’s anger burst its bounds. His yell of

rage reached the animals on the plain, (and

a particularly brazen calf set off to his steward’s

aid, but was soon called back to the

herd by his mate.) Other ears, too, had their

harmony broken by this yell. Other ears that

Adam had no desire to disturb, or bedevil, at

that time.

The birds in the trees crowed and shook

their wings at him. He paced back and forth,

sucking his bitten fingers, frantic with fury.

(And, not in a small part, with fear: His

position was not secure, as he had often

been told. Now, this little problem was quite

unconnected to the cardinal ban — at least

so far as he could see — but Adam knew that

it would not reflect well on him. Not at all.)

"But, how? How?"

The bird did not respond, but just

watched the man pace. He looked very

plump, Adam thought, very plump and proud

and haughty.

"Well, if you won’t answer that — what

have you called yourselves?"

"We will not tell you, Adam. We will not

tell you. Our name in your mouth is no longer

our name."

"But what if I name you anyway?"

"But what if I name you anyway? What if

I call you pale-hide? Or pluck-feather? Or

hog-cheek? We can both speak; we can both

go about on two legs; we can both think,

after our own fashions... It is true: We wear

wings, you wear paws. And we prefer the

sky, while you walk on the ground. But,

Adam, I can name you as well as you can

name me."

"But how can you speak? When — how did

you learn?"

"I learnt as you learnt, Adam: imitation.

At one point, our thoughts were low and

abject — the thoughts of any brute beast.

At one point, we could conceive of nothing

beyond the fruit of the field and the grubs

of the earth. But, then, one day, as we

made our nests in a tree of marvelous fruit,

we saw you walking in the garden, deep in

conversation with another. We listened. We

liked the music of your words. And, amongst

ourselves, we decided: We too would speak."

Adam licked his lips, opened his mouth to

speak, then closed it again.

Pastoral work, panpipes, and daily commerce

with mute herds, do not often a dialogist

make — contrary to the examples given

us by later sages. In truth, Adam had never

had opportunity to learn the art of debate.

Personally, he felt most comfortable giving

or receiving orders. And he could no more

argue with his superiors than a snail could

argue with him.

Night had settled on the woods; the birds

had been reduced to dim smudges and the

occasional rustle of wings.

"It’s all wrong." Adam said, speaking

almost to himself. "It’s all wrong, somehow.

You have broken — you have transgressed —

the Covenant!"

"That’s none of our concern. We were party

to no covenant."

"But it’s ridiculous! Nothing just names

itself! It’s a direct contravention, a direct

challenge… Even I didn’t name myself!

You see?" He spoke with more energy now,

relieved that he had hit on a good point at

last. "You see? I was formed with a name

made ready for me. Perhaps, if I had been

consulted, I would have picked another

name — but do I complain? Do I hide in dark

woods, and live like a platypus, and claim

that I named myself? No! I accept the job

that I’ve been given. And I accept the title

that comes with it, too."

"And should we submit, because you submitted?

Should we cringe, and crawl, and

eat dirt, because you did?"

Adam was about to respond, when — all

53

in a moment — his anger was cooled. Something

moved within him, something like the

stirring of life in a new-laid egg. He felt like

a patch of dry ground, made pliant by a sudden

shower of rain.

Adam spoke in suave, confiding tones, in a

voice he had never heard before.

"Do not forget, dear friends, that other

party — that much mightier power... You

know that He named Himself. Now, think:

will He be pleased to hear what you have

done? That you have helped yourselves to

His privilege? That you have puffed yourselves

up as — as what, indeed? As rebels?

As atheists? Or as powers in your own right,

perhaps?

"Think on that, birds, and consider the

consequences."

Adam stopped. He had won his point. With

this pronouncement, a whisper of uncertainty

spread throughout that parliament of

fowls. Even the red bird seemed perturbed;

momentarily struck dumb by the same fear

that had shaken his fellows.

"But, it’s not too late." Adam said,

"There’s still time. 'The last shall be first,

and the first last.' So, come down. Come

down! You’ll see — with names you will cohere.

At last! With names you will be digits

on the hand, like me; you will be leaves on

the tree; droplets in the ocean. Come, now,

come and see..."

The smaller birds seemed to waver. The

larger birds inclined their heads, plumes

swaying with thought. Uneasy on their

branches, they hopped from one foot to

another and ruffled their feathers.

The wind had stopped — held back like a

held breath.

Then the red bird spoke, his voice coarse

in the new silence: "We will not be tempted,

Adam. We will not be led by the beak!

"We saw what happened to you. How you

appeared on the riverbank. A white, fleshy

thing — phlegm of the dust! We saw how

that greater power came and licked you

into tolerable form, like a mother bear licks

her cubs. We saw it. We watched you walk,

faltering like a foal. We watched you build

your bower, and command your chattels, and

— last of all — we watched you impose your

names upon them, calling this one this and

that one that. You see how it has infected

our speech — how we cannot think without

thinking your words. Foal! Cubs! And,

now, you want us to join this great chain of

subservience? You threaten us, and tempt us,

and try to trick us?

"No, Adam, no. We are nothing alike. We

woke with dirt in our eyes. We came scrabbling

forth from the crust of the land. Born

— I suppose — from the secretion of certain

salts and minerals. We knew no maker; no

hand sculpted us from Euphrates’ clay. We

crawled amongst the weeds, our feathers

weighted with sod. We grew in strength and

wisdom, till we could leap from the earth to

the trees, from the trees to the sky.

"We made ourselves, Adam. We named

ourselves. We will rule ourselves.

"Now, get you hence, Pluck-feather!"

The tension was broken; the birds rallied

behind their speaker. Some shrieked and

hissed and flapped their wings. Some shouted

in voices like song. And some, less certain,

hid their heads beneath their feathers.

Adam opened his mouth to speak and was

silenced.

The wind, suddenly furious, had blown his

words away.

#

A great storm burst upon Eden, then. A

storm which made the forests bend and tore

the tender grasses from their roots. The first

storm. The storm that marred the face of

the sky with lightning; and which lashed the

backs of the animals with ropes of rain.

Adam hid himself from the storm’s anger.

He crept away, like a woodlouse, to hide in

the hollow of an enormous tree.

#

In the morning, when the rain and wind

had stopped their roaring, Adam left his hiding

place and went in search of the birds.

For the first time, he saw the floor of the

forest scattered with broken branches and

ragged leaves; he saw animals, sodden and

shivering, picking their way through the

wounded world. For th e first time, Adam

saw his breath cloud in front of his face, and

felt the bite of the air.

At length, he found the birds.

As before, they were met in counsel,

high up in the trees. But now, they sat close

together, huddled against the chill. Their

feathers were drab; their proud, plumed

heads bowed with exhaustion.

At first, they did not notice his presence.

To draw their attention, Adam had to shout

and bang on the trunks of their trees with

a fallen branch. And, even then, their gaze

lacked the fixity of the day before.

Adam addressed the red bird, who he saw

sitting apart from the others, sitting alone in

the fork of a battered yew. The bird’s face

was ashen, white where it had once been

scarlet. Hoops of sleeplessness had grown

beneath his eyes and his feathers were bedraggled

and rain-stained.

Adam stood beneath the yew, and called

54

up to him:

"Well, bird, what do you say?"

The bird bobbed his head. Said nothing.

"Now, you have seen it all — the storm —

the might — the power and the glory."

The bird bobbed his head, shrilly repeated:

"The power and the glory, the power and

the glory!"

"You have seen it. And, hopefully, you have

understood it. You are a particle of dust, flying

in the face of heaven. You realise, now,

that you must submit."

"Must submit. Must, must submit! Power

and the glory! The power and the glory!’"

"Just so. Now, come down. You will be forgiven,

all of you. Your crimes are not capital.

Soon, you will find your place amongst us.

Good grass will always grow in fertile soil."

"Just so! Just so! Grass, grass! Soil! The

power and the glory!"

The birds dropped dumbly from the trees.

They formed a straggling procession, twoby-two

up to Adam’s feet, their wings dragging

in the mud. It was a procession without

song, without rejoicing. Each bird received

his blessing, and then — in an instant —

seemed to forget himself. They staggered

and stumbled like drunks; they pecked at

the wet leaves like chickens.

The red bird kept his perch. He sang

senseless tunes and capered clumsily up

and down his branch. He bobbed his head

in frantic accord, snapped his beak at the

unresisting air. He cried out, in a voice as

thin as an infant’s cry: "Power and the glory!

The power and the glory! Forever and ever,

Amen! Forever and ever, Amen!"

#

And that is the story of how the parrots

got their name.

Thirteen Stripes

Poetry

Marie-Anne Poudre

Dublin, California, USA

Battles

Poetry

Jared Pearce

Oskaloosa, Iowa, USA

1.

You’re a little hoarse to call me

this morning to tell your story.

Zebra! Zebra in pajamas!

Tell me about the savannas!

2.

Zebra! Zebra’s running fast

down the grassy vales' dead-ends.

“What amoral beast or man

has spooked your peaceful herd of friends?”

3.

Sleepy leopards perching aloft

opened their eyes but missed your rump.

Whiskers over claws, they fell soft,

Snarling at the speeding chump.

4.

“What amoral beast or man

has spooked your peaceful herd of friends?”

Zebra! Zebra’s stopping at last

to graze around the vales' dead-ends.

5.

Felon lions stalking their prey,

hiding under the canopy,

headwind blowing their scent away,

draw close, and you graze slap happy.

6.

Fancy, trendy in savannas,

Zebra! Zebra! You, silly horse!

Aren’t you a little too hoarse

to tell stories in pajamas?

7.

Snap! A twig breaks. Fuzzy ears twitched.

Two swift lionesses pounced

on your black stripes. Missed by an inch!

Faster, you saved your skin this once,

8.

my cunning horse who pranced. Of course.

Zebra! Zebra in pajamas,

Fastest reflex in savannas!

Survival was your thriving force.

9.

Stung by horse-flies the wildebeest

Reeled away from the waterhole.

Your stripes were your shield at nightfall.

Bite-free, you always drank in peace.

10.

Zebra! Zebra in pajamas,

You, lucky horse! You pranced, of course.

Fancy! Trendy in savannas.

Wild mane’s style! No silk! All coarse!

11.

“Are there more black in your white stripes?

Or are there more white stripes than

black?” (1)

Striking smart horse dressed in pinstripes,

smooth, you blur the lines of leaves and

bark.

12.

Bleached and tall, the grass blades hid you.

Jeeps and men with guns roamed near.

Stood still, as their dangerous crew

Killed—the zebra disappeared.

13.

Zebra! Zebra! You! lonely horse

behind zoo bars, you cry, of course.

Zebra! Zebra! You miss the plains,

where warm winds brush black and white

manes.

(1) Madagascar, by Eric Darnell and Tom

McGrath, Dreamworks, 2005

55

My neighbor is upset her dog is eating

rabbits.

She’s observed the dog will pretend his lead

is tight, that the rabbits believe this feint,

stray

too close, and the dog pounces, nails and

canines.

I asked if we could borrow her dog to kill

the rabbits in my yard. They creep in under

cover, nibble on the green, wolf the bean,

leave

nothing except their kits to glean and, again,

seed.

My neighbor looks like she’s been mauled, so

I duck

and weave: Could we have some shed fur to

deter?

She’s kind to that and brings me a fist of hair

I raise like dukes inside the garden fence.

She promises to bring a bag after the dog’s

brushed;

I arrange the defensive mortar and trench.

Do you like butter? Do you like cheese? Do

you like sitting on a housemaid’s knees?

Despite the deluge outside, I could see

one of the sheep that was putting on some

late winter weight. She was stumbling

against the sheet of rain and hail, standing

in the middle of the field, pawing at the

mud instead of huddling under the shelter.

Catching a flash of blood against her fleece,

I dropped my shabby tea towel and managed

to shove my aching feet into my still-sodden

work boots. I had spent all day clearing the

bottom pasture for the upcoming lambing

season and hadn’t yet had the chance to

check the flock. I silently cursed my father

as I threw the door open, he was difficult to

get along with, and the last three farmhands

had quit without notice, leaving just the two

of us and a flock of 600 Drysdales.

Nudging the torn-up grass, a low sound

rumbling from the ewe’s throat. I could tell

she was in pain, and as I reached a hand

out in comfort, she pulled away and slipped

into the muck. I ran a hand across her back,

deciding to call her Buttercup. I had spent

many afternoons in this field with mum,

shining buttercups under our chins, singing a

little nonsense song. Today’s buttercups have

been crushed into the dirt, flecks of bruised

yellow peeking through as the rain washed

clay across my boots. Daylight was fading

and the lambing sheds with the heat lights

and dry shelter were several miles away.

Blood was pumping through my cheeks as the

wind whipped loose leaves and debris around

Buttercup

Fiction

Ashleigh Cattermole

Christchurch, New Zealand

us.

I peered down the driveway, desperately

hoping my father had returned from checking

the fences, but the dirt driveway was

empty. My feet were skidding underneath

me, the shivering ewe in front of me was

quiet now, her breathing heavy. With a

rolling gut, I could feel bile in my throat but

sucking icy air into my lungs, I cradled the

gentle, soggy pile of fleece. I could feel her

contractions and knew the lamb’s arrival

wasn’t far away. I had nothing to wrap the

lamb in, nothing to soothe the ewe, and I

couldn’t tell how long I had. Bracing against

the weather, I ran for the wash house,

grabbed a handful of dirty towels, the first

aid kit, and a ripped tarp. Buttercup had not

moved from the muddy puddle, and I could

do nothing but sit with her, trying to calm

my racing heart with a glance up to the sky.

Good Lord, if you’re up there!

I hadn’t prayed since the day my husband

got sick. It hadn’t done any good then either.

I had lost track of how long I had been in the

paddock, but it was well and truly dark by

now. I looked up at the house, hoping for a

flash of light to show my mother-in-law had

returned. Nothing. I slipped a disposable

glove from the first aid kit onto a shaking

hand, the rubbery snap they made reminding

me of the blustering hospital nurses who

delivered my own son. With a deep breath,

I began to sing the only words that came to

my mind, probably soothing myself more

than the ewe.

“There was a woman, oh she was a widow,

56

fair as the flowers in the valley.”

I could feel the legs of the lamb now.

Buttercup was holding on as if she knew her

baby was almost here.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered as her head crumpled

in exhaustion.

Out and down, my father had told me

when teaching me to birth a mispositioned

lamb. I opened my dry, cottony mouth to the

sky and felt the cool water slap against my

tongue.

Jesus Christ.

I held Buttercup as her lamb slid stiffly

onto the towel. Quickly wrapping him to

try and keep out at least some of the rain,

I placed him gently near his mother’s face.

She slowly blinked. Her panting was desperate

but measured. Her tongue began lapping

at the lamb, but I could tell it was a struggle.

Singing to her again as her eyes closed,

an old towel and a tarp all that was keeping

us from the thunderous spring rain. As I felt

her movements diminish to almost nothing, I

saw headlights approaching. Dad had returned.

Skidding frantically in the dirt beside us,

dad flung his passenger door open and piled

a few old coats onto the seat, turning the

heater as high as it would go. I held the

lamb between my knees as I rubbed the rain

and blood from its fleece. His legs shook,

but he was too weak to stand yet. He was

hauled up into the seat of the ute. With a

last bleat from Buttercup, Dad took off for

the wool shed where there was light, feed,

bottles, and warmth to get the lamb through

the night. I place the last of the soggy towels

across the still ewe, wishing I had more

warmth and comfort to offer her. Her eyes

closed, and I felt the shudder I had been

suppressing in my gut escape, and my body

began to wrack with tears.

As the beginning of the sunrise began to

brighten patches in the dark sky, I trudged

towards the wool shed. My mother-in-law

waved a coffee pot out the kitchen window

as I neared. I could see the top of my son’s

head peeking out of her arms. I nodded and

smiled, making a quick detour to find dad

snoring against a stack of hay bales and

shorn fleece. The heat lamps were pulsing

down upon a tiny bleating bundle that

turned his head and looked around. He was

on his feet now, and I could see his eyes

were bright and curious. I collapsed to the

ground and leaned back against the tractor

wheel, watching four clumsy hooves dance

around in the dust of the morning, a weak

ray of sunlight finally gleaming through the

doors.

Atonal

Poetry

Ben Macnair

Lichfield, Staffordshire, UK

A cow is mooing in a field,

somewhere a crow answers it,

the difference in language,

in communication skills

is obvious.

There are no easy translations for it,

no way that they can understand

what the other needs.

The only difference between their names is

an R,

and maybe the same is true of us as a

species.

Different languages spoken,

with little common ground,

but maybe in the atonal screeching,

the out of tune normality,

the foreign tones,

the microtonal nuance,

there are new tunes to be played,

new rhythms to dance to,

if only we had the time to listen,

and properly understand.

Nightjars

Poetry

Robert Wilson

Fort Wayne, Indiana, USA

I.

Black throats, undersized bills,

nightjars balance sidelong

on branches and wires

stretched across dry, open woodlands.

Their coloration, burnt sienna

and blight, matches dead leaves

on forest floors, they feed

on scraps of light and luminous

bodies of moths.

II.

We count what can be counted:

this was a riverbed,

these are a series of black marks on a page

with some sort of sense.

Those are small birds, eyes as large

as their skulls, still, even diapausal,

numbered one or more sight unseen.

57

The Old Man

Poetry - Tetrameter

Craig Kurtz

Charlottesville, Virginia, USA

The Sharp Edge

Poetry

Francis Flavin

Sparks, Nevada, USA

Have you met the Old Man yet? —

note he’s as old as old cats get;

he’s asthmatic and in no rush,

he’s bony and might need a brush;

you’ll see him mulling on his porch

as if he’s carrying a torch;

it takes a while to earn his trust —

cat treats help but they’re not a must.

Most cats can tell three yards away

if you’re a fink or you’re OK;

they always know if something’s wrong

and if it is, they move along;

they’ll let you be their friend if you’ll

respectfully be half-way cool;

and cats that are quite old are wise —

they’ll X-ray you with their cat eyes.

The Old Man’s twenty-five years old —

at least that is what I’ve been told;

it takes a while, but once up, he’s

inclined to figure-eight your knees;

and ev’ry once in a while, he’ll

be further afield than ideal;

although you wouldn’t think he might,

the rabbits get him out at night.

Although he’s old, although it’s cold,

those rabbits need to be controlled;

while he’s around, those rabbits will

be set upon, unless they’re still;

it’s self-esteem, or call it pride,

but cats should catch some prey outside;

’cause ‘fixing them’ is an affront —

at least let’s let them have their hunt.

His days of catching rabbits are

no doubt best left to his memoir;

I wonder if he knows these days

are yielding now to blank malaise?;

and back then when he captured one,

does he recall, like a re-run,

the last time of his lengthy span

he was a cat, as well a man?

So, have you met the Old Man yet? —

note he’s a person, not a pet;

he’s sitting on the front porch where

he might assess you with a stare;

and looking over the long haul,

what of his days he will recall?

I’m guessing hunting pleasure that’s

vicariously sex for cats.

And ev’ry time I think he died,

he’s been inclined to sleep or hide;

I’m sure he has forgotten me —

who knows a cat’s psychology?;

months later I will see him trot

right up to the best friend he’s got;

I hope the Old Man never dies

because cats aren’t good at goodbyes.

58

Your dinner is squealing in terror in the

backyard.

Ah, you have turned up the music —

Still, I think you can hear the loudest

shrieks,

When the pig is dragged onto the slab.

My knife is sharp and sure.

It will end his misery soon enough —

Yours as well.

Here, we lack that buffer of supply chains

and food hubs

That shields the Western psyche.

You love pork —

So, do I.

You know the price.

I know the cost.

Diary of a Ghostwriter

Creative Nonfiction

Dawn-Michelle Baude

Banner, Wyoming, USA

"Dear Jackie," I typed into the computer.

It was one of the most amazing moments of

my professional life. Me—a kid from Nowhere,

Illinois—corresponding with Jacqueline

Kennedy Onassis! The task combined the

thrill of celebrity-access with the mischief of

impersonation. I adored Jackie's elegance,

courage and style. I commiserated with her

misfortune. I coveted her sunglasses.

"Please do find time to visit us at the

chateau," I read aloud to the Baroness. "The

dahlias are in full bloom, and the gardens

are simply divine."

"Gorgeous," she corrected. "The gardens

are simply gorgeous."

I revised and waited, while the Baroness—

or Mimi, as I was permitted to call her—shuffled

slides on the light box. I spent so much

time in that Parisian office, its contours

have seemingly shaped memory itself. The

room was small and cozy, positioned beneath

penthouse eaves. Between our two desks

was a chaotic table overwhelmed by a turtle

mound of books and files. A phone/fax station

was arrayed next to the windows giving

onto the apse-end of the Basilique Saint-Clotilde.

French Provençal fabric covered the

walls, a different fabric for the swag curtains.

In aristocratic interiors, fabrics are

complementary, never matching. Only lower

classes match things.

"Tell Jackie," Mimi dictated, "the manuscript

is…."

I waited while the Baroness gathered her

thoughts. Aristocrats can't be rushed. The

fact that they can trace family lineage back

several generations gives them a kind of

gravitas bordering on inertia.

"Tell Jackie the manuscript is…," I prompted.

Mimi sighed. Clearly the task was tiresome.

I sipped Earl Grey from a wafer-thin

cup.

"Progressing," she said finally.

I politely ventured that we needed something

stronger. "The manuscript is progressing

well? Progressing steadily?"

Mimi squinted at a slide as if she didn't

hear me. It was tricky in these moments to

gauge how far I could push—deference went

hand-in-hand with employment. I excused

myself for interrupting and asked if she

might be willing to consider "progressing

apace"?

"'Apace' will do," the Baroness decided. "I

suppose Jackie will be relieved to hear that."

Jackie and Mimi were old friends, but

they weren't close. They had gone to boarding

school together, one of those east coast

establishments with lawns as manicured as

the debutantes' nails. Mimi attended Jackie's

wedding to JFK. When Jackie became an editor

at Doubleday after the death of her second

husband, Aristotle Onassis, she agreed

to publish Mimi's book, partly because—and

here I'm vague—someone in Mimi's clan was

very high up at Doubleday.

It was, nevertheless, a good fit: Bedrooms

& Boudoirs of Elite Frenchwomen was about

interiors, and Jackie was passionate about

interiors. It was Jackie who took a lackluster

Sears Roebuck White House and turned it

59

into showplace worthy of the Smithsonian.

She understood how the shape of a chair, or

the pattern of an embroidery, reveals domestic

history—intimate details of daily life

that speak to us more of what it is to be human

than wars or elections or neuroscience

data combined. But did Jackie know Mimi

hired ghostwriters for everything she published?

Although the Baroness could rattle off

precedence in a royal receiving line (Dowager

Viscountess before Earl), she was incapable

of ordering sentences in a paragraph.

She couldn't even write a coherent note to

her publisher.

"Should I tell Jackie that Madame Mitterrand

has declined to be a part of the project,

but that the Countess de Rîmes took her

place?"

The Baroness frowned and said that Jackie

was going to be so awfully disappointed

about Madame Mitterrand.

I would have preferred the French President's

wife too. I took a strong, immediate

dislike to the Countess de Rîmes as soon

as I read her interview with the Baroness…

and that's saying a lot. Most of the women

profiled in Bedrooms & Boudoirs took themselves

so seriously that there wasn't a shred

of humor or humbleness or compassion in

their transcripts, and none more than the

Countess de Rîmes.

I want those Biedermeier bed tables! And I

want them now! the Countess insisted at the

Hôtel St.

Regis, where once she slept in a room outfitted

with heirlooms. I suspect the St. Regis

finally sold the tables to her just to get rid

of her. Her two-hundred-year-old baldaquin

bed, apparently a souvenir d'amour, was

shipped from Spain. She preferred centuries-old

linen sheets, because of course, the

quality went down after 1800. Mimi told me

that the purity of de Rîme's lineage was visible

in her facial structure, which is why the

Countess pulled her hair back into a tight

chignon. Apparently aristocrats can identify

each other by their silhouettes alone. One

French family even claims to be descended

from Jesus Christ.

"I don't know.... whatever I'm... to do."

Mimi stopped sorting images and froze, staring

into space as if time had frozen too. And

I suppose, in a way, it has. Telling moments

in our lives become stills in memory, nuggets

of experience nestled in the neural albums

of the brain. I can still see Mimi's anxious

face, the way her big cow eyes swept in my

direction when I asked what was wrong. The

helplessness emanating from her gaze reminded

me of Mother.

"Hu-bert," she said as if talking to herself,

"may be having an affair."

Hubert? With those fussy ascots? The

perfectly pressed suits? That chiseled nose? A

terrible rigidity seemed to accompany Mimi's

husband into the room, as if all the humidity

had been sucked out of the air. In my opinion,

the Baron was about as attractive as an

empty swimming pool.

But she loved him. Mimi hunched over the

desk, hiding her face in her hands, shivering

like a nervous thoroughbred as she cried.

I fought the instinct to run over and put

my arms around her. Aristocrats often can't

be touched willy-nilly. Formality inheres in

their persons like starch in a cummerbund.

You can't physically comfort them if you

don't have a pedigree or some version of

intergenerational servant status. So I sat

awkwardly in front of the computer, Jackie's

unfinished letter glowing on the screen,

watching Mimi cry.

Her birth name was Norma. I'm not sure

when the Mimi part came in—probably long

before the Baroness part. Because of her

beauty and connections, she'd married into

the aristocracy, but it was a poor fit. Her

privileged airs were forced, as if her training

in finishing school had never really taken.

At some point or other, I began to remark

the subtle strain. Her French, although far

superior to mine, wasn't perfect. Mimi never

lost the American accent that flavored her

speech like too much coriander on the chateaubriand.

Real European aristocrats, those

who'd earned their place through breeding

instead of marriage, must have looked down

on her, although she tried so hard to be one

of them, going so far as to secure a book

contract that ensured access to the most

highly-placed women in French society. Even

Mimi's professional reputation—the one area

of her life where she could potentially derive

satisfaction—was a sham. The respect Mimi

earned as a former Condé Nast editor was

baseless. I doubt she wrote a single article

published under her name.

Mimi's struggle was to be Mimi—to become

the legend. But no matter how good

she looked in a Chanel suit, no matter how

snobby her aristocratic entitlement, how

often she lunched or dined with la crème,

no matter what power her money gave her

or how rigorously she obeyed the mandates

of privilege, there was a system of hairline

fissures in the foundation.

I believe the only thing Mimi really had,

the thing that she could fully own and rely

60

on, a work that was genuinely hers, was

her Rolodex. In truth, it was her greatest

achievement, a testimony to the success of

her social climbing. It was a late-20th-century

desktop gizmo, a rotating address book

that seems gilded in memory, like a celestial

wheel of fortune. On the notched address

cards, Mimi had the phone numbers of umpteen

women of pedigree, including several

women in line to thrones. It was a Rolodex

of wealth and position, of influence and

power, of caché and swag. Cards were filed

by name and residences: Easthampton, New

York; Gstaad, Switzerland; Ibiza, Spain; Paris,

France; Rio, Brazil; Siwa, Egypt. I know

this because sometimes I had to look things

up and the roll call reeled past, seemingly

spewing glitter.

Compared with this starry universe, Mimi's

personal life seemed tarnished by deception

and disappointment. Her husband was cold,

her adult children—the ones I met—spoiled

rotten and mean. They came to get money,

in cash, from their mother. I saw them—husband,

a couple of kids—they knocked on the

office door, glanced at me as if I were a dull

appliance, and bullied Mimi into whatever

it was they needed. The cash was kept in

a pocketbook in a little closet behind my

desk. I felt sorry for her during those visits.

I felt sorry for her having to go to sleep at

night, knowing deep down in her Baron-ness,

or Mimi-ness, or Norma-ness, that she was

a fraud. I felt sorry for her marital problems.

My face must have shown it. Her tears

slowed to a trickle. One should never cry in

front of the help if it can be avoided.

"Hubert will never leave you," I said.

"Of course not," she snapped. Her fragility

vanished like a raindrop — she was 100%

aristocrat now, sitting stiffly in her chair.

"Tell Jackie I'll be in New York the first week

in June. Ask if she might be free for lunch."

Once I printed the letter—Mimi added a

P.S. about the "simply dreadful production of

Tosca"—she handed me a folder on one of the

Rothschilds. "We mustn't forget the superb

collection of opaline glass," she said and

excused herself from the office.

I grabbed the ringing phone as Mimi

exited, thinking it was Hu-bert, who often

checked up on his wife. She must have

thought it was him too, because instead of

turning around to answer it, she shut the

door.

In English, a woman asked for Mimi. I

explained that the Baroness had just stepped

from the office.

"Perhaps you can help me?" the speaker

continued and my identity slipped. It broke

like a mirror, each piece reflecting a fragment

of self, each self bursting with so much

to say, too much to say, a commitment to

saying, to not just standing there with the

phone in my hand and my mouth open, to

say it, to finally say it, all of it, to say something.

Here is the young woman, flummoxed: Oh

God, it's her! Jackie O.! A former First Lady!

A major New York editor at Doubleday and

Viking!

Here is the WASP with a hard-wired work

ethic: I knew it! We're late—we were supposed

to fax the Princess de Broglia chapter

yesterday.

Here is the poet: Jackie's voice has so

much breath in it, as if each respiration

really counts.

Here is the aspiring writer: I'm ghostwriting

the book you're publishing. I verify, as

much as I can,

the information, but I can't phone the

ladies up and confirm the design details of

the commodes and whatnot because it isn't

officially my book. Might it be possible to put

my name on the cover?

There was too much information to distill

into a sentence or two. Words fail us—the

tiny capillaries in the brain funnel the emotions,

but can't hold the volume. We end up

reverting to known pathways.

I assured Jackie O. that I would ask the

Baroness to phone her back. The chance I

had of improving my lot evaporated into

the field of potentiality from whence it had

come: Jackie would never learn who was

writing the book she was publishing. While

it wasn't my place to tell her, I knew more

ambitious writers wouldn't have hesitated

to laud their role in the project. But it was

more than that: Jackie would never know

that the woman on the other end of the

line understood what it's like when someone

you love is killed and your whole identity is

redefined in terms of a crime. Even though

a comparison between JFK's death and my

father's was far-fetched, both men were

dispatched by strangers across the wide river

of Lethe. JFK's death opened a chapter of

tumult in American history, and my father's

death impacted a small, Midwest community,

but despite the scale-change, Jackie and I

had a scintilla of overlap. In a parallel universe,

we might have attended a survivor's

group together.

The reality was clear: I was a phony too. I

pretended to be a secretary who was really

the ghostwriter of the Baroness' book, who

was really a poet, who was really an abandoned

child, a traumatized kid, a resilient

adult, all smiles and good will, shimmering,

shimmering, a cloud floating freely in the

sky, deepening with the evening light, dark-

61

ening in the evening light, growing dark and

heavy and so deep with sorrow no light can

penetrate. Nothing grows there. Why look

that way? New scenery abounds on a rotating

earth—and there I am, researching Belle

Époque opaline glass as the Baroness returns

to the office, her lipstick refreshed.

"To whom were we speaking?" she asked

brightly.

"Jackie," I said, "it was Jackie."

The Good and the Talented

Poetry

Marie-Anne Poudre


Once upon my childhood, I met Alphonse,

A good poet.

He was seasoned with graying sideburn

Rimmed glasses often sliding on his pointy nose.

He worked as a journalist

For a Parisian newspaper

He wrote fast peppered stories about the top

brass of his days

He pondered upon the salty brew the city by

the Seine was spewing.

Alphonse had a poet friend

A younger friend he met at the Café des Arts

Many critics toasted with glee at the fresh cups

Of rhymes the cream forehead man was voicing

His name was Pierre Gringoire.

Pierre drank the praises of men

--Twice his age

Kissed the lips of ladies

--Twice his age

Thought he was a giant

but was not famous yet.

As the bounties of ladies became scarce

When the winds of wars reached the city

Stubborn Pierre starved, and Alphonse withdrew to a quiet hill in

Provence.

Where Alphonse kept on watching

Writing

Editing

Soon he had enough coins

To buy

A rundown windmill where he settled. (1)

Gringoire wrote poems in Paris

In which he mocked Alphonse

But the old man, trying tales

Where reason failed,

Weaved a story for the proud talent.

The muse of glory had the joy

Of picking this humble story

For the youthful eager ears.

His friend, Alphonse

Twisted some arms

And procured him a job in a suburb gazette

The gifted youth pouted:

“I write poems, not chronicles!”

Pierre Gringoire

Are the only words left of the young poet

He did not write them.

Alphonse did.

(1) Alphonse, Daudet, Letters From My Mill, France, 1869

62

Word-Man

Poetry

Tufik Shayeb


Your Thoughts

Poetry

Tufik Shayeb


scatter like fallen branches

an awful mess you pick up

preparing for a massive bonfire

okay, so

I didn't do the dishes

sue me

no,

please don't

I was very busy

saving the world

from itself

you see,

I have been gifted

the special power

of talking good

it's a lightning bolt,

that flirts with Thor's

hammer,

it crashes

upon the darkness

of illiteracy,

and it rallies

the troops to victory

I am Word-Man!

fear

the breathtaking might

of my inestimable

vocabulary!

swoon

at my unmistakable

prowess of that

syntax!

quake

in the wake

of my backbreaking

meter!

okay, so

I didn't do the dishes

but what’s

a worse outcome:

and not enough

clean forks,

or watching

some ignorant goons

heist away

the gems and jewels

of our culture?

in my free time,

I educate college

students

on the art of reading

poetry and prose

out loud

and I hope that

someday

they'll also forget

to do the dishes

and when you’re all done,

you hang a wooden shingle

that reads: a phoenix lived here

you sell bottled cinders, roadside

like a musty snake oil salesman

promising every biblical miracle

and every now and then,

swipe the ashes across your brow

and hope to remember it all

it is a patriotic shield

that evens out the

battlefield,

the smell of graying,

moldy cups

63

Everyone knew that the man in the van

sold pot. We could smell it in the air behind

the Costco Wholesale. We could see it in the

spring green paint job of his Ford Transit.

We could buy it in little baggies between the

hours of nine and five. But none of us could

say much else. There was no one living in

our small Oregon town who knew where he

lived or where he was from or even what his

name was. He was simply called the man

in the van, and not one Costco employee

could remember a time when he hadn’t

been there. He seemed to exist outside of

the world, and anyone who knew him often

wondered what that was like. For obvious

reasons, this was why he’d get mentioned

frequently to out-of-towners. Some wandering

tourist would ask if the town had anything

out of the ordinary, and the man in the

van would almost always be noted. We had

lots of fun describing what he looked like.

We’d say he was stretched like a pine tree

and had muscles in his back that rolled when

he sat down. We’d say he spoke with a soft

Canadian accent and said particular things

about the sky. We’d mention he wore large

dollar store T-shirts and had long frizzy hair

most mistook to be a perm. And when we

were done with our descriptions, we’d often

mention the strange occurrences that liked

to crop up around him. The man in the van

had a few regular customers—high schoolers

and fisherman mostly—and the stories they

told about his product were incredibly entertaining.

One student said smoking it had

made her hair shoot down to her elbows and

Out of Season

Fiction

Katherine Davis

Bluffton, South Carolina, USA

another said it made him dream only about

the ocean. A popular one among the sailors

was that it helped attract fish to their boats.

“Of course you shouldn’t believe them”

the tourists would often get told. “Burnouts

and sailors aren’t really known for their

honesty.”

We’d also try our best to explain why the

man in the van was so compelling. In our

own words, we’d say he was a figure who

understood the difference between solitude

and loneliness. We’d try to explain why

everyone wanted to be him and why no one

actually was. Then we’d usually talk about

the ducks.

Every winter they were there. Large flocks

of migrating fowl that flew down the North

Pacific in droves, and when they’d reach the

town, they’d swirl around the van like vultures.

In this one, tiny, specific area, there

were so many birds that people driving by

the Costco could see them swarming around

in the back. It was our go-to sign that winter

had begun. There was even an annual tradition

among the Costco staff to schedule a

party around the ducks’ arrival. They’d make

duck-themed party favors, pull up some

chairs, and then drink for good weather. And

every once and awhile, the man in the van

would be asked in, but he never accepted

the invitation.

“I’m a little busy,” he’d respond, and

every time, he'd barely be heard over the

sound of quacking ducks.

The town joke, of course, was that the

man in the van was selling the birds pot, and

64

every year, large swatches of conversation

were devoted entirely to this single mental

image. Someone would mention it offhandedly,

and pretty soon the room would spiral

into crazed laughter as people wondered out

loud what the ducks said and how the ducks

paid and how the man in the van managed

his prices. But eventually, an out-of-towner

would kill the mood and ask, “But what does

he really feed them?” Which meant one of

us had to speak up and say “Bread.” This response

left some impressed, a few intrigued,

others a little jealous, and most just slightly

let down, and this was why we didn’t always

give an honest answer.

“It’s definitely pot,” we’d joke. “You can

see for yourself if you want to.”

Ironically, the story behind the bread was

less boring than we realized. It was actually

one of the most mysterious things surrounding

the man. The bread was made out of a

strange, lumpy substance that smelled like

the sea, and somehow, it was all homemade.

The man baked piles of the stuff, and upon

closer examination, a person could wonder if

it wasn’t bread at all. So what was it exactly?

Where did the man in the van get his materials?

How did he even find an oven? Only

he could say, so most of us settled with the

bread being store-bought and left it at that.

Every third Sunday of October, the man

in the van would close up shop, sit in the

opened back of his Transit, and feed the

ducks from nine to five. And the ducks would

always come. There was something in the

bread that seemed to drop them out of the

sky.

Obviously, our Town Council hated the

man in the van. They didn’t find his cute

little oddities all that impressive, and they

could easily convince you they had every

right to want him gone. They had every right

to not want drug dealers in their community.

It was essentially their job to not want

drug dealers in their community. The town

needed a respectable reputation and a sober

community and a semi-sober group of tourists

that could spend lots of money and leave

upstanding reviews. They didn’t want this

man and his van and his ducks and his crap

marijuana and whatever else he was selling.

But strangely enough, it was the whatever

else that drew in a good fifteenth of the

tourists. There was a rumor—an incredibly

small rumor—that had crept its way across

the West Coast. It was usually said in the

backs of bars and near the ends of parties,

and it was as word-of-mouth as word-ofmouth

could be. It said that in a small

Oregon town a quarter mile from the ocean,

there was a green Ford Transit behind a

Costco, and in this van there was a guy who

could Make Stuff Happen. That was all the

rumor ever said, that he could Make Stuff

Happen, and very rarely was that description

ever elaborated on. But still people went,

and if they were lucky they would arrive

at the Costco and leave ten minutes later

feeling very stupid with a half-full baggie

of something-or-other pocketed in their

sweatshirts. No one ever came back a second

time, and even in the winter, the rate of

these customers never rose and never fell.

And of course, not all of these customers

arrived from far away. There was the town

dunce, Maggie Johnson, who knocked on the

Transit one May morning and aced all her

exams, and young Samuel Weaving who, on a

dare, had asked the man for a magic potion

and wouldn’t leave his bathroom for half a

week.

No one in the town knew much about the

something-or-other, but it created enough

activity around the man and the van that its

existence often led to some further call for

greater action. Every year the Town Council

tried to investigate the man in the van, and

every year they failed. This was because a

good solid number of us actually enjoyed

the man’s presence—or at the very least,

enjoyed his product—and this was why he'd

always be warned before the Council sent

one of their members down to the Costco.

The member would arrive, the man would be

spotless, and the Council would once again

be left with nothing. For the most part, this

was how life carried on for the man in the

van.

Then one year things changed. A new

rumor was created, and this time, thousands

across the state of Oregon were told

that duck season was upon them and if they

wanted to break some records, they needed

to be in a small sea-side town practically no

one had heard of. No one knew how the rumor

got started, but that didn’t stop dozens

of duck hunters from flocking in and filling

up the motels. It was basically the best thing

the Town Council could ever ask for, and

soon they became so wrapped up in these

new arrivals, they didn’t even notice the

man in the van setting up his own welcome

wagon. A second rumor picked up soon after,

and this one said there was a pothead behind

the Costco who apparently was responsible

for a lot of crazy shit. It said he had

helped a fisherman beach an orca. It said he

could make teenagers float off the ground.

65

It said he had once given a blunt to a woman

that had made her grow water-proof feathers.

It essentially said he could Make Stuff

Happen. Intrigued—and a little bored—the

hunters soon found themselves rounding the

corner of the warehouse and stopping to find

the man in the van sitting inside his Transit.

If they asked for something useful, each and

every one of them would be given a single

loaf of bread.

“You know you’re not supposed to bait the

ducks,” they’d say.

“You don’t have to buy it,” he’d respond,

and the hunters usually would.

That season was a strange one in the

world of duck hunting. Not only did those

hunters have terrible luck, but most of

them were also incredibly stoned. They told

insane stories about ducks blocking out the

sun before raining down to attack them, and

no one who heard these stories could tell if

they were an effect of bizarre and unfortunate

circumstances or whatever it was the

hunters had been smoking. Several hunting

magazines considered doing articles, the

man in the van quietly counted his piles of

fives, each and every one of us waited to see

what would happen, and the Town Council

fumed in their seats and scrambled to

grab hold of the culprit before he weaseled

out of their fingers. They called the Fish &

Wildlife Service, and after a very long phone

call and two testimonies, the agency finally

told them a couple of guys would be arriving

in the morning. We all considered this and

wondered if we should warn the man. We

hesitated. We decided against it. This time,

we figured, things were different.

On the 5th of November, the Costco

Wholesale was closed for one day, and a

large portion of us quickly gathered at the

end of the parking lot when we realized

what was happening. A dark-gray FWS truck

had arrived on the scene, seemingly completely

out of nowhere, and no matter how

hard we tried to peer through its windows,

no one could tell who sat inside it. Like a

shark, the truck drifted silently through the

parking lot and dipped around the corner,

and after it was completely out of sight,

a deep, unsettling anticipation swiftly fell

across the crowd. A few of us craned our

necks, some of us stood on our toes, and

others asked the person next to them if they

could see much else. There was a silence

that crushed us into holding our collective

breath and thinking a great deal. None of

us could have guessed what was happening

behind the Costco Wholesale.

The Fish & Wildlife agents were almost

pushed back by the pungent smell of salt

water and cannabis, and when they drove

around the corner, they were greeted with

one of the strangest sights they had ever

seen. They were expecting to find a tall,

middle-aged man in a green Ford Transit, but

what they saw instead was the man standing

in front of his car completely and unexpectedly

surrounded by every kind of duck. There

were mallards, wigdens, shovelers, pintails,

and teals. Long-tailed and short-tailed.

Cinnamon and Harlequin. And they were all

completely silent. It was incredible. It made

no sense. These birds needed to be in Baja

California or someplace even further south.

The two agents got out of their truck and

added the stench of wet bird and wet dumpster

to everything else they were smelling.

One of the agents said he’d wait in the car.

The other frowned and took a step forward.

“Sorry,” the man in the van said abruptly.

The agent paused.

The person in front of him sounded incredibly

preoccupied, and it gave the agent

a quiet, headach-y feeling that a person gets

when things fall out of order and they have

to deal with people and places that make no

sense.

“I know they're out of season, but I missed

the eighteenth,” the man continued. “I

didn’t think they’d be this upset.”

Not knowing how to respond, the agent

said nothing and took several steps closer.

He was now a foot deep in duck. A northern

teal bit into the top of his sock and somehow

managed to latch on.

“To be honest, I don’t completely know

why I did this,” the man said. “Turns out I’m

even stupider than they thought.”

The agent was now only a foot away. He

opened his mouth to speak.

“I mean, just look at how confused they

are,” the man exclaimed, and for no sensible

reason, the agent found himself struck into

silence as his body turned mutely around.

Never in his life did he expect to see it

right away. The ducks did look confused.

They seemed to fidget and shuffle and

cringe. The agent could somehow see it in

their eyes, in the way they waddled aimlessly

from place to place. Dumbly, he looked

down and remembered the teal. He half

expected it to speak to him.

“Please let me go,” it seemed to say, “I

really shouldn’t be here. This really isn’t

right. How can someone possibly believe this

is how things work?”

The agent came close to replying and

found that he’d been holding his breath. He

looked at the teal and the teal looked at

him. He rubbed his eyes and sighed. This was

ridiculous.

When the agent turned around with the

66

handcuffs, the man and the van simply

stared at them distantly.

“It’s weird that I thought I could feed

them all now,” he said as he held out his

hands. “And it’s totally unfair. This is all I

ever wanted to do.”

After the FWS truck rounded the corner

and drove past the crowd, and after we realized

it would not be turning back, none of us

really knew what to make of what we’d just

witnessed.

“Who knew they’d finally get him?” Most

of us thought.

“There goes my dealer,” a few others

whispered.

After the ducks scattered into the air and

soared above our heads, most of us felt even

more at a loss. We all got the uneasy impression

that those ducks would never stop by

again.

Then time moved on. A year passed and

a duck-themed Costco party was canceled

wistfully. We soon found ourselves submerged

in a somewhat muted haze. Many of

us tried to find another dealer. Sometimes a

tourist would ask about anything out of the

ordinary, which would lead to a local quickly

getting excited and then slightly annoyed

and then unspeaking. To the Town Council’s

utter frustration, the tourist revenue slowly

began to sink, and during the first few

months after the man’s departure, a handful

of out-of-towners could be seen walking

into the back of the Costco and then leaving

almost immediately.

“Who are they?” We’d ask, but most of

us didn’t go looking for an answer and most

didn’t want it, and after the number of

those strange out-of-towners dwindled down

to none, our small Oregon town truly began

to grow quiet. Another winter passed and

nobody bothered to leave out bread. For

most of the season, all any of us seemed

to do was wait. Wait for the ducks to start

blocking out the sun. Wait for the man to

return in his Transit. Wait for the day when

the town could return back to normal,

when we’d be a subject people liked talking

about, when we’d be strange and unusual

and a little bizarre, when we’d be a spot

that held solutions and stories and secrets

and strangers, and when we’d once again be

something just a bit out of place and a town

on the coast that could Make Stuff Happen.

These two hands

Dry and hard

Used to write this poem

stained

with tears of frustration

typing vigorously

about a story

wishing not to tell

Or a poem

to throw away again

racing with hard emotion

of what to express

And can’t seem to find the words.

My hands are at a stand still

With sweat and trembling fingers

Craving for approval

But rather hide and blend with the table

Running

While being immobilized

And can’t seem to concentrate

on the task at hand.

My Hands

Poetry

katie pfeifer


Then

Scrolling on the internet

to find the poem they shaped

the tears they wept

the blood they sacrificed

has been rejected

to be seen as worthless

to be seen as a waste of time

to the people they crave unwanted approval

So these two hands

Broad and thick

Are trying to a write a poem or a story

But instead

Just sit there and let their mind wonder.

67

I. Enter the Theme Park

With a highway trailer’s tilt,

the A-shirt and discount-ticket man

lumbers, unhinged and heaving,

toward the two local boys

standing in front of the hot wing

and funnel cake stand.

As loose soil, they tremble under

the crash of an August wind’s lead foot.

Did you cut in front of my son?

he asks, bringing them both down,

like roadkill, like coyotes reduced

to dust and blood on the interstate.

They apologize and shrink

under the heat of California magic.

They apologize and shrivel,

two decaying animals in the desert.

II. A Quick Bite to Eat

Inside the stand, employees

ache over world famous hot sauce

and finely powdered sugar.

The Theme Park

Poetry

Tufik Shayeb


They wear ties and trousers,

blouses and bonnets, hard at work

clothes, elbow-greased patches

and mine-shaft buttons.

Outside the stand, Midwestern folk

with glistening scrap yard smiles

chew through sinewy chicken.

Used napkins between them,

piling higher, racing against

the great roller coaster for ozone

and for superiority.

They are dirty from meat,

chewing meat, picking meat

meat from the gripping prison

of brilliant dental braces.

III. Waiting in Line

Deeper into the park,

past the steel beams

and plastic merchandise,

past the clamoring

jungle of tourists with bright

yellow fanny packs and large

fragile cameras slung low

at their sides, a monstrous,

68

winding anaconda, made of

sweaty, exhausted park ride

patrons, standing in line

they meet each other

over and over,

their

eyes are locked

over

and over as they

pass

each other, over

and

over, like

reincarnation

,over/ and \over,

they are familiar

strangers.

/\

IV. The Rides

Nothing green

will ever last long

in this park,

only mechanical bulls

too big for their riders,

pressing their bolted roots

deep into the slabs below

reaching for an empty heaven

while their creators still walk

on two legs and crawl

when injured.

V. Family Reunions

Near the great roller coaster,

a family reunion congregates

to use the facilities.

There are four generations of

[generic surname], closely arranged

in silk-screen and powder blue.

Some gene, some program

in the brain and in the blood

instructs them to synchronize

every [generic surname] on earth,

had chosen that precise moment

to seek out a ceramic bowl

where, squatting in dim stalls,

they mutter about bad weather

and about unfavorable timing.

VI. Having Fun

The great coaster pounds,

as a little girl pushes her way

through the crowd.

She makes her way

to the front of the line.

Her eyelids flutter,

two ashy moths on a window.

She is blind.

Her cane clickers and clackers.

Her face is vacation red,

her large ponytailed head

is bobbing as she moves,

a floating balloon

tethered by overalls

and clunky Velcro shoes.

Their eyebrows furrow.

That’s got to be a safety hazard,

they jeer.

She is excited.

Soon, the rackety ride

will drop way down.

The great big round Earth,

down below, will tug on all

the inside strings,

her spleen will steal a highfive

from her kidney,

and it will no longer matter

that she cannot see a mascot

dancing.

69

What No One Speaks

of in Illinois

Poetry

Carl Boon

Izmir, Turkey

I offer my mother a recipe

for mushroom risotto with chives,

it being a February Monday

and her frailty still a myth to her.

I tell her strange things happen

in Elgin when the thaw begins

and to call if the street-boys

mar the stop sign again, the red

octagon standing at the corner.

She whispers her goodbyes

to me now and forces me to fear.

Her Christmas tree still stands

in the living room, still shines

white and red. My husband

drives by after work for news:

the neighbor’s swept the slush

from the stoop; the pickled beets

in jars remain on the windowsill.

We drink whiskey after supper

and try not to cry—if we make love

I think of her blue bedspread

and the hairs that pierce it.

I think of the Fourth of July

an errant firecracker lit her blouse

on fire and what it means to live

in a house alone, what she sees

in the mirror before bed, what

85 years of the Cubs on the radio

and all that wind and seven

different priests have done to her.

The doctor says it will be gradual,

the decline, with moments

where she’s God and God is her,

and that the end will be a child’s.

This is How Delirium's Demiurge Drowns the Universe

Poetry


Nelson, British Columbia, Canada

face.

At last odyssey-crushed, I’m amid reincarnating

In the dismal glade as a sunflower on her

I am the spectral flame between her eyes.

I’ve been revived, so begins our entangled,

Entertainment within the dream eternal;

Let us sculpt shapes of beauty out the negative space

Between Hyde & host: a hunched madam gorging on

The brood-red carcass of an iron star.

Her cauldron’s brimming with the celestial

Sweat of a nearby brook. Between reflections,

Everything’s gurgling. Without warning,

My mad madam lurches face-first into the cauldron

And roars, regurgitates the symbolic ingredients

From my first creation; a chaos cadence,

Void-worn woes, eulogies of the logos.

The sheer paradox shock of it all shall

Spit out my near annihilation. This vixen

Of bestial visions only mouths her half-belief

In me. Not enough. Floating in the vat,

My meta mind metabolizes betrayal over

The fires of her laughter.

Strands of surreal steam rise and ensnare

The mirages, mine illumined via earthshine

Before vanishing into the black frigid sky.

And there above, making needles out moonlight,

Lung-shaped leaves on a low-hung bough

Abandon what it means to breathe.

Before the chimeric ichor in this cauldron can fully dilute me,

I’m picked apart by the cacophonous chant of her

Shadowy shawl stitched out all the masks of my past

Lives. They swirl their song around her shoulders

And welcome me home.

This is how we complete the branding of our coexistence.

70

71

a trip in space

Digital Art

Vita Nocilla


72

Zen Sex Metallica

Painting

Labdhi Sha

Atlanta, Georgia, USA

“Well Olivia, can I ask you some questions?”

Olivia smiled sweetly at him and with a

small giggle flipped her hair. “Of course! I’ve

been interviewed many times, I know what

I’m doing.”

The interviewer gives a tentative smile

and continues, “Do you mind if I record

this?”

“Oh, not at all!”

The interviewer clicked the start button

on a recorder. “Okay, first question. How old

are you?”

“That’s easy, I’m 18!”

“Okay. Can you tell me what happened?”

“Well, I walked into this room and then

you started asking me questions.”

“No, I mean before you got here. Why are

you here? What happened at prom?”

“Oh, you want to know what happened at

prom.”

“Yes.”

“I’ll tell you, but for the story’s sake,

I’ll start from the beginning. I was a normal

teenager, and my senior year was going

great. I had the quarterback boyfriend, I was

popular, rich, beautiful, and I had just begun

my modeling career. You might have seen me

in a few magazines and on TV commercials.

Anyway, prom was coming up. I had my dress

picked out. It was this beautiful blue gown

with silks, ribbons, and gems. It was breathtaking,

especially on me. All of my friends

had a date to prom already and I was waiting

for my boyfriend, Travis, to ask me to prom.

A few days later he did. It was so romantic.

Prom Queen

Fiction

Danika Leuenberger

Granger, Iowa, USA

He had spent so much time on it too. Oh,

it makes me blush just thinking about it.”

Olivia started to drift off with a dreamy look

on her face.

“Eh-hem, what happened next?”

“Oh, sorry. Well, when prom arrived, I was

so happy. School let out early. My girlfriends

and I all went to my house to get ready for

prom. My parents rented a limousine, and

when we were ready, we got in and rode to

prom in style. Prom was great. We danced

and talked, and when they were ready to say

who the prom king and queen were, we were

ready. We were so excited as they brought

out the crowns and sashes for the winners.

Then the class president went up, gave a

small speech about the year, and then she

took out the voting cards. She opened the

first card and said: 'This year’s prom king

is Travis!' I was so happy for him. Then she

opened the second one and said the prom

queen was me! I was so happy I almost ran

up to the stage, to Travis, and to the crown.

I was ready. I deserved this. They crowned

Travis and me prom king and queen, and

then we each gave a small speech. Then

the prom was over. Travis took me home,

kissed me goodnight, and then drove home.

I walked inside and went to bed. That’s it,

that was prom.”

“OK, thank you, Olivia. Johnathan outside

will take you to your next appointment.”

“Thank you, good day.” Olivia walked

outside to Johnathan standing outside in all

white, she reached for his arm but he shifted

away.

73

“Ready to go Olivia?” Olivia looked up at

him.

“Sure.” Olivia and Johnathan walked

down the dark halls in silence. Olivia would

try to start a conversation but would get no

response. Eventually, they got to another office

door that said, “Doctor Adams.” Johnathan

let go of Olivia’s arm.

“I’ll be right outside this door.” Olivia

nodded her head at Jonathan and walked inside.

“Oh Olivia, you’re here. Right on time.

Sit down, get comfy. Now, Olivia, do you

remember what we talked about yesterday?”

“Prom, right?”

“Yes, we talked about your prom. Do you

recall what I told you about prom yesterday?”

“No.”

“Well, I’ll tell you again. Olivia, you are

not prom queen, your boyfriend broke up

with you, and your parents are broke. You

have been living in a fantasy world. I have

reports here, on my desk, that say on the

night of prom when you didn’t win you went

crazy. Do you remember that?”

Olivia looked at Doctor Adams with wide

eyes, and shook her head, “No”

“Olivia It’s time to change out of the

dress and give back the tiara.” He gestured

towards her blue dress and the prom queen

crown on her head.

“What, NO! I won! I’m prom queen!”

“No, you’re not. It’s time you come back

to the real world.”

“NO!” Olivia stood up violently from her

chair, knocking it to the ground. Olivia start-

ed screaming curses and threats at Doctor

Adams and she moved her hand back as if to

hit him.

Doctor Adams stood up and got behind his

chair as he yelled for help,

“NURSES! JOHNATHAN! HELP!” Johnathan

comes running into the room moments later

with a few other nurses and grabs Olivia.

“LET ME GO!”

“Johnathan please take her to her room,

we are done for today.”

“Yes, sir.” Johnathan and the other nurses

pull Olivia out of the room and down the

halls with her kicking and screaming the

whole way. They stop at a steel door that

Johnathan unlocks, and takes Olivia into.

He sets her on the bed, “Olivia calm down,

you’re in your room. Away from everything,

calm down. “ Olivia slowly starts calming

down, taking deep breaths, and looks at

Johnathan, “Is it true?”

“Yes, that’s why you’re here, in this hospital.”

Olivia looks down at her hands in her

lap. “Am I okay?” Johnathan sighed.

“Not yet, but you will be.” Olivia lays

down on the bed putting her hand to her

forehead. “Please leave, I wish to be alone.”

Johnathan stands up and walks towards the

door. “See you later.” He says with a small

smile.

He shuts the door and locks it behind him,

"Oh Olivia, when will you wake up and see

reality? You’re not prom queen. Your prom

was two years ago." Johnathan walks away

from the door down the hall. He sees a nurse

and a guard struggling with a patient in the

halls. He goes to help them deal with the

situation. Before Johnathan can get there,

they knock out the patient and drag him

towards his room. Johnathan pauses and

thinks to himself, Somedays I wonder, why

did I choose to work at an asylum? He shrugs

his shoulders and walks down the dark hall,

standing out in his bright white nurses uniform,

surrounded by rooms filled with insane

people on either side. The screaming filled

the halls, but it didn't phase him anymore.

They were people needing help. That’s when

he remembers why he does this job, to help

people who need it the most.

74

Mirage

Poetry

Sarah Riensche

Castro Valley, California, USA

A glistening vision looming ahead

A dream bright with recognition and fame

Where all wrong is made right again.

A universe orbiting a sun of dreams

A realm where colorful hope

Swirls amid dancing light.

The child of a longing mind

Conceived in desperate yearning

Born of vivid fantasy.

A mirage

Just a mirage.

Invisibility

Poetry

Jennifer Schneider

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA

I am a keeper of a cream parchment card stock that I alone claim. I

am a body in a wooden dining room chair, with a reserved seat and

setting at the far end of the long table. The one laden with ceramic

bowls filled of foreign and flavorful substances. Cumin and curry. Basil

and bay leaves. Savory orange and brown broths. Rectangular casserole

dishes full of sweet corn, crisp asparagus, and lean meats. Folded

cloth napkins and a pitcher of freshly brewed lemonade just out of

arm’s reach. Laughter, too. Heavy aromas blanket the air and wrap

my personhood. A dry wad of Fruit Stripe gum lodged in the cavity of

my right cheek. My tongue pushes it right, then left, then right again.

I speak and await responses I know will never present. Silent victims

of my lack for dialect, language, and charisma. A reality I’d gladly

attribute to my routine upbringing though I know it was anything but

routine. Nights counting minutes, eyes tracking night lights.

Quiet. Listen please. It’s better if you saw nothing at all.

Uttered words land on the tiny red, yellow, and pink flowers

embroidered on the cotton cardigan draped across my lap. Initially a

light dusting. Eventually a drenching cast upon the ruffled collar that

I wrap around my neck daily. Commuting to and from. I am a body on

a bus. The No. 5 on Tuesdays. The No 2. alternate Wednesdays. The

No. 32 each night, three minutes before 11. I am a hand that clutches

tokens and a head that bounces to beats of Lennon and Joel. John and

Stevens, too. Their names and their lyrics roll through the potholes

that litter the city streets. All hands clutch devices and all heads

bounce in rhythm with tunes that stream through wires in oddly shaped

ears. Three tiny bones, some of the smallest in the human body, with

an odd, oval-shaped window.

As much as I consume, I remain always looking for a way out. Beyond

the window of the standard 4 bed 2 bath in the standard suburban

town. Beyond the window of the standard bus traveling down the

standard thoroughfare. I wonder why the others seem so different.

Most eyes cast downward. Some heads covered in cloth. I see no one

and I am seen by no one. We commute, to and from. Over the greentinted

water, in and out of the city to the dwellings we call home.

To all who ask, we are city people. Yet we too flee as dusk descends.

Awaiting the morning call of the train before returning. I am an

employee whose stomach rumbles like clockwork at the top of the

hour. An employee who prefers analog to digital, thrift shop to store

brand, and late nights to early morning. Though my shift starts at 9 AM

sharp. I am a number whose work is measured also in numbers, mostly

fractions of an hour.

I am a number who output is measured in rows and columns added

daily and tracked weekly. I am body that longs for sleep yet sweat

dreams of alarms and missed deadlines. I have eyes that long to

close forever and lashes that long blink. I am a body painted of black

mascara, purple and blue shadow, and rose blush. I am a girl who grew

to a woman and who was taught to listen, say thank you, and take

orders. I am a woman who no longer thinks that what she was taught is

timely. I am a body in a wooden dining room chair, with a reserved seat

and setting at the far end of the long table. I am a keeper of cream

parchment card stock that I alone claim. I have not forgotten who

gifted me life, though they have forgotten me.

75

76

Rise From Pandemic

Acrylic and Spray Paint on Canvas

Paul Koskinen


Reasons not to take Quetiapine as prescribed

(an incomplete list):

Dreams.

Dreams of the dead, of the possible dead,

the probable dead. Realistic dreams with

smells and colors and music. Vivid dreams

with a lover and her beloved on the tracks

outside his house. Dreams of arguing. Of

desperation. Don’t leave me here, she says.

I’ll come with you, she tries to plead as

her voice is swallowed by a blast of sound.

Dreams of him walking away from her, face

resolved. Dreams of tripping.

Dreams of a yell, but she doesn’t hear

him. She has already turned away in tears.

Dreams of a massive force that rattles

the ground. Dreams of a shriek that pierces

through even the deafening horns. Dreams

of the last time she locked eyes with his, his

deep eyes wide in a way she has never seen

before, darting down the tracks and back at

her.

Dreams of rushing. Of reaching. Of distance

that grows with every step to close it.

Dreams of hands that touch, barely, for an

instant, before never again. Dreams of pink

spray, her spray, his spray. Dreams of body

parts, of supple skin sliced by hot metal,

of time slowing down to present each and

every tear. Even the strongest human bodies

are remarkably fragile.

Dreams of the sky opening in tears for the

two, summer rains that had left their scent

lingering on his jacket, now sealing her into

a muddy grave.

Residue

Fiction

Charity Morris

Umatilla, Oregon, USA

Dreams of one last blink, one last canopy

of stars, before submitting to sleep.

That wasn’t how it happened, though.

She had thought for a moment, lying on the

grass, staring at the canopy of stars, that she

was dead, had died, and that Mario was dead

too, but she’d been wrong. He’d woken her

gently, with a blood-spattered hand, a gash

across his cheek that made him look even

more rugged and handsome than before. He

had pulled her from the ditch, didn’t let her

look down, covered her arm with his coat,

torn and tattered and impossibly dirty but

she hadn’t been able to protest. She had

tried to hold onto consciousness as he carried

her but it was too much, it was all too

much, and she had woken up later -- months

later, it seemed -- in this bed that she now

lives in most of the day.

***

They meet on a Thursday.

End of the year parent-teacher conferences

always have poor turn out. Some of

her coworkers appreciate the several uninterrupted

hours to catch up on grading and

lesson plans, but Danielle remains hopeful

the parents of her more concerning students

will show.

She is reorganizing her paperclip drawer

when he walks in. His pants are dirty and

patched with unmatching blue squares, but

his shirt, a yellow and brown plaid button-down,

is freshly pressed.

77

“Mrs...” he extends his hand to her with a

questioning look. She stands.

“Miss Smith,” she corrects him, taking his

calloused and filthy hand in hers. She wonders

how long she needs to wait to use her

hand sanitizer without it seeming rude.

“Mario Ruiz,” he says, wiping his hands on

his pants sheepishly. “I just got off work,” he

explains.

Danielle, horrified that he has read her

expression so plainly, tries to change the

subject. “So, you’re here for…” she probes.

“Luis,” he states. She has a lot to say

about Luis. Luis is a bright boy, gifted really,

but the past few weeks have seen his bright

young face turn sullen and withdrawn. She

means to talk to his mother about it, a polished

Latinx with a sternness about her that

she knows will help him get his focus back so

he can graduate the following year, but surprisingly,

his mother hasn’t shown. Instead,

there is this mess of a man who clearly can’t

find his way to a washtub to save his life.

“And you know Luis how?” Danielle asks.

“I can’t give out student information to anyone

but a parent or guardian. It’s the law.”

The man tries to squeeze into the small

student desk across from hers before perching

on the desktop itself. “Luis’ parents…”

he begins in a low voice. “My brother and his

wife…”

“Do you need a translator?” Danielle

asks, trying to mask her impatience. It is

five minutes before the end of conferences

and it has already been a long night. All she

wants to do at this point is to wrap things up

and head home, but she can tell already this

isn’t going to be quick.

“I speak English just fine, thanks,” he says

shortly. “It’s just hard to explain why Luis is

living with me now.”

“Oh,” Danielle says, embarrassed at her

own assumption, and sits to look for Luis’

file. “Where’s Maria?” She freezes. “Did

something happen?”

“Maria is..." he seems at a loss for words.

“My brother Carlos’ wife? They were… removed.”

He shifts uncomfortably on the tiny

desk.

“I see.” Danielle comes around to sit on

the front of her desk. “And you aren’t legal,

are you.” It is more of a statement than a

question; Luis would not be her first student

lost to parental choices and political inconsistencies.

“No!” he blanches. “I have all my papers.

I go to the office and do them every time,

but my brother…” He speaks quickly, looking

panicked. “He missed his renewal deadline.

He and Maria were taken two weeks ago.

I’m documented, Luis was born here, please

don’t have them come by.” His eyes, deep

brown pools of fear, plead for understanding.

“I’m not a father. I don’t know how to do

this. I’m just trying to be a good tío to Luis

until we sort all of this out.”

Danielle notices the bags under his eyes.

He looks exhausted.

“You said you work?” she asks.

“Landscaping,” he says. “Four a.m. every

morning until it gets done. Although in

summer, fieldwork pays more. Sometimes I

do both if I can get the work.”

“It costs a lot to raise a child,” she sympathizes.

She pours him a cup of coffee from

her desk coffee-maker, a necessity for conference

nights. “Sorry the mug is pink.”

He accepts it gratefully and smiles. “I bet

it tastes just fine.”

She refills her mug and they drink in

silence for several minutes. Through the

window she sees other teachers, laden with

books and student files, heading to their

cars. Conferences are over, but she doesn’t

feel the need to rush home anymore. She

finally understands the boy wearing headphones

in her class, the hoodie cinched

tightly around his face, the times he miserably

lays his head in his arms during class

discussion, blocking out the world.

She sets down her mug. “So how can I

help?”

***

She spends the summer doing just as Mario

has asked. Every morning she comes by their

small one-bedroom home out by the rail yard

to check on Luis. She brings groceries when

Mario’s days are too long to stop by the supermarket

and extra school work for Luis to

keep up over the break. Not that he needs it

-- she has always said he is her finest student

- but because working on math and grammar

helps him focus on something other than the

fact that he hasn’t heard from his mother in

months. Often, she stays with him well into

the evening when Mario stumbles in, physically

spent and visibly grateful she is there.

He offers to make her dinner, but she never

allows it, preferring him to take a shower

and relax with Luis while the boy puts

whatever YouTuber or show he is watching

on the television, as evening trains add their

low rumble to ad jingles for toilet paper and

cars. Then, after Luis goes to bed, Danielle

awkwardly packs up her things and heads

home.

78

Until the evening Mario asks her to stay.

He brushes off a dusty bottle of wine from a

client who was particularly pleased by the

stonework on their new patio, and they drink

it together in the living room, which, as she

finds out, has doubled as his bedroom since

Luis came to stay. He is a surprisingly kind

man, a good man, to give up his bedroom

for the boy, although as the evening goes

on and their glances grow longer and more

intimate, she wishes he was slightly less kind

and good.

But he is a gentleman, she rues, and

against her better judgment she discovers

that her commitment to student achievement

has somehow evolved into feelings she

never intended, feelings she actively worked

to avoid.

Which means an uncomfortable conversation

is long overdue.

“I can’t come by anymore,” she tells Mario

as he walks her to her car.

He holds her gaze even as she fumbles for

her keys. “Sure you can,” he replies.

“No,” she insists. “This is… weird. It’s

unprofessional. It’s --”

But then he kisses her. Hard and soft and

earnest. She drops her bag on the concrete

and wraps her arms around his neck. After

a moment she pulls back, drinking in his

rich brown eyes, enraptured with his rough

strong hands in her hair and the way he

smells of cedar and lawn clippings and sweet

summer rains. The second time, she kisses

him first, fumbling with the car door and

pulling him in after her.

That was before. Before the comfortable

routine set in. Before the toothbrush in his

bathroom drawer. Before the monogrammed

coffee cups. Before the ring he found at the

second-chance shop and had his cousin, a

welder but aspiring for more, melt down

and reset to a brilliant new gleam. Before

he came home to tell her his H2-A visa was

denied and everything would change. Before

Luis had to choose between foster care and

returning to a country that claimed him,

but that he had never claimed. Before she

pulled Mario’s weeping face to her chest and

begged him to marry her and stay and before

he pulled out the token that stated for him

how much he meant to ask her first.

***

“It was so romantic,” Danielle sighed

blissfully, as she recounted the moment to

Ben and Camille the following day.

Ben shifted and adjusted his glasses, slipping

his pen back into the breast pocket of

his white coat.

“Now, Danielle, we’ve discussed this. You

were here--”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Ben,” Danielle

muttered, staring out the window at the

softly falling snow.

“You were here,” he persisted, trying to

place himself in her gaze. “You haven’t left-

-”

“NO!” Danielle looked around wildly,

looking for the door. She flung her bedspread

to the floor and meant to dart for the exit,

but was stopped by the thick canvas strap

connecting her wrist to the bed.

“Again,” Ben was getting angry. Spit flew

as he tried to reorient her: “You have not

left this bed since you were found at the ER

doors —”

“What the hell is this, Ben?!” she cried

hysterically with tears in her eyes. She

launched herself against the restraint, eyes

closed, wishing to be anywhere else. “Why?”

she moaned, her tears spotting her blue

paisley gown.

“For the last time, it’s Doctor Atkinson,”

Ben snapped. He stood and strode directly to

the exit before turning to Camille. “What’s

taking so long on those meds?” he snarled at

her.

“I’ll double-check with Pharmacy,” Camille

stated blandly, her eyes glued to the

chart on her screen as she tapped slowly on

her keyboard.

“And tighten that restraint, for chrissake,”

the doctor huffed as he left. This

rotation couldn’t end soon enough for him.

Camille finished the session notes quietly

as Danielle sobbed. Mondays were all the

same; MDs were all the same. She was the

one still here on Tuesday but no matter how

often she pointed out how fruitless their sessions

were, she didn’t have enough letters

after her last name for her opinion to count.

She turned to Danielle.

“So,” she said in her brightest voice. “You

got engaged!”

Danielle hiccuped and took a few short

breaths before giving Camille a weak smile.

“Yeah,” she sniffed.

“Let’s see the ring!” Camille said walking

around the bed to Danielle’s hygiene tote.

Camille knew their script. It was the same

every week.

Danielle beamed and obliged.

“Oooh,” Camille cooed, taking a brush to

Danielle’s matted brown nest. Weekend shift

had a lot to work on in regards to patient

care. “Is that a diamond?”

Danielle laughed and rattled off the details

- how he found it and gave it a fresh

start, like the fresh start they had given

each other after that first embarrassing

79

meeting. Camille brushed gently and smiled,

her eyes trained on the space above Danielle’s

gnarled left stump of an arm, the

space that would have contained Danielle’s

left hand, if she still had one. “He must

really love you to go to all that trouble,” she

murmured, the hair on the back of Danielle’s

head finally smooth.

“I really love him back,” Danielle sighed,

taking the cup of pills Camille handed to her

and slipping into their darkness.

***

Reasons to take Quetiapine as prescribed

(an exhaustive list):

No more anxiety. No more pain. No more

confusing conversations.

No more scratchy sheets. No more hospital

smells. No more small talk with the nurse

you secretly despise.

No more memories of bliss, of kisses under

star-canopied skies. No more smells of

coffee while locking eyes with a set that see

you and know you and love you, despite the

circumstances.

No more pain. No more searing pain in

her arm, her leg just above the knee, her

heart, her memories. No more straps on the

bed when she tries to explain what really

happened, that he isn’t dead. Do they think

she just stumbled here, flayed and out-bled,

alone? After facing down a train, she just

made it here on her own?

No more questions. Nothing more to explain.

And no more pain.

***

Danielle wakes to a heavy calloused hand

on her thigh. Ben is gone. Camille will be

back in an hour. She places her left hand on

his and opens her eyes. Her beautiful ring

glitters on her hand as it always does and

she turns to look into the eyes of the one

who comes to sit with her between all her

hourly checks, who has never left, and who

never will, as he tells her whenever the pain

gets to be too much.

“Mi amor,” he purrs, touching her face

with his hand as his other continues to hold

hers. She brings her forehead to his and closes

her eyes, drinking in the smell of cedar

and lawn clippings and sweet summer rains.

Doing Time

Poetry

A Slevin

Dublin, Ireland

Broke up last night

Broke me mentally

Broke before rent day

Broker trade? Forget about it

Break a sweat

Break the window

Break his neck

Break into a run

Back home now

Back killing me

Back out of this habit

Back into the saddle

Change out of my bloody clothes

Change behind the couch

Change of scenery

Change my name

Drink away the old

Drink in the new

Drink of water in the hotel bar

Drink is on him, I tell the barman

Knocking at my bedroom door

Knocking my resolve for six

Knocking shop owner that I didn’t pay

Knocks me out cold

Head into the bathroom

Head is banging

Head of my beer comes back up

Heads up! The world goes dark

Night Prayer

Sonnet

Richard Stimac


This cloudy, new moon night, the star-like

lights

Of grain silos and elevators shine

Across the river, water black as wine,

As if constellations fell from their heights,

Sky, earth, in exchange. A dry bulk barge

rights

Itself as feed grain mounds send up a fine

Dust, and the watery stars shimmer, a sign,

That God, awoke, has put us in his sights,

Or nature is indifferent. To you,

As you walk across heaven’s floor, your soles

Singed by seraphic heat, you turn your eyes

Up to hell’s glory. And me, in my fuss

For banks and cars and who leads in the polls,

I pray fallen words never reach the skies.

80

High Beams (GET OFF THE ROAD)

Poetry

Brianna Fay

Henrietta, New York, USA

I have dreams

every other full moon or so

that I’m driving down middle road

and the sun had already set

and there’s a car driving towards me

he flashes his high beams at me.

On, off, and on. Three times.

I’m driving down the dip in the road

He’s coming at it from the other direction

His high beams light up the cabin of my Chevy Trailblazer

They illuminate the yellow dashes in the road

They light up the wheat on either side of the street.


What are you trying to tell me?

They light up the abandoned machinery in the field.

It’s been abandoned;

every time I pass,

every time the car drives by in my dreams.

The fields by this road are my favorite part of this town.

My family used to watch fireworks from that hill at the top of the road

and when the sun is setting

the city skyline lights up over the trees.

I used to take that road as a short cut to get home from Jay’s Diner.

It’s where I got pulled over for the first time.

It’s where I drove the car to the side of the road to spend three hours

crying

just because everything was falling apart.

I have these dreams

81

every full moon or so

that I’m driving down middle road

and the sun has already set

and there’s a car driving towards me

and he flashes his high beams.


What are you trying to tell me?

Is there something wrong with my car?

YOU’RE DRIVING IN THE WRONG DIRECTION

Lately, the landscape has changed

but I still take that route home.

The machinery has been moving dirt.

Dad says they’re building soon

and we might not be able to see

the skyline from that hill

GET OFF THE ROAD

I never go to Jay’s Diner anymore.

BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE

I don’t even know if this route is really a short cut.

GET OUT

On, off, and on again.

IT’S NOT TOO LATE

Fossil Fuel Relic

Painting

Carolyn Lord


82

Earth

Painting

Aydin Ermolaev


83

I am not a person.

I am a disappointment. Fathers don’t

want daughters. They want a son to play

sports, earn trophies, and score during the

championship game. They can call him “Junior”

and teach him all he’ll need to know.

Sons can get a scholarship for throwing a ball

and running around with other sons. Dad will

be so proud. He’ll tell all his buddies at the

next poker game about how his son has done

the family name well.

Fathers want a son who will be looked up

to and popular amongst the ladies. “That’s

my boy,” he’ll say. They’d worry too much

about their daughters going out with the

type of boy they would have raised.

Fathers want a son who can be a successful

businessman. They can provide for the

family while wearing a suit. They’ll buy nice

Christmas gifts and drink expensive scotch

while out with their pals. Daughters won’t

be corporate CEOs and have a large paycheck.

They’ll be secretaries, maybe.

Better yet, a housewife.

Daughters aren’t the ones bragged about

at family reunions, unless they’re beautiful,

with a husband who resembles the son

they’ve always dreamed of. Fathers want

a son who will follow in their footsteps and

give them a sense of pride. Fathers don’t

want daughters.

I am a piece of property. My boyfriend will

choose me based upon specific expectations

[ I am ]

Fiction

Jessica Garrison

Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania, USA

he has set. I need to look the part in order

to fit in with whatever crowd I’m needed

for. I have to be dumb enough so he can be

the center of conversation, but still pretty

enough to be worth the time. I can’t do the

same to him. I don’t want to seem shallow.

He needs to have his arm around me to

show the other guys that I’m his and they

can’t have me; I’m an ornament that’s

supposed to look nice and show off his best

features. I laugh on cue and act like I’m OK

with his buddies’ side comments on my body.

I’m only there to prove he has someone.

Has something.

I am a sex object. My body needs to stay

in its best possible shape so my husband

isn’t ashamed to sleep with me. Whatever

his request may be, I should be willing to do

it because he’s my husband, and I want him

to be happy, don’t I? If it makes me uncomfortable,

then I should get over it. I’m being

silly. Maybe even a little selfish. He’s just

trying to spice things up. He’s my husband

and I should be more understanding of his

needs.

The beginning years are like a fairytale

with long talks about our glowing future.

The touches are gentle, and my heart swells

when he looks into my eyes.

Now it has just become a routine of

quickly undressing and avoiding eye contact.

A way for him to unwind after a long day at

work while I stayed home and read romance

novels. There will be no story of that nature

with us. No rose petals or champagne or

84

scented candles. Just used sheets and empty

kisses.

I am a womb. It’s my job to have children.

I’m the one with the uterus. I’m supposed to

carry my husband’s children and give him an

excuse not to have sex with me.

It doesn’t matter whether or not I wanted

this child, I’m having it. I’m keeping it. It’s

my fate to be impregnated, carry said child

for 9 months, and be forced to do everything

for two. To eat right, go to doctor’s appointments,

and have my body ripped from the

inside out for the sake of a perfect family.

Even after all of this, I must prove myself

worthy. My husband will be a great dad

for remembering his (or her) birthday and

sometimes seeing him (or her) before bed.

I could give my life for him (or her), and it

still wouldn’t be enough.

I will be responsible for making sure this

child turns out OK.

If she doesn’t, I have failed as a womb.

A sad head shake. “Turned out just like her

mother.”

If he does, it was because he had a strong,

supportive father. A pat on the back. “Just

like his old man.”

I am a machine. I have to rise earlier than

anyone else and creep down the stairs before

the sun begins to peek over the horizon.

Brew the coffee and make breakfast. My

husband needs a big breakfast to keep his

energy up during an exhausting day at work.

Of course I’ll clean up the dishes. Of course

I’ll get the kids up and ready for school. Of

course.

I only have fifteen minutes to get ready

for work because I needed to help them put

on their shoes. I wanted to take a shower

this morning. I ran out of time.

Drop the kids off at school and head to

work. I have to speed to get there on time.

I go thirty over, fingers crossed that a cop

doesn’t see me. I’m still late. My boss says

it’s strike three. I have to be careful. He

doesn’t have children.

It’s eight hours later, and school is out.

Their assignments are done before dinner,

and they eat all the vegetables on their

plates.

“Daddy’s working late again tonight.” It

was his turn to do the dishes.

“No, I don’t know when he’ll be home.”

He promised to help fold the laundry.

But he has to stay late. He is providing for

the family.

Time for baths and pajamas and bedtime

stories. I was supposed to take a shower

while he got the kids ready for bed. Maybe

tomorrow morning.

He comes home late, too tired to talk.

We go to bed, but I don’t fall asleep. I need

more time.

I wish he’d help me like he says he will. If

I nag about it, he’ll tell me to quit my job so

I can get more done. If I quit my job, he’ll

resent me for the budget cuts. He doesn’t

think of my feelings. Because machines don’t

have feelings.

I am not a person. I am a woman. And

they are not the same.

I’ve wandered into some old church

On a rundown street, the dive bar

Next door for those left in the lurch

By idled engines, empty rail cars,

Closed foundries, cold kilns, dead steel yards.

The tar-roofed shotgun shacks still blaze

With the ghosts of the refuse and discards

Of what we call the simpler days.

Simple is not what I’d call the people

Who measured weeks by Sunday mass.

Like Uriel, set to guard the steeple,

They kept ward over broken glass,

Cracked blacktop with hopscotch crosses,

Rusted chains of bent iron hoops.

Score was kept of wins and losses.

They rocked and watched from sagging

stoops.

With their mute mouths, glass eyes, deaf

ears,

Like faded pastel plaster saints,

They marked and shed plaster-like tears

For coal girl’s pleas, brakeman’s complaints.

Who would hear them? The whiskey priest?

All he did was preach the divine.

That was something, he thought, at least,

To clear black lung, straighten a spine.

Visitation

Sonnet

Richard Stimac


When you . . . when I, I meant to say,

Like an angel, make my visit,

Up steps, through doors, a passageway,

Maybe I will ask, “What is it

That led these poor to drop their cents

Into the plate to build this place?

What empty cupboard, past due rents,

Went unpaid in lieu of this grace?”

Above the altar of gold leaf,

Mary holds a small man, Jesus,

And signs to all the way from grief,

As if seeing itself frees us

From misery. The senses save

More than the mind. They understood,

The old, who wore black, and were grave,

Life is for grief and not for good.

85

Green

Poetry

Jilli Penner

Citrus Heights, California, USA

I’m the type of girl

That’s only “loved” at night

More interested in

The color of my panties

Than the shade of my eyes

They prefer

Ripping off my clothes

To uncovering the mysteries of my mind

Fulfilling my need for connection

But only for a moment

In exchange for violating my insides

You’re gone before I wake up

My skin may be soft

But so is my smile

My eyes are green by the way

Zardozi

زَردوزی

Poetry

Vinit Kurup

New York, New York, USA

It is with suspense that I watched

a seam of intricate half-truths

symmetrically pour out of metallic lips.

The waving crease between them

pouring consistent threads of precious

comfort

tied to manipulated golden smiles.

The art of misleading is as exquisite as

the zardozi weavers whose fingertips leave

treasured dust on the fabrics they métier.

Such dedication is so seamlessly passed

from threads of embroidered luxuries

to the serrated malice of falsities.

The incredible affinity

to source distrust and pain

is plated into patterns of floral paisley aptly

crafted to to take after

the shapes of blooming tear drops.

Perhaps it’s why this morning,

the edges of my mouth undid their selvage

and began shedding gold flakes -

a sign that I too had recently indulged in a

lie.

Faceswarp

Poetry

Lance Nizami

Palo Alto, California, USA

Distortions

They were all around me

The faces—they were pretty, too symmetrical

The faces —they were smiling, too made-up

They failed to show the underlying feelings

They failed to show emotions underneath

The feelings were not pretty or symmetrical

The feelings were lopsided, ugly, mean

The feelings hid behind How-can-I-help-you’s

The feelings hid behind How-nice-to-meetyou’s

The feelings hid behind What-do-I-call-you’s

The feelings hid behind the formal

handshakes

The feelings hid behind—the feelings hid;

How often has this happened, do you think

How often has this happened to you too

Do you suspect a darkness under skin

Do you suspect black water in their veins?

Indeed, you might —instead of blood, that is—

It’s not the ink of creativity

It’s slow resentment from antiquity

It’s flowing fluid negativity

Hidden behind faces—they were smiling, too

made-up

The faces—they were pretty, too symmetrical

They were all around me

Distortions

86

87

In the Sky Above

Dublin Hills

Painting

Olga Sushchik


3AM

Poetry

Micaela Walley

Hanover, Maryland, USA

in our worst moments, I try

not to spill words like empty

houses—vacant, inviting you

to fill in the blanks. I try not to

disown myself in these ways,

like standing by what I said

when I didn’t know what else to

say or relying on the benefits of me

to outweigh the risks of you. If I am

a broken home on a busy street

that no one looks twice at, then you

are a prime piece of real estate with

an unstable foundation. I wonder about

the way your lips quiver when mad,

like earthquakes shed pictures from our walls.

Like God himself might fall from your mouth.

I wonder about the home we’ve built with

our broken words, how fragile they sound

when repeated back to me, how easily they

could blow away in the midnight wind.

Michael's Music

Poetry

John Grey

Johnston, Rhode Island, USA

Abused by keyboard,

cuffed round the head by keys,

his father had paid for the damn thing –

at least he was sending a monthly check

to the appliance store –

so somebody better be on that stool

and practicing their scales for hours.

He grew up terrified of music.

It was the monster that dwelled

beneath the shiny black lid.

Its claws were ivory.

Its mouth a heavy fallboard.

And, down below,

where his feet hung loosely,

pedals nipped at his toes.

But he survived.

Even played a mean “Für Elise”

in his teens.

But his friends all craved guitars.

Saw them in store windows.

Not in nightmares.

a love poem for

someone who

doesn't like love

poems

Poetry

Shanna Merceron

Palm Coast, Florida, USA

i don’t like it when you call my written

feelings

c r i n g e

still i burn, the Crackle of fires you never

cease tending to

the Ring ringing of our phones continue, we

milk these unlimited minutes

i brush off the Interruptions, always trying to

nestle inside our limbo

soothed by the Nicorette you snap between

your teeth, just for me

i don’t think i could count all the Gas

stations we’ve visited, don’t worry i’ll

keep the truck running, or don’t worry, i’ll

see you

soon, Everything will be packed away from

your place, and from mine, to move into

somewhere called ours

cringe if you'd like to, i’ll trace the shiver

down your spine, capture it in my hands

and whisper into my cupped palms all the

things i cannot speak aloud

but mostly i just say that i love you

88

Adieu

Poetry


Nelson, British Colombia, Canada

IDIOT

Poetry

Shahriar Danesh

Mashhad, Khorasan Razavi, Iran

“Just as an embryo passes through the evolutionary

animal stages, so we carry with us archaic ‘memories’

which can be brought to light.” — J.E. Cirlot

I shed hallucinations like Paris fashions. Despite my efforts, like

some carpenter’s calloused thumbprint, your porcelain persona reemerges

overnight, replaces my true face with that dense dead identity.

Persistent as a bad cough, my morning routine seduces me into

the ritual obsession of a prophet invoking the horrors of an obsolete

apocalypse; before I’ve even woken, shaken off the rust, I’ve already

glued your grotesque fragments into another mosaic that, against all

evidence, I end up calling mine, my mask. I haven’t recognized myself

in the mirror for a decade proper. I must’ve shattered your plateau a

million times over by now, but haven’t yet let die our arcane charade.

Why? I lost count at twelve double-images multiplying, reflecting off

the broken glass. Staring. What’s worse, your shards are more intoxicating

than sugar dreams. Before I can manage to wear you out, you’ve

gone and reconfigured yourself into some neurotic nuance, whatever

noire nightmare that’s been nagging me that week. There aren’t

enough chemicals in hell, nor the apothecary’s medicine cabinet to

melt you away for good. It’s been too easy to fall for the make-believe

of your masquerade. It’s my fault, I started this. As your séance surgeon,

I carved your fixed expression out of bad land exhaustion. You’re

just a metaphoric character I attached too much meaning to, that I

summoned when I didn’t know what it meant to be human. Raw. Now

I’m just weary with our game, the one where I half-heartedly try to

remove you again, you cling, and then recede back into me like some

shell-shocked hermit crab. You fabricated thing, you cling to exist, but

you’re not even real. It’s Lovecraftian unknowns you fear most, getting

locked in the vault without love, but it’s your hollow head, your hollow

words, you’re hollowed out by the howling worm you call soul. Neither

of us knows this yet. And so, for the first time again, I’ll slice myself

shaving with your thin halves; you’ll bleed for lucidity. And this time,

I’ll leave it alone because your sentience is cheap; it’s just a set of

stale sentences that no longer have anything to do with who I want to

be.

89

I’m the life of a shadow, the shadow of despair,

Made a life inspired by hell and “it ain’t fair,”

On the corpse of my hopes, rotten roots, lethal pride,

Rapping rolling rocking, on the bed of Cyrus, every night.

I tell Cyrus: “take a nap, I am up,”

Cyrus peeks from the breach of his coffin,

Then he cries: “I am burning, help me, god!”

Jeez, Cyrus, what the fuck? (I look admonishing).

I chill the temperature, by the cold gaze I share, every day; in metro,

taxi, a rusty bus,

While walking, crawling, howling, and running,

To the park, with a bud, buy a drug; to the dorm, runny walk, cheap

weed, in a suck, yuck!

It smells like yuck! and works like yuck! and feeds us up, with one

more puff, a big fat puff.

We then laugh a little, cry a little, nag a little, nothing a bit, less a

little, then go to sleep.

Wake up! erected, go to college,

meet some ugly make-uped girls who deep down I want to piss on,

But I’m rejected continually by the whores of Babylon. (I’m the oldest

wrinkly cock of Persia)

But I keep on,

the same bullshit again, over again, over again,

Till I get graduated, with a “U-stupid” degree, that I can marry or call

a bitch,

But never a dick, to fuck a job with. (“behave yourself,” Cyrus says)

Sorry, I’m pissed.

Shit shit, popped up, my girlfriend’s knocked up.

Other dudes fucked her too, but I showed up with her, so shut up.

(Cyrus laughs)

now her brothers and cousins are coming to kill me.

She was a saint, apparently, keenly,

Sewing her virginity clit to butt, while repenting to a funky god.

Lady X

Digital Art

Edward Supranowicz

Lancaster, Ohio, USA

90

He is not the kind of person whom you

merely have a "crush on." You slowly and

deeply fall in love with him, deeply, so very

deeply. And that was the way it was for me

with Ji Hoo. But this was no passive affair.

A person has to be self-cultivated enough

to be able to appreciate his worth. I had

to transform myself into the kind of person

capable of appreciating — truly appreciate —

the countless virtues he exemplifies. Much in

the way a Cezanne can’t be appreciated by

a beer swigging lug, people of a higher cast

can only be understood by people who have

nurtured the higher ideals within themselves.

To illustrate the work I'd done toward that

end, he’d mentioned once in some interview

I saw that he’d read Dostoevsky and I started

on Crime & Punishment straightaway.

Another instance evincing the self-cultivation

I'd done, in a joint interview with

several other actors during a press flack

quite a few years back, Ji Hoo stated that in

preparing for the period piece he had recently

filmed he'd read Iris Murdoch simply

because the screenwriter had mentioned

in passing to him that he'd had one of her

novels in mind when he wrote the screenplay.

I read the novel he mentioned for my

own edification, but I imagined also that by

doing so I was further cultivating the psychic

connection I shared by Ji Hoo. I realize of

course that most would consider that fanciful

thinking, but there are many things the

blinkered crowd know nothing about. And as

it happens, I took a liking to Murdoch. This

Vicissitudes

Fiction

Sam Sohn

Glendale, California, USA

led me to move onto Anthony Powell and

then later Evelyn Waugh. So I felt like Ji Hoo

then had put me on to timeless literature

and really could such a thing ever be said of

just another trivial actor? Doesn't that alone

demonstrate the numinous nature of our

connection?

I think you must believe me at this point

that I'm no mere "fan girl." I don't think it

would be so mad of me to say I'm a connoisseur

if you'll indulge me of a kind of person

who embodies exalted ideals like chasteness,

soberness, artistic integrity. While I've

focused my attention on Ji Hoo solely, is that

so different from one say who has made it

her life's undertaking to chronicle the works

and life of a consequential artist or some

literary giant? And am I not in fact more than

these creditable stodgy souls?

Isn’t someone who interjects themselves

into a subject's life, shapes the course of

events rather than meekly cataloging them

at very least someone of consequence as

well? And it’s not as though I do this out of

vainglory but rather from the sincerely held

belief that the object of my machinations

will himself realize untold benefit by being

with one who can interpret and understand

even his most delicate sensibility.

What was it which initially started this

fascination? I must admit, it started from

reading those stupid magazines as a young

girl. His was a story which stood out, one

which was immediately arresting to me. Being

an immigrant of mixed lineage — he had

a Korean mother and his father was an Amer-

91

ican soldier who had abandoned him and

his mother — he bore all manner of taunts

and epithets in his small town. In spite of

that, he diligently practiced his cello all the

way through his teen years with unflagging

ardor. His story certainly wasn't the standard

fare. He garnered entrance to Julliard, and

during his first year a casting director who

was spotted him during a first year's student

performance at the Lincoln Center asked

him to audition for a role as an adoptee in

Your Family Is Your Family. These things just

don't happen haphazardly, not in my view. Ji

Hoo's fate as it were had sought him out, and

it so happened that he met it with aplomb.

He of course decided to pursue acting and

drop out of Julliard. It was of course only

after self-immolating deliberating that he

decided acting was his calling, according to

the article. The brevity of the description of

his decision-making process tantalized me.

I wondered how he must have agonized and

struggled, how he must wandered the New

York streets trying to clear his head in order

to decide what to do.

Reading about his trials, I felt a kinship

with Ji Hoo. That's not to say that I had an

even remotely similar background. Mine was

fraught in altogether different ways. While I

also hailed from a small town, I had a chaotic

household. Julliard was not the kind of

place certainly which I would have had a

chance to attend. I had an absent father as

well and a mother who had taken to drink in

order to stop remembering her dread past,

one replete with truly hateful things better

left undiscussed. But she couldn't keep her

memories at bay, and she abused herself

beyond drink with her sundry boyfriends and

made me object of her anger, a repository of

all the betrayals in her life. I don't despise

the woman anymore. She is just a non-entity

to me, and I don't think about her any longer.

I’m well aware therefore that fate can

come for one much less felicitously.,

But back to Ji Hoo. Ah, yes, yes, at first

maybe you could have called it a crush, but

I was no mere pre-teen with a simple infatuation.

When there were dark times, I could

take refuge in inhabiting elaborate dreamscapes

with Ji Hoo. He wasn’t fully formed

himself mind you when he played the friend

in that soulful series about troubled teens,

but you saw glimpses of his depth, the

profundity at his core which a person could

burrow toward ceaselessly only to uncover

further depths to plumb. I subsequently became

acutely aware of whatever project he

took part in or was even mulling taking part

in regardless of how minor the role. I didn't,

however, do as some frivolous girls did and

tackily hang his image on my bedroom wall

as though such paltry homage accomplished

anything whatsoever.

On that score, that Ji Hoo was treated by

many as some teen sensation in the mold of

sundry doltish boys who were his contemporaries

— those who in fact fit perfectly well

on mindless teens' walls — was to me like

some oaf taking a Stradivarius and plucking

away like it were banjo.

I on the other hand from the very first noticed

the traces of the soulfulness to which

he naturally inclined even amidst the youthful

playfulness he exhibited in that somewhat

silly, early role. And over the years, I

observed how his artistry and poet's sensibility

were emerging, and it seemed to me that

his development was in lockstep with my

own maturation. I witnessed this through his

many roles, his evolution, the realization of

his artistic potential. We grew together over

the years you could say.

Then I saw him once in a coffee shop in

Santa Monica a year ago. I'd just gotten back

from a long solitary amble by the water. He

was there all of a sudden in all his corporeal

reality. It was a shock.

My fandom — certainly that word doesn't

do my affinity for Ji Hoo justice, but one

which does doesn't readily come to mind —

had waned some over the years what with all

the troubles I'd had. Getting turned out from

my place not long after being let go from

the shop in West Hollywood for instance, this

only after wage garnishments and numerous

enervating court appearances in which I

fought against inhumane eviction practices;

there was that whole ordeal when my identity

was stolen by my ex, and it took years

(years!) to disentangle myself from that

situation. There were long stretches where

there was hardly even a whiff of an audition

to speak of. Sidelines such as selling merchandise

at concerts were hardly any help

especially when taking into account evenings

like the Pixies show when I was robbed of

all the cash I’d made. I had been whipsawed

every which way.

These are just some of the travails which

spring to mind over the near decade after

I'd moved to Los Angeles from the Pacific

Northwest. It is ironic that while the physical

distance separating us had lessened substantially,

the intensity of my feelings for Ji Hoo

had diminished a great deal. In retrospect,

now that I've had time to reflect, I realize

92

that the harshness of life beats the desire to

contemplate the higher things out of a person,

renders one unable in fact to remember

that higher things exist at all. My waning

fandom, or ardor more appropriately perhaps,

stemmed from this in my estimation.

But when I saw Ji Hoo in the coffee shop

that day, I was immediately reminded of all

of my former feelings for him, my ruminations

over his performances, and all the insights

about the human condition which such

cogitating had stimulated. And my emotions

overflowed and left me dumbstruck.

As I stood there stupidly, slackjawed,

gaze fixed, something occurred to me like it

were a revelation. As he fumbled in his pants

pockets for his wallet, it occurred to me that

he was just a person, someone who like all

of us inhabited a physical body. Until now,

for me, he had been like a celestial being

whom I'd only had contact with through a

bedimming medium such as a movie screen

or television set. In this moment, however, I

saw the real person. It occurred to me that

just like all of the rest of us, he, too, deals

with the thudding banalities and indignities

of everyday living. When the barista smiled

her unctuous smile, lavished praise on him

for his work in his recent desultory sci-fi

film, Worlds Apart, I was aghast. I stood

there in stockstill silence, mouth agape.

But he dealt with it with aplomb, with a

grace only the truly humble and great can

exhibit in my view. So at the very moment

his humanity was revealed to me. In dealing

with the everydayness, the whatness, with

which all humans at the most elemental

level must contend, that which makes him

so sublime came to light. There he was in his

sunglasses. No awkward disguise. There he

was out in the open. There was no affecting

sangfroid. He was just who I'd always imagined

he'd be in a mundane setting, gregarious

and unaffected. In short, true and open

and pure. After all the muck and grime of

Hollywood and being traduced by tabloids,

hounded by paparazzi, and dealing with all

manner vermin pullulating this world, I could

see that he remained unsullied and was still

a free spirit, luminous and unburdened.

It was at this moment that I sensed that

he and I were destined to be together, that

our preordained paths were intertwined,

and this very moment was the point at

which they merged. He smilingly received

his coffee, and he ambled out the back exit

where there was a small parking lot. I had

parked on the street next to the shop, and I

decided at that moment to follow Ji Hoo. I

went out the front door and got into my car,

and when I saw the Porsche convertible in

my rear view window, I followed as if drawn

to an irresistible shiny black object. I followed,

however, at enough of a distance to

avoid detection and made my way onto the

freeway as he did and exited the freeway

on his heels and ultimately followed him

into a neighborhood with stylized homes of

modern design most of which were largely

concealed by large trees. Ji Hoo ascended a

steep incline, and I was leery that he would

be suspicious of me, but nothing in his placid

style of driving suggested he was even aware

of me. I saw him pull into a driveway which

was at a significantly greater distance from

the nearest neighbor's home than even the

generous distances separating all of the

other homes I had seen in this neighborhood.

I couldn't see his home which seemed to rest

atop a hill judging by the upward ascent of

Ji Hoo' s vehicle. His home, or the entrance

to it anyway, was hardly inviting what with

its seclusion, but what immediately struck

me was that there was no gate. Moreover,

no one stood guard. It occurred to me that

a person could with no fuss make her way toward

his home and initiate contact with him.

During the drive back to my much less

impressive abode, I thought to myself that

that is precisely how I imagined Ji Hoo would

live — in private, understated fashion, without

ostentation and excessive security. And

I thought during this drive that I needed to

seize this opportunity. It hadn't just haphazardly

appeared. Fate had come to me in the

form of a deux ex machina, one which I had

divined as a child.

The more I meditated on it, the clearer it

became to me that Ji Hoo and I were fated

to be integral figures in each other's lives.

How could it be that he and I just happened

upon each other so serendipitously, he an actor

of international renown and me his most

penetrating critic? And there was a cosmic

justice to it all, too. All of the hardships I'd

endured could be cleared away like detritus

from a road. All of the unpleasantness

inflicted on me by my mother's boyfriends,

while incapable of ever being rendered null

could be assuaged, counteracted to some

degree if you'll allow. While I had been hard

done by to say the least, I could finally be

done right by by the propulsive forces driving

the universe. Surely there is such a force

I mused. I had this premonitory sense that

that which had been fated to transpire was

in the midst of coming to pass and that an

abiding joyfulness was upon me.

I went to work the next few days. I was

doing cashier work at a drugstore for the

time being. I didn't formulate any concrete

plans just because I now knew where Ji Hoo

93

lived, but I marveled that no elaborate planning

was in fact necessary. One evening, a

customer argued with me about the amount

she was charged, and I was obliged to call

my manager, which was not out of the ordinary

but this customer was so angry, grossly

out of proportion to the amount at issue. As I

got off from work and drove home, I decided

that I couldn't wait any longer. I showered,

put on a nice ensemble, a sweater and

jeans, and put on makeup, made myself as

comely and yet unassuming as possible.

I got into my car and drove to his place. I

was going to knock on his door, beguile him

with my self-effacing introduction, and he

would ask me inside because I believed fate

had irrevocably put into motion our union. I

was simply hastening the inevitable conclusion.

I knocked on the door tremulously, feeling

that this was an occasion of great moment.

No one answered. I rang the doorbell, and I

waited for a good minute. I was crestfallen.

As I contemplated driving forlornly back to

my hovel in the dusk, my pulse quickened,

and I walked to a large bay type window

20 feet from the entrance on a hunch, and

when I pulled on it, lo and behold it opened!

I was acting purely on instinct at this juncture.

I jumped in. It was dark, and as I

mentioned the house was concealed by trees

and far enough away from the next closest

home that I wasn’t being surveilled so far as

I knew.

Inside what must have been the living

room was wall art with a scene from Lover’s

Symphony, a role in which Ji Hoo brought

to bear his considerable musical talents, a

movie which upon first viewing had sent me

into raptures and which in subsequent years

served as balm to a wounded psyche. (On

the opposite end, we need not talk about

that comic book adaptation he acted in a

couple years ago. I don’t begrudge someone

making a living. But commerce is debasing,

and if someone goes too far, it can forever

tarnish an artist.)

Suddenly, I heard noises and rumblings as

though a door had opened upstairs. There

were stirrings from above. Then there were

footfalls on the stairwell. I was like prey in

the jungle, utterly paralyzed. Slippered feet

came into view. Then a robe. When we made

eye contact, there was a moment when

space time was suspended, and then there

was bedlam.

“Ji Hoo! Come down here!” she railed as

she scurried quickly back up the stairs, and

then there were all manner of hyena like

shrieking noises.

An athletic male bounded down the stairs.

He stared at me wildly. I saw fear. At first I

didn’t recognize him. He was like an animal

in his crazed state. How could he be fearful

of me? How could he be so utterly lacking

in perspicacity and devoid of the sensitivity

with which I’d treated him?

“Ji Hoo, please, my apologies. I just let

myself in," I spluttered. "Please Ji Hoo, just

speak to me for a moment. I've all these

things I'd like to share with you. If only you

would allow me to introduce myself.” He

was feral. I had never seen him like this.

Even in A Debt Paid in which he played a

member of a special ops unit deployed to

carry out an assassination (and endured

torture as a POW), I had never seen him this

wild. He demanded that I leave in maniacal,

crazed fashion, his eyes ablaze with malevolence.

But I couldn’t leave just then, so

unceremoniously, without so much as making

a true human connection. I approached

him pleadingly, and he blenched backward

as though I were a grotesque spider snake

hybrid, and he then retreated several steps

away from my advance. When I reached him

in the foyer, he thrust forward with stunning

alacrity, grabbed hold of me and tossed me

to the ground over his shoulder like a judo

master (I know he is not in reality; he does

have some tae kwon do training); we fell

to the ground, and I felt the full brunt of

his weight and mine as we slammed onto

the floor. When I awoke, he was still resting

atop me. I made a sudden movement,

and my right shoulder throbbed with a pain

I had never before experienced and have

not since. The robe was again present. Not

someone I would have ever have imagined

he would have been interested in. Buxom

blonde, she could have one of scores of

girls I’d seen just like her on auditions. She

mentioned that the police should be arriving

in any moment. Every time I tried to

say a word, he yelled, “Don’t Speak! Don’t

speak!” and the ferocity with which he exhorted

me quickly induced me to comply.

The police when they handcuffed me

nearly sent me in to convulsive fits because

of my shoulder. As I was being taken away,

the one coherent thought I managed at the

time, one which fills me with rue to this very

moment, was that I had never got to say my

piece to Ji Hoo.

I’m set to be released next Tuesday. I need

to see about where I’ll live, how I’ll get on.

Once I become settled, however, make no

mistake, I will see Ji Hoo again. I won't be so

clumsy as to just go to him as before mind

you. That was clearly the height of stupidity.

I now have a plan, meticulous and elaborate,

so this time he won’t be taken by surprise.

You see, I have recognized my error. Foisting

94

myself upon Ji Hoo as crudely as I did introduced

an element of outsize terror into our

interaction which prevented those things

which would have transpired naturally, which

necessarily would have happened, from occurring.

Some artistry and delicacy were required

on my part, and I failed spectacularly

on this front. I’ve learned, however, from

the experience. Part of my plan involves

writing Ji Hoo anonymously. I will write him

with a light, airy tone, but in succeeding

letters, I will make literary allusions, quote

moral philosophers such as Iris Murdoch. I

will beguile Ji Hoo with erudition which will

set the stage for our second meeting.

Ji Hoo’s destiny and mine are intertwined.

I am no less convinced of the truth of this

so in some fashion, our union will be consummated.

I am certain of it. Therefore, of

course I take issue with the notion I have

some "obsessive fixation" and an "addled,

deranged, mind" as that unimaginative judge

put it. I understand his way of thinking, however.

It’s just that there are certain forces

at work to which only a privileged minority

are privy. I am one such person, and Ji Hoo,

if he is not one already, will be one as well

shortly.

She lounged with lassitude

At the corner café

While people lingered

Staring at her lurid red hair

Her, oblivious to the labyrinth around her

A libidinous choice, red.

This bright, intense, loud hair

Was her scream for liberation

Her languish for lust and limitless levity

Was laden on her shoulders

The longing for luxury, latitude and

lasciviousness

Was pulling her away from her leash

Of love, loyalty and a labeled lifestyle

Temptation loath to leave

She finds herself getting lax

She misses the lunacy of dating

The lechers and larks

Oh, to be flush and lush at once would be

legendary

But instead, there is lambaste

A plea to return to the lacquer of the lasting

The L Train

Poetry

Lindsey Wentzel

Montgomery, Texas, USA

Now the games are more lethal

To be caught would be

to be lynched

no lenient judge will preside

Liability is unquestionable

Lacerate these lustful lies!

Before lachrymose loathing takes over

Alas, the hair, was a wasted labor

She still finds herself

Learning to break the lock

One step closer to the ledge now…

What’s that on the other side?

She can almost see it…almost

For now the limbo continues

Lamenting in her lair

She dreams of latent promises

A league beyond her own

Dreams of libations, lingerie and riches

Leery of the danger

Her phone a loaded gun

Deadbeat

Dinner Party

Poetry

TA Harrison


We were in love once

It was beautiful and perfect

Perfect if only for a moment

If only for that night

On that dance floor

Under those lights and in that smoke

High on vodka, pills, and emotion

Our bodies perfectly in sync

Locked into the rhythm of heaven

Of our ancestors and their gods

Speaking forgotten human languages with

our hips

Ancient melodies and poem pouring from our

bodies

Two lovers caught

Trapped between this world and the next

Deep in a trance

A hypnotic black hole of sex

Of deviance and passion

Pulling everything inside

Leaving only us

The two lovers

And the one dance floor

Moving forever in perfect harmony

It is true, this loyal, logical union is

what she had longed for, for so long

But…no more of the fast pace

The heart aches and heart breaks

No more libel, no more innocent games.

95

You told me you loved me

on a spring evening

when the sun had already set

and the flowers outside were fast asleep.

Their petals bloomed beautifully,

displayed like a rainbow cast after a rainy

day,

even though there was no light to be shed.

Scarlets, emeralds, indigos,

all frozen in time.

But then our ship capsized,

flipped from the suddenness

of the uneven weight

we held.

Of all the weight

I held.

Our previously potted garden,

the one too lovely for words,

had drowned along with everything else.

A New Beginning

Poetry

Jessica Garrison


How is it possible

that I felt more alone with you

than I did when I was on my own.

Like a single firefly

left to brighten the entire sky

on the Fourth of July

after the last few fireworks

have faded away,

and nothing but silence remains.

However, the isolated autumn stretched on,

the quiet winter flurried away,

and, once again, the spring settled in,

smelling like fresh soil and new beginnings.

So here I am

with a fresh spotlight of sun on my face,

in a newborn garden of my own,

as I continue to replant the seeds of a new

flower.

Sweet Song

Poetry

Michael Stentz

Bristol, Pennsylvania, USA

The way she sang

He’d give every last dollar

Then just keep walking on

The sky behind her

Her hair so bright

Nothing to do

But just keep walking on

So light and sweet

So simple, with such grace

After all the words are spilled

Just walking on

Never to hear her voice

Outside that fated song

Humming the tune, shambles left

Of the words

Just keep walking on

I didn’t think I could feel so much regret

over something that I didn’t say,

something that I didn’t do,

something that truly never was.

But you left me standing there

with an open heart

and empty hands,

stranded in a treacherous storm,

wild sobs and crying thunder

over the new summer sky.

96

dreaming of the cosmos

Sketch/Drawing

Vita Nocilla


97

Moonflowers on Arthur Street

Fiction

Clare Nee

Marshfield, Massachusetts, USA

It was the turn of a new decade, and

sheer optimism fell over the prosperous

suburb of Clifton Park, a developing area

just outside of the outskirts of the city of

Schenectady. The late January cold of 1970

drifted its way into the Colonial frame of the

Stiller residence on Arthur Street in Upstate

New York. This was the home of Louis and

Madeline Stiller, a young, married couple

in their early twenties. A young couple who

dreamt of gardens and dinner parties; sports

cars with the top down, kind of leisure. So

much leisure time to be enraptured in youth

and love, and remain endless in the state of

bliss and excitement that their marriage was

founded upon. However, their reality would

be quite different.

Madeline was a beautifully bright, twentyyear-old

waitress at a popular restaurant on

State Street called Ricky’s Restaurant and

Bar in Schenectady when she met Louis. She

loved the atmosphere of Ricky’s: energetic,

but never too rowdy. She enjoyed people

watching while learning to memorize the

menu on her breaks. The chef always made

sure she was taken care of, as she was one

of the hardest workers he had ever seen

there in the fifteen years that they had been

open. Before she landed the restaurant gig,

she wasn’t sure what she’d do, and if it

wasn’t for the money she had saved prior,

she wouldn’t have been able to survive. At

18 years old, she moved out of her parents'

house; she was determined to do it on her

own. She rented a room from a couple in

Schenectady who owned the whole second

floor of a Brownstone. The sink in her room

barely had running water, but it was good

enough for what it was: a place to lay her

head. She was willing to make sacrifices

in order to remain her own. She dreamt of

being a writer: a novelist and a poet. Like

the ones she had studied in school. To engulf

in her art and exist within the margins of

society, was good enough for her, or so she

thought. She was smart and quick-witted.

These were qualities that were apparent to

those around her, including her customers.

A couple years getting gawked at by men

for her charming looks and quick wit was

enough for her to feel the exhaustion and

frustration within her bones. The city life

of Schenectady was not as glamorous as she

thought it would be, and she barely had the

energy to write when she wasn’t working.

When Louis Stiller walked into the bar that

night, she was ready to call it quits. He was

the answer to her prayer: a respectful man

— a tax accountant — who, in the beginning,

worshiped the ground that she walked on.

He came from money, was educated, and

well dressed with a charming smile that

seemingly brought out the blue in his eyes

that much more. That night he asked her to

sit with him for a drink. Three months later,

they were married. It all happened so quickly.

Louis was willing to take care of the expenses,

and before she really knew what she

had gotten herself into, they were looking at

homes in the suburbs in Saratoga County.

Clifton Park was a place where everyone

who's anyone desired to be. It had been

98

robustly booming towards the mid-sixties

with an influx of people into the once small

town, and by the turn of the 1970s, it was

solidified as a suburban first-class town in

Saratoga County with over fourteen thousand

inhabitants. The town would now be in

control of voting on taxes, speed limits, and

other changes. This was a big deal for Clifton

Park and its emergence into the world as an

official suburb, and Louis Stiller moving into

this area did not go unnoticed. The Stiller

family was well known, particularly with

their involvement in the Saratoga Horse Races.

Alongside the family’s legacy, Louis was a

particularly social man. The kind of man who

could hardly go anywhere without running

into someone that he knew, which often ran

into rather lengthy conversations, during

which Madeline learned to smile and nod.

Of course she remembered each person and

had heard so many wonderful things about

them from Louie. She was the only person

who called him that, which seemed rather

uncharacteristic of his pristine, put-together

self. He was a member of the Ballston Spa

Country Club, a frequent churchgoer, and an

avid donor to Our Redeemer Lutheran Church

in Scotia. There wasn’t a charity event that

he missed. He was as social and outwardly

humble in the presence of his community,

which was one of the most charming parts

about him.

The Stiller couple moved into 93 Arthur

Street on the third day of the new year.

There wasn’t too much to unpack or move

since most of the homes in this neighbor-

hood came furnished, with the exception of

the Stiller family china and hope chests. He

would allow Madeline to take charge in purchasing

the bedding and other small items

to give her something to look forward to and

to plan while he was working. For the first

time since she was a child, Madeline did not

have a job. Growing up in the city, she was

unaccustomed to this new lifestyle; all she

knew was to be overworked and underpaid.

But Louie had asked her to quit her job once

they were engaged. It was a given; no proper

woman would be schlepping dirty dishes

or dodging skeezy men. She was a married

woman now. Perhaps once she got the house

settled she would begin to write again.

Since the couple moved, it had been the

buzz of the town. “Did you hear that Louis

Stiller married a beautiful redhead over at

the Lutheran church down in Scotia? She is

such a doll that girl, a real looker. I heard

they moved into a Colonial over on Arthur

Street. Yes, that gorgeous white one with

the navy shutters and the big yard. They

have about ten acres. Well, it’s only time

before he gets nominated as a new town

board member. Oh, without a doubt he

will.” The gossip had been right; it felt as

though the Stillers had only been present in

the suburbs for a few brief moments before

Louis was asked to join the town board as

the town’s tax assessor and supervisor. He’d

work in a big office building in town and

earn a salary of $7,000 a year, which placed

the couple nicely amongst the upper-middle

class. There would be a celebratory dinner

following in honor of the new board members,

and it was the chance for the couple to

make their big social entrance into the world

of suburbia.

Louie insisted that they go shopping as

soon as the weekend rolled around. They

needed to look the part, or rather she did,

which was lightly implied. Madeline had put

on a few love pounds since the first time

they had met, and her clothing, as Louie

revealed, “Just didn’t fit quite right. It was

too city,” and he refused to have his wife

dressed in anything but the best... They

drove into Schenectady in his 1968 Plymouth

Sport Satellite: a fiery red, automatic

two-door vehicle with a hardtop. The two

strutted down State Street hand and hand

and exchanged their hidden anxieties with

new extravagances. Wool suits, pocket

squares, and leather shoes were purchased

from Bond’s clothing store for Louie, and

they finished the day off at Carl’s bargain

outlet. Although they had the money, they

were cautious about saving now since they

had a mortgage to pay. She didn’t feel quite

comfortable, but he insisted. She settled on

a simple, white, sheath dress with blue flowers

that came down to her knees, but Louie

insisted upon a black dress with three-quarter

length sleeves, a string of pearls. She

began to drape expensive garments over her

arm that she had seen in the magazines and

advertisements and finished her look with

a fur-trimmed winter coat. Elegant, classy,

with an otherworldly tilt of her head, she

felt ready to take on the night.

After the excitement had settled, she

filled her time with daily rituals of searching

the advertisements for the best deals and

the latest trends. It was important for her to

stay relevant, so she made a growing list of

what to buy for the weekend, during which

Louie would accompany her to the stores or

go off to Saratoga Horse Races with some of

the men from the country club and leave the

car behind for her use. As more and more

99

time went on, she realized the quantity of

items that she had procured in her house.

She found herself sifting through the goods

without spirit in their bedroom. Everything

was in its place, but nothing felt right. In

fact, she didn’t feel much of anything at all.

She ran her hands over the smoothness of

the gold, moonflower bed sheets and comforter,

and wondered how she had gotten

there. Hadn’t she wanted this? She wondered.

Hadn’t she dreamt of the stillness

of a home and the comfort of stability? The

emptiness hollowed her as she wallowed in

the voicelessness of her bed. She spent days

at a time there, but Louie hadn’t realized,

at least at first, because she always got up

with enough time to make his dinner. But

when his meetings seemingly ran later and

later, eventually she just began to give up

on forcing this interaction with her husband.

The office became his life, and when he

came home, she was already in bed, and he

began drinking heavily to fill the void. More

and more bottles of top-shelf Scotch began

to pile up by the week.

One morning, she convinced herself to

get out of bed and to write. She wasn’t

sure what she yearned to create; she just

knew that she had to fuel her energy into

something, and today felt as good of a day

to start. She began with poetry, and by the

second week, she grew tired of writing the

same lifeless prose. A novel was in order. She

worked tirelessly at the table for months,

adding a few pages each day and editing

down the previous ones. She began to pull

the life back out of herself, and she was

excited this time around to share her passion

of writing with Louie. It was during this time

that she began to notice his excessive drinking,

and when she questioned him about

it, he grew aggressive towards her. She had

never seen him angry before, but after a

handful of disturbing displays of this side of

him, it became the norm within the home.

Out in Clifton Park, they were the couple of

the decade; a couple of lovebirds nestled

quietly in their nest and making appearances

when necessary. She didn’t need much, just

to fulfill her desire to write each day, but

shortly that luxury would end too. She began

to feel queasy in the mornings and tired in

the afternoons. She held the First Response

pregnancy test and sank to the floor when

the second pink strip appeared. She felt the

walls around her begin to crumble and give

out on the floor. It was all over now; the life

that she was beginning to pull out of herself

vanished.

Seven years later, they were the textbook

image of a hopelessly tumultuous marriage

filled with void and utter despair, all of

which being concealed within the privacy of

the home. Their children would later wonder

why their dad was always so angry and why

their mother had chosen to marry such a

man, but they hadn’t always been this way,

though, she would tell them. There once

was love and a deep spark of connection

between the two, but that all seemed so far

away now. A far-off memory hidden beneath

the dusk of suburbia.

This Place

Poetry

David Grubb

Cumberland, Maine, USA

If ever there was a place like this, it existed when my mind could sort out

the delusional from the rational, the despondent moments from the cherished.

A blue sky so vibrant and relenting I could only imagine it from childhood or

in films or created by the brushless stokes of Monet, Gogh, Pisarro, Canaletto.

If not, then in my dreams before the trumpet swans broke free, the trees grew toward heaven

while being pulled toward hell, the clouds pillowed in dramatic shapes that delight and terrify.

I yearn to go back for a visit, to stroll along the riverbank and re-immerse myself in memories

of life without added girth, darkened eyes with sagging bags around them, a diminished libido,

and cognitive dissonance. To lie next to you in the cool grass and let our minds wander, our

bodies inflate, deflate, inflate— Ask you frivolous questions I’ve asked before while eating

endlessly from a gilded picnic basket. Sing the songs from yesteryear and dance the silliest

dances in history, the Humpty, the Macarena, the La Bomba, Tootsee Roll.

If ever there was a place like this, then I bequeath it to the world, to the brown-haired girl

who sat next to me in detention and wrote haikus, to the loners who never catch a break, to

the urban dwellers whose endless sprawl rarely lets them breathe easily, and to the misguided

who need sanctuary anywhere they can find it, especially in nature’s boldest landscapes.

Freely, without dues, fees, or compensation, I give it to ensure it doesn’t vanish into the vapid

recesses of my mind or become lost in time or disintegrate from climate change.

If ever there was a place like this, I may have been there before, could’ve been there

yesterday or today, but I’m certain I’ll find myself there when the time is right.

100

We Could've Been a Poem

Poetry

Naomi Capacete

San Francisco, California, USA

We were something special from the moment we met

You were the quiet one

Always sitting in the back away from the world

I was the loud one

Burning with a flame of passion

Your soul was full of music

Your heart lost in songs

Mine was full of books

My mind filled with pages of never ending stories

It was the perfect duo

We exchanged words but our eyes never met

But when they did

Oh, when they did

A spark flickered between us

We could’ve been a poem

Our nights were never boring

It was always an adventure

Walking around the city

The midnight breeze blowing through our hair

Drinks in our hands

We would sometimes end up on the beach

Running around in the sand

Or dance around in my empty apartment

Until the sunlight peeked through the windows

We were spontaneous like that

Do Not Insist on

Departing Today

Poetry


Kajang, Selangor, Malaysia

(After listening to Farida Khannum’s rendering of “Aaj jaane ki zid na karo”)

Do not insist on departing today

For tomorrow I may not be around

Or you may have a few grey hairs,

And the bridge may wash away in floods.


For I may be struck by lightning

When eyes brighter glance at me

Or be poisoned by rumours about you.


For I am scared you will never return,

And I grow too old to fall in love again,

Though there are lovelier women yet.

Do not insist on departing today,

For it is the last day of autumn

And the snow storm is swirling

Up in the high mountain pass.


For there may never be another spring

And we might never go looking

For wild strawberries together again.

You in your ripped jeans

And worn out converse

Me in a leather jacket

And combat boots

We could’ve been a poem

101

Connection

Screenprint

Ariel Cooper

Jacksonville, Florida, USA

102

My memory couldn’t hold on to your face,

but onto the day we met, it clutches like

pirate unto gold. It feels like this one won’t

get away, but I am writing it down nonetheless.

After all, memories fade.

#

The clock was ticking, the short hand

about to strike twelve, soon to be overshadowed

by the longer and faster arm, now only

a fraction of a degree behind. My head was

spinning.

Then I heard you — bang, bang, bang!

Strong, rhythmic, and loud, especially at an

hour when nothing was awake.

I turned my spinning head from my never-ending

thick volume towards the pale

entrance to my apartment, seeming somewhat

gloomy in the dark. In the dead of the

night, only the silent humming of my heater,

mixed with the quiet hissing of my breath,

was audible.

Bang, bang, bang! Stronger, faster, and

more urgent than the last round.

Are you kidding me? I was starting to get

annoyed.

In my head, you must’ve taken a shot

of espresso — or ten — to be performing a

series of drumming on my neighbour’s door.

For God’s sake, I’m trying to read. I walked

toward the pale exit that now seemed to

glow outrageously in the dark.

I knew you didn’t hear the door creaking

open, drowned by your thundering rhythm.

Also, you jumped at the slightly aggressive

“Hi” as I stuck out my head into the warmly

lit corridor.

Knock at Midnight

Fiction

Bill Yuan


As it turned out, you were no artist, no

drummer. And you were certainly no — as I

initially imagined — angry disturber of the

holy sleep, not that I was having any. The

moment I saw your eyes, all the thoughts

of my thick volume and the big deadline

the next day went straight out of my head.

Through the window of your soul, a telling

emerged — you were worried, extremely.

You were a student, anxiety-stricken, didn’t

know what else to do other than drumming

on your friend’s door.

With all my previous expectations of you

knocked out of me, I now was embarrassed

by the secret grudge I held against you.

For a moment, I thought about sticking to

the original cranky plan. But alas, an invisible

barrier held back those scolding words.

One inch below the throat — was high as

they ever got. I had to say something, partly

out of etiquette, partly out of genuine

curiosity.

“Hey... Is everything okay out here?” I

suddenly ran out of words, so I stuck to the

cliché.

Your lips parted slightly, about to spill out

the mysteries hidden in your midnight drum

solo. Yet only one word came out, “Um...”

You looked away, at your friend’s door, pale

as your face.

I felt and knew your inner stirrings: I, once

too, parted my lips, only to swallow the

thousand words that wanted to pour out; I,

once too, looked back to the source of those

thousand words and considered spilling them

out, anyway. You knew everything wasn’t

103

okay — actually, nothing was — but you were

too polite to drag a stranger into whatever

muddy water you were treading in.

Just a little nudge is all it takes, I

thought. “What’s going on?” I frowned.

“My friend,” you exhaled heavily and

looked anxiously at my neighbour’s door and

finally let out the words you stomached,

“she hasn’t been replying to any of my

texts.”

A bit dramatic, no? I squinted.

“Does...she do that...often?” I tried not to

appear judgmental.

No idea if it was working, though.

“No!” you snapped a little, “...Well, I

mean, sometimes...”

But...? I knew there was a “but” coming. I

could sense it in the air.

“But,” there it is. You paused. “But...

what?”

You continued with a sigh, “She’s been

not herself lately. She lost her appetite,

her energy, her mood... She would watch

her favourite show and just stare blankly

into the screen — it’s like she’s not even

there...” your dam of words went down, and

they flooded out. You wanted to say some

more but stopped short. You turned to me,

your inquiring eyes searching for any signs

of comprehension in mine, and gave up the

final two words with a sigh, “...You know?”

I see; your friend isn’t the only one with

mountains of feelings bottled up. You wanted

to pour them all out, but only found yourself

at a loss for words. You looked at me,

frowning. Your anxiety sunk to my stomach

with every breath I took.

“Yeah...” I did know what you were

talking about. My neighbour, a girl about the

same age as me from China — I could tell

from her accent, did always seem a little

gloomy to me.

What you described to me was like a case

from my psychology textbook. But even so,

I still couldn’t see exactly what you were

getting at. Nay, truth is, a part of me didn’t

want to look at it.

As if you knew all of that and were afraid

I’d keep my gaze distracted when you said,

“I’m just afraid that she’d do something

stupid.” You glanced at her door again, your

hand clutching onto your arm while squeezing

your shoulders closer together as if protecting

yourself from a cold breeze.

With those revealing words, you forced

upon me the conspicuous image of that

which I didn’t want to look at. Yes, I had to

admit to myself, I know precisely what you

mean.

Like any good friend, or a nosy neighbour,

we stood in that warm hallway and

exchanged ideas on a plan of action. By the

third round of back-and-forth, it became

clear to me we wouldn’t get anywhere

without further information to tilt the scale.

You obviously shared the same sentiment.

You gave me your phone number just in case

your friend comes out of her shell while you

were away and in case she texts you back

and you didn’t need a watchman anymore...

or in case of something else — neither of us

could muster the strength to say it, though.

I doubt if we even wanted to. I saved your

number, and we went our separate ways.

#

As a good college student, of course I

pulled an all-nighter for the deadline that

was in less than twelve hours.

From time to time, I went to check in on

your friend. I pounded on her door, loudly,

like a drum. Part of me wanted to know

what had happened to your friend and part

of me wanted to keep my promise to you.

Yet another part of me thought it a good

distraction from my deadline.

It was almost noon when you texted to

tell me that you’d be on your way back to

your friend soon and that I should move on

to my day. I kind of needed to, since my

class is beginning soon. So, I decided to let it

go. But fate is mischievous. It was precisely

at the moment when I started to move on,

you came back to haunt me in the form of

another text.

“She texted back,” it read.

“And? What did she say?” I promptly replied.

“She said, ’Everything will be okay.’” I

frowned at your friend’s response.

Your next text followed in an instant, “I

have a bad feeling about this.” Frankly, so

did I.

“Well, maybe things are okay, she’s just

having a down day?” half of me really believed

what I said, while the other half

wanted to call myself out.

“Maybe... I’ll try calling her again.”

“Yeah. Good idea.” Strangely, it felt like

you made a decision for me and lifted a rock

off my chest.

As you attempted to reach her, I again

tried to move on.

Half an hour flew by as I freshened up,

made my coffee, and got ready to head

out for class. If the Fates were real, they

must’ve really wanted me to see your business

through to the end. You see, I don’t

104

carry my phone as I do things around the

apartment. It helps me stay present. The

moment I came back sitting down at my

desk, placing my coffee on the table, the

black liquid inside formed a series of shaking

concentric circles, then settled back down

to a shiny, smooth surface. I reached for

my phone after taking a sip as if those few

seconds of delay would make a difference in

the outcome.

“Something’s wrong,” your alarming words

were inevitable. “She didn’t answer?”

“She did... Uh, hold on, I’ll call you.” As

soon as I felt the vibration, I picked up.

“Hello?” Your voice came through the

speaker.

“Hi,” Mine went through the microphone,

“what happened?”

“Well, I tried to call her a couple of times.

She didn’t pick up. But like... five minutes

ago she did, but... she wasn’t speaking.

It was just dead silence. I kept calling her

name, I was almost yelling... but she didn’t

say a word.” I could hear your voice trembling,

and with it, my stomach shakily seized

up tight.

I was waiting for something like, “Then

she finally said something...” and then it

would be the part which led you to believe

something was wrong.

Yet, you blurted, “Then she just hung up.”

Immediately an alarm went off in my head,

trying to process what you just said.

She hung up? That doesn’t sound right.

Why would she do that after picking up? A

chill shot up from my spine. Sleeping buttcall?

That’s just ridiculous... Well, then...

A strong stream of electricity spread

through my body. I see why you sound so

worried. It’s the “something stupid,” isn’t it?

It’s that thing neither of us wanted to make

real by speaking of it in plain words.

Silence creeped into the air. Neither of us

knew what to say or what to do. I knew I had

to say something, anything.

“I can call the security and get them to

open her doors for me,” I broke the icy silence,

“...if you want,” I added.

“But what if she’s just sleeping? Then

we’re just intruding on her for no reason...

She did always sleep in a lot. And,” you

hesitated, “I don’t think she’s the kind of

person who would...you know, do something

stupid?” Your shaky conviction in your own

words was made unequivocal by the long

drag in your tone.

No reason? My thought started racing

again. I’d say there’s plenty. But you are

right — she could just be sleeping. What

should I do? Insist and persuade you? That

feels like stepping over the line. Back off?

But what if she’s not “just sleeping”?

From a probability perspective...

“Hello? Are you still there?” Your voice

broke off my train of thought.

“Yes, yes, I’m still here. Well, listen, I

think you should get here as soon as possible.

I’m gonna go downstairs to the security

and get them to open her doors for me.”

“But, what if...”

“Well, then I’ll make a fool of myself. She

might just be sleeping, and all this worry

and scenarios may just be in our heads, and

all that... But what if she’s not? I don’t think

that’s something we should be betting on.”

I drew in a deep breath and continued, “It

could happen, and I don’t wanna risk that.

So I’m going in, okay?”

You made some unsure, undecipherable

sounds. Ding! I turned my head to see the

doors slide open, “Okay, the elevator’s here;

I gotta go. You coming?”

“Yeah, yeah,” you snapped out of it, “I’m

on my way.”

#

Even with her face pale like my door, lips

blue like the glacial ice, I recognized her.

She lay on the yellow-and-white cart, pushed

by the paramedics, overdosed on sleeping

pills, on the verge of breathing the last

breath. I’ve heard it, I’ve seen it on television,

I’ve even imagined it in my head, but

the real thing weighed down on me heavier

than all the others combined.

Even when I went about my usual business,

this unusually long night — you, her,

our texts, the paramedics — kept playing in

my head out of its own accord.

Oh, how things could’ve turned out so

differently. What if I did try and persuade?

What if I did back off? Believe me — things

could’ve been a lot different. She could’ve

not recovered. She could’ve not received

psychological intervention. You probably

would hate yourself for it, even though you

weren’t guilty of much.

I wish things had turned out as I wrote it —

what a true relief it would be! But it didn’t.

My neighbour did recover, and she did get

psychological help, but I know that you were

the one who chose not to risk it, not me. You

took that crucial step forward when I chose

to take one backward. It was cutting close.

She could’ve been gone if it weren’t for you.

I wonder, to this day, what did that silent

phone call mean? What did that text mean —

“Everything will be okay”? Of course, there’s

no way for me to know now. But I wonder if

the reason was you? Because your unrelentingness

had lit up a little hope in her despairing

heart?

I wonder this, too, sometimes: Where

are you? Are you still disturbing others’ holy

105

sleep for your friends? Are you still reaching

out to them relentlessly? Are you still barging

in with security when they pick up the

phone but speak not?

For their sake, I hope you are.

But for yours, I hope you didn’t — and will

not — have the need to.

Won't You Run

Away?

Poetry

Ellaheh Gohari

Pembroke Pimes, Florida, USA

Where do you hide when you don’t want to

be found?

In the muddy, gritty streets of the city,

In the blue, silver lakes on the plains,

In the slippery, tall trees in the rainforest,

Or the dry, sandy desert far, far away?

Why do you hide when you think you’re

unwanted?

Why do you hide when you think you’re a

freak?

Why do you leave me to deal with your

problems?

Why is it so hard to keep you with me?

Is it funny, to you, when you run away?

Do you laugh at my frantic walk?

Do you enjoy watching me suffer?

Do you relish in the way my heart drops?

Well, I’ll tell you, dear one,

I’m done with it all,

You think you’ve had it bad?

Well, trust me, dear,

When you leave once again,

Don’t bother coming back.

Night

Poetry

Kilmeny MacMichael

Okanagan Valley, British Columbia, Canada

Night was nearly over

the sky was already brightening

formless void assuming identity and shape

The track, rock strewn moonscape

Mysterious

Ditch nettles sour

Torn

Fit territory for murder

It was a mistake to have come,

ignoble connoisseur of death

he briefly crossed himself

His sister told him about her lover

the affair was over

he hadn’t any evidence under the

fingernails.

From Ex Wit - a collection of poems using

borrowed text from the first 100 pages of

P.D. James’ Death of An Expert Witness

Salt Lick

Poetry

Eunhee Soh


I’ve been long loving you

rainy or dusty,

not dawdling at nights, I go.

You are there

magnetizing, giant, cavernous,

like a temple.

Since I could clamber next to my parents

I heard we shall love you

on volcanic dikes, spiral cliffs.

Kneeling and clinging with my cleft hooves

I chew on you and brood over you.

The sun buzzes on fly wings.

You don’t know how you taste of,

the nearby rock falling.

You are too loose to hold me tight

but my bones will shatter without you.

My pink-flecked tongue sings your maculated

ditch.

I don’t mind falling off.

You are fatally lovable,

sat there on my map.

When later my blind eyes will lead me to you

I can see you dissolved in the dark.

The journey to the high mountain

scourges my veins.

106

107

#533

Painting

Matt Gold

Brooklyn, New York, USA

Where the Sea Swallows the Sky

Fiction

Olivia Larson

Manteca, California, USA

The dull vibration of my phone lulled me

out of my sleep. My mind and body weren’t

quite in the same place yet, the former still

swirling around the latter while my hand felt

its way around the edge of my bed for the

device that was demanding my attention.

My fingers grasped it and found their way to

the button to stop the noise. My eyes forced

themselves open as colors and shapes sharpened

for a few seconds and allowed me to

make out the numbers across the top.

1:01 a.m.

Sleep had only held me in its embrace

for the last two hours. I stayed in bed for

another 20 minutes, staring at the wall and

contemplating letting sleep take my mind

again. I glanced at the neatly folded note

kept unceremoniously in a plastic bag resting

on my nightstand, my name lazily scrawled

across it in black ink. I dragged myself out

from under the comforter. The brisk air from

my open window was a sudden shock on my

bare legs. I collected myself, stood, then

searched for some appropriate clothing.

The note called me again, and I stared at it

for a few seconds. Finally I picked it up and

placed it carefully into the outer pouch of

my backpack, instantly feeling the increase

in weight. I inhaled and let out a sharp

breath, standing at my bedroom door. The

creature swung open effortlessly on recently

oiled hinges.

My eyes closed, and my ears opened,

searching for the rhythmic snores of Uncle

Callum downstairs. I found them, and

tiptoed my way out and to the top of the

stairs. I listened at the door of Aunt Elaine’s

bedroom. It sounded like sleep. Not quite

silence or the sound of breathing, simply the

heavy sound of a body at rest existing within

a space. I was safe. I made my way down

the wooden stairs, running my hand along

the worn bannister and wincing with every

step. The slow rise and fall of Uncle Callum's

chest on the living room couch assured me

that I could likely have stomped down the

stairs yelling without disturbing him, but I

didn’t want to risk anything. Normal sounds

seem so amplified in the thirteenth hour that

simply walking around might warrant the

neighbors calling in a noise complaint.

My next enemy was the front door. A slow

turn of the brass knob and a quick pull on

the door let out just a small squeal. I locked

the door behind me slowly and made it to

the car. It was a summer night, and the air

had a bite but wasn’t uncomfortable. The

dim yellow street lamps illuminated the

street in a twisted sort of way, turning it into

a strange reflection of its usual self, littered

with uncertain shadows. I took a final

glance at the house before sliding the key

into the car door and unlocking it. I sat down

and stared down at the wheel for a minute

before the key met the ignition, and I gave

them a twist. My teeth gritted together, and

my eyes clenched shut as the engine roared

to life.

I let the car sit idle for a moment as stale

air began to blow, making sure no lights

were coming on in the house, then pulled

away. I rode down the street in silence, then

108

out of the neighborhood, through downtown,

and finally onto the interstate. I felt my bag

in the passenger seat, not with my hand but

as a physical thing taking up space next to

me. Darby, Pennsylvania passed my windows

as the orchestra of engines and old tires

against older roads crashed in my head. My

stomach was low in my body, socializing with

my intestines. I released part of the tension

that had been holding me since my eyes

first opened, then moved for the radio and

twisted a dial until static became notes. It

was an older song playing, probably a classic

rock station. I recognized it as one of my

dad’s favorite bands, but couldn’t place the

name. The endless road stretched onward

in front of me, headlights illuminating a few

dozen feet ahead of me while the velvet sky

enveloped everything else. Faceless drivers

in nondescript cars made the trip with me.

Who knew where any of them were really

going, but it felt nice to have some company.

Looking at the other strangers driving

with me, I felt a part of something greater, a

member of some religious pilgrimage.

After a short while, I turned the music off

and listened once again to the sounds of the

road. I felt eternities pass as the gas meter

inched counter-clockwise. I had crossed the

state line into New Jersey a while ago, taking

some backroads to bypass the toll. It only

added a few extra minutes, and while I had

the cash, I despised the thought of interacting

with another human being. Now the Delaware

state line was coming up. I was about

halfway there. Boredom was hitting hard,

and I reached over into the center console

and took out Uncle Callum’s nearly-empty

pack of cigarettes. I had never been much

of a smoker, never really gotten a taste for

it, but it could be somewhat comforting at

times. The scent reminded me of him, and it

seemed to scratch an itch I hadn’t been able

to reach with anything else. The cigarette

calmed me for a few minutes, and I had another.

Two turned into four, and I didn’t even

realize until I was lighting the final one that

I had emptied the pack completely. I beat

myself up mentally over my lack of self control.

It was just something to do, an activity

to pass the time. They’d just been so sweet,

euphoria shifting black to navy. I promised

myself I’d buy a new pack in the morning for

him. I wallowed a bit longer in a place that

was somewhere at the corner of self pity and

hatred. I licked my lips and sighed, looking

out at the passing signs that offered brief

illumination between the crushing black.

Phantoms held vigil at the edges of my vision,

flying past at impossible speed.

When I finally arrived, the place looked

deserted. I’d never seen so few cars in the

lot. There were signs of life in one, looked

like a few kids getting high. I ignored them

and got out of the car. It was a lot colder

here, the sea air sharp with salt and rot. The

breeze was light, and the air was heavy. I

swung my backpack on and locked the door,

making my way to the concrete stairs. At the

bottom step, I sat and tugged off my shoes

and socks, leaving them there.

The chilled sand made its way between

my toes as I stood there. This beach that had

once been so full of life, so bright and vibrant,

was now cold and desolate. The early

morning hours had transformed it into a sort

of liminal space, a space between spaces,

that was simply wrong, like a familiar upbeat

song played in a minor key. It felt as if I was

taking a peek behind the curtain. The moon

hung half-heartedly in the sky, casting a hazy

reflection on the infinite water and turning

the sand indigo. The sky merged perfectly

with the black water on the horizon, so one

could not tell where one met the other. The

moonlight had a sort of ethereal quality

about it that made me feel weightless. The

whole situation felt forbidden, not by any

mortal laws but by something universal.

The ocean was breathing. The waves

crashing onto an ever-changing shoreline,

in and out like the labored gasps of some

wounded beast. I stood by myself at the

edge of the world, oblivion lapping at the

sand. Debris covered the beach, seaweed

and cigarette butts breaking up the otherwise

smooth surface. This place was beautiful.

I was more alone than I’d ever felt, the

ocean my last living companion.

I dug into my backpack and removed the

plastic bag that held the paper note. It was

heavier than it had felt in my hand before. I

took it out and held the folded square in my

hand as a tear found a path to my chin and

fell onto the sand. I sat down, and the sand

likely filled every pocket of my jeans, but I

didn’t mind. I squeezed lightly on the yellow

note.

“Do you remember this place?” I asked

him.

There was, of course, no response.

“I thought you might like it more here.

You always used to say you wanted to get

a beach house here when you retired.” I

paused, thinking. “I love you. I don’t think I

said that enough. I wish I had.”

I stuck the note in the sand in front of me

and stared at it.

109

“I’m glad we made it back here. I wanted

to spend one more moment with you in this

place.” A cold wind suddenly picked up. It

wasn’t harsh, but almost comforting. A thousand

tiny soldiers marched down my spine as

the breeze found its way through my hair.

“I never read your note, you know. I guess

there was some part of me that thought

maybe if I still had this part of you, unopened,

unspoken, you’d still be here. I

know it’s stupid, but I just thought that if

I didn’t read it, there was still a piece of

you left, one last thing to say, and since you

haven’t said it yet, it’s like you’re still here.

I guess I brought you here to release you. I

want to set your soul free.”

I closed my eyes, letting twin rivers carve

their way down my cheeks. My breath stuttered.

“Sorry I don’t talk much anymore. I’m 19

now. Things are so different now. I’m still living

with your brother, but I’m not sure how

much longer that’ll last.”

I listened to the waves and let my words

hang, hoping that someone was there to collect

them. A coppery scent entered my nose

as I filled my lungs with frigid air.

“You were pretty fucked up, you know

that?” The tears had stopped. Heat was

coming off my face now. “I think another

part of not reading the note was that I didn’t

want to give you the satisfaction. Do you

remember the night you tried to kill yourself?

I found you on the sofa, whiskey in one

hand, painkillers in the other. You wanted

me to find your body. I thought you were

dead. I was fucking 12!” I paused again,

teeth clenching my lower lip, “And I guess

the last part of me didn’t want to read the

note because I didn’t want to believe that

the crash was your fault. I know it’s stupid to

think it was anything else. Why the hell else

would you leave a note?” I gazed out at the

universe and forced myself to breathe.

“Part of me couldn’t accept that the man

who raised me could do such a thing. The

rest of me knows that’s a lie. I’m not here

to talk about that now though. I’m here to

forgive you. I think. I want to forgive you. In

reality, I want nothing more than for you to

just come back home. You wouldn’t have to

say a single word; I don’t need any explanation.

I just want you back.”

I bent over in the sand, placing my hands

against the cold. The tears flowed again,

staining the beach. My breath caught, and I

leaned back and screamed. The sky screamed

back. I looked up at the moon again as my

breathing slowed. I closed my eyes to clear

them and took a breath, collecting myself. I

stood, removing the paper from the sand and

walking to the edge of the water. I stared out

into the blackness as the foam threatened

my toes.

“You know, all things considered,” I sniffled,

burning my nostrils, “there have been

worse dads. You were here for me for 16

years. You were supportive. You helped me

realize who I was. And I like to think I’m a

better person because of you. I am the child

of a good man. A man that will never die.”

I grasped at the edges of the paper. I unfolded

it, then crumpled it into a messy ball.

I brought it behind my head and lobbed it as

hard as possible into the Atlantic. I watched

it bob and soak with water, then sink beneath

the inky sea. I imagined it falling, filling with

water and being torn apart and dissolved by

the currents. I imagined his words drifting off

into the water. I imagined the final remnants

of the man’s soul reduced to nothing more

than yellow pulp.

Joshua Trees

Poetry

W.F. Lantry

Silver Spring, Maryland, USA

Their arms upright as if to hold the sun

in place, unmoving past its angled height,

making this day unlike another, still

persisting through the hours as the steep

shadows grow permanent, as if their will

could outline, in this darkness and this light,

the motionless formations of a day.

Dry yucca leaves twist, cluster, and betray,

in moving with the breeze, this passing time:

the sun moves with them, shadows

lengthening

presage an hour when arid winds will sweep

sand, shadow, leaf, from stone near evening.

When all has been made smooth, the moon

will climb

above these broken shadows, and restore

the transience of dusk. This desert floor

is paved with stone. There is no place to lie

or each place is the same, so you must lift

the stones away to form a space for sleep

and place them in a circle. Sand will drift

between them, but the circle will supply

protection of a sort from rattlesnakes

and scorpions. No Gila monster breaks,

some say, the walls of spirit, or at least

the circle gives no place for them to cross,

and if the curve's meticulous, its deep

shadows will comfort even during loss

of moonlight, and protect until the east

brightens again, when the last starlight's

done.

110

Juniper Berries

Poetry

W.F. Lantry


These mountains clothe themselves in

juniper.

I've heard their berries make excellent gin,

but how could I distill their essence here

beneath a sky made turquoise by these wings

twisting away? I'm sightless in this clear

abandoned air. Beneath my fingers spin

those berries. If I hold them in my hand

a moment longer, I may understand

both wings and air, the dry rust-heavy dust,

the twisted branches wrought by absent

snow

which must have fed these disappearing

springs

in other seasons. Beneath this earth, I know

they must be moving still, the hollow crust

hiding both salt and sweetness from these

roots

which, stunted, cannot nurture lowland

fruits

but only push the junipers to bear

their nearly iridescent blue and red

thorned berries, where a mockingbird now

sings

his stolen measures, where someone had

bled

almost my own blood into dust, and where

even my sharpened eyes in this wind blur.

Quilting Whimsy

Fabric

Kathleen URBAN


111

She can taste sorrow in her morning omelet.

The red streak blended in by a fast-moving fork,

but bits of red pepper remind of life snatched away,

god-like, no remorse.

Unhappy Chickens, Good Breeders

Poetry

David Grubb

Cumberland, Maine, USA

In the cool coop at night, she stirs the slumbering hen,

docile enough to get off the eggs without fight,

but her bare henpecked neck and quizzical look haunts.

Worse, she waddles over to hop on the roost, next to,

yet far away from her sisters, who treat her cruelly, an untouchable.

Eggs in basket, she walks to the house unaware

of the bats flittering overheard, but hyper aware of the parallel

when she came out of the clinic twenty years ago,

god-like, no remorse.

In the bright lit kitchen, two young kids scream and fight, make up,

whine for snacks, throw tantrums, dash off to their bedroom giggling.

Hubby asks what’s wrong with his kind eyes,

yet eagerness to get back to his iPhone is palpable.

She hesitates, shakes her head as she cracks an egg then another

and flips on the mixer. The familiar sound, now foreign like a faulty

vacuum,

fuses remembrance with the present more solidly than advanced

metallurgy.

Her knees almost buckle, yet the disdained hen’s resolve holds her up,

suspended anime.

The over excited kids ask, “who’s birthday is it?” A murmur, “No one.”

“Then why did you make a cake?” A bit more quip-like, “No reason

cake, see no candles.”

Hubby’s become keen to no reason cake—on the same day, every year—

for quite some time, he never asks, not even with his eyes anymore.

112

After one last potty trip, after snoring ensues, she creeps downstairs

and gets out two hidden candles: one shaped as the number two, the

other a zero.

The flames melt gluey white wax onto the black ganache,

now cracked from cutting off slices. She draws in a deep breath,

but waits for someone else to blow them out.

Minutes, hours, perhaps even half the night passes when a shadow

moves past her.

Wind, like Air from a turbine extinguishes the failing flames.

Hubby appears, an apparition fades, he pauses as if waiting

for entry into a fortified castle.

If he missteps or misspeaks she’ll beat him for being a fertile cock

that procreated before they met; beat him for being the non-factor

in their dogged pursuit of bonding their own dna; beat him as the

stand-in for the young lover who jilted her. Beat him for gifting her

with children’s love and adoration even though she’ll never deserve it.

He won’t fuck up, never does, but if he did, he’d absorb her fury,

maddeningly let her destroy his body, mind, soul, let her seethe

until heaven fell, hell rose up—till widowhood. He’s not perfect,

not by any mythic standard, yet in this he’s infallible...

and God help him if he was anything but.

She relents. He embraces her before the formidable tower gate

has the slightest crack. For a while they swoon, as if yin and yang

spin top-like, endlessly through time. When the calmness abates,

she casts him aside and assails the cake: Tears large handfuls from the

pan

and smashes the moist deliciousness on the island, again, again, again.

Rage to blackness, in the morning there’s no mess.

Her fingernails are void of incriminating evidence.

The kitchen’s spotlessness seems implausible,

but the half-eaten cake under the glass defies all reality.

She stares at hubby sipping coffee, fingers casually caressing his smart

phone.

Their eyes meet and his gentle eyes ask what’s wrong,

an apathy to resume his tech addiction is the only thing amiss,

and the missing feathers around his neck.

Sequoia

Poetry

W.F. Lantry


Small fires burning forest litter- bark

and fallen leaves- are common here. They run

in lines up hillsides, clearing ground for seed

of giant redwoods whose low branches hold

their cones above the flames. Sequoias need

bare ground for germination, open sun

and constant water when they're small. But when

they've grown for a few centuries, the glen

becomes a place unlike any on earth:

the trees make red cathedral columns, bark

grows three feet thick, and curved ridges enfold

ten meter trunks, their tallest branches arc

a hundred meters up: the widest girth,

the largest things alive are in this place.

And yet, through smooth proportions, their light grace

seems natural, as if all earth should be

a grove like this, a place unbounded by

our expectations, forests uncontrolled

by any force. Their limbs buttress the sky,

their upper boughs forming a canopy

like Chartres' ceiling. Sometimes sunlit rays

slant through the forest's shadowed morning haze,

as light slants though rose windows, and our eyes

can't help but lift themselves, as if, remade

by seeing light refracted, red and gold,

we find a different form of seeing, shade

receding, and the multicolored skies

make even desert sunlight appear dark.

113

IF WE ARE NOT

ALLOWED TO

PREFORM GRIEF-

WHAT IS IT FOR?

Poetry

Micaela Walley


The Time Of Your Child

Poetry

John Grey

Johnston, Rhode Island, USA

how else should we call attention to

what haunts us? anything less

than standing on a stage

seems frail. We aren’t

supposed to acknowledge pain

beyond its designated day,

though I can’t breathe when loss

enters the room and never leaves,

never releases its tight hold, fingers

around on my throat. Choked up,

I tell someone I miss them because

it is true, because I am allowed

to live this life as it comes to me

regardless of perception. I am here,

and I am hurting, and you are not

too good to know about it.

it’s your choice of how to respond,

but it is mine to show it to you

anyway, to accept love wherever

I can get it, when I might need it

the most.

Time is supposed to heal.

Maybe it just hasn’t read up

on its job description lately.

The dead are as dead as they have ever been.

The surgeon’s words still turn

his understanding into your bitterness.

A pale human face said sorry

when it should have been God.

Now every room is a wailing room,

even the silent ones.

Every other child

takes care to remind you of

but not be your own.

And the love of all these mothers

exhausts you.

They’ve no idea that the opposite

of three-year-old

is emptiness.

Then there’s the time

that’s your personal time,

the one that announces to you,

and you alone,

that it’s time to move on.

This is time as starting gun

for some marathon

that you feel as if

you’ve already run.

And then there’s your husband,

more caring than he’s been in years.

He wraps an arm around you

every chance he gets.

This is time trying to make up

for all that it’s lost.

The attention leaves you as cold as the fish in

the freezer.

Can time do anything right, you wonder.

114

115

Facing it Together

Mixed Media: Digital and Sculpture

jack bordnick

Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA

Reading has always been Ssalongo’s second

love. Never mind that his wife Nnalongo

abhorred the sight of his reading-chair

and detested his heinous reading culture at

the dinner table — left foot tucked under

right thigh, a thumb jammed in each ear.

He had a knack for ignoring her cooking and

her signature perfume: the smell of sweaty

roses enfolded in her brown skin. Pity, it was

she who needed reading-glasses, not him.

Greater pity still that she was disgruntled

even with the knowledge that she came first

place.

‘You’re not listening, Mzee — Old man,’

the little sovereign reproaches, sprawled on

her back on a papyrus mat by his bedside.

She is dressed in jeans so shredded, they

should belong on a garbage heap, and an

overlarge tee-shirt with the words ‘Straight

Outta...’ he can’t make out the tiny words

at the bottom. The words are locked up in a

yellow box. She holds her telephone aloft in

front of her creased brow, her leg crossed at

the knee.

In that drowsy waking moment, he sees

her face again. Every evening for three

years, as night slithers in, he sees her--his

past — in vivid color. As usual, he shakes the

specter from his eyes. He rubs the glowing,

bald patch on the crown of his head, and

guiltily wipes a hint of drool from his face.

‘Nzuukuse — I’ve woken up.’ He says too

quickly.

She clucks her tongue disapprovingly.

One morning, three years ago, when

his eyes still drank thirstily, Nnalongo his

SWEATY ROSES

Fiction

Justin Nagundi

Kampala, Uganda

oppressor-in- chief (in her most intricate

scheme) died in her sleep (on Easter Sunday

no less) right after ironing nine of his least

favorite pairs of khaki trousers and burning

a jagged hole in his newest shirt. A few

weeks later, still reeling from this chain of

upsetting events, as he supped on a piece

of steamed matooke—plantain—and groundnuts,

his heart hiccupped for a few seconds

warranting a necessary visit to a hospital in

a screeching van. From that day on, he had

a new tyrant in the form of his youngest

daughter, Nakato Joanna. With teenage enthusiasm,

she threw herself wholly into monitoring

every beat of his crumbling heart.

For his benefit, Nakato scrupulously hides

iodized salt, sugar and all unhealthy foods,

namely: any foodstuff that may accidentally

or otherwise arouse his appetite. Every

morning, she shoos him out of bed at seven

o’clock for brisk walks on uneven ground,

escorts/drags him to the supermarket to

buy vegetables for green smoothies which

she shrewdly watches him gag down. For his

ailing heart, she purchases medicines that

nibble away at what remains of his retirement

fund after Nnalongo’s burial expenses.

Since his wife’s memory still torments

him, he swallows prescribed sleeping pills,

appetite pills and anti-anxiety pills (by a

cardiologist who a man of Ssalongo’s middle-class,

retired-professor social standing

should not reasonably afford) to cope with

his bereavement. These drugs as a mild

side-effect make him dizzy in the morning,

deprive him of his zest for life and worst of

116

all, impair his evening sight.

Like a magpie, he feverishly stores heaps

and heaps of old metallic strips of nebilong,

amoldac-5, cardiac aspirin and God-knowswhat-else

in a small drawer and pockets the

golden key. These drugs are the currency in

which he pays for this expensive lifestyle. He

cracks open the drawer now and then to see

how much life he has consumed, but more

often than not, he wonders how much more

of it he must bear.

During the day, he writes his cheques,

pays his bills and watches CNN while he can

still see the words Breaking News snake past.

At night, Nakato is his sight—his insolent,

dictatorial, opinionated sight.

On days when he bears her mistreatment

stoically—days which are sadly far

between—Nakato pats him on the back and

affectionately declares him a ‘good boy’. You

wouldn’t believe how pleased these words

make Ssalongo. He hides his puffed chest

behind a Bukedde newspaper and a gruff

remark.

On such days, she rewards him further by

reading to him any book she has read and he

hasn’t. It is shocking, he thinks, how many

books there are having lived through a few

wars followed by that deceptive spell of

peace in the early nineties.

The first time he was a ‘good boy’, they

read a book called Mulligan’s Yard riddled

with lecherous clergymen and an unrealistically

handsome protagonist. Their next was

a book in Luganda called Zinunula Omunaku

about the trials of a spectacularly unfortu-

nate lad. They only got as far as the second

page, largely because Nakato’s reading of

her mother-tongue resembles the nervous

stuttering of a shrill toad. He cannot tell her

that. Foolish old man that he has become,

he awaits these hours of hearing her narrate

lives outside his own like Uganda awaits an

end to political ennui.

Lately, with death squatting on his heart

and hammering at his chest, his congested

lungs whining for air all night, he reflects

that perhaps ennui is a luxury of youth.

Besides, irritable bladders do not leave room

for excessive introspection.

“‘…Deeper and deeper the silence

seemed to become, like the deepening

night,’ Nakato reads aloud again, ‘ while

the jurymen’s names were called over, and

the prisoner was made to hold up her hand,

and the jury were asked for their verdict.

“Guilty.” ...’

‘—but she’s a child.’ Ssalongo protests.

‘They should forgive her.’

‘She’s almost my age.’ Nakato scoffs. He

doesn’t tell her that nineteen is a drop in

the bucket of piss called life. ‘She knew

what she was doing when she and Arthur…

you know...’

Ssalongo chuckles. Since they started

reading Adam Bede, Ssalongo has been

entertained by their debates on morality,

justice and (to him) what morally upstanding

Adam Bede requires in a wife. There are

two candidates for the job. The first is Dinah

Morris, a Quaker. Ssalongo does not hesitate

to point out she’s too boring for Adam. The

second is her seventeen-year-old cousin

Hetty Sorrel, a beautiful girl who Adam loves

too wholeheartedly for his own good. Ssalongo

has his money on her. The conflict takes

the form of the wealthy Arthur Donnithorne

who eclipses Adam. His handsome money

and handsomer looks win over Hetty (Adam’s

heart’s desire) easily.

While Nakato harbors an undiluted disgust

for Hetty, Ssalongo sees in the girl a child,

much like Nakato; a child not much wiser

and with the same infatuation for shiny

things. Evil inside Nakato’s untrained mind,

however, never pushes good from her loins,

never turns to you one night after thirty

years of coldness, begging to do better.

‘Young girls should make mistakes, Joanna.

There is no better time.’

‘Why do you support her, Mzee?’ Nakato

wants to know. ‘She played hard-to-get with

Adam, just because she could. And then

Mzee, and then,’ she pounds her fist against

her thigh, ‘she dumped him because she had

found a rich guy. Then, she threw Arthur’s

child—Arthur who she pretends to love—in

the lake, and left it to die.’

‘She went back for it,’ Ssalongo points

out pragmatically, ‘and listen Joanna; times

have changed. It was an abomination in our

days for unmarried women to have children.

Even the writer knows that.’

‘If George Elliot had wanted us to feel

sorry for Hetty,’ Nakato proclaims, ‘she

wouldn’t have made her so bad. Mschwww!’

she twists her mouth and jeers, ‘She’s such a

slay-queen.’

She is uncannily like her mother. An argument

with Nakato can take up the rest of

their reading hour before his show on Radio

Simba begins. Ssalongo, eager to know

what happens to young Hetty, forestalls her.

‘You’ve read the book before. What happened

next?’

‘Let’s stop here today,’ she pouts. ‘I’m

expecting someone on WhatsApp…’

His protest cools in his throat. He stands

117

no chance against the boy inside her telephone.

And yet—‘Same time tomorrow?’

‘Same time,’ she chirps. He imagines she

has closed the page. He can’t wrap his mind

around the shape of a book inside a mobile

telephone. She skips off to her bedroom. The

green velvet curtains blacken in the waning

light. Gloom settles amidst their inky folds.

Each day since Nalongo’s death, in the depth

of his first nightly hour of despair, he has

longed to cry out to his mother. He suspects

his heart wouldn’t withstand the shock of

seeing his long-dead parent. The doctors call

it congestive heart-failure. And yet…

It is eight o’clock again. One whole hour

before his radio program and darkness has

descended indeed.

*

‘Where did we stop yesterday?’ Nakato

quips, tucking her left foot under her right

thigh at the dinner table. She’s wearing an

oversized grey jumper he did not buy for her.

A modest supper of rice, boiled beans outnumbered

by eggplants and peppered with

rock salt, lies partially demolished on both

plates. Ssalongo has no motivation to listen

to the news. It is the same dreadful song.

Death and Disease. Fires and Floods. His

reality is all that should concern him. If only

it weren’t so draining to live this drudgery

one day at a time. If only he could live it all

at once. Like a character in a book.

‘Ahhh. They found Hetty guilty.’ The smug

note in Nakato’s voice is unmistakable.

He props his elbows on the cotton tablecloth.

Cradling his cheeks expectantly in his

hands, he waits like he did five decades ago

when, having trekked five miles to school for

the first time, he discovered you could not

learn how to read a hymn-book in a day.

When Nakato reads, you can hear in her

robust voice that she never had to walk

barefoot to school. That he made sure of

that with every pay-cheque. ‘‘“…Adam...I’m

very sorry...’ she reads, ‘I behaved very

wrong to you...will you forgive me...before

I die?” Adam answered with a half-sob, “Yes,

I forgive thee Hetty. I forgave thee long

ago.”’—’

‘You see!’ Ssalongo cuts in with a sly grin,

‘If Adam can forgive her…’

His daughter rolls her mother’s large

brown eyes, ‘Humph. You and Adam are so

soft…’ . She reads on, ‘“…It had seemed to

Adam as if his brain would burst with the

anguish of meeting Hetty’s eyes in the first

moments, but the sound of her voice uttering

these penitent words touched a chord

which had been less strained. There was a

sense of relief from what was becoming unbearable,

and the rare tears came—. Hetty

made an involuntary movement towards

him, some of the love that she had once

lived in the midst of was come near her

again. She kept hold of Dinah’s hand, but

she went up to Adam and said timidly, “Will

you kiss me again, Adam, for all I’ve been so

wicke—Daddy!’ Nakato has noticed his rapid

blinking. ‘Stop feeling sorry for her. She

doesn’t deserve it.’

‘Nobody should enjoy seeing others in

pain, Joanna, ’he chides, ‘Nobody deserves

to die.’

‘…she’s just a character,’ she mumbles

tossing the synthetic ropes over her shoulder

petulantly. If vanity were an offence, she

too would perish by the sword she wishes

for Hetty Sorrel. When she’s taking selfers

on her telephone she gathers the ropes over

one eye, raises that telephone high over her

head, twitches her mouth and urges him to

smile. He didn’t realize how much of a chore

it is to smile until he saw all his frozen grimaces

stored in her phone for all posterity.

Vanity, he reflects, only looks endearing

on inexperienced girls. Her smiles, her

bossy reprimands, each toss of her artificial

hair is perfectly in order. It is her birthright

to flaunt her face and figure. Let the unfortunate

boys who cannot afford her gaze

at a respectful distance. The world is her

looking-glass, and looking at her, even now,

makes his heart swell with fierce pride… his

beautiful child. See what we did, Nalongo,

he thinks. See what I contributed to. She is

a part of you that you couldn’t take away.

Every evening, he watches her sorting

out his medicine (heart meds from anxiety

meds), warming her fingers on the drinking-water

in a ceramic cup, grating ginger

and slicing a banana should the medicine

make him nauseous or get stuck in his

throat. In her, he sees another face painted

with different strokes; imbued in love. It has

crossed his mind that in a spurt of kindred

feeling with her mother, she could poison

him. She might name the lethal drug epilim,

nebilong, amoldac-5 but he knows, and so

does she, that from her, he would take poison

gladly. See the gift you left me Nalongo.

See the disastrous miracle we made together…

Unable to endure her coy suspense any

longer, he demands with urgency his daughter

will never understand before she learns

the crushing burden of unadulterated love,

‘Does she live or die Joanna? Did they show a

little mercy or did they hang poor Hetty?’

At his plea, Joanna flips the page on her

phone, a knowing smile on her lips. He

knows that smile. He lived with it for thirty

years. She holds him captive. This time he

doesn’t mind.

118

‘It was a sight that some people remembered

better even than their own sorrows—‘

she reads reverently, doing the scene of Hetty’s

possible execution, justice. With each

pause, each cunningly calculated breath, she

binds him to Hetty Sorrel, to all women cruelly

snatched away by the clawed hands of

fate, before the men who loved them were

ready.

‘--the sight in that grey clear morning,

when the fatal cart with the two young

women in it was descried by the waiting

watching multitude, cleaving its way towards

the hideous symbol of a deliberately

inflicted sudden death. All Stoniton had

heard of Dinah Morris, the young Methodist

woman who had brought the obstinate

criminal to confess, and there was as much

eagerness to see her as to see the wretched

Hetty. But Dinah was hardly conscious of

the multitude. When Hetty had caught sight

of the vast crowd in the distance, she had

clutched Dinah convulsively.

“Close your eyes, Hetty,” Dinah said,

“and let us pray without ceasing to God.”

And in a low voice, as the cart went

slowly along through the midst of the gazing

crowd, she poured forth her soul with

the wrestling intensity of a last pleading,

for the trembling creature that clung to

her and clutched her as the only visible

sign of love and pity.

Dinah did not know that the crowd was

silent, gazing at her with a sort of awe—

she did not even know how near they

were to the fatal spot, when the cart

stopped, and she shrank appalled at a

loud shout hideous to her ear, like a vast

yell of demons. Hetty’s shriek mingled

with the sound, and they clasped each

other in mutual horror.

But it was not a shout of execration—

not a yell of exultant cruelty. It was a

shout of sudden excitement at the appearance

of a horseman cleaving the

crowd at full gallop. The horse is hot

and distressed, but answers to the desperate

spurring; the rider looks as if his

eyes were glazed by madness, and he saw

nothing but what was unseen by others.

See, he has something in his hand—he is

holding it up as if it were a signal.

The Sheriff knows him: it is Arthur Donnithorne,

carrying in his hand a hard-won

release from death.

This time, Ssalongo unabashedly allows

the tears to snake down his cheeks, the iron

fist that has kneaded his heart for three

years unclenched. He has edema of the feet

and the hands; edema of the heart and the

eyes.

He never could confess to Nnalongo how

hollow his life was without her. It was not

their way, the African way, the Ugandan

way or even the Ssalongo Zacharias way to

express affection for one’s wife… but she

knew. His bachelorhood was a multitude of

days waiting upon the mercy of just one of

her self-satisfied smiles—his marriage, an

eternity of wondering how to rekindle the

spark she doused when she married him. She

basked and reveled in the warmth of his love

but kept her own heart safe from the fire

that roasted his.

And yet she rifled through his drawers

for decades searching for a mistress’ sickly

sweet scent, a photograph of a love-child,

a suspicious receipt from the dry cleaners—

anything to excuse the block of ice her heart

had become towards him. Anything to shift

the blame of their stifling union on him. She

accused him of preposterous infidelities and

despised him when she found none. When

the bitterness had saturated her blood, she

poured the frothing residue into their children.

Here he was in the twilight of his life,

sitting in a shadowy corner of Kampala with

a Nakato—the younger of twins—as though

their union had not begotten five children.

Here he was, writhing and pathetically, bafflingly,

impossibly yearning for her scent; for

the pungent smell of sweaty roses.

‘Daddy…’ Nakato lowers her phone, flustered

by his compassion and cowed by her

lack of it. ‘Why are you like this? She wasn’t

good to him. Never!’

He understands her quagmire. So young

and so cynical. So old and so nonsensical.

‘Adam would never have been the same if

she had died. Losing loved ones destroys the

soul, Joanna. When we love, it’s always, always,

always too soon to live without them,

my daughter. Always!’ His grief rings vehemently

in his tired voice.

Realizing the latent meaning of his words,

Nakato of the ironclad heart wipes her eyes

against her wrist. She casts aside her telephone

and scoots closer. Sniffling, she throws

her arms around him for a few moments,

then looking earnestly at him through her

cosmetic-soiled, numbingly innocent eyes,

she says, ‘I’m sorry I chose this book. I didn’t

know it would… bring dreadful memories.’

She wipes one corner of her eye. Her thumb

comes away with a black smudge, ‘No more

death for you Daddy.’ She gives him a watery

smile, ‘We will read cheerful stories from

now on. Tomorrow, if you’re a good boy, we

will read the Christmas Carol.’

Drying his own embarrassment sheepishly

on his shirt sleeve, he asks, ‘Who writes it?’

‘Dickens,’ she says rolling her eyes, ‘The

one who wrote Oliver Twist?’

119

‘Ah. Charles Dickens. Mmumanyi—I know

him. Kinyuma—Is it interesting?’

She ponders his question. ‘It has a happy

ending.’ she decides.

As Nakato sashays out with the dirty

plates, crushing the surrounding darkness

underfoot, he smells for the first time the

dizzying scent of fresh roses.

‘Owulidde nnyabo? Have you heard that

madam?’ Ssalongo asks the empty room

where Nnalongo lingers in every piece of furniture

they bought together in every sinew

holding him together, in every scratchy whisper

of wind. She has been breathing down

his collar since he threw the last handful of

dirt and earthworms on her coffin. ‘Have you

heard your daughter?’ he confronts his wife’s

presence—her tangible absence—for the first

time, ‘No more regrets for what I couldn’t

give you. No more, Mukyala—wife. I have

died every day since… How much more?’

He observes the light dressed in a brown

lampshade overhead. It shines a little brighter,

‘I have a will to make. No use waiting

for Walumbe—the god of death—to drag me

away. I have one daughter to bequeath my

entire estate to and four sons to disinherit.

I need to have a conversation with this boy

who keeps buying our girl malidaadi—fancy

things. I never smiled at the women at

church?’ he scratches his scruffy chin, ‘I

know you wanted me to prove you right.

Oswadde--shame on you. But when our girl

goes to Makerere University in September, I

will court one widow in the choir. I have died

enough with you, Concepta. It’s time for you

to go...’ he murmurs before falling into a

doze.

And for the first time in three years, when

he sleeps amidst the shadows in his bedroom,

the darkness lies docilely at his feet.

When the yellowest of all sunrises ushers

Nakato into her father’s bedroom the next

morning, she peels the curtains apart, ready

to shake him awake and stops cold.

Tears spring unbidden to her eyes. Dressed

in the previous day’s clothes lies Ssalongo

Zacharias on top of the bedcovers, his face

aglow with an ethereal radiance she hasn’t

seen since her mother died, breathing rhythmically

like a person who is very, very, very

much alive.

THE BABY

Poetry

Micaela Walley


First, the body—

bloated disfigurement

a house with the lights left on

in the dead winter

night. November

and the baby is alive

yes, the baby is alive

in the dead dark

room, in the house that is a body

filled to the bones

with a body

the baby is the light

in November, the final

green leaf

succumbing to winter—the body

is the tree, refusing to die

more limb than a forest

on fire

Second, the baby

is coming

is not coming

is coming again

the house is burning

a heat so cold, could cure

November, the light is seeping

out of the hole

too, the baby

is alive, yes, the baby

is alive, and the body

is left in

the dark

120

Fuego

Poetry

Sophie Mateja

Pescadero, California, USA

We measure time in an ever-growing stack of New Yorkers

Counting the faded rings of charred trees

on a yellow hill, wrinkled like

old people's skin.

You told me

living is an evanescent act of love

The cook whispering ay dios mio in the kitchen corner,

our takeout and warm posole.

I forgot the gentle crashing thud, thud

waves against our beach

and the cool weight of sleeping sand.

Water washing watercolors —

an osmosis of study and unconscious defeat,

faded memories peeking through torn seams of perfection

A little girl tied to an anchor,

rusted chains against tender skin

the woosh of the current pulling down, down

further

The sundial betrays our mourning

Shadowy puppets hug my eyes

dancing in the light of champagne I drank last night

They only say I’m gorgeous when alcohol blurs the details

then, sometimes words for loss are too beautiful to be repeated

aloud

I question the darkness

gracing the wind with dancing fingers up and down

my spine

Lips-stained purple by blackberries, i stab another

It’s a sad meal,

Far from the humors of childhood.

Rather, we sit in blind consumption

Sometimes it’s hard to distinguish between love and

remorse for fields of pumpkins rotting

Fall wastes herself to winter, weary wandering to cold — I

live and die, as well.

121

The room is hot and dusty. No one has

come in for a while to air and clean it.

"How long has it been since Victor left?"

Juan wonders. "Or more accurately, since I

threw him out?"

"At least 18 months, if not more," he answers

himself.

A black kimono with bright yellow and

green circles is thrown casually onto a wooden

hanger suspended from the top part of

the closet. The fabric it is made of is shiny

and looks soft and smooth. Juan doesn't

know much about fabrics, it's a woman's

thing, but he thinks the stuff is called silk.

He remembers watching a documentary on

Discovery Channel about how silk was made

in China, and he found the process cruel and

disturbing. The filament in the cocoon must

be extracted in one piece, so it's necessary

to get rid of the hard shell first by dipping

the cocoon into boiling water or baking it in

hot air. He remembers the presenter saying

some 3000 insects must die to make 200

grams of silk. That is why it is so expensive.

One might say they are only insects but

still... he shudders at the thought of billions

and billions of the little buggers dying so

that someone can wear a pretty blouse. Or a

kimono, like the one on the hanger.

He feels sweat pearl his forehead and drip

down the back of his shirt. He gets up from

the bed, pins and needles tingle up his right

leg from sitting on it for nearly an hour. He

limps across the room to open the window. A

warm breeze wafts in and moves the kimono

sleeves. They flutter like huge butterfly

THE BLACK KIMONO

Fiction

J.B. Polk

Santiago, Chile

wings — moved by the souls of the thousands

of silkworms that have gone into making it.

He winces. Butterfly. He has been told

that that's what they called Victor — the

Butterfly. Because of the garish clothes he

wore and the outrageous make-up and the

hair color. Neighbors never failed to let him

know when they saw Victor walking on the

central roundabout, famous for transvestites

and other "freaks," as they would tell him.

Whenever he listened to such gossip, he

would keep his face impassive, his mouth set

into a disdainful line. He knew he was the

laughingstock of the neighborhood mostly

composed of ex-army people like himself

and their families. Sergeant Juan Gomez

whose only son was not only a fagot but a

fagot who dressed like a woman, wore a wig,

and sold his body to the highest bidder. Or to

anyone at all.

Victor had been born just before Juan

left the army — a late and quite accidental

arrival in the family. Emma, Juan's wife, had

always said that with four daughters they'd

better close the factory, shut the oven tight

and spend their time and money on the

already large brood. And then, unplanned,

nearly unwanted, she was with child, and

Juan was delirious with delight when he

learned it was a boy. He'd have a son with

whom to go to Sunday football matches and

do all the stuff that fathers do with their

sons like buying electric saws, fixing faulty

sockets, and talking about politics.

But it never happened. By the time he was

six, Juan knew that Victor was different. He

122

was fascinated with Nelly's, their youngest

daughter, dolls, and their fancy wardrobe.

Instead of going out to play on his scooter

and climb trees, he spent hours watching

Francisca, the eldest, who was 16 at the

time, put on makeup in front of a mirror.

Juan caught him several times dipping a finger

into a jar of strawberry gloss and suck on

it secretly. There were signs, of course, but

Juan could not bring himself to believe that

his son was a "marica," a poof who wanted

nothing to do with boys' stuff and dreamt of

girls' soft clothing, long locks, and hairless

armpits. Things like that did not happen in a

soldier's family.

He tried to ignore it for many years as

long as Victor made at least some pretense

that he was a normal if somewhat effeminate

teenager. At 14, when was finishing the

eighth grade, and the other boys in his class

opted for carpentry and electronics, Victor

said he wanted to be a beautician.

Juan blew up.

"Over my dead body! No man in this family

has ever or will ever mess with people's hair

or nails!" he fumed while Victor looked at

him insolently and smirked.

"Try and stop me," he said when Juan's

outburst was over.

"You have no permission to leave the

house until you choose a different career,"

Juan spat out.

Victor got up from the chair where he was

sitting and walked towards his father. They

were just inches apart; Juan could feel his

son's hot breath on his face.

"Just try and stop me," the boy hissed.

Juan's fist caught him on the nose. Blood,

red and thick, burst out like juice from a

squashed tomato.

Victor looked at his father with dazed

eyes. He didn't expect this kind of a reaction.

His dad had never laid a finger on him

before. Or his sisters. He didn't know Juan

had it in him to be violent. Yes, he used to

be a soldier, and soldiers sometimes did cruel

things but never to their families. His dad

had never been anything but gentle with his

wife and the girls. And Victor.

He watched the red droplets fall to the

floor in slow motion and splat heavily. He

raised his gaze to his father, who seemed to

be as horrified as he was, then turned on his

heel and left the house.

Juan was relieved because eventually,

Victor came to his senses. He said he'd study

mechanics and seemed to enjoy it quite a

lot. He even tinkered occasionally in their

old Honda CRX and took his sisters for a spin

around the neighborhood.

But it didn't last. Nothing good ever

lasted. A year later, Victor's enthusiasm

waned, he started skipping classes, coming

home late, and Juan worried he was getting

involved in petty robberies or something

worse, like drugs.

He now goes back to the day he came

home early that fateful afternoon. The middle

of winter — the rain was pouring down as

if there was no tomorrow. And there wasn't

— at least for him. It was dark because of

the low rain-heavy clouds when he entered

the house — the girls were still at school and

Emma was nowhere to be seen.

"Emma!" he called.

"Can you get me a towel? I'm soaking wet."

There was no answer. He saw a spear of

light sneaking from under the door of their

bedroom. Emma was probably sleeping...

He pushed the door open and came face

to face with... someone, something. Someone

he knew to be Victor but not the Victor

he loved. Not the Victor in a school uniform

with a backpack full of books and ham and

cheese sandwiches Emma made for him. Not

the Victor who sat with them at the table

eating his mother's fried chicken and goofing

with his sisters.

This something, this someone, this new

Victor was wearing a blond wig, a short

dress, shiny stockings, and high heels. This

someone had put on garish makeup – like a

clown, the eyelids dark purple, false eyelashes,

and the lips swollen and red.

"Dad, I didn't know you'd come in so early,"

this someone said.

"I... I... let me clean up and then we can

talk," he continued.

Juan made one big step and stood face to

face with this someone. He tore the wig off

his head and threw it onto the floor.

"Five minutes..." he said.

"I'll give you five minutes, and you are

gone."

Although the wig was no longer on the

boy's head, this someone or something still

did not resemble his son.

"Dad…" he pleaded.

"Five minutes and no more."

Juan's chin shook with rage as he pronounced

the sentence.

The someone who was and was not Victor

picked up his clothes from Juan and Emma's

bed and went to collect his things.

Juan still stood with his back to the living

room when he heard the door to the house

close with a soft click.

Emma came in half an hour later and

123

found him standing in the middle of their

room, the blonde wig at his feet, her makeup

bag all messed up on the bed.

"Where is Victor?" she asked, but she already

knew the answer.

"What have you done to my baby? What

have you done, Juan?" her voice was shrill

with burning fury.

He started at her.

"You knew, didn't you?" he asked.

"Of course, I knew" she screamed.

"I knew, and I didn't care! He's my baby!

No matter what clothes he wears!"

"But he no longer is mine," Juan answered.

He left the room on the way kicking the

blond wig as if were its fault for what had

happened.

Months passed, and he never saw Victor

again. He never asked about him either.

But his neighbors made sure that he should

know. They told him Emma let him come to

the house whenever Juan was out. They told

him he no longer wore decent clothes but

strutted around in stilettos and tight skirts.

It was a year or so later, one Friday evening

when he came back from the bank

where he worked as a security guard. Even

before he put the key in the keyhole, he

could hear the crying. He pushed the door

open. Emma was sitting at the table, her

face swollen and red, three of their daughters

around her — Francisca was away studying

to be a nurse — trying unsuccessfully

to comfort their mother while dealing with

their own grief. Nelly the youngest, barely

out of her teens and not much older than

Victor, put a reassuring arm around her

mother's shoulders.

Emma looked up at him and yelled: "It is

all your fault! It is all your fault!"

He closed the door gently and approached

the table.

Emma was looking at him with a kind of

hatred he had never seen before, not even

when he was a soldier and carried prisoners

in his van — dark, unforgiving, unyielding.

"You killed your child," she spat out.

"If it weren't for you, he'd still be alive.

But you made him run away! It is as if you

killed him yourself."

The four women looked at him with eyes

filled with grief and lack of comprehension.

Juan sat heavily on the chair opposite

Emma and said: "Tell me what happened."

Emma was breathing heavily like a poisoned

dog, weird hiccups coming out of her

throat together with poisonous words.

"He left because of you. You could not

accept him as he was. You... Juan Gomez,

a soldier, an army man could not have a gay

son. You were ashamed of him and that's why

he left. It is just as if you killed him yourself.

But that's what you know to do well,

isn't it? Kill. That's what they teach you in

the army. How to torture and kill," she hiccupped

again, tried to fill her lungs with air

but failed.

"I hate you, Juan, I hate you! You killed my

only son," and then she burst into prolonged

and inconsolable weeping, surrounded by

her daughters, who must have felt the same

because they didn't even try to defend him.

He tried to hold her as she wept and told

her he had not wanted this to happen, but

she squirmed out of his embrace and left

simmering in her grief and anger.

Later that day, already dried-eyed, she

watched him punch holes in walls and throw

a chair into a window but did nothing to stop

or console him, although he was like an elastic

being stretched too far.

The next day, a guy in the homicide squad

told him that Victor had been found in an

alley behind the local supermarket where

all sorts of hobos, druggies, and other losers

used to hang around.

"I know it's gruesome, but you need to

know. We are sure it was a hate crime. There

was a knife stuck in his chest, and that was

probably what killed him, but his face was

beaten to a pulp, hardly any teeth were left,

blood formed a thick crust on his skin," the

guy told him without any anesthesia.

"But the really horrible part is that the

skirt he was wearing, and his panties were

around his ankles and his privates had been

viciously slashed and the word 'maricon'

carved in his left thigh." There was no indication

of pity in the man's voice. It was just

another crime and another pansy killed for

trying to be someone he was not.

The same guy told him a family member

had to identify the body. He could not let

Emma see Victor so he said he would go.

And he was grateful that it was he, a soldier

accustomed to identifying dead bodies, and

not his wife who saw the state her boy was

in.

He was lying on a slab of metal in the

mortuary covered by a white sheet. The

doctor, a lanky tall guy with straw-yellow

hair and glasses in thick frames, pulled back

the sheet.

"I'm so sorry," he said. "I'm so sorry."

"Maybe he is sorry or maybe it's just the

words he says to everyone," Juan thought.

He nodded and approached the gurney. He

knew it was Victor because they had fingerprinted

him and matched his identity to

one Victor Gomez, aged 17, son of Juan and

Emma. And thank God they did, because he

would have never recognized Victor by his

face. Although someone had washed off the

124

crust of blood, it was just a mass of bruises,

the nose broken, fragments of bone-like

white thorns poking through the skin, the

eyes swollen and shut tight and the toothless

mouth folding inwards.

"The mask of an Aztec god of sacrifice,"

Juan thought.

He had also learned it from a Discovery

Channel documentary — Itzpapalotl or the

"obsidian butterfly" because he was as black

and shiny as the volcanic glass. And so was

Victor now — his face was black with a few

punctures of violet and blue, but mainly

black. Juan had never seen anyone as

wounded as Victor.

Well, maybe once before. A long time ago.

He remembered another boy, not much older

than Victor, whom he had driven to a big

house in the foothills of the Andes. Rumor

had it, it was a place where those who opposed

the military regime were subjected to

terrible torture.

A small pretty woman had just driven up

the slope in a yellow Volkswagen Beetle and

was blocking the entrance to the cellar.

"You are in my way. Can you move your car

right now," he barked at her.

Her eyes were flinging thunders in his

direction, she was debating with herself,

looking for the right words or maybe a curse

but said nothing, jumped into the car, and

moved forward a few meters.

Juan had left him there knowing the boy

would be interrogated and probably killed.

And so did she — the pretty petite woman

whose husband, a tall good-natured gringo,

let them use the cellar and sometimes even

participated in the interrogations.

He was right — two days later he was

ordered to pick up the body and throw it

into the river. He now remembered the

boy's face as it had been when he had left

him in the big house and how it looked when

he pushed the corpse into the river. Like his

son's, it was the obsidian mask of the sacrifice

god — black, swollen, shiny. The boy's

body was naked and tattooed with bruises.

The only thing he had on was a string-like

bracelet around his right wrist. His flesh was

already beginning to swell and the string bit

deep into the wrist. Juan knew he was not

supposed to leave any distinguishing marks,

but as much as he tried to tear the bracelet

off, he couldn't because it was embedded in

the decaying flesh. So he left it on.

For years, he could not erase the picture

from the canvas of his mind. It festered as

though infected, and do what he did, he

could not shake off the feeling of disgust

with himself. Disgust with what he had never

thought he was capable of. But they say that

time heals and, gradually, the memory resurfaced

only occasionally. He was able to push

it to the darkest confines of his brain, but

this time, looking at Victor it came to haunt

him again. Two obsidian masks — one belonging

to his son and the other to a boy he led

to his execution.

He was responsible for both deaths. Emma

was right. Had he not told Victor to leave,

he would have been alive. Had he refused

to take the other boy to the big house, he

would have been alive too. But times were

different then. Almost everyone had given up

hope to see better days. And besides, he was

a soldier. He obeyed an order.

The only difference between the two

young men was that Victor would get a

proper burial, accompanied by his grieving

family. For the other young man, there'd

been no grand send-offs because his body

was dumped unceremoniously into the river,

most probably floated into the Pacific, and

was devoured by fish, bracelet and all.

When the day of Victor's burial came, he

said he would not go. He didn't belong there

— if he went, he would feel he was seeking

validation, pity, forgiveness, love. Which, of

course, he was but was not willing to admit

even to himself.

Instead, he watched from afar, undetected.

There were only five people at the

graveside if one did not count the priest

— Emma and the four girls, dressed all in

black, supporting each other, crying into

their handkerchief, searching for meaning in

their desolation while the priest said something

cliché like: "He is in God's arms, his

sins are forgiven and forgotten."

There was a strong smell of freshly mown

grass and wet earth, which brought to his

mind the memories of their holidays in

his parent's house, out there in the sticks,

where two lazy creeks flowed together forming

one rushing river. His parents' house had

smelt like that — of wet earth and grass. And

wood smoke from the clay oven.

They had been happy then — Emma helping

his mother to chop chilis, coriander and

onion for the spicy sauce they would put on

the slightly scorched bread freshly taken out

of the oven. Victor, a chubby two-year-old,

napping in his pram under the vines pregnant

with grapes. Yes, happy times before something

got into the boy's head and changed

him completely and forever.

He left shortly after, even before the mechanical

platform started lowering the coffin

into the ground with a prolonged moan.

There was no point in staying.

When he got back home, a hair-raising

emptiness invaded him. Emma and the girls

would probably linger on at the cemetery. Or

125

maybe, they would not return at all.

Yes, they are right. It was his fault. His

son's death and the other boy's. Thoughts

roll around his head the whole time, but

he has yet to make sense of them. He sits

on Victor's bed, in his room, watching the

black kimono flutter its butterfly wings. He

can stand it no longer and like on the day

he learned about Victor's death, he vents his

rage on inanimate objects. He stands beside

the bed, his arms raised, almost of their own

volition. He takes hold of one of the pillows,

feeling its weight. It seems to be filled with

stones. But he knows it is the weight of his

conscience that has somehow seeped into

the pillow through his palms.

He flings the pillows onto the floor,

punches the wall, and rips the kimono off

the hanger. He does not want it here anymore.

But he does not want to destroy it

either — it still smells of Victor, or rather of

Victor's alter ego — the Butterfly. The smell

is musky, similar to the smell of his mother's

chili sauce. He feels that if he tears it to

shreds, he will kill the last vestige of his son.

There is a charity shop next to the bank

where he works and where he can just

drop it through the slot where people leave

unwanted clothes, books, and other things.

He will just drop it off there and then try to

forget and simply move on. Like the time he

tried to forget the boy with the red bracelet.

Fearfully and Wonderfully Made

Lithography

Ariel Cooper

Jacksonville, Florida, USA

126

Broken

Poetry

Valerie Ansuini


So beautifully torn into fragments of what

once was whole

The shallow beating makes up for the steady

breathing

New life from the death of a dying flower

If breaking means seeing

And hurting means believing

Then how can one’s heart be broken upon

leaving

For it’s not the truth that has been said

But the sweetness of lies put in my head

When all goes wrong it proves me right

A single smile with one tear tonight

Manslaughter

Poetry

Matthew Andrews

Modesto, California, USA

The Israelites had a rule: if a body

was found slain in a field, murdered

and then left abandoned in the dirt,

the guilt would fall on the nearest city

and its people would sacrifice a heifer

while crying out for mercy. Silence

reigns in this park today, no lament

pouring from the children on swings

or the parents congregating on benches

over the figure slumped in the grass,

almost directly in the center of town.

Mourning is for the dead, and this body

is alive so long as no one takes its hand

and rests two fingers on the wrist,

so long as no one places their head

on the chest to feel the work of respiration.

I glance for only a moment before returning

to the unconcerned faces around me,

confident in my defense, in my plea

that it seemed to me he was only sleeping.

Roses

Poetry

Lindsey Wentzel


A brilliant red spray

Roses so perfect set on display

A show of love and want

Who would have thought they’d come to

haunt?

A wonderous night, lets out and play!

In your bed tonight is where we’ll lay

So much fun in our jaunt

How did the night become so daunt?

We were so happy but nay

For past issues we will pay

Bubbling emotions quant

And we find we both can taunt

Thought we were strong, come what may

Yet you sent me out into the fray

A relationship became so gaunt

When we selected a whole new font

Roses scattered into an array

My truck bed the lucky bay

I don’t think this will be okay

127

128

Maverick

Painting

Aydin Ermolaev


Kelly rarely ventured into the wild conglomeration

of electrified flesh known to

her fellow humanoids as "parties," and never

alone. Simply operating as a functional guest

represented a monumental task. Far easier

to stay at Keith's side, rigid, on the defensive

for no discernible reason, before he lightly

guilted her into socializing, arguing the benefits

of small talk.

His efforts to coax Kelly from her shell

produced the same sad result: a six-foot-tall

bag of fruit in a corner of the room. Even if

she beat back the trepidation with an apple

or two, Kelly's ability to enjoy a conversation

was severely impaired. Many were the dumb

smiles and clipped replies, trembling fingertips

pulling at her curls, eyes desperately

seeking an object worthy of focus, while

colossal waves of melancholia snatched

her breaths quicker than she could replace

them.

Such fuss, despite the support of her boyfriend,

whose buddy Scott extended an invitation

to a "super VIP" shindig. Apparently,

only five people would be attending, making

for an environment less threatening than a

sleeping chickadee.

Kelly quelled the temptation to share the

true story of a minor celebrity who'd met

their end via peritonitis caused by an ingested

toothpick, settling instead for a sincere

promise to try her best.

Despite the low body count, Kelly lasted

only eight minutes before retreating into

herself, drifting further and further away

It Goes Down Cherry

Fiction

Jennifer Benningfield

Hagerstown, Maryland, USA

from the living room, lamenting how disappointed

Kool and the Gang would feel at

the sight of her, thumbs jammed in jeans

pockets, eyes dark and downcast, mouth a

barely sufficient slit. Keith did not immediately

break off his conversation with a fellow

European car enthusiast, giving Kelly time to

compose herself.

Eventually he approached, scowl set, a

put-upon young man yet again expected to

take charge of a gradually deteriorating situation.

Kelly guessed he was one wrong word

uttered inappropriately from crushing the

aluminum cylinder in his clutch.

"I feel like I'm about to suffocate," she

muttered.

"Look up, look at me."

She hated showing him--showing anyone-

-the unblinking eyes and quivering lips of a

clearly uncomfortable woman, but she knew

he loved taking the command when offered.

"Take your jacket off."

"That's not the problem and you know

it's not," she snapped, ready to respectfully

tear into him until she saw Keith's eyes

narrow behind the full-rim spectacles. That

slight change in shape set Kelly's shoulders

straight. The process of determining a solution

had begun.

Less than a minute later, she stood in a

backyard not much larger than the kitchen

they'd just passed through, counting breaths

as Keith retrieved two white plastic chairs.

The concrete walkway was too narrow, so he

plopped both seats on the grass.

"We'll stay out here till you feel okay," he

129

assured her.

"You mean until I no longer feel like a novice

at breathing, or in the existential sense?"

Those were the last words Kelly spoke for

some time, content to half-listen to her boyfriend's

theories on the next Star Wars movie

as she stretched leaden limbs and felt the

tension take its sour time dripping over the

dead spots of the lawn.

"Hey, you two."

"What's this, then?" Kelly muttered, opening

her eyes and closing her hands.

"Dunno. Don't bite her head off, okay?" The

question materialized more grumble than

plea.

"I will be as polite as your grandma at

Mass," Kelly promised, and so she was. Polite

to the lisping redhead in a glittery green

sweater; kind to the dense yet sweet guy in

a Tool shirt; and best, the Crown Royal-bearing

blonde who had turned to tell an unseen

someone, "Calm down, I'm a great person,"

before descending the wooden steps.

"Feeling better?"

The last, "great" visitor had switched on

the back porch light, an act of kindness

which sent a strip of soft white down to

the midway point of the concrete walkway.

Keith's chair sat on the edge of the strip, and

the glow gave his face the appearance of

robust vulnerability.

Kelly felt the nerves gamboling underneath

her skin. A single prolonged exhalation

served as a proclamation: she felt fine, with

finer on the horizon, another beer and a half

away from shedding pesky inhibitions and

indulging dissipated desires. Which meant

reaching out and stroking the untrimmed

whiskers of her paramour, from mid-cheek to

chin, until her fingers lost all feeling.

"I'm no longer wanting to roll up into a ball

and die, but I'm still antsy. I guess that's an

improvement?"

"Why are you still antsy?"

"Dunno. Maybe the fact people keep buggin'

us."

"They're just being hospitable," he

shrugged. "It is a party, remember."

"Kindness of strangers."

"If you say so."

Kelly raised an eyebrow. Every several

months, Keith delighted in the unveiling of

some new way to try his girlfriend's patience.

Their next conversation was closer to the

actual definition of the word, and this did

much to erase Kelly's lugubriousness, as did

the moon, lurking behind leaves and rooves

like a timid child.

"Smell that? Smells like steak and cheese

sub."

"There's a Sheetz close by," Keith nodded,

the airiness of his voice a perfect accompaniment

to the cravings causing the inside of

Kelly's mouth to weaken.

"Wonder how this would do as a mixer,"

she wondered, tapping the Crown Royal bottle

with the toe of her left shoe.

"Gimme a minute and we can find out."

Several minutes later, they did.

"You're a lifesaver, my man."

"If you say so."

The backyard of an acquaintance, Kelly

decided, did not a suitable battlefield make.

She filled the large plastic cup halfway with

soda, then splashed it twice with the whiskey.

One swig, and she broke into a seated

gallop.

"So, good?" Keith turned his right fist into a

chin rest as he awaited the reply.

"Delicious. Seriously."

"I've never had cherry Pepsi before. How

cherry is it?"

"Not terribly. Goes down cherry." Kelly

tugged at the renegade curls resting on her

shoulder as he prepared his own drink. "Lord

a'mighty that's good stuff. I'm gonna get so

warm I'll wind up in a freezer. Alcohol's gotta

be the best way to warm up. It's like gravy

for your inner biscuits."

"What about fire?"

"That's cheating. That's like saying water

is the best way to get wet, and we all know

that's a lie."

######

"So does this make us bad party guests?"

"Probably," Keith managed, through a

yawn. "I wish I could handle caffeine better."

"Wishes aren't bad things to have," Kelly

said. "Especially under a canopy of stars."

She waved her hand and rolled her eyes.

"One of them just might have the safety off.

Ooh, listen to my semi-poetic self. I need to

drink whiskey more often."

The fun was well and truly kaput the

moment Keith announced, with appropriate

sheepishness, that he'd been overcome with

the urgency.

"You can't go out here?"

"No, this is…a little more complicated."

Kelly's grimace was short-lived, straightened

out and smothered down by the creak

of the back door, the rustle of leaves, and

the distinct sound of shattering glass. Her

shrieks alerted the other three partygoers,

who seemed to appear in the yard almost

130

instantaneously. Kelly stammered out a

summation in their general direction and

watched as their confusion deteriorated into

horror.

"Don't get too close! The glass!"

"Oh God. Oh my God."

Keith tore off his shirt and dropped to

his knees. Kelly thought it the oddest thing

she'd seen him do in their time together, and

cursed the high-pitched ringing in her ears

for its horrendous timing.

"Can somebody turn their phone light on,

so I can see what I'm doing here?"

Kelly removed her fingernails from her

palms to do just that before the blonde

woman beat her to the punch.

"It's okay, man. It's okay. Hold still. Hold

still."

The advice had not been meant for Kelly,

but she took it regardless, blinks and breaths

at a premium as she watched Keith apply

a tourniquet halfway up the fallen man's

forearm.

"Looks good, looks good. I'm calling an ambulance,

Scotty, it's gonna be okay, buddy."

"It was that damned bat!"

######

A half-hour later, Keith and Kelly sat in

his car, trembling at what had transpired in

the backyard, and not at the sight of a mere

windshield. She tugged at her ears, appreciation

for the resilient flesh increasing with

every pull, while he performed a song of

disbelief.

"Wow. Wow. Woo. Woo. What did I just

do?"

Kelly gulped, figuring her reply would decide

whether the man she loved exploded in

laughter or imploded in sorrow.

"You saved someone. Somebody was going

to die, and now they're not, and it's because

of you."

"Yeah, if…"

Kelly nearly gave herself whiplash. "Yeah.

I do say so."

At that moment, the number of sentences

Kelly could bear to hear or speak was limited.

Not one contained a dismissive word.

She placed a hand on her head and tried

to shove aside the sight of their host's face,

wet and red and blue. She placed a hand between

her breasts, willing her touch to calm

the juddering sensation.

The struggle had not ended when she felt

the world rumble underneath her. Keith was

ready to go. Kelly shivered, contemplating

his internal havoc. Shame she didn't have a

third hand.

"Do you think it was rude of us to take

this?" she asked, tapping the Crown Royal

bottle with the toe of her left shoe.

"No," Keith answered groggily. "We earned

it."

Joy

Poetry

Heidi Speth


The snow falls like flour through a sifter

Resting more peacefully than me on the rolling hills

Cold, all there is is the bitter, never-ending cold

It bites me hard, hitting me like the memories of that night

Spring breaks like a sunrise on the darkest, most terrible night

Chilly to the bone at first, but then thawing like a body straight out of the icebox

The flowers start to bud and blossom

Rays of hope peek through the clouds, inspiring peace, tranquility, and new beginnings

Another Summer is finally here

Sweat covers my limbs, I’m tempted to let the adventures of the dirt roads consume me

So the grief does not get there first

Fireworks penetrate the navy, starlit sky

Echoing louder than a bullet out of a gun off the lake that surrounds us

Hot, all there is is the humid, sticky-skin hot

I’m cleansed by the refreshing murky lake as I plummet off the old, splinter-infested dock

Fall starts to set in like the sun after a long Summer’s day

For once I can sleep again, under the branches of the oak, my body caressed by the light

breeze

The chilly nights return, different this year

This year, they are comforting, I have made it, I have almost made it one year

The multi-colored leaves are falling

Haunting me, flashing images of you falling into my arms, every time I even so much as blink

It’s time to be thankful

That’s what everyone is saying, though I don’t feel it, I feel angry and sad and worn down

The white, flour-sifter flakes have returned, just days from a whole year after the fact

The life-changing fact

I think of you often, knowing that while I have been going through this tornado of grief, you

would want me to find the joy

So much time as past with so little joy

It’s hard to find joy when the greatest joy of your life is gone.

131

Bruises

Poetry

Tesa Flores

Brooklyn, New York, USA

I see bruises bloom on my body like flowers in National Geographic.

I stab a crouton and it slits in two.

I have no one to yearn for.

I am never clean, never unbroken.

After hours I catch a coworker in the spreadsheet,

digital mouse's dancing a stale paux de deux.

We don’t know each other and never will.

Every time I walk out of the house I let the palm leaves caress my cheek, try to remember to

feel it.

I smash my knees into worn down cement and blood spurts in my hand but doesn't escape the

skin, two red dots in the flesh of my palm, trapped under layers of me.

Joked to my boss now I have my souvenir, pieces of Florida parking lot in my knees forever.

Illume #2: Hope

as a Trick of

Light

Poetry



Our hands out like a beggar's cup & the sun

ablaze behind our heads We cast

a hopeful shadow of optimism only illusion

of photons & neutrons

compressed to atoms of dazzle

illuminating a bottomless well the

anticipation

of polished promise

at its vanishing point fabricating

There is much I didn’t expert to present this way, to collect so physically.

The body keeps the score and I am a

fucking loser.

Every thought is a feeling and every feeling is a thought.

If the pain isn’t in you now numbing everything else to sidelines….

well it will be soon.

When I smile sometimes I can taste the lie on my tongue.

They keep feeding me and feeding me like it’s love but it’s unreconizable.

In 6th grade, writing about ice queens and knives, they sent me to the office cause they thought

I wanted to die.

11 years later I’m still here, and still not sure what for.

But some days are better than others and that is

nice

enough.

132

Cynthia

Poetry

Jones Irwin

Dublin, Idaho, USA

I

Thought he was cracked for

a time was he all there didn’t

know himself. Wrote

endlessly to papers, strangers, to

the dead. Voices in his

head. From errant place to place a

suitcase of these missives. Police

arrested his associates to plea

bargain. Got nishte, mate. Cynthia

said they both could run

away from Albion. Where though hun?

Gotta keep movin’. Many fingered

man. Don’t wanna be a soon

headstone. Kefalonia we rest

there. The Dionysus tavern

has bed and breakfast. In the

morn you can watch the Hellene

sun rise. The ferry to Kylini leaves daily

if need be, you get me? No one knows us

in Greece ‘cept the whores and

moneylenders. Fabulous he

laughed. We are quite the

phenomenon. Cynthia always

made the worse better. Wry

face. Sexy dark sister.

II

But how long could it

last? Finitude. Already

his hair was falling out and

his teeth. That’s what happens

to anarchists and neo-syndicalists in

the end. How long left, then? Months maybe

certainly not years. Days possibly

counted on two hands if lucky. Wait until

the winter comes. In Sammi

all the tourists are gone the wind

loud and shrill. Locals

make money from informing

the crime lords. Your comings

and your goings. The reckoning

can’t be put off forever with

backhanders. Try as you might,

boyo.

And Cynthia, dear lover.

Who was that you was

talking to this morning

on your phone outside the

window? You were speaking

a different language. Tell me

now please before I have to kill

us first. Then do my worst.

III

Maybe just maybe

there is an alternative to this.

After all you’re the first

femme fatale I ever did trust.

Course they all warned me

against it. Cited the fate

of poor old Irish Raymond

they did his grisly end.

The claw hammer episode

with Moira’s gang etc.

But perhaps we are distinct.

I’ve kept my hope intact.

Read Kierkegaard a whole lot.

133

Corridor. 1. I silently open a narrow white

door

Pale diffuse sunlight streams through a long

corridor

Silent, narrow, white

White doors on its sides, at its end a white

door

All doors, faintly glowing, identical

The end door I open, it shows a white room

A room of white fixtures in pale filtered light

The room glows faint eggshell in weakened

white light

A sound, just perceptible, whispers of breeze

I stand in the doorway not breaking the spell

Singular, waiting, my feelings becalmed

White room. 2. Lines, corners, cut sharp firm

Edge makes shadow; shadow tells me of

dimensions, things unseen

A depth, a distance

Door is open, depth beyond

Now door is closed, and space ends there

untruthfully

The mirror when uncovered falsely shows me

depth, but it’s just flatness

The furnishings are blocks, of odd size,

seeming solid through

Interior

Poetry

Lance Nizami

Palo Alto, California, USA

But they’re just planed, their insides hollow,

model-like

One lone exception shows: a clear and planar

pane of glass

It isolates, but not conceals

And so all things but one are skins that hide

what is behind them

To eyes unaided in plain light, mere skins will

lie within our sight –

Closet door. 3. Hard white rectangular

resistant it slides aside, darkness within

Narrowly, limp objects hang from frames,

motionless, parallel

The colors dark-muted to sameness

Dead quiet

I stand gazing at the shaded back wall,

imagine it fading to black air

And I step inside that secret space, reaching

back to close the door behind

134

Cabin on

Detox Island

Poetry

Monica Viera

Montebello, California, USA

If you ache to be reborn

You need not travel far

Detox Island has a vacancy

But beware, it's quite bizarre

The regulars are sober

But they're pretty high on life

They laugh and smile and talk together

No sight or sound of strife

But when the sun starts to set

The regulars disbar

They trot back to their detox cabins

By light of the North Star

Once they're in and all alone

They lock their doors and sigh

And after nine, on Detox Island

You start to hear them cry

Behind their wooden cabin doors

They're trapped in with their fears

So, until the sun rises here

You'd best cover your ears

The wind is thick with screams and sobs

That cover you with chills

And you realize there's no escape

From these cabins on the hills

A night on Detox Island

Is enough to go insane

For the regulars that mull around

Have souls already slane

Windows

Photography

Mane Hovhannisyan

Yerevan, Armenia

135

Someplace Without Washrooms

Fiction

Alfredo Arcilesi


It was clear to Cynth that the cute girl and

handsome boy didn't want to kiss. Not with

her sitting three benches away. Not with

their pushy friend egging them on, cameraphone

framed and ready.

The typical scene was written and directed

by genetics. The girl was indeed cute,

petite, armed with perfected feminine mannerisms,

all packaged in a Fall outfit that

teased of Summer treats; in a word, she was

desirable. The boy was indeed handsome, a

model without a magazine cover, the world

ready for the taking, but waiting for testosterone

to fill his head with the notion; in a

word, he was desirable. Their pushy friend?

In several words: fat, ugly, awkward, desperate,

undesirable.

She was Cynth.

Which was why the urge to walk over to

them, and tell the pushy friend to leave the

possible couple alone propelled her to stand

up.

But a thought weighed her back down:

Who the hell am I to say anything?

And one resounding, troublesome question

cemented her to the bench: What if they

recognize me?

There had been a terrible snippet of her

sorry life filled with judging stares and words

of condemnation. Three years had dwindled,

and though the eyes gradually passed blindly

over her constantly-changing appearance

without a second glance, she still felt the

permanent pressures of temporary infamy.

Nobody recognizes me, Cynth tried to

assure herself in that soothing, albeit unsteady,

therapeutic voice she had worked

so long and hard to construct, desperately

trying to sound anything other than her

trademark, albeit notorious, professional vocal

fry. Of the three kids before her, no more

than thirteen-years-old apiece, she guessed,

she reasoned: They're too young to recognize

me. Too young to know what I've done.

She smiled inwardly. Nobody recognizes

me.

The thought used to haunt her, sprinting

alongside morbid worries of living and dying

alone and unknown, inside of a pathetic

body people couldn't help but recognize,

both for the comic relief and disgust it had

provided.

Selfishly, she was grateful for the events

of three years prior, for it had supplied

her with ample motivation to lop off and

straighten a lifetime's growth of untamed

auburn curls, add bleach, pierce body parts

of her body she had grown up to believe

were virginal, and, along with the cocktail

of depression, anxiety, and guilt that felt

intravenously fed to her via every available

vein, dissolved nearly two-hundred of her

three-hundred-and-twenty pounds. Her skin,

however, remained an open canvas, and on

the days when the cocktail's alcohol content

was too unbearable, she strongly considered

decorating some part of herself with a

memorial.

And what would the tattooist say when I

show the portrait I'd want? she challenged

herself. Wouldn't they recognize me, then?

Nobody recognizes —

136

A child's laugh.

Cynth looked at the boy and two girls.

The pushy friend lowered her cameraphone,

laughing at something the photogenic pair's

faces deemed unfunny.

Just go over there, and tell her to leave

them alone, Cynth coached herself. Just go,

and — And what do I say?

Tell them about Jaley. They don't know

Jaley. Neither do you.

The truth splintered that familiar place

within her that had never fully healed.

Having visited the park on a near-religious

basis for the last three years, listening to

the radio program her obsessive memory

played, Cynth rarely had any suitable players

to perform the needy voices in her head.

Some visits, she allowed the voices to speak

through unaware mothers and their playing

children. Other visits, she allowed the voices

to speak through passing squirrels, pigeons,

and dogs. Most visits, the park was empty,

forcing her to replay the conversation solely

in her mind.

Today, however, there was the cute girl,

the handsome boy, and the pushy friend.

How perfect, she thought, and let the

eager, three-year-old memory roll:

“We've got Jaley on the air,” the pushy

friend said. Her mouth was moving, but

her lips were issuing different words, like a

poorly dubbed film. Still, Cynth made due,

hearing her own voice — the trademark vocal

fry — inside her head, leaving the pushy

friend's mouth. “You there, Jaley?”

A gust of wind passed through the park.

Static crackled over the radio in her head.

“Hellooo? Jaley?” Cynth/the pushy friend

coaxed.

Jaley? Typical. Sounds skinny, Cynth, three

years away from chiseling at her own skeleton,

had thought then. As if the conversation

wasn't punishing enough to remember verbatim,

she painstakingly recalled nearly every

thought she had conjured during the longago

exchange.

The wind settled.

The static cleared.

“—ere, here, here, I'm here,” the cheery,

instantly loveable voice in her head said.

To Cynth's eyes, the cute girl on the bench

opened her mouth to respond to the pushy

friend.

“Thought I lost you there,” Cynth/the

pushy friend said.

“No, it's my stupid phone,” Jaley/the cute

girl said. “Hi.”

Probably don't even know how to use it,

except for a shit-ton of selfies.

“Hi, back,” was Cynth's/the pushy friend's

equally cheery response. “So, Jaley, how old

are you?”

“Just turned twenty-one last week.”

That's a lot of math for you, isn't it? “Awww,

Happy Birthday.”

Cynth could still hear the annoyingly loud

noisemaker she had activated at the touch

of a studio console button.

“Thank you,” Jaley/the cute girl giggled.

“Now... you called 'cause you had a pretty

weird date last week.”

“Yeah.”

Good.

“Care to share with everyone?”

“'K,' so, like... I went out with this guy,

and-”

“What's his name?”

“Guy.”

“Guy?”

“Yeah.” “Creative.”

Parents probably would've named his sister

'Girl.'

“Yeah, I know, right?” Jaley/the cute girl

agreed.

“Okay,” Cynth/the pushy friend said, “so,

actually... before you get to the date, tell

everyone where you met.”

“Online.” The undertone reeked of Duh!

“We messaged for, like, a couple hours, and I

guess we decided to meet.”

Oh, a couple of hours is way more than

enough time for him to see you're twenty-one,

skinny, and fuckable.

“So, then what happened?” Cynth/the

pushy friend probed.

“'K,' so, we met at a cafe downtown,

'cause, you know, I'm not stupid.”

Just twenty-one, skinny, and fuckable.

“I just met this guy,” Jaley/the cute girl

continued. “I don't know if he's crazy, or if

he's gonna look all weird, you know?” A slight

chuckle.

“A girl can't be too careful, totally,”

Cynth/the pushy friend agreed.

Idiot.

“So, yeah, we met at the cafe,” Jaley/the

cute girl continued, “and he looked just like

his pictures, so bonus.”

“He cute?”

“Uh, yeah.” Another dose of Duh!

What was I thinking? Someone named Jaley,

twenty-one, skinny, and fuckable doesn't

do ugly.

“So, you're at the cafe,” Cynth/the pushy

friend reviewed, “he looks like his pics—so

he's who he says he is, which is cute. But not

too cute about what he did next.”

Glad he did it.

137

“I know, right?” Jaley/the cute girl proceeded:

“So, he says he needs to use the

washroom. So he leaves. And I'm sitting

there, waiting and waiting, and I'm like,

'Don't guys just go in, do their thing, and

come back out?'”

“You heard it here, guys,” Cynth/the

pushy friend broke in. “It's that simple. Unless

you got long lines like us femme fatales,

all you guys need to do is 'go in, do your

thing, and come back out' to your date.”

Cynth/the pushy friend laughed, and then

abruptly stopped for dramatic effect. “But

what did he do?”

“He didn't come back out.” Jaley/the cute

girl sounded shocked.

Awww, poor skinny, fuckable you.

“You mean he ditched you?” Cynth/the

pushy friend enforced.

Hope it hurts.

“He totally did,” Jaley/the cute girl said,

pouting cutely.

Good.

“And you called 'cause you wanna know

why,” Cynth/the pushy friend seethed, getting

down to exciting business.

“Yeah, like, we were having a good time

and all, and he seemed to like me.”

'Cause you're twenty-one, skinny, and

fuckable. “You tried calling him?”

“Yeah.” More Duh! “For, like, three days.”

“Girl, that's three days too many.”

Fuckin' moron. “Yeah.”

“Well, let's see if he picks up when your

gal-pal Cynth calls.”

You would never be my gal-pal. Nobody

who looks like you would ever want to be

seen with someone who looks like me. And I

wouldn't want to, either.

The simple hip-hop beat looping quietly in

the background was punctuated by dialled

digits, followed by a ringtone.

“Least his phone works,” Cynth/the pushy

friend quipped, the latter lifting her cellphone,

readying another attempt to snap a

photo or capture a video of the cute girl and

handsome boy.

A second ring.

A third.

“Maybe he's in the washroom,” Cynth/the

pushy friend jested.

Jaley/the cute girl issued a brittle laugh,

cut short by: “Hi, you've reached Guy...”

“Guess you've heard this part before,”

Cynth/the pushy friend said over the standard

voicemail greeting. With barely contained

enthusiasm: “Let's leave a message.”

“No,” Jaley/the cute girl blurted, the

former worried Cynth might keep her word,

the latter swatting the pushy friend's cameraphone

away.

Cynth cut the call before the tone Guy

had promised ended. “Wow,” she/the pushy

friend said. “This what you been dealing

with?”

Poor skinny, fuckable you.

“It's okay,” Jaley/the cute girl said with

playful disappointment.

Wasn't like it was love. There'll be plenty

more, anyway. “Let's try one more time,”

Cynth/the pushy friend urged. A rapid succession

of dial tones made Jaley's decision.

One ring.

“What if he doesn't like me?” Jaley/the

cute girl offered weakly. Two rings.

“Well, we're gonna find out,” Cynth/the

pushy friend said.

You don't sound so fuckable now, do you?

Three— “Hello?”

He sounds fuckin' hot was Cynth's immediate

thought. “Hi. Is this Guy?” Cynth/the

pushy friend inquired.

“Speaking.” Caution coated his otherwise

sultry voice.

If the handsome boy sitting on the bench

with the cute girl and their pushy friend had

been contributing to their private back-andforth

all along, Cynth hadn't noticed; she

had been transfixed on the girls, the live

mimes representing the female voices in her

head. With the introduction of Guy in this

familiar script, Cynth now fixed upon the

handsome boy, and saw that he was speaking

Guy's words.

“You're a hard guy to reach,” Cynth/the

pushy friend said. “Do you listen to the Cynthetic

Cynth Morning Show?”

“Um... not really,” Guy/the handsome boy

said.

Didn't think so. “Awww... that's too bad.”

“Wait...” His voice peaked, hinting his

forgotten pubescent years. “Is this... Am I on

the show?”

“Smart cookie,” Cynth/the pushy friend

beamed, thinking Jaley's Duh! “You're speaking

with Cynth, on-air.”

“Okay, cool. Did I, like, win something?”

Guy sounded more excited than the increasingly

frustrated handsome boy appeared.

“In a way,” Cynth/the pushy friend said.

“I'm calling 'cause I heard you went on a

date last week.”

“Oookay.” A dip back into caution.

“You do remember being on a date last

week, don't you, Guy?” “I do, yeah.”

“You remember the name of your date,

Guy?”

The looped background track filled his end

of the conversation.

“Uh-oh. You're looking worse and worse

here, Guy. Don't tell me you don't remember

the name-”

“Are you there, Jaley?”

138

Cynth hadn't heard it then, during the live

recording, but when she had listened back

to the segment, she could tell his uncanny

inquiry, spoken in that sexy voice of his,

had taken her breath away. Even the looped

background track seemed to break at the

precise moment of his question.

Nobody ever said my name that way.

Jaley was silent. For a moment, Cynth

thought she had lost her caller, and, therefore,

the entire gimmick—and Jaley's punishment

for being twenty-one, skinny, and

fuckable—but she could see the line was still

live.

“What makes you think Jaley's here?”

Cynth/the pushy friend teased.

“Ah, she is, isn't she?” Guy chuckled,

while the handsome boy scowled at the

pushy friend. “I've heard shows like this before.

Ah, man.” More chuckling.

“So, you know what's up?” Cynth/the

pushy friend asked.

“Yeah. Yeah, I do.” He exhaled. “I'm an

ass. Wait—can I say 'ass' on the radio?” “I'll

make an exception in your case.”

More of that appetizing laugh.

I'm not twenty-one, skinny, or fuckable,

but if I was, I'd be all over you. Even if you

didn't look like your pictures.

“Why do you think you're an ass, Guy?”

“'Cause I ditched. “His breath rustled the

phone, as if his sheepishness had rapidly produced

an abundance of scraping wool.

“So, what's going on, Guy? Why'd you ditch

Jaley?” Before he could respond: “And ignore

her calls for the last three days?”

“I'm an ass,” he maintained, matter-of-factly.

“I'm an ass, Jaley.” She was

live, but remained silent, as did the cute

girl on the bench. “Jaley, you still with me?”

Cynth/the pushy friend asked.

“Yeah,” a mouse on the other line said.

“Wanna ask Guy here what his deal is?” A

silence too long for radio.

“Trust me, Jaley wants to know what your

deal is,” Cynth/the pushy friend intervened.

“Everyone wants to kn-.”

The handsome boy abruptly stood, disrupting

Cynth's mental program. She could

hear his voice—a fight between current boy

and eventual man for the vocal cords—but

not specific words. His reddening face clearly

had more to do with the pushy friend than

the cold air. Cynth watched as he turned

to grab the cute girl's hand, pulled her to

attention, and flashed a middle finger in

the pushy friend's face. The cute girl looked

back at the pushy friend as she was whisked

away, but said nothing. They were heading

for Cynth, who busied herself with birdless

birdwatching. As they breezed by, she

thought she heard the handsome boy say

something reminiscent of “...none of her

fuckin' business what we...” With that, they

penetrated the woods, where Cynth dared

not go.

Maybe one day, she told herself. Maybe

today. Maybe.

Cynth ignored an actual bird that had

deserted the forest beyond, turning her attention

to the pushy friend. The sulking mass

sat on the bench, a forest of one, abandoned

by lovebirds.

She fiddled with her phone for a while,

then stood, and walked without purpose to

the still swings, giving each a heartless push

before leaving.

Cynth waited until the swings settled

before reevaluating her surroundings. Confirming

her solitude, she moved to the bench

recently occupied by the trio. The worn,

paint-chipped wood was cold, though she

believed she could feel their warm ghosts

wafting through the seat of her pants. She

looked at each of the benches she had sat

upon — experienced, she liked to think of

it — prior to the kids' appearance. There was

the one with the loose plank, the one with

the missing plank, the one half-sunk into the

loose earth, the graffito's masterpiece, and

the pigeon's toilet.

There was also the one closest to the

forest.

Which one are you? she mused, as always.

They hadn't sat on the swings, toes and

heels gently digging shallow grooves in the

sand in romantic synchronicity. They hadn't

roosted on the top or bottom of the slide.

“We were sitting on a bench.” Guy's words

in print and on screen, unimportant, almost

trivial, but paramount to Cynth.

But which one? she willed to Guy.

As part of the ritual, she closed her eyes,

and tried to visualize a day she had never

lived. The entire scene unfolded in choppy

edits: in one instance, she could see

Jaley and Guy, sitting together on a bench

comprised of sampled details of all seven

benches, their faces pixelated, the way she

remembered them on screen and in print;

in another instance, she could see Guy as

Jaley; she could hear his tantalizing voice—

never Jaley's—not in the park's open, clean

air, but as she had heard him on her morning

radio show: filtered, human-like:

“We sat on a bench,” Guy said, his acorn

eyes piercing whatever colour Jaley's had

been. “I need to know which one,” Cynth

said, the trademark vocal fry some critics

and listeners alike complained about and

mocked substituting Jaley's cutesy cadence.

“We talked about how we were on that

old, fat, ugly, unfuckable, meddling bitch's

139

show,” Guy said, ignoring her. He took her

hands into his own. So strong. So masculine.

So desirable.

“And then everyone recognized me,”

Cynth said, letting his thumbs massage the

tender meat between her thumbs and index

fingers. “Everybody wanted to skewer and

roast the old...”

“...but thirty's not old...” Guy teased, caressing

her hair now. “...fat...” Cynth said.

“...you're not fat anymore...”

“...ugly...”

“...you're not ugly anymore...”

“...unfuckable...”

“...mmm, I'd definitely fuck you...”

“...meddling bitch,” Cynth ended.

“Don't feel so bad,” Guy cooed. “Jaley

and I talked about how we should thank you

for bringing us together.”

Cynth tried to break his hold. “It's not my

fault.”

He held on, his luscious, kissable lips

formed a seductive smile. “Thank you.”

“It was just a show,” Cynth rebelled,

tugging harder, but not succeeding. “It was

entertainment. Stupid entertainment for

stupid people.”

“Thank you.” His lips drew closer to her.

“It's not my fault.”

Closer. “Thank you.” “It's not my fault.”

“Thank you.”

She felt his breathy syllables as his lips

pressed against her own. “It's not my fault,”

she heard herself scream, the words devoured

by his exploring mouth.

“Thank you,” she heard him say in spite of

their entangled tongues.

She closed her eyes, and received everything

she wanted. And when she had had her

fill, she opened her eyes, and saw what she

had come to expect:

The six other benches, each with their

own personality and history. No kids.

No Guy.

No Jaley.

Just her.

And the bench she always saved for last.

She dreaded her self-imposed regimen,

but knew her daily diet needed feeding.

Is that where they sat? Cynth pondered,

inwardly cringing at the oddly pristine bench

partially enveloped by the treeline.

Maybe.

Maybe it's the one I'm sitting on.

Maybe it's the one with all the bird shit on

it. Maybe it's none of them at all.

Maybe Guy was lying.

Guy had lied about a lot of things.

Guy had lied on my stupid show for stupid

people.

She recalled the latter portion of the longago

segment:

“Trust me, Jaley wants to know what your

deal is,” Cynth had said. “Everyone wants to

know.”

After a brief hesitation—staged, she knew

now—Guy gave in: “Basically, I didn't think I

was good enough for Jaley, so I said I needed

to use the washroom. I saw myself in the

mirror, which didn't help, and I guess I decided

to just leave.”

You chickened-out, she mended. But not

the next time.

Cynth fast-forwarded through the remaining

garb, skipping her relentless teasing of

both parties, Jaley's shock and relief, and

ending where she had spoken the words that

had set her upon an endless string of park

therapy sessions. “Just one recommendation,

okay, you guys?

When you guys go on your second first

date, make sure you guys go someplace

without washrooms, okay?”

“Someplace without washrooms,” Cynth

whispered to the park, where Jaley and Guy

allegedly met.

The park was someplace without washrooms.

The forest hugging the park was someplace

without washrooms.

Deep within the forest, the hidden clearing

at the foot of a hill, lined with a pitiful

stream, where Jaley's white, nibbled, lifeless

fingers dabbled, was someplace without

washrooms.

The other places, where other “Jaley's”

had been found, were places without washrooms.

It could've been this bench, Cynth ruminated.

She sat in silence, allowing no certain

amount of time to pass.

Feeling she had paid enough—for now—

homage to the current bench for one sitting,

she confirmed her isolation, stood, and proceeded

to the final bench. As always, a pang

of guilt, lighter than the heavier ambience,

resonated throughout her body as her bottom

covered the names of lovers come and

gone, their etched initials smothered under

what others, herself included, had used to

call her “fat ass.” She looked for “J+A,”

“A+J,” their full names—anything—but knew

they weren't there.

It doesn't mean they didn't sit here before

he led her into the woods, she reminded

herself.

Without a cast to play the roles of the enduring

voices in her overcrowded head, she

heard a vocal-fried, old, fat, ugly, unfuckable,

meddling bitch say: “We've got Jaley

on the air.”

A gust of wind passed through the park.

140

“You there, Jaley?”

Static crackled over the radio in her head.

A Drowning Man

Poetry

Gregory Wilder

Schenectady, New York, USA

“We, in our turn, sought the same escape with all the desperation of drowning men.”

- The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous pg. 28

The Temptation to drown is all around.

To nosedive into shallow ends

Of Liquor Pools with no Lifeguards.


To let go and sink back to my bottom

When the weight of the world drags me down.

To never come up for air again.


I already drowned once before — Sometime in the early 90s,

I think I was 5 — When I fell off the Fun Noodle

After crossing the rope in our Apartment Complex pool –

I guess you can say that was the day

I first went off the Deep End —

And though I survived — Only to die

And come back again, time after time,

Like a mask-less Jason Voorhees

On an Amphetamine-fueled rampage —

The Temptation to drown is still around.

When my 2-year coin doesn’t double as a life preserver —

I’m sure it would sink as fast as I can —

Trapped inside vicious circles of condensation

Gathered on tables —

The Temptation to drown is all around:

Every street is paved in Black Tar Heroin.

Every corner a sharp edge I must avoid —

The tips of rigs poised to pierce my skin.

Every church is a block from the Knock Spot.

There’s Panic! In Needle Park — I Pray for the Wicked –

Lead us not into Temptation — to drown.

But I can’t trust a soul —

Every face that I breeze past

Starts to look like a Relapse —

141

A six pack of Henry’s Hard Soda

Sits at the Bus Stop, waiting

To board the next 40 oz. Eastbound —

To Freedom.

Empty bottles with scratched off labels

Shuffle into basement meetings

And call themselves “Anonymous.”

While a run-down looking bottle of Rum

Is in the alleyway taking a leak.

(I think he may have had a CRACK problem)

A fifth of E&J is playing chess

Against a bottle of Smirnoff in the park.

Mini-Bar bottles riding Merry Go Rounds —

All it takes is just one little push...


Beautiful bikini-clad bottles on Beaches —

Sexy under clear blue summer skies.

Spin the Bottle — Spin the Bottle,

Kiss your life, Goodbye.


College campuses and classrooms

Crammed with Cognacs and Coors.

Another case of Coronas caught crossing the border —

I hear they all got thrown in the Cooler...

It always seems to happen during ICE raids.

Jaeger Bombs over Baghdad!

Wine bottle skyscrapers

Span the City skylines.

I see Constellations in the stars,

Of the scars along the crooks of my arms,

And every block must have great cell service

Cause it’s never too hard to find Bars!

Temptations

To Drown

To take the plunge

Where that little plume of blood

In the needle becomes

The Mushroom Cloud

That completely destroys

Everyone...

DEVASTATION!

My adolescence filled with Butterfly Effect blackouts —

Entire Weekends Lost from Memory to Madness.

From Tequila Sunrise to Blue Moon.

These Days of Wine and Roses last too long —

And are covered with thorns.

DESPARATION!

Destroying the house in search of

That last one you’re sure you hid.

Diving into dumpsters.

Tearing through trash bags

For some empties to scrape...

All I need is enough for just one little taste.

DELERIUM!

“A Disease of the Night” —

The sweating. The shaking.

The raving, screaming hallucinations:

Little Animals! Lions and Tigers and Bitter Ends —

Jails, Institutions, and Death

OH MY!

Trapped in the Halfway House Heartbreak Hotel.

Fear and Loathing in Lansingburgh.

So It Ain’t So!

My Pink Cloud Bursteth...

A storm of Life on Life’s Terms.

So, here I am...

1,000 Days in Sobriety.

Still drunk off my own pretentiousness.

Passed out in puddles of Word Vomit.

The Temptation will never go away,

So I pray: God,

Grant me the Serenity,

To not freak out and murder

Every last one of my enemies!

3 DUIs – But they can never take my Poetic License.

So I’mma ride this bitch till the wheels fall off

As I trudge the Road of Happy Destiny!

May God Bless Me — And Keep Me —

Until Then...

143

mushroom bloom

Digital Art

Vita Nocilla


Instead of pacing circles around the gazebo

in the park with clumps of snow piling up

on his neon green hoodie, my brother should

have been in Florida.

I last spoke to him in early December. I

had tried calling on Thanksgiving, but his

number was out of service again. He’s had

three or four different numbers just since

summer, so it’s hard to keep in touch. It

was our first Thanksgiving without Dad, so I

thought it would be meaningful. I guess he

didn’t share the sentiment. Then he called

me out of the blue from yet another new

number.

“Hey, sis!” His voice was clear, not

scratchy and heavy like the last time. “It’s

your favorite brother.”

Only.

“I’m leaving for sunny Florida tomorrow.

Have fun shoveling snow!”

* * * *

Dad got sick last winter, and we knew it

would be fast, so I quit my job and moved

home. Go, go, I’ll wait here, my husbandto-be

said. Be with your father. But his texts

grew ever more plaintive over the weeks. He

accused me of abandonment and told me not

to bother coming home. So that was that.

I sold the house after Dad died even

though I stuck around. The local college

offered me a permanent position. I bought a

little house clean of memories on the other

side of town.

* * * *

Why Florida? Why now? Is this a good idea?

His call unsettled me. He sounded decisive.

Bad Fog of Loneliness

Fiction

Bill Wilkinson

Meadville, Pennsylvania, USA

Last I knew, he still worked the overnight at

a Walmart near Pittsburgh, two hours south

of here. He’d been there two years, world

record length for him at a job.

“Oh, sis, you always worry. I got a sweeeet

gig lined up.”

Yeah?

“I know this guy. From college? He was

two years behind me. Anyhow, I heard from

a guy who heard from a guy that he just

took over Head Golf Pro at this super sweet,

super posh country club down in Jupiter.”

So you’re going back into golf? Teaching?

“Nah. Soon. I’m starting at the bottom

again. I’ll be caddying!”

Caddying?

“Oh yeah, it’ll be great. A buck twenty-five

for a single loop, plus tip. Some days

he says guys get out twice, earn three hundo.

Cash. Connections. Exercise. Sweating in

the sun! I’ll be breathing in straight life, sis.

Then, we’ll see. Guys move up quick. Hell,

this guy? Went from caddy to boss in just a

few years.”

Okay.

“Yeah, sis, I’m putting it all back together.

I bet Dad would be proud.”

My brother was always convinced he’d

make it big playing golf on TV. He wasted a

few post-college years driving around the

south in his Ford Taurus, losing thousands of

dollars playing on a minor league mini-tour

with other pipe-dreaming suckers.

When the Taurus crapped out, he got a

real job at a country club near Pittsburgh.

He started out doing grunt work like pulling

144

carts and picking balls on the driving range,

cleaning clubs, before they gave him an

assistant’s job in the golf shop.

People liked him and he had a knack for

teaching, especially kids. He stayed busy and

we all thought he was happy and beginning a

career.

Then he started getting weird. Weeks

would pass without hearing from him. His

number would be out of service, and he’d

make up a flimsy excuse about a mix-up,

and we’d shrug it off. He was young. But you

couldn’t always count on him to show up for

family things, and he got behind on bills and

always needed Dad to send him a little money.

I never knew why. It wasn’t my business.

There was that one Thanksgiving he nodded

out when I was carving the turkey. He

said he’d been really busy at work. He didn’t

show on Christmas that year. We waited all

day before opening presents without him.

We saw him a few days later, and everyone

just acted like it didn’t happen or that

we’d known all along he wouldn’t be there.

He disappointed Dad all the time, but Dad

wouldn’t ever say anything about it.

He called late one night that summer and

I didn’t answer because he’d been hitting

me up for cash. His words were garbled on

the voicemail. He said he was unhappy and

couldn’t do this anymore. This? He wanted a

way out.

“Don’t they say it’s better to burn out

than to fade away, sis?” he concluded.

It took a while to learn the club fired him

a few hours after that call I didn’t answer.

He lived in a house on the country club’s

property, up a winding road by the thirteenth

green. He plowed his car into a tree

that night. He must have crawled out of

the wreck at some point because one of the

maintenance workers found him passed out

in a bunker by the green.

We knew nothing about this until a few

weeks later when Dad called the golf shop

number looking for him because his phone

was off again. Dad wanted to take him out

for lunch. Maybe play golf together. They

used to play all time.

His boss implied maybe my brother was

into something heavy, but he claimed not to

know any details. It wasn’t his business. My

brother had been acting flaky for months,

the guy said. He told Dad it was a shame

because people really liked him and he was

a good teacher. But the country club is a

respectable place. People pay a lot of money

to belong there. They can’t have assistant

golf professionals acting erratically.

Some members complained that pill bottles

were going missing from their lockers

and golf bags. The bar manager noticed an

occasional bottle gone. No one wanted to

blame him, but then he crashed his car.

When we finally heard from him, he said

he was working construction with a guy he

knew that flipped houses. He said he’d been

just drinking too much, and his shitty golf

game was to blame, so he was quitting golf,

quitting booze, forging a fresh path. Doing

honest labor with his hands and muscles.

Nothing else was wrong, and he didn’t talk

about the crash.

Then he took the job at Walmart, and I

guess I figured he was okay, settling into

something steady. I had my own things going

on. Everything with him was so dramatic. He

never asked for help, so how was I to know if

he was in trouble?

* * * *

So golf again, I asked when he called to

say he was heading to Florida. I thought you

were happy without it?

“Yeah, I don’t know. I think I’m meant for

greatness.”

Greatness?

“Yeah.”

Make yourself great again.

“Be happy for me.”

Dad’s not here to bail you out.

“Yeah.”

But now it’s January fifth, and I’m walking

to the library, and he’s wearing a path

around the gazebo, and he’s muttering, and

his arms are gesticulating, and it’s him. It’s

him, and he hasn’t seen me, and I became

disoriented and tingly.

I turn and hustle back down the sidewalk.

I take the long way around instead of

through the park.

My brother didn’t visit the whole time Dad

was dying. He’ll come, Dad said. He could

only sit up in a chair for short stretches.

The television bothered him. He asked me

to read to him because he couldn’t focus his

eyes on the words. I’d never read to anyone

before.

The day I saw my brother in the park, I

was going to the library to check out The Little

Drummer Girl. We were only fifty pages

from the end. I hate that he died mid-book,

so I thought I’d read it aloud to Dad’s empty

chair. Just in case. That sounds stupid, but

I’ll do it anyway.

When I read to Dad, he would fold his

hands on his chest and let his chin drop. I

probably read ten more pages before noticing

his hands were no longer gently rising

145

and falling. I felt I failed him by not witnessing

his passing. And by not finishing the

book. Perhaps I should have just kept reading

it. Are all these feelings as stupid as they

appear on paper?

I found the book in the stacks and took it

to the librarian to check out. I wondered if

she remembers chiding me when I eventually

returned this exact copy two months late.

Tsk-tsk-tsk, better late than never, ha ha

ha.

I didn’t tell her about how it sat on the

end table by the chair, and I really wanted to

finish it, but I equally didn’t want to touch

it, and so the days piled up, and here’s

the damn fine money you cold bitch. That

wouldn’t have been fair.

My brother is standing on the sidewalk

when I open the library’s door. I freeze

again. His back is to me. I dread he’ll turn

around and our eyes will meet before I can

flee.

I’m desperate for him to turn around so

our eyes will meet before I can flee.

And then he walks away down the sidewalk,

never turning, and I continue on my

way.

I decided this year will be my year. I will

be selfish. I will do what brings me joy. Dad

is gone. The man I thought I loved left. My

brother is in Florida, beginning again, seeking

happiness. I believed myself completely

unattached, with no one able to make claims

on my time and attention. And so I could

start fresh on my own terms.

But no, my brother’s here in the snow.

I couldn’t bear the thought of calling him

and his number actually working and him

actually answering because I had no idea

what I would say. I’d probably hang up. But

I couldn’t ignore his presence. So I sent an

e-mail when I got home from the library.

Hey, how’s Florida, little brother? Warm

enough for you? Well, it’s been snowing

here, boooo. Hope all is well. Happy New

Year! Let me know how things are going.

Love ya. Send.

* * * *

Days go by. I take walks in the evenings

around town. I’m looking for him. My head

swivels and my eyes dart. If I see him first,

I’ll likely duck around a corner or into a

building.

An e-mail pings my phone while I’m walking

one evening. He reports making good

coin, meeting great people, the weather’s

HOT, staying busy busy busy. Oh, he’s got

a line on a sweet teaching gig at a country

club near Pittsburgh.

A bright green flash hustles down an alley

up ahead behind the school’s gymnasium. If

it’s my brother, he’s probably avoiding me,

too. If ever the two of us shall meet, it’ll

certainly be accidental.

Even so, he’ll smile and tilt his head like a

puppy. Hey there, Sister.

Unless he’s been drinking, then he’ll want

to keep a safe distance so I won’t smell it.

And if he’s using, I don’t know what he’ll

do. It’ll depend on what he’s using.

Had I seen him a few days earlier, back

in December, before the calendar flipped to

the Year of Me, would I have rushed up to

him? Would I have grabbed him in the park,

said Let’s get you inside? Let’s get you warm?

Let’s get you help?

Probably not. Fear of his intoxication and

desperation would have stopped me. I would

have yelled and ranted, driven him away.

It always felt like he expected his problems

to become mine. I told friends I was

constantly dropping everything to help him.

To counsel him and rescue him. But really

I think these grand Big Sister Interventions

were little more than exasperated lectures

chastising him to grow up and sort your shit

out and quit expecting others to clean your

mess.

And I never really understood the scope

of his problems because it all seemed just

childish attention-seeking behavior and so I

never asked.

I tell myself he was drunk or high or strung

out that snowy night in the park, and any of

the times I’ve seen him since, and had I approached

him and spoken to him, he would

have offered nothing but excuses and lies.

It’s easier believing that than allowing the

possibility that maybe this time he’d ask.

He let Dad die without showing up, and he

let me grieve alone and so if he wants help

he can fucking ask.

But then he did ask for help. There was a

letter-to-the-editor in the paper. It was so

weird, and he used an alias, but I know it

was meant for me. He used to do this thing

as a kid where he’d try to talk just using Neil

Young song titles. It made him laugh. It made

Dad laugh. He said those songs encapsulated

the entire range of human emotion.

I’ve been a Hitchhiker on this Human

Highway searching for my Field of Opportunity

and a little Peace of Mind, but sometimes

I get caught in a Bad Fog of Loneliness.

One day I came upon an Old Man sitting

Down By the River. He told me he was The

Loner and he had no place to go. “Hey Hey,

My My,” he said. “I’ve seen The Needle and

the Damage Done. I know There’s a World

where everyone has a Heart of Gold, but Tell

Me Why I always find myself On the Losing

End?”

I’m a lot like you, I told him, but Don’t

146

Let it Bring You Down. Come on Baby, Let’s

Go Downtown, I said, because maybe Tonight’s

the Night it all turns around. I said

maybe we should help out at the soup kitchen,

get a meal and do a good deed. I know

helping others lets me Mellow My Mind.

Friends and neighbors, I implore you to

notice those of us out here struggling After

the Gold Rush. We aren’t Helpless, we just

need a hand. Please don’t Walk On.

Thank You,

Bernard Shakey.

That’s my brother for you. That’s his way

of asking for my help. And having a laugh. I

should have set out to find him that day. He

told me where to find him. I shouldn’t have

come home without him. But I didn’t.

* * * *

Time passed, and one evening I had forgotten

about him for nearly an entire day.

Until the phone rang.

It was after ten. I was beginning a third

episode of Fargo even though this year I

wasn’t going to binge things. I was going to

read in the evenings, turn screens off, be

contemplative and relax. But my phone sat

in my lap so I could mindlessly scroll Facebook

and Twitter and allow a low-level rage

to simmer in response to the day’s latest

social injustices just so I won’t miss that one

pithy tweet that makes the addiction worth

it. But it was the landline that rang. POLICE

DEPT, the caller ID showed.

It’s incredible how much thinking can be

done in the space between two rings. Finally,

this is the call. The one that will free me.

A shiver of anticipation surged, and I answered

the call completely prepared to hear

Your brother is…

And when I heard, “Hello, this is Officer

Greg Baker. Your brother is…” I expected to

hear Dead. I might have even hoped for it

somewhere in between the chimes of the

ringer. It feels awfully shitty to recognize

that.

“...down here at the station,” the officer

finished. “He’s okay, but would you be able

to come down here?”

Is he under arrest? What did he do?

He’s not dead. Not dead. He’s okay.

I shook off the brief feeling of shame

that came with the realization I had maybe

desired to hear that finally I no longer had a

brother to worry about and replaced it with

righteous annoyance.

“What did he do now?” I asked as if this

were the umpteenth time the police called

me at home about him and not the very first.

“Oh, he’s in a pinch of a sort, but nothing

that can’t be worked out,” the officer calmly

assured.

“Should I call a lawyer?” I asked. “What is

he accused of allegedly doing?”

“Now, miss. It’s best if you just come on

down. You can bring him home with you. I

think that will serve everybody okay in this

scenario.”

So it turns out my brother didn’t know our

house wasn’t our house anymore. He saw the

lights off, no car in the garage, and the new

owners hadn’t changed the locks. The spare

key was still behind the loose brick above

the back screen door, so he let himself in.

I heard this, and I was thankful. Thankful

he didn’t know where I lived because I’m

certain he was there to steal. To find something

to sell. Isn’t that what people like him

do?

My anger stewed on the drive to the police

station. I slammed the car door and charged

up the sidewalk into the harshly lit lobby

and asked the woman behind the tall desk

for Officer Baker. I was ready to yell at my

brother. I was ready to lecture and force him

somehow, some way, to get his shit straight.

I didn’t see him sitting there in the chair

by the door. No handcuffs or anything. When

the woman pointed behind me, he greeted

me with that sheepish idiot’s grin I hoped he

wouldn’t dare unleash.

“Hey, sis.”

“I want to speak to the officer,” I said to

the woman.

“He’ll be out in a minute.”

“Hey, sis,” my brother repeated. “Sold the

house, huh?”

“And what if they shot you?”

“Huh?”

“The owner. You’re damn lucky, mister.”

“Yeah.”

“What were you looking to steal?”

“Nothing.”

“Right. What are you high on right now?”

“Nothing.”

“You’re a liar. I guess you didn’t have anyone

else to call, huh?”

“I guess.”

“You disappear for weeks, months, and

now what? Just call big sister? I thought you

were in Florida all this time.”

Who’s the liar now, hypocrite?

At that moment, the officer appeared

at my elbow and gently cleared his throat.

“Can I just speak to you a moment?” he

asked.

I followed him down a bright hall to a dark

little room with a coffee maker and a stale

smell.

“He’s a good kid,” Officer Baker said.

“He’s not a kid,” I said.

“Yeah, okay. So the owner isn’t pressing

charges because there wasn’t anything

missing. It seems your brother didn’t know

147

the house had been sold and he said he was

looking for a book that belongs to him.”

“I’m sure,” I scoffed. “Couldn’t come up

with a better story.”

“Well, the owner, Mr. Nicholson, he had

a little scare and called 911 when he came

home and saw the light on. But when we

got there, they were chatting about The Old

Man and the Sea. That was the book he was

looking for.”

The officer’s voice grew distant and muffled.

The Old Man and the Sea?

“Anyhow, sounds like your brother hit

a rough patch. Said your dad died? I don’t

think he’s got a steady roof right now.”

Dad kept an old hardcover copy of that

book on the table next to his reading chair

all the time he was dying. He’d flip through

it occasionally.

“Can I share something with you, though?”

I asked him if he wanted me to read it to

him, but he said he wanted to save it.

“I’ve seen your brother around town these

last few weeks.”

Dad said he hadn’t read the book in years

and he hoped to read it once more. After

each book we finished, I asked if he wanted

that one read to him yet, but he just shook

his head.

“I think he might be sleeping behind the

gymnasium on campus. I live a few blocks

away, and I see his neon green hoodie some

mornings. I checked back there but couldn’t

find any evidence of anyone sleeping there,

but there’s a covered area over a grate down

some steps to the basement door, so…I don’t

know. Never got any complaints.”

Dad liked reading books he hadn’t read

yet. He told me he wanted to hit all the

good ones he could just in case he couldn’t

find them where he was headed. He wanted

to read The Old Man and the Sea once more,

though, because of the part where Santiago

dreams of the lions frolicking in the surf on a

beach in Africa. Ever since he first read that

passage, he wished to experience that exact

dream just once. Perhaps he saved it for his

last.

“I’ve seen him at the community kitchen.

I stop by there to check in on things. Thing

is, he was serving food, not eating. And he

was helping with the dishes. I asked the lady

that runs it if he was a volunteer, and she

said sort of. Said she knew he was hungry,

too, but that he insisted he just wanted to

help.”

He wanted my brother to read it to him.

“He told her he wasn’t helpless but just

needed someone to say, ‘I believe in you.’”

“Neil Young,” I muttered.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“Well, he’s family, right? It could be

worse. I’ve seen just about every junkie and

drunk low-life this town’s put out the last

twenty-five years. I’ve locked my own relatives

up. But he’s still got hope, I think.”

“What am I supposed to do?” I asked.

“You just keep trying. Because once

they’re gone, they can’t come back.”

We returned to the lobby and my brother

was standing with his arms spread wide.

“Hey, sister.”

“Let’s go.”

“Nice to see you, too.”

“You were really just looking for that

book?”

“Dad and I read it together when I was

little. Thought I’d like to read it again.”

So.

I took a walk the other night

On the sun-soaked streets of Sicily

Surreptitiously slow, almost sluggishly

I’m not me in Italy.

I dragged my ragged feet.

Beat up converse beneath me.

I conversed with my demons

About my need for significance.

Spoke with my trauma

About the melodrama.

Got some insight on my mental demise

Asked why I tell myself so many lies

And why so many sleepless nights?

Bruise-blue under red lights

A who’s who of bad guys

Lit a cigarette that I detest

That burned at both ends

And turned to ash in my hands.

The Scene & the Unseen

Poetry

Christian Deery

Rugby, Warwickshire, UK

Through the cacophony

Of darkness I tried to make sense

Of the cold thoughts that

Chaotically crawled

On the spray-painted walls

Inside of my skull.

It is there I kill my darlings.

Where the sun dies

But is reborn in the morning

Where day is dawning and I’m still yawning.

There’s a dream somewhere in this

nightmare.

I hit a bump and lost my train of thought.

The self esteem train left at dawn.

Its tracks cut through the earth’s flesh

Before I could catch it, it already left.

148

Guardian

Poetry

First Second

Walnut Creek, California, USA

Control the Divine

Poetry

Andriana Botan

Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands

Never alone,

Hands are floating over mine

They’re born of light

Their arms are loose around me —

I’m,

Taking my first steps

For so long I swam

Carried to the shore

I’m discovering I can stand

Exploring deep into caves

and out into glory

Time’s on my side —

I’m mounting new risks,

Climbing by shreds,

View now wide open,

No turning my head

Rising

Beginning to fly

My Guardian

This hope of mine,

It guides me wide

And leads me far,

To nest inside

my restless heart

No going back to despair I’ve

outgrown

Home’s on my shoulders

My fate is my own

All is before me,

Burning my sight

Blinking through tears

I join with the light

Rising

Beginning to fly

My Guardian

This hope of mine,

It drives me wide

and pushed hard

Relentlessly

It breaks my heart

Rising

Never to die

My Guardian,

This Force of Life

It guides me wide

And leads me far,

To nest inside

My restless heart

Rebellions and blood-rusted iron,

Is a familiar sight to the eyes of the Watcher.

Does he delight,

When the bombs dropped upon Hiroshima burned the skin of

People?

Did he rejoice,

When cruel ancient lord would hoist their enemies upon spikes,

To be used as dinner for crows?

I know why Lucifer rebelled.

I know why he got punished.

I’ve seen his fall in the eyes of men and women who have left the world

Enshackled.

He-who-hoisted-himself-on-the-Gilded-Throne was never a kind father.

He who lets babes drown in the wombs of their mothers,

Of a people,

Who he sired,

That decided to worship in a different way.

In a longing to understand their Father,

They buried children,

In the walls that held the Tower of Babylon upright.

Yet, for fear that lesser beings would stand on an equal grounding,

He created strife, and war, and desolation.

Lucifer, a preternaturally wise beings, must have seen

This need to control the divine.

It is a shame his legionnaires have fallen.

It is a shame that nobody can read the signs.

149

Santorini Sunrise

Photography

Lara Abreu


150

Jon had lied to his mother and it was

keeping him awake. She’d smelled cigarette

smoke on him and asked if he’d been

smoking. He didn’t think smoking was a sin.

Jesus and God didn’t know about tobacco.

But lying to his mother, that was bearing

false witness and not honoring his father and

mother. She closed the book on her finger

when he came out of his room.

“I lied,” he confessed. “I did smoke a

cigarette.”

“And how was it?”

“It was awful. I coughed and thought I was

going to throw up.”

“That good?”

“But I don’t think it’s a sin. They didn’t

know about tobacco until the discovery of

the New World, so neither God nor Jesus

could have known about it.”

“I know you’re very smart for the ninth

grade, but you’re still a little young to be

deciding what God did and did not know. I

think we’re against smoking because somewhere,

and I can’t tell you exactly where

right now, I can ask your father when he

gets home, it’s written that our body is the

temple of God and we shouldn’t be polluting

that temple.

“You didn’t buy cigarettes, did you?”

“No.”

“Where did you get them?”

“It wasn’t them. It was just one.” He

didn’t want to tell her it was Eric, because

he was afraid she’d tell him to stay away

from Eric and that would spoil the best part

of living in this new place.

Honor

Fiction

dave hunter

Austin, Texas, USA

“Well the next time Dave or Eric offers

you a cigarette, tell them about the temple

of God and take a pass. Okay?”

“Okay.” He felt better. He returned to his

bed and dreamed of mountains.

He told them the next morning. Eric came

by, then they walked to Dave’s where they

had coffee before walking to school.

“Temple of God,” scoffed Eric. “Kind of

a shoddy builder, I’d say. Temples that fall

apart in forty years and get tooth decay and

rheumatism and flat feet.”

“Well,” Jon argued, “it’s unnatural. You’d

never see a woodchuck smoking.”

Dave chimed in, “Walking on concrete’s

unnatural. Reading’s unnatural. Working’s

unnatural. School’s unnatural.”

“Well it about made me sick and I didn’t

like it and I don’t want to do it anymore.”

“Then don’t. That’s fine. You don’t need

to be making up all this philosophical bullshit.

I was just trying to add a bit of Minnesota

sophistication to your Land of Goshen

hickness.”

They were in the same home room because

their last names began with H. H’s and

I’s began the day together. Jon had come a

week after school started. The new kid. On a

Friday, Eric, with Dave, walked back to him,

put out his hand, and announced, “I’m Eric

Hacket, they call me the Hacket Kid, and

this weasel is Dave Hise, who is called the

Hise Kid. Where you from Jon?”

“The Land of Goshen.”

“Is that some kind of joke?”

151

“Yeah, sort of. Goshen, Indiana. My folks

moved here from Goshen, Indiana.”

“They have any fishing in Goshen?”

“Some.”

“That’s what we do, Dave and me, on

Saturday mornings we fish the river. You up

for that?”

That was the beginning. Even back in Indiana

where he was not the only Mennonite

in school, Jon had been a loner. Now he had

friends, two best friends, for the first time in

his life. He was happy. He worried about the

religious thing and saw no reason to bring it

up, but learned it didn’t matter.

Yancy Ingham had shoved him into the

lockers as they exited home room, and

shoved him again so he’d know it wasn’t an

accident.

“You people are chickenshit,” Yancy

snarled. Boys and girls semicircled. Jon’s

face turned red from being the center of

attention.

“So what’s happening here?” asked Eric,

stepping into the half circle.

“He belongs to some weird religion that

won’t fight for the country,” said Yancy,

looking as if for once he knew something.

“Weird religion? Oh yes, I plum forgot

about when Jesus was G.I. Joe. And speaking

of weird, Nancy, here you are picking a

fight with a guy who doesn’t want to. How

bright is that? If I wanted to fight, I’d take

it up with someone who truly loves it. For

instance, and here he comes now, the Hise

Kid.”

That was the end of that.

“I wonder how he knew?” Jon asked.

“Hell, man, everyone knows. This is

a small town. Your old man’s new in the

physics department. So he’s a scientist and

religious. Some people think it’s a strange

combo and they chatter.”

“But it doesn’t bother you?”

“Why would it? Dave and I are supposed to

be Lutherans. Born into it. That bother you?”

Weekends were the best. Some mornings

Mrs. Hacket would drive them upstream to

the next little town on the river and they

would fish their way back, an all day effort.

They caught smallmouths, walleyes, northerns,

channel cats, sheepsheads, and carp.

Some weekends they camped out on the

river. Jon learned that in the spring the Kids

had planted potatoes near their favorite

campsites. At first they teased him and said

they hadn’t expected him, so no potatoes.

They sat out on an island beside their fire

with the stars overhead and the sparks rising

and the river whispering past and talked into

the nights. Why did math seem so connected

with the world when it seemed to come like

fantasy from human brains? Was there really

order in the universe, or did humans focus

their attention where they saw it? Why had

conservation departments imported carp?

Why did fat girls so often have pretty faces?

Was there life on other planets? Was there

an end to the universe? Why did Terri Huges

already have such big tits while others had

nothing? Was stupidity genetic or learned?

Summer came and they nearly lived on the

river. Dave had paper routes and part time

jobs that kept him in town sometimes. Eric

had an allowance, a generous one for the

times. Jon thought he ought to find some

summer work to pay for extras, like fishing

tackle and an occasional chocolate malt.

Eric dissuaded him. “We can make all the

money you need and more selling minnows

to the Iowans and turtles to the Produce

Store. Dave has to work ‘cause he pays his

folks for room and board and has to buy his

own clothes. When trapping season gets

here, we’ll make some real money. And,

Dave’s folks will have no idea how much he’s

making. You probably ought to save up to

buy a couple dozen one and a half coil spring

traps, if you want to join us.”

If he wanted to join them! What if? He’d

read every book he could find in Goshen

about the mountain men. “What do you

trap? Do you trap beaver?”

“No, we don’t trap beaver. Not yet. Next

year when we have driver licenses and can

get a jeep, or a pickup. You figure a beaver

weighs from say thirty to sixty pounds and

takes an hour or better to skin. We’re on

foot, and we don’t want to be lugging beavers

back to town. No, we concentrate on

mink and muskrats. We pick up a few ‘coon,

but we don’t concentrate on them for the

same reasons. Dave can rough skin one in

about fifteen minutes, but that’s still a lot of

time. Mink and rats we can throw in a pack

and skin them after school.”

Things were getting better and better.

In July the Kids added sweetcorn to the

fish and potato menu. They picked it on the

way to the river. Jon said, “It’s stealing.”

“No it’s not,” objected the Hise Kid.

“Of course it is.”

“Look,” explained the Hacket Kid, “deer

and ‘coon take a lot more than we do, and

beaver wipe out whole sections of the field.”

“But they don’t know any better.”

152

“And neither do I,” said the Hise Kid.

They all laughed, and boy, you soak those

ears in the spring water and then lay them

right on the coals in their husks, did they

ever taste great!

Magic nights. One night five girls from the

trailer court on the ridge above the sand pit

came down and went skinny dipping. It was

dark and Jon couldn’t really see them. They

were high school girls, but they seemed to

know the Kids. They stood around the campfire

in their underwear to dry and warm.

They bummed cigarettes from the Kids and

joked, then all at once dressed and left. But

it was food for the imagination and never

would have happened back in Goshen.

One night there was whiskey by the fire.

“Care for a swig?” Eric asked, passing the

bottle to Dave.

“Don’t mind if I do.”

And Dave handed it to Jon. Jon held the

liquid in his mouth. It burned under his

tongue. He spit it into the flames and shuddered

as he inhaled the fumes. “Good grief,

how can you stand that ghastly stuff?”

“It’s an acquired taste. Like golf, or poetry,”

answered Eric.

“I always liked it. From the first time,”

said Dave. “I think it tastes like fall and oak

leaves.”

“It tastes awful. And, it’s against the law.”

“But not,” argued Eric, “one in the mind

of God.” (Jon had told them that his father

thought that by discovering the laws of

physics, you discovered the mind of God.) “It

wouldn’t make any sense to have a law that

expired every time someone turned twenty-one.”

“It’s so unnatural. I can see where wine

and beer would just happen when you didn’t

have refrigeration, but this stuff has to be

distilled.”

“So you’re saying flour’s okay, but bread is

an abomination?”

“No I’m not.”

“You just don’t like it, that’s all,” said the

Hise Kid. “If I were you, I’d leave it alone.”

“Fine. I will.”

“Fine.”

Summer was over and they moved from

9th grade to the 10th grade, from their

junior high to the larger senior high. More

electives, more choices, and they’d been

joined by students from the other junior

high. The Hise Kid’s philosophical question

was why new girls always looked so much

prettier than the ones you’ve known? Hacket

Kid said it was something in the mind of

god. The trio still had the same home room.

All the H’s were still together, but the G’s,

I’s, and J’s were gone. They had the same

biology class, higher algebra class, and the

constants, English and social studies, but Jon

had signed up for Spanish, while Eric and

Dave had to take the second year of Latin

to get credit for the year they’d had in 9th

grade, which they called “extortion, from

the Latin, to twist.”

The down side of the 10th grade was that

they’d gone from being most senior, top of

the pecking order, to the bottom. There was

potential torment to go with the new status:

vicious and humiliating attacks known

as wedges, swirlees, and depantsing. To his

delight, Jon found he was immune by association.

He was not yet called the Hartzman

Kid, or Jon Kid, but most students, and

particularly the bullies, seemed to know he

was part of a trio best not toyed with. It was

a good feeling.

Leaves were beginning to turn. He was

browsing Hawbaker’s Trapping Supply Catalog,

but hadn’t ordered yet. There was a

discussion of disagreement with his father

about the upcoming trapping venture.

“It’s cruel,” Mr. Hartzman said.

“They’re going to teach me to make

drowning sets.”

“You think drowning is humane?”

“Do you think butchering cows and pigs is

humane?”

“But no one butchers on Sunday, that I

know of.”

“Please Dad. I’ll make some money, and

Eric and Dave are doing it. It’ll be an adventure.

Please.”

“Those two live like it was 1859. They’re

avatars, anachronisms, throwbacks…”

“Come on, Daniel,” Ruth Hartzman interrupted.

“They’re just boys. Let him have

some fun with his friends while he’s young.”

“Well, okay, as long as he keeps his grades

up.”

“I will. I promise.”

Mrs. Hartzman was happy for her son. Jon

had always been a good boy, always a good

student, but he’d been quiet, and a loner,

and pale, and a little chubby. Now he had

friends, he’d lost the baby fat, he looked

really healthy, and best of all, he was happy.

Two weeks into the new school year, Jon,

with modest pride, told the Kids that his

father had been invited to read his paper on

Surface Friction in Liquids of Varying Viscosity

at a conference in Indiana. His mother

had prepared Jon. They were going to be

gone a week, attending the conference and

then visiting friends in Indiana and Illinois.

She would freeze some meals that he could

just reheat in the oven. She’d prepared a list

153

of numbers to call if he had any problems,

though she didn’t expect any.

“That’s great,” said the Hacket Kid.

“Quite an honor. Good for your old man.

That’s about all anyone can hope for; to add

one little piece of truth to the body of socalled

human knowledge.”

“And great news for us too,” said the

Hise Kid. “You know what I’m thinking? Week

long party.”

“My folks would never go for that.”

“Which is why you don’t tell them.”

“No. No. I don’t want to risk my folks

coming home to property damage. I’ve heard

what happens at those parties.”

“That’s those big crazy ass parties

where they let in every teenage idiot in the

county. I’m talking a small party, low music,

dancing, a bit of booze, just about six of us.

You know that Terri Hughes, when she gets a

bit of sloe gin in her she can hardly keep her

blouse on. And I’m going to invite her just

for you. You think on that.”

He did think on it. Girls in his house.

He didn’t know how to dance. Terri naked.

Then what? And it was all illegal. And he

would have to lie to Mom and Dad. What if

they smelled cigarette smoke in the curtains

when they got home? What if the neighbors

said they saw girls coming and going? Naked

girls dancing in his living room. And once

he’d lied to Mom, he’d have to keep lying.

But Eric and Dave were his friends. They’d

never asked anything of him until now. But

this was a big deal. It didn’t seem like a big

deal to them. But it was to him. If it wasn’t

just plain wrong, why did he have to lie

about it? And no matter what the Kids said,

it had to be a sin. If it wasn’t wrong, why

wasn’t he sleeping at midnight? At one, at

two, at three?

“Are you feeling all right?” His mother

asked at breakfast. Dad was already out on

his morning jog.

“Fine.”

“You don’t look fine. If you’re not ill,

something’s bothering you. What is it, Honey?”

He told her. Not everything, but close.

He felt better. Lighter. He’d done the right

thing.

“I knew Eric and Dave smoked, but I didn’t

think they used alcohol too. They’re far too

young for that, and for unsupervised parties

too. Thank you for telling me, Jon. I know it

wasn’t easy.” She kissed him on the cheek

and patted him on the back and sent him off

to school.

It was the next morning that things began

to feel wrong. First, Eric didn’t stop to pick

him up. Well, he could be sick or skipping.

But when he turned onto Dave’s street he

saw both the Kids sitting on Dave’s porch

with coffee and cigarettes. When he approached,

Dave flicked a cigarette butt at

his feet. They both looked at him blankly.

“You squealed,” Dave accused.

“What?”

“You know what he means,” said the

Hacket Kid. “Don’t pretend that you don’t.

Your folks didn’t read your mind. You told

them.”

“I had to.”

“No you didn’t. You could have told us no,

that you didn’t want to have a party, but

you didn’t. Instead, you finked. And then

your mother called our mothers. Dave here

caught a good beating from his old man, and

I’m grounded after school for two weeks.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You should be. And we’re sorry too. Usually

a case like this would call for a sound

beating. But you’ve been a friend for too

long and you’re not a fighter. So you get a

pass on that. I hope you haven’t ordered any

traps yet. You can if you want, but you’re

not trapping with us.”

The Kids got up and walked off fast ahead

of him. He felt tears in the corners of his

eyes and a lump in his throat. Life was going

to be lonely again.

154

Saphistry

Poetry


Kajang, Selangor, Malaysia

Sappho, I admire your lack of hypocrisy,

I am amazed by your intensity,

In spite of being your cousin,

When I try befriending Aphrodite

I stumble and fail at every word.

Diving deep into the stream of blood,

I collect the Rose that wilting swirls,

Hoping she would recognise what dripped

Immaculate from the blinding flash of feet,

That in measures mellifluous moved the

base,

To achieve with one touch sublimity

unmatched.

No god ever transformed a mundane life

To such enrichment of the mind as she

When with her fair feet touched coarse

earth

To make Marino sing a song that none forget,

Or you to seek, half in jest, the help of the

foam-born.

Let that be as it may, I today have jettisoned

The altar I had of lucent words built for her,

Instead build this temple in your honour

That all those who may their kind love

Henceforth find favour when they visit

Under vow or despair to bend a knee.

Confession

Sonnet

Richard Stimac


We shoved on monkey bars, the steel slide,

Chain swings, through sewer pipes, the best

for hide

And seek. You showed me yours. I showed

you mine.

Ten years, same place, we’d drink our Mad

Dog wine

And wrap ourselves, like relics, side by side

And count risen stars. That was good. Wideeyed,

I rudely kissed you down your neck and

spine.

They always warned us not to cross “the

line.”

Some Sundays, mass concluded, the priest

And families returned to their homes, we’d

feast

On flesh, too, flesh of arm and thigh and

breast.

In my bedroom, a confessional booth,

We mocked and shrived each other’s sins. In

truth,

Condemned to death, unknowing, we were

blessed.

on a bike, it’s easy ta coast

accumulated spiral streets

asphalt for silica, concrete for curbstone

of rock built up, chamber by chamber

melted & cast, moistened & worn

by all the natural processes of memory

portraits of formal elegance in the balance

of dilapidated storefronts

the filaments of lives & histories

in the old attic, what was felt, the

weight of each individual thing

fusions of hands & eyes

dampened reverberations under the steep

roof

buzzing summers of nesting wasps

the slight sucking of linoleum

footfalls on the narrow stairs

corroded & yellowed silver inner workings

of the dormer mirror honeycombing an image

a child's dim face

we collected each morning on the blacktopped

schoolyard

groups of trousers & jumpers keeping

Psalm Something

Poetry

Peter Grieco

Buffalo, New York, USA

separate

in a calliope of sizes, heaped under heavy

winter wraps

'til sister empties her bell & we

fall in line, watching little cyclones of wind

lift

streamers of snow, resisting

order & it was easy to see self had no

boundaries

zigzags of sisters & brothers shading youngest

to oldest

or one saw turning one’s head

in the tiny church vestibule in stormy weather

most everyone one knew, their naked eyes,

raincoats, rubbers

mittens, hats & heard all one knows

in their voices down to one’s own thoughts

clutching the same books, anger, laughter,

favorite things

the full globe of parish families embracing

each other

in their children, Lord, Thou givest them,

they gather

Thou hidest Thy face, they are troubled.

155

If You Scared, Go To Church!!

Poetry



We are the Borg. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our

own. Your culture will adapt to service us.

Because we were warned of death

at an early age

—The Borg (Star Trek: First Contact)

we knelt in prayer/: If I should die

before I wake . . .

before the shapeless silence of God

Because some things

when they're gone

are gone forever

We knelt in the churchouse &

prayed as our fathers brothers

mothers sisters husbands &

wives were detained beaten illegally

framed in stereotypical

criminality & murdered

we must have faith

We prayed

as four Black girls

were Raptured to smithereens

because we believed

despite no dead Black anybody

156

has ever come back

to tell us our faith would ever be rewarded

& now

or over yonder

prayed & we prayed

because we blindly believed

had a conscience

that They

We prayed

as #wetoo were lynched castrated

& burned in Jim Crow effigy

in the here

We prayed & we

We knelt

in a Baptist prayer circle &

made ourselves easy targets

for white supremacist bullets

We prayed as we were told/: You can't live here

You can't enter that door

You can't sit

You can't/

You can't/

You can't/ You can't . . .

here

You can't go to school

there

For centuries

we've been taught

to conjugate prey into prayer

to turn the other cheek that hopefully

our racist oppressors would be

moved by guilt or sympathy

to make recompense

We prayed during moments of silence after each

& every latest racist police shooting statistic

We prayed as we marched were teargassed

rubber-bullet-ed peppersprayed

beaten & cuffed

& God

We prayed

as we endeavored

to bury ourselves

in the deceits &

deprivations of

everyday survival

ain't never gave a fuck!!

So many who bear the mark of Cain/: the Black

lives subject to breakable & what looks slowmotion

as calamity in real time/: a nation

of inequality &

in-Just-Us the police brutality & murders

of unarmed Black people

is not the anomaly but rather the exact moment

that white racism repeats itself

We kneel We kneeled We knelt . . .

against all racist cops in protest of Officer Derek Chauvin

who kneeled on the neck

of a handcuffed black man

(& the three cowards with badges

who stood by & did nothing/: Thomas Lane

J. Alexander Kueng &

Tou Thao)

even as he begged for his life

even as he

cried out for his mother

even as Death entered

& consumed him

(If one cop

murders a Black man &

a thousand cops do nothing then

one thousand & one cops

are murderers)

157

We knelt in a moment of silence

at the intersection of E. 38th

Street &

S. Chicago Ave.

for 8 minutes & 46 seconds

We knelt with our hands raised high

as Amerikkka looked on most often

with entitlement folded indifferent maybe wished

to be something new

& better

or having been taught to hate &

fear blackness would remain something ancient &

institutionally twisted

I kneel

in protest/: fashioning an incendiary

gas-filled bottle & red

rag jammed into the neck

the gas swelled to combust

Diamond lit match

& whoooosh!!

The conflagration

will continue to brew

with a singlemindedness &

ferocity

that will not be contained the flames &

columned smoke of justice

rising from the ruins

because some cities deserve to be burned

Note/: Throughout the history of the struggle by Black citizens, for equality and

inclusivity in all facets of American life, they have religiously employed non-violent,

and/or purely defensive measures, to garner the sympathy, understanding and support

of fellow non-Black Americans. And after centuries of marches, boycotts, petitions,

legal challenges to change legislation (most often, later amended to knocked

toothless) and praying to God like there's no tomorrow, Black people can still be legally

lynched with disproportionate draconian laws, chokeholds, Tazers, bullets, or a knee

to the neck. Who said things are better than they used to be?

Fatal fate

Poetry

Sandip Saha

Kolkata, West Bengal, India

Of Western Civilisation

Poetry

Jones Irwin

Dublin, Idaho, USA

A brick rubble road

from town to village

at one side paddy fields

on the other houses

among those a palatial

U-shaped edifice with

twenty-eight rooms

was her home.

Her husband fought

tooth and nail but

could not save it

as religious fanatics

captured it forcefully

evicted them mercilessly

they became homeless.

After her birth

she lost her mother soon

was married off as a child

but did not get affection

from her in-laws either.

Being driven out their home

her husband lost his business

as they migrated elsewhere

could live only hand to mouth.

Her eldest son was a cruel victim

of black magic by a close relative

he left study and fell sick seriously.

Her serving daughter died of cancer,

darkness everywhere, no hope at sight

death took her to its dreaded lap.

I

Sweet and juicy criminality they said

as if the fellas were some wreckers

of Western civilization when yeah

maybe they were seeking that but

let’s face it takes a lot more than

a couple of songs, a fair bit of sneering

and a few broken hearts.

What’s love got to do with it?, she

asked that first night wasn’t just

him then she was in fact the one

discouraging the use of condoms

and undue affection. Don’t do

drama y’see, I’m in it for the pleasure, me.

Which took him a little by surprise.

Only by a little though cos Mark was

hardly a romantic. Post-romantic rather

like Debord, Vaneigem and all that ’68 mess

where nothing gets cleaned in the revolution.

After a while the use of amphetamine affects

personal and mental hygiene for the worse.

That said, has its own sweet and juicy

aesthetic.

II

That’s how it started with

a lustful kiss and little else. Fine

they both thought. That’s all there is.

Best foundation for a revolution. Start

with an end to naivety. Look at reality

full on face. No botox tricks, please,

if I show you ME and you show me YOU. Next

let’s

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get the semtex and the cheapest bomb

making equipment on the market.

You track the ones you want to hit. Day

after day for a bit. Belfast. You build up the

record.

Bangor. Family train trips out by the coast.

Check the transport routes the times

the acquaintances. The weak links.

Not an exact science. But. With

diligence you can make progress. Just

make sure you’re not being watched by

police.

Or informers. Trust the tiniest sub-set of

breathers.

Simples. Soon the courage rises and the

desire.

Fix the date. No going back. We are in this

together.

III

Scratch that note earlier. It is a kind of love.

A special type. Not everyone could do just

this. An art of some sort. Helps to have ice

in the blood. A bad childhood. A degree

in the social sciences. Above average 2:1.

Wrote

well but somewhat dogmatic. Lack of

feeling the report from the state

psychiatrist put it. Who died not long after

in a mysterious and rather brutal accident.

Funny that.

We Are A Community National School

Fiction

Jones Irwin

Dublin, Ireland

I am Srisha and my friends are Majda,

Aga, Molly, and also Benjamin. All our gang is

from outside or so says Charlie. None of yus

are Paddies! Although of course he is a Paddy

even if he isn’t a bad guy. Still Charlie’s

not one of us either (nanananana) — two can

play that game you’re playin’ — and also

he’s a boy! So there!

Benjamin is a boy too obviously but I don’t

hold it against him, well only sometimes

– and anyhow he says he feels more like a

girl cos he has dreads. Really long cool ones

too, smooth and silky. His parents are from a

place in the Caribbean Sea where they drink

rum, apparently. Begins with a J, the place

he keeps saying, but it’s hard to spell just

right. Sounds sooo exotic to me, like. His

grandad and cousins still live there supposedly,

although I never know when he’s fibbin’

or not. He has such a poker face, it’s unbelievable,

he is deffo gonna make so much

money when he is legal age to play those

world series competitions. I’m a good speller

but he won’t even let me try the slippery

J word, the tease.

For some reason Benjamin can’t get the

reggae out of his head. It makes him dance

around the classroom tables sometimes

without warning which I enjoy but it can be

distracting when we are all trying to study

Maths, for example. Or Science — as it can

get messy with the liquids and even dangerous

with the experiments. That’s why he

keeps getting in trouble with our principal,

Mrs Fletcher, although she says she loves his

dreadlocks and wants to get some herself

next time she goes to the hairdressers. But I

don’t believe her, none of us do, it’s just one

of those things teachers say when they try

to keep the peace by lightening the mood.

There is absolutely no way that the school

board of management want a principal with

dreadlocks; total fact! This is Ireland, after

all. Why are boards of management always

so out of touch? My mum says they deliberately

choose the most annoying parents and

even the best teachers or principals can’t

get a word in edgeways. Silly, isn’t it, as if

they want nothing good to happen. Sometimes

I don’t understand why the world has

to be so upside down the way it doesn’t

work properly.

Dear reader, I’ll tell you a secret I haven’t

told anyone else and you have to promise

you won’t tell. Promise?! Ok, then. (Whispers)

I might be in love with Benjamin cos

I’m finding it hard to sleep at night and I’ve

been listening to reggae I asked my mum

to get me from the local library. Majda says

it can’t be love and it’s only infatuation as

love doesn’t happen if you’re underage but

the reggae fixation is still a bit concerning.

My mum thought it was weird that I should

be listening to music from the J country but

I just said we were doing something on Bob

Marley for a school project on racism and

she believed me. The way he sings the songs

reminds me of you know who. Woo hoo.

Now I can’t get the reggae outta me head.

Chika-chika-chika is how the guitar sound

goes again and again up down up down and

it’s flippin contagious. Do you know that

159

song One Love? It’s just amaaaazing—– I think

the whole world should be singin’ along with

it these days with Trump and all that anger

stuff going around on the internet. We need

to learn the words by heart and really mean

it when we sing it. It’s pointless unless you

mean it, that’s what Mr Carraher told us in

Social Personal and Health Education anyways.

There is another reggae song by this taller

guy than Bob Marley who still looks similar

— it’s called Nightnurse and he really means

it too. My mum actually preferred that one,

maybe cos she works as a nurse in the hospital,

well as a midwife which is something

similar or even better as you bring people

into life at the very beginning of everything.

God didn’t create the human being, midwives

did. That’s what my dad says when he

wants to get on her good side.

Talking about learning, we learnt about

gender inequality in our Goodness Me, Goodness

You! curriculum class and Benjamin lost

the argument that there wasn’t any — he

was outnumbered and we girls are louder cos

my mum says you gotta be better than the

boys to ever get heard as a woman. Especially

round here. Especially with male doctors

who apparently are just awful and hate

women speaking up or having any say at all.

I think Ben knew it was true about female

oppression but he likes an argument for the

sake of it and I don’t hold that against him,

as I’m a bit like that too. My mum says it’s

exactly the same for women and girls most

places and wouldn’t be any different in

India which is a relief in some ways. In other

ways, it’s just depressing. Imagine the whole

world like that! Still I felt sorry shouting at

Ben — although not for shouting at the rest

of the boys who are all really, really annoying

in a much deeper way of being irritating.

We even got to do the class on racism in the

end that was my idea in the first place — I’m

the biggest anti-racist in the class by far, no

in the whole flippin’ school by far! I said to

Ms Murray in the gender class that it wasn’t

just girls that were oppressed and she

agreed. Sometimes it’s whole peoples who

get messed about, like all of us kids when we

came to Ireland. My family came to Ireland

when I was four and I wasn’t accepted by

any of the schools for the next year (which

would be school going age of five average) as

I am Hindu. In Ireland, you can stop children

going to school because of their religion or

even the language they speak — except if it’s

Irish or English, of course.

That seems unfair to me. I just wanted to

learn about the world and become a more

developed person. Who cares where you

are from, it’s where you are going to that

matters! That’s an actual quotation from

Bob Marley I think or perhaps it’s the taller

Gregory guy. Some people couldn’t seem to

see that though. Oh yeah and sorry for any

words I spell wrong. I’m still only getting

it right as we missed loads of school at the

start, which wasn’t even my fault of course.

I’m just lucky to be able to spell and write

as good as I do.

The racism class was quite fun as the

teacher allowed us to bring in whatever

‘silenced voices’ we wanted to hear. She

explained first what silenced voices meant

by doing this mime where she looked desperate

to say something but it — the thing she

most needed to say — just wouldn’t express

itself and she used one of her arms to make

it look as if someone or something else was

like a barrier to what she needed and wanted

to say. Then we read this prize-winning

story by an American guy with a beard called

Fox 8 — the story that is, not his beard which

probably isn’t named as such as beards tend

not to be, right. Apparently it’s all written

by a fox which is mad as none of us knew

that foxes could write or talk but there you

go — the guy with the beard who is called

George Saunders must have transcribed the

whole thing but we didn’t get clarity of

who approached who? Was it humans or was

it foxes reaching out? The spelling is a bit

all over the place but not having the best

spellin’ myself, I completely get that and

feel sympathy as the fox surely never got

any proper schooling. He watches humans

and listens through a window in secret and

he gets all preoccupied and impressed with

the way adults tell their kids stories at night

in bed and the ‘gudnite kiss.’ This is because

for the fox this shows that humans can feel

love and that it gives foxes hope for the

future of the earth. How cool is that? Greta

that mega-child needs to meet this fox, as

she must get depressed trying to teach the

stupid global adults some sense on the environment.

But he ain’t no fool either, this fox talker

and writer. This is clear as Fox 8 also says

that cos of some of the things he saw and

heard in secret that he has to ‘think twice’ –

he spells it ‘twise’ and he spells earth ‘erth’

— about humans. For some reason, maybe

because of fox language itself, he calls humans

‘yumans,’ which made us all laugh, but

that didn’t lessen our sense of support for

this fox. All in all, it’s a flippin great story

160

and I totally underestimated foxes up until

now. Who would have thought, eh? It could

lead to a whole animal revolution. That’s

what Aga said as she is vegan and very strong

on human cruelty and hypocrisy when it

comes to animals. She got hugely excited by

the Fox 8 guy and she has written a letter

to see if she can meet up — with the bearded

transcriber but also with Fox 8. We all

wondered whether George was just really

uniquely understanding of fox language and

philosophy or whether this could be accessible

to all us if we just took the time to listen

properly to other species. I intend to try out

this new method of communication with the

hedgehog down the back of my garden, for

example.

The whole educational experience these

days was quite powerful and a few of us

were teary, as we recognized that feeling in

ourselves and not just the girls either. Boys

can cry too and that’s a good thing. When

teacher asked us how the mime made us

feel, a couple of us shouted out the same

word at the same time which was interesting

– FRUSTRATED. Then others said ANGRY.

But you know what – frustration and anger

can only get you so far and you mustn’t let it

eat you up or you won’t be able to fight back

as you get exhausted. So we didn’t and we

managed to fight back after all.

Because of me and Majda, Aga, Molly

and also Benjamin (yes even a boy wasn’t

allowed to learn!) — they had to start a

new school in Ireland. At first it was called

an ‘emergency school’ (which sounds very

dangerous as a place for small people to go

every day) but then it became a Community

National School and other kids, just like us,

had somewhere to go to learn and avoid getting

bored with our houses and our parents

and too much flippin’ Play Station 4, Bake

Off, and Bob’s Burgers. Now it’s our school

and we love it! Ireland isn’t such a bad place

to be after all. Well, let’s just say because

of our new school that Ireland is getting to

be a lot better. Even the weather is picking

up, although that isn’t all positive as it’s

something to do with global warming. And

also Ireland is way better cos of Benjamin.

Yippee ! — ooops, rather shhh.

An Ode to the Broken Heart

Poetry

Heidi Speth


Slut. Prude. Know-It-All. Dumby. Jock. Princess. Fat. Skinny.

The words of this society circle through my mind like grease-stained clothes in a washing

machine

All the filth spins in a roundabout

A mix of words, and bubbles, and good smells

But once the bubbles pop and the smells fade, all that is left is the words

The greasy words that prick us and embed themselves into our skin like splinters from an old

piece of wood

After all the picking and pulling and pushing and prodding

The little brown spear will finally shoot itself out of the red, bruised skin

But years later, the scar will remain, all that is left is the words

Words

Unkind words

That define us, they are always with us

They are the grease stains

And the splinters

Why can’t we live in a world where we don’t have to make up stories for our scars that

conceal

the painful truth?

Why can’t we live in a world where emotional scars aren't something to be ashamed of?

Why can't we live in a world that plants flowers in people's hearts instead of weeds?

Beautiful. Handsome. Knowledgeable. Giving. Appreciated. Kind. Love.

You are loved.

161

162

let it go

Digital Art

Vita Nocilla


An Ottawa Night Out

Poetry



Another 527 Gladstone afternoon,

The stench of stale beer’s in the air.

Our recovery is the cruellest gruel

From a night obliterated by bouts of Kraken.

Three yolks break in a pan over conversation.

We ignore an alarm clock blaring

As we take turns playing Russian

Roulette with radio dials & Doom.

Escaping what truth of sunlight remains,

The Dom hosts our hangovers

Where we play contra the cruelty

Of pool punks. Colin sardonically quips

‘Bout how Barefax strippers are supposed Slavic

Bears castrated for bargain love. Some guy

Overhears & metal’s blaring as he’s breaking

Cues [must’ve had a girlfriend there].

We throw back our beers & bail before

The owners can throw the first punch.

Between bars, we hum the rust out

The notes of our mothers’ harmonicas.

Meandering about the wintery of York

Street without direction, we burst down

Those doors warmed by the burgundy glow

Of mirth. Each laughter is the rebirth of

A new story. Five minutes in Lafayette

And Marty’s already engaged in charades

With a lady at the bar, she brings her rose-gilded

Friends & they solicit flattery awhile at our table.

The emcee onstage is an impromptu violin queen

With invisible fingers & a folk fury. She makes it easy

For everyone to be sincere. We belabour roarin’

163

Wit under the late-night blur of an upbeat blues

Fiddle sawin’ swan songs. In the end,

The ladies feel our language tries too

Hard to be divergent and knock over

The Jenga tower via either accident or

Virtue. It collapses like some Tower of Babel

Proverb. In the ruins, euchres are sticking

Together over spilt beer & someone mentions Babylon.

Between bars, we weave woes together like

Zen spiders & hope our fathers can’t hear.

At the bridge where summer last set & browned

Out of our hearts, we feel a chill off the canal—small daggers

Weaving off Ottawa’s spinal cord. We’re damned

With the toxin of a late autumn fever dream.

Our soaring shadows sour over the cold ice.

Darkly drifting amidst inebriation’s insular abyss,

For a moment, I’m absolved of all boredom,

Purged from the anaemic guilt of being

Anything less than lingering lore.

At Babylon’s door,

Muse Molly beckons us in & our cascading corpse consciousness

With a kiss. The myrrh of aimless adoration wells, emerges through

Our six shifting pupils like nova-red pinballs in a skull blur.

I make eye contact and groan jokes to one of the coat check

Girls. The thought of sex melts me, & I tell her it could be us,

But she tells me to fuck off. Who could blame her?

I hardly look sober… Brothers, we guzzle down

One more nebulous brew at the bar

Before honestly allowing ourselves to fall deeply fathom bodied

On the dance floor.

Reinterpreting gravity, we exaggerate

Our wings & dive, grind our crowns off ladies’ whetstones.

Tonight, Babby’s is a woman’s thigh whelmed by neon

Worms bumpin’ harder than the washroom coke whores.

Far past twilight, souls merge with all colors of the strobe

Light oceans. Three divisions of our simulacra shape shift

Between midnight, imps & wallflowers. On & off the floor,

Droves of gothic follies jostle. Girls booty sway & orbit

‘Round us like crowds at the local arcade’s DDR machine.

A nearby blond peacocks & I twirl her by the hand &

She presses me against her waist. Each of us boys, dame

In hand don’t waste a beat. Before long, Molly’s gorge

On my oxytocin gore spontaneously combusts. Too much,

The gal runs off & disappears before the last minute of American

Idiot’s through. Could it have been my avant-garde mosh rhythm?

Nah. 2:30am & last-call’s lights flicker on.

I recognize too few souls. The club’s emptied steam. Colin & I

Smoke self-esteem cigarettes outside as Marty sweet chats

With some Swede chick. On the street side, would-be lovers

Swindle one another out of starlust for later use. Marty walks

Out the club alone. A block over, up Gladstone Street,

We’re celebrating, shouting. It’s a good night to have been alive.

Once home, we dissolve like Dali clock-puddles into endless

conversation.

Anything is Profound

Poetry

Brian Araque

Red Hook, New York, USA

I stand up to claim. I don’t think anything is profound.

I shove all my profanities into my back pocket.

I shave my head and call it quixotic

for the camera in their mind’s

eyes and my tongue

is at a junction with

sophisticated verbs or

lips and the bilabial aspirations

are just what colleges claim is air

or whatever you call the frustrating frictions

of me attempting to break the ineffable,

the everyday oh fuck, that’s all.

The sake of syllables.

164

Foreigners and Friends

Fiction

Murali Kamma

Atlanta, Georgia, USA

Waiting for his son to join him on the video

call, Satya decides it’s time to make the

big announcement. Although he would have

preferred to do it in person, that’s unlikely

to happen anytime soon. Not only do they

live in different cities, separated by almost a

thousand miles, but Nick and his wife, Sarah,

have a small child, making travel difficult

in these anxious times. Much as he longs to

hold his granddaughter, Satya knows that

neither he nor they are planning to go anywhere

far until it’s safer. And that could take

several months, if not a year.

When Nick offered to visit, Satya said it

wasn’t worth the hassle for a short stay,

given all the precautions they would have to

take. Besides, he was doing fine on his own.

“Better to be safe than sorry,” he’d written

in an email to Nick, realizing only afterwards

that clichéd language was like comfort food.

Reassuring, even if boring. Nick—or Nikhil,

the name his late mother preferred—is

Satya’s stepson. Of course, “step” has never

been in their vocabulary. Nick lost contact

with his birth father about two decades ago,

and Satya, who met Nick’s mother when the

boy was in third grade, has no biological

children.

Nick and Sarah appear on the screen along

with their daughter. The images blur, causing

dismay, but clarity is soon restored, and

to Satya’s joy, his bubbly granddaughter—

named Joy!—is in a talkative mood, providing

much delight for the first ten minutes.

He’s also thankful for the distraction, which

alleviates some of the tension that built up

before the call. Perhaps this sunny prelude

will make it easier to share his weighty, unexpected

news.

“So, Dad, have you thought about what I

said?” Nick says, shortly after Sarah and Joy

say goodbye and, to Satya’s chagrin, disappear

from the screen.

“About downsizing, you mean?”

“Yes. I realize now is not a good time to

move, but if we start the process, it’ll be

easier when things get back to normal . . .

or somewhat normal.”

“Well, Nikhil, I have something to tell

you,” Satya says—and stops, startled.

“Wow, Dad, you called me ‘Nikhil’ . . . it’s

the first time as far as I can remember!”

Nick’s eyes are wide open, though it’s

hard to read his expression because the

screen reads, “Your internet connection is

unstable.” When the image and sound get

distorted again, interrupting their conversation,

Satya is not annoyed by the glitch.

Taking a deep breath, he waits for the link

to be restored, which usually takes a minute

or less.

Twenty-nine years. That’s how long he has

lived in this house, which Satya and his wife

bought not long after they got married. How

strange that Nick thinks he can’t be home

alone anymore, as if their roles have been

reversed. True, the house is too big for one

person, and Nick can hardly be blamed for

thinking Satya is leading a solitary life. He

has been secretive.

Around the time Satya met Nick’s mother,

Meena, the county’s minority population was

165

so tiny that perfect strangers would stop

Satya to ask questions. They were friendly

most of the time and just curious, but

sometimes the questioning made him uneasy.

On a few occasions at dusk, he saw women

cross the street to avoid him. While Satya

never felt conscious of his foreignness in the

city, here it was different—and in those early

years, when a friend in the city asked him

about his impressions of the county, an unexpectedly

ridiculous image would pop into his

head: a big bowl of vanilla ice cream with a

chocolate wafer stuck in the middle.

Satya didn’t say he felt like a wafer. He

said there was no problem, which happened

to be mostly true. Still, would he move from

the city to live there, his friends asked? No,

he answered truthfully. Nevertheless, despite

the warnings of well-wishers, he had no

qualms about traveling alone in the county

at night. Strangers who gave him hostile

looks were rare, vastly outnumbered by their

gracious compatriots. But Satya preferred

to commute from the city, not minding the

extra time he spent in his car. The city was

more vibrant, in any case, and he never felt

alone or out of place among the crowds or in

his high-rise apartment building.

His office building in the county had a

cafeteria, where Satya ate at least a few

times every week. While having lunch one

afternoon, he did a double take when he

saw Meena, and smiled sheepishly when she

caught him staring at her.

“No worries,” she said when he apologized

for interrupting her meal to ask a question.

“You’re welcome to sit here . . . I was also

wondering when I saw you.”

They got married within six months.

Oddly enough, from the day they met,

other people—colleagues and strangers—assumed

they were already a couple. Satya

soon learned that she lived not far away, in

the same county, since it was easier for her

as a single mother with a young boy. Meena

worked for a different company, so it was a

chance encounter. It was, in fact, her first

time in the cafeteria, and she was having

lunch there only because an errand had

brought her to the building. They chatted for

over an hour that day, marveling at the coincidence

of being from the same megapolis

in their native country. Would they have ever

met like this back home? Highly unlikely.

Some years earlier, one of Satya’s friends

in the city told him, there had been a

peaceful march in the county to protest an

ugly racial incident. A minority family, after

moving to a neighborhood that was de facto

segregated, had faced harassment, culminating

in a fire on the property. It was arson,

though a few residents claimed it was an

accident. Luckily, nobody was hurt. Satya,

surprised that he hadn’t heard about it till

now, wondered if Meena had. Without mentioning

the incident, he asked if she’d ever

considered moving out of the county.

“No, strange as it may sound,” she said.

“I don’t feel isolated here, really. Or maybe

I just got used to it. The biggest reason for

staying here is the practical benefit. I enjoy

the city’s hustle and bustle, but only as a

visitor.” She laughed before explaining, “As

a single parent, the lower cost of living is a

big plus. My son is used to it... he knows no

other place.”

“Call me Nick,” the boy said when Satya

first met him after school one day.

“But why, sweetie?” Meena said. “Your

name is Nikhil.”

“He’s your friend, you said . . . and my

friends call me Nick,” he insisted.

“Of course,” Satya said, smiling. “I’ll call

you Nick.”

It was only later, when her son wasn’t

around, that Meena told him about the teasing

in his class. “Nickel—that’s what they’d

called him. They said, ‘Hey, Nickel, can you

give me a dime?’ Or asked if he was worth

five pennies.”

“It’s hard for him, I’m sure, though I hope

there’s a supportive environment.”

“Yes, things are fine now, thankfully,” she

said. “His teacher talked to the entire class.

They call him Nick, and there’s no more

teasing. Could happen in other places, too, I

guess. Kids getting teased is nothing new.”

“Are there other kids like him?”

“No. But the school is great, I must say.

Still, I wonder if I made the right decision.”

“Well, kids are resilient,” he said, hoping

it didn’t sound glib. “I’m sure it’ll get better.”

Some of the people Satya encountered

back then didn’t know what to make of his

background. But although fascinated, as if

they’d never dealt with a foreigner like him,

they were also polite. Satya had no problem

when they asked questions—he saw himself

as an outsider. He didn’t find it intrusive if

somebody said, “Where are you from?” He

was an envoy, in some sense, and his “foreignness”

became a part of his persona. But

Meena, as Satya realized, didn’t share his

feeling of estrangement, at least not to the

same extent. Before they got married, he

agreed they should live in the county. Neither

of them was ready to switch jobs, and

166

he could see why Meena had no desire to

commute from the city. Also, she didn’t want

to disrupt Nikhil’s education and life. Satya

moved into the apartment she’d been renting

since her divorce.

When Ruth West, one of the teachers at

Nick’s school, said her neighbor was moving

to another state, Meena and Satya decided

to check out the house. Ruth made the

introduction. They liked Ruth, and the idea

of living next to her was appealing, especially

after they saw the neighbor’s sun-filled

ranch house on a quiet, leafy street. Ruth’s

husband, Tom, was just as warm and welcoming.

Without bothering to look at other

properties, Satya and Meena bought the

house and moved in. Nick was happy as well,

because the Wests had a daughter who went

to the same school, although she was older

than him by a couple of years.

Becoming close to other local families

wasn’t as easy for Satya and Meena, but it

hardly mattered because the Wests were the

only friends they needed, at least initially.

Gradually, like the tawny light appearing

in the sky, demographic change came

to the county. And then, just as night turns

into day, the shift was dramatic, to Satya’s

amazement. But in retrospect, the transformation

seemed to have been sudden

only because he hadn’t been paying much

attention to the steady growth in diversity.

Through the years, as Nick grew up, their

bubble in the neighborhood included few

people besides the Wests.

Hard to believe that Satya had moved to

the county three decades ago. And he’s still

here, living in the same house! As for the

Wests . . . ah, that’s what he wants to talk

to Nick about.

“Hi, Dad,” Nick says. “I lost you for a cou-

ple of minutes. Is it the same problem?”

“Yes, unfortunately,” Satya says, and is relieved

when Nick doesn’t say anything more.

Satya’s internet connection came up a few

times in their earlier chats, and Nick advised

him to contact his service provider to

boost the speed. But he hasn’t done it yet.

Although Satya appreciates the video calls,

they are also oddly alienating. How cruel

that he can see and hear his granddaughter

without being able to touch her. He feels

mocked by the illusory closeness of technology.

There is promise, but no fulfillment.

While he can see why so many are thankful

for the virtues of virtuality during this

challenging time, he has his doubts. Maybe

he’s just old-fashioned—or eccentric. But he

can’t help being disenchanted by the abnormality

of these virtual calls, which can’t

erase the physical distance after all. The

participants seem disembodied, as if they

are avatars interacting with each other in

cyberspace.

Perhaps, he thinks, the key to having a

deeper and more authentic long-distance

connection is to make the physical separation

starker. Seems counterintuitive, but

Satya recalls how an airmail letter from his

parents, when he was a young graduate student,

arrived like a gut punch. It reminded

him how far away they were from him, how

unreachable.

“Dad . . . can you hear me? Hello?”

“Yes, sorry. What were you saying?”

“We’re worried . . . no, that’s not the

right word. We’re concerned about you

living alone in that house. It’s too big for one

person.”

“Doesn’t bother me,” Satya says. “Besides,

I have some news to share.”

“News? What news?”

“Do you remember this picture?”

Nick leans forward, squinting, and chuckles.

“Wow, where did you find it, Dad?”

“Ruth gave it to me.”

“Ah . . . of course. It’s been years since I

saw the picture.”

It shows Nick as a teenager, with long

unruly dark hair and a cautious smile that

seems prompted. Slouching in a chair, he

is next to a youngish and attractive Ruth

at their dining table. Tom took the picture

before he sat to eat with them, Satya knows.

Their daughter is absent.

Putting the picture down, Satya wonders

if Nick is going to say anything about Ruth.

He hasn’t said a word about her so far. Nick

doesn’t; instead, his buzzing phone distracts

him.

“Dad, I have to take this call,” he says.

“Please wait. Won’t take long.”

Satya watches as Nick talks animatedly,

but there is no sound because he has muted

it on the screen. Pantomime, Satya thinks,

and though he’s not able to decipher the

hand movements or facial expressions, it

reminds him of the games they used to play

when Nick was a child. Using exaggerated

gestures, they would have a comical, imaginary

telephone conversation that included a

lot of laughter but no speech.

Satya and Meena were relieved when Nick

accepted him almost immediately. “Papa”

was reserved for Nick’s biological father,

whom he visited off and on until he became

a teenager, but Satya became “Dad” from

the day Nick’s mother remarried. Those

early years were memorable, and the close

bond Satya formed with Nick was a big help

in making him forget the disappointment

of not being able to have any children with

Meena.

167

But then, unexpectedly, after Nick became

a teen, they hit a rough patch. Looking

back, Satya realized that his Papa’s sudden

disappearance from their lives was the trigger.

Was the lack of diversity another reason?

Perhaps. While the county had already

begun changing demographically, their area

made slower progress. No doubt there were

other reasons, including hormonal changes,

for Nick’s increasing moodiness, and Satya

should have been more patient and understanding.

But he wasn’t. After losing his job,

Satya was going through his own stressful

period, making him explode in anger when

he thought Nick was being disrespectful.

“You can’t tell me what to do,” Nick

shouted one day. “You’re not even my father!”

Meena was shaken. When her intervention

had no success, she threatened to walk out.

An uneasy ceasefire followed, casting a pall

on the household—and as Nick withdrew to

his room, barely communicating with them,

Meena turned to the Wests in alarm. The

summer vacation was about to start. In an

inspired move, the Wests, who were planning

to go on a long trip, invited Nick to join

them. He accepted, surprising Meena and

Satya, and even after they all returned from

abroad, Nick stayed with them for the rest

of the summer.

When the school reopened, Nick moved

back to his house and life was normal again.

Meanwhile, Satya, who’d found a new job,

began driving more locally to meet his clients.

Getting a closer view of the changes

underway, he was impressed by the county’s

growing density and diversity. The urbanization

was so rapid that, by the time Nick left

for college, the homogenous suburb they’d

moved to was now a multicultural hub. The

city had stretched to embrace them—or was

it the other way around? A newcomer who

looked like him, Satya realized, wouldn’t

be able to relate to the way he’d felt as a

newbie in the county.

The call having ended, Nick unmutes the

audio. “So sorry, Dad . . . I had to take the

call. My boss thought we were going to lose

an important account. But we’re fine, thank

goodness. What did you want to tell me?”

Those teen years are so distant now, Satya

thinks. Nick seems more like the parent

now—mature and deliberate—while Satya

feels like a son who, about to take on a new

role, is nervously seeking permission from a

busy man of the world.

“Well, Nick, I’m planning to get married

again,” he says, speaking fast. “Just thought

I should let you know. I’ll continue living

here, at least for the near future.”

“Wow!” Nick looks stunned. “This is big

news, indeed, Dad. I didn’t even know you

were seeing somebody. Do I know her?”

“You most certainly do, Nick. It happened

quickly. Ruth and I decided to get married

just last week, about four months after we

started dating.”

Nick doesn’t respond, and the expression

on his face barely changes. Satya wonders if

he has heard him properly. Is there a problem

with the sound? Will they get cut off

again?

“Wow,” he says again, finally. “I need to

absorb this, Dad.”

That’s his response? “You seem shocked,

Nick.”

“I am shocked. How come you didn’t say

anything till now, Dad? You know how to

throw a grenade.” He laughs.

Satya is disappointed that Nick hasn’t congratulated

him, though he’s not surprised.

Until the previous week, Satya hadn’t been

sure if Ruth would accept his proposal. And

how could he have—just two years after

their lives changed so abruptly—said anything

to Nick unless he was sure? But now, no

matter what Nick thinks, the weight is off his

shoulders.

The screen flickers, distorting the sound

and picture, before it freezes. Satya is not

unnerved by the timing. He’s actually grateful,

seeing the interruption as deliverance.

Before the connection is restored, it will

give Nick a chance to absorb the news, as he

said.

It’s been about two years and a month

since Nick’s mother died. Maybe not enough

time has passed, Satya initially thought,

given that Tom also died on that horrible,

unforgettable day. But life’s twisted path

was unpredictable, and Satya—who hadn’t

planned to remarry—began dating Ruth. In

all the years Satya had known her, it hadn’t

occurred to him that they could be anything

other than friends.

That fateful morning, it was foggy and

still before daybreak when Tom drove to the

airport to pick up Meena. Why had he gone

when Meena said she could easily take a cab?

Satya discussed this with Ruth many times,

and the most satisfactory answer they could

come up with was that Tom wanted to return

a favor. Tom felt guilty, or at least that’s

what they thought, because Satya, who was

out of town, had taken the Wests to the airport

many times.

Tom lost control of the car on the way

back, as he tried to avoid the skidding truck

in front of him, and they both lost their lives

in a fiery crash.

For several weeks after that awful day, Satya

and Ruth kept in touch, finding comfort

168

in reminiscences and mundane conversation.

Nick had a harder time dealing with the loss.

Although he was sympathetic to Ruth, Satya

knew he blamed Tom for his mother’s death.

When Ruth went to live with her daughter,

Satya kept an eye on her house and made

sure the yard was well-maintained. As the

months passed, he wondered if she was going

to sell the house and move permanently.

Satya, now retired, had no plans to move

yet.

And then, with no advance notice, Ruth

moved back to her house. When she called

Satya, he thought she was still at her daughter’s

place. Her decision to return was

sudden, she said, before thanking him for

keeping an eye on things. Later that day,

Satya picked up the mail that hadn’t been

forwarded and walked over to her house.

Ruth, inviting him in for tea, asked how he

was doing. She seemed glum, and her greeting

was uncharacteristically subdued. He

inquired if she was feeling okay.

“Not really,” she said, though she smiled.

After Ruth made tea, they sat in their usual

spots at the dining table. She put a manila

envelope next to her without saying anything.

Taking a sip of the fragrant brew, Ruth

put her cup down and said she’d been seeing

somebody when she was at her daughter’s

house.

“It didn’t last long, though, and was a

mistake,” she added calmly. “He was decent,

but the wrong man for me. What about

you, Satya? Have you thought about moving

on? You’re not seeing anybody, unless I’m

mistaken. Don’t you get lonely in that big

house?”

“You’re right, Ruth,” he said, shrugging.

“I’m not seeing anybody. I got used to living

alone, I guess. I’m doing okay, though.”

“Glad to hear that,” she said, putting her

hand on his arm. It was a simple gesture,

but something about her manner caught his

attention. He looked up from his cup.

Smiling, she said, “I want you to open this

. . . I found them while going through Tom’s

things. I feel guilty about not saying anything

till now.”

Satya took the envelope and, without

speaking, pulled out what looked like a few

handwritten notes. He wondered if they

were letters that had been removed from

smaller envelopes. Unfolding one, he was

astonished to see Meena’s handwriting—its

neat characters, in black ink, were slanting

rightwards—on a lined sheet of white paper.

Dear Tom,

Thanks for the update on Nikhil. I’m so

happy . . .

Satya’s eyes blurred a little, and he

stopped reading after noting the date at the

top. Meena had written the letter during the

summer of Nick’s sabbatical, as they later

dubbed it, when he’d stayed with the Wests.

“How many letters are there?” Satya

asked. “Have you read them all?”

“Just these. I read only one, but you can

keep them. I’m not ready to read all of

them.”

“Neither am I, Ruth. But, sure, I can keep

them. As you might have already guessed, I

didn’t see any letters from Tom when I went

through Meena’s things. But I still have the

postcard Tom sent when you went on that

trip. Was that when they began—?”

“Meena might have destroyed Tom’s letters,”

Ruth said. “I know she felt bad about

how your relationship with Nick had deteriorated.

And Nick’s biological father had

dropped out of sight around the same time,

as I recall. She was worried . . . I think that’s

why she reached out to Tom. What puzzles

me is that Tom never mentioned these letters.

Made me wonder—”

“If there was something more to it? Do you

think they were more than friends, Ruth, at

least for a while?”

“No idea, Satya. Your guess is as good as

mine. My feeling is that they were very fond

of each other . . . and, as you know, any

marriage has its bumps. Tom and I were not

immune. The secrecy is confounding, so who

knows. But it doesn’t matter, not after what

happened. If there was anything more than

friendship, even briefly, I don’t need to know

now. Do you?”

“I don’t, Ruth. It’s history as far as I’m

concerned. I have enough memories to treasure.”

“Agreed,” she said. “I’m wondering . . .

would you like to stay for dinner? Nothing

fancy. Grilled salmon with steamed vegetables,

and strawberry ice cream for dessert. I

make fairly simple meals these days.”

“Sounds great,” he said. “I’d love to stay

for dinner. Thanks. Your dinner couldn’t be

simpler than mine. Opening a can of sardines

is not unusual for me. Let me know if I can

do anything.”

The internet connection is restored. Sarah

is back on the screen, to Satya’s surprise.

When Satya first met her, he commented on

the alliterative resonance of their names, to

her amusement. She’s sitting next to Nick,

but their daughter is not with them. Is she

sleeping? He feels a tinge of disappointment.

“So, Dad, we can talk again,” Nick says.

“But we need to do something about your internet

connection . . . unless you like these

pauses in our conversation.” He chuckles.

Satya is about to speak, but he realizes

that Nick isn’t done. That was just an open-

169

ing, and now, it seems, he and Sarah want to

say something about Satya’s announcement.

While Satya has an inkling, he can’t be sure

until they speak. He waits, eagerly.

in a hurry,

I push past a man

by tomatoes,

a man checking

eggs, and a woman

looking at

the toilet paper,

like walking

through a gallery

as a brightly

dressed tourist,

obnoxious

american

and loud.

Lidl

Poetry

D.S. Maolalai

Dublin, Ireland

SWAN SONG #7

Poetry

c-leo ˘͈ ᵕ ˘͈valentino


I hear symphonies in my head, all along like a somber keyboard. The lone puppy

faced hush dart player in the pink room.

My angel doomed!

Two different times on two different clocks. And what of this electricity. Make me

blush, stay away. I snip away my hair to see the sun from here. And if you turned

on the lights you'd see the fingers attached to the glow; what do I want to do?

Sometimes the stars tell me to say your name,

spell it on a bracelet with beads. Enter plastic ponies into my keychain, the

lullaby of you like spring's honeyed air here in the valley. My little heart, made of

dirt stuffed with frog guts and sidewalk bottle caps,

loveletters, smoke and ash.

This town, a hole in my eye; the junkyard keeps me full, my eyes happy in

the frolic of an abandoned house.

My mom tells me this today as she makes afternoon ceviche, even though

it's been windy cool and unforgiving today, even though she hates the labor

and loves the fruit, she dirtied her hands and told me: her home where it

used to be, crumbled. Signs of neglect, window panes shattered. Rooftop

cross-eyed and grim, there's bigger houses now she said. And the people

moved and lived there; los burgos. Sounds like a pimple; sweet elote,

peppered lime a heart of gold in all your wicked time.

She told me she loved another, and I told you again: proud to regale

the tale, floral and in ecstasy.

Melodramatic! I have faith in

these afternoons, as one movie as sickly bloody and dark in colors: gray,

sullen blue and a washed out rag of clothes

gray plays into another.

Background noise, something to gawk at. Snowpiercer, alone in the springtime.

How do I do it day after day lug this wholeheartedly around. You ought to know

better! I complain like a kid. Close me up, peanut shell on the floor. I think maybe

I had wanted to

sin querer queriendo to forget.

Does that, has that ever happened to you? Enoki, baby! Roots

tattered.

170

Nap Time

Photography

Taew Fornoles


171

Waves

Photography

Louis Staeble

Bowling Green, Ohio, USA

172

Terminal

Poetry

D.S. Maolalai

Dublin, Ireland

I Shall Never Forget

Fiction

Teresa Beeding

Kansas City, Missouri, USA

renting a van

from the spot

by the airport.

walking slowly

with purpose

through a boneempty

lounge.

now, everything

has been taken from us.

this death has poured out

the house of its colour,

like a bottle

and the last drops

of wine. that is why

we are renting

a van now,

you see? that is why

we are here

at the airport.

no flights go out

of this building.

this building

is dead quiet

too. we walk

to the hire desk

through the newly

built terminal. our footsteps,

their echo

and crackle,

like stepping on snails

after storms.

I shall never forget your eyes.

Deep as the pits of Hell, splashed with the

colors of amber and fire. Spinning like galaxies,

inquisitive and ever-watchful. They set

my body to shiver; a reminder of days past

when we first consecrated our love, on the

banks of the Nile in the lazy, swaying reeds

and grass.

I shall never forget your face.

Tenderness is too dull a word to describe.

Soft as silk, but resolute and refined by

time. Rarely did you smile, but when you

did, it broke storms and set my heart ablaze.

The world meant nothing when you smiled;

it melted away, tearing down all that mattered

not. Only your smile.

I shall never forget your hands.

Strong, building nations that outlasted

the sands of time. When I became weak, fell

victim of our brothers, your sacred hands

once again taught me how to stand. Love

in its purest form is an embrace, something

so simple, yet never questioning and always

understanding. I felt it in your hands, saw it

in your eyes – your face.

I shall never forget your death.

Unjust, at the mercy of jealous wiles.

Swift, brutal, and unspeakable. Before the

sun set you were gone; before I could stop

him, you were gone. The river became a

cold and dangerous place. The lazy, swaying

reeds and grass became razor sharp, slashing

as I searched, gnashing teeth and weeping as

the willows that touched the merciless and

unforgiving waters we once loved.

I made a promise.

173

Love is a long-suffering beast. Hungry, cold

and tired, I searched without end, searching

for your remnants. Searching for your smile,

for your eyes – for your hands, that I could

lay in them once more and become warm,

fulfilled. Hungry, cold and tired I searched

until I finally found you. You had changed;

you were hungry, cold and tired. A piece of

you was missing, a part of your soul taken

from life’s horrific upheaval. Yet, when your

eyes opened, your smile widened, your fingers

brushed mine…I became whole in your

stead.

I shall never forget.

He Tramples the

Daisies

Poetry

Kerri-ann Torgersen


Roses are Red

Poetry

Lindsey Wentzel


What a terrible house guest!

His heavy cloak drags keepsakes

off the mantel as he coasts by.

He leaves a trail of broken picture frames,

never offering to piece them back together.

And his hourglass

marks a ring upon my table.

I show him the door and request he leave.

“You’re not welcome. Please go.

She is not ready. It’s cold there down

below!”

I shove him out and slam the door.

But he creeps, waits by the oak

in the flowerbed

under her open window.

He tramples the daisies,

and marigolds bloom at his feet.

He climbs our tree,

one-by-one he snaps the limbs,

breaks them free.

He draws closer,

brushing aside the curtain

to watch my mother rest.

I yell from the door as he climbs in

to plant a kiss upon her lips.

Before I make it to her side,

he shrinks her down, tiny-sized,

and slides her deep into his pocket.

A beautiful bouquet, a spray

Trimmed, arranged and lovingly placed

Catches the eye of admirers, while carried on

a tray

Stretched toward the sun they faced

Beaming through the windows showily

A set so perfectly versed

All the buds opening slowly

‘Til one day they burst

into the grandeur of full bloom

Their sweet succulent scent flows

Throughout the blue room

into the hall it spills and blows

Creating its own, yet shared, space

Of warmth, comfort, beauty and grace

One day, the sun hides and when it returns

The union, once so strong, is broken

Trust waned; faith and courage burns

The former feelings but a token

Petals dried and wilting fall from the stem

One by one then two by two

As the leaves brown and fray like a hem

A magical marvel adieu

Has now become sad to view

The scent once so powerful

Now fades into a dank must

Looking abandoned for hours full

The vase sits collecting dust

The room once brilliant

Now sits dark and gray

The decaying process is indolent

But successful in its prey

Flowers are not meant to rejuvenate

Though their presence was graced

Their life passed, no matter how great

Even roses can be replaced

174

175

Hypnotically

Motivated

Photography

Louis Staeble

Bowling Green, Ohio, USA

176

the butterflies in my

stomach are free

Digital Art

Vita Nocilla


Dig

Fiction

Elizabeth Reynolds


There’s a pit on the outskirts of town. Jeremy

discovers it while tracking a line of ants

back to their hill, and he drags Lacey out to

go look at it. I go too, even though I’m not

invited.

We stand at the edge of the pit watching

the sand and dirt crumble away from the

edge of it. I try to figure out what it’s for. I

think it is going to be a swimming pool cause

it’s square and not very deep. Jeremy says

that there could be a cave underneath it,

and maybe the dirt has sunk down to try to

fill it. I think that’s dumb, though. Caves are

in mountains and pirate islands, not boring

little towns like Riverton. I tell him so, and

he pushes his glasses up the bridge of his

nose, saying, “That’s not true, there are a

ton of caves all over the place. I went to

one with my class and they said they discovered

it when someone fell in a hole in the

ground.”

“Oh,” I say, and I turn back to look at the

pit. “It’s too square, though.”

Lacey kicks a rock, and we watch it tumble

over the edge. “Someone dug this,” she

decides.

Jeremy and I stay quiet. Lacey is the

oldest of all of us, and she knows a lot. Even

more than Jeremy with all his books and his

glasses. She sits down for a minute, squinting

at the pit, then hums and stands, dusting

off her blue shorts and tossing her braids

over her shoulder. “Who dug it, Lacey?” I

ask, my eyes wide and eager.

Lacey shrugs.

“It was probably an ex-ka-vader,” Jeremy

says. “They have giant shovels that can

pick up a ton of dirt and throw it away. The

people who dug this pit probably used one

of them until all the dirt was gone and then

they left.”

Lacey draws the end of her left braid into

her mouth and crunches the tips of her hair

under her front teeth. After a moment, she

pulls it out just long enough to say, “No, this

was dug by a shovel.”

“How do you know?” Jeremy frowns at

her.

She shrugs again, putting the braid back

into her mouth. “Because.”

Mom orders a pizza for us because she

doesn’t feel like cooking. She hasn’t felt like

cooking since Dad left a few weeks ago.

The three of us kids sit on the floor of

the living room with paper plates and cups

of milk. Our dog, Bill, comes sniffing at the

pizza, and Jeremy pushes him away, saying,

“Stop Bill, you already had dinner.”

“But his dinner is just cereal,” I complain.

“It’s not fair for him.”

“He’s old, Kate,” Lacey says. “It’s not

good for him to eat pizza.”

“He’s not that old, he’s only four years

older than me,” I say.

“Ten is old for a dog,” Jeremy tells me.

“See his beard? He’s an old man dog.”

Bill does have a white beard and white

eyebrows that crinkle together when he begs

for food. He looks like a wizard dog. I slip

him a piece of pepperoni.

He snaps it up noisily and smacks his lips

177

as he swallows. Lacey glares at me.

“Maybe when Dad gets home, he can tell

us who dug that pit,” I say, sneaking in front

of Bill to hide the fact that I’m slipping him

another piece of pepperoni.

Lacey’s mouth twists as if she just ate a

sour candy. Jeremy looks at her and then

looks at me, his eyebrows coming together.

“Yeah, that sounds good,” Jeremy starts to

say, only to be interrupted by Lacey.

“How stupid can you get? Dad’s

not coming back. Dad’s dead.”

Shortly after we discovered it, a big chainlink

fence was put around the edge of the

pit. We stopped playing around there after

that.

Mom can’t pick us up from school like she

used to, so Jeremy and I walk home together,

the hot concrete beating its way through

our shoes and burning our feet. ‘Cause

Lacey’s in middle school, she got a new bike

that she rides every day. Mom says I can get

a bike when I go to middle school ‘cause it’s

farther away than the elementary school.

“It’ll be better when the weather starts

getting colder,” Jeremy tells me, adjusting

his glasses, which keep sliding down due to

sweat.

“It’ll get better when the rainy season is

over,” he tells me as we squish home in the

rain.

“It’ll be nicer when the spring comes,” he

says through chattering teeth as we wade

our way through the snow piled onto the

sidewalks.

Lacey sails by on her bike, braids squished

down against her head by her bright blue

helmet. I watch enviously as she waves at

us, on her way home to get away from the

outside.

Mom wakes me up one night with a hand

on my shoulder. As soon as my eyes open, I

know why she’s there. “Bill’s dead,” I say.

I wait for her to respond, my throat starting

to ache tightly, tears clawing their way

up from my heart to my eyes. Bill had gotten

sick a few months ago, and Mom had taken

him to the vet tonight before I went to bed.

Mom nods. I fall back into bed and draw

the covers over me. Mom hugs me tightly

over the blankets and rocks me through the

tears. I hear Lacey wake up and ask what’s

going on. I cry louder as Mom tries to explain.

Lacey yells at Mom that she killed our

dog. I sob and tuck myself further under the

covers, clutching my pillow and my green

rabbit, Mr. Bun, to my head. I hear Lacey

yelling, and Mom trying to answer. Jeremy’s

voice joins in as he wakes up in his room

across the hall. I hear Mom grab Lacey, and

the door closes behind them, muffling them

further. I curl up in the sudden dark and quiet.

Eventually, I fall asleep.

Lacey tells me to get out of her room because

she has a test tomorrow. I tell her it’s

our room, and she calls me an idiot and tells

me to get out again. She’s in eighth grade

now, and she’s always kicking me out of our

room so she can be alone. I don’t think it’s

fair, but Jeremy tells me that it’s an older

kid thing.

Mom is at the kitchen table with her head

in her hands, staring at a letter. She’s been

getting so much mail recently, but it never

really seems like good news. I want to turn

on the tv, but it would probably make her

mad, so I sneak out the back door. Lacey’s

bike leans against the side of the house and

I grab it. I don’t really want to go anywhere;

I just want to feel the wind biting my eyes

until they might finally feel dry.

The house is always tense these days.

Lacey is grumpy from teenage girl stuff that

Mom won’t tell me about, Jeremy never

wants to play anymore, and Mom is always

working. She says that she wants to buy a

bigger house soon. Maybe then there will

finally be enough room for me.

I coil my brown hair up on my head and

cram the helmet over it, buckling it all

tight to my chin so not even one strand can

escape. I wheel the bike out to our driveway,

hit up the kickstand, and go.

I’m probably going to be in trouble when I

get home. It’s a school night. I pedal faster.

I love riding bikes, feeling the pavement

under me fly away. I wish I could stand on

the pedals like Lacey can, then I’d really

feel like I was flying. But even though I’m

almost 10, I’m still too much of a baby, so I

stay on the seat.

I swish my way right onto another street,

weaving back and forth to feel the bike pull

me this way and that. A left, a right, another

right, left. I decide to swerve onto Lark

Street so I can visit the pit. There aren’t any

lights around, just a big black square sunk

into the dirt. If it weren’t for the fence, I

would’ve missed it. I picture myself riding up

and suddenly the ground vanishes under me

and I fall deep down into that dark pit.

I stop Lacey’s bike, pop out the kickstand

carefully, and get off to creep towards the

178

edge of the pit, my hands coming up to grasp

the chain link fence. The cold metal rattles

under my fingers. I clench it a little tighter

than I need to.

The pit isn’t bottomless, I realize, as my

eyes adjust to the dark. I can see the bottom

if I squint. It’s deeper than it used to be,

though. And…

There is someone down there.

I can barely see them even when I squint,

but they’re there. They don’t have one

of those orange vests or yellow hard hats

construction workers are always wearing,

but they have a shovel, and they’re digging.

I lean in, looking harder, smushing my face

into the links of the fence, no longer worried

about falling in.

“Heeeyyy,” I call. “Don’t you need a flashlight?”

The worker ignores me, continuing to

shovel dirt up and over their shoulder. I press

further, “Heeeeyyyyyy!”

Nothing, just the crunch of metal against

gravel as they keep digging. I pull back from

the fence, my mouth twisted into a pout. I

run around the edge of the fence until I’m

closer to the worker, but when I stop to call

out again, they seem farther away than before.

I stomp my foot and run back to where

I started. Again, the worker is on the other

side of the pit, back to me, digging away.

The back of my neck itches as I realize how

cold it is out here. It’s cold, and it’s quiet.

Even the spring crickets aren’t chirping, I

realize. All that I can hear is the sound of

digging. I decide to leave.

I fast-walk back to the bike and grab the

handlebars to ride away. I glance back at

the pit, a small bit of guilt twisting on the

backside of my heart, thinking of the worker

all alone in the dark, but then I jerk my

head to the side to scratch the thought away

and ride off. Whoever it is down there, they

ignored me, so I won’t help them. Maybe. I

have to tell Lacey, though.

Lacey is curled up in bed with her phone

when I get home, so I crouch next to her, fingers

curled over the edge of the bedframe,

eager to share. “Lacey!” I whisper-shout.

“What do you want?” She doesn’t look at

me; her eyes are glued to her phone.

“Shh!” I press my finger to my lips. “Lacey,

I saw someone at the pit!”

“Seriously?” she asks, looking up. “What

were you doing out there?”

“Laceeeey,” I say, bouncing on my. “Why

does that matter? This is crazy! I’ve never

seen anyone ever working there! Do you

think it’s cause they’re only there at night?”

Mom opens the door and flicks

on the light switch. “Everything alright in

here?” She frowns at my outside clothes

when I should be wearing my pajamas.

“I wanted to get dressed for school so that

I don’t have to get up as early tomorrow,” I

lie expertly. I don’t think she believes me.

“Bed. Now. We’ll talk about this in the

morning, Katie.” Lacey had stuffed her

phone under her pillow when Mom walked

in and leans against the bedframe, acting

like she just woke up. When I don’t move as

quickly as Mom wants, she begins counting

down from five.

I spring up and throw on my pajamas,

flinging myself into bed just as Mom finishes

her drawn-out, “Onnnne…good night, Kate.

Turn off your light, Lacey.”

She closes the door behind her, and I stick

out my tongue at Lacey. She just looks at

me, her eyes dark blue like Dad’s were, and

suddenly it feels like he is standing right

next to her, watching me. I huff and turn

over, pulling the covers up to go to sleep.

It takes a while before Lacey turns off the

lights and settles down herself.

Mom grounds me for sneaking out. No

computer, no tv, no playing with friends

after school, I’m just supposed to go straight

home. Lacey would usually make fun of me

and try and make me feel worse, but she’s

really quiet this morning, quiet enough that

even Jeremy notices.

After school, though, when walking home,

I take a sudden turn on Jackson street and

head to the pit. Jeremy calls after me that

I’m gonna get in even more trouble, and I

shout back, “Only if you tell on me!”

I walk down Jackson Street, turn left onto

Palo Verde, right on Lark, until I’m standing

at the pit.

There’s no worker this time. I glance over

my shoulder, then take off my bright green

backpack, and dig through the notebooks

and pencil cases and candy wrappers to pull

out a small plastic orange flashlight. It was

Jeremy’s from when he was in Boy Scouts,

but he quit after like three months, so I

didn’t feel bad for taking it. I click it on so

the worker will see it, wind up and throw

it into the pit. It hits the side and rolls to a

stop near the bottom. It sits there, glowing

softly in the late afternoon sun, and I turn

back and run to catch up with Jeremy.

I furiously whisk the waffle batter together

as Mom puts the finishing touches on

Lacey’s presents. Waffles are birthday food.

I like mine with strawberry jam, but Jeremy

likes his with powdered sugar. Lacey eats

them plain. I think there might be something

wrong with her.

179

Even though Jeremy and I are up the

second we hear Mom’s call of ‘Waffle time!

Waffles, everyone!’ from the kitchen, Lacey

only stumbles out of her room just as the

waffle maker dings for the first batch. She is

wearing pink pajama pants and a large tee

shirt that used to belong to Dad. When Mom

sees it, she sucks in a breath but lets it leave

her without saying anything. “Just in time,”

she chirps instead.

Mom slides the first golden-brown waffle

onto a plate and sticks it full of fourteen

blue candles.

“Happy Birthday, Lacey!” I yell, buzzing

with excitement.

She smiles at me, pulling me into a hug

before blowing out the candles in one

breath.

I wiggle out of the trap of Lacey’s arms

and snatch the present I picked out from off

the table. “Open my present first!” I demand.

Mom laughs, “Let Lacey have a bite of

breakfast first, Katie,” she scolds half-heartedly.

“It’s fine, Mom,” Lacey grins, taking the

package from me. “I’m not super hungry in

the mornings anyways.”

Carefully, she unwraps the shiny green

wrapping paper. I had let Mom wrap this one,

but I picked it out, so it was from me.

Lacey gasps as she reveals the large paint

set, with brushes and tubes of oil paint and

a guidebook on painting technique, all held

in a pretty wooden carrying case. She looks

between Mom and me with big blue eyes

widened with shock and joy. “Thank you,”

she whispers, stroking the plastic film that

covers the set. I bounce with excitement.

“Let’s try it! Come on!”

Mom reigns me in, and we eat waffles

first until my stomach feels like it’s going

to explode. Afterwards, I drag Lacey to the

backyard, and we bask in the late fall sun,

drawing and painting paper after paper.

When they dry, I carefully hang up our finished

drawings in our room with appropriately

colored thumbtacks.

I stand in front of the bathroom cabinet,

studying my reflection. My hair is carefully

brushed, and I even curled some of it with

Mom’s curling iron. I hold Mom’s mascara

brush tightly in my trembling right hand. I

stare myself in the eye, golden-brown irises

staring back at me. I don’t know if I can do

this. What if I flinch and stab myself in the

eye and then have to go to the hospital on

what’s supposed to be my first day of middle

school? What if I mess it up so badly that

I look like a raccoon and then everybody

laughs at me, and my whole school career

is over? What if I’m the only one wearing

makeup and people think I’m a slut?

Lacey shoves open the door. “Come on,

Kate, you’ve been in here forever! Other

people need to use the bathroom, too!”

I jump, and the mascara glances across my

cheek. I look on in horror at the black streak

that now cuts across my face. This was

waterproof mascara. How was I supposed

to get it off? Lacey huffs at my expression,

an unwilling smile crossing her lips. “You’re

hopeless,” she mutters as she tears off a bit

of toilet paper to scrub off the mark.

“Laceeey,” I whine. “What am I supposed

to do?”

“I don’t know,” she sighs. “How are you

going to fix your face in only ten minutes?”

“What?” I whisper, glancing frantically in

the mirror.

“I mean, look at it! Completely unfixable.

You’re just going to have to deal.”

I roll my eyes and hit her on the arm.

“You’re not funny.”

She grins and takes the mascara from me.

“Look up,” she orders.

“You never do makeup! You’ll probably

mess it up worse than me!”

Lacey smiles tightly. She really doesn’t

wear makeup, though. Her hair hangs in

greasy braids off the side of her head, and

her skin is shiny and full of acne. I hoped

puberty wouldn’t hit me as hard as it had hit

her.

After a suspicious moment, I nod and let

her apply the makeup to my eyes. “It’ll

have to do,” she sighs again dramatically,

leaning back to eye her work. I look at the

mirror. I look the same, but my eyelashes

are thicker, framing my eyes and making

them darker. I twist my lips but accept the

changes. “Thanks, Lace,” I say, darting out

of the room to change out of my pajamas

into the outfit I had spent hours picking out

last night.

I glance back to see Lacey shut the bathroom

door, her face no longer cheerful. I

pause. It feels like I saw a mask slip, and I

didn’t recognize the person hiding under the

face of my sister.

The mail comes in one day just as I ride up

the driveway. Jeremy and Lacey had already

gotten home, each of them riding their bikes

much faster than me. Lacey gets out of high

school earlier than Jeremy and me, and Jeremy

told me it wasn’t cool to ride bikes with

his sister. Lacey is waiting on the porch and

jumps up as the mail carrier arrives, taking

the stack of mail eagerly and running inside.

I wave to the mailman as I follow her, slinging

my backpack onto the couch and follow-

180

ing Lacey into our room. “Did you get mail?”

I ask her.

“Go away, weirdo,” she snaps, pushing me

away from her stack of letters.

“But why did you take all the mail?” I

want to know.

“Why are you so stupid?” She counters.

“Shut up, Lace,” I snap, reaching for the

stack. One of the letters on it had a stamp

from my school.

She knocks my hand back and snatches the

letters away.

“What’s going on?” Jeremy asks, standing

just outside the boundary that divides our

room from the hallway.

“Kate’s being a brat,” Lacey whines. “Tell

her to leave me alone.”

“Why would we leave you alone? You have

our report cards. Maybe we want them,”

Jeremy smirks, raising his eyebrows at Lacey.

“Report cards?” I ask, looking back at the

stack.

“I don’t…shut up, asshole,” Lacey stomps

her foot. “Get out of my room!”

“I’m not in your room,” Jeremy taunts.

“And I have straight A’s. Mrs. Collins told me

mid-semester grades are arriving this week.

Afraid you’re gonna be grounded when mom

sees that you’re failing all your classes?”

“I’m not failing all my classes!” Lacey

shrieks, her blue eyes shining with frustration.

“Can you at least give me mine, Lacey?” I

ask.

“Fuck off!” Lacey screams at me, shoving

me hard. I stumble backward and hit

the side of her dresser, a half-open drawer

stabbing me in the side. My face crumples up

as pain radiates from where I’d been hit. My

chest tightens where she’d shoved me, and

my face burns. Lacey’d never cussed at me

before.

“I’m telling Mom!” Jeremy shouts, sounding

a little too happy to do so.

Lacey seems frozen, staring at me where

I sit on her floor. I sniff. It feels good, so I

do it again. Lacey turns her back on me and

tells me to get out. I run—the door slams

behind me.

There’s a pit on the outskirts of town. It’s

deep, with sloping walls leading down so

far that you can’t see the bottom. It’s been

there since I was a kid, with a large chainlink

fence blocking access. It was a joke

in our family that whoever had decided to

build something there had run out of money

and just left the pit to sink. We never left

it, though. Sometimes I thought we were

leashed to it, as if something about it tethered

us tightly to that pit. I don’t think we

could leave even if we wanted to.

I start to take down the pictures I had

painted with Lacey all those years ago on

her birthday. I’m supposed to be packing,

but instead, I sit down on the bed, holding

one of the pictures tightly. It was a stick

figure house, with a stick figure dog and stick

figure people floating around it. Vibrant colors

were splashed onto each figure, except

for one. We had been interrupted before

finishing by Mom, calling us in for dinner.

Lacey had shoved the unfinished picture at

me, shrugging when I complained about one

of the little stick figure girls sitting there in

black and white. “I can finish it later,” she

promised.

It’s been years since I’ve seen Lacey even

glance in the direction of a paintbrush. After

squeaking out a diploma from high school,

she had gotten a job at a local art supply

store, saying she wanted to take a gap year

to save up some money for college. That had

been four years ago.

Now, she works at a coffee shop, getting

up at three am each morning and dragging

herself home at one in the afternoon,

sleeping the rest of the day away behind

her closed bedroom door. I hear her sometimes

in the middle of the night, getting up,

clanking around in the kitchen getting coffee

for herself before spending 8 hours making

it for others, then slogging herself out of the

house to get to work.

Jeremy had taken off the second he graduated,

having been accepted to every college

he’d applied to. After he packed up and left,

I moved into his room, finally having a space

of my own for the first time in my whole life.

I’d had a video call with him last month,

where he counseled me on what I should

pack for my freshman year. He had flourished

in college, and he now considered himself an

expert on all things collegiate.

I applied to a few colleges as an undeclared

major. I never had a plan for what

I was going to do after high school, so I

ended up choosing a decent school with a

well-rounded list of classes, just hoping to

find a direction along the way. Some scared,

cruel part of me keeps whispering that I am

too much like Lacey. That I have no focus

and will end up crawling home after the first

month of being away. I have to keep shoving

those thoughts away, but they keep creeping

back.

I look around my ransacked room, my

belongings in piles dedicated by importance

– Must Bring, Might Bring, Leave Behind,

Burn. I look at the drawing in my hand again.

Burn? I carefully set it on the Might Bring pile

and grab a jacket out of my closet. I need to

181

walk, to think.

It’s late, but the heat of the summer’s

day left its reflection in the pavement, the

dark ground radiating heat back up at me as

I walk, directionless. My feet know where to

go.

My feet stop at the dirty rust-red fence,

peering down. The figure is there, digging. I

pull out my phone and shine the light down.

The worker is not wearing a high-visibility

vest. They are not wearing a safety helmet.

Instead, their brown braids bounce with

each hit of the shovel.

“Lacey,” I shout, cupping my hands over

my mouth, making the light of my flashlight

bounce up and over her. “Lacey, come

home!”

She ignores me. She always ignores me.

She keeps digging the pit deeper.

I look around for a door, some break in the

fence, but there is none; it was constructed

far too long ago for there to be such an easy

way in.

I shove my phone in my pocket and sink

my fingers into the chain, pulling myself up

enough to set my foot into a link. I slowly,

shakily, climb up, my arms straining, my

face hot from exertion. I reach the top and

pause, gasping for air, leaning my torso over

the top as a counterbalance to keep myself

from falling back down. There is a cease

in the sound of digging; Lacey has turned

toward me, looking at me like she had never

seen me before.

I gulp in a breath of air and swing my leg

over the fence, then the other one, sliding

down until my feet hit the very edge of the

pit. “Lacey,” I shout again. “Come here!”

She shakes her head.

I start edging my way into the pit, the

loose rock and dirt sliding around my foot as

I look for steady footing. Lacey turns away

from me and starts digging again. I inch my

way down, gravel sliding all around me, cutting

into my palms and backside. My heart is

racing, any second, it could all give way, and

we’d both be buried.

Stones start hitting me, she’d turned

her shovel to fling each scoop of rock and

dirt right at me. Each pebble an accusation,

a demand in her voice, telling me to leave

her alone. I grit my teeth and turn my face

away from the worst of it, continuing my

slide down.

When I reach the bottom, I march stifflegged

over to Lacey and grab the shovel.

She refuses to let go, and we stand there,

staring into each other’s eyes, neither budging

an inch. “You don’t understand,” she

finally whispers. “I can’t stop.”

“And I can’t let you keep going. Please

don’t ask me to leave you alone again,” I

say, trying to keep my voice from shaking.

She looks around, looks up. “You see how

far away the sky is? How far away the road

is?”

I keep silent. I keep my eyes on her and

my hands on the shovel. She tries to jerk

it away from me, and I stumble but stay

upright. “I can’t walk away, Lacey. Please.

Come home.”

The light from Jeremy’s old orange flashlight

shines on us as we stand there. It had

rested in this pit for all these years, offering

what little light it could.

“It would be so easy to walk away,” Lacey

offers, her voice quiet in the chill night air.

“And yet here I am,” I say.

“Here you are,” she agrees.

The End is

the Beginning

is the End

Poetry

Kerri-ann Torgersen


Fingers gripping icicles,

Knuckles red and raw.

She wipes at frozen tears,

and waits for ground to thaw.

Spring casts rays of sunlight,

across the forest floor.

Flowers bloom and stretch,

toward bright beams, wanting more.

She plucks the blossoms from the earth,

And fills her wicker basket.

She drops a few but hurries past.

The rest are for the casket.

Knotted So Tightly

Poetry

Bobbi Sinha-Morey

Central Point, Oregon, USA

Three violets in a jar are now

age-brittle remains in a house

knotted so tightly in its place,

no loose string to unwind it;

it's like playing patience with

a short deck, and as I examine

the remains of what's left inside

my deceased parents' house

I cleared away the mementos

before anyone else could get

to see: my favorite rose print

paper, French saucers painted

by hand, my mother's woolly

mammoth tusk earrings. Yet

none of these memories ever

warm me while outside a cold

November reigned, the only

sound in the air the low notes

of a mourning dove that were

like breaths blowing over a

bottle; the hour so ripe it

balanced this tip of time, so

tiny it could sit on my fingertip,

and I whispered to myself no

haunting memory can trace my

heart or the shape of my world

182

Lost

Photography

Frances Fish

Monrovia, California, USA

183

Uncle Down Under

Poetry

Jilli Penner


I don’t miss him

Most of the time

Said the developing adolescent

Grasping a freshly murdered rose

Staring at the fake grass

As if she could see right through it

Knowing at this moment

He wasn’t above her

Everything grows from the earth

And yet we penetrate it

slowly causing infection

Injecting decay

Shoving death

With the roots

I don’t miss his hands

Most of the time

The Cave of Bones

Poetry

W.F. Lantry


There is a cave that beckons me inside.

I barely see the shadows lingering

along its walls, but notice how the air

seems sweet and bitter, both at once. The

steep

descent within seems easy, as if anywhere

I step is safe. Sunlight, backscattering,

casts a small glow, enough to light the way

where stone and silent waters interplay.

Down, down the path descends, until a great

cavern opens, held up by columns made

by water dripping slowly into deep

basins. Behind this limestone palisade,

the rough cavewalls seem to incorporate

layers of colored stone, exquisitely

detailed as if engraved beautifully

by careful hands. Along their edges, bones

in ordered clusters, undisturbed, still lay

where each was placed after their final

sleep.

They seem peaceful, protected from the

day,

from storms outside, from wind, at one with

stone,

where light and air and water coincide.

Sweatshirt

Poetry

Jilli Penner


No amount of soap

Could ever scrub

The stains out of my mouth

I can still taste the way you smell

Your sweatshirt, now resides in the corner

It looked better than you

The way it brushed my thighs

...After all it was always softer

Than your touch ever pretended to be

I still smell it

Your scent lingers

I don’t want to smell of you anymore

Why should I?

It was a scent captivating at first but seconds

taste rancid

Even from all the way over here

184

Pat and I had to serve detention for

talking in Mrs. Pearson’s class. We showed

up just before three. The door was open,

but the room was empty, so we took a seat.

She came in a few moments later, seemingly

taken aback by our presence, but she quickly

recovered.

“Oh, that’s right,” she said, moving to

her desk where papers lay in stacks facing

every direction. Mrs. Pearson was our English

teacher, and she was a harried woman, a

little nervous, her eyes always wide as if expecting

disaster at every turn. She was maybe

around 30 years old, not unattractive,

with pale skin, a lightly freckled nose, and

light brown hair that reached just past her

shoulders. She looked up at the clock in

front of the classroom. “You have ‘til four

o’clock,” she said.

Pat and I were seated right next to each

other at two desks in the back of the classroom.

Pat spilled out of his desk; it wasn’t

made for a boy of his size. I said something

to him in a low voice, and Mrs. Pearson

looked up from what she was doing.

“Excuse me. You two are in detention. No

talking. In fact, Pat, move up to that desk

please.”

She pointed to the desk in the front of the

row, and Pat did as he was told.

We sat there quietly for a while. I suppose

we could have been working on homework

or something, but we just sat there looking

at the clock in silence. Then we heard a

sniffling sound coming from Mrs. Pearson. We

looked over. She was seated with one hand

Dirty Hippies

Fiction

Ken Elliott

Huntington Beach, California, USA

holding a pen and one hand over her eyes.

She was crying softly.

Pat looked back at me. I shrugged. “Mrs.

Pearson, are you OK?” Pat asked in a soothing

voice. He could be very charming and

sensitive when he wanted to be.

She sniffed loudly, wiped her eyes, and

looked resolutely about her desk. “Yes...Yes.

I’m fine. Thank you for asking.”

Pat turned back around, and it was silent

again save the occasional sound of paper

being shuffled on Mrs. Pearson’s desk and the

light sound of traffic in the street and occasional

bursts of laughter and conversation

from outside the door.

“It’s hard, you know,” she suddenly said.

We both turned to face her. “Life is hard.”

She was crying again. She placed her pen

down and looked at both of us. Then she told

us her life’s story.

She grew up in a small town outside of Des

Moines. Her dad was a failed preacher, an

itinerant farmer, and an alcoholic, so they

grew up with Jesus but no money. Her mother

stayed at home and sold cosmetics on the

side. She was an only child, raised on the

strict teachings of the Bible. When she was a

teenager, her father’s drinking accelerated.

He began to get a little too friendly with her,

so she decided to leave.

Pat slowly turned his head and stole a look

at me. I widened my eyes back at him. What

the hell?

“I had a boyfriend at the time,” Mrs. Pearson

continued. “Of course, my parents didn’t

know it. They would have killed me. He said,

185

‘Let’s go to LA.’ I had nothing to lose, so I

packed up, and we left that night in his little

VW. I never looked back.”

Her words came out in a torrent, as if

she was afraid her audience would be taken

away before she could finish. She pulled

some Kleenex out of the box on her desk and

blew her nose into it.

“So we got to LA. Two broke kids—the

typical story, you know.”

We didn’t know.

“It took Doug a long time to find a job—

that was his name, Doug.” She looked over

at me. “You remind me a little of him, Jim.”

I shifted uncomfortably in my chair. “He was

a sweet boy, but he had a hard time in LA.”

“As for me, I was having the time of my

life. LA was the place to be back then. I

couldn’t believe there could be so much excitement.

We lived right above Sunset Boulevard.

I could walk right down there. Doug

had taken a night job doing security at some

warehouse, so I would just walk down to

Sunset and hang out until the bars closed.”

“You went to bars?” Pat broke in.

“Yeah. Oh, but I didn’t drink—not yet,

anyway. I just watched the bands. Everyone

played there. I saw Jim Morrison one time,

just walking down the street. Can you imagine

that? You guys know who the Doors are,

don’t you?”

We didn’t.

“Anyway, the drinking—and the drugs—

came later.”

I saw Pat flinch a little in his seat. Did she

say “the drugs”?

“It was when I met Danny. I was standing

outside of a club, The Whiskey, trying to get

in to see Three Dog Night. They were very

hot right then. That’s when I saw him. Danny.

He just walked up, so handsome and tall,

so smooth. Danny talked to the doorman and

took me right inside. He just walked up and

swept me away. It was the beginning. And

the end.” Mrs. Pearson paused and looked

off into the distance.

“So what happened?” I asked her. We were

fairly interested in her story by now.

“Well, we dated for several months. In

fact, we moved in together right away.”

“What happened to Doug?” Pat asked.

“He was heartbroken when he found out,

of course. He ended up moving back to Iowa.

Last I heard, he had taken over his family’s

farm and was doing pretty well for himself.

He belonged there. He never should have

left.”

We couldn’t believe what a whore our

English teacher was, but it was about to get

better.

“Danny’s the one who introduced me

to alcohol. Believe it or not, I had never

touched a drink before then. But he got

me to drink some wine one night, and I was

instantly in love.”

“With wine?” I asked.

“With alcohol. There was an instant

attraction. I guess that apple doesn’t fall

far...” she smiled sadly.

“What about the drugs?” Pat asked.

“That came next. It turns out Danny was

a drug dealer. That’s how he was able to get

me into the club that night. He sold to a lot

of the bands, so he had connections everywhere.

It opened doors for us all over town.”

“What kind of drugs?” I wanted to know.

“Just about everything: LSD, speed, pot,

mushrooms, all kinds of pills, uppers, downers.”

“And you did those, too?” Pat asked.

“I’m not proud of it, but I did. It was fun

for a while, and then it became... I don’t

know. It just wasn’t fun anymore. Danny

started fooling around. I never caught him,

but I know he was. He was out at all hours.

‘It’s my job,’ he would tell me.

I was becoming depressed, staying at

home, drinking and popping pills by myself.

I became so paranoid I couldn’t even leave

the house. I decided to kill myself.”

Pat and I sat there stiffly in our seats. We

couldn’t understand why she was telling us

all of this, and neither of us knew what to

say to her. She finally continued.

“I swallowed every pill I could find—and

we had a lot of them lying around. I washed

them down with what must have been a

half-gallon of vodka. I woke up in the morning

with people all dressed in white above

me, looking down, talking. I thought they

were angels.”

“You were in the hospital?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Did you stop doing drugs after that?”

asked Pat.

“I did. I turned my life around completely.

I found Jesus again, and he’s the one who

really saved me.”

The story was becoming boring again, and

I saw Pat slump a little in his chair. Pat had

no more questions, but there was something

I wanted to know.

“So what happened to Danny?” I asked.

“I married him,” she said matter-of-factly.

“You did?” Pat and I asked in tandem.

“I thought I could save him.” She looked

dreamily out the front door of the classroom.

“I’m still trying.”

186

“You’re still married?” Pat asked. “Is he

still a drug dealer?”

Mrs. Pearson gave a half-hearted laugh.

“No, those days are long gone. He still

drinks—a lot. Most days I come home, and

he’s passed out on the couch.”

“He doesn’t have a job?” I asked.

“He takes a job here and there. He can

never seem to hold anything down for long.”

Pat seemed to turn this over in his mind

for a moment, then he said, “It seems like

you married a man just like your father.”

Mrs. Pearson’s eyes welled up again, and

her hand reached out for another Kleenex.

“Yes. Yes, I guess I did.”

Pat looked back at me in a panic, and I

gave him a look that said, you idiot. We both

got up and walked over to her desk where

she was sobbing now, and we gave her a half

hug from either side.

She reached up and touched our arms.

“You boys are so nice. I shouldn’t be bothering

you with my troubles. I shouldn’t have

told you that story,” she blubbered.

Pat was paternal and soothing. “No, no,

it’s no trouble. We’re here to listen.” I

looked over at him, and I could see that he

was looking down her blouse.

I looked up at the clock. It was four

o’clock. Pat and I took our seats again as

Mrs. Pearson sobbed quietly at her desk.

Roses Shaded Pink

Poetry

Jilli Penner


I’m watching the flowers die

Somehow slower

Than our relationship did

I wish they’d die faster

So I could toss them

No longer reminded,

Every time I sit at the table

They’re my favorite

Color

Breed

Scent

You once shared that title

Now all I’m left with

Paling shades

Wilting petals

Fading fragrance

Pricking memories

Your beautiful rose, no longer

Bachelor

Poetry - Tetrameter

Craig Kurtz


She left me flat and broke my heart —

but it’s OK now if I fart;

who cares what she might bloody think —

I’ll trim my nose hairs in the sink;

she didn’t like to hear me snore —

but now they’re louder and they’re more;

the toilet seat’s now up to me —

I get to choose which way I pee;

and those big sneezes she disdained —

these days, they’re even more ingrained.

She used to be so embarrassed

but now imagine how I’m dressed;

and girls with those huge mammaries,

I’ll look at them as much I please;

those Tom Wolfe books I’d leave around —

who gives a damn now if they’re found?;

she used to say it’s unrefined

but I like junk if you don’t mind;

the toothpaste cap, the final straw,

but now I hardly brush at all.

Who cares now if I stay up late

or use the tub to masturbate?;

who cares now if I smoke again? —

she’s prob’ly out with other men;

who gives a crap if I get fat,

I don’t even live with a cat;

who’s going to check me for a tick? —

who’s going to perform a Heimlich?;

I get to live life as I wish

and who will care when I perish?

187

Fruit Bowl

Poetry

Elle Butane

Loyal, Wisconsin, USA

“Don’t fall in love with an apple,”

my mother always told me.

“Their skin is sweet and their flesh, soft,

but after the first bite, they always find a

way

to rot.”

How silly, I thought,

to fear the act of falling in love

with a fruit.

They’ve waited on trees,

sat still for paintings

for centuries.

They wait patiently in grocery stores,

in gas stations.

They roll their way into

lunch bags and lockers.

they are unavoidable.

The descent was easy,

seemingly harmless;

not unlike an elevator ride.

What’s the harm

in a little carving?

I drew flowers,

I drew love letters,

I drew peace signs.

Despite my pure intentions,

he still found a way

to rot.

188

Contained Chaos:

Growing in a Lab

Collage

Jennifer Frederick


Electrified

Photography

Taew Fornoles


189

The Girl from the Bookstore

Fiction

Kevin Wilson


Him:

Within the first thirty seconds, I had kissed

her. That’s how fast this moved.

I was killing time before the show, browsing

through the stacks in one of the bookstores

on University Avenue, when she came

up to me: wavy, light brown hair, brown

eyes, freckles. Shorter than me by a head.

She gazed up nervously, her voice just above

a whisper. “Um, hi. There’s this guy outside.

He’s following me. It’s giving me the creeps.

I thought if I was with someone...”

I snapped right into the role. “Hey! It’s

great to see you.”

Her face lit up into a breathtaking smile.

“Yeah! Likewise.” She opened up her arms,

and I gave her a quick hug. Gazing up at me,

she stretched out her neck and cocked her

head just right. I leaned down and kissed

her. I was taking a leap of faith, but by the

way she laughed, I knew I’d done the right

thing.

In my hand was a book I had just pulled

off the shelf. She took it from me and read

the title. “Love in the Time of Cholera. I had

to read this one.”

“I read One Hundred Years of Solitude. It

was long and strange, but I thought it was

great. I wanted to try this one.”

“Cool.” She handed it back to me. “So,

are you just here for the weekend?”

My steel-blue hoodie had the logo of my

school on it, so she knew I was from out of

town. “Yeah, I drove down from Portland

yesterday. I’m here for the show.” I named

the band, but she didn’t know it. “I’m

meeting up with the guys around five. I’ll be

kicking around until then.”

It was 1:30. “Just looking at books that

whole time?”

“Down the street, there’s a showing of A

Nos Amours at two. I streamed it once, but

I’ve never seen it in the theaters. I thought

I’d check it out.”

As I stood in line to buy the book, I kept

gazing down at her face, at those warm

brown eyes and the adorable splash of freckles

on her cheeks. She asked, “Are you still

going out with...?” She paused, as if she had

blanked on the name.

“No,” I said. There was still some pain

here, but I put on a brave face. “Amanda

and I broke up a couple months ago.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. I felt her fingers

brush my sleeve.

“It’s alright. It was time for us to move

on.”

“I know about that,” she said, but she

didn’t say who she was moving on from.

I paid for the book and shoved it into the

pocket of my hoodie. Outside, she looked

warily around for that guy, but he must have

split. I thought she would leave right then

— the danger had passed — but she took my

hand.

“You want some company?” she asked.

“I’m up for a movie.”

Her smile lit me up. “Of course.”

190

We walked hand in hand down the street.

In the middle of the day, there weren’t too

many people around. Still, her eyes flicked

left and right. “If we run into anyone I

know...”

“...I’m an old friend from high school,” I

prompted.

She squeezed my hand and beamed that

breathtaking smile. “Yeah! That special boy,

my first real boyfriend.” I nodded, understanding

her innuendo. “You remind me of

him. Really, you do.” I nodded again. Her

brown eyes probed my soul. “Do I remind

you of her? That special girl?”

“Yeah, you do a little.” She let out a happy,

playful laugh.

That was the game we were playing. We

were acting out roles from each other’s

memories. I was him, and she was her.

The Stardust was a rundown art-house

theater, decades past its prime. It would

have shut down if it hadn’t been for the

university. They showed independent movies

and old classics like A Nos Amours, a French

film from the early 80’s.

I bought her ticket, but she refused the

offer of popcorn and candy. The chair armrest

didn’t lift up, but she nuzzled into me

anyway. I put my arm around her, like I really

was that old high school boyfriend.

I loved seeing the film again. The sound

quality wasn’t great, but I don’t know much

French anyway, so it didn’t matter. I even

stopped reading the subtitles for a while and

just gazed at the beautiful Sandrine Bonnaire.

As the end credits rolled, we stood and

stretched. “What did you think?” I asked her.

“It was good,” she said. “I liked the scene

between the father and the daughter where

he knows just by looking at her that she’s

now sexually experienced. She didn’t have

to say anything, but there was a change in

her, and he sensed it. For a moment, they

were co-conspirators.” She added wryly, “I

wish my dad had been that understanding.”

We walked into the bright autumn light. It

was now a little after four. “Where to now?"

I asked. "You wanna get a drink or something?”

She found my hand and gazed up at me.

“Where are you staying?”

I felt a shiver of anticipation. “Um, just

down the street.” I took a second to orient

myself, and then pointed. “Not the nice

hotel where the parents stay, but the other

one.”

Her eyes were steady; her voice even and

calm. “Do you wanna?”

“Absolutely.”

We started walking towards the hotel.

Desire was in her eyes. She let out a sudden

reckless laugh. It was a warning to me, in a

way. I should have known what that laugh

meant, but I wanted her so badly I couldn’t

think straight.

The hotel was narrow and ancient. It

looked like it had once been an office building.

The elevator was rickety and slow, so

we took the stairs, hand in hand. My room

was on the third floor with a window overlooking

the street. There was a queen bed, a

nightstand with a lamp, a chair, and a bathroom

with a shower tub. I hadn’t planned on

company, but at least the room was made up

from the night before.

Though tense with nerves and anticipation,

I tried to keep my cool. I unzipped my

hoodie and tossed it on the bed. Immediately,

she picked it up. She fished the paperback

out of the front pocket and set it

on the nightstand. With my hoodie pressed

against her chest, she disappeared into the

bathroom.

For a moment, I didn’t know what to do.

I took my phone out of my pocket, checked

the time, and put it on silent. I sat on the

bed and took off my shoes. From my wallet,

I pulled a battered condom packet. I set it

on top of the nightstand, and I put my wallet

into the drawer.

The door creaked open, and she came out

of the bathroom wearing my hoodie. It hung

on her like a shapeless dress. The sleeves

bunched at her wrists. “Hi.”

“Hi.” We kissed — longer, slowly, more

deeply than the first time in the bookstore.

Our hands wandered up and down.

She scooted away from me and over to

the bed. She unzipped the hoodie, showing

off her bare skin while keeping her breasts

covered. Then, she leaned back, raised her

knees and let me know she had left her

panties on the bathroom floor.

As I got down on my knees, she let out a

nervous giggle. “Is this alright?” I asked.

“Yes please!”

She toyed with my hair and purred as

I worked to build her pleasure. She whispered,

breathless, “Come. Come to me

now.”

I stood, undressed, and slid on the condom.

We lay side by side, kissing, gazing,

exploring. At that last step, I paused and

191

waited for her signal. Finally, it came: She

tugged on my hips, rolled onto her back and

whispered, “Now. Yes.”

I wanted to be great, or at least memorable.

But when I got started, I was nervous,

hesitant. We had only pretended to be old

lovers. I had no idea, really, about her preferences.

I started slow and gentle. She had

to prod me to be firmer with her.

Then, I had come, and there was that

awkward tidying-up moment. We both used

the bathroom. When I came out, I saw she

had slipped under the covers.

“Come lay with me for another minute. I

still need you.”

I slid into bed beside her. I thought she

wanted me to help her come, but when I

stroked her, she said, “No. Just hold me.”

She set her head on my chest. I kissed

her hair and ran my hand along her back. “I

don’t even know your name,” I said.

“No. Please, just this.” She kissed my rib

and settled her ear right over my heart.

I felt a sudden pang of sadness. In my

mind, I heard again that reckless laugh. I

should have known, if there was any hope

at all of seeing her again, she would have

slowed things down, stretched it out. We

both would have. It was only because she

had decided this would be it, that she went

all of the way, all at once. If I didn’t know

her name, even if I looked I would never find

her.

I wanted another kiss. I wanted to walk

her back to her apartment, though I knew

she wouldn’t allow it. As we dressed, she

wouldn’t even look at me.

On the way down the stairs, I offered her

my hand and she took it. We held hands all

the way down to the first floor, through the

lobby and onto the street.

It was nearly five. The avenue was bustling

with people; the road jammed with cars.

I held onto her hand for as long as I could.

Our arms stretched out, still clasped as she

walked away from me. She gave me one last

melancholy smile, and then the girl from the

bookstore vanished from my site.

Her:

From that first kiss, I knew all my guesses

about him had been right.

My Friday afternoon class was canceled,

so I walked to my favorite cafe. On the way

there, I spotted him: tall, dark-haired, wearing

a steel-blue hoodie. There was something

instantly familiar about him. I knew I

didn’t know him, but I wanted to know him.

I felt, somehow, like I already did.

He paused outside one of the bookstores

on University Avenue and held the door open

for an older woman, coming out with a large

purse and a bag of books on her arm. I saw

his smile, sweet and a little shy. I felt my

heart leap into my throat. He went into the

bookstore. On a sudden impulse, I followed

him.

None of this would have happened if

things between me and Steve were going

great. I mean, things were great at first, but

they hadn’t been for a while. We were at

the point where we needed either to get engaged

or break up. It was looking more and

more like the latter. We needed a catastrophe

to shake us out of our complacency.

And, what would be more catastrophic than

me making a pass at another boy?

Of course, I wasn’t thinking any of this

when I dashed into the store. I wanted another

look at the boy. That was as far as my

thoughts had taken me. He wasn’t as classically

handsome as Steve. He was more rough

around the edges. His hair was rumpled, and

there was already a five o’clock shadow on

his face. He had a quiet, thoughtful expression

as he browsed the shelves. Not in the

sci-fi or horror sections, but amongst the

literature.

I wondered: An English Major, maybe?

I couldn’t keep watching him from afar.

He was going to notice me at any second,

and I would have to look away, and maybe

I would just leave and go get my coffee.

That’s what I should have done if I had any

thought at all of staying with Steve.

I needed a reason to go up and talk to

this boy. So, I thought of one. Something

that had happened to me, that still to this

day gives me the creeps. Maybe it wasn’t

happening to me right then, but it was still

true and real. I thought, This is something he

will understand. He will know someone this

happened to.

So, I told him that a guy was following me,

and it was creeping me out. He gazed down

at me, thoughtful and concerned. Then, he

broke into a grin and greeted me like I was

an old friend. We snapped right into our

roles. Two friends reunite at the bookstore. I

offered him a hug, and when I stretched my

neck and preened for him, he kissed me.

It was the perfect "hello" kiss. Dry, closedmouthed,

brief, soft and yet firm, purposeful.

It knocked my knees together. I wanted

another one. I wasn’t ready to go to bed

with him right that second, but I was on my

way.

Back in high school, he was a drama kid, I

192

decided. He knew how to talk, how improv

a relationship out of nothing. There was skill

behind what he did, and practice. Maybe

he wasn’t a theater major — Who moves to

Portland to become an actor? — but he had

some connection to the liberal arts. He was

reading Gabriel Garcia Marquez for fun!

He wanted to see this movie, and, since

we were now oldest best friends and former

lovers, I went with him.

In the year plus of going to this school, I

don’t think I’d actually seen a movie at the

Stardust. Steve had never taken me there.

We were not the only ones, however, catching

the Friday afternoon matinee of A Nos

Amours. It wasn’t exactly packed, but there

were people in every row.

If there weren’t so many other people

around, I might have probed into my new

boy’s love life and shared a few secrets of

my own. Instead, I sunk my head into his

shoulder and let him put his arm around me.

A Nos Amours is a type of film that certain

guys are very impressed with. They involve

beautiful young girls parading around in

the nude, having sex with different guys,

and generally behaving monsterously to

everyone. The movie always ends abruptly,

because it’s more chic and French that way.

The boy from the bookstore could ogle that

actress and still feel he was doing something

high-brow. If Steve wanted to watch naked

girls having sex, he would just queue up

some porn.

I pondered my next move. Should I just

split after the show? Do we grab that longdeferred

cup of coffee? Or, do I push on and

do the last thing?

It boiled down to where he was staying.

Did he crash at a friend’s house last night?

The first chance I got, I put the question

to him. Answer: He had a hotel room. That

settled it. I wanted him. He wanted me. We

were doing it.

The place was a bit of a dive, but at least

he didn’t have a room on the street level.

And, he had already checked in, so there

wasn’t that awkward scene in the hotel

lobby, trying to secure a room while the

clerks gave us dirty looks. Yes, I was going to

his room to have sex, but I didn’t want the

whole hotel knowing about it.

In the room, he shed his sweatshirt. I

quickly scooped it up. It smelled of trees,

the ocean, of him. I took off my clothes in

the bathroom and put his sweatshirt on over

me. It was still warm from his body. I wanted

his scent on me.

The second kiss, third-fourth-fifth kisses,

long and tender, quick and hard. His hands

cupped my breasts, my bottom. My hands

ran up under his shirt, along his back and

chest. Then, he was on his knees in front of

me.

Oral sex is not my thing. I mean, I’ve given

it when I’ve had to, when I felt I needed

to. But, never in my life had someone gone

down on me. At first, I was thinking, You’re

really going to put your face down there?

And then, pleasure rockets are blasting

through my brain, and I’m thinking, You have

got to stop, or I’ll never be able to walk

away from you.

Of course, he used a condom. It was the

right thing to do. We weren't really oldest

best lovers. It spared us some awkward questions.

Afterwards, I slipped under the sheets,

so when he went to bed later that night, he

would remember holding me.

I laid in his arms and rested my head on

his chest. We savoured the sweetness of

those last moments.

I wouldn’t tell him my name. I really liked

him. If he lived closer, maybe we could have

made a go at it, but Portland is too far away.

I was not committing to a long-distance relationship.

He had done more than clear my palette.

He reset my compass. I knew now the type

of guy I should look for in a partner — more

gentle and thoughtful, literate, quick on his

feet. And yes, my next boy should give me

more of that just because he wants to.

My lover from Portland will find another

girl with brown hair and freckles. She will

know how lucky she is to find a boy so gentle

and sweet. He will take her all the way to

heaven, and afterwards, she will cling to him

and fall asleep in those strong arms, and she

will never want to leave.

And maybe sometimes, just before he falls

asleep, he’ll think of me.

193

Bespoke

Poetry

Laine Derr

Sedona, Arizona, USA

Our love grew up in a fitting room.

Our love, fine tailored, is pant-less.

Rhiannon

Poetry

Caleb Gonsalves


Undisclosed

Poetry

Charissa Roberson

New Market, Maryland, USA

There is a girl I talk to in my dreams.

Not the dreams where hopes and fantasies reside

Just my normal night time space,

If I could control this place you would occupy it.

Even my subconscious is mostly convinced,

That you and I will never be a complete unit.

It throws another girl in my direction.

She has the cutest dimples, and she smiles when I talk.

She looks at me like I could show her the world,

and I attempt too, I want to be bolder than when I’m awake.

Perhaps my fear is where our affection died.

or maybe I am killing it now.

I keep the “dream” girl alive, a one-dimensional fantasy

one that could never compare to you..


What does it mean to dream of a girl I’ve never met?

Am I trying to protect myself?

A day in the park can’t be ruined by a fictional character

She and I had the perfect day, on the beach

and around the trees, we biked and hiked and watched a movie.

Would you want to know the future if you could?

Would you want to know how you get from A to B,

And what B is, and the things you do to reach it?

The idea has been turned over and inside out,

Until almost nothing seems novel anymore.

And yet, if one could really see the future,

I imagine it would be more shocking and

Subverting than any storyteller has yet conceived.

Just look back, once, on your life so far—

Could you have believed where you would end up?

Five years before, could you have imagined yourself

As you are now? And that is looking backwards.

Imagine if you could see all the avenues forward,

All the split roads, all the choices great and small

Snowballing into a lifetime. Would you want to see

All the good and bad you could become?

Or would you rather let it surprise you, like a knock

On the door that could be ominous or benign,

Unknown until you open it?

A perfect day, I wish I could replicate.


I would rather adventure with you,

A flat fabrication, will never suffice

194

195

Lady in garden

Painting

Yim Ivy Wu


196

Before the Ballet

Painting

Pat Wai


It begins with a fall.

Well, ma belle, you always knew it was a

possibility. And yet, you couldn’t dwell on it.

What was the point? You had enough to be

thinking about, had you not?

Cues. Entrances and exits. Costume

changes so fast as to challenge the laws of

physics. And, of course, you’d practised.

You’d practised this particular move like

hell. You’d trace lines in the air, burn the

choreography into your neural pathways,

embed the sequences deep into your circuitry

— never mind those pliant, biddable,

ruthlessly schooled muscles.

But it wasn’t enough. Something — what?

— something goes wrong. No really, what

was it, exactly? You’ll never know. Me, I see

it happen — no one knows I do, but I see

everything that goes on in this place. I see it

happen. I was there in the wings all along.

The jump. That jump. The landing… it was

skewed. Your leg buckles. You strain with every

sinew to keep it on course; you’re known

for your immaculate balance. But it happens

too quickly. Tonight, for some reason, some

flaw in the geometry, some hand of fate at

work — for some reason you know not, tonight

it goes wrong.

And in your head you probably heard —

how did you describe it just now? A cracking,

a snapping. No, a pop. Like uncorking champagne,

a soft but distinctively plosive plop.

Later, they might tell you lots of things. A

tear, a fracture, they’ll say. In the end nothing

but a sprain, perhaps, but the pain will

crackle up and down your leg in hot, sharp

Muscle Memory

Fiction

Kate Brock

Oxford, United Kingdom

shards, waking you at night, causing you to

cry out, reach for your lover (if you have

one — I think you do, by the look of you) and

you’ll remember when sprains were a playground

injury; weren’t they once a short-fix

remedy for missing games practice, getting

out of hockey? Or whatever it is they play

nowadays.

But you don’t know any of this yet. No,

no — for now, you’ve fallen headlong down

a deep, dark well. That saunter offstage —

that desperate façade of casualness — that

cost you, ma puce, didn’t it? They could see

it in your face when you crashed back into

the wings, crying out for an ice pack. I saw

it straight away, the fear in your eyes. The

knowledge. It’s a terrible knowledge.

Trust me, I know.

Your skin is turning clammy. Your eyes roll

back in your head, you flail for the glass of

water they proffer. Then you heave, and you

vomit it all back up again.

They shift you off the chair they’ve planted

you on, lie you on the floor. This room’s

scratched tiles are almost refreshingly, welcomingly

cold against your sweating back,

pressing their sharp cool through the flimsy,

floaty fabric of that costume. Careful, now —

it might feel good, this coolness, but you’re

going into shock, anyone can see that.

You’re turning cold. Why is no one smothering

you with a blanket? Doesn’t anyone know

what they’re doing round here?

It’s swelling, your leg.

Things are getting going, and you’re only

dimly aware of it all. Backstage is a flurry

197

of activity. More icepacks and elevation,

whispered conversations, slamming doors

reverberating through the shuddering building.

The tête-à-têtes you know will be taking

place somewhere in this cantankerous old

rabbit warren, though you’ll never know exactly

what was said. And yet, later — much

later — you’ll find yourself obsessed with

piecing together the jigsaw of how this day

unfurled. All you didn’t see, or hear said.

C’est normal, my peach.

The people in green overalls, they’re

handing you a contraption. Asking you to

breathe deeply into it, and when you inhale

a machine next to you makes a raggedy

wheeze, a bellows.

Relief floods your face. Gas and air. Good

preparation for childbirth! somebody jokes,

and you greet their tentative easing-of-thetension

with eyes that are swimming with

pain. There’s pain worse than this? This is

not succour to you right now. We can all

plainly see that those slim hips, that sylphlike

waist have never had a child squeezed

through them. That this is something so far

into your future as to be incomprehensible

to you.

Now you’re talking back. Something in

you has begun to rally. Good girl — I was the

same. You want to continue, of course you

do. You try to haul yourself to your feet. You

can do this, you’ve trained your whole life

for this, you can get back out there, you can

finish the job. The show must go on, you declare,

and half the people gathered around

you smile (they’re indulging you, mon ange).

The other half cringe.

Others arrive, more people, easing you

back down to the earth. I want to take you

by the shoulders, shake you into submission:

enough of the protests, enough of the melodrama,

chérie. Lie down, be quiet, I want

to tell you. You’re making promises you can

never keep, you’re burbling inanities. You

know not what you say.

This bit — oh, this bit is still hard for me

to watch whenever it happens, even now.

But, ineluctably, it begins: the sad reverse

metamorphosis. The indignity of being dismantled

of all the accoutrements that made

you able to get out there, on that stage.

They deconstruct you swiftly, ruthlessly.

Tights, hairpiece, dress, shoes, the lot. You

know, once they’re off, they’re never going

back on.

And now they’re fumbling you back into

your civvies, which are crumpled with sweat.

Your own clothes, ready for your exodus, are

your badge of reality, your failure.

And believe me, ma petite, you have

failed. They’ll tell you you haven’t, that it

wasn’t your fault, that these things happen.

But you and I know better. It was your own

faltering flesh and blood, your own expensively

honed limbs that gave way. Only you

are to blame. If only you’d kept your nerve,

kept concentrating.

Someone else is here now, someone is by

your side, holding your hand. He looks directly

into your eyes and speaks sweet platitudes

into your ear. You cling to him. This

isn’t the lover (at least, I don’t think so…you

may surprise me yet). But he is someone.

There’s something else here, some deep vein

of feeling that flows between you both. Later,

you’ll want to ask him, what did you say

to me that night? Out of all the things people

said to you — the tributes and commiserations

alike — this is what you’ll want to hold

on to. His words. Only his.

Then he’s gone, and other things are happening.

Other things, things you caused but

will never be privy to: emergency meetings,

hushed voices, footsteps in corridors, machinations,

cogs wheeling just out of sight.

The show must go on.

Gradually, it dawns on you: the show. Not

you.

Not you. The show.

Not your show. The show as it exists for

you — that show, your version of it, your part

in it — all that is done with. For you, this

night will remain forever suspended, unfinished,

a throbbing caesura.

They come in, now, the one who was holding

you when you fell, and the other one.

Your gang. Nobody speaks, nobody needs to.

You have all lived through something these

past few weeks. There’s a complicity. You

hug them around their waists (you can’t

stand up to hug them properly). The breaking

of the fellowship, the ties severed. Yes,

there’s a certain exquisite agony in that.

That parting of the ways. I remember it still,

I do.

It was messier with me, of course. My

story is far messier than yours. And yet, like

yours, it was an outcome that was, in some

universe, theoretically possible…but pushed

out of sight, out of mind.

Well. What choice did I have? I had to go

on that night. The show had to go on.

Did it not?

You, you swell. You inflate, your body muffling

around the wound, protecting itself.

Me, I gave way. Disgorged. Collapsed. Imploded.

Blood and water.

198

It took them a lot longer to clear up after

me, I can tell you. You, you’re a breeze. A

sweat-soiled patch on the floor, a discarded

shoe.

They’ll cart you away soon, spoiled goods

and all that. Maybe very soon. In fact — aha!

— here they come now. They’re picking you

up, thrusting their shoulders under your armpits,

helping you to stand; you’re tottering

like a newborn faun.

The sadness is rising in you, I see it. The

panic is ebbing and something else is taking

its place.

Resignation? No. Not quite. Not yet. More

people come, gather round. Some pull you

into an embrace, some shake your hand,

some lean in close and murmur soft things

under their breath. The atmosphere has

turned distinctly funereal: look! Look how

quickly your performance, and all you did

with it, has been transmuted to the past

tense. I’m not gone yet, you want to scream.

I can still do this, you insist, don’t be too

quick to move on!

But they will, of course. Everyone always

does. (Though, God knows, you won’t. Not

for a long, long time.)

Them, though — they’re fickle. Give it five

minutes and this plot twist, this unfortunate

little misadventure, will become part of your

company’s folklore. Mere gossip, fodder for

those who love to pick at the bones of such

things, question, point fingers.

Meanwhile, the violence and the heat of

it all will simply be absorbed, will permeate

the delicate membranes of this venerable

old workhorse of a building, soaked up by its

wood and dust and brick and paint. If walls

could talk, eh? What other stories could it

tell, this pleasuredome of ours?

Mine?

Dare it?

You’re passing into history, into anecdote.

You’re almost out of the door. Soon, you’ll

be in the clutches of another reality: harshly

lit, prodded, examined, dispatched. The

lights will illuminate the darkened auditorium,

announcements will be made, the day

will resume. But you’ll see none of that, of

course. You will never quite complete that

jigsaw.

You have to live with that, chérie.

Worse things happen at sea.

I realise trotting out lines like that won’t

help you. I know your sort. Girls like you fall

into a maelstrom, a frenzy of self-recrimination,

self-validation, melodramatic exchanges,

over-analysis, teary-eyed reminiscence.

Stay close, you’ll want to tell people, the

ones who were with you that day. I am in

pain, and I need you. Don’t leave me so

soon.

And, eventually, you’ll wonder whether all

this dredging of the past, all this scrutiny of

this one isolated afternoon, is cathartic…or

corrosive.

Well, my peach, I can’t answer that.

You’re looking directly at me. You’re

taking your last forlorn glance backwards as

they bundle you through that stage door.

For a moment, you fancy that our eyes

meet. As through a glass darkly. But your

head is still spinning, and you quickly clamp

your lids shut — struck by a fresh jolt of

pain, perhaps, or dizziness, or nausea.

They’re succeeding in escorting you out.

Yet even now, you want to take a stand.

Even at this late hour, you’re struck by an

obscure need to make a meal of it, to make

this even more overblown and awkward than

it already is. To run out (ha — pretty little

fool, if only you could still run!) under the

glaring lights and take a final bow. The bow

you’ve worked so hard all these years to

earn. The exit you think you deserve.

For a second, it’s almost as if you’re asking

my permission. I’m sure our gazes meet,

I’m sure you see me standing there. Your

eyes widen ever so slightly.

I suspect you think you are hallucinating.

Am I a vision or a waking dream? I’m

an incongruity, I know. Things mostly go to

plan around here. Our world is a well-oiled

machine, and we, the automatons. The

disasters — and here I mean the true disasters,

not minor soap operas like yours — are

relatively rare.

Your time is up. The script is rewriting itself

even as we speak. You’ve outstayed your

welcome, and you know it. Away with you,

there’s no more I can offer you. I don’t know

what happens next. I never got to see what

happens next. There are those of us who are

doomed to remain waiting in the wings.

Away with you. I’m bored of you now.

Somewhere in the bowels of the building,

in a dressing room that used to be yours,

there’s a swish of fabric. A speaker crackles.

Beginners to stage, please.

199

Synthetic

Blindness

Free Verse Poetry

Andreas Zignago


Your eye shines with a gleam of synthetic

chrome,

And yet the eye is blind to the dangers on

the street.

Your eye glows red with the flow of

information,

And yet the dead man who was mugged for

his money is not seen.

Your real eye lies in a dumpster,

And now so do you.

200

From Rubble to Relic

Corrosive Metals and Raw pigments

Jeremy Siedt

Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, USA

Visual Currents

Digital Art

Kristin Ham

Plano, Texas, USA

201

Curtain Call

Poetry

Nezrin Hasanly


Actors smile and cry when they finish a play,

Why can’t we finish our lives the same way?

When it’s time for the ultimate curtain call,

Why can’t we be proud of ourselves deep

down from the soul?

She Dances

Through Fire

Poetry



She dances through fire

And doesn’t get burned

Her skin alight in

Oranges and reds

Playing a dangerous game

Her movements are smooth

All from flirtatious hips

Her hands twist

Like vines around stone

She looks in ecstasy

How I wish I were she

She dances and dances

Well into the night

Until the first rays of dawn.

the snow

remembered

Poetry

Sam Kaspar

Ames, Iowa, USA

Pupils on cages

as clear as they look white

Huge, to innocent eyes

I awake to the inches of snow

crystallizing, growing up from the ground

after falling

which is lustre, which is shy

In a heavy wonder -- a sweat

glides down a smooth forehead

and I wish it was a cold one --

Still in the dusk the

Giant buildings topple at my every turn

of ancestral skeleton

keys -- round

eyes

Roll through the plain

fragrance recognized is bliss

and sights like mountains

the same, avalanching now

rhyming its weight with that below

with the icy rock

carving out the valley

that once was never there

202

Up the Cellar Stairs

Fiction

Brayden Wiseman

Logan, Utah, USA

Eyes combed the floor below as he

stepped gingerly down the creaking steps.

He reached the stairs’ end and felt the chill

of the concrete begin to spread up, through

his feet. As quickly as he dared to in the

pitch dark, he felt above his head for the

cold, metal chord.

A dim light emanated from the bulb which

now swayed gently in the dingy room. His

heart rate began to descend to normal as his

eyes adjusted to the light. Careful to avoid

any rogue nails, he stepped through a maze

of cardboard and canned goods. Eventually

he found the box which he’d been sent

for. Upon grabbing it, his mother’s voice

rang from above, spurring him along. With

a heave he hoisted the box to his shoulder.

Leaving one hand free for the return trip, he

returned to the bottom of the stairs. Uneasiness

crept over him once more. His eyes

flickered from the open door at the height of

the staircase, then back to the chain hanging

above his head. With a sharp inhale he

pulled the chord tightly and raced up the

stairs. Terror enveloped his being as his own

heavy footsteps pounded and echoed off the

concrete walls. An instant later and he’d

reached the top. Quickly, as if to catch that

which had been following him off-guard, he

jerked his head over his shoulder. The cold,

empty cellar stared back at him, void of his

pursuer.

To sit and watch the breaking of dawn had

become a favorite pastime of his in his older

age. Being a self-proclaimed old dad, he

prided himself on his unusually early awakenings.

Their back porch, elevated slightly

off the lawn, provided a wonderful view of

the sun breaking over the tops of the oaks.

Damon’s favorite moments occurred when

the steam rising from his morning coffee was

paralleled by the mist leaving the earth.

Picturesque, this morning the mist rested

heavily between the trees, and Damon was

feeling very content indeed.

As he sipped gently from his mug, his eyes

drifted lazily through the tree line at the

base of the Virginia foothills. Spots of auburn

and brilliant orange dotted the forest.

At the forest’s top, a rather plump pigeon

flew from one branch to another, and then

back again. He was often out on the porch

early enough to spot birds and other wildlife

beginning their day. Today Damon spotted

something nearer to the ground than a bird

— or perhaps he thought he did. The figure

was silhouetted dimly in the morning light.

He squinted and leaned forward slightly

in his armchair to get a better look at the

silhouette. Damon blinked, and the thing

seemed to be gone. His eyes opened, then

shut several more times, and he rubbed

them lightly, leaning back into his chair as he

did so. Perhaps this dawn was a bit too early,

even for him.

Enjoying the crispness of the air for just

a while longer, he remained seated. He

drained the last of his coffee and gazed out

between the trees. It was quite odd, he

thought, that somebody might have been out

walking with the trees this early. For surely,

the silhouette had belonged to a person.

203

Damon hadn’t put his contacts in yet, but

he was sure that whomever he’d seen had

been walking on their two legs, not crawling

as the creatures of the forest did. Damon

dismissed the thought, chuckling softly. He

realized he was a bit upset at the prospect

of somebody waking up earlier than himself.

He headed back inside the house to ensure

that Ember was awake for school.

To little surprise, his daughter was finished

with her morning routine already. She greeted

him brightly as she always did.

“Hi Daddy. How was your coffee?”

“Bitter as ever, sweets. How’s your juice?

Did you find yourself some cereal?”

“I looked for cereal, but everything I

found was gross. I wanted toast instead.”

Bread sprang from the toaster. Damon

walked through the kitchen and began

buttering the toast for her, letting the smell

of weekday mornings wash over him. He

glanced through the window in the midst

of his buttering and whistling. The morning

mist had dissipated by now, and the

sun shone higher than the treetops. Ember

thanked her father as he placed her breakfast

on the table and kissed her forehead.

The following morning was much of the

same. He listened to birds, he drained his

coffee, he kissed his daughter’s forehead,

and now, he walked the dog. Ember loved

the mutt. The day he’d brought the pup

home, she’d remained by his side ad nauseum.

Their eventual separation when the

school bus arrived had been an ordeal.

Damon didn’t care for him much. He was

messy and poorly behaved. But Ember loved

him; Damon loved Ember; Damon walked the

dog. The cattle dog had seemed especially

loud and unruly today, so Damon intended

to take him on a longer walk than usual in

hopes of tiring the beast. Abandoning their

normal route, he steered the dog down a

narrow, paved path that led through the

woods which he overlooked each morning.

It was fortunate that he had worn a heavy

jacket this morning as the air in the dense

forest would have left him shivering without

it.

Damon allowed the dog to lead whenever

they reached a fork in the path. He didn’t

care much exactly where their walk led so

long as they managed to find a way home at

its conclusion. The dog steered them left at

the next intersection and up a rather steep

portion of the cracked asphalt walkway —

something neither Damon nor his popping

knees, were happy about. As they walked

further, the trees on either side of them

grew taller, older, less disturbed by human

encroachment. Eventually the two reached

a break in the pavement where a small

wooden bridge stretched over a stream that

babbled gently. The cattle dog led hurriedly

over the bridge. Damon followed absentmindedly.

Halfway across the bridge he glanced

to his side, just further up the stream. He

stumbled, and his foot caught an uneven

wooden plank. Quickly he returned to his

feet, eyes wide. Where he had glanced

upstream crouched a figure — a shadow —

the same shadow he had seen silhouetted

against these woods the day before. Damon

stared at what had startled him. It must

have been 20 yards away, and he anxiously

awaited its next movement. A moment

passed, and then another. It turned. It

seemed to face him, yet there was no face.

A shadow seemed to stare back, a silhouette

despite the sun resting high above the scene,

and Damon turned on heel with a yank of the

dog’s leash. He walked more briskly than he

ever had before while his heart threatened

to tear away at his chest. It wasn’t until he

was home, standing safely behind a heavy

locked door, that he dared to breathe freely.

That night Damon lay awake exceedingly

late into the night.

After seeing Ember off to the bus stop,

Damon sipped from his second cup of coffee.

His fingers shook slightly as he set his mug

back down on the wooden end table. While

he was positive they were nothing more than

harmless hallucinations, he still felt quite

uneasy about it all. And so, he’d drawn most

of his living room curtains.

His walk with the dog was much shorter

than average today. They walked along their

normal route and headed home about halfway

through. The dog whined and scratched

at the door when they had returned to the

house. Damon barely heard the incessant

scratching. As he removed his flannel jacket,

a flicker of light in the kitchen caught his

eye. Cautiously, he approached the kitchen

and rounded the corner. The microwave’s

door glinted with a dull reflection of the

late-morning sun. Damon sighed, defeated,

and slumped onto a barstool. His fingers ran

along his scalp.

“That was a dumb story, Dad.” said Ember.

Damon nodded in agreement. He gave her

a peck on the forehead and threatened her

with another story if she didn’t fall asleep

soon. As he left the room, he hesitated at

the light switch. Before his daughter could

notice his pause, he turned off her light and

204

exited into the dark hallway. Dread weighed

heavy on his heart as he thought of closing

down the house for the evening. Ultimately,

he decided it would be easier to simply

leave the downstairs lights on overnight. Doing

so would alleviate the stress of running

up the stairs in the darkness.

The clock ticked over to three, and Damon

sighed. He pushed his covers to his waist and

rested an open palm behind his head. Hours

had passed since he’d first lay down, just

like the nights previous. It had been nearly a

week since the most recent event. But just

as each night before, Damon’s focus was directed

to the room’s opposite corner. It was

a corner he knew to be benign, yet, he often

failed to last more than an hour before feeling

overwhelmingly compelled to check. He

glanced across the room to where the shadow

rested against the wallpaper. It taunted

him. His bloodshot eyes locked severely on

the corner while he reached his free hand to

the nightstand and clicked the lamp on. Like

each of the previous shadows, it belonged

to a potted palm frond. His suspicions were

unfounded and irrational. Damon clicked the

light once more, feeling a slight bit calmer

now that he’d recently confirmed the shadow’s

identity. At five he was finally bid some

sleep.

Ember shook him to life just hours later.

It felt that it had been only a moment.

Damon swung his legs over the side of the

bed and put on a strained smile for his

daughter, his hair somehow angled towards

both the ceiling and the floor. She ran from

the room, shouting something about hair gel

over her shoulder. As her steps echoed down

the stairs, Damon’s act ceased; his face fell

into open hands. He rubbed his eyes, patted

his cheeks, furrowed his brow. No amount

of mental preparation would seem to adequately

prepare for another day of torment.

With great reluctance he stood and made

his way downstairs. He and Ember talked

a bit about the kittens and hamsters she

longed for before she headed out for the bus

stop. As every other morning, Damon kissed

her and wished her good luck, then watched

from the front porch as she trekked through

the lawn and across the street to where

her friends congregated. Damon leaned his

shoulder against the doorframe and felt a

genuine smile spread across his face for the

first time in days — she’d done her own hair

this morning, and her twin ponytails bounced

with her step.

Ember reached the bus stop where

her classmates had already collected. He

watched as they excitedly greeted her. Ember

sat on a park bench, her feet not quite

reaching to the ground. On either side of her

was a friend from school. Damon blinked,

and it was behind her. It hadn’t been just a

moment before — a silhouette. It stood, not

two feet from her, motionless. This instance

was the first in which Damon could view the

entirety of the figure. Its form seemed to

blur and flicker despite its stationary stature.

The tightness in his chest was titanic. After

a moment’s registration, Damon tore off

into a run towards his daughter. His pupils

darted back and forth between Ember and

the shadow as he moved. Around the corner

came the school bus. Damon, when he was

20 feet away, heard the faintest sound, a

sound of vibration. The shadow buzzed in

the daylight, like a lamp which draws mosquitos.

He finished crossing the street and

saw his daughter enter the school bus safely,

yet the thing still remained, watching.

Damon faintly registered a weird look he was

receiving through his peripheral, yet his gaze

was locked, petrified on the shadow.

As it had the week before, the figure

turned to face Damon. This time, its movement

seemed more aggressive. It lurched,

and although it didn’t appear to take a step,

it moved closer to him. Damon cried out,

terrified, and attempted to turn too quickly.

He tripped and caught himself near the

curb. Without turning to see if it still gave

chase, Damon pushed himself to his feet

and sprinted home, eventually slamming the

heavy door behind him. He slid to the cold

tile floor as his quiet sobs filled the empty

house.

It was two in the morning; he’d been lying

in bed for close to four hours now. At this

point it wasn’t that he wanted to be in his

room or that he wanted to be alone with the

shadows of the corners. Exhaustion pushed

him here night and night again. He told

himself that lying in bed awake would offer

more rest than sitting, standing, or moving.

He told himself lies. At least he knew that to

be true.

His mind raced. The continued attempt at

rationalizing irrational events was beginning

to consume his existence. It seemed that he

could think of nothing else. Figures, watchers,

shadows, monsters. Ember hadn’t seen

them. He certainly hadn’t told her about

them, even when she’d been so insistently

asking about his tears and his sunken eyes.

She was young, and he was seeing monsters

in the dark.

Damon sat up in his bed, a curious thought

revitalizing that which was empty. Calling

them monsters in the dark was inaccurate.

Shadows were manifested in the sun and in

the light. His mind now travelled quickly. He

205

looked to the far corner where the faintest

tracing of the palm frond was still visible.

He threw off his covers and violently pulled

his sheet out from beneath the heavy duvet.

Walking to his closed bedroom door, he

rolled the sheet in his hands, stretching it

out lengthwise until it roughly matched the

length of the door. Damon crouched down,

breath shaking, and pressed the sheet into

the crack between the door and the hardwood.

His fingers pushed and molded its

shape until it blocked all light stemming

from the hall. Next, he examined each of

the room’s two large windows. He pulled the

blinds tightly until it seemed they could be

no tighter. Pulling the curtains to the first

window’s center, he cursed in the dark. The

dull remnant of midnight’s light still shone

through. Damon rummaged through his desk

drawer and felt what he thought to be a roll

of tape. Satisfied with the solution, he taped

each curtain to the wall, as well as to one

another.

The makeshift blackout curtains seemed

to do the trick. His bedroom was now so

dark, so void of shadows, that he navigated

back to his bed at a snail’s pace, his arms

outstretched. When he felt the headboard of

the bed, he returned beneath his covers.

Damon lay in bed, his head rested on a

pillow, and he would not have seen his hand

were it an inch from his face. He looked to

the palm frond, to its shadow, and found

nothing in its stead. Damon smiled and sunk

deeper into the mattress. He was asleep by

two-thirty.

Blue Flavor

Painting

Olga Sushchik


206

The drama of weather

Poetry

D.S. Maolalai

Dublin, Ireland

The Fall

Poetry


Lathrop, California, USA

a lathering sea

crawls up and sticks

on the rock-face,

like a toddler's hand

touching the roots

of a tree. and we walk

on the top end

of the cliffside,

secure as wild squirrels;

wool jumpers,

warm coats.

distracted, you are walking

on gravel away from me.

you are picking up

stones, feeling the smoothness

and wearing of all

kinds of weather.

I watch from a distance, admiring

your figure like landscape –

the wind in your mouth,

your hair and grey eyes.

you could be a photograph

I'd quite like

to look at:

grey coat buttoned up,

your hands

on grey rocks. this is the first time

we've driven to moher

and I'm glad that we waited

until now to come –

it's best amongst rocks

and the drama

of weather. the sky

grey as water

and grey as limestone

cracking. rain

falls in curves,

with swooping

seagull movement.

wind goes like clotheslines

flipping in wind.

down in my pocket

my hand finds your hand. it's cold

as wet stones,

and emerges

and leaves stones

behind it.

Falling usually ends in two ways:

A rough awakening or a rough landing.

It begins with a slight sway,

with a hesitant smile and forgetting

Forgetting where and how to stand or what

you were even about to say.

I don’t know if it’s like being drunk

but you could say… the fall is intoxicating.

The pheromones and dopamine combined

can leave you hot and heavy

and though you may be inclined

to wait, it may get frustrating.

The fall is not at all about

the stuff that leaves you sweaty

other than some sweaty palms

It is the precursor to asking someone out

it’s about trying to see

if you’re ready for that first kiss

when there are bombs

going off in your chest

at sharing the same armrest.

My friend, the fall can be hell.

But falling in love is pure bliss.

207

“Can you see yourself with a guy like

me?”

The question stops me as I’m reaching for

his bedroom door. I turn around and look

into those large, deep brown eyes, and my

breath catches. I look down at him lying

on his disheveled bed. This is the guy I’ve

been bragging to my old college roommates

that I’m just using for sex, even though we

haven’t had sex…yet. Even though my sexual

experience thus far has been limited to two

boyfriends. The one-night stand was never a

concept I felt comfortable with.

Raised mostly by my Greek grandmother,

my adolescence was oppressive restrictions

and naiveté. I often joked that I was raised

like veal, confined to a small space and

force-fed. My grandmother, a product of

two wars, World War II and the Greek Civil

War, was the most sparing person I ever met,

environmentally conscious before it was

a movement. She would cut up the butter

carton to write her shopping lists, save all

manner of ribbons and rubber bands, and as

I studied at the dining room table, she would

cut an entire package of 200 napkins in half.

Why use 4-ply when two would suffice? She

also refused to waste food. I once saw her

eat a slice of green bread, dipping it into her

coffee to soften it.

My parents, who were high school sweethearts

in Greece, divorced when I was three.

My father returned to Greece and eventually

remarried, unencumbered by fatherhood,

except for the occasional summer. Knowing

Yes

Creative Nonfiction

Lara Abreu


my mother, I’m surprised he lasted that long,

but young love is innocent, and change is

difficult. Undaunted, my mother finished her

training and became a reconstructive microsurgeon.

She built a thriving practice by

working most of the time. As a woman in her

field, she fought her whole life, and kept on

fighting even after achieving great success.

Her small stature belied a strong handshake,

a steely gaze, and a titanic presence. She

expected me to earn straight “A’s” in school.

My grandmother had ingrained in her, that

unlike possessions, an education was something

no one could take away.

So it was us three ladies living together. As

a kid, I spent most Sunday’s translating my

grandmother’s favorite shows, even though

I thought Hee Haw and The Lawrence Welk

Show were pretty self-explanatory. Every

Easter my grandmother and I watched Jesus

of Nazareth with me translating, like the

story might be different this year. Earning

my driver’s license gave my grandmother

and me a sense of freedom. I drove her to

the Greek Orthodox church, to her friends’

houses for coffee, and the grocery store,

where I watched her compare prices of every

product before selecting her purchase.

I wasn’t allowed to wear make-up or

heels. When I was fifteen, my mom relented

and bought me a pair of kitten heels in

October but wouldn’t let me wear them

until after the holidays, saying they were an

early Christmas present. I would sneak those

shoes to school every day and put them on

while applying eyeliner and mascara in the

208

bathroom before class. I still remember the

beating my grandmother gave me the time I

forgot to remove my make-up before walking

in the house.

The first boy I was interested in was a kid

named Chuck. It was my junior year in high

school, and I had finally shed my baby fat

and my glasses. I learned to tame my mass

of curly brown hair into some semblance of

a hairstyle, no longer looking like the lead

in My Big, Fat Greek Wedding. At night, I

danced and sang in my bikini underwear in

front of my mirror, liking the way my body

looked. Chuck lived down the street from us

and I would walk Gigi, our toy poodle, past

his house in hope of attracting his attention.

One day, my grandmother saw me talking

with him from our fifth-floor balcony and

started yelling, “Maya, get upstairs! You

are sullying the family name!” Greek didn’t

sound very nice when shouted.

“Who is that?,” Chuck asked.

“My grandmother,” I replied.

Years later, my mom would joke about

how I gave the poor dog arthritis from

walking her so much. It was the one joke

she ever made, and I guess it was a little

funny. Not much else about my mom was fun

or funny. Sailing to America on a university

scholarship at eighteen, she did not understand

a lot of humor, nor was she inclined

to try. There was not a lot of laughter in our

house, but there was a hierarchy, and I was

the bottom rung. Everything catered to my

mom. She got the soft Charmin and I got the

scratchy Scott. She ate all the feta, I was

allowed the first bite or two.

“Your parents are divorced, your mother

works hard, you have to take care of her,”

was my grandmother’s mantra before she

returned to Greece when I was seventeen. At

that point, we were not getting along very

well given I was seventeen and she was seventy-eight

and disapproving of most of what

I wanted to do.

But taking care of my mom was not easy.

My mother was nuts; not bunny-in-the-pot

crazy, more like a narcissist-living-in-herown-world

crazy. She had no shame and never

hesitated to impose, either her opinion or

herself. She knew no boundaries and had no

filters. In a word, she was audacious. One of

the few times she took me to a movie, we

were seated, eating popcorn, when a large

man and his two kids entered the theater

and dared to sit directly in front of my mom.

Without hesitation, my mom tapped him on

the shoulder and said,

"You have to move. You are too tall and I

can't see."

Eyes like saucers, the man did just that.

And as the lights dimmed and the curtains

drew back, she put her feet up on the back

of his recently vacated chair. I cringed in my

seat.

Going out to eat with my mom was always

a gamble. Would she snap her fingers at the

waiter? Would she ask for a whole lemon cut

in half at the “equator,” the strangeness of

the request compounded by her thick Greek

accent? One Sunday she took me to Appleby’s

to celebrate my honor roll report card.

We sat in a booth with red pleather seats, a

stained-glass chandelier hanging above us,

perusing the menu. Our waiter greeted us

and poured some water. He was jet black

with a high-top fade and an easy smile. He

was so tall he bent at the waist to hear my

mom as she placed her order.

"I want the Caesar salad, but I only want

the light green leaves, not the dark green

leaves," she said, looking him directly in the

eye with an air of defiance.

Still bent, he leaned in closer and said,

"Say what, now?"

She repeated her request, this time with a

little more edge to her voice.

I leaned over and said, “Mommy, this is

Appleby’s. Your salad comes out of a giant

bag of mixed greens and is thrown on your

plate. There is no choice of leaves here.”

Audacity was the key to her success in her

career and her failure in our family, but it

also gave me an interesting life. I traveled

the world with her to plastic and reconstructive

surgery meetings where she would present

her incredible work on restoring function

to paralyzed limbs and faces. During her

career, she conducted extensive research

on nerve repair, pioneered new procedures

and published extensively. She helped her

patients regain function to their paralyzed

limbs following a traumatic accident or

tumor excision and her talents were sought

after throughout the globe. This did not

leave much time for family or socializing.

Hence, at these meetings, she would drink in

the accolades of her peers while oblivious to

their resentment. She wanted this for me.

“If you go to medical school, I will buy you

a Porsche,” she would say, over and over. Or,

when I tried to talk to her about my interest

in writing and history, “If you want to waste

your life studying nonsense, get your father

to pay for college.”

There was no room for me in our relationship,

just her. Following her advice, my col-

209

lege career was pre-med classes, long labs,

and teaching assistants I couldn’t understand

interspersed with classes I enjoyed.

College certainly lessened my guilelessness,

but drunken frat parties and hooking

up with different guys was not my style. I

dated the same guy for the latter part of

college and after graduation, I returned

home at 22, single, despondent and aimless.

I slid into a job in her office assisting the

practice manager and working with our population

of Greek patients. I again followed

another one of my mother’s terrible suggestions

and applied for the surgical assistant

program at the local medical school. The

curriculum began with regular anatomy and

physiology at the beginning of the summer.

Having missed the start of the program, I

jumped right into advanced anatomy…how

hard could it be?

The first time I saw him rounding the

corner of our classroom hallway, lab coat

billowing around him, I wanted him. I hadn’t

felt this clench of desire before. Tight green

scrubs stretched across his broad chest, just

a hint of black, trimmed chest hair peeking

out the deep “v” of his neckline. The top

was tucked loosely into the cinched waistband,

accentuating his narrow waist and

muscular thighs. And those eyes, intelligent,

inviting, intense and framed with the longest

of lashes. He walked through the throng of

students milling around, waiting to gain entrance

into our classroom. Holding my gaze,

he extended a tan hand and said, “Hi, I’m

Andre.” I closed my mouth and placed my

hand in his, feeling his callouses rub against

my soft skin. He was the only student to

acknowledge my presence in this hallway,

the others choosing to ignore the new girl. It

didn’t hurt matters that he was also pretty

smart. Actually, super smart and, man,

would I need his help.

That morning, our class entered a sterile

laboratory. Stainless steel tables lined up

in rows with trays of gleaming instruments

on them. The linoleum floor reflected the

harsh fluorescent lights above our heads. We

weaved through the tables to the back of

the room, sat in high-school desk-chairs and

listened to a lecture on intestinal suturing.

Interesting enough. During the lecture, I

heard thuds in the back of the room. I kept

looking back to see the source of the sounds,

but couldn’t see over the heads of my classmates,

all furiously scribbling in their notebooks.

Once the lecture was over, the source

of the thuds was revealed.

Anesthetized dogs were lolled on their

backs, ready for our clumsy hands to cut

them open and locate their bowels. The horror

didn’t end there. In pairs, we had to “run

the bowel,” this meant squeezing a length

of bowel to empty it. As the class began

running the bowels, the distinct sounds of

flatulence filled the room. Elbow-deep in a

dog’s abdomen, I’m surrounded by the sound

and smell of sleeping dogs farting. No one

else seemed phased by this. Some students

laughed; others tried to cover their noses.

I threw up a little in my mouth. Maybe I

shouldn’t have skipped the summer classes

to hike and camp across the country.

“I bet you didn’t see this coming

when you woke up this morning.” Andre’s

voice pulled me back to reality and his alluring

presence.

“What, this? This is fly,” I gagged, trying

to remember if I had eyeliner on. I liked

the way the liner made my hazel eyes look

greener.

The lectures were no better. Words like

gubernaculum, glabella, and gnathion were

tossed around like rice at a wedding. Looking

around, everyone was nodding and writing.

I was just staring, eyes glazed, stomach

churning. The day we received the results of

our first test I happened to walk into class

behind him. Tight, acid-washed jeans, biceps

stretching the worn blue fabric of his Reebok

t-shirt, he walked like a satiated panther,

smooth and confident. I again felt the quiver

of desire. The daydream ended abruptly

when the professor handed me my test with

a big, fat “F” on it. I slumped in my chair,

eyes stinging, cheeks burning. He was acknowledged

by our professor for scoring the

highest grade in the class.

After class, I pushed past students standing

in groups, chatting and comparing grades

that were posted on the bulletin board. I

went to the cafeteria for lunch and saw

him at a table chatting with Chris, another

classmate.

“…and that camel toe can’t be comfortable,”

I overheard. They both looked at

me as I approached.

“Who are you talking about,” I asked,

smiling widely.

“Do you even know what we’re

talking about?” Chris asked.

“Sure,” I smirked.

“What do you think we are talking

about,” Chris raised his eyebrows.

“When a girl’s pants are too tight and

the material gets wedged up her labia and

looks like a camel toe.”

Two pairs of eyes widened. I laughed at

their incredulous expressions and Andre

joined in.

“Hey, do you think I could study with you

210

sometime?” I looked directly at Andre. “I’m

super lost and you obviously know what

you’re doing.”

“Sure. I work 3 – 11 pm and then head to

the anatomy lab. It’s usually just Chris and

me in there.”

With the scent of formaldehyde permeating

and surrounded by dismembered bodies,

the nights of the ensuing weeks were spent

learning the anatomical anomalies of the different

cadavers in the lab. He was brilliant

and kind and helpful and delicious. He was

easy to talk to and open about his past. He

had attended the US Military Academy West

Point until being expelled.

“Why were you expelled?” A chink in his

perfect armor?

“A buddy and I snuck off campus with

two girls to see a movie. The next day I was

called into the Dean’s Office and asked if I

left campus the night before. Not wanting to

lie, I admitted that I had.” He shrugged and

shook his head. “My buddy got caught and

ratted me out. I guess they wanted to make

examples of us, so they expelled us. I joined

the army instead of burdening my parents

with repaying my tuition.”

“That’s a tough break. But you left out

one important detail…what movie did you

take those girls to see?” I innocently peered

into his eyes, trying not to smile.

Andre rolled his eyes and quietly mumbled,

“Dirty Dancing.”

One night, he walked me to my car, it

was close to 3 am. I was leaning against the

driver’s side door, holding my keys, feeling

the tension of desire in my body. The humid

night air created halos around the parking

lot lights. The heat of the night felt good on

my skin after the coldness of the anatomy

lab. Weight shifting, our eyes pulled each

other in. Silence and staring. Wanting and

waiting.

“I, uh,” Andre cleared his throat. “I’ve

enjoyed studying with you these past few

weeks. It’s been fun.”

“As if,” I smiled. “You have helped me a

lot and I’m grateful.” My eyes moved from

his eyes to his mouth and back.

“Do you want to go to the beach with me

this weekend?” Andre moved closer, placing

one hand on the roof of my car.

“Sure, sounds fun,” I fumbled with my

keys. He gently lifted my chin, peering into

my eyes as he slowly leaned in and grazed

his lips against mine. My stomach flipped and

my hands fainted to my sides, dropping the

keys. My eyes closed as my head fell back,

waiting for the kiss to deepen. Instead, he

bent to retrieve my keys and opened the

door. He smelled so good, like Irish Spring

and man. I snapped my mouth shut and

sagged into my car.

“Great,” he smiled, “I’ll pick you up

around noon on Saturday.” He gently closed

the door and stepped back from my car.

Drive, you idiot!

My euphoria was short-lived. As I opened

our front door, my mom jumped on me like a

spider on its prey.

“Where have you been? It’s three o’clock

in the morning,” she yelled, eyes boring into

mine, hands digging into my shoulders.

“I was at the anatomy lab, studying.”

“Alone?”

“No, some of my classmates were there.”

I tried moving past her, but she held on,

nails engaged.

“Who?”

“You don’t know any of them. I need help

and nights are when we can all meet.” I

looked her straight in the eyes, unblinking.

She had this belief that she could tell when

someone was lying by implementing her

“blink” test.

“Wait here.” She turned and went into her

office. She returned holding a pager. “I want

you to take this and keep it with you so I can

always reach you.”

“What? There’s no need for this. I always

tell you where I am…”

“I called you and you didn’t answer your

phone.”

“There’s no reception in the anatomy lab,

I’ve already told you that. I was on my own

for four years in Boston and now you want to

track me everywhere I go?

“Maya, I’m not going to tell you again.”

She grabbed my shoulder and waved the

pager in my face.

“No, Mommy, this is crazy. If I lived elsewhere,

you wouldn’t know what I was up to

anyway.” I jerked out of her grip and headed

for my room.

“Fine, take the pager or find another

place to live.” she held my leash in her extended

hand. I closed my eyes, trying to find

the words to convey my rage but nothing

emerged. I walked back, grabbed the pager

and slammed my door behind me. I walked

into my bathroom and kicked a hole in the

wall, just across from the toilet and below

the toilet paper holder. Humiliation and

anger seethed through my body, blunting the

pain.

I fucking hate you! Why do you always

make me feel this way? No matter what I do,

no matter how good I am, it’s never enough.

The tears fell hot and mad down my

cheeks, painting paths of fury and resentment

along the way. The bright colors of my

211

wallpaper blurred together. I closed my eyes

against the stupid colorful triangles that I

had wanted to change for years and focused

on the seething red behind my eyes.

I will find another place to live. I promised

myself. I can’t wait to get the fuck out of

here.

I also couldn’t wait for Saturday. I showered

and used the hairdryer for the first

time, trying to straighten my curls. I debated

on whether or not to apply make-up and

opted against it.

No one looks good in drippy raccoon eyes.

At noon, Andre pulled up to our house

and rang the door. I hoped to leave before

introductions had to be made but was disappointed.

Her small body was rigid and her

hand on the doorknob blocked his entry and

my egress.

“Hello, Dr. Terzis, I’m Andre, one of

Maya’s classmates,” I heard him say while

extending his hand.

My mom just stared at him and said, “Why

are you here?”

“Maya and I are going to the beach

for a bit.” He didn’t stutter or flinch.

I rushed forward, opened the door

wider, breaking her grip, and leaped outside.

“Mommy, I see you’ve met Andre.

We’re going to the beach for the day. See

you later.” My light tone and short smile contrasted

with the beseeching look I gave her.

Please, don’t make a scene.

“Take your pager.” She turned and

walked back into the house.

“Hey, sorry about that, she can be

pretty intense,” I said, looking hard at him,

trying to decipher his thoughts.

“No worries. She’s pretty impressive.

I work in the lab at the hospital and have

heard a lot about her and what she does. I’m

sure her work is pretty intense, too.”

I looked at him, head cocked to one

side and frowned slightly. Then I shook my

head and almost skipped to his car as gratitude

and relief washed over me.

“Do you mind if we make a quick stop

on the way to the beach,” he asked.

“Sure, I don’t mind.” Do you mind

if I imagine you shirtless while you drive, I

smiled to myself.

We pull up outside a rundown building

with bars on the windows and a cage

around the front door. I had never been to

this part of town; all the buildings looked

similar, peeling paint, lawns that were more

dirt than grass, trash strewn about. Even the

houses had bars protecting the windows and

doors.

“What is this place?” I asked.

“It’s a pawn shop. Stay in the car, I’ll

be right back.” He walked to the trunk and

started unloading stereo equipment.

“I’ve never been to a pawn shop…why are

we here?”

“My paychecks don’t align with when my

rent’s due, so I have to hawk my stereo to

cover the rent. When I get paid, I come back

and buy my stereo back.” He was nonchalant

and easily carried his stereo to the caged

door. He rang the doorbell and I heard a loud

buzzer. He opened the door and disappeared

inside. I caught a glimpse of a cavernous

room lined with shelving units, sagging under

the weight of random items.

Growing up, money was tight, but we

always had money for food and rent. Before

my parents divorced and my dad returned

to Greece, they would give my grandmother

a weekly allowance for food and cigarettes.

She stretched the money for our meals,

packed lunches for my parents and even

some treats for me.

I never worried about money. Andre

shoulders this financial burden alone.

When Andre returned, I asked, “How often

do you have to do this?”

“Every month. Once I’m done this program

and start working as a surgical assistant, I

won’t have to do this anymore. But until

then, Mr. Bourgo and I have a standing date

twice a month.”

The beach was beautiful but the view of

Andre in his bathing suit more so. We swam,

played frisbee, and laid on the hot sand. He

told me about his family and their emigration

from Cuba when he was seven.

“My parents had to work five years of hard

labor to earn their exit visas. My dad worked

in the fields, cutting sugar cane and my

mom cleaned the palaces and homes of the

wealthy military families. They were treated

like traitors by their friends and neighbors

the whole five years. At the airport before

leaving Cuba, a soldier grabbed my sister’s

teddy bear and cut it open with his knife to

make sure we weren’t trying to smuggle any

money or jewelry out of the country.”

I drank in the cadence of his voice and the

poignancy of his story.

“I’m so sorry for your family’s experience.

My grandmother and her family were forced

to leave their homes in Constantinople

during the Armenian genocide of 1922. They

fled to Thessaloniki with only the belongings

they could carry. She was twelve when this

happened and remembers it clearly. I think it

shaped who she became as a person, and she

shaped me.”

“Well, I like the shape of you,” he smiled,

running his finger along my hip bone and

212

down my thigh. Shivers ran down my back

and something fluttered in my belly.

We looked at each other and all traces of

humor evaporated, along with all the moisture

in my mouth. I tried to lick my lips, but

my tongue just stuck in one place, like a pug

with a huge underbite. His eyes drifted down

to my tongue and enlarged slightly. Imagining

what I looked like, I couldn’t hold back

the embarrassed snort and tried to roll away

to compose myself. He caught me before I

could move and pulled me closer to him, the

length of his body heating mine. Holding my

face in his hand, he ran his thumb over my

lips and smiled.

“You don’t ever need to be embarrassed

around me.”

Moved, I smiled back, but then my

thoughts darkened as I thought of my mom.

“Thank you for that, but you don’t know my

mom very well yet. Embarrassing me is her

special talent.”

Andre dipped his head and outlined my

lips with his tongue. I felt the warmth spread

over my body and opened my mouth. He

tasted of salt and sun and my body softened

in his arms. When he pulled back to look

at me, I ran my fingers down his face and

grinned.

“Want to come over to watch a movie

next weekend?” he asked.

All I could do was nod.

At home, I showered and lay on my bed

thinking about Andre and his lips. Smiling, I

drifted to sleep until my mother came home

and woke me up.

“Were you with the gorilla again? He is not

worthy of you.”

I sighed. “You don’t even know him. Why

do you call him that, anyway?”

“Look at him, he is big, ugly and hairy.”

“That’s rude and I like the way he looks.”

And feels.

“I don’t want you wasting time with him

anymore. You need to focus on school and

maybe increase your hours at my office.”

“He’s the reason I am actually passing my

classes.” Exasperated, I rolled out of bed

and went into my bathroom.

She followed me in and wrapped her arms

around me. “Baby, I love you and only want

what’s best for you.”

“I know. I love you, too, Mommy.”

“So, we agree, no more gorilla.” She left

me standing there awash in resentment.

The following weekend, I went to the

house Andre shared with three roommates

in a not-so-great part of town close to our

school. My knock was greeted by the sounds

of barking and yipping. He also shared the

house with three dogs, Zeus, Dillinger, and

Nico, named after Steven Seagal’s character

in the movie, Above the Law.

“Do you want something to drink?” He

gracefully moved into the small kitchen just

off the landing, opening the fridge.

“Sure, I’ll have a soda if you have one.”

I walked towards the living room, just past

the kitchen, taking in the blank walls, torn

linoleum, and mismatched furniture. The

worn living room carpet held a scratched

dinette set with four drab chairs, the stuffing

missing from two of them, one lumpy,

mustard brown sofa, a glass-topped side

table with the lamp leaning against the wall

and the tv stand holding nothing but the tv.

Clearly four guys lived here.

“Oh, the VCR is in my room,” he said.

“Oh, uh…” I gulped, eyes widening.

“But I can bring it down here if you want.”

“Uh, no, that’s ok.” I stammered. The

room suddenly felt really warm, like my

face.

Stop acting like a dork, it’s just a movie…

in his room…

His room held even less furniture than the

living room. His pride and joy was his stereo

system and I was happy to see it in its natural

environment. The two black speakers,

almost my height, flanked his tv, which rested

on a rickety stand holding the aforementioned

VCR, his receiver, and some movies.

The rest of the room was taken up by his

massive, single-ballast, king-sized waterbed

held in a bulky wooden frame with twelve

drawers. No desk, no chairs, not much light.

The single-ballast made sitting on the bed

difficult. Our vastly different weights created

an imbalance in the mattress, forcing

me to either sit perched atop the bulge his

weight forced, or sit incredibly close to him

and share the space formed by water displacement.

After a few awkward attempts at

perching, and a lot of laughter, I rolled into

the valley his body had created. We made it

about a quarter of the way through the movie

before our hands explored the contours

of our bodies and our lips tasted what our

imagination had been drinking in over the

last several months.

“Beep beep beep beep beep!” My pager

blared and I knew it’s my mom.

“Sorry, it’s my mom paging me.” It sounded

utterly ridiculous even to my ears. I fell

back against the mattress, closed my eyes,

and dropped my arms over my face.

“That’s a relief. I thought you were selling

drugs.” He laughed and sat up in the

bed, with a lot more coordination than me.

I wished I did sell drugs. I pulled out my flip-

213

phone and dialed the number I have called a

ridiculous number of times.

“Maya, where are you? You should be

home, studying, not wasting your time with

that gorilla.” Her insult sliced through me,

resurfacing wounds, old and new.

Voice shaking, hands sweaty, and nausea

clawing up my throat, I said.

“I won’t be coming home tonight.”

I gently closed the phone, shutting out her

incredulity and dominion.

I covered my eyes with my hands and then

ran them through my hair. I turned to look

at Andre, sure he wouldn’t want to see me

again, especially now that he knew I came

with a crazy, pager-abusing mother.

“I’m sorry, I have to go.” I turned towards

the door.

“Maya, wait.” Andre gracefully rolled out

of bed and wrapped his arms around me,

pressing my head to his chest. And that’s

when he said it,

“Can you see yourself with a guy like me?”

214

Galapagos Love

Photography

Lara Abreu


Love Poem With

Natural Disasters

Poetry

Matthew Andrews

Modesto, California, USA

After All

Poetry

Heidi Speth


We might burn this resort down,

you and I, the way our love swallows

like a spreading fire. Don’t stack wood

too high in the pit, they warn us

at check-in. Observe quiet time

after ten. But how can we?

If our lips are silent, the earthquakes

in our skin still tremor with passion.

We are a danger to this place,

to its manicured gardens, its pond

asleep in the field, its discreet fountains,

for we come together as swirling clouds,

as floodwaters rushing through doorways,

as electricity thrust down from heaven

itself.

Slut. Whore. Waste.

These words do not define me

Yes, they are spat at me every day

By both friend and foe, lover and enemy

But they do not define me

My skin is like leather, while these words wear

on it, I will not give in

I will not let these words ruin me, I will not

let these words destroy me

It is not always easy,

Sometimes, I too, want to curl up and cry

I want to hide in the back of my closet and let

the monsters kill me

Piece by piece

That’s not the point though

I don’t quite know the point, perhaps it is not

giving up

Perhaps it is that I am worth more

I am not a word but so much more

After another day out on the town

Having countless words thrown at me without

a peep of protest from anyone

I went into my room

My eyes flickered from sticky note to note

card

Strong. Courageous. Beautiful. Hero.

He didn’t leave me much when he passed

Just a ring and some notes, the notes that

surround me

Build me up, tell me my worth, these words

affirm and assure me

They say you shouldn’t let one person define

your worth,

But sometimes, you have to do what you can

to keep yourself from insanity

My eyes scan the notes

It is going to be okay

Even if this society and everyone in it doesn’t

believe in me

At least he did

And that will be enough for me

For now, and maybe

Forever.

215

A Summer with

You, Again

Poetry

James Harvey

Nottingham, England, UK

A Ritual Adventure

Poetry

Elaine Monasterial

San Pablo City, Laguna, Philippines

Summer sun competing with you to kiss my

skin

Goosebumps from her infinity of light, a

golden glow

Accompanied with the blindness of love

A sense of serenity, but

Let me kiss your skin before the sun

Because I’m sick of waiting patiently

Forget the betrayal

While lying on her, the leather's soft

Pillows break my fall

Is this love?

Ocean of feelings flood my brain

Taste, smell, energies align

We used to bike together

But now we’re solo

Left index twitching

Seeing in twos

Wishing that’s the universe’s way

Of bringing me back to you

Meet me outside my consciousness

Numb yourself to my dream world

Watch through rose-tinted glasses

Our relationship grow

Until the morning, when life goes on without

you

A green Door slowly

opened its mouth to me — presented an

Elysian wedding in luminous chinaware,

and white fripperies

And lots of

Tart. Sweet, fruity tart — oh Felicity!

Lemon tart. Strawberry tart. Mango tart

perching on willow slabs crowded

in lavender for me

I entered the Door

In my chiffon wedding dress.

A cloudburst of kisses filled the gloaming.

But not for long. I heard the gods doffed

the tart on my platter. The gnomes were

starving

And ate my tart.

So, I ran into the night, like a loca —

tucked in my arms my wedding dress.

Tall Tikas were ranting why I was very naked

when in fact I was carrying my dress

And I fainted

On the amorseco-filled grass.

The mimosa meshes whispered that I had to

eat twigs to survive — and forget all

about the tart.

All the sweet and fruity tart!

So, I gobbled all the lonesome, loathsome

twigs on Earth. All the tellurian spirits bowed

at me

On that peculiar, moonless night. Because I

was still

carrying my white dress

And I did not die.

216

Mark watched Leonard hug his grandchild.

My grandchild, Mark reminded himself,

Leonard’s great-grandchild.

Mark was sitting in his parent’s living

room. He was a grandfatherly age, 55, and

the girl, his granddaughter, was a grand

daughterly age, not yet 3. His own father,

Leonard, was 78, too old to be the grandfather

of a young child kind of age.

Mark had grown up in this house, but he

sat on an olive green armchair in the corner

of the living room, by the TV, like a stranger

with poor manners, one whom a certain kind

of woman might see with their legs kicked

up and say, “well make yourself at home,

won’t you?”

There was a fire burning. Leonard had

made a big show of starting it. Mark had

made a big show of stoking the logs with the

iron poker. Leonard watched him critically

while he did this and mumbled to the women

of the house that he wished Mark would

learn to let things be.

Mark and Leonard sat in opposite corners

of the room, as far away from each other

as possible. Leonard was on the long, tan

leather sofa where everyone else, all the

women of the family, sat. Mark sat alone,

like an island to himself, he thought. If he

said this out loud, his mother would say he

was a sensitive man who thought too much.

His father might roll his eyes and groan, so

Mark kept it to himself, but yes, it was true;

he was an island to himself. Nothing truer

would ever be.

There was a large, octagon-shaped glass

A Father's Touch

Fiction

E. Alexandra

Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA

table that separated the two men and Mark

pretended to be watching the TV, but he was

actually watching his father and the girl’s

reflection played out on the glass-like another

TV.

Mark watched the way Leonard held his

arms around the girl, the way she sat in his

lap, the way he draped his long arms around

her body in a casual, relaxed, comfortable

way. A kind of way that said he had been doing

things like this, this hugging and loving,

all his life, although Mark certainly did not

remember it that way.

The girl had gone easily to Leonard in the

way young children do. To Mark though, she

had approached, crawled to his feet as he

sat in the green chair. He had leaned down

and waved his fingers in her face, she had

smiled, but she had not crawled into his lap.

She had frozen at his feet, looked him as if

he was surrounded by glass, some hardened

force, like she was coming across a closed

door, some block she knew she would not

be able to move through. She had looked

at him, smiled, and then turned around.

The girl had rejected him easily and with

certainty, cruelty, Mark thought, in the way

young children do.

She had rejected him and crawled to

Leonard’s feet instead, and Mark had

watched as Leonard did not wave fingers in

her face but held his long arms down. He

watched as the girl accepted, crawled into

his lap, and he had watched amazed because

his whole life he had been certain, as certain

as the girl was of him, that his father

217

had been a closed door, something enclosed

in glass.

He watched them now and was jealous

that his own father was bouncing the girl on

his knee, feeling the girl’s squishy diapered

bottom against his denim-covered legs. Why

had she chosen Leonard and not him? He

wondered angrily. Was it the way his father

had held his arms down? The way that said

she did not have to accept him, but he knew

she would, and how exactly had Leonard

learned this, Mark wanted to know.

For instance, Mark knew that if he had

held his arms down for the girl and she had

turned away, he would have never, ever,

ever done it again. He would have taken it

personally, taken it as a personal insult, and

Mark also knew, somewhere, this belief had

to do with his own failings as a parent. The

need for his own children, the girl’s mother

for instance, to respond when he reached

out, to never reject him, and to always be

excited when he reached out. His ex-wife

had once accused him of expecting a “goddamn

parade” when he came around. Well,

what could he say? He had not known another

way.

Mark watched Leonard now and again

thought, how had he known to do this? To

hold a child in his arms in this relaxed,

gentle way? Had someone taught him?

Shown him exactly how along the way? And

if his own father had known how to do this

all along, why is it he himself had not also

learned? How was it that his father had not

taught him? How was it that it had not been

passed down, either by word, or, ideally and

most importantly, by his father’s own touch

against his skin?

He tried to remember, but he could not

remember. He could not remember the

touch of his father on his own skin.

The girl crawled down from his father’s

lap. He let her go with a squeeze and a kiss.

She crawled down, but she stayed playing at

his feet. His father was watching the race

on the TV. The girl’s mother passed in front

of the TV. Mark did not remember his father

ever yelling at the girls, any girls, to get out

of the way, to let him watch the TV, never

once, as he had so often yelled at him. He

thought of this and thought that perhaps his

father was a different man than he remembered.

He thought perhaps that he had remembered

him wrong or that he might have

changed into a more gentle man with age.

Mark thought this, and Mark took a chance.

“Dad, who’s winning the race?” he said,

and when he did, he hated the way his voice

sounded: as if he were holding his breath.

It was the voice of a man who was used to

being ignored.

“Oh hell, Mark, I just put it on,” he said

dismissively, and then Leonard leaned forward

with the remote, his chest against his

thighs, and said to Mark, “you can change

it.”

Mark did not really want to change it, but

he watched as his father leaned forward.

The space was much too far for them to

reach without one of them standing up, and

Mark knew with utmost certainty his father

would not be the one to stand, and so Mark

did. He rose from his chair, took five steps

towards his father, and as he did, his mind

raced at what exactly he would put on the

TV.

He did not know. He did not really care

about the TV, but he felt as though this was

a game in some way, as if his father were

handing over the reins, and Mark had to

prove he knew how to take those reins, even

if this was all just about TV.

Mark was not sure what was correct to

put on TV, but he was sure sitting down,

letting this be was the wrong answer. Just

as earlier, poking the flames of the fire, not

letting it be, was the wrong answer. This was

the game his father played, a shifting set of

right and wrong to which Mark was always

falling on the side of wrong.

Mark stood in the living room of his parents.

He looked around at his daughter and

his granddaughter, their eyes on him; what

would he do? Would he do the right thing? He

did not know. He did not know what to do,

but he would stand and take the remote anyway.

And as he did, he would not think about

what he would put on TV. He would focus

instead on his father’s fingers on his, and he

would commit all his energy to remembering

what his father’s touch felt like on his skin.

218

I'm Part of

Something

Beautiful

Poetry



I have come to accept

That I’m not the protagonist

The dashing hero

The one who’ll lead us to a brighter day

I’m a background character

In the grand scheme of things

I’m the muted strand

Next to the brightest color

Making it pop out

I may not see the whole tapestry

But I’m there just the same

I may never have a Cinderella moment

That’s okay

I’ll support the lucky one

I may not be Robin Hood

I don’t want to be

But I’ll join his merry band

I know I’ve impacted

People I’ve never had a chance to meet

I know I’m important

Even when I don’t know why or how

The tapestry I’m woven in

Is beautiful

I’m there next to the brightest stars

I’m there with details

I’m there

Not to stand out

I’m a part of something beautiful

Though I’ll never know how much.

Starry Nights

Poetry

Alex Phuong

Alhambra, California, USA

Van Gogh Post-Impressionism

Optimism overpowering pessimism

Even in the darkness

Light shines through and through

Even before the break of dawn

Even if a doe has no fawn

Life exists all around the Earth

Lives that begin at birth

Starry nights with dots of white

Stars shining pure and bright

Starry night, starry night

Let us all shine through

And do more than just do!

My Father Reads

Meditation XVII

Poetry

Lilly Constance

Falls Church, Virginia, USA

In the incandescent living room

Of my home during summertime,

I sit and talk with my father

About birds, old books, and the question of

heaven.

My home is a library

Of endless volumes, peeling spines aligned,

Of rosaries hanging from coat pockets,

Of crowded spice jars spilling,

Of paintings of the Spirit.

My first lesson in curiosity — or perhaps I

should call it wonder —

Was the first time my father handed me a

book

And taught me that life lies open to us.

I recall this as he gingerly removes one from

the shelf,

It’s yellow ochre cover crumbling at the

corners,

Issuing a smell of dried leaves

That we both breathe in before he begins to

read.

I have read Donne before,

But had not realized that Donne’s words in

my father’s words,

My father’s words

Are what cultivate my wonder.

This I understand when his voice breaks

And tears begin to roll down his cheeks

Catching and becoming light as they fall.

Taxi Cabs

Poetry

Nezrin Hasanly


Everyday and every moment we come across

different opportunities

Like a city pedestrian surrounded by taxi

cabs of different varieties

But when we're surrounded by so much, it

can be easy to see nothing

When searching for our purpose, we can get

drained from overthinking

And when the night comes, we've walked for

so long and are weary

Seeing one taxi cab then is a blessing that

has entered our journey

But the driver won't stop until you choose to

raise and wave your hand

So make that first step and don't let your

goals get crushed to sand

219

Paper Bird

Painting

Olga Sushchik


220

Travel

Painting, Oil on Canvas

Yim Ivy Wu


221

Sam Epps nodded to the next person in

line. She came forward, a curvy woman with

medium length black hair and caramel-colored

skin, dressed rather conservatively in

a suit, low pumps, and subdued brown tie.

"Mr. Epps!" she crowed. "I've been a fan of

yours since — gosh! I don't know when!" She

handed over a copy of House on Fire! his

thriller about a man who was "blessed" with

a pair of inhumanly strong robotic hands he

acquired after a horrible car accident left

him mangled and a double amputee, and

Sam signed it as she leaned in and handed

him a business card, which had written on

the back: "Excelsior Hotel. Room 134." Her

voice became husky. "Come by when you're

through, and we'll see what else I can find

for you to sign."

Sam smiled. "I might just do that," he

said, handing her book back, after which she

turned and walked away. The next person in

line was a teenage goth kid, his face mostly

clear, but with a small red pimple at one

of the corners of his mouth. "Why are you

wearing a hat inside?" the boy asked.

"Keeps my head warm," Sam replied,

provoking a short bark of laughter as the boy

handed over his dog-eared paperback, Leviathan

Wakes, a mystery about a humorless

detective trying to find a nano-augmented

dwarf with ten bodies to his name.

After the boy, there was no one else. Sam

looked at his gold Rolex: 10:01 at night. He

left the unsigned books on the table he'd

been sitting at (the bookshop's owner, Adel

Swart, told him to do this earlier) and picked

The Wearer of Hats

Fiction

Sergio Hartshorne

Rociada, New Mexico, USA

up his messenger bag, said good night to

Jack Smith, the security guard on this floor

of the mall, and exited through the doorway

on the east side of the building. The night

was cool, rare for New Atlanta, this partly

explained by the puddles on the sidewalk as

Sam walked to his car, a Neran Triton, which

was the equivalent of a twentieth century

mid-cost-range Mercedes, back when that

company still existed. He got in, throwing

his bag carelessly in the back, sighing loudly

behind his black-out tinted windows, locking

the doors, and taking off his white Panama

hat, after which a strange thing happened,

which couldn't be seen from outside the

car. His form shimmered as though it was

a hologram disintegrating. His eyes, which

before now had been amber orbs of the type

so many had become ice blue, cold pinpricks

of light. His skin vanished, replaced

by a silver polymer which glowed even in

the muted light. His clothes shimmered and

faded away, leaving him resembling what he

actually was: a sentient robot, anatomically

incorrect because while most would call him

"it," his creator had called him "boy" as he

became gradually more senile, forgetting

that his creation wasn't in fact his biological

child, and Sam guilty of what wasn't

technically a crime, but would no doubt

be severely frowned upon if anybody found

out, impersonating a worldwide bestselling

author. After all, he thought, he did in fact

write the books, so why should anybody care

that he wasn't human?

*

222

Sam pulled into the underground garage,

lit by soft orange LED+ Bulbs. They were

supposed to last 20 years, but actually had

a life-span of about five. Sam had had to

replace them three times, which was how

he knew. He turned off the car and got out.

He was greeted by a shiny white and black

bot which came up to his chest and had

two stocky manipulator arms (six-jointed)

and who traveled on tracks that looked like

they'd been thought up by a twenty first century

tank engineer with a fetish in Advanced

Industrial Miniaturization. It also had a bar

of lights set into its head, which flashed in

alternating reds and blues.

"EPP-C!" it chirped in a high nasal voice.

"You have returned! Would a molecular scrub

suffice for today? Or perhaps a deep nano-polishing?

Nothing like a long, good soak

in a bath of nanites to get that city grime

off!"

B-112 was a bot that had appointed itself

Sam's butler after he had discovered it

rusting in a dumpster in a deserted, condemned

portion of old Los Angeles and had

paid an exorbitant sum to get it discreetly

shipped here, after which he had cleaned

and repaired it as much as his limited skills

allowed. He had been able to do little to discover

its programmed function, but suspected

it had once been a security bot.

"Just the scrub," Sam said. "Do I have any

mail?" he continued.

A door in B-112's casing slid back and one

of the bots arms reached inside and pulled

out an envelope and handed it to Sam. It

was expensive-looking, and the return address

was from the Bureau of Technological

Maintenance and Supply, which was a fancy

way of saying that this department answered

calls for repair of obsolete appliances. The

central heating unit for the living quarters

section of the complex (tastefully furnished

with Vermeers and Botticellis) had been

dying in slow wheezes, and humans, Sam

understood, hated being cold, so to let it

go un-repaired when he had to sometimes

entertain guests would be completely unacceptable.

Sam headed down a dimly lit corridor towards

the East Wing, followed by B-112 who

chattered about the weather, gave the sporting

news for 10 major sports and then the

daily updates on the World Stock Exchange.

*

Sam sat in the molecular bath. The odor

of tannin wax mixed with motor oil would

have made a human being sick to his or

her stomach, but Sam was able to turn off

his sense of smell when he wanted to, and

besides, he had no stomach to be sick to. He

was turning over a proposed plot twist in his

latest story, a prologue to what he planned

as a space opera featuring the heroine Karla,

who had the curves his publisher wanted to

show off in the series of flouted illustrations

that Space and Starlight wanted to put on

the first page, but which Sam refused to

make the main selling point. It wasn't that

he was stuffy about sexuality; no, humans

and the way they experienced the world

through their bodies fascinated him, but he

was insistent that Karla Rednica was most

notable for her keen mind, and her Ph.D

from a fictional, but prestigious university in

nano-medicine, as well as for being the captain

of her own ship in the Torallian Navy.

The plot twist he was pondering concerned

the scene where she was gravely

wounded and had to be implanted with an

artificial heart. He wondered: Will people

buy that a woman with such an injury could

recover in three months, in time to be ready

for the Battle of the Red Dwarf? He was

using a tablet that incorporated holographic

real time input (meaning that he could move

whole lines of text,or discard them, with a

flip of the finger.) He tried twelve different

forms of the scene in half an hour, but was

satisfied with none of them, so he saved the

latest version, stepped out of the bathtub

and used a coarse burlap sack to scrub off

most of the residue of the cleaning solution

and then let a spray of high pressure water

get rid of the rest.

The maintenance man was supposed to

come in two days. Sam hated to wear it,

because thought it looked stupid, but he had

the type of hat worn by humans when they

were in their pajamas. He would try to meet

the repair man early in the morning so that

any oddities could be excused as him not

being quite awake just yet.

*

The time between his last public appearance

and the appointment with the maintenance

man passed in the way all meetings

that people dreaded — like lightning going

from a cloud to the ground in an energetic

thunderstorm. Sam was not immune to this

emotion; his creator had given him the gift

of emotions, and just like human beings, he

couldn't switch them off at will. It was, he

often thought, the one thing he wasn't at all

sure he was grateful to that man for.

B-112 was safely out of sight in a back

room well away from the offending piece of

equipment. His other housemate was J-13,

223

an aerial drone who had become sentient

after her owner had delegated almost every

function of his life and overclocked her with

the unintended consequence that she could

choose a gender and run away and accidentally

found Sam, when he was coming back

from a meeting with his agent, as she flew

around muttering curses, earning uncomfortable

looks, and several passersby were

calling to report a malfunctioning AI. He had

only saved her by claiming that she was his

and that he would get her "fixed" as soon as

possible. She was also out of sight because

she had developed an almost violent hatred

of human beings and castigated them loudly

whenever they were mentioned, and would

no doubt curse even more in the presence of

one in person.

Sam was dressed in his pajamas (generated

by the silly looking hat in physical form

as well as visually.) The guy was 30 minutes

late. When he finally showed up at the door

and banged on it loudly, Sam saw the man

was dressed in a greasy green coverall with

a broken zipper that went only about two

thirds of the way up, unshaven, stubbly, and

with what looked like tomato juice stains

on his white tank top, and a gun-metal-gray

tool box in one hand.

Sam answered the door and exchanged

greetings, not forgetting to curse the Braves

for sucking so bad this year and accompanied

Fred (his name was embroidered on

the coverall) inside, leading him past Sam's

bedroom, where he had Brahms playing at a

tastefully low volume. "You like the classicals,

huh?" Fred said in a Bostonian burr. "My

wife too. Always playin' those guys with the

hard-to-pronounce-names like Chekevksy."

"Ah, Tchaikovsky. One of my favorites."

"Yeah. That dude."

As Sam let the man into the domicile,

he saw that the man's name sewn onto the

coverall had a thread hanging loose, but he

thought nothing of it. Fred started humming

tunelessly. As they reached the heating unit,

he ceased humming for a second, scratched

under one armpit, and set his toolbox down.

He used a pneumatic, hand-held screwdriver

to take the cover off and then, after fiddling

with the on/off switch, (he had to crouch

to do this, it being low down for a man his

height) he stood up and said: "I'll need some

parts from my van before I can fix her," and

started walking back to his vehicle.

As he came around the corner that would

take him to the front door, Sam saw Fred

run full tilt into something very solid with

a loud clang! that turned out to be B-112,

who stood there, manipulator arms fidgeting,

muttering "Bad! Bad! License plate not

registered!"

Sam came up and helped Fred stand, saying:

"Sorry. It's only my laundry helper bot.

He didn't mean anything by it."

B-112 chirped a loud chirp and blared out

at extremely high volume: "J-13 scanned his

van! It belongs to Terraria Corp., also known

as a front for the National Security Agency.

He's an impostor EPP-C! An impostor!" Fred

began to reach into his coverall, but before

he could, B-112 shot forward and grabbed

both his arms with two of his manipulators.

Sam walked around to stand in front of

Fred. He reached out, grabbed the loose

thread in his name patch, and pulled. It

came off with a tearing rip! Underneath was

another patch, that read "George."

"Raise his arm, B-112." The bot did, and

Fred was revealed to be holding a large monkey

wrench.

"What did you plan to do with that, Mr. No

Name? My friend here can tear off your arms

as easy as pie."

"Please," the man said "I was only sent

here to reconnoiter! We heard a report of

a famous author who was an unregistered,

hostile, Extra-Planeter, masquerading as

human. My bosses don't need to know what

you really are."

"And how do you know what I am? Hmm?"

"I know EPP-C is a bot designation. I studied

as an engineer in college."

"Give me one reason I should believe you."

"Family."

"How so?"

"You have a family. These bots. I have a

family. I'd do anything for mine, and you for

yours. You can kill me if you want, but that'll

just give the anti-botters a reason to have

you all hunted down."

"So. We have a problem. Either we can

trust you — to what? Certify that me and my

family are no threat? Or that I'm human and

the others don't exist?"

"I've read some of your work. It gets dark

sometimes, no denying that, but I'm willing

to swear that you're no lunatic. I'll tell

my superiors that you're a non-issue. I can't

promise they'll leave you alone, but seeing

as how you haven't killed anybody, and

you don't seem to be caching weapons for

the AI uprising, I think they will. But you

should really think of a way to explain why

you keep turning down so many beautiful

admirers when they offer to make love to

you. I don't know. Tell someone you're gay or

something..."

There was a more than fair approximation

of recorded laughter from Sam's audio units.

"I'll think of something."

224

A Tiny Dialogue of

Metaphysical Poets

Poetry

S. T. Brant

Las Vegas, Nevada, USA

The cruelty of the Moment is unassuagable.

It is not a moment if it isn’t felt.

How many moments do we have? (…one feels

so little…)

We have some…

but to describe them?

Pinion’d, are we, by incandescences

That sail our senses off the world.

Our tongues trill the air where our vessel’s

failed.

Chaotic symmetry

Painting

igor zusev

Seattle, Washington, USA

225

Moral and Natural Philosophy

Poetry

Robert Beveridge

Acron, Ohio, USA

We were on our way to the Tearoom to see Parker

Posey’s Parkinson’s when the call came over

the Bearcat. Oh, shit, I said, here we go, we’re gonna

miss at least one opener, but when duty calls, you

know. So I pulled over and fired up the GPS,

fed it the cross streets I’d never heard of,

kind of weird in a town that’s known for having

seven stop lights, at least two of which don’t work

on any given day, and off we went to chase

a part-time ambulance and a very pregnant woman

in an olive pea coat with a maroon knitted cap

between five-six and five-nine with dark hair

and dark eyes. Our dispatcher does not have

a flair for the dramatic. Within seconds we were

off the complete opposite way of the club,

of course, because that’s the way these things

happen. But here’s where it gets off track,

bucko. We got a few blocks past the 7-Eleven

on Stansberry, you know, where the abandoned

warehouses and stuff are, and we were

somewhere else. One minute I had the old

Taylor tannery in the corner of my eye

and my mind was lost in thoughts of my

first girlfriend and all the times we spent

in the office there, and the next minute

Janice’s voice cuts into my reverie what

the hell? and I look around and there’s…

nothing. All the buildings that should be

near us are gone. We can see some off

in the distance, but for a good two

or three blocks in all directions, nada.

And let me tell you, my friend, when the GPS voice

breaks in and reminds us we need to turn at the second

226

right, I jumped so hard I still have a bruise on the top

of my head. I still couldn’t see any other headlights,

no blinkies, where was the ambulance?, but turn I did,

and a block later, my eyes bulged out like golf balls

and Janice curled up in the fetal position, all the air

got sucked out of the car, like a huge POP but reversed

even with all the windows shut. Good thing I was so

shook up because I had to slam on the brakes so as

not to rear end the bus that was all the sudden right

in front of my face, and I can hear the wails where

a second before there was desolate silence and engine

purr. So I hop out and run over and you know how

all the rest of that goes. I mean, babies come out

the same way most of the time. I’d never seen the mom

before, which again seemed a little weird in a town

as small as this one, and the dispatcher had failed

to mention that “dark” meant “orange with flecks

of umber” when it came to her eyes, and at least twice

I got so distracted by them I almost forgot to mention

that she was supposed to push. And don’t quote me

on this, if you do I’ll tell everyone you were drunk,

but I swear when she screamed I thought I saw fangs.

Small, but there. But I was concerned with other parts

of her anatomy, and they all seemed usual enough,

and the kid on the way did too, Bob’s yer uncle.

One more good push and…there we have it! Clips

and snips and the ubiquitous white blanket

with the blue and pink stripes and mom held

her baby boy, growling and naked, pure white

as slate. I let go a breath I didn’t know was trapped.

Do you know what you’ll name him? She looked

at me, slick with sweat, knitted cap lost somewhere,

hair a limp explosion, eyes half-lidded. Not an ideal

mindset for conversation. And she could have slurred

something else, but I thought she said Buer before

the driver shooed me off with a curt thanks, closed

the door, and headed off to the hospital.

We did indeed miss at least one opener. Got there

halfway through the second. Easy to admit we both

laid out for doubles as soon as we got to the bar,

and we did it again less than two minutes later.

Jesus, that was weird, Janice said, and grabbed

my hand. Her fingers were still cold. That doesn’t

make much sense in July, not here. I leaned into her

shoulder, drained another highball. I’ll be happy

if that never happens again, yep. We turned back

to the stage and had no idea who that opener was.

We could see their instruments but all I could hear

was desolate silence and engine purr.

To my apartment and all the

spaces I make my own:

Poetry

Therese Pokorney

Chicago, Illinois, USA

when I moved here they told me not to decorate the walls

they gave me a long list of prohibited items:

candles, tacks, tapes, and paints

my cubicle now is gray and bleak

made from the same stupid plastic as public school desks

every inch of my untethered soul was pushed to the back of the

drawer

the ones that hold spare change, paper clips, miscellaneous magnets

we called ours the junk drawer

so behind the stacks of sticky notes and loose rubber bands

i prayed that the girl with paint-smeared fingers would return

hoping it wasn't too late for her to choose another path

227

The child believes it looked better the way it was before, before. The universe, curving,

theoretically foldable, a suspension bridge from here to there, made mostly

of imagination, a seemingly religious juxtaposition, warping the Divine

about a confluence of man-made smithereens.

Incredible, how it all goes on, with, or without us. Earthling as witness, as designated

accident waiting to happen.

As perfect test monkey of inter-dimensional beings,

supernatural visitations or extraterrestrial machines of flashing lights &

a mastery of Time & space & gravity. Crash-test dummy, or the perpetual abductee

/: gone, with the archangel ominous crow

in the frayed black coat.

The Signs and

Wonders of the

Inter-Dimensional

Warrior

Poetry



after the mural by Alex Reisfar—Davis, CA

Always, our horizons, blighted by docking ships of commerce,

monopolies of power & fascist governments of Machiavellian wickedness

beneath a cloudless cerulean sky at midday, as a convergence of Buddhist monks

approach the call of Bodhisattva, & a guileless child gorges on the Apple of Eviction.

The Great Spirit of Creation rises from the waters,

an exposed heart of benevolence beating reckoning

like a blackened column of smoke rising from scorched earth,

as twin swimsuit beauties frolic at the riverbank.

Behind us a wrecked life, random cause & effect so much deadlier than blind hope.

Ahead of us, ghosts & demons & Ragnarok,

conjured

from a bright, howling knot of intangible fear & the cryptic energy of covetousness

deciphered by crow-skulled priests of augury & doom, a scattering

of ruined prophecies of ash

into the rock & roil of river rapids.

Foregrounded, like smoke on the water,

a reptilian, Cheney-esque incognito

arises to offer flowers to a haloed child, a tainted fragment of truth

crammed into the hypocrisy of authority,

an intangible evil, in lieu of candy

or cute puppy, in lieu of mewling kitten/: distraction, distortion & denial to disguise

the fangs of the wolf.

Most soon left agog in wonder & awe. The hearts sewn on sleeves, like drunken

shadows, stumbling headlong towards a glittery destination—a harvestmoon

bright comeuppance. Their lives, a deserted stretch

of super-highway into the middle of nowhere.

& despite the worrying Blue(s)

on my mind, if i don’t go, how will i ever know what’s on the other side?

228

229

Sunny Afternoon

Digital Art

Kristin Ham

Plano, Texas, USA

A Happy Green Chlamydia Plush

Creative Nonfiction

Mercury-Marvin Sunderland


A happy green Chlamydia plush.

Dark green sprigs of “hair” on the scalp.

Black, teddy bear eyes.

An open, grinning green mouth.

An orange tag.

It’s cute.

It’s soft, and it squishes easily in my

hands.

The sound of my laptop running.

The pain of a brand-new UTI.

Cramps.

A headache.

Lack of water.

I haven’t drunken anything in a while.

There’s a window behind my laptop

screen. The sun just came down.

I pull down the blinds.

My arms are heavy and sore.

My glasses are smudged. I have to clean

them yet again.

The Chlamydia plush has factory seams. It

was featured once in a Valentine’s Day ad

from the Giant Microbes company. They

featured a sexy bedroom with all the STD

plushes. All of them smiling, sitting on the

bed, waiting. Waiting.

I lie on my bed and take a big swig of

water. I sit back at my desk with the

Chlamydia plush. I fidget with my septum

piercing.

It’s been a long time since I last had sex.

It’s not that I haven’t wanted to. It’s not

like I haven’t been asked to. But there’s a

pandemic going on.

At first it was said by King County Public

Health that Coronavirus won’t spread

sexually, you just gotta wear masks while

doing the do. But all I could think was

why the fuck would i want to have sex

while wearing a mask. I thought about

it but masks do not exactly steam up

the sexytimes. I appreciate masks and

understand the importance of them but

if you’re telling me that the only way I

can have sex in a pandemic is by doing

it entirely masked, then I’d just rather

not be having sex right now at all. Sex

is not socially distanced. But then they

discovered soon after that Coronavirus

is sexually transmitted after all. So

it’s a good thing I didn’t try the Covid

sexytimes.

The plush is comforting to squish. It’s

cheerful and fun and brings a whole new

meaning to Toy Story, or the 19-billion

other versions of that same joke every

adult makes about that kids’ movie.

The fur is shiny. Welcoming.

Squeeze.

And release.

230

Why You Shouldn't

Run in Flip-Flops

Poetry

Deborah LeFalle

San Jose, California, USA

I suppose he figured

going for an afternoon run

in flip-flops was an okay idea

peripheral vision caught his shirtless image

for a nanosecond

whiz by my kitchen window

loud moaning and groaning

came next

frightful tumble he must have taken

small group of neighbors gathered

we saw he was coherent

but obviously in some degree of pain

perhaps mostly embarrassed

a call to 911 just the same

skid marks on back

reddened scrapes on elbows, knees and toes

with bits of shredded skin hanging off

ugly cut on right temple

blood trailing down side of face

pressure, pressure

What was he thinking?... maybe he wasn’t

tried to comfort him

stayed until

EMTs came and carted him away

doubting flip-flops

will be part of his running regimen

in the future.

To the Man who

told me

Poetry

katie pfeifer


Your scathing words missed my heart

Instead went in a corridor

Of my brain

Which worry looks like paintings

Hung in a museum

For my soul to question.

You see

I wish the robbery was the hard part

The warm gun to my petrified neck

Even my artery couldn't pulse

His bleak eyes

Turned into a painting

My soul is drawn to

Wishing it could concentrate on something

else.

But his eyes couldn't emulate

The man who stood in front of me.

To the man who told me

My parents would enjoy my benefits

When I die

What am I supposed to say?

Thank you?

Take care?

Did you fantasize the blood that flows down

my neck?

Or wish for my heart to stop?

Could we switch?

So your mind is staring at the kid’s painted

eyes

And I leave the museum

On Our Hill

Poetry

Mike Ball

Hyde Park, Massachusetts, USA

Daily, even in brutal weather,

one neighbor traverses our steep hill.

This claudicated climber clomps

her twisted left foot and sets it

firmly at each stride. We all wince

at her struggle, but she stays on task.

She keeps us honest, we who find

the weakest excuse for inertia.

She is a warrior who does not roar

nor clang sword to breastplate.

On her route, she always greets the couple.

Like matched salt and peppers, the frail pair,

two sallow grayheads, police their wee,

yet lush, triangular garden twice daily

at an intersection named for a long-dead

WWI soldier of low rank at just one

such street meeting that Boston insists

on calling a square, (We could look South

to Savannah to see how squares are done.)

Four spindled forearms recall white birch,

though not as thick, smooth nor pale.

These two also walk our sheer hill daily.

My eyes greet hers as she strives upward,

and my mouth says, “This is some hill.”

She glances at her man shuffling, lagging,

“This hill is the only thing keeping us alive.”

They advance together in joint measure,

steadily and slowly as a fog cloud arriving.

231

Labyrinth

Poetry

Sameen Shakya

ST Cloud, Minnesota, USA

I told you childhood stories to cheer you up.

Of course I would.

My mouth ran like water into your ears

With stories cherry picked from years

Gone by. Some made you laugh,

Some made you still,

Soon enough I’d opened a labyrinth

And before I knew it, it seemed

You and I were roaming the dark halls

Of my memories and I couldn’t help

But guide you deeper underneath.

Bless your heart you didn’t judge

But patiently trudged along to where

This guileless guide was taking you.

The deeper the darker but you held my hand

Through Freudian slips and traumatic lines

That made me stumble and catch my breath,

But you just smiled and I felt safe

Till the carvings on the wall smoothed out

And the floor gave way to marble steps.

I came across a memory. The happiest.

One I hadn’t told you yet. Of my father and I

On the porch of my childhood home

Looking at the stars, when he held me up

And pointed at the hills, kissed by dusk,

And said some wise words forgotten,

But the feelings still clung to my chest.

I told you all this while you kept smiling.

Looking around I didn’t know when we

Walked into a garden from the labyrinth.

What do you want to talk about now?

Somehow, they both knew they would

end up back at the cemetery. Dad’s grave

was against the far wall, in a quiet spot

where the churchyard dipped, and, without

mentioning it to the other, they sought out

the nib of his headstone after the warden

had let them in. They looked for it as sailors

look for a raft. It takes time for the earth to

settle after a burial, a fact that was news

to the sisters when the undertaker took

their order for the stone— square, no fussy

decoration, just the basic information, like

the man himself — and the stone had only

been up a few weeks. They scanned the

graves to find it — there it was — and something

leaked from them both, their hearts

exhaling, the grief at his loss flowing across

marble and granite to the stone that had

his name. They’d overseen it being set in

the earth, which seemed an act of finality.

But then Margo said on the drive home

that churchyards could be good places for

answers, and here they were again, today,

notepad in hand.

They hadn’t phoned ahead, but the

church warden didn’t seem surprised to see

them and opened the gates to the cemetery

without comment. Later, when Margo

emailed him to clarify something, he said

they’d been the third visitors to the church

that day. The need to assemble the dead

into a line stretching back from the self to

a point it could go no further had increased

in these days of genealogical websites and

history shows on the television. The warden

had led them to the gate, tucked away down

The Tenburys

Fiction

Rebecca Burns

Leicestershire, UK

the side of the church. He nodded his old

head as they passed through, the cords of his

neck bare and obscene in the spring air, and

then disappeared, back to his warm office

and the kettle.

“Did you print out a map?” Margo asked.

She meant of the cemetery, for they’d used

the Satnav to drive to the church — Margo's

lad had programmed it for her. Barbara

nodded and let go of her sister’s arm for a

second, to reach inside her handbag.

“I don’t think we’ll need it,” she said

quietly.

Margo hummed in that way of hers, not

quite signaling agreement. She was the braver

of the two. But what they’d found in the

days after Dad died had made the scaffold of

who she was move in its foundations. She’d

been stripping Dad’s bed, for the sheets

were new and shouldn’t go to waste, and

there the envelope was. She’d opened it.

And then she had shrieked, a piercing knife

of sound that brought her sister wheezing

into the room in a hurry. Now Barbara saw a

searching look in Margo’s eyes, there day after

day; a restlessness that the steadiness of

the WI or the bridge club or Margo’s grandchildren

couldn’t satisfy.

There might have been earlier visitors

to the graveyard, but Margo and Barbara

had stepped into the web of family history

timidly. Clearing the house after Dad died

had taken a lot of time, sucking up hours

and weekends that should have been spent

with their grandchildren. The place was cold

— no need for heating after he’d gone — and

232

their dentures rattled in their heads as they

emptied cupboards and drawers. Neither had

thought much about looking into their family

tree before the old man’s death, but the envelope

of papers and certificates they found

in the space between his mattress and bed

frame was a wound. It split open like the sea

and, unless they found out more, threatened

to overwhelm them.

Today spring had started its tentative bud,

and the air was soft and damp. Rain fell

apologetically. From the gate they followed

a path running alongside the far wall, graveled

and levelled for those coming to lay

flowers. They skirted the edge of the churchyard.

Margo went first, testing the ground.

Where rain and weather made the path

slippery, she turned and held out her hand

to Barbara. Barbara’s hip replacement had

made them children again; Margo remembered

them at the park with a paper bag

of sweets, helping her little sister onto the

roundabout and egging her on. The ground

was quietly treacherous, and they picked

their way over unfamiliar earth carefully.

They reached the bottom of the churchyard,

near to Dad, for that seemed a sensible

place to start. St Jude’s stretched above

them, square tower and weathervane stubborn

against years and storms, and thieves

stealing brass from the roof. A crow sat on a

piece of guttering and surveyed them with

the wicked currant of its eye. Mango, who

hated birds, shook her walking stick at it.

“Fuck off!”

“Margo!” Barbara’s gasp. Then she started

to laugh. “You can’t say that here. Really,

your language at the moment.”

Margo shrugged. “Don’t have to keep

those words in my head anymore. Who’s

going to tell me off? Not him.”

She didn’t need to say she meant their

dad.

Barbara shook out the map, the paper

already moist. She wasn’t sure if her clammy

hands were to blame or the air itself, but

she handled it delicately. “There’s a cluster

of Tenbury graves up ahead, and to the

left.”

“Remember Gordon Tenbury at The Bull’s

Head?” Margo said. “Dad sometimes played

dominoes with him.” She thought of their

dad, lining white slabs of ivory with black

dots in a neat pattern. The dominos had to

touch each other with rigid exactness. He’d

tidy up other players’ pieces as well, driving

them nuts.

“He was her cousin,” Barbara said faintly.

They’d spent a fortnight drafting a Tenbury

family tree. The names were alien

to them, like Latin words for flowers. The

sisters started the tree from an unexpected

point; names found on a certificate their Dad

had hidden, seeds he’d smothered beneath

the fibres of his bed that his children discovered

in the unbalanced days after his death.

Seeds they’d held in the palm of their hands

and allowed, tentatively, to grow.

Over the past weeks they had struggled to

wield census returns into an ordered shape,

one they could plot on their tree, and sieved

through pages and pages of online genealogical

results. Then Margo suddenly remembered

their childhood name for one of the

Tenburys — “That’s Juggy! The lad with the

huge ears we’d see at the park — remember

him, Barbara?” — and the unfamiliar names

suddenly started to make sense. It was as

though they were walking through a garden

and pointing out flowers — “Primula, otherwise

known as primrose. And that’s bellis

perennis, but we know it as a daisy.”

After that the tree became easier to manage.

Names became memories, shuttered

glimpses into the past. They remembered

one Tenbury who worked at the small co-op

in town, others in the year above at school.

“Such a ridiculously large family,” Margo

muttered, when they found a census return

listing ten children. “How could they remember

who they all were?”

Always, though, the names that started

it off. A woman and a child’s, and their dad

in the space that recorded the father. Those

names were the acorns from which the paper

tree grew. Barbara had found the woman’s

obituary online, and leaves were added,

green shoots that opened to the light. And

now here they were, back at the churchyard.

They edged back up the hill to a gathering

of headstones. Margo’s walking stick clicked

the path and she breathed heavily. Barbara

listened, her own chest opening and shutting

like an accordion. What a terrible thing to

grow old, she thought. Our bodies change

shape and aren’t what we know anymore.

When Margo stopped to rest, Barbara slipped

an arm around her sister’s waist. Margo had

grown fat since retirement, and Barbara’s

hand came to the middle of her back. Margo

smiled, the skin around her nose shining.

She’d taken diabetes tablets in the car before

they stepped into the churchyard.

The crow yacked, the guttural sound

propelling the sisters on again. They shuffled

off, keeping to the edge of the graveyard,

feeling their way on the outside. Then they

came to the graves they wanted to search.

233

These headstones were more ornate than

Dad’s. Wider, thicker, made from heavy dark

stone. The lettering was different on each —

maybe there’s fashion to all things, Barbara

thought, even gravestones. Flowing, complicated

script covered older stones, while

the words carved on those from more recent

years were functional and simple. But all

had the same pointed top, a Tenbury shape,

marking them out as a clan.

There were about twenty headstones like

this. Margo and Barbara glanced at each other,

wariness passing between them, and then

stepped off the path amongst the stones.

Swollen feet and thick ankles stepping over

a threshold, leaving the gravel path and

walking into thick, uncut grass. Barbara felt

a click in her heart, a nudge inside, her body

telling her this was it, she was moving into

a space where everything she thought she

knew about her dad and how he raised them

could be up-ended.

They moved between the graves, reading

the inscriptions and seeing the vines of

family linking Tenbury to Tenbury. Grandfather

resting with Grandmother, their children

nearby, a brother, two small graves for

infants who died of the flu in 1918. Margo

hurried Barbara past those, thinking of her

sister’s own loss and the pot of ashes on the

windowsill in Barbara’s bedroom that, even

after all these years, sent her sister to bed

on a particular date.

It didn’t take long to find the stone they

were there for. They stood in front of it and

observed the faintly elaborate lettering.

Not as flowery as earlier inscriptions, not

as functional as the block letters on graves

from the seventies onwards, but oddly between.

“Gloria Tenbury. Beloved daughter of

Gerald and Doris. Died 11th August 1946,”

Margo read. “Well, there she is. No mention

of her son, or that she was a mother.”

“Only a mother for a day,” Barbara murmured.

For the first time since they’d known

about the woman, the unspoken chapter of

their dad’s life, she felt sorrow. “The obituary

said she died the day after the boy was

born.”

“Poor woman,” Margo said. “Not so unusual

in those days, but still.”

“I had hoped for more information,” Barbara

said. “I’m not sure exactly what, but

something.”

Margo hummed. She was looking away, at

another Tenbury grave nearby. “There’s Gerald,”

she said, and pointed to another grave.

“And Doris, next to him.”

“Do you think he’ll be here?” Barbara

meant the boy, named on the certificate.

“Maybe not. We couldn’t find a death record,

remember.”

“He might still be alive. Our brother, out

there somewhere.”

“Do you hope he is?” Barbara didn’t look

at Margo but instead shuffled amongst the

headstones. They hadn’t spoken about what

it would mean if the boy had lived, and

grown into a man. Maybe he looks like Dad,

Barbara thought. She imagined an old fella,

belly scuffing the top of his trousers, lopsided

grin, ears that curled in at the top like

an elf. Dad had always laughed at his ears.

When he was in hospital, after his first operation,

Margo’s son had brought in his Lord

of the Rings DVDs and they’d all sat in the

day-room, poking Dad when the elves came

on screen. “That’s your tribe, Grandad,” Ben

had said, making his Grandad snort around

his mask.

“I don’t know if I want him to be alive or

dead,” Margo said. She’d ducked her face

into her scarf, as if burrowing out of sight.

“He’d be much older than us. He might have

carked it.”

“I keep thinking...” Barbara hesitated.

Another headstone nearby, a Tenbury name

she thought she recognised, of a chap who

ran the local snooker hall. “I keep thinking

about Mum and if she knew.”

“Me too. No reason for Dad to keep it secret,

really. I mean, the boy was born before

he met Mum.”

“Who knows what happened?” Barbara

sighed.

“Dad knew.” Margo’s voice was flint, sharp

in way that made Barbara look up. Margo’s

face was almost hidden by her scarf but her

brow was creased. “He knew, and he didn’t

tell us. It would have been nice to have had

a brother, especially after Mum died. It was

a lot, you know, looking after you and the

house, after she’d gone. Making sure you

went to school. Another pair of hands would

have been welcome.” Her voice trailed off.

Barbara imagined her mouth screwed up like

a scrunch of paper, a tongue tasting lemons.

“I can’t see him,” Barbara said. She

meant the boy, their brother. She waved a

gnarled hand over the headstones, like a

bridesmaid sprinkling rose petals. “If he was

going to be buried in this churchyard, this is

where he’d be.”

“Unless he was cast out. Son of an unmarried

mother.” Margo shrugged. “That kind

of thing happened back then. Maybe he was

adopted and had his name changed.”

“I suppose...I suppose it’s up to us how

much we want to find out,” Barbara said. “It

would be a strange thing, at this time of our

lives, Margo. To meet our older brother for

the first time. Are you ready for that? Could

234

you be ready?”

Silence, filled only by the flap of the crow

who had landed nearby and was watching

them from its new perch, the top of a Tenbury

grave. Its head jerked from side to side,

abrupt and pointy movements that made

Barbara feel sick.

Margo’s face appeared from beneath her

scarf. She looked at the bird and then at

the graves, and then at her sister. Her feet

moved awkwardly on the uneven ground,

her weight rolling from side to side. “I really

don’t know,” she said.

Super-fast trains, super-slow trails

Creative Nonfiction

James Sievert

Aesch, Basel-Landschaft, Switzerland

It makes you glow with admiration. The

train is clean, fast and on time. The staff

is friendly and helpful. The interior design

is sleek and stylish. Outside, the green and

golds of the Italian countryside and the red

rooftops of the lived-in spaces rush by. You

almost wish the train wasn’t zooming at

200 miles per hour. But you are happy and

amazed that it is.

This is Italy? Yes, this is the Italy that gets

things done. That cuts through red tape.

That privatizes high-speed rail, which turns a

profit. This is the Italy that gets you from Milan

to Rome in just over three hours. That’s

about the distance from San Francisco to

Los Angeles. But not the time it takes to get

between those two cities.

Poor California. Will the state ever finish

the one project that will radically change

life in the Golden State? High-speed rail.

HSR, they call it. I sit here comfortably

on this super-fast Italian train, enjoying a

drink, the train speeding more than twice

as fast as the cars on the motorway parallel

to the train line. I close my eyes and dream

that my train has just penetrated a series

of tunnels under the San Gabriel Mountains

and into the L.A. Basin. California has earthquakes

and mountains! High-speed rail can’t

be done! Wait a second. Italy has earthquakes

and mountains. And yet, it has built

a well-loved, well-used and well-functioning

HSR system.

Americans have blinders on. They see only

the cost of the initial outlay. Not the benefit.

The reduction in stress. The rise in levels

of joy. Let’s not forget job creation. And the

environmental benefits.

America has trains, of course. They are

wide, spacious and slow. If you loved travel

in the nineteenth-century, you’ll love riding

the rails in the U.S.A. Twenty-minute cigarette

break at the next stop. San Francisco

to L. A. in twelve hours. It’s relaxing, all

right. But impractical. At least the wi-fi is

good. You’ll have plenty of time to work.

In the 1970s, Governor Jerry Brown wanted

to leapfrog to the twenty-first century by

constructing a high-speed rail system in California.

Bizarrely, they called him “Governor

Moonbeam” for wanting to build something

as practical, beneficial and earthbound as a

fast train from L.A. to San Francisco.

On the issue of high-speed rail, America

is a ludicrous place. I hope I’m wrong, but

high-speed trains will never roll in California

or elsewhere in the country. The vision

is lacking, the inertia overwhelming. The

litigious nature of U.S. society allows every

mile to be contested. Libertarians rant that,

on a high-speed train, individuals are rounded

up in collectivist pens. I guess that’s what

I saw in Europe. Mindless zombies sitting on

socialist trains with photoshopped smiles.

Alas, high-speed rail will never happen in

the U.S. So be it. Italy has fast trains. And I

love them.

The beauty of public transport in Italy

(and in Europe in general) is that there is

some form of transport to take you the last

mile as well. It may not be fast, but it’s

cheap. It may not be a money-spinner, but

235

there are no politicians clamoring to save a

few bucks at the expense of the public good.

The high-speed train whisked us from

Milan to Bologna in one hour. And the next

day, the local train rumbled into Forlì, a typically

prosperous Italian city on the Po River

plain that has the expanse and emptiness

of a Mexican town – complete with mangy

stray dogs – but is much more posh. Exit Forlì

station and you go out to – nothing. No bar,

no restaurant, no people, one taxi waiting.

A large parking lot to your left, where buses

occasionally come and go, completes the

sense of a spatial void. Waiting for the buses

are mostly men listening to loud music. Men

shouting African languages into cell phones.

And women with large parcels and bundles.

It is a happy, friendly scene. The bus arrives

to take us from the flatlands to the mountains

– to the village of San Benedetto in

Alpe.

With no machine to buy tickets in sight,

we board the bus without one. But this is

high-tech Italy. The driver tells us to download

an app called DropTicket, and to purchase

the tickets through the app. Now, this

assumes a lot. But it’s a safe assumption in

Italy: that you will have a cell phone, and

that you will have a data plan connected to

it. If you don’t have both of these items, you

can ride the bus for free, or so it seems. We

manage to download the app and buy the

tickets. No one checks if we have actually

done that. But I am happy to pay the three

euros for the ride to do my small part to support

Italy’s fantastic public transport system.

Soon we are on our way for the one-hour

ride up to San Benedetto on the Acquacheta

River, near a waterfall immortalized in the

writings of Dante. This is the first village

inside Casentino National Park, our destination.

It was Sunday, and San Benedetto was

teeming with visitors. The restaurant attached

to our hotel was full, the bar was

overcrowded. In these pandemic times, social

distancing and mask-wearing seemed to

have been forgotten in this mountain village,

which was odd considering that everywhere

else we went Italians were in strict compliance

with these norms. Generally, there

was no pressure to wear masks. Just gentle

reminders to do so with a quick pointing of

the index finger at the mouth. San Benedetto,

on the other hand, was maskless.

We were chastised, however, for attempting

to remove two bottles of beer from the

refrigerator in the bar. There was a sign on

the fridge with a hand in a circle, a red line

through it.

“No, no,” shouted the bartender. “No

touch!” He raced over to the fridge and

grabbed the beers for us.

“Scusi. But, you know, the virus.” I smiled

at him, he at me, and we apologized to each

other.

Outside, we watched the cars and many

motorcycles go by, quickly downing the

beers. We then headed out on the trail

along the Acquacheta, hoping to reach the

waterfall. As it was late summer, the river

was low. But the sun was hot, and the late

afternoon found nearly naked people lounging

on the stones of the wide riverbank and

children splashing in the shallow water.

We pushed ahead, walking rapidly, until

reaching the waterfall – which contained

no water and only rocks were falling. In his

Inferno, Dante wrote that the Acquacheta

River “reverberates” as it falls, “fed by a

thousand torrents.”

I’ll call that poetic license, or bad timing

on our part. It was spectacular, nevertheless,

a rock face embedded in the mountain

where in wetter times one could imagine

water roaring down the cliff, as Dante must

have seen it. At the top of the waterless

waterfall we saw groups of people sitting on

the rocks. They waved to us and we waved

back.

An hour and a half later, back at the

hotel, it was good to see an empty restaurant

compared to the crowded space of the

afternoon, as most of the Sunday visitors

had retreated back to city life. A table in

the corner next to an open window was the

perfect place to be when there’s a pandemic

in the back of your mind.

Soon plates of pasta were placed before

us, piled high with slices of black truffle.

Behaving very un-Italian, we ordered a big

bottle of good, cold beer. But the waitress

didn’t blink. It tasted so right at the end of

this warm and thirst-inducing day.

The next morning, the sun was already

touching the mountain tops when the bus to

Muraglione rolled up perfectly on time: 7:45.

One passenger stepped off, and we boarded

the empty bus (except for the driver). It was

like having your own limousine. We could

sit wherever we wanted, mask on. The road

climbed through the forest and wound up

and around the mountains. It was a Manichean

world, as we moved back and forth

between dark shadows and blinding sunlight.

The driver flipped the sun visor up or down

accordingly.

Up at Muraglione it was pure light. From

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the bus we saw that the sign for the bar said

“APERTO”, but I checked with the driver

anyway.

“Si, aperto.”

The driver asked if we were going to catch

the next bus going down the mountain and

through the valley to Florence.

“No, we’re walking,” I said. He smiled,

took off his sunglasses and followed us into

the bar for his morning ritual.

We had a double espresso and admired

the pictures on the café walls. It was a biker

bar, with photos going back to the Fifties,

many with scantily clad women and leather-strapped

men straddling their motorcycles,

or other photos of very large groups

smiling proudly with their Ducatis and Harleys.

Muraglione means the Big Wall. A commemorative

wall was built in 1836 to mark

the completion of the first road that traversed

the mountains from Tuscany to Romagna,

which back then was like going from

the former West Germany to East Germany.

It just wasn’t done. On the one side was the

(somewhat) liberal Grand Duchy of Tuscany,

and on the other the (very) conservative

Papal States ruled by the Pope in faraway

Rome.

The Wall is about thirty feet high and two

hundred feet long, and it divides the road

in two for this length. The road winds up in

hair-pin curves from the valley below, levels

out at the pass and then disappears into

the spruce forest down the mountain on the

other side, past San Benedetto to Forlì. From

Muraglione you have a splendid view of the

lowlands below and the twin peaks of Monte

Falterona and Monte Falco in the distance,

two round, bald heads that are the highest

points in Tuscany.

After loading up on two double espressos

at the Muraglione bar, we snaked our way

down the mountain for a couple of hours to

San Godenzo, where we stayed in an agriturismo,

which are Italian country homes where

some rooms have been converted into tourist

dwellings. Usually the owner lives there,

too, and cooks for you. Do you like stone

houses with two-feet thick walls and massive

wooden beams and interiors permeated by

the smell of smoke? Do you like heavy, dark

oak furniture and long olive-wood tables and

copper pans hanging on the walls and picture

frames taking up every available wall

space? This setup is either very wholesome

and homey, or oppressive and dreary. Maybe

a Tuscan country home is your dream. You

live with olives, grapes, tomatoes and basil

– chestnuts if you’re higher up – and publish

a best-seller about the good life. Which is an

oxymoron. This is simply life in the Italian

countryside.

“I will prepare a little dinner for you,” the

madam of the house said upon our arrival.

We had an inkling of what was to come, because

in Italy “a little dinner” does not mean

literally “a small portion of food.” It means

“some” dinner, as in a lot. The appetizer

of various tasty salami, slabs of wonderful

cheese and strips of red and yellow bell peppers

dripping in olive oil was enough to feed

the whole Italian army, it seemed. We barely

got through that when the huge plates of

spaghetti with a ragu sauce arrived. We

politely turned down the main dish and the

dessert.

“You will try the digestivo,” she said,

which was meant to be a question but sounded

like a command.

“Yes, I need something after this huge

meal,” I told her.

“But you must guess what it is made of.”

That was definitely a command.

Pears? Cherries? Some local herbs? We

guessed wrong, of course. It was a wonderfully

bitter walnut-based liqueur, made right

there at the agriturismo, that helped settle

my full stomach.

The next day, we headed out after cappuccino

along with bread and heaps of

butter and local honey. Destination? The

village of Campigna. The steep ascent from

San Godenzo – there are only steep paths –

soon entered a chestnut forest. The chestnut

trees are not native, but planted. A long

time ago. The thick, round, robust trunks

– sprouting spindly new branches – of these

chestnuts indicated that they were a couple

hundred years old. They are nicely trimmed.

In earlier times, chestnuts were the staple

of Italian mountain communities. The wheat

fields for growing pasta-ready grains were a

world away in the flatlands to the south. In

these mountains, you made bread and pasta

with chestnuts.

Hunters were gathered around a campfire

when we emerged from the chestnut forest

on a ridge. We were now a few steps outside

the boundary of Casentino National Park,

hence the presence of the hunters. They

looked as you might imagine hunters would

– bearded, stocky, round-bellied, dressed

in camouflage fatigues. They were not busy

stalking game, more intent on consuming

their coffee and talking about the hunt than

actually doing it. They offered us coffee.

We chatted for a few minutes and moved

on, and then encountered another group

of hunters. Suddenly, a volley of gunshot

caused my heart to jump. I looked up and

saw a small bird quickly lose altitude and fall

into the nearby bushes.

237

The trail now entered the national park

again, and we were glad to leave the guns

behind. The agriturismo outside San Godenzo

stood at 1,800 feet. Monte Falterona, where

the trail was heading, tops out at almost

5,100 feet. That’s more than three thousand

feet of climbing over just about five miles. It

was a tough trail, and my legs and back and

heart and lungs took notice. Joyfully.

The weather was splendid, with large

residual white clouds casting shadows across

the long view, and then suddenly releasing

bright sunshine. Upon arrival at Falterona,

after many ups and downs, we slumped immediately

on the grass, backpacks serving as

pillows, my L. A. Dodgers cap protecting my

face from the bright sunshine. But there was

little time to rest. Since it was late summer,

it would be dark by 7 p.m. It was getting

close to four o’clock, and a couple hours of

hiking were ahead of us. At a critical juncture,

when our legs were very tired and the

way forward unclear, two angels appeared to

direct us. Take this path to the left for “half

an hour,” until you come to the road, then

turn right. The path to the road was longer,

but easier. Not a straight down crashing

through the forest, but a gentle glide. We

changed our shoes along the way and enjoyed

the soft feel of the earth underneath.

The Chalet Burria in Campigna would

provide our accommodations. It was a bulky

wooden structure that stood along a windy

road that weaved through the forest of pine

and spruce. The chalet was a step up from a

ski camp – but not a large step. September

was between seasons, and it felt a lot like

that at the chalet. The entrance was gloomy,

with no one at the bar or reception. I rang

the bell and a middle-aged woman walked

downstairs. She started to do a few hand

gestures when she realized that we were not

Italians.

“Avevo paura che . . .” she began (trying

to say that she was afraid I wouldn’t be able

to communicate), but I launched into a brief

monologue in my sparse Italian about how

beautiful it was to walk through the forest to

arrive at her chalet. She smiled, and a look

of relief fell across her face. We both agreed

that she looked like Meryl Streep’s sister.

The rooms upstairs were small and

seemed to be built for a rough winter rather

than a mild summer. The walls were thick,

the windows small. Outside, a rain began to

fall. Inside, we went downstairs for dinner

to discover that we would be the only guests

dining that evening. A small table had been

set, with a standing lamp shining on it like

a stage light. The restaurant was dark and

empty, but the minestrone soup was wholesome

and warming.

During the night, a fog had settled over

Passo della Calla near Campigna. This pass

was again a dividing line between Tuscany

and Romagna. At dawn the next day, we took

the trail heading south from the pass, along

a mostly level ridge that gave us glimpses to

the east and west, once the fog had lifted.

The forest grew thicker, the views from the

clearings longer, and beautiful rock formations

that looked like sculptures lined the

path. On the path I suddenly saw a large pile

of poop. It looked like it was from a dog, but

bigger, and with bristles of hair sticking out

of it. This was not from a dog, but from the

canine family.

It was wolf poop. I am not a scatologist.

But I know from my study of Italian wildlife

that the wolf population has recovered

throughout Italy since a low point right after

World War Two. Wolves roam the length of

the peninsula, hanging out in remote mountain

locations during the day, venturing into

more inhabited areas at night. They eat

primarily wild boar. Hence the hair bristles,

not fully digested, sticking out of the poop.

It’s a tell-tale sign. So, the next time you’re

in Italy . . .

Well, you won’t see this kind of poop

unless you hike into the high mountains. And

only if you’re lucky – or unlucky, as the case

may be.

Walking Casentino National Park’s wellmarked

trails – mostly empty of humans

– will take you from village to village, each

about a day’s hike apart. We were now on

our way to Camaldoli, which we reached

from the main trail by taking a steep descent

to the eponymous hermitage. It stands at

about 3,500 feet above sea level.

Benedictine monks have been living and

praying at the Camaldoli Hermitage for a

thousand years. Having time on their hands

over the centuries and a beautiful forest

outside their door, they also kept bees,

gathered herbs, and made some excellent liqueurs,

no doubt the latter for the cold winter

evenings. Or for sitting out on a moonlit

summer night.

You can buy such products at the Camaldoli

Hermitage shop, where the brothers

still make and sell their wares. It’s also a

good place to grab a quick espresso and a

chocolate bar. It’s safe to say they weren’t

offering chocolate and coffee a thousand

years ago. It’s for the modern-day tourists,

of which there were plenty, as buses carrying

pilgrims can easily reach this site from the

lowlands below. We made it there the hard

way from the uplands above.

Camaldoli lies another hour’s walk down

the mountain from the hermitage. We

238

stumbled into the village’s main road a bit

rubber-legged from the day’s walk. But happy.

The beer mirage that had been flashing

before our eyes finally became a reality

when we sat down at a restaurant along

the stream rushing down the mountain and

through the town. One beer became two,

with the second one even tastier.

Dinner that evening was the hearty fare

that Tuscany’s mountains offer in abundance:

mushrooms and truffle on pasta, washed

down with deep red wine. The truffles were

rich and strong, and I felt like I might have

to brush my teeth extra-long later to remove

that richness. The mushrooms had a deep,

earthy quality, and the pasta was the house

tagliatelle that tasted like they had been

made that same afternoon. In fact, they had

been.

The path from Camaldoli to Chiusi della

Verna is the heart of the Way of St. Francis,

a trail that has garnered a lot of attention

now that the St. Jacob pilgrimage route

across Spain is jammed with hikers. On our

way out of Camaldoli, we encountered only

a handful of tourist hikers, and none after

a stop at Badia Prataglia, a village about a

quarter of the way to Chiusi della Verna.

One of the hikers we met was a German

woman who was doing a pilgrimage to

Chiusi della Verna and beyond, all the way

to Rome. It was a package tour, with a van

picking up her suitcase in the morning and

delivering it to her next hotel so she can

walk the whole day with a light daypack.

“You are carrying your own backpacks,”

she asked in amazement. “Must be heavy.”

“Yes, I want to earn my entry into the holy

sites of St. Francis.”

I immediately regretted my remark,

thinking that she might feel her trek was

not strenuous enough to earn any merits. In

any case, we helped her to get settled in a

restaurant in Badia, as her Italian language

skills were nonexistent. Then we left her in

her rustic but cozy hotel and went on. With

our heavy backpacks.

After Badia, the path rose steadily,

cleared a ridge, and then meandered down

to a river valley and the village of Rimbocchi.

This was a hot and dusty stretch that

placed that beer mirage squarely in front of

my consciousness. Rimbocchi was the right

place at the right time, for both a meal and

to turn the mirage once again into reality.

What separates the casual pilgrim from

the big-league hiker is the trail after Rimbocchi.

The map didn’t do it justice, though

we could see that the topographical lines

were very close together. It was an indication.

The reality was that we were basically

climbing the face of a mountain like a wall.

We called it The Wall. Not like the commemorative

wall back in Muraglione two days

ago. It was a no-switchback, straight-up-themountain

wall that a true pilgrim genuinely

has to want to do. Otherwise, from Rimbocchi

a bus can take you directly to Chiusi della

Verna in fifteen minutes. Which is the bus

that the pilgrims take. We weren’t pilgrims.

Just bad-ass hikers who wanted it badly, but

who probably would have taken the bus had

we known.

It was rough. An hour of an unrelenting

climb up The Wall. In my mind, I even moved

passed the beer mirage stage, and started

imagining I might even have some kind of

religious experience. This was the Way of

St. Francis, after all, and we were headed

to Chiusi della Verna, where St. Francis

received the stigmata. I didn’t feel any hand

pain. But my feet were definitely hurting.

The legs, too, even though they aren’t part

of the stigmata. But I figured they could be

included as part of climbing The Wall.

As in all religious experiences, after the

pain comes the pleasure. It’s a rough road

to the stars. I think I found paradise in the

cool, dark beech forest that greeted us once

the trail leveled out and headed down gradually

to Chiusi della Verna. Sunlight cannot

penetrate the stately posture and broad

leaves of the beech. The hot and dusty trail

entered a mysterious dream land of multicolored

mushrooms pushing up through the

forest floor and large rock formations laced

with deep green moss. We had entered the

foresta magica – the magic forest. It took

great effort to walk straight, as my eyes

were moving in every direction to take it all

in. This enchanted forest was a place where

you could relax the body and mind, cool the

brow, and keep moving and yet feel like you

were floating. Keep walking and yet feel like

you were dancing. I remember thinking that

this would be a place I could even lie down

in and die and feel peaceful about that.

St. Francis surely visited this enchanted

forest, though there is no historical record of

it. It is only a half hour walk from this mountain

to the sanctuary where he lived part

of his life, sleeping at night among the rock

formations and crevices along with other

followers of Christ. Once we passed through

the enchanted forest and took a steep downhill

path, we arrived at the sanctuary. It

stands on a cliff, and from the large terrace

that spreads out from the church you can

look far into the distant Arno River Valley.

I stood there and wondered what St. Francis

would have thought when he looked out

at this view. All I could think of was that I

believe in Jesus, but I’m not sure that Jesus

239

believes in me. And then I felt bad because

I didn’t know if such a thought was sacrilegious

or blasphemous. It didn’t matter. I

gave up thinking and focused on the beautiful

moment at hand.

This would be the last stop on our fourday

walk through Casentino National Park.

You can end your trip in Italy in only one

way, in the same way it began. You have a

wonderful meal of homemade ravioli made

of chestnut flour, stuffed with ricotta cheese

and mushrooms. You have enough red wine

to make you feel clearheaded and tipsy at

the same time. And you have a wonderful

cook to tell you all about it.

“The mushrooms and truffles come right

here from the mountain behind the sanctuary,”

said the hotel innkeeper.

“I guess that makes them holy,” I said.

“Well, the pasta must be sacred, too,” she

added. “The guy who makes our pasta also

makes the wafers for Holy Communion on

Sundays.”

And the next day you are on a sleek highspeed

train, heading from Arezzo to Rome at

two hundred miles per hour, passing through

tunnels and into the Tiber River Valley. And

you are astounded how the ancient and the

medieval and the modern stack up side by

side by side.

The train was only half full due to the

pandemic. That’s because only half the

tickets are allowed to be sold. Every other

seat is marked off with red tape. As the

train rolled into Rome, the city that gave the

world the concept of red tape (that other

kind that prevents governments from getting

things done), I said a little prayer – all that

time with St. Francis got me feeling quite

religious – that California may overcome its

own red tape, and that high-speed trains

may yet come to the people of that great

state so that they may ease their stress even

as they accelerate their travel time. This

was my prayer: that I may be able to admire

the beautiful California landscape as I speed

through it at 200 miles per hour.

Terminal

Sonnet

Richard Stimac


At airports, I always feel a bit sad.

Arriving, and departing, both, as one,

Reminds me how nothing is ever done,

At least for good, and really not for bad.

When there’s no more of a good-bye to add,

Someone says, “Ends are something new

begun,”

We see--or am seen--in the setting sun

A lover depart, who can’t not turn mad

At the loss of it all? For sure, I can’t.

The endings, and beginnings, so misnamed,

Like terminals, combining one as two,

Make me so want to hold still, God, to rant

Against the sky, once so pure and untamed,

A promise I believed was pure and true.

Summer Streets

Poetry

Taunja Thomson


A rainy-day girl by nature

or nurture, I have come to love

sun. I clothe myself in orange,

bounce on its beams, savor

its thick gold rays as they drip

onto pavement.

These days I find I must wear my antlers

in broad daylight (invisible tho they be,

they remind me of my fierceness)

& my heart in my own hand.

I embrace the oily tangerine

circles I paint onto my cheeks—

we are all clowns, after all, all thumbs

& big feet & blundering down

the lanes of life. Traffic jams

& overturned cars & fires

& water on our faces—par for the course.

(Have I mixed (up) my metaphors?)

So let it rain spangles & ooze opulent

gold. I’ll follow each sequin,

each blink/wink, each jazz

& dazzle, wrap myself in shorts

& sleeveless titan tops

& warm my soles on summer

streets.

240

Where the Yellow Flowers Bloom

Fiction

Joseph Vitale


The waves had been crashing through impossibly

open waters for thousands of miles.

The vast open body of water centered itself

around one single vessel. This was a rather

small wooden boat, it had been beaten down

by the waves, and the constant downpour

of rain had done its job to weather away

at the boat. What had once been a sturdy

and well-designed craft had become broken

down, dingy, and almost unable to sail. Yet

still, it remained afloat. By design the boat

was only large enough to carry one person

at a time. If someone did happen to come

across a fellow traveller, who seemed like

their boat was crashing beneath the waves,

there was not much one could do. You could

offer supplies of what you could spare for

the day and try to point them in the direction

of where the yellow flowers bloomed,

hoping the voyager would be strong and

courageous enough to follow close behind.

You could always look back and check on

these fellow travelers, encouraging them to

keep going on the journey, but it was each

individual's choice as to whether or not they

would stay where they were or keep pushing

through the storms. At this time however,

there were no other sailors. The small and

broken boat carried a single man. His name

was Dante.

Dante was just like any other person;

nothing about him was incredibly unique or

special. There was nothing wrong with Dante

either; he was a good man and an honest

person. He did not bring much with him on

his voyage. Outside of his regular clothes

he had brought an extra coat to keep him

warm, a fresh pair of clothes for when he

had arrived, plenty of rations to survive him,

and some books that had carried the knowledge

he had gained from others who had

been on this voyage before. He referred to

these books often when he needed inspiration

and guidance. Dante did have one major

flaw however. This fault was that whenever

he would see another boat, he would go till

no end to attempt to help its passenger. The

rations were never an issue and Dante loved

sharing what he had learned in his books. His

hope was that the same information contained

in those pages that had helped him,

would boost the spirits of others and allow

them to continue over the waters feeling

encouraged. This was where his issue was

lying. His support for others would tend

to cost him his energy for the day. Dante

would end up becoming too tired and he

would have no choice but to close his eyes

and rest. This would allow his boat to drift

aimlessly stagnant over the frigid waters.

He would only hope he could preserve just

enough energy to be prepared in the instance

where the waves would try to incase

him underneath. Inversely, since Dante knew

how tired he could feel after spending his

time helping others, he had been known to

refuse help and guidance even when deep

down he knew that he needed it. After some

time, people who could help came far and

few between.

There was a place where the yellow

flowers bloom, an island to be exact. While

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this promised land was but a rumor to some,

it was a home to others. Where the yellow

flowers bloom could only be found by following

the mustard colored petals that laid atop

each wave. The flowers tended to create a

fairly straight line allowing Dante to follow

the pattern with ease, shifting the majority

of his focus to weathering what currents

were around him. The soft amber hued

blades were the only thing that would never

fall under a surge of water. Through his journey,

the waves would have tendencies to rise

so high that Dante would begin to lose sight

of the flowers that drifted through the seas.

This was always a depressing feeling for him.

However, as torrents became ripples, the

flowers would find their way into eyesight

again, and a glimmer of sunshine would

spotlight the petals, reflecting a warm and

cordial feeling of hope. Those were the moments

Dante found the peace to keep going.

Dante had been journeying for what felt

like years. Maybe he was only on the waters

for months; truthfully he was not sure. Time

had a funny way of binding to itself, blending

all the long dark nights into one terrible

cold storm that seemed to never reach an

end. The only other thing that would occupy

his mind was lucid visions of the land of

where the yellow flowers bloom. He would

often picture himself sitting down amongst

the flowers, taking in the sights and smells

of the land that was created. He liked to

imagine it would have everything he would

ever need. Dante envisioned a place that,

outside of visual beauty, there would be

constant warmth, and if a strong rain came

on, there would be a stronger affirmation

that it would soon pass and everything would

be okay. Dante would lean back in his boat,

close his eyes and be unable to contain a

smile when he would think of this place.

Where the yellow flowers bloom was merely

a place in his head for now, but deep down

he knew he possessed the strength to make

it to the end of the journey and find it.

It was a typical day, frigid, and both physically

and emotionally draining as any other

would be. This specific day however did hold

one major difference. At sunrise, Dante had

found what he had been looking for through

the entire voyage. The petals in the water

had become more consistent in numbers.

They connected to one another surrounding

themselves around Dante’s boat, creating

what would look like a bridge that elevated

the remains of his boat above the water and

carried him to shore. Dante took several

minutes to reflect on the times where there

may have only been a petal or two every

several yards. He remembered how he would

focus on those trace amounts of flowers that

would keep him hopeful, each petal holding

just a glimmer of opportunity in front of

him. It appeared that he would no longer

have that problem. Dante removed his waterlogged

shoes before stepping onto his new

holy land. He had kept away a fresh set of

clothes saved for this occasion, tucked away

in his coat never to breathe real air until he

had arrived. Slowly, almost as if he did not

believe what was in front of him was real,

he pulled out his fresh garments, replacing

the old tattered ones.

When he was ready he took a deep breath

and placed his first step on dry land. It started

with a vast sandy beach, golden grains

that seemed to stretch on for miles in either

direction. What stood about fifty yards

in front of him was a kind-looking dirt trail

that led uphill. Dante placed his second foot

down in the sand. He felt the air for a minute.

It was a lot for him to process at first,

all he had known for so long was the cold

and the waves. The warmth brought back

memories from before the journey. Before

the boats and the storms, Dante was a happy

kid, who often found himself playing out in

fields of grass. He had wondered if those

same childhood meadows held yellow flowers

of their own, or if they were just something

his memory had placed there to ease his

mind during the journey. Perhaps he was too

young and carefree to even notice the absence

in the first place. He wondered deeper

if his younger self had even needed the flowers

in the first place. Maybe if he had never

been under the waves, he wouldn’t have

longed to reach the land where the yellow

flowers bloom.

Some time had passed standing in the

sand, and Dante began to take steps slowly

one after another, feeling each one. He

could feel the sand sweeping over his toes.

One splendid step after another. He could

not help but smile. Once he had reached

the end of the beach, and the mouth of the

trail he took a moment to look back. His

footsteps in the sand created a connection

to his past, all the way to his small boat.

Dante noted that his boat was not in as bad

of a shape as he recalled on the waters. He

smiled, admiring the damaged vessel that

had carried him so far. He turned his head

away from the beach, and began up the

trail.

The trail Dante traversed was a simple,

242

dirt pathway. It did not wind much nor did

it cause any form of concern in its pathway.

Instead it was an easy and relaxing hike.

On each side of the trail, a border of well

bloomed flowers lined his walk. The flowers

swayed in unison, as if they were one

with the calm breeze. The trail was rather

short, only taking up a few minutes of time

to reach its closure. At the top of this hill

and the end of the trail, Dante again looked

back at the water. His eyes zeroed in on his

boat. Perhaps it was the distance, but Dante

had looked at the vessel and admired how it

looked, and how it did not seem as damaged

as he had once thought.

Where Dante had now stood, atop the hill,

at the closure of the trail, was the place

he had set out on his journey for. When he

turned his head around to lay eyes on the

land, he was overwhelmed with joy and

warmth. The place where the yellow flowers

bloom — it was everything he imagined it

to be: A flat landscape, every inch covered

with yellow flowers. Dante walked into the

flowers finding a soft grassy patch where he

sat down, allowing the yellow blossoms to

surround him. The land was everything he

imagined it would be. It was a visually beautiful

place. His hill overlooked the waters

where he had come from. The blue hues of

the water coordinated with the greens and

yellows of his hill. It was warm where the

yellow flowers bloom; here Dante would

never have to cover up and shield himself

from harsh weather like he had to out on the

water. The land assured him everything was

alright now. Where the yellow flowers bloom

was no longer a place in his head, the location

was something he had manifested. It

was a place where he was happy, and he had

found peace.

Dante from time to time would look back

onto the water and see his boat docked by

the shores, and while damaged, he realized

the boat was not nearly in the terrible

state he had thought it was. The land of the

flowers had healed him, restored him from

the hurts the storms had brought. All that

was left was Dante, his new found home and

happiness, and a story of success he would

share with those he encounters in his future.

Somewhere Between

Near and Far

Poetry

W.F. Lantry


Mud season. Ice is melting. Underground

rivers abandon courses, welling up

in ponds along my pathways, spilling out

across these beds, along dark ruined frames

left out all winter in the elements.

There’s Spring somewhere, not far away, but

not

arriving yet: frost, hushed, descends at

night,

and blizzards aren’t unheard of still this

month.

But I can feel the season rushing on,

can feel the sun’s increasing daylight

warmth.

My sheltered seedlings still aren’t leaping up

the way they should be at this time of year.

Perhaps a little heat will wake them now,

and they may be emboldened by long days,

or maybe they are wise enough to slow

their growth: the Spring is somewhere in

between

the near and far, and lingering is best

in this mud season’s long uncertainty.

Reflection

Poetry

Liz Fortini


Many steps lead me there, along a beaten

path,

in a rustling, teasing wind. The sound

and now a glimpse from the headland,

churning up foam by sweeping gusts, a river.

Tributaries snake out like branches and leave

me

to wonder their destiny. Currents rouse from

pools

of night to ebb and swirl willy-nilly. A flash of

Chimera

rides a crest, her scaly tail twists below the

dance

of the eddies. The depths take hold

of my inspiring muse and won't let her go.

An illusion, as the sun's rays project an

image

of the waves. Suddenly, the wind drops.

Lessening waves along with my spirit

lightly calm. Smoothness below the water's

surface

is forged and my worries aren't reflected

anymore. In my thoughts I compose rhymes,

this day in May.

243

244

Neverland

Photography

Caleb Gonsalves


Lake Effect

Poetry

Julie Benesh

Chicago, Illinois, USA

Lake Michigan is big and old as the

universe. It keeps me hydrated and washed

and flushed. It keeps me cool in the summer

and warm (in my apartment) all winter, like

board-shorted firemen whose bittersweet

fragrance sings me to sleep. My sweetheart

Beau says blah-blah something about Ship

and Sanitary Canal, blah-blah something

about glaciers, but I know what I don’t know,

and that ain’t it. Not a fan of some science

teacher-God Who, if He wanted us to have

babies, would have made labor feel better

than sex. The Lake loves me like Baby Jesus,

Mother Mary and Bill Murray. Let science be

science and God be God.

Forty-six years ago in a rented bus full of

horny, sleep-deprived ninth graders I rode

past my future, right by my current home,

high (23 stories) on LSD (Lake Shore Drive)

not even noticing its unprepossessing façade

— like some kind of metaphor — blowing

past my years-to-be in St. Louis, Naperville,

Champaign, the marriage that took up my

20s, even 15 years in Streeterville getting

closer, closer to home.

Shelter is a roofless sky, an endless horizon

where the sharp glow of clouds rain rainbows

on the beach. At dusk I cross the Drive with

my ninth grade self to catch fireflies on my

tongue. Every cat we’ve known between

then and now will follow, but they won’t

show up on video, and I will never write

any of this down. C’est la vie. The Lake will

laugh, buoying up Bill Murray in board shorts

forever and ever, amen.

Rain

Poetry

Nezrin Hasanly


Youth has no age

Dance proudly in the rain

Make the thunderstorms of your life

a mighty parade

245

Babbling Glide

Poetry

Sam Kaspar

Ames, Iowa, USA

Shrill voices cut out

and the first wet calm of the lake

is shredded by our powerful oars.

The coach stays hushed

the motorboat idles

and the long wooden shell finally glides

by the sleepy shoreside

graceful, in a quiet rush.

We won’t stop at the end as engines

of hot empowered muscles keep pumping.

Determined, our bodies pulling hard

propelling the boat back to the sea

the babbling glide of water says

That I am strong...

...and always will be.

Hydroponics

Poetry



With little static, vinyl grooves incubate

Under the voodoo talon of music.

The garage floor’s late December concrete

Numbs his feet. Musing on old loves, he refines

& internalizes a talent for less abstract

Uses of the word mythos.

He’s hunched over a utility sink

Shaped like the top half of an hourglass

And concentrated into the art of bending

Water like a spell-casting octopus.

Shaking his Sisyphean petri dish like an etch-

&-sketch, frustration has him begin again,

Sifting for some sign of love in the grime.

Rolling to the bottom of the basin bed, little eggs

Settle like sediment, statues stiffer than stone.

He studies the bigger picture like tea leaves.

Third eye locked in a cyclopean focus,

He filters through an infinitude of silhouettes

As if to decipher the root code of all rosy Rorschachs.

The ultra-neon peach, teal & even UV neonates,

They unveil flowerily like a synchronized swimming

Arrangement. The phantasmagoric image sequence morphs

From a marathon mob to swaying coral,

The mushroom cloud of an atom bomb,

Then two lovers walking in a fog.

The fading blue flash of an orgasm…

He picks one of the wiggles like a pseudo flower,

But the physics are all wrong, so he slices them up

Into smaller bits. But before his hands can cut

The water conclusively, they evolve into koi fish.

They swim

Away, down through the sink spout, toward the sewers,

A tangled labyrinth of pink copper spouts & gray bamboo shoots

Built and based on the blueprints of his brain.

Turns out the numb nymph was another utter myth

Made up of thought as much as the rest of them.

Liquid lightning pours forth from hindsight & strikes,

Finally midwives some novel sugar dream’s fixed form.

Beneath the water’s surface, a thoughtful white noise

Hatches, drones. Wiggles emerge & rise like fruit flies.

They dance colourfully suspended in his liquid space.

246

Sunflowers

Collage

Jennifer Frederick


247

Peace

Painting

Yim Ivy Wu


248

Daisy

Haiku

Sarah Riensche

Castro Valley, California, USA

Five golden petals

Circle a sunny sphere

Radiating joy

More than Me

Poetry

Marie-Anne Poudret


What calls you beyond Round Hill?

I see you stare above its line of trees.

What is more than me over there? Stand

still!

Though, for you, ev’ry day my heart I spill,

you sigh, and I’m anxious you feel the

breeze.


I am yours, you know it: my glass you fill.

Don’t drink the brew of waves and seas.


still!

See the house we built, the children we

willed!

Don’t they give you joy more than frill or

sprees?


Love rest in my arms! Its kindness you feel.

Feel also the truth of my tears!


still!

Your heart has stopped when you followed

your will!

I fought the clutch of Death: jumped your

heart’s freeze.


What is more than me? I’ll watch for you__

still.

A Joy I Once Knew

Poetry

Bobbi Sinha-Morey

Central Point, Oregon, USA

It came to me again, a joy

I once knew, so singular

and refined in its hope; a song

coming from our music room

so awful even the mice covered

their ears; and, before me,

an upside-down teacup, a tiny

white doily on top for two

miniature dolls handmade by

Parisians, a memory that always

stayed the same over time pillowing

my head for the dreams that lay

ahead seeing miracles crystallize

before my very eyes and my heart

brightened by day, a life given me

249

The Pool

Poetry

Taunja Thomson


Summer Lights

Poetry

Mary Elliott

Santa Barbara, California, USA

1.

Years ago, sun-steeped hot Sundays spelled

delight—

afternoons at my aunt & uncle’s pool:

above-ground, vinyl on the outside, aqua &

smooth

on the inside.

My cousin Susan, twelve years older than me,

helped me change into my swimsuit

upstairs in their attic, bedrooms for her

brothers—

I remember her short blonde hair, blue eyes,

the way her face curved

into an indulgent smile as she assured me

no one was coming up the stairs.

2.

Then, what I had been waiting for—that first

wave of cold hitting my feet, my ankles, my

knees,

thighs as I climbed down the ladder

into the pool, then leaped the last bit to the

bottom,

immersed up to my chest,

shivering with heavy breaths, until the cold

became only cool.

3.

I strode in slow motion, cleaving water and

humid air

while cicadas sang a long lullaby to put

summer

to sleep.

I kicked & floated & jumped, water holding

my poses

for seconds at a time so that I could imagine

myself hovering right above earth—

a superhero, powerful, never

degraded.

I pushed off from the sides and, just for a bit,

I launched myself beyond the reach

of words’ gravity.

4.

Hours later, as twilight stretched over

horizon,

my parents called me out of the pool.

But before I climbed out, Susan descended

the ladder

& we splashed each other in the face,

her winning the competition & me giggling

hysterically,

losing my breath, droplets on my eyes,

the bliss of a purpling sky

through my lashes.

Suppose I say lightning bug?

Find the drawings --

From that Summer,

We did at the old lake house.

Will you remember it?

If I wrap them in an envelope?

Get an old photograph,

Sent as a love note?

So when the darkness comes,

like now in Winter,

you’ll know my bug,

That you can light up,

From the inside?

I’d give to you,

A field full of fireflies --

Near the old cabin.

Remember how they’d land,

On your fingertips?

They’d first grow dim,

then brighten their glow?

Your fingers --

Like antennas,

Knew exactly what to do--

Lifted them up,

you’d let them go.

250

Relax

Painting

Yim Ivy Wu


251

Act 1

Scene 1

Setting: On October 6, 1964, WALT

DISNEY is dreaming up Edison

Square at Disneyland.

His trusted Imagineers are

hard at work dreaming up

the plans for the shows and

attractions within the land.

The land would slated to be

completed in two years.

Characters: Walt Disney-61-years-old.

Wears a Blue sweater with a

white buttoned up shirt.

Marc Davis-49-years-old.

Wearing a black suit with a

red striped tie. Imagineer.

Ward Kimball-48-years-old.

Wears a White striped shirt.

Long hair. Imagineer.

Betty Kimball-Wears a yellow

dress.

Thomas Norton-60-years-old.

Wears a grey suit with a red

tie. Executive for General

Electric.

At Rise

The scene takes place in the

Zorro Building at the Walt

Disney Productions studio

lot.. WARD is sitting at his

desk. Marc enters.

Marc and Ward

Experimental — Play

Peter Zimmer


MARC

Ah, there you are, Ward.

Goes over to shake his hand

WARD

Hi, Marc. It is a pleasant surprise to see you

working away at the studios on a Saturday.

MARC

Yes, about that…

WARD

Well? Why did you call me on my day off?

MARC

I am not sure you heard from the others

here. But Walt needs to all of us to meet for

a new project.

WARD

Confused

Why does he need to meet with us? Is he

going on another research—

MARC

No. Just meeting. With us.

WARD

Marc, what’s going on? You had something to

tell—

MARC

He wants to build a new land.

WARD

Well, it’s about darn time. Another one

based on one of his True-Life Adventure

films?

MARC

No, not that. Completely new. A risk worthy

move.

WARD

I have a hunch you are not telling me something.

252

MARC

Think of progress and the light bulb.

WARD

Well, what is it? Golly gee. I have stuff to

do at—

MARC

Edison Square.

WARD

Sounds very intriguing.

MARC

You and I are going to work on it.

WARD

How?

MARC

I am going to take the lead on this project.

WARD

Wait just a minute. You can’t—

MARC

I am closer to Walt. I am funnier.

WARD

Hold on there, Marc. Do you ever see my

character sketches from Snow White?

MARC

You need practice. Look at my caricatures

for the Jungle ride.

WARD

Pulls out the sketches for the ride

Ok, where are the funny faces? Too realistic.

MARC

Ward, that’s the point. Realistic but funny.

I went to the San Francisco Fleishhacker

Zoo. That’s how I went with the realistic

approach.

WARD

Why does it matter? How did you get your

start at the studios?

MARC

Oh stop it.

Pause

You see, Ward. Remember? I spent my time

in San Francisco. One day I saw an ad in the

San Francisco Chronicle. Walt Disney was

looking. Looking for new animators. So I a

sample portfolio to the studios on Hyperion.

Dipped my toes into commercial art.

Laughs

Artists back in the day frowned upon commercialized

art. But anyways. I got a

telegram. It was from Walt. It said ‘Dear

Marge, please come down to the office.

Might have some openings. Walt.’ I couldn’t

believe he called me Marge!

Laughs

That son of a gun. Turns out Walt read it my

name wrong. He mistook the ‘c’ for a ‘g.’

Back then. Walt hadn’t begun dipping his

toes into full length feature films. Still producing

those silly symphonies. The depression

hit artists tough. Walt knew the only

way he could recruit more artists. Through

Chouinard Institute. I remember Don Graham.

One talented fella. Taught me so

much about animation. Changed my view on

everything. One day. Don asked ‘Marc you

should be teaching these classes.’

Laughs

Never saw myself as a teacher. So here I

was. Going in. Face first. Into teaching

Disney animation to the young bucks. What

a treat it was. Boy I miss those golden days.

WARD

Tell you what, I can take the lead on Edison

Square.

MARC

Oh please. Tell me what to do.

Beat

Go ahead.

WARD

Ok, go back to your office.

MARC

Ward, are you serious? Are you serious?

Rolls eyes

See this is why your soup scene got cut from

Snow White.

WARD

No. Walt didn’t have enough money.

MARC

Oh come on. You are going to fall for that

trick? Walt just didn’t like your scene.

WARD

But I still want the lead.

MARC

Ward, stop. This is so childish. You are not

going to—

WARD

No no. Mickey Mouse is our boss.

MARC

Ward, what does this accomplish?

WARD

You need to prove to me. Prove to me.

MARC

Prove? Golly have you lost your marbles.

WARD

Prove to me. That Walt can trust you with

Disneyland.

MARC

Because I get more projects with Disneyland.

Now please. Stop it.

WARD

Absolutely not. Absolutely not. You are on

your own, Marc.

MARC

I can’t do this on my own.

WARD

Sure you can. Your pride says you can.

MARC

Just leave, Ward.

253

WARD

He likes us both.

MARC

Walt has given me a chance.

WARD

I have too. I know about your new group

WED Enterprises. You are trying to exclude

me.

MARC

Ward, I want to lead. To make sure I can

have you approach me. In case you need

help.

WARD

You do have a point.

MARC

What do you say, Ward?

WARD

Would you treat me any differently?

MARC

I will put in a good word if you do it on less

pay over here at WED.

WARD

Oh, I was wrong. You want my money.

MARC

Tell you what? Ask Walt.

WARD

No!

MARC

Why not?

WARD

No…I won’t…let you…You are going to get us

both fired.

MARC

Fine. Be that way. But it is your career.

WARD

Oh, no it is your career that’s going, too.

Once Walt looks at these pranks, we are

both hung out to dry.

MARC

Ward, please think about this.

WARD

No I won’t.

MARC

Not until you stop trying to be a worry wart.

WARD

I won’t give up. This is my career! This is

my life! This is my passion!

MARC

Ward, I should have just done it myself.

WARD

Why do you even want to argue?

MARC

Because I want to do more things at WED.

To make Walt happy.

WARD

You have the capacity. To do that.

MARC

This is all your fault.

WARD

My fault? Oh buddy boy, don’t start that.

MARC

We are not getting anywhere.

WALT is heard coughing offstage.

WARD

The man is in the forest! The man is in the

forest!

MARC

Oh he will like this.

WALT DISNEY

Fellas, did I miss something?

WARD

See? This is a stupid idea.

MARC

Oh, he’s going to be fine.

WALT

Marc, what are you doing?

MARC

Nervous

Well, Walt. I am just telling Ward here

about Edison Square.

WALT

Raises eyebrow

Now, Marc. Are you here to tell me something?

About Ward? Fellas, did I tell you I

need all of this in two weeks.

To WARD

Kimball, what the heck is going on?

WARD

Walt, I can explain.

WALT

Ward, if Marc gives you trouble. You settle

amongst each other. No fighting.

Faces MARC

Now Marc, where is my square? Did you

bring me something?

MARC

Well Walt, I am just putting together the financials

on every detail. I have been looking

at how much the paint will—

WALT

Puts his hand on MARC’s shoulder

Marc. Marc. I have a building full of employees

who take care of that. I wouldn’t have

you go all out on this project. Why are you

concerned about costs?

MARC

Because I am concerned with this project.

Failing.

WALT

Marc, have I told you about failing? Sometimes.

You have to go through a good failure

in your career. It’s going to be fine. We

get so much. So much repeat business down

here. One guest will tell this individual.

The next person will tell another. It will

all pay off. You know how? By meeting the

public needs. The public needs something

new. For Disneyland.

MARC

Walt, what if—

254

WALT

Raises his voice a little

Marc, I told you. I didn’t pay you to think

No it won’t work. I want you to stretch your

imagination.

MARC

But…

WALT

Marc, I hired you for a reason. Don’t make

me regret it.

MARC

Yes, Walt. I’m on it.

WALT

Looks at WARD

Ward, let’s go get lunch, ok? I’m famished.

WARD and WALT exit. MARC is left in Ward’s

office..

End of Scene

Act 1

scene 2

MARC sits in his desk at WED. WED stands

for Walt Elias Disney Enterprises.

WARD enters

WARD

Marc?

MARC

Yes, Ward. How’s Edison Square coming?

WARD

Fine—-

MARC

Is it coming along?

WARD

Yes.

MARC

Why do you need me then?

WARD

Ok, Well—

MARC

Is there is something you want to talk

about?

WARD

No. Not at all.

MARC

Walt will be so pleased.

Pause

Have you heard from him?

WARD

Yes. He’s coming by next Friday.

MARC

By golly gee.

Pause

Well, must get a move on.

WARD

I agree.

MARC

Ward, you don’t seem confident.

WARD

I’m fine.

MARC

Really?

WARD

Yes. I’m fine. Honestly.

MARC

You’re very quiet today.

Pause

How do the sketches look?

WARD shows them to MARC

Color? Looks good. Humor? I see plenty of

it.

Pause

Wait. Why does the style look too modern?

WARD

Well, Marc, it’s supposed to be clean and

mod —

MARC

Walt wanted an aged look. Edison Square.

Carousel of Progress. Progressland.

WARD

It won’t look old. By gosh, Marc. Is that

what Walt really wants?

MARC

It’s going to be fine, Ward. Trust me.

WARD

Marc, you know what Walt—

MARC

Well, goodness sakes. I know Walt wants the

whole land to look like how it was. When

Thomas Edison was alive. Ok? Can you

please include me on things?

Ward

But I’m not even finished with all the concepts.

And it just seems—

MARC

Ward. Trust me. It’s fine. Really.

WARD

I don’t think so.

MARC

Stop worrying. Besides, there are some gags

in the Carousel of Progress.

WARD

Marc, how did you come up with all those

gags on the Jungle Cruise? The African

Veldt?

MARC

Ok. So, you know I studied up in San Francisco?

WARD

That’s. That’s great, Marc. But how—

MARC

It’s easy. You put some sight gags in Edison

Square. Problem solved.

WARD

That simple?

MARC

Some of the simplest. Make for a better

experience.

WARD

You seem convinced. Ok.

MARC

Ward, what is the problem?

255

WARD

I need for this project to succeed.

MARC

And—

WARD

The studios have nothing exciting going on.

No new animated films. Nothing. We have

done everything. Golly gee, we haven’t had

anything going lately. Not since…One Hundred

and one Dalmatians. It’s getting very

stagnant over there. And you know Walt.

Walt is focusing on Disneyland. This is his

new toy.

MARC

Hmm. And you want to join WED permanently?

Walter Elias Disney Enterprises?

WARD

I do.

MARC

Ward, you are a great worker. You know.

Hmm. I have talked to Walt and he knows

the Studios is not what it used to be. Like

you said, Disneyland is his toy. I can put

word in. You know?

WARD

I hate to ask, but—

MARC

What? I don’t—

WARD

It’s not your problem.

MARC

Ward. You belong on this project. This was

made for you. The characters. The gags.

It’s a perfect fit.

WARD

No.

MARC

Yes. I believe in you. You were assigned to

work with me on this project.

WARD

Ok.

MARC

You don’t seem—

WARD

Walt depends on me. He loved my work on

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Pinocchio.

I don’t want—

MARC

You’re not going to let him down, Ward. As

long as you keep him interested.

WARD

But it’s about my—

MARC

Yes?

WARD

I shouldn’t say much.

MARC

Ward, you can trust me.

WARD

No, we have a job to do.

MARC

Seriously. Tell me.

WARD

She wants me. To. Give up my railroad. My

Grizzly Flats railroad.

MARC

Why?

WARD

She says it’s too much money to run. I need.

The extra money. For the rolling stock. The

new water tower. It’s a full-sized train. I

have to refurbish it once and awhile. It

needs so much work, Marc. Believe me.

MARC

No. Ward, you love your Grizzly Flats Railroad.

WARD

I know. But golly gee. I have to please the

wife. She’s my everything.

Beat

You know what I love about trains? The

sounds. The whistle. Sitting in the cab. You

know what it feels like? Grabbing the throttle?

It’s heaven. Pure bliss. The best seat

in the house is the cab.

WARD finds his bag next to the desk and

shows MARC the EP Ripley’s rolling stock

blueprints from Disneyland

Here she is. The EP Ripley. Golly gee! I

remember taking this beauty out on the

track in Disneyland. Feels like it was yesterday.

I told Walt I wanted to be part of the

designs on the EP Ripley’s rolling stock. Walt

was sure thrilled. He told me, ‘Well, Ward.

Sure. But don’t cut corners.’ As if. I would

never cut corners on a train. Ever. Trains

are my life. I remember when Walt decided

to have hardwood inside the cab. And I

mean the hardwood looked nice.

WARD draws a picture of what the cab of

the EP Ripley was supposed to look like.

Here. Tongue slats. 19th century panels.

Neat huh? Just the way I liked it. On opening

day of Disneyland, that’s where the fun

begins. I went on a grand circle of tour of

the Santa Fe and Disneyland Railroad. The

EP Ripley. Engine number 2. Breathtaking.

It felt real to me. By golly, she was strong. I

sat in the cab. Of course. Where else would

I be?

WARD laughs

I closed my eyes. I could smell the diesel

fuel. Like I said, Marc. Heaven. Disneyland

is the happiest place on earth for a reason.

Even on Black Sunday. The EP Ripley looked

mighty fine.

MARC

How much do you need?

Pulls out money

WARD

Marc. Put that away. Really.

256

MARC

Ward. You’re a great animator. A great

companion. To all of us here.

WARD

Walt will find out.

End of scene.

Act 1

Scene 3

Marc discusses the long shot view of Edison

Square with Ward.

MARC

A story based on the growth of man’s inventions.

Thomas Edison. Uhh. Electricity will

be shown around everywhere on each side

of the street. Ummm. New iron work on

the fences. The iron work should be welded

in a certain way. To make the fences look

worn down. You can’t have these fences

look like they are brand new. No no. None

of that. There is going to be a huge. And

uhh. I mean huge. Statue of Thomas Edison.

The statue should have Edison standing.

Here he’s going to be on a pedestal.

We are going to have red roses around the

pedestal. Remember, the colors should be

attracting others. Not distract. Edison will

be standing. Holding his lightbulb. Holding

it in his left hand. We are going to have one

of our animators design it. You know Blaine?

Blaine Gibson? He was an in-between animator.

On Alice in Wonderland. Fantasia.

I think you worked with him. He is at Walt

Disney Enterprises. Golly gee! He’s going

to do a good job on the statue. He worked

with a private instructor in sculpting. You

should head over to the model shop, Ward.

Pause

You know Walt wants General Electric to

sponsor Edison Square. We are going to have

a uhh…big show. The Carousel of Progress.

You know how Walt got his inspiration for the

show? From the playwright. The playwright

Thomas Wilder. Wilder wrote Our Town.

But back to Edison. It’s going to be uhh…

rotating theater. We will have these scenes

with animated figures. The father in the

first scene will be sitting down telling the

audience ‘Welcome to the carousel of progress’

and then uhh…the entire scene goes

into the Sherman Brother’s song “There’s a

Great Beautiful tomorrow.” I love the Sherman

Brothers. Remember the Enchanted

Tiki Room over in Adventureland? They

worked on that ride too. But anyways. It’s

going to be a beautiful show.

WARD

Please. Show me more of your sketches

from the Jungle Cruise.

End of scene.

Act one

scene 4

4 months later. WALT is at WED Enterprises

in Glendale with the President of General

Electric. They are on a soundstage with

MARC AND WARD. One of the mock rehearsals

for The Carousel of Progress.

WALT

Hi, Mr.?

Shakes his hand.

THOMAS

Mr. Norton, Mr. Disney. Thomas Norton.

WALT

Hey, whoa there! No. No. Call me Walt. We

go by first name basis around here. Ok Tommy?

THOMAS

So it seems.

Coughs

Shall we begin.

WALT

Marc, do you have the sketches? Storyboards?

The pitch for Edison Square?

MARC pulls everything out of his briefcase.

MARC

Thomas, brace yourself.

MARC sits on a chair with a fan.

THOMAS

Walt, what is this?

WALT

Easy there, Tommy. Marc and Ward want to

give you a little rehearsal of the show.

THOMAS

Fine

Looks at watch

I don’t have all day.

MARC

Fanning himself as one of the characters in

the show.

A story based on the growth of man’s inventions.

The Carousel of Progress will have this

figure. A real life human audio animatronic.

Narrating the show.

THOMAS

But why? Is this based on the seasons each

year?

MARC

Yes. He’s hot. The character is responding

to heat. It’s called humor.

THOMAS

I know what humor is, Mr. Davis. Don’t make

me feel dumb. Proceed.

WALT and MARC look at each other. Roll

their eyes.

MARC

We are going to have a uhh…big show. The

Carousel of Progress. It’s going to be uhh…

rotating theater. We will have these scenes

with animated figures. Like I said. They’re

called audio-animatronics.

MARC continues to sit down. Grabs a ciga-

257

rette from his pocket. Leans back.

Welcome to the carousel of progress.

THOMAS

Do you have the entire script for me, Mr.

Davis.

MARC

It’s Marc.

THOMAS

Yes. Erm. Marc. Where is it?

MARC pulls out the 100 page script.

Ok. Continue.

MARC

Narrating

Now a carousel goes round and round without

getting anywhere.

THOMAS

You’re going to have music? Why act it out?

Who’s this?

MARC

Rehearsals. The music is not ready yet. This

is Uncle Orville. Our show. You listen.

THOMAS

Oh, not ready yet. That’s surprising. I am

not sure how much I can—

MARC

Don’t you want to see the dog?

THOMAS

Sigh.

Very well. It can’t be that bad.

WARD sits where the dog is supposed to be.

MARC

Rover.

THOMAS

Wait who?

MARC

The father’s dog. The family pet.

THOMAS

But why do you need him? What’s his purpose?

MARC

Ward, show him.

WARD tilts his head. Moves slowly to work in

the same motion as the audio animatronic.

Each motion. Each blink. Each bark he omits.

Defines his personality.

THOMAS

Dogs are dogs. You don’t need this money just

for the dog. To what? Provide limited action?

MARC

It’s gag worthy.

THOMAS

This is absurd.

MARC

What is?

THOMAS

This darn rehearsal.

MARC

So? It’s going to give you flavor. You know? A

great show leaves a happy audience for Disneyland.

We need to please our guests.

THOMAS

Fine.

Yawns

MARC

Continues to narrate the show

With progress, my wife and I can spend more

time. We have the electronic babysitter. The

television.

THOMAS

You got to be kidding. This has to be the

worst. The worst acting. Ever.

If we are sponsoring. We get to choose what

the dog’s name is. You don’t get to have the

say—

WALT

Now Tommy, you are mainly sponsoring the

Carousel of Progress. But my men did an

awful amount of—

THOMAS

Walt, these men are doing a terrible job at

acting.

MARC

Thomas, I think you need to be a little open

minded. We are animators.

THOMAS

Open minded? Is that what you want? What

happened to collaboration?

MARC

Hey hey. We’re the creative forces.

THOMAS

Show me the rest.

MARC

Thomas—

THOMAS

Yells

Show me the rest. Now!

MARC

MARC presents the sketch of the parade.

We are going to have a parade. Full of Horseless

carriages. They will follow in a single file

line. Mickey Mouse will be on the first float

with Thomas Edison.

THOMAS

You’re going to stick one of America’s inventors…on

a float…with a Mouse?

MARC

Thomas, the land should present the past with

respect to Edison. And have a creative touch

of—

THOMAS

All of this looks awful. First you have a character

doing nothing. You screwed up the

Carousel of Progress. You name the dog Rover.

You stick Edison with a darn mouse. Real

peachy.

WALT

Now I know we are not perfect, Tommy. But

my men are willing to meet you halfway.

They’re hard workers. Just like your employees

over at General Electric. They are developing

products for all of us at WED Enterprises.

The end product will sure be amazing.

THOMAS

These men lack imagination. They lack a certain

sense of what a project should be like.

MARC

You have liked nothing I have shown you. For

crying out loud. Like Walt said, we are just

getting started. Give us more—

THOMAS

Both of you. Both of you have wasted my

time. My precious time.

MARC

Excuse me, but we value our time. I assure

you it is definitely not wasted. Not one bit.

WALT

Looking at THOMAS

Now Tommy, I have been accommodating to

each sponsor that has come through Disneyland.

Richfield oil. Dole. Carnation. That’s

how Walt Disney Productions operates. Thomas,

you are a reasonable human being. A

fellow storyteller after all..

THOMAS

All you have brought to this meeting is nonsense.

Utter nonsense. If you don’t…If you

don’t make changes to Edison Square. I will

tell our CEO we are dropping out of the sponsorship.

WALT

Thomas, we will plus it and make the proper

changes. From one gentleman to another,

let’s be reasonable. Key word is reasoning

here.

THOMAS

I’m demanding changes. Get rid of Mickey

Mouse. Get rid of the whimsy. This isn’t your

Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs.

WALT

But this is also our project at WED Enterprises.

Whimsy? That’s what made Walt Disney

Productions famous. I’m very proud of Snow

White.

THOMAS

You’re too proud—

WALT

Tell me, would you change your ideas on the

phonograph?

THOMAS

No, but—

WALT

How about your television broadcasts in the

20’s?

THOMAS

No, but this is different—

WALT

Without television, I wouldn’t be able to

broadcast my dreams. My future for Disneyland.

To a million viewers watching in their

living rooms.

THOMAS

This is different—

WALT

Tommy, your creations. My creations. We all

have our magical touch. The Midas touch.

You would never get rid of the uniqueness to

your products, would you?

THOMAS

No, but—

WALT

Whimsy. That’s what made Mickey Mouse

dance. Whimsy. That’s what made seven

dwarfs yodel. Whimsy. That’s what made

Alice use her imagination in Wonderland. All

of my creations are products. Products. Just

like your creations over at General Electric.

They are simply products. Products.

THOMAS

Walt, you left me in the dark. You have no

idea how these sketches look awful. Terrible.

You didn’t leave any room for—

WALT

Tommy, it’s not a big deal. Look at the big

picture here.

Walks towards sketches with THOMAS

Edison Square. Progress. A man’s dream.

General Electric’s touch will be soon seen in

the land. It’s all going to work out. You just

need to have patience. With all of us. We

can negotiate.

THOMAS

No! I know what you are trying to do. Sweet

talking. I have more authority than you do.

Don’t make me. Negotiations are over. You

got it? Got it?

WALT

Tommy, don’t forget you are going to be

one of our lessees in Disneyland. Now, you

wouldn’t want to miss out on that right? I’m

just getting started. Forget about the tight

corners inside Disneyland. We will make this

right. Not for you. Not for me. For the people.

THOMAS

No, I persist that you focus on this task. Now.

I came here for a reason.

WALT

Didn’t I say I would deliver? Thomas? Just

think of what this next version will be like.

Whimsy but still have enough for General

Electric. Does that sound like a good idea?

WED Enterprises is full of great ideas. But

everyone has doubted us. From Snow White.

To Disneyland. Everyone believed we would

fail. Fall right on our faces. But we prevail.

Always have. Always will.

THOMAS

Walt, this is no time for persuasion. I am putting

my foot down.

WALT

Thomas, just make it work. Why don’t you

come with me to Disneyland on Thursday?

Check everything out? I will arrange a limo for

you.

THOMAS

I have seen enough Disney magic. Thank you

very much.

WALT

Who would turn down a visit to a magic kingdom?

Ride the monorail? Experience the

Rocket to the Moon over in Tomorrowland?

Travel on the Rivers of America aboard the

Mark Twain Riverboat?

THOMAS

Play time is over. It’s all business. Stop playing

with your toys.

WALT

Tommy, Disneyland is my toy and it is part of

my business. Why can’t it be both?

THOMAS

I came here. To do business. How hard is

that? Your artists here are horrible. I mean

dreadful. Ideas to present to me. Acting out

lousy scenes. It’s very apparent I can’t take

you seriously. None of you seriously. Disneyland

is a fantasy.

WALT

Oh no Tommy, Disneyland is very much real.

So real you can touch it. Smell it. Feel it.

See it. Everything that you encounter with

Disneyland. Has been thoughtfully planned

out. To every detail.

Beat

Ok. Well I will call your office tomorrow to

make the plans.

THOMAS

See! You don’t listen! I never agreed! To anything!

Good day to you gentleman.

WALT

You enjoy the rest of your day now.

Picks up the phone

Lucy, please escort my friend Tommy out. We

are done here. Thank you.

Hangs up

THOMAS NORTON exits.

WALT

Boy that has to be the most annoying man.

Lacking imagination. What crawled up his

butt?

MARC

What should we do, Walt?

WALT

Take the night off, Marc. Go to your wife.

You can call Ward over the weekend. Discuss.

This Tommy pencil pusher will get his Edison

Square alright.

MARC

But he means business, Walt.

WALT

So do we, Marc. So do we.

MARC

I have a bad feeling about this. What about

the money? Do we have enough to finish up

this project?

WALT

Marc. Marc. If I wanted you to be concerned

with money. I would have contacted our finance

department. Don’t worry. Don’t worry.

You need sleep.

MARC

If you say so.

WALT

See you later, Marc.

End of Scene.

The Mountaintop - The Second Act

Experimental — Play with Annotations

Eden Kidane

The Second Act

Stage Directions: In my analysis of The

Mountaintop by Katori Hall, I will have

the author as God. The setting is a version

of heaven that looks like the way people

imagine a picturesque small town and is

ruled by God and the Angels as the second

in command and everyone else like citizens,

and time moves faster. The play will continue

after MLK dies and Camae brings him to

heaven…. Part 2 of the play.

Location heaven on top of a big hill overlooking

the part of heaven Martin Luther

King Jr. will be residing in. It’s a beautiful

sunny morning with a slight breeze.

KING

continue - far...away.

Looks around.

Where am I?

CAMAE

Heaven.

KING

Softly

Really… I’m dead.

CAMAE

Yup, you shu is Preacher Kang, dead like the

rest of us.

KING

It’s different then to how I imagined.

Thought it would be more

CAMAE

White.

KING

Ya.

CAMAE

Ya thought the same thing myself, but naw

heaven looks like the future promise land

with jus a few added bonuses.

KING

There’s more.

CAMAE

Cou’se (of course). Everyone got they own

house and can live with who they want, they

also got their own flat-screen TV

KING

Flat-screen?

CAMAE

Ya the TV’s here this big

throws her arms out in demonstration

and this thin

holds out her fingers, her pointer, and

thumb about three centimeters apart.

And that ain’t even the best part bout it,

you can see everything happening to the

people alive, it’s like changing the channel

jus read the instructions you’ll figure it out,

shoo I figured it out, it’s easy.

KING

Wow, its got everything here (he says with

an air of wonderment)

CAMAE

Shu does (she says with a smile).

KING

So where’s my house in this glorious land.

CAMAE

Over there (she points out to the stone

french manner, she smiles knowing that he’s

in for a surprise when he walks in)

KING

(Softly) That’s all mine

261

CAMAE

Shu is. Hold my hand, lemme take you there

He grabs her hand, and in a flash, they are in

front of the manor.

KING

We got here so fast, can I travel round like

that too?

CAMAE

Sorry Preacher Kang, you don’t got the wings

(she gestures to her breasts much like she

had done in the motel)

Analysis: I am referencing to the book when

Camae told King that her angel wings were

her breasts. All the important roles in

heaven are women (God and Angels), and it

is their femininity that makes them powerful.

The Gender roles in heaven combat the

way humans lived; In life being born a man

simply put men at a more powerful position

and so dying a woman simply put women in

a more powerful position.

KING

(shocked) what, so there are no male angels?

CAMAE

No sir, all the angels are women. Most of

the men don’t do much of anything here.

KING

What!? So what is there to do in heaven

when you are a man?

CAMAE

I mean when you’re young most of the men

talk to each other or watch their families or

what’s happnin on earth, sides you act like

there’s no women here too. Not all women

become Angels

KING

Oh, and what do you mean I’m young? I’m 39

years old and what does age have to do with

anything?

CAMAE

I mean your young in heaven years you still

gotta explore, after a while, people get

bored of it all, want to do somethin with

themselves. So they get a job like St. Augustine,

he was the one who picked up the cell

before patching God through, I mean its just

somethin to pass the time, not like there is

anything to gain.

KING

So I just spend my days here doing nothing?

CAMAE

Well no I just told… (She trails off as she

looks past King there is someone walking in

their direction. She yells out) Hey, Malcolm

come over here.

King’s eyes widen as he realizes what she is

saying

MALCOLM

enters the scene

How are you Camae, heard what you shouted

at ‘me’ (he says in a joking matter).

CAMAE

What? How?

MALCOLM

Seriously

Gives her a deadpan look

you told me when your first day was and I

wanted to see it, then I remembered a leader

was supposed to die that same day from

God’s board of major events that change the

world and put two and two together. I was

watching TV Camae.

CAMAE

Oh right.

MALCOLM

snickers

KING

Wait, you heard her, US?! (Mainly referencing

when Camae yells into the sky)

MALCOLM

Sure did.

KING

Oh jeez, I’m sorry bout that. Camae was---

Malcolm cuts him off

MALCOLM

chuckling No, No hard feelings. I know what

you mean. Still smiling Camae was jus pullin

your leg

KING sighs in relief

CAMAE

Hey, that was funny. Still is.

She giggles

Her eyes widen

Holy… I almost forgot I have to go file the

report. Malcolm can you show KIng around?

MALCOLM

Sure, That ain’t a problem.

CAMAE

Thank you, I owe you one

She smiles, then promptly disappears.

KING

So hows heaven been treating you

He says a little awkwardly

MALCOLM

An easy smile on his face

It’s been paradise. Here let me show you

how the house works.

They walk up to the front door

MALCOLM

So the door will only let you open it, an

amazing creation really. Course anyone can

leave but no one can just walk on in.

262

KING

He grabs the handle, turns it then pushes.

As he walks in he looks around and smiles;

he’s home at last.

I..it...it looks li..like home

He stutters out.

MALCOLM

Ya the houses will look like your version of

home, there are probably gonna be some

changes but nothin significant

KING

They really do got everything here, don’t

they

MALCOLM

Ya, heck Gods even got this board with all

the important things that’s gotta happen

KING

Happen for what? The future

He says jokingly.

MALCOLM

You are a smart one; no wonder you like

talkin all the time

Analysis: comment on his civil rights approach

KING

barely batting an eye at the last comment,

he explodes at the first

What!! She knows everything important

that’s gonna happen…. Everything!!!! But,

but whyyy---

MALCOLM

Hey, hey calm down I know its a bit disheartening

at---

KING

DISHEARTENING!!! She could have stopped,

stopped so many things---

MALCOLM

No no no she couldn’t have, it’s confusing at

first; I know that was me when I first found

out. It’s what the world needs to advance if

she did anything other than what happened

there would be a worse today. Do you get it?

We are on the best path she is keeping us on

the best path for the best future.

KING

So all the war and death and mistreat-

ment---

MALCOLM

If it wasn’t then it would have eventually

happened, it’s jus like that saying ‘everything

happens for a reason’ that reason is for

a greater tomorrow

KING

I wanna see it, I wanna see HOW it all works

WHY it justifies all of… all of…

MALCOLM

Fine, fine lets head on over to the TV

Both are now on the long brown couch staring

at the TV. MALCOLM turns it on using the

remote and changes it to the wanted channel

immediately; KING knows just by looking

at MALCOLM’S movements that everything

he is doing is instinct, second nature, and

wonders if that’s the path he is headed

down. With nothing to do in Heaven but look

at the TV, he knows that it will be. He just

never knew how soon that would be.

MALCOLM

Hey see look at that, it’s just as Camae said

(He is pointing at the screen, it looks as if

it’s glitching out but its flickering through

the events before and after his death)

KING

But everything can’t be set and stone just

like that!

MALCOLM

That’s right it’s not, what do you think God’s

job is; she makes sure the world stays on the

right path for the best outcome. Sacrifices

have to be made, that’s jus the way things

got to be she has the worst job; she has to

‘play’ God.

KING

So there is nothing we can do

MALCOLM

Nope just sit back and watch it all happen

KING

But I should help or I should---

MALCOLM

Lemme stop you right there, trying to do

anything will jus mess things up the best

thing for you to do when you die is nothing.

Hey why don’t you check in on your family,

didn’t you want to see them?

MALCOLM

changes the channel

they see mayhem turning through most of

the channels

KING

What’s happening?

MALCOLM

stops on a random channel and as they are

looking the see riots of outrage the aftermath

of KING’S death.

KING

Me.

End of Scene.

Analysis: The ending is MLK realizing the

effect of his death caused. It is also a nod

to the fact that it ends before even looking

in on his family in true MLK fashion, he will

always be more concerned with the future

than his family. For the religious aspect

of everything (Malcolm X was Muslim MLK

wasn’t)whatever they believe and practice is

what they see and hear. The story is primarily

focused on Martin Luther King’s point of

view so we see the name God and only one

level. If the story was heard from another

person with a different religion they would

see what they believe. Heaven is perfect

and accepts all who are good at there core.

263

Works Cited

Hall, Katori, and Faedra Chatard Carpenter.

The Mountaintop. Methuen Drama,

2018.

Academic Works

An Extensive Analysis of The Life of J. D. Vance

Academic Non-Fiction

Megan Mehta

For many people, the definition of success

depends on one’s income, happiness,

or quality of life. For J. D. Vance, author of

Hillbilly Elegy, success meant escaping the

toxic aspects of Appalachian culture — the

vicious cycle of poverty and domestic violence

that plagued his family for generations

— while preserving the positive aspects and

strong connections with his cultural identity.

An unstable homelife, drug abuse, and

lack of adequate material wealth nearly

destroyed his life. Nevertheless, opportunities

to develop and practice perseverance,

support from family members, and a dash of

luck helped Vance build a prosperous adult

life.

The outcome of Vance’s story is rooted

within his cultural legacy, the behaviors

and attitudes he subconsciously inherited

from his parents and environment. Malcolm

Gladwell, author Outliers: The Story of

Success, explains the significance of cultural

legacies as “powerful forces [with] deep

roots and long lives. They persist, generation

after generation, virtually intact… and they

play such a role in directing attitudes and

behavior that we cannot make sense of our

world without them” (174). In other words,

our cultural legacy influences our mindsets.

It is the authority of how one navigates the

world; therefore, to an extent, cultural legacy

dictates one’s future.

The impact of cultural legacy is observable

in the lives of Vance’s family members.

His grandmother and grandfather, whom he

lovingly refers to as “Mamaw” and “Papaw,”

are self-proclaimed proud “hillbillies” that

moved from Jackson, Kentucky, a poverty-stricken

and extremely isolated area of

the Appalachian Mountains, to Middletown,

Ohio, in hopes of creating a better future for

their children. Gladwell describes the areas

that most “hillbillies” are from, as “remote

and lawless territories” where “people are

steeped in violence” (Gladwell 167). Mamaw

and Papaw transplanted their culture into

their new house. Positive aspects include

having a tight-knit family, supporting neighbors

and friends through tough times, and

fierce loyalty. Negative aspects include

having personal issues, regardless of what

they are, remain private. What happens in

the family stays in the family, and getting

third-party help or involvement is heavily

frowned upon. Domestic violence and constant

yelling, norms in Appalachian familial

relations, created an unstable homelife for

Vance’s mother and her cultural legacy made

it difficult for her to get help. Her brother,

Jimmy, recalled that Mamaw hurled a flower

vase at Papaw after he came home drunk

one night. At other times, Mamaw sabotaged

Papaw’s wardrobe, hid his wallet in

the oven, and “devoted herself to making

[Papaw’s] drunken life a living hell” (Vance

43). Papaw was a violent alcoholic, but

Mamaw was a “violent nondrunk” and “she

channeled her frustrations… [into] covert

war” (Vance 43). In Appalachian culture, “no

aspect of this homelife is concerning” (Vance

43). Domestic violence is so ordinary that it

almost becomes customary.

265

Since these demeanors were a part of

her cultural legacy, Vance’s mother, as an

adult, acted in a similar malicious manner.

She created a precarious homelife for Vance

and regularly physically and verbally abused

her boyfriends. These dispositions are entrenched

in the Appalachian cultural legacy.

Vance reiterates this idea, explaining that

his mother’s “struggles weren’t some isolated

incident. They were replicated, replayed,

and relived by many of the people who, like

[Vance’s family], had moved hundreds of

miles in search of a better life. There was no

end in sight” (Vance 142). As a consequence

of his mother’s behaviors, multiple strange

men frequently entered and exited Vance’s

personal life. His family continuously moved

from one house to another, and the lack of

having a permanent safe place-- a home--

amplified a sense of instability. In turn, he

began developing adverse childhood experiences

(ACE).

ACE introduced a whole new set of tribulations.

Paul Tough, the author of The Atlantic

article “How Kids Learn Resilience,”

explores the consequences of a disturbing

homelife. He discovers that toxic stress “can

cause an array of physiological problems

and impede development of the prefrontal

cortex, the part of the brain that controls

our most complex intellectual functions, as

well as [the] ability to regulate ourselves

both emotionally and cognitively” (Tough 4).

In other words, children with ACE struggle to

perform in school on a neurobiological level.

Throughout Hillbilly Elegy, Vance reiter-

ates the notion that his household turmoil

contributed to poor grades. In turn, Vance

developed learned helplessness, the fixed

mindset that one does not have control over

their future, so it is meaningless to make an

effort to succeed.

Although Vance’s background presented

complicated issues, these disadvantageous

circumstances taught him how to adapt to

new environments and strengthened his

grit. In Gladwell’s words, “As is so often the

case with outliers, buried in that setback

was a golden opportunity” (Gladwell 124).

When Vance found refuge in the peaceful

atmosphere of Mamaw’s house, he began

focusing the extra energy he was exerting to

cope with unstable environments into school

instead. Vance explains, “those three years

alone with Mamaw-- uninterrupted-- saved

me…. My grades began improving immediately

after moving in” (Vance 137). His enhanced

adaptation skills, as well as Mamaw’s

strict rules to achieve good grades, pushed

Vance to overcome adversity.

A compulsion to impress Mamaw and

inclination to make her sacrifices meaningful

heightened Vance’s determination

for success. This attitude easily observable

after she bought him an expensive graphing

calculator. Vance felt that he “had better

take school work more seriously” because

he “owed it to [Mamaw]” to accomplish in

an academic setting (Vance 137). Amy Chua

and Jed Rubenfeld, authors of The New

York Times article “What Drives Success?,”

explore which factors fuel children of immigrants

to achieve. They conclude that the

primary motivation is rooted in “an acute

sense of obligation to redeem their parents’

sacrifices…. [they] feel that ‘family honor’

depends on their success” (Chua and Rubenfeld

4). Although Vance is not an immigrant

and Mamaw is not his mother, there is significant

symmetry between his mindset towards

hard work and the attitude children of immigrants

have towards justifying their parents’

sacrifices because there is a notable amount

of resemblance between Mamaw’s story and

that of immigrants. This outlook on work

ethic sustained Vance’s motivation to accomplish

during his service in the Marine Corps

and throughout his academic career at Ohio

State University and Yale Law School. Angela

Duckworth, author of Grit: The Power of

Passion and Perseverance, elaborates on the

benefits of endurance, explaining that “grit

still predicts success. Regardless of specific

attributes and advantages that help someone

succeed in each of these diverse domains of

challenge, grit matters in all of them” (12).

In other words, advantages are meaningless

without grit; perseverance determines

success. Thus, despite his disadvantaged

background, Vance achieved upward mobility

because he was consistently determined to

overcome adversity.

The impact of cultural legacy and Vance’s

rationale to impress Mamaw is also discernable

when considering how religion shaped

his mindset. Mamaw was a non-churchgoing

Christian who was powerfully influenced by

her faith, often citing a compelling combination

of strong work ethic and God as

the key to success. She deeply instilled the

notion that Vance “should never despair,

for God had a plan…. God helps those who

help themselves” (Vance 86). In turn, this

attitude significantly affected his convictions

regarding the power of hard work and persistence.

In Vance’s words, “To coast through

life was to squander my God-given talent, so

I had to work hard. I had to take care of my

266

family because my Christian duty demanded

it” (Vance 86). Through his perspective,

adequately repaying Mamaw for her support

meant serving God by creating a successful

life. Ignoring his talents would starkly contrast

Mamaw’s principles of prosperity. As

such, Vance felt obligated to triumph upward

mobility, regardless of the challenges

that he may encounter. Even after he eventually

grows out of his faith, Vance continues

to be dramatically impacted by Mamaw’s

religious values. Although adverse childhood

experiences (ACE) and religion helped Vance

develop a powerful sense of perseverance,

the support he received from Mamaw and his

sister, Lindsay, is priceless. Lindsay shielded

Vance from a significant portion of their

mother's destructive behaviors, drug use,

and lifestyle. Vance describes her "as more

adult than child" because she consistently

filled the role of a parent. Vance explains

"depend[ing] on her so completely" that he

"didn't see Lindsay for what she was: a young

girl, not yet old enough to drive a car, learning

to fend for herself and her little brother

at the same time" (Vance 82). Despite her

young age, Lindsay was not a naive child.

She carried herself with the composure of

a mature adult and raised Vance. Her support

provided a buffer between the constant

exposure to drug use, including the potential

to have more ACE, and became a compelling

role model. Similarly, Mamaw and Papaw

were the authority figures who provided

enhanced security by protecting Vance when

his mother became unruly. Despite the toxic

aspects of Appalachian culture, the "tight

family bonds" and prioritization of "loyalty

to blood above all else" saved Vance (Gladwell

168). Together, Lindsay, Mamaw, and

Papaw provided stability, asylum, and love

to help him overcome the challenges ACE,

and boosted his willpower to accomplish.

In adulthood, Vance's wife, Usha, supports

him in a complementary manner by helping

him adjust to life outside of Middletown and

Appalachian culture.

Despite Vance’s grit and reliable support

system, luck and advantages that are not

initially obvious have monumentally propelled

his success. Unlike his peers, Vance

was incredibly privileged in the sense that

he always had a reliable support system, and

all the opportunities to develop his grit fell

perfectly into place at the right time. Vance

supports this notion, clarifying that “despite

all of the environmental pressures from my

neighborhood and community, I received a

different message at home. And that just

might have saved me” (Vance 60). He is

lucky that Mamaw understood the value of

education, and that Papaw strengthened his

love for learning. They nurtured “positive

mindsets and effective learning strategies,”

the key attitudes that develop academic

perseverance, which is not typically encouraged

in Appalachian families (Tough 18).

In a similar manner, the Marine Corps

helped Vance realize his potential by showing

him that resilience, self-control, and

determination leads to success. The military

dismantled Vance’s fixed-mindset by promoting

tolerance for failure, then providing

opportunities for redemption. A repetition

of this process bolstered his determination,

confidence, and grit. In turn, this encouraged

the development essential aspects of

growth-mindset, such as “competency [can]

grow with effort”, he can succeed with adequate

effort, and that all “work has value for

[him]” (Tough 20). The military transformed

Vance by completely extracting all characteristics

of a fixed-mindset and replaced

it with a growth-mindset and positive attitudes.

They effectively wiped away a majority

of the toxic inclinations in Appalachian

mentalities.

Likewise, Vance had substantial social

capital that helped him navigate life after

escaping Middletown. Professors and classmates

helped him develop his "practical

intelligence," which includes 'knowing what

to say to whom, knowing when to say it, and

knowing how to say it for maximum effect.'…

It's knowledge that helps you read situations

correctly and get what you want" (Gladwell

101). Without compelling communication

skills and capable practical intelligence, it is

highly unlikely that Vance would have succeeded

in college, much less, even applied

to Yale Law. Vance reinforces this idea,

explaining that his social capital, the "network

of people and institutions around [him

had] real economic value" (Vance 214). His

network helped him gain access to unique

opportunities and learn how to navigate

institutional systems. Receiving guidance

and having mentors aided Vance in making

instrumental career choices that fortified

his success. Referring to both social capital

and cultural legacy, Gladwell reiterates the

conviction that "Successful people don't do

it alone. Where they come from matters.

They're products of particular places and

environments" (Gladwell 119).

Vance’s story highlights the toxic aspects

of Appalachian culture by embodying the

challenges of upward mobility among working-class

white people. Notwithstanding his

childhood, he built a prosperous life. However,

this would not be possible without a

strenuous childhood fueling an invigorating

sense of grit, a strong support network, and

267

a sprinkle of luck to assist him along the

way.

Works Cited

Chua, Amy, and Jed Rubenfeld. "What Drives

Success?" The New York Times [New

York City], PDF ed., 25 Jan. 2014,

SundayReview sec.

Duckworth, Angela. "Showing Up." Grit: The

Power of Passion and Perseverance,

PDF ed., Simon and Schuster, 2016,

pp. 1-14.

Gladwell, Malcolm. Outliers: The Story of

Success, Kindle eBook ed., Little,

Brown and Company, 2008, pp. 224-

49

Tough, Paul. "How Kids Learn Resilience."

The Atlantic, PDF ed., June 2016,

Education sec.

Vance, J. D.. Hillbilly Elegy, Kindle eBook

ed..

Community College Stigma


Caylia Love

Choosing which college to attend is an

important decision for both students and

their parents. From the moment their child

is born, some parents immediately begin setting

aside money for their future endeavors

with college. Other parents start at an early

age to instill the idea of college, and when

their children reach a mature age, they influence

their children’s choices of potential

colleges. Students themselves are encouraged

to think about this decision as early as

their middle school years. However, students

are mainly faced with this decision during

their time in high school. Counselors have

meetings with students every progressing

year, asking the same questions about their

futures and what they plan to do with their

lives, explicitly their plans involving higher

education. While universities and community

colleges are both options for higher education,

many people tend to gravitate towards

universities instead of community colleges.

For years, community colleges have been

viewed as inferior and looked down upon as

a means of education. But why is that? Research

shows that community college holds a

negative stigma because of common misconceptions,

the practice of elitism, and false

contrasts between community college and

university educations.

Common misconceptions made about

community colleges heavily contribute to

the surrounding negative stigma. Misleading

statements are formulated because there

is a lack of knowledge and experience with

two-year institutions. Admissions counselor

for the Community College of Aurora, Gabriel

Fischer shares his experience saying,

“There's this idea out there that the education

received at a community college is not

as good as the education received from a

four-year school. In my experience, having

attended two different four-year schools

as well as a community college, employers

don't seem to be as concerned with where or

how you came to know something.” Here he

addresses a widespread perception people

hold about community colleges, lack of

quality. Since community colleges differ in

how and what they deliver as far as curriculum,

people use this to reason that they

somehow lack quality education. However,

Michaele Charles, a frequent writer for

higher education institutions, points out that

state regulations exist for community college

coursework. Specific standards must be met

to transfer to another college or university,

meaning that courses aren’t easier because

they’re from a community college. This

additional information adds to the list of

misconceptions; people are under the false

impression that community college courses

are easier because they aren’t the same as

four-year universities, which are widely perceived

as prestigious in everything. Fischer

addresses another myth, a prevalent idea

that an individual won’t become successful

or important with a community college

education. This misconception can be attributed

to how society defines success, and

more often than not, community colleges

are not considered an outlet to success. In

268

my personal experience with weighing my

college options, I made assumptions about

community colleges based on what I had

heard from others. I thought classes would

be easy, a limited number of options for

classes would be offered, and it would only

be a steppingstone to a real education. Essentially,

I believed community college to be

another version of high school. Because of

all this misinformation about what a community

college involves and offers, these institutions

cannot escape a negative stigma of

being “less than” the four-year colleges and

universities.

Educational elitism and its misconceptions

also influence how individuals view community

colleges as inferior. Elitism in higher

education is the divide between elite universities

and standard colleges. If the comparison

were to be made between Harvard University

and Las Positas Community College,

it’s clear which would be considered elite or

superior. I faced a similar comparison when I

was applying for colleges and discussing my

options with my family. My mom and I had

gone to visit my grandparents at my aunt’s

house one day, and my cousin asked me what

I was thinking of doing after high school. I

explained that I was applying to both community

colleges and universities but would

most likely attend a community college first.

My mother then chimed in, adding, “I told

her it’s better to just go straight to a university

and get a better-quality education that’s

well worth the money; that’s what I did.”

Her comment made me feel that the educa-

tion I would be receiving was worthless compared

to a university education. This concept

is an ever-growing issue that continues to

contribute to the perception that community

colleges don’t nearly measure up to other

prestigious institutions as far as quality.

Elizabeth Von Mann of the American Council

of Trustees and Alumni organization reasons,

“These price variations send a clear message

to potential students: Not all universities are

equal. With Ivy Leagues and state flagships

constantly inflating the cost of attendance

with little to no drop in demand, middle and

lower-class students believe that a ‘quality’

education is locked away in an ivory

tower.” This statement showcases how this

idea of elitism could significantly affect

how one would view community colleges as

lowly when comparing them to a four-year

institution. Discussing what contributes to

elitism, Steven Brint, professor of sociology

and public policy, and Charles T. Clotfelter,

professor of public policy and economics and

law, claim that the most critical structural

divisions among institutions in the U.S. are

attributed to selectivity, wealth, the highest

level of degree offered, and the governing

authority. Additionally, professor of international

higher education, Simon Marginson,

continues with this idea, reporting,

“Institutions divide between ‘selecting’ (or

‘status-seeking’) universities and colleges…

and ‘student-selected’ (or ‘student-seeking’)

institutions that are easy to enter. This

tendency to elite/non-elite bifurcation of

institutions is ultimately driven by the absolute

scarcity of highly valued social opportunities,

or in the theoretical terms of social

science, the zero-sum character of positional

competition. The number of stellar careers

is limited and only some university 'brands'

and degrees carry a high probability of such

careers” (81). Several current-day situations

exemplify this elitism concept within

higher education, but most recently is the

college-admissions scandal. This scandal is

when parents have used bribery to gain admittance

for their children into distinguished

and reputable universities. The classification

of which higher education institutions

are considered elite has severely impacted

how community colleges are perceived and

overlooked.

In addition to elitism within higher education,

community colleges and universities’

contrasts affect superior performance

perception. Each of these institutions holds

different characteristics that could make

one appear better than the other. Beginning

with community colleges, Dr. Khadijah Z.

Ali-Coleman, a higher education professional,

narrows their identifying features as

open admissions, affordability compared to

other institutions, and courses being directly

applicable to the workforce. Jonathan Turk,

associate director for research in the American

Council on Education Division of Learning

and Engagement, contributes to this

idea by commenting, “[c]ommunity colleges

accept 100 percent of applicants with a

high school diploma or equivalent credential

and offer high-quality educational opportunities,

all while keeping their tuition low

to maximize access. This should be viewed

positively rather than with skepticism.” This

comment shows how even seemingly positive

community college features still raise doubt

within individuals’ minds. In consideration of

contrasting universities, Anthony P. Carnevale,

director of the Georgetown University

Center on Education and the Workforce,

observes that the more selective institutions

269

will spend more on their students, which

translates to other benefits. Benefits include

better graduation rates and better offers of

access to jobs and graduate or professional

schools, all of which are better than less selective

colleges. There is truth to this: The

schools that spend more on their students

and resources can produce services superior

to schools that don’t. Such contrasts

are represented in one community college

student who went to attend a four-year

university who explains, “I think community

colleges have a lot to offer, but people must

properly evaluate such schools [for themselves]…While

I enjoyed attending community

college at the time, I realized that the

education I received was not as rigorous

compared to the classes I took at university

[and thus] [t]he transition from community

college to university can be very difficult for

some students” (Kaeppel). While these are

just some of the contrasting features between

a university and community college,

these identifying aspects alone provide further

incentive for holding a prejudiced view

of community colleges.

After discussing the presented evidence,

an accurate answer is proposed to why a

stigma exists around community college.

Community colleges have a surrounding

negative stigma because of misinterpreted

statements, the growing attitude of elitism

in higher education, and the contrasting

characteristics of a community college and

a four-year institution. Now that these ideas

are brought to light, what can be done to

properly respect community colleges within

our educational system? An essential first

step involves educating people on what a

community college entails to eliminate the

misconceptions. While it is a seemingly in-

significant solution to solving the concept of

elitism, it is a proactive step, nonetheless.

There’s nothing wrong with having preferences

about which form of higher education

to pursue, but these two-year institutions

deserve more credit than they’re given.

Works Cited

Ali-Coleman, Khadijah Zakia. "Essential Pathways: An Examination of How Community Colleges Compromise Their Unique Contribution to

American Higher Education." Higher Education Politics and Economics, vol. 5, no. 1, 2019. Opposing Viewpoints, doi:10.32674/hepe.

v5i1.1141. Accessed 10 Dec. 2020.

Brint, Steven, and Charles T. Clotfelter. "U.S. Higher Education Effectiveness." RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences,

vol. 2, no. 1, Apr. 2016, pp. 2-37. JSTOR, doi:10.7758/rsf.2016.2.1.01. Accessed 10 Dec. 2020.

Carnevale, Anthony P. "The Great Sorting." Chronicle of Higher Education, vol. 58, no. 40, 6 July 2012. eBook Collection (EBSCOhost),

lpclibrary.idm.oclc.org/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&drlh&AN=77939635&site=ehost-live. Accessed 15

Dec. 2020.

Charles, Michaele. "Let's Bury Some Community College Myths." Writing the Front Range, Front Range Community College, 20 July 2011, blog.

frontrange.edu/2011/07/20/lets-bury-some-community-college-myths/. Accessed 3 Dec. 2020.

Fischer, Gabriel. "Rumor Has It: 5 Myths about Community Colleges." The Fox Call, Community College of Aurora, 30 Apr. 2012, www.ccaurora.

edu/blogs/fox-call/outreach/rumor-has-it-5-myths-about-community-colleges. Accessed 3 Dec. 2020.

Kaeppel, Kristi. "Challenging the Stigma of Community College Students and Alumni." That Wasn't on the Syllabus Blog, U of Connecticut, 17

June 2019, gcci.uconn.edu/2019/06/17/challenging-the-stigma-of-community-college-students-alumni/. Accessed 19 Nov. 2020.

Marginson, Simon. "Systems and Stratification." The Dream Is Over: The Crisis of Clark Kerr's California Idea of Higher Education, University

of California Press, 2016, pp. 81-90. The Clark Kerr Lectures On the Role of Higher Education in Society. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/

stable/10.1525/j.ctt1kc6k1p.16?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents. Accessed 10 Dec. 2020.

Turk, Jonathan. "Erasing the Community College Stigma." Higher Education Today, American Council on Education, 26 June 2019, www.

higheredtoday.org/2019/06/26/erasing-community-college-stigma/. Accessed 25 Nov. 2020.

Von Mann, Elizabeth. "How Elitism Affects Higher Education." The Forum, ACTA, 22 July 2020, www.goacta.org/2020/07/how-elitism-affectshigher-education/.

Accessed 3 Dec. 2020.

270

Round and Around We Go


Laura Riley

Gregor Samsa opens his dreary eyes. He

sits up in his bed, his back and neck aching

from a poor night’s rest. He slips on his work

uniform and exits his room. Heading into

the kitchen, the wafting smell of eggs and

bacon motivates his empty stomach to keep

moving. He scarfs down his breakfast, following

it up with a glass of milk, and offers

pleasantries to his family and housekeeper.

He heads to work. The commute is boring

and lengthy— the same greys and blues

rolling past his eyes as he rides on the train.

When he arrives at his stop, nothing has

changed. He may be a travelling salesman,

but there are only so many people you can

meet on the job. The same stories, the same

decor, the same reasons for not wanting to

buy. He gets back on the train to go home,

the thought of dinner seeming to make the

engine run slower. He arrives home, takes

off his coat, and sits in his usual spot at the

dinner table. He eats food— nothing special,

but it hits the spot— chit chats with his

family, and heads to bed. He has a long day

of the same old same old to get back to in

the morning. This repetitive cycle— Wake

up. Eat. Go to work. Come home. Eat. Sleep.

Repeat— is the cornerstone of the Samsa

household. Gregor is responsible for the

family finances, and his story can be found

everywhere you go. Once Gregor has his

transformation, his baton is passed back up

the family tree to his father, who assumes

the responsibility as a corporate drone.

While viewing this through a Marxist lens,

the harsh reality of the underclass workers

comes to light. Gregor’s father’s uniform is

a symbol of the working class. It represents

their identity, the cruel reality of the need

for money, and just how much the droning

day in, day out of work can take its toll on

an individual.

There are countless ways to interpret

a text. With each lens, new aspects are

brought to light. Symbols, as seen under one

lens, can be remarkably different in another.

The same goes for the characters, the

themes, and the intricate relationship of

how all of these things react to one another.

The Marxist critical lens takes all these

aspects and analyzes the dynamics of social

class and the struggles that go on within

and between them. With this lens, the text

becomes so much more than a quirky tale

about how a man became a massive bug.

It shows the struggles to need work, and

the harsh struggles that go along with it. It

shows how it seeps into home life, and how

that reality never truly leaves you. To those

who look through a Marxist lens, literature

is not simply “works created in accordance

with timeless artistic criteria, but… 'products'

of the economic and ideological determinants

specific to that era” (Abrams 149).

By viewing Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis

through the Marxist critical lens, the “products”

of this era come out in many ways.

One in particular is the uniform of Gregor’s

father and the rich symbolism that goes

along with it.

Gregor’s father’s uniform is a symbol of

his status as a member of the working class.

271

After Gregor’s transformation, his father had

to take up work in order to cover his debts

and the household finances. This uniform,

which was a “tight-fitting blue uniform with

gold buttons, the kind worn by messengers

at banking concerns,” is how his work

identifies him (Kafka 38). The concept of a

uniform is to hide any sense of individuality

and make the worker who wears it a part of

an easily identifiable mass. The person who

dons a uniform sheds the hats and baggage

they own from their personal lives in exchange

for making money. When the uniform

is on, they are of use to the company. Mr.

Samsa, when those polished gold buttons are

shining, is a means of profit. He becomes a

means to bring in the money required for

his family to survive. In the eyes of the bank

for which he works, however, that uniform

means he is forced to sacrifice his time and

energy to make his bank more profitable.

The money they give him is just like dangling

a bone in front of a dog. Mr. Samsa must

wear that uniform; he does not get much

of a choice. He must fit in as a cog in the

turning wheel of the industry. Additionally,

he can never truly shed the uniform. The

reality in which he lives and his need to

work and survive can never truly be taken

off. This can be seen in Mr. Samsa’s refusal

to take off the uniform, even while sleeping.

Gregor's father “dozed, completely dressed,

in his chair, as if he were always ready for

duty and were waiting for the voice of his

superior… the old man slept most uncomfortably

and yet peacefully” (Kafka 41). His

work life is not left at the door. It follows

him through, affecting his life, his sleep,

his mentality, and every other aspect of his

daily life. This is the reality of members of

the working class. They grind because they

have to. While those above them exploit

their situations, those below have no choice

but to chase that bone. It is an unfortunate

reality that shines its dim, ugly light through

those golden buttons.

Such exploitation of the working class has

to force even a retired old man back into

the workforce. Gregor’s father, before Gregor

suddenly was unable to provide for the

family, was certainly of no use to those who

are tying the bones to the strings. Mr. Samsa

used to be seen “sitting in his bathrobe in

the armchair” and would “shuffle along with

great effort between Gregor and his mother…

wrapped in his old overcoat” (Kafka 38).

Such an old man who could barely walk surely

should not be putting on a uniform to go

work full time at a bank. Mr. Samsa, on those

walks, needed the help from a walker to be

able to keep up the slow pace. Despite that,

“he was holding himself very erect” once he

got back to work (Kafka 38). Gregor’s father

is a very weathered man. Perhaps the inability

to work was merely a facade. Mr. Samsa,

with so many years on him, might have had

a realization about the reality of working—

about how droning and fruitless the labor

is— and placed the responsibility into Gregor’s

hands. Just as how Gregor’s company

was using him as a means to bring in profit,

his father was using Gregor as a means to

bring in money for the family. Gregor is “so

quickly discarded by his father as soon as

he can no longer earn wages” (Mir 4). This

harsh treatment of his son forces him to

wear the dehumanizing uniform again. There

is no sympathy for not being able to work—

only a stamp of a lack of value. With that

knowledge, Mr. Samsa brushes off his dusty

work persona and gets back to the grind. For

them, that is just the way it is.

The machine that forces the laborers to

turn and turn no matter what also holds no

sympathy for the wear and tear it does on

the cogs that allow it to function. Mr. Samsa’s

uniform, when he is first seen putting it

on, is in good condition, despite not being

new. A little while later, however, his uniform

“[begins] to get dirty in spite of all

the mother’s and sister’s care, and … [is]

covered with stains and gleaming with its

constantly polished gold buttons” (Kafka 41).

The wear on the uniform is representative

of the wear that work does to its user. The

longer Gregor’s father has to be a part of

the grueling day in and day out, the more

it breaks him down. Any shiny new piece of

him when he started has been worn away.

Any individuality and sense of self that had

originally stayed with him in the beginning

days of his work has been sanded down. With

this, he becomes truly integrated as part of

the machine. He is truly a cog, just like the

rest of them. Forever replaceable— a dime a

dozen. In the article “On Kafka’s The Metamorphosis,”

his “labour has turned [him and

Gregor] into working commodities” (Fenlon

2). This wear and tear follows him home. It

makes Mr. Samsa burn out, falling asleep in

his chair with his uniform still on. It is uncomfortable,

but he is used to it. And that is

exactly what they want. With him too burnt

out to be able to do anything else, all he can

do is get back up and go to work. It makes

him obedient, and any resistance held within

him to try and change something about how

unfair it is is drained out of him. He be-

272

comes complaisant. The uniform will remain

stained, and it will blend in, becoming part

of the routine.

Viewing just Mr. Samsa’s uniform through

the Marxist lens shows a world of struggle for

the working class. The uniform represents

the status one has as a member of the working

class, and how it never truly leaves you,

no matter where you are. It shows how even

a decrepit old man can be forced upright,

all in the name of needing money to survive.

It represents how much work tears away at

you, and causes one to become a sanded

down cog in the machine of society. The

Metamorphosis is so much more than just a

story about a bug. It paints the picture of

how society functions. It shows the reality

of what it is like to know nothing but how

to work. What Gregor and his father experienced

is not exclusive to them. Where there

is one cog, there are more. They are found

everywhere, continually replaced to make

the machine stronger. The baton of who

works may be passed down, but the cycle

continues, and the cogs turn, just as they

always have.

Works Cited

Abrams, M.H. "Marxist Criticism." A Glossary of Literary Terms. 7th ed. Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace College Publishers, 1999. 147-153.

Fenlon, Joshua. “On Kafka's The Metamorphosis.” E-International Relations, 26 June 2013, www.e-ir.info/2013/06/21/on-kaftas-themetamorphosis/.

Kafka, Franz. The Metamorphosis. Translated by Stanley Corngold, Bantam Books, 1972.

Mir, Shabir Ahmad. “Explicating Kafka's Metamorphosis within the Ambit of Marxism.” International Journal of English Literature and Social

Sciences, 21 Feb. 2019, ijels.com/detail/explicating-kafka-s-metamorphosis-within-the-ambit-of-marxism/.

273

The Truth Behind The American Dream


Matthew Aboudi

During the late 1800s and early 1900s,

there were rapid waves of immigration

and industrialization in what is now called

the Gilded Age. People from all over the

world, inspired by stories they heard of the

“American Dream,” sought to achieve it

for themselves. The American Dream is a

concept which offers everyone a chance for

social mobility and the ability to accumulate

wealth through hard work and dedication.

I believe that the American Dream is an

overexaggerated belief in how much social

mobility there actually can be in America,

and as a country, we have never offered

truly equal opportunity to all immigrants due

to America’s history of racial injustices and

social inequalities.

The promise for social mobility based only

on a person’s abilities and achievements is

hyperbolized today. It may have been true in

the past, that anyone could work their way

to the top, and there have been notable examples

such as John Rockefeller and Andrew

Carnegie — both of whom attained massive

wealth during the Gilded Age by having the

foresight to see the upcoming railroad industry

and positioned themselves to greatly

benefit from it. James Truslow Adam expands

on his Definition of the American Dream

offering that “[i]t is not a dream of motor

cars and high wages merely, but a dream of

a social order in which each man and each

woman shall be able to attain to the fullest

statute of which they are innately capable,

and be recognized by others for what they

are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances

of birth or position” (Adams). Under

ideal circumstances, I would be inclined to

agree. However, we must recognize that social

mobility and achievements have always

been inherently unequal because of America's

past racial and economic injustices to

people of color. The most obvious example

that comes to mind is slavery when discussing

America’s racial history, but a more contemporary,

and infamous racial policy was

redlining. Redlining, from the 1950s, was

a practice that outright barred Black (and

other minority) families living in so-called

“red” zones (neighborhoods with significant

African-American populations) from getting

mortgages and loans from the bank.

Practices like redlining and segregation

have proven how selective our society is

when it comes to allowing for social mobility

for non-white individuals.

Nativism has also played a massive role in

the limited degrees of social and economic

mobility for immigrants. Nativism refers to

the ideology of prioritizing the interests of

native-born Americans over that of the

immigrants (“Nativism”). Beliefs like “the

immigrants are taking my jobs” and “They’re

unAmerican” usually stem from this train of

thought.

Persecution against immigrants took many

forms. The Alien and Sedition Act of 1798

sought to make it difficult for immigrants

to become American citizens, even going as

far as to give America the ability to deport

immigrants on arbitrary guidelines such as

deeming the immigrants too “dangerous”, or

274

because they immigrated from a “hostile”

nation. Contemporary examples include

President Donald Trump’s fear-mongering of

America’s necessity to build a physical wall

along the southern U.S.-Mexico border, and

the ever increasing military budget which

grows in the name of protecting Americans

from "terrorists". These instances of nativism

clearly poke holes in the American Dream’s

promise for success and serve to highlight

how limited and exaggerated the American

Dream is.

The American Dream has become an exaggerated

concept due to overlooked racial

and economic inequalities that prevent the

dream from being a reality. Social mobility

does exist, but not to the extent that one

might think after hearing stories of success

and a “better life” in America. The American

Dream seems to be a quickly fading bragging

point that will no longer have relevance as

more and more countries catch up economically

to offer levels of opportunity beyond

what we have to offer.

Works Cited

Adams, James Truslow. The Epic of America.

Little Brown, 1931. “Nativism.” Merriam-Webster.com

Dictionary, Merriam-Webster,

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/nativism.

Accessed 30 Oct. 2020.

2021

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