Xavier George

Renuptial

I

Don't be mad. It was a thought. An idea. For your sake.  We're not too old for a new idea, are we?

Look at me, would you?

Those dishes you're doing, that should be me washing them. Already this Parkinson's has made you my nurse. So it's an idea. So we talk about it. For fifty years that's what we've done. Why start today with the silent treatment?

Sweetheart.

You and me, we've re-upped a time or two already. When Jason went off to college, don't tell me you didn't think, am I gonna stay with this geezer or what? I know you did because you went off with your girlfriends and I had to think, I wonder if she's coming back. I wonder if I want her to. Turns out I did. Then thank god you came home and we were like newlyweds all winter.

Mabel and her fiancé, somehow these kids are smart enough to see it coming. Why not put a renewal clause in your marriage contract? Every five years, every ten, you talk about it. Better than biting your fingernails off waiting to see if your wife's coming back from the beach.

Five times ten years it's been. We gotta be up for a renewal. It's no picnic, running me to the doctor all the time. So maybe we let this one expire. You try something new with your life, so do I.

Can't we at least talk about it?

Fine, I'll start. For me, I'd renew. Because my heart races when I see you walk into a room. What a thing that is, after all these years. 

Now it's your turn.

So you're still here, and that's a blessing. But there's gotta be a better reason than 50 years ago you said some vow. Is there? Anything?

Maybe it's a stupid idea. So look at me and tell me, Sam, stop your nonsense. You and me, we're still us. Otherwise, I gotta think I'm dead weight you're better off without.

Am I? Or maybe I'm just a foolish old man. You can be honest. It wouldn't be the first time you've said it, Sam, that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard.

Please. Sweetheart. Tell me it's stupid.

II

Silent treatment, he calls it. In 50 years a person learns to keep her mouth shut is all. He didn't call it the silent treatment when he ordered the soup we both knew he couldn't eat without spilling. Now, though. He needs me to say out loud, there's no place I'd rather be than wiping up after you, or else it's the silent treatment.

I'm not telling him something that's not the truth. So I keep my mouth shut.

All his talk, you think he could tell me what's the point of a marriage that you have to go on asking yourself if you want to stay in. Better you decide once. Then it's settled. Anything else that comes unstuck, that much you don't have to figure out. Your last kid finally gets launched in the world, you don't ask, is this who I grow old with? Already you're old. You ask, am I too old to get my J.D.? It's the beach he remembers but I went to visit Brown on that trip, and U Mass. Saw what it would take to hold my own with those kids. Young adults, okay, but too young to know how life disappoints you, no matter how much you apply yourself. So I came home to grow even older with him, like we promised.

And now he wants I should what? Go get that law degree that he promised to pay for as soon as he finished his residency? Be more fun than listening to him beg me to say I want to spend the rest of our days playing nursemaid. I open my mouth now, and that's what comes out: I'd rather not. I'd rather do something for me, before I am used up entirely.

But I say that, and the rest doesn't count. Raising our children instead of taking the bar. Organizing charity balls instead of suing employers who discriminate. Now I say "you're on your own,” and I'm a fair-weather friend. Or fifty years a dupe.

So I keep my mouth shut. 

III

Mom wants help applying to law school

WTF? Are you going to?

What?

Help her

Uh, yeah

Dad?

What?

She leaving him?

idk

you didn't ask?

not my business

still you ask

she'd say if she was

would she?

dad would

can he still text?

could he ever?

dial, then. Can he?

Guess so. brb

… 

So?

says she hasn't spoken since Tues

like 48 hrs?

pretty much

did you say about law school?

not my business

then what?

asked if he stopped talking long enough

hahaha. He hang up on you?

pretty much

should I call?

Daddy's little girl, yeah

K

lmk

K

…

says he asked if she wanted to renegotiate

What?

marriage, I guess

ffs

since the Parkinson's

so he shoots himself in the foot

just wants reassurance

yeah, but

I know. what would he even do?

go live with you

yeah, NO

so Mom

got her back up

thinks he doesn't appreciate

yep

I'll call

…

so she talked

or yelled?

def yelled

and?

Dad heard

He's deaf

when it's convenient

true

she was loud enough anyway

tell me he's not headed over

he's helping with her application

law school?

yeah

lucky her

hahaha

so they're good?

hiring a nurse

about time

renewing their vows

cheesy

you know Dad

but Mom

said ok if she can wear a pantsuit and flats

that tracks

see you there?

vows thing?

law school graduation

that, too

:)

love ya

---

Xavier George (they/them) is the story-telling alter-ego of academic political theorist Dr. Gwen Ottinger. Curious about things most people take for granted, their fiction imagines how social and political change can happen through the actions of individuals who are neither paragons nor monsters. George is inspired by the peculiar challenges of being an autistic, female-bodied GenXer. Their fiction has appeared in Crow and Cross Keys, Feels Blind Literary, and Luna Station Quarterly.

Laura Rikono

Eight Divers Down

Let me tell you about the time I almost died.

Here I am, dive leader for the day, hovering just off the slope of Kalupun Island, caressed by the bubbles from my fellow divers. We’re ten metres down, and the morning sunlight slants through the water above, turning grey fish into rapid glints. It’s a work dive, a survey of the coral cover, but there’s a fierce current driving us along the slope. We can barely stay on our assigned lines, and we’re tumbling, crashing, flailing, finning, until finally I tap my tank three times to signal Stop!

Everyone stops and looks at me, eyes wide in their masks.

Alice, is this your decision to make? You’re just the junior science officer, you know.

I write on my dive slate and show it up for all to see: Do a jolly.

A jolly, Alice? You’re telling them all to just have fun?

Drift dive with the current.

You know what the senior science officer will say, don’t you? He’ll say, “The current wasn’t that strong. You could have swum against it.”

20 mins, then surface.

No one complains, because fighting the current uses up air, and a drift dive for fun around the best coral isle for miles makes a nice change.

You’ve wrecked the survey plan, Alice. The senior science officer will complain to the expedition leader. There’ll be consequences, Alice. Discussions and little chats.

I signal to Andy, my blond beach bum buddy, and off we drift, following the others. I make him hold the surface marker buoy—kept permanently deployed for the coxswain to follow our movements—because though Andy’s a good lad, he’s not the most attentive. I don’t want him to be swept into the Sulu Sea.

Stop mothering the volunteers, Alice.

We drift past the coral isle for twenty minutes. It is a good dive.

By what measure? You aborted the science. The expedition leader sent you out to survey coral and you’ll come back with nothing. You’ve wasted his precious fuel.

Eventually we four teams of two divers surface separately, and the boat picks us up.

“You’re early,” says Stuart, our cheerful coxswain.

“We had a jolly!” Andy crows.

Stuart’s expression falls. “Oh,” he says, glancing at his boat buddy, Sullen Tim.

Sullen Tim shrugs. “Cool.”

They’re jealous, Alice. Look at what you did.

Their faces take on a studied blankness that lingers throughout the dive interval, during which we lounge on the boat, waiting for our nitrogen saturation to sink enough to dive again. I hope the current will slacken so that actual science can happen, but the boat continues to drift towards the Sulu Sea. Several times, Stuart has to start our engines to return us to the island. He moves sluggishly, but drives aggressively. I think he’s resentful.

He’s more than resentful: he’s angry. At you, Alice. You got a fun dive at a coveted spot.

But—

You had fun while he had to sit here with Sullen Tim.

It’s not my fault the current is bad today.

There’ll be whispers, Alice. It’s a small camp, but there are plenty of shady corners for “Who does she think she is?” and “Little Miss Initiative?”

Okay, okay. Okay!

“Stuart?” I call out.

He raises his shaggy head. “Yeah?”

I try on a thoughtful smile. “Do you think you could fit into my dive gear?”

He stares at me like I’ve gone mad.

Because you have, Alice. He doesn’t want to wear a girl’s kit.

At least my fins are lime green, not hot pink.

I need backup, so I wake my buddy. “Hey Andy, can Tim have a go with your kit?”

Andy says, “Huh?”

“Well,” I say. “We had a great dive, right?”

Andy grins. “Yeah. Them turtles.”

“So, what if Stuart and Tim take our second dive while we mind the boat?”

“Oh. Okay.” Andy shrugs. “Sure.”

Under the incredulous gazes of the other divers, Sullen Tim dons Agreeable Andy’s kit while Stuart miraculously squeezes into mine. I take the helm—

You gave away your dive, Alice. To a guy who didn’t even thank you.

—and all eight divers splash into the azure sea. Andy stares wistfully at their bubbles for about five seconds, then shifts to the transom to sunbathe. I perch on the bow, watching the deep blue of the channel beneath us, the waves hitting Kalupun Island, and the roiling clouds on the horizon.

Those storms will be due soon, Alice. Are you sure you can make it back to camp in time?

They are not heading this way. Today’s skies are on an eastward path, as are these seas. Like Stuart, I must periodically start the engines and move the boat because the current is still there, still pushing us, still trying to force us away from the island.

And forcing you into the Sulu Sea, Alice. Home of smugglers, sharks and pirates. And militants who like to lop off foreigners’ heads.

Must we think of that now?

What else is there, Alice? Shall we open the Catalogue of Worst Scenarios?

No. I’m watching the frigate birds above, wondering where they go when there’s no wind.

About fifteen minutes into the dive, as I’m moving the boat yet again, the port engine dies. Simply splutters and cuts out. The boat lurches from the plane and sinks into its own wake.

Alice?

I complete the manoeuvre, settling us near the cluster of bobbing surface marker buoys, and turn off the starboard engine.

Alice, you’ve lost an engine with eight divers down.

Yes, and engine shutdown calls for a checklist. The first item is restart the engine.

I try to restart the engine.

Does it work?

No. What’s the second item?

Check the fuel system. Where does that begin?

The fuel system begins at the tank. I turn to open the seating along the port side, which doubles as the lid of the port engine’s fuel tank. The shiny aluminium sides of the empty tank glare back at me.

Well, that completes this checklist.

I close the tank lid carefully and consider the horizon.

Alice, check the fuel in the starboard tank.

I turn to the starboard side seating and open the lid. There’s a slosh of pink liquid, like the dregs in a cup of tea. I close the starboard tank lid and consider the surface marker buoys.

Get the divers back in. Now. Send Andy.

“Andy?” I call.

“Hmm?” He’s half-asleep on the transom.

“Grab the snorkel gear and head for the buoys.”

His arm falls from his face and he turns his head to gape at me.

“When you get there,” I continue, “give the buoy strings a good tug to get the divers’ attention. Then give them the signal to ascend.”

I give him a thumbs up.

He knows the damn signal, Alice.

I’m being encouraging.

But Andy doesn’t move from his wide-eyed stare.

Alice, you’ve explained badly. He needs to know properly, and he needs to know faster.

“We’re almost out of fuel,” I say. “I don’t know how or why. We need to get those divers on the boat right now before we drift into the Sulu Sea.”

Andy’s mouth snaps shut and he scrabbles to pull the snorkel gear from its cubby. He crams on fins and mask, leaps into the sea and churns towards the buoys. I watch his frothy progress as I measure our drift against Kalupun Island.

You’re drifting fast, Alice.

Yes. And Andy has reached the nearest buoy.

Incidentally, why don’t we have a radio on board?

Not my call. There will be after today, though. Or I’m quitting.

Or you’re fired. What if they don’t surface, Alice? What if they insist on finishing the dive?

I see divers. The first team is up, the air hissing from their regulators.

“Hey!” I call out. “Swim over here!”

They stare at me like netted fish. They want me to pick them up.

“Swim to the boat now!”

They swim. They don’t like it, but they swim. I take their fins and steady the ladder while they climb aboard. They fuss and grumble, and I leave them to it because the second and third teams have surfaced and Andy’s heading for the fourth.

One of the divers actually grabs me as she comes on board. She looks angry. I pat her hand and say, “Let me get everyone in and then I’ll explain everything.”

There’s not much to explain, Alice.

Just keep smiling. The fourth team surfaces and they’re the furthest from the boat. They really don’t want to swim. But then Andy heads back to the boat with that mad stroke of his, the one that cuts through the water like an egg whisk, and that alarms them enough that they follow. I take their fins and steady their ladder, and then they’re on board.

They’re all on the boat, Alice. Relax. They’re not going to be swept into the Sulu Sea in their dive gear, a bobbing group of wet-suited humans under an indifferent sun.

Yes. But we might still be swept away in this boat together.

“Thank you all for coming up so quickly,” I say. “Unfortunately, we are low on fuel.”

“How low?” says the angry diver.

“Almost out, actually.”

“What?” Eight divers explode. Andy grins from the transom because Andy loves drama.

“We are going to head for the nearest beach,” I say, pointing to the mainland, to a cove with an inviting yellow-white strip of beach below the dark-green forest. “So, if you could all just sit tight, we’ll be there in a jiffy.”

I engage my single engine with its teacup dregs and head for that beach.

Hug the coast. Mind the rocks. Although, if the engine dies now, would it be better to drift onto said rocks or continue into the Sulu Sea? Consider both options, Alice.

We’re past the point of those rocks.

But what about those ones over there? And over there? And there? And that headland?

We curve past the headland and into the cove. The current vanishes, and now it’s the waves pushing us, moving us towards the shore.

Oh good, we can surf—

The starboard engine splutters and dies. We coast for a few heartbeats, then start turning, our stern swinging until we’re side-on to the waves. They pummel us from the side, rocking us like a treetop cradle.

“Andy,” I say, “the anchor, if you please.”

Andy, who’s having a great day, launches our thin curve of metal into the sea. It catches on the seabed, and the boat turns until its stern faces the land and we’re rocking lightly.

“All right, everyone,” I say brightly. “We’re going to swim for the shore. It’s not far.”

No one grumbles.

That’s a first.

It’s a hard swim through the turquoise water and its white, crashing surf and up the coral-rubble slope of the beach until we stand in the shade of the sea hibiscus, dazed and bewildered.

Oh, it’s just like Lord of the Flies.

Keep moving, Alice.

“Andy?” I say as I strip off my wetsuit.

“Yep?” He jumps to attention.

“Let’s go. A quick hike to the main road, then we hitch a ride back to camp for fuel.”

He grins. “Okay!”

And so that’s what we do. We leave eight divers marooned and head down a muddy gravel road, barefoot in damp board shorts, breathing in bugs and eyes peeled for spitting cobras. After a mile or so, we meet the asphalt road and settle under some brush to wait for a ride.

It could take a while, Alice. No one comes here.

That’s fine. Everyone is on land. There’s nothing pushing us.

Andy lies back in the grass for a snooze. I consider the jungle across the road.

Right, let’s run through the steps to bring this event to completion, shall we? Once you get back to camp, you’ll have to face the expedition leader and the senior science officer, and they’ll say, “Are you sure you ran out of fuel?” and “Did you check the fuel tank?” and “Did she really check the fuel tank, Andy?” and then you’ll need to sort out the logistics of getting the fuel back here and onto the boat, which might be too far out for someone carrying a jerrycan, but you didn’t think of that when you anchored—did you Alice?— no, you did not consider the fact that a person carrying a heavy object can’t swim and must walk.

The tide’s going out. The longer we take, the shallower it will be.

In that case, let us turn to our Catalogue of What-If Horrors.

No. Stop. We will not. I did everything right. There’s no need for these stupid scenarios because there were no decisions. I did what needed to be done at the only time possible, and I could have done nothing else, and we are now all on land and everything is going to be fine, so shut that fucking catalogue.

But, Alice, what if you hadn’t felt bad for Stuart and Tim?

I… what?

What if you and Andy had taken your second dive and Stuart had been at the helm when the port engine died?

He would have…

Sluggish Stuart would have been the kind of coxswain who doesn’t check the fuel before setting off, and his boat buddy would have been Sullen Tim instead of Agreeable Andy. And the current doesn’t wait for people to argue over the best course of action.

There’s a rumble of a pick-up truck coming down the asphalt. Andy leaps to his feet to point and grin, and I turn to stare at him.

What is it, Alice?

The pick-up truck halts beside us. Andy sticks out a hand to help me up. I take it because I’m shaking. I’m shaking so hard I can barely stand.

Why, Alice? What do you see?

I see… I see what could have been. The worst of What-If Horrors. Andy sunburned and sore from the salt, tied to me with the string of the surface marker buoy because we lost sight of the others long ago, because we surfaced to find the boat a speck on the horizon and we exhausted ourselves trying to swim against the current, and now all we have is a lime green fin we’re waving feebly at a far-off shore.

---

Laura Rikono is a marine scientist whose fieldwork experience ranges from coral reef expeditions in Southeast Asia to stints as a fisheries observer on North Atlantic trawlers. She now lives on the coast of Sabah, Malaysian Borneo, with her Kadazandusun family. She writes science fiction, fantasy, and fiction of the sea. Her stories often feature small persons living in enormous systems who use dry humour to explore dark places.

Ellory Skye

This is Your Brain, This is Your Brain on God

            Maybe you had to be there, or maybe Nyla’s roommates were all undergoing mushroom-induced psychosis. Either way, she wanted nothing to do with it, and when Rylie came into the living room, announcing earnestly her sudden and apparent transformation into bunnydom, Nyla was the only one who didn’t nod along eagerly. She’d imagined each of them in that moment—Rylie and her frizzy hair sticking out at the sides of her part, Elsie and her gleaming, whitening-stripped teeth, Cove and the freckles that so erratically hopped along her brown cheeks—as something more sinister than those small, helpless woodland creatures they’d met in the forest before they saw God in the moon. She’d imagined her roommates as a tight but ferocious pack of wolves, and when she went to bed that night she locked her door, knowing they might find a way through anyway.

            Of course, Rylie identifying as a bunny wasn’t the first alarming thing to come from their collaborative trip a few weeks prior. There was Cove and her newfound obsession with Band-Aids. How they were crafted specifically to cover up all the parts of us exposed. How maybe that sort of thing wasn’t natural. She’d taken all the Band-Aids in the apartment, the off-brands too, and lit them on fire on the porch. Then there was Elsie and her sudden fear of the dark. Nothing good lingered there anymore, she’d said. The big light in her room stayed on from that point forward, no matter the hour.

            But when it came to Nyla, she hadn’t changed at all. She never wanted to try the stupid drugs with them in the first place, but the others were convinced it’d loosen her up. Make her more fun and lively. More aware of everyone and everything around her. They didn’t understand that she was, always had been, painfully aware of everyone and everything around her.

            Now in the living room, her roommates each staring at her for some kind of bunny-stamped approval that would never come, she remembered the way her hair looked in the reflection of the water when the stem kicked in. She couldn’t remember if she’d actually talked to it out loud or not. If the river really had heard all her convoluted, psychedelic confessions that night. That might’ve been in her head. The others were so preoccupied with the rabbits and the sway of the grass that neither would they have noticed if she had. She remembered, though, telling herself she was sorry for something. Her face in the water rippled down the middle, right between the bridge of her nose and her giant, muddy eyes. It sang something back in response to her apology, a hymn she couldn’t stop humming until the effects wore off and she’d returned to seeing her reflection as nothing else.

            “Sometimes I feel like a bunny, too,” said Cove.

            Nyla snapped out of her thoughts. Elsie stared ahead, stayed silent but nodded her head rhythmically as if in direct tune with all the hidden notes of the conversation.

            “What?” Nyla shifted uncomfortably in her spot on the couch beside everyone. “Are you guys, like, on them again?” For some reason, she’d had trouble saying the word ‘shrooms now, like it was some sort of ancient curse.

            “On what?” Cove asked, brows hysterically furrowed.

            “On what?” Elsie repeated, then repeated again.

            Nyla sighed. “You know what I’m talking about. Mushrooms. That stuff did something weird to you guys.”

            Cove stood and began to pace around their tiny coffee table. She hit her calf once on the edge after a few complete circles, but reacted to none. Elsie kept on staring at the wall, except now she was chewing her nails furiously and squinting her eyes until they looked chubby and wrinkled underneath.

            “Mushrooms.” Rylie shook her head quickly, the way she often did when Nyla spoke an ounce of truth around them. “You mean God. We’re not on drugs, Nyla. We all saw him and that sort of thing changes you.”

            Maybe they were on something stronger now. Maybe they’d all agreed Nyla was acting like a freak that night, crying over her own face while they stroked the fur of mammals and prayed to a rock in the sky, and now they’d moved on to crack or meth or both without telling her and they were planning to kill her and sell all her underwear on eBay for more crack or meth or both.

            Or maybe they really were bunnies now, and the moon didn’t love Nyla enough to give her the same grace. Maybe what she’d heard in her reflection that night wasn’t a hymn, but an omen that came from deep within the shallow river. Maybe her friends were bunnies now, and she was the wolf among them.

            “You should try it again, Nyla,” Elsie said. “You might find something different this time.” She twitched her nose up and down, a habit she’d long possessed that Nyla was only now making real note of.

            Something different, Nyla thought. She walked past them and into her room, trying hard not to look too much like a riddle. Everything was always a riddle to them now. She pushed in the lock on the knob as quietly as she could. When she fell back on her bed, untamed hair hanging over the sides of her pillow, she turned over to the mirror on her night stand. She didn’t know who she saw that night. It wasn’t a bunny, but it wasn’t exactly a girl either.

            Outside of her window, the moon was full and uncovered by clouds. Nyla closed her eyes and drifted into a quiet, Godlit sleep. For once, she just wanted to be what everyone else was.

---

Ellory Skye is a young writer from Texas, where she recently earned her BFA in creative writing. She writes fiction about and for the peculiar, often with a speculative touch.

Jeremy Steen

Parasite Logic

            Under acoustic tiles and flickering fluorescent lights, Douglas inserted his earpods and began typing. His task was to track, monitor, collate, decode, and, most importantly, assess the presence and level of threat this program posed to the American people. As he transcribed the episode—a long, rambling reassessment of abolitionist John Brown and his actions during the Pottawatomie massacre and the raid on Harper’s Ferry—he wondered how these voices had come to find themselves on The Agency’s radar. They were enthusiastic leftists, lampooners of the mainstream media and its mouthpieces, aggressive critics of US policy, both foreign and domestic, but none of this should have been too great a concern. Young people had always been intoxicated by extreme leftist ideology, believing it possessed some intrinsic magic capable of conjuring a more just world. Such was the ineffectual and immaterial nature of the fire of youth.

            But fissures were forming in the thin membrane between chaos and social order. An empire in decline turns inward, carves up its body, removes all suspicious masses no matter how benign they be.

*

            Listening off the clock wasn’t required, but after consuming over six hundred episodes of the podcast—an estimated twelve-hundred hours of content—Douglas found himself wanting to hear the voices at home, in the car, everywhere. To shake off this phantom bond, he would watch clips of ex-Navy SEALS unboxing survival gear or read Ayn Rand’s Wikipedia page for the hundredth time. The process was embarrassing, necessary, and mostly effective.

            The voices belonged to three men who—if their profile pictures were to be believed—possessed beards and bodies in various stages of failure. They were, at most, two years younger than Douglas but their appearance was the inverse of his own. Long-distance running kept him lean but years of deskwork had rendered his complexion pallid and put rings around his eyes. The thumbnail images on their social media accounts did not depict the voices as paragons of wellness—they were weatherbeaten and jowly—but their eyes were bright, alive.

*

            Every Monday, Douglas’s desk mate, a short, stocky man named Colin, would recount his weekend activities: live music, the cinema, dinner parties, bourbon tastings. Douglas would respond by describing the process of replanting a tree in his backyard or caulking the shower in the guest bathroom. The details would multiply and expand until the most basic task became an intricate web of minutiae; a minefield littered with bombs of boredom.

            When they first started working together, Colin had asked in earnest about Douglas’s personal life. He still asked but his tone had become mocking with Douglas’s responses growing more longwinded and intricate in return, both of them waiting to see who would end the conversation first. Outside of this anodyne game of chicken, they rarely spoke. Douglas often wondered if they hated each other.

*

            At his kitchen island cooktop, Douglas listened to the voices as he prepared the next day’s lunch. His son, Charlie, sat across from him, face flat, eyes trained on an iPad, as the light from the tablet flickered across his face as if it were a movie screen. Maybe someone somewhere was watching this show, YouTube Reflected on American Child’s Forehead, through the tablet’s camera. In fact, this someone could be one of Douglas’s coworkers. The Agency still had a division for listening and watching, though the advent of social media had rendered this mode of spy craft mostly obsolete. Americans were all too happy to inform on themselves, sharing with the world their every thought and impulse, criminal or otherwise. The older agents bemoaned this development. There was no thrill of flipping an informant, no need to build a profile and identify weaknesses, no need to remove fingernails or attach genitals to car batteries. It was all there, out in the open. There was no ink. There was no paper. There was no blood.

            Since the divorce, this was how Douglas and Charlie interacted: two strangers immersed in separate yet adjacent zones of content. This arrangement didn’t seem to trouble either of them. In fact, Douglas was quite content as he continued his nightly ritual: pan fry the chicken breast, steam the vegetables, pack a lunch, listen to the voices, build a life.

            Sharon, his ex-wife, entered the kitchen and began speaking. Her mouth moved but the sound was displaced. She pointed at him then at the side of her head. He studied her soft face and blue eyes and realized the words echoing in his head didn’t belong to her. The pods were still planted in the soil of his ears, roots burrowed deep into his brain until their roping fibers intertwined in the center of his skull, an invasive species, durable, impossible to kill. Then he remembered: Today was Sunday, time for her to take Charlie, extricate him from Douglas’s mausoleum. He dug the pods out of his ears and their noise cancelling effect evaporated. The sounds of the frying pan, the AC unit, his ex-wife, rushed into the vacuum, replacing the voices with a tidal wave of right angles and blurry static. He rubbed the pods’ waxy tips with the pads of his fingers.

            “Can you hear me now?” Sharon asked.

            “I believe so. You sound like you.”

            “Is that a problem?”

            “Not necessarily.”

            “Hilarious.”

            Douglas flipped the chicken breast, noticed Charlie was gone.

            “Charlie says you’ve stopped talking,” she said.

            “I’m talking to you right now.”

            “Is that how you want to play this?”

            “We’re playing?”

            She took a deep breath. “I don’t want to fight with you.”

            Douglas jiggled the loose pods in his hand like a pair of dice then returned them to their charging case. “I know. I’m sorry. I’m being immature.”

            She smiled then her eyes darted to the side. “He said the last time he was here you only spoke to him to say goodnight. That’s two words over an entire weekend.”

            “I said it to him Friday and Saturday. That makes four.”

            “Goodnight. It’s one word.”

            He studied the browned, bubbled surface of the skinless chicken breast. Words had recently lost much of their visual substance and become sound alone. Become. Be come. Alone. A lone. Goodnight. Good night. He couldn’t tell anymore. Any more?

            “Tell him I’m sorry. I’ll try to think of something to talk about.”

            “It shouldn’t be that hard.”

            “It’s not. I promise.”

            She exited the kitchen, the house, taking their son with her. Still at the stove, spiking sound waves stabbed at Douglas’s naked eardrums. The sizzling meat, the whirring exhaust fan, some phantom thumping from deep inside the house; all of it howled at him. He planted the pods back in his ears and the voices returned. Their laughter, three voices laughing, a smooth cluster of joy. Douglas relaxed into the rhythm. He was happy to be among friends.  

*

            Colin and Douglas met Vincent in the conference room for their weekly debrief. Looking around, every surface was blank, distracting, its lack of décor a rigid optical violence. Vincent sat back in his chair, shirt open at the collar, sleeves rolled up, hair slicked back, eyes sharp and penetrating. He had recently been named director of the Central Texas field office and had taken a special interest in the Podcast Division. By Agency standards he was relatively young but amongst the Millennial analysts under his supervision he represented a tactile link to the old days. He spent his time stalking the office like a leopard, looking over shoulders and dropping sly remarks, his body long and lithe, a weapon honed while still in the field. His professional record was classified but consensus held he had more than a few bodies to his name. Douglas imagined him sweaty and tan, chomping on a cigar, standing next to a pile of burning corpses deep in some jungle somewhere. Colin was in obvious thrall.

            “What do you guys have for me?” Vincent said. “Colin, you start

            “OK, I’ve been listening to Burrito Supreme Court. There’s been some talk about term limits, court packing, that sort of thing. They keep skating around calls for ‘direct action’ but nothing substantive so far.”

            “That’s all?”

            Colin shrugged. “I can’t make ‘em foment revolution, boss.”

            “You’re right. That’s not our department.” Vincent turned to Douglas. “Anything promising on your end?”

            He shifted in his seat. “Gut Quantifier is static: dick jokes, arcane historical information, squishy Marxist/Leninist politics.”

            “Based on your previous reports, the big brains at Langley are of the opinion their politics are not squishy. In fact, the concern is they are quite solid. Coherent.”

            “They have good days and bad. Ernst Röhm does seem to come up a lot.”

            “Who’s that?” Colin asked.

            “A gay Nazi,” Douglas said.

            “I thought they were all gay.”

            “You are misinformed.”

            Vincent leaned forward, his posture making an incremental shift from managerial to predatory. “Is there anything else?”

            Douglas ran his finger across his phone’s glass surface. The text from his notes app flew across the screen.

            “There has been some talk about Forty Man.”

            Colin groaned. “Jesus. They’re still on that shit.”

            “What are they saying?” Vincent asked.

            Douglas checked his notes again. “They’re calling it a political assassination.”

            Forty Man was a thirty-nine-year-old, self-proclaimed anarchist who fired on an FBI agent during a street protest earlier that year. A manhunt ensued and, in less than twelve hours, Forty Man was shot dead in the living room of his apartment in Northeast Portland. All evidence indicated he had surrendered before his body was riddled with bullets: the closest object within reach was the remnants of a 40-ounce bottle of malt liquor that a police bullet had shattered, spraying the scene with alcohol and broken glass. In the intervening days, the oversized bottles became a protest symbol, with hundreds of videos posted by black-clad, dyed-hair dropouts attempting to consume the entire forty ounces in one minute and twelve seconds—the time elapsed between police arriving on the scene and Forty Man taking his last breath. The voices linked the death to an alleged assassination campaign targeting anti-fascist organizers, carried out by local law enforcement organizations at the direction of unknown forces within the Justice Department, or perhaps, even The Agency. Around the office, this theory was roundly dismissed but it had a way of sticking in Douglas’s mind, a pink piece of gum lodged in the crevasses of his gray matter.          

            “They’re saying he’s a martyr,” Vincent said.

            “That’s more or less correct.”

            Vincent wrote on the whiteboard: Gut Quantifier — Threat Level Elevated.

            Douglas spoke too quickly. “Do you think that’s necessary?”

            “Martyrs demand retaliation. Besides, aren’t these the same dinguses who said that when they ‘take over’ they’ll direct the military to execute every New York Times and Washington Post opinion writer who objects to having their salaries expropriated and distributed to homeless mothers in Oakland?”

            “That was parody.”

            “Whose side are you on?” Colin asked.

            Vincent tapped his marker against the white board for emphasis. “It’s always parody. They’re just comedians. Problem is these clowns have shit for jokes.”

            “I’m just trying to make sure we don’t allocate resources where they aren’t needed.”

            “We’ll let the big brains at Langley decide.” Vincent slinked around the desk and put his hands on Douglas’s shoulders, giving him a tight squeeze.

            “Good work, Douglas. This is promising.”

*

            Douglas stretched for his Sunday jog, feeling guilty for barely seeing his son the night before. Charlie had played videogames in his bedroom, while Douglas locked himself in his study, a tiny room that barely accommodated his desk and computer. He had originally meant to spend a few minutes doing some prep for the coming week—organizing various transcripts and research documents—but he found himself playing Solitaire and listening to the voices until five hours had slipped away, joining the graveyard of time he had killed, murdered, butchered. When he went to say goodnight, the light was out.

            He tied his shoes, adjusted his heartrate monitor, then allowed the rubber tips to enter his ear canals. This usually passed without reflection but occasionally the sensation was alarming. Not the sensation but the thought behind the sensation, the thought of his orifices being penetrated by an external object molded and fabricated for the sole purpose of entering his body and filling it with sound, information. He put feet to pavement and began moving through his neighborhood, the flat gray only interrupted by sparse trees and flashes of green lawns in between the many yards of caliche and cacti. This was the suburbs’ response to water rationing and extreme heat—green had become a status symbol. This observation was embarrassingly banal. He would need better content for The OSS Feed (or OSS on the RSS, he couldn’t decide)—a podcast of his own he’d recently begun fantasizing about. It would be comprised of his observations and commentary as a former spy turned leftist politico. He hadn’t yet cultivated the requisite knowledge or political opinions—as far as he could tell this would require massive amounts of reading, something there wasn’t time for—but he was working on his banter, his cadence.

            After a few months of hosting and producing The OSS Feed, he would be invited onto Gut Quantifier, Douglas was sure of this. The interview would go so well, they’d offer him a recurring guest spot, maybe even fourth mic.

            Voice One: So, you really spend eight hours a day locked in a little room, listening to podcasts?

            Voice Two: Sounds like absolute hell. I’d rather have an adult circumcision than listen to any podcast.

            Douglas: Well, guys, my job sucks shit. I’ll admit that.

            Voice Two: Sounds like A Clockwork Orange crossed with Office Space.

            Voice One: More like Dilbert meets Salo.

            Douglas: Haha. But seriously, I actually love your show. I’ve been assigned to others that are, well, I guess I would call them punishing. But, yeah, I love listening to you guys.

            Voice Three: But you’re not listening. You’re spying. You’re scanning, picking things apart. Looking for subliminal messages. Communist mind control.

            Douglas: That was my assignment. But you guys changed things for me.

            Voice One: How’s that?

            Douglas: You showed me a different world. A world where our lives don’t have to be consumed by work. I never thought of myself as being ‘political’ but listening to your show, I don’t know, my eyes are open.

            “What are you talking about?”

            “The media teaches us to hate and fear each other based on political party, race, gender, sexuality all that shit. They want us divided so we can’t see what really matters. They don’t want us to see that we’re all workers and that we have to organize along class lines. We have to unite. Seize the means of production.”

            “Doug, what in the world are you talking about?”

            The air conditioning gave him a chill. The noise rushed in as he removed his earpods. He was standing in his living room. His shirt and shorts clung to him, sweaty from the summer heat. But he was cold. And his ex-wife was sitting on the couch, their son next to her. They were both looking at him. They were unamused.

*

            Cars flew past as he entered the freeway. He knew he needed distance from the voices, so he scrolled through terrestrial radio stations, the alien options grating and distracting. The Tejano station bounced with comforting rhythm but the voices in between songs were unintelligible to Douglas, his complete inability to learn any language other than English perhaps one of the reasons he’d never risen in the ranks of The Agency; there was always a need for someone who could manifest terror in a foreign tongue. The rock—or pop or whatever they were—stations were even worse, either graveyards of nostalgia or unintelligible messages describing a future that would never come. Between bouts of overly compressed, thumping bass and tinny treble, the DJs’ voices clanged with thundering stupidity as they discussed shitting one’s pants while hungover or locking oneself out of the house while drunk. Without thinking, Douglas caved, switching the stereo from RADIO to BLUETOOTH. After a few seconds, the car’s speakers and his phone were joined by an invisible artery, carrying the voices Douglas wanted to hear.

            Voice Two: Dude, I’m so tired. Some fucking asshole was outside my apartment blaring his horn all night. I think I heard gunshots, too?

            Voice Three: That’s America, baby. My neighbor upstairs was blasting fucking Beastie Boys until three a.m. That’s what happens when you live in an atomized, alienated society. You turn into an absolute lummox with sub-fratboy music taste.

            Voice One: You guys think we’re being psyopped? I could swear someone was following me on the train last night.

            Voice Two: Plenty of our listeners think we’re the psyop.

            Voice Three: Maybe that’s it. Maybe we’ve been doing this so long, we’ve finally gone through the looking glass. We’ve psyopped ourselves.

            A driver leaned out his window, brandishing his middle finger. Douglas jolted back to reality then hit the accelerator, joining the highway traffic, adapting himself and his vehicle to the blinding Texas speed limit. Moments later he hit congestion. In the stillness, he noticed the voices were still talking but he had missed everything. All he could think about were black helicopters and white torture, Vincent and his pile of burning bodies. He tried to clear his mind, silence his thoughts. It didn’t work.

*

            Vincent’s biceps strained against his shiny dress shirt as he raised a Styrofoam cup to his lips and blew across the opening in the plastic lid. He savored a single sip then folded his hands in his lap. “Of course, we’re psyopping them.”

            “I didn’t think we used that term,” Douglas said. “Officially.”

            “It serves a function. Colloquially.”

            “You should be stoked, man,” Colin said.

            “This is correct. I sent your report up the food chain. We’ve been authorized to escalate MKDingus as we see fit. We’re going to take the fuckers down.”

            “MKDingus?”

            “The operation. Are you feeling all right, Douglas?”

            His back was wet. His mouth was dry.

            “I’m just a bit surprised,” he said.

            “They make north of $300K annually off subscriptions alone,” Vincent said. “They crack wise about killing state senators, talk shit about our economic system, our foreign policy. They excite people. They speak in a secret code, a hidden language, a language of vibes. Look around, check your social media or whatever. We are fighting a war of vibes. Vibes are more important than politics. The vibes dictate the politics. He who controls the vibes, controls the minds. He who controls the minds, controls everything.”

            Douglas struggled to find his words. “But we must have something better to do. There must be real threats somewhere?”

            “If there were, that information would be classified for someone with your security clearance. Think about it like you’re one of the big brains at Langley. With their revenue stream it would be unbelievably easy for these dickheads to fund real militants.”

            “Is there any evidence of this?”

            “Whose side are you on?” Colin bit into a chocolate donut. The crumbs filled the edges of his teeth and gums.

            Vincent lifted his coffee cup to his lips, stopped. “I direct you to my previous comment regarding said information and your security clearance.”

            “But this is my assignment.”

            Vincent smiled. “And you’re doing a great job. Keep it up.”

*

            Then, suddenly, the third voice disappeared. Douglas panfried his chicken breast, listening closely for clues. The remaining voices spoke of their comrade’s exhaustion, fatigue, paranoia. Douglas translated this into a breakdown of the nervous variety, bringing back childhood memories of his mother’s long absences. She would sit alone in her bedroom, nothing compelling enough to extract her from oblivion. Douglas stood at the cooktop and flipped the pale chicken breast, listening while the remaining voices tried to reconstruct their three-dimensional zone of communication, but with the bottom of the triangle gone, they spun off into the grey distance, lost beyond the noiseless bubble.

            The voices kept guard over their personal information, creating a barrier between themselves and their audience. One of their running bits was making fun of their fans, calling them “hogs” or potential mass shooters. In this construction, their listeners lived with their parents or multiple roommates while posting inane, humorless quips, fancying themselves unappreciated intellectuals but being nothing more than degenerated pseuds. As a savvy listener, Douglas knew he wasn’t implicated in this; he was in on the joke and therefore above the fray.

            But the third voice’s disappearance had created a vacuum, a noticeable vulnerability. While he respected their need for privacy, Douglas’s occupation meant he had a responsibility to do something. In The Agency, there were rumors of targeted energy rays, convoluted poisons, remote hypnotization, a thousand different methods to force a subject’s mind to rebel against itself. He thought again of Vincent, his cigar, the jungle, the bodies.

            The voices needed his help.

            Douglas went to flip the chicken breast then spiked it into the pan. He brandished the spatula like a knife, tip pointing downward. The pan bounced against the flat surface of the induction burner as he stabbed the hunk of pale flesh repeatedly.

            He looked up. Charlie was watching him, face illegible, an expression that could be read as either analytical or terrified.

            Douglas tried to speak, to say something to the boy, but, before he could find the words, Charlie disappeared. Douglas looked at the pile of smashed chicken and tried to name the mess. If he could call it anything other than waste, he could transform it, shape it into something worth saving.

*

            He worked all night, reading transcripts and leveraging ISP data to triangulate the damaged voice’s location. By morning, he concluded that the damaged voice was confined in a psychiatric hospital in Midtown Manhattan. Frantically, he collected his son’s belongings then drove him to Sharon’s house. On the way, he played the voices through the stereo, something he never did with Charlie in the car. The boy didn’t seem to notice, locked in his own world of predatory gameshow hosts and breathless, wide-eyed influencers. Douglas pulled up to the front walkway and unlocked the door. It was Saturday, a day early. For this he would be punished. Charlie said nothing and exited the vehicle. From a certain perspective, their shared silence was admirable: efficient, streamlined, simple.

            Remaining parked in front of his ex-wife’s house, Douglas took out his phone and booked a flight to New York City. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d traveled. Even given the dire circumstances, he was excited.

*

            His jaw dropped as the neon apocalypse of Times Square exploded before him. Overstimulated by visual information, he played an old episode of Gut Quantifier, chosen at random. The voices, all of them healthy and untouched, guided him as the sidewalks opened up. He descended into a mass of bodies, surrounded by trinkets and hot dogs, noise and light. He pushed the pods in deeper, shutting out as much of the environment as possible. People yelled at him. He didn’t care.

            On the plane he’d realized his mistake. His partnership with the voices wouldn’t begin when Douglas guested on Gut Quantifier; he would first invite the damaged voice onto The OSS Feed, after the voice’s full recovery, of course. They would discuss Havana Syndrome, plots to kill Castro, The Manson Family and MKUltra, Dr. Jolly West and Jack Ruby. Together they would solve history.

            But something was wrong. The voices were being interrupted. No matter how deep Douglas pushed the pods, there were outside signals, sonic shrapnel bludgeoning the sphere.

            Stepping into the street, a taxicab almost ran over his foot. The horn blared, blurring his vision and causing his fingers to tingle. The voices changed timbre and switched positions as a drunk, red-faced tourist with Colin’s voice screamed in Douglas’s face. Colin asked about Douglas’s plans for the weekend, if he had any intention of seeing his friends. Douglas said no, he didn’t need to see his friends—they were with him always, in his ears and in his heart.

            He looked down and the street twisted into a spiraling staircase. Suddenly, he was a hundred floors up, looking over the railing. Through the pods, Sharon and Charlie spoke in unison, reminding him of his failures. He countered: silent or not, unlike his own father, Douglas was always there, always present. No one could take that from him.

            Someone pushed him from behind and he shut his eyes and fell into the spiral. His body flipped through the ether as his surroundings fractalized and dissolved. He fell for hours then landed on his back, crashing onto starched sheets and a firm mattress. Above him, the darkness laced itself together, creating a ceiling of acoustic tiles and florescent lights. Somehow, he was there, in the room, in the psychiatric hospital. He could see the door. He could hear voices on the other side. The door opened and Vincent and Colin stood next to the bed. They said the project had been a success. They conceded Douglas’s involvement was regrettable, but The Agency would find a way to make it up to him.

            Without the pods to protect him, their voices blended together. Static poured in from every angle and collided behind his eyes. This created bright colors and geometric shapes. These were immaculate creations, completely new, unspoiled. They had no name and for this Douglas was grateful.

---

Jeremy Steen lives and writes in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and has previously published work in the Oxford American, New World Writing Quarterly, The Rejoinder, Short Edition, among others.  

Jon Willer

Submit to Mistress Conestoga!

            Dr. Baize was anastomosing an ileum to the strains of Enigma's Return to Innocence 12”. The 24-bit FLAC vinyl rip was one of the crown jewels of his worldbeat / new age music collection. He refused to enter an abdominal cavity without something civilized to listen to.

            Soon, he thought with relish, it would be time to suture the ileum to the anus. Dr. Baize loved anastomosing ilea. Truth be told, he loved anastomosing things period. He was enamored of a Whipple procedure. He would flip over a Roux-en-Y choledochojejunostomy.

            Opposite him suctioning reddish peritoneal fluid was an intern whose name Dr. Baize understood to be Deet. Brown-skinned, Deet smelled of cloves and had a tendency to giggle when nervous. Deet had one of the all-time awful nervous giggles, in Dr. Baize's estimation.

            Retractors laid bare the spleen, soft and purple, shaped like a flip-flop. “Now, palpate,” said Dr. Baize.

            Deet giggled and squeezed the spleen. Dr. Baize stayed the brown fingers. “Palpate, I said. You are not at a farmer's market. You are not testing the spleen for ripeness.”

            “Sorry, sorry.” Deet giggled and squeezed the spleen.

            “Hemostat,” said Dr. Baize.

            Dr. Baize raised the hemostat high.

~

            “'Giggling idiot. What did I tell you,'” the Chair of the hospital Ethics Committee read off the transcript. “'Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.'”

            “I acknowledge saying it, if that's what you're after,” said Dr. Baize. From across the U-shaped table, Deet glared and rubbed his bandaged knuckles.

~

            “There was I believe it was a Roman philosopher—perhaps it was Marcus Aurelius—who said something to the effect of: If the teacher switcheth the errant pupil with the rule, does not that pupil switcheth itself? Himself, herself?”

            “Let me make sure I'm understanding,” said a Committee member. “Your defense before this committee is 'Stop hitting yourself'?”

            The hearing was still very much anyone's game, Dr. Baize felt.

~

            “You know what? I have absolutely no problem with that.” Dr. Baize threw up his hands. “Deet, I'm sorry for hitting you with a hemostat. Okay?”

            “My name is Deep, you asshole. Deet is an insect repellent.”

            The odds were not improving in his favor, Dr. Baize had to admit.

~

            Albuquerque Presbyterian's Ethics Committee ruled a two-week suspension without pay. There were two sequelae of this injury, one chronic and one acute:

1. Contusions to Dr. Baize's worldview. Dr. Baize considered his practice to be highly faith-oriented. He frequently blogged about the intersection between Calvinism and health care on LinkedIn. His ancestors were French Huguenots and, according to the saliva he'd mailed one of those DNA companies, had basically kick-started the whole Huguenot thing in France.
    The Elect were not meant to face formal disciplinary proceedings. Formal disciplinary proceedings were for reprobates. Obviously he was aware, per the Canons of Dort, that he was to seek the fruits of election within himself; but on what good the fucking fruits were when a man's name could be dragged through the mud over bruising and hairline fractures to the hamate and two metacarpals, Dort was silent.
    Dr. Christian Baize understood himself qua surgeon to be an instrument of the I in TULIP, Irresistible Grace (cf. Hardcore, 1979, dir. Paul Schrader): No matter what gastrointestinal thunderclap might befall God's chosen, he ineluctably dragged them back to pristine health—staunching the hemorrhagic varix, un-telescoping the intussusception, tugging free the fecal impaction or bezoar. So how come no grace showered on him?

2. Hypovolemia of funds. Less existential but considerably more urgent, as the World Elite was maxed, the Sapphire Reserve was maxed, the Venture X was maxed, and tribute was due to Miss Fanny on the first of the month.

~

            Dr. Baize was—let's all be adults about this, please—in love with an online findomme. Miss Fanny Alger (@ObeyMissFanny on X; @the_miss_fanny, @miss_fanny_backup, and @miss_fanny_reels on Instagram) insisted she was not a tradwife but did, for example, have ready access to buttermilk. She tended to wear a gingham apron. She “put up” jams and viscid chutneys. She could explain what a poultice was.

            He discovered her while browsing the “footwear” tag on Clips2Watch via the below listing:

Jerk Your Vaxxed Micro-Cock for My Filthy Mule!

$12.95 | 8:07 | MP4

Look at you, a pathetic pawn of the medical-industrial complex... addicted to Anthony Fauci AND feet! It's a miracle you can even “Come”-irnaty with that tiny “Spike”-vax (because we both know you haven't got any Johnson & Johnson 😉) Now rub til it's raw while I show you the soles of my filthy mules and this article my brother-in-law sent me about thiomersal! #muleworship #antivax #femdom #findom #domme

            After indulging in the 30-second preview and adding to cart, along with “Mormon Giantess in Temple Garments,” “Step-Sister Sacajawea Wants to Show You the Grand Tetons,” and “POV: Tetchy Schoolmarm Punishes an Armpit Sniffer,” Dr. Baize promptly disbursed. And kept on disbursing.

~

            Monthly tribute to Miss Fanny was in the amount of $200, if Dr. Baize wished to remain at the Premium Footboy tier. Even absent any income and with lines of credit exhausted, Dr. Baize felt confident in regard to swinging this expense—provided, of course, no further expenditures of size.

~

            “Look how cute!” Miss Fanny held up Her Pixel to Her webcam. It was their standing weekly Zoom call; She was showing him a gift She would like (gifts, notably, being distinct from monthly tribute), a hot fudge maker called Fudge-Chan that had gone viral on TikTok. “You simply load the ingredients into the hatch, and two servings of rich, decadent hot fudge are ready in virtually seconds.”

            Dr. Baize freely admitted that Fudge-Chan was cute. Fudge-Chan was also, however, $329.95. Before shipping.

            “It should be your life's purpose to drain your wallet for Me,” pouted Miss Fanny.

            “No arguments there,” said Dr. Baize, “it's just... Is Your Excellency familiar with a double boiler?”

            “You know I hate when you try to top from the bottom.”

            “I'm not—dammit, it's not even a separate tool unto itself, you just set a bowl over a saucepan full of simmering water and...”

            “Fudge-Chan features the same technology used by top pastry chefs,” said Miss Fanny.

            Devotion to his Goddess aside, there was no way Dr. Baize was financing the asinine contraption. Among other things, he had an unvoiced suspicion that the hot fudge maker was actually intended for her son, a homeschooled sluggard named Yarrow who lurked sometimes in the background on calls, making an erection untenable. He had questioned other recent gifts; plausibly the microscope and the balloon animal kit were intended for Her, but the dirt bike jersey (size Youth XL Husky) strained credulity.

            It was settled, then. Under no circumstances would he buy Her the hot fudge maker.

~

            “I need to make a large purchase,” Dr. Baize told his crypto broker, a Montenegrin named Bogdan (@EmperorCoinstantine on X), over Google Meet. “I'd like to sell the Screechcoin.”

            Bogdan made an ominous sound with his teeth. “The Screechcoin I can't move so easy right now.”

            “The Screechcoin is worth $70,000,” said Dr. Baize.

            “It's worth $70,000 if a buyer will pay $70,000,” said Bogdan. Bogdan explained that, neither Dustin Diamond nor Peter Engels Productions nor NBC having licensed the likeness of Screech, the coin was considered toxic, a bad litigation risk. On the exchanges, he said, the rumor was that it might be impounded and destroyed.

            “How can it be destroyed? It's on the blockchain!”

            “Don't talk to me like I'm one of your interns, man.” Bogdan sighed a crackling sigh into his headset. “Look. Brate. Nobody with his whatyoucallit—eye on the pulse?—is messing with Screechcoin right now. You need a crypto virgin. Who you know is stacking paper but doesn't do no trading?”

~

            “I'm curious... How versed are you in cryptocurrency?” Dr. Baize asked Mistress Conestoga.

            Yes, there was a second domme in Dr. Baize's life. Mistress Conestoga (@MistressConestoga on X; @serve_mistress_conestoga, @mistress_conestoga_backup, and @cones_toes_ga on Instagram) offered an immersive BDSM experience grounded in the Old West. Her basement studio, The Hoosegow, was in Nob Hill, located downstairs from a Subway and an H&R Block. (A suggestion of Sweet Onion Teriyaki blew in from the ceiling ducts on occasion.) Sometime She dressed up as Annie Oakley and shot Dr. Baize in the ass with a cap gun. Sometimes he wore a yoke for oxplay.

            Dr. Baize was able to dispel some of the common misconceptions regarding crypto. He explained how volatility could actually be a sign of ruddy good health. He exposed the half-truths behind the phrase “backed by assets.” He reviewed Her accounts with Her and found an unmissable opportunity to get in on the ground floor of Screechcoin, a nostalgic new token that was headed to the Moon.

            He recommended a figure. Mistress Conestoga scratched under Her latex bonnet. “I don't have $70,000 on hand.”

            “How about liquidating the Roth IRA?”

~

            The transfer to Her new wallet effected, Dr. Baize changed into his nappy feeling unburdened—carefree, even. “As always, I'd like to kick us off with a land acknowledgment,” said Mistress Conestoga. “We stand here today on the unceded territory of the Pueblo and Athabaskan peoples...”

            “Me no know what that is,” said Dr. Baize. “Me want ba-ba.”

            “This is eating into your hour.”

~

            “Watch. This is adorable,” said Miss Fanny. Fudge-Chan made a dainty recorded sound of straining at stool and dispensed onto Miss Fanny's Butter Brickle.

            She was so pleased that, in contravention of written policy, She ridiculed his cock for an additional 15 minutes beyond the agreed-upon hour.

~

            Mistress Conestoga was not pleased. The following week, She invited him to a Zoom call which, it was made clear, would not involve the customary sissification nor SPH (small penis humiliation), but rather “business matters.”

            Her Divine Presence joined the call from another slave's camper van. He was behind Her in the kitchenette preparing dessert in a tutu while She ate squab. “The worm called Slave Gary shot this for me,” She said, indicating the squab.

            “Good looking out, Slave Gary.” Dr. Baize flashed Gary a thumbs up. He was at pains to keep the conversation light; he had checked the value of Screechcoin and it had somewhat stabilized at 0.000000000001 cents.

            “Mistress,” laughed Gary over the bananas he was caramelizing, “remember that saddle of venison? When the hot grease spit? She had to take me to urgent care,” he told Dr. Baize.

            “Excuse Me? I didn't 'have' to do anything.” She yanked a chain tethered to some off-screen bit of Gary, who whimpered. “Certain worms are taking entirely too many liberties, including with My retirement fund, which I didn't piss on half the C-levels in the Southwest to see go down the drain.”

            “I was just about to broach that, Mistress,” said Dr. Baize. “There are indicators that we're on the cusp of a bull market.”

            “Cool! So take back your worthless coins and give Me back My money.”

            “Trust me, you don't want that. Time, not timing, is the only way to capitalize on gains.”

            “Gains? It's worth a trillionth of a—” There was a sickening gritty crunch. Mistress Conestoga gripped Her cheek. “Oh fuck. Oh god. I fink I broke a toof.”

            “Like a tooth tooth?” said Gary.

            She spat out a nub of dull metal. “Oh my god, the buckshot.”

            “Birdshot,” said Gary.

            “Shut the fuck up.” She yawned at the webcam. Her mouth filled Dr. Baize's MacBook screen. “Can you thee it?”

            Dr. Baize inspected. “I can't quite... You need to lean... I mean, Mistress, unworthy as I am, would You do me the honor of...”

            “Shut up!” Her uvula loomed.

            “Do You still have the piece that broke off?”

            “Oh god, what if I swallowed it?” She searched with Her fork through the gastrique.

            “Put it in milk! Put it in milk!” screamed Gary.

            “I think that's just for whole teeth!” screamed Dr. Baize.

            Mistress Conestoga slammed Her laptop shut.

~

            “Dr. Baize, this is beginning to feel like déjà vu,” read the Ethics Committee Chair from her prepared remarks. “Less than a week back from suspension and you're appearing before us again.

            “This latest incident marks strike two for you with respect to violence on hospital grounds. As such, and in light of our zero tolerance policy, you may consider this your final warning.

            “Albuquerque Presbyterian Hospital is a prestigious institution.” This much was true; APH had been a pioneer in the use of mercury for treating syphilis, and had helped lead the fight against EMTALA. “Assaulting two process servers in the course of their duties is absolutely unacceptable.” That part was unmitigated bollocks.

~

            The facts as alleged by APH versus objective reality:

1. Approached by Individual #1 in the cafeteria, Dr. Baize falsely purported to be preparing for surgery, stating he had “scrubbed in” and “[was] sterile.” There had been zero mention of surgical prep. That was strictly an imputation on the part of the process server. If he had asked (instead of childishly continuing to shove forward his little envelope), Dr. Baize could have explained that any scrubbing was in anticipation of a lunchtime fajita bowl.

2. Dr. Baize proceeded to shove Individual #1. As a result, Individual #1 fell against a waste receptacle, causing bruising and epistaxis. Interesting how a simple finger to the chest—and not a very forceful one at that—could be transformed into a “shove.” (Similarly, characterizing a garden-variety nosebleed as “epistaxis” was just plain dirty pool.)

3. Upon exiting the cafeteria, Dr. Baize became involved in a parking-lot altercation with Individual #2, ultimately rolling up the fingers of Individual #2's left hand in the power window of his (Dr. Baize's) Lexus. “Parking-lot altercation.” Again you can see the warping of words to paint an everyday disagreement between adults as something tawdry. And, at the end of the day, what was “Get your grubby fingers out of the window before you lose them” but the most forthright and therefore the most genuinely respectful way of saying “I don't wish to continue this conversation”?

~

            He had ample reason to avoid service of process, beginning with the phone call of two nights prior. The heavily intoxicated voice picking its way over words (and requiring repeated clarification that it was Doctor Baize) proved that of Slave Gary from the camper van. Tricia Fingerhut DBA Mistress Conestoga was suing him for negligence in (a) serving squab “riddled with” birdshot, (b) failing to warn him of the “inherent risks of consuming squab,” and (c) causing “career-jeopardizing” injury to her upper right lateral incisor, the veneer she had elected over an extraction having ruined several clients' immersion and led to lost bookings (twarn't how it were done on the trail!).

            She sought damages in the amount of $70,000. Regarding the familiar figure, Dr. Baize kept counsel. “You sound quite upset,” he said instead.

            “I am. I'm upset I'm being sued. I'm upset it's the Goddess I worship that's suing me. I'm upset her name is 'Tricia Fingerhut.' My god, it's like seeing your teacher at the supermarket.” Gary made a gagging noise. “Listen. You have to testify for me.”

            “Absolutely not.”

            “You have to,” Gary begged. “You have to tell them she was distracted arguing over your stupid Saved by the Bell coin and not watching what she was eating.”

            “All best wishes, Slave Gary,” said Dr. Baize, “but I prefer not to get involved.”

            “You don't get to call me that! That is a private pet name!” shrieked Slave Gary. “And you know what? I think you do prefer to get involved.”

            The zoomed-in screenshot Gary texted was taken from mistress-conestoga.com/gallery. You could not make out the features of the shirtless man spread-eagled on a wagon wheel, for reasons immediately obvious to any viewer. You could, however, identify the adobe-colored object clipped to his belt as an APH lanyard. And you could, by zooming further, retrieve a face and a name.

            “You think hospibble let you keep reaching into people's guts when they see you with a face full of that?” Gary bugled into the phone.

            Messy as it was, there was nothing inherently ethical or unethical about the tableau. All the same, it was exactly the sort of thing that APH in all its Comstockery would arrogate itself license to condemn and punish.

            “All this could have been avoided,” said Dr. Baize. “It's just a pity she wasn't paying closer attention to the squab.”

            “Star witness!” said Gary, and belched.

~

            Mistress Conestoga struck him as unusually aloof during their session the next day. To be fair, it was an ignore fetish scenario wherein She did the Wordle while he worshiped Her soles; nonetheless, you can tell when someone is checked out. “Heard you plan to testify on behalf of Gary,” She said with practiced casualness at the end of the hour.

            “I'm afraid I'm caught in the cogs of the judicial system,” said Dr. Baize.

            “Right, right... the cogs.” She lifted his chin with Her instep. “Let Me simplify matters for you. If you take the stand for Gary, I'm sending a couple guys around to your house. They're going to have you eating out of a tube.”

            “Okay, salamander,” said Dr. Baize. Salamander was the safe word. “I told You: I'm not into forced bi and I'm not into force-feeding. I feel like boundaries are being disregarded.”

            “No, that's an actual threat,” said Mistress Conestoga. “If you fuck up this payout for Me, I will have meth-heads come break your bones.”

            “Noted,” squeaked Dr. Baize.

~

            Of course, a truly special and meaningful way to show his devotion—especially if he wasn't equipped at this time to reimburse the $70K—would be to testify on Her behalf at the trial.

            “It just seems a shame,” said Dr. Baize, “that he couldn't have checked the squab more thoroughly for pellets. Why would he tell You it was safe to eat?”

            “Not bad,” said Mistress Conestoga. “In fact, I think we have just enough time for a round of ballbusting.”

~

            “If I help out the one I'll lose my job,” Dr Baize told Bogdan, “and if I help out the other I'll be beaten senseless.” He shifted the steam-in-bag frozen corn on his lap. “I'm between Scylla and Charybdis.”

            “They're Albanians?” said Bogdan.

            In the crypto broker's opinion, it was no time to mope. He shared his screen and pulled up a line graph with a jagged upward trajectory. “Streepcoin, man! Gotta get you in on the ground floor!”

            “I thought they were impounded.”

            “Streep, Streep,” said Bogdan. “Think Mamma Mia.”

            “Streepcoin,” said Dr. Baize pensively. “This presents the same issue, though, that we ran into with the Screechcoin, does it not?”

            Meryl was considered to be less of a litigation risk, Bogdan explained. When Dr. Baize protested that he could not afford to buy in, citing his ongoing liquidity crisis, Bogdan cut him off, shaking his fingers as if they were overrun by ants. “Hey, hey. Opušteno. We'll just get you set up as a broker, man. That's where the real money is anyway. Commissions!”

            Bogdan dismissed Dr. Baize's reservations regarding the time commitment with the same ants gesture. “We'll get you licensed in Tuvalu. Fully online. Two business days, tops.”

            “Tuvalu?”

            “Island chain,” said Bogdan, “in the Pacific. Exports frozen fish and telephones.” A Tuvaluan license, Bogdan assured him, was as valid as any other broker's license. “You get that license, you find a buyer with cash to burn... it's like printing money.” He reclined under his Evangelion poster, hands clasped behind his head, looking like the very portrait of ease.

~

            In service of getting Streepcoin in front of Miss Fanny as rapidly as possible, Dr. Baize asked Gemini to design the PowerPoint. It was admittedly a little rough and ready. “What's a 'croin'?” Miss Fanny asked in response to the title slide.

            “Surely from context clues you can... Sorry! Sorry, just bubbling over with excitement regarding this opportunity.” He walked Her through the impressive highs Streepcoin had reached in recent months. He pointed out that Streepcoin was attractively branded with the award-winning star of The Iron Lady. He showed her a witty Bridges of Madison County meme posted to the official Streepcoin X account.

            “And you're able to sell these things? Legitimately?”

            “I'm fully licensed,” said Dr. Baize, “in Tuvalu.”

            Yarrow loomed palely at the edge of the screen and whispered in Her ear. “Their white paper has 'volatility' spelled with three Ls,” She said. Sneaky little fucker.

            “Also,” She went on, “have you looked at transactions? The founders still own a lot of this thing.”

            “Well, wouldn't you?” He looped his cursor around and around the growth chart, hoping for a hypnotic effect. Extraneous Ls aside, that steep skyward trajectory was indisputably sexy.

            Miss Fanny bit Her lower lip. “I've been saving up to buy a condo,” She said. “Should I be investing that money instead?”

            “Only if You want the condo to be a penthouse,” said Dr. Baize.

~

Online Star Gummer Boy Faces Crypto Coin Criticism

24 September

Trevor Loudermilk, known mostly as “Gummer Boy,” the star of the viral “Don't come for Mamie” meme, is facing criticism after his newly launched cryptocurrency nosedived in value.

His “Streepcoin” digital coin hit a $490m market cap shortly after it launched on Wednesday, before suddenly losing more than 95% of its value within hours.

This has led some, including YouTube cryptocurrency investigator Coffeezilla, to accuse Mr. Loudermilk of scamming investors with a “pump and dump”—where the people behind a coin hype up its price before launch, then sell it for a profit.

He has denied allegations that his team sold any of the tokens they owned.

“I'm just as gagged as yall are,” he wrote in a copy and pasted post on X (formerly Twitter) on Wednesday.

Streepcoin takes its name from US actress Meryl Streep. Mamie Gummer, also an actress, is Ms. Streep's daughter. “We will be pursuing this unauthorized use of [Ms. Streep's] likeness to the full extent of the law,” a Streep family spokesperson said.

~

            He arrived breathless at Mistress Conestoga's, the cashier's check in his hand still warm from the printer. From the vents issued a slight perfume of Italian B.M.T.—the spicy smell of success. “I think You're really going to like this, Mistress!” he called out as he galloped down the stairs.

            “Sit.” Mistress Conestoga flicked a ruler at a puny wooden desk, newly added next to the vacbed. Dr. Baize wedged himself in. Interestingly, this stern teacher getup was not dissimilar from an ensemble of Miss Fanny's: pince-nez, shirtwaist, accordion-pleated skirt in sober charcoal.

            “Ma'am?” He raised his hand and flapped the cashier's check in the air. “$70,000. That's Your Screechcoin fully reimbursed. Obviously any investment carries risk, including loss of principal, but it just seemed like the right thing to...”

            The ruler whistled through salami-scented air and cracked against the desk. Recoiling, Dr. Baize felt a scraping against his close-cropped hair, then paper across his brow.

            Miss Fanny emerged from behind the desk, in identical teacher's garb. “The little reprobate's stolen from us both now,” She said. “He's falling behind in his lessons.”

            “A dullard.”

            “Borderline ineducable.” The dunce cap was unexpectedly erotic. Dr. Baize readjusted his chinos.

            “We've collaborated on a task for you,” Mistress Conestoga told Dr. Baize.

            “Believe me, Mistress, nothing could excite me more,” said Dr. Baize. “It's just that I've already paid the standard deposit, and I must say I'm not in the optimal financial spot for a double-domme session right now.”

            “Never mind that,” said Miss Fanny. “You're in serious need of correction. That takes priority right now.”

            “I'll warn you, it's disgusting,” said Mistress Conestoga.

            “Yes, yes.” Could either or both be relaxing their prohibition against Roman showers? Dr. Baize wondered.

            “I mean it. You'll question whether you're even human anymore.”

            “Please, Mistress,” said Dr. Baize. “A worm like me needs reminding of the muck I came from.”

            “Are you ready, then, to degrade yourself fully?”

            “Yes, yes,” cried Dr. Baize. “Roll me in filth! Make me loathsome!”

            Mistress Conestoga looked at Miss Fanny. Miss Fanny looked at Mistress Conestoga.

~

            Dr. Baize was removing a gallbladder, listening to “Smaionte,” a B-side off Enya's Orinoco Flow (the 12” maxi-single, not the Japanese EP with pink obi). Assisting on the cholecystectomy was a fresh-faced intern whose name, he was fairly certain, was Wing.

            “Now, resect the common hepatic duct,” said Dr. Baize.

            Wing began to sever the clamped tube.

            “Resect, I said. This is living tissue. It's not to be sawed at like mother's pot roast.”

            Wing mumbled an apology and began cutting again.

            “Scalpel,” said Dr. Baize.

            Dr. Baize raised the scalpel high.

Editor’s Note: This story contains a treated excerpt from the BBC.com article “Online star Hawk Tuah girl faces crypto coin criticism."

---

Jon Willer is a copywriter living in Brooklyn. His fiction has appeared in Hawai'i Review, Juked, Paper Darts, Knee-Jerk, and Exacting Clam.

Christopher Grady

Stars and Steps

If I were to rate my son's journey here's how I'd score moments we've shared:

Presentation:

No noticeable deformities when he was born. I counted ten fingers and ten toes. Ten reasons to see a better version of myself in him: all-star athlete, five-star grades, and a kid who had a dad to take him fishing on the weekends. I planned to teach him to stand tall. No need to learn alone like I did.

Five stars out of the womb.

Performance:

His attitude wasn’t what I expected. A boy who hated fishing or playing catch with his dad? I couldn't even get him to mow the lawn without complaints about the sticky Florida heat. preferred to play with Barbie dolls and sing Beyoncé with his mother. Maybe that was the problem: I was letting him be for too long. He shouldn’t have wanted shoes brighter than bubble gum. His toys should have been action figures fighting, not dolls hugging. But I thought I could save him. As his father, I had to help him become the man he was supposed to be.

Three stars for the pink chaos in his room.

Connection:

I’d only caught fragments of his world through his mother's words. Last month, I stopped letting him leave the house if he was only hanging with girls. I cracked       down on his foolish vocabulary like “ate” and “tea.” Fewer unrecognizable words      left his mouth, though it became rarer to hear him speak when I was around.

I made him join the track team. The boys called him a “sissy,” a name he’d screamed at me for using. Some      days passed in heavy silence. The quiet hung over the dinner table like a thick fog. I told myself it was his fault for struggling to accept how the real world worked. But I couldn’t ignore the way his fishing rod gathered dust in the garage corner, untouched and forgotten.

One star for miscommunication.

Originality:

Undeniable. His whole life played like one of his loud, over-the-top school performances. Each phase a new act, each retort leaving me to figure it out. One week, he was a vegan protesting how I was eating oysters, supposedly the ocean’s “biggest hero.” The next, he returned to pop music after becoming a temporary “punk.” With each day, I saw a future closer to Broadway or New York Fashion Week than to a sports scholarship. It all started with “Papa;” now he rarely calls me “Father.”

There was so much about him I didn’t know.      So much of my effort wasted in trying to shape him into a different son. One that wasn’t mine.

Five stars for unwavering authenticity and self-confidence.

Final Assessment:

No quarterback to honor my name on a jersey, just a dancer with electrifying spins on stage. I wanted to spend more time with him, but each time he made other plans on the spot. He was noticeably happier outside of the house, where his flamboyant steps and high-pitched voice was surprisingly accepted. My own failures as a parent, perhaps. What he was perfect at being: himself.

Two stars for how long it took to let go.

Total Score:

For days I wondered if the world would let him be who he was, or would it chew him up and spit him out. Yet like a bitter general on the sidelines, I watched from the porch as the other kids chased him home, his eyes fixed on me. Those moments I dreamed would change him permanently like they had me. I thought of my own father, who never let me cry, never let me dance, never let me be anything and reiterated his lessons with his belt. Maybe that's why I spend so many weekends with an old scorecard, tracking hopes I will never fully understand.

No star rating can capture the love I hold, only the lessons I'm still learning. Maybe one day, I’ll learn to let go of the scorecard entirely. And maybe, one day, he’ll let me back in.

---

Christopher Grady is an LGBT Black teenager from the United States, residing in Virginia. He is a writer aiming to entertain readers and grow his expertise in varied prose and poetry. Some publications include The Disappointed Housewife, Bending Genres, Young Voices of RVA II, Screen Door Review, and Flash The Court.

John Dennis

Form 7-C

You are asked to list, in order of relevance, every promise you failed to keep. Use the back of the form if necessary. Most applicants do.

The woman at the counter has been writing for seven minutes. The clerk does not rush her. The clerk has never rushed anyone, during all his years of clerking, and this is listed on his employee file as both his greatest strength and the reason for the backlog.

When she finally steps away and it is my turn, I am asked what I would like to come back as.

"I hadn't expected to be asked."

The clerk nods like I am the four hundredth person today to say exactly that, which I am.

At a loss for ideas, I wobble, "Something people don't expect very much from?"

He slides me a brochure. On the cover, a moth. Inside, small print:

Average lifespan: 7-10 days.

Memory retention: none.

Capacity for regret: none.

Popular with applicants seeking a clean slate.

"Moths remember light," I say. "That's why they fly into it."

"That's instinct," he says. "Not memory."

"Feels the same from the inside."

He takes the brochure back, unbothered, and produces another. A dog, mid-leap, catching nothing, midair.

Average lifespan: 10-13 years.

Memory retention: partial, weighted toward smell and betrayal.

Capacity for regret: low, but present.

"Better," I say.

"You said easy on the expectations."

"I lied. I want some. And I want to remember enough to be careful. I just don't want to remember fault. Whose fault, to be specific."

He writes something on my form. I try to read it upside down and cannot, because the ink is the kind that only resolves for the person meant to see it, which is not me, not yet.

"There's a form for that," he says. "7-C. Selective retention. It's a popular request. Almost nobody qualifies."

"Why not?"

"Because everyone who asks for it still wants to remember being right. Who was right, to be specific. They just don't want to remember what it cost the other person." His eyes scan me the way you assess someone you've already decided about. "You have that look."

I want to argue but choose a different tack. "So what do I get instead?"

"You get to reapply," he says. "Same line. Same form. Most people take four, five tries before they stop trying to negotiate the terms of forgetting and just live the next life honestly."

"And if I don't want to wait in line five more times?"

"Then you take the moth," he says. "Some people take the moth on purpose. It's not the worst choice. Seven days, no regret, straight at the light every time. There's a kind of peace in that."

Nearby, the woman who was ahead of me is sitting on a bench. I can see, from here, that she has stopped listing promises and started writing a single name over and over, small, in the margins, where the form doesn't ask her to.

The clerk sees me looking and doesn't comment. After all the years, I imagine, he has learned exactly which silences to keep.

"7-C," I say. "I'll wait."

He stamps my form without looking up. "Everyone says that the first time."

I take the form and see the stamped number. It is very large. Behind me, the line does not end, does not appear to have ever ended, stretches back through a door I didn't notice on the way in, and every single person in it is holding form 7-C.

---

Born in New York, John Dennis moved to Sweden after serving in the U.S. Navy in Italy. He earned a Master’s degree in Pedagogy from Malmö University, where he also studied Creative Writing. After a stroke ended his teaching career, he devoted himself to writing fiction and poetry. His work has appeared in Litro USA, NUNUM, The Good Life Review, and The Happy Hour Review. He lives in Malmö with his wife, Anna, and is the father of Julia and grandfather of Noah.

Matthew Kasper

Bodie Has Abs

That day you remember from kindergarten was a cold November morning back in 1984. Ronald Reagan has just won re-election and is preening to the crowd with the false modesty of a freshly crowned Miss America. President Reagan wants to show his appreciation by visiting your school, Public School 66 in Baltimore, because he is on his way back to D.C.

To welcome the president, everyone is told to dress patriotically. The problem is that Reagan’s economy hasn’t trickled down. Jackie wears a brown paper grocery bag and uses the stubby crayons in the corner of the classroom to scribble red and white stripes and stars that look like tiny explosions. Tyrone, who wears black sweatpants and a black sweater, finds some scotch tape and sticks it on his chin and says he’s one of the founding fathers. Another girl in the class dresses like Madonna, and your teacher, Ms. Johnson, shakes her head at the makeup and ripped tights and tells her the president wouldn’t approve.

You dress like Hulk Hogan. Your yellow tights are okay. Unfortunately, the handlebar mustache is itchy and keeps falling off.

Even though the maintenance staff has worked all night, the halls still smell like Elmer’s glue. The wind outside rattles the caged windows. The American flag at the top of the pole, the one you all stare at when you recite the Pledge of Allegiance, ripples, as if a thousand little hands are punching back. Ms. Johnson wipes away a tear and says the flapping is a sign from God. A crackling voice on the loudspeaker tells everyone to report to the multipurpose room to greet the president, and the class lines up single file and marches behind Ms. Johnson.

Your friend Bodie, who is at the back of the line, whispers to follow him instead. Ms. Johnson does not see you and two other children disappear into the bathroom. When the door swings shut behind you, it is complete darkness. No one can reach the light switch. Everyone starts giggling until Bodie says: “this is what I want to show the president.”

You hear him unzip his coat. From a spear of light at the side of the door, you can see that he is wearing a stars and stripes tank top. He lifts his shirt.

“Touch them if you want,” he says. “These are my abs.”

‘Hail to the Chief’ plays from somewhere down the hall, a muffled echo, but no one knows what that song is called back then. A tight little circle forms. Everyone is shoulder to shoulder, staring down there as they might stare at the last embers in a fire. The pipes above you hiss.

And by the time everyone leaves the bathroom, there’s a crowd heading back to class.

When your parents ask about it later, you lie and say you saw the president. You never tell them about the warmth of Bodie’s skin, which in your memory stretches as smooth and endless as a desert of leather. You don’t tell them how, one by one, you ran your miniature fingers up and down the bumps on Bodie’s stomach, another thing you and the 99% will never have.

---

Matthew Kasper is an aspiring antihero who lives in Baltimore. He has an MFA in Fiction from Pacific University. His work has appeared in Points in Case, Bull, Dirtbag, and elsewhere. You can find more of his writing at matthewkasper.net ‍

KM Baysal

The Book of Revelation Didn’t Warn Us About This

It’s all fun and games at the rodeo until the angels show up, winging their way to the main arena where the dirt is kicked up by red-nosed clowns in cowboy hats while they ride satyrs in colorful silk pants. It’s unsettling, yet entertaining, to watch the half-men, half-goats of our storybooks and myths prance around the arena trying to buck the clowns off their backs. Everyone says we’ve reached the end of days; what else explains the appearance of so many otherworldly and celestial beings. They might be right, but we still need to find ways to pass the time.

We groan in unison as the sky grows dark, and the flapping of wings swallows all other sound. The show ceases as the satyrs scatter, and we look to the sky in annoyance and trepidation. It’s impossible to tell which kind of angel is overhead until it’s too late. The guardian angels are often a nuisance. They mean well, of course, but they like to step in and protect against even the silliest of mistakes, as if we’re all toddlers about to trip over untied shoes. The avenging angels are the worst.  The tiniest grievance can set them off nowadays, not like before when only the most heinous of crimes would bring down their wrath. Now anyone can be smote at any time. It’s unnerving to say the least.

The angels swarm above the arena like a murmuration of starlings, the hum from their wings so loud some of us cover our ears. It’s then that I see their chubby cheeks, their wide eyes, and mischievous grins. “Cherubs!” I yell as I leap from my seat and try to hurry past the legs of the people in my row.  The last time these guys showed up they dowsed the crowd with some kind of love potion. Within minutes the stadium was filled with people falling desperately in love and lust with whoever they looked at first. The lucky ones ended up with their original partners, but when the effects finally wore off many of us woke in beds with friends, strangers, enemies. Even the satyrs and clowns were caught up in amorous embraces. It was a nightmare to unravel the aftermath.

Slinking home to my husband after spending a week with one of the most annoying, but admittedly sexy, women in my book club was beyond embarrassing. I had been in line ahead of Jennifer at the concession stand when the attack happened. I turned to see what all the commotion was about and BOOM, I was hit with an all-consuming wave of lust for, and infatuation with, her and her infuriatingly perfect blonde ponytail.

“Two days ago you were complaining about Jennifer’s insistence on reading The Stand over The Parable of the Sower and now you’re telling me you spent an orgiastic week with her after the cherubs drugged everyone?” Steven asked after his relief that I was alive wore off.  He never attended the rodeo, said it was an abomination, and this cemented his stance. That wasn’t anything new, he was always against one exciting thing or another throughout our marriage. His latest vetoes, besides the rodeo, were couples massages, swimming in the public pool, and trying edibles. He wouldn’t, or couldn’t, look me in the eyes for a few days after I returned. “It’s harmless fun,” I countered to little effect, not even sure I believed it myself.

Now, as the cherubs zoom menacingly closer, I cover my nose and mouth with my jacket and run for the concourse. The vibration from their buzzing wings pushes against me like a wave, urging me to go home. For just a moment, I follow the footsteps of Lot’s wife and stop to look back, curious to see who will end up together this time, wondering who will get to lose themselves to the foggy bliss of pleasure with no one to blame but the angels. I spot Jennifer lingering in the last row of seats, her perfect ponytail swinging in the wind. She sees me too and offers a shy smile. I lower my jacket from my face and take a deep breath as the cherubim hover in the sky. 

---

KM Baysal lives, works, and writes in NYC. Her work has appeared in Does it Have Pockets, Folklore Review, Inkfish Magazine, Bright Flash Literary Review, and Mulberry Literary (forthcoming). She can often be found haunting the New York Public Library or cozy coffee shops, tapping away on her keyboard. She is currently working on a novella-in-flash. Follow her on Instagram @kmbaysal.

Verdell Walker

Simulacrum: A Cottage in a Deep, Dark Wood

As soon as I clocked in for my shift, my boss Minerva tapped my elbow. “I’m adding a manual order to your queue. A Cottage in a Deep, Dark Wood.”

“Oh! Thanks a lot,” I said, meaning it. That was a premium offering, with the highest base rate and tip share. Rent was due next week, and this shift would pay better than wrangling food delivery drones. “What story?” 

“Little Red Riding Hood variant,” Minerva replied. “Details are in your packet.” 

I sighed. “No one wants the original stories anymore.” 

Minerva narrowed her eyes. “If the guest’s parents wanted a uniform experience for their child, they’d take her to one of those retro amusement parks.” She shuddered. “We’re above that.” 

“Of course,” I agreed quickly. I didn’t want her to regret giving me this opportunity, normally reserved for tier one performers. Two years in, I’d only moved up to tier two, which meant that I had speaking roles and had some wiggle room in terms of interpreting characters, but I still didn’t have completely free rein.

Even so, I liked amusement parks. They were fun 21st-century relics, and I envied the actors who got to perform live, even if they were stuck in sweaty costumes. My own acting career had gone nowhere, which was how I ended up here — playing wolves, witches, and wicked stepmothers for seven-year-olds in a simulated dreamscape. But I couldn’t complain too much; at least I got to perform, after a fashion. Even if I wasn’t writing my own content for Simulacrums.

Only tier one performers got to create new experiences. One day, I’d be one of them. Until then, I played my part.  

Minerva departed, and I stepped into my Simulacrum booth. The door slid shut behind me, and dim blue light bathed the space as my monitor flickered to life. Cottage was first in my queue. Beatrix, age seven, wanted tea with the Big Bad Wolf. No mention of whether this was before or after the Wolf devoured Grandma. 

I pressed a button on my chair’s armrest console. The chair flattened out, and my control device — a slim silver headband that tapped into my neural pathways — descended onto my forehead. The haptic sensors in my bodysuit, dispersed all over my arms, legs, and torso, hummed to life with a tingling warmth. I closed my eyes, and the Simulacrum pulled me in.

For a moment, there was nothing but static behind my eyelids. Then—

An ache, but the good kind, like stretching sore muscles. Then came the other sensations — the ones that never stopped being strange, no matter how many times I shifted. My bones realigned themselves into a quadrupedal stance. My jaw unhinged, stretching forward as my teeth multiplied and sharpened, my tongue thickening to accommodate the new, lupine dimensions. My ears pricked, lengthening into points.

Then came the fur, racing over my skin like a fast-growing weed. It was the last step, and I always felt it — an odd, tingling sensation, as if my nerve endings were momentarily on fire before settling into their new form. I shook myself as it finished, exhaling through my newly widened snout. The air smelled different here: sharp pine, damp leaves, a hint of woodsmoke.

Hunger gnawed at the edges of my awareness, an instinctual reaction coded into the character. The Algorithm had gotten better at that lately — at making the experience feel real without letting us forget who we were underneath. Not for the first time, I wondered if a film or theater director helped develop the Algorithm. 

I woke up in a bed of green grass, the blades prickly and wet with rain. I’d traded my brown skin and black hair for gray fur, three-inch fangs, and claws that sank into the soil as I stood. Somewhere beyond the trees, a cottage chimney puffed out smoke. 

I trotted over and nudged open the door with my snout, stepping into a warm little house. The Algorithm had set the stage well: a crackling fire, a rustic bed with a thick patchwork quilt, and a porcelain tea set decorated with pink roses waiting on a round wooden table. A costume of a pink nightdress and a white, frilly cap was laid across the bed. My avatar’s lack of opposable thumbs made donning the getup a chore, but I eventually wrestled it on before climbing into the bed.  

“Computer, make a note: it’s best to arrive in costume when not in human form.” A chime registered the system’s acknowledgment. 

I had barely pulled the covers up when Beatrix entered. 

She was adorable — small for her age, with brown pigtails, olive skin, and hazel eyes that beamed when she saw me. 

“Come in, my dear,” I growled. “You look good enough to eat.” 

“Thank you, Mr. Wolf.” Beatrix sat down at the tea table and opened a wicker basket almost as big as she was. “I brought treats.” 

I sat up. “Wolf? I am your own beloved grandmother.” 

“No, you aren’t,” Beatrix said firmly, setting out scones. 

‍ ‍Not indulging me, then. Fine. Be that way, kid. I sighed dramatically, throwing off the covers and padding over to the table, my claws clicking against the wooden floor. “Can I call you Bea?”

She nodded, pouring tea. “Sure, you can.”  

“Wouldn’t you rather have tea with a princess, Bea?” 

Bea scrunched her nose. “No. Wolves are cool.” 

“They blow down houses,” I reminded her. “Do you know that story?”  

“Yes. Maybe he was mad that the pigs didn’t let him in. Maybe he just wanted friends.” She hesitated, staring into her cup. “That’s what I’d want.” 

My right ear twitched. It dawned on me that Bea was alone. Most guests came with siblings or a posse of agemates. 

“Depends on the friend,” I mused. “Not everyone is good company.” 

Bea nodded seriously. “That’s true.” 

The tea was perfect — not too sweet, not too hot. The scone, to my surprise, had a savory meat filling, and in this body, it tasted divine. So thoughtful of her. 

“A good friend is hard to find,” I told her, licking a crumb from my fangs, “but worth searching for.” 

Bea smiled into her teacup. 

“Also,” I added, leaning forward, “I ate your grandma.” 

“How did she taste?” she asked sweetly. 

We stared at each other. Then, I was the first to laugh — a snarling, barking sound that made Bea giggle. 

“Your grandma tasted like old lace and butterscotch candies,” I said, snapping my jaws. This earned me another peal of laughter.

Something about Bea’s delight made my chest ache — not the simulated wolf body, but me, the person underneath. I’d taken hundreds of these jobs, played the villain for so many kids. Most squealed, a few cried. None of them looked at me like I was real.

But Bea did.

It had been a long time since anyone had. Most days I told myself performing was enough. It wasn't. I wanted to make something, something new that would matter to my audience. Even if it was an audience of one.

Bea was the first guest who'd ever made me feel like that was possible. In just a few minutes, she had elbowed her way past the stock character and engaged the person buried under layers of pre-programmed narrative.

I didn’t want to leave. Not yet.

I could make so many stories for her. Not just perform them — create them. Something new, just for her. I’d be so good at it, and it would mean something to her.

My gaze flicked to the session timer in the corner of my vision, ticking down with precision. I tapped a hidden button beneath the table. 

‍ ‍Computer, I thought. Redistribute the rest of my jobs today. 

A chime acknowledged my request. My schedule cleared. 

Bea didn’t notice — she was cutting another scone in half, carefully placing one piece on my plate. 

I reached for it, claws clicking against porcelain. 

“Tell me, Bea,” I said, grinning, “what other big, bad creatures do you like?” 

She lit up. “Definitely dragons! Do you like dragons?” 

And just like that, we had all the time in the world. I was going to get into so much trouble for this. Minerva was going to flip her shit.

Worth it.   

---

Verdell Walker is a writer of speculative fiction from rural Georgia whose work is inspired by her heritage and her research. Her stories are published and forthcoming in Tractor Beam, Reckoning, Adventitious, Zooscape, and other fine publications. Her nonfiction writing has appeared in Bustle, Vox, Forge, and ZORA. Verdell is a graduate of the Your Personal Odyssey Writing Workshop and Clarion West. She is a recipient of the Horror Writers Association’s Diversity Grant, the Gotham Writers of Color Creative Writing Scholarship, and the John Lewis Writing Grant for Fiction. She is also a 2026 Periplus Collective and 2026 Voodoonauts Collective fellow. She can be found on Instagram: @verdellwalkerwrites, as well as her book review podcast, The Book Up.

Rachel McCarron

I’m Glad I Found You

We found each other in 1964. You, fresh and eager on your first day. Me, barely a year on the force, responsible for a new recruit though I still felt like a rookie myself.

When I started, I’d been assigned to an officer twenty years on the beat, but twelve months on, staffing shortages meant that you had to make do with me. My enthusiasm hadn’t dampened yet, and perhaps this was better for you than a jaded old cop whose only concern was his next day off.

You looked so young in your new uniform, like a schoolboy at the start of term. Already married with a daughter, you showed me a photograph of them, then apologised for being soppy. How I envied that sentimentality. I envied you and your cosy family.

“It’s not like cop shows on telly,” I warned as you got into the passenger seat of the patrol vehicle – not a Zephyr like on Z-Cars, but the newer, cheaper Hillman Imp. Far less powerful, but for neighbourhood policing, we weren’t expected to tear up the tarmac. “There’s a lot of hanging about.”

“I know,” you said. “They told us in training that patience is as important as reaction. I just want to do my bit for the community. Protect and serve, and all that.”

“That’s the LAPD,” I said. “Heddlu Sir y Fflint is nothing like Dragnet.”

You laughed at my Scouse attempt at Welsh – unnecessary when everyone just called us Flintshire Constabulary.

“Why sure, Joe,” you said in a phony, wise-guy accent. “It’s a whole ’nother ball game. And how about them Dodgers, huh?”

“Well, hell, Dave,” I said. “I woulda bin there but for the perp still on the loose and them goddam dirty cops tryin’a bring me down all the goddam time.”

We made no sense, but your humour clicked with me, and our mutual indifference to sport, American or otherwise, was just one of many things we had in common.

You won me over with your love of American folk music, and we made a pact never to tell anyone of our harmonious renditions of “Tom Dooley” and “The Railroad Boy” as we drove around the neighbourhood, far more likely to come across petty theft and social disruption than the murder or suicide we were singing about.

“There was a murder hereabouts,” I said. “But it was before I started.”

“I remember,” you said.

Everybody knew about it. The verdict was Not Guilty, but the victim’s husband forever walked in the shadow of what he had or hadn’t done. I saw it as a sign of your respect and integrity that you didn’t express any opinion on the matter.

I admired your compassion when we had to break the dreadful news to parents of a young man killed in a hit and run. I saw your kindness towards teenage lads picked up for shoplifting. They were already terrified and didn’t need to be scared straight. You worried that you were too soft to be a copper, but you had all the right instincts. And I had enough aggression for both of us back then. We made the perfect team: classic good cop, bad cop. You were always the good. I could be as bad as required.

It was essential for the job sometimes – a show of force to any disorganised crime that threatened to emerge in our sleepy manor. You could handle yourself, but you preferred not to strike a blow, allowing me to administer the bigger dose of any unavoidable violence. I threw myself wholeheartedly into any punch-up demanded by the job and off duty if necessary.

It was all about defence and concealment. I worked at maintaining an image. I kept fit with running and boxing. The occasional date with a good-looking woman added credibility. I knew the sort of hatred, fear and ridicule reserved for poofs, fairies and fags like me. I saw and heard it everywhere – on the job, on the street, down the pub, on mainstream television. But not only could I pass as straight, I was the hardest bobby on the beat.

I did not expect to fall in love with anyone of either sex. I had no hopes of settling down. First dates with women never led to second ones, and I never had to fake more than a goodnight kiss. The men I encountered were as nameless as I was. I knew places just about safe enough up in Merseyside, anonymously far from anyone who knew me or my profession. Untraceable as long as I never retraced my steps.

You invited me to tea one Friday. I ignored your wife’s suggestion to bring a girlfriend and was welcomed into a household I would soon feel part of. Wendy fussed over me, and I could feel you watching as I tried to flirt with her the way I had learned to flatter women for the sake of appearances.

“Are all the nurses on your ward as pretty as you?” I asked. “Maybe you could fix me up.”

“Perhaps.” She eyed me quizzically as though she knew.

“How did someone as lovely as you get stuck with a bloke like Dave?”

“But Dave’s lovely too, don’t you think?” said Wendy. I couldn’t tell if she was being funny or if she had already seen through my macho bullshit. Standing behind you, she ruffled your hair where you sat at the kitchen table and planted a kiss on the top of your head. You looked across at me with an expression I couldn’t interpret.

Your four-year-old daughter broke the tension by stomping down the stairs, insisting it was too early for bed. At barely half-six, she had a point. “You must be Hannah,” I said.

“I must be,” said little Hannah. “Are you Uncle Joe?”

“I must be,” I said.

“Daddy says you’re his best friend.”

“I am.” I’d been unprepared for the emotional kick of this declaration.

“Mummy said I had to go to bed early because you were coming round. I don’t think it’s fair.”

“Hannah, don’t be rude,” said Wendy. “Say sorry to Uncle Joe.”

“Nothing to be sorry for,” I said. “She’s right. It isn’t fair.”

“Can I stay up then?”

“If you’re a good girl,” you said.

She refused to go to bed until you sang “Puff, the Magic Dragon,” and she giggled with delight when I joined you in harmony.

“Sing me something, Uncle Joe,” demanded Hannah. But the only songs I knew were the murder ballads we sang in the patrol car. I sang what I could remember of “Twenty-four Hours from Tulsa” because I had heard it on the radio earlier that day. Wendy said it was an odd choice for a lullaby, but Hannah enjoyed it well enough and went upstairs to bed without further complaint.

“You have a great voice,” said Wendy. “You should try the folk club at the White Swan.”

So, we would go along to the pub if we weren’t working late on a Thursday. We sang our close harmony American folk songs about “Stagger Lee” and “John Henry” or treated them to a Bob Dylan number they could all join in with. I felt the intimacy of our voices entwined without our bodies ever touching. Hidden closeness in plain sight.

I got along with Wendy as if she were my sister, and she gave me chores around the house that you never got round to. I helped with Hannah after school sometimes. The three of us co-ordinated our shifts to take the pressure off your parents who had been the main babysitters until your dad became unwell.

You spent more time with your mum after your dad died, determined she wouldn’t be lonely, and I got to know her too. A widow not yet forty, she possessed stoicism and humour I had never known in my own mother who I hardly saw for fear she would recognise what I was. Your family accepted me without judgement.

I started seeing one of Wendy’s nursing pals. It was about time I had a girlfriend, Wendy said, and the four of us would go to the pub or cinema while your mum babysat Hannah. Pamela was young and sweet and Catholic enough that we never needed to consummate the sham of our relationship. I closed my eyes as I kissed her and imagined a rougher mouth and more stubbled cheek. If she got too frisky, as occasionally she did, I reminded her that it was the right and proper thing to do to wait until marriage.

“And when will that be?”

I didn’t have the heart to point out that I meant when she was married to someone else.

It was at some point during the Pamela months that you made your move. We’d known each other over a year, working together, spending most of our free time together. I still occasionally prowled Queen Square in Liverpool, but the relief I sought was now as regrettable as it was forgettable. I had come to accept that the part I played as an accessory to your family was as happy as I was going to be. That I would never have the partnership you shared with Wendy, mattered less than the time I spent as your professional partner and best friend. I would never have instigated anything more. Dave, this was all on you.

One night, we were first on the scene at an address in Connah’s Quay where an elderly woman had found her middle-aged son hanging from the garage ceiling. I cut him down while you took her statement and the pointless ambulance arrived.

Later, when we were parked up, reluctant to return to the station, I said, “What was he thinking? He must’ve known she would be the one to find him.”

“I don’t suppose he was thinking at all,” you said.

“But it’s not like that girl who took her mum’s sleeping pills, or the lad that got stoned and jumped out of a window that was only high enough to break his leg.” We had been superfluous in both those cases. The ambulances proved necessary, the kids survived, and no crimes were committed. “Hanging takes planning,” I said. “It takes bravery.”

“I can’t fathom why anyone would do something like that,” you said.

But I could. It had crossed my mind now and then. “I understand why people think about it,” I said.

We had been staring straight ahead as we talked, the way we usually did, natural enough for two people sitting in a car, and easier for me not to make eye contact. But now I felt your eyes on me and sensed panic in your silence.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “I never think about it these days.” I started the car. “We should head back.”

Your hand covered mine as I moved to shift gear. You told me later, that if I hadn’t responded, if I’d snatched my hand away and recoiled, you would have passed it off as friendly concern. But I turned my palm upwards, threaded my fingers between yours and held on tight.

“Promise me you won’t ever think about it,” you said. “Promise you won’t leave us.”

Not me, us – your family, your shield.

“I’ll never leave you,” I said. “I promise.”

We drove back to base in silence. As we pulled in at the station you said, “You don’t fancy Pamela, do you?”

“Of course not.”

The next day, we behaved as though nothing had changed. But everything would change. We were only waiting.

I was saved from breaking Pamela’s heart when she dumped me to get engaged to a more suitable man. Being both Catholic and a doctor, he was a good catch, as Wendy put it when she broke the news on cowardly Pamela’s behalf.

“Are you alright, Joe?” asked Wendy.

“Oh yes, plenty more fish and all that.”

“What are you smiling about?” she said to you. “Can’t you see the man’s heartbroken. Take him to the pub to drown his sorrows and give me and Hannah some peace.”

“Is there more fish?” asked Hannah.

“No, pal,” I said. “We ate it all.”

“But you just said…”

“I meant, plenty more fish in the sea. It’s an expression.”

“Not in the fridge?”

“No,” you said, “but there’s a tin of sardines in the cupboard,” which only confused the poor kid more.

We didn’t go to the pub. We went straight to my bedsit where you kissed me as I fumbled to lock the door. I had never felt so nervous, and I marvelled at your eager confidence. “Hey, take it easy.” I pointed you towards the record player. “Choose some music. The walls are paper thin.”

“Does that mean play it quietly?”

“No, soft lad. Play it just loud enough to drown anything out.”

I poured some scotch while you put Simon and Garfunkel on. I laughed at them singing “You Can Tell the World,” knowing we could never tell anybody.

We kissed again, barely coming up for air. You were more frantic, hungrier, than I had ever imagined in all my imaginings of us together.

“Are you sure about this?”

“Desperately certain,” you said. “But I’ve never... only ever with Wendy.”

“Follow your instincts.”

Your instincts had you unfastening my belt and kneeling before me, not a trace of doubt. I could only hold back a few moments before I erupted to your splutter of surprised laughter, and you wiped my joy from your chin. What were you expecting?

I finished undressing and watched as you discarded your clothes revealing the pale, smooth skin I had been longing to touch. The faintest tremble in your hands belied your boldness. I stroked the scant, fair hair on your chest, a contrast to my dark, wiry mat that you curled about your fingers. I towered you in height, but you dominated me in every other way. You nudged me towards the bed, your enthusiasm overriding any lack of experience.

I could hear Simon and Garfunkel singing “Bleecker Street,” and I imagined us living together in New York’s Greenwich Village, comfortable at last among our own kind.

Afterwards, as I held you in my arms, I told you I loved you. I didn’t need you to say it back, but you did.

“But I don’t think I can leave Wendy,” you said.

“You mustn’t leave her. It would be the end of everything. We’d lose our careers as well as your family.”

“But shouldn’t I be willing to give it all up?”

“What for?”

“For you.”

“It wouldn’t be safe. Until we get an apartment on Bleecker Street, our chances are better as we are.”

And I was right. Our chances were good. We would be together for six years behind the mask of your family, as best friends and the most respectable of professional partners in Her Majesty’s police force.

I felt the wrench when you became a sergeant in the merger of ’67, and I got another recruit. I wasn’t upset about being passed over for promotion. You were always a better copper than me. And I was aware of my vulnerability as a bachelor nearing my thirties, happy to stay at a level well below anyone’s radar.

“Don’t fall in love with your new partner,” you said.

“Never anyone but you,” I promised.

You had my complete devotion, but we lamented the time we could no longer spend together. We’d already stopped singing at the folk club for fear any emotion might show through. We took Hannah for days out at Colwyn Bay and Chester Zoo and snatched moments to talk while she was distracted. We stole brief windows of delight at my place while Wendy was on duty and Hannah was at school or at her grandmother’s house. But perhaps we lingered too long, craving each other’s company.

“I don’t want Hannah to think I’m weak,” you said.

“Why would she think that?”

“You know… I’m worried that it shows. I’m worried she’ll think I’m less of man than other kid’s dads.”

I tried not to feel offended by what she might think of me. “You’re the manliest man I’ve ever known,” I said, and you laughed. “I mean it. You’re a wonderful father.”

“If she ever found out…”

“She doesn’t need to find out. Hannah adores you. Stop worrying.”

But your fears became a familiar theme, and you needed constant reassurance of your masculinity. Words would only go so far; submitting to your dominance in the bedroom was the only way to settle you. Not that I complained. The thrill never faded.

“I can’t understand why people think being gay is emasculating,” I said. “Two guys together – it doesn’t get more masculine than this.”

“Wendy knows,” you said one day.

“How? We’re so careful.” I was sure I behaved no differently around Wendy than I ever had. My presence in your household felt as natural as the first day you invited me, no pretence necessary. But we should never have taken Wendy for a fool.

“She says she knew from the first day she met you, and she sees it in me too. It doesn’t take much to work out the rest.”

“But she’s got no proof, has she?”

“I told her everything. I can’t keep lying to her. I do love her.”

“So, this is the end for us.” A grip tightened in me, a futile holding-on to something I never expected to last. How could it? You had a family to consider. I had no ties. I could go anywhere, request a transfer easily enough. I needed to plan an exit.

“No,” you said. “I don’t want it to end.”

“But you can’t leave Wendy. We talked about this. It’s professional suicide if nothing else.”

“Wendy says she can handle it.”

“How do you mean?”

“She thinks our marriage is better for it. Don’t ask me to explain.”

I didn’t ask, and the next time I saw Wendy, she hugged me and told me I was brave. You took Hannah to the park and left us alone. We cried on each other’s shoulders. She told me things she said she’d never told anyone, and she let me talk about my life before I met you. Things I never told you. Things you didn’t need to know. All my loneliness, all my sorrowful tears wiped away by the wife of my lover. And then life carried on with your happy family as if everything was so very normal.

It was Stonewall that changed things. Hannah was nine by then, and so used to me being around, she never questioned the intensity of my friendship with her father. We were settled and, I believed, happy. But my utopian fantasy of liberated gay life in Greenwich Village was shattered by news of the riots there, and it reminded me that I was still lying to everyone about who I was. The impact of events that summer of 1969 had me yearning to stand shoulder to shoulder with my queer brothers and sisters.

“Think of your career,” you said. “Think of my family.”

I went back to Liverpool, not to the cinemas or gentlemen’s conveniences where I used to go, but to a meeting at the university. I became educated about the challenges that faced us. Us in a broader sense, not you and me. You and I, Dave, we were okay. Safe. Strong. But I wanted to join the campaign for gay rights for all of us. I wanted to change the world.

It was a slow transformation, but I was changing, and on my thirtieth birthday, two years after Stonewall, I told you I wanted to leave the police force.

“But what will you do?”

“I don’t know, but I can’t stay in a profession where I can’t be myself.”

Wendy suggested I work at the hospital as an orderly or porter, but you refused to accept my resignation, and procrastination kept me rooted for the time being.

Looking back, I should have taken your paranoia more seriously. The script became repetitive:

What if anyone at work found out? Nobody knew.

They think I’m a weak sergeant. Your authority was never in doubt.

Why does Wendy put up with me? I was damned if I knew for sure but presumed it must be for the same reason I did – love.

Hannah will hate me when she’s older. Hannah adored you. She still does.

Please, please, please don’t leave me. My promises in reply eventually sounded worn out.

I could sense change everywhere – optimism as more people came out but fear too with the inevitable backlash against the gay liberation movement. It wasn’t fair to expect me to remain still while everything around me was in motion. You had your family and an upwards career trajectory which would leave me far behind. I needed to stand up for who I was.

“I’m handing my notice in,” I said.

You said you didn’t think I was serious.

“I need to be myself,” I said. “I don’t want to hide anymore.”

“So, you’ll get a job at the hospital.”

“I think I should get away for a while.”

“What about us?”

“You’ve got a career and a family.”

“It’s your family too.”

Was it? “I’ll come back and visit.”

“You’ll stay.”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

“Don’t leave. I need you.”

“I’m doing it for you. And Wendy and Hannah. You need the chance to be a proper family.”

I thought it was such a selfless act – an overdue, noble sacrifice for the people I loved.

“Don’t be such a fucking martyr,” you said.

You made it look like an accident the first time, and I believed you when you said it was. You wrote off your car, but you and the tree were miraculously unscathed. You were instructed to take two weeks’ leave and were never charged with drink driving because no supervising officer could hold such a conviction nor go without an unblemished driver’s license.

It was Wendy who suspected there was more to it.

“You can’t leave,” she said.

“I’m doing it for you and Dave,” I said. “I just complicate things.”

“You make things easier, Joe.”

Sometimes I regret not asking what she meant by that, but if she was having an affair of her own, it was none of my business.

“He won’t talk to me about the accident,” I said. “Has he said anything to you?”

“He said he should have been driving faster.”

I’m glad I found you.

I’m glad you had the sense to plan it somewhere your mother, wife and eleven-year-old daughter wouldn’t be the ones to discover your lifeless body. Did you know I would be first on the scene? Or were you unconcerned which officer would pull you down and make a futile attempt to breathe life back into your cold lips?

“How’s school, pal?”

“I joined the choir,” said Hannah. “I love singing.”

“Your dad and I used to sing together.”

“I remember,” she said.

““Puff the Magic Dragon,”” I said.

“No, something called “The Railroad Boy,” but it had nothing to do with trains.”

“Go dig my grave, both wide and deep,” I sang. “Place a marble stone at my head and feet. And at my breast, a snow-white dove. To show the world I died for love.”

Perhaps it was the wrong thing to sing to a girl grieving the loss of her father, but all she said was, “I can still hear him.”

I still hear you. When I sing. When I sleep. When I’m wondering what I’ll do with my life without you. All I know is, I’m glad I found you.

Editor’s note: This piece was longlisted for the 2026 Leopold Bloom Prize.

---

Rachel McCarron is a writer from the Northwest coast of England. She is the winner of the 2026 Goldfinch Novel Award, and her short stories have been published in Mslexia and Thin Skin. Her first non-fiction, a work of autotheory about Virginia Woolf, will be published in an anthology in January 2027. She is the critique forum moderator at Litopia.com and the co-presenter of the Two Wayward Writers podcast.

Mandy Lange

Instructions to Launch Your Redemption Arc

Toss over your Hermés Birkin, your saffron-tinted pillboxes, the key fob to your Porsche. Add that new Armani Trenchcoat from Raúl to the pile of clothes collecting snowfall on the metal rail of your 35th floor balcony. Approach the wine lattice rack, grip the neck–cold, stiff, no pulse– of the 2008 L'Evangile. Smash it. If a shard of glass grazes your cheek: the better, the better.

Leave the caked blood–shouldn’t there have been more blood–under your shellacked nails. If it bothers you, suck the corners like your hangnails in 4th grade when pale Ms. Sneedle caught you stealing from her drugstore purse, demanding an explanation because What could a girl who has everything possibly have left to take? Breathe the answer onto the windowed balcony door, breath rushing from your lungs to fashion your mask, a defense. Imagine Raúl announcing to a sallow-faced judge, It was an accident. An accident years in the making, painted pretty by tears careening down your surgically hollowed cheekbones, bitten-off shellac on whitened teeth. She wishes–

Swipe the condensation away. Wishes never sated you. Only action.

Strip off your silk kimono. Step into the February flurry. Embrace the spatter of goosebumps on your neck and ask yourself, out loud, so the question slowdances with snowflakes onto city-dwellers crawling from one rapture to the next: when was the last time I allowed myself to suffer? Picture yourself as that fourth grader again, but she’s forever changed; she will always look like a bloodstained department store jacket, whitewashed in the Porsche's high beams. She will always sound like jeans scraping concrete and the felt-smothered thunk of a body in your backseat. Your innocence–if you ever had any–is lost to the poisonous adrenaline coursing through your barre-whittled biceps; strength you discovered at the worst time, for the worst reason.

Send your coat over the ledge. Watch as it squirms in the squall, sleeves frantic and grasping for atonement that sinks out of reach. Decide whether you can live with it.

---

Mandy Lange writes short fiction from her fixer-upper farm in Michigan. She's been nominated for Best Small Fictions 2026 and is a past winner of the Writer’s Playground Short Story Competition. Her writing has been published in magazines including Fictive Dream, Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, and wildscape literary, and is forthcoming in Uncharted. Read her work at mandylange.com.

Jack Morris

Grief is a thing with claws

         There’s a lion tethered to the whirligig. It arrived the day Jamie died. Every day Mae watches it from the kitchen window, which she’s long since locked against the stink. Every day the lion, chain taut, paces mud circles around Jamie’s once pristine lawn. This year’s tomato plants wilt in the veg patch, their fruit hard and green. Last year Jamie brought in the first crop and rubbed fresh leaves along the delicate skin of Mae’s wrist; held her hand against his cheek.

         ‘You smell delicious,’ he’d said. Mae tries not to remember these moments. It doesn’t do to poke the creature that lives in her chest, the one that roars when she thinks of all she’s lost. 

         Every dusk Mae stands by the window, washing dishes, and the lion stares directly at her with unblinking amber eyes. Jamie would’ve said it was lonely. Soft lad, Jamie. Tender-hearted. Mae closes the kitchen curtains and leaves the beast to the shadows.

         One night, Mae dreams of sunlight and ripe tomatoes and a warm body next to hers. She wakes to trampled plants and a bent whirligig, lying lopsided like the skeleton of an upturned umbrella after a storm.

         ‘What are you doing?’ She rushes outside. The lion is on the roof of Jamie’s potting shed, tail flicking.  ‘You’re supposed to stay on the chain,’ she yells. ‘Not wreck everything.’

         The lion grumbles, deep in its throat. Like Jamie’s breath towards the end. Rattle rasp, rattle rasp. Mae had held his hand for hours.  Rattle rasp. Kissed each white knuckle.  Rattle. Inhaled his new sour scent. Rasp. Yearned for an echo of his old one.

         Rattle. Rasp. Rattle.

         What would Jamie do if he had a lion loose in the garden?

         ‘Come here,’ she says, in as kind a voice as she can muster. ‘Come down.’

         She feeds it last night’s mince. It gulps the food then looks at her, head cocked, as if to say, ‘Is that all?’

         ‘I’ll go to the shop,’ she tells it.

         In the supermarket she picks lamb chops, Jamie’s favourite. The plastic-wrapped tomatoes, shelves upon shelves of them, make her eyes prick with tears so she takes a bag of rocket instead. Jamie always declared rocket too bitter. Bitter suits her fine.

         She eats at the garden table. The lion licks both of their plates clean then lies down in the veg patch.  That evening, Mae drapes a blanket over the lion’s broad back to keep off the chill. It doesn’t smell so bad, she decides. It's a musky, feral smell but not stale. Not sour.

         ‘I’ll see you tomorrow,’ she says.

         The lion sighs, lays its head on its paws. Mae turns and heads for the door but it looks so forlorn, huddled against the first nip of Autumn. She knows what Jamie would do.

         ‘Come on, then’ she says, ‘you’d better come inside.’

Editor’s note: This piece garnered third place in the 2023 Propelling Pencil Competition.

---

Jack Morris lives in Brighton, UK. She has a Masters in Creative Writing from the Open University. She’s hopelessly dedicated to brevity and is proud to be in both Best Microfictions 2026 and the Fish Anthology 2026. Published work at https://www.thewavingnotdrowningblog.com/

Aldo Giovannitti

The Man with Parkinson’s

         From afar, watch the burning pixel in the blackness of sea and moonlight. Closer now, it becomes the glowing porthole of a vessel adrift. Inside, the mother and the father eat supper at the table. Their son, returned from a long absence, sits with them. As on each visit, he’ll be gone in a few days. The table is small; their knees touch beneath it.

~

         The man was relieved to see his son, but even more so that his visits would shut down the factory. That meant no morning nurse processing him from the bed to the armchair. No forced walks, no timed toilet visits, no drivers whisking him to rehabilitation. No evening nurse reprocessing him into a night’s larva. Canes and portable urinals vanished; rugs and non-disposable kitchenware reappeared.

         It was she who had built the system of routines she called the factory, and she held the sole authority to halt it. Halting the factory, however, meant doing everything herself—getting down onto the production lines in her overalls, to replace the entire staff with her bare hands. A labor that served and annulled the joy of reunion in the same breath. She did it each time to protect their grown son; she staged the ghost of what had been their world.

~

         The woman served herself last, and no one would speak as they ate. Only the kitchen fan, the black hills outside, and the man's spoon rattling against his bowl. She checked him from the corner of her eye. Rattle after rattle. She gripped her cloth. The son pretended not to hear, his luggage still unopened by the door. And at the next rattle, she shot out her arm, cut the man’s meat into rough pieces with her knife, and withdrew.

         They carried on, until the man's cloth slipped from his collar onto his lap. The man grabbed it, but his arm wouldn't lift. When the son moved to help, she raised her palm: she would handle it herself. She stood and crossed to him, and when she reached, he shut his eyes. She pulled the cloth, but he wouldn’t—couldn’t—let go, until she wrested the cloth from his hands and tucked it back into his collar. She noticed stew drops on his beard, briefly considered cleaning them, then let the thought slip, and returned to her seat.

~

         “Keep an eye on him,” she said as she moved to the sink. And for a good reason: left alone too long, the man tended to make decisions of his own. As if proving her point, the son distracted, and he had already removed his dentures, raising them like a trophy, with that demented smile of his. The son hadn’t even known his father wore dentures—she had managed to keep that from him for a year. In the reflection, the son reclassified his father: a man with dentures. His arms stayed high, stiff as wood; his hands, bolted at the dentures.

         And now, witness this. His arms began shaking, failing to bear their own weight. That demented smile, contorting into a snarl of pain. When she saw him she snapped, grabbed a plate, crossed the room, and slammed it onto the table. “Drop it here,” she said. His expression kept twisting into shapes no one knew his face could produce. “In the plate,” she said.

         He willed his arms down but no signal reached them. They shook harder and harder before his eyes. He forced them down in pain, a hoarse “Aah,” came from his now-visible gums. “Down!” he thought, eyes flicking between the wife and the dentures, hoping she would understand. The woman, the wife, the mother, the nurse, the operator—she looked at the ceiling, palms wide, muscles taut—one… two… three… four long breaths.

~

         If we let him work through it, he will rebuild motor control: it was the son’s non-intervention policy, likely born of the luxury of distance. Each time he dropped in, mandated principles cast in rarefied air, then left, to return when the seasons had turned. The woman, instead, belonged to the opposite school—one shaped by the urgency of daily production-line output. At first, when the air was still soft with reunion, she bore his theories to please him. After all, he only stayed a handful of days. But as the days wore on and the mood thinned, she began cutting scenes short, clearing obstacles herself.

         They let him struggle, stepping in only when the embarrassment became unbearable—not to him, but to the son. It was never the man who chose when to stop; it was always the son. Now the man’s eyes watered, and the shaking had grown so that it shamed those who watched. The limit had been reached: time for the son to press his father’s arms down. The arms’ block rotated down, hinged at the shoulders. A loud “Aah.”

         The man finally rested his elbows on the table, the dentures hovering on the plate. The son saw drops of saliva about to fall from his father’s hands but did nothing. It’s over, the man thought, and a smile brushed his lips.

         But the smile’s formation was cut short, for the woman now took charge. What’s next in the assembly line? She seized his wrists. “Let go,” she said. Nothing. She tightened her grip. A jolt. Still nothing. The man turned to the son for help that didn’t come. Back to his hands—still clenched. “Just drop them,” the man heard from somewhere. There had to be a way out for the man. But what was left for him to do? Flee, obviously.

         And that is what he did. Shutting his eyes so hard, he fled the room. The harder the jolts, the more he shut them. Tears bled through his eyelids—the kind that would have stayed in, had he kept them open. Shielded in the darkness behind his lids, he managed to spin off the body from the head. The jolts went on, but no longer on his body. Just the void around him. Her voice, softened by the darkness, flakes of coal falling about, almost pleasant. No, pleasant indeed. This, he could bear. Now you can carry on my dear, he thought.

         When the dentures finally fell into the plate, saliva sprayed around. The son hesitated to wipe his cheek, as though doing so would dishonor his father. When the man opened his eyes, he saw his hands, still in position, but holding air, and now a smile formed fully: he knew he had just gained about ten freedom-minutes, as he called them.

         The son watched the dentures in the plate. At first, he only glanced at them—chewed matter, fluids pooling. He looked away. On the second pass, with clinical curiosity, he lingered. The third time, he studied the corrugations on the palate—a negative of his father’s. An inner organ, extracted. Part or not part of his father? Its surface. Rough and tender, as a tortoise’s back.

         But no time to lose, for the curfew looms. She pinched the cloth from his collar and drew it from each finger’s base to the tip, rotating through the motion, squeezing harder than necessary. The automatism in the way she operated revealed an established protocol of two outcomes: fix the man, temper her own ire. A wipe, another, and another—each a micro-punishment to the man she nursed and that could not escape. Each, a blow to the walls of the prison she had helped the man erect around them, week after month after year—until they were both walled in alive, with no doors, nor vents. Her hands wiped; her mind excavated the walls. Then she ran through her checklist of the outstanding stations: pills, walk, toilet. Undress, diaper, re-dress. Put to bed, sleep an hour, toilet again. The early rise. Tomorrow even earlier. Can you hear it? The hammering cadence of her years-long days.

         He regarded his hands being wiped as if detached objects. He was grateful to his wife for sorting out the dentures business, until she would raise the next challenge. And immersed in these thoughts, the increasingly hard wipes rocked him into sleep.

~

         A sound woke him, and he sucked in to recall the saliva that had pooled in his mouth. The dentures incident had already left his memory permanently. He felt something had happened, but he couldn’t place it. Before him two figures moved. Maybe three. He checked his wristwatch, but nothing made sense from that dial of huge indices, designed for giant children. He looked up. Morning? Afternoon?

But for him, right now, there was no hope of figuring out what time it was. At least not outside of the golden window (as the son called it), the magic place from four to seven in the evening. There, time was the easiest he could grasp, and he would lecture on take-off procedures, loan amortizations, and the upcoming car overhaul—though, sadly, his condition discounted the value of all he said, for it coated, or rather soaked, each of his words with unreliability.

         They had hypotheses about the window. The pill cycles being the most popular—an opening between the phase-off of some medications and the phase-in of others, where his mind was clear. Contenders were the heavier rehabilitation schedule, or the newly introduced melatonin, which managed to stretch his sleep by a few inches. “And what about the remaining twenty-one hours?” she would tell the son to dismiss the topic.

         In the remaining twenty-one hours, time had ceased to be a measure of life to him. No minutes, no hours, no dates. No seasons. Only the grinding rhythm of the stages—processing and reprocessing him into someone bearable for the following few minutes. A loop of assembly stations, each feeding the next in a perpetual, headless cycle. The day was both the process and the product of the factory. The man kept checking his wristwatch, still, through days that weren't his anymore.

         Back to work now. Next station: evening pills. The son poured them before his father. “Your dessert, pa,” then refilled the pillbox with tomorrow’s doses. The man narrowed his focus. One by one, with his index finger, he slotted the pills into the squares of the checkered tablecloth—one, two, three. Well in order. Then he studied them. “This is Levodopa,” the man mumbled, brushing a fingertip over the pill, as if it were a pill-sized kitten. Then the next: “Or maybe this one is…” She called out, saying that it was always the same pills, as she marshaled the scene from the sink. But her words interrupted his focus, and his gaze glided from the pill to his finger. The nail. The cuticle. The skin, silky and reflective; taut and loose at once. This very finger—still his childhood finger to his eyes.

         From one side, his son saying, “Drink the whole glass,” to make sure he swallowed them, and from the other, his wife saying, “I warn you, don’t drink the whole glass,” to prevent him from waking mid–first sleep to empty his bladder, and having to throw away the diaper (he will soon wear). “And don’t spit the pill back into the glass,” she said. The son picked up the pill and shoved it through his father’s lips. “Quick now,” she said, “or it’ll glue itself to his lips.”

         The son lifted the glass—his father’s hands only attached to it the way children are trained to drink—and he swallowed, and swallowed, rivulets of water spilling from the corners of his mouth. With this, the man had won another batch of freedom-minutes. A small effort for such a reward, this had been an easy trade. Save that, when the glass was down, the pill sat at the bottom. Son and father met gazes and snapped to repeat the operation, hoping she wouldn’t notice.

         Next station: walking. One of acute pain, for after an hour seated, his feet had welded to the floor. Standing, let alone walking, was the man’s chief fear. When the son pulled the chair to extract him from the table, the man shut his eyes, hoping for a miracle, or a brief delay… anything. Then, in the dark, he felt the double tap on his arm. Familiar, expected. It was their code, developed to hide from her his moments of non-cooperation. Two taps: ready. Three: action. The signal meant imminent pain and filial love simultaneously, and the latter outweighed the first. To the man, walking was always a profitable trade, for its immense cost purchased three resources at once: freedom-minutes, his son’s approval, and a delay in his wife’s ire.

         And here came the triple tap. But those wooden legs wrapped in denim didn’t move. A few attempts. Then, at the fourth, he rose, with the son’s hands at his armpits. And once up—his son’s arms cocked round him for a catch—he clung to the table’s edge as if on a precipice. He stared at the miles-deep floor and thought danger, danger, danger. “Quick,” she told both, “or he’ll freeze in that position.”

         Imagine walking—just a normal walk of short strides from outside. Now imagine walking, with hundreds of needles sunk deep into your quadriceps, hamstrings, and calves. Not pricking—but well driven in, plunged fully, all embedded at conflicting angles, twisting, pressing deeper or wrenching back—as the flesh, both liquid and solid, inflates and exhales as each step commands. There are twenty-five pounds of this flesh in each of the man's legs. He struggles to control them—but the sensorial crucible, he retains fully.

         To complete a lap, he had to knock at the windows at either end of the apartment. He and the son moved arm in arm. The strides were so short. The floor a magnet, and his feet, feet of steel. At each passage by the kitchen she would say, “Lift those feet,” at the next, “Longer strides,” and the following, “Apply yourself.” And so on. On top of these mental obstacles were the physical. Rugs above all. To the man who could only move by slithering his feet, a rug’s edge was dangerous as vipers had once been to his former self. There had been talk of removing them, as well as of rearranging the furniture to clear the paths. But it wasn’t the case, she had concluded, to turn the place into some ward.

         What the man and his son thought as they walked round and round? In the first laps: pain took all of the man’s brain, and whatever attention remained, went to the rugs. He’s much worse than last time, the son thought.

         In the middle laps: “Enough?” the man asked at the end of each, as his son coached him into the next. Now the pain began to dull, and a few longer strides emerged. Knock the frame, turn, back again. Knock. Longer strides. Raise your feet. Repeat. His legs felt more fluid though.

         In the final laps: a shadow of pleasure crept through the pain. By now the longer strides outnumbered the short. The son felt his father’s weight lift from his arm—and then he got pulled forward. Speed. This was speed. “Look at this!” the man said, as they passed the kitchen. His greatest joy, after all, was still to impress his wife. Those are quite long strides, she thought. “Get rid of that left stoop, rather,” she said.

         (Walking was one of the two warheads left in the woman’s shrinking arsenal against his, meaning her, sleepless nights. The second: nap deprivation in the afternoon. A clap of hands, “Up, up!” she would say, breezing past the living room. “Up, up!” to the man folding in on himself in the armchair. “Up, up!” a cloth to his neck, for the saliva pooled and dropped, if not sucked back in time by this man awake and asleep at once.)

         The last lap ended in the bathroom, where they sat him on the toilet. “Call when you’re done,” came from the corridor. The underside of spousal privilege meant she had to handle this station of the factory. She waited a long time by the door. Then she glimpsed inside, saw, and clapped, “Wake!” and to this, the man woke.

         No need to put the trousers back on. Peel them off instead. He walked to the bedroom arm in arm with his wife, wearing only his shirt. The bedroom: she called it the FAL—Final Assembly Line. “Can I sit?” the man said. “You can sit,” the woman said. And he landed on his side of the bed, onto the blossomed diaper she had laid for him. She wrapped him—buckled him up for the night’s voyage—and as she worked, he checked his wristwatch and nodded.

         The son came in with melatonin. “Aaaah,” the son said. “Aaaah,” the man said. They counted the twelve drops under the tongue. Four weeks ago, it had been eight. Two weeks before that, six. “Add a couple,” she said, pulling her hand off the rings. The bedroom: dim. In the far corner, a cane in a plastic bag. Above the bed lamp, a framed photograph—a man taking off from a mountain with a paraglider. Well shoved under the bed, a urinal. (Not stained, no—painted in urine-yellow straight from the shop.)

         “I’m going to load up the car tonight,” the son told both.

         The woman gripped the bedsheet and hesitated. She had held back mentioning this all day, but now she went for it. “We can… still cancel,” she said. She released a deep breath.

         Each looked down and waited for the other to speak.

         Then the son’s “No,” broke the silence. He looked up, but not towards her. “We spoke at length about this. It’s his best chance.”

         Her eyes glossed, and she gripped the bedsheet tighter. With no other avenue available, she turned to the man and pointed a finger to him: “You don’t even think of waking to pee.”

         They would all rise even earlier than usual, tomorrow. Long, the trip ahead. The son reached and tapped his father’s shoulder four times. It meant: no more for today. The man smiled, his eyes already closed. Hours and hours of freedom-minutes. “Still my champ,” he mumbled.

         “Good night,” the son said.

---

Aldo Giovannitti writes about shifting perception, moral ambiguity, and transformation. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Open Journal of Arts & Letters, DIALOGIST, and Abstract Magazine, alongside essays in The Diplomat and South China Morning Post. He is a member of The Poetry Society and PEN America and is based in London.

Michael Drezin

Arrested at the ASPCA

       When I was seven or eight, I joined the Little League. Joined for the uniform. If only the game were called a swing and a miss, I would have been considered a star, but as it happened, I was known as a complainer.

       "Balls too small. Came in too fast. Got a toothpick for a bat."

       Coach Sullivan, a.k.a. R. G. for real grouch, at least as far as I was concerned, had his speech ready. Given that he was like 100 years old, I doubt I was the first to hear it. It was short and to the point. 

       “That’s life. Rationalize it any way you want.”  

       That was then.

       Now, at age 35, the lesson remains hard to apply. After ten years, my girl left me. No warning, just the announcement. “Nice knowing you.” She was only available to herself and had said so at the beginning. It took a while for it to sink in. She said she needed to heal from childhood trauma, and I knew she did, and I wanted her to; some of my feelings were selfless, some, relieved to be free from her erratic behavior. She understood that without my saying so.

       For three years after the breakup, I avoided people as if that would cure my loneliness.  It was time for me to move on. But people felt too risky.

The ASPCA closest to home got hundreds of one-star reviews, none better, and when I arrived that Saturday afternoon, I was the only visitor, intending to adopt a kitten or two. I was going down a well-traveled road. Nothing to worry about. What could possibly go wrong?

       Then the cops arrived with drawn guns. I assumed they were cadets, not authorized to carry the real thing. They shoved me against a wall and patted me down. Seconds later, I felt a handcuff on my left wrist, then my right arm was yanked back, and a cuff was placed on that one, too.

       The arresting officer, with the satisfaction of an FBI agent who had captured America’s most wanted, informed me of my charges.  I was accused of violating  “Animal Cruelty Law, section 101, subsection b. a class E felony with a sentence of 1 to 4 years, probation possible with the right judge.   It's the crime of “entering into an ASPCA or other adoption facility without the intent to adopt.”

       In short, I was accused of playing with animal affections.

       Seated alone in the back of the police cruiser, I was read my rights. However unlikely I imagined my conviction would be, there are innocent people in jail. I did not want to be one of them. I did not want to lose my teaching job, or my apartment, or my car, even though it runs like an elderly man who spent his life smoking. Even if I got probation my photo would be transmitted to ASPCAs everywhere with the caption, "Not Wanted," and I would be barred from adopting. Of course, I could buy a pet, but that would feel like buying a person.   

       As we rode to the station, I overheard the cops talking. I gathered Blake, the snake, with a personality to match, started a rumor. Must’ve figured he wasn't getting adopted; no reason for anyone else to. He was watching me as I watched the kittens, hoping to adopt the right ones without knowing how to judge.           

Cops stopped talking when they realized I was listening. Though the staff should have known better than to trust Blake, someone at the ASPCA wasn’t taking any chances.

       I was transported to the Carter Municipal Jail, where my street clothes were exchanged for an orange jumpsuit. My belongings were shoved into a tan, eight-by-eleven envelope sealed with yellow "do not cross" tape. I removed my glasses for my mugshot photo and placed them on the fingerprint desk. At the time, I was willing to trade looking good for seeing good; besides, I thought I could see well enough without them. Turns out, I was wrong.

       My name is Christopher Patrick Monroe. My friends call me Chris. In jail, they called me prisoner 62815.

       I represented myself at the arraignment. All I had to do was say "guilty" or "not guilty." That was it. One word or two. My choice. No need to improvise. The basics had worked for thousands of defendants before: why not me? I am a college graduate and high school history teacher, credentials enough to wing it at my first criminal proceeding.

       After spending the night in jail, cops brought me to the courtroom; a bailiff directed me to stand behind a table where my lawyer would be if I’d had one. Given the nature of the proceedings, animals were allowed to observe, as were children on a school trip, some hoping to be lawyers, some hoping to be perps.   

       Class was in session in the rear of the courtroom. The rabbits taught multiplication. The monkeys, arguing politics, taught division. Although no serious breach of good conduct was expected, the lions were separated from the lambs. Two snakes were playing Hearts. Both cheated. Due to crowded conditions, some spectators were left standing in the standing room.  

       "All rise," said the bailiff when the judge arrived. "This Honorable court is now in session." I thought, cool, an Honorable court.

       "How do you plead, Mr. Monroe?"

       I cleared my throat. I was ready for my courtroom debut, or so I thought. I had prepared a short speech in which I declared my innocence and love for animals.

       "This is all a misunderstanding," was all I got to say.

       I was interrupted by the bleating of a black sheep mocking me.    

       Where did she get the nerve?

       While waiting for quiet, I looked for the Big Apple Circus ringmaster, who ushered the jungle cats to their seats. Wearing a red velvet jacket, oversized black- frame glasses, and a top hat, he should have been hard to miss. I saw a tiger wearing a top hat. It was probably a different hat.  

       The judge banged her gavel to silence the courtroom, but the sheep kept mocking me until the bailiff threatened to seat her near the wolf.

       "How do you plead?" asked the judge.

       "Speak up."

       Given the way things turned out, that was her mistake.

       Are you going to plead today?"

       The subtext was clear. Get on with it. I got the message.

       I said, "Sure thing, Your Portliness."

       It could be I was nervous. Could be I left my glasses in the mug shot room, or maybe just maybe I should have had a lawyer do my talking for me.

       Soon as I spoke, there was silence, like there would be if the reverend said "F" you” instead of "amen" during a church service.  

       I realized my mistake; problem was I didn't know how to correct it. I tried again. Same problem. What am I supposed to call a judge whose name I didn't know?

       "Not guilty, Your Lordship?"

       Your Leadership?

       Championship?

       Apprenticeship?

       Chairmanship?

       Worship?

       Dictatorship?

       Your Spaceship?

       Your Courtship?

       Your Highness?

       Put yourself in my place. I'm in a room filled with animals. I am not the crowd favorite. I don't have my glasses. I'm nervous. I'm not a lawyer. I say the first thing that came to mind. Still, the judge threw the book at me. It missed and struck an older man standing in the standing room.  Now he’s lying in the standing room. I didn‘t know lying was allowed in court. Now, I suppose I do.    

       "You were foolish to represent yourself," said the judge, but by then, that cat was out of the bag.

       She didn't take into account my clean record or consider that my students needed me. And most important,  she didn't realize I was arrested for no good reason.

       Judge Elephant, or whatever her name was, held me in contempt. Ain't that some shit. I went to jail because she felt insulted. If everyone could do that, no one outside of jail would be left to insult. 

       My cell was a dog crate at the ASPCA. The staff kept it locked.  

       There was no way out of my sentence, at least none I could think of.

~

Six Months Later

       I woke up early that Saturday morning, showered, shaved, and by 8 a.m., was headed back to the ASPCA. I was apprehensive about going, afraid would be closer to the truth, but that’s where I needed to be if I was going to adopt a pet.   

Three months into my sentence, management at the Big Apple Circus hired a carnival snake charmer to get me out of the mess Blake the snake got me in. It wasn't my idea; it was more like the staff was trying to do me a solid or get rid of me. Saw no reason to ask which.

       After dinner and drinks, the charmer got Blake to admit (in a recorded conversation) that he lied, didn’t call it a lie; he said he was "stating facts of an unverifiable nature," which was enough for the DA to drop the charges. The judge ordered me released. All was forgiven.

       "Hope you learned your lesson."

       "I have, Your Loveliness."

       I was nervous about going back, but I wasn't moving in; I was going to adopt a kitten or two, a well-traveled road. Nothing to worry about. I read somewhere history repeats itself, where I teach its students repeat the class.

       At the door with a "welcome" sign that wasn't meant especially for me or me at all.

       I am now pushing against the door that has a small sign that says "pull." I reverse course. It's opening; I'm walking through it. I'm the only visitor there.

       Moments later, cops arrived with drawn guns.

       I assumed it was the same cops as before. My "NOT WANTED" picture remained posted, but a call to Judge Loveliness quickly resolved the problem. After passing the puppies and entering the home of the cats, I saw two black-and-white kittens sleeping. I tapped gently on their cage. They stood and looked at me as intently as if I were a passing parade.      

       They were girl kittens. They were so tiny, so very tiny; dollhouse kittens were what they were. Heads tilted, they stood perfectly still; their teepee-shaped ears were on alert. High alert. I knew I was going to adopt them. Just concentrating on their faces, they looked like old men with whiskers.

       When blessed with children, one does not quibble about looks.

       I drive Mia and Annie home, each in her own carry case, each case belted in. I take Interstate 95, driving the speed limit, while cars go around me. They are so quiet. I'm tempted to turn around and see if they're okay, but for obvious reasons, I don't.

       At home, after I opened their carrier cases, they ran and hid under my dresser.  I understood their concern; when in a new home with someone new, it's best to hide. They came out when dinner was served.     

       When they were through, Annie asked me to tell them a story. I lay on the floor. They climbed aboard.

       I began with Cinderella, but Mia interrupted.

       “Something real,” she said.

       I told them the story of America's first woman president.

       "Is that real, Daddy?" asked Mia, and I said it was "future real." They could tell I was putting them on, but let it go. 

       When the stories were over, I got up and turned out the lights.

       "Night girls. Sleep tight."

       "Night, Daddy." 

       I went to the fridge and pulled out a bottle of locally brewed beer, twisted off the cap, sat on the couch, feet on the coffee table, feeling, oh wow, in just one day (not counting my first try), my family grew from one to three. 

       Being a parent will be the greatest challenge of my life. I'll buy one of those How to Be a Parent books, learn the ins and outs. I might practice on the kids hanging out on the street.

       Might say, "Shouldn't you be home studying?"

       It will be interesting to see how that goes.

       Then I turned on my computer and went to the local ASPCA website. When I was done, it had reason to be pleased. 

       My comment is above the comment, "No waiting.”  

       I left a five-star review. 

---

Michael is a lawyer who, in reaction to writing about the whereas and wherefores for his clients, began writing stories at night. “Arrested at the ASPCA” is one of them.

John Wegner

Illusions of Intimacy

My phone swooshes, letting me know I have a new text. I don’t like any of the standard notification sounds, but I’m too cheap to pay for anything less annoying. In a perfect world, I’d hear the sound of a shooting arrow and Concorde from Monty Python and the Holy Grail say “Message for you sir,” but most of the people I work with think I’m socially awkward already. No need to prove them right. 

I assume the latest swoosh is from my wife about supper. She wants something healthy the kids will eat without complaining. I want Thai noodles or Korean Fried Chicken. We’ll probably settle on Rosa’s Taco Tuesday so we can trick the kids into eating a little lettuce and Spanish Rice with carrots and peas. Raising kids, I’m convinced, is about managing disappointments and reducing tantrums. Trying to make everyone happy is a rookie mistake.

I look away from my work computer, tap my phone, and see a message from my mother instead.

Food will be the least of my problems today.

Mom              Wed Apr 16 11:08 AM

We missed you at Easter.

At least your sister called.

I’m not saying she was

pleasant but we heard her

voice. Not sure why you

don’t visit more often, Ray.

Pack your bags, I thought, mom wants to take you on a guilt trip.

We’d taken the kids camping Easter weekend, something I told my mother more than once. Her memory is increasingly selective and her world view set to outrage.

I get back to work and try to ignore her text. Not every journey people invite you on is worth taking.

The past is too much with me, though, and I pick up my phone.

Ray Wed Apr 16 11:15 AM

Do you remember Easter the

year before Kevin died? You

Unpacked your grandmother’s

china plates. Cooked a turkey,

mashed potatoes, green beans.

We didn’t go visit your parents

because you weren’t talking to

them that year. Kevin wore a

bunny suit with one ear that

wouldn’t stand up. I was 7

and too old for Winnie the

Pooh shirts but young enough

to still believe in a magic bunny.

After dinner we played

basketball in the driveway

and Kevin crawled into your

lilies. He was 1 and toddling

around. You took a picture of

him covered in dirt. Dad was

holding him. I have that

photo now. We look like

a normal family.

I stop typing. The cursor blinks. I delete my response and get lost in my spreadsheets.

“We’re not exactly churchly people,” I tell my wife that night after she reads the text from my mother. “Caring about Jesus twice a year isn’t going to balance the ledger. We were more in tune with God hiking in Big Bend Easter Sunday than they’ve ever been.”

Kendra tells me to ignore the text and not respond.

Once my parents learned how to text and created a Facebook account, my mom never stopped typing. 

“Your mom believes in illusions of intimacy. The more she texts the more you’ll think she cares so the performance matters more than the content,” Kendra tells me. “Maybe you should block them and save yourself the aggravation.”

Kendra’s parents died when she was in her 20s, and she’s an only child. Familial advice from her is like listening to a priest talk to you about sex.

My phone chimes early the next morning, and I wonder again why I don’t silence it.  Life was simpler before answering machines and voicemail. Back then we could ignore a ringing phone and pretend we weren’t home. Sometimes I want to stop the world and get off the merry-go-round.

Mom               Thur Apr 17 7:23 AM

I guess you didn’t get my

messages yesterday. Call

your dad. He’s lonely.

Mom               Thur Apr 17 8:24 AM

Have you talked to Darla?

I can’t get a hold of her.

Mom               Thur Apr 17 9:14 AM

Are you at work? In a meeting?

Too busy to text? I guess you

don’t love us anymore.

Some mothers might add a smiley face to make sure you know they’re joking.

I’m at my desk trying to focus on work, but I spend most of my time mulling over a response while the numbers in front of me go in and out of focus. 

Ray                 Thur April 17 11:32 AM

Do you remember the

Easter after Kevin died?

Dad had “food poisoning”

and was sick all day.

Darla got in trouble for

talking too loud. You had

a black eye. We stayed home

again. Aunt Joyce accused

you of stealing from grandma.

You hung up on grandpa

the night before. Yelled

at the phone. Got red-

Faced. Scary. Mean.

That morning Darla and

I went into the living room

looking for Easter eggs.

Our baskets were on the

ground. Plastic grass

everywhere. No eggs, no

chocolate but plenty of

empty bottles on the table.

You tried to convince us the

Easter Bunny left a note and

was coming tomorrow. Dad

asked when the rabbit

stew would be ready and

laughed when I started

crying. We didn’t play

basketball. Your lilies

died in an early freeze

that year.

I sip my coffee and delete the text. Start typing again.

Ray                 Thur Apr 17 11:34 AM

The Easter after Kevin died,

Darla was 11. Y’all wouldn’t

let her go to church with her

friend Sheila. Holidays are

for families you told her

even though nobody in

your family was getting

along. Easter grass was

scattered all over the floor.

At lunch, dad threw the

gravy boat against the

wall before knocking his

plate off the table. A week

later, Darla sliced her foot

on a piece of porcelain you

missed. She bled through

her sock at school and

the nurse called home.

Y’all grounded her for

a week for telling them

what happened.

I meet Kendra for lunch at a deli near the office and show her the unsent text.

“You should just call them or go to therapy. You can’t keep fighting these demons typing and deleting texts.”

I erase my text. Sometimes the best battles are ones we never fight.  

Saturday morning, I get up early. After our second child was born, we bought five acres outside of town. We wanted privacy and a place to drink coffee where we could watch the sun come up.

Weather permitting, I sit on the deck and enjoy the quiet solitude before the necessary noise of family life begins. Like most of us, I rationalize carrying my phone like an extra appendage. Sometimes Kendra texts me from bed to remind me of soccer games or suggest we have a big country breakfast. She could tell me the same things in person but the best technology helps us confuse efficiency with laziness. The demarcation between being connected and tethered are increasingly blurry these days.

The text this morning is, unfortunately, not from Kendra. Next time we’ll have to buy land where we have no cell reception.

Mom               Sat Apr 19 3:34 AM

were not geting any younger

you know is there some

reason you arent answering

your mothers texts

REMEMBER WHERE

YOU CAME FROM WERE

YOUR FAMILY WEATHER

YOU LIKE IT OR NOT

My dad doesn’t have a cell phone. He says he prefers the landline, but mostly he wants an excuse to avoid talking to people. Every once in a while, though, he’ll take my mom’s phone and text.

A podcast I listen to had an episode on the Infinite Monkey Theory not long ago. Basically, the idea is that a thousand chimps hitting typewriter keys could, given enough time, write a Shakespearean play. My dad’s texting calls that statistical theory into question. I doubt a thousand people could randomly generate anything he writes, much less a bunch of monkeys.

Before retiring, he spent 32 years working for Dow Chemical checking flanges, pumps, and other equipment that kept him outside and out of the office. Guys he started with got promoted or found better work after a few years. I think he needed the solitude of working alone more than a cushier job or forming lasting relationships. He wasn’t one to attend company picnics or stop at the bar for a cold one after work. When he retired, there was no party.

For about a year after he retired, he volunteered for Habitat for Humanity. At his best, he’s a decent carpenter and electrician. At his worst, he says something he thinks is funny that the rest of us don’t. 

These days he spends his time watching the news or piddling around in the garage “sorting buckets of old nails and keeping away from mom,” Darla says.

He’s certainly not spending his free time working on his writing skills or paying attention to the all caps button.

I reread the text and sip my coffee. There are deer on the fence line, eating berries off the eastern red cedars. A couple of rabbits scurry around by the deck. The sun peeks above the tree line.

Everyone else is still asleep. I try to keep his message from disturbing the quiet, but the past rolls in like thunder through the hills. I start typing.

Ray                 Sat Apr 19 7:28 AM

I remember standing on a

driveway with a push

broom in my hands

watching you and mom

fight. You told us we had

4 yards to mow that

day. It was March or

early April and you’d

decided to start a yard

business on the side.

Darla was dragging

a black hefty bag

filled with leaves.

You said something

loud enough that

Mr. Johnson stood on his

driveway staring at us.

Kevin was 2 and playing in

the bed of the truck. No one

was watching him when he

climbed on top of the tailgate.

I delete my message and forward his text to Darla.

Ray                 Sat Apr 19 7:45 AM

What the hell am I supposed

to do with this? Have you

seen them lately?His text

makes as much sense as

Game Theory after

smoking a doobie.

(Sophomore year but don’t

tell the kids I didn’t

Just Say No.)

Darla              Sat Apr 19 8:02 AM

I had lunch with her the other

day. She started complaining

about “the illegals and

libtards in the media.” I

reminded her I was an

immigration lawyer and

married to a man named

Jose. I haven’t talked to

dad in months.

Kendra walks over with a cup of coffee and sees my phone.

“Tell Darla I said hello.”

I put my phone face down. Out of sight but not out of mind.

I feel sympathy for my mom. She was the oldest of nine children by a wide margin and spent most of her teenage years raising her siblings.

Her father was an alcoholic. He was emotionally distant but always within swinging distance. His words carried farther and could hit harder, she told us at his funeral.

“Sounds familiar,” Darla whispered to me.

Still, she was a good mother-in-law to Kendra and a better grandmother than mother. To both their credits, they never missed the kids’ birthdays. The kids think PawPaw’s a grump but harmless, but there’s a fine line between grouchy and asshole. At least he hasn’t crossed it with them yet.

I realize a few days later that I never answered his text. Or hers. Life’s difficult enough without courting problems so I think about mending a fence or two and text Darla.

Ray                 Thur May 1 6:45 PM

Mother’s Day? I haven’t

said anything to the parents

yet, but Kendra thinks it

might be nice to go over.

You up for it?

Darla              Thur May 1 8:30 PM

Can we insist they leave

the TV off? Jose definitely

won’t go but I can come by

with the kids in the early

afternoon. Churches’ Fried

Chicken? It’ll be work

enough showing up. No

way I’m also cooking.

I put the phone down and make a drink Kendra watches me from the sofa. Puts her magazine down.

“Liquid courage? It’s a text, Ray. Just press the buttons and ask. Your mom will be happy we’re all coming over.”

I take the last sip of my bourbon, lift the glass, and rattle the ice at Kendra. When we were dating, my dad did something similar and she told him “your legs aren’t broken and I’m not your servant.” I’ve loved her since.

She laughs and walks out of the room while I pour another finger into the glass.

“My mom would have at least handed me the bottle,” I joke as she turns the corner.

“Do you really want me to be like your mom?” I hear her say as the bedroom door closes.

I’ve put off texting as long as possible and start typing before I can find a reason not to.

Ray                 Thur May 1 8:41 PM

Darla and I would like to

bring some chicken over

on Mother’s Day. Will you

guys be around?

Mom               Thur May 1 8:42 PM

Where else would we be?

Is everyone coming? Need

to know so dad puts on

some Pants. :)

Ray                 Thur May  8:42 PM

Ha. Please be clothed.

Everyone but Jose. He’ll

be out of town. Looking

forward to it.

Mom               Thur May 1 8:45 PM

home to mexico hope he

keeps his green card handy

and doesnt try to smuggle

any relatives over your

mom says to be nice but im

jokeing NOONE CAN TAKE

A JOKE any more

I forward the messages to Darla.

Ray                 Thur May 1 8:51 PM

We’re set for Mother’s

Day. For better or worse.

Darla              Fri May 2 6:37 AM

They’re like paint and

turpentine. If one of them

does something nice, the

other thins it out.

There is no fine china, but mom has plates out on various placemats Darla and I made in school. The kids enjoy seeing our primitive, pre-digital media artwork. Mom shows the younger ones how to make a turkey with their hands.

Darla brings the fried chicken, and Kendra and I pick up sides and a pie from HEB.

“Seeing her grandchildren will be gift enough,” I tell Kendra when she asks about a present. She brings her flowers anyway.

After we’re home, I’m watching the Rangers blow another lead to the Blue Jays wondering what Darla’s thinking about the day. 

Ray                 Sun May 11 7:07 PM

That went surprisingly

well. Felt Like we were

a normal family and

everything.

Darla              Sun May 11 7:09 PM

Yeah. They aren’t

half bad sometimes.

Helped that the kids took

dad outside and kept him

off any screens. I haven’t

seen him dribble a

basketball in years. Jose

doesn’t believe me when I

tell him dad was all-state.

Ray                 Sun May 11 7:10 PM

The shorter the visit, the

better. Maybe things are

getting better. He seemed

almost sober?

Darla              Sun May 11 7:15 PM

Maybe. I’m betting

not but I want to bask in the

normalcy and not over

think it.

On Father’s Day, Kendra and Darla surprise Jose and I with a weekend trip to cabins outside of Concan. Our shared deck is about 20 feet from the Frio River. During the day we float and play with the kids. In the evenings we sit on the deck, enjoy a beer or two, and watch the kids play.

We try to call dad but the service is bad.

The next morning, Darla and I remember that we’d been here as teenagers. There was an algae covered flume about half a mile away. We’d spent most of the day sliding into the river, and dad grilled some fish he’d caught that morning.

We don’t tell Kendra and Jose that we got kicked out the next day when dad got in a fight with the couple staying nearby. Their music was too loud. Or the wrong kind. We couldn’t remember the details, just the embarrassment.

Kendra and Jose have learned not to ask questions when we talk about the past, and Darla and I have vowed to keep things light when we travel. The devil is in the details and sometimes it’s best to leave him there and paint the scene in broad strokes. 

“We need to live where we’re standing, especially if we’re paying this much for a room,” Darla said a few years ago when our families met down on the River Walk in San Antonio.

Kendra and Jose, I know, appreciate the effort.

“All families are psychotic,” Jose said once when we started talking about our parents, but “allí esu el detalle, here’s the rub, your parents are totalamente loco. Don’t tell your dad I spoke Spanish to you, though. He might think I corrompido a su hija.”

On our way home, somewhere close to Kerrville, my phone blows up with missed messages. The kids are asleep in the backseat. Kendra reads some of the texts out loud. 

Mom               Sun June 15 12:01 PM

I can’t believe you haven’t

called. He does care you

know.

Mom               Sun June 15 3:33 PM

He’s napping but at least

one of his kids should call.

Mom               Sun June 15 5:02 PM

Its bad enough you don’t

show up or call but not

even a text.

There are a variety of other texts in similar fashion.

We get home, sunburned and tired. The kids are tucked in, and Kendra is asleep on the couch. I’m trying to relax with a beer and a ball game on tv. Nothing wears you out more than a weekend away.

Even after a 6–pack and another Ranger’s loss, I can’t get mom’s texts out of my head.

Ray                 Sun June 15 9:45 PM

I guess you got all those

texts too. Who knew he’d

care?

Darla              Sun June 15 9:46 PM

We were celebrating Father’s

Day. You and Jose are fathers

who deserve celebrating. Is

he?

I want to live more of my life on vacation and less in my head. Without thinking, I start typing to mom.

Ray                 Sun June 15 11:01 PM

Do you remember the Father’s

Day when Kevin was one. We

went to a Rangers game. They

had Nolan Ryan Bobbleheads.

Kevin bit the head off. We

laughed. You called him your

little Ozzy Osbourne. I missed

the joke at the time and you

explained why y’all were

laughing. A couple years 

after Kevin died, we thought

going to a game might help.

Dad’s sad, you told us. We

saved money, made him

a card and bought tickets.

You let us pretend like we

paid for everything. The card

had “Popcorn money.” Dad

bought beer instead. Drove

home. You let him.

I think about calling Darla, but there’s no reason to ruin her mood, also. I delete my text and go to bed.

The next morning, I text from the parking garage before going into the office. 

Ray                 Mon June 16 8:02 AM

Happy Father’s Day. Sorry

We missed talking. We were

all in Concan. The trip

was last minute. Do you

remember that place with

the flume? Our cabin was

near there. Hope y’all did

something fun.

Mom               Mon June 16 8:45 AM

Dad said to tell you thank

you. Maybe next year he

can see y’all. Was that the

year Darla got the fish

hook caught in her ear?

Mom              Mon June 16 8:48 AM

i didnt say thanks to

anything you and darla

made you point do

whatever i hope the

grand kids had fun the

fishing was good at

that spot

No one answers when I call.

“I was going to invite them downtown for lunch. I guess I feel a little bad,” I tell Kendra on the phone. “Maybe Darla would meet us for a late Father’s Day?”

They keep not answering their phone or responding to my texts.

Parties and summer sports keep us busy enough to miss the passing of time.

Mom texts an aggressively patriotic meme that doesn’t mean what she thinks on July 4th. No mention of the 5 or 6 texts I sent in mid-June.

“I guess they’re ready to grace you with their presence again,” Kendra says when I show her the text.

We’re able to engage in enough small talk to keep the peace for a while. Things go back to normal.

Mom               Wed Aug 6 3:05 PM

Dad fell again. Some

stranger called 911.

We’re at the emergency

room. The paramedics

smelled his breath and

told him to go to the

emergency room or

they’d call the police.

He would have been

fine at home. I don’t

know why anyone trusts

doctors anyway. Them

and the insurance companies

want us to stay sick so they

can make more money.

“At least she didn’t ask you to come down there,” Kendra says when I tell her. She pauses. “I wonder if Darla’s there?”

Ray                 Thur Aug 7 7:15 AM

Have you gotten an

update?

Darla             Thur Aug 7  7:45 AM

I guess I should have

told you. I blocked her

last week. Mom posted a

Facebook meme showing

a lawyer with a noose on

his neck and a guy in a

MAGA hat holding the

other end. Dad liked a

post by someone calling

Mexicans “chili-chompers.”

I can’t handle the toxicity

anymore and there’s no

way I’m letting our children

anywhere near them. He’s

half in the bag by noon and

mom’s too old to babysit the

kids by herself. God knows

what she says to them.They

fight all the time now. There’s

too many years of this to

ignore anymore.

Her text comes while I’m driving. Siri skips the “chili.” AI is more polite than my parents.

When I get to my desk, I turn on my computer, check today’s tasks and meeting schedule, but those compartmentalized and repressed memories won’t stay in their designated space today.

I respond to Darla. 

Ray                 Thur Aug 7 8:33 AM

Sometimes I worry the seeds

of his anger have taken root.

I hear his voice in my head

when I yell at the kids or

when Kendra does some

little thing I shouldn’t be

upset about. The struggle

is real. I’d consider

therapy but introspection

is overrated.

Darla             Thur Aug 7 8:34 AM

Hold tight little brother.

We don’t have to be

them. The sins of the

father can stay with him.

Sometimes the best we can

do is not be them. 

How, I wonder, do we not become who we are raised to be?

I focus on my computer, hoping to lose myself in datasets.

Mom               Fri Aug 8 8:47 PM

They’re keeping dad one

more night. The doctor said

the stranger who called saved

his life. Let Darla know if you

want.

Ray                  Fri Aug 8 9:13 PM

I wish that stranger had been

there when Kevin fell out of

the truck.

I hit send without thinking and hand my phone to Kendra.

She reads the text.

She taps the screen a couple times and holds my hand while I wonder why I’m not more upset.  

Mom

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John Wegner has published creative works, including Love is Not a Dirty Word & Other Stories (Lamar UP,) and scholarship discussing Cormac McCarthy, Nathaniel Hawthorne, & other writers who write sentences he wishes he could. Blissfully devoid of all social media platforms, he teaches all online so he and his wife can travel across the US as often as possible.

Claudia Monpere

Give Me a Push

        Opening my baby shower gift, I’m thrilled to see all six inches of my very own cheerleader. Smiling, she leaps out of the box, shaking her pom-poms. I can’t believe Kate’s gone to this expense. Rolled eyes from other guests, women like me without a nanny and second home.

        My cheerleader does a roundoff and back handspring, her tiny, pleated skirt twirling, her cheer briefs sparkling silver.

        When I’m in the hospital in labor, she perches on the bed shouting through her megaphone: “Gimme a push! A push! A  P-U-S-H.” Later, I stroke the soft fuzz on Elena’s head, smell her newborn skin. In her brown eyes, I see my husband, Max. The nurse instructs me about breastfeeding, but Elena has trouble latching. My cheerleader guides me: “No hunching. / Sit up straight! / Mouth faces nipple. / Yay, that’s greaaaat!” 

        My parents visit. My father watches football, changes diapers—a lovely surprise—

and requests routines from my cheerleader that show her tiny ass. My mother cooks, cleans, criticizes my mothering. My cheerleader cheers everything: how I cuddle Elena, sing to her, walk and walk during her forever cries. She cheers my nursing, a miserable mess. Elena still has trouble latching, falling asleep at my breast. The breast pump hurts and has a million parts and my breasts are sore and red and my mother insists the lactation consultant return for the third time and my cheerleader flips her batons and Elena wails in my father’s arms.

        The hardest thing about sleep deprivation is its randomness. One night Elena wakes up six times, falling asleep while nursing. Next night: seven straight hours of sleep. Next night: cries for four hours except when at my breast. High-pitched wails. Scarlet, scrunched up face. She’s a needy, ungrateful blob. She’s my baby girl; I’m terrified she’ll die. I watch her sleep, checking her breathing.

        One day, my cheerleader drops her baton doing a triple toss. She apologizes profusely. It's then I notice that the middle and ring fingers are fused on her right hand, which she hides when not cheering. On a night when Elena won't stop crying and she's been fed, changed, and cuddled, my cheerleader uses that hand to stroke her forehead. Elena stops crying.  Smiles. I try not to feel bad that I didn’t bring on that smile.

        When my right breast swells and burns horrendously and I go on antibiotics for mastitis, when my mother trips over Max’s climbing equipment and insists we donate Max’s belongings although he died only 256 days ago, I weep and weep. My cheerleader brings a troupe with tiny ukuleles singing “Don’t Worry, Be Happy.” I want to scream, disappear.

        My cheerleader nudges me to switch to bottle feeding against my mother’s objections, bouncing her pom poms, singing, “A breast-fed baby with an overwhelmed Mom/ Will never be happy, never be calm.” I switch to the bottle. I go on Zoloft, allow myself a daily shower. I sleep whenever Elena sleeps. I tell my parents to go home when my mother sneaks a box of Max’s ropes and harnesses into the trash. I let friends bring dinner.

        But tummy time. Kate’s obsessed with it. Her baby, Rose, at three months holds her chest up while on her tummy, rolls over and smiles.

        Elena despises tummy time, making no effort to lift her head. She shrieks endlessly. Or lies on her tummy like she’s already given up on life and is just waiting for the end. My cheerleader ups her game, juggling tiny stuffies, rattles, bottles. One day, nine tiny cheerleaders join her, forming a pyramid. Elena wails into the rug.

        I explain this to Kate. She’s relaxed after the gym and lunch with friends. I say maybe I need a nanny instead of a cheerleader. Kate says nannies are tricky. What I need, she says, is a different cheerleader. “I’m embarrassed, but your cheerleader was on sale. You know, that weird hand.” She grimaces.

        “She’s perfect,” I say.

        The next night Elena is up a lot. After the third wake up, accompanied by diaper changes and bottles, she’s finally back to sleep. I’m tired. But. I’m grateful. Elena is healthy, loved. My breasts need nothing from me. No cold compresses, no pumping. I say the bottle cheer: “Go team bottle/ Say it loud/ Bottles rule/ We’re so proud.” Maybe my cheerleader can come up with cheers saying tummy time is bullshit.

        It’s nearly morning. I put on my robe and walk in the garden, breathing in the clematis, its airy vanilla scent, admiring the yellow pompom mums. I’ll show them to my cheerleader.

        Then I hear music. Coming toward me, a tiny marching band playing a John Philip Souza march. Brass, woodwinds, percussion. Band members wear dark pants, gold braided jackets. My cheerleader, in pink sequined leotard, follows on a float, sitting on a high trapeze. The band stops, drums beating. She hangs from the bar swinging, faster, faster, flipping to a second trapeze. No net below.

        There was no net below Max. He was on an ice cornice when it collapsed. In my dreams, it’s always snowing. Max drifts, sticking his tongue out to taste snow, speaking to the macaws who perch on his arms, a flash of blue, green, and orange feathers.

        I call to my cheerleader to stop but she’s in a world of muscles and spirit. She leaps to the platform, dashes to the lawn and does a kick double full twist. She trips. I go to her. 

        “I’ve worked so hard,” she says, crying.

        “Thank you,” I say.

        “I’ve been returned. Twice. I’ve worked so hard,” she repeats.   

        I put out my hand. “Hop aboard.” I hold her against my shoulder, then bring her close to my face. “Elena and I don’t need your fancy routines.” She looks stricken. “We just need your company.”

       “What do you mean? Like a pet? I’m not a pet.”

        No, I say, “like a sister. A daughter. Like another woman.”

What the Stars Want

After eating her Salisbury steak dinner, the old woman, Edith, fell asleep over an Eleanor Roosevelt biography.  Awakening at 10:22 pm, she pulled herself up to her walker, struggling to the bedroom. Floating over her bed: something large and white and puffy. Damn if it wasn’t a cloud. Magic? Maybe she’d call her granddaughter. They used to do magic tricks together. But Amber was busy with swim team and piano and friends, and Edith remembered how last Christmas her daughter sighed. “Mom, don’t you remember? She thinks that magic stuff is babyish.” Edith opened her window. “What’s going on out there?” she called to the stars. The cloud over her bed was larger now, drifting slowly toward her. She phoned her daughter who said she was seeing things and should go back to sleep. She’d be over first thing in the morning. It was time to sign the contract at Oak Hills. “Please don’t cry,” said her daughter.

~

Jennifer forgave her husband after he wept saying he’d slit his own throat before he ever hurt her again and yes he knew this was the third time he was a piece of shit hell should swallow him up he didn’t deserve her and yes maybe they should return to marriage counseling and he brought ice packs and Advil and she tried to sleep but his sleep breathing made her furious and she was glad she was wearing the nightgown he hated faded blue checks in soft flannel and she went to make tea but when she opened the cabinet there was a white cloud inside and it floated out, growing to the size of a raft hovering just above the floor, and she opened the window, sat in the cloud, and floated into the sky.

~

Katie had an accident again during the night; Ma Wilson would be furious. 7 years old, she’d say. Disgusting! The girl crept out of bed, not waking the other foster kids. She peeled off the wet sheet and the bottom of her pjs, getting a spare pair from the bag under her bed. She went to the bathroom to rinse everything.  But when she swept aside the bath curtain, there was a wedding gown laid out in the tub. Katie put it on. It hung from her tiny frame in shiny, glittering folds of white satin. She twirled, then tripped, a bloody gash on her knee. She removed the gown, bandaged her knee, put on clean pjs, rinsed the pee part of the sheet and the bottom of her pjs and sat on the bathroom floor drying them with a hair dryer. When she felt herself falling asleep, she thought of Ma Wilson, spit flying from her mouth. Katie thought of  Sammy and Oliver who called her diaper girl and peed in her bed sometimes to get her in trouble. Finally, she returned to bed, putting the still damp sheet back on. She took the pillow out of its case and carefully folded the wedding dress inside. Then fell asleep, her dark hair feathered on her wedding gown pillow.

~

Katie awoke to a woman in a blue checkered nightgown stroking her check, whispering, “Come on, sweetie, come with me.” The woman was a stranger, but her voice was gentle. “Let’s get your slippers on. Do you have a robe?” The girl shook her head, but removed the wedding gown from the pillowcase, holding it out. The woman wrapped the girl in it, taking her hand and heading to the open window. A cloud hovered just outside, an old woman seated inside, waving. “Am I dreaming?” asked Katie. “No,” said the old woman “This is much better than a dream. Come on in.” Katie and the woman stepped into the cloud which felt both fluffy and sturdy. “But we do need a sail if we’re going anywhere,” the old woman said. “Hmmm.” Katie shook off the wedding gown and held it out. “Perfect. This is a three-person job. Let’s all stand and shake it. Ahh, my damn hip.” But it took just a few shakes and the gown bloomed and split into two sails. A mast and rigging appeared.

        The sky shimmered silver as they floated. Katie whispered, “Where are we going?” “I’m not really sure,” the woman answered. “Somewhere better.” “I’m kind of scared,” Katie said. “I know, Sweetie, me too,” said the woman. “Are you scared?” Katie asked the old woman who shrugged and smiled. “Maybe a bit.” “Well,” Katie said, “We could sing.” “Ah,” said the old woman, “the stars would love that.”

---

Claudia Monpere lives and writes in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her debut collection of flash, The Periodic Family, is forthcoming with Cowboy Jamboree Press. She received the New Flash Fiction Prize from New Flash Fiction Review and the Genre Flash Fiction Prize from Uncharted Magazine. She has stories in Best Small Fictions and Best Microfiction. More at https://claudiamonpere.com/‍ ‍

Lauren Kardos

Chruściki

We learned through Aunt Julia, shrieking through the phone: JaJa died in his assisted living apartment across the state. I remember Mom held the receiver away from her ear, plucked a cicada that had gotten inside off the kitchen windowsill and held that in her other palm. Too far away to be useful for arrangements, we waited in hushed limbo, ate nothing but French bread pizzas and freezer-burnt appetizers from the Schwan's man. I crept from kitchen to bedroom, a fieldmouse in the tall grass, avoiding the talons of Mom’s grief. She didn’t want hugs. She didn’t want to share memories of the grandfather I met few enough times to forget the color of his eyes. She wouldn’t answer questions about the relatives my father and I would have to identify by dusty album photos. “What should I pack,” I asked Dad. He shrugged and said, “Whatever will make them think we’re mourning.”

JaJa was born in Warsaw, like his parents and his grandparents and their parents and grandparents, all the way back. Something I learned through Mom, since JaJa never talked much when we visited. Though his English sagged with a Philadelphian accent, he preferred to speak Polish to Mom and Aunt Julia, who mostly understood but could only respond in English. At fourteen-years-old, I stopped wondering if JaJa was knowable: his thoughts on Babcie’s snow-sky perm, what age he coughed through his first Marlboro, how he chose the cologne that still haunts his pink recliner I inherited from the care facility.

“Why do we have to make the six-hour drive when they hate us?”

Dad couldn’t answer.

Each trip ended the same when I was younger. JaJa yelling at Mom over some small thing, under-scrambled eggs, an errant sock I’d left on the living room couch. Babcie pretending Dad wasn’t there when he stepped in to defend us. Aunt Julia would sit at the kitchen table, chain smoking more than JaJa ever did, staring at me like I was some many-eyed bug. She’d turn to prophesy. I’d turn out exactly like her sister. I’d never leave the shitstain town Dad moved us to.  Silent treatments followed the shouting, so the three of us would play tourist, leaving Mom’s family to stew. I swear we sampled every cheesesteak in the city over the years and one time I raced up those museum stairs faster than Rocky. Often we returned home days ahead of schedule. Visits spaced out and, eventually, Mom let go of those annual road trips. JaJa, Babcie, and Aunt Julia rarely called.

“Aside from us, kiddo, they’re the only family your mom has,” Dad said as we packed our bags and helped Mom with her laundry.

The day before our long drive to the service, I woke to a clanging and clattering around the kitchen. Oil splatters on her dingy bathrobe and her forehead slick, Mom stood over a sizzling Dutch oven. A rolling pin and pie cloth decorated the kitchen table. Powdered sugar and eggs formed a countertop mountain by the microwave.

“Want to help me make these Polish cookies you’ve never tried? Angels’ wings?” Mom asked, but her eyes said something like, I couldn’t bear to make them until now.

All day, we flattened dough until our biceps ached, laced the paper-thin strips through tiny central wounds, fried our feelings and everything we wanted to speak but never did and probably never would, because Mom wasn’t like her parents but in some ways she was. When she took the first bite of the cooled dough, she didn’t wipe away her tears but said, “It tastes like home.”     

---

Lauren Kardos (she/her) writes from Washington, DC, but she’s still breaking up with her hometown in Western Pennsylvania. Cold Signal, Milk Candy Review, Flash Fiction Online, Lost Balloon, and Best Microfiction 2022 are just a few of the fine publications that feature her stories and poems. You can find more of her work at www.laurenkardos.co.

Colin Bishoff

Waffle House

This is the story of how a Waffle House saved my marriage. Sort of.

It’s never easy being married to an academic. Get hitched to a tenured math professor while you’re still teaching Gatsby and Julius Caesar to high-schoolers and you can double that bet. I guess I knew that before I married Jessica, but knowing didn’t make things any easier when our vows began to crack.

In our twenties, it wasn’t so bad. We bounced around college towns across the Southeast, finally landing in a mid-sized town in southern Georgia. At parties, I became the token professor’s spouse. I’d get a nice meal, share a few cocktails, then fend off the inevitable questions of “what do you do” with assurances that I was quite happy as the steward of the five-paragraph essay and AP lit exam, thank you very much. Quite happy to take charge of after-school study hall while Jessica led faculty meetings and developed her CV. I started drinking not because I was bored, but because I was lonely.

By the time my principal called me into his office and requested I take some time off—for my health, he said—the rest of the faculty had taken to avoiding me as if they were afraid I’d keel over and explode while trying to diagram a sentence. I wasn’t a ticking time bomb. I was a goddamned Molotov cocktail. 

My first weeks at home, I felt pretty indifferent about the whole thing. I checked email and graded papers. I even wrote a couple poems. Blame it on the writer every English teacher thinks he’s got in him. From Faulkner to Fitzgerald, Carver, to Cheever, every one of those sons of bitches drank like fish. I figured as long as I eased up a bit and stayed afloat, I’d be no different. I’d earned my master’s degree while teaching full time, had taught AP classes for three years, and knew twentieth-century literature like I’d lived through the entire thing instead of just the last two decades of it. Once everything blew over, I’d land right back where I’d been before: teaching impressionable young minds to appreciate the genius lyricism of modernism and the jazz age. 

Jessica had different ideas. The first thing she said the night she kicked me out was that she’d set up a dating profile. That was news. Last I’d heard, online hookups signified everything that was wrong with the twenty-first century. The second was that she wanted me out of our condo by the weekend. It was Thursday. From what the news anchor was saying about the tropical storm blowing up from Florida, there was no guarantee there’d be a weekend left. I told Jessica as much around the time she poured my last bottle of scotch down the kitchen sink. Johnnie Walker Black: expensive. The next thing I saw was my bottle collection smashed to pieces on the linoleum. My record cabinet went next, all my Zeppelins and Sabbaths and Stones and UFOs flying like saucers out the window. My dignity took the next hit, and after that, my jaw. The rain had only just started when I grabbed my briefcase, climbed into my red Nissan Frontier, and headed south on Route 300.

Two hours later, I was driving down a river. I’d never seen so much water. Back when we could still laugh about my drinking, Jessica’d told me that if I kept it up, I’d grow gills. If only. As soon as the fishtailing started, I latched onto the first glowing thing I saw: a Waffle House sign, like a beacon in the storm.

I took a booth in the corner near the restrooms. A stocky waitress with a buzz cut and neck tattoos and a pimpled griddle cook who looked younger than my freshmen glared at me from behind the register. Graveyard shift: all I needed was a coffin. The only other customer was a small, balding man in a blue sweater vest and plaid bow tie who stood beside the jukebox with a newspaper and roll of quarters in his hand. Music crackled as he sat down on one of the stools. I recognized “Hotel California” by The Eagles. 

I ordered coffee and watched the waitress scribble my order on a pink notepad. When she walked back to the kitchen, I became transfixed by a sweat stain on the back of her smock. For some reason, the stain bugged me. How long had it been there? A long time, probably. Maybe forever.

The view from my window wasn’t much better: all black clouds and dizzy lights where the streetlamps fuzzed in the raindrops. I checked the weather on my phone and put my head down in disgust: it was raining Genesis all the way to Atlanta. Through the gloom, I studied the outline of my truck beneath the sign and hoped the windows wouldn’t leak. I’d had that truck since high school. I’d have sold my soul before buying a new one. 

I spent a good half hour grading some old papers I found in my briefcase, taking perverse pleasure scribbling red markings over each page, then started an apology letter to Jessica. The news about the dating app still bothered me. How long had she had a profile? Had she already met someone else? I tightened my jaw and stared into the dark parking lot. Fuck it.

When the waitress returned, I drained the sour dregs of my coffee and ordered an All-Star Special. Though I hadn’t realized I was hungry, the smells of grease and waffles and sizzling onions had awakened an animal in my belly I now struggled to tame. I tried and failed to remember my last full meal. Shortly thereafter, the ink in my pen ran out. I searched my briefcase for a spare and, not finding one, eyed the man with the newspaper. All night, he’d kept up a steady stream of hits—Jimmi Hendrix, Boston, Queen—and now hunched over his newspaper with a pencil in his hand. I hesitated, then walked over.

“Uh, hi,” I said, watching him scribble an answer into the crossword he was working on. He’d almost finished it. I summoned a smile. “You wouldn’t have an extra pencil, would you?”

He lowered the paper and stared at me. He had a long nose and large eyes that seemed too far apart, like a bird’s. An unclean smell I couldn’t put a name to—a mélange of ancient sweat and motor oil and tobacco—emanated from him. Wordlessly, he reached into the pocket of his jacket and withdrew a yellow pencil with the eraser chewed off. 

“Thanks,” I said, reaching for the pencil. He offered his hand instead.

“I’m Charlie.” 

“Marshall.” I shook reluctantly. His fingers were cold, arthritic, and covered in coarse, black hairs. 

He released me and made a sweeping gesture with his hand. “Storm’s one filthy motherfucker, huh?”

“Yes,” I said, too surprised to say anything else. “Yes, it is.” 

The waitress arrived with a gap-toothed smile. “Here’s your All-Star, hon,” she said, setting down the plates. The smell of fried meat and sight of the food spilling across two plates turned my stomach: eggs, raisin toast, grits, bacon, a waffle. A mug of coffee and a tall glass of orange juice followed.

Charlie whistled. “Breakfast of champions, right there. Think a featherweight like you can handle all that?”

“I’ll manage,” I said. I’d been a runner in high school, and though I hadn’t maintained my fitness well in recent years, I’d retained something of a runner’s body. A flabby one. Jessica, a former gymnast, used to tell me I looked like a scarecrow. I buried the memory behind a forkful of eggs. The grease settled like a warm blanket over my stomach.

Charlie thumped the countertop. “Worst goddamned storm I’ve seen in my life,” he said. “And you know”—he poked my shoulder—“a lifetime’s longer than you think.”

“Sorry?” I choked down a mouthful of toast and rubbed my shoulder resentfully. 

“Time,” Charlie said. “When shit happens, time slows down. Like a car accident. Or purgatory.”

“Never thought of it that way.” I crammed down more toast and poured syrup onto my waffle. In the same moment, I saw an image of myself sitting at the kitchen table grading papers between shots of Johnnie Walker. Instead of music, I heard Jessica’s sobbing. With a gulp of coffee, I suppressed the image. “I don’t believe in hell,” I said. “Or purgatory.”

“Different things,” Charlie said.  He smiled, his forehead creased with wrinkles. “Care for a smoke?”

I pointed at the “No Smoking” sign on the door. Was he for real?

Charlie laughed. “Look around,” he said, gesturing toward the kitchen. “No one will kick us out.” I followed the motion of his hand. He was probably right. The waitress stood in her corner with her back pressed against a cabinet, staring into space. Nearby, the griddle cook sat on a stool with his phone out and sipped from a glass of chocolate milk. Charlie smiled at me and reached inside his sweater. One by one, he removed a leather pouch, a pack of thin white cigarette papers, and a brass Zippo.

“You make your own?” I asked, curious but cautious. I’d smoked Pall-Malls before I got married. I hadn’t been looking to start again.

“Can’t stand the store brands,” Charlie said. He pressed a wad of tobacco into one of the papers and rolled it through his fingers, then licked along the crease and rolled up again to seal it.

“No filter?”

“These don’t give you cancer.” Charlie winked and offered the cigarette.

I stared for a long time before taking it. “Thanks,” I said, holding up the cigarette for Charlie to light. I pressed it to my lips, inhaled, coughed.

“First time?” Charlie asked, rolling another for himself. He lit it but didn’t inhale.

“In a while,” I said. The next puff felt smoother and calmed my nerves. I felt like I was nineteen again. “My wife made me quit.”

“Married, huh? Boy, what a bitch.” Charlie wiggled his fingers at me. No ring. “She’s why you’re here, though, isn’t she?”

“Sorry?” I asked, almost choking on a bite of waffle. I gulped my juice and washed the sticky sweetness down.

“Your wife. She’s the reason you’re sitting here with me at three o’clock in the morning. Or am I wrong?”

“The storm,” I said.

Charlie nodded. “You sure as hell picked the right spot to ride it out. What is it you do?”

“I teach,” I said, loosening my shirt collar. Despite the coolness inside, I felt hot. The damp creases beneath my armpits had nothing to do with the rain.

“Teach what?” Charlie asked, taking no notice of my distress. 

“High school English.”

“A bit late for a school night, isn’t it?”

“I was driving.”

“You asked me about rolling my own cigarettes,” Charlie said. He studied his palms. “There’s a reason I do that.”

  “Fascinating,” I said. I was beginning to regret leaving my booth. Jessica was better at avoiding these types of conversations. She didn’t bullshit—just spoke her mind.

Charlie poked my shoulder. “Hold up and let me tell you something. I don’t know what you’ve been up to or where you’re going, but I get the sense that there’s more to the story when a man who says he teaches high school shows up at three o’clock in the morning smelling drunker than a skunk and smokes a number with me like he’s got no place in the world to be. I want you to hear me out.”

“I’m busy,” I said, no longer trying to be polite.

“You’re busy.”

“Grading papers.”

“Papers?” Charlie laughed in a way I didn’t like. “Look around, champ. Neither of us is going anywhere. Not for a long time. For all you know, all that puffing you did will put you out until Christmas and you’ll wake up in the gutter with your wallet missing and your hands tied behind your back.” A cold tremor ran through me when I considered that I hadn’t seen him inhale yet. He held the cigarette in front of his face as if to make his point. Finally, he took a puff. “Hear me out.”

Hearing the storm outside, I relented. Maybe thinking about someone else’s problems for a change sounded nice. The lights flickered and thunder grumbled in the distance.  “Five minutes,” I said. “After that, I’m going back to my booth.” 

“Five minutes?” Charlie studied his fingers as if to divine some mystery in the thick, black hairs. “All the time in the world.”

Charlie ordered more coffee for both of us and cracked his knuckles like a boxer gearing up for a brawl. “Let me go back to the beginning,” he said. “Plain and simple, I roll my own smokes because I watched my daddy do it every day until I was twelve years old. I’d stand at my window and watch him blowing out in the yard: puff, puff, puff, like a goddamned steamboat. My mother never let me within ten feet of him once he lit up, but she never stopped me from watching him roll them out. He had such smooth, brown hands. Not like these old things.” Charlie wiggled his fingers. “It was like poetry. I smoked my first one the day he died.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, and meant it.

“Don’t be. He wasn’t a good person. Gambler. Cards, mostly, but he sometimes bet on boxing matches or football games or horse races. He wasn’t violent. He never laid a finger on my mother and me. But he never gave us a dime, either. If there’s a hell, he’s there.” Charlie studied his hands. “These days, I think this life’s all we got, but back then, the shock of losing him shook the fear of God into me. I believed in…something…for a while. Studied religion. I kept looking for some way to bring him back, always telling myself it was only so I could spit on him and put him back in his grave.” He took a drag on his cigarette.

“Fast forward things a couple of years. I graduated from college in 1972. Maybe I got all the luck my daddy lost because I felt like the most fortunate son of a bitch alive whenever I thought about how my number hadn’t been called. I knew lots of boys who went to war and a few more who did wild things to avoid going. Crippling themselves, for instance.” He quirked an eyebrow at me. “Maybe I’d have done the same thing myself. But all I could think of when I took my diploma through those arches was that I wanted to find me a job where I’d never have to worry about going to war again. Seminary seemed a good bet.”

“For safety,” I said. It made sense: not everyone wanted to be a hero. Not everyone could be Ernie fucking Hemingway.

“Call it whatever you want. My mother was dead by that time and I’d long since decided religion was bunk, but I’d saved enough money to go to school and needed something to pay the bills. And besides that, I wasn’t finished with my old man. So I started in the divinity school over at Emory, figuring if push came to shove, I’d object to war on religious grounds. I stayed in seminary just long enough to regret it.” He wiggled his fingers again. “I was telling the truth when I told you I don’t know much about being married, champ, but I never said anything about falling in love.”

I stared at my own hands and realized I’d gotten red ink all over them. Jesus. I eyed the bathrooms, not sure I wanted to stay and listen.

Charlie kept going. “I met Martha during my second year, same time she started in the nursing program. To this day, I still believe that she was the most gorgeous woman I’ve ever laid eyes on. Brown eyes; long, black hair; a bit of a crooked smile that was all the more beautiful because it was human. Back in those days, I was a pretty good-looking man myself if you’ll believe it. I had hair, anyway. What we had was real for a while. Magic. Say what you will about chance, champ, but there was no logic to any of it. She happened to walk by me one day while I was sitting on a bench rolling up a cigarette. Next thing I knew, she was sitting down next to me asking if I wouldn’t mind rolling up another. I could tell right off by her uniform what program she was in, and I told her I’d be right happy to roll her a cigarette except that it was 1973 and I didn’t think nurses were supposed to smoke. She took the cigarette from my hand, puffed on it a little, and said she wasn’t that kind of nurse. Well, you can’t argue with a girl like that, so I did just what she asked me to. I reckon she must’ve seen my bible, because the next thing she said was that she didn’t think preachers were supposed to smoke cigarettes, either. I told her I wasn’t a preacher yet, but if I ever became one, I sure as hell wouldn’t be that kind of preacher.

“Things took off after that. For about a year, we lived in a one-room apartment a few blocks off campus with nothing but a bed, two desks, and a record player. She loved her music, that kid. Hendrix, Rolling Stones, Queen—you put her in a room with a Crosley and the best tracks of some of those cats and she’d have danced right on through the night. Not that there was always time for dancing. Money was tight. School was hard. Her parents were deader than mine. Even in the beginning, some part of me knew it wouldn’t last. Every night as we lay in bed, I swore I’d never let anything happen, that I’d never become my father. And I didn’t. But I couldn’t stop myself from being his son.

“The first time I won money at a card game was after final exams. I was ecstatic. I’d been drunk before. I’d done speed. Hell, I’d even gone bull-riding and was bound and determined to never repeat the experience. Those were nothing compared to what I felt like when I was winning. It was like I was…spitting…on my old man for all he’d never been to me. I’d seen what gambling did to him, but goddammit, I thought I could prove I was better. I don’t need to tell you I thought wrong.

“Martha and I spent Christmas in Savannah. She asked questions, but I just shushed her. Said I’d been saving my change for years, waiting for the chance to do something extraordinary with someone I loved. Such romantic bullshit. It wasn’t until we got back home and I started staying out late on school nights and coming back blue and bloody as a prize-winning turkey that she finally asked me where all our money was going. It was little losses at first, little fires, but pretty soon it seemed like every dollar I earned was going to some junkie or other who didn’t know a hooker from a horseshoe but still played the game better than me. 

“Mid spring, she had her breakdown. It must’ve been near Easter because I remember all the goddamn decorations at the hospital. Such beautiful weather, all flowers and new life, but all she would do after she came home was stare at the wall. Every record we had, she broke. Then all we had to listen to was drunk men smashing bottles on our steps. Her grades plummeted. She quit going to classes. And then”—he inhaled deeply from his cigarette—"and then I killed her.”

My throat tightened. I could hear the rain pounding outside. And in the midst of it, I heard sobbing again. “You killed her?”

“I mean it was my fault. I never laid a finger on her, champ—my old man taught me that much—but I chased her to it. There used to be this old bridge near our room where we’d meet some days and walk home together. It was a nice place to just sit. You could stare out at the skyline; count the stars; watch the tail lamps blur with the city lights. I chased her there one night after we’d had a fight. Our worst. It was the only time she got physical, and if it’d gone on any longer”—he paused—“if it’d gone on any longer, I’d have probably hit her, too. I think she realized that.

“To this day, I’ve never seen a human being run so fast, her in that purple night gown that blended with the dark. When I reached the bridge, I found her panting over the guard rail, hair hanging down her face in long, black coils like they were snakes. Even then, she looked beautiful. I’d never seen such a calm night, blue and quiet and filled with starlight and chattering insects. I’d been smoking like my daddy taught me and could taste the tobacco on my breath. When I reached Martha, she pulled away like I was some beast. And when she looked at me…what I saw in her eyes that night was something that should never be on the face of another human being, certainly not someone as beautiful as she was. That look was animal. Disgust. Anguish. Terror. I went for her again, saw her stumble, catch herself, clutch the rail. And then she was gone: a flaw in the guardrail we’d held together a hundred times. Tell me, champ, what are the odds of that? What are the goddamn odds?” He rolled the cigarette between his fingers. “Each fire I light, I light for her sake. Each breath of poison I inhale”—he took a deep, long pull—“is a penance for my soul.”

We didn’t speak for a long time. When I checked my phone, I saw that nearly twenty minutes had passed. My palms were drenched in sweat, the ink from my fingers leaving a red film on the countertop. I felt dizzy. Sick.

“Listen, champ,” Charlie said, startling me. “There’s more than one way to live through hell. Best you learn that.” He put out his cigarette and hopped off his stool. I expected him to go back to the jukebox and was surprised when he walked the other way. Toward my booth. 

“Where are you going?” I asked, mostly to myself. I couldn’t take another round of him.

He stopped and faced me with a thin, wrinkled smile. “Going? I’m not going anywhere. But one thing you realize once you live through as many lifetimes as I have is that the old pipes don’t work the way they used to.” He cupped his hand across his genitals. “So if you’ll pardon me—champ—I’d rather not piss all over this floor.”

It was morning before I realized I’d slept. I found myself sitting alone again at my table, my head propped against a stack of papers, not quite remembering how I’d gotten there. Dazedly, I looked around and saw Charlie slouched against the jukebox, a stack of quarters bouncing against his palm. The waitress and griddle cook spoke softly behind the register and polished the countertops. I had a funny taste in my mouth, like tar and syrup and sleep. My head felt like a truck had smashed into it.  I massaged my temples and thought about what Charlie had told me. Some story. Someone could make a novel of it. Maybe me. I brushed the crumbs and ashes from my shirt. They sparkled like little fires as they drifted through the air.

I heard thunder in the distance. Though the storm clouds blotted out the stars, I watched the tips of pine trees swaying around the perimeter. I checked my phone: six o’clock. Shit. I had a new day in front of me and had never felt so lonely and bitter about it. I checked my messages and found one Jessica had sent two days ago, telling me not to wait on her for dinner. I wondered if she was up yet, drinking her earl grey, making our bed, collecting whatever bottle fragments she’d missed the previous night. If she’d slept at all, she’d slept better than I had. Her number, when I dialed it, went straight to voicemail. Of course. Sighing, I opened the web browser. Time to start looking for hotels. 

I was chatting with the receptionist at a Motel 6 when the music started. I listened for a moment, slowly losing track of the sounds of the rain and the receptionist’s voice. There was something comforting about the tune—something that brought back first fragments, then images, then memories. Slowly, I lowered the phone. I recognized the song. 

And then I was in a cornfield east of Athens where Jessica and I had gone for a concert on one of our early dates. I’d parked on the edge of the field so we could watch the concert from the bed of my truck. REM was playing, along with a few other no-name bands lost to time. It was one of these bands I heard playing now: the opener. I could taste the words but couldn’t remember the name of the song. I didn’t need to. That night wasn’t my first concert, and it wasn’t my first time picking corn, but it was my first time getting lost among thick rows of it that towered above my head. It was the first time Jessica and I slept together, too. Not that either of us slept much. We laughed a lot, though. Sweated. All the corn silk sticking to my fingers made it difficult for me to slip into the condom, and I remembered her sitting there and laughing at me the entire time, warning me to hurry up so we wouldn’t get caught. But getting caught was the last thing on my mind. I was too relieved to find out she wasn’t a virgin and scared shitless she’d realize that I was. We were a good quarter of a mile from my pickup when the clouds broke and soaked through the clothing we’d barely put back on. She ran from me when the rain started, and I chased her all the way back to my truck, screaming as we ran. Wet, laughing, spry with sex, we slid into the cab and felt the warm leather sucking at our skin. We shivered so much that I turned the heat on even though it wasn’t cold. All the way back to her dorm, we drank beer and lost religion and ran the lights without ever thinking we would stop. It was past midnight when I dropped her off at her room. It wasn’t until she closed the door and I saw the light click on inside that it occurred to me she’d never been wearing panties or a bra.

The song ended so abruptly I could almost feel the quarters grinding to a halt. I felt as if the walls were spinning. I stumbled to the bathroom and splashed cold water on my face. I could hear the rain falling outside. My head pounded with the steady, ceaseless drum.

When I got back to my table, I found the waitress sweeping beside my booth. Through the window, I saw a thin mist creased by starlight falling over the parking lot. My truck remained where I’d  parked it—wet but undamaged. The clouds were thinning, and the light shone pinkish gray across the sky. 

I stuffed the loose papers into my briefcase, left five dollars on the table, and paid my bill up front. The  waitress barely looked up as she printed my receipt. When she turned her back, I saw the grease stain, dark and livid as ever. The griddle kid had fallen asleep, the fuzz on his face a milky shade of brown. Charlie slouched on his stool, his face buried behind the newspaper. A peal of thunder sounded as he flipped the page. Outside, the rain began to fall more heavily. Without another thought, I grabbed my briefcase and went out into the storm.

Later, when the sun appeared, I pulled into our empty driveway and stared through the dark windows of our house. Of course: Jessica would be at work. The storm had broken tree limbs and knocked loose some shutters, but the home was whole. I saw some records in the yard and prayed one or two of them still worked. If not, so be it. There were bigger fires.

I crept through the back door, feeling like a criminal. In the darkness, I found the lights, turned on the record player, and fished a garbage bag from beneath the sink. John Fogarty’s swampy voice filled the space, my CCR record having survived the night, maybe many nights, atop the spindle. “Fortunate Son.” The place smelled of Earl Grey and liquor and something else. Hope, maybe? Fear? Disgust?

I searched for a note from Jessica and, not finding one, told myself to forget about it. Later. Everything else could wait. But for now? I studied the war zone of our kitchen, inhaled the fiery smell of the spilled liquor. For now, this.

Carefully, I knelt on the cool linoleum, grabbed the first bottle round its shattered neck, and dropped it into the bag’s dark, gaping mouth.

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Colin Bishoff lives and writes in Hull (basically Athens), Georgia. He has an MFA in fiction writing from Georgia College and State University and is a PhD student in the creative writing program at the University of Georgia. His work has recently appeared in failbetter, Vast Chasm Magazine, the Southern Review of Books, and elsewhere.

Yi Jun Phung

My ama says I sell death like roasted char siu

And tian ah, no one should willingly buy it, from me or anyone else. Every time I bring up estate planning, she reacts like water flicked on hot, screaming oil. Says she saw aba coughing up steak-red blood the other day — my penance, she adds, for packing up dead people like dead meat. I’m not supposed to correct her; the doctor believes it might derail her recovery if she remembered aba was really dead. So I hold my tongue, let her describe how red aba’s blood was. The nurse nearby hushes her, says we’re scaring the other residents. Ama waves her away like she’s more fly than human.

I notice how her arm flab, once soft and tender, has fallen off her bones, how the rough sourplum-coloured skintags on her wrist reaches, reaches, reaches her elbow, how her tofu-white hair frays at the end, like cracking vermicelli noodles she’d loved to cook for the kids. But to ama, I’m the one who looks like death, being in the business of one.

I try to tell her about Mrs Trin, who came into my office alone smelling like honey and hot oil, her skin glazed with some kind of liquid gold. She announced she wanted her own burial plot next to someone who isn’t (wasn’t) her husband, asked for the highest point of the hill so her fat, greedy children won’t be able to visit her. Giving birth to a char siu would have been better, she said. Fed them until they were adults and now they still ask for change back. I tell ama there are people like Mrs Trin, the ones with zest, the ones who look death in the eye and cackle, the ones who rip up the box of chocolates instead of never knowing what they’re going to get.

All ama does is blanch at my story. Most of my customers are like her, who think death is a dirty word, who think one should not have to choose to be buried or burned. Customers like ama often have to be dragged, whipped, tugged by their adult children into my office. When they’re inside, they’re quiet, simmering in their own petulance until boiling point. Once, I was explaining our ala carté burial services, how embalming is the common add-on to make the body look presentable. The old man became a flambé of hot bubbles, his cheeks torched red. I am not a slab of meat! he screamed. His children had to temper him down, with sweet words, with an icy drink, with a good rub, and eventually, he lost steam. They said they’ll try again next week, but they came back the next day: his heart gave out. I told the embalmer to go easy on the blush.

I get an ill-timed call from the office, and ama’s thin lips shape into a thin line, because that means someone’s either dead or preparing to die. I want to get her out of this sour mood, so I talk about safer topics: Mark’s not retiring yet, the kids are off to college soon, and her other daughter is still too busy to visit her. The last time I heard from her, she had called me selfish for dumping our mother here, said ama should be staying with one of us as long as it’s not with her. Ama pretends to listen, but I know she’s still brining in salty au jus like the old man was.

A nurse interrupts us, says it’s time for ama to have her medicine. I don’t let ama wave me off, and in a rush of words, I ask if she wants to be cremated or buried. She spits at me, says she wants to go home. I wipe her saliva off my chin, ask where she’d like to be laid to rest. She calls me ungrateful, says I want her dead so I could get her inheritance. I tell her she has no money.

She tells me giving birth to a char siu would have been better than giving birth to me.

I tell her that aba’s dead.

Then we both sit there, stewing in the words we cannot take back.

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Most of Yi Jun Phung's past work revolves around retail & fashion, having contributed to Inside Retail Australia and Inside Retail Asia. Now, she's having a (mostly) splendid time diving into the world of fiction. Her work was previously published in Gown Lawn, National 2024 FlashFlood and Free Flash Fiction. Find her work at https://yijunphung.blog/.