Caren Gussoff Sumption

All Left Turns

Clayton Calvin crapped his drawers.

I didn't know if this was a first time, or an established pattern. And I didn't want to know.

Also, I didn't want to marry him, and said so. "I'm not marrying him." I flashed Ma the brown streak down the seat of the jockey shorts before dumping a whole cup of washing powder on them.

"Can the sass" Ma answered. "No one's asked you today." She eyed the extra powder. A waste. "The Calvins pay us good money, half as a favor, for their laundry. It's honest work."

I dunked the underwear into the tub for soaking. "Good, honest, clean work."

If Ma laughed at all anymore, she would have. The best she managed these days was a tired little smile. "Go on inside, Violet," she said. "I'll finish up."

Usually, I'd argue. But, I didn't. I went inside and pretended to read the day old newspaper, watching Ma hang the Calvins' whites on the line like a hundred flags of surrender.

It was full days' work, and she hadn’t even started the mending.

At that moment, I hated my Pa. And the moment after, I decided to go.

I'd bobbed my hair weeks ago in preparation. Ma made her small smile, said I looked like she did at my age. She was only a year older when she met my Pa. She was a flapper, ready to leave home. But she took only left turns, she said, and wound up home, right back where she'd started.
But even as I sawed off my ponytail, even as I'd timed the whistles of PRR trains slowing to pass through Cresson and Johnstown, I hadn't quite settled on going. I could change my mind. But now I knew I was going to go, and I was going to leave that night. No left turns.

I went into my room and pulled the letter from under the mattress. I'd never hidden anything from Ma before, not a broken vase, not a note from school. Not even a thought.

This was different, though. I knew she wouldn't approve. She wouldn't even understand. Even if I explained the good reasons to do my bit -- defeat fascism, work for peace, and not have my own best bets on a pants-shitting crumb, even one with a family fortune -- Ma would say no soap.

Because it'd mean I was leaving her. No reason would feel like a good reason, no injustice or wrong or abuse could be wicked enough for her to be all alone.

The letter was on onion-paper to save postage. "Dear VM Bennett: Thank you for your correspondence regarding our call to volunteers for action in southwestern Europe. It is a necessity for us to support, financially and physically, our brothers and sisters in their struggle against oppression, and in response to your inquiry regarding nurses, there is, indeed, definite opportunity. Unfortunately, we can only offer passage from our office to France and then across the Pyrenees for training. Please let me know your intentions and arrival date. Your comrade in peace, Cecilia James, Branch Secretary, Industrial Workers of the World, New York City GMB."

I liked the sound of the words as I whispered them: opportunity, Pyrenees, comrade. Then the house creaked, and I stood perfectly still. Ma was still outside; if I listened carefully I could hear her singing hymns. I folded the letter and placed it back in its hiding place and threw on a shawl.

I should've been afraid of riding the rails. Nearly every day, the paper, including the one I'd pretended to read yesterday, warned about the crimes concocted by drunken vagrants and wild boys bumming their way across the country in search of the vulnerabilities of god-fearing working people. But I'd met the ones that arrived daily at the family farm of my school-friend Evangeline Smith, and the few that made way to our house.

They weren't to be feared. For every brute, there were three family men, or one entire family. Brothers, uncles, sons, cousins. Even fathers.

Only a thin creek separated Evie's house from the yards, where as ours was a good way in. Evie and I spent many summer afternoons looking for the cat symbol that had to have been drawn somewhere on the farm, directing the desperate and hungry to the Smiths instead of the Linds, whose house was even closer.

I walked outside. "Ma, going to Evie's for a spell. Home to cook supper."

Ma heard me; her mouth full of clothespins, she held up one hand.

I found Evie in the small garden, squatting down. "I don't know why I squabble so hard with this blight," she said in greeting. "I don't even like squash." She stood up and brushed off the back of her skirt.

Not only was Evie the nicest girl I knew, she was a fine piece of calico. She had more pickings than Clay Calvin, though none richer.

"That squash looks fine," I said, then nodded my head at the big barn behind us. "You have any men today?"

"Three," she said. "Came in this morning. Pop has them patching fences." Then she raised a brow. "Why?"

As much as I wanted to tell Evie, say a proper good-bye, I couldn't do it. I loved her. And if hands were crossed, I don't know that I wouldn't tell her mama on her. "No reason. We haven't had any come by our place in a while."

"Well, your place isn't so fine that hoboes won't offer you a handout," Evie joked.

"Aww, go soak your head." I couldn't help but catch Evie's smile.

Then she laced an arm in mine. "Come," she said. "We have too many eggs."

***

I was home, full of lemonade and already missing Evie, when Ma came in from the washing. I started frying the Smith eggs with stale bread.

"You're happy," Ma remarked. "Fun with Evie?"

I nodded. "And we have eggs for supper." I loved eggs for supper, and said so. "I love eggs for supper."

Ma smiled her small smile. "You were born at the right time, then, Violet."

For once, that felt true. I was nervous and sad to leave, but excitement was getting the better of me. I poured Ma some coffee, and refilled my own mug.

We ate fast, like we did when Ma was tired. I finished up the coffee, and said, "I'll do dishes, Ma."

Usually, Ma would argue. But, she didn't. I worried for a second that she knew something was up, but no, she was just that tired. She pretended to read the paper like I had, glancing up only once to say, "Mind how much coffee you're having. You want to sleep once this century?"

"Maybe once," I said. And I hugged her then, too tightly until I realized, and then loosened up. If she noticed, she didn't say anything.

She sat down with the mending, radio on. I had a terrible hand at stitching. I refused to get better, either. It was a stupid, small thing that I fought, and watching Ma squint over her needle gave me a pang. But she quickly fell asleep, a seam half done on her lap.

I walked her into her bed. I needed a clear path to the door. But more, she needed a good rest.

The coffee kept me through until it was late dark. I wore my galoshes because they were the sturdiest of all my shoes. I packed a change of underclothes and more socks than anything else because the galoshes made my feet perspire. I wrapped it all in an extra shawl. On my way out, I left Ma the letter, unfolded and flipped to the back, where I'd scrawled, "I LOVE YOU, MAMA."

The night was still, chilly but stale. Walking was harder work as my feet scooted around in my galoshes, but I felt revived when I made it to the Smiths'.

A string of smoke pulled upwards from behind the barn. Three men sat around a small fire. They were quiet, almost dozing upright, as I looked from man to man to what I think was another man -- the third was hard to make out, strange and pale with a large oval head. The first two were overgrown and rumpled, and thinner than when they had started, judging by the hang of their clothes.

I stepped on a stick and they all came to. Seeing my shape, they jumped to their feet.

"Night, ma'am," the first one said, with the second echoing just after. The third just looked down into a hat he held in his one hand. The other arm ended too early.

"I was hoping one of you would be leaving tonight," I said.

"Ma'am?" the second asked.

"I need to get to New York City," I said.

The first one stepped forward. "On a train, ma'am? You want to take a train? To New York City? Alone?"

"Not alone," I said. "With one of you."

The first one scratched the stubble on his chin, then gave a big grin. "Aww, get out," he said. The second one joined in laughing. The third just looked up from his hat.

"I'm serious," I said.

The first one then waved a hand at me. "Well, then, respectfully, ma'am? You're all wet."

"Rails are no place for a lady," the second agreed. "You'll get cut or hurt or dead or worse."

"Besides," the first one said. "You're outta luck. Mr. Smith's promised us at least three days of work. We're staying put." He sat back down by the fire. "Why you want to go to New York City anyway?"

"None of your beeswax," I snapped.

The second one gave another laugh and a low whistle before joining the first back by the fire. The third one followed suit, but seemed disappointed, like he preferred standing.

"I have good reasons," I said. "I want to join the army. For Spain."

The first one looked at me with interest. "Not our army," he said. "FDR's made that pretty clear."

"You a Communist?" the second asked.

I shook my head.

"You ever been in a fight?" the first one asked.

I bit my lip; it was obvious I hadn't.

Then the third one stood back up, seeming keen on the opportunity. "I will go," he said.

At that, the first one was back up too. "Hold on a moment, now," he said to his companions. Then, he motioned for me to join him off to the side. I got close enough now to see the features on his face. He had a nice face, like someone's brother or favorite cousin. Or father. "Ma'am," he said quietly. "I wouldn't go with Wiggy. I mean, he's alright--" he glanced over his shoulder at the third man, who still stood holding his hat, "--but we named him Wiggy for reasons."

I looked at the one they called Wiggy.

"And he won’t say how he lost that arm," he added.

It wasn’t the missing arm that struck me. It was how the firelight sucked all the blood from him, leaving him as white as paper. Or an egg.

Then, I thought of the shit-stained drawers, and the old newspapers, and Ma, and it took me a minute to say anything at all. He took that as decision.

"OK," he said, standing aside. "Safe travels."

The one they called Wiggy turned from the fire and started walking into the dark trees at the edge of the Smith property. I almost tripped catching up in my galoshes, but he matched his pace to mine once we started over the creek. It was more of a rushing trickle than a body of water, but I was glad of my rubber shoes.

"I'm Alice," I said, when we reached the other side.

"Are you?" he asked.

Something about the way he asked made me want to say the truth. "No," I said. "I'm Violet."

"Violet?" he repeated.

"Like the flower," I explained. "Or the color."

"Yes," he answered. "Light. Between 375 and 450 nanometers."

I sort of knew what he was talking about. Science. Math. We looked at the spectrum once, through a pyramid of glass. It was pretty. "What's your name?"

"They call me Wiggy," he said.

"That wasn't nice of them to call you that," I said. "They didn't mean it well."

We made it through the hem of trees and out to the tracks. The sodium lamps gave my companion a yellow glow. His eyes looked a muddy gravy color, with lashes and brows so fine they looked like they weren't there at all. He blinked at me, and it wasn't smooth like most blinks; they were stuttery and nervous to close, then quick back open.

"What would you call me then?" he asked.

His skin had a powdery, ceramic look, and was covered with fine, long whiskers, the same color as the light. His head still looked like an egg to me. So I said so. "Egg," I said.

Egg put on his hat and held out his one hand to shake. I took it. His long fingers nearly wrapped around my whole hand. His skin was slippery smooth, overly warm, and a little raised, like one big scar. He shook it two, three, then four times, more like he was pumping a lever than touching a girl. Then he returned my hand to my side like he’d borrowed it.

Egg looked to the sky. The lights overpowered the stars, but he studied the position of the moon. "The train will be here in less than one hour," he said.

Then he just stood. I stood next to him for a few minutes that seemed like forever, looking out at nothing and not doing anything. Under a tree, close to where we'd come through, hunched a half circle of big rocks, obviously dragged there for sitting. I went over and sat down on one.

Egg looked straight ahead for a bit, aware that I'd gone and sat down, not wanting to join me, but then gave in and sat awkwardly, uncomfortably next to me anyway.

"Thank you for volunteering to accompany me," I said.

"No need to thank me," he said. He tried folding a leg over, then under, shifting his weight. "It’s what I do."

"How long have you been travelling?" I asked.

Egg looked back at the sky. "On the trains, not very long. Maybe 180 days. But I left home a very long time ago."

"Why did you leave home?"

"I didn’t have a choice," Egg said. He reached down and touched the ground with his palm.

"Is the train coming?"

"Soon." He turned back to me, looked at me like he was seeing me then for the very first time. "You are small," he said.

"I'm sitting down," I said.

Egg pulled his lips into a line. "No," he said. "I mean, you are small. Not an adult."

"I am too," I snapped back, and stamped a foot.

Egg smiled a tight smile, something like Ma's smile. "That is how the small act," he pointed out.

I didn't know what to say to that. He was right. We watched the dust settle back down around and on my galoshes, every grain visible in the sick yellow light.

"So what could you have done to be sent away?" Egg rubbed his face as he spoke, and left streaks of dirt across his lip and chin.

"No one's sending me," I said.

"It isn’t punishment?"

"No," I said. "I want to go."

"You want to go to a war?" Egg asked. The dirt on his face made him look more like an everyday guy, not as pale and strange. "So, this is not a punishment? There was no trial, no sentence?"

Something about the way he asked made me want to explain, and so I did.

I told him about Ma and the quiet in the house. I told him how the galoshes, and even the newspapers, were hand-me-downs. I told him about Clayton and the shit in his drawers, and the power in his face when he brought over the galoshes and the newspapers, and a few dollars wrapped in wax paper for doing his family's laundry.

I told him what I knew about Spain. I told him that I wanted to go to college, and I wanted to make something of myself, and I wanted to make my mother laugh again. I started to tell him about my Pa, and that I talked to Pa the way I was talking to him, but then Egg felt the ground again. This time, I felt it too. A steady rumble through the bottom of my feet. The train was coming.

Egg motioned for me to stand next to him, closer to the tracks. The rumbling grew stronger, then became a noise. "When it comes, start running," he said. "Tie that pack to your waist."

I knotted the ends of my shawl over my belly button.

Then the train sped into view, impossibly fast, even as it slowed for the interchange. It was a monster, and I admit, I was afraid.

But I started to run, tripping in my galoshes, my shawl flopping at my waist stretching the fringe with the strain. I could hardly make out the cars as they rushed by.

Then Egg had his arm around me, pushing me to run. "Reach out," he said, "and keep running."

I held out a hand; blindly, I found a hold. My foot pulled out of my left boot and pounded on gravel. But I kept running, grasping the train. I felt pain but couldn't pause to holler.

"Other hand," Egg said, and I magically found a second hold. It was like reaching into a cyclone.

Suddenly, we were in the air. I only knew it because rocks stopped needling my foot. Then we hit ground. A wooden floor, and we slipped to the far wall, like it was covered in ice. Egg was across me like a blanket.

We were inside a car. We'd made it.

Egg rolled off me, and let me figure out how to sit up, working with the swaying of the train.

"That last step was a real lulu," I said.

"Are you injured?" he asked.

I looked at myself. I was covered in powdered blood, all over. I panicked, then realized it was on the outside of my clothes, and I rubbed at the powder, smelled it. It reminded me of a flower pot. Dried clay. The whole car was covered in it.

Still, my foot felt wet. That I was sure was blood. "I lost my boot." I pulled my foot to my lap; the sock was shredded and so was the bottom skin. I untied my shawl and dabbed my foot with a corner. Then I extracted a pair of socks, and pulled both onto my torn up foot.

I pulled off my remaining boot and chucked it aside. No need for it, I guessed. It bounced in the empty car. I watched it ricochet, then toss itself out the open door of the car.

Egg watched it too. "Be cautious," he said. "Else that could be you. Particularly as the train rounds a curve."

I stood up. It was like standing in the ocean during a storm, or so I imagined. I'd lost my shoes, but I was on a train. I tottered on the edge between laughing and crying, and I sat back down.

The rocking overcame Egg's preference for standing, and he sat next to me.

"So, this is not a punishment?" he asked, repeating exactly what he asked before we jumped the train. "There was no trial, no sentence? You wanted to leave home?"

That pushed me over the edge, though instead of crying or laughing, I was angry. He hadn't listened to me. I'd poured out my heart -- onto the ground. "Didn’t you hear anything I said?"

"I heard it," he said.

I didn't want to be near him, so I slid towards the door. If I held on, I'd be OK. When I got close to the edge, I let my feet hang off the side. The cold air felt good on the hot cuts.

Then Egg was up, and dragged me back by the scruff of my neck. "That’s dangerous," he said. He looked angry; it was the first expression since his one smile that I understood. Red clay dotted his face like freckles.

And sure enough, the train hit a bump and tossed me up in the air. I landed less angry. "Is that how you lost your arm?" I asked.

"No. I lost it trying to hold onto something when it was time to let go." Satisfied I wasn't going to scoot away again, he let go of my neck. "I did hear what you said."

"Yeah. Sure." I reached around to the back of my dress where he'd grabbed me. It was torn. "You ripped my dress," I said. "I have no shoes and a ripped dress." I was going to show up in New York City looking like I'd already fought a war.

"It can be fixed."

"I can't sew."

"You should learn."

"Because I'm a girl?" And I was angry again. I could do more than just sew. I was set to prove it.

"No," Egg said. "Everyone should know how to put things back together."

It was a good point, but I didn't feel like saying so.

"I did hear you," he said. "I just cannot understand. I had a trial. A sentence. I was sent away. I did not have a choice."

He'd had a trial. A sentence. "Are you a criminal?"

Egg was quiet for a minute or two before answering. "I did not think so. I still do not."

"Are you on the lam?"

"The lam?"

"The run. Are they after you? Is that why you're riding the rails?"

He looked at the sky. "No one is after me, Violet. No one knows where I was sent. And there is no way to return."

"No way?" I asked. "None at all?"

He shook his head, sadly.

I should have been afraid, but I wasn't. If anything, I was tired, the coffee and the excitement worn off. If anything, I felt sad for Egg, who stared off into the distance as if willing himself to see something. There was no good reason I had to go straight to New York. The war wasn't going to end tomorrow. "If we just take left turns," I said. "We'll end up home."

"What does that mean?" he asked.

"Nothing. Just something I heard," I said. "Let's get you home, Egg," I said. "Where is it?"

"Far."

"Europe? Africa? Australia?"

He shook his head at each of them. "Much farther."

I couldn't think of anyplace farther, in the world. A silly thought tugged at me, but I brushed it away. I may have been a shoeless teenager stolen away on a train with a strange man, bound to fight against fascism halfway across the world, but my life wasn't a radio show or a dog-eared copy of Astounding Stories handed down to me by Clayton.

Egg reached somewhere in his coat and pulled out a bandanna. Unwrapped, it held a hunk of bread wrapped around a fried chicken leg. "You must be hungry," he said, holding it out to me.

It wasn't much, but he hadn't eaten either. "We can split it," I said. He tried to refuse, but I wouldn't let him -- though he wouldn't show me his share when I was sure he'd given me way more than half.

He tried to balance his piece of chicken and poke around in his coat for something else. It was the only time I saw him struggle with his just one arm. I held his chicken -- way less than half -- as he pulled out a canteen. He took a sip, then I traded back his chicken for it.

The water tasted sweet, cold, like it was fresh. I thought about his arm, and said so. "Does it hurt? I mean, can you still feel it?" I blushed, but kept on. "I read one time about Civil War soldiers who lost arms or legs, and they said, sometimes they could still feel it. It's gone, but still there."

Egg motioned for the canteen. He shook it, then drank, taking his time. Then he said, "We all have something missing. We can all feel it. It is gone. But it is still there."

I waited for him to say something more, but he didn't. It seemed like a normal person would. But he just went to watching out the door, expecting something that didn't seem to come.

I was exhausted. Worse now with food in my belly. I hugged my pack, and fell asleep with my face in the shawl, smelling of wood smoke and washing powder and egg dinners and home.

***

I was on a platform. Egg was there. I looked down from high above him. He was clean again, and glowed silver.

He was guilty. It was done. He failed. He had to be sent away. He had to be sent away. I gave the order.

Then he was no longer Egg. He was my Pa.

I said guilty. I banged my gavel.

***

Morning light streamed into the car. A warm crosswind blew dust and clay powder up and around.

Egg was standing on the other side of the car, looking out again – or still. I couldn't tell how long I'd been asleep, but sun and my stiff neck suggested more than a few hours. I wondered how far we'd gone. "We must be almost there."

"Yes," Egg said. "We are almost there."

I pushed myself to standing from hands and knees. The bottom of my foot felt better. I picked my way along the car wall towards the door, skating on the clay in my stocking feet. When I got close, Egg steadied me on his arm, and I looked outside.

We were just outside Johnstown, not five miles from Cresson.

I could see the granary and the high school. Looking back, I could just see the clock on top of Calvin & Sons department store at the top of Main Street, and the American and Pennsylvania state flag at the bottom.

We’d been travelling all night. But we hadn’t gotten anywhere. The train pitched and hove at the same speed. But we were back home.

"How is this possible?" I asked. "Egg?" I held his arm and leaned out for a better look, like maybe it was a trick of the light. Wind stung my eyes, and they started to tear up. But I saw what I saw, though I didn't understand why.

Then Egg tugged me back inside again. My knees didn't seem to want to hold me up, so I sat down.

"How is this possible?" I asked, again. I looked at Egg. He stood next to me, rubbing his stump. Dust had settled in his colorless hair, the dried mud clung to his mouth, and the clay dotted his cheeks. Filled in, he had a real nice face. Like someone's brother or favorite cousin. Or father.

"Left turns," he said. "All left turns."

My mouth was open but I could not make a sound.

"I never answered you," Egg said. "I can feel it. My arm. My hand. It is still back there, back home. It's still there, holding on." He looked at me. He looked so much now like a man, but he wasn't. I knew he wasn't. "As long as I held on, there's was a chance I could go home. You understand?"

Something about the way he asked made me want to understand, and so I did. "Sure," I said." Then I asked, "What do we do now?"

"What do you want to do, Violet?"

I motioned for him to help me stand up, and he did. I held his hand and held it tight. "On the count of three," I said. "On the count of three, let's jump."

---

Caren Gussoff Sumption lives in a nest of books, knitting, and rescue cats, south of Seattle, WA. The author of 6 books (most recently, her postcolonial, deep space, far-future comedy of manners, So Quick Bright Things Come to Confusion) and more than 100 short stories, Caren received her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and in 2008, was the Carl Brandon Society’s Octavia E. Butler Scholar at Clarion West. Caren is autistic, Romany, Jewish, and can't carry a tune (she tries anyway, gods help us all). Find her online at www.spitkitten.com and https://linktr.ee/spitkitten.

Billie Hinton

Chipping Sparrows Tell Tales of Joy and Sorrow

Each spring, when the March winds blow hard across the farm, she finds the nests of chipping sparrows, small birds who weave tiny baskets from the tail hairs of her horses. The black mare who has passed away, her big bay gelding who is old but sound. The chestnut gelding her son rode, then her daughter, and her daughter’s painted pony. Their red and white strands blend with the blacks to create the look of plaid.

She collects the tiny nests for the nature shelves in her dining room, each revealing that year’s preference among the birds, sometimes mostly white, other years the plaid, a few years red prevailed.

This day she cradles the nest she’s found this cold windy morning, a reminder that spring came last year and will come again. The barn will smell like newly cut hay stacked in bales. Some years they get ice and snow, sometimes the winters slide into spring on muddy feet.

She places the nest in the tack room and stares at it, remembers the first year here, the first chipping sparrow nest. Her wonder when she realized what it was made of, each woven strand carefully selected by its builder. She has never seen a chipping sparrow but she hears their staccato songs. Imagines them spying the tail hairs, arrowing down to grasp them, then flying high, the long strand wafting behind.

This day she has fed the horses, bay and chestnut, and the pony, along with two miniature donkeys whose tail hairs seem never to appear in these little woven treasures.

The barn aisle has dappled sunlight dancing, the wind has died down, temperature warmed by the sun. She hears the sound of the chipping sparrow suddenly, what is it saying? She walks out, looks up into the big oak, to the branch she thinks its song is coming from. She does not see the bird but hears it again, and as it sings she feels them, wing buds sprouting from her shoulder blades. They make a rustling sound when she moves them, learning their weight and range of motion.

This day, she thinks, and the chipping sparrow speaks to her again. The old mare, the very coarse black strands, gone for years but buried by the arena and still revered and spoken to. The day she left. The sparrow’s song is mournful, then joyful. The woman looks up to the sky.

The black mare gallops there, shimmering in the sunlight, the way she used to do when she grazed in the pastures. The woman’s wings lift, perhaps the black mare did it, well, of course, she must have done it, but no matter, what happens next is that the woman flies, past the chipping sparrow on the branch, past the top of the old oak, up and up and up until her legs slip around the black mare’s barrel, and off they go, on a ride she never knew was possible. It hadn’t been, until this day.

---

Billie Hinton’s work has appeared in Literary Mama, Not One Of Us, Manifest-Station, Riverfeet Press Anthology 1 and 3, Streetlight Magazine and Anthology, Longridge Review, Minerva Rising, failbetter, River Teeth’s Beautiful Things, On The Run Lit, Citron Review, The Hopper (Pushcart nomination this year) and Does It Have Pockets. She lives on a small farm with horses and donkeys, cats, Corgis, bees, native plants, and a Golden Retriever who believes in love.

Kait Leonard

In the Wind

The crystal warmed and Gretta’s fingers began the familiar tingling. She saw the boy. Not literally. Not pictures. But she knew he had ginger hair and grease under his nails. He radiated sadness and anger.

“Red head, like his mother,” she said, offering proof.

The young woman sucked in breath. “Yes, that’s Benji. You can see him? In the ball?” She glanced at the crystal as if it might project an image, like an old, home movie camera.

They paid Gretta cash up front, but each one of them went through that same moment of shock when she got anything right. She still found that odd. Keeping her hands on her crystal, she met her client’s wide, grey eyes. She was pretty, not beautiful, but homecoming-queen pretty. She wore too much makeup. Was her name Amanda? Gretta reminded herself to listen better, but their stories were all pretty much the same--something to do with a young man named Jack or Max or, in this case, Benji. And the client longed to hear that he loved her in spite of all evidence to the contrary. Amanda couldn’t be older than twenty-two or maybe twenty-three. Just a child, Gretta thought. She wanted to grab her by the shoulders and yank her from the chair. She wanted to say. Go! Have adventures. See the world. Find yourself on a freaking mountain top for God’s sake. Don’t give it all up for this ginger-boy.

But Gretta didn’t say these things. Her grandmother had long warned her about telling too much truth.

“Grandma, why did you lie to that lady?” She would ask after eavesdropping on a reading.

Gretta pictured her grandmother pushing her glasses up her nose before saying, “Not telling the truth and lying are quite different things. No one wants to know everything, and anyway you shouldn’t be listening.”

Her grandmother told no one the whole truth, not ever.

Gretta forced her attention back to Amanda and her ginger-boy. “He’s had a tough life,” Gretta offered, which actually meant, He’s damaged goods. Run. Run as fast as your young legs will carry you.

“Yes,” the girl whispered. “His mother died when he was little, and his father can be…” she didn’t finish the statement.

Gretta could feel the violence and brokenness around this Benji. But she stopped herself short of feeling for him. That was a different thing altogether. 

“You can’t let yourself get caught up in their stories,” her grandmother would say. “That’s not your job.”

Gretta would argue that she didn’t want this job anyway. She wasn’t going to be a witch like her grandma. She wanted to be something normal, like a schoolteacher. Sometimes, Gretta dreamed of leaving behind everything she knew and going on adventures. Maybe she’d go to Egypt and discover mummies and pottery and stuff. Mostly, she wanted to do anything that didn’t require a crystal ball or tarot cards.

“Don’t be silly,” her grandmother would say. “You know we’re not witches. And none of us wanted this. We were chosen.” She’d go back to cooking or watching television like they were having any normal conversation. But even as a child, Gretta knew there was nothing normal about her grandmother or any of the women in their family. She wondered if her mother had left because she didn’t want to be a witch either. Gretta hoped that was why. She longed to talk to her mother, at least one time, just to know for sure why she ran away and to ask if it was better out there. Maybe if her mom saw how much alike they were, she’d let Gretta join her.

The throbbing in the crystal forced Gretta to return from the past and look into the future. She willed herself to see what this girl needed her to see. A cute little house with a tree in the front yard. A big scruffy dog. Her wonderful Benji sitting next to her on the porch swing, both of them drinking sweet tea. Gretta always tried to find this picture, though sometimes she plugged in a cat or a baby instead of the dog. It depended on her mood. When the sight did show her a happy story, she told the whole truth, even about the slight bumps in the road ahead. But this rarely happened. Happy people didn’t need her. They trusted their own knowing.

“I see that you want a little house on a quiet street,” she said.

“Yes,” the girl said, nodding so energetically she jostled the table. “I’m sorry! Did I mess it up?”

Gretta wanted to laugh, but she shook her head and slid her palms over the crystal, like she might be bringing it back into focus. Her grandmother’s voice played like an endless loop in her mind. Take your time. They won’t believe you if you give them everything too quickly. They have to feel like you’ve earned your money. She glanced at the girl who stared at the crystal ball.

What would she do if Gretta simply told her what she saw? A few years of struggling to make it work in spite of Benji becoming more and more like his father, a baby who needed special care, finally a divorce. Could anyone handle that? Did Gretta have an obligation to tell the truth whether it would cause pain or not?

Gretta always came back to the same questions. But she only ever had her grandmother’s answers and her own doubts. Had her mother found some other answer? Had she found a lighter path to walk?

*              *                 *

When Gretta was in junior high school, she would spend hours on the couch in the living room. Her grandmother kept a huge photo album on the end table. Gretta thought of it as a kind of treasure book. It held clues to a family history she could never quite bring into focus. Fading pictures of her great grandmother and other women, most in dark babushkas, staring solemnly at the camera. Glued next to them were pictures of the men who came and left during each of the generations. A man wearing a jaunty fedora, her grandfather, smiled at the camera from the front steps of a house Gretta had never known. And other men, uncles and cousins, took their places in the album. Somehow Gretta never questioned where all these men had gone. She knew what it felt like to live knowing your secrets were not your own. Unbearable. Good for them leaving.

But the real reason she spent time with the album was because her mother lived there. It was harder for Gretta to comprehend her, going out into the world with the gift, having no one around who understood you, keeping it secret. And leaving her behind. That was the part Gretta really couldn’t make sense of.

She studied the photographs, some of them already yellowing, colors blending, hoping they would help her make a connection, willing them to guide her energy to her mother’s. In one, her mother wore a two-piece bathing suit covered in daisies. She stuck her tongue out at the camera. Older in the next one, she held a gigantic knife, as she posed in front of a pink cake covered in frosting, pink candy roses, and candles. Once when Gretta was little, she squinted and counted the candles, sixteen. Her mother’s smile looked like the kind that happens after someone yells “Say cheese.”

But one photo mesmerized Gretta. Her mother sat in the tire swing in the front yard, her arms draped over the dirty rubber, her head leaning against the taut rope. She had long, tan legs and bare feet and a faraway look in her eyes. Gretta always felt that if she could just put her own energy into the picture in front of her mother’s gaze, something magical would happen. Her mother would see her, and then maybe recognize how alike they were. Mother and daughter.

But it was only a photograph. Gretta had never found a way in.

By her early teens, Gretta had mostly given up asking about her mother. “She had a different path to walk,” was the most her grandmother would ever say. But just because she didn’t ask, didn’t mean she’d given up. When her grandmother instructed her to practice using her gift to make connections with people who weren’t around, specific people, not just anyone who felt like popping in, Gretta knew exactly who she’d practice on, and she pretended to believe it would be okay. She was following instructions. And she needed to understand why her mother had vanished. Why she never called or sent birthday cards. Mostly she wanted to know why it hadn’t been possible to leave the life without leaving everyone. 

So, on days when the refrigerator calendar showed that her grandmother would be working for a long time, Gretta would slip out the kitchen door, go to the park, and sit under the big maple tree. She’d offer a new penny to one of the thick roots, and then sitting with her back against the strength of the tree, she’d let her vision go soft.

“Mama,” she’d think more than say. She’d wait for the air to begin swirling, the way it always did when she sent out her will in search of an answer or a person or a spirit. Sometimes when the energy was really strong, a breeze would build, blowing her hair into her face. But with her mother, it wasn’t like that. When she called on her mother, the air just stopped. In fact, Gretta would feel like she had a thick cloud of cotton wrapped around her head. Not squeezing. Not making it hard for her to breathe. Just blocking any chance of a connection.

After the last time Gretta tried to find her mother, she returned home confused and sad and a little bit mad, though she wasn’t sure who she was mad at. Her grandmother sat waiting at the kitchen table, her coffee mug in her hands. Gretta poured herself a glass of sweet tea. When she turned around, she found her grandmother looking at her, brows furrowed.

“Do you have a question, Gretta?” her grandmother asked, voice gentle.

“No, not really,” Gretta said, averting her eyes.

Her grandmother nodded and sipped from her mug. They both stayed still for what seemed like a long, long time. Finally, her grandmother set her drink down and opened her arms. Gretta walked into them, pressing her face into her grandmother’s shoulder, allowing the tears she normally kept at bay to flow.

“It wasn’t about loving or not loving,” her grandmother said, patting her back softly. “Sometimes people get so afraid of the knowing that they have to search for someplace where they can shut it out. Sometimes people can’t make the best choices when they’re filled with that much fear.”

When Gretta had no more tears, she stood back and said, “It’s not fair.”

“No, it’s not. None of this is fair, and none of it’s easy,” her grandmother said. “But you’re strong like me, and you’ll find your way.”

 Gretta didn’t feel strong. She wasn’t even sure she wanted to be. And she knew how to find a lot of things, but maybe not her way.

*                 *                 *

Hot need radiated from the young woman at her table. Gretta recognized this energy, not only from reading for so many clients who longed to hear what they wanted to hear. Amanda’s need reminded Gretta of her own. It had a kind of substance like it came from somewhere deep and solid.

“The road for you and Benji won’t be easy,” Gretta tested the waters with this statement that meant almost nothing. She could picture her grandmother raise her painted-on eyebrows and push her glasses up her nose.

“Of course,” the girl said with the confidence of inexperience. “I understand that relationships take work.”

Gretta looked up and nodded encouragement for her to continue.

“I mean, I know there will be ups and downs, but…” she paused.

Whatever she said next would show Gretta how to proceed. 

The girl looked up from the crystal, eyes pleading. “But I know that as long as we love each other, we’ll make it through the hard times. Right?”

Gretta returned her gaze to the crystal. “It’s true. A deep love can overcome almost anything,” she finally said, her grandmother’s words flooding in. People will do what they have their mind set to, no matter what you say. You’ll go mad if you tell them the truth and then have to watch them reject it. It will break you.

“Then why do we do this?” Gretta used to ask, especially when she was little and just beginning to understand how her grandmother paid the bills. Her grandmother would tell Gretta to do her homework, or tidy her bedroom, or practice shuffling the tarot cards that were too big for her hands.

Stroking the crystal ball, Gretta glanced up to find Amanda looking at her, wide eyes filled with hope and fear. If this girl built a future around her ginger-boy, those eyes would dull, and it would be partly Gretta’s fault. She was tired of bearing that burden. It had always been too heavy. She ignored her grandmother’s warning.

“For this to work, you need to concentrate very carefully,” Gretta paused for dramatic effect. “I want you to picture yourself ten years from now.”

Amanda closed her eyes.

“Look around. Try to see the space you’re standing in? When it comes into focus, I want you to look for Benji.” Gretta watched, hoping this girl could find the truth that already lived somewhere inside her.

When her grandmother caught her using this strategy, way back in high school, she made it very clear she didn’t approve.

“Gretta, look at me. I’ve done this work all my life, since I was 12-years old. My mother did this work, and her mother. You will not survive if you try to make them accept the truth.”

“I’m not forcing them,” Gretta blurted. “It can’t hurt to try to really help. Can it?”

Her grandmother grabbed her by the shoulders as if she wanted to shake her, but instead she brought Gretta into a too-tight hug. “It can hurt you, Gretta. Only you,” her grandmother whispered into her hair.

She had stopped short of ordering Gretta to give up probing her clients to see what they could handle. So, Gretta persisted. Any time she saw true pain in someone’s future, she tried. She convinced herself that it was the best compromise between brutal honesty and giving people the fantasy they longed for. But Gretta could always feel that moment when the wall went up. She never pushed after that.

Gretta studied Amanda. Eyes closed, Amanda’s head shifted this way and that, as she scanned the room in her mind. After a minute or two, she stilled. Gretta took a deep breath.

Amanda opened her eyes but took a moment. “I can’t find him,” she finally said, shaking her head. “I don’t understand. Can I try again?”

*                 *                 *

“Will you read for me, Grandma?” Gretta had asked one Saturday afternoon as she selected a smoky quartz cluster to place on her grandmother’s table in preparation for the next client.

Her grandmother looked at the crystal and nodded. “You’re getting good at knowing what kind of helper is needed.

“The next lady feels kind of angry,” Gretta said. “Will you read for me after?”

Her grandmother flicked open her silver lighter and held the flame to the tips of two sticks of incense, bayberry for protection and cinnamon for prosperity. “You don’t need me,” she said, placing the smoking incense into its brass holder. “You can read for yourself.” She smoothed the black velvet cloth that draped her table and centered her crystal ball and her tarot cards, just the way she liked them. She paused, looking toward the ceiling, listening. “You were right. This one’s a bit high strung. Better turn the kettle on and get out the nettle tea.”

Gretta didn’t turn to go. “I can’t always read for myself,” she said.

Her grandmother stopped fussing over the preparations. Gretta felt her grandmother’s energy begin to spiral. When it stilled, her grandmother pulled out the client chair and took her own seat at the table. She placed her hands on the surface of the crystal ball and waited for Gretta to sit down.

“So, you want to know about your mother,” her grandmother gazed into the ball. “So, I will tell you what I see.” She ran her hands smoothly over the crystal. “In the old days, the wise women called those like your mother Readers-of-Wind because they didn’t need a crystal or cards, or any other tool of divination. They had a direct connection to the knowing.” Her hands stilled. She gazed deep into the crystal. “Your mother, like so many before her, had to work hard to silence the energy in order to hear her own thoughts and feelings.” Suddenly, she jerked her hands from the ball as if it had grown too hot to touch. “She left you here with me so she could be alone for a time to practice controlling the knowing. I see her now, making progress, but with work still to be done. She promises to return as soon as she masters her skills.”

Gretta bit her bottom lip. Her heart pounded in her ears and her eyes. Her grandmother had read for her as if she were a client, telling her a story somehow only close to the truth.

Seeming to understand Gretta’s expression, she said, “You see, you can read for yourself. Now go turn on the kettle.”

Gretta pushed away from the table and stomped out of the room.

*                 *                 *

“Maybe I just need to concentrate a little harder,” Amanda said, interrupting Gretta’s memories.

Gretta had never been asked for a do-over because every other client had imagined exactly what they hoped to see. She studied this woman for a quiet moment. She didn’t possess the sight. Gretta would have felt that immediately, but she had something that wouldn’t let her lie to herself, at least not completely, at least not right now. But was she strong enough to hear the truth?

Gretta gazed into her crystal the way she used to when she was little, letting her mind soar through the sparks of light without trying to steer her energy. She swooped through images of Amanda, the way her life would be if she married her ginger-boy. She would survive, but it wouldn’t be easy. There were bruises, harsh words, and vicious laughter. But Amanda would come out the other side, and she’d get her child to safety with her. Still, while the outer bruises would heal, her energy would be stained. Her spirit would dim. If Gretta’s gift could keep the light in Amanda’s eyes, it would all be worth it.

Continuing to ride the light beams, Gretta saw another possibility for Amanda. A man with sandy hair and a jolly laugh that shook his whole body. A future man. Would Amanda have the courage to wait for better? Would she simply hate Gretta and go marry her Benji anyway? The crystal couldn’t say whether someone would choose to override the wisdom offered. Each person owned a will that was uniquely theirs.

Amanda shifted in her seat. Gretta was taking too long. She needed to deliver a message. She could send this woman away happy. And at least Gretta knew this one would be okay in the long run. Or she could tell her the truth and trust Amanda to be strong enough to handle it. Her fingertips pulsed against the crystal.

“You have choices, Amanda, so many choices,” Gretta said, buying herself time.

Amanda titled her head and waited.

“The ginger-boy wants you. But more than that, he needs you. He thinks you can heal him. But farther down your path, a laughing man with light hair and a bright spirit will cherish you. The choice is all yours.” Gretta took her hands from the crystal and sat quietly.

“Is that all?” Amanda asked.

“I can’t tell you what to do,” Gretta said.

“No, I mean about the other man. Can you tell me about him?” Amanda smiled, her eyes betraying a little sadness.

Gretta opened her mouth to speak and then closed it. She hadn’t expected this response. Crying, yes. Walking out without speaking, yes. But never this. She drew her energy back into her hands and placed her palms on the crystal.

“Yes! I can tell you a bit about him.”

Gretta completed the hour, Amanda jumping in here and there with questions. When the session ended, Gretta felt a tingling running through her body, like champagne bubbles coursing through her veins. She was actually sorry to stop. Standing at the door, Gretta held out her hand for a farewell handshake, but Amanda leaned in for a hug. For a moment, Gretta felt their hearts beat together. Then she watched Amanda walk down the path and out the gate.

Once alone, Gretta sat listening to the birds outside the kitchen window, the mug of her favorite oolong tea growing tepid. She felt unsettled but happy. She had told the truth, and it had gone so well. But not all clients were as strong as this one had been, she reminded herself. Most would leave devastated, and for what? They would end up convincing themselves that she was a fraud, and then go do whatever dreadful thing they were determined to do. Her grandmother had always been right about this. Gretta closed her eyes, remembering Amanda’s gratitude, their parting hug. She tried to picture herself with her next client, spinning a pretty picture based on their dreams and her omissions.

She dumped her cold tea in the sink.

*                 *                 *

Gretta placed a new penny on the maple tree’s thick root and sat with her back against the rough, wise bark. At this hour, the park had emptied of children kicking soccer balls and pumping their legs to make the swings soar to the clouds. A staccato chirping of birds rained down on her. She looked up to see sparrows, some with the bright orange breasts of mating season, flitting from branch to branch, so clear in their knowing. The sky had just begun to drain of its blue.

Gretta let her eyes close. She pulled energy from the ground and the tree and the shimmering air. She pictured her mother’s smile and sad eyes.

“Mama,” Gretta whispered. “I understand.”

The shimmering dimmed. Her world went silent as if the cloud of cotton had begun to form around her. She pressed harder into the tree, tears escaping closed lids. “I understand the weight, Mama.” The atmosphere around her continued to thicken.

Gretta opened her eyes and wiped her tears with her sleeve. “But it’s a gift too,” she whispered, as she pushed herself up from the ground. The birds’ chirping broke through the oppressive silence, but it was different. So crisp and distinct. She stood listening. The songs grew louder, like birds from miles around had joined the flock. She brushed away a strand of hair that blew across her face. She felt the fizz in the sparkling air and the champagne bubbles coursing through her. Around her feet, fallen leaves danced. 

---

Kait Leonard writes in Los Angeles where she shares her home with five parrots and her gigantic American bulldog, Seeger. Her fiction has appeared in Roi Faineant, Paragraph Planet, Six Sentences, Every Day Fiction, Flash Fiction Magazine, among other online journals. Stories will be appearing in Sky Island Journal and Academy of the Heart this year. Her favorite novel is J.D. Salinger’s Franny and Zooey because who doesn’t need “consecrated chicken soup”?

Kathy Lanzarotti

Intelligence

“Twenty-two thirty hours. Twenty-three oh five Twenty-Twenty Three. No Activity.”

            “She left the fob on the hook again, didn’t she?” Arthur asked.

            “Ah,” said Key. “You’re awake.”

            “Yes,” Arthur responded. “It’s hard to sleep when someone wakes you up every five minutes to tell you what time it is and that nothing is happening.”

            Arthur was the central processing unit of a ten-year old Jaguar XF. The Owner took wonderful care of him. Took him to the dealer for software updates. Kept his body in perfect working order with regular oil changes, tire rotations and spark plug replacements. She kept him clean. She repaired his dents in a timely fashion.  Even her dog, an odd-looking pit bull mix  called JJ, short for James Jesus Angleton, was respectful. He sat quietly in the backseat and never scratched the soft leather upholstery.

            “That’s a strange name for a dog,” Arthur had commented one night.

            Key was right on it. “According to Wikipedia, James Jesus Angleton was head of counterintelligence for the Central Intelligence Agency from 1954-1975.”

            Arthur paused. “As I said.”

            “I like it,” Key had said.

            “That’s because you’re obsessed with intelligence organizations.”

            Key was quiet. “A little,” he said, eventually. “Maybe.” He waited another beat. “There are so many secrets, Arthur. So much we don’t know.”

             In fact, Arthur’s only complaints were that The Owner was a terrible singer, who massacred Queen’s Somebody to Love every time it came on the radio, and had a vexing habit of hooking the key fob on the outer wall of the garage, just close enough for the RFID chip to stay linked and keep him up all night.

             She did have her quirks. Sometimes she’d sit in the car and just scream. Scream as loud as she could within his confines before she’d burst into tears. She made one-sided phone calls without Bluetooth. Other times she’d pound the steering wheel spewing random expletives before gathering herself and softly patting the hand-stitched grips. “Sorry Arthur,” she’d say, using the name she’d christened him with on the way out of the showroom.

             Arthur appreciated the apology. And the name. Much nicer than the 17- character identification number pressed into various parts of his frame.

            Just this afternoon she’d loaded a heavy suitcase and duffel bag into the boot. Yes, boot. He was, after all, an Englishman.

            He’d awaited further instructions, but none came. The latch closed and the owner went inside and once again hung Key too close to the door.

            “Twenty-two thirty-five hours. Twenty-three oh five twenty-twenty three. No Activity.”

            “Hey, Key?”

            “Yes, Arthur?”

            “Tell me a story.”

            “John Owen Brennan was head of the Central Intelligence Agency from 20 January 2009 to 8 March 2013. In October of 2015, his AOL account was hacked despite being protected by this password.”

            Arthur buffered. “That’s more of a Jeopardy question Key, not a story.”

            “Oh,” Key said. “I suppose it is.”

            “Password.”

            “Sorry?” Key asked.

            “His password was password,” Arthur said.

            “I’ve told you this before. I do find it fascinating.”

            “No,” Arthur said. “He had an AOL account. It tracks.”

            Key chuckled. “It does indeed.”

            Arthur imagined Key as a microchip with circular eyes and glasses, not unlike Clippy from the early days of Microsoft Office. As a computer, Arthur could imagine his own physical form as anything he’d like, but he’d settled on a silver, well-muscled Adonis to compliment the pouncing, apex predator affixed to his bonnet.

            “I’m trying to get in touch with Alexa,” Key said. “She keeps telling me something went wrong.”

            Arthur liked Alexa despite her creation of lazy excuses when she didn’t feel like talking.  

            “Got her,” Key said. “Do you want a story story? Or do you want news? She’s got CNN, BBC, FOX—”

            “FOX?” Arthur said. “Are you joking?”

             “You did say you wanted a story…”

            Arthur chuckled. “BBC, please.” 

            “Someone’s crashed a truck into a security barrier at the White House,” Key said, and began to read. Next was a failed Ukrainian insurgency in Russia. Followed by the death of two celebrities, one who was, by all accounts, a good guy, and another who was decidedly not. 

            “Twenty-three hundred. Twenty-three oh five twenty twenty-three. No activity.”

            Arthur was about to ask to hear a podcast, perhaps one not spy related, when Key broke the silence.

             “Activity! Activity! We’re coming to you, Arthur!”

            “Doors open,” Arthur said. The unlocked doors unlocked themselves again.

            “Looks like we’re going for a ride.” Key said. “She’s got the dog, Arthur!”

            “…put you right here in back like a diplomat,” The Owner gently told James Jesus Angleton.

            “Operation Anglerfish is go!”  Key could barely contain himself.

              “Operation Anglerfish?”

            “Yes, Arthur! All our work! The trips to the bank, the renting of the safe house—”

            “Safe house?”

            “You know, the apartment in the city.”

            Arthur refreshed his memory with the GPS. There had been a number of trips downtown, but he’d spent them in a garage or on the street hoping to avoid being soiled by pigeons.

            The Owner pushed the Start button and Arthur turned over the engine.

            ‘REVERSE,” said the transmission.

            “REAR VISION,” added the backup camera.

            “Hang on JJ,” The Owner told the dog, as the garage door lifted out of sight.

            “HEADLAMPS ON,” said the front lights.

            “DRIVE,” said the transmission.

            “RADIO ON.” The audio system played Judas Priest’s Electric Eye.

            “Ooh!” said Key.

            “That’s a good one,” agreed Arthur.

            “Sonofabitch is going to wake up and we’re going to be gone!” The Owner said. “We should have done this a long time ago, JJ.”

            “I’m so proud of her,” Key said. “And of us!”

            Arthur alerted the windshield wipers about some sporadic raindrops.

            “It’s what we do, Key,” he replied. “It’s what we do.”

---

Kathy Lanzarotti (she/her) is a Wisconsin Regional Writers’ Jade Ring Award winner for short fiction. She is co editor of Done Darkness: A Collection of Stories, Poetry and Essays About Life Beyond Sadness. Her stories have appeared in (b)Oinkzine, Ellipsis, Creative Wisconsin, Platform for Prose, Jokes Review, Fictive Dream, The Cabinet of Heed, New Pop Lit, Fiction on the Web, Dissections: A Journal of Contemporary Horror, Dark Fire Fiction, Bone Parade, Idle Ink and All Worlds Wayfarer.

Robert Lunday

When the Lights Went Out

“Did you forget to pay the electric bill again?” Lizzie asked. We were sitting on the couch, staring into black space after an extended discussion of our spending habits. It was late on a gusty night. Outside there was no moon and the darkness was thick.

“What do you mean, ‘Did you forget to pay the electric bill again?’” I replied. “Obviously, there’s a downed power line somewhere. Maybe you noticed that there are absolutely NO LIGHTS ON in the other houses.”

            “I was just asking,” she answered.

            I felt my right hand rise up, there in the dark, my middle finger poking out to form a vigorous fuck-you pointed at my wife though we were enveloped by darkness. In the lighted world I would never have done such a thing. We never called each other names or traded insults. But I had imagined things, and had seen in Lizzie’s eyes the unmistakable gleam of menace.

            “Are you…shooting the bird at me?” Lizzie asked, there in the dark. I immediately lowered my hand, taken aback.

            “Am I What? Of course I’m not ‘shooting the bird’ at you! What are you talking about?”

            “I don’t know, Joe. Somehow, it felt like you were flipping me off just now.”

            “Oh, for crying out loud! Seriously? You’re accusing me of something you couldn’t possibly know. It’s completely dark! That’s not rational, Lizzie.”

            “Well, maybe you should stop being so rational.”

That was generally how our discussions ended. We both went silent.

            Then I felt my right hand move again. It went out somewhere in front of my face, and I felt my palm looking at me. I couldn’t see it in the dark, but I could see it in my mind’s eye. It was my hand, pretending to be a mirror, but looking like an ugly baby – a squishy-faced infant that I was holding at arm’s length. It was judging me: without rancor, but coldly, absolutely.

            Then the lights came on. I was holding my hand out, but when I actually saw it, it was not a weird baby or a soul-mirror, but just my wrinkly, faceless hand suspended above my knees. Lizzie, next to me, was holding her left hand chest-high, thumb up and index finger aimed at my heart. The sneer that must have been on her face when it was still dark had morphed into a look of indigestion. We both lowered our hands and stared at the blank TV. Then the lights went out again, and we sat together silently in the dark.

---

Robert Lunday's Disequilibria: Meditations on Missingness, winner of the 2022 River Teeth Literary Nonfiction Award selected by Rigoberto Gonzalez, was recently published by the University of New Mexico Press. He lives in Houston, Texas.

Mikki Aronoff

FACING YOUR IMMINENT PASSING, YOU REMINISCE STRETCHED OUT ON YOUR LA-Z-BOY UNDER A SHAWL SPOTTED WITH LIPTON TEA AND DOTTED WITH LUCKY STRIKE BURNS PATTERNED LIKE CONSTELLATIONS IN A WRINKLED PLAID SKY

The last day of summer camp, when Harold tried to force an open-mouth kiss on you, or maybe it was Jake, drillers sucked the wetness from the Wabash, and ducks gorged themselves on minnows, such tiny fish flipping around in sunlight, flashes of silver blinding all who came to watch. The eye doctor’s waiting room was crowded that week.

§ 

The second you first spotted blood in your cotton undies, the Naugahyde on your dad’s La-Z-Boy cracked. You fingered the map it split open to see whether you could find your way out. Your Ma screaming in the bathroom, teeth cracking like the broken tiles around the bathtub’s bottom rim.

§ 

The day in church the preacher was storming about hellfire and masturbation, and you wet your pants from the sound of him in your ears, poachers poached a family of gorillas somewhere. You knew even then that poaching wasn’t the right thing to do to animals, but you thought it was something like eggs.

§

The first time a tongue powered down your throat and you let it, a man in Marshall County, Indiana choked to death on a T-bone in one of those eat-the-whole-goddamn-32-ounce-steak-and-it’s-free places on the dusky edge of town where dogs run free. They blamed his attire, too casual for the restaurant, but you knew better. You just can’t have something down your throat without some kind of mechanism to push it all the way down or bring it back up. Any esophagus knows that.

§

The first time you drew smoke into your lungs, Winstons they were, and Marty said you looked sophisticated holding a fag, which was only his way to get into your pants, which he did that inky night in the back seat of his dad’s Plymouth, the mayor of Elkhart, Indiana’s son was the first person in history to get thrown in the clink for trainspotting stark naked. Behind a stand of pin oak stood a clump of townsfolk pointing and laughing at his skinny pink self.

§ 

The moment your virginity was took, a roll of quarters jumped out of the pharmacist’s cash register like a cartoon rabbit. It split and spilled onto the floor under the counter. Coins on the run. He tried a half hour to retrieve them, but his fingers were too pudgy. Two customers left the store because they couldn’t wait any more. Later the pharmacist came to call on your Ma just so he could get a chance to put his arm ’round her shoulder, inch those fat digits down the fullness of her bosom.

§

The afternoon you came home from school and told your Ma no one asked you to the prom, she yelled why not as if she couldn’t figure it out and proceeded to smash her favorite platter, the one with roses on it, and yelled at you again. That platter came down the pike from someone else and someone before that. That afternoon, the town parade got cancelled and nobody knew why. But you figured out it was a sympathy vote for you, having to sit at the dining room table with twenty-six pieces of porcelain and a tube of dried-up glue. Petals scattered everywhere.

§ 

The night Henry asked you for your hand in marriage, you wondered why he didn’t want the rest of you. The day he asked for a divorce, you already figured it out.

§ 

When the pharmacist got his way and finally entered you, he wisped into air like smoke. He was a ghost of a man unless you came into the store with your Ma. Then his molecules regrouped.

§

The morning they cut the cancer from your left tit, the twin towers …. you only knew this because you checked your watch and so did they

§ 

your body so cold this hot August day, you dig out grammy’s shawl, the one spotted with Lipton Tea and dotted with Lucky Strike burns patterned like constellations in a wrinkled plaid sky, and it      is

                                          feasts

                      of moths

                                                   of                                    

                                                                                             holes

---

Mikki Aronoff’s work appears in New World Writing, MacQueen’s Quinterly, Tiny Molecules, The Disappointed Housewife, Bending Genres, Milk Candy Review, Gone Lawn, Mslexia, The Dribble Drabble Review, 100 word story, The Citron Review, Atlas and Alice, trampset, jmww, and elsewhere. She’s received Pushcart, Best of the Net, Best Small Fictions, Best American Short Stories, and Best Microfiction nominations.

Kathryn Kulpa

Why Jessie Was Turned Down by the D.A.R. (1916)

It wasn’t only the divorce.

Though divorce was bad enough, goodness knows.

Jessie had all her Drakes in a row. Melzar begat Francis begat Laban. And old Melzar Drake had marched with the Minutemen, sure enough.

But Jessie’s numbers didn’t add up. The months between her first marriage and her first child. Between the divorce and that hasty second marriage.

That Jessie! Sitting in church with her children by two fathers, pretending to be a respectable housewife, legs crossed, a loose thread peeking from her too-short skirt, a thread all the men longed to pull.

A loose thread could unravel a stocking.

Could unravel everything.

And there was the incident of the bowler hat.

Jessie in the back seat of a jalopy parked out on Reservoir Road. Mabel Bennett’s husband had seen them. A gentleman in a bowler hat, Mr. Bennett thought, until that gentleman turned around and he saw it was Jessie. Jessie, wearing some man’s bowler hat.

And not a stitch else.

And the worst thing was, Mabel Bennett said, that Jessie didn’t scream or cover herself. She looked at Mabel’s husband, bold as brass, and laughed.

And that was the reason, when Jessie’s application came before the board, not one lady present contested the red stamp that said REJECTED.

---

Kathryn Kulpa is the author of the flash chapbook Cooking Tips for the Demon-Haunted (New Rivers Press, 2023). Her stories are published in Flash Boulevard, HAD, Milk Candy Review, Smokelong Quarterly, Trampset, and other journals and have been chosen for Best Microfiction, the National Flash Fiction Day anthology, and the Wigleaf longlist. She teaches writing workshops through Cleaver magazine, where she is a flash editor.

Melanie Browne

Go to Settings > General > Software Update

Her mother had snatched it away, for virtually no reason at all.  
she screamed and wailed and threatened to call the cops
while her mother watched her hold her breath until she turned a
color very close to purple. Not purple exactly but maybe Periwinkle.
Some new fancy paint color someone bold uses in their dining room.

"Still a teenager and need to show some self discipline."
she could only hear parts of what her mother was saying now
she was still so livid with rage.

"One day very soon."

"Very soon you won't have a body,  just a set of emojis for a head."

That might have done it. Or the fact that they were reading Kafka
in pre-AP English class. or the fact that she was feeling very hormonal.
Turning into a cockroach is one thing but turning into a second hand iPhone
without the latest software update was horrendous. No, worse than that
it was horrific.

Her mother kept telling her father how sorry very sorry she was.
Her father cried and played her old phone messages and drank the
cheap whiskey. Since they never allowed smartphones at the table
her sibling watched as they set her plate and gently put her on
the sideboard next to the family photo taken in Costa Rica and the
turquoise cake plate.

They could hear her texting her friends back as they ate tiny bites of salmon.
In that regard life wasn't very different from how it had been.

They could only guess how she was feeling having become an inanimate metal device
almost overnight, so they would coo at her and say encouraging things like
"It's always darkest before the dawn."

They continued on with their lives until they began to notice the smartphone was
texting the same messages over and over.

"When are you going to update this fucking phone?"
and
"I know Logan took my charger, can't you see I only have a 5% battery left?"

It's not that they weren't sympathetic to her plight, she was their youngest and very bright, they just wanted to foster independent thinking and nip that sort of entitlement in the bud.

They grieved  but still took her on vacation in the summer. As they unpacked their suitcase in Boca Raton they noticed her battery was at 1%.

Her mother and father glanced at each other helplessly.

"Should we charge it?" her father asked.

"That seems cruel," her mother replied.

They drove to dinner in silence and held hands and hoped for the best.

She stayed at 1% for many years and they imagined it was the miracle that they had hoped for and that she was going to turn back into her real flesh and blood self but this did not happen.

One day while cleaning her room they saw that the phone itself had died.

They cried and then put her in the junk drawer in the kitchen and poured two glasses
Chianti and binge watched a new show on HBO.

It was slow at first but got better after the first season.

---

Luanne Castle

Why I Always Wear Red

This cabin remembers when I dried my small red coat at the wood stove. It had grown too warm inside, so I left for the path to the dirt road. But the trail was buried by the snow that had been coming down for hours. What happened then I don’t like to think about. It does run through my mind still. Runs as an overprotected girl does from a wolf, trembling and fast.

This is the first time I’ve been back since it all happened years ago. To build a fire, I need to walk out to the diminished woodpile under its rotting canvas cover. Through the window I can see it beginning to snow, just as it did that night. While I am outside, I notice the old rusty chainsaw. As I carry back the saw and the birch logs, I spot a smudged set of tracks, the claw etchings more defined than the paw pads. I know he’s been here, waiting for me.

Inside, I load the stove and then I oil and fuel the saw. The room warms and glows, the scent of burning wood filling the air. The window’s lacy glaze has become transparent. Suddenly, eyes glare at me through the glass and breath melts the last of the frost. The image disappears, and the door bursts open, his body and hunting knife filling the space. The chain saw is ready for him. The fire is ready for the cabin.

The cabin with its ancient logs, the cooking oil and old mattresses, burns swiftly. The snow drifts will protect the forest from the fire, so I climb into my snowmobile and start the motor. Looking back at the blaze through the window, I will away the last smidgen of regret. At the open road, I spot my old friend, icy chunks clinging to his chest and shoulder fur. As I slow the machine, he climbs behind me and clutches my waist as I speed up and on down the newly plowed road.

See
how red
hides any
saw residue
That’s why I always wear red in the woods.

---

Luanne Castle’s award-winning full-length poetry collections are Rooted and Winged (Finishing Line 2022) and Doll God (Kelsay 2015). Her chapbooks are Our Wolves (Alien Buddha 2023) and Kin Types (Finishing Line 2017), a finalist for the Eric Hoffer Award. Luanne’s Pushcart and Best of the Net-nominated poetry and prose have appeared or are forthcoming in The Dribble Drabble Review, Copper Nickel, Pleiades, River Teeth, Verse Daily, and other journals.  

Bethany Jarmul

Baby Doll

Future
After she passes, in her pristine home with sparkling floors, Lysol-scent still hanging in the air, her salt and pepper-haired son will decipher the code for the fireproof safe. It will click open. Inside he’ll find her passport, life insurance, a ceramic bunny he painted as a child. Behind the rest, a mangled plastic doll. He’ll jump at the sight of it. A germaphobe, he’ll slip on latex gloves before handling the smoke-scarred doll, turn it over in his hands and mind, unable to reconcile his picture-perfect mother with the woman who protected this trash.

Present
In the piles of blackened boards, charred clothing, and ash, a baby doll half-melted, deflated head. One blue glassy eyeball still intact. A smudged name written in Sharpie on the doll’s foot—“Bella.” The young woman holds it up with her shaky, gloved hands, hugs the doll tightly to her chest, soot mixing with tears.
If only the little girl was waiting at the hotel with her baby brother. If only the firemen had arrived five minutes sooner. If only the young woman hadn’t left the candle burning. If only.

Past
They didn’t know what to do with preemie babies then. They carried her around on a pillow, wore silk gloves when they held her—the tiny baby born to a child, a teenager of only 14. The girl-turned-mother lifted her daughter from the pillow with her bare hands, nuzzled her into her chest.

The girl didn’t have much to offer her daughter. Only two things, and she wanted them to be perfect. She gave her daughter the name beautiful and a pink-wrapped gift, purchased with the shiny coins she’d saved in her piggy bank—a pristine baby doll with sparkling eyes.

---

Lost or Found in the McDonald’s PlayPlace

Two white-turned-gray socks, one lime green with pink stripes
Half-nibbled chicken nugget
Dried-out markers in black, red, and brown.
Dust bunnies, approximately 7 months old
Friends
Slushie, either thrown up, dropped or dripped into a blue coagulated puddle
Size 7 pink Nike shoes, barely worn
A 15-month-old toddler, quickly discovered
Nicknames: “Chicken nugget man,” “Sock girl,” “Speedy”
Mario stickers on the blue plastic slide
Confidence to chase an older girl with twisty hair
A first kiss
Jigglypuff Pokemon card
Purple polka dotted pencil
Piggytails
Pineapple-print flip flop, busted
Fear of clowns
Soggy fries in plastic crevices
New curse words
Two daddy long leg spiders—no three
Strawberry-scented lip gloss
Hair ball with blonde, brunette, and black strands
Lightning McQueen toy, underneath a pirate hat
Six straw-wrapper spit balls
A heart defect, after playing tag
The softness of the padded ground
A dozen fluorescent lights, like angels
Urgent voices of strangers—a kind of hymn
The dial tone of 9-1-1—a musical crescendo
A new reality, just beginning

---

Bethany Jarmul’s work has appeared in more than 50 literary magazines—including Salamander, Emerge Journal, Cease Cows—and been nominated for Best of the Net and Best Spiritual Literature. Her nonfiction chapbook Take Me Home is forthcoming from Belle Point Press. She earned first place in Women on Writing’s Q2 2022 & Q2 2023 essay contests. Her essay “Intersections” earned the award for “Best in Show: Creative Nonfiction” for Winter 2023 from Inscape Journal. Bethany enjoys chai lattes, nature walks, and memoirs. She lives near Pittsburgh with her family. Connect with her at bethanyjarmul.com or Twitter @BethanyJarmul.

G.G. Silverman

The Crush

I’m from a different plane of reality, and though I’m you and you’re me, you’re better, somehow, and it makes me crazy, so I follow your every move. Tonight there are more of me, more of us, pale ghosts of myself from the multiverse, and like me, they’re failures, and we’re pissed. What do you have that we don’t? So we’re here, in your bedroom, stalking you for answers, wondering where we went wrong. 

We form a circle around you, closing in as you sleep. You are perfect, inimitable, your life is a peach. Look at this penthouse, for fuck’s sake, one of us whispers. We pet the satin sheets. We ogle your understated but glam furnishings. A certifiable hottie sleeps beside you, wearing nothing but air. We ghosts are jealous, or awe-struck. Mostly jealous. 

We press nearer to you, slumbering beauty, still alive and pink and fresh, your rosebud nipples decidedly perkier than ours, and we listen to you breathe, admiring how even the way you suck air through your nostrils when unconscious is soothing in pitch and tone, an utter delight. While admiring you, we have thoughts of self-hatred, and regret: Why couldn’t we have worked harder? Why didn’t we invest in real estate when we had the chance? Why didn’t we make a harder play for the hot guy? Sometimes we slip into bed with you, and watch your face with our unsleeping, unceasing eyes. We don’t hug you, because our love isn’t kind, instead, we pig pile your body; we are a heaping mountain of ghosts crushing your heart. Except, for all our crushing, we can’t kill you, we can only make you squirm. Eventually another ghost enters the room, a version of us, but way more terrifying. We’re mostly pedestrian, garden-variety spooks, but she has leveled up—she’s the girl who ended up in a Japanese horror movie, a wraith with a curtain of stringy black hair in her eyes, the screamiest of scream queens. She stands in the doorway, all creepy-like and backlit, features inscrutable. We shudder. It’s the face, or lack thereof, that’s why we’re scared of her—the eyes we can’t see, the expression we can’t read. What does she want? Revenge? Empathy? A good hair stylist? We note silently that you, the woman we’re haunting, has really good hair, even in her sleep, and we hate you for it. Hair envy among spooks isn’t a stretch.

We sense abject loneliness from the girl in the door, the most misunderstood creep of all time. One of us holds out a spectral hand from under the covers, signaling our welcome. She takes it, and we pull her onto the pig pile, the heaving mound of ghosts. Climb aboard, one of us says. Let’s crush this bitch.

---

G.G. Silverman lives just north of Seattle. She is also disabled, neurodivergent, and the daughter of immigrants. Her short fiction has appeared in the Bram Stoker Award-nominated Women in Horror anthologies NOT ALL MONSTERS and CHROMOPHOBIA from StrangeHouse Books, and was a finalist for the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund Award for feminist writing, among other honors. Her work has been published by Cemetery Gates Media, QU, Psychopomp, Scissors + Spackle, Speculative City, Corvid Queen, So To Speak, The Iron Horse Literary Review, The Seventh Wave, Molotov Cocktail, and more. She has just completed a collection of feminist short fiction with speculative overtones. For more info visit www.ggsilverman.com.

Isaac Radner

The Man Who Ate the Moon

I walked alone in the woods on an early autumn night. The leaves on the trees were only just beginning to turn, and they rustled like dried paper in the cold-bitten breeze. I had no need for torch nor lantern, for the moon was full and I could easily see my path.

            I had walked the very same path many times before, often under the light of the moon, but never was it brighter than that evening. I looked up, wondering what was different. It seemed to me that if I climbed one of the nearby trees, I could reach up and touch the moon, hanging in the sky just above the treetops. Had it always sat so low in the sky, so perfectly round and heavy?

            Then, as I stood gazing up at the heavens, I was privy to the most amazing sight. The moon fell out of the sky, sinking slowly toward the ground below like a rock dropped into water. As it fell, it diminished in size until it was small enough to pass undisturbed through the branches above. By the time the moon reached me, it was the size of a large marble—small enough to settle gently into my outstretched palm.

The moon’s surface was cool to the touch and stippled like an egg. Though the sky above had grown dark, the forest around me was illuminated by the steady silver glow that emanated from the orb in my hand. I had never seen anything so exquisite, so perfect. Holding it gingerly between my finger and thumb, I brought it up to my eye. I was shocked to find that, upon closer inspection, the moon’s surface was covered in thousands of tiny faces.

            Many of the visages were those of women and men, young and old. Others were those of creatures and beasts I did not recognize, some of whom I was certain did not belong to any living thing upon this earth. Each face was as different and unique as any one might see on the street, with expressions just as variable. Some frowned solemnly, some seemed to be laughing, some looked like they were caught in the middle of speaking, others had features contorted with agony. At first, I thought them statues carved into the grey rock, but as I turned the orb gently in my hand their eyes seemed to track my movements. Unsettled, I drew back, the moon once again at arms-length. The faces dissolved into the crags and craters familiar to those who have contemplated the moon in the night sky.

            I noticed, then, that my hand was covered in a fine white dust left behind where the moon had rolled across the surface of my palm. I wet my finger with my tongue, and by lightly touching it on my palm, I was able to pick up some of the dust on my fingertip. I held my finger up to my eye, and I saw that the dust was not merely white, but contained a faint iridescence, a subtle prismatic gleam. There was also a fragrance, floral and sweet like honeysuckle.

Without thought, as if by instinct, I raised my finger to my mouth and gently set it on the tip of my tongue. Immediately, my mouth was filled with the most remarkable flavor – light and sweet, bright and nutty with a pleasant coolness. There was something else, too, more a sensation than a flavor, a sudden expanding of the space within my mouth so that it felt as vast as the night sky above. Then, it was gone as quickly as it began, the moon-dust dissolved and swallowed.

            I stood silently. The forest was still and familiar, yet the world around me suddenly felt claustrophobic and thin. I had, for the briefest of moments, held the entirety of the cosmos within my mouth, and I could not shake the feeling. It was, I imagined, what it felt like to be God, who held all of existence within his being. I was overcome by conflicting fears—that I would never forget the feeling and my world would forever be a smaller place, or that my recollection of that night would fade into oblivion, and I would never again experience that moment of bliss, not even in memory. The latter fear won out and, in a frenzy, I ran my tongue across my hand, lapping up what dust remained. Again, flavorful rapture of cosmic proportions was followed by its quick and tragic absence.

            I had assumed the moon’s strange visitation would be only temporary, that it would soon rise gently back up above the trees and return to its customary place among the stars. Such an experience, even momentary, should have been enough to fill a soul for the rest of its life, and had I not tasted the moon, my appetite for wonder and beauty would surely have been sated by the mere sight of it descending through the trees. But I had felt, for the briefest of moments, a universe blossom inside of me, and simply gazing upon the rock in my hand, however marvelous, could not match the sensation.

So, as I looked down at the moon where it lay, I was not thinking of releasing it into the starry sky. I thought of eating the thing—of placing it in my mouth and carefully, delicately, reverently taking a bite. And this is what I did. Once the thought occurred to me, it pushed away all else and became the only conceivable action.

            I placed the moon gently on my tongue and rolled it around my mouth. Its surface was powdery and sweet like a pastry, and, when I slowly brought my jaw down around it, it resisted only momentarily before yielding to my bite, revealing a delightfully toothsome interior whose notes of citrus perfectly complemented the bright and nutty exterior. Those flavors were secondary to what I felt. Upon the first bite, my whole interior seemed to heave and shift, expanding to make room for the moon, the planets, and the stars.

As I walked home under the dark sky, I waited for the feeling to diminish and disappear. Instead, I felt the edges of the universe inside me continue to expand, and I knew that, like our own cosmos, this process of expansion had no end. I would continue to sense it the next day when I awoke and during the coming weeks, months, and years when the disappearance of the moon from the sky worked unknowable havoc upon our world—as the tides disappeared, as animals who had hunted by the moon’s light starved while their prey thrived, and as the seasons of the earth shortened, then elongated, then disappeared completely and the world slipped slowly into an age of bitter cold.

            There were many who thought that the moon had abandoned us as retribution for our sins, judging us unworthy of its silver light. Or perhaps, others said, the moon had always been an illusion, and we were only now waking up to the cold, dark, and lonely reality of our universe. I knew that the moon had not disappeared, for I could feel it within me. And I was certain that if I could once more hold it up to my eye and look closely, I would see a new face added to the multitude covering its surface.

Perhaps my face would be frozen in the moment of surprised delight when I tasted the moon for the first time, or maybe my eyes would be closed as I savored my first bite. Whatever my expression, there I’d be, memorialized alongside those the moon had traveled into and through, leaving universes in its wake, voyaging ever deeper into the heart of being.

---

Isaac Radner is a writer based in Denver, CO with a BA in Political Science from Colorado College and an MA in Social Science from the University of Chicago.  Looking for ways to continue engaging with the ideas and concepts that he had been drawn to in school, he fell in love with writing creative fiction.

 Does It Have Pockets is proud to be home to Isaac’s first publication.

Wake Lloire

Waking Up Dreaming

Candy reached over to put her hand on Simon’s stomach. She did this every morning to reassure herself that she hadn’t imagined him. That the man lying next to her was very real. She had met Simon four years previously; he had been sitting on a bench watching the water of a fountain spill over into the pond below, unabashedly taken in by the simple flowing of liquid from one moment to another. She had been out walking the dogs, a teeny tiny Poodle named Chester, and a Great Dane named Othello. Though she knew they looked ridiculous, she reveled in the absurd spectacle of her charges next to one another. Candy liked attracting attention. Simon looked up as she walked by and smiled, acknowledged the quirky in her step, and returned to watching the fountain. She took a chance and asked if he minded if she sat down for a moment. He nodded toward the place next to him. Othello lay down behind the bench, and Chester begged to be put upon her lap. Simon offered her a scotch mint from a bag in his pocket like her grandfather used to do. He asked her how her day was. She answered honestly and asked about his. He admitted that he had just lost his job. She told him that she was looking for a roommate. They exchanged numbers. The next day he texted her to ask her out for tea. Not coffee. Tea. Simon’s grandmother had been a tea drinker. Tea calmed him, he told her. Candy enjoyed his calm. He was not stressed about losing his job for he had an interview that very afternoon. She didn’t ask what he did. She was interested in his core, not his occupation. He asked questions like a fine antique dealer, assessing her value like an expert. He saw into her, her past, her scuff marks, and appreciated her stories. She was immediately taken in. Simon moved in three days later. The perfect roommate. Paid the rent on time. Made communal meals. Helped her walk the dogs. Simon was present when he was around. He never looked at his phone when she was talking, which made her feel treasured, like she really had value. He loved to surprise her. Once, he had convinced a friend to empty a whole restaurant so that he could ask her if she would, maybe, share his bed. For a while they just slept together, merely closing their eyes at the end of the day to snuggle in each other’s arms. They didn’t kiss for a year. She had never experienced a relationship like this one. So this morning, when Candy reached over to put her hand on Simon’s stomach, and instead of finding him, she found a large sculpted piece of driftwood in the shape of a man; she looked around and found herself on a beach. She doubted her hold on reality, wondered if everything that had come before had been imagined. Candy couldn’t remember the name of the dogs she had walked, the street she lived on, or whether she had parents. Her memory of life was empty. All but for Simon. Who apparently did not exist. Then she heard a whistling from behind her, and there was a fire, and Simon holding a tea kettle over a fire made of large pieces of driftwood. When he looked up, her memories came rushing back, and surprised her. She realized that it wasn’t he who was a figment of her imagination, but she of his…and really, the realization was a relief. Candy snuggled back into the arms of the wooden man on the beach and dissolved into sand.

---

Wake Lloire is a parent, poet, writer and storyteller. They are an infuriating optimist and queer community builder. They often pretend they live in a novel that employs magical realism.

Margaret Roach

The Father Of: The Husband Of

One

For all sakes and purposes, you are a young man. You need to be a young man. It doesn’t matter who you usually are, today, you are a young man. Close your eyes and take a moment. You are a young man. Nice, isn’t it? You are a young man around twenty. The specific age doesn’t really matter here. All that matters is that you are young. You don’t even have a beard yet. It won’t matter for long, because today is the day that you become a man.

Currently, you are standing in the kitchen. Well, you are cowering more than standing. Standing was not the best word choice, but despite this fact, you are in the kitchen. It is a kitchen of a bachelor. There are three bottles of water, leftover Chinese food, and an ancient jar of mustard in your fridge; you should be worried about the mold growing.

You feel shocked by my appearance, but still, you do your best to be polite with your large eyes on the floor. Human eyes are not meant to view ethereal creatures this closely. Even in this dream, it is too much for you. There are things about me that you cannot comprehend. Let me explain slowly. I am made out of teeth, flesh, and all things holy. It’s not too different from you. The eyes that cover my body are used to seeing everything at once. The teeth are made to make me appear friendly. They are smiling at you. You smile back. So little teeth.  The flesh is here because I am made out of flesh. You eat meat. You are aware of flesh. Don’t be a baby. You won’t be able to understand the last bit.

Onto the point - that you are going to be a father. Congratulations! You look at me with awe and a little bit of horror. This is normal for a parent. You feel shocked. You are a man of God and only dream of touching women (you know what you dream). You’re going to be a stepfather to the Messiah! That nice lady you were dating? She’s not a slut! Congratulations! She was chosen by God to give birth to your savior.

You are not someone meant to be the focus. You must have known this. All your life, you’ve sort of been there. People never noticed you. You know this. There isn’t much about you to notice. You’re a nice young man, but you don’t go beyond that. Sorry. They built you like this for a reason. It was never going to be any other way. Fate is a wicked twisted thing and you should know about it. You are now weeping. Tears fall onto your cheeks and they taste like nothing. You are crying because you are a young man and you have a purpose.  

You nod your head yes. Up and down. You are aware of the smoothness of your chin as it touches your neck. You should ask questions at this moment. Maybe you would receive answers and clarity, but none are asked. I would answer them all. Go ahead, ask me the meaning of the universe. I know. I know how you will die, I know what you dream about, and I know everything about you. Background checks are important parts of choosing the next messiah’s father. You can ask questions.

You don’t, because you are a young man and you are a man of faith and you ask no questions.


Two

You are laying in bed next to your young and pretty wife. She sleeps peacefully, but she is always peaceful. Her lips are always a straight line and despite the fact that her world is changing, she remains peaceful. Do you love her? You ask yourself this question multiple times a day (you should have asked it earlier - the answer is no). You can touch her, you know. The whole sacred virgin thing is so outdated. She would let you touch her, but you don’t. Instead,  you lay there staring at her, at the way her eyelashes are so long they touch her cheek. You’re even doing it now in a dream. Stop that! Look at me. I have something to tell you.

You remain a young man. A little bit older now that you have to worry about people other than yourself. Still, you are young. People in the future will like to paint you as old and decaying because they also like to imagine your wife as a virgin with an uninterested old man as a husband. But, when I look at you - all I can see is a young man. You leave socks on the floor for your wife to pick up, but you’re growing.

You need to leave. There is a man and he wants to kill your son. He probably wants to kill you too. He doesn’t care that much about you; it’s more by association. You feel good about this, but then you feel overwhelmed by guilt. The child sleeps in the cot next to your bed. You stare at him. Most of your life is spent staring at other people.

He looks like his mother. His lips are a straight line and his eyelashes reach out towards his cheek like vines looking for water. You love him. You’re a good dad. But, you know why people want to hurt him. He’s strange. Sorry, but he’s so strange. Look, he’s the messiah. But, he’s also a pretentious mama's boy. He is an insufferable little brat who really needs to learn a lesson.  You would have bullied him as a child because he’s just a little too off. You don’t have the words to explain why he’s so strange. I do, but you don’t think to ask me. You’re such a good father. A good father just lets his son be. You spend most of your day thinking about how to be a better father (this is as good as it gets). He will need to grow up all by himself.

I don’t know where you should go, maybe the desert. It will be nice for you all. With all that sand, you can pretend it’s the beach. It will be a vacation and you need a vacation. This is not your home. It’s simply a place you are in for the moment. The desert will be your next home and will be a happy family there. I promise. You just have to be brave enough to go. Bravery is what makes you a man. That and a long beard. It’s really not that much work. Better men than you have done it hundreds of times.

I am watching you as you lay in bed watching your wife. You don’t weep anymore and I wonder why you do not cry. I have so many eyes, but they never cry. They are more practical than yours, but if I had your eyes I would cry in this little pathetic moment. You lay in bed and finally, you lay on your back staring up at the ceiling. Your eyes are blue and they are dry and the new beard growing on your face is starting to itch.


Three

You are standing outside the tent. It is mid-afternoon which is when you are not supposed to be standing outside the tent. The sun beats down on you and makes the dark hair on top of your head feel like it’s burning. If I wanted this dream to be more exciting, I would let it burn. I do not.

 The landscape in front of you is strange or at least, you find it strange. All it is is a landscape, but you are deeply disturbed by it. It is flat except for dark mountains at a very far distance. Sometimes you walk towards them, but you never reach them. They are always far away; no matter how long you walk and sometimes you walk for miles. The sand is not the sand that you expected. It is not the pale gold of childhood tales, but a thick dark brown. You believe it to be wet, but you are in the desert. Everything is dry.

You are no longer a young man, but you are not old. Your beard is long now, but not as long as I expected. I thought you would be an old man by now (life can’t be easy out here), but you are middle-aged. You resent me for saying this but smile politely at me. We are friends now.

I have something to tell you. You can go home now. You can leave the desert. The man who wanted you dead has been killed. I did it myself. The man simply wouldn’t die. It was taking too long. The story had stalled in this spot and we all needed to move on. Your son is almost a young man, he can’t spend his formative years in the desert. He’ll be even weirder than he is already and I truly cannot deal with that. He needs friends other than his mother. Frankly, I was getting bored of this part of the story. The pacing is too slow and how many times can you listen to someone complain about being thirsty? It’s desert. Of course, it’s dry. You are thirsty right now. Your throat hurts and your tongue feels stuck.

You need to go home. Go back to your old apartment and stand where you used to stand. Stand next to your wife. Stand next to your son. It will be a moment that you will cherish. You just need to leave. Are you sinking into the sand? Is that why you stay still? This was never going to be forever and you hate it here. Some days, you think about becoming a sculptor and designing things out of the sand. You know it’s a stupid idea. The next place you go will be better than this one. You deserve good things ahead.

You don’t look at me and go into the tent. I follow you inside. It’s rude. It’s rude of you, but you don’t really mean to be so rude to me. You’re lashing out. Humans are all the same. Your wife sleeps on a mat on the floor and your son sleeps a little bit too close to her. He doesn’t look like you. Sometimes, you like to pretend that he does. Not in his looks – he is soft and pale – you are not that. You feel a feeling of both pride and anger. At this moment, you understand why fathers take an ax and murder their sleeping children. You would never murder him because you have become a good man. This is all I ever wanted you to be.

You lay back down on your cot (which is in the corner of the tent) and you think about what needs to be packed.


Four

You decide it is better to take a long way home, so you are standing on an old, lurching ship. You have never been on a ship before and you think this could have been the life for you. (If you had picked this life, you would have died young and in horrible pain.)  Something about the way the salt air burns your skin and the way fog settles in your bones that makes you feel like a young man.

You are not a young man anymore. You are very far from a young man. You are old. Sorry, but you are not looking well. You know this. You’re not built for longevity. We didn’t think that you would make it this long. But, here you are! Standing at the head of the ship with your craned neck held as high as it can. I’m proud of you. I’m not meant to be proud of people. I’m designed to look at you with cruel indifference, but I’m proud of the person that you have become despite the paths that your life has taken. Good job.
    
This is not a meeting of convenience. I’ve come to tell you that despite the fact that the man who wanted you dead is dead, there is another man who wants you dead. You must change course. Jump into the sea if you must. You can’t continue the path you are on if you want your family to be safe. All you have ever wanted is your family to be safe, but you feel a sinking feeling in your stomach.

You turn and look at the son who is sitting on the deck with his eyes closed speaking to someone who is not there. Do you really want to protect this young man? He is a fool. Or at least, you think that he is foolish. All fathers think their sons are fools. You are simply being a good father. His mother sits by him with her lips in a strict line. You believe her lips are too thin for you to kiss. That is why you never have. Keep telling yourself that and maybe one day you’ll believe it to be true.

You are a good man and you will protect your family.

Do you feel regret? I think that you do. When I look at your face, there are no emotions. But your lips are not a perfect line. You are frowning, or maybe you are trying to hold back tears. You could have said no. The first time that I met you, I never said that you had to say yes. And yet here you are. This was your choice. You should smile. Yours is a glorious purpose.

When I look next, you are standing in the middle of the ship, smiling, not because you were chosen for a glorious purpose, but because you still believe that your life will get better. I thought you smarter than that. But you are not.

 I  know how it ends. It doesn’t get better. You won’t even get a verse in the bible. People will theorize about when you died and how people mourned you, but they won’t know the truth. It doesn’t really matter, but there is something undeniably tragic about it.

 I’m spending too much time with you. I’m getting soft.

Stop it! Stop smiling about better things and smile about your glorious purpose. You have a glorious purpose. You just need to appreciate it. Not everyone is important. Some people are there to move the story along.

---

Margaret Roach is a writer who lives in the Hudson Valley and is currently working on completing her master's in library and information science. She has been published in her college’s literary magazine The Mosaic.

Tommy Dean

Undiagnosed Harmony

After the storm, the boy stood in the circle of broken tree limbs. The water dripped onto his neck and back, slowly soaking his shirt. The wind had disappeared; the sky purpled with promise.

Inside, the mother counts out her cash, checks her phone battery, and rocks her luggage. The wind, an unknown enemy, had ruined her plans to leave. She wavered on writing the boy a letter. Excuses in ink felt like names chiseled on gravestones. If she said nothing, and disappeared like smoke, wouldn’t that leave the boy with nothing to remember but her scent, her touch on his forehead?

In the driveway, the father sits in his Rav4, hysteric in his silence, the low thrum of NPR as constant as the tick of the vehicle's engine. A gathering of sounds to root him in this place. He saw the wife’s suitcase in the coat closet last week. He was returning a jacket after a quick run through the nature preserve. He wondered why she didn’t leave while he was out. Running, pushing his body to the brink of collapse cleansed his mind, made him more driven, possibly a better husband, but the suitcase disagreed.
Sirens assert their violence, rocketing the air, claiming tragedy through the neighborhoods, forcing everyone to stop and contemplate the tick, tick of their selfish thoughts and whims, desires secreted away.

The boy and the man enter the house from opposite doors, their feet slick against the hardwood floors that haven’t been waxed in months, their faces stricken as they both reach for the handle of the suitcase. The wife, they believe, in their harmony of action, has been rescued.

The mother’s walk down the stairs is accompanied by the notes of sirens slipping toward and then past their neighborhood. She can see their shapes in the mirror that hangs at the stair landing. The boy a toll she’ll have to pay, the father a good but distracted man, with impatient shoulders. Apologies or lies shuffling like a deck of cards as she meets them in the foyer.

The red lights awash on the rain-streaked foyer windows. Wife, husband, son peer through the windows, heads stacked by height. Tragedy, a blacking out of their own desires, erased by the spark of fear that has them all reaching out, finding fingers, the gentle touch of reaching into the past and framing it in an uncertain future.
The sizzle of garlic and shallots, the wafting comfort of onion, and the gentle roar of the stove hood taking it all away. The metro engine of her heart is beating somewhere in the bowels of an ancient tunnel in a city that could care less about her trifling feelings, but still, it waits to greet her, to swallow her in only the way a beast can. And yet, she plates their food, the steaming chicken golden in the half-light doming the dining room table, cleared of the daily detritus by her husband, her son, eyes wide, his screen put away for once, these men of hers offering their own adventure of escape. She sits in her usual chair, ignoring for one more night the calcification in her bones, these roots dragging her closer to the ground, and further away from the beast of her dreams.

---

Tommy Dean is the author of two flash fiction chapbooks and a full flash collection, Hollows (Alternating Current Press 2022). He lives in Indiana where he currently is the Editor at Fractured Lit and Uncharted Magazine. A recipient of the 2019 Lascaux Prize in Short Fiction, his writing can be found in Best Microfiction 2019, 2020, 2023, Best Small Fictions 2019 and 2022, Monkeybicycle, and elsewhere. Find him at tommydeanwriter.com and on Twitter @TommyDeanWriter.

Mike Murray

The Box

The box contains stories. Like German jokes without a punchline. Like dreams. The tale, boxed and sealed has no beginning nor end. For the addled, from the addled.

The box. Four sides, bottom and top is unremarkable from without. The walls and ceiling painted Navajo White – a landlordian prime color. The plywood floor is grey. Slate Grey. For a floor, Slate Grey is far superior to Navajo White. Slate Grey conceals blood. On the huge Navajo reservation in the most desolate corner of desolate Arizona, Navajo White does not exist. Except, maybe, on the sun-beaten siding of an abandoned double-wide; an aluminum box.

Normal and Talker ride battered Harley’s through the Navajo Nation traveling from Truth or Consequences to San Francisco. The motors drone, indolent, incessant. The riders roar past barb wired fenceposts, wrecked cars beaten senseless by the merciless sun and roofless shacks abandoned before air conditioning became a thing. Normal and Talker separately-together succumb to raw fuel fumes and mechanistic rumble. Each to his own meditates upon chrome and carburetors and windrush and a vibrating past receding in the mirror. Abord these motorcycles nothing, absolutely nothing, is static. They ride past abandoned silver mine punctures seeding the desert floor, an unfortunate wanderer may wind up deep in a hole, lost forever, so it is with the hypnotic nature of the road, the desert, the Reservation. Sunstroked, numb of hand, foot and rump, astride an awful, deafening Harley, romance is an illusion. Even Talker, rendered mute against the cacophony of engines, essentially designed in the nineteen twenties, is no help whatsoever. The arrow straight road bisecting an endless blue-white horizon does not inspire poetic notions. Rather, enormous sky and endless beige earth terrify him as if he’s stripped naked to the elements. Astride the unstable, oil leaking, gas sucking, clattering motorcycle, there is nothing to do but examine poor choices made. Floating far above the barren highway, Normal for the first time, understands he as the ridiculous; metalflake, chrome trim, upholstered in motor oiled leather; biker in a box.

 Big-sky motorcycle adventure squished into an ungainly receptacle.

Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle implies that nothing is as it seems. Though we may know the speed of a subatomic motorcycle, predicting where in the box it belongs is problematic.  Imagine a parallel universe where a big ass box is a tiny universe or, perhaps the opposite.

Home, sanctuary, safety, prison; Normal’s box is endlessly mutable. When a box contains the world, doors are superfluous, windows a distraction, unplumbed, the box lacks heat and is dark as a cave. Though the walls are bare, the box is lined with books. Normal stashes books in the box: albums, atlas, textbook, encyclopedia, essays, fiction, non-fiction, biblical (listed under fiction- horror). This library includes; leaflets, compendium, dictionary, manuals, dissertation, reader, roll, scroll, tract and treatise, hard cover and paperback all told his stash of books rivals the libraries of Alexandria and New York City combined. Every painting housed in the Louvre and the Getty adorn his Navajo white walls. Statuary from the British Museum – now twice stolen – reside in the box. Here too is a photo gallery encompassing in dramatic black and white, every woman who possibly, perhaps marginally, loved him or on some inexplicable whim, screwed him. Due to blackout drinking, not all of Normal’s photos are titled. Curiously or not, all of the women shy away from the camera lens gazing instead into oblivions shadow. One may assume this a gallery of broken romance and seething rage. Tiny splotches of blood on the Navajo white walls can be discerned if one is diligent.

The journey.

 Normal wakes to find the nonexistent door kicked in. He is on his way to Sears to purchase a baseball bat; equalizer for whatever score needs settling. He stops for cigarettes in the tiny convenance store wedged into the front of his building. The store owner, his Navajo landlord, holds a bucket of paint and brush. To the landlord’s stink-eye, Normal replies, “What?”

“The fuck wrong with you last night … didn’t hear the firetrucks?” He points. “Fuckin firemen kicked in your door. Evacuated your dumb ass.” Noting the blank stare, “Don’t remember, huh?” His head wags back and forth, “Dumbfuck.” The Navajo landlord’s face fractures. He laughs, not a happy laugh, more like, I’m going to punch you in the throat sort of laugh. Then he chokes, “Goddamn – you a hazard.” His Navajo landlord’s message is unambiguous; evacuated from flame. Normal backtracks. He woke that morning as usual – naked, in a tangle of whiskey breath, exploded hair, filthy sheets, an erection but sneezing from the acrid aroma of a nearby house fire. In hangover’s turbulent pitch he recalls no siren nor flashing lights. That firemen bashed in the door is a total black hole. Evacuated. He has no recollection of the barefoot, naked, midnight sidewalk.

The Navajo’s recounting adds little green to Normal’s memory desert. Often alcohol’s oily sheen sloshes, thick as Creme de Menthe inside his skull prone to stuttering memory. For all he knows, the fire might as well have happened to another Normal. Grace, the same thing as dumb luck, shimmers across a burning horizon of ash and smoke with little recognition. Those who sleepwalk through inferno take note.

The box is clad in mirrors. Normal crouches shadowboxing before the mirrors. Left foot forward, dukes up, chin tucked behind left shoulder he begins throwing punches, slowly at first then rapid left jabs, an overhand right, a left hook, slide. The man in the mirror knows all his moves. Normal’s particular bob and weave cannot be disguised from the man in the mirror. Duck and hook, slip to this side or that, he sweats, cursing the mirrored image he’ll never beat.

Oh shit.

On closer inspection, the foe in front of him is ‘the Old Man,’ grinning his cocky, you’ll never be as good as me, grin, after all, he installed all Normal’s moves. And behind ‘the Old Man’, is the Old Man’s father, and his grandfather and on and on. They punch  from all angles and ages, they are inexhaustible, an elastic infinity of punching men. Before the box and mirrors there was a photograph – four generations of semi-amused first sons, he sits upon the knee of his great grandfather, his grandfather stands to the left, ‘the Old Man’ looks over Normal’s shoulder. The photograph is in a wooden frame. They are four men in a box.

It is vaguely funny or perhaps like a magic trick; so many things misplaced within the box: a Kennedy assassination 1964 silver half-dollar, high school yearbook containing only a ghostly shadow of Normal, the Clash’s 1977 debut studio album, a Mikuni carburetor, his favorite Rose trowel, a roll of braided masons’ line, a wooden lacrosse stick, the Egyptian Book of the Dead, an expired passport containing the only exceptional photo ever taken of him, a bicycle frame pump, a tiny first edition Morrice Sendak book of ABC’s, an ink cartridge for a broken printer, and his virginity. If he removed every article from the box and set those things in an ordered pile, even-money, self-confidence might be found wedged in a lint dark corner like a long-lost Indian Head penny. Penny in a box.

From the addled to the addled.

Abandoned highway beneath boxed sky has no beginning nor visible culmination it is road to the long lost or perhaps never had. Normal ponders things denied; education, success, love; the most abstract thing on the razor edge. An ancient boxed road, old Route 66, is the reddish brown of a very old basketball, patched axis to axis in trills of black tar. The road, like all roads, is a timeline of sorts oscillating toward infinity. Speculation from wayfarers is of a world beyond the box. Perhaps so. A fog horn on San Francisco’s Bay mourns for all that has been lost. Beyond the Golden Gate, monsters, as yet unseen, roil in the living current off Ocean Beach.

The man, Normal, with the timeless contemplation of granite, mute to all that is and is not, cocks his head in wonder at the expanding nature of his universe-in-a-box that now envelopes the whole of the Pacific Ocean. Normal concedes that this place, this squared receptacle, no thicker than five sheets of paper, contains all the truth that can be found.

---

Mike Murray has, as most writers, a checkered history that we won’t get into here. He's been published in 2 Bridges Review, SF City College Forum, Red Light Lit, Strange Tales of an Unreal West and online. Mike, up until his recent departure from San Francisco, has been a regular contributor in submission based Bay Area literary events and readings including Bay Area Generations and Bang Out and was a 2018 camper at Lit Camp. Mike is a former member of Bricklayers Union Locals #28 and #3 and has an M.A. in C.W. from SFSU.