AFTERNOON Vol. 2 by AFTERNOON

AFTERNOON

2 table of contents

Mary Elizabeth Alex Sheriff Ron David Butler Katrina Cervoni Miranda Newman Tessar Lo

3 Eight Simple Recipes 5 The Puddle and the Moss

short fiction

7 PuertorriqueĂąos

photo essay

13 Stunner at Superball

photograph

14 Fox and Granny

short fiction

18 A Comic

Fiorella Morzi 19 Chamomile nonfiction

We are grateful to all of our contributors, who lent us their time and their talents.

FRONT COVER & BACK COVER ART BY: Katrina Cervoni

Katrina Cervoni is a Canadian photographer based in Amsterdam. Focusing on peculiarities surrounding the notion of beauty, Cervoniâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s images are inventive while maintaining a playful impulsiveness that hovers between art and fashion. Her work has been published in Oyster Magazine, Dazed, and Vice. katrinacervoni.com

EDITORS’ LETTER

Good Afternoon, Thank you for taking some time to explore Vol. 2 of AFTERNOON. It feels more important than ever, in our busy world, to unwind mindfully, to reconnect to ourselves, our community, and the natural world. As is such, for our second issue, we chose to take an ecological approach, focusing on our relationship to ourselves and our environment. On a macro scale, Ron David Butler takes us to Puerto Rico in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria in his photo essay, “Puertorriqueños.” Fiorella Morzi and Mary Elizabeth stay a little closer to home exploring our connections to what we eat and drink. This issue also features photography from Katrina Cervoni examining adaptations of beauty, and the relationship we have with our self-image. We appreciate that in a moment of pause, you chose to fill it with this collection of text and images made by people we so admire.

Miranda Newman Alex Sheriff

Co-Editors

t never rains in LA is a tired cliché, and after one year I’ve noticed that it is generally true. One month it did rain much more than normal, the most in a decade, I read, and it resulted in a superbloom in the following months. Though my backyard patio is at ground level, it is walled in with tall concrete plaster dividers and a thick hedge beyond that to further block visibility. There is a small drain in the concrete floor, as the patio is otherwise watertight. The drain did its job, but toward the end of the many consecutive rainy days, debris from the hedge began to block it. The water drained slower, then stopped, then pooled. Once the drain was completely blocked, it rained a full day more, nearly submerging the whole patio in an inch of rainwater, and about two inches in the centre. The slight slope toward the drain had bought me some time and the water had crept to about five inches from my backdoor. This situation didn’t bother me. I could open the backdoor, hop onto a patio chair like a little lifeboat and smoke. Also, I didn’t need to worry about Francis, my cat, running outside now. If there was a more pressing threat of water seeping into my home, I would have put some plastic bags on my feet and done something about it. It would take nothing to shuffle the debris away from the drain if I had wanted to. The next day it stopped raining and a pool remained. It was still no trouble to me, so I let it be and observed as it receded day by day. The California sun had returned full force a week later and I enjoyed watching it reflect off the two-by-two foot puddle, maybe a quarter of the bog it once was. A week after that it was a smaller, sadder puddle, but during my morning coffee and cigarette I stared at it still like dying embers, drunk while camping. At this point, this last remaining patch of submerged patio had been so for over two weeks. Procrastinating, I sat with my cold coffee on the patio, which the concrete had almost fully reclaimed, looking hard. I had wasted enough time that the sun was in position to directly illuminate the puddle’s location. Everything looked better in the sun and for a moment I thought I might miss the puddle when it was gone, like a snowman or a sidewalk chalk drawing of a snowman. Green contoured it. I hadn’t noticed it, but out of shadow it was obvious. There was a sort of algae or moss or some other vibrant green plant life growing on the concrete, under the puddle. It had taken two weeks of still water (and other particularly favourable conditions) for this green to grow. The rest of the patio where evaporation had left it dry too soon, remained grey and lifeless. A day later, I came back to further receding and more exposed, slightly thicker, green. The next day the same thing, resulting in a gradient effect to a fuller, more opaque colour. It was beautiful, honestly, when the sun was directly on it. I don’t

want to be overly dramatic about a puddle and some moss, but sitting there I couldn’t help but see satellite timelapse footage of the Okavango flooding and life returning to the desert, narrated by David Attenborough. I think I also felt a little responsible for this creation of life, and maybe even proud of it—I could have drained that puddle at any time. By the time the last bit of the puddle evaporated the green was an even emerald. It had even covered over the drain, completely masking it. Concrete seems like tough beginnings, and that pool was a total fluke to begin with. The whole thing was a miracle of life, really. A few nights later I dreamed something similar to a Discovery Channel show. It resembled one of those shows that simulates cities in tens, then hundreds, then thousands of years from now, if humans were to go extinct. It shows how buildings start to deteriorate into ruins and nature starts to reclaim everything—wildlife moves back in, everything turns green, etc. Well, in my dream, that was happening, but without an apocalyptic event. I didn’t write it down, so it’s very difficult to remember more than just this detail. There was a plot, but it’s gone. It might have been utopic. The point is that I’m pretty sure it was something to do with the puddle and moss. The next week I received a job offer for a dream position I had applied for months prior. I was soon relocated and left the apartment and the moss. It rained a little in Los Angeles the day after I handed over my keys and I thought about the patio for a moment, but mostly I was focused on my new job and the beginning of a big life change.

Alex Sheriff is an artist and co-editor of AFTERNOON. His work has been published by Vice and Air Canada’s En Route, among others. He has exhibited work in Canada and the United States. He is based in Los Angeles. alexsheriff.com

Old San Juan, Puerto Rico, 2019.

PuertorriqueĂąos images and text by Ron David Butler

ince September 2017, many off-island discussions about Puerto Rico have revolved entirely around Hurricane Maria. In a way, talking about the hurricane is inevitable; its aftermath’s horrors are still felt and dealt with each day. However, many of the issues Puerto Ricans face today were present before the hurricane hit: poverty and neglect, inequitable access to energy, failing institutions, a debt-ridden economy, rampant corruption, and distrust in state officials. Much of this can be attributed to Puerto Rico’s history of colonization and its continued colonial relationship to the United States. Puerto Rico, once a colony of Spain, was acquired by the United States of America after the end of the Spanish-American War in 1898. Now an unincorporated territory of the United States, its citizens are technically American, though Puerto Ricans who live on the island have virtually no representation in American politics and no right to

vote for American presidents or members of congress. Puerto Rico remains in a state of national limbo, contributing further to the island’s nickname: The Oldest Colony. Puerto Rico’s history and culture are rich with traditions spanning from multiple non-Spanish contributors as well. These include the Taínos— the original Indigenous Peoples of the Caribbean (before European colonization of the Americas), Africans (from the forced migration of African slaves during European conquest of the “New World”), and now, Americans. In many ways the continued practice of Puerto Rican culture is an act of resistance against an ongoing legacy of colonialism that has come to define the island for over 500 years. Today, this resistance is exemplified by micro-farms growing more diverse crops and relying less on American imports. This creates greater space for community farmers’ markets and for chefs to highlight

Demonstration on the one year anniversary of Hurricane Maria. San Juan, Puerto Rico, Sept. 20th, 2018.

Old San Juan, Puerto Rico, 2019

traditional Puerto Rican dishes at their restaurants. Some communities have also begun organizing health centres, and work and education opportunities for their citizens, while artists on the island and in the diaspora are creating work that contributes to and explores Puerto Rican identity. The goal of this project is to draw attention to some of the ongoing issues Puerto Ricans face in their daily lives. It is an attempt to shed light on those who continue to struggle for and define a Puerto Rican identity that, for many, continues to be problematically tied to the island’s relationship with the United States. I strongly encourage everyone who engages with these photographs to seek out the work of Puerto Rican photographers, filmmakers, authors, poets, and historians. There is no better way to learn about Puerto Rico and its people than from Puerto Ricans themselves.

Puertorriqueños is an ongoing project about the lives of Puerto Ricans.

Ron David Butler is a photographer and filmmaker based in Toronto, Canada. Ron’s photographic work has appeared in Vice and Eater. rondavidbutler.com

Antonio Rullán working on the construction of a storage shelter on his friend, Freddie Perez Martinez’s farm. Freddie and his family craft sodas made from fruits they grow on their farm to sell at farmers’ markets. Utuado, Puerto Rico, 2018.

Communities continue to deal with debris left by Hurricane Maria more than a year after the hurricane hit Puerto Rico. Utuado, Puerto Rico, 2019.

Cotton candy vendor. Old San Juan, Puerto Rico, 2019.

Carlos next to his vehicle in Lares. Lares is the site of El Grito de Lares (the Cry of Lares), a failed uprising against Spanish colonial rule in 1868. The flag of Lares is considered by many to be the symbol of the Puerto Rican independence movement, and the uprising is celebrated every year around its anniversary in September. Lares, Puerto Rico, 2019.

An elderly patient receiving in-home medical services from the Puerto Rican National Guard during a medical brigade organized by Corporaciรณn de Servicios de Salud Primaria y Desarrollo Socioeconรณmico El Otoao (COSSAO), a community-based organization in Utuado, and its partner organizations including Brigadas Salubristas and Dentistas Misioneros de Puerto Rico. Utuado, Puerto Rico, 2018.

Stunner at Superball by Katrina Cervoni

t happens in seconds, not minutes. They’re eating dinner in the living room, a lazy Sunday ritual. Potatoes, meatloaf, carrots, and Brussels sprouts. For fifty years, she’s always made sure he eats his Brussels. Two every night. “Alida,” there’s an unusual worried edge in his voice. “I’m not feeling well.” Geoff pushes away his plate, tries to stand, but falls. She calls his name, tries to shake him, get him up, but only the television answers. The ambulance sirens splash their bungalow red and blue. The EMT’s boots leave puddles of melted snow on her hardwood floors. She knows it’s too late when the acrid smell hits her nose—he’s soiled his pants.

eoff lives with the help of dissonant machines and plastic tubes for another ten days in the Intensive Care Unit. Their children and grandchildren rotate through his hospital room, helping her watch him, strapped into a strange bed, do nothing more than breathe. One afternoon while she’s watching, her throbbing panic lulled by the almost musical nature of the hospital’s rhythmic ventilators, percussed by an occasional moan or cough, the woman in the next room dies. The beeping of the woman’s heart monitor slows and then just stops, jarring Alida out of her trance. The day they turn off his life support, she holds his soft hand. Beatles songs crackle out of the speakers of her kids’ cell phones. He shrugs and shudders, sometimes, but he doesn’t open his eyes. His breath rattles its way out of his body, but he doesn’t speak anymore. An arrow of belated geese flies through the swirling snow outside of his window. Her eldest granddaughter, Lynn, the one with the unending supply of tears, brings his favourite McDonald’s breakfast sandwich: “A smell he likes,” she explains. It sits on his bedside table all day. When night comes, and his chest stops rising and falling, there’s nothing to do but throw the congealed egg and sausage away.

fter he retired, Geoff started spending more time on their back terrace. He loved it out there. When they decided on the golf course community, they had paid extra to get a house with a better view of the lush sloping fairways. He’d wait patiently, all winter, for the snow to melt, the air to warm, and the sun to stay up past 5:00 p.m. On the first nice night of each year, he’d gather up whatever book he was reading and insist they take advantage of the weather. Last spring, when it was finally pleasant enough to take their wine (his: white, hers: red) onto the back patio to watch the sun set over the

14th hole, a light breeze carried the smell of apple blossoms in waves, while she gossiped about a couple she had been golfing with that morning. “Helen and Glen are getting married. Can you believe that? At their age? He must be pushing ninety.” “He is. I guess as long as they’re happy… I say, let the old buggers get married!” Geoff laughed, swatted a mosquito away, and leaned over to light a citronella candle. “I think it’s just ridiculous. I mean, really,” she took a sip of her wine. “They’re running around acting like teenagers in love. It’s not as if their dusty old parts even work anymore.” A duck in a nearby water hazard honked in agreement. Geoff smiled. “And, besides,” she continued. “How many good years do they have left together before she becomes a widow again?” “Now, dear. There’s no harm in companionship,” he reached across the table, took her freckled hand, and squeezed. “Where would I be without you? Probably wandering around in my housecoat all day and eating toast for every meal.” She clucked her tongue and waved off the comment. “Do they really need to flaunt it? What’s wrong with some propriety? Just live together instead of making a whole production out of the relationship. It’s not their first marriage. There’s a way you’re supposed to do things.” “Are you telling me, that you don’t want to catch the bouquet?” he grinned at her and waggled his eyebrows over the top of his glasses. She rolled her eyes, smacked his hand away, gently, and then kissed him right on the top of his shiny bald head. They stayed outside drinking, listening to the odd poorly aimed golf ball plunk into the pond, while the sky burned orange and the sun moved farther behind the hills in the distance. Just as the sun had almost completely disappeared over the tops of distant evergreens, a gaggle of geese made a noisy descent into the pond. “Here we go again. You know, we pay enough in maintenance fees that the condo board really should be doing something about this goose problem,” her voice grows more rapid and stern. “They do nothing but leave a mess, and disrupt our enjoyment of our property—” “They don’t know they’re causing a nuisance,” he replied. “At any rate, I’ll talk to the condo association. There’s no need to get all worked up over some geese. I’ll take care of it.” “Thank you, my dear,” she said over the honking. “I think it’s time to go in.” As she gathered their glasses to get ready to go in for the evening news, Geoff stared at her, his elbows on the table, hands clasped around his faced like an awed wrinkled child.

“What is it?” she said. “Is there a bug on me?” His faced cracked into a cheeky grin. “You know, you still have a fantastic ass.” “Come on inside, dear,” she said, putting a hand on his shoulder. “You’re drunk.”

he ground at the grave site is hard and cold when he’s buried. He shares a resting place with her father, having agreed to join her family plot over his own. Her kids and grandkids, with their clattering voices, clicking black heels, sniffles and tears, float through her house in shifts in the months that follow. But, as winter dies away for another year, the visits get a little less frequent. She spends more time alone in his study going over the lists of bills she needs to cancel, investments that have to be simplified, and properties she must sell, listing them all on his old company’s letterhead written with his favourite ballpoint pen. She’s at it again, working away, when the phone rings around lunch time: an anxious phone call from Lynn, who is wondering if she’s left the house lately. “I’ve been busy,” she replies. “There’s no end to the paperwork that needs to be done after, you know…” “Let us help,” says Lynn. “Please. I’m worried about you.” “There’s nothing to worry about,” Alida tells the quivering voice on the phone. “Death is a part of life. Just have to keep getting up every morning and stay busy.” “Well, I really think you should talk to someone about it. About how you’re feeling.” Alida laughs at the suggestion. Lynn with her soft life and her regular therapy can’t understand that she comes from a place and time where people dealt with their problems on their own. “Listen, I know you can handle a lot but everyone needs help from time to time,” says Lynn. “It doesn’t necessarily have to be a professional. Just someone—a friend, a neighbour, or me. It’s not good to keep your grief—” “Shit,” she says. “The geese are back.” “What, Granny? What are you talking about?” “Can’t you hear them screeching through the phone?” She wrenches down the window in the study and heads to the living room to do the same. “Some national animal—they’re just noisy pooping machines.” “Granny, I—” “I’ve got to go, Lynn. This window’s stuck and I need both hands.”

ven with all the windows closed, the geese taunt her in bed that night. She’s had trouble sleeping since Geoff passed. He never snored, but a lifetime spent listening to his scratchy nighttime breath next to her, constant like waves lapping up on a shore, has left a stillness almost as deafening as the cacophony out back. Her sleeping pill and glass of wine have failed her. Instead of exhaustion, a dull rage throbs in her head, especially when she thinks about another day spent yawning. Her head is heavy as she pulls on his tattered old slippers. It keeps swimming as she pushes aside canvas bags and leather shoes to find the safe where he keeps the pellet gun. Condo association, be damned. She’s getting a good night’s sleep tonight. The full moon shivers in the half-melted pond and the big evergreen in front of it bristles as she slams the back door into its frame. The geese squawk at her interruption. Her lawn chair squeals as she pulls it across the patio. Two doors over, a neighbour’s porch light flicks on. She sits down, aims the gun the way Geoff taught her when they were teenagers shooting tin cans, just over the heads of some of those feathered bastards milling around the ladies’ tees. Her finger is on the trigger when one of the rose bushes that flank the patio starts to dance. The crickets’ song mimics the pulse racing in her ears when she sees a flash of animal fur in the moonlight. A dark slender paw pokes out between tight green buds. “Hello?” A fox clambers out from the shrubbery. Its ear twitches in her direction and it flashes her a grin. “Easy now.” She aims at the patch of fur between its eyes, but it stays very still. “My, my. You’re a brave fellow.” The fox’s fur is thin and patchy, with a long dark strip of it missing on its back hip. Its pointed black nose twitches when the wind rustles the pine trees and makes ripples on the pond. “Are you here to help me with my goose problem?” she asks the creature. It pants twice and settles low on the soggy grass, its white-tipped tail twitching just beyond the bottom step, while it watches the geese argue below. “Not much of a hunter. Sitting on the job,” she says. “Have these old farts on the golf course been feeding you?” She rests the gun across her knees, which sends goosebumps racing each other up and down her body beneath her velour housecoat. “Alright. You may stay as we might just have a common enemy.” Someone must be feeding it, she figured.

How would it have survived the winter they just had? And be so comfortable around her? Still, it does seem sickly. Could the creature take on a fullgrown goose? “You know, you really shouldn’t be so friendly to humans,” its ears perk up when she speaks to it. “What if someone calls animal control on you, huh? You definitely wouldn’t like that.” It seems to sigh, and then creeps forward a bit on its belly. “I’m sorry. I know. I can be a bit… I’m just saying. It’s dangerous to start relying on one person as a food source. It’s important to know how to survive on your own.” It lets out a gentle yip and turns, lips drawn back and teeth slightly bared, to chew at some invisible bug on its leg that she can’t see. An owl lends its hoot to the chorus below. “I know it can be hard out there on your own. But, you’re better off. Probably…” She sighs and rubs her face. She suddenly feels limp and heavy all over. Her voice is creaky and small. “I don’t know… I miss him.” The little fox rises and slinks across her lawn. When it reaches the hill just above the geese, it breaks into a trot. Seconds later, an eruption of flapping wings and throaty warnings. The fox manages to grab a mouthful of dark feathers before the flock takes off and it follows. She laughs triumphantly, and watches the moon climb a bit higher in the sky.

Miranda Newman is a writer and co-editor of AFTERNOON. Her writing has appeared in The Literary Review of Canada, the Montreal Gazette, The Walrus, and more. She is based in Toronto. mirandanewman.com

A COMIC by Tessar Lo

Tessar Lo creates dynamic mixed media paintings where contemporary, historic, and imaginative cultural and aesthetic influences converge. Loâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s artistic works and practice emphasizes the importance of the authentic processes of discovery, expression, and transformation. Blending themes endemic to his Asian heritage with Western pursuits or direct expression and materiality, he uses acute marking, colour, and texture to draw the viewing inward and create an awareness of surface and story. Lo has exhibited internationally at Jaski Art Gallery, Amsterdam; Door Studios, Paris; Japanese American National Museum, Los Angeles; Atticus Gallery, Barcelona; and in Hong Kong. His artworks have been featured in Toronto at The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery, Cooper Cole Gallery, Drake Hotel, and Patel Gallery. tessarlo.com

Fiorella Morzi is an Oakville, Ontario-based library worker and writer. Her work has been published in Fat Girl Food and Shameless. Andrea Manica is an artist living in Toronto. She works as an illustrator, mural painter, and tattooer. Her work has been exhibited in Toronto, Detroit, Yogyakarta, and Tokyo among other places. andreamanica.com

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