Atlas and Alice - Issue 16

Page 56

Atlas and Alice, Issue 16

Tommy Dean

Past Lives Our four-year-old tells stories, usually unprompted, about his old house, this former life he had before he was with us. He lived on a farm on a country road with John Deere tractors. The deer with the sprig of whitetails gathered at the edge of the woods, and he would watch them with his old parents. The ones before. My wife and I huddle in our bed, elbows and knees connected like the intertwined roots of trees, a mass of skin and bones. We investigate the corners of our room, flinching as the house settles into its midnight dreams. “These stories can’t be real, right?” she asks. “I’m tempted to contact a forensic artist. The detail is so creepy,” I say. “Did you,” she asks, curling her head into my shoulder, “have any previous lives?” “You think he got it from me? I can’t even remember yesterday.” I flick off the light and we lay there in silence, listening to the house contracting around us, waiting for the dreams about farms to take us under for the night. When I’m alone with my son, scaling the play structure at the park by the lake, seagulls combing the beach for dropped Cheetos, I ask him about this previous life. I’d like to know if these other parents, this ghost father, is a better parent than me. “Did he buy you ice cream? Did he take you to the park? Did he dry you off with the soft towels after a bath?” The answers come like heartbeats—no, no, no. The question I want to ask, but can’t, a wave lapping in and onto the sand, leaving bits of seaweed, fish scales, and filaments of oil from jet skis and motorboats— Did they love you more?

56


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Lara Arikan

1min
page 13

Beverly Burch

1min
page 12

Chloe N. Clark

4min
pages 6-8

Contributor Notes

9min
pages 91-98

Call for Submissions

0
page 90

US in the 1980s

5min
pages 87-89

Three Things She Said in Spanish

2min
pages 85-86

This Decade

2min
pages 82-84

Joseph Darlington ƒ Ratcatcher

14min
pages 73-81

Lucy Zhang ƒ Double Flash

2min
pages 68-69

Jessica Anne Robinson spring thaw (ii

3min
pages 63-66

Diana Donovan Some Houses

0
page 67

Candace Hartsuyker ƒ The Femme Fatale

11min
pages 57-62

Tommy Dean ƒ Past Lives

1min
page 56

A Steady Rush

9min
pages 51-55

When the Bear Was Running

5min
pages 46-50

Michelle Ross ƒ Snapshot

2min
page 44

Bikram Sharma ƒ Between Bodies

11min
pages 36-40

Rebecca Harrison ƒ Chimney side

1min
page 45

Playground Justice

7min
pages 30-35

Lila Rabinovich ƒ Careful There

20min
pages 14-22

Directions for Substitute

3min
pages 28-29

Kathryn Kulpa ƒ What the Selkies Know

7min
pages 23-27

Robert Wilson Mastectomy

0
pages 41-43

KG Newman The Pride Acre

0
page 9

Alexandra M. Matthews ƒ Clare

3min
pages 10-13
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