Generic 8

GENERIC ISSUE 8

Generic, Issue 8, Fall 2015 Copyright for all stories belongs to their creators.

Generic is copyright of Undergraduates Students for Publishing, Emerson College Design by Hanna Rose Katz Cover Art by Michelle Ajodah This issue is set in Gill Sans and Cochin

Electronic edition published on issuu.com Print edition printed at Emerson College Print and Copy Center Print and Copy, Boston

Table of Contents GHOST OF GOATS

Allison Rassmann SATAN IN PARADISE

Patrick R. Groleau THE FAE CHILD

A. Florence Vidal CORRUPTION

A. Florence Vidal IN THE DETAILS

Kyle Madigan LE CIEL Emma Zirkle

6 14 20 30 38 46

Generic Staff EDITOR IN CHIEF Carl Lavigne

MANAGING EDITOR Diana DiLoreto

EDITORS Casey Nugent, Camila Cornejo, Anna Tayman, Rebecca Crandall

READERS

Kelsey Aijala, Sarah Dolan, Madison Heim-Jinivisian, Sarah Cummings, Rachel Cantor, Sammi Curran, Laura Sabater, Mary Baker, Caroline Rabin, Melissa Close

HEAD COPYEDITOR Hayley Gundlach

COPYEDITORS Courtney Burke, Sara Zatopek, Brynn Callahan, Allison Rassmann

PROOFREADER Kaitlyn Coddington

DESIGNER

Hanna Rose Katz

MARKETING MANAGER Mary Baker

ASSISTANT MARKETER Patrick R. Groleau

FRONT COVER ARTIST Michelle Ajodah

DEAR DRAGON RIDERS, SPACE MARINES, AND READERS, Welcome to the eighth issue of Generic Magazine. I’m glad you have decided to pick up Emerson College’s only exclusively genre fiction literary magazine.

We publish the stories that fall outside your typical college writing classes: everything from cowboys and Cthulu to Loch Ness Monster erotica (never again).

I joined Generic in the spring of my freshman year because I grew up reading every book I could find with a dragon on the cover. My workshop class had me reading and writing in the realist tradition, but I was procrastinating by copyediting stories about monsters and magic. These are the stories I hold closest to my heart: the ones that exist only in my imagination.

Emerson has a slew of smart, sleek, and sexy lit magazines dedicated to literary fiction, poetry, and nonfiction, or as I call it: muggle literature. There are few opportunities to share the stories of elves, wizards, and aliens that so many of us want to write. Generic was born from this vacuum, and, four years later, we are still putting words into print. We have grown immensely in the last two years, going from a staff of four to a force of over twenty.

In addition to this biannual magazine we host monthly writing workshops tailored to a specific genre. This semester we focused on High Fantasy, Horror, and Fan-Fiction. This has provided me the opportunity to share with our fans my ongoing saga “Chris Cubed,” in which Chris Evans, Chris Pratt, and Chris Pine get themselves into various genre-convention-based hijinks.

And much more importantly, it has brought energetic genre enthusiasts to our table. We have seen some great work written on the fly that we hope to one day give a home.

We hosted our first ever First Page Workshop, where we gave feedback to writers on the stories they wanted to submit to us; one of the stories we looked at can be found in these very pages. (“The Fae Child” by A. Florence Vidal—check it out) This is my first and last semester as Editor in Chief, which is probably for the best. I am the maxim of “fake it ‘til you make it” incarnate, and it is only with the help of my tireless team and incomparable managing editor, Diana DiLoreto, that this magazine exists. I thank the past and future generation of Emerson students for sending us the weird, wild stories we love.

The stories herein were crafted with the care of little gods; worlds rise and fall in only a few pages. They stretch the bonds of reality, or reinvent their own sense of it; they make us think. And yes, maybe we are all muggles, but at least we believe in magic.

- CARL LAVIGNE EDITOR IN CHIEF

ALLISON RASSMANN FANTASY

Ghost of Goats Against the crackle of the fire and the roar of the wind outside, the goat’s bleat sounded almost like it was mocking him. That was ridiculous, of course, since goats had no concept of blame or even that there was something currently worth blaming on anyone. Or at least he hoped. Nothing could be more shameful than knowing not only that he was on the brink of failure and possibly even death, but that even the goat thought he was an idiot for it.

He was an idiot, though. It was an unavoidable fact even if the goat did not know it. Abrahamson miserably hung his head in his cold hands. He should have hurried the goat faster instead of letting it linger and graze on dead mountain grass. When the snow came, he should have plowed ahead instead of thinking it best to find shelter and wait out the storm. Now it had been three days, and the snow had not yet stopped.

“They were expecting me home yesterday,” Abrahamson grumbled, as if pretending to sound only mildly inconvenienced would make his outlook better. He raised his head from his lap, a starving Herculean struggle now, and looked out the mouth of the cave. Outside was nothing but blinding gray and white, like he had dreamed up the outside world and this mountain cavern had always been his home. His frost­tinged moustache twitched and he huddled closer to the fire to grumble more.

The ceremony of the goat was held annually, once a year at the end of the harvest when all things died. Once many years ago they asked for volunteers to lead the scapegoat up the mountain. They used to collect names in a tin box that they kept at the mayor’s house, right next to the pen where the goat would be housed in preparation. But as the years passed, the amount of volunteers dwindled. The younger generation

9

Ghost of Goats had become lazy and irresponsible, Abrahamson often declared. They didn’t know the value of hard work, didn’t know what it meant to be trusted with such an important task. So as fewer people volunteered, the task was given to him year after year. Eventually everyone just assumed that he would be the one to do it and no collection of names was needed; thus the retirement of the tin box.

He performed the task with pride and always did it while singing praises to God, as he did most everything in life. He was dedicated to his carpentry, his wife, and their young child, but above all else he was dedicated to the ceremony.

When they decided to push the ceremony back a week, Abrahamson protested. It was tradition, and you couldn’t just push back tradition. Still, facts won out over his pleas: the grain had not grown well in their village this year, and so had to be shipped from another village, meaning the necessary extra week to prepare and perform proper blessings on it before it could be presented. When the goat was slain at the mountaintop on the altar, your sins would be dead like the goat and like the season, and you would be forgiven. If the offering of grain wasn’t blessed, then there would be no point in offering the scapegoat it at all.

Now, trapped on the mountain that crested the skyline high above the village, the goat bleated something of a persistent nagging plea.

Abrahamson looked up with tired eyes, scratching the ice out of his tawny beard and ragged hair. “I don’t have any more food for you,” he said. “You ate it all, not to mention whatever grass was left in this place.”

The goat stared at him vacantly.

“Don’t you give me those eyes,” Abrahamson insisted. “Not when you’ve eaten me to death’s door already.”

The goat rose to its feet and shook itself, trying in vain to rid itself of the ice crystals that had fallen and melted in its fur. Abrahamson looked with envy at its paunch, warm with smoke and thick hair. The goat was always hungry. Every year, the scapegoat was always hungry. They could easily pick it out from the rest of the herd. Some people hated the goat, felt that because it consumed the sins of the village it became sin, but all the righteous villagers knew it wasn’t the goat’s fault. The goat itself was always blameless. Its innocence was perhaps what made it even more holy, and if there was one thing Abrahamson could trust it was holiness.

Abrahamson returned his gaze to the fire, thinking it best to take his mind off the situation and distract himself with happier memories.

Naturally, and as they often did, his thoughts drifted back to his son. The

10

Allison Rassmann boy was three now, which made this year the first time he could take part in the ceremony. His heart swelled with pride as he remembered the way his son tottered up to the goat, eyes wide at the pure white animal clad in beautiful cloth, and whispered his confessions into its ear as he presented the goat with grain. Abrahamson already knew everything that he was going to confess since they had practiced it beforehand: he had talked back to his mother, he fled home and got lost in the fields, he hit their dog with a stick. Some day he would have bigger sins to confess, as they all did. But for now, Abrahamson could be content in knowing that his son was forgiven and loved by the goat that now stood by his fire.

A groan from his stomach drew him out of those thoughts. Abrahamson clutched his bellyit with a scowl. He had never been prosperous, but he had enough and had certainly never been hungry for so long before. Now his stomach ached so much he felt the need to vomit, though if he did he didn’t know what was left to vomit up. He suspected it had to do with his altitude.

Though the mountain was small enough for to begin climbing at dawn and return by next morning’s breakfast, the cave he had chosen was close to the top. If it weren’t for all the snow falling outside there was a good chance he could still be able to see the village, pinprick dots vaguely resembling chimneys and thatch-roofed houses. He was probably close enough that he might’ve been able to make out the shadows of people, yet too far away to call for help.

He sent a quick prayer for salvation up as he grabbed for the pack he had brought with him and scrounged desperately through it. Without the snowstorm it would have taken a single day to get up and down the mountain, and he had packed accordingly. Days into his trek now, supplies were thin. There was no more food left, and no matter how much he checked (and he had certainly checked) none had appeared. His water was gone as well. He and the goat had been forced to satisfy their thirst with snowmelt, bitter-tasting from tin cup it had been boiled in.

All that remained from the pack he had so carefully prepared was a length of rope, fire-starting tools and a survival knife.

With a cry of anguish, Abrahamson flung the pack away from him, though with what little strength he had left it only skidded about three yards. The goat glanced lazily down at it, then wandered over to inspect. It stuck its snout in the back and gave a loud snuffling noise. For a moment, Abrahamson was afraid it was going to try and eat the rope, but he hardly hadthe energy to care. It was better to have a live goat and no rope than a dead goat and some rope he couldn’t even use. If Abrahamson himself died

11

Ghost of Goats

there was always the chance that someone would wander up here searching for him, find the goat and complete the sacred duty in his place.

If, unthinkably, the goat perished before it reached the altar, then what would happen to their sins? How would his son, let alone anyone else, be forgiven?

Oblivious to its fate, the goat nudged its way further into the sack.

Abrahamson only sighed. He conceded to do the thing he always did in times of crisis; he bent his head down and prayed. As he prayed, he fingered the tattoo of a goat’s head on his wrist: something he got years ago to remind himself that no matter what happened, he would always be forgiven.

His lips formed the words silently. By now they were all so familiar, as he had recited them many times over the past few days. Let me live. Let me see my village again. Let me see my son. Give me strength, and send me a sign. I can’t go on like this much longer, so just give me something, anything to eat…

Abrahamson opened his eyes again, eager beyond hope. But there was nothing more than there had been for days now. The snow, the fire, the goat that now stared at him with the rope tangled about its head.

The goat.

His heart leapt. “No,” he muttered, then again, “no, no, no.” He was ashamed of even considering the idea. The goat had to die on the altar, and then its body had to burn to fully absolve the sins. The town had never considered the idea of what would happen if the goat never made it that far.

They were always diligent enough that they never had to give it thought.

But now Abrahamson, alone and far from the village, had to question it himself: what would happen if the goat, the very vessel of the town, never got to the altar? Where would the sin brewing in its ever-­hungry stomach go?

If he were to slaughter the goat here and now and roast it over the open fire, would that mean all that sin would sit in his own belly instead?

And that was just what he had to consider before he made it back home.

What might happen to Abrahamson himself was unthinkable. Before too long, with the goat’s bones resting far from the altar, they would need someone to blame.

Shaking his head in horror, Abrahamson pushed himself back away from the fire. He didn’t deserve its warmth if he was thinking such things. The goat, meanwhile, locked its slit eyes on to him. It walked towards him with the same single-minded look of hunger it had when it was snooping through the bag.

12

Allison Rassmann Abrahamson pushed himself back further, away from the goat. The last time he tried to stand up he had come crashing back down, and he did not want to try again. “Don’t you come near me,” he warned. “Don’t you trust me, you sinful thing.”

But the goat did not listen. Instead it pushed its head into Abrahamson’s stomach, sniffing and nibbling for any food the man might have hidden on its person. It bleated again.

“You stop, you shut up!” Abrahamson said, though his voice cracked in despair. The goat sniffed his beard, his shirt, his shaking hands. It sniffed the tattoo on his wrist. When the goat stretched closer to investigate the pouches on his belt, it was too much for Abrahamson to bear. He flung his arms around its neck and released a sob into its bristly fur. The goat took a step back in bewilderment and shook its head, ears flopping like wet dust cloths, its horns knocking into Abrahamson’s head. He still did not let go.

After his son had given the goat his sins, the young boy had given the goat a great big hug and a kiss right on its muzzle. Most everyone had laughed at that, even Abrahamson. When he asked his son about it later, as they walked home clutching hands, he had given him a thoughtful look. He didn’t really think about it, his son told him. The goat was soft and besides, it was doing a nice thing for everyone, so everyone should be nice to it.

“Let me see my son again,” Abrahamson begged, his arms tight around the goat’s neck. He whispered it so softly that not even the hushed snow could hear. He whispered it like he was once again repeating his sins, the awful burden that this goat now carried deep in its belly with the grain.

“Please, let me see my son.”

The goat’s reply was to lift its tail and pass wind.

Buried in the goat’s fur, Abrahamson only now noticed how dirty the goat had become during the journey. Each morning of the week­long ceremony saw the goat brushed and groomed until it was as white as the clouds passing overhead. Now, just a week without and the white had given way to grays and browns, and snow had frozen and melted and froze again into clumps that Abrahamson’s dirty fingernails could never untangle. He had never seen a goat so uncared for. Even the ones that weren’t chosen were well tended by their shepherds in the hope that one of their goats might receive the honor next year. This goat had never seemed more like just an animal.

The goat exhaled with a soft whuffing sound, its breath crystallizing in a soft cloud in midair.

13

Ghost of Goats

Abrahamson didn’t have the energy to keep crying. The tears that had already fallen clung frozen to his face, stinging and biting at his pale cheeks.

With a gloved hand he reached up and swiped at his eyelashes; if he allowed the tears to stay, they could freeze his eyelids shut and he would never see home again. Another growl from his stomach reminded him that it would be inevitable nonetheless. He imagined death there, looming in the entrance to the cave, just as skeletal as he had now become. By the firelight the shadows stretched into death’s tattered cloaks, bony fingers reaching toward him and caressing his cheeks like the icy wind. He imagined that it had the same slit yellow eyes as the goat, the same eyes that every goat had possessed as far back as Abrahamson could remember.

If he didn’t get the goat to the altar and the villagers found out, no doubt he would have to face death’s skeletal figure a matter of days after he arrived at his door. Worse yet, each and every person there would have to face it, all because of him. Yet if he didn’t get food soon, he was walking straight into its open arms.

He was the only one in the village to return to the altar year after year, that great stone stained dark from years of slaughter. Once many years ago it was painted with reds and blues and there were torches mounted on poles alongside it, but even before Abrahamson’s time the colors had faded and the poles had snapped and broke. And then there were the bones, built up over years of sacrifices, that no one ever bothered to remove. He had seen the bones, blanched and white, picked clean by the creatures of the mountain. The people of the village thought they were tar black with sin.

It was Abrahamson’s greatest fear and his greatest secret: the bones looked like the bones of any animal, as if all their rituals hadn’t worked at all.

Somehow, this thought that kept him awake at night now steadied his mind and his hand.

Trembling, he released one arm from the goat’s neck and reached for his pack. When he could not reach it, he dragged himself over on his hands and knees. By the time he reached it and picked it up his hands were shaking so fiercely that he was afraid that he wouldn’t be able to get it open. He cursed bitterly and slapped his hands against his thighs in the hopes of chasing away the cold, all the while knowing it wasn’t the cold that made them shake so.

He shot a glance back towards the goat as if afraid that it had trotted off.

Perhaps he was afraid that it hadn’t. It was still there, now lapping its lips over the last small tuft of brown weeds.

14

Allison Rassmann As he opened the pack and sifted hurriedly through the tools inside, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was the animal, driven to desperation and an insanity so great that maybe it would be best to put himself out of his own misery. But that would leave his child alone, his boy who kissed the goat and had done so little wrong that he had to confess about the one time he ate a bite of dinner before saying his prayers.

He clutched the knife by its hilt and eased it out of the bag, afraid that he would cut himself in his desperate state. He didn’t. The knife felt almost like an old friend, the way it fit so easily into his gloved palm.

Trying to remain calm, Abrahamson turned around to face the goat. He considered making sounds to coax it closer, like one would an infant or a dog. But that seemed almost insulting to it, and besides the goat was far too innocent to run even if it knew his intentions. So instead he began to mumble his prayers as he drew closer, rubbing the tattoo on his wrist before making a grab for the rope lead around the goat’s neck. The goat stumbled toward him.

Abrahamson raised the knife and said the truest prayer he had ever mustered in his life: “Let me see my son again.”

Soon the smell of roasted goat dripping with fat lingered in the air, and there was no bleat or cry to mock him, only the sound of his own sobs.

Allison Rassmann is a sophomore at Emerson College working toward her BFA in Writing, Literature, and Publishing. She is originally from Chelmsford, MA. She enjoys sewing, theater, and dogs in sweaters. She credits her love of writing to the support and love she earned from her parents and also her dog. Her dog didn’t really support her writing, but he looked really cute along the way.

Allison Rassmann

PATRICK R. GROLEAU SUPERNATURAL

Satan in Paradise Satan sat on the steps of the nightclub taking a long drag on an electronic cigarette. It was dawn. Peach-colored sunlight descended from the skyline and mixed with the watermelon-flavored vapor that Satan blew from his unholy lips. He smiled, stood up, and cracked his back.

Satan felt his phone vibrate in his leather dancing pants.

“Yo-yo!” he said before hearing the dark crackling of Hell’s cell phone towers through the line. “Oh, it’s you.”

“Where are you?” Wormwood, Satan’s assistant, said frantically.

“You need to quiet down; I drank too much last night.”

“Where are you, sir?” Wormwood said a little quieter. “Everyone in Hell’s been looking for you.”

Satan, the Prince of Darkness, unchained his bike and took another drag on the cigarette, blowing the vapor out of the side of his mouth and chuckling. He pointed his phone towards the pavement. A blast of sickly green light shot out from the phone’s antenna. Wormwood’s form appeared in from of him, translucent since his spirit was still trapped in hell.

“I’m out, Wormwood,” Satan said, grinning fiendishly.

“What?” Wormwood replied, checking to make sure the collar of his polo was neat and the pleats on his khakis were well-ironed.

“I’m out. I’m done. I’m sick of Hell. It’s kickass on Earth. I think I’m gonna stay.”

“Who’s going to run Hell then?”

“Who gives a shit, man? Fucking let Hitler or Mao run things—they’re all right. I don’t care. I’m out.”

“What do you mean, sir?” Wormwood whined.

17

Satan in Paradise

“I hate it down there, man. It’s just people asking ‘Satan, can I get your signature to purchase ten more gallons of demonic chai for the company picnic?’, ‘Satan, where can I find the pitchforks so I can poke that rapist?’, ‘Satan, Lee Harvey keeps pouring water on the unholy fires’. Satan this, Satan that, Satan! Ahh! I’m sick of it. This vacation—my first in over two thousand years—has been one of the only times in my life where nobody has bothered me. It’s wonderful.”

“You’ve changed,” Wormwood said, more firmly this time. “Where is the Prince of Lies from before? Where is the badass Hell-Demon that struck fear into the hearts of man? Where is the Devil that gave God the middle finger and left Heaven forever? The Satan that I see right now looks like a washed-up loser in a mesh shirt and skintight leather pants.”

“Stop!” Satan said, looking at his pants and frowning. “I’m out. I quit.

I’m done with Hell. I’m gonna stick with Earth for a while. I like the trees and birds and the teenagers with their rad-ass drugs. It’s so nice here and it’s so shitty there. You think I like living next to a lake of fire? It’s fucking hot and you can’t swim in it! It’s not even a lake really! You were a great assistant, Wormwood, and I wish you well. Don’t let Hell get too crazy without me.”

Satan closed his phone. The green energy pulsed and sputtered.

Wormwood with his polo and khakis faded into the background. Satan felt his phone vibrate a few more times in his pocket, but didn’t answer it. When he finally opened the phone up again there was one text from Wormwood that read: “Be prepared to come home soon. You can’t hide from your responsibilities forever.”

Satan laughed.

Satan, the ex-Lord of Hell, began to pedal out of San Francisco Center towards the recycling center where he lived.

For a while, he lost track of time. He rode in silence, without thinking about much of anything. He let his body become open to the sensations of the world: the warm sun, the birds chirping, the smell of diesel engines.

He passed by joggers, businessmen, and women pushing strollers. None of them paid him any attention. Why would they? To the humans, he just looked like any random dude. It was heavenly. For a brief moment Satan, the Fallen Angel, thought he felt the Holy Spirit around him, but decided it was the aftereffects of the ecstasy he had taken the night before.

After thirty minutes of riding, he reached the recycling center.

18

Patrick R. Groleau Satan had set up camp in the shell of an old VW Microbus, which he had dragged a mattress into. As he approached it, he began to hear strange noises coming from inside.

Satan tiptoed up to the bus and peered through the rear window. He saw two teenagers on his mattress, glassy-eyed, mashing their unclothed bodies together in sweet, sweet coitus.

Satan smiled. He loved teenagers. Unlike real adults, they didn’t give a shit about most things. Grown-ups probably wouldn’t have consented to fuck in the back of a decaying car next to a pile of garbage, but the teenagers did. Satan thought that that was beautiful. He just hoped they hadn’t found the pentagram, his portal back to Hell, that he had drawn under his mattress when he first arrived.

After the teenagers left, Satan cleaned up their used prophylactic, halfsmoked roaches, and an empty forty from the floor of the Microbus and then lifted his mattress up to see the pentagram underneath.

He tried to rub out the hellish star using an old sock, but it wouldn’t smudge. He frowned. Whatever, Satan thought. He covered the pentagram once again. Out of sight out of mind.

It was almost midnight when Satan entered Bayou Bill’s Shrimp Shack to work the graveyard shift.

Satan had tried other jobs when he first arrived on earth. First he was a law consultant, but the corporate structure reminded him too much of Hell.

Then he was an elementary school teacher, but he hated arts and crafts.

After a few more jobs, he chose to work in fast food. He liked it because nobody gave a shit if you did a bad job.

Satan cooked fried shrimp for some inebriated students from the University of San Francisco Technical College. He whistled while he worked.

This is perfect, Satan thought happily, so incredibly perfect.

Then the power cut out. Generators hummed to life and red light flooded the kitchen. Satan watched a man and a woman with stained pantyhose pulled over their faces kick in the door. They brandished snub-nose revolvers.

“Get on the fucking ground!” the lady robber shouted. Her voice sounded like scratched vinyl. “This is a robbery, empty your pockets!”

The college students began to fumble for their wallets.

The male robber screamed at Satan, “You too!”

19

Satan in Paradise

Satan looked eye to eye with the gun’s barrel.

Something seems fishy...he thought.

“Walk with your hands above your head,” the male robber ordered.

Satan obliged. He and the college students were shoved into the corner of the restaurant by the lady robber and told to sit “like motherfucking Indians!”

“Chill, lady,” Satan said as he sat down. A grin sneaked across his hellish visage. “No need to get so worked up.”

The male robber turned and pointed his gun at the cashier.

“Empty the register,” he demanded. “Now.” “The r-register won’t open unless you o-order something,” the cashier replied, shakily putting a cigarette between her lips.

“Then put a fucking order in!” the male robber shouted. Satan saw his face flush red through the pantyhose. There was white powder lining the bottom of his nose and his hands were trembling. Satan narrowed his unholy eyes and studied the gun.

Something is off...

“They’re fuckin’ coked out, man,” Satan heard one of the college students whisper. “We’re gonna fuckin’ die.”

Satan grinned, stood up, and cracked his back.

“Sit back down!” the lady robber shouted, pointing her gun at the exLord of Hell.

Satan grinned again. He swung his fist swiftly and she fell with a thud.

Satan picked up her gun.

“I knew it!” he shouted. “They’re plastic—painted black!”

He turned to see the male robber coming at him, fist cocked back behind his ear.

Satan saw stars. He tasted coppery blood trickling from his fiendish lips. He felt his eyeball swelling. He stood up slowly and growled, a deep, guttural, otherworldly growl. The room filled with fiendish shadows.

Satan sat on the steps of Bayou Bill’s Shrimp Shack taking a long drag on the electronic cigarette. It was a new dawn. Cold wind descended from the skyline and mixed with the watermelon-flavored vapor that Satan blew from his split unholy lips. He frowned, stood up, and coughed twice.

He watched the police load the two robbers in their car.

Reporters were scrambling around like worker ants, trying to figure out exactly who the “Hero of San Fran!” was.

20

Patrick R. Groleau Satan watched the college students point at him and reenact the fight from less than an hour before. All at once he was surrounded by a horde of flashing lights, cameramen, and boom operators.

“Get ready, sir, you’re about to be on the news, sir,” said a reporter wearing a polo and pleated khakis. He thrust a microphone into Satan’s poisonous maw. He looks incredibly familiar, Satan thought.

“You’re going to be the most famous man in America,” the reporter continued. “They robbed ten other Shrimp Shacks last night. You’re a hero and the whole country is going to know about it!”

Satan groaned.

Several hours later, Satan was behind the recycling center in his Microbus. He had spent his morning hiding from reporters and journalists and TV show hosts who all wanted to talk to the “Hero of San Fran!”

Satan flipped over his mattress and stared at the pentagram he had drawn into the floor. He stepped in its center, placed a red candle at each point, and lit them.

He cursed and blew out the candles.

“No no no no no,” Satan said to himself while pacing in a circle. “I don’t want to go back. It’ll only be on the news for a few weeks. I’ll be fine.”

He felt his phone vibrate in his pocket. There was a text from Wormwood: “I told the news people where you are living... ;)” Satan growled. Then he saw a Channel 9 News van pull into the recycling center and a crew of newspeople get out. He sighed and relit the candles. Satan took one last look outside before saying with a frown, “All right, send me back.”

He stepped into the center of the pentagram.

It glowed a sickly green.

Satan was thrown through Ebony Gates of Hell where he landed with thud in a field of poison ivy and beehives. He stood up and stubbed his toe on a concrete block filled with tacks and was immediately overcome with the feeling of having to sneeze, without being able to sneeze.

From across the field he saw Wormwood, still wearing his polo and khakis, riding a Segway towards the newly reinstated Prince of Darkness.

“Welcome back to Hell, sir,” Wormwood said smugly.

“Whatever.” Satan sighed.

“Jack the Ripper needs your signature for the order of two hundred sacrificial daggers for the company retreat.”

“Fuck you.”

Patrick R. Groleau is a freshman Writing, Literature, and Publishing Major. He is from a small town in Southern New Hampshire. His favorite book is The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster. He loves reading, hiking, and cooking. During the summer, Patrick is a fry cook at Kimball Farm.

Patrick R. Groleau

A. FLORENCE VIDAL FANTASY

The Fae Child Aiden lay beneath the sparkling branches of the Great Tree. It was his favorite place in the Higher Realm. In all the years since he’d been kidnapped, he’d never found an equal to its beauty in the fae world. The trunk and boughs of the tree were made of a dark crystal that shone in black, purple, and icy blue hues in the ever-present moonlight. Hundreds of minute gold and silver leaves fluttered without the help of a breeze, and a million points of light twinkled among the foliage like stars brought to earth. Aiden longed to see what the Tree would look like in the light of a setting sun.

But of course the sun never set here, for it never rose.

He’d long ago discovered that no one could see him if he hid beneath the low-hanging branches of the Great Tree, but he could still see every inch of the plaza in which the Tree stood. Once, while hiding from his caretaker, Aiden had overheard one of the Ancients—the leaders of the Higher Realm—telling her ward about the days when her world was full of light and sound and energy. Aiden thought he might have been able to stand being a kidnapped child—or “charge” as they called him and the others—if only he could see the world of the Ancient’s memory. The one that existed in the present was cold, quiet, and dark.

Aiden heard a scream break through the suppressive silence of the plaza.

He scrambled out from beneath the branches, wincing as a twig snagged on his shaggy brown hair. Peering in the direction of the sound he willed his eyes, which had been enhanced from years of exposure to fae magic, to see through the blanket of darkness.

Coming up the path that led from the faerie circle which acted as a portal between their world and his was Taryk, one of the fae charged with the responsibility of stealing human children—Aiden’s own captor, in fact.

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The Fae Child

Taryk had made it clear over the years that he was no friend to Aiden or anyone else from his world. The fae was currently dragging a small human boy by the wrist toward the center of the plaza where Aiden stood; he was sure that it was that child who had screamed. He couldn’t see the child’s face, but he could guess at the fear and pain that filled it. His own entrance into the Higher Realm hadn’t been pleasant, either. Now, watching the child, Aiden’s heart sank. It shouldn’t be like this, he thought. The child cried out again and pulled away; in return, he received a sharp whack across the back of his head from Taryk.

“Hey!” Aiden shouted, his voice echoing across the empty plaza. He closed the space between them with a dozen strides and looked down at the fae and the child. Even though he towered over Taryk, who barely reached past his stomach, Aiden still had to fight not to cringe when the fae turned his pointed blue face at Aiden and glared at him with those glinting, solid gold eyes. He knew from experience that a fae’s stature was no indication of its strength.

Taryk sneered, flashing his small, pointed teeth and said, “What, human?”

“Don’t treat him like that,” Aiden said. “Can’t you see how scared he is?”

“You say that as if I should care.” Taryk pushed past Aiden.

Aiden stood in his path again. He met the child’s blue eyes with his own brown ones. The young boy seemed to be pleading for help.

Taryk wrapped his spindly fingers around Aiden’s arm and pulled him down to his knees with the supernatural strength of the fae. “What are you doing, human?” he said, blowing his icy breath across Aiden’s face.

“I don’t like the way you treat us,” Aiden said, refusing to flinch as the fae’s hand tightened; there would probably be a bruise in the morning.

“How you feel about how I treat lower beings like yourself is none of my concern. And in the future, I expect a modicum of respect. You cause us enough trouble as it is, human, and you—at least—should know better by now. You’ve been here long enough.”

It was true. Aiden had seen dozens of human children pass through the Higher Realm over the years, but none remained for long. They disappeared eventually; Aiden assumed they faded away because most humans couldn’t physically exist in the fae world. He suspected that it was a miracle he was still alive.

“So what if I don’t?” he asked Taryk. “What are you gonna do about it?

Send me home?”

Taryk scowled. “Shut your mouth. And get out of my way.”

24

A. Florence Vidal “Didn’t think so,” Aiden muttered.

Taryk ignored his words and shoved him aside; his shimmering, translucent wings brushed against Aiden’s bare arms, leaving a strange, tingling feeling, which Aiden associated with fae magic, on his skin.

Aiden glanced back one more time: Taryk was placing the child’s trembling hand against the Tree where he would be able to feel a powerful magic flowing beneath the warm crystal bark, just as all human children did upon entering the Higher Realm. Soon the child would be taken into the large, teardrop-shaped house that stood nearest the Tree. It was the dwelling of the Ancients and contained the First Hall, from where the realm was governed. There, the child would be introduced to the fae world officially and assigned a caretaker.

Aiden’s own caretaker was an old artist named Kaelen. She worked with ice and fire and magic to create amazing sculptures. Aiden’s favorite was a tiny ice salamander that she had given him a year after he arrived. The thing was no longer than his middle finger and periodically spit out torrents of flame. He loved watching the fire flow from the salamander’s transparent stomach, where it burned constantly in a little orange ball of light, to its open mouth. The statuette was so detailed and life-like that, at times, Aiden thought it would scramble across the windowsill where it lay.

He remembered the day she’d given it to him perfectly. They had been sitting in the plaza looking at the Tree—one of Kaelen’s favorite pastimes— and she’d been telling him about the history of the Higher Realm. Aiden, however, wasn’t listening to the lesson. He’d been too preoccupied with trying to figure out which of the many winding paths that branched off from the plaza led to the portal to his home.

At one point, Kaelen stopped and said, “You aren’t getting a word of this, are you, boy?”

Aiden tried to stammer out an apology, fearful that he would be scolded.

Instead, she laughed. Then she stood and offered him a hand, which he took. She led him back to her house and into her workshop, which Aiden had never been allowed into before.

The room was circular and in its center was a large furnace with a large opening through which Aiden could see dancing orange flames. Piled around the edges of the room were blocks of ice in many sizes that didn’t seem to be at all affected by the heat of the room. Aiden guessed that Kaelen had used magic to keep them from melting.

“Pick a block,” she said. “Any block.”

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The Fae Child

Aiden edged toward the nearest pile and grabbed the first piece of ice he touched. It was a bit longer than his hand and only a few inches high and wide.

She sat him down on the floor, grabbed her tools, and set to work.

Aiden watched as she deftly carved with smooth, sure strokes. After a while the ice began to glow as it was surrounded by an aura of fae magic that looked like little specks of diamond floating in the air. After some time, she took her sculpture and threw it into the heart of the furnace. Aiden was sure that it would melt and that all her work had been for nothing, but after a minute of waiting, Kalen reached in with a pair of very long tongs and extracted the little statue. She held it up to her eyes and smiled, then waved Aiden over to her.

“Hold out your hand,” she said.

Aiden complied. She placed the statuette in his hand. It was pretty, but he didn’t know why she’d given it to him. He tried to hand it back to her, but she shook her head.

“No, that’s yours to keep, Aiden,” she said. She gave him a kind smile and continued, “I know this world can be scary at times…I know that you don’t want to be here. But maybe, one day, you’ll see that there is beauty here.

And maybe, someday, you can call this place home.”

She’d been right when she said that the Higher Realm could be beautiful; Aiden noticed it every day. But he wouldn’t call it home, and he doubted that he ever could. In either case, he was still Kaelen’s charge, and he figured that he should return to her house before she had to put down her tools and come looking for him; she hated being interrupted when she was working.

He left the plaza behind and followed the familiar worn, stone path that led from the Tree to the house. Around him, the small wooden houses of the fae dotted the path; occasionally he would see one of Kaelen’s works burning in the distance. When he reached the house, Aiden circled to the back entrance, hoping to sneak in without alerting Kaelen to his presence.

As he reached for the doorknob, he heard voices coming through the thin, wooden walls.

“He needs to know!” That was Kaelen’s voice, and she sounded angry.

“We’ve never told one of them before!” The other voice was dark, deep, and unfamiliar to Aiden. “What makes your charge different?”

They’re talking about me, he realized.

“He is different,” Kaelen said. “He’s lasted longer than any of them.

Thirteen years without any explanation is long enough—and you know it.”

26

A. Florence Vidal “It doesn’t matter how long he’s been here, Kaelen. We aren’t ready yet.

We need more time.”

Kaelen laughed in a manic sort of way. “Time? Did you honestly just say ‘time’? Have you even looked at the Tree lately? Time is the one thing we don’t have—this world is dying, and we—,” she stopped talking.

There was a sound of small feet pattering along the wooden floor and the door swung inward. Kaelen stood before Aiden, glaring up at him.

“Where have you been, boy?” she asked, pulling him in. he ducked quickly to avoid smashing his forehead against the frame—again. He now recognized the other fae to be one of the Ancients.

“I—,” Aiden began.

“Oh, never mind. Go to your room and don’t come out until dinner. I’ll call you.”

“But—” “Go. Go.” She ushered Aiden through the back room and into the hall that ran through the house. His room was near the front—about as far from Kaelen and the Ancient as he could get. Even with his magically enhanced ears, he couldn’t hear their words clearly at that distance.

While he waited, he paced around his room, occasionally glancing out of the window to see the swollen moon that bathed the world in its eerie blue light. Why did she say the world was dying? he wondered. Kaelen had said to look at the Tree, but what did that have to do with anything? The Tree hadn’t changed at all since he’d arrived. Except…well there was that time he’d seen a light flicker and fade out. Back then, he’d figured that he was imagining things, but maybe that wasn’t the case. So the world’s dying, he thought. What does that have to do with me?

A week later, while he and Kaelen were sitting by the edge of the plaza gazing at the Tree, Aiden decided to broach the subject. He watched Kaelen out of the corners of his eyes as he struggled to form his thoughts into coherent sentences.

After a few minutes of this Kaelen sighed and said, “Just spit it out, boy.

No one’s getting any younger here.”

Aiden took a deep breath and asked if the world was really dying.

Kaelen turned so she could meet his eyes directly and sighed again.

“You’ll have to find out sooner or later, I suppose. In any case, I’ve wanted to tell you for ages.” She stood and gestured for him to follow her. She led him closer to the Great Tree, so they were only a few feet away. The plaza

27

The Fae Child

was so quiet that they could hear the light tinkling sound of the glassy branches tapping against one another as they swayed.

“This tree,” she began, “is the center of our world. It gives us our magic, longevity, and life energy.” She paused then continued, “For the past few centuries it has been dying.”

Kaelen went on to explain how their world was once full of life and light and how they could perform incredible feats of magic that the fae could barely manage even a fraction of now. But as with many civilizations, the world stopped growing, the fae society began to stop functioning, and the Tree could no longer find enough energy to flourish. As the Tree faded, the light left the world, the animals died, and the fae lost much of their power along with the ability to reproduce—for bringing a fae child into the world took a great deal of magic. Eventually, their lives, too, would be extinguished.

Kaelen went on. She said that, in their desperation, they sent fae out into the human world to bring back children to replace their own and carry on their ways. The fae didn’t know then how toxic their world would be to the fragile humans. Most who came to the Higher Realm died.

“So why didn’t you stop?” Aiden asked. “Why am I here?”

Kaelen gave him a kind smile. “We couldn’t just give up hope. You and your kind are our only hope of preserving our way of life.”

“What can I do? You’ve told me yourself that no human could exist forever in this world.”

“You are different, Aiden. The years you’ve spent here haven’t stolen your life as they do with the others. Usually, the Tree sees the human children—so young, so full of energy—and it sucks away everything they are. But you have become one with the magic that remains here. You are becoming one of us, Aiden. You are becoming a fae. If you remain here, if you can allow yourself to be changed completely—to give up the rest of your humanity—and if we can find more humans like you, then I think our world can be preserved.”

“No.” Aiden backed away from his Kaelen, his eyes flitting between her and the Tree. The Tree that could at any moment steal his life away. He’d known from the start that they were monsters. “No, I won’t help you. You kidnapped me just to save yourselves! How could you be so selfish?”

He ran from her, tears stinging his eyes. He found himself running down the very path that led to the faerie circle—the portal to his real home.

The circle, a small ring of moss-covered stones, came into sight. He knew from multiple escape attempts that there would be guards all around the

28

A. Florence Vidal entrance—guards that had been very successful in keeping him away from the portal in the past. But maybe if he could just be quick enough this time…

Aiden picked up his speed; he could hear the air rushing past his ears.

Something seemed to click within him, and he was running faster than he ever had before. He added one final burst of speed that he somehow knew was a result of the fae magic that had been invading his body for years. He almost laughed—the very nature of the land itself was going to be the key to his escape. The guards shouted at him as he whipped past, from somewhere far behind, he could hear Kaelen shouting his name. He felt the outstretched hands of the guards brush against him. Aiden ignored them all and dived at the circle. He closed his eyes.

Aiden found himself lying face down on soft, moist soil. He opened his eyes and was struck by a searing pain as sunlight entered them for the first time in a decade and a half. He stood shakily, shielding his suddenly oversensitive eyes with his hands. He found that he was sweating and working harder than normal to breathe—whether from his sprint or the adrenaline, he didn’t know. With the utmost care, he cracked one eye open. The light gave him a headache, but he managed to discern that he was in a forest. He didn’t know if he was truly home—everything looked so different. Aiden picked a direction at random and started walking. He knew it wouldn’t be long before one of the fae followed him back to his world.

As his eyes adjusted, he saw that he was in a less of a forest and more of a large park. He came across an abandoned campfire pit and a water fountain, but there didn’t seem to be any people around. Maybe it’s closed, he thought.

He stumbled over an exposed rock and felt a sharp pain in the sole of his foot, which, he noticed with a shock, was a pale, sickly blue in the daylight.

Over his blue skin, hot, red blood gushed from a jagged cut. He sat down in shock, watching the blood trickle into the soil. He suddenly felt nauseous.

The sun was too hot, the light was too bright, and the air was too full of sounds and scents. He curled up on the ground and tried not to cry.

“Aiden.” It was Kaelen. She leaned over him, wearing a look of deep concern. She laid a hand on his shoulder. He flinched.

“Leave me alone,” he whispered.

“Aiden,” she said. “You can’t live in this world anymore.”

“Watch me.” Aiden sat up and moved away from her.

“If you stay here, you’ll die.”

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The Fae Child

“I don’t care. I don’t want to become one of you,” he said.

“I know, Aiden. I’m sorry, but I don’t want you to die here. Will you come back with me?”

Aiden saw movement out of the corner of his eye and heard a familiar voice say, “He won’t.”

It was Taryk. He was standing a few feet away, watching the scene with a scowl.

“What are you talking about, Taryk?” Kaelen asked.

“That human is nothing but problems,” he said.

“He’s our only hope for the future,” Kaelen said, placing herself as a shield between Taryk and Aiden.

Taryk scoffed, “Our system works just fine.”

“Sacrificing children to the Tree is not a system that I’m okay with!” The words tumbled from her mouth in an angry rush.

Aiden’s mind crashed to a halt. He looked up at his caretaker. “What?”

She looked down at him. He could see that she regretted letting those words slip from her mouth.

“What do you mean ‘sacrificed’?” He asked, praying he’d misunderstood.

She looked down at him and shook her head. “Aiden…”

Taryk interrupted before she could explain, “That’s right. We’ve been sacrificing you pitiful humans for decades now. We used to let you all fade away naturally from overexposure to our world’s magic—an unpleasant process, I promise you. Then we figured, why delay the inevitable?

Something about your little lives gives the Tree the boost of energy it needs to live, so whenever one of you starts to fade, we feed you to the Tree. It keeps our world turning. Not a big loss, really; it seems human lives aren’t worth much. I’ve been trying to get you sacrificed for years, human. Since you’ve lived this long, who knows how much life you’d give the Tree?

Maybe it would even be enough to restart it completely, to fix the Higher Realm. But this one,” he gestured toward Kaelen, “won’t let me anywhere near you.”

Aiden looked to Kaelen for confirmation; she looked away then said in an undertone, “I never agreed to it, Aiden. I have always thought that we could find one of you to save our world. That’s why I never let them take you— why I never will let them take you. You aren’t a sacrifice, Aiden. You’re our future.”

“How can you still believe that?” Aiden asked. He stood, wincing slightly as he put too much weight on his bad foot. “All this time and you’ve only been able to find one human who could survive in your world. How long

30

A. Florence Vidal would I have to wait before you find another? What if you all die before then?”

“Two.” Taryk said.

“What?” Aiden asked, turning to the other fae.

“We’ve found two of you over the centuries. Many years ago there was another child, Benjamin. He lived with us for twenty years before she,” he pointed at Kaelen, “let him go home.”

“What happened to him?” Aiden asked.

Kaelen answered, “He died.”

“This place killed him!” Taryk said, gesturing to the world around them.

“He was my charge, and she let him die here!”

“Taryk, I didn’t know what would happen,” she said.

“I don’t care, Kaelen. Now it’s your turn to feel what I felt. A few more hours in this world and your human will be as dead as Benjamin.”

“Then we still have time.” Kaelen said. “Come, Aiden.”

“No,” Taryk said.

Aiden didn’t even see him coming; one second he was standing, the next he was flat against the ground with Taryk’s fingers wrapped around his neck. Aiden struggled to get air into his lungs, but the fae’s grip was too tight. Just as Aiden’s vision began to fade, there was a gust of wind and Taryk was gone. Aiden took long, gasping breaths, relief flooding his body.

Looking to the side, he saw Kaelen standing over Taryk’s lifeless body, blue fae blood coating her arm up to the elbow.

Aiden shifted so he was on his knees, nearly eyelevel with Kaelen. She looked terrified, her gold eyes wide with shock. He figured that she’d never done anything so drastic in all her years. She was an artist, not a warrior or an executioner. In fact, in all his time with her, she’d never been anything but kind to him. At some point, she had become his family. Within a moment he’d made his decision.

“Come on,” he said, holding out a hand to her. “Let’s go home.”

A. FLORENCE VIDAL MYTHOLOGICAL FANTASY

Corruption This is an excerpt from a longer piece.

The air was heavy with the weight of an oncoming storm. Soon the skies would open up and flood the streets of London. It was an ideal night for those creatures that feed off the darkness of the world, but the beasts of evil did not wander the city alone.

Invisible to human eyes, two angels walked along streets that were shrouded in the darkness of the cloudy night. The hard cobblestones bruised the soles of their bare feet, and the cold night air bit at their uncovered arms, but they carried on. Light emanated from their golden bracers and circlets and from the narrow blades of their drawn swords. They were Soldiers of the Lord, protectors of human souls. Tonight, they patrolled the dismal roads of London, searching for the monsters that wreaked constant havoc on God’s beautiful Earth—the demons of Hell.

One angel, the taller of the two, stopped abruptly and whipped around, staring down a narrow alley that branched off from the street.

“Did you hear that, Nathaniel?” he asked his partner in a whisper.

Nathaniel shook his head and faced the mouth of the alley. “What was it?”

“I’m not entirely sure,” the first angel said, peering into the darkness. The alley curved into the night, full of indefinable shadows.

“Demon activity?” Nathaniel asked, raising his sword.

“Possibly…” the other angel said as he eyed the narrow path warily and lifted his blade.

“Come, Elijah. Let us see if there is a monster to slay,” Nathaniel said.

Elijah nodded. They crept into the alley, barely walking a few paces before coming across what had made the noise—a demon.

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Corruption

The monster towered over them; it was eight feet tall at least. Its skin was cracked and peeling, and little strips of it fluttered to the ground as the beast moved. Slick black poison dripped from wicked talons, raining onto the stones beneath its feet. It snarled, poisonous saliva glistening on lips that parted to reveal sharp, jagged teeth. The demon’s horns arced a foot into the sky above its head, and the poison oozing from them was twice as potent as that in its teeth and claws. Blood still coated the thing’s chin from its last kill. It growled; the sound was like thunder reverberating around them.

Their bones and blades shook from the intensity of it.

Elijah’s breath caught. This was no ordinary demon standing before them. It was one of the Fallen One’s reapers, created specifically to destroy the Soldiers of the Lord. A single bite from this beast could put even an archangel out for a month, and they were the strongest warriors Heaven had to offer. Two lowly foot soldiers like Nathaniel and him were certainly no match for it. Elijah was about to pray for assistance and alert Heaven to their situation when Nathaniel stepped forward.

“What business have you here, beast?” Nathaniel demanded, raising his weapon in defense.

Elijah shot him a look of warning—they needed to retreat or call for reinforcements before engaging with the monster.

It laughed, gave them a hideous smirk, and lunged.

All thoughts of prayer escaped his mind as they were forced into battle.

Nathaniel distracted the creature with a feint, and Elijah drove his sword into its torso, struggling to slip the blade between its diamond-hard ribs. It roared in agony and batted Elijah aside, tossing him against the wall of the alley. His wing crumpled with a series of audible snaps. The pain spreading through his body suddenly immobilized him. Elijah saw the demon charge at him but could not move to defend himself. Nathaniel threw himself over Elijah, bearing the brunt of the attack. Elijah screamed as he watched one of the demon’s horns pierce Nathaniel’s chest. The angel collapsed against him.

Blood poured from the wound, soaking both of them.

Elijah watched the red spread over his white tunic; it felt hot and slick against his skin. As the blood poured out, Nathaniel grew pale and still.

Suddenly a wave of burning emotion overcame Elijah, which he recognized as anger. The soulless monster before him had attacked them without provocation, and now Nathaniel was dying. The anger evolved into rage and hatred for the creatures that existed to destroy what God and his angels strove to protect.

Elijah took Nathaniel’s sword from his limp hand—his own was still

34

A. Florence Vidal lodged in the monster’s ribs—and pulled himself upright. He staggered forward and threw himself at the demon. His body seemed to move of its own volition and with a ferocity he did not know he had. Elijah allowed his hatred to fuel his attack—he had to make sure it would pay for harming his friend.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, a quiet voice reminded him that fighting for impure reasons, like revenge, was against the law of Heaven.

But what did it matter how he felt as long as he killed the demon, and how could the death of this murderer be considered anything but justice?

Besides, Elijah knew he probably wouldn’t survive the battle anyway.

Overcome by his emotions, Elijah didn’t even blink when he separated an arm from its owner with a swing of his sword. He ducked, barely avoiding the deathly claws of the demon’s remaining hand. Its acidic blood flowed over his arms, burning through layers of skin, but Elijah ignored the pain.

He snarled and sliced at the creature from Hell over and over again until he stood over a heap of twitching limbs. The rage began to subside and his breath came in short gasps. His limbs were shaky and weak, and he could barely keep a hold of Nathaniel’s sword. He stumbled over to his partner and collapsed next to him.

“Nathaniel?” he said, carefully turning the angel onto his back. The demon’s horn had passed all the way through his chest. “Can you hear me?”

Elijah thought he saw Nathaniel’s eyes open for a moment then close again. Elijah thanked the Father that Nathaniel was alive, but a glance at his wound revealed how little time he had. The black poison was spreading out from the puncture; it looked as if someone had upended a jar of ink over Nathaniel’s chest. He had maybe a few minutes to get his friend back to Heaven before it would be too late. Elijah spread his wings to carry them up, but a wave of nauseating pain reminded him that he could not fly.

He folded his hands and prayed to the Father to send help. He knew that their brethren would be coming soon. Elijah hovered over Nathaniel, wishing he could do something to ease his partner’s suffering.

Slowly his own injuries became apparent to him. His wing ached; even the slightest movement caused his vision to waver. His arms were covered in deep burns from the demon’s blood. He held them against his chest, trying to stay conscious as they waited for their rescue.

At last, Elijah sensed other angels crowding around him, their presence casting a warm, comforting glow. They were talking, asking him questions, but he was too far-gone to understand much of anything. He tried to tell them to attend to Nathaniel first; no sound came out. He could feel hands

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Corruption

carefully pulling him to his feet, and he felt the air brushing against his skin as they were lifted up.

When he opened his eyes, Elijah found himself staring at a wall that looked remarkably similar to those of the barracks in which he slept, and he thought for a moment that the whole fight had been a dream or hallucination. But the pain in his arms and wing made him realize otherwise.

By turning his head very carefully to the other side, he could see that he was lying at the end of a row of beds in Heaven’s infirmary. Every bed he could see was empty, and he was completely alone. He wondered where Nathaniel was. Thinking that the limited view he had from his stomach might simply be cutting his friend off from his sight, Elijah sat up and turned to face the room, but there was no one else.

A door to Elijah’s right swung open to reveal Neorah, the archangel in command of his and Nathaniel’s platoon and one of Elijah’s closest friends, wearing the saddest look he’d ever seen on her face.

“Oh,” she said. “You’re awake.”

She walked over to his bed and sat down on its edge.

“Neorah, what has happened? What’s upsetting you?” Elijah asked, wincing slightly as she brushed against his bandaged arms.

“What do you think, Elijah?” She turned her face away, so Elijah couldn’t see her expression, but he could hear her voice crack slightly as she spoke.

She sighed when he didn’t say anything and explained, “I assumed you knew already. You saw it happen after all.”

“You’re talking about the demon?” Elijah asked. He felt anxiety rise in his chest. He remembered killing the demon of course, but why would a dead demon be cause for so much sorrow?

“No.” She turned to face him, staring at him coldly with her grey eyes, “I’m talking about Nathaniel.”

Elijah ran his eyes around the room again, hoping his partner would suddenly appear in one of the empty beds. The realization came upon him, though he wished with his entire being that he was wrong.

“He can’t be—” He is not dead, Elijah thought. “He was still alive,” he whispered to her, unable to meet her eyes. Nathaniel was still alive when Elijah held him in the alley; he’d seen him open his eyes. Hadn’t he?

“Neorah, he was still alive.”

“No, Elijah, he wasn’t,” she said, her voice now harsh, blaming. “He was dead by the time we arrived.” Neorah stood up, looking down on Elijah

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A. Florence Vidal with angry tears in her eyes, “What took you so long to call for help?” She left without giving him a chance to answer.

Elijah walked down the hall, stepping as smoothly as possible since even the slightest movements jarred his wing, which hadn’t fully healed in the month since Nathaniel’s death. He tried not to fiddle with the bandages that were still wrapped around his fingers, where the worst burns were. Elijah wished for the umpteenth time that his partner could have been with him, but of course he would never see Nathaniel again.

The hall seemed to go on forever. The dozens of torches lining the wall flickered, and the light was reflected a thousand times over in the gleaming golden walls and the gold veins that flowed along the floor. Elijah thought that the half-light created a rather ominous atmosphere in what should have been the most glorious space in Heaven, for no other room was as treasured as the one that lay at the end of the hall. He shivered as the floor seemed to grow colder against his bare feet. The angel could have sworn that the hallway stretched as he walked through it, the door receding farther into the wall with every step. Though it could have just been his dread.

An angel like him wouldn’t normally feel so nervous in this situation— actually, it was often viewed as an honor. Maybe it was? He had killed one of the most powerful kinds of demons. But something within Elijah told him that there was no award waiting for him behind that door. Instead, guilt weighed his heart down.

At last he stood directly before the doors, so close that his breath fogged the polished surface, obscuring his reflection. The door towered above him; it was carved from marble and inlaid with shimmering gold and silver script that described the history of the universe.

It swung inward at Elijah’s light touch. The throne room was heptagonal in shape, and He sat in the throne on a circular dais in the very center of the room. Archangels lined the walls; their eyes focused on Elijah as he entered.

He walked up to the throne and knelt before Him. The power washed over him in waves, so strong it was nearly tangible. Elijah met His eyes for a second before returning his gaze to the floor.

“Hello, Father.” Elijah hadn’t seen the Father in many years, and it had been decades since they’d talked to each other directly.

He asked if Elijah knew why he had been called before the throne.

“No, Father. I do not.”

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Corruption

His presence loomed over Elijah, its great intensity pushing him into a deeper kneel.

Many emotions suddenly overcame the angel. Hatred, anger, pain, lust—a deep, dark lust for revenge—and the grief that had been threatening to overwhelm him since he learned of Nathaniel’s fate. Elijah nearly fell back, not understanding why He was making him feel all these things, especially in His presence.

He asked again if the angel knew why he had been summoned before Him today.

“No, Father. I do not know.”

He explained. Elijah had broken a sacred law of Heaven. He had fought with anger in his heart. He had sought revenge. He had killed the demon in a blind rage fueled by his hatred, not with a desire to protect or with a sense of Heavenly justice. And, worst yet, his actions had resulted in the death of a brother. With his ungodly emotions, the angel had committed a sin against Him and Heaven. Elijah was no longer righteous; he was irreparably corrupted.

He rose from his throne. Elijah could not meet His eyes or those of the archangels. Tears of fear and regret poured down his face. What have I done?

“Father, please, forgive me.”

The Father looked down on His creation. In a voice that could have toppled Everest, He cast Elijah from Heaven—he was never to return to the Halls of Glory. He would live out eternity in Hell with his new brethren, the fallen angels.

God turned from Elijah, never to look on his face again.

Elijah knelt there, unwilling—unable—to believe his fate. His heart pounded inside his chest; it felt like it was breaking. Sorrow welled up inside him, filling him completely. He wanted to scream, beg, plead, cry, grovel. But the words caught in his throat. He could no longer speak in His presence. He was no longer worthy. Forgive me, he thought, knowing He would hear.

Two of the archangels came to stand beside him. Elijah recognized one of them as Neorah. They wrenched Elijah away from the Father. He didn’t fight. They dragged him through the palace of gold. He could barely breathe. They pulled him through the gates and down through the Earth.

He couldn’t even think.

They left him crumpled on a boiling-hot rock at the bottom of a chasm.

Looking up, he could see a sliver of the night sky, but the world he knew

38

A. Florence Vidal was out of his reach. He lay there for some time sobbing. It could have been a few minutes or even a few days. He didn’t know. Finally Elijah lifted his head. Before him loomed the path to Hell: a deep tunnel descending into the dark.

Come brother, a voice beckoned.

Elijah scrambled away from the entrance, but there was no other way out but up, and he was broken.

Come before me.

There was no other option, it seemed. Elijah stood shakily and entered the darkness. Each breath of the acrid, stifling air scorched his throat. His skin stung, especially where his burns had yet to heal. A sudden foul gust tore at his clothes like flaming hands. The ground charred his feet; jagged rocks that littered the path ripped his skin. It felt as if his spirit was being seared away. With each step he sensed the presence of Heaven and the Father draining from him, but still he walked on. He had nowhere else to go. He had been abandoned, tossed out, exiled. He would never see his brothers and sisters again. Even if he did, they would not welcome him.

The voice spoke again. Welcome, brother, to your new home.

A. Florence Vidal, a junior at Emerson College, is currently working toward her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Writing, Literature, and Publishing with a concentration in fiction. Vidal was born and raised in Torrance, California, a beach city in Los Angeles County. Her hobbies include art, musical theatre, and archery. While she enjoys all fiction, she has a particular love of science fiction and fantasy.

Her favorite series is Anne McCaffrey’s Dragonriders of Pern.

A. Florence Vidal

KYLE MADIGAN GOTHIC SUPERNATURAL

In the Details

The streetlights hurt my eyes as I arrived at my door. Maybe I’d stayed at the bar too long, but maybe someone should tell the city that the streetlights don’t have to be as bright as the sun just to illuminate the roads. As I pulled my keys out of my pocket, a few drops of rain fell on my head, and I could feel the approaching storm in the air.

Unfortunately for me, my door couldn’t give a damn about whether or not I wanted to get inside. First, the keyhole weaved past my attempts to stick it, and then, once I finally managed to pin it down and weasel the damn key in there, it refused to budge. The rain began to fall in earnest as I twisted and turned the key until finally, with a Herculean effort, I managed to unlock the little bastard, and I stumbled into my beautiful home.

The sound of shifting fast food wrappers greeted me as I walked into my living room and slumped onto the threadbare couch that took up most of the space. I sat there, in the dark, feeling the world spin around me, trying to avoid the temptation of checking the time. I’d called hours ago. If anything were going to happen, it would’ve happened by now.

My thoughts were broken by the buzz of my phone. I slowly reached into my pocket, terrified and elated. When I finally pulled it out, it only revealed that I’d gotten an e-mail. Deflated, I almost put it away, but figured I might as well check it. It took a few tries, but eventually I got my passcode right, and my screen opened to the message I’d forgotten to close before heading to the bar.

I’m sorry you couldn’t make it to Sara’s party. I know how much you wanted to be here, so I tried to take as many pictures as I could.

41

In the Details

Beneath the message were pictures of my daughter—breaking open a piñata, blowing out a large number five, opening presents. I stared at them, and the last year flashed through my head. Jane filing for divorce, the court awarding Jane full custody, Jane’s office getting moved across the country, Jane pulling Sara from my arms, saying they really had to go, they had to catch their flight. I’d tried to make it to the party, I really had, but there were bills for the lawyers and child support and rent, and after all that there just wasn’t money for a flight to Seattle.

I finally closed the message and blearily looked at the e-mail, wishing there were a drop of booze left in the house. The e-mail was from the magazine I worked for. Apparently, one of their writers had flaked and they needed some sort of heartwarming human interest story by the next morning, real or fake.

I locked my phone, sank deeper into the couch, and groaned. I was going to have to bullshit some fake family story, and the pounding building in my temples wasn’t making it any easier. This was going to pay my rent for the next month, though, so I sucked it up, and soon I was typing away, burying myself in the times and troubles of the Nadinski family.

I was just getting to the part where the helpless Grandma Nadinski is saved by the timely arrival of her grandson, who had come for a surprise visit, when a crash of thunder broke my concentration. As I turned back to my work, I heard the doorbell ring.

I paused, fingers perched above the keys, eyes glued to the flimsy wooden door that stood between me and whoever was outside. After a few seconds, the doorbell rang again. I slowly closed my laptop, heaved myself up, and staggered my way to the door. I pulled it open and came face to face with a man in a charcoal grey suit, one of his black gloves holding a black umbrella against the rain, the other paused over my doorbell. I stood there staring at him for a few seconds.

“Mr. Jones, I presume?” he said, teeth bared in a brilliant grin.

I took the stranger in. He wasn’t particularly tall, and he wasn’t particularly wide. He wasn’t particularly anything, really. The only thing about him that really stood out were his eyes. They were a brown so dark that they were almost black, but there was a playful laughter in them.

“Do not just stand there, Mr. Jones. We have quite a lot to discuss, and the weather is rather distasteful. Will you not invite me in?” he said, looking directly into my eyes.

I stared at him for a moment before my brain finally caught up. “Y… yeah, come in.”

42

Kyle Madigan “Excellent. We are well on our way, Mr. Jones,” he said, brushing past me and into my house. “Quite the establishment. A touch¬ dark, though, no? Perhaps a light would help?”

I practically fell over myself to hit the light switch. The dim ceiling light turned on, spreading a dull glow across the room and bathing everything in a soft, orange light. The man propped his umbrella against the couch and took a seat, hands clasped in his lap, left leg crossed over right.

“How do we—” I began, but the man cut me off.

“There is a process, Mr. Jones, and it must be obeyed. Now tell me, are you satisfied with your life?”

I gaped at him. “Am I satisfied? Look around, does this place seem all that satisfying?”

The man gave a small smile. “You would be surprised by how little some need to be satisfied.”

“Well I’m not one of those people.”

He shook his head slightly. “They never are, those who call for me. So you are not satisfied?”

“I just said I wasn’t!”

“Please, Mr. Jones, it is part of the rules. I cannot allow for ambiguity. A direct answer is all I require.”

I looked at the cramped room, listened to the silence of the house, thought of all the empty walls. “Well, then, no. No, I’m not satisfied.”

The man smiled. “Quite. Now, second question: Would you like to improve your quality of life?”

I stared at him, at his fine suit, at his black gloves, steaming from the rain.

“I mean…would it require…”

The man leaned forward, his eyes boring into mine. “Everything has its price, Mr. Jones. And you know there is only one form of payment I accept.”

“I…okay, what would happen if I said yes?”

“Please, we have not reached that point yet. Now, would you like to improve your quality of life?”

“But—” “It is a yes or no question.”

I bit my lip and absent-mindedly brushed my leg with my hand, feeling the outline of my phone. “…Yeah,” I almost whispered.

“And what would you need to see your quality of life improved?”

“What would I need?”

“Yes, what would you need. What hopes and dreams would need to be

43

In the Details

fulfilled. What goals would need to be reached. What would you need to consider your quality of life sufficiently improved, knowing what you would have to pay.”

I looked at him. He leaned back slightly, easing into the divot I’d worn into the couch. My laptop caught my eye, fan still whirring, story still awaiting an uplifting conclusion. “Well, first I’d need to get out of this dump, away from all of this. Yeah, I’d need a nice house, in a city that actually has a market for writing. And then I’d need my writing to be a big hit. Not just making up some shit about a grandma for a magazine no one’s heard of, but a real hit with real success. I’m talking ‘need to get an agent just for all the interviews’ kind of a hit. And I want that to continue.

Everything I write, each article, each story, a huge hit. I want to be put up there next to the greatest writers of all time.” I began to pace in what little space I had. “I want an entire PO box devoted to the fan mail I’m going to receive. I want people on street corners and bus stops talking about my newest release, gossiping about what I could possibly do next. I want kids in high school to get upset that they always have to read my work no matter what their class is about.” I stopped pacing and turned, facing the man on the couch, making sure he heard every word I said. “I want Jane to read one of my pieces and cry, cry so hard that she realizes what a huge mistake she made. I want her crawling back on her hands and knees so I can look down at her and let her know that this was her fucking choice and that there’s no way in hell she gets to go back on it because my writing finally took off, and maybe Sara could have someone who’ll actually meet her when she gets home from school instead of someone who’s always at work, chasing the next promotion. Then I’d call my quality of life improved.”

The man on the couch smiled. “A tall order, Mr. Jones. Tell me, how would this benefit me?”

“What?”

“What would I gain from this?”

I felt my fingernails biting into my palms. “You’re already asking me to pay you, what more could you need?”

The man gave a good-natured chuckle, deep in his chest. “Think, Mr. Jones. If any poor, aspiring writer or artist could just call me and pay the price, why are we not inundated with fabulous works and creations?”

I paused for a moment, toying with the question. “So…I need to give you a reason to choose me over someone else.”

“Indeed.”

“I could write about you.”

44

Kyle Madigan “Mr. Jones, do not insult me. What do you have that makes you special?

Sell yourself to me.”

I massaged my temples as I tried to think. “I could use the money I earn to help…advance your cause?”

The man sighed and slowly stood up, grabbing his umbrella. “I am quite a busy man, Mr. Jones. If you are just going to waste my time, I fear our business is concluded.”

“Well, what the hell do you want, then?”

“Think about what makes you who you are.”

I began to pace back and forth, feeling like I was wearing a rut into the floor. The man’s words bounced around my head, echoing off each other, until soon I was lost in a cacophony of questions.

The man watched me for a few seconds, and then he let loose a heavy sigh and began to move toward the door. I could see the future I’d so recently painted slipping away, my chance to get out of this hellhole and have a better life. As his gloved hand reached for the door handle, I realized I would have to offer something.

“I…I have a daughter.”

The hand stopped. Slowly, ever so slowly, the man turned to face me. “A daughter, you say?”

“Y…yes. She…she’s only five but, well, it’d be better for her in the long run, right? What could be better than having a dad who’s the greatest writer of all time, right? I could give her whatever she wanted! She’d love it!”

He slowly shook his head. “Sadly, Mr. Jones, she is not yours to give.”

“But…but she’s all I have!

The man slowly approached me. “If I believed that she were all you had, I would have no qualms with receiving her. However, you are deceiving yourself if you think you ‘have’ her. When the former Mrs. Jones left you, you did not even fight to keep your child, content with seeing her once a week. It is only now that she has been taken from you that you value her.

And even now, after not seeing her for months, you chose to stay here and drink your cares away rather than see your daughter on her birthday. It appears that I have misjudged you. You do not have anything to offer after all. Farewell, Mr. Jones.”

I stood, pinned to the wall, as he took a step back, brushed off his coat, and strode toward the door. Out of my stupor, a desperate thought struck me. “What if I lowered my side of the deal?”

He paused for a moment, and a hint of a smile played on his mouth. “Oh?”

45

In the Details

“Yeah! What if I had one big hit. The rest is all my own work. No effort from you!”

He gave an aggrieved sigh. “Mr. Jones, this really has been a pleasure, but I simply must be going. You know how busy life is.”

“No! Please! What if I just had a successful career? A successful career as a writer. Nothing crazy, my books are enjoyed by enough people that I can live comfortably. I live out in the suburbs in a decent sized place, you know, just living my days like a normal person! Nothing special!”

He looked me up and down. “You make an intriguing offer, Mr. Jones.”

“So you’ll accept?”

He tilted his head to one side for a moment, before giving a sharp nod. “Indeed I shall. One last question. Will you pay the price?”

“Yes!” “Then it appears we have a deal, Mr. Jones. Shake my hand.”

I shook his proffered hand and was once more drawn into his eyes. The laughter was truly sparkling there now. He clapped me on the shoulder and turned back to the door, opening it and his umbrella in one swift motion. I realized I had no idea what to do from here. “So what happens now?”

He turned from the howling wind outside. “How do you mean?”

“I mean, do I go with you? Does it hurt?”

He let out a laugh, punctuated by a crash of thunder. “Please, Mr. Jones, do you really think I would be so cruel? No, the deal is done, the price paid. Now, you may want to finish your story. You will find that it will reach a larger audience than you once thought it would.”

“That’s it? That’s all it took?”

He flashed that brilliant smile, a streak of lightning illuminating his teeth.

“What, did you think selling your soul would be hard?”

Kyle Madigan is a sophomore Writing, Literature, and Publishing student, born and raised in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. His hobbies include sitting in graveyards, Dungeons & Dragons, and dairy products. He peaked in third grade when he wrote an essay concerning proper grilled cheese technique, and it’s all been downhill from there.

Kyle Madigan

EMMA ZIRKLE MAGICAL REALISM

Le Ciel

It was early spring, and there was a little boy in a glass bottle.

One of those large bottles with a stand to keep it on its side without rolling, meant for builders and collectors of tiny scale model ships. He lived in that bottle, placed inside as a baby and now too large to go back out through that same opening. He often sat by the opening, contorting himself as far into the neck of the bottle as he could fit, and listened to the sounds that breezed past. The large space beyond his bottle was a room—a study of sorts with a large brick fireplace and moderate furnishings—belonging to a decrepit old man on whose desk the boy’s bottle sat. Once a day before midday, sometimes more, the man came into this room, tapped on his bottle, and said, “Come now, Oliver.”

And the old man would pick up a pointed feather in one gnarled hand, dip it in black, and lay it against a piece of spread parchment. The other hand lifted. Tap, tap. “Come now, Oliver.”

And the little boy opened his mouth and screamed.

The old man’s feather point scribbled furiously across the parchment.

Scritch, scritch, scritch. The scream faded away. The old man stopped.

Tap, tap. “Come now, Oliver.”

Another scream just like the old man wanted, loud and deafening and bouncing against the glass walls. The old man was nodding, pressing so hard with each word he wrote that the ink bled. The boy sank to his knees with exhaustion.

Tap, tap.

He cried now, a low sob—he had no more energy for the screams that were demanded of him. The old man made a noise of epiphany in the back of his throat and the scribbling slowed to a careful deliberation. He filled the

49

Le Ciel

stretch of parchment with sloping script and pushed it off the desk, where it fluttered to join several dozens of its brethren on the study floor, before smoothing a new piece in its place.

The boy was on his side now, knees pulled to his chest. He reached his arm out, fingers splayed, and touched the transparent barrier.

“Good boy, Oliver.”

The old man was smiling as he lifted the bottle, careful to keep him oriented correctly, and brought him to the room’s only latticed window. The old man set the bottle and its stand on the sill, atop a thick tome for added height to keep him away from the opening when the old man lifted the window so that the noises from the street filtered in.

This was the boy’s reward; every day when the old man was done, if he had done well, the boy could spend the remainder of the daylight hours before the window, absorbing like a tired but eager sponge the world outside. The study was two stories up, its window facing the street below; directly across the street was a quaint cafe, and just beside that, catty-corner to the window, was the edge of a park. He liked to watch the people— people who looked the same size as him, people who had broken from their bottles and now walked free. He often stretched out his legs before him and wondered what it would be like to walk with them.

Today was sunny. The boy reveled in the light that warmed the bottle, that illuminated the trees in the park in green brilliance. On the opposite sidewalk, passing the cafe, a woman strolled with a light blue silk parasol.

From his window, as did all the people below, she looked his size—when had she broken from her bottle? Had she too once belonged to an old man?

Had she been made to scream so he could write? The boy imagined her voice delicate as the lace on her petticoat, softer than the rose petal he had once touched when his shoulders were smaller.

She was visually interesting to him, the only thing he could rely on day after day at his window, and the boy had seen her walking since his earliest memories of the world beyond the glass. Once, the wind had blown back her parasol, and the boy had seen a shock of blue-black hair that glittered in sunlight like the rain-soaked feathers of the ravens that perched on the old man’s sill after a storm.

He pressed himself against the interior of the glass to keep his eyes on her longer, following her until she disappeared beyond the window frame. He wondered if she would demand he cry, he scream, he sigh. She wouldn’t; she would be friendly to him. She would wipe his face and say she was proud of the wonderful job he was doing for the old man’s book.

50

Emma Zirkle The old man returned at twilight, replacing the boy and the bottle on the desk above the new parchment.

Tap, tap.

The boy cried. The old man wrote.

By the time Mrs. Boulet arrived as the old man’s housekeeper, the old man had written nearly a hundred pages, and it was the late heady days of spring. She came thrice a week in the dewy mornings before the old man roused. She had wispy blonde curls that she kept pinned close to her head and a high-necked plum dress that swished pleasantly when she walked.

She was unsurprised to see the boy in the ship bottle when she entered the room. She had seen many things in her life, she told him later, many splendid things. She set a tray of tea and biscuits on the sitting table beneath the window, broke off a piece of biscuit, and said, “You’re not allergic to nuts, are you, mon petit?”

The boy had no idea, but he stretched his arm into the neck of the bottle as far as it would go and Mrs. Boulet passed the crumb through the opening. He was not, as it turned out, allergic to nuts, and it soon became commonplace for the woman to bring him what she called “cadeaux” each time she came.

The old man and the housekeeper seemed frozen in time, unaging, but by summer the boy was no longer a boy, and each day came the unyielding unceasing tap, tap.

“Come now, come now,” the not-boy murmured to himself. He was at the window after more screaming, scribbling, sobbing, scribbling, scritch, scritch, scritching of feather on parchment. He watched the blue parasol, wondering if the woman beneath it looked like Mrs. Boulet—strict mouth and tight cheeks and cloudy eyes. The parasol paused on the sidewalk, and for a moment the not-boy stopped breathing. A raindrop slapped the window and frightened him into a shuddering inhale, and from beneath the blue silk the woman below lifted a thin white-gloved hand. Her fingers curved up to the greying, weeping sky, plush palm tapering to a slim wrist trimmed by a soft blue ruffle. It disappeared too quickly, recoiling from the touch of falling water, and she hurried her pace off the edge of the window pane.

Rain poured in a sudden torrent after her disappearance, and the old man returned but the not-boy didn’t scream. He sat cross-legged in his bottle with a small smile despite the tap, tap, “come now,” and the old man did not fill the page. Scritch. Scritch.

51

Le Ciel

On the autumn morning Mrs. Boulet brought the ribbon, the not-boy was a young man and looked forward to nothing but his blue parasol. She folded the ribbon over the opening of the bottle and pushed it inside the neck with a grape. The grape was sweet and just smaller than his head; he bit into it as the ribbon fluttered to the bottom of the bottle. He marveled first at its color, identical to the misty blue of his favorite silk parasol. He touched it with bewilderment, rubbing the fabric piece to his cheek.

“Un cadeau spécial,” Mrs. Boulet said. She pressed another grape into his bottle. “Would you like the window, Monsieur Oliver?”

He appreciated most when she called him that, more than the little extra snacks she slipped him. He nodded with vigor at her question and she brought him to his place at the window.

It was too early for the parasol, but the green of the park burned in autumn hues of gold and orange and red, and he sat memorizing their patterns with the ribbon at his lips until the old man came in.

His anger was swift and violent. He snatched the bottle from the sill and brought it to the desk, the motion jolting the young man around the interior.

The old man jabbed a spindly digit into the bottle, hooking the ribbon on a knobbed knuckle while the young man attempted to right himself. His shoulder ached from where it had collided with the glass, but as the end of the ribbon slithered out of the bottle, he lunged with a guttural cry.

“No!” The old man looked on him in horror, the ribbon piece held in the crevice of two fingers. He marched his frail indignance to the fireplace, where Mrs. Boulet had put fresh logs, and chucked the piece into the flame.

“I gave you purpose,” the old man screamed at him, “I gave you life!”

The young man sobbed with an intensity that burned his chest.

“This is how you repay me?”

The ribbon piece disintegrated into nothing, the young man crumbled with a most retched noise, and the old man stomped to his desk and took a great, vexed glee in his writing.

Winter blanketed the world beyond the window when the young man was not young, just a man. The man in the bottle sat cramped by the flat bottom, knees folded near a broad torso; his legs were too long to stretch out unless he aligned himself with the length of the bottle. He had little energy, dozing most of the day like a cat in sun until the stillness caused pain in his limbs.

The old man, still scribbling and unchanged, would write with eagerness at

52

Emma Zirkle the man’s pained expression, lapping it up with the speed of when Oliver was a boy and had screamed.

He asked Mrs. Boulet once, lacking the courage ever to speak in the presence of the old man, why the old man preferred him to be unhappy.

Mrs. Boulet gave him a piece of almond cookie and said in a low voice, “It makes for a better story, mon petit.”

The snow meant that his favorite blue parasol had been replaced with a long velveteen cloak of the same color, lined with fur at the hood pulled over dark curls. She kept her hands within a fox-fur muff, but the reveal of her hair was more than satisfactory for him. He thought, should she look up to gaze upon his window, he would faint dead away.

Mrs. Boulet kept the fireplace lit and warm; she tried to place him before it once, setting the bottle on the ottoman as he shivered, but he protested violently. She relented with a concerned brow, and when his fingers threatened to purple she brought him a small scrap of wool cloth to use as a blanket. The old man did not react to this as he reacted to the ribbon, and so the man in the bottle could keep it.

He cleared his throat when she placed him at the window once.

“M-Madame?”

“Yes, mon petit?”

The words tumbled from his tongue as if they’d been there all his short life, waiting for when he would open his mouth and they could escape. He asked all sorts of questions in one long breath: had she seen boys like him before, were there others, what was the old man’s story, why must he be in his bottle, when did she escape her bottle, what is love, what is he?

Mrs. Boulet smiled at him. “I never had a bottle.”

“No bottle?” he asked in awe. He understood when he thought about it; she was big, why should she have a bottle? Only the small had bottles. He nodded once, and then he repeated: “Are there more like me?”

“There’s no one like you, Monsieur Oliver.” Her eyes were misty and her smile wavered.

She answered no more of his questions, instead placing him before his window in time to see blue silk.

The pages on the floor multiplied into the hundreds, coating the floor in a carpet of black words and sorrow. The old man was growing more agitated as the winter went on, muttering to himself and to Mrs. Boulet, “I must finish it before the spring, Faustine, must.”

“You will, monsieur, stop fretting.”

“It’s not the same, Faustine, not the same, I must get the spark back.”

53

Le Ciel

And the old man came trudging back into the study, anxious now. Tap, tap. “Allons-y, Oliver!”

Once, upon viewing the woman on the sidewalk below, he pictured himself walking beside her. He stepped on the snow puffs, height matching hers, and their shoulders brushed. He began to daydream of her, especially when he heard the tap, tap. The old man complained of it as the winter worsened.

“He’s smiling too much, Faustine, I’m not writing a romance!”

“Monsieur—” “This is my masterpiece, Faustine! He mustn’t smile!”

The man in the bottle at his window slept and dreamed of blue silk, black curls, and white gloves. ~*~ When he asked Mrs. Boulet in the spring to remove the book from the sill, to be closer to the sounds and the lifted window, he saw her hesitate.

“I want to be closer to them,” he said, pointing to the people, so small like him, so far below. “Can’t I?” “He’ll be cross with you,” she warned. “He’ll be cross with both of us.”

“Can’t I?” A flicker passed over her face, a flicker of understanding, and he worried she was going to refuse. He licked his dry lips and asked her please, and so she slowly took the tome away. She passed a small piece of chocolate into his bottle and called him “monsieur” and tried to smile.

She left not long after his favorite blue parasol appeared. He looked down on her and smiled; then, he began to push. He pushed on the side of his bottle, arms straining, and when that did nothing he threw his weight against it. The bottle rocked on its stand and his face burst into a wide, splitting smile. Again, again, again.

The bottle was off its stand and a foreign sound of joy gurgled from his chest. His body ached from the effort but he charged forward, toward the parasol, toward the silk and the gloves and the woman who looked his size who he would surely be brave enough to address once he was free from his bottle. Down the bottle fell, plummeting to the earth, and the boy, the not-boy, the man was floating. The old man would not get another boy in a bottle, he realized. There was no one like him, Mrs. Boulet had said, and so the old man would not find another and would never finish his book. For this, Oliver felt almost sorry as the bottle smashed to the ground.

But how could he feel sorry, truly sorry, when he was free?

Emma Zirkle, a senior Writing, Literature, and Publishing BFA student from rural Pennsylvania, is psyched to be published again in Generic. She has a love for cinnamon coffees and scented candles. Her favorite novels usually involve fantasy and tasteful amounts of well-written gore.

Emma Zirkle