DISTOR DIST RTIONS
Literary magazine, Issue 1
Distortions Literary magazine, Issue 1
Copyright © 2016 by The Folks Publishing. All rights reserved.
MANAGING EDITOR: Emily Benes ACQUISITIONS EDITOR: Shelby Marie Leschinsky COPYEDITOR: Theron Pietzyk MARKETING DIRECTOR: Clayton Karloff DESIGN DIRECTOR: Angela Ching
Special thanks to Dr. Bev and Abigail Johnson and Shelby Kahr
CONTENTS Introduction Strange Normal March Thirty-First You’ll Choke (or go up in flames) Smoking Hand An Everyday Interview Olympia Rising Strip Nights Learning to Count Skimming Stones Planted Rose Hill Garden Awards Untitled Artwork The People Who Aren’t People Sisters Dear Train Crossing The Librarian
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Shelby Leschinsky Clayton Karloff Hannah Deboer Angela Ching Andrea Wagner
6 8 15 16 17 28 19 23 24 27 31 32
Clayton Karloff Drew Cummings Shelby Kahr Angela Ching Christina Callaghan Shelby Kahr Emily Benes Tanner Reckling Nicholas Olson Breann McCoy Amanda Benes Angela Ching
MAGICAL REALISM noun. 1. narrative strategy that is characterized by the matter-of-fact inclusion of fantastic or mythical elements into seemingly realistic fiction. ORIGIN Although this strategy is known in the literature of many cultures in many ages, the term magic realism is a relatively recent designation, first applied in the 1940s by Cuban novelist Alejo Carpentier, who recognized this characteristic in much Latin-American literature.
Encyclopedia Britannica
INTRODUCTION by Shelby Leschinsky
“Distortions” is a portrayal of magic realism. But what is magic realism? It is a device that has started appearing in literature and art in modernist era. It is something that started appearing as an art form in the 1920s and 1930s along with surrealism. It is another way to portray things we often do not want to talk about at its deepest level. However, it is also whimsical, and something that just simply is what the name implies: magical. Magic realism, simply put, is when magical concepts are intertwined with elements of reality. Oftentimes, these magical elements just exist, they are not questioned, but that is not to say that there is not literature that does not question the magic. Magic realism tries to include what is often considered magical or fantastical into a realistic setting, one that the reader will be familiar with. for example, in Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved the ghost of the main character’s dead daughter appears as an adult while the characters live in a familiar setting of a reconstruction era south as the novel tries to explain what is unspeakable. That is not to say that every work of magic realism has to be like this. it can be something as simple as a girl levitating while washing her dishes in the familiar setting of the kitchen. Additionally, magic realism has a large cultural signifi-
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cance, particularly in Latin American literature. The most well-known novels include Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude, Isabella Allende’s The House of Spirits and Laura Esquivel’s Like Water for Chocolate. In fact, often times when magic realism is discussed in the literary sense, these novels are brought up along with other Latin American authors and this is due to the fact that Magic realism has stems from surrealism and early post-colonial novels, short stories, and works of art though magical realism is not limited here. It has been a way to deal with topics that were difficult to talk about, like an oppressive Colombian government or the way a girl could get crushed under old, rural traditions in domestic Mexican life. Other authors like Salman Rushdie and Toni Morrison have implemented it as well. Additionally, the term is not limited to literature. It is an art form, stemming from the 1920s with an art exhibit with pictures that twisted the human face that were called in English New Objectivity. Although magic realism is not quite surrealism as surrealism is more of an art form trying to get to the unconscious, it is a movement that came parallel to it, and was used for the same reason: a way to explore creativity. And magic realism art has done exactly that; by bringing in fantastical elements it has successfully challenged what was considered good art prior to the 20th century while adding a new form of creative expression to the pool of artwork. Like literature it can be both serious and whimsical. It brings the mundane to the magical, as the artwork in “Distortions” shows. Someone mundane, like a girl, is at a train station and then witnessing something magical. The magic is not fantasy as it is bringing magic to reality or the mundane. It is not science fiction as there often is no futuristic world-or if it is one it is one that the viewer or reader is familiar with. Oftentimes, it has a hybridity to it. As all of these stories, poems, and pieces of art show, it is a blend taking what is ordinary and bringing it to life with something extraordinary. As this magazine shows, magic realism is another creative form to express anything from something horrific like death to something simple like a girl washing dishes. It is something that can touch many genres and include darkness and humor much like the role magic realism has played on other literature and art. It is a form, rather than a genre, all trying to bring what is mundane to life.
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Clayton Karloff
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MARCH THIRTY-FIRST by Hannah Deboer
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You’ll Choke (or go up in flames) by Angela Ching She started smoking from her ears. She noticed it when the sheer peach fuzz scattered on her earlobes started to singe, and she smelt the burning. I had to disable all of the smoke detectors in the house. Her head is enveloped in a thick grey cloud, and she’s constantly followed by a trail of nauseating vapors. “Are you okay?” She’ll inhale, cough out half word before she dissolves into hacking fits, trying to gulp for air, only to choke on more smoke. She’s suffocating, and I can’t see her. The Health Department ruled her as a threat to public health, so she’s confined to the house. She sits in the porcelain bathtub her grandmother used in her last years. She leans her head back against the edge of the tub, looking up at the ceiling. Her fingers swirl in the lukewarm bath water; waves push against the white walls then break, creating ripples that swim back like tadpoles to kiss her thighs. Sliding down, she submerges her entire body She can’t tell if drowning from water would be better than suffocating from smoke. She holds her breath and goes under. One, two, three, four. She comes up, and the air bites her dripping cheeks. Fingers of smoke lace her skin and obscure her face once again. Tendrils curl around her collarbone, the ghost of a necklace.
plastic, with a straw protruding from the lid. Her hands reached for me. I took them and slowly stepped into her wall of smoke. I couldn’t see anything, but suddenly I was in her arms, and she was hugging me. I could see her face. That made it a lot harder to give her the cup. She sucked at the straw, taking pull after pull of that golden liquid. Ice cubes knocked together as the cup fell from her hands. “I’m so warm,” she whispered. Her throat sounded raw from inhaling the toxic fumes for so long. She felt the gasoline lighting up every part of her body. She pushed me away from her, and as I stumbled backwards out of her smoke, I heard her say, “Don’t want you to get burned.” The smoke started clearing, and I could see her outline. She was glowing like an ember of coal. The clouds parted, and for half a second, she was the sun; burning bright and golden. Then she was gone.
She had told me she wanted me there for her last meal. Speaking was hard for her, so she had written her request to me on a grocery receipt: A glass of gasoline. Out with a bang, you know? I hadn’t been able to find a fancy glass, so the cup clutched in my hand was 5
Clayton Karloff
An E ve r yda y In ter v iew
Ted was a nervous young man. Always had been. Nervous, that is. From walking into his first kindergarten class to stepping off the stage at his college graduation, it wouldn’t be a lie to describe him as a bundle of nerves. Of course, now he did have cause for concern. He was dressed up in his Sunday’s best, applying for his dream job after all. “Stop fidgeting!” came a sharp feminine tone, cracking like a whip and causing poor Ted to jump. “S-sorry! What were you saying, Ms. Dusa?” Ms. Dusa could only give a sigh before looking back down at the folder on her desk. They were currently in a large and rather wellfurnished office, walls a dark forest green, almost black color, long shelves running the length of the walls, adorned with a number of knickknacks that looked as if they had been plucked right out of Dr. Jones’ museum. While that was interesting, Ted was firmly focused on what was in front of him. Which, in this case, would be the person holding his future in the palm of her hand. Ms. Dusa was a no nonsense type of gal. She ruled her law firm with an iron fist, a voice that would give glaciers the chills, and a gaze that would freeze people where they stood. Despite being dressed in a lime green business suit, said fist, voice, and gaze, plus her eyes were glued to the near panicking young man before her. With her fingers in a steeple gesture and tall windows making up the wall behind her, looking out over the city of New York, painted a very intimidating picture, one that few people would willingly engage in conversation. Too bad little Ted didn’t have that option. “It says here that you graduated at the top of your class, and have previous experience with a unique side of law practice. It also seems that you have a habit of taking… alternate routes of action. I’m sure you know what it is that I’m speaking of?” “Oh, I guess that really is on there too, huh?” Ted nervously laughed, working to avoid her gaze. That had certainly been an awk6
ward day, walking into the wrong courtroom and ending up as the stateappointed defense attorney for a man who most certainly was not his scheduled client. In a panicked daze, he had gone along with it, even going on to win the case for his not-client. A victory certainly, if it was a bit of a fluke. Ms. Dusa rested her chin on her steeple formed fingers, staring at Ted as a snake does to a little bird with a broken wing. Two full minutes passed, as Ted grew more and more nauseous, wondering how long this silent torture would continue. “Okay, you’re in.” Oh God, he was about to vom- wait, what? “Wah?” Ted managed to croak out, not understanding what just happened. “I said you’re in. Done. We have been running low on people willing to nut up in do or die situations. Just don’t screw it up.” Ms. Dusa deadpanned to her newest underling as she extended her hand for him to shake. Ecstatic was one word other than nervous that he could have been described as in that moment, wearing a grin that was nearing hazardous levels. “Thank you thank you Ms. Dusa,” he exclaimed as he eagerly pumped her hand up and down, doing his best to avoid her rather sharp claws, “I swear to you that you won’t regret it! I guarantee it!” “Yes, yes, goody for you,” she grumbled before turning back to her desk to grab a different file. She opened it up before pausing and looking back up. “Well? What do you think you’re still doing here? Move it!” Ms. Dusa snapped, the sound of numerous small hisses filling the room. Not even this, however, would be enough to dislodge that smile that may very well have been carved into his face at this point. “You got it, boss! Leave it to me!” Ted then took his leave, grinning all the way. After all the blood, sweat, and tears, he had finally reached the top. 7
Olympia rising a blog by Jackson Pollock HOME
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9/4/20XX
I’m not going to apologize. So forget about that. What I am going to do is win, and win right.
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I’ve spoken with journalists. I’ve been in the forums. I know how what we do as athletes are shown, and how it’s interpreted. I’m not going to change how you’re shown me. I’ll just try to give you a different perspective. I’m not going to prove to you that I’m honest about what I’m doing. To be honest, I don’t want to be honest. In my profession, the honest man tends to end up with the lowest score. What I am going to do is be transparent. The Olympics are in four short years, and I intend on breaking gold, media breathing down my neck and all. And I’m gonna do it 100% clean. Some of you might think it’s impossible. I ain’t a snitch, but let’s just say I’m not the only one whose hair was catching on fire the night before the show. Up against the raw power, most of my competition will have, it’ll be hard. But don’t underestimate what I can do. I was better than half of these guys before I ever started using crystals, and I’ll still be the best now that I’m off. My aura is more powerful than anyone in history. I’m going to show each and every one of you how to train an aura to an Olympic tier without using a single crystal. I’ll keep everyone of you posted on what training I’m doing, what I’m eating, and who I’m reading. The only thing the public won’t see is my routine. I have to save something for the stage, right? My specifics will come out tomorrow. Until then, try and figure out just what I think I’m doing. 8
Previous posts August 8/26/20XX 8/14/20XX 8/11/20XX 8/2/20XX July 7/31/20XX 7/28/20XX 7/20/20XX 7/13/20XX 7/9/20XX 7/1/20XX June 6/25/20XX 6/24/20XX 6/19/20XX 6/4/20XX May 5/29/20XX 5/12/20XX 5/3/20XX
Jackson stood in the training quarry he’d be beginning his day in. He wanted to work on his aura first, so he’d have the whole day to rest mentally. When his head personal trainer came up to him with the program, he was almost offended by what was handed to him. “Alright Jack, here’s the program. I brought the difficulty down a bit below what someone on your level would need just to ease you into it, but this should be perfect for what you’re trying to pull off.” Normally, Jack wouldn’t care if his trainer lowered the difficulty a bit. This was the man that got him to silver the past two tournaments, he trusted his judgment. But he couldn’t believe what he was reading. “Boss… are you serious? This is… pathetic! Three hours of body conditioning? Two hours of aura conditioning? Four hours of routine execution? I did more than this when I was a rookie! I know I’m no what I used to be, but this is insulting.” “Son,” the old man said, a knowing wink in his eye, “read the details.” Jack squinted at the exact exercises they’d be doing during body conditioning that day. (a) Part 1 (i) 5 maximum vertical jumps, no aura (ii) Warrior pose, 5 breaths (b) Part 2 (i) Headstand pushup 2X5 (ii) Deadlift 3 rep max (iii) Parivrtta Surya Yantrasana (c) Part 3 (i) aura muscle up 2X5 (ii) Squat 3 rep max (iii) Hip thrust holds 3X5 (d) Part 4 (i) Grip training max (ii) 40 meter sprint “We’re trying to go for intense low reps and dynamic movements on everything you do in your training” the veteran trainer went on. “We can’t just dump as many exercises on you as we want anymore, since without the crystals you can’t recover as quickly. This program is meant to maximize your athleticism.You’re resting 4 days a week.” Jack paused for a moment. This was clearly more intense in terms of the weight he was moving and the movements he’d be practicing. Even the aura work involved using more raw power in more complex ways. But it was still such a huge drop in what he was used to he couldn’t wrap his head around it. “I’ll finish the body work in two hours,” he declared. “Let’s get to work on the aura stuff.” “We’ll see. Show me what you can do right now, we’ll work off that.” Jack moved towards the center of the quarry. He widened his stance to shoulder length,
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stretched his arms out parallel to the ground, and focused. He felt a fire course through his body and ice surround it. He felt lighting sparking throughout his brain as a clear blue light begin to glow around him. The light expanded from his body, perfectly translucent and precisely shaped in a crystalline cocoon. The trainer let out a low whistle. The power was evident to anyone who glanced at him. His body began to ascend skyward, slowly; with the structure of energy surrounding him growing with each foot. When he reached the top of his ascent, fifteen feet off the ground, he was blindingly bright. The rocky quarry had faded away from Jacks sight. All there was was aura. His concentration was purely on maintaining his height and his shape. Without warning, the energy surrounding him vanished, and his body fell. A rod of energy appeared down his descent that he grabbed as he fell. A small burst behind him swung him around the bar his initial height, where he froze again. This time, his aura took the shape of a cross, and he faced the ground and held the position for a painfully long time. He wasn’t used to facing mental strain this early in the exercise. The trainer shook his head looking on in quiet awe. After all these years he was still surprised. But he knew it was below Jack’s standards. The technique was shaky, and the power a bit soft. The cross vanished and he hurtled towards the ground again. He completed one, two, three turns before a bar of energy appeared again, but this time something was wrong. It was too small, and cloudy. Still, he grabbed the bar, and managed to propel himself to his height again. Now the shape was that of a diamond, encasing his body. The aura was cloudier, and not as bright, and you could see the strain on him. “Hold!” the trainer below shouted “Hold! You need to rest after this, you can’t give up now! Five minutes!” Jacks expression of consternation changed to one of determination. The clouds faded from his diamond, and the walls seemed to grow ten feet higher. He held his pose for one minute. Then two. The seconds dragged on, and the trainer below began to get a sympathy headache for his pupil. But still, he persisted. Through five minutes. Six. Seven. The diamond disappeared by the eighth minute and Jacks body hurtled towards the ground. Rather than a rod appearing this time, a small plane appeared on jack’s stomach, which he used to slow his limp body down as he fell. His trainer looked him in the eye when he reached the ground. His stubborn burst had burst a small vein there, and blood dribbled down his cheek. “What did I tell ya, kid?” the trainer scolded Jack as he wiped the blood away. “You can’t just keep holding on like that.” Jack fell into the man’s arms, breathing heavily. The feeling was so perplexing, his body being perfectly fine but his mind being exhausted. As he recovered, and the pain in his head subsided, he couldn’t help but kick himself. He had wanted to stay up for ten.
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blog post draft
Q&A : 7/15/20XX [2 years before the Olympics] I’ve gotten a lot of new readers over the past week or so with the article being published on me (thanks Sierra!), and as such I’ve gotten many of the questions newer readers tend to ask. Rather than dig through individual questions, I decided to answer the one’s I’ve been seeing the most. I hope this is interesting! How long will this blog be running? I plan on running it through my next Olympics. I’ll see how I feel after it, but I think I won’t have a need for a training blog after that. What’s your update schedule? I try to update each week after church on Sunday, my rest day. I might update in the middle of the week if something particularly interesting happens, but otherwise look for new posts Sunday at noon. How has training been going? Weirdly. I’ve had to seriously adjust how I train, how I perform, even the types of performance I do. Every day I train I’m going to bed sore, every time I use my aura for anything now I get a headache. The cravings for crystals have been almost unbearable. Honestly, the only reason I haven’t broken already is because I can’t buy them anymore. But other than that I’ve been alright. I am getting stronger, slowly but surely. Most of the cravings are emotional, so I can eventually ignore them. And the way my routine’s been evolving has been interesting Speaking of which… What changes have you had to make to your routine? I’ve tried not to change much. I want to clarify some language, my ‘program’ is what I’m doing to train my body and aura, my ‘routine’ is what I do when I perform. I can’t tell you my routine for obvious reasons, but I can say that the core has stayed the same. My trainer doesn’t think it’s sustainable, and wants to make moves. I’m going to be experimenting at the world qualifiers next year; I have to see how what we’re doing goes over with judges in the field. I doubt the untrained eye could tell what exactly I’m adding. What I can say is that right now I lack the raw power to do my full routine last year, so I’m tweaking how I move and the shapes I do to be more efficient. For instance, any shape I form with my aura will be big, or complex, never both. I’ll also be moving between forms much quicker than my competition. If I give anything more I think my choreographer will choke me. When will your next public appearance be? A few weeks, I’m running a camp down in my hometown. It’s a great event, and the profits will be used to found a gymnastics club in the area. That’s all for tonight, I need to rest. I’ll answer more tomorrow
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No matter how many times he performed, no matter what stage it was on. He still got butterflies standing on that platform. He brought his legs close together and crossed his arms across his chest. Images of dancing warriors raced across his mind’s eye. Blue emanated from his body, moving up like flames. His eyes glassed over with a glowing turquoise, and slowly his body rose. As he went towards the top, the flames began to accelerate and twist around him. Shadows splayed across his body, giving the illusion of size. His body and mind were steady. His arms and legs stretched out like a ballet dancer. He entered the warrior pose, and the flames expanded to a clear blue sphere. The sphere disappeared and his body flew towards the ground. A long, thin rod of light appeared. Using his body, he swung his weight around. His legs bent slightly, his back flexed, and his momentum was weakened. Hurriedly pouring aura into himself to get his spin on track, he released at the apex of momentum. He glanced at the judges table, praying they didn’t see his slip. His body stopped suddenly. Two small cuffs gripped his ankles, suspending him upside down in the air. Clenching his teeth, he began to twist his body, moving so he was nearly parallel to the ground facing down. He tried to hold the position for a minute, but soon dropped again. Desperately controlling his body, Jack slowed his descent with his aura. His mind was swimming at a time where even a moment’s lapse in focus could be fatal. He gripped the bar he created. He swung one. He Swung Twice. He swung three times and launched himself into the air to meet the form of a cross. The music of the show found its rhythm. One time he would use his aura to spin and twist the shapes. One time he’d show the strength of his body by holding intense positions. The mistakes were minor. But each one added a weight to his mind. As he fell down once more and gripped the rod, rather than fly back up he stayed. He swung up and down, moving his body and legs dramatically, pulling off painful holds. Sweat poured down his arms and sizzled as it touched the beam of energy between his fingers. He moved quicker and quicker around the rod, gaining speed, moved along by his aura. Finally he released, twisting and turning in the air. His legs kicked out as he stuck the landing on his hands. But it wasn’t enough, and he fell onto has face As he goes onto his feet, he threw a cautious glance at the judges. He knew his routine wasn’t what they traditionally saw. The trainer ran up to meet his pupil and brought him over to the side. Throwing an arm around Jack’s shoulder, he said “You did great! All we gotta do is wait,” in an almost forcefully jovial tone. But as Jack’s body began to dry, and the results of the tournament came in, water poured down his face.
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blog post draft
Dealing With Setbacks : 7/12/20XX [1 day before the competition] I wanted to take a minute to thank you all for this. I don’t think I’d have made it this far without you. I know you thought it would end at any moment. Between my history, my attitude, and my less than stellar performance last year, things looked rough. But your constant support has really helped me. That performance last year was brutal. I made mistakes. I failed. It’s honestly a miracle I didn’t get last place and disqualified from the Olympics. That night I couldn’t sleep. All that went through my head was the show. Every time my back arched, every time my aura wavered and clouded. The way my will felt like it was breaking every second I was up there. I’m sorry. It was a bad performance on my part, and I let everyone down. I’m sorry. What’s important is was what it taught us. Some of you have already noticed what I did in the routine, and we saw how judges responded to our experiments in a contest setting. It’s given us the green light to finalize and perfect my program. I’d show some video of what we’ve done, but you’ll see tomorrow. Physically, I’m as good as ever. What my aura might lack now, my body makes up for. Mind you this is still while my aura is stronger than about half of the competition I’ll be facing. My routine is almost a part of me at this point. Tomorrow will be interesting. I’m not sure what will happen. Maybe I’ll win. Maybe I’ll lose. Pray for me everyone. That’s all for tonight, I need to rest. I’ll answer more tomorrow
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There was something mesmerizing about watching an Olympian. The way the body seemed to move glide rather than move. How each move was slow and powerful, precise and planned. Each moment seemed like a delicately painted masterpiece, structured in renaissance form and painted with deep, vibrant colors. As his rival touched down on the stand and threw a smug glance at Jack, jack found the anxiety he’d been pushing away all day creep back into his heart. “What an amazing performance! Nines across the board! Any other year it’d be enough for gold, but today it will only get him into second place. Now for our final athlete. He needs no introduction! Give it up, in his final Olympic performance, Jack Müller!” Jack strode out onto to the stage, shaking his arms out. “Begin when ready!” Jack’s lips moved without sound. Taking a deep breath, he began. Instead of rising, he began to move. He crouched low, stepping forward then back, sweeping across his platform as he found his rhythm. The beat quickened, his body shifting and turning. Now he touched the ground, now he twisted on his hands. He turned, almost parallel to the ground. His left foot struck the ground, and an explosion erupted him into the air. Now he twisted in a twirling melody, his aura a symphony of the sky. Here he rolled, there he turned. Now he was five feet in the air. Then ten. Twenty. Here his movement was cut off in an explosion of power, with aura calling across the stadium, touching all who saw. His stillness was only for a measure, and he began to accelerate downwards. Pristine blue light appeared around him, crescendoing with every inch he fell. Now he stopped, gripping a long, thin bar of light. He moved and struck a pose, one foot stretching out in front of his body and the other behind. He pushed off with his hands, and pulled himself skywards once more with his aura Jack became lost in the music of his show. The audience blurred and thinned, until it disappeared from his sight all together. All there was to him was mind and body, aura and power, and perpetual movement. Each rise to the top was accented with an explosion of light. Each pose he held staccato, adding to the syncopation his show had with the others. If he had made a mistake, he didn’t know. Neither did the judges. Every eye in the stadium was on him, lost in the dance. Jack ended the show with a brilliant stinger, hurtling his body to the ground in a cone of light. He stuck the landing, his arms outstretched like the conductor of the symphony he had just performed, and the cone burst out into the field. He lowered his arms, and the audience erupted in applause. He fell back onto the platform, exhausted. All that was left in him was love and joy. A grin was glued to his face as he walked away, knowing that everything had been changed. A natural athlete had just gotten the most applause of the night. A mad cap spectacle of motion and excitement was the finale for a show known for its dignified and slow performance. For the first time in almost four years, Jack had had fun. 14
“Endless Strip” Shelby Kahr 15
Learning to Count Two days ago my brother grew mouse ears. With brown tufts sprouting from his scalp, he laughed, and pranced around the kitchen. Eight years had not prepared him for acute rodent hearing, fleas, or the kids who held him down by the swing set and slashed his ears wide open. When he came to me, a gradient of blood was smeared down his fleshy cheek and a streak of spittle clumsily wiped from his eye. I told him to sit outside in the warm summer air and listen to the bugs sift through the soil. He’s lying on his side, eye to eye with the blades of grass. I’m bandaging his ears and humming. The firefly crawling up his calf will be dead in the morning. Mice can live for three years. I don’t know what to do, so I hum and he listens.
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Skimming Stones
by Christina Callaghan
There was always a man. He stared out to sea through the weathered folds of his eyes, the shale strip separating him from her foaming perimeter was a mile wide, and yet no distance. Just a narrow landing in a terrace house. He waited. He felt the vastness of her as she swelled and heaved. He longed to yield to her charge of white horses, but still, he waited. It was like skimming stones; you had to know when to let go. He remembered the stories of the Selkie seal women, who left the sea and cast off their skins to dance in the light of the full moon, before disappearing back into her dark heart. He remembered the sirens, who called sailors to their deaths on the rocks. The sea was full of stories, as tall as the tall ships of the South, and even more beautiful. He hoped his story would be remembered for what it was; a man without a heart, but a man, just the same. As he stood, unmoving, her feathered edge whispered nearer, a thousand white fingers crawling across the moss green carpet. Soon, he would be ready. Ready to rest his hand against her long forgotten door, to give it the gentlest push. Things were in motion now, he couldn’t go back because he had already begun remembering. Distorted vignettes of her would twist into focus, through the weeds and brackish waters, projecting across his skull, tugging at his bones, filling his empty ribcage. He could no longer tell if it was he or her that moved, but as he crossed the threshold, the event horizon, his shoes filled with icy water. She showed him small things at first, things he had buried near to the surface. A diary from 93’, school books, gym shoes. She was up to his knees now, making him unsteady. Pencil drawings of horses, an electric guitar, a rock band poster. Creeping past his waist the chill of her stole the breath from his tired lungs. A messy bed, hair dye on the pillow, a dinner plate with a few stale crumbs. Her hair wrapped his throat in black, glacial ribbons. He heaved one last breath without her, before sinkingto her inky bowels, staining skin and fingernails blue, filling lungs with salt and metal.
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“Green Thoughts” Shelby Kahr 18
Rose Hill Garden Awards
by Emily Benes
The rivalry had started eight years ago. Before then, Gladys Fields had won the Rose Hills Neighborhood Best Garden Award eleven years in a row. There had never been any competition; Gladys’ flowers were unparalleled. Each flower bed in the front yard was carefully weeded and mirrored over the cobbled walk leading from the sidewalk to her front door. The backyard had a delicate patio with a clean bench, surrounded by neatly arranged flowers. There were blanket flowers and black-eyed Susans, chrysanthemums and Veronicas, zinnias and red roses. The bushes that lined her lawn were perfect rectangles and the grass was uniformly cut. The lone tree in her front yard, a tall apple tree, was meticulously trimmed. Everything had its place. The perennials were regularly replenished, and the annuals were replaced by the same flower every spring. It was rare to see a fallen leaf or dying plant, as Gladys’ watchful eye was quick to act on any irregularity in her yard. The only differences year to year were the colors of the plants and the way they grew naturally, but even those details were closely monitored by Gladys. Every year, she received a high score from the judges of the Rose Hills Neighborhood Garden Association. The actual number varied year to year, depending on how the weather had been, but Gladys’ score was always the highest given. The last year of her win streak had been like any other. The yard was an organized mix of green grass, brown mulch, and bright flowers. Everything was properly watered and pruned. Nothing was out of place. That year, Gladys received a rating of nine out of ten, her highest yet. The head of the Rose Hills Neighborhood Garden Association was Professor Chambal, a professor of botany at the local college. He gave Gladys a 9.5, complimenting her chrysanthemums in particular. Mrs. Novak, who owned a flower shop downtown, gave Gladys a 9 and asked her to assist with a flower arrangement class she was offering. 11G-x39, a sentient VCR player, said, “01110011 01111001 01101101 01101101 01100101 01110100 01110010 01101001 01100011 01100001 01101100 00100000 01100111 01100001 01110010 01100100 01100101 01101110 00100000 00111001 00100000 01110000 01101111 01101001 01101110 01110100 01110011”. The ghost that haunted the Green Lake Supermarket had only tilted her head back and screamed for a solid minute, which the Association decoded as 8.5 19
points. Diana Withers, local celebrity and star of the community theater, gave Gladys 9 points and a flyer to the theater’s upcoming production of Cats. That winter, the Perkinson house finally sold. Gladys noticed it on her daily walk sometime in mid-November. It was one of the oldest houses in the neighborhood and had sat empty for more than twenty years. The blue siding was worn and peeling. The lawn was overrun with weeds. The once red letters of the “For Sale” sign in the front yard had faded almost completely away, leaving an off-white sign that had been graffitied several times. Over this, a piece of cardboard with the word “Sold” had been plastered. Gladys had noted the change in ownership, anxious to see the yard cleaned up, but sure it would never rival her own. For eight long months, nothing seemed to happen. The weeds were buried in snow over the winter, and come spring they grew just as they always had. Although the sign disappeared, and lights could be seen in the house, Gladys had yet to meet the new neighbors. Day after day she passed by the house, until eventually her interest waned, and the building faded into yet another feature of her morning walk. Meanwhile, she tended to her yard faithfully. And then, a week before the Rose Hills Neighborhood Garden Association began judging, the yard of the old Perkinson house changed overnight. On Monday when Gladys passed by, it was the same weed-covered, yellowish yard it had been for years. On Tuesday, it was completely transformed. The entire front lawn had been torn out and replaced with flowers of more varieties than Gladys could count. There were irises and snapdragons and bleeding hearts growing beside marigolds and hydrangeas and tulips. What looked to be sunflowers could be seen from the back yard. A cherry tree that hadn’t been there before stood towering over a bed of forget-me-nots. The entire yard was a chaos of color and shapes and smells, and it was perfect. A small crowd had gathered on the sidewalk. Most people simply gazed in awe at the garden before them. Occasionally someone would begin to whisper to the person next to them, but their voice would quickly die off. Gladys froze and frowned. She stomped quickly over to the edge of the property, her arms crossed. She cleared her throat several times but found she, too, was unable to find the words. She bent down, glaring at the plants. The ground around them was undisturbed, as though they had been there for months. Gladys straightened up, giving the garden one last scowl before retreating to her house. There was nothing she could do this close to the competition date but watch her garden. When the results were announced the following week, Gladys found herself in second place for the first time since she had retired, with a score of only 8.1. What had been “stunning” and “01101111 01110010 01100111 01100001 01101110 01101001 01111010 01100101 01100100” only the year before was suddenly “predictable” and “cliche”. She had lost to the new owner of the old Perkinson house. She still hadn’t met them, but their garden was “innovative” and “inspired” and “01101001 01101101 01110000 01110010 01100101 01110011 01110011 01101001 01110110 01100101 00100000 01110110 01100001 01110010 01101001 20
01100101 01110100 01111001”. The ghost that haunted the Green Lake Supermarket had merely made a high pitched humming noise and overturned every box of cereal in the Supermarket. Overall, far more positive responses than Gladys had ever received. The competition continued that way for the next seven years. Gladys would spend the whole year tending to her garden. After losing for a second year, she began to plan her garden in the winters and come spring she would replant it. She added Russian Sage and daylilies, peonies and blue stars. Sometimes she planted coneflowers and petunias. She changed the colors and varieties of flowers she planted. Nothing seemed to work. The lawn of the old Perkinson house (despite new ownership, the name stuck) would grow unchecked for months. Neighbors would complain, and only the scorching heat kept the weeds from hiding the house. Then, one week before the competition, the yard would transform into an organized, original garden the looked as though it had stood there for years. Each competition, the garden featured a new theme. One year it was a vegetable garden. Peas and pumpkins grew side by side, despite the fact that neither was in season. Vines hung heavy with tomatoes and cucumbers, mature despite their recent planting. The backyard boasted a small cornfield and sprawling squash plants lined the sidewalks. The day after the competition, every house on the same block received a paper sack of vegetables and the garden was abandoned. Another year it was dominated by desert shrubs and flowers. There were sand verbenas and African daisies and miniature wool stars. Indian paintbrushes stood beside sego lilies and royal penstemons. Some cacti were spread throughout the lawn; several of them, including a towering saguaro, sporting delicate flowers. The seventh year, however, was the last straw for Gladys. In an attempt to do something different, she’d only planted yellow flowers. There were daylilies again, and she’d added goldenrod next to the house. Coreopsis flowers lined the walk to the house, and she’d planted yellow rose bushes next to the red roses. Daffodils and marigolds and carnations covered the lawn, and she’d even gone so far as to add a prickly pear cactus. And then the old Perkinson house won with a statue garden. When Gladys read the results she had stomped right up to Professor Chambal’s door and demanded an explanation. “They aren’t even plants,” she’d said. “I let the vegetables go, but statues?” “Technically,” he began, “it’s an award for the Best Garden. The type of garden isn’t specified. And there were plants.You know. Grass… a few flowers around the base of that one statue…” His voice trailed off, and he gave Gladys a bored look. “You’ve just got to try harder, Mrs. Fields,” he said before closing the door. The other judges were less helpful. Mrs. Novak claimed she had voted for Gladys, but wouldn’t stop talking about her favorite sculpture. Diana Withers, local celebrity, went on and on about the dramatic and artistic qualities of the garden. All she could get from 11G-x39 was “01101001 00100000 01110000 01110010 01100101 01100110 01100101 01110010 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01100011 01101111 01101100 01100100,” and she didn’t 21
want to bother the ghost that haunted the Green Lake Supermarket. Gladys spent the entire winter pouring over books. At first, they were the same trusty gardening manuals and seed catalogs she’d had for years. Then she began checking books out from the library. Ms. Anderson, the librarian, joked that she must have read every gardening book in the library and at least half of the speculative magic books. Her garden was carefully planned, the entirety of her yard now covered in flowers, each a different shade of blue or purple or white. Lavender and allium and pansies and catmint were planted beside delphiniums and brunneras and cup flowers and Queen Anne’s lace. There were morning glories and daisies and daturas and lily-of-the-valleys next to clematis and led plants and bellflowers and asters. It seemed as if Gladys had raided a flower shop. A carpet of blues and purples and whites covered her lawn, seamlessly shifting from one color to the next. Her win should have been a guarantee. But each person who walked by couldn’t help but bring up the old Perkinson house. The garden was as overgrown as ever; the sculptures from the previous year choked by weeds and covered in a fine layer of dust. Everyone waited to see how the garden would be reimagined again, their anticipation growing as the summer progressed. And then, two weeks before the Rose Hills Neighborhood Garden Association began judging, a pair of flowers appeared in the center of Gladys’ garden overnight. The blooms were nearly six inches wide and a deep red color. They didn’t quite look like any flowers even the most experienced botanists had seen. There were numerous petals, reminiscent of chrysanthemums or carnations, but each one was long and pointed, almost like those of a lily, but not quite. Thick stems held the flowers several inches above the surrounding plants. Gladys claimed she had no idea where the flowers came from, or what variety they were. Someone suggested the blooms were a hybrid of several plants. Gladys simply shrugged and smiled. A week later, the neighborhood was surprised to find the old Perkinson house unchanged. The garden was the same overgrown, tangled chaos of weeds it had been. No one was surprised when Gladys won the Rose Hills Neighborhood Best Garden Award. Professor Chambal said her garden was “a botanical masterpiece.” Mrs. Novak said it was a “delight to the senses.” 11G-x39 called the Garden “01110011 01110101 01110011 01110000 01101001 01100011 01101001 01101111 01110101 01110011” and “01110011 01101111 01101101 01100101 01110100 01101000 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01110111 01110010 01101111 01101110 01100111”. The ghost that haunted the Green Lake Supermarket had emitted a low rumbling noise, her eyes fixed on the red flowers the entire time the judging was taking place. Diana Withers, local celebrity, called it “a creative inspiration” and almost forgot to mention the community playhouse’s upcoming production of Next to Normal. Almost. Gladys accepted the award gracefully. When pressed for a comment, she had only one thing to say. “It’s a miracle. Simply a miracle.” 22
Tanner Reckling
23
The People Who Aren’t People by Nicholas Olson
He takes his son’s robotic homunculus “ and sets it on the scuffed nightstand. His eye sockets are darkened graves.
24
”
On the shore, all you can hear is the sound of the tide coming in: wish-wash, wish-wash. The sun is a brillo-scuffed marble suspended behind a steamy shower door. The birds circle inky water, waiting for the divers to surface for breath when they will peck at already-scarred scalps and sustain themselves off of the flesh they find there. There’s no other food for them. An unincorporated bedroom sits at the spot where sand meets water; the waves lap in under the bed and opens the doors of the armoire, where mildewy clothing hangs limply on rusting hangers. It all smells of salt. Nothing of the rest of the house remains, except an ascending corkscrew staircase that leads from the bedroom door up into the featureless sky. At the top of the stairs stands Abel. Seafoam clings to the rags that clothe him, plastered to his frail body by the mist that hangs over everything. He looks out past the shore, hand over eyebrows, for a sign of something–anything–other than endless water. His son, in the bed on the floor below him, calls “Papa, Papa” in a parched singsong, like a scarecrow who just learned how to talk. He goes to him. Abel’s son collects discarded video cards, filament-less light bulbs, bits of frayed copper wiring. Right now the pieces are collected and connected in the form of a tiny automaton, with diodes for eyes and AV cables for limbs. He stifles a cough, pulls the robot up to his ruddy face and breathes warmth onto it to keep away the incessant mist. Far away and behind the boy, a diver surfaces, gulps air, dives again before any of the birds can attack.
“Tell me about the people who aren’t people.” The bed is the type with taffeta curtain running around it, thin enough to turn everything beyond it into a dusky golden version of itself. Abel encloses himself with his son, tries to ignore the pained screams of a diver too greedy for air to dip again in time. “You are sick.You should sleep.” “But I want to hear the story about the people who aren’t people. I’m not too sick to hear the story, Papa. I promise.” A gust of wind eddies the sand, and sends it onto Abel’s bare feet. He kicks the grains away, but some of them stubbornly cling to his sole. His toenails are yellowed, dog-eared pages in a book that hasn’t been read in years. He takes his son’s robotic homunculus and sets it on the scuffed nightstand. His eye sockets are darkened graves. “A long time ago, before the mist and the flood and the broken buildings, there were people everywhere. People so numerous you couldn’t even count them all.” His son’s eyes go wide. This happens every time, no matter how often the story is told. “The streets were filled with people. There were so many people that they had cars to drive themselves to where they needed to go. There were too many people for them to walk, even. There were so many people that they sent them up in great ships out past the sky and into the stars. There were so many people that they sent the bad ones to islands in the sea to starve. There were so many people that they took down buildings with people in them and built more buildings over the ones they took down. There were so, 25
so, so many people.” “How many people, Papa?” “So, so, so, so, so, so, so many people. So, so many. So many that they needed to figure out who among the people weren’t people so that they could get rid of them.” “How could they be people, but not people, Papa?” “Anything can become true if enough people say it is. So they found the people who weren’t people, and they killed them. But there were still so, so, so, so, so many people.” “How many people?” “So many that they decided there must be even more people who weren’t people than they first thought. So they broadened their definition and killed many more people. They pushed the people from cliffs. They hanged them. They shot them until the bullets started to run out. But there were still so many people.” “How many people, Papa?” “So many people that they took the souls of people and put them into stone, where they could be locked up until there was more room for people again.” The robot shifts on the nightstand. The taffeta curtain rustles. “When they put their souls into stone, their bodies were burned or set into the sea or buried up where they’d never be seen again.” “And that’s where mother is? In the stone?” Abel’s beard brushes against his caved-in chest as he nods, at the place where the rags give way to skin, the transition indefinite and hazy as the fog all around them. “We’re going to bring her back.” Abel lifts his son from the bed and slings him over his shoulder. His feet sink into the sand as he leaves the bedroom behind, the birds still circling and the tide as it goes in and out, wish-wash, over and over and over. And over.
26
SISTERS DEAR by Breann McCoy
“Thanks for coming over on such short notice, Erin.You’re literally a life-saver.” The mature woman with graying hair laughed at her own joke and stood aside so Erin could enter. “John’s going to be out of town until Friday and the hospital called me in for a surprise graveyard shift. It seems there was a nasty car pile-up, and they don’t have enough hands to help everyone.” “It’s no problem, Mrs. Anderson. I figured you wouldn’t have called this late unless it was an emergency. I wasn’t doing anything exciting anyway, just homework-stuff.” “Well, you can always sit at the kitchen table and finish it up. The twins are upstairs. They should be sleeping by now.” She plucked a ring of keys and a name tag out of the bowl on the table by the door. “There’s some leftover chicken and potatoes in the fridge if you’re hungry. I’ll see you later… hopefully not too late…” Her last words were muffled by the door closing behind her and a groan of exasperation. Erin breathed a deep sigh as she fell on the couch, letting her bag slide down the side. There was no goddamned way she was going to pick up calculus again at almost ten-thirty at night. Digging around in the couch cushions, 27
room with barely a sound, all-the-while clutching an over-sized stuffed bear. At least, it was oversized compared to her. The little girl had left the braids in her deep red hair, and they swung like hangman’s ropes when she turned her head to look at Erin. Her electric green eyes were almost as shiny and lifeless as her bear’s black beads. “Hi Erin, what’re you doing here?” She asked in a voice raspy from sleep. “Where’s mommy?” Something in her tone didn’t suggest that she cared. “Hi, Annie.” Erin tried to sound cheerful, but with the mixture of fatigue, surprise, and mild annoyance, it was difficult. “Your mom’s working at the hospital. A lot of people got hurt, and they told her she had to come help.” The expression on the six-year-olds face echoed the same apathy as her tone as if to say “I didn’t ask for her life-story.” She just watched the woman sitting on her family’s couch until she was done speaking. “Okay.”, was her only response. “Don’t you think you should go back to bed? It’s really late.” Erin tried to sound stern, but to her ears, it came off as purely worn-out. “I know how late it is,” Anne said matter-of-factly. “But I’m thirsty. And so is Marmashe retrieved the remote and turned on the large lade.” television. It blinked to life and spat out the news From the gesture she made, Erin gathered of the day. A little boy murdered on a playground in that Annie was talking about the bear. Examining the park near Westlington University. She shivered it for the first time, she noticed what color it was, a little, knowing exactly where the playground was. a rich, amber-cream color. The name Marmalade Erin had been going to Westlington University for was quite fitting. It wore a blue bow pinned to its three years now and passed it countless times. It’s right ear, somehow giving it a quizzical look. Like it so different when tragedy strikes a place you see too was interrogating her, silently asking questions every day and not some distant land you’ve never and judging the answers for itself. She shook the planned to visit. thought away, telling herself stuffed animals can’t She ran sleepy fingers through her thin look inquisitive, or like anything else beyond cute, blonde hair that curled around her ears and neck. blank faces. Her eyes were heavy with the strain of reading and “Okay, you can have a glass of milk, but then driving in the dark. She could easily have fallen you should go back to bed.” Erin walked the little asleep on the couch if something hadn’t creaked and girl into the kitchen and poured her the milk. When shaken her from ease. Anne had drained the glass, she took the glass back Erin struggled to sit up and push herself off from the girl and set it near the sink. the sofa, but before she could get to her feet, she Anne went back upstairs without further was presented with the cause of her alarm. Anne, protest and Erin reestablished herself on the sofa. one of her charges for the evening was out of bed. The news had ended and had been replaced by a reThe girl had crept down the stairs and into the living run of one of those old black and white shows about 28
a Norman Rockwell-esque, a perfect family who punish their kids by talking to them and asking them to think about what they’ve done. What bullshit. Her eyes started to grow heavy again, and the words coming out of the TV weren’t making sense anymore. She let go of herself and surrendered to the darkness and quiet. Erin didn’t remember waking up, but if she had, it was very suddenly. Her eyes were staring up into Anne’s luminous green ones. She couldn’t understand what the child was saying, but there were soft noises. Suddenly, there was something in Erin’s hands. A long, wooden stick of some kind. She didn’t know the feeling of it, but whatever it was, it was smooth. Finally, the words were becoming clearer. She could hear what Anne was trying to say. “There’s something wrong with Molly. There’s something wrong with her, Erin. You have to come upstairs. You have to help her.” The words were insistent and stern, sterner than Erin could ever be. They coaxed Erin off the couch and onto her feet. Somehow, even though Anne was at least two feet shorter than she was, her eyes still consumed Erin’s vision. All she could see were two green flashes in the darkness. Her legs were not propelled under her power. It was as though something was pushing her onward, over the rough carpet of the living room and up the wooden stairs. She could feel it all under her feet, but could see none of it. At the top of the stairs, she hung a right and stopped. At this point, Erin had no idea where she was. She could have been anywhere in the house as far as her mind was concerned, but a small instinct told her she was outside the girls’ room. It was confirmed when Anne’s voice told her to open the door. Erin could feel herself sweat, like ice chips swimming down her face and back. What was wrong with her? If Molly was in danger, shouldn’t she open the door and try to help? Wasn’t that what her job as a babysitter was meant to be? But something in the pit of her stomach refused to open the door on Anne’s command. Resistance was pushing the folds of her brain here and there to de-wrinkle her judgment. This six-year-old girl was giving
her an order, and she was taking it. What was the matter with her? Why was it that she couldn’t see anything beyond these two green marbles floating in the blackness? And what on earth was this thing in her hands? “Open the door, Erin!” Anne’s voice was much louder than it had been all evening, and it was with the force of her cry that one of Erin’s hands finally released whatever she was holding to the care of her other hand and reached for the knob. It was just as cold as her hand. The door opened, and she was carried to the room. The two green lanterns eating her vision burned intensely bright and died like a supernova. There was nothing but shadows under the rays of moonlight seeping in from the girls’ bedroom window. A pile of blankets was huddled in one of the beds while the other lay empty. The blankets within the first bed writhed and gave way to an unspeakable figure. Erin had never seen anything like it in her life. The blankets fell away to reveal a twisted, nearly fleshless being, covering its face with a hand of knotted fingers. Long, black fingernails dug into the scarce skin of its head and into the sockets where eyes should have been. What little hair there was to be spoken of was tufted and gray, like mouse fur in little patches. It stirred and cast its eyeless sockets up at her, bearing its teeth and smacking dry, bleeding lips. A small sound climbed out of its throat before Erin let out a shriek to drown it out in the night air. She raised the thing in her hands and brought it down and down and down again with such ferocity; it crushed the monstrosity into a gelatinous, bleeding paste sprinkled with slivers of bone. It pooled in the blankets, seeped into the sheets and was spit everywhere else, including all over Erin. When she was sure it was decimated, she turned behind her to find Anne, but she was nowhere in the hall. Her gaze flew around the dark room, but her ears caught the sound of the rocking chair before her eyes could catch up. Anne was rocking to and fro with Marmalade in her lap, stroking the soft fur of its head. A tiny smile played on her rosehip lips. She looked quite pleased, like the cat that’d swallowed the canary. “Annie! Annie! Where’s Molly? Is she okay? 29
Are you both okay?” In her panic, Erin had lost her breath. Wordlessly, Anne pointed a little finger back to the bed where Erin had bravely slain the miserable creature. But there was no monster there now. All the blood, the bone, the gore she’d spattered was still there. The sheets and blankets were still drinking it and dribbling it onto the floor. But the monster had become, or always may have been, another little girl. One that used to look just like Anne. “Look what you’ve done, Erin!” Anne chided, wagging her finger the way she’d seen her mother do whenever she was scolding one of them. “You’re going to be in so much trouble.” “Whaa- whaaa- Idonunder…” Erin couldn’t form words to use against her. She didn’t know who was more damned, herself for killing an innocent little girl, or Anne for laughing about it. The strain of it threw her to her knees. She leaned against the ruined Pink Pony dressings of Molly’s deathbed. She couldn’t manage to speak, but with flooding eyes she begged to know, “why?” “I hated her! I hated her so much! I’ve wanted her to go away for a long time. I was going to get mommy to do it, but then she’d get taken away, and I wouldn’t see her again. That’d be stupid. But then you came. I knew I could get you to do it. Just like I got that boy on the playground to kill Jeffrey. I hated Jeffrey! He pushed me in the mud and messed up my Easter dress! Then I got in trouble, and Molly got to go to the movie after school and I didn’t. Now I bet she’s sorry! They both are.” The last thing Erin saw before fainting was the inquisitive stare of Marmalade, who seemed to be asking her; “What will you do now?”
30
“Train Crossing” Amanda Benes
31
The Librarian by Angela Ching
My uncle decided to turn into a vending machine. I think he got tired of being a librarian. Twenty-two years of checking out books for other people got to him. People sometimes made small talk, asked him about his day, complained about theirs. One time he heard a couple having hot and heavy sex in the shadowy corner of the insect biology section. I think it reminded him of when Linda from Accounting put her hand on his knee. She had been crying about her sister dying, and he had hesitantly put an arm around her. Then her hand fell from her face. He watched it as it fell for what seemed like miles and miles, tumbling through the skies of the space between them before it landed lightly on his knee. My uncle wasn’t a touchy man and he didn’t talk much, but that hand on his knee changed his life. It was the pinnacle of his existence. So during breakfast, when he told me he was becoming a vending machine, I just swallowed my orange juice and smiled. He looked at me through his oversized glasses and blinked with dim comprehension of my utter indifference. I went to school that day. He went to stand beside our fish tank for the rest of his human existence. I came back at 3 o’clock and the stained buttons on his brown tweed jacket had numbers on them. A stiff one near his collar, a curved nine by his waist. He didn’t acknowledge me. His eyes started straight over my head, glassy. After a grocery run, his legs had melded together. The buttons had rearranged themselves. There was a zero on his shoulder, a seven on the pulse point on his neck, a three right below his ribs. My uncle was less human and more machine. He was almost entirely steel, plastic, and paint--except for his eyes. They were
still fixed at the top of the machine, staring at nothing, blinking at nothing. A harsh geometrical shape is invading my living room. My aunt came to visit during Christmas. She flooded into our house with shopping bags and gingerbread cookies. Sweeping in, she dropped a plate of cookies on top of my uncle and kissed where she thought his cheek must be. Her lips landed directly on the number eight. There was a clunking sound, then the clatter of an object landing in the retrieval bin. My aunt bent down and produced a neatly packaged fortune cookie. She ripped the plastic off, broke the cookie in half, and offered me some. I shook my head. I felt weird eating something from my uncle. She unraveled the slip of paper from her cookie, crumbs dusting the sides of her mouth. She read, “’Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up, and he went completely out of his mind.’” She scrunched her nose in distaste, crumpled up the paper, and tossed it onto the table. “You’re about as useful now as you were as a human. And don’t kid yourself, you’re not fucking Don Quixote.” She rolled her eyes. She turned to me and said, “If he wants to be useful he needs to do his job. No use in coddling him.” She had him moved onto 53rd Street, right outside the MoMA. People pressed his buttons and got a line of literature. They probably all thought it was a piece of interactive art. Sometimes on my way home from school I’d take the long route. I’d stand in front of him and touch where his wrist used to be, and he’d spit out a fortune cookie. Regurgitating lines of literature was the only way he knew how to communicate with people. His small offering to a world he couldn’t stand to live in. 32