Castings 2023 by Christian Brothers University

Castings is CBU’s award-winning, student-edited literary and arts journal. We publish the best poetry, fiction, nonfiction/essay, fine art, graphic design, and photography our campus community has to offer. It’s an opportunity for students to showcase their talent and represent the creativity here at CBU! We invite creative submissions from all students, regardless of major. The journal is printed, bound, and distributed at the end of each Spring semester at the Vincent O’Neill Reading Series / Castings Release Party. It’s also available online.

2023 EDITORS CONTEST JUDGES

Faculty Editors

Dr. Karen B. Golightly

Melinda Eckley Posey

Prose Editors

Lara Stearsman

Chelsea Panameño

Anna Grace Barrett

Visual Art Editor

Hobson Wodsworth

Graphic Design Editor

Ethan Tatom

Photography Editor

Vieve Baddorf

Poetry Editors

Strega Black

Cameron Ireland

Cover Art

Beatriz Costa

Design Team

Fall ART 316 and Spring ART 415 classes

Poetry

Dr. Juliette Paul

Dr. Shima Farhesh

Prose

Dr. James Harr III

Dr. Jeff Gross

Dr. Clayann Panetta

Photography

Art Dept.

Visual Art

Art Dept.

Graphic Design

Contest Winners

01 Poetry

02 Prose

1st Place: “Euterpe Muse Live: 4-6 AM CST”

Alexis Ocegueda

2nd Place: “Love Through the Heart’s Crevices”

Karla Mendoza

3rd Place: “Self-Portrait as the Bumbling Bustlng Honey Bee

Luis Artega

1st Place: “The Lamb Leads Itself to Slaughter”

Chelsea Panameño

2nd Place: “Conversations with a Caterpillar”

Anna Grace Barnett

3rd Place: “A Business Transaction”

Hobson Wadsworth

1st Place: “Daystrike”

Karla Mendoza

2nd Place: “Mariposa aventurera”

Ciridany Genchi Cortez

3rd Place: “Lightning”

Sydney Ritter

1st Place: “Chirping Chums”

Myrna Trevino

2nd Place: “Always Watching You”

Rodrigo Medina

3rd Place: “You Want Me Any Other Way”

Piper Grokulsky

1st Place: “Avengers in Art Nouveau”

Sydney Ritter

2nd Place: “Dove 2”

Monserrat Vazquez

3rd Place: “Sandia”

Nahir Cavaleri

03 04 05

Photos FineArt Graphic Design

Cut Down

Ethan Tatom

I live in wisteria bushes, purple flowers that look like grapes dripping from vines across the street from my school. I grab them for my mother, purple is her favorite color but they are not the flowers that fit in vases, and the flowers bloom in bunches that cannot fit behind ears, so instead she drapes them across her head, and laughs.

I live in a small grove between our yard and the farmer’s yard, running after my siblings across a carpet of pine needles. And they climb up the tree that has grown sideways, whose wooden vines are perfect to hook feet into, and hang.

I cannot climb these vines, so I crawl up the sideways tree, but I cannot climb too high because I look down and remember myths of broken legs cracked skull bent arms on the pine needle carpet.

I live on overlapping sidewalks and endless potholes. I live with friendly stray dogs that grin and know they have no territory to fight over. I live in thin walls and screaming matches. I live in numb winters and sweating summers.

I live in wisteria bushes, But the bushes were cut down. myths of farmers cutting off the heads of snakes that dripped and hung from the flowering vines must’ve gotten to the parents.

mariposa aventurera

Ciridany Genchi Cortez

Dove 2

Monserrat Vazquez

The Lamb Leads Itself to Slaughter

Chelsea Panameño

Yareli dreamed about God for the first time in years. As usual, God was already dead.

The two of them were at the bottom of the lake, as they always were. It was the same lake Yareli’s family visited in the summer when she was a child. She and her four siblings would all sit squished together in the back of their mom’s minivan for eight hours, including rest stops. They hadn’t gone back since Yareli was eleven, but the memory was still lodged in her mind, her dreamscape recreating it from blurry details and blunt-force trauma.

Yareli hadn’t wanted to get in the water. She was small for her age, all awkward limbs and uneven nails that she bit off no matter how many times someone told her “no”. She’d get her feet wet, but she refused to go any further. She didn’t like swimming, didn’t like the way the water felt as it crept upwards the deeper she went. But her older brother insisted, demanded in the way thirteen-pushing-fourteen-year-old boys did that involved yanking her by the arm and whining that she was no fun. When he shoved her into the water, he hadn’t meant for her to slip. Hadn’t meant for her head to slam against the rocks their mother said not to get close to, hadn’t meant to let go of her wrist, hadn’t meant for their other two siblings to scream for help after Yareli didn’t come back up.

God hadn’t been there, or the corpse hadn’t. The dreams had started afterwards.

God was static in front of her, floating in the murky water like a ghost. He – or it, if there was just a body – didn’t look like a corpse – or at least, it didn’t look like what Yareli would think of a corpse. She thought of flesh rotting away, pulled from skeleton like shredded

carne asada, eye sockets void. But the body was still intact from what she could tell. It didn’t really look like Jesus either. Maybe that said something about Yareli, that her version of God didn’t look like the face on her grandmother’s altar or on wooden crucifixes, with long hair and a crown of thorns. But she knew in some innate, gut-wrenching way that this was a corpse, and that he had been dead for a long time.

It’s your fault, some fragment of her thought. When she was a kid, she thought she could hear angels because the voice in her head was not her own, but it wasn’t a physical voice. Google gave her the term “intrusive thoughts” as an adult, but that didn’t feel right. It wasn’t a ghost, because there was nothing to haunt her.

God being dead isn’t my fault, she tried to respond. She couldn’t open her mouth; she, like the corpse in front of her, was trapped in stasis, unable to move or do much beyond stare and listen.

That’s not the point.

There was something about the figure that seemed familiar. She tried to get a better glimpse of it, but the water wasn’t clear enough.

You can’t stay here, the not-voice said.

Can’t move, dumbass, Yareli replied. Was it rude to swear in front of God? It was probably fine. He was dead anyways. If he was going to resurrect, he might as well do it now.

He did not, in fact, resurrect. Instead, pressure began to build behind her eyes, her head fuzzy as it filled her ears and beat against the inside of her skull until it felt like something was about to crack.

When her vision refocused, she was face-to-face with multiple sets of eyes, blinking out of sync.

She blinked back, and they were gone.

When she opened her eyes, the rain shook the window panes of her second-story apartment, the sound like fingernails tapping against the glass. She shivered. She’d kicked the blankets off in her sleep and the chill was creeping in. The heating was broken again. The landlord hadn’t responded to any of her texts or calls for the past week.

She grabbed her phone, squinting and adjusting the brightness before skimming her messages. She ignored the emails from her school’s Academic Services office, along with the ones from her advisors telling

her to schedule an appointment to discuss said emails. She should do that. She should grab her laptop from the floor where she’d set it down right before passing out for the night after spending over three hours blinking at a list of missing assignments. There were at least fifteen last she checked. She started doing online classes in hopes that, without having to physically get up every day, she’d be able to stay on schedule. The opposite had occurred. Time had blurred together until she was doing this: waking up at unknown hours in the dead of night, the only light being that of her screen as she tried to convince herself to work. She kept telling herself she would start in five minutes. Then, ten minutes. Then, after a quick break to get her thoughts together. Then, not at all.

Instead of doing that, she stared at the curtains as if waiting for something to look back at her.

Nothing did.

She pulled her gaze away and checked her phone again. Fifteen before midnight. Not bad, considering she went to bed at five a.m. and had only been up for a handful of hours prior to that. Her skin itched like there was something sticky all over her. She couldn’t remember the last time she showered.

Her phone buzzed. A reminder for an upcoming exam popped up.

She ignored it, turning her head back to the window. She watched as raindrops raced each other down the glass, the rain fogging over the buildings across the street, lined up like rows of teeth, until she could forget that there was anyone else out there at all.

When Yareli was fifteen, her mother made her consecrate herself to the Virgin Mary. Back then, she still wore her hair long, ends hanging just shy of her hip bones. The June sun was still bright despite the dying daylight, but the cathedral itself was cool, air gentle on sweltering skin from the heavy fabric of her dress. Every inch of her body was covered up, from thick white leggings to the long sleeves and high collar lined

with lace. Her hair wasn’t covered, but the veil attached to the little crown on her head made her nose itch. She tried to blow at it, but that got her a not-quite-playful smack on the arm.

“Quédate quieta,” her mother muttered. Yareli hated staying still. It made her feel too close to the statues in the hallway outside the chapel, poised in perfect adoration, devotion instilled in porcelain. It was one of the reasons that, when she had to pick her saint for Confirmation class, she picked Joan of Arc. There was no pious kneeling there, no grace or innocence preserved. There was fire and blood and war – she was burned alive by the English after helping the French army. Betrayed by her people, meeting a gruesome end. The whole point of being a good Catholic girl was about not burning in hell, but Saint Joan of Arc was set on fire anyways and they called her a martyr, so really, what was the point?

Her mother hadn’t appreciated that. Yareli said the prayers and bowed her head with her hands flat against each other. She listened to the gospel about the prodigal son, the homily about Jesus’s mercy for wayward sheep. She didn’t want to be a sheep, she used to think. Sheep were boring. It didn’t feel like the right word, either. Sure, she’d been in the church her whole life. There was nothing else to believe in, because she’d only been taught one way to believe; either there was God, or there was nothing at all, according to her. Heaven and Hell felt too easy. You went to one place if you were a good person and to another place if you were evil, and all of that was based on an arbitrary system made up by people a few thousand years ago and adjusted by politicians whenever they got mad at people demanding better rights. Her mother said life was difficult, but Heaven would be glorious. Yareli hadn’t wanted to wait until she was dead for glory and peace. It was part of why she ran to the other side of the country for college.

She stepped into the bathroom, the lightbulb flickering once as she flipped the switch. She didn’t have the energy to brush her teeth, but she made the effort to swish some mouthwash around to get some of the gross out of her gums, spitting it out when she could no longer handle the sting of the mint flavor.

Maybe she should go back. Maybe all her problems could actually be solved by going to church and confessing all her sins and dousing herself in some holy water. Something in her itched to get out of her apartment, to do something other than lie in bed or on the couch or at a screen. Was there even mass at this time? Midnight mass was only a Christmas thing, she was pretty sure. Would just sitting in a church do anything? There was one nearby. She knew it was there because she used to walk past it every day to work, back when she had a job near campus. She made a point of not looking at it, as if God and all the angel paintings and statues couldn’t see her if she didn’t look back.

She took a moment to look at herself. To really look. Her hair was at her shoulders, black and greasy and limp. There were dark circles under her eyes as if she hadn’t slept, except it felt like all she had done was sleep for days. Weeks? Months, surely. Her head hurt as if someone had –

Well. Not like someone had slammed it against something. More like a dull throbbing around most of her skull.

But she couldn’t brush her teeth.

“Only God can fix me now,” she mumbled to herself.

She grabbed a brush and a hair tie.

Fine. She was going to church.

Church was, in fact, far more unsettling than she last remembered, but still made her feel like she wasn’t supposed to be there.

She was honestly surprised it was open at night. She had planned to go during a normal hour (and she was determined to stay awake and not talk herself out of it until then) before looking it up out of sheer curiosity and realizing that yes, Our Lady of Sorrows Catholic Church was one of the few that still held an open-door policy. That felt like an opening to be robbed at least once or twice, but it didn’t seem like churches had much to offer for that.

Standing in front of the doors, she hesitated. Should she knock? That felt right to do. The rain had eased up in the time it took her to get ready, not even a drizzle, once she managed to make herself look somewhat presentable to the outside world. Her hair was tied up to keep it out of her face, and from an angle, it looked more like she just put too much product in it.

She opened the door. It was unlocked and creaked as she pulled it. She relaxed a little when she saw lights were on inside and stepped in, careful with the door shutting behind her.

Percinate, she heard her mother say in her head. She did the sign of the cross as she walked in, though she didn’t dip her fingers into the holy water. It felt too sacred; she felt too unclean. Her footsteps echoed

around her, making the place seem both much larger and more enclosed. Contained holiness. She could smell lingering wisps of incense from the front. The room itself wasn’t the largest she’d been in: wooden pews in neat rows, the benches people knelt on all pushed upwards and ready for the next mass. There was a single figure at the front of the room, kneeling in the pew closest to the altar. Jesus on the cross stood (or lay? She didn’t know) before them, arms outstretched, head tilted down and to the side in His final moments. He didn’t look dead yet. Not like her corpse version of his dad.

The figure – a priest, she figured, once she saw the black clothing – stood and turned. He could have been in his thirties or even forties, bald, light-skinned but probably not white. He gave her a polite smile as she paused in the middle of the aisle to kneel, cross herself again, and stand back up.

“Buenas noches,” he greeted. Yareli wanted to make a joke about how it was morning instead of night, but she decided against it. “¿Y cómo estás?”

When she didn’t answer, he switched to English. “Is everything okay?”

It felt a little like something broke in her. Is everything okay? turned into Are you okay? in her head. It was a stupid, simple question.

She smiled and hoped it didn’t look like she was about to start crying.

She hadn’t even spoken Spanish in so long. She hadn’t seen family in a while, and she hadn’t kept up with any old friends or made many new ones. Sure, she had classmates before, including Latinx ones, but they were never close. The faintest hint of accent pulled at some sense of longing in her that she must have buried long ago. It felt safe. It felt warm. It felt like home.

“…No?” She phrased it like a question less because she was unsure – she knew very well how she was doing – but because she wasn’t sure how much was appropriate to say. She hated confession as a kid. She thought she had to tell God every little thing she did that might be a sin. It was worse after she started going through puberty and wanted to experiment, for lack of a better word. God didn’t need to know what was going on under the covers when her mom had gone to bed. That one was between her and her internet search history. But she had to start somewhere.

“I just need a place to be, for a little bit.” The words came slowly out of her mouth, like her tongue held onto them a little bit longer before letting them out.

He nodded. “Sit wherever you need to.” He gestured towards one of the closer pews. “I find that sitting near the Lord helps you think.”

She nodded and, not sure what else to do, went to sit in the general area he acknowledged. It wasn’t uncomfortable that he sat nearby, still keeping some distance between them. She didn’t kneel yet. She tried not to fidget with her keys.

She wasn’t sure how long they sat there until the priest (Father, she should call him, she thought) cleared his throat.

“If you need to talk to someone,” he said, “it can help. This doesn’t need to be a confession. It can be whatever you need to be.”

She thought about it. She could leave. There was a sense of calmness here, sure, but there was also a stillness that she wasn’t sure was helpful or stifling. She stared at the face of Jesus and empty eyes stared back. They made her think of the corpse. She didn’t really want to talk about that part. Would this guy perform an exorcism or something on her? She heard some horror stories from her mother’s childhood, like the girl who had a rose stem shoved down her throat, thorns and all, to get the devil out of her. Yareli was good without that, thanks.

“I…left the church a long time ago,” she explained, keeping it in English for now. “When I moved out of my mom’s house, I thought it was a chance to figure myself out. I thought the church’s ideas were outdated and were against a lot of my beliefs.” I still think that went unsaid, but she continued. “I thought it wasn’t important.”

“And that’s changed?”

“Kind of?” She shook her head. Whatever. It wasn’t like these people could track her down or something if she said the wrong thing. “I’ve been having these weird dreams. I see God in them, I think. Something feels wrong, both with Him and me. My body. My body feels wrong.” She had to focus on her next words. Deep breath.

“I think God’s dead.”

“You’re right.” He said before Yareli could continue. “He died. But He came back. That’s the scripture.”

“…Okay, yes, He did, but that doesn’t answer why this is happening now.”

Maybe it was the quiet of the church, but when he spoke, his voice was calm and measured like a prayer, and she clung to that. “There are people who, during a difficult time in their lives, do seek out the Lord and find something, other. There are saints that they don’t talk about for a reason. Ones that undergo a physical transformation in order to become closer to God. It is necessary in order for them to understand themselves and their place in God’s plan.” His hand rested on her own. Her skin felt wrong. His skin felt wrong. “No one has to change overnight. But they also do not need to fight it. There are worse things than to be holy.”

That was it, in a way. It wasn’t that she wanted to see her tiny neighborhood ablaze in holy fire or punish sinners or anything like that. Older members of the church talked about spreading the truth of the Lord to people, encouraging the younger ones to stand outside of bars handing out pamphlets or protest the evils of rock music and anti-anxiety medication. Yareli wasn’t into anyone’s conversion. But the whole point was that the flesh was rendered useless compared to the soul, right? Her body was only a temple. She’d spent years in the world her mother hated, went to school thinking she’d get her degree and a good job and only call home on birthdays and holidays. She didn’t speak with any of her siblings anymore, and her father left when she was in high school. Her advisor told her last semester that she had “potential,” but that if she didn’t do the work, she’d fail. The world didn’t have much to offer her anymore.

“I’ll think about it,” she said.

He nodded. “Dios te bendiga.”

“You too.” She watched as he went back to his own prayers, then stared up at a nearby painting. It was of the Virgin Mary’s ascension, right behind a small statue of the woman herself.

Yareli had gotten this far. Maybe there was something else itching under her skin. Maybe it was time she did something about it.

When she got back home, she kicked her shoes off and went to the window. It somehow felt odd yet comforting to slip back into her apartment after being in the real world for maybe two hours total. The mess felt tangible now.

Once, in her sophomore year, she got drunk with her old roommate, the two of them sitting on the fire escape with a bottle of tequila.

Yareli had asked: Is it normal to miss praying to a god who doesn’t love you?

Her roommate had responded: That depends on if you’re still expecting an answer.

Yareli shrugged, and said something along the lines of, not really, but that doesn’t change how I wish he would, and they’d left it at that, avoiding talk of gods or faith. They talked about the guys they’d dated and the sex they wished they had instead of what they got. They talked about class and how they both wanted to drop out. Her roommate joked about being a stripper instead. Yareli didn’t have the confidence or the work ethic for that.

Now, in her senior year, after staring at a bloodied Christ on a cross, she wanted it. She wanted holiness the way her roommate used to crave a drink at the end of the day, wanted to grasp it between her fingers like the cigarettes she used to smoke between classes. She wanted glory and she wanted gospels and she wanted to be the dutiful son and to be welcomed home after spending so long in a world that loved her even less than God ever did. Fifteen missing assignments and lost potential didn’t matter if the world was going to end. Hanging on to her faith by the skin of her teeth wasn’t good enough. She had to become it. She had to let it consume her. She’d do whatever she had to do to make it.

She’d burn for it, damnit.

The first thing she did after that was clean.

Yareli spent the better part of her morning throwing out all the non-essentials in her kitchen, from packets of instant noodles to the seasoning packets one of her tias bought her. She threw out the fruit that had sat there slowly rotting in the drawer in her fridge, bruised and mushy, tossed in a trash bag with the other produce that she otherwise

would have left to decompose until the smell was unbearable. She left a few items, ones she couldn’t bring herself to get rid of. The soft, white cheese that she bought from the farmer’s market that smelled like home, for one. Pan dulce from the bakery down the street, because it felt too sinful to not eat it. Some leftover fish and rice from last week, which she decided wasn’t safe for her to eat because she didn’t want to die anymore. She didn’t want to throw it out either, though. It was one of the few times in recent memory that she bought and cooked enough for more than one meal, and it felt a little like a betrayal to her past self to discard it. She could leave it out for one of the stray cats that wandered the neighborhood. There was one that seemed to visit often, an orange one if she remembered right. It wouldn’t mind an extra meal. She left it near the front steps along with the first trash bag.

She moved from the kitchen to the rest of the apartment. It was small: one bedroom, one bathroom, a sad excuse for a kitchen. The water sputtered out with flecks of brown in it, and she was pretty sure there was mold growing somewhere. The walls were a dull off-white that felt like they were closing in around her. But sanctity flourished in stranger places. Skincare products she never used and expired makeup went first. Then, lotions and creams and nail polish, floss and mouthwash and dry shampoo. Clothes she hadn’t worn in months. Jewelry she’d had since middle school. Shoes that didn’t even fit right. None of it mattered anymore.

When everything was cleared away, she went and collected the few statues and figurines she’d been gifted over the years but never paid much mind to. She’d shoved most of them in a drawer, but now she cradled each one in her palms, gentle as she cleared a space for them. Her mother had given each of her children a picture of the Virgin Mary to have in their homes; Yareli placed that on top of her dresser, along with a small figurine of la Virgen de Guadalupe and a tiny crucifix. She didn’t own a Bible.

The odd almost-sticky sensation got worse as she went. She should shower, change clothes, or something, but she had to finish this. She scratched at her arm until something began to flake off, getting under her nails and on the wooden floors. It was thin and dry, making a cracking noise as she picked at it. It left the skin beneath it red and raw and tingling. When she passed by a mirror or glimpsed her reflection in the metal of the sink or a glass, something about it looked distorted. Something about her eyes looked wrong. There were two, of course, dark and framed by the shadows beneath them, but there were moments where she’d turn away and, in the corner of her vision, there were several more, all staring back at her.

She chalked it up to a product of her own newfound determination. Maybe regaining her faith came with seeing herself in a new light. Or maybe it was from not eating. It didn’t matter.

Yareli spent the next seven days in a hazy state. She started fasting the day after throwing out most of her fridge; her last supper was a Poptart. Hunger would not be the first thing to kill her. She drank mulled wine from the back of her cabinet, cheap but red enough to feel like the blood of Christ she hadn’t had in

years, and drizzled honey on her tongue because she hated the drink’s aftertaste. She let the thick syrup drip onto her tongue from a plastic spoon and sit in her empty stomach, dizzying herself with each sip from her plastic red chalice. She started seeing stars on the floor and eyes on the walls out of the corner of her eyes, and she swallowed the sickness that rose from her stomach and tried to claw its way out her mouth every time she stood up too fast. To reject an offering is to reject the divine hand that fed her, and she did not want to fail this. Failure implied that this was an accident. Accident implied a mistake, and she was tired of being a mistake.

She didn’t sleep anymore. She bobbed in and out of consciousness, caught between going under and being pulled back to shore. The scattered bits of dream were no longer murky, but full of colors that no other god or human being must have been able to see. Violet-turquoise. The wind brushing against the grass in the summer, dandelion heads gone in a single gust. Watching a flock of birds take flight from the middle of the road right before getting hit, feathers landing near the sewer grates. Cornflower sunset. A green that shined like glitter. Like the ringing in your ears when everything goes silent. She imagined herself becoming something more. Something else.

When she woke up, she started praying again. She dug out the last rosary she’d been gifted, a beautiful chain with white beads and a gold-tinted crucifix at the end. The prayers themselves weren’t difficult; they’d been ingrained in her head since she was five. Padre nuestro, Santa Maria. She got on her knees in front of her makeshift altar and ran through every single one she knew, then branching off into her own words.

“I thought I died that day,” she said, looking at the small plastic face of la Virgen de Guadalupe. “For a day or two, I thought I had died and that part of me was stuck acting out what would have happened if I had lived. Mom said that I lived, because you decided to save me, but why did you let it happen in the first place? Was it to teach me some moral lesson if it wasn’t my fault?” Her mouth felt dry. “I don’t know why I

always go back to that day. We’d go to church every Sunday, and I’d stare up at the statue of you and wonder if you were really up there, staring down at people and deciding whether they were going to live or die. I used to listen to them talk about your mercy, but it didn’t make sense. Because if you were merciful, then my best friend’s father wouldn’t drink, and my father wouldn’t have left, and my brother, would have called me back when I was crying after moving because I missed home.”

There was no response.

“Maybe mercy isn’t kindness, or kindness is in things not being worse.”

Smiling plastic, head bowed in devotion.

“Sometimes, I wake up and I think I’m better off dead.”

From that angle, the Jesus on the crucifix didn’t look like a person more than jutting shapes that were supposed to be but weren’t quite human, like the way models in magazines looked edited, or there was something off about mannequins.

“Was I better off dead?”

There was no answer. It wasn’t enough.

On the seventh day, she filled the bathtub with lukewarm water that was only a little bit brown. She’d long stopped complaining about the pipes in this building; she only hoped its cleanliness didn’t affect this too much.

She was baptized as a baby, as per tradition. She’d seen the video her uncle had taken of it: tiny her in a poofy white dress and matching hat, crying when the cold holy water touched her forehead. But it wasn’t like she’d made the decision to be baptized. Other denominations, she knew, did it when the person was older and could better understand what was happening. The point of baptism was to wash away sins. She’d been born with a sin and had it wiped away only to be drenched in more as she’d grown up. She couldn’t fully cleanse herself again, not really. That might require more than this, and the thought of stepping outside her apartment to confess summoned a sharp anxiety that she couldn’t shake. But this would be proof, wouldn’t it? Proof that she had tried?

When the water reached high enough, she shut off the faucet. She stripped down to nothing, leaving only the flesh, brown skin raw and irritated from all the places her nails had dug into it. Her whole body ached. The

gnawing in her stomach that had been present at the beginning of the week had dulled, but the way something fighting for a long time has tired its efforts and was waiting for the end. One hand was on the wall, bracing her as she stepped into the tub.

There were pieces of her falling around her, now, the same layer of not-skin peeling off even from her face. She couldn’t make out her own reflection. The water was cool and stung at the same time, her skin angry, but bits of herself washed away in a moment of bliss.

Yareli closed her eyes. She took a deep breath. Once, twice. Three times.

She didn’t think about whether or not she held in that last breath. She plunged her head under water and held her head beneath the surface.

The world was muffled. Remaining bits of skin broke free and drifted off. Like a snake shedding its skin. Like something rotten coming off of her.

She opened her eyes, and she was back in the lake.

She figured she might have left the corpse behind, now that she’d accepted that God likely was not dead and that there was worth in holiness. But she floated, naked and exhausted, and the figure that floated in front of her was no longer God.

Logic said this wasn’t real. Logic said that the last time Yareli was here, the water flooded her mouth and went down her throat, and the last thing she remembered was how cold it felt compared to the warmth that burst from the back of her head before her vision went black. She hadn’t heard her siblings yelling, even though they all later swore they were and that they hadn’t meant it. They hadn’t meant to do anything. It wasn’t their fault.

Was it anyone’s fault in the end?

The thing that floated in front of her looked like her. It almost had her face, half peeled off, the way it must have looked before she submerged. Her own dark hair, cut just below the shoulders, fanned out behind her head. Multiple sets of eyes stared wide at her, one pair above her normal ones where her eyebrows should be and another below, resting near her cheekbones. Something on her own face tingled at the sight.

“You can’t stay here,” the voice that still was not her whispered. It felt more tangible this time.

The thing that was not her seemed closer, but hadn’t moved from what she could see. She didn’t take her eyes off of it. That same pressure was starting to build again in her skull. Something in her chest grew tight and sharp. The longer she stared, the water pushed down on her, enveloping her a crushing force until something in the dream-world snapped. Her lungs filled with it; her hands went to her throat, clawing at nothing, nails blunt.

She looked into its eyes and saw nothing. Nothing left for her in a corpse. There wasn’t anything holy here.

The thing that was worse than being holy was being dead when you didn’t get to come back to prove anything.

She tried to move back. She hadn’t swam in a long time, time and lack of easy access to a body of water made it not worth seeking out. But for once, she forced her legs to move, forcing herself back.

She wanted it out. She wanted it to stay dead. If holiness was this corpse, then she would not let it resurrect.

She burst from the water and choked, vomiting water as her hair clung to her, as she sat there shaking in the dirty bathtub. Her reflection in the ripples was no longer the distorted face of the thing in her dream. She looked hollowed out. But not dead. Not anymore.

Yareli sat there for she didn’t know how long, leaning her head back against the cool tile and taking slow, deep breaths. She kept glancing down at her hands, expecting to see some sign of what just happened on her body. There was nothing. After a while, she forced herself out of the water, shivering as she wrapped a towel around her (she hadn’t thrown that out, at least) and wrung her hair out in the sink. Anything left from whatever she had shed floated on the surface of the water. She didn’t feel clean. She just felt exposed.

When she emerged from the bathroom, she froze. Something was scratching at her bedroom window.

With barely a towel on her, she walked across the room and, without thinking, shoved the curtains aside.

There was a cat sitting there. It was the stray she recognized – orange and white, with some black substance marring the white fur. The girl downstairs would sometimes feed it, she knew. It stared up at her with what she could only describe as an impatient look, as if it had been waiting for her for a long time, and she had just now decided to answer.

She watched as it slipped back down the fire escape, and, as if sensing her, it looked back, locking eyes with her before vanishing into the closest alley across the street. Leaving her to do nothing but sit and stare at an empty street, the light flickering below, and feel the emptiness in her stomach as it gnawed at her to get up.

A Spring Swim

Jessica Moore

Interrupting The Homo-Erotic Master of Evil

Luis Artega

- after “Waiting To Surprise Bae” by Hillary White Rabbit, 2016 - inspired by “Resting Girl” by François Boucher, 1753

You ting tongue dolt!

Flea Bitten Furbrain!

Do you know how to knock?

Expecting a mistress?

A pink pastel babe with flirtatious intent?

Angel white sheets stretching with invitation?

No, it is I, Skeletor! Master of Evil and the will-be downfall of that overgrown alley cat He-Man.

What does exhibiting my baby blue buttocks peppered in baby powder have to do with evil?

Wouldn’t you like to know? I could write a whole book about the things you don’t know.

But since your mangy hide is still here, it’s called legacy, you boob. Ah yes, a painting for He-Man to hang on his wa-, I mean to hang onto with hatred!

But this is what I get for surrounding myself with halfwits and blundering fools who don’t lock doors.

Between Columns & Shadows

Edgar A. Villarreal

He Who Trails Brimstone

Cameron Ireland

Down smog-spattered streets and battlefields shot through with smoke appears a man who strides like rot and magma, leaving a brimstone trail. His boots are caked with confidence and overflowing with ash, while his wide-brimmed hat sweats oily tears that smear his crusted leather coat. His hands are buried deep – they have never been seen – yet subtle clinks ring out from his pockets. Most have seen his face, but none have agreed on its pigment or hue, its stout or handsome features. His eyes burn loud enough to silence some and for others his smile is the sweetest flytrap. Each and every language slides through his teeth, but he only whistles one heralding tune that brews awe, jealousy, and mutability. Slated are they who choke on his footsteps and scorch among his teachings, for they prepared themselves to confront him too late, having been born between brimstone.

You Want Me Any Other Way

Piper Grokulsky

Family Ties

Anna Grace Barnett

My childhood was filled with loud noises

The sound of water swirling around a ceramic bowl every two hours to be exact I took comfort in the consistency of it all

The sweet aroma of orange slices and lavender tickled the throats of everyone who walked in

A precaution to hide the true smell of our house

A precaution to hide the poison that was buried in all of us

A poison that swirled through the air every time my mother walked into the room

It clung to her breath as she whispered in my ear how beautiful I was The sour smell of stomach acid let me know that wasn’t really true

We don’t eat white bread in this house

It’s too many calories

Too many calories means you’re fat and no child of mine will be fat

My school lunches were filled with diet food Regular oreos and chips were not acceptable

I had to eat the “healthy” ones that were under 100 calories

“You look just like me.”

My mother loved to tell everyone how much we looked alike

I used to be so proud of this until I realized that wasn’t a good thing

Did I look just like you before or after you shoved your fingers down your throat?

Did I look just like you when you decided that your body was not worthy of love?

Did I look just like you after you weighed every ounce of chicken and rice that went on your plate tonight?

It wasn’t a surprise to anyone when I became just like you

I had learned from an expert after all

When most kids learned that they were beautiful I learned what it really took to mean it

I learned that it was normal to suck your stomach in so hard you felt your ribs screaming for room

I learned that it was okay to survive on one meal of carrots a day

I learned that it was normal to ignore the constant sound of the toilet flush

My adulthood is filled with loud noises

The horrifying sound of water hitting a ceramic bowl

The scent of fresh sheets and apples trap my home

A constant reminder of my past

A constant reminder that I made you proud

A constant reminder that I look just like you after all

Queen Liliuokalani

Ciridany Genchi Cortez

Night Lightning

Sydney Ritter

Goblins Behind the Toilet

Alexis Ocegueda

Goblins live between toiletry and pipes nocturnal creatures in eternal karaoke that honor their grand king David Bowie whose songs stopped their midnight steps towards sock couples filled with slumber. Goblin skin feeds on the ends of rainbows to refine their emerald skin that trapped flies that traveled between moles and warts only to end up between their keyhole teeth that poured out an odor of celery and chicken. Goblins have eyes of Pluto surrounded by stars the origin they have forgotten in their ear wax that shaped itself into a string of quarter moons who gift the skin and chalk voice they wear for the sun curses them to live as cockroaches.

Avengers in Art Nouveau

Sydney Ritter

bruce banner hulk natasha romanoff black widow clint barton hawkeye steve rogers captain america tony stark iron man thor odinson god of thunder

Euterpe Muse Live: 4 - 6 AM CST

Alexis Ocegueda

It’s 4 AM with no moon.

Euterpe placed it above her heart concealed behind a full blue moon dress mirrored in the stage made of obsidian clouds. It’s 5 AM with no stars.

Constellations have surrounded the stage to cheer their favored muse with wands of comets as her songs told their ears to listen on for centuries more. It’s 6 am with the sun.

The golden security arrived to whisk away the idol who has worshippers awake on the other side and worshippers that dance in their asleep in the golden abyss

Choke Me, Chicken

Lara Stearsman

The crispy foreskin was gone, so I teased the white meat with my teeth and tongue savoring the flavor, the salt that dried my lips, the heat I felt from afar.

My eyes watered, tears streamed down, as the bone wet with saliva lodged in my throat; its white tip bobbed there, glistening in the back. It made my uvula throb, dancing back-and-forthwith urgency I swallowed it whole; my saliva as a lubricant, made it slide down.

A Business Transaction

Hobson Wadsworth

Evie knew it was coming for her, just like it had with Elma. She wasn’t ready yet, but she didn’t know how to keep it away for any longer. Except one.

A choked sob escaped her throat as she raced down the sidewalk. It was coming for her, she needed to go faster. She glanced behind her, seeing its silhouette right on top of her own. She broke from the sidewalk and onto the lawn of a house she’d passed by everyday but never visited.

Slamming her fists on the door frame, she screamed, “Please! Open the door! Something’s trying to kill me!”

She heard someone stir from behind the door and stomp their way toward the frame. Her back felt pins and needles digging harder into her skin. It was closing the distance.

“Please! Open the door,” she repeated as the pain spread further down her spine and into her legs. “I’m begging you! It’s going to kill me!”

“What the heck are you talking about,” an older voice from |the other side responded. “I don’t see anything. And who the hell are you?”

“I know, I know, but please let me in.” She didn’t have any time to explain what it was going to do to her. “Just please let me use the phone and call the police! Please!”

“What?”

“The phone! Please.” Tears ran down her cheeks. Her body shook so hard she felt her bones were being ripped from their tendons. “Please!”

It went quiet on the other side. Evie wanted to scream even more, but her throat wouldn’t open. It was on her now. It was going to drag her to hell. It wasn’t fair.

Without warning, the door opened, and a lanky man in a cotton sweater and khaki pants peered at her. “Okay, okay. Just…get in.”

Evie collapsed forward into the man’s arm, causing him to yelp in surprise. “What the-what’s wrong with you?”

“Close the door. Please,” she whispered as her fingers dug into his clothes. “Please.”

The man shook his head and slammed the door shut, giving Evie a burst of strength. She stood up and thanked the man profusely as she leaned against the wall.

He glared at her. “Who the hell are you and why the hell did you try and tear my door down in the middle of the night?”

Evie shook her head, “I need a phone. Please.”

The man didn’t move. “How about you tell me who you are first.”

Evie dug her fingernails into her palms. “Please, I need a phone.”

“I’m Phineas, and I need sleep, yet here we are.”

Evie gave up and shouted, “I’m Evie Witherbottom, okay? I need the phone to call my mom.”

“I thought you needed the police,” he said, narrowing his eyes. “Which one is it?”

Evie clenched and unclenched her fists. She would like to throttle this nosey bastard if she still had the strength. “My life is in danger! I need to call someone, and I just need a damn phone!”

Phineas was sick of this brat. She was acting like a demented cat and should probably be thrown in the drunk tank. However, there was a part of her story that had stayed consistent: fear she was going to die. She seemed sober, but wasn’t making any sense. He could probably restrain her and call the cops, but maybe calming her down would be better.

“All right. But only with me in the room.”

“Perfect,” she whispered under her breath.

“What?” he said, craning his neck.

“Nothing. Just give me the phone, please.”

***

Phineas leaned against his hallway wall. He’d never liked how they installed his landline in the center of his house. Always great waking up to another wrong number.

Now, he was staring at a teenage girl making a phone call to her mom, or the police, or whatever. In all honesty, he didn’t trust her, but he also didn’t have any idea what she could do with him nearly breathing down her neck.

“You done yet?” He scratched his stubble. “I’ve got work tomorrow, so could you hurry this up?”

Evie didn’t respond and continued to mumble into the receiver. She’d been speaking nonsense for the past few minutes, and the words grated his ears.

“Okay. That’s it. You’re done, and I’m calling the cops.” Phineas said, reaching for the receiver.

Just as he grabbed the phone, Evie slumped into the wall, sliding down onto the wood floor. Phineas stood there, unable to process what had just happened. His hand still held the phone, and inexplicably, he placed it back. As he contemplated whether to call the cops or the hospital, there was a knock at the door.

Phineas grunted and went to his knees, grabbing Evie by the shoulders and carefully adjusting her so he could see the damage. Her lip hadn’t busted, but her forehead had a nasty welt forming. She was breathing, but it was shallow and rapid.

“Hey,” he said in a soft tone as he gently shook her. “Hey. Come on. Open your eyes.”

The knocks continued.

“I’ll be there in a second.” Who the hell was here? Had she called someone and was just speaking a different language?

The knocking increased in fervor and intensity. Phineas grabbed his head, his skull pounded in rhythm with the knocks. It felt like his brain was about to explode.

“Fine.” He leaned Evie against the wall and ran to the door, grabbing the door handle and preparing to throw the entrance open. But he froze.

Phineas couldn’t understand what he was doing, just standing there. His body was in pins and needles, it hurt to even blink. He let go of the handle, the pins went away. Phineas took a few shaky breaths, clenching his fists to stay upright.

“Dammit,” he mumbled to himself. He wasn’t that old. Was he having a heart attack, a stroke? What on earth was going on?

His thoughts were interrupted by the resuming knocks. Phineas eyed the handle, then looked to his peephole. He steeled himself and looked through it. Regret immediately filled his heart.

A yellow-suited man, no, a creature stood hunched over on his welcome mat. It had no face. No eyes, no nose, not even ears, only veins that pulsated like worms across the brown plain of a skull. Its bulbous head had a vague humanoid shape, but that illusion was ruined with the black hat that lay on top of its head. It appeared moist in the small amount of light from the moon. Just when Phineas had thought he could

understand what his eyes saw, the creature raised its hand toward the peephole. Slender nailless fingers were magnified in the lens, showcasing the horrific inhumane biology of what the man stared at.

The fingers were fused into two pairs: one was the index and the middle, while the other two formed the second pair. Its thumb was longer than the finger clumps and seemed to stretch further as its hand moved. The fingers made a sudden stop before moving away from the peephole and toward the creature’s chest. The appendages caressed the bright red tie that contrasted bitterly with its dull brown skin and dirty-yellow suit. As the fingers caressed it, drops of dark fluid seeped from the tie onto the fingers before dropping onto the mat, staining it. The creature shifted its weight and now revealed its other hand which bore a striking difference to all its other features. The hand itself was as nonsensical and grotesque as the other areas of the body, but what it held didn’t.

The left hand held a suitcase. A glossy, high-end suitcase that was darker than the night itself. It glittered as if it had just been made. Despite its normalcy, the contrast of the suitcase only deepened the panic and fear in Phineas’s heart. Everything screamed at him to look away, but his body refused to obey. The pounding in his head grew ferocious. His eyes were near popping out of their sockets. His nose was running and his knees were about to give out.

Then, a familiar sound broke the spell. His landline ringtone. Phineas snapped his head from the monstrous sight and now stared at the ringing phone. His body still trembled from the horrid vision he couldn’t forget, but he had learned to bury the pain during the war. Sometimes, moving forward was the only thing that kept him going. Now was no exception.

He was sluggish in his steps, and it took him a moment to find the strength to lift his hand, but he grabbed the phone and placed it to his ear.

“Who…who…is it?” he swallowed hard to keep himself from

“I’m sorry. It’s me, Evie.” the girl’s voice danced across the static. “You need to listen.”

“How are you-?”

“I know it’s a lot,” Evie cut him off. “But you need to keep quiet for a minute. It’s still confused, but it’ll know you’re there eventually.”

Phineas felt beads of cold sweat trail down his neck. “You mean…”

“That suit thing, yeah.” Evie sighed on the other end. “I’m sorry you had to experience that. Really.”

“Did you bring that…that suit here?!” he hissed, cupping his mouth to the receiver. “Why?”

“I’m sorry, okay? I didn’t have a choice! It was coming for me and I had to do something to keep him off my back. You were just…unlucky.”

Phineas shot a glance at the door before looking at the floor. He saw the shadow of two thin legs, causing him to shiver before he realized something. Her body was gone.

“Where are you? You were just on the ground, and how the hell’d you get my number?”

Evie sighed again. “It’s the spell.”

Phineas blinked and rubbed his forehead with his free hand. “Spell? As in-”

“Magic. I know. It sounds-”

“Crazy.” Phineas nodded as he cut her off. “But at this point, I don’t really care after seeing that thing.”

“That’s probably for the best, but right now, I need you to listen carefully. Okay?” The static continued to fill Phineas’s ear, but it was soothing compared to what he’d just been through.

“All right. Floor’s yours.”

“Good. I’m really sorry again, but I didn’t have a choice. That thing, the yellow suit-”

44 vomiting.

“That’s it’s name?”

Evie groaned. “I don’t know. It’s what I call him. Either way, that’s not important. What’s important is that you don’t ever get caught by him. He will kill you.”

“I gathered that. But what does it even do?” Phineas kept his eyes on the door. The shadow still remained.

“You’ve already felt it. It eats your soul, or energy, or whatever gives you life. It drinks it until there’s nothing left, and you’re just a corpse.”

Phineas didn’t doubt that. The way his body had seized up, it was nothing natural. “How?”

Evie grew quieter over the line. “It gets in your head. If you look at it, it digs into your brain and eats you from the inside out. It...it can live in your shadow. At least, that’s what it did to me. But with Elma it also…”

“Elma?” Phineas scratched his chin. “Ain’t that the girl who went missing a while ago? They put her face on the papers I think.”

Evie cleared her throat. “Y-yeah. She…she was my friend.”

Phineas sighed and shook his head. “I’m sorry for your loss, but that doesn’t explain why this thing is after you now.”

“I…” Some more static interference came up before dying down. “I began looking into it. Elma wasn’t…normal. She was pretty weird. Not bad weird, just…different. So when she went missing…I just couldn’t let it go.”

“Can’t blame ya for that, kid. Almost lost an ear going back for a battle-buddy of mine.”

“You’re a soldier?” Evie’s voice was incredulous across the interference.

“Heh, was a soldier. Went to Vietnam, one of the last squads sent before everything fell apart. But later... what the hell do I do?”

“R-right. Okay.” More white noise died down as quickly as it appeared. “You need to lock all your doors and windows.”

“Done.”

“Good. Now, get as much salt and water as you can carry, and boil it in the biggest pot you have.”

“All right. Anything else to keep myself breathing?” Phineas’s eyes still hadn’t left the door, and neither had the thing’s shadow.

“It can’t run; it just…appears. You can see it in the corner of your eye, but never look directly at it. Ever. If it grabs you, it’ll try sucking you dry that way, but if you’re quick, you can get away.”

“Didn’t look strong.” Though he didn’t believe the words. Nothing like that could be anything but wiry if it couldn’t rip his arm off.

“It’s not, at least, if you’re not looking at it. Also, it can mess with your head. Make you see things that aren’t there. Like a brick wall appearing in front of you or your mom dying in the middle of the road.”

“Damn.” Phineas chewed the inside of his cheek. The night was getting worse by the second.

“Yeah, but right now, you have a head start. The spell I did will confuse him for a minute. He won’t go after you until he realizes I’m not in the physical plane anymore. When he does, be ready. He’ll go after you when he sees you as my anchor.”

“Anchor?”

“Yeah. I’m using you as my anchor to the physical realm to keep myself out of its reach. But if you die…” her voice trailed off.

“We both die.” Phineas finished. The shadow wasn’t moving, but he could feel the sheer dread it exuded.

Evie took a shaky breath, almost indistinguishable from the interference, “Yeah.”

“How do we stop it?”

“Once we start the boiling, we can fight him. Without it, we’re sitting ducks. Please, hurry. I’m running out of time on this end-” The line went dead. There was no static, just silence.

Phineas placed it back on the wall and gritted his teeth. He clenched his fists and forced himself to look away from the door. His steps were soft but quick. He avoided the wooden boards as he entered the kitchen. He bent, not feeling the soreness in his back for once as he lifted the pot out. He’d used it for a roast before, but never again till now. Phineas placed the pot under the sink and was careful to make little noise as he turned the handle. No water came out.

He slapped a hand over his mouth to keep from groaning in frustration. The plumbing hadn’t gone out for over a year, why now?

A tap at the kitchen window. Phineas was about to heave his stomach into the dish. He felt its eyes, or whatever it had, drilling into his back. The Suit was in play now.

Phineas had faced death times before, but never like this. It wasn’t just that he was fighting for another, it was what he was fighting. Limited intel on a monster that could think.

Phineas came up with two possibilities: either the Suit couldn’t get to him in the house and knew the girl’s plan, or it was playing with its food. Either one was terrifying, and he didn’t put the latter past this monster. He couldn’t let that thing touch him, so, a knife was useless. The gun was in the shed with the water main valve, but he couldn’t look at it either.

“Bastard,” Phineas whispered under his breath. The shed was about 30 feet away. A minute of careful running could get him without painting a target on his back, but what if it expected that? A distraction maybe, and he had the perfect instruments for it.

With a frying pan in hand, Phineas found himself staring at the gaudy vase in his tiny living room. It clashed with his bookshelves, and he’d wanted it gone ever since someone gave it to him for Christmas. He was as far away from it as he could be while keeping his eye on it. He took a deep breath and aimed.

A quick flick of the wrist, and the kitchen pan flew, straight toward the vase. As the pan continued its journey mid-air, Phineas had already bounded across the carpet floor toward the front door. He grabbed the handle, ignoring how his stomach compressed itself in fear, and opened the door just as the vase was smashed.

The man wasted no time and sidled his body through the small crack of the door. He scouted his lawn and the sidewalk. Nothing, not even footprints. He whipped around to the shed’s direction and took long strides toward the tiny shack.

In less than a minute, he was in front of the shed. The entire time, he had been glancing behind and around him, anticipating the creature to lunge for him at any moment. Yet, it never came.

Phineas didn’t have time to question his luck. He opened the creaking door, ignoring the sounds it made as he stared down at the water main valve. A chill reverberated through his bones as he saw the same dark liquid of the creature drip from the valve onto the ground. The Suit could think, and it knew exactly what was going on.

The soldier grit his teeth and grabbed his cotton jacket, covering his hand with the thick material to keep the poison from touching his skin. A couple of turns to the left, and the pipes came back to life with an affirmative groan. Phineas chucked his jacket to the ground and checked his hand, relieved to see it unaffected by the creature’s liquid. He was thankful to have thought to wear an undershirt for the cooler weather, but the cold wasn’t the most pressing matter now.

Phineas trudged back to the house, trying to regain his energy for the battle that was no doubt to come. His suspicions were confirmed as he saw his welcome mat hanging on his front door. It was covered with the creature’s liquids like the valve. The door was cracked open. The Suit was in his home.

He cursed himself under his breath. Had he locked the door behind, his house wouldn’t be compromised,

but the Suit had probably thought of that and would’ve just broken through the window. Now, it was a game of hide and seek, and Phineas didn’t have a weapon.

What was he supposed to do now? He mulled over a plan of attack. He needed more information before advancing. Phineas strolled to his kitchen window and covered his eyes the moment he saw its shadow. The Suit was there in the kitchen.

It must have been standing over the pot and salt, maybe sabotaging them before he got back. What was the game? It must know Phineas wasn’t that stupid to go through the front door and into the kitchen, but then why stand in such an obvious manner that anyone could see? Was it playing with him? No. Something else was going on here.

A ringtone filled the house. Evie!

Phineas had forgotten about her for a second, but now, he knew he had a chance. He wasn’t alone in this fight. The creaking of his kitchen floorboards signaled the creature’s movement to the hallway.

Phineas ran to his back door that connected to his living room, stooping down and checking under his porch. The loose board where he kept his key stashed was untouched. He grabbed the key and board, readying himself. He glanced at the moon and whispered a prayer.

“Dear God, help me survive tonight, and send this monster back to hell.”

He unlocked the door. Phineas took careful steps forward through his living room. He glanced at the shattered pieces of what once had been the vase, noting how much better it looked. His heart was in his throat. It was just a few steps down the hallway, toward the phone, then a right. Just don’t look at it.

Phineas stared at the hallway floor, feeling the soreness of his gritted teeth, and stinging in his palms from his nails digging into them. Into the fire again.

One step forward, on the wood floor now. Be quick and quiet. Like a mouse.

Two steps forward, the phone had been ringing all this time. Was the Suit just staring at it?

Three steps forward, one more.

Four steps-the ringing stopped. Phineas froze. The phone had been picked up. Was he far enough? Then, the pounding in his head returned. Whispers of unknown voices echoed in his eardrums. Phineas grinded his teeth, trying to keep himself from screaming in pain. He dropped the wooden board as he covered his ears. The whispers grew angrier and assaulted him with no mercy.

He reached out for the wall to his right, searching for the entrance frame to steady himself. The hands found purchase and Phineas pulled himself into the kitchen. He cracked an eye open, expecting to see the Suit standing in front of him, but it was nowhere to be found. But that didn’t make any sense.

Phineas couldn’t believe the creature hadn’t seen him. It had attacked him with those noises and that damned headache, so why wasn’t it in front of him to end it?

He forced himself to the stove and looked at the pot. Phineas was even more baffled than before. The salt had been dumped into the now full pot, so much that it peaked above the water surrounding it. None of this made any sense. What was the Suit’s game? It had to know what Evie and he were up to, so why help them?

Phineas smelled something fishy. He grabbed a rag from a lower drawer and poured the pot out, unwilling to touch anything with his bare hands if the creature had. He grabbed a saltshaker from the cupboard above. Untouched, but it still had some salt left. He refilled the pot and poured the salt into the water, mixing until it dissolved into a clear water soup. Finally, he turned the stove on.

Nothing. There was no noise, no heat. Phineas slammed his fist down onto the counter. The bastard had cut off his gas. The gas main valve was in his cellar. It knew Phineas would have to go down there.

It was in this moment that the old man contemplated running out of the house and calling the police, the military, hell, anyone. But he knew he couldn’t. Because if he did, another victim would be added to the Suit’s list. Not only that, Phineas was angered beyond belief. Someone had invaded his home, made him fear for his life in the place that he had spent years living in.

There were only two ways this was ending. Either he walked out with the girl, or no one did.

Grabbing a kitchen knife and a flashlight from the drawers, Phineas made his way to the cellar. He didn’t close his eyes as he walked through the hallway. The phone had been ripped from the wall, causing wires to rip and hang limp as sparks occasionally spat out of the frayed ends. The dark liquid was rubbed all over the plastic remains of the phone that littered the floor.

Phineas recalled Evie. To survive this creature for this long, not knowing any way to beat it as it twisted your mind into a mesh; it was no wonder she sounded so terrified at the door. A monster like this Suit couldn’t be allowed to leave this place.

Phineas walked back through his living room and went to the highest shelf. He pushed a set of mystery novels away to reveal his pistol. He’d made a promise to protect this country, despite the flaws it may have. But this wasn’t just about his country. The world didn’t deserve something as horrific as the Suit.

The back door creaked open to his side. Time to end this nightmare.

***

The house had come with the cellar, and Phineas only used it for storing junk that he knew wouldn’t sell for crap. Now, it might be his grave. His index finger twitched on the trigger. He’d never wanted to fire a gun again, but there are always exceptions for never.

The cellar doors had already been opened; the wooden planks that served as the entrance were covered in the Suit’s liquid. It was infuriating, knowing it was one step ahead every time. It waited at the bottom, hiding somewhere in the shadows. He aimed the bulky flashlight, but the beam did little to pierce the darkness. It was better than nothing, though.

Each step Phineas took into the cellar caused his head to pound harder. He had grown sick of this stupid trick, either kill him or stop screwing with his head. But the pounding continued as he reached the bottom.

The cellar was just as messy as it had been the last time he’d been forced to look through it. Old pieces of car parts littered one side, expired preserves were stacked in another, and pieces of furniture like chairs and broken tables completed the union of the useless garbage in the middle. Phineas wished he’d cared enough to clean up this mess, but there was no time for regrets when he was in the thick of it.

“All right you bastard, let’s see who comes out on top.” Phineas clenched the gun harder and patted his pant pocket to reassure himself the kitchen knife was still there. Hopefully Evie had been right that it was weak if you got the jump on it.

He swayed the flashlight back and forth, attempting to catch any sign of the Suit. Of course, there was nothing to indicate if it had been there, not that Phineas would’ve been able to tell given the disarray the cellar was usually in. There wasn’t even any liquid to get an idea. It was like it’d just vanished.

He took a few tentative steps forward, careful not to disturb the junk piles and create noise. Although Phineas never came down here to clean up, he knew exactly where the valve was located: at the very back in the right corner. He just took a step over a broken radiator when the pounding in his head abetted for the first time since he’d been down there. A wet thump came from behind.

A quiet voice echoed all around Phineas. It had an ethereal aspect, as if the voice was sweet nothings formed from a breeze rather than an actual person.

“You…interrupted my…business…” Phineas felt the cold breath on his neck. He wanted to vomit. “You… aren’t…involved here…”

Phineas carefully aimed his gun backward and responded in the strongest voice he could muster. “This is my house.”

“Yes…but…she wasn’t supposed…to do this…” a wet cough filled with phlegm interrupted it before it continued. “She broke…our deal…”

“Deal?” What was this monster trying to spin? Did it think he was that stupid? “What the hell are you blabbing about?”

A series of cough filled noises that could be considered a laugh responded. “She…lied…as she always does…”

“And I should believe you? You broke into my home. You messed with my water and gas damnit!” Phineas felt the rage begin to bubble over his fear. His finger tightened on the trigger.

A silence followed for a few seconds before the voice started again. “I was protecting my interests…nothing more…she is just using you to…void our agreement…”

“What deal did she make then? Why would anyone make a deal with something as ugly as you?”

Another series of choked laughs. “She wanted…information…just like every other client…I told her of the contract’s payment…she didn’t listen…now…she wants you to pay it…”

“Good story. Would almost believe you if you hadn’t tried to kill me the first time we met.” Phineas pulled the trigger.

The room lit up for a split second and a squelching noise followed by an undefinable scream filled the cellar. The pounding in Phineas’s head came back with a vengeance. He fell to the ground, his fingernails digging into the dirt as blood dripped from his nose. He tried to crawl forward, moving inches at a time as the scream continued.

Then, it stopped. The pounding, the screams, they all vanished in an instant. Phineas’s nose still bled, but at least he could think. For a few minutes, he just lay on the ground catching his breath. He couldn’t relax because he didn’t know if the Suit was dead or not, but despite his exposed position, the killing blow never came.

It was a few more moments before Phineas rose and continued to the valve. His gun and flashlight were still in his limp hands, but he had

no strength to raise them above his waist. After poking away some pieces of scrap, he found the shiny red valve. It had the liquid on it, but he couldn’t care less at this point.

Grabbing a filthy rag sticking out from one of the many boxes, Phineas turned the valve with some effort. Finally, he had everything ready, now he just needed to get back. As he climbed the stairs, a feeling of unease was still in his heart. Had he really killed it? Did he just need to boil the water and then everything would go back to normal?

He shook his head, the exhaustion of it all hitting him. His legs weren’t used to that kind of work, and the gun had been worse than he thought. He didn’t regret it, but he wished he didn’t have to hear the shot.

He stepped into the open, the moon shining bright above him. Phineas took a breath of fresh air into his lungs, feeling a sense of comfort despite everything. He would finish it now. ***

Entering his home, he found himself staring at the mess of a vase still laying on his floor. He’d clean it up tomorrow after this was done. A couple more steps to the hallway and he gazed at the obliterated phone. If only he could talk to Evie one more time to tell her the thing was dead, but he had a job to do.

In the kitchen, he breathed a sigh of relief, hearing the water in the pot now boiling with steam filling the air.

“Ha…take that you crazy monster. We win.” Phineas chuckled to himself. He took one more step to see the fruit of his labor.

A hand grabbed his throat, he couldn’t breathe as he was lifted into the air. Phineas looked at his assailant, his heart stopping at the sight. The Suit stared at him with hundreds of eyes on its head and hat, each one was a different size with different shaped pupils, but they all glared with utter disdain at their prey. A single eye was leaking fluid, a piece of metal lodged in its center. The voice returned with a harder edge that made it more real than the first conversation.

“Phineas…restitutions are required…you will pay for your refusal to aid me in ensuring my contract is honored…now…my business will conclude.”

Phineas felt himself falling into nothing as the world grew dark. Everything was filled with the noise of gunfire, flames, and screams.

“No,” Phineas could only whisper. “Anything…but that.”

He fell onto the ground, dazed, but somehow unharmed. The noises had calmed, but Phineas knew where he was. The jungle: the place he had sworn to never think about again.

“Phineas!” The voice croaked from the bushes in front of him. “H-help…me…”

He didn’t want to move, but his body wouldn’t listen as he walked forward.

“No, no. Not again.” Phineas could only mumble to himself as he moved through bushes like he’d done so many times. He found himself staring down at the pitfall. Dirty bamboo sticks surrounded Private Terry. His eyes were wild, and his hands clung onto the sticks that pierced through his chest and legs.

“P-please…h-help me…” his weak voice continued to drone on as his eyes pleaded with Phineas. He felt the cold metal in his hands and pointed at Terry. They had just had lunch, some MREs with crackers. He told a joke about how their fathers were always ragging on them to do something with their lives.

“No! You can’t make me!” But Phineas’s voice fell on deaf ears. The pistol was cocked and aimed downward. Terry’s tears fell and a choked sob escaped his lips. He said nothing, because he knew there was nothing left to say.

Phineas screamed as the pistol fired and entered Terry’s head. His body became limp and sunk further into the hole, sliding down, painting the bamboo red with his life.

Phineas collapsed onto his knees, crying without tears, screaming in unison with the others that engulfed whatever hell he was in. As he

continued to cry, the darkness returned to engulf the jungle. The Suit stood in front of him, hands hovering over the suitcase which lay between the two.

“This world…is a tragic place…why continue like this Mr. Larson? There is nothing for you left here…”

“Why? Why are you doing this?” Phineas croaked out.

“Why try to explain something you could never hope to comprehend, Mr. Larson? Time is precious is it not?”

He continued to cry. “What do you want?” his head hung low, his voice a whisper.

“I want what I agreed to. I want Ms. Witherbottom to provide what was agreed to. That is all.”

Phineas stared at the monster, no longer feeling anything as he looked upon its grotesque mimicry of humanity. “What…do I have to do?”

Multiple smiles erupted across the Suit’s body, the largest settling on its head. The gums were black and leaked the same fluid Phineas had seen all over his home. “Give me access to the anchor. Simply speak the words, and I will leave posthaste.”

“That’s…it? No tricks?”

“None, Mr. Larson. As I have stated, I only want what was agreed to in my contract.”

“You won’t come near me again?”

“I will never approach you or this house ever again. It will be as if this night never took place. You will wake in your bed, alive and happy.” It reached out a long arm, the mouths disappearing on it as it approached Phineas. “Do you agree to these terms Mr. Larson?”

Phineas stared at the monster for a long time before standing back up. “All right. Let’s settle this with a handshake, I suppose.”

The laugh returned with the smiles all opening and closing. “Yes. Let us make this contract binding.”

The creature held its hand out and Phineas let his approach it. As it did so, Phineas stopped right over the creature’s. Phineas sighed. “You know what Suit? You got me. Didn’t stand a chance in hell against you.”

“There is no need for self-deprecation, Mr. Larson. All that is required is for our business to conclude.”

“You’re right. But I want to tell you something important before we do this.” The Suit tilted its bulbous head as the mouths frowned. Phineas grabbed the wrist of the creature and pulled it closer, causing it to fall onto its small knees. Before it could stand, Phineas pulled out the kitchen blade and shoved it directly through the neck of the creature. “I don’t deal with monsters.”

The darkness lifted, and the Suit fell backward onto the kitchen floor, its body flailing in pain as it attempted to dislodge the weapon from its neck. Phineas wasted no time, jumping over the body and grabbing the pot as he landed. He felt his skin burning and an arm grab onto his leg.

Phineas screamed as he turned on his heel and spilled the water onto the Suit. A terrible, choking scream filled the room as the creature’s skin began to bubble and burst. Eyes formed and exploded in a mess of dark liquid, teeth gnashed and bit off slithering tongues, and arms ripped through skin.

Phineas could only stare at the horrific sight before it suddenly stopped. Its arms froze in unnatural poses with its eyes glazed over. The kitchen was covered in the dark liquid, but that soon evaporated into pink mist that disappeared after a few seconds. The Suit lay dead at the soldier’s feet.

Phineas climbed to his feet using the counter. He stared at the ugly corpse for a moment before snorting and kicking its head. He walked

out, avoiding the body and now stained suitcase that lay against its owner. He entered the hallway and went to the front door. His hands were pale and needed some aloe vera.

He chuckled to himself, thinking how he was the one going to people’s doorsteps and asking for the phone. The thought hit him like a truck. “Evie!”

He ran through the door, only to be greeted with blinding lights and deafening sirens. He fell to the ground, tripping over his feet and scratching his chin. Strong hands grabbed him.

“He doesn’t look good. Damn, these burns.”

“Yeah, we should get him to the ER just in case. Looks like that fall didn’t help things.”

Phineas didn’t recognize the voices and didn’t have the strength to resist. He let himself be loaded onto a gurney and closed his eyes.

***

Phineas had been admitted, and although he’d probably have to pay a ridiculous amount for these few nights, he didn’t care. It was nice being able to see some human faces after everything he’d been through.

“Mr. Larson?” a nurse that he’d seen only three times asked as she placed some medication on the counter. “You have a visitor.”

“What?” Phineas didn’t have any family left, nor friends. “Who?”

“She said her name is Evie Witherbottom. Does that ring any bells?”

A smile settled over his face. “Yeah. Let her in.”

The black-haired, brown-eyed teen he’d let in three nights ago was soon right next to him, smiling with a relief he couldn’t describe but understood. “Hey.”

Phineas snorted. “Heh. Took you three days to visit? Thought you might’ve left town.”

Evie sighed, but her smile stayed. “Yeah. It was a little harder trying to get home, but I did. And you did the actual hard part.”

“Well, it’s over. Can’t say I’d want to do it again.”

“Me neither.”

They both stayed silent for a few moments before Phineas breathed hard. “You know they didn’t find a body in my house. Not even the suitcase or blood.”

Evie’s smile fell. “Yeah. I know.”

“…Do you think?”

“No. He’s not going to come after us, not after something like that at least. He can’t touch us like that again. The spell would make sure of it.”

“I dosed him in the stuff.”

A smirk formed on her face. “Good. Sorry I didn’t tell you what you were supposed to do, it’s just-”

Phineas shook his head and held out a bandaged hand. “No worries, kid. It worked out in the end. You got the hospital and made sure I was good, I’m guessing. But…I got to ask you a question.”

Evie blinked.

“Did you make a deal with that thing?”

Evie looked away; her head hung low, and her voice was quiet, “I…I thought it was Elma. It made me see her and then…it showed me what it really was.”

Phineas placed his fingers on her shoulder, “Hey…it ain’t your fault.”

Evie shook her head, “But it is. I should’ve been more careful.”

“Well, maybe. But you learned, and you’re alive. So I think you’ve been through enough. By the way, how’s your mother?”

“She was freaked out that night we met. I had run out of the house, but we’re better. I’m better.”

“That’s good. So…you still going to look for Elma?”

Evie stared at him for a while before looking at the window, staring into the coming night. “Maybe when I’m older, but right now, I need to make sure I’m ready.”

Phineas sighed, “Well, if that’s the case, I’m not stopping you. But…if you need some tips on living, I’m not going anywhere.”

“You’d really help me after everything?” she asked in wide eyes, unable to hope it was true.

“Kind of hard to go back when you’ve seen what I’ve seen, kid. And besides, not like I’ve got anything better to do. But there’s a catch.”

“What?”

Phineas grinned. “You’re going to help me clean out my cellar.”

Always Watching You

Rodrigo Medina

my own Switzerland

-for girls with big girls

Genevieve Baddorf

i am my own Switzerland. i am neutral to me, carefully tiptoeing lines because i can’t be ugly because i can’t be vain.

to speak either way would be autonomous warmy curves versus my edges. because my comfort can be pushed aside if i can look like more or less.

shouldn’t i be so grateful, the harlot i must be to have a build that puts my chest squarely above a C? don’t i want that?

shouldn’t i flaunt that? shouldn’t i be ashamed and hide my chest?

because only a red dress girl only a night woman would wear a fitted tee a turtleneck she surely must have had them put on for attention!

and a good girl doesn’t want attention. so i stay neutral for my own good.

Love Through the Heart’s Crevices

Karla Mendoza

Show me your broken windows and I’ll turn them into colored-glass mosaics

Paint memories with your joy and clean away the tears with which you toy

Let my presence bring you peace and your smile give me solace

I ask you be my sun in cold winters and I’ll be your moon through your darkest nights

Shine your laughter on me and I’ll cover you from the rain

I’ll be waiting for you at the lighthouse of your every storm; I wouldn’t have it any other way

And even if I were to drown, I’d want to drown in the ocean of your eyes

And I’ve always wanted to fly, but even if I were to become a bird, I’d want you to be my sky

If life is a symphony, you are my favorite melody of all

Let me be part of the tapestry of your life and ingrained in the landscape of your art

I ask you tohouse my hopes and dreams and be patient as I learn to love

Hold me in your arms with my scars and bawl and help soothe my aching heart

Serenade me with forevers and I’ll give you a garden of eternities

Give me a bouquet of four letters and I’ll give you a song of our stories

Pray grace always falls above you, because after searching so long, I feel I found you

And I dare not whisper I love you, because it’s not enough for how I feel about you

Chirping Chums Myrna Trevino

Sublingua

Lara Stearsman

The doctor balanced on a stool to small for his lanky legs and crossed his brown loafered feet at the ankles. Trellis felt sorry for the stool, whose peeling, black cushion squeaked and crunched when the doctor moved. Trellis couldn’t pity herself, no matter how much she deserved a good complaint session, as her mother reminded her that someone else out there was always having a worse time than she was.

“Bug?” Trellis’ mother nudged her daughter’s arm and flung her hair over her bony shoulders, sending a shock of iris mixed with daisy. The new hair mousse her mother swore by and constantly stopped her daughter while she was occupied to tell her about the revolutionary product. She had recommended it to a woman in the bread aisle at the grocery store and a neighbor she had never spoken to before. Oh. The doctor’s office. Her nose still cloyed with iris and daisy, Trellis returned to find the doctor staring at her.

Trellis opened her mouth, showing a set of slightly yellowed, straight teeth. The answer to whatever question doctor…Trellis squinted at the name stitched in loopy script above his white breast pocket…Doctor Binder asked must be “no” because her mother looked rather frightened in the silence. “No,” Trellis replied with confidence and received a pat on the leg from her mother.

“Good girl,” Doctor Binder clicked something on the screen of his tablet with a finger like a water bug’s legs. Good girl? Trellis scowled

at the doctor, disliking the sound of that. It wasn’t appropriate and she half-expected him to offer her a grape-flavored sucker next and a sticker. She clearly was not a “girl” anymore. The doctor glanced up from his tablet. “Now, I suppose we’ve already answered this one, but is there a chance you could be pregnant?”

Trellis stared at her chewed fingernails. “No.” What was the first question he had asked? Whether she was sexually active? Yes. That’s usually how these sessions went. Trellis nodded to herself and glanced at the flickering bar of light on the ceiling. A winged bug, perhaps a wasp, was crawling about inside it. How did bugs get inside those things anyways? There were loads of dead ones in the school classrooms. Trellis suspected anything could sneak into the ceilings at her old high school. The white ceiling tiles, which were speckled like bird’s eggs, were easy to shift. A shooter could sneak inside. They did drills all the time; turning out the lights, locking the doors and hiding in the far corners. She always stared at the ceiling during their practice drills, watching the small, slender, black, brown and red bodies of the bugs moving in the gray light that seeped through the windows. She expected the gunman, or gunwoman, to slide a tile to the side and drop through, sticking the landing like an action movie villain. Their descent would trigger the swarm of bugs that waited, and they would fly out of the flickering lights to buzz about the classroom. That would be how Trellis escaped, during the chaos when the bugs came.

She used to stare at the ceiling, her daydreams absorbing her meager attention span during the lessons as if she was wearing a rubbery, white snorkel mask from the dentist’s office that held the fruit scented knock-out gas. One afternoon, in her history class, Trellis had been gazing at the ceiling tiles and pressing her tongues into her cheeks, feeling them move in her mouth. (This was during her first year of high school, one year after her tongue had split. ) The teacher, Mrs. Baird, had rapped a ruler on the white board, staring at Trellis with her eyes bulging in annoyance. Trellis just blinked at her with her lips parted but not enough for her oddity to show.

“Are you having lunch without us, Trellis?” Mrs. Baird strode over to Trellis’ desk to glower at her, her thin lips pressed so flat together that Trellis thought she had spent years with her mouth being duct taped in a basement. No, Trellis grinned, it would be Mr. Baird who would have been duct taped, as there was no way anyone would want to stay with this awful woman. Mrs. Baird let out a shaky huff in anger and demanded that Trellis open her mouth to show them what she was eating, outraged that a student smiled while she was towering over them. Trellis’ jaw felt fused together and as Mrs. Baird nodded at her, insisting she obey, it opened like an old drawbridge. Trellis forced her tongues to stick together, but Mrs. Baird noticed the split. She shrieked with fear and gasped as though Trellis’ split was the Grand Canyon and Mrs. Baird’s husband had just fallen inside. The students seated around Trellis with their eyes glued to their notebooks out of fear of being next, shot out of their seats to see. Trellis snapped her mouth closed before they could get a look, her face redder than Mrs. Baird’s lipstick. Mrs. Baird ordered Trellis to the nurses’ office, where Trellis sat for an hour

after the nurse shied away from realizing the truth of the note Mrs. Baird had written. The nurse, wearing green scrubs with a wooly gray c ardigan murmured into her phone, the screen pressed hard into her round cheek. She’d glance at Trellis when she spoke. Trellis’ heart was beating so fast it gave her acid reflux. The burps sailed up from her esophagus and burned the back of her throat like soda with too much bubble.

Trellis’ mother showed up, slinking into the nurses’ office and hurrying away with Trellis without saying a word before they got to the car. “I don’t want you going here anymore.” Her mother backed out of the parking lot.

“Will you send me to a boarding school with horses or something?” Trellis perked up at the idea of a special school for other people like her.

“No. We can’t afford that,” her mother shook her head and turned on the blinker, “your father and I will discuss it.”

Doctor Bender’s voice shocked Trellis into the present. “Have you ever thought about hurting yourself or other people?”

“No.” Just that a shooter would sneak in, swarms of angry bugs would distract him or her, and that I like to plot my escape during other similar, usually violent scenarios wherever I go. Doctor Binder slid his finger across the screen, which cast a light blue hue on his cheeks. The shape of his face resembled Trellis’ oddest toenail. The toenail grew at a slant, and it had a ridge in the center as though a second toenail was sprouting from the first. Trellis’ mother thought that she was paranoid about the whole thing: “It’s just trauma! It must’ve happened when you tried taking dance classes last year.” If I hadn’t lost interest and quit dancing, would the rest of her toenails look like that one?

Doctor Binder smiled. “Where do you go to school?”

“Why?” Does Doctor Toenail want to stalk me? Will he follow

me from school while I’m walking? Will he let his long, hairy arm hang out the window of a white truck as he waves lazily at me? Will he say, “How’ve you been, stranger?” Does he expect me to stop and talk to him while the exhaust from his car puffs out, clogging my thoughts? Would he say that his son went to my schoool? “He’s in your year. I thought you might know him.” I would say “no” even if I knew his son. “How’s your mom?” I would say, “Same as ever” and keep walking, striding toward a pack of loud boys…definitely not…girls. He would continue to creep his truck after me, the brakes squeaking. Would he have a truck? He’s a doctor, after all. They make decent money. But a truck would be better to stuff my body inside than one of those small, low-to-the-ground sports cars that might get swallowed by a semi-truck.

“I need to know if your school requires any specific vaccinations for the next year.” Doctor Binder tapped an irritated finger on the cookie sheet-like paper that was laid out for patients that he had invited Trellis to sit on when she entered the patient room. It covered an ugly blue table-bed thing.

“Oh-”

“She’s starting university in the fall! In two weeks!” Her mother gushed, her cheeks glazed with pride or maybe that was her brightening stick and the lighting. Thanks for telling him when I’ll be there.

“I have a son in college,” Doctor Binder nodded. I knew he’d have a son in college! Trellis shifted in her seat, wishing that she still qualified for the free ice cream cone cards from the doctor’s. “Are you excited?”

“No.” She heard the question this time and answered without looking at her mother’s face.

“My eldest was nervous when he first started. It’s his senior year now. He’s going to be an engineer.” The blue light had faded from his face, and he tapped on his tablet to wake it up. “What’re you going to study?”

Trellis decided to make her mother’s face, which drooped with sadness, melt off by saying, “I’ll just see which course I don’t fail and go with that,” Trellis shrugged. Her mother let out an embarrassed laugh. Trellis hoped that the lights on campus were different than these. She hoped they didn’t attract bugs and flicker. Trellis always thought that if God existed, any God, god, or goddess, that they were the reason that lights flickered. It was like God blinking at her. Maybe He or they blinked so much because they were holding back tears while watching her. Tears of laughter or sadness? She wasn’t sure. He or they would watch and say, “How is she still alive? I made her as loud as a bullfrog with skinny arms, stubby legs and dry skin that needs more moisture than any pond could provide!”

“Well,” the Doctor sighed, “let’s get to it. Open up.” The Doctor scooted toward her. She opened her mouth and stretched out her tongues, as the Doctor leaned in with a slender flashlight hovering over her parted lips.

“Ahh?” Trellis managed, her tongues closing together in a slow motion like the way jellyfish tentacles move when they swim.

“You’ll need to see a specialist for this, I’m afraid. It’s nothing unnatural. I’ve seen a few cases before you.” Doctor Binder clicked his light off and rolled away. “I could recommend someone. She sees lots of girls like you,” he muttered, pulling off his stretchy, blue gloves and scratching the back of his neck.

…

Trellis stood in front of her bathroom mirror, running a brush through her blond or brown hair. She wasn’t sure which it was, but she didn’t like the sound of “dirty blond,” so she called it “blown” which never did her any favors.

“My name is Trellis,” she whispered to herself, hoping that her mother didn’t hear her talking to herself again. No, Trellis shook her head, no one says “my name” anymore. “I’m Trellis,” she started again, preparing for her first day of college. This time, she watched her tongues move. Her tongues had been one once, fused together at the center before they had split. She remembered when it happened. She was in eighth grade. She couldn’t sleep the night before, her aching mouth keeping her awake. She padded downstairs to wake her mom.

It was three in the morning and her mom yawned, “I have work tomorrow, Bug.” Trellis, worried that she wouldn’t have a tomorrow, asked if the dentist had after hours like the emergency vets or hospitals. Her mom said no. Trellis searched lots of dentists online just in case. Her mom was right, and Trellis pressed a pack of frozen peas to her cheek and went to bed. She still couldn’t sleep. Holding the peas to her face and freezing her fingers, Trellis wondered if she had gingivitis.

The computer said she might, so did articles written by doctors. She might have a rotting tooth. The dentist, curse their inconvenient hours, might have to remove it. Trellis curled up into a ball and hugged herself. With her luck, the decaying tooth would be front and center. She’d have to get a fake tooth implanted or, if they couldn’t afford it, a partial denture. Trellis shuddered, thinking about the smell of her grandfather’s denture glue and how it stuck to everything. The scent alone would reveal Trellis to her entire eighth grade class! They’d come up with a cruel nickname for her and have it put in the yearbook.

Colleges don’t have yearbooks, do they? Trellis patted her cheeks, now worrying that the upperclassmen would see the bags under her eyes and coo that there was nothing to worry about. Trellis called her older sister, who had graduated a few years ago.

“Hey,” her sister’s voice crackled.

“Hey.” Trellis’ tongues clicked together like ballet shoes when the dancers leapt into the air and touched their toes. Trellis laughed. It was more like a seal clapping and barking, wearing the ballet shoes on its front flippers. “I went to the doctor.”

“Oh?” Robin never said “tongues,” in case she made Trellis uncomfortable. Sometimes, Trellis wished that she would.

“He said that I should see…a specialist.” Trellis glanced at the clock on her nightstand. She still had an hour before she needed to leave for her first class.

“Is that all? Did he tell you what it could be? Why it happened?” She heard Robin turn on the tap and the sounds of dirty dishes clanking underwater. Her sister must’ve pressed her phone to her face to use both hands, as her voice was now muffled.

“Nothing helpful. All he was interested in is if whether I have sex,” Trellis snorted. She spun around to face her bedroom door and peeped outside. Good, she released a breath. Mom has already gone to work.

“Frat boys would be into oral. You could blow their minds with kinky tongue stuff,” her sister teased.

“Ew!” Trellis whined. She then thought that she would meet the love of her life at college like Robin did, but he would only be interested in Trellis because he had a tongue fetish. “Could you do me a favor?”

“What is it?” Trellis heard the hesitation in her sister’s voice.

“Relax,” Trellis sighed, “I’m not asking you to sew them together.”

“Yeah, Operation Voodoo Doll didn’t go so well,” Robin laughed. Their mom had caught them together months after Trellis’ tongue split. Robin with a sterilized needle and thread and Trellis with her mouth wide open beside a bright desk lamp.

“Could you research it for me?”

“You…want me to type in ‘two blanks’ in the search bar?” Trellis could feel Robin raising her perfectly threaded eyebrows. Trellis plucked a stray hair off of her own.

“Animals. Animals with two tongues.” Trellis hopped into her pants, wiggling one leg to get in inside the denim pantleg.

“All right,” Robin muttered. “One sec.” Trellis’s breath fogged up her phone screen. She cradled it, hoping Robin would have an answer. “Wait. Did mom ban you from diagnosing yourself again?”

“Robin,” Trellis moaned, “I have to go in a few minutes. Please?” Their mother had banned Trellis from researching her possible conditions because she demanded, like she did the night her tongue split, that she needed to see a doctor each time.

“Uuh. Lemurs.”

“Lemurs?”

“Yep. Some have two.”

“Really?” Trellis breathed, itching to get her hands on one of the school’s computers in the lab.

“It’s called the ‘sublingua’ or ‘under-tongue’.”

“What is it for?” Trellis wondered that if she told the dean or somebody at the school that she was ‘sublingua’ they would waive her foreign language requirement.

Robin recited from a website, “To remove debris from the tooth comb.”

“So, it’s like a slimy toothbrush?” Trellis ran her second tongue over her teeth, trying to get rid of what remained of her Froot Loops. She didn’t succeed.

“Pretty much.”

“Who’s that?” she heard her sister’s husband, Marshal, next to the phone.

“Trellis,” Robin hissed.

“Heard it’s your first day!” he called into the phone. “Goodluck, Troll!” he cackled.

“Go away,” Robin laughed.

Trellis glanced at her clock again. “I have to go. It’s time for school.”

Daystrike

Karla Mendoza

Conversations with a Caterpillar

Anna Grace Barnett

“I know who I was when I got up this morning, but I have changed so often since then. I think I am a different person now.”

- Lewis Carroll

“Forgive me Father, for I have sinned. It’s been five years since my last confession.”

I always hated the idea of confession. Even as a child, the whole thing seemed wrong to me. How was telling a bald man in a fancy outfit that I ate my brother’s last cookie going to get me into heaven? I never understood what made the whole experience so special. My classmates would be ecstatic to get everything off their chests. They would brag about how little penitence they had to do and could talk about how “good” they were.

“I only had to say one Hail Mary and two Our Fathers.”

“Well, I only had to say one Hail Mary and one Glory Be.”

These conversations always struck me as odd, because the whole point of confession was for it to be a private moment between the sinner and God. However, the little snotheads in my class liked to turn it into a game of who could be the biggest self-righteous asshole. This was a game I could never win, even if I tried. My penitence was always about ten Hail Marys and six Our Fathers. I don’t know why I always had to do so many prayers, but it just added to my belief that I didn’t belong.

Waiting in line for confession felt like being sentenced to death by the Red Queen. I felt that at any moment the priest could yell, “Off with her head,” and I would be punished to death for my sins. To deal with this fear, I did what any brave eight-year-old would do: I locked myself in the bathroom for 45 minutes and sobbed. These were not quiet tears either, they were body shaking, on the floor, with snot running down my nose, tears.

I wanted to slay the jabberwocky and gain holiness, but I couldn’t get over how awkward the whole exchange felt. Here I was, a nine-year-old girl telling a middle-aged man behind a screen how terrible I was, or at least how terrible I felt.

Growing up in a cult… I mean the Catholic Church, I was taught that everything had a religious meaning. While most children learned about sex-ed in sixth grade, I learned about exorcisms and how demons can take over a person’s soul. This left me with a lot of questions about my struggles. I had no idea what mental health was or where it came from. So, my solution was to label myself as “bad” or “evil.” I was convinced this extreme fear and sadness I felt was a punishment from God, because I wasn’t a good enough follower. I became increasingly convinced that I was being punished by God and that he made me “broken.” The desire to be “good,” to give God a reason to cure me, led to some pretty weird choices. Instead of asking for Barbies or Legos for Christmas, I always asked for a Bible, hymnal, rosary, or donations for the church. (Yes, I was a complete kiss ass and was miserable. I didn’t give a shit about hymnals, but I was desperate to be cured). I sang in the choir at church, said every prayer, and made sure to wear my best outfit to mass every Sunday. I would like to note that I cannot sing at all, and my family has since told me that it actually distracted others from worship. My sister compared my singing to “the screams of a person getting stabbed,” which really boosted my morale. Anyways, it had been five years since the video and God had yet to change me. I was tired of crying myself to sleep and decided it was time to take extreme measures.

It was 2010, fourth grade was going well, and I had continued my streak of never getting my behavior card pulled. Career day was coming up and I knew exactly what I wanted to be. I figured that if I were close to God and was a good follower, he would cure me of my hallucinations. So, while my siblings went as a lame chef and businessperson, I went as a nun. Now I know what you’re thinking, where would I get a habit that would fit a 10-year-old? To my surprise, there were no habits available anywhere. After an exhausting day of going to two different Targets, my mom gave up and decided she would make me a habit out of pillowcases and sheets.

I walked into school covered in black and white pillowcases held together by duct tape and safety pins. It started off as a great day; I got a thumbs up from my teacher and every time I passed by kids in the hallway, they would start to smile. My siblings were a little bit embarrassed, but they knew I was happy and wanted to be supportive. I thought that I looked beautiful, and it was one of the only times in my childhood that I can remember thinking that (Shout out to Jake Arnold for calling me “the fat triplet” in first grade). My costume was comfortable, and I was proud to be something that was unique and special.

However, when I walked into the bathroom, I was cornered by two seventh grade girls. There was nothing very memorable about them other than one had a pointy nose and the other reeked of body odor, so I’ll call them “Pointy Nose” and “Smelly Pits.” Pointy Nose and Smelly Pits wasted no time and began to attack me for my costume.

“Awe, what are you supposed to be? Like a penguin or something?” Smelly Pits chuckled as she pushed me further against the stall.

“Little baby wants to be a nun. You should have prayed for a better costume. Yours looks like trash,” Pointy Nose and Smelly Pits laughed as tears began to cloud my eyes.

I searched for the right words to say, but found myself paralyzed by fear. It was as if weights were holding down my ankles and barbed wire was wrapped around my throat. I was unable to move or run.

Thankfully, my teacher, Mrs. Richardson, walked into the bathroom after hearing the noise and started to investigate the situation.

“What’s going on? You’re all being so loud and are taking up too much time.” Mrs. Richardson had a stern look on her face as she walked closer to Smelly Pits and Pointy Nose.

The sight of Mrs. Richardson was enough to free me from my paralysis and I burst into tears. Like the crybaby I was, I made sure to tattle on the two girls.

“Mrs. Richardson, these two girls made fun of my outfit and it really hurt my feelings,” I made sure to look extra sad by staring down at the floor the whole time. I looked like a puppy who had just been caught peeing on the bed and was desperate to get out of trouble. The girls got detention for the next two weeks and had to write me an apology letter. (P.S. If “Pointy Nose” or “Smelly Pits” are reading this, I’m not sorry for telling and I hope you both were miserable in detention every day.)

After the whole nun costume debacle, I decided to change my approach, because either I was doing the whole “Child of Christ” thing wrong, or God didn’t give a shit. Either way, I was tired of feeling scared. I tried

to talk to my family about it, but none of them took it seriously. “You just have a wild imagination” or “Don’t worry, you will outgrow your fear” was the soundtrack to my childhood. I guess I can’t really blame them. While most kids worried about what toy they would get for their birthday, I worried why God made me different (It was all very “woe is me”)

Instead of whining about it, I stuck with what I knew. So, when I was thirteen, I made a list of rules on how to survive being different.

The 10 Commandments of a Bad Catholic

1. Fail Kindergarten, because you do the Sign of the Cross with your left hand and refuse to correct this habit for two more years. If God wanted you to use your right hand, he should have made you righthanded.

2. Refuse to drink the Blood of Christ, because the whole idea made you feel like a vampire, and not the cool teenage romance kind, but the crusty emo guy who scares people at the mall. Also, a cup of communal spit did not sound appealing.

3. Try to look under the cloth Jesus is wearing on the crucifix to see if they carved his dick. Think about how awkward it must have been for Mary to have the whole town see her son’s dick as he died.

4. Avoid shaking hands with your neighbors during the Sign of Peace. Sorry John, but I don’t want to touch your sweaty hand that you used to wipe your ass an hour ago.

5. Make it a point to respond with, “Let us pray” for every prayer intention, except the one about protecting unborn babies. Feel pride as your family and neighbors glance at you in horror. Yes, it does feel good to condone “murder.”

6. Look around in mass and make it a game to guess how many of the people in the church will end up in hell. My money is always on the people in the front row, who make it a point to use the end of service as their own personal runway. They fund the church and want everyone to know it.

7. Be queer.

8. Have a priest tell your parents that your conception doesn’t count, because it “wasn’t natural.” Any form of conception outside of the natural way is said to harm the child and violate its integrity.

9. Have a crush on your favorite young priest and make it a point to only attend mass when he is preaching. Do not focus on anything he says and instead daydream about him finally noticing you. Spoiler alert: He doesn’t.

10. Use holy water as drinking water one day when you’re thirsty. Hydration is important.

Okay, so maybe some of these rules were a little over the top, but I knew that if I was going to be judged for being different, then I wanted to at least have fun with it. These rules worked for a while and even when I felt alone in a community meant to uplift me, I just remembered that not fitting in may have been a good thing.

Forgive me father, for I have sinned. I don’t know if I belong here anymore.

Sandia Nahir Cavaleri

i would sometimes like to think i am going mad for i sing for everyone seeks for answers and yet my song goes unheard and i am shrunken little bird smaller until nothing at all yet i sing and i am either dead or dying in myself from the fumes, sickly sweet, of Delphi or the soft silence of tunnels that house things i don’t need and will never see save for the glimmers in their hands offerings for something larger that they sing of in a small box or a temple i am equally dead used for the lungs that they destroy with wanton apathy but i sing with another choking breath for the crimes of war the hands around my neck and the thickening air the men’s voices screaming

harsh on my ears all noise and no words that i am useless for my song that may yet save them from love of gold bodily greed the breath branching in my chest widens head sways feet stumble as i struggle shaking to move. to sing for them.

cassandra's canary (for the girls who can see the storm coming)

Genevieve Baddorf

Cold Path

Edgar A. Villarreal

Carving Knife

Chelsea Panameño

My mother should have been a carpenter because it’s the closest she could get to Jesus without being consumed by Him, irony carved in wood and sinew. It’s quiet work tireless, like prayer –a useful art.

All her children became artists, but none would apprentice for fear of becoming her, ignoring how our faces looked hand-crafted –a matching set. Calloused hands would not touch us, beads of sweat making her skin sticky. But there would be no blood. What creation would strike out knowing it would be incomplete without its maker?

Yet, I could not tell you what this made me: the chair –the object of her dedication, a product of her time and effort –or the knife she held to it –steady, carving swirling grooves and smooth edges dulled for her sake in exchange for soft words in a tongue that could never form an apology.

Pasture Glow

Myrna Trevino

A Totally Not Desperate Letter To The Elegant Muse, Calliope

Luis Artega

Can you please write this poem for me?

I call to you Greek goddess of eloquence and epics: Cali·ope. Cah·lil·uh·pee…?

Kuh·lai·uh·pee!

Oh Calliope, the eldest, wisest, (and prettiest) muse, fill my stupid human head with tales of grandeur like that old guy Homer with his work . . . in the Simpsons ... wait no ...

The Odyssey!

Oh Calliope, I pray that you answer my plea on time.

Unlike the clockwork of the four seasons, the little “dance” between Hades and Persphone, you pride yourself in visiting at random and when one is most unflattering.

Yes, as I fall asleep, kiss me goodnight with stories I will not remember. Of course, inspire my soul when the water of today washes down the weight of yesterday.

Oh no, don’t come when I make the time to sit in still silence waiting for you. But I know, you’re a busy woman.

Didn’t you have an actor phase at one point?

They had you painted on one of them vases or vaaz.

I think it was with some punk named Hercules or Hunkules. Is that why you weren’t there when I called to you?

Am I just not worshipping enough?

Does one need to fly around in a Pegasus bare ass while flagging a tunic on a pole?

Will that get your attention?

Do I need to call to your Wattpad smut-obsessed sister Erota instead?

Okay, I admit that I couldn’t pronounce your name. And yes, I know I didn’t write this on papyrus. But muses inspire mortals, because they want to see them succeed.

So in a way, this is a two-way relationship.

So I have to ask

A little different this time

Will you make this poem with me?

One Millon Spiders

Ethan Tatom

Adam’s head spun, and his grip on the test loosened. Two lines. Fuck. He tossed the test in the trash, gripped the sink, and threw up once more.

“God dammit,” he spat, shoving the tap on with shaking hands. He watched the clear water carry his breakfast down the drain as his stomach turned. He grimaced and washed his hands, holding them under the frigid water as if that would slow the eggs beneath his skin from bursting. He had maybe three weeks. He smacked the tap off and dried his hands on the washcloth that stood vigil next to the basin, the cartoon cat that was printed on the cloth’s bulging eyes distorted as he twisted the cloth around his fingers.

He left the bathroom and snatched his phone off his nightstand, sat, then stood back up. He paced, thumbing through his contact list as he tried to control his breathing. I need to call Mom. Fuck that. Samantha? No, wait, boyfriend. Boyfriend, first. He tapped the contact he had been looking for and held the phone to his ear. It rang once, then twice. It rang a third time, and Adam found that he was shaking again.

“Adam?” A voice croaked through his receiver, “Why are you calling me at five in the morning? Is everything all right?”

“Hey, Jake. Remember when I said that I wanted to go to the aquarium?” Adam asked. “Dude. It’s five in the morning. I have work today.”

“The Shedd Aquarium. In Illinois.”

Adam heard a sharp intake of breath, and there was silence for a moment.

“Okay. I’ll call in sick. Let me get my stuff ready, okay?” Jake answered, his voice wavering in its attempt to portray confidence. “Do you want me to stay on the phone while I do?”

“No, no. I’m gonna try and get my stuff ready, too. We’ll be gone for about a week. Do you have that many sick days?”

“I’ll figure it out. I really want to go to the aquarium, so don’t worry about it.”

“Okay. Cool,” Adam kneeled on the floor and tugged his suitcase out from beneath the bed. He sat next to the suitcase, his fingers twitching around the phone. “Thank you,” he sighed.

“Don’t worry about it,” Jake sounded a lot more awake now. There wasn’t much of a surprise there. “I’ll see you in a bit. I love you,” Jake said, and it wasn’t lost on Adam that it was the first time that Jake had said it first.

“Love you,” Adam said into his phone, and squashed the red circle that sat in perfect stillness on his screen.

Jake pulled up in front of the house Adam rented. He was in the silver car that his parents bought him at eighteen. Adam remembered whenever he said it was a silver car, Jake always corrected him and said its make and brand, or whatever. Adam took pride in the fact that he never cared to remember the year or type of car.

Jake opened his door and climbed out of his car. Adam saw confusion crawl over his face at the sight of Adam sitting on the front steps of his own porch, his brown suitcase next to him.

“Hey. Why are you out here? It’s like forty degrees. Also, want me to grab your suitcase for you?” Jake jogged across the yard to Adam, offering one hand to help Adam up, and reaching two others for Adam’s suitcase.

“Didn’t want to be inside. And uhm, yes. I would. Thanks.” He gripped Jake’s offered hand and stood. He expected his partner to hurry the suitcase to the car and was startled when Jake tugged him into a hug with all six of his arms.

“Jake? Are you all right?” Adam fit his arms beneath Jake’s top arms.

“I should be asking you that. I thought you said the testosterone made you less. Uh, taking? What’s a good word for this?” Jake’s face twisted as he fumbled with words.

“I kind of hate the term ‘fertile,’ but it feels like the most appropriate one. Don’t use it though.” Adam pulled away from the hug.

“Yeah, gross. And, just to be sure, we’re not actually going to an aquarium, right? That was the code word?” Jake lifted Adam’s suitcase, and they walked together to the car.

“Correct,” Adam muttered, grimacing. “And I told you the testosterone wasn’t a sure-fire thing. It does greatly reduce my chances of getting, er. Egged.”

“Egged?”

“I don’t want to say the word. I’m already going through dysphoria hell right now. And I figure it’s gonna get worse when we start to interact with doctors. I’m trying to save myself from spiraling here.”

“Right,” Jake popped the trunk and tossed the brown suitcase next to his green suitcase. Adam left to go sit shotgun, and their conversation paused until Jake got back in the driver’s seat.

A small smile curved on Adam’s face as he stared at the elongated steering wheel, remembering the time he had tried to drive Jake’s car. It wasn’t made for two-handed people, and it showed.

“You’re smiling?” Jake started the car.

“Yeah. I’m a complex person, I guess. Lots of emotions swirling up in my head. I kind of want to cry right now, but I can’t. I don’t have any reason. I mean, we have our game plan. It’s going fine so far. I texted my sister, and she’s going to let us stay at her place while we’re up there. I don’t get why I want to cry. Or why I feel so scared. And sad, I guess?”

Jake’s driving was always careful, but there was more timidity than usual as he took every red light. “You don’t want to keep them, right? Like, we’ve talked about it before. You know I don’t want them either. Kind of didn’t expect us to ever have to do this.”

“You’re the one who asked to go raw, man. But, no. I don’t want them. I don’t think? I mean, the process is horrific. The chances of survival for someone like me aren’t the best. I would have to stop HRT. But.”

“But?”

“I guess this is just the animal part of me, but there’s a small, tiny part of me that wants kids? Like, on every reasonable level I don’t want to have spiders bursting from my skin, or to raise kids that have several more limbs than I do, nor do I have the money to do that, or the emotional capacity for it. Yet, there’s a part of me that does? Like, that wants a generation to come after me, to remember me? But even then, I think it’s purely instinct. Like, because we’re animals, right? But we think we’re more reasonable than that because our prefrontal cortex is more developed.”

“Okay,” Jake said.

“Sorry, that was a lot. I guess what I’m saying is I don’t want to be a dad, but my animal brain is saying I should be.” Adam held his hands together tight until it hurt in an attempt to stop the shaking.

“I don’t mind your rambles. It’s a lot to process, though.” Jake paid close attention to the road.

Adam gazed out the window, past the trees that lined the road as they drove out of the city and into the quiet. A billboard grew closer, a large image of a fluffy jumping spider whose dark four eyes glistened beneath a speech bubble where comic sans words swam, “What about my rights?”

Adam sneered.

The newly hatched never looked like that, he knew. He had seen the videos in his sex ed class, years ago. He watched his arms and imagined all the goosebumps that bubbled on his skin bursting, hundreds of beadyeyed and sticky spiders stumbling out of the burst wombs, imagined doctors hurriedly scooping as many as they could into vials to prevent the quick learners from dropping to the floor and being crushed under foot. He would be an afterthought, and they would only begin bandaging the smaller wounds once they had captured as many as possible, and the stitching would be done on fading anesthesia.

“Can we see the aquarium?” Adam asked.

“Literally? Or are we still in code?”

“Literally. And, I’m confident in not wanting to keep them. Just dealing with social conditioning, I guess. Or animal brain shenanigans.”

“I would like to go to the aquarium with you. Depending on how much the...other aquarium costs.” A soft smile spread across Jake’s lips. “Do you think they have otters at the Shedd Aquarium?”

“I hope so.”

Adam woke as the car crushed gravel beneath the tires. “We’re here?” He squinted as the sunlight pierced the windshield and shone directly into his eyes.

“Yeah. I’m shocked you slept the whole way. You usually hate car rides,” Jake parked the car in the driveway.

“Motion sickness. Makes you drowsy. On short rides, it’s nausea and headaches. Longer rides give me a chance to act on the drowsiness.” Adam unbuckled his seatbelt and tugged his sleeves down, trying to ignore the inhuman squirming beneath his skin.

“Oh. Makes sense. Do we, uh, stay here and wait for your sister? Or do we get out and let her know we’re here?”

Adam opened his door, and left the vehicle, tugging his coat on after, “I’ll text her.”

He woke his screen up, and texted her while Jake slipped out of the car. Adam went to the back to help Jake unload, when he heard the door of the small brick house swing open and slam close.

“Hey guys.” Samantha hugged Adam from behind.

He turned his nose up at the overwhelming sharp scent of perfume. “Hey, Sam.”

“Hey, Samantha.” Jake smiled and reached one of his hands out for her to shake.

“Oh, so professional. Do you need any help getting this inside?” Samantha snarked.

“No, I think we’ve got it. Just lead the way.” Adam popped the lever out of the suitcase and followed Samantha inside, his suitcase rolling behind him.

“You’ll be sleeping in the guest room. Me and Maria have been talking about if we have kids, we would use this room as a nursery, so let us know if it’s a good size or not,” Samantha laughed.

“You and Maria have been dating for six months,” Adam said, expressing what the scrunched scars on Jake’s forehead meant.

“And you guys aren’t married, weird how that works,” Samantha sassed, leading them into a room with a twin sized bed.

“What does that mean,” Jake dropped his suitcase next to the single wardrobe.

Samantha opened her mouth, but Adam started before she could. “Religious parents think I’m a virgin.”

“Adam cheated on Jesus,” Samantha laughed.

“What.” Jake said.

“Look up Catholicism,” Adam sighed.

“All of it?” Jake scoffed.

Samantha slapped Jake’s back with a cackle. The cackle was short lived, though, as Adam’s phone began to ring.

His face paled as he looked at the caller ID. He swiped the green icon and turned the speaker on.

He kept unblinking eye contact with Samantha as he said, “Hey, Mom. What’s up?”

Her smile fell and she creeped out of the room.

“Hey, kiddo. I wanted to check in on you. Your boss asked me if I felt comfortable telling him what the medical emergency was. I told him he would just need to ask you, because of hippo.”

“Hippo?” Adam tossed the phone onto the night stand next the bed.

“You know, how I can’t disclose your medical history,” she clarified.

Adam considered correcting her, but did not. He looked to Jake and gave a shrug.

“Hey, Mrs. Barry,” Jake took off his coat and hung it on the door. Adam shoved his own off and left it on the bed behind him.

“Oh, hello Jake. You’re there, too? I hope I didn’t interrupt a date. But your boss said you had an emergency, Adam. Did you use that as an excuse?”

“Well, not quite,” Jake easily took the reigns of the conversation, “he did it for me. My vacation days expire soon, so we decided to go to the Shedd aquarium.”

“I’ve never heard of that. Your vacation days shouldn’t expire, hon. You should look into that,” Adam’s mother said.

“Ah, it’s cause I’m on a contract. Adam is okay, though. I would really hate to travel by myself.”

“You can’t go kidnapping my kid,” she half-joked.

“Sorry, Mom,” Adam interjected, “I forgot to tell you. I had to plan out the places to stop and where we would stay, stuff like that. I got distracted.”

“Well, I’m glad I called then. You really gave me a scare.”

Samantha popped her head into the room and gestured as though she were eating. Oh thank God, Adam clasped his hands together and bowed his head to his sister in thanks.

“Oh,” Adam interrupted, “we have to let you go, Mom. Dinner is ready.”

“Well, all right. I love you, kiddo. Take care of my kid, Jake!”

“Yes, ma’am,” Jake said.

“Love you, Mom. Bye,” Adam hung up, and gave Jake a kiss on the cheek, below the scar where his fourth eye once was. “Thanks, Jake.”

They left the room to eat dinner, and tried to keep their minds anywhere but on what needed to be done tomorrow.

The doctors determined how close the eggs were to hatching first. If it had only been a few days since they attached, then Adam could’ve been given some drugs that would break them apart and reabsorb them into his blood. Unfortunately, he knew that it had been two weeks since they had taken such a stupid fucking risk. So, they didn’t have much time. Usually, the eggs hatched within a month. He would have to do the more invasive procedure.

The procedure took only two days. The first appointment prepared him. Adam looked pointedly away from the screen as a nurse dragged a wand slick with too-cold goo across his skin. She drew circles on his skin in red pen, and Adam tried to look away from that, too. Jake sat in

a chair just out of his reach, scrolling through his phone. He probably thought it would be better if neither of them addressed what was happening. Adam wasn’t sure if the pain in his chest was one of gratitude or loneliness.

A doctor, or maybe it was another nurse, came in and delivered shots in the center of each red circle. It was around this point that he closed eyes and ignored the needle’s bites sticking him over and over. When she was done, she gave him medication wrapped in an endlessly crinkling white plastic bag. She gave instructions on how and when to take it, and he laughed as he told her that Jake would have to be the one to remember the instructions.

“My memory is the absolute worst. I barely remember to take my testosterone, and that’s too expensive to forget,” Adam chuckled, trying not to look down at the red circles that still marked him.

“I’ll remind him,” Jake assured the woman. “I’ve been keeping all the notes on my phone, so we’ve got this. Should I be there for the surgery?”

“You will not be in the operating room. Recovery is monitored by nurses for two hours, and then he will be left to recover for six to eight hours.” She turned to Adam. “Will you be expecting him to take you home?”

“Yes,” Adam answered, looking up from the bed to Jake. Their eyes met, and the urge to grasp one of Jake’s hands was overwhelming. He did not reach for his hand.

“All right. I think that’s all for today. Any more questions?”

“No. Thank you for everything,” Jake said.

“I’ll leave you to change, now.” The woman stood and left.

Jake drove Adam back to his sister’s house, stopping for Spiderbucks on the way. That night was spent with Jake reminding Adam not to wash too hard lest he wash away the red ink, to take medicine, correcting his posture when they did stretches together, and one hundred other obnoxious, kind reminders.

Adam didn’t remember most of the next appointment. He was higher than Icarus, but having a much better time. There was a dull aching in his arms, but he imagined it would be far worse if the soft folds of his brain weren’t soaking in the feel-good sauce that they gave him before the appointment began. He had been told that some people don’t sleep through the surgery and was glad that he was the kind of person that did.

Needles made him uncomfortable, and despite having had a menstrual cycle for many years, the sight of blood made him light-headed. He had been taken to see a film written by Christians when he was younger that made these sorts of surgeries seem like murder scenes. Objectively, he knew it was bullshit. It was dramatic as all hell, and even when he was sixteen, he knew there was no way that it was like that. Nonetheless, as the drugs had pulled him into darkness, he was grateful that he wouldn’t need to see any of the instruments. He wouldn’t remember the surgery, or most of the hours spent in the recovery room.

He did remember leaving the appointment, though. He remembered Jake walking him back to his car, looking at the bandages wrapped around his arms. Adam remembered thinking that Jake looked like a painting of Saint Anthony, his face neutral, yet betraying some other unspoken emotion. Adam found one of Jake’s hands, and held it in his own, clinging to the comfort within that grasp. He basked in the dizzying warmth of the sun beaming on his back and face as the pain medication’s grip loosened.

He looked forward to seeing the otters at the aquarium.

MMHNOM Sushi

Monserrat Vazquez

Before the Sea Foam is Gone

Chelsea Panameño

Most people outside the island didn’t believe in selkies, but those of us who lived by the water – not the tourist’s beaches with their blinding blue and child-proofed waves, but the ocean in all its salt and spit and shifting tides – knew when they were coming. When we pulled the fish up, squirming, still teeming with life, we could feel the change in the wind and the sea itself. When us younger ones cut the heads and scraped the scales off, careful with the blades, the meat was whiter, and the taste was always better. The smell of fresh fish filled our nostrils and lingered long after we locked our doors.

It wasn’t every year they came, not since the tourists started coming in droves and scared them off with their ships and pollution, but when the tides started to change, and the skies thundered overhead, it wasn’t long before one could appear. They always followed storms.

I didn’t know what a selkie was like, not up close. I imagined soft skin and dark eyes, wide hips and long limbs better suited for the deep. I imagined long hair that floated above them as they dived below the surface, and kept swimming until the light that dappled the surface of the water could no longer be seen. I imagined they were better versions of girls like me.

By nightfall, the storm howled and screeched around us, rattling the windows and seeping in through the roof. Raindrops dripped into an

old pot in the corner of the kitchen. My father was fast asleep in the next room, unaware of the way the world went grey and hazy.

If I closed my eyes and listened, I could hear a sound like voices in the distance. Like someone laughing, or someone sobbing.

I found her by one of the tide pools on the east side of the island the day after the storm. I didn’t mean to find her, because I wasn’t dumb enough to chase after seals who turned into girls. But I needed something to do with myself, and my aunts had shooed my cousins and I away for the afternoon so they could gossip in peace. The younger ones ran off to play, while the older ones left for the town not far from the village, to eat snacks and meet up with schoolfriends. They whispered behind my back about me, about my “heritage,” when they thought I couldn’t hear them. I’d learned to leave them alone, grabbing a small bag and heading out to wander if nothing else. I knew the area better than any of them, so it wasn’t hard to find somewhere quiet. Being alone was easier. There were less expectations.

The selkie lay back with her head resting on a rock, arms and legs splayed out starfish-style, naked except for some kind of sheet she must have found discarded somewhere, the white fabric having faded into an ivory with bits of grey. She couldn’t have been older than me, but that could have been a lie. My father liked to say girls are born liars, no matter what form they were in, and that was supposed to include me. Some days, I didn’t feel like a girl at all, and I didn’t want to be a liar either way. But she was too pretty to be a liar. Her hair was long and dark and still damp, and when she opened her eyes, they were all shadow and void, with no clear boundary between the pupil and the iris.

Lying next to her was a pile of something grey glinting in the sun.

Her skin. The real one, that was.

She scrambled into a sitting position, turning to face me, shifting her body to hide the caul.

“I don’t want it.” I took a step back, hands up, palms facing her in a maybe-universal symbol of not being a threat. Did they do that underwater? They didn’t have hands, so perhaps not. I put my arms down. I tried to look relaxed.

She squinted at me, eyeing me up and down. She hadn’t moved. “I don’t think I’ve seen you before.”

“I’ve never seen you either.” I wanted to help her up, but that felt invasive, somehow. “Do you need help?”

“No.” She started to stand, grabbing the caul in the process, then paused. “Maybe.”

She gathered up her caul in her arms, took one step forward and almost fell right over. I stifled a laugh as she rightened herself, brushing some of the sand off of her sheet-dress.

She scrunched her nose a little as she made a face. “Don’t laugh. I’m not used to legs. Everything hurts when you take off your skin.” She frowned. “Does it always hurt to do everything? Why do you all do things like dance if you’re going to be in pain?”

“It doesn’t hurt me.” The closest I’d ever gotten was spraining my ankle once years ago while climbing some rocks, and that pain felt disconnected now. I frowned. “If it hurts, why do you do it?”

“Because I heard shifting can be fun.” She turned in the general direction toward the town. “We watch you all, sometimes. Me and some of the others. We like the music.” She turned back to face me. “Though I’ve heard humans are fond of kidnapping us. If you try, I’ll run.”

“I’m not going to kidnap you.”

She clutched her caul to her chest. We stayed there for a moment, the silence hanging in the air, waiting.

The space between the seal-girl and I felt fragile, as though one small movement could shatter it and leave the pieces stinging my palms.

“In that case,” she said, her words slow and still heavy, “you can be my tour guide. What’s over there?”

The village felt too much like sacred ground for a seal-girl, and too much of a risk with so many people who would know the truth. But there

was no way to hide her while she was walking around wearing a sheet-dress and carrying her sealskin, and I didn’t bring spare clothes with me everywhere I went.

“What are we doing?” She stood behind me, close enough that I could feel a hint of her warm breath. She didn’t smell quite like fish, but like seagrass and the morning breeze coming out from the waves. It reminded me of what people liked to say the ocean smelled like, the ones they made candles out of and sold at overpriced stores in the larger cities. The caul, however, still smelled like fish, but it was muted almost. Like it had changed along with her.

“Sneaking into my house.” I shoved the key in the lock, trying to push just slow enough that it wouldn’t squeak. “I can take you to the town, but you can’t go looking like that. You can’t have your caul out, either. People will try to take it. You can borrow some of my clothes, and we can get a bag to put your caul in.”

I could hear the frown in her tone. “Do humans not understand the concept of not taking other people’s things? Even we know that much.”

“We do.” I stepped inside the house. “But people do it anyways. It’s called stealing.”

It was quiet, which was good, the lights off and the curtains drawn. I shoved off my shoes to not track sand inside and made my way to my room at the end of the hall. I could hear the soft steps of bare feet behind me. I made a mental note to grab her some sandals, too; no wonder she said she was in pain.

My room wasn’t much beyond a bed and a dresser, a few shelves where I kept most of my things (a few books, some small mementos from over the years), and a table where I dumped anything else that didn’t have a place to go. The walls were bare, the plaster cracked, with tiny bits of sunlight poking in through the blinds. I made a point of not looking at the mess. Were seals particular about being clean? I could almost hear my aunt snapping at me not to be rude to guests.

“You can borrow anything in the drawers that fit you.” I tried not to stare at her, but it was hard not to notice how similar our body types were, except her features were more refined, something unnatural to it. It was something in the way she carried herself, like she wasn’t quite sure what to do. My tiny imperfections – the scar on my left thumb, the choppy ends of my hair – if nothing else, made me human.

“It’s nice in here.” Her voice was soft and light. I stayed turned around as she went through my things, keeping my eyes on the floor, the tangle of blankets, anything. I wasn’t used to this level of intimacy, of trust that I wouldn’t somehow hurt her in this moment. I grabbed a spare bag I kept that was big enough to hide the caul in. I didn’t want to risk hiding it somewhere or ask her to part with it.

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“How’s this?”

I turned around to see her in one of my longer dresses, the fabric worn, but still retaining its original blues, a pattern of white flowers dotting the waist.

“You look –” and I stopped myself, because the first word I thought of was “beautiful,” and that felt wrong now, forbidden. I shouldn’t find her beautiful. It was normal to think girls were pretty, sure, because why wouldn’t it be normal? But this felt different. This wasn’t someone from afar who I’d seen in passing, or someone who it was easy to keep their distance from me. She was here, right in front of me, in my room and wearing my clothes. We were close enough to touch if we wanted to.

“You look nice,” I settled on. “Sorry. We should go before someone sees us. Here, you can put your caul in this so no one sees it.”

I caught the tiniest glimpse of her expression as I passed her to grab some sandals to lessen the pain on her feet. There was a faint hint of confusion, and her face fell in what could have been disappointment. I shoved down the guilt in my chest and walked back down the hall, out of the front door.

The town wasn’t as isolated as it seemed to be. It wasn’t a long walk to the closest town, still not as big as other places I’d heard of, but it had far more options for entertainment than anything the village did. Here, tourists mingled with the locals, hoping to get a “more authentic experience” in the country. The houses were taller, with rows of windows like teeth and souvenir shops that sold what was normal for us for five times the price. But it was colorful. There weren’t many people out at this hour – the sky still clouded over from the recent storm, the air thick with the smell of rain instead of fish and sea – but the ones who were out wore fashions I didn’t recognize, had a mix of dyed hairs and accents I couldn’t place. I liked to people-watch when they weren’t calling me exotic, walking around farmer’s markets or near coffee shops. Here,

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they paid less attention to the old myths, with people coming to and from countless other places. Dark hair and eyes didn’t mean a selkie. But I was cautious nonetheless.

Her eyes went wide again at the sight, but with a brightness to them that was unlike the initial fear. She walked a few steps ahead of me, sending a thin spindle of panic through me. She didn’t try to speak to anyone, which was a relief, because I had a hard enough time speaking without having to do it for two people. Some people turned as we walked past, staring first at me, then their eyes slid over to her. Some looked closer than others, but no one tried to stop us, to ask any questions. The caul was hidden. To them, we could be normal teenage girls, maybe neighbors, maybe schoolfriends, wandering town on a bored afternoon. If they stared at her, it was because she was beautiful, and nothing else.

Something foul rose in my mouth at that thought, and I made sure to stay as close as possible. Not that she seemed to notice. Part of me wanted to reach out and grab her hand, but that felt childish, so I kept them at my sides, fidgeting with whatever possible.

“What’s that?” she’d ask. She knew about most things we saw, either from observing humans herself or from what others had told her, but this was her first time up close.

“Keep your voice down; we don’t want to draw attention.”

She made a face, lips turned almost into a pout. “Fine. What’s that?”

And I told her, every time. It was the longest time I’d spent this close to another person in my entire life, and it was exhilarating.

If I saw anyone who would recognize me, I ducked away and found excuses to go down a different street. I didn’t need any suspicions about me confirmed, and she didn’t need to know they existed at all. She was in awe of the surface in all its details, and I refused to ruin that.

What I didn’t want to tell her was that there hadn’t been a selkie in the village since I was an infant, and that was because the last selkie was my mother. My father had found her lying on the rocks, naked with her caul beside her, asleep and bathed in the sunlight, and claimed he loved her.

(At this point in the story, my aunt would snort and say that he loved her breasts. My grandmother would not comment on this.)

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In his love and lust, he hid the caul beneath a floorboard in the bedroom while she was still asleep. He told her the waves must have washed it out to sea, and he offered her a warm bed and a meal. She tried to go back out into the water, but human limbs are not the same as a seal’s body, their designs different in so many ways, and she was forced to go back to shore. She stayed, because my father had shown her kindness. She didn’t run, because there weren’t many places to go. To her, the water seemed to have betrayed her.

(I asked once if they ever asked my mother if she loved him back. My aunt said, “Of course, we did. At the time, she seemed interested in him.” She narrowed her eyes at me. “But I don’t think it was in her nature to be a wife. She would sit at the window for hours and stare out towards the sea. I don’t think she ever believed your father about the caul. She must have known he took it. When we weren’t watching, she’d tear the place apart looking for it, and when we returned, she was always cleaning up the mess.”)

A lesson most children learn is that the sea can only be loyal for so long before the tides change, sometimes without warning.

Every time she got close to finding her caul, my father would move it. Sometimes, it would be nestled in the thatching of the roof. Other times, it was tucked behind a dresser or cabinet, pressed against the wall. Any crack or crevice could be useful to him, and he was careful not to use the same places too often, just in case. He never told anyone where it was, including his sisters, who didn’t even entertain the idea of a formal marriage ceremony.

I was born in the middle of a storm. My mother’s water wouldn’t break, her body refusing to let go of something so close to her despite her human form. I was still caught in the caul that kept me alive inside my mother’s body, submerged in a bubble of fluid. The midwife tried to break it, but the caul wouldn’t puncture, so I was delivered still nestled inside of it. It didn’t let me go until she cut umbilical cord, the caul opening on its own after I was offered to my mother, who accepted me with a far-off look in her eyes.

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“It’s good luck,” the midwife had said. “It means she’ll never drown.”

It wasn’t the blessing that it should have been. I had webbing between my fingers and lungs that screamed louder than most infants could. My father buried the caul in the back garden after the rain stopped. Just in case. He never buried my mother’s caul there, because it was too beautiful, and he didn’t want to stain it with mud and dirt. But mine wasn’t a sealskin, and no one wanted me to follow my mother out to sea.

(Years later, when my aunt first told me this story, I tried to dig it up. But it was far too late, the soil having soaked it up, and any magic it could have had was gone.)

Days passed, and my father did not move my mother’s caul as he had in the past. Perhaps he thought that, now that they had a child, she would never leave him. Perhaps he’d nestled that thought into his head, comforted by the ideal of motherhood, of domesticity, ignoring what had come before him. He was careless. Just this once.

On the fifth day after my birth, my mother was gone, the caul pulled from a different floorboard, leaving me napping alone in the dark. My father returned to a quiet house with only me waiting for him.

He never remarried, as he was convinced that women were not to be trusted, and that wives would only bring further trouble. My aunts took the burden of caring for me until I could do it myself, because my father knew nothing of caring for children, human or otherwise, and wanted little to do with it. I was the only one with no siblings. The other adults warned their children not to get too close to me, and they heeded that warning regardless of what I did. I learned to be quiet and useful, because girls who were quiet and useful were left alone, and they said my dark eyes were unsettling, my tanned skin unnatural.

The webbing sank and merged with my fingers by the time I was ten years old. Sometimes, I held them close to my face, wiggling each one, trying to conjure up the feel of them. Other times, I forced them to remain straight and pressed close to each other, hiding any evidence that something was ever wrong. If I pretended hard enough, there would be nothing left to hide at all.

We headed back to the rocks where I first found her, hoping to be there before sunset.

“Why do you come up and then leave again so soon?” I hadn’t meant to bring it up, but we hadn’t spoken much except to explain the various customs and constructions in the town, and it was my turn to ask the questions.

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“We don’t tend to stay for long. We have lives outside of this.” She shrugged. “Besides, I don’t want to be anyone’s wife or mother.”

“How come?” I thought about my aunts, my cousins, the familial routine. I thought of my mother, how she longed for the sea. “It doesn’t seem so bad, being a wife or a mother.”

She thought about it. “I don’t like the thought of belonging to someone else.”

I wouldn’t mind it at all, sat somewhere in the back of my mouth.

“Do you have to go back?”

She nodded. “We can’t be girls forever. People get suspicious of us. They expect things. Then, they get upset when we don’t live up to that.” She looked up at the sun. “It’s not bad, being a selkie. I think you’d make a nice one, if you could.”

“My mother was a selkie.” It was the first time I had said the words out loud. “I used to want to be like her.”

There was a pause on her end, where the only sound was the breeze. I wondered if she’d already guessed it, or was putting the pieces together.

“Why’d you change your mind?” was all she asked.

“I started hating her for leaving me.”

Without looking at me, she pressed something into my hands. It was a seashell, the grooves on the front still rough, the back smooth and hollow and cold.

Her fingers brushed against mine. They weren’t as soft as I imagined, but they were still smooth and warm. Something tugged at my chest.

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For a moment, I held her fingers in mine, clutching the shell and her, until she pulled away, and it felt like I’d lost something.

“I can’t tell you she’ll come back,” she said, staring out at the waves. It felt like an old song at that point. “But maybe that’s for the best.”

“Will you come back?”

“Maybe.” She thought about it for a moment. “Seven is a good number. Maybe I’ll come back in seven summers. Being a human is tiring, you know.”

There was nothing I could say against that.

I turned away again as she took off my clothes, slipping off the sandals and leaving them in a pile in the sand. I glanced behind me just to see, not to see her body, but to say goodbye.

There was a moment between the shift in which I saw both at once, the skin embracing her as she slipped into it, becoming both seal and girl at once, before she let herself fall back into the water. Sea foam burst from where she had stood, as she vanished beneath the waves, the only proof of her existence being the seashell clutched in my hand, hard enough to hurt.

The foam rushed to meet me, and I sat in the sand, letting the water drip from my fingers, before slipping her shell into my bag, gathering up my things, and walking back home to a quiet house where nothing was waiting for me.

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107

Primordial Soup Ashtray Piper Grokulsky

Self -Portrait as the Bumbling Bustling Honey Bee

Luis Artega

To be a bee, is not to speak. To be a bee, is to communicate.

In the hive, it seems that to speak, is unnecessary.

A two-step, waggle dance conducted by instinct.

A swiggty swooty shake of the booty

Seems to be enough.

Watch the red spice snapdragons beat their wings to raise the spring sun.

Listen to the singing whippoorwills calling from the hills.

Feel the pollen lilac petals powdered like pixie dust.

The spring turns to summer radiating life, and the hive

The hive begins to pick up its rhythm.

Did you know that bees can recognize human faces?

Communicate distance to other bees?

Understand efficient geometry?

Perceive time?

But, they don’t talk.

The seasons of the sun are coming in but fast.

The autumn wind, blowing in.

The leaves of the vine that fall so slow.

To be a bee is to slow down, to adapt.

To huddle together with others but, no words are spoken.

“According to all known laws of aviation there’s no way a- ”

The bee doesn’t care what the human thinks is impossible.

“According to all known laws of biology there’s no way a- “

Yes it true, with their dancing, and flying, and buzzing, they don’t speak

But if you listen closely, you might catch a whisper.

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Castings 2023

TableofContents

POETRY

POETRY

PHOTOGRAPHY

GRAPHIC DESIGN

MMHNOM Sushi

PROSE

2023 EDITORS CONTEST JUDGES

Contest Winners

01

Poetry

02

Prose

Cut Down

Dove 2

Monserrat Vazquez

The Lamb Leads Itself to Slaughter

A Spring Swim

Interrupting The Homo-Erotic Master of Evil

Between Columns & Shadows

He Who Trails Brimstone

You Want Me Any Other Way

Family Ties

Queen Liliuokalani

Ciridany Genchi Cortez

Goblins Behind the Toilet

Avengers in Art Nouveau

Sydney Ritter

Euterpe Muse Live: 4 - 6 AM CST

Choke Me, Chicken

A Business Transaction

my own Switzerland

-for girls with big girls

Love Through the Heart’s Crevices

Sublingua

Lara Stearsman

Daystrike

Karla Mendoza

Conversations with a Caterpillar

The 10 Commandments of a Bad Catholic

Cold Path

Carving Knife

Pasture Glow

A Totally Not Desperate Letter To The Elegant Muse, Calliope

One Millon Spiders

MMHNOM Sushi

Before the Sea Foam is Gone

Chelsea Panameño

Self -Portrait as the Bumbling Bustling Honey Bee