Crack the Spine - Issue 57

Crack the Spine

Issue fifty-seven

Crack The Spine Issue Fifty-Seven March 12, 2013 Edited by Kerri Farrell Foley Collection copyright 2013 by Crack the Spine

Contents

Darren R. Leo Snapshots Libby Goss In the Wake of Our Declaration Paulette Zander What’s Eating Bo Derek Alyssa Moore The Poem Begins in the Middles Immolation Nate Depke The Apiarist Matthew Fogarty The Stalks and Beads Ashley Luster Crocodile

Darren R. Leo Snapshots There were posers all around. That’s the word he would use as he dismissed them. With skinny pants and scarves artfully tied about their necks, they peered at their iMacs and sipped half caf, double soy lattes. It was the sort of place they used to joke about going into just to ruin the hip factor. She stirred her coffee again and waited. She might have made a tactical error. With his disdain for such people, he probably would not have a problem making a public scene here. She arranged the empty sugar packets on the table to make a little picture frame that highlighted a swirl of brushed steel.

It reminded her of a coffee place they had found in central Oregon. The industrial chic décor was highlighted by the Christian Patterson prints on the walls; a black and white picture of a white walled tire here, a shot of a multi-colored fluorescent light there. The tables rocked a bit on the uneven, reclaimed wood floor. That place hadn’t done quite enough demographic research. Besides them, the only other customers were two men wearing dirty Carhartt pants and hooded sweatshirts. The barista, with his ironic mustache, did not hide his disgust when they ordered plain black coffees. They had taken pictures of each other in front of all the art on the walls while the two guys watched them. She stirred her coffee again.

On that same trip through Oregon, their car had broken down on an empty two lane highway in southern Utah. In an hour, not one car passed, and the auto club said it would be at least three hours before a tow truck would arrive. He had found a box of pastel chalks in the trunk and first they played hopscotch in the middle of the road. Then they drew pictures of bunnies and cats and saguaro cactus and city skylines. The county sheriff who finally came by threatened to cite them for defacing public property. Their Christmas card that year was a photo of him arguing with the sheriff; both of them standing in a sea of Easter colors.

A woman entered pushing an Uppa Baby stroller. She had black, thick framed glasses and wore yoga pants and knee high black leather riding boots. Her child reached out a chubby hand and knocked over a display of coffee beans. It was tough to be hip with a toddler. He was good with children. He built forts with his nephews and had stuffed animal tea parties with her niece. He was the cool uncle and,

when they babysat, always ensured that the kids returned home riding raging sugar highs. Once, when his nephew was two, he took a picture of little Ethan sleeping with a bottle of scotch, a cigar, and an old issue of Playboy. He hid the picture in Ethan’s little backpack to be found later by his mother.

She sipped her coffee and looked at her sugar framed metal swirl. The design was etched permanently into the surface. Her phone vibrated. It was a text from her sister.

“Well?” she asked.

“He’s not here yet,” she thumbed back.

“Call me after!”

He hated texting. They had been at a restaurant in Newport once, dining outdoors over the water. A couple at a table next to them never said a word to one another. They never even looked up from their smart phones. He had reached over, taken the woman’s phone and tossed it into the bay.

“Have a conversation,” he said. She sat looking on while profanities were exchanged. He was arrested, booked complete with mug shots, and released.

She looked at the time on her phone and rose to get another coffee. There was the time he was late for her sister’s wedding. It was an outdoor garden affair so all the guests could see when he got out of the cab still dressed in the clothes he had worn to the bachelor party the night before. He had waved, bowed deeply, told the minister to carry on, and everyone except her sister and her father had laughed.

He managed to be in just about every wedding picture.

Two teenaged girls in front of her were having difficulty deciding between the iced caramel latte or the mocha cappuccino. There had been lovely flowers at her sister’s wedding. All manner and color of roses were deeply in bloom, infusing the air, and she had thought she might like to have her own wedding there. The girls settled on the cappuccinos and moved on to debating biscotti. After seeing his apartment for the first time, she had brought him a plant to brighten it up. It was a begonia she had grown from a cutting. He promptly killed it. She gave him a fern, a jade plant and then a spider plant.

They all died, not from neglect, but from overwatering. She finally gave him a bamboo that he could not love to death. It grew and grew, and he posted a pic of it for his blog cover.

“Small black coffee,” she said.

“One small old school,” the cashier called back to the barista. Plain coffee had become an anachronism. It seemed to her that things changed when she wasn’t looking.

She sat again and traced the swirls on the metal with her fingertip. She added sugar packets to her table top picture frame to make it more substantial. The extra heft highlighted the design even more.

He passed by the window in front of her, and the bell on the door clanged.

She swept the sugar packets aside, and the brushed swirl disappeared into the rest of the design. It was time.

Darren R. Leo holds an MFA in Fiction from Southern New Hampshire University. He is the author of the novel Keeping Score; a short heroic journey. Darren is currently in the final (hopefully) revision process of a new novel titled Trees and Other Remedies. His work has appeared in various publications. He resides in Rhode Island with a menagerie and a very patient woman, and he just returned from a very long walk on the Appalachian Trail.

Libby Goss In the Wake of Our Declaration

It happened deep into the night, a pitiful, silent execution. There was no screaming, no shot to rouse the heads that slumbered far beyond the smattering of trees. The moon had waned so far that only the edge of her gentle face lay upon the night. Not even the winds whispered as they usually did slipping through the branches of the trees but left the air in a suspended stillness that would not disintegrate until the coming of the light. And when the sun finally did peer over the horizon, all that was left was an expired breath and the rhythmic dripping of water. The body lay further ahead.

In Western Massachusetts, there used to be a river, a branch of the Concord, though one would have hardly called it such. It was more so a dribbling from that grand body, and somehow, the water seemed different, thin. The freedom was still there, wild and untamed like it is in the heart of the animal in man.

There were also the cries of the waves that seemed to slosh about against the shores. They spoke of some marching of boots or perhaps it was hoof beats. Yet the water’s taste, which was salty like blood, was unsettling. Maybe, it was simply missing humanity. Still, the town, which lay in the valley below, did not care. They sent their visitors to see the daughter of the mighty Concord, and the children used to play at the water’s edge and sing: Oh river, river wide, We know you first, before the day.

Oh river, river swift, Live we in your swell and sway.

And when we’ve walked into the bay, And when our souls have long since strayed, Heed our calls.

Lend us peace.

And bear what remains of us away.

But nature has her way of taking. The river began to dry into the meekness of a brook, and soon, the children forgot the song, and in the air, the rushing cries of liberty fell silent.

Ned fell into the clearing first, but this was only because George had stepped on the heel of his boot and had allowed him to fall forward upon his face. “Oh, for Christ’s sake,” said Ned. He stood and began to strain the sand from his beard which had not changed color but had acquired a kind of weathered look to it. He swiped at his forehead. The midmorning sun was drawing out sweat from his hairline.

“Sorry,” squeaked George, and he placed his hand upon Ned’s elbow as if to affirm his apology. “I didn’t mean to.”

“I know,” sighed Ned. “You never do.” He glanced down at the un-tempered, red mess of hair atop his friend’s head. “You ready to head out again?”

“Again?” said George. “We’ve been out here for days. Don’t you think ole Lucy would’ve starved by now?”

“She’s a bloodhound, Georgie. She’s got plenty to eat out here,” said Ned, and he began to carefully brush the sandiness from his jeans and gray, flannel shirt.

“Well, maybe we should stay here,” said George. His eyes settled upon the backpack that lay at his feet. It looked odd, all bumpy, the handle of a pan protruding from the back corner. “I bet ole Lucy’s trying to track us right now.”

“Maybe,” said Ned, and he smiled, but only hastily with the corners of his mouth.

“O c’mon Ned,” said Georgie. “Couldn’t we take just a little break? Just for a half hour?” Ned shook his head.

“No, we gotta keep lookin,’ Can’t hunt game without my girl.” Ned smiled fully then, but with a look of sad fondness wet in his eyes. “Besides, I told my wife we’d be back a day ago.”

“Which means we should be heading back now.”

“No, not yet,” and they both let the conversation settle into silence. Around them, the woods, which entrapped the barren, semicircular area on which they stood, did not speak either and stood apathetically, shading only its own root-feet.

“Well at least let me get some water,” said George finally, and he began to head towards the stream which was farther back in the clearing.

“Georgie, you idiot,” called Ned after him. “You can’t drink that water.”

“What do you mean ” and then there was a graceless thud. When Ned arrived at the stream, George was sitting up examining the large hole in the elbow of his forest, plaid shirt.

“Christ, what is that!” said Ned. He took a step away from his fallen friend.

“What is what?” asked George looking up.

“That!” said Ned, and he pointed to the body upon which legs George had tripped. It was lying on its stomach, its face shoved into the sandy bank of the river. George stood up cautiously then, hopped around the feet until he stood by Ned’s side. It was wearing one brown loafer, but the other foot was bare, its sole grimed in dirt and mud.

“I don’t know what it is,” George squeaked. “Where’d it come from?”

“How am I supposed to know, Georgie?” mumbled Ned. “You’re the one who tripped over it.”

“Looks like it fell in the river,” said George, and he took a step closer and pointed to the brownish hair and the back of the body’s white shirt, both of which looked dark and coolly damp under the ferocity of the sun.

“Yeah,” droned Ned. “You think it went for a swim, Georgie?”

“Maybe,” said George, and then suddenly, he snapped his head up to look at Ned. His eyes were green like the moss that grew upon the rocks along the banks. “We should bury him,” decided George.

“What?” said Ned. “No, you idiot.”

“Why not? It’s what people do with bodies, isn’t it?” The body lay still, like bodies do.

“Oh Christ, this is a crime scene, Georgie.” Ned plowed his fingers through his wavy hair. “What do you think people will say if they dig it up again and find our handprints all over it?”

“I dunno,” said George, shrugged. “They’ll say we were here.”

“Right,” said Ned. They both watched as the sun began to fade the wetness from the back of the shirt. Behind them, the creek was dripping in a listless way so that its sounded more like a leaking than the gush of a fervent current.

“Oh!” cried George. “You’re sayin’ this could be a murder!” Ned flinched. “What ’r we going to do?

We can’t be seen with this thing.”

“Let’s leave it here,” said Ned. “We’ll go on and look for Lucy, and nobody’ll even know we were here.”

“Good,” said George. “My wife would absolutely die if everyone thought I was a murderer.” And they began to walk back across the clearing to where George’s backpack still lay all lumpy upon the ground.

The body could not walk, so it stayed behind.

“You know,” said Ned, “we ought to head east. I don’t think we checked there yet.”

“Alright,” said George, and he gathered up his backpack, but off to the side there was a crunching, a crushing, a cracking of branches, and Peter strode into the clearing, his short, brown hair fringed with sweat droplets.

“Good morning, gentlemen,” he said. The chest of his navy t-shirt was stamped in sweat-prints. “Hot day for a hike isn’t it?”

“Oh, yes,” said Ned. “We were just headed off again.”

“Where to?” asked Peter. “I’m goin’ to the edge of town, heard Spring Fest is there. Been headed east all morning.”

“We’re headin’ that way too,” said Ned. “Lookin’ for my dog, Lucy.”

“What dog is this?” asked Peter. He swiped at his brow. “Jesus, it’s hot.” He craned his neck towards the stream. “Say,” he said suddenly, “what’s that over there?” He strode around Ned and George who turned around to watch him as he went. George’s eyes became large, like two green crab apples wedged beneath the arcs of his eyebrows. Ned was looking down at him, his eyes narrowed.

“Oh my God,” said Peter. Speechlessness preoccupied them all. Even the large oaks that bowed with the burdens of branchy weight were still. Further out from the clearing and into the forest, there came a nothingness, as though the heart of the land had grown still and unbeating.

“Sir,” said George finally, “I do believe you’ve found a body.”

“A body?” said Peter. His voice came out in a wispy rasp and could only be heard because the air was un-stirring.

“Yeah,” said George, “you know, the thing that’s leftover when you’re dead.”

“Oh Christ, Georgie,” said Ned. “He knows what a body is.” The body did not wish to speak and so, said nothing.

“Oh my God,” repeated Peter and then, “We should bring it into town, to the graveyard.”

“No!” said Ned. Peter turned to look at him, his eyes like two images of the earth with clouds hazing over the surfaces.

“But, isn’t that what’s right?” said Peter.

“Oh, pshaw,” said George. “You know what they always say,” and then he closed his thin lips and stared off into the stream which was now gurgling in a slow, decrepit way.

“Well, what do they always say?” asked Peter.

“Oh, you know,” said George fiddling with the narrow cuff of his sleeve. “Let bodies rest in peace. Or something like that.”

“Did you just make that up?” asked Peter.

“No,” said George slowly. “It’s like RIP.” The body did not comment.

“Well, I think we should just leave it,” said Ned, and he folded his arms as though dangling them towards the ground put his hands too close to the dead human flesh.

“Doesn’t that seem a bit cruel?” said Peter.

“Cruel?” said George. He creased the lines of his brow in thought. “What do you mean by that?” he asked.

“It should be buried,” said Peter in a whisper, “because…” and then he closed his mouth.

“You see that,” said Ned, taking a step backwards. “You don’t even know why. C’mon. We’ll just all leave it here, and nobody’ll have to know about it.” He glanced quickly towards the ground and then, back up, his face all awry in an expression of disgust.

“But, shouldn’t somebody take care of it?” said Peter. “I hate to just leave it here.”

“Aw, it’s fine,” said George. “It’s a body. It can’t get offended.”

“I suppose not,” said Peter, but the clouds still hung upon the surfaces of his eyes. The three of them turned and headed back to the clearing. Ned, the tallest, made heavy prints in the sandy soil, the heel of them pushing far into the earth creating little, semicircular craters. George, though the shortest, made sharp, narrow indents like he had a hop to his walk and was stomping upon the ground as he went. Only Peter’s footprints were hard to see. They were light, their edges like a stenciling upon the earth as though he had an uncertainty about where he placed his feet. The body, of course, made no footprints.

It remained lying by the stream. All of the dampness had dried from its hair and shirt.

As they neared the clearing, the sound of carefree laughter came spilling from the edge of the trees, and Little Tommy came running out, his youthful face dotted with freckles and his little, white teeth showing in his wide grin. “Bet you can’t catch me, Mommy!” he called, and Mrs. Liza Brown appeared from behind a slender-trunked birch. She was very pretty, her lips pink and curved fully. Her hair, which was softly auburn, fell in in curls about her cheekbones. “Good morning,” she said, and she put out her hand for Little Tommy who came running to her side and snuggled his own brown curls against her hip. George and Peter were staring shamelessly, but Ned, who had on some semblance of a smile, replied, “Good morning, Mam. What brings you so far out of town?”

“Oh, Tommy just needed some fresh air, isn’t that right, Tommy Boy?” He hopped away and began to run about the clearing. He was wearing a pair of olive cargo shorts and a yellow t-shirt and began to scrub himself down with the sand-dirt. George was watching him with a look of nostalgia and jealousy upon his face, but Peter was still staring at Mrs. Liza Brown. “And what about you gentlemen?” she said. She ran her fingers down the folds of her soft pink dress. George glanced at Peter who glanced right back. They both looked up at Ned. “Oh, we’re just searchin’ for my dog,” said Ned. “Been looking around all day, actually.”

“Oh really?” She flicked back her curls with a slight movement of her head. “What kind of dog?”

“Bloodhound,” said Ned. He looked off into the woods as if he could hear the lonesome, lost barking.

“Look, Mommy!” called Little Tommy from the stream. Peter stared at the ground, George at the sky. Ned feigned interest and followed Mrs. Liza Brown to where the body lay.

“Tommy James Brown, you get away from that thing right now!” she cried and stumbled backwards bumping into Ned. “But, Mommy!” said Little Tommy, and he put his hand on the head and turned it to the side.

Mrs. Liza Brown gasped.

“Tommy James Brown! One. Two. Three…” The little boy stuck out his bottom lip then, ran to his mother. Mrs. Liza Brown covered her eyes and Little Tommy’s with her long fingers. Peter and George came to the stream, and the three men stared down at the head. The ears were still there, red at the back from being under the stare of the sun, but the rest of the face was missing, all bloody and meaty in its rawness.

“Mommy!” whined Little Tommy, and he squirmed, but Mrs. Liza Brown pulled him closer into her stomach.

“Maybe, now we should do something about it,” mumbled Peter. He had not averted his eyes at all.

“Yeah, maybe,” said George who looked an even whiter shade than what was his natural skin tone.

The body just stayed there, bleeding like mutilated bodies do.

“You, idiots,” said Ned. “How many times do I have to say this? We should just leave it. Then, nobody gets in trouble, and we can forget all about it.”

“Yes,” said Mrs. Liza Brown then, and she uncovered her eyes but kept them upon the gasping and rasping of the stream. “I think we should all go. It would be what’s best, wouldn’t it?”

“Yes,” said Ned. “It would.” He looked at George who was now greenish and swaying but who nodded in agreement.

“But what’s best isn’t always right,” said Peter. He stood right over the body now, looking into its facelessness.

“Oh, Christ,” said Ned. “It isn’t?” said George.

“Would you just look at it!” cried Peter, and his voice seemed to reverberate through the clearing before it was consumed in the gurgling of the stream. “Jesus, it used to be alive. You know? It was walking by this stream once too.”

“Oh,” whispered George.

“So?” said Ned. “So,” said Peter, “maybe it used to be like us.”

“Like us?” said George.

“Like us,” said Peter. “And maybe one day we’ll be like it. You see? Maybe one day, our bodies will be lyin’ around, and some other guys will be standin’ around deciding not to do anything about us.”

“Sir,” said Mrs. Liza Brown, and she smiled in a very pretty way. “I’m sure someone much more knowledgeable than any of us will find it. They’ll know what to do with it. Maybe we’re even doing it a favor, leaving it here for someone better.”

“A favor?” said Peter.

“Yes,” said Mrs. Liza Brown. “You’re so sweet to worry about that thing just lyin’ there. But, you see, there are other people, better people to care for these types of things.”

“Well…” said Peter. He took a step back.

“We’ll all leave,” she said taking Little Tommy’s hand. “Do you think you could show me how to get back to town, sir?” She brushed her curls from her collarbone. Peter looked up and turned to her.

“You don’t know how to get back?” he said.

“I’ve come a bit too far,” said Mrs. Liza Brown, and she lowered her eyes so that her long lashes showed.

“Well, I guess I could show you,” said Peter, and he came to stand beside her, his cheeks coloring pinkish but not from the sun.

“Good,” said Ned taking long strides away from the stream. “We’ve decided.” There was the sounding of barking bounding off the trees in the distance. Ned’s head snapped towards the echo. It began to come closer and closer, the tones colliding until they became a singular one as Officer Jones appeared in the clearing holding the bloodhound on leash. “Lucy!” cried Ned. “Come here, girl!” Officer Jones bent down and unhooked her, and she bounded and knocked Ned to the ground leaving slobber across his nose. “Whoa, girl!” laughed Ned. “I missed you too.” He threw his arms around the hound and let her continue to lap at his chin. His eyes were all bright with relief and loving.

“Found her back that way,” said Officer Jones, pointing westward. Ned stood and wiped his face with the sleeve of his shirt.

“I’ve been lookin’ for her for days,” said Ned. “Well,” said Officer Jones, “I found ‘er on the roadside half an hour ago, sittin’ there chewing on this here shoe.” He held up a brown loafer. “But then she ran off with it inta the woods. Took me awhile to catch ’er again.” Ned seemed to remember something then and began walking slowly towards the clearing.

“Say, Officer,” he said, “do you think you could show me exactly where you found her? You know, so I know where I should look next time?”

“Certainly, sir,” said Officer Jones, but Lucy had become alert in the presence of the shoe and had pulled it out of Officer Jones’ grasp and had brought it to the stream. Now, she began to howl, the sound of her note pure, long and set deep within her throat as though she were playing an instrument.

“Say, what’s your dog going on about?” said Officer Jones, and he began to make his way towards the stream. His steps were cautious but sure and purposeful.

“It’s a bod” began Little Tommy, but Mrs. Liza Brown moved her hand over his mouth.

“Officer,” said George, “I do believe you’ve found” but Ned kicked him along the ridge of his shin, and he finished his sentence with a yelp. Peter said nothing and looked towards the ground as if he were memorizing the trace of his own shadow which was squat near his feet because the day had still not grown old.

“What are you folks doin’,” said Officer Jones, “with this here body?”

“What body?” squeaked George.

“Oh Christ,” said Ned. “I told you we all should have left.”

Mrs. Liza Brown began to cry, her tears creeping out from the corners of her eyes and leaking cracks across her rouged cheeks. “Oh, Officer, it’s so terrible,” she said. “I was just tryin’ to take my baby boy for some air, and we come across these men an’ this horrible thing.”

“Maybe, we should do something ’bout it now,” whispered Peter.

“Mommy, can bodies see?” asked Little Tommy.

Lucy howled, long and droningly.

The body remained silent, as bodies do, it’s skin around its facelessness beginning to chap and crack.

“Huh,” said Officer Jones, and he rolled the body over to its back with his foot. Its arms flew out, thin and pale, so boney they looked like two lollipop sticks. A black wallet flapped open, half stuffed into the right-front pocket of its jeans. The wallet was empty, but when Officer Jones picked it up, he found that the name card had the address filled in. “Ah pshaw, it’s from Worcester County,” he said and then, “Say folks, why don’t we head on back into town. Wouldn’t want nobody to get heatstroke out here.”

“We’re not gonna do anything ’bout it?” asked Peter.

“Nah,” said Officer Jones and shrugged. “Not in my county. See, I try to stay outta other folks’ business.”

“It’s what I been saying all along,” grinned Ned. Mrs. Liza Brown sniffed. “Will you show us back to town officer?”

“Certainly, Madame.” The body could not interject. Officer Jones left the clearing first, followed by Mrs. Liza Brown holding Little Tommy, then Ned and George and Lucy, and lastly, Peter. None of them turned back to look at the body which lay sprawling across the dirt-sand. The sun remained, staring and glaring, riding its daily path across the unblemished sky as it always does.

That night, there came the rain, first in light steps like wearied footfalls tiptoeing their way along the banks. But then it came faster like the thunder of galloping, like mighty hooves pushing back the dirtsand, printing and reprinting the ground so that it became a new, solid plane. The stream swelled, restored for a night to her former glory as a river. She leapt up onto the banks, curling her foaming fingers around the body. She rocked it, cradled it, and then bore it away to the sighing of her sloshes and the hushing of her current.

Libby Goss is an undergraduate student at the Gallatin School of Individualized Study of New York University. Her writing focuses on the use of poetic language in prose structures and the relationship between nature and humanity. Her past works have won awards in the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards.

Paulette Zander What’s Eating Bo Derek?

An Essay

I awoke one morning to find much of my hair chewed off. More accurately, my husband discovered the gnawed ends of my tresses when I wandered into the kitchen searching for coffee. He stared at me; his mouth frozen open to form a perfect, soundless "O.” "What's the matter," I asked.

His eyes trained on my waist-length tresses, he whispered, "What in the hell happened to your hair?"

Obviously, he was referring to my new, whimsical hairdo, acquired while we were vacationing in Jamaica the previous week. My new look was the only painful part of our otherwise fabulous holiday; it had required sitting still for two scalp-pulling hours while a bevy of nimble-fingered Jamaican women wove my hair into teeny, tiny cornrow braids, replete with colorful beads. While it's true we often don't always communicate well due to cultural differences, he had, after all, been admiring my new "do" for more than a week, comparing me to Bo Derek, so what had changed overnight?

"What's the matter, can't get used to seeing Bo Derek in your kitchen?"

“Not this version of Bo Derek,” he responded mischievously.

I dashed to the hallway mirror and saw my fifty-dollar braids and beads chewed to nubs. It looked like someone had put the ends of my hair into a paper shredder. I knew in an instant who was responsible. I took off through the house on a cat-hunting rampage.

“Fanny,” I screamed. “Where the hell are you?” You. Are. Dead!” I pounded up the stairs, screeching all the way, tearing through every room of the house.

I knew it had to be the handiwork of Fanny, my feline who had been weaned far too early. This was her MO--even though she was six years old, she still gnawed and suckled anything that resembled her first food source: stereo knobs, cabinet handles, pens, pencils, bottle caps, buttons, hair beads.

There was no doubt that Fanny had snuggled up to my head during the night and tried to recapture the memory of her kitten hood. Had I awakened, I could have controlled the damage, but I blithely snoozed while Fanny feasted on my exquisite, intricate braids, all fifty-eight of them, which now looked like they'd been blown up by fifty-eight tiny sticks of dynamite.

My window-rattling screams sent Fanny deep into hiding; she didn't surface for three days. The remnants of my beads and braids (the ultimate hairballs), however, showed up during the next three mornings in varying shapes and sizes.

Fanny, that needy, infantile, domesticated bird-killer, was forgiven only because she almost choked to death trying to bring up the final bead deposit. As much as I wanted to kill her, I didn't want her to die, so I assisted her with the disgorgement.

It took some hacking, but she managed at last to cough up the bead, the last bit of braids, and that morning's breakfast. In one final, dry-heave-provoking, violent hawking, Fanny regurgitated the entire contents of her stomach on top of my foot. My bare foot.

Paulette Zander writes short stories, personal essays and creative nonfiction. A former editor and book store owner, she turned to full time writing in 2010. She has written a collection of short stories and is working on her first novel. Paulette and her husband divide their time between Connecticut, New Mexico and Sweden. Paulette owns two erudite cats, Raven and Daisy, who blog for her when she is away from home.

Alyssa Moore The Poem Begins in the Middle There is no prologue. There is likely no epilogue, either, only the truest, most salient things I’d sometimes think I might say to you in the rare quiet moments that invited fatigue and unforgiving honesty—your hair wet, feet bare, my hands blackened with soot but the fire strong enough in its hearth for us both— I would’ve told you that you don’t have to be your father, that I like that you know which side of yours I prefer to stand at, that the love has changed, but been there all along.

I’d sometimes think I’d say these things to you, these not-quite confessions that grew in number and weight as years and rare quiet moments passed but I never said much to you, and now that all the moments and all the potential for all the moments have passed I’m starting to think that there will likely be no epilogue, either

Alyssa Moore Immolation

You were always a conflagration, ego and valour clashing impossibly.

I was young and did not yet recognize the nobility in how you hold the line of your shoulders.

But what life of mine could not come to revolve around you? You, I know now, the once and future.

Alyssa Moore is an undergraduate student currently pursuing her passion of creative writing at Susquehanna University in Pennsylvania.

Nate Depke The Apiarist

My aunt diagnosed me with diabetes when I was six. It freaked her out, she said––the constant worrying I'd fall into a diabetic fit. She kept a jar of honey in the medicine cabinet for emergencies for when I was hypoglycemic and needed something sugary fast. She’d spoon feed me honey anytime I acted up or threw a tantrum, because she said she assumed my erratic behavior was due to a fluctuation in blood sugar. My pediatrician was skeptical. He recommended a test for diabetes after my aunt bragged to him during a routine checkup about how she believed plain old honey offered the best hope for a cure. The results came back negative. I did not have diabetes. Continuing to stock the medicine cabinet with jars of honey, my aunt ignored the results, telling me honey was good regardless of what the doctor said.

She also had a lady friend, who was a beekeeper in Maine. We used to get cases of the stuff sent to our house in the summer.

Nate Depke is a groundskeeper in Maine.

Matthew Fogarty The Stalks and Beads

1 My brother James' son has a tall corn stalk in his right hand as a staff shepherding through the neighborhood naked and crying and casting off 'devils' with his left hand, with the rosary beads I bought him last week for his eighteenth birthday. The Turtles are watching him intently, other than eyes their helmeted kid heads barely visible behind the long barrier, each kid thinking this could be the day he's finally called to duty.

2 To their training, for these kids, he's a pattern now. It wasn't more than two weeks ago when he stripped off again and heaved his shirt up over the barbed wire at Glenfada and heaved himself up with it, deliberately caught in the menace. The Brits wanted to shoot; they all have hairs on their shoulders and standing orders there behind the wall. But Father D'Arcy got there quick and I came running too and together we calmed them. "Liberties," said the Father. "He's just testing his liberties. He's no trouble to you." Even still, one of them fired a warning so loud it startled the boy to the ground, his chest all sliced up and bloody meat from the razor barbs, the orange and white of his flag tattoo tattered and bright red.

3 In the wet chill, I'm running after him. "Brendan You Fuck," I say out of breath when I near him. He doesn't respond, doesn't even turn around, like he's deaf or dumb.

4 I've been telling James the boy needs help. He's ill in some way that none of us know. But James is just obstinate and leaves him there for days in that carved out rubble fall near Fahan they call an apartment. I told him too they should have moved after the boy's mother left, their seventeen years quicked in a five word note: ‘Gone to a whiskeyless house.’ She seemed to carry around some feeling of nostalgia for what she had imagined her life here with James was supposed to be but never was. Little Brendan took one hard that night and every night after it, I'd imagine: James likes to tell me his ideas about tenderizing kids for the grill like rough steak.

5 From ten meters away, if Brendan were to shout 'Go home' or 'Brits out' the Squaddies would probably know just to leave him pass. They've trained for that. But he instead shouts some long incomprehensible string of half words and ends crazily in a verse on "all men are endowed by their creator" and "all men are subject to one another" and so three of the kids shoot him. He falls the way all shot children fall. And I can see smoke rising from behind the wall and steam rising from Brendan's chest and the streams of white wrapping together against the gray like through a funnel til they become indistinct against the clouds that always blanket this part of the sky. And the reports echo madly, rattle around all the cement buildings and barricades and alcoves and doorways along the road and I can tell the type of weapon by the time the reverberations take to reach me and once they're done and the Brits are away to safety with their rucks I go to Brendan through the rubble and kneel at his side where the stalk and beads have gathered neatly and his neatly scabbed and pocked chest is cold now and I can see that he's already passed and the situation's done. This is precisely why though James insists they sound more like claps of thunder I've always thought of the reports as slamming doors.

6 I've no strength to carry him off and so I move the stalk to cover him and leave him there in the street and go down to the Free Corner to find Father D'Arcy, who's out for the day, I'm told. Streets away now, I think about walking back toward the wall but don't really care to see the body, spirit escaped, or risk the short-haired Toms that shot him. Too, I stop into Murph's and he's already set up a pint by the time I get the words out and so I stay. I figure that somebody from the City's already come to collect him or at least is probably on his way and he's probably trained better than I am how to handle these types of things.

Born and raised in the square-mile suburbs of Detroit, Matthew Fogarty currently lives and writes in Columbia, where he is an MFA candidate at the University of South Carolina. He is an alum of the Squaw Valley Community of Writers. His fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in such journals as Revolution House, Midwestern Gothic, Umbrella Factory, and Zero Ducats.

Ashley Luster Crocodile

Crocodile perched on the couch. He watched her pace the apartment.

She looked at her watch. She paused at the mirror and tossed her hair, put red lipstick on, adjusted her necklace.

“Do you know where my phone is?” she asked Crocodile.

He didn’t know what to say. Or if to say anything. He sat.

She sat on the couch next to him and shoved her hands into the corners, under the cushions, under the pillows. She smacked her hand into the burgundy fabric.

“Shoot,” she said.

He wanted to open his mouth. Bite her. Bite her hand. But he couldn’t. He sometimes looked at the birds on the fire escape and envied them. Their little beaks opening and closing, making calls, carrying bits of string or pieces of bagel. He’d strain to open his mouth, part his jaws, but he was sewn together so tightly.

She stared into the mirror again. He watched as she shrugged her shoulders, tossed her hair again, then raked her fingers through it. Always, she was like this. Always, she stood at the mirror. He wished he could look into a mirror. He had no idea what he looked like. He feared what he looked like.

Crocodile imagined a stuffed animal won at a carnival. Acrylic fabric. Lime green. Google eyes. He wished, hoped, this wasn’t true. He hoped he looked even a little tough, even a little like a crocodile.

She sat next to him again. “I can’t find my fucking phone,” she said. She sat back, looked at her watch, said, “Shit,” and then left. The locks clanked into place, each one, down the door like a cracking spinal cord.

He wriggled. He squirmed.

He fell from the couch.

On his belly, he scooted to the fire escape, to the floor- to-ceiling window. He couldn’t see the top of the window from directly beneath it. His lack of neck wouldn’t allow it.

He shuffled and pushed his way under the sill. He saw the window across the way. He saw the street, long in both directions. There were birds. Little brown ones. There were potted flowers sitting on the escape. Little pink ones.

Crocodile paused. He savored the air. He wondered what things smelled like.

He fell. Down the fire escape, he fell. He had wanted this for so long. To feel the wind on his back, his belly, his long, scaly tail.

He landed with a thud on the pavement. He tried to look up to the window, but he could not. He thought of her. How she’d sit in fuzzy pants, he liked how soft they were, and eat popcorn and pat his head. Sometimes she spoke to him. Asked him questions. He felt sorry for her.

He hadn’t realized the pavement was wet. His belly was damp and cold. It made him uncomfortable.

Nothing like the soft couch. He wriggled. He squirmed. He wondered if she ever felt sorry for him. And would she feel sorry for him now?

What would he do? His belly was wet. He had no baking soda to rub away the grime. He began to scoot. He would look in a mirror. See himself. See Crocodile.

Ashley Luster currently teaches English composition at Lewis and Clark Community College in Godfrey, IL. She graduated from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville in 2011 and is grateful to the many instructors and peers she worked with, all of whom continue to inspire her today. She resides in Edwardsville in a shoe box apartment with a man-child named Jess and a puppy named Riley. She knows it to be a charmed life.

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