CultureCult [Issue Eight]

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A Magazine of Arts, Literature and Culture

www.CultureCult.in

Contents

A Magazine of Arts, Literature & Culture

Issue Eight

Editor JAGANNATH CHAKRAVARTI Editorial Team BIPASHA CHAKRABORTY || SUNDAR RAGHAV || ARIJITA DEY || Publishing Coordinator MADHURIMA BASU Layout Design JAGANNATH CHAKRAVARTI Promotion Rish n‘ Jay © CULTURECULT Published by Jagannath Chakravarti from 11/1, Khanpur Road, Kolkata - 700047, West Bengal, India. All rights reserved. No part of this magazine can be reprinted/reused in its entire form or in part without the written permission of the publisher.

THANK YOU Basanti Chakravarti | Saikat Pal | Pixabay Cover Art: Raksha Patel (Two_Neurons)

Volume Two ● Issue Two ● 2017

JAGANNATH CHAKRAVARTI

EDITORIAL INTERVIEW

ANCA MIHAELA BRUMA The Visceral Intelligence (Interview: Massimiliano Raso)

Other Shoulders Shrugged, Too

31 53 33 51 50 43 17 42 53 34 17 16

ADAM BINASH

BOOK

57

ADARSH GOYAL BRANDON MARLON JAMES CROAL JACKSON JOAN McNERNEY

MADHURIMA SAHA A Necessary Evil (Author: Abir Mukherjee)

MATHIAS JANSSON MITCHELL GRABOIS OSHEEN ROSS STAGER RYAN QUINN FLANAGAN SCOTT THOMAS OUTLAR

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SHORT FICTIONS

ASHLIE ALLEN Nameless Ship

LEILA SAMARRAI MEHDI Keeping up with Time

MICHAEL ZONE Lunch with Maurice

MIKE CHIN Family Road Trip

JOHN GREY

06

DRAMA

BOB McNEIL

POETRY

04

PATRICIA LEONARD Proud Killer

TED MYERS For all Eternity

44 32 35 52 19 54

FICTIONS

CARL JENNINGS One Service Day Remaining

ISAAC SIMONS Sol, The Man

46 21

ANTHOLOGY

THE

FASCIST ANTHOLOGY

COMING

SOON

EDITORIAL JAGANNATH CHAKRAVARTI

Of Peripheries & The Centre The heart of the city is often a picture of the chaos that makes our hearts the very last place where our lives seem to come to a still. It is only in the periphery, the outer realms of existence that the cool breeze of life brushes our hair aside to vaporize the beads of sweat clinging to our fortune-telling foreheads.

This being the tropics after all, warmth is often mistakenly sought as we end up receiving a stifling spell of heat that neither satiates the seeker within nor gifts her the eye that might make her see past the burning sun and the indistinct shapes within.

If you have had the privilege of visiting the holy city of Varanasi-on-theGanges near the heart of my beloved nation, it would be safe to assume that it is at the ghats, the ancient riverbanks at the periphery of the bustling city, where you have felt closest to your inner self.

JAGANNATH CHAKRAVARTI is an ADmaker/Independent filmmaker based out of Kolkata, India.

Besides fulfilling the duties of the founder/chief editor of CultureCult Magazine, he enjoys dabbling in several forms of artistic expression including fiction, poetry, digital painting, film criticism and acting. He holds a Masters degree in English Literature.

The inner city quarters, on the other hand, is a cacophony of upstream lanes replete with blockading cows, shady babas, stores that sell bidis (local cigarettes) that are as long as a foot-long Sub, plush cafes that have magically sprouted for the untampered tongues of a tourist, music schools that host regular evening concerts.

Of course, a trip to Varanasi would be incomplete without a genuine struggle through these lanes and by-lanes, battling agents of the religion to get a peek at the famed Kashi Viswanath or the legendary Gyan Vapi where lay submerged the greatest symbol of enlightenment etched in the mythical lores of our ancient nation.

It is probable that the cheap hotel you booked via an online app places you in a comfortable enough room, but as it turns out, at the very heart of the city that is so near, yet far enough from the promise of the legendary Assi Ghat and the mythical Dasashwamedh ghat, a reminder of the royal religious ritual that involved attacking other kingdoms and sacrificing horses.

The heart is the most boring place of them all, until the hotel room is shed to reveal the soul as it traverses the nameless alleys and quickly finds itself at the periphery once more. It is evening, as she gazes up at the full moon and the blessed white rays breaking the waves into silver as they swim all the way past the illuminated ghats of Varanasi towards the ocean. []

Photographs: Author

04

INTERVIEW ANCA

MIHAELA

BRUMA

Educator, lecturer, performance poet, eclectic thinker, mentor with staunch multi-cultural mindset and entrepreneurial attitude, ANCA MIHAELA BRUMA considers herself a global citizen, having lived in four continents. Her eclecticism can be seen in her intertwined studies, she pursued: a Bachelor of Arts (Romania) and a Master of Business Administration (Australia).

The author labels her own writings as being ―mystically sensual‖, a tool and path for women to claim their own inner feminine powers. She uses poetics as a form of literary education, self-discovery and social engagement.‖

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The VISCERAL Intelligence MASSIMILIANO RASO has a notable legacy of bringing attention to important artists before others discover them. To be among the first to recognize and articulate an artist’s significance leaves an indelible mark not only on a talent scout career, but on many people’s lives – from the individual artist and their larger community, to everyone who will ever discover and be moved by that work, even after its creator is gone.

Massimiliano Raso holds a degree in Modern History from University of Naples “Federico II”, with studies in digital journalism and marketing, master of dance in Caribbean and Latin, a historian and dance critic, who collaborates with various TV programs and printed media, co-founder of “Pablo Neruda” Cultural Association, Artistic Director for KIBATEK 39 – The Global Poetry and Art Festival, Artistic Director for ”Pablo Neruda Award”.

Anca M. Bruma: You were the Artistic Director for KIBATEK 39, a Global Poetry and ART Festival in Italy, February 2016, as well for Pablo Neruda Awards, June 2016, some of your latest achievements. Part of your responsibility was to provide artistic talents to sustain the core values of the events. Please tell us, what you have usually in your mind when you make such choices?

How can you make sure your choices support and sustain

the goals and values of a festival / event?

Massimiliano Raso: The Kibatek 39, the World Festival of Poetry, was the most beautiful and important experience of my life. I can never be grateful enough to Maria Miraglia, the Literary Director and Saverio Sinopoli, the President of the Cultural Association Pablo Neruda who asked me to be involved in this literary project, a 07

great ―journey‖ at an international level. The festival took place in a climate of general euphoria, we have partnered with local and national companies in Puglia bringing to the world the power of poetry, thanks to the quality of the poets from all corners of the planet. Among other cultural activities, the cultural association organized as well in June 2016, Pablo Neruda Award, event at which also I was responsible for the artistic part, selecting singers, dancers and musicians who could best express their potential within the individual moments of celebration. I select young talents, artists who know how to convey to the public strong emotions through high class performances, artists who value artistic and human qualities.

Anca M. Bruma: According to the mimetic theory, ART is an imitation of nature, of humans‘ actions and passions (according to Aristotle in ―Poetics‖). Or that dance is a way for self-expression, according to Croce‘s ―Aesthetics‖ modern theory about the art of dance?

What is your opinion?

Massimiliano Raso: According to ―mimesis‖ (an Ancient Greek word) art shall: imitate, replicate, reflect and resemble the reality. Does it happen nowadays? By all means! So, I believe dance is about both, imitation of human passions and day to day life, as well a powerful source of self-expression. For example ballet is mimetic in its own narratives. During modern times, the idea of dance moved from the cult of imitation placing a more valued function that it can reproduce and communicate.

In terms of dance becoming a self-expression form of art, it is very true. I am a strong believer that through dance you become one with your own self, as well with the others. Through the empiricism of the dance and its exuberance, you get more in touch with your own inner, therefore it becomes normal that dance became a form of selfexpression, as well a connection with higher level of consciousness.

Anca M. Bruma: ―Dance, although it has a visual component, is fundamentally a kinesthetic art whose apperception is grounded not just in the eye but in the entire body‖ (Daly 2002). Do you think that the spectators of the dance experience a kind of kinesthetic empathy, an ―inner mimesis‖ as if they are ―participants‖ themselves in the show? What levels of kinesthetic empathy do spectators experience when watching dance?

Massimiliano Raso: It is true that a ―kinesthetic empathy‖ is created with the spectators of the dance as they feel as participators of the dance movements, trying to decode and assign a meaning to these movements and of course to relate to the emotions created by these movements. It is like an internal simulation, an ―inner mimesis‖ for the audience itself. It is a shared dynamism be-

tween the subject (the dancer) and the object (the audience). The observer (the audience) gets ―involved‖ because it starts experiencing the subject‘s display of the movements and to a certain degree even identifying with the dancers themselves. Dance creates a ‖context‖ in which a relationship is developed between the performer and the audience inevitably, therefore a new ―language‖ is developed. A kinesthetic awareness is created due to the emotion-movement process, conveying various meanings for each observer.

What levels of kinesthetic empathy do spectators experience when watching dance? During dance it is created an intimate partnership between the dancer and the audience itself. How strong this relationship is? It depends on the level of engagement of each individual as well his level of internalization during the dance experience. It is a collaborative process affected by external as well internal factors, in which both the performer and the ―receiver‖ of the dance experience, impact on each other, at tangible and intangible level.

Anca M. Bruma: To what extent the spectators internally can simulate the dance movements? What conditions favor these empathetic responses?

Massimiliano Raso: There are highly specialized studies ―to measure‖ the audience response towards the performers. It depends on what they ―measure‖ in terms of the audience involvement. What conditions can influence these empathetic responses? The context and content. By context I mean the set of circumstances during the event (where, why, what etc.); and context comprises the emotional/intellectual messages of an artwork, the expressions, the connotations conveyed, the sensory and psychological parameters.

Through the empiricism of the dance and its exuberance, you get more in touch with your own inner, therefore it becomes normal that dance became a form of self-expression, as well a connection with higher level of consciousness.

08

Anca M. Bruma: Dance is not ―a representation of the moving world, rather a part of it‖ where ―space, time and movement are not taken for granted. The dancing experience does not happen so much in a physical space as it does in the phenomenological experiential environment.

Can you explain to us more about this phenomenology of dance?

Massimiliano Raso: Phenomenology is the interpretative study of the human experience. In case of dance phenomenology, the symbolism of interactionism is studied, between the performers and the environment, between the performers and the audience and how intimately they get involved or intertwined and what is their relationship with the given context. This intimate connectedness is expressed through the phenomenology of the dance, the involvement and the meanings acquired.

Anca M. Bruma: ―The imaginative space of dance is its created space‖ (Phenomenology of Dance by MatjazPotrč). Can you explain more to us about this ―imaginative space‖ as well ―imaginative time‖ which the dancer creates during his/her performance?

Massimiliano Raso: Dance is motion through Space and Time, a creation of a ―metaphor‖ in motion. A powerful way to know and experience the world, a bridge between our own inner world and the outer world. Dance can suggest a specific time (past, present or future), a specific space (natural or fabricated). ―The imaginative space and time‖ of a dancer is the space and time lived through his own imagination and express it through dynamic creativity. The audience experiences the dancer ―imaginative space and time‖ through the performer‘s dance, ―moving‖ the spectators beyond the space and time and the presence of the dance itself. The ―inner space‖ of a dancer becomes real through the dance process. Indeed dance is like ―poetry‖ through space and time, embodying them through movement, it becomes a moving timespace in aesthetic form of art. When the dancer moves, the times and space ―move‖ with him, when he is still, time and space become still and when he reverses, time and space reverse. We are witnessing the time and space in the same time with the performer. So dance becomes a lived experience metaphorically and imagistically, a lived motion and a lived Time/Space.

Anca M. Bruma: Do you think during the dance experience the dancer can apprehend himself / herself as a temporal totality and a way to increase his / her own consciousness? Which cultures do you think do that through the means of dance?

Massimiliano Raso: Dance is like ―existential becom-

ing‖ (Søren Kierkegaard), the NOW movement which can be forever moment – living the Eternity of the moment. I think the celebration of existence through dance creates that ―temporal totality‖ for the dancer. But also for the observer. Dance brings forth the unsayable nature of our own world, transcending act, and ―wholeness‖ is experienced. Dance makes us to experience the metaphysics of the human movements. It is created a kind of consonance between body movements and the external, therefore the feeling of ―totality‖ and identification with all that is.

If dance is a form to increase consciousness? Without doubt! I consider dance as a flowing meditation as well, a journey full of stories expressed through motions. For example free-style dance increases the intuitive abilities.

Building ―trust‖ with our own body movements, we also build trust in other parts of life, enhancing confidence and increasing our sense of self. The connection with ―something‖ beyond ourselves is seen in all cultures, from the beginning of time, when tribal societies practiced this form of ―communication‖ via dance. Sufi 09

or dervish dance is eloquent in this sense, to become ONE with the Divine and experience Universal Love.

Anca M. Bruma: Would you consider that dance can be described as the delicate ―tension‖ between weight and weightless (example ballet)?

Massimiliano Raso: In ballet there are movements which encompass both body‘s weighted earth movements as well flying heaven graceful gestures. It creates a tension between up and down, between weight and weightless. It is like a dance against gravity, which loses its value in the given context. The soft and ethereal movements of a ballerina reminds us of heavens and weightless is expressed through her graceful movements. The tension between weight and weightless is the phenomenon of grace in ballet dance. This ―anti-gravity‖ type of dance is a beautiful expression of freedom and release from patterns (emotional, societal etc.)

Anca M. Bruma: Dance is a series of pictures connected with each other and the stage is the canvas on which the choreographer expresses his / her ideas. The dance becomes a live ―painting‖ in front of us. Do you think is hard to translate Picasso piece of art into movements?

Massimiliano Raso: To re-contextualize a form of art into another one and keep the same meanings, or similar ones it not always easy. Of course it depends on the vision of the choreographer, how he/she is able to translate a Picasso form of art into the poetics of dance. Dances are usually compositions based on narratives and to convert a painting into dance movements basically it requires the artistry of the choreographer to create that narrative behind the painting and communicate the intention of the painter successfully. To ―translate‖ an abstract Picassonian art into narrative dance saga is not easy, if not impossible, as usually abstract artwork is very subjective and the intention may not always correspond with the meaning understood by the audience.

Anca M. Bruma: Do you agree that a dancer is not simply a dancer? But more kind of ―metaphor‖, symbolizing an earthy form, writing with his / her body great abbreviations and lunges, suggesting a written piece of art?

Massimiliano Raso: Yes, I agree. A dancer is not a simply ―machine‖ which dances, rather he/she is the representation of grace and beauty through the body movement. A dancer can symbolize anything, take any form, identity or mood. This ―metaphor‖ created through dance must be ―perfect‖ in comparison with other forms of art, precise movements, specific performance, emotions displayed to maximum. Because when it is danced, all things will never be the same again, and that is what makes dance so very

The tension between weight and weightless is the phenomenon of grace in ballet dance. This “anti-gravity” type of dance is a beautiful expression of freedom and release from emotional and societal patterns special.

Anca M. Bruma: Nowadays the dance movement is also used as a manifestation of the intellect, as well as of the body itself. Dance is not just a physical exercise but a language, a way of speaking to the audience, a fusion of cognitive and somatic communication. For the early Greeks, dance and writing were not seen as separate form of arts, but a synergy of them. Indeed the word ―choreography‖ (Greek) means ―dance writing‖. Tell us how dancers become like ―physical metaphors‖ and the dance itself is transformed into a highly rhetoric poetry for example?

Massimiliano Raso: Fertiault Francois in his book ―Histoire anecdotique et pittoresque de la dance chez les peoplesanciens et modernes‖ wrote that ―dance is as old as the world‖. The Ancient Greeks held the belief that dance is a gift from divine and a way to forget their sorrows and concerns. The dance was taken very seriously in Ancient Greece and it was studied from early age. Plato in his book ―The Republic‖ stated that dance ―originated from the spontaneous desire of the young body to move‖. The dance has changed over the millennia, it is no longer a ritual event or an exercise as in Antiquity.

The dance came to us through a long process that looks very different from Antiquity. No longer it is just an exercise or ritual event, but more an intellectual and cultural type of movement, a multi-aspect approach, changeable and artistically innovative and creative.

Anca M. Bruma: Mathematics and movement might, at first glance, have little in common. Math can be rhythm, the use of grouping, or use of space. Math is found in all

aspects of dance. How can we dance Math?

Massimiliano Raso: Through dance you can experience spatial exploration, rhythm and structure. Every part of the body is able to trace out a circle and feel its center and the plane in which it lies. Various representations of structure (permutations, combinations, graphs) are exploited in many traditional dances (example Celtic dance). Dance itself has a great potential for fullyembodied representations of Mathematics, experiencing its patterns. Nowadays, there are dances designed to develop Mathematics and Geometry through the art of movements.

Anca M. Bruma: ―Dance, when you‘re broken open.

Dance, if you‘ve torn the bandage off. Dance in the middle of the fighting. Dance in your blood. Dance when you‘re perfectly free.‖ (Rumi) ―Quantum mysticism is a set of metaphysical beliefs and associated practices that seek to relate consciousness, intelligence, spirituality, or mystical world-views to the ideas of quantum mechanics and its interpretations.‖ (Source: Wikipedia) Please tell us, how dervish dancers (the Sufis) can attain that state of enlightenment through the twirling dance movements?

And what is the connection between dance and the consciousness evolution over the years?

Massimiliano Raso: In an age where the harmony between human beings seems impossible to achieve, the dance can suggest solutions, more than you can imagine: ―… in modesty and humility be like the Earth… in tolerance be like the sea… and either appear as you are, or be as you appear!‖ (Mevlana Rumi), the Sufi mystic, the founder of Mevlevi Order in 13th century AD and of the so called ―dervish dance‖. The twirling dervishes consider that through their dance can attain an altered state of consciousness, the term ―dervish‖ means ―doorway‖, a bridge between worlds, the materialistic and heavenly one. The symbolism of this is as well expressed through the hands movement, one hand always ―connected‖ with the earth, the other one holding up, connected with higher realms; as well the symbolism of the dervish dress: white floating dress, creating a circle during the twirling movements and the black cap. White and black also are symbols of these two worlds. The dervish dancers enter in a hyperconscious state of mind while keeping their physical balance intact and their twirling rotations coincide with theta brainwave (a state of mind believed to create anything you want and change the reality instantly), while chanting the name of God 99 times. The dervish dance is considered kind of meditation, where dancer‘s consciousness can penetrate the metaphysical world, creating a relationship between the human and the divine. The posture of the dervish‘s hands while twirling also suggests that he is with the world but also away

...dance can be used as a psychotherapeutic tool for the emotional, physical, psychological integration of an individual. It has a deep purpose, used as a powerful form of communicative expression, and understanding someone’s own feelings from this world.

Anca M. Bruma: Dance goes beyond aesthetics, is also considered as a powerful tool in therapy providing a comforting environment for those who suffer of various mental disorders and other forms of illness. Dance, as a healing form, can set people free, physically, also psychologically as it is a means of expressing oneself without imposed of self-imposed boundaries. Explain to us more about this ―role‖ of dance and how it is used for this purpose.

Massimiliano Raso: Indeed dance can be used as a psychotherapeutic tool for the emotional, physical, psychological integration of an individual. It has a deep purpose, used as a powerful form of communicative expression, expressing and understanding someone‘s own feelings.

The focus of using therapeutic movements is to connect the mind and body, releasing stuck patterns, enhance selfexpression.

Therapeutic dance uses the kinesthetic empathy, which is the notion that shared movement provides the neural basis for empathy and compassion between and for people. Neuroscientists explained the idea that certain neurons are reached by each body movement, and the same neurons are activated when we want the other person to do the same body movement. Performing the act of dance with another human being, builds connections, relationships. In this manner dance can become like a ―biography‖ of an individual expressed spatially, choreographing a ―life journey‖. Dance used as therapeutic 11

Intelligence inside dance is about movement and how this movement is understood and directed.

This is called “visceral intelligence” tool can help to move from sympathy for another, to empathy with another, using the body movements to create literally those changes within an individual. Dance therapies help the person to understand that there are people there to empathize, connect and support him/her.

It is much beyond the aesthetic movements of our bodies but the intention and the focus put in these movements, to get in tune with our own physical bodies, memory, knowledge and the potential inside our bodies.

Anca M. Bruma: At what point is a movement considered dance, pantomime, aerobic gymnastics?

Massimiliano Raso: The dance began to be thought of as a sport since the early years of the twentieth century. In certain contexts it is also used as a kind of gymnastics for the immediate relief and wellbeing. In the beginning, especially in the world of Ancient Rome, it was the pantomime drama, which drew inspiration from mythological stories, to be the protagonist in theaters. Aerobic gymnastics requires a complex level and intense movements on music, where physical coordination, flexibility and strength shall be perfectly executed. ―Pantomimus‖ (Greek) literally means ―imitating all‖ was seen as a solo dance mostly incorporated into other forms of dance performance.

Anca M. Bruma: The power of dance was originally divined, as a worship, as ritual, as a true art, not an artificial exhibition of bodies moving in space. What does it feel to be LOST inside the dance?

Massimiliano Raso: When I dance, I feel music becomes part of my body, of my own existence, and the music itself becomes part of me! My body, mind and spirit are affected during this process. The movements together with music can create trance like disposition.

There is a lot of ―space‖ created in dance, between move-

ment and stillness. That ―space‖ is very dynamic, and I get ―lost‖ in that ―space‖. The same within music, when the last musical note has got to absorb the energy of its own sound and to move in nanosecond to the second musical note. During that nanosecond it is like death and re-birth, a ―space‖ which in fact creates the music we hear. The same with dance, it is a very vibrant ―place‖ to be, it is creative magic and sacred. A ―place and space‖ where you are within yourself and with yourself.

Anca M. Bruma: Would you see the dance as an expression of the soul, something which you can expand your consciousness?

Massimiliano Raso: ―Consciousness expresses itself through creation. This world we live in is the dance of the creator. Dancers come and go in the twinkling of an eye but the dance lives on. On many an occasion when I am dancing, I have felt touched by something sacred.In those moments, I felt my spirit soar and become one with everything that exists. I become the stars and the moon. I become the lover and the beloved. I become thevictor and the vanquished. I become the master and the slave. I become the singer and the song. I become the knower and the known. I keep on dancing then it is the eternal dance or creation. The creator and creation merge into one wholeness of joy. I keep on dancing and dancing and dancing. Until there is only the dance.‖ (Michael Jackson) To be in harmony with your body and mind you need to dance with soul! Every movement expresses your own inner and the emotions are regulated by those very movements. The body is like a sacred space, we can express our longing, emotions, in fact our journey of life.

Anca M. Bruma: Would you consider the dance master like artistic shamans?

Massimiliano Raso: Shamanic dance has its purpose in spiritual transformation. Numerous studies proved that dance has a direct impact on the psyche of a person, therefore dance used for healing purposes, including for degenerative type of diseases. Most of the movements from the modern dance have as basis the shamanic steps, so yes we may consider that modern performers are after all dancing ―shamans‖.

Anca M. Bruma: How you move and how you direct that movement is called ―visceral intelligence‖ in dance. Can you explain to us more about its importance?

Massimiliano Raso: Intelligence inside dance is about movement and how this movement is understood and directed. This is called ―visceral intelligence‖, the emo-

tions you assign to these movements and how the ―information‖ is transferred through movements in order to become elegant, qualitative and meaningful for the audience. The movement creation and expression need to express correctly the dancer‘s intent, to convey its content through the performative ―visceral intelligence‖.

Anca M. Bruma: What is the difference between a dancer who implies technique and the dancer who has talent?

Can talent be taught?

Massimiliano Raso: The talent, in my opinion, cannot be taught, talent is something innate in people. The difference between the two type of performers is the fact that the one who has talent does it naturally, there is ―liquidity‖ in his/her movements, it simply ―flows‖, there is no abrupt, unfinished movement in dance process. It is like a well written story, no mechanization, no automatization. The connection between movements is done with more grace and the emotions projected to the audience are really powerful ones. I repeat, I do not consider that talent can be taught but it can be tapped into the potential of an individual.

Anca M. Bruma: The art world is based on endless competition, which reduces relations between artists and cultural workers and fights for economical and symbolical profits. What is your opinion about this?

Massimiliano Raso: This is an interesting question because every form of art needs to be supported economically and financially, The relationship between artists and cultural curators is almost at odds, since the fees are almost never right, depending on the quality and skills of the artists. We are living in a world which is financially oriented, everything is seen as a tool or way to make money. In art it is not always a return on investment, not immediately at least. That put pressure on the artists and of course it creates tension between the performers and the supportive platform, the curators, cultural workers etc. Like in any investment it requires time, devotion and faith in the artist himself. If art is treated as commodity and just a means to an end, of course lots of tension is created.

Anca M. Bruma: Dance is practiced in many forms and for many reasons, including social, educative, political and therapeutic reasons. What about dance as a way of knowing yourself?

Massimiliano Raso: Dance is one of the arts where you

can experience yourself to the fullest and the ―engine‖ that allows different emotions to be experienced. Indeed dance enables you to know and lose yourself in the same time during the process. Through dance I embrace myself, I embrace the otherness, you dance with your own self, you can dance with other selves too. It creates a ―place‖ of understanding and acceptance and a sense of oneness is created. Dance helps to teach you something about your personal physical signature, abut the emotions you have at the deepest level, and how you express those emotions and ideas about yourself to the world.

Anca M. Bruma: You have a collaborative style and multiple roles, artist, curator, author, and professor; do you feel that you are more one than the other? What are your future plans?

Massimiliano Raso: I am a versatile person, but simply because I love life, all of its existing beauty and artistic expressions. My collaborative style helped me to use my ―complementary skills‖ in most of my projects, mastering myself in the process, each time approaching those projects with a revitalized energy. I do not see myself just being a curator of talents, art journalist, master in dance, but all of them together in the same time and this approach helped me to unlock creative riches within myself.

This is a ―constructivist‖ approach which does not ‖see‖ a division between different roles but rather combine them harmoniously and creatively.

Of course it is a building process in everything. To unleash my potential and creativity, my life journey was quite diverse from the beginning; from being a DJ during my teenager time, pursuing higher education, studying dance master classes, be a dance journalist and a talent scout. And the ―process‖ is endless, as I am a ―student‖ of life forever. In Italy I write for the ―Journal of Dance‖, collaborate with television programs and write news reports. I am as well involved in the artistic part for poetry and dance events, nationally and internationally giving me the opportunity to interact with many interesting talented people. I have never stopped basically.

As per future it is nothing ―to change‖ but be more active in various artistic programs, promote new talents, evolve more artistically.

The future we do not know, I hope to have good health, be a good father for my son Mattia, for whom I hope one day he will be able to conquer his own heights and dreams. [] Photo on Page 6 courtesy: Revac films and photography

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Painting on Page 12: Dancer with a Bouquet of Flowers (Star of the Ballet) by Edgar Degas Painting on Page 15: Dance of princess Chandraprabha, Kizil Caves (Indo-Greek/Sassanian styles), China

POETRY SCOTT

THOMAS

OUTLAR

On Time (and our modifications) There are only so many hours in each day, but we can always stretch the truth (at least a little) until it snaps; and karma is a (rubber) band of light.

We drink these vital juices straight from the navel of ancient garden.

There may be worms in a few bad apples, but when the holy womb bursts we sip nectar from the fountain of youth; granted rest, despite our war with lying clocks. []

At the Speed of Contact It will come like a god chasing the tail that was never really there.

Spinning all our tops off.

Melting nine hearts and a globe.

Slow down, baby, take a breath, we‘ve got this.

It will come like a guard off its rails speeding 170 mph.

Slung to the side of the street.

Standing up, dusting off, shaking loose, moving on.

I can see for miles in the distance.

Take my hand, or don‘t; please keep smiling either way.

It will come like a sun spitting through clouds with a big wish during climax.

Dancing near the gates of heaven.

Breaking five laws, but none of them matter. []

P H O T O G R A P H Y:

VIRVOREANU LAURENTIU SCOTT THOMAS OUTLAR hosts the site 17Numa.wordpress.com where links to his published poetry, fiction, essays, interviews, and books can be found. He is a Best of the Net and Pushcart Prize nominee. Scott serves as an editor for Walking Is Still Honest Press, The Blue Mountain Review, The Peregrine Muse, and Novelmasters.

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POETRY RYAN

QUINN

FLANAGAN

POETRY MATHIAS

5 Shovels 5 shovels slam in the earth.

And there are hands driving those shovels and people driving those hands.

All imagining they are digging the hole for one of the others.

Nobody wanting to construct their own resting place.

5 shovels working fast.

Under cover of darkness.

The hole almost complete.

Eyes begin to grow shifty.

Conversation stalls.

The boss wanted a hole and probably someone to go in that hole.

There is only one thing left to do now. []

P H O T O G R A P H Y:

PAUL

GREEN

JANSSON

The Crack The crack in the window goes from corner to corner breaking the light and distort the reality The sun reveals an impression of the past the birds wings and body nailed as a shadow to the pane This morning I found the dove dead in the flowerbed under my window still with the branch in her beak. []

MATHIAS JANSSON is a Swedish art critic and poet. He has contributed with poetry to different magazines and anthologies as Maintenant 8 and 10: A Journal of Contemporary Dada.

He has also published a chapbook featuring visual poetry and contributed with erasure poetry to anthologies from Silver Birch Press. Website: http://wordshavenoeyes.blogspot.se/

RYAN QUINN FLANAGAN is a Canadian-born author residing in Elliot Lake, Ontario, Canada with his other half and mounds of snow. His work can be found both in print and online in such places as: Evergreen Review, The New York Quarterly, Word Riot, In Between Hangovers, Red Fez, and The Oklahoma Review.

17

SHORT PATRICIA

FICTION LEONARD

Proud Killer To the naked eye, I look like an aver-

age female who is family orientated but what most people fail to realize is that there is a dark shadow that lurks beneath my smile.

My days consist of killing.

I can slit a chicken or duck‘s throat in a matter of seconds having their warm blood flood from their living body down my hands and clothes. It splashes on my face and exposed neck. I used to get it in my hair but it became a hassle to wash out every blood clot. I now tie it with a plain white bandana and wear it as a bloody badge of honor. After their blood has drained and the animals are no longer alive, I toss them into the tank that is filled with boiling water. I de-feather them in minutes by throwing them into the cylinder lined with rubber spikes.

Less than thirty-seconds with an abusive spin cycle and the animal is ready to move on. Some feather are a bit more stubborn which results in me ripping it from its flesh in one swift motion.

I take a large blow torch that is hooked up to a gas tank lager than myself to their skin as they hang in a row of six by their feet. I watch the grease bubble to the surface then catch fire before I send them off to the last room.

Once on the other side, I immediately start gutting their steamy bodies. Both birds get the same treatment.

The front of their necks are sliced open to remove their trachea. Then their bottom is sliced open in-between

their legs. The insides are pulled out. The animal is rinsed and the heart, kidneys, liver and lungs are put into the cavity for the customer.

When it comes to the larger animals, I can do it all. I can wrangle down a goat or lamb double my weight, hang it by its legs and cut through the jugular while I watch it breathe its last few breaths of life. As it screams, I wash the blood down the drain or sometimes if the customer wants the blood, I have to hold the head while aiming the blood into a bucket. Afterwards, I skillfully and artfully skin its entirety with swift movements of my sharp blade. I start at the back of one leg a little above the ankle. I cut around the leg but not in too deep. There is a sweet spot on the inside of the leg that will allow my blade to cut through the skin like scissors to wrapping paper. I cut all the way through to the anus and penis. I repeat the process on the other side. I make a light slit down the stomach all the way down to the neck. I typically start on the left side because I am right-handed.

With my left hand start the pull away while my right hand guides the knife along the skin careful not to puncture any fat or meat.

When I am all done removing the skin, it is time to remove the head by snapping the neck and cutting through the muscles. It is then carefully slit by the belly without bursting a hole on any of the inside organs to remove the stomach along with the intestines. The organs that are left after are the liver, kidneys, lungs and heart.

After carefully removing the bile duct without rupturing it, the organs can be safely detached. If the gallbladder burst onto the meat, it will be spoiled and inedible. The heart and lungs are carefully removed with a quick slit 19

while still steaming hot, being as gentle as one can be.

With the help of a few men, a 1,200 pound bull can be manipulated into the killing room where it is restrained. There is a meticulous process in how to tie the animal down without any one getting hurt. The head is tied with a rope before the animal is released from the trailer. Depending if the bull has a nose ring or horns, this process can be easy or difficult. There is an iron loop that is cemented into the floor called an eye inside the killing room, right next to the door. That is where the other end of rope that is already attached to the bull feeds through to lure his head all the way to the floor.

Once the head is on the floor, the rope wraps around the back legs and front legs to bring all of them together in once place, the animal is tipped over onto its side. When all four hooves are almost ready to be knotted, the tail is tucked in-between the back legs and pull to the stomach and around. Once the animal is tied up completely, it can be killed in less than a few minutes depending how much of a fighter he is.

I have been an accomplice to at least 70 bulls death in my six year stretch. I have seen it all. From the easiest to put down to having one escape. Another breaking the door with its horn and having two run out the trailer at the same time, leaving 10 men handling two bulls with safety concerns for the general public and everyone scared for their life.

Once the animal is ready to be killed, there is always one person holding the head while another one will slice through the massive neck. Typically for bulls, an extra sharp machete is used the kill the animal as quick as possible. Sometimes this can be tough as the skin is much thicker than any other animal. Once the process is done, everyone scatters away from the powerful beast. The animal is left the bleed out while everyone stands by watching so they don't get kicked from rigor mortis. Even after death these animals kick with force. I skin and butcher the entire animal in forty-five minutes without too many spasms. Although, I do need help with many lifting situations. As skillful as I am in my field, I am still a female, And a proud one at that.

I wish there were words to describe exactly how I feel when I am in these three killing rooms. How it feels to watch life disappear in your hands. To feel the warm wet blood on your body, or even what it is like to blow torch an animal with fire that was alive less than three minutes ago. [] PATRICIA LEONARD is a 29 year old from New York.

She currently holds a BA in English linguistics from CUNY York College. She has been previously published in Maintenant 10 by Three Rooms Press. She is also featured in this years‘ edition Maintenant 11 by Three Rooms Press. She is also being featured by The Voices Project in the upcoming issue.

Patricia enjoy writing poetry and short stories.

20

Portion from ―The Last Drop‖ by Judith Leyster On Page 18: Painting (1946) by Francis Bacon

FICTION

S O L,

The Man ISAAC

SIMONS P H O T O G R A P H Y:

ALEXANDR

IVANOV 21

Sol had taken the bitter pith of memory with him, discarding the fruit as feeble nostalgia. Three years had passed while he survived on a falsified amalgam of letters and photographs, dialogues and promises. ―I could marry you,‖ she had said to him. He was quite sure of that, quite confidant it had in fact taken place much in the in the manner that he replayed it. Her wearing that floral blouse which could have been a hand-me-down from some poorly attended yard sale, were it not for the way it advertised her breasts: young and dense, irresistibly understated.

Yet he continually tempered this memory with another fictitious one: ―We‘re too young for this, Sol,‖ she had said to him. ―We need space. We need time.

Can‘t you see that we‘re drowning?‖ And so they had ended their romance at her sudden decree, and while Sol was aware that the incident was of his own invention, he found its authenticity wholly irrelevant.

Of what importance were the origins of a thought, of a feeling?

What right or wrong could be identified amongst memory? Their relationship had been terminated, irreversibly so, and Sol felt entitled to eulogize it as he saw fit.

22

Three years now. Three years since summer camp, since that intangible country annexed by adolescent lust. Three years since his arrival, unschooled in the language of the body. ―You‘re nineteen, motherfucker! Nineteen!

High time you got your dick sucked!‖ Such encouragement was bountiful, offered unsolicited by every male in attendance on the hilly campus; faculty member and fellow counselor and subordinate camper alike. ―Sol, man. Listen. I‘m fourteen, okay? Five years you got on me, and no disrespect--you‘re my counselor and you‘re cool and all--but word is you‘re fresh. You‘re

a green-dick. I could, y‘know... introduce you to some girls.‖ But Sol required neither pity nor assistance, for he soon found himself in a position of considerable demand. The exotic name and the dark complexion, the baby-blue eyes with the curled lashes; these factors, trivial to Sol, at last converged to draw attentions from all fronts.

First came Daphne, the lanky blonde with the pigtails and the upturned nose, slipping compliments and innuendos into otherwise innocent conversation.

Then Kate, the polka-dotted redhead with the compelling midsection, casually squeezing his sides as she passed. Kissing his cheeks. Touching his ears.

Then Orly, the Israeli exchange student, fresh from the army, her coquetry masked in a tomboy persona. Short-cropped bangs and ruptured laugh. That curled grin beneath her scowl.

And Sasha, the spectacled brunette whom he‘d embraced jokingly one night, and whose hand had run down his thigh and danced across his groin, who had approached him again with a pout the next day, ―Orly says she likes you and wants to know if you like her too.‖

All these girls, these names and faces and lips and tongues, more than Sol had enjoyed in all his lifetime! Didn‘t they recognize his inexperience? The degree to which he was unprepared?

Only six months ago had the boy‘s body completed the change it began at the head of his eighteenth year. A shifting of gears, a churning of hidden mechanics.

And as the fat released him, as the boyish bulge of his waistline shrunk to reveal a well-proportioned physique, what remained of Sol the Comedian, so intent on countering his repugnance with wit? Or Sol the Depressed? Sol the Heavy-Hearted and Self-Loathing?

Was he expected to abandon these compatriots, these brave doppelgangers who had stood beside him through the torment of his darkest years? Was he asked to bury them in the blubber now discarded? For these shapely

23

girls whispering in the dining hall and the oak groves, they knew only of Sol the Slender, Sol the Desirable, Sol the Calculatingly (they assumed) Humble.

Sol, who surely, with his cleft jaw and puckered lips, could not possibly be a green-dick.

Could he?

So Sol explored the privileges of the newlyliberated--the measured eroticism of the lingering stare; the whispered promise of the prolonged embrace; the hesitant flirtations and skittish groping--and all infused with an air of innocence, with a buoyant lack of culpability. For what repercussion could follow such folly, so harmless when compared to the encounters that surrounded him? ―Did you hear? I finger-banged Jenna behind the basketball court last night. And guess what? She wasn‘t wearing any panties!‖ How to make sense of these confessions? How to apply such lurid imagery to the rosy captions of Sol‘s own exchanges? ―Hey, Sol.‖ ―I like your shirt, Sol.‖ ―Wanna hang out sometime, Sol? Walk around the lake?‖ Sol entertained every invitation that came his way, still wholly ignorant of the sensual cipher employed by these girls--Daphne and Kate and Sasha and Orly-these female bodies now inexplicably attracted to him.

He could imagine running his fingers along their cool thighs, even winding an arm beneath their blossoming breasts, but could never achieve any true connection to that dark, wet fountainhead of lust. For Sol, the genitals were still a thing of religious proportions: to be dreamed of and prayed to, but never encountered.

This calm and, in retrospect, blissful phase of his abstinence was at last shattered by the introduction of a final, irrepressible element. His voice.

I remember the incident well, with crystalline clarity in fact, for it occurred during the evening that I first became aware of Sol as both a friend and a threat.

Tents were split into groups of thirty and spread out on an expanse of grass, while counselors struggled to

reign in a tension that seemed primed to explode. Campers screaming and wrestling and tearing down the hill in sudden bids for freedom.

Hoping to subdue what now verged on unrestrained chaos, Sol began to play guitar. Then, as he began to hum to himself, albeit hesitantly, the chaos dissolved into a hushed state of worship.

His eyes closed, his damp lips held apart, Sol cooed in a silken falsetto which seemed to drip from his chin and slither up from the grass. A thing so perfect, so wholly-formed, as to be a fundament of the subconscious.

As his fingers danced across the fretboard, tapping out the cadence to one of the summer‘s popular ballads, the group‘s female contingent released an audible, enamored sigh.

By the song‘s midway point, a bra had been flung at Sol and had hooked itself around one of the tuning pegs. By the final refrain, three more had been contributed, and the group had regained its frenetic state, though now directed entirely at the unveiled minstrel.

I suffered a pang of resentment as a girl launched herself atop him and showered Sol with kisses, forcing him into the grass and prompting the other counselors to at last take action. ―What happened back there?‖ Sol asked me, as we made our way down the hill.

I was shocked to discern a genuine naiveté within him; one which I had assumed, along with my fellow counselors, to be put on. Sol appeared completely ignorant of the spell he had cast, and ignorant too of its inevitable consequence.

Sure enough, requests began pouring in for Sol to make appearances in various cabins, singing in lieu of the usual bedtime stories. He appeared in tent after tent (most of which were on the girls side of the campground), crooning softly in the stifling heat that he attributed to the summer‘s humidity, but which I knew to be the swampy clutches of female desire.

He walked with Daphne on Wednesday, had lunch with Jade on Thursday, and on Thursday night traveled into town with Shyla to pick up supplies. ―And you‘re not hooking up with any of them?‖ came the incredulous reply. ―Not any of them?‖ But Sol knew only how to initiate conversation and administer song, to receive casual flattery and deliver that full-mouthed pout, yet had no grasp on that fabled barrier between flirtation and intimacy. ―It‘s just like when you kiss ‗em, Sol. Only you take it further. Go for that ass, brother.‖ But Sol hadn‘t kissed them. In fact, he hadn‘t kissed anyone at all. Ever.

And as he disclosed this revelation to the late night group of male counselors gathered on the baseball diamond to swig from a warm flask of vodka, I recall

feeling the urge to protect him, to aid him, to act as confidant rather than gossipmonger in this horde of excitable adolescence.

Perhaps it was my role at home of older brother to two siblings, or my sense that Sol had no male role model--no brother, no father, no debauched and parasitic uncle--that inspired my empathy, but it proved ineffective, regardless. For I found no opportunity during the ensuing years to influence or alleviate the course of his struggle.

By morning, all relevant players were aware that, yes, not only was Sol a green-dick, but he had never kissed a girl, and with that knowledge they became hunters, became seductresses, became sirens vindictive of such vulgar chastity. ―My god,‖ Sol reeled, sipping a soda while I smoked behind the bunkhouse. ―My god, she just jumped on me. In the stairwell last night, she kept rubbing my leg. Then she started up here,‖ he said, indicating his thigh. ―And then… and then…‖ But I already knew the rest of his story. Everybody did. Her hands were insistent, immune to deterrence, and released him only afterward to sulk back to his cabin, his sweater pulled low to cover the stain.

First blood had been drawn.

The predation continued during his next walk with Jade, and as Sol sensed her closing in, he tried to extricate himself, but she had him by the shoulders and turned him into her kiss. A deep, wet embrace which lowered him to the ground.

Before the week was out, Sol had adapted a defensive swagger, a crude imitation of the sexual bravado practiced by those around him.

He strutted about and delivered high fives, rejoicing nervously, ―I did it! I did it!‖ Though the truth was more akin to, ―She made me do it! She made me do it!‖ Sasha had invited him to the empty room (a spare apartment whose key was passed between those staff members deemed worthy), and after half-heartedly debating the dangers of such an encounter, Sol arrived at the blank door, and hesitantly, fearfully, on the verge of paralysis and nervous debilitation, knocked. ―My god... My god...‖ he said, swigging from his orange soda as though it were whisky. ―We got in the bed and she took off her shirt and her boobs were just… they were just…‖ He swallowed hard before continuing, ―And then she told me to touch them. She told me to touch them!‖ Sol returned to the room twice more before the key was demanded of Sasha, and twice his pants were removed and his newly socialized member was swallowed whole. ―It‘s the end that scares me,‖ he reflected in typical melodrama. ―Are there rules for that? For when you‘re about to, you know… on little Sasha‘s face?‖

I shrugged off the question, discomfited by the line of inquiry.

One thing strikes me now, however: Three years after the fact, and I can still remember him saying, ―Little Sasha‘s face.‖ Little Sasha? Was she not the corruptor in this case? Was she not the provider of sin in this affair?

I recall also noting, during a chance encounter some years later, that Sol‘s mother wore a crucifix which she kissed compulsively, and now wonder to what degree religion plagued his sexual conscience.

Mine had been through many stages of varied abuse, but I‘ll gladly confine this report to Sol‘s difficulties, and not my own.

The liaison with Sasha, heated though it was, disappeared along with the empty room key, and Sol spent his evenings stretched out on the grassy expanse, reflecting on his transformation, and curious as to how his triumphs would be embraced once the summer session had come to a close. ―Good for you!‖ his mother applauded him. ―And is she nice? Do you like her?‖ It was Daphne he had come away with in the end. Daphne who had been the first and final foray, and Daphne who had informed him in no uncertain terms that, yes, they were indeed dating.

Sol‘s victory lap was cut short by his mother‘s question, one which had not yet been posed to him, ―Do you like her?‖ Did he like her? Was that expected? Nowhere in the scattered rule book presented by so many eager libidos had anyone warned him of this particular concern.

Sure, he liked her. He thought he did. He probably did.

Sure, yeah--Of course he liked her.

But enmeshed in such a hallucinatory tour of the erotic, Sol hadn‘t registered much of a distinction between any of the girls he‘d allowed to experiment on him.

Dating. What was that but one more idiom of the amorous?

Hooking Up; Getting Down; Laying Into; Dating. It all meant the same thing, didn‘t it?

Besides, what did it matter if he liked her? They had hardly laid into each other.

Sure, they had kissed: late that night on the bench overlooking the campground, a canopy of pinpricked starlight illuminating her smile.

25

Sure, they were hooking up: behind the cabin where he had nibbled on her earlobes, touched her hair, caressed her neck.

Sure, they were dating: she had said they were, hadn‘t she? That final night, crying all over her strange floral blouse. ―I love you,‖ she had whispered. ―I‘ve been loving you since the day we met. Is that stupid? Oh, Sol… I love you. I really think I do.‖ So, yes. They were dating. ―I‘m going to visit her on Labor Day,‖ Sol told me later that year.

He took the train up to Boston and sent me a postcard during the holiday, a gesture I found embarrassingly intimate.

But the letter was brief, it contained only three lines: Here in Boston.

Already seems like so long since camp.

Is this how it feels to get old?

--Sol The implied despair and the absence of any mention of Daphne struck me as immediately worrisome.

Sol, the unlikely beneficiary of an aimless sexual inheritance; Sol, who had had high-fived his way through his carnal christening; Sol, who had infused the entire male staff with a proud sense of fatherhood at his giddy self-discovery... What had become of these gleeful incarnations?

The flurry of movement which was Daphne‘s college campus in no way resembled the grounds of the previous summer. Daphne appeared vibrant and adult, her hair no longer braided, her legs peeking from beneath a pleated skirt. She towered over him and wrapped her arms around him twice, three times. Again and again as rope or as ribbon. ―How I‘ve missed you,‖ she said, holding him as a mother would a child. ―You haven‘t changed at all.‖ Daphne‘s room was a rectangular cell, sparsely adorned with prints of Matisse and O‘Keefe, and her small desk held a laptop and a three-ringed binder, its reams of printed notes perforated by holes at the margins, and the lights were yellowish, and the lamps were twisted, and something immutable had changed. ―I‘ll graduate in three years and get a job as a curator,‖ she told Sol while he ate pizza and drank soda, staring fixedly out the window at the trees beyond. The blazers and handkerchiefs. The backpacks and berets. ―I‘ll graduate and become a curator and then we‘ll get married!‖ Sol next saw Daphne during Thanksgiving, electing to drive the stretch from Los Angeles to San Francisco to share the holiday with her family. The interim had been passed largely on the phone with call after call,

most of which had baffled Sol in their fiery intensity and vacuous content. ―You didn‘t ring me yesterday, Sol. I tried to reach you at noon and then again at four. You know it‘s important to me. Important that you call. I was worried all day, and had so much to tell you. But you didn‘t. You didn‘t call.‖ And with that same sideways shrug he used to allay her every grievance, Sol had committed himself to Thanksgiving with her family, introduction to her younger sister, interrogation by her father, and subjection to that most intimate of admissions: her childhood bedroom.

There on the ruffled mattress, in view of the steep grade to the Embarcadero and the lipstick links of the Golden Gate Bridge, she pulled him inside of her. ―It‘s time, Sol‖ she whispered, tugging on his hips with her arms, her ankles. ―It‘s time.‖

And Sol, who until then had managed to postpone the act in one way or another--headache, hangover, humbly confessed anxiety--now committed the deed which he‘d imbued with such crippling significance, and felt in return no great revelation, no great regret, no great indication of the moment at all. ―Congratulations,‖ she whispered as he entered her. ―Congratulations, Sol.‖ ―You two look like you‘re meant to be together,‖ declared Daphne‘s sister, looking Sol up and down. ―I can tell. I know these things.‖ ―Oh yes, Sol. At last. You‘re finally mine.‖ ―Please, Sol, have some turkey,‖ Daphne‘s mother babbled, planting another thigh on his plate and ladling from a boat of gravy. ―Eat, eat. He‘s got such good manners, doesn‘t he, dear?‖

―Yes, Sol. Yes yes yes…‖ ―My daughter tells me you have a wonderful singing voice. Maybe after dinner you‘ll sing for us.‖ ―Oh, Sol. You feel so good. Mine at last…

Mine forever…‖ ―You take care of my daughter,‖ Daphne‘s father whispered, edging Sol into the foyer, laying a meaty paw on his shoulder. ―You take care of her, now.‖ And gutted by the charge, Sol acquiesced. ―Yes, sir. Of course.‖ ―Oh, Sol… Sol… Yes. Yes. Don‘t stop. Don‘t stop.‖ On the bed. In the car. On the cold tile beside the toilet. On the padded edge of the living room footstool. ―Ohmygod, Sol. Yes! Yes!‖ After Daphne‘s parents had vetoed her suggestion that Sol spend the night, he called me from his motel room, spavined, eviscerated, enfeebled. ―How do you do it?‖ he whimpered. ―How do you deal with it all? This isn‘t hooking up,‖ he whined. ―This isn‘t getting down. We‘re not fingering or blowing or eating out. This is sex--real sex.‖ And though I didn‘t want to admit it then, I agreed with him completely.

It was painfully real. A curse made corporeal.

He escaped down the 101, passing between sentinel skyscrapers to flee the peninsula that very night, turning off his phone and throwing it, if not out the window in true dramatic fashion, into the trunk with his bundled belongings. And for a moment the boy who was continually playing catch-up, the child who felt eternally pitted against his own congenital naiveté, felt that he may have advanced too far.

His thoughts ran backwards, to a time when the young man was younger still, and not yet a thing to be achieved or desired.

Imagine it: Lumbering onto the stage as that rotund exaggeration of a child. Heavy arms and heavy underarms as he lays his elbows against the piano. ―Heeeere‘s Fatty!‖ one of the students shrieks in a Jack Nicholson impersonation.

But Sol has no anger in him. Merely sighs and turns toward the keys.

He is fat. At least the insult is accurate.

Fine. Good laugh. Sol can handle a laugh.

He begins to play, coaxing subtle inflections from the instrument, and as he gains momentum he grunts with exertion and stomps the pedals, erupting at last into a flurry of arpeggios, and springing to his feet, he sends the bench toppling behind him.

It crashes off the stage and splinters beside the front row. ―You want the fat? You can‘t handle the fat!‖ Jack Nicholson shrieks again, and as the auditorium

bursts into a layered response--shock, protest, gleeful mockery--Sol continues to play, hovering above the keys and beating out a glorious crescendo.

His eyes shut tight, his lips held open, thick pearls of sweat cascading down his forehead.

And when the moment arrives for lyric, when the song at last yields to his lilting soprano--his one redeeming force!--Sol remains silent.

Better not to speak, he decides, abandoning the piece to help recover the broken piano bench.

Better not to say anything at all.

I knew of that previous Sol, that vague imprint of the man to come, but only as I knew of the Sol who found himself so suddenly valued at camp that summer.

And as I knew the Sol of the aftermath following, who plod thoughtlessly through his relationship with Daphne.

Or of that snarled and knotted Sol which was yet to come.

And by that I mean, I knew them only to the extent that he revealed them to me: Intimately, and not at all.

It was Sol the Fearful who called on me a few months later to commiserate with him over a neat pink envelope he‘d received in the mail.

A card was enclosed, the front of which displayed a newborn‘s wrinkled features. The swollen eyelids; the wormlike tongue.

Inside, in celebratory colors, a bright font declared, Surprise!

The card was signed, simply, Love you, Daphne. ―Is this a joke?‖ Sol wailed. ―Is this supposed to be funny?‖ He seemed sickened by the message. By it‘s gaiety. Surprise! ―Some play for attention?‖ he demanded. ―Some attempt at control?‖ He waved the card before me, on the verge of tears. I knew better than to suggest that the letter‘s implications may in fact be sincere.

Sol filled me in on the card‘s backstory over jellied toast and sugared coffee at a nearby cafe. ―She‘s been depressed,‖ he said. ―She‘s been leaving awful messages, begging me to fly to her. She calls me at midnight and tells me she‘s spent the entire day in 27

bed--A whole day! Can you imagine?--then waits silently on the phone for my reply. ‗I need you,‘ she‘ll say. ‗I cry and cry and can do nothing else. I can‘t eat, I can‘t sleep.

Leave tonight,‘ she‘ll insist. ‗Leave tonight and fly over, or I‘ll do something drastic.‘ ‖ As he recounted the conversation, Sol‘s eyes hung heavy in his skull. Weighted down by guilt, that inexorable corollary of love. ―Is this my fault?‖ he asked me. ―Am I responsible for this?‖ The card had been sent in jest, in the end. No actual pregnancy had occurred, though I didn‘t discover this myself until two years later, following Sol‘s disappearance. ―My God!‖ Sol‘s mother yelped. ―My God! Of course he‘s alive!‖ I‘d only meant to emphasize the suddenness with which Sol had vanished, but at the mention of her son‘s demise, Sol‘s mother leapt into such a fit of spitting and crossing herself that I feared she‘d begin to grieve. ―Why do you say such things?‖ she whispered.

I explained that I‘d neither heard from Sol, nor been able to reach him by phone. ―Oh, you know Sol!‖ she rejoiced, her fear dissolving. ―Such a spirited child! I think he‘s tossed his phone away again. He‘s been traveling for quite some time. Said he needed a fresh start, and bless him! He‘ll get one!‖ So yet another Sol had emerged from the old, from the discard and debris of his latest failed attempt. A fresh start--I recoiled at the notion, believing no such thing to exist. Sol had not discovered some dramatic pathway to redemption, he had merely followed through on his previous attempt to jettison his phone from the window of his car.

I pictured that sideways shrug of his. That inversion of Atlas, shirking the weight of the globe with the simple belief that he‘d been dealt a bad hand. Surely a man could trade in his cards if things did not turn out in his favor. Surely one was not chained to their decisions, so arbitrary when considered against the infinite possibilities afforded them. Surely one could simply release a cell phone from a driver side window, and with it their attachment to three years worth of personal development.

Sol called me at last, inviting me to San Francisco, where, he revealed with a hesitancy that betrayed harsh circumstances, he was staying in a hostel.

Curiosity caused me to undertake the drive almost immediately, eager to loose myself in the monotony of the road and the surfeit of suffering which Sol was sure to provide.

No apologies were made for his absence, no excuses proffered for his lack of communication. Sol seemed to consider offering me a chair and a cigarette sufficient prelude.

―Why am I in San Francisco,‖ he began, staring listlessly through the grated window. ―That‘s what you‘re wondering, right?‖ I allowed that I was curious.

He took a cigarette from the pack and fumbled it between his fingers, showing no intention of lighting it. ―I never meant to be cruel, you know. Not to anyone. Yet somehow, I‘ve done harm. Crippling, irreparable harm.‖ He threw the cigarette out the window in a show of frustration. ―You know what she said to me?‖ Sol queried. ―You know what she said, sobbing, when at last I told her that I‘d had enough? She says, ‗There are three men in a woman‘s life: The man she‘ll always love; the man who‘ll always love her; and the man she‘ll eventually marry. I guess you‘re the man that I‘ll always love.‘ Daggers, right? Is there anything worse to unload on a person? And what crime did I commit? None! I dealt in love, and now I deal in ruin.‖ He cried freely, and I tried to assuage his grief, mumbling the inanities appropriate to the situation: Hey, there. Take it easy. It‘s okay. Tell me what happened.

Daphne had sent him a short letter in a large cardboard box that was packed with every vestige of their relationship. Every drawing and photograph. Every bracelet and ticket stub. His shirt. A record. Two roses, dried and pressed. A copy of ‗Heart of Darkness‘. A collector‘s edition of ‗Key Largo‘.

A mutual friend had phoned to reprimand him.

Her father had called to demand the cost of the plane ticket she‘d purchased to surprise him with.

Surprise! ―And I paid it,‖ Sol confessed. ―I mailed the check that very day. Four hundred and sixty dollars. Paid it without a thought. I‘d promised him…‖ he murmured. ―I‘d promised to take care of her…‖ Sol left town shortly thereafter to reinvent himself yet again. Rented a studio apartment in Santa Cruz and began reading beatnik philosophy, meditating on the

29

beach and smoking marijuana. Drowning himself in the cleansing waters of pretense and cliché.

Yet this new Sol was never far from Daphne. Always the itch, always the worry. San Francisco lay in wait before him, only a short drive away, where at any time she may be visiting her family and hiking through the Presidio, or lazing at one of the coffee shops they‘d frequented together.

The image of her haunted him: sitting absently as he approached her, then that moment of recognition as she registered his presence.

She‘d claw at his face. She‘d scream in rage. She‘d flee the scene. She‘d kiss him. ―But that‘s not how it happened,‖ Sol revealed. ―That‘s not how it happened at all.‖ It was a dream which finally forced his return. The clear and powerful image of her. Daphne, and nothing more.

He arrived again in San Francisco and began a routine of casual surveillance. Walking twice a day past her parent‘s house, scanning for an extra car or familiar silhouette in the window. He sat for long hours at the corner cafe. At each location in the city, on every park and bus bench, preparing himself for the inevitable encounter. ―I didn‘t mean to upset her,‖ he said. ―I didn‘t intend to cause trouble. Just, for my own reasons, to see how she had fared.‖ And when at last the meeting materialized, when in passing her parent‘s house Sol found Daphne immobile in the driveway, having recognized him earlier and known it to be more than coincidence, Sol told her all this. Told her immediately before letting the magnitude of the moment sink in. ―If my father sees you, he‘ll kill you,‖ she whispered quickly. ―Come.‖ Daphne took his wrist in her hand--The contact!

That contact again!--and led him down the street to the park overlooking the bay. They walked silently, her gaze fixed on the horizon, her expression indecipherable.

As they stood viewing the grey waters and the network of bridges dissecting them, Sol was struck with the sudden impression that nothing had changed at all. Not a day, not an hour, had passed since that summer.

He stood momentarily as before: fearless, inculpable, whole. ―But I was wrong again, wasn‘t I?‖ he asked me. “I‘d assumed her to be happy. I had always assumed...‖ He removed another cigarette and twirled it between thumb and forefinger, slivers of tobacco flying from its edge. His eyes glazed over, his mind returning to the memory: the assumed Sol beside the assumed Daphne, holding her assumed hand, surveying the assumed city. ―Come with me,‖ Daphne said at last, leading Sol down a slope and further into the park. Through a thicket and into a dense grove of pines.

She released his hand and lowered herself to the dirt, her legs splayed slightly, a breeze rustling her hair.

Sol hovered before her momentarily, enjoying the final delusions his mind afforded him: Maybe she was looking for a tranquil setting to ease the strain of the past three years...

Or she wished to enjoy his silent company, allow their inner mechanics a gradual adjustment...

Perhaps with this movement, she would gesture him to sit beside her...

Or absently scratch her thigh...

Or adjust her skirt in some unknown manner...

But here his conjecture came to an end, for Daphne gripped the edge of her skirt and yanked it upward, shoving her underwear aside and exposing her pale entry. ―Look at me,‖ she demanded. ―Look at me, Sol.‖ She tugged at the cotton and her underwear began to tear. ―Sol: look!‖ She thrust with her hips, offered an unintelligible shriek.

Sol looked, stilled by shock. The cotton tore away. ―There you are, Sol--right there!‖ Daphne pressed a fingernail to the soft flesh of her groin. Drew a pinprick of blood. ―See it, Sol? Can you see it, baby?‖ Beside her finger, edging against her opening, stood the bluish stain of a cheap tattoo.

Two consonants and a single vowel.

That single syllable-Sol. ―Now you see it,‖ she snarled. ―There you are.

Right there, against me. Ahhh, Sol. Ugh, fuck!‖ She writhed and wailed as a crowd began to gather.

Daphne coughed up a harsh laugh, and Sol, his internal monologue reduced to a high-pitched mantra-nonononono--abandoned the misery of the scene and fled the park, sobbing. ―I ran,‖ Sol murmured. ―I ran away, again. She needed my help, and I ran away.‖ At this point in his story, Sol trailed off, lapsing into a silence which lasted the remainder of my visit. He broke it only once to whisper softly, ―My name…‖ And that was my last vision of the man: hunched by a barred window, breathing in the smoke of the city. Thin shadows dissecting his face. A casualty of his own virtues.

Upon leaving, I made a final attempt at assistance, urging Sol to seek help, to ease his confusion however possible.

Beyond him, the harbor splintered into fractal sunlight, and as I departed, my mind wandered back to the cardboard capsule that Daphne had sent him. Cluttered with the detritus of their relationship. Topped with that final missive she‘d penned in simple cursive and crimson ink: I‘m a good person, Sol. And you‘re just trying to be. [] 30

ISAAC SIMONS is a lover of literature, cinema, and all forms of escapism. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife and daughter where he currently spends his time sitting in traffic and directing commercials, though not simultaneously.

When I Think of Ethical Quandaries I Massage my Ulcer until it Sings I was Saved At birth.

Baptized With placenta.

As the nurse Cleaned off The prayer I felt despair For the first time.

Positions on morality Braced for the residual gibberish That establishes Oughts From is‘s.

I responded By weeping In the car seat During the car-ride home.

I wept In the crib, I wept While suckling on My mother‘s breast. I wept Until the air went silent And I discovered the pulse Of invisibility.

When I think of What‘s implied I swallow it As gossip And digest it As poetry. []

A R T:

J E A N—L O U I S

RASTAPOPULOUS

POETRY ADAM

BINASH

Laughing Humbly at Dirty Jokes Time bound by multiple sitcom reruns I learned the characters‘ dialogue Through muting their conversations And studying lip sequences.

Averting O posture for something daintier Like a silent Q. Useful as a questionLike why did a wheelchair bound loner Choose an addict to distribute their pain pills for profit?

Is greed profitable?

Liberals blame the healthcare system Ironically conservatives do too.

I blame canned laughter. ―Appropriate guffaws‖ Distinguished by focus groups And human nature.

Granted I am a funeral jester.

A rainbow clad dunce With vocal chords That whisper like jingle bells And a tongue Red & heavy as brick. If I try to explain this My tongue fluctuates and brandishes a wall Where the bells reverberate against concrete.

I hide secrets in the cracking foundation And feature laughter as tongue & cheek stunts Complimented by a masonry skill set So restrained by talent I‘d swear I wasn‘t defeated By calluses and hangnails. [] ADAM ―A.j.‖ BINASH is a writer residing in La Crosse, WI. He‘s been featured in numerous independent publications and performed in various venues across the country.

Website: Romanticclowning.com.

31

SHORT

FICTION

Keeping up with Time LEILA

SAMARRAI

P H O T O G R A P H Y:

JOHN

MEHDI ROCHA

I was thirty two years old when I started writing this story. Alas, incredible things happened since then.

LEILA SAMARRAI MEHDI was born on October 19th, 1976 in Kragujevac, Serbia. She writes poetry, short stories, and plays, her work largely containing the motives of fantasy and humor. Her debut collection of poetry ―The Darkness Will Understand― won the First prize of the competition organized by the Student cultural center of Kragujevac in 2002. She has had her work published in numerous local magazines, both in print and electronic form. She currently lives in Belgrade with her five cats.

Because of the law of Higher age requirement for woman retirement, my mother had to be older than she is in order to retire on time. Luckily, doctor Hatchinson was our distant cousin and through the local fortune teller and spirit medium he was giving us detailed directions on how to grow old precisley. We discovered the gene for rapid aging in our family laboratory and we were taking it in the shape of oral pills in the morning and in the evening. My hair line was thinner and thinner by the day, but in spite of that I managed to receive a passport issued due to the papers showing an urgent demand for one. Older than I was, I was being taken more seriously at the bakeries. Decrees of rapid reform change were increasing in numbers, so we had to grow older faster. That is how me managed to keep up with them, all with the goal of liberating the human spirit.

We had enormous expenses , for we considered you should be old but not wrinkled, because we spent a lot of money on skin tucks, botox, silicone implants. We lost our property, the house was put under mortgage because of the expenses our vanity put on us. But, we had our pension, we had our passport. We are also threatened by an approaching, inevitable death. My face says that a lot of time passed since this story started, but I am still thirty two years old.

And I am dying. []

32

Dark Energy How terribly embarrassing and inconvenient for sophisticates to intuit that powers unseen and uncertain are reliably at work all around us, and always have been.

What covert might could account for cosmic acceleration, creating and extending space, distancing galaxies into ever remoter corners, condemning the macrocosm to an icy demise?

Anciently restrained by dark matter's gravitational pull, in time this clandestine puissance overcame its repressing nemesis, absconding then skedaddling till it constituted three quarters of the cosmos, a runaway universe racing into exponential expansion.

Will we ever apprehend the indiscernible force, ever arrest its unimpeded progress, or is it destined to remain an elusive fugitive outpacing human comprehension?

The distressing immensity of our ignorance leaves us no alternative but humility, chief precondition for observers who would behold the heights and discern. []

POETRY BRANDON MARLON

Cenobite Come dawn, he lifts his tonsured pate, dons his frock, and hauls his paunch past chapels with carved overmantels, down the dizzying caracole leading underground to a hive-like vault where malted barley and hops are alchemized into beer and honey and water fermented into mead, plenishing metal drums as kirsch, perry, and cider distend oaken barrels and casks under the scrutiny of the manciple and cellarer.

He avails himself of provisions designated for members' immediate use, filling flagon, decanter, and carafe to their brims with a devotion spirituous if not spiritual, ever grateful for a convent's conveniences.

Sated, he rouses himself at noontime and warmly receives mendicants, friars of every order crowding the almonry for a taste of nectar, dispensing with askesis for the sake of sampling the World to Come. []

BRANDON MARLON is a writer from Ottawa, Canada. He received his B.A. in Drama & English from the University of Toronto and his M.A. in English from the University of Victoria. His poetry was awarded the Harry Hoyt Lacey Prize in Poetry (Fall 2015), and his writing has been published in 165+ publications in 23 countries, including CultureCult Magazine.

Website: www.brandonmarlon.com Image courtesy: NASA

33

POETRY ROSS

STAGER

ROSS STAGER is a student of philosophy and English at the University of Minnesota and has published a few poems online at such places like Otoliths, Alimentum, Inner Sins, and Lunaris Review, as well as a short-story for The Bacon Review. He has poetry forthcoming in 30 N and Penwood Review. He also works as a night manager and produce clerk at a small grocery store in the southern suburbs of Minneapolis. Twitter: @RossStager

Unrequited She is to me like a pristine white napkin in a sandstorm.

A hazard that‘s classical.

I've never preferred conservatism so earnestly.

She‘s a field laden with a sheet of fresh snow and at any moment a disaster could happen.

Like I am a big brown bear about to terrorize the meadow.

That area where her sacredness knows of no barriers, conjuring images of hips undulating. I wonder sometimes what Cupid sees, whether he wears a blindfold or not.

What attention does he pay?

The trouble is I have no fear of getting close to her. []

Soundtrack to Obscurity How can I express how much I care for thee?

Could I invite you to play an instrument you've never seen before?

Can we break free from the imprisonment of language?

Come up on this stage with me and twenty others.

Would you like to make music with us?

Maintain no skepticism about our obscure harmony; we grasp our foreign melodies that are discovered in the music of our spirits.

The notes and bars, like our kisses, Only we can understand.

How joyous it is!

To make such little sense to the rest of the world.

PHOTOGRAPHY:

34

MARTIN

SATTLER

SHORT

FICTION

Lunch with Maurice MICHAEL

ZONE

I was doing time at the Aqua-Cola warehouse.

My eleventh W2 in my factotum year facing eviction and total starvation.

Maurice, a pudding formed figure with a handlebar mustache sat across from me during lunch.

A half hour ordeal of me trying to eat my peanut butter sandwich as he explained to me, how he wasn‘t a sex offender and got laid every weekend working as a karaoke DJ. ―Put on the Manilow, smile and announce ‗this is for the ladies.‘‖ (wink, point, panties drop.)

No one really liked him and only spoke to him when work required it, as he replenished our stocks.

I was new but didn‘t have the unspoken collective permission to dislike anyone.

Rendering me just as disgusting as the socially misunderstood pervert who swallowed rolled tortillas and liverwurst like a duck. When you‘re new and people can sense you enjoy your solitude and are not the type to construct an existence around work, they despise the false sense of freedom they have and the discomfort you bring through indifference comingled with a decent work ethic.

His ―incident‖ had something to do with girls‘ volleyball and a repressive government ―out to besmirch believers; we are not of this world; America hates God and anything to do with him.‖ He was big on home security ―I keep a weapon in every room. I don‘t even lock my door. I‘ve got a shotgun hanging on the wall , handguns in both my nightstand and medicine cabinet...unregistered (take that, Dictator Obama), I got a barbwire wrapped baseball bat next to the toilet and a samurai sword under my bed with a hunting knife between my pillows.‖ ―Expecting trouble?‖ I asked against my better judgement. ―My dad was in the navy. Antiwar activists target the family members of veterans.‖ Maurice replied seemingly shocked at such an inquiry.

Maurice was later found dead in his apartment.

Stabbed in the eye and ran through with his own sword.

I ate my sandwich. []

35

CANVAS:F

MICHAEL ZONE is the author of Fellow Passengers: Pubic Transit Poetry, Meditations & Musings and Better than the Movies: 4 Screenplays. His work has been featured in Because Eileen, Dead Snakes, Horror Trash Sleaze, In Between Hangovers, Three Line Poetry, Triadae and The Voices Project. He scrapes by in Grand Rapids, MI

ILIP BUNKENS

DRAMA EIL BOB McN

Other

Shoulders Shrugged,

Too

PHOT

OGRA

CHRI

PHY:

S BA RBA

LIS

Supreme Man: White male with the face of a young Rock Hudson and the body of Arnold Schwarzenegger during his Mr. Olympia period. Known for his red leotard with the Alpha and Omega insignias on his chest, blue briefs over the pants, blue boots and a matching cape, Supreme Man is perhaps the first extraterrestrial on Earth.

Bartender: Undetermined ethnicity, somewhere in

his late forties, perhaps early fifties, bald, pale, short, maybe Alan Ladd‘s stature, and under his apron, there is a sizable paunch.

Terrific Titaness: An alabaster magic-imbued God-

dess who is 6‘8‖. She looms over everyman in the room. Across her brown hair, she has on a golden lau36

rel. A silver iron bustier, adorned with the astrological symbol of Virgo, covers the heroine‘s prodigious breasts. Both of her arms have medieval black leather wrist guards. Around her waist, instead of a belt, she has on a silvery rope that glows. Further down, she has on a pair of Venus-colored leather panties, and ancient Greek knee-high, lace-up, sand-colored sandals.

Buzzard Man: Masked in brown and red feathers as well as a pale beak, he is dressed in a suit that has all the distinctive qualities associated with a bird of prey, including wings. There is an exception from the animal motif, though. He has on a pair of black briefs above his pants with plumage. Formidable in terms of musculature and height, about 6‘2‖, Buzzard Man, although completely mortal, is a fearsome person.

His taloned gloves and claw-shaped boots with the same yellow shade only add to his unnerving persona.

Insurgent Man: Facially similar to Denzel Wash-

ington, this hero, famous for his shoulder-length brown dreadlocks, black, gold and green bandana, chain mesh shirt, dark blue tapered running pants stuffed in combat boots, is 6‘4 with 250 pounds of muscle. Arguably, this Harlem, New York native is the one person in the room who could give the other men a challenging fight.

Lt. United States: Always dressed for battle, the

blue-eyed, flaxen-haired Lt. is wearing red, white and blue combat fatigues. Even his helmet, rifle, utility belt, revolver, holster and boots all share the same color scheme. Heightwise, provided he is wearing boots, the Lt. stands about eye-to-eye with Insurgent Man. Otherwise, the patriotic soldier has an Olympic swimmer‘s physique.

Arachnid Sid Man: Atop of his head, you will find a red shell. This glossy carapace covers his ginger pageboy hairstyle. Spectacles that bear the images of four brown eyes in each lens obscure his real green eyes beneath them. Adorning the sides of his face, there are two dark pincers that were attached by some adhesive. Ten additional mechanical appendages protrude from his black hairy suit. His boots, also in the spider motif, have the appearance of pedipalps.

Professor Julian Jekyll/the Bulk: Best described

as a regal Englishman, this scientist has the appearance of a man who would feel comfortable with the aristocracy. Evidenced by the center part in his 37

neatly cut salt and pepper hair, granny glasses, thin nose, tight lips, and the sartorial elegance of his Lazio Navy Suit and bowtie, the doctor embodies refinement. However, underneath his style, a Goliath-huge savage slumbers.

A young male: Beneath a long mop of shoulder-length

ginger hair, an oval face mired with acne resides. The male, anywhere from nineteen to twenty-one years of age, is an anemic nervous person in a ―Forever Comic Con‖ green t-shirt, blue jeans and white high top sneakers.

SETTING The Liber Pater Bar is adorned with pictures of sports figures on mahogany walls. It has an ivory bar, black wooden stools, chairs, tables, two pool tables, a dartboard and two televisions mounted on the walls, one on each side of the room.

TIME Fifteen minutes to four a.m.

THE SCENE Holding his third pitcher of Martian Crater Beer, Supreme Man is staring blankly at the bartender in front of him. Terrific Titaness, standing in a westward direction, is drinking white wine. Eastward, Buzzard Man is having a Ruby Rose Cocktail. A few feet away from the Titaness, between sipping cognac, Insurgent Man is playing pool. By himself, closer to the dartboard, Lt. United States is sitting at a table, downing another can of Bud. Further away, Arachnid Sid Man and Julian Jekyll are sharing a table. Both are having Tactical Nuclear Penguin in bottles.

Supreme Man: Nothing, I mean, nothing about my existence makes any damn sense.

Bartender: We‘re closing soon. Maybe, if it‘s ok, can I call you a cab, Mr. Nimrod Nietzsche, I mean, Supreme Man? Supreme Man: See, even the bartender recognizes me without my glasses. Why can‘t the citizens of Megalopolis figure it out? Judging from the ease in which I fool folks in my city, you would think all the residents suffer from that face blindness condition. What‘s it called again? Prosopagnosia, that‘s it. My identity is a joke.

Even maintaining my news anchor persona is laughable.

About six days in a week, I wear leotards, boots and a

cape under different business suits. And these powers of mine, they don‘t make any sense, either. Listen, I‘m no astrophysicist, but I should have the same abilities as anyone else on this planet. This isn‘t Mars; so, why am I able to fly or possess incredible strength? Am I right or what?

Heck, the way I see it, my origins would make more sense if everybody on Earth had superpowers, right?

Bartender: Should I call for that Über?

Supreme Man: Everybody keeps telling me I am the last from my home world. Yet, a dog with supreme powers used to assist me. Another assistant was my cousin, Supreme Woman. How exactly am I the last when they are here on this planet with me? That‘s another thing, why

And these powers of mine, they don’t make any sense, either. Listen, I’m no astrophysicist, but I should have the same abilities as anyone else on this planet.

This isn’t Mars; so, why am I able to fly or possess incredible strength? would a meteorite from Promethium, my birth planet, weaken me?

Terrific Titaness: Silence, you sound as if you need your diaper changed. A pebble weakens you and you want to cry. Look at me. Male criminals tie me up with my own damn Cord for the Untoward. Explain why my own magical rope from the Island of Vulvae weakens me. My cord has the effectiveness of sodium pentothal on criminals, but on me, I am a dishrag of weakness. You know what else is weak or lame, my Winged Invisocycle. Do you XY chromosomes see how ridiculous my ride is?

Bartender: Hey, darling, calm down.

Terrific Titaness: I am not anybody‘s damn darling, sweetheart, honey, babe, chick or pet. Never wonder about what to call me. I am the Terrific Titaness. Ad-

dress me as you would any other Goddess. Do you comprehend, mortal?

Bartender: Yes, I comprehend.

Terrific Titaness: You guys are supposedly meta-people.

Each of you calls himself ―Man.‖ Is this to remind you of your gender? Do you sometimes forget? Ah, perhaps you are compensating for little limp things.

Bartender: OK, before this situation gets bigger, can we say goodnight?

Terrific Titaness: I watch you, men. Quite honestly, I marvel at your misogyny. Not far from my office in D.C., the marble statue of three suffragists by Adelaide Johnson is there to show you men the importance of women.

Bartender: Hey, sister, please, leave the speeches for Gloria Steinem.

Terrific Titaness: Out of all, you make sense to me, Insurgent Man. Some decades back, your people, specifically Black men, were not treated as adults. Your use of the name ―Man‖ makes the most sense. The rest of you, on the other hand, are boys wearing material from the linen closet.

Bartender: Whoa, slow down on the booze. You know how you folks get.

Buzzard Man: Leave them alone. Don‘t worry about closing this place. No law here in Metroham City will question your need to stay open late with us around. All your beverages are on the Buzzard—this bird can afford it. I‘m a friggin‘ billionaire.

A chorus of heroes (Each meta person raises a container): You rock, Buzzard man. Thanks.

Buzzard Man: Have you noticed that most of the superheroes are orphans with square jaws? Think about it.

Supreme, Sid and I are all orphans with pretty similar features. Isn‘t that a bit, you know, coincidental?

Insurgent Man: Yeah, you think that‘s coincidental. Why aren‘t there more superheroes of color? Every League out there has at least one or two token heroes of African descent. Am I right, that‘s about it? The Mutant Men have a sister named Tornado. The Deflectors have The Crime Defeater Cheetah and The Nubian Sovereign from Chicago, I think. Oh, yeah, even your group, Supreme, the Lawful Legionnaires, has a brother who calls himself the Emerald Luminator. Tokenism, is that the best your

groups can do? Quantifying the fact that seventy percent of the world‘s population is non-white, your hiring practices are deplorable.

Buzzard Man: Bro, what the hell are you proposing, affirmative action or something?

Insurgent Man: Let me tell you something, Buzzard, there are some real Black heroes out there, out there in the armed forces, police and fire departments and they‘re doing real things to help our communities, while you guys run around with your underwear outside of your pants. Aren‘t you guys too old to be dressing like that?

Hold on, way back in the 1930s, Supreme and Buzzard

I watch you, men. Quite honestly, I marvel at your misogyny. Not far from my office in D.C., the marble statue of three suffragists

by Adelaide Johnson is there to show you men the importance of women. were either in their twenties or thirties. Damn, you guys are much older than the way you appear.

Lt. USA: Forget it. Don‘t worry about them. Have a drink with me. You and I have similar origins. We‘re both products of elixirs that endowed us with powers.

Granted, we got our powers differently. Convicted of Arson in the Second Degree, at age nineteen, for blowing up a KKK Headquarters in Mississippi, you were facing one to ten years in the State Penitentiary. Never idle, you worked out, got your Masters Degree in education and joined an experimental mood-altering program. Under the supervision of the state scientists, you were given a serum that was supposed to make you permanently benign. The drug had the opposite effect and it made you into one of the strongest heroes in town. Whereas as I, during the Great War, was in a platoon of superenhanced soldiers. Sadly, I was the last to survive D-Day. Insurgent Man: Hey, lieutenant, I don‘t need a refe-

39

ree. Moreover, I know my own origins.

Lt. USA: Give it a rest, brother. You can see those guys are hurtin‘ already. Age is not important in our line of work. In WWII, I was 21. Today, all these years later, I still look like a twenty-one-year-old guy due to a nap at a ski resort for quite a few decades.

Insurgent Man: Yeah and so, I am not hearing a point, Lt. Lt. USA: Maybe I‘m getting gray and fuzzy in the head.

Can‘t say there is a point, you know.

Supreme Man: Nah, Insurgent is right. There‘s something wrong with our world.

Buzzard Man: Hell, yeah, there‘s something wrong. Our archrivals, these so-called supervillains, Meinrad von Mensa, Antonine Avarice, The Epigrammatist, Redneck Marauder, Admiral Baddie, Troglodyte, and the Anathema have fought us for years. You would think, after all this time, they would just kill us or we would just kill them. Instead of a bullet, most times I get soliloquies and traps that I can get out of, basically.

Bartender: What‘s wrong is the idea of you driving. Give me the keys and I‘ll call a cab for you.

Buzzard Man: Wrong, wrong, I‘ll tell you what else is wrong--guns. They‘re all bent or something. Normally when a guy takes a shot at me, the bullet misses. Occasionally, a shot may hit me, but it‘s never fatal, why?

Here are some other things that should be fatal: Back in my first year of being a crime fighter, I shot some guys with a gun. No crap, I gave‘em holes in places they didn‘t know they had. Next year, I got a ten-year-old frigging sidekick. Don‘t you guys remember Woodpecker, the orphaned lion tamer? Jeez, I‘m an asshole.

Eleven years after we met, I endangered that kid. He got killed on a mission. Lord knows, that alone should have made me a public menace. Then tell me why the Mayor of the Metroham City works with me? The guy either calls me on a private line or he uses a signal in the sky.

Can you imagine? Why doesn‘t he trace the calls or have my Bueto Mobile tailed and figure out who I am? This reminds me, my butler, Aldfrith Plug Nickel, could be the richest man in the city if he would blackmail me. The guy would be set for life, for life.

Arachnid Sid Man: Oh, yeah, the life of a billionaire vigilante is so hard. Try getting a bite from a radioactive insect. See how that changes your existence.

Normalcy is a just a matter of slipping out of a cowl for you. As for me, I haven‘t been normal since that bug bit

my shoulder at the Science Museum. Wait a minute.

Something else bothers me. Why would a teacher take High School students to see radioactive creatures? I mean, wtf?

Professor Julian Jekyll /The Bulk: Change the topic, please. The thought of it annoys me and that‘s the last thing we need around here.

Buzzard Man: I‘ve known some bugged out people, but I‘m not an entomologist. Furthermore, I don‘t know a thing about radioactivity.

Supreme Man: I don‘t care how pissed you get, Bulky.

I‘ll knock some other shades into you.

Professor Julian Jekyll /The Bulk: Radioactivity, there‘s a subject I can discuss. On the other hand, considering my condition, perhaps we should change topics. Exposure to that volatile stuff altered my life. My intention was to save my girlfriend, a research assistant on an experiment, from nuclear rays, but I wound up getting them instead. It changed me to such a point that when I‘m pissed, my body transforms into a gigantopithecuswide-and-tall, purple-colored man the news media calls the Abominable Bulk.

Arachnid Sid Man: Exactly why is it so many of us get transformed by radioactivity? Seriously, take a minute and think about the amount of folks who were transformed by the stuff. Check it out, that deaf judge from the Bowery got a dose of the stuff, and now he fights crime under the name of Unafraid Seraph.

Professor Julian Jekyll /The Bulk: Don‘t forget that shuttlecraft crew that was surrounded by a nuclear mist.

They changed career directions and became the Unbelievable Quartet.

Arachnid Sid Man: Right, right, the leader has the power of a Slinky. His girlfriend can disappear. Her cousin can turn into an ice cube. The other teammate, I think he‘s from the Bronx, kind of has the look of asphalt or something. Kind of weird that they got different powers from the same radioactive mist, wouldn‘t you say, Professor?

Bartender: OK, chill; remember what happened the last time with you two. I got to let my gut be my GPS on this and follow it.

Buzzard Man: In your obese state, you have no choice but to follow your gut.

Bartender: That‘s it, everybody, it‘s late. I have to close up. Buzzard Man, you said you were going to pay.

Here‘s the bill. Also, this time, don‘t sign it with ―I‘m Buzzard Man.‖ I need your real name for credit card billing.

Arachnid Sid Man: Names, there‘s another subject. Most of us have alliterative real names when we‘re not in disguise. I wonder why that is?

Supreme Man: Further proof that whoever created this universe has no imagination.

Professor Julian Jekyll /The Bulk: Certain theorists and I agree that there may be another dimension that is responsible for our existence. Wherever that place is, there could be numerous creators.

Insurgent Man: And, the thing that they all have in common is a small imagination when it comes to names, origins, races, ethnicities, physical appearances, genders, and sexual orientations, etc.

Terrific Titaness: You said it, brother.

Professor Julian Jekyll /The Bulk: Scientifically, that is a valid observation, young man.

A young male (runs into the bar): Wow, this is better than cosplay in here. Can I get a selfie with you guys?

Arachnid Sid Man: Exposure happens so much that you would think there‘s more nuclear stuff than water in these towns.

Supreme Man: It‘s time to mature, kid.

Although BOB McNEIL has received some modest renown as a writer, illustrator and spoken word artist, he realizes most people do not really know him as a person. Between you and me, he prefers it this way. Otherwise, he would have to get restraining orders on all people who want to know him.

(One by one, the superheroes exit.) []

41

POETRY MITCHELL

GRABOIS

Unrequited Photograph

MITCHELL Krockmalnik GRABOIS has had over twelvehundred of his poems and fictions appear in literary magazines in the U.S. and abroad, including CultureCult. He has been nominated for numerous prizes. His novel, TwoHeaded Dog, based on his work as a clinical psychologist in a state hospital, is available now. To see more of his work, google Mitchell Krockmalnik Grabois. He lives in Denver.

I was the last friend to see Julie alive I said goodbye, she walked out onto the balcony looked at the lake and collapsed Julie was an artist She photographed diners in the Waffle House and wizened women who had attained an age she would never come to know She carried forth the spirit of Dorothea Lange and Walker Evans I got the news of Julie‘s death in heavy traffic entering the French Quarter It was hard to understand her boyfriend‘s slurred speech Horns were blaring I almost ran a red light I stopped short My tires squealed A very black woman in a red bandanna crossed the street in front of me and gave me a sweet smile She was someone whom Julie would have photographed She was born to be photographed Julie was born to photograph her []

42

Ticks April Bernard looked out over the dusty cornfields She heard red winged blackbirds and sand hill cranes but couldn‘t see any birds at all The way Sylvia Plath has become a celebrity, she said, the way followers worship her suicide it‘s like

she‘s growing fatter and fatter, like some splendidly engorged literary tick

It happened to be tick season Ticks were more plentiful than I‘d ever seen them around the farm I remembered that I‘d bought a special tick removing tool but had forgotten where‘d I‘d left it It seemed important that I find it I went into the house not saying a word to April in explanation []

PHOTOGRAPHY:T

IM GOUW

POETRY

Love in a Storm Factory Thunder is just the shout and stumble of clouds.

Lightning‘s nothing but a cigarette being lit on the other side of the world.

The weather is love. Its isobars leave behind the storms of the world.

When was there ever a nimbus heart?

What strikes twice, and then a third, and then a fourth time if not this entwined beating?

There‘s people trembling in their houses, thinking they won‘t survive this time.

Their afternoon is packed with the sky‘s treason.

Ours is a subliminal laugh at this rake‘s progress through the punch-drunk heavens.

It may be dark as pitch to the others but it‘s dawn already here.

Their timbers may rumble like God‘s truth but we roll, we rock, as only touch knows how.

Thunder is the cry of the repressed.

Lightning cuts its unholy path across the dark plains of the unfeeling.

The weather is renewed in our faces.

It‘s a feathering breeze, a glistening cool embedded in your soul.

Suddenly all goes dark. A neighbor‘s voices shrieks, ―We‘ve lost the power.‖ Thankfully, we‘ve found the power. []

JOHN GREY

Bargain Basement There‘s nothing here I want: Buddha candles, tiny baskets, scrawny dolls with more than a hint of voodoo, ugly lamp shades, mugs circumnavigated by a large-lettered, ―World‘s Best Pa.‖ But just the thing for Uncle Joe at Christmas, the Smoking Monkey, made in Taiwan.

And, for Aunt Hilda, a spice rack in the shape of an elephant.

For a couple of bucks, I‘ve solved two problems, and it‘s only late September.

So what if they toss monkey and elephant in the trash along with their wrapping.

There‘s nothing here I want, their gratitude most of all. []

JOHN GREY is an Australian poet, US resident. Recently published in Sheepshead Review, Studio One and Columbia Review with work upcoming in Louisiana Review, Poem and Spoon River Poetry Review.

C A N V A S: Dutch warships in trouble off Gibraltar, 1690

43

LUDOLF

BAKHUIZEN

SHORT ASHLIE

FICTION

ALLEN

Nameless

Ship

ASHLIE ALLEN writes fiction and poetry. She also enjoys photography. Her work has appeared in Juked, the Potluck Magazine, Birds We Piled Loosely and others. She sometimes talks to ghosts when she's bored, or to other scary creatures, including herself.

44

The beach is straight across the road. It is 104 degrees outside, but the board-walk seems like a place to call home awhile. Maybe it‘s the high tides. Maybe it‘s sympathy for the dying fish men are catching. Once, when Lo was seven, he begged a man to toss the fish he captured back into the ocean. He cried like a sad demon as he watched the scaled creature writhe.

Though he is drunk now, he knows he can‘t stay inside the restaurant forever. Besides, the woman next to him keeps touching his hair, saying ―I love Vietnamese males. They are like silk warmed by the sun.‖ He thinks she is fascinating too, but is more charmed by the thought of seeing his shadow on the board-walk.

He has the cross the road first. Traffic is like a swarm of bats, considering it is Saturday evening. Several cars blow their horn and quickly swerve over. He can‘t help notice, even in his stupor how reckless he is.

He knows there is a hand over his mouth as he laughs at himself mostly, but also at the fury of these strangers trying not to kill him. ―Run me down, please.‖ He says out loud to himself. ―I might be prettier flattened out like dried squid.‖ A man opens the gate for him once he reaches the board-walk. It costs one dollar to see frothy waves and mysterious floating objects. Lo wishes he could float in the rough currents and stay alive. He also wishes the woman who admired his mane would suddenly appear and tell him it is okay if he wants to drink more later; no one knows why he is like this, only she and him.

A fisherman notices how much he is staggering and yells to be careful. Lo does not care about being cau-

tious. He just wants stand at the end of the board-walk and see the endless blue crease of the ocean. It was the same sight he stared at for 5 days while waiting for the ship to arrive.

His mother said they‘d be there on the 20th of May. Lo waited until the 25th before a couple found him. ―What are you doing here by yourself, young boy?‖ the husband asked. Lo‘s bones were starting to show beneath his soiled white shirt. He was gaunt like a creature from another world that was meant to be ugly and miserable. ―Where are your parents?‖, the wife asked, kneeling to him and hugging his shoulders.

Lo still remembers how he trembled when he felt her touch. It was like she made him die inside once he felt her compassion. He wanted his real mom. ―They were supposed to come on a ship, right here to this spot.

They told me to watch for them.‖ Lo explained at the age of 7 when everything he depended on died. The couple looked at each other and frowned. Lo, even as a child knew their expression meant death. He would never see his parents again.

He stood at the edge of the board-walk, seeing old images of himself and his family in the waves. There was his mother, carrying his tiny body in her arms as he cried because he was thirsty; there was this father embracing her as they both tried to comfort each other, knowing their child was deprived of water. ―That‘s why I love the ocean.‖ Lo said to himself, a faint smile on his face, like he was at peace with his suffering. ―There is always water.‖ They sent him to America when he was five. He

IMAGE COURTESY:JMK 68

went with his aunt, who was wealthier than his parents.

Though she took care of him, he never loved her; he never felt she really loved him either. After two years of being in her care, his parents wrote a letter that they were coming by ship. ―We cannot be separated anymore. All of us are dying. Every day that passes we feel deprived of a spirit. There is nothing inside of us without you.‖ Lo still has the letter. He carries it with him every day. He reads it out loud when he has the courage. Sometimes he‘ll just stare at the words as if he is imagining them being written all over again.

The waves are very violent. The sound of them crashing is like a monster whistling. Lo closes his eyes and lets the hypnosis of alcohol and grief drown him, just like the ocean did his family.

When he opens his eyes again, he sees the fishermen who warned him to be careful. ―Hey! There is a storm coming. We have to get inside a shelter. Come on, I‘ll carry you.‖ Though Lo is extremely intoxicated, he manages to see a glimpse of the man‘s face. He has Asian eyes like him. ―My brother.‖ He sighs. ―Where do you come from?‖ ―Vietnam.‖ The man replies. ―Did you get here by ship?‖ ―Yes, I did.‖ ―How long ago?‖ ―11 years.‖ It had been the same amount of time since the ship carrying his parents sailed.

Lo abruptly pushes the man away from him. His eyes are murderous with sorrow when the man looks at him in shock. ―Which ship? What was the name?‖ ―It had no name. No one knew we were coming except our loved ones.‖ Lo knew of the ship he was talking about.

It was the same one that killed his family.

He became furious with grief then, throwing himself across the boar-walk, screaming and weeping. The fisherman cradled his cheeks like he was frightened and uncertain of how to comfort Lo. It almost seemed like he was going to start crying too. ―Please come with me.‖ He begged Lo. ―The storm is getting severe.‖ ―How did you survive?‖ Lo roared. ―Please, let‘s go.‖ The man kept begging, even attempting to pull Lo from his knees and drag him. ―No! Answer me!‖ ―I did not!‖ The man yelled with a sad visage. Lo started squirming like the fish he saw die when he was a child.

Of course he was drunk. This man was not a ghost; he was a vision born from intoxication. But he was being pulled. The next moment he was back inside the restaurant.

The lady who adored his hair said have another drink, you look like you just saw a ghost. [] 45

One y a D e Servic FICTION

CARL R . JENN IN

GS OGRA

P H Y:

Remaining PHOT

AN

DREA

CAND

RAJA

46

David woke to the shrill sound of his phone. He groaned as he turned over in his bed, old bones creaking as much as the old springs of the twin mattress and box spring. Snatching his phone from the forest of empty pill bottles on his bedside table, he blinked groggily at the feeble green light on the phone‘s frame.

It was a text message.

Fear grew with enormous speed and chased away the remainders of the uneasy sleep that he had been having.

Dreading what he would find waiting behind the innocent looking green light, he swiped his finger across the screen, taking care not to drag it across the spider web cracks in the bottom left corner. Tensely he waited as his cell phone began its own, albeit slower and untroubled, wake up.

It took some time for the screen to come to its eye-watering brightness. His heart rate had increased noticeably as he waited, like a mental patient waking up, enraged, in a padded room. His heart was what he dreaded the message would be about, he knew. As expected, there was one message from United Medical Artificers, the manufacturers of the organ in his chest that was now beating fiercely. If it beat much faster it would trigger the heart attack prevention program that was one of the fantastic features that the product brochure told him about. It would force his heart to slow, causing the still rushing blood to bulge his arteries and veins. His chest, head, and all of his limbs would hurt for the rest of the day after that.

David forced himself to take several steadying breaths, as the pamphlet from U.M.A. instructed to do in these situations, until the faint thumping of panicked blood in his ear dwindled to nothing.

His mind was not so easy to pacify, however, since he already knew what the message would contain.

He had known for the last three weeks that this was coming. He and 200 of his coworkers had lost their jobs as machinists, warehouse workers, and other low-level hourly positions due to the company they worked for contracting in a harsh economic environment, as many seemed to be doing at the moment. After 20 years of working with the same company, making the same unidentifiable part for the same unknown machine, he had been given his walking papers.

He had immediately applied for unemployment, but he was one of many who had to do so. The unemployment office he went to had dozens of people waiting to be consulted about what kind of job they had, how they had lost it, what their pay was, and scores of other questions. He had seen many people he knew there. A lot of them still wore the clothing they went to work in: old, repaired, and filthy. Nobody had tried to make eye contact with him, nor he with them. They, to a man or woman, looked down at the glossy tiled floor as if they could will themselves into being alone. David waited

there, with all the others, from open to close for days.

After a week he had finally gotten to see a consultant. The professionally dressed woman whose desk he sat in front of (trying not to feel as if he was supplicating) disinterestedly asked an exhaustive series of questions. Most of her attention was on the screen of the old, decrepit beige computer, only looking at him, severely, if he paused too long before an answer.

After the exhausting process he finally completed the questionnaire and thought that he would at last start getting unemployment checks.

He was wrong. David was notified not long after that his case was sent to a central office to be ―evaluated for merit‖. He had heard horror stories from his cowork-

Worst of all, he had been unable to pay U.M.A. for the service plan on his artificial heart. Without continuing payment, the company would stop regulating its operation, stopping its beating. ers, while he still had a job, about being ―evaluated for merit‖. No one had ever heard of someone who had received any benefits after being evaluated for merit. Dejected, he tried to get on with his life.

He applied for jobs, filling out more applications than he could keep count of. Only a few ever even responded, and he never made it to the interview stage. As one response pointed out, he was a man ―advanced in years‖ and had been working at a highly specialized position for two decades. As such, he did not have very many ―marketable skills.‖ David‘s savings, anemic as they were, quickly evaporated. He soon found himself standing in lines at food banks, his feet throbbing, taking home unlabeled canned food, day-old bread, and watery milk. He only stayed at his shoe box of an apartment by the rapidly waning goodwill of his landlord. Worst of all, he had been unable to pay U.M.A. for the service plan on his artificial heart. Without continuing payment, the company would stop regulating its operation, stop- 47

ping its beating.

David had known this when he had it installed.

It was the only thing in the contract that was very clearly pointed out in the mounds of legal jargon and by the friendly and youthful U.M.A representative that visited him in the hospital. His doctors estimated that he would live for two more years with heart disease, culminating with a painful and humiliating end, or purchasing an artificial heart and living for much longer (―At the rate you‘re going, Mr. Andrews, you could live to be 150!

That is, of course, if you were to purchase some of our other products for longevity, such as...‖).

At the time it had seemed reasonable. At the time he had a steady job. At the time he was in the hospital after a heart attack. He wouldn‘t admit it to anyone, even to himself, but he was scared. He would admit, however, that had lived a simple, mundane, and unexciting life. But it was his life. He didn‘t want to lose it.

Looking mortality in its smiling face with its straight white teeth, he had agreed to the procedure and signed the contract. The device was installed and he had no trouble from it or the company. He continued to live.

Now David was faced with what he had feared that day in the hospital years ago. The fear wasn‘t 48

coming from pains in his this time, but bled from the bright screen of his phone.

He opened the message. The subject line told him everything: ―One Service Day Remaining‖. In a grey haze of shock that broke through his shield of anticipation, he scrolled down and read further: Thank you for using the Auto-jector Mk. III from United Medical Artificers, ‗The first and only line in life saving artificial organs!‘ This is to inform you now that you have one service day remaining on your plan.

Refill now to avoid service interruption! Click HERE to refill now.

And in smaller type, below the stylized black-and -white lily that was the company logo, it read: Not refilling your service plan will result in a cessation of services. United Medical Artificers is not responsible for any injuries or death that may result.

Please consult your service contract or CHAT with one of our helpful staff.

David dismissed the message and drew the hand holding the phone violently back in order to throw it against the far wall. There it stayed, suspended above his head, in his clenched hand, muscles in his arm twanging.

The rage that he felt at his condemnation to death evaporated as he stared at the far wall.

David couldn‘t believe it. He didn‘t believe it.

The thought that he had a mere twenty-four hours of life remaining would not focus in his mind. He felt as if he was floating above and slightly behind his body, as if he had a unique seat to some macabre one-man show.

His arm slowly lowered and his muscles relaxed.

The phone slipped out of his hand on to his bed. He could only come to one conclusion: the text was wrong.

Surely it had to be. He had applied for an extension on his plan due to economic hardship last week. It had to have been approved by now. Yes, this was some sort of clerical error. He would e-mail the company and complain. Perhaps he would even get a month‘s service free if he made enough of a fuss.

He looked at dawn beginning to break outside.

He swung his legs off the bed and began to dress for the day ahead. Judging by the look outside his grimy and cloudy window, he would need to dress warmly; he could hear branches from the bare trees scratching the side of the building in the wind.

He needed to go to the food bank and get his groceries for the week. He had received enough vouchers to get something special for dinner tonight. Perhaps a microwave lasagna, one of the ones that only had a few dents in the cardboard box. It had been quite a long time since David had eaten pasta. The best part about it was that, if he didn‘t pig out tonight, he could have leftovers for breakfast tomorrow. [] CARL R. JENNINGS is a clicky-clack writer woo hoo. For even less helpful information, like Carl R. Jennings‘ FaceBook page or follow him on Twitter @carlrjennings

S I D D H A R T H P A T H A K‘ S Sensational Serial Novel

Cross Eyed Sleep ... of Innocence and Assassins

R ET U R N S N E XT I S S U E

POETRY JOAN McNERNEY

This Autumn Amazing how many stars fit inside my windowpane.

A flying carpet of sugar maple leaves unfurls along my road.

Just enough light to glimpse silhouettes of yellow trees against the dove grey sky.

Tenacious‌one ragged leaf clings to the bough.

After evening showers, a garden of bright meteors blossoms. []

Live Oak Boughs Boughs build archways as tips of trees touch each other. What was shaded green becomes nocturnal shadow. A crescent moon hangs from heaven. Light tracing foliage falls dropping dusty deep upon ground.

Secrets lie inside the edged shadow. Animals hide under darkness resounding through night as leaves rustle.

All changing except this pattern of what is now formed. []

JOAN McNERNEY‘s poetry has been included in numerous literary magazines such as Seven Circle Press, Dinner with the Muse, Moonlight Dreamers of Yellow Haze, Blueline, and Halcyon Days. Three Bright Hills Press Anthologies, several Poppy Road Review Journals, and numerous Kind of A Hurricane Press Publications have accepted her work. Her latest title is Having Lunch with the Sky and she has four Best of the Net nominations.

P H O T O G R A P H Y:

50

STEFAN

SCHWEIHOFER

POETRY JAMES

CROAL

JACKSON

Back Patio It‘s 8 P.M. and lights hang like eggs on a string beneath the moon from the second-floor window to the wooden fence.

The air conditioner threatens the chattering insects with its drone suckling noise from fading light.

A car door slams. The almost-distant hum of traffic. Sirens occasionally dot red the air, causing the dogs in the neighborhood to howl.

What does anyone mean when they say animal?

Outside I am one with the wild.

Beyond vine-green, breathing fence I hear a basketball bounced, tossed, missed, dropped.

Whomever is playing must be lost in thought, making calculations of which he is unaware, surviving in one way he knows. [] CANVAS:

HARSHVARDHAN

My Smartphone’s Fingerprint Sensor Cannot Detect Me Do not forget me: I have struggled to break through my own absence of field. Let a helium balloon float to where it disappears.

We have not spoken in years. The phone you gave me I replaced to return my sense of self-place. Still, send me a signal you sense me, and we will come to static where we cannot hear how we wish to be heard but we will know we are there. []

James Croal Jackson's poetry has appeared in The Bitter Oleander, Rust + Moth, Bop Dead City, and elsewhere. His first chapbook is forthcoming from Writing Knights Press. He is the 2016 William Redding Memorial Poetry Contest winner in his current city of Columbus, Ohio. Visit him at jimjakk.com.

51

SHORT

FICTION

MICHAEL

CHIN

Long drives with my family hadn‘t changed much. Dad insisted they were a time for us to bond, which meant we couldn‘t use our phones or our tables, which was half-OK with me because I got car sick if I didn‘t watch the road ahead of us. It would have been nice to have listened to music I liked, though, or any music at all if either of my parents had been willing to learn how to hook up the blue tooth to their phones. But they were insistent on listening to the radio, and that radio is good enough, even when we drove through bands of static and songs got interrupted or, worse yet, when competing radio frequencies overlapped and pieces of different songs cut off one another. Worst of all, there was static uninterrupted, for minutes at a time and Dad fiddling with the dial to try to find another station, and Mom complaining she was getting a headache and Dad‘s why don‘t you find a station, I‘m

trying to drive here.

Brynne slept through all of this.

Mouth open a little, eyes closed, head bouncing against the side of the car behind her window. I figured she was faking it, at least part of the time, to stay out of the fray, because losing herself to whatever she might imagine was at

Family

Road Trip

least one step ahead of whatever was going on in the car that moment. She didn‘t show any sign of waking, even when we hit uneven pavement and her head bounced against the siding, or even when we slowed down to exit one highway and get on another. She only woke when we stopped for gas, when there was an opportunity to get out of the car and stretch and buy a Diet Coke.

Mom tried to get me to play twenty questions with her.

My knees were sore. I was getting too tall for the back seat and sat sideways, extending my legs as far as I could toward my sister‘s side without touching her.

An eighteen-wheeler veered into our lane. Close. My father reserved curse words for such moments, blaring his horn and yelling, as if he might be heard, Look in your goddamned

mirrors, pal.

Still my sister‘s eyes remained shut, though I could swear I saw the hint of a smile move over her lips, however momentarily, at the sound of Dad‘s fury, at the prospect of us all winding up dead. []

MICHAEL CHIN was born and raised in Utica, New York and is an alum of Oregon State's MFA Program.

He won Bayou Magazine's Jim Knudsen Editor‘s Prize for fiction and has work published or forthcoming in journals including The Normal School, Passages North, Iron Horse, Front Porch, and Bellevue Literary Review. He works as a contributing editor for Mossand blogs about professional wrestling and a cappella music on the side. Find him online at miketchin.com or follow him on Twitter

52 P H O T O G R A P H Y:

ADRIAN

AOWS.CO

POETRY OSHEEN

Incomplete I was falling You were falling Two falling drops of water Together made a puddle on the ground Mixing, twirling, swirling, whirling Making way into each other Now it‘s difficult to make out What is me and what is you I follow a rill to the brook You evaporate Separation, desolation You belong to the air Me to water Adaptation, maturation Realisation Maybe incomplete is how our story completes []

POETRY ADARSH GOYAL

But My Love for You..

If loving you was a mistake, I deserve any punishment you dictate.

If feeling for you was a crime, Then I'm happy to cry every time.

If hating you was a possibility, I would give up that ability.

If asking for your love was greed, Then I will let my heart bleed.

If falling for you was too much, I hope I never get up.

If people get what they deserve, Then I'm ready to accept my curse. []

PHOTOGRAPHY:

MARK MARTINS

53

SHORT

FICTION

For All

Eternity

TED

MYERS P H O T O G R A P H Y:

KAMAL

J

After twenty years on the brink of rock stardom, and fifteen years working at record companies, TED MYERS left the music business and landed a job as a copywriter in advertising, which cemented his determination to make his mark as a ―real‖ writer. Some of Ted‘s early writings were published in: Working Musicians (Harper Collins, 2002) and By the Time We Got to Woodstock: The Great Rock ‗n‘ Roll Revolution of 1969 (Backbeat Books, 2009).

His epic and amusing memoir, Making It: Music, Sex and Drugs in the Golden Age of Rock, will be published by Calumet Editions in March 2017.

54

When Sarah died, we had been married for fifty years.

At twenty-three, she was a dazzling beauty.

Many men were vying for her attention. There was one in particular, Roland, a tall, dashing Frenchman, and I knew she was attracted to him. He was rich, handsome, and erudite. He proposed to her. He wanted them to live together in Paris, but she had strong family ties in New York, and so I won the contest. When she agreed to marry me, it was the happiest day of my life. And every day after that was just as happy. Even after the heat and passion of youth cooled, she was everything to me, my center. Then the stroke hit. It left her paralyzed. She always made me promise not to let her die in a hospital, and so I ministered to her as best I could for that last week. Finally, mercifully, she slipped away. Even before they took her lifeless body from our bed, I made the decision. ―I‘m coming with you, my darling,‖ I whispered.

Then I lay down beside her and took a dozen of her strongest pain pills. It was a very pleasant way to go. I highly recommend it.

When I awoke, I was standing on a dock, squeezed in on all sides by strangers. The crowd was enormous. There was a big, white cruise ship. It looked like a giant, ship-shaped layer cake. People were boarding, ascending a long gangplank, one-by-one. I couldn‘t see what was making the process so slow, but it was clear everyone wanted to get on board that ship. I doubted there would be room for everyone on the dock. I scanned the crowd, frantically searching for Sarah. I saw someone who looked like her from the back. ―Sarah, Sarah!‖ I cried. But it was not her.

I couldn‘t be too far behind her; she had only been dead an hour when I followed. Looking around, I noticed that no one in the crowd looked old. Everyone seemed to be in the prime of life. I looked at my hands, and they were young. Eventually I got close enough to see that people in uniforms were making everyone form a line. We entered a terminal, walking single file between two ropes.

Inside, each aspiring passenger had to pass through a scanner, like the ones they use at airports to detect bombs or guns. But this scanner was scanning for

something else. I believe it was scanning character. As each person passed through, he or she was either allowed to ascend the gangplank, or moved aside. The crowd of those who had been rejected was very large, and they looked unhappy and worried. I wondered what would happen to them. I wondered with dread if I would be one of them. I was sure Sarah was on that ship, and I didn‘t want her to sail without me. Then, in that sea of distraught faces—those who had been moved aside—I saw her. It was the young, beautiful Sarah, the one I had married fifty years ago. I ducked under the rope and ran toward the crowd of rejects. ―Sarah!‖ She saw me, and fought her way through the mob to the rope that held them in. ―Sarah, why are you here? Why didn‘t they let you on the ship?‖ ―Because I was unfaithful to you, my darling,‖ she said, and broke down crying.

I couldn‘t believe my ears. ―No. That‘s impossible. We were so happy. All those years…‖ Then I saw Roland making his way through the crowd of rejects. He stood beside her. ―I‘m sorry, Sam,‖ he said to me. ―Sorry you had to find out this way.‖ Then a uniformed guard gently guided me back to my place in the line. I was crying. It was my turn to enter the scanner. Inside, it was not like the ones at the airport. I found myself staring into a mirror, at the young me, the me of fifty years ago. ―Your character has been as close to blameless as anyone I‘ve seen,‖ It said to me. ―Except for the suicide.

Suicide is a big sin… However, since your motivation was not borne of cowardice, but of love, this sin will be forgiven. You may board.‖ ―I don‘t want to board,‖ I said through my tears. ―I want to go where Sarah goes.‖ ―That‘s not possible,‖ said my image in the mirror. ―You must board.‖ And so it was that I became the first person in anyone‘s memory to board the ship to paradise with a heavy heart. As I ascended the gangplank, I looked back at the crowd of rejects. Sarah and Roland were at the front, and they waved a sad goodbye. When I told her I would love her for all eternity I didn‘t lie. []

55

CORNUCOPIA

THE

DEBUT BOOK OF

POETRY

BY

JAGANNATH CHAKRAVARTI FOUNDER / EDITOR ● CULTURECULT MAGAZINE

COMING SOON

A Necessary Evil has an enterprising premise that prom-

ises a modern retelling of times past – an era when Maharajahs were not merely stuff of legends and the British still managing to keep the majority of the subcontinent under the rule of the crown.

It is a tale of intrigue and murderous conspiracies involving the topmost brasses of the ‗Sambalpore‘ kingdom – a real province in present-day Odisha whose alternate history has been carefully concocted by Abir Mukherjee, recipient of the 2014 ‗Telegraph Harvill Sacker Crime Writing‘ award.

Even though this reader has not had the privilege of reading his acclaimed debut work A Rising Man, the second in the crime series afforded a colourful premise to begin with, propounding the assassination of princes and a British police officer Sam Wyndham and his desi compatriot Surendranath (Surrender-not, as Wyndham would ‗anglicize‘) Banerjee getting dangerously close to uncover a design of obsessive will and merciless malintentions.

Apart from the graceful and (at times) harrowing set-pieces thrown in, which works its own charms, it is the first person narration of the British officer, peppered with the conditioned observations of a Brit, unaware of the depths of Indian beliefs, systems and practices, albeit with that redeeming hint of heart and humanity, which makes him a character one wouldn‘t mind listening to.

Also worth musing upon are the delicately painted strokes of the Zenana – the inner sanctum of royal families consisting the queen(s), concubines and their glorified protectors – the de-sexed eunuchs whose apparent imprisonment is but a ‗purdah‘ itself to hide chessboards and powerplays of the highest echelon.

It is the spirit of acceptance displayed by Sam Wyndham towards the end of the tale, the nature of which veers closer towards the acceptance of truth rather than acting upon it and seeking justice, especially when a (perceived) oppressor holds the cards, shall certainly go down as one of the highlights of ‗A Necessary Evil‘. How necessary any evil can be is a philosophical question but when it boils down to a comparative study of marginal differences in motive, that question of philosophy has no easy answer at all!

Perhaps the answer lay in the very nature of the imposed British laws, which eventually came down to a question of who exactly would be the most ‗apt‘ to rule a piece of land and reap and share the profits therein.

The follies of considering the self as the allpowerful and most fitting for the throne comes to

BOOK MADHURIMA

SAHA

Written by: Abir Mukherjee Published by Random House UK Published on July 3, 2017

nought for Sam Wyndham, a perfect work-in-progress, complete with a teething opium addiction – whose quest for truth and justice is denied to enable a strangely cathartic conclusion. ‗A Necessary Evil‘ must elicit contrary responses, especially as far as the resolution is concerned. Yet it is a thorough page-turner that does not let the symphony of intrigue falter for a single note! And let‘s face it: how alluring is the idea of a colonial British official‘s narration of crime and investigation, penned down by a modern British citizen, who interestingly happens to be of Indian origin? Chew on that! [] 57

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