Effervescent Magazine Issue #1

EFFERVESCENT magazine

$ ISSUE Â 1 Â | Â APRIL Â 2016

effervescent magazine

this is a publication dedicated to new growth while never letting go of the inner child. it is a paradox, it is juvenescence, it is the eternal struggle between letting go and holding on. so dear reader, let your inner wilderness roam free, let it float between trees like haunting morning fogs or let it light up the sunset sky.

issue 1 - spring 2016

Juvenescence: noun, the state of being useful or of growing young We want works that illustrate youth, that brim with the ephemeral magic of discovery, of new experiences. We want to feel your escalating heartbeats, whether it be of fear, love, or excitement. We want to feel the wind in your hair and the tears stinging in your eyes. Introduce us to your effluence of your emotions and to your poignant memories of childhood and to your hopes and apprehensions for adulthood. We desire to know about being an adolescent, about feeling stuck in between worlds, about feeling still and halcyon while at the same time restless and unquiet.

Essentially, give us the 3 a.m experience; give us the dejection and sorrow and hopelessness of being alone and facing the darkness, give us the exhilaration of freedom and flying, give us the dizzying juxtaposition of glass edged, smoke and mirrored dreams, give us the sweet sleepy contention finally finding your soul.

Letter From the Editor Dear Reader, Imagination is such a fragile and lovely thing, bittersweet and usually lost in the early years of one’s life. It is an artist’s job to hold onto this precious commodity, to shelter it’s innocence and purity, to nurture it so that it is at once poignant and sharp as well as delicate and nebulous. It takes a special vision to be able to create - one must not only see the world through rose colored glasses but also through lenses of silver like moonlight, green like summer, beige like the pages of a book, and any multitude of shades.

It is my firm belief that perception and individuality are they two key components of successful creation and it is Effervescent Magazine’s goal to showcase artist who encompass such traits. In our inaugural issue, our editors and I have curated a talented plethora of photographers, writers, and poets each with their unique views of the world, each with their own collections of memories and emotions that has fueled their imaginations and creative processes.

Perhaps these figments of genius plucked from the iridescent minds of creators will inspire you too, dear reader, and perhaps you may draw solace and the inclination to create with passion and fantasy.

As there are legions of thoughts to be spun into words and pictures, so there are plenitudes of people I must thank for making the creation of this issue a dream substantialized; my supportive parents, my lovely editors, the exquisite artists who have contributed their time and acumen to this project, and my teachers.

I hope you enjoy what our magazine has to offer and the many things we have to come Helen Li, Editor In Chief

Table of Contents COVER IMAGE: @voebelle on instagram FEATURED ARTIST: Nash Consing Ebony & Ivory by Breton Lalama From Wendy by Katie Gilgour Music Quote by Kiet Chung Untitled Pieces by Fraagmented The Mirror Girl by Rebecca Harrison On Creation by Paul Black True Love By Jay J. Anne Breaks by D. Vaisius Perfume Shopping with Little Europe by Margaryta Golovchenko Yellow Light by Brianna Ferguson The Whole Truth by Jonathan Pigno It Always Happens Like This by Avery Newman Lost and Then Found Again by Natalie Merinuk Youth and Bleeding Ground by Melody Caraballe

Featured  Artist  NASH CONSING Nash Consing is a seventeen year old writer and poet from Hickory, North Carolina. In May of 2014, he began to publish short poems about love and youth on his Instagram account (@nashconsing). Since then, he has gained over 10,000 followers from across the world. He is also a drum major for the Fred T. Foard High School marching band. In the summer of 2015, he attended Governor's School East for instrumental music. Nash also enjoys playing ultimate frisbee and watching Casey Neistat videos.

This Afternoon I Chased A Sunset NASH CONSING

I found a stack of photographs under a pile of college-​themed magazines that I had zero honest interest in. How they got there was a mystery. It was probably the summation of preparation to enter the living (as well as the dead) adult adult world.

“What college should I apply to?”

“What major should I choose?”

“Are my test scores even high enough?”

All those thoughts swirled around my head constantly; Hourly, in fact. The pressures of the instituted definition of ‘success’ haunted me on an interminable basis. Often, it took over my life. One AM, Two AM, three, four​ -- crash. Wake up. School, clubs, sports, home.

Study. One AM, two​ -It was a cycle that had crept into my budding life and transformed itself into a tumor directly at the center of my thoughts. It was not a matter of becoming successful. It was just the will to survive in the society that had told me how. It was just about survival.

A summer ago, I met a girl, who, at the time, was just someone that I thought would be good person to run to when things became awkward to me at a summer camp full of strangers. As June rolled like the beads of sweat that traveled down my forehead I soon realized that she was much more than someone to talk - to​ she was someone that I knew I could love. I smiled at the thought of her existence at first. I thought about her smile and her corny jokes about T.V. shows which I then felt obligated to watch because she kept mentioning them so much. Not long after I found myself wide awake in my bed contempt with the fact that there was someone who legitimately sought to improve the society of the earth​ - someone who genuinely cared for the peace and love that was naturally embedded into every single human being. I felt like I had met the caretaker of the world. My world, at least. She would always stop and look at the flowers, and at first I didn’t see the point as to why she was literally smelling the roses. But after enough flowers, after enough tranquility that just existed in the pond, after enough sunsets that seemed to hold onto the sky until every pigment of color had died into the black of

the night​ - I realized that this girl sought to find the beauty of the earth, not because it made her seem intrinsic or intellectual, but because she strove to become peaceful with the earth.

When summer was over, her and I knew that many things would change; she lived across the state, and our cities, along with the societies that encompassed them, were total opposites from each other. We could not see each other everyday like we did for the summer. We could not even see each other every week. But if there was one thing that we knew wouldn’t change as time passed through our lives, it would be this: The interconnection that had grown between us from the summer would not die like the colors of the sky at the end of the day.

But just as life had changed us when we were together, it began to do its deed on us once again. She was a year older than me, and college had turned itself from a year away to then just months. We began to prepare for the next chapter of our lives, preparing, preparing, preparing, and all of a sudden we found ourselves in a separate holes, ten feet deep, wondering where we were. I, more than her, began complaining about obstacles that seemed impossible to overcome,as she looked forward, then back at me, then forward once more. A chance to stay or a change to go was the question that had defined the way we looked at each other.

As this happened in between us, the flowers and the leaves died. The ponds froze over, and the sunset fell so quickly that the moon could not even figure out where it had gone.

As this happened between us, we did not even notice.

As this happened between us, we stopped looking at each other in the way that the flowers looked at us.

I found a stack of photographs under a pile of college-​themed magazines. At this point, we barely talked. We had conversations every day, but they weren’t about the depth of the earth. They were just questions and answers, hellos and goodbyes. When I opened the stack, there were pictures of us from the summer. I saw our conversations about the films we watched, the explanation of our past experiences about school, love, and life. I saw our conversations of silence, body on body, just listening to the world us and watching the evolution of day to night. I saw pictures in which we lived. And I realized that just as our personal lives turned into a matter of

preparation for survival, so did our relationship. We watered our flowers just so they could live but we did not stop to look at them.

There were just there, surviving.

We were just there, surviving.

In some ways​ - no. In many ways, I forgot that I still loved her.

Looking at the pictures, I realized that I still did. I loved her, and I knew that somewhere in her heart she still loved me too.

This afternoon, as the flowers were just beginning to sprout from their sleeping branches that hung, waiting for the sun to allow them to grow, I watched the sunset. It was average in comparison to the one that I had once shared between me and her. But it had color. It had life.

And once again, I felt alive.

I could not prepare for the beauty that had found itself around me.

Ebony & Ivory BRETON LALAMA

We were ivory and ebony​ she was soft, white, and moving; I was cold, dark, and too heavy to push. And yet with her fluttering white fingers she cracked an inch of black stone and poured in something that reminded me of love. I fell hard and it was a tumble of stardust, wine stained lips on my neck, sea wind lashes kissing my words, ink stained bedsheets and birdsong sunrises. We woke tangled in each other's smiles and fell asleep wearing each others' arms. I was never comfortable in my own flesh but I felt beautiful wearing her skin. I resurrected the child she thought had drowned inside her middle; she made me think I was crystal eyed and lily skinned, even when the mirror disagreed. I didn't realize we'd stopped loving until the morning I woke up naked, the bedsheets full of lily petals. I still smelled of her and my lips were still imprinted on her breasts but I knew then we had wilted. She is a summer spirit but I will always remember us as winter​ frozen, dancing, sparkling as the ice around us slides us forward, our eyes fire as they connect, both of us thinking, in that moment, that we are kissing the face of Forever.

From Wendy KATIE GILGOUR

Oh, Peter, my star-studded lost boy, my mischievous friend, haven’t you learned that all children grow up?

I know it seems a horrible fate, a hard truth you denied and kept hidden in your heart, but pixies and pirates never promised to be kind.

And yet, you always held your head high; death was just another adventure.

How wonderful it must be to feel free and fly from curses like defeat.

I remember when you lost your shadow, and I gave you a kiss.

Oh, Peter.

I am afraid I have grown up, and some days I still don’t know if a boy has given me a kiss.

Perhaps thimbles and acorns are the only kisses you can keep.

I remember when we flew to Neverland.

Neverland— The third star, you said.

No. The second. The second star.

Second star to the...

Second star to the right.

If fairy dust and happy thoughts can let me touch the stars, then I am destined to be flightless.

I am sorry.

I am no fairy, no princess, no clever girl; I am shadow, I am dust, I am lost girl, broken girl, girl who ran away.

You ran away, too.

I want to think of lovely things and let my darkness die, for I could use an adventure or two, or three, and if I could smile at a stupid crocodile and cut off the hands of those who try and stop me I swear I would never grow up.

I would never forget.

Oh, Peter.

I am afraid of shadows.

You chased your shadow as if it were made of gold, knowing that without it you were somehow less than yourself.

Is it darkness that makes us who we are?

No. We are made of light.

We are hope, we are joy, we are young at heart.

And I’ll be damned if I say that shadows are only monsters to slay, because it was your shadow that brought you to me.

Boy, why are you crying?

It’s been years, I know— but I’d sew shadows a thousand times just to fly once more.

Music Quote KIET CHUNG

It’s crazy... how music reminds us.

— Of what used to be, of what you wore during an argument, of what they smelled like, of what happiness looked like, of who you used to be, of what you used to think like, of what we loved, of what we hated, of what we let-go, of the hate in our voice, of the breeze after walking out... but it never speaks about the future. It sandpapers our past and sugarcoats our present, but it leaves a blank disk for the future. I think I might just record the sounds of a growing daisy and embrace the vibrance of nature because there’s too much pain in the world to dwell in the past all day.

Untitled Pieces FRAAGMENTED

And even when we're apart, I hope that you never let go of the words that will cling to our hearts or the words that have graced our ears.

The 'I love you's, the 'you're my everythings’, I hope you never forget how it felt to be so in love, and it's selfish, but I hope you never find that kind of love with anyone else.

Baby, we could have had the entire world in the palms of our hands, but instead we got the weight of it laid upon our shoulders.

The Mirror Girl REBECCA HARRISON

Eleanor gazed at the mirror as candle light warmed her face.

Glints and shadows deepened her hair. Ebony and silks laced the gloom. She startled at a knock on the door, and turned as her maid stepped into the room.

“You oughtn't spend so much time staring at those mirrors,” the maid said,pointing to the crowded walls. “It can’t do any good for the baby.” Eleanor gathered her velvet gown closer about her pregnant belly. Night wrapped her shape. She picked up a candle and looked across the mirrors. Her reflection lit the walls and shrank the room.

“Nonsense,” she said. She lingered lost in mirror glow, while the city outside dulled.

As Eleanor's shape swelled, her husband, Maxwell, cooled the house with his worries about the birth. But Eleanor hushed his warnings and stayed among the mirrors. The room was heavy with her reflection. She glimpsed the servants only in mirror edges, and spoke to them without looking from her own face. Months passed, and the baby was born.

“Ivy,” Eleanor whispered, as she watched the doctor study her daughter.

“Curious. Her fingernails are mirrors,” he said. Maxwell took the baby and stared at the small hands. Light flickered on her cold fingers. Eleanor shrank as she remembered the maid’s words. The mirrors were banished and she spied her reflection only in her daughter’s nails.

Nights hardened and days muffled below Ivy’s cries. Unable to calm or comfort her, they held her close as the house grew sharp with their worries. But one day, silence brightened the morning. Ivy smiled at Eleanor, reached out her small hand to touch her mother's hair, and slumbered in her arms. But as Eleanor gazed down, she saw a streak of mirror patterning frost-like in spirals and twists across her daughter’s face. She stared at her reflection shining from Ivy’s skin. Maxwell and Eleanor clutched their daughter tighter through stretched hours. Maxwell whispered rhymes and Eleanor murmured songs, and Ivy gurgled and slept. But the tighter they clutched her, the more mirror patterns began to reach in silver and light along her plump arms.

“I can't say for the life of me stop it spreading,” the doctor said, “Perhaps you should give her care to of environment is all a baby needs.”

what's causing it. But we must as he touched the chill shapes. someone else. Sometimes a change So Ivy was placed with a nurse

maid where she cried through restless days and nights. Eleanor wandered about the house, seeking glimpses of her daughter through door cracks and in the servants’ whispers. Across the city, past factories and cathedrals, Maxwell sat in his offices and busied at his work. They dragged through night hours listening to Ivy's distant cries. But Eleanor wept into Ivy’s blanket when the maid said the mirrors were gone.

Eleanor took to hovering on the stairway watching the closed door of the nursery. She pressed her ear to the wood and heard soft lullabies. Weeks passed. Ivy's cries lessened in the maid's arms. And once again, mirror patterns began to creep across her hands. The maid looked away when she glimpsed her own face reflected in the spirals.

She cradled the baby deeper and kept her secret. Days sank by. One morning, she found Ivy’s little finger had turned completely to mirrors.

“This is very serious,” the doctor said as he peered downwards.

Reflections and light froze the air. Eleanor slowly touched her daughter’s hand. She cried as Ivy’s finger shivered and shattered.

Mirror shards glittered on the velvet rugs. “Perhaps being in the care of the same person for too long is bad for her,” the doctor said. “Keep changing her maid. Stop her getting too attached to anyone.”

So each fortnight a new maid stepped into the nursery and Ivy chilled under her care. The mirrors faded from her nails. In her far room, Eleanor closed her curtains to the city and cradled her baby’s blanket among the shadows. Every morning, the maids checked Ivy for mirror patterns and reported the smooth skin to Maxwell while Eleanor clamoured for news of Ivy’s babblings. Eleanor smothered under Ivy’s absence. She began to drift through days on city pathways free from the sight of her home. She gathered dresses and toys from grand stores and left them near the nursery. She sat in small parks and listened to the shouts and whispers of children playing. Maxwell saw her wither and tried to cheer her with gifts. He swaddled her in rubies and silks. He took her to operas in the hope music and crowds might warm her. And she swept into gossip and parties and tried to dim her longing for Ivy. Ivy grew up among strange faces and closed voices. She heard her parents only as footsteps from other rooms. She sneaked glances at her mother’s portraits, and glimpsed her father’s shadow at the top of the stairs. At school, she watched the other girls from outside their games. She sank into lessons and huddled in books. She told herself stories as she waded through the days. She gathered pebbles from park edges and hid them in her bedroom corners. In the blue dusks, she watched flocks crossing the city rooftops.

One winter morning, the city was bright with ice and carols. In Ivy’s school, her class was leaden with silent sums. A knock on the door startled the students. They watched as a small girl mumbled her name to the teacher and was ushered to the chair beside Ivy. At lunch time, Ivy led the small girl, Anna, along corridors to the broad hall. They picked at the drab stew as Anna spoke about her old home by the grey sea. Ivy showed her secret corners in the playground and shared the names of her imagined lands. Anna glanced at Ivy’s missing finger, but Ivy shook her head and said she was born that way. That evening, Ivy looked through her pebbles while lamplight seeped over the stones. She placed the smoothest one in her coat pocket. Then she curled into bed and tried to hear the waves around Anna’s home beneath the city murmurings.

The next day, Ivy and Anna crept to the playground corners as ice crunched under their steps. Ivy gave Anna the round pebble. They made snow dens beside the brick walls. They pulled berries from holly bushes and decorated their snow path. In class, they sat close in shared silence. One day, Anna gave Ivy a spiral shell. Ivy sat the shell on her bedside table and watched it through the night gloom.

Weeks wafted by. Ivy and Anna played games under clouded skies, pretending the melting snow was the Arctic sea. They sneaked crumbs from the dinner hall to feed starlings. They drew maps of ocean voyages to floating cities and told tales of ruling palaces on the waves. One evening, as Ivy curled into a book, she saw a flicker of light and silver darting across the back of her hand. She pulled up her sleeve and gasped at mirror patterns weaving over her arm. She traced the cold lines with her fingertips, and then covered her skin as the maid walked into the room. All night, she woke to peep at the mirror pattern wondering if it would vanish. At school, she pulled her sleeve over her hand until she reached the playground corners.

“I can see my face in it,” Anna said, gazing at the strange shapes. “Does it hurt?” She watched as Ivy shook her head.

“It’s just cold,” Ivy mumbled. That evening, she stared at her arm as lamplight flowed along the spirals. Curled in her warm bed, she felt her skin chill as mirrors threaded across her back. She clutched Anna’s shell as she slept.

At school, Ivy hid among bookshelves and dust and saw winter only through the windows.

“It’s like frost,” Anna said. She held Ivy’s patterned hand and tried to rub the chill from her skin. After lessons, Ivy drifted through her home, imagining herself hardening into ice if she sat

still. When dusk cloaked the city skies, she crept into the main room to huddle in the fire light. She curled up on the rug closest to the fireplace. Crackles and hisses warmed her into sleep. She didn’t hear her mother’s soft footsteps.

“What have you done to your hand?” Eleanor stared down at the spirals red with fire glow. Ivy jolted awake and tried to hide her hand. She cried out as her mother grabbed her sleeve and yanked it up. “How did this happen?” Eleanor ran her hot fingers on the patterns.

“I don’t know,” Ivy whimpered, trying to wriggle out of her grip.

“I’m so cold.” Eleanor screamed for Maxwell. Ivy shrank as he stormed through the doorway. She cowered under her tears as they summoned the doctor.

“It can still be stopped,” the doctor said, as he looked at Ivy’s back. “Remove her from the school and keep her at home. We don’t want a repeat of what happened last time.”

“Can Anna come and see me?” Ivy said.

“Is Anna your friend?” Eleanor grabbed her daughter’s hand. She saw her nod.

Ivy slept bundled in wool and firelight, while her parents

watched from the doorway.

“I can’t even comfort her,” Eleanor wept, and staggered down the hall to her own bed. As morning sank through the house, a maid led Ivy back to her room. The fireplace blazed heat.

“When am I going back to school?” Ivy whispered. She held Anna’s shell as mirror patterns wound across her palm.

She shivered through weeks as the mirror patterns glinted over her skin. A governess came to the house and taught her lessons in sweltering rooms. She stared out the windows at starlings swooping below the clouds and wondered if Anna remembered their crumbs. One day, her mother told her she would never go back to the school.

Years passed. Her parents told her about the missing finger. The mirror patterns slowly softened and faded, but Ivy kept the shell on her bedside table. She climbed to the top of the house and watched flocks of starlings gliding through factory smoke and moonlight. She sneaked out into the city dusks and walked in the glow of warm windows. Her skin shimmered with faint spirals. She buried into books and gathered tales of animals from distant lands. Sometimes newspapers told of escaped elephants and giraffes roaming the countryside, and she lingered over those stories.One morning, she heard rumours of a lion loose in the city. All day, as the governess lectured, Ivy pictured the creature stalking alleyways and gardens.

At night, she huddled at her window and watched the streets for slinking shadows. The next morning, she crept from the house. She walked under the still spring dawn. She saw match girls marching into factories and horses lumbering heavy carts. She glanced at bright posters of circus sights. Then she scurried back home before her governess woke.

Every day, Ivy stole the newspaper from her father’s desk and scoured pages for sightings of the lion. She tore the stories out and hid them in her wardrobe. As her governess talked of history and empire, Ivy pictured the lion padding through the palace grounds. One evening, after her parents left in a carriage for the opera, Ivy tiptoed from the house. She hurried along the night streets, between passers-by and lamp posts. The soft spirals on her hands glittered in the dark air. She wrapped her shawl tighter as she rushed along grimy pathways. Someone called at her through the shadows. She stepped faster round the corners. Smoke swayed from lit doorways. She ran past thick crowds towards a dim church. Starlight leaked over the tower top. She darted into the graveyard and leaned against a tall tree. Distant voices floated on the night winds. Bats flitted in high corners. She moved between the graves reading the old words. She ran her fingers on crumbling stones. She murmured the names of girls who

had died at her own age. She startled as she turned and stepped into a young man. He pointed across the churchyard. She gasped. A lion prowled across the graves. Moonlight swept over its shape. Night stretched around its steps. She gripped the boy’s hand as the lion paused and sniffed the air. Her breath was solid in her chest. She could feel the young man’s heart beating. The lion looked over their way. Its eyes gleamed amber. Wind stirred its mane. Then it turned and slunk away through the gravestones. Ivy stared until the lion merged with faraway shadows. She found herself shivering.

“Do you think they’re going to catch him?” she whispered, glancing at the young man.

“I hope not,” he said.

“Me too,” Ivy murmured, inching forward and gazing at the lion’s footprints in the damp earth. Clouds drifted through the moonlight.

Each evening, Ivy wound her way to the churchyard. She found the oldest grave and crouched by the ragged stone, waiting to meet Jack, the young man. They waded through deep grass and listened for close rustlings. They wandered between the gravestones, seeking the lion’s silhouette. They watched the yew trees forming strange shadows under the winds. Ivy whispered the stories she’d gathered from newspapers.

Jack spoke of his travels through the country. He said he once saw a rhino on a storm lit moor. One night, Jack told her he worked at the circus. He led her through dank alleyways to a wide park. Night billowed over the long grass. Small tents grouped in a distant corner of the park. Jack pointed at a huge tent squatting beneath the sky.

“The big top,” Ivy whispered. They crept along a mud path. Foxes darted in field corners. As they neared the tent, Ivy gazed up at owls swooping over the heights. Jack pulled the canvas aside and nodded for her to enter. She stepped into a soft darkness. “I can’t see a thing,” she said, as she felt Jack grab her hand. She took small steps through the floating gloom. He lit a lamp and held it high. Lamp glow wafted around the tent. Ivy stared at long shadows reaching upwards.

“Wait there,” Jack said, sitting the lamp down. He began to climb a ladder to a high platform.

“What are you doing?” Ivy said, as he neared the top. He paused on the platform. He didn’t look down as he leapt from the edge. She watched him drop and gasped as he gripped a trapeze and spun through the gloom. His shadow stretched and curled across the tent. She held her breath as he twisted and soared. Then, he was back on the platform, standing still as if he had never left it.

Ivy floated through her lessons without hearing her governess’s words. She picked primroses from the small garden and hid them in her newspaper cuttings. She plucked fallen petals from cobblestones and sat them among her pebbles. She crept to her mother’s room and weighted herself with pearls and velvets. She watched dusks from high windows and imagined the lion prowling faraway hills. Each night, she met Jack in the graveyard. One evening, he gave her an old book. The green pictures were pale under the moonlight. He said he wished to journey the Amazon jungle. As she turned the pages, he spoke about cities of gold. He gathered her close and murmured a myth about a jaguar king. He said the book was for her. She clutched it hard as she raced home through the night streets.

At dawn, she huddled by her window and read the book in the thin light. She gazed at pictures and followed a panther beneath a sky of green leaves. Then, she hurried to her stiff lessons. As she stepped into the music room, she overheard servants saying the lion’s footprints had been spied in distant woods. That evening, she told Jack of the lion’s escape.

“We won’t see him again,” she said.

“We could see jaguars,” Jack said and spoke about a ship to the New World. She whispered that when she was a child, she used to pray

the eagles and condors would carry her away to warm lands. She told him the names of birds from foreign skies. As he held her close, she felt cold slithers prickle her soles. Back in her room, she studied her feet. Spirals glinted and flowed to her ankles. She traced the patterns with her fingers. She glanced at Anna's shell. Then she shut Jack's book in her drawer and buried into bed.

The following morning, she pulled thick socks over her feet, avoiding glancing at the reflections in the spirals. She cooled in lessons as the icy patterns stretched along her ankles. At dusk, she curled in her dim room and watched the walls darken. She heard her parents talking in a distant corner of the house. She pictured Jack in the graveyard, but didn’t leave her home to meet him. She held her hand to the window and looked at her missing finger. Wrapping a small blanket over her shoulders, she crept along the corridor towards the main room. Lamplight leaked through the doorway. She lingered in the hall, listening to fire cracklings and soft laughter. Then she went back to her room.

All night, she chilled as mirrors patterned her legs. Before dawn, she took Jack’s book from the drawer. In the faint light, she gazed hard at pictures she couldn’t see. She cried as she ran her cold fingers over the pages and imagined the green warmth. She longed to roam that bright land with him. Daylight seeped in the window and lit the patterns on her arms. She stayed huddled in blankets in her room. She thought of never seeing him again. She imagined the mirrors fading through years alone, her skin stained and cold. The city would be heavy with places she had once walked with him. She thought of being with him. Mirrors spreading over her skin. She could feel the spirals already starting on her palms.

Evening had sunk from the sky. She stood, wrapped a cloak round her trembling shoulders, and crept into the dimming streets. Factory girls hurried below sunset and rooftops. Smoke mingled with birdsong.

“Where were you yesterday?” Jack asked, clutching her among the gravestones.

“Nowhere,” Ivy said. “I’m going to stay with you now.” He held her until the dusk deepened and the skies hushed.

“I want to show you something.” He took her hand and led her along an alleyway, into the night streets. Lamplight dusted the gloom.

“Where are we going?” Ivy murmured as they weaved through crowds.

Dark winds muffled laughter. She stared at the cathedral looming between the rooftops and stars. Vast pillars towered to moonlit heights. Windows glimmered with scenes of pilgrims and saints. “He was my favourite,” she said, as they stepped by a figure in purple

and red glass. She held Jack’s hand harder as they inched through the doorway. She gasped. She felt as if she were walking into a cavern of candlelight and song. Stone arches lifted a gilded sky. They paused, warm under the voices of the choir. Jack squeezed her hand. She followed him along the wall to a stone stairway.

“It’s up here,” he said, as they began to climb. The floor gleamed far below as they stepped into dim reaches. He led her higher until they faced a narrow door. She held her breath as they stepped out onto the roof. The city unfolded beneath them in passageways and lamp glow. They sat amongst low stars. Ivy shook from cold.

“You’ll be warm in the New World,” he said, rubbing her arms.

“Tell me,” she said. She turned her face to hide her tears.

"We’ll follow the path of the setting sun.” He gathered her closer. “We'll go far away, high up into the mountains where the Sun King rules. There we'll find his palace and walk in the lost cities of gold. We’ll be together at the golden lake where the god of the Incas sleeps, and in the forest of butterflies where the air is amber with their wings." She buried her head against him, fearing the mirrors on her face. "In the rainy season, we'll catch glimpses of the thunder god who has put the Milky Way in a jug and shakes it to make rain. In the green jungle, we'll hear the invisible spirits who guard the trees. They whistle songs you must never answer.” He held her closer as she shivered harder.

“Jack,” she whispered. Mirrors flooded through her. Her skin paled and shone. He felt her go still. He turned to look at her but saw only reflections on her face.

On Creation PAUL BLACK I am pleased to please you, My lady friend, look, look at this.

To the sky! O life, to the America of lost love and branches Above my dizzy brain, to the north!

This morning turned after the noon, now, Well, the scene, unsaturated hues of orange Hidden above and behind clusters of Thought, and we will swim together, always Through this; where the horizon meets Our souls, and in an instant, we become Celestial. In being, greater than earth, and Horizons, we create stars. When our bodies meet In this odyssey, unexplored, ill-ventured swim through New worlds of unworldly thought and linger out of reality, for we are sons of suns and our sons are suns.

Void.

Ourselves fill each other’s heartfull desires, and permanence and lacking elements of light.

Let there be life, I said, I’ve perched my mind above our bodies.

I float, suspended in reality, angelic, and we weave, meet after an ancient life of prolonged appetite, love and fear.

Merge. In thought, elemental physicality, I compress my heart and spill my love unto your whole.

Reach beneath all earthly notions, as organised Universally, orderly formulaic established though, That can and will be felt, absorb physical.

Time is an eternity, and it loves the impermanence Of self, for it am no longer human.

Metamorphosis, he has respectfully become Greater than time itself.

Ungodly, and unknown to even himself, all-knowing.

Suspended birthing history, for connected, and interweaved is the life and death of time, a singularity, of being.

It is I.

True  Love  JAY J. ANNE True love is not a virtue. It is not a feeling that you get when a cute boy buys you ice cream. It is not the word "forever" and a promise tied with a ring. It is not dates filled with flower petals and songs titled your own. True love is looking at his eyes instead of sunsets; taking off your shoes when you walk on the carpet because you know she likes that. It is cooking his favourite meal just because you like the colour of his shirt; watching movies she likes even though you hate them. Because, you see, true love cannot be described in similes and sentence fragments. True love cannot be captured with the click of the shutter, or expressed with the touch of the lips. True love is an unseen glance, a spark without a flame, an unprinted pictures. You cannot capture true love. But, sometimes, true love captures you.

Breaks  D. VAISIUS In the car on the way to Grand Slam I stick my earbuds in and close my eyes. The music blasting and my glowering expression doesn't deter my twin brothers to leave me alone. But in this family sleep is sacred. Papa says it's the only thing that truly is. My papa says he's too busy to be an atheist. 'I don't got enough time for religion and I'm too busy to think about science.' he said when I asked him why he didn't come to church with the rest of us. Not that our church is really a church. Mama wears long dresses made out of fabric she dyes herself and calls her path 'spiritual'. I'm still not sure what that means but as far as I can tell it means me and Cera, the older twin, and mama spend every Sunday morning sitting in a circle talking about energy and light. Also plants, there is a lot of that. Mama calls it a 'Grass Roots Church' and Teddy, the younger twin, calls it a 'hippie dippie fairy festival'. Mama always blows kisses at him when he says this and Papa laughs. Teddy is trying to make it a cool thing to be Catholic again. I think if we weren't a family of black sheep he would be our odd one out. But regardless of what we do on Sundays I consider us to be bound together by our comfort not blending in.

Our papa wanted to own a ranch one day. He still talks about it.

'25 cents a day from your ma and pa and you kids can start up Breaks Family Ranch we we're dead.' They would have had the money to do it themselves but then mama's ma got sick and papa had to quit his job in the factory because they wouldn't give him the time off to go along and help care for her. By the time grandma died Teddy and Cera had been born and Breaks Family Ranch put on the back burner where it stayed. Even if we didn't grow up with horses we grew up good. Though we've always been squished. We lived in a house right on the edge of town. The roof leaks when it rains too hard and we've only got two bedrooms so me and the boys sleep in the bigger one and mama and papa in the other. In this family we live for the breaks. Papa took night classes when the twins were little and now he's a high school history teacher. Mama proof reads for a legal publisher and when the four of us get out of school she packs up her work and we pack up our five rucksacks worth of belongings, strap the canoe to the roof of the car and disappear to Great Uncle Heron's land for the summer. Great Uncle Heron has a long strip of land up in the hilly part of Manitoba. There's a stretchy river that pools out into what we call lakes even though the whole thing is just called Quecca River. A mile before you get onto Great Uncle Heron's property

you run smack into Grand Slam. Grand Slam is a tiny town that seems to have got stuck about forty years in the past. It's got a general store with a miniature post office attached and a pay phone out front. Besides that not much else other than the farmers market on Saturdays, about twenty houses and a long community hall that holds a dance once a month. Despite its weirdness and lonely location Grand Slam somehow remains a strangely bright place to exist. It's like a diamond, stuck in the earth gone unnoticed, if it was noticed it would go for a high price. Teddy swears Grand Slam is the last pure place on the planet. We found moonshine, the only alcohol sold in town, displayed on the highest shelf in the general store in such an open and honest way that the three of us just stared.

“This place doesn't have a dark underbelly.” Cera said, his eyes wide and round. “They're too accepting to hide anything.”

“How much you wanna bet there's opium around here somewhere?” I asked, scanning the shelves.

“I don't think I've ever been as innocent as this town is.” Teddy was reading the back of the moonshine jar.

“That poppy field on the way in was looking mighty suspicious.” I continued. Cera grabbed my wrist to stop me from rounding the corner.

That's us. That is Grand Slam.

Two hours is about how much time I can take in the car with my brothers before I feel like screaming or throwing up. It's mostly because they like to play word association games in between helping mama with the crossword. My brothers don't do anything quietly. It's possibly the only thing they have in common. Teddy always sits in the middle because he is the shortest. He sits with his legs apart and his hands resting on the top of his skateboard and spins the wheels incessantly. It drives me crazy but it doesn't make anyone else grit their teeth so he gets to keep doing it. Cera sits on the right side behind mama. He's got the longest legs in the family, he always has to arrange himself in a spiderish sprawl to accommodate them. Mama does the crossword in the passenger seat, always in this cloud of sunshine and floaty skirts while papa drives. His hat tipped back and his moustache twitching when he smiles. I sit behind papa usually pretending to sleep. I can't sleep in cars, I've never been able to and my family still doesn't know. It's a well guarded secret. I like my window down all the way. I love how the rushing air messes with my face and ruins my hair. I imagine it blowing away the city. This drive is always the same, anticipation building until that last second when I think I can't take one more minute of wind in my eyes and loud voices in my ears and we come over the hill and I see it.

It's like summer finally start right there in that first sight.

Summers at Grand Slam we run free, bare bottomed in our jeans

when we get behind on the laundry, dirt under our fingernails. No money, no company nothing to cage us in or hold us back. Clothes held together by safety pins and patches. Minds held together by books and tugged apart on too many late nights talking about things too big for us.

“Out here,” Cera says, “we live on the land, off the land and next to the land. May it take our heads and hearts and make us crazy.” Cera stays on the dock reading Catcher in the Rye when me and Teddy go off to scare the living daylights out of Great Uncle Heron's sheep. We've been doing it since the year he got Tarance and Maggie, two sheepdogs, to protect the flock from wolves and coyotes Before Tarance and Maggie if you crept among the sheep you risked getting flat out shot but once they showed up the guns got left at the barn and me and Teddy were free to make friends with Tarance and Maggie.

Then proceeded to terrify many unsuspecting sheep.

Always the first thing to do when the four hours in the car finally lands us in Grand Slam is to stop at the general store. Teddy has to buy the homemade sugar snaps they sell and Cera has to pick up whatever he's realized he forgot about an hour into the trip. This year he forgot his toothbrush. A classic. As for me, I buy six ginger twists and a bottle of coke. They have glass bottled coke up here and I always fill the empty bottle with sand from Quecca River. I've got nine bottles at home already.

Mama drops a quarter into the pay phone and punches in Great Uncle Heron's number. He's papa's uncle but they haven't spoken in years. The only reason we are even permitted to spend the whole summer on the land is because he's always had a soft spot for mama and even then we have to stay to the far west corner furthest from the house which we are never asked up to. I'm not sure what it was papa and Great Uncle Heron quarrelled about but it was long before any of us kids were born and no one ever speaks of it. I can see mama through the window of the general store as I pick out the best twists and drop them into a paper bag. She smiles sweetly and I know Great Uncle Heron can hear that smile even if he can't see it. The sun is pitching down behind the hills in back of mama and she looks so pretty standing there notifying Great Uncle Heron of our arrival that I forget what I am doing for a moment and just watch.

“Why are you staring at mama?” Cera comes up behind me. He is gripping a toothbrush with a blue handle.

“Why you two staring at mama?” Teddy comes up next to Cera. He has already started into his bag of sugar snaps.

“Do I look like her?” I ask the twins.

“Like mama?” Teddy has got his mouth full.

“Yeah, you do Mad.” I elbow Cera in the ribs. “How many times do I have to tell you not to call me that! My name is Madison.”

“But Madison is so long.” Cera teases following me as I roll the top of my bag of twists and head for the counter. After me and Cera pay the three of us pile out of the door sending the bell above it into a clammer. Mama is asking papa about thirty four down in the crossword.

“Ready to set up camp kids?” He asks in his booming teacher voice. We all roll our eyes and duck into the back seat. Mama laughs.

The sun is crashing down fast now and twilight is creeping into replace it. When we make it to our camp on the far west of Great Uncle Heron's we begin our usual combat with tent poles and sleeping bags. It's always getting dark and it's always a rush. Teddy unloads with papa seeing as how both of them inevitably get everything backwards the first try. Mama, Cera and I are left with the tents. Cera is trying to beat mama and blames me for my slow precision. We've never beat her yet and this year isn't the year we do. Her and papa's tent is pegged down just as Cera is tossing the fly over ours. Teddy's shouts of glee as he barrels passed trailing blankets into the tent cover the sounds of Ceras curses. I dive into the tent after Teddy.

“Teddy don't you dare steal my pillow!” Shouts Cera knocking hard into my shoulder as he trips over the door and collapses inside. By the time we have separated our bedding and emerged it is dark. Mama and papa have a fire lighting up the faded sky. I stand for a moment, struggling to get into my left shoe.

“Who's ready for canoe launch tomorrow?” Asks papa his eyes bright. We all exchange glances and then laugh. A few summers back papa got this mad idea of untying the ropes from the canoe and speeding down the slight hill to the water's edge, then at the last possible moment slamming on the breaks. The theory being that the canoe would fly forward off the car and into the water. It was then upside down and had to be flipped and emptied of at least some of the water. I'm not sure this was ever an efficient or even good plan but papa spent an entire summer perfecting his technique which the many scrapes and dents in our canoe as well as our car can attest to. Now it's become a tradition.

“My favourite was when papa went too fast to begin with and the

canoe went flying off the back.”

“No Teddy the best one was when he cracked the windshield.” Mama jostles papa. His face is turning slightly pink but he too is trembling with laughter.

“It's a wonder no one got killed that summer.” I say.

After tin cups and tooth brushing we all exchange hugs coupled with 'I love yous' and 'goodnights' before stumbling our ways into our various tents. I lay down on my back, my bare hands cold against my arms as I hold myself close. I'm too awake to sleep. I stay still for a while listening to the breathing of my brothers. Finally I get up slowly.

“Madison?” Teddy's voice slips through the gloom to me. 'Where are you going?”

“I forgot to pee.” I say.

“Okay, just be careful, there isn't a moon tonight. And don't you dare wake Cera because he'll come up with something to talk my ear off.”

“Then shut it Teddy, you're the one being loud.” I say and slowly inch the zipper of the tent open. Once I'm out I stand still for a second waiting to adjust to the light. There is almost none of it and it feels like many minutes of staring fruitlessly into the black before I can make out shape. Once I can I move away from camp. There is an old trail hammered out by summers of Breaks family feet that leads up to a ridge over the water.

When I make it up top I feel as if I am walking into the night more completely than ever. There is no snap of dying fire or rustle of blankets here. No breathing other than my own. The Quecca River is almost completely still in it's pooled out lake like part. It reflects the black sky and the few stars. I sit first, then lie back in the patchy grass and sandy rock. I let the land come to me and once again become familiar.

In the morning papa drives the canoe topped car the half mile to the boat launch spot where the dock is. He lines it up. Mama stands to the side her hair folded up on top of her head, she is making flower crowns from strangler vines and dandelions. The three of us kids are lined up ready to run, our jeans rolled up against the water not that it will do jack all. Papa gives us the thumbs up, we return it and then he's off down the incline at the perfect speed to keep the tottering canoe from shooting off the back. He hits the breaks and we hit the ground running as the canoe propels off the roof with a scraping sound. It clears the hood of the car and

connects with the water. We put our heads down as we move into the water after it and through the splash.

“Got it!” I yell as I catch the back gunnel. The riled water settles momentarily as the boys move to grab hold. Then one last great splash as we flip the canoe. Once the water has again calmed we regard each other's dripping hair and faces.

“Bail!” Papa yells as he too enters the water armed with a canvas bag containing bailers. We each grab one and set to work.

“It went well this year.” Mama's voice is merry as she drops a flower crown on Teddy's head. He's got his hands on his knees watching the tiny fish nibble at his submerged toes, face distorting at the tickle of it. We are sitting on the hot wood of the dock regarding the newly baled and tethered canoe.

“Sure did.” Papa tips his head back to look at mama. I push my crown out of my eyes. Cera comes down the dock. He drops the paddles.

“Anyone wanna go out?” He asks. I shake my head. The twins and papa end up in the old canoe. I stand with mama and watch them paddle off, the twins trying to splash each other and papa being in the middle taking the brunt of it.

“Mama.” I say slowly. “I'm bleeding.” I'm almost sixteen but this is still my first time. Mama looks at me.

“Let's go.” She says gently.

Mama rifles her purse as well as the car before coming up with a single pad which seems to have been in the glove compartment of the car for a million years.

“Just till Grand Slam.” She says handing it to me. I ripped one of these open out of curiosity when I was twelve so I know how they work. Once I'm set we head down the road towards town. I walk with my arms wrapped around my body. Mama sways as usual. Displaying what she terms 'open body language'. We don't speak. I imagine our footsteps talking.

Something about this makes me feel lonely.

I felt that way my first time.

Will it go away?

Everything does.

At the general store we regard the little stock they've got on the subject.

“You don't want to be wearing over nights all day but it looks like it's that or tampons.” Mama picks up a plastic package with a moon on it.

“At least they are slims.” I add uncertainly. I just stare at the

cardboard carton of tampons. I'm afraid to touch it. I do touch it later on when I have to deal with the things. Mama sits with me outside the bathroom and opens the box. She shows me how they work and explains what to do. I fight an urge to close my eyes and put my head in my hands. When she is done she hands me the box and gives me a smile.

“Get in there Madison.”

“Mama.” I groan and head for the bathroom. It takes time but I manage to sort it out and emerge.

“You're white as a sheet.” Mama laughs and I cross my arms around my stomach and try to breath away the sick feeling inside.

“You made it to womanhood.” She swings an arm around my shoulders. “I thought it wasn't ever going to happen.” I elbow her in the ribs.

When we get back to camp mama starts a fire and wraps me in a blanket.

“Word of advice Madison, don't ever wear white pants.” Something about this strikes me as funny and I start to laugh. Mama sits down next to me and pulls me close.

After this things continue on in much the usual manner. We spend a few days revisiting every place we've missed and searching for changes. The old boat house by the second boat launch is sinking further into the mire. Other than that everything is the same apart from a few missing trees. Once the excitement of this passes the boredom sets in. By this point we are ready for it. It hits every year. There is about a week and a half where the tents and the land and the air make us stir crazy. It was Cera who finally figured out that the only way to handle it is with a book. This summer Teddy is being grouchy when we go to town to buy our book and so he guilt trips his way to getting to pick. He pulls some tome of science fiction out of a dusty back corner of the seemingly cornerless book shelf. Cera moaned.

“Really Teddy? Why?” “Because I'm just interested in torturing you.” Teddy sneered.

For that loathsome week and a half the three of us wandered around in an aimless blob passing the book between us as our voices tired. By the time that damn thing was finished no one was bored and we were all ready to go back to making our own fun.

On one of the unbearably hot days towards the end of July I was walking through the west fields when I ended up in an unheard of predicament. A stranger was walking ahead of me. Despite spending

every summer in these parts we don't exactly know people here. Not that we know people back home either. The Breaks family is infamous but not generally befriended. But this person I had never ever seen.

Not in town at least and no one but us comes out to Great Uncle Heron's and the hands that work the fields. This man however was not a hand and something about him didn't seem to speak of Grand Slam either. Yet he was oddly familiar. I slowed but continued to follow him. He had dark hair that flashed grey at the temples and a strong confident gait. I became rather lost in a daydream about his story as I walked behind him, so much so that I found myself digging in my heels when he stopped rather suddenly. He turned slowly. I stood frozen, staring into my own stone green eyes.

“You're Madison Breaks.” I have never met my Great Uncle Heron nor did I rightly expect to.

“Generally I go by Heron.” He said. We had taken seats under a spreading willow after I had mutely nodded yes to his invitation to do so. I did not know what to say to this strange man with my eyes. I believe I had come to assume him a monster or a hermit or sick or all three. After all I had never met him and to my knowledge he was no more than an unexplained argument.

“You're my Great Uncle.” I said stupidly.

“It would seem so.” He said.

“Why don't you speak to papa?” He didn't look surprised at my question. After all what was I more likely to want to know than this?

Great Uncle Heron picked a daisy from the earth next to him.

“That, Miss Madison, is mostly a matter of misunderstanding. A long run misunderstanding.” He handed the flower to me.

“What do you mean?” Great Uncle Heron looked at his hands.

“Sometimes silly things seem like big things and they drive people apart and then being apart becomes a habit and before you know it you can no longer remember just what it was that started it but you stay apart any way because it feels easier than digging it up again.” I stared at the flower I now held.

“You're saying you don't know?” I asked. It didn't make sense to me.

“Yes.” I thought for a moment.

“Okay.” I said and with that I accepted it. I don't know how. One minute it didn't make sense and then it was like I grew up a little bit and it did. From that point I warmed up to him. He was funny in a sly way that snuck up on you and tickled you. I wasted hours there with him sitting under that tree and when I heard Ceras voice yelling 'Mad! Madison!' from somewhere not too distant I was shocked. I

almost jumped.

“I gotta go.” I said and without thinking I bent over and kissed my great uncle on the cheek. The smile he smiled made me feel warm like sunshine does.

I didn't think to tell my family about meeting Great Uncle Heron.

I'm not sure why now come to think of it. It felt like I'd know him all my life the way it is with family blood related or not. As we made supper and ate together he slipped my mind and when I thought of him again at night in the tent as I went over my day everyone was asleep and I didn't want to wake Teddy because he'd wake Cera with his loud talking and then not one of us would get any sleep. I lay awake as I always do and thought about the Breaks Family Ranch. We'd talked about it so much I sorta figured it was a real place somewhere. Somewhere up in the hills with the stars and full of black oxen.

On Saturday somebody has to go into Grand Slam to get the paper for mama. And nobody gets to use the car to do it even if it's a storm that makes you wonder if there ain’t Greek Gods having an all out war up top there. Or so hot and with such powerful sunshine you expect your chances of contracting spontaneous skin cancer are about one hundred percent. Either way someone's got to go and I gotta go too. I've gone along since I can remember and now sometimes I end up on my own. This Saturday the weather isn't doing anything out of the ordinary. It's about the most average day you can get and no one wants to come with me when I declare I'm on my way. I head down the road alone but it doesn't matter much to me. I take my time wandering through the general store looking for something new but I've done this so many times there isn't anything. I buy the paper for mama and flip through it on my way back. I can read while I walk. No one else I know can. Though no one else I know has walked into quite so many things as I have. The usuals like trees and telephone poles, other people too. But I've also walked into a parked truck, a few doors and the side of a building. My favourite part of the paper is the classified and today’s paper is brilliant. Halfway down one column and I'm already smiling so big I think I might break my face. But it's the second last one that stops me in my tracks.

Looking for work on a farm.

Have goat. Willing to travel.

I stare at the paper. I love it. I love this ad so much I forget to read the last one. The words ring in my ears all day. 'Have goat.

Willing to travel.' I murmur to myself. The next day I run into Great Uncle Heron quite by accident. I tell him about the ad and he chuckles. He says he has something to show me in a few days. I drift off to sleep that night all abuzz. I wake to up. Cera and Teddy are watching me and trying not to laugh.

“You have a goat?” Cera asks.

“You're willing to travel?” Teddy grins. I roll over. I've been known to talk in my sleep. The few days later has arrived and I climb the slight hill to where I'm meeting Great Uncle Heron. When I see him I run the rest of the way and hurl myself into the hug he offers me.

“What are you showing me?” I ask him when I step back.

“You'll see when we get there.” He answers. He sets off down the far side of the hill and I fall into line next to him. As we walk Great Uncle Heron tell me stories. He grew up here with my papa's papa and their little sister Tessa. He says back then they didn't have anything but the clothes on their backs and what they could bring from the land. They built the house from the ground up. I'm so caught up listening that when he stops I don't realize it till I”m a few steps ahead of him. I turn.

“What?” I ask.

“Open your eyes Madison.” He nods behind me. I turn around and for a second I just have to look and then I start smiling.

I have had many summers on this land. I have made many trips into Grand Slam. I have spent countless nights with my brothers under the stars. But somehow everything feels new now. The secrets of my family do not matter to me. As Great Uncle Heron said as we stood under that arch way together.

“These knots will work themselves out in time.” I believe him with my whole heart. In the general store I tell Teddy and Cera that I've met our Great Uncle. They only stare dumbfounded. I'll take them to meet him soon, up on the hill and we will walk together to the arch across the old dirt drive shrouded by trees and being tugged down by ivy. One by one these knots will work themselves out. We will all stand on the hill together. Papa, mama, the twins, Great Uncle Heron. We will all walk to the arch. I know it just like I know this summer will be the best one yet. I know it because I feel it zapping through me like the electricity did when I shocked myself plugging the toaster in. Some things you just feel head to toe and you don't know why but you can't ignore them. Great Uncle Heron says that's what falling in love is like. I said 'really?' and he answered

'really.' and then I said 'now I'll know it when I see it.' Great Uncle Heron laughed and said 'I doubt that little darlin',' He might be right but I bet you a bag of ginger twists that by the end of the summer all six of us are going to be reading the words on that arch way together and papas going to be crying because those words spell:

Breaks Family Ranch And you know what? I'll miss our house out on the edge of town but I always knew I was supposed to grow up with horses and I guess I've still got some growing up to do.

Perfume Shopping with Little Europe MARGARYTA GOLOVCHENKO A forgotten game: finding the correct distance at which passers-by can be captured into perfume bottles – makeshift glass jewels – modern replacement for amber-trapped insects Little Europe remembers diagrams, the cross section of a peach with acupuncture points on where to shove the needle for the sun’s most intimate caresses It takes great skill or mere naiveté to continually mesmerize using something simple, the knock-off wax seals on cheap paper boxes made in China, gardenia knocking out the lazy lavender. The truth is we leave love in our summer skin and constantly search for some fountain to keep the wilting thing from suffocating.

Cleopatra’s garden at twilight, the stars not yet high enough for her tjaty to tell Anthony at what time to harvest and he dumps it all out, careless with leaving sleek evidence Noon: Little Europe got distracted looking at the promenade, a fact her bag’s contents took advantage of. It rained history’s memories that day in tiny bursts, first love first kiss first dirtied bedsheets one indistinguishable pool.

Yellow Light BRIANNA FERGUSON Alison was crying in the driver’s seat, but Paul Taffy couldn’t be bothered to care. He never listened to the ones that burst into tears when they couldn’t parallel park. Some of the younger instructors could be turned by a little snivelling, but, not Pal Taffy. If Alison had performed such an inadequate parking job in the real world and a cyclist had ridden up beside her, she’d have killed them. The car was ​clearly​ sticking out more than a foot past the ones behind and in front—and if, let’s say, a cyclist coming up behind her was momentarily distracted by an errant Frisbee, they’d have clipped the car, flipped over it, and more than likely landed on their head and died.

Paul Taffy sighed and reiterated the bullet points of this (seemingly obvious) logic to the weeping girl, but it only increased her wails as she pulled into the driver-testing parking lot.

“I don’t want to ​kill​ anyone, Mr. Taffy, but I need this license for my new job! They hired me on at the bakery as a ​delivery​ driver but only because I said I’d have my Class 5 by ​Monday​!”

Paul sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. This was getting tiring.

“Yes but what good is a properly delivered pie if in the next minute you’re killing a living human being?”

Alison wailed louder.

“I would never!”

“Yes, well, perhaps you can take the test again next month and we’ll see then.”

He paused. There was no way to ask Alison to carry his groceries in from the trunk—not now with her acting the way she was—but thankfully they’d only picked up one bag’s worth. Paul could handle that in a moment when she’d had her breath—at least he could handle getting them to his car before popping back inside and finishing up the day.

The doors to the office opened automatically for Paul’s stocky frame as he made his way straight to the testing counter. Alison had been his last candidate of the day and as soon as he was done her paperwork, he would be able to go home and watch Curling. Winnipeg was playing tonight and he couldn’t wait to watch his favorite sweeper, Ed Freeman, mop the ice with the ugly mugs of those

Saskatoon sons of bitches.

“Paul? Do you have a minute?”

Paul looked up. It was his twenty-something manager, Rick Rice.

“What’s this about?”

“Could you just come to my office for a second?”

Paul frowned. Rick was using his no-nonsense tone he usually reserved for dealing with body-shop mechanics when one of their training cars was apparently too damaged to be repaired.

“Sure,” Paul said, thumbing through his paperwork.

“Now, please,” Rick said.

Paul cursed Rick in his mind and set his paperwork back down on the counter. One more signature and he would have been free to go. No matter, though, he’d give Rick a piece of his mind as soon as they were done with whatever non-essential “issue” Rick just ​had​ to discuss.

Rick’s office was a sea of papers that never seemed to change, and far more certificates adorning the walls than was necessary for the manager of a driver’s licensing office in a small town. Paul had never read any of them up close, but he’d always imagined that if he were to read them, they would almost exclusively celebrate Rick’s graduation from weekend sailing courses and half-day CPR tutorials at the Rec Center.

“Take a seat, Paul.”

Paul sat down on a high-backed chair the color of an un-cooked kidney. It swung violently backward from his momentum, forcing him to right himself with far more effort than he would have liked.

Rick steepled his fingers in front of his face as if he were trying to explain the concept of Church to a jungle-dwelling savage.

“Are you happy here at the bureau?” Rick asked.

Paul chuckled. Technically it was a bureau, the Bureau of Motor Vehicles—Gristville Branch—but no one ever referred to it as such. No doubt Rick wished he worked for a proper bureau like the FBI or some such nonsense.

“I’m exactly where I need to be,” Paul said, offering the same stock answer he’d given ten years back when Rick was first hired on as branch manager and they hadn’t quite seen eye to eye over a few things. Rick’s old district manager Randy Kitsch had asked Paul the same question, but only because he’d had to. They’d been friends, Paul and Randy, right up to Randy’s death almost six months ago from emphysema; after which Rick became acting-district manager.

“Mhm,” Rick said. “Well, maybe that’s just not as true anymore as

you’d like it to be.”

“I don’t follow you, Rick. I’d think I would know better than you what makes me happy.”

Rick cleared his throat.

“Well, Paul, ya know, there comes a time in every man’s life—if he’s lucky to live that long—where sometimes things just don’t make sense the same way they used to. Sometimes it comes down to the people who love him having to tell him it’s time to move on.”

Paul actually laughed out loud. Was Rick really suggesting he loved him? Rick with this yoga-instructing wife and newborn baby and the three bedroom house up in Oak Acres—the newest housing development in the area; Rick who had never done anything but scowl at Paul down his pointy little nose; Rick who’d forced Paul to threaten an ageism lawsuit against the company when he’d suggested a mandatory retirement age to the board nearly half a decade before.

“Uh huh,” said Paul.

“Sometimes it hurts a whole helluva lot to admit you’ve done your best but that your time has come to throw in the towel. Sometimes it really hurts—I’m not saying it doesn’t. But ya know what? There’s always something else waiting for you out there. Maybe take up golf!

Or move to the Caribbean and buy a little bungalow with a full staff to wait on you hand and foot...”

“Hold up there a second,” Paul interrupted, leaning forward in his chair with his hand outstretched as if he were waiting to slap a fly off Rick’s suit as soon as it landed. “Surely you’re not suggesting—​again​—that I ought to retire.”

Rick cleared his throat a second time. Perhaps the asbestos Paul suspected was in the walls was getting to him.

“I’m ordering it, actually.”

Paul let his hand fall onto the desk. A few papers slid off and landed on the floor.

“You can’t.”

“I can.”

“No you can’t.”

“Yes, I can.”

“You’re only acting--” “They promoted me to District Manager this morning. I just got the memo.”

The words hung in the air like the screech of tires before the crunch.

“Paul, this has been a long time coming and you need to accept it. You’re getting too old for this whole thing and you just---“ “LIKE HELL I AM!” Paul shouted, instantly sorry he’d lost his temper. “Name one instance where I--” “Today, Paul. Just now. Why did you fail Alison Harker?”

“Who?” “Alison, the candidate you just tested.”

“Oh, her,” Paul snorted. “She parked a meter out from the curb!

Could have killed someone!”

Rick pursed his lips.

“A meter, Paul?”

“Oh, thereabouts. Maybe not a meter—a​ foot​ for sure!”

Rick tilted his head and sighed through his nose.

“You know as well as I do that’s well within our limits. You know that’s not a problem.”

“Oh, whatever then. I’ll pass her if that’s what we’re doing these days...passing anyone just to make a few bucks off some little piece of plastic that says they--” “What about this whole week? You haven’t passed anyone, Paul. Not one single person.”

“What the—of ​course​ I have!” Paul blustered, amazed that Rick would make such an outlandish claim.

“No, you haven’t. You haven’t passed one single person since last week, and even then you only passed two.”

“Well only two of them didn’t have their heads squarely up their asses.”

Rick narrowed his eyes.

“Paul, you know as well as I do that they weren’t all awful. I’ve had plenty of calls from angry mothers telling me the ‘crotchety old man’ was rude to their kid and wouldn’t let them pass despite them having gone through ​our approved​ driver training course. Now how do you think that makes us look?”

Paul scoffed.

“I don’t give a good goddamn how it makes us look! If they can’t-” “What about the grocery runs?”

Paul colored.

“What about them? Are you really insinuating that I can’t take a kid to a store to get them practicing in a real parking lot?”

“Not if you disappear in​side​ the store for half an hour to pick up fucking cat litter!” Rick shouted, losing his temper for the first time since Paul had sat down.

Paul bit his lip. He’d never taken more than a few minutes, had he?

“I’ve got parents saying you made their kids drive you to Wendy’s and wait in a drive- thru for ten minutes, is that true?”

“Well, I--” “And what about two weeks ago when you had one of them take you to the doctor? The​ doctor​, Paul?”

“It was 1:00! That’s the only time in a day you can get in and get out in five minutes! Otherwise it can take up to two hours! And I’m here every week day besides! How else am I supposed to get my Lipitor? I could die without it, Rick! Do you want me to ​die​?”

Rick pursed his lips again and looked down at the floor.

“You know exactly what I’m talking about, Paul. This isn’t working, and it’s time you retired. If you leave quietly I can submit it as voluntary-retirement.”

Instantly the fire of Paul’s defiance dwindled to dying coals of desperation. This was really going to happen if he didn’t think of something fast.

“Rick,” he said, leaning in and lowering his voice as if Rick were the son he’d never had. “Please. This is all I have.”

Rick swallowed.

“I know, Paul, and I’m sorry. But my hands are tied.”

Paul almost blurted that they weren’t—that Rick was district manager and as such could handily veto this entire thing, but he said nothing. To flatter Rick by exclaiming just how powerful he really was as a manager was something Paul simply could not do. He would leave, and he would do it with both of them understanding that Rick was not a powerhouse of authority, but simply one more peon.

“Fine,” Paul said, and he stood (a little shakily) and made to leave.

“Oh, wait,” Rick said, hurrying out from behind his desk. “I just need you to sign this form saying Alison Harker really ​did​ pass her test.”

Paul jerked back as if he’d been slapped. He opened his mouth to protest, but decided to lick his lips instead—dislodging, to his dismay, something crusty from the right corner.

There was nothing more to be won here. He signed the paper Rick offered him, (with a pen from Rick’s own pocket,) and then he left

the building and drove home. Thankfully, he managed to close and lock the door to his single-bedroom apartment before sliding to his knees and wailing like a mental patient in an old Black and White. But only just.

The first few weeks were what Paul could only describe as a descent into madness equaling anything Dante could have ever dreamed up. On his first Monday morning as a retiree, he woke up to the sound of his alarm clock despite having turned it off the night before. On this particular morning it rang just as loudly as ever—he was certain of it—but when he went to hit the button, the noise didn’t stop. It just kept on ringing and ringing until he realized it was in his head. Then he got up then and showered and ate his usual three eggs and toast just the same as any other morning. But where every work morning had always felt like the opening scene to something else, this time there was nothing beyond the eggs and the toast and the alarm clock sound. This time he was just a 68 year-old bachelor in a mediocre apartment, with no plans to leave it.

The groceries would run out eventually and he would need to go out, but that didn’t matter to him just yet. He would also need to go to the doctor again for his heart pills, but right now he had a month’s supply in the cupboard over the sink and there was no need to get more.

Maybe he wouldn’t leave his house for a solid month, then, just to show them what a wreck they’d made of his life. Maybe he wouldn’t even go down to the office to get his last paycheque. Maybe he’d make them mail it to him on the grounds that he couldn’t get out of bed.

Retired people fell all the time, didn’t they? And it was never like a toddler falling six inches while they learned to walk—not for a senior. For a senior it was almost always serious— sometimes it was even the last thing they ever did.

One particular morning roughly five weeks after his forced-retirement, Paul Taffy found himself in his car driving nowhere in particular. He’d just taken his last Lipitor that morning, and unless he made it to the grocery store in the next 24 hours, there was the teensiest chance his heart might just decide that hanging on another day or so was just too darn hard.

The car felt echoingly empty without the limber body of an over-eager teen trying to master the art of parallel parking, and Paul wondered if the crushing loneliness mightn’t just mash him into something too small to see; like a dead body sinking to the bottom of the Marianas Trench.

Deciding his Lipitor could wait a few extra minutes, Paul decided pause on the way to the store and take a trip through the ol’ Wendy’s drive thru. He was honestly a little peckish, and he wanted chicken, and he didn’t feel that it was appropriate (in the short span of what was left of his life) to have to settle for supermarket rotisserie.

The Wendy’s near his house was the most dilapidated one in town, but it served the same cuisine as any Wendy’s franchise anywhere else in the world. The roof over the drive-thru was definitely going to collapse and crush someone one of these days, and the men’s bathroom had a rather ominous bare spot on the wall where the “Employees Must Wash Hands” sign had very obviously been pried off (whether by a vandal or a disgruntled manager looking to provoke biological anarchy, Paul couldn’t say.) But it served chicken and it was close.

Paul sat idling in the parking lot, staring at the drive thru and feeling strangely unable to bring himself to join the line of vehicles filtering through. It just didn’t feel right to do it without a peppy young body behind the wheel with his own stale body in the passenger seat. Normally he’d be barking at them to roll the window down (farther or they won’t be able to hear you!) and shouting at them to turn the radio down from whatever ungodly volume it was cranked up to. But right now the car was silent except for the grey rumble of the tired, Buick engine.

And​ the window was already all the way down.

There was literally nothing else to do.

He turned the engine off, then turned it back on and drove in a complete circle around the block. When he came back, he drove straight into the drive-thru before he could talk himself out of it again.

“Hi, thanks for choosing Wendy’s. What can I get for you?”

The voice was young and male and so much louder on the driver’s side of the car.

“Well, I uh...HI. CAN I GET, UH...” He paused. He hadn’t thought this far.

What did he normally get? He shut his eyes and imagined the mouths of the young would-be drivers of the past when they’d ordered his food. What had their mouths looked like? What words had they formed?

Oh hell, speak up or they won’t hear you! I want a number-​“—FIVE, please. I would like a number FIVE.” “Small, Medium or Large?”

Dammit.

“Uh...large I should think,” he mumbled. He was a man after all, wasn’t he? Men ordered larges.

“Eight seventy-five. Please pull forward.”

Jesus, that was ​way​ too much! Clearly he’d blundered; his usual order was usually only maybe five bucks. But he wouldn’t let the owner of the voice know.

When he reached the window, a young man with a plastic headset and hair that was too red to be natural leaned out and looked at him.

“Debit?”

“Oh uh, no. Cash, please.” Paul Taffy said, rifling through his pockets.

But there didn’t seem to be anything in them but more pocket fabric. He was just about to become very unhappy when his fingers closed around what was either a crumpled receipt or a poorly-folded bill. He pulled it out and sighed. Handing the ten dollar bill to the kid, he tried to read in the boy’s face whether he might have been an ex-student. He looked familiar enough, but then all 17 year old boys looked exactly alike to Paul Taffy.

The boy handed Paul his change then hollered something into the kitchen that Paul took to mean “hurry up.”

He realized that in a moment he would be pulling away having completed the transaction all on his own. And that was nice. But ​then what? What else was he to do with his day besides get more heart pills? Oh god so much time stretched before him, and nothing but so many other pointless, lonely errands! How was he ever going to ​manage it?

“Would you like to go for a ride with me when you get off work?”

The words were out of his mouth before Paul Taffy had a moment to decide whether he wanted to ask them or merely think them.

“What?”

“Oh I um...I wondered if it would interest you in the least to go for a ride with me later,” Paul said, now fully aware of just how illegal (or at least socially unacceptable) his request seemed. The kid looked him up and down as a disembodied hand from the kitchen thrust a paper bag into his hand.

“I’m not doing any sick shit to you,” the kid said.

“Oh no, no, it would be nothing like that. I just need you to drive me around a little bit. I’m having a hard time of it myself you see...”

“You mean like that ​Driving Miss Daisy​ movie?”

Paul had not seen it but it sounded about right; if a little

effeminate.

“Yes, exactly like that!” he half-shouted—overjoyed not to be a child molester even a little bit.

“Well...alright. I get off at six,” the kid said.

Paul frowned. It was much later than when he would have liked to start but it would have to do.

“I will be back here at 6:00” he said as the boy handed him his order.

“Kay, well, you’ll have to bring like a hundred bucks with you, alright? ‘Cause I’m not just doing this for nothing, you understand?

My time’s precious.”

“Oh, yes, of course,” Paul said, rather saddened that the youth of today were not more eager to help out the elderly without financial compensation. But then he’d been around the block enough times to know that nothing in this world was free.

At 6:00 the parking lot was filled with mini-vans overflowing with tired parents herding their screaming children from sticky cars seats to sticky restaurant seats. Paul parked around the back of the restaurant by the employee entrance and quickly climbed into the passenger seat.

He felt a little silly moving over when the boy wasn’t even there yet, but it would save him some time, ​and​ save him from any possible humiliations like stiff legs or snagged pant legs. He could see himself, though, through the eyes of the boy, as easily as if the boy was already standing in front of him, and they’d switched bodies. He was the eager old fool with nothing better to do than go for car rides with other people’s kids. He was so pathetic he could hardly stand it. How had his whole life come to this moment? What wrong decision had he made that had led him away from a wife and kids and into a Wendy’s parking lot in the passenger seat of a Buick to wait for a strange boy to drive him to the grocery store? It was all so preposterous. His whole life was a joke, and one he was not going to tell himself any longer.

He flung the passenger door open and made to storm out of the car but the lazy weakness of his old body kept him firmly in his seat—and a good thing, too, because a second later the employee entrance swung open and the boy stepped out.

“Oh, you’re already here. I guess you wanna just go for it now then, eh?”

Paul blinked owlishly at the boy, and half-nodded as he leaned over and opened the driver’s side door. The boy slid in and sat down.

“You got the money?”

Paul’s hand reflexively flew to his shirt pocket. As it happened, he ​had​ gotten the money earlier, out of an ATM—immediately after they’d agreed to meet.

“Y-yes I have it.”

“Well alright, let’s see it.”

Paul handed the boy a mostly crisp hundred dollar bill, which he swiftly pocketed.

“Great. So, where do you wanna go?”

“Oh uh...how about to the Superstore? I have to get a few things.”

The boy rolled his eyes and Paul felt a twitch beneath his right eye, which he covered by chewing his lip.

“Fine,” the boy said lazily. Then he threw his seatbelt on, jammed the car into reverse and burned out of the parking lot as adequately as a Buick could burn.

They drove down the highway in silence. The radio was off (as Paul had turned it off beforehand so it wouldn’t annoy the kid, and he couldn’t bring himself to turn it back on. Not that the kid seemed to mind, though. He was tapping out a rhythm on the wheel that only he could hear, and Paul didn’t want to disturb him.

When they got to Superstore, Paul went in alone. He’d wanted to ask the kid for his keys so he could be sure he wouldn’t steal his car, but he couldn’t summon the courage to do so.

Once inside the store, he went straight to the pharmacy to order his pills. A sign on the counter, though, told him the pharmacy was closed for the day. Right, of course; that was another reason why he’d always dealt with his pills at 1:00. Well, he’d probably survive until tomorrow. But it wouldn’t do to return so quickly to the car—not when he’d told the boy that he would be at least a half an hour.

But what else was he to do? He only needed the pills…

He couldn’t stomach the idea of the boy seeing him come out now, though, with nothing to show for his trip. He’d just look like one more senile old man who couldn’t keep his pharmacy hours straight. He would need to get a cart and fill it with groceries. There was simply no other option.

But he didn’t have a loonie for the cart and he didn’t want to ask anyone if he could borrow one—that would just be even more pathetic. What retired man in the 21st century didn’t have a loonie

to get a shopping cart?

Paul Taffy stood still in the aisle, steepling his hands in front of him the way Rick had only a month or so before. Then he let them fall to his sides, and did nothing else; for there was simply nothing else to do.

The Whole Truth JONATHAN PIGNO I’m cheapened As an artist Because I’m broke For a decent Phrase And embarrassed Even for admitting Dependence On the ones I love Who nurture Even though insisting I’m scouring Their empty purses And fueling This rare addiction To the cause Of my anxious Voice And they hate me Though they’re Willing And resent me As I’m still Complacent

Scouring The wrong ambitions To prove How much time I waste In the hours It takes depression To affirm My inspirations While insisting Upon feeling Suffering When immersed In these manic Thoughts As surrounded By chronic nightmares That dictate These rampant sayings To panic In verbal ecstasy And unleash Such wild claims As the paths Of morbid wisdom In delinquent pangs Of loneliness Or moral test Of happiness And prose Of persistent wrongs

That lie Just like I Have to In order to Get some sleep And demand Of the outside Nothing Except that I Tell the truth.

It Always Happens Like This AVERY NEWMAN at night, i fall backwards with my arms open like a scarecrow. it is dark. i have fallen through to my childhood pantry. the pantry was my secret hideout. i would avoid family while sneaking bits of chocolate. one time, i took off all my clothes and ran out to the jungle gym and climbed the geometric dome of cherry red rungs. i am still falling when i see that the jungle gym is coming into view. it has become a hunk of twisted metal. i wonder whether dreams can mangle memories. i wonder whether the past is shatterproof.

i decide to take off all my clothes and climb it one last time. i weave in and out of the hexagonal shapes. i swing like creepy laughter. my body is now a mess of string and wire. someone is taking photos of me from inside the house. the windows are all boarded up. i don​’​t want to be seen unless i am myself.

the world is a corpse lying facedown that no one cares to turn over.

Last and Then Found Again NATALIE MERINUK There is this quiet kind of poison that seeps through the backwaters of the mind.

It is lost in the smallest sunspots of daylight, And is found again in the slices of time rising from the twilight that swallows the sun each summer night and trails back for dessert.

It laces through my ribs like daisy chains, producing missing in its purest forma concentrated solution of selfishness and self-doubt, that settles in my lungs like a precious yet volatile stone.

It’s the kind of missing that has me choking back tears like aspirin tablets, that lingers like an iron taste trapped in my gums, no matter how many times I rinse my teeth with liquor.

Because you’ve taught me millions about happiness in compact spaces and worn out places, in a sort of time that drags on forever like lazy Sundays by the riverbed, where we would dive for moonstones and trace patterns through the sand.

And I think my friends were right about you, that you make me feel warm and safe like a movie marathon on a rainy day.

Because you look like hope and taste like home, Because you’re a bandaid hug when we’re Dancing around the kitchen making pancakes, singing Hall & Oats mid-afternoon when we’re Waltzing through the backstreets surrounded by Christmas lights

when we’re Sleeping til 11 two days in a row, because we have nowhere to be and no desire to go.

And you know I would swim across open oceans, if it meant I could fall into bed next to you.

Because you’re the only one who’s ever kept me in the moment fucking moment holding my hand, skin deep and feeling golden.

Youth and Bleeding Ground MELODY CARABALLE i remind myself all the time how years passed softly. i was excited, careless and brave. i used to wish on the sky and i have said stupid things but i knew that it listened to me. i remember myself chasing the moon while i was wide awake and how angry i was that it wouldn't leave me alone when i was lonely. i was too young that i trusted the earth, and at some point i fell in love with all the green and blue things. i was too young that i didn't know it would swallow me one day. i remember how i ran too much that i would go home with trembling knees and my mother's gentle face was the first thing i'd see.

hugs and kisses felt warm. i love you's were all sincere.

after twenty one years of walking slowly, afraid of losing myself along the way, i am still that twelve year old girl who used to cry alone, scared of the things i never understood. afraid of the things i never thought i'd experience. i was fifteen when kisses were hardly pressed against my skin but it felt home. it felt safe.

i was sixteen when i learned how to keep the ugly and dark things about me in soft places that no one would see but you see, i am in love with nostalgia and i am careful. remembering all the lovely things can lead to remembering all the ugly. but i am still young, excited, brave. i am still young, excited, brave -and ready.

Artist Biographies WRITERS BRETON LALAMA is a queer artist who loves writing, exploring, and creating works that make people feel things. When she is not writing, drawing, or performing, she likes to take bike rides, eat chips, and take in other people's' artwork.

KATIE GILGOUR is a writer, fairy-tale fangirl, and book addict who lives in Atlanta, Georgia. So far she has made it through her early twenties by consuming absurd amounts of caffeine and watching a lot of Netflix. You can find her on Twitter @katielilybeth or on her blog, katielilybeth.wordpress.com.

KIET CHUNG writes poetry on Tumblr. “I’m learning how to be a better person through my poems. I started the blog a few months ago, but it has been great so far! You can read more @poetryleftbyher. I wrote this poem because I felt like music helped with how I was feeling, how we can feel submerged, but never drowning. Music is beautiful, so that's why that poem was written. Enjoy your day everyone!”

FRAAGMENTED is 17 and has always enjoyed reading, writing, and singing because they always made her feel like she belonged somewhere and like she fit in & she just wants to be able to share that with all of her followers and other people who might see her posts.

REBECCA HARRISON sneezes like Donald Duck and can be summoned by a cake signal in the sky. Her best friend is a dog who can count. Through the WoMentoring Project, she was chosen by Kirsty Logan as her mentee. Rebecca’s been nominated for Best of the Net, and was a finalist in the first Wyvern Lit flash fiction contest. Her stories can also be read at Rose Red Review, Sick Lit Magazine, Luna Station Quarterly, and elsewhere.

PAUL BLACK is a Windsor based illustrator, painter and poet who aspires to be involved with, as well as to become an avid contributor to the various events, organizations and creative passions of the anomalous community of eccentrics associated

with Windsor scene. Over the past three years Paul has attended Assumption high school, taking part in the International Baccalaureate Programme, and has been diligent in his pursuit of his artistic ambitions inside and outside of school. As for poetical influence, Paul through his exploration of modern american poets and novelists of the 20th Century, i,e; the controversial works of Ginsberg, the blunt attitude of Bukowski in his evaluation of self, and spontaneous prose Kerouac, has worked to develop his own unique stylistic form of writing. Paul’s poetry, explores extensively, the themes of consciousness, the reality of self, visions, the hallucinatory state, death, irresponsibility in youth and the human comprehension of what is real.

JAY J ANNE is a senior in high school. She writes full length novels in poetry and prose and writes poetry for her Instagram page.

D. VAISIUS lives in Southern Manitoba and has been writing short creative nonfiction and fiction for a number of years.

All of D's work has a tie to real events and people, mainly dealing with personal experiences of religious intolerance, sexual orientation, gender identity, fear and self harm. D's publishing credits include two local papers as well as The Winnipeg Free Press and The Citron Review. He hopes to continue to have the opportunity to connect to readers and learn from other authors.

MARGARYTA GOLOVCHENKO is an undergrad student at the University of Toronto, where she is an editor for the campus’ only speculative fiction journal, The Spectatorial. She is also a staff reader for Ember: A Journal of Luminous Things and the writing editor for Half Mystic. She has possibly heard every joke in the book when it comes to her name, and every guess when it comes to her nationality (hint: Ukrainian). Her work has found a home in places like The Impressment Gang, The Teacup Trail, Vending Machine Press, and (parenthetical). When not maneuvering around her mountain of to-be-read books she can be found sharing her (mis)adventures on Twitter: @Margaryta505. Miso Mermaid, her debut chapbook, will be released by words(on)pages press in October, 2016.

BRIANNA FERGUSON is a fourth year combined Creative Writing and English major at the University of British Columbia. Her fiction has been published in Polychrome Ink Literary Magazine, Class Magazine, UK based magazine Femmeuary, and the upcoming Toronto anthology Another Place.

JONATHAN PIGNO is a writer hailing from Staten Island, New York. An alumnus of Wagner College and Monsignor Farrell High School, his work has appeared in numerous publications, including Five 2 One magazine, Vine Leaves Literary Journal, Asbury Pulp, and 365 Tomorrows. His writing has also been featured in local periodicals such as Indulge magazine, SI View, Taste, and the Staten Island Advance. His first full-length collection of poems, The Island Never Burned So Bright, was published in 2014 and is available via Amazon.com.

On any given day, Pigno splits his time between writing and enjoying his other favorite pastimes: movies, comic books, video games, and various other literary or pop-culture media.

Find out more about what he’s currently working on at www.jonathanpigno.com​.

AVERY NEWMAN; Age 87. Miami, FL. He likes the colors. All of his work is done in crisis. He is interested in the way language re-invents itself to decrypt common sense. He likes paradox. He currently has a cold washcloth slung over his forehead. He is deaf.

NATALIE MERINUK is a 19 year old aspiring poet, and her work often features a visceral, melancholic and/or dream-like theme. She feels that writing helps with everything, and it is her main strategy through which she navigates this thing called life.

MELODY CARABALLE writes a lot about love. She gets inspiration from the people she meets everyday, especially strangers.

Melody hopes to connect to people through her poetry.

ARTISTS MAJED ALSHEIKH is 16 years old and Egyptian, but he lives between Egypt and Kuwait. He is an editor and all of his edits are done by apps only.

BELLA BROUGH, 15, has been passionate about portrait photography for as long as she can remember. She almost always has a camera around her neck. She wants to travel and show the world the power of photography.

VERONICA J is also known as @voebelle on instagram. Her work is often reminiscent of dark fairytales and is hauntingly beautiful.

ELISE TERRY is 17 years old and lives in New Zealand. She's always loved photography and was recently gifted with a beautiful Nikon D750 which has been a dream come true for her.

Ever since, she'd been happily snapping away and has found that her younger sister, Eva, is a beautiful and captivatingly photogenic model - Eva is full of energy and loves to be in front of the camera and even behind it sometimes! She hopes to one day make a career out of photography and has been finding out more and more that she feels she can achieve that. You can find her work on Instagram under the username @liseypics STERAFILMS is based out of Louisville, Kentucky. Our goal in everything is to create unique images all across media.

ALEXIS GIBSON is based out Palmyra, Indiana (Louisville area).

Alexis loves creative concepts and has a penchant for dark beauty.