Volume 3 Issue 4 - The Failure Issue by Free Lit Magazine

CONTENTS 4

Shadow Boxing SOPHIA KING

Not a Failure LINDA M. CRATE

Failure ELIZABETH BANFALVI

Until the Morning MEGAN WHITING

Out on the Town BETH GORDON

Long Forgotten AIKO M.

Night Shift JOHN TAVARES

A Miniscule Flashing Light MICHELLE HILLYARD

Carnival Boy LEAH MUELLER

2 People BRUCE KAUFFMAN

Blue Eyed Gem MAXWELL KAMLONGERA

How the Light Gets In BOB MACKENZIE

A Stuttered Start ADRIANA GREEN

And the Sign Says... JACK M. FREEDMAN

East to Southwest (And Beyond) YI-WEN HUANG

Fear of Failure PERRY DEFAYETTE

I Planted My Garden JOAN MCNERNEY

Fingernail Torture NICOLE KING

Le Mort du Loup Anglais KYLE CLIMANS

Confetti ANN CHRISTINE TABAKA

On Failure ANDREW KAI HANGSING

Mackerel Sky MEG FREER

Last Ones at the Fair SIOBHAN LOCKE

Just Grief MAISIE WATSON

The Latest Installment ALYSSA COOPER

August 11th MIRANDA RAMNARES

A Bouquet of Bullets JESSIE READ

FEATURE

Something to Prove JACOB BUTLETT

Front Cover

ANDREW CASE

Back Cover AISHA ALI

Inside Back Cover ASHLEY NEWTON

FREE LIT MAGAZINE Editor-in-Chief Ashley Newton

Literary Editor Eunice Kim

Staff Writers

Kyle Climans, Alyssa Cooper, Adriana Green, Bruce Kauffman

Contributors

Elizabeth Banfalvi, Jacob Butlett, Linda M. Crate, Perry Defayette, Jack M. Freedman, Meg Freer, Beth Gordon, An d rew K a i H angsi ng, Michelle Hillyard, Yi-Wen Huang, Maxwell Kamlongera, Nicole King, Sophia King, Siobhan Locke, Aiko M., Bob MacKenzie, Leah Mueller, Joan McNerney, Miranda Ramnares, Jessie Read, Ann Christine Tabaka, John Tavares,Maisie Watson, Megan Whiting

Colophon

Free Lit Magazine is a digital literary magazine committed to the accessibility of literature for readers and the enrichment of writing for writers. Its mission is to form an online creative community by encouraging writers, artists, and photographers to practice their passion in a medium that anyone can access and appreciate.

Failure

It’s been told to me time and time again that failure - like life - isn’t so black and white. That within the negative experiences, there is so much more to be learned and gained. One failure can offer us so much more than success. These ideas about failure are often hard to believe when we’re in the thick of it. Those moments of desperation cannot be eased by the fact we “did our best.” Sometimes we don’t do our best. And of course, nobody likes to experience the familiar stinge of pain when failure arises. It rips our insides out, dangles them from above, and proceeds to make us feel less than worthy for all we couldn’t achieve. Be as careful as you’d like. Make the smartest choices. Failure will always be waiting for you without judgment of your situation. It simply doesn’t care. Don’t let your failures become acquainted with your regrets. When we hesitate to even try to reach for something we truly want – that’s when failure becomes the real thief of success. And it loves to make friends with our demons. Ashley Newton Editor-in-Chief

Contact

editor@freelitmagazine.com

Next Issue

The Monsters Issue September 2017

Shadow Boxing SOPHIA KING Get Up The blood Inside my cheek Is fresh It doesn’t taste as sweet As the dreams The illusion In my mind Reality The confidence I cannot find The hook That slammed Into my jaw The crack I am still so raw I didn’t see it But she saw My mistake The counterpunch I am still awake Get Up The knockout is momentary The ringing that pierced my ears is gone I lost my balance She won It hurts I breathe out the pain My body is frozen My mother’s voice “This is the life you have chosen” “The ring Is it really that safe? You must learn to fight your shadow The hits are harder You are still so callow” “Where is your defense?” My trainer, his voice Inside my pounding head Weak I should be dead Get Up 4

The floor presses against my breasts What burns more, the hit or the fall? It’s blurry They can see it all I am down This is where I began To be something My illusions mislead me Still I am nothing I was tired “Always remember Keep your hands to your face” I dropped them A hit I can’t erase My guard was down I was open I let my weakness show Her advantage One single blow Get Up My breathing is steady now I can hear the rumbles of the crowd She kneels beside me It’s all too loud “Good fight” She says Then walks away This moment It cannot stay It feels Forever But I know It’s been seconds I’m still here; I have the marks to show The drops of sweat Burn my eyes Reminds me of where I am I’ve tasted my blood many times before “Remember where you began” Get Up

Fa i l u re

ELIZABETH BANFALVI Failure, what is failure? Is it a lack of success? Success, what is it? Is it a perceived level of accomplishment? Is it a goal? Is it a grade on a test? Why is it a failure if you don’t achieve it? Failure is a strange thing. For one person failure is a constant feeling and in another, it is a chance of finding a different way to do something. Where did we get the idea of failure in what we do? To me, it is a mental thought process which has been produced to explain how we feel. Most of our thought processes come from our environment and upbringing. So the supposed mistakes of our parents are inherited by the children. Why? We look around us and what do we see? Do we see mistakes or do we see the beauty of our surroundings? If we see the beauty, there is an acceptance that all is never perfect. Perfect, what is it? Is perfect today the same as yesterday? Is perfect today the same as in the future, does it not change? Perfect – why does something have to be perfect? There is a beauty in imperfection. What if we are mistaken? What if what we think is perfect is different than everyone else? What then? Mistake, what is that? It is a mis-take. So we tried and now we have the opportunity of taking or doing it again. What fun? It is like a painting we can add another shade or a different level that we didn’t have before. It is doing it again and discovering new ways of doing it. At one time we couldn’t walk and as a toddler, we learned. We fell but we got back up again and kept going. At no time did we feel like we were a failure. We started school and we learned to read and write and fit in. Sometimes we fell in line and other times we didn’t. Was there a sense of failure then? We were tested physically and mentally. We achieved more than we thought but were we taught failure at that time? We joined in sports and sometimes we lost and then we won. Then we learned how to be better at the sport to understand the strategies and working with our team mates to work together to achieve a win. The goal was to work together to attain a level of physicality to play a sport. Of course, if we didn’t win we would feel bad but it was a community feeling and we learned how to lose. As humans we also learn we are changing constantly from toddler to teenager to adult to senior. Nothing stays the same; even our level of physicality, mentality, emotion level, and spirituality. We have to be aware of our limitations and by exercise and mental thoughts to adjust to accommodate. It all begins with us. So what is this “failure” thing? I don’t understand. We change constantly and so we are adjusting and one day we might succeed and another time we might not and that is natural. If you think of failure being a terrible thing, I know you are wrong because we all need a chance to revisit and redo so we find out who we are at our present time. Failure gives us what we need to see opportunities to change. So learn to be aware so you can change and enjoy the process. 5

Out on the Town BETH GORDON

I cut the sunflowers down without intention, licked his hand without permission, he shouted fuck for the 75th time that day and I knew it was time to leave, to change my underwear, splash water under my arms, tell myself that the grass is always greener, the alleyways and highways and pastel powder rooms of debutantes call my name, promise me requited love and perfect hand jobs from former Wheel of Fortune contestants. I sulk over tonic and gin, think of you, baby girl sitting at home with dogs licking your feet, think of how you cannot boil water, how you always spill the tequila, forget the salt, how you havenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t wanted a lover for years, your skin has grown numb with tears, how you never complain when I put on my pajamas at 7:24 in the evening.

Night Shift

JOHN TAVARES “You know my aunt owns this franchise and I may be the assistant manager, but I’m the wild one. That’s why I work the nightshift.” “That’s okay. I like the nightshift. I wouldn’t be working nights if I didn’t like them. I always worked nights at the drugstore and I liked them.” Hannah wiped the hot coffee she spilled from the hot carafe on the probation reports, which she handwrote and tried to conceal. “Anyway, I just sat in his lap, and because he didn’t report it to the high school principal or the board of education superintendent he was fired.” Kate ate the rest of the bacon Swiss cheese hamburger, spilling barbecue sauce and bacon bits from the corner of her mouth. “It wasn’t even as if he was taking advantage of me. I just turned nineteen years old and, yeah, I was still a student, but I had already dropped out and returned twice, three times, and I hit on him, not the other way around.” “But why would you sit in your guidance councillor’s lap?” “Because I had a crush on him, and he was good looking. His goatee was amazing.” “What did he do?” “He pushed me off his lap and said I was making him uncomfortable. He asked me to sit in my chair across from his desk in his office, but I think I gave him a hard on. In fact, I could see the bulge in his pants.” “I still don’t understand.” “I was in his office to take a multiple-choice personality test.When the guidance counsellor called me into his office to talk to me about my teachers’ complaints, I admitted I felt depressed. I was ready to commit suicide, but when I saw people actually listened, paid attention, and maybe even cared, it changed my life; it was like electroshock, but this time the electroshock worked.” “You mean the ECT they administered before didn’t work?” “The buzz from electroshock worked for a few weeks, but when the fog lifted and I remembered things my life got very depressing again.” Hannah took the basket of fries from the deep fryer and tossed them into the French fries warmer on the shiny stainless steel countertop. “So why aren’t you working as a pharmacy technician?” “Probably for the same reason you’re not manager on the day shift,” Hannah replied. “Anyway, seriously, you don’t know the pharmacy business.” “I’m seriously asking you why you quit?” Pausing for dramatic effect, Hannah looked squarely in her supervisors’ eyes, eyes she envied, so clear, the whites so flawless, the irises so blue. “I have an addiction.” Looking away as she tossed another hamburger patty on the sizzling grille, Kate smiled smugly. “That’s sort of what I suspected.” “That’s what I suspected you suspected. So what’s the drug of choice then, if you’re intuition is correct.” “Hey, relax, I don’t know–oxycontin? Methamphetamine?” Hannah shook her head. “It’s chocolate.” Kate gagged with laughter and blurted, “What the fuck?” 7

“Don’t laugh or swear; this is a family establishment, and we wouldn’t want anyone to think we’re mocking the customers. Anyway, yes, chocolate; I have an addiction to chocolate. Every drugstore I ever worked for stockpiled plenty of chocolate. I could never control my appetite around chocolate, especially when I got bored or stressed, and the pharmacy business can be very stressful and very boring. I can live with it, but then I binge on chocolate. I end up gaining weight and getting fat, but I can’t live with being fat.” “But you’re so skinny.” “That’s because I work around fries and hamburgers, and I never eat hamburgers and fries because I simply don’t like fried food, but I love chocolate.” “I wish I could be you,” Kate said. “No, you don’t,” Hannah replied. “The last place I worked the owner-slash-manager was so desperate for pharmacists and assistants to work at his twenty-four hour pharmacy—” “The place downtown on Yonge Street at Carlton? I remember seeing you there when I went for cigarettes and rolling papers.” “Yes, that’s the drugstore, but the Pharmaid chain doesn’t sell cigarettes and rolling papers anymore. Anyway, the owner was so desperate for workers on the graveyard shift, which I actually liked, nights being my favourite shift, when he found out I have this thing for chocolate, he insisted I help myself to as many chocolates and chocolate bars on coffee break as I liked, and that certainly didn’t help. I’d fill out a prescription for diuretics and hypertension for a patient with congestive heart failure who’s breathing so hard he looks like he’s about to going into full-blown cardiac arrest. Meanwhile, for some reason I’m obsessing over chocolate, craving chocolate, and preoccupied with chocolate. I’m dispensing prescriptions and counting pills, but my mind is rushing forward to when I’ll be able to savour the new pure Belgian chocolate bars.” As Hannah told Kate about her pharmacy work, but not her past transgressions, she watched as her probation officer shuffled through the door of the Burger Queen restaurant, where she found a full-time job a few weeks ago, and almost fainted. She told her co-worker, working at the grille making hamburgers, pressing down on the ground beef, squirting the patented tomato sauce on the patties, she desperately needed to use the washroom. Indeed, trembling, shaking, her heart beating, nauseous, she felt as if she was in the middle of suffering a panic attack. Meanwhile, Kate splattered tomato sauce on her Burger Queen uniform and face. While Kate squirted on a second shot of sauce, tossing a processed cheddar cheese slice on the ground beef, Hannah asked if she could please take the till, thinking that by the time she finished using the employee washroom her probation officer would disappear. Having been charged and convicted with breaking into the home of a professional hockey player, she was required to see the ministry of corrections official. Earlier, she quit her job at the Pharmaid in a huff, sobbing because she put on forty pounds. Then, she went on a fast and drastically lost thirty pounds in two months. Then she broke into the house of the hockey star, with whom she identified so strongly after he suffered a mild myocardial infraction and lost fifty pounds. The professional hockey player underwent a drastic weight loss, which dramatically improved the quality and changed the style of his play. The professional hockey player metamorphosed from a defensive defense player into to a high scoring forward. That night she slept in his bed and watched the professional hockey player’s extensive collection of home videotapes, with a sense of disappointment it wasn’t a compilation of his best goals or body checks. She marvelled at the number of exercise videocassettes and lectures by 8

sports nutritionists and diet doctors, while she munched on low fat, low sodium, sour cream and onion flavoured microwave popcorn in between his silk and satin sheets. In fact, instead of the porn videos she expected she discovered dozens of Richard Simmons exercise workout tapes and pep talks. He started to fear he was gay. Then, when he arrived at home, her hockey hero panicked, believing she was an armed burglar. This was the hockey player once described as the most intimidating man on skates. Maybe dieting changed a man’s personality. Anyway, she ended up thinking he was a patsy, a wimp, especially after she was arrested and either he or his lawyer or his sports agent insisted on pressing charges. Hannah couldn’t believe that such a powerfully built, intimidating man, who even recorded a hard-core rap album, would be afraid of her, all five feet and two inches, and one hundred pounds of her. Even though she knew she was rushing ahead of herself, she was ready to have sex with him—indeed; she eagerly anticipated he would have been eager to strip off his clothes. Instead, he had the biggest temper tantrum and hiss fit she ever saw in her life and called 911, which promptly dispatched the police. Months later, she plea-bargained through her court-appointed lawyer with the prosecutor during sentencing. The terms of her conditional discharge and suspended sentence included a court order she agree to never contact her hockey hero. Once a month she was required to report to a department of corrections probation officer. During her meeting and interview with her probation officer, she was supposed to provide him with a report of her living conditions and summary of her weekly activities. Now, as she dried her hands with paper towel, she could see her probation officer right in her new place of employment, reading the newspaper, a briefcase, his trademark battered portable carrying case, lying on the seat beside him. Hannah was gulled by the sight of him— the sight of this massive man eating three bacon double cheeseburgers, with the sauce running down his thick bushy dark beard. At the same time, she feared the man, lost in his newspaper, absorbed by newsprint, checking the stock market quotations in the business section. Hannah told Kate, her co-worker, she was ill and hid herself in the washroom. She wondered what Marco was doing in a sleazy greasy Burger Queen; while she vomited the ice cream cones and black coffee she ate on break down the toilet, realizing that since she started working at this Burger Queen restaurant, she gained a few pounds, probably due to her heavy consumption of soft ice cream. At least her weight gain wasn’t the incredible amount she gained at the Pharmaid store at Yonge and Carlton Streets. As she brushed her teeth, she also feared the consequences of being discovered, that she might be in trouble if she was found working at Burger Queen, since she would be in technical violation of terms of her probation. She worried her probation officer might be angry she didn’t inform him she found work at a Burger Queen restaurant, at a job for which Marco would have certainly thought she was overqualified. She was frantically worried about an unforeseen hitch, a possible fine print stipulation in the terms of her probation; it was probably written somewhere in the sheafs of document she received she was supposed to inform her probation officer if she found work. She told the employment insurance officials she found employment, and, accordingly, she was no longer receiving unemployment benefits. But she was ashamed to be working in a Burger Queen after her probation officer said he was surprised she possessed a diploma as a pharmacy technician from Humber College. Marco said he thought she should attend university and obtain a degree to work as a full-fledged pharmacist. Marco believed in sexual equality and didn’t see any reason why she shouldn’t be able to find a better position in a pharmacy paying a good salary. “Well,” she felt like replying, “my criminal record, for one thing.” 9

She also realized Marco didn’t know more than half of pharmacists were women. She believed she should have even liked the man, if only because he liked her so much. He openly displayed his affection towards her in a way she liked. But she didn’t think he said flattering things about her because he wanted to get into her pants or skirts—and she didn’t let anyone into her underwear. He told her how relieved he felt he wasn’t dealing with another recidivist or hopeless hard-core criminal with a history of violent behaviour. But she didn’t want to disappoint him and feared she would never meet his expectations. He said he believed in human potential and saw a bright future for her. He thought she should study pharmacy at a university to obtain a bachelor’s degree in pharmacy and become a full-fledged pharmacist. She should study for a doctorate and become a pharmacy owner or a researcher. He said he admired her because she was so independent. At the age of only twenty-one she had been living on her own since she was fifteen, yet she still managed to attend the north campus of Humber College. Marco said he lived with his parents until he was forty and didn’t start dating women until his mother died. Even after he married, as soon as his father learned of his marital difficulties, he kept badgering him to move back into his house. Marco figured he remained single and stayed at home for so long because his father was Italian and his mother was Portuguese, cultures which placed much emphasis on family. Hannah wasn’t certain, though, since she had plenty of friends who were Italian and Portuguese, but they moved out of their family homes as soon as they turned eighteen or nineteen. These friends disliked or hated their families and stayed away from them. Hannah also considered the fact Marco had never worked as a pharmacist or a pharmacist’s assistant. Macro never filled prescriptions for medications patients subsequently used to end their own lives. He hadn’t been harassed or conned by addicts. He hadn’t been robbed at knifepoint. Ok, she was never robbed at knifepoint as a pharmacy technician; her assailant brandished a nail file, and the girl was only fourteen, but she wasn’t about to play hero, and she was still only nineteen years old herself at the time of the incident. After straightening out her Burger Queen uniform, Hannah returned to the service counter, but her probation officer was still ensconced in the dining room. She wrote a message on yellow sticky notepaper in red marker pen saying she was ill—a touch of stomach flu—and taped it to the microwave oven before she left. She assumed this would be a one-time encounter; so, she remained optimistic she would be able to work at the Burger Queen fast food restaurant, collect her pay, and at the same time preserve whatever shred of dignity and a slim waistline she retained. The next shift she returned to work, Kate asked her if she could get her some Viagra. “Why do you need Viagra?” Hannah asked. “My boyfriend. Haven’t you ever had a boyfriend who’s had problems getting it up?” “No. But I’ve never had a boyfriend, either.” “Then you don’t know what I’m talking about on both counts. A man is best in bed when he’s good and hard, even when you’re not making babies, and, darling, whatever they say, size matters, unless he’s exceptionally good with his hands, fingers, or tongue, and, in my experience, not many are. No, sir, and I don’t have the patience to teach them. Anyway, can’t you just get me a few doses of Viagra?” Hannah decided she would obtain some for Kate just to keep her quiet. The next shift she brought the Viagra, which she kept in her supply of emergency medications, prescription drugs she might need in a variety of worst-case scenarios, however farfetched. Her emergency supply of medications included anxiolytic drugs in case his panic attacks returned; hypnotics if her coffee drinking habits caused him sleepless nights; epinephrine in case of anaphylactic 10

shock. Viagra she kept in case she ever found that dream man, whom she allowed to take advantage of her, but he couldn’t attain erection. The following Saturday Hannah’s probation officer returned. This time she stood in the kitchen thawing out the sesame seed buns and hamburger, chicken, and fish patties frozen in the middle of transport, deep frying French Fries broiling in a vat of hot oil, behind all the food processing equipment where she was unlikely to be seen in the crowded, cluttered kitchen. She wondered aloud about the nature of Marco’s problem—why he kept returning to the restaurant, her place of work. Again, Kate asked her what her problem with the guy, but Hannah never indicated he was her probation officer. She was about to tell her quite simply and bluntly, but then she changed the subject and started to clean the grille, scrubbing and brushing vigorously. Hannah said, “I don’t think I like this guy; he gives me the creeps.” “So what do you mean he gives you the creeps? You mean he looks at you kind of funny, gives you the evil eye, or a suggestive eye, like, honey, I wouldn’t mind if you came over to my place and spent the night?” Hannah nodded and said, “I suppose.” Meanwhile, Hannah’s probation officer continued to scribble and dash on his paper work, filling out forms, making entries into his laptop computer when he wasn’t reading his newspaper. He was easily distracted, Hannah noticed during her visits to his office, where he became annoyed and flustered at paperwork and phone calls, and always seemed to focus his mind and divide his attention between multiple tasks simultaneously. “Anyway,” Kate laughed, “the guy is our best customer. He drops by every Saturday night and stuffs himself with thirty-two dollars of fast food every visit whereas the average customer usually purchases only three dollars and nineteen point seven cents worth of our menu every nine months.” Hannah said she didn’t care or give a hoot. She almost wished the huge three hundred pound blob would have a heart attack while he gorged himself on his tenth hamburger. “The guy followed me to work at the restaurant and to my apartment after work.” “Those are pretty serious accusations,” Kate said. “And he just doesn’t seem the type.” “How do you know?” “Because I know him well enough.” “The guy is a creep. He could be a pervert and a sex fiend. He could be the BLT killer.” “The what?” “The BLT killer.” “It’s BTK, the BTK killer–as in B for Bind, T for Torture, K for Kill.” “Oh, I thought it was the Bacon, Lettuce, and Tomato Killer. I thought he orders a BLT sandwich at the drive through of a fast food restaurant, kills the victim, mutilates the body, has sex with the corpse, and then he’s so sick to his stomach afterwards he can’t finish the sandwich and leaves the leftovers behind as his only clue.” Kate could barely control her laughter, but Hannah was unfazed. “Are you sure it’s not the BLT killer? I mean, if that was true, BTK is kind of redundant, and it should be the BT Killer.” “Whatever, this guy is no killer, but his family is in the mob, at least he has cousins and uncles in the Mafia. He told me himself, but you’d think he was a gangster, once you see the convertible BMW he drives.” “How do you know he drives a black convertible BMW?” During probation visits, Hannah admired the convertible sedan in the parking lot of the ministry of correction office where he worked. He twice offered her a ride, at least to the subway station, but she refused, deciding to 11

walk the distance to take the commuter train. “Because I talk to him every now and again and a couple of times he gave me a ride once my shift was over.” “At six o’clock in the morning?” “Yes, and once I rode him in the underground garage of his condo building, in the driver’s seat, nice leather bucket seats, but he could never get it up. I don’t know why I was so disappointed; maybe because he’s so big. Anyway, his car is so comfortable a ride once you adjust the seats there’s plenty of head and legroom for sex. In fact, we could have did it while he was driving, assuming he could stay hard long enough. At least I got that one off the bucket list - partly.” Then Kate, barely controlling her giggles, crushed the blue Viagra tablets with a hamburger flipper and blended the medication into the patented tomato sauce, which she spread over the hamburger patty. “What the hell are you doing?” “I’m just trying to have a bit of fun.” “Are you trying to get me fired?” “Hannah, you’re not working in the pharmacy anymore. This is Burger Queen, where food is fast, and the customers is always right, but knows you don’t shit where you eat or bite the hand that feeds you, if you’re smart. Sounds like he bit you and we need to teach him a lesson.” Hannah tried to physically restrain her from mixing the powdered Viagra in the sauce. “And there’s no fighting on the job. The last recent hire who tried to fight me got fired.” Hannah looked in dismay at the table where he usually sat. Kate left a Victoria’s Secrets lingerie catalogue on the seat, which he covered with his newspaper when he first took a seat. She watched through the portable television monitor of the closed circuit system as the man struggled with the erections the concealed medication gave him. Then, finally, when he stood up, even his huge girth could not hide the lump in his pants as he limped out of the outlet. “That is what you must be talking about,” Kate said, as she reviewed the security tape for her benefit. Hannah groaned and Kate shrugged as she hummed a tune to herself and made herself a strawberry sundae from the soft ice cream machine. The following Sunday night Kate said she would take over preparation of her probation officer’s order. Then she added, “I tried on your cute jean jacket; I liked it so much I wondered where you bought it.” “The thrift store down Bloor Street,” I replied. “Look what I found in your pocket?” Kate waved the prescription bottle with four Prolipsin tablets and held the bottle above her reach. “That’s my emergency supply!” Hannah protested, leaping, jumping, reaching for the plastic container with the prescription label she waved like an excited child with a toy. “Why do you need an emergency supply?” she demanded. “For my panic attacks—for times like now when someone stresses me out completely.” After Marco ordered three plain cheeseburgers and a strawberry sundae, she pulverized the oval tablets in a bowl with a tablespoon and blended the powder into the container of soft ice cream, while Hannah protested. Her probation officer sat at a table whose window overlooked the tranquil setting of the school ground park. Kate poured sauce and frozen strawberry and syrup over crushed tablets blended in with soft ice cream. In fact, she made three ice cream sundaes: one for Kate; one for Hannah; one for her probation officer. By the time he had eaten 12

his third hamburger and then the strawberry sundae, he slouched at the table above his newspaper, snoring incredibly loudly. Kate wondered what was wrong and feared he suffered a heart attack. “For Christ’s sake,” Hannah said, “he is probably semi-comatose; you gave him enough sedative to put him asleep until Sunday morning.” After Hannah explained the side effects, Kate was in a playful mood. “Did you belong to any sorority societies at Humber College?” “They may’ve had sororities at Humber, but I don’t remember any. Maybe on the girls’ floor in the student residence, but I lived on the substance and alcohol free floor, which was co-ed.” “Substance and alcohol free? Who are you kidding? Anyway, I think I would have had a lot of fun with sorority sisters at initiation. I hear they do wild things during initiation; they have these hazing rituals I kind of like.” Kate went over to the restaurant table, took off her probation office’s glasses, tried the glasses over her distinctive blue eyes, and looked at herself in the mirror. “He sure is in a deep sleep,” Kate said. She unzipped his pants, exposing the man’s genitals, which dropped out of his pants and poked through the slit of his boxer shorts. “And, look, the guy has fallen asleep playing with himself. He has a hard on, and he is huge. You did warn me about wearing these low cut jeans and exposing my pierced belly button. Call the cops, for Christ’s sake.” Kate slipped his boxer shorts and pants back on and returned behind the counter, picked up the telephone, and called the police. Towards closing time, police came to the restaurant, located downtown along Yonge Street. The officers, who came from an out of control fraternity party on the nearby university campus, impatiently arrested the man, thinking he was a drunk. Then, after Hannah’s shift was over, as she took the subway home, she realized with a sense of dread that Kate must have mixed, accidentally or deliberately, the paper cups of strawberry sundaes. The gritty taste she noticed in her own ice cream sundae was probably the powdered Prolipsin. As the train sped northwards, she found she was falling asleep. A few hours later, she found herself being aroused by the train conductor on the northern terminus of the U-shaped commuter line at Finch station. She explained apologetically she fell asleep after a long day of work. After she rode the train back south, she missed her stop at Eglinton West station. He nodded empathically, but on the ride back, she fell asleep again. This time, to her sleepy form, the conductor decided he didn’t want to have anything else to do with her because she seemed like a flaky type, likely to cause trouble. Fortunately, another commuter recognized her as a regular passenger on this route. He aroused her at the opposite end of the subway commuter line at her train stop at Eglinton West station. Her apartment was normally within walking distance from the station, but now traveling by foot was an ordeal. Barely supporting her own weight on her legs, she shakily rode the escalator up to street level and took her regular route, a shortcut through a school park. As she walked along the trail, she became seized by a strong somnolence, an overpowering desire to sleep.Yawning, she set herself down on the bench of a picnic table. She slept, uninterrupted, for the next eight hours, and it felt like one of the more fulfilling, fitful, restful sleep of the year. The following evening, Hannah awoke to the sound of noisy traffic from the street alongside which the commuter train roared past on the surface. After a few moments of confusion, and, strangely refreshed and revitalized, she oriented himself. She walked home to his apartment in the city-owned high-rise towers home. By the following week, her probation officer no longer returned. She learned from Kate he was suspended from his job for removing from his workplace sensitive documents, a backlog of bureaucratic paperwork he tried to clear. He even worked on the documents at the restaurant, since Kate even placed some official inmate forms and probation and parole papers in her 13

locker after he forgot them beneath his meal tray and food wrappers. Then, she learned from a newspaper account and her subsequent parole officer, he underwent a provincial police investigation and was suspended from work. When he was finally dismissed from his position at the ministry of corrections, he became separated from his spouse. Under stress, he cracked up and made remarks his wife construed as threats. The police served him with a restraining order, but he violated its terms. He was arrested, charged, and released on bail. Within a week of hearing this, Hannah learned Marco was dead, having hung himself in the basement while he lived with in father’s basement. His corpse remained undiscovered for days because of his father’s surgery operation and limp. Upon discovering his lifeless body, his father suffered severe chest pains and was hospitalized for unstable angina. Following an emergency bypass operation, Marco’s father suffered a coronary and languished with congestive heart failure until he died in hospital a few weeks later. One newspaper article reported his death, noting that his father was a member in his youth of a leading Southern Ontario organized crime family. Hannah almost felt a sense of relief; she realized she should have felt remorse and regret, but she virtually witnessed firsthand similar calamities, including patients who took the medication she dispensed and went directly home to end their own lives. Still, she felt badly because she never resorted to Kate’s kind of tactics before, except to calm down a roommate’s abusive boyfriend while he drank and became physically threatening and intimidating. At least she was able to keep her job at Burger Queen.Within two months her new probation officer, a cool chick with a biker jacket, entertaining aspirations of joining a motorcycle club, told her she had fulfilled the terms of her parole and probation. She no longer needed to report to the probation and parole office at the ministry of corrections. She even congratulated her on successfully completing probation. Her probation officer wished Hannah good luck, but warned her to stay away from her favorite hockey player. Hannah felt free at last and thought her probation needn’t have worried; after the criminal charges ice hockey seemed like a trivial sport in the larger and more serious game of life. When somebody at work or in a restaurant had the sports telecasts or scorecards on the radio or television, she tuned out or tried to change the channel, if possible, to news of Middle Eastern conflicts, bombings, terrorism, and the journalists Christinane Amapour and Arwa Damon became her new heroes and even role models. Despite warnings from friends, she even enrolled in a journalism program at Centennial College, but that is another story altogether.

Carnival Boy LEAH MUELLER

It’s hard to let go of you, funhouse mirror, us in waves with diminished heads, feet wide enough to engulf the screen. Later outside in the backyard, you picked and trembled, said you were thinking of your kids. You remind me of my own filth, hidden with bravado: parading closet freaks, mine a better costume. No grip strength of your own. Your misfortune. I have extra, and will share. Then I won’t, and you’ll have the mirror all to yourself.

Blue Eyed Gem

MAXWELL KAMLONGERA Was there ever a more precious stone unearthed? I can’t remember. But I found a blue-eyed, auburn haired mystery wallowing in perpetual misery. Her legend alone halted my epic. Our first meeting was by chance. As a blithering oaf I was stunned into silence at your perceived value. Greed and desire were the devils at work then when a savant’s eye should’ve disclosed the deeper rumblings in your heart. Upon our second meeting you told me you were no good; a treasure with no value, an ornament fashioned from stage glass. I may have missed it before, but it was then that I saw you for what you were: broken. Beautiful gem, you sat there, quietly crying for your jeweller with your mascara running because of your teary blue eyes. Tainted sapphire, you thought he was amongst all the retailers when in fact, your lapidist was just one false dealer amongst many other con men. You knew this. Ironically, you knew it all. Yet you accepted it. A tanzanite submissively debased to a con man’s knock-off. And why? Just because you yearn for some light to acknowledge your existence. Shrouded treasure, I wish you could understand how artificial that light is. The farce must be brought to an end for this heist has been going on long enough. Blue eyes can never radiate under false light. Your chronicle saddens my heart and goads my demons as your tears become mine and your pain surfaces in earnest clarity. I seek only to shatter your illusions and illuminate your true glint, for until then, dear gem, you cannot flourish.

A Stuttered Start ADRIANA GREEN

I would rather not know where I’m going than not know where to begin ride some sort of current let your tongue list and I’ll be a part of your every movement every moment you wish to spend here with me tonight. but we close our eyes and the clocks move forward spring forward, fall back the seasons change but our feelings didn’t though mine were brought back to life by your sense of urgency the summer heat got to us man did it ever get to our heads. I would rather never hear your voice again than know what you’ve been up to I had a good plan, it was a good plan and it was ripped up like a storm tearing through a town there was thunder that night when I said I liked your family because they liked me too and we listened to the storm together and we shared a bed and I was there when the promise was made and we fell asleep while the sun was rising and I never left that place. I can’t hold onto what I gathered The crowd was never big, while the times were good but I don’t think you would have noticed I came to see you, I think I was the only thing you’ve noticed. My smile was always for you. So you have dreams, and they’re gonna try to become real but I’ve left you with my thoughts on a few sheets of paper those few things are for your down time when the dust settles. We went for a walk before the sun went down. The light was dim but I still found your hand and you started crying when you thought I didn’t believe in us. You still left for the city though. And I’m here still trying to find some shoes to fill. 18

AISHA ALI

East to Southwest (And Beyond) Yi-Wen Huang

Taichung, where I grew up Foodstands, shan ji pie and chung yo bing Sunny with a side of souvenir pineapple cakes and a pervert flashing two lone elementary schoolgirls at the bus stop in front of the record store in broad daylight, almost every day Our bus #72 was Dayyan Eng’s Bus 44 車四十四, as the clerk did nothing to stop him, just watched to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Potato People Primanti Brothers mystery meat with cold fries Italian slaw on soggy bread McKees Rocks pierogies sold by old ladies in Churches Childhood pizza and Italian hoagies living pieces of old world/old neighborhood art to Moon over Parma Proscuit, bring my love to me tonight! Six Cheese Double Bacon Melt—25% off for life for a tattoo! Greenhouse Tavern next to Lola Mike Symon’s duckfat gravy frites and a Sioux City Sasperilla— The Granddaddy of all Root Beers Livin’ in sin with a safety pin, Cleveland Rocks, Cleveland Rocks; Do the hula in Ashtabula

Skip across Lake Erie to the Anchor Bar Buffalo wings and Beef on Weck Bert from Buffalo, an overweight 6 foot tall gay guy in the 70s and Zhen Jhong Yuan unable to afford the heating oil bills to Balitmore John Waters and all he entails Crabcakes, Pit Beef and a Barnyard Club So good he threw the tray 6’ 300 lb. black adult male high school students body slamming each other in front of little Dorotea Godinez That could be me at Baltimore City Community College Bourdain toured the Rust Belt, and it felt like a dream Me—I can’t go to Parma because my Edsel will not run— but watch out for that West turn at Albuquerque it’s a bitch, like a 2x4 to the forehead or the teeth West of the Arab’s Deli and Tai Tok, it’s a culinary wasteland, a New Mexican deathtrap nothing but green and red chiles in every direction

I Planted My Garden JOAN MCNERNEY on the wrong side of moon forgetting tides of ocean lunar wax wane only madness was cultivated there underground tubular roots corpulent veins flowers called despair gave off a single fruit... I ate it my laughter becoming harsh my eyes grew oblique.

Le Mort du Loup Anglais KYLE CLIMANS

Jean-Baptiste Valois lay very still among the bodies of his comrades, trying not to gag from the stench their corpses made. He kept his eyes tightly closed, and it required all his remaining willpower to stop his limbs from shaking. His ears, still wringing from the sound of guns, were nevertheless tuned to the mocking laughter and relieved cheers of his enemies. They had been screaming, whether with rage or agony, but when the tide had turned, they had realized that they had been reprieved from a brutal fate, and thus they had laughed as they’d slain the remaining fighters and driven off the last of those who had run back to the fort. Or so they thought. Jean-Baptiste had only been grazed with a musket ball that had barely broken the skin. But he had cried out and collapsed all the same. The ungodly sound of those muskets firing en masse towards him had filled him with terror. No King could surely expect an ordinary boy of seventeen years to stand against such devilry if he could barely remember how to handle his own gun? His father, ashamed that his family should be so humble when their family name was so royal, had taken his family across the sea to make their fortune in Nouveau France. And he had done well. Alexandre Valois had joined the many men who handled the furs and skins of animals to be sent back across the water, and all without coming within ten yards of a living animal which had yet to be slaughtered. And so, when the call arose to fight with France’s red-coated foes, surely there was nothing to be done but for the now-successful merchant to send his five adult sons to be conscripted into the colonial army? Glory awaited soldiers who fought valiantly for the King! Except there was no glory after all. From where he lay, Jean-Baptiste had watched his eldest brother Guillaume scream as he’d fired his gun, only to scream with agony as a bullet tore away part of his jaw. The sight had made Jean-Baptiste scream, but by that point nobody noticed if a wounded man happened to shriek. It was the sight of his brother, wounded in such a ghastly way, that Jean-Baptiste had shut his eyes to the horror. His world became one of sounds, of thunder and horror, and his own wandering wits worked so that every scream was that of one of his brothers. Every bullet, regardless of how far or how close to him fired, always found their target in Louis, or Gilles, or Denis. Every splash of blood smelt familiar, every thud as a body collapsed, all of it wore at Jean-Baptiste’s sanity as the waves of the mighty ocean would wear down all of the sand-castles of his boyhood along the French coast, before his father had declared that they were forsaken in their own country. The guns were silent now and the bodies no longer fell. There was, however, a constant presence of moans from the dying men all around him, inescapable as the buzzing of flies when standing in a marsh. “Maman! Maman!” Jean-Baptiste flinched, then, and was almost rigid with terror at being discovered in his pathetic charade. But the man’s mewling wail for his mother had been too horrible to anticipate. Immediately, he heard the sneering tones of that hateful language as two or more enemies approached the wailing man. The screams stopped. Jean-Baptiste tried to think of something – anything – which lay away from this monstrous hell, but to think of anything else caused him to finally weep. His mother’s kindly face with her gentle voice. 23

His father’s broad form and his round face which belied his iron will. He thought of his bride-to-be, waiting for him back in Montreal. He thought of her dark brown eyes, her shy smile, her generous breasts and hips which his mother praised as being perfect for rearing children. Would they still be his children after this war? She had vowed to marry him upon his return from the war, but Jean-Baptiste wondered if he’d live long enough for her to keep that vow. He slowly pulled his uniform away. He had failed it, just as God had failed France in this fateful fight. So too, then, did he rip his father’s old crucifix from his neck and cursed the days he’d spent praying in church for God’s kindness. What kindness was to be had from all this? He had marched with the others, to these plains, and had been exposed to the English guns. He had heard his fellow men fight, die, and finally run away, all in a time of space that was at once an eternity, and less than the blink of an eye. Jean-Baptiste slowly rose to his feet, unable to endure the battlefield any longer. Abandoning his uniform where he had cast it aside, Jean-Baptiste staggered away, holding a rag to his wound to staunch the blood. Just then, a voice called out to him, but before he could turn his head to see who called him, Jean-Baptiste beheld a sight which made him want to vomit. His youngest brother, little Denis, named for France’s saint, was dead. His face and hands had been slashed with some terrible blade which left the white of his bones visible to the world. One of his eyes had been caved in with what Jean-Baptiste could only guess was the butt of a gun. The voice called again, but Jean-Baptiste was oblivious to it. He fell to his knees, weeping. First Guillaume, now Denis. Were his other brothers also stricken on the field with bullets and blades of these cruel invaders? Was he the last of his brothers to draw breath? So strong was the young man’s grief that he did not notice the troop of red-coats who approached him with bayonets pointing forward. They snarled their questions in a language that Jean-Baptiste would not be able to understand even if he were not deprived of common sense or reasoning. Finally, they seized the young man and dragged him to a part of the field where the wounded lay. Hundreds of men lay there, French and English alike in their motley and the words from their mouths. Doctors with tight, sour faces tended the English first, then moved to the French-speaking soldiers if they decided to do so. Jean-Baptiste’s wound was light, and so they put him at the very end of the long lines of the wounded. Jean-Baptiste did not mind; he was scarcely aware of what was being discussed by these men. All he could think of were the young boys who had laughed and played together, who had grown up to fight other men’s battles and die horribly in defeat. But finally, something did catch his eye which distracted him from his terrible losses. Jean-Baptiste noticed that a few of the dead were lain out close by the wounded camp. They were dressed in more admirable livery. They seemed the kind of men who were akin to the seigneurs that would ride past in haste, ignorant of the peasants and ordinary folk who had to dive away from the horses’ path. Anguish was replaced with fury, and a savage happiness that these rich and arrogant men were now dead. One of the bodies struck him as being particularly important. He was dressed in the most elaborate of the uniforms, with intricate decorations spattered with dried blood. His face, cleaned by the physician gleamed in the sunlight with that paleness which is common in corpses. He seemed so peaceful in death, as though he were merely resting from a day’s labour in the fields rather than having been killed on the battlefield. What struck Jean-Baptiste about this man was the number of officers who looked over 24

his body and mourned him. Not in an unmanly sort of weeping, but more a silent acknowledgement of great admiration on their part towards the still form that was once a living man. Jean-Baptiste turned to a wounded militiaman from Quebec next to him, and asked him in French, “Who is that man?” The wounded man grimaced, ugly with contempt, and he spat out a reply, “That is the wolf himself. The British General who led these men.” Jean-Baptiste paused, and looked back at the corpse of the general. He did not much like a wolf at all. The English wolf had not lived to see the completion of his victory. He had died on the field with so many of his enemies. Now his corpse was left to be honoured by his allies, even as they were left to complete the task thus far incomplete. The great fort of Quebec was still in French hands, if Jean-Baptiste’s eyes were not mistaken. The French flag waved gaily in the breeze, giving hope to Jean-Baptiste as he stared at the general who had brought so much ruin to Nouveau France but had not lived to tear the French flags down. What a thing it was, to survive such a defeat, only to see what victory had cost this English general. What had been his final thoughts? Did he have brothers of his own whom he loved? Now he was dying, alone, and far away from them. How ironic, then, that Jean-Baptiste, bereft of his brothers so close by him on the field, should bear witness to his enemy’s death. Jean-Baptiste sighed as the stabs of pain in his arm broke through his thoughts. He suddenly felt tired, so he made sure that his wound was well covered. He lay down to rest, still staring at the dead general so close to his side. An English wolf who had died like a dog, cheated of his victory as cruelly as how he had snatched it from men like Jean-Baptiste.

o n

f a i l u r e

ANDREW KAI HANGSING A year lost to a blunder on my part, A scary glimpse of failure hovering above, To myself, whispered I, “Fall not apart!” But the reality was as harsh as it was tough. A fallen angel could share the pain; T’was as hard to narrate as it was to bear For amidst dreams of turning a saint, Falling from grace is indeed unfair. Yet we reap but what we sow And a year of recklessness would only grow Into a tree of failure with fruits none And beneath it, you stand alone. For from a heavy heart cometh a soulful song, From a long sufferer cometh the best stories; Yes, from among the weakest cometh the strong And they who toil alone create histories.

Last Ones at the Fair SIOBHAN LOCKE

Toes at the edge of the water, muscles tensed, fists clenched. Gripped by a fear of the unknown, I linger in this liminal space, letting the ocean lap at my feet, inviting me with its frothy reach, softening the sand beneath me. I am torn once again between the thrill of the mystery, the novelty, the exhilarating potential, and the cold shock, the murky depths, and the threat of a point of no return. Last ones at the fair, standing in awe of the elephant, I hold on to her hand tightly, longing to go and to stay all at once. Its slow gait, rhythmic and effortless, its trunk swaying easily, its gentle disposition, seem so innate, so purposeful. Softly treading the earth, silent and statuesque, it makes its modest mark on the world unapologetically. I am enthralled. I am motionless. With shallow breaths and sweaty palms, I am filled with dread as I stand at the podium. Looking down, my voice rises tentatively, a faint echo clumsily climbing its way up only to dissipate. Gaining momentum, my voice slips and wavers but persists, clawing its way, finding its footing. The words woven so carefully from my own mind have become empty, rendered weak by fright. Finally I shift my gaze and lift my head slowly to confirm my fear but am met with kind eyes and acknowledging smiles. They defy my firmly held belief that I am not good enough. A lifetime of hesitation, of teetering between the danger of dreams and the comfort of familiar terrain has taken its toll. Anxious to let go of the knot in my stomach and the niggling voice that exaggerates my inadequacies, exaggerates the risk, and feeds off of my doubts; I stand at the lip of the precipice, anticipating the freefall, ready to dive, ready to soar.

AISHA ALI

The Latest Installment ALYSSA COOPER

Watching numbers climb and it’s like cold sweats; like my largest organ is weeping for the gain, and I am a raincloud, so desperate to be small that I will tear out my insides in cold little drops, rip out my stuffing like gutted teddy bears, and leave it scattered behind me in snow drifts - because there is no pleasure in being soft, no accomplishment in expansion, and I am clutching the memory of double digits like technicolor dream trips, and I am all tooth and claw, ready to drag myself back there. And this is just the latest instalment in a long series of poems dedicated to the beauty of my bones; another episode in this endless cycle of recovery/relapse, recovery/relapse, recovery/ relapse, like I am only allowed to love myself so long, like I am a calendar and the page just turned to December, and my flesh is ice ready to be chipped away, like I am a winter sculpture, carved to perfection by the brutal teeth of chainsaws, like I am the reason it snows, I am an icicle, melting away to a perfect point - no matter what that may mean for the run off. And recovery is beautiful, they’re not lying when they say it, but beauty is fickle, like spring flowers die in summer and rot in autumn, and now it is winter again, and I’m not interested in beauty; I’m looking for a warm blanket, a soft cocoon, I’m looking for the fire on the hearth and I don’t care if it burns me. I don’t care if these embers burrow through my skin like meteors, because recovery is beautiful, it is true – but relapse is comfortable.

August 11th

MIRANDA RAMNARES The man with the moustache smiled. It was April 15th. The damp morning clung, drifting around the crinkled cotton sheets, fattening the air and weighing against his tissue-paper skin. Slowly, the man with the moustache leaned out of bed, absently running his fingers over the patch of tousled sheets left by the impression of his wife’s body. Right now, she would be downstairs, clapping her floured hands, swirling a spoon, conducting an orchestra of sugar and metal and heat. She always made the same breakfast on Sundays, thick buttermilk pancakes and hot syrup that poured like water and cooled on their plates in dense amber pools, waiting for the sweep of a finger to wade through, waiting to flow through the creeks of their palms and be lapped away lazily as the morning spun to afternoon. He leaned out of bed and spotted a small note on the nightstand. It read, “We’re out of OJ. Don’t forget to pick some up! Love, Jane”. He had promised to buy orange juice; she drank it every morning, smacking her lips at the sharp taste of it against her freshly brushed teeth. He began to make his way to the bathroom at the end of the hall, waiting to catch the soft notes of whatever she was humming. *** Somehow he was on his knees, still in his worn t-shirt and sweatpants. He stood unsteadily, hoping that he hadn’t hit his head. They needed orange juice. His wife drank it every morning. The man with the moustache smiled. It was April 15th. He stepped into the cool ceramic light of the bathroom, a swish of cold water over his palms, an abrupt icy slap against his downy cheeks. He pulled a thick sweater and pants out of the teetering cabinet; he was always cold now, even in the heavy spring air, faint remnants of March slipped over his bones. Padding down the carpeted stairs, he waited for the buttery scent of French toast to warm the air. Slower now. His bones croaked. He paused cautiously. The straight lines of the walls and floor tilted before him. The air was cold and empty, quivering as if he was still beneath the surface of a dream. *** The day shone through sticky windowpanes and tissue curtains. A cloudless sky lapped overhead, a bright azure, fading to pale blue as it met the crooked peaks of the houses. The man with the moustache smiled. The house was silent. His wife was still in bed. They were out of orange juice. He stepped out the door, pulling on a tired baseball cap, the plastic brim blushing at the edge of its frayed lining. First out of concern, then in muted humour, his wife bought him a new hat every holiday. In a quiet joke of his own, he hung each up dutifully and left them untouched. Outside, the afternoon beckoned, warmed by the sun slowly arching upwards, cooled only slightly by the mist of the morning fluttering through the air like a fading heartbeat. Still, it was unnaturally warm for an April day, heat draped about him like a clammy blanket and he felt the faint touch of sweat around his collar. The closest corner store was a couple of blocks away. The clerk there knew him by name, always greeted him with a loud wave and a stunted conversation. Despite the short distance, the man with the moustache walked for nearly fifteen minutes. By the time he reached the ringing glass door, a sticky damp had collected in his armpits and beneath his hat, the rush of cold air from inside the shop washed over him as the clerk sung out a soaring “Hello!” He waved and shuffled past the dusty metal shelves to the refrigerator at the back, pulling out a heavy carton of juice that boasted that it was “Pulp-Free and Fresh 31

Squeezed”. “And how are you today?” The clerk asked him with an odd, quivering smile. “Hot. Yourself?” A short chuckle. “Not bad, not bad. Just orange juice again?” “My wife’s favourite.” He responded with a smile. The man with the moustache slid a five-dollar bill onto the counter, any other day, he would have stayed longer to talk. But today, there was no time, his wife would be awake soon and he wanted to greet her with a fresh glass of juice in bed, so she would know that he had remembered. He imagined her in that morning light, her smile composed of a thousand tiny folds. As they had grown older, he realized that what he most loved about her was her wrinkles. The way they concealed a spark that winked beneath her eyes, the way the city lights hid the tinsel streams of stars in the sky. Her smile was the scene when he had first dared to kiss her. A forest creek at midnight, the world around them spinning and smouldering, his lips touching hers and the night standing still. Purling above them, the infinite stars had perched like diamonds on the lacework of the branches; in the depths of that soft, dark night they held each other, glowing, breathless and forever. Perhaps it was the weight of the orange juice, perhaps it was the sudden burst of heat that hit him as soon as he stepped out of the shop. His head began to throb, the thought of his wife smiling clawed at the inside of his skull. He felt a tremor begin at his knees, stuttering up to his arms, he needed to sit. He needed to think.

*** The man with the moustache frowned. He was lost. He was sitting on the curb. They needed orange juice. It was hot. He would surprise his wife with a glass of it in bed. She drank it every morning. He needed to get home. He was lost. He heard a tinkling chime, some brisk footsteps on gravel. “Is everything alright? Are you hurt?” a deep voice bellowed behind him. Turning, he replied, “No. I need directions; I think I must have taken a wrong turn. I have to get to the corner shop. I need orange juice for my wife” “I – I know” the stranger’s voice seemed heavy, the words tumbling rather than floating out of his mouth. The man with the mustache absently wondered what was wrong. “You just bought some, a few minutes ago, do you remember? It was only a few minutes. You just walked out of there. A few minutes ago.” He felt a wave of nausea bow through him. “Please, I just need to buy orange juice and get home.” “You already bought the orange juice, look – *** – it’s right next to you, there! look!” The store clerk said, panic edging in his voice. The man with the moustache squinted up at the clerk; he seemed pale and frantic, looming over him. “Is everything alright?” The clerk winced, after a beat, he knelt down next the man with the moustache. “We need to get you home” “Ah. Age. Not as sharp as I used to be, my apologies” he mumbled, pushing against the ground to lurch himself up off the curb. His head swooned and the clerk held his arm quickly to steady him. “Thank you. Now I have to get back home, I’m not quite sure which street I took, could 32

you just point me towards Elm?” “I’ll walk you home” “No, no there’s no need, I can make it there – “ “I’m walking you home” There was no room for polite debate; the clerk carried the orange juice. “I live on Elm Street, just on the corner” “I know. I know” They walked for a short time, the houses flickering past, blurring in his memory. When they reached the front door, he paused. The clerk slowly handed the orange juice over, lingering in the tide of some unspoken inclination. “Thank you,” the man with the moustache said. Still the clerk stood on the stoop, peering past him, a hollow reflection in his eyes. Finally he spoke,“I have to call your son this time” “There isn’t any need for that. He’s very busy, did you know he’s getting married in a few months?” A strange wince before he spoke again, “You’re forgetting things. He should be here” “It’s fine. I have a lot of things to do today, thank you.” As he replied, he felt a well of frustration simmer inside of him. As quickly as he could, while still maintaining a wisp of courtesy, he said a solid goodbye to the clerk and closed the front door, turning inside the house. *** He stood displaced in his front hall, feeling the heft of a plastic bag in his hands. He opened it and saw a slim carton of orange juice. His wife drank it every morning. It was April 15th and man with the mustache smiled. He stepped through his home, the air thick and warm under a blanket of dust, making his way to the kitchen. For an April day it was unnaturally hot, the box of juice already slightly swollen and sweaty, he wanted to cool it in the fridge, his wife always liked it ice cold and biting. He opened the fridge. The chilled air hit him and he looked inside. *** The man with the mustache was confused. It was April 15th. The fridge was open in front of him. The air was clotted with an overwhelming stench, sugary and sickening. It was coming from the fridge. He looked inside. *** The man with the mustache smiled. The fridge was open. He looked inside. *** It was hot. Someone had left the fridge open. He looked inside. *** He looked inside the open fridge. *** They were in a hospital room. Tissue paper curtains and the sunlight flitting through sticky windowpanes. Strange soft beeps and errant wisps of conversation. They sat together numb on a cold metal bed. The doctor said, “I’m sorry.” She kept her window rolled down on the drive home. There was the howling wind and silence. The man with the moustache had nothing to say. They sat together on the bed, awake and silent until the morning light. The man with the moustache said, “I’m sorry.” 33

*** She drank orange juice every morning. He couldn’t stand the taste. “I read that it helps prevent Alzheimer’s. Something about the antioxidants” she would say, smacking her lips at the sharp taste of it against her freshly brushed teeth. Age was wearing them both down, slowly. Waves against rock, smoothing and shifting, eroding. Days spun past so quickly they blurred, nights became too deep to wade through. They were drowning. “You’re forgetting things,” she said over breakfast. The waves pulled him at him, roaring, the tide threatening to never return him to shore. *** “I’m sorry. It’s inoperable” the doctor said to his wife, “I’m so sorry” She left the windows down on the drive home. In the heavy spring air, faint remnants of March slipped over their bones. They sat together until the morning. “I’m sorry,” she said. *** The man with the moustache smiled. He knew what to do. After months of overflowing pill trays and doctors appointments and needles and hospital visits and screams in the night and coughs that left spots of blood on her sleeve. He finally knew what to do. He wrote. He penned their life together. Filled in gaps of his memory with words. “You’ve been forgetting things,” she would say over breakfast. He wrote. He wrote to prove to her that he could still remember it all. He wrote to keep himself from forgetting. He wrote because when she woke up aching in the night, all she wanted was to hear his voice. “You have your orange juice. I have this,” he would say. So he wrote. He wrote her a world where the energy he fell in love with was not dulled by pills, where they went on walks again and she could breathe without coughing, where her smile didn’t crack the corners of her lips. Where her heartbeat wasn’t fading The more they began to drift, fading apart from each other, the more he wrote. She slipped farther and farther away from him, he wrote them closer together. He mapped out their steps through the house. Carved out every faint detail, the feeling of the air, her impression in the sheets. He traced precise detail into descriptions of her waking early to cook breakfast, of himself quietly buying her orange juice at the corner store. He painted her smile as a night sky. He forgot his son’s name; her hair began to fall out. He kept writing. Life crashed against them, like a storm thrashing a cliff top, eroding, sending them crumbling back to the sea. *** The man with the moustache smiled. It was April 15th. The soft morning air drifted above them, lighting against his tissue paper skin. The man with the moustache leaned out of bed, absently running his fingers through the silver coils of his wife’s hair. They were out of orange juice. His wife drank it every morning. He left early for the corner store, pulling on his fading baseball cap, stepping out into the cool 34

spring air. It was April 15th. After a quick conversation with the store clerk, he hurried home, eager to greet her in bed with a glass of juice. The streets before him began to blur, his memory no longer clinging to the concrete and grass of his neighbourhood. He was lost. He must have taken a wrong turn; the houses before him were barren of any sort of familiarity. He must have taken a wrong turn. He looped back through the streets, the early morning beginning to fade to a damp afternoon. Panic began to shiver within; he could feel his stomach slowly twisting itself into knots as he paced endlessly down each sleepy lane of alien homes. He closed his eyes for a few brief moments then, hoping that the darkness would shift his mind back into place. His memory flickering back, he was three doors down from his house. He walked as quickly as he could, his bones seemed achier than he had realized. How long had he been out? It must have been only a few minutes. The house was still silent. In bed, his wife still lay curled beneath the sheets. The clock read April 15th, half past eleven; she hated sleeping in. He touched her shoulder lightly, brushed the hair away from her face. She had always been a light sleeper. He said her name. She was silent. She had always been a light sleeper. He shook her, he shouted. She lay motionless. She had always been a light sleeper. He dropped the juice, the glass shattered, chips of glass digging into the floor and into his knees, orange juice soaking through his clothes. She was silent. She had always been a light sleeper. She had slipped beneath the water now, for her the storm was over. *** The man with the moustache cried. He remembered. It was August 11th. The fridge before him was stacked with full cartons of orange juice. He crawled back to bed. He sat carefully on the edge of the mattress and pulled a small note out of his pocket. It read “We’re out of OJ. Don’t forget to pick some up! Love, Jane”. He held it against his lips, then placed it gently on the nightstand. *** The man with the moustache smiled. Tomorrow would be April 15th.

A Bouquet of Bullets JESSIE READ

and i think about the summer i spent in the psych ward how a hospital gown felt like jumpsuit wrapping around body like poison ivy is there are word for when your heart is too big for your body? when your organs don’t fit against your skin because you are too much i felt like i was too much and how is suicide shameful? because i couldn’t tell anyone i wanted to kill myself they just found me charcoaled mouth in the hospital didn’t know that i was suicidal just swallowed suicidal like taboo evaporating the aftertaste of stigma of what i shouldn’t be ashamed of like what if we were to let bullets kiss the side of my head? a gunshot splatters like raindrops pouring a bouquet of flesh trickling watercolours fireworks covering the pavement like a canvas my ex boyfriend calls me a beautiful disaster and how romantic that men fantasize about suicidal women with their manic pixie dream complexes because the stories about them only for the curtains to unveil to see how human we are like dance ventriloquist dummy, only when its convenience aren’t you going to change my world we want your body speaks a language only god can understand and i can’t understand because this isn’t your story fuck the manic pixie dream girl complex is there a word for being charcoaled mouthed in the hospital the word shouldn’t be apologetic because i’m not fucking sorry i have nothing to be ashamed of except our mental health system orchestrating me and nothing about not having the balloons at the corner of your mouth rise every morning is selfish the way treating self care like salvation is not selfish they say out 9/10 people who jumped off the golden gate bridge and survived regretted jumping 9/10 bouquets of flesh ready to splatter like a watercolour forest fire, their flesh kissing the ground a boutique of bullet wounds sparkling the pavement a canvass to anyone who’s tried to take there own life, you’re not selfish, it’s a miracle that you’re still surviving

Something to Prove JACOB BUTLETT

In sixth grade study hall, Nikki turned around, attention piqued. Bryan, Bruce, and Steven sat behind her, talking about the junkies living in the dilapidated steel factory on the outskirts of town.Then they noticed her and gave her the look, the conspiratorial glares of boys repulsed by girls, especially those like Nikki. She hated the look; their sharp eyes reminded her that she was boyish: she kept her hair short, her tank tops and plaid shirts ruffled, her denim shorts tight around her waist. Last week the boys called her a dyke. Not to her face, rarely to her face. But she knew the boys hated her for being different. She had friends—best friends since elementary school—but as she returned their glances with a smile, she started to feel less than them, like the effeminate boys they jostle in the hallway between classes. She wanted to fit in, to please. Her friends went to different schools in the area, so she spent most of the school day alone. Hoping to quell the look, she now smiled at Bryan and his friends, but they kept staring at her. “We’re trying to have a private conversation,” Bryan said. He was the leader of the group, the one she disliked, yet feared, the most. She lowered her eyes. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I was just curious, that’s all.” “About what?” Bryan demanded. “The factory.” She lifted her eyes. “Have any of you actually seen the junkies in person?” Bryan looked at his friends. The three of them gave slight nods. “Of course we have,” Bruce said. “Have you?” “Well, no,” she said, “but I could go if I wanted to.” Steven looked amazed. “You’ve never been to the factory?” “Why would I go to a stupid factory?” “Of course you’d think it’s stupid,” Steven said. “You’re just a girl.” “Just a girl?” She wanted to slap him, but pinched her arms instead, easing her anger with the pain. She sounded bold but plaintive. “I could go to the factory if I wanted to.” “Yeah, right,” Bryan mumbled. “I could,” she said. “I can do anything you guys can do.” Bruce and Steven turned to Bryan as though he were their master, waiting orders. Bryan’s eyes remained trained on Nikki. He didn’t have to do much to make her feel pathetic. She turned to the floor and he laughed. Almost at the same time Bruce and Steven laughed along. Nikki turned back around in her seat without saying another word. When study hall ended, she could still hear their laughter inside her mind. ••• When the school bell rang, announcing the beginning of summer vacation, Nikki hurried down the hallway to the main entrance without saying goodbye to anyone. She kept her eyes on the ground, thinking of Bryan, thinking of the factory. She had a plan, crudely made, crudely simple, but she knew what she had to do. Once outside the school, she ran down the street to the bus stop in the mall parking lot. She didn’t have to wait long for the bus to arrive; she rode it to the outskirts of town. No one questioned her as she got off alone and began to trudge into the nearby woods, a dark stretch of elms, crabgrass, and ferns. On the other side lay a gravel road that cut across the countryside. She strode down the gravel road and, minutes later, saw the factory the boys were talking about. Her heart pounded with joy and fear. She never expected going to the factory for any reason, but she had to prove to herself that she wasn’t just a girl. She could be anyone–anything– she damn wanted to be. She crawled through an opening in the factory’s barbwire fence. Gravel crunched under her sneakers. She shuffled across the lot, stepping over glass shards and glancing at the cigarette butts, tattered 37

blankets, and discarded water jugs lying about in piles. From the factory came an odor. Body odor and piss. Keeping her breath steady, not wanting to vomit, she crept through the side entrance. A concrete wall stood at the beginning of a long hallway, profuse with light, dust, fallen crossbeams, and tin garbage cans. As she covered her nose with the bottom of her shirt, she peeked around the corner. A couple of shoeless women in pink nylons and black blouses were walking down the hallway. Nikki watched as they stopped at a cart full of bulging garbage bags next to a shattered window. They wrapped their arms around the man leaning against the windowpane. The man wore nothing but army boots and a gray baseball cap. Sweat coated his face. His eyes were closed, his left hand scratching his exposed crotch, his other hand holding a beer. Nikki, who had never seen a naked man in person before, looked on in awe. She lowered her shirt to grab her camera cellphone and crawled to the other side of the wall and suddenly inhaled a waft of dust. She pinched her nose, the phone tottering in her free hand. Before she could do anything, the phone fumbled and struck the floor. She felt as if she had just awoken a large, rabid dog. Along with the women, the man stepped back from the window. “Who’s there?” he shouted, and rushed to the cart. Nikki inspected her phone—it wasn’t cracked—and looked down the hallway. The man brandished a pistol. She started to run back the way she came. The man fired into the air twice. She yelped, ran faster. “This is our place, you little brat!” he declared, and fired another shot. For a moment she thought a bullet would ricochet off the steel rafter and hit her in the head, but she panted in relief as she jumped out of the side entrance of the factory and crawled back through the opening in the fence. She had never risked her life like that. When she reached the gravel road, she grinned with pride. Her heart was rapping. She trudged back into town, eager to tell her friends Sophia and Mia what she’d done. ••• “Are you stupid?” said Sophia later that evening. Nikki, Sophia, and Mia sat on Nikki’s bed, passing along a blunt. Drapes decaled in the Green Bay Packer logo hung above the windows, while posters of the latest indie band, DeathScream, were pinned on the walls. Novels Nikki couldn’t understand but wanted to reread over the summer—Mrs. Dalloway and To Kill a Mockingbird, in particular—lay at the foot of the bed. Sophia scratched her own pixie cut with confusion, looking at Nikki with reproach. Dressed in a pair of navy blue overalls, Mia passed the blunt to Nikki, who took a drag and avoided looking at Sophia. Mia laughed. “What’s so funny?” Sophia said. “Oh, lighten up,” Mia said. “She’s fine, isn’t she?” Sophia leaned closer to Nikki. “Tell me you were just acting stupid.” “I wasn’t acting stupid,” Nikki said. “I thought you’d be proud of me. It’s about time someone stood up to Bryan.” “By going to the factory, alone?” Sophia said. “Do you have a brain tumor or something? Why would you risk your life going to the factory?” Nikki shrugged. “Tell us,” Sophia said, setting down the blunt. Nikki was silent for a long time. “Do you remember the parking lot story?” Nikki remembered the story. Once, Bryan and his friends had convinced a substitute teacher she was a boy. She’d wanted to cry; Sophia and Mia remembered the incident well. Instead of crying, Nikki had come up to Bruce in the school parking lot after lunch and punched him in the gut. Mia’s brother, Steven, rushed to Bruce’s side, but Nikki shoved them both against a parked car. Steven fell on top of Bruce and together they moaned in pain. She towered over them and, tears streaming 38

down her cheeks, told them to never make fun of her again. But Bryan came out from nowhere and elbowed her to the ground. She yelped in surprise more than pain and covered her eyes to hide her sorrow. When she got home, she went to her bedroom and looked at a recent picture of herself on her phone. She looked at her freckles, the boyish nose, and the plaid shirt she was wearing in the picture. She felt like such a girl. “I remember,” Sophia answered. “I’ll never forget.” “He should’ve been expelled,” Mia said. She picked up the blunt. “Don’t let him make you feel like shit. You have nothing to prove.” Nikki thought of the condescending look Bryan gave her at school today. She couldn’t stop thinking of his face, the bravado in his eyes. “Guys want to make women prove themselves,” Mia went on. “They’re assholes like that.” “Maybe you’re right,” Nikki started, then heard a noise outside the house. Sophia turned to the open window. “Who’s calling?” The three of them walked over to the window. Bryan, Bruce, and Steven stood below. Steven looked at his sister. “I’ve been trying to text you for the last hour!” he called. “Mom wants us.” “Hold on,” Mia said. “I’ll be down.” Nikki looked at Bryan. He looked back at her. Even though she stood above him, she felt as though he were a foot in front of her, giving her the look. He turned to leave. “Wait!” she called. Her friends and the boys froze. This was her chance to show: she told the boys about the factory and the naked man. Sophia tugged on her arm. Mia reminded her that she didn’t owe anyone—not even these jerks—anything. Nikki ignored them, eyes affixed on Bryan, who watched her without blinking. “That’s a load of bull,” he said. “Where’s your proof?” Steven said. “Take pictures? Or did you ask the guy for his number?” Sophia stuck her head out the window. “She could’ve died!” “Don’t be hysterical,” Bruce said. “She was only shot at.” “Only shot at?” Mia said. They waited for Bryan to speak. He crossed his arms. “Do you have anything from the factory? The pistol?” “Do you think she asked the guy if she could borrow it?” Sophia said. Bryan and Nikki weren’t paying attention to Sophia. Their eyes were locked on each other. He grinned and she twitched. “You’re just a dumb liar,” he said. “Come on, guys.” Bruce and Steven trailed after him. “Wait!” Nikki said. Sophia and Mia pulled her back. “What are you doing?” Sophia said. “We believe you. So what if he doesn’t?” “I know what I’m doing,” Nikki said, and returned to the window. Bryan stood directly below. “If I take a picture of the naked guy in the factory, will you believe me?” “If it’s a real picture,” he said. “It’ll be real,” Nikki said. “I’ll send you one before the end of summer.” “No.” “No what?” “No. I want the picture by tomorrow evening. Or it doesn’t count,” he smirked at his friends. “Are you crazy?” Nikki said. “You create the challenge and I create the rules. That’s how it works.” “Says who?” “Me.” Bryan walked away. Bruce and Steven followed. On the curb, Steven gestured for Mia to come. 39

Mia turned to Nikki. “That’s the dumbest thing you’ve ever done. You won’t gain Bryan’s respect for risking your life.” “She’s right,” Sophia said. “Besides, you don’t need his respect.” “I don’t care,” Nikki said, coming up with another plan. “I’m going tomorrow. Coming along?” Sophia and Mia looked at each other. “Do we have a choice?” Sophia said to Nikki. “Everyone’s got a choice,” Nikki said. “Well? Are you going to help a friend out? I’ve never asked for anything.” Sophia and Mia looked at each other again. “We’ll take a picture of the guy and leave,” she reassured. At last, Sophia said, “I’ll come along—but only to make sure you’ll be safe.” “Me too,” Mia said. “Ten minutes. Tops.” “Shouldn’t take that long,” Nikki said. “You sure you want this?” Sophia asked. “This is happening so fast.” “I know what I’m doing.” Sophia and Mia exchanged looks. “Honest,” Nikki said. “It’s going to be fine. Ten minutes. That’s it.” Sophia and Mia nodded with apprehension and soon left together. ••• It was the hottest day of the year. Black hornets flew long the gravel road to the factory. In a nearby field an osprey stood on the head of a scarecrow and glanced at the cloudless sky. A tractor rumbled less than a quarter mile away, a din of passing cicadas masked the dulling rumble. From outside the factory was silent. Nikki and her friends entered the building. Two hours ago they’d agreed to the plan via text messages: Nikki brought the weapons just in case—old baseball bats she’d found discarded in an alleyway—then she’d take the naked man’s picture with her phone, then the three of them would run to the exit. If anything happened, they would leave the factory and never return. As Nikki mapped out the exit in her mind, the three of them stepped into the hallway. They each held a baseball bat, firmly. They sidled forward and circumvented the garbage cans and crossbeams; they crossed the luminous window and noticed the two bullet holes in the ceiling. Rust and mold clung to the edges of the walls, the corners of the hallway shadowy and piled in metallic scraps. White and blue bird feces painted the rafters. Made of straw and milkweed, birds’ nests sat in the crevices near the ceiling. They shivered at the sight of a bat hanging over the man’s bed. They stepped in front of the man. Nikki still clutched the baseball bat and phone. Naked, the man slept on a pile of mattresses and cardboard boxes, his head resting on a roll of paper towels. Mia leaned closer to Nikki. “I’ll take the picture and send it to my brother. He’ll show it to Bryan.” Before Nikki could remind her of the plan, Mia seized the phone and took a picture. “I’ll send the picture when we get outside. C’mon.” “Right behind you,” Sophia said, the bat shaking in her hands. She and Mia turned to leave, but Nikki whispered for them to stop. “We got what you wanted,” Sophia said. “C’mon.” “Not yet,” Nikki said. “I need to get something.” “Like what?” Mia said. “I already took the damn picture.” Nikki was improvising. With her bat Nikki pointed to the pistol on the man’s chest. “If Bryan wants proof, I’ll get the asshole proof.” As the man snored, his hands rested on the pistol. Nikki reached forward and peeled his fingers from the weapon. She plucked it and stepped back. Mia shook her head in disappointment. Sophia looked around frantically. “Let’s leave,” Sophia said, “and never come back.” 40

They turned around. The two women from yesterday were marching toward them. Nikki and her friends fumbled back, the women’s high heels clacking. One of the women told them to stay put, and Nikki cringed as the woman’s shrill voice reverberated throughout the hallway. The man woke up and crawled to his feet. Sophia swung the bat, but the man caught it and yanked it from her hands. Mia threw Nikki’s phone into a pants pocket. The women glowered at Nikki and her friends, flashing rotting teeth. The girls huddled together. “Hand it over,” the man said, hand outstretched. Sophia began to cry. Mia stood frozen. Nikki looked at the pistol. Smelling of cleaning oil and gunpowder, it was warm in her hand. She raised the pistol and the bat. The man glared at her. “What are you waiting for?” Mia stuttered. Nikki took another step back. She thought once more of Bryan’s face, the look like a grimacing smirk behind her eyes like a nightmare. “Hand it over,” the man said. “What are you waiting for?” Mia repeated to Nikki. “Do as he says.” In Nikki’s mind the look grew. She wanted to throw down the gun, but the gun was additional proof. She squeezed the grip, hard. The gun’s muzzle was like a large mouth; it quivered in her trembling hand. She considered pointing it forward, to scare the man and the women clinging to him like tattered shawls. But instead she raised the bat and whispered to Mia and Sophia, “Prepare to run.” “Run?” they whispered back. The man stepped forward. “I won’t hurt you,” he said. “But I’m getting impatient. Hand. It. Over!” He lunged forward. Nikki swung the back, and it hit the back left shoulder. As he fumbled back, the women caught him. Nikki pushed her friends into a doorway to their right. “Run!” she screamed. “C’mon, c’mon, c’mon!” Nikki and her friends sprinted down a hallway. It led deeper into the factory. The building was getting darker the farther they ran. Nikki glanced behind her: the women and the man were chasing after them. Nikki dashed around a bend and down another hallway; panting and sweating; the sounds of stomping feet reverberating throughout the building like a dozen hearts thumping in her ears. She looked back again: Mia and Sophia weren’t there, but she could their footfalls going in a different direction in a different hallway. She rounded another corner. The factory was like a maze, dark and dank and reeking. She heard the sounds of mumbling voices farther ahead. She remembered the junkies Bryan and the other boys were talking about at school. The mumbling voices. The junkies. Dead ahead. She stopped in mid-sprint, almost crashing into a wall, and she thought about turning back, away from the voices, away from the enveloping dark. She turned around: the naked man had rounded a corner and was coming at her. Without second-guessing herself, she opened a random door and sprinted past a group of homeless women sleeping in cardboard tents, teenagers smoking blunts next to overstuffed carts, and two men kissing with needles in their arms. They all gawked at her as though she were an apparition. She tried not to look at them as she contemplated flinging every door open. There must’ve been fire escape somewhere, she thought, so she ran without stopping. At last she burst open a door at the end of yet another hallway. And stumbled through the narrow doorway. She had found a large room, pieces of torn down conveyor belts and mangled chains and piping lying about. A wall of cracked and moldy windows let in some sunshine. At least three dozen people stood or sat about. Many slept, smoked, drank, chatted. Out from a dark corner a half-dressed man and woman stumbled and watched Nikki cross the room, her eyes downcast, hoping that they would ignore her. A bulky man in sweatpants and a tight undershirt rose from a crate and followed her. 41

Several people rose. Their voices remained soft, yet threatening; the people were like snakes following their prey through a pit of garbage cans, rusty machinery, puddles of urine. The door on the other side of the room was open. It exposed a fire escape. Suddenly, a younger man with a face caked with dirt stumbled forward and grabbed Nikki’s arm. She shuddered. Spun around. Swung the bat. She couldn’t think clearly. Recoiling off his chest, the bat flew toward a sleeping woman. The man fell back. A bulky man caught him. The door she came through burst open and the naked man stomped in and screamed for Nikki to stop. The others in the room rushed upon her in a ring of swaying, stinking bodies. She pointed the pistol at a nearby junkie. “Let me through!” she demanded, and imagined Bryan standing in the crowd. He was frightened, at her mercy. She told everyone around her to back off. They formed a path to the fire escape: several gaunt men wearing nothing but boxers eyed her; women in gray sundresses retreated to the back of the group with crying infants at their breasts; dressed in leather pants and a ruffled tee, a boy helped an elderly woman away from the crowd. The boy and the woman reminded Nikki of Sophia and Mia. She lowered the pistol. “Throw it here,” the naked man said. “I only want what’s mine.” Other people urged her to hand over the pistol. Her heart rapped, body becoming ponderous under their glares. She thought about throwing the pistol into the farthest corner of the room. The bums and junkies, like a family, waited for her to act. Still she couldn’t think straight. “Please hand it over,” the naked man said. He sounded amiable, almost like a friend. “You’re safe. You’ve got nothing to prove.” Bryan’s face and voice crossed her mind. The man wrapped himself with a blanket and stepped forward with a reassuring smile. In Nikki’s head everything went blank. Gasps from the crowd. A sharp ringing in her ears. She looked forward in disbelief, her fingers trembling. She has fired the bullet into the naked man’s stomach. She jolted back and the crowd screamed. The naked man flailed back into a puddle of urine. Several men and women dropped to his side and held him as he writhed. Nikki watched from the doorway with horror, not understanding what she had just done. Several people ran forward. She shot into the air several times, warning shots. When they scrambled back, she backed out of the room and then descended the fire escape. She didn’t look back. ••• Nikki saw Sophia and Mia standing outside the fence that surrounded the factory. They called out her name, their faces crinkled with tears. Nikki sprinted across the lot and crawled to their side. Then the women from the first hallway jumped out of the side entrance and ordered the girls to stop. But the three of them raced down the road leading away from the factory, and then they dove into thicket of tallgrass and tried to keep silent as the women rushed through the grass in a frantic search to find them. Sophia covered her mouth to prevent herself from crying aloud. Mia held her. Nikki watched the women return to the factory emptyhanded. The girls stepped back onto the road, but Mia shoved Nikki onto the ground and pinned her down with her knees. Sophia tried to push Mia away, but Mia nudged her back. Nikki squirmed under the weight of Mia’s bony knees. “What’s your deal?” Mia exclaimed. “You could’ve gotten us killed. And for what? For a stupid gun?” “Leave Nikki alone,” Sophia said. “Yeah, she shouldn’t have stolen the gun, but that guy almost killed her. Didn’t you hear the gunshots?” Mia stared at Nikki. Then came a pause, long and gravid. “How did he get the gun from you?” It was an accusation. Nikki got to her feet an averted her eyes. “What happened after we separated? Tell me.” She glanced at the pistol in Nikki’s hands. Nikki remained silent. “Tell us!” “Let’s talk about this later,” Sophia begged. “I want to go home.” Mia didn’t move. The silence between her and Nikki was impregnable. Nikki opened her mouth, but 42

closed it. Mia said, “You shot him. Didn’t you?” Nikki looked away. Mia shook her head with disgust, rose to her feet, and started to walk down the road. Sophia trailed behind. Nikki climbed to her feet and struggled to keep up with them. “You don’t understand,” Nikki said. “Is he hurt?” Mia said without turning around. “I think in the chest. I think.” Mia stopped and turned around, almost bumping into Sophia. Mia’s face was scarlet with rage. “We should never have come. Fuck. We should never have come.” “I didn’t mean it,” Nikki said in a low voice. “Shut up,” Mia said. “You had nothing to prove coming here in the first place.” “But—” “Shut up,” Mia snapped. “We know Bryan’s a prick, but what are you?” “I’m still your friend.” Mia went on ahead in silence. Sophia flashed Nikki a smile, but joined Mia a second later. Nikki trailed behind, still holding onto the pistol. ••• When the bus dropped them off, Sophia and Mia started to walk back to Sophia’s place. Nikki tried to follow, but Sophia told her now wasn’t the best time. Nodding in acknowledgment, Nikki said she’d call them later. Sophia and Mia didn’t say anything back. They might not be Nikki’s friend anymore; Nikki tried not to think about it on her way to Bryan’s place. The sun beat on and a balmy breeze, smelling of dandelions, passed through the neighborhood; kids played basketball on the street; a block over, an ice cream truck sang its luring tune. Soon Nikki reached Bryan’s home. Bryan’s bedroom window was open. “Are you up there, you stupid prick?!” she called. Moments later Bryan poked his head out the window and gave Nikki the look. It didn’t faze her; she knew it wouldn’t affect her the same way again. “What the hell do you want?” he said. “Here. Take it.” She threw the pistol through the window. He held up the pistol in astonishment. “Jesus. Is this real?” he said. “Is this that guy’s gun, the guy from the factory?” “It’s yours now.” The look was gone. His face crinkled with alarm. “What the hell am I supposed to do with it?” “Don’t care. Yours now. Told you I could go to the factory if I wanted to.” She stood there, numb and motionless. She thought about calling Sophia and Mia, but remembered Mia still had her phone. She started to walk back the way she came. Bryan called out her name, pleading her to get rid of the gun, but she kept on walking. Soon his face, the look, melted away in her mind, but an image of the naked guy resurfaced, bloody and dying or perhaps by now dead, his eyes fixed on her as he tremored in the laps and arms of his friends. His pained expression was the new look. And she knew it. Minutes later, she reached home. Her palms smelled of gunpowder and her shirt smelled like a puddle of stale piss.

Not a Failure

LINDA M. CRATE i am not a failure no matter what anyone believes simply because i fail to live the life they say i ought to because they don’t know my heart or my dreams i am an ambitious girl going to tackle mountains and make my dreams reality, and i don’t need anyone to tell me that i’m doing it wrong remind me of my past failures or hold grudges against things i’ve done years ago because i am a different person now stronger than i’ve ever been before— yes, i may stumble and fall; but it’s part of the dance i will never give up and i will never give in to defeat because i refuse to gain anything less than success i refuse to give up on myself because i am worth it so no matter how many times i am discouraged i will be encouraged that tomorrow is a different day and i can be a different person than i was yesterday.

Until the Morning MEGAN WHITING

And still the tears came; fast and hot and beyond my control. I was silent in my sorrow, grief dripping down my cheeks and coursing through my body. And then your arms were around me, your chest against my back; offering comfort in a world turned suddenly black. And the same arms guided me to safety, sought sanctuary and placed me there, held me until I sobbed myself to sleep; shaking off my shroud of sadness until the morning.

ASHLEY NEWTON

Long Forgotten AIKO M.

Sparkling eyes twinkling in the sunset, Feeling the warm breeze tickle my skin, I turn to you, but for some reason I can’t see your face. I stare at you in confusion, although deep inside, I know the reason. As you caress my face, I can’t feel your touch, or even hear your voice when you speak to me. I rub my eyes; hoping whatever is blinding me will go away, But it doesn’t, instead your shape and form continues to get blurrier than before. I try to concentrate, but I ended up getting a headache from thinking too hard. You try to comfort me by patting my head, but all I feel is a whoosh past my head. I place a hand on my heart, but there is no rapid heartbeat, just the simple pitter-patter of my heart, as if you and I are no longer connected as lovers or friends. I continue to be confused, and frightened, not understanding what is happening between us. I thought it was I; who had failed you, but suddenly a thought enters my mind, telling me to close my eyes, and so I did. Memories flash in my mind, and all the times we have had together come flowing in. All the times you cheated, and every time I forgave you, but yet you still repeated the same mistakes, made me realize that you failed me. Countless failures of yours caused me to close my heart, so even being near your presence would cause me to want to banish you away. Now I know the reason, the reason why I can’t see you or hear you, and everything has become clear. So I take deep breaths, removing all negative, and confused thoughts out of my head, so I can open my eyes with a clearer mind. I opened my eyes, and you were no longer there. I looked around, but there was no trace of you left. It was for the best, with your numerous failures, you weren’t worth to be near me. I came to a conclusion that you came to me as a mirage, as it seems that you were already… Long Forgotten.

A Miniscule Flashing Light MICHELLE HILLYARD A languid turn in the early morning’s glow revealed a dark sea, bed sheets plastered between thighs. My hand trembled, reached, retracted; fingertips stained red. You were gone. I saw your heart once, a minuscule flashing light on a screen. Tucked so deep inside me, held so tight, so safe. You were pulled out piece by piece, laid to rest on the counter, a clear plastic jar labelled – ‘Medical waste to burn.’ My body wept to let you go, shed bright red tears, drained my heart so I could follow. They scraped me clear of the weeping walls I had made to nourish, to grow, to protect you. Stripped me hollow. Energy never dies, it only transforms. And your heart – a miniscule flashing light – pulses in my mind. I shutter my eyes, and sink into the dark to find you. 49

P e o p l e

BRUCE KAUFFMAN i see i watch 2 people close friends falling off the cliffs of their lives iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve compassionately without judgement grabbed their hands as they stood on that ledge and holding on with all that is in me again today i feel my grasp loosening their weight increasingly pull this the full of gravity for them against a monotonous slow tango and now still dancing the only dance left after the music ends

How the Light Gets In BOB MACKENZIE

back in the corner among death and brown blight the first wild rose has appeared in my garden a miracle of resurrection promising renewed life heavy mist shrouds my garden in the early morning not so much soft-focus as ominous and foreboding a portent of dark beginning to befall the world still somewhere distant and fading I hear birdsong a voice of hope that briefly cuts through this mist slightly softens the chill in the air and in my bones in this early morning light what’s not brown is grey a sunless black and white world waiting death to come yet here’s a rose and there a bird singing and I wait I wait watching for more omens to appear good or bad and the poet has told us there’s a crack in everything so I watch for the crack to open up and for the light through eternity I stand at this window and I watch see the wild rose rise through the dead weeds and mist hear the songbird’s voice fade quaver start to return out of the concrete sky I hear geese as they pass by less honking than barking like a pack of dogs hunting and I wonder just what it is they pursue so fervently the sound of geese draws my attention up to the clouds clouds like a grey wall of concrete barring all light and I watch and I wait perhaps to see those four horses ever so slight a crack is appearing in the concrete sky l ight forcing the crack wide and bleeding into the mist painting the grey of my garden shades of green and gold there’s hope here and for now I breathe a relieved sigh begin to see the importance of this crack in everything begin to know in my heart that’s how the light gets in

And the Sign Says... JACK M. FREEDMAN

On the X 10 crossing the Verrazano I saw a sign that read life is worth living Underneath the credo was the phone number for LifeNet The suicide prevention hotline provided by New York City Scenery changes to underground Where subway trains are electrified by the grid Where the edges of platforms Need that same sign I could have been a statistic I could have hung upon the yellow circle with a black R like fuzzy dice Gambling with my life As if the train was a solitary bullet in a game of Russian Roulette Developments of subway casualties would be denoted in surveys Exposing blankets of trauma by both jumpers and straphangers Nonprofit organizations Might have commemorated my fatality anonymously in a bar graph had the attempt been completed Many ignore that corny credo entering the hearts and minds Of those wanting to intentionally transition between earth and ether Consider the emerald tablet The doctrine of Hermetic alchemy That which is above is like to that which is below And that which is below is like to that which is above Heaven and hell, bridges and tunnels, Eros and Thanatos, the blessed and the damned A will to die is always greeted with an easy and accessible method And a will to live comes with the complexity derived from avoiding said method I think of Tennessee Williamsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; play the glass menagerie Remembering how Tom Wingfield was terminated for splaying stanzas on shoeboxes 52

I must follow suit In my quest to avoid fatality after the 17th minute. The movies will maneuver my mind and manifest melodies The moon will motivate my messages Amid the cranial chaos I need to be that selfish dreamer I need to dance with El Diablo in the catacombs of opium dens in Gehenna And then my family enters the forefront, the entropy expires And the dead donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t seem so lucky With the truth of certainty and the certainty of truth The sign that you should live it should be in every place one chooses to die

Fear of Failure

PERRY DEFAYETTE Never starting and never finishing of being judged and being hated Actual damage is childhood trauma and remarks of unsolicitation I beg just to live, to love Promised the world but given an image â&#x20AC;&#x153;The Worldâ&#x20AC;? here it is! Framed on my wall.

Fingernail Torture NICOLE KING

Clipping parts of memory, I wish I washed away, The bloody font of clippings strewn all in the way, Refusal isn’t heard and I’m shoved down to hopeless, Razors in my nails, there she goes again, I’m copeless. I think my bones may corrupt under this pressure, She pushes on my screams and pulls another lever. Not good enough, there’s not another striking screech, Not another bloodied nail for concrete floor to teach, About the cold and emptied minds and the underweight libido, I will teach you suffering and everything that she’d know.

Confetti

ANN CHRISTINE TABAKA Paper snow on the floor shredded dreams that used to be my poems words spill onto pages only to fly off looking for cohesion searching for a theme day after day frustration reigns as the ritual repeats itself a line here a phrase there then all is lost and once again confetti festoons my world

Mackerel Sky MEG FREER

Looking up, not a cloud to be seen but wishing for a mackerel sky, a hard, cold north wind slaps at my face and things are not at all what they seem, for a forest of white plastic forks grows from a lawn where the snow is gone, I wonder if the owner wants fish to blow down from a mackerel sky, and my heartstrings snap like plastic forks.

Just Grief

MAISIE WATSON It was December when I took the job in my hometown. I did this without consulting my boyfriend at the time. The interview had gone well and I had accepted the offer immediately. When I shared the exciting news with the boyfriend, he was furious. He hated the fact that I hadn’t involved him in the decision to take the job. We were living in different cities and there was plenty of discussion around moving in together. We spoke every day, usually once in the morning and once at night. It was through this frequent long-distance interaction that he had embedded himself into my decisions. He was angry with my defiance. After I took the job, I went to the boyfriend’s city. The trip had been booked prior to the work opportunity, and I decided not to cancel my tickets. I felt that I owed it to him to apologize and say goodbye in person. Everyone I knew told me I was crazy. I was stubborn and got on the plane. My arrival was tense, but alright. I had run through many scenarios in my mind prior to arriving. I was close with a friend who offered her help if needed. I had her number on speed dial in case things went awry. She had briefed me and told me to be brave if I needed to get out of the apartment. She assured me that I wouldn’t be stranded. Fortunately, there was no need for this plan. Later on in my visit, the boyfriend and I fought. The relationship was broken. He was hurt by my choice and he couldn’t see my side. He wanted me to leave early, and I wanted to mend our friendship. I was blinded by my affections and he by anger. I knew that taking the job was an avenue to reclaim my independence, but I hadn’t fully understood the web of emotional loyalty that I was stuck in. The discussions led to the same dead end over and over. Regardless of feelings on either side, I stayed the whole week. I could not escape the animosity between us while I was in his territory. It followed me everywhere when I was alone and it raged intensely when we were together. We fought repeatedly. When I returned home, I felt devastation building a home inside my chest cavity. I felt like I had all my insides ripped out. I felt helpless and small and still needed to balance the world on my shoulders. The new job wasn’t going well. I was struggling in my classes. My social life was a disaster. I went to the doctor to ask for help, preferably some sort of medication to set me right and help me sleep. I remember how she looked at my sad eyes and steady stream of teardrops in that white, bare office. I was sitting on one of those stupid, plastic chairs that forced me to sit uncomfortably straight. I wore ripped jeans, a big sweater, an even bigger scarf, and a slouchy hat. My face was bare and my hands were cold. “It’s just grief,” the doctor said. I remember parting my lips as if a reply was about to come out. Just grief. I stared at her, mouth open, tears still coming, throat closed on me. My heart was beating fast, my hands twisted around themselves, picking at my nails. 59

“It’s loss. You have to grieve.” “I can’t function,” I managed to squeak out. The sobs threatened my words. I tried to tell her that I needed to keep going, keep balancing, keep working. I had responsibilities to fulfil, I told her. My voice didn’t sound like mine when I said it. The doctor told me that no medication could cure my grief but that talking with someone could. She asked about friends and family who could help me, and I told her I couldn’t discuss it with them. So she sent me to a therapist, and told me to grieve. “— grief (noun) : deep sorrow, caused especially by someone’s death. synonyms: sorrow, misery, anguish, agony, torment.” - Merriam-Webster Dictionary I left the office with nothing but a piece of paper, a phone number, and a diagnosis of grief. I stared at the collection of numbers with an abundance of mixed feelings. Eventually, I called the number and made an appointment. The receptionist asked if it was urgent, and I forced myself to say ‘yes.’ The following week, I went. I thought of reasons to cancel. I used every optimistic feeling I had to convince myself that I was okay enough to not need counselling. In the end, I realized that was a lie. I sat in the waiting room and looked around at the others there. I wondered what their demons were, and what led them to be sitting in that office waiting room with me. Did someone hurt them? Did they hurt themselves? Was life just too much? I felt unjustified. I’d imagined that their problems were way worse than mine could ever be, and that I shouldn’t be wasting my time or someone else’s dwelling on grief. After a little while, a lady came and introduced herself to me. We walked together down a little hallway and into her office. It wasn’t as cold as the doctor’s office, and there was a comfortable chair that I sat in. I tucked myself into a ball, wrapping my arms around my legs. I wore the same ripped jeans, big sweater, and slouchy hat. The lady had a warm smile and a soft voice. She sat in a chair close to mine and asked me to explain my situation. That request was exactly what I feared about counselling. I quickly summarized my situation with the boyfriend as I had practiced. I left out most of the details. I left out the months of emotional manipulation and instances of physical violence that had preceded the breakup. I left out his double standards and my feelings of being inadequate and undeserving of anyone’s love. I left out my feelings of fear and worry about the consequences of defying him. Being a trained professional, she picked up on my unwillingness to disclose details that might open up my emotional floodgates. The confession was difficult, but she stayed calm and persistent. She kept asking questions about the relationship. After I’d given her the details, she said, “You’ve been a victim of unacceptable abusive behaviour.” I remember trying to process that sentence. I remember feeling emotions rush into my brain. I remember the impulse to defend him. I remember how I wanted to tell my therapist how well he treated me, how he took me to dinner, and out shopping. The times he hurt me were accidents. I wanted her to know how he said he just wanted me to reach my potential. He was trying to help me. She shook her head and told me that none of that was love. It was manipulation. I kept nodding and saying, “I know.” Before I knew it, time was up. She gave me a note for my professors and and told me to cut back on work. We made another appointment. I went back for three more sessions before the end of the school semester, each time struggling to talk about grief and the origins of my susceptibility for abusive people and 60

situations. I never told her about the other assaults in my life. She told me things I’d heard before but never believed, like, “you’re strong, beautiful, and talented. You can do anything you want in your life. You are powerful. You do not deserve violence.” I always nodded and said, “I know.” In my last session, she gave me a card to an office that offered free counselling for victims of physical and mental abuse. She told me that I qualified and could go as many times as I needed to. I thanked her and we parted ways. I never went to the other office. I should have, but I did everything against my therapist’s advice. I kept talking to the ex-boyfriend. Four months later, he visited me. It wasn’t a good time. We fought and only escaped feelings of discomfort momentarily when we were drinking or spending time with other people. By the time he left, I felt just as conflicted as I had a few months earlier. My life took another turn the day he left. I had a meeting scheduled after his departure. I breezed into the office and sat down with my boss and another staff member. I lost the job that had been the catalyst of the whole mess. My distraction and persistent depression had rendered me ineffective. I wasn’t able to meet the demands or my boss’s expectations. I remember that day very clearly. It was a Monday. Sunny, light fluffy clouds drifting across the sky. Birds were chirping. It was the beginning of a beautiful summer. I was wearing a black pencil skirt and a cream and navy sleeveless blouse with basic black pumps. I remember how I lost my temper with my boss and how I let my anger fly at him like hot sparks. I remember packing up my office and tossing everything into the trunk of my car. I remember how badly I wanted to drive anywhere and hide. In the end, I was upset about the the job, but it was truly a gift. I coped well, making plans to travel. Naturally, I booked a ticket to see the ex-boyfriend. The trip planning was short-lived, as a week later we had an argument and I canceled my plans and cut my ties with him. A few months later, I went overseas alone. I traveled by myself for a few months, writing and letting my soul have time to stop and smell the roses. I made it back home in time for Christmas and while I was there, I picked up some shifts with my former job. The shift went by quickly. I was happy and my face glowed with excitement and health. I was independent, refreshed, and full of anticipation for the next chapter of my life. There was no grief in my eyes. 10 minutes before the end of my shift, a couple walked into the stores and I greeted both of them. The woman smiled at me warmly, but didn’t say anything except a ‘hello’ in reply. She kept looking at me as she shopped around and I realized that I recognized her. I couldn’t place where I knew her from, but I knew it was a positive, warm feeling I got while I tried to figure it out. We smiled at each other as she and her husband left the store. Ten minutes later, it hit me. She was the woman who used to be my therapist.

OUR CONTRIBUTORS... Without the submissions from writers, artists, and photographers, Free Lit Magazine would not be possible! Please take the time to visit other websites linked to projects our contributors have been involved in, as well as the websites/social media platforms run by some of this issueâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s contributors: AISHA ALI - Instagram and Facebook ANDREW CASE - Instagram KYLE CLIMANS - Twitter ALYSSA COOPER - Website, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook BETH GORDON - Twitter ADRIANA GREEN - Website, Instagram and Twitter MICHELLE HILLYARD - Website, Twitter, and Facebook BRUCE KAUFFMAN - Finding a Voice on 101.9FM CFRC SOPHIA KING - Instagram BOB MACKENZIE - Facebook, Amazon Author Page, and Reverbnation MEGAN WHITING - Website

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