TRIGGER WARNINGS

trig·ger warn·ing noun

A trigger warning is a particular action, process, or situation that causes emotional distress and typically as a result causing traumatic feelings and memories to arise.

Fiction

Duwende Challenge violence

A Curse of Fate A Gift of Death graphic

The One Who Finally Arrived death

How Valerie Got Into Wellesley

Where we Store Our Flesh

Creative Nonfiction bullying, mention of suicide gore, self-harm

Not My Name bullying

High Bottom Girl addiction, alcoholism

The Body’s Betrayal death

Janet suicide, violence

Genesis suicidal ideation, self-harm

Psychosis psychosis, eating disorder, suicide, self-harm

Letter to My Younger Self

Poetry

Nigrescence

In the Details

Call Me Space Cowgirl

Monster Tries to Write...

Edible sexual assault, harassment, stalking, anxiety, depression slur (n-word) mention of alcohol sexual language, guns mention of mental illness, covers discrimination drugs, alcohol use, addiction

Themed Dossier: Eldritch

Body Functions blood

Consequent Rhythm death

Pickled vomiting

Field Report from a House murder

The Demeanor of Human Monsters depression, anxiety

This House is Not Haunted blood

Saturn, Inverted cannibalism, sexual assault

Poison of Hate body horror, blood

Take Me death

Trigger warnings originated in psychiatric literature, notably about those who experienced post traumatic reactions, for example “re-experiencing symptoms” such as intrusive thoughts and flashbacks due to sexual or physical trauma. Over time, the term has expanded to include potentially offensive or disturbing material.

We do not want our readers to feel uncomfortable without warning while reading. This page is to alert readers beforehand of triggering content and where in our publication it is found.

Healing begins with understanding. Thank you for reading.

- LEVITATE Editorial Team

But The Moon Was Alive Robin Young

I love landscapes that are out of the ordinary. I took small pieces of grayscale images from magazines and put them together to form something different adding an upside down eye in the distance, a place you would perhaps like to visit.

And Millions

Rachel Berkowitz

Rachel Berkowitz is currently working on paintings for a solo exhibition February 2023, called “Biophilic Harmonies”. The work brings attention to the innate human desire to be close to natural elements within everyday life. Light as an energy source plays a strong role in the aesthetic and spiritual nature of the work, as the contrasting techniques lead into visual meditations for the viewer. The work includes painting, printmaking and photography. Her travels across US National Parks have been used as inspiration for her most recent paintings, placing a need on the heightened concern for conservation and preservation. Previously, she has exhibited in solo painting and photography shows, group Fine Art shows and at global artist events in Los Angeles, London and Japan.

Ember Storm

Rachel Berkowitz

Tidal Waves of Good Times

Rachel Berkowitz

Nothing But Love

Rachel Berkowitz

Meine Liebe Anthony Chatfield

Mary untangles the leash from her wrist and tugs on it gently. She whispers in mediocre German, and the Leonberger slows his ambling gait, tongue lolling in the cool autumn air. He starts to fold his legs under him, but a back leg buckles, and he plops to the ground in a wave of chocolate fur, resting his head between two meaty paws. The silver halo around his snout quivers as he sniffs a patch of dead leaves. Mary observes all of this, looking for new signs of deterioration in Buster’s health. By the standards of his breed, he’s ancient, defying their vet’s prognostications for half a decade. In the end, he outlasted Lukas. She carefully lowers her own creaking joints onto the weather-worn planks of the bench overlooking the Willheim Fountain, renamed since the park closed and the Technical School opened on the hill, but to what she cannot remember. She recalls the first time she spoke German here.

“Guten Morgen, meine Liebe.” Mary worked the unfamiliar sounds in her mouth, practicing her greeting for Lukas. She smoothed her dress and warmed her knees, close to shivering in the unseasonable early-summer chill. A spray of fresh water blew against her bare ankles from the nearby fountain, and she hopped away instinctively. She smiled as she thought of Lukas and the tiny wrinkle above his lip as he tried to remember how to pronounce a particular phrase in English. Looking towards the entrance, she saw that a man with a cart hawking peanuts and balloons was blocking part of the gate, but no one else was there. She sighed and hopped up from the bench, wrapping the basket around her left arm and returning to the entrance, practicing the German under her breath.

“Buster, leave it.” Mary scolds in English this time. This one he knows, at least.

Lukas had always trained their dogs, and no matter how often she’d asked, he insisted on his native tongue. Buster’s ears flatten, and he drops a mouthful of bark into the grass, whining softly but following Mary toward the school entrance. Mary steps gingerly over a patch of missing asphalt. She misses the fresh pavement and carefully manicured hedges that used to dot the landscape. Now it’s nothing more than the backyard for Marian Technical School, a training ground for electricians and HVAC repair men. Several young men and women in gray jumpsuits eat lunch on a picnic bench further up the hill. One waves toward Mary, but she ignores them. What once reminded her of the warmer, brighter days of her youth now smells of stale exhaust and coolant.

Leaning against the brick pillar by the park’s entrance, swinging the basket from arm to arm, Mary tilted her head back and soaked in the sun. It was a beautiful day—a bit cold for early June, but it would otherwise be exactly what she wanted from a Sunday morning if not for Lukas’s tardiness. He was supposed to be here. Gritting her teeth, she shook her head—no, this will not ruin my day.

Mary and Buster stand at the end of a long, rugged driveway atop a hill overlooking the rest of the campus. To the left is a narrow path leading to Marian Dog Park, a half-acre donated back to the city when the technical school opened. It’s now home to young professionals and their designer pets. To the right is the brutalist concrete block that is Marian Technical. She can still see Willheim Fountain below, where Lukas would meet her before their walks. Buster pulls on the leash, knowing where he wants to go. She almost lets him, but she tugs and commands him to follow. “Diesen weg.” He follows her toward the chain-link fence.

“Mary!” A slight man with an auburn hat tucked under his right arm ran down the sidewalk. “Es tut mir leid…I am sorry.” Lukas said through the curtain of whiskers hanging from his upper lip, his voice as soothing to Mary’s ears as the early summer breeze was to her skin. She handed him the basket to hold with one arm and wrapped her arm around his other. “Don’t be silly. Let’s go.” They started into the park.

Buster sits facing the entrance to Marian Technical, his backside leaning against Mary’s trembling right leg. It’s time, Mary thinks, recalling how much her husband had loved this spot before Angus Marian bought the land. “Rest, Lukas.” Mary pours the urn into the breeze over the lip of the hill. A cloud of ash dissipates in the wind, coating the trees below in a lifetime of memories.

“Where are you taking me, Lukas?” Mary gripped the hem of her dress to keep it from flying up as they walked briskly down the freshly paved path. Gone were the mud and brambles of her childhood. The city’s planners had long since tamed the once unruly wilds of this land.

“To the overlook. I have a question to ask, meine Liebe.” He absently palmed something in his breast pocket. She smiled and stepped quicker.

The One Who Finally Arrived

Doug Smith

John. Joseph. Jacob. Joshua. Jonah. Marjorie’s five sons. Who would now come to visit their mother?

For the last fifteen years, Marjorie has lived in an apartment at the retirement complex of Moon Lake Village—ever since her husband Bill’s death. Each of the boys—always separately, never together— manages to visit her once every two or three years. The family had never been close, the boys scattered around the country, very rarely communicating with one another or their parents by mail, phone, or computer. Although Marjorie would have preferred considerably more interaction throughout the family’s history, that had not been in accordance with Bill’s personality or wishes, and he was the one who established and controlled the family’s policies, procedures, and customs.

None of Marjorie’s surviving sons had arrived to see her since her dramatic downturn in health; none of them had visited her now that she was actively dying in the skilled nursing unit of the complex. Marjorie’s sister, Virginia, spent time with Marjorie every day for fifteen years. Virginia moved to the Village soon after her husband’s death, Marjorie joined her three years later, after Bill died. The two sisters were rarely seen apart from one another, many of the residents at the Village referred to them as “the Bobbsey Twins” even though Marjorie was six years older than Virginia. Marjorie’s purpose in life centered upon her five sons. Although an admiring and faithful wife, her true vocation was motherhood. For her, motherhood was a physical, emotional, and spiritual commitment. Evidence of the devotion she possessed could be found in the nineteen volumes of scrapbooks she had assembled; the scrapbooks included mementos of her growing up and her marriage to Bill, but at least ninety percent of the contents of those books was dedicated to her children—baby pictures, their birthday parties, their activities and awards at various schools, their marriages, their accomplishments at work, and their children, Marjorie’s grandchildren.

Virginia wrote to her sister’s four surviving boys about Margorie’s recent health status, however she had yet to get a response other than one from Joseph, who said he hoped to be able to get there soon. There was no elaboration on what “soon” meant. Virginia even mentioned in her letters that their mother’s doctor indicated she might not be living much longer. Yet, still, none of her sons had arrived.

After Marjorie entered the skilled nursing unit, Virginia spent most of each day sitting in a chair at her sister’s bedside, occasionally holding her hand or stroking her hair or saying something she hoped would be comforting. Other than going to her own apartment to sleep, Virginia usually only left her sister’s room to get meals in the dining hall or collect her mail. She wanted to be at her sister’s side during this crisis as Marjorie had been at her side during many of her own crises.

Marjorie spent a great amount of time sleeping while in that unit. When conscious, she could only utter barely decipherable, cacophonous speech. Because of Virginia’s long history of being with her sister, she had little trouble figuring out much of what Marjorie was trying to say.

Marjorie spat out, “Ja ana ana ge nawwa ja ana awaa antta ja wor wuh woksha da ge whe aers he whe aers he whe aers ja ana?”

Virginia responded, “Where’s John? Is that what you’re asking, Margie?”

Marjorie gave a quick affirmative movement of her head and sank back into the bed, relieved to have her sister understand. Virginia said, “He’ll come. Don’t worry. I wrote to him. He’ll come.”

In a less frantic babble, Marjorie said, “Awa a wuh wuh woksha woshop woksha wor ke shop ke eke cre ink ing criking criking beb beby.”

“Yes. I remember. The time you went down to San Francisco for one of his workshops.”

Marjorie nodded in the affirmative.

Virginia recalled some of the things she had learned from Marjorie about her oldest son. John had been a star high school football player—Bill was excited to attend all his games. Though an accomplished offensive guard and defensive end, John did not have many accomplishments in the classroom—being in the bottom quartile of his graduating class. After dislocating his right shoulder in the last game of his senior year, he had considerable trouble getting into college with his academic record, settling upon a small teacher’s college in Louisiana. He eventually improved academically and became a financial planner upon college graduation. Shortly after that graduation, Marjorie had designated him as her financial power of attorney, soon followed by designating him her healthcare power of attorney as well.

The incident that Virginia had just deciphered from Marjorie’s utterances regarded one of the workshops John did on financial planning, those workshops being his primary source of income. He went around the country giving presentations on financial planning for people of retirement age. Marjorie had never seen him do any of his workshops, and she so much wanted to see him do one. So, she traveled sixty miles by bus down to San Francisco when he was scheduled to do a workshop there. A woman attending had brought her six-month-old granddaughter with her because the child’s mother had to work, and the child was fussing in the beginning of John’s presentation. Marjorie, disturbed that the child’s fussing might bother John, went up to the child’s grandmother and offered to take care of the child out in the hall. Consequently, Marjorie was only able to attend fifteen minutes of John’s presentation.

“He will come, Margie. John will come. Just get a little sleep now. You’ll need some energy when he arrives,” Virginia said.

A nurse from the facility came to check Marjorie’s vitals. The nurse was in a hurry since her shift was about to end. She moved around the bed quickly, maneuvering around Virginia as if Virginia were one of the room’s pieces of furniture—an out-of-place piece of furniture.

The nurse wrote down a series of notes and numbers on her clipboard and rapidly left the room without acknowledging Marjorie in any way. Nor did she say a word to Virginia.

Later that day, Marjorie gathered enough energy to let out, “Joa set joa set aa whe whe aers he?”

“Where’s Joseph? Is that what you want to know, Margie?”

Marjorie nodded and repeated, “Joa set whe aers he?”

Virginia patted her sister’s hand. “He’ll come, Margie. Don’t worry. He’ll come.”

Virginia recollected the couple times Joseph had visited Marjorie at Moon Lake Village. He was Marjorie’s second oldest son, so different from all the other boys. Joseph was skinny and non-athletic—all the other boys were muscular and participated in multiple sports. Joseph was the intellectual in the family. As he was growing up, he could often be found hovering over his chemistry set or reading a science fiction novel. Marjorie, though she would not normally have any interest in it at all, read a book by Isaac Azimov that Joseph appreciated. When he showed interest in cooking, she showed him how to cook several dishes.

Virginia remembered how Marjorie would occasionally sneak Joseph away from the house when the boys were young, taking him out for ice cream, treating him special when the other boys treated him poorly. She had often defended him before his brothers. She also defended him before the boys’ father—which sometimes took a great deal of courage on her part: Bill often created fear in the people who met him. Bill did not care much for Joseph—not as much as the other boys, and made more demands upon him than the others.

Marjorie expelled, “Joa set whe aers he?”

Virginia said, “He’ll come, Margie. Don’t worry. Joseph will come.” ***

Sometimes Marjorie’s rackety speech was so loud it made people uncomfortable who were walking by in the hall. Upon hearing her cacophonous attempts at speech, some people would look into her room, make an accusatory frown, and quickly walk away. ***

The next morning, Marjorie blurted out, “Eka prega eka prega eed uv eed uv jaek ba an jaek ba.”

Virginia responded, “Rebecca and Jacob?” Marjorie nodded.

Jacob was Marjorie’s middle child. He had colic as an infant and demanded a great amount of time from Marjorie, but she always spent it without complaining. Much of Jacob’s early life was spent fighting various illnesses. His mother did whatever she could to help him.

Jacob married three times before he reached the age of forty, Marjorie never criticized him or judged him for that. She even made a point of finding something positive to say about each of his wives, though Bill and all the other brothers could find several negative things to say about them. Bill and the other boys would even make jokes about the number of ex-wives and Jacob’s lack of ability to discern suitable mates.

Rebecca was Jacob’s daughter by his first marriage. She got pregnant her sophomore year in high school and moved in with her much older boyfriend. Jacob refused to interact with his daughter after that. Marjorie had felt Rebecca needed to feel love from someone in Jacob’s family, so she arranged to take Rebecca on a special weekend trip to Chicago. They stayed at the Palmer House, visited several Chicago tourist sites, and ate at a couple fancy restaurants. Jacob had harbored some resentment towards Marjorie because of the Chicago trip, which he interpreted as some kind of unjustified reward for Rebecca.

Marjorie: “No? No? No jaek ba?”

Virginia: “No, Jacob’s not here. Maybe he’ll come. Let’s hope, Margie. Let’s hope he comes.”

That afternoon, Marjorie’s pain appeared to greatly increase. Her face portrayed perilous discomfort. The tone in her utterances echoed her internal struggles even more. “Aers joesh a? Aers joesh a? Aers joesh a?”

Marjorie had often talked to Virginia about Joshua, her backup healthcare power of attorney. Marjorie felt a particular attachment to him because of his comfort in talking about feelings, sharing much of her personal thoughts whenever he came to visit—much more than she shared with any of her other boys.

Of the boys, Joshua had the most turbulent time during his teenage years. He heavily experimented with drugs. On two occasions an ambulance had to be called to pick him up at his parents’ home. Bill ended up throwing Joshua out of the house, telling him to never come back. Marjorie shared with Virginia that it was the most difficult time of her entire life, feeling she had to support Bill’s decision and say goodbye to Joshua.

After being away from home for five years and not in contact with Marjorie or Bill during that entire time, Joshua wrote a long letter to them asking for forgiveness. Marjorie stood up to Bill’s objections and demanded that they let their son come home—a great accomplishment for Marjorie given her husband’s history of uncompromising control over all family matters. After returning home, Joshua got his GED from high school and went on to get a degree in architecture from Cornell University, and eventually opened his own architectural firm in Sedona, Arizona—none of which would have been possible without Marjorie standing up to Bill.

“Aers joesh a?”

“He’ll come, Margie.”

“I ne eed joesh a. Aers joesh a?”

A fellow Moon Lake Village resident stopped by Marjorie’s room. She asked Virginia several questions about her sister’s health status. Knowing the woman well, Virginia suspected she only wanted the information so she could share it with others, to pretend to have a closeness with Marjorie to get people to sympathize with her—not Marjorie.

Virginia wondered about some of the other Village residents. What about the members of her sister’s bridge group? Why had none of them stopped by? Marjorie played bridge with them regularly for three years.

Marjorie had also been editor of the Moon Lake Village weekly newsletter. Yet only one member of the newsletter staff had been by and that was the assistant editor, merely wanting to know if Virginia could let her into Marjorie’s apartment so she could see if there were any notes in the apartment regarding the next scheduled issue of the newsletter.

The following morning a nurse at the nurses’ station reported to Virginia that Marjorie had not slept well during the night, sharing that she was under the impression Marjorie had been hallucinating much of the time.

When Virginia entered her sister’s room, she found her squirming under the bed sheets like she was trying to discard some uncomfortable clothing. Marjorie’s eyes were closed. Virginia sat down on the chair next to the bed, holding her sister’s hand.

Marjorie’s eyes opened. Wide open. She pointed at the doorway with her free hand, “Se see se joe joe nah se see.”

Virginia: “You wish you could see Jonah?”

Marjorie pointed again. “No nawa nawa do se see do se see joe nah se see. Ees eer.” She sunk back in her bed in frustration, as she often did when Virginia was unable to figure out what she was saying.

Jonah was the youngest of the five boys. Of the five boys, Jonah spent the most time trying to determine which college he would attend. Marjorie had helped him with his research and had even accompanied him on three trips to some of the campuses. He eventually chose Colorado State University, wanting to major in forestry.

While at Colorado State, Jonah received weekly letters from his mother, as she did with all her sons when they were in college, sharing the latest news from home and declaring her love for them. During his junior year, Jonah was critically burned in a forest fire. He was rushed to the emergency room of Fort Collins General Hospital.

Bill and Marjorie flew to Fort Collins to be at his bedside.

Bill could not be dragged away from the bedside of his unconscious son as he poured out words of affection he had previously withheld from Jonah. Marjorie stood by in tears as she listened to her husband. She knew Bill had to do this, but she was terribly sad he had waited so long to do it.

Virginia leaned forward to wipe her sister’s forehead as Marjorie continued to squirm, seemingly trying to discard the bed sheets that covered her.

Marjorie raised herself up in the bed, pointing again at the doorway: “Ees eer ees eer joe nah ees eer se see.”

Not knowing exactly how to respond to what she finally figured out was behind Marjorie’s hallucinations, Virginia simply said, “It’s okay, Margie. Just lay back in the bed. It’s okay. You need to rest.”

Marjorie collapsed back in the bed, exhausted.

Virginia left to get breakfast and pick up her mail, afterwards talking to a friend she hadn’t seen in a long while. She then returned to her sister’s room. The bed was empty. Numerous thoughts simultaneously crowded her mind as she tried to figure out where her sister was. She went down the hall to the nurses’ station.

The nurse on duty said, “I’m so sorry, Virginia. She’s gone. Your sister died, and the funeral home just took her body away. They took her body away just minutes ago.”

Surprising the nurse, Virginia smiled. She smiled over the nurse’s choice of words. Virginia believed—a belief that could not be shaken— that the funeral home did take away Marjorie’s body, but they did not take away Marjorie. Marjorie the “person,” the sister she had known all her life, the woman who had cared so much for all her sons, had been taken away by one of her boys. Virginia smiled because she believed her sister’s youngest son, Jonah, had finally arrived.

DryDay

Jack Thome

A minor tribute to the rural use of nature’s dryer.