Blackwater Review 2014

Corrine Akins

Elizabeth Armstrong

Cassidy Beaulieu

Joshua Bedsole

Madison Brake

Bianca Dagostino

Taegan Dennis

Scott Derrick

JeAnna Dollente

Jocelyn Donahoo

Eric Farmer

Jack Wesley Gaines

CONTRIBUTORS

Marcus Gibbs

DeAngelo Gilliam

Cherish Gillman

Sarah Hawkins

Emily Heasley

Alexander Hencinski

Deb Henley

Leslie T. Hood

Katie Rendon Kahn

Bettye Keefer

Melanie Lane

Sophia Luong

Luis Melecio-Zambrano

Michele Moore

Maria B. Morekis

Jessica Parsons

Shad Pipes

Rhoda Ramirez de Arellano

Christopher Savoie

Jessica Teasdale

Sue Townsend

Vance White

Donna Wilke

Joshua Woeckener

Blackwater Review

Blackwater Review

Blackwater Review

A Journal of Literature and Art

Volume 12, No. 1 Spring 2014

Niceville, Florida

Blackwater Review aims to encourage student writing, student art, and intellectual and creative life at Northwest Florida State College by providing a showcase for meritorious work.

Managing Editor: Dr. Deidre Price

Prose Editor:

Dr. Jon W. Brooks

Poetry Editor:

Dr. Vickie Hunt

Art Direction, Graphic Design, and Photography:

Benjamin Gillham, MFA

Editorial Advisory Board:

Patty Belote, Janice Henderson, Dr. Beverly Holmes, April Leake, James Suderman, and Rhonda Trueman

Art Advisory Board:

Benjamin Gillham, Stephen Phillips, Leigh Peacock, Ann Waters, and K.C. Williams

Editorial Assistant for Poetry: Deborah R. Majors

Blackwater Review is published annually at Northwest Florida State College and is funded by the college. All selections published in this issue are the work of students; they do not necessarily reflect the views of members of the administration, faculty, staff, District Board of Trustees, or Foundation Board of Northwest Florida State College.

©2014 Northwest Florida State College. All rights are owned by the authors of the selections.

Front cover artwork: Thistle Milk, Alexandria Llewellyn

Acknowledgments

The editors and staff extend their sincere appreciation to Northwest Florida State College President Dr. Ty Handy, Vice President Dr. Sasha Jarrell, Dr. Anne Southard, and Dr. Deborah Fontaine for their support of Blackwater Review.

We are also grateful to Frederic LaRoche, sponsor of the James and Christian LaRoche Distinguished Endowed Teaching Chair in Poetry and Literature, which funds the annual James and Christian LaRoche Memorial Poetry Contest, whose winner is included in this issue.

How to Tell If a Poem Is Ripe

Katie Rendon Kahn

Let it sit on the counter. Look at it when you walk by. Pick it up and hold it to the light, squeeze it gently. Rub your thumb across the skin feeling for soft spots and bruises. Hold it to your nose. Inhale the sweetness until you can taste it. Then let its flesh rest on your tongue while the juice dribbles down your chin.

Cooking Up the Past

Michele Moore

Start with two cups of personal tragedy; I use a dead father, but feel free to substitute. If you’re female, measure 77 cents on the dollar; guys use the whole buck. Let it simmer for ten years.

If you’re serving with a side of culture shock, add two parts New England Clam Chowder to one part Mississippi Mud Cake, sprinkle in a handful of yes-sirs and no-ma’ams. Allow mixture to sit for two decades or until flavors blend.

In the meantime, fry up a few good sexual encounters. Careful, a couple of bad ones can leave a bitter aftertaste.

Depending on what you have available, a dysfunctional family can make the dish robust. I use an Irish mother and an Italian stepfather. For brothers, you’ll need a mallet to tenderize.

While it’s bubbling, toss in some broken promises and broken bones. Chop some ruined friendships and set aside as garnish; season with cat hair and tears.

When all the ingredients are tender, take a sniff then carry it to the sink, and watch the whole mess circle the drain.

Birmingham Black and Blue

Katie Rendon Kahn

They called her Nigger. It was a foreign word to my six-year-old ears. I tried to make sense of it phonetically: N-violent vowel-jagged Gs-violent vowel-R. I didn’t understand what it meant or why she wasn’t welcome to climb the sprawling magnolia with the rest of us.

I eyed her skeptically: her intricate braids, the pleats pressed into her skirt, the Big Wheel none of our parents could afford. That must be it. What did she want with our tree when she had all of that?

I didn’t understand why she stayed, ebony-carved chin tilting back tears she was too proud to spill, or why that was so offensive to the stick-swinging Klan of kids, but somehow, that word slid heavily off my tongue, too.

“What did you just say?”

The sun was to my mother’s back, allowing only her shadow to glare down on me. I tried to answer, but before those Gs could cut again, Momma hung me by my arm and beat me what would forever be known in our home as Birmingham Black and Blue.

My blue eyes met brown. My pale, tear-streaked cheeks mirrored another little girl’s, pain etched on both our faces. I waited for her that’s-what-you-get smile, but it never came. She just peddled off at an impressive speed.

Momma yelled after her, “Tell your folks we’ll be right down.”

Momma led the way, marching like Martin. She said I’d have to explain what I had done, but I didn’t know. “What does it mean?” I screamed.

Momma slowed slightly, exhaling relief, “Well at least you’re not colored with hate.”

She talked about Birmingham bombings, Whites-only water fountains, and the boy that wasn’t allowed to love her back.

Her pace stilled to a sway as she rang the doorbell. “But that’s all over now, right, Momma?” “You’re about to find out.”

She told the large figure at the door that her daughter had something to tell him. I looked into his sturdy stare and listened to the soft, concerned voice behind him. I forced that word back up to apologize for ever saying it, for saying it to their daughter.

I watched those jagged Gs cut deep creases in her father’s forehead and jowls. Those violent vowels echoed endlessly until her mother’s gasp finally silenced them. That’s when I understood.

On the way home, Momma walked ahead as Jim Crows gawked at me from power lines.

Chad Joshua Woeckener

Chad: my fat, black, and gay friend.

When I first met him, his sexual preference was as obvious as his ethnicity, as blatant as the way his lips lisped his words, and as unabashed as the physical expressions he employed for emphasis. Operating in a military mindset, I didn’t ask, he didn’t tell, but I still knew.

It was my first poetry slam in Seattle. During the lull before the main event when greetings are shared, to stave off boredom I mingled. And even while I was being sociable, I felt myself trying to keep him at arm’s length like I was worried I’d contract something via shoulder rubbing— until he spit on me. His words spun bouncing off the energy he exuded. His speech polluted the room

with a fog birthing clarity I’d never seen in my newborn life of spoken word. I felt labels peeling away, revealing aspects of individuality, generalizations skim.

When he stands on the stage, he becomes it. He is by no means thin, but his size surpasses the physical. He engages audiences in a manner so intimate, so bold; they can’t help but fall for him.

His performances spark creativity: burning pages of future poems, spawning lines from his words as the sweat pours from him under the lights. Seeing him proves unnecessary. All he needs is to be heard.

It didn’t matter if it was his vintage irony, dripping satire, or a moment in history only Chad could offer. Each time I heard him, I understood pain. It wasn’t the pain of being gay, black, fat, a guy, or any combination of the four. I understood the pain

6 • Blackwater Review

perpetrated by the ignorant. Ignorance is only bliss for those choosing to remain under it.

I continued slamming. Every week, we’d discuss this and that. It evolved.

A few times before slams, we’d back and forth over pieces present and future. One thing, in particular, remains.

Chad taught me to slow down. Performing a poem means you have to live it, and you don’t want to live life speeding. The faster you go, the quicker it passes you by, and, then, all you have left is the end.

A Letter to the United Corporations of America

Katie Rendon Kahn

Hey, Big Government, can you hear me?

I know you’re listening. I’m just not sure if you can hear my voice over the sound of bombs blasting or our currency collapsing.

I know you’re busy paying off politicians pocketing profits, dumbing down future delinquents, drone striking civilians, silencing soldiers, printing propaganda portraying the deception of a divide, delivering discrimination and discouragement mixed in with mindless bullshit and bit after bit of misleading lies.

Be afraid, for it will be the ones with nothing left who will have nothing left to fear.

While you ransack and repeal, we will riot and revolt. Because a revolution is rising. You should try to hear us. Or begin to fear us.

Freak

Melanie Lane

“Freak,” he labeled me like I was spoiled goods at the grocery store.

“Dude, what the heck is your problem?”

Once we were introduced, I thought it would be fine. But I didn’t know what that kid was going to do to me.

Every day in middle school he would yell and cause a scene, grabbing everyone’s attention in math class: “Stop staring at me, you freak!” Even when I wasn’t looking, I could see his lips curl into a smile.

Each day, he came up to me and flipped his greasy, brunette hair, mocking the way I kept my long, blond hair away from my face.

“So, how you doing, freak? That’s ok, I don’t even wanna know!” Why he asked, I never knew.

From the stalking halls of middle school lockers, they waited for my weeping breakdown. For him and his coven, my pain was entertainment,

That boy tattooed me: “Freak.” No matter how hard I tried to escape, his ghoulish face haunted and taunted.

“Freak,” he would say as I was ostracized from the lunch table.

“Freak,” he would say as I wrote my life down on paper.

“Freak,”

he would say as my classmates wadded unwanted tests my way.

One day I finally had enough and let that little creep know how I felt.

Then both of us were ostracized from the lunch table, Then the boys haunted and taunted him; They knocked the books from his hands, scattering his life on the hallway floor. One day, they knocked him down, too.

Looking up at me, he no longer looked like the thirteen year old he was, more like a five year old about to cry.

I offered him my hand, which he took. “Thanks for that,” he said, as he gazed into my still-furious eyes.

“You’re welcome, freak!”

Old School

Donna Wilke

I pick up the phone again and muster up the courage to call the college.

An online orientation and a few clicks of the keys, and I’m taking a creative writing course.

I find the room, the awkward chair-desk combo. Listen in to the infectious talk that overtakes the class.

The professor hurries in, darting back and forth, conducting her spiel like a literary auctioneer: expatiations on class participation, critiquing classmates’ poetry and prose, criticism that’s constructive when the author’s baby is exposed. Simile, synecdoche, or slant rhyme, alliteration, assonance in at least three of the lines. Imagery for creation in words of concrete, no clichés, no unicorns, and NO END RHYME.

But loud in my head are Thing One and Two, the Sneetches and that Horton who hears a Who. And here we go, cartwheeling in with their clue, Oompa Loompas with another riddle for you. They bob and they dance, chanting their song,

asking, “What do you get when you know you are wrong?” Theme tunes, ballads, ditties, and jingles, along with the radio’s number-one hit singles. I need a mute switch for all of these voices if I want some regard for my poem’s proper choices.

So I pick up Horton and a few of the Sneetches and give them the boot, but they stick like leeches. I drown out the theme tunes, lock songs in a box, chase Thing Two and Thing One in their fuzzy blue socks. I imagine an Uzi and gun them all down, and they drop like dominos with a sad sort of sound.

I wasn’t really sure, but I think I heard them say, “You should try it; you should try it anyway.”

There’s No Place Like Home

Donna Wilke

I woke up sucking air. Sweat covered my skin. I felt my heart battle to slow as I wiped at my eyes and rubbed my temples with the palms of my hands. It took me a minute to realize where I was. There’s a cross hung above the bed in the small, plain, mismatched room with bare walls. I was still at Mother Teresa wanna-be’s house of unwed mothers. Lying there, I noticed I had to pee again. Sitting up had become a challenge I’d grown used to. Pushing with my hands, I swung my feet to the floor and stood. Waddling over to the door, I braced for the day as I turned the knob. All was clear when I headed down the hall to the bathroom. I avoided the mirror as I made my way to the commode. I was in disbelief that the urgency to go produced such a small tinkle. After brushing my teeth with the donated toothbrush, I took a quick shower and brushed through my wet blond hair while wiping the condensation off the mirror with the towel. I stared back at the same light blue eyes as my father’s and once again promised myself to be entirely unlike him. Pulling back my hair into a ponytail that reached the middle of my back, I shivered as the water dripped down the skin along my spine. I did the best I could to wrap the towel around myself, picked up my PJs, made my way back to the bedroom, and dressed for the day.

It was a Saturday, and I was volunteered –told to help out–at the thrift shop when I wasn’t working at the diner. I didn’t mind working, but my feet sure did. Still, it beat sticking around for the ongoing Bible thumping from Mrs. Nettles and her demanding questions. Glad that I didn’t have any laces to tie, I slipped on my shoes and headed for the kitchen. Mrs. Nettles was sitting with a girl I hadn’t met before at the table.

“Good morning,” I said to both of them as I opened the refrigerator and pulled out the milk.

“Good morning, Sara, this is Cathy, and she will be staying

with us. The two of you will be sharing the bedroom together for a while,” Mrs. Nettles said smiling and patting Cathy’s hand.

“Hi, Cathy,” I answered pressing a smile to my mouth and wondering if this one would steal my stuff. The last one stayed for three days and made off with my favorite necklace with a silver flower pendant, the only coat I had, sixteen dollars, half a bottle of Victoria Secret body spray, and all my underwear. Who steals someone’s underwear? I pushed the thought from my head.

“Hi,” she mumbled back, not looking up and wringing her hands.

I was going to eat a bowl of cereal but changed plans. Pouring a half glass of milk and chugging it down, I grabbed a banana off the counter and said, “I’m on my way to the thrift shop. I’ll see you later, bye.” I bolted from the kitchen and out the door.

It was a clear warm day as I walked to the store stepping over the cracks in the sidewalk. The roots from the huge maples had pushed up the cement making my progress difficult. The homes in this part of town were older. Some had been well preserved and some not so much. I spotted the store ahead, and some young guy I hadn’t seen at the store previously was out front cleaning the windows. I pushed the door open and was hit with the stale smell of discarded items and the sound of a Christian rock song. Making my way to the back, I checked in with Tina. Tina must have been about eighty something years old, with rows of short tight curls of white hair with a blue tinge. Her lips pulled back her wrinkled face, and she grinned. Her eyes twinkled, lighting up as she watched me sway back and forth moving towards her.

“Well hello there, I’m glad to see you. How are you doing?” she asked, putting down an arm full of clothes with hangers still attached.

“I’m fine,” I answered a bit short. I hate when people look at me with pity and pretend they give a shit about what’s going on with my screwed up life, but Tina wasn’t like that. So I felt guilty and asked, “Can I help you with that?” nodding to the

stack of clothes she had laid down.

“No, no, I’ve got this,” she said as she picked up the shirts, a couple at a time, and hung them on the rack. “Why don’t you go out and see if you can help Greg finish up the windows and hang the sale signs.”

“Ok,” I said, looking out the front window at the guy on a ladder with a squeegee in his hand.

“We’re going to clear out some of these racks of clothes for half price today. I put an ad in the paper and have almost everything ready. It’s going to be a marvelous darling.” She said marvelous darling like a 1940s actress, spun on her heels, and went through the door to the storage room.

I went out front and asked Mr. Squeegee man if I could help. Even on the ladder I could tell he was tall. His brown hair hung a little in his eyes, and he was swiping at it with the back of his hand. Without looking my way, he asked if I could hand him the bucket. The bucket was more than half full of suds and water. I lifted it up trying to get it past my belly and even with my shoulders. I must have grunted when he looked down.

“Whoa, hold on there,” he came quickly off the ladder taking the bucket from me. “What do you think you’re doing?”

Shaking his head and staring at my belly, he scolded me slightly.

“You asked me to hand you the bucket, genius.” I said glaring at him.

“I didn’t know,” he said looking at my irritated face. “I didn’t see—I mean I’m sorry. I wasn’t paying attention.”

“Look, I’m here to do a job,” I said with my hand on what used to be my hip. “So tell me what I can do to help.”

“Maybe you should go inside and ask Shugg,” he said, taking the bucket out of my arms. “She can find you something suitable.”

I reflexively took a step back when I noticed his big hand wrap itself around the handle. He took a step up the ladder. “I don’t know who Shugg is, but Tina sent me out here to help you with the windows and to hang sale signs,” I told him, ready to knock his smug ass off the ladder.

“Oh. . . .ok, well I have that side done, and it’s ready for the

decals,” he said, then pointed to the windows on the other side of the door. “They’re stacked against the bench over there.”

I had split the sale signs in half. Three for each side and hung the first two on the massive window. Stepping back, I thought the third sign would look best if it was in the middle high up. I dragged the bench over and hoisted myself up to hang the last one.

I had just finished when close behind me Mr. Squeegee said, “That looks good.” Startled, I jumped, almost falling from my perch on the bench. He grabbed my arm and laid his hand on my side to steady me.

“You scared the crap out of me,” I said giving him another dirty look.

“I wanted to help you down,” he said not moving his hands with a firm gaze.

I was uncomfortable with him touching me, and apparently the only way to get him to let go was to let him help me down. So I stepped off the bench. The baby gave a ninja kick to the side where his hand still rested, and I watched his expression change.

“Wow,” he said amazed. “Does that hurt?” He moved his other hand from my arm to the center of my belly.

“No,” I said taking a side step away from him and sharply pulling down my shirt.

He quickly dropped his hands, “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable,” he said with a crooked smile. “I’ve never felt anything like that before. It’s marvelous.” He had a chip in one of his front teeth, but other than that, it was a great smile.

“Are you crazy? This sucks. My whole body has been taken over.” My volume was going up, “Everything’s ruined. My life’s ruined. I don’t know where I’m going to live or what to do. This’ll never happen to you. You’re an asshole, and you don’t know shit.” I was yelling by the time I finished telling him off and ran to the bathroom for refuge.

I sat on the stool in the bathroom for half an hour trying to stop crying. I felt bad for taking it out on what’s his name. Oh yeah, Greg. But he doesn’t know me, and I didn’t need any more happy do-gooders. I needed to figure out what I was going to do,

and I just didn’t know. Someone knocked on the door.

“Sara,” Tina said and waited a moment. “Sara, darling are you all right?”

I cleared my throat and swallowed, “Yeah, I’m fine.” I got up and splashed some water on my face and opened the door.

Tina looked at me and said, “Being pregnant makes all women an emotional mess.” She put an arm around my shoulders and led me toward the storage room. “How about you come in the back? I’ve put on a pot of tea. We can have a cup before it’s time to open.”

“Ok,” I wiped at my nose and allowed her to steer me to a small table and chairs. She placed a cup with tea in front of me and poured in a bit of milk. I looked up, and she must have seen the question on my face.

“Oh, I guess I thought everyone drinks tea with milk,” she said, “Would you like sugar or honey?” She sat both on the table, got a mug of her own, and sat down across from me. “When I was a child, my mother made tea for us kids. We had very little, but she had this way that made me feel like I was special,” she said while sipping the hot brew.

I thought about my own mother and said, “My mom used to tuck me in and sing this song to me every night.” A fat tear rolled down my check, and I quickly wiped it away. I hated crying. It was useless. We sat quietly for a several moments drinking our tea.

“The woman that works here full time is moving to be closer to her daughter and grandchildren, and I was thinking that you might help me out by taking her job,” she said over the top of her steaming cup.

I thought for a moment and said, “I still want to work part time at the diner, so I can afford to find a place to rent.”

“That would be just fine,” she said slightly nodding her head and taking another sip. “I could talk to some folks I know that have a few places they let out.”

“Really, that would be great, and thank you for the job. I really do appreciate it considering . . . ” I took a deep breath looking down at my stomach.

“You have gumption, and I don’t meet many young people that I can say that about,” she said and took the last mouthful of tea and got up. She showed me a stack of clothing that needed pricing and went out front to open the store.

I made short work of the stack and straightened up the storage room as best as I could. Having things in order made me feel better. Some of the things people donated were garbage and had to be thrown in the Dumpster. I made a couple of trips back and forth till I ran out of busy work and decided I could face Greg again without an emotional explosion. I walked into the front of the store. There were several customers sifting through the sales racks marked half price, and a few stood in line to check out. I walked over to Greg running the cash register, took a deep breath, and asked if I could help.

“Sure, if you take over here for me, I can help this customer load a couch in his truck,” he said and left.

The rest of the day went by swiftly, busy with the extra customers brought in by the sale. I was ready to get off my feet and was just pulling the cash drawer when Greg came up next to the counter.

“Hey, good day, huh?” he said smiling and pushed the hair away from his green eyes.

I stood staring at him. He nodded to the cash in the drawer, and I said, “Oh, yeah it was.” I pick up the drawer and headed towards the storage room with him close on my heels.

“I was thinking maybe you would like to get a burger when we’re done,” he said dashing around me and opening the door. “And I’ll drive you home.”

I stopped and looked at him annoyed and said. “I’m sorry for unloading on you, but you don’t need to feel sorry for me. I’m sure you’ve already scored your charity points for the day, so just lay off.” I proceeded to the table, put down the drawer, and sat to count it.

He came over to the table, pulled out a chair, and sat down. Ignoring him as best I could, I continued to count the money.

“Shugg asked me to drive you home. If you don’t want a burger, that’s fine. Maybe you would like to stop somewhere

I leaned back, “Have you ever heard of personal space?” This guy was like a fly buzzing around my head.

“I thought that we could be friends since we’ll be working together for the rest of the summer,” he said, sitting back and dropping his hands into his lap.

“Oh,” I said out loud, not realizing that I’d be working with him. The store had a lot of volunteers that come and go. I hadn’t seen him here before and thought he was here just for the day.

“Well, I guess. Just stop being so, so, I don’t know, so nice.” I failed to tell him it creeped me out.

“That’s not going to work for me,” he said with a solemn face, “It’s a condition no doctor’s been able to cure. I think it’s classified under bizarre diseases in some obscure medical journal. They asked me to donate my body to science when I die. I’m thinking about it.” He held back a smile that pulled at one side of his lips.

“Why don’t you just go ahead and donate it now,” I said looking at him seriously.

He laughed. “I thought I was going to be bored all summer,” he said. “I’m glad you’re here.”

I went back to counting the money and returned the drawer with the initial hundred in coins, ones, fives, and tens. Greg got up, grabbed the moneybag, and set it in front of me. Tina came through the back door with a donation that was just dropped off. She had an infant car seat and a black garbage bag that was so full the plastic was ripping.

“Greg, are we all locked up?” she asked, putting down the car seat and lifting the bag with both hands onto the sorting table.

“Yep.” He hurried over to help, but she already had it.

“Could you do a walk through and make sure the lights are off?” she asked him and dumped out the contents of the bag. He left, making his way to the front of the store. “We get these car seats all the time, and legally we can’t resell them.” She picked up the infant car seat. “I didn’t know if you would want this, but

Wilke • 19 else?” he said leaning forward with both elbows on the table and his hands stretched out.

it’s in great shape.”

“I don’t have a car,” I said. “And I don’t know when I could afford one; I mean I’m not keeping the baby.” I was surprised when I heard myself. I wasn’t sure if I was allowed to stay in the home if I wasn’t giving up the baby. I worried she would say something to Mrs. Nettles.

“Well, I’ll just stick it over here till you decide,” she said, putting it in the corner on top of a shelf. Coming over to the table, she sat down and said as a matter of fact. “Don’t you worry. You’ll know what to do when the time comes.” I wasn’t so sure; I dropped my head. She pressed her lips together and continued, “And I try hard not to talk bad about people, but as far as Mrs. Nettles is concerned, I’ve known her for years. When she was little, she was in the same grade as my daughter. I taught their Sunday school class. And she was a mean, conniving, bully then and still is.” Softening, she looked at me tenderly. “So don’t you burden yourself over whatever she has to say.” She grinned widely and chuckled. “She’d eat all the paste in the entire class room every time I turned my back, and that would’ve been alright, if it had permanently glued her mouth shut.”

I started laughing, and I couldn’t stop. Tears started tracking down my face, and my belly shook. Tina laughed with me, and just when I thought I could stop, the vision of wiry, hawk-faced Mrs. Nettles with her mouth glued shut came into my mind, and I started all over again. Greg came back in and smiled at us.

“Leave it to Shugg,” he said putting an arm around her and kissing the top of her head.

It felt so good. It’d been a long time since I’d laughed that hard. I slid the cash and checks into the money bag, zipped it closed, and handed Tina the balance sheet and bag. “Here you go. Is there anything else you need before I go?” I asked standing.

“Nothing that can’t wait till Monday,” she said waving her hand shooing me out. “Greg, you stop and feed her something before taking her home. I didn’t see her eat anything all day.” Greg gave me that I told you so look and walked me out.

I followed him behind the building to a silver Mercedes,

and he hit the keyless entry. I rolled my eyes and got in the car. “Where to?” he asked backing up the car and dropping it into drive.

“I don’t care; whatever is closest,” I answered looking straight ahead. The car was beautiful, and the gray leather seat felt like heaven as it cupped my body like it was made just for me. I tried to sit back and enjoy the comfort and the fact that I didn’t have to walk home. My feet felt like watermelons, but the sense of unwarranted imbalance rolled across my nerves heavier than the expensive car.

“Do you like Italian?” he asked, “Because I know this place that has the best spaghetti and great homemade bread.” He glanced over at me and slowed the car to a stop at a red light.

“Yeah, that’s fine. As long as it’s cheap, and you don’t have to be dressed up,” I said looking down at the shirt I had on checking for stains.

“That’s ok, I’ve got this one,” he said.

“I can pay for my own meal,” I told him even though by the looks of his car he could afford it.

“How am I supposed to score points if I can’t pay?” he said, “I need to go for the three point shot, and there you are blocking me. Can’t you give a guy a break?” I started to glare at him again. “Now don’t start that again or I’ll whip this car around and pick up Shugg. She made me take money to feed you.” He shook his head, “If that makes you feel any better.”

And it did. “Why do you call her Shugg?” I asked, watching his hands grip the steering wheel, and noted his knuckles turning white.

“Actually, it was my mom who started it. My great grandfather always called her Sugar, and my mom was the first grandchild. When she tried to say Sugar, it came out Shugg. And it stuck.”

“How many grandchildren does she have?

“I lost count, but I think including greats it’s around fifty or so,” he said pulling up to a restaurant. “Of course, she counts everybody, including the step kids.”

“Gees, how many kids did she have?” I asked getting out

of the car.

“Nine, three girls and six boys. My mom’s mom was the oldest. My great grandfather was an engineer for the county, and they had a hundred-and-some acre farm just outside of town.

We went inside, and the waitress directed us to a booth. It was a local place with red and white checked table cloths and an outdated décor. A server walked by with food headed to another table. My stomach growled, and my mouth watered. I picked up the menu and took a look. The waitress came back with two glasses of water and a plate of warm bread.

“What can I get cha,” she said pulling out her pad.

“Grilled Chicken Alfredo,” I said, licking my lips and making mmm noises. “A Caesar salad and is that a carrot cake on the counter?” I asked, smiling excitedly, reaching for the bread.

“Yes it is, and it is fantastic, if I do say so myself. The owner makes them, and the cream cheese icing melts in your mouth.” She wrote down my order.

“No need to sell me, I’d like to have that first,” I said and took a bite of the bread. “Sure.” She turned and asked Greg, “What can I get you?”

“Spaghetti and meat balls, a garden salad with blue cheese, and you can bring me a slice of apple pie with her cake.” She wrote it down on her pad and looked up. “Thank you,” he said handing her back the menus.

“I like the way you guys think. Did you want anything else to drink?” she asked. I shook my head, and Greg ordered a vanilla shake. Then she left.

“I don’t ever think I’ve ordered dessert before dinner,” Greg said, picking up the napkin and putting it in his lap.

“Well, being Mr. Goody two shoes is tough. You don’t get to color outside the lines,” I said, while chewing around the bread. “You’ll probably even lose a point or two.”

“What makes you think I’m such a Goody two shoes?” he said, looking at me intently. “And why’s that so bad?”

“First of all, you’ve volunteered to work at a thrift store for your great grandmother for the summer. You just laid a napkin

Blackwater

in your lap, you’re dressed in a Polo and khakis, and you opened the door for every little old lady who left the store today.” I lifted my eyebrows. “I bet you were a Boy Scout and rescued a whale or something.”

“Eagle Scout,” he said. I barked out a cackle.

“I still fail to see why that’s bad,” he said, pushing his hair out of his eyes.

“All you do-gooders aren’t any different than anyone else. Everybody wants something. People always have an ulterior motive. And when they cover it up by acting sweet, it makes me sick,” I said with conviction.

The waitress came back with the milkshake, two straws and the desserts. Greg watched me as I dove into the cake. He worked on his pie and offered me some of his shake. I shook my head and savored the flavor of the icing dancing across my tongue.

“You’re right, and I do want something,” he said. And I looked up from my plate. “I’m not trying to cover anything up. I asked if we could be friends. I like myself, and it feels good to be kind. You definitely make it extremely challenging.” He emphasized “extremely.”

I felt like crap. Here I was eating my favorite cake, and it might as well have been a clod of dirt in my mouth. I swallowed hard, and I fought the emotions that were bubbling up to my eyes, threatening to spill over. His honesty smashed into me harder than a fist. I mumbled, “Excuse me,” and ran for the bathroom. I had tears streaming down my face before I could push through the door. I was crying. Again. I was sitting on a stool. Crying again. I cursed the hormones coursing through my body and at the same time knew it wasn’t the reason I was bawling. I wondered why, when someone decent was offering me his friendship, I was throwing it back in his face. What was wrong with me? Why was I being so ugly and nasty? I’m sure I couldn’t say that I liked myself. I was letting myself convert into the cruel, rigid frame that I grew up with. I hated myself for feeling that way and sobbed, unrolling wads of toilet paper from the dispenser. I rested there while the wave of shame washed

Wilke • 23

through me until I caressed my monster. It seemed like he had everything. I hated him for being happy. Not just him. Anybody that looked happy but especially him. I took deep breaths and looked up at the small window, wanting to make a quick escape. My head spun around the same thoughts over and over, and I was unable to patch the dam of tears with the soggy toilet paper. After a few minutes, I heard a knock on the door.

The door cracked open a bit. “Sara, are you ok?” Greg asked. “Yeah,” I said, choking up and blowing my nose.

“I’m sorry for what I said. I didn’t mean to upset you.” He said talking low, “I had them pack our dinners to go and the rest of your cake as well.”

“I’m coming,” I said, grabbing some fresh toilet paper and blowing my nose one last time. I splashed some water on my face and looked into the mirror. Pulling the rubber band out of my long blond hair, I drug my fingers through it, letting it cover the sides of my face. My blue eyes were blood shot and puffy from all the crying, but there was nothing to be done. I took a deep breath, turned and opened the door. Greg took a step back. He held two to-go bags and followed me out to the car.

We both got in, and he drove me back towards the home for unwed mothers. We were almost there when he pulled over, stopped, and put the car in park.

He turned to me and said, “I just wanted to say I don’t know what you’re going through, and I’m really sorry for hurting you. I only want to...”

“Just stop,” I said cutting him off. He looked wounded and I realized it was my fault. “I’m sorry. You’ve been nothing but sweet, and I’ve been a royal bitch. I really could use a friend right now . . . if it’s not too late.”

He slowly smiled, and I felt myself exhale. I hadn’t noticed that I was holding my breath, and I smiled back. He put the car in gear and drove me the rest of the way home.

Before the Petals Fall

Katie Rendon Kahn

You, my seed, are blossoming womanhood. You are baby’s breath with rosehips. While you push petals open, I cup my hands in the shape of a bud and pray.

Sisters

Taegan Dennis

My sister is an artist. Using glue, baby powder, and discarded wine glasses, she made a flurried snowglobe.

She painted dancers to dance on the rainbow and golden koi to bring a lucky new year.

She gets angry at her clay, throws it on the table and beats it with the rolling pin. Three hours later, the clay egg has hatched a dragon.

I hold a brush to brush my teeth. I use a rolling pin for pierogi dough.

She molds life from a lump and holds a brush to make a world.

I’ve Said Goodbye 1000 Times

Katie Rendon Kahn

I’ve said goodbye with fistfuls of earth upon mahogany, pressed my chest against the winter rye that grew across your grave; six feet has never seemed so far away.

My fingers traced your name, permanently etched in marble, and accepted that you will be the last to bear that last name.

I whispered jokes into the wind, willing it to carry back your laughter. I’ve screamed your name into the night, finding no solace in the echo of my own voice.

I have held your possessions so close for so long that they now smell more like me than they ever did of you. I said goodbye. I said goodbye again when I forgot your scent entirely.

I have played your favorite songs over and over again, recalling the pitch-perfect tune you sang them to.

I said goodbye when I could no longer remember the sound of your voice.

But no matter how many times I say goodbye, I will always welcome the unexpected memories that occur to me at the most unusual times because I know this is your way of saying hello.

God.com

Michele Moore

Heaven has Internet, where cables lie along the red string of fate matrix. Angels sit on cumulus chairs while surfing on their MacBook Airs, all running on the power of prayer. God has this strict No-Direct-Contact rule, so angels send spam, posing as penis pump salesmen and Nigerian princes, trying to get our attention. Hidden in news that you just won the Lebanese lottery, in tiny fine print, relatives long gone wish you well; please respond.

I Don’t Care How You Wear Your Hair

Joshua Woeckener

You could hoist dark, flowing locks: an ocean at midnight sliding across your back. Your words will remain, far past the moment we met.

You could pick it out to a fro: a puffed dandelion before breeze or child’s inquisitive breath. Your wicked laugh would still soothe me.

You could cut it all off, barely remaining feminine yet leaving enough to caress soft, pale cheeks as I wish I could. Odes of devotion I have never known will continue to play in my lashes.

It could be dyed: snow-covered mountaintop, blazing sun, or flowered meadow. All would fade compared to copious colors conceived –crescendoed effortlessly in an avalanche of emotion.

Believe me strands can’t withstand but your words know no metronome. They move at their own cadence and no style, do, or coif will ever dictate otherwise.

Chevrolet Symphony

Luis Melecio-Zambrano

You sit silently beside me, your fingers playing piano on the steering wheel, and I try to hear the melody flowing from your imaginary keys.

The music fills our little space, and there is a softness to the moment like your hands in mine.

Then you play the harsh chord of small talk with your small voice, and your small hands stop tapping.

The silence rings out, a tired, steel string. Forced by the baton of an impatient conductor I take my cue and speak cymbal crashes.

Damn our fumbling words that make your trumpet flower scent play out-of-tune, broken tones.

Damn the silence that draws out and sings with the high vibrato of a violin.

But salvation is your bass drum heartbeat, the sly key change of your smile, and the notes of the stop-sign touch that you dare across the center console.

I follow the key change, put back my seat, and listen to the harmony.

The One She Didn’t Want to Burden

Jocelyn Donahoo

This whole ordeal started when I answered the phone to my sister Selina saying, “She didn’t want you to know this, but Mom’s having a heart catheterization, as we speak.”

I was too shocked to be scared. And then to find out she’d been hospitalized since Thursday, and it was Monday. I was floored. “Why didn’t she call me?”

“She didn’t want you to come.”

“What!” I shook my head. “I just talked to her— Wednesday, maybe—.”

“She didn’t want to be a burden to you.”

I sighed deeply. “Let me talk with Nate and I’ll call you back.” I planned to wait it out.

On the other hand, Nate said, “You should go.”

“What about you and the kids?” I asked. “We’ll be good. Your mom needs you.”

That’s what I’m afraid of , I thought. But I replied with the politically correct,“You’re right.”

I struggled to keep a straight face as I entered the recovery room. It had been a long, quiet ride in an elevator that was spacious enough to accommodate two stretchers. All eyes focused on the display, all of us nervous, afraid of what we might encounter. Ding, the elevator chimed, as the white numeral three flashed against the stainless steel panel. The doors opened, and my husband Nate, brother Miles, Selina and I piled out. Nate’s reassuring hand gripped mine. I was happy he was able to get his sister to watch the kids. “Only two at a time,” the info guide had said. Nate and I were on the second visitation group to the recovery room. In the lobby, I warned the group of what to expect.

“She’ll probably have tubes in just about every orifice, machines pumping, and Mom . . . she’ll look like a . . . well, different.” Selina nodded looking terrified; Miles stood

erect and indifferent.

The recovery nurse allowed us a short visit and advised us to “go home and get some rest. She’ll be sedated for a while.” That evening, we walked in the room, and I immediately felt warm. ICU always made me edgy. It was the respirator. I hated hearing air compressing between that large accordion hose. Just knowing that a person’s life depends on it . . . made me take a long, deep breath, thankful I had the ability to do so. And I was a nurse. Mom laid there, her face swollen with a tube rammed down her throat on one side, her tongue hanging out like Gene Simmons’s on the other. She looked like a monster. IV poles with at least six different IV bags infused through a hose (triple lumen catheter) stuck in her neck, and a catheter bag with green urine was hooked on the bed frame.

Selina was stunned and whispered, “I thought super heroes had green pee.”

The nurse introduced herself and then proceeded to assess Mom. When she said, “Squeeze my finger,” I thought she was crazy. My mother had just undergone quadruple bypass heart surgery and couldn’t possibly—but Mom’s swollen hand did it. Not only that, she followed every command: wiggled her toes, shrugged her shoulders, and stuck out her tongue. Then she had the audacity to try to talk. That broke the ice.

“Just like a true Jordan,” I said. “Trying to talk with a tube rammed down her throat.” And we laughed and joked about that. It was hard to look at Mom. Her usually sophisticated silver hair was in disarray about her head. The nurse informed us of the visiting hours and the post-op procedures.

“Mrs. Jordan will take a walk this evening once the anesthesia wears off,” she said. I wanted to say, “Are you on crack?” Instead all any of us could say was “wow.” Our information guide had kept us abreast of Mom’s progress during the three and a half hour waiting period. Once the surgery was over, he took us to the waiting area to speak with the heart surgeon. Dressed in blue scrubs covered by a signature

lab coat, Dr. Winbush was younger than I expected. And friendlier. For a surgeon, that is. Many of them are task oriented and lack bedside manner.

“Ms. Jordan is stable and being settled in her room. She had some blockage requiring a quadruple bypass.” The shocked look on our faces made him expound, “Don’t be alarmed. Just because she required five bypasses doesn’t make her case necessarily fatal. Someone can have a single bypass that is very serious, more serious than hers...”

“Thank you for saving her life,” I said.

“Yes, thanks,” Selina said.

My cynical brother said, “Thanks,” and Dr. Winbush smiled and extended his hand. Then Miles surprised me when he asked, “Do you mind if I hug you?” He leaned over, and they did the man hug and tapped each other’s back.

Dr. Winbush seemed unaffected by public displays of gratitude, and before he departed, he asked, “Do you have any questions?” and answered every one until he was assured we were satisfied. Then he left.

I’d already been deprived of sleep. Last night I’d gotten up at 3:45 a.m. to be at the hospital by 5:00. Surgery was scheduled for 7:30, and they would pick up Mom at 6:30. First of all, I wasn’t a night owl. I wasn’t worried about being an early bird and couldn’t have cared less about catching a worm. I left that to my regimented husband, the US Air Force First Shirt, who woke up the rooster.

Waiting. That was the hard part. God had given me peace. I knew Mom would pull through. But she was scared. Not so much of dying, but of the long, hard trail back to health.

She’d been sawed open the way she used to dress a chicken. Oh, the pain. I’m sure that was an issue, or at least, one of Mom’s many issues. Pain is like labor. You don’t know how long it’s going to last or how long you can tolerate it before you go ballistic. Being under anesthesia for four or more hours, and who was going to help take care of her, were all legitimate concerns.

Change. Things were changing. Daddy was gone, and she was trying to find her way without him. My brother called her a crabby old lady. If Mom was a wicked witch when she was healthy, I definitely didn’t want to be around her if she was sick. Dad could tame her. Without him, she was like an untrained toddler. Crabby or not, she was more than a conqueror. She endured the loss of her first love, daddy, after thirty-five years. And she’d been going strong ever since. She just kept bouncing back, until now.

The night before her surgery, I asked, “Mom, didn’t you—surely you had some kind of sign?”

“I should’ve known my car breaking down a couple of weeks ago was an omen. I’d had pressure off and on,” she said flapping her hands to her chest, “fatigued easily, and had some shortness of breath. I thought it was stress.”

I smirked, thinking, it was probably your boorish attitude, but said singsong, “Ma-awm, those are classic signs.”

“I told you, I thought it was just stress!” she said with an attitude, her head rocking side-to-side. “It wasn’t until it felt like someone was sitting on my chest—I got dizzy and couldn’t catch my breath—that I dialed 911. The dispatcher told me to stay on the phone, open the front door, and lay on the couch.”

Nate had to get back to the kids on Saturday. I tried to get Miles to stay longer, but he chickened out, “I can’t stand to see Mom so frail.” Men! And they’re supposed to be the stronger sex. Selina’s boss was understanding and gave her five days off. We stayed in the hospital with Mom most of the day, went home to eat and sleep, to return by noontime.

“Ms. Jordan, it’s time for your walk,” the nurse with the palm tree scrub top said, entering the room.

“I’m not going for no damn walk!” Mom argued.

“Now Mom,” Selina said, softly rubbing her arm, “That’s why I gave you your pain shot. It shouldn’t be too bad.”

“That’s easy for you to sa—.”

“Oh, you’re going for a walk,” I said pulling the covers

back. Selina and Mom gave me puppy-dog eyes that I ignored. “You didn’t go through that quadruple bypass to give up now.”

A bushy-haired nurse walked in, and the first nurse nodded. One hooked the urine bag low on the loaded-down IV pole, transferred Mom’s lines to a telemetry mobile pack, while the other placed her heart pillow to her chest and told her, “Wrap your arms around this while we help you up.”

Seeing Mom acting so ugly reminded me of her last visit with us.

We were at my daughter’s Pre-K graduation. It was standing room only, and even that wasn’t enough. Mom, seated on the end of a bench at the multi-purpose lunchroom, had taken pictures of practically the whole class, rudely asking, no, telling people to “move.” She acted as if nobody else had a right to snag a memento of his or her own family. She’d always been outspoken, but she was out of hand. I didn’t want to have to fight our way out of there traumatizing those innocent children.

After the ceremony, we entered the haven of sugar heaven. The classroom teemed with parents, siblings in strollers and others bouncing around. The children’s eyes were glazed over at the champagne glasses filled with Skittles. Each place setting was coordinated with turquoise and yellow paper plates, napkins, and cups over a white tablecloth. A boy tilted his glass and tossed in a mouth full of Skittles. The two teachers carried bowls of Doritos, chips, and trays of thickly frosted butter cream cupcakes. A room mom passed out cups of fruit punch.

One of the moms said, “We should leave them here when the sugar high takes effect.” There were some giggles, uh-huhs, and heads shaking in agreement. My daughter’s teacher squeezed through the crowd, reached out and hugged Mom. “Thanks for all of your help this semester,” she said.

One of the ladies Mom had insulted spun around on her wedged heels, her mouth gaping open and eyes bulging in shock. And in return, Mom smirked with a smug rise of

her eyebrows. Shortly afterwards, my daughter and I waited in line to pose in front of the bulletin board that had pictures of all of the students. Mom found her way over and insisted on taking a picture with the teacher and our family.

Everybody left me—“the one she didn’t want to burden”—with Mom. Initially, the doctor told us she’d probably be in the hospital four to five days. Unfortunately, she spent eight days because she had fluid in her lungs. The nurses and I had to put up with her cussing and her whining. I reviewed the lengthy typed-out discharge list of medications and instructions. Mom had a long road ahead: doctors’ appointments, dietary changes, cardiac rehab, deep breathing using her incentive spirometer. Events overwhelmed me.

“Mom, I gave you your morning pills two hours ago.”

“They make me nauseous,” she whined.

“If you would’ve eaten your oatmeal, you’d have something on your stomach.” Silence. “I bought you this pill box,” I said shaking it. “Filled it. You said you’d take them. Do you want to get better or not?” I was sick of her. She was a two year old.

I went into the kitchen made some eggs and toast, set the tray in front of her. She took a bite of toast. Then tasted a forkful of eggs. “What the f—”

“You better not say it!”

“I’ll say whatever the hell I want. This shit don’t have salt on it. And what kind of butter is this?”

“They’re Eggbeaters and I Can’t Believe it’s not Butter.”

She pushed the tray to the floor. “Okay, that’s what you want to do? I can one up that.” And I left those eggs scrambled across the floor with the toast. I went to my room, grabbed my purse and car keys.

Her voice trembling, she said, “Where do you think you’re going?”

“You can’t leave me here all by myself!”

“I can and I will,” I said, nose sticking up in the air, shoulders pulled back. And I left her there looking shocked. I stormed out the door, and as I began driving around her

condo complex, my mind flooded. “Here, take this padded push-up bra. It’ll add what you don’t have to help you look better in that dress,” Mom had said in the store for everyone to hear. “It’s your prom! You’re a woman now, at the age of 11! I was 16 when I had my first period,” she said, in front of Daddy, Uncle Steve, and everybody.

“Come on, give it a try,” Daddy had said, trying to convince me to go out in the arena to skate. He held my hand and guided me on the floor. Kids were zooming by, even Selina.

I shook my head. “I don’t want to,” I said, afraid I’d fall.

“Look at your sister. She’s only six years old, and she’s out there trying,” Mom had said.

Mom’s overbearing big mouth affected me. I was shy and withdrawn as a child, and I resented it, as I got older. It was the showdown we’d had about Nate’s frequent travel that got her straight.

“How long are you home for this time?” Mom asked, sarcastically.

“You will respect my husband’s commitment to our country!” I argued.

“Well, it’s about time you woman upped. I’ve been waiting a lifetime to see you take a stance for something!”

Did she say and do things to be spiteful, or did she just like the attention?

It took a couple of trips around the complex to clear my mind. I could not reappear until I was sure I would not disrespect her, the way she disrespected me and everybody else. When I returned, her face was covered with tears. She looked scared and beaten. And for a quick second, I felt a tiny bit of satisfaction. Then my emotions gripped my heart. Something bad could’ve happened. But it didn’t, my conscience reminded me.

“I’m sorry,” she said weeping.

“What is your problem? Why do you keep saying and doing things to push people away?”

She gasped and said, “I don’t know.”

However, the next day, she ate, took her meds, walked, and even used her incentive spirometer, as best she could. Before I left two weeks later, she got around pretty well. Her friends volunteered to help out.

I was back to going to work, rushing home to cook dinner, and taking my kids to practice. Instead of burning up in the hot sun, I watched T-Ball practice from my air-conditioned car. Then I dialed to check on Mom.

“How’s cardiac rehab going?” I asked.

“Hold on a minute,” she said, and hollered, “Keep that skateboarding away from my window.” Apparently, she was doing fine.

The Things We Love

Corrine Akins

Acrylic

Corrine Akins

Mixed Media

Echo

Elizabeth Armstrong

Pen and Ink

Astral Projection

Cassidy Beaulieu

Charcoal Portrait

Cassidy Beaulieu

Pen and Ink

Joshua Bedsole

Photograph Aluminum Machine

Scott Derrick Pastel

Evening On McQuage Bayou

JeAnna Dollente

Photograph Into the Fog

JeAnna Dollente

JeAnna Dollente

Jack Wesley Gaines

Photograph Al Avarado, Groovin’!

After the Day

Marcus Gibbs Oil

Back to the Future

Gilliam

DeAngelo

Photograph

Looking through the Glass

DeAngelo Gilliam

Photograph

DeAngelo Gilliam Photograph Untitled

Cherish Gillman

Photograph Cannon Fire

Sarah Hawkins

Colored Pencil

Juicy

Deb Henley

Photograph Claustrophobia

Leslie T. Hood

Clay, Raku

Woodlin Fairy House

Bettye Keefer

The Mighty Mickey

Garden Floor

Sophia Luong

Pen and Ink

Sophia Luong

Colored Pencil

Bedroom Blues

Maria B. Morekis

Clay, Raku

Heart Canyon

Jessica Parsons Photograph Port St. Joe Sunset

Jessica Parsons Photograph I’m Scared

Relaxing in the Mountains

Self Portrait

Rhoda Ramirez de Arellano

Oil and Magic Marker

Christopher Savoie

Pastel and Graphite

Oriental Pinecones

Jessica Teasdale

Mixed Media Wire Sculpture

Chara

Sue Townsend Photograph

Bubbles in My Claw

Sue Townsend

Photograph Pitcher Perfect

Chief Blue Heron

Katie Rendon Kahn

We watched the smoke waft from between oak trees, cheeks and chins smashed against the glass, fighting for a better view. The deerskin drum drowning out the school bus engine. The primal percussion quickening in our bellies, we wanted more.

Heads hung out the window, ears to the air, we were wild with wonder. There he was: Chief Blue Heron, black hair braided down sure shoulders, armed with arrows loaded with the lore of the Choctawhatchee. He would camp on our campus today.

Teachers quickly whisked us away to classrooms, assuring us we’d all have a turn to hear his tales. That percussion pounded in our ears over lesson plans until we were ushered like cattle out the corridors into a native Neverland.

We watched him weave baskets, palm the pottery of his people, bend bean sprouts around corn stalks, and stir his squash soup with the bone of a buffalo.

Questions flew faster than tomahawks; legends lined his teepee and moccasins. We broke bread—pumpkin bread— dipped in squash soup.

With war cries and rain dances, we applied his wisdom for weeks, drove our teachers insane, making paint in the palms of our hands, viewing the world a little differently.

The Death of an Heir

Bianca Dagostino

“I need you to kill my child.”

The servant’s body jumped at the words, and the tray on which he was precariously carrying flambé slipped from his fingers.

The king was an imposing man, over six feet tall with full red hair and a short beard covering his face. He wore expensive clothes, adding to his already massive physique and making him appear to be a giant of sorts. His only odd characteristic was his skin: pale as snow and without a flaw to be seen; it was as if he had been carved of ice by an unparalleled artist.

The servant was not so, being of only a moderate height. He had muscle, but it was much smaller in mass and hidden beneath his long-sleeved serving jacket and high-collar shirt. He was pasty from a lack of sun, but his skin still held a tint of its natural color, a soft brown. His black hair had been chopped to look professional, leaving his entire face vulnerable to the scrutiny of the imposing noble before him.

The dining hall around them seemed to become smaller, closing in on the servant. The high ceiling and ornately painted tapestries lining the wall seemed much too close. The long table beside them, however, somehow seemed to grow larger. His day was almost over, the dusk settling over the land. An hour, maybe two, was left before he would have finally been able to go home for one last day of peace. He had been so close.

“I-I’m sorry sir?” he asked, stooping to reacquire the goods he had let tumble to the floor in his surprise.

“My wife, she has been pregnant, and she has borne the child,” the king said, matter-of-factly.

“Oh, goodness, sire, shall I call for the celebratory preparations to be brought to order?” The servant was still in quite a jumbled state of mind.

“No, servant, have you not been paying attention? I need you to dispose of her. She has died in childbirth, or so we shall

tell everyone. She must not live past sundown.”

“Sire—” the servant attempted to protest.

“If you refuse, or if you inform anyone about this event, I shall have your head on a platter and feed it to my most savage of dogs, along with your mutilated body. Do you understand me, servant?” The king stood up to his full height, well over two heads taller than the servant, and stared down with a blizzard raging in his eyes.

The servant cowered in fear, only enhancing the king’s level of intimidation. “Yes, my king, I understand.”

“Take her to the forest and throw her in the lake,” the king said and turned to walk away.

The servant hesitated, and then his nature got the better of him. “If I may be so bold…why must the child be murdered so quickly?”

The king looked over his shoulder, his eyes somehow even colder. “You may not,” he said. With that, the king glided away, his cloak flapping behind him.

The servant stood in shock for a few moments, uncertain if he had just hallucinated or been somehow put into a slumber without having been aware of his descent. He was pulled out of his state by another servant inquiring if he was going to put the flambé on the table or if she was supposed to steal it from his frozen fingers and be made to do it herself.

The servant, surprised once again, looked at his hands and found that he had indeed managed to pick up the dessert and place it back on the tray, and it had somehow only shifted to the left slightly. He could have sworn it had hit the ground completely face-down and been smashed to bits. Perhaps he was thinking only of his own mental health.

He set the course down in the center of the table and stood up slowly, suddenly unaware of what he was supposed to be doing next. Was he to go get the king’s newborn child and commit her vile murder now? Or was he to wait until after he had finished setting up the celebratory feast in her honor?

The thought made his already fragile mental state snap in two, and he found himself walking down a hallway--he was not

sure which one--until he came upon the doorway of the master bedroom. His fist came up to knock when the door violently swung open.

“I thought perhaps I was going to have to call for your execution already! What took you so long in getting here? Did you think I meant you to dawdle whilst my child is still alive, heart beating, lungs breathing? Foolish man, can you even perform this task I have demanded of you? If not, confess now, so I may kill you swiftly and be on to one more capable.”

“I am not incapable; I simply was unsure if you intended the death to be immediate or upon the fall of night, where sight of me with the child would be less likely,” the servant said, swift in creating an escape from his obvious mistake. He was not ready to die this day, nor any day soon.

“Obviously, I have thought of this. You will not merely be taking the child in arm and waltzing her through the town like some unintelligent child thief. She will be transported in this,” the king said, handing the servant a large woven picnic basket, a particularly hefty picnic basket. “You are not to open this for anyone under any circumstances. The child will not wake. Go now, and do not return until the child is disposed of.” The door slammed in the servant’s face before he could blink, and the king was gone.

The servant decided not to look in the basket himself and instead began walking down a different hallway. This one was covered in paintings of the history of the land, none of them given much attention by the people residing within the castle walls. The history of the land was taught on many occasions, and these pictures were often out of order or confusing. The servant reached the far end of the hallway and turned right, then left, then left again, and on the right was one of the servants’ exits from the castle.

The servant was still confused about what was going on; his legs were doing most of the work in taking him where he was bound to be going. He could not understand why the king would want his only child to be killed. Did he not wish to have an heir? As well, why would he pick him? A lowly servant, unknown

to the king, as the king does not stoop so low as to learn the names of those who serve him, or even the faces, how would this servant be appealing for the job? Did he just happen to be in the incorrect place at the incorrect time? Was this a matter of fate? Had more advanced forces come into play here and made him the particular target of this injustice?

The servant’s steps slowed. Had the universe and the powers of the soil put this event into his life for a reason?

Abruptly, the servant was aware of the reasons for his random selection. He knew, even if it was truly random and fate had not intervened, there was an opportunity here, overt and waiting. This was an opportunity he was not going to pass up, one he could not pass up. Not when it was so readily available. His feet swiveled, and he headed toward Carbul Hill, really just the top of a slight incline in the land. He did not live at the highest point because he was not one to be showcased; scrutiny was too easily received living at the pinnacle. He swung around the base of the hill, and the houses became sparser. His house was to the left, amidst other homes that looked exactly the same, besides the fact that they were scattered at every interval and angle.

He paused at the door. After what had happened within the walls of his residence, he found it difficult to enter. The initial moments of seeing the house caused horrific images to plague his mind. They were strong, almost palpable, as though he was being forced to experience the horror again.

He felt his heart stop, just as it had that day. He remembered shouting at the midwife, desperately attempting to help his wife, to make her eyes open once again. He hadn’t been able to move. She needed him there. She needed his hand. She was going to break it to ease her pain. The midwife paid attention only to getting the baby out of his dying wife because she knew the wife was a lost cause. He had not been able to think this logically and had continued shouting, demanding that she be aided, that she be made to live. After a time, the midwife was suddenly standing beside him, cradling the wailing child, covered in afterbirth. She leaned in close to his

wife, and he did nothing to stop her. He was an emotional disaster at that point.

Words had been spoken, movements had been made, and then, his beautiful wife had strained her eyes open, staring at him and their new child. Very slowly, very softly, and very clearly, she said, “My gorgeous family, I love you my beautiful husband, and I love you, my lovely child, my Kaele.”

This man would never forget those last moments before his wife’s eyes closed forever as she lay in sheets saturated with her own blood. He had named their child this, for love of his wife, and he would eternally cherish both the child and his name. He would protect them until the end.

His conviction reengaged, the man steeled his body and was able to move again. He rushed inside and put the picnic basket on the table. “Tenna,” he said to the blind woman who had been keeping his child as he worked. “You can go now; I was allowed to go home early, and I must prepare.” The woman nodded, but she was blind yet extremely adept. She had been the only person available to watch his child, and while he had been wary at first, she had proven to be a master caretaker.

He put her daily pay in her hands, a few silver coins, enough to buy dinner each night, which was all they pay she had requested. He had attempted to give her more, but she had simply gestured to the child, and he knew she was correct. The child needed the money more than either of them.

The woman left, and he went to hold his dear child, a son as it turned out. The midwife had been uncertain, because of the amount of blood covering the frail body, and he had insisted upon her taking her leave and allowing him to wash and care for the child on his own. She had trained him how in the unlikely event that she was unavailable at the time of the birth, and so she had no just argument as to why she should stay. He also suspected he had frightened her a bit, and she had desired to remove herself swiftly from the tragic atmosphere that had engulfed the house. In truth, that atmosphere had barely waned. The only light in the house were his son’s eyes, bright green with flecks of red, his wife’s eyes, with the remnants of her inner fire.

“Kaele, I told you I was going to protect you, and I meant it,” he said, and the baby boy snuggled into his chest, as much as he could, being only a few days old, exactly seven now actually. They always came on the seventh day.

He put the baby back in his crib and began to prepare the house. They would be there soon. As the sun sinks below the horizon on the seventh day of their lives, the child of those in low social standing will be taken and entered into the Snow Academy, where they will be trained as future Snow Soldiers for the fight against the rebels who “threaten the peace” of the land. The sun was nearly down. He estimated he had a little over an hour before the last rays disappeared from the sky and the knock on the door came. The knock was never late.

He moved swiftly about his house and picked up the few pieces of material and food that were out of place. The process took all of two minutes and was really only a means of putting off what he really had to do.

He went over to the picnic basket and took a deep breath. He had always been a kind, gentle man, but an obedient one, always obedient. His wife had constantly nagged him about it; she believed total obedience was illogical and unhealthy. He was going to take her advice now. Hopefully, it would not get him killed.

Slowly, he opened the lid of the picnic basket, afraid somehow of what was inside it. Whatever he had been expecting, it was not what he found. Inside the basket lay a baby girl, and as the low light streaming in through the windows hit her face, her eyes fluttered, and she began murmuring beautiful sounds of waking. She was the most stunning infant he had ever seen, besides his own of course, with hair in a pale blonde color with a soft undertone of red that somehow seemed as beautiful as freshly fallen snow while being as warm as a beach on a summer’s day. Her eyes were a jade green, pure and open, seeming to smile at him even as her mouth could not. Her skin was pale over a tiny body that was full of life, her cheeks rosy and lightly freckled near her tiny nose.

The man was astonished. Having one’s own child slaughtered was absurd enough; one’s own flesh and blood baby girl was not something most people could even consider murdering, but a child this beautiful? He was surprised the king had not fallen to his knees at the sight of this creature and wondered how the universe had been so kind as to bless him with this manifestation of glory for a descendant.

The infant rolled over, as if the sun had become too much for its eyes, and she quieted. The scene abruptly changed; she was still quite the lovely baby, but her hair seemed to dull, her skin to fade to a normal shade, her body the adorable pudgy form of every baby. The shift puzzled him momentarily, but as reality hit him, he nearly fell over in shock for the second time that day.

The baby had magic. He realized that the child must have had some sort of protective magic, to make the people around her find her irresistible and be compelled to protect her. This must be why the king wanted her dead, the man realized: because the child was not his own. The king could not allow anyone to know that his wife had lain with another, nor could he put a child that was not his own in line to be the next ruler of Lianxar.

The man was suddenly fearful. Was the king aware that the child had magic? Would the king realize that this child was the one he had demanded be killed in the midst of the forest? One look at his baby boy, however, and he knew it was worth the risk.

The infant rolled back over, and the man became aware that the sun was moving closer to the horizon. He reached into the basket and plucked the tiny human out, taking her over to the crib and setting her inside. He pulled his own child out of the crib and placed him within the picnic basket. It seemed to him an odd transition, to put another’s child into the light while shutting his own in the dark, and he had difficulty closing the lid on his son.

The child let out a whimper, and he reacted immediately. “Shh,” he said, “It’s okay Kaele, daddy is right here. He’s staying here. You must trust me, okay my son? I need you to be quiet; can you do that for daddy?” The infant’s wide eyes stared up at

him without noticeable recognition, but the man sensed there was intelligence behind them still. He trusted the child.

The sunlight crawled over the ceiling, retreating swiftly out the window. The set sun was nearly upon him. He gently put the lid of the picnic basket down over his son’s body and moved the basket to the floor near the shabby closet.

The knock sounded then, clear and strong on the man’s frail wooden door.

His heart jumped, adrenaline shooting through his veins uncontrollably, but he stood up straight and confident. He was unafraid; he must appear unafraid; he was doing his duty.

The man went to the door and drew it open, gesturing for the Recruiters to enter his humble abode. “Welcome, Snow Soldiers.” He said, bowing his head in the traditional greeting by an inferior. They returned it with the superior greeting: a lifting of the chin.

“The child,” said the woman standing in the center of the three who now stood in the middle of the man’s small home.

He gestured to the crib and followed his hand, walking over and picking up the child that was not his own. “She is here,” he said. The woman held her arms out for the tiny female, and he handed her over, not too readily, and not too reluctantly. Calmly and carefully.

“The old woman, Temma, she noted that the child was a male.” The man to her right said.

“My apologies, but the woman is aging and has no sight; she often deceives herself without realizing. She is a wise woman, but, as you can see, my child is clearly female. To her credit, there was some confusion at the beginning, as she came out bald and so twisted up she took days to fully unravel herself.” He did not bother to correct the Soldier on his mispronunciation of Tenna’s name; the Soldier cared as much about that as he did the fifth pebble he had trod upon as he had approached this residence.

The third Soldier nodded. “She is rather small,” he said.

“She was premature,” the man replied. “She was much smaller seven days ago. We were not certain she would make it through the week.”

“She appears to be healthy enough now,” the soldier in the middle spoke up again. She seemed mildly impatient. “Thank you, good sir, your patriotism is valued. Your child shall be instrumental in our suppression of evil.” She was obviously a seasoned Recruiter. None of them glancing backwards, the three Snow Soldiers turned tail and exited the small building. They were on a mission. The man went and closed the door slowly, the reality of what he had done threatening to push itself to the forefront of his brain. He had sent an innocent child into the clutches of the Snow Soldiers. She wasn’t even old enough to be recruited yet; she was maybe a day old, though there was no way he could know for certain. She—

A cry from behind him awoke him from his reverie. His anxiety dissipated instantly. There had been a reason for this act; sacrifices had to be made in one’s life; it was inevitable. This was one of his. The child was alive and healthy, as the Recruiter had said, and she would remain so in their care. Her life would be grueling, but her alternative had been death. He had to protect his own child from that horror; he had to salvage something of his lost love and keep it safe, pure. He had to.

He lifted the lid of the picnic basket and the whimpering cut short. The eyes of his child stared up at him, and the baby boy managed the beginnings of a smile for his father. This child was worth sacrificing a thousand others to the life of a Snow Soldier. This child was his only.

“I told you,” the man said as he picked his baby boy up out of the small picnic basket. “I will protect you so long as you are alive, and I shall not allow you to die. You will be safe. Forever.”

He used his foot to slide the container that had been a baby holder for the past few hours into the closet. He pushed it all the way to the back left corner and pulled the few other articles on the closet floor—a wastebasket, a broom, a bucket—to surround the item.

His focus directed solely on his new child, on plans of how to raise him, on thoughts of how to hide him, he gently pressed the door inward, allowing it to slowly plunge the woven picnic basket into darkness.

Sueños

Luis Melecio-Zambrano

Tomás wrapped the empanada in wax paper and placed it in a white paper bag.

“Gracias, Señora Melendez,” he said, smiling as he handed her the food. She offered him a soft grin and familiar thanks in Spanish and left the store. The jingle bells that were tied to the door handle chimed with the movement. He used to play with them and imagine he could bring Christmas there early, maybe even bring snow. He wished it would snow now. The hot Tucson sun beat down through the display windows caked with flyers for Latino night clubs, Cumbia and Norteño concerts, Spanishspeaking churches, and advertisements for Agua de Jamaica. A few customers filtered through the aisles of the gas-station bodega, men stained brown by sun and ancestry, women with eyes glazed with nostalgia. He could see them whisper the names and smile distantly, sitting in the soft hammock of the familiar sounds.

Tomás didn’t know what they felt. He’d been here for as long as he could remember, here in the yellow dust and the sunbaked grass. He had played catch with bags of chicharrones by the drink coolers; once, he dropped a bottle of agua de coco on the dirty tile. Papi had chewed him out thoroughly, and Tomás bawled because Maria had cut herself on the shards. Napoleon used to push him down the aisle in one of the cardboard boxes and see how far he would slide. On a good day, Napoleon could push him past the dried beans and towards the Frijoles Negros. He had spent his entire life among the foods without ever seeing the distant lands that created them.

He started to stock the aisle where he and his brother used to play, pulling jars and cans out of the cart with an unsteady rhythm. He hummed as he read the labels. This shipment of coconut water came from a factory in northern Thailand that made Hispanic food for people in America. Tomás wondered

how much the sort of job outsourcing had to do with the imperialism of the 1900s. He’d learned that the skinny country had been part of French Indochina yesterday in world history and was proud of the fact. He wanted to simultaneously know and discover everything, like how those Northern Thai people had gotten involved in Latin food. The longings pushed against each other – he knew that he couldn’t discover everything if he already knew everything. He was still hungry, still aching to know all he could.

“Tomás!” His head snapped up towards the sound of his name.

“What are you doing?”

He looked down and saw that he had stocked only half of an aisle in the last twenty minutes then looked up to see his dad glaring at him from behind a shelf of pig feet.

“Hola, Papi. I was thinking.”

“Que carambola! You can’t think and work? And talk to me in Spanish, niño,” he said in Spanish, peering around the shelf long enough to see his son start to work.

“Si, señor,” he said with a bit of resignation and returned to his work and his thought. He didn’t like how his dad yelled all the time, but he understood. With Napoleon and his brothers, Toñito and Manuel, Papi had nurtured the dying gas station back to life. He had torn up and rebuilt the shelves so they he could fit in tables of fruit and vegetables. He had ghetto-rigged the old sandwich coolers so he could display fresh cheese and meat deli-style. His mother had cleaned herself into back pains. Tomás took care of little Maria.

He heard the neighbors call them crazy. He heard them scorn their dreams as locuras and say that they were bound to fail, but he saw them praying silently that it would go as planned. It was a wetback’s wet dream, and they all knew it. They would come over and tell the family that it was insanity while they helped sand floors. They would caulk cracks as they talked about the risk of the investment. They would say that it would be impossible to pay back interest while they scrubbed windows with ammonia.

It came to life. They cut a red ribbon and started the music. Napolito and Tomás dressed up in button-up shirts, and Maria wobbled around in a white dress with ribbons in her hair. The store sold its first empanadas and beer, most of which was consumed within earshot of the boom box that had been set up on a table in the parking lot. The Melendez brought a six-gallon pot of rice and beans that they had made in the church kitchen six blocks away. After a few drinks, a couple of the men even admitted to Papi in lilting Spanish, “a damn good job, Geraldito. A damn good job.” Papi closed the store early so that he could come out and dance with his wife and his daughter. He kissed his family members at least twice.

Tomás looked up at his old man as he stacked boxes in the corner of the shop. Work had built his body and worn it down so that he looked strong, so strong, and tired. He had a face that could chip stone and a heart like a jackhammer. Tomás had only seen him cry, or could only remember seeing him, twice— three times, counting last May.

The first time had been the same night that the store opened. He whispered to Mami in the doorway that Tomas shared with Napolito, beaming at the children he thought were asleep. He kept on looking at them and then away and repeating: “my hands, these were my hands. My hands did this.” When Papi came to kiss him goodnight, Tomás thought he felt sweat fall on his cheeks, but he heard his father sniffle as he walked away.

The second time, Papi took the day off and borrowed Tio Manuel’s truck. He took them to a park with green grass and real green trees that spread their limbs big enough to give shade and rustle when the wind blew. They were playing soccer, and Maria juked out Papi, and he just started laughing until he was crying because he was laughing so hard. He just broke out into smiling tears as he looked at his family. Tomás found out last month that it was the day he had finally paid off the interest on the store.

Then last May. Tomás had closed the store for the night and slipped in silently because Maria usually went to sleep before he got home. He heard Papi and Napoleon arguing in Spanglish.

“What the hell does that mean?” asked Papi.

“I’m going,” said Napoleon.

“When did you get that idea?”

“I have friends in Phoenix. I can stay with them and take a bus to class.” He looked away from Papi, noticing Tomás standing at the entrance to the living room.

“No.”

He said it like he could control it, like everything would change because he was so sure.

“Papi, I’m leaving, and I want your blessing.”

Mami walked to the door of her bedroom, taking in her sons and her husband.

“You’re not going anywhere.”

“I’m already enrolled.”

“How did I not know that that happened under my roof?”

Mami looked at Napolito and bit her knuckle.

“Ugh, what does it matter? I’m leaving, and I don’t want you to be so angry about it. I want to get better.”

“If you didn’t want me so angry, why didn’t you tell me before?”

“Because…”

“Napoleon Gabriel Moltilva…” Papi’s voice trembled.

“Because I want to go somewhere,” he faltered, “somewhere where the biggest dream doesn’t involve a gas station.”

Papi broke. His broken parts just leaked from his eyes. The air had become so thick that it clogged his ability to tell Napoleon to stay one last time, or to get angry at his last words. Napoleon grabbed his bags and pushed his way through the thick air, and Mami choked on her sobs, moving her mouth to say words that couldn’t exist. He swam his way through the living room and held on to Tomás like a little life raft as he stood by the front door. Then he dove into the night.

Tomás never found out how Napoleon got into a college without Papi knowing. He had probably snuck into the accordion folder that Papi kept in the closet so that he could file for financial aid. Maybe Mami signed something without Papi knowing. It didn’t matter; he was gone now. Napoleon sent

Tomás an e-mail saying that he would find Tomás a place on campus if he wanted to leave. Napoleon knew that Tomas went to the library to study, to read, and to dream. To do things like check and send e-mail and read news articles on the Internet. He knew that he wanted to teach social studies one day. He knew that Tomas would never become a teacher by stocking groceries in the family store. So did Tomás.

But Papi was already so tired. Sometimes, he just stared out of the window with a look of mournful expectation. He looked through the door hoping for someone to enter that wasn’t a customer or a neighbor. Then he’d shake his head and try to smile and get back to work. Tomás didn’t see it too often, but he did see it, and he didn’t want to add to it.

Papi looked up to see him daydreaming again.

“Tomás!”

“Si, Señor?”

“What are you doing?” Papi said, sighing out the words. Tomas fingered the college flyer in his pocket and wondered if he could do this right.

“I’m thinking.”

“Come on, Tomas, I told you to think and work.”

He paused and looked at his son. Tomas looked at his father.

“Papi?”

Tomas waited for his father to respond.

“What do you want?”

He gathered his courage and bent the corner of the flyer. He could do this right.

“We need to talk.”

Long Distance

Eric Farmer

She stands next to me in the morning, making funny faces in the mirror while we brush our teeth, reminding me to use mouthwash, even though I hate the taste.

She sits next to me in the car when I drive to work in the morning, singing along with the radio, letting her hair bounce around as she dances in the seat.

She sits with me in my office, reading quietly, patiently waiting for me to finish my work so we can have a coffee break together.

When we go shopping, she reminds me to eat better. When I cook, she gently sniffs the air, and tells me that it smells great. And when I shower, she always flirts with me, and sometimes asks if she can join.

But every night when I rest my head, I wrap myself in cold sheets, and close my eyes to keep from crying. She is always in my heart, but never lies beside me.

October

Emily Heasley

I tell people, upon first meeting, that I’m an only child which in some regards is true. I had my own room, Nintendo 64, Harry Potter overalls, comic book collection. I don’t tell people that today he’d be 23 and that we might have shared a room, and games, and clothes, and books.

I don’t tell people that he’s buried in that little cemetery across from the Target on Miracle Strip.

I don’t tell them if he’s under the live oak that drips Spanish moss, or if he’s down the slope closer to the blue-grey chop of the Sound because I don’t know.

Mom never got him a headstone not because she didn’t care but because she kept choosing to forget. She can’t really remember if his birthday was the 20th or 21st either. She says the birth and death certificates contradict, but she knows he was only alive an hour before lungs too small to support his breath stopped heaving.

I don’t tell people that my dad wanted a son more than another daughter. The Junior on the line that reads “full name” makes it clear.

I never tell people, but I’m sure that’s why he left Mom and me before my first birthday and why he only sent three letters and two phone calls in ten years.

I don’t tell people that I’m not sure if God

exists, but I know my big brother does, even though I’ve never seen him. And when people say to me, “Everything happens for a reason,” I don’t tell them I believe the reason he’s not here is because I am. I just tell them, when I know them well enough, that his name was Will.

First Place, James and Christian LaRoche Poetry Contest, 2014

Outliers

Emily Heasley

Last trip for a while, I thought. I walked down the claustrophobic side street and out into one of The City’s many cluttered intersections. The streets were freshly swept by the night time crew, and the only sign people even lived there were rows of bikes chained together and the occasional shadow that passed in front of one of the millions of windows. I looked up at the monolithic apartment buildings. The late September wind blew, and I thought I saw the skyscrapers sway, like concrete redwoods. Walking on, I wondered if the redwoods even existed anymore.

Passing through another intersection, I paused at the corner and took a look around. Normally, I would be by the guard shack, waiting for my passengers and ready to leave at a moment’s notice. Lately, however, border security had been tight, and I had been forced to stay a few days in The City before heading back home. So I was more than a little on edge. It was hard enough sneaking from the edge of this place and back out into the country without being noticed. But trying to keep a secret in a city of seven billion, now that’s a trick.

The orange-yellow light from the small outpost gleamed in the coal-black night. I could see my cousin moving around in the tiny building. He waved when he saw me approaching.

“Colder than I expected,” Ryder said, stepping out of the guard shack. His cartoonish grin looked misplaced on his rugged face.

“That’s why I brought you this.” I pulled a brown leather jacket from my canvas bag and handed it to him. “You should probably stop dropping it by the door when you leave.”

Ryder chuckled and nodded. “Thanks.” He pulled his jacket on over his olive uniform and then looked out towards the tree line. “You’re going to have to walk a bit. I couldn’t figure a way to pull the cart around without it looking suspicious.”

Heasley • 89

“No worries.” The wind blew, and I could hear the trees rustling in the distance. The few lights from the nearby buildings and the glow of the crescent moon lit the leaves with a cool shimmer. “You know how many I’ve got tonight?”

Ryder shook his head. He leaned against the white-andblack building and looked back at the streets. “I don’t imagine you’ll have many. They’re cracking down big time. Census coming up and all, too.”

I nodded. The census was another reason this would be my last trip for a while. Soon enough, Upstairs Folk would be heading into the outlying country to count heads, which would not only make travel more dangerous, but it was also going to tip them off that people were getting out of the city. Bad time to be a smuggler. Worst time to get caught.

I had been smuggling people out of The City for a few years now. Truth be told, it wasn’t something I had planned on doing, but after living with Ryder and all the other Downstairs Folk, it felt like the right thing to do. The whole of humanity lived in a concrete cage. A few dozen getting out wasn’t going to throw the world back into the red.

Ryder and I passed the time talking about the state of everything. We had both heard rumors that the air and water were clearing up and that things were starting to level out. I was hopeful. The two of us had grown up Outliers and knew nature had a way of fixing itself. If the world could get back to the way it was, if just a fraction of the damage we had done to it could be repaired, maybe we could finally spread back out and live like people again.

An hour passed. Ryder checked the clock in the guard station. It was a little after midnight. Shift change was in another hour, and then my window would be gone. I stood there, in the cool dark, shifting back and forth. Then I saw movement in the street.

Out of the shadows came a girl, dressed in a crimson and gold dress. In one hand, she held an old, leather suitcase. In her other hand, she held a bundle of books that were tied together with a braided cord. She wore new, shiny shoes, and her hair

was pulled back in an elaborate braid. Her skin was an even tan color, and her clothes were spotless. She reminded me of a collectible doll that had never been removed from its box.

“Hi,” she said, coming to a stop at least arm’s length away from me. “Are you Francesca?”

“Nope,” I said. “I’m Chess.”

“Oh, excuse me, that’s right.” She put down her suitcase, but held her books tightly against her chest. She looked around as if she expected someone to be watching us from a darkened window. “A friend of yours sent me.”

She might as well have had Upstairs embroidered on the front of her fancy outfit. I looked at Ryder. He shrugged and shook his head. I looked at her.

“Who are you?”

“My name’s Eleora,” she said, smiling. “I’m here for a, uh, ride?”

No way. I had been doing this for a while, but I had never had any Upstairs want out of The City.

Why would they want out? They got to live on the top floors. They were allowed to go to the pretty little parks on the roofs of the apartments. They got to have new clothes and air conditioning, TVs and phones, everything. It was people like them who thought building The City when the world started to die was a good idea. I had never turned anyone away, but there was a first time for everything.

“Why?” I could nearly feel the disgust in my voice, like just talking to her made me sick.

Eleora frowned. “I was told there’d be no questions asked.”

Just like an Upstairs to get quick with me. I had been dealing with these people for a few years now. I was born on my family’s farm in the country. Outliers, as we were called, had it pretty good. We worked the land, providing for The City, and were given everything we needed to live in return. My place was pretty nice. It was a huge compound, and my whole family, minus Ryder, lived there. I left when I was thirteen to get a better education and had lived with Ryder until I graduated.

“You want my help, you answer my question,” I turned

Heasley • 91

and looked at Ryder. He gave me one of his “be nice” glares, but I ignored him. “Or you can take a gamble and walk out by yourself.”

Eleora sighed. It was exaggerated, like when a teenager doesn’t get her way. I resisted glowering at her. “Fine. Because I want to get away from my parents.”

“Why?”

Eleora picked up her suitcase and started towards me. Her footsteps sounded too loud to be made by her and her polished Mary Janes. “Listen, I gave you an answer. You don’t actually care why I want to leave. I know that. I don’t care that you don’t like me or trust me.”

Now that she was standing right in front of me, I noticed she was taller, and she might have been intimidating without the Upstairs garb. “I can give you whatever you want. I just want out.”

“I ain’t a taxi service.” I wrinkled my nose and stared up at her. “But fine. Whatever you want.”

As I grabbed the flashlight and hunting knife I kept in the guard shack, Ryder glared at me. I couldn’t tell whether he was frowning at my behavior or the fact that I had agreed to smuggle an Upstairs out of the city. Probably the latter. Smuggling was dangerous enough, but with a “high profile” passenger, I was really upping the stakes. There was no going back now.

“I marked the trail to the cart for you,” Ryder said as I tested the flashlight.

“Thanks.”

Ryder stared at me for a moment, a small smile creeping across his face. Saying goodbye was always hard. We would go weeks without seeing each other, and because I was needed on the farm a lot, we never knew when we’d see each other again. This time, I knew it was going to be at least a month, probably longer.

Like every time before, I asked, “Why don’t you come with?”

Ryder’s smile faded. “They’ll notice if I’m gone,” he said, for probably the hundredth time, “It’s risky enough as is. I belong here. And you belong—

“I don’t know where I belong.”

Ryder’s frown deepened, and he put his hand on my shoulder. “Be careful.”

I nodded and gave him a hug. I wanted more than anything for him to come home, but he was right. If we got caught, it wouldn’t just be me or Ryder on the line. The City would come after my entire family. And even though I wasn’t sure what they would do to us, I had heard enough whispers to be afraid. I looked back at Eleora and waved for her to follow. As we walked through the check point gate, I looked back and saw Ryder standing in the guard shack, his shoulders hunched with the tension that we both felt.

It was about a mile-long walk to the forest. Usually, I would lead my group of passengers through the dark slowly, keeping to the cover of shadows. Since my only charge tonight was Eleora, though, we walked normally. I made sure to keep my eye out, but we reached the shelter of the woods without trouble.

The beam from my flashlight sliced through the darkness. Eleora had been quiet so far, but as I tried to find the bright pink markers Ryder put out, she finally spoke.

“So that guard’s family of yours?”

“Mm hmm,” I said, stepping over some knotted grass. “Older cousin.”

“Oh,” Eleora said. “Are all your family in security?”

Most of the time, and especially true of Downstairs Folk, the entire family would be in the same business. It was difficult for a Downstairs to move up the job bracket. That was one of the ways The City worked. Everyone had his or her place. You and your family were paid in supplies for your work, and you were expected to do your work well. The more glamorous or “important” the job, the more luxuries you were given. My pop said that. When the world’s population moved into one city decades ago, things were meant to be balanced. Somehow I got the feeling that was more an ideal than the actual idea, though.

“We’re Outliers,” I said, finally spotting a pink plastic tag wrapped around a tree branch. “Ryder moved into The City

Heasley • 93

because he wanted to be an architect.” I thought that was a dumb idea, but maybe it was because I had seen the Downstairs too much. By the time I moved in with my cousin, his student visa had run out, and he had been placed in low-level security. “Me though, I’m a farm girl.”

“Did you go to school in The City, too?” Eleora asked, following me and my flashlight beam.

“Yep,” I said. I got stuck for the same reason Ryder did. Once your reason for being in The City was over, you had to stay. After all, if anyone left, they would start ruining and polluting the world again. Or so they said.

“My family’s in politics,” Eleora said.

“Keepers of the status quo, huh?” We had come out onto a narrow trail. It looked fresh and was lined with pink markers. As we passed, I made sure to pull down each ribbon.

“Yeah.”

Eleora’s voice sounded hollow. I looked back. She was staring at the ground, as if she had just been scolded. For a moment, I found it strange. Maybe she actually cared. That would be a first. But nothing was impossible. We came to the cart. The back was covered with a tarp, and a pair of stocky ponies was hitched to it, impatiently pawing the ground. “Sorry fellas,” I said, patting their flanks as I came around and untied them from the trees. I hopped up in the driver’s seat. Eleora tossed her stuff in the back, then sat next to me. I stared at her. “You ride in the back.”

“Why? It’s only me.” She smiled.

I wasn’t in the mood to argue. Shrugging, I urged the ponies out of the clearing and onto the path I took when delivering things to The City.

The air felt lighter away from the concrete and steel. The trees rustled in the chipper wind. The stars glittered overhead, and the Milky Way looked like a long, shimmering, brushstroke. Eleora grabbed my flashlight off the seat, turned it on, and started to read one of her books.

“You’re going to waste the battery.” I tried not to look away from the road, but being an avid reader, I was curious.

“What’re you reading?”

“Oh, um, Jane Austen,” Eleora said, Sense and Sensibility.

“Wow, really?” My eyes lit up.

“What, you didn’t think I could read?”

“Heh, no, just not expecting,” I tried to think of a politically correct word choice. “Such good taste.”

Eleora smiled. “I’m not sure if I like her writing so much as I like the idea of her doing the writing, if that makes sense.”

She turned the flashlight off and closed the book. “I admire that she just sort of–

“Did what she wanted?”

“Exactly.” Eleora chuckled and looked at the sky. “I guess I’m trying to do that now.”

I glanced back at the road, then to her. I didn’t say anything.

“My parents expect me to be a politician, too,” she said after a few moments of quiet. “Keep the status quo. But I don’t want to do that. I want to make things better.”

“And what would you know about the way things are?”

She stared at me, her hazel eyes flashing in the dark. “I’m not blind. Just because I lived Upstairs doesn’t mean I never looked outside my own window.” She looked down at the book in her lap. “I know people don’t have enough to live on. I know they work themselves to death never moving up in the world. And I know that humans wrecked the world, and we don’t have much choice but to live the way we live. But it’s not fair.”

“So you ran away because you didn’t think you could change anything?”

We looked at each other, the sound of the cart clattering through the dark, filling the air. Eleora smiled and shook her head.

“Maybe,” she said. “Or maybe I thought I could do more good out here.”

When I found out my visa had run out, Ryder had found a way for me to get home. He knew that my family needed me and that staying in The City would kill me, so he tracked down a group of smugglers. And when I finally arrived home, I knew there were other people who needed to get out like I had. That’s

why I started smuggling. It was my way of making a difference. And maybe in the end, it wasn’t the right course of action. Maybe The City had it right. Maybe we’d hurt the land so much we could never, should never, spread out and live off of it again. But I did what I thought was right. And I couldn’t knock Eleora for doing the same, even if she was an Upstairs.

We left the forest behind, riding out into the open, golden fields. The farm lands were quiet, save for our cart and the occasional bark from a faraway dog. Finally, a huge red barn and a cluster of yellow and blue farmhouses appeared in the fields.

We rumbled through the tall wooden gate, past a stand of willow trees, and down to the barn. I stopped the cart, jumped down, and started unhitching the ponies. Eleora didn’t move. She stared at the houses.

“Your whole family lives here?” Eleora’s eyes were wide and round.

“Four generations, yeah.” I led the ponies toward the barn. “C’mon, help me with these two.” We went into the barn. The cows and mules were asleep, but my pop’s roan horse nickered at me as I walked past. I brought the ponies to their stalls and started to brush them down. Eleora watched.

“Bet you guys are happy you’re done for a while, huh?” I said to the ponies while closing the stall doors.

“Is that all you ever do?” Eleora asked. “Smuggle people?”

“I try to divide my time between here and The City. But mostly I smuggle,” I said. Then I laughed. “Only reason we have that little cart and the ponies. I saved up a few weeks’ rations to get ‘em so I could get started.”

“You risk a lot doing it,” Eleora said. “You’ve got a lot to lose.”

“Don’t we all?”

Eleora looked sad and shook her head. “Sometimes you have a lot to give up, sure. But not to lose.”

I stared at her for a moment, quirked a brow. Then I motioned for her to follow. “Let’s get you set for the night.” We snuck into the closest blue house, and I led Eleora down to the cellar. The little room was lined with cots, and there was a shelf in the corner piled with blankets and pillows. “Ain’t fancy, but here you go.”

Eleora smiled and sat on one of the cots. She looked around the room, then at me. “Thanks, Chess. For everything.”

“No worries.”

I went upstairs, careful to not make noise passing my parents’ room. I crawled into my bed, pulling the old quilt my gram made for me over my head and fell asleep.

I woke up late the next morning. I rolled out of bed and slipped my shoes on, then made a beeline for the cellar to check on Eleora.

The house was empty. Everyone was already out working, I figured. My parents usually let me sleep in the night after one of my trips, but judging from the sun in the sky, it was almost ten. I walked through the kitchen, spying the sink full of dishes. When I got to the cellar, Eleora was nowhere to be found. Instead, a slip of paper and her Jane Austen book sat on her cot. I unfolded the paper.

“Thought you might have had enough of The City, so I took the wagon for a ride. Nothing to lose. Hope you don’t mind. Take care. P.S. I’ll see what I can do about your cousin.”

I ran upstairs and out into the yard. The cart was gone. I ran into the barn, but the ponies were gone, too. I went back outside and looked down the road. Last trip for me, I thought. And I didn’t mind at all.

Phantom Limb

Katie Rendon Kahn

She tells me, “I don’t have a leg to stand on.” It’s because she still feels the tingle of the amputation, the separation from the man who was once an extension of herself: her phantom limb.

She tries on prosthetics, but they rub her the wrong way. The separation itches, and prescriptions don’t fill the prickly space once occupied by familiar flesh.

She soaks her bandages in bourbon, but her cast won’t set straight. It feels hollow like empty Prozac prescriptions, bottles of booze, and promises.

Necessary Evils

Alexander Hencinski

Most children are taught from the day they can crawl toward the electrical outlet to the day they finally leave their parents’ house that the primary goal of existence is to color inside the lines of the kindergarten coloring book of life. They are told over and over to paint the grass green and the sky blue and to draw a smiley face on the yellow sun because nothing good ever comes out of a troublemaker. I disagree. Without mischief and mayhem scampering pell-mell through our brief existences, the lives of everyday people would float listlessly into the tepid waters of redundancy. A touch of the troublesome every now and then is like the cinnamon and frosting on a cinnamon roll: without the necessary flavoring and gooeyness, there is nothing left but a tasteless, doughy mass with no character or purpose.

Mischief may be manufactured by many methods. For most, it is enough to simply secure someone’s shoelaces to his or her seat, so that, upon attempts to arise, both victim and chair come careening into the carpet. Others find it imperative to utilize complex systems of gears, pulleys, and levers to accomplish their dastardly deeds, no matter how mundane the end product may seem. I, however, have found great success in verbal roguery, such as the time I convinced a classmate that Hershey’s chocolatiers made use of a revolutionary process in mixing their confections: a chocolate waterfall.

Causing trouble has always been an important aspect of my life. In a society of young people who spurn intelligence and awkwardness, it is often essential for those of us fitting into these categories to find some way to earn respect among peers, and to ingenious young minds, the easiest route to this often grudging respect is through troublemaking. I, like so many other “nerds,” was teased throughout my late elementary and early middle school years for my intelligence and lack of physical

Mischief is also the father of creativity. I am a pianist, and every year I am forced to accompany my younger brother’s trombone solos. They are, to say the least, an insult to my musical intelligence, so this year, in a lovely moment of joint deviousness, my brother and I decided to jazz it up a bit. When we arrived at church that Sunday morning to play, my mom was a bit (ahem) surprised to hear a completely different solo than the one he and I had been practicing for the past few days. In fact, composers have historically invoked this spirit of mischief to write pieces called Scherzos, which in Italian literally means joke or prank. These compositions feature witty, bouncy melodies and clever changes in mood, like a child misbehaving until an adult walks into the room, and then promptly continuing to cause trouble as soon as they leave.

For those who truly understand it, mischief is a way of life. It is a form of protection for those who can’t physically defend themselves and an outlet for creativity that could never be reproduced by any other means. I believe in the [mal]practice of mischief, and would do almost anything to win (or steal) its favor.

100 • Blackwater Review ability. In spite of this lack, or maybe because of it, I found ways to quietly and subtly torment my tormentors, ways that made sure that I could never be found guilty of breaking any sort of school rules or social codes. To those who accused me of “renovating” their binders, I would simply reply that little old me would never have the courage (or stupidity) to intentionally finagle with the possessions of someone so obviously bigger and stronger than me. It was simply an act of nerdy clumsiness that knocked those books and folders off the desk while their owner was using the restroom, and a simple oversight that the math homework got placed in the English notebook.

Reality

Emily Heasley

What if elves took pictures of their Lembas bread lunches and uploaded them to Instagram, dwarves played Call of Duty with their kin, and unicorn YouTubers posted tutorials for tail braids while witches and warlocks Facebooked their familiars and set up times to hex their nosy roommates? There are already trolls on the Internet. What if poltergeists used Pinterest to save their favorite uses for ectoplasm? What if selkies took selfies and watched Vine videos of dragon dance offs and werewolves waging view wars? Wouldn’t that be great?

But instead it’s all skinny girls flashing pics of macchiatos and mochas and twelve-year-olds toting half-slung insults over headsets. Facebook is booked with drama and comments about who’s with whom, but who cares?

People wanna be the princes and princesses of Pinterest or impress with hundreds of followers like Sauron. Everyone’s wrapped up in online popularity auctions, and often they call me crazy for wanting to spend time with my daydreams. But I’d rather hang with hellhounds than hook up to what’s viral. Fantasy’s more real anyway.

The Business of Magic

Madison Brake

At this point in the business, Daniel Farris didn’t really exist, but by now he didn’t really mind. Sure, there were those times when it came as a real inconvenience, like when he tried to explain to provincial soldiers what he was doing in the middle of the ruin that had once been the dining room of the High Lord Beckham (a small job that had escalated into near catastrophe), but those complicated run-ins with law and the careful web of vague answers to suspicious questions were all part of the business. As Mistress Tarrow said, “Giving ‘em the truth would only mean they’d run around like headless chickens for a good few months. No good there.” In his head, he’d silently disagreed, but his five years of experience couldn’t dent Mistress Tarrow’s thirty years. His personal sense of logic pinged off her like pebbles on an iron shield.

Today he had the same knotted sensation in the pit of his soul that he’d felt during the incident with High Lord Beckham, the tangle of anticipation and other emotions he couldn’t quite identify. And on this-not-so fine day, he didn’t even have the benefit of good weather.

“Gods hang this bloody wind,” Mistress Tarrow grumbled beside him as she tugged on her wide-brimmed hat to keep it from leaping away.

“It’ll clear up, I’m sure,” said Daniel. More because he felt it was better than ignoring her (that would make her sullen) or agreeing with her (that would give her a sense of justification in her irritation).

Mistress Alice Tarrow was a good woman of forty-two with graying brown hair past her shoulders and skin tanned from years of walking under the sun. A little rough on the edges from her fisherman father, but a steady worker and good at her job. As Daniel’s teacher, she wasn’t necessarily the most coherent, or the most patient. But she’d pummeled discipline

“You know where rough wind comes from?” Mistress Tarrow asked him as she stumped her way up the steep grassy slope.

“The sun heating the earth?” said Daniel, though he knew full well that wasn’t the answer she was looking for.

Sure enough, she twisted her face in an expression that suggested he’d just asked if it would be all right to eat babies. “Heavens, is that what they’re telling you? No. Bad wind comes from when whiny peasants poke the Great God with too many complaints, and he gives a great sigh of exasperation.”

Daniel smiled politely and kept his opinion to himself. That was what a good student did. And he tried to be a good student whenever possible, to make up for the moments when he slipped up. Besides, Mistress Tarrow was entertaining.

She told him more stories, about how the spirit horse Vain had had his glorious mane set alight for bragging too much, which was why arrogant people tended to have fiery tempers, and many more that he’d heard from her before. Nevertheless, he listened to them all as they climbed the lonely hill.

As they crested the top, Mistress Tarrow’s mouth snapped shut, and her expression picked up a good deal of tension as she surveyed the scene below. Daniel scrambled up beside her, his hands stuffed in his armpits to keep them out of the stinging wind. His eyebrows shot up as he saw the town laid out below them. Or rather, what had been a town.

Mistress Tarrow puffed out her cheeks as she exhaled. “They sure did a number.”

Rinshaw had been, by description, a bustling town, made prosperous by its placement on the trade routes and made pleasant by its diverse population. Once, its buildings had risen to the sky at a good two or three stories of gleaming stone and polished wood. Now the buildings had been chewed to splinters, its stones blackened by smoke and dirt. When Daniel squinted, he could see the gaping black holes of shattered windows, and

Brake • 103 and care into his spine over the past half decade, and they’d built up their relationship enough over the past five years to make an effective combo.

as his imagination conjured up leering beasts with dagger claws and soulless black eyes, he could taste a kind of sourness on the wind—a rancid stench of rotting flesh that such a beast would smell like.

The vision filled him with a fluttering terror in the small part of him that still thought of childhood terrors and the fragility of his own mortality. But at twenty, he was long past most of his more simplistic fears, and more than anything he was filled with a heart-pounding thrill of impending adventure. His fingers itched for his weapon; his mind yearned for the challenge of decision, of the adrenaline of life versus death, of the sense of internal glory that came in a rush with victory. He licked his lips. “What did you say this was?”

“Rinshaw.”

“No, not the town. The thing that ate the town.”

Mistress Tarrow planted her gloved fists on her waist. “You listen when I talk to you, you hear? The Great Master said it was a likely a minor magic-user or a monster. He wasn’t sure which.” The Great Master being their high and mighty boss who’d sent them out here to deal with this mess.

Daniel nodded. That shouldn’t be a problem. He felt something wet splatter his cheek and blinked at the roiling gray of the clouds. “Let’s go before it pours.”

“Glad you’ve still got some sense in your head,” said Mistress Tarrow as she began picking her way down the slope. By the time they hit the edge of town, the rain had picked up to a steady drizzle, but at least the clouds hadn’t seen fit to douse them. Not yet at least. Glass crunched beneath their boots and carved figures of great cat-heads, mouths gaping in a soundless roar, glared at them from the rails of splintered staircases.

“Aye, what a mess,” said Mistress Tarrow as she stepped over a fallen beam that had once held up the roof of a porch.

“Mmm-hmm,” Daniel agreed. But he was more interested in the people. The few people out on the cobblestone street –mostly burly men lugging materials for repairs – were casting them decidedly dirty looks. Who spit in their water? Well,

Daniel reasoned, whatever was messing with the town probably had. But it wasn’t like Daniel or his mentor had had anything to do with it. This was supposed to be a merchant town, embracive of new faces. So long as they didn’t pick a fight, things should be just fine.

“’Lo there.” A spindly man with a weathered face and eyes squinted from long years spent exposed to the brutal sun stepped into their path. A few chuckles rippled through the workmen, but they kept their eyes averted. “Welcome to Rinshaw. Can I help you two?”

“We’re just passing through,” said Mistress Tarrow. “Tell me, what happened to this place?”

The man gave a helpless shrug. His eyes drifted from Mistress Tarrow to Daniel, and down to the length of pale wood poking out under Daniel’s coat where he had it slipped through a loop on his belt. “Bit of bumpy weather. Some lightning storms. Wind knocked the old oak down into the storehouse,” he said, pointing to the massive wound on the roof and side of what had formerly been a squat, sturdy building. Of course, the man would have no notion of how real magic worked. To the common eye, it would be a storm, a whirl of flying debris and a flash of bright “lightning.”

“Here now, what’s your names and business?” The man was looking at Daniel now, which Daniel knew irritated Mistress Tarrow. The townsman, it seemed, like most others, preferred addressing men over women, as women were considered the weaker sex, a common misconception for those who didn’t know Mistress Tarrow.

“Don’t frighten them off, crazy Jack!” came a jeering call. Jack winced, but Daniel ignored the call. “Oh, we’re no one really,” he said. Never give a name. That was the first rule of not existing. “Just passing through, like she said. Though it looks like a storm. Mind if we stay the night?”

Two hours later found the storm in full swing: the complete howl of wind beating against windows with a rattle, the drumming of rain, the snap and crackle of lightning. Daniel was grateful for the dry room they’d been provided with, though

Brake • 105

for a dear price. There was great competition in Rinshaw for space untouched by the “bad weather.” There was a crack in the roof that let in water with a hollow drip-drip, but a bucket took care of that.

Mistress Tarrow sat on the edge of the bed, a gleaming sword across her lap that flashed with the flicker of the fire. She swept a whetstone along its edge in a drawn out rasp ending with a faint ring. Tiny sparks bounced off the blade beneath the stone. “Hey. What are the rules?”

He moaned. “Again?” They’d done this a thousand times already.

She gave him a look. The look. He sighed and recited, “We’re no one. We’re from nowhere. We’re going nowhere. We know nothing. We’re not doing anything in particular.” It was so basic, so painfully redundant. It was ground into his mind, probably etched into his skull at this point. Every day, for five years, she’d asked for those words. Every day, for five years, he’d given them. For a time it had been ritual. Now it was just annoying. It was a weight–no, the reverse. It was weightlessness, a sense of being bound to nothing, of being nothing. That was the price for his gift. And as much as he wished his social life was otherwise, he would never trade his gift for anything different.

Mistress Tarrow nodded. “Good.” She looked out the window, her face torn between the orange gleam of firelight and the cold blue of the rainy twilight seeping in through the blurred window. “It’s about time we finished up here.”

“Thank you,” Daniel murmured, breaking away from the wall where he’d thought he might just set down roots from waiting.

“What was that?” Mistress Tarrow gave him a severe look. He bowed his head, once again the humble student. “Nothing.”

“That’s what I thought.”

The streets were clear of life. People had locked down shutters and doors and checked that any item that absolutely had to be outside was nailed down. They whispered that

another storm was coming, that the gods were angry with them, or that the temperature swings had caused displacement of air, or a thousand other theories that in the end didn’t really matter. What mattered was that they were inside, somewhat sheltered from the foul weather outside. A few whispered that the great cat would come and save them from destruction, and a few whispered back that that was nonsense. Meanwhile, Daniel was drenched.

“Hey!” he shouted over the beat of rain that drilled into his body, each droplet seemingly determined to pound its way into his skin. “Hey, should we try another day?”

“Don’t be a whiny peasant!” Mistress Tarrow roared back, slapping sopping hair over her shoulder as she trudged up the road.

“We can’t even see!”

“I can see just fine. Are you blind?”

“I’m trying to be somewhat reasonable!”

“Whatever attacked the town isn’t going to be ‘somewhat reasonable!’” she said.

Daniel gritted his teeth. He was losing hold of the humble student, but he was too cold to care. “I thought the idea was that we were smarter than a monster, or whatever.” Mistress Tarrow didn’t hear or didn’t have something to say to that. Either way, they marched on. “How long are we going to keep this up?” asked Daniel. So far they didn’t seem to be doing anything but wandering. All he could think of was the warm room that they’d left behind. His initial excitement at hunting whatever it was they were hunting had long worn away.

Suddenly, a bone-shattering crash split the air. He spun. He saw sparks blooming from an alleyway.

“Over there!” he said. He took off, moving as quickly as his boots allowed him on the slippery stone, his body giddy with a flood of adrenaline in anticipation of the coming fight.

“Hey, hold it!” Mistress Tarrow was calling him back, but when he threw a glance over his shoulder he saw her following him. He kept going. He’d done this long enough to know how to handle himself. He could do this.

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He slowed to a halt, drawing from his belt the slender length of pale wood–his wand, his weapon–from beneath his coat. He whipped it before him as he faced the mouth of the alleyway, and...

Nothing but the hiss of sparks dying in the wet.

“Idiot,” Mistress Tarrow said as she caught up to him. Her face was fixed in a scowl. “Don’t run off. We work as a team, remember?”

“Yeah, sorry... But, uh, where’s the thing?” He stood bewildered, feeling foolish and exposed.

“It’s...not there?” Mistress Tarrow peered into the alleyway, her sword in hand. “Must have moved...Smart one. Keep an eye--”

A subtle tap of a shoe in water caused Daniel’s heart to leap, and he spun so sharply that his feet flew out from beneath him. His back hit the stone first, followed by his head and legs, and he was paralyzed by a shocking pain that blotted out his vision in a flash of black and white. “Ow! Oh...wow...ooh...” He blinked rapidly, and the sight of the spindly man from earlier –crazy Jack, he remembered - swam into view.

A callused hand caught his arm and dragged him up. “Up you get,” came Mistress Tarrow’s voice.

“Thanks,” he mumbled, staggering to his feet, his face flushed hot with embarrassment even through the chill of the damp.

“There a problem, you two?” asked Jack.

“Not at all,” said Mistress Tarrow.

“What are you doing out here?” Jack asked, once again addressing Daniel over Mistress Tarrow, who scowled.

Daniel’s heart thumped. They didn’t have time to deal with civilians right now!

“Nothing.”

“What are you doing out in the rain?” Jack pressed. “It’s dangerous on nights like this.”

“I know, I just dropped something, and my teacher was helping me look for it!” It was an easy lie and slipped from his tongue at a shout before he realized what he’d done. Daniel’s

Mistress Tarrow paled. She knew he’d made a mistake, and he cringed inwardly.

Jack gave them a lazy grin, and Daniel felt a chill trickle through his body like cold water down his back. Or maybe that really was cold water down his back.

“Now I do believe,” said Jack, “that you’ve just broken the rules. No magic for you.”

Daniel gaped at him. How could he know about the rules? “It’s him!” Mistress Tarrow shouted, tensing up. It took Daniel some time to process. He was still reeling over his mistake. Him? Jack had smashed the town? Why his own town? Reflexively he raised his wand, though it was useless now. He tried to speak. But all that came out in his confusion was, “Uh...” Just great. Not only was he magic-less, but he now looked witless too.

“Oh,” said Jack as he raised his hands defensively. “Now this is awkward. See you don’t have anything to kill me with. And I can’t kill you either – I’m not allowed to touch wizards –the rules of my kind of magic, you know. But I can do this.” He waved his hand and with a crackle and a boom that raised the hairs on Daniel’s neck, the wall of the building across the street blew apart in a cascade of white-hot sparks. The man gave them a crooked smile.

Mistress Tarrow lunged at him, sword swinging down at his head. Jack caught it between his palms without flinching. “You broke the rules. No magic. No way to kill me. Your sword won’t make a mark.”

Daniel leapt at him, tackling him to the ground, the impact knocking the breath out of both of them. Jack was

Brake • 109 breath caught in alarm. “The rules! We’re no one. We’re from nowhere. We’re going nowhere. We know nothing. We’re not doing anything in particular.” No identity, every day, for five years. Even if it was only a half-truth, it still gave them purpose. Purpose gave them identity. And identity was against the rules. It must have been the tension, the effort of watching for an unknown enemy while a civilian had wandered into the mess, catching him off-guard.

stunned for a moment. Then he began to squirm and snarl. Daniel gritted his teeth and clung on, but to what end? It wasn’t like they could take down a magic wielder without magic of their own. Inevitably, Jack would get away. According to the rules of the contract Daniel held with Mistress Tarrow, if either he or she gave away any sense of purpose or identity, they were no longer hidden, and their magic vanished. But magicians who used magic for ill lost the ability to touch living things with their power. Jack could wreck the town all he wanted, but he couldn’t fight them with his magic. They’d hit a stalemate.

Then a high wail rose on the air. Everything came to a standstill. “What is that?” Mistress Tarrow was looking beyond them, her gray eyes wide. Beneath Daniel, Jack whimpered and thrashed. His elbow caught Daniel in the jaw in a stinging pain, but Daniel clung on with a grim determination. He didn’t know what was happening, what it was that held Mistress Tarrow bewitched and inspired fear in the crazy man beneath him, and so he carried on with what had made sense a second ago and simply focused on keeping a grip on Jack.

“Dan, let him go,” Mistress Tarrow whispered, backing away slowly.

“What?” Daniel looked up. His eyes met a piercing animal gaze, a pair of yellow eyes that held him captive in awe and fear. A massive cat with a tiger’s build stalked toward them, muscled shoulders rippling under inky fur shining with saturation, the image carved on the wood in living flesh. The noise of the storm seemed to fade to a dull background roar, and Daniel became aware of his every breath and the pounding of his heart.

“Let me go,” said Jack from beneath Daniel. When Daniel didn’t, his voice rose to an unearthly shriek. “Let me go! That’s the Havoc Cat!”

That snapped Daniel back into focus. “What?”

“Are you stupid? It’s the guardian. I’m a chaos magician, I admit, but that thing’s going to shred me because of it!” He scrabbled against the cobblestones as if he might find a way to dig his way out.

A chaos magician. A wizard gone wrong. This man dealt in destruction, and he had no doubt gone mad from it. Too much power went to the head, as Mistress Tarrow said. Daniel was tempted to toss him up to the cat and let him have it. He deserved it for what he’d done to Rinshaw.

“Hold still,” Mistress Tarrow said, eyes fixed on the feline. Daniel wasn’t sure if she was speaking to him or to the chaos magician, but he held still nonetheless.

The great cat was upon them. Its velvet nose was inches from Daniel’s face, and Daniel could see every glistening drop on its whiskers and smell its musky scent. He clenched his jaw, muscles tensed to fight if the cat made a move.

Very slowly, the cat lowered its head and clamped his jaws around Jack’s shoulders. It tugged. The man went very still.

“I just wanted...to show them... I could have been great. I could have ruled this world,” the chaos magician said in a jagged whisper, his eyes so wide the whites showed all around. He said more, but it was lost in the clatter of rain as it became an incoherent jumble. It was probably more ravings of a madman.

Daniel hastily rolled off him. The Havoc Cat took the chaos magician, turned tail, and walked back the way it had come.

Soon after, the rain slowed to a stop. Although it was still night, the men of the town came out to assess the damage. They found a soaked Daniel and Mistress Tarrow standing in the middle of the street, eyes frozen fast on the lone hill silhouetted against the moon.

“What’s with you two? Gone loony?” said one man, pausing with a hammer in hand.

Daniel got a hold of himself first. He shook his teacher gently by the shoulder before saying to the man, “We’re fine.” What on earth had just happened? The single thought ran through his head like a dog chasing its tail. They’d come here to get rid of whoever or whatever was abusing the town. Instead they’d found a chaos magician and...something else.

“Not looking for the Havoc Cat, are you?” said the man, his face disapproving.

Brake • 111

“What’s that?” said Daniel, since Mistress Tarrow didn’t seem to have a clear idea of what it was either.

“Old legend that used to drag sightseers here,” said the stranger. “They say a great big cat lives around this town. Keeps it safe.”

“If it’s a guardian, why call it a Havoc Cat?”

The man rolled his eyes. “Only appears on stormy nights when the town is hit by a series of disasters. When things get really bad, it makes the trouble go away. Something like that, I don’t remember the exact details,” he said, waving his hand dismissively.

“Ah,” said Daniel. That made sense. About as much sense as walking legends could make.

“Where are you two from? The coast? We get a lot from the coast.”

Daniel gave a weak smile. “No sir. Just a pair of wanderers passing through. Got caught in a storm.”

“Well, get out of the street. We’ve got work to do.”

Daniel nodded. He and Mistress Tarrow left to retrieve their bags from their room. They left Rinshaw soon after, too shaken to sleep, too unsettled to stay.

Later the people of Rinshaw would clean up their town, and slowly business would trickle back. They’d find that crazy Jack had gone missing. The women would whisper that it was a shame; he was such a nice boy. Secretly they would be relieved because he’d always seemed a bit off. The men would say, “Good riddance,” while secretly feeling guilty, as if the snide remarks they’d made about his weak frame had caused his disappearance. They’d wonder about the two strangers who’d paid for a dry room only to vanish by morning. But they wouldn’t dwell too long. They hadn’t given names or had anything particularly interesting to say anyway. As the people fell back into the pleasantries of prosperity, the pair would soon be forgotten.

On the road, Daniel tapped his wand. He could sense a faint buzz beneath his fingers. Magic was back. He had his gift back.

“Mistress Tarrow-?” He held it up to her questioningly. She felt it. Then she touched her own enchanted sword.

“That Havoc Cat, or whatever it was, must have taken care of that chaos magician. If he’s gone, the secret is safe, and the contract is no longer broken.”

Warm relief filled him. He’d been afraid that his five years of training had just come to ruin.

“Have you ever heard of something like that cat back there?” he asked.

“That thing?” She rubbed her chin. “Can’t say I have. But legends come from somewhere, right? One or two are bound to be true.”

“Where do you think it comes from?”

She stopped and fixed him with an intense gaze, almost as ensnaring as the Havoc Cat’s. “It doesn’t come from anywhere. It’s nothing. It’s not going anywhere. It doesn’t know anything. It’s not doing anything in particular. It’s nothing. Understand?”

Daniel nodded. The cat didn’t exist, just like he and Mistress Tarrow didn’t exist. The world had too much to worry about already without such things. That was how the whole business of magic worked, hiding away the more confusing realities of life so that the rest of the world could continue to weather life as they knew it without causing them anymore worries than they already had.

“Do you think the Great Master will be upset with what happened?” Daniel asked. After all, they’d nearly lost their magic forever, and they hadn’t brought back evidence of the chaos magician or his end to prove that they’d finished the job.

Mistress Tarrow snorted. “He’d better not be after that mess. If he’s not happy, he can get out of his chair and see to things himself. And you just watch your mouth from now on.”

“Of course,” said Daniel.

Between Earth and Eternity

Vance White

Drowsy from too much breakfast, George Albertson settled into a poolside deck lounger and arranged a towel over his legs. Aboard the Ocean Marauder on a cheap three-day turnaround cruise to Cozumel, he was far too experienced in ocean travel to allow sunburn the first day at sea.

The day before, George had abandoned his travel trailer in Bayou le Batre, Alabama, and purchased a seat on the noon bus to Mobile. Arriving pier side well before the Ocean Marauder’s scheduled 3:00 p.m. departure time, he boarded and was shown to his cabin.

Twenty bucks bought the short version of the welcome-aboard lifeboat lecture, and George began the familiar ritual of unpacking. A tropics-weight white linen suit, intended for excursion day in Cozumel, went on a sturdy wooden hanger provided by the cruise line. Next, he placed a photograph of his wife Addie on the nightstand, carefully positioned to be the first thing he’d see upon awakening. If he awakened. At seventy-nine years of age, the promise of another day is anything but.

Socks, underwear, and miscellaneous clothing went into dresser drawers, including several bottles of cheap whiskey. There was a time when George would have sniffed at the idea of drinking such pedestrian slop, but these days, quantity was the relevant issue, not quality.

A narrow door opened into a small bathroom. The old man stepped inside and unpacked his toiletries from a one-gallon Zip-lock baggie, arranging razors, shaving cream, and medications in a neat arc on the vanity top. His face tightened when he gave one of the pill bottles a cautious shake. After a moment, he shrugged and put it back in place.

Zip-lock in the trash, George undressed and stepped into the shower, luxuriating a full twenty minutes under the Ocean Marauder’s seemingly endless supply of hot water. The tiny

The adhesive paper seal draping the cap yielded with practiced ease to the edge of his manicured thumbnail. Unscrewing the lid, he tilted the bottle at his gaunt reflection: “Here’s looking at you, kid—for as long as you can stand it, anyway.”

He couldn’t help grimacing after swallowing. Cheap whiskey always finishes badly no matter what the label promises.

Mindful of his back, George turned the covers down and sat carefully on the edge of the mattress, bouncing a little and testing it. Reaching out, he touched Addie’s picture before swinging his legs up onto the bed and turning his back. Sometime before morning he’d turn in his sleep and face it. In the fifteen years since her death, he’d never known it to fail.

The whiskey, mixing with the pain medication he took every four hours, kicked in and he drifted off to sleep. Two hours later when the pilot tugs released the Ocean Marauder to open sea, he snored right through the slight vibration of her main engines engaging. Mercifully, he didn’t dream.

George arranged his Panama to shade his face from the soon-to-be rising sun and shifted in the deck lounger, trying to get comfortable. In a few hours the poolside bar would open. Contemplating his first mixed drink at sea was another familiar ritual. Yawning, he closed his eyes, letting his mind wander through a galaxy of choices while mulling over his morning.

Jarred awake in the predawn hours by a loudly closed door, he’d been confused until Addie’s face came into focus in the green glow of the nightstand clock. In that moment George understood he was still alive because he didn’t expect to see Addie in heaven. He was terribly pissed off at God and didn’t believe anymore, not on an emotional level. Somewhere deep in his rational mind, though, glowing like a carefully banked coal, a tiny ember of hope still burned, hedging his bets, ready to burst into fervent flame at the slightest hint of streets paved with gold. But until that

White • 115 water heater in his trailer provided only three minute showers at best. Tired of standing, he got out, toweled off, and walked to the dresser. Opening the second drawer, he took a bottle of whiskey from beneath neatly folded boxers.

happened, the sight of Addie’s frozen smile meant just another day on the dirtball.

After a brief struggle to sit up, George eased out of bed. In the bathroom he swallowed an Oxycodone pill. The pain in his hips was singing high tenor this morning.

Under the showerhead, he leaned forward, palms flat against the wall, shifting his weight from foot to foot like an old hipshot horse. Impatient for the temporary relief the hot water would soon provide, he focused on the shower drain cover. A small remnant of soap blocked several tiny holes. George reached out a big toe and rubbed until it disappeared. “RotoRooter, that’s the name and away go troubles—down the drain.”

In 1955, George had been a twenty-four-year-old junior advertising executive on Madison Avenue when that particular jingle was written. Like all good slogans, it was timeless. People would still be singing and parroting the mindless little ditty long after his bones had crumbled to dust. Somehow it didn’t seem fair that mere words should prove more durable than flesh: “The milk chocolate melts in your mouth, not in your hand,” his misfiring mind insisted. “Takes a lickin’ and keeps on tickin.’ ”

Fifteen minutes later, George directed a biased eye toward the dresser mirror, seeing a much younger man than reality afforded. Dressed in typical old-fart fashion—Bermuda shorts belted halfway to the armpits, Hawaiian-print shirt and white stretch socks, George decided he looked pretty darned spiffy. A finely-woven Panama atop his head and a pair of Ray-Ban Aviators completed the look of the day.

Out in the hall he locked the door and shuffled off in search of breakfast, making it as far as the elevators before turning around and going back to his cabin.

Two minutes later, George reemerged wearing Huarache sandals purchased six months earlier in Cabo San Lucas. Right before the sub-prime market meltdown wiped out his retirement portfolio.

Stepping into the elevator, George decided to explore a little and pushed the button for D deck. The Ocean Marauder

was a small ship, designed to accommodate a mere eighty-six passengers. At just under three-hundred feet, she was nothing like the two-thousand passenger, ocean-going monstrosities he was accustomed to.

Further underscoring the misery of his sudden fall from wealth and ease, the Ocean Marauder had only recently returned to regular passenger service after spending three years tied to a New Orleans pier. Post-Katrina, most cruise lines had hurriedly sent their oldest or most worn-out shallow-draft vessels to the Gulf Coast region, eager to soak up inflated federal temporary housing contracts. Only two seasons out of refit at the time, the Ocean Marauder had not been the worst example moored on the riverfront. But that hadn’t stopped the frustrated tenants from trashing the hell out of her anyway.

Released from federal contract in March 2008, she was redeployed and the owners crossed their fingers, hoping to squeeze another five seasons’ revenue from her before the scrapyard torches of Malaysia claimed her.

Relegated to the Gulf Coast region, permitted to poke her rust-streaked nose into the Caribbean Basin only when her larger cousins weren’t around to be embarrassed, the Ocean Marauder quickly became a floating purgatory for captain and crew alike.

The captain, ambitious and weary of enduring the good-natured ribbing of his peers, drove his vessel hard. Capable of delivering twenty-one knots when new, the best his ship’s laboring old engines could produce nowadays was seventeen—and only then with a following sea. The captain had a plan though. He reasoned that chronic mechanical failure could only hasten his ship’s demise and perhaps shave a couple years off his sentence in the process. Therefore, weather permitting, the Ocean Marauder had only one speed at sea: Wide-open with her engines pounding like the hammers of hell.

The crew, for the most part a motley assortment of reassignees from other ships, unwittingly supported the captain with a plan of their own. Favorite tricks included turning off the hot water to the cabins in the middle of peak demand and

White • 117

occasionally pouring enough chlorine into the pool on C-deck to set the passengers’ eyes on fire.

Between captain and crew, it was a rare passenger indeed that arrived back in Mobile rested and tanned. Naturally, George didn’t know any of this while wandering around on D-deck. Nor would he have cared. He just wanted a nice breakfast and a quiet opportunity to kill himself.

The moment the elevator door opened on C-deck, George knew he was on the right track. Like an old, half-blind hound, he followed the aroma of sizzling bacon. Snuffling his way past the swimming pool with its attendant thatched-roof theme bar, he soon discovered a surprisingly well-appointed dining room complete with white linens.

Hector Gonzalez, dining facility charge de’ affairs, saw the old man walk in but chose to ignore him, fully expecting one of his wait staff to turn the old goat out. It was still an hour before scheduled breakfast service and his hands were full supervising the misanthropes setting up the breakfast buffet steam tables. Recently demoted from the fleet flagship for no larger crime than sleeping with the wrong passenger, he still thought of what the others called “slopping the hogs” as morning service.

Forced to approach the old man when it became obvious that no one else intended to, Hector spread his hands in the “what does one do?” gesture of the professional waiter and spoke: “I am sorry, señor, but it is one hour before service begins. Only the prep cooks are in the galley, and they are very busy. Perhaps coffee and a croissant while you wait?”

George reached into his pocket and pulled out a small roll of bills. It was all the money he had.

“My compliments to yourself and your fine galley staff,” George said, peeling off a pair of hundreds. “I’d like to order now, please.”

“But of course, señor,” Hector replied. Finessing the bills from George’s fingers with one hand, he pulled out a chair with the other. “And what would señor like this fine morning?”

Having already sized up the old boy as an egg-white omelet, turkey sausage, and whole-wheat toast type, Hector

was stunned by the reply: “I’ll have a four-egg Western omelet with extra cheese—sharp cheddar if you don’t mind, a double order of hash-browned potatoes fried crisp on the outside but not dry in the middle—that means add some extra grease. Also, two sausage patties on the side and toast with plenty of butter and grape jelly.”

Madre de Dios! Perhaps señor would like a blindfold and bacon-wrapped cigarette as well? “Of course. And to drink?”

“Coffee. The kind with caffeine. Black. Think I could get that, son?”

“I’m sure of it,” Hector said, nodding formally.

Following breakfast, George started back to his cabin, intending to sleep it off, when, enticed by the padded deck loungers arranged in neat rows around the pool, he decided to linger a while. There were towels stacked on a nearby rack, so he grabbed one to cover his legs against the blistering sun that would soon rise from the sea.

George’s existence had been a lonely one these past few months. Reduced from the comfortable circumstances of a wellheeled vagabond to living in a travel trailer, his only human contact of late had been with sullen cab drivers, bored supermarket checkout girls, and a tobacco-chewing redneck hired to periodically take the trailer to a nearby RV park and pump-out the holding tank.

The relationship with the redneck was amicable enough, and every month on the first, the boy drove up in a mud-spattered four-wheel-drive, hitched to the trailer and drove it away. While waiting for his home to come home, George liked to sit in the cool shade of a nearby live oak grove, sipping bourbon and watching the Spanish moss wave in the breeze. Addie had grown up in the nearby town of Bon Secour, and he felt close to her nestled among the ancient and majestic trees. Sometimes in late evening, when the insects suddenly hushed while the spirit of God was upon the land, she whispered to him there.

George had no idea how long he’d dozed when he felt a gentle hand shaking him awake.

“Mr. George? Wake up, Mr. George. You are talking in

White • 119

Startled, George opened his eyes, doubly confused by the black face smiling down at him and the bustle of activity around the pool. The face was older now, the hair thinner and grayer, but it seemed he should know this man. “Calvin, is that you? What in the devil are you doing here?”

“Working for the man, Mr. George, but I’m not a valet anymore. I run the laundry on this boat. I thought it was you I saw boarding yesterday.”

Over the years, on the twice-yearly cruises that were Albertson family tradition, Calvin, as George knew him, had been assigned his shipboard valet on numerous occasions.

Residing in rooms discreetly adjoining the penthouse-class cruise suites of yesteryear, on call twenty-four hours a day to assist the elite, upper-crust clientele accustomed to such things, Cal was a gentleman’s gentleman from head to toe. George hadn’t seen him in many years. He’d thought about him occasionally but assumed the man retired or long dead.

“Can I get you something from the bar, Mr. George?”

“Only if you get us both something and sit for a while.”

“Now, Mr. George, you know a gentleman such as yourself shouldn’t be seen drinking with the hired help. There’s your reputation to consider.”

“Reputation be hanged, Calvin. Look where we’re at. I’m so lonesome I’d lap milk with the ship’s cat if I thought he’d meow every now and then.”

“There is a fraternization policy to consider, but like you say, look where we’re at. Besides, this is my last trip anyway. They’re letting me go when the ship docks back at Mobile. Got the word yesterday. So, for old time’s sake, what will you have?”

“I’d like a coffee laced with two shots of rum,” George answered, inspired by the forest of tiny and colorful tropical-drink umbrellas that had sprouted-up while he napped. “You’d better take this,” he said, handing over a C-note. “I understand they run a cash bar on this rust bucket. Grab whatever you want for yourself.”

120 • Blackwater Review your sleep.”

“All right, Mr. George, but if we’re going to drink together,

I’ll have to insist that you call me by my proper name.”

“All these years I thought I was. And while we’re on the subject, drop the mister.”

Over the next hour, George learned that the man he’d always thought of as Calvin Carbuncle was actually Calvary Josiah Carbuncle, hailing from the hardscrabble, sharecropping fields of Theodore, Alabama. Sidetracked from Bible college by “woman troubles,” he’d ended up married and in butler’s school instead.

“They taught me all sorts of useful things there, Mr. George. Like how to iron a gentleman’s newspaper and set the ink so it won’t rub off on his hands or expensive clothing,” Cal said. “And in an emergency, I can take that same newspaper, wet and wrap it around a magnum of champagne, hold it out the window of a moving automobile for five minutes and cool it to an acceptable temperature to drink. I’m a handy fellow to have around.”

George also learned that the ship’s engineer would be shutting the engines down for a while just before midnight. This was good news. The near-certainty of being sucked into the Ocean Marauder’s huge propellers when he went over the side had been bothering him.

After a late lunch of Southern-fried chicken, chili-cheese fries, and a sour-cream-and-chives baked potato, George retired to his cabin with a bottle of premium rum.

In bed, he scheduled an 11 p.m. wake-up call and thought about things, mostly wondering how his son and daughter would react to his passing. Busy with their own lives and content with the rhythm of regular emails, occasional calls and his twice-yearly visits, they both went to bed at night secure in the knowledge that the old man was living out his golden years in the much-touted, La Fortuna Retirement Village in faraway Modesto, California.

Truth be told, George hadn’t lived at La Fortuna in over fourteen years. He’d tried it for a while, marking time building birdhouses, playing poker on Thursday nights and learning to use a computer. Intrigued by a comment overheard at a senior

mixer, George had done some research and discovered that it actually was cheaper to live on a cruise ship than in a retirement village.

Packing his bags two weeks later he’d prowled the open oceans ever since, dining at Captain’s tables from the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of Arabia, watching the world float by in a pleasant fog of duty-free alcohol—until the Wall Street wolves savaged his retirement portfolio and the money ran out.

Eyeing the unopened bottle of rum on the nightstand, George realized that for the first time in his adult life he had no desire to drink. Beneath the covers, he rolled onto his side, hugged his knees to his chest and slept.

George sat up at the strident buzz of the wake-up call, hitting the cancel button with the heel of his hand. Over coffee delivered by a startled cabin attendant, the recipient of a five-hundred dollar tip, he considered leaving a note or sending an email but decided against both. Either might screw-up the hefty life insurance check he wanted his children to have.

When he could delay no longer he dressed in his shore clothes: sharply creased white trousers, white coat over a salmon-colored button down, and striped ivy-league tie. In the fourth dresser drawer, he found an appropriately colored hatband and slipped it over the crown of the Panama. Pulling back a sleeve, he put on the gold Rolex Oyster Addie had given him on their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. While scraping together the funds for this final journey, George had, at the last second, withheld the Rolex from the eager grasp of the pawnbroker, reasoning tongue in cheek that an Oyster rightfully belonged at the bottom of the ocean.

Occasionally, he paused to look at his reflection, acutely aware that each thing he did was for the last time. With a final tug at the knot of his silk tie, he drew a long breath and slowly let it out. Addie’s framed picture slid neatly inside his jacket, and he turned to leave. It was time.

Alone on D-deck, George stood at the stern rail, staring at the twin streaks of glowing phosphorescence churning in the ship’s wake. The tiny marine organisms responsible for the

phenomenon were in full bloom this time of year. Overhead, the night sky sparkled with a crystal clarity seen only at sea, far from man’s factories and corrupting influences.

Here at the end of all things, while waiting for the subtle vibration in the Ocean Marauder’s deck plates to subside, random thoughts surfaced in the old man’s mind. Bits and pieces of sermons heard over the years began to parade through his consciousness, and try as he might he could not shut them off… into this world we are born naked and alone and from this world we shall depart in like fashion…look at the stars above your head. Many died eons ago, yet the light you’re seeing is just now getting here. When the last glimmer of their existence passes through this earthly plane they’ll blink out and be gone from the sight of this world forever. But their light blazes on to worlds beyond this one, safely held in the mind of God for all eternity. The living just can’t see it for a while, that’s all. Everything, including ourselves, exists in the mind of God. To be angry at God is to be angry at self.

He’d heard those words in a tiny Pentecostal church Addie sometimes took him to while visiting relations down South. That was over forty years ago. To George it seemed like yesterday. Thirty minutes later the ship quieted and began to coast, ocean surface darkening behind it. Finally, it stopped. Before his courage could fail him, George took out Addie’s picture and dropped it over the side. Far below, the nickel-silver frame sliced the water with a luminescent streak and arched pendulum-like in the eerie phosphorescence for a time before tumbling end over end and winking from sight. With Addie truly gone, George experienced panic upon discovering he lacked the strength to hoist himself over the railing.

Desperate, he spotted a sand bucket ashtray stationed by the elevators. Adrenaline threatened to burst the paper-thin walls of his old heart as he dragged it to the rail. Planting a foot in sand and cigarette butts, George stepped up and vaulted cleanly over the rail, arms locked in perfectly remembered Yale dive-team form, reaching for eternity and the ocean he believed had spawned him.

Homeward Bound

Vance White

Harold Jones studied his reflection in the Waffle Barn window. Lean and somber, tempered by life lived close to the bone, it was a face unaccustomed to smiling. There were no laugh lines embedded in the interlaced wrinkles that spread outward like fractured glass. Harold didn’t like that. It meant the world was winning.

Harold did like the Waffle Barn. The food was cheap, and the glossy photos on the menu comforted him. It had been just over a month since he jumped into town from a northbound train, and this was the second time he’d allowed himself the luxury of renting a little dignity. The local Goodwill had provided the charcoal suit he wore, paying him eighty dollars to boot for stuffing the hungry maw of their commercial washing machine for a week. In three days it would be Christmas, and Harold Jones was going home.

Across the street stood a brightly lit shopping mall where he intended to buy gifts for a grandchild, daughter, and sonin-law he’d never met. After shopping he planned to board a Greyhound bus and head south to a place he hadn’t visited in over forty years.

Waving off the overworked waitress for the third time, Harold sipped his coffee, savoring its smooth richness while pretending to read the menu. From the corner of one eye he watched a young woman and her little girl. They’d switched tables twice already, and each time the ketchup packets and crackers ended up in her purse. Harold had made enough hobo soup in his time to know what was going on. She was broke and in trouble.

The woman wasn’t attractive exactly; she was attractive inexactly. Her eyes were a little too far apart, her chin slightly abbreviated, her dirty-dishwater hair tucked carelessly behind pixie-like ears.

She reminded Harold of a woman he’d once loved very much. “You need to leave,” she’d told him upon discovering his secret. “I ain’t havin’ no ree- tard babies.”

Neither had known she was already pregnant. He started drifting after that, making his living behind sleepy small-town lunch counters until fast food and computers steamrolled him, exposing his inability to read. Since then, he’d ridden the rails, working at whatever came to hand. Two weeks ago things changed when a homeless friend Googled Harold’s name on a public library computer. Suddenly, he had family and something called an e-mail account.

Harold had already decided to mind his own business when the weary mop of the waitress, trailing greasy streaks where the water wouldn’t stick, flicked a half-eaten piece of toast from under a table. Seeing the little girl snatch it up and take a hungry bite changed everything. Getting up, he walked over and placed his meager earnings on their table. A train whistle sounded on the north side of the valley, muffled by the sleet and drizzle falling outside. Smiling, Harold turned and walked away. He had a southbound to catch.

Tough Guy

Michele Moore

Apollo had his nine muses. I have an old man wearing a Mickey Mouse shirt. He has more mood swings than a playground and likes to pretend he can’t remember who I am.

He wheels himself up and down the piss-scented hallway muttering strings of sentences and ideas cooked up at 3 a.m. He shakes his head after each line: “No, that won’t work.”

“Scrap the entire thing.”

Some days he’s in a good mood beckoning me closer so he can babble words of genius into my ear.

“Write about cats,” he whispers before trying to grab my car keys so he can escape his retirement not-a-home.

Friday mornings are the worst, He wakes up frustrated, grasping his Styrofoam cup, crushing it until coffee runs down his arm. He jabs himself with his thumb right above his heart

“Can’t you see I’m a tough guy?” I look at his handle-with-care bones and watery grey eyes and say “Yes, you are; you’re tough.”

Those days I don’t push it.

The best is when he grabs me, and I get out my laptop. For six hours I sit with him and put down on paper what’s been stuck in my head. I know in a couple days we’ll be back where we started. He’ll be rattling locked doors, begging for coffee, or threatening people with his feeble fists. But I’ll be grateful for my muse, my one tough guy.

One Way

Michele Moore

Don’t forget your favorite t-shirt, the camo one with rolled up sleeves. Next to your Duck Commander cap, I packed your Boggy Bayou sweatshirt in case you get cold.

I put a note so they know to set the TV to TV Land and your radio to bluegrass.

Don’t cry.

I’ll take care of your goldfish; you overfeed him anyway.

I called ahead to let them know you like your coffee black, feet warm, and to hide all the keys. And that beneath those stick-and-poke prison tattoos is just an old man who’s more bark than bite.

I know your bags are heavy, but that’s okay. The angels will help carry you home.

He Left the Door Open

Luis Melecio-Zambrano

The flannel shirts hang heavy on the bent wire triangles. Booze lingers on their hollow collars, and something else metallic and sharp pinches the nose like a distant relative.

Weary jeans wait neatly folded, pale and worn and old from too many cycles on tumble-dry and too many days without holding a thirty-inch waist, without feeling the bite of sand and sawdust.

The washing machine gapes open, empty and dark, still filled with the last load, which is soaked and smells lightly of oleander.

On the dryer, the car keys lay dead, hot and cracked. They should have been buried years ago.

Contributors

Corrine Akins was drawing on the walls of her bedroom with a Sharpie before she was walking. She grew up a “military brat” and the one constant was her love of art.

Cassidy Beaulieu is a visual art student who is intending to transfer to the University of Central Florida next semester to study studio art and character animation.

Joshua Bedsole recently discovered his passion for photography. He intends to pursue a degree in film production.

Madison Brake is a junior dual-enrolling at NWFSC and an active member of her school’s Creative Writing Club. She has a fondness for fantasy pieces and hopes to work more with art and fiction in the future.

Bianca Dagostino is a senior at Niceville High School and NWFSC liberal arts student who aspires to work in world aid.

Taegan Dennis is a student who aspires to see the world, write about it, and try the food of it. Writing is her passion, studying is her job, and her finish line has yet to be decided.

Scott Derrick recently completed his A.A. degree and enjoys landscape painting and classical piano.

JeAnna Dollente is pursuing a graphic design degree at NWFSC. She dreams of travelling the world.

Jocelyn Donahoo is a retired nurse whose work has appeared many times in past issues of Blackwater Review, and she was the 2005 winner of NWFSC African American Student Association Open Mic for her poem “Aren’t You Al’s Daughter.”

Eric Farmer is an ESL teacher. He returned to school to get a bachelor’s degree in business and finds spare time to write about his travels and interesting people he’s met along the way.

Jack Wesley Gaines is a graphic design student at NWFSC who enjoys photography.

Marcus Gibbs is a student at NWFSC who returning to art after a ten-year hiatus.

DeAngelo Gilliam is a professional photographer who is currently majoring in digital media/multimedia at NWFSC.

Cherish Gillman has a passion for photography and is a digital media/multimedia major at NWFSC.

Sarah Hawkins is a friend of the arts, especially painting, theater, and music. She hopes to continue to pursue her interests in the arts, as well as nutrition and fitness counseling.

Emily Heasley has received numerous awards for her writing, including the 2013 Blackwater Review Editor’s Prize and first place in 2013’s and 2014’s LaRoche Memorial Contests. She is a lover of the arts and fantasy. She is currently editing her first science fiction novel.

Alexander Hencinski will one day live somewhere cold (he hopes). He currently lives in Valparaiso, Florida, (which is not usually cold) and is senior at the Collegiate High School.

Deb Henley looks to capture unique moments to create memorable images in her photography. She is a digital media/multimedia student at NWFSC.

Leslie T. Hood is a widow with two teenage children who has returned to school to get her degree.

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Katie Rendon Kahn lives in Destin with her husband and three kids. She was the 2012 Blackwater Review Editor’s Prize recipient and has had work appear in many other publications, including Endless Poetry, The Soul Vomit Anthology, Diverse Voices Quarterly, and The Barefoot Review.

Bettye Keefer retired from the U.S. Navy and is now a graphic design major. In 2013, she has discovered a love for painting.

Melanie Lane is a senior at the Collegiate High School who aspires to be an English and Communications major. She plans on attending the University of West Florida once she graduates.

Alexandria Llewellyn was born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio. Her life has mostly consisted of long books, loud music, and meaningful conversations.

Sophia Luong is a senior in the Collegiate High School at NWFSC. She plans to study computer animation at Ringling College of Art and Design.

Luis Melecio-Zambrano loves his family, his friends, science, and music. He plans to double major in biochemistry and vocal performance.

Michele Moore wants to know what an Associate of Arts degree is, why she is getting one, and whether she can eat it.

Maria B. Morekis is an art student at NWFSC and believes that art is beauty from within.

Jessica Parsons has been working on her photography and editing skills for two years and hopes to pursue a career in photography.

Shad Pipes has been practicing photography for six years. He uses photography as a means to explore the great outdoors.

Christopher Savoie is in high school and is a part-time student at NWFSC. He is currently studying drawing at NWFSC.

Jessica Teasdale is a student at NWFSC that plans to transfer to the University of North Florida in the fall to major in art education.

Sue Townsend is a graphic design major at NWFSC who is graduating in May and loves photography.

Vance White is in his final semester at NWFSC. He plans to pursue a B.A. in communications and media studies at the University of West Florida.

Donna Wilke is a creative writing student at NWFSC who continues to work on her children’s book.

Joshua Woeckener, better known as “Weck” in the world of Slam Poetry, was formerly an active member of the SpeakTuMePoetry Experience, a spoken word performance troupe based in Fort Walton Beach and Say The Word, an open mic venue on 30A and Valparaiso, Florida.

Contributors • 133