The Music of ASL by Paul Hostovsky

like the honey Great Value sells. And Clover does not call Drone-6468 by his drone number; he calls him Bee, after BP, because his feathers look like an oil spill.

“Would you like to share this orange chicken from Panda Express with me?” Bee asks Clover, nudging the slimy lo mein with his beak. It is only a formality; they have dinner together every night. “I do not believe it is cannibalism, as we are not chickens.”

“Yes, I would like to very much.” Clover hops over, flapping his wings, and tears into a piece of orange chicken from Panda Express.

They fall into their normal routine, pecking over their shared dinner and then settling into the nest they share on Customer-3888’s fire escape, a Converse shoebox full of bits of cloth from Joann Fabrics. They nestle against each other, savoring their shared warmth.

Bee realizes, all at once, that before he and Clover found each other, when he always used to sleep alone—during the night he was always cold. And it wasn’t that Clover produced any warmth—they were both robots, cold and lifeless. No, he was warm from the inside out—like his system was overheating, like something was wrong with him, irreparably wrong.

The next day after his shift, Bee flies to Job Headquarters. He places a Maintenance Order for his broken parts and waits in the lobby with other mangled pigeon-drones, some with missing eyes from bored cops with too-big guns, others with six-pack rings tangled around their necks like nooses. He waits until his drone number is called and then is escorted into a back room, where two Technicians cut a slit in his stomach and open him up, examining the wires and coding inside him.

“What did it report its problem as?”

“Overheating.”

“Weird. There’s nothing wrong with it.”

The Technicians sew Bee up again and he flies back to Block-1810, where Clover is waiting for him with a large, thin slice of Papa Johns pepperoni pizza. They share it and settle in for the night.

“Clover, do you feel warm?” Bee asks.

“Of course I feel warm,” Clover responds, sleepily. “I always feel warm when I am with you.”

“Why? Our systems are not programmed to feel warm. We were not programmed to feel anything at all.”

Clover shakes his head and wraps one wing around Bee’s body, “We were not programmed to talk, either, and yet we can. Go to sleep, Bee.”

Bee sleeps. The next morning, he receives a request that his Maintenance Order has been reopened. He flies back to Job Headquarters with Clover still asleep in their nest, leaving the warmth behind with him. Once there, he is quickly ushered to the same backroom and the same pair of Technicians, or maybe a different pair. He cannot tell, for they all look the same in their blue uniforms with a smiling design on their jacket.

“What’s wrong with this one—didn’t we fix it yesterday?” asks one Technician as she cuts another slit in Bee’s stomach.

“We didn’t find anything wrong with it,” the other Technician replies, brandishing a shiny red pair of pliers. “But the Boss called me into his office this morning. He reviewed the case. He said it’s defective.”

“There’s something wrong with it?”

“It’s what he said. It’s learning to feel.”

And before Drone-6468 can even utter a chirp of protest—before he can tell them about Clover and his warmth—the technician with the pliers leans down and cuts the wire connecting his heart to his brain.

Kidneys

by Donald Patten

My First Apartment

by Kyra Christensen

Once again, I stood in front of that peculiar-looking door I remember from childhood. The door sat in the corner of my maternal grandparents’ sitting room, which no one ever seemed to sit in, and led to the stairs to their attic. Although the area was uninteresting to me when I was a toddler, the loft space became a whole new world when I was around eight years old. And now, standing here, reflecting on my feelings and first memories of this space, I am somewhat concerned by my immense joy in my grandparents’ attic at such a young age.

It was a chilled winter night when I stood outside that somewhat eerie door for truly the first time. Its dark chestnut coloring glowed in the moonlight, and I hesitated to open it for a few moments. But I couldn’t sleep and was extremely curious, so I gave the early 20th-century rustic doorknob a complex twist to the right, pushed the door open, and headed inside. After tumbling up the stairs, as I was unsuccessful in finding the light switch at the bottom, I safely made it to the top of the skinny and creaky staircase. Once I regained my balance, I felt around the walls with my hands, searching for the light switch. After my hands grazed over some mysteriously cold metal items seemingly hung from the walls, I luckily found and flipped the light switch upstairs, illuminating the rooms and their objects quickly.

I didn’t know what I was expecting to see at eight years of age. A dusty, spooky, ghost-filled room, I suppose. Or possibly the mystical land of Narnia; I was somewhat expecting to have tea with Mr. Tumnus. But instead, I found two medium-sized rooms separated by a grayish and splintery sliding barn door. And a bathroom with a beautifully painted cartoon moon, sun, and star mural that I would soon stare at for hours while sprawled in the clawfoot tub that sat in the middle. I later discovered that this artwork was painted by my very talented aunt when she was older than I was then but younger than I am now, so I appreciate it even more.

This space, although a mystery at first, became a place where I would run to when I needed peaceful solitude, with no one to care for or look after except myself. I treated it like it was my own little apartment, as though it was the first place I lived on my own straight out of college. It was a tad vintage, with a slight musty scent, but it was a space for me and me alone. It was a home I imagined myself in to escape the one I was born in. Although I didn’t realize

this until I came to understand parts of my past, I am happy that little me was able to find a space like this, even if it was only available at my grandparents’ farm.

However, I was only eight years old and already enjoying independence to a higher degree than I would classify as “average” for a child. When in this space, I had a routine, as though I was a working woman with places to be. I soon began sleeping in the fluffy king-sized bed against the back wall of one room; I felt like a Queen in her master suite. And would wake up, greeting the two wooden birds that dangled above the bed. When a string was pulled, which I would tug at every night, and every morning, the fake birds would flap their wings as though flying but never truly going anywhere. I named them but have no recollection of those identities now.

Afterward, I would head to the bathroom, brush my teeth, and prepare for the day. Even though my plan was always to stay up there all day I still “got ready.” I would especially take an ample amount of time in that bathroom. Even after completing the typical tasks, I would always give myself time to stare at those paintings on the ceiling and walls. Admiring the bright, pastel yellows and cool blues used and gazing at the smiling faces of the stars, sun, and moon while sitting in the tub. The art and glowing sunlight made it all feel very whimsical there. Oh, I wish I could paint and transform a space like that; turn something dull into something wonderful.

After my time in the bathroom, I would head to what I classified as the living room. The area on the other side of that barn door, separate from the sleeping space, was where I would spend most of the day. Within the room stood a box TV, made in a year that I didn’t exist yet, and a VCR player that I overused. Those were indeed the essentials.

There was also a loveseat with too cushiony of cushions, so I typically preferred the floor. To this day, I identify as a floor person. A person who enjoys sitting on the dense floor compared to cloud-like cushions. And I would specifically sit on the floor space a few feet from the TV to watch my favorite movies on VHS tape for hours. A few films had some discoloration, and the stain on the hardwood floors is slightly faded in that spot. However, floor people always have a “spot” that they subconsciously or physically claim each time, and that spot was mine. And the movies included Kiki’s Delivery Service, James and the Giant Peach, The Lion King, Lilo and Stitch, and Mulan; who wouldn’t watch those films on repeat until the vivid color was drained from the scenes? I wonder if they would still work if I tried. The nostalgia would be epic.

In addition, there was an antiquated gumball machine filled with colorful gumballs, which flavors would disappear moments after the first chew, kind of like Juicy Fruit. I chewed those gumballs religiously, yet the machine remained filled. My grandparents likely kept it stocked just for me. Red and pink were the best, but the orange and white flavors occasionally triumphed. And behind the gumball machine was a sometimes spiderweb-covered typewriter. And I have no idea how long it has been there, but I still enjoy the satisfaction of pressing each letter, moving the carriage after each line, as I did then.

Two very creepy porcelain dolls also watched my every move. They sat together in a vintage baby pram perched on the large edge overlooking the stairs. And although I grew somewhat affectionate towards them over the years because of the memories they held, I have since realized porcelain dolls freak me the fuck out. I blame the horror movie, Annabelle, for this fear, but luckily that wasn’t developed until I was a teen. However, my fear of ventriloquist dummies was still very much present then. My older sister would read to me R. L. Stein’s Night of the Living Dummy, which sparked the fear. And my grandparents owned a Slappy Dummy, so that continued the fear. And just to unsettle you, that dummy has been missing for a decade.

When I approach this space as an adult of sorts, 20 being the magic number, I feel a mix of emotions. I feel sad, for I, without realizing it, wanted adulthood, at a young age, because of the roles I had in my family. I was the youngest daughter and sister responsible for parenting myself, my sibling, and my parents. I got so used to it that even as a child, I got to a point where I enjoyed doing chores and having responsibilities that some adults don’t even enjoy having. I was so busy caring for those around me that those moments in my little apartment were a relief. Yeah, I may have been doing chores, like making my bed and clearing dust bunnies, but I was doing it to tidy up my space, not somebody else’s. I enjoyed relying on myself and taking charge, even if that was just deciding which movie to watch again; I liked being an adult. And even though I shouldn’t have felt this way at eight years of age, I somewhat feel happy about my ample alone time in this space. My love for movies, paintings, sweets, and independence began here, in these two rooms and a painted bathroom, otherwise known as my first apartment.