The Maps Issue by Paperfinger

Paperfinger

January 2015

The Maps Issue

Paperfinger

January 2015

The Maps Issue

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10 8C

WRITING Feature

REATIVE

Megan Kovak

19 Poetry 26 POETRY

StephanieHoadley Erdman 20 Caroline 28 Kristiane Weeks 24 Kristiane Weeks 30 28 Colin James 34 Lois Goh Short 36 Michelle Clark stories

Kristiane 10 Hot Coffeeby (part 5) Weeks by Brandi David

20 22

Chasing Storms

Stephanie Erdman

All Imagery supplied by Amanda Huddleston EMAIL

AMWEST021@AOL.COM

creative writing 8

Hot Coffee

(Part 5)

Brandi David

36 INT. GRILL’D - MORNING The shop has just opened and Jeremy is sitting at a table, reading a paper but not ordering anything. Raena is in the back; Sydney is slicing vegetables. Raena pokes her head out, and gestures silently for him to join her in the backroom. RAENA: He’s creeping me out. Do something about it, boss man. SYDNEY: I was a complete jackass to him and he’s still here--don’t you think he might actually be interested in you as opposed to your tits? (overly sarcastic) Aren’t you looking for someone to treat you well? Someone who will never give you up? Someone who will never let you down, someone who will never run around and desert you? Sydney laughs, Raena just stares at him with mixed feeling of annoyance and hatred.

37 INT. MICHAEL’S APARTMENT EVENING Michael is at home, relaxing following his allergic reaction. The television is on, not muted but with low volume. He is playing solitaire and using the facebook chat service to talk to Ellie and is trying to convince her that he is alright. While talking to her, he decides to open a new web page to access his Passionate Professionals account. 38 INT. GRILL’D - EVENING Raena and Sydney are cleaning up early. Prokofiev’s “Lt. Kije Suite: Romance” plays in the restaurant. RAENA: You sure about closing early today? Sydney nods and locks the door. SYDNEY: It’s been slow enough. An hour won’t make that much difference. RAENA: Time to use this down time as a time for your love-life. 11

Raena takes out her laptop and sets it up on a table. She already has Passionate Professionals loaded and Sydney logged in. SYDNEY: Raena... RAENA: Nope. If you’re going to lecture me about Jeremy, I’m going to lec-A knock on the door interrupts her. Jeremy is standing there with a bouquet of flowers. He waves timidly. Raena walks to the door, gesturing that the restaurant is closed. Jeremy points to his watch, and Raena shrugs and signals they are closed again. He points at the flowers then at her. She shrugs and walks back to the table, turning herself so she doesn’t face the window. Jeremy sits down, out of view of the window, outside the restaurant. SYDNEY: If we’re doing this tonight, you should go get us some coffee. RAENA: Or scotch. Scotch sounds good. SYDNEY: And out of my budget.

the two choices: “Yes” and “No.” 40 INT. GRILL’D - EVENING Sydney is navigating the site, unimpressed. One of his suggestions looks interesting, listing “Napalm Death,” “Rilke,” and “Cinema” as interests. The name Michael Kohler appears next to the description, showing an interest in males, but no picture. Sydney’s mouse hovers over his name. After clicking, he is immediately directed to an intricate “Error 404: Page not Found” page located on the Passionate Professionals site. 41 INT. MICHAEL’S OFFICE- LATE EVENING Michael and Ellie are sitting at her desk, which is covered with paperwork. Michael and Ellie are organizing the paper into neat piles. The office is mostly dark; no one else is there. ELLIE: So glad to be done for today.. Ellie stands up and stretches her back and neck before plopping back down.

He hands her a ten dollar bill and she leaves. As she steps outside, Sydney locks the door and Jeremy pops up, holding the flowers out for her. She looks at Sydney, who turns away and begins messing on the computer.

ELLIE: (cont.) I’m so glad Jerry can make macaroni and cheese. He and Betsy would be starving by now if not.

39 INT. MICHAEL’S APARTMENT EVENING

MICHAEL: How are they enjoying school; Jerry started seventh grade, right?

Michael pulls up the settings for his account on Passionate Professionals, selects “Delete.” A box appears: “Are you sure you want to delete us? This cannot be undone.” The mouse hovers between

Ellie nods and looks at a picture of a much younger Jerry.

Michael picks up a photo of both children and looks at it intently.

ELLIE:He seems to like it well enough. Getting him on that bus that first 13

day was impossible. Most of his friends ended up at LaSalle so he was even more shy than normal. He did come home and tell me he made a friend, which was reassuring. MICHAEL: What about Betsy? ELLIE: She’s.. She’s doing well. Her best friend, Maria, is in class with her. Ellie pulls her pocket book out of her purse and shuffles through it for a picture of Ellie and MARIA playing in a sandbox. She hands it to Michael. ELLIE: (cont.) But there are some mean girls in her class with her, Regina and Janis. I wish I knew how to help her, but I can’t figure it out beyond going to her teacher. And the moment I mention that she starts screaming. MICHAEL: Yeah... 14

He puts the picture down slowly and sighs. MICHAEL: She’s sweet, though. Both of them are. (beat) I wouldn’t mind having a pair like them someday. ELLIE: (laughing) You’re barely thirty and you definitely don’t look like it. You’ve got plenty of time. Besides, maybe someday I’ll get sick of mine and throw them your way. MICHAEL: It’s not that, so much... Michael gets up and walks around the room slowly, nervously. Ellie watches him, calmly but worried. Michael stops walking and turns to face her. MICHAEL: It’s just that... Ellie looks at him inquisitively.

MICHAEL: I’m.. not like a lot of the men in this office. Michael slumps down into a chair, but continues talking. MICHAEL: (cont.) The women that work here are nice, but I’m not interested in bedpost notches. (beat) I don’t.. watch womens’ breasts as they jog past in the park. I think you’re the nicest lady in the world, and I don’t want to sleep with you. The thought has never crossed my mind. And it’s the same way for those baristas--Emily is sweet even if she’s young. Cindy is funny and they’re both beautiful women, but... ELLIE: (softly, non-judgmentally) But what? MICHAEL: I’m just... (sighs) I’m just not.. interested. The room is quiet for a moment. Ellie watches Michael, who is slumped over, looking exhausted in his chair. Ellie stands up, walks to the OFF SCREEN coffee machine, makes him a cup of coffee, and hands it over his shoulder to him. She places her hands on his shoulders. ELLIE: You know, I would still love Jerry if he was-MICHAEL: (hostile) If he was what? ELLIE: (taken aback) Well, if he was ga-Michael stands up and throws the coffee

cup on the floor. MICHAEL: I’m not some sort of fucking freak! I’m not a fucking queer! Michael storms out of the room, leaving Ellie standing, silently shocked at Michael’s outburst, behind the chair he had been sitting in. 42 INT. GRILL’D - EVENING Sydney and Raena are cleaning the shop, wiping down tables, cleaning the windows, gathering dishes, cleaning grills etc. It is about 8:45. RAENA: I don’t know what to do about him. He’s driving me crazy. Sydney exits the back room, carrying a load of clean plates and begins putting them in the cupboard underneath the grills. SYDNEY: Who, Jerry? RAENA: No, Jeremy. He’s been in here every day this week. Twice on Tuesday. SYDNEY: You like the attention. RAENA: It’s annoying. SYDNEY: You know his name. You like the attention. You like him. Sydney stands up in time to be hit in the face with the towel Raena was using to wipe down tables. She picks up the broom and begins sweeping, getting increasingly rough with the broom. SYDNEY: What’s so bad about him, anyway? 15

He can’t be any worse than your last jerk. What was his name? Brian, Brandon... RAENA: It doesn’t matter. SYDNEY: Brad.. Benjamin.. Barry.. See, you don’t know his name. But you know Jeremy’s name. RAENA: Bernard. His name is Bernard. SYDNEY: Is it? You don’t need to put up with-RAENA: Look, it doesn’t matter. I don’t want to go out with--

SYDNEY: I don’t know his sandwich. Raena stomps on Sydney’s foot as he walks past, but he continues to the back room. Jeremy approaches the counter as Raena goes to place his sandwich on the grill. JEREMY: Actually, can I get that cold? It’s for tomorrow. Raena slices the sandwich and wraps it to go. Sydney walks out the backroom but hovers in the doorway.

The door opens. Jeremy walks in, carrying a viola case and a bouquet of slightly unhealthy, but well-meaning flowers. Raena sighs angrily and walks to the back room.

JEREMY: Say, do you like coffee?

SYDNEY: Well hey there Jeremy. Take a seat. She can’t hide back there all night.

Without looking up, Raena responds:

Jeremy takes a seat and Sydney picks up the broom. As he begins sweeping, Raena exits the backroom. Her face is slightly damp, as if she had just washed it. RAENA: What would you like Jeremy? JEREMY: Just the regular. Raena begins working on a sandwich: tomato basil on spinach foccacia. Sydney locks the door, pulls the curtains in the window. He walks from the front of the shop to the backroom, stopping to whisper to Raena:

hard not to.

SYDNEY: She hates baristas. JEREMY: Oh. Well what about a movie?

RAENA: I work late. SYDNEY: (eagerly) But I’ll go! Jeremy looks back and forth at the two of them, confused and surprised. Raena smiles to herself and hands him the sandwich; Sydney suppresses laughter. Jeremy places a five dollar bill on the counter and tries to leave, but the door is locked. Raena sighs, goes to let him out. After he leaves, Sydney and Raena burst out laughing. Then Sydney’s phone rings--it’s Marty.

SYDNEY: You know his sandwich.

43 INT. MICHAEL’S APARTMENT NIGHT

RAENA: Yeah, when he’s in here daily it’s

Michael sits at a desk in the corer,

checking work e-mail on his laptop. He selects an e-mail entitled “Read Immediately” from Schmidt. He opens it to read.

community and to provide a safe place for homosexual youth.” As God’s proud heterosexual people, the right people, we must put a stop to this.

SCHMIDT: (v.o.) My esteemed coworkers. Many of us are happily married with children, and yet there is a monster out there that threatens our children and their possibilities of the same happiness we currently enjoy: homosexuality. Recently in the news there have been many reports of “equal rights” for homosexuals.

Send letters to the principal, send letters to the staff, the mayor, report their facebook page. Let it be known that this wholesome community will not condone such behavior.

But God does not recognize them and neither should the law. That said, a local high school is attempting to establish a Gay-Straight Alliance to “show support for the growing homosexual

Michael selects the facebook link and scrolls through it during Schmidt’s voice over. There are already many disparaging comments on the page but a few are positive. At the top is an advertisement for a Brokeback Mountain book discussion hosted by the club. Michael clicks on the event link.

to be continued..... 17

Caroline Hoadley 20

Untitled And what a crazy thing the universe isif it does store up checks and balances then who is responsiblefor flinging us together in a tiny townnot far from the coast, not far fromlibraries and fields under palm treeswhere we ordered Chinese andwaited, smoking furiously, for our lives to start outside of papers and deadlines. How I wish the universe could have told me that it had already begun-could have told us what falling in love and letting go felt like,like the wind past my faceskating down a newly paved streetunder street lights waiting to be lit.

Toy #2 I wanted to write something to send to you, because that’s what writers do - they write about that little feeling you get somewhere in your middle when you lock eyes with someone, and I sort of trail off whatever train of thought I was riding and just stare for a moment, and marvel that someone can look at you with the same exact feeling you have when looking at them. And no, it’s not love yet but it’s pretty damn close, and we’re not great yet but we will be. I see my head on your chest and your socks and shoes on my floor, and sunrises and sets and songs played on repeat as we drive by some coast somewhere, hands brushing but not quite held.

Kristiane Weeks

Behind the Lake The bottle of Vodka drinks us up and leaves us, finished like an astronaut who drifts off years ago, gray matter cut from goodbye... Do you remember when you were a flood and I was a crime hanging off the greens of your body,giving you magnolia petals big enough to cover all your shifting, feeding you starstuff and glass. Behind the lake, you are a lark, spilling bronze from your coat tails, casting lines deep into the railroad tracks they build a city over, use the rusted beams for haphazard foundations, the origin story for every breathâ&#x20AC;Ś create and create layers of spongy peach shell all to have them scraped and scraped away, we are born to become calcium deposits, no growing back.

How far back can you remember? Mixed tea leaves and heart beats so loud, muddle into sedatives as a counterweight. In the spirit house, I am alone, inescapable, the way out only found by looking in, down through the rafters, only shimmer, no shrieking. Sorry, Ashbery. Sorry Asheville, I can’t stay. Your hidden black bears, disheveled Black Mountain are too obvious, a reminder of all we’ve lost. There are so many secrets in the spine of the Appalachia, I’ve been trying to tap them out, over-turning musk-covered peaks to catch a clue, only finding a longing with nothing left to long for, ennui and burned up roaches. The day after, I find a single scarlet Carolina leaf alone with me, and when I pick it up, it pulls me from the fabric of this world, gives me advice: all memories are genericspectres of truth. I hear your footprints call my name, but it’ll turn your eyes to orchids waiting for my signal. Everything is an imaginary reason to keep holding out for more.

Colin James 28

DAMASCUS Small steps falling head black bastard sideswipe distance jagged poker-dotted, red. Circumvented acclimation stored to the side. This prophesying is is not fate.

Thank you to all our incredible writers! Think youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve got what it takes to write something for us? Submit your stories and poetry to PaperfingerArts@yahoo.com

Photo Credit: All photography courtesy of Amanda Huddleston, to get in touch with Jenna you can send her an email at amwest021@aol.com