Vol II, Issue VII - June 2015

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THE RAIN, PARTY, & DISASTER SOCIETY IS A WORKSHOP-BASED ONLINE LITERARY PUBLICATION THAT STRIVES TO GIVE REPRESENTATION TO NEW IDEAS AND THOUGHTS, TO CHALLENGE THE READER, AND TO QUESTION COMMONLY ACCEPTED OPINIONS, VALUES, ETIQUETTE, AND IDEAS. WITHIN OUR PAGES, YOU MAY FIND: WORKS THAT TACKLE HOT-BUTTON ISSUES, WORKS PRESENTED IN A STYLE THAT IS OUT OF THE ORDINARY, WORKS THAT PRESENT THE READER WITH A QUESTION OR DEBATE, AND WORKS THAT BREAK MAINSTREAM RULES WITHIN THEIR GENRE. ALL OF THE PIECES YOU FIND ON THIS SITE HAVE BEEN THROUGH OUR WORKSHOP PROCESS, DURING WHICH THE RP&D EDITORIAL STAFF WORKS CLOSELY WITH CONTRIBUTORS TO HONE THEIR VOICE AND HELP THEM TO PRODUCE THE BEST POSSIBLE WORK FOR YOU, THE READER, TO EXPERIENCE.

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Table of Contents

Pg. 4 - REAL LOVE, C. Noel Carson Pg. 5 - BUS RIDE, Terry Barr Pg. 6 - STRIATED, Mitchell Krockmalnik Grabois Pg. 7 - DRIVE NORTH, Janelle Rainer Pg. 8 - THE LAWNMOWER, Alan Semrow Pg. 10 - SEVENTEEN, Rena Medow Pg. 11 - SANCTUARY IN SHADOWS: FINDING EXTREME METAL IN NATURE, Dan Rousseau Pg. 13 - THE OLD COUCH, Kurt Newton Pg. 14 - BRING OUT THE BODY THE SUIT IS ON, Matthew Johnstone Pg. 15 - FRIENDS (WHO) DON’T LET OTHER FRIENDS THINK AND STRIVE, Glenn A. Bruce Pg. 17 - GOLDEN, Tyler Barton Pg. 18 - GARCINIA CAMBOGIA, Mitchell Krockmalnik Grabois Pg. 18 - HALO, Jeremiah Moriarty Pg. 19 - THE WINDBREAKER, Kurt Newton Pg. 20 - THE ASHES, Divya Gosain Pg. 21 - COLLECTED GOOGLE SEARCHES 2013 - 2014, Suzanne Pearman Pg. 23 - THE SIX-YEAR DANCE, Alan Semrow Pg. 25 - VIRTUAL REALITY EXTRACT, Patricia Walsh Pg. 26 - PHARMA, Mitchell Krockmalnik Grabois Pg. 27 - LOVE NOTE TO MY HUSBAND ON 12-13-14, Wanda Morrow Clevenger Pg. 28 -WHERE THE DEAD REFUSE TO GROW, Jonathan Dick Pg. 29 -WITCH’S APPLE, C. Noel Carson

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Pg. 30 - EDITORIAL STAFF Pg. 32 - CONTRIBUTOR BIOS

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REAL LOVE C. Noel Carson

His breathing became slow and regular. His wife had kept him awake as long as she could, distracting him with tasks and flirtations, but ten minutes earlier he had stretched and crawled between the sheets, professing exhaustion. Now, curled up next to him, she watched his relaxed face anxiously.

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She discovered it a month into their marriage. Perhaps he had let his control slip. Or maybe it wasn’t on purpose. Yet somehow, he had betrayed her.

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She didn’t want to watch what happened, but she forced her eyes to stay open. He snored away softly, but the room was—dear god--changing.

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The furniture transformed and grew into thick tree trunks, creaking with their own weight in the wind.

The carpet morphed into grass; the miscellaneous toiletries on the vanity sprouted wings and perched in the branches, twittering.

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She watched in fear and disbelief. The atmosphere in the room was an ominous twilight. The sleeping man next to her sprouted claws and thick, brown fur, his nose bulging wet and black. His pointed teeth were visible as he napped. Her blood ran cold--her filmy white nightgown was no longer adequate for this nightmare. She tried to run but felt sluggish. Shivering in the dew, she crawled toward the bathroom, which had become an open field.

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The laundry scattered across the grass floated into the sky until it blocked out the sun. Angry, roiling shadows fell across the meadow. As the thunder began, she made it to a clump of tall, tangled grass that clung to her skin, and tried to hide, but her arms were soon crawling with little ants. They had faces.

His face. Tiny, insectile humans crawling over her body. She sprang up and swiped at her legs and arms, not caring if she crushed the little beasts. This couldn’t be real. Could it?

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She wobbled on shaky legs across the meadow as it began to rain, the ground giving way to mush, and suddenly there was nothing under her and she was not walking but swimming, the meadow an endless expanse of ocean. Hair sticking to her face, she looked back but there was no land in sight. Rain lashed the waves at her chin, and she wept with fear and cold, her tears lost in the storm. Please wake up. Powerless, she spotted the fin.

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Pure panic coursed through her veins as she watched the fin sway lazily in the water, weaving its way toward her. There was nowhere she could go. Her feet were icy, kicking in the depths to stay afloat.

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The monster came closer and she saw its massive bulk under the water. It rolled to look at her, and it was his eye, his brown human eye above a row of razor teeth that were opening for her, and water filled her mouth as she screamed and sank under the surface mere inches from his hungry mouth, punching the monster in his blunt, rubbery nose and kicking his slippery body with her feet.

" The monster groaned in protest and rolled, and the sheets tangled as she kicked and howled. "

What the hell? said a voice, groggily, (his voice?) and someone grabbed her wrists with strong, warm hands. The cold evaporated and her punches landed on hairy flesh. Her eyes were blurry with salt, but the depths of the ocean felt like a bed, and the clutch of jaws around her head transformed to pillows.

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It's ok, doll, he said, peering into her peeled eyeballs that still darted around the room that was, again, a room. His fingers still encircled her wrists. The corners of his mouth were turned up in a smirk.

" She rolled over, panting, while he shifted his pillow. " Worse than last time, she thought. If this is what it's like when he sleeps, what would happen if he were...? " She stared at the ceiling in dread, waiting for her new reality to descend. " Next to her, he began to snore. " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " BUS RIDE Terry Barr

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When I got on and paid my quarter to the faceless driver, I saw her huddled in an aisle seat. She wore a dark brown raincoat, square glasses, and her dirty gray hair was half-covered by a frayed beige scarf. She kept rocking back and forth, back and forth, her Bible perched on her knee. Sitting at a window seat across the aisle and up from her, I took out my copy of The Horse's Mouth. We passed Sam and Andy’s and The Torch.

Then the Women’s Clinic, just up the hill from the Student Center. And then I felt her lean my way.

“They kill babies in there.”

“Excuse me?”

“Babies! That’s where they kill them!”

She clutched her Bible even tighter, and her scarf began sliding off her head.

“I know all about it,” I said.

We had reached my stop by then anyway, so I left her on board in all her madness.

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STRIATED Mitchell Krockmalnik Grabois

" 1. " I’m submerged to my neck in a swamp of toxins in the American South. Somewhere through " water lies Panama. Somewhere through water lies Europe. " 2. " You are terrifyingly photogenic. Your face swirls around the bright blue madness of your eyes. " Your bottled-up rage finally explodes. You and I are flung far, as in a high-tech movie, and land " in the basket of a new rollercoaster, one that doesn’t rely on gravity or other laws of physics. " 3. " East German and Bulgarian swimmers fill their bodies with steroids and threaten to overthrow " me. " 4. " Neurons fire and misfire, love and hate coexist. Your indifference rolls in like a tide and makes " me feel like my heart has been plucked out and set in a gondola. The gondolier picks it up and " bounces it on the end of his paddle. He yodels like a cowboy. " 5. " I’m on the medal stand and won’t get off. Brutal men will have to drag me off. I am golden, " forever golden. " 6. " You step off a vaporetto onto a Venice dock to meet me, but St. Mark’s Square is flooded again. " I cannot leave the opera hall. The singers, feeling antsy, decide to repeat their performance for " free for everyone trapped with them. They are terrible singers. They mutilate the score. " 7. " Your blue eyes drift over the water in St. Mark’s Square. You are as photogenic as the Hell " 6

described by Dante. Your neurons are as striated as the walls of the Grand Canyon. I feel

" hopeless living with you. I feel damaged without you. I feel deranged in either case, as deranged " as you are, as seen on TV, or in your many self-portraits. You are terrifyingly photogenic. " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " DRIVE NORTH Janelle Rainer

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Tired of mankind on a Friday— we drive North. The landscape

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shifts from box stores to suburban estates,

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then from residential to rural, from farms to forests of pine.

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The lift and fall of the road along the river.

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We stay quiet and contemplate fulfillment. We think about

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our choices. The road splits from the river. We find

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the junkyards of happy poverty.

We ask what it means

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to stop wanting.

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THE LAWNMOWER Alan Semrow

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Every Wednesday, Miss Jameson next door gives me five dollars for mowing her lawn. When she first started paying me, she told me that she just couldn’t do it anymore, that she was getting too old—her shoulder was in bad shape and she couldn’t handle the pain. She’s no older than fifty. I’m not sure if she has much of a family.

I walk through the wet grass—the thirty-five steps it takes to her front door. I grab hold of her door handle and it’s locked. I knock. I knock again. She stumbles over, waves. Miss Jameson opens the door.

“Oh! Hi Skyler! I forgot you come on Wednesdays!”

She gives me a big hug. I’ve been coming every Wednesday for three years.

“Good to see you.”

Today, Miss Jameson is wearing her typical cheetah print—an old t-shirt from God knows what era.

She’s got on a worn red headband to hold back her graying blonde hair. She dyes it sometimes. It’s just been awhile. She’s heavyset, but I can tell she once had her heyday. As usual, she’s not wearing a bra, so her boobs sagging down to her belly button. Her cheetah print’s got paint stains all over it. She’s been working on renovating the house since she moved in. She moved in nine years ago—when I was nine.

“Did you want a beer? Something to drink?”

“It’s early. I’m underage. My parents want me home for dinner tonight.”

She cackles, digging into her black leather purse from the eighties, fishing for the key to the shed.

Miss Jameson fingers it out and hands it to me.

“Thank you.”

“No, Skyler. Thank you! I’ll tell you, I don’t know what I’d do without you coming over like this. I fell the other night on my bad shoulder. Almost thought I had to go to the ER. But I took some pain pills and slept for a good while and it felt better. I’m going to the doctor next week. I’m hoping he prescribes me something.” Miss Jameson takes a sip from the mug on the stovetop. It’s not water. Every day when she gets home from work, I know her routine. She’s been slurring her words and walking in a way that’s painful to watch since I was very young.

I exit the house and move over to the shed that my dad helped her put up. He doesn’t like her much now, but, when he put it up, he didn’t have much of a problem. He called it a property dispute. She called it being an asshole.

I put the key in the door and pull out the old handheld mower. Him and I, the lawnmower and me, it seems, have become pretty close. Every Wednesday for nine years.

Mowing the lawn is kind of a soothing thing—a good way to keep my mind off of things after school.

See, there was a time when I got bullied pretty bad. The guys at my middle school terrorized me, sent me home in tears every day. They called me “The Queer Kid.” I don’t know how many people get over something like that—I’m not even sure that I have. It’s just that, you know, I was never the athletic type. I remember my dad made me play baseball back in elementary school. And I hated it. Just hated it.

He was my coach and even that helped nothing. I spent every inning in the outfield—the part where only the lefties hit. I was always last in line to bat. And I feared it. I feared that ripping, roaring ball. To me, it meant death. It meant embarrassment.

And my mom got it. One time, I was daydreaming during some stupid game and some lefty hit the ball out in the outfield and I woke from staring at some sunshiny dandelions and all I heard was, “Sky! Sky! Sky!” And I was looking at the sky, spotting nothing in particular, but I heard the ball when it hit the ground. Still, though, I just couldn’t find the damn thing. I spun around in circles, the crowd of parents and brothers and sisters and other players, screaming at me. And the other player dude was just passing those bases like it was nobody’s business.

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I never found the ball. Out of defeat, I just looked to the stands and there was my mother laughing her ass off, because she knew how much I hated it. And, even at my young age, she understood that I knew that I just sucked the big one at sports.

We lost the game.

I finish mowing the lawn and rolling the mower back in its place. I enter the house and Miss Jameson is standing at the stovetop smoking a cigarette. I can tell she’s gotten drunker since I’ve been gone. I can tell she’s probably taken one of those pills she always has so handy. She looks me in the eyes and her eyes are slanted, yellow, sad. She grins a little. “Got it all done?” she asks.

“Sure do, Miss Jameson.”

“Stop calling me that, dumbass. My name is Felicity to you!”

“Okay, sure do, Felicity.”

She shakes her head, cackles. “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate this. You want a beer or something? I have a few different kinds.”

“That’s okay,” I say, looking around the house. It’s a disaster. She’s acquired so many things that she doesn’t even know what she has anymore. Her walls were painted once, but now she’s painted over them in places—little white splotches all over. I’d be real embarrassed if I was her, but I suppose she doesn’t have many people over.

“I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it, though, Skyler. I mean really. If you were a little older, I can tell you right now, I would date you.”

I look down at my feet. “Thanks.”

“I mean, really!”

“Yep.” “I mean, my shoulder is just so bad, so it’s so nice what you do for me here. I fell down yesterday morning before work and it was awful. I had to go to the ER and everything.”

“Well,” I tell her. “That’s not good, Felicity.”

“I know.”

I look down the hall at something she calls the den. It’s under construction. She’s got big panels of wood lined up against the wall. I look back over at her countertops, just filled with crap—all kinds of home improvement supplies. She’s got multiples of everything. I look to her—her depressed, bloodshot eyes. I ask, “Do you ever get lonely?”

Miss Jameson lights another cigarette. “Oh, Skyler,” she laughs. “I’ve got like three men. It’s just a sex thing, though. I could tell you about it…”

“That’s alright. Thanks.” I nod, pressing my lips together.

Miss Jameson digs into her purse and hands me a ten dollar bill. I tell her that’s too much. And she says that if I was a little older, she’d date me.

She hugs me goodbye. I leave the house, repeating to myself that I’ll be graduating soon and heading off to college.

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SEVENTEEN Rena Medow

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There are 17 different kinds of smiles, and you wear them all to the ball with her, while I walk barefoot on moonlit gravel, shoveling unabridged thoughts: I thought love was the point the pith, the myth. The rusty core. The flimsy film. The bright laughing candids {loveshot & dreary} We buy Betsey Johnson to test that theory. We buy dresses that blur and swirl and rise over stockings {the runs tell better lies than us} {we buy books that tell better lies than us} We get caught on barb wire, on black sunflowers, on boys, seeds, stars and smiles We offer our hands to loveliness, grow into it between cracksof moonlight, make our beds in seashells each night, our dream catchers tangled with hurricane & cognac.

We amputate ourselves into passports, until we’re scarlet soaked through, until we’ve emptied the Prozac, until there’s only one thing left to do.

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SANCTUARY IN SHADOWS: FINDING EXTREME METAL IN NATURE Dan Rousseau

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Today I am alone.

The woods are my retreat, an escape from the daily hustle of Philadelphia. I take an unpaved path to a wild clearing: an acre deep clover field. I hear children’s laughter as I approach the pasture, all happily accompanied by their portable speakers emitting the calm sounds of Claude Debussy’s Reflets dans l’eau (Reflections in the Water) - a carefully constructed piano tune, with nature’s perfect ratios in mind. The melody is a conscious compliment to the beauty of the sunlight.

I think of venturing further into the field, to enjoy the tranquil music, but a chilling echo suddenly strains from behind me. I turn my neck, but not my body, and listen in. Strange music seems to resonate from a dark, compact patch of forest: away from the sunlight. This sound does not come from man-made speakers. The cadence is only a whisper, but it is alive. Curious as to the nature of this discordant hymn, I leave the sun-drenched field, and approach the ominous forest.

There is no pruned aisle into the bush. The only entrance is protected with thorns. I am hesitant, but inquisitive. What is that stifled sound?

I am not dressed for this. I wear a black King’s X concert t-shirt and tan cargo shorts. I cover my eyes with my hands, better for my arms to endure the thorns than my face, and force myself through. I drive my hunched body past the twisted thicket, and I stand, panting, on the other side, bleeding at the elbows.

I am now inside the shadowy patch of woods. A colossal, toppled tree grabs my attention. The trunk is nearly one hundred feet long. Its base is eight feet high, covered in mud, implanted with stones, like glass shards stuck in a foot. I hop into the crater established by the tree’s plunge, noticing that the vague tones are resonating from the soil. I begin digging at the ancient earth, looking for the mysterious music.

The further I dig into the mangled roots of the fallen tree, the clearer the song becomes. I peer into a three-inch hole. It is black and deep: carefully swept by a cautious inhabitant. Blowing into the crevice, a rustling gives way to small, focused eyes. A gnarled wolf spider stands before me, wild and ready to pounce. The music grows louder as the spider creeps closer. Fast, mechanical thuds, reminiscent of pedals on a tight bass drum, beat with the spider’s nimble steps. Her rhythm is almost robotic: a call to assault – a blast.

Looking closer, I notice the creature’s funneled web, hundreds of tight strings. I pick up a short, light stick, weathered like driftwood, and run it down the steady silk. The deep tone of an eight-string guitar arrives; an amplified growl from the spider’s lair. Was it here that evolutions from pick, to strum, to attack took place?

It is then that I feel a slight pressure, followed by an itch on my right knee. I look down as a mosquito flies away. His hurried wings sound like a faint, furious bass guitar; they flutter like trained fingers on an E string - Going mostly unnoticed, but carrying the lifeblood of the band. A perfect, circular welt grows on my pale skin.

I spot something behind a tree, a hundred paces away. I trod to the object in balanced rhythm. I fold down onto my knees, an inch deep in fresh mud. Before me is the half decayed head of a doe. Leaning in, the surrounding music takes a perplexing turn. A mosaic of arduous scales leads to tritones, a sinister interval - a flawless mirror of the grotesque animal’s skull.

Ants scurry atop the doe’s decrepit brow. They carry week-old scraps of flesh, twice their size. As the small, black insects salvage the last of the venison, the time signature of the orchestral forest begins to change. The dance of the ants appears random – it is anything but. The thicket here is odd timed. The forest’s djent seems unplanned, but careful listening uncovers unity. Perhaps a jaded mathematician found a relentless musical purpose in mapping the steps of the ants.

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I rise to my feet, brushing the filth from my knees. As my legs and spine lock upright, a cry echoes over my head. I jerk my head up just in time to catch the fleeting swoop of a Red Tailed Hawk. Her powerful shriek echoes off tall cedars, and adds a vocal element to the dark, forest song. This highpitched roar, a hunter on the prowl, rings as a mindful truth; beauty can be ferocious.

I close my eyes as the music, once a whisper, crescendos, then surrounds me. The rapid thump of the spider’s stride punches my chest, and the full strums of her web reverberate, almost painfully, in my ears. The mosquito bite on my right knee inflates with my beating heart. The gruesome artistry of the ants provokes technical amazement. And the fierce allure of the hawk sends my mind into a trance. The peace here is blaring loud.

I am caught in weighty opera. Not knowing what to do, I raise my right hand toward the treetops, lifting pinky and pointer over two folded fingers and thumb. And, as one who finds Extreme Metal in the Wild should do, I fucking head bang in the middle of the woods.

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THE OLD COUCH Kurt Newton

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We moved the old couch outside and sat it by the shed. It didn't matter now if the animals slept on it or rain soaked its surface. Its springs were broken and its arms were flat from years of climbing children and adults too lazy to sit properly. It was too big to fit in our car and take to the dump, so out it went, half hidden, out of sight, out of mind, the way my wife wanted it to be.

But I felt bad for the old couch. For months afterward, it sat there beside the shed, a daily reminder of the past when my wife and I first got married and everything was new and full of promise.

On the surface the old couch looked fine. The upholstery was thread bare and stained in places, but overall it still looked functional. But beneath the upholstery it was broken. It was uncomfortable to sit on, and it carried an odor of age that no amount of freshener or airing out could mask.

It sat beside the shed until one day rainy day I had had enough. I could no longer stand to see the old couch sitting there, rotting away, so I dragged it over near the stone fire pit in the back yard and flipped it on its side, and with a five-pound hammer began breaking it apart.

It was a sturdy couch, meant to last a lifetime, and it didn't come apart easily. Its internal frame was made of poplar, a hard, heavy wood; the joints were tongue and groove; and though very few screws were used in its construction, its tightly woven fabric held it together firmly.

The first joint broke apart easily enough, but it clung stubbornly to the layers of cotton stuffing and cloth overlay. After breaking apart as many joints as I could, I turned the now weakened frame over and broke the remaining joints. I put the hammer aside and set about manually tearing the fabric from the broken wood pieces. Inside the arms and back I uncovered thick sheets of foam. Beneath the canvas, where the individual cushions sat, I found two sets of interlocking springs. As a light rain continued to fall, I created separate piles of wood, fabric, and foam on the damp ground. The springs were the last to come free, under the prying pressure of a flat-head screwdriver.

It was now time to build a fire.

I steepled the smaller pieces of the broken frame on the base of the fire pit, and stuffed some balled up newspaper underneath, and lit it with a match. While the fire caught I cut the longer pieces of wood into thirds with a handsaw. I leaned those against the growing pyramid of flames, piece by piece. I then draped the wads of fabric over the fire. Each wad dampened the flames at first, producing a white smoke that slowly burned through. Cloth and cotton and canvas--all of it went. By now the teepee of wood I'd built was burning strong. I turned to my last pile and tore the thick foam sections into squares.

I tossed the first square onto the flames and it ignited like a giant marshmallow. The flames rose. I threw two more heavy duty marshmallows onto the fire and the flames doubled in height, the heat intensifying to the point where I had to move the lawn chairs that were situated around the fire pit back for fear of spontaneous combustion. I added the remaining pieces of foam and watched it all burn.

As I stood back, watching the flames rise and dip and rise again, listening to the crackle of the wood and the hiss of the foam pieces as they blackened and shrunk in size as if sucked down an invisible drain, I couldn't help but think that this was the end. I stood in the raw, damp, late afternoon chill and was warmed outside and in. The old couch was gone, transformed into heat. All those years, all those memories, were now ash and cinder.

I felt sadness settle in the soft places of my heart.

And though I was the only one there to appreciate the couch's final hours, I hoped that one day my wife and children would come to understand the beauty of what had transpired and why it was necessary.

And why I had to move on without them.

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BRING OUT THE BODY THE SUIT IS ON Matthew Johnstone

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Whose hands

take the mountain to isolation it’s difficult to translate here our sounds it is a difficult language without edges

unsaidly sad that went to corners first in a place where movements couldn’t be put in quick

The slightly lit always off somewhere, spinning strangely in craters caves

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FRIENDS (WHO) DON’T LET OTHER FRIENDS THINK AND STRIVE Glenn A. Bruce

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They grew up together in Smalltown; their pledge: never to leave. They called themselves the Six Musketeers; their bonds, strong.

Anna wanted to be a veterinarian, specializing in small animals. Anna was small and occasionally feral, especially at night, so it fit. She wore her hair close and tight, like her opinions.

Chelsea was taller. Tall. She had almost the same brown hair Anna, but Chelsea’s was long and soft like her temperament. Chelsea wanted to become a pediatrician. She loved kids the way Anna loved cats.

Anna and Chelsea had dreams. They wanted things, big things.

Bette liked to get her nails done.

Ed was a big guy with plans to match; he would be a lawyer for a large firm. When he was young, the offices were in a tall building, probably New York.

Bobby was smaller but saw himself even higher in the sky. He would fix the jets that the brave pilots would fly. He was blonde like Bette, but ambitious. He and Ed aspired to something greater. They wanted it, all of it.

Sam wondered when the game was on.

Bette came up with the pledge on the last day of high school when everyone was drunk and melancholy, happy and sad, already missing home, their sweet Smalltown. Sam signed first. The others followed. In less than a minute, they had all signed on for life. Life, here.

They all remained loyal in their pact.

Sam married Bette; they lived in the modular. It was plain but boring. Anna and Ed bought the last house in the new tract. Nothing ever worked. Chelsea and Bobby ended up in the mobile. At least it was a double-wide.

Together they waited. Never thinking, never thinking.

Never think.

Time.

Time.

Time.

Opal and Manny showed up at The Tavern one Friday night and said they were staying. They’d lived in Miami and Seattle, Chicago and Tucson, even Prague for a little while. But they loved it “here.”

They were staying.

Opal had done her research while Manny made the plans. They didn’t aspire, they did. They were a team, this new couple. Dreamers, achievers, choosers.

Here because they came.

Ed wondered why they left Miami, the warm sea. Chelsea thought of Chicago and the shiny bean. Anna asked about Prague because it seemed so romantic; she could see herself prowling the city at night, the tight streets. Bobby knew about Tucson because it seemed so wasteful; he could see himself scavenging spares in the airplane graveyards, open desert.

Bette said, “Doesn’t it rain a lot in Seattle?”

“We don’t get much rain here,” Sam said.

Opal’s smile was radiant. Always radiant. “No peace,” is what she told them. “Noise, traffic. Chaos. All the time. Not like here.”

“All work, no play,” is what Manny said, his smile as sunny as his wife’s. “Twenty-four-seven. Not like here.”

Here where they would stay, they would say, every day.

Everyday.

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They of the little boutique with the flavored oils and inexpensive but yummy wines. Fresh breads brought in daily. (From where?). The candies from far away. (It said so on the tiny wrappers.) Soaps made with fennel and oatmeal. (“Good enough to eat!”)

The good things Smalltown never had and never would without Manny and Opal. Manny and Opal who did their research, made their plans, and chose carefully. Manny and Opal who came and will stay.

Manny and Opal who never do anything without thinking it through.

Manny and Opal who strive.

Who succeed.

They gave business to get business: Opal picked a black Lab from Anna’s kennel; Manny bought a yellow Lawnboy from Bob; Bette did Opal’s nails in green and drank her red wine.

She never shut up.

Sam was behind the bar now, working for Jugg Fowley, a real sonofabitch hard bastard. Sam pulled a Pabst from the tap for Manny and set it on the bar. He had nothing to say.

The Saints were losing again.

Doc Wilson is the town’s only. Chelsea tells Opal to: “Fill out your contact information here, and your meds and allergies down here; any previous surgeries or conditions on the back. Do you have insurance?” She doesn’t sound hopeful. Not here.

Opal has insurance.

When they first arrived in town and found the house, Manny asked Ed if he thought the owners would fix the roof. If not, “they’ll have to come down on the price.”

Ed talked to the sellers, the Meyersons, and they fixed the roof. Ed told Manny they didn’t want to, “But I twisted Arnie’s arm.” He laughed at his salesman’s prowess and Manny said thanks.

A solid pact remains intractable. To rescind it is to quit. To renege is to fail. To violate a sacred oath is to sin. To go away, anywhere, is to lose. To lose is wrong. It’s too late to lose.

It’s too late.

In two years, Manny and Opal will move on.

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GOLDEN Tyler Barton

"

The day the dog ran away was not as sad as the day she came back. No wag in the tail, cakey mud halfway up those blonde legs, head drooping with the weight of a crane dead in her jaw. Even Dad—who hollered "hit the bastards" at our soccer practice, who hunted for fun and hung it in the den, who patted the dog's head and guffawed when she dropped off a squirrel—was disappointed, a little queasy about it. A crane. Mom figured we could say the Crane. How few there were here.

We accepted her back but not her gift. We shamed her. We yelled in unison Drop It. Even as it fell out: feathers in her mouth. Our Dad picked out each one, said it seemed she’d been flossing. This before we allowed the dog back in the house. Our Dad buried the crane in a boot box and even prayed out loud. As did we, the whole clan, minus the dog hiding somewhere inside.

That girl grew in a strange way, shrunk, but jumped dog-years bigtime. Walked slowly around the house in atrophy. Now never begging, sleeping only on her back, never belly, never treadmilling in her chase-dreams, nuzzled beside her untouched chewtoys.

Dad would look at her and frown, then look at us and say, "If you're gonna hurt something, it's gonna hurt."

"

Some days I'd have to kick her, just to see if she was living. A tough nudge with my toe, most times, but here and there an instep drive, right to her backside. She'd shift a bit, or walk to the kitchen, but she never so much as showed me a tooth. We forgot how growling sounded. Beating her up got old fast. I was kicking myself, is all, and it bruised.

" " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " "

17

GARCINIA CAMBOGIA Mitchell Krockmalnik Grabois

"

1.

In the migrant trailer in which I live, I pull biceps in front of the mirror to reassure myself I still exist and am capable of continued survival.

2.

The woman who claims to be my wife has a lost look. She’s holding a raw egg in her hand. Dr. Oz told me I can lose seven pounds a week by using Garcinia Cambogia Extract, she says.

3.

Coal is Dickens’ London, air thick and dark, smothering and combustible. Coal is a French bitch and an English maidservant tearing at each other’s eyes. I decry nrgy drinks. I chew coal for extra nrgy. Wind turbines blow a deadly breeze my way.

4.

I have been away for many years, held as a P.O.W. I don’t understand what this wife-pretender just said. I have no idea idea who Dr. Oz is. My only reference is: The Wizard of

5.

I grin into the mirror with my black teeth. Script for the company store is scattered on the rug like fallen leaves.

6.

In grief over my presumed death, this woman who claims to be my wife began eating wildly, becoming morbidly obese. I still cannot believe she is who she says she is. I think that it is a trick set up by my former captors. I cannot remember if they were Communists, Stalinists or Maoists, or members of the Islamic State. I don’t understand what any of that means, if I ever did, or why this woman sitting next to me on this couch is stroking the blond hairs of my arm.

" " " "

HALO Jeremiah Moriarty

"

I wish you nothing but the best, I mean it. This is what you’ve always wanted to do, you deserve to be happy. He seems like a really great guy, really nice. What am I doing? Yeah, I’m still writing. Yeah, poetry. Poetry. Not all my poems are about you, come on. Not all my poems are about being in a church and holding your hand. Not all my poems are about the holy turns of your mouth and sacred curve of your chin. Not all my poems are about the lightness above your head. I could always see it, that modest halo, but I never said anything. You were the saint and I was the sinner, most of the time. Then again, maybe we defy easy categorizations. Then again, maybe this poem is about you. Not all my poems are about you, but maybe this one is. Not all my poems are about being alone in a place I don’t call home, where mosquitoes bite like little anxieties. Not all my poems are about crawling into bed, cold and weary, and staring up, of course, not at you.

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THE WINDBREAKER Kurt Newton

"

During a spell of Indian summer, Danny had left his windbreaker outside on the front lawn. Â He had shed it during an afternoon of gathering leaves into a mountainous pile, then jumping into the pile as if he were a bird landing in a giant nest. For three days the weather lingered, his jacket forgotten on the lee side of a large rock where his mother planted phlox.

When the weather turned cold again, his mother asked, "Danny is that your jacket lying outside in the dirt?" The windbreaker wasn't exactly lying in the dirt; there was grass surrounding it, keeping it company, Danny thought. But he obeyed his mother's implicit request and rushed out to rescue the jacket from the elements. In fact, he wore the jacket into the house, the cold fabric chilling his body. No sooner had he passed through the front door, he felt a tickle between his shoulder blades, and then a pinch. There came two more pinches before he realized what was happening. He stripped off the windbreaker and threw it onto the living room floor, where hornets exited its folds like a genie let out of a magic lantern.

Armed with a yellow corn broom, Danny's mother quickly herded him into the bathroom. Danny listened as she battled the angry mob of winged intruders. There were heavy thumps against the ceiling and walls. "Get out of my house! Get out!" he heard his mother shriek. It was as if she had gone to wrestle a tornado, or was exorcising demons from their home. With his ear pressed against the bathroom door, his heart jumped with each unexpected sound. He hardly felt the stings on his body that would later throb until bedtime.

At last, the bathroom door opened. His mother's hair had come loose from its moorings; several thick strands hung across her eyes. "It's okay now," she said. "They're all dead." She was out of breath. Danny stepped into the living room and witnessed the slaughter. Tiny brown bodies littered the floor, some still twitching. His mother went to get a dustpan.

Danny's windbreaker lay stomped and battered on the carpet. He couldn't help but think it resembled a giant hornet, its wings bent, its body flattened. Somehow it had failed its young.

He picked up the windbreaker and ran it back outside, out to the big rock where he had forgotten it, and left it there. He felt it no longer belonged to him.

When he came back inside, his mother pulled up his shirt. "We'll put some baking soda on it. That will make it feel better. Those bad bees." She kissed him then, on top of the head, her touch a different type of sting.

" " " " " " " " " " " " " " "

19

THE ASHES Divya Gosain

"

And tonight I want to write of the multitude of stories that lie buried inside of people- 
 In half felt first kisses, in that child's hunger who died wailing for his mother's milk down the 
 pavement or in that last goodbye those high school sweethearts waved to each other.

"

I gaze at my sky scarcely scattered with dim lit stars; Ashes of burnt cigarettes fall into ashtray; I lift my face again into the blues and I find not my moon. Morning has come. The crimson hues of dawn cover the sky. I have not thought of you even once.

"

Evenings are long, nights not so much. Maybe one get's used to parched throat.

Life is so long. Life is so long. Why then we so light ? You and Me? There ought to be some weight of anticipated or even failed loves to keep one anchored in the play.

I have become so light but I cannot drift away.

"

Tonight I want to write of love. But as they tell "Some of us are scarred."

And life has dared us to talk of such matters.

I cannot decide if we are not beautiful enough or just too beautiful.

I can now never think of you.

"

I don't want to write about the conversation those two people had over coffee, the symphony they played together on the piano or about that night they lay on grass- star gazing, kissing, making love to each other. No...

Not even about how they never became lovers.

"

But I will write of those cups they drank from and left behind over the table.

I will write of that piano they touched together; and perhaps even each other.

I will write of that grass they lay on that night.

"

Did they empty you of something you can never get back?

Did it hurt when the love that touched you so gently did not respire for longer? Forever?

Did they steal your softness through their toes into their souls.

Into their lives and into that sweet rummage box of memory and time?

"

Did they steal away a lil magic from you?

Did they steal a lil magic from your world?

Did they steal a lil magic from The World?

" Did they take something of you away with them ??? " " " " " " 20

COLLECTED GOOGLE SEARCHES 2013 - 2014 Suzanne Pearman

"

like my status for a compliment shut up you fucking baby you're okay with getting married in a liquor store, right?

"

what happens in sports if no one scores why are so many football players overweight

"

is china still communist are rabbits rodents what does a CEO actually do

justin bieber mugshot top teen liar pornhub martin luther king day post lululemon yoga pants controversy white anglo saxon protestants

benefits of wheatgrass nutrition facts in 8 oz kumquats is 1800 calories a day too many laughing while eating salad

tired eyes serious delirium how to have energy without a good night's sleep how long should it take you to fall asleep if you take a nap do you need less sleep can you overdose on melatonin

what's a good credit score what's an average credit score

is it bad to drink soda in the morning is it bad to drink soda at night are slanted mirrors unflattering how many books should I read in a year

do your nerves actually cause stress why do you see stars when you rub your eyes why is my right hand dryer than my left

is it bad to take naps after eating can you get bed sores just from being really lazy is the black plague back

how do you know if you have frostbite

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my legs are bright red from the cold how fast does your temperature drop in extreme cold how long does it take to freeze to death how much does an obituary cost

creepypasta erotic website man with two dicks AMA social conventions used to give a fuck

"

theodore roosevelt punching a person very disrespectful to the haters

" " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " "

22

THE SIX-YEAR DANCE Alan Semrow

"

We left the mattress for last, because Amy said it’s the most awkward to get down the stairs. She’s lying next to me, lighting another cigarette, which she’ll ash into a paper cup filled with water, as she’s been doing between takes for the last two hours. She sits up and puts her silky hand on my bare left shoulder. “Okay, no. That was the best all day.”

Wiping a line of sweat from my forehead, I say, “Agree.”

Amy twirls a few strand of her hair and takes a drag from her cigarette. “Shame, isn’t it?”

“Shame?”

She rolls her eyes. “Oh please, Joe.” “I know.”

I sit up next to her and begin lightly dancing my fingers down her back. Amy raises her head up at the ceiling, her loose blonde hair spraying out behind her. She whispers, “I’ll miss this touch.”

I stop caressing. “I know.”

Amy turns to me. Her eyes are watering, but she smiles. She starts to laugh, but all I hear is near silence. “What’s so funny?” I ask her.

Amy bends her head a little to the right, gazing at me, as if in awe—smiling. “You know what I’ve been thinking a lot about lately?”

“What?”

“That year we took the trip to New Mexico.”

“Oh!” I say. “New Mexico! So fucking hot…”

“It was so fucking hot! Oh my God, Joe.” She cracks up, slamming one of her hands down on the old mattress, the hand bouncing.

“And why is it you’ve been thinking about it so much?”

“We were still so young, you know? I mean, we were really young, but so fucking in love. We fucked all day. Made out in public. God, at the time, even when I thought about the notion of this coming to end, I wanted to cry. Jesus, New Mexico was so hot.”

“So hot, Amy.” She dunks her cigarette out in the plastic cup next to the mattress. Today’s the first day she ever smoked in the house. “But also so quiet,” she says. “Like, I remember just stopping myself a lot of the time and looking into your eyes and feeling that everything would just be perfect. I felt invincible. I felt that way for a really long time.”

“I did too, Amy. I really did.”

“And then I fucking hated you. Hated everything about you.” She laughs again, as if this has all been just a silly dream—a big joke, when only two months ago, what she just said had been something she truly meant and screamed at me, while throwing our dinnerware collection across the dining room.

“I don’t have the patience anymore to talk about the things we’ve done wrong.”

“I don’t want to talk about that either, Joe. I really don’t. She leans into me, nudging me to her side.

“Come here.” I wrap my arm around her thin frame. It’s just an empty room, not even sheets decorate the mattress. All it is—just a bunch of boxes in two separate trucks. One holds the leather couch, the photo albums, paperbacks. The other—it has baseball trophies, pottery from Mom, an old sex tape.

“We’re still young, though.”

Amy snorts. “Oh hardly. You’re thirty-five, Joe!” “You’re thirty-one, you weirdo!”

Amy inches her face toward mine and kisses my lips. “Sometimes,” she whispers. “I think about how you used to play your guitar for me and, you know, I never listened. I mean, you’d play your little songs and I’d be all busy doing my thing or whatever. I didn’t listen like I should have.”

“Those songs were about you.”

23

“And now you’ll never write another one about me.”

“Oh, I doubt that, Amy. I’ll be writing plenty of songs about you.”

“And I won’t want to hear those either. I won’t want to hear them the way I wish I would have heard the ones you used to play.”

“It’s the past. You’ll move on. I mean, look at you! You’re fuckin’ sexy, Amy. You got it going. You’ll have a good guy in no time.”

“But will I?” Her eyes, they’re red, twinkling. She wipes them. “I’ve always been so afraid of being alone. I mean, really alone. That’s what it’s going to be.”

“You’ll find someone,” I say. “You’re resourceful.”

“I don’t want to find anyone.” Amy puts her legs out from the side of the bed. She sits up and then bends over, placing her head in her hands.

I creep over to her, hold her gently. “It’ll be okay.”

“It won’t. I feel like I’m going to go crazy.”

“If you ever need to talk, just call me.”

She shakes her head, looks up at me. “I fucked this up.”

“We fucked this up. We can’t play the blame game anymore.”

“Couldn’t we just start over? I mean, just let it go. So what? You know, you cheated. So what? We could move past this.”

“I already have.”

I played those songs for Amy, because I knew she wasn’t listening. I made her those playlists, because I knew she wouldn’t put them on her iPod. I cooked those meals, because I knew she’d never thank me.

I did it, because I knew one day she’d have a day like she’s having today and she’d look back and actually have things to think about, have things to wonder about.

I think often of the times with her, driving in the old Saab convertible, smoking cigarettes, singing Van Morrison at the top of our lungs. I used to wear a doo rag and she used to have these really big, red sunglasses. Every day seemed like summer and winter didn’t look like it’d hit for a very long time.

Amy puts her hands on my left knee. “Can we do it one more time, Joe? For old times’ sake?”

I shake my head. “No.”

" " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " "

24

VIRTUAL REALITY EXTRACT Patricia Walsh

"

An origami pterodactyl circles squarely above my head purports to land on my index finger Erasing all uncertainty.

What if I spoke, and burned off the tension, lying between finger and mouse, screening all doubt and life within it an answer prepackaged, a wonder shy.

You entertain me, for the Boredom threshold at an all-time high switch off to keep me in overdrive contracting the irrelevant to stem torpor.

Batteries run low, servers go down the gospel of conveniences pack it in. on occasion, then we will need it to assuage our oneness, kept solitary.

A single-minded quest to stay connected chasing contacts to an early resurrection We had a social network too in our day it's called 'outside', End of. Finito.

Designer relationships go to the fore.

Supplant tea and coffee at your service.

At your fingertips, a god of conveniences eats into solitude, a loneliness disguised.

" " " " " " " " " " " " " "

25

PHARMA Mitchell Krockmalnik Grabois

"

1.

Pharmaceuticals shine in the sun. No one has ever thought to plant them in the ground like tomato seed and grow big pharma plants, until now. Hx (history) has left it to me to be that pioneer. I always wondered what original act would reveal my genius and create lasting benefit for humankind.

2.

Motorola invented a tablet that dissolves in stomach acid and turns the body into a password. Out on the highway, I stole a shipment from a tractor-trailer and ingested a huge quantity, which enabled me to become the first human to pass through death’s doors, all ten thousand of them simultaneously.

3.

I light a joint with my dad’s Zippo, the only thing I inherited from him apart from a stale carton of Chesterfield Kings. The Zippo glints silver in the sun, as bright as the pills scattered on the ground, eagerly waiting to be sunk into the warm soil.

4.

Once through death’s doors, I reconstituted myself, though certain cells had drifted off, never to be recovered, so I looked a ghoul. I didn’t care. I was never a celebrity who lived life in a mirror.

5.

Radioactive giantism will feed us. The masses will crawl out from under their collapsed garment factories. They will brush their damp and matted hair from their foreheads. They will pick up knives and forks spilled from the broken cafeteria, and they will attack the hundred-foot oarfish, prehistoric and tasty, and the one-hundred-sixty-foot squid that washed up on a Fukushima tide.

6.

Sylvia had died three days before my reconstitution. She had steeled herself to fight pancreatic cancer long enough to stay alive for her daughter’s wedding . The morning after that event, I hugged her goodbye, felt the bones of the living skeleton she had become. Her fragility took my breath away. I remembered when we ran together on cold mornings under oaks hung with Spanish Moss, and lifted weights in my garage. I remember feeling her hard little biceps, which were so provocative.

7.

A Bangla Deshi woman slowly struggles by, a bundle of sticks on her back as big as a house. I have an impulse to light the sticks on fire, but realize that her liberation would be painful.

8.

Sylvia walked slowly and painfully onto the balcony. The sun was glinting on the silver ocean, the most beautiful sight in the world. She drew the image into herself, then collapsed and was dead the next day.

9.

I go to the mental hospital in which Vincent van Gogh spent the last year of his life. The woman

26

in the ticket booth tears off my ticket. She’s dark-haired, attractive, with a small tight body and sinewy hands and forearms. She must be a mental patient, I think, whose progress has earned her the privilege of working this ticket booth. It is the only reason I can think of for the frank, deeply sexual look she gives me as she hands me my Euro-change.

10.

Now my body is a password, and the technologists didn’t know the potential of their craft. I caught up with Sylvia. We flew together. Ben, her quadriplegic husband, joined us. We flew like a team of superheroes. We flew forever and never looked back.

" " " " " " "

LOVE NOTE TO MY HUSBAND ON 12-13-14 Wanda Morrow Clevenger

"

I could smell the hospital’s antiseptic agenda when the Administrative Director of Risk Management walked into your room, all smiles. Everyone here is all about the smiles. All about the hellos in the halls. So obviously so, I expect it’s the first thing taught the first hour of the first lecture on Day One. Carolyn asked us how was your Thanksgiving and I smiled as much as I can manage in the smile department these days and said, “It was just another Thursday.” Her Administrative Director smile didn’t waver. I have to give her props for that.

"

Christmas is looming. A jingle bell bracelet attached to my purse handle jangles when I move from home to taxi to elevator to Room 2429A and back again. Token Christmas cheer—suspiciously similar to the hellos in the halls. This year Christmas will be just another Thursday too and Administration will reappear to check in with us about this next holiday status.

"

Since October 1st, we’ve been on countdown to January 5th, when you get the ‘all clear’ to stand, and walk if your legs and feet cooperate. I’m more a realist than a worrier. I debate at length on how you will feel when sprung from your heinous incarceration. Not immediately, that will be nothing short of elation, but a little later and a lot later and in the middle of the day and middle of the night and when your brain cells kick in every morning. After my four hospital admits for pancreatitis, upon waking was when I got the crushing flashbacks. You’ll get them too—and I wish I could say for how long but can’t.

Strange and unexplainable, the claustrophobia I experienced was phenomenal, though the aversion to music lasted months longer. Dr. Ali said just this week that I had beat the odds, was doing better than he had expected. The antidepressants Dr. Sheedy prescribed took a month to work; the flashbacks are mostly fog now.

Did you know that today is 12/13/14? This date won’t come back around again for 100 years, so enjoy the factoid for twenty-four hours because we two won’t see this particular sequence again. And it is my constant hope that we won’t revisit the past two years again either; no one should have to preview their own fate so exacting. There should be some measure of leniency. The immortals got at least that one right.

27

WHERE THE DEAD REFUSE TO GROW Jonathan Dick

"

Thinking will be the birth and death of I, am a strange secret ape devising new beginnings of dormitory demise, and unwanted genesis. Me feel the weighted

tapestry of thinking, like Thanatos rupturing within the embolism of secret requiems. They are the daunting erection of our statehood, so ennui go, on towards the masked music, which lives underneath our engraved names.

Think, and I will take you to a place, where the dead refuse to grow, where your haywire mind has lost its race, and magnetic human swings begin to foxtrot, and glow, like strange secret apes.

" " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " "

28

WITCH’S APPLE C. Noel Carson

"

Did I ask for your heart?

Pare it out with a spoon?

You offered it up.

(The seeds crack open) between my teeth— it goes down like a bruise.)

"

I prefer to tear my food apart, hunt for the best piece.

You watch me lick a finger to pick up the crumbs and think you must get to the bottom of this.

I only wanted a taste of the place the artery skims the skin, lips meet teeth.

But you leaned in to the flick of my tongue and the scars run deep.

Who blinked first (still time to escape)— blue pulse in your veins, or my ravenous gaze?

Yet the venom is drunk (feel it flood the heart) now no one can cure the poison set in, or tear our twisted souls apart.

" " " "

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" " " "

Editorial Staff

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Jordan Rizzieri is the 90's-loving, extremely tall founder of The Rain, Party, & Disaster Society. After a having brief love affair with Western New York, Jordan now resides on Long Island, NY. She holds a degree from SUNY Fredonia in Theatre Arts (aka lying before an audience) with a minor in English (aka lying on paper). Jordan briefly experimented with playwriting (The Reunion Cycle - 2011 Buffalo Infringement Festival) and her mother's primary caregiver for over two years. She has been running a caregiver's blog on her experiences since 2011, as well as publishing essays on the topic. Now, Jordan spends her daylight hours arguing with her boyfriend's cats and at night takes on the identity of Pyro & Ballyhoo's sassiest critic, The Lady J. When she's not watching pro-wrestling or trying to decide what to order at the local bagel shop, she is listening to Prince and writing letters to her pen pals. Feel free to contact her with questions about the Attitude Era, comic book plot lines involving Harley Quinn, The Twilight Zone and the proper spelling of braciola.

"

NON-FICTION EDITOR Jennifer Lombardo, Buffalo, NY resident, works full time at a hotel in order to support her travel habit. She graduated from the University at Buffalo with a B.A. in English in the hope of becoming an editor. When she isn't making room reservations for people, she reads, cross-stitches and goes adventuring with her friends. She is especially passionate about AmeriCorps, Doctor Who and the great outdoors. Ask her any question about grammar, but don't count on her to do math correctly.

"

POETRY EDITOR Bee "Internet Coquette" Walsh is a New York-native living in Bedford–Stuyvesant. She graduated from SUNY Fredonia in 2010 with a B.A. in English Literature and a B.S. in International Peace and Conflict Resolution.

Reciting her two majors and two minors all in one breath was a joke she told at parties. The English Department played a cruel trick on her and pioneered a Creative Writing track her final year, but she charmed her way into the Publishing course and became Poetry Editor for the school’s literary magazine, The Trident. Bee has spent the past three years trying different cities on for size and staring into the faces of people in each of them who ask her about her "career goals." An Executive Assistant in high-fashion by day, you can find her most nights working with the V-Day team to stop sexual violence against women and young girls, eating vegan sushi in the West Village or causing mischief on roofs. Run into her on the subway, and she'll be nose deep in a book. She holds deep feelings about politics, poise, and permutations. Eagerly awaiting winter weather and warm jackets, she’d love to talk to you about fourth-wave feminism, the tattoo of the vagina on her finger, or the Oxford comma.

FICTION EDITOR Adam Robinson is an aspiring writer and barista languidly skulking the wetland void of Western Michigan. Following acceptance in 2012 to Grand Rapids' Kendall College of art and design in pursuit of an education in graphic art, his love for language and literature was made priority. Now, an English major on sporadically perpetual hiatus, you can most often find him pulling shots of espresso, keying long paragraphs in the dark, secluded corner of a local café, or taking lengthy walks through the dense Michigan woods conveniently placed in his own backyard. Monotoned, fond of the semicolon and existentialist literature; listen closely and you can sometimes hear him beseech advice from the ghost of Dostoevsky (who tends not to reply).

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ASSISTANT POETRY EDITOR Wilson Josephson splits his time between the backwoods of New Hampshire and Northfield, Minnesota, where he attends Carleton College. Wilson spends the majority of his waking hours swimming back and forth over a line of black tiles, so he spends any dry hours he can scrounge up flexing his creative muscles. His prose and his poetry have appeared in Carleton’s literary magazine, he regularly performs in the student dance company, and he even directed a play once. Wilson is also the laziest of all the founding members of Literary Starbucks, and he still writes jokes about obscure literary figures when he has a little free time. His newest passion is making people laugh, usually by making himself the punchline, occasionally via the clever deployment of a slippery banana peel.

"

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"

SOCIAL MEDIA MISTRESS Kaity Davie is an overly enthusiastic gal taking on the world of the ever-evolving music industry, talking music by day and lurking venues, NYC parks, and pubic libraries by night. Currently, she makes magic happen across a number of social networks for a number of bands, brands, and writers. After having several poems published in The Rain, Party, & Disaster Society, she began managing their social accounts in early 2015. Kaity keeps her sanity by writing rambling lines of prose and celebrating the seasonal flavors of Polar Seltzer.

"

Contributors C. Noel Carlson studied creative writing at Western Michigan University, where she edited for Third Coast and Her Campus. Her most recent work has appeared in The Swan Children and The Rain, Party, & Disaster Society. You can find her skulking around Colorado Springs, drinking cocktails and typing away at her first novel. She occasionally tweets updates or rants on her website.

"

Terry Barr's writing has appeared most recently in Red Truck Review, Drunk in a Midnight Choir, Former People, Lime Hawk Quarterly, and The RP&D Society. He enjoys playing football with his dog, Max, who is a Carolina Wild Dog. He teaches Creative Nonfiction, Modern Novel, and Southern Film at Presbyterian College and lives in Greenville, SC.

"

Mitchell Krockmalnik Grabois has had over eight hundred of his poems and fictions appear in literary magazines in the U.S. and abroad. He has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize for work published in 2012, 2013, and 2014. His novel, Two-Headed Dog, based on his work as a clinical psychologist in a state hospital, is available for Kindle and Nook, or as a print edition. He lives in Denver.

"

Janelle Rainer is a 25-year-old poet, painter, and community college teacher living in Spokane, Washington. Her recent work has appeared in Harpur Palate, Din Magazine, Atticus Review, Revolution John, Emerge Literary Journal, HASH the Mag, POPLORISH, and elsewhere. She earned an MFA in Poetry from Pacific University in Forest Grove, Oregon.

"

Alan Semrow’s work has been featured in over 25 publications. He has an English degree from the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. Semrow spends the majority of his free time with his boyfriend, friends, family, and Shih Tzu, Remy. His blog can be found on wordpress.

"

Rena Medow is a 17 year old painter, poet, photographer and an essayist at Luna Luna Magazine. She facilitates a poetry class at her high school, and has been published in various online and in print journals, most recently, The Minetta Review. Follow her on twitter.

"

Dan Rousseau is currently pursuing an MA in Writing Studies at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia where he is a contributor to Avenue Literary Journal. He has field experience in behavioral psychology through the Institute for Behavior Change and a BA in psychology from Taylor University.

His musical involvement has included drumming in the Chicago progressive metal community, as well as college jazz ensembles. Dan once roasted a guinea pig over open flame in Ecuador.

"

Kurt Newton's only previously published non-fiction piece appeared in Shock Totem. Other bits and pieces of Kurt can be found in Zetetic: A Record of Unusual Inquiry, Grasslimb Journal, and Empty Sink Publishing. Kurt hopes to one day rejoin all these fictional and non-fictional fragments and become whole again.

"

Matthew Johnstone has recent writing in Word For/Word, Ohio Edit, and N/A. He’s the author of Let's be close Rope to mast you, Old light (Blue & Yellow Dog, 2010), and the forthcoming chapbook Note on Tundra (DoubleCross Press, 2015). He hosts the E t A l. Poetry Readings, and co-edits the online arts journal 'Pider (pidermag.com) out of Tennessee, Nashville, America.

"

Glenn A. Bruce, MFA, wrote the movie Kickboxer, for TV shows including Walker:Texas Ranger and Baywatch, and has won video awards for writing/directing. He has been published in Brilliant Flash Fiction, Shotgun Honey, RedFez, Beat Poets of the Forever Generation, Alfie Dog, LLR, Oval, Carolina

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Mountain Life, Loud Zoo, and Green Silk Journal. He has published five novels and two collections of short stories. His play “A Man’s World” will be produced by In/Visible Theatre. Visit his website: www.glennabruce.com

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Tyler Barton is the co-founder of The Triangle (thetrianglepa.com), a local literary organization in Lancaster, Pa. He also serves as the Fiction editor for Third Point Press. He's attending the MFA program at Minnesota State University at Mankato in the Fall of 2015. His work has appeared online at Wyvern Lit, Bartelby-Snopes, and is forthcoming from Whiskey Paper.

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Jeremiah Moriarty studied English at Carleton College and lives on a farm in Minnesota. His poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in The Iowa Review,YAY! LA, Fractal, and other publications. Before writing the poem above, he put out two full-length collections. You can read those collections and more by visiting jeremiahmoriarty.com or following him on Twitter @miahmoriarty.

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Divya Gosain is a literature graduate and is presently pursuing her post-grad in English Literature at University of Delhi. Her first work was a short fiction, "Answer to A Prayer" published as a part of the anthology, Lovingly Yours and belongs to the romance genre. John Green, Toni Morison and Oscar Wilde along with Shakespeare constitute her choice of favourite writers. Her passion for creation of poetry is markedly influenced by works of T.S. Eliot, E.E. Cummings, Audre Lorde and Pablo Neruda.

She has an ardent passion for public speaking and travelling. She dreams of travelling around the world and becoming an RJ in future.

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Suzanne Pearman is a Chicago-based writer and graduate student whose work has been featured in 'Voicemail Poems,' '22nd Century Lit,' 'Internet Poetry,' 'Black Heart Magazine,' and elsewhere. As a screenwriter, her work has also appeared in film festivals and on broadcast TV. Suzanne is constantly devising new ways to mortify herself on the internet, most notably on Twitter (@sunshineonvenus) and in her 2013 e-book "98% Enemy," available on Scribd.

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Patricia Walsh was born and raised in the parish of Mourneabbey, Co Cork and graduated from UCC with a Masters degree in Archaeology in 2000. Her first collection of poetry, Continuity Errors, was published by Lapwing in 2010, followed by a novel, The Quest for Lost Eire, in 2014. She has had poems published in the Ink, Sweat and Tears journal, and in Revival magazine, in addition to having been published in Narrator International, in the iamnotasilentpoet blogzine and the Evening Echo, a local Cork newspaper with a wide circulation.

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Wanda Morrow Clevenger lives in Hettick, IL. She has placed over 300 pieces of work in 119 print and electronic journals and anthologies. She published a book of short nonfiction, poetry and flash fiction in 2011 (This Same Small Town in Each of Us; Edgar & Lenore's Publishing House) She is currently searching a publisher for her first full-length poetry manuscript.

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Jonathan Dick is a 22 year old poet and human being from Toronto, Canada. He has recently graduated from Huron University College with a major in English Language and Literature. He has been published in eleven different journals, but you may have seen his work in The Commonline Journal, Potluck Mag, Danse Macabre or The Steel Chisel. Twitter: @jjdickyboy

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