Folio Literary Magazine: 2018 Edition

folio

2018

[folio]

A Journal of Arts and Letters

Contents Written Art Friend's House by Amy Milin An Eggsistential Question by Miles Chandler About the Drinking Problem I Have by Doug Patrick Tiger, Reincarnate by Connor Batsimm I Dream of Old Gods by Sam Mackertich The Face Staring Back by India Schley-Ritchie Behind the Light by Amy Milin Fissures by Jane Barnes California Love by Kate Reichheld The Machine by Jake Barba Angel Shot by Connor Batsimm Phat Boy by August Rosenberg Drinking with Family by Lizette Roman-Johnston 2 AM by Grace Sowydra A Morning with NJ Transit by Delaney Russell Something New by Morgan Fetcher Golden Retrievers and Other Fears by Sam Mackertich An Interview With Brenda Shaughnessy by Jeff Dingler For the Resistance by Jeff Dingler Scorpions by Jeremy Tennenbaum Shave by Connor Batsimm Striptease by Amy Milin Goldfish by Sam Mackertich angels by Emily Sater The Dullest Hours by Maddie King Group Movements by Delaney Russell baby girl by Brittany Watts-Hendrixs Timbre by Kate Reichheld See That Man? by Miles Chandler Killing Spiders by Amy Milin Lazarus by Miles Chandler The Monastery by Connor Batsimm Iowa by Cara Geser

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Visual Art Footnotes by Jules Evens, Jeremy Katz & Lena Schwartz Untitled by Amelia Pinney Krog St. Dr. King by Jeff Dingler Untitled by Anonymous Cherry Blossoms by Maddie King All Natural Ink by Aidan Walsh Uselessness: Sad & Funny Things by Ella Long Autoportrait by Jules Evens Cover Art Blue & Red Nude by Amelia Pinney Back Cover Art "We are all born so beautiful" by Amelia Pinney

Submit art and writing to folio@skidmore.edu

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"There are painters who transform the sun to a yellow spot, but there are others who with the help of their art and their intelligence, transform a yellow spot into sun." —Pablo Picasso

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The Staff Editors-in-Chief Jeff Dingler Amy Milin Treasurer Anastasia Momoh Editorial Board Connor Batsimm Emma DiMaria Sam Mackertich John Shannon August Rosenberg Sarah Greim Olivia Sun Campbell Sorenson Graphic Design Jeff Dingler Amy Milin Faculty Advisor April Bernard

7

Friend's House Amy Milin

Thanks for the clothes (though they're a little long).

My feet are half-socked; granola mouth feels odd.

The morning won't regret us.

8

An Eggsistential Question Miles Chandler

I am a very large, very white, very still egg.

Moreover, I have always been, currently am, and will always be an egg. I am certain of this, because nothing exists that would indicate otherwise.

More-moreover, I (the very large, very white, very still egg) am the only thing that has existed, currently exists, or will ever exist in the probably infinite future. This is to say, outside of me, there is a Nothing; so deep, ahistorical, and infinite that there is no reason to write a single word more about it.

More-moreoverer, as the omniscient arbiter of this reality which I inhabit and embody, I can assure you with complete certainty that Time is either irrelevant or does not exist.

Reader—you seem unconvinced.

I shall then prove it to you, using the impartial tools of empirical observation and logical conclusion in my possession: i) Today dawned beautifully, and exactly like every other day I’ve seen. Precisely one hour after dusk (I counted the seconds myself, externally validated these counts with my infinite other selves, and ensured internal consistency), the sun switched on, filling the orange, veiny membrane cosmos with a comforting (and very appealing) glow. ii) Similarly consistent with every other day: the subject of this proof (me, the very large, very white, very still egg) begins to feel warm about twenty seconds after Sun-on, and expects to stay constantly and complacently warm for the following twenty-three hours of daylight. This is not new: I have recorded, in my mind, that the cycle of warming and feel-good-ness occurs at regular intervals in a seemingly-endless cycle. iii) At this precise moment (twelve seconds after Sun-on) and exactly like every other day, I am struck by the at once infinite and totally illusory nature of Time. I now suppose that, in this exhaustive, eggy closed system, which is composed of nothing less or more than Everything that exists, my experience of change in temperature and feel-good-ness (which, as noted, occurs at regular intervals) could exist at any scale: all of Time could be one infinitely looping day, or a multitude of identical days preceding one another at a regular interval. iv) A few seconds later (two and a half to be precise) I become aware of the incontrovertible fact that, because Time is illusory and sequence impossible to pinpoint, this could be the first, or the millionth time that I am experiencing each of the thoughts, desires, and expectations into which I unwittingly stumble.

Therefore, this is (I am) undeniably, the entirety of existence. Perhaps 9

if something else except I (the very large, very white, very still, extremely infinite egg) existed, it would be possible to provide counterevidence for these proofs. But, as previously stated, I am the entirety of existence, and there is nothing which could disprove me, so this idea is foolish.

You will then understand my sense of profound embarrassment upon learning that I am not, in fact, a very large, very white, very still, extremely infinite egg, but a very small, very wet, coldly scrambling chicken, being hurried along by the insistent, impatient currents of Time. Even more embarrassing, perhaps, is the realization that I have always been said chicken, or at least have no way to prove that I have not. If the events that follow had not occurred, I would never have become privy to the illusion under which I have labored for an indefinite, irrelevant amount of time. In the sense that perception is reality, I am, have always been, and will always be both a chicken and an egg.

I have no way of understanding or explaining what happened (happens? will happen?) to me today, so I will hereafter resort to mere description: About three hours after Sun-on, an inexorable, visceral urge unlike anything I have ever experienced (not completely unpleasant, but certainly formidable) appears. After an hour and twelve minutes of ignoring the feeling, in hopes that it would go away again, it has become positively unbearable; a rising tide of yearning that begins at my tailbone and radiates all the way through my spine. Unable to resist any longer, I begin to wriggle my legs in an attempt to alleviate the sensation, and my left middle claw punctures the pleasantly glowing tangerine-ness of the lower-middle sky. The sensation swells immediately, intensely ballooning to blot everything except the suffocating desire to see what lies Beyond. With beak, claw, and wing, I tear the outer bounds of myself to shreds, opening blinding holes in the ceiling of All That Is, (or that Can Be Known). Now I tumble out, exhausted, trailing a mucous of embryotic fluid from my thickly-drying feather down.

In this moment, I know several new things: i) For the flutter of a second, I am the youngest being on Earth. ii) I am completely, utterly alone, though I lie shivering in the straw, surrounded by innumerable, identical white eggs; separate spheres of the universe, each as infinitely varied, and variably infinite as my own. Each egg which sits warmly under the fluorescents of this warehouse will hatch into a shivering chick indecipherable from myself. iii) I am the most and the least loved thing on Earth. I am blessed by a mother and father who will never know of my existence. If I were to encounter one of them, improbably, in some feed lot or on a distant killing floor, neither of us would know it. In fact, they are equally unlikely to know 10

each other; my body is the product of an awkward, forced interaction between rooster and hen, whose impression of one another was likely distaste (at best) and which lasted only a fleeting moment before they were pushed apart by fate and rational tenets of modern, efficient animal husbandry. Each of them, and their respective ancestral trees, was similarly created.

Yet here I stand, miracle in miniature, with a beating heart and unfurling lungs, with eyes not ten seconds open to the light. I am the product of myriad fleeting moments of sex and mitosis; an alchemy of sentience that finds me here today. iv) I am the most inconsequential and the most devastatingly important thing on Earth. I will never sway the tides of change in any widely renown or oft-proclaimed manner. I will spend my life cramped and quarrelling with various shades of my currently silent neighbors, growing fatter until my legs break, or I can no longer lay, and I am killed. But I am here. I breathe, even if my breaths are small. I walk, though my stumbling feet leave no prints in the hay. I think, even if my thoughts are inconsequential and there is nobody to record them. This is to say: v) Life is a part of every bloom and wither of my being. And I am a necessary part of that life.

11

Footnotes

Jules Evens, Jeremy Katz & Lena Schwartz 12

About the Drinking Problem I Have Doug Patrick

And then my wife wakes me up from the top of the stairs and says, “What’s going on?” This is after she finds me slumped over on the couch at three in the morning. It’s only Thursday. Well, Friday now.

I dab at the stream of drool on the leather armrest with my sleeve. I turn around to try and face her. Everything spins. Drying vomit stinks on the floor—mine? I say, “I’m sorry.”

She crosses her arms. Her shoulder blades are weights. She wipes at her eye. “Is this about me?”

I swallow. A faint sore throat. My head feels like a brick. The TV plays an infomercial, reflecting light off the bottle of scotch on the coffee table.

It’s nearly half empty now.

“I hope you get to work tomorrow morning.” The bedroom door slams.

Spoiler alert: I don’t make it to work the next morning. My phone blares some alarm, and I turn it off. I don’t even fake it.

“That’s when I knew the whole thing had gone too far.” I’m explaining this to both my wife and Harold a week later. Got found out one time and my wife takes us to some big beige box with a desk and framed diplomas tacked along the walls. Harold’s office: the place where she thinks our marriage will be saved. Yellow Peanut M&Ms wrappers fill a small plastic trash bin. My wife and I sink into the couch across from him as I finish saying what I want to get out of this: “I want to change. For her. I think I just have a problem.”

Harold clutches a clipboard to his tummy. With his other hand, he scratches at the neck of his wool sweater. He leans in. His voice is soft and sugary; his teeth Swedish Fish, his tongue a gummi worm. “I’m really proud of you, Mark. Admitting that. And it looks like Kendall is too.”

She rubs my knee. I put my hand over hers and flash a smile at her.

She closes her eyes and nods. She says, “I didn’t realize. I thought…”

Harold sits up a bit. “You didn’t know.”

She turns to me and opens her eyes. “I’m sorry. I just. I thought I was losing you.”

I squeeze her hand. “It’s O.K.”

Then nobody talks. Just the buzzing of fluorescent lights and Harold’s tired breathing. In through his nose. Out through his nose. Slow and strained, like an old dog.

“Well,” Harold finally speaks, “I think if this is the situation—the context—then you need a different kind of counsellor.”

Kendall gives a little chuckle like she’s being choked by happy tears, and I think maybe I’m going to get out of this whole thing. And maybe it 13

won’t be such a big waste of time either. Maybe it’ll actually make us better together in the end. Like a chameleon getting its tail cut off, coming back bigger and stronger than before.

Miranda taught me that at a bar only hours before Kendall found me on the couch. It’s funny how time works. We’re sitting at the stools drinking, already a little tipsy, Miranda and I, waiting for the rest of the class to show. I usually have a little get-together with my upper level classes at the end of the semester. A way to talk to the older students about something other than the history of medieval England.

She’s telling me about her new pet chameleon. She likes chameleons and I’m becoming quite fond of them too. The way they blend into everything for safety. Her smile took up half her face. She said, “His name is Vitamix.”

Then she laughed between her teeth and got closer to my face. Her big, bright green eyes staring into mine. “Dr. Murray, you better hope you sober up soon.

Would hate for you to make another mistake.”

I shrugged and took another swig of beer.

“Where are they, by the way?”

I said, “Don’t know,” and took out my phone. Scrolling through my emails I found the one I sent to the England class—the message I sent from the bathroom, barely thinking. I said, “Oh.” “What?”

“You’re not going to believe this,” I showed her the screen. A message cancelling on everyone. “Must’ve forgot to send it to you. Weird, huh?”

Her eyes lit up. “Does that make this a date then?”

We stared at each other. One Mississippi. Two—then she couldn’t hold it: she burst out laughing, cackling like a witch. Her laugh filled the place.

People ordering drinks behind her looked around. I nearly told her to keep it down, but then I figured I’d let the girl enjoy herself. And hell, I even started laughing too.

“Telling me not to count on it,” she said, brushing my forearm with her hand. She pushed her drink my way. “You’re such a liar.”

I flashed her a smile. “Sorry.”

Sometimes I can’t believe the things I do when I drink. My new counsellor, Todd, says he gets that. He says we do things our sober selves would be too responsible to ever do. He’s got the same sort of generic bullshit to say as Harold, which makes sense because he’s the guy Harold recommended.

I say, “Yeah.” I watch the air leave my lips and disappear. It’s that cold.

“We do, Mark. We really do. And you can’t beat yourself up about it, because it’s not totally you doing it.”

I’m driving home from the college having my weekly check-in call 14

with him. He makes sure I don’t drink. He says he knows I can do it, and I know I can too. It’s easy because it was never a problem until I chose to make it one. I say, “But the whole thing, it makes me feel so—complicated. Like my heart is blue when I always thought it was red.”

“Of course. This process is going to make you question yourself.

Sobriety will make you feel new feelings. Might make you regret some past actions.”

I chuckle. “You probably say that to everyone.”

Kendall tells me I shouldn’t be so dismissive of Todd while rubbing my back on the couch when I get home later that same night. She says it makes her sad since he’s only trying to help, but that she’s still so proud of me for how hard I’ve been working.

I say, “It’s not hard, though. I just think of you, and it’s easy.”

She stops rubbing. I look back up at her. She’s clutching her hand to her heart like she wears a locket. Her eyelids are dams, trying to hold back the tears.

Always on the verge of crying. Been like that before she found me with the scotch, and it’s been even worse since. But at least it’s not so demoralizing now.

That sad little face of hers used to make me feel so hopeless. Used to make me give up and do things that I regret. Then she leans over and lays on top of me, her breasts pressed up against my back, squeezing me from behind.

Into my ear, she says, “I never stopped loving you.”

I say, “I’m glad we’re talking again.”

“Me too,” she says, letting go. “Me too.”

And from here, we probably go on to live happily ever after without much changing at all.

Except now I just don’t go over to Eric’s anymore. I can’t.

See, in the weeks leading up to our visit with Harold, I’d leave the house a few nights a week to meet up with my good friend and colleague, Eric Friedman, also in the history department. Kendall hated it because whenever I came back home I was grumpy for the rest of the night. I couldn’t help it. Just always had a lot on my mind after talking to Eric and didn’t feel like talking anymore.

We’d sit at his kitchen table, going back and forth for hours. I’d watch his microwave’s green clock display count the minutes while some basketball game droned on from the TV behind me.

I said, “It’d just be so easy. That’s the part that makes it hard.”

Eric scratched at his white beard. The clock counted another minute.

He said, “Even if nobody in the world ever found out, it’s still wrong. She’s a student, Mark.”

I studied the wood of the table. “I know.”

“And if somebody ever did find out, I can’t imagine what Kendall 15

would do. You think she’s sad now…?” He stared at me. Tapped his fingers on the table. Another minute. “I’m glad you came to me. And I want to help you.

But frankly if I ever hear of this happening again, I really don’t think I could continue speaking with you.”

Watching snow fall out the window, I nodded.

He sighed.

“I wouldn’t have even said anything to her the first time if I hadn’t had a few drinks in me…” My words silently echoed.

Eric scooted out of his chair, walked over to the fridge, opened the door, and shoved his head inside it. Drawers opened and closed like he didn’t know what he was looking for.

“That was my problem.”

He gave a sharp laugh and called out, “Tell yourself whatever you need to.” He closed the fridge door and caught my eyes. His voice serious like a police officer’s, “I don’t care what you do, but you need to drop it.”

Which is almost exactly what I told Miranda when she waltzed into my office. When was this? Earlier that same afternoon? Before Todd. Before Harold. Before the scotch. Before the chameleons. Before Eric. So, yes. This is the beginning of the whole thing, right here. Sometimes I feel like I can’t keep track of memories until I’m remembering them.

Miranda said, “Hey,” and closed the door behind her and took the little red seat in front of my desk. “About tonight.”

Not even looking up from my computer screen, still typing, I said, “Yes?”

“I was thinking—if you want—you could call it a night early, and I could meet you somewhere else after?”

I stopped typing and sighed. “Really?” I tried to look at her but went to staring at the painting of a Christian Crusader on the wall behind her. “It’s not happening again.”

“Nothing even happened last time.”

“Yeah. Nothing to you.” I tapped my wedding ring on the desk. She looked to my hand and watched it for a moment.

“You were the one who told me to forget about her.”

“I was drinking.”

“It’s not like we had sex.”

“Look,” I said, “it was a mistake. I was drinking, and people make mistakes when they drink, okay? And how was I supposed to know you were going to be there?”

“It’s not like I knew you were going to be there either.” She leaned forward, putting her hands on my desk. “And you were barely even drinking.”

“Miranda,” I went back to my computer, rolling around my mouse in circles. “Forget about it.”

16

“Maybe you should drink tonight. Make another mistake. Who am I going to tell?” She stared at me. I tried to avoid her gaze. “You get a couple beers in you again and you’ll probably tell me to forget about telling me to forget about it.”

“I think you should go. I’m very busy.”

She pushed herself up out of the chair and grabbed her bag. Turning towards the door and opening it, she said, “I hate myself for saying this, but I won’t care if you change your mind. Seriously.”

I said, “Don’t count on it.”

And I was feeling proud of myself when I got home that night. Resisting. Almost felt like a little celebration was in order. A little mix-up to the regular same-old, same-old. A memory that stands out on its own. Sometimes I feel like I’m only ever going to work and coming home. So, I tossed off my shoes, threw my coat onto the table, and sped over to the couch, but Kendall wasn’t there. Looked in our study, still nothing. And I didn’t find her until I went upstairs to our bedroom where she laid on the bed, reading.

“Honeybear,” I said, climbing up onto the bed, getting myself next to her. “I want to take you out tonight. Dinner, maybe a movie? Rekindle our relationship.”

“What’s gotten into you?”

“Nothing. I just want to take my wife out, that's all.”

Slowly, she leaned in for a kiss on my forehead. She smiled, but with those old, sad hopeless eyes. She said, “I’d love that. But I’m not feeling well.”

She put her book onto the nightstand. “Next week?”

“Yeah. Okay.” I got up off the bed. “So, I guess we’ll just watch TV tonight again,” I said, heading towards the bathroom. Pulling out my phone, getting ready to send out an email, I didn’t feel like resisting anymore.

“I’m sorry…” she said, lifting herself up a little onto the pillow behind her back.

I said, “Don’t even worry about it,” and shut the door because I should’ve expected something like that. We’re out of sync. Have been for a long time. Even when I want to do something nice for her, we can’t link up.

“Okay, now I’m going to be the one to tell you to forget about her,” Miranda said as I led her out of the bar.

I laughed and said, “No more,” as we crossed the street to my car, illuminated by a streetlight. In retrospect, I should’ve picked a darker spot.

She opened the door and said, “I can’t believe you sent out that message from the toilet.”

After getting inside, I shut the door, saying, “Gotta do what you gotta—” but she pulled me in with two handfuls of my coat and kissed me hard.

Feeling the light from above beating down on the roof of the car, I pulled away.

She looked at me.

17

“My place or yours?”

“Uh—well.”

“Kidding,” I said. I stuck my keys into the ignition and the car revved up. “Plus, I want to meet Vitamix. You said you’re living on Maple?”

Her whole mouth stretched from ear to ear. She nodded and nodded like she was trying to give herself a cramp. Then she put a hand on my thigh and said, “Wait.”

“What?”

“Are you okay to drive?”

I said that of course I was. “What’s a few beers?” In fact, I even drove home later that night when we were done. I threw the front door open like I did hours before, but this time in no celebration.

I walked back upstairs and saw Kendall, sleeping on her side of the bed. The whole other side still left neatly made. She rolled over. I held my breath. She kept on sleeping. Her arm outstretched, her hand resting on my pillow.

I felt like getting into bed with her was something I couldn’t do. She seemed too beautiful to disturb. Her body gently inflating and deflating. A sleeping angel, waiting for me. I didn’t deserve it. Coming down the stairs, I told myself I just needed to calm down. No reason to get all romantic. I had just been drinking earlier.

But with alcoholism—which I have now, I’m sure of it—everything can just spiral out of control. Trust me. I opened up a small cabinet in the kitchen and snagged a barely opened bottle of scotch. It was all we had. I figured that if I could do something I never intended on doing that night with the help of a few drinks, then I could do something else I didn’t intend on doing, that I couldn’t do, if I just got a little drunker. Some scotch would knock me out at the very least. It would make sleeping next to her just sleeping, and I could deal with the next-to-her part the next morning.

I sat down on the couch, flipped on the TV and turned it almost all the way down. Just something to look at while pounding glass after glass. Repeat, repeat, repeat. Not thinking about the burning in my throat. About the sting in my nose. Just drink, drink, drink.

I lost count. Then I lost consciousness.

And then Kendall woke me up from the top of the stairs and said, “What’s going on?”

18

Tiger, Reincarnate Connor Batsimm

On the same day that Camille’s old tabby cat died, a musk thistle plant sprouted up through a crack in her second story apartment floor. Of course, Camille took one look at the thistle, coiled and ropy with a big red pom-pom flower, and figured it was old Tiger’s spirit reborn, dropping by to pay her a visit. It wasn’t an unreasonable assumption—the timing was awfully coincidental, and who knows how that thistle seed got all the way up to Camille’s second story apartment floor. And it wasn’t so odd when she scratched the thistle on the underside of its leaves, nuzzling her fingers up against the crisp membrane as she whispered, “good boy, good boy Tiger.” No, the crazy part was when she started leaving lumps of tuna fish in the crack where the thistle grew. Since even if that thistle was old Tiger—and again, it might’ve been—it was a plant now and couldn’t possibly eat tuna fish. Whether or not it had in a past life was beside the point.

But all the same, she began leaving tuna at the base of the thistle a few times each day—a little in the morning, a whole mound of it at noon, and whatever scraps she had left in the evening—and every time she came back and checked the crack she found the tuna gone, reduced to a pasty white smudge against the chipped tile. Which she assumed meant that Tiger the thistle plant had gobbled it up, but really it had seeped through the floor and dripped into the Allards’ kitchen a story below where it accumulated on the countertop and congealed into small, sticky droplets. Mrs. Allard had been suffering from extreme lethargy and would sit on the sofa watching tuna water rain from the ceiling, until Mr. Allard came home from work, saw the piled-up layers of goo, and screamed at her, demanding to know how she’d let a whole day pass by without once picking up a sponge and rinsing the counter down. Mr. Allard had a scream like an eighteen-wheeler. Camille could hear it all the way up in her apartment, but could never quite make out the words.

After a few days of tuna drizzle, Mr. Allard got fed up, marched across the hall to the landlord’s apartment, and had Camille evicted. So Camille piled her clothes and toiletries and knick knacks and the old cat toys she hadn’t the heart to throw out into a small, yellow suitcase and moved into a low-rent housing complex a few blocks down. She mulled over pulling the thistle from the crack and bringing it with her, but the risk that Tiger would die limp and dehydrated in her hands, dismembered roots shredded between the fractured tile, was too much for her to bear, so she left him in the apartment.

Her new apartment was smaller and cleaner, and she realized how much she didn’t miss hearing Mr. Allard’s garbled yelling echo up through her floor. He was a steadfastly unpleasant man, with his yelling and snorty laugh and sweaty red face, and she was grateful she was no longer his neighbor. But 19

she couldn’t stop thinking about Tiger, alone in her vacant room, leaves drying into chiffon husks. So one day when she felt she had particularly little to lose, she packed a can of tuna fish and some felt mice into her purse and went back to the apartment. She stood outside the door, staring at the lock that had surely been changed, stretched for a few moments, then kicked down the door in a swift, violent motion unlike anything she’d ever done before. She jogged across the tile to the corner where Tiger grew, but the crack was empty, scrubbed clean with disinfectant. But she did find an ant, a small red ant, exploring the area, presumably scavenging for traces of tuna paste, so she scooped it into her hands and slid it into her pocket, whispering, “good boy Tiger, who’s a good boy?” as she felt it trying to crawl free.

She didn’t want to be around when Mr. Allard discovered the splintered door, so she hurried out of the room, back to her new apartment and fished Tiger out of her pocket. But she only found a reddish-brown smudge, smeared between a wadded tissue ball and a receipt for tuna fish. And then she began to cry, fat runny tears that trickled down her cheek as she scoured the area for any signs of life—bugs, moss, mold, anything—but the apartment was a dead zone, or maybe she was the dead zone, and Tiger had given up on her and decided to reincarnate himself somewhere else. And in that moment she felt completely alone, so she walked out of her apartment down to the regional train station and threw herself in front of the commuter rail, and then returned as a pine tree, with sturdy regal roots and blue-gray cones. It was a nice life, in some hilltop forest a couple dozen miles north of Olympia. The air was cool and wet and the breeze rustled in between her branches in such a pleasant way that sometimes she almost forgot Tiger—although in other moments he seemed realer to her than ever, and she would crane her trunk as she swayed in the wind, scanning the horizon for any red-colored birds or crickets or dragonflies. But she liked being a tree, more than being a human. She found tree feelings sparser, more utilitarian than human feelings. They washed over her in manageable intervals, so she could focus most of her attention on the wind, and the nutrients in the soil, and the other trees around her, and the bushes and shrubbery growing between them. It was a nice life. But then one day, near the end of Autumn, Mr. Allard drove up to that forest a couple dozen miles north of Olympia, brandishing a hefty industrial axe. The axe was dull, too dull, and Camille cried out as she felt it bludgeon into her ankles.

Mr. Allard drove her home—it was a new home, they’d moved out of that old, squalid apartment years ago, and they now had two small boys, though that didn’t mean they fought any less, if anything they fought more, and Mr. Allard’s yelling was constant, like a malfunctioning washing machine, and now Camille was close enough that she could hear exactly what he was saying and discovered that he was even more unpleasant once she knew what words came out of his mouth—and he and his wife pimped Camille up in glitter and stars 20

and streamers and family heirlooms. And so, as she listened to Mr. Allard call his wife a lazy whore and throw a glass of spiked egg nog at the wall, she died a second time, immobile in a stuffy sun-deficient living room, green and red boxes cradled against her severed, swollen ankles.

21

I Dream of Old Gods Sam Mackertich

I dream of old gods the skin-wearing man, spider-faced woman, long-lipped and orally foliating corn god dancing with the primary bird atop a probable toad.

Feathered ears. All ears are corn ears. All is corn now.

Who do you think I am, you say?

Why, of course I am corn.

I dream of my head splitting open, shucked to the brow ready to receive kernels to sow.

I open my mouth and find my tongue fully-foliated.

Time moves counter and clockwise here, knocks heads in the middle, forms and un-forms into two-headed feathery snakes.

The primary bird sets my compass. I am the needle in the corn stack. The one lord, one corn, tells the day and year.

The death god is downing tequila like it’s the end of the world, laughing.

He is a happy drunk. Fermentation is rot and rot is death and death is his favorite pastime.

A feathered serpent, now a swatch of ants accosting my body, makes the delivery of the kernel to my cleaven mind.

I dream I am half-baked and just beginning.

I am spotted now, great big circles marking my body like a leopard.

A blowgun appears between my lips like a flute.

I kill the primary bird.

He is lighter over my shoulder than he should be, but just as warm as the Sun he once was and I am now.

My head is filled with corn, ready to pop and burst from my ears.

Dreams reflect reality, they say. I say, my probable toad has arrived to re-consume me.

22

A goggled man squats beside me in the toad, breathing wetly.

He is a shining bottlegourd, filled with blood and ready to leak.

He gives me goggles. I regurgitate a cob and gift him.

I close my goggled eyes and wish the snake mother, dear Coatlique, would hiss me a lullaby until I drift to waking.

23

Untitled

Amelia Pinney

24

Krog Street Dr. King Jeff Dingler

25

The Face Staring Back India Schley-Ritchie

I always thought St. Elmo was haunted. It was an old house; the ceilings and walls creaked and moaned. The house was too big for just my grandparents. It was too big for me, filled with doors I wasn’t allowed to open, places I couldn’t go. There were too many things left behind, echoes of the past, some sentimental, some useless, but all taking up space. And yet, I often found myself in the basement where all the lingering artifacts of the house collected dust.

At one point, the basement must have been furnished, but for most of my childhood it was cobwebs and dust settled over its decades-old collection of unused, forgotten objects. Grand Margot treated the basement as both a dumping ground and a shrine, a place to forget precious items. Old, mostly broken furniture took up much of the floor space; toys filled the rest of the area. Some of these toys, like a doll with one eye, I vaguely remember playing with, while others, like an ancient rocking horse come from before my time. There was a picture upstairs of my mother riding the rocking horse as Grand Margot clutches her, making sure she doesn’t fall. In the picture, Grand Margot’s glasses are askew, her mouth open with laughter—it’s the hardest I’ve seen her laugh. The basement was a treasure trove of memories and I wanted to know the story behind each artifact.

The most impressive feature of the room was the ceiling-to-floor bookshelves. Grand Margot’s novels, mainly mysteries, were stuffed in the shelves and stacked in high vertical piles on the ground, piled under most of the beds and crammed in drawers through the house, but in the end, all of her books found their way to the basement.

On rainy days I would spend hours in the basement, sometimes with my siblings, sometimes alone, but it was always an adventure. Grand Margot reluctantly allowed my adventures in the basement.

“What in the world—why are you down here, again?” Grand Margot asked, stepping over an old wicker chair.

“Looking for that book I left, but there’s this doll and it—”

She heaved a disgruntled sigh. “You’re all dusty, come along, it’s time for dinner.”

“I-oh, sorry.” Following Grand Margot out of the room, I placed the doll on an old velvet chaise lounge near the basement’s door.

------- Upstairs, next to Grand Margot’s room, there was a door with a mirror warped and discolored with age. The mirror played tricks; shadows became grim figures oozing just beneath the mirror's surface, and shards of light were glowing bright eyes chasing my steps with every glimmer. I became 26

convinced a woman was trapped in that mirror, waiting, lurking until someone got close enough to take her place. For years I gave the mirror a wide berth, but childhood fear is a fickle thing. I was feeling brave one morning. I had climbed the maple out front higher than my older brother. I had triumphantly run my hand over the rough bark as I looked down through the web of branches and now I was determined to confront the woman in the mirror. Streams of sweat dripped from my hairline. The house didn’t have central air yet and the rumbling window units were helpless against Georgia in August. I briefly pressed myself against the wall opposite the mirror and then I walked forward.

My knees were shaking and I kept my eyes wide open, preparing to jump back at the slightest noise. Then I was in front of the mirror, and in it was just me. I stood there, staring at my reflection long enough that I began to look unfamiliar, ugly. Every part of my face I hated was sharply defined. My cheekbones were higher, sharper, my eyes sunk further into my face. I reached to put a hand on the mirror, perhaps to confirm the reality. When my fingers grazed the cool mirrored surface, the door creaked. Stunned, I slowly pushed the door inward, and with cautious steps I slipped into the woman’s domain. I had never thought about what was behind the mirror, the place the woman lived.

The room was filled, nothing stuffed away or glamorized. Heavy curtains covered ceiling-high windows, only letting in strips of dusty light. The flowery wallpaper, curling back from where the wall met the ceiling, showed yellow water stains. There was a giant bed in the middle, the bare mattress barely visible under stacks of clothes. Clothing racks lined the room, filled with different shades of slacks and button ups, many completely unworn. Rows of shoes lined the walls. These were Grand Margot’s clothes. I recognized the clothes, the uniform she wore everyday, the white shirts and slacks, but mostly, I recognized the scent. It was a mix of mothy, flowered perfume with a hint of my grandfather’s pipe tobacco, stale Tums and something like memories glazed golden with time. I stepped carefully through the room, the floorboards occasionally creaking under my weight. I began to feel panicked as I stepped around the room; it was clear I didn’t belong. This room belonged to our burdens, to the woman in the mirror that held onto the ugly and always wanted more.

I quietly stepped out of the room to see Grand Margot exiting her own room. She raised an eyebrow and let out a sigh that seemed to mean I always ended up where she didn’t want me. Muttering about silly children, she told me to follow her downstairs. I looked back as the door swung shut, waiting to see if the woman’s cold dark hand reached from the mirror. I waited to see if she tried to drag herself out of that room. But the mirror was empty, only catching Grand Margot’s reflection as she walked past me.

After seeing her behind the mirror, I began to understand something about Grand Margot: that she was everywhere. Her stuff filled the house, 27

hidden in every corner. Closets were brimming with clothes and boxes stuffed under beds. My mother gossiped to me about her hoarding—sometimes she was achingly critical and other times pitying. Mostly, she said, the issue was from Grand Margot’s childhood. Born in Glasgow, Grand Margot spent her childhood split between London and a small village in Scotland. She was young when she lived in London, but she still remembered the Blitz. When blasting sirens led terrified Londoners underground to overcrowded air-raid shelters, people shivered as the ceiling shook in a symphony of bombs. The idea of death must have been terrifying for a little girl, but she never talked about it, at least not with me. Instead, she told me about a single orange, her only Christmas present that year. She could describe in detail the way it felt to peel the rind back and split the fruit in half. I wondered if she thought about that orange when she ran her fingers over a new cotton blouse. Did it make her pause or urge her on, make her think of an overcrowded, rattling tube stop filled with the stench of fear?

For a long time my grandparents’ house consisted of things strategically stuffed out of sight—hidden in closets, buried under beds, relegated to the basement. For me, her stuff was often overwhelming, but it became familiar. Not leaving the main floor, visitors saw the arching ceiling of the foyer and walked on the Persian carpets. They saw the heavy curtains, the chandeliers, the oil paintings spread through the public rooms. Really, they saw what Grand Margot let them.

The house kept getting fuller, until one day it didn’t. Grand Margot had a stroke in the summer. In the months after she took up less space. Her old clothes were too big and her powerful presence reduced to the occasional twoline sentence. She became a stagnant, exhausted form, and she was trapped in her body. The couch her unwanted throne, St. Elmo a gilded prison and all of us, her once trusted family were guards. I clutched my keys in trembling hands, but I still stood unrelenting at the door.

------- And soon it wasn’t even her house. Blazing licks of fire started in the basement and encompassed the house with flames and charcoal smoke, leaving the front and bottom of the house empty except for a thick layer of charcoal black. Everyone escaped the fire, but the house would never be the same. I only saw St. Elmo months after the fire, after everything had been cleared out, nothing left but singed walls and the house’s bones. I walked through the house trying to recall every detail and piece the memories together. I wanted to put the house back together, but the harder I clutched onto the memory of that old cluttered house the faster it slipped away.

A giant dumpster out front was the end for the singed rocking horse, the half-burned mystery novels and damaged white button up shirts and black pants. The house was the same in structure, but completely unfamiliar. My 28

grandparents moved into the now-refurbished basement, where Grand Margot lived for a couple more years. My aunt moved into the house and stripped away as much vintage style as she could. The kitchen became stainless steel and white granite. What was left of the flowered wallpaper was ripped down and the walls painted earth tones. Grand Margot didn’t see much of the redecorations. In those final years, she was relegated to the basement, much as her mystery novels had been. Except now all the books were ashes, all the toys melted, dumped on a mountain of trash.

Grand Margot’s days were monotonous. In the morning, whoever was available would bring her upstairs to the living room, where she sat on the couch all day. When I went home, I tried to make the hour and forty-five minute trip to my grandparents’ house. My visits were generally three days of sitting on a couch, Grand Margot on my left, Fox News blasting from the TV, Grandpapa napping in the room below. We would sit for hours, in silence. I never knew what to say or if she wanted me to talk at all.

The final time I saw her she was silent, but it wasn’t her, couldn’t be her. It was in the basement, there was a body, but it wasn’t Grand Margot.

Bagpipes blared from the radio by her bed, an eerie reminder of her beginning.

Her mouth stretched wide in a look of horror, her skin pale and just starting to turn cold. Her eyes were a light vacant blue. An unfamiliar figure, in a once-familiar room.

The last time I saw her alive we were sitting on the couch, but she broke her usual silence.

“Sorry, could you repeat that, Grand Margot?” I said slowly and loudly. I often caught myself talking to her like she was a child. “…drive…”

“Drive, what—?”

Her voice rose from the usual quiet tremble. Magnified behind the glasses, her eyes had lost their listlessness. “Let’s go for a drive.”

“OK.” What else can you say to something that sounds like a final request?

That overcast afternoon in the car was the last time I saw Grand Margot alive. We didn’t talk much. She would occasionally point left or right.

We left that house and the city, her hometown for the last half-century, in our wake. She didn’t look back once. I drove until industrial buildings began to pop up around us. It felt like we were running away. It was the most animated I’d seen her in two years. I pretended we were going to do one of those life-altering cross-country road trips, where we discover ourselves, where she could feel young and at home again.

But she had an acid reflux episode and we turned around. Maybe she hadn’t been disillusioned by the same fantasies I had, but it seemed like some dream had been snatched from her too. She clutched at the handle of the door 29

the whole way, retreated into a listless blank stare as we approached the house.

She was slack as I helped her into the wheelchair.

“What’s wrong?” I asked stupidly, knowing all too well what was wrong.

As she stared at the house she whispered, in her raspy, underused voice, “Nothing.”

30

Behind the Light

Amy Milin Back then my abrupt limbs fit all inside the heavy tub.

I’d stick my breath to my lungs and I would float.

Water transmitted my heart’s dull thump to submerged eardrums; I clasped my hands over my navel, my cheeks fattened with air. I transfixed my eyes upon the ceiling, anxious and vigilant: you see the boys from school were in there, staring at me through the lightbulb.

Like a circle of spies they peered at my young, shy breasts and brown paisley hair and laughed at my round stomach.

I stared back in case it was true so they would know that I knew.

31

Fissures

Jane Barnes The fractures travel up through my spine Fissures, cracking and splitting like old tree roots do Netting my mind like the tendrils of vines Eyes glazed and visions grayed, I lay supine Began to feel the snapping of sinews As the fractures travel up through my spine While fumigation worked well for some time The spiders are back with webs to pursue Netting my mind like the tendrils of vines They began as splinters, a faint hairline Split in one direction, severed in two And the fractures travel up through my spine Spiders took these fissures, their webs entwine These cracks, paint them in my head like tattoos Netting my mind like the tendrils of vines Gaps between vertebrae first seemed benign But as time passed they began to accrue And the fractures travel up through my spine Netting my mind like the tendrils of vines

32

California Love Kate Reichheld

The gutter drips and I champagne sip the silver that runs like an estuary between your chest, carving out a ravine with my lips for it to harden in your sternum and make you stronger. Bionic, platonic, tectonic plates shift underneath each other, moving me to tell you that I don’t really believe in anything anymore. I quake. I’m frail and everyone who knows me knows that I’m a flake; I always fail to be there when I said I would be.

The harder you push yourself into me, the more I become like you––hungry and missing teeth where you need them to really rip apart the ones you say you love. Sometimes it burns me to touch the truth that I am so stripped of my conscious, but then again I know no other way than to enter your bed as bare as I came into this world––crying, naked, hungry and missing teeth. So I sit holding my hair over my eyes in the basement of a burning building, next to a box of baseball cards, an old Fleetwood Mac vinyl and your mother and father’s wedding album. Just one more artifact you keep so no one's feelings get hurt. Just another thing you’ll forget about in the fire and leave to ash away in the Santa Ana Winds.

33

Untitled

Anonymous

34

The Machine Jake Barba

At La Lys River, the Portuguese dug out their trenches. The Germans had shelled them the night before. It had been a light bombardment, but several bunkers had still collapsed. So the Soldier and his squad dug them out. None spoke. There wasn’t much to say. Every so often, one would pick out a helmet or a broken rifle. These were tossed aside wordlessly. There was no point in thinking about any of it. The Soldier liked the work. It was better than sitting on the front line. He didn’t want to wait for the Germans. He needed to work. So he volunteered to do the digging.

An hour into their task, one of the Portuguese stooped down. He stood still for a few seconds, then stood up. He held up an arm. It had been what he’d been staring at. The Soldier and the other Portuguese looked at the arm for a few moments.

“That must be Rodrigo’s arm,” said one of them.

They all agreed and went back to digging. Some ten minutes must have passed. Then another of them stooped down and lifted something up. It was a leg.

“That must be Rodrigo’s leg,” confirmed one of the others.

They continued digging. Not five minutes later, the Soldier saw a flash of dark hair in the rubble. He blinked at it through the sweat. He stooped down. He dug at the rubble and cool black soil around the hair until he could get a grip on it. He lifted the thing. It was a head. He lifted the head and showed it to his friends. It felt like a sack of onions. They all paused their work to look.

“Oh look. It’s Rodrigo’s head.”

And in fact it was. The men glanced at each other, then back to the head.

Their mouths curled up into grins. One of them started to laugh. It was a full belly laugh. Another soldier joined him. Then another. And another. The Soldier laughed too. He laughed at Rodrigo. Now they were all laughing. The Soldier laughed so hard that he thought he might cry. The air tasted fresh and sweet as he gasped it in.

Some years passed. The Farmer gazed out at his fields. The flat land stretched to the horizons. The rains had not come for some weeks now and the wheat withered more than it grew. Beside him, his Worker shook his head. He had 35

taken to doing that these past few weeks. This Worker was the last one. The others had gone home two days before. There was more work to do but they wanted more money. The Farmer did not have enough money to pay what he already owed them. They took his tools with them when he wasn’t looking.

He could not harvest the wheat alone and without tools. So it withered.

If you stay I’ll pay you double when the harvest comes in.

Wheat was the only option the Farmer had left. Blight had destroyed his grapes the year before. The tomatoes had not fared well either. The Farmer had not checked for pests. He had not thought to do it. He had always been better as a worker than a leader. If he had his tools, he could dig and plant and weed when someone told him to do it. But he never could get other people to do the necessaries.

Give me another week and I will find you something. We can feed you at least.

The Old Man had been better at that. He would wake up every morning with a clear mind and a plan. He told The Farmer to weed the tomatoes and the tomatoes would grow unmolested. When the Farmer did not know whether to plant or water the Old Man directed him. The Old Man told The Farmer to join the Expeditionary Force to France and The Farmer joined. When the Soldier came back to be a Farmer again the Old Man clapped him on the back and told him he had finally grown into a man of his own. The Farmer never told the Old Man how much that had meant to him. A month later the Old Man died. His old nag had kicked him in the temple. It was a lucky kick. By the time The Farmer’s wife had found him the Old Man had stopped bleeding.

The Farmer waited for a plan to come to him. He was a man now so it must come soon. But none came and the Farmer stumbled in the dark.

We can get the harvest in together. Please. I need you.

The Farmer walked back to his small house. His wife waited inside. She had made him lunch. It was caldo verde. That made sense because they had no more meat in the larder. All that was left were vegetables and water. The Farmer’s stomach rumbled at the thought of meat. His wife sat down next to him.

Is he going to stay? she asked.

No. Can you get the harvest in without him?

No. We need to pay back the bank or they’ll take the farm.

36

I know.

The two sat in silence for a moment. Then, the Farmer’s wife spoke again.

What are we going to do?

The Farmer spoke. I suppose we’re going to let the bank take the farm.

How can you say that? Your father is buried on this farm.

It doesn’t matter where he is when he’s under the ground.

We can’t do nothing, said the wife.

We can’t do much of anything, said the Farmer.

We can at least try.

Then they ate the rest of the meal in silence.

Some weeks passed. A knock on the door broke the quiet. The Farmer’s Friend was always welcome. He stopped by every few days and that day appeared to be today. The Farmer sat smoking as his Friend opened the door and sat in the chair across from him. They sat together for not quite a minute before the Friend spoke.

Share some of that tobacco?

The Farmer handed across his pouch and rolling papers. The Friend took them eagerly. He was a practiced hand at rolling another person’s tobacco.

His fingers moved smoothly. The Farmer’s hands trembled when he rolled his cigarettes but the Friend stayed still as a battlefield surgeon. The cigarette was a work of beauty. The Friend did not admire his handiwork. He held out the cigarette automatically and the Farmer produced a match and lit it.

The two sat smoking for a time. The Farmer stared off into space. He thought about nothing in particular. The farm could not be helped. The Old Man lay in his grave. The Farmer saw his Friend out of the corner of his eye. The Friend fidgeted. He twisted the cigarette between his fingers. It almost went out. The Friend’s eyes darted between the Farmer and a spot on the wall. It wouldn’t be long now until he started talking. He never came just to smoke.

The Farmer didn’t know if he even had his own tobacco or if he exclusively relied on the generosity of neighbors.

Finally the Friend could stand it no longer. He rocked forward in his chair with elbows on his knees and began to speak. The content was nothing new.

We were better off when we had The King he said.

37

Is that so replied the Farmer.

The King wouldn’t have gotten us into the war. The Friend wagged the cigarette around like a pointer.

Maybe not.

And even if he did he would have treated us better when we came back from La Lys. He couldn’t have treated us worse I suppose.

We should march to Lisbon. We can get some of the other local boys.

Just tell me when you’re ready.

There’s a new government every month. They won’t notice us until it’s too late.

The two went on like this for some time. The Friend’s words were precise and calculated. The Farmer responded lazily. The Friend had the same grumblings every time. He never marched. The Farmer let his mind wander again. He almost missed it when the Friend broke off his normal ramblings.

So how’s the farm.

The Farmer flicked his stub of a cigarette. It’s not good he said. We’re going to lose it.

Oh. Is there anything I can do to help?

Not unless you want to pay back two years worth of debts labor and seed costs.

The Friend’s silence was answer enough.

Let’s march. It will be good to get back to the war the Farmer continued.

What was that?

It will be good to get back to fighting and dying and not worrying about after.

The Friend fumbled with his cigarette before responding. It won’t have to come to that when we march. We’ll set them straight without firing a shot.

You remember us fighting right?

All I ever remember is us dying. We never fought worth a damn.

I want to be like that again. I’m tired of making the wrong decisions. Do you remember Rodrigo?

No. He isn’t ground down by all this. I need to be more like Rodrigo.

38

What does Rodrigo do that he doesn’t need to worry? Where is his farm?

Where was Rodrigo? Still at La Lys most likely. Sob a terra. The Farmer did not respond to his Friend for some time. He caught a bad puff of smoke and wheezed. Then he stood up. His knees clicked as he did so. That had started soon after the Old Man died. The only part of the Old Man that the Farmer had inherited.

I suppose I’ll have to find out the Farmer said. He walked past his Friend and out the door.

Where are you going the Friend called after him.

The Farmer did not answer.

39

Cherry Blossoms Maddie King

40

Angel Shot

Connor Batsimm I had a ceiling light in my old bedroom, one of those flying-saucer-dome fluorescent lights ringed around with metal. It used to shine on the bald patch on top of Dad’s head as he said goodnight to me. In movies that’s called an angel shot—a low camera angle with a high lighting fixture over the subject’s head that makes it look like they have a halo. Dad taught me that before he died. I liked that, my father the angel, so I liked the light too, even though fluorescent bulbs gave me a headache.

Dad was always talking to me about the movies. He was a director for all of the best films in Hollywood—Puppy Love, Hot and Dangerous, Grownups 3: Hawaiian Vacation, you name it. If it was a serious film, then you could bet your ass that Hank Colrick was working on it. He even took me to work with him a handful of times so I could hang around the studio and watch him shoot, even though the actors would tell him that the set of Hot and Dangerous wasn’t an appropriate place for a little girl. Dad always stood up for me though. He’d get this look on his face, like he’d bitten into a lemon, and all the creases around his mouth would fold together. Then he’d place one of his hands high up on the actor’s shoulder, so it was almost around his neck, and tell him, very calmly, “Lizzie can do anything she damn wants.” And when he said it like that, I believed him.

My mom never stood up for me like that. “She’s a cunt,” Dad would say. “That’s all there is to it.” He didn’t talk about her much, but when he did he’d get that sour lemon look again.

In the last few months before his death he got that look more and more often. He never yelled at me, but it seemed like he yelled at just about everybody else. We’d sit on the sofa together and he’d let me take a swig from his flask if I promised not to spit any out, and he’d tell me about the hacks he dealt with earlier in the day. Usually it was actors, but sometimes it was a producer who didn’t appreciate the work he did and wanted to make changes to his method. “Don’t ever let anyone tell you how to make your art,” he said. “Cause once they take your art from you, they’ve taken everything that matters.” I’d try to tell him that I could barely draw a stick figure and that all the photos I’d taken with the camera he’d given me came out blurry, but he’d just laugh.

“Everybody’s an artist, you’ve just got to find your medium.” Then he’d pass me the flask again.

Once, I saw a review of one of Dad’s movies in a magazine. I had to make a collage of my favorite things for school, so I flipped through a copy of 41

Entertainment Weekly I found on a rack outside the studio. I don’t remember what the reviewer wrote, but I remember seeing one single star next to the title.

When I told Dad about it, he told me that he didn’t care and that some people just didn’t understand his work, and that all of the best artists got poor reviews.

I think he must’ve cared a little bit though, because the next time I went back to the studio, the rack with the Entertainment Weeklys was gone.

After one particularly bad day at the studio, Dad stopped letting me come to work with him. I was in the bathroom and didn’t see what happened, but when I came out, an intern was lying on the floor next to Dad’s camera with a bent-up nose and coffee spilled across his shirt. I heard some voice yell the word “psycho.” “My father is an angel!” I yelled back. I would’ve gone on, but by then Dad was dragging me to the car.

Dad didn’t say anything for a while on the drive home. When I tried to ask him if he was alright, it was like talking to a ghost. Our car slowly began to drift to the left, until we were almost touching the guard rail. “Dad, we’re going to hit the guard rail,” I warned him, but he knew exactly where he wanted to go, and so we began to scrape along the side of the road. I could hear the sound of metal tearing away and bouncing down the asphalt. Soon, the sound of sirens began to drown out the screeching metal, and Dad slowly drifted into a stop. A state trooper with thick glasses and an old face walked up to the window, took a look at Dad, and asked him to step out of the car.

I spent the next several hours sitting in the waiting room of the police station, staring at the graffiti on the walls and eating a pop tart the state trooper bought me out of the vending machine. There was an Entertainment Weekly lying on the table in the center of the room, but I didn’t look at it. Finally, Dad came back. His eyes were sunk deep into his forehead. The state trooper drove us home, and Dad walked into his room without saying a word.

After that, Dad stopped speaking to me, beyond a halfhearted good morning or see you later. Most of the time when I wasn’t in school, I lay in my room, looking up at the ceiling light until my eyes hurt. I started drinking from Dad’s flask whenever he forgot to put it away. I still had the urge to spit it out, but I liked how it burned and blistered in the back of my throat.

A few days before my eighth birthday, I walked into my room after school and found Dad there, hanging from the ceiling, the side of his head knocking against the light’s metal rim. I stood under his dangling legs for a while, letting his feet dance around my head. Then I went into the kitchen and called the police.

I watched one of his movies yesterday, a buddy cop comedy called Bad and Badder. The guy I’ve been seeing is a self-proclaimed film snob and 42

was genuinely bewildered when I suggested we watch it. I haven’t told him anything about Dad. He sat on the sofa next to me, where Dad and I used to drink whiskey together, and smirked at every trope and clichÊ in the movie. I could practically hear Dad’s voice drunkenly responding to him, voicing his disapproval to me. Despite everything, the thought made me smile.

43

Phat Boy

August Rosenberg With arms wrapped around my shoulders I embrace myself.

I slowly graze my flabby arm, slap my potbelly, flick it a little bit to see how much it jiggles.

Hi there miss party girl you ain't got no one-pack to bunch into jelly rolls you're missing out on all the fun.

44

Drinking With Family Lizette Roman-Johnston

People will insist that alcohol is good for you, that it lowers your blood pressure and helps you sleep. They’re not wrong, at least according to the Wine Moms of Fairfield County. Meanwhile, others scorn drinkers, accusing them of holding the bottle so close in an attempt to warm their frigid hearts. I personally do not think using the occasional beer or glass of wine to forget life’s woes qualifies as an unhealthy coping mechanism. If my heart is ice, then why not add some liquor and make it a cocktail on the rocks?

The truth? I don’t drink that much. Even as a college student, I drink nothing compared to what some Alabama frat boy is knocking back every Tuesday. Why don’t I constantly pound back twenty Budweiser's? Well, first of all, I can’t consume wheat (seriously, you could win in a fight with me just by shoving a bagel in my face). Second, college is bearable without this extracurricular. Drinking almost seems like a chore. Being away from college, on the other hand, is not necessarily unbearable. Sure, home yields passive aggressive comments between parents, not-so-subtle glares that fail to stop my father from talking, and growls and barks from a puppy who hates me, but it also yields quality material for a one-person drinking game.

For some young adults, it is not until they begin college that they learn that spending time with family should not be done completely sober. Some people reading this might clutch their pearls and say “How inappropriate!” To that, I choose to remind everyone that, throughout your childhood, most of your mothers would unwind with a glass of red wine every night, while most of your fathers would sit by the television with a cold one in hand. Actually, it was probably more like three glasses of wine and a cold seven, but I’m not here to ruin your childhood.

Luckily, I have already passed the age at which my mother feels comfortable serving me alcohol. Only recently have I reached the point of getting unashamedly buzzed at the dinner table because things are slightly uncomfortable. Such discomforts include my new boyfriend and occasionally insufferable father getting along a little too well upon their first meeting, my mother complaining to my sister about how much my father uses her credit card, and my father embarking on the classic twenty-minute-long story about the injustices he faced as a little league coach over ten years ago.

One summer, after I asked for a refill of my Pinot Noir, my father chortled. “You are your mother’s daughter,” he said. I took that statement, and I ran with it. Since then, I have never passed up an opportunity to drink with my family. In my Connecticut hometown, underaged people can order alcoholic beverages if their parents are with them. My mom will smile at the waiter. “I think I’ll have a prosecco,” she’ll say as if she’s being scandalous. She says the 45

last part to me—an invitation to give the waiter a nonchalant, “Me too.” This is why I am totally fine with my family not moving to a state way cooler than Connecticut until after I have turned twenty one.

There is something so much more satisfying about drinking in a scenario in which you were once not supposed to; it’s a rite of passage comparable to getting a degree or losing your virginity. Drinking at college almost feels forced.

Let’s go fucking wild tonight! I wanna get sloshed! And thus—shots. Home does not pressure you to drink, as there is no destination at which you must be wasted to enjoy yourself. You don’t pregame for a How I Met Your Mother marathon.

Young adults drink at home for reasons additional to “because my parents are letting me.” Let’s face it: once exposed to the thrills of the real world (which your parents have so expertly prepared you for), getting cooped up in your childhood nest can be suffocating. On top of that, you and your siblings have recently noticed things about your parents that once flew over your heads.

“Dad sure tells long stories, huh?” Cue the sound of illusions shattering. And unfortunately, long stories might be the least of your problems.

In a society full of family baggage, I choose denial. “How is your home life, Lizette?” will ask someone in touch with their emotions. “I don’t know,” I will answer with a smile, a shrug, maybe a giggle. Jokes aside, to some extent, we are all aware of the twisted roots and scraped branches that make up our family trees. And we all have some way to distract ourselves. Some of us run off to the basement to play video games, while others stuff their schedules with part-time jobs. Some of us hide away at friends’ houses, while others pour four glasses of wine throughout an episode of The Bachelor. If necessary, I would do all these things, but I don’t need friends or job qualifications to take a walk to the liquor cabinet.

46

2 AM

Grace Sowydra 2 AM, the world is quiet.

The side roads are empty enough to lay our backs on.

We walk these same streets, so many memories beneath our bones.

We walk to keep moving forward— to ease the pain.

These roads are never-ending, built once by hand, one day long ago, paved over– forgotten. we bask in simplicity, stepping across so many years of patience.

Someone made all of this.

We follow without thinking.

I never thought our first kiss would be on an empty sidestreet.

47

A Morning with NJ Transit Delaney Russell

With my downy coat zipped up to my neck and legs bobbing to keep warm and awake I crane my neck to squint up the street in search of my ride, the dirt-stained, creaking, groaning 192. AlwaysDelayed again…why do I drive on a schedule if the traffic always makes me so— late. But the bus has mastered the art of testing limits and knows how tardy is permissible, before it must appear, and leisurely drag to a halt outside the beauty supply store, and pull its tired doors open to admit more tired faces— Why does the same smug, self-important business man always cut off that girl to get— on board. Inside, we make an unspoken promise to commute in silence and sit alone (if possible).

We daydream and doze off in unison, alone and together while we pass through each neighborhood, picking up more travelers at each stop, each time— Why doesn’t anyone look where they’re going?

I’m driving a bus, yet I’m always the one— lurching to a halt. When the doors tug closed at the final stop, we glide onto the highway catapulted towards the skyline, headed for midtown, dead set on business, pleasure, family, or a bustling touristIt’s like a never-ending stream of tourists… they act like this damn island is— heaven. The light of the morning sun, still rising, reflects off each phone or bundle of keys, all sitting in dormant laps.

48

Our creaking vessel enters the tunnel, a universal sign of impending arrival, we are almost— “We are now approaching the Port Authority Bus Terminal.

Please stay in your seat until we get—” There.

49

Something New Morgan Fechter

I didn’t walk down the aisle as much as I tiptoed down the old wooden staircase, freshly plucked dandelion in hand and with a white t shirt draped haphazardly over the back of my head. My tongue, stained by ringpop, was my something blue, and the t-shirt belonged to my playmate, the younger sister of my soon-to-be groom. The house was old, the kind of old that is common in coastal Massachusetts, and we hid from ghosts when the sun went down. Each stair creaked under my feet, in yellow plastic “heels” from Belle’s Princess Collection. Compared to the house, I was new; at six, my life was just beginning.

It felt like I was right in the middle of my life, with summer days stretched out both behind me and before me.

I knew I had to marry him. He had blue eyes like the princes in the book my mom read to me before bed, and gold hair, like he was supposed to. I knew that I was supposed to want this, and I knew that he could outrun me, and that he was always the one who would talk to customers when they stopped at our lemonade stands. Our moms would talk at the bus stop and their rings would flash on their fingers and his little sister would ask me “Do you want to marrrryyy him?” drawing out the “marry” because it was the most important thing in the world, and also something we weren’t sure if we were allowed to be talking about. I turned red and denied everything, because boys were gross and had cooties and the thought of going near his face made me sick.

But I continued down the staircase. It was my wedding day, after all, and Owen was standing at the bottom in a summer camp t-shirt with a paper crown I made out of blue construction paper, and neither of us knew that I would have next to zero other memories of him from this point on, and that one day we would see each other at a restaurant and say nothing. His little sister was officiating; she was my friend because she was a girl and we could play dress-up together while the boys were outside playing war with nerf guns.

I got to the bottom of the stairs and turned the corner past the couch on which we had just finished watching Scooby-Doo, and saw him standing by the kitchen table. I glanced at the door behind him to make sure that our moms weren’t there watching us. The only people I wanted there were my future “husband," our “priest” for the day, and their bulldog Fenway, who looked up at us with sad eyes from the kitchen floor. I knew weddings were usually attended by a lot of people; I had walked by framed photos from my parents’ wedding every day for as long as I could remember. They were right at eye level and I could perfectly see all of the fancy people in the background that I didn’t know, but I knew they must have held some importance if they were invited to the biggest day of my mom and dad’s life.

50

Our priest couldn’t contain her giggles. I finally reached Owen and stood across from him, my yellow plastic princess shoes opposite his velcro sneakers. “Morgan, do you?” she managed to get out before breaking into a fit of giggles. I kicked her with my shoe. This was a somber and important occasion and certainly nothing to laugh about. She tried again.

“Morgan, do you take Owen as your husband?”

I knew there was more she was supposed to say before that, I had watched enough movies to remember the general flow of a marriage ceremony, but for some reason the only phrases that stuck with me were “I do” and “you may kiss the bride.”

“I do,” I said, looking up at him. He was watching a car go by outside the window.

“Owen, do you take Morgan as your wife?” He looked back when he heard his name.

“I do,” he said, and glanced down at his marker-stained hands.

“I now pronounce you husband and wife” she managed to get out between giggles. He finally looked up at me. My whole world was inside that summer camp t-shirt; every game of hide and seek and accidentally touching his hand when he gave me his pink fruit snacks because he only liked the blue ones, and frosting-stained cheeks at his mini-golf birthday party, and my protector from the ghosts that lived in his ancient house.

“KISS!” our priest urged, breaking down into a fit of laughter because kissing was gross and adults only did it because they had to, and this was one of the times where I had no choice.

When Cinderella kissed Prince Charming she just closed her eyes and went for it, but she was a princess and he was a prince and I was six and had a shirt over my head and the most I could ever think about actually doing was holding his hand. I scrunched my eyes shut like I was supposed to and he leaned in as fast as he could and pecked my cheek.

I opened my eyes. It was over. The dog looked up at me sheepishly and Owen gave me a gap-toothed grin before sitting back down on the floor by his pile of toy trucks. I felt like something else should happen, I was married now, but I followed Owen’s lead and brushed the shirt-veil off my head and kicked off my shoes.

“Want to go on the swings?” he asked, and I nodded. I kept a tight grip on the dandelion in my hand and followed him as he ran out the front door, ready for the next adventure.

Years later I had a dream that I saved the dandelion, and when I woke up I searched through all of my notebooks to see if I had tucked it in between the pages somewhere, but I had probably dropped it on the grass as I got on the swingset and forgotten about it when we got the news that our mac and cheese was ready and rushed inside.

51

Golden Retrievers and Other Fears

Sam Mackertich

bring me back to my first kiss, under the widest oak at school, and the only sound was the shrieks of the squirrel above us.

My head was spun counter-clockwise, away from Hollywood romance.

Your tongue swept across my cheek in flat wet strokes.

My aunt once told me, Men are dogs.

You would be a Golden Retriever.

You kissed me like a tennis ball you were trying to stuff into your jaws— I thought of how I must be a cat-person.

-Wikipedia told me that Golden Retrievers were bred to fetch their masters’ kills and when I dream myself awake at night I am that kill, soaked in saliva, my braid swaying like a squirrel tail as you shake me by the throat.

Golden Retrievers are the embodiment of the American Dream, bounding across a manicured lawn with a wonderbread family in tow— ask any commercial ever aired.

Pan camera left, and there you are, starch-pressed and laughing too loud, too close to the face of a girl-next-door.

Blue-eyed, white-collared boy, you make my heart stammer as you toss daisies down the stairs -Dogs who hurt people beyond repair are put down— you didn’t even lose your scholarship.

I realized my aunt was wrong the day I learned I was afraid of you.

Her name was Daisy, the shaky old beagle you kicked down the stairs like a slinky.

52

She didn’t make a sound, I should’ve known I’d never be a silence-breaker the first time I told someone I was afraid of dogs and of you.

They looked at me like my skin had gone inside-out -His name was Jake— the dog who taught me that you can overdose on love as he toppled my toddler-self to the asphalt in all his excitement.

When I was six Jake popped my favorite purple ball.

Clenched his jaws around it, body pressing it to the grass, as it deflated beneath him.

You did the same to me.

I cried through both.

You American Dream, you Golden Retriever, I don’t remember how your breath smelled, but in my mind, it reeks of dog food.

53

Interview with Award-Winning Poet Brenda Shaughnessy Jeff Dingler

Brenda Shaughnessy gave a reading at Wilson Chapel on Tuesday March 6th.

The first time I read poet Brenda Shaughnessy was during a long layover in San Antonio. An old friend, and excellent poet, had lent me So Much Synth, and with a couple of hours freshly added to my layover, I opened to a random page.

“I have a time machine,” the poem began, “but unfortunately it can only travel into the future / at a rate of one second per second.” I laughed out loud. It was as if the poem were reading my mind, stuck in that airport terminal with me.

Of course, Shaughnessy’s poem is about a lot more than just waiting. The closing lines—“Strange not to be able to pick up the pace as I’d like; / the past is so horribly fast”—tell us that the time machine is actually aging, change, even death itself. A preternatural writer, she is known for melding humor with personal tragedy, acerbic rage with acceptance, and pathos with dignity.

Shaughnessy earned her BA from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and an MFA from Columbia. She is a winner of the James Laughlin Award, and her work has been featured in The New Yorker, McSweeney’s, The Paris Review, and much more. When I heard she was coming here to Skidmore to give a reading at Wilson Chapel , I jumped at the opportunity to interview her.

Much to my pleasure, we were able to sit down at the historic Surrey Inn right outside of the college.

54

Thank you for talking with me. Is this your first time at Skidmore?

I visited Skidmore years ago, but I have spent some time in Saratoga Springs because I’ve been to Yaddo several times. I’ve written a lot in these environs, but not on campus. And also, I haven’t spent much time exploring the town because I was always holed up in a room—in a beautiful room. But I wrote poems that really were breakthroughs for me at Yaddo. So I’ve always had this gratitude for that space.

You said some of these poems written at Yaddo were breakthroughs.

Which ones and why?

Well, they were breakthroughs for me. But I wrote a long poem about my son’s birth there at Yaddo. It’s in the book Our Andromeda; it’s the title poem and it’s the poem that sort of clinched that book. And it’s completely raw. It is just completely untempered pain and anger that I let myself write, let myself have, and I didn’t think for a second that anyone was going to read it. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have let myself say any of that crazy stuff.

Something about being at Yaddo—I was in Katrina Trask’s room, who of course was a mother who lost all of her children, and I was a new mother whose kid was really, really compromised, and really in danger. And I hadn’t come to terms with it at all. I didn’t know what it meant. And something about that space gave me permission just to say what I had to say. I had tried to find poetry and fiction, any kind of literature really, that addressed some of this pain, some of this issue—and I found nothing. So I was basically writing to the me who was trying to find this work.

How much impact does an environment like that have on your writing? As a college student, sometimes it's hard to find a creative space to write.

Environment is something that I have to fight really hard to get. Whether that’s a couple of weeks at Yaddo, or just at my own home with the door closed. Because I have these two kids, and I work fulltime, and there’s a lot on my plate.

I normally don’t get a chance to write much during the school year while I’m teaching because it’s just too intense. And so yeah, the minute I’m under a canopy of green leaves and have time to myself, I absolutely write. That said, environment is important to me, but I could never really quite separate myself from the demands of everyday life, even mentally. So I do rely on places like Yaddo and the occasional time away to actually get some deep thinking and writing done. But that’s not something I get to do very often. And a lot happens during those times. It’s a transformation, actually.

55

Can you talk about that transformation more? Is it like a buildup over the time you can't write?

Yeah, like clogged pipes, kind of? [Laughs] I think if anyone could figure out exactly how creative flow happens—what allows it to happen, what causes it to stop—I think those processes are much deeper, much more complicated, and probably much more simple as well to understand. I know that I can’t call it up at will. I know that I can’t say: okay, the kids are in school, everyone’s gone, you have six hours, go, write. That doesn't happen. And I don’t know what mechanism it is in me that’s stopping it.

I do know that when I get a chance to go someplace to really focus and write, it takes me days just to get there, and the entire time I’m pounding my head against the desk going, “You worked so hard to get this time away—why is nothing happening?” You just can’t will it, I don’t know why. On the fourth or fifth day, if I get that much time, something will happen. It might be big, it might be little. And I don’t care. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a big or a little thing. It’s a creative portal opening, and that is always a gift.

And I try not to ever think in terms of projects. Like right now I have a commission to write the libretto for an opera. And that is a big project, but in order to write anything at all I have to start with the smallest little thing. I can’t be like, “I am now writing the opera. I am writing the libretto now.” It has to be just this tiny little word, next to another tiny little word that maybe strings together a cohesive idea or a surprising juxtaposition, and it has to be strung together like beads, like tiny little beads. I can’t make the whole tapestry at once. So a little opening of the portal is just fine.

56

For the Resistance Jeff Dingler

I don’t know where Nico is. We meet in Miraflores station each week.

By the concrete bench at the far end of the platform where he always hunches, the one beside the blue poster of the devil with a pack of INFERNO cigarettes in hand. But today there’s an old woman in his spot, taking up the whole bench with her bags of cans and worthless items. We meet eyes—just a moment. She can tell I’m disconcerted to see her there. “What?” she says squishing up her face. I look away; I don’t want to reveal anything to her. She could be part of the regime’s Shadow Police. She’s waiting for me to slip up, and I only have about a minute before the train leaves. I can’t miss Nico.

I walk up and down the platform, fighting the crowds. He’s nowhere.

He’s tall and lanky and dark, and nowhere. The tunnels begin to empty out and I warm myself against the drag of subterranean air. Miraflores, the Blue Line—where he has waited for me every week for the past four months. That’s just 16 days if you add them all up, and only a couple of minutes each day.

Incredible how much you can get to know someone in just the time of a TV show. Stretched out over 4 months, it feels much longer.

We always meet during the morning rush hour precisely so no one will see us. Just another young couple swallowed by the river of commuters.

We would kiss, fake conversation for a minute or so, and then as we hugged he’d slip the envelope into my pocket. Normally I gave him another kiss, because I wanted to feel those soft lips before returning to the reeds for another week. Or sometimes he kissed me, because I think he wanted to. “For the Resistance,” he liked to whisper into my ear after these parting kisses. A perplexing smirk on his face, sometimes with a wink. Then I get back on the train before it’s too late and ride it all the way to the end of the line. But that unreadable smirk has often stopped me mid-thought as I watched the city blocks unspool into dun countryside. I pretended that I saw it in my own reflection.

Swaying with the velocity of the train. The way he emphasized Resistance, like it was the corporate lingo from a tired franchise. I could tell he was making fun of it, but was he suggesting we give it up, run away someplace? The Inner War had been going on for about eight years now—I was still a teenager when it started—and the regime was just as strong as it’d ever been. Maybe even stronger now because the people were more easily distracted. It was addicting. The burning light of shiny devices, endless news cycles, an almost glitzy celeberati.

Even I had begun to doubt the Resistance’s capacity to topple it.

Still, it’s better than being one of those citizens drunk on the light.

Than being just an ordinary couple, Nico and I. We have something important that I can point to and say: That—we fought back when we still had blood in our bones.

57

When I first met Nico, even within those couple of flooded minutes, I knew right away, how he didn’t try to force a kiss, didn’t try to step in too close, that it was going to be easy to pretend with him. That he was a gentleman. And when we did kiss for real at our second meeting, well, a boy’s never kissed me like that. No one has. Like a kiss, especially a first kiss, was the most delicate thing to land or place. That’s when I knew it wasn’t all theater. Not with Nico… I wish he were here now. My lips are cold and chapped here on the platform of the Blue Line. The people have flooded out, nobody left save the old woman with her endless bags and the blue devil in the poster behind her. The Shadows must’ve grabbed him. They’re not like street police or the Presidential Guard. They don’t wear anything to make them stick out. They don’t have badges or warrants or courts behind them. They look just like me, or Nico or anyone, and disappear just like me, or Nico—or anyone.

The train beeps and flashes red for the last passengers. I give up looking for him and scramble back onboard before the doors press together. But it’s a packed train. Dozens of strangers suddenly pressing against me. Smell of oppressive cologne and coffee. One of them could be the Shadow that grabbed Nico. The one that’s also going to grab me. And once that happens you don’t reappear.

I change lines at the very next station—in case anyone is following—and ride in the opposite direction for thirty minutes. Holding my breath almost the entire time. Then, when I think no one is looking, I hop onto the Blue Line at Alameda Avenue and ride it all the way to the last stop where I can catch a bus that takes me the rest of the way home.

In my little bungalow on the undeveloped shore of Great Sand Lake, I wait to hear from Blackbird. I don’t even have Wi-Fi out here. But I have a booster and leech from a fancy resort on the other side of the lake. It's safer that way; hacking in the city leaves too many prints. I may not be very old, but I’ve been doing this a while. Not with the Resistance, just on my own. I started hacking for money at an early age because, well—I never had much of a mother, and I had to run away from the man who claimed to be my father. I only joined the Resistance about five months ago when I was seriously considering selling my last computer to pay for the bills and a little bread and coffee.

They don’t pay me anything, but the Resistance provided me with equipment and a brand new laptop. Plus, if I’m really being truthful, it excited me. Base as that. I had never done anything this dangerous before. This assignment with Nico was my first, and when we pretended together, my god, it was like our feet hovered just above the ground. Each of our meetings is like a little gem of a scene that I wear in my memory. I remember that day he almost missed me. The train was already beeping red and he had just walked down from the streets above. He had just a moment to run across the platform and slip me the 58

envelope. I’ll never forget how he sprinted and then launched himself over the gap and straight onto the train. When he landed he almost fell, and he grabbed me around the waist for balance. Our two bodies squeezed together in the opening of the train. Like this, he stuffed the envelope in the lapels of my coat, gave me a big kiss, and then whispered in my ear, still panting from the run: “I used to teach 3rd graders. Can you believe I do this shit now?” And then he gave me one of those perplexing smirks and jumped off before the doors closed on him. Cutting my vision of him in two. Everything disappears in a blur of motion.

Normally, I would have the envelope from Nico—inside is always a new jump drive with classified information stolen from the regime. I’d upload its contents onto my laptop and break down the encrypted info so the higher-ups can understand it and make their decisions how best to make their next moves. After a couple of days of decoding, I ride back into the city and hand it off to Blackbird at Trescruces. Everything way too sensitive to email. Eventually, it makes its way to the Hive where god knows what happens to it. But not today.

I recheck my phone. Still nothing. I sent Blackbird a message more than an hour ago. Really, he’s the only other person I know in the Resistance and, as far as I can tell, the one calling most of the shots (at least for the hackers). But the truth is that I have no idea. And neither does anyone else. That’s how the Resistance likes to work, total anonymity between almost all of its members (especially the underlings). For all I know, Nico and Blackbird are the same person. But I doubt it. Nico has charm. There’s almost nothing charming about Blackbird.

Outside my rusted screen windows, the resort on the far shore is actually quiet tonight. I can hear the frogs in the reeds singing their early spring songs, already too early. I almost drift off until I feel my phone vibrate. It’s from him.

Fuck, it reads, Why did you not tell me sooner that he wasn’t there?!

He’s angry. He's always angry. I didn’t want to send a msg in the city, I rattle out. Also didn't know if u gave him different directions.

My phone tells me that he is typing. I wait, holding my breath. I can smell the brothy water of the big lake.

You did right, his message reads, Nico WAS supposed to be there but he must’ve got scared by something and didn’t show. Will look into.

Thank u, I type. Let me know how he is pls.

Can’t, was all his message said about it. But don’t worry. All he knows is your physical appearance. Which, true, he knows well. But nothing else.

There is a pause in his typing. And then another text that just reads: Right?

His response leaves me cold. Did Blackbird know about Nico and I? Right, I type back, nothing else. Surely the Resistance doesn’t know, cannot 59

know what can only exist between glances. I send another message, What should I do?

I bite my nails as I wait for his response. But what I told Blackbird is the truth. Nico and I never exchanged phone numbers (we were told when and where to meet and we did it). He doesn’t even know my true name, and certainly Nico wasn’t his. Finally, Blackbird replies, Give me a couple of days and I’ll tell you what to do. Until then, lay low. And that was the last message he sent.

I put down my phone. My reflection black and split by a fresh crack in the screen. I have no idea how it happened. Nico, if I had your number now I’d just text you. It’d be as simple as that, to know whether you were safe—or not. So much better than this, this endless unknowing.

The following days are torture. I go about my day job, a website designer for a couple of local restaurants and one rundown motel. But even as I work, all I can think about is Nico. Did the Shadow Police have him? Had they cracked him wide open to spill his secrets like cold blood on concrete? Or had he finally gotten tired of all the tension and secrecy and, without a word, run to another city, perhaps another world where there was no regime to slowly, so infinitely slowly chip away at. If so, you would be the lucky one, my dear.

I hear a sudden boom and crackle from across the lake. It jolts me from my desk. I creep over and peek out the screen window to the far shore where there’s some kind of wild celebration. Fireworks spray into the sky like champagne, turning the resort into a massive crown that gleams and pulses over the water. I can hear the roar of the music and the conversations even from here. Fom the light of the fireworks I can see something on the shore. A couple staggering their way down the dirt beach with a bottle in hand. They leave the bottle on the ground and venture into the deep blue water, still too cold for swimming. Just a few minutes later they have gone out too far, and they start to flail like a couple of crashed seagulls. I almost wonder if they will drown. But before long there’s a great commotion at the resort. Crowds of people shout and point at the lake. A minute later, a boat with glaring lights arrives and fishes them out of the water. They must be alive because the boat returns to shore and people start to clap and whistle. After this, the party returns to normal and loses all interest for me.

Maybe they are the lucky ones after all, I think. They don’t even know they’re in the fight. I judge them because they pretend things are normal. Just business as usual as the society they pretended to love erodes away. But then I wonder, am I any different pretending with Nico, that I know anything about him, or that he’s even still alive? At least the people at the resort seem to be happy. Maybe I’ve just been pretending that as well.

60

Two weeks later Blackbird finally sends me a message to meet Nico at Miraflores, same line but Wednesday, and evening, not morning, rush hour.

Got to change things up, the message reminds me, we got lucky this time…

But I can’t believe it. Nico’s alive! I play a song on my laptop. Dance on the kitchen table. And when I can’t dance anymore I’m so nervous, alone in my two-room shack, standing there barefoot on my table, that I start to cry.

Come Wednesday I wear my best dress, the tight burgundy one, and a black leather jacket. I put on a little extra mascara and lipstick for Nico. I want him to leave with one of those big, rosy movie star kisses on his cheek.

The whole train ride, I’m rechecking my hair and makeup in every reflection. But when I step down onto the platform at Miraflores and look to the bench in the corner, I don’t see Nico. I see the same poster of the blue devil with the INFERNO cigarettes, but a different man standing next to it. He’s a stranger with lighter hair than Nico, and broader shoulders. But he approaches me like he knows me, like he’s been given the description, and greets me with my codename. I’m in a daze, but I manage to hug him as if it were habit. He’s much shorter than Nico. Then he forces a toothy kiss on my lips.

“What do you think you’re doing?” I shout. But that’s when I feel the envelope slip firmly into my pocket—and his hand slowly grazing my hip.

“Shhhh… For the Resistance,” he whispers, tongue almost in my ear.

I jerk away. “Stop it!” I demand.

He looks at me with a fake recognition, a fake hurt in his eyes. “Hey hey, what’s the matter, babe?”

“Don’t call me that,” I say fixing my hair that he messed up. But other commuters are already staring. It would be disastrous for both of us to be discovered here. I take a deep breath and step closer to him. “I’m sorry—it’s just, I was expecting,” but I can’t do it. I can’t pretend with this one. “What’s your name?” I finally whisper.

“What do you think?” he says with an insulting wave of his hand, as if I were hysterical. “It’s me…Nico.”

I laugh. Right in his face because he’s such an atrocious actor and I don’t believe him. But then I see he’s serious, him and his foot tapping. The theater starts all over again, new actors, same play, only the days change. They could’ve at least bothered to change the name. But I won’t let this one see my tears. “Hah, okay, boy—” I say, giving him a quick kiss on the cheek—“for the Resistance.”

I return to the train clutching the envelope in my pocket. As soon as the new Nico is out of sight, I take out a napkin from my purse and, without a mirror, rub my lips until the red lipstick is all gone.

61

All Natural Ink Aidan Walsh

62

Scorpions

Jeremy Tenenbaum I walked into your life, sprawled out on the couch, wrapped myself in a furry blanket, and amidst an unconscious resignation to comfort, felt scorpions pinching my toes.

Then, I moved over to the reclining chair, pulled out the newspaper, and realized the newspaper was giving me paper cuts. So, I stepped down to the marble floor, eager to look for a new comfortable place to reside. But, before I could gaze about the room, I lept up in pain—there were coals burning underneath the floor's cool, tough exterior. The coals were organized in such a way that directed me toward the door—so I jumped out. …I realized I'd left my wallet inside.

So I hopped back inside, skirted back to the couch, and discovered that the scorpions had disappeared. Ever so cautiously, I settled back in. It was a familiar comfort; relaxation surged through my arteries, and tingled my toes.

But, lo and behold, the scorpions re-emerged, sending me back to the firy floor, and out the door. Each time I left, I forgot something inside.

After six different trips out the door and back in, I exited for the seventh time and flipped around, set to re-enter. As I was about to open the door, I patted down my pockets and realized, nothing remained inside. So I stood there for a moment. Locked in a pocket of confusion, I felt empty. Nevertheless, I walked away, only glancing over my shoulder to make sure that your house was still intact.

The further and further I walked, the more complete I felt. "Space and time," I kept telling myself.

Then the phone rang, interrupting my thought. It was you, telling me that I forgot something in your home. "Nonsense," I said. I was sure that I had taken everything. But you insisted that something remained—although you wouldn't specify what.

So I strolled over to your home and twisted the doorknob one way and then the other. It wouldn't budge. So I tried pushing and pulling, pulling and pushing, and finally, it swung open. Your house was darker than I remembered it to be. I tiptoed inside, wary of the burning coals. However, this time, there were no coals; there were no scorpions, no paper-cutting newspapers, no nothing. Yet, somehow fear penetrated my skin deeper than ever before. It pierced my skull, gripped my hair, and clung to my eyeballs.

63

Shave

Connor Batsimm He liked the motion of shaving. He liked to see how far he could steer the blade in one consistent direction before the angle shifted, up a cheekbone or sloped down a neck. He would push forward, waiting til the last possible minute to divert his course, until he found himself moving against the grain of his tender skin, upon which point he would shift the tiller ever so slightly and ride the razor’s momentum into a new region—a collar bone or an Adam’s apple or the firm bump at the top of his spine.

He liked to see how fine he could sand the rigid hair follicles peering up out of the valleys of his pores. He would press the blade tight to his skin, feeling his face compress beneath the weight of the metal, flattened and leveled uniformly until the blade continued onward, allowing the patch of skin to ruffle out again. One section often required several revisits, if the tip of a hair managed to duck beneath the steel sheets and huddle against his chin, before springing back up once the danger passed over.

Tireless attention to detail was mandatory. When the job appeared done he would dedicate the next several minutes to a thorough scan of the area, for any straggling stubbles. But no matter how detailed the search, he would invariably find a handful of lone, persistent follicles later in the day, tucked beneath the shady canopy of a nostril or an earlobe. So he’d return to the bathroom and deploy the razor again, until he eradicated the last of them.

Drawing blood only added to the thrill—it gave stakes to his little game, consequences to befall his cheeks if he made any false moves—and if the blade slipped across his neck and submerged itself into an artery, those stakes could be the highest mortals know. He had made many such mistakes at a younger age, but as he spent years, then decades perfecting his craft, he found his hand slipped less than it used to, and his skin, once so sensitive and prone to redness had developed a calloused tolerance.

He spent his days ducking in and out of bathrooms, examining and double-checking the usual problem spots for missed hairs. On weekends he frequented art galleries. He would walk through the aisles of sculptures—Michelangelo’s and Raphael’s—gazing enviously at the smoothed marble crests, unattainable standards tantalizingly out of reach. He began to dream of plucking every single hair on his head one by one, before moving on to his chest, arms and armpits, legs, groin, and ass. One day, in a flurry of inspiration, he outfitted the insides of all his clothes, from his underwear to his socks, with a lining of coarse sandpaper.

What joy, to be carved from rock, he thought, as he peeled strips of flaked, dead skin from his face. To be reshaped by the elements, stripped down by the wind, beaten by the tide, raped by erosion. In the East, the cliffs of Do64

ver, perfectly smoothed, a work of art beyond anything a human being could ever hope to create. In the West, the hollows of the Grand Canyon. And then he felt at his own body, hardened with thick, dense scabs and thought there’s a start.

65

Striptease Amy Milin

Through walking days like this, the fat sting in my arches remains unnoticed until I remove the pressure of my heavy body, then my shoes.

I stand back up, shrunken, and face the mirror.

Arm crossed over the other, I swim through my shirt, slipping from its convenient gaps to reveal my hoisted chest above a pleasant silhouette, my waist drawing into my skirt-top.

I stoop to pull this down and watch the doubled slope of my stomach.

Remote from the snapping jaws of cold, my legs slough off their toning shadows, kicking clingy nylon to the ground.

By now my breasts have defied their close confinement, slipping from their soft cups. I unclasp and each descends fully an inch, and I am left defenseless.

Shorter, fatter, saggy and slouched; my gaze appraises each blemish and fold.

But still there is peace.

For here I give myself a love far purer than furtive exchanges— that upholds no pretense, and threatens no departure.

66

Goldfish

Sam Mackertich Emily

Mother flushed the fish, no prayer. The speck of gold circled clockwise around and around the toilet bowl like a wedding ring and Emily couldn’t stop staring, even after it had been swallowed up and swished away. She asked if there is a separate god for fish. Mother said there is only one god, and that nobody gives a shit about fish, before flushing again for good measure. Emily had written up a few speeches, but they all stuck under her tongue like frozen peas when the time came. She went to her room; it was her favorite place to grieve.

It hailed that afternoon. Emily pulled open her bedroom window to smell it, how ice was different in July. The white chunks stung her face, tucked into the creases of her ears. There was a birthday party next door; Jamie was turning eleven. The ice pelted holes into the delicately frosted cake as the girls squealed for the door. Emily closed her eyes and listened. The clacking against the rough shingles. The clicking against the plastic chairs, now tipped and tumbled by the wind and the girls. The pockmarked cake was beginning to lean.

Jamie

It hailed that afternoon, ruining Jamie’s birthday party. They moved the party indoors, but it wasn’t the same. Jamie would probably have been in tears by now if it weren’t for the silver lining. Back before the divorce, her father had promised to get her a goldfish “when it snowed in July.” And here she was, watching the wads of white ice sprinkle the driveway, bouncing like jumping beans. Her friends were brushing the ice out of their curls and absentmindedly complaining while Jamie slipped out of the room, yanked off her aluminum tiara and tossed it to the ground, watched it skitter across the hardwood. She rummaged through the cabinet for the vase with the chip on the rim, scattered the bottom with the marbles she’d won at recess a few weeks back. Her fingers were clammy against the smooth glass—it had been a wedding favor. That’s what her mother had said when Jamie had pulled it out of the trash. She filled it with tapwater—lukewarm, like the book had recommended. Jamie swirled the vase like a fine wine, watched the marbles click and slide like the drumbeat of hail on the skylights.

Emily waited a solid fifteen minutes to steal the cake. It wasn’t doing anyone any good out there anyway. Emily’s fingers were shaking, with cold or anticipation, as she opened the window, slid a leg outside. Her toes groped around the sill for purchase before she began to lower herself. She was lucky her room was on the first floor. The grass was wet and sharp beneath her feet, like the gel-spiked hair of the boys on the bus. The hail was lighter now, and 67

Emily imagined some beautiful god pulling off her string of pearls just to watch them clatter to the earth like spit teeth. She crept into Jamie’s backyard, to the cake, three-tiered and elegant despite the storm damage. The icing was sticky and smooth in her palms, the lilac fondant catching under her fingernails.

Jamie waited a solid ten minutes before dialing the number. Her breath steamed the glass of the sliding door, but she was too distracted to pay any attention to the scene outside. The vase was so much heavier with the water, and her arms strained with the weight. She set it on the counter and reached for the phone. Her dad had promised, and he wouldn’t have lied. Not to her.

She’d already called him in her head, rehearsed how she would tell him of her birthday miracle. Her fingers were shaky and wet on the rubber buttons. One ring. Two.

“Susan, I told you not to call this number.”

“What should we name him?”

“Oh, it’s you, Jamie. What do you want?… Name who? I have company over—can we make this quick?”

“I’m thinking ‘Marco.’ You know, like the water game—"

A muffled crash sounded from outside. Anyone who wasn’t looking out the glass door would have thought a tree had been tipped by the storm.

Everything smelled a sick kind of sweet that made her tongue feel thick and sandpapery. The perfect lilac roses were gone, and Emily picked at their streaks of color crusting up her arms. The pastel purple cast her skin in a ghostly shade, and she dug her fingers deeper into the remains of the cake before painting herself with it. It was a sticky kind of smooth, and chunks of cake rolled between her fingers as she ran them through her already tangled hair. There would be consequences, Emily knew that the moment she stepped out her window, but she squeezed her eyes shut and focused on the chill of the air and on the hail sticking to her frosted body like flies. After a moment, she pulled herself onto the table just to get a little closer to the sky, or maybe it was to get a little further from the ground. The plastic tablecloth was slippery under her bare knees. The cake was slouched on its side like a wounded animal, jagged holes gaping across it. Emily crawled forward and nestled into it, folding herself into the layers of the cake. A groan and a whine sounded beneath her and Emily couldn’t help but think it must be the cake. Then the world was pulled from beneath her.

“Hello? Hello? Jamie are you still there?” the phone rasped from Jamie’s slackened hand. The other girls were still in the living room calling their mothers and chattering like birds, but there was a quiet stillness in the kitchen. She shallowed her breath as she peered through the glass, as if a single exhale would 68

startle the scene unfolding in front of her. There was a creature in her cake, squirming and tearing. Jamie couldn’t dare to blink, thinking it would slip into that sliver of time. It was all thrashing limbs, its body purple with the frosting of her cake like the war paint, and Jamie watched the hail nest into its sticky skin and sparkle like scales.

Emily’s eyes were pasted shut, her nose crusted with cake. She wondered if this was how it ended, but the wind stilled long enough for her to register the rasp of her breath. Rubbing the icing from her eyes, she stretched her legs out, one at a time, from the wreckage. Her toes were varying shades of blue and lilac, though she was unsure if it was from the cold or the cake. Emily imagined for a moment that she had been in a plane crash, that she was the only survivor. She squinted and, ignoring the houses behind her, stared into the thin deciduous woods that surrounded her neighborhood. She pushed herself to a standing position, and her hands were shaking. Then she looked down, and everything came to a stop. The plastic tablecloth was shredded, the table’s legs were splayed and broken, and…the cake. The cake was in ruins. The three tiers were reduced to rubble and crumbs. The fondant and frosting were blended into a grayish paste, already hardening to the shape of where she’d been. She saw it then, the rose in the wreckage, lilac and alone. Emily knelt and scooped it into her shivering hands. She stroked its petals, wilted like fins, and sheltered it from the falling hail.

There was no one there to stop Jamie when she opened the door, or when she stepped outside. The phone was still rasping on the countertop, forgotten. Jamie hugged the vase like a stuffed animal as she stepped outside.

The creature was on its knees now, back hunched and shaking, leaning over something. It didn’t notice when she took a step closer, then two. Jamie held her breath as she neared it, and, when it looked up, everything seemed to stop.

Her ankle-length lilac princess gown and silver slippers suddenly felt ridiculous. Even the hail didn’t dare to fall, and Jamie imagined it hovering in the clouds, waiting. The creature rose to its feet, never breaking her gaze. It stepped forward, hands clasped and lifted to its chest. Jamie toed off her slippers before venturing another step. She hardly registered the cold bite of the hail beneath her feet as she narrowed the gap between them. She unwrapped her arms from around the vase and held it out. The creature’s hands bloomed open, and resting on its palms was a single fondant rose. Jamie’s arms were shaking, though she was unsure if it was from the cold or the weight of the vase. The creature divided its palms above the lip of the vase, and they both watched the flower fall. It hit the water with a soft plink, and everything started again. The hail tumbled out of the sky like spilt salt, and a single grain slipped into the mouth of the vase. It bobbed to the surface while the rose, water-torn and wilted, sank to rest among the glass beads like a broken fish.

69

angels

Emily Sater

The walls are white. The floors are white. There is a permeating smell of sanitation.

So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.

Sara stares at her mirror. It’s small, like most things in her room. She does not see herself as she stares, for she is reading. Reading a note left for her, or for someone. “In wonderland…” it begins. “Don’t fall down,” it ends.

She sits on the lush grass, her nude form as natural and as lovely. He lays his head in her lap and she brushes her fingers through his hair. He presses his lips to the softness of her thigh. A fit of passion overtakes him and he begins to kiss up her body. He makes his way to her mouth, and presses his lips to hers. She slips her tongue past his lips and slides it against his. He palms her breasts and her soft, pink nipples harden under his touch.

You are dust, and to dust you shall return.

You know that you are in the hospital. How and why you are there, that you do not know. As you sit in the plastic chair, you look around you, at all the euphoric faces. And then you see past those, you see the faces of reckless anxiety and paranoia, of thick sadness and emptiness. They chatter away as you stare, but their words consume one another’s, left is a tangible form of noise.

He runs the soft palm of his hand down her side, he traces her hip. He brushes his fingers through her coarse pubic hair. He finds her opening and slides his finger into her. He nips at her neck. She begins to whimper and her legs tremble; he quickens his pace. She moans loudly and presses her knees together, catching his hand between her thighs. He hisses softly against her neck.

The Lord saw that the wickedness of humankind was great in the earth.

“I am awake,” Sara’s mirror says this morning. This time it’s written in blood red lipstick. Sara finds this particularly offensive, as it is quite the whoreish color. She takes her handkerchief, spits on it and rubs, rather aggressively, at the words on her mirror. As she does so, her own reflection becomes visible.

Her hair is greasy and matted, her eyes crazed. This, we see. Sara, sees not. Sara envisions a bright light, originating from her forehead and enclosing her form.

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It blinds her and she stops erasing the blood red words.

Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth!

Adam’s doctor has prescribed him a high dosage of a common anti-psychotic. It has stolen the euphoria from his eyes. Adam no longer wants to be naked, Adam just wants to sleep. Sara sees Adam sleeping as she walks by his room on her way to dinner. She stops, she is startled. Adam too is emitting a light. But his has turned grey, and as she pushes open the door and quietly walks into his room, Sara realizes it is not a light at all but a cloud, a darkness.

Seeing this, Sara begins to cry.

When Adam wakes, hours later, he scrambles out of bed and rushes to the bathroom. After a long piss of a concerning color, Adam goes back to his room. As he walks toward his bed he starts, for out of the corner of his eye he has seen something on his mirror. It reads, in a more tasteful red lipstick, “Hi, who are you?” and below, the answer, “If I knew.”

In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep.

Adam wakes from a long sleep and finds his bed is wet, leaving the sheets sticking to his dick and upper thighs. He realizes he must have cum in his sleep and he only wishes he could remember his dream. He used to masturbate, every day, sometimes a few times a day. But since starting his medication, he has been unable to sustain an erection. He longs to break, to scratch his itch. He has developed a crush on a girl in his Tuesday/Thursday therapy sessions. Her name is Sara and she looks like she knows what you’re thinking.

This is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; this one shall be called Woman; for out of man this one was taken.

You walk the white halls, hour after hour, biding your time. Sometimes you hear screaming from behind the closed door at the end of the hall. You wonder about this room. And the screams that originate from it. Time slips past, the lights stay on at all hours, night never comes. And so, you rarely sleep.

You walk the halls and listen to the screams.

Sara barely wears make-up, she never learnt how to put it on. She asked her dad one day, when she was fourteen or so and he laughed at her. That was the end of that. Recently, she has asked one of the nurses to teach her how 71

to line her eyes and highlight her sharp cheekbones. She noticed the boy she found sleeping staring at her in group and she felt ashamed. Surely, he compares her to the other girls—Jessica, who always looks like she is coked out at a club and Marlene, a classic, shy beauty. And so, Sara has begun to line her green eyes with black kohl and color her lips.

Adam has noticed. Not because he believes her to look better with make-up on, but for the sheer reason of her new look. Why is she wearing red lipstick in group therapy in the hospital? Sure, that blond chick wears more make-up, and sequined dresses, but she came in wearing those. Sara arrived clean faced, a little greasy even. Adam spends all of group watching Sara, noting her little movements like the irregular taping of her foot on the ground.

Adam spends all his time out of group imagining Sara naked, taping his back while he kisses her.

It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner.

You know now who is screaming at the end of the hall. It’s you. Or it easily could be. It’s that nameless blonde that wears high heels. She wears them even in solitary confinement. Which is what that room is. You know this because you couldn’t bear to hear the screaming any longer, so you went up to the door to ask them to stop. You made it to the door and peered through the small window— there she was, writhing on the ground, her blonde hair covering her face but her shoes still intact—red, platform ones. You almost knocked but you stopped yourself, for you recognized her. She’s taking the same thing you are, you know this because they call you up every day at the same time for your first, second, third and fourth dosage. You realized she stopped coming a few days ago but you assumed she had been discharged. Obviously, she hadn’t.

She had been brought here.

But then the serpent said to the woman, “You will not die; for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

Adam, docile due to his medication, has been allowed family visits. His mother and brother come every Wednesday for fifteen minutes, at some point.

For Adam is not allowed a watch, and there are no clocks. The patients are not allowed to know the time. Adam, in his medicated paranoia, has concluded it is to keep them further in the dark about the outside world. For they belong there no longer, their world now is this place, sanitized and white.

72

Today, Adam’s mother sneaks him a chocolate bar. The patients' diets are very limited at the hospital, and unnatural sugar is entirely prohibited. As Adam’s mother takes his hand, she shakes it a little and he feels something cool slip into the sleeve of his shirt from hers. He peeks in and sees it’s a Hershey’s.

For the first time in what seems like months, Adam feels heartbreakingly sad.

He is overcome by nostalgia. When Adam was young, still in middle school, he would go every day to the store at the corner and spend his allowance on a Hershey’s milk chocolate bar. His mom was always angry about this, it “ruined” his appetite. For her to bring him one now, he feels his heart warm in his chest, reminding him that he was once alive and full, not empty.

Sara has stopped taking her medication. Each day she eats a pomegranate on the way to the nurse’s station. Throughout the interaction, Sara spits pomegranate seeds into her hand. The nurse hands Sara her medication, as it is oral, she takes it in her mouth, puts it under her tongue, and swallows the small cup of water they hand her. She walks calmly over to the trash bin at the other end of the hall. She puts more fruit in her mouth and spits out the seeds, along with the white pill. A week or so has passed since she began this, and she has begun to glow again. She knows that it is probably forbidden to see herself as haloed, that her halo was what put her in the hospital, but living without one means taking her medication, which she simply cannot do. It steals her mind, her thoughts, her memories. She is left with nothing on her medication.

Without it, she may glow, but at least she remembers that thought exists.

So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate.

The screaming has stopped. But the door remains closed. And the blonde does not come out. As you pass the door on your walk back and forth down the white hall, you peer in each time. She lays on the ground, tangled in her hair. She does not move. She does not utter a sound. She has fallen down.

Then the Lord God said, “See, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever” – therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which he was taken.

73

Adam has pleaded with his doctor for a new medication, or a lesser dosage. He has explained repeatedly that he is worse this way. He cannot feel, he cannot think, he cannot cum—he simply sleeps. It is in his dreams that he lives, but he cannot remember his dreams. His doctor, though content with Adam’s medicated mental state, begins to feel sorry for the young man. For he sees in Adam’s eyes the deadness that he knows to consume his patients. He is so tired of only seeing dead eyes. He makes an allowance, Adam can take half the dosage of his anti-psychotic if he does therapy three times a week and meets with his doctor each day. Adam knows soon he will feel ecstatic about this, but it will be a week or so. For now, he knows he is very happy and he is content that he feels nothing of it. It is imminent. It is coming.

Awake, O north wind, and come, O south wind!

Blow upon my garden that its fragrance may be wafted abroad.

Let my beloved come to his garden, and eat its choicest fruits.

They lie together, entangled. Their nudeness makes it difficult to differentiate between them. His head rests against her breast, her legs intertwined with his. Their arms grasp each other tightly. They are languid and satiated.

They will lie like this not for a long time, as time does not exist, but they will stay like this until they crave each other again.

Sara has been finding notes on her mirror again. When her glowing stopped, so did her notes. She welcomes them back. Today, her mirror just reads “dust.” For some reason this brings Sara comfort, and so she leaves it as the bell tolls and she goes to get her pomegranate and her medication. She takes the pill under her tongue, goes to the trash bin, and spits it out. She then goes to the bathroom and spends a few minutes looking in the mirror. Her halo brings out the brightness in her eyes, which she still wears lined. She feels beautiful.

I eat my honeycomb with my honey, I drink my wine with my milk.

Adam has written Sara a letter. He waits until he hears the bell toll and goes to catch her in the cafeteria. He walks up to her as she measures two pomegranates in her hands. He taps her on the shoulder, she jumps. She turns to look at him and sees that Adam too is glowing, he is haloed. And his eyes— his eyes are overflowing with vibrancy.

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He hands her his note, she takes it, and without pausing hands him the better pomegranate.

And she also gave some to her husband, Who was with her, and he ate.

Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked.

75

Uselessness: Things That Make Me Sad Ella Long

76

Uselessness: Funny Things Ella Long

77

The Dullest Hours Maddie King

Call me Lolita, Treasure me, as you say the name.

It’s a wonder no one has ever found a cure for boredom. I would think that scientists in pursuit of time scramble to find out why the minutes slow.

I imagine boredom as a kind of torpor, or trails of honey that catch insects. There are dull hours here. In the afternoons, between two and four— those are the dullest hours, when time winds to a crawl. In the summer, the air is as hot and wet as an open mouth. I try my best not to fall asleep.

I keep a journal close in case, in the absence of distraction, I might find it in my heart and mind to write some great…something. My mind works in two ways: one that bears the ordinary and one that spins the ordinary into gold. But when not a single world is written, I wonder whether there is any sense in my imagining.

Our shop is built like a greenhouse, with a glass roof and glass walls.

The sun shines from every angle, making me the fleck of dirt at the center of a prism that is full of light. I picture a jungle at the center of this prism, a jungle with crocuses and chrysanthemums and birds-of-paradise. I picture ivy that creeps up the glass walls to seal out the sun, but not entirely, so that light still trickles in small pools here and there. Gina tells me to be realistic. She said I wanted to work in a flower shop for the romance of it all, but that I got to start thinking about money. Money is what keeps you going, money is what makes the world go round, blah, blah, blah. She is not wrong, but I’m difficult. The things that matter are out of focus in comparison to the things everyone hardly pays attention to.

I like Gina, but she treats me like the woman in a glass house whose whole world shatters if she throws a stone. I’m twenty-one and a week, but Gina says I am just a baby. Gina is my teacher, and I am her pupil. She educates me on the conditions of the modern woman. Lesson number 1: be wary.

When she leaves for the day, she leaves the tinkle of bells behind her. I am free to think as I please. In the dullest hours, the shop is empty. The flowers bow their heads, neglected. I close my eyes and let my bare foot trail lazily down the leg of my stool. Some great man somewhere once wrote that one surrenders, helpless to the perfectly arched foot of a young doll, for there is nothing more divine—or something to that effect. Sometimes, I think about who I would be if I were a woman in books written by great men.

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“She felt the smooth petals of calla lilies gingerly.”

“She stroked the smooth necks of calla lilies with shy fingers.”

“She stroked the smooth swan-necks of calla lilies….her mind adrift.”

Call me Carmen—or anything that means desire.

I parody the muse. Perhaps the author, too. The writers I admire, I imagine, have more spirit than me. When the bolt of an idea strikes, you have to drop everything and chase after it That is what they do. In sleep, when the idea comes, they burst forth from their beds, shake sleep from their limbs and write the fleeting thought into submission. But not me. I stand perfectly still, hoping the thought will stay long enough in my mind for me to become accustomed to it. And so, in my paralysis, the thought passes quietly away, while I am left wondering what it is that I have forgotten.

When I leave for the day, I make sure to lock the door. I carry a lot of keys, and I’m clumsy with all of them. In the summer, it’s light out still when I lock the door. It is a relief not to have to creep home in the dark, like a mouse when the wolves are out. I walk the streets in simple, happy contemplation.

Conversation breaks forth from the bars as the sun sets and the air cools. The chatter rolls towards me. I peek in sometimes to see the show, but I never stay too late. When it is dark like this, I flee from looks and scurry home.

I forgot to mention that, in the dullest hours, my admirer comes to call on me. I say “admirer” with a great deal of amusement, and a pinch of revulsion. For the most part, my love lurks at the outskirts of my mind. He loiters around the shop, trampling the flowers under foot. Some he collects, to take away. He is a lumbering beast, my admirer is. His presence is just a wet little sound—a labored pant, that marks the half-minute with the maddening frequency of a leaky faucet. And always, I feel his eyes on me. I call him “my adoring pachyderm” with all the affection in the world. Gina would crinkle her nose at that. She won’t approve. I never look at him, so she can hardly say that I lead him on.

Mornings are ritual. If I am to walk out into the world, I must be fit to seize it. Call me Esmée, with love and squalor, but mainly love, if you would be so kind. Esmée could stand to see herself in a mirror—but I do not have the gift. I adorn myself with rings and bracelets. My fingers are not as long and slender as I would like them to be, my wrists are not as delicate. All the same, I am beautiful. Or so I imagine myself to be. I gild myself in sweet-smelling perfume and laugh at my own pretension. I can hardly wait to share latest news 79

of my adoring pachyderm with Gina. “What does that even mean?” She asks, as I knew she would. “It’s an elephant, more or less,” I say. I’m annoyed at this.

I can’t tell my stories if I have to explain them constantly.

Today, my jungle is not the lush paradise it usually is. The air is not as sweet to breathe; it has the rough quality of unventilated miasma. The concrete walls make the space look dull. I find it hard to concentrate on anything under these conditions. I spend my days drawing spirals in my notebook. Spirals that begin in the center of the page and go out, spirals that begin in the farthest corner and go in. I end up with ink stains on my fingers. I like them there, because they make me seem like an accomplished writer. And so, the hours go.

For once, Gina stays for the afternoon. An important delivery, she says.

I welcome the company, but I do not like the way she looks at me. Her eyes are full of reproach, or concern, I can’t tell. She is unwavering in her need to govern me. I turn a blind eye to her judgment. She oughtn’t disapprove of these unimportant things. All she does is blacken them into perversions.

Sometimes, I close my eyes to see the world better. I find that things make a whole lot more sense when there is less around to distract me.

I hear a conversation between Gina and my loving pachyderm. They’re behind the ivy, or somewhere far away. Behind my closed eyelids, their whispers sound far-away, like air blown through a glass tube.

“Your friend… gorgeous…”

“She has a boyfriend!”

“Could you ask her…”

“She’s a baby!”

“Baby?”

“You’re too old for her!” "marry…”

The conversation shatters.

Tonight, I wander. The sun unspools like a yellow skein behind the trees. I’ve entered the forest at the center of my city, where the undesired live. I pass ladies with painted faces, “Call me Alice,” I whisper. But their shadows are too-sim-mer-ing-ly slow for my ine-bri-at-ed- mind.

80

Group Movemetns Delaney Russell

In satin slippers they saunter, tranquil, And gather in gaggles on the glistening floor.

They return for routine rush to the barre Lengthen their limbs in lines of elation Each cyclical course a craving fulfilled.

The mirror tracks movement, momentum of prancing, And pirouetting ponytails pulled across faces By twisting turns taken too fast.

In rounds they race each rotation paced To a tune, tripping and twirling permitted.

With the exercise ended an electrified look Is shared by each swaying sighing dancer.

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baby girl

i​ ​order​ ​my​ ​own​ ​food​ ​now. when​ ​did​ ​that​ ​happen?

Brittany Watts-Hendrixs

maybe​ ​when​ ​i​ ​thought about​ ​writing​ ​a​ ​poem day​ ​after​ ​i​ ​got​ ​my​ ​first​ ​car. my​ ​dad​ ​followed​ ​me​ ​to​ ​school. would've​ ​been​ ​full​ ​of​ ​imagery about​ ​growing​ ​up ​i​ ​didn't​ ​write​ ​that​ ​poem. i​ ​ask​ ​my​ ​dad

"wanna​ ​know​ ​what​ ​I​ ​learned​ ​in​ ​school?" cause​ ​he​ ​say​ ​"Im’a​ ​‘lady’, it's​ ​a​ ​shame​ ​my​ ​room​ ​ain't​ ​clean.” so​ ​i​ ​say

"my​ ​cleanliness​ ​has​ ​nothing​ ​to​ ​do​ ​with​ ​my​ ​womanhood."

when​ ​did​ ​that​ ​happen? naked​ ​in​ ​the​ ​shower,

blood​ ​running​ ​down dark,​ ​brown​ ​grass​ ​i'm​ ​not concerned​ ​about​ ​shaving. when​ ​did​ ​that​ ​happen? ​(freshmen​ ​year,​ ​I​ ​can​ ​tell​ ​you​ ​that.)

point​ ​is,​ ​i'm​ ​washing​ ​my​ ​own​ ​hair​ ​now. last​ ​time​ ​Mama​ ​washed​ ​it was​ ​before​ ​i​ ​knew​ ​what​ ​american​ ​taken over​ ​my​ ​african​ ​roots​ ​meant.

i​ ​said​ ​"Mommy,​ ​i​ ​can​ ​wash​ ​my​ ​own​ ​hair!" why​ ​did​ ​that​ ​happen?

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there​ ​ain't​ ​none​ ​mo'​ ​luxuries of​ ​Mama's​ ​hands​ ​in​ ​my​ ​nappy​ ​head; food​ ​being​ ​ordered​ ​for​ ​me; reading​ ​in​ ​the​ ​passenger​ ​seat. baby​ ​girl. you've​ ​grown​ ​up​ ​so​ ​fast. short​ ​stories​ ​in​ ​elementary about​ ​erotica,​ ​full​ ​of​ ​excitement after​ ​shots​ ​to​ ​the​ ​uterus

cause​ ​you​ ​became

a​ ​woman​ ​ you​ ​don't​ ​wear​ ​bras​ ​anymore: all​ ​you've​ ​ever​ ​wanted​ ​was​ ​freedom. baby you've​ ​got​ ​a​ ​paper​ ​filled w/​ ​type-writer​ ​written​ ​words on​ ​your​ ​soul;​ ​knowledge about​ ​the​ ​bright​ ​blackness​ ​in​ ​your​ ​smile; melanin​ ​in​ ​your​ ​passion filled​ ​walk​ ​of​ ​day​ ​dreams; roses​ ​of​ ​conversations​ ​bout'​ ​why

you're​ ​objectified​ ​ making​ ​love​ ​in​ ​Giovanni's​ ​room; jammin'​ ​to​ ​poetry​ ​slams:

by​ ​all​ ​means.

clap​ ​away​ ​insecurities,

buried​ ​in​ ​social​ ​construction. you​ ​are​ ​beautiful.

you​ ​know​ ​you​ ​are​ ​beautiful. baby​ ​girl, no​ ​one​ ​can​ ​deny how​ ​you've​ ​grown​ ​up. taken​ ​your​ ​freedom from​ ​every​ ​hand​ ​trying to​ ​keep​ ​it​ ​from​ ​you.

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but​ ​i​ ​promise​ ​you, i​ ​blinked​ ​& somehow​ ​you​ ​showed​ ​up.

Please. let​ ​the​ ​big​ ​girl​ ​in​ ​us​ ​take​ ​a​ ​seat. on​ ​the​ ​passenger​ ​side, read​ ​a​ ​book,​ ​baby​ ​girl. let​ ​someone​ ​else​ ​order this​ ​time. allow​ ​Mommy's​ ​love​ ​2 caress​ ​your​​ ​young​ ​​scalp.

baby​ ​girl give​ ​me​ ​time​ ​to​ ​breath in out reflect​ ​|​ ​tcelfer.

84

Timbre

Kate Reichheld The colors in your voice resonate throughout and paint me up and down and in every small space there is light where before there was nothing and in each freckle there is a note where there once was silence.

At the nape of your neck there is a cleft, the beginning to every ballad ever written for somebody half dead and I would pull out my collar bone to give you a baton with which to conduct this, the choir of desire.

It’s pulsating in an aurora borealis bursting in physical crescendos that vibrate the soles in the shoes of strangers who filter past us slow Sunday walkers.

You say one syllable and the world is married to your music.

You paint me symphonies and scat to me Renoir, Pollock, and Singer Sargent in tones of deep forest moss of which I have decided to build a nest of and live in, listening up in the trees until the next Ice Age knocks me down.

85

See That Man? Miles Chandler

See that man over there? Behind the sandwich bar? The surly looking one. No not that one. The surlier one. Yes, him. That man is a sexist. Yes really; a raging misogynist. In a place like this and everything. A truly world class chauvinist, wouldn’t consider a woman to be more than a girl to be more than the sum of her parts. Probably hates his own mother. Heard he made a girl cry the other day, who knows what he said to her. I sure don’t, nor did the person who told me. But it must have been awful. The point being, he’s a bit of a pig if we’re being completely fair. He used to be a sailor, of course. That will predispose any man to an intransigent attitude of (what us scholars might come to call) purblind masculine hedonism. Any good sailor runs aground cock-first, ready to fall upon the reputable women or the local whores, whoever happens to be standing closer. Or at least so I’ve heard.

Regardless, he sailed around the Caribbean, switching vessels monthly, swashbuckling, probably braiding his facial hair, spending the day with the sun on his back, toasting, and gathering freckles as if they were worth a nickel a piece. (They probably didn’t know about the dangers of solar radiation back then; he’ll probably end up with some sort of melanoma.) I hear he picked up a ferocious drinking habit, and mostly ended up sunbaked as kelp at high noon, gasping for some noxious solvent with which he would scour himself up off deck or barstool. (Otro mas amigo, slurred from under a pink shiny nose and frayed thatch brim.)

Most nights, the humid breeze would lift off the water, seeping over the small sailing vessel, and raising goosebumps on any skin not swaddled by her sunbaked deck. Small waves whispered rhythmic meter as they enveloped the velvety hull, inches from his ear, reciting bucolic odes to the pastures of the sea. They would tell him stories; the last boat which passed over this precise spot, the last sea-troubled and care-worn hand to trail softly through this water, ripples and eddies a hundred years since smoothed. (He most probably wouldn’t have had a bunk; he was most probably an egregious freeloader. Pardon my saying so, but doesn’t he look the type?)

Once a month, though, the water is: placid, still, silken. The moon is large; soft and close enough to fill the palm of a hand, and settles right under the hull, a slow bloom of cream in an edgeless black mirror. The boat is skimming across a plane, as fast as a jet, and totally, awesomely still. In these moments, time disappears completely, the next landing as far ahead as the last one is behind: unfathomable, immeasurable, infinite. This is when he knows it is time to feel land underfoot.

Life will continue this way; working from one vessel to another, buoyed into placidity and out of time by fiberglass, wood, metal, and fabric, 86

(isn’t she a beauty? don’t she run fine?) The sun, the moon, the cream, water, will cycle again and again until, at that time of the month, the horizon and sky disentangle and shore emerges. One time, on a whim, he will walk away from the boat, get on a plane, and leave the sea completely. For the first time he will be able to remember, the horizon will be shades of grey, olive, and brick as far as he can see, perforated by the lapis eyes of suburban swimming pools: four-cornered, bleached, trapped.

Soon or much after, (old years crush and condense under the weight of new ones), he will find himself back again, staring across the same infinitely subtle azure curve, toes inches from the playful lapping of the past. His honeymoon hand is curled up in her smaller one. (Isn’t this typical of the convalescent conquistador: in a giddy fit of nostalgia, we see him display the old spoils to the new.) She feeds her livestock, wrestles rocks from the soil, and blooms or withers by the very season. A skeleton key, she is constructed of the correct angles, arcs, and planes to drop every reluctant pin locking shut his reticent being.

He will marry, settle, find a job, retire, get divorced, de-retire, and become a short order deli cook at an arts school somewhere in the Northeast. The shifts will be long, but after the fifth hour of the day, it all becomes smooth sailing, (so to speak.) He will captain a vessel that will run on dry ciabatta and go absolutely nowhere. Time once again becomes: slippery, illusory, abstract. Lunch is a high tide noon, and closing time washes the last recalcitrant loiterers out the door. Work-study students begin to blur together, the competent and incompetent, the ones who can make a proper sandwich and cut onions without shedding a tear, those who can’t, the inquisitive and the genuinely detached, the sweethearts and the classist bitches: antipathetic, transient, secured-for-takeoff. Names are exchanged, of course, but they melt into one another and lose meaning; Katiekatelyncorynatelievelynat: ink on a waterlogged page.

It is around that point in the month when the whispers start, after the wetness recedes back into the aquamarine eyes of the girl who apparently, (wouldn’t know a carton of curdled milk if it jumped up and bit her in the fat ass.) Around this time of the month, he became sick to death of feeling land.

87

Killing Spiders Amy Milin

Baby spiders clung to texture on my ceiling, pretending to be dust.

While baby spiders circled the big round light like a mother, I weaponized my blunt blue broom.

When stillness overhead signalled the killing hour’s end, I closed my eyes, saw thousands of swinging silver vines sprouting from the ceiling, glinting joyously as phantom creatures slipped down, a translucent army streaming over goosebumped skin.

Baby spider corpses smear like berries on my ceiling.

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Autoportrait Jules Evens

89

Lazarus

Miles Chandler Lazarus. A fell fellow, falling and tilting his way broadly down Broadway with lamp post walking sticks planted in the taught and tilting slabs, he trips his way along. It is a long way from the snaggletooth maw of Keeley’s Bar and Rarely Grill, short on reputation and solid consumables, out to the hell-hole Buick parked like a crouching dog an impossible two blocks on. Belly-up and blowing like a bellows he washes ashore on the harder-times hood, mottled and hammered like a copper kettle from a hundred fender benders. He lights a taillight-tip cigarette that wags evilly. I am an unspeakable being. I cannot be stopped by anyone, least of all myself. For the slope of the sidewalk is steep, and gravity is a cruelly persuasive mistress.

He slouches from the hood and slithers across the mirror, lurching up as the car swallows him whole through the passenger side window, eyes tripping and legs akimbo, patent leather tugged off the wet cement, glinting across the sky.

He rights his keel and lights another, smoke spewing blue and sibylline across the dash. Air conditioning. Dredges up a wayward bottle of clear gin from that swirling black hole passenger footwell, leans her into third and pulls away with a banshee scream of tire on pavement and a whiff of fried transmission.

I am—we are—a blight on this world. Take up space is never enough. Hope to not die before you find a good mate, procreate multiply the problem and the only legacy is the children, the children, small beings crafted in your image lives on tenfold and so the rotten thing begins all again. Eisenhower was a great many things, but was certainly no romantic when he paved this country, seatoshiningsea. Straight, square, uninspired, without the faintest intuition for ergonomics or curvatures.

Of all the divine geometry, there is no curve so exquisitely imagined as the divine arc of an ass cheek or the immaculately graded slope of a breast. gods I miss her sometimes. This old two lane highway is a slalom course, and he’s doing twice the straight-line displacement in half the time of standard vehicular travel, left of the line and right out of his mind. A ballast of dead soldiers, poptab cans and empty glass screeches overtures of this inebriate waltz across the median like the tone-deaf ghost of a leading mezzo-soprano. Oncoming traffic blares out in complaint, but it is far too deep in the morning for anyone to do anything. The apples were sour. They lay, soft and rotting on the ground, blooming bruises and wormholes. Another egregious pull on the bottle. A sweat of condensation, liquor fumes and cheap tobacco clings thick and oily to the windshield. It is scientific certainty that this fumigated, oscillating comet of meat, metal and ill will would fail any existing emissions test with full honors.

Belching and seizing, the Buick jumps a curb and wheedles to a stop astride a miraculous four consecutive parking spaces, discharging its captain and cargo, dead-footed, live-wired, and rolling every which way, onto the tarmac. DOTS90

DINER swizzles across the eyes, the neon branded fourfold into his eyelids.

But I was so parched and they smelled something wicked tempting. I smelled them and my eyes burned at their sharpness made my tongue water but I ate them and they filled my stomach is warm and the grass is brown and the ground jumps up to taunt me. Turbulent seas are these, and he is hard pressed to find the horizon.

With a sigh of relief and a hiss of the radiator, man and car leak fluid onto the pavement. Frightfully embarrassing. Would turn tail and retreat any other night at the thought of entering an upstanding, standing-up gastronomic establishment such as this in such a damply ignominious state.

But I hear the sizzling siren call of the flat top; sausage and sunny side up, hot buttered toast on its own side dish, all in the name of holiest self-preservative salvation. That oracle meal that ensures the day indeed dawns sunny side up instead of awfully poached or scrambled.

Stand very quietly, very still. The churning of the undergrowth grows stronger and I am weak, weaker knees than my first day alive I was spreadeagle shaking mother’s viscera from my back and the new green grass rose up to greet me as it does brownly now I am unsure on my own four feet. He stilts on jerkily, doing his weather best not to disturb the warm contents of his scuttled left shoe. The doorbell issues forth a betrayal of his anonymity, and he glares blearily around the vacant booths, shuffling quickly towards the chrome-rimmed counter.

Dot precedes herself through the kitchen door, tying on her apron for the day.

She is, in size and reputation, a prodigious woman. He is looked up and down, scoured with her scotch-brite glare, and it is time to leave.

I am an unspeakable being.

He melts off the seat and fixes a diagonal gaze on the door, weaving jerkily between chairs and tables.

Cup of coffee?

The glint of a cup landing on a saucer. The hot froth of poured diner coffee lands kindly on the ears.

What can I fix you? Provided you have money of course.

Lazarus returns, and nods an affirmation.

Sausage and sunny side up. hot buttered toast on its own side dish, all in the name of holiest self-preservative salvation.

Certainly.

The egg blooms onto the burnished griddle, edges whitening and leaping to life. Three plump links lie in mathematical parallel, adding to the chorus of hissing.

Deer season. These are venison. She prods a sausage. My husband got one two weeks ago.

From the horizontal vantage point afforded by his gymnastic slouch along the counter, Lazarus trains his open eye on the bounty to come. The yolk is mesmerizing, an arresting shade of deep orange, unbroken on a background 91

of purest glossy white. As it fries, the molten center moves sympathetically, a perfect hemisphere fluttering, vascular in the grease.

It was a bad birth. I could see things weren’t right in the whiteness of her eyes there was a window into the near future where the legs came first, bent and red is the color of fear cardinal on the frost and frozen ground.

You know, some people really just can’t stand the holiday season. She flips the sausage, now beautifully brown on the bottom. The cold, the dark, the expectations. It can certainly drive me up the wall.

A pause.

You nearly drove that car up my wall.

Sincerest mumbled apologies.

What brings you here anyways?

Like most things, it starts and ends with dawn. Or, in my case, it ends with Dawn and starts all over again with her mother somewhere around midday.

You’re drunk.

Terribly.

You really shouldn’t have been out driving in this state. You could kill somebody.

The slope grows in front of me and on top I can hear them roaring. It is flat and black and hard and they go roaring back and forth across the line.

If I were going to kill anybody, it would have been myself, and if I were to do it, it would have certainly been years ago.

The forthcoming dissertation on the perils of drunk driving is sucked up the fume hood with the sausage smoke. She chews her tongue.

In fact, he was intending on making it much further than here tonight.

I can feel the frozen ground turn to tar they papered over great ribbons of the grass with black stone, winding and melting across the land is slashed and scarred and they go roaring back and forth the wounds never heal.

I’d say I’ve still got a good hour to go before I get to Dawn. I expect I’ll be somewhat of a surprise guest at the party.

A periscopic finger orients itself vaguely at the furthest corner booth.

Not nearly far enough north. It’s her—grasping for arithmetic—eleventh birthday.

As punctuation, a hazy purple glow strikes the quilted chrome wall as the first hint of the morning sifts through the trees.

First she was alive, and he did not exist and in a moment she was dead and He alive lay by her soft belly, his fur drying in the morning air in his lungs for the first time his head dipped and rose in that time he was the youngest thing on earth just as I once was.

Dot tips the egg and sausage onto a well-scoured white plate and slides it across the counter, a plate of toast following, and decamps to the pantry with an unreadable look. This is good, because time was beginning to run perilously

slow, speeding up and slowing down like a broken tape deck. Miraculously, the first bite makes it mostly into his mouth, broken yolk dripping from the toast onto his chin. A vexing sensation. He was stiff on his side over the rumble strip legs were straight and hard and his fur matted and it buzzed when I walked near, one antler lay fuzzy a short way off. Some pork will set it right. He takes another bite, the skin of a sausage snapping between his front teeth. The sensation grows into a feeling, a hard knot in the stomach. His eyes were milky looked like his mother’s. Best ignored, more egg. Now the feeling is an imperative, and as he hastily shovels the rest of the plate into his mouth, his eyes begin to burn and water, great streams of tears cascading down his face and mixing with yolk to drip back onto his plate. He lay soft and rotting on the ground, blooming bruises and wormholes. Hearing the quite notable approach of Dot from beyond the kitchen door, he is washed from his seat and sent sailing on a saline tide back through the door and into the driver’s seat. One hoof then three more out on the asphalt. That wasn’t so hard. The lines go on forever across the horizon is waving in front of my face and infinitely far away they pave toward the exit that will never be reached.

Already speeding as he leaves the lot, Lazarus furiously cranks down the window and thrusts his head and torso out of the car, lest she be scuppered by the unabated welling of his red-rimmed eyes. With haste, he leaves the flood plain diner and seeks the higher-ground highway. Stand very quietly, very still.

Death is all in the waiting. Wind snatches at my face, but even the air cannot slow my passage now. For there is a monsoon to my back, licking at the wheels, ravenous waves reaching out to snatch at the bumper, and great god she’s never run like this before, motor calling out like a wounded animal, even this might not keep us from the roiling maw of the great storm behind, with whitecaps breathing scorn in my ears, hail and all the rest, I can feel it tremble up through the soles of my feet. Across the horizon I can hear it roaring on.

Tears stream across the windshield and windows, eddying and jumping to join the roaring maelstrom chasing the car. His bare neck warms as the sun washes away the four lanes of wet asphalt in a blinding glare of white surf. Sun warms my back breeze in my ear. There is not a daybreak that I can remember, though I’m sure I’ve been awake, sick and reeling, to see them all.

Here it comes roaring.

A wide white eye and fast brown back appear in the lane. He wrestles the wheel, awash in the surf, but the road shimmers slick. The whirling storm engulfs the Buick, sluicing the car over the guardrail, tumbling. The horizon falls and then rises, an arbitrary line, another fracture in the spiderweb windshield.

This is the problem with humans. You can never satisfy the unslakable thirst.

93

The Monastery

Connor Batsimm

Chester says to meet him behind the monastery at 10 PM. He says he’s going to take you and the baby up to his aunt’s house on Lake Superior, where the water is the color of cotton candy. He says don’t be late. You’re in the kitchen, eating a peanut butter and banana sandwich, eyes darting to the clock every few minutes, watching the big hand wander up to 10. You’ve stuffed a few dresses, some sweaters, your bathing suit, into your book bag. Your book bag looks older than you remembered. Its edges are starting to fray and turn yellow. Maybe Chester can buy you a new one, when you make it up to Lake Superior.

It’s a quarter to 10. You lace up your shoes and duck out the back door, careful it doesn’t thud behind you. Daddy’s in a deep whiskey sleep and would be in one evil mood if you woke him. Imagine how evil his mood would be if he knew you were going to Lake Superior, where the water is the color of cotton candy. Imagine when he finds you gone. Imagine if he knew you were never coming back. You jog out through the cornfield, out to the old wood fence. There’s a hole up ahead where three of the fence boards have fallen down. You squeeze through. It’s tighter than you thought it’d be. When did you gain so much weight? You were always so thin.

You’re almost done packing. A few dresses, some sweaters, your bathing suit. But you’re starting to lose focus. You keep thinking about cotton candy. You keep thinking about baby names. If it’s a girl, you want to name her Amanda. If it’s a boy, Peter. You hope it’s a girl. You’re losing focus. Your fingers are fiddling with the clasp on your book bag. It’s new, a present from Cousin Margaret for your 16th birthday. You keep forgetting to send her a thank you card. You’ll be sure to send her one once you get to Lake Superior. Maybe you can find a postcard.

It’s almost 10. You’re almost at the corner of Willow and Main.

That’s where the monastery is. But something’s wrong. There’s an ugly blue light sneering out at you. It’s shining from a strange building on the corner of Willow and Main. It’s where the monastery is supposed to be. You’ve never seen this building before. It’s low and square, in the middle of a big lot, next to a banner that says “Ernie’s Glo-Bowling and Fun Complex.” There’s something wrong with the cars.

You pull yourself through the hole where one of the fence boards has fallen down. Your body is coiled and tense like an elastic band. Your belly is 94

just starting to swell. You bounce along the dirt path through the cornfield, book bag flopping up behind you. The night is hot and wet. You can almost taste cotton candy. You wonder what Chester thinks of the name Amanda.

It’s bright in here, and the air smells like oil and meat. There’s a song playing over the loudspeaker but it’s backwards and warbled, like it’s trickling through a tin can. A short, sweaty man is looking across the room at you, feet digging into the greasy carpet. He’s red in the face, talking into some kind of strange telephone. His eyes are glued to you. You think about asking if he’s seen Chester. You wonder where Chester is. Maybe he’s also here, confused, pacing the greasy carpet, wondering where the monastery has gone.

The monastery looms over you, granite spires clawing into the hot sky. It’s old, built long before anyone you know lived here. Hundreds of years ago, quiet men in dark robes sat here, poring over ancient books. You wonder where Chester is. Probably running late. Your eyes dart across the cornfield, scanning for Chester’s car, a pale blue 1936 Pontiac. You remember the time he picked you up from school. How the other girls talked. You think about how they’ll talk now, after you disappear. You sit down, leaning against the brittle monastery wall, and wait.

The short, sweaty man is standing in front of you, talking animatedly, waving his arms. Next to him is a very large, older man with a thick beard.

“Excuse me, sir, have you seen Chester? He must be so confused, looking for me.” “This is the third time this week. Always like this.” “Mom, it’s Peter.”

“Look at her bag. It’s completely rotted.” “It’s Peter. Your son.” “Chester’s meeting me at the monastery at 10 PM.” “Chester’s not coming. He never does.”

“Next time I’m calling the police.” “Mom.” There’s a cotton candy machine on the other side of the greasy carpet. It’s spinning sugar glass the color of Lake Superior.

It’s midnight. You lie in the corn grass, beside the monastery, on your back so you don’t hurt the baby. You think about the quiet men in dark robes who sat here, hundreds of years ago. You think about baby names. And then for a while you don’t think about anything at all.

95

Iowa

Cara Geser These rolling hills Remind me of the sea: Dunes that dance on sand castles, Waves that crash on beach towels, That night you and I Saw an owl fly And you said: did you see?

And I do, still.

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Submit art and writing to folio@skidmore.edu

Submit art and writing to folio@skidmore.edu