The Subterranean Literary Journal #2 The Transfiguration by Tom Brierley

THE SUBTERRANEAN LITERARY JOURNAL #2 #4 #9

#10

RESTORATION LOOP THE TRANSFIGURATION

SERENITY

LOOKING-GLASS HOUSE

RICO CRAIG

MOHAMMAD SHAFIQUL ISLAM

WILLIAM HENDERSON

After months of hard work, system errors and Turkish hackers we are finally able to present you with the second issue of this independently published #15 literary journal.

#15

Although it has MANIPULATION taken us a little longer FIRE ENGINE IN HELL than anticipated to produce, it has been an experience that anyone here at the subterranean would happily go through again, the endless submissions, never ending probCHRISthe FUQUA HOWIE GOOD lems and one hell of a collection of stories, poetry, photographs and illustrations later, we have eventually made it through and are better people for conquering the troubles caused by modern technology. ‘The Transfiguration’ is the title and reoccurring theme of this issue. The work sub#21 mitted deals with change and reinvention. Since its humble beginning in the THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO surprisingly warm December ofCOYOTE 2010 and our first WILE E. drunken fumble into the publishing universe we have aimed to produce something that maintains the original principles from the MIKE MAHER previous issue but that offers a wider range of reading material for the discerning consumer of the non-celebrity biography whilst saving a few shilling on the cost of the first.

CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS

JOE URSO

#22

#24

NOT THAT AGAIN

DETENTION WITH MR L.

MIKE MAHER

STEPHAN MCQUIGGAN

I suppose now is as good a time as any to thank all the delightful #28 people who have #36 helped make this issue, all the contributors and illustratorsMARKET who have made this publi-EXACTLY WHAT IT LOOKS TOWN cation possible, as well as everyone who LIKE submitted work to the subterranean literary journal, as without them these last few months would not have been half as pleasurJ A MORTRAM SOLOMON GRIEVES able, it is only a shame that space confines us to limit the number of stories we can include, but reading every piece of work has been exceptional and left us longing for more platforms to produce independent stories and poetry, which will hopefully lead to an interesting and diverse future for The Subterranean Literary Journal. #43 #44 WELCOME TO AMERICA Liam J. KellyGOGI & T. E. Brierley

#16

#40 THE ANGST OF ANGELS

JOSEPH REICH

#48

CULTURAL EMERGENCY

HOW TO BUILD THE UTOPIA

MARINA RUBIN

KATHY L. GREENBERG

OISIN FAGAN

#51

#53

#56

KINGS

THE PEEN

AND WE ALL KNEW THAT NO ONE WOULD BE HOME

OISIN FAGAN

KIMBERLY CAMPBELL

LIAM J. KELLY & T.E. BRIERLEY

00 / 01 / 02

#10

RESTORATION LOOP

SERENITY

LOOKING-GLASS HOUSE

RICO CRAIG

MOHAMMAD SHAFIQUL ISLAM

WILLIAM HENDERSON

#15

#16

MANIPULATION

FIRE ENGINE IN HELL

CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS

CHRIS FUQUA

HOWIE GOOD

JOE URSO

#21

#22

#24

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO WILE E. COYOTE

NOT THAT AGAIN

DETENTION WITH MR L.

MIKE MAHER

STEPHAN MCQUIGGAN

#28

#36

#40

MARKET TOWN

EXACTLY WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE

THE ANGST OF ANGELS

J A MORTRAM

SOLOMON GRIEVES

JOSEPH REICH

#43

#44

#48

WELCOME TO AMERICA GOGI

CULTURAL EMERGENCY

HOW TO BUILD THE UTOPIA

MARINA RUBIN

KATHY L. GREENBERG

OISIN FAGAN

#51

#53

#56

KINGS

THE PEEN

AND WE ALL KNEW THAT NO ONE WOULD BE HOME

OISIN FAGAN

KIMBERLY CAMPBELL

LIAM J. KELLY & T.E. BRIERLEY

00 / 01 / 02

THE SUBTERRANEAN LITERARY JOURNAL #2 The Transfiguration

THE SUBTERRANEAN #2

ILLUSTRATION

PHOTOGRAPHY

EDITOR Liam J. Kelly liam@thesubjournal.co.uk

Bethany Armstrong bethany@newrosesewing.co.uk Kings (p51)

ART DIRECTOR T. E. Brierley tom@thesubjournal.co.uk

Karolina Burdon karolinaburdon.blogspot.com The Angst Of Angels (p40)

Bethany Armstrong bethany@newrosesewing.co.uk Cultural Emergency (p44) The Peen (p52)

SALES & ADVERTISING info@thesubjournal.co.uk

Abby Butcher themagiciansassistant.tumblr.com Detention With Mr L. (p24)

ABOUT THE JOURNAL www.thesubjournal.co.uk twitter.com/TheSubJournal ÂŠ copyright 2011 The Subterranean Literary Journal All pieces are copyrighted to their original authors. The Subterranean Literary Journal is designed, edited, published & handmade independently by Winter Island Press. www.winterislandpress.co.uk

Crow Versus Crow crowversuscrow.blogspot.com How To Build The Utopia (p48) Anne-Marie Jones annemariejonesillustration. blogspot.com Looking-Glass House (p10) Sky Nash skynash.co.uk The Gospel According To Wile E. Coyote (p21)

T. E. Brierley tom@thesubjournal.co.uk Editorial (p2) Jim Mortram james.mortram@hotmail.co.uk Market Town (p28 - 35) TYPOGRAPHY T. E Brierley tom@thesubjournal.co.uk All other typgrographic peices Sky Nash skynash.co.uk The Gospel According To Wile E. Coyote (p21)

^THANK BOOKS

+++ U^CONVENTIONAL +++ U^PREDICTABLE +++ U^THANK +++ WWW.U^THANKBOOKS.COM

ADVERTISE HERE We have decided to accept advertisements in our journal, although we feel there may be some negative effects of this, the revenue it generates ensures that we can offer the journal at an affordable and more accessible price. The adverts will be placed in the back of the printed version and the front of the online one, creating a fantastic opportunity for companies wanting to target their marketing and writers and other literary minded people. This would be perfect for literary agents, publishers, new book releases and other services for writers. The prices for placing an advert in The Subterranean Literary Journal #3 will be: Full Page: £15 Half Page: £10 Quarter Page: £7

We will offer heavy discounts for non-profit organisations so please get in touch if business is of charitable nature. We’re also going to be quite picky about which ads we publish, they’ll have to meet a certain level in terms of aesthetics and the service or product advertised will have to be genuine. If you need any help with advert concepts or design we have graphic designers and creatives here at the journal who can create your ad for you at an additional cost. If you would like some information on our readership numbers or if you have any general inquires please email tom@thesubjournal.co.uk

RICO CRAIG

I start and end with a guy knocking at a door and giving me a lift to London. I remember nothing of the ride. Of London, I remember the dream created by Mexyl, the people in my part of the dream and how the end swooped upon us and tore out the life we’d discovered. Then, I wake, there’s a knock at the door. I walk through a house I don’t recognise and accept a lift to London. I play my part. A tiny part; a second in the longer day.

RESTORATION LOOP

envelopes, heavy slabs of paper, it felt like money, bound with twine. There were a few papers already gone, blind birds up into the traffic on Chalk Farm Road. They got most of them; she had a bunch against her chest all bent and crumpled, she pointed with her free hand to the leather pouch flung open against the wall.

This is the loop the wash has put me in; it is the part I play in Puritas.

Stephen looked around as he stepped up close to the pouch. The street was empty, a few parked cars, quiet cross street a short block down. Blank brick walls all around. He picked up the pouch. Clare dug around inside. Her hands pushed the papers to one side; she slipped a glass pill bottle from under an elastic strap in the centre of the pouch.

“Hurry.”

The Mexyl flood happened at the same time as Gloating Goldilocks initiated the Olympic Puritas policy. Mexyl helped people get used to the changes quick. Mexyl was so good, Mexyl was so easy to get. Nothing could stop the joy of Mexyl. We accepted the new rules. We knew Mexyl was everywhere; we were all sellers, all dealers, all users. Pubs became “intoxicant venues” and we accepted the new name. We accepted the lines outside intoxicant venues; we waited patiently to undergo face recognition and fingerprint identification. We accepted the strangeness of Olympic Puritas because it came wrapped in Mexyl.

“Look.”

I’m returned. I hear the knock again. I answer the door. These parts never change.

I was happy. It felt like everyone was happy. Until flood turned into shortage and the wash started to remove people from the streets. First days, months ago, I didn’t know I’d stumbled into a blind paradise. Not far from where I slipped on my first day in London, Mexyl was about to be found and everything was about to change _ Horns from the intersection. Oily exhaust. Reggae came from a shop selling diesel jeans. Crisp wrappers caught in the gutter, tripped around ankles and caught at the next barricade. Thousands of feet, boots and sneakers moved in a scrape, tap, slide of more or less decisiveness. I walked along the gutter. Spying, fox – faced. Ready to run. The traffic sped up. My foot hit a crushed plastic bottle, brittle crackle as I stepped onto the footpath. I slipped. A guy helped me to my feet. He smiled at me and tried to speak English. We walked off together into the market crowd. _ Stephen made tracks to the door, swung it open and stepped onto Chalk Farm Road. It was three quarters night and windy. Noise on the street was blunt mechanical after the warm pub voices, through the cars he heard Clare call his name. There was alarm in her voice. On the side street there were papers blowing along the footpath. Clare was crouched and grabbing. Left arm crossed over her chest, right hand snatching the moving papers and jamming them under her elbow. Stephen moved toward her, catching papers she missed. He grabbed a couple of A4

“Quick, let’s go!” Stephen pointed up toward Chalk Farm Road. Clare was already moving, Stephen bumped behind her. The bottle was in her fist. They crossed and turned left, the corner blocked any line of sight from the pub.

“What’s that?”

Clare looked at the bottle. It was getting close to dark. There was a label stuck on the bottle. They stopped in front of a kebab house, Euro dance came from out the back, mauve curtains across the window. Down lights from the awning were bright enough for Clare to get a good look at the label. She had the bottle cupped in her hands like a baby bird.

“What does it say?”

Clare ran a finger on the label. “Sanol, Mexyl Hydrochloride, but that doesn’t mean anything.” She shifted the bottle closer to her face. _ Months later I was found running a trip to the minimart. Clutching a bottle of water. A white van pulled over. The driver opened the door and ordered me in.

“I have to give you a ride sweet.”

I looked at him. All I could see was a pig-mask. I knew it was the wash. “Why me?” I asked. He didn’t answer. I got in. There was no use running. He drove into a tangle of streets I didn’t understand. He turned on some sounds. It was the wash preparation audio. A voice talking in savage detail about Mexyl. I fell into a kind’ve shocked unconsciousness. … Me sitting in the clinic waiting room. The doctor is down a corridor behind a red door. “Do you understand naivety?” “Everything is gone, and if I start again nothing will happen.”

04 / 05 / 06

RESTORATION LOOP

RICO CRAIG

Preparation audio plays at low volume from speakers in each room. Mexyl Hydrochloride or Sanol (trademark name) was developed as a meditative assistant in the early 1990s. The compound is unique in that it combines the attributes of a dissociative anaesthetic with stimulant properties. Six reclinable seats spaced evenly on the left and right walls. On the far right hand seat a middle aged man sits with his eyes closed. Intravenous tubes snake from the crook of each elbow. The tubes are taped to each forearm; one tube runs deep purple-red, the other milky-yellow. The drug creates a blockade at the NMDA receptors, dissociation of mind and body is combined with acute consciousness of mind operation/function. Transient phenomena manifests as highly developed empathy for individuals in immediate proximity of user. “Sights” described by users are the result of maintaining a low level of Mexyl Hydrochloride intoxication. “The plasma entering your left arm is held at temperature slightly lower than your body. As the plasma enters the blood stream it might cause a slight chill and temporary loss of sensation in one half of the body.” Mexyl Hydrochloride has been used as a recreational drug since the late 2009. Recreational use increased significantly during the winter of 2010. Often known as Mexyl or messiah. Initially produced in tablet form, recently produced in blocks with wax-like texture. High level dosage often results in an entheogenic state: commonly described phenomena include; a sense of timelessness, travel through darkness, visions of ineffable light, memories emerging in consciousness. “Over ninety percent of patients who undergo this procedure report amnesiac sensation of varying degree.” High level doses can result in “Outside Sights” empathic hallucinations that originate from recently encountered external stimuli. Low and High level doses commonly result in paranoia, obsessive/compulsive behaviour and memory impairment. Heath risks associated with Mexyl Hydrochloride include: impairment of basic motor functions; personality variance; and kidney malfunction. _

Gaston moves around me with the glass in hand, the dark caramel colour of the cola is marbled by the light. He sits on the far corner of the bed, near me feet, and takes a sip of the drink in his hand. “You want this?” He holds the drink toward me. I shake my head; my mouth is dry but not sweet wanting. “Where are we?” I know this has happened and will keep happening. _ A brisk wind blew across the promenade. Stephen tapped at his leg with the rolled up exercise book. The channel chucked suds against the pebbles. Brighton was cool and shiny. A smudge of white cloud was in swift moving tumult across the blue, afternoon sky. “All the way?” Stephen looked from Gaston to Astrid. “We’re here,” suggested Astrid. They took a ramp down to the beach. Stephen a few paces ahead, Gaston and Astrid lingered on the slope. Stephen reached the pebbles and looked back over his shoulder, Gaston was taking his hand from Astrid’s face. Stephen turned away from them and crunched out over the rounded rocks. Astrid kept her eyes on the channel. “Does it make you feel anything?” “It makes me think of how our ideas disappear. They turn to nothing in front of you. In a place like this, on some stupid holiday, you start to see them with real eyes. You feel bad for them.”

I think I’m awake, for a moment, I think I can smell the sea. I’m wrapped in the dreams I’ve been having; they’ve been part future, part past. Things I half recognise, the ghost of what I might be or might have been.

Gaston held his hand on Astrid’s face.

I see a shape moving toward, from the darkness of a doorway I don’t recognise. It comes closer and I become aware that there is light coming from a window off to the right of the bed I’m in.

“Seven years for a new body?”

Gaston doesn’t smile when he looks at me. He pockets a lighter with his right hand and keeps moving toward me. There’s an incense burner in his left hand. I’m struck by the oddness of it all. He lets the thick smoke curl over his cheek. Sandalwood scent swiftly starts to fill the lounge room. He lifts the burner and walks toward the bed. Smoke floats with him, a tower wavering and disappearing; reforming as he stills. He steps past the bed and places the burner where I imagine the windowsill to be. I don’t turn to look, I let him pass out of my sight then return.

05 / 06 / 07

I look along the length of my body concealed by the sheet and prop myself up from the bed. “I’m awake, yeah.”

She nodded against his hand. “The world turns us into a thing we’re not.” Her hand brushed his fingers. “You won’t know this person in a few years.” From a distance Stephen watched his new friends; people he’d only known for weeks. Mexyl had accelerated every aspect of their friendships; years had been lived in hours. He felt like he’d known them half a lifetime, yet all their hopes were still gleaming with possibility. _ “Brighton. You still remember?” I nod. “Not for much longer, you’re starting to lose it already.” He takes another sip of the cola. “I think it’s true what they say about the wash.” I nod again.

He returns with a half-finished glass of cola.

“Remember the other nights while you can,” he says trying to smile.

“You awake?” he asks.

And, I do – I think.

RICO CRAIG

_ Astrid inhaled all the music and smoke-machine mist she could fit in her lungs. She felt the warehouse bang around the confines of her slender chest; the band knocking quick and jagged against her ribs. Gaston smiled at her. “I have to find my friend. Come with me?” “This is great!” She said in answer and hated herself as the words came out of her mouth. They walked through the crowd. Soundwaves from the bass drum shuddered through her ribcage, people were dark silhouettes against stage lights. Gaston took her hand and led her through the crowd. There was breath and heat all around them. Astrid could feel moisture in the air as they squeezed sideways between bodies. They circled to the front, Gaston looked at his phone, he turned her to the back of the room. To the rear corner, where the crowd was not so dense or warm. Gaston found his friend, they embraced and began to speak. Astrid leaned forward to hear the conversation, it was half lost in a crazy punk sax riff. Astrid felt something in the half heard confusion and let herself fall on the feeling; it was something like the best love she had known, the first love she felt a part in creating. The guy Gaston had embraced stepped back. He had a cigarette in his hand. Ash trailed as he moved his arm. He flicked a fragment of ash from his tie. The ash dropped and drifted toward the ground. His name was Stephen, she’d know this soon, very soon. Around them were scattered tins, crushed or rolling on the wooden floor, damp with spilt beer, dead ends of tabs, charred tobacco soaking up slimy damp. He had a green tie over black shirt, he had half a mouthful of lager left in his can. The girl next to him was Clare. Clare handed Stephen a small pill bottle. Swift looks checked the immediate vicinity, stopped on each other, Clare nodded to him. Stephen took the bottle and bent down to open the lid. Gaston glanced down. When Stephen stood straight he reached a hand to Gaston. “I’d do it.” Stephen said as he looked at Astrid. He held her gaze for a moment then let his eyes flicker down to her lips; she’d outlined them with a thin pencil line of green. “Gaston told me he was bringing someone. Said you wanted to try the new thing with him.” Astrid nodded her head “Yeah, you look ready.” He started to laugh. She followed and their laughter cut a bright gash through the bass. Gaston leaned close to her and placed a tablet in her open hand. _ “You remember how it was everywhere. We got lost in pubs like they were whole worlds.” _ Time started a haywire run. Working, flat-

RESTORATION LOOP

tening perspective. Near and far were equal. Astrid felt herself in every form; future, past, all crowding together. The four new friends twisting words around each other. All the futures and failures blown into consequence. Haywire selves ran into closing time. She took a last breath of grey air and stepped from the Mixer onto Inverness St. The footpath was mucked up with rotten shit from the fruit stalls, torn and crushed cardboard boxes, squashed apples and lost spuds in the gutter. She exhaled into the night air. Gaston looked down the street, back to her face, then down the street again. She listened, bewildered, as the pub began to empty onto the footpath. Gaston Took her arm and they turned, walking along Inverness. After a few step a woman stopped them and offered a flyer. Astrid took it The woman was twenties, a bit dance and moddy and gothy, part insect dainty. She had a handful of flyers. The woman smiled. “Are you on a sight?” Astrid didn’t answer. The woman continued, “First time on Mexyl?” “Maybe it is, we’re not sure.” _ I stand up from a bed. I don’t know where I am. I’m wearing my clothes. I don’t have much time to look because there’s a knocking coming from out in the hall. I step through the doorway and look to each side. There’s a smell I don’t manage to place before the knocking starts again. I turn to my left, toward what must be the front door. I move seven or eight steps down the thin hall, stop at the door and listen to the knocking again. This time it’s accompanied by yelling. you.”

“Come on I’ve got a delivery for

I open the door. Cold air and spits of rain sweep in. A man clothed in blue stands at the doorway, blue puffa jacket, blue drill cotton trousers, blue v-neck pullover, a blue cap. On his puffa, a patch – white with a red border, red print in the centre – indicating the company name, Reliance. The man looks down at a printed sheet, clipped to a clipboard held in his left hand. “A delivery for Mr Daley.” He glances up at me. “You Mr Daley?”

I shake my head.

“Na, didn’t think so.”

The delivery man reaches over with a black ballpoint pen, indicates a blank rectangle beside a printed address with the nib. “You can sign here anyway.” He hands me the clip board and turns away. I see a white van parked out of the street. The sliding door of the van drags open and thuds to rest, there’s a sharp screech of metal on metal and the grate of hardened steel on concrete. The

06 / 07 / 08

RESTORATION LOOP

RICO CRAIG

sounds of suburban quiet enter through the doorway, wind ruffles loose pamphlets on the front landing, the sliding door slams closed. I smell the sea. “No idea what they’ve got in here, but I tell you what I’ll be heaps quicker on the way home.” The delivery man looks up at me as he pulls the trolley over the front step. “Where you want ‘em?” He pushes in through the front door and stops in a TV room just off the entrance. “Here?” I feel myself nod. He abruptly angles the trolley forward. The top box tilts and slips forward from the angled push of the trolley, the metal tray slides from under the bottom box, wheels leave a moist imprint on the carpet. For some reason I turn away from him. I’ve still got the clip board in my hand. As I turn I notice a bag against the hallway wall. I step over to the bag and pick it up.

Silence hangs for a few seconds.

The delivery man rolls the trolley forward a touch. “Where you going?” he asks. My shoulders slump. I turn to the question. “I don’t know.” I look at the boxes, the anonymous furniture marking the edges of the room. The delivery man raises his eyebrows. “You got your bag ready and you don’t know where you’re going.”

I don’t say anything.

“I got one not far from here, then I’m back to London.”

Restoration Loop is part of a sequence of loosely connected stories following a bunch of drug-chasing characters around various places in England. The narrator in Restoration Loop has been through a government run detoxification program called the wash; the program forces her to re-experience a sequence of events until she can be declared free of reliance. Rico’s writing has appeared in numerous print and web publications; links to recent work can be found at: http://flavors.me/roboteye

07 / 08 / 09

MOHAMMAD SHAFIQUL ISLAM

SERENITY

MOHAMMAD SHAFIQUL ISLAM

We are turning thunderstruck for the terrific pageantry of bubbly milieu, fresh, fervent, fabulous, frisking in fast, fine breeze, frequently passed through by aficionados, coming from far and near, for psychic equanimity, all modern masses keenly hang around for in shine and rain; ruckus is increasing, the enthusiasts are hording as if paradise were along on earth.

Mohammad Shafiqul Islam received his BA Honours and MA in English at the University of Chittagong in Bangladesh. Currently he is teaching at Shahjalal University of Science and Technology, Sylhet, Bangladesh, as Assistant Professor in the Department of English. He enjoys teaching and writing. He writes poetry, fiction, as well as non-fiction. Music, travel, childhood memory, fine humour â&#x20AC;&#x201C; these are a few of his favourite things. Mr Islam, in common with many other writers, is harvesting his life for his art. He routinely keeps heedful notes of people, places, and events, and he uses and reuses these notes as the raw material for his writing. His poetry appeared in SNReview, Flutter Poetry Journal, and Right Hand Pointing, the literary journals based in USA. He occasionally contributes to The Daily Star, the leading English newspaper in Bangladesh. He is, moreover, translating celebrated Bengali writings into English. He dreams to see a world sans war, terrorism and poverty. He may be contacted through e-mail: msijewel@gmail. com or Mobile Phone: 8801712282136.

08 / 09 / 10

WILLIAM HENDERSON

LOOKING-GLASS HOUSE

WILLIAM HENDERSON

The lights in the waiting room at St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center are bright and my eyes hurt and I can’t look at anyone and I can hear my son, Avery, struggling to get out of his stroller, but I can’t look at him and my wife – who I will have to learn to call my ex-wife – Holly tells a receptionist that we are here and the receptionist hands Holly a clipboard with some questions to answer and Holly asks me if I can write and I say no, and she says she will do it. We sit in a small waiting area that feels separate from the rest of the waiting room. The chairs are pink and some kind of light wood. The chairs look very well worn. Others have sat in these chairs and waited for an evaluation to determine if they were or weren’t crazy. I have stepped inside a looking-glass world. Inside this looking-glass world I sit, shattered. I know that the king’s horses and the king’s men can’t and won’t put me back together. Have I been together? You and I were together. We were. I don’t think I’ve been all there. The lies were too much. You were too much. You wouldn’t have picked me. You didn’t pick me. How could I have loved you? How can I never again get the chance to tell you how much I love you? Holly doesn’t ask me how to answer the questions. She knows my reason for coming. She is my reason for coming, but really, you are my reason for coming, and even further back, Avery, who has no idea that I tried to kill myself a couple of hours ago, is my reason for coming. No, I am my reason for coming. I cannot live the way I have been living. I don’t mean you. Or I do, but mostly I mean living in a marriage that I have known was broken and dead for several years. I mean living a lie. You were not a lie, even though you must think everything we had, everything we were, was nothing more than another lie lied by another man who has hurt you. This will help you, Holly says. You’re doing the right thing coming here.

I don’t know what to do, I say. I don’t know how to fix all of this. Start by fixing yourself, Holly says. Your children need a father. The receptionist calls my name and Holly gets up. Avery says mommy, daddy, mommy, daddy. He doesn’t understand why he is up so late. Holly pushes the stroller and I walk beside her, and she doesn’t hold my hand, and the receptionist brings me to a woman who will decide whether or not I need St. Elizabeth’s. It is after midnight or maybe after 1 a.m. It is Friday morning. Do you still want to die?, this woman performing the evaluations asks. I know she introduced herself. She must have introduced herself. But I wasn’t listening, or I didn’t hear her, or I am unable currently to comprehend the English language. I don’t think so, I say. No, I don’t want to die, I add. I just want to sleep. Do you want to hurt anyone else?, the woman asks. No, I say. I don’t want to hurt anyone. I never meant to hurt anyone. I hurt the people I love most, and I don’t know how to unhurt them. What happened?, she asks me. And I know I have to tell her, just like I knew two days ago – was it only two days ago? – that I had to tell Holly everything because I couldn’t go on as if nothing had happened. Everything had happened. I tell this woman, this stranger who will decide if I can get help there or not, our story. I tell her our story the only way I know how to tell our story, in the order that makes the most sense so that she will know how much I love you and how badly I want to make things right. I tell her our story so that she’ll understand how much I’ve lost. When I finish talking, it is nearly 2 a.m. and the lights in the waiting room at St. Elizabeth’s no longer seem as harsh and as bright as they had when we got here. Avery

10 / 11 / 12

WILLIAM HENDERSON

LOOKING-GLASS HOUSE

is starting to squirm. He is hungry. Soon he will start asking for ummies. Or juice. Or something that I’m not sure Holly has brought with us. There’s not much time to consider all possibilities when your husband has just tried to jump off of a bridge. I am just so tired, I say. If I won’t check myself in voluntarily, she can admit me for 72 hours without my consent, because she thinks I am still a danger to myself. I tell her I will check myself in. I know I need help. She explains my rights as a patient at St. Elizabeth’s, and she brings me to another room where a nurse asks me to take off my clothes and put on a hospital gown. Holly and Avery come with me. Holly looks tired, and Avery is very much awake. He asks for food, and Holly, as I had expected, doesn’t have anything for him. The nurse says she will look for something. I do not blame you for my being here, though part of me thinks I should. I no longer have you. I have hurt Holly. What do I have to show for any of it? An African-American nurse comes into my room and brings Avery a book and some crackers and juice and Holly sits there and talks to me, but I can’t look at her, and I just rest my head on the pillows in the bed and cover up with the thin white blanket they have given me. I am shivering and I want another blanket and I get out of bed and walk across the room and the floor is cold. Avery throws his crackers on the floor and asks for more, and Holly gives him more, and I open the door to my room and walk to the nurse’s station and ask for another blanket, and a nurse tells me to get back into bed and someone will be with me shortly. The first nurse brings me a heated blanket and draws some blood. She asks if I can pee in a cup for her. They want to know what I have in my system, if I have anything in my system. I tell her I don’t have to pee, and she says she will bring me water, and she does, and about 10 minutes later, I have to pee, and I go to the bathroom. There is neither a mirror nor anything else someone could use to hurt themselves inside the bathroom, except maybe the water in the toilet bowl, though I can’t imagine anyone sticking their head in the toilet to drown themselves. I pee in the cup, and I bring the cup to the nurse, and she takes it from me and tells me to lie back down. I go back to the room, and Holly says she needs to take Avery home, and I say, OK, and I say thank you for bringing me here, and she says she just wants to make sure I am safe, and I say I am sorry for everything, and she says she knows. A different nurse comes in, pulls a chair to the side of the bed, and asks what brought me there and how I am feeling and if I still want to die. I say what I had said earlier: I do not want to die. I did not want to die. I hadn’t known what else to do. I still don’t know what to do. I tell her how we

11 / 12 / 13

had met, and how we had fallen in love, and how hard hiding the truth of my feelings for you from Holly and my marriage to her from you had been. I say that I am just tired, and I don’t know why I am tired, and I don’t know when I stopped reading and watching TV and writing and how my job was getting harder, and how I hadn’t even told you about it because I didn’t want to talk about my job with you, and how I couldn’t get you sober, and how I thought you had wanted me to help you get sober, and how you had lied to me and how you had known exactly how best to hurt me, and I keep saying that I need to apologize and I need to make sure that you are OK and I need to make sure that you will be OK. William, the nurse says, you need to take care of yourself. You cannot save him. You are not Superman. And I say that I’ve had to be Superman my entire life. I’ve had to save everybody, or at least I thought I had had to save everybody, and I had been Superman when I met him, and he opened a door for me and I fell through and somehow I ended up in a phone booth and he is my Kryptonite and he took away my power and I don’t recognize myself in the mirror and I hurt both of the people I love most. And she says there is no such thing as Superman. There is no such thing as Kryptonite. She says that you are not a phone booth. And I say that you are my phone booth. And I stumbled into him, and now look at me, I am just like everybody else. And she doesn’t get the Ani DiFranco reference, and she says, honey, you’re not just like everybody else. How many other people do you see in this room who was standing at the edge of a bridge a few hours ago? I lose time. The nurse is there and then she isn’t. A different nurse comes in and takes my temperature and my blood pressure and she says that I am going to my room soon. She dims the lights. I am under two blankets, and I’m still cold. I think how 72 hours ago, you and I were having sex, and I was a little stoned, and you were a lot stoned, and I loved you and was a few days away from sending back the ring to be resized, and now I am in a psychiatric hospital and you never want to see or speak to me again. A large black man comes into my room and says I have to get into the wheelchair. No one checks into the psych floor without riding in a wheelchair. He says he’ll have to go through the bag Holly packed for me. I don’t think I have any contraband, I say. You’d be surprised what they don’t allow around here. On the psych floor, I see a clock that does not have hands. I think I have to remember to tell Holly about the clock because it seems somehow important. I think I have to remember to tell you that the White Rabbit would never know if he were late or not if his pocket watch had had no hands. I do not feel like myself. I feel gray and empty, as if the color gray is a feeling. The emptiness I understand. You are gone. You have abandoned me. I am checked in. The man tells me to get

WILLIAM HENDERSON

out of the chair. My room is down the hall. From here, he says, you have to walk on your own. I have my own room. I choose the bed nearest the window. From the window, I can see the sky and the roof of a neighboring building, and the roof is covered in pebbles. There is a large pile of cigarette butts. I wonder who goes up here to smoke. Outside the window of room 5370 at St. Elizabeth’s, the world continues. I should have picked the bed furthest from the window, but when I picked this bed, I thought seeing the world continuing would feel reassuring. Instead, I am convinced that you and your world have continued well without me in it. I am alone. Holly will be back later with Avery, she had said last night – this morning – but right now I am alone. I am not ashamed that I tried to kill myself. I think I should be ashamed, but I am mostly relieved. I had been living under such stress that breaking – and more than my heart has broken – is a relief. The lies are done. We are done. My marriage is done. I am not angry with you. I think I should be. Part of me hopes I get angry soon. I go to sleep. When I wake up, I have slept for 12 hours. You finally respond to the e-mail Holly sent you on Wednesday. Was it only on Wednesday that everything ended? A woman named Erin wakes me up sometime after when I think lunch must have been. It is still Friday. Erin is not alone. She is standing with a young woman with long black hair and a pink hair band. Erin is talking and her words are exaggerated and loud. Everyone at St. Elizabeth’s talks like this, almost as if I’m a wounded animal that is preparing to bite the first hand that comes near. Maybe I am a wounded animal preparing to bite the first hand that comes near. My name is Erin and I run the partial hospital program at St. Elizabeth’s, Erin says. This is Intern. Can you come talk with us? I tell them I can. I get up and I realize my head no longer aches. Only when I realize my head no longer aches do I realize that I had been living with a pain between my eyes and at the back of my neck for the past few weeks. Erin, Intern, and I sit at a round table in an office a few doors down from my room. Erin asks how I’m doing, and I tell her I think I’m doing fine. I am starting to feel like myself, I say. I’d like you to start attending the partial hospital program on Monday, if you feel ready, she says. Ready for what?, I ask her. Ready to start working on your recovery. A doctor I have not seen before checks on me later. I have not left my room since meeting with Erin and Intern. The doctor is an older guy, balding, a bit pudgy. He wears a white lab coat. He wears his white lab coat open. He has on a pair of jeans and a faded black T-shirt under his white lab coat. He says he wants to run more

LOOKING-GLASS HOUSE

tests. Why, I ask. We found faint traces of a tricyclic in your urine. I ask him what a tricyclic is. He tells me that it is an antidepressant. I don’t know how an antidepressant would end up in my urine. I tell a nurse later that I want the chance to apologize to you. I say you never want to hear from me again. The nurse smiles. I think he’s gay. He says, send a note. Don’t sign it if you don’t want to. Don’t put your return address on it. He’ll read it and know you’re sorry, and you will know he knows you’re sorry. I get a roommate Friday afternoon. I wonder what brought him to the unit. He’s wearing jeans and a button down. He looks normal, but I look normal, too. He unpacks his bag. He has brought 17 pairs of white underwear. He counts each pair as he puts them in a drawer. His hair is brown and unkempt. He is wearing glasses. Holly tells me that you’re willing to switch back stuff with her. This shouldn’t be my job, she says. I was not part of your relationship, and I should not be part of its end. Avery sits in my lap briefly then wanders around the room. He climbs on chairs and stands and laughs and says, daddy, catch, and he jumps, and sometimes I catch him and sometimes he lands on his feet, and only once does he fall. He doesn’t cry. He picks himself up and laughs again and comes to me and hugs my legs and I try not to cry but it is hard not to cry and I ache inside because all I want to do is cry and it is Friday night and the week before we had made love in the afternoon and I had brought over balloons and you were planning to get high with your friends and I had decided that the only way I could help you was to show you what you were doing to yourself. I knew recording you and your friends getting high, and then snorting pills, was risky. I rationalized that I was doing it because you asked me to do something, but that’s not entirely true. I knew I could lose you, and that I probably would lose you, but that you might recognize what you were doing to yourself and stop. Partners sacrifice. Leaving the phone in your room was as close as I could get to taking the source of your migraines out of your head. It was as close as I could get to healing the scars on your arm. It was as close as I could get to telling you how much I loved you. It was a mixed CD. It was Friday night. It was walking at the Charles River. It was all of it, until it was none of it. I fucked up, I tell Holly. She asks if I’m talking about her or you. I say both of you, but mainly you. She says she isn’t ready to talk more about it. I tell her that I tried so hard to please both of you, and she says that I certainly fucked that up. I need to hear her say that, no matter how harsh it might be. The room is probably where staff eats meals or where some group activities take place. There are boxes of magazines and games, and on the walls, someone has hung inspirational posters. Just hang in there. The road may be long, but the destination

12 / 13 / 14

LOOKING-GLASS HOUSE

WILLIAM HENDERSON

is worthwhile. When the going gets tough, just keep going. Nothing is as permanent as you think. Life is a gift; treasure it. I wonder if these posters and their inspirational slogans really work for people, or if others, like me, think they’re nothing more than words you say to people when you don’t know what else to say. When were you planning to tell me about him?, she asks. Maybe about three months after the baby was born, I say, though I think I would have had to tell you sooner. You would have been able to be away from him or her. I would have told you D and I were in love, and that I was going to move in with him. I would have told you I wanted to get divorced because I wanted to marry him. What about the kids?, she asks. D and I had talked about having a room for them. You wanted them to live with you? No, I say. Part-time. You and I would have co-parented. But you would have had someone to help you co-parent. Yes, I say. That would have been fair, she says. She is being sarcastic. After only 20 minutes or so, she says she should go. She promises to come back the next day, but doesn’t think she will bring Avery. I ask her if I can call her during the day, since I can make and receive phone calls. She says that would be fine. I hug Avery and I kiss Avery and he kisses me back and he tells me he loves me and I tell him I love him and I put him in his stroller. Holly and I don’t hug or say I love you. She says to try to get some sleep, and I tell her I will. I tell her that all I want to do is sleep. She says I must need it, but not to stay all day in my room. People will think you’re depressed, she says. I tell her that maybe I am a little. I tell her that my heart hurts. I tell her that I don’t know how to make my heart stop hurting. Does it hurt for him or for me?, she asks. I can’t mourn the end of my relationship with you while I’m mourning the end of my relationship with him, I say. If I have to do that, I will drown. She leaves and I watch her and Avery walk through a door and down a hallway. I walk back to my room. My roommate is trying to sleep. He asks for more Ambien, and a nurse tells him he has taken all he has been prescribed. He asks for cigarettes, and the nurse tells him they can’t give him any. He asks for peace, and the nurses say he has to find that on his own. I don’t ask for anything. The social worker assigned to me comes in and pulls a chair over to the side of my bed. She asks how the visit was, and I tell her it wasn’t long enough. They never are, she says to me. She asks how I’m

13 / 14 / 15

feeling, and I tell her that I’m starting to feel like myself again, but that I don’t know how I’m going to survive losing you. She says you can’t really lose people. He’s still there, she says. You never know what the future holds. And I tell her that you don’t go backward. I tell her that you end things, and you end them permanently. I tell her that you got a restraining order against me. She says people grieve in different ways. She tells me that you’re probably hurting as much as I am. She tells me that I don’t know what’s going on in your mind. He broke our life, I say. He broke me. Are you mad?, she asks me. Fuck him, I say. Fuck him for killing it. Fuck him for killing us. Finally. Anger. Why did you think you had no choice but to kill yourself? I love him, I say. I love him still. I had been trying to take care of him and keep him safe. I’m not answering her question. I know I’m not answering her question. Don’t you feel the same way about yourself?, she asks. I had asked him to marry me, and he had said yes. We deserved a better end than this. She says that not every love story is a novel; some are short stories. I heard that on an episode of Greek, I say. She laughs and says her daughter heard it on that same episode. I am surprised that she tells me she has a daughter. I had thought in places like St. Elizabeth’s, people like me are the ones who share, while people like her keep as emotionally distant as possible. She sees people like me come and go, and she sees people like me come back and leave again. I tell her that I am looking forward to the final season, and she says her daughter doesn’t want the show to end. Everything ends, I tell her, and I feel those two words are the most profound thing I have ever said.

“looking-glass house” is an excerpt from House of Cards, William Henderson’s in-progress memoir. Other excerpts have appeared in journals and magazines in seven countries. He has written for newspapers and magazines; writes a weekly column, Dog-Eared, for Specter Literary Magazine; a monthly column, The Writing Life, for Hippocampus Magazine; and he will be included in two forthcoming anthologies: Stripped and The Other Man. He also contributed to the Dear Tuesday and Dear Teen Me projects, and regularly contributes to Queers on the Verge. Also, NAP Literary Magazine will publish his first chapbook in January 2012. He is a full-time father to his children, Avery and Aurora, and can be reached at wil329@yahoo.com, on Twitter @ Avesdad, and through his blog, HendersonHouseofCards. wordpress.com.

C.S. FUQUA. / HOWIE GOOD

MANIPULATION / FIRE ENGINE IN HELL

C.S. FUQUA.

A massive earthquake stokes the media, a 24/7 spree for the news channels. Thousands dead, but the tragedy’s face is a girl, no more than twelve, dressed in multicolored blouse and shorts, feet bare, skin pale with dust, body broken, a cold, glassy stare from the rubble where she lies, and donations pour in. Years ago, another girl, perhaps nine, died, sporting a fuzzy purple jacket, jeans, and a bow in her matted hair, a streak of blood across one cheek, skin pale with dust, feet missing, her body cradled in the arms of an old man standing in a flatbed truck laden with bodies to be buried with tens of thousands more. No one recalls her. Responsibility does that.

C.S. Fuqua’s books include Alabama Musicians: Musical Heritage from the Heart of Dixie, Trust Walk, The Swing: Poems of Fatherhood, and Big Daddy’s Gadgets, among others. His work has appeared in publications such as Main Street Rag , Dark Regions, Christian Science Monitor, Bogg, Year’s Best Horror Stories XIX, XX and XXI, The Old Farmer’s Almanac, and Honolulu Magazine. Please visit his website at www.csfuqua.comxa.com.

FIRE ENGINE IN HELL HOWIE GOOD

A man jams fistfuls of dirt into his mouth. And why not when nations sell weapons to their enemies? Probably the first paint was animal blood. In one of the suburbs of suffering, children breathe in sparks and thick, black smoke. Upstairs, I bend forward, working. My wife trembles as in the aftermath of an accident. If everyone is doing it, she reasons, it must be OK. Contraptions of unnecessary complexity clutter the yard. Sometimes grasses or roots grow through them. Strange men in suits mingle on the sidewalk with our neighbors. Flames, encouraged by the shouting crowd, smile and point.

Howie Good, a journalism professor at SUNY New Paltz, is the author of the full-length poetry collections Lovesick (Press Americana, 2009), Heart With a Dirty Windshield (BeWrite Books, 2010), and Everything Reminds Me of Me (Desperanto, 2011), as well as numerous print and digital poetry chapbooks, including most recently Love Dagger from Right Hand Pointing, To Shadowy Blue from Gold Wake Press, and Love in a Time of Paranoia from Diamond Point Press.

17 / 15 / 16

MIKE MAHER

NOT THAT AGAIN

I go to sleep awake and wake up asleep and tired. I’m not sure what that means either. Everyone else surely dreams about dreaming too, wakes up a squirrel and has to use the bathroom. Better hold it. Your dog has to go out. He can wait but sometimes he won’t. Will power has nothing to do with it. All day pain relief depends on your definitions of all day and of pain and of relief. Poetic license and all that, even for drug companies. Our odds of surviving arm amputations have come a long way since Gettysburg, the then 77% survival rate now easily in the upper 90s. Hip wounds still stuck but they used to be fatal. I too was brought to the edge of town and told to walk west, but they spared me the boulder and mountain routine. Don’t stop or look back or we’ll shoot. Where have we gone wrong this time? Almost everywhere. When you try to concentrate you can’t help but think how one cell phone could have won the war. Well, probably two. She made a mistake getting the name Paul tattooed on her body three separate times.

mike Maher. is the editor of Sea Giraffe Magazine, and he currently reads, writes, and edits in Philadelphia with his dog, Young Money. In addition to The Subterranean Literary Journal, his poetry, fiction, and personal essays have appeared in several publications, including Contemporary American Voices, The Smoking Poet, Paper Darts, Hippocampus Magazine, and The Copperfield Review, among others. He has a BA in English from East Stroudsburg University, where he served as the Vice President and Forum Editor of The Stroud Courier, won the Jim Barniak Award for journalism two times, and won the Martha E. Martin Award for poetry, before graduating cum laude.

22 / 23 / 24

STEPHAN MCQUIGGAN

DETENTION WITH MR L.

STEPHAN MCQUIGGAN

There was a bad atmosphere in class today, throughout the entire school in fact, a feeling of creeping sickness. The children were too quiet, behaving themselves too well, for him not to be suspicious. The mood was tetchy in the Staff Room, every word spoken like a match on sandpaper. Yes, a bad atmosphere thought Mr Leonard, a ‘bad vibe’ as the children would say or some such - they always spoke so crassly, making up nonsense words, or misappropriating perfectly good ones. The mobile phones were to blame of course. Idiotic little things. Texting was confounding their illiteracy and their dyslexia. How could he teach English to children intent on reverting back to the primitive grunts of their forebears? He had confiscated four of them already this morning. It was a losing battle, like the one he fought daily with baldness. Please Mr L, don’t bust our Mobys! Every sentence shortened and squashed as if it were a gargantuan effort to speak, to communicate properly. If you could not communicate then violence was inevitable. Violence in schools was on the rise. Mr Wylie, the headmaster, was forever banging on about it in assembly but to no avail. Only a fortnight ago Mrs Walton was slapped by some little lout for chastising him whilst he tried to set fire to his stool with a Bunsen burner. First the slaps, then the knives, then the guns. Before they knew it they would be in the USA. They copied everything from there nowadays. He moved his chair back from his desk, crossed his hands across his tie, and watched his pupils pretend to read. They were quiet. Too quiet. Poring over Shane. He hated that book, it would give them ideas; still, at least it wasn’t Lord of

23 / 24 / 25

The Flies. ‘Please Mr L,’ Brad Foster had his arm up, his elbow supported by his hand; so lazy. What kind of name was Brad anyway? A whole class filled with ridiculous Brads and irritating Kylies, names not fit for a dog. Oh, what he wouldn’t give for a Cornelius. ‘Sir.’ ‘What?’ asked Brad. ‘If you wish to address me you address me as Sir, or Mr Leonard.’ ‘Please Sir, Mr L Sir.’ A couple of the others sniggered. Mr Leonard frowned, unsure whether Brad were clever enough to wind him up or not. ‘Yes Brad?’ The boy mumbled something, his face reddening for no apparent reason. Mr Leonard prayed the child had not wet himself; there had been several cases of auto-urination lately, a sure sign of a bad home. ‘Enunciate boy!’ Brad grew redder. ‘Is it true your wife’s left you Sir? That she ran off with some coloured fella?’ Laughter sweeps the class, sharp and vicious and knowing. Bad news travels fast, picks up speed as it rolls downhill, all the way down to the snot nosed and ignorant. ‘That is none of your business, now carry on with your reading. I’ll be testing you on it later.’ He should have been firmer, but the look on Brad’s face made up for it; he had been expecting him to lose his ‘cool’ no doubt. He’s trying to get me to send him out of class thought Mr Leonard, to further some nefarious plan he’s hatched. Why else would he display such blatant cheek.

STEPHAN MCQUIGGAN

‘How does it feel to get dumped Mr L?’ Robin this time, a truly ridiculous name for a girl, a truly ridiculous girl, but attractive nonetheless, her jailbait lumps already stretching her sweater. He felt like retorting, You’ll know yourself one day, but he doubted she ever would. He said nothing. She was looking out of class too. He would need to stay vigilant whilst he pondered their game. The whispers started up again. The bad feeling he’d had all morning grew stronger. ‘My wife has left me.’ He spoke loudly, nipping this particular attack in the bud. Robin laughed, a tinkle of broken glass swept up by the ensuing silence. ‘Her boyfriend is not ‘coloured’, nor a member of an ethnic minority. Not that I would have a problem if he were. Now carry on with chapters four through six.’ A row of hands shoot up. He looked at Brad and nodded wearily. ‘Can I go to the toilet Mr L Sir?’ ‘May I go. No, you may not.’ ‘But Mr L, I’m bursting!’ The boy wiggled exaggeratedly, clutching at his groin to elicit giggles from the girls. A real little hotshot, one to keep an eye on, but he wasn’t that clever if he thought that old ruse would work. Maybe he should let him out, follow him, or would that be too risky? Maybe he was just a decoy. First he had brought up his wife, then feigned imminent micturation it was obvious he was desperate to leave class because something was about to ‘go down’, but what? ‘I’m gonna pee myself Sir.’ ‘Then you can mop it up.’ Laughter. Eleven years old and they still find bodily functions hilarious. Excrement was their holy grail, but urine would do at a pinch. Mr Leonard sat and stared at the future before him, and the future stared back with vacant eyes. He noticed Miles folding a piece of paper, then popping it into his mouth when he saw that he had been spotted. ‘What did that note say?’ ‘What note Mr L?’ asked Miles, chewing ostentatiously. ‘No matter.’ But it was indeed, for that note could have been their very blueprint. They were shifting strategies now. Was it so far fetched to think they planned to destroy the entire school? They could find out how on that damned internet, and that caretaker Hanlon was always in cahoots with them, showing them mucky books and letting them smoke. He might have helped them; there were rumours he had done jail time. Sad to think a full grown man, a custodian of the school, would act out some latent rebellion through the children. Maybe it was a sex thing. There had been a lot of

DETENTION WITH MR L.

reports on the news lately of such things. No matter how stringent the screening process, the perverts always managed to slip through. ‘I’m going to need all your mobiles.’ ‘But Sir, I wasn’t even using mine, it’s turned off and -’ ‘Now!’ He took a bag from his desk drawer not the drawer) the proceeded down rows, having them drop them in one time. ’You’ll get them back at the class.’ A blatant lie.

(but the at a end of

It would take time to check them all, time he feared he did not have. They would contain messages that confirmed his suspicions, hopefully written in some semblance of English and not the usual Enigma Code they used to text. Some of the girls had tears in their eyes even, he was disappointed to note, his dear Lucy, his brightest pupil. They handed over their virginity with nary a thought, and the bastard offspring that followed that joyless deflowering too, but they could not part with their cell phones without breaking their hearts. It was all that rubbish on the boob tube; everyone cried now, it was de rigueur. Every channel devoted to some nobody sobbing about their traumatic ‘journey’ on some singing contest or other. Such tat had taken the spine out of the nation. It was enough to make one weep. ‘You can survive a half hour without them,’ said Mr Leonard, though deep down he thought that might be a lie too. Miles refused to hand his over. There was always one budding James Dean. Mr Leonard was grateful that Miles was last, that his example could not spark a mutiny. Or was it Myles? Probably. Almost certainly. The ‘y’ would make all the difference to his oh so trendy parents, believing they were individualising their little clone. ‘I don’t have a phone,’ said Myles. ‘I never use them.’ ‘I confiscated one off you only last week. Hand it over.’ Myles chewed on his lip, gathering together all the wisdom that coursed through the meagre circuitry he called a brain to find the most cutting response. ‘No way.’ A small cheer from his classmates. Mr Leonard had a choice to make. He took a deep breath and gazed on the peeling posters of Shakespeare and Shaw; the word ‘Ratso’ scrawled across the bard’s forehead by some witty little claw. ‘I’ll count to three.’ He could count to a trillion and three and only succeed in making Myles more of a hero. His decision was made. He struck the boy as hard as he could, the echo of the slap ringing off the walls. There was a collective gasp that sucked all the air from the room.

24 / 25 / 26

STEPHAN MCQUIGGAN

DETENTION WITH MR L.

The boy’s face reddened dramatically, a string of drool dangling from his chin onto Shane. He stood up quickly, knocking over his chair, his hands balled into tiny fists, a lethal combination of rage and humiliation in his rodent eyes. ‘Just try it boy,’ said Mr Leonard. He was prepared to make a martyr or two when the school was at stake. Myles calculated his options then grabbed his bag and ran for the door, but the door was locked. Mr Leonard had also calculated his options. The boy kicked half heartedly at the door, his shoulders slumped. Children give up so easily nowadays. Mr Leonard took the bag from the unresisting Myles and rummaged through the detritus until he found his phone. ‘Go back to your seat.’ ‘You’ll be sorry,’ said Myles, ‘you wait and see.’ ‘I already am, believe me,’ said Mr Leonard. He knew the more he provoked them, the more he scared them, the more they would show their hand. The only way to save them was through fear. When he was a child they had devised a weapon capable of wiping out entire civilisations in its mushroom folds, and the fear it had engendered had kept the world safe ever since. Fear was the way forward. He would be their Atom bomb, and his morals would be the fallout that infect them in the years to come, an apocalypse of manners, a carnage of ethics, that would obliterate their indolence for generations. And this, thought Mr Leonard, surveying the classroom and the feral little brats locked inside, would be ground Zero. Only the pure would survive the destruction of his teaching.

Spare the rod and spoil society. This pampered generation had grown cocky. A good caning would work wonders, but now even their parents could not chastise them. The world had been handed over to callous youth, but he would learn them nonetheless. Myles, the handprint still visible on his face, was Lesson One. The bell rang. ‘I’m putting you all in detention as of now,’ said Mr Leonard, squashing the joy that had suddenly sprung up. ‘Unless one of you tells me what you have planned.’ ‘My dad picks me up, if I’m not there he’ll come looking for me.’ Robin, indignant. A general murmur of agreement followed my dad picks me up too, my mum uses auntie Dawn’s car, my sister will be mad - but Mr Leonard cut it short by slamming down a chalk duster on his desk, creating a thick fog around himself. He struggled not to cough, to afford them a small victory. ‘Good,’ he said to Robin, ‘I look forward to chatting with him. Maybe he can enlighten me as to what his daughter is up to with her little cronies.’

Lucy looked terrified. Poor Lucy, he had such high hopes for her.

‘You can’t just keep us prisoner,’ said Brad.

If only he could get her alone he was sure she would open up to him, reveal their plans. She would know, she was that kind at the heart of things; pretty, a figure too for all the age of her. Even though Count Acne had been feasting on her of late he had not stolen her burgeoning beauty. If only he could talk to her, she was such a sensible child

‘What would you have me do? Let you loose to destroy the school? I think not.’

No point in ‘if only’ - if he went near her there would be trouble. Children were volatile substances, they could not be handled (approached would be more appropriate) lightly by adults. The others would say he was trying to seduce her, that by taking her out of class he was planning to interfere with her, touch her breasts. Titters he thought involuntarily and shuddered. That’s what the Watson boy called them look at the size of Lucy’s titters. Little heathen. He found he was staring at her, and she looked more frightened than ever. Didn’t they know I was young once thought Mr

25 / 26 / 27

Leonard, that I too had music and gangs and fumblings? They think they invented rebellion. Not even allowed to hit them now, that’s what’s wrong. In my day the teachers would knock seven bells out of you, and if you went home and told your father then he would knock another seven out of you, saying you must have done something to deserve it.

‘I think you’ve lost it Mr L.’ ‘Maybe once,’ he said, sticking his face into Brad’s, relishing the way the boy cringed. ‘But I found it again, never you fret.’ Brad made to get up but he struck him down, drawing blood from the perfect little face. ‘Sit where you are!’ Brad was whimpering now, one more push and he would spill his guts and the school, the precious school, would be safe. ‘So Brad,’ honey now, a balm for the boy’s emotions, ‘what is going to go down, as you say’ ‘I don’t, I don’t -’ He cracked the back of his hand across the boy’s face, leaving a milkshake scar and sending a rope of bloody snot arcing over the desk, clinging to the print of Shaw like a bejewelled snake.

STEPHAN MCQUIGGAN

DETENTION WITH MR L.

through you. I’d even hazard a guess it was planned to impress you.’ ‘Please Sir, I -’ ‘You were lax in not disclosing this. Your own silence has condemned you.’ He drew his hand back again, a mock feint, and Brad’s will broke. ‘we were going to water bomb basketball practice Sir, it was all Myles’s idea Sir, the third year’s took his dinner money and -’ ‘Bomb?’ Mr Leonard felt his stomach plunge. ‘Bomb?’ Never in his wildest imaginings had he envisioned such a depraved attack. The tabloids were right after all, this country was broken, beyond fixing, if even school, that bastion of knowledge, that fortress against ignorance, was a target. ‘You were going to the bomb the Sports Hall?’ ‘Yes Sir,’ said Brad in a small voice. Did those cow eyes expect forgiveness? Those damn eyes so like his wife’s… ‘My God, you are an animal,’ said Mr Leonard, ‘a filthy untrustworthy beast.’ ‘It was only meant to be a laugh Sir -’ ‘A laugh! Has all humanity left you boy?’ ‘Just a few balloons filled with water Sir, we were going to fill them in the toilets and then -’ ‘Don’t try to weasel out of it, you’ve already condemned yourself. I must stand as judge and jury and I find you all guilty.’ He turned, surveying the whole class. ‘I find you all guilty.’ Mr Leonard walked to his desk, his hands shaking ever so slightly. There was something incredible in the top drawer. He said a little prayer before plunging his hand in. he felt an enormous surge of pain shooting up his left arm, then the icy aftermath gave way to a serene calm. It was psychosomatic he realised, a satiation of lust.

Before she could utter another inane syllable he pointed the gun and her eye socket turned into a violent wildflower. ‘Why did you leave me?’ said Mr Leonard, almost to himself. It was an eternal second before the screams began. He shot Myles, then Brad, and fired randomly at the ones huddling beneath their desks. A few sat docile, unbelieving, even as their heart blood stained their white shirts. He unlocked the door and stepped into the silent corridor. Everyone had gone home, everyone except Mr Thompson and the third year boy’s taking basketball practice. The third year was filled with subversives. It was time to be proactive. From the balcony overlooking the Sports Hall it would be easy; fish in a barrel. Oh, they would write such headlines tomorrow. They would praise him for doing what needed to be done, for fighting back. He would be the inspiration for others. He reloaded outside the Sports Hall door, the squeak of gym shoes setting his teeth on edge, then he climbed the stairs eager to help fix Broken Britain.

Stephen McQuiggan, a factory drone from Northern Ireland who resembles a less jovial Mussolini, has been published in Prole, Gold Dust, The Artillery Of Words amongst others, and been broadcast on RTE. He features in the current anthologies from Mirador and Grist.

His hand clenched into a fist, sweat like tears in his palm. He brought down his other hand to comfort it, cajole it up back out of the drawer and into the light (say amen to the hand that returneth to the light!) . Inside his fist was greasy sin. A sin to answer sin. Holding his breath he watched his hand twitching amid the confiscated phones and gum and Johnson’s Dr Who badge, then brought the gun up to a chorus of shrieks. ‘I’m so disappointed in you Lucy. You most of all.’ ‘I haven’t done anything Sir!’ Tears in her eyes, little crystalline pools of guilt. ‘Lucylucylucy. You are the most popular girl in your year, the leader of the pack. You can’t tell me you didn’t know what was going on. I imagine the grapevine runs

26 / 27 / 28

MARKET TOWN J A MORTRAM

For the last 18 months, I have been recording life stories and memories of people on or far beyond the outskirts of my local East Anglian (UK) market town community, through collaborative environmental portraiture, interviews and straight documentary shoots. Often overlooked and unseen by the people around them, or seen and judged without care for the stories to be shared and rich bonds to be forged, these are moments of daily endurance and musings that in a generation will have passed forever. The Market Town series, I’ve come to learn, is not a project but a product. A product born from where and when I and the people I photograph are from. I know for as long as we’re here, I’ll continue to make this series, until the bonds of this small town’s inertia are breached. For any or all of us.

J A Mortram is an award winning photographer of environmental social reportage stories and portraiture.He currently works as a Carer in the family home Based in East Anglia, UK.

^THANK BOOKS

+++ U^CONVENTIONAL +++ U^PREDICTABLE +++ U^THANK +++ WWW.U^THANKBOOKS.COM

THANK YOU FOR READING Thank you for reading The Subterranean Literary Journal #2 Online. This free version has just a selection of the content weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve featured in the full print and digital versions, they include another 5 short stories, another 5 poems and more photographs in the Market Town series.

For more information on our other editions please visit the following URL: http://www.thesubjournal.co.uk/journal-archive/the-subterranean-literary-journal-2