The Vortex November 2013 by The Vortex Magazine of Literature and Fine Art

November 2013

CONTENTS | November

Art : 06 | Dirty Windows,

Michael Ferrara

Fiction :

08 | Light Streams,

04 | Interviews From the Asylum,

Michael Ferrara

10 | The Night Old Dewey Cracked,

Jeremy Ellis

21 | Treatment,

Taylor Lea Hicks

Taylor Lea Hicks*

20 | Knoop at Midnight,

22 | Within,

Jeremy Ellis

27 | Wood Line,

07 | Straight Edge,

Emily Walter

12 | Carousel Days,

Taylor Lea Hicks

15 | Grazzioso Massage,

Candace Baker

17 | Sonnet In Search of An Author,

Cameron White

24 | Nothing Sweeter,

Jeremy Ellis

28 | My Words,

Janie Brown

27 | Foundations,

14 | Ancient Wood,

Michael Ferrara

Poetry :

Taylor Lea Hicks

Michael Ferrara

30 | Phobia,

13 | Trashcan Romance,

Taylor Lea Hicks

28 | Canine Vane,

Taylor Lea Hicks

31 | Enemy at the Gate,

Michael Ferrara

36 | Box Cat,

Kayelin Roberts*

38 | Lighthouse #2,

Michael Ferrara

42 | Neon Stars,

Michael Ferrara

On the Cover : 40 | Shadow Dock,

Taylor Lea Hicks

Nonfiction :

Media :

14 | A Horse, Of Course,

Visit thevortexmagazine.com to view the media selections from this issue.

Alex Dunn

* - These pieces were voted Best of Web for this month.

Staff | November

Prose Fiction Editor / Emily Qualls Poetry Editor / Christopher Hall Fiction Judge / Candace Baker Fiction & Poetry Judge / Emily Walter Fiction Judge / Tabitha Galbraith Fiction Judge / Alicia Brautigan

LITERATURE & ARTS thevortexmagazine.com

Editor-In-Chief / Taylor Lea Hicks Asst. Editor / Kayelin Roberts Layout Editor / Ashley Thomas Asst. Layout Editor / Ernesto Pe単a

Poetry Judge / Jeremy Wade Poetry Judge / Jordan Lapio Poetry Judge / Courtney Ragland

Media Media Editor / Michael Tatum

Art

Copy Editor / Savannah Moix

Art Editor / Shane Hawkins

Asst. Copy Editor / Sara Cervantes

Art Judge / Anastassiya Khvan

PR Consultant / Sheldon Slinkard

Art Judge / Katelyn Spencer

Faculty Advisor / Garry Craig Powell

Art Judge / Sam Denning Art Judge / Marissa Brantley

Scriptwriting Scriptwriting Editor / Tre Sandlin Scriptwriting Judge / Isabella Evans Scriptwriting Judge / Michael Tatum Scriptwriting Judge / Rachel Glenn

Nonfiction The Vortex is the student-operated literary magazine for the University of Central Arkansas located at 201 Donaghey Avenue Conway, AR 72035.

Nonfiction Editor / Chase Night Nonfiction Judge / Candace Baker Nonfiction Judge / Elise Williams

Interviews From the Asylum Fiction Jeremy Ellis #1: Lawrence Patterson [Recorded on January 7th, 1998, at Crossroads Institute, Craighead County, AR] What is it that you want so badly, Lawrence? A stalker. Not a shy one. One of those fucked-up girls that never had a daddy to touch. One of those spellbound lost princesses drowning in the darkness of the mind, looking, panting, searching everywhere, a restless-limbed angel — of age, of course, but emotionally just out of the crib. A girl of a woman, a lost sheep, a pool of fresh rainwater trapped in a leaf in a rainforest watching all her sisters fall down into the mud, and her watching them all sink with a feeling that’s lost between jealousy and fear—hopefully an older model, whose cursed eyes reveal more than need be said. A real victim, but a real fool if she thinks for one second that she can bear anything at all without that old swarm of bees, that storm of emotions coming along and bringing her to an awareness of that perpetual state of mind, that eternal feeling of girlhood that waits behind the curtain and behind closed doors, that lingers in every passing mirror and window, and that all the while connects her mind to every nerve of her body. And can you tell me why it is that you want that?

That thrill, that attention in a world gone mad and obsessed over inflated personalities, that feeling — not of being touched, but of being touched out of (not so much desire but rather) necessity — that electricity writers try to package into words but that can only truly be spoken in the language of flesh and blood. That fatherly instinct man and science both forgot if ever they even dreamt of it in the first place, that meaning and the importance of that meaning, when self becomes other’s prize, when ego is

swallowed shut in the eye of a stranger who translates the meaning represented into something godlier than actuality, and, to be that savior, that saving grace and lifeboat upon which the woman — necessarily mad, necessarily doomed to a feeling of falling and terror — may rest quietly and forever like Christ, who rested on the cross after having found too much disappointment in humanity (except there will be no nails for her). To be loved, insomuch that being love involves the real meaning of love, which no one ever seems to remember. When do you want it, Lawrence? Perhaps our definitions of ‘’want’’ differ a kilogram or two, considering the stupidity I perceive in the question, or is that simply an American question? But, certainly, I’m American, and, so, you’ll have to do better than that if you want a stupid answer out of me, like all the stupid answers that everybody gives, the stupid answers that form the very bars of the cages that trap those precious canaries we were just talking about, whom you can spot practically everywhere, from the wallflowers standing at trite college parties to the very tiptop of woman mountain. “When do you want it?” How do you say that as though you comprehend some absolute and perfect frailty of mankind, as though I’m supposed to understand this desire of mine as instinct instead of the carefully chosen path that it is? I have already informed you that I am not the actor in the scenario, but only the acted upon, and, necessarily so, and, so, I say your question is garbage. I apologize. Now tell me how you’re going to get it, Lawrence. Don’t you know where you are? I still take issue with your phrasing of the question, but I believe this is somewhat of a more answerable sort than the last, and, so, I will assume that you listened to my previous response

and will go on and tell you that there is a certain voodoo of sorts (like the electricity we just talked about) that humanity speaks with and that even sudden eye contact necessarily reveals “wanter” and “wanted” in the same way that a strong man and a weak man fundamentally know who would win in the weaponless war of fists and faces. But, there is the paradox, don’t you see? And, if anything tells us anything at all, it’s that paradox is beauty. But, there is the glaring paradox: to want the “wanter” and to want to be the “wanted.” But, before you say impossible, do recall the type! Recall that the type of being for the design I have in mind cannot simply be reduced to an identity of want, but rather an identity of need. There’s the dream, the blood speaking out into thought, there’s the splicing of an idea — to want the needy to need you. How political! How philanthropic! “How am I going to get it?” you ask. You underestimate me and humanity at large, for that matter. Do you have any final thoughts, Lawrence? Oh, you dreadful people and your thoughtless scripts drawn by thoughtless people! Do words have no meaning to you? Has time nipped your very wonder in the bud? Speaking without thinking so much, so often, you’ve likely been thinking without thinking for this entire moment in time while the voodoo has been wildly at work attempting to touch your blood with meanings born beyond the scope of the tiny ground-beef brain you have the nerve to call a mind. But, it fails you, and you fail it, and, therefore, the entire occasion is a shipwreck disguised as a passing moment in time during which you were almost made not the master of your own domain. I believe we’re done here.

Dirty Windows Michael Ferrara

Straight Edge Poetry Emily Walter Aptly, you can guess why we are Both here in this stage of progressive undoing— Come once now baby, my once baby . . . Don’t play with me like that—you know we’re adults here. Exactly how much, I couldn’t guess, we’re so senseless. Fact is, we speak two distinctive tongues, understandingly so Given we are bred from different folks, born to other worlds, Hung on diverse levels of raising. I keep no grudges in my heart, baby, none, but Just being together like we were was masochism, a complete blur. Karaoke singing to a song you’ve never heard, Living on the tundra with cold blood, Macerating a walnut and swallowing, Negating the senses when blind in both eyes, Overflow, I’m drowning quick, can’t breathe— Pour you in a sieve and watch you leave. Quietly now, the air is clear like mornings in the fall, Rain drops in ablution, symbols and all, come gently for found Souls of too little resolve and clay feet—oh! how those drops Temper and make me iron for the days to come, oh! like tastes Umami there’s a strength in my words, and they’ll be said even with threat of heavy hurts. Venture a guess, baby, and pray you can see— Wash your doubts, for there were no faults: Xebec and Queen Mary 2 racing across the world. Yes, you were a love, a bad love, a first love, and an enamored Zealot searching for one aim to be backing— and now we know, just what we call for exactly.

Light Streams Michael Ferrara 8

The Night Old Dewey Cracked Fiction Jeremy Ellis The distant stars shone down on it, all from an icy, black abyss. The streetlight of the cul-de-sac illuminated the amber fog that smothered the suburban vicinity. The lit end of a cigarette burned brightly in its mock industry, and its smoke, like the sky’s fog, added to the distorted layer of an eclipsed reality. A hairless monkey-limb shook uncertainly as a fallible monkey-mind put it all together, all the pieces of the puzzle of the past. Certainly there is something left, something to be learned here. There, beneath the streetlight. A house, but not just any house — the house. The old house the old man lived in. The old house the old man’s old wife lived in. And her little dogs, too. What happens over time happens over time. The old man was never stable, never understandable, always bouncing off of everyone else, and dangerous, too, always drinking. The old man’s old wife was never grim, always caring, sharing a plastic façade, and real religious like her children were, but like her nutty husband, never quite real or genuine. A pair of master infiltrators bent to fake it to the end, a real Bonnie and Clyde, treating Maple Valley residents like me with careful niceties, with neighborly smiles, clearly with some agenda. But what? Ah, yes. What I’ve been waiting for. A gunshot rings loud into the red foggy night, and there is no surprise in it. It was only a matter of time, and out she comes running with a dog under each arm, panting, yelping, running right past me, survivor that she was. And on she went down the road, into the red fog. Another gunshot rings out. A door opens and slams shut. Out he comes, out tipping from side to side in his tiny white bedclothes, out to the cul-de-sac floor with his handgun.

I knew I should have stayed inside that night.

He comes at me quick with his gun, presses the

barrel against my chest, and demands that I inform him which way she had gone. “That way,” I said pointing a finger down the blurry red road. And off he went chasing her. Yes, that happened so long ago. To tell the truth, though, I wasn’t there. I was inside sleeping, dreaming quiet dreams. The next morning, when the news was out and the bodies were cleaned out of the cotton field down the street, late August, and the house stood there still, like a book I had just finished that sits on the bookshelf, already collecting dust and connected to a feeling of terror in my brain, I wanted it to be my story, although I knew not why. And so, I connected myself to the story, and, when the gentlemanly police officers came after I told them the story about the barrel against my chest that had never really happened, they treated me like a victim and asked me questions I knew not the answers to. And I felt like a fool and I went to the funeral and saw the old couple’s adult children crying like babies, wondering why God had been so unkind. My eyes wander between that house, this cigarette, and all this red fog. And I feel as though I’m in a certain hell, that this is the punishment for my crime. Ah, yes. And, again, what I’ve been waiting for. A gunshot rings loud into the red foggy night, and there is no surprise in it. It was only a matter of time, and out she comes running with a dog under each arm, panting, yelping, running right past me. And on she went down the road, into the red fog. And out comes the husband tipping and he comes to me and the barrel presses against my innocent-victim chest. “That way,” I say with my cruel finger pointing, and he disappears into the red fog. It must be that the nature of a lie, of a fiction, innocent though it seems, is to haunt the soul and to repeat itself in the mind that gives it birth over and over again. This is my child, my babe, and my

precious gift to the world. And I am to blame for connecting it, relating it, sharing it, sewing it up in the quilt of understanding that hangs above the neighborhood’s head. I swallowed the black interior of the old man’s old house, put on a devil mask, and pretended to have been master of ceremonies on that terrible night, on that terrible night when I, being the last to have seen that old couple, dropped my drawers and shitted on the facts.

foggy hell, comfortable in their icy black abyss, they sat and watched it all.

Ah, yes. Again. Gunshot. Out she comes like a chicken. Doggies under her wings. Disappears. Another bang. Dewey tips left and right like a pendulum. Holds his barrel to my chest. My finger points. He disappears in the chase. Bang, Bang. Bang, Bang. And there must be blood in the field by now. There must be. I saw the whole thing. I was there, I tell you. I saw the look on his face, and it wasn’t the look of a man gone mad, but the look of a man doing his duty, and that, officer, is what happened. He always talked about being old and how he hated being old, and she always nodded her head and just laughed and wouldn’t listen to him. Ah, yes. Gunshot, panting, tipping, barrel against my chest, pointing, doggie and human blood mixing like soup in the dirt beneath the dead stems of cotton plants in the field down the road. I did not give him any beer that day. I could not have given him any beer that day. I had been gone the entire day. I had just returned from my parents’ house minutes before the incident with the barrel against my chest, officer. I did not give him any beer that day, and we did not spend hours chatting and drinking beers consecutively, one after the other until both of us could hardly stand. I had just gotten home, officer, and, well, this has all surprised me. There was a lot of surprise in it. Bang. And again what I’ve been waiting for. Out she comes with her dogs and she disappears into the red foggy night, like this one here, panting, yelping, running right past me. Bang. Out comes her husband, tipping, barely standing, a mad old gorilla, and he holds the handgun barrel against my innocent chest. Off he went into the red fog like tonight’s red fog. Bang, bang, and all falls again to a cold silence. And I’m alone again, feeling guilty because I know the cold, distant stars that I cannot see but that I know hang somewhere high above me, high above this red

Carousel Days Poetry Taylor Lea Hicks A couple stands in shades of gray Smiles and crisp clothes all faded A carousel looms in the background A carnival scene captured in noon light The edges are tattered but the life is still there The smell of cotton candy still survives in the frame Resting on the bathroom sink for years The couple forever smiles from their captured moment It is the bathroom he never visits She only lives in the photo of yesterday

Trashcan Romance Taylor Lea Hicks 13

Ancient Wood Michael Ferrara

Grazzioso Massage Poetry Candace Baker Allow your fingers to travel the major scale down my back. Curl them; make them morph to the octave of my skin Until it’s reached its sharp fortissimo. Stop. Now, let your tips vibrato and rub over, hack And manipulate the g flat but not so thin Flesh that begs for more beyond the ledger. Please add your elbow. Animatedly knead me Lower so I can ‘mmm’ and ‘ahh’ from within. Work out the minor scales and spasmed shoulders.

Stop.

Let your knuckles churn and play the broken chord inside me, like a clarinet symphony. Don’t Stop.

A Horse, Of Course Nonfiction Alex Dunn I don’t quite remember who said it first, but it seemed to be the best one-sentence crack at explaining one hell of a night: “Your dad almost lost his mother, wife, and son in one night.” I was sitting in an ICU waiting room. It was probably twenty feet by fifteen feet, not as spacious or open as the area we were in before. There were enough of us to fill the waiting room, not enough to fill the space we had been in before. I think the space before was for waiting for doctors fresh from surgery to give folks the news, lovely or horrendous. At least, that’s why we were there. It opened to a balcony on one side that overlooked the entrance and on the other side was sequestered into a much more claustrophobic close at the door that led to a hallway ending with surgery space. The ICU waiting room must have been for people expecting to be there a long time; there were the obvious vinyl and stiff chairs as in any hospital, but some of them reclined. A large portion of the Dunn clan was there: my parents, my brothers, my sister, my aunts and uncles, and, of course, my grandfather. It was getting quite late, so my cousins had been taken home and settled into bed. My siblings and I are the oldest of the cousins; even I, being the baby of my family, was older than my oldest cousin on my dad’s side. So, my siblings and I were there waiting, just as the adults waited. The strain on my grandfather had been immense. He had been comforted several times by his children as tears welled in his eyes, but he needed to see my grandmother was going to be fine. She had to be okay. We were finally allowed to go see her. Of course, my grandfather was going to see her first with my Great Aunt Mary, my grandmother’s sister, who was almost the same age as my dad. Her children went in pairs to see her after that. Finally, my Uncle Jud went to see her. I really wanted to go see her, to be able to know she was okay, to see her with my own two eyes. They were trying to figure out who would go in with him, so I threw my hat in. We got all gloved up and had sanitary, yellow, thin, Snuggy-like designed things put on us, then a

mask, of course, since it was the ICU and infection was deadly. First room to our left, short walk, and she was awake. I soon realized she was kind of out of it. I would have been, too. Morphine’s strong from what I’ve heard. We made our way to the side of the hospital bed. My uncle asked her how she was. Her answer was cheery. He leaned over and gave her a kiss on the forehead after lowering his mask while holding her hand. “It will be okay, Momma,” he assured. “I love you.” He moved back after a few more seconds of holding her hand, and I slid past him to the head of the bed, where his six-and-a-half-foot, three-hundredpound frame had just been. My grandmother was still smiling and laughing. She grabbed the strings on the pollen-yellow cloth I was wearing and just ran them through her fingers. I was pretty sure they were made for tying behind your back, but we weren’t allowed to stay long anyway. Things still weren’t in the clear, but I thought I could see the clearing at the end of the forest. “You get better,” I encouraged and grinned. “I love you.” I couldn’t believe all this had come from an infection in her foot. My mother, Great Aunt Mary, and grandmother had gone to Hawaii for a little vacation. Nobody had even considered something like what had occurred was possible. We were back in the waiting room. More of us had gotten comfortable. My mom wanted to head home soon because we had been at the hospital most of the day and both of us had school the next day. My mother was a second-grade teacher. It was one o’clock in the morning. Even though I wasn’t on the insurance for the GMC Yukon XL, I got behind the wheel. My mother laid back to rest in the passenger seat. I was driving on highway sixty-four, about five miles from the exit I had taken from the interstate. It was the third Beebe exit, the one that headed to Conway. We were thirty minutes gone from White County Hospital in Searcy, Arkansas. I had been driving the speed limit and was relatively awake,

unlike my napping mother. I was coming up on a particularly dark stretch of highway and I had yet to see a cop; but I was not going to push my luck. However, that wasn’t up to me. There were other drivers on the highway, gone by in passing or a mile or two behind me. The highway could be a bit more obnoxious during the daylight hours, but traffic was low and people had somewhere to be. I saw a glint of light off something on the road in my lane. I peered hard into the almost pitch black that exceeded the lights on my vehicle. It was quick. I knew the answer to the question before I honestly ever got to formulate it in my head. A horse, of course. I smashed the brakes with my right foot and swerved hard left, instinct taking over. The damn thing was already three fourths into my lane. It was a crunch I heard as the front right light and fender crinkled and made contact with the front left shoulder of the animal. Thank God for no oncoming traffic. It could have been worse. I caught the horse’s head out of the corner of my eye, blurred with motion; it broke through the right side of the windshield. I was not sure if the vehicle slid into the horse or if its body slung like a door, its neck a hinge, into the vehicle. It collided with the right side of the car. As the Yukon shoved forward with its superior weight and greater inertia, the horse’s head slid back out the hole it had made in the front glass. I pulled the car to the shoulder just as quickly as the horse dropped from the SUV. I yanked the lever into park after stopping hard. My mom was awake and she was panicking. When she woke up, broken glass flung in her eyes. She leaned forward trying to keep her eyes open, not wanting to lacerate them further by blinking. “We just hit a horse,” I explained between rapid breaths. I was not sure what else to say to her; it felt like a mild form of shock had washed over me. I got out of the car after turning on the hazards, hoping to warn anybody off and figure out exactly where I was. I needed to know the location to tell the 911 operator. Another motorist had pulled over and put on her hazards. She must not have been too far back. Of course, with all the adrenaline I was not sure what had happened. “I don’t know where we are,” I said exacerbated, probably sounding a little whacko. “We’re in El Paso,” she said in a calm voice. “I saw what happened.” She offered to call the police, and I thanked her for that kindness and for even caring enough to pull over. Nowadays, I honestly expect people to just

pass on by and rubber-neck as they do so. The horse was sprawled in the right lane on which I stood with the woman as she paced back and forth to her car explaining the situation to the operator. Her car was behind where the horse’s body laid, stopping anybody headed the way we had been going from running into it. A large Mack truck hauling an open top trailer loaded with gravel or dirt approached us. I watched it as I heard a loud smack; a second horse had just been hit by the truck’s fender, right in the head. I almost took solace in the fact that I was not the only horse destroyer. The truck then stopped, put on its flashers, and the driver got out, checking on the damage that had been added to this already sizable accident. I went back to my vehicle to check on my mother. As I slugged back to the Yukon, the horse hit by the truck made some last faltering sounds and died. My mom decided to get out of the car, and I explained about the second horse. I called my father. “Dad, we just hit a horse,” I said pensively. He was quite calm about it all and, of course, he had to be. Things had already been terrible enough that evening. He told me to call AAA. The number was on the card in my wallet. I wished he had been there to handle it and I even told him so, but that was not the case. I had to be the man. It had only been minutes since the start of the whole thing when the officers arrived. Two squad cars drove up, both state troopers. They positioned their cars to block off the accident and moved traffic around the mess. The trucker radioed his dispatcher and called his insurance. One officer kept traffic flowing by and another took statements. Some of the inhabitants of the locale had begun to emerge from their homes to see what the fuss was about. A third horse had apparently wandered with the two that now wandered no more. A man and woman who knew the owner of the horses corralled it into a field across the highway from where its companions now laid. At one point, I heard the final, lingering, and desperate neigh of the horse I had hit. The ambulance arrived after the officers had, and they checked my mother and me over. My mom was checked for any serious issues other than the glass, and I noticed a streak of blood on her face. It was not hers. They offered to take her to the closest hospital in the ambulance. Ambulance rides aren’t cheap, and, after calling my brother Jordan to see if he could come pick her up, we decided it would be best if he took her to the emergency room in Conway. I called AAA while the state department worked to get my horse off the black top; the trucker’s was already

in the ditch. Slowly, things began to clear out. The woman left first, but not before I thanked her profusely. Then, the trucker was free to leave, and the scene began to look how it did before I had seen that glint. Triple A sent a flatbed tow truck to pick up the dead SUV, but it had yet to arrive. Once we had decided to refuse the ambulance, Jordan pulled up about fifteen minutes later and took my mom to Conway. All emergency vehicles had cleared off except one squad car that waited with me. I sat in the back of the cop car shivering, but it wasn’t because I was cold. I was just coming down from it all. The officer turned on the heat, which seemed to alleviate some of my discomfort. I had dealt with it all pretty damn swimmingly, if anybody had cared to ask me. I felt proud. The flatbed showed up and dragged the vehicle onto its momentarily-angled ramp and then it lowered back down parallel to the road. I rode back to Conway with the tower, and he told me we were lucky. He said he had been to pick up vehicles from similar accidents where the people in the vehicle hadn’t been. We were lucky, but I hadn’t realized it too much at the time. We dropped the Yukon at the GMC dealer in Conway, and my brother picked me up there. I went back to the emergency room with him, where my other mother’s parents were waiting. I was glad to see them; any comfort was tremendous after the night that had just occurred. My mother had already been taken in. It was a relief to have relatives there. Since they were there to handle what little was left to handle, Jordan took me home. About a week later, after my dad’s mother finally made it out of the hospital, he went back to El Paso. I think he was trying to figure out who was responsible for the horses. He did, but there was no way to pin them with it. So, we sold the totaled Yukon and went on with our lives. I’ll always think of it as the night I hit a horse out on highway sixty-four, but it’s really the night my dad almost lost his mother, wife, and son.

Sonnet In Search Of An Author Poetry Cameron White Is this imagery? I don't know. Is it snow falling through the skylight like cereal, like a serial killer tap-tapping on your spinal cord as a bored housewife to a substitute mailman? Is this metaphor? Tell me how: Is there technique to the transitive property of rhyme or are we merely scribbling away the time before we bow out of this curtain call for good? In my time I've been poetic. Seas have seized my words to build Great guilded empires of literal beauty But the people know my true face, the heretic who slams pen to page as if getting laid depended upon drops of ink on virgin stage.

Knoop at Midnight Michael Ferrara

Within Crayon Jeremy Ellis 22

Treatment Fiction Taylor Lea Hicks The Ozark Mountains are home to many small towns and many strange tales. Lydia Pearson knew this before she moved to the tiny town of Theodosia, Missouri. But, after ten years of the easy, comfortable routine of daily life in Theodosia, Lydia was beginning to doubt the things she’d heard about the Ozarks. She was thinking on this very subject as she walked to Dr. Waverly’s office from her quaint yellow house. She passed Tom the postman on the way. “Good morning, Ms. Pearson.” Tom tipped his ball cap to her, uncovering his short crop of sandy hair for just a second. “You on your way to Dr. Waverly’s?” “Good morning, Tom. Yes, just going in for my yearly check-up.” Lydia smiled at him cordially and pushed back a stray hair that had fallen from her bun. Her chestnut hair was thick and curly, even with her sixty-odd years, and still impossible to tame. “Well, I won’t delay you then.” Tom’s indigo eyes twinkled as he waved goodbye to her, continuing on his mail route. Lydia waved back and finished the short walk to the doctor’s office. Dr. Waverly’s office was more like a small house. The bricks were old and multicolored, and some moss was growing on the south side by the front door. Lydia liked Dr. Waverly and his office. The parking lot was empty since most of the patients and employees lived within walking distance, and Dr. Waverly himself lived just around the corner. Lydia entered, and the bell jingled pleasantly. Nancy, the nurse, greeted her as she took a seat in the tiny waiting area. “How are you today, Ms. Pearson?” Nancy asked. Her golden hair was tied up neatly in a bun, not a single hair out of place. “Just fine, Nancy. My arthritis is acting up a bit, but that’s usual,” Lydia replied, picking up a magazine from the side table. It was the latest edition of Home & Gardens, her favorite magazine. “I just need the good doctor to refill the prescription for my pain pills.” “I’ll let Dr. Waverly know you’re here.” Nancy got up from the front desk and disappeared into the office area. Lydia had been coming to Dr. Waverly since

the first week she moved to Theodosia. She liked the dashing doctor, she liked the reliable routine of her visits, and she liked the way nothing unexpected ever happened in the rural Ozark town. Halfway through her magazine, a squealing sound interrupted her quiet read. Lydia turned to look out the door where an old rusty clunker of a truck had just come to a screeching halt. A man she had never seen before stumbled out, leaving the driver’s door wide open, and staggered through the door to the office. The bell chimed, and the man almost fell on his way to the front desk, leaning on it for support. “Help!” the man called, his voice rough and weak. “I need to see a doctor.” Nancy returned to the desk and eyed the man suspiciously. “Can I help you, sir?” “Doctor. Now,” the man gasped out, almost leaning down to his knees. “Sick.” “I’ll get the doctor. Please, try to sit down.” Nancy disappeared again. The man slid himself into a seat directly across from Lydia. The waiting area wasn’t very large, so there were only a few feet between her and the sick man. He closed his eyes, and Lydia put down her magazine. His clothes were dirty and ragged, the jacket had numerous holes in it, and the hat he wore over his shaggy dark hair looked like it might have blood on it. Lydia crinkled her nose at the smell wafting from him. “Sir, are you alright?” she asked him softly. He did not reply, not even a stir. “Sir?” The man’s head was leaning back against the wall, his eyes still closed, his arms hanging at his sides. Lydia slowly got up and tiptoed over to him. “Sir?” She peered down, holding her nose as the smell became overpowering. The man still did not reply, and she was beginning to think he was unconscious when she noticed something odd on his neck. It appeared almost as if layers of skin were beginning to flake off, revealing a shiny white layer underneath. Lydia leaned down to inspect the odd infection and accidentally bumped the man’s cap, causing it to fall to his lap. She jumped back in surprise, expecting

the man to yell at her. But, still he did not move. The cap had been covering his scalp, which she could now see was irritated and also flaking off. Stranger still was his hair, which was a dark brown color until just at the roots where a bright blond growth was hiding almost as if the man needed to re-dye his locks. Other patches of his scalp were bald. The door on the other side of Lydia flung open into the waiting room, and Nancy rushed out, followed by Dr. Waverly. The doctor was a tall man with a head of almost white-blonde hair and sparkling blue eyes. Lydia enjoyed coming to see him because she thought he was handsome, but, right now, she was not enjoying this visit so much. She backed away from the man as Nancy and the doctor bent down to inspect him. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to knock his cap off. I was just worried because he wasn’t answering me,” Lydia stuttered out, trying to back out of the way in the small room. “It’s alright, Ms. Pearson.” Dr. Waverly gave her a weak smile. “Just please give us some room.” Lydia sat back down in her chair, watching the two work. Some of Nancy’s hair had torn loose of the pins, causing her to continually push the strands out of her face. The doctor moved in front of Lydia as he pulled out his stethoscope, blocking her view. “This man is dead,” Dr. Waverly announced, stepping back and scratching his head. “Nancy, help me get him into the back until I can get Mort here.” Morton Bradley was the funeral director and mortician for a number of small towns around Theodosia, but he lived just up the street from Lydia. He was a quiet man who liked to keep busy and wasn’t at home much. Nancy and Dr. Waverly each stuck an arm under the man’s armpits, lifting him gradually. Lydia jumped up to get the door for them, and the doctor thanked her, dragging the now-dead man through the door. As the door swung shut, Lydia realized that this was the only extraordinary thing that had happened to her since moving to the sleepy town. As much as she had liked her comfortable routine, she could not say that this surprising turn of events did not excite her. It provided a rush, a wonderment that she had not experienced for many years. Nancy returned a few minutes later and apologized to Lydia. “I’m so sorry you had to see that. What a terrible thing,” Nancy pouted as she disinfected the man’s chair. “No, no. It’s quite alright. It was rather mysterious,” Lydia cooed, helping Nancy wipe down

the chair. “Do you know what it was?” “I’m sorry?” Nancy dried off the chair with a towel. “That killed him. He said he was sick.” “Oh, yes. We can’t be sure until Mr. Bradley does an autopsy. But, Dr. Waverly said for me to send you back and he’d do your checkup real quick.” Nancy opened the door with her free hand and motioned Lydia inside. “No reason for you to have to wait around for the dreadful news.” Lydia wasn’t so sure finding out how the man died would be dreadful rather than interesting, but she didn’t argue and went into the room Nancy offered her. “The doctor will be right with you,” Nancy assured her as she gently closed the door. Lydia took a seat on the treatment table, crinkling the paper underneath her. After a few minutes of twiddling her thumbs, the sensation hit her that she needed to use the restroom. She went to the door and opened it. The narrow hallway was empty, so she shuffled along to the bathroom. She checked her hair in the mirror and relieved herself, washing her hands thoroughly afterward and exiting out into the hallway. Just as the bathroom door closed behind her, a muffled thud stopped her in her tracks. She listened carefully for any more sounds, but the silence convinced her that her ears were playing tricks on her. Lydia shrugged to herself and took a few more steps down the hall when a metallic clank made her freeze. “Dr. Waverly? Nancy?” she called out in a normal tone, but no one answered her. Lydia slowly approached the door to the room across from the bathroom. A strange noise was coming from beyond the door, so Lydia thrust it wide open into the room. The man’s body was lying on a metal table, his clothes removed and in a heap on the floor. Nancy was sifting through the clothing, her head shooting up to glare at Lydia standing shocked in the doorway. Dr. Waverly was posed at the end of the table, body braced; his skin was peeling back to reveal what could only be white scales, his eyes now in slits, his jaw extended much wider than a human being’s, and the man’s head completely inside his mouth. Lydia screamed and ran back into the waiting room, running into Morton Bradley as he was entering the building. “My goodness, Ms. Pearson. What is the matter?” Mort picked up his hat from the ground and adjusted his old-fashioned suit. “You should look where you’re going, you know.” He replaced his hat on top of his slicked-back, pale hair as Nancy burst from the back area.

“Ms. Pearson, please stop!” she exclaimed, reaching toward Lydia. “Don’t you come near me,” Lydia warned her, backing away cautiously toward the front door. “I don’t know what you are, but don’t come near me.” “What in heaven’s name is going on here?” Mort demanded. “She saw us . . .” Nancy glanced quickly from Mort back to Lydia, “. . . with the body.” “Ah.” Mort shook his head. “Bound to happen eventually. You two know better than to take chances.” “What in hell are you talking about?” Lydia searched frantically between them, her back against the door. “Is everyone insane but me?” “Now, now, Ms. Pearson. If you’ll just calm down, we’ll explain.” Mort gave her a smile she realized she didn’t trust. “She’s been on the treatment plenty long. The transformation should be starting soon. We just wanted to give her one last dose to be sure, but then he showed up.” Nancy crossed her arms in a huff. “Must be a runaway from another colony.” Lydia’s head was swimming with horrible images and she was starting to feel queasy. She didn’t understand what the two were talking about and, frankly, she didn’t care. “Ms. Pearson, if you’ll just come–” Mort reached for Lydia, snapping her out of her dazed state. She pushed her body into the door and ran from the building, Mort’s hand just barely missing her. She ran as fast as her frail legs would carry her, down the street, toward her house. She passed Tom again on her way, ignoring him as he called after her. People on the street stared at her as she ran, neighbors and friends, but she stopped for no one until she arrived at her yellow house. She slammed the door behind her, locked it, backed up against the door to the hall closet, and fell down to the floor crying. “Oh, what is happening?” she cried aloud to herself between sobs. “What do I do?” A forceful knock came at the front door, startling her into silence. “Ms. Pearson, please open up.” The voice was Tom’s. “Are you alright, Ms. Pearson?” Lydia didn’t dare open the door, didn’t dare to even respond. She hugged her knees to herself and buried her face in her lap. More knocks. “Ms. Pearson? Your neighbor, Ms. Davis, is here, too. Please open up,” Tom pleaded with her. Lydia shook her head in despair, tears falling down her cheeks. She knew what she had seen, though she didn’t understand it. No one would believe her

now; no one in this town could help her. Theodosia was too isolated, a fact she had liked until today. “Go away,” she demanded. “Please, just go away.” “Ms. Pearson, it’s Dr. Waverly.” Lydia froze in terror at his voice, soft and silky smooth and deceiving. “Ms. Pearson, I know you’re confused by what you saw. But, if you’ll just open the door, I promise I’ll explain.” Lydia put her hands over her ears, trying to drown out his words. The skin on her hands was beginning to itch with sweat, and she rubbed them on her knees. Pale flakes of skin fell to the ground from her arms and knees uncovered by her dress. Her skin continued to itch as if it were on fire, and she scratched the top of her arms, watching in horror as layers of skin easily peeled off to reveal the same white scales she’d seen on Dr. Waverly’s face. The same white that was on the dead man’s neck. “What is happening to me?” she groaned. “Ms. Pearson, I think I can explain if you’ll just open the door. I’m sure the transformation’s started by now.” Dr. Waverly’s voice from the other side of the door was smooth and cold. “You don’t have much time left, Ms. Pearson. Just let us in.” Lydia’s scalp felt like it was burning, and, as she rubbed it, brown bits of hair came out in her hands. She felt as if her insides were trying to crawl out through her mouth, and every inch of her burned and quaked. She crawled to the front door, no longer able to stand up. Spots danced in her eyes and more skin rubbed off as she grasped for the lock. It took all her strength to turn the switch, and the door burst open into the entrance way, sunlight burning her changing eyes and layers of dead human skin caking the floor. Lydia Pearson gazed up at the faces of her fellow townspeople, but she no longer saw the human faces of her neighborly Theodosians. White faces stared down at her, scaly faces with almost pupil-less eyes and two holes for noses. Dr. Waverly bent down in front of her -- if it even was Dr. Waverly anymore -his white face just inches from hers. “Soon you will be one of us. Another member of the perfect race.” Lydia Pearson blinked her slitted eyes, her new forked tongue exploring her mouth. She grinned a reptilian smile and rose to stand with her people.

Nothing Sweeter Poetry Jeremy Ellis The sweet unclasping of each hook from each eye settled like muscle memory. Long have these purposeless fingers knocked letters into place, perfectly failing to recreate dead carnal heavens. Odes upon odes lie in statuesque stacks; their weak pages wither; losses unforgotten themselves must die. Remind me again sweet, odd pair of eyes, remind me again with your stranger's face of intimate ties and the quiet pace of holier loves than mine. Mark my words, burn my monuments of muck and see that I boldly boil down to deep dark devil speech black as violent night, the truth and nothing sweeter. I built those homes on Memory Lane to watch them wash up into flames, to see their ashes fall like snow, to freeze behind the burn of letting go.

Wood Line Taylor Lea Hicks

Canine Vane Taylor Lea Hicks

My Words Poetry Janie Brown My inspiration never took so long, My writing never looked so red. Where is my muse; my dread in the late hour? When did my creativity turn sour? Never have I slept so quietly in bed Without thoughts running in my head. My words, my lyrics, my stories, my power I cannot find, ‘tis as if I’m blind. Why, such peace cannot be happening, I swear to the Gods that it’s Death I’d rather see. Give me back my ghosts, my sorrow. Let them haunt me ‘til I’m broken without tomorrow, But don’t leave me empty of even heart breaking sorrow-Drown me quickly in words never borrowed.

Enemy at the Gate Michael Ferrara

Phobia Best of Web November 2013 Taylor Lea Hicks I had never thought about what it would be like to be a bird. I knew most people dream about flying some day, at least in a plane, but I had a phobia of heights. The sky was not for me. So, I guess it’s ironic how this story ends. And begins, actually. You see, it begins with my first plane ride. * Even though I was sixteen, I had never been alone for more than a few hours. My parents had never let me stay at night by myself or drive anywhere except around town. So, maybe you’ll understand how terrifying it was for me to be going on an eight-hour transcontinental flight alone. If you’ve never gone through airport security, you’re not missing anything. Actually, that’s not true. You’re missing a violating, degrading experience where every flyer is a possible terrorist, and their shoes or belts -- the weapon of choice. God forbid you step through the metal detector with a coin in your pocket. Your belongings will be searched (in front of everyone waiting behind you in line) and you will wish to never be touched by another human being again. But, perhaps this was just my experience, although I highly doubt it. When I finally did get on the plane, I couldn’t believe that real people actually sat in this tiny room for eight hours. Did the airline companies think customers were just sardines to be packed in a tin can as closely together and for as long as possible? My parents had neglected to mention this atrocity. If my grandmother wasn’t so close to dying, I wouldn’t have been in this situation. As heartless as it was to think, it was how I felt. For most of the summers in my life, she had come to Manchester to see us, but, this summer, I had to go to her. My parents said it would be my “last chance to bond with my only remaining grandparent,” which to me meant they didn’t want me lazing around the house all summer and depressing them. I found my seat near the rear of the plane, and my heart sunk in despair. The window seat. There was no way I would get through this flight if I had to sit with only a sheet of glass between me and the open sky. I took the aisle seat and prayed my neighbor

would miss the flight. “Excuse me. I think you’re in my seat.” Damn. I gazed up at the large man in a Hawaiian shirt and jeans. His long silver hair was tied back in a neat ponytail and his hairline was receding, but his bright blue eyes were vivid and twinkling. I groaned inward and nodded. “I’m afraid of heights,” I tried to explain. “I don’t think I can sit–” “Nonsense, girl! You shouldn’t be afraid of such things. Scoot over. I need the extra leg room.” He stowed his carry on in the bin as I grudgingly moved over, closing the window screen. He settled in next to me and continued talking. “Children your age shouldn’t be afraid of silly things like heights. They just look at ya.” I shrugged. “No, you know I’m right! Open up that screen there.” I positioned my back to the window trying to hide it. “I’m not a child, sir. I’m sixteen.” “Sixteen is still a child. What’s your name, girl?” “Caroline, sir.” “Ah! Caroline. My name is Andrews. How long have you been afraid of heights?” The rest of the plane was filling up as passengers packed the bins and took their seats. “All my life.” “A silly, silly fear. I expect you’ll be cured of it by the time this flight ends.” I didn’t answer him. Not only were my parents forcing me to fly to England by myself, but my flying partner for the next eight freaking hours was a fashion-impaired old guy with an untraceable accent. Lord, help me if the sleeping pills I planned on taking didn’t work. “The pilot has turned on the fasten seatbelt sign in preparation for takeoff. Please refer to the in-flight guide for emergency procedures . . .” One of the flight attendants came over the intercom and gave her spiel, the same one I’d heard on countless television shows and movies. This, at least, was familiar. This felt safe. That is, until the plane started to move. I jammed my eyes closed and held on for dear life as we headed down the runway. Had it been eight hours yet?

Surely it’d been that long since I sat down. I was thrown back in my seat as we suddenly picked up speed, and I knew this was it. All of the past sixteen years were for nothing. I hadn’t accomplished anything I wanted to, hadn’t even graduated high school (or dropped out, I hadn’t decided yet), and I hadn’t learned to do my own laundry. More than anything right then, I wanted to do laundry. As I prayed for the end to come quickly, we leveled off and seemed to decrease speed. A hum was in my ears, and I felt an uncomfortable pressure against my head, but I was intact. I was alive. And I still had eight hours to go. “See, there? It’s not so bad, flying.” The man, Andrews, was grinning at me excitedly. “Surely you’re not afraid of heights now.” I wouldn’t bet on it. “I’m not so sure, Mr. Andrews.” “Just Andrews, thank you. Why don’t you open up that window there?” He reached over my body and pried the screen up, revealing an immense void of sky and clouds and nothing else. I slammed it closed and turned away, earning annoyed looks from the people around me. “I don’t think one flight is going to cure my fear, okay, Mr. Andrews? I don’t mean to be rude, but it really does bother me.” More than that, it flipping terrified me. How could people be okay with looking down and seeing nothing solid? “Do you like being afraid of such a trivial thing, Caroline?” He was looking at me quizzically, almost eagerly. “What would you give not to be afraid anymore?” I thought back to all the instances of refused trips to amusement parks, the inability to climb ropes or ladders, the hyperventilation caused by the Grand Canyon. I guess I hadn’t realized how much my phobia hindered my life. Would it be nice to look over railings and not have the sudden incapability to think or move? “I guess I hadn’t really thought about it.” “That’s good enough for me. Here, take this.” He fished around in his pocket and handed me a tiny blue pill. “It’s just a muscle relaxer. It’ll help you sleep.” I knew taking things from strangers was dangerous, but it’d just dawned on me that my sleeping pills were safely stowed in my suitcase, which I’d checked. Without them, I’d be looking at eight more hours of . . . well, this. And it’s not like he could just roofie me and carry me off the plane without suspicion. “Thanks.” I carefully took the pill and swallowed it. Mr. Andrews smiled at me.

“Sweet dreams, Caroline.” I closed my eyes and was gone. * My vision came back to me in a painful torrent of color, some that I’d never seen before and had no name for. I blinked rapidly to soothe them and rested on one color: blue. I wasn’t in the plane anymore. The sky was open and wide around me. I turned my head from side to side and saw brown feathered wings beating against the air. Wait, my wings. Was I . . . I looked up and found the plane. Without thinking, I soared up next to it, next to the only closed window at the rear. It slid open, and Mr. Andrews waved, my unconscious body lying next to him as if asleep. My mind exploded in a whirlwind of panic and disbelief. I was watching my own body sleep. At least, I hoped it was just sleeping. A gust of wind blasted me away from the plane, bringing me to a flock of geese flying in a broken V. They squawked at me and flew faster, beating their wings harder. I followed suit and flew on their tail. I needed to figure out what had happened to me. Mr. Andrews had given me a pill, but surely this wasn’t happening because of that. I didn’t know of any drugs that did this to a person, unless it was a new experimental drug, and, like an idiot, I had taken it. If I was a bird-thing, then I should be able to figure out how to fly back to the plane. If I tilted my head up, I could see it somewhat through the clouds, diagonal to me. I felt the wing muscles in my body flex as I tried to push myself upwards. Forcing myself to ignore the vast open sky, I looked down at the geese. The geese had flown ahead as I had focused on flying up, but another sight grabbed my attention. Beneath me was an array of colors: greens and blues and reds and yellows. Fields and ponds and plains were spread out before me, like an abstract painting. If I narrowed the lens of my eyes, I could see the tiny threads of roads and the squares of houses. Life was laid out before me, and I was above it, flying high. I knew the earth was vast, but, when you looked at it on a map, it was only the size of the paper. The reality was much more incredible. I don’t know how long I glided, watching the earth through the shifting clouds beneath me. When I finally came up for air, I realized I had lost sight of the plane. Panic rose again in my chest and let out a screech. With all my energy, I rose up, soaring on patches of wind currents. I surged upward and forward in my urgency, forgetting that these movements should not be natural to me.

The plane was nowhere in sight, and I tried to tell myself that this was only a nightmare -- some crazy astral projection brought on by that pill. I wasn’t really a bird and I hadn’t just lost track of my body. I would wake up and I would go to London and see my sick grandmother, and everything would be fine and earthy. But part of me knew I couldn’t dream this up, even in my most twisted nightmares. All the thoughts and colors swimming in my brain were giving me a headache. I was beginning to forget the feel of having arms and legs, but I still didn’t have the feeling of wings or claws. I felt like I was losing myself. I stopped beating my wings, whether by conscious thought or muscle reaction, I didn’t know. I let myself, my bird self, close my eyes and fall into a dive. I don’t know what I expected it to feel like – painful, sickening, terrifying. It was none of those things. Freefalling was like, well, like freefalling. Nothing was in my way and nothing was holding me back. I felt free. And I also felt safe. I knew my wings would be there to catch me if I wanted them to. There really wasn’t anything to be so afraid of. My eyes flew open, and I furled out my wings, catching myself just before a group of trees. Now I could feel every muscle in my body, every joint and feather. My claws gripped a tree branch, and I perched there, gazing over my kingdom. If this was what it was like to fly, I couldn’t imagine myself being so scared. Humans couldn’t fly like birds, but they had other ways of soaring. None as dangerous or as exhilarating, but I was willing to try them out now. A fall was all I needed. I took to the sky again, determined to catch up to the plane. I flew as high and as fast as I could, feeling my muscles aching and the wind cutting through my feathers. Somehow I knew which direction I should fly in, and my body took me there. I found the plane pretty quickly, I thought; as a bird, I had no sense of time. My window was still open, and Mr. Andrews was inside, reading a magazine. My body was lying in the same spot as before, the tray table pulled out and a cup sitting on it. Mr. Andrews took a sip from the cup and noticed me, waving again and gesturing oddly. I didn’t know what he meant and I didn’t have any way to shake my head, so I kept in flight with the plane and watched him finish his drink. He ruffled around in his pockets again and triumphantly put his hand out, showing me something I couldn’t see. He opened my mouth and dumped whatever it was in (another pill?) and sat back. The colors in my vision started to explode and

die. My head seared and my muscles were on fire. All sense of space and depth left me as I disappeared. * I opened my dulled human eyes and grabbed my head in pain. My body was still aching, but, other than that, I was returned to normal. Mr. Andrews was sitting beside me with a patient face on, magazine now gone and my tray table put away. “What was that?” I rubbed my head at my temples. “What do you think it was?” “A dream?” He shook his head. “A drug-induced dream?” He shook it again. “Well, then what was it?” “You took my phobia pill. It takes whatever your biggest fear is, your phobia, and puts you right smack in that situation, forces you to face it, and usually overcome it.” He beamed. “It’s my own concoction. Pretty wonderful, eh? It’s still in the beta testing stage, though.” I stared at him with an open mouth. “Are you joking with me?” “Of course not, Caroline. When we left Manchester, you couldn’t even sit next to the window seat. Now look.” He pointed over my shoulder to the open window screen and the bright blue sky outside it. “Looks like you’re cured to me. And the flight’s not even over yet, just as I said.” I couldn’t even think of something to say to him for the rest of the trip. I sat staring out the window at the clouds, thinking about (remembering?) how they felt. When we arrived in London, and the pilot landed the plane, I didn’t even flinch. The memory of the freefall was still with me. The passengers all collected their bags and filed out into the terminal where my grandmother’s friend, Rita, was waiting for me with a sign. I turned to Mr. Andrews before he could get away. “Whatever you gave me, whether it was a drug like you said or I really did just have a dream, I wanted to thank you. I never thought I’d get through that flight.” “Oh, you’ll get through much more than that. Like I said, heights are a silly thing to be afraid of. More sense to be afraid of telemarketers.” He nodded to me seriously and strode off, ponytail swinging against his eccentric shirt. Rita led me outside to her car, helping me load my bags and directing me to the left side of the vehicle while she climbed into the driver’s side. The road to my grandmother’s was mostly country, and I spent the ride watching a pair of birds flying in the sky, keeping pace with us. They glided easily on the wind, letting their wings rest. My mind wandered to the next few

months as I watched, arriving at one important realization. Birds donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have phobias.

Box Cat Charcoal Best of Web November 2013 Kayelin Roberts 36

Foundations Poetry Taylor Lea Hicks I come from pipes, from Clow and Ben Nye. I come from the chasm under the stairs, boarded-up, hidden. It felt like safety. I come from the creek, the woods, thriving behind my fence. I am from pot roasts and pale skin, From Barbara and Edna and Gross. I am from the Good Lords and the Jiggity-Jogs, From Let’s say Grace and Don’t run! I am from the poinsettia bushes, Donated in memory of. I’m from St. Louie and Toad Suck, O’Doul’s and maize. From the bunk in the southern sanatorium , after the bullet in my great-grandfather’s head. In my attic is a closet, fading memories I don’t retain, sheltering a garage sale full of possessions. I come from the empty stage, the front of the classroom, closed curtain family.

Lighthouse #2 Michael Ferrara

Shadow Dock Taylor Lea Hicks

Neon Stars Michael Ferrara

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