Contents Cover Kayla Marie Intro We’re just Cinnitea stardust A surreal Carmenmree anatomy Meanwhile, Kayla Bashe deeper Dave Windowgardener Motivational Windowgardener Cats Kayla Bashe Skyler and Charlie in the Dead Zone A distant friendship Playlist Trouble With Storm Staff
Vivian
1 3 4 5 6 7 9 10
14 15
Asher
16 18
A Surreal Anatomy my eyes no more than plastic orbs that help me catch the light. my fingers are just pencils. make it easier to write. my bloodstream’s filled with air to let me float if i see fit. my hair can turn to barbed wire. bring you fear of touching it. there’s an ocean in my heart. there’s fire in my brain. a contradicting partnership i've tried to re-explain. I give the obvious a second name. rethink their time and place. perhaps the shapes before my skull are more than just a face. a metaphoric makeup brings perspective to the system neglect to think of their deeper purpose and you might as well just miss them.
Meanwhile, Deeper The pufferfish-pale warlock made a shipwreck of me: Fingers unbending as driftwood, the learned helplessness of an anchor's curve concrete-block feet. Za'atar and olive oil cracked to shimmer on wavetops. Gold coins permanently lost. An epitaph mast-remnant skeleton draped Andromea on gray rocks. Keep to your net-weaving, pirate girls. The sea is too cruel for a queen. The mermaid's eyes were a tempest. She slammed great rippling air into my atrophied lungs startling the brace of wind until I choked rage, found for my unboned body a convalescent shell. We transcribed news of my survival from a hurricane's scream, crafted my gauntlets from jagged coral. From her chainmail seaweed emerald scales. We are the women you shoved overboard. I am raising a mutiny, raising a fleetthe sharks, our allies, paid in blood.
Skyler and Charlie in the Dead Zone The day the New Messiah cult dropped the poison bombs on the world and the dead went walking, I forgot how to feel. Grieving over everything I had lost wouldn't keep me alive. Neither would wasting time searching for survivors. I kept moving to the ruins of the northern United States, scavenging for supplies, staying one step ahead of both God's army and their undead cohorts. I didn't have anything to live for; it just never occurred to me to go looking for death. Glass broke under my feet and concrete rubble crunched. Autumn wind whistled through skyscraper skeletons. I saw my first bird in months, my first growing weed, and I just shrugged and kept going.
The first time I met Charlie, I thought I was going to die. Great, survive three months in the Dead Zone just to get eaten at a stupid dead-end because some asshole locked an emergency exit before the bomb even fell. In a second the Zoner would rake decaying hands through my skullThere was a spray of blood, and when my vision cleared, I saw a woman around my own age, wearing five layers of flannel and dragging a rusty axe. She looked like shit. Of course, so did I. But at the moment, her muddy, scratched face was the most beautiful shit I've ever seen. "Thanks, " I managed, getting to my feet. Nothing broken, luckily, and my backpack wasn't ripped. Of course, I made a total fucking fool of myself in front of a cool girl, but you can't have everything in life if you want to keep living it. Wide brown eyes fixed on my face. "I haven't seen another person in months. Not‌ anyone living, at least." I nodded, bitter. "I know what you mean." When she held out a hand to help me up, we ended up hugging, just because it'd been so long since either of us had touched anyone else. Even if we hadn't been in the middle of the apocalypse, even if I'd just been working on my photography while she was trying out for college soccer teams, I'd like to think we would've gotten along well anyway.
Traveling by myself had sucked beyond measure. I knew I wasn't the only person left in the world, but I felt like I was. My body had transformed into a machine to turn canned food into miles traveled. With Charlie, I had something besides death and survival to put in my head. She showed off how she could toss peanuts into the air and catch them in her mouth, made the Hamlet joke with strangers' skulls, set careful snares for zombified Zoners. She talked about how when we got out of the dead zone, she wanted to be a fitness instructor and help the next generation adapt. We slept in the same sleeping bag, unconsciously holding hands like baby otters. Having her there kept me from dwelling on everything I'd lost. But now Charlie was getting sick. Not turning into a Zoner, but poisoning from the Messianics' knockout darts. Her hair was falling out under her hats, and she lost weight no matter how many protein bars she made herself choke down. We joked that she looked like the world's tiniest grandpa. Except it was getting less funny by the day. It was all my fault. If I'd let the Messianics capture me, she'd be okay. Instead, she'd led them on a wild chase away from our cave hideout while I nursed a sprained ankle, and she came back staggering and ashen with blood trickling from her neck. Now, in her feverish excitement, she'd seized on a crazy idea: getting out of the dead zone. Finding what was left of the world. "We have to leave today. If we get good miles under our feet, we can be halfway over the rest of the distance before I'm too sick to walk. Get your stuff, yeah?"
And die in the wilderness miles from shelter. If my Charlie was going to leave me, I wanted her last memories to be of warmth and safety. Of her nest of blankets in the cave we'd inhabited for so long that it feels like home. She shoulder-nudged me, bony under her hoodie. "Come on, we're so close to the US border. This is our chance." Looking at her, I knew she wouldn't make it two miles on her own. And than safe, I wanted her to die happy. If trudging through the forest to look place that doesn't even exist would keep her smile shining, then I'd go with lie to her if I needed to, keep telling her we're almost there, or that they make sure our stories check out.
more for a her. I'd just need to
"All the food we're going to eat when we get to the refugee shelters," I told her. She smiled. "Yeah, same here." We packed up and headed out.
In the towns and cities, it was obvious how much things had changed. Buildings with blastbroken windows, so that shards of glass covered the streets like winter ice. Car parks like memorials; malls still sporting posters for summer sales that no one would ever attend. But the empty highway, the unlocked rest stop, the pine trees shivering as if preparing for upcoming cold… I could trick myself into believing that nothing had happened, and it was like the world belonged to us. "Do you think they have wildflowers like that in Canada?" Charlie asked. I forced myself to say yes. A few minutes later, she staggered; I caught her before she could fall. "Come on. You're going in the shopping cart." We'd used it to carry our food on rare grocery-store raids. When Charlie started getting sick, I was glad I'd held onto it. One wheel was wobbly, another squeaked, but it still moved; I helped her in. Her warmth felt almost comfortable against my hands. The thing is, I thought I was fine on my own. But ever since I joined forces with Charlie, my whole way of living had changed. When she laughed at something I said, I felt satisfied as if I'd found three cans of still-good beans on a scavenging run. I met her gazeAnd she wasn't breathing. My heartbeat was a speeded-up rhythm of panic and CPR instructions: press hard and fast, press hard and fast. But just when I was about to shove my hands under her shirt, she started breathing again. My legs wobbled. “Oh, my God, Charlie,” I said. “Don't ever fucking-- if I lose you--” “It's cool,” she said, coughing. “I was just going to barf and then I kind of choked on it. I'm not going to die. We'll be okay-” For ages, my plan had been this: when Charlie dies, find some high building and jump off. But her words of reassurance sparked something in me. I wanted to live. I couldn't think about the when of her death, only the if. "We're going to make it out of the Dead Zone, you hear me? I fucking promise."
Day turned into night, which wobbled into day again. Like a machine, I put one foot in front of the other. My tongue was a salted slug and my throat was linoleum. My eyes drooped closed until I nearly stumbled into a tree, and after that I hardly even let myself blink. A tree root jutted out in front of me, but I didn't see it. The ground slammed into my nose; cold
mud began to seep through my jeans. It was stupid, humiliating. Everything ached. Fuck. This was how I would die, face-down in some stupid swampy lake in the back end of nowhere. And if humanity bit it with me? I no longer cared. To keep moving, keep surviving, I'd walled away my feelings. What was the point if I wouldn't even live? Helpless, hating it, I started to cry. "Skyler?" Charlie's voice, cracked yet gentle. "You okay down there?" I turned my head. Charlie was a skeleton wrapped in soft brown skin, but still she smiled at me through a glimmer of tears. "I know we'll make it. It's just a bit further… you're really strong." Charlie, dying, was trying to comfort me. She didn't just believe in life outside the Dead Zone, I realized. She believed I'd never, ever let her down. A laugh hiccupped out of me as I stumbled to my feet. I wanted to make belief into a rope and use it to tug myself along. Wanted to make it into a fire and warm my numb hands, my unfeeling mind. It was hope or madness, and I lunged towards hope. Teetering in my sneakers, I took two steps forward and gripped the shopping cart. Cold metal felt like victory. As I started moving again, Charlie whimpered. "What's wrong?" "It hurts. A lot." I had pain meds, but they were all the kind you had to eat something with. Charlie couldn't keep anything down--she'd probably just throw them up. "What if I talk to you? So you can focus on something besides the pain. Would that help?" She didn't answer, just hugged herself, pressing her face into the shopping cart mesh. So as I was dragging the old squeaky trolley through the silent burnt valley, I told her everything. She didn't seem to hear my words, just the sound of my voice, and it made me brave. I told her I loved her ridiculous snorting laugh, the way she could build a fire without even having to think about it, how badass she looked when she rolled up her sleeves and hacked branches off trees. When she jammed her hand between my legs she was all I could think about-I couldn't care how rocky the ground under our sleeping bag was, or the wind's cold breath against my face. Just a world full of Charlie. And when she fell asleep first, the way she always did, and rested her head against my shoulder, I felt protective and strong. “I love you, Charlie Ann Alvarez,” I told her. “We're going to make it. Don't you dare fucking die.” And if I was lying, I didn't want truth.
The air congealed into Jello, and my legs could hardly shuffle. A pine tree whapped me in the face, but I just trudged onwards. That's when I saw it. A figure in the fog… maybe a person, maybe a hallucination. Please-please-please pushed at my chest. I raised a hand and called out: "Hello?" "Hello?" It was a man's voice, not an echo of mine. Deep relief drenched me like bathwater, and something incoherent burst from my throat. Whatever happened next, it wasn't my problem. "This is Charlie Alvarez," I slurred, pointing to her. "You need to make sure she's okay." Then I let things happen to me: darkness and the ground.
There was something poking into my arm. The Messianics! They're pumping me full of fertility drugs! I tried to yank it out, but capable hands restrained me. "You're severely dehydrated and malnourished. It wouldn't be a good idea to pull out that IV. Don't worry, it's mostly just a saline solution for the moment." She didn't sound like a Messianic, and I calmed down enough to examine my surroundings. What I saw blew my mind. Clean pastel-green curtains draped around me, and a pink flannel blanket covered my body. Peeking through the gap in the curtains, I saw a doctor in scrubs passing briskly down a carpeted hallway. Everything looked brand new, no dirt or blood anywhere. I gaped at her, barely able to make words. "Am I in heaven?" She laughed at me, but not in a mean way. "No, you're in Canada." "But I thought..." "Despite what the Messianics want you to believe, they were only able to drop their bombs over the United States. In other countries, bar the influx of refugees, rising food prices, and so on, life continues almost as normal. It's a big almost, of course, but..." "The world hasn't ended," I finished. My head was absolutely spinning, and not just from dehydration. "I have to tell—oh, god. Charlie!" I had to see her, had to know if she was okay. "My friend-- the girl I came with--" "I'll take you to her right away."
I started to really breathe again as soon as I was wheeled into her room. She was still too skinny, dark circles under her eyes matching the purple splotches of spontaneous bruises, but her face shone when she saw me. "Charlie--" I fell from the wheelchair onto her bed, and we caught in a tangle of laughter and limbs. "There are people here," she said breathlessly. "People and kids. They're going to let me teach gym classes when I get my strength back. And electricity-- and books!" A smile charged toward my face. The old Skyler would've stifled it back. Now I let it happen. "Just as long as you don't start saying I told you so." "I promise I won't." I wondered what I'd do when I was well enough to work again. For months, I hadn't dared plan beyond the next meal. Now there was a future in front of me. And whatever plans I made, I knew Charlie had to be in them. "Hey," she murmured, getting my attention. "Did you mean it?" "Mean what?" "All that stuff you said about loving me when you thought I was going to die‌ if you just said it so I'd listen, that's okay too. I mean, it worked." The pre-Charlie Skyler would've pretended not to know or care. But the right-now Skyler wanted to blossom into whatever came next. "I think I've loved you since before I remembered what love was." "I thought you said you don't like feeling things." I draped an arm across her shoulders. Still bony, but she'd get better. We both would. "Maybe I found something worth feeling." Her lips were even softer than the dryer-clean sheets.
{8tracks.com/windowgardener/november-2015-playlist}
PLAYLIST cherry blossom // rosie’s posies ballad for winter // porch cat self aware // amy bruce spaceshow blossom buttercup // i kill Cameron miss merciless // picture show scifi movie night // bogsey and the Argonauts padillis // rosie’s posies sincerely yours // adult mom mirror falls // days n’ daze friends house, dmv, and more // bogsey and the Argonauts
Trouble With Storm By Asher Storm cantered around in her paddock, bucking and swinging her head, happy as can be, with Ash leaning against the fence smiling at her, watching her. Storm noticed him and trotted up to the fence, putting her large head on the top pole, snorting at Ash. "Hey girl," he chuckled. "What are you up to?" As a large draft horse, a tinker to be exact, Storm was very mysterious and kept to herself, but she could hide nothing from Ash. He petted her nose softly deciding to head over to Daisy's ranch. Daisy was his sister and his best friend. She had long dark brown hair with big brown eyes. She was very beautiful, and loved her horses. Opening the gate to the paddock, Ash walked down the barn with Storm following close by. As she stayed still and made no fuss, Ash put on her tack in no hurry. Mounting Storm quickly, Ash knew what she was going to do. She leaped forward into a gallop, whinnying like a maniac and headed to Daisy's. Finally arriving at Daisy's, Ash brought Storm down to a trot. She whinnied once loudly announcing her arrival to the other horses. Midnight, Daisy's gray Andalusian stallion, came to the fence, whinnying back at Storm in an excited tone. He ran up and down the fence line whinnying at Storm with his tail high. Storm seemed to grin at him and snorted. Ash noticed this and laughed. "Looks like someone’s got your attention!" Daisy came out the house and Storm trotted over to her, nudging her hand. Daisy giggled and gave her a sugar cube, petting her nose softly. "Oh Storm, you silly mare. You expect everything out of my hands." Ash dismounted, petting Storm's neck. "She has been happy lately. Which is a good thing of course." he told her. "You can let her loose in Midnight's paddock, he should be tired. I just came back from a long gallop with him." Daisy told Ash. "Will do." he replied, taking her saddle and blanket off putting them on the fence. Once he opened the gate and brought her inside the paddock he took her bridle off, hanging it near her saddle, watching her walk to Midnight, who was laying down and rolling in the grass. "Well, what's up?" Daisy asked. "I don't know, I just don't see you much anymore and Storm was really hyper this morning. I'm trying to figure out why she is so giddy." Ash told her. Daisy looked at Ash, about to laugh. "Maybe she's in heat?" She suggested. "I mean... It is May." Daisy informed him. Ash widened his eyes, realizing that Storm was in Midnight's paddock. Midnight the stallion. "Oh crap." Ash
ran outside, Daisy following behind. He saw Storm and Midnight laying down against each other with Storm grooming his mane. Ash looked at Daisy. "What do you think happened? Did you think they..." Ash's words faded to silence. Daisy stared at him. "I guess we will have to wait a couple months." Ash watched both of them peacefully laying together. "Do you think he's good for her?" Ash asked Daisy. Daisy replied with sharp words. "Of course he's good for her! He's not constantly trying to mount her like another stallion. Midnight is a good boy. He's very bendable with mares. He knows when and when not to do things around them." Daisy looked at Midnight and Storm with a smile, her hair blowing in the soft wind. Ash whistled softly at Storm and she twitched her ears towards him, continuing to groom Midnight's mane. Seeming to be satisfied, she stopped and layed her head on his withers. The next day Storm was like her normal self, but a little cranky. She bared her teeth at any other stallion except for Haven (her brother) and Midnight. Storm the hot headed draft mare... Oh what was Ash supposed to do with her? He assumed that Midnight was going to be a sire in a matter of a near year as well as Storm becoming a dam. Taking care of a pregnant mare and in time, a foal, Ash knew it was going to be a difficult year. Later on Storm will not be able to work so he will have to train Haven to gain some muscle for Ash's heavy vet work. Somewhat dreading and thrilled to gain a foal in the following year, Ash said his goodbyes to Daisy and whistled for Storm to come over with Midnight following her. Ash pet Midnight's nose and attempted to send him away but Midnight wanted Storm to stay around. Opening the gate and holding Midnight back, Ash motioned Storm to walk through so she did. Ash allowed Storm to stick her head over the fence, to say her goodbyes to Midnight, while he put her tack on. Finally at home Ash fed both Haven and Storm and stuck them out in the paddock. It was a warm day out and he thought that both horses should cherish that fact, for he knew that it was going to be a cold winter in the future. A cold winter that a foal is to be born in. At the thought of that Ash sighed and leaned his head on the paddock fence. As much as he loved to send new animals into the world, he was not ready for his own mare to do so. Going inside for the time being Ash called a couple of his clients to check on his patients. Life would go on as it is, for the time being.