Yahara Journal 2010

Masthead Editor

Clare Dickerson Staff Brianna Johnson Greg Timm Rebecca Ray Sarah Pigo Arsenio Green Jeff Herwig

Cover & Layout Clare Dickerson

Advisor

Doug Kirchberg 1

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Table of Contents Lacey Richgels – Pass Me a Hit of Passion .........................................................4 Elizabeth Brock – Searching for a Cure ................................................................5 Andy Kubai – Bait ............................................................................................................. 6 Andy Kubai – Locust Summer ....................................................................................7 Sam Johnson – Voices .....................................................................................................8 S.P. Flannery – Trepanation ........................................................................................ 9 S.P. Flannery – Basement Lab ..................................................................................10 Isabelle Spotts – Horripilation .................................................................................11 Travis Alvin – Hoping in a Land Called If ....................................................... 12 Cristalyne Bell – First Kiss ........................................................................................ 14 Dallas Riddle – Silly Girl ............................................................................................. 15 Jessie HarlaQuinn – Because Little Timmy Will Never ......................... 16 Grow Up To Be An Astronaut Christian Dewey – Fog ..................................................................................................17 Jeremy Parker – Corporate Cthulhu .................................................................... 18 Jeremy Parker – Railroad Diptych ........................................................................ 19 Taisia Kuklina – Untitled ............................................................................................20 Taisia Kuklina – Home Alone .................................................................................. 21 Mike Conway – Power Plant .....................................................................................22 Kaeti Lindquist – Tyler Poncho Toys Print Ad ...............................................23 Zhao Zhao – Mystery .....................................................................................................24 Zhao Zhao – Wedding ..................................................................................................25 Jackie Sanders – Colored Glass .............................................................................26 Sarah Stankey – French Horn ................................................................................... 27 Kiersten Doty – Questioned .....................................................................................28 Mary Booth – Ted ............................................................................................................29 Eduardo Cardenas – Untitled ..................................................................................30 Mike Conway – Criss-Crossed Power .................................................................. 31 Jessie HarlaQuinn – Taxi Driver ...........................................................................32 Jessie HarlaQuinn – Look Into My Eye ..............................................................33 Lucas Bianchi – Hullabaloo ......................................................................................34 Lucas Bianchi – Numbers & Emotions ................................................................35 Caroline Knickmeier – Spike With Balloons ..................................................36 Lucas Bianchi – Aaron ................................................................................................. 37 Andi Kubai – Dating, Post-Industrial ..................................................................38 Joleen R. Welborn – Cerebrum ...............................................................................40

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Margarita Turney – Puckered Tuesday...............................................................42 Joleen R. Welborn – Anachronism........................................................................46 Nathan Morton – The Triumph of Tying Your Shoes .................................48 Jeff Ninnemann – Slingshot Run ...........................................................................50 Jacob Ruse – Deal ...........................................................................................................52 Jeni Schulze – Gerald and the Suit ......................................................................56 Amber Hulett – The Door ......................................................................................... 60 Vanessa Bergenthal – Blue ........................................................................................64

Staff Work Rebecca Ray – Ohio Sky ..............................................................................................65 Sarah Pigo – Yellow.........................................................................................................66 Greg Timm – Untitled...................................................................................................67 Clare Dickerson – Stars................................................................................................68 Arsenio Green – Panic Attack .................................................................................69 Brianna Johnson – The Platypus Has Landed ..............................................70

Mission Statement The Yahara Journal will support learning and creativity at Madison College through the publication of a print journal and the sponsorship of events and activities that facilitate growth in writing and visual arts.

About the Yahara Journal The Yahara Journal is a fine arts publication of Madison College student work. It is one of many activities made available by the Student Life Office and funded by Student Activity Fees. The opinions expressed in this publication do not necessarily represent those of the Madison College administration, faculty, staff or student body.

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pass me a hit of passion Lacey Richgels

with a clenched fist rolled in papers drowned in froth of saliva from the words you preach embarked into a script on the tip of my pores – a pathway into me from my outside skin. but never running thin pass me a hit of passion i’m a thick canvas creating a mastered piece of imperfections running deep layers of life dead and alive broken and revived with others inspiring where i direct my next stroke of painting my insides out so you can look into me but not through me. pass me a hit of passion feeding my thoughts to get some more i’ll exhale feathered spinning words into a tornado of fog surrounding a glow of rhymed improving flow. my lifeline is one big show to the world – all i have is all i know. others exploit new ideas to my ideals and i become familiar to something in everyone but me i’m never done pass me a hit of passion knocking your brains soaring skies through the floor where your hands are buried into plantations of translucent worlds trying to grasp dimension of air hanging by thick knots dangling on the edge of mountain tops. you have to hold your own. inside yourself. but then me pass me a hit of passion until i’m sure i’ve had enough but enough is never too much. every breath every flow i test makes me realize i’ve got a lot left. this road never stops and avoids circles that lock into repetition and comfort. my warmth is in unfamiliar cold numbing and thawing into cracks to fold pass me a hit of passion ill take all of it in just enough to leave the rest to caress where a new inch of you has never been

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searching for a cure Elizabeth Brock “What is the cure for tiredness?” I ask.

“Sleep,” they tell me.

“Are you kidding me? Sleep, sleep? Who could possibly sleep? My eyes may droop. Their lids may be too weak to hold them open, but even that cannot shut the mind off. The mind is a minefield; explosions happening here, there and everywhere! Who can sleep with so many thoughts and ideas being cast about like shrapnel? Who would want to sleep and make them go away?

Certainly not me, certainly not! So tell me, tell me, what is the cure for tiredness?” I ask.

“Sleep,” they tell me.

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bait

Andy Kubai

the box as

you peer its corrugated grays

its teasing premise shape-shifting expectations

a pony with green-striped tube socks, a smoky black pistol squirting an army figurine playing

on a stuffed penguin eyes blurting

jovially sketching a

resplendent parachute

for the soul – jagged corners

torn, shreds of plastic gold joy littered around outside when inside

is nothing save for a

sardonic

smile.

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locust summer Andy Kubai

busy eyes bashful aquamarine

so long ago I fell

for that swirling watery vortex inside the salutation of tears

misting, fog pierced by darting impish light.

across that trampled field

we danced on wheat chaff tried to cry but oil spurted out

your hand so cold

talking in symphonies of cicadas, leaping everywhere until some hidden current dragged you into the swaying grass beyond

too tall for me to reach

out of sight,

in its fury.

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voices

Sam Johnson So dark in countenance The lady stands Underneath the lips of a lamppost

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Trepanation S.P. Flannery

Cures pounded from herbs fall from head wounds, excess paste that dogs and children devour, their nutrition derelict under the shadow of epidemic, a disease spawned from hearsay and inseminated by panic, skulls released of demons through prescribed holes, doctors that spin the incompetence to search for courage, the lack of selflessness required of those who lead.

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Basement Lab S.P. Flannery

Battery acid-filled glass jars line the behind side of antediluvian magazines and periodicals yellowed by internal stale weather and omnipresent fluorescent lamps, burnt-out on one side, a diapause where the electric currents reverse back to the source to anti-revolve generators of artificial light, turn the brightness into darkness illumined in this room by reactions between electrons in chemicals forgotten in their excited state, glossy pictures animate and undulate, transfer their third effect to the frantic ink-stained visions that fill the sinuses with pressure.

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HORRIPILATION Isabelle Spotts

I could appear very naked. I could stick my toes to the floor and grow three inches, The long legs would grow like a bean stalk and every Jack would want to climb it.

Every Jack would want to be golden.

And there would be no fee-fi-fo-fum. Just little breaths, I would say, “Jack is my favorite name.”

If I did this, you could see the cold bumps.

Like my biology teacher said, goose pimples.

I thought that was completely unscientific.

I asked why, why did the skin rise?

He didn’t answer.

I thought of it like armor. Or just disgust.

The small little bumps to cover the smooth skin; they would bubble up and like little blossoms the hair would form meadows on my naked body, I would be less naked.

Turns out, back before our bodies met razors and porn high definition screens, photoshop and wax for ripping when our hair grew thick from our neck and thick from our toes, like rabbits in white cold we could trap the heat.

And when our hair would stand on end … we could overawe the things that came near us.

The threatening half quiet moments in the woods as a rabbit, or the shaking half dim moments in the alley as a lady the hair could stand, it could move from our backs like ridges, spears of zigzags like a Halloween black cat.

If I were naked, you could take a picture and I could be rich and you could be a poor bastard because you see beauty in skin.

I admit. Skin is so beautiful.

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Hoping in a land called if Travis Alvin in the right light all the math works in reverse and the same is true. unfortunate faces make more than perfect sense: the black thumb of a 3 dollar winner gripping hope without a prayer betting nickel for dime for stretching penny apart from hunger, and beyond his habits only to retire on disability, and food stamps. or the mechanic, who’s got it clocked on perseverance, all out of his pockets up in arms, trying to buy the big money so he can leave his wife, honorably quit his job without notice before retiring to the stronghold of a fishing boat. faces that are losing patience with their odds looking all directions up and down for an out, for a loophole through it all at any time will give or take entire lives at the drop of a hat, over and over going bust against all hope, going for broke, or breakthrough but the nickel will simply fall on something, or nothing

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when the light is right, there is no escaping the math if you know the numbers and the same is true in reverse some of us save our money, go mad slowly noticing things we never get over. you can add my name to that list and let it ride.

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FIRST KISS

Cristalyne Bell He is walking me home Just a block from school Halfway there, he stops me Looks me in the eyes I can’t help but think No, not yet, I am not ready Not ready to know more Than I should at the tender Age of twelve I am not ready for A boy who is not my father To kiss me farewell I am not ready to let someone know The taste of my innocence And then it happened In one swift swoop An awkward embrace Where my hands felt lost Beside my own body And what felt like an orange peel Touched my rose petal lips

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Silly Girl Dallas Riddle

Oh man he was the taker and I… and I the giver.

With our cups filled we drank. Clean the broken glass in the morning.

A masochist’s motto.

A gaze, a whisper, a laugh, a song. Dance.

With your eyes on my back, I kept on.

So I drank this wine to soothe the soul.

Lay my head upon this cool pillow.

Close my eyes and pray we won’t meet in dreams only to wake with you in my heart’s mind.

Crawl from my bed to begin another tainted day.

When my eye finds you it will quickly glance away.

Maybe you’ll see me. Carry on about what he said and she said.

You, none the wiser. While my tiny heart shakes its fists at me.

Silly girls with silly dreams.

We never learn no matter how real they might seem.

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Because little Timmy will never grow up to be an astronaut Jessie HarlaQuinn

I wasn’t afraid of his elephantine steel-toe Dr. Martins clomping forcefully up the stairs,

his drunken, ungainly walk With each step, the metallic twang of nearly empty aluminum cans against steel,

the dissonance of his wallet chains

and pocket change

as he scrapes up the handrail His abrasive demeanor never alarmed me,

nor did his honking, inappropriate laughter The horrifyingly obscene monologues that spewed forth out of his mouth,

could have been a birthday cake and free kittens

And sometimes I forget,

I call to invite him over for whiskey and ice cream, Then,

before there is even a ring tone,

the computer generated voice tells me his number is unavailable,

and –

sounding more familiar, the voice suggests, I hang up.

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fog

Christian Dewey They stuffed their pockets with fog until the seams wouldn’t hold. They gulped it down, but the alveoli refused the exchange, so their brains wanted oxygen. And it was possible they knew it then: at the edge of vapor, they found the limit of substance, and they couldn’t change in state, though not for a lack of catalysts. And who wouldn’t want to try, because have you witnessed transubstantiation?

I have. This is my blood says the sky, the heavens shake, and down falls rain.

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corporate Cthulhu Jeremy Parker

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RAILROAD DIPTYCH Jeremy Parker

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UNTITLED

Taisia Kuklina

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home alone

Taisia Kuklina

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POWER PLANT Mike Conway

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TYLER PONCHO TOYS PRINT AD Kaeti Lindquist

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MYSTERY Zhao Zhao

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WEDDING Zhao Zhao

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COLORED GLASS Jackie Sanders

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french horn Sarah Stankey

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QUESTIONED Kiersten Doty

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TED

Mary Booth

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UNTITLED

Eduardo Cardenas

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CRISS-CROSSED POWER Mike Conway

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TAXI DRIVER

Jessie HarlaQuinn

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LOOK INTO MY EYE Jessie HarlaQuinn

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HULlABALOO Lucas Bianchi

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Numbers & emotions Lucas Bianchi

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Spike with Balloons Caroline Knickmeier

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Aaron

Lucas Bianchi

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Dating, Post-Industrial Andy Kubai

As exercises in futility go, this is about as existentially bleak as it gets. I’ll give him credit for trying, but he didn’t even get it half-right. At least he got the – honk, honk; screech, wee-oww wee-oww – watch the sunset part. Romantic is clearly not in his vocabulary, but fool’s an applicable descriptive. Thus begins the poorest showing of a second date I’ve ever seen. Terminally bland – that’s the best description I can think of for this.

I mean, call me crazy, call me some man hating feminist psychotic, but the notion of splitting a Mr. Freezy and a box of Mint IIIs – sitting on the hood of his car doesn’t – vroom vroom vroom; squeal; dum-tss dum-tss – exactly fill me with the white hot passion of a thousand suns. Maybe it’s just the fact we’re sitting in the parking lot behind a Meaty Deals adjacent to one of Rhodesville’s primo ‘cruising’ strips. Perhaps it has something to do with him being blazed and that every other word from his mouth is “dude.” I mean is it really difficult to string together a subject and a predicate without inserting “dooood.” I’m a fucking girl!

– kapow; vrrrroooom, vroom; wee-aah wee-aah wee-aah…dum-tchk, dumdum-tchk – Oh for fuck’s sake – the yawn-stretch? Is he reading “How to Pick-up Cliché Bimbos” or something? He probably bought his copy of “Dating for Dummies” right here, next to his Mr. Freezy. How nauseating. He did make it to high school, right? I’m shocked he didn’t break out some cheesy line when he asked me out, like the “did it hurt?” line or some other bullshit. I guess he deserves more credit than that.

On the bright side, if such a thing exists, the location has a certain postmodern charm to it. Here we are, sprawled across steel, surrounded by concrete and metal with the buzzing halogen above us; traffic lights beside us and the sun’s final auburn rays caressing us as it breaches the horizon. Nature’s beauty, for one brief moment, frames man’s abominations before abandoning us to our nocturnal technocracy. It has a certain poetic ring to it.

Christ! I sound like

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– rattle-rattle, hissssss-squeak; clackaclackaclackaclacka – some sad sack jerk-off who wears fresh-printed ringer tees of old, products and watches reruns of tv shows no one ever liked to seem culturally ironic.

Someone concerned with their hipster quotient. No, I take it back. I sound more cynically pretentious than the lot of them. Here I am, looking for poignancy in a parking lot. I have no right to mock anyone for their need for happiness, to belong. That makes me no better.

The true question is, am I denying myself a quiet, introspective guy here?

So his vocabulary stems from disk jockey-banter. I might not be giving him enough credit. There’s a certain minimalistic ambiance to our date which has its charm. Of course, our first date was at Pizza Pantry and we went Dutch, but I like to be a modern gal. Perhaps he’s making some sort of artistic statement about the art of dating. Maybe he has a bitter, acerbic wit underneath his landlocked surfer look. I’m probably just reading too much into the whole damn thing.

– beep beep beeeeeeep, squeal, ratta-thunk ratta-thunk – I have to learn to shut off my brain from time to time; not to be so hyperanalytic. More spontaneity could prove beneficial to body, mind and heart.

Maybe what makes this date feel so goddamn pedestrian is my inability to let myself go – to open up and allow myself to be swept away in the emotional currents that youth is resplendent with. I could blame my first year at school for my logic overdrive, but it seems more like a personal flaw. I can’t remember ever not being this way. Suppose that for one shocking moment I opened up and actually listened whole-heartedly to his occasional mumbling prattle (wait, that’s too judgmental – mumbling chatter). I may find the soul of an artist beneath his vending machine words. Perhaps, in time, I could find myself – hiss-creeeak; thud thud-thud thud thud-thud…vroom-vroom – caring about him. There’s too much of this nonsensical, self-centered selfimportance clouding our modern culture. I should just relax.

Here we are, huddled on the hood of his Taurus – the entire world before us.

This is his simplistic canvas, a masterpiece of realism, its beauty is implied in its rejection of our convoluted universe. It begs admiration, which I failed to understand. Instead of the big picture, I should appreciate the moment. Now. I shouldn’t be so obsessed with nuance or lack thereof. Relax, let everything wash over me. Ignore his clammy palm on my shoulder. Turn my head. Smile.

“Dude, I wanna see a movie, but I’m kinda broke. Got any cash?”

– squeal, boom-da-boom-da boom-da…vroom-vroom – “This just isn’t working.”

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cerebrum

Joleen R. Welborn I never thought I would say this, but I think I’ve been spending too much time in the morgue. Friends of mine with jobs in this field have said that it takes a couple of months to get over the shock. A neurophysiology demonstration today had me thinking lately about that mound of meat and fat that governs more meat and fat to eat, go to school, get married, build a house, plan a city, run a country. I can’t imagine the gelatinous pile sitting under the doctor’s knife could have done all of that for 60 years.

And this patient was young compared to other mounds of meat and fat.

60 year old female with advanced stage dementia presented to the ER on September 3rd, 2008, unconscious. Blood pressure was abnormally low and breathing shallow. Patient was intubated and put on blood pressure support until declared dead by Dr. K at 2100 hours. Family compiled the patient’s medical history, including a personal journal kept by the patient’s husband. The journal spanned 4 years and detailed the gradual progression from full function to minimal motor control and severely impaired speech.

Dr. S. says dementia consistent with Pick’s disease comes from atrophy of the frontal cortex. I had never heard of this disease.

From this section, you can see amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, atrophy of the white matter in the frontal cortex. Cortical degeneration and subcortical gliosis of temporal lobes. The patient’s dementia as described in the journal is consistent with these physical findings. She likely could not talk due to damage in this area, and perhaps showed uninhibited and paranoid behavior.

It makes sense we would want something centrally located and well protected to tell us when and what to eat, how to eliminate waste and how to make more of us. What seems beyond my comprehension is that this same organ can sit and wax poetic about itself. Oliver Sachs must have some great stories in this realm. Can you imagine the kidney writing Haiku about renal function or the liver angry about all of the alcohol it has to filter out?

Damage to these areas I am pointing to will create problems with memory.

You can tell her something new and she won’t remember it. Our entire being is more language-based than we think. If you were to show her how to do something without talking to her, she may be able to do it later with a bit of practice.

But anything you tell her, she won’t remember you even mentioned it 5 minutes later. Damage in this area, right here, and she won’t get any new ideas, ever again.

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I think, therefore I am. Decartes, right? Are you if you can’t think? Damage in the Broca’s Area and you lose speech and language. Damage in the prefrontal cortex and you lose executive function, working memory. What part makes you vote Democrat or Republican? What can happen to this organ that will reverse the polarity of its moral compass? What damage will cause loss of self-awareness, philosophy, religion, faith, your soul? Can you fall out of a tree and suddenly not believe in God? And will He punish you for not accepting His son as your lord and savior?

Incidentally, I believe there may be some damage in that area of my own brain. I’ve suffered a moral stroke, if you will.

I exited the morgue and into the hallway where I met up with several patients on their way to a physical exam. What part of the brain can care about the human aspect of medicine and still approach the fundamental questions scientifically?

Her brain probably weighs 900 grams.

I see dead people everywhere.

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puckered tuesday Margarita Turney

Things pile up, Everest piles up. Next year Everest will be inches taller.

Around here I don’t have to wait a year. Everything becomes succinctly stacked like the lines in a novel. I stacked the books in the hall. I was afraid for you to see me when you enter; after all perhaps I’ve changed. “You’re beautiful Bea,” you said. What? Ridiculous. I am aging. I feel old. My organs have fallen from their branches. They convene in the pit of my stomach. My heart thumps against my hip bone. I have a wicked cough wearing away at my throat, and you tell me that I am beautiful. The books block my view of the entrance, but I sit behind them with my backed turned, waiting for you to enter at nine. Please come soon. My eyes squint and my lips pucker; everything tastes sour! Come early. Surprise me with flowers or chocolates.

I went to the kitchen. The rain speckled the glass and the glass wept. I don’t wish to reach inside of the refrigerator; the condensation sends unpleasant chills up my arm. Most people don’t fear their refrigerators, but I do. There is something coolly unpleasant about refrigerators. A salesman tried to sell me a refrigerator once. He knocked on the door and handed over a glossy catalog. “You’ll never have problems with rotten food again.” I slammed the door in his face and kept the catalog. I buried it under the floor boards, the whole thing made me fell like a criminal.

The dishes are so high. I really should turn on the spigot and wash them, but I feel that you will be home soon. Will you be back soon? Your dinner is cold. I made it too early. I should have planned this out better, but you are gone on business once again and I got too impatient. If I made dinner later, you might come home even later. You’ll just have to be satisfied with cold spaghetti then.

Last night I was reading stories from The Arabian Nights. I put pillows along my back and thighs. I created the illusion that you had never left, but it makes me nervous, for you may never come back and pillows will always remind me of your form. The hair about your ears is my favorite part of your body. Pillows don’t grow hair. There is no worse felling than doing an activity alone. Cuddling a pillow and reading a story, I felt very alone. Did I make you up in my mind or will you come through the front door at nine? I have never been on an adventure or been lost like the characters in Arabian Nights.

Scheherazade spent a thousand nights telling you her stories. You never left her once to go to Wal-Mart or Michigan. Was she very beautiful?

“I’m home,” you said entering the front door. A sweet odor emanated from your clothing – fresh rain. Streams of rain form pools in your eyes. You once said to me that if I could invent my own religion then I could die happy.

“Please,” I said, “Don’t go away you don’t understand!” I take your coat and pucker my lips to kiss your cheek, you kiss my mouth. “You’re beautiful Bea,”

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you said. I twitched and smiled. A vibrant vermillion rug lies lazily, half unrolled across the living room floor. You are curled up in my arms with your legs sprawled out on the floor. I feel your tired breathing hollowing out my chest. This is a strange place to be. I want to be filled with your warmth and feelings, but each exhalation is hollowing me out. The harder I hold you, the more you are beginning to let go. Please don’t take me for granted.

Rays of light color the façade of the house. The hawthorn silently creeps up to the house taking over the yard. The pink flowers glimmer a dewy rose.

I find it hard to navigate in the morning. First to the bathroom for a squeezed glob of toothpaste, to the table for coffee, and I am out the door. I leave you still sleeping in enveloping white sheets. “Everything must be white,” I said when we moved in. I needed clarity away from the clutter. Slowly my asylum was becoming complete, and then you brought home a vermillion rug, now everything will have to be thought out again. But first the refrigerator.

Molly at work is full of tears; she cries about her husband, she cries about her children, and today she is crying about her dog. Strands of hair escape her chignon, turning her into a premature bride of Frankenstein. Her make-up is smeared and clumps of dirty mascara speckle her cheeks. As she delivers the mail, she sniffs and drools.

“Morning Bea,” she said, handing me a thick envelope splattered with saliva. Behind me Adam gargles his applesauce. He likes to unbutton the top three buttons of his shirt when Molly goes by. He doesn’t have any chest hair, just a lot of freckles. Adam was a boxer. He won a lot of championships, but gave it up one day. Now he sits at a desk getting staples stuck in his fingernails.

The walls of the office are painted a dull olive green – my boss read in a magazine that green is supposed to create a warm environment. I can feel the walls creeping in. Everything got smaller overnight. You said that she swapped one shade of gray for another. The coffee brews, every drop in the pot falls like a grain of sand onto a desert dune.

“Bea,” my boss says. “Please try and get the phone numbers in the right order today.” Mrs. Urn, please try not to step on everyone today.

“Molly, don’t cry girl. Keep a stiff upper lip.” My boss is sinister. She is responsible for all our insecurities. “Bea, that man of yours is a catch. What is he a professor? I’d get pregnant if I were you, and hold that one down.” Please don’t pay any attention to her. She is married to an oaf, and pleasures herself to celebrities in People Magazine. There is a stack of magazines against the wall near the weekly schedule. No one but her has ever touched them.

At lunch I stay clear of the cafeteria because the hallway smells like hamburger helper no matter what’s on the menu. Outside I grab a caramel coffee and a sandwich at a café and sit outside on a bench by the water fountain.

Molly would normally join me if she stopped crying, but today she’ll morn in a bathroom stall. So much depends on you. I let down my hair and you jumped the stair and seized me around the waist.

Has it always been this way? Four hours behind a computer monitor for a sandwich and eight ounces of coffee? This coffee is too sweet. Are you still

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sleeping? At the funeral you said that we would always have each other, and that was good enough, but now what? I have cousins, I will always have lots of cousins even if half of them die, but I can’t go to them.

Four years before you met me, I was working for my Uncle Mickey in one of his restaurants. I was nineteen. Earlier that summer I had broken my arm when a bicyclist ran me over. My elbow still creaks. Uncle Mickey gave me a job as a one-armed waitress. He thought it was so funny. I wanted to throw a lasagna at him. He laughed too loud, ate too much, and swore like a onelegged man caught in a bear trap. More than anything Uncle Mickey was greedy. If someone in the family asked him for money to buy their kid a new pair of shoes, Uncle Mickey went an bought himself a pair instead. My dad was Mickey’s brother, and my dad loved Mickey.

There is an ounce of caramel swirling around the bottom of my cup. I have ten minutes until the lunch is over. In the corner of the great room there is an abandoned typewriter. A spiral mold fill the room’s absent corners. I gave you a ribbon, now the ink has expired; I know you liked it. If I hold my breath long enough time stops. That’s why the dead no longer care. Two minutes.

At my desk Adam comes and sits beside me.

“Bea?” “Yes Adam,” I said. Do you remember when we were stranded in a snow storm?

“Notice anything different about me,” He watches the side of my face. I like Adam but he laughs too easily. He doesn’t make me feel funny, he makes me feel normal.

“No Adam. What?”

“I used shampoo- sweet pea shampoo. Do you like it?” For example if I do a Christopher Waken impression, Adam laughs. If someone says, “Oh, I locked my keys in the car,” Adam laughs. I no longer feel brilliant.

“That’s nice Adam, you smell nice.”

“I think I am going to make this a habit.” What I never understood is why, showering is new for Adam. He boxed twice a week for almost four years. I wonder. Molly is still in the bathroom. Mrs. Urn is growing impatient with hand on the door and the other clasped tightly around a filmy magazine. At Christmas she wore a green and red stripped sweater. She looked like a confused gender bumble bee. I got a drink from the fountain that tasted like cold steel. Molly won’t come out. I try knocking and comforting her, but I feel as useful as one of Adam’s laughs. Please come out. Molly won’t get fired because she’ll be here tomorrow drooling over the mail and that is just good enough.

After work, I open the door to our house then close it tightly behind me.

There is a soft hum, but I can hardly feel the traffic going to and fro. The books resume their stacks in the hall and the vermillion rug embarrasses the great white room. I am beginning to like that rug. You found it in a Congolese market and traded a pair of white tennis shoes for it. At first I was mad because I had bought you those tennis shoes, but you did it for me, right? I lay down on the rug, cuddling up like a frightened beetle. I can feel a western breeze touch-

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ing my cheek. Once we sat on the beach, and pinned the earth with our two blue umbrellas. I told you then who I was and what I wanted. We should go back to that beach, there are many more things I need to tell you.

The tea stains the water a deep red and leaves dark freckles in the ceramic mug. I sit on the vermillion rug reading The Arabian Nights. Tonight it will rain again, but tonight you will eat a warm dinner. While the dinner cooks slowly, my fingers move up and down the thin pages as I slowly devour the words. There’s a science to boredom, you know; it is like a potluck where no one has an appetite. I fall asleep on my back across the rug and float off to sleep like Ophelia.

She was as cool as a gin and tonic, oozing self-confidence, and you, lapped at her heels like a thirsty dog. I heard a match being dragged across your knee.

A little fire broke out at the end of the shaft. She leaned in close to light a cigarette. Your laughter was long and loud. When I turn over, you have gone and left behind a dent in the pillow and a toothbrush in the sink. Once again a business trip takes you away.

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Anachronism

Joleen R. Welborn Imagine if you will, that you could go back in time, to a pivotal point in one of your parents’ lives and give them some advice. Would you tell your mother to focus more on your education so you could be smarter or more successful?

Would you tell your father to stop smoking so he would be alive and healthy today?

If I could, I would search the streets of the Atlanta suburb called Cabbagetown, back when it was still a cannery row, before the condos and coffee shops were erected. I’d find a certain golden-haired young man on the brink of a destructive fall he could avoid if only he would resist the temptation to jump.

He and I would sit in a diner over a cup of coffee and I’d tell him what I knew.

I would tell my father not to go to war. His honor will be easily forgotten after politics swing the other way and the electorate forgets what he will do for them in a steaming jungle surrounded by wraiths. I want to tell him the horrors he will face will last forever, in his dreams at night and in his children’s way of thinking. He will be physically intact, but his mind will be blown apart and stitched back together by sheer impetus to survive, leaving only scar tissue, and none of the intelligent, charismatic man I see sitting in front of me.

The war will change your genetic code and your children will inherit your fear, your anger, your sense the world is an unfair, brutal place. The gene that contains your PTSD will express in your daughters and in your sons. All of you will be prone to nightmares, suspicion and most of all, loneliness. Your children will not understand you or even like you. Why should they after what you gave them to face the world? This planet will be frightening enough without what they have to face at home. There can and will be no healing when you cross paths again. They will eventually decide never to speak to you and this will be your punishment. The only things you’ll have to show for this life you’ve led are the scar on your torso where a man stabbed you with a bayonet, and a metallic heart colored violet to put into a box that no one will see.

What, you ask, would I tell a young girl, fresh out of high school, beginning her first job at the State Fair? Could I buy a beverage from her stand and strike up a conversation? Yes, it would be easy; she loves people and loves to talk. I’m 5’3” and I tower over this woman. Her hair is longer than mine, straight, dark brown, eyes the color of sliced olives. I look nothing like this flower from the high deserts of New Mexico, yet I know her as if I’m still a part of her. She’s sweet and very naïve. She believes in the human race so fully, she ignores warning signs flashing brightly into eyes she determinedly squeezes shut. When I look at her, I remember rancheras she sang to her

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children before she lost her faith and stopped speaking Spanish. The ghostly echo reverberates with me still.

You’ll meet a man in a few days, a beautiful blue-eyed demon with straw for hair and a smile just as golden. Don’t be fooled, mother. He’s the Prince of Darkness posing as the Angel of Light you learned about in catechism. Worse than that, there are two of him, one who loves you and the normal stable life you can offer and the other who hates what you represent in ignorance and betrayal of his country. Mixed together, these will create a terrible poison of resentment when he fails to be happy. Instead of finding solace in the arms of a loving wife, he will seek his peace at the bottom of a bottle. He will violently take his frustration out on all of you, no matter how small you are, no matter how impressionable your progeny. Your children will blame you, angry you couldn’t protect them, contemptuous of your weakness. Intermittently, they will turn on you for marrying the Devil and unleashing his wrath in a house that could have been very warm and very happy. That’s the worst thing about the idea of “potential”; you always know you’re missing out on something. Your children will be aware they missed out on quite a lot.

Give me a day or two to talk with these people and then watch me fade and shimmer as time shuffles itself and settles into a new pattern. Only I come back as the same person, scarred and incensed. This is because it is apparent to me, even before I take this trip in time, these two will refuse to take any of my advice and live the way they had chosen before. There would be nothing else for me to do except traverse their path. If I were to take any time-machine venture, it would be to tell a small child that even given the most impossible of tools, I still had no power to change her future.

Mi jita, the people you love will hurt you. The people you don’t know will hurt you more. There is no such ability to change the events in a time line that has already been laid out. You can’t change the past, you can only change yourself and create your own future. Querida, you need to be strong.

I know she will hear me, because I remember this epiphany like it was yesterday. To break the pattern of what looks like a destiny is not impossible. The here and now is the beginning of a path being forged. It is an opportunity to be embraced as a new future is created and not determined.

There’s no such thing as fate.

No hay tal cosa como el destino.

Ninguno.

47

The Triumph of Tying Your Shoes Nathan Morton

Freezing rain. Black ice. A 40% chance of the Death of Hope with a twist of lime. Yet college cheerfully open. It’s often hard to get out from under your bed in the morning, and today you’ve got the Term Paper Blues.

The deadline crept first like a zombie – slow, persistent, and with an aroma not unlike codfish. Yet you savored these last few days, procrastinating like you really meant it, and God knows you did. In fact, late last night, through bleary video game-induced eyestrain you dared challenge the very serious assignment aloud by cheekily taunting, “Bring it on!”

“Do your worst,” escaped through dry lips past a dangling cigarette, (strangely, you don’t smoke), in your best Clint Eastwood drawl.

Sure, you could have pulled a classic caffeine-fueled all-nighter at the library, or at least shuffled through your withered syllabi to determine which class the paper was for, but hell! Fortune favors the brave and it’s always springtime.

A menacing purple fog settles into the piercing rain about two hours before class. The slow shamble of the zombie-deadline has swiftly transformed into a wild boar in the later stages of rabies and, by your unsettling diagnosis, in heat. The foamy froth sliding down its jabbering tusks seems inherently unkind, and the red eyes of the beast are a special kind of crazed – somewhere between deranged frenzy and a disconcerting lust.

This is, as they say, when “The weird turn pro.” So you don your trusty sunglasses, rev up the red convertible, and cruise casually up the winding hill to campus – wet wind in your hair, tipping your debonair fedora devil-may-care to the ladies, and whistling “A Rhapsody in Blue.” A rose may or may not have been tossed in the direction of your clunky VW van (okay, it’s not a convertible) by one of many secret admirers.

First impressions are important. You shoot fast and loose for Fred Astaire or maybe Humphrey Bogart. You can on occasion pull off Woody Allen, on a good day.

Park directly in front of that fire hydrant, rationalizing that the hydrant is redundant considering the hard, black rain. Drenched but debonair, you swagger into the computer lab, which is packed with bushy-tailed scholars.

The Eternal Social Anxiety will not prevent you from rolling up your sleeves and commanding your space with a heavy black typewriter under one heroic bicep.

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The typewriter is an antique, painstakingly hand-constructed decades ago by some bushy eyebrowed Luddite WIZARD from the pages of a Harry Potter novel. It was the only inheritance you received from the passing of a great-uncle who spent his deathbed sunset suing the government for secret psychological experiments which he claimed left him unable to tie his shoes.

Suddenly, a loud thunk/clang from the ancient rusty hunk of metal pregnant with literature. Yes, you tossed it as if it belonged amidst a row of sleek electronic wonders you have been told are called “interwebs.” But the black machine was more different than we can even yet surmise. It’s alive!

Here we go! The jingle-jangle morning of metal keys thwacking inky ribbon quickens as does “The Genius.”

Deadline Minus 45 Minutes: The zombie-turned wild boar-deadline phases into its third and final form – that of a large, wise, old, black centipede, flayed like a biology 101 dissection experiment with pins and chloroform cotton ball tears. Maybe the dwindling of remaining time itself provided that cute buzzy tingle in the cortex of the centipede and struck jackpot, pouring words forth like pearl earrings from a Vermeer slot machine. Even in these grim days you can still pull a rabbit from a hat.

The thwick-thwack sounds of the relic language-generator strikes a primal chord, and causes the cellphone androids and the iPod cyborgs on either side of you to perform double- and triple-takes, their eyes wide and not without a tinge of fear.

The centipede-deadline’s sweet black inner meat is a delicacy savored by all gentlemen-losers since William Burroughs, and the truth ferments a tangy brine in your mouth like old, well-veined bleu cheese. But will you (our hero) triumph?

Ending #1 – Ten Minutes Past Deadline: If you were a bitter, cryptic cyniccritter, you would say the moral of this story is “slow and steady wins the race; late to class is a disgrace.” Hard facts get you an “A,” the truth a firm “C+,” and art guarantees a “see me after class” in red ink. But cynicism is for the birds (ravens), the pitter-patter of rain softens on your daydream window, and here comes the sun …

Ending #2 – Deadline Minus 30 Seconds: The clock melts like Dali wax and the hourglass sands run upwards. A 250 page doctoral thesis on the symbiosis of 1950s-era typewriters with certain Amazonian basin insect species writes itself, a dedication page to the memory of your great-uncle still pleasantly warm. It screams Nobel Prize, spell-check be damned.

Ending #3 – “Class Cancelled Due To Inclement Weather”: That old mystic typewriter sprouted antennae and a beak and hummed a sad gypsy lullaby in a chirping cicada language that no one could translate, except that it had something to do with chloroform cotton balls and the melancholy of how people take tying their shoes for granted.

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SLINGSHOT RUN Jeff Ninnemann

“The greedy ones never last. They always get too close, go too fast, and before they realize it, they’re gone.”

I’ve heard the speech fifty times. Every run, it’s the same thing. Looking out the viewport, I can see millions of stars. They quickly fade away in the area ahead of the ship. There it’s dark. Dark like you wouldn’t believe. A total void.

You don’t get second chances sweeping a black hole. Why would anyone slingshot a spaceship around a black hole? Negatronium. Not many people cared about an obscure element that can only be found on the edge of oblivion, that is, until it was also discovered how much energy it can produce.

Even from this distance, it seems like it can pull the air right out of my lungs. And we’re getting closer at an alarming rate. I can feel the ship begin to shake, it always starts so gently. Soon, it’ll rattle my bones so violently it becomes almost impossible to move or think.

It sells for about a hundred million per pound. A single run can net a hundred tons. It’s the only thing that can power the star drives that make intergalactic travel possible. The only way to get it is to fly around a black hole and scoop it up.

I’m trying to tune out the Captain and cover the checklist while I still can.

Gauges all in the green, scoops operational, trajectory steady, crew batshit crazy. We’re ready for another run.

Sweeping is walking a razors edge. You fly too close, the hole pulls you in before you can blink. You fly too far away, all you get is an expensive ride and empty hold. The promise of more money will get people to try and fly just a bit closer. Snap! Gone.

I can’t stand looking at that big empty nothing ahead of us. I look back at the stars, they morph from points of light into streaks of light. The shaking is getting worse. My teeth begin to rattle. I move my thumb over the shutdown switch. We’re on the edge of oblivion and I’m about to shut down the nav computer, life-support, everything electrical. This is beyond crazy.

You gotta have people though. Machines can’t do it. Once you get close enough to the hole, electronics just don’t work. Have to pilot by hand. Something about an EM field. At least it keeps us in work. “Ready?”

The scoops are opened and the indicator turns red, I hit the shutdown. The ship lets out a short whine and we’re on our own. Our captain lets out a laugh and holds us on course. No more stars. Just a darkness that seems to stretch on forever. We’re moving so fast that if I could look back I would see a blur

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that is us, in our ship. Just light trying to catch up. The shaking begins to ease off. It’s merely unbearable now. The first stars reappear in the viewport.

The captain’s roaring, “Start us up!”

I flip the switch back on. With that same whine, the ship comes back online. The stars are streaks again. I close the scoops. Back to the checklist.

Gauges still green, trajectory still steady, crew still crazy. The captain never missed a beat. I report in. “Readings optimal, holds at 40%. Course set.” I look at the stars again, willing myself closer. They’re warm, comforting points of light. Forty tons isn’t a bad run. A nice easy trip. After all, no need to get greedy.

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Deal

Jacob Ruse And the sun burns eyelids through broken blinds. The contacts ache for itch and scratch. The proverbial “last-night” echoes from memory — useless debauchery with a capital We-are-no-one. It’s late morning. The chill and dry nibble the backside of where I am — this is where Daniel lives in the bag of skin and bone.

Then the clothes adorn the body and the face cracks under musical soap bar repeat soap bar repeat and the knuckles blush betwixt boxing winter breeze and the cigarette burns filter and the coffee’s just a ring of sick sugar and the bus is late and the ten o’clock class is past and I look to sink in but I can’t because the god damn bbbrrrr ...

Roasting heat crackles as the hands handle me onto the bus. Charley’s middle-aged grey hairs shimmer from strata of dark brown — nods — old straw peaking from his Metro Transit cap. “Mornin’, Dan.” The transfer is swiped and the head nods back. “Mornin’, Charley,” without a sigh.

He closes the door and the bus moves. I edge toward the back but he keeps me. “Sposeda get six inches tonight.”

I’m tired and impatient and I feel his expectations for banal blah blah blah.

“I don’t plan on drivin’. How ‘bout you?” It’s unintentionally condescending.

He doesn’t notice.

Instead he booms like someone who hohoho’s over turkey dinner after milkin’ the cows all day. “Ta hell wi’ dat. Heh. Nah. It’s gonna be a quiet night with the fam tonight.” He coughs into his fist coffee ashed with Marlboro reds — yellow nicotine-stains dyed to grey fingers. His voice is a harmless gruff.

“How ‘bout you? Whatcha got goin’ on tonight?”

I’m searching for the snappy — enough to run and sink in. “Just studyin’ as usual. Got that painting to finish up. Gotta get that A.” “Oh yeah. Gotta get dem good grades so that uh...” He’s paused a second and I’ve got him.

I take on his husky slap tone. “Well, ya know what they say, ‘C’s get degrees’.”

He hyah-hyah-hyahs and I’m grimed with false cheer, but I finish him.

“Well, speakin’ o’ which, I gotta see about gettin’ some of this crap done. I’ll see ya later, Charley.”

He seems disappointed — gentle giant polar bear hiding with everyone else — but he’ll find someone to blather with. “Good talkin’, Dan.” The hand pats Charley’s salted jacket and the feet edge away.

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The lungs contract in relief. I don’t like talking to the old. It’s never about anything. It’s just a series of icebreakers, and before it’s too late, you realize there wasn’t anything but air below the ice. It’s just empty.

So, I go to the back of the bus. I hadn’t planned to work on the ride to class, but, for Charley’s sake, I should pretend. The notebook is pulled from the backpack and the eyes glaze. It’s blank, but for Charley. The eyes are empty.

I grow tired and the eyes shift to commuters aboard. First, an old woman with no teeth seats herself in front. A man sitting next to her sparks conversation.

He says things like, “Tha’s right,” and, “Mhmmhmmm,” and everything she says is an indiscernible rasp. No teeth make it an interesting game of interpretation. She’s lively despite her age, like she’s fighting for or through or ...

Then it’s a young guy — maybe twenty — iPod ear buds, backpack, Northface popped-collar, the whole nine yards ...

Then I sink in. My hands are drip-drop with paint, transforming blank canvas to manifestation of experience of passion of life of passion of experience of manifestation. It hangs in a gallery of my own. I can’t happen, but there I am, shaking hands with affluent appreciators and gesticulating about my loft.

It’s covered in framed canvasses of all sizes. One of them is the project I’m working on now in my art class. I keep it to remind myself of my roots. They tell me they’d like to buy it, but I tell them it’s not for sale. Then I cut ahead and I’m showing my family how successful I am — more gesticulating. I get a hug from mom and a handshake from dad. It skips another beat to my favorite part where I’m finishing a glass of wine. There’s a fancy steak with parsley and the various accoutrement before me and across the table is a beautiful girl. She begins as an amalgamation of different actresses. Here, she’s Audrey Tautou. Then she’s Drew Barrymore. Then she’s, ugh, Ellen Degeneris. I laugh — out loud? — but I laugh at this. Then it’s Gwen ... When it’s Gwen, I always kiss her softly on the lips and then there’s this close up, like in the movies and she says “I love you.” But you can’t hear it. It’s just her lips saying it. Like she could be saying, “Olive juice,” but you know she isn’t because she loves you. I whisper it back ...

A robotic voice announces, “Davidson and Bellflower, Williamson Community College.”

I pull the cord and the bell dings and Charley pulls over. The notebook is stuffed into the bag, the hand waves to Charley, and feet shuffle out the backside door. It’s cold.

I only have two classes today, one of which has already passed. I don’t even know why I came. I’m just gonna sit there and let some crap I either already know or can learn quicker from the book wash over me and pretend to pay attention ... ... and that’s what happens.

I get home at two. Billy’s sitting on the floor surrounded by trash with the

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TV in front of him. He’s playing some game where he mows down row upon row of “bad guys.” The headphones are removed, the lips yip, “Hey,” they slide back in, and the feet carry me to the room.

My bedroom is fairly large — hard wood floor, plaster looking walls, except one of them is made out of something microcosmically more hardy than cardboard, and two chill-spreading windows. The blinds are always down and covered in a centimeter of dust. It’s stuffy. It smells bad. Could be the week-old pasta in a pot on the floor, the sauce for which is now a rotted crimson. Little shriveled chunks of vegetables mixed in. It could be the pile of ash and cigarette butts in the trash can. It could be the piles of dirty clothes. Don’t really care. It’s nice to be home. It’s warmer than outside.

I throw my backpack on the floor. I take out a notebook and a pencil and toss them on my bed. I plug my iPod into my stereo and Elliott Smith whisps away as I climb next to the drawing supplies.

I stare at the blank page for a long time — maybe a half hour. I finally decide I’m gonna be the best artist in the world and this is it. This is the one.

Sometimes it just happens that way. I start to scribble this way and that. This line means this. That line means that. Look at how the circles mean memory.

The gradual amorphation of their perfection is a representation of age. Capturing time in the timeless. Weakness of man.

I suck.

It’s thrown it with the rest of the broken pencils and crumpled up notebook pages. A cigarette is lit and the fingers run through the hair.

I lay on my back and think about what I have to do tomorrow. Pick up some deodorant, write an e-mail to Dr. Lake, study for that test, read that assignment, drop, look, study, read, write, eat, buy, watch, walk, brush, clean, etc, and so on and so on andso on andso onandso onandsoonandsoonand soon I’m kissing her softly again. “Olive juice,” those lips might say but they don’t because she loves you. They say “I love you.” “I love you.”

I’m getting tired and I’ll just take a nap. I shut off the lights to be alone with Gwen and my steak and my paintings and my affluent appreciators and my success and my ...

“Dan! You comin’ out?” Billy and the gang, they’re going to get drunk.

Tuesday specials at McGinney’s. It’s divey, but if you like dollar rails, it’s the place to be. “Gwen’s prolly gonna be there.” He slips this in before I can answer.

“Ugh.” “C’mon, ya whiner. Get yer ass outta bed. Unless you need me to call the waaaambulance” “Yeah, yeah.”

It’s 10:30.

Gwenfrewi in precious petaled fever, floats through frills of hapless cheers.

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Memory is my melded crutch in creaking empty piers, upon the lake from that which could never near. She sits before me with piercing lips and eyes that throw my intrepid lies, my frosted hope, my imagined ties behind my ghost, behind my prize. She is truth. Sheistruthsheisruthsheisruthlessruthlest I kiss and hold and sleep and sweep and smell and live and OH and oh-live and oh-live juice and olive juice and olive juice and...

“What are you doing for winter break?” Gwen sits across from me.

“Iunno yet. Probably visit the fam. You?” Her eyes alight. “I’m gonna visit my parents for Christmas and then my friend and I are headed to Austin. We have some friends who live down there.

Do you know Elisa?”

Billy’s friend. “Aw. Lucky. Yeah, I know Elisa, sort of. Billy knows her I think.”

Sugar-frosted gumdrop lips. Twittering nose. Angelic curls flow across my view. I’m already home. I’m curled in bed. Drunk. Blind.

“You guys should come over and smoke. I kinda wanna watch a moooovie,” she wrinkles space — folds it up — folds me up — pocket-ridden — stuffed in with all the other pens and pencils. I’ve said yes before. I’ve said yes and I go home alone and cold. I never taste those gumdrops. I never swim in curls or snuggle twitters. I don’t say yes this time. I don’t say yes. I’ll never say yes again. I want my appreciators and my steak.

And with nonchalance I break the news, “Welllll ...”

Her hand crawls across the table and falls atop my own. My hand was alone before and now ... it’s real.

55

GERALD AND THE SUIT Jeni Schulze

Gerald found himself happy for a change. Today was the first day in months that he felt optimistic about life. It was a sunny, cool, fall afternoon and the air was crisp with possibility. He had spoken to an old friend on the phone and made plans for dinner later in the week. His boss recommended his proposal to the board, which solidified him for the district position he wanted. More importantly, he seemed to have finally come to accept that Karen was not going to call him again. When she first broke things off, his mind was trained closely on her memory. Today, it seemed the spell was broken and he was back to his old self. His afternoon was a banquet options and he intended to devour every one.

Gerald passed a shoe shop and considered the selections through the window. There were a few pairs he could see himself in, but he didn’t really need new shoes. There was a storefront full of kitchen gadgetry that caught his attention, but Gerald knew that one foot in that store would consume his financial resources for the rest of the week. A few doors down, however, Gerald met his destiny. In the window of Needleman’s Suit and Haberdashery was a single breasted, virgin wool suit in a mid-tone slate grey. It was a beautiful suit, perfect for many occasions.

Gerald thought about the suit he had at home. He had out grown out of it in every way. When he wore it, he felt like a child forced into a siblings wardrobe because of an unexpected death. Gerald was the hanger that his suit wore. Also, he was beginning to sense some malice growing between them.

One night he awoke from a deep sleep with the feeling that someone was watching him. He opened his eyes and found his suit standing over him menacingly. It was an isolated incident, but still it shook Gerald to the bones.

Shaking off the memory with a shudder, Gerald climbed the short stairs to the shop. The smell of textiles and sunshine met him as a small bell rang above his head.

“Can I help you?” came a small voice from behind a rack of suit coats. A small, elderly man with eyebrows like marabou came into the light.

“Yes. I am interested in learning more about the suit in the window,” Gerald said.

“Oh, yes sir. Lovely selection,” Eyebrows said, his crooked arthritic finger pointing toward the window where the suit was shown. “It’s an Armani that I found in an old storage closet. It had been wrapped in plastic for 15 years!” the old man explained, spittle flying from his mouth from the excitement.

“Apparently, some gentleman bought it and never picked it up. It’s in perfect condition for its age. I am Mr. Needleman, by the way.”

“A pleasure to meet you.” Gerald replied, gingerly shaking the old man’s hand. “I’m Gerald.”

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“Of course you are … of course you are” Mr. Needleman clucked. “Just look at the stitching. It’s the lines and the besom pockets that make this suit spectacular.”

The tailor brought the jacket sleeve up for Gerald to inspect. In that moment, the smell of apple-wood and blossoms greeted his nose. He was taken back in an instant to his grandfather’s apple orchard; bouncing on the back of the wagon with the bushels of tart red apples. In this instant he could hear his grandfather laugh and call him his little apple dumpling. The vision was so vivid that Gerald almost tottered where he stood.

“It certainly is something.” Gerald said, trying to contain his excitement.

He was trying to remain aloof so that the salesman wouldn’t take him as a mark. He may have looked like a kindly old man, but a blood-thirsty salesman takes all forms, and Gerald knew it.

“You’ll never find another suit maker like Armani,” Needleman chuckled.

“This is a classic style. Considering its age, the cut still looks modern.”

Gerald’s excitement was building. While he wasn’t exactly a fashion mogul, he did enjoy looking his best. He also thought the vintage suit might be a welcomed conversation piece and a good way to meet women.

“It seems like the dimensions are correct,” Gerald said cautiously. “I think I’d like to try it on.”

“That would be wonderful,” the tailor said, “but I’m sorry I can’t.”

“Oh, is it for display only?” Gerald asked. “You may want to move it toward the back of the store so the light doesn’t fade the fabric.”

“I am in full agreement, Gerald.” Needleman said. “However, the gentleman that owns it prefers to have it displayed. What a luxury, to be able to mistreat a thing of beauty such as this.”

“If I were to try it on and found it a good fit, I might have one bespoke for me.,” Gerald said, then offered, “I will be happy to help you take it off the form, if it would make things easier for you.” Gerald thought the old man might be a little loose in the lighthouse, but was willing to play along. He didn’t want to appear too eager.

“Oh, I’m sorry sir. It is a lovely garment, and I think it would be very flattering on you but I can’t have anyone try it on. The owner does comes in and put it on occasionally. He would think it an affront if someone else where to wear it.

“To be clear,” Gerald began, clearing his throat for emphasis. “This gentleman comes in and tries the suit on, but does not wear it? He owns it and chooses to hang it in a sunny window?”

“Precisely, sir,” Needleman replied with a slight nod. “Recently he’s been coming in less, however. I hope he’s still in good health.”

“You have to forgive me – I don’t mean to be rude, but this gentleman, your patron, seems like a fool. Perhaps you are right about the whims of the rich,” Gerald said with a chuckle.

“It seems as though it would fit you well. It would suit you, to turn a phrase,” Needleman said, giving Gerald a gentle nudge.

“It is a disappointment, indeed.” Gerald said, “Well, thank you for your

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time Mr. Needleman.” Gerald returned his hat to his head and turned to leave the store.

“Wait!” the man called to him. “One more moment of your time, please.

Perhaps you’d like to stay a bit longer and simply admire the suit. It does seem to be pining for you.”

“That’s ridiculous” Gerald thought. But, when he turned to look at the suit he found it’s well tailored arms were outstretched, as if it wanted a hug.

“Remarkable!” Gerald thought. “Funny that I was hoping something like that would happen; that the suit would make things happen.”

“It would seem, sir, that this is the only suit for you,” the salesman said wistfully.

“So, you’ll let me try it on then?” Gerald asked, again, trying to seem unconcerned.

“Truly, I wish that I could. But, the owner would be devastated,” replied Needleman. “Perhaps I could interest you in something similar.”

“I don’t want anything else!” Gerald cried, betraying his calm demeanor.

The salesman sighed. Some time passed as he considered Gerald from beneath his bushy eyebrows.

“Okay. I will let you try on the coat alone, and only once. Please do not tell anyone that you were able to do this today.”

Mr. Needleman gently removed the jacket from the form and held it out for Gerald. “Everyone knows that the true measure of a garment is in the vest,” the salesman said. “It won’t be a great harm to try on the jacket.”

Gerald slipped his arms into the sleeves. He heard the satin brush against his shirt. His nose was once again filled with the familiar smell of the apple orchard. Then, in an instant, there was something more. Something remarkable. Gerald closed his eyes and drifted off into a fog. He could see himself in socked feet at a sunny kitchen table, playing cards and laughing with the suit. A shock of light and suddenly he and the suit were dancing under a canopy of stars. Another jolt and the suit took him back to his childhood. They climbed trees together. They swung swings. The suit understood Gerald; his every want and dream. He felt as if his very essence was being massaged gently on a summer breeze. Gerald was suddenly, and in every way, very aroused.

He began to weep.

“Sir? Please don’t cry,” Mr. Needleman begged with genuine concern as he put a comforting arm around Gerald. “Let me help you out of the jacket.

There, there.”

“This is quite embarrassing,” Gerald said. “I should leave.”

And so Gerald composed himself, gathered his things and with a brief glace over his shoulder at the suit, left the store.

Gerald woke the next morning and his first thought was of the suit. He lay in bed, in a state between reality and a dream, and smiled to the ceiling as he reminisced about the suit and the time they shared. On his way into the office and all through the morning his thoughts bounced back to that little shop and the delightfully perfect Armani. He tried to savor every detail, every stitch. His mind replayed the smells, the sunshine; even Mr. Needleman’s un-

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ruly eyebrows. It seemed as though the more Gerald visited the memory, the more a piece of it faded from him and he feared that by the end of the day his vision of the event would be smooth as stone.

“I really need to just forget about it,” Gerald told himself. “This is bordering on the insane. Get a hold of yourself, man! Have some pride and self-control.”

Unfortunately, his best efforts to control himself proved to be inadequate against the draw of the cloth. Gerald found himself at Needleman’s Suit and Haberdashery after what felt like the longest day he’d ever spent in the office.

The next day was the same, as was the day after that. Gerald built a daily trip to the shop into his routine and for a few weeks he was blissfully happy and fulfilled. Until one day he arrived to Needleman’s to find that the suit was no longer in the window.

“Grrrlld!” Mr. Needleman mumbled through a mouth full of stick pins. He was crouched at the foot of a tall, lanky teenager who appeared nervous at the very thought of wearing a tuxedo, let alone the formal event it implied.

Needleman removed the pins from his mouth and asked if Gerald was back to admire the Armani “Where is it?” he asked breathlessly. Gerald realized how panicked he sounded and righted himself.

“The Armani’s owner came in and had it cleaned and pressed, so I took it out of the window,” Needleman said with a gleam in his eye. “Would you like to see it off the form?”

“What the hell is happening here?” Gerald thought. “I am obsessed with a suit. An article of clothing. ... A bunch of fabric, for the love of God! The best thing I could do is leave now and put an end to this nonsense.”

Gerald’s mouth, however, was not cooperating. “Yes, please,” it said.

The suit hung in the drycleaner’s plastic like a bride beneath a veil and Gerald was hopeless because of it. All the smells and excitement came flooding back to him. His hands trembled and his hearts beats quickened.

“Mr. Needleman, I know it’s very unorthodox and I do understand your commitment to your customer, but I simply must try this suit on. Is there anything that can be done? Name your price,” Gerald said as he reached for his wallet.

“Oh, put your money away,” the old man grumbled. “Why do you think it’s still sitting here in the bag? Just, please, keep this between the two of us.”

Needleman said as he placed the suit in Gerald’s awaiting arms. “The fitting rooms are just past the lounge area.”

And, with that, Gerald and the suit were alone. Together, finally alone.

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THE DOOR

Amber Hulett The world was a cold starving place. Out of necessity, a group of villagers had banded together. They lived in one large manor previously abandoned just before the big war. These villagers trudged out daily to their old homes to gather anything burnable for warmth. They searched for any remaining scraps of food. More often than not, with their bellies still rumbling, they attempted to eat odd things. Paper boiled right could almost resemble forgotten mashed potatoes, the ink adding a certain flavor.

One day, in the midst of their dreary existence, a scientist appeared on the doorstep of their manor. He had an experiment he wished to try. He laid out his plan very simply, offering no explanations. Each family would be given a task at the manor. As each person came of age, they were to work at the family’s task for a minimum of eight hours a day for six days a week. In return for their labors, the scientist would ensure they always had food, warmth and clothing. It sounded like a very good deal to the starving villagers. They could be warm again, no longer know hunger. How hard could this work be?

The scientist laid out his one last condition: “In exchange for giving you this, I will put up walls surrounding the manor lands. A dome will be placed above you. Lastly, you may never leave.”

There were a few villagers who started to qualm at the last condition. Surely they would die if they didn’t accept the offer. Friends and family relentlessly pushed at the nay-Sayers urging them to just give in. As one mother said to her headstrong daughter, “if you do not agree, then I cannot agree. I cannot leave you behind. If you do not agree we shall both have to die hungry and cold together.” It was the guilt and love for their friends and family that finally quieted the inner voice in all opposition. The deal was made.

As the walls were constructed around them, the scientist set about handing out tasks for each family. He had supplies brought in to fulfill his promise of food, warmth and clothing. When only a small portion of the wall remained unsealed, the scientist left the villagers with the last instruction. “If you have a need, write it down and place it in this steel box. Slide the steel box flush against the wall and I will receive your need on the other side. When I fill that need I will slide the box back to you.” He then slipped out through the opening and it was filled in behind him. The villagers were alone.

The first few weeks seemed to be bliss. As promised, if a need was submitted through the box it was fulfilled. The villagers realized by the end of the first year though the effects of their new life were wearing thin. Yes, their needs were fulfilled. However, a prison was still a prison wasn’t it? The memory of how desperate and starving they had once been was fading and they were questioning why they ever agreed to this deal. A promise was a promise some reasoned. Others told themselves it was their lot and it was best just to learn to deal with it. A few could not come to terms with their new life. Those

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few appealed to the box to be let out. When that failed, they attempted to escape. When that too failed, they started to slowly go mad.

As the years went on most of the villagers found it too painful to remember anything other than this life and simply recreated their own history – in their minds, this was the way it always was. When the next generation came along very little of what had occurred was passed down, save for the promise never to leave. It was what it was. They worked eight hours a day, six days a week, and in return they always had food, warmth and clothing.

Sixty years since the deal had been struck, a teenage girl was wandering in the farthest corner of the manor. A glint of metal by the wall caught her eye.

She cleared away some brush and discovered a door in the wall. This teen girl was a grand-daughter of one of the original nay-sayers. Her grandmother had been one of the few to slowly go mad, rambling away about the bad deal they had made. The girl’s mother had made light of the mad ramblings declaring it all nonsense. Now with the door appearing before her, the girl didn’t know what to do. Where did the door go? What was on the other side? They had promised never to leave but did they know about the door? Did her grandmother’s promise not to leave mean that her descendants could never leave?

The question that ran over and over in the girl’s mind was: what was on the other side? As she slowly walked back to the manor she debated whether or not she should even tell anyone about the door. If they knew about it would they stop anyone who tried to leave? She decided to gather her four best friends to ponder the matter with them before she did anything else.

Not surprisingly each friend had a different opinion regarding the door.

The first friend was raised to be content in life. “Even if there is a door out, why should we care? This is our life, it is what we know. We have everything we need inside these walls. Just be happy with what we have and forget about the door.”

The second friend regarded the promise most important. “Our ancestors made a promise. It does not matter why or when they promised never to leave. It is our duty to uphold that promise. To do anything else would dishonor them. We should hide the door so no one else is ever tempted and never tell anyone about the door.”

The third friend had listened to every one of the ramblings of the mad.

She had found hope in their words. She didn’t want to even listen to further discussion; she wanted to be shown the door so she could try it. “Why should I be content? What if there is something more out there? I want to see for myself. If I want to try the door, what right do any of you have to stop me?

The time and reason for the promise made by our ancestors doesn’t matter.

Times have changed, why should I have to hold true to their promise? They couldn’t possibly have known what the future would hold and surely they did not mean to bind anyone but themselves with such a promise. We need to tell everyone about the door, and anyone who wants to go out should go out!”

The teen girl’s last friend was a thoughtful skeptic. “What if the reasons our ancestors based their promise on are still outside that door? If we go out the door and cannot get back in then was their promise simply in vain? On

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the other hand, if those reasons no longer exist beyond our walls then why be bound by them? We cannot hide the door. While it is not our duty to force the truth of the door upon everyone else, neither can we deny them the right to find it on their own. There is no way of knowing what is on the other side.

Even if someone goes out there is no guarantee they could get back in. Supposing they could get back in, would they want to? There is also the matter of how long the door has actually been there to consider. I highly doubt it was there when our ancestors made the original agreement, for surely those who have gone mad would have used it long before now. So why has it been found now and what reason was there to put it in? If we are content, then why bother to try and leave? Is there something more beyond being content? If we use the door, there is every chance that we may be leaving behind all those we love. Would they understand? Is their pain worth our need to find more? It’s a lot to think about”.

Upon hearing all the different arguments she made her decision.

She went back home to her mother. She explained about the door and all the arguments her friends had made. At first her mother was adamant she not go near the door again. Somewhere in the middle of her mother’s lecture the girl spoke up. “What if I am like Grandma and go mad?” This halted her mother mid-sentence. “What if I am not meant to merely be content in this world? As I get older will I go mad as well, always wondering about the door?”

Her mother was quiet and thoughtful for several moments. When she spoke, it was with resignation. “Your grandmother was not always mad. The madness came with the guilt of her one decision after the birth of her children. I have known nothing other than these walls, but she did. Forsaking the other side for her own life was one thing, but it was the forsaking it for her children that drove her to madness. She doubted her own decision and forevermore wondered if she truly would have died had she not come in these walls. I am certain there was no door in her time. Surely she would have pushed her own children out of it if it had been there. You, my daughter, do not have to worry about going mad nearly as much as I. I am content to stay here. It is safe and I know this life well. You will always be safe within these walls, but will you always be content? If you grow to not find all the happiness you long for because of this one decision I make, it will truly be me who goes mad. As for the promise never to leave, well that promise was made to allow for a future. That promise was fulfilled as far as I’m concerned. Your grandmother never left. You have made no such promise, and if I recall correctly nothing in the agreement required that all who came after had to promise the same. I will agree to let you try the door if you promise me two things. You must promise that if what is beyond that door does not make you happy, you will try to return. Secondly, you must promise that if you are able to come back to me, at some point you will.”

The teen girl promptly promised both things to her mother. She then packed her things and went straight to the door. She did not bother to go back and inform her friends of her decision. She knew that some would understand while others never would. At least one of her friends would never

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acknowledge her again after this choice. She found the door once more with ease. Pausing for one last look and a deep breath, she gripped the doorknob firmly and pushed through.

She stumbled to a halt on the other side realizing she had just walked into a small room. A young man was seated behind a desk on the far side. The sound of the door closing behind her made her look. The door had no knob on this side! What had she done?

“You chose the door,” the young man said softly. Slowly the young girl turned around and studied the young man. He continued to speak. “My grandfather was a scientist. He wanted to see if people could survive in a controlled environment – if the villagers would learn to provide for themselves or if they would continue to use the box forever. Turns out, it was a mix of both.

As time went on the box was used less often, but was still used. The requests in the box changed over time, too. Initially the villagers asked for food, wood to burn for warmth and clothing. Eventually they asked for seeds to plant and sheep to shear.” The young man then chuckled softly. “He failed to consider that if the requests in the box stopped it could mean two things instead of one. It could mean that the villagers became self supporting as he theorized or that all of them had died.”

The girl gasped at the thought forcing the young man to look up and study her again. “My apologies, I didn’t mean to scare you. I am not a scientist. I am a sociologist. I had that door put in ten years ago and have been waiting ever since for someone to come through it. I didn’t dare put a knob on this side for fear I would weaken one day and simply walk in to find my answers thus ruining all I hope to learn. Never fear, a knob can be put on the door should you ever choose to return.” This put the girl more at ease. As she relaxed they continued to talk. The sociologist had many questions for her, and her for him.

The answer he seemed most intrigued in was why had she come through the door?

“I must be honest” she replied. “Until I saw the door I never questioned my life. I never wondered about anything or questioned the walls. Once I saw the door, though, I couldn’t stop questioning my life. I kept recalling my grandmother and somehow inside I saw the walls for what they were; a prison. I did not want to be old and mad forever regretting the decision I made. Lastly, I reasoned that if a door could be made to get out then surely a door could be made let me back in. What if the door out disappeared one day just as it had appeared? I thought I could always go back to the life I know, but I might never have been able to see what my life could be if I didn’t try the door.”

In all the years that followed the girl held true to her promise to her mother. She went back and visited quite often. The villagers inside the walls had formed different groups all based on their belief about the door. They all were persistent in asking what was on the other side. Her response was always the same. “If you want to know, you’ll have to go through it.”

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Blue

Vanessa Bergenthal Walking on the tracks is dangerous. I think that’s why I like it. With the wind whipping through my hair I feel free, arms outstretched like a bird. My Chuck Taylors land precariously, right after left on the metal rail.

The smokestacks comfort me. They remind me of my father, always puffing away like a furnace. It’s too bad he had to go away. When he left all I could do was scream, until it hurt my lungs to speak.

I suppose everybody has to leave eventually. Besides, living in this town you may as well be dead. The only things that thrive here are the crows, sitting around on telephone wires and cawing like my nagging mother. “Don’t wear your skirts too short, don’t swear, don’t disappoint me, don’t… don’t… don’t.”

The sky is grey, not blue. Even the small lake past the highway is closer to the color of charcoal dust than anything resembling blue.

I like to play a game sometimes. I walk the tracks until I hear a train whistle in the distance. Then, turning so that my back is to the train I begin to walk. One. Two. I count my footsteps. I go like this. Six. Seven. Eyes steady I look straight ahead and never back. Ten. Sooner or later that whistle will sound again, closer.

Thirteen. The train is on its way. It’s barreling straight for me. It’s just a matter of time.

I scrape my sneakers along the rails. Twenty. Pebbles jump up from beneath my toes. I’ve played this game hundreds of times. I still wonder though.

What if I didn’t step off the tracks in time?

Twenty-three. I feel a twinge of danger, adrenaline in my veins.

The rails begin to shake. I can hear a low rumble and the train whistle sounds an alarm. The train is close, but I can’t turn my head to look. Those are the rules.

I think it’s telling me to choose, life or death. I take a deep breath, and hold it in. I look up towards the grey sky. Twenty-eight. I feel what I’ve been waiting for.

I feel clarity. I feel alive; my heart is beating double time to prove it.

With one quick push of my feet I propel myself off the tracks, scattering gravel. I land in the soft grass, and Whooooshhh! The train flies by.

I lay there, by the side of the tracks, and I breathe. The sky almost looks blue.

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Ohio sky

Rebecca Ray

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Yellow Sarah Pigo

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UNTITLED Greg Timm

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STARS

Clare Dickerson

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PANIC ATTACK Arsenio Green

The feeling is like every finger of fear grasping my heart, The entire hand of hopelessness squeezing my lungs, Collapsing my chest, inflating my chest, Collapsing my chest, inflating my chest…

Taking the oxygen away from my brain, Thrusting the air in and out between my lungs, Forcing panic, accompanied by a stampede within the mind, Placing the brain in a position to seize unwanted tears away from the eyes, Tears that trickle down the cheek onto the arms and legs, Tingling of paralysis instantly induced on limbs upon impact of barren tears, The tears succumb to the pressure of an emotionless drought, The tingling fades, breathing slows, headache soothed, Panic surrenders to the feeling of safety, An unknown sensation treads the lines of insanity, grief, and isolation, Memories begin to intrude upon my mind, In the flashbacks my vision is completely shadowed with darkness, Only enough light to see death’s outline approaching, I snap out of Anamnesis to realize that the flashback has come to present, My eyes widen as he comes closer, He reaches his bony hand out to grab me, The feeling is like every finger of fear grasping my heart, The entire hand of hopelessness squeezing my lungs…

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THE PLATYPUS HAS LANDED Brianna Johnson

Echoes of the intolerable dings pursued the small, round flashing lights as the enclosed room moved slowly to the top of the 62-floored building. A man drowning in a trench coat two sizes too large wore a tiny black bowler hat upon his head as he stood in the corner of the elevator holding a fish bowl.

He was careful to balance the glass bowl as the floor jerked about, starting and stopping as the buttons commanded. Wishing the apartment building had more than one elevator, the man stood silently waiting for the elevator to begin its descent. There had been many useless stops thus far; no one got on and he, being the sole occupant of the elevator, most certainly did not get off. He assumed as always, the impatience of his fellow residents outweighed their indolence while waiting for the elevator and they decided to take the stairs or realized it really wasn’t worth going out at all. Finally, as the light encrusted number nine illuminated, there stood a man waiting to enter.

Henry had never cared much for people. He had always tried to avoid them whenever possible, but one thing he disliked more than people was stairs.

Henry always had a deep rooted fear of heights and although elevators were not his idea of fun, he would much rather be in one room shifting about its own business than feel himself drop with every step. But the elevator in his apartment was indecisive; one never knew if it would stop at its intended destination. He didn’t think twice about entering through the strong metal doors locking himself in this small room with a stranger knowing the next time the elevator would arrive on his floor was most likely not anytime soon.

Henry distanced himself in the opposite corner of the man as he entered.

Staring at the back wall he tried to forget about the slowly increasing numbers on the buttons above him.

Two round pupils burned with a furious passion as they focused on Henry.

Long, dirty fingers began to tremble upon the glass home of a frightened fish that was swimming rapidly in circles. The man took a loud deep breath before speaking, “His name is Craigory.”

Henry looked away from the wall and turned to his fellow passenger. He had no remembrance of this man yet there was a sense of familiarity about him. With inquiry he whispered slowly, “Excuse me?”

The man grinned but his smile faded with each word he spoke, “The fish.

His name is Craigory.”

“Oh.” Henry responded noticing the bowl in the man’s hands for the first

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time. There was silence between them but the man’s stare said more than Henry could bear to hear. He tried adding, “That’s a very nice name.” He smiled awkwardly and shifted his gaze downward hoping that he would soon be seeing the ground.

The man gazed down into his bowl watching the small waves settle as new ripples began to distort the image of the small fish. “I am sure to water him every day so he does not wither,” the man said stroking the bowl lovingly with one hand.

“Why would you-” Henry was interrupted by the man continuing his own discourse.

“You must understand, Craigory is a most quiet fish. He never begs at the table or makes fuss about visitors. In fact, he most normally never speaks at all,” the man said matter of factly.

Henry stared at the man questioning his mental stability.

His words crept upon Henry slowly as the man’s pitch rose with each word, “But you see, from the moment you arrived he hasn’t shut up.” The last two words echoed within the small room as the silence settled, interrupted only occasionally by another ding as the elevator stopped for another empty hall.

Henry’s eyes widened. His fear of heights seemed innocent now in comparison to his fear of this man. With much hope he looked up to the lights above him searching for the floor he was on. Twenty-seven, he was on floor twenty-seven of the sixty-two floored building. His apartment was on the ninth and his destination was the lobby on the ground floor. He was trapped.

With just one look, his hope fled as fast as it had come. He looked to the man with sincerity. His voice began to crack as he cautiously broke the silence in response, “Sir, the fish has been silent the entire duration of my presense on this elevator.”

“Aha!” he exclaimed as he pointed a finger in Henry’s direction. With much enthusiasm he invaded the space between them with one step closer to the man. He cleared his throat and spoke as if he was pleading a case for a jury of his peers, “That is where you are wrong. You cannot lie to me! Craigory never lies and he does not like you. This is a paper bag you can’t claw you’re way out of.” His eyes began looking Henry over from the bottom of his grass stained sneakers to the split ends of his brown uncombed hair.

Henry listened to the man unsure how to respond. “I’m sorry I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You stole the queen’s jewels from the young girl on the fourth floor! You stole this fish,” he proclaimed raising the bowl above his head, “from the oldest lady on the seventh floor! And you stole a rather fashionable hat from the second room of the ninth floor!”

For Henry it was as if for the first time since entering this pitch black room,

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a light came on. He knew why this stranger was familiar to him. The trench coat the man wore looked as if it was an exact replica of the one he had purchased for his girlfriend on the first floor. It even had the same initials embroidered in hot pink silk on the left breast pocket. Suddenly Henry had an aura of suspicion about this man.

“Did I happen to steal a trench coat as well?” His eyes never left the initials of the coat.

“A confession! I knew you would come around. When we reach the first floor I’m going to call the authorities to wipe the floor of you, you used piece of chewing gum.” He gave Henry a look of disgust before turning to face forward and once again look toward the lights.

When the elevator doors opened before the two men for the final time they had arrived at their mutual destination. Henry’s eyes trailed for the thinly carpeted floor of the elevator to the ragged rugs of the first floor. There was an unmistakable pitter patter as Henry’s feet moved quicker than he could think of getting off the elevator bringing him to the lobby and the safety of the ground floor. He took a quick glance back at the stranger, curious of what he would do next but the man did not move. The elevator doors began to close again as Henry watched the man disappear with the elevator.

A sense of freedom rushed over Henry as the man was no longer in his presence. One thought came to his mind; help. He found his hand sorting through his right hand pocket searching for his phone. Who to call, 911? His girlfriend? His mom? He decided against such actions as he calmly placed his phone back in it’s proper place. He never cared for his girlfriend very much and the coat looked better on the stranger anyways. He stood there a moment before realizing he had forgotten why it was he had gotten on the elevator in the first place, he couldn’t think of anything he needed to do on the ground floor. Looking around he was lost in self doubt as he could not for the life of him remember what it was he was doing. He did the only logical thing he could think of and pushed the up button of the elevator and waited for it to return.

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