Thanks for viewing our second issue of Underwood. Enjoy!

1882

            Everyone flies until they fall. Yet it’s that one second of mid-flight hope that made me think that maybe I’d soar that makes me continue the jump. Eight stories above Baxter Street, a light breeze flared my arms with goosebumps despite the May sun. My bare feet balanced on the warm metal of the fire escape, my eyes focused on the telephone pole that loomed across the paltry alleyway. I tightened my dingy pantaloons around my waist, the strip of fabric that ripped on my last descent danced in the wind. The aroma from Mrs. Locklear’s fresh angel cake saturated the polluted New York air, my stomach whined. Spiked adrenaline rushed through my veins, igniting my need to jump. With my legs coiled and ready, I leaped. My one second of hope passed, I reached my arms out, and all too soon my hands wrapped around and clung to the smooth metal fire escape across the alley.

            I slid down the exterior of the fire escape—with a quick wave to the youngest member of the Chang family through their kitchen window—and landed on the cracked pavement beneath.

            The alleyway was empty, a gap of quiet amid the chaos of Mulberry Bend. This alley is one of many that lives perpendicular to the bend of low income living that makes up its populous. I bounded back across the alley, reached up and grasped the bottom of the second-floor fire escape. My upper-body muscles clenched as I pulled my body up until my feet rested on the metal railing of the second-floor. Old man Craine rested in his recliner drinking his morning coffee. I waved in greeting, he nodded before turning back to the newspaper, disregarding the funnies.

            I continued climbing up the outside of the fire escape until I reached the sixth floor. I slid open the kitchen window that sits in front of the kitchen table. I ducked under Mama’s clothespin line as I crawled through the window. Mrs. Locklear was already seated with a plate of Angel Cake on the table in front of her, and another plate of cake in front of an empty chair. Mrs. Locklear moved in with my mother and I eight years ago and has kept me after school every day until two months ago when I dropped out. Her husband, Hal, passed away over a decade ago while in an explosion aboard the Westfield II, on his first day off of work for months. Since then we have been each other’s biggest confidant.

            “Better not let your Mama see you climbing, dear.” Mrs. Locklear nibbled on the edge of her cake.

            “I won’t.”

            “She suspects.” Mrs. Locklear looked at me from over her glasses, which were pushed only halfway up the bridge of her nose.

            “Suspicion and knowledge are two different things.” I popped a chunk of the cake into my mouth.

            “You’re too smart to not be in school.” Mrs. Locklear shakes her head. “Especially when you only have one more year until your high school graduation.”

            “I’m not meant to sit inside all day. I stayed in school until the law said I could drop out.”

            “Susanna—”

            The door opened to reveal Anita and her young son. Anita moved into the apartment five months before after immigrating to America from Italy. She barely spoke any English which made conversing with her difficult. The only fact we know about her is that she has a brother on the west coast that she is saving up to see.

            “Gotta go.” I palmed the remaining piece of my cake and headed back to the small room I shared with Mama.

“You should be reading the good book.” Mama didn’t look up from sewing. The needle and thread weaved through the seams effortlessly. She was seated on her dark green chair that was handed down from my grandmother. A swath of ribbons was balanced on the end table next to her chair. The coach was covered in various dresses and coats she was hired to repair.

As one of the only seamstresses on this side of the bend, Mama was never short on work. Her shop was right down the street and since I dropped out of school, she requires me to work three days a week with her. The times I am not at the shop, I should be cleaning the apartment because a woman’s work inside the house is just as noble as her work outside of it.

            The wooden chair creaks as I adjust my position. Our kitchen table is pushed up against the only large window in the apartment. The sun had already disappeared behind the horizon, the moon shone in its place. On the streets below, kids run around chasing balls and stray dogs. Their laughter prickles my ears and pries my attention away from the book of fables in front of me.

            “Job’s a bore.” I leaned my head against my hand and flipped the thin page even though I have not read a single word.

            Mama huffed, “The Lord’s word is no bore, Susanna. Mind your manners.”

            “I thought Job wrote this book.”

            “It was Moses.”

            “Then it can’t really be the Lord’s word, can it?” I smirked into the window, my reflection shone back. The sound of Mama’s blood boiling was almost audible.

            Mama slammed her work onto the tattered ottoman that sat slouched in front of her chair.

            “Susanna Nina Hill, you will not disrespect the Lord in this house.”

            “Mama, I’m just saying that—”
            “Nobody likes a church bell ringing all the time.” Mama’s hands were placed on her hips. “You will never find a husband with a mouth like that. Now bend over.”

            “Mama, I’m seventeen.”

            “I don’t know what I ever did to deserve such a rotten child. Bend.”

            I bit down on my lip. The bruises on my ass were still pulsing from the day before. A few more on the top of my legs were just now turning a light green. I stood and bent over the table, while Mama pulled the switch off the hook hanging by the window. The children’s laughter from below floated up to my ears, their giggles fueled the sting as Mama’s switch came down three solid times.

            “To your room,” Mama ordered as she returned the switch to the hook.

            Silent, I walked out of the kitchen and directly into the adjacent tiny bedroom. I closed the door, set the lock in place and rubbed my burning ass. Our room was nothing special. The only furniture were two small stained mattresses pushed into two different corners, a small wardrobe that my mom had from when she was a little girl, and a wobbly desk sat under the small window. The desk was empty save for a sewing kit and strips of excess fabric. I pulled a small locked box out from under the desk. The only thing that is mine alone. Inside are my science textbooks that I could not bear to return and a few issues of The Prophetic Messenger—an annual astrological almanac. Sitting on top was the front page of yesterday’s paper announcing the much-anticipated arrival of the Barnum & Bailey’s Circus to lower Manhattan. It was set up just on the other side of the tracks.

            I grabbed the newspaper and shoved it into my waistband before I crossed the room and lifted a corner of my mattress off the carpet, revealing my hidden hammer which has now created a permanent engraving in the pallet. Mama had nailed my window shut some years before after she caught me sneaking onto the fire escape and practicing my climb. The nails had become easier to pull up as time progressed, and even easier to nail back in place after my return.

            Just like always, the nails popped up easily. I placed both on my desk and sat the hammer next to them. After the window was pulled up, I quietly slid out onto the fire escape.

The roof was silent and loud all at once. The silence that stemmed from the watching stars and waning moon was juxtaposed against the hustle and bustle of Baxter below—kids called in for dinner, Mr. Henry’s jazz music danced out of his bakery, and the simple chime of bike peddlers drummed in tandem.

            I stepped onto the small roof ledge and began to pace around the top. My arms were stretched out to the side of me. The stars above me winked in greeting, the wind whispered the street’s gossip. Never had I felt so alive than when I was balanced ten stories above the ground. Heights were my self-prescribed drug. A suspension in time to forget all that was expected of me. Some nights, with arms outstretched and eyes closed, my mind rocketed into the cosmic void above me. I could almost hear the crunch of asteroids underneath my feet as I danced across their infinity, my limbs intertwined with aurora borealis—brilliant dashes of pinks and greens.

            From a mile away, I could almost make out the illuminated large circus tent. The elephant’s triumphant scream was just a mumble by the time it reached my ears.

I glanced up one more time at the twinkling sky, wishing I could reach that height. I will go and follow the sound of the elephant’s call. If I can’t dance with the northern lights, then I will dance with the lights of the circus.

Once my feet were firmly planted on the asphalt of the alleyway, I turned in the direction of the railroad tracks. I waved at Mr. Henry as I passed his now silent bakery, still smelling of fresh baked bread and cakes even an hour after close. He was elbow deep in flour and as he waved back a small flour explosion formed a flaky cloud around his moving hand.

            The train tracks were just a few blocks away from Mulberry Bend and reaching them took no more than ten minutes. I slid my hand over the back pocket of my jeans making sure the few coins I managed to sneak out of Mama’s pocketbook were still tucked tightly within.

            My feet balanced on the rusty railroad track. I spread my arms out of the sides of my body and walked with grace toward the circus.

            Dense honey locust trees lined the tracks and the moon swirled a cool breeze around with its magnetic pull. I was far enough outside the city that the constant hum of movement and banter were nonexistent. Silence stretched out before me. Silence except for elephant trumpets and shouts of applause. The lights grew brighter. The allure of the circus tent was solidifying as it rose in stature before me.

            The train’s caboose forced me to get off the tracks and onto the knee-high weeds. There was a makeshift wall that was put up next to the train and looped into the dense trees. 

            I stepped back onto the track and propped my right foot up on the tail of the caboose and reached up with my arms until my fingers were able to wrap around the top of the fence. I pushed against the train with my right foot and used the leverage to hoist my body up until I could swing my legs clearly over the fence.

            A man with salt and pepper hair stood on the other side of the fence. His mouth wide. A zebra stood next to him, tied to a cable, as he chomped on the dying grass below his feet. “I’ve never seen anyone make it over that wall before.”

“Have you ever seen anyone try?” I wiped my hands on my jeans, my brown eyes connected with his blue eyes.

“No.”

“Hm.”

“Was it hard?”

“I like to climb.” I walked over to the zebra and began to stroke his mane. “I’ve never seen a zebra in person before.”

The man’s eyes were trained on me. He looked dumbfounded.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” I took a step back, not sure where to go from here. Is this one of the men Mama and her friends always warned me about? The ones with a screw loose in their brain, who are not sure how to ask permission?

“I don’t know what to do in this situation. Like I said, I’ve never seen anyone climb over the wall.”

“Well, what do you do when you meet someone on the street?” I returned my hands to either side of the zebra’s neck and began to massage the muscles after deciding that all this man’s screws were tight and secure.

“Introduce myself.”

“Susanna.” I turned to face him and stuck out my hand to shake.

He hesitantly shook my hand. “Benson.”

“Benson,” I whispered. “Show me to the show.”

Benson tied the zebra’s lead on a hook that was a permanent fixture on the side of the train.

“I think you still have to pay.”

I slid my finger into my back pocket and pulled out the two coins. With my other hand I reached forward and turned his hand over in time for me to slide the two coins into it.

“Keep the change.”

“This isn’t enough for a ticket, much less a tip.” His voice was dry.

“The newspaper wasn’t clear on ticket prices.” I shrugged. “Are you a stickler for the rules?”

He shook his head. “I’m just new here is all. I’m still trying to earn my keep.” Benson lead us through a maze of tables and chairs. Each table was covered in a red and white stripped table cloth to match the big top. Two large trash bins were found on either side of the area, both were already full of trash. “This is the dining area.”

“What’s over there?” I pointed to a mostly open tent that sat adjacent to the big top.

“The corrals and stalls to keep the animals in between their numbers.”

“Are you in charge of the zebras?”

“Right now, I’m just a hand. I feed, scoop out stalls, and transport animals to and from. I mainly work with the elephants, but they needed help with Oz tonight.”

“I could hear the elephants from my apartment.”

“Is that why you came?”

“I’m not sure.”

Benson led me the rest of the way through the backstage area in silence. For the most part, the area was deserted, everyone was busy putting on a performance. The only people lounging around were men Benson deemed grunts—and they would be busy at work soon enough. Clapping erupted out of the tent as we entered through the side. We were on the far left side of the stage at the edge of a set of bleachers. I looked out onto the center of the ring and saw nothing but empty space. I glanced around and saw that the entire audience had their heads tilted up toward the ceiling. I looked up and gasped when I saw them.

Two people in skintight outfits—a man and a woman—were perched on a ledge almost to the top of the big top. A large net was sprawled about ten feet below them in case they fell.

“How high up are they?” I whispered.

“Forty feet,” he said.

My mouth fell open as the woman inched her way to the edge of the platform, feigning freight. My breath caught in my throat as she jumped toward a short horizontal bar that was hanging a few feet in front of her.

“One second of hope.” I breathed when her hands grasped the bar and she began her act in the air. She flew from one horizontal bar to a second one in time for the man to leap from the platform and clutch the now vacant bar. They began to dance and flip in the air, the lights twisting and turning in rhythm to keep up with their movements. For the first time in my life, I was speechless.

“Can you imagine the rush?” I exclaimed. Benson and I were under the small tent reserved for zebras. He was scooping fresh hay into the stall, while I leaned against the fence.

“No,” he chuckled. “I’m terrified of heights.”

“I live for them.”

“Maybe you should be a trapeze artist.”

My smile faded from my lips and I brushed a strand of hair out of my face until it was behind my ear. “Don’t be silly. I could never.”

“How come?”

“Mama wouldn’t let me.”

“Does she know you are here now?”

I shook my head and brought my index finger up to my teeth and began to nibble on my nail.

“I ran away two years ago.” Benson slid down the fence until he was seated on the fresh hay, his legs stretched out in front of him. I pushed myself off the fence and took a seat in front of him Indian style.

“Aren’t you a little too old to run away?”

 Benson’s eyes grew wide, “Old? I’m not old.”

“I just thought,” I pointed his graying hair.

He chuckled. “My hair has had white specks in it since I was a kid. My father’s hair was the same way. I was born in 1861.”

“Oh, you’re only a few years older than me.”

Benson stood, entered the next stall and began scooping out the dirty hay.

“Why did you run away?”

“I realized life in Virginia wasn’t for me.”

“And touring with the circus is?”

“I didn’t find the circus until last year, but it’s enough for now.” He nodded. “Until I find a town I can’t bear to leave. For now, I’m guaranteed three meals a day and a half-piece a week.”

I swallowed and shook my head. “I can’t run away.”

“The girl that hopped the back fence into the circus an hour ago would disagree.” Benson stopped working and leaned against his shovel. “What do you want to do?” His voice was barely above a whisper.

“Fly,” I admitted. “I don’t know how.”

“Gisele and Javi can teach you.”

“I can’t just join the circus.”

“Sure you can.” Benson shrugged. “Mr. Barnum loves runaways. They’re cheap labor. We can talk to him in the morning.”

I laid back on the cool earth. My eyes drifted up to the bright stars. I could smell Oz from his place five feet away from me, as he still chomped at the grass.

“Come with me.” Benson balanced the shovel on the stall and walked out of the tent. The big top loomed before us. He opened the large flap and nodded his head for me to enter. The smell of dirty hay and sweat encompassed the room. Heat left over from hundreds of humans and animals stuck to my bare arm. The big top was empty except for two men raking the used hay into large piles. My eyes drifted up, where the trapeze sat waiting.

“I can see it.” Benson wiped his hands on his jeans. “Suze, the flying girl.”

“Suze,” I repeated slowly. My mind drifted to my tiny apartment on Baxter Street. I could picture Mama opening our bedroom door open and seeing the evidence of my escape sprawled on my desk. She would curse herself, but mostly she would curse me. I reached my hand down until it traced the back of my thighs, I winced every time my finger found another bruise from Mama’s lessons.

“What do you say, Suze?” Benson turned to me and offered his hand. “Want to fly?”

I glanced up at the stars again, wishing they would tell me my fate. Yet the daunting truth was I knew I longed for nothing more than to fly. I could see it, like I was looking into the future: a crowd cheered from forty feet below as I jumped with my arms outstretched to catch the trapeze. The lights danced and dazzled all around me. I slid my hand into Benson’s and allowed him to pull me to my feet, and it only took a single second.

Emily Garrett is studying for her MA in creative writing at Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, TX where she currently resides.

The One about the Fox

I have touched one in a video online,
using someone else’s hands.

While he sits there and scratches and scratches and scratches
at something brown on his neck.

Someone very pale is handing him a red gummy bear.
He licks her hand and squeals.

We all fall into round patches of dust 
next to the path. We all chew on the leaves

of a bush with rose-colored berries.

Three Sink Basin

Five am: half way to my plating 
job at The Calf. On the bus, I keep

my pet fox in its cage. I am very bad 
at washing dishes. My husband says this

is because of white privilege: I can’t tell 
the dirty from the clean. I burn my hands

in the hot water, even wearing gloves. 
Yesterday, I spun a pyramid of beer glasses

onto the soapy plastic floor. Only three 
survived. My fox yawns, circles, goes back

to sleep on her pink towel. The towel 
is embroidered with eyeless flowers, all

bending to the grass. Sometimes she picks
at the threads like a hysterical machine,

the same angry bobbing I use to chew my thumb-
nail. My white suede boots, scuffed at the toes,

are stained from the early rain. On the side 
of the bus at a stoplight, a woman stuffs clouds 
into children’s mouths and laughs. Her lips are 
violet, the sky behind her a radioactive blue.

Self portrait with Reflected Light

She told me, “I have bought the moon,
a copy – a replacement for all the things 
I have forgotten. Ten years ago, I told 
myself never to write about the moon. 
But this is a blow-up moon. A 3-D printed 
moon. Not a grey fox walking on her hind 
legs and smiling. Not a handful of rusted 
rings under a starfish at the playground. 
Not a flashlight for exploring the pinkish 
storm drain in November. Not a piece of my 
body, excised, shoved in a red plastic cup 
signed sharps.” Oh, when did you turn 
like this? When did your sickness vanish, 
only to appear and jump out in front of the Fiat 
on that parkway? Not the headlights. Not 
the twin fawns, frozen as our car approaches
over the ridge. The moon is stupid as it stares.

Notes on Love, VII

We live in that red square

by the side of a milky

river, the box so small,

as I sit on your lap,

my calves fall asleep.

We pretend it’s winter

because we like to wear

different wooly hats,

because we delight in

sucking the cold out

of each others’ toes.

This cube so dim

we’ve forgotten how

to spell: a soft carmine

hearse or horse

croons just

beyond the lid.

Blazevox published Christine’s second book, Echo Park, in 2011, and in 2017, Ghostbird Press published Christine’s sixth chapbook, a linked collection of hybrid poems, Notes on Wolves and Ruin.

When I was seven, my aunt gave me a dreamcatcher and told me to hang it above my bed.  You will see the world through your dreams, she whispered to me as we huddled closely in the corner of the living room, so my mother couldn’t hear the mumbo jumbo she expelled on me – you will see my world through your dreams, she continued, and one day, other’s will find inspiration in your dreams.  Maybe if I’d hung it correctly from the start, the ending wouldn’t have been such a shock.

We didn’t see my aunt much but when we did it was always interesting; tales or foreign and exotic lands and just as many men of the same description. She and my mother varied in every respect; the way they looked, the way they lived, the way they loved.  My mother was plump and dark while crazy aunt Kate was tiny and blonde.  My mother had settled down early in life, found young love and married, had a baby, found a good job and lived the life of pleasant routine, while crazy aunt Kate had lost her marbles in her mid-twenties when a man she thought she loved drove the sanity out of with well-hidden demons.  She’d called off the fall wedding in late summer in a display of gut-wrenching pain and torment.  I remember when her fiancé randomly disappeared from our weekend visits to the beach house which coincidently was a few streets down from their house, mostly because I missed his dogs.  After that, we didn’t see much of crazy aunt Kate, and it was just the three of us and the lives my parents made for each other, as best they knew how.

The two of them overcame the trials and tribulations most working, busy, exhausted, polar opposite couples experience and lived a life of quiet normalcy.  I remember them fighting out on the deck one evening when I was little, younger than the dreamcatcher age.  My mother had given me a cup of ice cream and sat me in front of the television for a show.  Any other night I’d have revealed in this treat and ignored the goings on around me with the utmost enthusiasm.  But I could hear them fighting and talking about me.  I sat in the sitting room on the couch and watched my mom through the sliding glass door yelling at my father, who was just out of frame, like a ghost.  I waited pateiently while they fought, my ice cream melting away into milk in the other room.

When my mom came back inside, I asked her if she still wanted to live with my father, my sad, elongated eyes staring up at her as I spoke.  She burst into tears and collapsed around me as if to shield me from whatever was going on between her and my father.  I never saw them fight again, but there was also something missing in my mother after that night – something inside her had died; a glint of light in her eyes extinguished.  Later in my own life after having been married for some time and having children of my own, I would come to understand this disappearance as the mother’s sacrifice.  The extinguished light was the death of the part of her that existed outside the moniker of wife and mother.  When my mother decided to remain true to the domesticated life she had chosen years before her soul had matured enough to understand what her life could be, she ceased to be herself and continued as only wife and mother.    

She loved my father. He was good to her, but they were different people. When she sat with my crazy aunt Kate on the couch late at night with a bottle of wine between them, I could see the excitement born back into her eyes from the top of the stairwell through the banisters as I spied on them. I saw a glimmer of light when crazy aunt Kate expunged stories of dark men with names like Luka and Enzo doing dark things to her that I was too young to understand.  They would laugh and whisper and drink too much.  Crazy aunt Kate would tell her stories, and my mother would ask questions about the people and places like she’d known them herself.  We only saw crazy aunt Kate when the wind blew her in from her outlandish adventures, and my mother fed off the stories she presented and tucked them away for safe keeping. 

It had been years since I’d seen crazy aunt Kate, probably close to five when she reemerged in our lives.  She’d been too engrossed in fighting for women’s rights in some overly misogynistic nation to come home when my father first fell ill and too deep in the jungle studying the effects of modern technology of the native culture when we celebrated his first stint in remission.  We would receive letters from her over the years entertaining us with magical tales of places no one knew existed except for her, things only her eyes had seen, loves only her heart had conquered.  My mother would always read them to us with an air of jealousy hidden in disapproval, her mouth in a constant smirking state as the words fell from her lips.  When he was gone, she would read them to me late at night when we laid in bed, like I was a little girl again and she was reading me a bedtime story.  The first few letters my mother sent her after my father died came back return to sender, which was not uncommon; gypsies rarely stayed in one place long enough to have an address to post mail to.  One must have found its way to my crazy aunt Kate and carried her home one evening on a gust of wind so powerful; our lives rattled in its wake.

I listened to them talk from the upstairs hallway, secreted in the dark, like I had done when I was little.  There were whispers, and hushed words, tears as my mother chronicled the last days of my father’s life, the clanking of wine glasses, and finally, childish giggles after the business of catching up on the formalities of our lives had concluded.

I awoke the next morning with the uncomfortable feeling of someone watching me; my aunt sat on the edge of my bed humming some nonsensical tune, twirling the dreamcatcher she’d given me years prior and, that, for some reason, still hung from the spindled bed knob near my pillow.

“It must be broken,” I groggily confided in her.  She turned so I could see the confused look fall upon her face as her ears interpreted my words.

“I never dream,” I yawned, still half asleep, the puzzlement upon my aunt’s face growing deeper and deeper.

“When I was little, you came back from one of your exotic expeditions and gave it to me and told me to hang it above my bed and I would see the world in my dreams … or something like that,” I trailed off as I flicked the dreamcatcher out of her hand.  We both watched as it swung back and forth and then came to rest against the bedpost.          

Quickly, the bewilderment transformed to understanding upon crazy aunt Kate’s face.  “I remember that trip,” she whispered, her eyes fluttered back and forth as if she was seeing the memories pass in front of her at that very moment.  “Lots of peyote,” she added in a hushed, disapproving manner with her face wagging side to side, as if to say don’t tell your mother I just told you that.

We sat silent for some time, not knowing what would come next.  The last time crazy aunt Kate saw me, I was 11 or 12 maybe, so the 17 almost 18-year-old that laid in front of her now most likely seemed like a stranger to her.  She only knew of me what my mother had shared with her in her letters, most of which she never received.  And I knew only knew of her what my mother told me, which was a fraction of the truth.  We were two strangers with familiar blood pumping between us, sitting on a bed together, waiting for the silence to break.

“You don’t remember any of your dreams?” she questioned, as she began to twirl the feathers of the dreamcatcher in her delicate fingers. 

I thought about the question posed and then desperately tried to remember the last time I awoke in the morning having retained anything resembling what a dream might look like, but nothing distinct came to mind.  No dreams of boys and innocent teenage petting, no dreams of sneaking out in the middle of the night and laying in the dew rinsed football field with friends, no dreams of leaving for far-away places; there was nothing, just blackness as thick the darkest night you’d ever seen.

“I mean, maybe something, bits, and pieces,” I lied unconvincingly.

My crazy aunt Kate looked at me with the expression of wonderment and awe upon her face.  After a few more awkward moments she glanced down at the dreamcatcher she still twirled between her fingers.  The continued silence began to grow uncomfortable.  I threw back the blankets in an attempt to exit the comfort of my bed but stopped when the coolness of my aunt’s hand fell upon my own.  She looked at me with a content smile but still did not speak.  The air of comfortability in the room scratched roughly against my skin.

I continued to slide out of bed, my hand slithering out from under crazy aunt Kate’s grip.  I began to babble about what we had planned for the day as I opened and closed my dresser drawers looking for something to wear, anything to break up the awkward feeling in the room.  Mid-sentence crazy aunt Kate interrupted me, her breath on the back of my neck, stinging like ice cubes on a hot summer day.

“It was upside down,” she whispered from behind me.

The seriousness of her voice was out of place for her whimsical flow.  I didn’t even know she could be serious; I’d never heard her say anything without the flow of imaginative passion or fanciful lust before in my life.  Had I not known it was crazy aunt Kate standing behind me, I may have thought it was my mother.

I turned to question the proceeding statement; upside down?  What kind of obtuse comment was that to make, I knew how the dreamcatcher was supposed to go.  What nonsensical insanity was this crazy person about to depart on me?

Her eyes lit up like the 4^th of July as we came face to face, eye to eye, soul to soul.  I couldn’t help but feel the enormity of what my crazy aunt Kate was about to explain to me, and the truthfulness that lingered behind the fireworks in her eyes pulled me into her world, deeper down the rabbit hole than I’d ever known existed. 

“What?” was all I could conjure amidst my confusion.

My crazy aunt, Kate, cupped her small, warm hands around my face and pulled me closer.   

“It was upside down,” she whispered again.  “This is a daydreamer’s catcher.  It has to be upside down for you to see …”

The noise in the room began to buzz or hum like a swarm of bees surrounding my head, and the words my crazy aunt Kate spoke to my mother who had burst into the room at the most pivotal moment in our conversation, began to trail into the distance.  I stood, frozen by the stagnation of the moment’s inertia which crowded the room.   What was it that my crazy aunt Kate thought or knew or thought she knew?  What was she trying to tell me before we had been faultlessly interrupted?  Why did it feel like the completion of the conversation was all that mattered in life?            

The feeling of spinning broke my outwardly calm resolve. Words they spoke came back into focus.  Both my mother’s and aunt’s eyes upon me as I sped back to reality.   

“What?” I reiterated, obviously dazed.

“What were you two girls talking about?” my mother asked as she stood cross-armed next to my aunt.

I was frozen, unable to answer the simplest of questions with the simplest of lies.  We were talking about boys, sports, school, dogs, books; anything would have sufficed, but the words would not leave my mouth.

“We were talking about my latest trip to the Far East,” my crazy aunt Kate started.  “And a man named Giusto,” she continued with a wink and a hip shake, successfully satisfying my mother’s curiosity while leaving my hunger at its peak.  My desire for more information about my aunt’s cryptic words would have to wait; plans for the day were being formulated in front of me while my mind drifted. 

We spent the day shopping, sipping tea on the front porches of bakeries, strolling for the purpose of strolling, with our last stop of the tired day being a small gallery my crazy aunt Kate begged us to visit.  None of it felt real; I would have said almost dreamlike, but never having experienced the surreal sensation of a dream of my own, I wasn’t completely sure that’s what the experience mimicked.  I floated through the day, unsure that it even really existed as I experienced it. 

The smell of incense invaded my nostrils as we crossed the threshold of the gallery and the quiet sound of chimes and peals resonated from a poorly hung speaker in the corner.  Crazy aunt Kate struck up a conversation with the gallery keeper while my mother and I wandered the open space looking at the strategically hung overpriced pieces of art that adorned the walls.  I stopped my amble at a specific piece of figurative representation of a child sleeping in her bed, the loud pastel colors that covered the canvas an interesting contrast to the soundless subject of sleep.  I stood, rapt, by the odd pairing of subject and color, and in my enthralled study of the work, I noticed a tiny familiar object hanging from the bed spindle.  I moved closer to confirm that my preoccupied mind was not playing a trick on my weary eyes.

“This is a very interesting piece,” a man’s voice interjected behind me, it’s presence in my world giving my body a reason to jump back at least three feet.

“Apologies, apologies,” he begged at the realization that he’d interjected himself into my world unannounced.

The man introduced himself as the curator of the gallery, and we made pleasant chit-chat about the gallery.  He was a small, thin man with the eyes of someone who’d done too many mind-expanding and mood-altering enhancements throughout his years.  Looking into his eyes felt like looking out into the ocean, blue in color and endless in depth.

“This is one of my favorites,” he explained motioning to the piece I had been studying before his interjection.

“It’s … interesting,” I replied, turning my attention back to the piece hanging on the otherwise stark wall.  “But, is that … a dreamcatcher?” I questioned, squinting my eyes trying to make out the tiny, blurred object hanging from the spindle of the bedpost.  “It looks like it’s upside down though.  I thought the feathers were supposed to hang down from the bottom,” I finished, the point of my nose within inches of the pastel paint.

“Very keen eye,” the curator commented.  “It is a dreamcatcher.  It’s upside down because it’s a daydreamer’s catcher.”   

The ease in which the explanation of the upside-down dreamcatcher flowed from the curator’s lips was almost as confusing as the words themselves.  I stared at the painting and attempted to comprehend his meaning, unsuccessfully and conspicuously apparent.

“You know, so the daydreamer’s dreams can flow to the person sleeping below it.”

Seeing my utter confusion, the curator took pity on me and dove into an explanation of how dreams are made involving visionaries and seers, people who are born to be daydreamers and whose extraordinary lives are put to use in the dreams of those in need of inspiration and stimulation. The upside-down dreamcatcher above their heads, the tool used to circulate these images and passions to others around the world. 

The rabbit hole had fallen completely dark and felt tight around my skin, constricting my ability to think rational thoughts.  Had I had the dreamcatcher upside down this whole time?  Had it been upside down, would I have been dreaming dreams that other people had seen; dreams of the things my crazy aunt Kate had lived?  Is that even possible?

“Of course, it’s not possible,” I screamed internally.  “Have you come completely unhinged?”

I stood still, my body facing the direction of the painting in question, but my mind was elsewhere; my eyes scanned their peripheral vision for a familiar face that could rescue me from this nonsense.  Where was my rational mother when I needed her? 

“Often, the ability of the daydreamer is passed down through a family, from parent to child,” the curator continued unprompted. 

Something stepped into my peripheral line of sight as he spoke, blurred at first until I turned slightly, bring her into perfect clarity.  Crazy aunt Kate stood at the other end of the gallery, the sun from the skylights above raining down on her like beams from heaven.  Her skin sparkled like bubbly champagne, effervescent in the jumping light.  She floated across the floor, her feet barely brushing the ground below them.  She was angelic, unreal and yet more present in my life that I’d ever known her to be.  When I looked at her, I had a hard time disbelieving this unbelievable idea that my aunt and this strange man believed to be true. 

“Sometimes it skips a generation or only passes to one of several siblings in a generation.  It just depends on the dynamic of the person passing on the gift.  Sometimes people don’t even know they have it.  Sometimes someone knows they have this gift, but chose to ignore it, for one reason or another.”  The curator spoke as he stared into the space of the gallery, his eyes focused on images only available to his eyes.

As if in some masterly orchestrated ballet, the curator’s last words to me passed through his lips as my mother gently came to rest alongside my crazy aunt Kate, the two of them exchanging smiles and giggles in slow motion.  The light twirled between them as dust bunnies danced on the air.  The look of release and reprieve shown across their faces and as they turned the look of acceptance filled my mother’s eyes.  What I assumed to be the refraction of the sunlight pouring through from above turned out to be something more than mere light itself.  The spark in my mother’s eye, that had disappeared the night she fought with the ghost of my father on the porch while my ice cream slowly melted, now leaped from the canvas of her face.  She and my crazy aunt Kate turned to look at me in unison, faint, reassuring smiles resting on their faces.

“Or sometimes,” a voice whispered from behind.  “Sometimes, someone who abandoned the gift for whatever reason comes back to it later in life, when the time is right.”

When the time was right?  Was the time right, right now?  Had my mother abandoned some mystical gift because she married my father, had me and settled down to a life of normalcy and routine?  Was the timing right at this moment in her life since my father had passed and I was no longer a young child incapable of caring for myself?  Had I just gone insane, lost my marbles, because I was on the brink of possibly believing in some small aspect of whatever it was that was going on around me?

My mother moved toward me, leaving my crazy aunt, Kate behind to dance in the sunlight.  There was a weightlessness to her soul that let her drift across the floor, a fresh smile breaking upon her face.

She tucked a small dreamcatcher into my hand, forcing my rigid fingers to curl around its edges. 

“Ready?” she beckoned. 

Jessica Simpkiss lives and works in Virginia Beach, Virginia with her husband and daughter. She studied Art History at George Mason University. Her work has most recently been published or is forthcoming in the Hartskill Review, Zimbell House Anthologies, The Write Launch, The West Trade Review, The Dead Mule for Southern Literature, The Bookends Review and the Virginia Literary Journal, amongst others. Find more of her work by visiting jessicamsimpkiss.com

Alice Tilson Whitaker
Daughter, Sister, Wife
1865-1894

            He keeps saying it, over and over, like a prayer or a promise. “I didn’t kill her,” he says, even when no one asks. They all assume his guilt now. They stand back and whisper as he walks unsteadily through the village. Talking to himself. Speaking of murder and innocence. It’s as if he’s hearing the voices of the dead, and possibly he is. Possibly he’s hearing me now, after nearly a decade of ignoring my every word, my every need. I hope he can’t stop hearing me. 

            “You killed me, Edgar.” I hiss in his ear and he flinches.

*  *  *

            My name is Alice. It’s an unremarkable name, but it suited me. I was never an attractive girl, cursed with a nose too long for a face too round. My mother, with her finite capacity to comfort, referred to the protrusion as “aquiline.” In reality it was just big, bullying its way into the limited space between my eyes and my mouth from the time I was twelve. It grew with the same relentless aggression as my limbs, resulting in a fourteen-year-old gangly creature with skin and hair so white some folks in our tiny community assumed me to be albino. I resembled a snowy egret, without the grace or beauty. This made for an unpleasant adolescence.

            My father, Dr. Wilfred Tilson, with no sons to treasure, doted on my younger sister Norma. I could never blame him for his appreciation of her. It was as if she had been sculpted by a God trying to compensate for his earlier artless error. That pride my father felt for Norma transitioned abruptly when his heavily browed eyes fell on me. No academic accomplishment—and I had enjoyed many in our tiny school—could change that. Despite the recommendations of Principal Newel, Father refused to invest in my higher education. He believed there could only be two options for daughters: we would either be married, or we would be a burden. There was little question as to which of those futures Norma would enjoy, if only our father could find someone suitable. I was destined for the latter.

            But Father underestimated the desperation that can exist in a lonely man’s soul. Sometimes, all a man wants is the warmth of a woman’s parts and someone to feed him thrice daily. Even I was well-equipped to handle those joyless tasks. Shortly before my twenty-fourth birthday, a spinster by local standards, my father was approached by Edgar.

            Edgar Arthur Whitaker, a twenty-nine-year-old farmer from Madison, had tried unsuccessfully for the hand of Norma. He had been canvassing the surrounding towns for months seeking a sturdy girl to marry, take home, and put to work. But Edgar forgot those requirements when he laid eyes on the sixteen-year-old beauty. He was quick to appreciate those large blue orbs, her hair the color of autumn oak leaves, and skin that seemed to generate its own soft light. But as lovely as Norma was, a farmer’s wife she would never be. It was ridiculous that a man more than a decade older than Norma, with nothing to show for those years of labor except a bit of tanned muscle, would think he could abscond with my father’s only prize. Even Mother, a woman who was disinclined to openly belittle others, was amused by Edgar’s stumbling advances.

            It was a year later that Edgar, even more desperate now, turned his attentions to me. When he arrived at our door, I assumed he had returned to craft a better case for Norma’s hand. But my sister was giddy with the news that Edgar was vying for mine. She grabbed my arm and guided me out to the front porch where we could sneak peeks into the sitting room. There my parents and Edgar sat, civilly chatting over cups of tea. I was taken aback, considering how they had reacted to him the first time. I’ve never blamed Mother for her passive acceptance of Father’s decisions. She was a woman whose story had been written for her. She therefore must have assumed mine needed authorship as well. However, I was surprised, and even saddened, that she considered Edgar an appropriate penman. Whereas I had accepted Father’s displeasures with me, I had always thought Mother to be more embracing of my less visible attributes.

            “He has a certain charm, Alice,” Norma said as we stole peeks through the curtains. Edgar struggled there with a saucer balanced on one knee as he sipped from a cup that looked ridiculous in his massive paw. “This is just like that book you love so much, the one by that woman.”

            I was surprised that she would reference a novel, since reading was not her pleasure.

            “You know, that one about pride. The romantic one.”

            I laughed. “As if you’ve read Pride and Prejudice.”

            “I haven’t, but you’ve talked so much about it I feel as though I have.”

            I squinted through the curtains, trying to grasp what Norma must be seeing in the disquieting scenario that I could not. “And to which of the men would you compare him? Mr. Collins? He certainly doesn’t have the grace of a Mr. Darcy. And who am I to be? Jane? Lizzy?” I laughed again at her ridiculous premise. “I think you need to read more, Norma. In no way does this resemble the beginnings of a romantic novel. From the looks of it, I’m more inclined to compare it to a comedy, or most likely a horror story if it goes on much longer.”

            Norma rolled her eyes as if it were she who understood the world more fully. “You’re too cynical, Alice. This could be your future if you would be open to it. Mr. Whitaker is a fine, hardworking man. He has his own farm, and he’s not so unpleasant to look at.”

            “Really? Didn’t you all laugh at him the first time?”

            Norma picked at a cluster of invisible lint on her gloves. It was her nervous habit when she was dissatisfied with the conversation. “You obviously misunderstood.”

            “I think not. You did it openly.”

“No, Alice. We were laughing at me, not Edgar. We were laughing at the image of me amongst pigs and chickens. Could you imagine?” She giggled too ambitiously. “You must admit it’s an amusing thought considering how I am.”

“But you could imagine me there? Surrounded by pigs and chickens and all of whatever that entails?”

“Yes, I could. You’re good with animals; always taking in the strays. And you are a far more resilient person than I. Whereas I would be overwhelmed by the challenges, you’ll rise to them. You’re strong and adaptable and so smart. I’m sure there’s a lot to learn but you’ll take to it quickly. And Edgar couldn’t ask for a better companion. You might even be happy there. Anyone can tell that you’re not now.” She turned that lovely face toward me with so much sincerity and humiliation—whether it was real or feigned—that I loved her more in those seconds than I had ever loved her before. I glanced back at the scene that appeared to be developing into what could be my future. Mother’s smile was static as she listened to Edgar’s story. Her eyes widened at some distasteful detail.

            “But look at him, Norma. He’s like an ape at a tea party.”

            Norma joined me at the window and burst into giggles. She hid her face in a pillow. “You shouldn’t make fun of him while he sits right there.” She glanced back and laughed harder. “He does look like an ape though, doesn’t he? Still, you shouldn’t be laughing at him. He may be your husband soon.”

            The reality hit me then. Husband. The word felt foreign, like a jagged bone in a bowl of stew. Norma lowered the pillow and smiled. She took both of my hands in hers, and the gloves’ fabric was cool against my sweating palms.

“You’ll be good for Edgar. He’ll take care of you, and you’ll help him to become a better man.” She looked down at our conjoined hands and smiled. It was an amusing assemblage: mine like long white anglers entwining the shorter and thicker clusters of hers. “I will miss you, but this is the best option for you. There may not be others.”

            Norma had a point, although I doubted it was hers. She, and my parents by proxy, was probably right. There was little chance of exiting my limited life in Riverton or even improving upon it. I could plainly see the road that lay before me if I stayed there in Father’s house. I would grow old with my parents. I would take care of them at the end, and I would do nothing of significance beyond that. I would be Auntie Alice, a sad and pitiable woman. It seemed that a life with Edgar offered, at the very least, a possibility of the uncertain.

            “You could make him smile, Alice.” She was doggedly enthusiastic, as if her future depended on the settling of mine. I suppose it did, in some way. Norma was approaching the marrying age herself, and possibly it had been planted in her mind that an older, unmarried, and unattractive sister would not make an acceptable impression for suitors and their families. It occurred to me then that she bore a responsibility that I had never understood, a burden to marry well, while I was allowed a modicum of choice.

            “It’s one of your talents, making others smile,” she went on. “You’ve always done it for me. And Edgar has a lovely smile but he doesn’t use it nearly enough.” She shouldered me toward the window again. As if by cue, a smile did curl at the edges of Edgar’s mouth. But the reason for it was not lovely. Father had just extended an envelope to him, and Edgar’s lips parted into a crooked grin as he counted its contents.

            There was no courtship. Edgar had little time or patience. The arrangements had been made, and the dowry had been accepted. My departure from my “certain” life was quick and with little pomp. The wedding, if one could call it that, was at home in the parlor, attended only by my parents and my sister. Norma was as lovely as always in a pale green dress with matching accessories. I could not be similarly described in mother’s starkly white wedding gown. She had insisted that I wear it, despite the differences in our shapes, and there was no time for alterations. It rose well above my ankles and drooped in places that called attention to my lack of womanly growth. But the whiteness was its most disturbing effect. Norma gasped when she saw me.

            “It’s so…white,” she said, as if I hadn’t noticed. “You look like a ghost.” And she was right. The dress’s pallor matched mine perfectly, as if we had been cut from the same cloth.  

            What a grim couple we made. Edgar, apparently having come directly from the fields, did not dress for the occasion. He was outfitted in a tattered shirt, faded overalls, and boots that seemed to have collected a great deal of organic matter over the years. He did not arrive with a smile nor did he adopt one. As I approached him on what should have been our happy day, I could see his horror. He had clung to an unrealistic hope that on this one day I might be closer to acceptable. He had not expected my appeal to move in the opposite direction. When the pastor suggested that we kiss, signifying the loving bond into which we were entering, Edgar was still. He was like a child who had not received the gift he had been promised. I felt sad for him, but only briefly. I leaned in and put my lips to his. They were colder and stiffer than I had expected, and they seemed to harden beneath mine. It was to be the only kiss that we would ever share. For that I am grateful.

*  *  *

Our marriage, our arrangement if you will, limped along for nearly six years without significant highs or lows. It was a dramatic change from my life before, and in that way it was as I had hoped. It was not, however, a Jane Austen novel as Norma had suggested. I cooked, cleaned, tended to the cows, the pigs, the chickens. The cooking and cleaning came easily, since Mother had given me an education in both. The other tasks were more strenuous. My job was to keep the farm alive, to insure that the livestock and the chickens and even Edgar and I did not fail in health. I had never experienced that kind of responsibility—the life-and-death kind—and it was so overwhelming that I had no time to bemoan my circumstances. Every day was a challenge; it was a ritual of vigilance.

The care of the livestock was a task that required training, and Edgar was surprisingly patient with me. He taught me well, and I took well to it. There were many times during those six years when I felt close to him. He loved the farm, and sometimes it seemed as though he almost loved me now that I belonged to it. I say “almost” because he never expressed it in any way that I could qualify as affection. There was a tenderness there sometimes, a softer center that would seep through his integument. We would be delivering a calf or tending to an ailing pig and there it would be: a lightness, a gentleness, and that smile that Norma had appreciated. But the moment would be fleeting. As quickly as I noticed it, the softness was gone. He would pull it back and slam the portal closed as if he were afraid of it opening too far and swinging out of his control. Those glimpses, as fleeting as they were, maintained me. They gave me hope for more, and a reason to stay.

            Each of us bore our responsibilities solely, and in that way it was a predictable life. Edgar immersed himself in his own work. He tended to the fields and dealt with the structural repairs, which were considerable. The house, the barn, the fences were quite old and in need of attention. He spent his time mending structures while I spent most of mine with the animals. We rarely spoke of our days.

            Even the weekly coitus was enveloped by the predetermination of time, place, and expectation. Mother had advised me of that unpleasantness. She had warned me of a man’s weight, his odor, and his unnecessary proliferation of hair, of which I was unaware. I recognize now how close we are to beasts. Edgar would be a marvelous illustration of Darwin’s theories. There is no other logical reason for why a man such as Edgar should be blanketed with so much dark hair. It seems that he, and possibly all men, have one foot firmly planted in the genetic mire of another species. It would explain so much.

In Mother’s way she was helpful with my introduction to sexual congress. Of course I was aware of its existence. I was an avid reader, after all. But Mother was quick to point out that it was not the enlightening experience of novels.

“It can be quite odious,” she said, although she didn’t qualify it. “As well as messy and unsanitary,” again without details. “You will do best to relax and allow Edgar to do the work. Men like to be in charge, especially in the bedroom.”

It was a brief conversation, uncomfortable for both of us.

She offered one last piece of advice that was helpful. It had come to her from her mother, and she swore that it would “get you through the worst of it.” She suggested I memorize a poem, something to silently recite during the process. It was a distraction that she herself had employed. “It will pass the time,” she said.

“What poem did you choose?” I asked, excited by this new intimacy.

Mother paused, considering, as if the detail might be too personal. “I chose Love’s Secret by William Blake. I had always loved his poetry, and it’s a beautiful poem.”

“I suppose, but it’s quite short, isn’t it? Did you repeat it or did you memorize another?”

She flushed. “No. Once was enough. I only hope you are as lucky. And don’t worry. At some point he will get bored and seek other distractions. You’ll be fine.” She patted my knee and gave me such a loving look that we both teared. And that was all.

I was not a fan of Blake or any of those old men. I found my poem in the works of Adelaide Procter. A Woman’s Question. However, I treated her lovely words in a different tone than she had intended.

            Before I trust my fate to thee, I recited silently, as Edgar thrust and moaned,

            Or place my hand in thine,

            Before I let thy Future give

            Color and form to mine,

            Before I peril all for thee, question thy soul

            Tonight for me.

It was a long poem, but rarely did I get as far as the sixth stanza, my favorite, before the experience was over.

            Lives there within thy nature hid

            the demon-spirit Change,

            Shedding a passing glory still

            On all things new and strange?

            It may not be thy fault alone—but shield my

            Heart against thy own.

It became my practice to sing the final stanzas aloud as I washed myself with a good amount of lye soap and hot water. It was a ritual that became as much for my soul as my skin.

Our years moved forward in the way that a workhorse pulls its plow: back and forth, steadily trudging through soil and rock until it either dies or is put down. Except for the weekly coitus, we were like business partners. I did my job and Edgar did his. When we spoke, it was only concerning the farm. He left me alone for the most part. He had his own room, and I occupied the smaller adjoining one. When we were not working, I had my books, and Edgar had his pipe and whiskey. There was little conversation, only instruction.

It would have been unbearably lonely if not for Walter. I smile when I think of him. Whereas Edgar could have been likened to the dark, my dear friend Walter was, at least for me, the light. He owned the neighboring farm, a smaller one at seventy acres compared to ours at over two hundred. He was a vegetable farmer, and we shared a fence that was close to the chicken coop.  

“You should wear a hat, Missus,” he said on that day we met. It had been a year since I had moved to Edgar’s and nearly that long since I had conversed with anyone. There had been no trips to visit Mother and Father at that point, and they would not visit the farm. Purveyors and buyers came through, but they always dealt with Edgar. And when there was reason to go to town, it was his job, as well as his pleasure, I assume.

I held a hand up to darken the afternoon glare. Still, I could only see a silhouette against an expansive white sky. “I beg your pardon?” I quickly glanced around to see if Edgar was in sight. He was not.

The man tossed something to me, and I managed to catch it before it landed in the dirt. It was a soft, wide-brimmed hat with yellow tie strings.

“It was my wife’s,” he said, as he lowered himself from the horse. “I seen you out here most every day. That hat will be good for rain and sun. A woman as pale as you needs protection.” He put a hand across the fence. “Name’s Walter. And I guess you must be the missus. Heard Edgar got himself a bride.”

“Alice,” I said. His hand was thick and rough, but it held a warmth, like flesh that has worked hard but has also been touched. He nodded and then glanced toward the hat which was nearly forgotten in my other hand. I released his grip, loosened the tie-strings, and settled it in place. It fit nicely.

“Ellen wore it every day till she passed on. Long time ago. She was my missus for thirty years.”

That was the beginning of our friendship. It started with a gift, and it continued that way, though his companionship was the best that he brought. He stopped by the fence once or twice a week, always with a bag of vegetables. In return I gave him eggs and milk. It was a secret exchange, since Edgar was not a man who either gave or received. If he had known of my friendship with Walter, I’m certain he would have ended it, one way or another. As time passed, Edgar had become a man who did not appreciate others’ joy.

I don’t know the seed of Edgar’s hatred and mistrust of the world, since I was not privy to his thoughts or his history. But in our sixth year that seed took root and grew. Although the farm was doing well by then, and Edgar was more financially solvent than he had been, he swelled with hate and misery. It was as if he blamed the world for allowing him a small slice of success but not the entire pie. By that year it became obvious that I would not bear children, and Edgar hated me for it. He was more attentive to me in that year, and not in a good way.

It was like living with a rabid dog that foams with hate but is confused as to where to direct it. Whenever I was within reach, a proximity that I learned to avoid, he directed that misery at me: sometimes with his hands and sometimes with whatever was available. I tried desperately to alleviate his discomfort, and hopefully to quell mine, but it was a fool’s errand. A rabid dog does not respond well to petting.

I wonder if the need to comfort is within a woman’s design. Since I had no children, it’s possible that I directed those instincts toward Edgar. There’s no other explanation for why I felt so compelled to make his life more comfortable as he made mine less so. I wonder if it’s God’s way of helping us move through our woman’s work. If I ever meet Him, I will let Him know that it was not a gift helpful to me.

“Perhaps the arthritis would lessen if we had indoor plumbing,” I suggested one evening in February as I ladled the hot potato soup into his bowl. He had been complaining loudly all winter about his aches, and he blamed the damp cold of the outhouse for aggravating it. On a recent trip home for Norma’s wedding—an event that was considerably more lavish than mine—I had spoken of his complaints. The plumbing was my father’s idea, and I mentioned that to Edgar, since he respected Father’s opinions above mine.

“He thinks that we can afford it now that the farm is doing well.” I said this in the casual tone I had learned from Mother, one she had employed when trying to acquire some new furnishing. I should have known better. I should have respected our boundaries.

He turned his face up to me, as if I had dislodged some mental blockage. His gaze was clear and nearly intelligent in its brightness. It reminded me briefly of those moments of tenderness in our earlier years, when we would work together in the barn and he would smile at some wonder of nature. But I had misread him. His face was like the sky when there is just a touch of sun before the darkness cuts across it. I saw that cloud pass through Edgar, and I was frozen by it.

“We?” He stood slowly, his face filling with the darkness. “This is my farm. Not ours, not your father’s. I’ll decide how to spend the profits. You ugly, barren, useless woman. How dare you speak of what’s good for me.”

The explosion was like nothing I had known, in man or beast. It was volcanic in its power, emanating from some deep place within him. His body seemed to expand and radiate. I’m not sure if it was he physically, or the power that swelled out of him, that sent the tureen of boiling soup into the air, tumbling and then covering me with burning liquid.

The pain was immediate. I ran outside, threw myself into the snow, and rubbed fistfuls into my face and scalp. My clothes held the heat against my skin, and I pulled at the fabric, tearing it away and pressing the cold into the burning areas of my neck and chest. My upper body screamed from the heat.

Edgar stood in the doorway watching me, saying nothing, clouds blowing from his nostrils like the breath of an angry bull. I continued to rub the snow into the burning areas, pleading with him to help. He went insideand I hoped, foolishly, that he would bring burn salve from the kitchen, that maybe he would feel sorry for what must have been an accident. But in a few moments he was back at the door with something in his hand. He threw a blanket at me.

“You’re so damn smart, ain’tcha?” His words were full of gravel and spit. “You and your rich folks. Telling me what to do with what’s mine. Well, you ain’t that smart cause I was already planning for it. I’ll be getting that indoor shithouse. But I’ll be damned if you ever use it.” Then he slammed and locked the door.

I spent that night in the barn, wrapped in a blanket and mounds of hay.

*  *  *

Edgar’s stupidity was only out-weighed by his pettiness. Plumbing, or a limited version of it, was brought to the house the following month, but only for one room. He moved his bedroom to a large section of the first floor, and in that area he had installed a toilet and a sink. When I say that it was limited, I mean that it was not as innovative as the plumbing in town, since we did not have access to town water. And Edgar was far too miserly to have a collection tower built. The plumbing that he had installed in his quarters required a hand pump, and I became the necessary hand. When Edgar washed himself or evacuated his bowels, I was in charge of the pump, which was located outdoors. Locks were affixed to his door and windows, although that seemed ludicrous. If I had needed to relieve myself within his domain, I would have defecated into his hat or urinated into his favorite boots, rather than struggle through a window. If Edgar had known me, he would have understood my creative nature. If he had known me, I would still be alive.

Fortunately, there was Walter. He never acknowledged the scars from the burns, or the occasional bruising—I did my best to conceal the evidence. We always kept our conversation light: discussing the animals, the weather, his deceased wife, his children who had families of their own. Only once did he make reference to my troubles, and even then he disguised it as a neighborly gesture, although his meaning was clear.

“If you ever need help, missus,” he said, looking away toward the fields where we could hear Edgar cursing a tired horse or possibly a stump that refused to be freed from the earth. “Help with anything at all, just ask. I’ll do what needs to be done.” That was all he said, and I pretended to accept it at face value.

It was so strange to have those two men in my life: one feeding me with joy while the other sucked it out as quickly. As unoffended as Walter was with my physical appearance, Edgar was always quick to show his disgust, as if I were a reminder of his failings. He had been burdened with an infertile woman, and there would be no child who would grow and lighten his load. He’d see me and growl something indecipherable through gritted teeth, not directed at me but more as an aside to some internal cohort, his invisible confidante with whom he now exchanged a constant grunting dialogue of anger and regret, even within the throws of coitus.

Those particular assaults became more brutal in the sixth year. They were administered with the foulest of language, if it could be called that at all. It was a degrading and vicious attack on my gender and my lack of adherence to what Edgar thought of as “womanliness.” That year he began taking me in the way that a dog takes a bitch, with my face shoved deeply into a sweaty pillow. With each thrust, he pressed my head deeper. I struggled for air while he groaned, swore, and eventually released. The time that it took for him to achieve that was, thankfully, briefer now. I could hardly recite my first three stanzas before he was up and gone to his room. It was as if the violence of the act was all he needed. He would finish quickly but with a torrent of hate, gripping me tightly around the neck and the waist, pounding and pinching at my back and breasts. It was like the assault of an avalanche: fast but destructive.

It was in that festering year, after countless humiliations and assaults, that I saw my future clearly, in the way that I had seen it before. Again, I knew there would need to be a change if I were to avoid an even darker path. Life would never be better for me as long as Edgar was in charge of it. I was being swallowed by his darkness, and there would be no end to it until one of us was dead. If I allowed it to go on, the dead would be me.

But in that clear vision I could also see a future without Edgar. It was a pleasant one that included the farm, my animals, and maybe even Walter. In the aftermath of such a lovely dream, I was left with a twinge of sympathy for Edgar. After all, no one would miss a man who neither gave nor received.

            It was Walter who acquired the rat poison for me. I was down in the dirt one day, examining a chicken, when he bellowed out his usual, “Mornin’!”

            I nearly toppled from the volume of it. “My word, Walter,” I said as I collected myself. “I should put a cowbell on you.”

            “Sorry, Missus.” He smiled mischievously. He was always amused by the start he could give me. It had become our manner of play.

            “Walter, why can’t you call me Alice?” I shook out my skirt and fanned at the billows of dust that rose from it. “It’s my name, after all, and we’ve been friends for years.”

            “Wouldn’t be right. You’re another man’s missus.” It was a cultural truism that I understood but pushed against. We had repeated that same exchange dozens of times, and it bounced between us easily, like all of our banter. He served and I returned, back and forth like a flirtatious game of badminton. That day was the same. And then I brought up the rat.

            “Walter, you know so much about farming. Sadly, I’m still stuck in the learning phase after nearly seven years. I’m concerned about a rat we have near the barn. I think it’s getting into the feed and making the cows jittery.” I asked him if he knew of where I could acquire something to rid us of it.

            “Are you sure it’s rats, misses? Could be feral cats. They’ll spook the hell out of a cow, ‘scuse my language.”

            “Oh, I’m quite sure it’s a rat. I’ve seen him.”

            “Why doesn’t Edgar help you with that? I know he goes into town.” Walter clearly did not like my husband. His mouth turned down whenever he said the name. There might have been bad blood between them, one of those disputes that erupts between neighbors. Whatever the cause, I recognized his dislike of Edgar as a measure of his goodness.

            “Yes, he could, and I’m sure he would, but the barn and the animals are my job, you see. He has so much to do already, and I—”

            “I know, missus,” Walter said. “No need to explain. How big is it?”

            “Very large,” I said, and I extended my arms in a best estimate.

            Walter laughed. “Looks more like a dog, but I get your point. It’s a bigun. I’ll get the right stuff, not to worry.”

            And the next week he brought me a ten-pound bag of it.  “It’s good for the biguns. More thallium concentration. That’s what kills ‘em. Might take a while, depending on how fast he eats. And there’s probably more than one. You shouldn’t skimp on it. You want me to put this out for ya?” He quickly jumped down from his horse and made for the fence. Walter was older, nearly fifty I expect, but youthful in his movements.

            “Walter, no,” I said and searched the horizon for Edgar. “I think I should do this. I know where the rat lives. And Edgar wouldn’t appreciate it.”

            “You’re right. ‘Nuf said.” He looked toward the fields. “I won’t make it worse for ya.”

            “Thank you, Walter.”

            I touched his shoulder without thinking, as if the moment required it. I allowed my fingers to linger there for just a few seconds, taking in the texture of his shirt and the firmness of his shoulder. It was the only time I had touched him, except for that first handshake, but it was the same warmth I remembered, coming out of him and through me like water rushing into an empty vessel. I felt energized by it. The seconds that I paused there seemed to go on and on, and in that pausing of time I got a sense for real affection, like what I felt for my parents and Norma, but different. I felt like I was moving, running, and the air seemed to be rushing past, cool against my heated cheeks.

            But I wasn’t moving at all. I was just there, perfectly still with my hand laid softly against Walter’s dusty shirt. He didn’t move either. We each stood like that, frozen, looking down at the earth and at our feet and at the fence that separated us. Old rusty wire and rotting wood. It was a fence that had been built fifty years before, built to separate two properties. I was both angry and grateful that it was still doing its job.

            Who knows for how long we might have stood like that if our time hadn’t been interrupted. I heard the sound of hooves on the road and quickly turned to see the clouds of dust. “It must be a buyer,” I said, withdrawing my hand. “Edgar will want coffee for them.”

            I turned back to Walter and noticed the redness that had climbed into his face. It was so endearing I couldn’t help myself. I leaned across the fence and kissed him softly on the cheek, lingering there for several long seconds, allowing that warmth to pour through me again. I was as shocked by the gesture as he must have been. We separated without another word or a glance between us. He mounted his horse and waved goodbye, and I hurried back toward the barn with the bag of poison, feeling an unfamiliar mixture of embarrassment and thrill.

*  *  *

            You would think that poisoning someone would be easy, especially when the intended victim is a glutton. As exceptional a cook as I was, thanks to Mother, I had discovered early on that I could feed Edgar anything as long as there was plenty of it. When he pulled a chair to the table, it was with the intention of filling his face to capacity and sending that half-chewed mass down to his ever-expanding belly. It was a wonder to watch, but I had learned not to. I placed the food on the table and quickly left the room. When I started my routine with the poison, I would sneak back to the door and watch. At first I watched out of fear, wondering if he would taste anything peculiar. Later I watched for the pleasure, relishing that each meal was pulling him further from me and closer to his end.

            I was mindful of where I put the poison, since I had no intention of killing myself. I was looking forward to a future, one that would not include Edgar. Therefore, I chose one source: his bread. I was not a bread eater myself, and Edgar could easily devour an entire loaf in a single meal. I mixed a half dozen handfuls into a flour bin that I reserved for bread. It was a messy task to get them evenly married. I was covered with the dust of it. Then I used it as needed, creating all of his favorites. He seemed satisfied, although his only method of expressing it was a grunt in a slightly different cadence than the ones he normally used to convey his disgust. I had learned to recognize the limited vocabulary: a grunt which rose in timbre expressed approval. My poisonous breads received many guttural accolades.

            But weeks passed, weeks of passionate baking, and I saw no change in Edgar. Even his sexual releases were full of the same ravenous energy. His routines, rising early and in the fields all day, did not vary in the least. He was a large man, and possibly my doses were too meager. I doubled the handfuls.

            It was a month after I had begun the process that Norma came to visit. Norma, a most unlikely comfort, was now a lift for my spirit. It had been nearly a year since I had seen her, now that she was married and living in Bangor. We melted into one another, and our mutual need was unsettling. We had never embraced with so much purpose.

            “Alice, what’s wrong?” There was a slight withdrawal as she regarded me. “You look…terrible.”

            “And you haven’t changed.”

            But I knew her assessment to be true. I hadn’t noticed the changes until that morning when I was preparing for her visit. I was never one to spend time in front of a mirror, but that morning I had seen the dark circles under my eyes, and the blotches of red that travelled out of my collar and skipped in angry patches across my face. I had been fatigued for weeks, and there was pain in my feet that I had never experienced before, but I had assumed that it was all the result of my increased work on the farm—and possibly from the stress of my unsuccessful attempts with the poison. That had been an emotional drain in itself.

            “Are you ill, Alice?” She held me at arm’s length. With one gloved finger, she gently touched the splotches and circles. The fabric felt cool against the heat of my skin. I closed my eyes for a few seconds and absorbed it. “Have you been around some poisonous plant? Maybe an insect? God only knows what horrible bugs must live here.” She glanced around the bleak kitchen as if the creatures might be lurking in the corners or about to descend from the rafters. “It’s probably spiders.” She shivered at the word and lifted her skirts from the floor.

“Probably.” It was cruel of me to poke at her phobias, but I was in no mood for gentleness. “We have so many varieties and they seem to be everywhere.” I began taking the tea, cake, and plates out to the porch. She hurried behind me, empty-handed except for her frilly skirts. Her heels clicked delicately on the floor that had only known the rough soles of work boots and mud galoshes. The sound was annoying, aggravating a headache that had been badgering me all week and was showing no signs of remission. After I had brought everything out and arranged the table, I settled into the less sturdy rocker and suggested she take the better one.

            “Well? Do you think it’s from an insect or something more serious?”

            In all fairness to my sister, it is possible that she was actually concerned for my health and not worried about the possibility of a contagion. I shrugged and pointed again toward the other rocker. She tested its solidity and checked around the edges for webs and nests before settling in.

            “I honestly don’t know,” I said. “But I’m certain it will clear up soon. Now, may we please talk about you?” I glanced down and noticed that the rash had started on my arms as well. I subtly unrolled my sleeves to cover them. “How is your life in the city? And how is Benjamin?”

            I didn’t care about her husband. He was an arrogant and disrespectful man. However, my head was pounding, and the obvious courtesies were all I could muster.

            She removed the pins from her wide-brimmed hat, and then rearranged the dishes on the table so that she could lie it flat. She did not remove the gloves. I would have been surprised if she had. I hadn’t seen her naked hands in years, not since she was twelve or thirteen, not since either Mother or Father had referred to them as “manly” and “stubby.” The gloves had appeared shortly after, gradually developing into an obsession of colors and fabrics and, most importantly, disguise. How sad it must have been for Norma, after years of praise and adoration, to finally learn that she did, after all, harbor a flaw.

            She let out a dramatic and weary breath, as if the action of settling and rearranging had taxed her. “Now,” she said, “You asked about my life. Well, in a word, it’s wonderful, truly wonderful. It’s so unlike the dreariness of Riverton. They’re starting a symphony in Bangor. An actual symphony. Isn’t that wonderful? I just love city life.”

            “It sounds, as you say, ‘truly wonderful.’ And Benjamin? Is he wonderful as well?” Already I was looking forward to her leaving. I had forgotten how unnerving her presence could be.

            She took a large bite of cake and chewed it slowly, indicating with an index finger for me to wait. Her chewing seemed loud, like the sound of hooves trudging through gravelly mud, plunging and sucking. As it went on and on I felt the first waves of nausea. When she took a long sip of tea to wash it down, it was like the slurping of a barn animal. I swallowed hard at the sour saliva that poured over my tongue.

            “Benjamin is wonderful, of course,” she said, finally. It occurred to me that the large bite and prolonged sip had allowed her time to think. Apparently Norma had something on her mind. Ordinarily I would have congratulated her for it, but this time it seemed to be something for which I needed to keep my cynicism in check. She was worried, distracted.

            “And now it’s my turn to ask. What’s wrong, Norma? Your note suggested an urgency.”

            She giggled, but there was no humor in it. “And you call me direct? Apparently we can’t just chat like sisters do.”

            “I’m sorry, Norma. It must be the heat. I’m suddenly not feeling well, so maybe we should get to the point.”

            “Well, you’re right, it is somewhat urgent. You see, Benjamin has had some recent—how should I put this—setbacks. They’re temporary, of course, but still they’re troubling.”

“Setbacks? I wouldn’t think a man like Benjamin Taylor would have setbacks.” There was a hint of my uncontrollable sarcasm, but Norma didn’t seem to notice. My attitude was gradually being taken hostage by a thumping behind my eyes. All I wanted was to splash myself with cold water and then collapse into a long nap.

“Everyone has setbacks, Alice. My word, I imagine even Edgar has setbacks.”

If only he would, I thought.

“And speaking of Edgar, I understand he’s doing well.” She glanced around the porch: at the poorly mended screen, the missing tread of a step, the worn and splintery woodwork that needed attention. “But he’s careful with his profits, isn’t he?”

A sharp pain stabbed at my insides and I curled into myself, taking short breathes until it eased.

“My word, Alice, what’s wrong with you?” Norma leaned forward and rested a hand on my arm. “You are ill, aren’t you?”

I could feel the sweat collecting on my forehead. I wiped at it with one of the napkins. “I suppose I am. What bad timing this is. I had hoped I would have more energy for your visit today, but I’m feeling as though—”

“How long have you been ill?” Her interest was genuine and I welcomed it.

“It comes and goes. I think I’m just very tired after nearly seven years. Farm life can do that, you know.” I said this to the woman whose only job had been to marry well. The pain relaxed and I straightened myself to take another sip of tea. My hand was trembling.

“How long has this gone on?”

“A week or so.” I wasn’t quite sure. The stomach pain and the aching feet had only started that week, but the fatigue had been increasing for longer.

“Have you seen a doctor?”

I laughed at her naiveté. “The nearest doctor is in Skowhegan, Norma. What would you suggest I do, walk eight miles? I’ve never learned to handle the horses by myself, and Edgar can’t leave the farm just because I’m suffering from a little fatigue. It’s a busy time. I can’t be sick.”

“That’s ridiculous. Everyone gets sick. I’ll take you Riverton. Father will look at you. That way we’ll have plenty of time to talk.” Norma jumped up and grabbed her hat. As she stood there, holding the frilly thing in her gloved hands, I realized how inappropriate she looked standing in the middle of my squalor. She was like an expensive trinket that had been dropped into a privy.

“No, Norma. Please.” I reached toward her and saw that the trembling was getting worse. “Sit. It’s nothing to worry about. Edgar would be angry if we went without his consent. And I don’t want to bother him now. He has a lot on his mind.”

But it was I who was doing the thinking. It occurred to me in that moment that somehow, possibly, Edgar had been poisoning me.

“I want you to promise that you will see a doctor. Soon. Promise me, Alice.”

“I promise. Now let’s get back to why you’ve come.”

Norma relaxed into the rocker again and began rattling on about something to do with Benjamin and their home and their future. But I found it difficult to concentrate. My thoughts were full of Edgar. How was he doing this to me? What poison could he be using and where was he putting it?

“So it occurred to me that Edgar might be able to help us, just a little, and only until Benjamin is back on his feet.” She took another smaller bite of cake and smiled as she chewed. “Oh, Alice. I’d forgotten what a wonderful cook you are. This is delicious. I wish I had the patience to bake.” She dabbed at her lips. “Recipes are so tedious.”

What if it’s in the sugar, I thought. I could be poisoning my sister right now. I considered all the desserts and the gallons of lemonade I had consumed. Of course. It has to be the sugar.

“So what do you think, Alice? Could you convince Edgar to help your little sister with a small loan? Like I said, Benjamin is getting help with his problem so it shouldn’t be long.”

“His problem.” They were the only words I heard, and I repeated them to understand. My head had begun a rhythmic throbbing, and it shivered in my ears, as if I were bobbing in and out of a deep and muddy pool. I rubbed at my temples and closed my eyes. Shards of light ripped across the lids, each one partnered with a flash of pain at the back of my skull.

“Yes, you’re right. It is his problem. But it’s my problem too. I don’t know where else to go. Father won’t help any more. He says that Benjamin is weak, and he won’t throw good money after bad.” She grabbed one of my best napkins and patted at the corners of her eyes. It came away with blotches of pink and black.

“What—?”

“What do I need? Whatever Edgar will allow. I think a few hundred should help. It would mean so much, Alice. You’ll ask him, won’t you?”

“I’m—I’m sorry Norma. I can’t—”

If I could have finished the sentence I would have told her that I couldn’t understand what she was asking for. The heat of the day, my sudden thirst, and the pain in my head and stomach were consuming me. It felt as though I was being devoured from the inside, while my brain slowly dissolved. The world seemed to be getting smaller, as if my pain and I were leaving the shell of me behind.

 “You can’t? Why can’t you, Alice? You and Edgar have all of this, all of this land and those animals. Half of this is yours. I’ve never asked you for help before.”

She talked on, but it was lost on me. A vital cord to the world was being severed. But I was keenly aware of what was happening inside me. My stomach churned and twisted like a sack of angry snakes, while my head held a small animal that had been cornered there. It was tearing and gnawing at my skull, searching frantically for a way out. Norma’s words bounced and echoed and made no sense.

Even now, from my omniscient perch, I am confused by the speed at which things changed then. I have no idea how long Norma spoke to that shell of me while I struggled with the pain that spread into every cell. Into my hair, my skin, and even my feet that throbbed against the bonds of old leather. Even now, I see it in a blurred sequence of moments that end with Norma standing in front of me, her expensive hat gripped roughly in both hands and tears running down her cheeks in dark wet lines. She is pleading. I can see that now, although I can’t, and couldn’t at the time, hear her words.

Whatever animal had been clawing at my skull chose that moment to move south. I could feel it racing down my spine and into my stomach. I could feel it writhing and pushing, searching for a way out. It hissed and growled as it explored the limits of my gut and then, discovering an opening, bolted for an exit. My insides convulsed, and a tsunami flew out of me and onto Norma, covering the gloves and the hat and a good portion of her blue dress in a flood of thick yellow with streaks of bright red. 

*  *  *

            Death by thallium poisoning is quite unpleasant. I do not recommend it. I was wrong about Edgar and the sugar. It seems that I was responsible for my own demise, although he is certainly accountable. If it had not been for his cruelties, I would never have touched the deadly powder, or inhaled it. I had breathed in a good amount of poison in my angry process, not to mention the quantities I had absorbed through my skin. I had handled it carelessly. My only defense is that I was blinded by hate, and possibly love. 

            Norma, even within the depths of her disgust and self-concerns, had tried in her own limited way to save me in the end. I was in no condition to argue with her when she nearly dragged me to her carriage and rushed us to Father’s, scolding me the entire way for not dealing with my poor health sooner. Father was quick to recognize the enormity of my illness and brought me to the hospital in Farmington. By the following day my hair started coming out in clumps, the vomiting increased, and the bottoms of my feet were so sore I couldn’t put weight on them. The rash increased and quickly moved in crimson patches across my entire body. I was dead four days later.

            The autopsy was done at Father’s insistence. He was concerned for Norma, of course. He couldn’t allow his prized possession to be disfigured or possibly killed by whatever dreaded disease had taken me. Although he was certainly saddened, I think he was relieved to learn of the poison, to know that I had not brought some farm-bred contagion into his home.

            Death brings with it a degree of insight. It’s apparent to me now that the size of the rat is more important than I had thought. And the cooking had diminished the potency. I, on the other hand, had absorbed quite a lot. Traces of thallium were everywhere: on my skin, in my hair, on my clothes, and in the kitchen.

            Walter has been very helpful in the investigation. His memory, somewhat flawed and possibly fueled by whatever bad blood had flowed between him and his neighbor, was that Edgar had asked him for the rat poison. My innocent peck on his cheek may have flummoxed him into memory loss. It’s also possible that he understood my intentions with the poison and hoped to assist me now that my efforts had failed. What a sweet and honorable man. Whatever the reasons for his story, it was convincing.

            Poor Edgar. He would have been better off as a bachelor. Men are so afraid to be alone, and when they are no longer alone they hate us for the intrusion. He’s awaiting trial. For the past week or so I have visited him, whispering encouragements that have had quite the opposite effect. He is a less powerful man now. After an entire life of having no control over my future, it has been wonderfully satisfying to have had even a little over his.

            Death is a compassionate transition, not the sad and painful one that we are led to believe. We get to stay in the world for just a little while as we watch the remnants of our lives get packed into boxes or burned in un-ceremonial pyres. We get to wander about, checking on our loved ones and their grief. There was more of that than I had expected. I watched as Mother and Father blamed each other for their part in my marriage. For Father, it was more anger than hurt. He prattled on about retribution and shame, while Mother did her best to ignore him. She swallowed her guilt and lamented in private.

Norma has had too much on her mind to grieve in any way that could be assessed as sorrow, although it must have appeared as such to others. She’s been crying, she’s been praying, she’s spent days in her room. Friends and neighbors have brought her gifts of solace. But it’s clear that her mourning is more for herself than for me. Benjamin has lost nearly everything, due to an affinity for horses and poker and anything else that requires a wager and no skill. Luck, however, has had no affinity for him. I’ve watched Norma with true empathy as she’s considered her future. It seems ironic that the one she will undoubtedly choose will be the one I had been so afraid of for myself. I would love to console her, to let her know that a life with Mother and Father would not be the worst a life could be.

But as my time wears down, I have chosen instead to return to Edgar. After all, he had been, for a portion of my life, my master. I wanted to leave him with something that would demonstrate my feelings, some memento of our life together.

            I am about to pass along a secret to you now. I feel as though I should complete the story of my life and death, and this is integral to it. It’s a secret that you will learn soon enough anyway, some of you sooner than later. You see, Nature is quite generous at the end, allowing us to let go without guilt or sorrow or worry. She allows us a sense of finality, something more than just the blunt end of life.

And the secret is this.

The most precious gift of death is the one we pass along to the living. It’s a lovely ability we’re allowed before we dissipate into the firmament. We make this last decision on our own, without judgment or suggestion by any deity or deity’s helper. It’s our last act, and then it’s over. No more wandering, no more spying, and no more whispering.

            Every one of us, no matter our station or belief, is allowed to place a single thought into the head of someone dear: some image, real or imagined, that will remain with them until their own deaths. Most souls choose a special day that was shared with the recipient. Others lean toward the imagined experience, one that the living can feel over and over for the rest of their days as if they had actually lived it. It’s a lovely gift, or at least it’s intended to be.

            The gift I initially chose for Edgar was not so lovely. It was not of our wedding day, as horrific as that day was. And there were no mutual hopes and dreams, no beautiful days that I wished him to relive, since we had none of those. No, the experience I originally chose for Edgar was the one that had dehumanized me the most. It was the one that had ripped my head from my heart and had reshaped me into an angry and vengeful woman. It was the one of him and me in the throes of coitus in that sixth year. It had been an important function of our marriage, and I hoped for him to know it as I had. But this time it would be his face pressed deeply into a sweat-soaked pillow, barely able to breath, pleading with me to stop. And it would be I who took him in the way that a dog takes a bitch: angrily from behind, again and again, relentlessly. I wanted so much for him to experience my humiliation and pain. It would have been a just bestowal.

            But it seems that our hearts soften as the world releases its gentle grip. In my final moments, I have weakened toward Edgar. I have reconsidered that seed that had made him the way he was. I can now see that even he must have been a victim of some injustice along the way. So I have thought of something that might serve his ailing spirit.

            Instead of that spiteful gift that would have tortured him and given me momentary satisfaction, I have chosen better. I am giving Edgar the memory of my friendship with Walter. I am planting in him that moment when I touched Walter lightly on his shoulder and felt a surge move through me like fresh warm water. And I am willing him the thrill of when I pressed my lips to Walter’s cheek, that joyous sensation of when I stood perfectly still, my lips attached to his coarse, warm skin, while my heart raced, with no restraints, through fields of fragrant wild flowers.

            They are the most treasured moments of my life, and I hope they will give poor Edgar a small understanding of the wonders he has missed.

Clif is a visual artist and writer who has recently returned to his home town in Maine after spending most of his life in Brooklyn, N.Y. In 2017, he received his MFA in creative writing from Stonecoast at the University of Southern Maine. He is working on a collection of short stories and novellas titled “The Stones of Riverton.” They are fictional tales inspired by the gravestones in a small town in Western Maine, and they are based on the rumors of the questionable deaths of those who are buried beneath them. He spends far too much time in graveyards, and not nearly enough time with his sweet dog and best friend Ollie. They live in a small cabin in the mountains of western Maine. It’s a long way from Brooklyn.

The Violin

The violin was shaped 
with pride and skill 
by her Maker
Not the most expensive 
wood nor as much varnish 
as her sisters, but her shape 
was practical and her strings 
designed for glorious music
So she wondered, day after day
as every other instrument 
in the shop was chosen
Bright, shiny trumpets 
slender clarinets 
wide bass drums 
all found their mates
no one picked up the violin
“Violins are difficult” 
On rare occasions 
when a stringed instrument 
was called for, a flashier model 
was always chosen
Dust gathered on the lonely violin
Until one day the Customer came in
He’d been through several instruments 
but decided this time 
a violin would do nicely
“That one, behind the counter” 
The violin’s strings 
trembled as he held her 
beneath his chin 
cradled her bow 
between his fingers
The sound that came forth 
was far from beautiful
She was out of tune 
from years of neglect
She tried so hard 
to please the Customer
He rewarded her 
with a smile
paid the Man behind the counter
“For a trial run” 
Every day the violin 
tried her best 
every day she sounded better 
The music that poured 
from her strings began 
to sound like symphonies
Until the day the Customer 
closed her lid
Through the thick case
she heard the bell 
of the shop door ring 
He laid her on the counter
“I don’t think violins are for me”

Hands that Have Always Held Me

Father, where is the lamb?
The servants say you always bring a lamb
bleating and crying
spotless and pure
following guileless in your wake.
It cannot recognise the blood-stained knife at your hip
sharp enough to slice bone and sinew 
with a single touch.
It doesn’t know the sticks 
piled on the servant’s back that snap and creak 
with every upward step.
They didn’t say this mountain would be so steep, Father.
Did the lambs stumble too?
The ones that have come before?
Father, where is the lamb?
Is it waiting at the top?
The Lord will provide, you say
but now I see no lamb
only the trembling of your hands
strong hands that have always held me.
Did the lambs feel the cold mountain wind 
through their tight, curly fleece? 
Did they realise their inevitable end?
The kindling, the knife, Father, now I know.

Kristina Heflin is an Arizona State University English major, based in Northern California. She has served on the editorial board of the literary journal Flumes and is Activities Coordinator for the Yuba College Literary Arts Club. She has been published in the literary journals Flumes, Canyon Voices, and Diverse Minds, the websites 2Elizabeths and the write launch, as well as the anthology The Beckoning. Future publications include Canyon Voices and the Same. When she’s not writing or tutoring English at Yuba College, she enjoys horseback riding and Marvel comics.

Anne should have stuck to her decision and insisted Failen, her daughter, remove her purple rain boots instead of explaining how although it was drizzly now, the clouds would break by mid-morning and her feet would get hot.  But she started crying, ruining the first day of school picture.  So the boots stayed. 

However, after Anne dropped Failen off, she had a moment of inspiration.  What if she surprised her daughter by painting the front door the exact same shade of purple?  That would make a wonderful picture. 

But the paint store didn’t have the exact same shade.  The closest was too dark and not enough blue.  If you could lighten it just a bit, Anne suggested, and make it bluer, slightly.  The paint man said he could try but unless he had a color to match it would really be guessing and she couldn’t return it.  So Anne picked the closest match from the swatches and drove home.  She painted the door three times, running two fans, to hasten the drying.  Then she picked her daughter up.

Failen pointed at the door when she saw it from the street.  After Anne let her out of the car Failen immediately ran to the house and stood right in front.  She looked down at her boots then up at the door and smiled.  “Just like my boots,” she exclaimed, although her boots needed to be darker and a bit less blue.  Still, before she could run inside her mom said, wait and snapped a picture of the child sticking her boot out and pointing at the door, smiling like only five year olds smile on the first day of school.

***

When Failen was twelve a friend, Molly asked, “Why is your door purple?”

She answered, “That’s the color my mom painted it on my first day of school.” 

“But no one else has a purple door,” Molly said.  She pointed at each house in the neighborhood.  “And it’s not just these houses,” she added, “I’ve never seen a purple door on any house except in cartoons.  Have you?” 

Failen was silent.  She looked back at her front door and then the others. 

“You should paint it white like the others,” Molly said.

After Molly left, Failen asked her mom if they could paint their door white, but Anne told her the door didn’t need to be painted. 

“But when it does, you can choose the color.  But pick something other than white.”

“I think I will pick white,” Failen said.

“Not very creative,” the mom frowned.

“I don’t care.”

“Well-”

“People think we’re cartoons,” Failen yelled.

***

Looking back, Anne always believed that argument was the catalyst for Failen’s rebellion.  Or maybe the argument was the actual chemical reaction and the purple door the catalyst.  She recalled overhearing her daughter tell her friends about her magical purple door.  “Doesn’t make a sound, even in August when I really have to push to get it open.”  But only when Anne discovered her past out on the porch one morning did she realize what she was referring to. 

***

Then she stopped returning. 

***

Sometimes Anne took the picture from her dresser and thought what if her boots had been white? 

Would she have painted the door white?  Of course that would be stupid.  There would be no picture because there would be no reason for a child to run up to a front door painted white. 

But maybe there would have been a white gown for graduation.  Of course, graduation gowns are usually black, but maybe hers would have been white because when she was twelve the argument between Molly and her was deciding which private school to attend.  Wonderful, adopted, Asian, Molly.  Failen was such good friends with her in elementary school.  They could have been friends in high school.  And attended prom together.  Not together, of course, but with their respective dates, in the same group, or however teenagers attend proms.  Her corsage could have been a yellow rose, with a sprinkling of baby’s breath. 

That might be the picture she kept on her dresser, now. 

If the door had been white the officer wouldn’t have had trouble finding their house because his sergeant would have told him the exact address.  Before he removed his cap he wouldn’t have had to explain that the sergeant only told him the street name and the house with the purple door.  “Can’t miss it, Sarge told me.  But this isn’t purple.  This is really gray.”  He wouldn’t have had to say this as he touched the crinkled paint.

And, perhaps he would have knocked on her door because her daughter had been involved in a silly high school prank.  A prank that wouldn’t make Anne feel like she was floating, nor contort her mouth and gasp as if she had just vomited.  The officer would have no reason to help her sit and ask if there was someone he could call that could stay with her. 

The next day, she wouldn’t paint the door white.  There would be absolutely no reason to apply coat after coat after coat.

Roger D’Agostin is a writer living in Connecticut.

No one tells us to keep it down, to stop stomping around, shaking the chandeliers beneath our feet. They left last night, an exodus. We heard the front door opening and closing and opening and closing and then slamming. SLAM. Their baby was crying in the driveway.

We’re dancing in the living room, eating Eggos with our hands and hopping like mad. We’ll have pizza for lunch and leave the box on the porch, because we can. Because there’s no one below us to huff and complain about attracting flies or to call animal control on our dog when we let him pee in the yard without us and he wanders and roots through the garbage bags that won’t fit in the bins. We’re wild and haven’t even put bras on yet.

Even the dog is dancing.

When we were in junior high, we tipped over mannequins in JC Penny and ran the entire length of the mall and burst out the doors with our lungs burning. We were so high that we ran all the way home, flew like kites, laughing with sun on our faces. When we reached her house, her mom stood from the kitchen table and shook her head. We’d been gone so long, hadn’t we thought of her? How worried she would be?

We just let her talk and didn’t even tell her that we had made a mess with the mannequins all over that aisle of JC Penny. She wore a dark purple sweatshirt that said ESPRIT in bold white print and she called my mom. You need to start thinking of people other than yourselves, she hissed with her hand over the receiver, you should have called for a ride. But we never were the people who thought of things like that.

When we’re done dancing, we collapse on the couches and Sam suggests we go and see what their apartment looks like, what they might’ve left behind. Maybe there will be some beers in the fridge. The door is locked, but she finds the window by the side porch is open and is so small, she can fit right through. Whoa, she says. I hear the lock turning, the door opens. This place.

It’s our apartment, exactly, only white. Completely white walls. There isn’t anything left, except some candles on the mantle, burned down to uselessness, and a baby jumper hanging in a door frame between the living room and dining room. It’s like they were never here. Like they never tried to set up a home and fought in shouting matches over whose fault it was that the laundry didn’t get to the dryer. Like he never spent hours in the garage in thrift store t-shirts with hacked off sleeves, cranking and banging and fixing a motorcycle that I never saw him ride. Like she never paced around with her heels clicking all over the place, or leaned her head out the bathroom window to blow smoke from her lips. Like we couldn’t smell their bacon on the stovetop or see them that time she chased him into the road and he told me the next day that she’s just hormonal and paranoid. Like they weren’t always setting off the fire alarm and their baby wasn’t crying and crying.

Wait, Sam calls out from the kitchen and I find her, leaning on the wide-open fridge door. Jackpot. White wine and so many boxes of leftover take-out. She grabs a bottle and we take turns taking swigs while opening every cabinet, pulling every drawer. We can hear the scratching of our dog’s paws, walking over our heads and Sam tells me, you should go upstairs and dance around, I want to see just how loud we are.

Lena, from the diner the next block over, has frizzy brown hair that she puts up in a ponytail for waiting tables, but she had it smoothed out the time I saw her here. It had a sheen that reflected the sun and her boots were to her thighs. I was jogging up the driveway when she was leaving and the man from downstairs met me at the front door. My cousin, he said, clearing his throat. His eyes are gray-blue or blue-gray or maybe they change, depending on the light.

When he called me to the garage weeks later, as I was lugging in bags of groceries, I shouldn’t have gone. I should have skipped right by, put the milk away, emptied my fruit into the bowl and not let the ice cream sandwiches turn soft and melt in their cardboard box, resting by the porch steps. But, instead, I stepped into the cool shade of garage, where he only wanted to thank me, he said, for not ruining his life, for not telling his wife about Lena. Lena who, on some Saturdays, refills my coffee and brings me my scrambled eggs and pancakes. He didn’t mean to be an asshole, didn’t mean to make the terrible mistakes that he did. His gray-blue or blue-gray eyes rimmed with tears. He lost his first wife the same way. He thought he was going to be better. He loves his baby boy. Loves his wife. He just kept talking. Pouring out a confessional that wasn’t for me to hear, and yet I stood still against the garage door and let it crash all over me.

He walked around the motorcycle, wiping the grease from his hands onto his t-shirt. I should have nodded and said no problem and turned away, gone into the house with my bags of fruit and milk. But there was a dull ache growing and my feet were immovable. I thought of running, of how it feels to run until your legs shake and you’re miles away from where you started and your lungs burn, red hot. He came close enough that I could smell his skin, and I let the ice cream melt.

Upstairs, I take the dog by her front paws and she stands to dance with me. I don’t jump this time, just spin in circles and tap my toes. I pull out a dining chair and walk from room to room, opening drawers, closing cabinets. Nothing that could be worth complaining about, the movements we make, how we live our lives. Can you hear me now? I whisper, then again, but louder, can you hear me now?Then, I shout CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW! to the walls, to the universe, to the couple that left in the night, to my best friend drinking wine alone in the apartment underneath me?

YES, I CAN FUCKING HEAR YOU! Sam shouts through the ground below my feet.

I’m perfectly still for a moment, the silence ringing in my ears.

And then, I burst out laughing, a huge guffaw that borders on tears.

We lay on the wooden floor and look up at the chandelier that we surely were shaking just an hour ago. I close my eyes and open my mouth to speak. I…

Sam sits up and finishes the wine in a long swallow. She tells me she heard everything. Even the toilet flush before I came back down here. But I’m not surprised at all.

We could hear everything, too, the year that they lived under our feet.

Melanie Haney is an author and photographer, living in Southern New Hampshire where she homeschools her four children and writes to preserve what sanity she has remaining. Her work has appeared in Family Circle Magazine and numerous literary journals and magazines, including Blue Earth Review, Clockhouse, Berkeley Fiction Review, Fifth Wednesday Journal, The Ernest Hemingway Shorts and more.

I am six. I still have one blond lock that curls down to the crevice between my shoulder blades. It is not a uniform blond. It starts dark at the root and quickly lightens to brown before shocking itself a true sunny yellow. My best friend calls it a rat-tail, and so does his sister. It’s not braided, so I know it can’t be a rat tail, and they are just being stupid. We have a neighbor who calls it a reverse bang. But he has a mullet so nothing he says we can take too seriously. But that’s what I think of it as. A reverse bang. My friend is a little taller than me and he is all blond. Other than the one lock, my hair is short-cropped and dark. He is also a little bigger and a little stronger than me. And in our territorial fights, over the crescent of land that separates our houses, he tends to win, but not always.

We fight a lot at six, even more at seven, and stop when we get big enough to really hurt each other at eight. Our first fight is over the removable red light saber from my Darth Vader toy that fits the hand of his Luke Skywalker. He wants that, and I want his Luke Skywalker. We always call action figures guys. It has been this way for as long as I can think. Even Princess Leah is a guy, even though we almost never play with her. In this first fight, it is grey outside, rainy and cold, so we have the benefit of many layers of protective padding in sweaters and thermals. There is a large rock in the center of the crescent. It is probably twenty or so feet long, and rises from the ground like a stegosauruses spike. It is smooth and wide enough on the top that we are able to stand facing each other on a square footing. We imagine this is what the Jedis must have felt like. Or what Indiana Jones and the French Nazi archeologist would have felt like if they’d got a chance to go at it in the movie. For fifteen feet or so, we know our parents can see us if they happen to look out a front window from either house. But we also know that the tree downed in a storm last year in front his house, and the mound of mulch that my dad gets each fall at my house, provides several feet of cover at the lowest plateau in both directions. This is plenty of room. He kicks me in the shin. This hurts because there is nothing but my jeans protecting my legs. I call unfair and, because of his dishonorable act, swipe at his face. I mostly miss, but land enough nail to get the small bloodless fluff of skin one gets from minor scrapes, like peach down, to puff up on the bridge of his nose. All of this is bad. We learn that when one of us breaks the unspoken rules of childhood combat, and the other one breaks the same rules for fairness, there can be no more fairness. He swings. It’s a real closed fist punch, a tiny knotted, knuckly fist aimed right at my face. He chips my left vampire tooth, a canine, very slightly, but it is his hand we both become pale over. His connection has ripped a small tear down the pinky side of his hand, and there is blood. Real blood that keeps coming. A panicking red. We both run to get my mom, because she will yell least, and we are not sure if anyone else is home. He is crying. I am about to too, as soon as I realize it is probably my fault, because it is my tooth that did it.

*

I am twelve, and he is almost twelve. Both of our houses are surrounded with woods. These woods belong to neither of our families, but because it is so big, we are allowed to play in it without fear of trespassing. There is a large clearing about a quarter mile back that we call ‘the meadow’. It is wide and hilly and we can see all the way to the interstate at the highest points. We are following the large electrical towers that follow each other in a straight, regular line across the meadow until they disappear over the last hill opposite the highway. There is a constant hum of electricity in the meadow that turns to vibration when you are closest to any of the towers. It is too cold out to look for salamanders under the rocks in the damp near any of the small ponds. We have already roamed the junkyard another quarter mile back, nearer the large pine forest that marks the end of the meadow and the beginning of a second woods. It is dangerous to spend too much time there. There is a small trailer that is occupied and many wild animals that make their homes in the piles of scrap metal and discarded farm equipment. We don’t know who lives in the trailer, but there are a few of them, and they yell if they hear us making too much noise, sometimes even coming into the surrounding woods to look for us. That has not happened in a while, but we are wary.

In the tall browning grasses that rise in patches over the otherwise mostly rocky, dust- yellow surface of the meadow, we hear a hissing that we would never mistake for electricity. It is a thick, longish snake the same color as the grass, and it wanders from its home out towards open land. It moves funny for a snake. It stops sometimes and turns in small, lazy circles before ambling crookedly forward again. We get close. It doesn’t seem quick enough to be dangerous. There is a small break in its scales near its tail. We think it has bitten itself, or else it is drunk on the cold and its blood is getting thick and soupy. My friend is afraid of snakes, but we’ve never seen one like this so he comes as close as me. I pull it from its tail to straighten it for better inspection. It is longer than I thought. My friend flinches at my movement and tells me to stop. I pull once again on its tail to bring it closer to us, just to scare him, but its head jerks towards my hand this time. It is still much too confused to aim properly, missing by several inches, but I draw my hand up anyway and figure I shouldn’t press my luck. We return home later and tell his father what we have seen. We learn it is called a copper-head. And to never approach one again.

*

I am fourteen and he is fourteen and we are at a neighbor’s house in the late afternoon. The house is behind my friend’s, separated by a row of old oaks and bits of an older rock wall. No one is there but us and the daughter of the neighbor. She is about two years older than us, but we are the closest to her age on either street. We watch Cinemax and HBO and find the on- demand channel with all the headings for all the different types of shows. One is ‘late night’. We are both on edge because we don’t know when her parents are coming back and we don’t want to get caught watching when they do. We may not be allowed to come back. She assures us that they are out for a while and not to be worried and that it’s not like we haven’t seen anything like that before, right? We are nervous and laugh and say yeah and go ahead we were just making sure. But she hears something in our voices. You haven’t had you, she asks, and laughs in a way that sinks us to the bottom of the ocean. My friend protests, says no, he has, but when asked who and when, he falters, his blush a bare lie on his face. We forget about the television and ask what she’s done. She only says stuff and laughs more but moves onto the same couch we are leaning against. She says we have to swear to god we won’t tell but we can, if we stop as soon as she says, touch under her shirt one at a time. She is pretty and tall and both of us have thought about this and we are nervous. We agree and nod at each other over her head to make sure we both heard right. She takes turns bringing us each into the kitchen. When it is my turn I am too afraid but I know that I’ll never let myself forget it if I don’t. I go to the kitchen. She giggles that my hands are cold and squirms but says I can keep going. But it is enough and I pull back in dumb wonder. We all decide to watch Aladdin in the living room.

*

I am fifteen and he is fifteen and we are roaming the junk yard with large branches, knocking exposed muffles and exhaust pipes, trying to break off either the part or splinter the wood. We see the exposed grill of an old Mack truck peeking from a shallow gulch. We go closer. The front of the body is still attached to it, along with the Mack dog front-piece. The part is loose and whole, only pocked with rust on the underside, and we think we can knock it off with our branches. I swing first and miss, cracking the windshield. We laugh; he swings next, and tears it almost from the hood. There is a shrill whining sound as I wrap my sweater around my hands and pull it from the hood. As I clasp it to my chest in triumph, I catch sight of something leaning above and behind a crumbling, rain-cracked concrete embankment to our left. It is the top part of a man and I am not so sure he is alive at first. He is so still but his eyes are open and he is not blinking, and it is as if he is staring straight at me. My friend follows my eyes and goes rigid when he sees him. The man looks old, is thin, and very hairy, mostly concealed but wrapped in several large coats caked to a solid brown-blue, stiff like a turtle shell. His chin lifts first and his body follows as he hurdles the embankment, which is not that tall, but he does so very quickly. He bears his teeth and hisses. It sounds more cat than snake-like. We hold our branches close and vertical. They are thick and sturdy but we are scared. We speak loudly and forcefully to fortify our nerves. As we do so we edge away, always facing him, until our backs face roughly homeward. My friend yells run and we do so, dropping the branches. We hurtle through familiar trails, somehow aware of our feet as we crash through brambles and bushes, until we realize we are in my backyard. We keep running until we are elevated on my back porch before we finally turn. He is nowhere in sight. We rush downstairs to tell my father who tells us we should never have wandered into the junkyard anyway and who knows what kinds of things are back there. I realize I am still clutching the Mack dog in my hand and my father asks where I’ve gotten it from. I tell him I found it. I later hear that the man was arrested trying to steal someone’s dog late at night on a street not too far from our own. It is on the local news which my television is tuned to on a low volume throughout the day. They don’t show a picture but I know it is him. I tell my friend later and that the report called him unstable and unidentified. We agree that we could have handled him if we had too, but neither of us is really that sure. I let him keep the truck ornament.

*

I am sixteen and he is sixteen and we share five mike’s hard lemonades on a large mound of upturned earth close to the interstate, but hidden behind a wall of pines. We call this place ‘bum mountain’. It has existed for only a couple of years, and there is a large bulldozer rusted and nearly sideways not too far off. It creaks in the wind like something that’s alive but will not be for too much longer. We heard there was supposed to be a housing development. Now they are working a piece of land farther into the second expanse of woods. We recognize when they are working from a distant grumble that starts as a throb and finishes as a brassy whine in a tireless cycle. The mound has become a real hill over the years. There are coarse, scraggly bushes that claw at us when we are climbing to the top. At the top, it is flat but indented, so we can lean low and hide from whomever passes by, which is usually no one. We know we are not the only people to know of this spot, or even the first. There is almost always something new each time we climb up. The first time we come up we find old chip packets, foil inside out, capping the taller growth up and down the sides. And in a space dug between an upturned root, we find beer cans, bottles, and cigarette butts. The leftover liquid and ash has pooled together, making a greyish paste in the dust. We cover it with more dirt to get rid of the smell. Another time, most times afterwards as well, we find limp condoms strewn across the lowest naked branches of pine surrounding us. Other times we find magazines, mostly porn and auto-trader, but rarely intact. They are usually just several pages collected and held from the wind under the rock. When we finish three of the lemonades we feel good and tired and lean on opposite sides, listening to the reedy drone of not too far off cars like hissing waves. We will wait until there is just enough light to make it back before night comes. Then we will drink the last two bottles as fast as we can and race home through the dull orange dusk of early autumn.

Garrett De Temple currently lives and works in New York City. His work has most recently appeared in Buddy (a lit zine), After the Pause, and Permafrost. He is a lyricist for the songwriting duo The Point (ThePointSongs.com) and one-half of the occasional glam-americana band SkyMagik (@SkyMagikBand).

 Basically, I’m writing this in case something happens to me.

            The address for the interview is halfway between Durham and Chapel Hill, and then north a ways.  It’s a bright, clear day.  There’s no neighborhood, just farms, and the house is in the middle of a huge lawn with fields on either side.  One’s planted with corn, and the other I don’t know.

            I knock and the most beautiful woman answers the door.  No hair at all.  Enormous brown eyes.  Her name is Jane, she’s my prospective employer’s niece, and I decide right then and there that if I ever get a shot I’m asking her out.

            “You’re the gopher,” she says.  “Come in.”  I follow her.  She’s wearing a frilly skirt and galoshes.

            My first indication that something is strange is when, on our way to her aunt’s office, she stops to get an umbrella from a row of pegs on the wall, and hands one to me too.

            She opens the door to the basement, and I see the source of the sound I’ve been hearing this whole time: there’s a kind of waterfall just inside the door; or, that’s how it looks from outside.  We open our umbrellas and start down the stairs.  I stop halfway.

            Imagine a big room, maybe 40 x 40 feet, with a ceiling at least fifteen feet high.  The entire thing, floor, walls and ceiling, is covered in square green ceramic tiles like in a bathroom, and on the ceiling there are rows and rows of pipes with sprinklers every few inches that shower the entire room, wall to wall, with an even and constant rain.

            In the center is a raised cement platform with a huge umbrella on a pole.  Under it there’s a desk, and sitting at the desk is Samantha, my new boss.  She’s wearing a purple floral print dress, her white hair is in a bun, and she’s reading when Jane brings me over and sets me in a chair on the platform.  The niece’s skin is darker than the old lady’s, like she has some Asian parentage.

            Samantha just wants me to call her ‘Samantha’, not Mrs. anything, and she doesn’t give a last name.  (The W-2 says S Trust LTD, which was registered by Abernathy & Abernathy, Attorneys at Law, who have an office in Durham.  So no help there on the name front.)

            Jane used to do this for her, but she just graduated from nursing school and is starting full time at UNC Medical Center, so I’ll be taking over.

            Odd jobs around Durham, better money than retail.  I get a beeper and I get paid whether I have gopher tasks that day or not.  No health insurance, but who has that anyway.

#

            For three days I sit at home, shirt and tie, waiting.  Then I buy a webcam and a microphone and start streaming Call of Duty—check it out, k1LL_spot_TV on Twitch—and I’m climbing the rankings pretty well on Tuesday of the next week when the beeper finally goes off.

            I’m writing this that evening, the evening after the first task.

            I call and Samantha tells me there’s a book she wants me to find.  She thinks it’s somewhere around the Triangle.  It’s a book of poems called Sunshine and War, and it’s bound in human skin.

            “I’m sorry, human skin?” I say.

            “Yes.  Leather bound.  It’s a book of poetry.  Peter Pumpkin Press, 1973.  Write this down.”  She sounds exactly like somebody from Gone With the Wind.

            “Is that legal?”

            “Poetry?”

            I look around my living room, like I’m on a hidden camera show.  “Binding books in human skin.”

            “The skin was donated.  Start at The Book Exchange.  They won’t have it, but they might know where to look.  The manager is a very knowledgeable man.  Last time I sent Jane there, they had quite a few Peter Pumpkin titles.”

            I copy down her list of ten used or antiquarian bookstores, hop in my car and get underway.  Feel like a bloodhound.

#

            The human-skin edition of Sunshine and War hasn’t passed through the doors of The Book Exchange, Wentworth & Leggett, Nice Price or The Bookshop.  Eventually, I find a lead in the labyrinthine corridors of Fifth Street Books in Mebane, which, I can tell you, is the middle of nowhere.

            A woman with a cat perched on her shoulder pauses from shelving books just long enough to give me a detailed history of the store, a complete three-generation genealogy of the owner’s family, and the name and phone number of the man they sold the book to back in the 90s: George Palmer.

            I thank her, use their restroom and go out into the sunny day.  It’s about 12:30, so I decide to call Mr. Palmer after lunch.

            I don’t know whether what happened next is the kind of thing that’s been going on all along.  Maybe this is normal.  But I think not, and it frightened me a great deal.

            When I park at Biscuitville—I’ve got a hankering for sausage gravy—I get out of my car, look around and get right back in again, because there is a lion out there.

            I know a female lion when I see one.  I’ve been to the zoo.

            An overweight white man in a pink polo shirt comes out of the restaurant, wiping at a stain on his pants with a napkin.  The lion’s right there, standing on the asphalt, crouched down.  Plain view.

            Just like in a nature documentary.  It jumps on him, bites his neck and drags him, twitching and bleeding, into the square manicured bushes they put around fast food restaurants.

            It’s lunch time.  There are people everywhere.  Nobody sees.  Like, nobody sees the lion at all, and 9-1-1 doesn’t pick up either.  I blow my car horn a bunch, trying to signal danger, danger! and people definitely notice that, and shush me.

            What are you supposed to do in that scenario?  I get lunch at Bojangles instead.

#

            George Palmer lives in Saxapahaw, not far from Mebane.  I have a flashback to Samantha’s house when I get there, because Mr. Palmer’s house is also located in the middle of an expansive lawn, except that he has pine trees to either side instead of farms, and a broken fountain in the front yard.

            I sit in the car until I stop trembling, then go and ring the doorbell.

            The man himself is stooped and weathered, dressed in a red flannel shirt and gray slacks with suspenders.  He looks like an old time fiddle player.

            “Happy to talk turkey, young man, though I got out of the antiquarian books business a long time ago.  Sunshine and War is in my personal collection.  Not a favorite.  Just thought it was worth holding on to.”

            He leads me out through the back door and over a small rise, to where a huge dirty greenhouse stands, not visible from the front of the house.  The panes of glass flash white fire as we approach, so that at one point I have to shield my eyes.

            Inside, there are thousands of stacks of books, where you would expect plants to be.  No shelves, and considerable amounts of dust.  It’s already a hot day, and the inside of the greenhouse is almost unbearable.  But I put up with it long enough to see that his copy of Sunshine and War is indeed bound in creepy pale human skin and was printed by Peter Pumpkin Press in 1973.

            I call Samantha, and she walks me through the process of evaluating the book’s condition.  When she’s satisfied, she has me hand the phone to Mr. Palmer and they, as he says, talk turkey.

#

            “Jane,” I say, back at Samantha’s house and squeezing water from an umbrella into their kitchen sink, “I saw a man die today in a Biscuitville parking lot, and it made me think.”

            It’s 6:30 pm and Samantha has her book, because a lady’s word is good enough for George Palmer.

            “Mm-hmm?” she says.  She’s a vision of paradise in watermelon-themed scrubs.

            “I think you’re very beautiful.  Let’s go see a movie tonight.  What do you think?”

            She laughs and says thanks but no thanks.

#

            I’m looking this all over, now that it’s written, and a lot of it doesn’t seem as strange as it felt when it was happening.  Except for the part with the lion.  Maybe I’ll be okay; maybe no police detective will need to read this off my PC with my dismembered body lying in a heap in the corner.

            But I’ll tell you one thing.  It’s 2018 and I was doing some Googling to make sure the details I put in this story were accurate, and the Book Exchange closed down in 2009, after 75 years of business.  It’s gone.  Nice Price closed in 2016; the Edward McKay branch in Raleigh that I went to this morning was shuttered in April of last year, and The Bookshop, in Chapel Hill, went out of business last July.

            Wentworth & Leggett is still there, though, as is Fifth Street Books.  The ambulances—which must have come after I left—at the Mebane Biscuitville parking lot this afternoon were there, officially, for a stroke victim.

            So I’m just going to save this in a folder on my desktop called READ IF I AM DEAD.

Matthew Talamini has an MFA in Literary Arts from Brown University, where he taught fiction workshops. He lives in Providence, RI. Visit him at matthewtalamini.com.

   It was a quarter to noon when the oven caught fire—the peak of the lunchtime rush. Apparently it had been the work of the rats. The vermin had eaten into the wiring, perhaps, or built their nests too near the heated bits.

            The old cook Sunday didn’t much care how it had started for it had wrecked half the kitchen and frightened the customers, and would take, according to the repairmen, at least a week to set right.

He looked on in dismay as the dire appraisal was made. A week’s worth of wages. Forty dollars up in smoke. And however would he spend the next five days? He was weary and cranky, and his back ached something awful of late, and it might indeed do him well to have a rest—but not at such expense.

            Still sulking, he sauntered outside to catch the Magazine Street bus, sweating in the heat of the Louisiana summer. There were few folks riding midday; most were still at work, where he ought to be.    He thought of Leodice, waiting at home, not expecting him back till well past 8 o’clock. How would he break the news to her? A whole week lost, and with Athalie’s birthday coming up and Jenny Bee’s baby on the way! Leodice would fret. And when she fretted, she yelled. And after she yelled, she repeated, for the umpteenth time, that infuriating saying of her mama’s. How did it go? “What the good Lord borrows, he returns, and always with a dollar’s interest.” She’d say it with such optimism, such certainty, that one would believe she’d never been worried at all.

            Presently Sunday became aware of eyes on his back. From two seats behind and to his right, a girl was staring—a white girl in a sky-blue dress. Covertly as he could, he peered at her over his shoulder. She could be no older than eighteen, and her strawberry blonde curls, bound into two loose pigtails, made her appear far younger.

            Their eyes met for a moment, then she looked beyond him out the window, as though having done so the entire time. Was he imagining things? But no, she was at it again. Staring. Likely she was offended by his choice of seating—or perhaps by the fact that they were sharing a bus at all. He resolved to ignore her. Confrontation would be the height of foolishness, rude though she may be, and for a while he succeeded in training his thoughts elsewhere. But the girl continued to stare, all the way past Jackson Avenue, First Street, and Third—and Sunday was feeling uncharacteristically ornery that day. Somewhere around Washinton Avenue, his temper got the better of him.

            “It’s legal now, you know?” he said.

Silence. Perhaps she couldn’t tell he was speaking to her. Then: “Pardon me, sir?” Her voice was high, like a child’s, with a hesitant, tremulous quality that served only to embolden Sunday.

            “It’s legal, me bein’ on this bus… right here in the front. I ain’t breakin’ no laws so why you got to stare that way?”

            “Is—is that what I’m doing, sir? Forgive me, I never meant… It’s just… well, it’s your hair, sir.” Her accent was odd. Unfamiliar. Perhaps she’d come from up north or somewhere overseas and had never been taught proper manners. 

            “My hair?” said Sunday, patting dubiously at his head. “There somethin’ wrong wid it?”

            “It’s beautiful, sir.”

            “Beautiful? You pullin’ my leg, child?”

            “Oh, no, sir! The way it fades ever so softly and gradually from black at the crown to grey at the temples. It is splendid—a perfect gradient. I—I would very much like to paint you, sir.”

            “Paint me?” Sunday stared at her, searching the pale, freckled face for evidence of amusement. She was having a joke at his expense—he was sure of it. But there was no laughter, no guile. Like a hopeful puppy, she stared back at him, her blue eyes wide and earnest behind huge tortoiseshell glasses. She’d have been a pretty girl, he thought, if only she were not so skinny.

            Beside her, in the empty window seat, was a large leather case. An artist’s portfolio.

            “Where you from, miss?” he asked.

            “Belfast.”

            “Where’s that, up north?”

            “Ireland, sir. I’ve been visiting my cousin, Patience. She lives over on Joseph Street with her husband. They have a big yellow gingerbread house with a garden and the most beautiful light. If you like—I mean, if you’re not too busy—you can come with me today and I’ll paint you. Would you, sir? Please?”

            “Well… I don’t know, miss. I ain’t never had my portrait done before. Not sure I’d make a good subject.”

            “Oh, there’s nothing to it, sir. All you’ve got to do is hold still for a while. Not to worry; I’ve been told I work fast.”

            Still, he hesitated. The idea made him bashful. “This goin’ to be alright wi’ your cousin, miss? Bringin’ home some strange fella’ you met on the bus?”

            “She won’t mind at all. She gets so bored in that big house. And I’ll make it worth your time, of course, sir, if that is your worry. They give me an allowance—” And she extricated a little floral pocket book from some compartment in her dress, and thumbed anxiously through the billfold. “I have forty-one dollars here, sir… if that would suit you.”

            A dollar’s interest, thought Sunday, staring at the bills in her hand. He could never tell Leodice of this. Ever. It’d make her head grow twice its size.

            “Why, yes,” he said. “Forty-one dollars will suit me just fine. What’s your name, miss?”

            “Eppie. Eppie Dooley.”

            “Mine is Sunday,” said Sunday, and they shook hands on the deal like two old tycoons.

            And so Sunday got off at Joseph Street, and followed his new acquaintance straight to the door of the sunny yellow gingerbread where he was welcomed by kind Miss Patience. They led him out back to the garden gazebo where Eppie’s easel stood, and he was set on a comfortable wicker sofa beneath a rose trellis, and given chilled white wine and petit fours from a silver tray. Eppie sketched and then she painted, and Sunday did his best not to move, except to lift his glass every once in a while. The two women chatted and giggled and they all got rather tipsy, and Sunday passed the best afternoon he’d had in some time.

            It was nearing 7 o’clock when at last he set out for home with forty-one dollars in his pocket. Eppie had indeed worked fast, but portraits take time, and oh, but it was a fine one. The little artist was some sort of genius. A painting prodigy. Leodice would like her. But he couldn’t tell Leodice. Ever. She was already insufferably smug, that woman.

            The smell of gumbo greeted his nose as he climbed the rickety porch steps and made his way into the kitchen. Leodice stood by the stove, ladle in hand, her broad hips swaying in time to an old jazz number.

            “You’re home early,” she called. “Everything alright?”

            “Baby,” said Sunday, “you ain’t never gonna believe what happened to me today!”

Ellery D. Margay is a freelance food and fiction writer currently residing in New Orleans, LA. His work has previously appeared in The Paragon Journal, Tigershark Ezine, the poetry collection Untimely Frost, and in multiple FunDead anthologies. When not dreaming up tales and the occasional poem, he can be found sampling and reviewing the newest restaurants and wandering the world in search of weirdness, wonder, and misadventure.

There had been rumors going around at school that Landry Collins had run off. Fled north to New York leaving behind his family. And his girlfriend Jules, who he had knocked-up a couple months prior. At least, that’s what people were saying.

Now, I don’t know if I believed it.

As far as I knew, Landry had no reason to leave town. He’d had a decent life for himself, and things were only going to get better.

But I don’t blame him for leaving.

Dundalk wasn’t his kind of place. There wasn’t anything here for an intellectual like him, a New York University bound teen. He managed to have a play win a prestigious award, along with $250 towards the tuition. That wasn’t much of a prize though from what he told me.

So, when the rumors started a few weeks before graduation, I ignored them.

It wasn’t any of my business.

It was too hot outside to care about much about anything aside from keeping cool.

Sweat dripped off my chin and into my mashed potatoes. They looked more like Play-Doh than anything eatable. Often I used my spork and plastic knife to recreate a potato Rushmore. Or shape them into tiny mounds meant to look like boobs or balls and a penis.

Erik spooned his into his mouth without taking a moment to consider what it is he might be eating. He could eat without thinking about what he was putting into his body. Or act without worrying how it may affect him in the long run. It seemed that the only thing he cared about was whether he could play this song or that song on the guitar. He had no other concerns. This kind of nonchalance about the world is something that I often admired in him.

“Do you believe all that about Landry?” Erik said, shoving another mound of potatoes into his mouth, a bit of gravy seeping from the corner. “I mean, you knew him better than I did.”

“Barely. We didn’t talk about much else aside from the lesson for the day.” I told Erik, which was both the truth, and not.

It wasn’t that Landry and I didn’t talk about other things during the tutor sessions we started. My ma told me I’d amount to nothing and would be out of the house if I didn’t try harder to do well. So, we started with the tutoring to ensure I graduated. I did know Landry. But I didn’t want Erik to know about all the details. Or anyone else for that matter.

Truth is, Landry wasn’t someone you’d want to be hanging with if you wanted some kind of social life. He was, well… different. But he was one of the smartest people that I’d ever met, and I respected him for that.

I mean, what kind of kid from Dundalk manages to land a spot at NYU, and for playwriting of all things? Not many, I can tell you that much.

Meanwhile, I was struggling to hold my D to graduate from this shit hole.

“Well,” Erik started, wiping his mouth on the bottom of his shirt. “You spent a lot of time with the guy.”

“I don’t know. I mean, you think Landry had it in him to get a girl prego then leave her behind? Let alone his family? It don’t seem like something he would do, you know?”

“Crazier things have happened. Remember Cecil?

“I think so, yeah. The kid who always wore gloves?”

“That’s the one. Did you ever hear about him?”

“Nah.”

“Get this.” Erik leaned across the table, “He has some kind of disease that makes his hands turn colors.”

“Seriously?”

“You better believe it.”

“How would anyone find out about something like that?”

“His sister told everyone about it.”

“Why would she do that?”

“Don’t know. But she spread it around like the herpes that Sara Allen had.”

“Well, supposedly had.”

“Yeah,” Erik said. “‘Supposedly’,” he said, air quoting the word as he allowed the word to be slowly drawn out.

“But what’s the big deal about his hands turning some different colors? That seems pretty harmless…”

“It’s fucking weird. That’s what the big deal is. The guy probably makes a rainbow when he whacks off.” Erik laughed.

My eye started to twitch. I tried to keep my cool. “That’s pretty crazy stuff.” But all I could think of was how my ex, Nellie, had recorded videos of me before we broke up. Videos of my soft body, jiggling. Walking around in that cold basement of hers, shrunken and shriveled. Videos of me finishing on her face, of her sitting on mine. Videos of her rubbing a dildo she’d stolen from a sex party her ma hosted over my lips, down my soft body.

Those videos could be shared at any time. That made my stomach sour.

The bell rang. Erik gathered up his tray and moved it to the trash. I followed, trying not to think about Landry, or Cecil, or the videos that Nellie had.

“You feel like skipping last period and hitting Bob’s Guitars?” I asked Erik, almost certain that he’d be willing to skip class with me.

“Sure,” Erik said after putting not more than a moment of thought into it. “Let’s go.”

I wish I could say that I didn’t know why I didn’t hangout with Landry. It’d be easier than knowing the truth, which was that I thought he was a loser. A social landmine that would go off if you got too close. It wasn’t that I was popular by any means. But I had it rough growing up. Bullies got the best of me in middle school. And any kind of acceptance, even passivity, was comfort enough for me.

Growing up in a town like Dundalk, walking down the street was something I couldn’t do without being harassed. If you were one of the sixth or seventh graders, and you wandered into eighth grader halls, watch out…

Worst of all were the Geeks. They were the ones who did most of the mugging, beatings, and occasional stabbings once we got older.

One in particular, Mikey, was especially cruel.

What set Mikey apart from the rest was his long, obsidian hair. It was never tied back or swept off of his face. Only one eye and half of his face ever showed.

He wasn’t the biggest of the Geeks. But he was the most brutal. The most unpredictable.

I’m not sure where he was from, or what school he attended then. He just showed up and started hanging around the place. Popping up here and there when you’d least expect him. Our interactions with each other were far and few, and with good reason. He didn’t give a shit about anyone’s well-being, not even his own.

In the winter, on my walk home, I decided to take a short cut through the woods. It took me over a small, wooden bridge that shaved about twenty minutes off. I was in seventh grade at the time.

Everyone always talked about avoiding that bridge at all cost. The Geeks ruled that bridge. Charging people to cross it, or beating them if they couldn’t pay the often too-lofty sum of money. At some point, someone had spotted a dead body in the water next to it.

This was something that many of us questioned whether it was true or not. Though the disbelief didn’t last long after we saw police officers carrying a large, black bag up the bank of the river.

None of us figured out what was in that bag.

Or who.

I’m not sure the police figured it out, either. Some things just go that way, I suppose. More often than I’d like to admit.

Anyway, call it stupidity or laziness, but I took the route.

When I’d reached the bridge, my chest tightened. It was hard to breathe. With the lower half of my face wrapped in a scarf, my glasses began to fog.

By the time I had cleaned the lenses and put them back on, four Geeks stood at the far side of the bridge. Mikey was near the middle. The Geek to his right, a girl with black makeup around her electric-blue eyes, flipped her pocket knife open to closed. Closed to open.

Mikey smiled, and took a couple of steps towards me.

I couldn’t swallow. My legs felt like pilings nailed to the bridge. I wanted to scream, but my throat wouldn’t allow passage.

“It’s twenty dollars,” Mikey said. “If you want to pass.”

I breathed in an unsteady way through the nerves that pulsated throughout my entire body.

“You hear me?”

I nodded.

“So,” Mikey said, pulling a cigarette out and lighting it. “You got it?”

His one eye glared at me. I nodded. I didn’t know what I was going to do. There were four of them and one of me. But I had to try something, anything, to get by, or else I was toast.

“Hand it over then.”

Trembling, I took one step towards Mikey. Another. Another. Another. Each step felt like my last. I couldn’t comprehend what could happen even one second into the future. All thought of predictability had fallen away.

When I was within arm’s length of Mikey, I reached into my back pocket, and pulled out my checkered Velcro wallet. I started to hand it over to him, knowing that I didn’t have even a single dollar in it.

Down in the shallow water next to the bridge where Mikey left me, I saw the silhouette of a girl lean over the railing. She looked down at me for a moment before Mikey called her away.

The price for tossing my empty wallet inside of trying to run the other way? A severe concussion, fractured wrist, cuts and bruises beyond counting, and a brief feeling of bravery.

Bright, white light reflected from the ruby-red surface of the Fender Erik held. Each of his fingers ran over each string, plucking them to produce a low hum. He held it out in front of himself, then repositioned it as he took a seat to play a few chords.

And I watched him. As much as I tried to learn the guitar, or any instrument for that matter, I could never seem to pick it up.

When I was in elementary school, I’d started playing the saxophone for the school band. But once middle school became a reality, I’d stopped. The band nerds were too easy a target for bullies, and I didn’t wish to be a part of that crowd. Which is the same reason that I had quit rec sports as well. Only the cool kids didn’t play sports or care about school. Or so I thought.

It goes to show how much of nothing I knew.

Erik played a few parts of different songs: “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” “Smoke on the Water,” “I Miss You,” and another that I hadn’t heard before. Though it didn’t seem like he knew it all that well, butchering chords here and there.

“Did I tell you about the time that Mikey cornered me in the bathroom?”

Erik paused his playing. “When he got you suspended?”

“Yup.”

“Oh, yeah,” Erik said, laughing. “I remember that. Your mom was pissed at you for weeks.”

I ran my finger over the wooden body of a Les Paul acoustic. Strummed the strings one by one, wishing to be good enough to play.

“What about it?”

“Well,” I started. “I wasn’t completely honest about what happened…”

Erik put down the Fender guitar and we walked back to his car. I told him what happened. How I walked into the bathroom that day and heard someone crying in the stall. How the person who emerged was Mikey. How he told me that his mom has passed from brain cancer. How he felt alone. How he’d beat the hell out of me if I told anyone about this. How he then thanked me for listening as he lit a cigarette. How I’d taken a drag when Mr. Wallcroft, the Econ teacher, came in. How I took the fall for it so he wouldn’t have to suffer.

The green of trees blurred past the window as Erik droves us down the highway, towards his house. We didn’t speak. There was nothing to say. Erik was one of my closest friends. There wasn’t much that the other didn’t know. For some reason, this seemed to bother him more than anything I’ve noticed before. Or I’ve never paid close attention to him when he’s been bothered in the past.

“You haven’t told anyone else about this then, have you?”

I shook my head.

“Do you think that Mikey had anything to do with Landry disappearing?”

“How would he? The guy’s mom died a few weeks back. He didn’t seem angry or crazy. Just, I don’t know… lost.”

“I mean, what if Landry saw him in a state like that? Think he’d try to keep him quiet? Maybe he beat him so bad that he ended up in the hospital? Or killed him…”

“I don’t think so… no.” Truth was, I had no idea what to think. Mikey wasn’t someone who I could peg for one kind of person. He seemed to me to be many different people crammed into one.

“There’s something I have to tell you”

I looked at Erik as he focused on the road. An eighteen-wheeler was driving under the speed limit in front of him. Erik pushed the pedal down, accelerating. The momentum applied pressure. I felt myself pressing back in the seat. He jumped into the oncoming traffic lane.

In the distance, another car approached. The car’s horn howled. Erik applied more pressure. I tried to speak, tried to tell him to slow down, tried to tell him how I felt, but my words were being held in my throat. I glanced over at the speedometer: 102 mph. The car in front laid on its horn. Erik jerked right, missing the car while bypassing the slow truck we were stuck behind.

The car slowed. My words came up.

“What the hell, Erik? Are you trying to kill me?”

“I can’t stand slow drivers.”

“Jesus…”

“Where was I?”

“I don’t know… I can’t think straight right now.” My hands trembled. I crossed my arms to hide it from Erik. “What the hell were you thinking?”

“About swimming. That’s all.”

I huffed and looked out the window, embarrassed by how terrified I felt. My nerves were rattled, and the shaking of my hands worsened.

Staring straight ahead, a smirk on his face, Erik didn’t seem phased in the slightest by his own actions. There was more to be said; something in me still wanted to speak out, to tell Erik to care, to try to care, at the least, but I couldn’t. Nothing would change. We’d get into his car, skip class, smoke another joint, drink another beer, follow through with whatever Erik felt the compulsion to do, and it would all end the same. I would be embarrassed about how I reacted, or handled it, or felt. Erik would be thrilled, alive, laughing, walking forward in life without the weight of any decision. And I would become a victim of the violence of insecurity as I covered up my naked body as he pulled up his swim trunks, proud of what he was, what he had, and walking out of the locker room, towards the pool.

As I watched the trees pass by the window, the ground fell away from me as the we drove over the bridge. The marshland below looked still. Water did not move. The cattails did not move. It was this stillness that reminded me of the time that Landry and his parents had given me a ride home after our tutoring session.

Landry had found out that he’d been accepted to NYU. He told his mom while I sat in the backseat, waiting for the inevitable explosion of excitement.

Instead, all he got from her was a question. How was he going to pay for a school like that? And a demand that he go to the local community college instead. There’s no money in writing plays. Those things aren’t how you make a life for yourself. Stop daydreaming and be real about this. Landry didn’t say anything back to her. He turned his and head mumbled something under his breath that neither me or Mrs. Collins could make out.

And I remember looking out the window. Rain began to fall. Yet as we drove down the road, it didn’t seem to move or ever touch down to the ground. Instead, the rain halted in its whirl, frozen in the midst of its movement.

We stood on Erik’s pier, observing the stillness of the creek.

Across the way, houses, most of them run down or abandoned, lined the waterfront. That’s what Erik referred to as “the wrong side of the river.” At first, I tried to correct him that it was a creek, not a river. But he didn’t care. It was for the sake of his saying, and that was that.

“What was it you were going to tell me in the car?”

Erik seemed distant. He stared across the creek as if he were waiting for something.

“Erik? What were you going to tell me?”

“It’s… it’s nothing.”

“Are you sure?”

Erik hocked a loogie and spit it into the creek. Ripples traveled out into the distance, across to the wrong side of the river, if there even was such a thing.

Erik started. “Well, it’s about Landry. A couple weeks back I saw him talking with Mikey.”

“Yeah?”

“I couldn’t hear what they were talking about. But I saw them get close and dap each other at the end of whatever conversation they were having.”

“You sure it was Landry?”

“I’m sure.” Erik spit again, sending out more ripples. Disturbance echoed throughout the water.

“I wonder what they were talking about?”

“Don’t know. But I’d heard another rumor that Mikey had started dealing drugs.”

My tongue felt swollen, dried out. It was hard to swallow. “But that’s just a rumor. I haven’t heard of anyone buying drugs off of him.”

“Maybe. But you know how these things work. There’s middlemen everywhere. Look at Harley or Taz.”

Harley was a fat linebacker for the school football team. He was our weed guy, but we’d never guessed it until Taz, one of his clients, ran out and couldn’t sell to us. So, he gave us Harley’s number, and that’s when we knew. Even Taz—whose real name was Tony Azaletti—was a bit of a shock. We’d known him since freshman year, but only when we were juniors did we learn that he sold weed on the side here and there. A computer science guy who took all AP classes. Who would’ve thought?

It’s hard to say the kind of person someone is. Mostly we only ever see the surface of each other.

I looked at Erik.

He looked away.

Across the creek, a man walked onto the pier of one of the rundown homes. Followed by another. And another. Erik had his shirt off, and stood on the piling, ready to jump into the brown water. Since the flood a few years back, the water never looked the same. Always brown, dirty, with pockets of oil that floated on the surface. Dead fish often drifted along the creek, becoming stuck on the bulkheads during high tide.

Today, there were no dead fish. At least, none that I could see. Death had seemed to rescind its hold on the creek.

And it was hot outside. Anything would be better than this heat.

I pulled off my shirt. Exposed my soft body to the sunlight, to Erik. Erik’s thin, tight frame, made me feel ashamed of my own. For a moment, I thought about putting my shirt back on.

One day this will end.

A strong wind carried with it the smell of rot. The sun held high in the cloudless sky. Summer would soon begin, and high school would end. All would change. At least, it was meant to change. Often it felt like it never would, and looking at Erik, his long limbs balanced on the piling, head held back as he breathed in deep, only served to reaffirm that feeling.

So long as he remained, things would never change.

But they had to.

I had to.

A police car parked in view between the two houses of the wrong side of the river. A congregation of people seemed to be gathering at the house of one of the Geeks, though I wasn’t sure of which ones it was. They were always together, grouped up. Like a pack of ravenous wolves. Or a flock of crows.

Those people, all of them were waiting for something to happen here, at this moment.

Men—police officers—flooded the yard. A woman, small and bent forward with gray hair, stood along the bulkhead. She cried into the palms of her hands as one of the officers held her back.

Erik bent at his knees, readied his jump.

I stood, watching the show across the creek.

A police officer walked to the end of the pier, knelt down, and looked into the water. Something emerged from the water. A man in scuba gear. He pointed down into the water, then went under again.

There was a splash when Erik hit the water. Small waves traveled outward from where he’d hit, forming whitecaps as they moved towards the spot where the man in scuba gear had went under.

I stood, still and calm.

A body was raised up by the man in the scuba gear. Hoisted by the officer on to the pier. He struggled with body that was smaller than a man’s, but larger than a boy’s. Three others came and helped pull the body onto the pier, letting it lay atop like a dead fish drying in the sun.

Coty Poynter is Baltimore-based writer and editor. He was the lead fiction editor for the 2016-2017 edition of Grub Street, Towson University’s literary and arts magazine, and is an managing editor at Charles Street Research. Currently, he focuses his creative endeavors to the exploration of memory, past and present, and the resilience of the human spirit through poetry and, more recently, short fiction. His second collection of poetry, Delirium, was published in October 2018 by Bowen Press.

El Capitan

Facing directly
the high forehead 
of Capitan,
there is a stream no one goes to
because the trail is faint
and there is no marker
Go there. 
Walk
until the banks crouch down next to the water
and she will glide over you cooly
with her weight 
and her will.
This is how you get to touch
the mountain, 
for she has just come from there.
Lay under the protective
slant
of his
towering face
afterward and let the sun dry you.
No one will come.
No one will come
because they don’t know
and they are afraid 
to go where signs aren’t.

Bare Heart

Ivy climbs, 
growing in thin spears
toward the pinhole that is sky
and waking wonder

Loose in my veins is 
a plant like this, 
a climber

My own will brings me
to lay heart upon chopping block, 
to squelch out its green juices
in a way that makes others shudder,
saying,
Wait!
We weren’t prepared to see that!

We women who pray before stones lay our hearts bare.

I am 
the resin that falls 
from the tree, oozing its immaculate complexity 
toward cragged cracks that may catch it 
but usually

don’t

and I find myself trailing white and dry
down asphalt 
to drains.

Leah Baker is an English teacher at a public high school, and works regularly with her students to develop, refine, and submit their own writing for publishing. As for herself, she has had her work featured most recently in Panoplyzine, Soliloquies Anthology, The Raw Art Review, and Sheepshead Review.

Beginning of the End of Summer

These September highs are lower 
than the lows of August.

She’ll be back, Summer, 
before the weather finally cools, 
but the object lesson that the heat 
can abate fills me with hope.

filled by the first rains of fall, 
the creek sings after summer silence,

The bank’s lanky thighs, 
bared by heat and drought, 
robbed of all modesty, 
are now demurely covered 
by the rising water.

Mighty clumps of bushy bluestem wave
heavy strawberry blond heads.

Pink love grass, gently caressed by the wind,
kisses the cheeks of the prairie,

Copper canyon daisies, Mexican mint marigold
burst open their blazing yellow blooms, 
joyful explosions on autumn’s apron.

I desperately need to cut my fingernails.

Perplexity of Memory

The arid Texas sun 
is merciless. 
The air conditioner 
has stuttered and died. 
Water from the cold tap 
runs warm.
By four pm I have shed my clothes 
in favor of a cotton mumu. I sit 
both under a ceiling fan 
and in front of a box fan. 
By six pm 
my scalp is drenched,
the cotton cloth sticks to me.

My brother reminds me 
that the house we grew up in 
had no air conditioning. 
We remember playing outside 
all day – 
freeze tag, 
hide ‘n seek, 
capture the flag.

We remember 
putting chewing gum on asphalt to see it melt.
We remember 
walking downtown on hot summer afternoons
to the library or for an ice cream cone.
We remember 
riding our bikes all over town.
We remember 
prancing barefoot across the black top street 
to play with our neighbors.

But we don’t remember
ever being hot.

“Keep straight,” the robotic voice commanded.

Tom checked his phone for what must have been the hundredth time as he drove through the forest. Shouldn’t take more than thirty minutes now. A weak wind swirled golden leaves over the road, spinning them around in a graceful ballet while waving stripes of blue gleamed through the trees when the car passed a sapphire lake. And all of it was coated in the brazen mantle of dusk. At least it’s beautiful out here. 

When the trees disappeared Tom rolled down his window and glanced around at never ending fields, inhaling autumn while some guy sang folk songs on the radio. He drove by some cattle, a barn, a farmhouse here and there, and then a sign.

‘WELCOME TO BELLEVUE

Where it always feels like home’

The road became a street; the fields dotted with large habitations, then, after a minute, two continuous rows of buildings – little shops, little houses – before which people strolled around with little plastic bags in hand, grey jackets on their backs. The street merged into a great place bristling with life where many meandered through the alleys of an outdoor market. Grey jackets everywhere. Tom slowed down as three avenues made their way out of the place and into every side of town. He checked his phone again and took a left and leaned over to look up as he drove under an electric decoration displaying a blue lightning strike flashing on and off. He drove by a drugstore, a deli, and a bar. Blue lighting strikes pinned on the doors, on shop windows, stitched on the matching jackets most of the townspeople wore. Tom lost his smile.

“Fucking Mercer,” he thought out loud.

He knew exactly what that looked like. A town fair, some harvest festival of some kind, the celebration of an historical event. Nothing of interest for Tom.

“He’s gonna hear about this,” Tom said to himself as he checked the streets.

That was his own fault, he knew it. But blaming Mercer felt good, even though he just had to say ‘no’ and that would have been the end of it.  Mercer had made a hobby of leading Tom into unsettling situations. The adventures often started the same way. Mercer called, said a few puzzling words ordering Tom to meet him, or left a cryptic message on his phone or in an email. Most of it ended up disappointing –yet entertaining, some were straight-up outrageous but, once in a while there was a gem in there. This time, the few words that started it were only ‘You’ve got to see this’ accompanied with GPS coordinates and a RDV in the little town of Bellevue, Nowhere.

Tom stopped the car as another group of festival goers walked across the street. From there he could clearly see their grey jackets, the blue lightning strike circled on their chest, the marine blue trousers. And they seemed to clearly see him too, several faces staring at him as they passed by, checking his car, his license plate even. They don’t get many foreigners here. He kept driving up the avenue -high-end shops, restaurants- until the view cleared on his right to leave space for one the busiest and gigantic parking lots Tom had ever seen. He slowed down unconsciously and looked at the number of cars – probably twice the population of a town like that. Then he saw the lightning strike again, a titanic piece of metal up in the air, nestled at the top of a Disneyesque castle that popped out of nowhere. As he drove by he saw the matching outfits, hundreds of them, turning their heads and staring at his car. Then he saw the flashes and almost slammed on the brakes. He quickly turned his head to see a group of them, phones in their hands. They’re just taking pictures.

A few streets away, he spotted the ‘No Vacancies’ sign, parked and checked around, but he couldn’t seem to find Mercer’s car. Damn it. Tom took his bag out of the trunk and walked to the entrance as a policeman stepped out and eyed him down. Inside, the lobby was bustling with luggage, footsteps and noises erupting from a nearby room.

“Hello, Sir,” the clerk welcomed him.

“Hi, I have a reservation for two nights.”

“Very well, Sir. What is your name please?”

“Dermott. Tom Dermott.”

The clerk typed a few things on his computer and checked the screen for a moment.

“Are you here for the ceremony?” he tried with a professional smile.

“The ceremony?”

“Oh, the local…,” the clerk snapped out of his computer and examined Tom. “Nevermind. It’s just, most of the folks in town are here for the seminar. It’s the biggest of the year. People are coming in from all over the world.”

“All right. I’ll be sure to check that out. What kind of ceremony is this? A town festival?”

The clerk raised an eyebrow for a split second he immediately seemed to regret.

“Mh. No, Sir. The blue strikes are holding their annual ceremony for new supporters.”

Tom felt as if he had just been impolite but couldn’t imagine a possible reason for it.

“Anyway. Mr. Dermott, you are in room 22 on the second floor. Here,” he turned back to a counter and took out a magnetic card. “Is your room key. And, do you have any luggage you’d like us to bring up for you?”

Tom took the card out of the clerk’s hands. “No, I’m fine, thank you.” He took a step back and stopped midway.

“Just one thing. Do you know if Daniel Mercer already checked in? We are supposed to meet today.”

“Let me see,” the clerk said and did. “Sorry, Sir. Mr. Mercer has not yet checked into the hotel.”

“Thank you.”

“Have a good one.”

Tom entered his room a few minutes later and was pleasantly surprised. The hotel was much more agreeable than expected from such a little town. The elegant silk bedding was promising, just like the oak furniture would welcome his papers and pens in style. Not bad. Except for the flowery paper on the walls. He got to the window and checked the street. The grey jackets milled about everywhere you looked, swarming the sidewalks in small and larger bands. That seminar began to arouse Tom’s interest, moreso than any town festival whatsoever might had. He looked at his phone and figured he could go for a little walk. I got nothing better to do until dinner anyway.

Tom began his tour on the main avenue. He passed by a few little shops with their lightning strikes well in sight, a little group of grey jackets curiously eyeing him out, then a larger one, smoking outside a business office with a great lightning strike carved above the entrance. He saw two policemen hanging out outside their cars next to a park, discussing something loudly. Then Tom stopped, seeing something he didn’t quite like: the small lightning strikes stitched right above their badges. This is not some town tradition. This is something else. And right there he heard the clash of the lens, the click of the photograph. The culprit was on his right, a frail elderly woman in her grey jacket that had stopped in the middle of the crosswalk, her camera in her hands. Tom frowned; annoyed by the idea of a stranger taking his picture, then he became puzzled when the woman just stared into his eyes, in a stance of challenge. She nodded and reached back to her group of other grey jacketed individuals. Great, Mercer got me into a town of loonies. Tom went around town like that for about half an hour, but no other oddities were encountered, except for what was probably the largest supply of matching jackets he had ever seen. He went back to the hotel a little bit confused about the whole thing, but still unable to get what Mercer was seeing in the place.

“Mr. Dermott!” the clerk hailed him as soon as he stepped inside.

“Yes?”

“Mr. Mercer arrived. He’s waiting for you at the bar.”

“That should be about right. Thank you”

Good news, finally. Well… News, anyway. Tom found Mercer being his usual self, drinking at the bar alone looking shady among early diners that glanced at him from time to time.

“Hey! My old friend!”

“You’re late,” Tom said taking the stool next to Mercer.

“Am I?” He asked innocently looking at his watch.

 “Ass,” Tom chuckled and ordered a scotch. “So, what the hell are we doing here? And please tell me this is not like that time with the native tribe.”

Mercer pretended to be offended, hand on his heart. “How could have I known it was just a bunch of kids tripping on ecstasy in the woods. It clearly looked different.”

Tom laughed thinking about it. “So?”

Mercer smirked, twisted it into a smile with squinting eyes, clearly very fond of himself. “That is different. Here lies a great story for you, my friend. But don’t be so impatient! Enjoy your drink first.”

Tom did and they chitchatted for a while about the drive, the charm of the little town, then a waiter came to them.

“Your table’s ready, Sir.”

Mercer smiled, nodded to him and stood up, offering Tom to follow him with his hand. They sat, ordered, and when the waiter was gone Mercer grew dimmer.

“Have you noticed anything strange since you came into town?”

Tom snickered. “Well, maybe a little odd, like those god awful jackets but apart from that I have to say it looked like some kind of town festival, nothing more.”

“It does look like that,” Mercer agreed, glanced around and lowered his voice. “Except from the fact that 85% of the town’s population moved out without any apparent reason in the past two years. Or for the hundreds of millions of dollars generated yearly by one local business. Or for the twenty-two suicides,” he said, gesturing quotation marks at the word, “that have been reported over the same period.”

Tom leaned over, elbows on the table. “How do you know about all this?”

Mercer chuckled. “I knew you’d like this one!”

“All right, you got me. I’m all ears, now spit it.”

“Two years ago the writings of a man from this town became popular and began spreading like wildfire around the state, then pretty much everywhere through the internet. I caught up the trend at the beginning and sold them online to foreigners. Though that didn’t last a month because the books were so popular they were translated in dozens of languages and sold everywhere in the world, published by the very same publishing house that is the local business I was telling you about.”

Tom frowned and leaned back, looking outside the reception room at the many many cars. “What kind of writing are we talking about? A life coach that has all the answers to success?”

Mercer bit his lips. “I would have preferred that. A self-proclaimed diva who tells you wearing her 500 bucks handbag is the best way to get under the spotlight is not that dangerous.”

“Fuck. A spiritual guru, then. You’re talking about a cult, aren’t you? What does he do? He pretends he can heal your pain away?”

Mercer looked down, seemingly uneasy. “Well, that’s the problem. It’s more complicated than that. I’ve read all the books, Tom, it’s just a bunch of spiritual sayings and mottos to live a better life. There’s nothing in there to explain how it became such a movement. Two hundred million sales worldwide, hundreds of thousands of disciples coming to this town every month. Everything points to this place. It’s like a goddamn pilgrimage for these people, but I have no idea what makes them do it.”

Tom thought about it for a second, rubbing his hands. “If it’s the guru’s birthplace the meaning of this town is understandable.”

“I’m not arguing that,” Mercer said. “But you’ve seen the little blue strikes on the shops and houses, right?”

“Yeah. You mean the whole town’s converted or something?”

“No, no, no, my friend. They kicked them out!” Mercer whispered loudly, instantly inspecting the room afterwards.

“What do you mean?”

“I told you 85% of the residents moved. Those guys bought everything. They own every shop in town, most of the houses, and this very hotel, by the way. And that’s what I don’t get. People come here after reading a book and decide to stay just like that,” he said snapping his fingers. “Makes no sense.”

“What about those suicides?” Tom asked.

Mercer sighed. “I honestly don’t have any evidence, but when I found out it just seemed way too much for such a little town.”

“The police officers,” Tom said for himself.

“What?”

“I’ve stumbled upon a few today. They have those strikes stitched on their uniforms.”

Mercer’s eyes grew wide. “That is not good news.”

The waiter stepped before them and put their plate down. “Enjoy your meal,” to which they both nodded without a word and the man left.

“All right,” Tom said after a minute of silence.

“What?” Mercer asked.

“You got me, I’m hooked. I want to know everything there is to know.”

Mercer chuckled and got to his plate. They ate and managed to silence the topic for a while as the room got more and more crowded, then when the bill was paid Mercer stood up and reached Tom.

“Let’s take a walk.”

Tom frowned, rubbing his belly. “Right now? I was thinking of crashing early actually.”

“You want to see this,” he simply said and stepped away. Tom followed.

They slowly strolled down the street in silence and crossed path with several groups that stared at them on their way. In the next street they were alone.

“So, what is it?” Tom asked.

“Almost every night something happens around 9 or 10 p.m. I want you to see it, to make up your mind about what it means. I think it’s important, maybe a key aspect of the whole thing.”

“Ok. What is it?”

“There are a few places where it can happen, just follow me until then.”

Tom did, and although he was growing curious by the minute, he felt uneasy as they crossed one street after the other. Roughly twenty minutes in their digestive walk, they both stopped at the loud voices in the residential street.  A group of grey jackets stood on the porch of a small house, talking lively to the resident who clearly wanted no business with them.

“Let’s get closer,” Mercer said and swiftly reached the house next door.

“I assure you, Sir, we mean you no harm,” the greyjacket at the head of the group calmly said. “One of our members is living in this house. We simply came to help.”

“What are they doing?” Tom whispered to Mercer.

“Wait and see,” he answered.

“No one here is part of that!” The elderly man shouted. “I’ve told you that last week, I’ve told you that last month. Stop knocking on my door.”

“This is not ours to say,” the other said. “We help each and every of our members, Sir.”

“There is NO ONE here who wants anything to do with your bullshit. Do you understand me?” The man said as he approached his face next to the group’s leader then spat on the ground.

In a flash, two of the group stepped forward and pushed the man aside to get into the house. Tom stood up ready to intervene but Mercer pulled him by the arm hard and locked him tight.

“Don’t.”

The elderly man fell on his ass as the two members were almost inside, when an elderly woman came out of the house holding a hunting rifle in her hands.

“LEAVE OUR PROPERTY RIGHT AWAY OR I’LL SHOOT.”

The group stood still, unmoved, staring at the woman without expression, until the leader turned to the elderly man.

“We will come back,” he said, oblivious to the threat.

“We know what you’re doing! It won’t work!” the man shouted in the night before walking back inside with his wife.

The group turned their heels, walked out the man’s alley, and as they were about to cross the street they saw Mercer and Tom. They stopped and looked at them as both didn’t budge an inch. Then the leader took his phone out of his pocket and the group did the same. They aimed the viewfinder up and down, left and right, and clicked. And left.

Tom was speechless, his heart throbbing, his palms sweaty, not sure as to why he felt like he had been assaulted himself.

“What the fuck was that?” he said out loud.

“That is why 85% of the town belongs to these people,” Mercer answered after taking a long deep breath. “They harassed every former resident until they couldn’t take it anymore and moved away. They are replacing the entire population of this town with their people. You know what I can’t comprehend at all?” he asked shaking his head.

“What?”

“These people were doctors, teachers, office workers. Many are foreigners. They come from incredibly various backgrounds. How in hell do you get these kinds of people to behave like that? Threatening an old man in his own house.”

“Yeah. Most cults take advantage of people’s weaknesses. They pretend like they have the sheltering answers, provide a sense of security. But these people. It’s way beyond brainwashing. This is not the work of a spiritual guru. It’s religious. They think they are accomplishing some kind of purpose.”

Mercer tried a smile that felt wrong. “Yes, I agree. And I think we need to find out what that is.”

Tom nodded. “And what’s up with the pictures anyway? Are they documenting every person that is not one of them?”

“That’s also what I thought. I don’t know why, but I didn’t see any of them take a picture of something else. They also took pictures of every house that is not yet one of theirs.”

Tom looked up and down the street, scratched his face, rubbed his hands, took a step left and right, then when everything in his power was done to cool down he looked at Mercer.

“You sure aced it this time. I think I’m gonna get some sleep.”

“Yeah. Good idea,” Mercer said.

The reception clerk was nowhere to be seen when they walked in, and the restaurant was empty, too, though it was barely ten minutes over ten. They both glared at each other but didn’t state the obvious discomfort they were feeling, and got to their room in silence.

Tom stayed eyes wide opened for a while, aware of every single sound, any hiccup in the roaring silence of the little town. He turned on his side and looked at the night lamp. He pulled the latch, pulled it again, then checked inside the bulb. He got up, stood at the window and examined the street left and right. Not a single soul in sight. He paced round the room, looked into the drawers, the closets, under the bed. He tucked himself again and closed his eyes. I’m being paranoid. He tried to picture anything slightly reassuring, but he couldn’t get it out of his system, he couldn’t stop thinking he was being watched, being recorded, or something worse, until he fell into a dreamless sleep.

Breakfast was apathetic, without an appetite to dive into the plate of pastries. Coffee it is. Though they were likely the only gloomy ones in the room. An ecstatic eagerness was taking over the place, wide grins on every face, lively words pitched from one table to another. Mercer took one last sip.

“Let’s take off,” he said. “We’ve got work to do.”

“Day’s already planned?”

Mercer simply nodded and got up.

They once again walked up the street, busy as hell now, grey jackets everywhere going in the same direction, faces turning on their way. They still stare at us. Tom was uneasy, but for some reason Mercer had a gentle smile on his face for the passersby. They followed along the trail of the disciples until they reached the gigantic edifice and its matching parking lot. The white castle looked childish in a way, cartoonesque towers rising on the four corners of the building, an impressive welcoming party of grey jackets before the great wooden doors. Two long lines of hundreds of people stood before the entrance waiting for something.

“Headquarters?” Tom guessed.

“Something like that,” Mercer said. “From what I managed to learn new members live there for the first few months of their ‘training’. Afterwards most of them buy property around here. Most often than not it’s the company that buys it on their name and stations them.”

“So, they basically lose control over their finances? Another red flag,” Tom said, staring at the hundreds of people grinning wide, walking around hugging each other, laughing out loud. They look like they found their true calling.

“It’s starting,” Mercer said.

And he was right. The excitement exploded in an uproar of cheers and hollers and whistles like the band just entered the stage, but it was only a silhouette walking out of the building. Thirty seconds later the lines began to move forward and were swallowed by the castle one person at a time as security officers checked them before letting them in.

“They’re wearing badges,” Tom noted.

“You know what’s on there,” Mercer gravely said.

Tom looked at all the faces, almost grateful to simply be let inside a building. Indebted, most likely.

“That’s where the suicides happened,” Tom said for himself.

“I kinda think so too. But with those security officers and the force in cahoots I’m guessing you can’t believe those police reports.”

Tom noticed Mercer was still smiling, though he could see it was forced.

“What are we doing here, Mercer?”

Mercer stared into Tom’s eyes and sighed. “I need your help. I’m going in today.”

“What? Are you insane? Let alone the suicides, which is pretty alarming, those people will do anything to protect their secrecy.”

“We need to know what happens in there, Tom. That’s the whole point, right? Why would you document all those things if you want to back off when we find the real deal?”

“That’s not what I’m saying. I know we have to investigate what’s happening here, but this is dangerous. There are other ways.”

“There are none,” Mercer said, a light shining in his eyes, more serious than Tom had ever seen him. “And I need you.”

Tom thought about it for a second, but the only thing that popped into his mind was the flash of the photograph.

“I need someone outside, Tom. Someone who knows where I am and what I’m doing, and who can do something about it. Someone I trust,” Mercer said, emphatic on the ‘trust’.

“Damnit, Mercer. We’ve done some pretty fucked up shit but that deserves the medal.”

“Is that a yes?”

“You’re gonna do it anyway if I say no, right?”

“Yes,” Mercer said.

“Keep your fucking phone handy at all times. I’m calling you in the evening and tonight, got it?”

“I’ll do the best I can. If I’m not there tomorrow you know what to do.”

Tom nodded and took Mercer’s hand in his own. “Don’t do anything stupid,” he said in his ear before Mercer stepped away, waved at him, and reached the end of the waiting line.

Tom ambled alone on his way back, enjoying morning, putting some order in his mind, eager to get to it. I need another coffee. He looked around to see if he could find a shop where he could kill some hours in, but there was nothing to see left or right. The shops were closed on the avenue, iron curtains down, luminescent blue strikes flashing on and off above the doors. The street was empty, too, and the whole town seemed void of any sign of life. No cars on the roads, no faraway honks, no boots knocking on the ground. No sounds at all. Even the birds had fallen silent. Tom felt strange, an uninvited guest whose unwilling host carefully examined his every move. Tom quickened his pace, his heart throbbing, breathing loudly; unable to tell if his biggest wish was to stumble upon another human face or to never see anything from this place ever again. Hell of a town.

Tom took a long deep breath when he saw an employee smoking outside the hotel. He rushed inside as casually as he could manage, asked the clerk for a whole pot of coffee to be brought up and got to his room where he locked himself in. He booted his laptop and ecstatically got to it. He found little about the suicides, not much more about the corporation – except for oddly complacent articles about their contribution to the area – and a few pages about the town’s history; who apparently had none of interest before the Blue Strikes’ implantation. Nonetheless, at noon he was about ten pages in. Then he began to document everything he had seen, everything that happened. The outfits, the shops, the photographs, the castle. That damn castle looks like an attraction. No wonder it makes me feel so sick.

When the sun began to set, Tom decided he had pushed the deed as far back as he could. He took out his phone and dialed.

“You’ve reached Mercer. Leave a message.”

He stared at the screen for a while. He took a few steps around the room, stretched his legs, looked out the window at the day dying over the ghastly street. Maybe they took everyone’s phone for the time of the ceremony. He tried everything he could to be rational, but he had to accept it. For the first time in years he was worried about Mercer.

Mercer had been the oddest, the fearless character he had ever met, and he had been his friend for many years. The duo worked well. Mercer did the groundwork. He used his connections, took the path least travelled, or simply bummed around to find the most unorthodox stories, the wildest experiences, and Tom wrote about it and sold the stories. He’s the one that guided me through the catacombs that day. He’s the one that gave me the urge. An insider’s account of a cult was a great opportunity. But was it worth it?  

Tom went down to the lobby to clear his mind. And have some dinner, too. That would be good. When he found himself standing alone in the restaurant area, he concluded that eating in his room would be less disturbing after all. Fifteen minutes after, the clerk mechanically entered the room with the tray, a cardboard smile drawn on his face. Tom wasn’t feeling much of an appetite anymore, but dug into it anyway. The empty plate lying away, he examined his notes once again, trying to get a pattern, a connection, some new idea that might pop up at the sight of a word, a name, a place. Nothing. And it’s giving me a freaking headache.

After a while he didn’t see the point in forcing it anymore and crashed on the bed. A damp hand caressed his forehead for a moment, rested on his chest then on the side of his body. Then the lamps started blinking, the room grew smaller, until all that was left of this town was the floral wallpaper, the buds elegantly sprouting into crimson eyes overseeing the world, scrutinizing Tom’s restless sleep.

The eyes bulged out of the wall, quivered, then quaked in splendid tremor. A thunder of feet broke the ground. Hands hammered down doors. The low growl of a pack moved around, eyeing out its prey. 

What are they trampling on?  Who?

The rumble moved closer, and Tom realized he wasn’t dreaming anymore. He turned on the lamp, jumped out of bed and staggered to the window, rubbing his eyes with one hand, holding the sheets over his shoulders with the other. The street was dark, but light grew in the distance, as if a world of ice was blazing miles away. And it moved. It moved along with the rumble, and it was going this way. His way.

A blue arrow of light struck a window and bounced back, then another one. The houses up the street gradually lit up, a halo of many whites and blues mirrored in the windows, the facades, slowly polluting the night. Then the faces began to pop under the lights. One, ten, a hundred. The grey-jacketed procession walked down the street in ominous silence, apart from the martial rhythm of their feet on the ground. Tom stood still at the window as the funeral march approached until he realized he was probably the only guest left in the hotel that night. He rushed to the wall and turned off the switch, then crouched back to the window, his head peeking up the wall. The drums of the feet made his heart pound in a tempo twice as fast, but still in rhythm, he noticed. When he saw the face turn to the hotel and stop, Tom felt a single drop of water running down his back. But when he saw a dozen more do the same, he almost crashed to the ground lowering himself as much as he could, staring at the floor, shivering from all his body. He turned his back against the wall and stared at the buds on the floral paper. What do they want? What are they doing?

Then a white blue flash reflected on the wall and answered him. The mad beat of a thousand strikes of pale blue light lit up the room for a full minute, the invasive snaps of the lenses ringing in Tom’s head as if they had been a feet away. Tom pinched his arm as hard as he could to cool himself down, but it didn’t do the trick. They captured it whole. He felt the hotel – and Tom – within the viewfinder, snatching the entire world away from his hands, from his control. The flashes became less frequent, until it became a sporadic occurrence, all the while Tom did his best not to get up to look at the street. When it felt like it was finally over, a loud bang crushed Tom’s hopes. The knock went on three times in a row, and Tom didn’t budge an inch and held his breath. The stranger knocked once more on the door thirty seconds later, and Tom looked around the room at everything, at the lamps, at the desk and the pens, at his luggage. I need something sharp, or something heavy. But thirty seconds more were enough to lift him off the dreadful thought when he heard the footsteps walking away in the hall.

Tom stayed there tucked around himself under the window, looking at the wall. For some reason no other place felt as secure as here, and nothing he could think of could help him think rationally. Except one thing. He took out his phone once more, took three shots before dialing the correct number then called.

“You’ve reached Mercer. Leave a message.”

“God fucking damnit,” Tom whispered to himself.

When his phone’s screen turned off, he realized the town had gone to sleep again. He crouched up halfway, took a peek at the street then stood up. The street was as silent as it could. Just a lovely small town street with its beautifully decorated houses, the local little shops, the spotless sidewalks. The perfect town to raise a family. Of course it is. Tom paced around the room, looked out the window, paced around the room, looked out the window, sat on the side of the bed, paced some more and before long a delightful lilac mitigated the darkest blues as daybreak began to shine above the little town. Tom stared out the window, rubbing his eyes as a few early risers strolled down the street carrying breakfast. He checked his phone and couldn’t believe morning was finally there, yet the thought quickly disappeared when another thought shove it away. Where is he?

Tom took a much deserved shower before reluctantly leaving the room to go into the lobby. The room was already vibrant with activity, guests coming and going, the smell of many wonderful things filling the air.

“Hello, Mr. Dermott,” the clerk said when he saw him standing aloof in the middle of the room. “How was your night?”

“Great, thanks,” Tom answered in a flash.

Haggard and confused, he stepped into the restaurant area and reached the buffet.

“Hey, Tom! Good morning!”

Tom turned around at the voice, and stared straight into Mercer’s eyes sitting at a nearby table, a delighted smile on his face. Tom hurried to him and took a seat, nervously eyeing the other guests on his way. No one is staring.

“What the fuck happened last night?” Tom whispered, leaning over the table. “I was goddamn terrified. What happened to you? I couldn’t reach you.”

“Oh, oh, slow down! Everything’s fine,” Mercer said without a glimpse of anxiety.

“No, nothing’s fine. What the hell was that march through town? I didn’t sleep a minute, Mercer.”

“Settle down,” he said, calmly putting his hand on Tom’s. “It’s okay, alright? Yes, it was one of the strangest nights of my life, but we’re good, Tom. We’ve got everything we wanted.”

“Good, because we’re leaving today. I’m not staying a minute more in this freaking lair for crazy fanatics.”

“Yeah, okay, don’t worry. It’s probably for the best anyway,” Mercer said before taking a bite. “By the way, how’s the work going? Got a good lead?”

“Well, I’ve got a few things,” Tom said watching as Mercer wiped some egg yolk from his chin. “How are you so calm?”

“It was weird, but not that terrifying, you know. You didn’t use to get so overwhelmed by a little adventure,” Mercer said smirking.

“Yeah, if you want,” Tom said, uneasy. “Anyway, let’s get out of here.”

Mercer snorted vocally, displeased to give up his breakfast like that but didn’t say a word. Both went to the lobby and Tom paid as quickly as possible while Mercer spared a few niceties with the clerk. Tom walked out of there first, hurrying to his car with his luggage in hand and the keys in the other one. He reached for the handle and looked back. Mercer was a few steps back, ambling along the walkway before the hotel until he lifted up his head, stared into Tom’s eyes and stopped.

“What are you doing?” Tom shouted.

“Just. Just one thing,” Mercer said lifting his index up.

He took his phone out of his pocket, fumbled on it for some time and aimed the viewfinder at Tom. Tom felt something creeping up his spine. Unable to move, he stood there for an eternity as Mercer took all the time in the world to reach the button. Click. Tom and Mercer stayed motionless, a half-smile eating up Mercer’s face, no words exchanged. Tom opened the door, threw his bag inside the car and sat. He looked at Mercer through the glass, at his unaffected face, his stillness carved into the quiet little town. As Tom was about to give up, Mercer nodded and walked back. Tom turned on the contact and drove out of Bellevue, Nowhere.

I had to do it. There was no other way.

And as he drove away on the small country road, all Tom could think about was the snap of the lens, the click of the photograph.

Noé Varin is a French copywriter and creative writer living in Normandy. He has published short stories in Vine Leaves Literary Journal, Galaxie Rouge and Hellbent Magazine.

The college girls said they would take care of everything: her two cats, her expansive vegetable garden, and her mail, even if it was just throwing out the supermarket circulars.  They’d even care for her bees.  They had bought Chef Vicki a year-end gift: a ticket to San Francisco and weekend stay in a hotel by the wharf, the fat tourist grotto she never neared when she lived there.  

            What they didn’t give her was a makeover, a new wardrobe and a different trajectory in life.  And she couldn’t just spend the weekend hidden away in her cottage; they already possessed her extra key.  So Vicki drove to the airport in Chicago, less than two hours away from the small town in Wisconsin where she cooked for a sorority—the girls loved her curry tofu pops and pizza muffins.  She would go to San Francisco.  She would hide away in the hotel and watch movies.  She would eat junk food for a whole weekend and not feel guilty about it.  She would go to a bar and pretend to be someone she wasn’t, a fashion designer, maybe.  She would try and not think about the girls in her house, judging her life.   

*

The girls looked around her cottage.  Strings of skull lights dangled over her front door.   Chef Vicki stacked her hats on mannequins’ heads in the entryway.   A snow globe collection adorned the windowsill. 

Each room was a different crayon color:  Chef Vicki always referred to the red room or green room rather than the dining room or the bedroom.  “Chef Vicki is a mystery,” the Sorority President said as she wandered from one room to the next. 

“Wrapped in a riddle,” another laughed. 

The Sorority President liked that when girls uttered a banality, Chef Vicki called out “cliché” and toasted them.  She had never been called out on one and saw it as a personal victory. 

“I don’t like that she calls us exile; that’s an insult,” the Pledgemaster said. 

“She calls Wisconsin exile, not us,” the Sorority President corrected.  She was going to attend law school in the fall. 

“She loves us,” a girl said.  This girl was shy.  She liked that Chef Vicki made her feel like she was the most special sorority girl in the room. 

“Oh, please, it’s her job,” the Sorority Treasurer said, “she’s paid to act like she loves us.”  She didn’t know what she wanted to be, but she tired of everyone talking about getting out of Wisconsin after graduation as if it were a prison.  Each winter, she craved the stillness of canoeing on the one of the nearby lakes; each summer, she craved the big expanse of sky that reflected on the snowy hills and reminded her she was part of a larger universe.  She wasn’t altogether sure any other place offered that. 

“Let’s see what TV she watches,” said another, “I bet she likes the same TV we do.”

*

When Vicki lived in San Francisco, she had been a house sitter for one of her personal chef clients—they were a tech couple before tech was called tech.  She took in mail, watered plants, and played with the two cats.   She’d get high and check out their cabinet for the fatty foods they promised her they were no longer eating.  She would look through their photo albums.  She didn’t stop to ponder the family portraits.  She examined the older photographs, the ones before the wedding and the school portraits.  The wife had bragged that she had been in pageants, that she had been thin in a different life.  Vicki had not believed her.  But there was the proof in a photo album yellowed and crackly from dried glue.  Indeed, her client had been rail thin in that trendy way of the seventies, her ribs protruding.  Her smile was all teeth.  Clad in a red Farrah Fawcett bathing suit and high heeled pumps, she stood slightly pigeon toed with one hand placed on her hip.  She looked delicate and submissive.  Now her client was formidable and dressed in tunics to hide her bulge.  Each time Vicki visited the house, she opened the photo album and looked at her client’s first life wondering if it had been a sudden change or so gradual her client hadn’t noticed.  From the photo albums (which Vicki scoured), the change seemed sudden. Before pictures of beauty pageants and road trips with long legged skinny girls to after pictures where her husband and kids smiled into the camera—for her client no longer appeared in the pictures, she was just recording the life before her.

Vicki rarely invited the sorority girls to her house. She liked coming home from the chaos of the sorority to her little cottage and garden, a refuge from teenaged tittering.  She sewed avant-garde quilts with her Stitch and Bitch group and sold them online—she had a three star rating for she often didn’t send things on time.  She slept with the bartender who lived in Milwaukee—he still had all his hair at least.  And she watched her shows, oh, there were so many shows these days.  It was a fine exile, she thought.  The girls were wrong to think she’d want to go back to San Francisco and slip on her old life.  She’d stay in the hotel, imagine a weekend, and come back with stories to entertain them.

Vicki had always been prone to hyperbole, but somewhere along the way she had wholly reinvented herself.  After San Francisco ejected her with its high rents and her friends abandoned her to marriages and careers, she moved to Chicago and landed two hours north cooking at a Wisconsin college.  Her private chef resume had impressed them.  The girls thought she’d keep them healthy and thin—isn’t that why celebrities hired her? 

It’s not that the resume was a complete lie.  She had indeed cooked for people in San Francisco who acted like celebrities.  But she had never finished college, never graduated from a culinary school unless one counted the adult school class she took in Oakland, and she had never cooked for a Hollywood celebrity.   Yet it didn’t matter to the sorority girls.  They were an   audience to Vicki, new girls filtering through year after year.  And with each passing class, Vicki polished her history to an archetypal sheen: Gen X woman mastered her universe and retired to country comfort. 

*

The Sorority Girls crammed into her living room and watched movies on her flat screen television.  Chef Vicki stored DVDs in old wooden bookshelves.  Both seemed old fashioned to them.  The Girls chose the romantic comedies and planned a day watching movies and petting Chef Vicki’s two cats.   The couch was oversized and worn in the center, as if a person had nested there.  The girls assumed the couch was another one of Chef Vicki’s finds.  No one imagined that the couch was new and that Chef Vicki was the origin of the indent on the couch.  No way would she spend all that time just sitting in one place, the Shy Girl thought.

One girl who was particularly enamored of Chef Vicki sat in an armchair swathed in green velvet.  

“Someone famous probably sat on it,” the Sorority President said. 

“Didn’t Chef Vicki say she dated the former mayor of San Francisco?  I’m going to be a mayor someday,” the Enamored Girl said.  

The Shy Girl thought of Chef Vicki with her platinum shag and her chiseled face.  She wanted to dye her hair too.  She’d wait though, to make it less obvious she was copying Chef Vicki.  Once, Chef Vicki had told her she had found a diamond ring at a flea market. It had been overlooked, Chef Vicki said, forgotten.  She had bought it for a dollar.  Now, the Shy Girl looked through all the miscellaneous boxes at the garage sales in her neighborhood, hoping.

*

Vicki cleaned the cottage before she left for the airport.  She purposefully left out the old portfolio of photos her friend had taken of her—back when he was going to be a famous photographer and she was a professional muse.  (Last she heard he worked in the social media department of a big university).  She took care to put her high school and college journals under her bed.  They could be found.  Everyone snoops, she thought. 

Her recent diaries were different.  She hid them deep in the recesses of her closet, locked in a trunk, hidden behind her overcoats, behind the mothballed bridesmaid dresses she kept for Halloween costumes.  The girls would need clothespins on their noses to find them.

She long ago stopped keeping a journal that was a diary of her life—she found it too angst ridden and navel gazing.  Entries ranged from lists of resolutions to improve herself—resolutions always unmet—to rants about the passive aggressive slights by her friends to complaints about herself.  How often could she write, I felt fat today?   Now her diaries were a log of the stories she told —too many close calls at homecoming dinners when a sorority alum would recall a funny story of Vicki’s and a current girl would say, “that isn’t what Chef Vicki told us.”  

So she kept track:  She went to college in New York before transferring to SF State.  In actuality, she had been to SF State, but she had only lived in New York for two months, couch surfing with friends who went to NYU.  And even now, she couldn’t actually remember how long she attended SF State.  Had it been one year?  She remembered telling someone she only had only semester left to graduate, but she could no longer remember if it were true.  During a brief stint in Los Angeles, she wrote that she worked on a film with a famous actor, so famous she couldn’t talk about him.  But she would tell them he constantly farted on set.  This was a total lie; she was friends with someone who was friends with someone who did that.  Often, she thought this might be an urban myth, because she once overheard someone in a bar tell the same exact tale.  Were these kinds of stories just cliché?  She toasted herself for the thought.

She wrote down that she dated the former mayor before he was mayor—back when he was just a club owner.  This lie she always remembered, but she wrote it down anyway, just to be complete.  She had wanted to date him, she wandered into his club weekend after weekend.  Once, they danced.  This was true. 

The Lie List grew each year when a new batch of pledges were forced to help in her kitchen and one of the them asked, “you really lived in San Francisco?”

She remembered the cold salty air of the bay greeting her every morning.  She’d go to sleep listening for the foghorns.  She remembered admiring the roguish women with piercings and tattoos even before body manipulation was trendy.  She remembered the shops along the streets of each neighborhood selling Live My Dream.  A girl from Virginia residing in San Francisco.  What would happen next, she used to imagine.  She tried waiting tables, executive assisting, teaching cooking, and selling marijuana.  She was going to live her dream too.  What she didn’t remember was the stress of making rent each month, of how she could never afford anything sold in those Live My Dream shops, of how the wind whipped down Geary with such force it would burn her face.  When had it stopped being a city of promise?  She didn’t remember.

*

“Look what she has in the freezer,” one of the sorority girls said. 

The Treasurer pulled out a vodka bottle and said, “vodka tonics, anyone?” 

“What else does she have in there,” another girl asked.  “Can you imagine if she eats all processed food?” 

They laughed. 

“Chef Vicki would never do that,” the Shy Girl said.  “Just look at her garden.”

The girl looking in the freezer squealed, “Look!  A bag full of Snickers.”

“What would Chef Vicki say?” the Enamored Girl says.

“Crap heaven,” they yelled and clinked their vodka tonics together.  

*

At the airport, Vicki bought coffee and a doughnut, plugged in her laptop near the gate, and people-watched.  It was like visiting a city.   She could identify the business travelers with their sleek roller cases and the millenials who traveled in their yoga pants and carried full-sized pillows.

The man sitting next to her sipped his coffee and texted at the same time.  He carried a small, inflatable pillow wrapped around his roller case suggesting he was a frequent traveler.  His face was tanned; his shirt a crisp linen.  He looked like he came from money.  Then she noticed a tattoo of a clock on the inside of his arm.  She had read somewhere that meant he had served time in prison.  Back when she lived in San Francisco, she might have fucked him for that very reason.

            “Going home?” she asked.

            “Just visiting friends in Frisco.” 

            “No one calls is that, you know,” she said. “San Fran, maybe, but never Frisco.”

            “You’re the Frisco police?” He turned and looked up at her.  It was not a friendly gaze.   

“No, I just lived there for years, and I’m telling you no one calls is that.  People there hate it.  Call it The City and they’ll love you.  They like to pretend it’s New York.”  Vicki laughed and smiled her smile, the one she knew made her eyes crinkle in an attractive way, a way that used to win people over.   It was the smile that once got her invited up on stage at the Fillmore.

“San Franciscans actually have a consensus on hating a nickname?”  The man shook his head and glanced again at his phone.  He didn’t look up.  She didn’t remember when she had become invisible to men.  He likely dated younger women even though he was in his forties like her, she thought.  His hair was too mussed on purpose, his jeans weren’t ragged, just designed to look that way. 

 “That’s a great tattoo, you know.  I read somewhere that,” Vicki said.

            “It’s the time my mother died.”

            Vicki was relieved to be interrupted before asking about prison time.  She hadn’t noticed the hands at all but she didn’t ask for clarification.   She saw now that the time was clearly marked 3:10.  “I’m sorry,” she said.

            “You didn’t kill her.”

            Vicki raised her hand to toast him, cliché.  He didn’t notice.  “It’s a beautiful memorial to her,” she said instead.

            The man turned his other arm toward her and there was the exact same tattoo. 

“Another member of your family?  Oh, I’m so sorry,” Vicki said.

“No.   It’s the minute after.”

She didn’t understand.   She leaned toward him and looked closely at his tattoo and saw that the long arm was indeed marked to be later than 3:10:  3:11.   “It must be painful to lose a parent,” she said. 

She half expected him to yell at her.  His energy was caged and this made him both attractive and dangerous. 

“It’s just fucked up to feel devastated and freed at the same time,” he said.  He shrugged. 

She didn’t know how to continue the conversation.  Both of her parents were in Virginia watching television and sending her dinner money once a month so she could “go out and enjoy herself.”  So she nodded and they sat in silence until the flight to San Francisco began boarding and a line of people anxious to get on the plane formed around them.  She looked down at her laptop for a few moments, but didn’t know what to check.  “I always wanted a tattoo.”

            “Everyone says that.”

            “But how do you know what you want on you forever?”

            “You don’t,” he said.

“It’s because eventually you don’t notice them?  Like a scar?” 

“It fixes time.”

            The man stood up to board.  He didn’t say good-bye.  No nod, no look of a shared moment.  The small roller case and the short-sleeved shirt.  He was not prepared for gusty cold San Francisco.  He was wearing clothes as if he were going to southern California.  She comforted herself knowing he’d look ridiculous in his I-left-my-heart-in-SF sweatshirt.

*

The girls tried on her hats.  One of the girls wanted to look at her dresses.  “Chef Vicki always talks about those black and white parties down by some pier,” she said, “and what about all those clubs?   Didn’t she say she partied in a castle?”

They opened her closets.  “Chef Vicki must keep everything she’s ever found,” the Treasurer said.  Other girls hung back, they wanted to see her closet too, but they thought it rude.  They didn’t try to stop the others though.  They were 20, who were they to stop a rude person?

Before long, the cats were ignored and the girls were wearing dresses—mod dresses from the 60s, a poodle skirt with an actual poodle on it, a colonial dominatrix gown of some kind that only the Fearless Girl who first looked in the closet would wear. 

They didn’t smell any mothballs. 

The President held up a French maid outfit, “Chef Vicki must have been a slut.  Didn’t she sleep with the mayor or something?” 

The Enamored Girl dreamt, one day I will go to parties and wear outrageous outfits.

*

Vicki wasn’t lying when she said she had always wanted a tattoo.  She had even gone so far as to sit in the chair at Body Manipulations with an illustration of the tree of life and the goddess Venus emerging from its branches.  She had a famous tattoo artist in San Francisco draw it for her.  It cost 300 dollars for the drawing.  She climbed onto the table and exposed her lower back and some of her butt.  The needle touched her skin and she counted to ten, waiting for the pain to subside.  She flinched; she hopped off the table and said she’d return.

Now, at the base of her back where a tramp stamp might be, she had a black inked arc that looked like a letter L written by a first grade left-hander.  It was going to be a part of the root system, the tattoo artist told her.   

She told her friends that the tattoo was just too damn expensive. 

She told the girls she couldn’t show them her tattoo and let them think the salacious thoughts she knew they had. 

She didn’t feel like she was lying.  She had one after all, that lopsided L wasn’t just a birthmark.  

On the plane, she looked for the dismissive man with his truth tattooed on his arms.  She didn’t see him.  Maybe he had disliked talking to her so much that he was curling himself into the rows, hiding.  Vicki was no longer certain what her truth had been, and what, if anything, she could ever tattoo on her body.   For a moment, she wondered if she really conversed with the man at all.   Maybe San Fran could be Frisco.  She boarded.

*

The girls lazed around in Chef Vicki’s cottage dressed in her clothes.  They were drunk.  They pet her two cats.  They never looked under her bed.  They emptied her closet instead.  The Pledgemaster pulled out a trunk.  “Maybe she’s a serial killer and she keeps her trophies in here,” she said.  The Enamored Girl pointed out it was locked, but her voice was lost in the vocal fray.  They figured out the combination, her birthday. 

“It was like Chef Vicki wanted us to open it,” the President slurred.   They each took a journal, one pictured Monet’s lilies, another had Klimt’s virgin, others merely leatherbound.  All had Vicki’s bubbly cursive slanting downward with each progressing line. 

The Fearless One still dressed like the dominatrix picked up a journal—a black one with a sticker of an alien on it—and mimicked Vicki’s voice, throaty and low like she once smoked too much.

“I can’t believe Gillian left me at the castle.  How was I supposed to get home? Yellow Cab laughed at me, laughed at me, when I asked them to come to Hunters’ Point. Fuck her.  I need new friends.”  

Even the Shy Girl picked up a journal—one covered in denim—and read, “I went by the club again tonight.  GP was working behind the bar training some newbie.  I wish he would just ask me out.  He acts like I’m a guy.  Could he be gay?” The girls laughed and related and wondered who GP was—“Greg!”  “Gilbert!”  “Gerry!”  “Godfrey!”  “Geeky Poo!”  They giggled. 

The Enamored Girl didn’t read.  She sat in the velvet chair and felt bad for Chef Vicki and wondered if she ever found better friends than Gillian and if she herself would ever find better friends than her sorority sisters.

*

            Two vodka cranberries and a nap later, Vicki was shuttling to her hotel in the wharf. There was only one friend left in San Francisco.  Everyone else had left for the suburbs, for their hometowns, for affordable housing.   Only Gillian remained, her wild-haired party friend who was lucky enough to work at a tech firm before it went big, lucky enough to marry her college sweetheart in a Napa Valley wedding before everyone had Napa Valley weddings, and lucky enough to afford raising a child in a city where there were more dogs than children.

            Vicki sat on her bed in the hotel room.  It was stiff and unyielding.  A no smoking sign was bolted to the door, but she could smell the deodorizer covering stale ash.  The movies on the flatscreen were $15.99 a pop.  Her shows buffered with the internet service the hotel provided for free.  The sorority girls had gifted her a place to sleep not a place to hide.  She called her friend.

Gillian shrieked.  She chastised Vicki for not calling sooner.  She chastised Vicki for never visiting.  (Gillian had never visited her.)  She wanted her to come see the house—“it’s a Victorian flat just like we always wanted.  Get this, on Russian Hill!”  But Vicki declined with a lie about meetings.  Meetings for what, she didn’t know.  And she knew Gillian would never ask.  She had followed Gillian’s life on Facebook so she had already seen the flat and the view.  That’s what they were to one another now—Miss you!  Happy Birthday!  Great picture!  She didn’t want to tread the hardwood floors of her own dream.  They agreed to brunch the next morning.

Vicki walked.  At the wharf, she jumped when the guy hiding behind a garbage can in a Snoopy mask jumped out at her, laughed and asked for a dollar.  It used to be a guy hiding behind a fake branch.   In North Beach, she didn’t stop to notice the comedy club she used to frequent had closed or that all the same old men hung out at Caffe Trieste, even the guy missing his foot.  She walked the city blocks in the outfit she wore to the airport, looking down to see the street names etched in the cement—it had taken her years to start looking up toward the street lights in Wisconsin.  She walked to the Haight and sat on her favorite bench in Buena Vista Park.   Surrounded by a sweeping oak groves she remembered she thought this to be a place magic survived.  She couldn’t remember where the Grateful Dead had lived, although she told her girls she partied in that very house.   She had told them she shook Jerry Garcia’s hand and felt the stub of his finger. 

They didn’t know who Jerry Garcia was.  And then maybe again Vicki didn’t either.  Had she ever liked The Grateful Dead?  There was this one boy she liked and he liked them.  She tie-dyed tee shirts for them.  He played and replayed Sugar Magnolia and called her his Sugar Victoria.  She wanted to be the girl with bells on her toes. 

             She arrived first at Squat and Gobble, the one at the edge of the Castro between their old neighborhoods, a crepe place where they would meet weekly and talk about all things that they had experienced apart even though they walked the world like twins back then.   She wore the jeans that lifted her butt and her favorite bulky sweater that hid her belly that was no longer flat.  In the hotel room, she looked at her image in the mirror.  An older version of her favorite self stared back.

The crepery hadn’t changed at all, mismatched wooden tables and chairs, a blackboard menu.  It was one of those places where orders were placed at the counter and the cashier gave you a number.  Vicki ordered her old favorite, a mushroom and egg crepe.  She took the seat against the wall so she could look for Gillian and still act like she wasn’t nervous with anticipation.

Gillian walked in, waved and stood in line.  She looked as she did in all those Facebook pictures; her page obviously not as curated as Vicki’s page, which contained more from her past than her present.   Gillian worked her phone screen as she stood in line, seemingly comfortable with the reunion that hadn’t happened yet.  Vicki studied her.  Her jeans were loose and she wore ballerina flats instead of the boots she’d had once elevated to fetishism.  She wore a blazer that looked expensive.  She wasn’t as thin as she had been, but her skin still reflected the light.  She still glowed.  Vicki touched her face, which felt dull in comparison.

Once Gillian ordered and with her number in hand, she walked over and hugged Vicki.  She murmured how much the same she looked and Vicki wondered if it were true.  “I’m sorry Jack couldn’t come even just to say hello,” Gillian said.   “He took Amaretto to the Dolores Park.   She had a minor meltdown this morning.  Can you believe I have a daughter?”  Vicki didn’t hear Gillian breathe between sentences.  Who named a child a liqueur?  She remembered Gillian once crushed on a guy named Jameson—maybe there was a trend she didn’t know about. 

They waited for their food and talked about the edges of their lives.  Vicki told Gillian about the bartender and Gillian lamented married sex.  They gossiped about mutual friends long gone.  Gillian told Vicki about her husband bringing coffee to her each morning and Vicki echoed, “Jack’s a good man.”  They nodded through one another’s presentations of their lives. 

“You know,” Gillian said and leaned forward.  “I still have it.”

“Herpes?”

Gillian laughed.   “You know, that art project we found?”

Gillian looked in her purse and pulled out a blue marble etched to like earth and glued into an oyster shell.  The found cliché.  Vicki could see Gillian kept it pristine, at least as pristine as something they found in a cardboard box on a corner in the Haight.   “I still have those Italian leather shoes you found too.”  Gillian leaned forward, “I haven’t been treasure hunting in a long time, we should go after we finish here.”

They had furnished their apartments that way, Vicki remembered.  They had wandered the streets of the wealthier or artier neighborhoods and picked through what people abandoned to the sidewalk.  Expensive shoes, novels, beautiful artwork and furniture that could be refurbished or repurposed.  At least that’s how she remembered it.  “Do you still have the dresser?  The one with the art deco tiles?”

“It was old.  All the tiles were cracked.  Jack and I put it on the street and it was gone within the hour.   It’s in some Millennial’s apartment, I’m sure.”

Vicki leaned forward.   “Do you remember Kezar Pub? Is it still there?”

“God, I haven’t been there in ages.  They called you Norm.”

“I thought they called me mayor.”

“Honey, I think it was just our group that called you the mayor.  Just like what’s his face.  Do you remember how you loved him?”

“He wasn’t mayor then.”

“No, he owned that shitty club you would make us hang out at all the time.  And you would smile your smile and wait for him to tell you he loved you.”

            “He never did.”

“Did you ever have sex with him?”

Vicki hesitated.  She hadn’t.  But the urge to shape her story was strong.  She shook her head free of the urge.  Had she lied to Gillian back then?  She couldn’t remember.  “What do you remember about us back then?  I mean, it’s not like I blacked out, but-”

            “We were delinquents.”

“Come on, for real. Do you remember that Thanksgiving?”

“When we went to Safeway at three in the morning and I put the turkey under my shirt and pretended I was pregnant?  How did we get away with that?”

“I thought I did that,” Vicki said.  She remembered waddling and laughing as her friends followed agape with laughter and disbelief.  She remembered the ice-cold drumsticks against her belly.  She remembered the chill turning into a searing pain. 

Gillian shook her head.  “I think it was me.”  She shrugged.  “When I tell the story it’s me. You tell the story, it’s you.  Who cares?”

“Did I really get up on stage at The Fillmore?”

Gillian shook her head.  “No, of course not.  How could you get up there?  It’s s a real stage.  You did get up at Deluxe—that was more like a platform.  Don’t you remember you fell and twisted your ankle?”

Vicki shook her head, it didn’t even sound familiar.

“We went to the emergency room, remember?”

Vicki would have sworn her fifteen years in San Francisco were emergency room free.  She would have sworn she had never been to a hospital in San Francisco.  She couldn’t even remember where any hospitals were.

They sipped their iced teas.  Conversation ebbed.  Vicki spotted a tattoo: Amaretto in cursive on the inside of her wrist.   She complimented the tattoo. 

“That little girl changed everything,” Gillian said.

Vicki supposed her move to Wisconsin changed everything.  But she wouldn’t tattoo the state on her wrist.  “I just can’t remember anything from those days.”

“Because you danced on a stage at Deluxe rather than a big venue like the Fillmore.  Again,” Gillian leaned forward, “who cares?”

            Vicki did.  

*

They were wearing the hats now.  Bundled up on the couch in Chef Vicki’s costumes, watching her television, petting her cats.  “Poor Vicki,” they said.  They congratulated themselves on their gift to her.  “She needed it,” they said.  The Enamored Girl was angry.  There was no mayor.  There was no movie.  There was a Lonely Girl who wrote in her diary about how much she loved a man who didn’t know more than her name.  Nothing was glamorous at all.   Chef Vicki’s life seemed not altogether different from the Enamored Girl’s life right now, a wishing one.

*

Gillian laughed when Vicki told her she was a Chef and Culinary Arts professor at her small liberal arts college.   “Everyone,” Gillian said, her bangles clanking, “everyone, remakes their history for public consumption, but really?”

“I do work for a college,” Vicki said again.

“Whatever, Vics, I love you.” 

“And you never exaggerate?  Your life is an open book?”

“Cliché,” Gillian squealed.

They clinked their drinks together from old habit. 

            “But honey,” Gillian said, using the word honey like a slur.   “Remember when we first met?  When you just moved from Los Angeles?  You told me you worked for people in Hollywood and you told me Hollywood was by the beach.  Did you think I didn’t know where Hollywood was in relation to the shoreline?  It was a great story, Hollywood by the beach and you working for producers you couldn’t name.  The story is why I liked you.

“So now, you don’t think I actually believe you, Miss Party Girl, are actually a professor, do you?  But who cares?  We’ve been friends for years and I’ve got your back. Tell me the stories.”   Gillian mashed up what was left of her crepe and poured pepper all over it.  “Carbs,” she said by way of explanation.   “Who cares what life it is.  I have a beautiful Victorian, but my parents pay the property taxes and gifted us the downpayment.  I work at a tech company, but I’m the HR person.  I drive an Audi, but it’s preowned and leased.  It’s real enough though, right?  Am I lying?  No, no, I’m not.”  Vicki noticed Gillian’s bangles were on her dominant hand and covered her tattoo much of the time.   She wondered if that were on purpose. 

Vicki wanted to be back in her garden. The girls couldn’t be trusted to tell a weed from the sprout of a baby carrot. Her cats hated strangers and would probably hide.  She wanted to make a new quilt, perhaps with some of the costumes she hid away in the closet. She wanted to put on her bee suit and look at her honey.  Gillian kept talking, her bangles clanking as she continued listing her polished life versus her tinny one.

*

The girls lost interest and packed the clothes away.  The sugar high of the alcohol had worn off.  They were tired and dried out.  They straightened the house and watered the plants and pet the cats one last time.  The Shy Girl shook the globes so they were all snowing at the same time. The Treasurer yelled at her to fill the vodka bottle with water and returned it to the freezer.  The Pledgemaster pocketed a small Hello Kitty figurine she found at the bottom of a box.  She announced it was a souvenir of Chef Liar.  That’s what they called her now.  The President made sure it all looked the same as before—she was smart and had taken pictures with her phone.  

They stood outside the door and the Enamored Girl told them she would stay behind.  She made up a reason and said she’d find her own way home.  No one cared.  Alone, she put on Chef Vicki’s hip huggers and a fringy top she found in the closet.  The pants were too long and were covered in cat hair.  She felt like a hippy from the seventies.  She took a snow globe with the Statue of Liberty, a place she’d always wanted to go and laid on Chef Vicki’s bed.  She shook it and wondered whether the real Statue of Liberty would be as uncrowded and serene.  She had never been to New York City.  It would be disappointing, she concluded—it wouldn’t look autumnal and glossy like the moves she’d seen.

The Enamored Girl stared at the ceiling and considered Chef Vicki and her life; she then wondered about her own: the boy she loved who didn’t love her; the times she cut her thigh to remind herself that she felt pain; the exams she studied for but never quite hard enough to be disappointed if she didn’t get an A; her grades—grades that didn’t include As; and her future—her likely one and her dreamed up one.  And she wondered finally if the girls would let her stay in the sorority if they knew the truth about her.  

*

Body Manipulations looked the same as Vicki remembered it, steampunk red and intimidating.  It smelled of dust.  Her request was plain, and the man at the counter, his lip pierced, looked bored at her request.  She’d heard tattooing on bone was most painful.  She didn’t leave this time.  She asked him the time and he told her, 4:30.  That would do.  She told him what she wanted and hopped on the table and lifted her shirt.  She refused to flinch.  She concentrated on the ceiling and absorbed the burning like a penance.  Antique wrought iron looking hands of a clock with no face inked on a left rib.  4:35.  It wasn’t all a lie. 

Alexandra D’Italia completed her graduate work in creative writing at University of Southern California. She’s published in Gold Man Review, Meat for Tea, South Loop Review, Arcadia, Red Rock Review, and Art Times, among others. Alexandra also won USC’s Edward W. Moses Prize for Fiction. Her short plays have been staged in New York City and Valdez, Alaska. Online Sundries ran a monthly online column of her serialized monologues about a dysfunctional writers group: When the Roundtable is a Rhombus.

“Oh, my god,” says Kumar. I turn my head, and he puts his phone screen to my face. It’s a video of a corgi doing a mini obstacle course.

“Oh, my god,” I agree, gasping and laughing. We smile together for a few seconds as the video ends, and then we go back to our phones.

We’ve been lying on his bed, like this, for about an hour now. A 2019, Gen Z stereotype, yes, but Kumar understands that I don’t always have the energy for more. He’s the only friend who’s stuck with me through all of high school, and because of that I’ve called him whenever I’ve done something self-destructive–even the time I crashed my car and lost my license. Aside from my therapist, he’s been my sturdiest emotional support.

It makes me want to fuck him so badly.

I’ve always been into the shy, nice guy type; Kumar is unfortunately so nice, though, that he’s never once hit on me. He’s never even lightly rubbed at the idea of hooking up–not even while drunk. Still, he’s a straight, teenage boy, and so while I’ve never had much self-esteem, I know that I could probably make something happen. The real problem is that deep down, I know I don’t truly want him; I just want to ruin the only friendship I have left.

I’m a self-destructive mess.

There’s also the fact, though, that he and I are leaving for separate cities in a few weeks… and so things might not ever be the same between us, anyway. Maybe if I initiate something, now, he might even come home for Thanksgiving.

No, Adrianna, I think. Control yourself. These thoughts are just a flashing sign toward another damaging path, but you’ve been on such a good one lately. Don’t let yourself swerve.

“It’s after three,” Kumar notices, interrupting my inner slut shaming.

I look at the time on my phone. He’s right.

“Should I ask if we can do it another day?” I grumble. Yesterday, I’d piled together what I want to store at home while I’m gone, and today, my mom and I are bringing that stuff up to the attic. We’re also shopping for new school supplies for me, even though it’s still early to be doing so. I guess coddling’s what you get when you’re an only child (with a tendency to do things like crash cars).

Kumar shrugs, sitting up. “I need to take my sister to the store soon,” he tells me.

I try to gather my energy. I’m jealous because his sister is awesome (seriously: the coddling’s getting to me). “Okay,” I say. I switch my phone to my left hand and then reach out for his arm, using it to pull myself up. He laughs. While he doesn’t have that much muscle, he has just enough that I appreciate the moment that I’m touching him. I also like his dark arm hair and the tattoo on his tricep: a downturned triangle with small lines and hexagons passing through it. I was there with him, when we were sixteen and he saw it in the parlour window; he thought it looked cool, and he just got it on the spot. Ever since then, the shapes on his left arm have been like a flower bush to me, only revealing themselves in the spring and summer–as if they know that they look good.

I realize, then, that that’s going to be Kumar, in general, now that we’re going to separate colleges. I’ll be at Hagerstown Community; he’ll be chasing opportunity right out of Maryland, altogether. The thought of that is really weird to me. While we only really became friends through ninth grade debate club, we’ve always gone to school together. The world’s already started to feel unstable.

As I leave his room, I shout goodbye to his parents and sister (who still think that I’m dating him), and I let myself out. The heat closes in on me as soon as I exit, and the sidewalk blinds me for a second. It smells like burnt tire out here.

The heat over-relaxes my muscles as I walk, and gravity feels even stronger than usual. Kumar and I both live in the suburbs, and my place is only about a ten-minute walk away, usually–fifteen when it’s hot. When I finally open my front door, the air conditioning greets me like a Harlequin lover.

I hear stomping. I go up the stairs and my mom is leaving my room, a cardboard box between her hands. Her frizzy brown hair is in a disorganised bun.

“Hi. I just started,” she tells me. “Did you add to the list?”

I pull the folded paper out of the back of my shorts. Opening it up, I chuckle again at what she’d written. Adrianna College Needs, it says, in smothered ink. The first item: a daily planner. The second: pepper spray. She wants to get me the first thing because I have bad depression, and the second ‘cause I’m a girl. Y’know, equally crippling flaws.

Once Mom is finished looking over my additions to the list, she places it on my desk and grabs the box again. I go into my room, take another, and follow her up the creaky stairs to the attic. It’s dark up here, but even more humid. The dust annoys my nose. There’s furniture, coat hangers, and a couple of old bikes leaning against the bare-wooden walls; in the right corner, a pile of brown boxes has already germinated.

Mom goes to the boxes. She places the newest one down and then picks up another.

“What are you doing?” I ask, following the path that she’s cleared through the dust.

She wipes some sweat off of her forehead with her tiny wrist. “This is a total mess,” she says. “I thought I’d also organize it all so we can actually find stuff later.”

“Oh,” I say, putting my own box down in front of the pile.

“So, I’m gonna bring some of these down to the storage room. But I’ll take care of that; it’s really dirty in there. You just bring everything up from your room.”

I nod. As Mom heads back down the stairs, I decide to look around a little. I never go into the storage room, or up here, and I wonder how old everything is. Some of the boxes at the top of the pile have a lid, and some don’t–like memories shut away and memories not. I read some of the labels. Thesis books. Must be some of Mom’s old stuff. Wedding gifts. I laugh when I see that one. Adrianna Kindergarten. I was five years old just about… seventeen years after my parents’ wedding. Mom was right; there is really no order here.

I use my tiptoes to peek inside of the kindergarten box–because I’m self-absorbed, I guess (Gen Z, remember?). I see a few small, ribbon hair bows: pink, white, and yellow. I smile at how cute they are, and because I faintly remember them. Underneath is a stack of papers, with a little drawing of red flowers at the top. I think I remember that, too–making it in class. My smile grows.

I hear Mom re-emerging up the stairs behind me. “What are you doing?” she asks.

“Just a second,” I say. I plop back down as she returns to her side of the pile. Something else has my attention. The box to the right of Adrianna Kindergarten–marked 3rd Grade–has a lid, but it’s lopsided. It’s like something inside is too big for the box. I lift up the lid, and what I see poking out is even stranger. A golden soccer ball. I squint.

“What is this?” I call to Mom.

“Huh?” she responds. I hear her approach.

“This trophy,” I say. “I never played soccer.”

“Yeah, when you were little,” she says. “You don’t remember?” She grabs the box from in front of me and goes back to the stairs.

I feel a boom in my stomach as my mood falls on its ass. “Right,” I lie. “I remember now.”

And once I’m back down in my room, I text Kumar that it happened again. On Saturday, we lie back down on his bed.

“Did you ask her more about it?” he suggests, once I finish telling him the details. We’re both on our backs, staring at the ceiling. I wonder if the white bumps are moving and distorting for him, too.

“I didn’t want her to think that my brain’s not all there,” I tell him.

“But it’s not,” he says. He reaches over and puts his palm on my face.

“Stop,” I laugh, and he pulls away. He sits up, grinning down at me. He’s got a wide, dimply grin that complements his triangular jaw. “You know what I mean,” I say, and the moment starts to pull itself back together.

“Yeah,” he mumbles.

“Every time I come home from hanging out with you, or come down for dinner,” I continue, “I’m already scared she’s gonna say, like, I’ve changed my mind, you’re not okay enough to go.” My joints take on familiar stiffness as I say it out loud.

“I get it,” he says. He looks down at his bed. I stare as he rubs at the side of his neck. “I was just thinking, maybe if you asked for more details, you could remember something.”

“Except it said third grade,” I tell him. “It’s not like I was too young to remember being on a freaking soccer team. And long enough to get a trophy. I should remember that.” I realize how loud I’ve gotten. I’m sounding desperate, pathetic, like I think that yelling I should remember will magically make it happen.

“Everyone forgets childhood memories,” he says.

“Not this many important things,” I say. “There’s been so many.” Despite trying to calm, I’m still weirdly loud.

Then he looks back at me, sympathy exploding in his eyes. And the moment that we make eye contact, I finally go quiet. I gasp, and it’s tiny in my mouth, but it rumbles down through my insides.

Brown eyes are God tier. Especially his.

But I sit up, and then I look away from him. I draw my eyes over his Gorillaz poster–the cartoony surrealism of it–as I force myself to re-rail my train of thought. “Like, even if you think the soccer thing’s debatable,” I finally say, squeezing at my calves, “What about that hole I made in the wall? Like, that… was so major, and still…”

“Your mom said that just was a dumb accident, though, right?”

I squeeze harder at myself. “Yeah,” I say. But it’s a lie, one of the only lies I’ve ever told him.

Because of the subject matter, I’m still trying my best to look like I’m holding myself together: to look good, or at least presentable, to him. My core’s completely tied up and tight, though; I’m just like a pretty little bow. Meanwhile, I can feel the truth trying to crawl up my throat, and it’s threatening to make me throw up all over the bed.

I sense him take a big breath, lean back on his hands. “You told Lisa about all this, right?” he asks, referring to my therapist, and I nod. “What’d she say?”

“That my parents should understand that depression can sometimes cause memory loss,” I tell him, almost reciting. “And that that doesn’t make me less strong or capable of going to college.”

“There you go,” he says.

“But what if they find out that it could also be my meds? If they stop paying for those, I’m fucked.” I’m already feeling rickety about having to find a new therapist; I’ve had Lisa since I was fourteen. A place called Hagerstown doesn’t sound like the epitome of mental health, either (no offense, Hagerstown).

“So, what are you gonna do?” Kumar asks.

I put my hands in my lap. “I was thinking of asking for her help. To help me remember,” I tell him.

“What? Like hypnosis or something?”

“Yeah. Exactly.”

“That stuff doesn’t work, though.”

“What do you mean?”

“I read about it.”

“What?” I repeat, shaking my head. I pick up my phone and type memory recovery hypnosis into Google.

He’s right. According to the first source, that kind of treatment is usually a scam, and no good psychologist will do it. The ones who do sometimes wrongly convince their patients that they were sexually abused. Uh, no thank you.

I can feel Kumar leaning towards me. I look back up at him and sigh. “So? Believe me now?” he asks, with a proud smile.

“No,” I pout, and I go back to my phone. I go back to the search results and keep scrolling, hoping for an opposing source. Eventually, a video icon catches my attention. It’s an old, wide-eyed, balding man standing just a little too close to the camera. RECOVER YOUR MEMORY WITH CERTIFIED HYNOTHERAPIST HERMAN PAUL, is the title.

“What is this?” Kumar chuckles, leaning in even closer to me.

It takes me a second longer than before to press the link.

“Do you feel like something’s been missing from your life?” the man asks, once the video starts. “Like there’s something you’ve forgotten, and you won’t be happy or successful until you get it back?” The overall quality is poor, and an ugly rainbow effect floats behind him. This must be a commercial from the nineties or something. So, yeah, this man’s methods are probably out-dated; I wasn’t even alive in the nineties. I wonder if he’s dead. “Good news: the answers are all still inside of your brain,” he continues. He still hasn’t blinked. “They’re just hidden behind a door, and you need a licensed hypnotherapist to help you unlock it.”

“Seems legit,” Kumar mumbles.

“Don’t wait another minute,” Herman practically yells. “Call now and I’ll help you unlock your memory and open the door!” A phone number starts to flash on the screen.

“Another minute?” Kumar mocks. “Holy shit, Addie, hurry!”

We lose ourselves to laughter. He puts a hand on my shoulder, like he’s trying to hold onto his sanity. I start to feel like I’m losing mine, as well, but for slightly different reasons.

“Fine. You win,” I say, as we finally start to sizzle down.

“Thank you,” he smiles.

And when he lets go of me, it kind of feels like having a knife pulled out of my body. The feeling his touch gave me was very bad for me, yes, but losing it feels worse–and now I’m bleeding all over his duvet. Somehow, that’s not much better than throwing up.

I lie back down, placing my hands on my stomach and staring at the ceiling again (because what else can I do, at this point?)

“I mean… does it really matter that much, really?” Kumar mutters. I can tell by his voice that he’s treading water, trying to not get too deep. “If you don’t remember?”

At that, my mouth folds in a little. I pause.

 “It’s not, like, the actual memories that I care about,” I admit, the words shaking in my throat. “More like… the feeling that my brain is literally falling apart.”

“Right.”

“It’s like I have no control,” I tell him. “My memories are literally part of who I am. And what if there’s way more that I already lost but I don’t know about? What if I lose more?” I realize that my voice sounds punctured, and it’s filling with dread. So, I don’t really care how deep we get; I already feel like I’m drowning.

“You won’t,” Kumar says.

“I might.”

“You can still remember without any hypnosis.”

“I don’t know,” I say. I clench my teeth.

“Really. You can still try and trigger stuff. I read about it. Seeing or hearing things related to the memory can help.” I feel him shift, stare down at me.

“But the trophy didn’t work,” I argue.

“It’s gradual,” he tells me, his voice softening, dropping down onto me like a blanket. He knows how to do that. “And if you try to remember some things, it can train your brain to remember other stuff. Like, trying to remember the soccer thing could help you remember the hole in the wall thing, or reading those books on your shelf.”

“What?” I turn my head to face him.

“And that’s also a really gradual process but at least it’s legit, unlike-”

“Why did you read all this?” I ask, squinting up at him. His face withdraws a bit, and then I know the answer. “Because of me,” I say.

“Well, yeah,” he mumbles. It occurs to me that Kumar could have a tiny crush on me. Or maybe he’s just that great of a person. Either way, he’d be an amazing boyfriend–but since my idiot brain is trying to destroy our relationship, of course I only want to fuck him.

“I can’t ask my parents about anything,” I tell him. I look up back to the ceiling, and it’s like my words fall back down on me and hit my face. I really hate that I can’t talk to them about this. “They can’t know.”

“Who needs them when you have me?” Kumar responds. I can hear him smiling a bit; he’s using his comfort-Addie voice.

It works. And it also turns me on.

I retreat from the feeling. I’m so freaking backwards. It’s really like I’m some insatiable slut, which doesn’t make sense with the rest of my life. They say that it’s the girls with no self-esteem who go after sex, but I’ve never had either. Something about Kumar just gets to me, just pushes my ‘button’, and it’s not normal.

“Wanna go to the soccer field?” he asks, forcing me to regain focus.

I haven’t been to my elementary school, Phillip Ridge, since the night in tenth grade when my group of friends had loitered in the playground. Kumar had left a cigarette butt on the field, and we’d laughed, saying that the kids would be scandalized the next day. I hadn’t remembered anything about soccer, then–but I also hadn’t known that there was anything to remember. I’m hoping that Kumar is right and if I try to remember stuff, now, it’ll help open up my memory to things (help to open the door, if you will).

Kumar and I decide to check the school out, again, since the breeze today makes it bearable outside. He drives us there, and then we walk through the soccer posts in the field, behind the school. Being summertime, the field’s as desolate as my memories of it. I definitely recognize this area–the chipped white paint on the goalposts, the saggy nets, the fake but convincing grass–but I don’t remember ever actually playing out here. That’s except for one time, for gym class: I remember Mr. Gibson explaining that we were being tested. Dylan got pissed at me for not passing the ball. There end my memories of soccer. 

“Do you remember me being on the team?” I ask Kumar.

“Sorry. I didn’t pay any attention to that. Or you, back then,” he says. I look at him, and he has a teasing glint in his eye. “Maybe…” He pauses. “Maybe we could try to find someone who was on the team with you, and see if they’d help.”

“Even if that worked,” I say, “I’d rather try other memories first before I tell anyone else I’m a lunatic.”

He laughs.

We reach the playground beside the field and I slump onto one of the swings. As expected, it burns at my unprotected thighs.

Kumar sits on the swing next to me.

“I have memories here,” I tell him. Images of playing jump rope with my girlfriends, of pretending that the slide was a teleporter, of twisting my ankle in a bucket of chalk are all funnelling into my mind. Meanwhile, I’m still staring at the field, trying to focus on it, instead–but it’s rejecting me.

“Uh,” Kumar says. I hear his sneakers twist on the concrete. “Do you remember what the jerseys looked like?”

I bite my lip, thinking. To my surprise, I see a blurry image of a neon jersey on a clothing line. Could this be a flashback?

“Yellow?” I ask.

“Oh,” he says. “I don’t actually know.”

“You’re useful,” I tease, looking over at him. His dark hair is flipping a little in the breeze. I force myself to look away again and harder at the memory.

“Wouldn’t they probably have been the school colors, though?” he mumbles.

I nod. And I realize that the jersey I’m seeing is actually way too big for a nine-year old.

Except… I don’t remember that either of my parents were ever into sports …

I turn my hands hard around the swing chains as my stomach turns. I really am getting worse.

“Hey. You’re trying, and that’s probably still gonna help,” Kumar says, and I realize he’s behind me, now. “For the long term.” I feel his hands on my shoulders, and they give me a different kind of flash–in my stomach and in my loins.

We spend the next half hour or so messing around on the swings and on the playground. We laugh and take pictures. More so than before, I forget about the soccer. From the moment that Kumar pushes me on that swing until the moment I’m asleep, he’s the only thing left on my mind.

As good as it feels, though, I know that my brain is only trying to trick me. These thoughts are no different to the ones that tell me to go outside without sunscreen or to drink with my meds. If I want to keep getting better, I have to resist them.

Thankfully, when I get up the next morning I’m only thinking about breakfast. I find my dad at the table, on his tablet, once I reach the kitchen.

“Hey, bug,” he says.

“Hey,” I say, opening the fridge. “Where’s Mom?”

“At the flea market. Apparently they’re having special deals today.”

I stop in place. Mom doesn’t work anymore, and she’s almost always here. Is this a sign, then? Is it my chance? Dad worries a lot less about me, and so without Mom here, I might be able to sneak a few questions about the past. After yesterday’s failure, I especially need to know that I can remember.

I’m not going to ask about the soccer, though; I have some more biting questions.

“You gonna… get something?” Dad asks, behind me. I realize that my face is cold. I grab the bread and throw the fridge door closed, then take out a piece and drop it into the toaster. I decide to ask everything while I’m eating, just to seem as casual as possible.

“Remember when I made that hole in the wall?” I ask, finally, with all of the breath that I can gather.

It’s been bothering me for two years. The day that I found evidence of the hole was the day I truly realized I had a hole in my brain. Looking for my phone, I’d moved the living room couch and found a square of a different white than the rest of the wall; Mom had explained that I’d gotten frustrated at a game of chess, once, and hurled the wooden board across the room. I went limp when she said it. She seemed confused that I didn’t remember, and so I didn’t ask any more questions.

While Kumar did say it can take time for triggers to bring memories back, it’s been long enough, since that day; I need more information.

“What about it?” Dad replies, after a pause.

I swallow, still thinking up my strategy. I turn to face him. “Did you see it happen?” I ask.

“Uh… yeah,” he says, winding his squarish jaw. He places his tablet on the table. “You had… thrown the board, and…”

“How old was I?” I ask. That fact, I need to know the most, because I’ve had a worry boiling at the back of my brain–something too upsetting to admit, even to Kumar. And now, the questions pop and fizzle extra hard in my mind: had I just been a young child throwing a dumb fit? Or had I been older than that? If I’d been in my teens, that would make the throw more concerning; I could, without realizing it, have become more than self-destructive.

“Uh…” Dad repeats. He’s raking his nails across his cheek, his graying beard. “Sorry. I’m just trying to remember.”

Me too, I think, with an internal sigh. It sort of feels like he doesn’t want me to remember, which makes more suspicious that I’d been on the older side.

I do have a different theory, though, about what’s really packed into his pauses.

Something I do remember well is that teachers (and adults, in general) have always given me uncomfortable, pitiful looks. For the longest time, I didn’t know why; they did it even before my parents figured out that I had mental health problems. Nowadays, I truly believe that they could all sense my issues before those issues ever sprouted. Somehow, they could already see that I was hopeless. And I think that that’s what’s going on here, too. Whether my questions are inconspicuous or not, Dad can still sense that they’re linked to my depression. So, I need to stop, or he’ll figure out what I’m trying to do.

Before I can decide on my next move, though, my toast pops. My heart flinches, and I groan.

But it’s as I go to get a plate that I hear another sound. A crash. The crash into the wall. It’s a stiff, crackling sound.

It’s barely distinguishable, too. I try to play it again and again, in my head, trying to hold onto it, trying to make it louder. Still, it sounds so distant, like a far away memory… like a memory pushed away. And no matter how hard I concentrate, it doesn’t change. It’s not enough.

Frustration starts to take me over–not because I’m remembering my anger in the moment, but precisely because I’m not.

“You must have been… about fourteen,” Dad finally says, and I feel frothing in my stomach. Not only does that age make the act very questionable, it also means that I definitely should remember it.

At this point, I can sense that every new step toward my lost memories will need a ton of work; it’s like my inner self has a ball and chain. But I’m already so, so exhausted, and I’m starting to think that I might need to be locked up, for real. The fact that I’d thrown the board hard enough to make a hole… what if I’d hurt someone? What if I’ve hurt other people, too? Maybe I have; maybe that’s why most of my friends have abandoned me, at this point. In the most literal way possible, I have no idea what I’m capable of.

“What’s made you think of this?” Dad asks as I sit down and start dragging peanut butter across my toast.

I clench my teeth and try to pull an excuse out of the ground. “’Tryna prove to Kumar that he was a worse kid,” I say, with a forced laugh. The lie is, of course, dirt–but Dad nods. I take the excuse to grab my phone, stare downward. Then I create a broody fog around myself, trying to figure out what to do. It takes me a few seconds to notice Kumar has actually texted me.

Fam just left for the market. Wanna play Mario Kart on the big TV?

His words climb from the phone up to my fingertips, making them numb. When Kumar says let’s play Mario Kart, he actually intends to play Mario Kart with me–and if I weren’t sexually frustrated, it’s something that I would love about him. By the time that I swallow down my last piece of toast, however, I’ve decided that I want something different, today.

I go back to my room to get dressed. I douse myself in setting spray, so that my makeup won’t melt in the heat outside (or the heat inside…). Then, I powerwalk to Kumar’s house. My heart is going so hard, at this point, it might pre-emptively burst the buttons in my shirt.

I’d tried to retreat from this outcome. I really had. But, like a tsunami, that’s only made me plunge back onto it, even harder. If I’m going to be out of control, then I might as well own it. I’m done with feeling like I’m drowning; I want to be my own flood.

“Hey,” Kumar says, after opening the door for me. He steps aside, and I enter. “Feeling better?”

“Not really,” I admit, kicking my sandals off and against his wall. “I tried talking to my dad,” I say.

“About what?”

“The wall thing. Didn’t work.”

“Oh,” Kumar says. He has no idea how much his eyes are pulling me into him.

“So, I give up,” I say. I place my arms by my sides and keep them there, firm. “This is too frustrating.”

“But it could still be doing something,” he tries, pinching his face in a little. “And you just-”

“Except I realized that I shouldn’t care,” I say. My knees feel tight, now. My arms are tingling.

“Why not?”

“Because if I don’t have my old memories, I shouldn’t be trying to get them back. I should be making new ones,” I say. I step in an inch closer to him. “Like, I didn’t remember anything yesterday, but I came out with even better memories. With you. I want more of that.” My lips start to feel heavy with the growing weight of my words.

“Well, we’ll keep hanging out this summer,” he says. His smile sneaks up like it’s still unsure of what’s happening.

“Yeah,” I say. My breaths rise and drop like tidal waves. “But if I want true control of my memories, then I need to make the ones I specifically want.”

He’s not dumb. At this point, he understands. He shifts backwards, a little, under the crash of my words.

“You mean…” his voice starts to dwindle.

“Yes.” I say it, and my lips, my body feel lighter again. I’ve done it. I’ve stood in front of him and shed the weight I’ve been carrying for months.

Now, there’s nothing left between us but clothes.

Still, he hesitates. “Addie,” he says, looking my face up and down.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” He looks away, and his eyes float all over the wall. “I just… never thought that this would happen.”

“But have you thought about it?”

He pauses, again. Then, a pulse travels down my body as he nods.

In that moment, though, I do consider turning back. If he’s thought about it, and I’ve thought about it, then it’s practically a shared memory. That’s more than I can say for some of my real past. It’s a shared memory, which means that it’s basically already happened.

Tell that to your vagina, is my next thought.

I take another step forward. I can feel Kumar’s breath on my face, now. It’s warm, cushiony. There’s an underlayer of spice to it, too–but in the sense that cinnamon’s a spice. It’s so him.

“I get it,” I tell him. “Why would you ever think it would happen? All I’ve been is depressing. Our relationship has always just been you comforting me,” I say. I then take his hand, and I place it on the inside of my thigh. “That’s why I have to repay you.” The words are like a sacrilege to say, and it’s exhilarating.

Kumar, on his end, still looks scandalized. His face is spread out, wide, like a person holding out their hands to show their innocence. Here’s the thing about his actual hand, though: it hasn’t moved. I let go of it, and, still, he keeps it on my thigh.

Sure enough, his face starts to melt, to relax under my heat. God, I just want to eat those chocolate brown eyes of his. But they start to eat me up, first. When he finally does move his hand, it’s in a grabbing motion.

He puts his other hand on my cheek, and we start to kiss. It’s a little sloppy, but I’ve wanted him for so long that I actually love the nastiness of it. I wouldn’t have even minded if he still smoked.

He starts to rub at me through my shorts, and I feel my heat there rising. He pulls his mouth away and puts it at my ear.

“Look at you,” he mumbles. “I texted you and you were here, like, right away. And you put my hand on your thigh.” His comfort-Addie voice may have turned me on, but his degrade-Addie voice makes me take off. “What kind of eager little…”

“I know,” I rasp, near silent.

He lets me go. I feel like I’ve been dropped, even though I was standing.

“I’m gonna text my family, make sure they’re gone for a while,” he says. “Go to my room and wait for me.” His words are soaked with lust–almost as much as I am. He turns and goes into the living room, and I hurry down the hall.

Once in his room, I carefully place myself on his bed instead of plopping down, like I usually do. I can’t believe this moment is real, and it’s like I have to be careful with it, or I’ll shatter it. I lie on my back, propping myself up by my elbows on the duvet. I push out my chest. I wait.

I’ve seen this room so many times, from this same vantage point, but my senses are heightened, now, and I see the details again. There’s a band of light shining on the off-white wall, from the window behind me; Kumar told me he installed his blinds a little too low and never bothered to fix them. His small desk, nailed to the wall, is busy with papers. There’s also a tub of protein powder, a box of cat food, his still-unsolved Rubik’s cube. Above it, his posters: Gorillaz, Artic Monkeys, The Beatles.

Then I hear him in the hallway, and my eyes go back to the door. My heart starts, again, to rabidly fuck my chest. It’s a bit intense, actually. It feels like it’s going to explode. I know that I’ve been dying for this, but I didn’t expect to have a real heart attack over it. I realize, too, how fast I’m breathing, but that all the breaths are somehow failing to bring me any air.

When he enters, with intent in his eyes, I feel the bed tip sideways. I clutch the sheets, trying to stay on. I’m seasick. My mind goes black.

“Wait. Are you okay?” I hear, faintly, but I can’t respond.

My mind isn’t black in the passing-out sense. And, for once, it’s not in the empty sense, either. I’ve been trying so hard, lately, to remember, and now, I do. Now, all I see is the memory. I was in my bed and I was in the dark.

“Oh, my god. What’s wrong?” Kumar asks. “Was I too much? Fuck, I’m sorry. I just thought-”

“No,” I groan, once I get some power back. It comes from my core. “It’s okay.” I’m shaking like a terrified cat.

“No. You’re freaking me out,” he says. I feel him sit next to me and put his hand on my shoulder. I start feeling a little more grounded, more pulled together. My brain materializes. Reality starts to fill me up, and my eyes start to get hot. “What happened?” he begs.

But I can’t think about what happened. The memory is too awful. It’s so bright in its horror that I can’t look at it directly. Looking at it would sting.

Living it made me go blind.

“Did you… remember something?” Kumar asks. I realize that I’m crying. I force my head up and down and try to force some air in through my swamped nose. It rattles my lungs, makes my next breaths frantic and unstable. “I’m sorry,” he whimpers, coming in closer to me. “Fuck. It’s my fault. It’s all my fault.”

I turn and hug him, trying to tell him that it’s not.

I realize how blind I’ve been to this memory, until now. And, having been used to that blindness, my small peek at it was so painful that it made my eyes, my mind flood. I can’t look back at it. With another creaky breath, I make the decision that I just can’t.

Instead, I decide to look at the doors. I try to understand the event by looking at the moments in which it entered and exited my life. I remember being happy to see Connor opening my bedroom door, that night. I remember being sad to see him being taken out of our front door, the night after that.

“You know that I admire you a lot,” Kumar says. I stick my face into his chest, getting his shirt wet. “Do you want to talk about it?” he asks.

“I don’t know,” I struggle. My words fight my nausea, also creeping up into my mouth. “It could make me remember.”

I remember more than enough, already. I want to shred this new information back out of my mind, to bring it back to its split, unintelligible state. But what’s done can’t be undone; it won’t go away, no matter how much I beg.

That’s when another question starts to pull at me. What happened on the second night, then? What made Connor get caught? I take just one more peek at my bedroom door, and then it comes back to me. The door. I’d heard the creak, across the hall, and I’d been tough.

“Come on. Open the door,” Connor had urged me. “It’s okay, Addie. Open the door for me.”

“No,” I’d whispered back, into the darkness. “No.” No more.

I’m keeping it locked.

I beg my brain enough, please, as I run back to the present. I lie with Kumar, trying to stop thinking. While I still don’t see the memory, though, I still can’t ignore the angry banging on the other side.

And I realize that for all of these years, this event had been hidden deep in my brain, like food forgotten at the back of a fridge. It had been rotting my mind, slowly, from the inside, without my knowledge. It had taken that smart little girl and made her hate herself. It had made her want to sleep with the boy who’d acted like a brother to her.

A stifling horror latches onto me, in that next moment, because I also realize that I haven’t been pushing Kumar away, at all. I’ve been trying to make him stay.

I let out another muffled cry, and he pets my hair. I try, again, to focus just on him: on his hands in my hair, on the movement of his breathing. After a little while, I start to feel more evened out. I think of the positive; at least I think I know, now, what’s been so wrong with my memory. Repressing this trauma has probably corrupted my ability to remember things, in general. That’s probably what’s been going on with me.

Another horrible thought slices through me, though, a moment later. I let go of Kumar and I sit. I feel groggy.

“Addie?” he says. He puts his hand on my back.

“I have to go,” I pant. I realize that my whole body is sweaty.

“Let me drive you.”

I agree, and we leave right away. When we get to the front of my house, I see my mom approaching from down the sidewalk. I groan. It’s deep and internal.

“I’ll text you, ‘kay?” I tell Kumar.

“Okay,” he says, putting a hand on mine. “I love you.”

“I love you,” I tell him. I do love him–a lot. I’ve been unsure of a lot of things, lately, but not that.

As I step onto the sidewalk, though, I become only focused on my task. I march to my front door like the killer in a horror movie.

“Addie?” my mother calls, from my left. “Are you okay?”

I ignore her. Like the memory, I can’t possibly look at her right now. I climb the porch stairs. Once I’m through the front door, I head to the main stairway.

“Hello? Which one of you is it?” my father calls, from the living room. “Hi?” But I leave his voice behind, too. My chest is burning with dread and lack of air, but I climb as fast as I can. I reach the hallway and go for the storage room across from my bedroom. I open that door. The entire room is a pile of boxes, but I can see parts of the gray walls. My mouth breaks open, trying to let me heave through the thin, piercing air.

I can’t delay for long. I grind my teeth and rake my eyes over the pile, searching for the marking 3rd grade. I knock boxes down, looking. Books and papers and kitchen supplies splash onto the floor, onto my feet, but I don’t feel anything. Soon enough, I see the lopsided lid.

I push it off, and I grab the neck of the golden soccer ball. I pull the trophy up out of the box, then hold it up in front of my face, panting. There are two pairs of stomping behind me, in the hallway, as I read the inscription on the base. I start to cry, again, because it’s exactly as I thought.

Most Player Potential
Phillip Ridge Junior League
1998

Pascale Potvin is an emerging writer from Toronto, Canada. She has fiction 
featured New Reader Magazine and The Writing Disorder, plus a film in 
distribution by the Canadian Filmmakers Distribution Centre. She has just 
received her BAH from Queen’s University, and she is working on a budding 
book trilogy. Some of her blog pieces about writing can be found at 
onelitplace.com, where she works as Assistant, English-French Translator, 
and more. 

Sunflower

The biggest I’ve seen— 
size of a steering wheel
in some friend’s grandma’s garden—drove
the world into me,

dragging the sun with it,
reached like a voice from a cave
where it’s always night, knocked
me down without touching me, then turned

away. That night Mom had to lie
with me until I fell asleep, 
tell me I’d be alright
and the next morning

I watched some cartoon I loved
and ate a sugared cereal, 
a stem of sunlight resting
on the edge of my bowl.

Meditation

After Baudelaire

So a new sky, the town surrounded.
If there’s no breeze, the locals will make one. 
Not one hair will flicker. No dandelion will nod
sarcastically until December. The interim

still warm and nighted I’ll spend with you,
gray sadness. Someone shot the sun down already
so I could write a shadow to your face
that hides from me the color of your eyes.

You’ve read me under the covers 
with a flashlight long enough. 
The turquoise edges of our antipodes lie
serrated as Indian Ocean shores.

But at night you soften like white morning glories. 
There’s a morning in me 
the branches haven’t learned. Please
walk with me until we see hills again.

I Was Seven

Mom cut her hair short. 
I asked if someone had died, 
and I meant her.
She held me while I cried.
She said, I’m still me,
and her arms felt like her arms. 
She said, Hair is just your head
when air happens to it. 
And I wondered if the air minded. 
I prayed for rain, to show her
the air agreed with me
while she breezed her fingers
through my hair 
and let me happen to her 
as long as I needed.

We Must Go

I’m usually happy when my kids are happy.
My daughter chases a bubble across the yard. 
My son digs a hole in the sand with a stick.

Leaves click their tongues like fire as a breeze ribbons
from the west and lands cold in the grass. 
They don’t mind. They’re having fun, aren’t they.

But I know soon I’ll tell them it’s getting dark
and we need to go, and life
will have turned against them.

And I, on behalf of life, will say I’m sorry
as I buckle seatbelts
against their will, against their cries for mercy.

I’ll lie. Maybe tomorrow, I’ll say. 
I’ll do this to move them forward
because tomorrow won’t be like today. There will be

appointments, errands, a drifting from place to place.
In the morning, my wife and I will gather them
from their beds and bring them with us

where we must go. But for now
let her try to catch that bubble
before it bursts. Let him see how far down

the hole goes. Why not? 
It’s not dark yet, 
and there’s nowhere we have to be.

Marcus Whalbring’s poems have appeared in The Cortland Review, Spry, and elsewhere. His first book of poems was released in 2013.