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The Writing Disorder is a quarterly literary journal. We publish exceptional new works of fiction, poetry, nonfiction and art. We also feature interviews with writers and artists, as well as reviews.

LAST NIGHT ON THE WAY TO DAIRY QUEEN

By Shae Krispinsky


You guess it was the chocolate you ate several hours before,
a half of a square of the $25-bar that tasted like chalk and grass
and off-brand M&Ms that always remained uneaten at the bottom
of Halloween buckets that imbued the night with wonder and
significance, a heft to the grey clouds, impending storm, as you
rode shotgun on the way to get better chocolate, the real
thing crushed up and blended, served upside down in a cup, its
immobile red plastic spoon proving its thickness, a treat that felt necessary.

It had been a long, hard week in a long, hard year and a half.
Surely there was some form of deservedness at play. What you want
is what you need, a phrase you often recalled and feared, those two nodes
oppositional throughout most of your life. Did you, in fact, need
a Blizzard? Did you, in fact, need anything? Were you not just talking
earlier in the day about how evolved you were as a human? How you
had leveled-up, now out of the messy cesspool of one’s id? And yet,
ice cream, candy, in a paper cup.

And you sit, waiting, in the drive-thru, the last lingering light
of the day gets pushed aside, smothered, by greyer, thicker clouds.
Palm fronds shudder, birds fly for safety, a man in khaki shorts
approaches, hand out. You see without seeing. You see without
being seen. How easy to pretend—non-existence. Car inches forward,
cash handed over, change thrown in the cup holder next to the e-brake,
two sweating, frozen treats in hand, mission accomplished. Onward.

To a red light next to a gas station. A gas station with a barber’s shop inside,
its door open, fluorescent lights on, two chairs, one taken by a man. A woman
with bleached hair circles around him, arms swooping down with scissors
and comb in hand, the precisely practiced movements of her trade. From afar,
she looks young. Does anyone grow up wishing to be a stylist in a gas station?
Does anyone even consider that such things exist? The local Qwik-Stop or Kangaroo
could be a community’s hub—why not? Except here there are two on every block,
the community never grounds itself but shifts by the season or semester.

You think about the stylist with the platinum bob and chiseled arms and black
denim pants well after the light turns green, well after you’re on the interstate,
well after it starts to rain then stops. You imagine an honor to her life you
most likely will never know for your own. Would she offer the same assessment?
We’re all blind to the wonders of ourselves. We’re too close. We only feel
the struggle, the exhaustion. Across the city, the streetlamps have started
turning purple. You know this means they’re dying, but what a beautiful way to go.



HANLON AND SEAMUS DISCUSS THEIR VIEWS ON ART


Sit still in silence. Receive. Art
is not meant to be easy.
            There is no valor in suffering. I drink
            from the fount of joy. I seduce
            he muse and allow her to seduce me.
My mind is my muse, and I am in control.
Breathe in and out. Following the breath, I am
contained. I am a container.
            Restraint only restrains. Creation ought to be
            an explosion, a flood, quivering and pulsing
            and throbbing with beauty.
Oh, beauty—the lure for the simple mind.
            If that is true, then fuck: I’ll bite. Until
            my lips become a sieve, until my teeth chip
            away like ice. I refuse to be starved, while you—
I? I refuse to eat. I have raised myself
beyond all that.
            —all you know is hunger.
Yes, please. The hunger satiates.





BIO

Shae Krispinsky lives in Tampa, FL, where she fronts the band, Navin Avenue, whose sound she describes as Southern Gothic 70s-arena indie rock with a pop Americana twist. In 2022, she released her band’s first album, A Little Warming, as well as her debut novel, Like Lightning. She is currently at work on her band’s second album, her second novel, and a poetry chapbook. Shae is also a photographer, tarot reader, and janky baker. Find her at https://www.instagram.com/dearwassily/.







Father’s Day

By Kate E. Lore


            Maybe for father’s day I could rent a boat and take him out to the lake. We could go fishing like we did when I was a kid. Maybe I could introduce him to Columbus, and Cincinnati the way he showed my Chicago. Maybe I’ll stick to cities with C’s to start; Cleveland, Charlotte, Colorado Springs. Maybe he’d have flown out to see me read my work at Corpus Christi for Texas A&M University. Maybe he would have felt proud to watch me win first place. Maybe it would make up for that time in middle school when I tied for second place with Power of the Pen. He lived within walking distance. But I didn’t invite him. It wasn’t that I didn’t want him to go, it’s just that I hadn’t heard from him in so long. I guess I’d gotten too used to his absence. Like now.

            Once when I was working at Mc Donald’s, my first job, second year, I was seventeen, I saw a man who looked like him, like my father. My heart leapt up so high in my throat it choked me with shock. Without thinking I rushed out from behind the counter, and through the door. I chased this man to the edge of the parking lot. He turned around. A stranger.

            It never happened again. I don’t even double take anymore. I’ve gotten used to his absence.

            If my father were alive he would have gone to my high school graduation. If he could. If my father were alive he might have gone to my community college graduation, watched me get an associates degree, watched me get my bachelors degree, maybe I’d invite him here to see me receive a masters. Maybe he’d stay off heroin for good. Maybe he’d get his life together. Maybe he’d get back together with Karen and we could go fishing again at that pond by her condo where I once caught a carp. Where I once went swimming with my friends.

            Once I saw him in a dream. My father. I kept asking why I hadn’t seen him in so long. He wouldn’t tell me why. He kept changing the subject, shifting the way dreams do, morphing again and again into something else. When I woke up I remembered. A cold shock of water. I remembered his absence.

            Maybe if my father were alive I wouldn’t have made such bad choices. Maybe if my father were alive my sister would be better adjusted now as an adult. Maybe her anxiety would ease like a slow release of air. Less pressure. Maybe if my father were alive I’d have asked him for his advice on Los Angelis. What to see and do in this non-C city? Maybe I’d tell him about my professors, maybe I’d tell him about my friends, that one homeless guy, that one ex, her, him, them. Maybe I’d tell him about you.

            Maybe I’d answer the phone every time he called me no matter what. No matter where I was, no matter what I was doing. Maybe I’d never turn my phone off. Maybe I’d keep the volume up, always, no matter what. Maybe I’d keep it on vibrate too. Maybe I’d carry a battery pack. Extra charger. Maybe I’d make up for that period of time in which I refused to speak to him. That long never goodbye. The silence that grew and grew and became forever. A silence so long I can scarcely remember the sound of him. An absence gotten used to.

            Maybe If my father were alive we’d have a huge graduation party and invite over all our family and friends. We’d plan it over the phone. Maybe we’d face time, months of arrangements and research. Maybe we’d fight about the theme. Maybe I’d want to keep it simple but he’d want more. Maybe we’d compromise and settle on a cookout by the lake. A fish fry. Maybe the charcoal would burn too hot and our smoke would bellow up into the sky, a trail, a cloud of silver lining, something to be seen from Cleveland, from Chicago, like a flag of pride, a boast, a scream. Maybe we’d run and charge like there was never anything to fear in the first place, no reason to avoid, nothing to make up for, maybe we’d jump out so far and so wide each splash was an explosion, each wave tidal, something louder than a phone call, an absence that could never be missed. Water like a river running for millions of years carving deep into the earth the words we never said, the words we owe each other, I’m sorry where it can never be missed, never forgotten.



BIO

Kate E Lore is a writer of both fiction and nonfiction. With many publications in both genres, Kate has been featured in Orsum magazine, and Longridge Review. Originally from Dayton Ohio, Kate is currently earning a master’s degree in creative writing from Miami University. Kate got her bachelor’s from The Ohio State University.

A jack-of-all-trades Kate splits her time up between fiction and nonfiction, screenplays, flash prose, full-length novels, painting, and comics.

Kate is openly queer and neurodivergent. She grew up the youngest of four, scraping by on low income, raised by a single widowed mother.

Kateelore.com, @kateelore (Twitter), kate.e.lore (Instagram), https://www.facebook.com/writerlore/





A Cat in a Box for Mom

by Joe Cappello


The Zabretti family stood in front of the coffin staring at the body of their mother. She was dressed in a pink, shift dress with a hodgepodge floral design, resembling a mini tornado that touched down below her waist. She wore a white head band with the words “Peace and Love” printed on it in blue letters next to the outline of a dove. Strands of white hair stuck out over the top of it.

Marion Zabretti shivered from the air conditioning that made the viewing room colder than it had to be. The sickly-sweet scent of flowers and sight of her mother looking like a hippy manikin turned her stomach. But as the oldest Zabretti, she felt she should be the one to say if her mother’s coffin should be opened or closed for the viewing. Her younger brother, Salvatore, (“Torre” for short) and youngest sister, Luce, had other ideas.

“I say we vote on it,” offered Torre. He leaned over to get a closer look at his mother’s head band. “Did people actually wear stuff like that in the 60s?”

“That and love beads and they stuck flowers in the hair, flower children they called themselves.” Marion shook her head. “Mom was a piece of work alright.”

“So, are we going to vote or what?” Luce folded her arms rubbing her bare arms with the palms of her hands. She wore a sleeveless black dress and matching low heel pump shoes. Her brown hair hung in curls around her face giving her a slight retro look. “Because if we are, I vote to leave it open.”

“Are you serious with this dress?” said Marion ignoring her. “It barley reaches her knees. And that headband…” She leaned over the coffin carefully as though coming too close would soil her pricey high-waisted trouser pants and snow-white blouse.

“Don’t rag on me,” said Luce. “Mom wanted to be buried in the dress she wore at that Democratic Convention in Chicago ‘68… ‘stickin’ it to the man’ as she liked to say.” Marion bent over the coffin getting an even closer look, her parted black hair falling in front of her face which she quickly brushed away.

“Let’s stay focused, Marion,” said Luce. “We’re supposed to be deciding if we should leave the coffin open or not. I vote yes. How about you, Torre?”

“I don’t care one way or the other.” Torre shrugged. Marion frowned as she took in her brother’s appearance. His wrinkled gray trousers and navy-blue sport coat didn’t quite match. She winced at the sight of a multi-colored tie around his neck, which she considered most inappropriate for a funeral. She turned down his collar to cover the exposed tie and centered the knot on it.

“Thanks, mom,” Torre said, beaming a child-like warmth that made Marion crack a smile.

“Never mind.” She patted his cheek, then turned away abruptly.

“Okay. I vote we close it,” said Marion.

“It’s a tie.”

“Not really, Luce. Tie goes to the oldest. We close it.” Luce opened her mouth to say something but Marion cut her off.

“Look at this carpet. What was the color supposed to be…maroon? It looks like dried blood from a crime scene.” She scraped at it with the sole of one of her leather ballet shoes. “And these shit-colored, brown walls and those things passing for drapes in front of the windows look more like burlap sacks. Did you have to have the wake here?” Luce rubbed her arms more vigorously.

“Baldoni’s has buried Zabretti’s as far back as I can remember,” said Luce.

“Did you ever think it might be time for a change?” Marion’s dark eyes narrowed. She lowered her voice. “Did you ever consider cremation? We could have sprinkled her ashes over the marijuana plants she had growing in the back yard. Mom would have loved that. Honestly, I wish you would have checked with me before you did all this.”

Johnny Squitera, Luce’s husband, a short man with a barrel chest, drew closer to Luce and Marion. He cleared his throat.

“Marion, we had to make decisions,” said Johnny, “so we did the best we could, we—”

“Hey, you all remember Beth, right?” said Marion cutting off Johnny and rubbing the shoulders of her partner standing next to her. A wisp of a woman with curly blonde hair and brown roots, Beth smiled slightly. “Show everyone the picture you brought with you.” Beth reached into her purse and produced a six by nine, color photo in a flat black frame. It showed Mary Zabretti standing on a boardwalk, her back to a sandy beach with white-capped ocean waves behind her.  She wore a tie die shirt, granny glasses and a wide brimmed straw hat. Two rainbow colored peace symbols hung from her ears.

“She looks great, doesn’t she?” said Marion. “Compliments of my Bethy over here.” Marion grabbed Beth’s cheeks and smooshed out her lips. “Where did you take that again, my little talented photographer?” Beth strained to speak through her scrunched lips.

“Jersey shore. Seaside I think,” she blurted.

 “Well, you are terrific at what you do even though you hardly make any money at it,” said Marion. She placed the photo on a pedestal next to the coffin in front of a bouquet of flowers. Her cell phone rang.

“Hello?” She lowered the phone. “Gotta take this call. Be right back.” She brought her face close to Beth’s ear. “Let me know if little sister over there brings up the will.”

Marion hurried back to the viewing room. She paused at the entrance to give her eyes time to adjust to the darkness that now hung over it like a dark cloud. She could see the curtains had been drawn to ward off the hot July sun. She sat next to Beth in the front row.

“Any news?” she asked.

“Nothing about a will,” said Beth. “Torre was just here talking about the house he is renovating in Pennsylvania. I didn’t know he moved to PA, did you?”

“No,” said Marion. “I thought he still lived with mom.”

“Not for a long time, he said. How come we didn’t know that?”

“I can’t picture the man leaving mom, never mind Jersey City, New Jersey.” Beth’s eyes widened as she pointed to the back of the room.

“Oh, and your sister, Luce, is back there, giving the funeral director hell.” She turned her body around indicating the back of the room.

“Mr. Baldoni, this light?” Luce indicated the light mounted on the podium at the entrance to the room. She pulled the chain repeatedly turning the incandescent bulb on and off.  “Did you buy it from Edison himself? I told you people who come to pay their respects will be old.” Mr. Baldoni’s bald head turned red and his jowls sagged lower than an old hound dog.  “They need a bright fluorescent light so they can see to sign the register. I paid for a podium with a bright light and that’s what I want.”

“Was she always like that?” asked Beth.

“Luce? Oh, yeah,” said Marion. “She was always little Miss Anal. Has to control everything. She not only dots I’s, she crosses T’s then nails people to them.” The old man shrugged.

“And when you’re finished with that, Mr. Baldoni,” continued Luce. “There, see? Back there.” She pointed to a row of chairs. “The third row. A few of the chairs are out of line. I said three perfectly straight rows. So, when you come back, I expect you to make that right.” She ran her hands over her bare arms, then placed her hands on her hips. “And turn that damn air conditioner down. Its colder than a morgue in here.” She took long, quick strides toward Marion and Beth and sat down with a huff.

“How many Zabretti’s has he buried? You’d think he’d know the drill by now,” she said.

“So, Luce, when did Torre move out of mom’s house?” asked Marion.

“I don’t know, years ago.”

“Okay, so you’re still around the corner form mom on Piersall, right?”

“No, we moved down the shore six years ago.”  Luce took a deep breath and pulled her black skirt over her knees. “So, when are you two gonna get married?” Marion and Beth exchanged glances.

“We are married,” said Marion.

“You’re kidding. When did that happen?”

“Three years ago,” said Beth. “At the bowling alley where we met.” She clasped her hands and squealed with delight.

“You know how Beth loves to bowl,” said Marion.

“No, I don’t and you actually had a wedding at a bowling alley?” Johnny and Torre heard the word “wedding” and instinctively joined the three.

“Did you say wedding? Who’s getting married?” Johnny sat next to his wife.

“These two,” said Luce. “Only they’re already married.”

“Oh,” said Torre, looking at Marion.

“Alright, look, we didn’t invite family, okay? Just a few friends,” said Marion.

“And my bowling team.” Beth’s eyes widened. “We bowled afterwards. Shot a 150. My personal best. Say, after this maybe we can all go bowling, Luce. I see there’s an alley here in your old neighborhood.”

“No thanks,” said Luce. “I haven’t been in that bowling alley since they found out the guy handing out shoes was a pedophile. He’s probably still there.”

“I remember him,” said Marion. “He was creeper than a graveyard at night.” Just then Johnny held his ears and began screaming.

“Ahhh.” He stood up rocking from side to side.

“Marion, what is wrong with you.” Luce grabbed Johnny’s wrist. “It’s all right, Johnny, everything’s okay, look at me…look at me,” she said, her voice thin and panicky.

“Sorry, Luce I forgot.” Luce placed her forehead on her husband’s while still holding his wrists. Their heads swung back and forth in unison. “It’s okay,” she said. “The bad lady said the bad words it will pass.” She turned on Marion. “You know he has a reaction to idiomatic phrases.”

“I…I…remember now, it just slipped.” Beth turned to Marion.

“What’s going on?”

“A crazy story,” said Marion. “Johnny works construction. About five years ago they were demolishing a small building. They were finishing up inside. As you can see, Johnny is a short guy. When the foreman went to do a head count, he missed Johnny. He must have been bending down or something, who knows. Anyway, they blew the damn thing up with him still inside.”

“That’s terrible. Was he hurt?”

“Minor injuries, except they noticed a little later that he went berserk if anyone used an idiom or expression like the one I just used.”

“That’s strange,” said Beth.

“Tell me about it. Doctors still can’t figure it out. He’s a rock star in the unclassified mental disorders community.” Marion noticed Johnny seemed to calm down. Luce started leading him by the hand to the exit.

“Wait a second, Luce.” Marion intercepted her sister. “Hate to bring this up but what about…you know…mom’s will?”

“We’re not talking about any will until the priest gets here.” She turned to go, then wheeled back on Marion. “And watch what the hell you say around my husband.”

The wake got underway at 2pm as scheduled. By two thirty the family was seated in the first row. Marion looked back at the three long rows of chairs made straight as an arrow by the cowered Mr. Baldoni. At that moment a woman entered the room. Bent over, strands of white hair barely covering her head, she pushed along a walker with four shiny chrome wheels and matching chrome hand brakes. An oxygen bottle sat in a bracket mounted on the walker’s left side; a clear plastic tube attached to the tank split into two smaller tubes visible in each of the woman’s nostrils. An “Eat my Dust” sign hung from the front seat.

 A large man with a perpetual grin followed the woman as she made her way to the coffin. She closed her eyes and mouthed a prayer. She placed her hand on the coffin then made her way to the Zabretti family who were now all on their feet.

“Hello,” she said stopping in front of Luce. “I’m Bernadette Cosimano, an old friend of your mom’s. So sorry.” Luce put her arm around the old woman.

“Thank you,” said Luce. Marion pointed to the sign.

“Nice sign,” she said. “Really cute.”

“Comes in handy.” Her eyes twinkled in an old cute person sort of way. “Especially when I have to haul ass for somethin’ I did at the home.” Luce laughed uncomfortably. Torre came to the rescue.

“Thanks for coming. How did you know our mom?”

“Oh, me and Mary go way back. Went to St. Paul’s on Greenville Avenue together. We were in the same class.”

“How sweet is that,” said Beth unconsciously massaging her bowling arm.

“Yup. Mary and I made our first communion together…sang in the choir…received confirmation…”

“Adorable,” said Luce shaking her head.

“Snuck our first cigarette in the girl’s bathroom. Nun smelled the smoke but couldn’t figure out who did it. She was madder than a pissed-on chicken.” Johnny fell back in his seat and instantly assumed a fetal position.

“What’s wrong with him?”

“Nothing, Mrs. Cosimano,” said Luce as she went to Johnny and began rubbing his temples. “Relax…relax…it’s okay,” she said. Mrs. Cosimano laughed.

“He looks like 90 percent of the people back at the home. Anyway, where was I?” She looked back at the large man, his hands folded in front of him still grinning.

“Smoking in the bathroom,” he said.

“Oh, right. Let’s see, we had our first drink together…” Luce stood up.

“Really, Mrs. Cosimano. That’s enough…”

“…And our first refer…”

“Don’t stop her, Luce, she’s on roll,” laughed Marion.

“Must have been 1966 or 67. Hell of a year, did lots of pot. Lots of cute boys were around then.” She smiled as she leaned over her walker. “We did them too.” Torre stifled a laugh. Beth swung her harm as though throwing a ball down an alley. Luce gave up and fell back on her chair.

“Well, sorry again for your loss. She was a great gal, kind with a sense of humor that would make a stone sculpture crack a smile.” Johnny moaned as he dropped his head in his hands. She pointed to the large man behind her. “He’s my ride. Gotta get back. I promised a gentleman caller I’d do him a favor.”  She winked at the group. “I’ll probably have to take my teeth out for that one.”

The afternoon wore on and only two more visitors showed. One was a woman who worked with Luce at the local motor vehicle agency. She brought a card signed by her other co-workers. Marion remarked to Beth that was much easier than actually showing up at the wake.

The next-door neighbor, a man in his 50s who mowed the lawn for Mary, stopped by to pay his respects and let everyone know he would no longer be cutting the lawn.

“I mean, who’s gonna pay me, right?” he remarked. Marion laughed mechanically as she gently shoved him out of the room. She shook her head as she sat down next to her brother.

“So, Torre, still working for that construction company?”

“No, I’m a sales associate for a lumber yard.” Torre unbuttoned his suit jacket, his large belly spilling over his belt. “But that’s only temporary. I got this idea.” He leaned in to her, his breath coming in short heaves. “I got an idea for a TV show on one of those home improvement networks.” He patted his stomach. “The name of my show…” He raised his hands in the air and looked between them as though reading a sign that had suddenly appeared there. “…My Gut Feeling.” Marion raised her eyebrows then frowned. Torre continued.

“Tagline…Your Gusty Home Improvement Guru.” He slapped his knees. “The graphic is a tool belt around my gut. What do you think?”

“Sounds like another show about flipping houses,” said Marion.

“Yeah, but I can provide insights from my wealth of construction experience.”

“But weren’t you usually the guy who directed traffic at road construction sites? Not exactly useful info, if you ask me.” Marion regarded him for a moment and slowly nodded. “How about coming to work for me?”

“You know I ain’t got those kinda’ credentials,” said Torre.

“But you got a contact…me. How you think I cracked the good ole boy investment banking network?”

“You had your fancy NYU MBA.”

“No guarantee. But I was smart. I joined a tennis club where a lot of investment bankers were members. Played in high school, remember?”

“Yeah,” said Torre. “You used to beat the hell out of me in front of my friends. Embarrassing.”

“And I beat the snot out of them until one of them said someone as aggressive as me should be working for him. That’s how I made the jump to Wall Street.” She leaned in confidentially. “I could be your jump.”

“Forget it, Marion. I don’t need my big sister to rescue me.”

Marion looked at her watch and was about to say something to Beth when a young woman entered the room. She paused letting her eyes adjust to the dim light. 

“Over here.” Marion smiled as she and Beth rose to meet the young girl. They each took an arm and led her to the group.

“You all remember our daughter, Juanita. Juanita, you remember your Aunt Luce, my sister, and her husband, Johnny. And my brother, you’re Uncle Torre.”  Juanita’s long black hair draped over her cell phone, her dark eyes fixed on it as she texted. The pecking sounds made by her fingernails filled the abrupt silence.

“Say hello,” exhorted Beth. Juanita grinned as she looked up for a moment and waved with one hand, her other hand still texting. Beth pulled Juanita into the seat next to her.

“Wow. I haven’t seen you since you were a little one,” said Luce. “How old are you now?”

“She’s 17,” said Beth as her daughter continued texting. Marion grabbed her phone.

“Sweetie, can you stop that please? Its rude.” Juanita’s head bobbled back and forth as she spoke.

“How come it’s not rude for you, mi querida madre?” She looked at the others. “She talks on that phone all the time…even when she sits on the toilet.”

“That’s enough, Juanita.” Marion cleared her throat. “Juanita’s attending an art sleep away camp for the summer.” She patted Juanita’s head. “She fancies herself an artist. Beth and I think it’s a great hobby.”

“It’s much more than a hobby,” said Juanita looking up from her phone.

“Never mind,” said Marion. “You’re here to pay your respects to your grandmother.”

“Okay,” she said as she rose. Halfway on her way to the coffin, Juanita stopped.

“Oh, by the way,” she said turning around.  “I forgot to tell you. My roommate at camp got COVID.” Marion and Beth exchanged glances. Before Juanita could say another word, they pounced on her, dragging her back and pinning her down in one of the seats.

“Where is your mask…get me a mask,” said Marion. Beth reached in her purse and took out a blue surgical mask. Beth grabbed her arms as Marion stretched it across her face and hooked the loops to her ears. Juanita jumped up her words pulsating as though trying to break through the mask.

“What are you doing, you two locas? You didn’t let me finish. That was three weeks ago. I don’t need no mask.” She attempted to take it off. Marion held up her hand.

“No, you should keep it on,” she said. “It’s for your own good.”

“Huh. You mean for your own good. After all, I might make you sick, you might have to miss a day of your precious work.”

“Calm down, Juanita.” Beth went to touch her arm but Juanita batted her hand away.

“Sure, mia madre, don’t I always?” She rolled the mask up in her hands and placed it in her pocket. “I’m going to the little girl’s room, then I’ll be back to say goodbye to my abuela.” She lifted her index finger in the air. “And just so you know, I’m not going to college in the fall. I’m going to art school.” Juanita resumed her texting a she turned and exited the room. Marion smiled weakly at the others.

“Teenagers. She’ll calm down.”

“Sounds like she wants to go to art school,” said Torre.

“I’m already a patron of the arts with this one,” said Marion, jerking her thumb at Beth. “She’s going to college. I want her to take care of herself, make money.” Just then, a man appeared in the doorway and peered into the room.

“Oh. The priest is here,” said Luce, getting up and motioning for him to enter. “Everyone, this is Father…uh…”

“Kerala…Father Onka Kerala,” the priest said, rolling his mouth around each syllable of his name like it was a giant marble.

“Sorry, Father, I had a momentary lapse there.”

“That’s okay. It’s an Indian name,” he said nodding to the group. “Sometimes hard to remember. Please…just call me Father Onkar.”  Marion whispered to Beth.

“That doesn’t sound any easier.” Beth shushed her.

Father Onkar walked slowly to the coffin, his black cassock making whooshing sounds as it brushed against the tops of his shoes. A shock of black hair stuck out form the top of his head held in place by a noticeably greasy hair tonic. He clutched a bible to his chest like a shield. He stopped, bowed to the coffin, then turned toward the group.

“Now before I say a prayer and give a final blessing, I thought it might be comforting if any of you would first like to say a word d about your loved one.” He continued rocking back and forth. “Anyone?” he said.  Juanita appeared in the doorway and spoke as she entered the room.

“I just want to say my abuela was a great lady, always nice to me. Gave me money every time I went to see her. She knew I was saving up to see my father in Guadalahoorah, Mexico.”

“That’s …jara,” said Beth, pinching the bridge of her nose with her thumb and forefinger. “Guadalajara, Mexico.”

“Whatever,” shrugged Juanita. “Anyway, she was sweet and I’m gonna miss her.” She sat down and resumed texting.

“Thank you, young lady. Anyone else?” Torre raised his hand. He held it there.

“You’re not in school,” chided Marion. “You don’t have to wait to be called on.”

“Oh,” said Torre. “Okay, I just want to say that she was a good mom.” Torre sniffed hard as he reached for a handkerchief in his trouser pocket.

“Thank you. Anyone else?” asked Father Onkar. Luce, Johnny, Marion and Beth avoided his stare.  “No? Okay, then, let us pray.” Father Onkar opened his bible using a red cloth bookmark. “Father, we commend the soul of our dear sister, Elizabeth, into—”

“Mary,” shouted Luce. “Her name was Mary.” She buried her face in her hands. Father Onkar looked at his sheet of paper.

“But here it says the name is—”

“It doesn’t matter what your paper say, Father Oshkosh or whatever you name is. Her name is Mary.” Marion turned to Luce. “Were did you find this guy?”

“Knock it off, Marion.”

“No, I’m serious. Is he saying the Mass tomorrow? Better make sure he has the right address for the church. Who knows…he might show up at a synagogue.”

“I said, shut up, Marion.”

“While we’re at it, who picked out the coffin?” Marion stood up and gestured at the coffin like she was throwing something at it. “It looks like Dracula’s day bed.”

“Enough, Marion. Enough!” Luce jumped up, the chair rocking back and forth in response. “Excuse me, Father.” She turned back to Marion. “I’ve had it with you. Think you can waltz in here and take over? Yeah, I picked out the coffin because you weren’t here. Just like you weren’t here when mom was sick, or she needed a ride to the doctor, or needed her diaper changed. Too busy with your life, so much so we haven’t seen your daughter in years, you didn’t know I moved or that Torre lives in Pennsylvania. Hell, you got married never told anybody, moved to a fancy house in the Hamptons that none of us have ever seen and now you come back here and have the nerve to criticize? All I ask is that you sit there, show some respect for mom and most of all, shut up.” Johnny straightened out her chair and led a shaking Luce into it. Marion sighed.

“Chill, Luce. So we’re a little dysfunctional,” said Marion.

“You have to first be a functioning family before you can be called dysfunctional,” said Luce, her voice quavering with each word. Johnny put his arm around her. Father Onkar cleared his throat as he looked down at his bible. He looked up suddenly and with a wide grin on his face addressed the family.

“Let us say a prayer for the peaceful…,” he raised his index finger, “…peaceful…repose of Mary’s soul.”

“We all here?” Luce stood up and looked at everyone. “Okay. So’s you know. Mom’s will is going to be formally read at her lawyer’s office in a couple of weeks. Mom wanted me to read a letter she wrote, you know, so you’d have an idea what’s gonna be in it and all.” She waved the paper she held at Marion. “So, Marion. The moment you’ve been waiting here. I think you should read it.”

“Oh.” Marion retrieved a pair of reading glasses from her purse. She put them on and, taking the letter from Luce, stood in front of the coffin, facing the group. She cleared her throat as she began to read.

“If you’re reading this, I’m probably stuffed in a coffin at Baldoni’s (don’t let the cheap bastard talk you into something made out of crappy wood).” Marion looked around to make sure Mr. Baldoni wasn’t in ear shot. She continued.  “I want solid steel enveloping my ass.” Marion continued reading.

“Overall, I’d say I had a good life. Your father was a good man who died way too soon, but that couldn’t be helped. You were all pretty much good kids. Drove me crazy once in a while, but you may have noticed I had small bottles placed in strategic locations around the house. ‘Mother’s little helper,’ as Mick Jagger put it.  Anyway, since this is my last hurrah, I’m gonna tell it like it is (like we flower children used to say in the 60s after taking a toke and passing the pot along).

“Marion, Torre, Luce…I love you dearly, but I am so disappointed in you. Like so many people in this country, you claim to be a family…family values and all that. But when was the last time you spoke to each other.? Or visited each other?” Marion looked up at Luce and Torre who were both staring at the floor. “Marion, seems like you’re way too busy making money. Torre, there’s’ more to life than getting a show on HGTV (who the hell wants to watch a show called ‘My Gut Says.’ Especially one featuring your gut.)

“And Luce. Instead of organizing yourself into oblivion, why not pop out a couple of kids? It might give you and Johnny something useful to do.

“As far as my will goes, I know I’m expected to leave what I have to my family, but the three of you haven’t behaved much like one. The only one who’s acted like family is Juanita. Dear, sweet Nita.” Marion’s words actually made Juanita stop texting for almost 10 seconds. “She’s the only one who makes time to visit me and well she actually taught me how to text.”  Juanita smiled as she held up her phone.

“Just sent her one.” She read from her phone. “Miss your already, grandma. You don’t have to answer. LOL.” Marion continued reading.

“I know Marion and Beth love her and have given her a good life. But I can tell she needs more, especially from Marion. She needs a real mother, not a money-making machine in designer pants.” Marion frowned as she looked at Beth, then at Juanita. She refocused her yes on the page.

“Regarding my estate, it will be split equally among my three children: Marion, Torre and Luce. Finally, now that you’re all here, there is one thing you can do for me. I want to be buried with my cat. I know you all think that’s pretty creepy, but that’s my last wish. And by the way, I got one last question for you all. Is my cat really dead?

“Chew on that for a while. In the immortal words of Porky Pig…Duh Duhh, Duh Duhh, Duh Duhh…That’s all folks.” Marion frowned as she folded the letter in her hand.

“What cat?” asked Marion.

“Oh,” said Luce a she reached into a shopping bag next to her seat. She retrieved a small, white box tied with a gold ribbon in the shape of a cross and held it up. “Say hello to Schroeder, mom’s cat, and the one she has chosen to share eternity with.”

The family sat quietly as Mr. Baldoni opened the coffin and gently placed the cat’s ashes at her feet. Luce jumped up.

“No, Mr. Baldoni. She’d want the cat up by her arm.” Mr. Baldoni turned around and raised his hands up to his head as though shielding himself from a blow. He shrugged, then did as she asked.

“Why, so she can pet it?’ Torre grunted a laugh.

“She did seem to think it was alive.” Marion shifted uncomfortably in her seat. “What the hell was that all about anyway? I mean, it’s dead, right?” Luce sat sideways on the chair as she faced Marion.

“Funny thing about that. The cat was looking pretty sick a few weeks ago. I get up one morning and it was dead, lying next to her. I took it and buried it in the backyard. Mom was pretty out of it by then and she kept asking for it. Next thing I know, the dead cat’s in her arms.”

“How did that happen?” asked Marion.

“The crazy dog dug it up and brought it to her. He’s a retriever, that’s what he does.” They all stared blankly at her. “Retrieve.” Luce took a deep breath. “Anyway, I buried it deeper, but the dog dug it up again and brought it to mom. This happened a couple of times until I finally decided to cremate the little twit. Next time she asked for him I gave her the box.”

“Not really very sensitive there, Luce,” said Marion.

“Yeah, but it seemed to work. I swear she sat there petting the box and cooing at it like Schroeder was still there.” The group grew silent.

“But what did mom mean when she asked if her cat was really dead?” Marion stroked her chin as she stared at the coffin. Johnny leaned forward in his seat.

“I can’t help but think of that cat in the box thing.,” he said. “You know, the cat is in there but if no one actually sees it, it’s technically alive and dead at the same time.”

“Well, I saw the cat and it was definitely dead,” said Luce. “Like that Monte Python dead parrot sketch.”

“But mom saw the cat as alive,” said Beth. “And in that Monte Python thing, Michael Palin insisted the parrot was alive.”

“Yeah, but like I said, I saw that the cat was dead,” said Luce. “I mean, I buried it.”

“But the dog saw it as alive,” insisted Marion. “Because he dug it up and brought it inside.” Luce couldn’t help raising her voice.

“Then I took the cat…saw it was dead…and cremated it so the stupid dog wouldn’t keep digging it up and bringing it in the house.”

“So, if we put the cat’s ashes in the coffin, we are declaring that it is indeed dead.” Torre rubbed his fingers over his lips.

“Along with mom,” said Marion. “But we can’t see inside the coffin. Does that mean the cat…” She slapped her forehand. “Never mind. I…I still don’t know what this all means.” Juanita stopped texting suddenly and stood up. She smiled, revealing a row of white, niblet-corn teeth.

“We can’t be family if we don’t see each other now and then. When we’re out of touch, we’re like grandma’s cat. We don’t know who’s alive or dead. I’m gonna text that to grandma. She’ll like that.” Juanita sat down and began texting with a vengeance.

A deafening silence filled the room. All eyes were focused on the coffin and the picture of their mother on a pedestal next to it with her hippie clothes and granny glasses smiling like a cat who just ate a bird. 



BIO

Joe Cappello lives and writes in the picturesque desert country of Galisteo, New Mexico. His short story, “The Secret of the Smiling Rock Man,” won first place in the National Federation of Press Women’s 2022 Communication contest, short story category. A memoir, “Once Upon a Midnight” received an honorable mention in the 2022 Southwest Writers writing contest. His one act play, “Monarch,” won the Susan Hansell Drama Contest 2022.







On Being Deciduous

by James McKee


Nothing like a storm
to blazon the wisdom
of wintering trees
that jettison their leaves.

Scrapping the glory
of an emerald canopy
lets them resist
wind-lash less:

not much can snag
on a skeletal twig.
The lushly-attached
gets its branches snapped.

They collude with loss
to claim, as their choice
from the catalog of griefs,
one spring relieves.




Off into the Sunset


There I go, sauntering along
as if I don’t notice
this bright amber evening already
auditioning for your memory,
though naturally I do.
You can tell I’m savoring how
this magic-hour sunlight
ignites tiny tiaras atop the upper edges
of each sombre object I pass
(car, stopsign, mailbox, car, wall),
like a swarm of small dawns I’ll remember
to describe for you later—
meaning now—
as a sizzlation,
but not just yet.
I’m still basking in the facets
that gleam from bark and steel and brick,
flecked with a luster that will linger
just an instant longer,
though now it’s arrested here.
Sort of. Anyway,
it looks like your mind—
your lovely, captious, queasy mind—is content
to cavort among these surfaces too, as if
the world’s tide of misery
has receded somewhere far beyond earshot,
exposing this block’s homely treasures
for us to admire with the just-
barely-not-ironic gusto
we share like a tic.
It can’t last; it doesn’t.
A sawtooth skyline steps in front of the sun,
some streetlamps blip on,
and the low-angled light
that’d made even the East River look good
for a moment,
departs. As do I.
You’ve plugged yourself back in,
and by the time you surface
from the cyan screenglow of your pent-up phone,
there’s nothing left to forget
but the moment I turned the corner
into everything that happens next.




A Visit from the E-Muse


Wow. Looks like someone needs a hug.
Lucky for you I’ve always gone
for that undead-at-noon affect,
that but-it’s-freezing sweat-glaze.
Mimic my insomniac speech-gush
all you like, but you’ll never
match my scorched-earth aplomb.
Let’s spare you a trip to the FAQs:
I awe like a diva with my avatars,
smack a few fanboys around for show
before (lol) upvoting them. I’m as meta
as a fractal node. Gauge my reach
by counting up the screens I cloud
with an ammoniac sheen of rage.

Want in, noob? Launch no threads
that don’t exclude, then just
keep subtracting till you belong
nowhere else. If anything I post
sounds like your cue to go full
IRL, you’ve read too many poems
I didn’t write. Asking what the memes
mean tags you as far too basic
to follow. Does anyone actually like
what they like? You’re not doing this right
unless you rig, for every mind
you’re mining, a playpen in the slag.

That’s it: just keep scrolling through
the troll-spew of comments to discover
your life-score, somewhere south
of loser. Don’t even, with the facepalm.
Remember our deal: you binge on a one-
quadrillionth wedge of bandwidth pie
as if my jonesing for quick hits of clicks
doesn’t matter, and I curate your uploads
as if they do. Don’t I keep your browser
barnacled in ads that contrive flattery
from hoarding your trivia, like a stalker?
You’re welcome. Remember what you said
would happen, if you ever caught me
livestreaming your bedroom again?
Me neither. Now, refresh that feed.




Víti, a Volcanic Lake in Iceland

                                                                                                for A.

Charcoal uplands, barren and crumpled.
Lunar distances, a serrated horizon,
low murky skies. Rain this morning.
Rain again soon.

A puddled uphill path, slimy
with trodden ochre mud, skirting
the pipes and outbuildings of a hydrothermal plant,
sleek and toylike and alien
against this jagged umber sea
of scabbed-over lava.

At the top of the rise, more mud
slickening the approach to the unfenced rim
of a fissured escarpment.
Down where the crater
plunges like a puncture,
our first glimpse of what we came for:
a blown-glass pool, improbably blue,
aglow like a sapphire ember,
stoked by breaths from a sun
slathers of cloud keep hidden.

We look and look,
but discover nothing
of that unlikely color
for these waters to mirror.

And so,
almost dissuaded from fancying ourselves
as likewise bedded, jewel-bright,
amid broken tracts of circumstance
but not quite,

we turn away as one
into the weather coming swiftly on.





BIO

James McKee enjoys failing in his dogged attempts to keep pace with the unrelenting cultural onslaught of late-imperial Gotham. His debut poetry collection, The Stargazers, was published in the otherwise uneventful spring of 2020, while his poems and essays have appeared or are forthcoming in Burningword Literary Journal, Spoon River Poetry Review, Another Chicago Magazine, New Ohio Review, Grist, New World Writing, Illuminations, CutBank, Flyway, THINK, The MacGuffin, and elsewhere. He spends his free time, when not writing or reading, traveling less than he would like and brooding more than he can help.







The Best We Can

By William Cass


My parents told me about my mother’s affair, if it could be called that, when we met at the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco just after I’d turned thirty.  They’d come out from Pittsburgh and were staying there for one of my father’s last business conventions before his retirement.  I’d flown down from my teaching job in Juneau, Alaska, to see them and stay with an old friend from college.

Their room was on the thirty-fourth floor.  They sat side by side in tall, elegant armchairs separated by a small table.  I stretched out against the headboard of their bed across from them.  It was about 4:30 in the afternoon, and through the big windows behind my parents, the late October light had already begun to fall over the city.

When I’d first arrived, my father had made us all vodka tonics.  We’d caught up on my brothers and sister, how my father’s keynote speech had gone the night before, and the progress on the retirement home they were building in Hilton Head, South Carolina.

Then he simply said, “Your mother has a bit of news.  She’s slept with her old boyfriend from high school.”

The room was still for a long moment until my mother said evenly, “‘Slept’ is an exaggeration.  We were in the backseat of his car at a park.  It was over like that.”

She clicked her fingers.  They both looked at me blankly.

I shook my head slowly.  “I don’t know what to say.  I can’t believe it.”

“Neither could I,” my father said.  He took a long swallow from his drink and held the glass on the top of his knee. 

My mother sighed.  “It was just a ridiculous, impulsive thing.  One time.  Never before.  Never again.  I was in an emotional state.  It was when I was up there in Connecticut to move your grandpa into the convalescent hospital.”

I sat forward and blurted, “The back of his car?”

“He’d heard I was there to move Daddy’s things.  It’s a small town.  He came by the house one night.  We went for a drive.”

She shrugged.  They both continued to look at me intently.  It seemed like they were waiting for me to pass some sort of judgment.

Finally, I asked, “Do the other kids know?”

My father shook his head.  “You’re the oldest.”

I extended my gaze over their heads at the dwindling light against the tops of the city’s buildings and wondered why my mother had told him anything about it at all.

I looked back and forth at each of them and asked, “So what happens now?”

My father pursed his lips.  “I don’t know.  We don’t know.  No current plans.  The truth is…”  He shook the ice in his glass.  “The truth is I’ve ignored your mother for some time…her needs.”

I’m not sure what it was I saw on my father’s face at that moment, whether it was fear or vulnerability or something else, but I know I’d never seen it there before.  The rock-solid stoicism I’d grown to simply accept as his persona – the star athlete, the successful corporate executive, the stern family patriarch – was gone.

“We haven’t been emotionally available to each other for some time,” my mother said.

“Whatever it’s called,” my father mumbled.

I watched my mother lower her face, then turn it away from him toward the hotel room door.

I ended the awkwardness shortly after that by contriving excuses to leave.  We made vague arrangements to have brunch together the next morning before they flew home.  But before the elevator had even reached the lobby, I knew I would break those plans.  I had nothing more to ask or say to them about what they’d told me and couldn’t imagine making small talk about anything else.

~

I relocated to Seattle a couple of summers later and met the woman who would become my wife at an orientation for teachers new to the district where we were both hired.  After the wedding, we were able to buy a small, older home just up from Lake Washington on the eastside, and worked together fixing it up for the next few years until our son, Ben, was born.  No one could have prepared us for that.  He was severely disabled with a smorgasbord of developmental, physical, and neurological problems.  He spent the first six weeks after birth in the NICU where the dymsorphologist who treated him there told us that kids like Ben rarely survived more than a handful of years.  He was in and out of the hospital thereafter every few months for pneumonias and surgeries.  It was during one of those admittances when Ben was seven that my wife announced that she’d become involved with another teacher at her school.  She said they were moving together to Madison, Wisconsin, to enroll in a graduate program in art history, a subject in which I’d never known her to have any interest. 

At the time, we were sitting in a little ante-room in the med-surg wing at Seattle’s Children’s Hospital waiting for Ben’s surgeon to come let us know how the procedure to insert a feeding tube into his stomach had gone.

She said, “I’m done being a martyr.  I need to take care of myself.  I have a right to be happy.”

“But,” I stammered.  “You never said a word.  I didn’t know…never had the chance…”

She looked at me coldly.  Her eyes narrowed.  “I can’t worry about your feelings.  I can only deal with my own.”

The surgeon entered the room, still wearing his scrubs and operating cap.  He smiled and said, “Everything went well.  Everything is going to be all right.”

She nodded earnestly in that way she had when listening to someone.  It had the effect of making the speaker feel immediately connected, acknowledged, and respected.  So, the surgeon directed the rest of his comments to her.  I sat numb and didn’t hear a word he said.

After my wife left, Ben had to stay in the medically fragile center of the hospital for better than a year because the first fundoplication had gone bad right away and the doctors decided upon a very gradual and careful titration of his feeds with the new feeding tube.  He stayed on a continuous twenty-hour drip for seven weeks before they were finally able to slowly increase his intervals to greater bolus volumes.  Towards the end of that time, he had a tracheostomy to help manage his secretions and then two additional surgeries to move his testicles down their canals closer to where they would have normally been.  The customary recovery time was involved after each, so it was several more months before I could begin trying to arrange the contract home nursing needed to have him discharged.  In the end, I was able to find nursing to cover my work hours, but overnight shifts only three times a week, so had to manage the rest myself.  His care needs were round-the-clock, so I didn’t have a lot of time for much else.

~

My parents made a yearly visit my way to Seattle for a week each spring.  Over the ensuing years after that afternoon in San Francisco, nothing much changed in their relationship that I could see.  It seemed to me that they had fashioned their mutual co-existence with something between bewildered acceptance and silent resignation.  In retirement, my father’s countenance and self-reliance gradually deflated like a balloon left behind a couch, and this became exacerbated as his hearing loss worsened, even with the most technologically advanced of aids.  His golf games dwindled from four or five a week to once or twice a month, a decline that accompanied the degree to which my parents associated with friends.  More and more, their days involved long periods of time sitting in separate blue recliners in front of the television reading sections of the newspaper, while my father kept one eye on whatever sports show played and my mother shouted tidbits to him from articles that caught her fancy over the volume’s din.

Their collective general health slowly deteriorated.  After my father’s second heart attack and my mother’s first, we convinced them to move closer to one of the kids.  They finally sold their retirement home and bought a cottage in a lovely graduated assisted living community on the Deschutes River in Bend, Oregon, near my sister, Beth, and her family.  That made sense because she was the youngest and still had two small children with whom my parents planned to help.  Although that assistance never materialized, Beth or her husband could take them to their medical appointments and lend a hand in managing their other affairs as needed, so it was an improved arrangement.  However, shortly after arriving, my father began waxing nostalgic for Hilton Head, claimed that we forced him to move, and bitterness began to invade the shell that quickly became his final internal retreat. 

On their last visit before my father died, my mother brought some old photographs to give me.  She said she’d chosen a batch for each of the kids because they’d otherwise just sit untouched in a box in their attic.  I looked through them that first morning as we ate breakfast together at my dining room table.  It was already warm, so I had the French doors to the porch open.  Ben sat in his wheelchair in the doorway where he could feel the sunlight across his lap and squawk when he heard the birds.

The order and arrangement of the photos seemed to be completely half hazard.  There were some of my parents as far back as their days together at the University of Connecticut and then snippets of various family members – mostly different combinations of my four siblings and me, and later of our own families – over the years at holidays, vacations, and special occasions.  Because they were so scattered, I found myself arranging them chronologically and, in so doing, watching us all grow and age in rapid succession.

I laid two photographs of my parents that struck me side by side on the table. They were both engrossed in their newspapers and didn’t even glance over.  One snapshot was black and white from their honeymoon.  My father had his arm around my mother, squinting with one eye into the sun behind the camera.  They were leaning against a railing in front of a waterfall: handsome, robust, their serene expressions full of confidence and promise. 

The second couldn’t have been taken too long beforehand.  In it, they sat side by side at the little wicker table on their screened-in back porch in Hilton Head picking crab from shells in a bowl.  It must have been among their last crabbing outings there, which was one of their only shared pastimes.  They’d walk down under the bridge below the lagoon behind their house, and my mother would toss a chicken neck tied to a eight-foot string out into the brackish shallows at low tide.  When a blue shell crab approached and began to follow the bait, she would slowly recoil the string towards the bank where my father waited with a long-handled net to try to snatch it up and drop it in a plastic bucket.  On a good day, they could coax seven or eight crabs into the bucket in a couple of hours.  I knew that it reminded them fondly, as it did me, of our crabbing and clamming excursions years before on the Connecticut shore or Cape Cod.  In the picture, my father wore a startled expression and my mother grinned with her fingertips on his knee.

Somewhere in between those two photographs, they’d raised a family, our family, and tasted whatever satisfactions and disappointments life had in store for them. 

~

Two things happened when Ben turned twelve that were significant.  The first occurred on a rainy Sunday afternoon in the late fall.  I took him to the IMAX theater at the planetarium to see a new movie that had opened about the Annipurna Sanctuary in Nepal where I’d trekked when I was younger.  The theater had a small disabled seating section off to the side for wheelchairs with a couple of folding chairs for companions.  A woman about my age already occupied one of the chairs.  She was pretty.  In the wheelchair next to her, a man was tilted back ready for viewing.  His tongue lolled out of the side of the mouth.  She wiped the drool off his chin with a blue paisley bandana that was tucked into the collar of his shirt.

I arranged Ben in a similar fashion and sat down in the chair next to her.  When I glanced over, she was smiling gently at me.

“I’m Alice,” she said.  “This is my husband, Paul.”

I shook her hand, introduced Ben and myself, and we talked a bit before the show started.  She asked me about Ben’s prognosis.          

I said, “Undiagnosed genetic syndrome.”

“From birth then?”

I nodded.  “Paul?”

She sighed.  “Car accident a year and a half ago.  We were coming home from our daughter’s high school graduation.”

I swallowed and watched her look at him, then take his hand in his lap.

After the movie, she asked if I’d like to get coffee, and that started us doing things together with Ben and Paul every couple of months.  It was nice to spend time with a person with whom I shared similar circumstances.  Of course, that was as far as it could go.

The second thing was that, for the first time in his life, Ben hugged me back.  It may well have been just an unintentional reflex of some kind because it had never happened before and hasn’t since.  But that doesn’t matter…for a handful of seconds, it did.

~

Ben’s mom asked to see him again not too long ago, eleven years after she left.

As far as I know, she never married her lover, but they’d stayed together, and she called when they were passing through the area.  They drove over, but he stayed in the car, parked down the street.  I don’t know how to describe the way I felt when I answered the door – a cacophony of emotions, I guess, followed by emptiness.  Much as they had with me, the years had taken their toll on her.  She held herself with a cordial and dignified removal, but I saw something in her eyes that told me she was still the girl I’d married.

I brought her into Ben’s room where he was propped up in his bed in the middle of a feed. 

“Benny-boy,” she whispered and kissed his forehead.  He looked past her at whatever it was that he always gazed at. She rearranged and propped the pillows around

him, and I felt the old, painful, instinctive twinge of never doing things well enough for her.

She didn’t ask, but I gave her a summary of how Ben had been doing while we both looked at him and she stroked his hair.  Then we were silent.  I wondered what more it was that we could really talk about.  The motor on his feeding pump made its soft whee-whir.

“I’ll give you some time with him,” I said and left the room.

I busied myself in the kitchen, unloaded the dishwasher, rinsed out the coffee carafe, threw out the grounds.  Then I went into the sunroom, sat on the couch, and tried to grade some papers.  At one point, I thought I heard her reading aloud to him from one of the picture books on his shelves.  It may have been a book she bought for him; it probably was.  After a while, I was sure that I heard her singing softly to him a lullaby that had been a regular one for them when he was an infant.

I looked out the window at the picket fence we’d built together just after we bought the house and before Ben was born.  The climbing roses we’d planted on either side of the gate had grown over the arbor into a tangle of red bursts and green foliage that nodded now in the small breeze and sunlight.

Perhaps ten minutes more passed before she came to the front door, gave me one of her familiar, sad smiles, and said, “Thank you.”

I watched her go down the steps, through the gate, and up the sidewalk to where the car was parked under a tree.  I could just make out his figure behind the wheel in the

shadows.  Ben’s pump began to beep, signifying that his feed cycle had finished, and I went to turn it off.

~

Not long thereafter, my mother was diagnosed with a relatively mild case of Alzheimer’s disease.  She was about to turn seventy-six and had become increasingly forgetful the past few years, so we weren’t surprised.  Neither was she, though she was frightened by how debilitating the disease had become at the end of her own father’s life.  Her neurologist put her on a medication that he said might slow the process and directed her to be as active mentally, socially, and physically as possible.  She’d moved into an apartment in the lodge after my father’s death and already had a fair amount of acquaintances there.  With the diagnosis, she increased her canasta games to twice a week and began to take more meals in the dining hall with other residents.  She also joined an exercise class and got a subscription to a monthly word search magazine.  So, she did all right.

She still came here for her most recent visit.  Only a short, direct flight was involved, so there weren’t any travel problems.  But during our last phone conversation, my sister had expressed some new concerns about the dangers of her being on her own much longer.  Beth said that not too long before, she’d found a stove burner left on overnight when she went over to the apartment.  There was another recent occasion when they’d had to take her to the ER after she’d confused some of the medications she’d taken.  We both wanted her to maintain as much dignity and independence as possible, but Beth was wondering if the time wasn’t approaching when she’d need to move upstairs into skilled nursing, especially in light of her own family’s likely move to another state because of a pending work transfer for her husband.  Beth asked if I could talk to her about it; I said I would.

After we got home from the airport and settled, she did appear to me a little more fitful, more methodical.  Maintaining her daily routines seemed especially critical to her:

counting out her pills in the morning, taking care of her ilioscopy bag and all that entailed, fixing her tea and crustless toast for breakfast, pouring endlessly over the

newspaper, watching her afternoon talk shows on television.  She shuffled everywhere, and complained more about how she was always cold, how she couldn’t keep any weight on, about the blue veins in her legs and her sleeping troubles.  The glass rarely seemed half-full.

That first day, we walked up the street with Ben to a little café she’d always liked for lunch.  After our meals arrived, she told the waitress that her soup wasn’t hot enough and sent it back to be reheated.  She commented that the potato salad was all right, but not as flavorful as her own.

I finally said, “Tell me something good, Mom.  Something good that’s going on with you.”

“Well,” she said.  She took off her glasses and pinched the bridge of her nose before replacing them.  I could see that she was trying not to smile.  “Warren Marshall has been calling.”

“What’s that?” I vaguely remembered the name, but couldn’t place it.

“Warren.  My high school boyfriend.”

I thought of that afternoon in the St. Francis Hotel.  I said, “How? When?”

 “Well, he phoned me after he heard your father had died.  And he’s called several times since.  Just to check on me, he says.  We don’t talk about much.  I don’t think his marriage is a very happy one.  I’m not sure if he’s even married anymore.”

She took a sip of soup, it seemed to me, to hide the sparkle in her eyes.  The spoon trembled a bit in her hand.  I sat back and shook my head.  Who knew how many years she had left?  I thought about how much of life hinged on those things we could control and those things we couldn’t.  I thought about how we go about trying to fashion our truest selves.  I thought about how we all just do the best we can.

I heard myself say, “Why don’t you find out?”

She shrugged.  She looked out the window and set her spoon down.  “The last time he called, he talked about taking a trip out this way.  He has a grandson who goes to college in Portland.  Said he might rent a car and drive down to Bend.”

When she looked back at me, her lips were trembling a little, too, her eyes full of hope and fear and uncertainty.  She looked so small and frail.  In that moment, I knew there was no need for the conversation about skilled nursing; when the time came for that, I’d move her up to live with me.  I reached over and put my hand on top of hers.  I smiled, and she made a thin attempt to do the same.

After a while, she looked over my shoulder and said, “This is a nice place.  It doesn’t look new.  We should have come here before.”

I squeezed her hand and said, “You’re right, Mom.  We should have.”

Originally appeared in Conium Review (2013)



BIO

William Cass has had over 290 short stories accepted for publication in a variety of literary magazines such as decemberBriar Cliff Review, and Zone 3.  He won writing contests at Terrain.org and The Examined Life Journal. A nominee for both Best Small Fictions and Best of the Net anthologies, he has also received five Pushcart Prize nominations. His first short story collection, Something Like Hope & Other Stories, was published by Wising Up Press in 2020, and a second collection, Uncommon & Other Stories, was recently released by the same press. He lives in San Diego, California.







Graven Image

By David Sapp


Isn’t this all silly
A little embarrassing
(All because of Constantine’s
Very Christian mommy)
An old white guy
Is the object of our adoration
Our graven image
In mosaic fresco T-shirt
Who supposedly bestows
Comfort and joy
A doddering fogy well past
Wise sits on the throne
Why not Isis Horus or Mithras
Dionysos was fun fun fun
For that matter how about
If you insist upon a single entity
A golden calf
A tire a shoe a billiard ball
An ass or an elbow
(It is enough knowing
The difference between
No need for idolatry)
A penis a vagina
Yoni Almighty
A mouth or anus effigy
(Truly it’s not about the orifice)
As the only thing that makes
Any sense is love-making
How about a Disney princess
Or rotating pop stars
For the Virgin Mary
The color blue!
A Yves Klein painting
On every sacred altar
Andromeda the galaxy
Next door might work
Then again please consider
How about love?



Cardboard Pleasure


We crave we desire
Hanker at the very least
We gorge our orifices
Bottomless gullets
Yum yum yum
Implacable gourmands
We insist upon
A nameless hoard to
Manufacture our accumulations
Plush toys weed eaters flip flops
New and improved silicone
Battery-operated vibrator dildos
In stock and on sale now!
Ships bump at our shores
Brimming with our gluttony
Trains trucks men women
Push it all pull it all
Hurriedly here and there
Convenient cardboard pleasure
Buffets on our doorsteps
We sigh we moan
Sated for fleeting moments
And then used up we
Launch it all out our asses
Shove it all to the curb
It is the American Way
Wouldn’t you agree?
Eventually all that’s left
Are hills of empty plastic
Eventually all the dildos
Fill all the landfills for
A thousand years.
Eventually all the forests
Are shaved from our skin –
So much stubble on
Legs crotches chins
All that’s left is highly
Confidential memoranda
Regarding merchandise avarice
Receipts for our demise



A Precious Transience


As soon as the stars
Were born their deaths
Were inevitable
The stars are dimming
In their nativities
And we are informed
Physicists surmise
There are no more
We live out our days
Indifferently act as if
There are plenty of stars
To go around
Our vision narrows
To what’s within the frame
Of our bedroom window
We busy ourselves
We obsess we squabble
Over petty details
We deny and we deny
The heavens fade
Our sun like us
Increasingly fragile dies
A little more each day
And a lifetime is
Required to comprehend
Our stark predicament
In the meantime
How are we not
At every moment
A precious transience
Reflecting upon the depths
Of space the spinning
Of distant galaxies?
How are we not
Spending our last
Hours making love
Or playing with children
Or holding one another
In our demise?





BIO

David Sapp, writer, artist, and professor, lives along the southern shore of Lake Erie in North America. A Pushcart nominee, he was awarded Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Grants for poetry and the visual arts. His poetry and prose appear widely in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. His publications include articles in the Journal of Creative Behavior, chapbooks Close to Home and Two Buddha, a novel Flying Over Erie, and a book of poems and drawingstitled Drawing Nirvana.

A Letter from the Batcave

By Charles Joseph Albert


Dear Alfred:

I’m sorry I haven’t written in a while. But you know how I said things were getting dicier with Bruce? Well, it’s gotten worse. I think it’s depression. He never goes out any more. Not even in the Batmobile, which would be so easy—it pretty much just drives itself, you know. 

I started noticing this about two months ago. It started with a Bat Signal one night. (You know they quit shining a spotlight, right? The alerts come through on the Bat Watch, now.) We suit up and fly the Bat Copter to an address we’d been texted, and sure enough, there’s Joker in the middle of a robbery. Or his henchmen are—they’ve blown a hole in the bank wall, and they’re loading bags of money into a Transit Rideshare van. Joker’s only directing. He’s got Parkinson’s pretty bad these days, you know. Says it’s our fault, from all the times he’s taken a punch to the head. Did you know there’s even a lawsuit?

But let me stay focused. When we get there, the henchmen all start shooting at us, of course, and I run up and clobber them through the usual hail of bullets. That part’s pretty standard and you’ve seen me do it a thousand times. I’m by myself still—Bruce has gone back to the Bat Copter make sure he locked the door. He catches up with me in a minute, which is fine—I mean, it’s not a problem. I’m wearing bullet-proof armor and I have the new skeleto-suit anyway. I can do the whole thing solo. It’s actually easier without him. 

Which I think is part of the problem. I mean, he’s fifty-three. He’s slowed down a lot. And he forgets stuff. I know that kind of bugs him.

Anyway, we knock out the henchmen, and Bruce goes over to get Joker, gets the Bat Cuffs out and all, and they’re doing that repartee thing they do, and Bruce is like, “I’m going to feel these bruises tomorrow,” and Joker’s all, “You know what kind of lousy medical care there is in jail?”

Out from the hole in the bank’s wall comes this teenager. All face paint, purple suit, the whole bit. Bruce and I are like, “Wait, what?” And Joker’s like, “Dudes, meet my son Jack. Jack of Spades.”

Well, I’m still cuffing henchmen, but I’m keeping an eye on this, right? Cause, I mean, the Jack dude is mean-looking. Scrawny, but you could see something off in his eyes. Also, he’s moving jerky. Stumbles on his way through the hole, and when he jumps toward Bruce he shoots way past him. Which means he’s got a skeleto-suit, too. You can tell when someone is wearing one, ‘cause when they walk, they’re all bouncing around like they’re in reduced gravity. Super hard to control, too. And this Jack dude still hadn’t gotten the full hang of it, right? I mean, Bruce should take him, easy. Easily, I mean.

But Bruce isn’t quick enough. Jack tries again, and this time he gets a good right cross to Bruce’s jaw, and down he goes. I make a move to go help, but Bruce shoots me this awful look—it’s pure fury, Alfred. Hatred, almost. I’m trying to not take it personally, because he doesn’t want some younger guy taking down the kid who beat him to the punch. Literally.

So I back off. Let him redeem himself. Only that’s when Joker lifts up one of his crutches, and it’s an RPG. And he points it right at Bruce’s head.

I swear, if you could have seen the expression on Bruce’s face (I mean in his eyes, ‘cause that’s all you can see, right?) it would have just broken your heart. I mean, we’re used to Bruce being it, you know? You and me, we were his crew, and he was Top Dog. But this look in his eyes are anything but Top Dog. It’s utter terror. Like, he is not in control. He’s more like someone who’s about to lose his shorts. And also sad, in a way, too. You know? Sad, like, shoot, I should have disarmed Joker first. I mean, Cardinal Rule, right? Disarm the villain… then repartee. 

Bruce starts to react, but Joker has the drop on him, you know? So Bruce has, like, no hope.

Except I’ve already popped off a shot with the Batarang, knocking Joker’s RPG sideways. His shot goes wide, and instead of blowing Bruce’s head off, all that happens is a burn on his lips from the rocket fire going past. His mask protects the rest.

Well, I take out Jack, which is a piece of cake—the kid doesn’t know the first thing about real fighting. And he has the disadvantage of Joker’s physique—kind of squirrely. Next I have Joker disarmed and cuffed. So everything’s wrapped up neatly and I’m trying to usher Bruce back to the chopper.

But he shrugs my hand off of his shoulder, like, don’t touch me! 

OK, I figure, he just got burned, and maybe he’s a bit sensitive about forgetting to disarm Joker. So I back off. Again. 

But then I make the mistake of heading for the driver’s seat of the copter. Bruce gets all, “What’s the matter? Don’t think I remember how to fly this thing?” And there’s that look in his eye again. 

I shrug and walk back around to the passenger seat, and I can see that he’s in pain from the burn, but he’s obviously trying to make a point here, so I just pretend I don’t notice. And we head home. 

At the wrong altitude. 

We’re flying to Wayne Manor from the west, which means we need to be at 1500 feet, not 1000 feet. The thousands are for aircraft coming in from a north-south axis. Five hundreds are for east-west. And I’m starting to freak, right? I’m imagining some kind of mid-air collision, instant death in a fireball, like what happened to that guy, Hawkeye. Get your elevation wrong, you’re screwed. 

I can see the lights from an incoming craft, and I’m bugging. But how to bring it to Bruce’s attention? I mean, A, he’s in a really foul mood. And B, he just got beat to the punch by some Joker-in-training-pants.

The plane is heading straight for us, but there’s still time to maneuver. So I blurt out, “Hey, Bruce, the altitude—” 

And then, Whoosh

The Bat Copter goes into a spiral dive, and it’s only thanks to Bruce’s spectacular flying skills that we stabilize. You might think he’d be proud of himself for saving our cans, but now he’s all pissed that he was flying the wrong altitude. And he knows I know it, too. And he’s all, “Goddamn it, Dick, why didn’t you say something earlier? Could have fucking lost our shit right there!”

You know things have gone south when Batman swears.

“Trying not to piss you off,” I grunt. 

Boy, does that clam him up. The rest of that flight home is more awkward than a Justice League/Avengers joint picnic.

He goes straight to the shower when we got home. Doesn’t say another word to me. Or to Mr. Mitzumi, who was waiting with a hot sake and a terrycloth robe. (He passes on his regards, by the way.)

That’s where we’ve been, ever since. I handle the next three calls we get by myself. I do it my way, too, like I’ve always been saying I would: I bring the Bat Bots and I set up a perimeter using Siri and Alexa. 

I kept thinking maybe Bruce just needed some time off, or something. But each time I come back from a call, he’s even deeper in his funk. He’s already drunk through half of the Bat Cellar, and he’s binge-watching COPS. I can hear him late into the night, throwing popcorn at the detectives and calling them names.

The other day he happens to overhear a call I didn’t even go to, I just sent the Bat Bots without me. I was watching them on the monitors, and he leans over my shoulder and goes, “Holy Drone Strike, Robin! Did I not teach you anything?” 

And I try not to take offense, so instead I go, “Check it, B-Man! I just nabbed a purse-snatcher remotely!” 

And he goes, “That isn’t real crime fighting. You need a human there, not a machine!” And he staggers off. Trips on a stalactite on his way back to the Bat recliner. 

I’m kind of at my wit’s end, Alfred. If you’ve got any suggestions, I’m all ears. I can’t imagine leaving Bruce after all he’s done for me, but things are getting real. For the past week, he hasn’t even gotten out of his Bat Underwear. And if he catches me looking at him, he gets all, “What’s the matter, junior? Don’t you have some TikToks to watch?”

Hey, maybe we can ask Clark to invite him to the Fortress of Solitude. Ever since he moved it to Florida, Bruce has sounded more interested in going to visit. 

I’m also thinking about filling out that application on the Avenger’s page. I know, I know—they’re Marvel, and we’re DC. But guys have crossed over before. Look at Hawkman. Or Captain Marvel. And yes, I don’t have any mutant powers. But I hear they’re still trying to fill Iron Man’s suit. 

Yours as ever,

Richard



BIO

Charles Joseph Albert is a metallurgist in the Bay Area and the author of 13 books of poetry and fiction. His latest is An IQ of 84: A Gaijin Chronicle. His stories and poems have appeared around the internet, most recently in Short Edition and Another Chicago Magazine.







The Silence After

By Sloan Porter


It wasn’t the humidity
or the record breaking heat
so rare in a cold city.
Lounging around without an AC,
the cheap fan was enough
to calm my boiled blood –
I mean, cool me off.
It wasn’t that you weren’t enough,
although I saw what creeps on your skin
at night
in your sighing state,
the prickle of tiny soldiers that stomp and sabotage
all those good intentioned neurons.
It was, perhaps,
that I was caught in the crossfire,
although I knew
braving the no man’s land
meant getting shot.

It was, perhaps,
the silence after.




Manifestation


Last year you were my arms,
carrying boxes of junk
attached to memories
I tried to throw away myself.

Last month you were my legs,
running to my finish lines
long after the sunrise
kept putting me to sleep.

Last week you were my neck,
turning my head from
directions I wanted to see.

Last night you were my lips,
sewing them tight
when I was thirsty.

Tonight you are my eyelids,
snapping them shut.



On Wanting


Trust me
I may dig too deep,
pry you open with my claws
and rummage around for treasure.
I may stun you,
each of my fingers are tasers.
I may collapse
from the weight of wanting more,
curl up,
drown in my own liquifying words
that never leave me
but catch in my throat.
Can you watch me suffer?
Or even notice?




12 Hours


  3:00 pm         Nothing exists but us.
  4:00 pm         I sketch your smile on the window.
  5:00 pm         I air the room with your scent.
  6:00 pm         Your laughter becomes the birds.
  7:00 pm         Parts of you become this room.
  8:00 pm         Your legs are the frame of this bed.
  9:00 pm         Your freckles are the sparkled light of this lamp.
10:00 pm         Your hair is the fabric of this duvet.
11:00 pm         Our hands make their way beneath this duvet.
12:00 am         My voice is viscosity when I say your name.
  1:00 am         Your voice is liquid when you say my name.
  2:00 am         I sink in the sound waves and drown in my name.
  3:00 am         Your sighs are hurricanes as you fall asleep.





BIO

For Sloan Porter, the art of poetry has been an all-consuming journey since a young age. As a writer and interdisciplinary artist, she’s most interested in exploring a darker side, the questions that linger at night, and the passions that drive us. Her work first appeared in Montréal Writes, The Sirens Call, and The Journal Of Undiscovered Poets. She is currently working on a full-length poetry collection. Find her on Instagram @sloan.porter.poetry





Zone Valves

By Graeme Hunter



In early 1991, I interviewed for a faculty position at the University of Western Ontario.  During my visit, a real-estate agent drove me around some residential areas in northwest London.  I remember being impressed by Orchard Park, a quiet, leafy subdivision within cycling distance of campus. 

I was offered the job, and accepted it.  A few months later, my wife Francine went to London to find us a house.  Unfortunately Orchard Park turned out to be too expensive for us.  Her search narrowed down to two houses in White Hills, less leafy and a bit further from the university.  She faxed me the details, and we made our decision.    

At the end of the summer, Francine and I moved to London and took possession of our new house.  It didn’t have much curb appeal: aluminum siding, a prominent garage, no street-facing windows on the main floor.  But I already knew that from the photographs that Francine had taken.  The unpleasant surprises began when we went inside.  The living room was dark, with stuccoed walls.  The bedrooms each had a different colour of carpet and a different type of garish wallpaper.  Every renovation or repair had been done in the most half-assed manner imaginable.  For example, the en-suite powder room, which I referred to as “the Black Hole of Calcutta”, was floored with sheet linoleum that curled up at the edges, because whoever installed it hadn’t bothered to remove the baseboards first. 

Me: “This is so ugly!”

Francine: “I don’t remember it looking like this!”

But the low point was the dining room.  It had a carpeted floor, and walls that were adorned with gold-patterned mirror tiles.

Me: “These tiles look like something you would find in a New Orleans cat-house.”

Francine: “How would you know?”

More unpleasant surprises lay behind the house’s walls and under its flooring.  The wiring was aluminum, a known fire risk.  The bedroom walls had never been primed, so stripping the wallpaper also removed the paper backing of the wallboard, as well as some of the underlying gypsum.  Worst of all, the house had electrical baseboard heaters.  Despite having access to vast amounts of free power from Niagara Falls, the province of Ontario had some of the highest electricity rates in the world.  Heating our new house through the impending winter was going to bankrupt us. 

We got rid of the baseboard heaters and installed a more efficient forced-air system.  Now we had affordable electricity bills, but we also had gaps in our baseboards, holes in our walls and ceilings, and exposed ductwork running everywhere.  This in addition to the bordello tiles, grotty carpeting, Age of Aquarius wallpaper, and all the other problems we had inherited. 

In short, the place needed a lot of work.

Fortunately, help was at hand.  Francine’s dad, Nick, was co-owner of a home-building company.  He’d come to Canada from Italy with fifty dollars in his pocket and no marketable skills.  By claiming to be a trained carpenter, he’d found a job on a building site, where he faked it until he learned the trade.  After many years, he and a paesano were able to start their own business. Thanks to hard work, luck and bribes to municipal politicians, they became millionaires, at a time when that word was not yet synonymous with “home-owner”. 

Nick and his wife were happy to come to London every weekend: she to play with her granddaughter, he to work on the house.  The problem was that I was expected to help him, and I was emphatically not a handyman.  Things got off to a bad start when Nick asked me for a hammer.  When I brought him the only one I owned, he laughed.  “That’s a child’s hammer!” 

Way to emasculate your son-in-law, Nick!  Don’t you want any more grandchildren?

Thereafter he brought his own tools, and we set to work: building a wall between the kitchen and dining-room, installing a French door, enclosing the new ductwork, tiling the carpeted floors.  To elaborate on the plural pronoun: Nick did all the actual work, while I brought him the tools he needed.  Once I had learned what “spikes” and “two-by-fours” were, and the difference between Phillips and Robertson screwdrivers, I was allowed to graduate to simple, hands-on tasks – such as using a proper, man-sized hammer to drive “spikes” into “two-by-fours”. 

Nick believed in building things to last.  Maybe it’s because he was Italian: the Coliseum is still standing, after all, and Rome’s first-century Pantheon looks like it was completed yesterday.  The wooden frame Nick made to enclose the heating ducts was so robust that I could hang from it and do chin-ups.  He brought the same philosophy to a closet he built in the family room.  I decided that, if nuclear war broke out, the family would take shelter there.  London might become a post-apocalyptic wasteland, but our family-room closet would still be standing.

Eventually Nick lost interest in spending every weekend working on his daughter’s house.  Now I was on my own.  Francine would have helped (or so she said), except that she was pregnant again.  Apparently that was my fault!  But I’d served my apprenticeship, and now knew the rudiments of home renovation: rough carpentry, drywalling, some wiring, a bit of plumbing.  One of my solo projects was replacing the flooring in the Black Hole of Calcutta.  When I took up the linoleum, which had a garish pink floral pattern, I was baffled to find beneath it another layer of the exact same lino!  Below that was a layer of blue vinyl tiles.  By the time I reached the subfloor, I felt like Schliemann at Troy. 

Eventually I was proficient enough to build my own wall, although I had to get Nick out of retirement to hang the door in its opening.  As far as I know, my wall is still standing, although I wouldn’t expect it to survive World War Three.      

Throughout the disruptions of all these renovations, Francine and I consoled ourselves that this was just our starter home; in five years or so, we’d be able to move up in the world.  But the mid-nineties were lean years for Ontario, and its university sector wasn’t spared.  Even with help from Francine’s parents, it was nine years before we were able to think about house-hunting.  By that time we had replaced every surface in the house.  No more, I vowed.  I’m hanging up my toy hammer.  In the next house, I don’t want to do anything.

We found that house by accident.  Cycling to work one morning, I came across an “open house” sign at the end of a street in Sherwood Forest, which was even leafier than Orchard Park.  I detoured along the street and found the house.  It was all brick, built on a centre-hall plan.  When I got to work, I phoned Francine.  We arranged that she’d pick me up at lunchtime.

I’d made a mistake.  The house wasn’t open to the public – the sign I’d seen indicated a viewing for real-estate agents.  But even though the property hadn’t been gussied up yet, the owner agreed to let us see it.  A potential customer is a potential customer, after all.  For the most part, the interior was as attractive as the exterior.  Hardwood flooring throughout, crown moulding, large windows, a separate dining room, stained-glass panels flanking the front door.  The basement was only semi-finished, but that wasn’t a deal-breaker – the house we were living in didn’t even have a basement.    

There was only one thing wrong with the house – the asking price was more than Francine and I could afford.  We made a lowball offer; the owners counteroffered.  We found some spare change down the back of the sofa, and made a higher offer; the owners made a new counteroffer.  But it was still too rich for our blood.  We told our realtor to forget it, and I went off to a conference.  A couple of days later, I phoned Francine from New Hampshire, and she told me that the owners of the Sherwood Forest house had decided to accept our second offer.

“Can they do that?” I asked.

Well, it turns out that they could.  And, as a result, we had our dream home. 

It was the beginning of November when we moved in, and it soon became obvious that the family room, which had been an addition to the original building, was unpleasantly cold.  Unlike our previous house, this one had a hot-water heating system.  And for some reason, the hot water wasn’t reaching the radiators in the addition. 

So we called a plumber.  He told us that we were lucky to have hot-water heating, because that was the best system.  When we asked him why it was the best system, he explained that radiant heat was “warmer” than that produced by forced-air furnaces.  I studied chemistry in my youth and retain a passing familiarity with the laws of thermodynamics.  But I don’t understand how any form of heat can be “warmer” than any other form of heat, unless it’s actually, you know, at a higher temperature.  

The plumber also explained that the family room, as well as about half of the original main floor, was on a separate “zone” from the rest of the house.  Flow of hot water through each of the zones was governed by a valve, which was opened and closed by a thermostat in the corresponding part of the house. 

Unfortunately he wasn’t able to fix the problem.  Nor, as it subsequently turned out, were other plumbers who worked for his company, or plumbers who worked for different companies.  No matter how much they tinkered with the system, the family room remained an uninhabitable meat-locker.  Giving up, we installed a gas fireplace.

The fireplace kept the room warm for many years, although the noise of its blower was a bit annoying, particularly if you were watching television.  But I had bigger problems, principally Francine being diagnosed with cancer.  Five years after she died, I remarried, and my new wife moved into the house.  Sue didn’t seem to understand that the stone-cold radiators in the family room were just a fact of nature.  She thought we should get them fixed.  So we started over again, this time with a new team of plumbers.  Over the next few years, these gentlemen (and one lady) replaced various pipes, pumps, valves and gauges with shiny new pipes, pumps, valves and gauges.  Unfortunately, all this work on their part, and expense on ours, resulted in at best a temporary warming of the family-room rads. 

But at least by now I had learned enough about my heating system to converse intelligently about it with the plumbing profession.  It seemed to me that the problem must be the zone valve controlling the addition.  After all, if the shiny new boiler was heating water, and the shiny new pump was sending that water to the rest of the house through shiny new piping, surely the leading suspect was the valve controlling flow to the family room?  However, a succession of plumbers “tested” the zone valve, and assured me that it worked perfectly.  Look, Graeme, try it yourself.  You just have to turn this wheel.  Hear the click?  That’s the sound of the valve opening.  See, the wheel continues around until it’s back at the starting position.  So the zone valve is fine.  That will be three hundred dollars, please.  Cash, check or credit card?

But, to paraphrase Sherlock Holmes, if every other part of your home-heating system has been replaced, then the one part that hasn’t been replaced, no matter how merrily it spins around, must be the culprit.  I phoned the plumbing company once again and asked them to send someone to replace the zone valve.  The woman in the office promised to do so, and assured me that, as it was a standard part, a new zone valve didn’t have to be ordered – the plumber would have one in his (or her) truck. 

When the plumber arrived, he insisted on “checking the system” – in other words, performing a billable diagnostic procedure that I didn’t want or need.  Then, when he admitted that maybe the zone valve was the problem, he told me that he didn’t have one with him, and would have to come back another day.  But in the fullness of time it came to pass that the old valve was removed and replaced with a shiny new one.

When the plumber was packing up his kit, he told me that, just out of curiosity, he’d disassembled the old zone valve to see what the problem was.  It turns out that the teeth of the spinning wheel were supposed to engage with those of another wheel mounted perpendicularly to it.  However, the teeth of the invisible second wheel were stripped.  Thus the visible wheel was turning, clicking, and doing absolutely nothing! 

“How about that?” I said, parting with another five hundred dollars.  Then I went upstairs and put my hand on the deliciously warm metal of the family-room radiators, doing their job at last.



BIO

Graeme Hunter‘s essays have been published in Riddle Fence, Queen’s Quarterly, Talking Soup, The Writing Disorder and Canadian Notes & Queries.  His web site is https://graemehunter.ca/.





Charging
Comfortably Numb
Meeting an Old Friend
Ghosted
I Found You
Cat
The Weight Was Too Much
Never Look Back
Waiting for the Sign
Friendly Stranger


ARTIST STATEMENT:
I work mainly in digital media and my pieces are mix between photo manipulation, 3D elements and digital painting/drawing. I enjoy creating surreal and strange creatures, fragile and powerful at the same time. My style was influenced a lot by religious imagery, fairytales illustrations and many classical and modern painters.

BIO:
Natalie Shau is mixed media artist and photographer based in Lithuania (Vilnius). She found interest in fashion and portrait photography as well as digital illustration and photo art. Despite her personal work, Natalie also creates artwork and photography for musicians, theater, fashion magazines, writers and advertisement. She also worked as an art director for a short 3d movie of Kamel Ouali musical “Dracula.”

PRINTS:
If you are interested in fine art giclee prints – you can email me directly and i will provide you full information about price, edition and size of work you are interested in. Please note that copies are very limited and I have only few or even one copy of work sometimes as I do only very limited edition prints. They are all signed and numbered by hand.

CUSTOM PORTRAITS:
I can create a custom art portrait based on your photograph. Please contact me for details.

BOOKS:
purchase books here: https://www.etsy.com/listing/240626494/tangled-tales-art-book-by-natalie-shau
and here: https://www.etsy.com/listing/240529309/lost-in-wonderland-art-album-by-natalie

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Six Steps to Good Sleep

by Ellie May Mandell



Gideon read an article: children who were disadvantaged within the family have chronic and serious health troubles in later life. Great, she thought, something new to worry about. Her mother, who had been of all things a family therapist, had surely read similar articles and maybe even written some. In moments of weakness, middle-aged Gideon imagined her wealthy mother might bequeath her some money in a final act of redemption. Must beat that down, she told herself. Must prepare myself for one last punch in the face. Gideon’s favorite movie line was by Ramsey Bolton in Game of Thrones, “If you think this story has a happy ending, you haven’t been paying attention.” The maladies listed in the article and the prospect of disinheritance pressed on her.

Gideon’s father hit her. Too hard, too often, and for invented reasons, Gideon thought then and still, fifty years later. Had he resented the moral injury the child inflicted on his wife? Gideon had poor stamina and became startled at sudden noises. Maybe she offended him as an imperfect creation. Or, the darkest explanation, he did it because he wanted to and saw she was alone in the world. When grownup Gideon woke at night, memories of his habit and her mother’s blankness prevented her from sleeping. Probably lack of sleep was the root cause of the health troubles of all of those least-favorite children, she thought. She decided to write an article herself, in the form of a list: “Six Steps to Good Sleep.”


Step One: Read ten books and forty articles about how to get better sleep. Compile a list of the one hundred or so recommendations. Add “Eliminate the following unacknowledged neuro-disruptors: smoked foods, non-organic foods, medications, and gluten.” Implement all.

When Gideon grew breasts, her father stopped hitting her. Instead, he scratched or jiggled his penis and balls while wearing running shorts near her and he let his towel drop when leaving the bathroom after a shower. He told jokes, any one of which would have cost him his job at the university in a later time. When she was fifteen, Gideon worked in a sandwich shop. One evening she sat in the car of a boy who had given her a ride home and smooched with him for a while. The next day her father told her she had to move out of the family home and into the garage apartment, a dingy and foul-smelling cash cow he usually rented to his female graduate assistants. “Your mother and I agree that you are the kind of person whose fundamental arrogance is damaging to their family,” he said. The apartment gave Gideon a headache. After three nights of sleeping badly from the moldering carpets and cheap furnishings and waiting for her older sister, Ruth, or her mother to visit her, she left her hometown on a Greyhound bus and landed, down but not out, in a small town in western Massachusetts.

Now, grownup Gideon and her husband of three decades lived in the same small town. Their house, which her husband had inherited, sat high on its foundation among smaller houses. It had a western extension with the kitchen on the first floor and, on the second, a bedroom with windows on three sides. Too big of a view, Gideon thought, especially west to the Berkshire foothills. She kept the blinds closed except to the north, where a shaggy privet hedge and a rootbound maple formed a comforting shield.

The west wing bedroom had a bed next to the north-facing window, a side table nearby, and a chair for lounging at the far side of the room. On this morning in early April, Gideon lay face up with her heels on the windowsill and her palms open, in an attitude of acceptance. She waited for the truth to come to her.


Step Two: Consider where, within the objects and surfaces that you eat, touch, or breathe near, there might be any of the three hundred thousand industrial chemicals whose effects on human health, in isolation or in combination, have never been tested or measured. How can these chemicals not disrupt your neurology and therefore your sleep? Eliminate suspicious exposures. This will require major lifestyle adjustments.

That mothers love their offspring equally is only one lie of many told to children to make them behave in ways supporting a civil society, Gideon thought. When the lies grow to be too huge or too numerous, society cracks open and reveals its inner corruption. A sort of reckoning was coming regarding the biggest lie, a lie of omission, as it happened. This lie was amorphous, difficult to describe since its primary components didn’t have a proper vocabulary. The lie had to do with the true costs of the three hundred thousand, as Gideon thought of them, although of course every day more were created, churned out through computer aided design and tweaks to existing ones.

Gideon had unusual insight into these insufficiently-regulated catalysts of profit. Her childhood lack of physical wellness had calcified, through a series of mysterious and violent health upsets, each one requiring years of imperfect recovery, into heightened sensitivity to the toxins around her. Even now, with her health on a slow upswing, she often felt inexplicably low and she avoided leaving her house. When she considered the faulty newborns, compromised young people, and cancer-ridden adults around her, Gideon knew she was witnessing a slow-motion cracking open and revealing of the hidden costs and scale of this one big lie. Her illness was the harbinger of a coming collapse. Her life exemplified, in accelerated and exaggerated form, what was happening to everyone else, only they didn’t know it.

Gideon began to lie on the west wing bed for a few hours every day, looking at the sky and composing her listicle in her head. One day there was a tiny crusty turd on the windowsill where she intended to rest her feet. She dislodged and disposed of it with a damp piece of toilet paper, then washed her hands carefully. So the house did have a bat this year, she thought. She leaned her elbows on the windowsill for a while, watching the birds in the yard, then lay down again.

A few years earlier, Gideon had pulled back the blankets to get into bed and a bat lay snuggled on her pillow. “When did you last wash your hair,” her husband said in more of an accusation than a question. “She must enjoy your musky odor.” To keep things simple, the two of them assigned each new bat a random gender. Another time, one of the tiny brown cooties visited Gideon in her home office daily for several weeks. Of all the rooms in the house he could have explored, he chose the one where she was sitting, each day flying at her face first, then making repeated circuits of the room as she cooed at him. “You are just adorable,” she said over and over. “Come visit me any time.”

One winter evening Gideon and her husband were watching a movie in one of the third-floor bedrooms. From the attic above came the sounds of a party or maybe a fracas. At least two but maybe many soft bodies scrabbled and flopped toward each other and then away again, bound to the attic floor for once rather than to its roofbeams. Back and forth, shuffling and scratching. Then a pause, then more shuffling and scratching. Gideon turned off the movie and tried to discern the mood and motivations of the creatures. They seemed to be dragging each other back and forth. She imagined or maybe she actually heard through the ceiling the multilayered squeaks of their conversation.

“Don’t flinch when they fly at you,” she told her husband after yet another evening of sweet-talking a bat into leaving the house through an open window. “They know exactly where you are, so there is no way they’ll hit you. They just want to look into your face.”

“Easier said than done and you’d better stop playing with them,” her husband said. “You’ll get a nip and we’ll have to take you to the ‘mergency for a round of rabies shots.” “I would never reach for them and they have no reason to touch me,” she said.


Step Three: It might take as long as ten years for your neurology to fully manifest the results of Steps One and Two. Stick with it.

I know you can change life’s trappings, Gideon thought, lying on her back again under the high ceilings of the west wing bedroom. But can I stop having the same dreams? Traveling with difficulty across an unfamiliar urban landscape, or in a nighttime city I knew long ago, but that is now altered so the streets don’t go where they should and the busses don’t come. Or a bus arrives but I fumble with change so I can’t get on. Finally arriving at my home but it has become derelict. When Gideon told her husband about the dreams, he said it was only her brain offloading garbage, but Gideon knew the dreams were witness marks, echoes of long-ago family sorrows. I want to wake up in the morning with a sense of contentment, she thought. I want to have dreams where I am sitting in a beautiful and expansive room, watching filtered sunlight play on a warm pastel wall. This is the change I want for myself.

Gideon’s maternal grandmother, Florence, had changed her own life in her fifties. Gideon, looking at the high ceiling of the sky through the new buds on the maple tree, older than the house, opened herself to Florence’s voice. She imagined Florence telling her story, beginning with the death of Gideon’s grandfather in the early 1940s.

#

My husband died in the war and I sought consolation. I loved seeing myself reflected in mirrors inside fancy restaurants and in shop windows. I began buying colorful tweeded suits and dresses, and shoes made in Italy out of soft leather. I wore the clothing and shoes on outings to buy more of the clothing and the shoes, and I had lunch or dinner in sparkly places with other women who bought and wore these things. I kept myself trim and fit and put myself into a happy sleep each night with memories of my own tidy ankle and slender calf, looking like a soft-focus movie shot. Silk hosiery, fragrant and rubbing softly against the silk crepe lining of a suit skirt, where the lining was sewn to the hem tape with tiny stiches, and the hem tape was sewn to the tweed in yet more tiny stitches. The shoes that were themselves as soft as silk.

After my parents died, I inherited my mother’s button collection. I was thrilled to unwrap the strings of finely-wrought multiples, each cluster a testament to my own virtue. There were cardboard and cloth tapestries of sewn-on buttons, called collector’s cards, like cathedral windows but telling of domesticity and family rather than the turmoil of the biblical stories.

I began searching for buttons in antique shops and at auctions. When I found special buttons, I felt that the craftspeople and merchants of the past had saved them for me, who deserved them more than other buyers because I alone could discern the stories they told of thrift, endeavor, industry, and the embrace of a personal and tightly-held beauty. I began to see how one or another shipment of buttons from Paris made its way to the communities throughout my state. I savored the scraps of cloth and the twisted threads attached to used buttons as well as the images and typefaces on the cards of unused sets. I discerned, in the notations on the cardstock of the collector’s cards, the intertwined lives of the women who saved them and traded them. I saved and traded them myself, to complete certain sets, or to make up cards that reached for what I felt was a true homage to their spirit. Buttons express the ideals of their time and the amasser of buttons internalizes these ideals. I was changed by the hours and years I spent with them.

At first, I had doubts about how long these joys would last in my heart. But as the years turned into decades, I knew that wearing the beautiful clothes and buying and sorting buttons could bring me a lifetime of happiness. Then, when I was in my early fifties, something changed in me. I no longer felt I was building something. I felt I was chasing something. I wrapped the suits and the dresses in tissue paper and packed them away. I stuffed sachets of cedar shavings into the toes of the Italian shoes and stacked their boxes high in the backs of my closets. I took a class in oil painting at a nearby community college.

#

During her late teens and into her twenties, Gideon tried to repair the relationship with her family. Her father agreed to send her the amounts her university charged for tuition, room, and board, so she went to college. She made up the difference between what her father sent and her actual expenses by working parttime during the school year and fulltime plus during the summers. She traveled to her hometown twice a year when Ruth was also visiting, staying in a motel rather than at her parents’ home.

One year, while she visited with her parents and Ruth on Christmas Day, her father picked a fight with her over a box of family snapshots, worked himself into a foaming rage, and accused her of theft. As Gideon fled the house, Ruth said she would come by Gideon’s motel. Gideon waited for Ruth, reluctant to leave the motel in case she ran into her father on the street or missed Ruth’s visit. The following evening, Ruth came to Gideon’s motel room with a high school friend in tow, both of them dressed for a party. Ruth asked Gideon if she could borrow her diaphragm for a couple of days. Gideon had become increasingly ill-feeling from the stale air in the motel room. As the three young women stood in the depressing room, Gideon understood that she and Ruth were fundamentally different. Ruth, whose mother loved her, could afford to move through the world heedlessly. There was room for her to be whoever she wanted to be. Gideon’s world was precarious. Forces within it troped toward chaos and loss. Gideon turned Ruth down, unable to conceptualize her diaphragm being used by someone else’s body. Ruth told Gideon repeatedly with minor variations, more loudly each time, that she Gideon was the kind of person who was a real asshole.


Step Four: To reduce agita, learn not to care how you appear to others and don’t look at yourself in the mirror. When pressing your naked body against your loved one, inhale deeply and then exhale through the column of warm joy that your torso has become.

After the disastrous and final Christmas visit, Gideon’s mother wrote her occasional cards with news about her garden plantings or her work. These cards, in their imagery and what hints at provenance Gideon could discern from the printing on the backs, suggested travel to European museums and gift shops. Gideon was unable to stop herself from opening them because in each one she hoped to find a declaration of true regard. Every few years she came across a little pile of the cards and threw them away.

One day Gideon’s mother telephoned to say that Florence had died. “There are two kinds of people in the world,” Gideon’s mother said, after wondering out loud why she and Gideon weren’t close. “Some few, like you, see the world only in black and white. Most, like me, see shades of gray.” Gideon, surprised, said that they hadn’t spent time together in many years. “Are you criticizing my life decisions?” her mother seemed genuinely perplexed. The two women spoke past each other and interrupted each other, both of them confused and miserable. Gideon’s mother seemed to be talking to a character in a play. Mercifully, the flow of notecards ended after this telephone call. Gideon never talked to or saw her mother again.

Several months after Florence died, Ruth called. They had sold the contents of Florence’s house, including her closets full of clothing and her various collections, for a single sum to an antique dealer. Items deemed not valuable, including many, many boxes of what Ruth called crap buttons, they had put on the curb on trash day. Florence had made a practice of giving away her finished oil paintings to libraries, municipal buildings, hospitals, and other non-profits throughout her region, so there weren’t stacks and stacks of art to dispose of. Ruth didn’t quantify Florence’s wealth, which, she did say, had grown during her lifetime.

“I wish you hadn’t argued with Mom,” Ruth said. “She’s very upset. Her mother just died. You are the kind of person who is very inconsiderate when times are hard for other people.” Ruth’s tone became harsh, as though she was distancing herself according to a plan she had made before the call. Gideon understood that she was about to lose something that she very much wanted to keep. In the crevasse at her feet, she saw that Ruth was ready to be rid of her.

A few years after moving to the big house, Gideon started buying buttons herself, on eBay. It calmed her to search for them and it calmed her to clean and sort them. Her favorite era was from about 1880 to about 1940, during which some portion of society’s collective joy and delight had been channeled into the design and production of buttons. The Industrial Revolution had provided the initial means for experimentation with new materials and techniques, and a creative impulse, perhaps even a mania, had settled on buttons as an expression of aspiration, culture, and technology. Of course there were lovely and interesting buttons from before 1880 or after 1940, but for these sixty years the sheer volume and exuberance of disparate types, designs, materials and themes made for a golden age. They must have been over-produced, or perhaps suppliers were responding even then to the hoarding instincts of their customers, because vast quantities were still available, many unused, on the eBay button markets.

Now, Gideon and her husband had been living in the big house for about ten years. Each spring Gideon chose one of the large rooms, then spent the fair weather detailing the woodwork, restoring the sash windows, and painting in a light and cheery color. How can I free myself from the burden of my feelings for those people, she asked herself while scrubbing ancient grime from lead-painted window sills and scraping smears from wavy panes of glass. Once a duckling has been imprinted, can they ever love anyone else properly?

Gideon had developed the ability to discern from the overall texture in the grainy eBay photographs whether or not a particular lot contained buttons from manufacturers who had truly tried to make them as delightful as they could. She wondered if her grandmother’s collection, which she had never seen, was swirling through the eBay listings. Maybe she had unknowingly acquired some of Florence’s buttons already. Perhaps the boxes discarded in front of Florence’s house had been salvaged and some of the buttons inside had appeared in the mixed lots Gideon tended to bid on. She didn’t buy the more refined and expensive individual buttons but often acquired highly-crafted ones among her rough and tumble batches. When she died, all of her own buttons would enter the swirling stream again, the most valuable picked out for individual resale, the rest photographed in loose piles for small money.

Gideon came to intuit that most collectible buttons had not been produced as practical objects. There was such excess, both flowing through the marketplace and temporarily settled in the homes of middle-aged women such as herself and Florence. So many were delicate, or unlaunderable, or both. Instead, they were an expression of animal craving for small and inherently useless objects of beauty and joy. Having lost her original tribe except for a faint connection to her sister, she felt a shadow of kinship with other button fanciers, whom she only knew through the bidding wars.

“I can feel my heart expanding to include all the new batches I get in,” she said to her husband as they lay in bed together one morning. “I can’t explain it.” Her husband laughed at her. Gideon reached and cupped his quiet fruits, feeling their gentle weight. “These are going to make me happy soon,” she said. The soft and discretely hairy mass began twitching in her hand.


Step Five: If you have chronic bad sleep, you are a wounded animal. The world is not kind to damaged creatures. Develop the habits of a careful person and stay home as much as you can.

Gideon decided to make the rest of the warm weather a repeating cycle: check the button markets, lie in the west wing or look out its north window, play with buttons, get a good night’s sleep. No painting this year. Maybe if she rested deeply for long enough, she thought, she could find a way to cast off her sorrows.

Gideon’s thoughts kept returning to the one family member she sort-of still had. When they were both young, Ruth used to hit her sometimes. Fair play to Ruth for the way she acted toward me, Gideon thought. It was every elder sister’s job to treat the younger like a little shit. But maybe not into adulthood, as a touchstone affirming your own state of grace. Gideon in turn watched as Ruth’s two marriages imploded, seemingly from a shortfall of practical empathy. She came to understand that their parents’ treatment of herself had taught Ruth, by example, the negligible value of day-to-day kindness.

“Thank you for your last letter and for the ones before that,” Ruth wrote on a postcard when they were both in their late thirties. Ruth was cagey about family news in written correspondence and during the sisters’ occasional visit together, but Gideon found enough clues to piece together their mother’s story. After Florence’s death, Ruth and Gideon’s mother had changed her own life in ways she must have been waiting years to implement, so immediate was the transformation. She gave her ill-tempered husband a large chunk of Florence’s cash to mollify him. She subsidized Ruth’s expenses so both of them could maintain flexible and lightly-scheduled careers. She embarked, with Ruth, on decades of foreign travel and the shopping that makes foreign travel extra-special. One of Ruth’s postcards was from a wildlife refuge in Brazil that led boat tours to see the great macaws in their natural habitat. Another was from a vineyard in the South of France offering summer cooking courses. Over the decades Gideon got a handful of snapshots of happy, happy, happy Ruth with scenic backgrounds and dressed in expensive hiking or skiing or dining outfits, looking at the photographer who was her lifelong and best friend. Like Florence had and like Gideon was trying to do, Gideon’s mother had designed and executed her own rebirth after a long period of quiescence.

I never begat a child but at least I never wished my child gone, thought Gideon. Her uterus was dormant, now a shriveled plum only to be watched in case it metastasized and tried to kill her. It isn’t death I’m worried about so much as illness, she thought. Fuck death. Serious illness is the real bastard. Was there any way to find out if it was her own ill health that had concentrated her family’s disregard? Perhaps Gideon had had an early illness that severed her mother’s attachment to her. Her father, who for all of his self-centered posturing and testiness sometimes told a relevant truth, surely knew what had happened. Were there any of his words, deciphered and recast, that explained her loss of her mother’s affection? If only I could be young again and pay more attention this time, Gideon thought. I could discern their flaws and steel myself against future disappointments. I could understand my illness from the beginning and prevent its escalation. Maybe they foresaw my understanding of their failings and that is why they were so desperate to be rid of me.


The Sixth and Final Step to Good Sleep: Resolve the mysteries and losses of your past. Anticipate and mitigate those to come.

In June the first of the monarch butterflies arrived in the yard. Gideon, checking the markets, came across the leavings of a once-mighty collection. Like the bleached and scattered skeleton pieces of a great whale, the debris told a story only recognizable from afar by a practiced eye. She peered into the grainy photographs. There were piles of collector’s cards with notes on materials, theme, or era, cards from which the best buttons had already been harvested. There were small plastic bags of loose buttons. There was a heap of buttons that needed cleaning. There was a rubber-banded bundle of small tan or logoed envelopes of spare buttons for special articles of clothing. Gideon thought she recognized Florence’s tidy cursive on the top envelope, “brown wool suit, $195, 1962.” She took note of the seller’s location and stared for a long time at the photograph that included the sharpest image of the rubber-banded bundle.

By the time Gideon found the listing, its simple bulk had already attracted a dozen watchers. The auction was scheduled to run at night in a time zone a few hours later than hers, so Gideon planned to stay up late to monitor the bidding. She told her husband she had become convinced of the listing’s provenance. “I can’t tell if they’re left over from the nice ones sold to the antique dealer or if they came from the boxes that were put on the curb, but it doesn’t matter,” she said. “Dig deep,” he said. “You know what to do. Don’t let them get away.”

When the large box arrived, Gideon rummaged for the bundle of spare buttons and took it into the west wing. She hoped her grandmother had notated most of the paper packets, and she had. Gideon pried the little flaps open and shook the buttons out. Some were shell, or plastic imitating horn. She placed these aside. The rest were made from garment remnants stretched over tiny metal or wooden molds and then crimped closed in the back. The colors of the self-fabric buttons reminded her of paintings by Claude Monet.

Gideon picked up a tweed button in shades of pink and fuchsia with speckles of blue and yellow. She lifted it until it was framed by the light peach walls of the room. “Davidoff suit $350 1961,” her grandmother had written. The button looked like Rouen Cathedral at sunset. Another, “green tweed $195 1965,” with its dusky olives and bright red slubs, was a field of poppies among shaded rolling hills. Heavy silk crepe the color of hay, “shirt $95 1968.” Gideon tried to remember the last time she herself had spent close to a hundred dollars on an article of clothing.

Even as she compared her life to Florence’s, she knew the story she was trying to read in the buttons wasn’t about money, exactly. It wasn’t that her grandmother had mortgaged Gideon’s happiness by going shopping. Yet Gideon saw a strong and straight line between the tweedy and silky nubbins, each one an electric and outsized presence in her minimally furnished room, and her own life’s losses.

Gideon turned away from the array of spare button packets and leaned on the north-facing windowsill. Two catbirds gathered small sticks and wisps of dried grass and took turns flitting into the deepest part of the privet hedge. She watched the birds and the monarchs come and go for a while.

When my mother was a child, she lost her own mother to vanity and trinkets, Gideon thought. She only ever had enough love for one child. Whether the catalyst was an early illness or not, there is no one to tell me. My mother will never give me any of her money and I can no more change this than I can rip her from my heart.

The catbirds had tucked themselves into the hedge and the yard was finally still when the sun set behind the foothills to the west. Gideon padded down the hallway to her home office and started her computer. She composed an email to Ruth. “The relationship between you and me has never been a healthy one,” she wrote. “Any future contact between us will only cause me pain. Even if you have big news, do not write or call me. I’m done.” She sent the email.

There was a wispy flutter in the hallway outside her office and a soft impact as if finely-woven cloth had brushed against a wall. Gideon looked up from her computer and saw a shadow flicker in the hall. She turned away from the screen and rotated her chair toward the center of the room. She sat up straighter, waiting. It is possible to make your own luck, she thought.

The tiny brown bat flew into the room, made a wide circuit near the ceiling, and flew out again. It came back for another pass and flew directly at Gideon’s face. What kind of person is she, I want to know, I must know, the little bat thought. I want to see into her eyes, I want to smell her breath. There are two types of person. If she flinches, I’ll have to fly right at her face again. If she looks at me and makes the booming murmurs, I’ll be all set. I’ll come back and let her song flow over me every day, every day, every day.



BIO

Ellie May Mandell was an accountant most of her working life. She lives with her husband of thirty-plus years in a small town in New England. She is working on a series of stories about a cast of characters whose lives interweave over several decades. The stories revolve around themes of family and love, illness, moral injury, and redemption.





“Contemplating Autobiography”

by Christina E. Petrides

There was nothing presently worthwhile
in her old correspondence,
no unconscious novel composed
over several years of college emails.
Dried corsage flowers from a forgotten dance,
the enthusiasm and despair there was without context,
youthful mementoes fallen apart,
inconsequential activities and long-lost contacts,
and the needless stress of academic classes
whose information had been irrelevant decades since.
I am not like that person anymore, she realized.
Any tale salvaged from those outdated files
must needs be framed of new timber,
and the cutting might not be worth
either deaths of trees or loss of time.



“Poetry”


It shoulders my apartment doorbell well after dark,
staggers through the vestibule, and drops sobbing on my sofa,
bewailing the callousness and perfidy of ex-lovers and current coworkers.

I was just about to go to bed.
Fresh from the shower, in clean jammies,
unguents smoothed over my hands and face to keep wrinkles from entrenching
overnight.
And suddenly I am thrust into a maelstrom of emotion, passion, and complaint.

I proffer a selection of herbal teas and wait for the kettle’s pained scream
to drown out the moans and mutterings from the couch.
Hot porcelain at my elbow,
I hope my prostrate guest says something coherent.
Sometimes I hear wild tales,
sometimes a short pastoral,
at other moments only curses and colors.

There are months it doesn’t visit,
and weeks when it comes calling every day,
when I meet it on the street even in broad daylight,
or it interrupts a class, to everyone’s chagrin,
times when we stay up past midnight discussing every subject under the moon.

I don’t know how long we can stay friends.
Are we, even?
Such irregular co-dependency is complicated.



“Seogwipo Weekday, 3 PM”


Aromas from kitchens and covert cigarettes
waft among parked cars and idle dogs.
A pair of stained men clutch green glass bottles
under a leafless tree.
A dame in odd florals diligently stretches,
while sparrows peck a playground’s plastic soccer pitch.
Then, at the echoes of a single tone,
a flood of schoolchildren pours around the corner.





BIO

Christina E. Petrides teaches English on Jeju Island, South Korea. Her verse collection is On Unfirm Terrain (Kelsay Books, 2022). Her children’s books are Blueberry Man (2020; Korean translation, 2021), The Refrigerator Ghost (Korean translation, 2022), and Tea Cakes, Quilts, and Sonshine (2022). She is the primary translator of Maria Shelyakhovskaya’s nonfiction book, Being Grounded in Love: A History of One Russian Family, 1872-1981 (Slavica, forthcoming). Her website is: www.christinaepetrides.com





Fruit Trees Sprouting in a Field of Ash

by Judy Stanigar



The fire that almost burned our house down was set by Dad deliberately, in a way. He had the best of intentions in mind. He was not a pyromaniac. Just a man way over his head about how to grow a garden. And what a garden we had. We counted forty fruit trees, forty. But how does a man newly arrived in Israel from Poland, having escaped the gas chambers, deal with a garden? If you asked him how to chant Psalms, or how to fire a rifle, or survive the Russian Gulag, he’d have no problems doing so. He was the guy who was brought up in European cities and escaped the Nazis’ clutches only to get nabbed by Stalin into a Gulag prison before joining the Russian military to fight the Nazis. So, shortly after he and Mom landed in Israel and he went to fight in the War of Independence, Mom went ahead and bought the house with all those fruit trees. They were going to become pioneers in the dry Mediterranean climate of their new land.

Three years later, we still had a messy yard drowning in weeds with no flowers or shrubbery, just a few skinny hens. The kind of yard one expected from two people who knew nothing about horticulture or indeed anything to do with farming. But Dad was a quick study in his spare time, which was rare; he worked six days a week in construction often away from home in the new Negev towns.

“Everyone,” he said, “painted the bottom half of the tree trunks in white lime to keep insects off the trees.” He would do that too.

Mom was a skeptic. “White paint isn’t going to keep any vermin or bugs off,” she said, examining a leaf for any noticeable signs of bugs. “This is just some ridiculous fad! If you really want to get rid of pests, spray them with the same repellants we use in the house. It kills everything.”

Dad rarely went against Mom’s wishes, but in this case, he was obstinate. One Saturday morning he set out for the yard with his paint brush, a bucket of white lime paint and barrelful of determination.

We watched with fascination as he went about his task: dipping the flabby brush in the bucket and slathering the paint on the trunks. It took him the best part of the day. When he finished, he stood back and, wiping the sweat off his face with his shirtsleeves, he eyed his handiwork. Mom feigned disinterest from the kitchen window, but my sister and I went out to inspect the job with critical eyes.

My sister bent her head this way and that way. “The paint is not even on all the trunks, and looks splattered,” she finally said.

“Yeah,” I jumped in with my six-year-old enthusiasm. “It’s higher on some trees than on others. It makes the trees look funny.”

Dad laughed and waved his hand. “Crooked, splattered, it’s like a Picasso. And anyway, it will keep the insects off, so it doesn’t matter. Now our yard is like our neighbors’.”

We heard Mom scoff from the kitchen window. “It’s not like they know what they’re doing. The blind leading the blind, if you ask me. It would have probably been better to get rid of overgrown weed, so we don’t have to worry about any critters making their homes here.” That was her say on the matter before she called us in for dinner.

I liked the white tree trunks; it gave them an eerie, supernatural appearance, like they were trees, but not trees. White trunks shooting up from a sea of weeds. And at night they reflected the moonlight and glowed in our dark yard.

The following Friday afternoon, we heard Mr. Segal, our neighbor whose yard abutted ours in the back, yell for my dad, “Shlomo, Shlomo!” he called.

Mom wiped her hands on her apron and ran outside, muttering to herself, “shouting across the yard like a peasant.” I skipped after her. “Shlomo’s just come back from work and is in the shower. What’s the matter?” Her face was shiny and red from standing over the kerosene lamp cooking.

“Mrs. Tova, a snake; I saw a snake in your yard. I’m pretty sure it was a rattlesnake.” Mr. Segal waved and pointed his hands at our unkempt yard. The overgrown grass engulfed all the fruit trees.

Mrs. Segal stood next to him in her housedress wringing her hands. “This is a vilde country. Snakes! Got in Himmel!”

“Rattlers are poisonous. You’ll have to burn the overgrown grass in your yard,” Mr. Segal said, his face lined with concern. “It’s the only way to deal with them.”

Red blotches appeared on Mom’s neck. That didn’t bode well for anyone. “Burn the yard? Are you crazy? Besides by now the snake could be in your yard. Why don’t you set fire to yours? You’ve got plenty of weeds yourselves.”

Dad came running out in his shorts and t-shirt, his hair dripping wet. “What’s this about a snake?”

Mom turned to him. “He thinks he saw something like a snake in our yard. Something yellow. It could have been anything. Oh – and we should burn our yard.” She waved her hand dismissively.

Mr. Segal huffed. “Mrs. Tova, I know what I saw: it was a snake and he rattled. It’s the only way.”

“This is crazy. Lea,” Mom said turning to my sister, “go get Moishe. We’ll see what he has to say.” Mom held Moishe, our other Russian neighbor in high esteem, when it suited her. At least he wasn’t a Yekke, a German, who gave himself airs.

Lea crossed the street and a few moments later Moishe appeared, a rake poised over his shoulder. A noodle, likely a remnant of Dorka’s Friday chicken soup, stuck to his glistening chin. And for the next half hour, Dad and Moishe gingerly combed through the yard with their rakes held up high, so that if the snake appeared they’d be able to smash or rake him. I watched from our kitchen window while Mom set the table for our Friday night meal. The aromas of the soup and gefilte fish and chocolate cake made my mouth water.

After a while Dad came into the house, his tanned face sweaty and crestfallen. “Tova, we heard the rattle, and saw the color. It’s a rattlesnake all right and we can’t risk it. We’re going to set the grass on fire. It’s way too overgrown anyway.”

Mom’s face turned beet red, and a little vein flicked on her temple. “A fire? The only thing we have is this piece of property and you’re going to set it on fire?” Mom’s voice rose as she was warming to the subject. “I’ve been through the fires of hell, and it’ll be over my dead body that I’ll let you burn our yard and home.”

Moishe stood at the doorway. “Relax, Tove’chka, it’ll be fine. We know how to do this. It’s called controlled fire.”

Mom bore her eyes into Moishe. “And where did you learn this trick? In the shtetel in Minsk, before or after they burned your house down? I won’t lose my home because of a little snake you men are too scared to kill. Here, let me have this.” She reached out to yank the rake from Dad, but he held her off.

“We’re just going to put little fires to the grass; we won’t let them get big. Close the window,” he said. He motioned to Moishe. They marched out.

Dorka, Moishe’s wife, appeared in our kitchen. “Tova, come to our house and let the men take care of this. Please.”

Mom shoved us to go with Dorka. “I’m staying right here. These idiots will burn down the house.” Tears mingled with sweat ran down her cheeks. I’d never seen Mom cry.

Dorka put her hand on Mom’s shoulder, but Mom, her eyes blazing, swatted it off.

Lea and I stayed with Mom in the house. I wanted to make sure nothing happened to her.

We stood at the kitchen window; our eyes glued to the action outside. Dad made a torch out of a long stick wrapped at one end in one of the towels he brought home from the Sinai War. Moishe doused it in gasoline and then set a match to it. Yellow flames leaped out and Dad let the flames lick the tall grass.

Mom turned to us. “Go to Dorka; I’m going out there.”

“No, Mom, don’t go,” Lea pleaded.

“Go, go.” Mom shoved Lea and me aside.

We stayed at the kitchen window. I clutched my stomach, but stayed glued to my spot, mesmerized by our burning yard.

It didn’t take long before little fires were sprouting everywhere, enveloping the tall grass around the fruit trees. Dad lit one patch, Moishe another, and Mom followed and dumped a bucket of water onto the flames, a hiss followed. Smoke filled the air. Soon it was hard to make out the three figures as the whole yard was shrouded in haze, and an acrid smell pierced our nostrils. More neighbors came round, gawking, offering advice on how to best keep the fires under control. I kept my eyes on Mom. She seemed to have a hard time dousing the flames with her two buckets. By the time she refilled them, the flames came alive again. At one point it looked like they would consume her and Dad and Moishe.

The hens made a racket, something awful. Someone shouted, “Watch out. The flame’s getting close to the house!”

Dorka yelled, “Don’t just stand there – go get more buckets.”

I caught a glimpse of Mom. She seemed crazed. Her hair was matted and plastered onto her red, glistening face. I couldn’t see Dad or Moishe. I gasped for air, and Lea told me to get my asthma inhaler, but I didn’t budge. Two men appeared with more buckets. Mr. Siegel managed to get an extra-long hose that got water from his yard to ours. He aimed it at the wall of our house facing the yard.

Finally, it was over. All that remained was smoke. The gawkers and helpers went back to their own homes.

“Did you find the snake?” I asked.

“There was no snake,” Mom said, wiping her face in her dirty sleeve.

“The snake got burned to a crisp,” Dad said. “We found his skeleton.”

Mom glared at him. “I’m going to shower first. You’ll have to take a cold shower,” she said as she stormed inside. Dad put away the buckets and rake and followed.

The air was thick with gray smoke, and the stench clung to our noses. Lea and I surveyed the yard. It looked ghostly. The white tree trunks were white no longer, but they had survived – fruit trees sprouting in a field of ash.



BIO

Judy Stanigar was born and raised in Israel. Her short story, Fruit Trees Sprouting in a Field of Ash, draws on her childhood there. When she was a teenager, she moved to the United States with her family. She attended Columbia University and worked as a psychotherapist for many years before turning her life-long passion and love of books into writing.





What to Expect

by Kristen Hoggatt-Abader


                  The only response
                  to a child’s grave is
                  to lie down before it and play dead.
                                    —Bill Knott


Black boys getting shot in Harlem—that’s certain,

waiting like a germ between our taste buds for the chance to begin a plague. The news

reports in a six-sentence quip, and all is revealed: street party, crossfire, shot in the head.

Pity, to be 13, black and poor in New York’s only home

that welcomes such folk, its skyline dotted with decrepit roofs and

a quick buck. We keep our mouths closed, though we sigh (“Not

again.” “No, not again!”) when we hear of the boy’s demise. They

won’t report this the next city over—let alone the next state.

How many bullets have reduced a black body to mere flesh&bone?

In an instant, we board the subway, our hands around pocketbooks

with force as we traverse, in and out and underground,

the network of tracks like sutures across our shoulders,

linking the city and our lives: Lord, please, let it not be our child.



What to Expect


Kids getting shot in colonial New England—

Wait. What? The news yanked out our tongues

and wrapped it around spreadsheets and pizza stones,

calling out to our little ones in a hollow timbre,

their fresh bodies close, breathing their bubble gum,

breathing scabbed knees and muddied shoes. If only

the killer had gotten counseling. If only gun laws were

just so. Our minds wrapped around what-ifs

until the worst of us remained convinced it was a hoax.

Surely our precious 6-years-olds are not slaughtered with

automatic weapons—these bodies, this pink flesh.

Something else must explain it: conspiracies, trauma actors,

the media! We always blame them, rolling out blankets

to snuff out what burns us: Lord, please, let it not be our child.



What to Expect


                  Peshawar, Pakistan

Do children get shot in that corner of the world? In the city of

flowers? It is, by all means, extreme: summers boil, winters

witch-tit cold, dust, hail, and when the gunmen crash through

the doors, it’s another kind of storm brewed in the landlocked valley,

stirred by the impossible wind that descends the peaks.

One hundred plus children, gone. Children—dead and gone. The

smartest ones barricaded the door, a lesson in physics: Angle of

crossbeam? Density of wood? Not enough to stop men from

crashing it down in praise of God. In the city of flowers,

workers load the ambulance with blood stain. In the city of flowers,

mothers unveil themselves to wrap the wounds of little boys in pink, blue,

orange, red. In the city of flowers, the MPs hug their M16s,

skullcapped fathers scream. And the storm rages on, in the city of flowers,

in the cities of our first born: Lord, please, let it not be our child.



BIO

Kristen Hoggatt-Abader is the author of the poetry chapbook Arab Winter and the former Ask a Poet advice columnist for Drexel University’s The Smart Set. She is currently a Senior Lecturer at the University of Arizona in Tucson and a fourth-year Ph.D. candidate in rhetoric and composition. Her work has also appeared in The Ledge Magazine, Nimrod International Journal, and Poetry Porch. More of her work can be found at khoggattabader.com





Geoffrey is unraveling, in episodes

By Doug Jacquier


Geoffrey goes visiting

As Geoffrey made his way carefully along the rutted track in his ancient, poorly-suspended car, he wondered for the umpteenth time why McGee had invited him to celebrate Hogmanay at his remote mountain cabin.

He knew that McGee spent a lot of time there, now that he’d retired, observing mostly the several species of owls that populated the region and reporting his sightings on birder websites. For his amusement, he would occasionally make a false claim to a sighting of an extremely rare bird and offer entirely misleading directions to twitchers wanting to add to their tally.

It wasn’t as if Geoffrey had anything planned for New Year’s Eve. He’d long ago eschewed the fake bonhomie of such gatherings, where total bores got spectacularly inebriated as quickly as possible in hope of being forgiven for any indiscretions perpetrated during the obligatory midnight kissing and hugging. His wife, Grace, had taken herself off to just such an event.

McGee had rung Geoffrey to propose the catch-up. ‘Come and join me, you miserable hermit. We can reminisce and lie outrageously as we work our way through my collection of wines and single malts. You can stay overnight and we can groan our regrets over our stupidity as we work our way through bacon and eggs and Bloody Marys in the morning.’ Hearing no response, McGee said quietly, ‘Neither of us are going to see many more New Years, Geoffrey.’

Geoffrey agreed, knowing that McGee had played him yet again. Before he ended the call, he asked McGee if anyone else would be coming. ‘Oh, you will be surprised at who might be there. There’s any number of desperate women who would leap at the chance to jump the bones of a couple of desiccated old drunks,’ cackled McGee, from which Geoffrey concluded that they would be alone. Two emotional hermits mocking the idea of regeneration.

McGee emerged unsteadily from his cabin and said in ironic avuncular fashion ‘Welcome, Geoffrey, old boy.’ Everything about McGee had become grey, including his skin.

Inside, a log fire was well ablaze in a handsome stone fireplace, above which hung an obviously recently polished framed picture of the three of them in their younger days.

After a ‘dinner’ that comprised seemingly random items chosen from an expensive delicatessen, they retired to the high-backed armchairs set in front of the fire. McGee poured whisky in to crystal cut glasses.

‘Take a cup of kindness, old boy’ McGee said as he excused himself and returned a short time later holding a hand gun. Geoffrey stared at the gun in disbelief. ‘McGee, what are you playing at?’ McGee laughed and said ‘This? This is our after-dinner entertainment.’

McGee laid back in his chair and said ‘I’ve always seen you as an owl, Geoffrey. Sleepy eyes parading as wisdom, striking in the night but cowardly in the daylight, and despised for their habit of fouling their own nests.’

Geoffrey said calmly, ‘Well, it’s just as well you like owls.’

‘Oh, Geoffrey, you’re as transparent as a window pane. Do you remember when Grace left me for you? Of course you do. She said I’d become tiresome and stale whereas you, Geoffrey, were being endlessly re-invented. Do you know how much that hurt me, old boy? Of course you do. And you’re about to pay the price for that perfidy.’

‘McGee, where are you going with this?’

‘I’m going to oblivion but you are going to penitence.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘Let me spell it out for you, Geoffrey. In a moment, I’m going to hand you the gun and you are going to shoot me through the heart. Then you are going to call the Police and tell them that I got drunk and went mad and started shooting randomly. You tried to wrestle the gun from me and it went off, fatally wounding me. So, I’m about to fire off a few rounds around the room to make it look convincing and then I’m going to give you the gun.’

‘No.’

‘Oh, yes. If you don’t make that promise, I will shoot you now and then turn the gun on myself. I know you, Geoffrey. If you promise me, then you’ll have to do it because you’re not ready to die. Besides, Amazing Grace is going to need you in the years to come and that will be your obligation. So … do you promise?’

Geoffrey was silent.

McGee shouted ‘You’re looking like an owl again. Decide!’

Geoffrey said softly ‘I promise.’

McGee turned and fired his first shot into the dead centre of the framed photo over the fireplace. That moment of distraction gave Geoffrey time to lunge, remove the gun from McGee’s hand and knock him to the floor.

He strode to the door and hurled the gun into the pitch blackness of the dense undergrowth. Before he drove away he hissed at McGee ‘I’m not your fixer.’

Geoffrey takes up gardening

Geoffrey had given no thought as to what he might do in his retirement. A career public servant, he’d not just survived but thrived within the Agency and made it to the finish line with his home paid for and a secure income from his superannuation for life.

Grace had many hobbies and a wide social circle and was rarely home during the day. However Geoffrey had slowly divested himself of friends, despised his family and swore he’d commit suicide before he’s take up golf or lawn bowls.

He’d never been a keen gardener in the past but now, home alone, growing things had become an obsession, albeit one with an emphasis on orderliness and strict boundaries. Over time, his wife’s random planting had turned much of their modestly-sized garden into a jungle; a riot of randomness that offended his eye and troubled his soul.

For the sake of peace, he retained some of the roses and the odd agapanthus but the rest he unmercifully uprooted and replaced them with what he saw as useful raised beds of vegetables and fruit trees in large pots.

Having used every square inch of arable land he owned (including what had previously been lawn), he had now taken advantage of the street gardening movement to colonise the verge in front of his home. He grew mostly herbs that he imagined passers-by would gratefully snip off to add to their evening meal. He even had a pair of scissors on a string hanging from a street tree.

When Mrs. Kafoops at No. 23 was taken into a nursing home, her grandson moved into her house, along with a few of his pals, allegedly with the brief to maintain the house and garden until such time as the house was sold. The parties until dawn started almost immediately.

One morning Geoffrey stood gazing in horror at the carnage in his herb bed on the verge, clearly created by vehicles possessed by those attending the latest booze-and-drug-driven bacchanal at No. 23. He began to coldly map out his dish of revenge.

Crucial to his plan were his contacts within the building industry and local government. Mysterious deliveries of gravel and sand began appearing in the driveway of No.23, blocking their cars in (or out as the case may be). Then a ‘routine’ visit from the Council building inspector discovered termites were threatening the structural safety of the building.

When Mrs. Kafoops’ lawyer was contacted by the representative of a buyer (protected by commercial-in confidence) with a half-way reasonable offer, they hastened to accept (while quietly wondering who this nutter could be).

The grandson and his cronies vanished from the scene and Geoffrey began designing his next field of dreams.

Geoffrey is without Grace

Grace had decided it was time to go. Mere existence held no appeal. She and Geoffrey had discussed ‘the end’ many times and despaired at society’s obsession with longevity. As they sat drinking coffee outside cafes, they watched ancients on walking frames grimly shuffling their way to the chemist for more of whatever was keeping them alive.

They got the ‘fear of the unknown’ thing but could never really understand why more people just didn’t say ‘Damn this for a joke.’ Except you couldn’t. Guns not handy these days, razor blades messy for whoever found you, chemists making sure you couldn’t stockpile your potions, and just as likely to fall of the chair before you could manage to hang yourself. And, of course, the nanny state forbade such crimes against humanity unless doctors said your case was hopeless and you’d already been in agony long enough to deserve an early minute.

So Grace and Geoffrey had agreed. Whoever decided first that they had had enough would help the other one. And the Devil take the hindmost became their wry catchcry.

‘The tomatoes are just about finished’, Geoffrey said, starting their checklist. ‘The birds can have what’s left.’

‘I’ve taken the screen off the top of the fish-pond’, Grace said. ‘The bin-chickens can have a banquet.”

‘Old Charles at No. 7 will take the chickens’, he said

‘You’ll take Arfer with you, won’t you?’, she asked. He reached down into Arfer’s basket and stroked the rise and fall of the German Shepherd’s belly. He nodded in his wife’s direction. They knew Arfer would pine for Grace once she was gone.

‘I’m ready’, she said. ‘Do you have everything organised for the continuing adventures of Geoffrey.’

‘Yes.’

Grace looked at her drink.

‘Are you sure there’s enough? I want to go now. No mistakes.’

He recalled bringing back the pentobarbital from his last trip to the States and the frisson of feeling like an international drug smuggler.

Geoffrey nodded so she raised her shot glass and swallowed.

They gazed out from their ageing faces as the sun set over their journey together for the last time. Geoffrey waited, to be sure, and then slipped out the back gate to the laneway that he’d used when he came home that day.

Geoffrey goes to the country

Geoffrey had moved to the sparsely populated country town after Grace’s death ended the only worthwhile conversation left in his universe. All he craved was silence and isolation. His modest savings stretched to a small, solidly built weatherboard cottage and he’d calculated that he had enough to last. He had his castle; his solitude was his keep.

He would write, grow vegetables, chop wood and read until his silence became permanent. He would keep his social interactions to the minimum required to meet the necessities of existence but not meet the social contract to exchange meaningless drivel while he was doing so. No TV and no radio and no newspapers meant that he would be aware of Armageddon when it reached his doorstep.

He withdrew cash for his needs at the ATM. He had no computer and no email address, so most of the world had no idea he existed, let alone how to invade, and steal, his time and space.

He hoped the postal service would tarry through his remaining years, providing the conduit for his writing to reach the ever-diminishing audience for such anachronistic pursuits. Yes, he would continue to ‘speak’ but on his own terms. All mail except utility bills and rate notices would be marked ‘Return to Sender’.

Geoffrey’s only form of human entertainment these days was Julie, who delivered the mail. Well, not so much Julie herself but her reports of the never-ending cavalcade of rumours about him that circulated throughout the town.

Each weekday he’d meet her at the letterbox. Most days there was no actual mail but she would pretend to rummage through her pannier bags for show. You never knew who might be watching.

Their ‘relationship’ began shortly after he moved in to the cottage, with its rambling over-grown garden and mature, if neglected, fruit trees. He was in the process of hacking away mercilessly at a jasmine vine that threatened to engulf two of the only four windows in the cottage and create darkness at noon.

‘That was Mrs. Carmody’s pride and joy once. Loved the smell.’ He looked up to see an orange-vested woman astride a low-powered motorcycle, stuffing junk mail into his letterbox. ‘My name’s Julie. What else are you going to do to the place?’ She waited briefly and then filled Geoffrey’s silence with ‘Mrs. Delaney reckons you’re going to gut the place and tizzy it all up.’ Geoffrey turned back to his hatchet job on the jasmine and she rode off. Thus began a comfortable, if eccentric, exchange between Geoffrey’s silence and the speculations that Julie carried in her bags.

One morning, Geoffrey woke from a coma-like sleep, brought on by unfamiliar exercise, to the sound of insistent knocking. Threading his arms into his dressing gown, he girded his loins to see off his intrusive neighbour. Flinging the door open, he found the space filled by a uniformed presence with sergeant stripes on his shirt and a gun on his hip.

‘Morning. Thought I’d drop by and introduce myself.’ The face had a professional smile but the eyes said otherwise. ‘Sergeant Bill Stynes.’ Geoffrey waited.

Stynes said ‘And you would be?’

Geoffrey produced a notepad and wrote his name on it.

‘Some people in the town have expressed concerns’ he shouted, until Geoffrey pointed to his ears and gave a thumbs up sign and then in a normal voice ‘.. about your welfare and asked me to look in on you.’

Geoffrey wrote ‘I’m fine.’

‘Thirsty work, policing. Any chance of a cup of tea?’

Geoffrey shook his head.

Stynes heel-and-toed his sturdy leather shoes and the smallest of smirks appeared in the corner of his mouth.

‘See you around, Geoffrey.’

A non-committal Geoffrey closed the door.

After watching Stynes depart, Geoffrey headed outside to attend to his nascent veg patch. He knew enough to know that the spring soil, having not long come off winter, was still too cold for planting. Besides, he wanted to dig in some manure and compost to the depleted ground. And there was still the fence to repair to keep out the roos and the rabbits.

He was breaking up some hardened topsoil with a mattock when he heard Julie’s approach and went to the letterbox. ‘Hear that the Sarge dropped in. What’d he want?’ Silence. ‘Kevin, that’s my husband, thought it was probably just an outstanding speeding fine. Or a warrant.’ Silence. ‘Be good to see the garden tidied up. Mrs. Carmody would like that.’ And she rode off.

Of course, Julie was now the go-to person for all matters of local curiosity about Geoffrey. Although ‘fond’ would be too strong a word, she’d come to feel a little protective of him. So she took out a bit of insurance for him by starting her own rumour that Geoffrey was an avid gun collector..

Over time, the town exhausted all the possibilities that interested them and bored indifference settled around Geoffrey. He’d been relegated to a ‘character’ and that suited him just fine.

Geoffrey is hunted down

Geoffrey opened the door after a sharp, urgent rap. Two rumpled suits with unknotted ties waved badges in his general direction. ‘Geoffrey Arthur Goodman, I am Detective Inspector Thomas and this is Detective Sergeant Willis. I am arresting you on suspicion of the murder of Grace Anne Goodman on or about February 17 last year. You do not have to say anything …’

Geoffrey knew the rest and he didn’t plan on saying anything at all.

Later, in the interview room, Thomas leaned back in his chair and said wearily. “For the benefit of the tape, Mr. Goodman has waived his right to have a lawyer present. Why’d you do it, Geoffrey? Was she having it off with someone else? That would set me off. Wouldn’t it set you off, Detective Sergeant Willis?’

‘It would indeed.’ Willis responded.

Silence.

‘Geoffrey, if there’s anything you’d like to say, go ahead.’ Thomas offered.

Silence.

‘I suppose you want to know how we know it was murder. Don’t you, Geoffrey?’

Silence.

‘You see, we were never convinced it was suicide. No terminal illness. No history of depression. So we started looking at your business trips before you retired. And we tracked down your source in San Francisco. So, you can keep calling it suicide, Geoffrey, and claiming you don’t know where she got the drug if you like. But we’re going to call it murder.’

Silence.

Thomas said ‘In my experience, it’s better in the long run to just get it off your chest. Because of your age, you’ll do time in an open prison and you’ll be out in five years. What do you say?’

Silence.

‘Alright, tell us again what happened.’

Geoffrey said flatly ‘It’s all in my original statement.’

‘Did you attempt to revive her?’

Geoffrey reiterated what he’d just said. He said nothing else. He knew they were bluffing; they had no information on his source. He’d found a way to get the drug she needed and he’d found a plausible reason not to be around when she took it. Thomas and Willis were on a mission to make someone pay for having the temerity to end their days as they chose. With Grace dead, Geoffrey was the logical scapegoat but they needed a confession.

Later that night, Geoffrey was released on bail. As he was leaving the Police station, Thomas snarled ‘I know you did it, Geoffrey, and I’m not letting this go. So stick that up your silence.’

After that, Geoffrey no longer appeared at the letterbox. Julie knew why. That two-pot screamer of a copper put the accusation round at the pub.

When the smell from old Mrs. Carmody’s cottage became unmistakable, Julie finished her round and rode to the Police station to tell them. As she left, she looked the Sergeant in the eye and said, ‘Happy now?’

Geoffrey speaks from the grave – Selected poems found in Geoffrey’s cottage


Remember the Revolution?

Remember causes
and marching in the rain against war zones
that are now tourist destinations?
Remember anger
and maintaining rage at symbolic loss
while secretly at home with the familiar futility?
Remember sexual honesty
and sleeping with whoever felt like you
and confining safe sex to heart condoms?
Remember dope
and discovering the ‘real’ you
and waking each time forgetful of the revelation?
Remember music
and believing decibels were antidotes to megatons
and lyrics could shield you from the newspapers?
Remember death
when it belonged to rock stars
and an endless list your mother claimed to have known?
Remember revolutions
and the bloody gutters of freedom
because fascism belonged to the right? Right?
Remember social action
and sitting in smoke-filled rooms with Nescafé activists
and Housing Trust women with no teeth and less hope?
Remember parents
left on some private shelf
in case they portrayed you to anybody that mattered?
Remember party politics
and seeing neighbours become Ministers
only to fall in clay-footed exhaustion at the barriers?
Remember health
when it was something other people ought to have and
you weren’t smoke-free, mineral water in hand and smiling at God?
Remember money
and how it was never going to concern you
and then you learnt the golden rule and its defensible limits?
And do you remember when the penny dropped
that the personal was the political
and you found out you had to change?
And you decided to forget the revolution?

Now that you are gone

Now that you are gone
the cruelty is ended.
You, the speaker of many truths,
are no longer taunted
by a tongue in twisted battle
with a mind no less sharp
and arms no less caring
that could not be raised in love.

Now that you are gone,
I’ll have you near me always;
Close to mind and heart,
a constant in my chaos.

But in my selfish grief,
I want you here, and now,
so that I can understand
the true order of things.

Now that you are gone,
I will cling to calls in the night
and recall your thoughts
in my struggle for the truth.

But I would rather have the magic
to conjure you at will
so that we could save our worlds together,
even worlds apart.

Now that you are gone,
You’ll never wipe away my tears
and laugh rudely with me once more,
in this world that travels on.

I must learn to live
with not one more single hour
when you soothe my soul
and make all things possible, again.

Stopping all stations

It’s the same train.
Changing carriages hasn’t altered that.
But now the impenetrable darkness of tunnels
is neutralised by a hand reached for secretly
and the knowledge of the imminent re-emergence
of familiar faces in the light.
It is possible to disembark at the station of your choice
or, in an emergency, pull the cord
and trudge off into unmarked territory,
ignoring the shaking fists of railway staff.
But no; for the time being
familiarity is more potent than adventure.
It is still permitted to re-trace your steps
and peer into carriages where you once sat.
In some your space may even still be vacant,
amongst those who are, and will remain, unmoved.
In others your seat is now occupied and
despite the comforting smiles of those you know,
it will remain that way.
Eventually,
you must return to your new-chosen cubicle,
to weather report conversations,
to standard gauge concepts
and to waiting patiently
for the dawn
of the courage to get off.

The Devil Takes The Could-have-beens

Beware the wine-sodden brain flailing on,
kidding itself in the darker hours,
paying homage to could-have-been.
Beware the anger trotted out,
dusted off and laid bare to reflections in a bloodshot eye,
to spring a self-laid trap.
Let there be a new start,
urged on by forebodings of irrelevance
and eternity horizontal.
Stay away from old ground,
where every night is New Year’s Eve and nothing is resolved,
or risk seeing past comrades on distant hills,
their torch-dreams kindled by motion,
pausing less and less often to look back
at your immobile figure.
Standing still,
the grubby sticks of history are consumed quickly
in those parodies of hell,
the warmthless braziers of bitter reminiscence.
Forsake all wretchedness,
for you are not plundered.
Beneath your public rags lie priceless jewels,
secreted and perversely forgotten,
whose re-discovery waits on nakedness.
Choose not to wear sackcloth
and arise from your meal of ashes,
hungry for the flesh of the world
and the hard beauty of your diamond self.

Moving memories

Memories,
carefully dusted off and swathed,
packed in the boxes
along with the more trivial possessions.
Like the apocryphal cat
they can’t be left behind.
Some you will unpack,
immediately upon arrival,
as handy conversation pieces
when old friends call.
Some will remain encased, with only
an occasional furtive private inspection
to check for silverfish and mildew.
And some will be ‘forgotten’,
but will only feign death
and, like ancient terracotta soldiers,
will wait in infinite patience
ready to ambush the present.



BIO

Doug Jacquier is a former not-for-profit CEO who lives with his wife on the Fleurieu Peninsula in South Australia. He’s a keen vegetable gardener and cook and an occasional stand-up comedian, as well as doing the best he can as husband, father, grandfather and great-grandfather. He’s lived in many places around Australia and has travelled extensively, especially in Asia. His poems and stories have been published in Australia, the US, the UK, Canada, New Zealand and India. He has self-published two collections of stories available on Amazon and Kindle. He blogs at Six Crooked Highways (wordpress.com)





Chasing the Dragon

by Vicki Addesso


Blonde. Not white-blonde, or dirty-blonde, or tow-headed. Golden. His hair was a golden blonde. I’d hold my hand next to his head, match my wedding band against the color, and tell people, look, my son has golden hair. Blue-eyed. Chubby-cheeked. Laughter like jingle bells. My golden child.

Six years old. I see him in a far-off memory, but clear as day. Standing in front of the television set, controller in hand, playing a video game. He has become a knight in shining armor, wielding his sword against the monstrous dragon. Small fingers fly over the buttons, and he grunts as he pushes down, sways as the character on the screen that he has become battles his enemy. When this mighty miniature knight who is my little boy is defeated and consumed in flames, he slams the controller to the ground, screeching in anger, screaming not fair, not fair, not fair.

Now he is twenty-six years old. It is his birthday. Today. I stand next to the hospital bed where he is thrashing about, trying to bite out the I.V. There are fat white mittens taped onto his hands. This is the same hospital where I gave birth to him, where he was born. Back then the nurse slid tiny mittens over his hands so that he would not scratch his face. Arms moving all over the place. He looks like he wants to flap his wings and fly away, his father said. I tried to calm him, cuddling him, holding him to my breast, but he turned away, and he felt like a tight spring ready to pop. Now he is a young man. Is this the day he will die?

My son chases dragons. He is not a knight in shining armor, and he is not fighting an enemy. No, he has befriended the beast. He is a heroin addict, and when he is chasing the dragon he burns the powder on a piece of tinfoil and then closes his eyes, moves it close to his face, breathing in the fumes. Through his mouth, into his body, into his brain.

His golden hair has darkened to a light brown. It is long, past his shoulders; sometimes he pulls it back in a rubber band or pins it up into a man-bun. His beard is full. From a distance he looks like Jesus, or at least a version of what Jesus looks like to some people. To me he looks dirty, sick, and my heart breaks when I see him.

I don’t want to see him. But he comes to me. I want to send him away, but I can’t, I don’t. I give in. I give him everything.

Can you tie his hands down, I ask the nurse. He tells me no, it is against the law. I am worried that he will hurt himself, or me. I have a bruise on my left cheek and a cut on my right hand. Now I place one hand on his shoulder and the other on his chest and tell him, calm down, try to sleep. The plastic bags hanging above the bed are filled with fluids, to hydrate him, calm him, undo the damage that has been done by the dragon.

He is detoxing. Withdrawing. He has survived an overdose, but the battle has just begun. His brain is damaged. Toxic leukoencephalopathy.

Why won’t he calm down, I ask the nurse. His drug tolerance is very high, he tells me. We can’t risk sedating him. His breathing is not good.

My son is three years old when the pediatrician tells me, I’ve never seen tonsils this big, we need to take them out. My beautiful boy, so special with his giant tonsils. It’s why he would gag and gasp for air sometimes, why he never slept through the night. He would wake himself up, and me too, choking for a breath. What if he hadn’t? What if I had slept through it?

And here we are now. It happened. The night before last. I slept as he got out of his bed, walked to the bathroom, fell, and stopped breathing. His little sister heard him, a thump in the middle of the night. Mommy! Mommy, get up! I woke up and found my son not breathing. 911. Paramedic. Narcan. Ambulance. Emergency room. MRI. Brain damage.

When he woke up he could not talk or walk. His hands shook. The sounds coming out of his mouth were guttural and animal. His blue eyes opened wide and screamed. His motor and balance area. His white matter. Most likely permanent, irreversible. Wait and see. Wait and see. They move him to intensive care.

The nurse sits still and quiet on the other side of the bed.  The small room is filled with machines that click and beep and hum, flash numbers and symbols on screens. So many tubes and wires attached to my son who shifts and twists and turns under sheets and blankets.

His father is not here. We divorced soon after becoming teenage parents. He moved to the West Coast, I moved back home with my parents, and when I called him yesterday to tell him what had happened he said, too bad. Do I blame him? Do I blame us? Yes, and yes. Him for leaving, and me for everything else.

I have been standing for hours. I am exhausted beyond knowing. My husband walks into the room. He stands behind me, puts his hands on my shoulders, tells me to go home, he’ll stay. He tells me our daughter is with his sister, so I can relax, rest. I’ll stay with our boy, my husband tells me. But he is not your boy, I think. He is my boy. He’s mine.

My son was five years old when I met my husband. I was cutting hair back then, and I fell in love with his thick, dark, curly locks before I knew anything else about him. Just a trim, he’d say. Once a month for five months, and then he asked me for my number. He had just finished dental school. He lived in the town where I worked, which was not far from the town where I lived. I had gone on a few dates with some old high school friends over the years, but this was different. He was someone brand new.

A year later we married. Then it was the three of us. My husband and my son got along; they grew close.  My husband disciplined my son, firmly but lovingly. Like father and son? I don’t know. I was an only child. I was practically a child when he was born. I grew up because of him. He existed because of me. He was mine, nobody else’s, not ours.

I tell my husband that I can’t leave my son. He tells me I must. You look like death, he says, so I grab my coat and my bag and I leave. I find the restroom and as I squat over the toilet seat my thighs shake. Wipe. Stand up. Wash my hands.

When I was thirty-five I became a mother again, this time to a baby girl. My husband was so happy; we had a child. My son had just gotten his learner’s permit. Six months later he had his driver’s license and my husband bought him a nice and safe used car. I won’t blame my husband. Let’s blame the car. My son got behind the wheel of that car and took off. A key turned, and suddenly, my son was gone.

My car. Where did I park it? I didn’t. I had pulled up behind the ambulance at the emergency room doors and left it there, running. It comes back to me, a nurse saying she’ll have someone from valet services get it. Later, as I stood on the other side of a curtain while a doctor and two nurses were working on my son, someone handed me a ticket. The back pocket of my jeans. When did I get dressed? It had been the middle of the night when my daughter had screamed for me and I had found her kneeling next to her big brother who was lying on the floor of our upstairs hallway. Our daughter saved him, my son.

No tip for the valet, and did he give me a dirty look? I don’t care. I drive toward home on what feels like autopilot. I do not see roads, stop signs, traffic lights. I see my son. In court, in handcuffs. Standing there, next to three of his so-called friends, unshaven, unwashed. They’d gotten into a fight with two other young men who were selling them weed. He was seventeen. We got him out. We sold that car.

I pull over at the corner of Main and Cooper. I go inside the liquor store to buy a bottle of wine. Back in the car I call my sister-in-law to check on my daughter. She is fine, I am told. Go home and rest, I am told. I will bring her to you after dinner.

I can’t go home yet. I pull onto the parkway, just to drive, to be anywhere except in my life. But my life is stubborn and intrusive. Visions of my son over the years in various states of stupor. One year of college and that was it. Several jobs, none he could keep. Rehab, twice. Thirty-thousand dollars, times two. Still, he was not an addict. Not to me. I told myself he was drinking, smoking pot, maybe taking pills. He didn’t use needles, he didn’t shoot up. He was just doing drugs. I’d done drugs. Didn’t everyone do drugs at one point or another? Then he disappeared for a while. Gone for a month. He called. I drank. My husband said maybe it was good, that he’d learn some responsibility. Our daughter asked when her brother would visit.

When he did come home it was not to visit, but to take whatever he could from each of us. Money, jewelry, even his sister’s Beanie Baby collection. My husband changed the locks, but my son found a way in. I think back to that one awful night, the two of them at each other’s throats. Call 911, my husband yelled. I should have.

A car horn, loud and insistent. I have swerved into the other lane. I need to get off the road. I take the next exit and head home.

We stayed up that whole long night. My daughter, after the terror of witnessing her brother and father beating each other, finally cried herself to sleep around five in the morning. I kissed the top of her head, those thick, dark curls like her father’s. We are ruining her, I thought. My son and I.

My son’s face that night. Blemishes, cuts, sores, the sallow tint of his skin, his cheekbones so sharp they looked like weapons. My husband, eyes red, crying, exhausted. Somehow, by early afternoon, the three of us were in the car, headed to a new rehab facility. For another month my son was safe.

I pull into our driveway. I look around to see if any of the neighbors are about, but our cul-de-sac is deserted, everyone else at work or school or running errands.

Corkscrew. Wine glass. A sip. Another. I am alone in our home. My son is in the hospital. He has brain damage. Will he get better? Will he die? An anger, stronger than any emotion I have ever felt, fills my chest, rides up through my throat, burns in my eyes. I finish the first glass of wine and pour another, head upstairs, bringing the bottle with me. From my top dresser drawer, under my bras, I pull out the bottle of Klonopin. I swallow two with another sip of wine. I need to stop thinking. I need to sleep.

Instead, I walk to my son’s bedroom and open the door. The sour odor slaps me in the face. Clothes, garbage, clutter everywhere. The curtains drawn closed. I sit on his bed, his dirty sheets. I let all of this happen. I made this. I created this person. I blame myself. The anger is for me.

I begin my search. I am determined to find every bit of whatever he has hidden. Then maybe I will be able to see him. My golden child. Squares of tin foil with burn marks in the center. Tiny, empty plastic bags. Straws. Pipes. Empty cigarette packs.

Under his bed. In his closet. I open every drawer, pull dusty books off shelves and rifle through the pages. I tear posters off the walls. I look inside photo frames and video game boxes. I find remnants. Dustings of white powder. Marijuana seeds. Empty pill bottles with the labels ripped off. Lighters that no longer light. Matchbooks without matches. He must have been so empty to try so desperately to fill himself.

But now he can get better. I sip my wine. My son is in the hospital with brain damage, but he is alive. The doctors are cleaning him. The drugs are leaving. I lift the bottle and pour more wine into my glass. Another sip. Brains are resilient, aren’t they? Brain cells are malleable, isn’t that true? There are therapies and treatments. Miracles.

Sitting on his desk chair I notice a tear in the box spring of his bed. I walk across the room and sit on the floor. I poke my hand around inside. I feel a plastic bag and pull it out. Several folded packets of yellow and pink paisley patterned paper. I take one out of the bag.

I go back to the desk to unfold the paper. I see the powder; it is fine. It reminds me of the cocaine my first husband and I used to do. I remember the feeling, the first hit, another, and I remember the fun, and I remember how it made me need more. But I was never an addict.

I take another sip of my wine. Another. The bottle is empty. I am feeling relaxed now. The anger has dissipated. I should take a nap. I should leave the room and go to my bed and sleep. Instead, I pour the powder out on the desktop. I reach for one of the straws I’ve found. Without making neat lines, without thinking about anything, I put the straw into the small pile and lean over it. Straw in my nose. I snort. Once. Then again.

I slide to the floor. My eyes are closed. I am lying on the ground. The sun shines. A breeze blows. The grass feels scratchy against my back. Then it is dark. I hear someone calling Mommy! Mommy! The voice is distant. It is high-pitched. It is in my ear. I open my eyes and see his golden hair glistening in the moonlight. It is late, I whisper. Let’s go home, I say.



BIO

Vicki Addesso has worked in various fields over the years, full-time and part-time. In between family life and bill-paying endeavors, she works at writing. Co-author of the collaborative memoir Still Here Thinking of You~A Second Chance With Our Mothers (Big Table Publishing, 2013), she has had work published in Gravel Magazine, Barren Magazine, The Writer, Sleet Magazine, Damselfly Press, The Feminine Collective, Dorothy Parker’s Ashes, and Tweetspeak Poetry. A personal essay is included in the anthology My Body My Words, edited by Loren Kleinman and Amye Archer.  Her story, Cinnamon and Me, published by Sleet Magazine, has been nominated for a 2022 Pushcart Prize. You can follow Vicki on Twitter @VickiAddesso.





How We Got Here

by Jim Murdoch



Everything is a response (it’s important
to appreciate this before we continue);
mysteries, secrets and puzzles all need answers.
Nothing is truly original but all things
originate even if their origins are
far from obvious.

Becoming is not straightforward. Most things evolve,
are invented, sculpted, spawned or stumbled upon.
In a dream last night my subconscious said to me,
“Everything is a response.” When I awoke
I jotted the words on the pad next to my bed
and now here we are.



Unbound Things


We attach meanings to things

with nails and staples, stitches and knots,
with memories, dreams and crude imaginings,
with loves and hates, wants and needs,
with words, with looks and empty gestures.

Nails rust, memories fade, love loses its way.

Unbound the things move on
to our children and their children,
to strangers, to posterity,
to dust and then oblivion.

Only nothing lasts forever.



Observer Effect II


          (for Vito)

He has not written. Again.
Again he has not written.
He has not written again.

No matter how I phrase it
this makes no sense to me.
Not the not writing, what it amounts to.

How do you measure the notness of things?

Writing is more than accounting—
we both know this—just as love
has little to do with its expression

still we fixate on its trite gestures,
furtive glances and light brush pasts,
and shrug off the silences (or do I mean the emptinesses?)

that say it all really.



Echo’s Bones


I ordered the dead man’s book today.
I expect it will be full of dead words.
What other kinds of words are there?

I never knew him. I like to think
I know what became of him but the man
who wrote these words was a strange one.

A dead man writes to a dying man
about things that could only subsist in
the closed system that was his mind.

Now he’s gone and all that remains are
dry bones for me to gnaw on or bury.
Imaginary bones at that.





BIO

Jim Murdoch has been writing poetry for fifty years and has graced the pages of many now-defunct magazines and a few, like Ink, Sweat and Tears, The Lake and Eclectica, that are still hanging on in there. For ten years he ran the literary blog The Truth About Lies but now lives quietly in Scotland with his wife and (increasingly) next door’s cat. He has published two books of poetry, a short story collection and four novels.





To my son,
whose name I do not know….

by Yolanda Wysocki

“Child with a child pretending
Weary of lies you are sending home
So you sign all the papers in the family name
You’re sad and you’re sorry, but you’re not ashamed.”

—Joni Mitchell



In 1970, annual numbers for children being
placed for adoption in the US increased to a
peak of 89,200, then quickly declined to an
estimated 47,700 in 1975.

In 1970, the dominant psychological and
social work view was that the large majority
of unmarried mothers were better off being
separated by adoption from their newborn
babies.

“In most cases, adoption was presented to
the mothers as the only option and little or
no effort was made to help the mothers
keep and raise the children.”




62% of children adopted through private adoption
were placed with their adoptive families within a
month of birth.

Researchers find that generally children adopted
before the age of six-months fare no differently than
children raised with their biological parents.

68% of adoptees are read to every day as young
children, versus 48% of children who are not adopted.

73% of adopted children were sung to and told
stories to every day, compared to 59% of
children who were not adopted.





Making me faint on the “L” platform
on my way to work,
you announced your existence
and got my attention.

Arrested, robbed,
fired, evicted;
at the time you were
one piece
of bad news
among many.

A “foot doctor”
(with the largest feet I ever saw),
and some other MD,
illegal abortionists:
no phone? no car? no money?
“no way”
your fate was determined

as well by your father,
who had said he was sterile,
then refused to give me
the hundred bucks he had borrowed
and told everyone
I was lying about you.

an ad:
“Young people wanted to restart farm in rural Wisconsin”
a stroke cancelled their plans,
Divine intercession,
stroke of luck, kindness
whatever you call it,
I went alone.

Volkswagen bug of a trailer,
plopped in the middle of cow fields
six miles out of town.
know something?
my mother and your mother,
pregnant, alone in the country
she was terrified,
me?  finally, at peace.

I loved you
with your miniature combat boot kicks.
I wanted you to have what I could not give you…
a loving home, security, love, two parents…
so much more than I had to offer.

I didn’t want to pass on
the dysfunction
I carried inside me like a twin nestling
Alongside you
But you carried
abandonment, didn’t you?

Endless labor,
screaming alone,
an aide sitting silently
watching from the corner;
Finally they knocked me out
and you were born,
unseen.

Your bassinet turned to the wall.
After carrying you and loving you,
I couldn’t NOT see you.
I insisted.
At long last there you were behind the glass,
one quick glance.
As I turned away to ask a question,
they took you away…
forever.

Six weeks later, living with my parents,
who should have been
proud grandparents
never telling them about you
but a friend from Wisconsin
broke my trust and called,
Tough
we all acted
as if nothing had changed,
everyone knew
everything had.

Four years later,
watching a TV show on adoption,
my first memory
of having
signed
you
away.

Please
forgive me.
You are in my thoughts,
my heart and prayers.
May our paths cross again.
With love,
Your birth mother



There is a recent news photo from
Afghanistan of a crying baby still in diapers
being passed from a set of parent’s hands
over razor wire to another set of hands
belonging to an American soldier.

There are no photos of all the children
taken, stolen, snatched, beaten away from
their parents’ grief in countries all around
the world, including times of slavery.




There are no photos of children being sold,
given away by their parents to traffickers
because of poverty, greed, despair.

Sometimes children are passed into hands
that will protect them, feed them, clothe
them, love them, and sometimes into
hands that will abuse them.




Frequently Asked Questions

  • Why did you leave me/let me go/reject me/abandon me?

First it wasn’t personal in that I had never met you; the decision was made long before you were born.  Know I love you but I couldn’t give you what I wanted you to have. I hope you received those in abundance!

  • What are my birth parents like? We weren’t famous or rich or anything special. Me an 18yo naïve young girl on my own for the first time. Your father, 15 years older, a contractor who denied your existence. I was never a drug addict or alcoholic or any other kind of addict you may have been worried about.
    • DO You ever think about me?  OF COURSE I DO!  I have always kept you close in my heart, though I had let go of the sorrow years ago. I only hope you have had a great life so far and it would be nice to finally meet you.
    • Do I have any brothers or sisters? No you are an only child, but you have cousins and great cousins. Your grandparents have all died. 
    • How do I answer questions about my “real parents?”  The folks that raised you are your real parents. I am your birth mother.
    • Why don’t I look like anyone else in my family? I am sure you now know that you are adopted. Both I and your father are short people with curly hair. I have never seen your adoptive family, though I helped choose where you went. I hope they’re not all tall and straight-haired skinny people!

Frequently thought but Never Asked Questions: PLEASE FILL IN THE BLANKS.

  • How did you find out you were adopted and how did you feel?  Did you feel a need to forgive me? And did you?
    • What were your worst fears about me? Are you willing to know the truth?
    • Were you happy and well-loved as a child? 
    • Did you have brothers and sisters to grow up with?
    • What was the best day of your life? Worst? How/Who are you now? 
    • Are you happy with your life now?



Illinois Adoption Reunion Registry

Were you born in Illinois? Or are you searching for someone born in Illinois? Adopted.com is proud to offer an Illinois state adoption reunion registry where you can meet by mutual consent without having to open records. We have provided a form on this page for you to check your matches. If both parties want to meet then you can find each other on Adopted.com! Adult adoptees who are 21 years or older are able to request a non-certified copy of their original birth certificate.

Find Birth Parents Guide
Adoption.org
Describes how adoptees can conduct research about their birth families and prepare for reconnection. Search and Reunion in Domestic and International Adoption [Webinar]
Center for Adoption Support and Education (2018)
Discusses reasons that adoptees choose to search for birth relatives, outlines the search and reunion process, and describes common relational dynamics present during reunions.





BIO

Yolanda Wysocki has an MA in the Study of Human Consciousness, and two BA’s. She retired from a career in Social Services, Counseling, and Life Coaching in 2020, and is now pursuing a creative and spiritual life focused on writing, photography and meditation. Although she has been writing—poetry, bits of fiction, interviews—for several years, discovering creative non-fiction last year felt like a perfect fit. Her second- ever-to-be-published essay was recently published in Stories That Need to be Told 2022. She lives in the Portland Oregon area.





Roy and the Poet

by Andrew Plattner



From the poet who had the office three doors down, Roy stole A Green Bough by William Faulkner. This happened the day the poet moved out to start work at a university down in Virginia, where he would be teaching less and receiving better pay. There was a going-away party in the lobby of the English Department, with light refreshments. An ice cream cake, bowls of chips. Feeling vaguely sick to his stomach, Roy had bypassed all that. Well-wishers offered to carry boxes from the poet’s office down to his Audi. Roy, who envied and despised the poet, volunteered to help.

At one point, Roy found himself in the poet’s office alone with a box of books, the lid open, and he noticed the cloth-covered binding of the Faulkner book. He extracted it. Along with the poems, were mounted, modernist style illustrations. The paper was thick, the edges ragged. On the very last page, he was startled to see William Faulkner’s signature, written in blue ink, the letters quite small. A limited-edition book, just 360 copies made, the inscription said that. Roy made a stop by his office. He shoved A Green Bough into his laptop bag, hoisted the strap over his shoulder. Then he closed the lids of the box. In the faculty parking lot, the poet had a cluster of admirers gathered around his Audi. Roy guided the box in next to the others in the opened trunk. Roy then waved in the poet’s direction and said, “Hey, good luck!”

The poet dramatically walked over with his hand extended. He said, “You take good care, Roy. You are a great man.” Patronizing, as always. Everyone in the department knew that the poet had slept with Roy’s lover, Fiona.  Roy ambled in the direction of his Hyundai Tucson. He thought that the poet could be suspicious of his help . . .  open the box flaps. Wait a minute! You there!

Roy started his car, peeked once in the direction of the poet holding court by the Audi and drove away from the faculty lot. Fiona, who was still a graduate student and teaching composition classes, wouldn’t be home for another couple of hours. He made a bourbon and water, placed A Green Bough on his desk. A lovely book of poems. He wanted to chide the poet for having such a wonderful edition amongst his office books. Some people. Roy went to eBay to see what type of money this edition might fetch. Close to $1,200. It turned out this was the final collection of poetry published by Faulkner during his lifetime.

By the time Fiona arrived at their apartment, he’d hidden the book in a drawer, under a manuscript he’d written years ago. Fiona had, at best, a cursory interest in his writing. A Green Bough would remain his secret. Roy mentioned that today was the poet’s last day, and he’d even carried a box down the car for him. More than once, she had already apologized for sleeping with the poet, said it was due to her colossal insecurity. Roy and Fiona had dinner at their kitchen table, and he picked at dried-out barbecue chicken she’d brought from Whole Foods. He asked why she hadn’t stopped by to see off the poet. She’d already said goodbye, that was her response. He could see he shouldn’t say anything else about it.  Roy had been hoping to impress her with his equanimity.

**

He didn’t come across the book he’d swiped for another year and a half. He still lived in the same apartment, though Fiona had left. After she completed her master’s, she was offered a job at a small college in Kentucky, and she wanted to head off for there by herself. He’d felt happy with her, and when they split, she said they should be grateful for the time they had together. Before she moved out, Roy asked her if she still had feelings for the poet. She said the poet had opened her eyes, but she wasn’t in love with him any more than he was in love with her.  “Don’t blame him!” she’d said. “I just want more than this.” Roy wanted to respond that the poet had once referred to him as “a great man.” But the poet had probably said that because Roy hadn’t punched his lights out.  

Roy adored Fiona, her gray-green eyes, the way she danced around the apartment to Tame Impala or rapped along with Megan Thee Stallion. He liked waking up with her and especially when he awakened to find their limbs intertwined. He took delight in the sound of her voice. Life in the apartment hadn’t been the same since she left.

At the college, the poet had been replaced by a professor who primarily focused on the intersection of narratology and game studies. A short man with a neatly trimmed beard, a man who instead of a first name, preferred to be referred to by a letter (L). Not long after L joined the faculty, his wife had a baby and subsequently L would duck out of a meeting or cancel a class because of “the baby.” Roy supposed there might be something seriously awry with the baby, though when L’s wife, Ginni came by the office, she would have the baby in her arms or in one of those backpack carriers and the baby would be laughing and drooling like babies did. Obviously, L would rather be home with his wife and child as opposed to sitting in a room listening to a dean talk about dropping enrollment rates. L seemed a minor talent if that. Roy didn’t dislike him.

Roy came upon the purloined Faulkner edition because of a notion he had about his own manuscript. It was time to look through it again. Who knew, it might read now like a dream. He might’ve been too hard on himself in a previous evaluation. It always took courage to read it. He had to use both hands to lift out the huge stack of pages and, below it, he spotted A Green Bough. He eased the stack of manuscript pages on the corner of the desk and reached for the book. He brought his fingers across the cloth cover.

He sat at his desk and turned the pages of the snatched edition. Outside the window, in the front yard of his apartment complex, were the pair of century-old black cherry trees. Their autumn leaves sparkled with ruby and gold. He tried to picture his life ten years in the future. Would he be in the same apartment, doing the same job? Twenty years? By then, would he have dumped that god-awful manuscript in the garbage? He didn’t want to live a life filled with regrets. Like A Green Bough. This wasn’t his book. Bitterness had gotten the better of him there.

The poet’s university was two states away, a morning’s drive from here, four hours maybe, if I-81 stayed clear. If Roy returned the book to him, how would that go exactly? Would he just tap on the door of the poet’s office, step inside and explain himself? I took this book from you. I didn’t mean to, I guess. But maybe I did mean to. Would the poet make a fuss? Turn angry? Or would the poet mostly be relieved? Would the poet surprisingly concede that he was an asshole, and consequently things like this were bound to happen? It was difficult to imagine what the poet would say because the poet was so capable with words. This was true when he’d been at Roy’s college. People had looked forward to the things he said, the way he expressed himself. They’d held onto his words.

Roy certainly didn’t want it getting around that he’d pinched the book. If he told the poet the story, the poet, who had left behind fans at Roy’s school, might spread it around. The chair might catch wind—could Roy be fired for this? He immediately understood it was possible. Again, on the corner of the desk, he eyed his own manuscript. The chair wouldn’t attempt to save him. Roy could mail A Green Bough to the poet. He could write a note, make up a lie about how it had come into his possession . . .  

Lame, all of it. Default settings: pettiness, mediocrity. Wasn’t it time to break loose? It struck him that only thing to do would be to return A Green Bough in person. But did he need to speak the truth about how the book had come into his possession? What would Roy do if he were to be fired? Move back to Saginaw, scratch and claw for a living? Should he just stick around in his college’s town, try to hang on to his apartment, put on a green apron at Whole Foods?

How would the poet react? Roy kept coming back to this. He had a collection by the poet somewhere in this apartment. When the poet had first arrived at Roy’s college, there had a reading in his honor. Roy and Fiona attended that together as one of their first dates. Afterward, they’d each bought a book, the poet’s most recent collection, and stood in line for him to sign it. When it was their turn, the poet reached up to shake hands with Fiona. He said his first name after she said hers. When Roy said his name, the poet said, “Yes. Hello.”

Roy located the poet’s collection after searching his apartment. He skimmed the pages. Some of the poems were about growing up in rural Indiana. There were a couple about his grandfather who had Alzheimer’s. One had to do with losing his virginity to a middle-aged librarian and then to celebrate pan-broiled sunfish filets for her, but he got preoccupied with thoughts about what had just happened to him, he burned the fish and they wound up eating dry Lucky Charms from the box. This was not a vindictive person. This was not a person who would aim to get Roy fired. Out in the world, the poet seemed careless and spoiled. But the person who authored these poems had a heart.  

**

Roy made the drive to the poet’s university on a sunny and chilly Thursday morning, a day when he had no classes to teach. He started south on I-81. The poet would be keeping office hours from 2-4 in the afternoon. Roy had checked on that with the university’s English Department. He’d hung up without saying why he wanted to know or who he was. The project made him feel strange and he still wasn’t certain as to what he would say to the poet. He listened to a jazz station on his Sirius radio. Life felt different to him on the drive. This was the whole point. Something else could happen, he needed to get booted from the path he’d found himself on. His parents had been factory workers, the last of the line at TRW Automotive. They lived in a modest, wood-frame house on East Genesee Avenue. They hadn’t turned into any thieves. He wanted to be the type of man who could correct a mistake. He drove on 81 through western Maryland, down to northern Virginia. Traffic was clotted, but he had given himself plenty of time. No doubt, he wouldn’t be back to his own apartment until after dark.

His used the Waze app on his phone for directions to the university, and then a school map to locate the English Building. The campus featured colonial-style buildings with terracotta roofs, lawns turned olive by autumn. Near the library, he discovered a parking lot for visitors. Once he’d switched off the engine, he remained behind the wheel. It was still a few minutes before two. He reached for the padded envelope riding in the passenger seat and pushed out of the car.

He pulled on his corduroy jacket and then carried the padded envelope at his side. The poet’s office was on the second floor. 263. Roy made a turn down a hallway in the direction of where he believed the poet’s office to be and there stood the poet in the hall, with his head bowed next to a tall, skinny male student in dreadlocks. Roy came to a stop. Classes must’ve just let out because a stream of students funneled past him. He shuffled closer to a section of the wall. The poet noticed him then, gave a nod. Then, he looked in Roy’s direction again, frowning. Roy smiled in a helpless way. The poet said Roy’s name and then held up his index finger. The student continued speaking, but he could see the poet had business. “Yes,” the poet said. “That’ll be fine.”

“Thank you,” the student said,

“You’re welcome.”

The poet turned in Roy’s direction and let his shoulders drop. “What on earth?” he said. He put out his hand and Roy reached forward to shake with him. “Are you here to see me?”

“I am.”

“Well, goodness . . . I’m right here.” He gestured to an open office doorway. He waited for Roy to step inside and after he did this, Roy wondered if the poet would close the door after them. He did not.

“Here,” Roy said, holding out the envelope as the poet passed by on his way to the desk. The poet, who must have been confused to some degree at least, opened the envelope while still on his feet.

“I don’t believe it,” the poet said. He held A Green Bough in one hand, had the envelope in the other.

“I wanted to return this to you,” Roy said. “It’s been in my possession . . .”

“Thought this was long gone,” the poet said. “Thank you, that’s very good of you . . . can’t believe this, actually. You don’t have any other business here?”

“How are you?’ Roy said. “How’re they treating you?”

The poet laughed softly. “It’s okay.” He placed the book on his desk. “You know how it is.”

Roy hoped he knew what the poet meant. Anyway, he said, “I do.”

The poet tapped at the cover of the book a couple of times. “I bought this in a bookstore in Montreal. I had to have it, spent every buck I had. Then . . .” He turned to Roy at this. In this moment, it seemed as if the poet were about to ask for an explanation. The poet might believe it had something to do with Fiona. That Fiona had pilfered the book and Roy was covering for her now. He said, “I’m trying to figure out when I last saw this.” His expression didn’t appear unkind.

Roy said, “It’s a beautiful book. I would have done the same thing. If I’d seen it . . . in Montreal.”

“Yes. So unusual,” the poet said. “Would you like a cup of coffee before you head back? We have a lounge area.”

“No,” Roy said, right away.

“I guess we never know . . . we up wake one day, and we think we know what will happen in that day, but we don’t know. Such a thoughtful gesture, I suppose . . .”

“It was a nice morning to drive,” Roy said. “I like Maryland . . . and Virginia.” In the next instant Roy wanted to say something about Fiona. That she had moved out earlier this spring and was working in Kentucky now. It was never going to work out between Roy and Fiona, but if the poet had left her alone maybe she would have stayed the summer, anyway.

“Yes,” the poet said.  

“I’m going to head back,” Roy said. He found himself swallowing.  

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.” Roy backed up a step. They didn’t have to shake hands again.

“Everything all right, Roy?” the poet said. He could sense there was more to it.

“Fuck you,” Roy said, his voice just above a murmur.

In a voice as quiet as Roy’s, the poet said, “Fuck you, too.”

Roy stayed in place for another moment. He departed the office. Hands in his pockets, he walked purposefully up the hallway. Outside the building, he glanced around, hoping to recall the lot where he’d parked his car. He felt adrenaline eeling down his back and shoulders. Overall, it had gone all right. Now, his mind was a bit crazy and wanted to get away from there as fast as possible.

**

On the clogged highway again, Roy had an image of the poet in his office turning the pages of the returned book. Trying to decipher exactly what Roy’s visit was all about. Was Roy covering for a deed done by Fiona, the spurned lover of the poet who in search of a memento had decided to steal a treasured book of his? Or, in the scuffle and shuffle of moving, had the poet himself somehow misplaced the book and through a series of events Roy had not only discovered the book but knew who its owner happened to be and out of his profound respect had driven all this way? Or, out of nothing more than spite, had Roy stolen the book and eventually come to regret his actions?

It seemed probable to Roy that the poet would land on the truth.

And now what would happen? Who would the poet tell the story to? Would he be upset at the chain of events that brought A Green Bough back to him? Demand an investigation? If the poet contacted Roy’s English Department would the chair have to pursue action? If so, would Roy confess? Resign? Roy tried to imagine a different life for himself . . . hello, Amazon warehouse worker! Have gave a quick salute to the horizon.

He could work at an Amazon warehouse, live ironically, at the far end of what he’d once dreamt for himself. What was likely to happen, that’s what he wanted to know. The poet, glad to have his book back, wouldn’t say a word about it. Everyone had already moved on. The poet would conclude that Roy was a sad, desperate, bitter man. This even though Roy had driven two states over to return a book. If only Roy hadn’t said, Fuck you. But he understood he’d made the trip so that he could say it. The color of the sky began to change as the sun sank for the western horizon. He reminded himself not to be impatient, that he would be back in his apartment soon enough. In the morning, it wouldn’t take long to prepare for his classes. He was using the same syllabus he had the previous fall.

When the traffic finally loosened, he began to feel hungry, ravenously so. Could he claim at least that today had been a step in getting on with his life? At the very least, he deserved better than fast food, yes? While going just over the speed limit, he managed to do a search on his phone. Hagerstown loomed just ahead, and he found the name of a diner there, on Eastern Boulevard. Incredible Eggs.

Inside, it turned out to be a something of a hipster joint. Young people, opened laptops, music by Arcade Fire. A waitress who might have been the age of either of his parents brought him a laminated menu. She poured him a cup of coffee. “What’s the most expensive thing you have?” he said.

“Crab cakes,” she said. “Twenty-six ninety-five, without the sides.”

“I guess what I mean is I’m really hungry.”

“We have the Big Bad Salad.”

“A lot of food?”

“You’ll be here till midnight. Twelve ninety-five.”

“I’ll go for that.”

“Want me to tell you what’s in it?” she said.

“It’ll be fine,” Roy said, holding the menu over to her. “Bleu cheese dressing, on the side.” After she walked off, he turned to the window and watched the traffic out on the street. It was dusk by then and the sky had turned the color of ripe plums.  The poet had said, Fuck you, too. He had that ready. He’d seen right through Roy.

Roy wondered about the next drive he’d take—would it be down to Kentucky to surprise Fiona? It would be terrific to see her, but that wouldn’t go well, far worse than this had. It didn’t take a minute for him to understand that. The relationship felt more over than ever.  For Thanksgiving, he might make the eight-hour drive for Saginaw through Youngstown, Akron, Toledo, Detroit, Flint. He’d nicknamed the drive from his college town to his hometown “The Rust Belt Limited.” He and his parents would watch the Lions game on TV with the aroma of his mother’s cornbread and sausage stuffing in the oven. The Lions would sometimes luck into winning one.

The waitress brought his dinner, which paused these images. The salad came in a big white bowl. A mound of lettuce, two whole boiled eggs, red onions, tuna fish, feta cheese, spinach, chicken, pine nuts, watercress. “Why, I will be here all night,” he said, in a good-natured way.

“Enjoy,” she said and slid the bill near the saucer that held his coffee cup, then stepped in the direction of another occupied table. After he unwrapped his silverware from the paper napkin, he saw the knife and spoon had water spots. On one of the fork tines, there seemed to be a bit of crusted something. He didn’t need to bother the waitress. For a moment, he scraped at it with his thumbnail. Then, he began to eat.



BIO

Andrew Plattner lives in Atlanta, Georgia. Earlier this year, Mercer University Press released his story collection, Tower. He has published stories of late in New World Writing Quarterly, October Hill Magazine, Litbreak, Sortes Magazine and The Spotlong Review. He has taught fiction writing at the University of So. Mississippi, Emory University, University of Tampa and Kennesaw State University. 





Night

by Brent Short



Under its starry arch
where we cross
the vaulted abyss,
its own insistent mix
of darkness and light,
velvety curtain,
a difficult work,
darker possibility,
moment interminable
demanding a stricter faith.

Wall of black, dead bliss,
profound allness,
an endlessness
teeming with stars,
the darker metaphor,
a gauntlet, bowl of fire,
dark brilliant secret,
what comes before dawn,
but never
the vivid world of day.

With its turned back,
stars turn on their pivot,
all honeycombed and sparkle—
an inky iridescence
where the earth
has fallen away.

Brimming,
peeking over the rim,
infinite roar of an infinite sea,
a gleaning of luminous things,
lit trellis, a vast mind pouring
over my head like water,
light and darkness
flowing irresistibly
toward the other.

Moonlessness,
fields of cold, clear light,
orchard of stars,
all-encompassing wheel,
all that’s lost,
journey’s end,
the dark invisible,
the nothing that is—
looking up, night
is a long way down.



Flash


Thunder claps
extending out into an expanse,
between where I look
and the mountains’ distant flash,
where jagged streaks ignite
a vast exposure—
this x-ray of a town
flooded in a riot of light.

In the earth’s dark shudder
there’s a passing through
of uncertainty and surprise,
picked up
and set down,
as if this place
was already what I left behind,
somewhere else,
a disappearing vibration,
lost inside the sound
of its own dark crash—
the night’s arc
all grimace,
no sound,
the sky ripping,
ricochet.



Cracked


A cracked sky
swallowed by
cracked light,
the invisible as it splits,
an upheaval and buckling,
vibration broadcasting forward,
earth and sky
filling with the sound
of their own dislocation—
all shudder,
reverberation,
a discrete space disturbed,
erupting into
its own contradiction,
a peel of terror
slammed against dark air,
cleaving, the world moving off its spot—
what I call out to there
inside the breach,
rumble and flash,
inside the throat
of that hollowed black echo.





BIO

Brent Short lives and works in Kansas City, Missouri. His poetry chapbook, The Properties of Light was published in 2015 by Green Rabbit Press. His poetry has appeared in Eads Bridge Literary Review, Sandhill Review, Tar River Poetry, Saint Katherine Review, The Windhover, Amethyst Review, San Pedro River Review and The Orchards Poetry Journal.





Sundown

By Lyle Hopwood



The Sundown Café’s For Sale sign had hung so long in the mountain sun that the details had faded into illegibility. The plywood boards nailed across the doors of the Thunderbox Theatre were weathered to shiny silver. I drove past, imagining the street returning to life for half a minute, like a TikTok video. A multitude of teens outside, milling around the sidewalk, slouched against the wall, leaning on the green transformer boxes, smoking weed. The thump of electronic dance music shaking the arched upper floor windows. Young men in from the ranches in their cowboy boots, eyeing girls in tie-dyed tees and fishnets. Antiques stores, voracious for customers, stacked high with old gas pumps and unidentifiable iron implements salvaged from the farms.

My thoughts—half-memory, half-dream—cut abruptly. Morningside’s present main street came back into view. No ravers, no shoppers. Two dusty trucks parked akimbo across four marked spaces. A hunting outfitter with a vinyl sign Over The Counter Elk Tags Sold Here, a gas station, and an electronics store. The rest of the street was a brick façade with nothing behind except collapsing roofs.

I drove on. The scenery quietly transformed into red rocks and lofty pines with wide open green pastures between. Mom’s ranch house hid in a stand of Blue Spruce with a chicken run at the side. She’d lived here forever, growing up in the shell of the town before the rich Detroit musician arrived, liked what he saw and built his Colorado ranch. The whole town briefly resurrected itself around the unlikely core of an electronic dance music festival and its masked producer.

I parked the 4Runner beside her pine needle-blanketed truck and checked my appearance in the mirror. I’d shaved the beard. I wanted to give her the best chance of recognizing me. Mom had no phone, otherwise I’d have called ahead. I rang the bell, waited a beat, then pushed the unlatched door. The hinges must have sagged over the years because the door swished reluctantly inward, scraping the linoleum.

“Mom? You here?”

No answer. I stomped my feet to alert her as I walked to the front room. I found her sitting in an armchair with a wool throw over her lap. She had no book. The lights and TV were off. For an instant, I was afraid she was dead, mummified like Norman Bates’s mother in Psycho.

“Mom?”

“Oh, it’s you,” she said without any hint of surprise, and moved her spindly hand off her knees to touch my face. “You didn’t tell me you were coming.” She dropped her hand and sat up straight.

I noticed she didn’t say my name. The neighbor who phoned me last week said she no longer remembered his, said I should be prepared for it. Truth is, she never much said my name. I was always ‘the boy’ to her.

“Hello, Mom.”

“I’ll make coffee,” she said, pulling off her throw and standing up. Her legs were much thinner than I remembered. As she stood, she tensed her leg, pointing a slipper toe towards the floor, disguising a tremor. I noticed her hands shook.

I gripped her elbow, helping her sit back down. “I’ll make the coffee,” I said. I asked her how she liked it. I’d never made it for her before.

*

Dad left her, with me in tow, twenty-four years ago, after the Thunderbox Festival packed up for the season and he had nothing to look forward to besides manufacturing more ironwork “antiques” to sell to tourists. I was just a little kid, and I understood in an inchoate way that we were going to California, where the festival’s hardcore ravers came from. But in San Clemente there were no raves. Dad never looked back and I wouldn’t have either, until Stan, Mom’s neighbor to the north, told me she had fallen sick.

“Not sick like cancer sick,” he said over a phone line with an echo that made it hard to speak because our voices came back to us a half second later. “It’s like, y’know, senile dementia.”

I’ll dement ya, the echo retorted.

I could have ignored Stan, but Yassie from Mom’s dental office phoned later. Whether she and Stan colluded, or she was just concerned Mom hadn’t been in lately, I don’t know, but she used the same image. “Not cancer sick,” she said, “But when you come, she might not recognize you.”

When I told her my Mom was still in her sixties, Yassie said it comes on fast if it comes on early.

I didn’t know if I’d recognize her either, but I was still her kid, so I made the trek out of duty, not expecting too much.

*

The pot was only half-brewed when Mom appeared in the kitchen. She had come to life, as if plugged into a USB port. Her eyes were alight, and she stood straight.

“The coffee smells delicious,” she said, as I filled her cup. It did not rattle on the saucer; the tremor had gone. “Did you find any cookies?”

“No,” I shook my head. “Not even Girl Scout Cookies.”

“No Girl Scouts around here. Morningside is literally a ghost town. I’ll make something. It’ll have to be margarine. I don’t have no butter.” She put her cup down and opened the pantry door. “You know, for a while it was different. The town swarmed with people back then. When DJ Klaviatura came here, everybody wanted to be here. They came in droves. Stinking clouds of what-did-they-call-it, skunk. Smelled like it. And X.”

“Ex?”

“Ecstasy. Don’t pretend you’ve never taken drugs.” She stirred batter in a stainless-steel bowl with a cracked wooden spoon. The smell of raisins wafting from it carried me back to my childhood. She was making scones.

“I’ve never even seen Ecstasy for sale,” I said. “I think it was a Generation X thing. No pun intended.” She sure seemed to be all there. If anything, her canny intellect shone bright, like the filament in an Edison bulb. No sign of the dementia they’d warned me about. “Mom, why did DJ Klaviatura come here? I remember the big charity yard sale thing for the kids and the bounce house, but…you know, I was five when we left.”

“You don’t remember the festival he started?” She put the baking sheet in the oven and closed it. “He was a DJ. He’d toured all over the US. I guess people told him about skiing in Vail when he played Red Rocks. Then someone told him about a ski lodge in Morningside County, a Futuro house –”

“A what?”

“A Futuro house. They’re from the sixties. Like a flying saucer on stilts. Remember Gort in The Day the Earth Stood Still? I have a postcard of it on the coffee table somewhere. It overlooked the ski slopes. DJ-K bought the Futuro house and Hernandez’s ranch and moved the house down the mountainside to the pastures.”

“I remember the ski lodge. Like a jelly doughnut, with oval windows all around the edge?”

She nodded.

Since I had an excuse, I checked out the piles on the coffee table, assuming the worst—that there would be unpaid bills or medical alerts. But the heap comprised election flyers, shower modernization offers and partisan local papers, the usual junk mail detritus. The room itself looked lived-in, but not hoarder-level untidy. Maybe Stan or the woman from the dentist’s had been checking in on her? It seemed unlikely. Dad said the neighbors didn’t get on with her after she started hanging with DJ-K’s posse. I got the impression country folk could do a good shunning when they put their minds to it.

“DJ-K cleared his land,” she continued. “He brought in Texas Longhorns, got a cowboy hat, shuttled in all his Detroit techno friends. Morningside was deserted back then. The founding fathers bet everything on the silver mine, and lost. The loggers never cared for the town—the roads are bad. If the Williams family hadn’t sequestered the mine’s steam train, there wouldn’t have been no reason to ever come here.”

“How do you sequester a steam train?”

She shrugged. “How should I know? But the bankruptcy trustees never found it. The Williamses built a scenic track alongside the river at the bottom, got the locomotive running and tourists bought tickets. Those were the town’s only visitors.”

“What about the Conestoga Cowboys Annual Festival?” I didn’t remember going to any cowboy festivals when I was a kid, but I scoured Morningside’s webpage before I set out, and it touted the festival as the town’s major attraction. Horse-collar races. Pan the stream for gold (ages five to fifteen). Deep fried turkey legs. Funnel cake.

“The Festival of Donner Parties and Indian Massacres? It didn’t exist ‘til 2010. All that ‘Americana’ horseshit is about fifteen years old. Don’t let anyone tell you different. People swear their great grampaw did some crap when he was a boy and everyone believes ‘em. Pow, it’s a tradition.” She sipped her coffee, then added as an afterthought, “The Oregon Trail didn’t even come through Colorado.”

The Oregon Trail computer game? I searched my memory of the beloved educational program and realized Mom meant the town had appropriated the game’s ethos for money. Once DJ-K had gone, the town dreamed up an origin story to replace its lost tax revenues.

“Magic happened when DJ-K came to town. Before that man arrived,” she said, “Morningside had six stores and cafés serving farmers, hunters and maybe a few skiers. Some get lost every year and end up here.”

The scones in the oven smelled heavenly.

She went on, “He opened the Sundown Café and people kept flowing in. He started the charity gift shop, with the autographed mugs. Second year he created the festival, the rave. He got it permitted for three thousand attendees. Soon, thousands of people were here all summer. RVs everywhere. Lord knows how they got them up the 4X4 road.” She leaned on the kitchen counter as she talked.

“Did you set a timer?” I asked.

“Don’t need no timer,” she said. She opened the oven door. The scones were golden, fluffy and full. She put them on the counter to cool.

She continued, “They bought curios, more than your father could make in the off-season—he had to get new antiques sent from China. The Sundown was always full, winter and summer, snow or no. DJ-K opened that pop-up Thunderbox Theater and people drove from as far away as Denver to dance there. The outfitters shop got remodeled as a hipster clothing store.”

I poured more coffee and bit into a scone. It was delicious.

She carried on describing how the town sprouted like spring grass around DJ-K and his dance festival. “Barbers, tattoo parlors, a store selling iguanas and snakes. Glowsticks, whistles, pacifiers, crystals, sage bundles, second-hand LPs.”

“Vinyls,” I corrected, gently.

She nodded her head a couple of times, as if thinking how to go on. “And then he died. One minute he’s playing music for thousands at Coachinga…”

“Coachella,” I reminded her.

“Next, he’s in a coma. Then dead.” Her voice sank to a throaty whisper on the last word.

I guided her to the chair in the living room and put a plate with the remaining scones on the coffee table.

“He used to perform wearing a giant teddy bear head. A Mylar foil deal. It was 120 degrees in the dance tent in the desert. The heat and the drugs did something to his brain.”

I was five when Dad hustled me out of Morningside. DJ-K ran six of those annual festivals in the town before we left. I realized Dad might have been telling the truth. She had loved the man.

I got up to clear away her plate and cup. She didn’t hand it to me. She just let the plate lie on her lap. The flood of memories had dried.

“People didn’t want autographed mugs after DJ-K died?” I prompted.

“Denice—” she paused. “Denice, his wife, made a go of it, but she couldn’t do the music for the dancers who came to the raves. The café got a few hunters, but they tend to stick to their own kind. She sold the saucer house to a Silicon Valley tech bro for next to nothing and went back to Detroit.” Mom sighed so loud it bordered on a hiss. It made me jump, but when I looked out the kitchen door, she was okay, just mired in the past.

I switched on the lamp that stood on the ironwork end table. “You should get a cellphone,” I said, thinking about when I’d come back again. I could bring butter.

“A what?” She had closed her eyes and leant back in her chair.

“If you get a cell you can talk to people. There’s an electronics store in Morningside.”

“There’s nobody I want to talk to.”

“Should I come back soon?” I asked.

“Back where?”

I strode into the center of the room where I could see her face. She jerked suddenly and I thought her tremors were back, but it was surprise.

“Who’re you?”

“I’m your son,” I said soothingly. “We just ate your homemade scones together, like when I was small.”

She picked up her throw and shook it out to cover her legs, then rested her hands on her skinny thighs. She pursed her lips in a look of mild disapproval, as if the world never failed to disappoint. “Sure.”

I didn’t know if she had answered my question about future visits or acknowledged I was her son. Whatever magic I’d brought that briefly roused her mind guttered out. I rinsed the crockery and baking sheet and went out into the pine-scented yard, yanking the obdurate door closed behind me. The sun set between the mountains in a scarlet blaze. I left before the hairpin bends became undriveable in the approaching dark.



BIO




Born in the UK, Lyle Hopwood immigrated to the US, where she worked in clinical laboratories as a director of regulatory affairs. Reading was not enough for her, so she decided to join the conversation. She has had short stories published in magazines including Interzone, Eldritch Science, Edge Detector, Back Brain Recluse and others. More are coming soon in IZ Digital, Aurealis and BFS Horizons. Her short stories have also appeared in two German anthologies. She lives in Southern California with a holographer, her herptiles and her collection of Kalanchoe.





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