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Empowering Despair

By Liza Martin


My fake ID said I was eighteen years old, and my name was Micaela. It was technically not a fake ID but a document I had found, and instead of returning it, I decided to use it as if it was my own. Micaela and I were similar, but it was pretty clear we were not the same person. For starters, I was fourteen at the time.

Not like the guards in the clubs cared. If the club was for 18+, you could expect to see only minors inside. Those who were eighteen or older went to clubs that were for 25+. The same happened with quinceañeras—you only went if you were under fifteen. Getting into places with a fake ID was especially easy for girls because girls attract boys, and boys usually pay, making it a win-win situation: we get in, and the clubs earn more money.

We liked to pretend we were older than we actually were. We wore high-waisted mini skirts way too tight with ugly crop tops that were barely enough to cover our developing bodies. We didn’t know that blending our foundation was a thing, so we walked proudly with our necks two skin tones lighter than our faces. We were lucky if we managed to do eyeliner properly without getting it in our eyes. After hours of preparation that concluded in liters of perfume and the smell of burnt hair, we were ready to go. Nothing could stop us; we were invincible. I felt invincible.

Until someone in the club touched me under my skirt.

More and more strange hands. Their skin against mine. Male bodies “dancing,” pressed against my own, offered me a couple of drinks to “let loose” and, just like that, to forget that even more hands were touching me under my clothes in that dirty, dark club.

The first time it happened, I was confused—maybe it was an accident? Yet another hand touched me, and another, and another. I tried to stop it, to call my friends, to find some help … yet when I saw my friends were also being touched and liked it, I felt ashamed. Not scared or angry—just ashamed.

Was this normal? Seeing everyone around me going through the same thing and not reacting at all made me hesitate as to whether to tell someone or do something. But it felt so wrong, and I was so uncomfortable. More and more drinks. More and more hands. Was I overreacting? I used to answer myself that yes, indeed, I was. I had to understand; that’s how it works––that’s the Latino culture. In fact, if you were lucky enough to be the target of teenage hands grabbing and caressing you, it meant you were attractive. So come on, be happy, smile, stop complaining! Enjoy the compliment and embrace your culture. Let them touch you; let them press their bodies against yours!

I saw my friends not only enjoying the harassment (as I call it now, but most definitely not how I called it then) but intentionally trying to get more of it. Noticing that only I felt uncomfortable with the situation, I thought, You are definitely the one in the wrong, Liz. I just trusted it was normal—because everyone acted as if it was.

When I look back, I always try to find a culprit, yet I always fail. It would have been easier if my parents had blamed my outfit or if my friends had explicitly said that getting touched was a compliment. I could then look back and say, “See? Look what they tell us when we are young. That’s why we acted as we did.” But the truth is, no one told us anything. That’s just not how it works—in Argentina, you learn on your own. You walk outside, and you follow the clear expectations that society places on you. You copy what others do, overhear conversations and take them personally, get punished or rewarded for your actions, and learn to survive in that savage jungle we call home.

When I was a child, during lunchtime, boys would be taught how to hammer while we were taught how to make pompoms out of wool. No one said it, but we learned that girls were weaker than boys. Boys wore pants and were allowed to wear shorts during Physical Education. We were absolutely banned from wearing shorts during P.E. but were expected to wear mandatory skirts every other day. No one said this explicitly, but we learned that girls should look attractive to look formal but never to be comfortable. In the clubs, girls don’t pay an entrance fee but are expected to express their sexuality and let strangers touch them. No one said so, but we learned that if no one touched us or pressed their bodies against us, it meant we were ugly and undesired. And all we wanted at fourteen was for someone to desire us. 

***

“Liza, prendé el bajón,” my mom asked. Bajón, in English “anticlimax,” is how my mom referred to the evening news—a channel where journalists exploit the suffering of others and turn horrific news into morbid entertainment. That night was no different.

A woman is murdered every 30 hours in Argentina due to sexist violence. There have been 286 femicides so far this year, and today we…

My mom turned the TV off. She knew what had happened that afternoon and couldn’t bear to hear it again. Chiara Paez, who was only fourteen, had been brutally murdered by her boyfriend after finding out she was pregnant. Fourteen. Just like me at the time, which is why my mom didn’t want to keep on listening.

But Chiara’s death was impossible to ignore. Everywhere, public demonstrations and marches arose like flowers in the spring. Women were tired—fed up with the killings and the raping, and the terrible violence that came with the curse of being a woman in Latin America.

The TV stayed off for the remainder of the week in my house.

For the first time ever, Argentina experienced a social outbreak focused specifically on sexist violence. The use of the word “femicide,” a mix of female and homicide, grew stronger as a way of explaining the murders of women at the hands of a man solely due to misogyny. A whole concept that stressed the gravity of sexism in our cultural context where gender violence and discrimination were common currency. Chiara was the final straw—Argentina couldn’t remain silent. That little girl’s assassination gave life to the Ni Una Menos movement, a feminist group that shook the country, spread to the Latin continent, and later reached North America as Me Too.

Meanwhile, all I cared about was which club I would go to on the weekend. About to turn fifteen, I was oblivious to the reality outside my bubble. I still craved the attention of those men in the clubs. I wanted to oversexualize my body and pretend to be older. I wanted to walk alone at night and dreamed about running away. And it wasn’t just me. My friends, most people my age, condoned all of those actions. While marches and demonstrations fought for a feminist future in the streets, the internal speech had not changed as quickly.

Feminists said that women were getting raped, and that mustn’t happen. At the same time, teenagers learned that being touched without consent was a compliment. Feminists said that men were killing women, but meanwhile, we were expected to seek male validation at all costs. Feminists protested and fought against Chiara’s and every other girl’s assassination. Meanwhile, the media, run by men, portrayed feminists as exaggerated and aggressive individuals. No wonder I soon started saying that feminists were crazy and that I didn’t like their modus operandi.

“Mamá, look what they’ve done!” I would say, looking at whatever thing those crazy stupid women had done that time. Like a parrot, I repeated the media’s message that feminists wanted to combat violence with more violence, which was useless and inconvenient. “I would never be part of that.”

My poor mother—she never argued about it with me. Instead, she kept silently attending those marches, patiently waiting for me to grow and join her in the fight. She knew how hard it was to wake up to the fact that feminism was not the enemy but the ally while being fed misogynistic speech and growing up in a sexist environment.

Why would I even support a movement that failed to help me? I would have loved to have had such support that first night out when I was fourteen, on my first encounter with the Latino nightlife. And yet, I had learned to accept my culture and its ways. Or worse—I had learned to like it. Why wouldn’t they do the same? Why wouldn’t they just remain silent and accept the world as it was? Why did they have to go out and destroy the streets during pointless demonstrations to change something that would never change?

My father, just like me, believed what the media portrayed. Violent women destroy public squares, wreck national monuments, vandalize governmental buildings … If we dared to talk about it during dinner, my mom would stand strong with her arguments, and a peaceful meal would turn into a heated fight. The voice of the media was louder than my mom’s during those nights. Until one day, when we opened our eyes.

The femicides had risen from one woman every thirty hours to one woman every twenty-three. During a Ni Una Menos demonstration, a group of women covered their faces with bandanas and scarves and vandalized the Cabildo of Buenos Aires, a historic building once used as the seat of the town council during the colonial period. The graffiti filled the entire wall with the names of hundreds of women who had been murdered that year, among other common feminist phrases.

“Graffitis ruin the cabildo’s facade,” “Insurgent protesters vandalize historic buildings,” “Violent demonstrators cost the city 270k pesos…” The media went wild. The Cabildo, located in the main square of the country’s capital city, had been destroyed. A building with historical value was completely ruined by inconsiderate women who were not satisfied with being allowed to protest peacefully but had the need to use violence––thus harming the innocent Argentine people.

“270,000 pesos! And this is a public building, so we will be paying that with our taxes. Outrageous!” My dad, worried about our income, had completely missed the fact that an entire wall was covered with names of girls my age who had been brutally murdered. Still young and oblivious, I had also missed the point.

“Don’t you guys see?” my mom asked. “Neither money nor the cabildo is the problem here. You can repaint the wall. You cannot bring those girls back to life.”

Suddenly, it all made sense. I felt as if someone had cleaned my pair of glasses, and the world I once saw blurry was now well-defined and clear. It felt like when one increases the brightness on a computer screen.

Feminists were not the enemy—the media was.

***

All around me, women dressed in green and purple chanted feminist songs that made my skin instantly flare with goosebumps. Thousands of banners and signs plagued the street. My mom, next to me, joined the women in their scream, “Never again, ni una menos!” My heart was pumping, and I felt quite overwhelmed. It was 2016, and as I attended my first march, I felt a paradigm shift in my mind.

Another girl had been killed. It had been over a year, and the femicides were still rising. I used to think feminists were unnecessarily violent. But why wouldn’t they? (Why wouldn’t we?) More than a year of peaceful protests, and what was the result? Even more femicides. How were murders, rape, and discrimination accepted but protests frowned upon?

I looked at my mom, and she smiled. Her smile delivered a clear message: among all the chaos, right there and then, we were safe. Surrounded by signs with the faces of the deceased girls, marching next to the victims’ families, and protesting against the never-ending violence, we still felt safe. There was a feeling of empowerment and belonging that was hard to put into words. We were not just individuals fighting for a cause; we were a collective—a family.

That mix of empowerment and despair remains with me to this day. I have not stopped going to demonstrations, simply because the gender-based murders and discrimination haven’t stopped either. And while it will take time to eradicate the sexist dynamics that plague my country, I can proudly say that Argentinean women were the pioneers in a movement that spread quickly through The Americas, and that, hopefully, changed the paradigm of many others who, like me, didn’t even have the word feminism in their language.



BIO

Born and raised in Mendoza, Argentina, Liza Martin left home when she turned eighteen to study for an International Baccalaureate in Thailand through the United World College program. Completely alone on a foreign continent, writing became her refuge—her therapy. Once she graduated, Liza was accepted into The University of Oklahoma on a full scholarship, where she is currently studying English Literature with a minor in Professional Writing. Being the first in her family to complete her studies abroad and the first to speak a second language, Liza aspires to represent her roots in her field of work. She writes in Spanish and English to make her art and culture accessible to both languages.







ON THE WAY HOME FROM THE CANCER SUPPORT GROUP

by Elizabeth Crowell


She tries to forget the discussion of human suffering,
the side effect to tongue or to the heart, which can burn too.
She listens to NPR to remember her stance (liberal) and the world (screwed).

A sudden orchard comes and goes, its steely branches, barb-wired in winter sun. Months back,
the doctors gaped in their white coats
as if they’ve heard the wrong joke. The diagnosis is preposterous.

She tries to think of better times, but what are those?
The children’s tiny coats and boots, a crazy night in Troy, NY?
What do you go back to when you are afraid of dying?

She thinks of all her misplaced conviction,
like how she bothers to correct people who use who instead of whom.
And now, for God’s sake, a flock of wild turkeys make her lurch.

A dozen or so of them, their red and brown paisley, stocky bodies
awkward as suitcases, their branch-thin legs strut
their reaching, stiff-necked gait across the road.

Two dozen eyes glare at her with a so what?
No pity there, just their tweaking bodies,
moving like old comedians in silent movies.



PEONIES AND WINGS


I did not know these were peonies,
these heavy-headed, tight, thick blossoms

layers dozens of pink petals,
blooming right now on the side of the house.

I have seen them painted in a still-life
by Manet, a postcard I thumbtacked to a wall,

two white peonies, lying on a wooden table,
picked, doomed, extraordinarily open.

More than once, I have asked myself,
how can you not recognize the world?

When I was a child, an aunt and I
walked in those same New Hampshire woods.

She bent at nearly every plant and said aloud,
skunk cabbage, cinnamon fern, trillium,

virgin bowercreeper, boneset, bunchberry. She called them
rough-fruited or common, tall, wild, almost extinct.

It was like a dream language, those words
like the shadows of clouds on a moonlit lake.

I dreaded the flash of a fish at the end of a line,
silver-belly glint, fanned fins, a parent’s question

What kind of fish is it? Did I make a deal,
a decision not to know, or did I think

in time I would come to simply know
the way we do with love and loss?

I am leaving sooner than I thought,
Though whoever thinks of leaving

once they have arrived, wet and bodied?
Today I see a dusty-feather bird, a bit of blue color.

It flies, tight-winged, from my black fence to the sky,
then stays on the pitch of the barn.

Its distinct call must be recognizable,
but I don’t recognize it, even in the shadows,

where our senses deepen like small tribes,
waiting to ambush the unknown.





BIO

Elizabeth Crowell grew up in northern New Jersey and has a B.A. from Smith College in English Literature and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing/Poetry from Columbia University. She taught college and high school English for many years. Her work has been published in such journals as Bellevue Literary Review, Another Chicago Magazine, Paterson Literary Review, and others. One of her poems was nominated for a Pushcart Poetry Prize and originally published in the Tipton Review. She lives outside of Boston with her wife and teenage children.







Toads, Viruses, and Climate Change

by Cynthia Pratt


Tell me about tomorrow or the next.
How it reaches into your belly,
reminds us we are going extinct.
I try to caulk over gaps and the
heat, too hot actually. Try to adjust
to sickness or death. Not me yet
but of course it could be.
Those others die without any
visual knowledge of me knowing them.
The heat is oppressive and the weather
dry like a toad’s back.

The wives’ tale about not rubbing it’s back
is still a memory. What else can reach
as far down as sad moments allow?
My hand warts up as a reminder
that I once believed. I smother the lump
with clear fingernail polish, a treatment
handed down from generations,
as if heat, and the unbreathing skin
will choke all viruses, cure that which
rocks out of kilter.



I Almost Sent You This Postcard


Have you seen a sting-ray
skeleton? The bones
fan out like a geisha’s
accoutrement, cooling
her painted skin,
but here, it moves through
film of liquid atmosphere.

The skeleton splays out,
too beautiful to sting,
but that is the deception
of beauty, isn’t it?
The bruise after the
violent, full-lipped kiss.



The Visit


I’m visiting the sister with such bad luck:
bad husband, bad job, kids that were not easy.

Slender and neat, she chatters about San Diego,
her daughter, granddaughter, the granddaughter’s husband,
how large cities are difficult.
Asks questions but the space for answering
grows shorter and shorter.

I’m visiting my sister, the beauty queen whom
photographers begged for a pose for their portfolios,
the sister who convinced me I was privileged to
polish her shoes when I was 10.

The sister who had her younger sister
screen the men at the door, to see
if she was available.

Still, she is lovely, even now,
even when she has given up hennaing her hair,
gone to a softer pale red, or
maybe not, maybe giving up the tremendous
work of it, letting those thick natural curls go
entirely to what they want to be.

I’m visiting and I’m giving her advice
between the breaths that are mistaken for short pauses:
            Try riding the bus to get to know the city;
            see if the library has part-time work.

Me, the kid, who begged to try on her crinoline skirts,
suggesting a plan of action
and thinking of all those boys turned away.



Fall, Falling


If I knew it was the right time,
I would find fall
beckoning, the bark
course against my hand stroke.
I watch time ticking in circles.
I mind the waiting for the coming season.

Knots tick past me. I am a currach,
moored in an inlet, watching.
Write, please write.
Crows fall from the sky.
I know it’s food they are after,
my stomach knots.

Names hang onto sharp, thorned roses.
Even still, the boat, my mind,
drifts up and down with each leave-
taking, the bed between us a crumpled leaf.
I can’t make it right.
From shore, you wave.

I think it’s goodbye.
Roses dry in the vase you gave me,
dry strokes against my hand.
It is too late to face the fall.
I hear the crows caw
from my bed.

I cannot rise.
Under the nightstand a damselfly is dying.





BIO

Cynthia Pratt is one of the founding members of the Olympia Poetry Network’s board which has been in existence for over 30 years. Her poems have appeared in Crab Creek Review, Raven Chronicles, Bellingham Review, Quill & Parchment, Feminist Theology Poetry, The Raven’s Perch and other publications, and in the anthologies, Tattoos on Cedar (2006), Godiva Speaks (2011), two anthologies by the Fusion Collective, Dancing on the Edges (2017) and Garden of the Covid Museum (2021), Hidden in Childhood anthology and the anthology by Washington Humanities and Empty Bowl Press, I Sing the Salmon Home (2023). Her manuscript, Celestial Drift¸ was published in 2017. She is a former Fish and Wildlife biologist having graduated from Humboldt State University in Science and The Evergreen State University in the Master’s of Environmental Studies program. She was a former Lacey Councilmember and the Deputy Mayor of the City of Lacey for the last 12 years, with her term ending in December 2021. She is the first Poet Laureate of Lacey as of 2022.







Reach for the Stars

by Courtney Chatellier



“Any money you make, they’re just going to give you less financial aid next year,” Erin’s mom says as they pull out of the A&P plaza. Smokes 4 Less and Perfect Nails II roll past her window. Erin starts to say that the money is beside the point, then reconsiders. They have the money from her first stepdad’s wrongful death suit (hunting accident), but whether it’s a lot, or just enough to get by—well, it’s “subjective,” as her mom likes to say. There’s also the fact that her mom isn’t technically working. (“I am working!” she says, when Erin asks why. “I am watching the markets. I am doing my exercises.”) In relation to her long breaks between jobs, Erin’s mom always says that the worst thing in the world is to be trapped in a job you hate, and although Erin is pretty sure she can think of a few worse things, the point is: her mom doesn’t want either of them to settle.

They drive past houses with white porch railings and houses with white picket fences and houses with American flags jutting out.

“That’s okay, because they actually don’t declare the servers’ tips,” Erin says, improvising.

“Huh.” Her mom lowers her glossy black sunglasses over her eyes, as if she’s already thinking about something else. The market, perhaps. Or Mark, Erin’s most recent ex-stepdad. The sunglasses are Prada, from the Neiman Marcus in Greenwich—part of the doctrine of not settling has to do with what her mom calls “investing in yourself”—but she can also be weirdly frugal, like when Erin had to beg her to throw out the L. L. Bean chinos with the period stains her mom claimed were “barely visible.” And so even when they go to the mall, and her mom says she can buy whatever she wants, usually Erin gets so anxious that she can’t even try something on unless it’s seventy percent off.

Sometimes, it’s just easier to settle.

Except that lately, she’s been thinking about clothes: not her own, exactly, but those of a Vassar student who in Erin’s imagination both is and isn’t her. Even though it feels treacherous, she knows that these hypothetical clothes—the Sevens jeans and DKNY tops and Michael Stars tees that will spark a transfiguration into her true self—can only be hers if she purchases them with her own money.

There’s also the more immediate problem of time, the menacing blankness of the weeks ahead. Unlike the upstate New York town where they lived when her mom was married to Ter, Erin’s second-most-recent-ex-stepdad—which actually isn’t that far from here—this one at least has sidewalks, a thrift store, a Blockbuster. There’s even a smaller, independent video store across the intersection from the Blockbuster. But no one walks anywhere, except for the small, spindly woman Erin has already spotted twice, trekking along the edges of Route 44, her antennaed headphones and safety goggles and hiking pole giving her the uncanny look of a giant insect, and if Erin weren’t leaving for college at the end of the summer, she thinks, she would probably turn into that woman eventually.

They pull into the Colonial Manor complex and park in front of their new condo, the hood of the Volvo coming to rest inches from Erin’s bedroom window, where the books she’s lined up on the sill form a white, anonymous wall.

“I just hope they don’t pool tips.” Erin’s mom turns off the ignition. “You can make a lot of money waiting tables, but not if you have to pick up slack for a bunch of losers.”

“Oh. Yeah, no.” Naively, Erin realizes now, she didn’t think to ask this at the interview. “I’m pretty sure the manager said they don’t.”

*

The next day, Erin finds out that the restaurant does declare the servers’ tips, even the cash tips. But no, fortunately it’s not a “pooled house.” She learns this from Alex, who is a “senior server,” though younger than the manager who interviewed her, maybe twenty-seven or twenty-eight.

“So why do you want to be a server and not a hostess?” he asks, handing her a black folder with a grainy print-out of the restaurant and its parking lot on the cover.

Erin shrugs. The answer seems so obvious to her that she worries now that she’s mistaken. “Because servers make more money?”

Alex raises his eyebrows. “That’s true.” He has dark curly hair and bony shoulders and is the same height as Erin. “So you’re going to be trailing Nicole for your training shift. Make sure you do the checklist for Day One. Oh—and do everything Nicole tells you,” he adds sternly.

“Okay.” Erin nods, opens her folder, begins scanning the first page.

“I was kidding?”

She looks up. Alex is still looking at her.

“Oh.” She looks at the floor, senses her face turning pink. She’s relieved, when she looks up, that he’s walking away.

*

While they wait for Nicole’s first table to be sat, Erin learns that Nicole is half Polish, that she’s planning to go to journalism school, and that her boyfriend lives in New York City, which she keeps referring to as “the city.” In her left nostril there’s a tiny stud that Erin suspects is a real diamond.

Maybe Nicole will be her friend, Erin thinks, and the prospect is thrilling—almost unnervingly so. She stuffs the thought into a back corner of her brain, from which it emits a kind of warmth even while she’s thinking about something else.

“We should probably talk about points of service,” Nicole says, glancing at Erin’s folder. Erin is about to respond by saying something complimentary about journalism school, before segueing into a discussion of her own interest in the New Journalism, when one of the hostesses comes over and tells them they have a four-top on thirty-four. Erin follows Nicole to a table where a middle-aged couple and their two junior high school-aged sons gaze silently at the laminated menus. All of them, including the mother, have variants of the same hairstyle, a spiky crew cut with bleached tips.

“Welcome to Ottavio’s Family Bistro! I’m Nicole, and I’ll be taking care of you tonight. And this is—I’m sorry, what’s your name again? Erin! Erin is shadowing me. I’ll just give you a quick sec to look over the menu, but you let us know if you have any questions.”

The couple beams at Nicole, and it occurs to Erin that perhaps no one so beautiful has ever been nice to them before. 

Soon they have another new table. Nicole tells Erin to watch as she taps a rapid series of neon squares on the computer screen in their station. She says something about “dupes” and “firing mains.” At Nicole’s urging, Erin “greets” table thirty-one, a group of broad-shouldered men in baseball caps, but none of them looks up or seems to notice her, and after that Nicole says she can go back to just shadowing. One of the hostesses dims the lights every few minutes, keeping pace with the setting sun. The overlapping sounds of silverware and conversation and Italian opera music swell to a thick conglomerate roar. Erin no longer has any idea what Nicole is saying when she bends down to talk close to her customers’ faces. Each time they pass another server, she tries to make eye contact and smile, but no one reciprocates.

At some point Nicole turns to her and says, “Babe, can you go ask Jorge for more ice for station four?”

Before Erin has time to respond, Nicole dashes toward the kitchen. For a moment, it’s a relief to be untethered. Then a muted panic sets in, as Erin realizes she has no idea who Jorge is, or how to locate him, or what will happen if she fails to do so in time. Looking across the bar she sees, at a different server station, four clear plastic water pitchers filled mostly with ice.

She has a pitcher in each hand when she hears someone snarl, “What’s your section?”

Some of the ice water sloshes onto the front of Erin’s pants. She turns to face a girl with oily skin and red curly hair piled on top of her head in a messy bun full of glittery butterfly clips.

“I don’t know. I’m trailing Nicole.”

“Oh.” The girl crosses her arms and leans back, squinting at Erin. “I’m Alice. Nicole’s in three. Nicole’s always in three on Thursdays.” Alice smirks, as if this comment is rife with subtext. Then she leans forward again, bringing her face so close that Erin can see the crumbs of mascara in the corners of her eyes. “You know, you’re not supposed to use this station unless you’re working the back. But you’re new, you didn’t know.”

Erin nods. Alice’s face is still inches away from her own, her eyes darting around. Erin considers asking her to identify Jorge. Instead, still holding the water pitchers, she shrugs and walks away before Alice can say anything else, and an unsettling thought takes hold: although it’s her first night, what if tonight isn’t an anomaly? What if, even within this bustling environment, she is destined to remain lonely and mute?

It occurs to her that she could simply leave—who would notice?—but she should at least tell Nicole, whom she finds in the blindingly well-lit kitchen talking, where one of the line cooks is saying something to her in Spanish. “Papi!” Nicole says, raising her eyebrows with feigned astonishment and laughing in a way that sounds flirtatious, but also classy, and Erin wonders if this is something that can be learned, or more like an innate ability. But before she has time to approach Nicole and tell her that maybe waitressing isn’t for her, after all, Paul, the head chef, bellows, “Pasta gets cold in thirty fucking seconds, where is everyone?” He rings the bell rapidly five times. Nicole grabs two salads from the pass window and disappears through the swinging doors. More plates amass in the window. The moment when Erin might have walked out seems to have passed. She picks up two dishes, fanning them in her left hand the way she’s been watching people do it all night, spikes the ticket with her free hand, and picks up a third plate. She’s eighty percent sure she knows where table fifty-two is.

Her attention to not dropping the plates consumes her so completely that she doesn’t see Alex until she’s setting down the last one.

“Very nice,” he says. He holds up his arm, taps his bicep through his white shirt and grins. Erin notices his dimples. A busboy cuts between her and the table and for a moment she’s almost stepping on Alex’s feet. Alex brings his hand to her waist in a way that feels both intimate and professional, secretive and flagrant. When the busboy moves away with the rest of fifty-two’s appetizer plates, she slips past the table, out of Alex’s section. Behind her she hears him saying, “Bon appetit! Mangia!” and then a man’s voice saying, “Thank you, Alex, baby,” and as she’s walking back to Nicole’s section she has the distinct, electrifying feeling of being watched, and even though she suspects that Alex might weigh less than she does, she suddenly imagines in luscious depth what it would be like to make out with him.

*

She wakes to the instructor’s voice. Now reach it up. Stretch it high. Doing great. All right. Ahaha!

Normally she stays in her room while her mom does her workout, but the tape just started and she has to pee. She cracks the door and looks across the living room. Her mom’s back is to her, and on the TV the instructor, with his round face and furry beard and bouncing movements, reminds Erin of a hamster on a wheel.

Just stretching. We’re getting into shape today. Reach for the stars. You can do it. You can do anything you want!

But he also looks sort of like Mark, and it occurs to Erin that, in a sense, it’s Mark’s fault that they’re here. Because the worst thing in the world (in addition to settling, or being stuck in a job you hate) is running into your ex-husband at Hannaford’s, every time her mom gets divorced, they have to move at least two, preferably three counties over. It’s not surprising that things didn’t work out with Mark: her mom always goes for men whose names sound like verbs. Phil, Cary, Ter, Mark. And yet, disappointingly, they never seem to be doing much. Mark, for instance, had quit acting by the time Erin’s mom sold him the house in Darien where they’d all ended up living for three years. He’d almost had a big break, once—a scene in a Leonardo DiCaprio movie where he had two lines—but after that he kept getting typecast as scowling, peripheral villains, and when he’d had enough of playing Unnamed Confederate Soldier and Nazi Guard #2, he’d quit, and by the time he was dating Erin’s mom, he was working on something called an “e-commerce site.” Also, he had “passive income,” which Erin’s mom spoke of with reverence, but which sounded to Erin to be of a piece with his total absence of a personality.

Admittedly, Mark was a step up from Ter—Ter with the gross cats that Erin’s mom denied being allergic to, and Carly, his awkward, chubby daughter, whom Erin’s mom was always trying to get her to hang out with, even though Carly was almost three years younger than her.

What enthusiasm we’ve got here, huh?

The instructor laughs, and the video cuts to a woman in a pink leotard who smiles self-consciously while pulsing in a squat, and then Erin’s mom, in her oversized T-shirt and stretched-out leggings and no bra, her frizzy, box-dyed hair sticking sweatily to her forehead, laughs too.

Erin allows her bedroom door to not slam, exactly, but close loudly enough to register her open-ended disapproval. “I thought you were sending out your résumé today.”

Her mom glances over her shoulder, as if expecting to find someone other than Erin standing there. “Says the girl who sleeps till noon!”

“It’s like, eleven-thirty.”

“Hm!”

“I mean, I did work last night.” Erin rubs her thumb over an uneven part of the doorframe and watches as a splinter of wood separates from its coating of paint. She considers asking her mom what she expects her to do all day in this random town, with its conceited, ironic name—Pleasant Valley!—and then imagines her mom’s astonished, stupid response: Anything you want!

“I’m going to look at a house later if you want to come along.”

Now get those legs up a little higher. In, up. Great, you got it. Super!

“Why are you looking at a house? We just got here.”

“Well! This isn’t supposed to be permanent!” Erin’s mom makes a swirling gesture with her wrists, as though to indicate the unpacked boxes in the corners of the room, or the entire condo, or maybe life itself.

“So why are we here?”

“It’s important”—her mom waves her arms over her head, mirroring the instructor—“to keep your options open.”

Erin takes a deep breath. “That makes no sense.”

Her mom sits down on the floor, starts batting her legs in the air. “You have to make sure it’s the right fit before you put down roots!”

“Um, okay. I think I’ll just stay here today.”

The instructor gazes out from the TV, counting down from eight, his own voice growing choppy and breathless. Smiling faintly, and without taking her eyes off him, her mom says, “Suit yourself!”

*

The first customers don’t come in until almost one, and the hostess seats them in Alex’s section. Erin finds him in the kitchen, sitting on the metal counter and talking in Spanish through the pass window to one of the line cooks. When she tells him he has a table he smiles and says, “You can take them.”

“Really?”

He shrugs cheerfully, turns back to the line cook.

When the new schedule was posted two weeks ago and Erin saw that she had all lunch shifts, it seemed like a bad sign, like maybe she was on probation—it’s not lost on her that she would probably be making a lot more money if the restaurant did pool tips—but the fact that she and Alex are the only servers on Wednesday lunch almost compensates for how little money she’s making.

She comes back to the kitchen to get a bread basket.

“You’re going to college, right?”

Erin looks at Alex, surprised. “I haven’t started yet. This fall.”

He asks her what school, and when she says Vassar, says, “Wow. That is truly impressive.” He says something to the line cook, who raises his eyebrows at Erin and nods appreciatively, and her heart lifts as she considers for the first time that maybe it is truly impressive, even though it’s not an Ivy, and she privately considered it her “safety school” before she was rejected from everywhere else.

“And it’s so close, you’ll be able to live at home,” Alex adds. “Save some money.”

She’s about to say that she would literally rather die than keep living with her mom after this summer, then realizes that she never actually thought about it in terms of money. It occurs to her that Alex was probably on his own already by the time he was her age. For the rest of the shift she avoids him, even though she can think of nothing other than how much she wants to talk to him. The insurmountable obstacle is that everything she might say will only offer further proof of her triviality and shallowness.

After she drops the check at their last table, she goes to the hostess stand and starts spraying the dinner menus with Windex. When she catches a glimpse of Alex approaching, it takes a strenuous but rewarding effort not to look up or seem to notice until he’s standing right next to her.

“So what do you do for fun?”

He stands with his arms folded across his chest, his head cocked to the side. He reminds her of the street-wise older boy in a Charles Dickens novel.

“I actually just moved here?” The pleasure of Alex’s attention is almost but not completely canceled out by having to scrape the empty sides of her life for an answer. “So the people I went to school with mostly live in Massachusetts and Connecticut. We moved around a lot. Because of my mom’s job. Or, like, lack thereof, usually. She does real estate, mostly.”

Alex nods. He looks at her in a steadying way. “What about your dad?”

“He’s not really—like, I had a stepdad? He died. But like, a while ago. It’s okay.”

“Oh. That sounds really hard.”

The way that his voice drops and softens makes her want to collapse to the floor.

“It’s really okay. I was four, so I don’t really remember him, and I don’t think my mom was too happy when they were together.” She looks down at the menu in front of her and picks at a dry, cloudy smudge with her thumb nail. “At first it was kind of fun, living in a new place every couple of years. My mom is really opposed to, like, ‘settling.’ But—I don’t know. I wouldn’t say my mom is selfish. I just wonder what it would be like to have a normal family sometimes, and like, actually live in a place.” She glances at Alex, who’s looking at the floor now with a deep, intense expression. “Actually, now that we’re here, we’re sort of close to the town where I went to sixth through eighth grade, and I saw some of those people at a graduation party. It was pretty fun, but I don’t know if a lot of people even remembered me. I mean, I also didn’t remember some of them. Like this kid who was kind of chubby when we were in middle school—he got really tall and skinny and grew his hair out, so I didn’t recognize him. It was so funny. And then he offered me coke? I guess he kind of has a problem, but I felt like, I can’t not do this, you know what I mean?”

“Oh, yeah? That’s really interesting. Wait, hang on.” Across the room, a man in a suit at their last table waves a credit card over his head.

With anyone else, Erin thinks, she would feel weird about what she just said, but with Alex it didn’t seem random or boring. She wonders why she wasted the last two hours not talking to him.

The man in the suit and the woman he was sitting with walk to the front with Alex. On their way out the door, the man shakes Alex’s hand and says, “Always a pleasure.”

“Thanks, man. You have a beautiful day.” The door closes behind them. Alex looks at Erin. “You’re free the rest of the day, right?”

Erin pretends to think about this. Beyond the glass doors, the sky is achingly blue, and she can feel, like the pulse of music on the other side of a wall, the life that she is supposed to be living.

“Yeah, I don’t have plans.”

Alex studies her face, smiles. “You’re funny.” He takes his phone out of his apron and glances at it before snapping it shut. “I can get a guy to come by with some stuff if you want to smoke or do that other stuff that you like.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“Yeah? You’re down?”

“I’m down.”

“The thing is, we have to take your car. I don’t really have a car right now.”

“Oh.”

“No good?”

“No, it’s just my mom’s car. I can’t smoke in her car. I mean I guess I could just say that, like, I wasn’t the one who was smoking, but it’s probably, I don’t know, not a great idea?”

“No problem.” Alex flips his phone open again. “I know the perfect spot we could go to.”

*

They park at the edge of a field. When she steps out of the car, the grass is hot and dry around Erin’s ankles, and the carefree, spontaneous nature of this day—and who knows, maybe it’s not just this day, maybe this is what life is really turning out to be like, after all—seems to travel up her legs, an electric current.

Alex comes to her side of the car and lights the joint he rolled on the drive. “Yeah, so do you know what you want to study and everything?”

“English.”

“Nice.” Alex passes her the joint. “You’re gonna be a teacher.”

Erin thinks about correcting him—whatever she’s going to be, it’s definitely not an English teacher—but she likes the way they’re standing, side by side, their heads almost touching. She brings the joint that was just touching Alex’s lips to her own lips.

“Yeah, when I save enough money, I’m gonna go back to school, too,” Alex says. “Get my business degree. Gotta get my financials together. That’s the foundation, you know what I mean?”

Erin nods, as if it’s something she thinks about all the time. In the afternoon light she notices for the first time the crow’s feet fanning from the corners of Alex’s eyes, and wonders if she’s misjudged his age, and what this means. But soon the thought is just a vague discordant note, dissolving into the rich symphony of what this day is becoming. After they finish the joint, she follows Alex down seemingly endless rows of cars in the grass. When they get to a freshly painted red barn it looks like people are waiting in line to pay to get in, and she focuses on keeping a relaxed facial expression as she and Alex walk straight past them and around to the side. Once inside the fairgrounds they stroll past a magician who isn’t doing any magic, just yelling in a European accent at the crowd gathered around him, and down an avenue of food stalls where the air is crisp and fried dough-scented. Behind the food stalls, a skyline of glowing, tilting, clattering rides juts out, and distant screams rise and fall through the air.

If her mode of being so far this summer has been one of emptiness, this is what it’s like to be full.

Leaving the food stalls they walk up a grassy slope toward a row of barns. When they get to the rabbit hutches, Erin wants to stop and look but Alex keeps going, leading her quickly through the shade of a barn where the velvety faces of brown cows turn as they pass, and outside again and across the grass to the last barn, where a black and white goat bleats and follows them along its fence. At the edge of an empty stall that smells richly of hay and manure Alex asks her for the car key. He takes a plastic bag out of his pocket, runs the key up the inside of the bag, raises the tip of the key to his nose, and inhales sharply. Then he takes another scoop and holds it up for Erin.

Just like the other time she did this, the moment she lifts her head a wave of heat seems to rise up inside her that is wild and dangerous—and, at the same time, a perfect match for the glittering prowess of her brain.

They lean their elbows against the splintery railing.

“You talk to Alice, right?” Alex scrapes the bottom of his black waiter shoe against the bottom rung.

“Yeah, we talk sometimes,” Erin says.

“I don’t know what she’s said to you, but I’m not a bad father.” Alex turns to look at her, his eyes bright.

“Yeah, no.” The goat snuffles its nose in the hay. As Erin’s mind envelops this new information, a lurching sadness, but also a greater understanding of the human condition, seems to take hold in her. “You’re definitely not a bad father!”

“Like, I work, I save money, I try to be a good person.” He shakes his head. “She thinks we have to be together because she read a child psychology book. But I disagree. I think if your parents are going to be, like, hating each other in front of you, how is that helping? If you’re a little kid and your parents are fighting all the time, like what’s the point?”

“Totally,” Erin says. Simultaneously, it occurs to her that they are definitely not going to make out; that she has been expecting them to, ever since they left the restaurant; and that, regardless, this is one of the best days of her life.

“You’re really mature,” Alex says, nodding. “Like, for your age.”

“Thanks.” Erin looks at the goat, prancing now to the other side of its enclosure, and something complex and inexpressible starts to arrange itself in her head. “Sometimes it feels like I’ve had a long life.”

Alex tells her that he knows exactly what she means, and that it’s something he knew he had in common with her, even when they first met. He talks for a while about his own family. How his mom came over the border when she was pregnant with him, and then left him with her cousin to go back to be with his sister. When she finally made it back, he was twelve and didn’t recognize her, but they’re really close now. The longer he talks, the less Erin believes they actually have anything in common, and yet she senses within herself a capacity for listening that’s almost infinite, as if she could hold his entire life story in her head, and maybe that’s the closest you ever get to understanding another person anyway. They do another bump and start talking about work. Alex tries to explain to her why she has the lowest cover average and the lowest take-home average out of all the servers. That it has to do with how long her tables sit, their insufficient drink orders, her resistance to dropping a check before a table is cleared. Although she can see he’s right, she still feels compelled to mention the thing Nicole told her in training. That it’s not a “turn-and-burn” kind of place, that you don’t want people to feel like you’re rushing them out the door. Alex shakes his head vigorously. He tells her that she’s still really young but that, eventually, if she stays in the industry, she’ll figure out the truth. How shit really works.

“How shit really works?” she repeats, her pulse quickening at the edge of this occult knowledge.

Alex smiles, shakes his head again, like maybe he can’t say. Then he glances around the barn, brings his mouth close to her ear and says, in a low voice: “Every place is a turn-and-burn kind of place.

*

On the way out Erin buys a piece of funnel cake and breaks off little pieces to push around in her mouth until they turn into mush and then liquid. There’s a poignancy, a sadness to this afternoon’s drawing to a close, mitigated by the faint possibility that maybe, once inside the car, she and Alex are going to make out, after all. As she follows him through the labyrinth of carnival games, she has the sensation of an invisible energy field separating them from all the other people walking by. She’s about to ask Alex if he feels it, too, when a man with gray hair under a red baseball cap barks at the side of her head, “I’ll guess your weight within three pounds, your age within two years, your birthday within two months!” She whips her head around and asks, “What about something I don’t know?” The man smiles—but not in a friendly way, she thinks—and then moves on, shouting his lines at somebody else. And that’s when she sees them. Up ahead, slipping in and out of view through the crowd. The family: a father, a mother, and a teenage girl in a white, spaghetti-strap dress. She realizes that she saw them somewhere earlier, but she can’t think of where, and she wonders why this crucial information is eluding her now. The daughter is pretty, Erin decides, even though she can only see the back of her head. And the mother’s hair is frizzy, kind of like her mom’s hair, but even from this distance it’s obvious that this woman is making an effort, wearing a khaki-colored dress with a belt around the waist. And even if the father is a little heavyset, and not very tall, and seems—again, just judging by the back of his head—like he’s probably not very attractive, he still gives off an impression of stability and competence. For a few seconds Erin imagines that she’s the girl, and that those are her parents, and that somehow, miraculously, at least for one day, they’re all having a really nice time together.

The perfect tripartite family stops. They turn to look at the game with the fishbowls and the ping-pong balls. She and Alex are getting closer to them, and something in Erin’s brain clicks into place. The woman in the khaki dress fades like one of those optical illusions—do you see the duck or the rabbit?—into Erin’s mom. A second later, the pudgy man whose waist she’s hugging materializes into Ter.

Erin stops in the middle of the concrete path. “Oh my god. That’s my mom. That’s my mom and like, my ex-ex-stepdad.”

“Oh, word?” Alex keeps walking.

She grabs his arm, pulling him back. “That’s them,” she hisses, pointing.

 Alex squints. “That’s, like, your sister?” His eyes dance across Carly’s suntanned, newly slender shoulders.

The magnitude of her mom’s dishonesty—of her hypocrisy!—breaks slowly over Erin. (This is why they moved here? So her mom could settle? For Ter?) Even as she feels her legs driving her forward with a vengeful momentum, she considers grabbing Alex’s hand and running—back past the animal stalls, back across the field, back to her mom’s Volvo—and then driving home, and never saying anything about any of it.

She comes to stand in front of them, this family configuration in which she has no desire to take part—not that anyone bothered to ask—and her mom’s arm drops away from Ter, and her mouth momentarily falls open, but her eyes, hidden behind her Prada sunglasses, reveal nothing.

The other families waiting for the fishbowl game rearrange themselves, subtracting her mom and Ter and Carly from the line.

Ter looks the way Erin remembers: his face pink and bumpy, his black polo shirt covered in cat hair. His small blue eyes dart between Erin and her mom. “Well—look at you!” He smiles tentatively, as though maybe he thinks there’s a chance that Erin’s mom planned this. Erin glares at him as he forages for a compliment. “Well—look at her, Kath,” he says, nudging Erin’s mom’s arm with his elbow. “She’s glowing.”

Her mom removes her sunglasses and looks at her, and Erin thinks again that maybe she’d like to turn and run. Instead, she takes a huge bite of funnel cake.

“And who’s this young man?” Ter says, apparently without sarcasm, extending a hand. Reviving, Alex not only takes it but claps Ter on the shoulder.

“Alex. Great to meet you.” Looking at Erin’s mom he adds, “And you too, ma’am. I mean, miss.”

Carly laughs. Alex beams at her.

Erin wants to punch all of them. Forcing herself to swallow the lump of funnel cake, she says to her mom, “Can I talk to you?”

Her mom pulls at the sleeve of her khaki dress and Erin notices the sweat stains in the tan fabric. “Of course, baby.”

“Like—now? Privately? Can we just go?

Her mom blinks at her. Then she sighs, turns to Ter and Carly. “I guess this is my ride!” She squeezes Ter’s hand, gives Carly a hug.

As they walk away, Erin hears Ter asking Alex if he needs a lift. She pictures Alex in the back seat of Ter’s station wagon, his eyes meeting Carly’s in the rearview mirror. For a second, she longs to be back in the barn. Back inside that moment when this day still could have turned into anything. Or at least get one more bump of coke before saying everything she knows she wants to say to her mom, only the words seem to be slipping away from her now. Her mom is saying something about taking it slow, and about finding the right moment to tell her, but Erin isn’t listening. The sky turns pink and gold as they pick their way through dozens of rows of cars, and each individual tree at the edge of the field seems to glow, irradiated. It’s Erin’s mom who finally sees the Volvo in a spot that seems not even close to where Erin remembers parking. Erin passes her the key. Before she opens the passenger door, she takes one more look back at the entrance to the fairgrounds. An even longer line of people is waiting to get in now—fewer families, more bands of teenagers—and the ambient knowledge that she really is leaving soon takes on weight and mass in her chest. At the same time, a sort of understanding of her mom’s choices flickers sharply into view. But just as quickly, it vanishes, leaving in its wake only the bracing certainty that, whatever happens in the vast unknown of her adult life, at least she can say for sure that she’s never going to settle.



BIO

Courtney Chatellier is a writer living in Queens. She grew up in New York’s Hudson Valley and completed her Bachelor’s degree at New York University and PhD in English and American Studies at the CUNY Graduate Center. She currently teaches writing at NYU and is at work on her first novel. 







Chicken Babies

By Maza Guzmán


While in denial about my bipolar disorder, I decided, maniacally, to drive from Los Angeles to San Antonio with three baby chickens in the back of my blue Chevy Cruze. I had agreed to adopt them before my then-girlfriend put me in the hospital, and my conviction was, when I emerged a week later no less manic and much more fearful, that I could not abandon my babies, no matter what happened.

At every gas station, every motel, everywhere I could, I would crack the back windows open so that I could show off my babies to passersby, ideally children whose mothers’ eyes would widen as they pointed out one, two, three of my darlings. Once, in the parking lot of a gas station, I fully opened the door to replace their water jug, and they escaped, running under a neighboring car. I enlisted a small family, apparently familiar with chickens, in wrangling them back to my passenger side, but the adolescent chicks refused to return to the blanketed backseat, their nest, where I had poured hemp bedding in the footwells. Eventually, I developed a technique with my walking stick, using a sweeping motion to scare them back into the familiar.

The most beautiful effect of mania, I found, is the certainty, how everything makes sense. Destiny is the day’s return each and every day, until you find yourself penniless on the side of the road. It took six weeks, my mind and the wheels of a rented Tesla running fatally fast–so fast I couldn’t remember all of it. I had abandoned the Chevy in Alhambra before taking the road north to Seattle, but I did not abandon the chickens. They lasted until the end of those weeks, in the middle of the desert in Apple Valley, probably eaten and enjoyed by coyotes.

I wailed, pleading with the gods I had espoused concurrently with the chickens. These gods were neutral clowns armed with cruel jokes, ever ready to bestow lessons harshly. I had allowed my babies their freedom from the car for just one day as I attempted to purvey my clairvoyance at a cannabis convention. They had never before roamed far from their assigned bush where I set their food and water jug. But the bush proved insufficient defense against the desert’s will.

Throughout my mania, I invested my faith into a single coin–heads yes, tails no–and braced myself for the truth: were they dead? Heads–yes. Still I pleaded. I could not have guessed that just a month into the future I would be pleading for my own life, at the mercy of my own hands, as I fought suicidal instincts. But I spent that day hiking over sandy hills blooming with tiny desert flowers, searching for signs of my chicken babies and not finding even one feather.

I called the woman from La Quinta who had babysat my chickens one afternoon as I stewed in the hot tub. She had gushed about my chickens as much as I did, once a chicken mother herself. They were adorable. She assured me that coyotes would have left a mess. “Someone must have taken them,” she reassured me. “There’s no need to cry. Someone must have picked them up.”

Now when I hear the word “desert,” my heart shrinks. I think of the road, the strangers I grew attached to in my loneliness, the wild bravery desiccated and replaced by shame. A world without destiny, without a holy mandate to keep my babies alive and well, leaves me shaken with confusion over those cruel gods, now fully abandoned. How can chemicals in the brain so thoroughly change the material of your soul? I marvel at the life I led before the mania, before the chickens, when our shared reality held enough weight, enough purpose, to keep me moving through my days without hitting 106 miles per hour.



BIO

Maza Guzmán is a non-binary, multi-genre artist and writer currently living in the Chicago area while aspiring to return to Los Angeles. In 2020, they were featured in the documentary film The Art of Protest. In 2021, one of their needle-felted originals played a role in an award-winning stop-motion short. They’re currently working on a surrealist memoir, finding inspiration in space, science, queerness, and the bittersweet. They studied creative nonfiction writing at Northwestern University. This is their first publication.







On the Inside

by R.A. Clarke



We jumbled off the plane and down the ramp, heading towards baggage claim.

“Come on, let’s go. Grandma will be waiting.” I just wanted to get to our destination. Being stuck in an airport a few extra hours, waiting for a delayed flight with two grumpy kids, had sapped my energy.

“Why do we have to come here every year? Why can’t she come see us?” Toby grumbled, the heels of his boots dragging.

“We visit your grandma because she wants to see you guys. And you know why she doesn’t come to our house.” I ran a hand through his hair, but he pulled away.

“I don’t get it though. She’s so weird.” Toby stuffed his hands in his pockets, a sullen look on his face.

“And why doesn’t she like mirrors?” Callie chimed in; her brows raised.

How can I explain Rhytiphobia clearly to an eight- and ten-year-old, when I don’t even fully understand it myself?

I sighed heavily. “As I’ve said before, she doesn’t like to be seen. She believes in knowing a person for who they are on the inside, and not what they look like. That’s why Grandma lives alone out here, and why she wears a mask. She’s not weird, sweetheart, just special.” I knew that wasn’t exactly the truth, but it would have to do for now.

My children had never seen their grandma’s face. Toby had barely been born when Mom moved away. Yes, her extraordinary fear of wrinkles was certainly bizarre, but I’d never say that to my kids.

“Why can’t she be special back home?” Callie pressed. She missed her grandma between visits.

“Maybe you should ask that question when we see her, and she can answer herself.” I patted my daughter’s shoulder.

We finally reached the baggage claim, which was already in motion. Thank the Lord. These metallic conveyor belts used to give the kids a thrill as they watched the luggage spit out and circle, eager to spot their bags.

“Well, as long as I get to see a castle this time, I’ll be happy,” Toby muttered.

“Yes, we’ll visit Dunrobin Castle for sure this trip. I promise.” Toby appeared satisfied with that answer. He was developing quite the little attitude. I blamed that new boy he’d befriended at school—a snotty thing. Maybe this time away would help straighten him out again.

We grabbed our baggage as it shuffled by, and I herded the kids out the door to find a shuttle. Piling into the closest one, we were off.

“Next stop, Grandma’s house!” I trilled.

“Yay…” My grumpy progeny echoed in stereo.

Until the shoreline came into view, the trek seemed to physically pain the children, both incessantly asking, “Are we there yet?” I, however, didn’t mind the trip. The Highland scenery was always breathtaking.

Eventually, our shuttle entered the seaside village of Golspie.

Callie scrunched her nose up. “So, why’d Grandma choose Golspie?”

The taxi driver glanced back with a wry smile.

“Sorry,” I mouthed to him, before answering Callie. “Different people like different things. She must really like it here, sweetie. And besides, if your grandma hadn’t moved to Scotland, we wouldn’t get the chance to explore it, now would we?” I smiled at her, trying to ooze enthusiasm. Meanwhile, I silently wished my mother could’ve at least chosen a less expensive location to escape to. Like, why not Canada? There were tons of places to disappear there.

Toby put his gamepad away as the taxi approached my mother’s cottage on the outskirts. In a whiny tone he asked, “Do we have to stay in Grandma’s tiny house, mom? Can’t we stay somewhere with a water-slide?”

“Flights cost a fortune, Toby, never mind booking a hotel room. Grandma’s house works just fine. Plus, the whole point is to visit with her.” I shot him a look that said leave it alone.

“Fine.” He crossed his arms in a huff.

We pulled to a stop in front of a quaint cottage wrapped in a spiderweb of leafy vines. A rough stonework fence circled the generous perimeter. The driver removed our luggage from the trunk. Ushering the kids from the car, I delved out several bills, thanking our kindly chauffeur.

He tipped his hat and retreated down the road we’d just travelled.

Here we go…

I led the kids to the door, which swung open before I could knock. There she stood, arms wide and vibrating with excitement. Ruby Mills. My mother. Grandma.

Her mask smiled back at us.

“Karen, my girl! Oh, I’m so happy to see you!” Mom grabbed me into a hug. “And my beautiful grandchildren!” She proceeded to wrap them up in hugs too. “I’ve missed you all.”

Though we’d had our differences through the years, our relationship somewhat distanced by her condition, she was still my mom. It felt nice to hug her.

Mom stepped back, bending down to squeeze the kid’s cheeks. “Oh, Toby, you’ve grown so big! And Callie, how pretty you are!” Stepping back, she waved us inside. “Come, come.”

Closing the door, I smiled. The house smelled like floral perfume and baked cookies. Tall wooden shelves filled one entire side of the living room, a book lover’s delight. Family photos, framed pictures from her beauty pageant days, and various paintings lined the walls. A silk sash draped across a shadowbox dedicated to the beauty queen extraordinaire. I even spied the same spikey sundial clock she’d had since the seventies hanging on the dining room wall—a favourite Mom just couldn’t get rid of. Everything but a mirror.

Not a single mirror anywhere.

Like usual, her world was perfectly in place, not a speck of dust visible. Since my mother didn’t go out much, her home was her castle.

“I see you got a new mask?”

Her hand flew to her face. “Oh this? Yes, I just got it last month. It’s much better than my last one. More lifelike, don’t you think?”

I nodded. “Yes, it looks nice. A friendly expression.” The mask was fair in skin-tone and conformed to her facial structure. There were molded almond-shaped holes for her eyes to peer through, and an opening at the base of her nose. A pleasant open-mouth smile was closed in by fine black mesh. It marred her true lips from view, only the motion of her mouth visible.

“Thank you,” she replied, shoulders lifting with glee. “I thought so too. Come!”

We followed through the living room and up the stairs. I spied my kids exchanging snide glances, quickly cutting them the mom-glare. They stopped immediately.

“Now, you guys get yourselves settled, then come down for some snacks. You’ll need refueling after that flight,” Mom beamed, hands framing her plastic cheeks. “I’m just so happy you’re here.” With that, she waved us inside and disappeared back down the stairs. The sound of her humming trailed behind.

The guest room was made up with two single beds and a cot. Cramped, but doable. The kids played rock-paper-scissors for the second bed, Callie’s rock vigorously smashing Toby’s scissors. I chuckled as she gloated, prancing around like a fairy.

Within minutes of unpacking, the kids were already asking when we could go sightseeing. I groaned internally.

“We’ll spend a couple days catching up with grandma and go adventuring after that.” I pulled my slippers on, ready to relax.

“Ugh, I want to go to the castle now,” Toby moaned.

“Enough of the whining, young man.” I levelled a pointer finger at him.

His shoulders sagged, sour-faced.

“Keep it up, and I’ll take your gamepad away too.” That warning elicited an appropriate response. Toby grudgingly wiped the scowl from his expression.

“Well, I’m excited to see Grandma!” Callie chirped.

“That’s great,” I replied, smiling. I paused to appreciate a large print hanging above the headboard. Mom was dressed to dazzle in a sparkly sky-blue ballgown, tiara and sash perfectly in place. All natural.

She’d been crowned Miss Texas at barely twenty years old, a couple years before I was born. ‘One of the best days of my life,’ she always said. It wasn’t until her thirties that she had her first plastic surgery operation. That led to several more procedures, spanning well into her forties. It was baffling how they afforded it all. Mom’s inheritance must’ve been bigger than she let on, or perhaps that’s why Dad worked late so much.

Regardless, people never paid much attention at first. A little nip and tuck wasn’t out of character for an aging beauty queen. Fading youth could be hard on a woman sometimes. Especially a woman as proud as my mom.

What nobody realized, however, including me and my father, was that something very serious was going on inside—a festering fear burrowing deeper, taking root where none could see. I’ve never known why her phobia developed. To this day, I wished I understood it better, but Mom doesn’t talk about it.

Turning away, I waved an arm. “Alright, kiddos, let’s head downstairs.”

Mom sat us in the kitchen with a plate of cookies on the table between four condensing glasses of iced tea.

“Mmm Grandma, those smell good!” Callie said, eyes lighting up. Food was the surest way to her heart, a trait she got from me. I, too, looked forward to sampling one, or several.

“Oatmeal chocolate chip. Your mama’s favourite,” Grandma replied, snapping a wink in Callie’s direction. The effect wasn’t quite the same without an animated arched brow, but it worked.

We sat down, digging in like starved vultures upon meaty morsels. Grandma chuckled, leaning back to enjoy the fruits of her labour. “I figured you’d be hungry.”

I laughed, my tongue snatching a crumble off my lip. A flash of white poked out from the edges of Mom’s mask, catching my eye. “So, how have you been?”

“Oh, good. Staying busy, you know. Been painting a lot of landscapes. Even sold a few online. Do you want to see my latest work?” Callie brightened at the mention of art—the creative one in the family. Toby didn’t have the same inclination, more focused on basketball and comics.

“I’d love to see, Grandma,” Callie answered quickly.

I made a mental note to inquire about the old hand-painted masks Mom used to wear. The colourful ones. I was certain my little artist would adore seeing those too.

“Perfect, you kid’s head out to the studio while I pack a few cookies for the road,” Mom said. Her studio was actually a converted shed behind the house.

The kids took off.

I lingered with Mom as she collected a goody bag, swallowing my last few gulps of tea. Unable to temper my curiosity, I joined her by the counter. “So, Mom, I couldn’t help but notice the bandages.” I pointed to the tufts of gauze taped to her temples. “What did you get done?”

Her cookie-filled hands stilled.

“Just a minor smoothing procedure for the crow’s feet. Nothing major.” She shrugged, shoving the last pastries into an already full plastic bag and zipping it shut. The serene smile on her mask disguised whatever discomfort likely graced her genuine face.

“Mom…” my voice held a note of scolding which she recoiled from, departing the kitchen in brisk strides. I followed, not dropping the matter. “I thought you weren’t supposed to have any more surgeries? Where did you get it done?”

She stopped in the foyer, spinning on her heels. “France. There’s an award-winning surgeon there who believed he could help by using an advanced technique. It’s really none of your concern.”

“It is my concern. You’re my mom and I care about you. You never told me you went to France.” I could hear the kids squealing and chasing around outside.

“Because I knew you’d try to talk me out of it.” Mom set the cookies down, crossing her arms. “This is my body, Karen.”

“But why would you risk it?” My hands flew from my sides, incredulous. About ten years ago, the doctors had refused to do any more procedures because her skin couldn’t handle it. “You could lose parts of your face entirely. Just think of what happened to Michael Jackson’s nose! I don’t understand why—”

“I miss walking outside without wearing a mask, Karen. That’s why!” Mom stomped to the coat closet and flung it open. “Do you think I enjoy being this way? I keep hoping another surgery will fix it… Besides, if it went badly, nobody would see it anyway.” For emphasis, she pointed to her mask.

I stilled, resting my hands on my hips. Blinking hard, I reclaimed the temper that had slipped. She’d just given me a rare glimpse into her inner world. It was a revelation. Mom was aware she had a problem—not just narrow-mindedly obsessed with her phobia. “And did it work?”

“No.” Mom put a wide-brimmed sun hat on, her motions crisp. A sombre sort of rage gleamed in her eye. “It’s not fully healed yet, but I can already tell nothing’s improved.”

Her plastic surgeries only helped for so long, if they helped. Wrinkles never stayed away for good. Age kept coming no matter what, and I remember by the third facelift, Mom hadn’t even looked like herself anymore. It’s when she got cut off, the masks began.

Taking a deep breath, I rubbed my neck. “I’m sorry it didn’t work out.”

“Are you?”

Her words bit deep.

“I know you’re embarrassed of me. Your mom, the freak. That’s why your father left. Why people started avoiding me. Why do you think I chose to move away?”

“Well,” I sighed. “I just thought you wanted to be alone. For whatever reason, you didn’t want to be near us anymore.”

“Oh, Karen…” Mom breathed, eyes softening. She shook her head. “That was never it.”

I approached her slowly. “Why didn’t you ever tell me how you really felt?”

The kids banged on the back door, bouncing up and down, shouting for us to hurry up. Mom waved, letting out a tired chuckle. Straightening her shoulders, she turned back to me and I knew the raw moment we’d shared was over.

“My silly old problems need not burden anybody else, Karen.” She grabbed the cookies, then clapped her hands. “Now, those children are about to burst at the seams! We should get out there.” With that, she slipped out the door, happily chattering on the way to the shed.

With a sigh, I followed. A sudden swell of sympathy rose from within, my thoughts churning. That was a huge step forward. Even if she didn’t see it that way, I did. If she was finally willing to open up to me, maybe I could convince her to speak with a professional. I desperately wanted Mom to find peace from this phobia ruling her life.

For the first time, I believed there was hope.

#

“Toby, come on!” I shouted at my brother, running up the stairs. His heavy feet pounded behind me, gaining ground quick. In seconds he blew by, throwing his body into a roll at the top.

Popping up victoriously, Toby announced, “Ha! I beat you!”

“Whatever.” I pushed past him, heading to the end of the hall. We didn’t have much time before Mom and Grandma came back from their walk. They let us hang out and watch a movie instead of going along.

But I had other plans.

“So, why are we going into Grandma’s room?” Toby followed me through the doorway.

I immediately pushed a puffy pinkish comforter out of the way and dropped to the floor, searching beneath the bed. Nothing.

“I want to find all her masks.”

Toby leaned against the doorway, his face twisting in confusion. “Why? We’ve seen her wearing them.”

“A few, but Mom said she’s got a whole bunch, remember? She said Grandma used to hand-paint them. Some fancy ones. She never wears those and I really want to see.” I opened the closet doors, spying boxes high on the shelf. “How much you wanna bet they’re in one of those boxes?”

It was too high for me to reach. As I looked around for something to stand on, Toby wandered around the rose-coloured room.

“Boy, Grandma sure loves pink.” He cringed, opened a dresser drawer.

I found a folded stool tucked in the closet beside a stack of mirrors, so I pulled it out. So, that’s where all the mirrors went… It was so strange. Not even the bathroom had a mirror.

Setting up the stool, I hopped on top and stretched for one box, but I still couldn’t reach.

“Ugh, it’s still too high. You’re taller than me, Toby. Come help!”

“Is this what you’re looking for, Callie?”

Spinning around, there stood my brother beside an open drawer, holding a mask in each hand. His brows were raised, a smug look pasted on his face.

“You found them!” I abandoned the closet, racing to his side. There had to be at least ten different masks piled inside the drawer. “Wow.” Gently, I picked them up one by one. There were a variety of skin-tone ones, each with slightly different expressions. Except for three. One was white with flowers of pink and purple painted all over it. It was beautiful. The second mask was pure black, the finish glossy and glittery, with veins crossing the surface just like dad’s marble countertops. The third mask was blue, covered in thousands of fine brushstrokes to mimic fur. I held it to my face, growling like a wolf before bursting into giggles.

“This is so weird,” Toby said, walking away from the drawer. “I don’t think Grandma will like us snooping around in here.”

“I just want to look. She won’t know.” I smiled. “Can you put that stool away?”

You put it away. This was all your idea.” He leaned against the doorframe. “What’s so great about those masks, anyway?”

“Look at these.” I held up the colourful three. “They’re works of art. I hope I can paint as good as Grandma does someday.” I stared in awe of each tiny detail.

“Yeah, I guess.” Toby plopped down on his butt, bored. “Hey, what do you think her face really looks like?”

I carefully set the masks back into the drawer. “I don’t know. An older version of her pictures, I guess.”

“I bet she’s got some crazy sick burn or something. Or maybe half of her face melted off like Two-Face.” He cackled, hands running down his cheeks in mock horror.

“This isn’t a stupid Batman comic, Toby.” I shot him a glare, shaking my head. I folded the stool and shoved it back into Grandma’s closet.

The annoyingly loud groan of the front door echoed through the house.

“Crap, they’re back!” Toby whispered, jumping to his feet.

I closed the closet as quickly and quietly as I could, then turned off the light. Toby was already three steps out of the room when I halted.

“What are you doing?” he hissed as I darted back into the room.

“We left the drawer open!” I whisper-shouted over my shoulder, rushing to the dresser. Frantically, my shaking hands slid the drawer shut. That could’ve been very bad. “Whew,” I breathed, then bolted down the hall with Toby. We dove into our room just as Mom’s voice called from the living room.

“Kids, where are you?”

“We’re just upstairs playing my gamepad, Mom!” Toby yelled, looking at me with wide eyes. “Callie’s kicking my butt!”

“Do you want to come down for a snack?”

“Okay!” we answered at the same time. Relief crossed our faces, with grins to match. Standing, we burst into giggles.

“That was close.”

#

Yesterday we checked out the castle, just like Mom promised, and it was pretty cool. I liked the old Scottish weapons hanging on the walls, while Callie slobbered all over the huge paintings everywhere. Going seaside was fun too, but otherwise our trip was kinda boring. Just lots of “relaxing” as mom called it.

More and more I wished I could see the face hiding behind Grandma’s mask. She was an awesome grandma, always nice and made amazing cookies, but who was she? Really? I felt like I was missing out. Nobody else’s grandma hid their faces. It didn’t seem fair. I mean, it couldn’t be that bad, could it?

Callie didn’t seem bothered by it at all. Mom and Grandma were getting along better than they ever had, talking and laughing all the time. So, was it just me? I couldn’t shake my curiosity.

I had to know.

The plan came to me as I lay in bed the next morning. Grandma was an early riser, her routine predictable. I’d just heard the shower turn on, pipes clanking from the pressure, and I knew this might be my best chance.

Slipping off the cot, I winced each time the springs squeaked. When nobody stirred, I quickly snuck from the bedroom and tiptoed down the hall. I should have at least ten minutes before she’s out.

Plenty of time.

Cautiously peeking into her room, I saw the light shining from beneath her bathroom door. Bee-lining it to the dresser, I quietly opened the drawer and removed all the masks. I also spotted the one she wore each day sitting on her bedside table.

I grabbed that too.

Out I went, brisking down the stairs, through the living room and kitchen, then out the back door. I sprinted across the lawn to the studio. I didn’t doddle, setting the masks on her workbench before rushing back into the house.

It was a solid plan. She couldn’t hide her face now. Anticipation mixed with building excitement. I’d finally be able to see my grandma.

I heard the shower turn off as I ascended the stairs. Settling back into bed, I smiled. Perfect timing.

Then I heard her scream.

#

“Where is it?” I frantically searched the bedroom for my mask, but it was nowhere to be found. “I swear I put it right here.”

I hovered over the bedside table. Perhaps I tucked it away in the drawer without thinking. Moving to the dresser, I pulled it open, but it was empty. No.

Tying my hair into a bun, the panic set in. I paced, trying to make sense of what might’ve happened. Tears gathered behind my eyes, and within a few blinks, they streaked down my face.

Someone took them.

“No!” I screamed, gloved fists slamming onto the bed. I felt betrayed, anger swelling. “Who did it?”

I stomped to the door, cheeks hot, but my hand paused on the handle, shaking. I couldn’t go out there. Not like this.

My masks served well to protect me from myself, to hide the wrinkles and keep the fear at bay. A fear that was unreasonable, and unrelenting.

Those masks also protected me from the world. Or more appropriately, the world from me. Nobody should ever have to see the hideous monster I’d become.

A ragged shriek ripped from my throat, my body sagging against the frame.

“Mom?” came my daughter’s voice through the door. “Are you okay in there?”

I straightened, startled. “Oh, yes. I’m fine, Karen,” I replied, trying to soothe the tremble in my voice. Did she take them? But we were getting along so well…

“Are you sure? Your scream sounded urgent. Can I come in?”

“No!” I blurted, quickly clearing my throat. “No, that’s fine. I’m good, really.”

“Alright…” her voice trailed off, footsteps moving away.

Now what? Cringing, I swallowed my reservations. I had to say something. There was no other choice, unless I planned on wasting away in here. “Karen?”

Her footsteps returned. “Yeah?”

“Do you happen to know where my mask is?”

“Your mask? Uh, no. You don’t have it?”

“No, unfortunately I do not. All of my masks have gone missing.” Shaking my head, I cursed the world. This was unbelievable.

“What?” Karen’s voice sounded bewildered. “All of them? Are you sure?”

My temper flared. “Of course, I’m sure!” Biting the emotion back, I lowered my tone. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have yelled. I just—I just really need my mask.” My entire body was shaking.

“Oh, for goodness sakes…” Karen’s footsteps stomped away, a muffled shout following in short order. “Kids! Get out here.”

For several agonizing minutes, I strained to hear what was being said through the door. They were speaking passionately back and forth, but too quiet to make out. So, it had to be one of the kids then… but why? Why would they do such a thing to their grandmother? Did they not know how important those masks were?

Wait … How could they know? Karen didn’t even know the full extent. Sure, she knew I had a phobia of wrinkles. But she didn’t know how encompassing that fear was, how deeply it affected me. Not only did it twist my thoughts around, manipulating how I viewed myself and the world, but it consumed my physical health too. The panic was debilitating. Just the thought of seeing my own reflection sent my heart into palpitations. I was fully aware, yet powerless to control it. It was constantly there, a silent passenger weighing me down.

It was difficult to talk about.

Multiple footsteps approached the doorway, and my breath halted, waiting.

“Mom, I’m so sorry,” Karen said, voice stern. “Callie’s getting your masks right away, but Toby has something he’d like to say.” She did not sound impressed.

Relief coated my frazzled nerves, the breath rushing from my lungs. “Yes, Toby?”

“I’m sorry I took your masks, Grandma,” he said, voice low and quavering.

“Thank you for the apology, Toby. May I ask why you took them?”

A moment of silence followed, accompanied by sniffles. Then his quiet voice answered, “I just wanted to see you for real, Grandma.”

My heart splintered in two, my mind racing through deeply entrenched insecurities. Could I really show my true self to them? Cold sweat slickened my palms. Family was supposed to love and support one another unconditionally, right? In theory, yes, yet my husband had done neither of those things. So many people pointed and stared. I went into hiding for good reason. What if the kids were horrified—scarred for life? I didn’t know if I could handle that reaction. I would love for you to see me, dear Toby, but you might never want to again.

“Here they are, Mom!” Callie’s voice rang out, clomping down the hallway.

Karen knocked. “I’ll set the masks by the door, and we’ll see you downstairs.”

“Grandma, Toby didn’t mean to make you mad. I know he’s sorry!” Callie blurted. Karen quickly shushed her and herded both children down the hall.

#

The door clicked.

“Karen, wait.”

I paused at the top of the stairs, glancing back. My mouth opened in surprise, then immediately snapped shut.

“Mom…” I breathed. There she was, full face revealed. Something I hadn’t seen in ten years. Half shielded by the doorframe, she wrung her hands, hesitantly stepping forward.

“I know it’s ghastly. Perhaps the children shouldn’t see,” she muttered. Her brows furrowed, looking down.

“No, it’s not ghastly,” I assured. “Not at all.” Walking toward her, my eyes moistened. Her face looked different than I remembered. The white bandages near her temples framed upward slanting eyes, set beneath two thin and slightly asymmetrical eyebrows. Her cheeks, stretched smooth once, had sagged with time. Implants filled the creases at the corners of her mouth, giving her a much rounder appearance than she’d ever had. Mom’s lips were misshapen from Botox, and because of all the skin manipulations, her nose also looked wide and flat. The scarf she normally wore was absent, showing sixty-year-old wrinkles adorning her neck.

Well-earned wrinkles.

She hadn’t removed her gloves though. Understandable, for her panic would be immediate if she spied the wrinkles there. It was a body part she could easily see. Despite the amazing bravery she was showcasing now, I knew she didn’t wish to experience that.

Nor did I.

“I thought nobody wanted to see me… and I understood. Accepted it.” She took a shaky breath. “But perhaps I was wrong to hide myself from the ones who love me most.” Holding my hands, her lips curled into a slightly lopsided smile.

It was lovely to see.

“You can feel safe with us.” I hugged her and let the tears pour. It felt like my heart might burst in my chest. We’d just turned a huge corner.

“Mom, where’d you go?” Callie and Toby came running up the stairs, freezing when they took in the scene.

Mom let me go, instinctively reaching for a mask, but I held her hand with an encouraging smile as my children approached. They were developing their own minds, and definitely tried my patience sometimes, but I knew they had good hearts. I prayed for their acceptance now, as a negative reaction could dramatically impact this fragile moment.

“Grandma? Is that really you?” Callie asked, eyes wide in discovery. She walked up without fear, inspecting her grandmother’s face.

“Yep, it’s me,” Mom said softly. “I know I look funny, but it’s still the same old me.”

“So, this is why you wear a mask?” Toby considered for a moment, eyes brightening. “You know, some pretty epic superheroes wear masks too.”

Grandma nodded, looking them in the eye. “I’m sorry I’m not the beauty queen I once was. Are you scared?”

I squeezed her hand supportively. Insecurity was a hard thing to shake, but I wanted to help her try. In any way I could, I’d be there for her.

Callie and Toby looked at each other before shaking their heads with confidence. As if on cue, they brandished enormous smiles and rushed forward to wrap their grandma in bear hugs.

I joined in without hesitation. That’s when I heard Callie utter the sweetest whisper.

“It’s what’s on the inside that counts.”



BIO

R.A. Clarke is a former police officer turned stay-at-home mom from Portage la Prairie, MB. She shares life with a sport-aholic husband, two adorable children, and an ever-expanding collection of novels-in-progress. Besides coffee and lake time, R.A. enjoys plotting multi-genre short fiction, and writes/illustrates children’s books as Rachael Clarke. She’s won international short story competitions such as The Writer’s Workout “Writer’s Games”, Writer’s Weekly 24-Hour Short Story Contest, and Red Penguin Books humour contest. She was named a Hindi’s Libraries Females of Fiction finalist and a Futurescapes Award finalist in 2021, a Dark Sire Award finalist in 2022, and her novella Becoming Grace won the Write Fighters 3-Day Novella Challenge in 2023. R.A.’s work can be read in various publications. To learn more, visit: https://linktr.ee/raclarkewrites







The Factory

by Jessie Atkin



All the people of the upper crust – the managers, medics, executives, engineers, and everyone else who had a window by their desk – sent their children to the factory. Having no faith in their offspring the parents established the future on the bones of their own babies, and their babies were the lucky ones.

They pushed their children through factory doors to see them squeezed out again on the other side into the window paneled offices that their parents were preparing to leave behind.

It used to be that when a child turned fifteen or sixteen their parents took the growing youth to a professional for some small advice about what they would grow up to be, but the factories began as parents started taking a child, at five or six, to begin their education early. These sad small creatures were abandoned to a process that, while stealing from them their play and their time, promised the gift of high wage and influential standing when they were released some seventeen years later.

In the souls of these puny starved creatives dwelt a future of change that was stamped out by their betters at the earliest possible moment. What was a future worth if it didn’t include capital, clout, and complete devotion to the productive cause? Nothing. That is what my father told me when it was my turn to enter the factory. I was told I would enter its doors, observe its customs, or I could work in food production for the rest of my days, and wouldn’t I hate to do that?

The first thing I noticed about the factory was that there were no windows. Windows, views, that is what we were working to earn, one was not merely allowed to stare, and to dream, and to wonder. We were weighed down with sheets of paper, sheets, upon sheets, upon sheets, all asking us succinct questions many that came with explicit answers. We did not need to make up our own, only choose from those that were already set before us. And every night we were sent away with even more sheets, to keep us inside, to keep us hunched, and busy so we could not savor the windows in our own homes.

Yet, it never occurred to my father, or anyone’s father, to track them to the factory’s doors once they had been permitted inside. The path was set and no one considered anyone would decide not to follow it. My problems began a few years into my confinement on the day I glanced skyward and picked out a butterfly. Instead of the track to the factory, I followed the butterfly as it traversed the sky and wove between people, buildings, and cars.  How could I not? When the wings worked so clearly with the wind instead of against it. My feet could no more ignore it than fall off my legs of their own accord.

The butterfly got away, the day flew by in an instant, my eyes trained almost completely on the sky. My liberation was at hand. It was my ears, rather than my eyes, that brought me back to earth. The rhythm, the beat, reverberating up through the soles of my shoes brought my eyes down to what was right in front of me. A man, his beard a tangle of brown and gray, but mostly gray, sat astride a pickle tub, wearing a jacket that was too big for him and a hat that was too small. Despite his layers, he looked cold, and perhaps that is why his hands kept moving.

It was his rhythm that had drawn me, and my eyes, as he hammered at the tub between his legs, making a music I didn’t know one could raise without the aid of an instrument far beyond mere percussion. This was nothing, and it was also everything. Even beneath his beard, I could tell the man was smiling. I could not remember being smiled at.

My face fell as I looked at him because the music stopped. Our eyes met.

“Change.” He said.

Change? Who? Me? How?

“Change,” he said again, this time pointing a finger.

His meaning was clear. I could only shake my head. I had nothing with me but sheets. Worthless sheets.

I feared his anger but, instead, he began his music again. And I could listen. And that was enough. But it wasn’t the end.

The end came later, though not much later. It was dinner and, despite the fact that I kept my mouth shut as was expected I could not keep my foot from shaking. I could not fight the wind. And as the beat rose not just from within me, but outside me, my hands making a melody upon my chair, there was nowhere to hide my new secret knowledge.

This music, as I knew it, and the “noise” as my father called it, brought the man to his feet, though he was not so tall as he’d once been when he had first brought me to the factory. His words were a terror, a shout more than coherent reprimand, they brought me to my feet as well. I could not tell him where I had learned such a thing though I insisted it was something I did know, not only a tick or a trifle. He responded by searching my bag for the day’s sheets, the day’s questions, because he did not understand that he was already asking one.

I knew better than to stand still and instead moved to the lavatory, locking the door at my back, understanding that my father would not find what he sought in my things. He would know that I had followed a different path and arrived at home with nothing to show for it. And, as he pounded on the door, demanding an explanation, and to be let inside, he did not understand that he too was making music.



BIO

Jessie Atkin writes fiction, essays, and plays. Her short work has appeared in The Rumpus, Writers Resist, Daily Science Fiction, Space and Time Magazine, and elsewhere. She is the author of the full-length play “Generation Pan.” You can find her online at jessieatkin.com 







Favorite

by Wayne-Daniel Berard


I have a feeling that each
of us lives in their favorite
scene the backdrop the
default setting of our lives
Me, I sit at an arched window
my first night in the magic
I look over the moon-pathed
lake (who cares if it’s spotlight
over backyard pool) I stroke
snowy owl beside me who is
actually Albee our cat and I’m
home
your son (but mine too)
and his girlfriend upstairs your
mom (my bestie) watching late
Red Sox from Oracle Park, across
the breezeway your sister and
her husband in barn renovated
against all ill winds
and you
who moves through every picture
every scene opening all the doors
password “Kiss me good night”
I just did
they’re all my house-mates
but tomorrow and tomorrow
and tomorrow you
teach me flight.



until finally


I don’t know where
the manna comes from
I don’t know how
the quail appear
I thought it was
just a story but
here here here
they are every
morning every
day I should
have starved
by now throat
closed like a
cockroach prayer
but the water is
as sweet and
everywhere as
air fresh air
the freshest air
and the eagles
came for frodo
and harry woke
up in the arms
of giant and I,
I shall not want.
Oh Hero of the
Realm! Lumos
yourself like
sunflower at
night prayer,
shema shema
shema until
ears unpop
depressurize,
wrestle yourself
through the dark
gate that opens
enfin on today’s
dunkies with cream
that you sip beside
the tree-lily
yellow pink and real
as lore
repeating itself until
we get it right



BIO

Wayne-Daniel Berard, PhD, is an educator, poet, writer, shaman, sage, and Gryffindor. An adoptee and former Franciscan seminarian, his adoption search led to the discovery and embrace of his Jewishness. Wayne-Daniel is a Peace Chaplain, an interfaith clergy person and former college chaplain. He is the author of 12 published books, including Little Ghosts on Castle Floors, Poems Informed by the Potterverse (Kelsay Books 2022). He lives in Mansfield, MA, with his wife, The Lovely Christine and their cats, Harry and Albus.





Crossing Cattleskin Bridge

by Mary Means


I’d always been able to see things when I closed my eyes. Whole galaxies. Whole universes exploding in and out of existence easier than breathing on a crisp autumn afternoon stroll. Sometimes when I’d close my eyes, I’d see a dark and endless hallway. A strong current would sweep me down through it so fast that the iridescent doors on each side of me would streak past like a dim, pulsating lightshow. I’d always been a good swimmer—since before I can remember. So, by the time I was six, I’d learned how to swim against that current well enough that I could reach out, catch ahold of the handle on a passing door, open it, and climb inside.

I used to go to my hallway a lot as a kid. On the loud, sticky bus to school a town over. Behind the pig barn at recess. Under Cattleskin Bridge when I’d sneak away from home or Sunday school or wherever I was supposed to be. Under my bed when my mom wasn’t doing well.

She’d cry a lot sometimes. Sometimes she’d start yelling. Sometimes she’d start throwing things. Sometimes she’d call me “Ann” instead of Mia, and I’d know it was time for me to hide. To see the universe. To explore my hallway. 

Of course, I never knew when or where I’d find myself when I did. Some of the doors had people behind them. A few of the people spoke English, but most didn’t, which was fine. I generally tried to avoid people as much as I could anyway. A lot of the doors had dinosaurs behind them. Some had volcanoes bursting with ash and lava. Some worlds had giant fires or storms or wars. When things got too dangerous, or I’d been in a world for too long, I’d feel a tug. More than a tug. It felt like some invisible unimaginably long bungee cord was hooked around my waist. Like it had been stretched across time and space to its absolute limit. It would dig into my gut, yank me out of the world I was exploring, fling me back through the hallway, and drop me back where I came from feeling like I’d just had all the wind driven out of me.

But most of the doors opened to more peaceful worlds with flowering fields and old abandoned cities. I could explore the ruins of long-dead civilizations and listen to strange birds sing their songs for each other until the cord reached its limit, decided I’d been away for too long, and dragged me back to where I came from.

I loved listening to birds. I’d never heard people sing for each other the way birds do. I’d sing sometimes. Sometimes for the birds—quiet, timid, knowing that I wouldn’t measure up. Sometimes I’d sing to (or probably, more accurately, at) God. Loud—as loud as I possibly could—afraid He wouldn’t be able to hear me otherwise. I’d go for long walks and sing everything I had to say until my voice was gone.

One day my dad heard me singing on my way home, “Jesus Christ. Shut the fuck up. Nobody wants to hear that shit.” The next time he heard me singing, he gave me enough swats that I figured God had probably heard enough from me.

I wandered off a lot. I’d sometimes get swats for that, too. But I never left for too long. There wasn’t anywhere for me to go. Most of the time I’d just walk a mile or so down the gravel road that went by our house. Then crawl through a barbed wire fence and watch my step for cow patties as I cut across a pasture to get to Cattleskin Bridge.

I tried hitchhiking from there a few times. The highway that ran over it was the only road within walking distance of town that actually went anywhere. Of course, that was before I realized that most people weren’t willing to drive a six-year-old to the nearest big city.

It was way too dangerous to stand on top of Cattleskin Bridge, anyway. It was supposed to be haunted by all the people and animals who’d been killed on it. A lot of people claimed to see these ghosts while driving over it at night, but I never saw any ghosts when I was out there. A few teenage ghost hunters every once in a while, but no ghosts. The real danger of Cattleskin Bridge was that everyone seemed to like to drive 80 miles an hour around the curve just south of it.

One time, I’d just barely dove out of the way of a big white truck only to get swept away by the current of my hallway. After that, I gave up on hitchhiking and decided to practice finding my hallway instead. I wanted to learn how to conjure it whenever I wanted to.

At first, I’d just wait for a car to speed around the curve. I’d stand just far enough in the lane that the cars would just barely miss me. That worked pretty well for a while. Aside from the long wait between cars. But after a while, I wasn’t so afraid of getting hit, and it stopped working.

When I was scared, I would find my hallway without meaning to. I would just close my eyes, and it would be there. But as I got older and braver and went on more adventures, I didn’t get scared as often. When something bad happened, I didn’t get scared. I didn’t feel much of anything. When I did feel something, I’d get angry instead. I’d close my eyes and see stars exploding or galaxies colliding or universes giving birth violently and expanding out of control. I couldn’t find anything in the chaos of it all.

I’d run out to Cattleskin Bridge and sit on a pink patch of dirt in the shade underneath. I’d pull my knees up to my chest. The nasty stench of the creek would fill my nose and flies and mosquitoes would bite at my arms and legs. And I would make myself breathe so I wouldn’t pass out or throw up or start punching and throwing things.

It took a while, but I learned to force myself to breathe deep and even, in and out, until the horrifying lightshow I saw when I closed my eyes started to feel like a dance that I could find the rhythm to. Until I could relax enough to follow its lead. Until it felt more like floating than dancing. Until I let myself get lost in its currents and taken in by its waves. And in its depths, engulfed by churning echoes of lights, I could explore any hallway I chose. 

That newfound control didn’t change much at first. I could travel more often, but I could only stay away for a few minutes before the cord would drag me back. Over the next year, I slowly worked my way up to staying away for an hour. Then a couple hours. By the time I was eight, I could stay away for an entire day. By the time I was nine, I could make it up to two days.

Before I really started to practice, I thought I only went to those other worlds in my mind. And maybe I did. But afterwhile, I started to get in trouble for running away even when I hadn’t gone anywhere. I’d sometimes gotten in trouble for wandering off before, but this was different. All of a sudden, I was getting in trouble for running away when I hadn’t even left my room. Or at least I thought I hadn’t.

At first, my dad tried locking my door, but he kept coming back and finding my room empty. Then he tried nailing my window shut. Then he took everything out of my closet looking for a hidden crawl space. Then he moved my bed and dresser looking for holes. He even boarded over the vent in my floor even though he’d measured to confirm it was way too small for me to fit through.

My trips leveled off at around two days. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t stay away any longer. But I did discover I could bring things back. At first, it was just a little sand in my shoe. But after a few failed tries, I was bringing back small rocks. Sometimes I’d even find coins or small bones or bits of old jewelry and bring those back, too. I’d sneak out to Cattleskin Bridge as often as I could and bury my treasures in tin cans next to the tree line.

My dad finally decided I had to be watched at all times.

My mom had stopped working that winter, anyway, so she watched me at first. Or I watched her. She never seemed to want to look at me anymore. She would tell me stories, though. Wild, absurd, scary stories about ghosts and demons and curses. I loved them. I’d never known my mom was such a great storyteller.

It wasn’t until after she went to the hospital that I realized she’d thought all her stories were true. When she got back, she didn’t tell me stories anymore, and she’d yell at me for trying to tell her my own. She’d drag me by my hair and wash my mouth out with soap. She told me my stories were evil. That stories like mine were how demons got ahold of people and led them into darkness. Then she stopped talking to me at all. And I began to feel like one of the ghosts in her stories.

She didn’t stay home with me much after that. She had to go back to work, and I went to stay the summer with my grandma a few towns over. Even my grandma was stricter with me than she’d ever been. Yelling at me about how I wasn’t supposed to leave her apartment. Yelling at me for getting into stuff when I didn’t leave her apartment.

One day found a shoebox filled with photographs in her living room closet. I hadn’t seen many photographs up close before. My parent didn’t have any anywhere in our house. Not even ones from picture days at school. My dad said they were a waste of money. And the photos in that box were the only ones I’d ever seen in my grandma’s apartment. I flipped on the light to get a better look at them. When I did, I felt a sudden rush of excitement and confusion. It was me. In the photos. Me. Where did she get so many pictures of me? She never took pictures of me. No one ever took pictures of me.

I sat down next to the vacuum, beaming, ready to go through all of them. I tried to wipe a piece of gunk off of one of the top pictures, but it wouldn’t come off. It was just as smooth as the rest of the picture. Part of the picture. A dark oval on the corner of my forehead. When I looked at the next picture, I saw the same oval in the same spot on my face. I saw it again in the next four or five pictures I picked up. I reached up and felt my head where the oval was in the pictures. But my forehead was smooth and sweaty. I wondered if I’d gotten mud on it before the pictures were taken. But when were the pictures taken?

I didn’t recognize the places in the background. My grandma’s quilted throw pillows were in one of the pictures, but that picture wasn’t taken in her apartment. The pillows were on a couch I didn’t recognize up against a wall of picture frames that were lit up by the bright flash of the camera. I was just over nine-and-a-half at the time, and I couldn’t have been any younger than nine in that picture. Why couldn’t I remember? I turned the photograph over, looking for clues. All I saw on the back was the name “Ann” handwritten next to a series of numbers that I didn’t have time to make sense of before my grandma swung open the closet door and started yelling at me and whopping me with a flyswatter.  

I figured out pretty quickly after that that the only way to keep her from yelling at me was to tell her I was going to something at one of the churches in town. I didn’t even have to show up for whatever it was. I could even make up some church-related event that wasn’t even happening. And then leave and do whatever I wanted. I’d just have to tell her about some Bible story when I came back. Which was easy. I’d been to enough Sunday school by that point that I had plenty of material to draw from. So, I’d usually just walk down the street past the smoke-stained stone husk of the haunted old gym and hide out under the bleachers by the gravel mile track. That was the best place in my grandma’s town to find my hallway.

When the summer was over and I went back to stay with my mom and dad, my grandma told them that I’d come to the Lord. When I wanted to explore my hallway, I’d tell them I was going to church just like I had with my grandma. There were a lot of churches in our town to choose from. A third of the buildings that still had roofs were churches or had been churches at one time or weren’t technically churches but regularly held bible studies or fellowship potlucks or home services or prayer meetings or youth outreaches or tent revivals in the backyard.

With my mom and dad, I made a point to at least stop by the places I said I was going. I was sure they would figure out I was lying sooner or later. They didn’t. They didn’t seem to care. I didn’t understand why they’d made such a big deal about me wandering off in the first place, but the sudden shift felt weird. I wondered if maybe it was because they thought I was saved. That I wouldn’t go to hell. I got the sense that meant it didn’t really matter what happened to me anymore.

One day I overheard the ladies at the quilting club in the basement of the Free Will Baptist church. After they saw me sneak past the doorway, they started telling each other about how child services was gonna take me away if my mom didn’t start making me go to school and keeping me from wandering off all the time.

They started saying more stuff about my mom. I usually didn’t listen much to what the quilting ladies talked about. Their stories were all so boring. Boring in the way that a lot of church ladies’ stories are boring to someone who’s not quite ten years old and not quite worldly enough to fill in all the things they won’t just come out and say.

But then they said something that made me pause.

“…Beth used to let her sister wander off, too.”

“And we all know how that turned out.”

I had a sister? No one had ever told me I had a sister.

“Poor thing.”

“Never had a chance.”

“Wait, what happened to her sister?”

“You don’t know?”

“Of course, she doesn’t know. She just moved here from over by Ark City…”

I crept back a little closer to the door. I want to know where my secret sister was.

“It’s a horrible story.”

“Heartbreaking.”

“Truly.”

“Beth had a little sister.”

“Years ago. Before Mia was born.”

I sighed. Disappointed that my mom had a secret sister out there somewhere and not me.

“Beth was supposed to be watching her.”

“Except she never actually watched her.”

“Let her wander all over kingdom come by herself.”

“Too busy getting herself pregnant.”  

They all murmured in agreement.

I let out a bigger sigh. Wondering why I’d stopped to listen. The quilting ladies never said anything interesting. And the least interesting thing in the whole world was yet another story about someone getting pregnant or being pregnant or wanting to get pregnant or trying to get pregnant or wanting to not get pregnant or wanting to stop being pregnant…

“Anyway, it was back when they lived out at the McKenzie farm.”

“Where Alan and Charlotte live now.”

“They had a pond out there at the time.”

“Long since covered over now”

“They had to.”

“So, Beth wasn’t watching her.

“And she wandered out to the pond.”

I was headed for the back door, annoyed. They always talked like they had some mind-blowing story to tell. Then all they’d ever say was “so and so use to live there” or “so and so redid their yard” or “so and so lost his job” or “so and so can’t keep her legs together.” I didn’t know why I’d expected anything different. 

“The poor thing walked in and never walked out.”

“Oh no.”

“Bless her heart. The water wasn’t any deeper than she was tall.”

“How horrible.”

“Charlie said she must have gotten to the middle and just panicked.”

“She’d never learned how to swim.”

That last part caught my attention. I had always known how to swim. I thought everyone was born knowing how. Like breathing. It just seemed dangerous for anyone to be born any other way. 

I’d always argued with my mom—and sometimes my grandma—about swimming lessons every summer: “It’s too early, and the water’s always freezing early in the morning, and I’m already a better swimmer than anyone else there, so there’s no point in me being better, there’s not even a swimming team anywhere, and it costs a bunch of money and you’re always worried about spending too much money, and you have to wake up when it’s still dark outside to drive me twenty miles to…” I’d lay out my arguments every year with even more skill and precision, but the most I ever got for it was a mouth full of soap at home or swats in the pool parking lot.

It had never occurred to me that some people went to swimming lessons to learn how to swim. It didn’t make sense. I thought swimming lessons were like track practice. The people I saw at the gravel mile track didn’t go there to learn how to run. They went to practice running faster, longer, and better than everyone else.

I knew people could drown, but I thought people only drowned if they got too tired because they were out of shape or ate too much or the current was too strong. The same way you could die if you couldn’t outrun a murderer or get out of the way of an angry bull or a speeding car. I rarely went to school at that point, but the few times I did go that fall, I spent my days surveying the other kids, teachers, lunch ladies, the janitor about how and when they learned how to swim.

 One afternoon in mid-December, my mom was making herself a sandwich before she left for work. I was doing a handstand against the backdoor, and I asked her how old she was when she’d learned to swim. For months, I’d asked my mom all the same questions I’d asked people at school, but she never answered. Aside from a few outbursts, she’d barely said a word to me since she’d gotten back from the hospital that spring.

I’d been feeling more and more like a ghost haunting my parents’ house. A ghost they were trying to will away by pretending as best they could that I wasn’t there. Sometimes I’d wonder if I really was dead. I’d think back trying to remember when I might have died and what might have killed me.

But that time she answered me. Sort of.

“I never learned how to swim.” She said it like she was talking to herself. Pretending that the thought had just popped into her head. Never looking up from her sandwich. Careful not to give any indication that she knew I was in the room.

That was the only way she’d talk to me on the rare occasions she’d say anything to me at all. It’d been long enough since she’d acknowledged me that much, that her words hit me harder than I was prepared for. And a part of me that had gone dormant was jolted awake.

“What? You didn’t have to take swimming lessons?” I swung my feet back down to the floor and stood up. She had forced me to take swimming lessons every single summer since forever.

“No,” she whispered, not looking up. 

“But you can float and doggy paddle and stuff?” My confusion was giving way to something hot rising up in my chest.

“Never been in water deep enough,” she said, still not looking at me. Her voice was soft, distant. Her body was tense. The way it always was when I was in the room. Like she was using every muscle in her body to will me out of existence.

The heat in my chest turned white-hot. 

I screamed.

But she didn’t react. She was still looking at her sandwich like I wasn’t there.

I screamed louder. Loud enough it felt like I was tearing my throat apart.

My mind was so overtaken by rage that I couldn’t think of any curse words. I wanted so bad to be able to say anything that would make her react. Make her treat me like I was anything other than a ghost or some figment of her imagination. Any word that would make her snap, scream, throw things, hit me, drag me by my hair, and wash my mouth out with soap, anything.

I screamed and screamed until my voice broke, and when it did, I grabbed my favorite mug off the counter and threw it against the wall as hard as I could. It shattered, and my arm shot with pain. But she didn’t flinch. She just turned and walked over the shards like they weren’t there. She picked her purse up off the couch and walked out the front door. 

I was too angry to find my hallway. I closed my eyes and saw violent explosions of light. So, I ran out to Cattleskin Bridge and climbed underneath. I tried to catch my breath, focused on breathing in and out deep and slow. I closed my eyes. The lights were even more chaotic. The more I tried to force myself to relax into their rhythm, the more erratic they seemed. I focused harder on my breathing and tried again. Tiny shards of light swirled around me as dense and violent as a dust storm. They stung my face and filled up my lungs. I gasp for air clutching at my throat. Then coughed until it threw up.

I tried again and again and again and then opened my eyes and screamed. I punched the ground in front of me. Picked up rocks and threw them into the creek. I kicked the trunk of a tree only to realize I had run all the way there barefoot. I collapsed onto the ground again and tried to breathe deep and even, in and out, on and on into the cold night.

When I finally gave up, my body was shaking so hard I couldn’t have found the rhythm in anything. I didn’t know how much of it was from the cold and how much was from the anger that still wouldn’t leave me. I climbed back up from under the bridge. I heard a familiar noise, but for some reason didn’t realize what it was until I saw my shadow appear tall in the bright white that suddenly lit up the road in front of me. And then my shadow was gone. And the light was gone. And I was in my hallway.

The current that swept me away was too strong. I couldn’t swim against it. Couldn’t slow myself down. The doors flew past me so quickly that they all blurred together and became endless, luminescent walls closing in on either side of me. Any sense of direction I’d had was gone. The current didn’t feel like it was pushing me forward like it always had before. I felt like I was in freefall.

I clawed blindly for a handle to grab ahold of. When one of my hands finally met a handle, it hit hard. So hard my bones should have shattered. The pain was bright and throbbing, but when I looked at my hand, it seemed fine. I made a fist and wiggled my fingers then tried again. The first impact must have slowed my descent a little. I caught ahold of a handle just long enough for my body to swing around and slam against the wall. My fingers slipped. I tumbled through the hallway somersaulting and slamming against doors and door handles. My whole body lit up with pain like fireworks in the dark. And then there was nothing but darkness.

I woke up motionless on a hard floor. It took me a minute to gather the courage to open my eyes. When I did, I saw that I was still in my hallway. I’d never thought of my hallway as having a floor. I ran my hands over my body checking for injuries. The only new ones I could find were on my feet—probably from my barefoot run to Cattleskin Bridge—and they weren’t so bad that I couldn’t walk on them.

There was a door next to me. I’d never had the chance to really look at one of the doors before. It was big and looked wooden. But it wasn’t the color of wood. I studied the texture of the not-exactly-wood. I saw its curves and shades dance and grow and change. Like there were worlds more diverse and alive than any place I’d ever explored pressed up against each other and folded into the grain. I traced them with my fingers. The door was smooth and soft. Softer than my grandma’s pillows. Softer than my favorite pair of pajamas. I wished that the door could be a blanket instead. That I could take it off the wall and wrap it around my body, curl back up on the floor, and fall asleep for a day, a week, forever.

I reached for the handle. The metal felt warm in my hand. I hoped that whatever world was beyond that door was a peaceful place where I could rest. I opened the door and heard birds singing. A warm gust of wind brushed my hair back out of my face, and I stepped through the door onto the rough dry grass of a small country cemetery. I looked out on a sea of pale green wheat rising and falling with the wind just beyond the narrow, reddish orange dirt road that passed by the graveyard.

The three other sides of the cemetery were bordered by trees. I climbed one of the taller oaks and looked around. The patch of trees jutted into the field behind it and led to a small pond partially shaded from the sun. There was a farmhouse and a small pasture not far down the road. Other than that, there was just more pale green wheat for miles in every direction. Interrupted only here and there by faint tree lines, streams, dirt roads, and maybe a highway off in the distance. I felt like I’d marooned myself in the middle of some unforgiving green ocean.

I heard what sounded like a loud truck’s engine in the distance and nearly slipped out of the tree. I started shaking again despite the heat. I made my way down the tree and over to the pond. I was covered in sweat and dirt by the time I got to it. I wanted to jump in and cool off, but it stunk worse than the creek under Cattleskin Bridge. Before I could decide whether a swim would be worth the smell, I heard a rapid, crunching noise cutting through gentler sounds of rustling wheat. Something was running towards the pond.

I stepped back behind a tree and looked in the direction of the sound. I saw a small figure that looked like it was probably human, but I couldn’t make out much more than that until it reached the small patch of orange clay at the edge of the pond. And then I could see it clearly.

 It was me—or it looked like me—standing there in the clearing. My likeness was out of breath. My…its…her face was red and smeared with tears and dirt. I watched her collapse to her knees and beat her fists into the ground. She knelt there rocking for a few minutes then crept into the water. She sat down just far enough into the pond that her knees barely poked up out of the water when she pulled them up against her chest.

After a while, the other me stood up and walked deeper into the water. She started making strange movements with her arm. I thought she was trying to do some sort of weird water dance. I wondered if she might be a witch. But something about those movements seemed so familiar. I thought for a moment that maybe I had been there before. That maybe I’d just forgotten somehow. Or maybe she was me from the not-so-distant future. I’d never really thought about time travel before. It opened up so many new possibilities I couldn’t keep up. Why was she crying? What had happened to her? Was she looking for me? Had she come to warn me about something?

Her splashes got louder and more erratic. I remembered where I’d seen those movements before.

Swimming lessons.

There was a kid a couple summers before who’d never taken swimming lessons. He’d walk out closer to the deep end and had started moving his arms the same way my double moved hers. The teacher had jumped into the pool and pulled him out of the water. Several of the kids made fun of him. I’d laugh a little before I saw him start to cry. I felt guilt creep back into my stomach remembering it.

Then I realized the girl in the water couldn’t have been me.

She didn’t know how to swim.

Who was she then? What was she? It?

I began to suspect my double was actually some kind of monster that could make itself look like me. I’d never encountered such a thing, but it seemed just as possible as time travel.

Maybe this was a trap.

I looked at her again. Her head was barely bobbing in and out of the water. A belated realization shot through my chest like a surge of electricity and radiated out to my fingers and toes.

She was drowning. 

I’d never seen anyone drown before. But I’d been told what it looked like my last summer of swimming lessons. They’d finally let me join the older kids in the advanced swimming class. One morning, the older kids dove down to the bottom of the deep end to pick up heavy weights and swim them back up to the side of the pool. The teacher told me I was too young to do that part just yet. And then he told the older kids that it was much harder to carry a person to safety especially if they were panicking. And they would be panicking.

I was waist-deep in muddy water before I realized I was running towards her. The clay beneath the water went up to my ankles, and it was hard to lift my feet. So, I swam through the shallow water to get to her. I thought that if I could just grab her by the arm and pull her back a few feet or so. Just far enough that she could stand up with her chin out of the water. The water where she was wasn’t even deep enough to cover the top of her head. It’d only take a few seconds. Then she’d be able to find her footing, catch her breath, and explain to me what was going on. 

Easy.

I reached out for one of her flailing arms. As soon as I caught ahold of her wrist, she latched onto mine. Within a second, she was trying to climb on the top of my head. She shoved me underwater by my hair. Before I realized what was happening, my mouth was full of that awful-smelling, awful-tasting pond water.

She must have been a monster after all.

I tried to fight back, but by the time I could react, she had her legs wrapped around my neck. She was forcing my face down into the clay. I sucked water and mud up into my nose. My chest started burning like I’d been under for much longer than the few seconds I had been. I started clawing at her legs, yanking at her arms, hair—anything I could grab ahold of—and trying to shove her down beneath me.

I finally got on top of her. But instead of making my way up to the air I desperately needed, I started to cling to her the way she had been clinging to me. Even when her grasp on me loosened and her struggling body began to slow and I should have been able to make it the few feet to the surface easily, I couldn’t. Something had taken over me. I couldn’t let her go. 

My lungs felt like they were packed with lava and ash. My brain was screaming so loud I couldn’t hear what it was telling me. But I clung to her limp body, my muddy nails digging into her skin. Utterly helpless in water that couldn’t have been any higher than my eyes if I could just stand up.

And then the world shifted.

The cord had reached its limit. I felt it pluck my body out of the pond and fling me back through the hallway to Cattleskin Bridge soaked, shaking, and coughing up mud and water onto the road. I collapsed on the cracked concrete. The rough pavement felt comforting pressed up against my cheek. I just wanted to lay there. I wanted to fall asleep. Stay asleep.

But I opened my eyes and saw my body lying on the road beside me. Its lips looked blue in the moonlight. It wasn’t breathing. I thought I was a ghost floating next to my own corpse not quite ready to leave it completely. I tried to shake it awake. And when that didn’t work, I slammed my fists into its chest in anger and fear and frustration until it started coughing up mud and water.

That was when the pain hit me, and I realized I was still alive and that the convulsing, semiconscious body in front of me wasn’t my own.

I heard the familiar sound of a car rounding the curve way too fast. And that time, I recognized what it was. Somehow, I managed to drag my double over to the big tree next to the gully before the car flew by. I leaned her up against the trunk. Then fell to my knees and coughed until I threw up. My chest had never hurt like that before.

When I was finally able to speak, I looked over at my double and asked her who she was. She didn’t answer. She was in worse shape than I was. Still coughing and vomiting up mud and water. I asked her if she was okay. She just sat there doubled over shaking and struggling to breathe. I reached over and tucked a clump of muddy hair behind her ear. I wondered if I looked half as rough as she did. Another car sped by, and I caught a better glimpse of her. She had a dark brown oval on the corner of her forehead. I traced it with my thumb. Recognition hit me hard in my gut a few seconds before I remembered where I’d seen it before.

“Ann,” I whispered without meaning to.

She looked up at me, and I jumped a little.

“Is your name Ann?” I asked shaking even harder than I had been.

She squinted at me like she was trying to see me clearly but couldn’t. “Yes?” It was the first word that she’d said to me. It was quiet and hoarse. More like a whispered squeak than an actual word but it was just clear enough to understand. 

Pieces were starting to fit together in the fog of my mind. I double over and coughed up chunks of what I thought must be mud. Then I turned back to Ann. My next question caught in my throat, but I finally forced it out.

“Do you have a sister named Beth?”

“Yes?” she managed between coughs.

Despite the pain and the cold, I broke out into a muddy smile.

“Come with me,” I said and took her hand. “Hurry!”

I dragged her along behind me through the dark. I wanted to run as fast as I could the whole way home. Driven by new and strange fantasies. I had saved Ann. Ann. My mom’s sister. Ann. My aunt. My Aunt Ann. I had brought her back from the dead.

That had to change things. That had to change everything. I imagined a world where Ann was the missing broken piece that would fix it all. My dad. My grandma. My mom. Ann would make them love me. Make my mom want to look at me, hold me, say sweet and beautiful things to me.

But neither of us could run that far. We kept having to stop—on the frost-covered grass of the pasture and along the side of the gravel road into town—to cough, to throw up, to try to breathe.

When we got to the house, I threw the door open. “Mom! Mom! Dad!” I yelled between gasps and coughs. I ran through the house looking for them, but they weren’t home yet. 

Ann was coughing and out of breath, too, but she finally asked me, “What’s happening? Where are we?”

I stopped and looked at her. She was soaked, coated in mud, coughing, shaking violently. So was I. But when I saw her in the light of the living room, I no longer saw myself or my double or my aunt or my salvation. I saw a small, fragile little girl who had nearly died and needed someone to take care of her. To make her feel safe. To let her know that everything was going to be alright. 

I paused for a moment blinking back tears I didn’t quite understand. I cleared my throat as best I could. I tried to change my voice. Soften it. To something like the voice I sometimes used to whisper songs for the birds I wished would sing their songs for me.

“It-” I said, and she started crying. “Hey, hey.” I stepped closer and wrapped my arms around her. She started sobbing into my shoulder, and I held her tighter and stroked the back of her wet mud-matted hair. “Hey, it’s gonna be okay. You’re gonna be okay,” I told her, unable to hold back my own tears anymore, “We’re gonna be okay.” 

I helped her take a shower. She was too tired to do it on her own. When we were both reasonably clean, I let her wear my favorite pair of pajamas, and I did my best to comb some of the tangles out of her hair.

When my mom got home, we ran to meet her at the door.

“Mom!”

“Beth!”

My mom dropped her purse and fell to her knees. She touched Ann’s face and then mine.

“Ann,” she whispered and started to cry. She knelt there in tears for a moment before she whispered, “Go to your room.”

“But mom, it’s Ann. I saved her.”

“Go to your room,” she screamed this time refusing to look at us. “Go to your room,” she repeated over and over her voice breaking and her eyes squeezed shut.

“But-”

She screamed louder throwing her keys, billfold, some coins, a fork at Ann and me. We fled into my room and waited for my dad to get home. He was the only one who could talk sense into my mom. Maybe he could get her to calm down enough to realize that this was a good thing. A miracle.

 I showed Ann the pieces of my collection that I didn’t have stashed away at Cattleskin Bridge. She was shivering, so I wrapped her in my blanket.

“Sorry my room’s so cold,” I said, embarrassed that my vent was boarded over.

We looked at small rocks and fingerbones on the floor trying not to listen to my mom wailing in the other room. We didn’t talk much. Tried to cough as quietly as we could. When my dad got home, we listened through the door.

My mom told him in between sobs that she’d seen the two of us together.

“…both of them…at the same time…they ran up to me…Ann had her birthmark…”

I opened the door to show him that she was telling the truth, but I’d only cracked it a few inches before he started yelling. He slammed the door back into me. I heard the door lock from the outside as I hit the floor. He was yelling at my mom now. She yelled back, and I heard a slap. They were quiet for a few seconds. Then my dad started yelling again.

“If you don’t snap out of it right now—right fucking now—you’re going back to the hospital. And this time I will divorce you. I’m sick of this shit. I’m not paying for it anymore. You hear me?”

I stumbled to my feet and tried to yell loud enough for him to hear me.

“Shut the fuck up, you stupid piece of shit,” my dad yelled kicking the door hard enough it cracked in the middle.

All the dreams I’d started piecing together of a happy life and a happy family were falling apart faster than I’d cobbled them together. The room was spinning. I thought I was going to throw up again. Then I felt a feeling I’d never felt on that side of the hallway.

I felt the cord stretching to its limit.

“No, no.” 

This was all wrong. Everything was all wrong. None of this was supposed to happen the way it was happening. All the rules of reality as I understood them were bending and breaking themselves. The cord was what kept me tethered to where I came from. It was what brought me back. If it took me away, where would I go? How would I get back? How would I fix this? I had to fix this. I had to stay. It was too important that I stay.

“No,” I said one more time, reaching out to grab ahold of Ann’s hand as if it could have possibly kept me there. But she was already gone. My room, my world was already gone. I flew back through a dim blur of colors and emerged under the warm water of a muddy pond. Alone.  

This time I didn’t have any trouble swimming to safety. I climbed out of the pond and looked across the endless ocean of wheat. I coughed up more mud into my hand.

“Ann!”

It was my mom. I felt the same cold feeling in my stomach that I always felt when she called me that name.

 “Ann!” She sounded angry. I froze. Not knowing where to run. She stomped towards me. She looked a lot thinner than I’d ever seen her. Too thin. Her oversized t-shirt kept sliding down her shoulders. “And, of course, you’re covered in mud.” She grabbed my arm too tight and yanked me along behind her.

She dragged me to the farmhouse I’d seen from a distance a few hours before. I studied it for a moment up close as I tried to piece my situation together. I felt a giant slap of cold against the right side of my body. I jumped and stumbled over.

 “Don’t you dare run off,” my mom yelled. “We’re already late enough as it is.”

She was spraying me down with a garden hose.

I stood there shaking. More obedient than I’d been in years. 

“Okay, go get ready.”

I stared at her trying to figure out what she meant. 

“Hurry up. Shower and get changed. You better not make me late.”

I still wasn’t sure what to do.

“Go!” she yelled, and I ran inside the strange house without knocking.

I almost tripped over a chair on my way in. I tried to orient myself. Look for clues that would tell me where to go and what to do. The living room was dim compared to outside, but I saw my grandma’s throw pillows on the couch and the quilt I used to sleep with when I stayed over at her apartment. The walls were covered with framed photographs. One of them was a picture of Ann that I’d found in a shoebox several months before.

“Hurry up and stay out of our room!” my mom yelled from behind me.

There were three closed doors at the far end of the living room. I was pretty sure one of them had to be the bathroom, but I didn’t know which one. I opened the door closest to me and saw a white dress hanging on a bunk bed.

“You stay out of our room until you’ve had a shower!”

The next door I opened was to the bathroom. I let out a sigh of relief. When I’d finished my shower, I realized I didn’t know where the towels were, and I got the floor all wet looking for one. When I stepped out of the bathroom, my mom was standing in front of me holding the ugliest dress I’d ever seen.

“Jesus Christ, Ann! How are you this fucking messy?”

She pushed me towards the door I hadn’t opened yet and said, “Get dressed in Mom and Daddy’s room. I don’t want you ruining my dress.”

I went in, dried myself off, put on the stupid dress she gave me—it was as uncomfortable as it was ugly—and looked at myself in the mirror. I wondered how long I was going to have to pretend. How long until all of this was sorted out?

In my mind, the universe had made some kind of temporary mistake. That it would notice and fix things as soon as possible. It wouldn’t be long before Ann and I would switch back to the right times and live the right lives. I started to imagine what it would be like to have an aunt.  

The door flew open.

“Hurry up! We’re already late.”

My mom was zipping up a graduation gown over her white dress. I followed her out to an old, rusted truck, and we climbed in. She started cussing the truck out before she even tried to start it.

“Come on, you stupid piece of shit…”

It started up after a few tries. She sped down the long driveway cursing each time she had to shift gears. 

She drove us to my grandma’s town—or the town she lived in in my world. My time? My universe? We drove past her apartment. The building looked nicer than I remembered it, and it was painted a pretty peach color. For a moment, I felt lost. Completely adrift in some infinite unknown. I felt so much farther from home than I’d ever felt in any of the other worlds I’d ever visited. I took a few breaths—as deep as I could between much deeper coughs—hoping the feeling would pass.

There were a whole bunch of cars parked around the haunted old gym. Except the haunted old gym didn’t look old or haunted anymore. The smoke stains were gone, the windows weren’t boarded up, and the roof hadn’t caved in. My mom parked a block away and dragged me half running to the side door. She shushed me for coughing before she opened it and told me to go sit by “Mom and Daddy.”

I looked for my grandparents in the back half of the gym while my mom slipped into a seat with the robed people in the front row. I didn’t know what my grandpa looked like, but I found my grandma pretty quickly. My dad was sitting with them. He gave me a quick smile and a wink as I sat down. He didn’t seem like himself. His hair wasn’t as grey, and he was acting too friendly. 

My metal chair was uncomfortable. It was made more uncomfortable by the pain in my chest and the dress my mom had made me wear and the long, boring speeches and long, boring line of people in robes waiting to walk under the basketball goal and then some more long, boring speeches… My grandma kept shushing me louder and louder each time I coughed until she was shushing louder than the boring men with the microphone could talk.

Then my dad and grandparents got up and walked to the front dragging me along with them. Nobody else had gotten up, and I was afraid we were doing something wrong. Then one of the very boring men handed the microphone to my grandpa. My mom walked up to join us and held my dad’s hand. She never held my dad’s hand.

Then my grandpa said, “For those of y’all who don’t know, my oldest daughter here isn’t just graduating high school today.” He put his arm around my mom. “And since all y’all fine folks are already dressed up so nice, you’re all invited to walk down to the River of Life Church and join us. The preacher said we’ll be getting started around seven, and we’ll have cake and fixins for everyone after in the Fellowship Hall.”

The wedding was even more of a blur than the graduation. I was the flower girl, but aside from the fact that my dress was itchy and the preacher’s bolo tie was crooked, all I could really process was that my cough seemed to be getting worse and that it was getting harder to breathe.

I remember falling asleep under a table while my mom and dad were cutting their cake. I remember my mom being mad at me after for coughing so loud.

“You were doing it on purpose! Why do you have to ruin everything?”

A few days later, I wasn’t sure how many, I was laying down in the seat of my grandpa’s truck. He was driving way too fast and turning way too hard. Back then the Masonic Hospital was still open, so it was only a forty-minute drive to the emergency room, but he was driving so fast he probably made it in half that time. 

I don’t know how long I was in and out of the hospital, but they said I’d be well enough to go back to school when the summer was over. When the time came, I was sure that everyone would realize I wasn’t Ann. I’d been surprised they hadn’t figured it out sooner. But they all seemed to think I had brain damage instead. So, it didn’t really matter what I said or did. Or which friends or teachers I couldn’t remember. Or that I didn’t know how to add and subtract fractions. I only got looks of pity—not suspicion. 

After a while, I felt like I was coming out of the fog I’d been stuck in all summer. I could think more clearly. Breathe more clearly. I started going for walks again. At first, they were pretty short, but they got longer. Cattleskin Bridge was way too far away to walk to, but there were so many hay bales to jump on and birds to keep me company I didn’t mind too much.

I also started forcing myself to be friendlier and try harder in school than I ever had before. Partly because I was worried that I’d do or not do something that Ann would end up trouble for once we’d switched back. And partly because I was sick of everyone treating me like my brain was broken.

I was also trying to avoid my hallway for the first time in my life. I was worried that if I traveled too much, it might confuse whatever force was supposed to come and put Ann and me back in our right times.

I started reading up on time travel. Or as much as I could given the state of the school library and the fact that my teacher thought time travel was demonic. I couldn’t find any definitive answers on what I should do next, but all my sources seemed to be warning me: don’t mess with the timeline.

So, I just went through the motions pretending to be Ann as best I could until my birthday that October. I was used to not celebrating my birthday, except at school. But we didn’t celebrate there either. It wasn’t Ann’s birthday. I realized that I didn’t know when her birthday was.

That seemed like information I needed to know, so I spent most of that evening trying to figure out a way to get someone to tell me without arousing suspicion or worse, pity. We were at the hospital again. But this time, I got to hang out in the waiting room while my mom got all of the attention. Which was a huge relief for me. I was so caught up in concocting a complicated web of birthday espionage that I didn’t realize what was happening just a few rooms over.

My grandpa walked back into the waiting room and announced that I was an aunt now. He asked me if I wanted to come meet my new niece, Mia. I was horrified. From what I had gathered in my ongoing research into time travel, going anywhere near a younger version of myself would probably destroy the universe. I panicked and ran for the front exit. I made it about halfway there before I slipped on a small stack of magazines that someone had left next to a chair. I cried and refused to hold her. I told my grandparents, my parents, the nurses, I couldn’t do it. I wouldn’t. It was too dangerous.

At first, they were sympathetic.

“It’s okay you won’t hurt her. Just make sure to support her head.”

After a while, they were less sympathetic and told me that I had to hold her whether I wanted to or not. I cried and begged them not to make me, but it was no use.

When they finally put her in my arms, that was it: the universe was destroyed.

But not in the way I’d expected.

I looked down at her, my face still hot and wet with tears. I took her tiny hand in mine expecting the worst. Her fingers latched tight onto my thumb. She was so small, fragile, helpless. I thought back on the life I’d lived so far. Everything that had happened. All the things I’d seen and done and gone through.

It all collapsed in on me. All of it.

I felt the rhythms of galaxies, the strong currents of my hallway, the vast reaches of time and space compress into a singularity in my chest.

This baby wasn’t me yet. And I would do everything in my power to make sure she never had to be.

Nothing else mattered anymore.

I babysat Little Mia every chance I got. My mom was more than happy for me to take her off her hands whenever I wanted to. I fed her, bathed her, and changed her diapers. I helped her take her first steps. I potty trained her when I realized she was more than old enough. I even taught her how to swim.

I didn’t travel through my hallway at all anymore. I was too afraid of leaving her behind. But I did tell her stories about my old adventures. When she was three or so she started parroting my stories back to me and to our parents and grandparents. They didn’t approve.

“Come on, Mom.” I’d started calling my parents Mom and Dad and my grandparents Grandma and Grandpa pretty soon after Little Mia was born. They didn’t like that either. “The fact that Little Mia is telling stories like this is a good thing. It’s good for her development. It means she’ll be good at school when she’s older. That’s what all the parenting books say.”

They didn’t buy it, but they let it slide in part because Little Mia decided she didn’t want to tell them her stories anymore anyway. She’d only tell me and a few of her friends. Before long, her stories became less like mine and took on a life of their own. I nearly cried when she told me a story about how she made friends with a treasure-hunting mermaid.

Not all of her stories were imaginary, though. Sometimes she would come to me in tears about something that happened at home. I’d do what I could to mitigate things, but usually, the best I could do was find excuses to keep her out of that house.

I also taught her how to breathe deep and even to help her relax and feel safe. She saw the lights too, and it didn’t take her long to learn how to dance with them. The first time she disappeared in front of me, I felt like I was going to die. I was so worried. She came back a few seconds later excited to tell me what she saw. I was terrified. I hadn’t ever really considered how dangerous my adventures had been until then. I forced a smile and asked her all about it, but I made her promise only to travel under my supervision. And only when she had all her homework done.

I was determined to be a good influence.

I did my best to get good grades in school. And I read as many books as I could get my hands on. On Ann’s fourteenth birthday, I’d gotten a farm permit. After that, I drove myself to the only public library in the county as often as I could. I read through most of their good stuff pretty quickly, and I had to read their boring stuff while I waited weeks or months for interlibrary loans to come in so I could read about time travel and alternate universes and people and culture more foreign to me than aliens riding around on spaceships. Every so often, a time and place I read about would remind me of a world I’d traveled to when I was little, and I’d wish that I’d paid more attention to the people who lived in them. I taught Little Mia how to bring little artifacts back from her travels. I would research them and try to figure out where and when they’d come from.

But I was relieved when she eventually told me that the hallway was too much work and that playing with Rachel and Olivia was much more fun. She was in first grade by then, and she had a lot of friends to play with when she wasn’t at school. I vaguely remembered a few of them from my past life, as classmates I’d barely talked to. Little Mia wasn’t anything like me. And I was glad. Even if that meant I didn’t get to spend as much time with her.

I was becoming less like me too. I made a few new friends when I was a freshman—the high school combined five towns instead of just two so there were a few more potential friendships to stumble into. My new friends were mostly older kids who talked about wanting to leave the state after graduation. I wasn’t super close to any of them, but we’d sometimes talk about books or how we didn’t belong. They didn’t go anywhere after they graduated, but somehow, I still lost touch with them before the summer was over.

By the time I was a senior, a girl named Heather was the only one of my friends that I still spent time with. I assumed the same thing would happen to us when we graduated. The thought scared me more than I expected. We had gotten much closer that last year of school. Sometimes we’d talk about renting a house together and having Little Mia come live with us. I started to want that more than anything I’d ever wanted in my life, but I had this nagging fear that she was just talking. The same way our friends had all talked about leaving.

A few weeks before graduation, we went to a track meet a few counties over. Both our races were over, and we were camped out under the shade of some bleachers eating PB&Js talking about a small stone house with a garden when, out of nowhere, she leaned over and kissed me on the mouth.

It had been years since I had been able to find the rhythm of the stars, to follow their lead dancing and floating and sinking deep into the unknowable. But when her lips touched mine, I felt every atom in my body shift and slide into place. I felt the current of the universe flowing through me and every particle of my being surrendering wholly to it.

I kissed her back.

“What in God’s name are you doing?” Our coach stomped over. He grabbed me by the wrist and dragged me to the parking lot.

I had to spend the rest of the semester in in-school suspension. The principal told me I was lucky they were letting me graduate at all. My grandparents kicked me out of the house. My parent told me I wasn’t allowed to see Little Mia ever again.

I spent a couple months camping out in the heat and couch surfing with a couple of my old friends who didn’t mind my new sordid reputation.

My friends told me I should leave. Apply for colleges. Get as far away as I could.

“You’re smart enough. You could actually have a life.”

Instead, I got some shit jobs and saved up for a shit apartment nearby. I thought I’d get to hang out with Little Mia again soon. That my parents would get over it after a while.

Heather had clearly gotten over it. The next time I saw her was late that summer. She was making out with one of the Doyle twins outside the gas station. They’d gotten married not long after graduation. Of course, I’d heard all about it by then, but it wasn’t until I saw them like that that it hit me in my chest so hard I thought I was drowning.

But that was nothing compared to losing Little Mia.

At first, I thought my parents and grandparent would cool off after a week or two, or a month or two or three or four or five. I was shocked when they wouldn’t let me into her ninth birthday party. When I showed up to my grandparents’ house, Little Mia ran up to me her eyes bright with excitement. My dad grabbed her arm and yanked her away from me. He told me to leave.

“It’s my birthday,” yelled Little Mia, “and I want her to say!”

He slapped her across the face.

It took both of my grandpa’s farmhands to drag me out of there.

I spent the next year trying to navigate child custody laws on my own. The woman at child services told me, “You have to bring us evidence of actual abuse,” and “Even if her parents did lose custody, she’d never be placed into the custody of someone like you.” I wasn’t sure if she meant because I was a notorious homosexual or because I was single or too young or too poor or because I seemed increasingly more unhinged each time I came into her office.

When I tried to crash Mia’s tenth birthday party, I only caught a short glimpse of her. She was sitting slumped back on a rocking chair. She was a few inches taller than when I’d last seen her, but she looked like she’d lost weight. She looked my way as the Connally brothers dragged me out again. Her eyes were dark and hollow.

That winter, I read about her death in the paper. No one invited me to the funeral. When I show up to the church anyway, the Connally brothers met me at the door. 

“Her family doesn’t want you here.” 

“I am her family,” I said trying to push my way through.

They grabbed me by the arms and started dragging me away from the church. I tried to yank myself free.

“Let go of me,” I yelled, “Let go.”

Their grips were so tight that a week later I still had the bright purple silhouettes of their fingers on my skin. But I barely noticed in the moment. I was too filled with grief and rage, and I was channeling it all towards regaining my footing. Then, to forcing one step, then another, and another against the strength of two farmhands twice my size. 

My mother saw me and started marching my way fast. My grandpa and Bruce had to hold her back.

“You fucking bitch. You killed my daughter. …”

For a moment, I couldn’t process the accusation or who it’d been hurled at. I looked around for my dad, but I didn’t see him anywhere. My mom yelled for a while before I realized she was yelling at me.

“How could I have killed her? I haven’t been near her in a year and a half because you…”

“Is that why you fucking killed her? Because I wouldn’t let you get your nasty pervert hands on her anymore.”

My grandpa and Bruce were having trouble holding my mom back. She was scratching and biting at the air between us. 

“What the fuck are you talking about? I would never hurt Mia. You’re the one who-”

“Don’t you tell me how to discipline my daughter.”

“Your daughter?” My confusion left me. “You were never a mother to Mia a day in her life. I was more of a mother to her than you ever were. All you ever did for her was let a thirty-year-old shoot his load in you when you were seventeen. Your maternal instincts began and ended right there.”

My mom let out a shriek and lunged at me hard enough to dig her nails into my face. By the time my grandpa and Bruce were able to pull her back, she’d drawn blood.

I don’t remember what I said after that, but I kept going—screaming, voice breaking, barely pausing to breathe—for I don’t know how long until I was suddenly aware that my lungs were completely empty. Emptier than they’d ever been. Emptier than felt possible. But I dug my feet into the ground, clenched every muscle in my body even tighter to force out whatever air was still left in my throat. I was drowning in all the words I had left to say.

But rage and grief can only force a body so far past its limit. My lungs and legs gave out. My vision was mostly black, but I saw my mom. Something I’d said must have gotten through because she was slumped down on the concrete with her knees pulled up against her chest. She looked small, crumpled on the ground with spots of my blood on her pale arms. I remember thinking she looked like a used tissue. 

That was the last time I saw her. 

No one ever talked to me directly about what happened. Everyone seemed to do whatever they could to avoid talking to me at all. But from the rumors I’d overheard at work, I expected police to come and arrest me at any moment.

Over the next few months, I lost all my jobs. Some because of the rumors. The rest because as soon as Ann’s birthday came around and I could buy tequila from the liquor store outside of town, I spent most of my time trying to get wasted enough to pass out. Most of the time I’d start throwing it up faster than I could get drunk. I’d end up on the floor covered in vomit, dry heaving and sobbing until I fell asleep. When I ran out of money, I spent most of my time doing the same thing without trying to get drunk first.

It took me almost a year to visit the grave. It was late fall. Most of the leaves had already fallen. My landlord had just kicked me out, so everything I had left was packed into my car. I left it parked on the side of the muddy road. The cemetery was small, and I’d spent a lot of time there a decade before, but it took me a while to find her grave. Everything was covered in red and orange leaves, wet and matted down from rain the night before.

When I pulled a clump of soggy leaves off a gravestone and saw my name and birthday carved into it, I was placidly aware that I should have had some sort of profound reaction to it. But I didn’t feel anything. The name on the grave wasn’t mine anymore. It didn’t belong to me any more than the name on my driver’s license did. It hadn’t in a long time.

I sat on the wet ground and waited for all of the proper feelings to hit me.

They didn’t.

I’d wondered before. Hoped. I’d tried so hard to get a look in the casket so I’d know for sure, and I hadn’t even made it through the church doors. But out there on that blanket of wet leaves, somehow, I knew. Little Mia’s body wasn’t in that ground. She had left. Followed in my footstep. To another world. Another time. Another universe. Maybe one a little better than the one she’d left behind. And maybe she was a little better off for having had me as long as she did.

Or maybe I just needed to know that. Maybe I needed to know it bad enough that any thought of the alternative had to wither and die inside my mind.

I leaned back onto the rough trunk of the tree that had dropped its leaves on the grave. I took a few deep, even breaths of the crisp autumn air and closed my eyes.

All I saw was black. Deep and empty. Like I was right on the edge of an endless void.

I heard a couple birds call out for each other. Or to each other. Or maybe at each other. For a moment, I thought I might sing along with them, but I didn’t. 

I stood up and walked to my car. I zigzagged my way through muddy dirt roads past fields of bright green winter wheat forcing its way out of the ground. When I got to the highway, I turned left. I drove past the sign for the town my grandma never moved to. Drove past the gravel road that led to the house I didn’t grow up in. I sped over Cattleskin Bridge and kept driving.

I drove until the gauge was well past E and coasted into a gas station. I filled up the tank with what I had left in coins and a credit card. Then kept driving into the night. Kept driving into the next day. I just kept driving. Not knowing if I’d ever be able to drive far enough. Not knowing how long I could make it. Always preparing myself for the moment when the cord would reach its limit. Always expecting it to drag me back to where I came from.

But it never did. 



BIO

Mary Means is a writer and editor who grew up in and around small towns in rural Kansas and Oklahoma. They earned a master’s degree in creative writing from the University of Central Oklahoma. They write literary and speculative fiction, poetry, and children’s educational content. Their work has been published by Litnerd, petrichor, The Gayly, and more. 







SONG

by J. R. Solonche


Old English sang, of Germanic origin; related to Dutch zang and German Sang.
Male hedonistic pleasures are summarized as wine, women, and song.

Speaking of pleasures, in my time I’ve heard many a siren song.
I’ll write a song and dance ghazal next, but in this one I have to say “a dance and a song.”

I can’t think of anything I’ve bought or sold for a song.
Rolling Stone Magazine ranks Bob Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone” the #1 song.

Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” is ranked the #1 pop song.
W.C. Handy’s “Memphis Blue” is the greatest blues song.

“Hoochie Coochie Man” by Muddy Waters is the greatest blues song.
B.B. King’s “The Thrill Is Gone” is the greatest blues song.

“I’d Rather Go Blind” by Etta James is the greatest blues song.
Howlin Wolf’s “Smokestack Lightning” is the greatest blues song.

         So, Solonche, you do know that you need one more song?
         Yes, I do know I need one more song, so here is my swan song.



DANCE


Middle English: from Old French dancer (verb), dance (noun), of unknown origin.
Terpsichore (the most beautiful of the nine) is the Greek muse of dance.

As I promised, now I can quote the correct idiom of a song and a dance.
I never went to my high school prom because I didn’t know how to dance.

One of the biggest hit songs (The Bee Gees) is “You Should Be Dancing.”
The debut (2008) single (Grammy nominated 2009) by Lady Gaga was “Just Dance.”

The samba of Brazil is the world’s most popular folk dance.
Baladi is a form of Egyptian belly dance, a truly hypnotic dance.

The hora is a popular Israeli circle dance.
Popular in South Africa is the gumboot (they wear Wellingtons) dance.

Clogging is the official Kentucky and North Carolina state dance.
Minnesota is the only state that has no official state dance.

          So, Solonche, will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, won’t you join the dance?
          Oh, someday, one day, maybe Sunday, I may, I mean, I might join the dance.



HOLY


Old English hālig, of Germanic origin; related to Dutch and German heilig.
William Shakespeare, All’s Well That Ends Well: “Love is holy.”

In the first season (1966) of Batman, Robin said 356 phrases with holy.
The room in a synagogue where only the rabbi may enter is the holy of holies.

The exclamation used by Captain Marvel to mean Wow! is Holy Moley!
The trademark expression of Yankee broadcaster Phil Rizzuto (1917-2007) was Holy cow!

In the New Testament, “set apart” is the definition of holiness.
In the Old Testament, connection to God’s perfection was holiness.

Sapta (seven) Puri (town) are the seven cities in India considered the most holy.
In Buddhism, Bodh Gaya (where Buddha attained Enlightenment) is the holiest.

In the Shinto religion of Japan, The Grand Shrine of Ise is considered the most holy.
Of the sacred sites for Muslims, The Ka’ba in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, is the most holy.

          So, Solonche, you atheist, what, if anything, do you consider holy?
          Like the other atheist above said, “Love is holy.”





BIO

Professor Emeritus of English at SUNY Orange, J.R. Solonche has published poetry in more than 500 magazines, journals, and anthologies since the early 70s, including The New Criterion, The New York Times, The Threepenny Review, The American Scholar, The Progressive, Poetry Northwest, Salmagundi, The Literary Review, The Sun, The American Journal of Poetry, Poet Lore, Poetry East, The Hampden-Sydney Poetry Review, The Journal of the American Medical Association, and Free Verse. His poems have been read on Garrison Keillor’s The Writer’s Almanac and other radio shows and have been translated into Portuguese, Italian, German, and Korean. He is the author of Beautiful Day (Deerbrook Editions), Won’t Be Long (Deerbrook Editions), Heart’s Content (Five Oaks Press), Invisible (nominated for the Pulitzer Prize by Five Oaks Press), The Black Birch (Kelsay Books), I, Emily Dickinson & Other Found Poems (Deerbrook Editions), In Short Order (Kelsay Books), Tomorrow, Today and Yesterday (Deerbrook Editions), True Enough  (Dos Madres Press), The Jewish Dancing Master (Ravenna Press), If You Should See Me Walking on the Road (Kelsay Books), In a Public Place (Dos Madres Press), To Say the Least (Dos Madres Press), The Time of Your Life (Adelaide Books), The Porch Poems (Deerbrook Editions , 2020 Shelf Unbound Notable Indie Book), Enjoy Yourself  (Serving House Books), Piano Music (nominated for the Pulitzer Prize by Serving House Books), For All I Know (Kelsay Books), A Guide of the Perplexed (Serving House Books), The Moon Is the Capital of the World (Word Tech Communications), Years Later (Adelaide Books), The Dust (Dos Madres Press), Selected Poems 2002-2021 (nominated for the National Book Award by Serving House Books), Life-Size (Kelsay Books), The Five Notebooks of Zhao Li (Adelaide Books), Coming To (Word Tech Communications/David Robert Books), The Lost Notebook of Zhao Li (Dos Madres Press, nominated for the Pulitzer Prize), Around Here (Kelsay Books), It’s About Time (Deerbrook Editions), The Book of a Small Fisherman (Shanti Arts Publishing), Leda (Dos Madres Press), The Dreams of the Gods (Kelsay Books), Alone (David Robert Books), The Eglantine (Shanti Arts Publishing), and coauthor with his wife Joan I. Siegel of Peach Girl: Poems for a Chinese Daughter (Grayson Books). He lives in the Hudson Valley.







What Cannot Remain

by Tessa Case


It was late summer. Heavy, black clouds consumed the days, weeping furiously onto the sizzling pavement before parting for an even angrier sun that left the air thick and sweltering. Clara, however, felt twenty pounds lighter in the muggy twilight, and she thought to tell her mother of this feeling. She thought to tell her mother that maybe it was the weighty silence in the house that made her feel as if she occupied too much space.

The green bulbs of fireflies flickered, radioactive against the rose and lavender sunset. A handful of storm clouds remained. Lurid oranges and reds bled out from their edges. Clara wondered if that light—neon, luminescent—was the pollution everyone said made the sky so pretty. And how often, then, were the things that killed us beautiful?

Her grease-slicked hair, swept into a lazy ponytail, pulled at her scalp. Clara ran her fingers through it, loosening the strands, hoping it would make it look less flat against her head. She felt her cheeks get hot and wondered why she had to be embarrassed about being embarrassed, why she had to care so much about her hair, or the smell of tender garlic oozing from her armpits, or the way her body shape-shifted before her eyes when no one looked at her. Heat built up in the empty space between herself and the cocoon of her father’s sweatshirt she couldn’t take off. Her thighs brushed lightly against each other as she walked, and she winced, flinching away from the invisible stares of all the people who did not surround her.

Such was the benefit and the curse of the neighborhood: it was just outside the city, scattered with apartment complexes, historic homes being perpetually renovated, or the shells of these former historic homes, their insides torn out and sliced into twos, threes or fours. College students and young professionals littered the streets, droning along in their shiny cars to and from wherever it was they thought they had to be.

Clara was inconsequential to them. No one ever saw her—or for that matter, her brother—as if these afterimage strangers didn’t know how to act around child bodies, couldn’t remember ever having one, and so pretended as if they didn’t exist at all.

A sigh brushed along Clara’s teeth, and she slipped her phone out from her short’s pocket. The blank notification screen stared back at her. She’d wanted to be alone; she’d been certain that was exactly what she wanted, but it hadn’t stopped her from slamming the door on her way out, and it didn’t stop the sour twist of her stomach every time she didn’t get a notification. The phone felt heavy, her arms felt heavy, it all felt heavy, so Clara sat down. Her fingernail clicked against the glass screen before she tucked her phone back into her pocket, swore she wouldn’t look at it again until she got home.

The historic homes loomed around her. The sun, lowered now, louring, cast them into silhouette, only recognizable by their large columns, the wrap-around porches, or the curved groove of tiled roofs. Soft-white light crept out from the windows, breaking up the black space where facades should have been, casting its glow on potted plants and stacks of recyclables and creaking chains of porch swings.

Clara had never seen anyone cross through that light, had never heard voices whispering to each other, or laughter, or crying, or anything. Who lived in these big houses? Were there many people or only a few? Young or old? Couples without children? Never had there been another child body in the street. So, was it five or six college students wedged in there together yet still so far apart they had to wander to find one another? Was it lonely, in those big houses? Did the loneliness feel less heavy when given more space? Did it travel lightly across all the rooms, stretching itself so thin one might not even notice it was there?

She waited and waited while the darkness crept off the walls of the homes and filled the sky. The sun lingered in a dying gasp before vanishing into the cavernous mouth of the horizon. Fireflies glowed off and on around her, and Clara realized she didn’t know where she was, and, more importantly, didn’t care. She rose back to her feet and kept moving farther and farther away from her parents’ little shotgun house—rented, not owned. One or two fireflies flickered at a time, then five or six, and Clara felt a smile on her lips even if she was unhappy.

Her feet carried her along the tortuous roads. Gray shadow veiled the neighborhood until the streetlights kicked on, unmasking the alien world around her. Anxiety took a tentative chew of her stomach, and her wretched fingers reached around and traced the edge of her phone, threatening to break her promise. She must have gone farther than she thought. Balmy air settled in a thick layer on her skin. Baby hair wilted and clung to her neck and the curve of her jaw. Even the breeze was hot. Clara wiped her forehead with her arm, the sleeve of her father’s sweatshirt already damp from the air alone. Sweat beaded and dripped off the corner of her right eyebrow, brushing past her eyelashes on the way down.

“Rachel?”

The rasping voice startled Clara. Her shoulders jolted up to her ears. She reached around and turned her phone on.

“Rachel, is that you?”

Clara examined the houses around her, their styles slipping out of her mind uninvited. Neo-classical Greek revival, Federalist, Victorian, Queen Anne. Her eyes almost glazed past the old man, his body a misshapen post in shadow, his white-knuckled fingers clinging to the wooden edge of his fence, his shaking arms holding him up. Deep-socketed eyes stared right through Clara.

Queen Anne was her dad’s favorite style. He loved the porches. He would have loved this porch, even though there were balustrades missing, floorboards broken in. Even though cracks split the panes of the big, open windows. Even though the paint looked desperate to get itself off and away from the rotting damp of the wood underneath. The soft scent of decay filled Clara’s nose. The skin on the back of her neck prickled. Sweat dripped in a cool line down her back.

“Rachel.” There was a hitch in the old man’s voice, and his shoulders shook.

Go, she told herself, but her feet did not listen. Go, now. Run, she tried again, and her feet continued to stay glued to the sidewalk. Her whole body lingered, frozen, and Clara wanted to reach up, pull her hair out, cow her body back into something that listened to her.

“Please, please, Rachel,” the old man whispered. His steps, uncertain, betrayed the uncanniness of his body. “Rachel, is that you?” he called, and his voice held all the mournfulness Clara thought she’d hidden deep in her own chest. The big, empty ache of it cleaved apart her ribs.

“I’m not Rachel,” she answered. The old man wasn’t far from her now. His trembling arms threatened surrender, a refusal to bear the weight of his body. Light carved into the lines of his face. Clara couldn’t quite make out his eyes in their hollows.

“Rachel, I’ve been looking everywhere for you. I—I need some help. Rachel, I want to go home. Can you help me? I just want to go home.” His long, curled eyebrows furrowed, rose, furrowed into deeper anguish. Clara watched his wordless mouth open and close.

“I’m not Rachel,” she repeated. I’m not who you’re looking for, she wanted to say.

The old man lifted a hand, a feeble swat at the air. “Don’t do that, Rachel, Just come inside now, and we’ve gotta—we’ve got to, you’ve gotta . . . you’re going to help me, right?” He reached his arm over the fence, the wood impassive to the weight of his body, as if he wanted to grab her hand and hold it.

“I’m not Rachel—”

“Rachel, please. Please. Why won’t you—Rachel, why won’t you help me?”

“I’m not Rachel—”

“Stop, Rachel. Stop. Just stop. Why are you doing this to me?”

“Sir, please, my name is—”

“Why are you doing this to me? Why won’t you help?” His voice rose over hers then broke off with a snap. Clara’s ears rung. The old man looked up into the streetlight. His eyes were green. Tears dripped down his cheeks.

Clara lowered her hands away from her ears and stared at them— sentient beings they were— and wondered if they would show her what do next. They would not. The smell of onion and garlic rose into her nostrils. Her skin tingled with painful awareness of each place her shirt clung to her. Sweat pooled beneath the new folds of her small breasts then dripped down the soft expanse of her stomach. Every muscle was taut, and, for a moment, Clara wished she could pull herself apart and burst into a million fireflies.

“You’re not Rachel?” the old man whispered. He shook his head, squinted harder at her. “You’re … not Rachel?”

Why was he asking? Why couldn’t he just say it?

Clara stared at the old man, his violent, racking sobs the answer to his own question. She had never seen a man cry. Her father never cried, just went silent.

Clara took a step back, and another and another, while her mouth stammered half words and sounds that could have been an apology. When she was far enough away, her feet spun her around and carried her home now that her mind was no longer in the way. She stopped running as the houses grew squat and long. Her throat burned; her lungs burned. Her skin was no longer skin, only a sheet of sweat holding her loosely together. She was crying. She didn’t know why she was crying. She didn’t know when she started crying.

She used her forearm as a tissue and cut through the alley that led back to her house. Habit steered her away from the potholes. Dull light shone from her kitchen window, illuminating dented, steel trashcans and decaying relics from torn bags past. Clara took her phone out of her pocket. 9:47 p.m. It had been four hours since she left. There was no notification.

Clara approached from the side of the house, and, through the window, she saw her mother standing over the cutting board, her red, peeling fingers wrapped limply around the handle of a knife. Who knew how long she’d been there? It was a new thing her mother did: freezing mid-action, her stare alternating between going out and going in, too far in either direction to be touched. Her mother directed that stare, now, into her belly, her brows knit together as though something inside her might have answers, if she only knew what questions to ask. Or, more likely, her mother wondered which form of deprivation she should take on next to get back everything she’d given. Her mother, Clara knew, wanted to become small enough to disappear. She’d never said that outright, but Clara couldn’t help but see that she was practicing how to do this, how to disappear. She’d gotten good, except that her pesky body kept getting in the way. An arm could be grabbed and pulled, a hand could be held, other bodies, her children’s bodies, could ask for all those things her body no longer had to give.

Clara gripped the windowsill and pulled herself higher on the tips of her toes. Her mother’s phone sat to the right of the cutting board. Its screen was black. Clara chewed on her lip. She could text her mother. She could see what would happen. She could stand here forever, just outside the window, not even ten feet away, and see if there was any chance she existed in the space her mother inhabited. Clara sank back onto her heels. She’d rather not know, which was a knowing in and of itself.

Had she succeeded, then, in her mother’s quest? Had Clara done a better job disappearing than her brother, who practiced his own version with loud men’s voices, lasers and gunshots, little fingers flying across his controller in such contradictory movements they seemed to have minds of their own?

Clara did not want to disappear. It occurred to her that wanting had very little to do with it.

A black cat groomed itself in the middle of the sidewalk leading to Clara’s front door. At her approaching footsteps, it sprung up and scurried a few feet away. A pathetic mew rasped out of its mouth in warning. Fur bristled along the crescent moon arch of its back. Clara squatted down and held her hand out as her father taught her to. The small cat reared back. Clara waited. The cat neared and sniffed her hand. Clara waited. The cat’s cold, wet nose bumped her fingers, her palm, her wrist. Clara reached forward, and the cat retreated, lips pulled back over sharp teeth in a hiss somehow silent. Clara lowered herself onto the sidewalk and tucked her knees into her chest. The cat’s wide pupils reflected the streetlights like marbles. It stared, and then it took off, leaving through the vast empty space where Clara’s father’s car should have been. Where it hadn’t been for over a week.

* * * *

The knife lay on the cutting board. A stray fly buzzed around the only evidence anyone had even considered dinner: a bell pepper cut in half. Clara threw it in the trash. Her stomach’s growl twisted into a whine. Reese had to be hungry, too.

Clara was not a cook. That had been her father. He’d tried to teach her before, but she didn’t want to know. She liked the magic of not knowing.

There was a tub of peanut butter left. Remnants from around the lid smeared across her forearm as she stuck the knife in, scooping out as much as she could. One fold-over sandwich, two, three, four, five, six. She ate two without tasting, barely chewing. Peanut butter stuck to the roof of her mouth and the dry part of her throat. Water dribbled down her chin as she tried to wash it all down. She left two of the other sandwiches outside Reese’s door and knocked.

She took a cold shower—the only tangible way to experience any cold in her house. The window units tried their best, but their sputtering efforts hardly made a dent in the blanket of heat draped over the world in summer. Clara avoided her reflection in the mirror, cloaking herself in a loose t-shirt and shorts. Her second toe peeked out of a hole in her black sneakers, where the canvas pulled away from the rubber soles.

The front door closed with a soft click behind her. The brown paper sack rustled against her legs. It held the last two fold-overs and an apple with a big, soft bruise. The clouds had vanished, leaving the sky bursting with friendly sunlight. Sunlight too friendly, even, like a golden retriever who couldn’t help but jump on you and lick your face. The little black cat napped in the sunspot where Clara’s father’s car was not. Clara’s steps hit hard against the pavement.

The neighborhood’s streets twisted and turned, met at hard, ninety-degree angles in some spots, and led her nowhere. Clara hadn’t been paying attention the night before. She wondered, briefly, if the old man’s house existed at all, or whether she’d just dreamt it. Her hair had already lost its clean sleekness. The ends frizzed and clung to her neck and back. She’d left her hair tie at home and tried hard not to let it ruin her mood.

Her feet kept going, as did her thoughts:

What are you doing out here?

He looked so sad.

What are you going to do about it?

So alone.

Who is Rachel?

I could be Rachel.

But you’re not.

Who cares?

Are you less alone if you have to be someone else?

Who cares?

Sweat dripped into her eyes. Her arm swept across her face, taking two eyelashes with it. Clara brushed them off and did not wish for anything.

She’d come from the other side of the street last night and didn’t recognize the house as it appeared before her. The mumbling caught her attention, and the pale groan of the wooden porch boards. The old man advanced from the side of his house with what looked like great urgency slowed down. His back curved, leaving his gait precarious and his shoulders dangerously close to his ears. Unease eroded any resolve Clara had felt in her bones. Each step begged her to stop and turn around. Clara swallowed. She kept walking until she arrived at the gate. Her hand hesitated on the latch.

“Hello?” she said and the bag in her hand suddenly felt very stupid.

The old man did not look at her.

“Excuse me?” she tried again, her voice louder. The old man swatted at the air, kept pacing. “Excuse me!” she said, when she wanted to say, Look at me.

The old man stopped. He frowned. He looked at everything except Clara.

“Are—are you looking for something?” Clara’s cheeks burned.

The old man startled. His eyes landed on her. He looked suspicious. He looked scared. Clara waited.

“Morning,” he said after some time. He looked away.

“I brought you some sandwiches.” Clara held the bag over the fence. Sweat dripped down her sternum, thick as syrup. The old man’s eyes flitted over her. Clara felt the burning in her cheeks sink down to her chest. She gestured to the sandwich bag, as if were a prize on a gameshow, and that made the sweat worse. “Are you hungry?”

“Naw,” he said. His eyes moved past her.

“It’s peanut butter sandwiches. And an apple,” Clara said.

He wasn’t listening. His search preoccupied him. Clara looked around herself. All she saw was an empty neighborhood; all she heard was the sporadic, heat-strangled call of a bird.

The old man had stepped off the porch. He stood in front of the stairs, squinting out into the day. Clara wondered if he wondered, too, where everyone had gone. He checked his watch. Clara stood on her toes, peered over the fence, and saw it wasn’t ticking.

“What are you looking for?” she asked.

The old man did not look at her. Clara watched as his gaze stretched out, so familiar, into nothing. The muscles in his face slackened, until his lip began trembling and his brows lowered over his eyes. “I don’t know,” he said.

He looked at her now. They stared at each other, each immobile, each holding breath deep in their chests. Something fragile grew in the space between them; Clara didn’t want to hear it shatter.

“Please,” the old man whispered. “I want to go home.”

“You are home,” she said. “Right?”

The old man’s face twisted up. He lifted a hand, rested it over his eyes, then looked at it as if he didn’t know where it came from. “I want to go home,” he said again.

Me too, Clara did not say. I want to go home, too. Her grip tightened on the latch of the fence.

“I’m stuck in here,” he said. “They won’t let me out.”

“Who?”

“Rachel, please.”

The man hobbled toward the fence. Clara took a step back. The sandwich bag dropped from her hand. Her body did not obey when she told it to pick the bag up. The old man stared at Clara, then down at his hands. He kept staring at his hands, twisting his eyes at them, willing them to do something Clara could not know.

Clara’s hand lifted to the fence. The hot metal of the latch brushed against her fingers, and was she pulling it open? Was that the sound of the hinges groaning? She couldn’t think in the heat. There was no room for her own thoughts beneath the old man’s desperate litany. It happened fast, so fast, maybe not at all, and she moved away from the gate. Her feet pointed toward home, though, suddenly, Clara felt unsure of where and what exactly that was.

She stopped at the end of a cul-de-sac she didn’t recognize. Her head ached behind her eyes. Parasol mushrooms formed a fairy ring in someone’s yard. Her father had told her the name. He’d shown her photographs from one of his many encyclopedias, the same way he’d taught her the names of the styles of homes. She sank to her knees just outside the misshapen circle.

Clara tried to take a picture on her phone but felt dissatisfied with the harsh sunlight, and, anyway, her hands wouldn’t stop shaking. She had one text from Reese: thx 4 sandwiches. The sweat on her body felt cold and sick. She was all salt.

Her finger ran along the flesh of a mushroom cap. It felt like baby skin, smooth and hairless, like her own legs up until a year ago. The tops were soft and yielding on the surface, firm below that, like her mother’s stomach. Her fingertips left soft imprints on the skin of the caps, and she marveled at how gently everything must be treated.

* * * *

She did not go back to the old man’s house the next day. Nor the next. Nor the day after that. Each time she thought about what her fingers may or may not have done, she shook and ached and felt ill.

The heat, anyway, made Clara sluggish and sad, and, on that second day, her mother had appeared, somehow, ready to take her and Reese back-to-school shopping. Clara had held herself so tightly that day, careful not to do anything to spoil the tepid normalcy. It hadn’t mattered in the end; her mother was back in her room now, with no sign of coming out. Sobs leaked out from under the crack of the bedroom door each time Clara approached. Clara couldn’t bring herself to knock, felt breathless at the idea that her mother might not answer.

Reese already sat at the kitchen table when Clara came in. He had a bowl of soggy cereal before him, a spoon in his hand, dry and shiny.

“Do you think Dad left ’cause of me?” he asked.

That had not been the question Clara had expected, and all she could think was how Reese’s skin had turned green. She took too long to answer. Reese shoved himself away from the table. His shoulder collided with hers as he went past. The slam of his door cracked through the air. His lock turned. Stillness crept back in. Clara’s bones turned cold and cramped. The house was too small for the swampy heat and the leaden silence that made the air feel so tensely wound it could snap in two.

She went out the door without eating, her mind blazing hot. Hot enough to burn away the image of her brother’s face, her mother’s tears, her father’s empty parking spot, the way he’d driven off, left her there to bear this unspeakable weight, how he’d left her alone to crumble beneath the heft of absence. Clara walked and then ran and then walked again and ran some more. Somewhere in that walking and running, she realized she’d left her phone at home, but who cared? Who was there to notice? He hadn’t answered her calls before. He had never texted her back. How had it been that easy for him?

Clara stopped running. She stopped walking. She wanted to scream. She did not scream. Birds leapt off power lines and screamed instead. The houses didn’t move. They never moved. Clara dug the heels of her hands into her eyes. She wanted someone to find her. She didn’t want someone to find her. It didn’t matter what she wanted.

No one came. Of course no one came. No one was there to come. Somewhere, she heard a car door shut but she saw nothing. Could not imagine the human who had opened and closed it.

The old man’s house sat just down the street. No one stood in the yard. No one paced the porch. Clara hadn’t noticed how the old man’s presence hid the extent of disrepair. Whole boards and balusters were broken or missing. An old shoe, a rusted shovel, a towel or maybe a blanket, a one-eyed teddy bear, broken plates, not broken plates, dead leaves, rotting leaves, thick, dusty cobwebs and broken glass covered the porch. Some of it was in the yard. Toward the back of the house, whole boards of plywood rotted in the tall grass.

An ant bit her ankle. She looked down and frowned. The lunch bag she’d brought days ago was still there. The apple had turned liquid in the heat; its sugars formed a sour-smelling syrup. A line of ants filed in and out of their rotting cafeteria. Clara swiped at the few that had crawled on her shoes and legs, then moved out of the way. She should have picked the bag up, she knew, but ants needed to eat, too.

The latch was undone, gate slightly ajar. Clara stood by it for what felt like forever. The air thickened around her. Clouds threatened in the corner of her vision. Clara stared through the windows, but all she saw were pulled curtains, except where a broken rod had fallen halfway down. It revealed nothing. Clara looked around her, at the neighboring houses, at the lack of movement within them.

She circled the block, cutting into one of the alleys behind that revealed yards and secret driveways for those who could afford them. Some of those yards were immaculate, with back porches and little sheds, trampolines, or swing sets for all the children that Clara had never ever seen. Wildness overtook others. Rose bushes and vines climbed up useless chimneys. Beer cans galore. Old, broken cars, some left in the open to display peeling paint and rusted frames, others hidden beneath pollen-soaked tarps. Clara jerked at the ferocious bark of a dog. Its muscles twitched underneath its short fur, legs stretching and contracting as it hurled its body against the chain-link fence. She put her head down and walked past.

The old man’s backyard was a ruin. Where the grass wasn’t dead, it came up to her knees. More lost and broken and heart-breaking things littered the earth. Dirt soaked them all. What remained of a small shed slumped against the back fence. Its tin roof had collapsed and now housed pine straw, dead branches, and a small abandoned bird’s nest. Shelf fungus sprouted from the rotting limbs.

Clara did not see the old man. She waited. The sky darkened. Thick, roiling clouds swallowed the sun. Lightning flickered within them. No shadows moved behind the old man’s curtains. Clara bit at loose skin on her lips while the hairs on her arms grew semi-erect.

Should she ask the neighbors? What neighbors? No one was ever here, and even if they were, the old man was as invisible as she was. People had stopped looking at him a long time ago.

Even Rachel.

Clara chewed on her fingernails. The moisture in the air trebled, worming into her skin and hair and clothes alongside wind that howled in preparation for a storm.

She went back through the alley to the front of the house. Her eyes darted back and forth at the neighboring homes. Clara pushed the fence gate open and slid through. Weeds grew in the cracks of the sidewalk that led to the porch. The stairs moaned under her feet. Maybe she moaned, too, or that sound might have only been in her head.

Someone had left the front door cracked. Clara put her hand against the wood but couldn’t push it open. A hello lingered in the back of her throat. It couldn’t seem to make its way out from behind her teeth.

Lightning cracked, and wind gusted through the broken windows. The front door slammed shut. Clara startled back, and her foot fell into the empty space of a broken board. She told herself to be careful, but she was not, and the splintered wood scraped her skin away from her ankle. Rain poured in sheets behind her, a veil that occulted the world beyond the old man’s porch.

Clara’s ankle throbbed. She thought about her phone, its black screen, its screen alight. She wondered if, now, her father sat outside the house, his car parked in its spot, windshield wipers scraping back and forth, his hands death-gripped on the steering wheel, green eyes glaring out toward what had once been home. She saw him getting out of the car; she saw him driving away. He was never there. She knew he had never been there at all. His disappearance had plucked him out of time and space. His face wouldn’t appear in her mind’s eye. The voice in her head she imagined to be his was an impression, and Clara’s inability to name what was off about it was worse than having forgotten entirely.

The rain continued, unrelenting. The closed door remained closed. Clara wobbled toward the front window. Her hand pressed against the glass. She toyed with a spidering crack, following all the different legs with her fingertip. Thunder shook the boards beneath her feet. Her teeth rattled against each other. She tapped the glass with her finger. Once. Twice.

A hand, a sheeted ghost, pushed against hers from the other side.

“Rachel?” the old man said.

Clara laid her palm flat.

“Is that you?” he whispered.

She rested her forehead against the window, against the old man’s hand. The ghost vanished. The hole inside Clara’s chest threatened implosion. Her hand pressed harder against the glass. She wished it were different. She wished it were all different, but a wish was nothing but a reminder of what was not.  

Clara waited. Footsteps shuffled inside. Or was it the curtain and the wind? Clara kept waiting. There didn’t seem to be anything else to do. The shuffling stopped. The deadbolt slid out of its lock. An unseen hand fumbled with the doorknob. Clara watched it go back and forth, back and forth until it fell open. The old man’s body filled the crack in the frame. A shaking hand stretched out toward her.

“What are you doing out in the rain, Rachel?”

His knuckles were thick and warped. Callouses covered his palms. His fingers curved, slightly, upward. Grime darkened the whites of his fingernails.

“I don’t know,” she said. Her hand wove into his. Her foot stepped through the doorway. Dust and must and grime filled her nostrils. The old man snaked an arm over her shoulders and sagged against her, but he was the lightest thing Clara had carried in a long time.

“Rachel?” he said.

The door clicked shut softly behind her.

“Yes?”



BIO

Tessa Case is a bookseller and writer from Birmingham, AL, where she currently lives with her cat, Coraline. This is her first published short story.











Water

By Chetan Sankar


I was coming out of my near-death experience in the Cardia Intensive Care Unit at St. Joseph’s Hospital, Atlanta, and was feeling thirsty.  Slowly, I opened my eyes completely and saw a nurse. I signaled to her to get me some water.

I looked around and saw my wife, Lakshmi.

“Hi, I am back,” I said.

She smiled and held my hand.

The nurse came back with a cup full of ice and gave me one ice cube. “This ice needs to last for an hour. You cannot drink water yet. Savor this.” I held it in my tongue and relished the feel of the ice. I twisted the ice with my tongue and savored it.

In another fifteen minutes, I wanted another cube of ice, but the nurse refused to give me one. She said, “wait an hour.”

I had taken the availability of water for granted and this incident made me reminisce about the role of water in my life from childhood to my senior years. When I performed research, I was surprised to find that currently one third of the world’s population doesn’t have access to potable water. What can we do to alleviate the suffering of these people?

Childhood

Where I grew up in rural South India, I lived in an arid climate: water was scarce, the rivers near homes were barren, and the riverbeds were filled with sand rather than water. There were no town-wide water supply or sewage removal operations. We lived in towns that were at least a hundred miles away from a nearby beach. I rarely saw any large bodies of water.

I remember a house where my mom had to keep all the food items in a cabinet that rested on four stone furniture cups.  The cups were circular where the edges and the middle portions were at a height and a depression was formed between them.  Water could be poured into the cup so that ants cannot get into the cabinet. At that time, milk was procured from local herdsman who will deliver fresh milk to home. My mom used to keep it in a dish and cover it with a lid. If we forgot to put the water into the cups, we will see ants floating on top of the milk in the dish. Frequently, my mom would curse since ants would have creeped in when the water dried up; she had to take out the floating ants and use the milk.

In the house, we drew water from a well using pulleys, rope, and a bucket. We used that water for both drinking and bathing. We used to drink water drawn from the wells assuming that it was drinkable. Little did we know that it might have been the reason for many of the diseases in our household.

During summer months, the water in the well would recede and we had to toil to get a bucket of water. In the monsoon months, the water would be near the top and we could easily draw the water. There were some years when monsoon failed leading to scarcity of water. Then, the well-diggers were in full demand, whose job was to deepen the wells further and find new sources of water.

The toilets were outhouses, which had cement platforms on all three sides about a foot from the floor. Typically, they were about 10 feet away at the back of the house. They didn’t have roofs but had a wooden door. Family members squatted on the platform and used a mug full of water to clean themselves. The waste stayed exposed to nature for a day or two until the restroom cleaner, typically someone from a lower caste, came with a basket to collect the waste and wash the outhouse, though they were never truly clean. The sun would dry the waste and it was difficult to clean it given that the cleaner only used a bucket or two of water. Given the stink, we would hurriedly perform our ablutions and come out from there.

When we traveled, roadside toilets were hard to find, and my mom had to hide behind bushes to urinate. Men urinated openly in India anywhere they wished. Feces from children and adults were left in the open, drawing mosquitoes and flies who pecked at them and spreading diseases among the people. It was a disgusting sight; we had to be careful in walking so that we did not accidently step on one.

We typically took a bath next to the well. We stripped to our undergarments and then drew water from the well and poured it on ourselves. Depending on the season and the depth at which the water was at the well, our baths might be very short. We used very thin towels to dry ourselves since the sun would do an excellent job of drying us quickly. Given the lack of water, very few people in the town knew swimming.

During the summer months, it would be so hot (possibly in the 100 degrees F) range, that we had to take a bath twice a day. The water level in the wells would be at a low point and we had to exert to pull the water out. As a young boy, I did not mind getting drenched in the rain as it was easier than drawing water from the well. My parents used to fuss about it, but it was a lot of fun for us youngsters.

When ladies or girls took baths near the well, they tied their pavadai (an undergarment like a skirt) to cover their breasts and took baths from the wells.  Boys and men generally did not go to the back of the house when the ladies were taking a bath.

The clothes were washed next to the well. There was a washing stone that was kept nearby. This was just a large block of stone with a small slope so that we could squeeze and clean the clothes. We would draw a bucket of water, drop our clothes in the bucket, put some soap, squeeze, and clean the clothes using the stone, and then rinse them in the bucket of water. After that, we would hang the clothes on a clothesline that was a constant presence in our backyard. The clothes would dry in a couple of hours given the intensity of the sun. We had trouble cleaning our clothes only during the monsoon months when we had to dry them inside the house on clotheslines.

When I was about twelve, I visited our relatives in Chennai, I was fascinated to see the indoor plumbing. The the toilets were enclosed rooms where water came out of a pipe. These were Indian-style toilets where there was cement structure, and the toilet was integrated into the ground. We had to squat down on the toilet and then use water to flush the waste away inside the hole. The waste was collected in a tank that was at the front of the house. Sewage trucks would come once a month and pumps to remove the waste away from these tanks.

There were bathrooms where water would come out of taps and buckets would be placed under them. The buckets would have mugs that would hang on the side. People would have to strip to my undergarments and then use the mug to pour water on oneself. Typically, one stops a bath after using a bucket or two of water. There were no showerheads in these bathrooms.

Chennai is situated on the shores of the Bay of Bengal, a large body of water. In the evenings, I used to walk from my relative’s house to the Marina beach (about three miles away) and sit there for a period gazing at the unlimited expanse of water before my eyes. I wasn’t’ able to believe such a large expanse of water could be adjoining a large city. It was fun watching the waves and I used to wade into the water in my shorts. People wore modest clothes and you may see ladies standing in knee deep water with their saris pulled up.

The Bay of Bengal was ferocious, and it was not possible to wade much further than a few feet. But the beach was long and well kept. There would be many vendors that would sell their products and the crowd was intense. The noise from the vendors hawking the products would compete with the sound from the waves; the smell of deep fried pakodas and bondas would  mix with the smell of fish; ships would be anchored a few miles away from the beach leading me to imagine the life of the sailors. I would walk barefoot on the sand enjoying the feeling of sand getting into my toes.

Adulthood

I joined my undergraduate college, Regional Engineering College, Trichy, when I was fifteen years old. Trichy was a large town that was served by the rivers Cauvery and Kollidam. The Kollidam river splits from the main branch of Cauvery River at the island of Srirangam and flows eastward into the Bay of Bengal. Even though the bridge to cross the river to get to Srirangam from Trichy would be long, the riverbed was mostly dry, and we could see sand everywhere. Only during monsoon season, the river will be flowing fully.  People would dig the sand to get to the water. The municipality pumped water out of the river and supplied water to households in the city.

My college was located about ten miles away from the city in a rural area. It was a large campus. When I joined, it was three years old, and had an administrative building, a few departmental buildings, and a few hostels (dorms) to accommodate the students. The mess (cafeteria) for food was a separate structure. The staff and faculty members lived in residential units that were constructed inside the campus.

There was a large water tank where water from the underground (borewells) was pumped into and supplied the water to everybody on the campus. We had indoor plumbing and water was available in plenty. There was no filtration plant, and we drank water from the taps. There was no facility for obtaining hot water in the bathrooms. Since the temperature was mild even during winters, this did not pose any serious problems for us.

Some of my friends from North India who were used to getting hot water used to buy and hang a portable water coil to the side of the bucket and heat the water by plugging it in into a wall outlet. Even though this was a quick means to obtain hot water, frequently, we would get electric shocks if we touched the water or the coil without unplugging it.

I saw large bodies of water when I traveled to Kolkata to pursue my MBA from the Indian Institute of Management during 1971. This was the first time I had traveled out of my state to another state that was about 1,000 miles away. When I got on the train that would take me to Kolkata in two days, I bought a mud pot and filled it with water from the train station at Chennai. This kept the water cool during the hard and dusty two-day journey by train. The compartments were not air conditioned and the windows were kept open to facilitate air flow. We would feel the hot air coursing through the compartment during the daytime; it would cool down during the nighttime when we slept on the berths that were allotted to us. The water from the mud pot would condense and create a puddle on the floor of the compartment. Most people did not mind it since it cooled their feet in the hot weather.

Water was available in plenty at the dorms at my Institute. Unfortunately, the pipes had rusted, and we used to get red colored water spewing out of the showerheads. The concept of filtering water to drink was not common knowledge at that time. Therefore, frequently, we used to get stomach upsets from drinking the polluted water.

I saw the Hooghly River frequently since I crossed it either using a bridge or a boat from 1973 to 1977. I lived in South Kolkata and worked in a factory at Howrah on the other side of the Hooghly River. I had to take a bus from South Kolkata to the Howrah train station and then a local bus to the factory. Given the large population, all these buses were crowded, and one had to stand all the way. In the evenings, I took a bus from the factory to the riverfront, took a ferry, crossed the river, and took another bus from the Kolkata side to my home. Due to the humid and hot weather, most of the passengers would be smelling of sweat in the overcrowded buses.

I enrolled in a swim club in the Dhakuria lake, near where I lived in South Kolkata. It was a crowded pool and the instructor discouraged me from swimming since he felt I could not swim. That ended my swimming lessons in India.

Many parts of South Kolkata were below sea level and would get flooded during rainy seasons. The water would accumulate up to one’s knee level; I had to take my shoes in hand, roll up the pants, and cross this to get to my home. At other times, I used to hire hand rickshaws (small carts pulled by humans) who took me to the doorsteps. The rickshwallah (the person who pulled the cart) wore a dhoti folded up, ran bare feet, and were willing to cross the flooded streets for a few Rupees (local currency).

The Executive Director of the municipality visited our institute and talked to us about the difficulties in pumping water out of low-lying zones to the river. He also mentioned about the issues that arise when drinking water and sewage combine creating difficulties for the residents.

Hooghly river was a large body of water and the Howrah bridge to cross it was famous for its length and architecture. Ships used to sail under the bridge, and I used to wonder at this technological marvel. The water was used for all sort of purposes; drinking, cleaning, factories, etc., and was very polluted. When I walked near a ghat (and Kolkata had many of them where people could access the river using a series of steps), I saw people bathing in the river, cleaning their clothes, priests performing rituals, ladies putting flower garlands to worship the river, people fishing, and children loitering around the steps. The steps were not clean, and I had to be careful not to slip and fall into the river. The river itself was quite deep as Kolkata was a natural harbor. The rotting fish and floating flowers would combine to create a unique smell.

Lakshmi, my fiancé, was born and brought up in Kolkata. She used to have severe stomach pains due to drinking untreated water during her youth. But she did not realize the problem until much later in life. We married in March 1977, and I prepared for my travel to the USA in August  to attend the University of Pennsylvania to obtain a Ph.D.

Studies and Career in the USA

Life at Philadelphia during the first five years was difficult since we lived on a student stipend and had no ability to bring any of the funds in India to the USA due to Indian government regulations. Our difficulties did not seem arduous due to the friendliness exhibited by my host family, relationships formed with other Indian friends, amazing mentorship by my advisor McDonough, and love from our family.

The Delaware and Schuylkill rivers encircled the city, and the fact that they never went dry fascinated me. This contrasted with many rivers in South India that were dry and became full only during monsoon season. We used to go on walks on the shores of the Delaware river and used to cross Schuylkill River to get into the downtown area.

Our old studio apartment had hot and cold water and the heating system was run using radiators that circulated hot water. The sewage system was connected to the city’s network. When we had an opportunity to travel to Manhattan, New York, I wondered at the ingenuity that led to constructing tunnels (such as Holland and Lincoln tunnels) under the rivers to access the island city.

The University of Pennsylvania had excellent gyms and they had two pools. I learned swimming in those pools by myself. Later, I took swimming classes in local pools when we lived in the suburbs of Philadelphia.

We moved to Matawan and Ocean Township in New Jersey from 1985 to 1989 when I worked for AT&T Bell Laboratories and Lakshmi worked for a private school. Lakshmi’s school was right on the boardwalk of the Atlantic Ocean. There were many rivers and lakes in the state, and it led to dense forests and green landscapes. There were many beaches near us, and we used to go for walks on the boardwalks occasionally. The Island Beach state park was about 30 minutes from our home, and we visited it during the summer months.

My friends from Philadelphia would visit us and we would end up going to this state park. I had to drive through many towns in New Jersey to access this beach and then cross a bridge across the bay to reach the island. As I drove through the towns, I saw houses that were built on the backwaters. Boats were docked on these narrow waterways, and I saw people navigate their boats through the rivers into the Atlantic Ocean.

The water would remain cold most of the year and we would waddle in and get out quickly to avoid the cold. Most of the people would be sunbathing and few would get into the water. It would be very hot for a few weeks and we all would rush to the beach. I have some amazing photos of our children waddling on the beach holding onto our and our friend’s hands. My love for water grew out of these activities.

We also visited the Sandy Hook beach that was north of us. Unfortunately, the water was not that clean in that beach. Once, we stopped in a beach in that area and saw rotten fish and animals washed ashore due to the pollution and environmental damage from the heavily populated North New Jersey and New York city. As we drove near Staten Island, the stink from the accumulated garbage dumps in that area would assail us and we had to close the windows of the cars. It was alleviated by the beautiful scenery that greeted me as we went through the tall Verrazano- Narrows bridge and saw the vast expanse of water on both sides.

We moved to Auburn, Alabama, during 1989 to start my academic job at Auburn University.  During meetings with some of the senior faculty members, they mentioned that they had properties at Lake Martin, a lake about 30 miles away. They talked about the 750 miles of shoreline and the beauty of the land.

That piqued my curiosity and I eagerly accepted when one of them invited me to their lake home. I appreciated the serenity of that lake and the blue waters. 

My two children and we explored that area further and camped at the Wind Creek State Park situated on this lake one summer and enjoyed the views. The campsites provided water and electricity. I had bought a tent, a dining tent, and sleeping bags for my family. It took some effort, but we were able to pitch the tent for all of us. The bathrooms and toilets were in a common area near the campsite. We enjoyed our stay there and Lakshmi cooked meals on a propane stove top. We played in the water, went for strolls in the trails, and befriended people who were nearby. After a few days’ stay, we packed our tents and returned home.

We felt comfortable with the people who lived near Lake Martin and started to look for properties to buy on the lakefront. Eventually, we bought a 3 bedroom, 2 bath cabin that needed repairs. The neighbors were retired people who were living full-time on the water. My son, Shiv, and I rented pontoon boats and jet skis from a nearby marina and explored the lake. We had a physical map of the lake and had no cell phones with GPS functionality. We had to navigate the different inlets, remember where we were, figure out how to come back if we were lost, and identify where our cabin was in the lake. There were many occasions when we would think we were approaching our house to find out that we were on the wrong inlet and had to retrace our way back to the main channel.

It provided a great bonding time for our family. My brothers and their families from the Northeast visited us occasionally and we took them around the lake. Many rich people who lived in Birmingham, AL, had estates at the lake and we used to gawk at them from the water. There were a few houses which were built on islands and that aroused our curiosity as to how those people lived there.

This was an artificial lake, in fact a reservoir, when Southern Company built a dam to produce electricity during the early 1900s. The level of the lake dropped by about 10 feet during winters and the lagoon where our cabin was had no water access during those months. Some of my colleagues had their homes in the deeper parts of the lake and we used to enjoy our visits with them.

Auburn University had an excellent swim team and had an Olympic size pool. I further refined my swimming in these pools and received training from outstanding coaches. Our children also learned swimming in these pools during the summer breaks.

Exploring Lakes in Georgia

During 2003, Lakshmi changed her to job to work in LaGrange, Georgia, adjoining the State of Alabama. We bought a house there so that she would be able to commute to her work and I can continue to work at Auburn, a 45-minute drive.

I wanted to learn more about operating boats and noticed that there was an organization called Coast Guard Auxiliary that offered training and camaraderie. I joined a local unit that operated out of West Point Lake, Georgia, and worked with experienced boaters. When I attended the first meeting, the other members were receptive and encouraged me to stay in the organization, even though I was the only brown person amidst the whites. Being a small group, it was easier for me to fit in and be accepted by others.

Being an auxiliarist meant that the Coast Guard might ask us to serve in case of emergencies in Coast Guard cutters; they also had the authority to deploy the boats belonging to the members for Coast Guard activities if need be. The Coast Guard was generally deployed in the coastal regions and there were no units other than local law enforcement officers responsible for keeping the lakes safe and navigable. The auxiliarists played an important role in helping the law enforcement and the Coast Guard in protecting the lakes and waterways in the country.

The flotilla commander invited me to join in a patrol in West Point Lake. I found that four of them had already launched the 26-foot Sea Ray Sun Dancer boat in the water. Gingerly, I walked on the deck and got into the boat. We spent about four hours in the water going from the dam to the Highland Marina. I understood the basics of the red and green buoys (“red, right, returning”) that mark the waterway. That lake with 525 miles of shoreline was managed by the US Corps of Engineers, and I did not see any houses next to the waterway. On enquiry, I found that it was to protect the houses from getting flooded and to preserve the natural beauty of the lake. We helped the park rangers by assisting any stranded boaters and teaching boating safety classes. I enjoyed the companionship of the members and joined them in many other patrols of the lake and taught boating safety classes.

In due course of time, after mastering the basics of boating, I qualified as a crew. That meant that I could assist the boat’s coxswain (a sailor who has charge of a boat and its crew and who usually steers) during patrols.

Steering a boat was relatively easy since it was like driving a car and there was a lot more leeway available in water compared to road when navigating the boat. The difficulty was in docking the boat; there was no brake on the boat, and one must gently ease the boat to the dock and angle it so that the crew could tie the boat to the cleats on the dock. We went on patrol for several nights to check whether the lights on the buoys were working or not and report it to the Corps. The Coast Guard reimbursed the coxswain for using his/her boat for official patrols and we had to learn to use the complex computer systems to request patrol orders and report completion of the patrols. 

The flotilla conducted regular training on teamwork, navigation concepts, and reading maps (charts). We were also trained in how to perform search patterns and conduct rescue missions.

I became enthusiastic about buying a boat and requested Lakshmi to accompany me to the 2005 Birmingham Boat Show. We saw a beautiful yellow pontoon boat and bought it on the spot. I did not have a truck or a trailer and requested the dealer to deliver the boat to my lake cabin. He obliged me and sent a person to deliver the boat and train me in the basics of driving that boat. Wow, now we had a large 22-foot boat docked in our cabin with a trailer sitting in our yard.

It took several months for me to operate and use the pontoon boat effectively. In the meanwhile, winter approached and the water level in the lake receded. I was able to get a local marina to put my boat on the trailer, service it, and leave it at my cabin. I needed to learn how to tow the boat and therefore, I bought a Toyota Tacoma, a mid-size pickup truck.

I had to latch the trailer to the truck and drive in empty parking lots and learn the backing maneuver. I did not have a rearview camera in the truck and had to figure out how to back up the trailer in a straight line down a boat ramp. This is more of an art than science and my colleagues at the flotilla taught me some of the finer points in backing the trailer. The major issue is that one must rotate the steering wheel in the opposite direction of the backing maneuver; the angle of rotation determines how the trailer moves.

I went to the marinas to launch the boat at times where there were not many other boats so that I could take my time to do so. Even then, it was difficult to figure out exactly how much distance one must go in the water before you release the boat. Even now I admire those truck drivers who back up their vehicles up to loading ramps without breaking a sweat.  

As I gathered confidence and experience in handling the boat, I trained to become a coxswain in my flotilla. A major task for this qualification was to perform stern tow and side tow. A stern tow meant that you tie the other boat to your stern using a line and tow it. The crew must listen to the appropriate instructions and ensure that the line does not get entangled in the propeller. A side tow required both the boats to be tied together on the side using four different lines. There was a sequence as to how to tie these lines and any error made it difficult to tow the other boat. We had to train together many times to master these techniques. When two boats are of uneven heights, this becomes a tricky maneuver. It is also possible to damage the side of the boats during the tow; one had to be careful to deploy the bumpers so that the damage is minimized.  

Having mastered these techniques, I applied to be a coxswain. An experienced member of the auxiliary tested me, and I passed the requirements and was qualified as a coxswain. That provided me an opportunity to use my boat for patrols.

We were now living in LaGrange, GA, and having a boat at Lake Martin, about 70 miles away in a cabin, did not make much sense. Therefore, we sold our Lake Martin home and brought the boat back to LaGrange. Our homeowner’s association objected to us parking the boat in our driveway as it went against the covenants. I parked it at a local campsite and started looking for alternatives. 

Lakshmi had a colleague living in Lake Harding, Alabama, about 30 miles away from LaGrange. We visited this area and found that this lake was managed by Georgia Power Company and most of the homes were leased from the power company for 15 years extendable to 30 years. After a six-month search, we bought a 4,200 sq ft house on the lakefront and obtained the lease from Georgia Power in 2007. It had a boat house, and I was able to dock the boat there. The Lake Martin cabin was no longer needed, and we sold it in 2008.

We decided to remodel our master bathroom on the second floor since the current one was small. We chose a closet and requested a contractor to create a bathroom there. He inspected the house and told us that the house was on a downward sloping hill and the current bathroom was at the highest point. Therefore, sewage easily flowed into the septic tank. If we wanted to move the bathroom to the larger closet further away from the front, sewage must move upstream and would need a pump. We agreed to the idea, and he put in a sewage pump next to the closet. Unfortunately, the pump leaked and failed often leading to water leaks and damage to the ceiling downstairs.  The stink was unbearable whenever it broke. The water would leak through the floor and the drywall in the room below would collapse. We had to repair the pumping unit and ceiling multiple times.

After repeated repairs, we got frustrated and complained to the plumber. He said the only option is to move the pump outside the house, bury it, and run pipes to it so that the sewage would flow into the septic tank. We agreed and after an expensive repair and three days of work, the bathroom was usable. I learned a valuable lesson; it is difficult to fight nature and pump water upstream. Any failure of the pump leads to flooding.

This is a common problem in many cities around the world who are located at or below sea level. Any tornado, hurricane, or heavy rain floods the streets and causes considerable damage to property. Although pumps are deployed, they frequently don’t cope with torrential rains leading to severe flooding of homes and businesses.

As a coxswain, I used my boat to patrol both West Point Lake and Lake Harding along with my fellow auxiliarists. There were only a few boaters on these lakes most of the time; it got crowded during the holiday weekends, particularly during summer. I had an opportunity to witness and help with the July 4th fireworks on both lakes on multiple occasions. The major issue during these joyous weekends was boaters leaving their deck lights on during the nighttime thereby blinding the other boaters. We had to warn them to turn off these lights and use the navigation lights. In addition, the use of PFDs (personal flotation device, life preservers) was lax, and we had to ensure that those who rode the Jet Skis used them all the time.

I discovered that PFDs save lives; once you have it and are in the water, you stay afloat whatever happens. It is not possible to sink; therefore, there is no need to panic until help comes. Once, some of my relatives were visiting and we went on a ride around the lake in our pontoon boat. We had a jet ski and one of my brothers donned the PFD and tried to climb into the jet ski from the boat but fell in the water. He was scared and started shouting. Some of my relatives were ready to jump into the water to save him; I had to restrain them and tell them to desist.

We attached a rope to a float and threw it to him and asked him to hold it so that we could pull him into the boat. He was scared and started to put the rope around his neck. I had to tell him that nothing would happen to him as far as he had worn the PFD; he could not sink and therefore, there was no need for panic. In a few minutes, he calmed down, and we pulled him into the boat. Subsequently, he went on the jet ski and enjoyed that experience.

The best way to save a person stranded in water is to throw a float at them, ask them to hold it, and pull them in using the line. Jumping into the lake to save them might not be an appropriate strategy. People who assume they are drowning might use their adrenalin rush to pull any rescuer who jumps in down under the water; that is why it was recommended that we throw a float to them, they grab it, realize that they are not drowning, become normal, and then pull them into the boat.

Since these were artificial lakes that were created by releasing water and drowning the then existing buildings and roads, it was difficult to know where the water would be shallow or deep. It was important to have a good depth gauge and ensure that we stayed afloat and did not run aground.

Occasionally, we ran aground. Then, I had to lift the propeller up, push the boat away from the shallow portion using a paddle, and then get the boat away from that area. The boating community was friendly and respectful towards us even though we were one of the few minorities on the lake. I gained a lot of confidence in handling boats by belonging to the auxiliary.

During our patrols, my fellow auxiliarists and I noticed sewage from plants occasionally fed into lakes, leading to major pollution problems. This is a major problem in many states if it is not regulated by the local government. In 1990, I visited a steel plant to learn how to purify polluted water in Birmingham, Alabama. A lot of water was used to cool the hot metal during the forging process, and the polluted water had to be treated before being released into a river. I saw how the company worked valiantly to remove the pollutants and created a free-flowing, drinkable water stream using modern technologies. This showed me that although some of the water in the world is polluted, it is possible to clean and make it drinkable with the right resources.

My family spent several summers on beaches in Florida and in the Caribbean. I really enjoyed snorkeling. This required us to get in a boat, drive to a place where there are lots of coral reefs, then wear the snorkeling gear, jump into the water, float above the coral reefs, gawk at the variety of fish, sharks, turtles, tortoise, and other sea animals below us. It was an amazing moment where you see that there are so many creations in the world about which we pay scant attention.

I was in Hawaii one time and decided to try surfing. I went to a beach where they were offering surfing lessons. The young person gave me a board and taught me how to ride the waves. After thirty-minutes of trying and falling into the water, I asked him, “was there any simpler way?” He suggested lying on the board flat and surfing; I tried it and at least was able to surf a few times before I gave up.

In a beach, it is a lot of fun to get into the water and let the waves sweep past us. The undulating motion of the waves reminds me of how our lives have ebbs and valleys constantly. As we are relishing success, a defeat in another matter comes sweeping in and takes us to the bottom. Before we completely despair, a new positive wave lifts us up and we enjoy that moment.

Senior Years

The Near-Death Experience (NDE) during January 2019 shook my confidence and intention to continue with the rigorous boating activities. I retired from the auxiliary and sold our Lake Harding house. A person known to the realtor offered to purchase our boat and I sold it to them. My boating activities came to an end, but not my interest in the importance of water for everybody.  Even though there is no large body of water next to Atlanta, I continue to enjoy water by participating in water aerobics at the local gym. We get into the pool and perform exercises, such as rigorous walking and moving various parts of the body. A trained instructor helps us perform these activities.

Having realized the importance of water, I have stopped drinking coffee, tea, or alcoholic drinks, since they are either stimulants or depressants. I keep a water bottle on my desk, on my bedroom nightstand, and in my car. When I travel, I ensure that I carry a water bottle with me. These steps ensure that I am hydrated constantly.

Water from the tap is drinkable in most towns and cities in the US. When I was at the hospital, once I was past the critical stage, the nurses insisted that I keep drinking water and urinate. In the hospital, they measured how much I urinated to ensure that there were no problems with my kidneys. Thankfully, drinkable water was available in plenty.

Water is an essential element of human living, and the nurses got me fresh water each time I needed it. Similarly, when I used the toilet, the wastewater and solids were sent to a central facility in the city where it was processed, and the water was purified and then mixed with regular water. Countless plumbers and engineers maintain the water’s purification and wastewater plants and ensure that the citizens in the city got potable water to drink and the waste in homes was taken away. They perform a heroic task without any complaints or fuss.

Did humans struggle to get water from their home generations back? I was astonished to see that using gravity, Romans built aqueducts in Spain, Italy, and other countries where they ruled (about 500 years, from 312 B.C.E. to C.E. 226), to bring water to homes using gravity[i]. I had seen aqua duct systems in palaces in Rajasthan, India, so that the royalty had access to water. I assumed that with all the modern technologies that are available to us, clean water is accessible to all.

Availability of Potable Water for Everybody

When I performed research, I found that potable water is not that widely available. About 71 percent of the earth’s surface is covered in water, but its availability for drinking is limited to where we live and the technologies that are adopted by the community to purify and bring it to people’s homes.

According to an 2022 UN report[ii], one in three people does not have access to safe drinking water, two out of five people do not have a basic hand-washing facility with soap and water, and more than 673 million people still practice open defecation. Women and girls are responsible for water collection in 80 percent of households without access to water on the premises. More than 80 percent of wastewater resulting from human activities is discharged into rivers or the sea without any pollution removal. Floods and other water-related disasters account for 70 percent of all deaths related to natural disasters.

What can we do to change some of these conditions? I identified several organizations that are leading efforts to change conditions and I have joined and/or donated to them to help alleviate some of the misery that one third of the world population suffers from.

Water for People[iii] has provided 4.7 million people with reliable water supply around the world. They focus on things like protecting water supplies, training mechanics, and establishing supply chains for parts in addition to drilling wells and installing pumps. It means they think about long-term projects like advocating for national water policies and creating local water and sanitation utilities. It accepts donations and has the ability for us to volunteer on fund raising and providing technical assistance.

Charity: Water[iv] works with local organizations to build sustainable, community-owned water projects around the world. It accepts donations to fund the projects.

World Water Relief[v] installs water filtration systems, local training on maintaining the system, ongoing maintenance, and hygiene education. This education is critical to help prevent the spread of waterborne disease.  An estimated 1/3 of school-aged children in the developing world are infested with intestinal worms. Not only do these illnesses rob children of school attendance and achievement, but they are also underlying causes of malnutrition and stunting.

UN’s Sustainable Development Goal 6 calls to ensure universal and equitable access to safe and affordable drinking water, sanitation, and hygiene for all by 2030. “Access to clean water changes everything; it is a stepping-stone to development. When people gain access to clean water, they are better able to practice good hygiene and sanitation. Children enjoy good health and are more likely to attend school. Lives of women and children improve. Parents put aside their worries about water-related diseases and lack of access to clean water. Instead, they can water crops and livestock and diversify their incomes. Communities develop and thrive.”

Water.org is a global nonprofit organization working to bring water and sanitation to the world[vi].  They help people get access to safe water and sanitation through affordable financing, such as small loans. They give our everything every day to empower people in need with these life-changing resources – giving women hope, children health and families a bright future. They work with local agencies/ municipalities to implement solutions.

Water gets into our system, water gets out of our system, and the water we drink must be processed so that it is safe for consumption. In any part of the world, there is a need to obtain clean drinkable water and efficient processing of waste. The water we drink comes from water our ancestors drank, their waste was processed by earth, and water was regenerated to keep us alive. Similarly, the water we drink and the water in our waste will subsequently be used by our succeeding generation. It is critical to recirculate the wastewater so that it is free of toxins for those who need it next.

I am saddened to note that the lack of potable water which I experienced as a young adult is common to 33% of the world population today. I hope and pray that in the next few decades people around the world will have their need for potable water and sewage treatment met adequately.


[i] https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/roman-aqueducts/

[ii] UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, “Ensure Availability and Sustainable Management of Water and Sanitation for All,” https://sdgs.un.org/goals/goal6

[iii] https://www.waterforpeople.org/the-progress/

[iv] https://www.charitywater.org/our-work

[v] https://www.worldwaterrelief.org/why-wash-2/

[vi] https://water.org/about-us/?_gl=1*pnttp*_up*MQ..&gclid=CjwKCAjw4ZWkBhA4EiwAVJXwqQxOpEAm9VLhmSlk7Rw1SGP4Hdw9VWuBvYavulEBBjc_mNt_dMmiRxoCPmIQAvD_BwE



BIO

Chetan S Sankar holds a doctorate in the information systems area and was a professor and researcher in this field for thirty-five years. He is a member of the Atlanta Writer’s Conference and coordinates the memoir critique group. Attending the Creative Writing Program at Emory University and receiving critiques from the memoir group have helped him write this article. He lives in Avondale Estates, Georgia with his wife. He spends his time playing with and learning from his four grandchildren. His website is at www.chetansankar.com.







The Change I Never Expected

by CLS Sandoval


No safe place to land—only distractions from the inevitable
Everything most sacred thrown to the fire
I was careless, selfish
I failed
Ignorance was bliss
That belief that I was invincible
I was wrong but I felt so safe
So impenetrable
Now just vulnerable
Unheard
Undervalued
It doesn’t matter
But she does
We are reclaiming the forgotten
We are writing ourselves into our own history
We are bodies with bodies performing
Disorientation of loss
Once we go into
Mourning
We never come out
We are never ready for death
Even when it’s a relief
Our art
Our craft
Our life’s blood and beat
Destabilizing
Exploring
Return to the mundane
Return to tradition
The massage of the message
Literary
Speak
Reframe pains, betrayals
Transformation



the pebble


it started with a pebble
she took it as a favor
no problem on her shoulders
she just wanted to offer help
and others learned she was willing to shoulder a pebble
word spread quickly
they formed lines
requesting she take another pebble
pebbles became rocks
then a little bigger
then boulders
requests became statements
demands
then people just silently dumped their burdens
she knew this was on her
no complaints allowed
the baggage had piled up so gradually
she expected nothing to change



Waiting


Full speed ahead.
Always.
Do something productive.
Don’t just spin wheels.
Make progress forward.
We were ready to go.
We had been ready for months.
Finally ready to tell those closest to us.
Tight lipped, but selecting our important people to know.
Then they told everyone.
Everyone we know was the way they explained it.
And we had to take it back.
Stop mid race.
Undo.
Stop planning.
Cancel orders.
Call everyone.
We know to announce the feet.
It’s empty.
It’s isolating.
It’s no longer.
Must remember, it’s no tragedy.
The baby didn’t die.
Nothing bad happened to the mother.
She just made a different choice.
A choice that no longer includes us.
 “Don’t worry, Mommy,” my six-year-old says. There are lots of babies. There’s a birth mommy who will need us someone will pick us.”





BIO

CLS Sandoval, PhD (she/her) is a pushcart nominated writer and communication professor with accolades in film, academia, and creative writing who speaks, signs, acts, publishes, sings, performs, writes, paints, teaches and rarely relaxes. She’s a flash fiction and poetry editor for Dark Onus Lit. She has presented over 50 times at communication conferences, published 15 academic articles, two academic books, three full-length literary collections, three chapbooks, as well as flash and poetry pieces in several literary journals, recently including Opiate Magazine, The Journal of Magical Wonder, and A Moon of One’s Own. She is raising her daughter and dog with her husband in Alhambra, CA.















Henry Lack’s Lodger

by Ben Coppin



One morning, Henry Lack woke to find two strange men on his doorstep.

One was thin, long-nosed, towering. The other man, much shorter, spoke: “Good morning Mister Lack. You’ve been assigned a lodger. Here he is. Mister Dice.”

As soon as he finished speaking he turned and began to walk away.

“A what?” Henry said and reached to grab the short man by the arm.

“Don’t touch me,” the short man said without slowing, pulling his arm away from Henry.

The taller man, who looked like he might fall forward at any moment, stood still, smiling distantly.

Henry watched the short man walk down his drive and disappear into the lines of cars and hedges.

“I suppose you should come in,” he said. “It’s Mister Dice, is it?”

Mister Dice nodded, a short precise movement, and stepped past Henry into the house. He looked around and held up his small leather briefcase.

“Where shall I put this?” he asked.

“Oh,” Henry said, trying to understand what was happening, “anywhere will be fine.”

The man’s smile lengthened.

“I meant to say, where will I be sleeping?” he said.

“Well, we don’t have a spare room, but there’s my study,” Henry said, scratching his chin. “We could perhaps put a mattress in there.”

“That will be perfect,” Mr Dice said. “You can remove any things you might need for your work.”

Henry frowned, slightly, but he didn’t want to cause any trouble, so he led Mr Dice upstairs to his study.

The study was small, and held a desk and a chair and a single pot-plant.

“This will do nicely,” Mr Dice said. “Does the door lock?”

“No, but we could add a lock for you, perhaps.”

Mr Dice nodded, that sharp motion again, and sat on the chair.

“And you’ll bring that mattress?”

“Yes,” Henry said, “the children can share a bed. It’ll be an adventure for them.”

For a moment he stood and looked at Mr Dice, unsure what to say or do. Mr Dice raised his eyebrows slightly and Henry took this as a sign of dismissal.

“I’ll leave you in peace, Mr Dice. Do let me know if you need anything.”

He stepped out of his study and closed the door.

“What am I doing?” he thought. “This man can’t just move in to my house. What right do they have to treat my family this way?”

He turned, but the sight of the closed door stopped him from going any further.

“I’ll speak to Mr Dice about it later,” he thought. “No need to disturb him right now.”

As his family sat down for breakfast, Henry explained what had happened.

“We’ve been honoured,” he told them, “with a special guest. Mr Dice. He’s in my study now and will be staying for…” How long would he be staying for? No-one had said anything about that. “Mr Dice will be staying with us, in my study. You girls will need to share a bed.”

He poured some cold milk on his cornflakes.

“I’m not sharing a bed with her,” his older daughter said.

“I don’t mind,” the younger said, dreamily.

“Henry,” his wife said, “what are you talking about? We can’t have another person living here. We have enough to deal with, you know that. Why did you let them do this?”

“May,” he said to her, using the voice he used when he hoped to bring her round to his side, “it’s an honour! It was, I think, a high ranking government official who brought Mr Dice to us, and this could well mean something good for me in terms of my work prospects. You know we need the money.”

May was thoughtful.

“How do you know he was high ranking?” she asked.

“I can see these things,” he said, hoping this would be enough to end the conversation.

“Was he wearing a hat?” his younger daughter asked. “They always wear hats.”

Henry cast his mind back, but now, other than being short, he could remember nothing of the man who brought Mr Dice to his house. Probably things would go more smoothly if he created a version of the short man that fit his family’s expectations.

“That’s right,” he said, “he had a very official-looking hat, and an identity badge. And his shoes were the shiniest I think I’ve ever seen.”

“If I still had internet access I could look him up. Check him out,” his older daughter said, reviving a long-running and uncomfortable topic.

Henry looked to May for support, but she was focusing on her coffee now.

“You know there’s nothing we can do about that,” Henry told his older daughter. “The Government has made clear how dangerous the internet is.”

“You still use it,” she said, without much energy.

“I do, but only very rarely and when really necessary,” he said. “It’s just too risky. The Enemy can read everything we say online, and can even use it to control us, in extreme cases. I heard of a man who became a spy for the Enemy after he ordered eggs online.”

“Will he join us for breakfast,” Henry’s younger daughter asked.

“No,” Henry said authoritatively, “Mr Dice is resting. Not to be disturbed.”

At that moment, Mr Dice appeared in the kitchen, leaning precariously.

“Ah,” he said. “Breakfast. Splendid.”

“Who are you,” May asked, “and how long do you plan to stay with us?”

“May,” Henry said, a warning in his voice.

But Mr Dice replied.

“Ah, the details, yes. I believe the appropriate authorities will be in touch with you about those. Now, what’s for breakfast?”

Not long after breakfast, Mr Dice left the house.

“Back for dinner,” he said as he teetered out of the front door.

“Henry,” May said. “What are you going to do about this? You need to find out what that man is doing in our house and get rid of him. Today. You know what will happen otherwise.”

Henry did know what would happen otherwise. May had been threatening to leave him, move back in with her ex-boyfriend, since the day he’d met her. She had never done so, of course, but this time things were different. Nothing of the magnitude of Mr Dice had come between them before.

“Yes, dear,” he said, looking down. “I’ll see to it.”

“Good. I’m taking the children to the market. We need vegetables. I want you to have worked out how to get rid of him by the time we get back.”

Henry crept upstairs, carefully opened his study door and sat at his desk. He pulled out his dusty laptop and started it up. It hadn’t had an update in years, of course, so it was painfully slow, but at least that meant it was safe from spyware. Not that he had anything anyone would want to spy on.

The Goverment-sanctioned search-engine slowly materialised on his screen.

He paused, his fingers hovering over the worn-out keyboard. What should he search for? “Uninvited guest?” No, what was the word the short man had used? Tenant? Ah, no.

“Lodger”. He typed it slowly, one finger at a time.

Instead of a page of search results, he was presented with a red flashing message:

“Congratulations! Thank you for doing your part to help the country at this troubling time. If you have not been allotted a lodger and would like one, please call seven on your telephone. If you already have a lodger and would love to have another, or two more, please call any other number.”

He wasn’t sure how to proceed. Should he dial seven, or another number? He already had a lodger, but he didn’t want another one. He settled on six, in the end. Close enough to seven without quite committing to it.

“Hello,” the friendly female voice on the other end of the line said, when he’d finally found the telephone in a pile under the stairs.

“H—hello?” he said.

“How many additional lodgers would you like to request?” The woman asked him.

“No, no,” he stuttered. “No, I don’t want any more, I want to get rid of the one I have. My wife—”

“Ah,” the woman said, a note of steely sunshine entering her voice, “your wife must be so very proud to be helping out in this way, and at this time. Please pass on my congratulations to her.”

“But you don’t understand,” Henry said, trying to pull his thoughts together.

“Oh, but I do!” she said, chirpily. “I have a lodger myself. My husband does such a wonderful job with him. I’m sure he’ll bring us only joy. I’ve arranged for another lodger to be with you right away. Please reassure your wife she won’t have to wait long.”

Tears pricked Henry’s eyes.

“Please,” he said, but the woman had hung up.

Should he try dialing seven this time?

But before he could decide what to do, the doorbell rang.

Standing on the doorstep was the short man, this time with a young woman, perhaps no more than eighteen.

“So good of you, Mister Lack, to offer another room in your house. Your nation thanks you.”

Before Henry could say a word, in a co-ordinated motion the young woman moved into the house and the short man walked away.

Henry ran after him, grabbed his arm, more firmly than he had the first time.

The man stopped walking, looked up at Henry.

“Please let go of my sleeve,” he said, blandly.

At that moment, Henry noticed that they were not alone. Three men in dark uniforms were standing menacingly close, hands poised on their belts, as if they might have guns.

But Henry found he could not let go.

“No,” he said, “I’ve had enough. You need to get rid of Mister Dice and Miss, whatever her name is. And you need to do it right now. I won’t tolerate this. It’s not right.”

“You understand, Mister Lack, that we are at war, do you not?”

The short man stepped away from Henry, easily breaking his grip on his sleeve. The three men in dark uniforms moved a step closer to Henry, surrounding him.

“We all have to make sacrifices,” the short man was saying, “at times of great need, such as this. Your nation would like to thank you for yours, but if you are saying that you are not patriotic enough to make such a sacrifice, well then…”

The short man glanced meaningfully at the three men in dark suits. One of them pulled something from his waist — a baton, not a gun.

“I just don’t think—” Henry started to say.

The short man raised an eyebrow inquiringly, turned his ear towards Henry as if to hear more clearly.

“I just don’t think my wife will put up with it,” he said.

“Your wife? Oh, well we can take care of that,” the short man said, sounding pleased.

Henry did not like the sound of that.

“Oh, no, I didn’t mean that,” he said. “I didn’t mean to imply that my wife was not a patriot. Of course she is.”

The four men watched him expectantly.

“As am I,” he said, finally realising what was expected of him.

The short man nodded. The man with the baton put it away.

“Goodbye, Mister Lack,” the short man said.

Henry walked back to his house, defeated.

“You can sleep in my daughters’ room,” he told the young lady. She seemed very pleasant, and of course it was a good thing that he and his family were doing.

When May came home that afternoon with the girls, Henry told her what had happened.

She said nothing, looked away from him, her eyes wet, and went upstairs.

Twenty minutes later she and the girls came downstairs with packed suitcases.

“You know where we’re going,” May said. Henry said nothing.

After they were gone, Henry considered his situation. It made good sense for May and the girls to move out. The space was needed; it was the patriotic thing to do. He did not like the idea of May going back to her ex-boyfriend, but in a sense it was a relief. The threat of it had been hanging over him for years, and now that it was happening, he felt very little.

He picked up the telephone. Now what was the number to dial for more lodgers?



BIO

Ben Coppin lives in Ely in the UK with his wife and two teenage children. He works for one of the big tech companies. He’s had a textbook on artificial intelligence published, as well as a number of short stories, mostly science fiction, but also horror, fairy tales and other things. All his published stories can be found listed here: http://coppin.family/ben.






Black

by James Iovino


The rain here splashes
air into nothing—
Maggie said this to me once, that
maybe when we die there is a nothing
like the black nothing before we were born.
A tiny egg of time in a vast
and tiding black ocean.

A glance out of the window tonight
leaves everything this dark:
black as black darkness in the bottom cave,
the quilted black, bobbing
in the endless seas between galaxies.
The black when we close our eyes in front of a casket.

She said her father died,
and now he was nowhere,
and not being that close to death
it struck me as kind of odd.
My grandfather died before I was born,
and I see this black in my father—
stares across the Christmas dinner table
to an empty seat, conversing over bills
with the air by the fireplace.
The time he packed me in the car
on a moist August day and cried at the gravestone,
in front of his restless son.

She asked me, How do we exist
in this black? I think
we bury our dead alive.



Divorce, September 4, 1985


Two cantaloupes lay outside,
tipped up on the patio between the deck and lawn.
A giant crescent cut out of the larger one
exposes the rich orange of melon
and as I walk closer to the bay window,
ants scurry along the lacerated fruit
like chocolate sprinkles on ice cream.
One ant is alone, confused.
He is running around the melon
like an equator. He hasn’t learned
he cannot burrow under the thick corded shell,
that this is what it’s for—
so the ant zips away
without a snip of melon, just the cordage
of the melon-skin rasp on his legs.
I swing around to the woman on the stairs—
sleek hair and shoes shrugged off,
looking plainly to the wall behind me,
over my shoulder like a suspension bridge.
As I leave out the front door,
I am no better than the smallest ant
engaging for the first time, a pulpy mass
who hides its fruit like a rind.



Planting Trees on an Easel


Touch the rough cord of the canvas.
Run fingertips across it like you would
a lover’s chin: from corner to corner,
a hand tickles doughy flesh.

The palette is freckled with fat splotches
to rinse the surface with sable hair, or knife.
Berries thick—black, red hybrids
squinched off oil branches
drying like blood on concrete.

Watch as a tree’s roots
web inside the soil of canvas.
When there are too many trees,
build a cabin of wood. If a cold lake
gleams a motionless, porcelain dish—
the ripples of water over a jetty of rocks.
Place a foot in the happy grass, comb
your toes through the scalp of grain.

When I walk to class,
after mornings of planting trees on an easel,
the grind and mash of gravel beneath my feet,
I sometimes think of anti-matter,
inter-stellar clouds, life coming down
from a hasp of space,
rinses a fallow field, lichen spreads
like the green oxidation of copper.
The lifeblood lines along the throat—
Much like a carefree stroke of brush,
a sifting of paint on the canvas.




BIO

James Iovino was educated at St. Andrews and Oxford and has master’s degrees in medieval history, international relations, and theology. He enjoys training in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, traditional American and Japanese tattoo art, horology, and cutlery. His poetry has appeared in the Mankato Poetry Review. Originally from Long Island, New York, and still in possession of a considerable accent, he lives with his wife and six kids in Spotsylvania County, Virginia.







Voltaire’s Toothache

by Raymond Walker


A twinge. A small stab of pain in his upper right jaw. Could be anything. A temporary build-up of gas. A nervous tic.

A festering abscess.

Probably not, he tells himself. And later me. He tells me everything, every tedious detail. He assumes I’m interested.

A person can have these twinges for no reason at all, or at least any reason that they and the health care community in their combined ignorance can determine. We still don’t understand how the body works and aren’t really that far removed from the ancients who relied on chicken guts for diagnoses.

So he tells himself. And me.

At birth we rely upon others to feed and diaper us. In our dotage we depend again on that same charity. In the meantime our bodies are hostage to disease and injury. They are never really ours to command.

That’s how he thinks. Half the time I don’t understand what he is saying.

A couple of weeks later … another twinge.

Instead of making a dental appointment, he makes excuses.  The body will often miraculously heal itself. Well, maybe not often, but sometimes. So he says.

The twinges become more frequent. Sharper. Spontaneous healing seems unlikely, I suggest. Sarcasm is lost on him.

The bit about the medical community being ignorant is mere prevarication, I tell him at supper one night when the hot mashed potatoes makes him yelp. Mere prevarication. God, I’m even staring to talk like him.  I feel like grabbing his ears and smushing his head into his too-hot potatoes. I smile at the thought. He thinks I am being empathetic.

There is a deeper truth, he concedes. An appointment with a medical practitioner is an admission of frailty. It is an admission that the body is corruptible and death inevitable.

That’s just stupid. I blurt it out. I can’t help myself. It is so stupid

I know, he says, with that smirk I have come to loathe.

He rouses me finally in the darkest part of the night, shaking a turned-away shoulder. Do we have stronger painkillers? Where? What is the name of our family dentist anyway?

A root canal may be necessary, the dentist advises the next day during an emergency consultation.

His heart constricts. He knows what that means.

His mouth will be forced agape with metal restraints. His jaw will be frozen with a succession of needles each one bigger than the one before. His knuckles will be white where he grasps the arms of the dentist’s chairs. Muscles, arms, legs, stomach, will be rigid with barely-restrained panic. He will gag on his own saliva even though the nurse hovers over him with her little suction tube.  And even though he is supposed to be safely anesthetized he will feel excruciating pain as the dentist roots for corruption. Smoke and the odour of burning tissue will waft past unnaturally parted lips as rotten bits of himself are ruthlessly filed. His toes will curl as the empty shell of his tooth is crammed with foul-tasting plaster. 

We’ve had this discussion before. Dentists are able to do the most profound surgery with minimal discomfort, I tell him as calmly as I can. I feel like shouting, though. I often feel like shouting these days.

 It’s not so much the pain. It’s the potential for pain that’s unnerving. He admits this is irrational. We fear the future. We regret the past, he says. Yea, yea, yea. I am so sick of his philosophizing. He thinks he’s Yoda.

There’s a problem though.

The offending tooth can’t be pinpointed. Nothing shows on the x-rays. He does have a suspect . . . two down from his left incisor. Either that or the fourth one down, which is also tender.

I have complained about his wishy-washiness. Can we know anything for certain, he says. Even that we exist? 

Why do I bother?

The dentist has three choices: do the procedure on the most likely tooth, send him to a specialist, or wait for the pain to localize. He’ll wait. The tooth isn’t hurting that much.

His conscience nags him. He knows it’s a stupid choice.

He wonders about his conscience at supper. Is it separate from body? From mind? Why does it not speak or fall silent at his command? How can a man boast of free will if he cannot control the voices that command him? 

We never have normal conversations. Why can’t we talk about the weather or gossip about movie stars?

His conscience has my voice, he says.

I turn up the radio.

The next day he is reading on the couch when it occurs to him the ache had become intolerable. How appropriate, he says, hand capping a jaw that is noticeably swollen. For there was never yet philosopher that could endure the toothache patiently. Those aren’t his words, of course. He is quoting from his book. He is always quoting dead people. I asked him once if the living had anything interesting to say. It was like he didn’t even hear.

He phones his dentist. Never mind that he can’t pinpoint the tooth. If necessary, he’ll have all the teeth in the upper right quadrant removed. In fact, the dentist can remove all his teeth. He’ll get dentures.

The dentist is away. Family emergency. Won’t be back in the office until Tuesday.

His shoulders sag. That can’t be right, he says to the receptionist. He sounds like he is about to cry. I am embarrassed for him. Slouching there with his pot belly sagging over his boxers, hand cupping his jaw. He looks old. Feeble. He has no dignity.

The receptionist orders powerful pain killers.

The drugs work. The infection bubbles, but he is insulated from pain. He can survive until Tuesday.

So he thinks.

The pain escalates to a heretofore unimaginable level by Sunday night. The drugs are as useless as an umbrella in a hurricane, he says.

There are not enough words to describe the different levels of pain, it occurs to him as he paces the living room. His original discomfort which he thought severe at the time, is nothing compared to this. It’s the kind of agony a man might feel getting sucked into a jetliner’s engine, except that pain, while severe, is transient. A tooth ache lingers.

I stifle a yawn. It’s getting late.

It’s like hot coals in his mouth, he says.

I hate his whining.

It’s like tens of thousands of tiny, maniacal, demons with dull, serrated blades that have been bewitched so that any injury they do is immediately healed, allowing them to continue their torment throughout eternity, or until his face explodes.

I don’t bother to hide my yawn this time. 

He wonders who will rescue him from the night that has settled in like a nuclear winter.

Who will rescue me from having to listen to somebody who always speaks in metaphors? I’m in bed. I have work in the morning. 

He paces. He’s sorry. He understands I don’t like to see him suffer.

I don’t bother to contradict him.  

Even the deepest bonds of love have been sundered by the fleshless fingers of infection, he says. He sits on the foot of the bed, trapping my feet beneath the covers. Fleshless fingers of infection? I  grit my teeth, pretend I’m asleep.

During the Bubonic Plague, brothers left brothers, husbands deserted wives, wives deserted husbands. He lectures as if I’m one of his history students. Fathers and mothers abandoned their own children untended, unvisited, as if they had been strangers, he says in that irritating voice that tells me he is quoting somebody. What kind of person memorizes a quote about kids being left to die? He is popular with his students. Not so much his colleagues.

He would never abandon me, he says. If I was infected and could not be cured he would infect himself so that we might die together.  

If you love me so much, please shut the fuck up and let me go to sleep. I almost say it. So close. I have to choke back the words.

He moves to the window. Sooner or later we all sleep alone, he mutters to his reflection. He thinks he says something original. If I wasn’t pretending to be asleep, I would sing him the chorus from Cher’s song.

Isn’t it strange though that he can be in such distress, and I, closest to him of all the people in the world, don’t even feel a twinge. Nor could he feel my pain, if I suffered, though he loves me so much he would give his life to make me happy. There is always a gap between us no matter how passionate the embrace. Infinitely small. As wide as the universe. All the millions of people in the world and each one locked away in their own bubbles, isolated in separate realities.

Passionate embraces? Yea right. I almost smile.

Can we really know someone else, or do we just populate the universe with variations of our own personality? The you that I see is different than the you that you see and the I that you see is different than the I that I see, he says. He moans in that aggravating way he has. I want to throw the clock radio at his head. I want to pound the mattress. I want to scream. La la la, I shout in my head, but I can’t drown him out.

The doting husbands sleeping every night for fifteen years beside his wife is ultimately just as much a stranger to her as the man she brushes past in the shopping mall.

I gasp. A small, sharp, inhalation, but he doesn’t notice.

Does he suspect?

No. He’s just babbling. I try to block him out, but I have ensnared myself. I listen, eyes squeezed shut, teeth clenched, pretending to sleep. His breath is like insect legs on my skin. My back itches.

I can’t bear to think of life without you, he says. God, he’s so nauseatingly melodramatic. I stifle a groan. He is silent for a long time, but just as I am drifting off he pipes up again.

Snow is falling on the lonely churchyard where Michael Furey lays buried. Quoting someone, I suppose, but it’s mid August for Christ’s sake. He whispers, but it may as well be shouting. He falls silent again. I count every wheezing breath and imagine myself holding a pillow over his face. Finally, he shuffles downstairs to his library. I offer a silent cheer.

He is waiting when I come downstairs in the morning. He has not died the mewing death of a sick cat expiring in his own feces under an abandoned car. (Yes, even first thing in the morning he talks like this!) He made coffee. Tries to smile when he says good morning. His face is wan. I can’t bear to look at him.

On my way to work I take him to a different dentist who has mercifully agreed to make room in his schedule. I offer my cheek when he tries to kiss me goodbye.

The dentist presses a hot probe against the suspect tooth. The pain stabs from the jaw down to the right ventricle, telling dentist and patient this is the one that needs repair.

Drilling releases the pressure. The pain disappears. He is overwhelmed with gratitude. If he could do more than grunt, he would offer the dentist his first-born son, except his first-born is an often surly adult who rarely visits, so he will settle for paying his dental bill promptly.

This is his sense of humour.

He calls to let me know he is better. Doesn’t want me to worry. Tells me how the dentist laughed at his joke.

I pretend I’m busy with a client.

That night he feels a familiar twinge.

Whom the gods would destroy … he mutters. I don’t hear the rest of the sentence, but I don’t care. A familiar pressure builds. The little men with bewitched knives return.

When I go to bed he is cupping his jaw. He paces In the morning, I return him to the dentist. He begs me to wait. 

The dentist determines, to their mutual astonishment, that he has another abscessed tooth. The root canal will take more than an hour. Happily anesthetized, he comes into the waiting room to warn me.

I’m already on my way out. I don’t care. I’m leaving. He can have the cat.

I see his reflection in the mirror. His arms are hanging limply, his mouth agape. There’s a small string of saliva on his chin.

A different kind of pain on his face.




BIO

Raymond Walker is a former journalist living in Vancouver B.C. He did at one time have two abscessed teeth, but his wife didn’t leave him.







The Gathering of the Waters

by Scott Waller



Incandescent crimson tips
of dawn-sauntering icebergs
make drift afar
in the foreseeing eye
of the airborne creature
shards of soothingness.
Sublime swans
take flight in song.

O sea-dunes, with your fading grandeur,
godly bearers of tightened moisture,
ancient store of ephemeral flakes,
flotillas of our shame,
echoes of a sleepwalk
towards a mutual grave,
stir spirits in our disparate souls,
prod the snoring, sorry beast
wallowing in its own dirt
to awake, arise, emerge!



At Beach



sighing, sated, the sea’s foam-rimmed drape slips
down, revealing dark lugworm adventure
in squirming pores on flushing sand
panting with life’s echoes and
ancient trinkets scattered
overspread with sadness
after flight’s rapture,
till the mind finds
clear fresh air;
calm, still,
eerie,
eerie,
till

lifting
muscular curl,
stretch upward thrust,
gathering protean brawn-heave,
mustering dense shard-army of proud and godly might
raised, rising colossal strain to euphoric renovation swell of ephemeral hope peak.
Then, it curves, stoops, the fine line of its own ecstatic masochistic blade
tumbles in sorrow-furrow with bang of phoenix water-fire shatter,
slashes, bites skinless self, exploding suicidal gargling laughter,
as words-bones-shells-stones grind in throat-thunder glee;
sea-veins slit open and burst forth salty froth flow;
splash, climactic spittle, shower suds wink and,
hiss; silk slides back tired down slope;
while burrowing squiggles grope,
to meaning in dark hope,
ground-bound through
smooth, naked sand-
hide stripped again
of sky-shimmer,
in sand blush;
littered with
sea-debris
at peace
easy
easy
till




Three Sounds, Six Colours


I. A Bell

Through munificent air
the magnetic clang,
the bang of iron thunder
draws me closer:
it swings this way.
That way.
Slow.
Sway.
Its song smithereens
into a chaos choral throng of mini-sounds.
You can glimpse its deafening mercury stagger, swirl,
now juddering, now sluggishly:
the wavy potion of clamour swishes
round the inside of the caldron’s bulk.
You feel a world emerging from overflowing liquid;
something carried, like the young, firm green
of a fragrant branch
clinched in a white courier’s beak,
over the misty passageways
between noise and music.

II. Land and Sky

Like the dying man’s arid throat
the baked, dusty mountains round Almería
distort the shriek-thudding of metal on metal.

By the time it reaches your ears
the greedy mountains have hammered out on it
their stamps of sound and private sense,
so you’re not sure whether you have dreamed
the beating arms of distant workmen
or whether, after all,
the gods were here
where the savage, ruddy land serration
cuts clean across the pure blue sheet.

III. The Invisible Jazz Drummer

Without noticing, he’s been lifted
from the moment.
as the washing machine spins,
the buttons of a beige shirt
tap a tempo on the inner chrome drum.

He listens to the rhythm-rattle till
it effaces its beginning and its end
and accomplishes transition:

his stretching out of memory,
beyond the miserly air
of a musty laundrette,
to a better hour brings ease;
the musing of a musical moment,
when he was being in completion.

Still the buttons keep rap-tapping
tacked onto the rock’s up-rolling
to the very peak of paradise,
tied to the spinning whoosh
way, way down again
to new and hard beginnings.



If I told you what the spring evening said


If I told you what the spring evening said,
Through the warm window
Of aches, hopes, and tiptopoloftical chatter,
You would thrust into my hand the visa to that place
Where marsh creatures slink reptilian and bronze
Trapped inside a sweltering stupa and the high grass wails
Because it doesn’t understand
‘The circuitry of sympathy.’

Transitions that require you to fully be there
Require your pain for their accomplishment.

Behold the gambler clambering on the plinth;
Its whitewashed bricks of calculated pleasure!
They once hid behind the trellis
As the craftsmen were hung to dry.
Despair kneaded by events to
A forgotten password that gets lost inside
Ice hanging forests with winds sending off a girl
To fetch autumn fruits scattered among the willows.



BIO

Scott Waller is a teacher in the Paris area where he participates in literary writing groups and public performances. He has published articles and poems, including a collection of prose poems entitled Starlays (2020). His novel, Dystopian Triptych, was published in 2020.







Plums For Months by Zaji Cox

A Book Review by Deb DeBates


I watch as Micah walks through the gray doors of his high school and crosses the parking lot. He is smiling, and in his usual slow gait, crosses the street in front of a long row of school buses. It’s a frigid winter day. I quickly unlock the passenger door so he can enter without hesitation.

“Hey kiddo.” I take his backpack, help him remove his puffy black parka.

“Hi mom.” He looks at me, then stares at my phone. I know he wants to watch movie clips on YouTube. It’s his way of unwinding on the thirty-minute drive home.

But he knows the drill.

“Tell me about your day.”

 He mutters something about gym or performing arts, his two favorite classes, then falls silent.

“What was the kindest thing you did for someone today?” I’ve had luck with this one before.

“Mom, no more questions!” I sigh and hand him my phone. Perhaps he’ll tell me more on another day.

This familiar scene in my life reminds me of the book, Plums for Months, by Zaji Cox, a beautifully written collection of short essays in which Cox shares snapshots of her life growing up on the outskirts of Portland, Oregon. The author is keenly aware of her surroundings, her feelings, and emotions, describing it all in wonderful sensory and visual detail. I found her memoir to be intelligent, heartwarming, and often bittersweet.

My son is as Cox describes herself to be—neurodivergent. Micah is on the autism spectrum, and although Cox does not use that diagnosis in her writing, she does divulge about her struggles with non-verbal cues and social interaction, skills most individuals with autism have difficulty with as well. It is the foremost reason I loved this book so much—she articulates so well what it’s like to process the world around her differently and to face such challenges.

In one essay entitled, “The Intricacies of Social Interaction,” Cox explains this struggle and how she uses the tool of observation hoping to learn social skills that come so naturally to others. She draws the reader into a restaurant scene where she is with her sister and a few of her sister’s friends:

…between bites I’m observing and taking mental notes like usual: the lilt of their voices in casual speak; the rise of an eyebrow when making a joke; the blank look during a moment of sarcasm; how they sit, how they stand, how they gesture.

Reading this story brought me back to my son being mainstreamed into classes and extracurricular activities with those who are neurotypical so that he has the chance to learn, as Cox does, through watchfulness and interaction. Micah’s interest in performing arts has led to his participation in school plays and summer theater programs during which he’s absorbed a variety of social cues from his neurotypical peers. I can’t be certain that he is intentional in his observation as Cox is, but it is possible to learn social skills through osmosis—absorbing behaviors while participating in a group. The improv and sketch comedy classes Micah is taking this summer have given him the opportunity to learn how to think on his feet and jump into a scene like the other kids do. Being included with neurotypical peers gives him the chance to watch, to learn, and then try. He is improving in interjecting lines that are original and appropriate instead of phrases said by favorite Marvel characters like Spiderman or Black Panther or perhaps Scar from The Lion King, a movie he has watched dozens of times.

In this essay and others, Cox illuminates how being around neurotypical peers can help one learn to live in this world more effectively. It’s how most of us learn social skills, and why it’s vitally important for a child or teenager with autism to have ample time in community with others both on and off the spectrum. When my son was much younger, I enrolled him in a mostly neurotypical gymnastics camp. Jumping on the blue spongy floor trampolines, climbing rock walls, and being able to play games and run around amidst these peers also gave him the opportunity to learn turn taking, sharing, and how to encourage others.

Cox writes about living with her mother and sister in her grandfather’s time-worn 100-year-old house. Her close relationship with both her sister and her mother is reflected in much of her writing as is her fascination and connection with nature — especially the feral cats that often visit them on this property. Her essays about the cats were thoroughly delightful and, for me, so relatable because of Micah’s similar connection with animals, his being dogs (although he would love for me to give him a cat or two). Like Cox’s fascination with the wild felines that loiter on their property, Micah has always been enthralled with a larger variety of feral cat–the mountain lions at our local zoo. He could spend hours watching them prowl around in their not-nearly-large-enough cage.

Cox also shares about her domestic cat, Jerry, who is a warm companion. “I soon find in Jerry a listener,” she writes, “He is there when I can’t communicate right with the human world to which I supposedly belong.” I love that she has touched on the importance of animals in her life; I see this same relationship with Micah and our black lab mix who is always there for him to sit and snuggle with after long days at school, who helps him decompress and be comforted after being in a largely neurotypical world.

This book is so well written, and not surprisingly, as Cox is an avid reader, writer, and lover of books as she demonstrates in her essay, “The Scholastic Book Fair.” In this brief, yet beautiful and bittersweet piece, she takes the reader with her to her school’s book fair where she peruses the shelves knowing she has money for just one or two. She watches as her peers, able to have all they desire, load their arms with merchandise. She imagines her bedroom filled with towers of books separated into genres and categorized by ones read, not yet read, and those worthy of being read again. She soothes herself by inventing a way she can have as many as she wants: “I will simply pay for them with need.” 

There are so many other topics Cox covers–gymnastics and dance, dealings with boys, friends, frustrations (and triumphs) with her hair, and shopping at Goodwill. Her essays are a sensory feast bursting with vividness, so much so that I felt I had been in her mind seeing her view of the world. Plums for Months is a book for all ages and for all walks of life. Through Cox’s essays, we learn so much about being human, about wanting to fit in, to achieve, and to feel the warmth, friendship, and love of others.

Oh, how I wish I could plumb the depths of my son’s inner world as Cox has done with hers. For now, I remain inspired by Plums for Months to see beyond the outer layer not only of those who fall outside the neurotypical category, but of everyone I meet—to look more deeply, with more patience, with more love.




BIO

Deb DeBates is a writer and parent of a son with autism and type 1 diabetes. Her experience inspired her to start a blog, micahandme.com, to help raise awareness about all aspects of raising a child with these diagnoses and to encourage others who are on a similar journey. She lives in Southeastern North Dakota with her husband and two children.








House with a View
Pink City
Little Reader
Cats and Books
Bird Nest
Bike Ride
The Storm
Patisserie
Rain
Fairyland
Escapade

BIO

Maja Lindberg lives and works in Lomma, a small seaside town in the south of Sweden, where she runs her own company, Majali Design & Illustration.

She started her career as a ceramic artist and became an illustrator in 2010 after a quick stopover in web design. Through the years, Maja has developed her own style that is quite distinct and recognisable.

Since 2020 she has worked closely with an esteemed art agent, who has facilitated exciting opportunities for her to showcase her art in various forms and mediums. This partnership has allowed Maja to take on diverse projects that challenge and inspire her, while ensuring that her unique style and vision remains.

In addition to her store and commissioned works, Maja has also made her mark in the literary world. She has illustrated and co-authored several books, bringing her illustrations to the pages of stories that captivate readers of all ages.


ARTIST STATEMENT

As an illustrator, I work primarily in the program Procreate on my Ipad. My creative process begins by immersing myself in the narratives that inspire me. Whether it’s working on commissioned projects from my agent, Jehane, or creating prints, I approach each piece with a dedication to capturing the essence of the story.

The versatility of digital illustration allows me to blend different styles, from whimsical and playful to sophisticated and elegant, adapting to the unique requirements of each project. With an arsenal of digital tools at my disposal, I can manipulate color, texture, and composition to create a visual language that engages and communicates effectively.

In my illustrations, I weave together elements of fantasy and reality. I find inspiration from the mysteries that surround us and the depths of human emotions, the duality of light and shadow, joy and sorrow, hope and despair.

My goal as a digital illustrator is to captivate, inspire, and transport viewers to a world of imagination. I want to create an emotional connection between the viewer and the artwork and through my illustrations, I aspire to evoke curiosity, laughter, wonder, and a sense of familiarity.


LINKS

Website: https://www.majali.se/

Instagram: @illustrationsbymajali

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/maja.lindberg

Shop: https://shop.majali.se/

Etsyshop: http://www.etsy.com/shop/majalin

Forgiveness

By Ellis Shuman


The village was nestled in green foothills not far from the Greek border. Quaint wooden farmhouses and ramshackle barns. Cultivated fields of summer crops; fenced-off pastures spotted with dairy cows and goats. Grassy meadows bordered by colorful wildflowers. In the distance, snow-capped peaks below a cloudless blue sky. The Rhodope Mountains, scenic and bucolic, home to some of Bulgaria’s oldest citizens. One of them was waiting to see me.

“My grandfather is ninety-five-years old,” Anna reminded me as we drove south on the narrow highway. “He’s half blind, walks with a cane, and doesn’t hear very well, but he still has his wits about him. He rises at the crack of dawn to milk his cow and tends his vegetable garden in the afternoons. And he eats a lot of yoghurt,” she added with a laugh.

“I can’t believe I’m here, that I’ve flown all the way from Tel Aviv just to meet him.”

“Well, it’s good you came. He’s very eager to see you.” Anna continued to talk excitedly as she drove, but I remained mostly silent, keeping my eyes focused on the beautiful countryside.

I was looking forward to meeting him as well, but I had a growing feeling of trepidation ahead of my visit to his home. Why had I come to Bulgaria? Had I made a mistake? Was I on a wild goose chase that would make me a laughingstock when I returned to my office in a few days’ time? I shook my head, shocked at my impulsive decision to come.

Anna slowed down when we passed the sign announcing our arrival in Gela, the village that was our destination. A minute later, she parked the car. I got out, took a deep breath of the fresh mountain air, and followed her up a gravel path towards a wooden farmhouse that had seen better days. We took off our shoes outside the door and went inside.

It took several minutes for my eyes to fully acclimate to the dark interior. Outside it was a warm June day, but inside the farmhouse I shivered. The unlit fireplace at the side of an open kitchen brought up images of roasting logs. The Rhodopes were ski territory, I had learned. Visions of snow-covered slopes brought back memories of the ski trip I took with friends after finishing my compulsory service in the Israeli army.

“Sit here,” Anna said, pointing at a low bench near the dining room table. “My mother is probably shopping in Smolyan. I will see if my grandfather is awake.”

I sat down and looked around the rustic, homey room. Watercolor paintings of green landscapes hung on one wall; a window opened to real-life vistas of the same. All the furniture was wooden, apparently homemade. I rested my hands on a colorful embroidered tablecloth, kicked my backpack under the table, and fidgeted as I waited for Anna’s grandfather. All I knew was that he had something to give me, and I didn’t have a clue what it could be.

* * *

I had never been to Bulgaria before, had never considered visiting the country. Although I traveled extensively for my Internet software company, organizing trade exhibitions at conferences in western Europe, North America, and once in Japan, Bulgaria had never been on my radar, neither for business nor pleasure. Bulgaria? Never in a million years did I consider traveling there.

This journey came about after I responded to an email that should have gone straight into my junk folder. The mail, which had been scanned and posed no threat to my computer or the network, appeared among the many messages that demanded my attention one morning at the office.

“My grandfather knew your grandfather—Avraham Levy,” an unfamiliar woman claimed in the mail. “In fact, they were best friends at university. My grandfather, Aleksandar, is getting old and wishes to see you before he dies. He needs to give you something.”

Convinced this was a prank, a scam or scheme to get me to transfer funds to an overseas hacker, my finger prepared to delete the mail forever. But I hesitated. The mention of my grandfather by name raised my curiosity. The mail seemed harmless enough. It wasn’t as if I was going to click on any suspicious links. If this unknown woman—she signed her mail as Anna Todorova—asks for money or help of any kind, I will block her account, I told myself.

This is what I know about my grandfather. He was born in Sofia, Bulgaria, but came to Israel shortly after the establishment of the State. He settled, like so many of his compatriots, in Jaffa, a town later incorporated into the Tel Aviv municipality. It was in Jaffa that my grandfather met and fell in love with Maria, the beautiful waitress who would serve him coffee in the late afternoons. The couple married and moved to Na’an, where they were accepted as members of the kibbutz. I never knew my grandmother Maria because she died when I was an infant. My grandfather remained alone in his sparse apartment, a virtual recluse who I only saw when my family visited on the occasional weekend and holidays.

It’s been ten years since my grandfather passed away and as far as I could remember, he never once spoke to me of his childhood, or of growing up in Bulgaria.

I wrote a quick response to the woman, and she responded in turn. Correspondence followed, at first once every few days, but then on a daily basis. Anna lived in Sofia, she explained in her mails, and worked as a dental technician. She was, I would learn, a very educated woman who spoke several languages. Her husband served in the traffic police, and they had three children. Anna didn’t like living in the city, she informed me, and that was why she came to the mountains whenever possible to see her mother and grandfather. Her husband said the countryside wasn’t for him. The children, Anna said, preferred to remain in the city, to meet friends, attend soccer practice, and socialize in the malls. Much like their counterparts in Israel, I realized. Anna shared personal anecdotes in her mails, easing my original hesitation about answering her.

 Little by little, I began to trust Anna. I became convinced she was telling me the truth. There was an elderly man in a Bulgarian village who wanted to see me. He had once been a friend of my grandfather, and I assumed he had some memento from their friendship to give me. I was about to learn what it was.

* * *

A noise behind me made me turn around. Anna led a spry old man into the room; by no means was he feeble or unsure on his feet. Ninety-five years old, but he looked healthy, more fit than I would have imagined. He shrugged off his granddaughter’s arm, balanced himself on his cane, and extended his hand towards me. Anna translated his greeting.

“He said you look just like Avraham.”

Before I had a chance to reply, Aleksandar asked a one-word question, and this seemed to embarrass Anna. I waited for her translation but she hesitated.

“What did he say?”

“He asked if you were a Jew.”

I rose to my feet, fearful I was about to be attacked with a vitriolic outburst of antisemitism from a senile old man, but Anna urged me to sit back down. She listened to her grandfather for several minutes and then turned to me.

“He said that if you are a Jew, it is good. It means his invitation has gone to the right person because his friend from long ago, Avraham, was a Jew. And it is only to a Jew he wishes to speak, to state his heartfelt plea for forgiveness.”

“Forgiveness?”

At that moment, Anna’s mother returned from her shopping. Anna helped unpack the groceries and the two women set out a spread of salads and cold meats on the table. As for Aleksandar, he sat on his wooden chair, stomping the floor with his cane, regarding me with a knowing look. I enjoyed the food, but the only thing the old man ate was a thick, yoghurt-based drink.

“What is it that your grandfather wishes to give me?” I asked impatiently, handing my plate back to my hosts at the end of the meal.

Anna nodded at Aleksandar, and he raised himself slowly from his chair. He wobbled across the room to a wooden breakfront, opened its top drawer, and took out a cardboard box. Inside was a pile of envelopes, tightly bound by a thin blue ribbon. He extended the box to me.

When I didn’t immediately reach for the box, Anna coughed, took the box from her grandfather’s hand, and undid the ribbon.

“What is this?”

“Letters,” she replied. “Letters your grandfather wrote.” When she saw my confusion, she explained. “This is what my grandfather wanted to share with you. They are written in Bulgarian but I will translate. This is my grandfather’s wish.”

“I came all this way for some letters? You could have mailed them to me!”

“He insisted you hear them in person. He’s an old man. How could I refuse him? Especially when this concerns your grandfather. These letters were written during the war, when your grandfather was in the camps.”

The camps? Auschwitz? Treblinka? My heart sank. My grandfather never said anything about being in the camps; my mother had never spoken of this either. I had grown up in a country where memorializing the Holocaust was institutionalized on our annual calendar. It was a subject forced upon us in school. We read books about the Holocaust; watch television shows, plays, and films on the subject; but the Holocaust had no real meaning for me.

Until now.

Learning that my grandfather was a Holocaust survivor was a shock. My heart beat rapidly as Anna pulled out sheets of paper from the first brown envelope. She began to read.

July 24, 1941

My dear Aleksandar,

It has already been many years since we were boys, racing one after the other on the streets of Sofia. I remember chasing after our classmates in the schoolyard, and in the winter months, throwing snowballs at the trams. We were young then, good friends.

“Wait a minute,” I interrupted. “I thought our grandfathers studied together at the university. They also knew each other when they were boys?”

“Let me explain,” Anna said, lighting a cigarette. She smiled at her grandfather, who didn’t understand a word of what we were saying. “My family’s origins are here, in this village. We have lived here for generations. Aleksandar’s father, my great-grandfather, was a wise man, a modern man. He wanted his son to get an education, to have a real profession. To become someone more than a simple Rhodopes farmer. He sent Aleksandar to live with relatives in Sofia, and he grew up there. He attended school in the city and that is where he met and befriended Avraham Levy, your grandfather.

“These letters were your grandfather’s way of recording his family history, of retaining their friendship. Let me continue.”

I remember when we passed by the Great Synagogue on our way to school each day, how envious you were that I had a connection to that magnificent building. Although I am of the Jewish faith, I wasn’t familiar with what happened inside. My family celebrated Rosh Hashanah and Passover with festive meals, but we didn’t observe the Sabbath. Even at my bar mitzvah, when I was thirteen, the words that came out of my mouth at the rabbi’s instructions were not words I understood. Still, you were jealous. You had no religion, you claimed. You believed that through that synagogue, that fine building, I could speak to God and he would listen.

At school, I was the only Jew in our class. But this mattered little to the other boys. They only teased me because I was slightly underweight. They called me names, but you were always on my side, protecting me from their curses and fists. Those incidents were few and far between, and they ended when I finally gained some weight.

When we were growing up, no one cared I was a Jew. My family was as Bulgarian as the next. We were treated no better, or worse, than our neighbors.

I remember going to the parks with you on the weekends, traveling on school excursions in the mountains. Do you remember when we went by train to your cousins in Varna? To the beach on the Black Sea shores? Those were good times, when we didn’t have a worry in the world.

Good times, indeed, before darkness fell on Europe.

Do you remember the Olympic Games in 1936? We were, what, sixteen then? That was the year Hitler paraded his Nazi pageantry on the world’s stage. Despite calls for a boycott, all the nations competed, marching into the stadium while banners high above their heads bore the hated swastika. Only one foreign leader attended the games, if you recall. It was our leader, our beloved king, our czar. Boris. He was at Hitler’s side and all the world applauded. Bulgaria did not win a single medal at those games, but we were so proud. Boris stood on that podium with the leader of our great ally.

“Bulgaria sided with the Nazis?” This came to me as a surprise.

“Yes, did you not know? We were allied with Germany, and our wartime government was pro-Nazi. In Bulgaria, we have always lived peacefully side by side, Christians and Jews, and Muslims too, but during the war, anti-Semitic, fascist rulers came to power here. During those years, the vast majority of our citizens held Boris in esteem for how he conducted his affairs, for siding with Hitler.”

“This sounds very much like a history lesson.”

“I am trying to give you background and context to your grandfather’s letters. Without the complete history, I don’t think you would fully understand this story.”

When we started university studies in Sofia, you wanted to become an engineer. To do something practical with your hands. To prove to your father that it had not been a mistake to take you from the Rhodopes and send you for an education. As for me, I studied philosophy. I wanted to do something with my mind! We may have attended the same school, but our lives veered off in different directions.

Do you remember my sister, Ester? You said you fancied her, but you never told her. Well, let me reveal a secret. She fancied you as well! She said you were handsome, with a head of hair like one of those Hollywood stars you see in the movies. When you would come to our house on Stamboliyski Street for dinner, you made her laugh, but she was too embarrassed to say anything. And you never approached her.

Ester, my great aunt. She had died long ago, had never come to Israel. Ester was listed on the family tree I created as part of my bar mitzvah year’s ‘roots’ project, but except for her name, I knew nothing of my grandfather’s sister. Now I was hearing a firsthand account from my grandfather about his family.

Things took a turn for the worse. More and more students harassed me because of my religion, calling me names, and even physically accosting me. The professors turned their heads; they couldn’t be bothered. I didn’t know if they were afraid to stop these attacks, happening right under their noses, or if they secretly held me in disgust as well.

The war started, and at first, it didn’t concern us. Germany invaded Poland; the Russians were on the move; Britain and France declared war on Hitler. In Bulgaria, we felt safe. Even us of the Jewish faith. We heard how our people were being treated in Germany, but in Bulgaria nothing would ever happen to us. After all, we were Bulgarian citizens!

It was around that time that Bogdan Filov was appointed prime minister. Later that year, Parliament approved the LPN, legislation which was also endorsed by Czar Boris.

“LPN? What’s that?”

“I think you call it ‘Law for the Protection of the Nation’,” Anna said. “It was very similar to the Nuremberg Laws in Germany. You will understand more about the LPN when you hear what your grandfather wrote.”

Aleksandar, you of course know of the LPN because you read the newspapers that serve as the government’s mouthpiece. Yet, I am not sure you know how the LPN affects me and my family. I will list the government’s decrees for you, but also so that I can make some order of them.

There are restrictions where Jews can live, in what professions we can work. Limits are imposed on how many Jews can study in higher education. They forced me to leave my university studies!

We are obliged to wear yellow stars on our outer garments. Restaurants put up notices reading ‘Entrance Forbidden for Jews’. There is a curfew.

Jews are required to pay special taxes. We must declare what valuables we possess, even furniture and carpets. We are not allowed to own property. Our radio set was confiscated!

My mother was sure nothing would happen to us, but my father realized this was not true. Wisely, he sold our family’s linen factory to our neighbor, who bought it for a pittance, promising to return it to us when things got better. My father wanted to send us away, to America or even to Palestine, but my mother refused to leave. Ester was engaged to be married by then. We didn’t want to leave Bulgaria, our home.

One night, the police showed up at our door with papers bearing my name. All the Jewish men in our neighborhood between the ages of twenty and forty were ordered to go with them. I hurriedly packed a suitcase, bade farewell to my parents and to Ester, and followed the police into the street.

I remember leaving with them that evening, the future uncertain. Going with them to the camps.

“Your grandfather’s Bulgarian is excellent,” Anna commented. “Some of his words are—how do you say it—a bit flowery. So unlike how my grandfather writes.” She put down the letter and lit a cigarette. “I apologize if my English is not of the same level. It’s challenging to translate as I read.”

“Your English is just fine,” I assured her. I picked up the letter from the table and stared at the handwritten words. Indecipherable Cyrillic script. The text was small, smudged in some places. Holding the letter, I felt a physical connection to my grandfather. When was the last time I held his hand? I missed him and felt sorry I wasn’t aware of his past.

Aleksandar sat in the corner, attentive to our conversation although he didn’t understand it. The rest of the letters would have to wait until the next day, I told Anna, because I was exhausted. Exhausted and overwhelmed by everything. The hurriedly planned trip to Bulgaria and the revelations about my grandfather’s life were taking their toll.

“Let me show you to your room,” Anna said when I stood up.

“Perhaps it’s best if I stayed in some hotel nearby?”

“I told you, there is nowhere else to stay in the village. We have a spare bedroom and I think you’ll find the bed comfortable. I’m tired myself. It’s been a long day, and I spent much of it driving. You’ll sleep here. It’s not even a question!”

As tired as I was, my mind remained fully awake. Hearing what my grandfather had written long ago to someone who had been his contemporary, his friend, was as if I was stepping into the past, into an unfamiliar and terrible era. I tossed and turned, wondering why my mother had never told me her father’s story. When I talked with her in the morning, I would find out.

I realized what was troubling me more than anything else. I was about to hear the story of my family during the Holocaust. The Holocaust, when six million of my people had been murdered. The Holocaust was about to get personal.

To learn that my grandfather had been discriminated against because of his Judaism; that he had been dragged from his home by the police and sent to the camps—it all came as a shock. There were many more letters in the box. I feared the worst was yet come.

Why had my grandfather written these letters? Why was it so important for him to tell his friend of his experiences? I believed my grandfather feared he would not survive the war. He felt compelled to document everything that happened.

But wait! My grandfather was a Holocaust survivor. He came to Israel. There was a happy ending to his story. Or was there?

That question ran through my head before I fell asleep at last.

* * *

August 11, 1941

My dear Aleksandar,

I have yet to receive a response to my earlier letter. You enlisted in the army, serving our country, and I respect you for that, but surely you have time to reply? I wait anxiously to hear of your experiences.

I am here in the labor camp. We are in the south, near the village of Belitsa. There are many of us, perhaps a few hundred. Jews from various towns; the majority are from Sofia. There are Jews from my neighborhood and others who I would see occasionally as they went to the synagogue. They divided us into different work battalions constructing the railways. Each unit has its platoon supervisor, a Bulgarian army officer. Our unit has a very cruel supervisor. A man my age from Plovdiv. We call him ‘Red’ because of the color of his beard. His army service was cut short because of his asthma; even now he wheezes when he shouts. Red humiliates us; he hits us; he kicks at us and beats us with a stick. He barks orders at all hours of the day. He punishes us for the slightest offenses. He calls us anti-Semitic names, names I never heard growing up with you in Sofia.

The labor is intense, with much physical effort required on our part. We work under the harsh sun, but also in the cold and rain. We haul wagons of stones from the excavation pits, where we are laying the tracks. We shovel dirt and raise our pick axes again and again. Twelve hours a day we toil, struggling to meet a quota measured by wheelbarrows of rocks. When we meet our quota, they give us something else to do. Usually we have Sundays off, but frequently this privilege is taken from us.

Beans and lentils are provided for our meals, also half a loaf of bread each. Occasionally, we receive a dessert of rice with water. That comes to us as a luxury. At night, we bandage our blisters, rub our aching muscles, and fall asleep on our cots at once.

It is hard here, but bearable. I miss my parents, my sister. Often, I think of you, and hope you will soon reply.

Your friend,

Avraham

“This was a Bulgarian labor camp,” Anna explained. I was relieved I was not hearing a report from Auschwitz. Not yet, anyway.

Throughout the morning, Anna read the letters my grandfather wrote during his stay in Belitsa. He described the poor conditions; the meager food portions; and the cold and damp barracks. Like the others in his labor battalion, my grandfather lost weight, although he built up his muscles from the strenuous work. My grandfather informed his friend, Aleksandar, that despite the tough physical regime, his spirit remained strong.

Hearing of these experiences was difficult for me. I was troubled by what my grandfather had gone through. But then my mood lifted when I heard his next letter.

I should mention one thing, so you will not think everything in Belitsa is bad. After we dug the pits so deep that when we were working, we could not be seen from above, Red gathered us around and declared, ‘Fellow Bulgarians, you have worked so hard and faithfully, that I now trust you. From this day forth, I will protect you.’

After that, everything changed. Red no longer called us names, no longer struck at us, no longer swore. In the heat of the day, Red would tell us to hide in the pit’s shade. When the camp’s commander came to inspect our work, Red whistled and we would pick up our axes and shovels. We would start working very hard. And when the commander left, Red let us return to the shade. I am not sure whether Red felt guilty for his earlier actions or if he had an affinity for his Jewish countrymen. Maybe he originally wanted to show his commanders how true he was to the fascist cause. In the end, Red became our friend!

I must tell you a story. There is a Jewish army officer in the camp—Shapira is his name. He served in the Bulgarian Army during the First World War. While we toil every day clearing roads through the forest, Shapira enjoys the good conditions of dining with the Bulgarian officers. He jokes with them, sleeps in their quarters. On some days, when Red is on leave, Shapira supervises our work shifts. We work as a Jewish crew with a Jewish supervisor. He is not strict about our work requirements.

And then one day, several German soldiers arrived at the camp. It is not clear if they came with a purpose, or if they were traveling to an army base in Greece. They approached Shapira and saw before them a decorated army veteran. The Germans saluted Shapira. He saluted back. Can you believe this? Germans saluting Jews in wartime Bulgaria?

We work; we sweat; we bear the weight of difficult days. But we are certain this period will end in a short time, and our lives will resume as they once were.

I do not give up hope. We will meet again soon, my friend.

* * *

When Aleksandar retired to his room for an afternoon nap, I joined Anna on a walk in the village. We passed by wooden farmhouses similar in construction to Aleksandar’s, and barns appearing to be on the brink of collapse. Down in the valley, I heard the clang of cowbells. I saw a farmer leading his herd to pasture. In the distance, the snow on the mountaintops sparkled in the sunlight. Everything was so serene, so tranquil, so distant from the hustle and bustle of the modern world.

“You know Gela is famous?” Anna said as we followed the path up the hillside.

“Famous?”

“Yes. Our village is the birthplace of Orpheus. Surely, you’ve heard of him. No? Well, I’ll tell you the story.

“Orpheus was a mythical singer, musician, and poet. Some say he was Greek, but he was born here, in Bulgaria. He is often pictured carrying a stringed lyre on his shoulder. He was married to a beautiful woman, Eurydice, but she was bitten by a poisonous snake on their wedding night. She was taken into the Underworld, and Orpheus followed. He wanted to ask Hades, the god of the Underworld, to allow Eurydice to return to the land of the living.

“To make a long story short, or rather a long legend, I can tell you that the entrance to the Underworld is not far from Gela. Have you heard of Devil’s Throat Cave? No? You should visit it while you’re here; it’s a popular site. According to the legend, Orpheus descended into the cave to demand that the gods release his beloved. He vowed that he, instead, would remain in the Underworld. The gods agreed, and the two lovers began their journey to the entrance of the cave. Orpheus looked back, to make sure Eurydice was following, but he saw only her shadow before she vanished. Orpheus emerged from the cave alone. He mourned Eurydice and never played the lyre again.”

“Interesting legend,” I remarked.

“Yes, and it all started here in Gela, and I don’t care what the Greeks say.”

“Anna, there’s something I want to ask you.”

“Yes?”

“These stories about the forced labor camps, and what your country did to the Jews—how much did you know of these events? Did they teach you this in school?”

“Not all Bulgarians are familiar with this story,” she said after a momentary pause. “I first learned about Bulgarian Jewry in high school. There were programs on television as well. Once the communists came to power, they distorted our history. What we heard was not exactly what had happened. Today, most young Bulgarians know little about the World War Two period, and that’s a shame.”

“Oh, one other thing. How did you ever find me?”

“Find you?”

“Yes. How did you know whom to contact and invite to Bulgaria?”

“My grandfather knew that Avraham had moved to Israel. From a distance, he tried to keep track of his childhood friend and he was heartbroken when Avraham died. A few months ago, he asked me to find Avraham’s daughter, or if not, his grandchildren. It took a lot of Googling to locate someone related to Avraham. You don’t know how many emails I sent until finally one reached you, and you responded.”

I wanted to ask her more, but Anna pulled my hand. “Let’s hurry back to the house. My grandfather will soon be awake. He will want me to continue reading Avraham’s letters to you.”

* * *

February 15, 1942

My dear Aleksandar,

I pray you are well. Did you receive my correspondence? Where is your army unit posted these days?

Much time has passed since I last wrote and what should I next tell you? We labored at the camp for many months, building the railway, but then they let us leave for a winter break. Back to our homes, and our families. I had taken ill in the camp, but I struggled along with my work battalion as much as possible. Red tried to protect me, to give me easier work assignments, but I was not the only one suffering from the labor. Being sent home was the best thing that could happen for all of us.

Last month, we returned to Belitsa. We have heard rumors about the camps in Poland, camps from which one does not return. But this is Bulgaria, our beloved homeland. Here we labor on behalf of our country. The camp commander is a fascist, but Red is on our side. He makes sure no one would ever harm us.

In the evenings, we sit in the barracks and raise each other’s spirits. We tell tales of our lives in Sofia, Plovdiv, and elsewhere. We reminisce about our childhoods, speak fondly of our families. We relate funny stories, we laugh. One of my bunkmates has a guitar and we sing.

Some have escaped the camp to become partisans and fight the government from the forests and mountains, but I prefer to remain with my newfound friends. We dream of better days and we know those days will come at war’s end.

When I was at home, Ester asked about you many times. I told you of her engagement, but the wedding has been postponed. Her fiancé was sent to a labor camp in the north. During the days of my illness, Ester cared for me, nursed me back to health. My parents spoke of you fondly. I anxiously await your letters for news about your army days!

* * *

“Imma, yes, I am still in the village,” I told my mother on the phone, although this was not exactly true. Anna’s mother had driven me down the mountain to a town where there was cellphone reception. I was using the Wi-Fi connection of a corner café. “I am learning so much about Saba, about our family’s roots. Why didn’t you tell me about his time in the labor camps? Did you know what he did during those years?”

“Saba spoke little about his childhood and even less of what happened to him during the war.”

“But why didn’t you tell me anything?”

“I wanted to protect you. Why should I share with you things that your grandfather didn’t want to share with me?”

I ignored her comment and asked instead, “Were you aware of friendship with Aleksandar?”

“Yes, but they did not remain friends. Something happened between them. I’m not exactly sure what it was.”

“All these letters Saba wrote, what a story they tell! Didn’t Saba keep any letters Aleksandar wrote in response?”

“I don’t know of any such letters.”

“And what about Ester?”

“Ester?”

“Grandfather’s sister. What happened to her?”

“The past is the past, and there are things it is better not to know,” my mother responded without further explanation. She quickly changed the subject and a short while later, the Internet connection gave out. It was time to return to the family’s home where Anna and Aleksandar were waiting.

* * *

I am uncertain whether you received all the letters I sent you out of great friendship. I hope my correspondence has not gotten lost! These days, one can doubt the efficiency of postal services in southern Bulgaria.

I wrote of my return to the labor camp at Belitsa, and of our continued construction of the railway. Of the tough challenges we faced, of our reliance on Red as our protector, of the outlandish demands of the camp commander. I wrote of our labor during the long summer days, and of how we rejoiced at the comradery in the barracks at night. I wrote of the rain, of the sleet, of the snow. Of the freezing nights when we shivered under our thin blankets.

I wonder how you are faring in the army, where you are serving. What do you do during the hot days? Where do you patrol during the wintry nights?

I wish you well, my dear friend. One day soon we will see each other again and renew the friendship we shared as young boys in Sofia and at the university.

Pausing only to catch her breath from time to time, Anna maintained a steady and pleasing tone of voice as she read. She was never at a loss for words, never stumbled over her translations. I was convinced she accurately presented my grandfather’s narrative and could not help but admire her for keeping her composure when reciting a very disturbing account of wartime events.

My grandfather wrote that he remained strong, physically and mentally. He had the stamina to persevere, he assured Aleksandar, no matter how difficult it was to toil away in the harsh conditions of the camp. He wrote of his deteriorating health, of his constant cough, muscle pains, and his chills at night. He wrote he felt lucky because many of the others had come down with malaria. Hearing his words, I realized that my grandfather’s spirit never wavered. He was resilient. He endured his ordeal with great fortitude. But throughout it all, it was surprising to learn that he retained a profound love for his homeland, even his respect for the czar.

I was about to suggest to Anna that we skip some of the letters because the narrative from the camp was becoming somewhat repetitious, but then she read a mail which changed everything for me.

June 6, 1943

My dear Aleksandar,

I hope this letter finds you well, and in good spirits. There has been a gap in my correspondence, and for this I apologize. I write to you now of the circumstances that took me far from the Belitsa camp. That period of my labor came to its timely conclusion. Instead, I am in Samovit, a small village sitting on the shores of the Danube north of Pleven.

Let me tell you how this came to pass.

I was allowed to leave the labor camp because of my constant cough. It was Red who arranged for my return to Sofia. He argued that my medical condition was dire, although this was hardly the case. He intervened with the camp commander and secured my release from Belitsa!

I returned to Sofia, but if I expected a return to the good times from the past, I was to be mistaken. The war was still raging and the reports we were hearing were grim. We didn’t have a radio, but our neighbor listened to Radio Berlin. He informed us of the declaration stating that the Jews of Bulgaria were to be deported. In compliance with government orders, the Jews of Sofia were to be taken to live in other towns and villages.

We did not leave Sofia without protest. We demonstrated, beseeching the government to allow us to remain in our homes. Many of our fellow Bulgarian citizens stood up for us. Christian writers and artists; merchants and clergy; lawyers and journalists. Our gentile neighbors and our friends. All of them demanded that the government reverse its decisions. The Jews were Bulgarian citizens, our loyal countrymen cried, but the czar remained silent.

I must mention two notables from the Orthodox Church who remain steadfastly opposed to the fascist government’s rulings. I wonder if you have heard their story. Metropolitan Stefan of Sofia offered to baptize any Jews who sought the protection of the church. And Metropolitan Kiril of Plovdiv confronted the czar, saying that if ever the trains come to take the Jews of Plovdiv, he would personally lie on the tracks to prevent such trains from leaving the station.

Few Jews, if any, volunteered for baptism, but the words and actions of these Church leaders are truly holy.

My parents and Ester are here with me in Samovit, and they express their concern for you nearly every day. Samovit is not a labor camp, but rather an internment camp. We are prisoners here, and our imprisonment is indefinite and absolute. Still, we remain hopeful, as always, and eagerly await our return to Sofia.

Aleksandar coughed, and Anna brought him a glass of water. The old man whispered to her and Anna translated.

“He again said that you look like Avraham.”

When Aleksandar smiled, I saw that two of his front teeth were missing; another one was capped in gold. I smiled back at him and turned my attention to the next letter.

June 10, 1943

My dear Aleksandar,

It is within the empty classrooms of a two-story red-brick school that my parents, Ester, and I are housed, along with hundreds of our coreligionists. Women and children, the elderly and the unfit. Among the detainees are leaders of Sofia’s Jewish community, well-known lawyers, judges, businessmen, and doctors—all men of high standing who lost their positions shortly after passage of the LPN.

Besides the Jewish detainees, Samovit is where the government incarcerates anyone considered dangerous to the security of the state. Opposition leaders, political activists, and writers who objected to the policies of Prime Minister Filov and his cabinet. There are criminals here, as well as those whose only crime is recent residence in a mental institution. Jews, communists, felons, homosexuals, gypsies, and the insane—we are all being held until further notice.

We sleep on mattresses on the classroom floor, some forty people in each room. Soldiers wake us at six in the morning and we follow them outside, even if it is raining heavily. We are given half an hour to visit the latrines. There is no electricity; no running water to wash one’s face; no showers or places to take a bath.

During the first two hours of each day, no food is served. When the morning meal is finally available, it is nothing more than a slice or two of stale bread and a lukewarm cup of tea. Lunch comprises more bread and a bowl of watery bean soup. Our meager meals are often supplemented with food brought to the camp by Christian residents of the nearby villages. Kind Bulgarian citizens making sure we don’t go hungry. Conditions are hard, but we survive.

Anna’s mother brought us each a glass of sweet tea and placed a tray of sweet pastries on the table. Anna picked up the next letter.

June 13, 1943

My dear Aleksandar,

No one knows how long we will be here, but most presume it will be until the war ends, whenever that will be. Our future is uncertain.

We know of Jews who were transported across Bulgaria on trains bound for Lom. They were sent on barges to Poland, to the Auschwitz camp where they were murdered by the Nazis. Mass shootings, or worse. From Samovit, we can see ships docked on the Danube. We fear this will be our fate as well!

Despite the harsh conditions, the threat of deportation, the fear of the fate that awaits us on the other side of the river, we have hope. We know many Bulgarians are working diligently to secure our release. Ordinary citizens and even some politicians.

Are you aware that Dimitar Peshev, the deputy speaker of Parliament, spoke out against the planned deportations? He demanded to meet officials at the Ministry of the Interior and with Prime Minister Filov. Peshev, a very brave and honorable man, acted on our behalf. Are there no other members of Parliament who will come to our aid?

And what of you, my friend? Where does the war find you these days? Where are you serving? Ester and my parents send their fondest regards and pray for your good health. I hope to hear from you soon, before they take us away from this camp. Before they force us to leave our beloved Bulgaria.

* * *

Dusk was falling, and lights flickered in the houses of the village. I was breathless after hearing my grandfather’s correspondence with Aleksandar. Learning that he was in an internment camp and about to be deported with his family and sent to Auschwitz made me shiver. I had a sudden urge to leap from my chair, run outside, and clear my head in the cool mountain air.

“There is one more letter,” Anna told me. “Should we read it now?”

“I don’t know if I am ready for another letter. Maybe we should put it off until morning.”

“It is not from Avraham. It is from my grandfather,” she said, pointing to Aleksandar, who had dozed off in his chair.

“But what about my grandfather’s parents and Ester? What happened to them at that camp? Did they get sent to Poland? He must have written something more.”

“I think you need to hear my grandfather’s letter,” Anna insisted. “It is the only letter he ever wrote in response to Avraham. You are returning to Sofia tomorrow for your flight back to Tel Aviv. This last letter will give you closure; it will make you understand what happened to your family and why it was so important for you to come to Bulgaria and hear everything in person.”

There was no way I could ever get to sleep after hearing that introduction. I took a long sip of water and nodded to Anna.

My dear Avraham,

I am writing to you in response to your many mails. I am not a man of words like you. I have always been a simple man, a boy born in the Rhodopes sent to Sofia to become an engineer. I studied to improve my mechanical skills, not to expand my literary talents.

Your letters describing your family’s misfortunes during the war have touched me deeply. I read them carefully with great interest, and eagerly anticipated each one. I was both fearful and hopeful each time I read your news.

There is much for me to say, and many apologies for me to make. I write to ask your forgiveness for so many things. For my failure to respond, for the delay in my response when it was sent at last, and for what I am about to reveal to you on these pages.

It is now two years since the war ended—

“Two years after the war?”

“Yes. My grandfather did not write to Avraham when he was in the camps. He only ever wrote this one letter in late September 1947. He composed it here, in this very house. My grandfather never returned to Sofia and in fact, he has barely left Gela in all the years since. But I am getting ahead of myself. Let me continue.”

I am so relieved that you and your parents are again living in Sofia, that your lives have returned to some sort of normalcy, despite what happened. I heard your father re-bought the linen factory from your neighbor. I am very interested in your family’s welfare, even if I never reached out to contact you during the war, or since.

Even greater is my relief that not a single Jew was deported from our homeland and sent to the death camps. Our fascist government is long gone; the labor and displacement camps have been dismantled; and all our Jewish neighbors, all the Jews of our beloved Bulgaria have been saved! Every last one of them!

“All the Jews of Bulgaria were saved?” I again interrupted.

“Yes, not a single one died in the Holocaust.”

“I don’t understand. My grandfather wrote of trains passing through the night, full of Jews being sent on barges to the concentration camps.”

“Yes, that’s true. There were Jews who were transported through Bulgaria on their way to Poland, but not Bulgarian Jewish citizens. Those were Jews from other regions, from Macedonia and Greece. Whether we were responsible for their wellbeing is a contentious issue. Our country was aligned with Hitler; our government was fascist; our laws were anti-Semitic; but our Jewish citizens were saved.”

“This is incredible. Why didn’t they teach this to us in school?” Or maybe they did, I thought, and I hadn’t been paying attention. I looked at Anna and said, “One thing isn’t clear to me, though. Who saved Bulgaria’s Jews? The czar?”

“You have touched upon a very interesting subject. A controversial one.” Anna glanced at Aleksandar, who was fast asleep, slouched on his wooden chair. Her mother was sitting at the end of the table, concentrating on the shirt she was embroidering. Anna turned to me and said, “I can give you some sort of answer to your question, but wait. Hear the rest of my grandfather’s letter and then, I hope, you will fully understand.”

I have hesitated to write to you, even after all this time has passed. I have been reluctant to tell you of my own experiences during these past years. I have been fearful as to your response, what you would think of me. I have wondered if you would ever forgive me for what I did during the war. I think of you often, and of Ester. And how I could have prevented what happened. I need to tell you my side of the tragic events that occurred.

These are difficult words to write.

In your letters, you recalled our childhood, our studies in primary school and later at the university. I, too, remember those years as the best of times, yet in retrospect, they were not good times at all. Clouds were darkening in the skies over Europe. The laws enacted by our government directly affected your family, and all Bulgaria’s Jews. There was little any of us could do to stop what was bound to come.

Yet, I thought I could do something. I believed I could play a role and ensure a better future. That is why I left university to enlist in the army. I gladly donned my uniform out of a sense of duty to our country. If I recall correctly, you honored my decision and said it was be the right thing to do.

Our future actually looked good then. We loved the czar and what he was doing for our country. He aligned us with the Nazis, it’s true, but there were benefits for Bulgaria and we all acknowledged them.

At the start of the war, if you recall, the Germans invaded Yugoslavia and Greece. While we didn’t take part in those battles, we moved our troops into Thrace and Macedonia. Czar Boris announced we made the move “to preserve order and stability in the territories taken over by Germany.” All Bulgarians were proud of what Boris had done. He had not occupied those territories, he liberated them. They were a natural part of our national homeland. For this, we called Boris the ‘King Unifier’.

You are aware of all this. What you don’t know is that they sent me to serve in the territories. They assigned me to a unit in Macedonia. We assumed we would be welcomed as liberators and at first, we were. Many, if not all the residents, spoke Bulgarian, and we understood those who only spoke Macedonian. We were there to reunite with them under Bulgarian leadership. We called the territories New Bulgaria.

I served in Bitola, a town the Jews still call Monastir despite its official name change after the Balkan Wars. I patrolled the various neighborhoods, but I spent most of my time in Los Kortezus. This was the poorest section, close to the center and near the largest market square. The houses lining the narrow cobblestone streets were two-storied affairs with tiled roofs, shared by more than one family. Each house had its own well, but there was no electricity. Kitchens were in the yards, toilets too. In the summer months, residents slept outside to get relief from the crowded conditions within their homes. It was not the most comfortable place to live.

I write this to give you some background to my story, to show how different conditions were in Bitola, so unlike our modern lives in Sofia. The Jews, I learned, had lived in Macedonia for a long time. They had their synagogues, their schools, their colorful history. They had their own culture and traditions. They spoke Macedonian, but also a different language. Ladino.

The Jews of Macedonia were not eligible to become Bulgarian citizens. Instead, the LPN was introduced, the same as in Bulgaria proper. Jews lost much of their property, and were forbidden to work in industry and commerce.

And then it was decided that the Jews of Macedonia must be deported. Whether it was a Bulgarian decision or something demanded by the Germans, I cannot say. But as a soldier in the Bulgarian army, I was part of the troops that carried out the deportation orders.

I am ashamed to tell you what I did. Even after the passage of time, I cannot escape these dreadful memories.

I remember pounding on doors at five in the morning, rousing the residents and telling them to take their jewelry and valuables and leave immediately with only what they could carry. There were wagons waiting in the streets for the baggage. We shouted at the residents, demanded that they hurry. House by house, neighborhood by neighborhood, we rounded up the Jews of the town. We transported them to a temporary internment camp at Monopol, the tobacco warehouse in Skopje. Monopol was chosen because the warehouse could accommodate thousands, and because it sat right on the railway tracks.

That was my new post, patrolling the perimeter with a ferocious-looking German Shepherd at my side, and you are aware of my distaste for dogs! Guarding adults and children, pregnant women and the seriously ill, all of them held in the most terrible conditions.

There were rules at Monopol, what was allowed and what was forbidden. Prohibitions against smoking, playing games, and reading newspapers. Prohibitions against drinking alcohol and receiving food from outside the camp. The Jews were not even permitted to look out through the windows. Disease in Monopol was widespread, and not one day passed without someone dying.

Holding my head high, I circled the warehouse. On my shoulder I carried my rifle; in my hand I held the leash of my dog. A Bulgarian soldier fulfilling his duties, following his orders. Protecting his homeland.

Looking back, I wonder if I could have done things differently. If I could have protested the inhumanity of our actions. If I could have ignored the orders I was given. I wasn’t strong enough then, and I sincerely regret everything I did.

“Should we take a break?” Anna asked me.

My mouth was dry and my head was spinning. But we couldn’t stop now. I needed to hear this story until its end.

Orders came for the deportation of the Jews housed in the warehouse. My commander tried to reassure us it was for the best. The deportees would be employed in agriculture and as semi-skilled laborers, elsewhere in the German territories. They would return to their homes after the war, our commander promised. This benefited the war effort.

I still remember that horrid night, as if it was yesterday. We pulled the Jews from the warehouse and led them to the railway tracks. They were crying and screaming. The mothers could not keep their children quiet; the fathers could not comfort their wives.

The train was waiting, but it was not one fit for passengers. This was a freight train, with cargo compartments meant for cattle. Boxcars not suitable for the transport of human beings, yet this is how we were sending the Jews to their new home.

Along with the other soldiers and armed guards, I struck the Jews with my truncheon, shoved them, and forced them to stumble aboard the boxcars. Over a hundred in each car, I think, like sardines they were, with a single pail in the corner for their private needs. I pulled back the bolt, locking them within.

How were my actions possible? I question this now, but then I felt I was fulfilling my duties as a soldier. Was this a good thing? Today, I can say it was a horrific thing, but back then? I was doing what I was commanded to do.

This I can tell you. On the platform, watching us herd the Jews into the boxcars, stood two important-looking men. One was a Bulgarian dressed in civilian clothing and I knew his name. He was Alexander Belev, head of the Commissariat for Jewish Affairs, the agency which had full authority to do whatever was necessary to solve what they described as the ‘Jewish problem’.

Standing next to Belev was a German officer uniformed in full regalia. I didn’t know his name then, but afterwards I learned this was none other than Theodore Dannecker, an SS Hauptsturmführer, previously responsible for the round-up of French Jews in Paris.

These two men were present on the railway platform in Skopje as the prisoners from the tobacco warehouse boarded the train. A German commander and a Bulgarian bureaucrat overseeing the transport of the Macedonian Jews, making sure everything was handled and documented properly.

As I stepped back, I detected what I thought at first was the scent of bovine beasts, but no, this was something different, something more powerful. It was the stench of human sweat, urine, and feces. And later, as the train barreled across the countryside, I was to learn it was the odor of death as well.

My conditions on the train were fortunately suitable for a company of Bulgarian soldiers. We laughed; we joked; and because of the rumble of the train on the tracks, we could ignore the misery in the cargo cars behind us. The train sped north and we passed into Bulgaria proper. The whistle sounded, and we jerked in our seats as the brakes hissed. I looked out the window and saw that we were in Dupnitsa, some 50 kilometers south of Sofia. I left my compartment and strolled along the platform. I lit a cigarette and laughed at one of the other soldier’s jokes.

With the train’s engines silent, I could clearly hear the Jews inside the cargo cars. Crying, sobbing, hysterical moaning. Screaming, the wailing of children. Some called out in Macedonian; others beseeched me in Bulgarian. “Water!” they begged. “We cannot breathe!” “Something to eat, please! There are children here!” And then, one call more disturbing than the others. “An old lady has died! Can we not take out her body to bury her?”

“We’ll be in Lom by morning,” our commander reassured us, trying to lighten the mood. But I was beginning to feel my own despair.

The other soldiers kept their eyes low, laughing nervously. It was one thing to be in a separate compartment, away from the Jewish passengers, but quite another to hear their pleas for salvation. We were transporting them like livestock. I avoided looking at the faces peering out at us through the slits of the boxcar.

A commotion started up at the end of the platform and I spun around. A group of local residents had gathered there, arguing with our commander. I retraced my steps and approached.

“It’s bread and cheese,” a woman said. “We brought them water,” one man said. “Some vegetables,” added another.

“No nourishments are to be given to the Jews,” the commander argued, holding back the crowd.

“These Jews are human beings,” protested the woman. “How can you deny them their basic right to eat and drink?”

“They can barely breathe in there!” shouted the man.

“We are following our orders,” the commander said, dismissing these pleas for mercy.

At the time, I was simply following the orders of my commander. He was following the orders of his superior. That high ranked officer was following the orders of the Bulgarian government. And the Bulgarian government was following the orders of the Germans.

I looked at the citizens of Dupnitsa standing before us on the platform. Bulgarian citizens speaking out for the Jews, willing to come to the aid of the Jews. Some of them ran towards the boxcars, tried to break the locks and open the doors, and we had to pull them away. This was the true heart of the Bulgarian people, I knew. This showed our true feelings for our Jewish neighbors. We cared for them and saw them as citizens of our country, the same as us.

On that bleak railway platform, I did nothing. I was weak. I witnessed a very horrid human tragedy, but I stood silent, motionless. I did not speak up on the citizens’ behalf; I did not argue with my commander when he ordered our company back on the train. The whistle sounded as we took our seats. We continued to the north.

Hundreds of Jews were on that train, hundreds more on the next one. Even as you languished in the camp near Pleven, of which you wrote, thousands of Jews from Macedonia and Thrace were transported like cattle across the Bulgarian countryside. And I did nothing.

“I think I understand now,” I said to Anna, when she put down the weathered pages and rubbed her eyes. Her voice was dry, but she smiled when her mother brought refreshments to the table. Aleksandar had woken up for several minutes, but now he had dozed off again. The elderly man’s light snoring brought some comic relief to the tragic tale I had just heard.

“What do you understand?” Anna asked me.

“Why it was so important for Aleksandar that I should hear his words. They are an apology to my grandfather, for not acting to protect the Jews during the war.”

“That is what you think? I wish it was so easy.”

“What does that mean?”

“There is more to my grandfather’s mail.”

“More? I thought Aleksandar was a man of few words.”

“Avraham wrote many letters, sometimes every week, but my grandfather wrote only this one letter, and it took him, apparently, many months to compose it. It wasn’t easy for him. His wartime experiences weighed heavily on him, with memories too painful to bear. But somehow, he put his words on paper, wrote of his trauma. I guess you could call it a confession of sorts.

“There are other things you must learn,” she continued. “They will be difficult for you to hear because they describe something horrible, something very tragic. Something that is an essential part of your family’s story, much more personal than the story of the Macedonian Jews.”

You and I, Avraham, we are both Bulgarians. Neither of us is better than the other. We are equal. Yet, I have failed you. I served our country while you struggled to stay alive in the detention camps. Camps on Bulgarian soil, guarded by Bulgarian soldiers like me.

If I had taken action against the inhuman cruelty I witnessed, maybe you and your parents would not have suffered so. I remember your sister so fondly. Her fair skin, her bright eyes, her whimsical smile. If things had been different, Ester would still be alive.

“What is he talking about? Ester died? My grandfather never mentioned that.”

Anna ignored my question and instead said, “It is not easy for me to read this last part, but you must hear the story it tells. You must learn what my grandfather did, and why he pleas for your forgiveness.”

“Please continue,” I said.

My final posting was in Kaylaka. Although few Bulgarians are aware of this camp, or of what purpose it played in the war, you know what occurred there.

When we heard Aleksandar tap his cane, signaling he was awake again, Anna put down the letter and helped him up. After he hobbled off to the bathroom, she turned to me. “Before I continue, I will fill you in on what was happening in the war. Another history lesson, if you will, but this will help put things in context.

“They assigned my grandfather to Kaylaka in July 1944. Boris had died a year previously under mysterious circumstances. Some say he suffered a heart attack; others say the Nazis poisoned him. We may never know for certain. Let me go back a bit further, and I apologize for telling you these events out of sequence. The Allies bombed Sofia the previous November for the first time. The city was bombed again in March. Each bombing was severe. Hundreds of planes flying low; over 3,000 buildings destroyed or damaged. More than 100 people killed. Then there was Black Easter in April. Again, Allied bombers filled the sky and dropped their bombs. So you see, we paid the price for our alliance with the Nazis.

“In June 1944, one month before my grandfather was sent to Kaylaka, British and American troops landed on Normandy Beach. The Soviet offensive was driving west towards Warsaw. Only when the end was in sight, and Hitler had been dead four months, did Bulgaria declare war on Germany. Afterwards, the communists came to power, but that’s another story altogether.”

Aleksandar came back into the room, shrugged off an offer of tea from his daughter, and nodded at Anna. Anna picked up the letter and resumed her reading.

Kaylaka camp was located five kilometers south of Pleven. The detainees there, prisoners actually, were incarcerated at the whim of the Bulgarian authorities in Sofia. The prisoners were housed in long, narrow, wooden barracks. Built to serve 50 people, each held over 100 prisoners inside. Entrance to these unfurnished halls was through a single door, and this door was locked at night. Windows let in light but could not be opened. The air inside the barracks was stuffy, the heat stifling. When the men, women, and children slept, they could barely breathe.

I know of these horrid conditions because I patrolled the camp, walking near the wooden fence, with barbed wire beyond that. In each corner, a sentry was posted, armed with a machine gun. I had no dog at my side as I performed my duties. Following my orders, daring not to question them. Looking back, I realize that I played an atrocious role in the events at Kaylaka.

Additional prisoners arrived. Educated Bulgarians, merchants and teachers and doctors and lawyers. Jews from Kyustendil and Dupnitsa. Communist sympathizers and partisan leaders. The rabbi from your synagogue. Families were there. Husbands and wives. Children of all ages. Infants.

And that is where I saw Ester. Your sister.

I hardly recognized her because she was so thin. She was frail and vulnerable. Her hair, which was once long and luxurious, was cut short. Her eyes bore no resemblance to those that captured me in their spell when I visited your family.

Seeing Ester in Kaylaka was shocking. Although I was hopeful she would soon be released and allowed to return to your home in Sofia, I could not promise that no harm would ever fall her way. I approached Ester but she did not acknowledge my presence.

And then, one night, there was a fire. One of the wooden barracks burst into flames, trapping the prisoners sleeping inside. Who lit the fire, I swear I do not know! Whether it was an order issued by the army, I cannot say. Maybe it was the communists, or the partisans? These groups, fighting against our fascist government, were hiding in the forests. What I do know was that while the fire raged, no one took action to extinguish the flames.

And then I saw Ester’s face in one of the windows of the burning barracks. Her eyes were wide in horror. She was screaming, calling out for mercy, but I could not hear her words. The fire raged, and I stood there, motionless, holding a water canteen in one hand and with my rifle slung over my shoulder.

I did nothing, Avraham. I stood and watched the blaze burn down the barracks.

Ester, fair Ester. If only things had been different.

I am here, in Gela, far away from you but close to you in my thoughts and prayers.

I have caused you and your family great sorrow, Avraham. I have failed the Jews. I have failed Bulgaria.

For this, I am truly sorry.

Avraham, my dear friend. I long to come to Sofia to speak my thoughts, to tell you this story in person. I have transgressed, and now I beg for your mercy. Will you ever forgive me? Please accept my apology in the spirit in which it is given.

Your dearest friend,

Aleksandar

* * *

“My grandfather returned to our village after the war,” Anna said, a sad look in her eyes. “Apparently, memories of the war; what he had done as a soldier; and witnessing Ester’s death, were a heavy burden for him, more than he could bear. My grandmother said he was not the same man as before. He took over the family farm, barely leaving the village. He worked our potato fields, took the sheep to pasture, milked our cow. A simple life, the one his father wanted him to escape. They said he often walked through the hills, staring off into the distance at the snow-capped mountains in Greece, but rarely spoke of the past. He never formed friendships, certainly not the type he had with Avraham.”

Aleksandar fidgeted, and then using his cane as balance, he rose shakily to his feet. He moved forward, approaching the table where I was seated. He realized I had finished listening to his letter, the last one from the cardboard box.

“Now he is old, near death,” Anna said, gently touching her grandfather’s shoulder. “Seeing you, giving you these letters, telling of Avraham’s history and his own, and most importantly seeking forgiveness for what he did, that is what he needed to do before he died. If he could not get your grandfather’s forgiveness, he begs for yours.”

I stared at Aleksandar, who was standing next to me, waiting. I saw honesty in his eyes, a pleading appeal for my response. I shook his calloused hand, hardened from his years as a Rhodopes farmer, and realized it was not unlike my own grandfather’s hands, which had toughened from his work as a kibbutznik. My eyes filled with tears. What else could I say? I left the room; I left the past.

* * *

The flight from Sofia to Tel Aviv was a short one, and I had much to think about. Despite the many hardships he had faced, my grandfather made aliyah. He came to Israel, married, and started a family. He led a good life on the kibbutz; his story had a happy ending after all. But he had never spoken of his past. I had learned so much about my family’s history and a lot of it was very troubling.

At first, I thought the stories I had heard, in the letters of both my grandfather and Aleksandar, were too fantastical to be true. An elaborated and very creative description of wartime events, it was at points totally unbelievable. Hours of fact-checking in my Sofia hotel bedroom with an uninterrupted Internet connection, though, led me to believe otherwise.

These are the things I learned:

There were 48,000 Jews living in Bulgaria before the war and none of them were sent to the Polish concentration camps. The Jews of Bulgaria survived the Holocaust, but not everyone agrees who should be acknowledged for saving them.

Some say credit is due to Czar Boris. He was the supreme ruler, the ultimate decision-maker. Nothing could be done in Bulgaria without his consent. Ignoring both the Nazis’ demands and his country’s fascist government, Boris never permitted the deportation of his country’s Jewish citizens. On the other hand, Boris sided with Hitler and adopted Germany’s anti-Semitic policies. The majority of sources I read indicated that the czar actually did little on the Jews’ behalf.

Dimitar Peshev, Deputy Speaker of Bulgaria’s National Assembly, rebelled against his country’s government, losing his parliamentary position as a result. For his brave actions in the fight for Bulgarian Jewry, Yad Vashem recognized Peshev as a Righteous Among the Nations.

Leading clergy in the Bulgarian Orthodox Church were also honored as Righteous Among the Nations. The Metropolitan of Sofia, Stefan, and the Metropolitan of Plovdiv, Kiril—both of them mentioned in my grandfather’s letters—fought the government’s decrees. In March 1943, when the Nazis first called on Bulgaria to hand over Jews from Sofia for deportation, Stephan intervened and went to confront the czar. Boris feigned illness to avoid him, I read online, but Stefan refused to leave the palace. Finally, the two met and Stephen demanded that the decision to hand over the Jews to the Nazis be postponed. Otherwise, he would instruct all churches and monasteries to open their doors to the Jews. The czar gave in, and none of the country’s Jewish citizens were deported. From what I saw on the Internet, this was one of many incidents in which the church spoke out for the Jews.

Prominent gentile writers, artists, and merchants demonstrated on the Jews’ behalf. Ordinary citizens fought the anti-Semitic decrees. They temporarily bought Jewish businesses and properties, as did my great-grandfather’s neighbor, only to return them at the war’s end. Others, as Aleksandar had mentioned, rushed out to the train tracks offering bread and water to Jewish refugees as they passed through the countryside on their way to the camps in Poland.

“We refused to let them take away our friends, our neighbors,” Anna had said as she drove me back to Sofia. “Jews are as Bulgarian as we are. Your people have lived in our country for centuries. How could we allow anyone to harm them?”

Based on their actions in defiance of the fascist government, I believed that ultimately the Bulgarian people should be credited for saving the country’s Jews.

“Of this we are most proud,” Anna said. But, as I also learned in her grandfather’s letter, there was a very tragic side to this story. My continued Internet research provided more details.

No fewer than 11,343 Jews of Thrace and Macedonia were murdered in the Holocaust. They died at the hands of the Nazis in the camps, but who was responsible for their deaths? Bulgaria administered its ‘liberated’ territories during the war and, unlike the postponement of similar orders in Bulgaria proper, in Thrace and Macedonia, Bulgarian officials sanctioned the Jews’ deportation.

When I questioned Anna about this, she replied, “Much of the population does not know of the rescue of Bulgarian Jews, or of our country’s role in the deaths of others. Of those who do know, many dismiss allegations that we occupied Macedonia and claim we simply administered it on the Germans’ behalf. That only the Germans should be held to blame. But we were there, in Macedonia. We were there, in Thrace, and in Serbia as well. Bulgarian army, Bulgarian police, Bulgarian civil servants. Our actions came perhaps from our collective naïve patriotism. Our guilt has been repressed all these years. I guess most of my country is suffering from a severe case of historical amnesia.”

Anna said nothing more about this part of Aleksandar’s story.

If the Nazis had had their way, all the Jews of Bulgaria would have been murdered in the concentration camps, but this did not come to pass. As I had asked myself previously, many times—Why didn’t I know any of this?

The Belitsa and Samovit camps were real. I confirmed this in my online research. In the first, one of many forced labor camps active across the country, hundreds of Bulgarian Jewish men labored on national infrastructure projects, like the railway construction my grandfather described. The latter was an internment camp for Jews forced to leave their homes in Sofia and elsewhere.

The tragic fire at the Kaylaka camp in northern Bulgaria actually happened, and it was deadly. Although assumed to be arson, no one was ever held accountable for the fire, which broke out shortly after midnight on July 11, 1944. Eleven Jews were killed in the blaze; three of them died in the flaming wooden barracks and the other eight succumbed at a Pleven hospital in the following days. Among the victims and the wounded were men, women, and children. Although not listed anywhere in the information I found online, my great aunt Ester apparently was one of those who died.

Until now, Ester had been just a name on my family tree. My mother never spoke of her; she never shared Ester’s story. The letters my grandfather wrote gave Ester life, while Aleksandar’s response explained her death. I now understood my grandfather’s stubborn silence, why he refused to discuss those times, why he tried to erase them from his memories.

As the pilot announced our preparations for landing at Ben Gurion Airport, my thoughts were still in Bulgaria. I remembered what Anna told me on my last night in Gela.

“My grandfather never sent his mail to Avraham. He bore too much guilt. That is why this last envelope is here. It was never posted.”

It was shocking to hear this, but her next revelation was far more devastating.

“That night, as the barracks burned in Kaylaka, my grandfather saw Avraham. Avraham was there, in the camp. With Ester. Avraham was burnt, suffered from smoke inhalation, but he managed to escape. His parents too. They survived, but Ester did not.

“As they gasped for breath in the fresh air, desperately looking for Ester, my grandfather stepped forward. He tried to say something, but the words caught in his throat. My grandfather stood there, not lifting a hand to help, not moving to stop the blaze, and Avraham saw this. No doubt he held my grandfather responsible for Ester’s death.”

Anna’s final words were lodged in my brain and I couldn’t stop thinking about what I had just learned. Aleksandar could have acted, yet he did nothing. I wondered whether his blindly following orders in Macedonia was criminal, whether witnessing a deadly fire in Kaylaka without trying to extinguish it made him an accomplice to arson and murder.

The plane descended quickly, sightings of the Tel Aviv skyline having given way to views of concrete runways. I smiled, thinking back about my brief stay in Gela. Anna and her mother had warmly welcomed me into their home; their hospitality was genuine. The food they served me, the comfortable lodgings, even Anna’s tales of Gela’s mythical past—all made my time in the village memorable, a reason to come back one day. Still, the letters that brought me to Bulgaria, and the horrific stories they told, troubled me greatly. But not as much as the one question that lingered in my mind.

By having Anna voice the words he planned to say to my grandfather, Aleksandar had at last expressed his heartfelt apologies for not saving Ester’s life. Ten years after my grandfather was no longer alive to hear his confession. My grandfather had never forgiven Aleksandar, but could I?



BIO

Ellis Shuman is an American-born Israeli author, travel writer, and book reviewer. His writing has appeared in The Jerusalem Post, The Times of Israel, and The Huffington Post. He is the author of The Virtual Kibbutz, Valley of Thracians, and The Burgas Affair. His short fiction has appeared in Isele Magazine, Vagabond, Esoterica, The Write Launch, Adelaide Literary, and other literary publications. You can find him at https://ellisshuman.blogspot.com/
Twitter: @ellisshuman







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