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writdisord

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

Always Never Around
Moonlight Stories
Sunwashed
Diner Nights
Half An Entrance Ago
Still Summer
Hangouts And Hookups
Easing In
High Expectations
Return To Sender
Perspectives

About the Artist

My goal as painter is to create a moment in a world someone would be compelled to continually revisit.

In the figure collection, that moment captures the end of one thing and the beginning of another. Each piece is often titled after a familiar idiom (“Life of the Party,” “Sticks and Stones,” “Rock, Paper, Scissors”), adding humor and ambiguity to a layered narrative. 

In the New Mexico series, the moment is rooted in a sense of optimism, expressed through a colorful and cubist vision of the region. When I first arrived in Santa Fe, I felt an electric sense of possibility and belonging. These paintings aren’t meant to document history, landscape, or architecture, but to blend natural and unnatural colors in a way that evokes an internal experience — an ongoing invitation into an undefined sense of OK-ness.

The Landscape series is about capturing a specific moment of light that places you at the beginning, middle or end of a familiar story or scene. 

Current representation and shows

Represented by San Francisco Street Gallery, Santa Fe, NM (directly on the Plaza)

2025 – Solo show residency at Counter Culture, NM running through 2025 – 2026

2025 – Selected and preparing new collection for all the rooms at Nosa Inn, NM. (https://www.nosanm.com/)

2024 – Unanimously juried into the Santa Fe Gallery Association (SFGA) artist catalog.

2023 – 2024 – Cash prize placement in 4 internationally juried competitions 

2023 – 6-month residency solo show at Counter Culture 

2023 – Winter and Summer solo shows at Downtown Subscription (Canyon Road)  

VIEW MORE BRAD MORRISON ART HERE

San Francisco Street Gallery

50 E. SAN FRANCISCO ST.
SANTA FE, NM 87501
505.982.0689
Visit Website

Wind Chime Café

by Brittany Sirlin


Lee

The sound was distant, a soft, silvery tinkling that could only be heard inside the house while everyone still slept. When it was this quiet, the melody of the chimes hanging in the trees beyond the pool could make its way into the kitchen.

Lee froze, she closed her eyes to decipher if what she was hearing was in fact the wind chimes her mother had hung years ago or maybe just the echo of memory as she transitioned from dreaming. Her sisters were still slumbering deeply in the three corners of the upstairs hallway while her own bed lay empty in the fourth. At least it was nearing 5am, an acceptable time for the hum of the Keurig. She padded across the beige tiled floor and over to the coffee corner next to the sink where she sifted through different flavored pods.

“Why are you up?” Her dad asked accusatorily at her back, appearing as if from nowhere in the entryway.

She dropped the dark roast pod and placed a hand on her chest.

“Dad!”

“Sorry,” he whispered and walked toward her. It was rare for him to emerge from his bedroom in only boxers and a t-shirt, the primary covering the dark hairs that blanketed his arms and legs. For all of her forty years, she had mostly awakened to her dad already fully clothed in a button-down shirt, slacks, belt, and loafers, leaving a trail of aftershave and spearmint Listerine on her clothes and in her hair before disappearing off to work or to play a round of golf.

He stepped past the kitchen island and wordlessly pulled her into a hug. His embrace was warm, and she pressed her nose into his shoulder. She was happy he hadn’t dressed yet, he still smelled of his closet, of the oversized t-shirts she wore as a nightgown when she was little. He reached above her to retrieve the 12-cup drip pot from the cabinet, eyed her hand still clasping the pod and said, “Might as well with everyone home,” as explanation.

Lee nodded, “Good idea.”

Not that she would ever admit to any idea of his as being a bad one. That fell to—or rather fell haphazardly from—Lauren. Her younger sister always rolled her eyes too quickly and spoke more harshly than intended, something Lee viewed as an overall strength, unless directed at their father.

“What’s first?” Lee asked, collecting her wavy dark blonde hair into a low bun. There was still so much to pack up and divide amongst the four of them, but Lee wasn’t too concerned about the latter. There was only one thing in the house that she wanted.

“Oh, I figure you girls would start in your bedrooms and make your way downstairs. I think Mom and I made a dent in the basement.”

“I’m impressed.”

She had a flash of the basement as it was when they had first moved in. Her parents had allowed her to use the cement floor as a roller rink on her tenth birthday. There was a cool dampness to the open space and the dim lighting and slim windows near the ceiling did little to enhance the slate floor and empty walls. Nothing her mom couldn’t liven up with a disco ball and boom box. Lee’s friends spoke of that party throughout their teens. Even as adults, whenever they came to her parents’ house to visit with their own kids who would tear through the toy filled bins of the now carpeted basement, it wasn’t uncommon for one of them to say, “Remember that time…” And Lee would smile and nod, because yes of course, she remembered when her mom allowed them to skate in the basement, to contact ghosts on the Ouija board in the attic, to do flips off the diving board, have spaghetti fights when dad was working late, or hang wind chimes behind the pool amidst the pear trees and above a single wrought iron table and chair.

A nearly inaudible ting drew Lee’s gaze from her father to the windows that opened up to the backyard and beyond. To their wind chime café.

The floor of Carrie’s bedroom creaked with her waking.

“Guess we’re not the only ones getting an early start,” he said, jerking his head toward the ceiling. Lee’s older sister was conditioned to an ungodly start from her daily morning commute. It took her under an hour from her Westchester suburb to reach the parking garage two blocks from the hospital on the Upper East Side where she worked in the neonatal intensive care unit.

Her dad extracted a third mug from the cabinet, but Lee knew Carrie wouldn’t come downstairs for another hour at least. That first, her sister’s professionally trained voice would power over the running water of her shower, seep through the floors, and reach them in the kitchen—muffled, but pristine still. As if on cue, there was the high-pitched groan of the water tank shifting from cold to hot, followed by a vibrato that matched Fantine’s.

 I dreamed a dream of time gone by...

“She still sounds good.” Dad pressed his lips into a tight, turned down smile of approval. He was generous with the pride he felt for his daughters and Lee was accustomed to the expression on his face, the way his taut mouth made his chin crinkle accentuating a subtle cleft beneath dark stubble.

“The best,” Lee agreed, and meant it.

Singing in the shower had always been a part of Carrie’s morning routine, just as listening to her had been a part of Lee’s—from the ages of ten to sixteen anyhow—back when she would press her ear to the cold tile of their shared bathroom wall and absorb the Broadway tunes. That was before Carrie moved out to attend NYU’s musical theater program where she subsequently switched majors and returned home depleted of energy, and of nutrients, and of song.

Lee had already left for college by then, but she imagined there wasn’t much singing that year. Their youngest two sisters were still living at home at the time since there were only two years between each of the four girls, but they didn’t serve as reliable witnesses to that period of Carrie’s life: Lauren too high to be perceptive, Brooke far too self-conscious to notice anyone else.

Come to think of it, Lee hadn’t had access to Carrie in the intimate way of sharing a bathroom wall since those teenage years. But even fresh out of college, she used to visit Carrie at her first job as a receptionist at a private gym, where she would peer suspiciously at the overzealous trainer who would become her brother-in-law. In their late twenties, she was the one beside Carrie, holding her bloated hand after the birth of her first born. They had always remained close, but the days of being an immediate and convenient touchstone for one another were behind them, frozen within the turquoise speckled tiles of the bathroom.

At least they still had Broadway. Occasionally, the two eldest sisters would meet after Carrie’s shift at the hospital and when Lee could arrange for a babysitter to watch her three kids, assuming her husband wasn’t in Austin, or San Francisco, or potentially Cannes for one tech summit or another. On those nights, they would sit in the darkness of some theater with two double wines in plastic cups, electricity running up and down their arms as they brushed against each other. Then an actress would belt a note neither of them could reach or hold for as long, and they would squeeze each other’s hands as if to say, did you feel that? And yes, they did. They felt it the same way they did when they were little, listening to the soundtrack of The Phantom of the Opera in their father’s car, or the way they did when they were teenagers waiting backstage before Carrie stepped out in leather pedal pushers as Sandy or their mother’s wedding dress as Tzeidle. Mostly though, the moments of music shared between them would always remain here, in this house.

Even now, Lee could still feel the jump in her heart as Carrie’s voice trembled and faded above her head.

Now life has killed the dream I dreamed.

A pale orange glow poured in through the windows as the sun reached the tops of the trees that lined the back of the property.

“Remind me,” Lee said. “When’s the final closing?”

She opened the pantry and retrieved the S shaped cookies while she waited for the pot to fill. The dry biscuits weren’t her favorite; they always dissolved too quickly when she dunked them into coffee and left soggy bits at the bottom of her mug, but her mom loved them. Ate one nearly every morning. Or used to. Did she still? The medication always did play tricks on mom’s appetite and certain foods irritated her tongue. Lee remembered this from the first round of chemo twenty-five years ago and was reminded once more when the cancer returned five years ago, and more recently when it refused to stay in its place. But the cookies were bland enough so mom must still be eating them. Right? The not knowing saddened her as she retrieved one from the plastic sleeve.

Dad inspected the empty sink. “Actually, I wanted to talk to you about that.”

“About the closing?”

He nodded, “But I don’t want your sisters to know just yet.”

A door creaked on its hinges above and Dad rearranged his face. The topic temporarily closed.

“We’ll find some time later.”

Footsteps moved across the carpet in small thumps toward the main, spiral staircase.

“Okay,” Lee said with an unconvincing smile. She placed the cookie on a small blue and white dish next to the nearly full pot and left the kitchen, pulled toward the sound of Carrie. Whatever Dad wanted to discuss felt heavy, too serious to take seriously in the way that only Carrie could make feel lighter. Her older sister was good at that, turning a somber situation on its head, finding humor in something that otherwise would have gone unnoticed by Lee and often resulting in cackles between the two of them in the quietest of circumstances. Yes, Carrie would know how to alleviate this day.

The center of the house was awash in rainbows. This had always been her favorite thing…the way the light hit the chandelier and filled the white walls with color. As a little girl, she would pretend to be her favorite child heroine, and turn a crystal in her palm like Pollyanna, controlling the sunbeams that flowed through it.

But Carrie was looking down at the screen in her hands as she descended along the curve of the staircase, oblivious to the miracle surrounding her.

“Hey,” she croaked, her voice raspy from singing, “take a look at this before I buy it. Can’t tell if I love it or not.”

A splash of red and orange fell diagonally across Carrie’s face, transforming the pale blonde of her hair. Lee waited for her to acknowledge the beauty that engulfed them, but Carrie either didn’t notice or didn’t care to.

Carrie

“I’ll send you the link,” Carrie offered, knowing Lee wouldn’t end up buying anything. It always baffled her how such a fashion obsessed teenager could turn into, well, their mother, and not care to invest in clothing anymore. The opposite was true for herself, she had worked far too hard to become this confident and look this good to not invest in her appearance. She wasn’t about to waste years of barre classes and therapy. Plus, she was savvy as hell when it came to finding the best sales.

Carrie sat on the bottom step and beckoned for Lee to do the same. She angled the phone in her direction to get her opinion on a dress that was just out of her usual price range and a couple hundred beyond Lee’s. It’s not like Lee had to send all three of her kids to private school, but that’s the price you pay for sticking it out in Manhattan. The best decision Carrie and her husband ever made was moving to the suburbs when their eldest was one. Sure, they still experienced financial stress. Would they ever not? But soon she and her sisters would all get their share from the sale of the house.

Carrie gazed longingly at the dress on her phone.

A gift from her parents, she rationalized. The rest, of course, would go to the kids’ sleepaway camp, Hebrew School, after school activities…she knew that her husband would have his own ideas about how to invest it, but surely one or two new things for herself wouldn’t make much of a difference.

“So?” Carrie knocked her knee against Lee’s.

“Pretty.”

A vague annoyance rushed through at her younger sister’s disinterest but was quickly dispelled when Lee leaned her head against her shoulder. Their varying shades of blonde intertwined; Lee’s honey with her ash.

“Dad wants to talk to me about the house,” Lee whispered.

Carrie sat upright, shifting her shoulder from beneath Lee’s cheek.

“About what?”

“I don’t know,” Lee waited a beat, almost expectantly, “but he doesn’t want you guys to know which is very weird, don’t you think?”

It didn’t surprise her that Lee wasn’t keeping this secret to herself. That was never one of her strengths and used to land her either in trouble or in some venomous argument with one of her friends. Carrie was happy she told her, but was also offended and couldn’t find a sarcastic way around it or a movie line to imitate for their amusement.

“Very weird,” was all she could say.

Too weird. Carrie racked her brain for an answer that would suffice. Was something wrong? And if there was, why tell Lee and not her, or Lauren, or Brooke? It didn’t make any sense. She was supposed to be the one her parents talked to about these things, important things. She had always been the first to know when something was up with mom. Mom.

“Oh shit, I left my flat iron on.” She jumped from the bottom step and jogged up the stairs, leaving Lee still sitting at the bottom. Whatever it was that their dad wanted to talk about, she didn’t want it to interfere with the one thing she mentally claimed as hers. Yes, she wanted some money from the sale, and yes, she wanted the Waterford wine glasses, and one or two pieces of Judaica, but there was only one item she felt a sentimental attachment to—which was saying a lot because there was very little that made her sentimental these days. Nostalgia, she concluded, was a menace and a waste of energy.

Carrie entered her room, went so far as to go into the ensuite to turn off the imaginary flat iron. She took a quick inventory of what remained, which wasn’t much. Her bedroom had been incrementally cleared out once she had bought a house. At least her job of packing up was minimal compared to Lee and Brooke who used their childhood bedrooms as storage; Lee because of the space limitations of an apartment, and Brooke because she had moved to Atlanta and kept most of the overflow of hand-me-downs in her bedroom closet.

The wind whistled outside the windows behind her bed and the backyard erupted in a muted melody. Carrie walked to the window and exhaled against the glass. Beautiful. Mom had made it just so beautiful. The garden flaunted its colors. An overabundance of mint leaves, the spattering of cherry tomatoes, and raspberries hidden amongst the greenery. Even at the supermarket, the scent of a ripe tomato on the vine could instantly place her in her mother’s garden, but not this one…the first one, in their old house, in the garden that she, and maybe Lee, could still recall. She doubted Lauren or Brooke remembered pulling carrots from the earth, examining zucchini with tiny, dirt encrusted nails. Carrie loved that house. She turned away from the window, scanned the bedroom she inhabited from the age of thirteen to eighteen. Memories of afternoons spent in the garden were replaced with those of having locked herself inside to study for hours, to change her clothes multiple times before leaving for school, to agonize over her appearance in the full-length mirror, to rehearse over and over for her NYU audition with her stomach in knots from whatever she had eaten to make her parents happy.

“Good riddance,” she whispered as she walked toward the door, closing it gently behind her.

Brooke

“You’re fucking kidding me,” Brooke said to no one, her eyes still closed. The repetitive smack of drawers being shut pulled her from her much needed and, if she might say so herself, much deserved sleep.

“Whoever’s doing that, can you please stop?” she yelled from beneath the lavender comforter.

When the noise persisted, she threw her legs over the side of the bed and reluctantly stood to inspect the commotion. The noise, she knew, was coming from the center room that sat between her bedroom and Carrie’s. She and her sisters had once shared it as a space to watch shows they didn’t want their parents as spectators to. Years later, it was then used as a nursery for whichever of their babies was the youngest and needed a crib, and now mostly as storage for whatever dad had already boxed upstairs.

Brooke opened the double white wooden doors to reveal Carrie inspecting cabinets that had already been emptied.

“What are you doing?” Her annoyance was apparent, but she wanted it to be.

“Sorry, did I wake you?” Carrie asked without turning.

“It’s fine.” She meant it. The hardened tone of before melted away at her sister’s voice. Better to get an early start anyhow and lessen mom and dad’s stress. “What are you looking for?”

“Nothing,” Carrie said too quickly. “Well, not nothing. Maybe stuff I might want to keep, ya know?”

That didn’t surprise her, but Brooke assumed Carrie had already flagged what would go to her. A rush of adrenaline shot through her chest at the realization that the four of them hadn’t really discussed this yet. Her eyes darted to the wall above the grey couch where the picture she had wanted had been on display for the last thirty years. In its place was the faded outline of where it once hung.

Brooke didn’t react, careful not to show her hand too quickly.

“Find anything?” She asked instead.

“Nothing.” Carrie stood, dusted both hands on her thighs and shrugged. “I guess mom and dad are really doing this.”

“Looks like it.”

Brooke pressed her lips together and suppressed the urge to cry. Tears would make Carrie retreat. Instead, she bit the insides of her cheeks and tried to keep her thoughts from spilling out of her mouth. What good would it do? Any time she tried to express an opinion or an emotion, it clashed with her eldest sister’s and ended in an argument. Still, it wasn’t in Brooke’s nature to suppress. Her entire career all boiled down to the importance of healthy communication…even if that meant with oneself. She had lost count of the number of patients she coached through positive self-talk and empathetic conversations with their partners after the loss of a baby or during the grueling months post-partum. But her profession was why she held her tongue in this moment (Carrie would prickle at the insinuation that she was being therapized), it was also the reason Brooke had set her sights on the framed sketch that had apparently been packed away already, or worse, claimed by one of her sisters.

“Okay,” Brooke sighed as closure. A door opened, closed softly down the hall. Lauren. Surely Lauren would know if mom and dad had a plan in mind for who got what. Lauren saw their parents several times a week, nearly every day for the past nine years since she and her husband moved into a house one town away. Brooke turned to exit, an anxious swirl of want and regret seeping into every finger, every toe, through her right ear and then her left. This is how emotion worked for her; it flooded her very being.

The missing sketch flashed behind her closed eyes: the woman’s profile, the fine pencil lines of the tendril hanging from her chignon, the fullness of the baby’s cheek beneath the woman’s breast. Brooke could envision the faded gold frame maybe hanging in her home office, a reminder of why she does what she does. Though, it would make sense for Carrie to want it for that very personal, professional reason as well. Maybe she too had mentally positioned it by her computer at the hospital. Brooke could understand that, wanting to look at something familiar from their home, and at the same time a calming vision after hours spent mixing formula for babies in the NICU.

Brooke glanced once more at Carrie as she checked her phone. There were six years between them. Not so many that childhood memories didn’t overlap, but not so few that they shared the same kinship as Lee and Lauren did, or maybe her middle sisters’ relationship was forged by simply being in the middle as opposed to the twenty-one months they had between them. But they were all adults now, and not only that, she and Carrie both operated daily in the business of trauma. The only difference was, while Brooke embodied it, Carrie sidestepped. But surely, surely the sale of the house was hurting her. It wouldn’t be healthy for Carrie to keep it to herself and here they were, just the two of them, in the early hours of the morning.

“Oh, wait,” Carrie called as Brooke opened the door.

Her inner dialogue shifted to her sister. Tell me. Ask me.

“What’s the plan for breakfast?”

Brooke swallowed. “Uh.”

She listened to Lauren cross the hall to Lee’s bedroom, “Bagels,” and allowed herself one final glance at the blank space on the wall, “I think.”

Lauren

It happened without thinking, her waking and walking to Lee’s room just as she always had. Maybe muscle memory? Could that be a thing or is that not how that works? Lauren couldn’t be bothered to look it up. All she knew was that it had been 20 years since they had lived together, 17 if they counted the time they were roommates in Australia, and Lee’s bedroom was still her first port of call. She wouldn’t be surprised if they were wearing the same gray, drawstring, college sweats and faded Dave Matthew’s Band t-shirt. Their slim pickings from what remained in their closets mirrored each other’s, but they had always unknowingly dressed alike. It used to be a point of contention. Waking up only to realize that one of them had to change their outfit before school after a round of rock, paper, scissors. But it quickly became humorous with matching maternity clothes and then even intentional with Lauren more recently becoming Lee’s personal shopper.

Lauren didn’t have to call out. She could tell Lee wasn’t in her room. She would have either still been in bed, buried beneath a pale green quilt, or already at work in front of the bathroom mirror tweezing her eyebrows and readying her face for the day. Out of the four upstairs bedrooms, Lee’s had remained the most lived in and full. There were diaries and photos, love notes and mementos that only Lauren had access to. Well, access to upon her sister’s death as she had once been instructed. Otherwise, she cared little for snooping. Lee had always done enough of that for the both of them anyhow. Now though, the room felt scarce. Photo frames of Lee and her husband in front of the Sydney Harbor Bridge had been folded and removed from atop the white oak dresser, thick scrapbooks no longer sat heavy with high school and college memories in the oversized ottoman.

This all seemed wrong. Lauren sat at the edge of the bed, pushed her bare feet into the beige carpet and pressed her elbows into the tops of her thighs. Her thick chestnut hair fell forward from her shoulders. She stared straight ahead at the 16×24 Bat Mitzvah portrait that hung on the wall. What on earth would Lee do with that and besides, where was her sister now? Right now?

Lauren felt alone and that was her most hated sensation. It was why when even at her wits end when her two boys would scream for her in the middle of the night, claw at her body, insist on her presence, she relented and stayed nearby. Lauren recalled the feeling all too well. The memory of being her sons’ ages of 5 and 7 were faded, but the emotion coursed through her veins as if no time had passed since she and her sisters lived in the first house, where she shared a bunk bed with Brooke, and her parents were just down the hall as opposed to all the way downstairs. In that first house, Lauren, like her own boys, demanded her mother’s comfort at night. Not her physical touch, no, that was a different thing. A squirmy, suffocating thing that she never much cared for. All Lauren needed to know was that mom was nearby. Still there? she would call out to the hallway. Still here, her mom would respond from somewhere in the darkness.

And if their mom couldn’t hold up her end of the bargain, Lauren could always climb into bed with Lee. So what if meant nightmares from one of Lee’s stories? At least she wouldn’t be alone. It was why Lauren always knew she would have more than one baby, it was why she sometimes longed for one more still. It was also why she wanted to collect the picture from the middle room as soon as possible. Not that there was any rush, she just wanted it in her possession. That image of mother and child that her own mom had sketched with her skillful hands meant more to her than anyone could even guess. She would never admit that though, not to mom at least who had grown increasingly cynical into her seventies. Painting, shmainting, her mom would say. Was it a painting? No, a sketch. Whatever it was, to Lauren, it was proof of a life fulfilled; it was a reminder that it was okay—more than okay—to just be a mom. Meanwhile, their mom wasn’t just any one thing, though she was always quick to put herself down in such a way. Mom was—is the thing. She’s the garden and the crystals, the wind chimes and the stories, the food and the artwork, the pressed flower petals and origami dollar bills. Mom never had to be, she just had to be there.

And now, what? They were up and moving? It made sense. Of course it did. Her parents shouldn’t remain in a house too big for the two of them, up a driveway too steep for their aging muscles. And it wasn’t like they would be far. If anything, they were moving even closer to where she and her family lived now. Proximity was important. Not that Lee would understand that. Lauren seethed at the thought of her brother in law’s talk of one day moving closer to his family in Australia. Didn’t he get it? They needed each other. They all did, and they were losing the one place that encapsulated that necessity.

Where the hell was everyone? She twirled the ends of her hair and then stood abruptly from the bed. It was too damn quiet in this room!

“Mom!” Lauren called out the open door.

And from down the spiral staircase, a faint but familiar, “I’m here.”

Hannah

“Here!” Hannah tried again knowing her daughters had probably moved on from whatever it was they wanted. But still, she waited, hoped someone would come to her door. They were letting her rest, she knew. They were always letting her rest. Far too careful ever since her diagnosis, or re-diagnosis rather. She listened another beat, just in case one of her girls needed her for one thing or another, but all she heard was the soft music of the wind hitting the chimes in the backyard. She moved from her door to the full-length windows next to her bed and threw open the heavy ivory curtains. There was a flurry of common grackles and catbirds around the feeder that she observed with satisfaction. Would the new owners keep it up? What would happen to her birds? To the cardinals and the bluejays, or even to the stray cats and racoons that she sometimes left little treats for? She chuckled, amused at the thought of the fright the new owners might get from spotting a pair of small, shining eyes in the night. Hannah doubted they were animal people. Too few were these days.

“Morning.”

Hannah turned expecting to see Lauren. It was Laur who called to her before, wasn’t it? It could be hard to tell.

“My Brooke girl,” Hannah cooed. Her baby. Her surprise. Her pain in the ass, beautiful, little gift. She smiled and attempted to tame the cowlick of her pixie cut.

“Did you sleep okay?” Brooke asked and immediately Hannah felt her chest puff. This dynamic of her youngest always inquiring, checking on her mental and physical health…it was not to her liking.

“Fine.” Her tone brisk, but hopefully not hurtful. She knew how sensitive Brooke was to tone. She knew because she, too had always been far too sensitive and prone to fits of tears or rage. Though Hannah prayed every Friday night in front of the Shabbos candles that none of her girls would come to this realization in the same that she had, what they didn’t understand was that not everything had to be so goddamn emotional. Once you lose your hair, your breasts, your privacy… hell, even your appetite on most days…things just don’t hold the weight they once did. Hannah wanted to be sensitive to her daughters’ feelings about selling the house, but it was just a house. She feared her youngest especially wouldn’t see it that way. They always did put too much stock in things, her girls. For that, she blames their friends. And her husband, just a little. Hannah still thought the girls would have been better off in a Jewish private school than where they had attended with its hallways filled with designer backpacks and parking lot glistening with expensive cars.

“Mom?” Brooke stepped further into the bedroom and sat on an upholstered armchair beside the bed. “You know the picture from the middle room? The one you made of the mother breastfeeding her baby?”

“I do.”

“Do you know where it is?”

Had she packed it away? She couldn’t recall. Maybe she had.

“It’s packed.”

“Oh, ok well—”

“Or I don’t know actually. Ask dad.”

“You don’t know?” Brooke inquired with a tilt of her head.

Hannah sighed audibly. She detected the judgment in her daughter’s tone. How many times had she had to turn to Brooke with a stern, now listen to me, little girl?

“No. I don’t. It’s a big house filled with a lot of crap that you and your sisters have taken your sweet time on clearing out so I’m sorry if I can’t locate a single frame for you.”

Why did she do this? It reminded her of the days leading up to when the girls would leave for sleepaway camp or for college. She would push them away even before they left. Not this time. She lurched forward in an attempt to repair.

“Sorry, baby.”

Brooke looked like she had been slapped. Hannah pressed the back of her hand to Brooke’s cheek, soothed the verbal assault. What was so important about that sketch anyways? It wasn’t even one of her better ones. The lines too haphazard, the shading never quite right. She hadn’t planned to put it on display in the new house and maybe she even had packed it away without realizing. She couldn’t be sure, especially after days of carefully wrapping and boxing all of the Swarovski crystal ornaments: ducks, turtles, cats…all of her tiny, magnificent creatures.

“It’s okay,” Brooke forgave her because of course she did, because she was now the most intuitive out of the whole lot of them.

“Hannah!” Her husband barked from down the hall. “Bagels!”

Michael

“Come on,” Michael muffled under his breath at the sight of the bare table. You would think after thirty years of living in this house, after some 1,500 Sunday morning bagels, his wife and daughters would know the routine. They all had their roles; his to get the food, theirs to set the table.

He placed the brown paper bag on the green granite island at the center of the kitchen and inhaled the warm steam that escaped the bag, garlic and sesame, toasted caraway and other aromatics. The stillness of the early morning was replaced with footsteps, a running faucet, the clatter of someone packing upstairs.

“Girls! Guys? Come on down,” he called out. The bagels were fresh, still warm. To toast them would be a crime, but to let them go cold, even more so. He felt anxious with each passing second and moved swiftly to pour orange juice from the carton into a pitcher, to remove the lids from cream cheese, and delicately fork the thin oily strips of lox onto a platter. He set aside plates and cutlery specifically for this final Sunday morning breakfast and was prepared to hand wash and pack it all away once the six of them had finished. Hannah would find it insufferable, he knew, and was sure to make some comment about paper plates, but this was better. This was right. This was how his mom would have done it. His mind wandered to both his parents much more frequently these days, not that they weren’t always present in some hidden corner, but ever since retirement? Well, the memory of his parents, their health, their daily routine, it both soothed and terrified him. They aged well, his mom especially, but with each transition: the sale of his childhood home, his father’s retirement, they slowly slipped from the role of caretaker to dependent. Michael wasn’t ready for that. Would never be ready for that. But what worried him most was that his daughters wouldn’t be either.

He set down the same blue and white plates they had always used for breakfast, along with the matching mugs. The coffee pot was now full and filled the kitchen with its vibrant promise of a productive day. Lauren and Lee appeared from wherever they had been conspiring. He could see by Lee’s eager grin that she had already confided in Lauren what he mentioned to her early that morning. It didn’t bother him much, he assumed whatever was shared with Lee was passed along to Lauren, and vice versa.

“Where’s mom’s sketch from the middle room?” Lauren blurted.

“Her…oh you mean the one she did in college?” He stalled.

“I always thought it was a self-portrait with one of us,” Lee said.

“No,” Carrie answered confidently from the stairwell, assuming her role as the one who knows mom best. She walked past them and grabbed a mug from the table.

“Well then when did she make it?” Lauren asked.

“I don’t know, but it’s not a self-portrait.” Carrie lifted the coffee pot and began to pour.

“Mom!” Lauren yelled.

Hannah covered her ears as she approached the center island with Brooke. “I’m right here, what do you want?”

“The sketch of mother and child, is it a self-portrait?”

“Why all the sudden interest? How about, mom when did you do that realist, charcoal of Cousin Bruce? Or any of the still life flower pieces? None of it is very good, but I think we should hang on to the cow skull, don’t you, Rich?”

“Already bubble wrapped and ready to go.”

“Can I have the one from upstairs then?” Lauren asked.

“It’s not there,” Brooke answered firmly.

Michael felt something pass between the four girls. An eyeing of one another. It felt unusual. As sisters, they had never been competitive, never argued over who was better at what—they each had plenty of their own interests—or even over boyfriends—they each had plenty of those, too. Now, however, there was something of a silent standstill in the kitchen.

“Actually,” Carrie started, and he noticed the other three straighten, “I wanted it for my office. Is that okay? It’s not a big deal, but it just makes sense.”

“Makes sense how?” Lauren wasn’t ready to give in the way Carrie assumed she would. “Aren’t you literally in the business of formula and bottle feeding?”

“There’s actually a lot of breast milk involved and besides, I’m in the business of motherhood.”

“So am I,” Brooke was red, holding back plenty of what she wanted to say.

“That’s so unfair,” Lee placed a hand at Lauren’s back, something only Michael could see from where he stood, “we all are,” she added gently. “Besides, mom said I could have it when they moved, right mom?”

Michael peered at his wife, then at Lee. It was too hard to tell if this was the truth, Lee had a penchant for fibbing and was prone to twist information to her benefit. Guilt pressed heavily on his chest and his stomach turned at the scent of red onions. This was not how this was supposed to go. If they were already fighting over a picture, what would happen when he spoke to Lee about the house?

“Let’s settle this after breakfast. Plenty of time to figure out who gets what. It’s not going anywhere.”

We’re not going anywhere. Plenty of time. But isn’t that why he felt an ounce of relief when the sale didn’t go through? Isn’t that why he wanted Lee to consider moving her family from the city? So that they could keep the house, so that they could all have more time. That’s not the solution, he realized that now. It was just a thought, and not a bad one at that. He often wondered when his second born would wake up and desire comfort and stability as opposed to living in limbo, always wondering if she would continue to spend a fortune in Manhattan or move across the world and visit once a year. No. That wouldn’t do. He had her answer right here, but—he glanced at Lee across the table as they all sat with the bagel of their choice in front of them—she would want the house just as much as she would not.

A cruel luxury indeed.

Better to not even give it as an option. There would be more buyers. There would be more time.

“Does anyone want anything from the garage fridge?”

The second fridge which he once stocked religiously with diet coke and cream soda for his daughters, Gatorade and juice boxes for his ten grandkids, Corona and Peroni for his sons in law, was now scant with a single carton of creamer and a pack of ginger ale for himself.

“Dad, we have everything we need,” Brooke said, her green eyes illuminating under the hanging light fixture. She placed a hand on his arm. “Sit.”

“How about some of that creamer you like, Brookey? I’ll be right back.” His departure brought with it five sets of imploring eyes, but he didn’t dare turn. They had a long day ahead and he needed to keep his composure. His strength allowed them to be vulnerable. A tight embrace and reassuring farewell before any one of his girls left home always resulted in pent up tears released into the fabric of one of his shirts. If he came undone now, what would that mean for them?

He flicked the switch of the garage light and the muted yellow revealed cardboard boxes lined up next to his and Hannah’s cars. He knew exactly which of the fifty or so brown packages he wanted and tore at the duct tape upon retrieving it from the pile. The woman in the frame didn’t look back at him, she never did, her eyes were fixed downward at the infant she was nursing, whose gaze was lifted to its mother’s. Michael gently brushed his thumb along the length of the woman’s slender neck, over the curve of her breast, to the full cheek of the baby. Where did it all go? His young wife with her long auburn hair, his little girls all innocent and wide-eyed shades of blue, and brown, and green? They all sat waiting for him in the kitchen, but my god when did they get here, to this point? When did he get here? He could still play 18-holes on a scorching summer morning, could still run a 10-minute mile, could still lift the heavy boxes and even heavier grandkids. So why did it feel like he was relinquishing some degree of agency by leaving this house?

The trees swayed with vigor, shaking leaves from their branches as they succumbed to the weight of the wind and flew past the narrow windows of the garage. He closed the box and shut his eyes, listened to the rattle of the heavy door on its hinges, the muffled laughter from the kitchen, the music from the backyard. This was not the finale; it was the overture to a new chapter. He filled his lungs and stood at the thought. The overture, yes. He would tell his daughters just that when he went inside. Still, he understood they were grieving. More so, he knew why they all wanted the very same item. It was the same reason he was going to pluck a wind chime off the pear trees even though he had never sat down in what his wife and girls referred to as the wind chime café. It was why toddlers, and the elderly, and the plants in the garden all bent toward his wife trying to capture some warmth, some light. They all wanted a piece of her. So did he, and Carrie, and Lee, and Lauren, and Brooke.

It wasn’t the house, or the sketch they were afraid of not having in their possession. He would confess to keeping the picture they all staked their claim to, of course he would. But maybe not just yet.

There would be time to figure out what goes to whom, time for all of that, but not now, not yet.



BIO

Brittany Sirlin is an educator, writer, and mother of three living in New York, New York. She has a Bachelor of Science in secondary education for English Language Arts from Penn State University and a Masters in Literacy from Hofstra University. Brittany is an English Language Arts teacher and freelance writer who is currently working on a women’s fiction novel and other shorter works of fiction. Her first published work, Playing Dead was released in March 2023 in an anthology titled Our Magical Pandemic. Brittany has also been published in Kveller and in Mutha Magazine








The Day Begins When…

by Daniel Damiano



the bed is made,
            the shades are pulled up full mast,
                        the wind chimes are awakened
                                    by semi-conscious knuckles,
            the coffee is brewed,
the cat is fed,
            the birds on the fire escape have their seeds
and their iced-over water bowls
are doused with warmth,
            the showerhead spews
                        and the bathroom steams
and the coffee is sipped
            while the cat eats,
                        while the birds eat,
and the chimes have gone back
                                                to sleep.




Mother & Daughter on the R Train at 9:45pm on a Wednesday


They sit
side by side
blankly gazing
at the passing
stations
with the same
auburn eyes,
the same
pointed nose,
the same
chiseled cheekbones
and dimpled chin,
before the daughter
leans her
similarly oblong
head
against her mother’s
chest,
hears the same heartbeat,
then sits up
as their destination
approaches,
before they look at each other,
as if
by ritual;
the mother
seeing herself,
the daughter
seeing her mother.



Their Marriage Was a Pending Divorce


He would arrive
on occasion;
a cameo appearance
reminding us
that he still lived there;
even then I could tell
she was ignored,
as if we resided there in secret
to his other life.
There were no conversations
between them
that I can recall,
only exclamations,
and sometimes I looked
through the words
they spit at each other
and saw another child;
         a silhouette of myself,
with flailing limbs,
screaming for silence.



Signs of Aging


When
you begin to wonder
how old you were
when certain childhood
movies
came out,
or the embryonic
stage you were
at
during the Apollo 11
mission,
and if you were even a gleam
in anyone’s eye
when Armstrong
sauntered
onto the lunar surface
and stole Aldren’s
thunder.



BIO

Daniel Damiano is an Award-winning Playwright, Pushcart-nominated Poet, acclaimed Novelist and Actor based in Brooklyn, NY. He is the recent recipient of the 2024 David A. Einhorn Playwriting Prize, presented by Untitled Theater Company No. 61 in NYC. He has thus far published two books of poetry, 104 Days of the Pandemic (2021, fandango 4 Art House) and, most recently, The Concrete Jungle and the Surrounding Areas (2024, Bottlecap Press), along with three novels, The Woman in the Sun Hat (2021), Graphic Nature (2022) and, most recently, Advice from a Cat (2024), all from fandango 4 Art House. His acclaimed play Day of the Dog is published by Broadway Play Publishing. His poems have thus far been published in the MacGuffin, Four Tulips, Gyroscope Review, Philly Poetry Chapbook Review, Curlew Quarterly, Quagmire Magazine, Crooked Teeth Literary Magazine, Newtown Literary Journal, Cloudbank, New Voices Anthology and HotMetal Press.







Spoiler: I’m Asexual

by Sarah R. McNamara



I sat in a cushioned chair facing her at eighteen years old, my feet pressed together, my hands folded in my lap. She stared at me through large, round glasses, her head tilted to the side.

“You’re a lesbian,” she said.

“No, I’m not.”

“Yes, you are.”

“No. I’m not. What reason would I have to lie about that? If I were sexually attracted to women, I’d tell you.”

She stared at me skeptically. I stared back, confused about how she had reached this conclusion.

“Well, time is up, I’m afraid. See you next week.”

I stood up, left her office thinking that was some ass-backward conversion therapy, and never spoke to her again.

I finally understood that I was asexual somewhere in my thirties. I’m forty-one now. It was not an “Ah-ha, it all makes sense now!” revelation. Most people don’t understand asexuality, including me and that dodgy therapist.

Asexuality is a fascinating, albeit ambiguous, spectrum with a wide range of sub-identities that can intersect. It encompasses many nonsexual (and some sexual) expressions. The bottom line is that asexual individuals do not experience, or experience only limited, sexual attraction. Unfathomable, right? There is so much to be sexually attracted to! Our society runs on sex; it’s like milk; it’s in just about everything.

A common misconception about asexuals is that we have “just decided to be celibate.” However, asexuals do not always abstain from sex. Asexual people can have sex, and some do. Some have healthy sexual relationships; others masturbate. It all depends on where one is on the spectrum. Engaging in sexual activity does not make a person who identifies as asexual any less so. So, poppets, don’t listen to folks who say it does.

Asexuals may identify as graysexual or demisexual; some may identify as fraysexual. Others identify as apothisexual. There are additional identities (see below), which undoubtedly increase people’s confusion. This confusion is further compounded by the fact that some heterosexuals, homosexuals, pansexuals, etc., may identify with some of these identities. And I honestly don’t know what to tell you about that.

The following list outlines the current asexual spectrum identities (in alphabetical order):

Aceflux: experiences fluctuating levels of sexual and/or romantic attraction

Acespike: experiences no or little sexual attraction but occasionally experiences intense, rapid spikes of sexual attraction, followed by a return to a state of minimal or no attraction

Asexual: experiences no sexual feelings or desires

Demisexual: experiences sexual feelings and attraction only after developing a close emotional relationship and not on the basis of first impressions, physical characteristics, etc.

Fictosexual: experiences sexual attraction toward fictional characters, as opposed to real people

Fraysexual: experiences sexual attraction toward people whom they do not know very well

Graysexual: experiences limited sexual attraction with low intensity

Lithosexual: experiences sexual attraction but has no interest in their feelings being reciprocated

Reciprosexual: experiences sexual attraction toward people who show sexual attraction toward them first

And the sub-identities are:

Aegosexual: someone who lacks sexual attraction toward oneself but experiences attraction toward others in imagined or fantasized scenarios

Apothisexual: someone who is both asexual and repulsed by sex

Bellussexual: experiences sexual attraction or interest in the aesthetic or aspects of sexual relationships, but does not desire a sexual relationship

Caedosexual: someone who feels they were once allosexual (experiencing sexual attraction) but is no longer due to past trauma

Cupiosexual: individuals who do not experience sexual attraction but still desire or enjoy sexual relationships

Myrsexual: experiences multiple asexual spectrum identities at once, either consistently or fluctuating

Requiessexual: experiences limited or no sexual attraction, interest, or activity due to emotional exhaustion

I remember sitting on my bed at eleven years old, thinking that I should be a nun. I cannot recall whether this was before or after my sixth-grade boyfriend asked to kiss me. I said, “No, thank you.”

“Not even on the cheek!?”

“No.”

Thankfully, his parents chaperoned all of our dates to the movies.

When I was thirteen, my mother moved my brothers and me a few towns away from my increasingly violent father and enrolled us in a Catholic grammar school. Sister Rose was the first nun I had seen up close. She was shorter than I am (I’m five-four), with short white hair, long wool skirts, chunky cotton cardigans, and orthopedic shoes. Sister Rose told me, “You’d make a good nun.” I’m sure she said this to all the eighth-grade girls, but I was shy and obedient; I would make a great nun. And a habit would make me sex-proof. That suit is a veritable sex repellent.

Not long after we moved away, my boyfriend started kissing one of my closest friends. She probably expected me to scream or cry when she showed me their instant messages on AOL, but instead, I felt relieved. I was only heartbroken that I would never see his parents again.

After my childhood relationship fell apart, I devoted most of my time and energy to church and religious retreats, but I did not become a nun. I may have been better off, given what happened when I turned nineteen.

I was an emotionally troubled teen in search of someone to be an emotionally available surrogate parent. After a childhood marked by abuse and neglect, I clung tightly to anyone who was old enough to have conceived me and who would acknowledge my existence. I trusted two people to whom I wasn’t at all sexually attracted. I engaged in a lot of sexual activity because it became clear they would not provide the physical affection I craved without it. I know what Freud would say, so spare me. I wasn’t emotionally mature enough to handle losing their attention.

Looking back, the events that happened during my late teens and early twenties were more shameful and traumatic than my experiences as a child at the hands of my father.

I don’t experience sexual attraction, except maybe in extreme cases with someone to whom I feel an overwhelming emotional connection—like déjà vu; we have definitely met in a previous life. Even then, I don’t actually want to have sex with them because, for me, sex feels awkward and pointless unless you want to have children, which I do not.

Nevertheless, I tend to be overly eager in my attempts to connect with (and find a safe space in) people, which is often interpreted as: “I want to have all the sex with you.” As a result, I’ve learned to distance myself from others. I’ve come full circle and now live much like a nun would, minus the religion and community service.

I crave platonic intimacy, which is tricky to find. However, I have experienced it and know it is possible. For example, when the reason I commute to work every day says, “See you in a few hours” on my way in or, “You made it” on my way home, or when my colleague stops what he’s doing when I start swearing at my emails to say, “Breathe,” and then proceeds to breathe with me. Or when I was a kid, my father shoved my frozen feet between his thighs to warm them up.

I remember one night when my dearest friend Erica’s boyfriend rubbed my arm to comfort me while the three of us lay together on their living room couch, discussing my 18-year-long, I don’t know what it was, with a man twice my age. Erica apologized the next day, explaining that her boyfriend was very affectionate. I told her, “I appreciate non-romantic touch.”

Honestly, I wish that rubbing someone’s arm or even holding hands were perceived as platonic and that touch, in general, wasn’t sexualized because I need touch (from non-creepies, of course).

Four years ago, I met someone who changed my attachment style (which used to be, and sometimes still is, of the four styles: disorganized) and my relationship with myself. I am confused about whether I am sexually or even romantically attracted to him. Still, I definitely felt déjà vu the first time I met him, and my tarot reader said our marriage was highly celebrated in a past life.

I remember the exact moment I met him. I was fuming because an older, miserably married man wouldn’t leave me alone on the train. I was friendly with this man until he mentioned leaving his wife. Where did that come from? This creep epitomized a midlife crisis (I was a part of his second or third crisis, actually).

He wrote me a love song with the help of his cover band. Barf. And I’ll never forget when he said, “You care what I think about you.” Ha! To quote Cher Horowitz, “As if!” I barreled through the train that day, determined to get as far away from him as possible.

I looked ahead through the doors that separated the cars and saw a man glide into some seats and out of my way, but I didn’t smile. My skin was crawling, and my anger was rising. I was determined to maintain my indignation. I said, “Thank you,” as I walked past him, but I didn’t look in his direction. He replied, “Hi! How are you?” like he knew me.

I stopped dead in my tracks.

I was startled, but I calmed down immediately and forgot all about the slimeball creep. I probably said, “Good. How are you?” I definitely thought, “Have I met him before? How does he know me? Don’t hug him (I had an incredible urge to hug him).” I can’t explain how he does it, but he makes me feel seen. I genuinely love who he chooses to be every day.

He has taught me that boundaries are not rejection and that I don’t have to do anything I don’t want to or pretend to like something I don’t like to be loved. Where was he when I was nineteen? He was probably just out of college, which made him too young for me at the time.

There is no doubt that my childhood influenced my decisions about intimate relationships, but asexuality is as natural to me as others’ sexual preferences are to them, and I’m glad I’ve figured it out because not understanding why I didn’t have the same feelings as everyone else was uncomfortable.

I know that asexuality can be confusing; we don’t fit into the sex-obsessed world we live in, and I’ve found pretty scant resources online. I recommend @acedadadvice on Instagram, and since J.K. Rowling decided to wish all asexuals a “Happy Fake Oppression Day” on Twitter, I found some excellent articles by Canton Winer, PhD on Substack.

If I made a greater effort to find a community of like-minded individuals, my platonic needs could be better met. However, I’m in my forties, and like most geriatric millennials, I don’t like to get off my couch. Nothing compares to curling up under an oversized blanket in an oversized t-shirt and no pants, watching reruns of terrible television, and eating your favorite snacks, regardless of your sexual preferences.



BIO



Sarah McNamara‘s work has been published in Ink In Thirds Magazine, The Writing Disorder, Free Flash Fiction, 101 Words, and featured on Ink In Thirds online.

You can find her at sarahrosemcnamara.blogspot.com







She’ll Talk When She Has something to Say

by Dennis Vannatta

1

            The Barlows were a strange family, oddly mismatched, strangers to each other, strangers, some of them, to themselves.

            Well, maybe Fran Barlow, the matriarch of the family, wasn’t so strange.  She was just tired, physically and every other way a woman of forty who looked ten years older could be tired.  She was assistant manager of a Rustlers Burgers franchise, working the swing shift, which was the best part of her day.  There, amidst the irate customers and sulky employees, the wonky soda machine and the women’s toilet daily clogged with flush-proof Tampons, she could put her mind in neutral, or if not neutral some gear that allowed purposeful activity without reference to what awaited her at home:  that is, Barlows.

            She loved them, of course.  A matriarch has to love her family, even if she did once in a low moment say to a coworker, “There’s nothing wrong with my family that a well-placed funeral or two wouldn’t cure.”  Joking, of course, and no sooner said than regretted, because what calamity might she have brought down on her loved ones?  Twofunerals?  Neither of her children could be included, so that would mean one would have to be her husband, Perry, an all-too-real prospect for a funeral (prostate cancer.  surgery?  chemo?  radiation?  decision yet to be made).  Please God, no funeral for Perry, exasperating as he could be.  Her sister, though . . .

            Sally Pine wasn’t a Barlow, of course.  To this day, Fran resisted thinking of her as part of the family even though their son, Douglas, twelve years old, could hardly remember the family before his aunt came to live with them; and for Halo, almost five, Sally had always been living in the room Perry fashioned for her out of what had once been the attic, where she’d sometimes go days at a time without emerging, “like someone out of a Brontë novel,” Douglas said.  Precocious Douglas was the reader in the family.  Perry didn’t see much point to reading unless it was some sort of instruction manual, and there weren’t enough hours in Fran’s day for it.  As for Halo, she was too young, at least they supposed, but how was one to know?  Halo certainly never said.  Fran had once or twice caught Sally reading some New Age crap.  Goddamn refugee-from-the-Sixties airhead.

            Actually, Sally was too young by several decades to be a refugee from the Sixties although she desperately wanted to be.  She’d spent much of her adult life searching for an appropriately Sixtyish commune and found several that seemed to do the trick, living for a few months to a few years in this one or that one until the patriarchal inevitability at the heart of each began to weigh on her.  Then she’d be off searching once more.

            No, Sally wasn’t gay.  “Sure, I gave lesbianism a try, but I’m just not wired that way.  And, no, I don’t hate men.  Men in their uncorrupted state are just fine.  But I’m not going to be chained to anybody.”

            “Hey, those chains get a bad rap,” Perry said, putting his arm around Fran and giving her a hug before she elbowed him away.  “Maybe you should give marriage a try.”

            “I did.  I married that commune in the White Mountains.”

            Yes, she claimed to have married the whole commune, which neither Fran nor Perry for an instant doubted.

            Fran, who’d sat there like an idol with a migraine as Sally gave them an overview of her life, or what she could remember of her life in the decade since they’d last seen her, finally squeezed out between clenched teeth, “You could try settling down, couldn’t you?  Couldn’t you for once in your life just try settling down?”

            “Bingo!  That’s why I’m here,” Sally said.

            Seven years later, she still was.

            It was the only thing she’d ever stuck to in her life, Fran said, “the silly bitch.”

            The hell of it was, Sally seemed happy up in the attic.  If only she were miserable, felt that itch to fly free which from her earliest days had been her defining characteristic, Fran might have gotten her off her hands.  But no.  “I’ve had enough of out there,” Sally said, fluttering her hands vaguely as if she were shewing off what she’d been chasing for decades: parts unknown,  the lure of the untried, men, drugs.

            Sally claimed to have given up alcohol for pot when she was fourteen, which Fran disputed.  Sally had been smoking pot way earlier than fourteen.  And pot for her hadn’t been so much a gateway drug as an open-border policy.  She tried a little bit of everything and a lot of some things, but it wasn’t until her last commune, the one somewhere north of California and south of Oregon, she said, that she got hooked on beautiful heroin, and that scared her.  She came home, to Fran’s home, that is, the closest thing she had to a home, their folks being dead.  “I’ve had enough of out there.”

            Would they ever be rid of her? 

            She was family but not quite family—an “adjunct member,” Douglas called her.

            “That sounds about right,” Perry said.  “She’s a piece of junk you add on,” to which Fran laughed as she hadn’t laughed in years although she wasn’t sure if Perry was trying to be funny or just didn’t know what adjunct meant.  He was awful ignorant.

            Like when Sally was in one of her stay-in-her-room spells and Fran would take a tray of food up and leave it outside her door, Perry accused Fran of being a “user.”

            “I think you mean enabler, Pop,” Douglas said but then realized he might make his father feel bad by pointing out his error and grew flustered and blushed and waved his hands like he was trying to erase his words and stammered, “but that’s OK, that’s all right, that’s just fine.  I mean, I guess there’s not much difference between an enabler and a user, depending on how you look at it, if you see what I mean,” and only stopped babbling on when Fran, who’d almost laughed at the beginning, ended by taking her son in her arms and stroking his sandy-blond buzz cut.

            Douglas had thick, naturally wavy hair and could have been a real doll except he didn’t have enough time for tending hair.  He had too much to do taking care of the family.

            Douglas was the adviser to the uncertain, the comforter to the afflicted, the mediator when family conflicts flared.  Often—though certainly not always—his efforts found some success.  But at what price to Douglas?  He was so invested in his struggles to ease the way for others that there was little left for himself.  Beyond the self-sacrificing Douglas, was there even a Douglas there?

            Fran worried about him, maybe more than she did any member of the family.  Perry, of course, had cancer, but that wassomething at a distance as far as she was concerned, something that transpired between his urologist’s office and the hospital where he’d go for treatment of some kind, once that was decided.  She’d get down to serious worrying about Perry when the time came, but that time had not yet arrived.  Sally?  Ha!  She’d worry that Sally was going to eat them out of house and home, worry that she’d never move out of their home, but worry worry?  Aggravating, that was Sally.

            Halo, though.  Fran should worry about her, but instead of worrying, she wondered.  Everybody else—family, friends, teachers, doctors—wondered about her, too.  Like, why did Halo always appear to be so happy?  It seemed almost perverse, somehow.

            Halo.  Blame Fran for the name.  She’d chosen Douglas for her first-born, named after his grandfather, thinking that grounding him in a tradition would give him strength, resiliency.  But the ink was no sooner dry on his birth certificate than she became aware of the names of other boys his age and saw that the time of the Douglases and Davids and Ronalds was past, and in this new world of Thads and Chads and Lukes she’d hung that clunky old name on him like an anchor on a boy learning to swim.

            She wouldn’t make the same mistake with her daughter.  She’d pick a name to ride the crest of the coming wave, not one of the trendy Helens or Jordans or Madisons because the trendy is soon passé.  Something newer than trendy.  Why not Halo?

            Jesus wept.  Halo was neither trendy nor trend-setting.  It was merely, disastrously, other.  Halo was apart, like no other family member, no other child.

            Halo did not speak.  Almost five years old, she’d never uttered a word.  When she was three, a specialist examined and tested her and pronounced her hearing just fine and her intelligence just fine, and she had no physical impairment.  “Don’t worry about it,” he concluded.  “She’ll talk when she has something to say.”  For a year they’d repeat “She’ll talk when she has something to say” like a mantra, with a shrug and a little smile as if it were really almost amusing.  By now, though, Halo almost five, the doctor can’t hide his concern, and only Douglas, desperate for it to be true, still repeats the mantra, with a smile that looks more like a grimace.

            It was the name that caused it—that ludicrous Halo—and Fran had only herself to blame.  So what if Halo seemed happy, the happiest of them all?  Fran still worried about her, piling that worry on top of all the other worries.

            Will the day ever come when Fran can say the hell with all of them and worry about herself?

She doesn’t drink or do drugs.  Often she wishes she did.

2

            Perry didn’t tell Fran he’d made an appointment to see his urologist to announce his decision—surgery, chemo, or radiation—until the Wednesday morning he was walking out the door.

            “Well, I’m going to see Dr. Kuhn.”

            Then he let the screen door slap shut behind him, strode straight across the yard to his pickup, and climbed in without once looking back.

            Probably they should have talked through an issue like that together, husband and wife.  But Perry wasn’t much of a talker.  Fran wasn’t, either.  She generally just wanted to put her feet up when she was finished with work and all her chores at home and was content to let him worry about that decision.  Besides, she’d lay money he was going to put it all off on Dr. Kuhn.  Perry was boss in his small-engine repair shop and would put his two cents in about what to watch on TV, but other than that he wasn’t big on making decisions.

            She met him at the door when he got home two hours later, and he simply said with a shrug, “Radiation.”

            That was what she’d expected.  Not the radiation—she had no idea which treatment it’d be—but the shrug.  Perry never made a big deal out of anything.

            Still, he’d seemed different somehow.  If she had to put a word to it, she’d say he seemed sort of “dreamy.”  As if that made any sense.

            But she didn’t have time to think any more about it because it was her day off from Rustlers Burgers, which meant she had a thousand chores to catch up on at home, and anyway Perry almost immediately went out to his shop, the converted garage to the side of the house.

            She’d forgotten the dreamy look by dinner time when they all gathered around the big tureen of fried wieners and sour kraut.  Fran asked Halo about her day at pre-school, and Halo smiled happily because she had a lot of friends there who, Mrs. Simmermaker said, were delighted to do her talking for her.  Then, because silences at the dinner table made him nervous, without being asked Douglas started in on a long discourse about his day.  When he wound down, Fran added her bit—the call on her day off about the dad-blasted ice-cream machine being on the fritz again.  Finally, Sally, Queen of the Airheads, who’d deigned to join them for dinner, began blah-blah-blahing about something she’d seen on a Dr. Phil rerun, but Fran wasn’t listening because she’d finally glanced over at Perry.  And there was that look.

            Even Sally noticed something.  She reached across the plate of homemade sweet pickles and laid her many-ringed hand on Perry’s.

            “So, Perry, what did you decide?”

            Shrug:  “Radiation.”

            “Oh, good,” Sally said.  “I’m so glad you chose radiation.  There’s something almost spiritual about it.  Not like chemotherapy.  You don’t want to put chemicals into your body.  Trust one who knows.  And surgery?  Ugh.  Don’t go under that knife.”

            Even before his aunt had finished, Douglas had begun squirming in his chair, and as soon as Sally’s “knife” was out, he launched into an enthusiastic if rambling encomium on the virtues of radiation.

            Halo smiled sweetly as she listened to her brother, whom she adored. 

            Sally, staring intently at Perry, interrupted Douglas.

            “You look different somehow, Perry.  Something’s happened.”

            Perry hated to be the center of attention, and normally he would have ignored Sally and continued his attack on his food.  Instead, he lowered his fork and averted his eyes, not shyly so much as modestly.

            “Something did happen,” Sally said breathlessly.  “I knew it.  Tell us.”

            Perry sat his fork down and folded his hands.  Cleared his throat.

            “Well, it wasn’t much, really.  Just a funny little thing.  Not funny ha ha, but, you know.”

            He paused, but nobody said anything, so he cleared his throat again and continued.

            “It was just this old guy.  I’d just left the clinic and I was walking across the parking lot to my pickup, and there was this old guy, sixty maybe, I don’t know, and he was standing at the edge of the parking lot.  Just a regular looking guy, dressed in regular clothes.  Well, I’m about to get into my pickup, and he says something to me.  ‘Say what?’ I said because I wasn’t sure I’d heard him right, wasn’t even sure he was talking to me.  But he said it again.  ‘You’re all right.  Don’t worry.  You’re going to be OK.’”

            They waited for him to continue.  But he didn’t.  He just peered down at his plate with that look.  Dreamy.  Modest.

            Once again it was Sally who reacted first.  She clasped both hands over her mouth as if trying to stifle herself, then squealed back deep in her throat and said, “It was an angel!  He was an angel!”

            Fran barked out a laugh, and Douglas laughed briefly, too, but then sat with a look of tormented indecision.  Was it a joke?  Should he laugh?  What should he say?

            They all looked at Perry.  He shook his head very slowly, then gazed upward and said, “I kind of thought he was God.”

*

            None of them knew what to say, how to act around Perry.

            Well, Sally thought she did.  Over the rest of that day and the next she couldn’t stay away from him, treated him like he was some precious, fragile thing, taking cups of her favorite herbal tea out to him in his shop, speaking to him in low, reverential tones, even running her hand gently over his balding head until Fran shouted at her, “Oh, get over yourself!  You’re just trying to turn this into more of your New Age crap!”  And Sally, with a look of a martyr persecuted for yet sustained by her faith, ascended to her attic room.

            Douglas spoke not a word the rest of that day, nor the next morning before school, nor after he came home that afternoon, communicating only in nods and gestures.  Was he turning into another Halo?  “Don’t make any more out of this than it is,” Fran told him.  “It’s just a thing, that’s all.  It’ll pass.”  Douglas nodded.

            Halo—well, who knew?  Was it Fran’s imagination, or did she, the happiest of them all, seem more subdued, thoughtful—if a not-quite-five-year-old can be said to be thoughtful?

            Fran, least of all, knew what to think, how to react.  Perry wasn’t a man to lie, so she believed his story about seeing the man and what the man said.  But that other stuff.  An angel?  God?  Please.  Perry was a practical, everyday, down to earth, nuts and bolts kind of guy.  For him to imagine that, well, it had to be a sign of how desperate, how frightened he was.  Perry, her solid man, afraid of death.

*

            That next afternoon, Fran picked the kids up at school and once home made a pan of cornbread and put a pot of white beans on to cook.  She’d be at work by the time it was ready to eat, but Douglas could be relied upon to get the dinner on the table.

            When it came time for her to leave for Rustlers, though, she did something she’d done only a couple of times in all the years she’d worked there:  she called in sick.  She felt like she needed to stick close to home, close to Perry.

            At 5:00 Fran sent Halo out to the shop to bring her dad in for dinner.  When they got back in, she told Halo to go up and bang on Sally’s door, just in case Her Majesty decided to grace them with her presence.

            While they waited, Fran and Douglas began breaking up slices of cornbread on their plates and ladling on steaming beans.  Perry, though, just sat there with his hands flat on either side of his plate, that look on his face.  Fran thought of that famous painting, the one of Jesus and the apostles at the last supper.  Do you think you’re Jesus, now? she felt like saying.  But she didn’t.  She wanted to be exasperated, but she wasn’t.  She didn’t know what she was.

            Halo came to the table, and Sally swept in behind her.  Douglas fixed Halo’s plate for her.  Sally helped herself.  Perry sat there.

            Then Perry took a deep breath and let it out slowly.  The others stopped eating, sat as frozen as those figures in that painting.

            “Out in the shop, Halo spoke to me,” he said.  “She told me it was all true, that I was going to be all right.”

            Sally made a sound that might have been a sob and then asked, “The man.  Was he an angel—or God?  Did she tell you that?”

            Halo put a spoonful of beans in her mouth.  She ate her beans and cornbread separately, not all mashed together like the rest of the family.

            Perry didn’t answer but began to eat while the others turned to Halo and waited for her to speak again, Douglas with a look on his face like it was all he could do to keep from shouting, Talk!  Talk!  So I won’t have to!  At the same time, Sally’s eyes began to brim just as her heart no doubt was overflowing with this affirmation of her New Age faith, whether Halo ever spoke again or not.  Fran, though . . .

            Fran believed that Perry had never lied before, not even when he said he thought it might be God speaking to him on that parking lot, but he might be lying now.  Why would he lie, though, and why this particular lie?  Unless it was to ease her of her worrying, at least a little, at least until the worrying couldn’t be helped.  A lie for love, then.

            She didn’t know what to say to him, so she said nothing until that night when she found him sitting on the edge of their bed, one sock dangling from his hand, lost in thought.

            She put her hand on his shoulder and gave it a squeeze.

            “Sally and Douglas are waiting to hear Halo talk again, but you know,” she said.  “I was thinking, I don’t know, I was thinking that she may never talk again, that she was sent here to speak to you just that one time.  In case you were still worrying.”

            He reached up and patted her hand as if he understood.

            If he did, it was more than Fran could claim.  In fact, later, lying in the dark and telling herself that this was the first time she’d ever lied to her husband, she wasn’t even sure that she had.



BIO

Dennis Vannatta is a Pushcart and Porter Prize winner, with essays and stories published in many magazines and anthologies, including River Styx, Chariton ReviewBoulevard, and Antioch Review.  His sixth collection of stories, The Only World You Get¸ was published by Et Alia Press.







Brushstrokes, Museum Piece

by Cleo Griffith


Neither the jade in the closed cabinet
nor the kimono on the wall caught his attention
but the word upon the side of the Chinese screen,
a lovely black brush-stroke word on the pale wood 
of the folding screen which was covered with scarlet fabric
and embroidered golden dragons of fearsome features,
none of which he noticed, so taken was he with the word.

Surely, he thought, something that beautiful
must be profound, must hold
one of the secrets of life within an ebony flourish.

No, he was told, it is only the name of the man
who made the screen. Disappointed, he left, wondering
why it should strike such a chord in him,
merely the name of the craftsman. Only the name
of the creator.



It’s been a long time since I’ve swung a machete


Had it been a box of candy,
a bag of seedless tangerines,
I might have taken a teeny taste,
at least a sample, before sending out
enquiries, but green coconuts?

Had it been a gift of strawberries
or other yummy produce from nearby
I might have made a shortcake
with only casual questions
regarding those responsible.

So I took a coconut in hand,
checked with neighbors
“had this carton been delivered
that was meant for them?” but
no one knew why anyone would leave
coconut juice still inside its original containers
on the porch of an elderly couple.

Had it been a gift of two strong men
to wash the windows, clean the gutters,
even clowns with balloons to entertain
would have pleased, we’re easy.

Had I been younger by a lot of years
I might have been tempted to take a whack
and see what the juice was all about
but it’s been a long time since I swung a machete
so I passed them off to the teenager next door.



Of Course Life is a Path of Metaphors


Sun slants in and lightens corners,
daffodils rise from winter’s chill,
flotsam of the flood refigures landscapes,
broken man learns to trust again.

Monday through the blindman’s eyes,
ruby sunrise the day after you have died,
smiles from those you never met,
storms slap-slash across imagined seas.

Mockingbird repeats in December,
bare soles interpret Summer’s heat,
inner child meets inner witch,
both weep.



Old Familiar


This is not a cute pet of a dragon,
no fluttery feminine eyelashes,
no gentle whispery breath,
this is the fire-breather of old,
the glassy-eyed, ravaged with fury,
green and gory dragon
aroused deep within that calm appearance.
It hates, it drools, it spits fire and nails,
lashes and slashes,
denigrates and insults,
beats down and tears up,
shatters and pulverizes,
eats out your insides,
becomes greener
with age,
dies never
               of
                    its envy.



BIO



Cleo Griffith has been widely published in such journals as Main Street Rag, Lothlorien and Straylight. She has been on the Editorial Board of the poetry quarterly, Song of the San Joaquin, since it began in 2003.







Dada, Politics and Gender: Hannah Höch’s Cut with the Kitchen Knife and George Grosz’s Winter’s Tale

by Mahshid Gorjian

Abstract

The Berlin Dada movement developed as a radical response to post-World War I Germany’s sociopolitical issues, using photomontage, satire, and fragmentation to criticize authoritarianism, militarism, and capitalist exploitation.[1] This study investigates the political and aesthetic methods of Hannah Höch’s Cut with the Kitchen Knife and George Grosz’s Winter’s Tale, placing them within the larger context of Weimar-era visual culture. Höch’s photomontages deconstruct gendered images and nationalistic ideals, challenging the limitations put on women in art and society.[2] Meanwhile, Grosz’s horrific caricatures reveal the corruption of the bourgeoisie and the militaristic state, demonstrating the dehumanizing implications of modern capitalism.[3]

This study investigates how Höch and Grosz use fragmentation and distortion as means of political resistance, drawing on feminist art history and mechanization theories.[4] Höch’s involvement with the “Neue Frau” and the changing gender dynamics of Weimar Germany emphasizes the conflict between modernist goals and established patriarchal norms.[5] In contrast, Grosz’s futuristic depictions of mechanized urban life convey worries about technology, authority, and monitoring.[6] By examining these works through the lenses of gender, technology, and political critique, this research reviews Berlin Dada’s legacy as a revolutionary visual practice that continues to inspire contemporary discussions about art and resistance.

I. Introduction

The Role of Dada in Weimar Germany

Dada developed in response to the sociopolitical changes of early twentieth-century Europe, particularly the disappointment following World War I. Dadaists in Berlin took a political and anti-bourgeois mindset, criticizing militarism, capitalism, and authoritarianism through satire, photomontage, and collage.[7] Unlike its Zurich counterpart, which emphasized nihilism and absurdity, Berlin Dada was founded on revolutionary rebellion and dealt directly with the political instability of the Weimar Republic.[8] The movement’s rejection of creative traditions and embracing fragmentation reflected concerns about modernity, mechanization, and identity instability.[9]

Art as Protest: Höch and Grosz in Context

Hannah Höch and George Grosz established as key the main characters in the Dada movement, with their art reflecting Weimar Germany’s sociopolitical tensions. Höch, one of Berlin Dada’s few renowned women, questioned traditional gender roles and patriotic propaganda with her photomontages, particularly Cut with the Kitchen Knife, which destroyed and reassembled the male-dominated political and creative world.[10] Her work criticized both the patriarchal norms of German society and the tensions within the Dada movement, which frequently ignored its female members.[11]

In contrast, Grosz used grotesque caricature and harsh humor to criticize postwar Germany’s corruption, luxury, and militarization. Winter’s Tale, for example, revealed the bourgeoisie’s moral deterioration by showing figures of authority as disgusting mechanistic monsters lacking humanity.[12] His iconography represented serious concerns about the connection between capitalism and totalitarianism, providing harsh disapproval of Weimar-era politics.[13] Both artists used fragmentation and distortion to challenge conventional images of power and identity, consistent with Berlin Dada’s larger ambitions.[14]

Methodological Framework: Gender, Technology, and Political Critique

This study places Höch’s and Grosz’s works within overlapping themes of gender, technology, and political critique in Weimar-era visual culture. Drawing on feminist art history, it investigates how Höch crossed and opposed the male-dominated Dada aesthetic while dealing with depictions of the “Neue Frau” and gender diversity.[15] It also examines Grosz’s critique of modern urbanism and automation, delving into his catastrophic depictions of a dehumanized, capitalist society.[16]

The approach is based on Weimar photomontage scholarship, which sees Höch’s work as a radical intervention in visual culture, challenging political ideology and artistic norms.[17] It also includes talks of the Dada cyborg and the automation of the human body, particularly in Grosz’s grotesque imagery, which exposes the relationship between technology, violence, and power.[18] By interacting with these critical frameworks, this study reconsiders Dada’s significance in the Weimar period as a politically motivated investigation of gender, power, and visual representation, rather than a rejection of creative traditions.

II. Dada and the Socio-Political Landscape of Weimar Germany

The Origins and Evolution of Berlin Dada

Berlin Dada began as a direct response to the devastation of World War I and the political instability that occurred. Unlike the Zurich Dadaists, who embraced absurdity and anti-art gestures in response to the war, Berlin Dadaists used satire and photomontage to criticize the Weimar Republic’s problems and the remains of imperialist nationalism.[19] The movement was founded on radical leftist ideas, identifying with revolutionary principles and taking a strong anti-bourgeois position. Figures like George Grosz, John Heartfield, and Hannah Höch pioneered the use of visual fragmentation to portray the chaotic situation of postwar German society.[20]

Dada in Berlin was defined by its rejection of established artistic materials in favor of collage, photomontage, and caricature, all of which emphasized disjunction and disruption. These methods reflected the broken reality of Weimar Germany, when economic insecurity, political volatility, and social transformation challenged traditional means of representation.[21] Although the movement was short-lived, it had a significant impact on modern visual culture, providing the foundation for future avant-garde innovations, particularly in political art and conceptual activities.

Political Dadaism: Subversion Through Art

The Berlin Dadaists used art as a direct political engagement instrument to destroy the intellectual systems that supported authoritarianism and social injustice.[22] Photomontage, in particular, became a tool of resistance, allowing artists to distort and reconfigure mass-media imagery to reveal the contradictions of modern politics. Höch’s Cut with the Kitchen Knife exemplifies this approach by separating and rearranging images of male political figures, juxtaposing them with elements of modern industry and representations of the “Neue Frau” to highlight the tensions between progress and oppression in Weimar society.[23]

Grosz’s satirical drawings and paintings, such as Winter’s Tale, also targeted the governing elite, depicting industrialists, military officials, and politicians as hideous, mechanical beings motivated by greed and corruption.[24] His work reflected a generation that had witnessed war’s acts of violence and was now confronted with the failings of a fragile democracy.[25] Dadaists in Berlin identified as both artists and activists, utilizing their work to challenge passivity and question the authority of oppressive structures.[26]

The Impact of World War I and the Weimar Republic

The trauma of World War I greatly influenced Berlin Dada’s political and aesthetic methods. The conflict destroyed faith in established power institutions, leaving behind a sense of collapse and hopelessness that was reflected in the movement’s militant anti-authoritarian position.[27] Many Berlin Dadaists, like Grosz, were veterans or had firsthand experience with the devastation of mechanized conflict, which left them deeply skeptical of militarism and nationalism. This experience encouraged their determination to expose the stupidity and violence of postwar politics using irritating satire and radical visual methods.[28]

The instability of the Weimar Republic fueled Dada’s aggressive style. The economic problems, hyperinflation, and political fanaticism of the time provided ideal ground for artistic interventions criticizing both capitalist exploitation and authoritarian repression.[29] Dadaist works served as counter-narratives to the nationalist language and bourgeois values that took over popular culture, establishing the movement as an uprising in Weimar society. Finally, Berlin Dada’s involvement with social and political crises defined its artistic advances while also cementing its reputation as a radical intervention in twentieth-century visual history.

III. Hannah Höchs Cut with the Kitchen Knife: A Feminist and Political Manifesto

Photomontage as a Revolutionary Medium

Cut with the Kitchen Knife, by Hannah Höch, shows photomontage’s radical potential as a visual and political instrument. Photomontage, which arose from Berlin Dada’s involvement with mass media, allowed for the deconstruction and reassembly of pictures, resulting in juxtapositions that showed Weimar society’s contradictions.[30] Unlike traditional painting, which frequently supported hierarchical representations, photomontage challenged conventional narratives by highlighting fragmentation and multiplicity.[31] Höch’s work, in particular, challenged traditional power structures by using visual culture to criticize the patriarchal, nationalist, and militaristic ideals that shaped postwar Germany.

Höch’s Cut with the Kitchen Knife combines newspaper clippings, images of political people, and industrial imagery to produce a bewildering yet insightful critique of Weimar politics.[32] The technique’s inherent instability, or ability to alter meaning through visual displacement, echoed the sociopolitical volatility of the moment. While photomontage was extensively used by Berlin Dadaists, Höch’s method was unique in that it focused on gender relations, placing women as active agents in the political environment rather than passive subjects.[33]

Gender and Androgyny in Weimar Visual Culture

Höch’s study of gender in Cut with the Kitchen Knife reflects broader conflicts within Weimar visual culture, particularly the breakdown of traditional gender norms. In Weimar Germany, androgynous individuals appeared in the media, reflecting the shifting limits between masculinity and femininity in modern society.[34] Höch’s photomontages featured pictures of combined, split bodies, rejecting traditional gender norms while embracing an ambiguous, dynamic style.[35]

Höch addressed and questioned contemporary concerns about female modernity by combining images of women with industrial and mechanical aspects. Her work addressed the rhetoric surrounding the “androgynous spectator,” in which the breakdown of gender boundaries allowed for a more flexible and broad interpretation of identity.[36] This androgynous iconography highlighted the contrasts in Weimar culture when women’s liberty was simultaneously welcomed and opposed by traditional groups.[37]

The Neue Frau” and the Politics of Representation

A significant element in Cut with the Kitchen Knife is the image of the Neue Frau, or New Woman, a character that symbolized Weimar Germany’s cultural revolutions. The Neue Frau represented female freedom, professional ambition, and social mobility, but she was also an unpopular figure, drawing criticism from nationalist and patriarchal elements.[38] Höch’s work explores these conflicts by adding images of modern women into her photomontage, reflecting their ambivalent place in German culture.

Höch addressed the contradictions in current portrayals of women by strategically fragmenting and reassembling them. She questioned the devaluation of the feminine body in popular culture while also emphasizing women’s participation in political conversations.[39] This critique extended to the Berlin Dada movement, where, despite its radical politics, women artists such as Höch were frequently marginalized and excluded.[40] By reclaiming visual space for the Neue Frau, Höch’s work served as both an artistic and feminist action.

Höchs Radical Critique of Nationalism and Militarism

Beyond gender, Cut with the Kitchen Knife was a clear disapproval of Weimar Germany’s political context, including its nationalist and military ideals. Höch deconstructed the visual language of power by using images of political figures, fragmented text, and industrial symbols, exposing its instability and absurdity.[41] The disorderly arrangement of parts reflected the fragmentation of the Weimar Republic, implying a condition of political chaos that Berlin Dada aimed to emphasize.

Höch’s rejection of nationalist images was consistent with Dada’s overall anti-war position, which opposed the glorification of militarism in postwar Germany. Her photomontage visually deconstructed these ideas, replacing inflexible power systems with disconnected, illogical compositions.[42] Höch positioned herself as both an artist and a political critic by employing photomontage to challenge dominant narratives and push for alternative, more diverse depictions of society.

IV. The Dada Cyborg: Technology, Fragmentation, and Identity

Mechanization of the Human Form in Dada Art

Berlin Dada artists were strongly concerned with the relationship between the human body and technology, using mechanistic imagery to criticize modernity’s impact on identity and autonomy. According to Matthew Biro, Dada’s images of the fragmented, robotic body expressed greater concerns about industrialization, surveillance, and capitalism’s dehumanizing impacts. Photomontage, in particular, enabled the depiction of hybridized, part-human, part-machine characters that represented both the benefits and risks of technological advancement.

George Grosz, for example, used caricatures of grotesque, mechanical characters to attack capitalism oppression, and authoritarianism by demonstrating the combination of humanity and technology.[43] Hannah Höch’s photomontages, on the other hand, investigated how technology influenced personal and collective identities, notably in terms of gender and power dynamics. Her use of photographic fragments suggested a fluidity of identity, challenging strict notions of selfhood in a mechanistic environment.[44]

The Intersection of Gender, Race, and Technology

Höch’s work used gender and technology images to examine how modernity recreated identity. By contrasting images of women with mechanical and industrial aspects, she demonstrated how technology could be both oppressive and liberating.[45] The androgynous and broken figures in her photomontages challenged traditional concepts of femininity, reflecting Weimar-era concerns about gender roles’ vulnerability in a rapidly modernizing society.[46]

Beyond gender, Höch investigated racial representation in the context of technical and cultural changes. As Germany struggled with colonial language and ethnographic images, colored bodies were commonly portrayed as “primitive” in contrast to the mechanical contemporary European figure. Höch’s photomontages deconstructed these radicalized clichés, calling into question photography and mass media’s influence on conceptions of non-European identities. Her work thus reflected a broader critique of how technology-enabled and produced racial and gendered gaps in visual culture.[47]

Höchs Critique of Ethnographic and Colonial Representation

One of Höch’s most important contributions to Dadaist critique was her critique of ethnographic representation, particularly in Cut with the Kitchen Knife and following works such as From an Ethnographic Museum.[48] By combining imagery from colonial exhibitions and juxtaposing it with European modernism, Höch showed the artificial structure of racial hierarchies, as well as the role of visual culture in perpetuating colonial ideology.

Her photomontages challenged the binary opposition between “modern” and “primitive,” arguing that both categories were false constructs intended to sustain power structures. Höch deconstructed these narratives using fragmentation and visual reassembly, exposing how technological and political pressures affected both gender and racial identities.[49] She criticized the role of mass media in promoting colonial ideas while also emphasizing the fluid and created nature of identity in the modern period.

V. George Groszs Winters Tale: Satire, Protest, and Dystopian Vision

The Role of Caricature and Photomontage in Groszs Work

George Grosz’s use of caricature and photomontage served as a sharp critique of Weimar Germany’s political and social structures. His grotesque and exaggerated representations of military leaders, capitalists, and bureaucrats revealed the governing elite’s depravity and hypocrisy.[50] Unlike typical political cartoons, Grosz’s work blended cruel sarcasm with a clear visual language that dehumanized his protagonists, depicting them as mechanistic, soulless beings driven by greed and oppression. This technique was consistent with Berlin Dada’s overall objective of destroying authoritarian images and undermining traditional artistic representation.[51]

Photomontage, while more commonly identified with artists such as John Heartfield and Hannah Höch, played an important role in Grosz’s style. His works fragmented and twisted the human figure, reflecting the Weimar Republic’s shattered political landscape. Grosz constructed a gloomy view of Germany by combining caricature with modernist visual methods, reflecting both past failures and worries about an uncertain future.[52]

Winters Tale as a Political Allegory

Grosz’s Winter’s Tale is a dramatic metaphor for Weimar Germany’s sociopolitical decline, depicting a world governed by violence, greed, and moral decay. Winter’s Tale’s characters corpulent capitalists, ugly troops, and debauched bureaucrats reflect the establishment of negative tendencies in postwar German society.[53] These twisted bodies, which frequently appear drunk, lustful, or physically deformed, represent bourgeois excesses and the Weimar Republic’s failure to establish democratic principles.[54]

Grosz’s depiction of the urban environment as chaotic and lawless added to the sense of approaching collapse. His work not only questioned modern politics but also predicted the development of fascism, warning of the dangers of unrestricted militarism and the elite’s role in the collapse of democratic systems.[55] Grosz wrote Winter’s Tale as a stinging critique of his time, employing allegory to highlight the underlying tensions that would soon explode into additional political instability.

The Art of Protest: Class Struggle and Bourgeois Decadence

Grosz’s artistic approach was tightly connected to his involvement with class struggle and rejection of bourgeois principles. His portrayal of businessmen and political officials as grotesque caricatures highlighted the widening gap between the working class and the ruling elite.[56] His critique went beyond individual people, focusing on the systemic corruption and exploitation that characterized Weimar Germany’s socioeconomic landscape. Grosz associated himself with radical leftist parties seeking to end capitalism oppression by presenting the bourgeoisie as awful and morally corrupt.[57]

Winter’s Tale’s visual excess, with its chaotic arrangement and exaggerated characters, reflected the decadence of a collapsing civilization. Grosz showed the inconsistencies of a republic that embraced democratic ideals while allowing for economic inequality and political instability. His protest art served as both a critique and a warning, emphasizing the instability of Weimar society and the oncoming prospect of totalitarianism.[58]

Weimar Urbanism and the Deconstruction of Power

The urban landscape in Winter’s Tale is critical to eliminating power relations and showing modernity’s vulnerability. Makela observes that Grosz’s representations of Berlin depict a city in chaos, with streets filled with violence, wickedness, and disruption in politics. Unlike modernist utopian ideals that celebrated technical progress and rational city planning, Grosz’s urban settings represent chaos and moral collapse. His art challenges the romanticized picture of the modern metropolis, depicting it as a battleground for clashing political ideologies and economic interests.[59]

Grosz’s image of Weimar urbanization is also linked to his broader critique of power. The governing class, described as monstrous and disconnected from reality, is portrayed as both a victim and a creator of this catastrophe. Grosz’s incorporation of his figures within the broken urban landscape implies that power is a fiction that is continually challenged and transformed by social forces.[60] This breakdown of authority is consistent with Berlin Dada’s overall purpose of exposing the delusions that support oppressive political institutions.

Grosz’s Winter’s Tale provided a poor view of Weimar Germany that reflected its current instability while also predicting its political direction. His use of mockery, allegory, and urban critique established his work as a powerful act of resistance to the forces of nationalism, capitalism, and authoritarianism that threatened to define the age.[61]

VI. Dadas Women and the Limits of German Modernism

The Marginalization of Women Artists in Dada

Although the Berlin Dada movement positioned itself as an anti-establishment and revolutionary force, its internal dynamics frequently mirrored the patriarchal systems it aimed to destroy.   Women artists, notably Hannah Höch, were typically neglected in the movement, with their contributions overlooked by their male colleagues.[62] Despite her pioneering work in photomontage and her insightful critique of gender and power, Höch was met with rejection from fellow Dadaists, who frequently disregarded her work or pushed her aside. The movement’s radical rhetoric did not always transfer into an equal artistic space, maintaining the gendered inequalities that existed in modernist art circles.[63]

While Höch was one of the few women actively involved in Berlin Dada, she was frequently portrayed as an outsider within the group. Male Dadaists, including Raoul Hausmann, with whom Höch had a complicated personal and professional connection, sometimes neglected the feminine aspects of her work. This erasure echoes broader developments in early twentieth-century modernism, in which women’s artistic contributions were frequently reduced or removed from current accounts of avant-garde innovation.[64]

Höch in the Context of Feminist Art Historiography

Höch’s work has been evaluated in feminist art historiography, which has helped to restore her standing in Dada and modernist studies. Scholars have emphasized her extreme involvement in gender politics, emphasizing how her photomontages ignored standard portrayals of women and challenged dominant ideas.[65] Höch’s works, particularly Cut with the Kitchen Knife, criticize both the gender structures of the Weimar Republic and the male-dominated avant-garde movements that attempted to redefine modernity without fully addressing women’s roles in that transformation.[66]

Feminist academics have also explored Höch’s work in the larger context of women’s participation in avant-garde movements, pointing out that Dada historiography has frequently disregarded female artists’ contributions. Contemporary art historians have shed light on how Höch’s work linked with feminist conversations, both at the time and in later theories, by recovering her position within Berlin Dada.[67] This critical re-evaluation calls into question the traditional, male-centered narratives of modernism and emphasizes the importance of including feminist viewpoints in the study of avant-garde art.[68]

Challenging Gender Norms in Dadaist Aesthetics

Höch’s photomontages actively eliminated and rebuilt gender identities, establishing her work as a significant contribution to Dadaist aesthetics. She showed the weakness of gender norms and attacked the rigid binaries that defined Weimar-era cultural discourse using fragmentation, juxtaposition, and visual irony.[69] Her depictions of androgyny, hybridity, and nonconforming identities challenged the era’s traditional conceptions of women, instead giving a vision of fluid and developing gender identities.

Höch addressed contemporary discussions about women’s responsibilities in society by including imagery of the Neue Frau a symbol of modern femininity linked with independence and social progress while also challenging the superficiality of these portrayals.[70] Her critical attitude on the visual production of femininity established her work as an early feminist criticism of media culture, foreshadowing future discussions of gender performativity and representation in art.[71]

Höch’s long-term concern with gender disturbed both the political establishment and the creative movements that claimed to oppose it. Her work illustrates the tensions found in avant-garde groups, where radical aesthetics frequently coexisted with established gender beliefs. By opposing these limitations, Höch not only broadened the scope of Dadaist aesthetics but also laid the framework for future feminist art practices.[72]

VII. Conclusion: Reassessing the Legacy of Höch and Grosz

The Enduring Political Relevance of Dada

Dada’s influence goes beyond its immediate historical setting, serving as an important reference point for modern political and creative struggle. According to Hopkins, the movement’s radical use of satire, photomontage, and protest aesthetics continues to drive artistic techniques that address authoritarianism and social injustice. Berlin Dada’s disruptions, particularly the works of Hannah Höch and George Grosz, highlight art’s persistent ability to expose contradictions, destroy oppressive myths, and question power structures. Their ability to represent social and political chaos through fragmentation and juxtaposition is still extremely significant in the face of modern crises, in which digital and mass media both shape ideological conceptions.[73]

Art as Resistance: Lessons from Weimar for the Contemporary Moment

The Weimar period, with its uncertain democracy, economic instability, and the rise of conservative forces, has remarkable similarities to today’s political landscape. Höch & Grosz’s work emphasizes artists’ roles as critical observers and activists, confronting governance failings and societal paradoxes through their visual language. Their techniques demonstrate how artistic intervention may serve as both documentation and resistance, challenging current views with humorous and subversive methods.[74]

Höch’s photomontages, in particular, set the tone for feminist and anti-fascist artistic activities by demonstrating how visual culture might be used to challenge dominant structure.   Similarly, Grosz’s terrifying metropolitan landscapes warn of unrestricted governmental corruption and economic mismanagement. Their works serve as a reminder to contemporary artists and activists of visual media’s ability to undermine power narratives and provide sociopolitical cracks beneath the surface of modern society.[75]

Rewriting Art History: A Feminist and Political Reinterpretation

The reconsideration of Höch and Grosz in art historical conversation mirrors broader developments in how modernist movements are viewed via feminist and political lenses. Traditional Dada narratives have frequently emphasized male participants, undervaluing the important contributions of female artists such as Höch.[76] Feminist art historiography has attempted to correct these gaps by highlighting Höch’s work as fundamental to Dada’s critique of nationalism, gender, and media representation.[77]

Furthermore, Grosz’s legacy has been reframed to highlight his role in uncovering the connections between capitalism, authoritarianism, and urban modernity. His representations of Weimar-era sociopolitical chaos have resurfaced in discussions about modern populism and economic inequality. Scholars are expanding their knowledge of Dada’s revolutionary potential and how its techniques continue to be instructional for contemporary artistic and activist activities by reincorporating feminist and political critiques.[78]

Through this reconsideration, Höch and Grosz emerge not just as significant Dada figures, but also as critical voices in broader discussions about art, power, and resistance. Their work encourages art historians to look beyond formalist interpretations and consider the deeper political and social impact of avant-garde acts, ensuring that Dada’s radical spirit continues to inspire future generations.


Bibliography


Benson, Timothy O. 1993. “George Grosz and the Art of Protest.” Art Journal 52 (1): 66–74.

Biro, Matthew. 1994. “The New Man as Cyborg: Figures of Technology in Weimar Visual Culture.” New German Critique 62: 71–110.

2009. The Dada Cyborg: Visions of the New Human in Weimar Berlin. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Dickerman, Leah. 2003. “Dada’s Discontent: Hannah Höch’s Cut with the Kitchen Knife.” October 105 (Summer): 105–118.

Horne, Victoria, and Lara Perry, eds. 2017. Feminism and Art History Now: Radical Critiques of Theory and Practice.London: I.B. Tauris.

Hopkins, David, ed. 2016. A Companion to Dada and Surrealism. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell.

Lavin, Maud. 1990. “Androgyny, Spectatorship, and the Weimar Photomontages of Hannah Höch.” New German Critique 51: 62–86.

1993. “Hannah Höch’s Cut with the Kitchen Knife: Gender, Dada, and Everyday Life.” The German Quarterly66 (4): 447–458.

Makela, Maria. 1997. “Hannah Höch’s From an Ethnographic Museum: Gender, Race, and the Politics of Cultural Translation.” The Art Bulletin 79 (3): 466–484.

Neutert, Natias. 2019. Lady Dada: Essays über die Bild(er)finderin Hannah Höch. Berlin: Lilienstaub & Schmidt.

Phillips, Victoria. 2020. “Reimagining Dada Through the Work of Beatrice Wood and Sophie Taeuber-Arp.” Journal Name XX (X): XX–XX.

Sawelson-Gorse, Naomi, ed. 2016. Women in Dada: Essays on Sex, Gender, and Identity. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Zervigón, Andrés Mario. 2008. “A Political Education: George Grosz in the USA.” Oxford Art Journal 31 (2): 257–276.



BIO

Mahshid Gorjian is a multidisciplinary artist and Ph.D. student in Geography, Planning, and Design. With a background in Fine Arts and Creative Technologies, she explores the intersection of art, culture, and environmental studies. Her work focuses on digital painting, R programming language, GIS, and urban design, reflecting themes of tradition, identity, and resilience. Through her art, Gorjian aims to bridge past and present, using digital tools to document and celebrate cultural heritage.








[1] Hanne Bergius, “Dada Triumphs! Dada Berlin, 1917–1923: Artistry of Polarities,” Yale University Press, 2003.

[2] Maud Lavin, Cut with the Kitchen Knife: The Weimar Photomontages of Hannah Höch (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993).

[3] Timothy O. Benson, “George Grosz and the Art of Protest,” Art Journal 52, no. 1 (1993): 66–74.

[4] Maria Makela, “Hannah Höch’s From an Ethnographic Museum: Gender, Race, and the Politics of Cultural Translation,” The Art Bulletin 79, no. 3 (1997): 466–484.

[5] Ruth Hemus, Dada’s Women (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009).

[6] Matthew Biro, “The New Man as Cyborg: Figures of Technology in Weimar Visual Culture,” New German Critique, no. 62 (1994): 71–110.

[7] Matthew Biro, “The New Man as Cyborg: Figures of Technology in Weimar Visual Culture,” New German Critique, no. 62 (1994): 71–110.

[8] Maria Makela and Peter Boswell, The Photomontages of Hannah Höch (Minneapolis: Walker Art Center, 1996).

[9] Matthew Biro, “The New Man as Cyborg: Figures of Technology in Weimar Visual Culture,” New German Critique, no. 62 (1994): 71–110.

[10] Leah Dickerman, “Dada’s Discontent: Hannah Höch’s Cut with the Kitchen Knife,” October 105 (Summer 2003): 105–118.

[11] Ruth Hemus, Dada’s Women (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009).

[12] Timothy O. Benson, “George Grosz and the Art of Protest,” Art Journal 52, no. 1 (1993): 66–74.

[13] Andrés Mario Zervigón, “A Political Education: George Grosz in the USA,” Oxford Art Journal 31, no. 2 (2008): 257–276.

[14] Maria Makela, “Hannah Höch,” in Three Berlin Artists of the Weimar Era: Hannah Höch, Käthe Kollwitz, Jeanne Mammen, ed. Louise R. Noun (Des Moines: Des Moines Art Center, 1994), 9–33.

[15] Marsha Meskimmon and Shearer West, eds., Visions of the “Neue Frau”: Women and the Visual Arts in Weimar Germany(Aldershot: Scolar Press, 1995).

[16] Matthew Biro, “The New Man as Cyborg: Figures of Technology in Weimar Visual Culture,” New German Critique, no. 62 (1994): 71–110.

[17] Maria Makela, “Hannah Höch’s From an Ethnographic Museum: Gender, Race, and the Politics of Cultural Translation,” The Art Bulletin 79, no. 3 (1997): 466–484.

[18] Matthew Biro, The Dada Cyborg: Visions of the New Human in Weimar Berlin (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2009).

[19] Hanne Bergius, “Dada Triumphs! Dada Berlin, 1917–1923: Artistry of Polarities,” Yale University Press, 2003.

[20] Hanne Bergius, “Dada Triumphs! Dada Berlin, 1917–1923: Artistry of Polarities,” Yale University Press, 2003.

[21] Hanne Bergius, “Dada Triumphs! Dada Berlin, 1917–1923: Artistry of Polarities,” Yale University Press, 2003.

[22] Maria Makela and Peter Boswell, The Photomontages of Hannah Höch (Minneapolis: Walker Art Center, 1996).

[23] Maria Makela and Peter Boswell, The Photomontages of Hannah Höch (Minneapolis: Walker Art Center, 1996).

[24] Timothy O. Benson, “George Grosz and the Art of Protest,” Art Journal 52, no. 1 (1993): 66–74.

[25] Andrés Mario Zervigón, “A Political Education: George Grosz in the USA,” Oxford Art Journal 31, no. 2 (2008): 257–276.

[26] Maria Makela and Peter Boswell, The Photomontages of Hannah Höch (Minneapolis: Walker Art Center, 1996).

[27] Peter Chametzky, Objects as History in Twentieth-Century German Art: Beckmann to Beuys (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010).

[28] Peter Chametzky, Objects as History in Twentieth-Century German Art: Beckmann to Beuys (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010).

[29] Peter Chametzky, Objects as History in Twentieth-Century German Art: Beckmann to Beuys (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010).

[30] Maud Lavin, “Androgyny, Spectatorship, and the Weimar Photomontages of Hannah Höch,” New German Critique, no. 51 (1990): 62–86.

[31] Leah Dickerman, “Dada’s Discontent: Hannah Höch’s Cut with the Kitchen Knife,” October 105 (Summer 2003): 105–118.

[32] Leah Dickerman, “Dada’s Discontent: Hannah Höch’s Cut with the Kitchen Knife,” October 105 (Summer 2003): 105–118.

[33] Maud Lavin, Cut with the Kitchen Knife: The Weimar Photomontages of Hannah Höch (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993).

[34] Maud Lavin, “Androgyny, Spectatorship, and the Weimar Photomontages of Hannah Höch,” New German Critique, no. 51 (1990): 62–86.

[35] Marsha Meskimmon, We Weren’t Modern Enough: Women Artists and the Limits of German Modernism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999).

[36] Maud Lavin, “Androgyny, Spectatorship, and the Weimar Photomontages of Hannah Höch,” New German Critique, no. 51 (1990): 62–86.

[37] Marsha Meskimmon, We Weren’t Modern Enough: Women Artists and the Limits of German Modernism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999).

[38] Marsha Meskimmon, We Weren’t Modern Enough: Women Artists and the Limits of German Modernism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999).

[39] Marsha Meskimmon, We Weren’t Modern Enough: Women Artists and the Limits of German Modernism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999).

[40] Ruth Hemus, Dada’s Women (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009).

[41] Maria Makela, “Hannah Höch’s From an Ethnographic Museum: Gender, Race, and the Politics of Cultural Translation,” The Art Bulletin 79, no. 3 (1997): 466–484.

[42] Maria Makela, “Hannah Höch’s From an Ethnographic Museum: Gender, Race, and the Politics of Cultural Translation,” The Art Bulletin 79, no. 3 (1997): 466–484.

[43] Matthew Biro, The Dada Cyborg: Visions of the New Human in Weimar Berlin (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2009).

[44] Matthew Biro, The Dada Cyborg: Visions of the New Human in Weimar Berlin (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2009).

[45] Maria Makela, “Hannah Höch,” in Three Berlin Artists of the Weimar Era: Hannah Höch, Käthe Kollwitz, Jeanne Mammen, ed. Louise R. Noun (Des Moines: Des Moines Art Center, 1994), 9–33.

[46] Maud Lavin, “Androgyny, Spectatorship, and the Weimar Photomontages of Hannah Höch,” New German Critique, no. 51 (1990): 62–86.

[47] Maria Makela, “Hannah Höch,” in Three Berlin Artists of the Weimar Era: Hannah Höch, Käthe Kollwitz, Jeanne Mammen, ed. Louise R. Noun (Des Moines: Des Moines Art Center, 1994), 9–33.

[48] Maria Makela, “Hannah Höch’s From an Ethnographic Museum: Gender, Race, and the Politics of Cultural Translation,” The Art Bulletin 79, no. 3 (1997): 466–484.

[49] Maria Makela, “Hannah Höch’s From an Ethnographic Museum: Gender, Race, and the Politics of Cultural Translation,” The Art Bulletin 79, no. 3 (1997): 466–484.

[50] Timothy O. Benson, “George Grosz and the Art of Protest,” Art Journal 52, no. 1 (1993): 66–74.

[51] Timothy O. Benson, “George Grosz and the Art of Protest,” Art Journal 52, no. 1 (1993): 66–74.

[52] Timothy O. Benson, “George Grosz and the Art of Protest,” Art Journal 52, no. 1 (1993): 66–74.

[53] Andrés Mario Zervigón, “A Political Education: George Grosz in the USA,” Oxford Art Journal 31, no. 2 (2008): 257–276.

[54] Andrés Mario Zervigón, “A Political Education: George Grosz in the USA,” Oxford Art Journal 31, no. 2 (2008): 257–276.

[55] Andrés Mario Zervigón, “A Political Education: George Grosz in the USA,” Oxford Art Journal 31, no. 2 (2008): 257–276.

[56] Timothy O. Benson, “George Grosz and the Art of Protest,” Art Journal 52, no. 1 (1993): 66–74.

[57] Timothy O. Benson, “George Grosz and the Art of Protest,” Art Journal 52, no. 1 (1993): 66–74.

[58] Timothy O. Benson, “George Grosz and the Art of Protest,” Art Journal 52, no. 1 (1993): 66–74.

[59] Maria Makela and Peter Boswell, The Photomontages of Hannah Höch (Minneapolis: Walker Art Center, 1996).

[60] Maria Makela and Peter Boswell, The Photomontages of Hannah Höch (Minneapolis: Walker Art Center, 1996).

[61] Timothy O. Benson, “George Grosz and the Art of Protest,” Art Journal 52, no. 1 (1993): 66–74.

[62] Ruth Hemus, Dada’s Women (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009).

[63] Ruth Hemus, Dada’s Women (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009).

[64] Ruth Hemus, Dada’s Women (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009).

[65] Naomi Sawelson-Gorse, ed., Women in Dada: Essays on Sex, Gender, and Identity (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2016).

[66] Naomi Sawelson-Gorse, ed., Women in Dada: Essays on Sex, Gender, and Identity (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2016).

[67] Victoria Horne and Lara Perry, eds., Feminism and Art History Now: Radical Critiques of Theory and Practice(London: I.B. Tauris, 2017).

[68] Victoria Horne and Lara Perry, eds., Feminism and Art History Now: Radical Critiques of Theory and Practice(London: I.B. Tauris, 2017).

[69] Natias Neutert, Lady Dada: Essays über die Bild(er)finderin Hannah Höch (Berlin: Lilienstaub & Schmidt, 2019).

[70] Natias Neutert, Lady Dada: Essays über die Bild(er)finderin Hannah Höch (Berlin: Lilienstaub & Schmidt, 2019).

[71] Natias Neutert, Lady Dada: Essays über die Bild(er)finderin Hannah Höch (Berlin: Lilienstaub & Schmidt, 2019).

[72] Natias Neutert, Lady Dada: Essays über die Bild(er)finderin Hannah Höch (Berlin: Lilienstaub & Schmidt, 2019).

[73] David Hopkins, ed., A Companion to Dada and Surrealism (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell, 2016).

[74] David Hopkins, ed., A Companion to Dada and Surrealism (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell, 2016).

[75] David Hopkins, ed., A Companion to Dada and Surrealism (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell, 2016).

[76] Victoria Horne and Lara Perry, eds., Feminism and Art History Now: Radical Critiques of Theory and Practice (London: I.B. Tauris, 2017).

[77] Naomi Sawelson-Gorse, ed., Women in Dada: Essays on Sex, Gender, and Identity (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2016).

[78] David Hopkins, ed., A Companion to Dada and Surrealism (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell, 2016).



DD

by Emma Johnson-Rivard



Consider the universe contained
in a glass. This is a metaphor, a tool
worked on all levels, as the poets do.
The process creates an individual, aimed to
understand some shade of our reality. Something
beyond the self. I’ve been asked if I drink. It’s assumed
I drink. I come from a family of artists and alcoholics, the path
splintered. We didn’t mean to go so strange. This is the
paradox. I think about these things. The question remains.
Their nature assumed. Sobriety written in DNA to avoid
inevitability, or yet another metaphor. Actually, they’re
not. This is as literal as it gets but their nature assumes
an exception. The idea falls within. Don’t mistake the point.
I’m talking about a brink now, the looming, the heritage of
biology and nurture. A friend asked me. She already knew, but
I told her again. The telling is a powerful addition, repeated
time after time. What happened next was metaphor, too,
so to speak. A mirror inside both of us, our journey. We
know what we could be.



A Weak Heart


Do you ever feel anxious?

Science argues that every emotion,
any instrument, can be used
to great effect. The human body
makes this effortless. Allow me
to demonstrate. If you can’t,
then you must be deficient
somehow. This will be going
in your chart.

When feeling anxious, I have learned to begin
by focusing on my hands and the reality
of known threats rather the weight of my
weak heart. This is the lesson learned. You
wanted monsters and so I focus.
I grab the throat
I begin.



Sea Glass, or The Poet Reads Opinion Pieces


I have been bitten. A mouth angles,
focused on the crux. I don’t care for
a kiss these days. Nonetheless, we,

royal, dream of monsters as the waves crash
and break. The beach bleeds glass,
always shining upon our era. So it goes.

Suffer beautiful and stoic, please,
as the reels demand. Otherwise,
you might seem ungrateful.

Have you made a wish, my dear?
I collect them now, beloved
among my scars. I cannot name the
ending, this is beyond me. But

define power for me, please. I would
like to know how it goes. At the end,
we are enduring great pain, we

would like to know the cost
was worth the words.



BIO

Emma Johnson-Rivard is a doctoral student in fiction at the University of Cincinnati. Her work has appeared in Strange HorizonsCoffin BellRed Flag Poetry, and others. She can be found at Bluesky at @blackcattales and at emmajohnson-rivard.com.







The Garden

by Bay Sandefur



The beaded sweat of his mother’s forehead transferred onto Aiden’s thumb as he touched her—doing so as he had never done when she wasn’t sick. Now, she was asleep and her chest rose and fell in heavy and rapid motions. He felt a motion of sickness rise in his stomach as he looked at her this way.

Her hand reached out to grab his wrist. It was cold, clammy, and weak, yet he could tell she was giving all of her strength. He pulled his hand away from her face and began to stand.

“You’re here for the rest of the day?” she spoke with a rasp.

“No,” he said with his back towards her, grabbing his cloak from the hook on the wall in front of the door.

“Aiden, are you alright?”

The sound of scratching wind entered the room as he opened the door to leave and immediately shut it behind himself.

He brushed his hand against the dusty surface of the bar top, hoping that he might feel the sting of a shard of wood piercing a fingertip. It had been a week since he learned about his mother’s illness. Now, while watching his fingers mimic the divots of the wood beneath them, he could picture the purple tips of her fingers against the bed sheet, the matted grease-nest of her hair against the pillow, and her eyes like two wilting roses.

“You’re taking a second shift again?” Vic voiced from behind the bar, standing next to Aiden and breaking him out of his trance.

Aiden stayed silent and got back to wiping the countertop clean of dust with a tattered rag he kept in his coat pocket. The dust itself was invasive. When it first hit the Lottid south, people would try to keep up with it—cleaning any grey layer they came across. But the dust kept coming, and each storm grew stronger. Soon, all people could do was adapt to it, like a new limb, except this limb’s muscles wouldn’t move. Its purpose was to weigh you down and fill your lungs—to reach its dense claws into every opening of your body and clog you up.

“Why are you working so much?” Vic asked.

To Aiden, his tone made the question sound intrusive—overbearing. He shrugged. “Bored, I guess.”

Vic laughed, “You’re right, that was a stupid question. It’s just. If, maybe, you tell me what’s going on I can help.”

“Well, there’s nothing to be helped.”

“Yeah, it looks like it,” Vic said as he turned away from Aiden.

“I won’t be here tomorrow.”

Vic turned back around and sighed. “Okay, then. Thanks for the heads up. When will you be back?”

“I’m not sure. I have to get something. It’s for my mom.”

“Aiden, you know I can’t just let you–”

“I’ll find another job, then.” Aiden interrupted. He looked up at Vic for the first time in this conversation, and held eye contact. “I’m going. You can tell me what that means for me, but I’m going.”

Vic’s elbow was resting against the bar top. The golden hue from the evening sun shined through the dust-filled windows and lit the side of his face. He had taken down the fabric from his nose which left the strict line splitting the dust-layered half of his face from the protected bottom of it.

“Okay,” Vic said. “We’ll talk about it when you get back. Whenever that is.” He patted his hand against the bar top in a motion of resolution, and walked away.

Aiden’s mom needed Bhelock. It was the only medicine that could cure her, and it wasn’t available at any market in Lottid. The dust took the place of plants in the south. More importantly, he, nor anyone else in the south for that matter, had ever seen it. Aiden had no idea what it looked or felt like. Its existence had become a myth, and its proof lies in the Arcaten temples, where The Garden is said to be.

*

The storms were more intense at night. Aiden could hear the wind moaning outside his mother’s boarded windows, and the dust scratching the house’s surface. Though he couldn’t see anything while sitting next to her bed, El’s breathing seemed to mimic the sound outside. He reached out to find her hand, knowing that this would not be the last time he held it while there was life still racing through.

Aiden stepped out into the storm, using his canes to wade his way through the dunes of dust. The passage to The Garden was located in the Arcaten temples, south of Aiden’s home, and near what was once the Arcaten River. With the dust continuing to build, night by night, the temples’ entrances could only be marked by shadow rectangles in the side of one massive mound. Before the dust, and before the river dried, the temples were built to blend into the verdant hills of Arcaten. Each temple’s entrance was positioned on the outer edges of this circular formation. Aiden had only visited once before with his mother, but he had never been inside.

Now, as dawn approached, Aiden arrived at the entrance of the northern temple. The dark entrance beckoned him, guiding him down the stone hallway and into the center temple. Here, the light of the rising sun reverberated through the mound, reflecting off the stone and illuminating a light blue pool of water that lay at the heart of the place.

Aiden walked slowly to the water. He noticed now, though he didn’t at first, how clean it was. No dust or algae. No water source either. A pool of aquamarine resting, untouched, in the center of the temple. He kneeled to the ground beside the pool’s edge and touched his finger to the water—a test of reality.

A ripple met his finger and he looked up to find its source. For a split second he saw a dark shadow move in the foggy water—disappearing before he could get a glimpse of what it was. Aiden moved to the other side of the pool. Standing and looking down at it, the shadow came back to the surface and started moving around in a circle. It was in the shape of a large fish. A catfish with beady eyes and heavy whiskers flowing in the motion that the fish was swimming in. It kept circling, almost as if each circle were moving faster. Aiden’s vision began closing in around the fish’s growing image. Soon, it was all he could see. And what he wanted to do was touch it, to feel its slimy scales glide against his fingers.

He felt something close in around his hand. Looking down, there were two glittering eyes staring directly into his, and a wide mouth that bit down on his wrist and then let go. Aiden brought his hand up to examine it, but it was just the blurry image of his palm and fingers and red streams snaking down his forearm. He felt his body jerk forward and then everything went black.

When he woke he was underwater, but it was no longer the same glacier blue from before. This water would have been completely black if not for the waves of silver light that came from above. Aiden swam toward the light and broke the surface. His head whipped around until he spotted something he could grab onto—anything that wasn’t water.

The sound of a wet hand slapping against stone was one of the first things he could fully hear. Pulling his body up onto the ledge, he noticed the deep green color that peeked out from the cracks in the dark gray stone. Only the space around where his hand touched it glowed. Aiden pulled away out of instinct. Just as he did so, piece by piece, the glowing plant broke apart and floated upwards. Aiden followed their dance and that’s when he caught the image of the scene before him. No longer was he surrounded by stone, but plants. Some, a deep forest green but some were glowing  red and blue. Pulsing colors; pulsing as though they had heartbeats.

Aiden lifted himself off the ground. Holding his breath, he slowly panned his eyes across the place before him. The only light that existed came from the plants, and that was enough to illuminate the entire setting. A garden. He thought to himself.

He moved forward, watching the light from the plants beneath his feet glow with each footstep. Until one shot a line of light that illuminated the entire walkway. One after another, the glowing pieces began moving upwards.

“Shoes off,” a voice demanded from a distance.

He looked around but couldn’t see where it had come from.

“Shoes off,” the garden spoke again. This time, closer.

“What—I,” he responded.

“You’re disturbing them.”

The voice came from directly behind Aiden. Turning around he saw a woman towering over him. “Who—”

“Are they? The insects,” she said, pointing upwards at the dancing lights. “They don’t like shoes. Take them off.” Brushing past him, she started down the path. At the bottom of her gray cloak poked out two bare feet.

“No. I mean—”

“No?” She turned around. “You mean to tell me they do like shoes? Take them off.” Giving her final order, she flipped back toward the path in front of her and began walking.

He wasn’t going to take them off. He needed them and wasn’t going to be here for long. Walking in the direction that she went, he noticed that with each step the moss around his feet would glow. Behind him now formed a cloud of glowing and floating beads. Aiden ran but realized that he could not see her anymore. “Hello? I need help.”

“Help?” Her voice came from the side of him, and out of a patch of tall flowers her body shot up into a standing position. She held a basket in her hand that Aiden was sure she wasn’t carrying before. “What makes you think I can help you?”

“Not you. The Gardener.”

Her brows furrowed. She looked down at the shoes on his feet and back up at him. “Huh.”

“Do you know where I can find him? I mean this is The Garden isn’t it?”

She walked forward and back onto the path, closing in on Aiden. “Huh.”

“Can you not hear what I’m saying?”

After another moment’s pause, and an even longer moment of a confused look on her face, she finally responded, “This is The Garden. And The Gardener is here.”

“Take me to him.”

“No need.”

“What do you mean? Where is he?”

“As I told you, The Gardener is right here.”

Aiden looked around him for a second before he realized what the woman meant. “Oh. But you’re—”

“My apologies. Was I supposed to look different? Perhaps something like this.” In nearly an instant, a long gray beard appeared from her face, stretching all the way down to the floor, draping over her bare feet. “Is that male-gardener enough? Maybe a lower voice.” As she spoke that last sentence, her voice deepened and grew slightly coarse. She now looked and sounded like an old man.

Aiden didn’t know what to say, so he didn’t say anything at all. Instead, he began analyzing every aspect of the person in front of him—if they even are a person—so as to find any trace of the woman that was once there. He couldn’t find one.

The woman, who was not a woman anymore, began walking away, picking up the bottom of his beard so it didn’t drag against the floor. Aiden followed him as he made his way toward the gazebo.

“Wait,” Aiden said. “Just give me the medicine.” But the man did not stop. The man just kept walking, tapping the tip of rolled up leaves and watching each one fan out and glow blue in reaction. Aiden tapped a bud himself but all it did was shudder and move in a way that he could only relate to a huff. He looked up to see the old man sitting in the gazebo in the center of the garden, his head hunched over.

“Bhelock. I need it for medicine. How much is it?” Aiden asked as he walked up the steps of the gazebo.

“How much?” the man said. The basket in his lap held bright green berries that he was picking the red leaves from one by one and placing them in another basket. “The plants are not commodities.”

“Do you just give them away then?”

“Give them away,” he mimicked. “Not to you.”

“What?”

The old man looked at him and said nothing. Instead he itched his beard and lightly yanked on it. The beard vanished, as well as all other aspects of him. The appearance of the woman from before came into fruition.

“Why won’t you give it to me? I don’t think you understand; my mother is sick. Give me the medicine.”

“I know your mother is sick. I know you have a younger sister who left you and your mother and headed north. I know you haven’t heard from her since. I know your last name is Bethair and your mother won’t tell you where it comes from. I know that your father died in an accident at his job that you think you caused. Yet you resent your mother and sister for it—you pass the blame onto them because you can’t bear to resent yourself. I know you, Aiden. Who you are. What you think you deserve—what’s rightfully yours. Not you. Not now.”

“So you won’t give it to me then?” 

She rose abruptly, put down the basket, and walked down the stairs and back onto the path. Aiden stood in the gazebo and watched her until he could no longer see her. His jaw clenched, but it was not from anger. This clenching came with a weight pressing down on his chest. The same feeling he would get while looking at his mother suffering in her bed.

What now? He thought to himself. Then he thought about what the woman said to him. ‘What you think you deserve.’

Did wanting his mother to live mean he was selfish? Surely not. Surely, the woman got the wrong impression of him. Surely.

If he couldn’t get Bhelock here, he’d go to the council; go to Ordinem and ask for their help. And if they said no, he would force them. He thought of all the things he could do—to the council, The Garden and The Gardener with it, to his sister, and to himself. He’d raise every plant and insect and fish from their homes in search of the medicine. But he didn’t. What good would it do? She’d still be sick.

At the start of the path, Aiden saw a faint glowing light in the moss. He bent down and placed his hand near it. The light flickered and moved onto his fingers. It was then that he saw it for what it was. A red beetle with a glowing body and one wing bent upward. He looked down at the patch of moss where he had found it and saw the footprint of the boots that were still on his feet.

Its wings kept moving up and down slowly, as if just learning how to do so. But it never rose. Aiden looked to the other dancing lights and back to the one flickering in his hand. He lowered it back into the moss, but in a section he hadn’t yet stepped on. Sitting on the stairs of the gazebo, he unlaced his shoes and slid them off his feet. Now being able to feel the cool repose of the moss and stone when he pressed his foot down, and saw that the moss no longer glowed in reaction to the pressure.

The two baskets were behind him, one still full of berries not yet separated from their leaves. Aiden sat in the same place The Gardener had been. Taking each fragile berry and plucking off the scarlet leaves. He noticed now that the bite on his wrist was beginning to heat up. Examining it, he saw the skin around each notch from the fish’s teeth was swollen.

Noticing how the insects no longer glowed in reaction to his footsteps, he still made an effort to put most of his weight on the stone instead—tip-toeing from square to square until he found her.

She was kneeling by the edge of the pond. Her hands working in the water. Aiden could see tiny white fish swirling around as she pulled her hand out of the water. In her palm was one of the fish, not quite as fast as the others and slightly smaller too. The Gardener touched her finger to the fish’s body and then it stopped moving entirely. He placed the basket down by her and kneeled.

“You’ve decided to take your shoes off,” she said.

“Was it dying?”

“Already. Yes.”

“Why didn’t you save it? You have the power to.”

“Balance,” she said. “You don’t meddle with them.”

“Then what are you here for? This is your garden. You meddle in some way or another. You have to.”

She paused and looked ahead of her to the pond. “Support, I suppose. We both need each other. So I give, and they give, and the cycle continues.”

Aiden had no answer. His eyelids tightened.

“I am The Gardener, yes, but this is not my garden. I do not own them. I live with them and they live with me.” She placed her palm back in the water, gently releasing the fish’s body back to where it came from. “What did you separate the berries for?”

“I don’t know. I saw it needed to be done. Nothing, I don’t think.” He saw a slightly bigger fish swim to the surface and open its mouth to swallow the dead white body. “I felt bad.”

“Yes, I guess you would have.” She placed her hand back into the water, and between her fingers sprouted two spiral plants. Closing her fingers together, she pulled up to pluck them and place them on the water above the fish. One by one, the tiny white bodies clung to the plants, feasting on their nutrients.

“How did you know. Before. How did you know all of that?” Aiden asked.

“I knew as soon as you touched the water in the temple,” she replied.

“How?”

“I do not know everything.” Her gaze lifted and scanned The Garden. “Out of everything here, you may be the one thing I understand the most.”

Aiden didn’t know what to say. He had nothing to say in return, so he scanned The Garden just as she did. He studied its heartbeat—every single living thing coming together in unison. Creating one life-line. One garden.

“Can you help her?” Aiden asked.

She sighed and stood up. “I need the leaves.”

“Please.” 

“Not you. Not now.” She picked up the basket and turned toward the center of the garden. Just then, a rustle from the cluster of plants beside the pond caused both Aiden and The Gardener to look toward it. A large flower came peeking out and reached toward his wrist, wrapping each petal around the bite. Aiden could feel its cold slime and with it immediate relief. The flower backed into the plants again and Aiden saw the red irritation around each wound fade away.

The woman sighed, her face sinking with vexed eyes. “The Garden and I—we disagree sometimes. Come. Get your shoes, you’re leaving.”

Aiden followed her to the center of the garden where he grabbed his shoes, and The Gardener grabbed the basket of leaves. She placed each scarlet piece into a mortar. From behind her, a tall flower bent down; its yellow bloom was shaped like a dragon’s snout, and its mouth produced a translucent gel that dripped into the bowl. “Thank you,” she said and began working the ingredients with her pestle. When she was done, she handed the paste to Aiden, avoiding direct eye contact.

“This isn’t Bhelock,” he said.

“It is what The Garden has provided. Which means it is what you need. No more questions, they’re annoying. Take it or leave with nothing.”

Aiden took it. “Thank you,” he said. But the Gardener wasn’t the only being he directed it to.



BIO




Bay Sandefur is an undergraduate student at Rocky Mountain College. If she isn’t writing, she’s reading, and if she isn’t doing that, she’s avoiding an existential crisis by walking barefoot in her mother’s garden. 







Walking the Dogs in the Morning

by Charles Grosel



The tug of leashes, the sting of the morning sun,
halos of spray sizzling on the speckled sidewalk, heat-heaved,
canting us toward each other as the recurring numbness
crackles up my legs, a deadness between feet and thigh,
between us, you willing to hold me up, me too tempted to let you.
I hand you the leather loop instead, careen to the stop sign, leaden,
unbalanced, grabbing hold of the metal post and stomping my legs back to life.
The prickle of feeling returns, the shadow of something else recedes
for now. Keep walking, I urge you, and you do, a quick glance back,
the dogs eagerly nosing the green blades of yucca lining the path.



Time’s Hard Lesson


When I was about eight, at the end of the summer we moved near
a new development in a small city known for its apple orchards. Our
southern colonial with its four pillars and faux black shutters was not
part of the development, technically, though built at the same time.
Our house sat between two of the original farmhouses whose families
had sold the orchards and the not-yet-completely bulldozed woods
surrounding them. Lanes and Trails and Circles had already been paved
in concrete, demarcated by their rounded curbs, but when we arrived,
only a few houses had been built, their green sod squares brightly
artificial against the churned-up earth. The streets emptied into woods.

Three prune trees lined our front yard, the fruit tasty when ripe, effective
projectiles when green or soft with rot. The two neighbors kept dozens
of apple trees in what remained of their yards. The man to the west
sprayed the trees for pests and sold the apples in baskets arranged neatly
on the lawn. The man to the east, whose land my father had bought to
build his dream house, let his apples go to worm. In his workshop he
kept a cider press he showed me how to use that fall. You dewormed
the apples with a pocketknife, passed them through a hand-cranked
grinder into a wooden bucket, then screw-pressed the mash to drain into
a plastic container and funneled the result into dusty moonshine jugs.
You could taste the golden scent of the apple spray in the afternoon sun.

I walked alone in what was left of the woods wearing rubber boots
against the mud, a temporary hermit, a pilgrim, a contemplative
shut into my head by the slurp and slosh of my steps, then, as winter
came, by the crackle of iced-over puddles and bulldozer tracks. I don’t
remember what I did on those walks. Walked. Thought about things.
I was not a junior botanist or geologist sorting rocks. I walked, my
breath hardening in my chest, the slap of branches on my arms. I was
there and not there. Not observing myself, exactly. Settling into myself.

For children everything will be as it is until they learn the hard lesson
of time. When the ice thawed into mud that spring, then dried enough to
hold the backhoes clawing out basements in the pegged-off lots, the split
level castles sprang up, their chimneys’ lining the streets, devouring
the woods that had likely earned the name only in my imagination.


So, You’re Dead


So, you’re dead. Have been for years, and I didn’t
even know it, which gives lie to what you
told me over and again, how we had
a connection, something about the soul,
you said, but it wasn’t the soul you were after,
and wouldn’t I have felt the thread snap?

So, you’re dead. What do you want me to say?
That I’ll miss you? That the “seduction,” as you
liked to call it, was on me because I
was privileged white and never learned no, that
I was thirsty for—something—but not that,
though you always claimed to know me better.

So, you’re dead. What do I call you, now? Dear
departed? Old friend? Mentor? Seducer?
Worse? We are running the train on names here
through a hole in the donut of memory,
when even now I’m not sure. The drugs? Or
is that another thing I invented?

So, you’re dead. And out of my life so long
you can’t put that on me, though back then
you tried to convince me that only my
touch could ease the migraines, that only I
stood between you and your father’s rusty
revolver. I must have believed you.

So, you’re dead. Where are the books
you promised me, the library in the attic
of your parents’ home, smooth pine boards
lining the walls, your early death held out
before me like a beacon or a goad.
Am I more to blame if I still want them?

So, you’re dead. But not so early. I’d say
you can’t hurt me now, but follow the trail
of words. I suppose I should thank you. What else
would I write about? You’re dead, though what
you did to me isn’t, yet, no matter
how many times I take a pen to it.



BIO

Charles Grosel is an editor, writer, and poet living in Arizona. He has published stories in Western Humanities Review, Fiction Southeast, Water-Stone, and The MacGuffin and poems in Nimrod, The Threepenny Review, Kestrel, Cream City Review, and Harpur Palate, among others. His chapbook of poems is The Sound of Rain Without Water.

See more at www.write4success.net







H.R.

by Chris Brower



She says, “It’s time. You need to do it today.”

I consider my Outlook calendar and debate where to put it, at what time we should fire Bernard Vandeman. Bernard, an “elder” at the company, a “forefather.” But with how poorly the company’s been doing, it’s been decided that even elders and forefathers have to go sometime too. Not by me—by committees, by people who give the orders, by people who look at the numbers and guess how to salvage things.

“Be gentle,” Tammy, my boss, says. She’s staring at her cell phone and holding an apple. “He can be pretty sensitive.”

The company’s in bad shape, which Bernard had little to do with. Nor almost anyone who’s been let go. Not that that matters. The demand for aluminum siding, what Hoelscher & Sons manufactures, has gone out of favor, and the millions the company spent on advertising didn’t change that. But there have been other setbacks. A huge investment that fell apart in a subsidiary that made insulation. A sexual harassment lawsuit against our CFO that cost the company millions and generated a lot of bad press. A fire at one of our plants.

“And, oh boy, Stephanie is not happy about it,” Tammy says, raising her eyebrows.

Stephanie’s Bernard’s boss. Just a couple years older than me, this still makes her at most half Bernard’s age. Per company policy, she’ll be handling the firing, with me there as the H.R. representative. The folder with “what now” information for terminated employees will come from my hands, slid across the table as if a peace offering.

As usual my calendar is packed. Meetings without agendas. Lunch with my sister, Debbie. And by 4:00 I need to finish revising the new mission statement and corporate objectives for next week’s all-staff forum aimed at quelling the nerves of concerned employees, even though the words “all-staff” always cause alarm.

“How has he worked here forty-nine years? That’s since day one,” Tammy says. She tosses the barely eaten apple into the trash. “That’s just—wow.”

I have only worked here two, my fifth job since graduating a decade ago. Few people my age stay in the same job longer than a few years. Doing so is a sign of weakness, a lack of ambition. No one in my generation aspires to work for the same company their whole career. And in a lot of ways, companies don’t want us to either.

“No clue why he hasn’t retired by now. Or been let go already,” Tammy says. “A lot of people are gonna be upset.”

From what I’ve heard, Bernard has been the Santa Claus at our company holiday party every year since its founding 49 years ago. When Suellen Reed got sick last year, he arranged a fundraiser to help with medical expenses. (Suellen was laid off a month ago.) And on my first day, he gave me a framed four-leaf clover he had apparently found nearby at Potter Park. He said it would bring me luck here. At the time I thought it was kind of corny, but I see now it was a sweet gesture from a man who always wants everyone to feel welcome.

I don’t like participating in firings, period, and I’ve been the one to do it lately, because the woman who did that was herself fired, but firing Bernard feels different, worse, like pulling the plug on a kindly, elderly relative who has only ever been nice to you.

1:00 p.m., after I get back from lunch with Debbie: That seems as good a time as any to fire Bernard Vandeman. I send an email to Stephanie to make sure that works with her schedule. Hopefully she’ll do most of the talking.

I lean back, staring at the ceiling, doing my best not to glance at the framed four-leaf clover on the wall. I’m not sure it’s worked.

*

I got into human resources because I like helping people. I like smoothing the edges of my co-workers’ day-to-day lives, making things a little better. But the reality is, for each person I call to offer a job, there are dozens more to whom I have to say, “Sorry.” For each “Yes, unused vacation time can be rolled over into next year—enjoy!,” there are several more, “Sorry, that privilege doesn’t extend to hourly employees.”

Employees see a lot of me when they start. And almost as much when they leave.

When I got hired, Hoelscher & Sons was a pay cut (that pay has since been lowered even more, as part of a company-wide effort to reduce expenses), but they lured me in with talk of endless opportunity at a fast-paced, rapidly growing company, of me being on a path to be head of H.R. in just two or three years. I guess that may still be true, but less so because of my own advancement and more that almost everyone in the H.R. department has been laid off these last few months. Soon I may be the only one left, if that.

*

After my third cup of tea and my third meeting of the day (why I was asked to attend a marketing meeting, I don’t know, but I don’t want to make a fuss, I don’t want to come off as negative), I step into the bathroom at the end of the floor. The company spent considerable money a year ago—money they probably wish they could get back—updating the bathrooms, installing dimmer, almost mood, lighting, automatic soap dispensers, and toilets that are more eco-friendly.

I pause when I notice Bernard Vandeman hunched over one of the sinks.

“Oh hello, Peter! Morning,” he says. He’s running a comb through his thin, white hair. He has to be at least seventy-five.

“Oh. Hey, Bernard. Good morning.”

I start to wash my hands too, despite the fact I haven’t used the urinal yet.

Bernard checks his hair in the mirror. He seems like a man of a different era, a man who carries a small comb in his pocket and makes sure to tidy up a couple times a day. His hairstyle isn’t demanding either. Just combed straight across. I’ve seen him use a handkerchief before. I’ve seen him hold driving gloves on the way to his car.

“Very appreciative of what you all did,” Bernard says. He grabs a paper towel and wipes his hands.

“Oh?”

“The birthday card last week.”

“Oh yeah, happy to.” As I dry my hands too, I try to remember if I signed anything. So many birthday cards come through H.R. that it’s hard to remember. I usually just scribble my name and some generic message (“Great to have you at the company!” “Keep it up!”) and then pass it to the next person.

(The company is considering phasing out birthday cards. We’d save a few hundred dollars a year.)

“Can you believe I’m 76?” Bernard says and whistles as his reflection in the mirror.

“Oh, yes—I mean, no.”

Bernard laughs.

I step to the urinal, unzip my pants, and begin trying to release the copious amounts of tea I’ve had so far today. I’m hoping this signals to Bernard that our small talk is over, since everything he says is only making me sadder for what I have to do to him later. But Bernard is from the generation that sees little problem in carrying on long conversations while one or both parties are peeing.

“My own daddy didn’t even make it to sixty!” Bernard says. “He was born in 1915, can you believe it?”

“Oh?” I say from the urinal, trying to will my bladder to begin doing its duty.

Bernard blows his nose, a loud honk that makes me jump, and then continues his musing. “He also never got to celebrate fifty years in a job, but that’s coming for me in three months—87 days specifically! Can’t wait to celebrate. I hope you’ll be there? I’m gonna get an enormous cake. Hope you like lemon . . .”

I remain silent at the urinal, my shyness making it hard to pee or talk.

“Peter?”

I close my eyes, clenching.

“Oh, yes, um, I’d love to be there. That sounds, that sounds really great.”

“Good! You’ve been one of my many wonderful friends here. It’s true.” He sniffs. “Well, back to the grind.”

Bernard steps over and pats me on the shoulder, his hand still wet, and then shuffles out of the bathroom.

*

I order a salad with dressing on the side, feeling instantly disappointed at my choice.

“Is that cause I’ve gained weight?” my sister says after the waiter leaves.

“What?”

“I ordered penne pasta and a Coke, and you got a salad and water.”

“Oh. No, I’m just trying to eat a little healthier. I gave up caffeine too. I’m just trying things.”

Debbie sits back. Shakes her head.

I look her over, trying to be covert. She doesn’t look like she’s gained weight. Well, maybe a little. She’s still pretty thin. She’s been divorced only a month now. Divorces seem to require some noticeable shift in weight, whether gained or lost.

She speaks up, “Stuart always made comments. ‘Storing up for winter?’ ‘Maybe ease up a little on the carbs, babe.’ ”

“Oh.” I heard him say such things. I told him to cool it, but he just shrugged me off. “That’s awful. I’m sorry you had to go through that. You didn’t deserve it.”

“You’re right. I didn’t.” Debbie glares at me.

I shrink, worrying my response was too soft, too lame, that I should’ve called Stuart a “fucking asshole” or something else more forceful. I can be passive, I can be soft, I know. I think working in human resources has made me robotic at times. Doing things by the book. Aiming for calmness and mediation rather than outrage, even when outrage is justified.

I pick up my napkin and then put it down. “Have you spoken to Mom?”

I haven’t talked to Mom in a couple weeks. I need to call her soon. After Dad died, she became a bit of a recluse, spending all her time at home, toiling over jigsaw puzzles and crocheting blankets she donates to the church, even though she doesn’t attend services anymore. She says these days she prefers to be alone.

“She’s not doing any better,” Debbie says. “We’re really bonding lately with our depression. We’re comparing meds.”

I lean forward, almost touch her hand. “Debbie, don’t give up. You know things are gonna get better. They always do.”

Debbie rolls her eyes. “You know that’s not true.”

I lean back.

The waiter returns and refills my water.

“Another Coke, ma’am?”

Debbie stares at me. I turn away.

“Okay,” she says.

*

I return to work a little before 1:00. Stephanie is expecting me in a few minutes. In her email to me earlier she said, “I am REALLY upset about this. I cannot lie.”

Tammy is in her cube, nibbling at a salad of her own. An uneaten apple waits nearby.

“Oh good,” she says, chewing quickly. “How’d he take it?”

“Not yet. Gonna head over there now.”

“Okay.” She stares at me. Squints her eyes. “. . . You okay?”

*

I step slowly toward the Sales department on the second floor. The company owns two floors but is considering selling one. They’ve already removed the fish tanks, the water coolers and vending machines, and the Rothko painting that our (former) CEO would always show visitors and prospective hires (“Imagine working alongside such majesty . . .”). By my hip I’m carrying a nondescript black notebook, which hides the folder of termination documents: COBRA and last paycheck information, resources for newly unemployed workers, and a form letter with thanks and motivational words from the interim CEO.

Things are quiet in Sales. The few employees still around are younger, more prone to wearing headphones all day, less likely to use the phone as a way to talk. Or to talk to each other, really. One employee, Yvonne Hendricks, eyes me with a look of fear before turning back to her computer, her body appearing tense. I’m used to looks these days. I rarely walk around other departments unless I have bad news to share.

I arrive at Stephanie’s cubicle. She’s sitting in her chair, gripping the armrests with both hands, her eyes large, staring into space, like a nervous flier during takeoff.

Her expression doesn’t change when she turns to face me.

“Hi, Stephanie,” I say.

She shakes her head. She rises from her chair, as if hoisted, and I follow her to an abandoned room nearby, formerly the marketing manager’s office. I have no idea what’s going on.

She closes the door, appearing scared.

“I’m just sick about this,” she finally blurts out in an exasperated whisper.

“Me too. I wish we didn’t—”

“I don’t think this is right. There are limits.”

I nod. “I know it’s tough. I’m upset about it too, and—”

“It’s ageist. Have you thought about the potential lawsuit? Have you even thought about that?”

“Of course. We—”

“I will not participate in this,” she says. “I can’t stop you, but I simply will not.”

She opens the door and hurries out of the room, leaving me there, confused. She’s supposed to handle the termination, not me. I’m supposed to be in a supportive role, as well as making sure employment laws are followed.

As much as it hurts to fire Bernard Vandeman, I thought at least I wouldn’t be doing it alone, that it wouldn’t feel like solely “my” doing. But I need to do what I’ve been told.

*

Peaking my head in Bernard’s cubicle, I see him working away, bent over his computer. He’s from the era of employees who still type with one finger at a time. His computer looks to be from the ’90s, with a boxy off-white monitor and keyboard. He still uses a mouse pad.

I knock on the cubicle wall.

Bernard peers up. “Oh, Peter! Hi there.”

He swivels in his chair to face me. His right shoe is untied.

“Hi, Bernard. How are you?”

“Well, I’m doing just fine—say, got some leads I’m excited about. Gonna stay late and see what I can make happen.”

“Ah, that’s great.” I tap my hand on the top of the cubicle wall. “Say, how about you and I go over to the conference room by the window. Got a minute?” This is what Stephanie’s supposed to be doing, while I wait in the room with the termination folder and a box of tissues if Bernard should need them.

“Oh?” His smile fades. “Sure. Uh, gimme a second.”

I don’t know if I should wait for him or not. He appears to be straightening a few papers. Getting things neat and tidy. He’s probably a man who needs time before moving anywhere.

I walk over to the conference room and take a seat, making sure not to have my hands clasped and positioned on the table. That looks too disciplinarian. My high school principal did that, and you always felt like you were in trouble, and you always were.

I place the black notebook on the table, leaving the termination folder inside. Tissues—where are they? I should’ve put a box in here before I came.

Bernard hobbles in straight-faced and then slowly lowers himself into a chair, his arms shaking as they grip the armrests for support.

He looks at me and exhales. “Always feels better to get off my feet,” he says, laughing.

“Yeah. Me too.”

I get up to close the door and then return to my seat.

“Bernard, you’ve been a valued employee since the beginning of Hoelscher & Sons—”

“Oh yes, an absolute honor to work here.”

I nod. “And it goes without saying that everyone here is forever grateful that—”

“I remember that first day like it was last week. It was a June 13th, I believe.”

I blink. “You know the exact date?”

“Of course.” He gazes wistfully over my shoulder. “I guess that was before you were even born. Long before.”

I chuckle to seem laidback and relaxed, as if I’m not about to fire him.

“Been a long time,” I say.

“Indeed it has. Hard to believe. Though, I guess when you get to my age that’s a lot of what you do: marvel that so much time has passed. And boy, does it.”

I clear my throat. “So—”

“And soon after I started I got married. High school sweetheart. Martha Fairchild. Prettiest girl in the class. That was an exciting time, indeed. I was married forty-five years, can you believe it?”

I pause at his use of past tense. Was.

“Oh, I’m—”

“My wife left this world some years ago,” Bernard continues. “November 15th, 2014, mm-hmm. And my son still lives at home. He’s retarded, unfortunately, so he requires a lot of care and will for the rest of his life.”

I want to urge Bernard not to say the word “retarded,” but it’s his own son he’s talking about. I don’t know the protocol for that.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” I say, but then feel bad implying that having a special needs son is something co-workers should say they’re “sorry to hear.”

“He’s a fun little fellow, indeed,” Bernard says. “His spirit is enviable, but quite a lot of work. We’ve had to have help his entire life, and now that Martha’s gone, I’ve had to get more.” Bernard purses his lips. Shakes his head. “And maybe I should’ve done a better job saving and investing when I was younger. That’s why an old man like me is still working—in addition to that I love it, of course.” He laughs, then grows serious again. “There was just always something. My wife was disabled too. Wheelchair-bound.”

I suck on my lip. I scratch at something on the table.

“Do you have a wife and kids?” Bernard asks, suddenly looking sad.

“No—I mean, I’d like to.” I’ve dated some but not much. Maybe I need to get out there more, try to meet people, try to make things happen. But much of the time I think I’m just too scared by the whole thing, by the rejection, by how hard it all is. I guess I had always assumed that by 32 I would’ve found someone. “I hope one day.”

“You seem like a fine man. I’m sure you’ll find a special lady for yourself.” He winks.

“Oh. Thanks.”

My guilt is only growing. Bernard seems like a great guy, a great father, a great husband. Enthusiastic but humble. Always kind. I can see why Stephanie feels so morally opposed to firing him. I do.

For a moment, I wonder what if I didn’t go through with it? What if I didn’t fire Bernard Vandeman? Just refused. Stephanie did. I’ll probably myself be getting let go soon anyway. Though, of course, someone else would eventually fire him. But at least it wouldn’t be me.

“And say,” Bernard says, “maybe you’d, well, please don’t feel like you have to say yes, but, but, maybe you’d like to come over for dinner sometime? We haven’t had anyone over in years. You might like my son. He can be a real hoot.”

“Ah.” I stare down at the table. It’s scuffed and dusty.

“He’s very nice and friendly. I know people get nervous around retarded people. But they shouldn’t.”

“Oh, of course. Of course.” I pick at my ear. I inhale and exhale. “Bernard, we, well, I hate to say this. But we have to let you go.”

His genial smile drops.

“What with the economic forces at play, the challenges the company has faced, we’ve had to make some tough decisions,” I say, my heartbeat picking up. I notice my hands are clasped on the table. I drop them to my lap. “I’m happy to go into more details, but before I go into further explanation and next steps, I’d like to give you a chance to speak, if you’d like.”

Bernard’s lips start moving like he’s chewing something. His cheeks sink in. Then puff out. His jaw moves side-to-side.

“Is it because my numbers were poor last quarter?” he says. “I can assure you I’ve been working to fix things. I can get better. I always have. I have some leads I’m confident about. I will stay late until I get some solid numbers again.”

“I’m sorry, but it’s already been decided. I’m sorry.”

His eyes fall to the table.

“But we’re here to help,” I say. “We want to make this, um, y’know, this transition as smooth as possible. I have a packet of information that can, I think, help you in this.” I touch the black notebook, and then open it up to reveal a sky-blue folder with a stock photo of two hands joined together in a handshake. “It has lots of valuable tips and resources.” I slide it his way.

He glances at it but doesn’t pick it up.

“It has insurance information,” I say. “You’re entitled to—”

He struggles to scoot his chair away from the table. Starts rising to his feet, shaky and slow.

“There’s no hurry,” I say. “You don’t need to leave just—”

He takes a couple steps and then collapses to the ground.

*

“Why were you so quiet at lunch?” Debbie says over the phone. I called her after leaving work, needing to speak to someone. “You always act nervous and awkward around me. Are you embarrassed of me?”

“Not at all. Not at all. I was just upset about work things. I had to—”

“You’re in your head too much.”

“What? No, I’m not—”

“I’m worried about you.”

Me?” I say.

“You just seem so glum lately. I mean, I have a good reason to be down. So does Mom. But what’s yours?”

“Does someone have to have a reason?” I say, adding some edge to my voice, hoping she’ll quit harping me.

“You have one. So what is it?”

I pause.

“Well . . . I quit my job a few minutes ago. There was a thing that happened today that—”

“You quit your job?” She sounds intrigued, almost excited.

“I, I can’t stand only giving people bad news anymore. I don’t like it feeling like my fault.”

“Okay. Okay. Now we’re getting somewhere.”

*

At the hospital I’m told Bernard Vandeman is in room 2562. I feel compelled to visit him, not only because I feel somewhat responsible, but also because he doesn’t seem to have much family anymore. Will his special needs son be there? Will the son understand what’s going on? (And is that bad to assume he might not be able to comprehend medical emergencies?)

The hall on the second floor is quiet, sterile, except for the shuffling of feet of nurses and visitors. It smells like disinfectant. There are hand sanitizer dispensers everywhere. And almost everything is a shade of white, except for the pieces of “art” hanging on the walls, bland as if made not to be noticed.

Outside room 2562 the door is slightly open. I don’t know the etiquette for this.

I knock hesitantly, not expecting an answer.

“Come in,” says a man, surprising me, a man not Bernard Vandeman.

I push open the door and walk inside, where a middle-aged man is standing near the bed that holds Bernard, Bernard asleep with wires and tubes hooked up to him and an oxygen mask over his face.

I back up. “Oh, I’m sorry. I can—”

“No, please,” the man says. He’s wearing a pinstriped suit, his hair is slicked back, and his face is flawless, as if it’s never had a blemish of any kind. He looks like he just came from work, a politician, a lawyer, a D.A., someone who stands in front of people and commands respect. “You’re welcome to come in. You are?”

“I’m Peter from Hoelscher & Sons.” I leave out that I am no longer an employee there.

“Oh, great,” the man says. He comes around the bed and grasps my hand. “Thanks for coming for my father. No one else from the company has come so far. Real nice that you came—he won’t forget it, I guarantee.”

“You’re—you’re his son?”

“Yes, Kevin Vandeman.”

The man doesn’t seem special needs—or maybe I’m drawing on offensive ideas of what a special needs person looks and acts like.

I glance at Bernard who’s propped up in bed, a hospital gown on, his eyes closed, and his heavy, thick eyebrows bunched as if in intense concentration. His breathing is labored and loud.

I hear Kevin say something.

“Sorry, what was that?” I’m suddenly having trouble paying attention.

“I was just asking what you do at the company.”

“Oh. H.R. department.”

“Mm,” Kevin says. “My dad loves it there. Can’t picture him ever retiring. I’m sure he’d even try to go back to work tomorrow if the doctors would let him.”

“Ah,” I say, lowering my eyes, embarrassed that he clearly doesn’t know his dad has been let go. “Is he gonna be okay?”

“We’ll see. There are still plenty of tests to be run, but he’s at least stable now.”

“Oh okay. Good.”

“He’s a strong man,” Kevin says. “He’s always—”

“Do you have a brother?” I blurt out.

“A brother?”

“Or, does your dad have another son—if that’s okay to ask.” Maybe I misheard Bernard earlier today. Maybe he has two sons, and the other is special needs. “Sorry, I don’t mean to pry.”

Kevin turns his head, puzzled. “If he has another son, I don’t know about it.”

I’m confused. I suddenly want to leave.

Footsteps come from behind me, and twisting to look, I see a woman, senior-aged, misty-eyed.

“The nurse will be in again in a minute,” she says to Kevin, who walks up to her and places his hands on her arms, consoling her. “They need to take some more blood.”

Kevin pulls her close and kisses the top of her head. He’s significantly taller than her. He’s as tall as his father.

“Oh, this is Peter from Dad’s work,” Kevin says, gesturing to me.

“Oh, pleasure. I’m Martha Vandeman.” She reaches for my hand and shakes it, my hand no doubt clammy from my growing bewilderment. “That is so sweet of you to come.”

“You . . .”—my posture dips, my eyes squint—“you’re Mr. Vandeman’s wife?”

“Mm-hmm. Forty-nine years. Fifty next August.”

Fifty,” Kevin marvels. He purses his lips as if to whistle, but no sound comes out.

“Bernard Vandeman,” I say.

“Mm-hmm.”

I nod slowly, my head resembling that of a confused bobblehead doll. I don’t know whether to laugh or be angry. But I can’t believe my lack of perception, how I believed everything Bernard told me—though why wouldn’t I have?

I look at Bernard whose hands are by his side, outstretched, his hands red and large. He looks uncomfortable. I still don’t exactly understand what happened to him at the office. I just remember yelling for help, dialing 911 on my cell phone, the paramedics rushing in a few minutes later with a stretcher, one of them ripping open Bernard’s white dress shirt, exposing his fleshy stomach with patches of white hair and numerous moles, the other paramedic pressing on his chest for a minute before they hurried Bernard out.

“Peter?”

“Huh?”

Martha is facing me, speaking. “Would you like to join us in a prayer?”

“Oh.” I desperately want to leave. I want to get out of here as quickly as possible. “Okay.”

Kevin and Martha move closer to the bed, and I join them, and then they start holding hands, and Martha reaches out for mine, and I wait a moment before finally grasping hers.

Kevin and Martha bow their heads, and I do too, closing my eyes like them. I haven’t prayed in a long time.

“Dear Lord,” Kevin says, his voice weak like he might start crying. “Our father is a good, good man. Please watch over him as he recovers, if it’s in your plan, and help him to . . .”

After a moment I can’t keep my eyes closed any longer, and I peer down at Bernard a few feet from me, and a resentment blooms in my body at this man, this liar, this co-worker I feel both sorry for and angry at. Is anything I know about him true?

“ . . . and help our family to count our blessings and . . . ”

My body tenses and I can’t help but squeeze Martha’s hand a little tighter, a pulse of frustration escaping my body, and my face changes into a glare, a scowl, and part of me wants to lunge at Bernard Vandeman, shake him awake, to see if he’s faking this too, to see just who he really is.

“Peter? Peter?”

I look up, and Kevin and Martha are staring at me with concern. We’re no longer holding hands.

“Are you, are you okay?”


BIO



Chris Brower is a writer from Chicago. He is the author of two novels, How to Keep Everyone Happy and I Look Like You. His essays and short fiction have appeared in The Hollywood Reporter, Write Room, Concho River Review, and 2am Muse.

www.chris-brower.com





Flavors of Grief

by Brandy E. Wyant



It wasn’t the first argument. Every conversation seemed to turn into an argument, after I told my mother that I planned to use donor sperm to try to have a child before my fertility ran out. She felt she owed me warning of all the inherent challenges of single parenthood, as if these fears didn’t already taunt me every moment I spent with an idle mind. I never hesitated to snap back all the ways she could never understand my situation, having already been a parent when she entered her 30s.

This particular debate, the most venomous so far, fell on my 35th birthday. E, her partner of over a decade, had witnessed more than a few of our snippy exchanges. Wise enough to stay out of it, though with nowhere to hide in my tiny one-bedroom apartment, he busied himself with sorting through our farmer’s market purchases or swiping through photos on his phone of the more convivial moments of the visit – us posing beside the sign for a historical landmark or holding up ice cream cones.

Yet he followed when I stormed out, my mother screaming after him not to get in the car with me because she thought I was too upset to drive. He followed anyway. Somehow, we ended up driving around town looking for persimmons.

E was always searching for some maddeningly specific grocery item. On separate occasions, I’d faced TSA questioning over five pounds of fresh fava beans and a dozen sfogliatelle on my holiday travels – gifts for him. Apparently one can’t find a decent sfogliatella in Pittsburgh, despite its significant Italian population. His joy at opening the box of partially smashed pastries was worth the cost of parking in Boston’s North End and the box’s twine cutting off the circulation to my fingers throughout the journey.

I discovered my allergy to persimmon in adulthood, when my lips and gums swelled after drinking a fruit smoothie, persimmon the only ingredient I had never had before. My unfamiliarity with even the appearance of the persimmon made me a useless shopping companion, and yet we succeeded. I cracked my first smile since the argument as I watched E pile persimmons, the Italian subtype of course, into a basket while a bemused store employee looked on.

When we returned to my apartment, with more persimmons than could reasonably fit in a carry-on bag, all any of us could do was laugh. My mother, cooled off a bit, playfully chided E, “How could you force her to drive you around…on her birthday…looking for a persimmon she’s allergic to?”

The ludicrous is healing.

He never gave his opinion on my plan to have a baby. He never even mentioned it. Our focus was all on the persimmons. I’ll never be able to thank him for that.

A year later, by my 36th birthday, he was dead.

*

“Have you considered pregnancy?” my friend asked, after I shared that I had always imagined myself as an adoptive parent, though now questioned that path after learning more about the adoption industry and reading adoptees’ stories.

I really hadn’t considered carrying a biological child, somewhat remarkable for a cisgender woman who always assumed she would be a mother. Days after my conversation with my friend, I began to imagine how I would adapt to the symptoms of pregnancy. I read every evidence-based book on childbirth I could find, and some less evidence-based. My mood lifted with the gift of choice.

Age 34 and conscious of how many eggs might be left, I scheduled a new patient appointment with a local OB-GYN office. Sitting in the waiting room, I grinned down at my clipboard of paperwork when I heard the receptionist congratulate a postpartum patient on the phone. Just for being granted the appointment, I felt like I’d joined the mom club and never questioned whether I belonged.

And I thought of E. I thought how lucky this maybe baby was to have him as a grandfather. When he was alive, we never referred to him as my stepfather, because he and my mother weren’t legally married. After he was gone, I counted all the ways he’d more than earned the title.

No one in that office, either administrative or clinical, questioned my fitness to be a single mother by choice. In a refreshing contrast to my everyday acquaintances, no one hinted at how hard parenthood would be or subtly inquired about my financial situation. They all assumed that I’d already made the best decision for me, for which I was grateful. The only confusion came not from the lack of a wedding band on my hand but when the medical assistant asked me how to spell “persimmon” as she typed it into my allergy list. A persimmon allergy was so unusual, she would remember me for it when I returned the following year, and then the next, proclaiming that this time, I was finally ready.  

*

“You’ll find a nice Italian boy,” E used to tell me, with an air of certainty. We don’t have to worry or plan or work too hard. It will just come.

For him, it was all work, though it never seemed hard, and I never once heard him say he was tired. For most of his adult life, he balanced a full-time job on the night shift with daytime work in the family pizza shop, all while caring for family members with physical disabilities and maintaining an elaborate garden.

He was the eldest, by nearly a decade, on the day we took on an amusement park far too big for our ages, and the rest of us were incapable of sitting upright in a restaurant by the end of the day. Back at the hotel, he magicked a hot meal from canned pasta and the contents of the cooler he’d packed, as we sat struggling through that jet lag pseudo-nausea feeling of complete exhaustion.

He always said yes. To wading in the ocean in Maine, northern Atlantic temperatures be damned. To one more board game at 3 am on New Year’s. To climbing into the backyard apple tree and shaking it, while I ran around trying to catch the apples for our improvised apple crisp before they bruised on the ground. To attending my Unitarian Universalist church on a visit, despite having sent his kids to Catholic school and his horror when we ate fajitas on Good Friday. To a game of bocce, never mind the grass stains that could befall his khaki pants. To paying God knows how much extra postage to have Halloween candy delivered to me overnight, “extremely urgent” stamped on the card. To gelato. To laughter. To seeing anything new.

The promised Italian boy never came, not that I’d bothered to look for him. I liked to make my own decisions, so a solo household worked well. Then I decided to get a second master’s degree and change careers at the turn of my fourth decade, foregoing financial security to salvage my mental health from burnout. For years, I chased after the next milestone. Finding a partner couldn’t be a priority when I had to save myself first. The mid-thirties sneak up fast.

At half E’s age, I lacked his stamina. I couldn’t push myself like he did and still manage to be “goofy,” as his best friend marveled in his eulogy. Increasingly as I aged, my own goofiness only came out around him. Everything in my life was an obligation, whether external or self-imposed. E brought joy to the work, an attitude that I’m sure makes parenting more manageable, for those who can access it.

Could I access the joy? Some days, yes. My laughter came quick in conversation, and I appreciated simple pleasures – the resonance of a particular note from my violin in a church sanctuary, a handful of perfectly ripe blackberries straight from the container, the awkward strut of a turkey crossing a parking lot. Other days, perhaps the majority, I emanated stress and frustration even with my calendar and to-do list barely full.

There were so many reasons to say no. My child would have no aunts, uncles, or first cousins, and only one grandparent who lived 500 miles away. Our finances would be sufficient, but not comfortable enough for regular vacations or a spacious home. They may inherit my genetic predisposition to substance abuse, or my positional vertigo, or the need for jaw surgery to open their airway upon reaching adulthood. I couldn’t predict their feelings on only knowing one of their biological parents, or how much suffering this would bring them. Family and strangers alike would criticize my choice, and the stigma would trickle down to the child. Most sobering for me, they would only ever have one parent’s opinion, and if we disagreed, no one else would be present to validate them, to take them out in search of persimmons and artfully avoid taking a side, somehow supporting everyone in the end.

Yet I found myself unable to say no. At home in the evenings, I pictured a toddler on my hip or playing nearby on the floor. I imagined catching up on the day at the childcare center as a welcome distraction from my own rumination and anxiety and the monotony of daily life. I looked forward to rediscovering children’s literature through the bedtime story ritual, knowing that I needed to be forced to slow life down, and acutely aware that I’d never do it for my own sake.

*

On the 36th day after we lost E, I said yes, to a donor with Italian heritage. In his childhood photo, I could see the features of E’s son. I had the vials of sperm shipped to my OB-GYN’s office, forfeiting the opportunity to sell them back to the bank if I changed my mind. I was sure I wouldn’t, compelled to transmit some of his love to my child before it burned out.

I didn’t want to wait for the month I’d so thoughtfully chosen for the first insemination trial. My arms ached for the baby. Yet there were logistical hurdles that needed time to work out, and so I looked for distractions.

On a whim, the 149th day without E, I drove to New York City to attend a book launch event. The authors were sisters-in-law, and the first few rows of the auditorium contained their extended family. Sitting among the family gave me the alienating experience of being the only person you know at a wedding, as family members roamed the room before the event began, introducing friends to nephews and daughters and siblings.

After the talk, one of the authors swept up a preschool-aged relative, the event’s youngest attendee, in her arms and danced with her, oblivious to us in the book signing line. My smile at them was genuine, though a small part of me whispered, Your kid won’t have this. You’ll have to build them an extended family from scraps of close connections spread over the country. And you’ll never have a book signing of your own. You don’t even have the time to write now. How are you going to do it as a solo parent? And finally, most hauntingly to someone who prized their independence so fiercely she wouldn’t even date, If you’re about to get pregnant this spring, this is the last time you will ever drive to New York without telling anyone where you’re going.

I drove home not caring to know whether I would ovulate that month, supposed to be the first cycle that I tracked with the test kits. Two months later, I stopped taking the prenatal vitamins. The excitement at envisioning myself sharing the world with a small person I loved more than words was replaced with a constant internal monologue. Imagine how this task will multiply in complexity once you have an infant.

I’d become irritated at the cat to whom E was “Pap-Pap,” at his request, just because she jumped on my desk seeking the attention I never found time to give her. The internal voice taunted, You don’t have the patience to be a parent. 

Just a couple months earlier, I’d feel pangs of longing when I encountered families in the community. Overnight, the envy gave way to relief when I saw a parent struggle to contain a toddler’s boundless energy. At my church, I saw a mother moved to tears at her daughter’s solo with the youth choir, and I imagined my own child searching the congregation for my gaze while swaying to the beat. Buoyed by the lift of the music, I convinced myself that the sacrifices of single parenthood were well worth the rewards. Later that same day, having returned home to a list of unfinished tasks, I’d envision the contributions I could make professionally without children. The hour after that, I’d reach a compromise – yes to parenthood, but only if I could finagle a partner. And maybe I could! My mind would fly through past connections who I might approach with dating in mind. Finally by evening, the hopelessness set in. I couldn’t get back the past ten years of fertility, and it might take just that long to find a partner I trusted as a coparent.

A few days later, I’d be in the performer role myself at rehearsal with my community orchestra. Playing in this exclusively adult ensemble – counting beats, getting notes right, getting them wrong, hearing the swell of the rest of the section coming in around me – felt like the very definition of being alive. When I took a summer screenwriting class, my classmates read a scene from my screenplay in a live workshop. Hearing the dialogue I’d crafted come to life, knowing for the first time the privilege of having one’s work performed, was joy itself. I’d heard that parenting brought these moments of complete presence, and perhaps to a greater extent than my creative pursuits were capable. But to give up writing and playing violin to an uncertain hope for something bigger? What a gamble.

In the months after we lost E, more of them than I care to admit to, I only felt okay at work. I had to work. Days off were torturous. A nurtured career has a way of filling in the gaps of time in one’s life, until there is no more room. After the long road to build my professional identity, I couldn’t imagine allowing it to take a backseat to motherhood.

And yet, I couldn’t say no. I even tried on the words, speaking to others in past tense about the decision of whether to have children, as if it was already made. I drove myself to depression and back reading comment threads on social media on posts that included a reference to “childfree.” I tried on the label in my own mind. It didn’t fit.

Over the better part of a year, I had scribbled notes on over 200 sperm donors and created a crude tracking system of “maybe”; “I’d need a genetic test, then maybe”; “only as a last resort”; and “definitely no.” The man I’d chosen had given one of the few audio interviews that I’d been able to tolerate, much less feel excited about. I wanted half of my child’s DNA to come from someone I’d at least go to dinner with. Finally, I’d chosen, and despite my doubts about solo parenthood by choice, the choice of donor never soured. I could picture the child’s face, a combination of our features. The picture only deepened my indecision. It felt like being torn in half.

I told everyone that I was having a midlife crisis. My friends laughed. My therapist proclaimed, “You’re so young!” and had the communication savvy to sound warm rather than patronizing. My bereaved mother stared blankly at me through the video call, with a look of bottomless overwhelm.

They didn’t understand.

I was 36 and one-half years old. E died one month shy of 73 years. I was exactly at the midpoint of his life.

*         

On days when my rational mind has its say, I remind myself that at my age, conception is unlikely. I could use the three vials of sperm sitting in a freezer somewhere at my OB-GYN’s office, and then go no further down the path of infertility intervention when the three tries don’t work. Finally unburdened, because the choice wasn’t mine after all, I could tell everyone that I have fertility issues. My grief would drift from the realm of disenfranchised to the socially endorsed. Those who should have been a mother, if not for their own body’s betrayal, are a category distinct from those who chose not to become a mother or who didn’t have the other slices of life stability arranged in time.

So why not use the three frozen vials?

Because it might work. And E isn’t here. If he was, he would volunteer to demonstrate a streamline push-off from the wall of the pool’s shallow end first before my preschooler tried it. I’d taught him the skill in his sixties, because he didn’t have the fortune of swim lessons as a child. Look, Pap-Pap can do it, now you do it. If they inherited my facial structure and needed jaw surgery in their late teens, he would have prepared the same soups that nourished me when I sipped them through the wires. He would cut up a persimmon and place it on the highchair’s tray.

*

I woke an hour or so before the alarm, as happened too often, on Father’s Day, the 225th day he’d been gone. My mind grasped at the usual flurry of anxious threads, some dream, some dread.

There’s no way you can be a parent.

You’re too muddled to get out of bed, and your baby would have woken hours ago.

But I’m supposed to be a parent.

It’s all too much.

But this is your last chance. You’ll be too old.

You know that women can’t have it all.

Were you so foolish to believe you could be the exception?

I don’t even want the career I went tens of thousands of dollars into debt for. I can’t do it.

This isn’t the life I was supposed to have.

The same flurry of thoughts came nearly every morning. An hour or so later, with brain fully turned on and caffeinated, I could summon the memories of E rising to the call of every unmet need – a hairdresser for his inner circle during the pandemic, a caterer for family gatherings, and a perennial emotional buffer.

I owe it to him to keep going, whether as a parent or not. Whether I decide, or whether time decides for me, his love existed just the same.

*

On the 234th day, I took a prophylactic antihistamine and raised a slice of persimmon to my lips for the first time, curious to understand E’s enthusiasm for them. Summer is not persimmon season the U.S., and therefore the local grocery store only had imported Fuyu persimmons. He wouldn’t have been nearly as excited for this persimmon, but I’d like to think he appreciated the gesture made in his honor anyway.

Savor it, I told myself, this might be the only taste you’ll ever get.

Of course he was right. There was nothing else like it. The skin of a tomato, the scent of a pumpkin, the texture of a peach, and the flavor all its own.



BIO

Brandy E. Wyant is a clinical social worker and writer based in Massachusetts. Her personal essays have appeared in HuffPost PersonalSolsticeChange SevenPollen Magazine, and Atlantic Northeast. Find her on Instagram: @bewyant







In Your Dreams

by Noelle Shoemate



There are different types of screams—each one a battle cry to a certain horrific emotion. Sometimes the concavity of my mouth silences the sound, and yet I can still feel it ricochet through my lungs, vibrate around my tongue and get lost around my pulled molars. Her face looms over mine, a perfect round moon. Her green eyes have a reptilian quality when she smiles. When the trunk’s lid lowers over me, everything becomes the same shade of black.

***

The brochure for Anjelica’s Spa & Wellness digs into my palm as the plane gracelessly lands on the tarmac. It is hot. The sun overhead lends everything a phantasmagoric quality: A Dali-sequel trick of the eye.

“Welcome to sunny Phoenix. It is currently 115 degrees,” intones the captain.

“They better have a pool,” says Lulu.

***

Two months ago, working at Tell You a Story, a downtown Brooklyn bookstore, I unpacked boxes of a self-help book entitled How to Sleep Better. I scoffed at the cover art: a girl in a yellow chemise sleeping in the middle of a field of sunflowers. She looked peaceful. Dust motes flew around me as I read an endorsement of the book and its author, Dr. Clinton. A spotlight directed towards your dreams, refusing to allow any parts of your mind to cause fear, written by a PhD researcher and expert on the neural patterns of sleep. I read another testimonial from a woman named Gillian B—My boyfriend wants to sleep over now; I don’t scare him any more with my nightmares.

“I wish,” I said to no one in particular. As I thumbed through the back of the book, I saw that the author ran a nightmare support group in Manhattan. On Sundays.

I slashed a purple-colored lipstick across my mouth and took the F train to the Midtown address, 123 East 38th street. Housed between a Starbucks and a dry cleaner was an unremarkable brick building from the Federal period. I pushed the building’s button three times for the sixth floor, and then realized the elevator wasn’t working. I’d had minimal sleep and no time for coffee; I trudged up the stairs, hand on my lower back. Right before I arrived at the sixth floor, I stopped to catch my breath.

“Breakfast of champions,” came a voice. Platinum blonde hair flashed in my eyes. A girl I wished I looked like blew smoke in my face.

“Nightmares?” I asked.

“You coming? I’m Lulu,” she said, showing me her only imperfection, her snaggle tooth. Inside the room there were about twenty chairs in a semi-circle. It was institutionally ugly, with floor-to-ceiling windows that needed a good wash. The tube lighting hummed faintly. Everyone had a green-tinged Walking Dead complexion. Lulu was the only one who looked like she genuinely did not belong.

“Come here,” she said, leading me to a metal folding table. I wrote my name across a paper nametag with a bubblegum-scented marker. “Now you’re legit.” Next, she dragged me to an adjacent table filled with urns of coffee and an assortment of sweets, including little bags of Skittles. She took two and insisted I take two as well. Afterwards we tripped over people’s legs, making our way to side-by-side chairs.

“Hello, hello, little ones,” boomed a voice like the groan of a tugboat. I turned toward the doorway. Dr. Clinton was a giantess, at least 6’4” with an arm’s worth of jangling gold bracelets.

“New blood,” said Dr. Clinton. She pulled a dog clicker out of the pocket of her drapey sweater and clicked it at me. “Tell us your name. What you do. And why you’re here.”

Hating to be the center of attention, I internally groaned. “Sophia. I have a master’s in creative writing. I work at a bookstore until I finish the great American novel. And my nightmares end up chasing every single potential boyfriend away.”

Everyone raised their left hand and said, “We see you, welcome.”

“Break time,” said Dr. Clinton. Bewildered with the group’s trajectory, I was ready to leave, but Dr. Clinton touched my shoulder with her baseball mitt hand and said I might get more out of the group if I sat next to someone else. “Class clown,” said the doctor.

Lulu rolled her eyes behind Dr. Clinton and then motioned for me to follow her back to our seat. She opened her purse. It was filled to the brim with more Skittles.

“Only the red ones,” she said, pouring the rest into the rubber plant behind our seats. Despite my fatigue, I felt awakened. I had never known anyone who suffered from what I did.

Lulu played with the gold Victorian-style locket dangling from her neck, opening and closing it continuously. I reached across to peek inside.

“My business,” she said, and slapped my hand away. She forced a laugh. “No sleep, no manners,” she said, clearly embarrassed for her behavior.

“Why are you here?” I asked.

“Well, it’s totally weird but we’re all semi haunted here. But listen. I like you; I was an English major too.”

When I asked her where she went to school, she said vaguely, “California, small school.”

“Want to hear my nightmare?” she asked, shaking a few red Skittles into my hands.

I nodded. She fiddled with her locket. I waited.

“One night I couldn’t sleep and decided to take a walk into the woods,” she began. “For some reason, I was barefoot. It was so cold—snow hung like curtains on the bare trees. A voice called my name. Come here, I heard. At the clearing, there was a half-frozen pond. A naked woman signaled to me with her long fingers. They reminded me of snakes. Come here, I heard again—she teased me along. By the time I reached the woman, the pond’s surface cracked all over. The ice breaking apart was the loudest sound—it repeated thousands of times in my head. When my hands met her bony wrist, she pushed me into the water’s small opening. Her jaw unhinged and I saw she had no teeth. She screamed at me and never stopped.”

“That’s almost as messed up as my nightmares,” I said. I squeezed the roundest part of her shoulder, feeling I had known Lulu for a long while.

A shrill whistle sounded, indicating that break was over.

From the hall, Dr. Clinton appeared, pushing a rolling cart laden with a birthday cake blazing with candles. Vanilla icing dripped down the sides from the overheated room.

“Happy Birthday, little ones. We’re giving birth to our dreams by sharing the dark recesses of our minds.” Dr. Clinton’s face shone almost unnaturally; her fingers cobwebbed together in delight. “It is very simple, the business of nightmares. There is a finite amount of them—like people’s kinks. There are really four, I believe: being haunted or haunting someone; being chased by something or hurt by someone; not being able to speak and/or being paralyzed; and lastly, the monster of many faces, which is an archetype for intergenerational trauma.”

A collective hush followed. The whole group was lulled into introspection, wondering how Dr. Clinton would characterize their dreams.

“Which one of you would like to volunteer?” No one offered; the tension in the room was palpable. She laughed and pointed the dog clicker at the saddest sack of a guy, whose nametag said Milton R.

“You’re up,” she said, rubbing her hands with anticipation. His old baby face flushed a deep red.

He leaned back in his chair, the legs scratching against the hardwood floor. “Ever since I was little, I dreamed I was being erased. A giant pink rubber school eraser would start at my feet. First, I would lose my toes, especially the bent ones that were broken from running around while I slept.”

“A parasomnia case,” she sighed, fanning her hands in front of her generous chest. She turned her bovine eyes to us and explained that parasomniacs moved around and performed wakeful tasks when they slept. “I’m not bored,” she said. “Continue.”

“So the thing is, the eraser keeps erasing my flesh. Very neat. Going in lopsided circles.” I could feel the small hairs on my body singeing during his retelling. I thought about leaving, my body unaccustomed what to do with someone else’s trauma.

“What a crock right?” whispered Lulu. “An eraser. You got to give him credit. He’s making it up.”

I whispered my question: how could she know the difference from fake and real dreams?

“Experience.”

“We see you,” the group said.

***

 Arizona. I look over at Lulu in amazement—we have been friends for only three months. My stomach growls from the austerity diet we have been on to pay for what we both refer to as the wellness retreat.

“We are the Barbizon girls; this will be worth all of our sacrifices,” I say, tossing her a packet of beef jerky. It bounces off the steering wheel. She looks at me blankly. Dehydration is a thing in both the high and low desert, so I hand her a bottle of Poland Spring, wondering why she isn’t getting any of the literary references.

“This might be a mistake,” I say. It is my first time out west and the cacti remind me of an army, each one with arms raised, ready to vanquish an enemy troop.

“Girl, you need to relax.”  She hands me her vape pen. “I may or may not have added something besides cherry-flavored nicotine.” She taps the steering wheel with her filed-to-dagger nails. “What are your thoughts on children?” she asks me.

I laugh. We are on the young side of thirty. Single.

“Like now?” I cannot imagine taking care of a child. I can barely unravel myself from my nightmares, toting them around the way some mothers keep their babies in slings on their bodies.

“Don’t be stupid. I’m saying if it was the right opportunity.”

Opportunity. She looks at me with excitement and I don’t want to spoil the moment with my selfishness.

“Imagine! They’d have your organizational skills and those Bambi eyes,” she says, batting her lashes.

“It’s something I’ve always dreamed of, especially having a little girl,” I lie.

“Listen then, we could be mothers together!” Lulu says. She slows to a crawl because she’s squeezing my shoulder so tight.

A semi-truck’s horn blows behind us because Lulu is still driving the New York City speed limit. She flicks him off in the rearview mirror. We both laugh. Taylor Swift is our soundtrack. My eyes flutter, but my body jolts me awake, trying in vain to protect me from my own dreams.

“Don’t you dare go to sleep. I simply can’t deal with you shrieking yourself awake.”

I tap at the phone, angry that Google Maps says there is still another hour until our arrival at the retreat. Red lines show an accident up ahead. I wonder about the likelihood of our friendship. I feel like the grandmother in our little dyad: making us cookies, enforcing hydration. I ruffle through my out-of-style denim purse and pull out a bag of Skittles. I nudge her with my shoulder.

“Only red ones,” she says, as if I need a reminder. “This is everything,” she says, sticking her arm out the window, her yellow scarf fluttering around her like a children’s bike streamer on a windy day.

***

I stood outside of the nightmare group’s meeting space and debated whether it warranted going inside. I had zero faith that the doctor’s methodologies were going to work, other than to embarrass each one of us. I wound and unwound the stretchy Kelly-green keychain that housed all of my keys, spooling them around my arm. Dozens of them. I couldn’t let them go: a key to my gym locker that no longer worked because I quit the gym; keys to the house of an ex-boyfriend, who forgot to ask for them back because he was afraid of me. Suddenly I noticed Lulu exiting the room.

“You’re not backing out,” she said. The name Persephone was written on Lulu’s nametag. “You look like a jailer,” she said, pulling me inside. She maneuvered me past the bad coffee and grabbed a packet of Skittles from the metal table in the corner. “Give me the red ones,” she said. “It’s life or death.”

“You act like this place is a joke.”

“Isn’t it? I’ve tried everything else.”

We tossed along words like sleeping pills, laughing at their lack of efficacy.

“Hypnotherapy?” I said, citing promising research. She countered with EMDR, for trauma survivors, even though she insisted she’d had a very boring life.

“I started going to church,” I said, lowering my voice. “My grandmother said that maybe my nightmares proved I was possessed.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Tears streamed down her face; the wings of her eyeliner smudged.

“Group’s about to start,” said Dr. Clinton.

We walked back to our plastic chairs. I played with the Skittles in my packet until I heard my name.

“Your turn,” Dr. Clinton said, pointing the dog clicker my way. There was a palpable hush. It reminded me of the moment right before it happened in my dream. Cotton mouth. Feet soaked through my socks.

“What do I say?” I asked. The napkin was shredded in my hands, but I had no memory of doing that.

“Your nightmare, of course.”

I wondered if I could trust the other members of the group. Maybe one of them would create a podcast about nightmare-afflicted weirdos.

“I always had trouble sleeping—”

I was interrupted by her sigh. I cleared my throat and began again.

“When I was nine, my family moved to a sleepy town along the Hudson. An old Victorian house. My mother offered afterschool tutoring because my dad had lost his job. One of her students, Paula, was three years older than me. She was gorgeous like a Disney princess, but cruel. At first, she pretended to befriend me, but that meant playing by her rules. Paula created elaborate games for me to take part in, such as coming up with sociopathic tricks to play on my unsuspecting parents.

One spring day, she unzipped her raincoat’s interior pocket and took out a dead bird. Its delicate bones were crushed from falling out of a tree, and she told me to put it in the oven so my mother would find it. Another time, she dared me to climb up our ancient oak tree, scream bloody murder, then refuse to come down. We’re like sisters, she said. And I’m the only one that gets you.

“Sisters,” repeated Dr. Clinton.

“It might seem pathetic, but she was the only young person who talked to me because of the birthmark on my face.”

I steadied myself with three deep breaths. No one was laughing at me or showing pity. Reflexively, I rubbed at the faint outline of the birthmark, faded from many laser appointments.

“She started hurting me, pinching me in places my parents wouldn’t notice. She would pretend there was a bug in my hair and rip out strands. When I couldn’t stand it anymore, I told my mother, but she said, We really need the money, lovely—just stay in your room.”

I paused.

“Do go on when you are ready,” said Dr. Clinton. Surprisingly she performed like a mental health clinician and said all the right things, furrowing her brow and clasping her hands to her heart.

“For two weeks I kept my distance. But, one day, I heard my name being called from outside my open window. Let me in, she said. I want to say I’m sorry. I ran downstairs to tell her to go home, but her face was pressed against the front door, shining like a Precious Moments figurine. When she asked me to open the door, I did.

My mom has something to fix your face, she said. But let’s keep this between you and me. Look in my bag.I reached inside her Jansen backpack. At the very bottom of the bag was a small beaker with a twist top. Drink it, she said. What is it? I asked. She motioned for me to follow her up the stairs.”

I cleared my throat, conscious that I was taking up so much time and space in the session.

“So much better than the eraser story,” whispered Lulu. I was aware that the session was about to end, by the slant of the sun and the sounds of the commuter crosstown bus. No one was showing any signs of leaving.

“When we got to the attic, she sat with me on the floor and said, Warning, it tastes bad. Unafraid, I swallowed the solution in one gulp. Nothing happened for a while. I got impatient. Without warning, a clear stream of liquid shot through my mouth. And then I lost all dignity—I soiled myself. With superhuman strength she dragged me to a wooden steam chest and then she put me inside like she was playing dolly with me.

Be a good girl now, she whispered. She closed the lid. I screamed but no sound came out of my mouth. My body was partially paralyzed. The sounds of the attic mice running around kept me company, while I prayed and got no response from God.

 “I scratched at the top of the trunk for hours. By the time my mom found me, I was unconscious, and three of my fingernails were ripped off, stuck in the trunk’s lid.”

Scribbling interrupted my retelling of my dreams; I surveyed the room to catch who was being rude and saw that it was Lulu. She was taking notes during my share?

“In these nightmares I feel my nails detach from my nail beds. I hear the mice scratch across the floors.”

I didn’t realize I was crying until Dr. Clinton said, “We’ll end here for today.”

Everyone left, except the doctor. And Lulu.

Dr. Clinton’s eyes were wild, and her red lipstick bitten off. She smelled like gunpowder; she smelled like fear. “I think you need more special attention,” she said, rifling through her bag.

Finally, she handed me a card for Anjelica’s Spa & Wellness.“I can’t have you come back. We aren’t set up for unpacking complex trauma, just garden-variety nightmares.”

Lulu pushed me out of the room, her soft hand woven into mine.

***

We pull up to Shanti Lodge. A crow circles overhead, which feels like a bad sign. Unprepared for the sharpness of the high desert night, we both pull our lightweight coats tighter around us.

“Bellhop,” jokes Lulu, as we walk on the gravel Zen path towards the hotel. My back left suitcase wheel gets stuck in the red dust that blankets everything. There is chanting in the distance.

The smell of sage is so strong, it seems piped out of the ceiling vents. Two statues of winged behemoths flank the reception desk. Lulu winks at me as she presses the reception bell one too many times. “Selfie,” I say, holding up my camera.

“Photos not allowed,” says the woman who sashays through the beaded curtain bifurcating the office and lobby.

The woman wears all white and offers us identical robes. Shoes are discouraged inside. “Cult chic,” says Lulu.

“They are dream eaters,” the woman says, noticing our obsessive stares at the statues. She tells us one of the former guests, back in the 1940s, was a sculptress. After staying at Shanti Lodge, she felt unburdened, her bad dreams gone. “Obviously, it’s a bit of folklore,” she says, flicking her bored eyes away from us.

She asks us to fill out some paperwork; red asterisks are placed where she needs our signatures. Dehydration, lucid dreams, and cold extremities are some possible side effects of the treatments offered.

“Anju has time to see both of you before dinner, if you’re interested.”

She tells us to drink some of the special spa water before every treatment: there is a glass container that contains slightly off-color water. Greedily, we down four paper cones between us, parched from our flight and the altitude. Schedules are thrust into our hands, outlining classes with names like Night Stargazer, Gong and Going Deeper. The hallway towards our shared room is an optical illusion. At first it seems there are dozens of doors lining the red-carpeted hallway. But, when we reach room three, we realize that the hallway is short, a hall you might find in a basic colonial house.

“It’s always confusing here,” Lulu says. When I tell her I thought this place was a first for us, she sticks her tongue out at me and says, “Nightmare brain.”

Our door is already open to the touch.

“Did we land in Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s Yellow Wallpaper?” I ask.

Lulu just looks at me. “Such a bookworm,” she says, moving our suitcase into the closet. To make a joke I tell her we won’t have lots of lovers on our trip, since there is only one skinny bed in the room.

“Nobody wants us anyway, since we scream and moan after the main event, when no one decent is still awake,” she says.

I gently tap her on the butt with the map and convince her we should hurry to make it to our class on time. We change into our cult robes and leave our shoes behind in the room. For a retreat, the carpet seems an unlikely choice. For starters, it’s dirty; orange flowers in mid-bloom try their best to conceal spilled tea, and there are pieces of gravel from outside embedded in the fibers.

The movie The Shining flashes into my mind. Together we walk side by side, peering at every door’s number, unable to find room 202 for the treatment.

“Obviously, it’s the only unmarked room,” she says. Smoke curls from underneath the door, alerting us to a possible treatment.

“Perfect, the place is burning down before we get our money’s worth.”

“Maybe they put peyote in the water,” she says.

The door swings open. A woman with a shaved head and orange lipstick invites us to fill out a waiver. Just in case,” she says.

“Ow,” I say as she walks behind me and pokes at the back of my head with something metal.

“Sorry,” she says. “You are very tight. I might recommend you see Julio—he is wonderful with cranial massages, letting out stuck associations.”

“Not for us,” I say, grabbing Lulu by the wrist.

“For the road,” Lulu says, grabbing two more glasses of water.

Drenched in sweat, we awaken on the bed in our room, our hands clasped together. I slept solidly, dreamlessly. One. Two. Three. I count the crowdedness of my heartbeats—it seems there are more than I need. I look for my phone and then remember our phones were confiscated—so we would be ready to do the real work, words I kept hearing from everyone at the retreat.

I try to look at Lulu, but her skin seems too bright to stare at, each cubic square (inch?) fashioned out of diamonds. I ask her, “Legally they can’t take our phones, right?” She stares as if she forgot how to blink. Did they chase us with a butterfly net and deposit us in our room with the yellow wallpaper? Minutes become hours and then return to minutes. Lulu’s energy is focused on her notebook again.

A groaning can be heard from anywhere or everywhere. A woman’s voice calling, calling, calling.

“Can you hear that?’ I ask Lulu, but she is absorbed in her locket.

“Aaahhhh, aagggh,” repeats from the vents.

“Aren’t you worried? It sounds like Bertha Mason.”

“Who?”

I snap. “You studied English, for God’s sake. How are you unfamiliar with all the fundamental literary greats? Bertha Mason—the former wife from Jane Eyre?”

“It’s not Jeopardy, for God’s sake.”

The groaning continues, until I can pinpoint that it is wafting up from the grates. The part of me that loves storytelling imagines that it could be the basis for a novel. The more self-protective part of me wonders if we should continue staying at the lodge.

“I’m sorry, weirdo.” I look up from the floor, noticing the overhead lights shining down on Lulu’s head—the hollows under her eyes are magnified in a way that seems old for her age. I dust the lint off my hands and sit next to her on the bed. “Anything good?” I ask, pointing to open notebook.

“It’s private,” she says, glaring at me.

I pour myself a glass of water from the sweating carafe on the nightstand but only feel thirstier with each sip. I ask if she is interested in taking another class.

“You’re kind of codependent,” she says. A proverbial slap rings through my ears. Disgusted with Lulu and myself, I decide to take a solo walk and get a feel for the property. I grab the old-fashioned room key and make my way down the hallway. The carpet’s orange flowers look larger, and I swear that the pistils are waving at me like a field of angry tongues.

Around and around, I walk the hallway. Each time I turn the corner I end up right where I began. Frightened, I sit down on the floor, legs crossed in front of me, and cry.

“Newbie, huh?” A man of sixty or sixty-five bends down next to me. He exudes gentleness, but his teeth look sharp.

“Slow down on the water,” he says. “I can confirm we’re being drugged. Of course, it will help you do the work.” We knowingly laugh.

Unsurprisingly, he tells me he has been haunted by nightmares. His granddaughter surprised him with the trip. “And how did you get mixed up here, out of all the gin joints?” he asks, then shakes his head. “Ah—none of my business.”

He tells me that he is certain that he wouldn’t have lost every one of his previous wives if he didn’t vacillate between vivid dreams, snoring, and nocturnal strolls.

“So, you’re a modern-day Lothario?”

He laughs, showing me again the sharpness of his teeth. “The worst were the pickles!” he says. He tells me his previous wives would find him making middle-of-the-night turkey sandwiches or eating pickles. Asleep with bedhead and night sleep crusted over his eyelashes. He pats his slightly protuberant belly. I think of a cat who has gorged itself on a bowl of fresh cream.

“Parasomnia,” I yell out. I want his approval, though I don’t know why.

“Damn straight, girl. Pro tip,” he says, handing me a card out of his robe’s pocket.

Replacement Therapy. Floor 12B. Expensive paper stock, embossed with gold font.

“Changed my life, if you can afford it.” He winks at me. I watch him walk away, whistling.

I trace 12B with my pointer finger.

Clutching the card in my hand, I walk to the front desk, this time not bothering to hop over the orange flowers. What would it feel like to have things change? When I get to the front desk, I see that there is a small sign that says closed, posted behind the wall. Before I can ring the bell, an attendant comes over. “We’re closed,” she says.

“But I was invited to try this,” I say.

I am shocked when she grabs it from my fingers. “Not for you,” she says, ripping it up. She walks behind the desk and grabs a pamphlet, circling lectures she thinks I might like in pink highlighter. I explain that I heard it was life changing. “It’s expensive, and you have to be vetted,” she says, pivoting away from me.

I hate this place, I think. The governance. The arrogance. The apparent drugging. I walk back to the room, ready for an argument with Lulu. I open the door and see that she has small trays of food and two plates lined up on the bed. “I hope you like Indian,” she says.

After two bowls of fragrant chicken curry, I launch into my story.

“Actually, I was hoping to tell you about it,” she says. She opens and closes her locket. “I have not been totally honest—I have been here at least a hundred times,” she says.

“What?” I ask.

“I have something to share with you that could change your life. It’s my invention. It would be my treat.” Words like choosing dreams, blood tests and the implantation waterfall out of her mouth.

Breathless, I launch myself off the bed and walk over to the sliding patio doors. A succulent garden is planted with native plants. Their spiky exteriors seem less daunting than Lulu. I feel her behind me even though I didn’t hear any footsteps.

“Can I show you something?” she says, hovering right into my space. She removes the locket from her neck and places it in my palm. “Meet my daughter. Dani. She was three.”

“Is this a joke?” I look at the photo: same blond hair. Same perfect nose.

“I wish. Because I lost her.” Lulu digs her nails into my arm.

“She ran away?”

“No,” she says. “I’ll explain what happened later.”

“How did you have time for a kid? You were in college recently.”

She turns to me, squares her shoulders and says, “I wasn’t very honest with you. I’m older than you think, I just have good skin.” She pats her cheekbones.

“But your nightmare of the woman on the ice—”

“Well, the water part was correct.”

“So, all this … What for?”

Angry, I walk back inside the room and start throwing my belongings into my open suitcase.

“I can help you,” she says. I feel her breath on the back of my neck, smell her strawberry shampoo. She’s a stranger to me, I think.

Lulu jumps in front of the door as I wheel my suitcase out of the room.

The timer on the room’s clock chimes, alerting us that we have new room messages. They can wait. I look behind at the yellow wallpaper. All these little clues that are now so obvious: her privacy issues. The way she didn’t understand obvious references.

“Do you even have an English degree?”

Her cheeks redden. How stupid I was! I feel overwhelmed with wanting to run over her foot with the suitcase’s wheels. Leave track marks across her body.

“Just give me a minute to change your mind. And if you still don’t believe me, then go. Never talk to me again.” Her hand on my shoulder feels so heavy that I turn around.

She hands me her journal, the one that I thought was filled with ordinary secrets: crushes, nightmares etc. What I don’t expect to find are drawings on the technical level expected of an architect or engineer.

“What are these?” We sit side-by-side on the bed; my curiosity outweighs my disgust. Drawings of people lying down, attached to overhead tubes with images of faces, hearts and monsters. Cross-sections of people’s brains, nozzles, and mathematical coding. I flip through to the end of her journal, wondering if Lulu is an evil genius.

“Look at me,” she says. “You’re in hell with your nightmares and so was I, before…What if there was a cure? Would you be interested?”

Nauseated, I open a package of crackers that came with the meal she brought us.

“Do you understand? I did it! I mean, it’s not been FDA-approved yet, sure, but it works.” Her eyes are wild, a high color on her cheeks. I should stop her rambling but aside from feeling betrayed, I am curious. Maybe things happen for a reason after all.

I let her take hold of my arm, watch her apparent expertise in navigating the hallway. No silly laughing. No disorientation. I question if she ever really drank the spa water or if that was just another way to lure me in.

“You’ll see,” she says. We approach a large, gilt-framed picture of a mermaid, an unusual choice for the desert. She holds up her pointer finger and uses an old metal key to unlock a groove in the woman’s hair. A rumbling occurs and the entire painting shifts; behind it is a staircase.

“Let me show you,” she says. After descending thirty steps, we are in a laboratory. Everything is white. The floors. The walls. The researchers’ outfits.

“I want you to meet someone who benefited greatly from my pursuits.”

The avuncular guy who gave me the card comes over. No robe, but white clothes, nonetheless. “Good to see you again, kid.” He shakes my hand and apologizes that he came on a little strong.

“You almost spoiled everything, Greg,” Lulu says. He is dismissed but seems nonplussed. An angelic smile never leaves his face; she is his queen.

“It really works,” he calls after us.

Lulu, if that is even her real name, brings me into a small interior room with no windows. There are three beds in a row, occupied by sleeping bodies. All the subjects are peacefully asleep, a tangle of tubes crisscrossing over and around their bodies. Above each person’s head is a strong medical light; attached to the crown of each head is a plastic arm. The pictures over the subjects’ heads seem to be what is being piped into the strange wires. I am reminded of the feeder on my juicer back home.

I approach the bed closest to me: a younger woman, pale face, no lines.

“Is she dead?” I ask.

Lulu pulls me away from the bed. “Hush. They are so fortunate. Her worries are gone,” she says. “Music please,” she yells out, and the sweetest lullaby comes through the ceiling’s speakers. Below the surface is a discordant tone. It gives me shivers.

I follow her to another room that feels more normal, less clinical. A pink and yellow wallpapered room, unusual for a lab. There are two white pleather couches. Seeing my distaste, she says, “Small budget for décor.” She makes odd fidgety movements, jumping from one foot to the other. She busies herself making coffee and adds a few shots of Kahlua. I wonder if she is manic.

After she makes our coffees she smiles at me, switching over to play the part of Lulu, dear friend. Papers are spread across the small side table, with more graphs and photos.

“What is this place?”

“Darling, this is where dreams literally come true.” She taps the top part of the page. I lean in closer, careful not to spill my coffee, and see the words Dream Replacement Lab.

“Don’t you trust me?” says Lulu. Her pupils have bloomed so big that her eye color is almost overtaken by black. She hands over her booklet. Microscopic handwriting fills the pages. The drawings and codes make no sense. The final page has a humble envelope stuffed with pictures. She nods that it is OK for me look at the contents. Picture after picture of her daughter.

“She was like you. Inquisitive. Do you know why she died? Of course, you don’t. But I am sure you imagine some childhood illness, something unpreventable. It wasn’t.”

 I bite my lip, wondering what she plans on telling me. It is apparent how much she adored Dani.

“How did she die?” I ask.

“She drowned. But it was odd, because she was already three years old. Bath time was important in our household. I spoiled her, bath beads or bombs for each time. Part of the ritual, aside from the fluorescent tub toys, was that she loved Skittles. Only red ones.”

Lulu places her hands over mine. “Do you understand?” she asks.

I do not.

“You probably think I spoiled her; I did. But she believed the Skittles let her see in the dark, all the monsters I could never kiss away.” Sickened, I realize the ending, but Lulu wants me to hear the rest. I try to put my hands over my ears, but sheholds them tight in her own.“I left her for only a minute—it was a small house. After rifling through the pantry, I remembered the Skittles were in the trunk of my car.”

“Stop,” I say.

She barrels on. “The car was locked, so I had to run back inside, get the keys, grab the Skittles. It would have been OK, but then I accidentally let the door close, and I was locked out of the house. By the time I broke through the window, using some extra bricks from our walkway repair, she had drowned. My floating blue baby.

“Have you tried doing CPR on a baby? It is not the same as what they teach you in the courses.” Tears stream down her cheeks.

“Sophia, that was the worst thing that has ever happened to me and ever will. Awake I was tortured, replaying every wrong move. Matthew, my husband, never stopped blaming me for what I did. At night, was worse. In my nightmares, Dani would follow me, leaving damp prints on my clothes. Carpets would turn into rivers, plastic starfish shooting down my watery floor. And every moment, she would ask for more red Skittles. Please, oh please.”

An animalistic sound escapes from my mouth. I hate Lulu for her mistake, even if it wasn’t an intentional act.

“Until I designed the dream replacement procedure, every sleeping moment was a testament to my poor choices,” she says.

I allow her to show me the machinery. It is very quiet, except for one lone nurse checking the patient’s vitals.

“Each one is in a medical coma for a week.”

I gasp.

“To stabilize, silly. I have successfully treated ten patients already. Twelve if you count Greg and me.” Most of my questions she effectively dodges, such as costs for the treatment, funders, bad side effects. “You worry too much.” Lulu walks back to her desk and hands me a present with a red bow. I tear through the wrapping and see there is an old-fashioned key.

“It opens nothing, of course.” She grabs it from my hands. “Congratulations are in in order,” she says, nabbing a bottle of champagne from the staff kitchen.

After three glasses, she tells me I am perfect, I can be fixed. Bubbles fly out of my nose. No one has ever used the word perfect in describing me. Notations are made of my weight and height. No known allergies and low blood pressure have already been considered—the hazards of sharing during the time we were just friends.

“Is Dr. Clinton involved in this too?” I ask.

“Of course not,” she says.

What might scare another person, being in a chemical sleep, delights me; I will be floating in a liminal state, slowly being introduced to new dreams and granted freedom from my terrors.

“What did you decide?” Lulu asks.

“If I can really be helped, then yes!”

 Lulu hugs me. “Then I’ll see you on the other side.” She is proud of me.

The nurse measures the circumference of my head and places spiky metal disks on my crown. I think of the metal instrument that poked me when I had the scalp assessment in the spa. I try and say “No, I changed my mind—”

The nurse pricks my vein with a needle, and a slow warm burn invades my body. “Have a safe journey,” Lulu says.

How quick is the descent of madness? Is it a steady decline, like taking a spiral staircase down in the middle of the night, a precarious heel-toe balance while you cling to the railing? Or is it faster? Maybe it happens at the pace of a misstep, like tripping over a log while hiking, the unreal moment before you land and hear the crunch of bone, your femur head exposed.

In this space, Paula doesn’t exist anymore. Twilight filters through the plate glass windows, encircling everything in a cinematic glow. A little girl, wet from a bath and wrapped in an oversized pink towel, follows me. “Mama,” she says. She loops her arms around my knees.

I bend down to her small size and tell her, “We don’t belong together; you’ve made a mistake.” She beats her fists on the floor and cries. I try walking away, placing my hand on the metal doorknob. An electric current rips through my head. Is this a sick joke? Memories are hazy— perhaps I drank too much champagne? But why was I drinking champagne? I can’t afford champagne on what they pay me! The little girl screams again—she asks for Skittles. Only red. Something is very wrong. “I don’t like kids,” I say, hoping that she will leave me alone. She is nothing to me.

“Bad mommy,” she says.

Weak, I sit on the dusty rose couch. Wasn’t I on vacation? A retreat? I walk into the kitchen, looking for a coffee maker; maybe caffeine will clear out the brain fogginess. The child runs after me, asking if we can read a book together, the one about the three dinosaurs that want to learn to ski. This confirms it, people should not be so lazy with the adage It takes a village to raise a kid. It does not: just the mother. And I am not her mother.

Lounging on the couch, my tongue feels too big for my mouth. Dried out. There is no water left in my glass and the kitchen taps are broken.

The little girl has changed into a blue dress with ribbons. She sits down next to me, opens her little palm and offers me those red Skittles she was begging for when we first met. “What the hell,” I say, chewing through candies, tasting only ashes.

“You said a bad word,” she says, scrunching her face up in anger.

“I’ll read to you,” I say. The book magically appears in my lap.

“Welcome back,” I hear, watching the fluorescent lights overhead. My head feels fuzzy. I don’t trust that I can safely get up from the bed without tripping over my feet. I am in the clinic. I am alone. The bars are pulled up around my bed—I wonder if it is for my own protection or theirs.

“Hello!” I call out. “I’m ready to leave.” Lulu floats over to the bed in an oversize orange dress, her hair slicked back and held in place with a pair of chopsticks,

“Not so fast, girl,” she says, pushing down my shoulders, letting me know she can use more force if she wishes.

Her face seems altered in a way that I don’t recognize. It’s her lack of makeup—it makes sense now that she is older. Her face is pale because she’s not wearing blush.

“What the hell?” I say. “I thought you were replacing my nightmare with something pleasant. But I seem to have the ghost of your daughter.”

She looks at me as if I am stupid, not understanding the point of the exercise.

“I pegged you as being more maternal, my friend, but you’re awful at this. When a kid cries or says mama that’s your cue. You act the freaking part.”

I try to lift myself off the hospital bed, but my left hand is surrounded by metal. With horror, I understand that I am handcuffed to the bed. What could I have done wrong to be treated like a criminal? I think back to my keys, wishing for the skeleton key I recently acquired.

I look at the picture across from the bed and want to scream. It is a picture of a kitten curled around its mother. The caption says Always Dream Big.

As if she can read my thoughts, she tells me that I need to be prepared for lots of training now that I have a daughter.

“I do not,” I say, trying to shake my hands free.

“But you do. You will submit. Your life can be pleasant, even happy, if you do what you are told.”

“Why me?” I ask.

“Because I am too close to the situation. You aren’t related; it will be easier for you to bear.”

I scream at her, and she leans over and says, “Be a good girl now.” I realize that I am dealing with someone with the same psychological profile as Paula.

The nurse comes over and pulls another long needle off the tray. Wait, I try to say, but I can feel the chemical burn taking me down into a dream…down a rabbit hole I go.

***

The oven dings, letting me know that the chocolate ganache cake is ready. It is her eighteenth birthday today.

“Buttercream?” asks Dani.

“Absolutely,” I say.

For the past fifteen years, I have raised Lulu’s daughter in my dreams. At first, I refused; after all, she wasn’t mine. She wasn’t real. I can tell you, the funders of the lab, that what Lulu did is extraordinary. When I wasn’t asleep and forced to raise her virtual dead child, then the waking hours were mine. True, I never left the laboratory, but she supplied me with enough Vitamin D pills, heat lamps, pizza every Friday, that eventually I didn’t notice what was taken. The sunshine. Freedom. Jumping into the ocean, even if it was cold.

“Are you OK, Mom?” she asks me.

I nod my head in return, focusing on how beautiful she is, how her hair curves in waves around her thin shoulders despite being a hologram blend.

“You look sad,” she tells me, offering me a bite of the cake.

Sugar crystals melt on my tongue, but in this world, all the food tastes like ashes. I can’t tell her that after today I will never see her again. If I could stay suspended in this liminal space between dreaming and waking, I would be thrilled. Instead, the dream lab has been suspended until further notice because of a few ethical violations. The forced stop date of the medical experiment coincides with Dani’s birthday.

Each time I awaken, materializing back into real life, I am required to write copious notes about Dani’s development and estimate her weight and height. Lulu never had the courage to look through the cameras attached to my skull, preferring to just listen in with the microphone. Her loss. I am told that there will be a sizable amount of money left for me, so that I don’t have to worry about gainful employment. My hands reach over and clasp Dani’s hands, memorizing each lifeline, breathing in her honeysuckle scent.

“Countdown to three, two, one,” crackles in my ear.

“Awaken,” I hear as I let go, my hands drifting away from Dani’s. Her fingers are like puffs of air in my own, disassembling until I feel nothing.

My eyes resist opening. My lips curl into a fierce snarl, refusing to adapt to my new normal of never seeing her again. My daughter. Lights flash in my eyes, testing the dilatory function of my pupils.

All at once, the bed lowers and the bars on each side come down. Lulu stands there, frowning as I make no motion to get up.

 I have returned but am already gone, tripping in the recesses of my mind with Dani as we talk about existentialism. She asks me if I believe that in such a bleak existence, anything really matters.

“We matter,” I say, acknowledging the glitch in the system: Lulu and the team told me I would have no memories of my medicalized time; it would be erased. I smile. They were wrong.



BIO

Noelle Shoemate has taken writing classes at NYU, Gotham, Catapult and the New School. She holds a master’s degree in clinical counseling; her therapeutic background informs her writing. Her work is published in Bellingham Review, The Courtship of Winds, ellipsis… literature and art, Five on the Fifth, Night Picnic, Packingtown Review, Pennsylvania Literary Journal, Sierra Nevada Review, The Thieving Magpie, and Umbrella Factory.








Honeycrisp Hand Grenade

by J. Scott Lewis



The one with the brown rotting bruise
circling a pinprick hole. That is where the fuse goes.
It’s where little flies feast, sucking
tongues against fermented flesh.

They are of no consequence,

easily dispersed with a wave of a hand.

I could cut it away, dig into clean ivory tissue
remove the carbuncle from the core
find out how far the fuse descends below the crust
but what good would that do?

Once the fuse is lit there is no going back.

You cannot disarm what wants to explode.

Trapping a fly between my teeth,
I tear into foul flesh, softness oozing
into gums, sour rancid shape swirling
across my tongue like mud gliding downhill.

Red flak explodes against my tongue

shattering reverie into a million bites.



Still Life


Mosquito parades along my wall,
licking blue gray paint, high
step strutting peering into cracks.
It pauses on a grease stain that
resembles abraham lincoln opening a
can of sardines. I don’t remember
how it got there; I just recall that
it is old. Mosquito (pretend
art critic) ponders the portrait,
nods approval. I am sure his
review will create quite a buzz.

In no mood for art
I smash it against the
sardine can, framing it
against the key
adding its print to
my museum of melancholy.



BIO

J. Scott Lewis earned a B.A. in English from Bethany College, WV. He went on to earn a Ph.D. in Sociology from Bowling Green State University. He is the author of a textbook as well as numerous academic papers and book chapters. His creative writing has been published in Poetalk, The Harbinger, and the Eastern PA Poetry Review. He is a winner of the Writer’s Garret Common Language Project. His poem “Egret” is on display at the Detroit Lakes, MN, Poetry Walk from June through September 2025. He lives with his family in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

Photo by Graham Lewis Photography







Sort of Maybe Famous

by Michael Loyd Gray



     It had rained again but now it was clear and waning sunlight filtered through gaps in Tribeca’s old brick buildings. Water pooled on streets and red, green, and yellow from stoplights reflected in the pools. After coffee in a noisy café, I walked past industrial warehouses turned into ritzy lofts for hipsters, actors, artists — wannabes. I was probably as far culturally from my Beaver Island, a lonely speck in Lake Michigan, as one could be. From Tribeca, everything west, beginning with Jersey, was The Great Unknown.

      I found the little art gallery sandwiched among boutiques along the Hudson River. I’d promised to see Maggie’s work, her painting. Next to the gallery, a lanky young man about my age with a shock of black hair dangling over his eyes swept the sidewalk in front of a wine bar. He had to sweep his hair back to see the walk.

     A small sign above the door said Adolfo’s. There were tables and chairs piled together in a tangled mess. Mist that had settled among the taller buildings and over the river had dissolved. A few clouds lingered and the sun was trapped behind them. The street was cast in half-light, an amber tinge.

     It was a few minutes before the gallery opened and I watched the man sweep. He looked up at me. I smiled and he hesitated but smiled, too.

     “Waiting on the gallery,” I said, pointing to its door.

     “They’re always a little late.”

     “I see.”

     “Just so you know.”

     “Well, I have time. It looks like a fine day if the clouds lift.”

     He glanced up, as if remembering there was a sky.

     “More rain coming, I heard.”

     I took another look up.

     “Maybe so.”

     “Are you a friend of Walter and Stella?”

     I took that to mean the owners of the gallery.

     “That’s who owns it, the gallery?”

     “It is.”

     “I don’t know them. I just came to see a painting.”

     “Are you from around here?”

     “I’m from Michigan.”

     He stared at me a moment as if I’d announced I’d just rolled in off the boat from Oz.

     “You came from Michigan to see a painting?”

     “Not exactly. But while I’m here, I’ll look at the painting.”

     “Are you an art dealer?”

     “I’m not, no. Not much call for that where I’m from.”

    “But you’re here to see a painting, even though you’re not a buyer?”

    “Sounds kind of odd, I admit.”

    “Jesus – that’s a long way for a painting.”

    “I reckon so.”

    “Just one?”

     “But I know her — the artist.”

     “Somebody famous?”

     “I don’t know exactly.”

     He leaned his broom against a table.

     “You know her but don’t know if she’s famous?”

     “I don’t know how fame works in the art world.”

     He half-smirked but converted it to a smile.

     “If you’re famous in Tribeca, then you’re famous everywhere.”

     “That sounds about right, I suppose. Lots of famous people around here, I heard at the hotel.”

     His face brightened.

     “Fame is Tribeca. Robert DeNiro was here last night, in the bar.”

     “Is that right? Imagine that.”

     “I’ve seen Mick Jagger here, too.”

     “Did you meet him?”

     “Yeah, for sure. He’s a nice guy. Friendly as you please.”

     “Best frontman in rock,” I said. “And DeNiro just drops in casual-like?”

     “He lives nearby. This is his neighborhood, man.”

     “I’ll keep my eyes peeled.”

     “What’s your name.?”

     “Davis Underwood.”

     I offered my hand. His grip was firm. I guess I expected limp from a hipster, if that’s what he was. I wasn’t exactly sure what qualified as hipster. I was pretty sure there weren’t any on Beaver Island.

     “I’m Brody,” he said. “Brody Dalton.”

     “You own the bar, Brody?”

     “Oh, hell no. I couldn’t afford this place. This is Tribeca, you know. I’m the manager.”

     “Well, we all start someplace.”

     “And in Tribeca, if you aren’t rich, that’s often where you stay – at the start.”

     “I hear you. But dreams are still free.”

     “I’ll take that under advisement,” Brody said, grinning.

     I glanced at the gallery door and then my watch.

     “Sometimes Walter and Stella are more than just a little late,” Brody said. “They were in the bar last night, too. They stayed late.”

     “I get the picture.” I pointed at the tangle of chairs and tables. “You want some help with all that?”

     He looked at the pile and then me, skeptically.

     “Seriously?”

     “I’m not afraid to work, Brody.”

     “Is that some kind of Michigan slogan?”

     “No, that’s just how I roll, I guess.”

     “I think you’re a long way from home, Davis.”

     “Don’t I know it.”

     “Okay,” he said, after sizing up the tangled pile again. “Help me and I’ll give you a free beer. Maybe two.”

     “Guinness?”

     “Any kind you want, my friend.”

     “What’s the second beer depend on?”

     “How good the conversation is.”

     “Sounds about right.”

     After we set up the chairs and tables, we sat at the bar, the door locked behind us. Brody drank coffee and I sipped a Guinness. His staff would drift in soon. It was drinking during the day, in a bar, but I didn’t consider it day drinking. I had a purpose. Places to be and people to see. But a couple days to kill before I did business with Maggie’s foundation. She said I merited a few days off to see the sights. I wasn’t complaining about it.

     I told him the whole story, even the prison part.

     “Well, shit, Davis — that’s some tale alright. A year in the slammer and you weren’t even guilty. I can’t imagine it.”

     “You can’t. Trust me.”

     “So, this rich Maggie painter lady now wants you to give a talk at her charity’s board meeting?”

     “On Friday. I’m supposed to persuade them to help more average folks like me get back on their feet.”

     “You’re the poster boy.”

     I looked away.

     “I reckon I am at that.”

     “Can you pull it off?”

      I shrugged.

     “A man can only do his best and let the cards fall.”

     “More midwestern stoicism, Davis?

     “Common sense, I reckon. So, who owns this place? A guy named Adolfo?”

     “A guy named Terrence. Your basic rich Manhattan asshole. He owns several restaurants, too. One’s over by The Odeon.”

     “What’s the Odeon?”

     “A famous restaurant.”

     “I see. Everything around here seems to be famous.”

     “You’re catching on, my friend.”

     “And this asshole owner, he’s friends with DeNiro?”

     “Thick as thieves.”

     “How would he feel about these free beers?”

     “He doesn’t know what goes on in his bar day to day. He just owns it. Two different things for rich people.”

     “I reckon so,” I said, hoisting my Guinness.

     “Besides – you worked for the beers, right?”

     “I’d like to think I did, yeah.”

     “Maybe you’ll see DeNiro, if you come around at night.”

     “Think so?”

     “If he’s here, I’ll introduce you.”

     “He’d be okay with that?”

     “Within limits.”

     “What limits?”

     “It all depends. It’s a tricky business, rubbing shoulders with the rich and famous. There are rules — etiquette.”

     “I can just imagine.”

     “Maybe not, Davis.”

     “You’re probably right.”

     “You ever meet anybody famous?”

     “Not a one. Does Maggie count?”

     He mulled it.

     “Well, she has a painting in a good gallery. And she runs that foundation. And she’s rich. She’s maybe low-level famous. More rich than famous. No doubt she knows famous people because she’s rich. So, by association, sort of maybe famous.”

     “That’s a big distinction?”

     “This is Tribeca, Davis, the hip center of the Manhattan universe. There’s a pecking order to the fame and fortune.”

     “It’s like a whole other planet.”

     “Most days, yeah, it is. For sure.”

     A couple of young, pretty women arrived — servers to get the bar ready to open. Cuban American women, Brody said, with long glossy black hair pulled into dangling ponytails that swished like a horse’s tail swatting flies. They glanced at me at the bar with Brody and they smiled several times.

     “Friendly ladies,” I said.

     “They think you might be somebody.”

     “Like who?”

     He shrugged.

     “They don’t know. But they don’t want to miss out, just in case.”

     “What kind of famous do they think I could be?”

     He studied my face a few seconds.

     “Maybe an actor whose name they forget but the face seems familiar. You do kind of look like Edward Burns.”

       I had to think who that was.

     “Has he been in here?”

     “Probably. We get our share of actors.”

     “Edward Burns,” I said, finally remembering Saving Private Ryan. “Do you think so?”

     He studied my face.

     “Close enough, Davis. People see what they want to see.”

     The two servers glanced at me again and one said something to the other and they smiled and giggled.

     “Do they think I might be Edward Burns?”

     “Maybe. I have no idea what those two tamales think sometimes, if you get my drift. But they know you’re here before we open, drinking with me. So, they suspect you might be somebody.”

     “They’ll be disappointed.”

     “That’s not how to look at it, Davis. I won’t tell them who you are. I’ll keep it mysterious in case you come back when we open. See how that works?”

     I nodded.

     “But the truth comes out eventually.”

     “Truth has nothing to do with it.”

     “Why not?”

     “First off, people come to Tribeca – Manhattan in general — and get to know famous people, rich people, and that association can open doors and then for various reasons, they might become famous, too.”

     “You see any of that in my future, Brody?”

     “Fame? You never know. You want fame, you’ve come to the right place.”

     I finished my Guinness.

     “But what if everybody became famous?”

     “Is that a problem?”

     “Who would do the work around here?”

     “That’s easy to fix, Davis. There are always new non-famous people coming in to work who hope they move up to famous.”

     “Kind of like a cycle.”

     “Yeah, a cycle alright. The fame cycle.”

     I got up to go and Brody let me out front.

     “Maybe I’ll see you later, Brody.”

     “Remember – you too might become famous. But it’s a major commitment.”

     “Sounds like it, for sure.”

     “Lots of work and upkeep, my friend. High maintenance.”

     “Kind of like a foreign sports car,” I said on the way out the door.

     “Exactly. So, see you tonight – Ed Burns?”

     “Well, you just never know.”

     “Don’t overthink it,” he said. “Go with the flow.”

     “Be whoever I want to be, you mean?”

     “Why not? Be Edward Burns, if that works for you. He’s probably off making a film somewhere. Life’s a costume party, isn’t it?”

     “Sometimes, yeah, it seems that way. For sure.”

     “Somebody once said you are who you pretend to be.”

     “Somebody famous, no doubt.”

     “Of course.”

     One of the Cuban gals glanced my way and winked.

     “I think Brasilia like you,” he said

     “Brasilia? That’s really her name?”

     “It is now. She’s ready in case she gets famous for something.”

     “Like what?’

     “Whatever comes along.”

     “Seems pretty random.”

     “Yeah, but in Tribeca, you got to be ready to catch the train when it pulls up.”

     “I see,” I said, nodding. “Well, I’ll be seeing you, Brody.”

     “I don’t doubt it.”

     After he closed the door, I checked the gallery next door. It had still not opened. Walter and Stella must have had a hard a night working at being famous. I looked up at dark clouds drifting in. Brody was probably right about the rain. I headed back to my hotel, stopping for a moment to appreciate Adolfo’s patio tables and chairs in their neat even rows. We’d done a good job of it.

     I glanced at the sky. The clouds had not lifted. If anything, they were darker, lower, and I figured a good hard rain was about to fall. I stopped for coffee in a crowded cafe. The windows had fogged over and people walking by were ghostly blurs. I was the only one sitting alone at a table. I looked around the café and listened to the simmering hum of voices. It was like being inside a beehive with more bees arriving all the time.

     A thirtyish woman, pretty, straw blond hair under a blue beret, sat down at a table next to mine. She sipped her coffee and glanced my way several times, once smiling, but I chalked that up to public etiquette, perhaps. Civility. We made eye contact again and I returned her smile.

     “I know I should know who you are,” she said, leaning into the aisle toward me.

     “You should? Why is that?”

     But I said it in a pleasant voice and remembered to smile again. She pivoted her chair toward me.

     “You probably get this a lot — people recognizing you when you’re just out minding your own business and all.”

     “Not as much as you might think.”

     “Really? I thought I recognized you right off.”

     “Did you?”

     “Well, not at the very first. I had to sneak a couple looks, of course. I hope you don’t mind.”

     “Not at all. It’s perfectly fine.”

    “You’re probably used to it all by now,” she said. “It must happen all the time.”

     I shook my head slowly and sipped my coffee.

     “I can’t say it does, to be honest.”

     “You’re just being modest.”

     “That’s me – modest.”

     “But of course, you must be proud of your work.”

     “Of course.” 

     She glanced around at other tables, the people deep into lively conversations. I felt guilt about letting this one go on. It had gotten away from me at the very start.

     “I’m Allison, by the way,” she said, and we shook hands. Hers was pink and warm. She wasn’t half bad to look at and her smile lit up the room.

     “I guess I don’t need an introduction,” I said, hoping she didn’t notice me wincing when I said it.

     “The thing is,” she said, lowering her voice, “I know your face from movies but not the name — sorry about that. I really do apologize.”

     “No need.” I patted her hand softly and she looked thrilled. “Trust me, Allison — I’m used to people not knowing who I am.”

     “It must drive you crazy — people knowing your face but not your name.”

     “Edward Burns,” I said confidently.

     Who was I to ruin her fantasy? She looked very pleased.

     “Can I call you Ed?”

     “Everybody does.”

     “Does anyone call you Eddie?”

     “My mother – when she was mad at me.”

     “Now she’s proud of you, of course.”

     “She passed away.”

     “Oh, Ed – I’m so sorry.”

     “That’s okay. Thanks. It was a long time ago.” I finished my coffee and smiled at her. “But now, I really have to run, although it was very nice to meet you, Allison.”

    “Likewise, Ed. Are you off to some movie location around here?”

     “No, no – nothing like that.” I tied to think of some excuse to leave that didn’t seem like I was just bolting. “I’m meeting Bob DeNiro for a drink.”

     “Really? Wow – Robert DeNiro. Where?”

     “At his place. It’s not far.” I stood. “And I better not be late – we can’t be standing up DeNiro, you know.”

     “Of course not,” she said gravely.

     A young woman at a nearby table heard me say DeNiro and studied my face for a few seconds before falling back into her conversation. I gently squeezed Allison’s shoulder and left before she could ask for an autograph. I felt that coming. I didn’t want to have to make that choice. That would have been a defining moment, for sure. I knew that would have been a mistake.

     When I got back to the hotel, I ate fettucine alfredo in the restaurant before going upstairs to put on a clean shirt to go back to Adolfo’s. But instead, something changed inside me, and I looked out at the Manhattan skyline for a few minutes and decided I’d had enough fame for one day.

     I clicked on the TV and looked over the movie menu and laughed out loud: Saving Private Ryan was available. I got a cold Heineken from the minibar, stacked pillows behind my head, eased back, and found the channel.

     I wanted to see Edward Burns.



BIO

Michael Loyd Gray is the author of eight published novels or novellas and nearly sixty published short stories. He earned a MFA from Western Michigan University and a bachelor’s degree from the University of Illinois. Gray’s novella Busted Flat, winner of a Literary Titan Gold Award, was released in October 2024. His novella Donovan’s Revolution, winner of a 2025 International Impact Award for Contemporary Fiction, a Literary Titan Gold Award, and a 2025 Book Excellence Award for Historical Fiction, was released in June 2024. Released in February 2025 — Night Hawks, a novella. His novel The Armageddon Two-Step, winner of a Book Excellence Awardwas released in December 2019. His novel The Writer in Residence is forthcoming from Between the Lines Publishing. Gray lives in Kalamazoo, Michigan, with three cats and a lot of electric guitars.







ENVY

by Alexandra Disabella



Vines are persuasion –
the way they invade,
envelope limbs,
extremities locked
in awkward embrace,
coiling around the warmest parts
possessing pulsating stalks,
rudimentary cotyledon
stifling cordate leaves,
deoxygenated,
infested by mere weed.



A Stone’s Throw from County Jail


The only time my aunt came to visit
was when uncle Mike was thrown in County Jail.
            “He didn’t do it”
                        she said.
But we knew otherwise …
having a penchant for bending boundaries
AND as runt of the dysfunctional bunch
we knew his tendency to take what was not offered
would resurface

like the way the onions from the corner store at the end of the block
marinated the sidewalks and hanging planters
so that with each blowing breeze and insufferable heat
the odor would bake,
ferment.

Uncle Mike was like that, too –
digging his way back into our lives
lingering –
never trying to show up on purpose.

Petty theft, I guess, was his way in
to be as close as stone walls,
barbed wire,
and cuffs would allow.

When the screams would lift through my open window at night,
I’d often try to pick out his voice –
he sounded like suspicion and the pull of a cigarette
breathy,
cautious,
capable of convincing me to set him free.

But mom knew the pattern
the gentle way in which weasels inch into gaping holes,
never self-aware enough to know
they didn’t need saving.



If Raskolnikov was a 16-year-old Girl


It wasn’t my fault.
            She wouldn’t give me what I wanted –
                        20 rubles for mother’s gold cross
                        I needed money,
                        quick
                        no time to invest
                        sweat
                        tears
                        blood …
There was so much blood
            dripping from the temple and slight dip of the frown,
                        falling
            in         and      out of wrinkles
                                                            as the red sludge pooled on worn brown wood.

Shit, shit shit …
Chipped black nails rested over the soft flesh at the base of the jaw

no pulse.

Shit, shit shit …
Scuffed trainers squeaking back and forth,
tendrils knotted,
framing frantic eyes
searching for the way out.

Footsteps mirroring the sound of her pounding chest
echoing the thwack of the bat
as it cracked against a crepe paper covered skull.

She hadn’t even intended it –
the deft way her hand wrapped around the handle
and swung with precision.

She hadn’t even thought to cause harm
until the shopkeeper’s derisive sneer
hung above the left incisor.

I need to get the hell out of here.
Grabbing the bat,
wrapping it inside the left panel of her sweater,
turning toward the slightly ajar door

huuuhh!
                                    Pocketbook thudding to the ground
hands pressed into aged cheeks
as screams rippled down frail frame

thwack

Thud

Boom!
The lock clicked into place,
muted steps raced down the hall
as another red river ran to fill
the bloody pool.



BIO

Alexandra Disabella is an educator and writer based in Pennsylvania. After recently completing her MFA from Wilkes University, she has spent time drafting poetry, memoir, and fiction. An avid baker, she spends countless hours in the kitchen developing new recipes. When she isn’t lesson planning, writing, or baking, she spends time with her husband, cat, and two dogs. Find her at https://www.alexandradisabella.com/







Small Time

by Chuck Rybak



Come morning      you play in the ocean with a child
speaking in waves through the waves
the undertow pulls on the limbs of generations
asks you to come out further      closer to the message

The present collapses under the weight
of nothing      our species wilts
beneath the specter of our conclusion      we order
from Amazon just to have something to look forward to

We must be the shade for the trees
build our ribs into bird nests and lairs
concentrate on slowing ourselves into ice
there’s no time like the past

The world shrinking so fast      small lifetime
with no connection to a star outside chronology
our own yards reveal new trees
unnoticed      like the snow that never came

Perhaps an estuary will grant you permission to look closely
with only your skin      at life unrivaled
living equations of origin and future
each number in its place and without voice

The stump in the yard is still wet
roots sending water to a ringed altar
the accumulated years
still spelling out what we cannot read



Invasive


She says almost nothing on this far island
is native      nearly every species invasive
this      you have to work at

You have to bring the body
as I have      across the ocean’s horizon
Nothing can just blow here on the wind
Nothing came to aid those already at home      the indigenous
The exotic will come      inexorable      the exotic will leave

What was home is a museum
What was home is thirty species of palm
on a dead poet’s property      seeded from his dead wife’s shed
Maybe here off the main road in a town
that sounds like a poem      Haiku, Hawaii
is where native lives

I believe my knowledge makes me welcome here
different from the tourists
who come from home
invasive species in print shirts
who see everything as the same kind of pretty



Clichés to End the Lies


A chip off the old lie.
Kill two birds with one lie.

This little liar went to market,
This little liar stayed home.

I took the lie less traveled by,
and that has made all the difference.

The third time is a lie.
It’s just a hop, skip, and a lie.

This little liar had roast beef,
This little liar had none.

Good things come to those who lie.
The art of lying isn’t hard to master.

The early bird catches the lie.

Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the lies
Like a patient etherized upon a table.

And this little liar went wee wee wee all the way home.



BIO

Chuck Rybak lives in Wisconsin and is a Professor of English, Writing, and Humanities at the University of Wisconsin—Green Bay, where he coordinates their prison education initiative. He is the author of two chapbooks and two full-length collections of poetry. Chuck also writes on Substack as The Declining Academic.







Greatest Chain of All

by Julia Faour



“Dear Lord, I pray for the strength to endure the work day, but most of all, I pray Charlotte won’t have another trifecta of accidents, or this time, I’m really going to quit my job. While you’re at it, Lord, would you please, for the love of—Ahem, please make Jack bedridden so that he won’t be at the center today. In Jesus’s name, Amen.”

Miss Sophie unclasped her hands and rolled her eyes. Apparently, assaulting a teacher, choking out another kid, and destroying school property weren’t enough reasons to kick Jack out of the early childhood education center—but what did Miss Sophie know? She’s just a Pre-K teacher, not the director, after all.

There was a lot, it would seem, Miss Sophie didn’t know.

When she had made a report to the director about Miss Vanessa vaping in the center parking lot every morning before coming into direct contact with susceptible three-year-olds, it was her, not Miss Vanessa, who got into trouble and was ultimately relocated to a different classroom.

She had also learned that joking about killing yourself was a perfectly acceptable way of coping with workplace depression. So, if Miss Vanessa wanted to talk about hanging herself on the playground swing set every day during recess, she was welcome to process her childhood trauma and intense self-loathing through her own means. It was Miss Sophie who really ought to check her religious biases against mentally ill people and learn how to take a joke.

There was also the other incident with Miss Vanessa that the director never did end up hearing about, partially because Miss Sophie was too mortified to share and she could’ve predicted the response, anyway. She was the homophobe who was so intolerant she refused to hear anything about her gay co-worker’s open relationship, let alone the most intimate details of her sex life, in a professional work environment while parents and their five-and-under toddlers arrive for the day.

But what did Miss Sophie know?

She was only nineteen, barely out of high school and the youngest teacher in the entire building. An immature, inexperienced, selfish, prideful, self-righteous, know-it-all. Who was she to tell an adult what is and is not appropriate for a work environment?

 She was not a forty-two-year-old divorced director addicted to scrolling through Facebook and fighting on the phone with her ex during work hours.

No, she was just the one currently shielding Cordelia from Psychopath Jack’s choking attempts, while splitting her attention between the other twenty-nine maniacs, after having cleaned up the fourth accident of the day and her shirt sleeve endlessly tugged by grimy hands paired with infuriatingly high pitched, “teacher, he did this,” and “teacher, she did that,” exercising a whole new level of self-control unknown to man to not just say “to hell with it all” and frisbee throw all the magnet tiles everyone is fighting over straight out the window.

Instead, Miss Sophie rubbed her temples and downed her third Monster energy drink of the day, mentally noting which children she needed to specifically pull aside now or could save for later. Jack had already been talked to and sent to Cozy Corner to decompress, so that left resolving Hendrique, the Wannabe Ninja’s current rampage of karate chopping people in the butt and explaining yet again to “Double Trouble” Charlotte and Cordelia, why they can’t use the classroom scissors to cut each other’s hair, even though the scissors are conveniently accessible at all times because the state for some reason requires it.

Does everyone just exist to make my life miserable? she thought.

Friends,” Miss Sophie plastered on a smile, forcing herself to use her teacher voice, “If this is how we’re going to behave during choice time, we’re going to be all done. Remember, we need to use walking feet, gentle hands, and quiet inside voices. Let’s be sure to make wise decisions with our bodies at school.” Her right eye twitched. “Your teacher can’t afford to get sued by your parents, so please, show me how to behave for the next thirty minutes and you can earn a marble for our classroom jar.”

Choice time was a special kind of daily torture. Its function was to section off time apart from lessons to provide children with the opportunity to make their own choices during play and to hopefully learn from the consequences, such as how Mommy reacted to cutting a friend’s hair. In effect, it would ultimately help develop the children’s emotional intelligence and self-regulation during their most formative years of development. For Miss Sophie, however, it meant handing out a stack of incident reports at the end of each day to exhausted parents already eager to bite somebody’s head off.

Miss Sophie sighed and collapsed into her desk chair. In the split second she sat down to gather herself, the director swung open her classroom door for one of her “surprise” inspections.

Miss Sophie groaned and quickly pretended to busy herself with the blank incident reports scattered across her desk.

“Taking a break again? You’re always—”

It was the same old lecture she always heard. The longer the director went on, the more and more tempted Miss Sophie felt to grab the bucket of magnet tiles. She imagined taking them, one by one, and throwing them like ninja stars, lodging the director’s skull into the wall behind her. And then—

—the director was gone. Miss Sophie sighed.

What is wrong with me? I can never do anything right, can I?

A series of quick footsteps seized her attention. Startled, she jerked her head up to see Hendrique running toward her as fast as his tiny legs could carry him.

She steadied her voice. “Hendrique, walking feet please.”

He did his best to comply, speed walking with an excited skip in his step.

“Hey, Miss Sophie.” He nuzzled his face into her elbow. “You my best fwend. I love you.”

Her mouth parted, eyes softening. A new slight smile hung on the edge of her lips as she rustled his hair. Then, her face transformed into a look of horror.

She stared down at him, a new resentment rising within her. He had sentenced her to another tomorrow.



BIO

Julia Faour writes about the beauty and brokenness of the human psyche. She has an English BA in Creative Writing and is a Colorado Christian University graduate.  









The Commie Squirrels of Chisholm Lookout

by Allen Billy



The spring and summer of 2023 represent the worst wildfire season on record in Canada.

Thousands and thousands of hectares of forest, meadows, and muskeg were consumed by fast-moving fires. Multiple communities and farms were endangered. Thousands of people were traumatized by evacuations – leaving behind homes and possessions and not knowing if they would return to structures or ash. Several firefighters were killed or injured combatting these blazes. This was a year of danger, stress, and bad, smoky air in northern forests.

I had the great fortune to be selected as one of 127 lookouts in the province watching finding and reporting wildfires. I was assigned to a relatively remote tower in northern Alberta known as Chisholm Lookout. Many of you may be familiar with this location as it is located in the bush roughly halfway between the hamlets of Flatbush (population 30 in a good year) and Smith (population 227 if there are not a lot of accidents). Smith is the major hamlet in the region and has a store. Smith also has a website and proudly boasts its two main attractions: thousands of acres of forest and lots of resident wildlife.

My compound contained the Tower which is a small cupola atop a 33-meter ladder (or hundred feet for people unfamiliar with the metric system). My job was to climb this ladder at least once each day from mid-April to the end of September and report any observed smokes and/or lightning strikes. I would be in the cupola roughly eight to ten hours every day depending on the fire hazard. There were no breaks for weekends or holidays.  My area of responsibility extended to the horizon in all directions, which encompassed about 5,042 square kilometers or 1947 square miles.

An exciting aspect of the work is that you occupy the tower during lightning storms. Lookout observers track and record where lightning strikes the forest as fire or smoke might appear at that location a few days or even weeks later. My tower was struck by lightning once while I was in it. Quite dramatic – a brilliant flash of light and a booming explosion sound right above me. Fortunately, the cupola is a Faraday cage and conducts the electricity from the lightning bolt deep into the ground.

The compound also contains a helipad, a nice cabin, an outhouse, an equipment shed, and a weather station. I didn’t use the outhouse at night as I didn’t want to surprise a bear, cougar, or wolf that may be in the yard.

While wildlife represents a threat to an individual living by himself in the bush, the biggest danger lookouts faced was loneliness and social isolation. While a lookout can make several radio calls each day to other lookouts and the fire district headquarters, we would normally see a real person just once a month when our food and water supplies were brought in. Social isolation becomes more of a hazard as the fire season progresses month by month. Some lookout observers crack under the strain, but fortunately, that didn’t happen to me.

I enjoyed watching wildlife from the cupola and saw herds of elk and deer, flocks of sandhill cranes, a few bald eagles, and a resident marmot on a regular basis. I also had the opportunity to listen to the chirps, yowls, growls, and bugling that came from animals hidden in the bush.

As the summer unfolded, I became aware of another wildlife hazard that surprised and shocked me – commie squirrels. My awareness of these creatures grew slowly through the early summer months. As the number of visible fires decreased after the first couple months, I was able to spend more time watching for wildlife in and near my compound.

I didn’t pay much attention to the squirrels when I first settled in at the Lookout. The area was surrounded by wildfires throughout April and May and my focus was on spotting fires and trying to keep the forest and local communities from burning. I spent my days watching known fires and scanned hundreds of square kilometers for new fires. When June arrived, the weather switched from hot and dry to wet and soggy. Many of the communities that were under fire evacuation orders were suddenly under flood warnings and evacuations as local rivers overflowed.

What I did notice about the squirrels in the early months is that there were ten resident squirrels with small territories in a rough circle along the perimeter of the compound. The compound was crisscrossed by multiple tiny trails worn into the ground by individual squirrels going back and forth from their home tree to a food source and back again. Each squirrel would travel along their trails dozens of times each day as they stockpiled food and warned off intruders. I could hear them sometimes chattering at each other when territorial boundaries were violated.

The squirrels in my compound were Red Squirrels (Tamiasciurus hudsonieus) a tree-dwelling species found across Canada and the United States. This species has also expanded its range far to the south – almost to the Mexican border in some states.

As the local forest dried out from the June rains, I noticed a dramatic change in the behaviour of the resident squirrels. This behavioural shift seemed to be correlated with the appearance of an unusually large squirrel, maybe forty to fifty percent larger than the resident squirrels. I ended up calling this individual Big Red as he stood out in a cluster of squirrels.

Big Red took over a cluster of evergreens close to the center of the compound and at some point in July, I noticed that the resident squirrels had pounded out new trails from their home trees to Big Red’s cluster of trees. Big Red’s territory was now a central location to which all of the resident squirrels started delivering food. Chattering between neighboring squirrels dropped noticeably as territorial disputes seemed to drop in frequency.

As the forest was damp and new fires were rare, I spent more time watching the squirrels from the cupola. What I observed puzzled me. All of the resident squirrels were delivering food to Big Red’s territory and large stockpiles of food accumulated around the trees in Big Red’s rather large territory. Later in the afternoon each day, resident squirrels came to the central territory to fill their cheek pouches with food, and then returned to their home territory. It looked like Big Red and his squad of crony squirrels were controlling the collection and distribution of food. Yes – Big Red had cronies. These squirrels seemed to be some sort of enforcers as they pounced on some squirrels and tumbled with them in fights. Big Red never seemed to fight.

Early in the summer I observed resident squirrels collecting pieces of mushrooms and toadstools and set this material on branches to dry in the sun. Once dried, the material was carried into a resident squirrel’s food cache. This normal squirrel behaviour now seemed to occur only in Big Red’s territory … and on an industrial scale. As part of the ongoing food deliveries to the central territory, all the resident squirrels brought pieces of fungus to one particular fallen tree. For much of the summer, this food item was gathered, dried, and stored, by the worker squirrels.

One morning, I woke up shortly after dawn to the sounds of a commotion in the compound. I looked out the kitchen window and saw Big Red on a stump, chattering, tail-flicking, stomping his feet and waving his paws in the air. Most of the resident squirrels were clustered around the stump and seemed to be listening to Big Red. After each display by Big Red, the crowd of squirrels near the stump and in the trees responded with chattering, hopping, tail-waving, and foot stomping. I was pretty sure I could hear Big Red’s squeaky voice saying things like “proletariat”, “means of production”, and “state control”.

I was astounded as the squirrels were having some sort of group meeting or rally. I didn’t think this was normal squirrel behaviour.

After hearing Big Red’s speech, I was convinced that I was watching a group of Commie Squirrels. They had centralized their food production and storage efforts and all the squirrels worked cooperatively. Private territories no longer existed.

Each week, the group meetings became louder and more squirrels joined in from neighbouring forest areas. Not sure where these new squirrels came from but I could count up to twenty-five squirrels clustered together at some of these events.

One morning, I got up, dressed, and strolled out of my cabin towards the morning squirrel rally. As I approached the assembled squirrels, the chattering stopped, but the squirrels didn’t run away. They just turned to look at me. This was quite disconcerting. I stared back at the squirrels and decided to try getting a bit closer.

Moving closer was a mistake. Big Red chattered something and a cadre of his enforcer squirrels charged toward me. Since I didn’t want to be bitten by wildlife while in an isolated location, I turned and scurried back to my cabin and closed the door. Much to my surprise some of the squirrels deliberately slammed their bodies into the screen door and tried to get past the door.

From that moment on, I realized that there would be conflict between the squirrels and myself. Thinking I needed to report this development to headquarters, I went into the radio room and picked up the microphone. I was about to activate the microphone when one of the voices in my head offered a caution.

The Short, Stout Voice wisely suggested: “Don’t call headquarters just yet. The squirrels may be monitoring your radio calls and if you sound the alarm, they may do something drastic”

That seemed like good advice so I put down the microphone and watched the squirrels from various windows on the side of the cabin facing the squirrel assembly area.

Nothing really unusual happened for a while. The squirrel rallies continued, more new squirrels appeared in the compound from somewhere, and the chattering became louder. On one occasion, I observed all the squirrels turn to look at my cabin for a couple moments while Big Red chattered away. It bothered me that a group of squirrels was doing the same thing at the same time.

The Tall, Skinny Voice was concerned that the squirrels were “up to something.” A couple of the other Voices in my head agreed with that assessment.

One evening after midnight a few days later, several squirrels climbed up to the tin roof of my cabin while I was asleep. Then they all started stomping on the roof and made a tremendous racket. I pounded on the bedroom wall and yelled at the ceiling. My response didn’t deter the rodents, but after a few minutes they stopped on their own and seemed to leave the roof. I fell asleep for a couple of hours, but they came back and repeated the roof drumming behaviour again a couple hours before dawn. I didn’t get much sleep that night.

Nor did I get much sleep the next couple of nights. The squirrels returned and did their best to disrupt my sleep at least a couple of times each night. This was starting to annoy me and some of the Voices.

The Solemn, Gruff voice said: “You need to strike back. Stop being such a wiener and fight back.”. Other Voices murmured agreement.

After a week of bad sleeps, I decided it was time for me to strike back. During the day when the squirrels were busy gathering food, I attached an electric pump and a fire hose to the large water storage tank next to the cabin. The pump was put in position and when plugged in, a steady blast of water would come through the hose. I then positioned a ladder near the pump that allowed me to access the roof quickly.

The Cautious Voice insisted I wear gloves and practical shoes when climbing the ladder.

That night I didn’t sleep in the bedroom. Instead, I wrapped myself in a blanket and tried to sleep on the floor next to the cabin door. This would save a bit of time when I had to quickly leave the cabin and climb to the roof when the squirrel roof dance started. It was my turn to respond to this series of sleep deprivation squirrel attacks.

The roof drumming started again shortly after midnight. I quietly slipped out of the cabin, making sure the screen door did not squeak too much. I plugged in the electric pump, picked up the fire hose, and with great stealth and care not to make too much noise, ascended the ladder. When I got to the eaves level, I could see the squirrels dancing on my roof, chattering and stomping with great enthusiasm. They seemed to be having fun.

I grinned as well when I turned the hose nozzle to stream and let the squirrels have what the Historian Voice called the Chisholm Hose Attack. I blasted a few of the squirrels right off the roof and soaked the rest quite nicely. The tree rats ran off the roof chattering in outrage and fear.

I stowed the hose away so the squirrels wouldn’t gnaw on it, and tried to sleep. I suspect the adrenalin rush from the combat kept me up the rest of the night. While I didn’t sleep, the squirrels didn’t come back, so I counted that development as a minor victory.

The Voices chattered all night, which didn’t help me fall asleep. Different groups of Voices argued through much of the night. Some felt that my attack would subdue the squirrels, others thought we were moving into some sort of escalated conflict.

The next four days were quiet. Very little noise came from Big Red’s territory, no more roof dancing occurred.

However, when I woke up one morning, an odd odour was quite noticeable. As I checked my cabin room by room, I discovered that all my windows were smeared with excrement. There were huge piles of animal droppings forming a layer of crap all over the sundeck adjacent to the cabin door. Animal crap was piled and smeared on all the compound walkways to the tower, equipment shed, and outhouse. My compound was suddenly filled with moose, deer and rabbit pellets, bear dung, coyote droppings, and a great variety of squirrel, bush rat, and marmot droppings. I also noted my screen door had been urinated on, probably by dozens of squirrels. As the sun rose, the stink became overwhelming. My eyes watered from gases rising from the mounds and layers of crap.

I didn’t go up the tower that morning. It took me an entire day to hose down the affected areas, sweep the pathways, and shovel the piles of feces into the outhouse. Then the bleaching of all stained surfaces took quite a bit of time and made my eyes water for another reason. At the end of the day, I went to the side of the cabin and screamed obscenities at the squirrels. Some of the Voices joined in as well, and I was quite impressed with some of the phrases they came up with.

There was no response from the dung-hauling squirrels, but I could see little squirrel heads watching me from the brush ringing the compound.

All was well for a couple of days, and then the squirrels repeated their crap attack. It took me another entire day to clean up the mess. I realized I had to strike back with an attack that would irritate the squirrels. I had to take drastic action using the resources I had at hand. It was my turn to direct some chemical warfare against the commie squirrels.

I had a series of meetings with the Voices that knew things about military operations and we developed a brilliant plan to attack the squirrel collective.

I armoured up and put on my steel-toed boots, hard hat, and thickest work gloves. goggles and heavy fire-resistant coveralls. My coveralls had deep pockets and I gathered as much ammunition as possible from the kitchen. Most of my spices went into my pockets: hot and black pepper, garlic powder, cinnamon powder, onion powder and some unknown powders from bottles that had lost their labels. I filled a couple spray bottles with vinegar. One pocket contained lighter fluid and a lighter. The last thing I did before leaving the cabin was set up my CD player near a window facing the squirrels and loaded “The Flight of the Valkyries”. I turned up the volume and stepped out of the cabin ready to initiate my raid.

As I walked slowly towards the Squirrel Zone of the now divided compound, the squirrels stopped what they were doing and stared at me. I halted about five meters from Big Red’s home tree and took the tops off the various spices, and placed them upright in various pockets. I held the lighter fluid in one hand and the lighter in the other hand. A spray bottle containing vinegar was clipped to my belt.

I checked to make sure the Voice were ready to attack. Then I charged.

I screamed all sorts of profanities at the squirrels and denigrated their evolutionary history. The Voices were yelling battle cries and curses.

I rushed the various food caches the squirrels had established and sprayed lighter fluid on many of the caches and into the food storage holes. I then lit the lighter fluid and moved on to my next set of objectives.

I spun around, and sprayed spices and vinegar both the food stores and drying mushrooms that were not burning and on squirrels within range. I stomped on piles of food and threw spices in all directions. The smoke in the area became thick and some of the Voices were coughing.

Meanwhile, the squirrels acted defensively. I was pelted from above with pine cones and small twigs. Some of the squirrels charged me and tried to bite through the coveralls. I swatted them away, screamed profanities and various battle cries, and continued to spray spices in every direction. Once I ran out of spices and vinegar, I retreated back to the cabin. Roughly halfway home, I decided I was going to mark my territory and urinated to create a line in the grass. I considered the attack to be a very successful raid.

The fire season wound down over the next couple of weeks and I had to close up the compound and prepare to head back to civilization. The war between the squirrels and myself settled into an unofficial truce. I stayed on my side of the urine line and they stayed away from the cabin. I stayed away from Big Red’s territory and he and his cronies stayed away from my territory.

I did see small groups of squirrels fill their cheek pouches with food and then leave the compound in small groups. Clearly they were heading off somewhere on squirrel missions.

Before I left, I realized that the squirrels were indeed communists. They had established a centralized economy and Big Red controlled both the means of production and the distribution of goods. There was no internal dissension as Big Red ruled the squirrel collective with a firm and ruthless paw. I observed squirrels beaten up because they took too much food or were slow in bringing food to the central caches. Big Red ruled over the compound considered squirrel territory. Big Red owned all the squirrel territories, there was no private ownership of squirrel territories. My cabin, tower, and outhouse were outposts of anti-communism. I felt good about that, quite pleased that I had resisted commie expansion into my freehold.

When the last day of my lookout observer contract arrived, I loaded up my vehicle and prepared for the long drive back to the city. Just before settling into the car, I looked at squirrel central and saw Big Red. He stared at me for a moment and then tail-flicked, stomped, and chattered. The little rat! He thought he had won!

I flipped him the appropriate finger and yelled out: “I’ll be back you little commie. I’ll be back!”.

He chattered something back at me, jerked his right forearm into the air, and I think he said something like “… you!”.

Various Voices in the back seat screamed back at Big Red and used some colourful language as to what his could do with his various body parts.

While the fight against commie squirrels will continue at Chisholm Lookout, the Red Squirrels continue to rapidly extend their range throughout North America.

Be alert! Commie squirrels may be moving into your neighbourhood one garden at a time.

BIO

Allen Billy works on professional misconduct hearings in the K-12 education system within Alberta and on wildfire detection projects. His Zoology degrees are from the University of Texas at Austin (Ph.D.) and the University of British Columbia (M.Sc. and B.Sc.). His hobbies are geocaching, metal detecting, and bird watching.







Book Review: Hope and Wild Panic by Sean Ennis

Reviewed by Hugh Blanton

Hope and Wild Panic
by Sean Ennis, 202 pages
Malarkey Books, $17



Few people have heard of Water Valley, fewer have heard of Wallace Saunders. Saunders “wrote” the first Ballad of Casey Jones, and I put wrote in quotes because he never actually wrote the lyrics on paper, he just sang it to the tune of “Jimmie Jones”, a popular song at the time (1900). Saunders, a simple engine wiper, idolized Casey Jones, the train engineer who was killed when his Illinois Central passenger train collided with a broken down freight train in Vaughn, Mississippi April 30, 1900. Saunders never copyrighted the song, and neither did Frank and Bert Leighton, the vaudeville performers who took the song on the road with them to theaters around the country. Poet Carl Sandburg called The Ballad of Casey Jones “the greatest ballad ever written.” Wallace Saunders was compensated one bottle of gin for creating it. The more ambitious vaudeville performers T. Lawrence Seibert and Eddie Newton got the paperwork done and got the credit for publishing The Ballad of Casey Jones. We only know of Saunders today thanks to the efforts of the curators at the Casey Jones Museum in Water Valley, Mississippi.

* * *

Hope and Wild Panic is the latest book from Sean Ennis. He marches his army of eighty-seven flash pieces into small town realism where an unnamed narrator details the lives of his wife, his son, and himself in Water Valley, Mississippi. Ennis hops like a flea from topic to topic in the stories, and even within the stories themselves. He’s got a sharp sense of humor—here’s the narrator on getting married to his fiancee: “I have reached my free limit with Grace—must now pay and subscribe.” There’s also touching poignancy: (standing outside the entrance to a grocery store) “a cashier rushed outside yelling, ‘You left your card!’ at another customer. ‘I have no use for it,’ the woman said. She was crying and had no groceries.”

In an interview with Alan Good, Ennis said of flash fiction: “When I was introduced to the concept of flash fiction in grad school, I remember thinking that it was silly. I imagined that its writers didn’t have the discipline or imagination to tell a more ‘traditional’ story. Obviously, my opinions have changed, and I find myself writing shorter and shorter pieces, so much so, that soon I’ll be writing nothing at all.” (One of the stories in Hope is only six sentences long.) The stories here follow an arc and you could probably call it a novel without getting too much pushback, including from the author himself: “There was some question as to what this book is,” Ennis said. “a story collection, a novel, a memoir?…The way I understand the project is mainly like the sitcom TV series I grew up watching—episodic events with repeating characters and a relatively circular plot.” M.O. Walsh, author of The Big Door Prize, says of Hope and Wild Panic: “It satisfies readers who crave both the whiplash of flash and the arc of a novel.”

One excessively recurring episode we get in America today is school shootings. Our couple gets a text from their son at school: “we on lockdown.”

I hate to say we knew this day would come. Let’s say, not so forcefully, not so I-told-you-so, that we are not surprised. We are, however, surprised to find ourselves ninety miles away at a casino when it did. As parents, we can honestly give ourselves a B+ cumulative rating, but this is D work we’ve turned in today.

The official text from the school has now come in, confirming, and we’re already aiming south on I-55 with $80 in Golden Nugget chips. I will not add to the general bemoaning about the modern necessity of enhanced school safety. If all Gabe learns in eighth grade is how to keep himself alive, plus a little algebra, so be it.

Their son likes his mom more than his dad. “I assume one of the reasons Gabe prefers his mother to me is that he’s known her nine months longer.”

Ennis flits from topic to topic without derailing the story, although his flight of ideas gets turbulent at times:

I had a dream so bad I couldn’t tell Grace about it and Grace was in it! That my mind could concoct—that it would make me believe—I mean, I worry. My father tells Gabe a story about hiding in the woods from soldiers when he was a boy and eventually escaping to the freedom of Water Valley. It’s a lie, of course. My father has lived in Philadelphia his whole life, and there is no history to hang this tale on. Still, what was once a story of adventure for a child has become a strange, political joke that Dad insists on at holidays. Our family was never refugees in this specific sense! There is the belief that someone played drums in the Civil War, but I haven’t swabbed my cheek and gotten that confirmed. Okay, in the dream, I was being shown how to do something new, being talked into it, something I had never done. There was, like, an instruction manual and some encouragement. Let’s just say, if I did this thing in real life, I would not be just weird, but monstrous … Have you seen this trick? Ricky once filled an empty vodka bottle with water and took massive swigs at a stranger’s party.

Just when it looks like Ennis’s flitting has gone too far, he turns around, smirks, and moondances down another tangent—twirling his hat in his hand.

Hope‘s stories are thrown together out of any old garments laying around, sewn together into a patchwork quilt—the fall of Kabul during a graduation ceremony, Grace’s debilitating depression, Gabe angrily cursing a video game opponent in cyberspace. Ennis’s debut collection, Chase Us, was shortlisted for the William Saroyan International Prize for Writing in 2017 and was also an Amazon Editor’s Pick. Looks like he’s got another success on his hands here.




BIO

Hugh Blanton‘s latest book is Kentucky Outlaw. He can be reached on X @HughBlanton5.







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