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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.

The Writing Disorder Interview

Deborah Holt Larkin



Deborah Holt Larkin grew up in the small coastal town of Ventura, CA. In the 1950s, her father, Bob Holt, was a newspaper journalist and columnist for the Ventura County Star-Free Press. Beginning in 1958, her father covered one of the most famous criminal cases in Ventura County history. When Deborah was only a child, her father attended the trial on a daily basis, following it through from opening statements to the verdict and punishment phases. As her father came home at night, Deborah would ask him for details about the case and the courtroom proceedings. Deborah recently wrote an exceptional and detailed account of the famous case of Elizabeth Duncan (A Lovely Girl, 2022), the woman who was convicted of murdering the pregnant wife of her son, Frank Duncan. Elizabeth Duncan was the last woman put to death by the state of California. Like the case itself, the memories of this period in her young, impressionable life haunted Deborah throughout her life—until it finally came out in book form.

*

I met Deborah recently at a local book festival in Carpinteria, just north of Ventura. As we sat down to talk, a train, the Surfliner, was passing by.

The Writing Disorder: Have you been to Carpinteria lately?

Deborah Holt Larkin: I haven’t been here since I was a little girl. A friend’s grandmother used to live here. We’d come up here and stay with her family. We would sometimes camp out in her backyard, and we would hear the trains pass by at night. My family lived on Alameda Avenue in Montalvo, and our house was right near the railroad tracks. So, we heard the trains going by all the time.

TWD: What about Ventura?

DHL: A local historian, Glenda Jackson, used to give tours of the Ventura courthouse (built in 1926). She would take groups up to the old court room and tell them all about the infamous trial of Elizabeth Duncan. It’s a beautiful old building. I actually spoke there last year about my book. My sister still lives in Ventura — in the same house where we grew up.

TWD: My friend, Susan, who grew up in Ventura and worked at the courthouse, said they used to display a large photo of Elizabeth (aka Ma) Duncan up in the window upstairs. So, when you looked up from the street below you would see her face in the window.

DHL: When I was in college, I got a summer job as a student intern at Camarillo State Hospital. I got it through my mother who worked there as a psychiatric social worker. I was an intern in the school there and I remember that they seemed to treat children with mental illness as if it were some kind of parenting error. And I remember sitting out front on the lawn and watching the parents who would come visit. It wasn’t because of bad parenting. My mother was a big influence on me too, as far as some of her experiences working there at the hospital. I put this in the book, and I remember my mother saying, “I just hope I live long enough for there to be a cure for mental illness.”

TWD: The things your parents exposed you to as a child were quite provocative.

DHL: It was a different family. It was very unusual at the time for my mother to be working. She was the only married mom I knew who held a job. For the most part, women didn’t work when they were married.

TWD: And there weren’t a lot of divorced parents back then either.

DHL: No. There were some that had lost their husbands during the war.

TWD: How did the book come about? Was it through your writing class?

DHL: First of all, the story of the trial shadowed me my whole life. And I wanted to be a writer. It was something I always had a dream of becoming. When I first went away to college, I didn’t have the confidence. Even though my teachers always commented on how good my writing was. I would get comments on my papers like, very well written. So, I went into education. When I graduated from college in the 1970s, a lot of women were going into education. That was something we all did. And then thirty years later I started taking writing classes at UC San Diego, because I wanted to be able to do it right. I wanted to write a fictionalized account of the Duncan case. That was my goal. I was going to write a novel and fictionalize the story.

TWD: You know your book feels like fiction. It reads like a story.

DHL: I’ll tell you a little more about that. But I started to fictionalize the story. But the more chapters I wrote—I would just end up tearing them up, because the case is stranger than fiction. It doesn’t sound believable. And for fiction, it does need to have a certain quality. Even if it really happened, it might be hard to believe as fiction. And people in my writing class used to say that, that it wasn’t believable. Even after I started writing the book as nonfiction, people would still say it to me that it was unbelievable. And I would say, I’m sorry, but that’s what actually happened. It’s actually right there in the trial transcripts.

So as soon as my youngest son went off to college, I started taking writing classes. That’s when I first had the idea to write it as a novel. And then I got into a writer’s group, with reading critiques. It was at that point that I realized fictionalizing the case wasn’t going to work. So, I would bring in ten pages every week to the group and the other writers in the group would comment and critique my pages. I didn’t actually have a book I was working on at the time. Sometimes I would bring in personal essays, and it would be about my family and about my dad. And other times I would bring in something that was more like a police procedural, writing about this true murder case. One night I brought in something about my dad and the murder, and his reporting about the trial. Mark, the teacher/leader of the group, said, you know, Deborah, I think you have a book here. He suggested I write both my memoir about my dad and family, and about investigation and trial, and also some of the actual court proceedings, and weave it all together as one book. I thought about it, and I decided that it was a really great idea. So that was Mark’s idea. I gave him credit at the end of the book.

TWD: The structure works really well. You get really involved with the case, but you also welcome the relief with your own personal story about family and life growing up.

DHL: And then a very fortunate thing happened. After I had written most of the book, I had met with an agent who was interested in it. I sent her the whole manuscript, and when she finally got back to me, she said she really loved it, but she thought there was a problem with the pace of the book. She thought the family chapters were slowing down the pace. She wanted me to work on it and then she would take another look. So, I did. And I realized that as the trial approaches, there needed to be more true crime chapters and less personal chapters about my family to rev up the tension of the crime story.

I wrote it as literary nonfiction. And in literary nonfiction, all the facts are true, but you can write scenes where they’re drinking a cup of coffee, or you can describe the weather, or how someone might sit or walk down the street. I actually looked up the weather at the time. But there are little details like brushing your hand through your hair or sitting in a chair. So, all that is part of literary nonfiction.And I wanted to write it like I was telling a story.

When I started the book, I got 5,000 pages of the trial transcripts from the courts. When I was reading that, it felt like I was there in the courtroom. When the people testified, they were very candid. And they tell what they did. And the fact that the two men had already confessed to the crime. I had Newspaper articles from four newspapers, my father’s files and all that testimony. I had the grand jury testimony of all the witnesses. I just couldn’t put all that in the book. So, what I did was to create scenes. When you’re reading the interview of the landlady by the detective, those words are exactly said told the grand jury. When I read those transcripts, I felt like I was really there. It all turned black and white in my mind. I felt that I was there in that public gallery when everyone was gasping at the outrageous testimony of the killers. So, I wanted readers to be able to experience it that way. There’s much more of an intimacy when you’re writing in the literary nonfiction style than a journalistic style. So that’s how I wrote it.

There aren’t any things about the case in the book that aren’t true. I can tell you where every fact came from, either the trial transcripts, or multiple newspapers interviews  or my father’s files. I also was able to read the unpublished memoir of the DA who prosecuted the case. I got a lot of insight into his thinking and could be in his head in the court scenes.

TWD: Tell me more about that.

I was staying with this couple in Ojai, and she was getting married about halfway through writing the book. And she said one of her high school friends, Bob, was coming to the wedding and he had a lot of information about the Duncan case. He’s the one that found the transcripts that were said to be lost. That story is in the back of the book. So, when I met him, we talked about the case. I told him about my book. And he said he would send me the trial transcripts. I was missing of the original transcript, like Frank Duncan’s testimony, which was pretty important. And he said he had something else I might be interested in. He said, “I have Roy Gustafson’s (the prosecutor in the case) unpublished memoir.” Bob had worked in the same law firm that Roy worked in after he left the District Attorney’s office. Roy had already passed away when Bob started working there. So, in the early 2000s, the law firm was going out of business, and Bob was in the law library cleaning it out and up on the top shelf he discovered the lost transcripts of the Duncan case, and this unpublished memoir. The D.A.’s office wouldn’t have even had the transcripts at the time I came looking for them. So, Bob gave the transcripts back to the city, but he held onto to the memoir. And Roy didn’t have any children. So, he just left it there in the law firm.

I got the story from one of the lawyers that was still there at the time, and he said that Roy brought the transcripts over to the law office because he wanted to write the memoir. After he wrote it, he contacted one publisher and the publisher said no. It wasn’t written very well; it was more of a matter-of-fact style. But what I did get out of it when I read it were his thoughts on the proceedings, when he was prosecuting the case. His worries and concerns. So, when he thinks he’s ruined his own case, and what happened in that little room — I read all that in his memoir. So, I had all that information.

Elizabeth Duncan and her son, Frank

TWD: Everything just fell into place for you.

DHL: Yes, it did. And there were other things he wrote in his memoir. He gave his opinion on some of the witnesses, and their backgrounds. There were a couple of witnesses who were very credible. And those were his opinions. So, I got opinions of good and bad witnesses and why.

TWD: How did you get your book published?

DHL: While I was writing the book, I was hearing that publishers didn’t like books with mixed genres, and this was a dual genre book of memoir and true crime. And that publishers don’t necessarily like older authors. They like authors that write multiple books or series because the audience grows. And I had no platform, especially for a memoir. But I thought that this was what I wanted to write and I just kept writing and did the best I could. And in the end, it didn’t really matter. They say if you write a good enough book, none of the other stuff will matter. That’s what I was hoping for.

I had been working on it for nine years. And my youngest son said, mom you’re going to have to stop writing this. And I think I had eleven or twelve drafts. I. wanted to get it right. And I thought I could tell a good book; I read and write so much. I read true crime and everything else. So, I thought I could do this, since I read those kinds of book and I would know when it was right.

My son told me about the Santa Barbara Writers Conference. This was in 2019. He suggested I take it up there, since it was a Santa Barbara and Ventura County case. At this conference they have something called Advanced Readings. For an extra $50, you can pay to have an agent there read ten pages of your book. And they’ll come back to you with some feedback. I signed up for three agents. And I had done this before the book was even ready to be published, just to get some feedback. You can do it with editors or agents. So, I did that. And all I was expecting was to get a little more direction. And the agent I met with, we sat down and chatted. And she said she wanted to read the whole manuscript, that she loved it. And she’s only seen ten pages. She was the first agent I pitched. And she’s the one who suggested that I work on and improve the pace of the book. So, after that, it still took a while. We needed to make a book proposal. And she started pitching it to publishers. And she is a good agent. I looked her up and she has represented a lot of great books. She even represented one that was nominated for the National Book Award a few years ago. I could tell she would always send me the email that the editors would send her. And she knew these people personally. The first couple of rejections said that they didn’t know how to market the book. It’s true crime and it’s memoir. We don’t know how to market that type of book. So, we just kept going. It took about eight months. And towards the end — she was pitching this to good traditional publishers that I recognized — I told her to perhaps go with a lesser-known publisher. I don’t need a big advance and she said, oh no, you’re going to get an advance. We’re almost there. And sure enough, Pegasus Books offered me a contract a few weeks after we had that discussion. It didn’t take that long once I signed the publishing agreement. It only took about a year for the book to come out. It had already been well edited. They didn’t ask me to change hardly anything. The title, they chose that. My title was The Remarkable Duncan Case. That’s what my dad used to call it. That was my working title. I did have A Lovely Girl as one of my choices. But they added the subtitle. Everything went smoothly after that. The other thing that my agent said, is that publishers expect their authors to publicize the book. And they did have a publicist that they assigned me. But they still wanted me to do a lot of things to help promote the book. So my agent told them that I was a very experienced public speaker. And I thought, well, sure, at my school where I taught, and did training for teachers. I had been a school principal for a while. And then the book came out. And Pegasus Books was great. They set up a lot of speaking events for me at the beginning.

I’m going to be on a panel at the San Diego Book Festival. And I’ve done other book festivals in California.

TWD: Has there been any talk of turning this book into a movie or series?

DHL: I’ve already sold an option. My agent sold an option just before the Writers’ strike happened. And it’s a good company. They have a developmental production company. So, they want to develop it as a limited series on a streaming platform. They have something they did for Netflix. I’ve been told there are a lot of film options for authors and their books out there, but very few of them make it into production.

TWD: There are writers who make a living optioning the film rights to their books but are never made into anything.

DHL: It’s a two-year option. So, we’ll see what happens.

TWD: What are you working on now?

DHL: Not too much. I get overwhelmed by all the things that have happened since the book came out. It’s a lot of work. I would like to write some short stories. And I would also like to write a book for a younger audience, a mystery of some kind. I have a lot of experience with children, being a teacher. I have a good ear for children’s voices. So, I would like to write a young adult mystery of some kind. Based on my experiences as a child, children are interested in those kinds of things. Not necessarily the graphic, gruesome details, but they’re interested in learning about a lot of things. I’m not sure if they involve murder though. Maybe they have to be rescued.

TWD: You could be a character as a child. You can’t really go into the minds of your two main characters, the mother and son, but how do you read them. What is your take on their lives?

DHL: I tried to read them from their testimony. I think Elizabeth Duncan was probably what they call a malignant narcissist. One thing that I didn’t get into the book was when she plotted a jail escape, when she was in the county jail. It was so preposterous. I don’t think the woman ever thought one step ahead. She was in the moment, and she came up with all these plots, told lies, and moved on. I’m not even sure she even thought about what would happen to Olga, Frank’s wife. She just wanted to get rid of her, and she hired those guys to do it. I don’t think she ever thought it through. I think Frank Duncan was just trying to save his mother from the gas chamber. I think he knew, at some point, that she was guilty. A lot of people thought that he was in on the plot. But I don’t believe that was the case at all. It would have never been solved if he hadn’t dragged his mother down to the Santa Barbara Police Station to report this phony extortion case she’d made up to cover-up why she needed money to pay off the killers. Frank said something at the end, when he was testifying during the penalty phase of the trial. He said, when asked about his mother and about marrying all these different men, he said, “You know some people like to think about or dwell on their problems, but that’s not me.” He just didn’t want to think about it. What’s in the past is in the past.

The D.A., Roy Gustafson, talks about Frank Duncan in his memoir. He hated Frank Duncan. He despised him.

I remember I tried to get in touch with her son, Frank Duncan, and he hung up on me. He still had a law office in Los Angeles. He answered the phone. As soon as I started talking, he hung up. Bob, the man who found the trial transcripts, said he had seen Frank Duncan appear in his court room. He was representing an old client and was still practicing law. He said he was very cordial and polite, almost like a southern gentleman. He was in 80s at the time and seemed very sharp and knew the law. He was still practicing well into his 80s. His wife had passed away. I believe later that he lived in an assisted living facility. He had one child, a daughter. I think she still lives in Ventura County. But I decided not to contact her. I didn’t think it would be reliable information.

TWD: I found some old newspaper articles where they printed large sections of the transcripts from the trial right on the front page.

DHL: It was unusual that they would print the grand jury transcripts in the newspaper. Mrs. Duncan’s attorney complained about that. It was some like series from a true crime mystery. He felt it would poison the jury pool because everyone had read that.

There was a Lifetime movie made about the case several years ago. But they changed everyone’s name so they wouldn’t get sued by Frank Duncan.

You know how in the book I describe what everyone was wearing. I didn’t make that up. There was a Los Angeles newspaper, The Herald Examiner, they described everything about the witnesses—their clothes, their movements, and their emotions. It was all in the newspaper reports. They even covered—there was a lot of drama going on during the recesses at the court, and before the trial started. Mrs. Duncan would call people names during the recesses. It was all in the newspaper.

TWD: Some of the buildings—the school and churches—you visited as a child are still there in Ventura.

DHL: Yes, the elementary school I went to is still there, and some of the churches I went to with my friends. Judy and I liked to go to the vacation Bible schools.

TWD: Ventura has the oldest pier in the state of California, built in 1872. It’s being repaired now from recent storm damage. But it’s supposed to reopen this summer.

DHL: My parents have a bench on the pier. It’s just before the gates. So, whenever I go to Ventura, I like to sit on their bench. They liked to walk on the beach there. The newspaper offices where my dad worked are gone now. It must’ve been nice to work downtown. Ventura was such a small area at the time. Everything was walkable from his office. It was just a little town by the ocean.

TWD: Your dad was quite a character. He expressed himself freely.

DHL: Yes, he was very original. I don’t know where all that came from.

TWD: How did you end up in San Diego?

DHL: I went to graduate school there. That’s how I ended up living down there now.

TWD: From one beach community to another. I love all the history you put into the book about the city of Ventura.

DHL: I’ve been told that my book is a true crime book for readers who don’t usually read true crime books.

TWD: That’s true, because I usually don’t. Does anyone call you Deborah?

DHL: No, everyone calls me Debby. I just hope I live long enough to see the book made into a series. I get to be a Consultant Producer. Since this book is about me and my family, I was worried about how we would be portrayed. So, I told the producers that I would like to know their thoughts about my family. My agent thought Annette Bening would be good as Elizabeth Duncan. But we’ll see. No one ever wrote a definitive book about this notorious crime, until I wrote mine.

TWD: Thank you very much. It was great to meet you and talk about your amazing book.

DHL: Thank you.



I am the sum of nothing

& all  

by Stella Vinitchi Radulescu


               the difference

between silence          
                        & noise

an autumn late or

            the forthcoming
                        spring

the nightingale up
                      in the sky  

 the burnt cathedral
                 in my eye  or

the conclusion of
                being such

a parody
            of space & time




melancholia


Spring comes in waves of joy

            subtract your body

            from time      it will fly

            free of words       sounds

            entangled with the last

            snow    the bird 

                                    on the roof

another day      another open tomb



the rose      supreme


failed to be rose      I touched

the ground with wounded

lips      to say a word

to leave a sign

of rapture—

the fire grew from stone

to stone

there was

            an altar in my heart

                        & people came & went

around



they are coming


             the waves

the hours & the lack of hours digging

your grave   

             who are you & why are you

here        at the beginning of the end

                                    I am full of time unspent

                        unaware    too much of this

            too much of that         heart         heart

                        who dies once dies many times

                   heart pulsing

                                                with love

                        the fire creeping down

                                                             :  ash



BIO

Stella Vinitchi Radulescu, Romanian-American poet, Ph.D. in French, is the author of many collections of poetry published in the United States, Romania and France. She writes poetry in English, French and Romanian, though she does not translate any of her work between languages. Her poems have appeared in a variety of literary magazines in the United States, France, Belgium, Luxembourg, and Romania. Her last two collections of poetry I Scrape the Window of Nothingness (2018)and Traveling With the Ghosts (2021) were published by Orison Books. A Cry in the Snow, translated from the French (Un cri dans la neige, Editions du Cygne, Paris) was published in 2018 by Seagull Books Press. Radulescu’s French books received several awards, including the Grand Prix de la Francophonie and the Prix Amélie Murat.

This is a consummate language shaped with remarkable skill, and the voyages these poems take are brilliant excursions into our inner lives, secret things pushed into the subconscious.
—Keith Flynn, author of Colony, Collapse, Disorder







Happy Hour
Juliette
Wilshire Blvd.
Lucas St.
Pool Players
Rita
Two Girls
Venice Musicians
Two Hermits
Thrill Seekers


* * * * * *

Artist Statement:

Naturally gifted with a keen observation of life, including the cultural, social, political and religious landscape in the world we live, Paul Torres’ art embodies a rich imagination and is laced with social commentary with a soulful interpretation of everyday life. Paul was born and raised in Santiago Chile, in Las Condes, his birth name is Pablo Torres Urmeneta, his interest in art began at age three after being introduced to comic books. Early on, Paul also became influenced by Hollywood films, such as Film Noir, Horror, Detective and Westerns, and also by European Art, such as Baroque, Impressionism, Surrealism, and American Art.

Coming to the United States for one year and again at the age of 9, Paul fell in love with the art culture of Los Angeles. After immigrating to the United States permanently at age 18, Paul served in the U.S. Army, and became a U.S. citizen at 21 years old. He attended Otis Parsons Art Institute, and then in 1998 he received his Bachelor of Fine Art in Illustration/Fine Arts from the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California. He had the privilege of studying with several prominent artists, such as Daniel Greene, Jan Saether, Albert Handell, and many more, and also worked for many years in the Animation and Movie industry, as a character and background designer. He was a key character designer for a few seasons for DIC Entertainment “The Real Ghostbusters”, an animated TV series, he worked on “Cool World” by Ralph Bakshi, and many TV Shows and Films.

Paul actively shows in Los Angeles, across the U.S., and internationally. He has been a featured Solo Artist at various Galleries such as La Luz de Jesus Gallery, Grand Central Gallery, Chimmaya Gallery, The Hive Gallery, among others. And he has been part of many two person shows, and group shows such as the Copro Gallery, Distinction Gallery, Rico Gallery, The Hive Gallery, Muckenthaler Cultural Center among many others. Paul was also represented at the rental and sales gallery in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. He has been written about in Cultcrusher, Legend, Juxtapoze, Reddoor magazine, Browndwarf Compendium Magazine, The Big Book of Contemporary Illustration and many more publications and sites throughout the world.
Paul currently resides in Alhambra, California, with his beloved wife, Clara.

If you are interested in purchasing any of my work, or have any questions or comments, just email me at: paultorres9@yahoo.com.

 

www.paul-torres.com 

www.instagram.com/paultorrescom 

The Wedding Cake House

by Amy Cacciola



            The white stucco chimney of the house next to my childhood home has a hole in its side the size of Santa Claus, and every Sunday when we visit my parents, my two boys point in wonder to the men hanging from the scaffolding who are taking it apart, piece by piece. In a few weeks, the original wood beams of its frame are bared and by early December, when the men begin to tackle the roof, my youngest worries out loud, “But how will Santa Claus park his sleigh there?”

            “There aren’t any children living there yet, remember, Danny,” I reassure him, as we all troop into his grandparents’ house, my husband, Bill, reluctantly following us in.

            Sunday is the day for family visits, the day for small home repairs and computer advice, and for helping to clean out the attic in preparation for my mother’s death—an event for which she’s been preparing without specific cause for years. To the boys I just say, “Grandma wants to make more room for you to play,” and I load them down with boxes of my prom dresses and high school yearbooks, loop them into their great-grandmother’s hand-crocheted scarves until I can barely see their eyes, and send them back to the car like little Michelin men while Bill escapes with my father into the backyard with a can of paint. Like me, my dad can’t bear to throw away his past. “Goddamn Marie Kondo,” he’ll say, jutting his chin towards my mother. “She’d burn everything to the ground if we let her,” and so we’ve both developed the habit of checking the trash before it goes out.

            “I guess he bought the house for the land,” I remark as my mother and I linger on the front stoop, where despite the cold her geraniums thrive in oversized pots, one per step. It’s an orderly block, with lawns trimmed like neat goatees in the summertime and Christmas decorations that never overstay their welcome. Although there are no rules governing what color you can paint your house or how late your kids can ride screaming through the street on their bikes, you will see couples slow down by the Wedding Cake House on their evening strolls, remembering the man who built it for his new wife, to commemorate their love, and shaking their heads over what’s become of its snow-white frosting. I suppose the demolition of any landmark draws two kinds of observers: those who witness its death almost bodily, feeling the thousand paper cuts, and those who thrill to the possibility that it will go up in flames. I’m firmly on the side of Mrs. Murray, who walked away with a layer of stucco curled in her palm like the body of Christ, but this means I’m not on my mother’s side, which is never a comfortable place to be.

            “Syed says he wants the chimney to be shorter,” my mother explains, gazing up at the hole with one hand shading her eyes and a concentration very like that of a bird-watcher who believes she has spotted a rare robin. Her eyes are a particular shade of blue gray and they have always registered everything. Although she must be nearing eighty, she has never worn glasses. When we were children she would send my sisters and me to the front of the line at the DMV to read the very smallest letters on the eye chart, and today when I struggle to read the fine print on my father’s medication she tells me that she doesn’t need reading glasses. Her vision is perfect. She sees Syed in the distance and waves. We’ve been here before, and as with every man who has had the misfortune to move into a house beside, before, or behind hers, I know that Syed will soon see her fascination for him fade into disgust. Men with big plans—men with the tools and the muscle and the money to build a perfect home—become over a series of months (one time the honeymoon was as long as a year) men who throw garbage down from the roofs and who operate heavy machinery that gets too loud. So loud it feels as though it’s your house, not theirs, that’s being torn down. But today, a Sunday so clear and cold the nuclear bloom of each layer of falling stucco hangs in the air for several minutes before wafting away—today we are still in the early stages of love. Water is on offer on the days the plumbing has to be shut off, and there are cookies to be delivered once they have cooled. A bag of summer tomatoes dropped off on a neighbor’s doorstep, a parcel of mail delivered when they return from vacation, these are the kinds of good deeds one expects of good neighbors, and in return there are paths forged through the snow during winter blizzards and heavy pieces of furniture moved from one room to another—things my father can no longer do and for which my mother seems to view him, witheringly, as useless.

            For the past several years now, they have spent their time in separate rooms, and I go from one to another as though visiting them in different countries. With one I sit on the couch and stare at the shelves of childhood trips chronicled in fading Polaroid shots, gently whacking my father on the knee every so often to prevent him from falling asleep while I am talking to him about the things we have in common: the sly navigation of office politics and the black-and-white films we both love—William Holden movies where the suave leading man doesn’t always get the girl. In the other room, with the girl I always thought my father married for love, I speak another language that feels thick, like cream, my tongue slick with the white lies I have taught the boys that people sometimes have to tell to keep the peace. Is it too cold in the house? Not at all. Do I mind returning her birthday sweater, or did I want her to try it on to prove how poorly it fits? No, Ma. It’s not a problem. I believe you. I help with the dishes, watching her dunk her left hand with its pear-shaped diamond ring deep into a mountain of suds, and it isn’t difficult to imagine her disappointment that the mountains that rise outside her window are the dirt mounds of Staten Island rather than the Himalayas or the Andes. But people don’t get divorced in their seventies, I tell myself, feeling like a small child for the first time in years, as upset as my son is at the thought of Santa not being able to land on the roof. Perhaps all of childhood is a fairytale we tell ourselves, but there’s no time for self-pity. There’s the crack of my eldest’s voice, breaking at the very top notes, reminding me that I’m the mother now and demanding that I follow him down the dank basement steps and into the light of the yard, where the sound of the house next door flapping its tarps in the breeze like a duck shaking out its feathers is like a slap in the face, and there on the very top step of a two-story ladder is the man I married two decades ago, scraping at the flaking paint of several years of weather coating, his own coat flapping in the breeze as well. It’s his good wool coat, paired with his good dress shoes, and he looks annoyed when I suggest he might slip or wreck his loafers, probably because he thinks I care more about the shoes.

            “Paul, go hold the bottom of the ladder,” this whispered to my eldest, knowing that it won’t fool his father in the slightest. Using children as my secret emissaries is probably on the list of things I share with my mother that he hates most, along with a too-practical nature that can weep over someone’s death and in the next moment inquire about their will. We all have our flaws—his being that he says yes to everyone, as though he lives to serve, which is how he ended up on the top of this ladder.

            “I don’t want you to fall,” I say, I still don’t want you to fall, I think, and my father takes my hand in his dry one for a moment. When he drops it, he does what he always does with his hands when he wants to make a point, rubbing thumb and forefinger together like a magic trick to make them sound like something being tightened, like something hard that will never break.

            “I tried to do it myself, when your mother asked. It was on her list. Don’t let her know what happened. Don’t let her win,” and he shows me the root of the tree that tripped him, mimes how he lay on the ground looking up at the white sky through its black branches, ten minutes, twenty minutes. He kept his wits about him, “Had my phone on me. Almost called you,” but after a while got up and said to himself, “You’re all right.” I ask about bruises; get him some pain medicine from the bathroom without letting anyone see what I’m doing; tell him to take a hot bath; and then Danny comes outside with his grandmother in tow, and we fall silent. For the first time I’m grateful that there are men working next door, making noise and speaking in at least two different languages. Even on a Sunday, there are probably ten of them ferrying rocks and dirt down and out to the dumpster.

            “He’s built-out the back room all wrong—the angle’s not ninety degrees. That’s going to cost him,” my father says, the general contractor in him calculating the extra time and labor needed to rip it out and redo it. All those years in the bowels of the New York City subway system have left their mark. He can only hear well from his right ear, and his left shoulder is slumped like the concrete he slumped and tested, and slumped again until he knew it was strong enough to hold. We all sit down at the picnic table in rocking metal chairs that have retained the dry fall leaves in their nooks and crannies, and make crunching noises as we rock. There is no snow.

            “It’s not so bad, building something at ground level,” my Dad remarks, not needing to explain how important light would be to a man who spent so many years underground, nor that these men can point to the house as something they’ve accomplished without having to drag their children to the back door of the Number 1 subway train as it went by mile marker 6572. “There’s where I chipped out the tunnel and built it back up.” To my mother, the new structure is all about progress. Gone is its frumpy, stubbly white skin and in its place are smooth planes that catch nothing, not even the rain, which bounces off them like fat sizzling in a frying pan. For the past couple of years, the construction has been the only thing my parents have come together to talk about, and it’s momentarily comforting to see them rallying back and forth about the color of the ornamental shutters or the shape of the hand-hewn stones that have replaced the asphalt driveway. They both like black. They both hate octagons. There were years when they both loved each other.

            “Why don’t you let me show you around?” my mother offers now that the men have begun to pack themselves into Syed’s truck, but I don’t want to go inside a stranger’s house, and besides, it’s nearly time to go. Bill is rocking nervously in his chair, his hand in his pocket over his phone, which he knows better than to take out; and the boys are playing with a huge stick in a way that’s likely to end badly if we don’t leave soon.

            “It’s not like I’m asking you to do something illegal. But if you don’t want to go, of course I wouldn’t want you to do anything that makes you feel uncomfortable. I was only going to show you the fireplace Syed put in last week,” she says, a master at the passive-aggressive guilt trip. That bag of tomatoes was my job to deliver, the mail my sisters’ to collect from front porches that creaked with ghostly emptiness. Taking the tray of cookies from her, I fall effortlessly back into the role of emissary. Why she has a key is unclear, since the men have their own, which they use to let themselves in to wash their hands at the kitchen sink or in the downstairs bathroom; their dusty footprints are captured on brown paper paths taped to the floor leading to each. The rest of the house is an empty, echoey maze of pine studs, and we lay the tray down in the kitchen on top of an open framework that will probably turn into an island grilling station. In the middle of this geometric maze, my mother looks small but somehow at ease.

            “The top of the island will be black marble,” she says, spreading her hands out over the wooden beams so that I can almost imagine the cool stone pooling out in smoothed waves.

            “Don’t you love the clink of a glass set down on stone?” she asks dreamily, but I’m a little distracted by the pitch of the ceiling, thinking that my father’s right about the structure, and through the side door, I’m also keeping track of my sons, who have ditched the stick in favor of a game of catch with their father. The ball boomerangs in that perfect curve of give and take, father and son, adult and child, and I’m so awash in nostalgia for a past that’s not yet past that I haven’t even noticed the tour hasn’t yet ended.

            “All stainless, Syed says, for the appliances. And we can have the pool you always wanted—the one your father said would make the backyard collapse into the ravine behind the house.” She pauses, her eyes very blue again. “You know, the only reason we went to Jerusalem was because I convinced your father to go there. You should see him talking with Syed, always about how much he loved seeing the mosques, as though it was his idea to go there.”

            For a moment, I’m confused. We’ve talked so many times about how nice it would be if they threw caution to the wind and finally got a pool for the boys, since we don’t have room for one where we live. When I join her at the back of the house to peer into the ravished yard, she points to the spot where a kidney-shaped hole half filled with concrete takes up most of the garden, and the “we” begins to sink in. Part of me wants to believe that she’s only pointing out what could have been, but I follow her train of thought back to Syed, whose new house with its multiple bathrooms will enable his family to purify themselves before prayers. It’s not hard to imagine that at the end of a fifty-year marriage, the places you wanted to go become more important than the places you went, and the traits you thought you could shape into something else remain stubbornly unchanged, like a block of marble that reveals the same figure no matter how you chisel away at it.

            “We’ll go to Riyadh first, to visit his parents. To Mecca of course, to say our prayers.”

            Perhaps my next questions should have been to ask what year it was or the name of the current president of the United States. But we’d just talked about him and the anger had risen in both my parents—the blue Democrat’s veins bulging and the Republican’s neck flushing red. Instead another memory comes of the woman who moved into the Wedding Cake house to serve as a companion and nursemaid to the wife, after the man who built it had died. We’re standing in front of the fireplace she has brought me here to see, before which lie two tasseled rugs arranged for prayer, and the ease with which she sinks down onto one of them—at her age—into a cross-legged position surprises me no more than her familiarity with the space.

            “Do you remember that night, so many years ago, when the shade snapped up in the living room window? I think it was that one right there, and we saw the two women kiss.” This was long before such a thing was commonplace and the women, two Irish Catholic biddies with long gray hair, were the kind who never missed mass. But my mother isn’t listening. She is twisting the key in her hand, and she’s getting up and motioning that it’s time for her to lock up.

            It’s started snowing and Danny is bawling on the couch next to his grandfather. Paul caught more balls than he did and his father wouldn’t let him help carry the Christmas tree down from the attic, nor help to set it up in the living room where my father has cleared a spot for it by moving the potted plants he brings in every winter so they don’t die.

            “Danny, if you just calmed down, I’d let you put the branches in the holes, but I don’t think you can see where to put them with all those tears blurring your vision …” There’s a fig tree, the kind the Italians usually wrap in burlap and leave outside but which we’ve found does pretty well indoors, and some palm trees that don’t like snow. My mother bustles around with the ornaments, and more boxes of old toys from the attic, which she’s piling up at the front door for me to take. There’s a box of clay pinch pots from grade school, some Mother’s Day and birthday gifts that I object to having returned but decide to keep my mouth shut after she explains, “Don’t you want the boys to see what an artist you were when you were little?” She’s busying herself with a box of file folders that need to be rearranged to fit into it and on top of which she carefully places a much-folded wad of papers from her apron pocket.

            “Your original birth certificate,” she announces, “your sisters’ too. And all your school records,” gesturing towards the box with one fluttering hand as if to say, now you can take it away.

            “So many things in the attic that I don’t need. Swedish death cleaning,” she says, just out of the boys’ earshot. “The Swedes got a lot of things right.”

            “So, apparently, did the Arabs,” I shoot back, but the comment is lost in the flurry of goodbyes and the packages, which Danny protests is the reverse of Santa Claus.

            “You’re not supposed to give presents back!”

Later, getting ready for bed I recount the whole experience to Bill and he laughs, telling me we’ll know soon enough if she’s getting ready to die or to move out.

            “I did see a suitcase in the hall …” And he repeats what he’s always said about her. That she’s a woman ripe for conversion to any religion whose hold on its followers is stronger than hers.

            “But it’s not about faith,” I argue. “I’ve never known a more devout Catholic, despite the fact that that she seems to be heading to Mecca.”

            “Isn’t it, though? What do you call it when you reject your entire past if not a crisis of faith?”

            As he sees it, she’s injured me far worse than my father. Rejecting their marriage isn’t that big a deal, even at her age.

            “I mean, they don’t see eye to eye on anything except that house. Splitting up would be a good thing for both of them.”

            But rejecting her children, even symbolically, even in “crazyland,” was a step too far.

            “Poor little orphan,” he croons, spooning me in bed and brushing his hands through my hair. “Poor motherless you.”



BIO

Amy Cacciola’s work has been featured in Marrow Magazine, Epiphany Magazine, and Roger Rosenblatt’s podcast, Write America. In her blog, Me, Moon!, she played second fiddle to her sassy, five-year-old daughter as they debated everything from the walking speed of sloths to the origins of Trump’s family separation policy and the meaning of death. She is a graduate of Vassar College and Columbia University, and lives in Brooklyn. www.amycacciola.com







Don’t Judge a Book by Its Happily Ever After

by Hannah Ackerman



There’s very little writing advice I’m willing to take as unarguable. Almost as long as I’ve been able to read, I’ve been trying to write, and as long as I’ve been trying to write, I’ve been trying to crack the code on what it means to be a writer. As it turns out, wanting to be a writer comes with an onslaught of suggestions and guidelines that are offered as helpful but more often seem to confuse and conflate the simple desire I started off with— I just want to write good stories. I struggle with common suggestions like “write what we know,”— if we all wrote what we knew, sci-fi would cease to exist as we know it. “Show don’t tell” is often useful, yet sometimes I find myself reading a book that is so overly descriptive, I want to throw it at a wall. “Write every day” is advice I should probably take to heart, yet I go days without opening a notebook or Word document, exchanging that writing time for binge watching reality TV. The only advice that I have always felt is most important, is that to write well, you have to read lots.

When 2020 came around and the world started to shut down, I was caught between an endless cycle of frequent doom-scrolling and scouring scholarly articles as I prepared myself to graduate university. In the midst of endless literary essays and widespread bleakness, I found myself in a predicament that I hadn’t expected given the state of the world— there was nothing I wanted to read anymore.

Finding myself in a situation where none of the books I had access to were appealing made the feeling of being locked down just that much more unnerving. I couldn’t stomach the dystopian novels I had grown to love in a post-Hunger Games world when I could barely handle the dystopia my own world seemed to be turning into. Gothic fiction had gone from something I was forced to read in an English class, to a favourite genre, to something I didn’t even bother to open. Books had gone from a comfort to another way to experience death, where characters’ lives were dependent on their circumstances, and the circumstances of the books I had loved previously all led the characters down dark paths I could no longer stomach. But still, I wanted to find ways to write and in order to do that I needed to find ways to read, or else I feared I would fade away into nothing more than a shell of the writer I one day hoped to become. At this overly dramatic point, romance books entered the scene.

My understanding of “romance” novels at the time involved front covers featuring men wearing ripped open billowing white blouses while swooning women in tight corsets draped themselves over them. I assumed there was always a pirate ship or grand manor involved and the only name I associated with the genre was “Fabio.” My idea of the romance genre was limited to the kind of romance books you saw at doctors’ offices or on spinning book racks at airports, ready to be picked up by bored travelers who needed something to pass the time. I’d eagerly signed up for a Jane Austen class during my undergrad, yet I would walk past the adult romance section in bookstores as if it didn’t exist. I had, at some point, allowed pre-conceived ideas of what romance novels were overshadow what the genre could bring me. It was as if I, an adult woman, could not read stories about adult women, lest I be caught admitting to wanting to read stories where women were safe and cared for, and loved most reverently by their significant other.

I bought my first romance book during those first long few weeks of the pandemic, when the news was overwhelmed by tragedy and unhappiness. The book was called The Unhoneymooners, written by author Christina Lauren, the combined name of writing duo Christina Hobbs and Lauren Billings. The bright yellow front cover promised me “heartfelt and funny,” two things I desperately wanted more of during a global pandemic. The book arrived late one afternoon, and just a few hours later, I had completely devoured it. Not once did I stop to refresh the online counter that showed how many people had passed from Covid already or open the app formerly known as Twitter to see the vitriol that was being spewed between people who had differing opinions on how protocol around the pandemic should go. The book was a reprieve from all things tragic and by the end of the day, I’d ordered 4 more.

Drastically different from the preconceived ideas I’d had of what constituted a romance novel, the book didn’t advertise any distressed damsel who needed an overly muscular man to swoop in and save the day by offering to marry her. Instead, The Unhoneymooners told the story of the realistic frustration of a woman named Olive who had been let go from her job in the biomedical sciences. She struggled with the fact her twin sister was seemingly more successful, and hated a man who had a habit of making her feel bad about her weight. She was sometimes funny and sometimes sad, and always close to a realistic idea of what a woman was when I thought of the women in my own life. The book concluded with the expected Happily Ever After, but by the time the story was coming to a close, it felt only right that Olive had figured out her dream career and met her perfect match. The plot had been full of common tropes and what may be considered cliché but instead of feeling trite or repetitive, it was comforting and left me feeling hopeful. I may not have been able to go outside, but I could cheer on this other girl as her life moved forward. 

As a genre commonly targeted specifically towards women, romance novels are often belittled, considered lacking in substance, or focusing too much on topics deemed “not literary enough” for the consumption of the general public. Yet romance novels currently make up the biggest category of fiction sold in stores as well as the highest earning genre, coming in at approximately $1.5 billion dollars’ worth of sales in 2022[1]. The number of romance novels sold per year has seen a steady incline since 2020, with sales almost doubling between 2020 and 2021. It seems, just as I had, many others had turned towards a genre that promised Happily Ever Afters when the real world seemed to be offering anything but.

Freelance journalist and YA romance writer Jennifer Chen had a similar experience. A popular romance book had been gifted to her from a friend, she wrote[2], but had sat on her shelf collecting dust until a few days into her lockdown experience. In the book she found the sense of comfort she was lacking in her own pandemic-affected life. She found that there “was safety in the routine of knowing that every story I read ended happily; I didn’t have to wonder if the people I read about were hurting.” This was a sentiment I found echoed many of my own reasons for finding comfort in books like this. During a time when it felt dangerous to go to even the grocery store, surrounding myself in stories where the main character’s suffering was only ever temporary was the perfect antidote, even if it only lasted between the covers of a book.

Chen cites a second reason for feeling connected to romance books, as these books provide characters in which she was able to find her own emotions and struggles validated. Self, the website Chen writes under, recommends an article titled “19 Books That Have Helped People Through Some Seriously Tough Times[3]” as the follow-up to Chen’s article. Instead of a slew of self-help books, the article instead recommends everything from YA series Percy Jackson to fantasy classic The Lord of the Rings. The key similarity between the books listed in that article and the ones Chen lists in her article is that all provide an escape for their readers. Chen cites specific memories alongside the romance books she mentions— one is the book that got her through her dog’s cancer diagnosis, the other got her through acting as caretaker for her family during hard times.

 While the pandemic familiarized me with new phrases such as “endemic,” romance novels gave me new phrases like “fake dating” and “forced proximity.” These new terms were used to label romance novels to tell the readers what they could expect to find happening between the two protagonists. Instead of leaning away from “clichés,” a word I had been told to stay away from as a writer, the romance authors I was reading were leaning right into them. To be labeled under a certain cliché, or trope, was like waving a bright flag at romance readers. You want a story of forbidden love? Julieta and the Romeos by Maria E. Andreu was there waiting to tell you a modern-day Romeo and Juliet tale. Ali Hazelwood, author of The Love Hypothesis and holder of a PhD in neuroscience, became known as the master of one of my favourite categories, “enemies to lovers.” The best example of this trope? Literary classic Pride and Prejudice.

Written in 1813 by British icon Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice exists somewhere in the overlap between genre fiction and literary fiction. Years before phrases like “enemies to lovers” would have existed, Austen wrote a story that encapsulates so much of what people seem to love about the modern romance. Austen created the perfect female protagonist in Elizabeth Bennet. She’s tough but lovable, unwilling to settle down with someone she doesn’t love, nor with someone who is rude to her the way that Mr. Darcy, the wealthy handsome new neighbor, is. Elizabeth rejects a perfectly fine proposal from the dopey Mr. Collins in wait of something better. She makes the radical point that a woman might be more content to be alone than end up with someone who sees her first and foremost as a future mother, caregiver, and housewife. While Mr. Darcy blows his first chances with her, his grumpy demeanor provides the perfect setting for their “enemies to lovers” arc. Mr. Darcy’s icy behavior melts away to allow him to become the perfect match for Elizabeth; it is, without a doubt, a happily ever after.

Originally titled First Impressions, the reputation of Pride and Prejudice as a romance novel offersitself as an excellent example of the gap between literary romance and genre romance, as well as the stereotypes surrounding both. While Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy walk the fine line between love and hate, Pride and Prejudice walks the fine line between “acceptable” romance novels and genre romance novels that have their literary worth called into question. Yet both fall into the same category of being written by women for women. First Impressions may not have stuck as the title for the novel, but I’ve always liked it for the book and for the way I seemed to interact with romance novels before I gave them a proper chance. The first impressions of romance novels seemed to be one that puts these stories down, that shamed the idea of a Happily Ever After.

 My copy of Pride and Prejudice is shelved right above my copy of a book called Icebreaker, originally released in 2022 on Amazon by debut author Hannah Grace. Icebreaker is a college romcom that became so popular through Amazon’s self-publishing platform that it was picked up by a traditional publisher and rereleased in bookstores almost a year after its original release. The story follows college hockey player Nathan and college ice dancing star Anastasia. Similar to Pride and Prejudice’s Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet, Nathan and Anastasia fight back and forth through the book between love and hate. Similar to Jane Austen when she originally published Pride and Prejudice, Icebreaker author Hannah Grace was never expected her book to reach a such wide audience. It was one of the 1.4 million books that are self-published through Amazon’s Kindle platform every year[4]. With numbers like that, how could any self-publishing author expect to find themselves selling mass numbers of their book, let alone ending up with a book deal? Yet this enemies to lovers romance book has now ended up selling over one hundred thousand copies in the UK alone. Even in the vast world of self-publishing, romance novels hold the crown as the most successful genre. Everyone, it seems, is attracted to a happy ending.

Four years later and a multitude of romance novels lining my shelves, I proudly consider myself a lover of romantic fiction. Romance novels were what swept in to save the day when love and joy had seemed to take a backseat to tragedy and loss. The brightly coloured spines stand out against the stark white and neutral browns that are more likely to make up the covers of the literary fiction books I’ve stacked with them. While I don’t see either genre as better or more valuable than the other, the days of jumping to defend why I’ve taken up reading romance novels is gone. In the early days of my newfound love, when I explained the plot of a romance book I willingly stayed up all night to finish, I found myself needing to prove why it was worth my time or energy. I would claim it was nice to take a break from the heavy classics I was reading for school, that these books were quicker and easier to read, like candy for my brain. While some of these things were true— I finished romance novel Beach Read much quicker than I finished Paradise Lost— the most consistent truth of my new reading habits was that I simply enjoyed reading these books.

Beach Read, written by author Emily Henry, uses its own main character to address the questions of why romance novels are so quick to be written off as simple or unliterary. Main character January Andrews is a romance writer experiencing serious writer’s block for the first time in her career. She’s broke, forced to live in the house her now deceased father bought with his mistress, and finds herself living next to a literary fiction writer who gives off the impression that he doesn’t understand why she would write romance. January, frustrated by the difference in treatment she experiences compared to that of her neighbor, speaks to the validity of her own genre, stating that “if you swapped out all of [her] Jessicas for Johns, do you know what you’d get? Fiction. Just fiction. Ready and willing to be read by anyone, but somehow by being a woman who writes about women, I’ve eliminated half the Earth’s population from my potential readers.” Beach Read itself is shelved as romance but contains a story that reflects on memories of families of former cult members and discusses the grief of losing a parent who let you down, yet is still looked down upon for existing within a genre that is given less merit for every bubble- gum pink book cover it releases.

In the midst of all her writer’s block, there’s a moment where January looks out her kitchen window to find that she can see her neighbour, a fellow writer, pacing in front of his open laptop. She’s able to see the frustration lining in his face and is reminded that once genre is put to the side, “when it came down to it [he] was still pacing in the dark, making shit up like the rest of us.” It’s a statement that gets me through my own writing and one that seems to fit my readings habits too. When it all comes down to it, I’m still sitting with a book, looking to feel a little better, just like everyone else.



BIO

Hannah Ackerman is a writer from Calgary, Alberta. She has a degree in English literature and will graduate with an MFA in Writing from the University of Saskatchewan this upcoming fall. She is currently working on her first book, a gothic novel about art, grief, and ghosts. 






Works Cited

Austen, Jane. Pride and Prejudice. Penguin Classics. 1996.

Brenza, Amber. “19 Books That Have Helped People Through Some Seriously Tough Times.” SELF, January 18, 2018. https://www.self.com/gallery/read-these-books-when-things-get-tough

Chen, Jennifer. “I Highly Recommend Romance Novels if You’re Really Going Through it Right Now.” SELF, November 16, 2022. https://www.self.com/story/romance-novels-mental-health-essay

Curcic, Dimitrije. “Romance Novel Sales Statistics.” Words Rated, October 9, 2022. https://wordsrated.com/romance-novel-sales-statistics/

Henry, Emily. Beach Read. Berkley. 2020.

Lauren, Christina. The Unhoneymooners. Gallery Books. 2019.

[1] https://wordsrated.com/romance-novel-sales-statistics/

[2] https://www.self.com/story/romance-novels-mental-health-essay

[3] https://www.self.com/gallery/read-these-books-when-things-get-tough

[4] https://wordsrated.com/amazon-publishing-statistics/#:~:text=Self%2Dpublishing%20on%20Amazon&text=Amazon%20releases%20over%201.4%20million,publishing%20figures%20is%20much%20higher.







When the Circus Came to Town

by Deepti Nalavade Mahule



My birth mother ran away to join a circus when I was around six months old. Daddy told me this and added that even though I’d always known that she’d gone away, now that I’d turned fifteen, I was old enough to handle the details of her leaving us all those years ago.

Perhaps recent happenings in his life — his cousin’s recent fatal road accident, getting laid off from work, taking up drinking but then turning sober — had hastened Daddy’s decision to tell me this new information now.

Many years ago, Daddy had sat me down and told me for the first time that my birth mother had left us when I was a baby. I’d scrunched up my five-year-old face in confusion. “What do you mean by ‘gone away’? I’d pointed to Mumma, my stepmother. “But she’s right here with us!”

As the years went by, I had more questions which Mumma, my stepmother, said she couldn’t answer, and that Daddy only partly managed to. Daddy said that she’d left one day when he was at work, and he didn’t know why. Then he’d end the conversation with, “Meera, you have both of us parents who love you and that’s all that matters now.”

Still, my questions kept piling up. As the years passed and my quizzing became complex, his face would turn red, and he’d avoid my eyes as he mumbled his answers. Her name was Mohini. She’d left one day leaving a message saying only that she was never coming back. No, he hadn’t kept that note. And he had no idea why she’d left. Did I resemble her? He couldn’t say because he thought he wasn’t good at identifying such things. What did she look like? He couldn’t really describe her, and he hadn’t kept any of her photographs. Her own family had cut her off and he’d never kept in touch with those people. Now, could I stop with the questions? There was really nothing more to say.

One time, when I approached him with yet another question about my birth mother while he was catching up on office work at home, he cut me off with a snarl. “Not now Meera. Can’t you see I’m busy?”

I persisted and that’s when he erupted, screaming at me to leave him alone, almost smacking me before I jumped out of his way. On hearing his raised voice, Mumma came running and took me aside.

“Your Daddy is a sensitive man,” she said. “Please don’t make him upset by asking about her. Especially when he’s stressed about his work.”

Lips quivering, I nodded and gave in to Mumma’s embrace. Her hand stroked my back and little by little, my questions didn’t feel as pressing as they did before. Although we talked about my birth mother occasionally, over the past few years, there was less and less to say about her. And so, Daddy’s disclosure about her running away to join the circus felt as though a claw had ripped a tear in my life with one sudden swipe.

It can’t be true, I thought. But his grim face told me that it was.

We were sitting in my room, and outside the window, the sun made its descent behind the trees in front of our apartment building. Patches of light and shadow moved across Daddy’s forehead. The severity of his frown made his mustache droop, giving his face a sad yet clownish look.

“It was like a trick being played on us when the family elders forced our arranged match. Although your birth mother and I had a big age gap and didn’t have anything in common, she thought we could make our marriage work, even though cracks had started to appear, which only I seemed to notice at first. She got pregnant with you, after which she finally saw how we were failing each other. Then, nothing I said or did would agree with her. My appearance, manners, clerical desk job, salary — everything irked her. In her eyes, I became a loser.”

He looked out at the darkening shapes of the trees and continued in a strained voice. “I learned that she’d been good at sports during her growing years and would sneak out to ride horses belonging to a rich family. Whenever the circus was in town, she never missed seeing it and sometimes went twice or thrice in a single week. During the few months before she ran away, she had begun to leave you with our neighbor who ran a daycare to spend time in the afternoons at the circus that camped on the outskirts of our town. After your birth, she’d sunk into depression and that was the only thing that seemed to give her any joy. At home, she tried to copy what she’d seen there.”

“One evening, I came home early from work to find all the clothes taken down from the clothesline and her trying to tightrope walk on it, falling often but giggling to herself as she got back up. Another time, in the middle of the night, when I went into the kitchen to get milk for our crying baby — for you — there she was, juggling three oranges in the light of the moon coming through the window.”

“And then one day, she ran away to join the circus,” I repeated, as if in a trance.

Daddy raised his shoulders and dropped them in a defeated shrug.

“Even her name — Mohini — was so theatrical. Suited her just fine.”

He sighed and continued speaking. “One day while I was at work and the neighbor had taken you out for a stroll along with the other children under her care, she went away with the circus as it left our town. The note she left behind said that she was sorry, but the circus was her life, and being part of it was in her blood.”

He shook his head as if still in disbelief. Then, his face softened.

“Not long after I signed the divorce papers and handed them to someone who she’d sent to collect them, something wonderful happened.” He gestured toward Mumma, my stepmother, sitting silently beside us all this while, and he smiled. “This lady took one look at you and said that she wanted to marry me.”

Mumma took my hand in hers and stroked it. Her smooth skin was a few brown shades darker than mine, and her black hair was silky in contrast to my curls. She had thin arms and delicate wrists, very unlike mine. I withdrew my hand from her grasp. Mumma winced but I pretended not to notice. The bitterness that had stayed with me after our fight a week ago over buying me a cell phone chafed against my heart even as all that I’d learned about my birth mother sunk in.

That night I lay curled up in bed in the dark with a picture of one-year-old me in a flowery dress, chubby-cheeked, and chunky-thighed, sitting up and looking at the camera with questioning eyes.

‘Baby rabbit’ — Mumma called this version of me, and as I closed my eyes, I saw a little animal alone in the forest at night, twitching its nose, trying to catch its mother’s scent after she’d left it behind in their burrow. Tears dripped onto my pillow into a growing patch, wet against my cheeks. A circus, of all things! Mumma had known all this time and hadn’t told me.

I stopped crying only when I heard muffled voices outside my closed bedroom door. Then the door opened. Mumma’s breaths filled the quiet of my room while I pretended to be asleep. Her nightgown rustled as she went out, but the scent of her freshly applied almond hair oil lingered in the air. I scrunched up my nose. I decided that I’d never really liked that smell.

“I told you, Sujata. Meera will be ok. She’s tough. Like me,” I heard Daddy say.

I scoffed at his words. He calls himself tough. Even after how he’d almost given up after being fired from his job.

“Yes, she’s asleep. I had to make sure she was ok before I went to bed,” Mumma said softly to Daddy, closing the door behind her.

If she cares about me so much, I thought, then why did she refuse when I requested a cell phone for my birthday?

My anger boiled up, releasing itself into a scream that I stifled into my pillow. Mumma had said that Daddy and she would think about getting a cell phone for me next year, after my current school year — an important academic one that would decide junior college admissions — was over. It was maddening that I’d have to wait that long when all my close friends already had one. I bristled every time they looked up from their lit-up phone screens, chuckling together at some joke from shared messages. The other day, I stupidly waited alone for a whole hour at a café and nearly wept in public because they’d changed plans at the last moment but couldn’t find a way to notify me. No amount of my cajoling and crying would budge Mumma’s decision. And if she said no, Daddy would never say yes.

I woke up the next day, adamant about remaining closed off from the people in my house. Before all of us left home — me, for school, Daddy, for a job interview, and Mumma, for the dental clinic where she worked as a receptionist, as she hovered around me, my eyes fell on her black and gold necklace symbolizing her marital status. I imagined her fifteen years ago entering my father’s life, a guest stepping into a home and taking up residence in it forever.

“Meera, talk to me,” Mumma said but the words seemed to be stuck in a maze inside my head, unwilling to come out.

You refused to give me what I want, so stop asking me if I need anything else, I felt like saying to her, but I bit my lip and shook my head.

In the evening Daddy prepared to leave for Mumbai where he had to stay for two days for interviews. He put down his suitcase at the apartment door and came toward me with outstretched arms. I leaned awkwardly into his embrace and turned my forehead away from his spiky mustache hairs.

“Are you ok?” He asked.

How could you let her run away to join a circus? I wanted to shout.

“Yes, I’m ok,” I mumbled instead.

He released me from the hug and nodded as if convincing himself of something. Then he went into the kitchen, and I watched him through the gap in the doorway and the kitchen wall as he pulled Mumma close to him. My face grew hot. They never showed physical affection in front of me. I looked away, a thought blooming in my mind, had Daddy ever tried to ask my birth mother to come back for me?

Daddy and Mumma had met when she started a job at the office where he worked. Mumma had lost her parents when she was a little girl and was taken in by poor relatives belonging to a low caste. When they couldn’t afford to keep her, she grew up in an orphanage. She later spent the rest of her student years at a boarding school on a scholarship.

Even after years had passed, Daddy’s relatives whispered among themselves. “Sujata — that sly darkie! She never had to worry about money or anyone having to arrange a match for her after she got our vulnerable Vivek properly ensnared.”

Those words lurked in the shadows of my mind, and now, parts of them stepped into the light. Perhaps Daddy had been so enamored with Mumma that he’d never bothered to look for my birth mother and to ask her if she wanted to see me.

I went into my room and tried to do my algebra homework, but nothing made sense. Despite my questions in the past, Mumma hadn’t told me about my birth mother running away to join the circus. If asked, she would have said that it wasn’t her place to tell me and repeated what she always said about Daddy being a sensitive man. I sat staring at my notebook, tapping my pen against my desk, listening to the sounds of Mumma working in the kitchen, feeling as though a stranger were moving about in our house. If Mumma hadn’t been there, would Daddy have tried to find my birth mother for me?

Soon, Mumma called out, “Meera, dinner’s ready.”

As soon as I went into the kitchen, she said, “You haven’t said much after what Daddy told you about your, uh, birth mother.”

When I didn’t say anything, her face fell. She took a deep breath. “This might bring you peace.”

She handed me a piece of paper, which looked like a ticket. In big black curling letters at the top were the words “Golden Circus” and below it, “Admission for 1” with the next day’s date and time for the 1.30 p.m. show.

“It’s leaving next week. Your mother works there.”

I stared at the ticket in disbelief. 

“Don’t tell Daddy,” Mumma said.

That night, I dreamed about the baby rabbit moving through a leafy forest. Branches shot out in all directions, forming a spiraling green tunnel. I reached out to pick up the rabbit and soothe her but the closer I moved, the farther she leaped away, sniffing the air for her mother’s scent. Finally, I turned around and began to run in another direction, a path I was certain about taking, only to wake up with beads of sweat on my forehead. I put a hand on my heaving chest.

I lay awake for a long time and when it was morning, I told Mumma that I would try to meet my birth mother after the show got over. Sitting through the performance would be too nerve-wracking, and I was afraid that I would run away even before it got over.

Mumma’s eyes lit up when I told her that I’d decided to go. “A patient at our dental clinic said that the star circus performers meet with audience members outside the main tent after the show. Your mother, part of a troupe of popular acrobats, will be there. Ask around by her name.”

It seemed to me as though she had purposely not said my birth mother’s name. She spoke briskly, the way she did when she oversaw anything we did in our household.

“I’ll drop you off near the main tent and go to Anita’s house to wait for you there. You can take a bus back to her house.”

Anita was Mumma’s best friend who lived near the circus grounds. I was relieved that I would be meeting my birth mother alone. But what was I going to say to her? A million ideas crowded my mind — from simple greetings to direct questions about why she left me. I sat down on the edge of my bed with my head in my hands. Finally, I decided that I would state who I was and wait for her reaction. When it was time to leave, I slipped the picture of baby me into my handbag and went into the living room with a low ache thrumming steadily at the sides of my head.

Mumma was waiting for me by the door, wearing a plain outfit and with her hair in a simple braid. Always well-dressed and wearing makeup, I’d rarely seen her ready to go out with such minimal effort on her appearance. Noticing her slow movements, I wondered if she, too, had poorly slept the night before. As she zipped up her purse, her fingers shook.

“Ready?” She said, handing me my wallet.

Her eyes fell on my t-shirt and her lips curled into a tiny smile. I realized that I had put on the green shirt that she’d gifted me on my recent birthday.

“Don’t worry. Everything will be ok,” she said and squeezed my shoulder. Her hand was clammy with sweat.

We set off, Mumma weaving her scooter through traffic, me in the backseat, digging my nails into the leather. The few morsels from that day’s lunch that Mumma had insisted I eat felt as though they were churning inside me. When we stopped at the traffic lights, I almost jumped off and ran home.

My birth mother had left me once long ago. She was going to leave me again, wasn’t she? In all this time, had she ever attempted to look for me? I thought. It was foolish to go looking for her. And yet, I couldn’t fight against it.

As we drew closer to the venue, the striped, red conical top of the circus tent came into view above the tree line that ran around the circumference of Laxmi Maidaan — a wide expanse of ground, which hosted sports matches, exhibitions, fairs, and now, Golden Circus.

Mumma parked her scooter outside the gate, and I got down, my eyes on the cavernous opening of the circus tent, inside which flashed bright lights. The accompanying music reached a crescendo and was followed by applause. A booming voice on the microphone began to announce something. The show was about to end.

“I’ll be at Anita Aunty’s house. You know which bus to take from here,” Mumma said.

“Yes, I’ll be there,” I said and willed myself to walk in the direction of the tent. My headache had become a swinging hammer around my temples.

“Meera, wait.”

I turned around. Mumma came toward me, wearily rubbing her eyes with the palms of her hands. Her face looked worn. The furrows on her brow and the lines around her mouth stood out in the bright afternoon light.

“If there’s a problem, you know my phone number, and you know Anita Aunty’s number. You’ll manage to contact us somehow, right?” She said, trying to put her hand on my shoulder.

I shrugged her off, seized by a spike of irritation jabbing my aching head, a culmination of the anger that was gnawing at me over the last few days.

My words came out loud and fast. “So, I must worry about how to contact you? If you’d got me a damn phone, this could have been taken care of easily.” I paused to catch my breath before delivering a final stinger. “I bet my real mother would have been better at giving me what I want.”

I sensed Mumma recoil as I hurried away without looking at her. Blinking away tears, I made my way through the crowd that was spilling out of the tent opening and stopped behind a wooden partition next to the ticketing booth near the main entrance. The wind rose and brought with it a raw, earthy smell, perhaps belonging to dogs, horses, and a camel or two. I felt like a nervous creature myself, crouching behind a clump of bushes in the forest. After a few minutes, the circus troupe began to come out to stand by the entrance to shake hands with spectators and pose for photos. Heart pounding, I scanned everyone’s faces.

“Mohini!” Someone called out just then and a woman in a full-length shimmering lavender and silver costume came out. My knees turned to jelly. I grasped the partition to steady myself.

She was tall and had broad shoulders. The makeup exaggerated her features, but I could make out fleshy lips, a wide forehead, and a prominent nose. I touched the similarly protruding bridge of my own nose and felt something break inside me.

I would have stumbled toward her had it not been for a small boy, about five years of age, who ran out of the tent and almost collided with her in his eagerness. The boy wore the same shiny uniform as her and had put on a red clown nose. Shaggy yellow strands of a wig fell onto his wide forehead. He was followed by a mustachioed man in a jeweled turban, clearly the ringmaster. The man laughed at the boy and reached out to hold him close, while his other arm slipped around my birth mother’s shoulder.

“Smile, please!” Someone said and the three of them grinned at whoever was clicking their picture.

My birth mother then turned to the little boy with a delighted look on her face and picked him up. She nuzzled her nose into his neck as the boy beamed and put his arms around her. Then, they moved their faces closer, and — as if they did this all the time — they bumped their noses on one another and laughed.

“Mohini,” I called out her name to myself in a whisper. I felt emptied out, with nothing more to say.

I stood there like someone gazing into a fishbowl containing a family of fish, afraid to put my hand in and pollute the water. The way the boy snuggled into my birth mother’s neck reminded me of how, when I was little, I would do the same to Mumma when I was hurt, howling every time she tried to put me down. She would carry me even though her back hurt as she walked to and fro, trying to distract me from my pain. All I could think of was Mumma. Mumma kissing my forehead before leaving for work, even though I was fifteen years old. Her face appearing in the doorway as soon as she came home from work in the evening, her tiredness dissolving into a smile as she sat down in my room and listened to everything that I told her even before she drank a much-needed cup of tea.

What a relief it had been to have her there, especially after Daddy lost his job and after being unable to find a new one for almost six months, spent all his time at home in front of the television, going for days without showering or speaking more than a few words. Previously, he would have a drink or two on special occasions like birthdays, anniversaries and at times like when Mumma got a salary raise, or I got good grades, or when India won a cricket match against Pakistan, but his increasingly frequent drinking episodes had started to make me wonder each time what the occasion was.

One evening, after it had been almost seven months since Daddy was laid off, I returned late from a friend’s place. Mumma wouldn’t be home yet, and I’d hoped to sneak past Daddy who would be in front of the television, engrossed in watching a show. However, as soon as I noiselessly opened the front door, I paused in the doorway. In the darkening living room, there he was, slumped on the floor against the sofa like a drunk beggar, legs splayed out. He raised a glass clinking with ice cubes to his lips, babbling to himself. After downing it all, he banged it on the wooden table, almost breaking the glass. A bowl tipped over and roasted peanuts scattered all over the floor. On the table were an empty bottle and two halves of a cut lemon. Daddy picked up the knife that was lying there and studied its blade glinting in the light of the streetlamps coming from outside.

“What a loser,” he said in a thick voice and gave a snort.

In a flash, he swiped the knife over his left palm and watched as a jagged line blossomed in red across it.

I screamed. His bloodshot eyes widened and turned to me. When he spoke, his speech, albeit slurred, was savage enough to send a chill up my spine. “You sneaky rat! You’ll be a failure, wasting time with your good-for-nothing friends instead of studying. Do you want to end up like me?”

The hand holding the knife jerked backward and I was certain that he was going to hurl it at me. Daddy was only throwing it back onto the table but icy tendrils under my skin were already crawling up my arms and feet. Before I could stop myself, a warm trickle ran down my leg.

Someone gasped behind me. Mumma had come home. She dropped the bag of groceries she was carrying and hurried up to Daddy. Whispering urgently under her breath, she got him to his feet and guided him into their bedroom. After I’d cleaned up, she didn’t say anything to me about me wetting myself but fed me a hot dinner and kept checking on me until I had completed my assignment, which I don’t know how I managed to do considering the frozen state my mind was in.

The next day, after I woke up, I found a note from her. She’d taken Daddy out for a stroll in the hills outside our town. After they came back, he apologized profusely to me, his tearful hugs thawing out my numbness until I cried with him. He got back to job-hunting soon after and I hadn’t seen him touch a bottle since that day.

Out there in front of the circus tent, my head full of thoughts about Mumma, I turned back and became one with the flow of people heading out of the gates. At the bus stop, I was struck by panic when I reached into my wallet and realized I’d forgotten to check if I had enough for the bus fare. But my fingers pulled out plenty of notes of cash. Mumma, who’d handed me my wallet before we left, had put in the money.

If I had a cell phone, I’d have texted her a thank you this instant, I thought, and my eyes filled with tears remembering how I’d lashed out at her. On the bus, my hands shook as I paid for the ticket. When I found a seat, I peeked into my handbag at the photo I had put inside. The infant’s dark eyes shone up at me. 

“Baby rabbit,” I whispered to her, “you don’t have to search around anymore.”

After the bus dropped me off, I ran all the way to Anita Aunty’s home and leaped over the cracked tiled steps of her old apartment building two at a time. When I rang the doorbell, my ears picked out Mumma’s faint voice coming from inside the living room.

“Meera, is that you?” She asked even as her footsteps approached to open the door.

My nose twitched, as I imagined taking in the fragrance of her hair oil, and my heart lifted. Words pushed past the lump in my throat, and my voice came out in a squeak. “Yes, it’s me, Mumma, I’m home.”



BIO

Deepti Nalavade Mahule is a writer of color living in California. Her website, with links to her selected published work, is: https://deeptiwriting.wordpress.com. A piece in *82 Review was nominated for Best of the Net 2024 and another was shortlisted in Flash Fiction Magazine’s contest in July 2022.







The Lighthouse

By Lisa Sultani


Things I once feared have materialized
often these came about subtly
it is only afterwards I realize
many nightmares are alive and well

Why do I share this with you?
It is my way of being a lighthouse
because I am your mother,
my advice cannot be unilateral

We will remain calm
my wet scalp sculpts your dark bones
We can survive anything
and shall become famous for it.



Lifted


The air is empty or the air is filled
with light: then, the air swells in
darkness. You are also entering
the air. That is why people who
love me say you will be in my heart.

Before your dissolution you
could not be contained. As I split
in two also I think I would try containing
you now. Maybe I already I am and
that’s why I read emails so slowly.
I am no longer efficient, which was
one of your wishes. Beside me,
the air rushes in blue fire.

I leave you messages.
Your phone was disconnected (not with
my permission) but still I call and speak.
A therapist suggested writing a letter, as
if one would be enough.

I go on walks, I drive to the bank, I cook
dinner occasionally. Last night it snowed
a great deal. The air became dense with
an uncountable number of unique and
beautiful snowflakes. I know,
each one of them was you.



The doubting heart


We walked for a long time. I walked
across a mountain. The sediment crumbled
in time with my regret. My house was
constructed using unpaid labor. When I
received this information I visited
the masjed. I did not place money in
the basket passed to me by an elderly
neighbor. Later, I may send a check. I
realize I did not tell you who else was
walking with me at the beginning. It is
no longer important: we parted ways
before breaching any contracts.



BIO

Ms. Sultani earned her MA in Library and Information Studies from the University of Wisconsin- Madison. After many travels, she now lives with her family outside Atlanta. Her poems are included in Borderless, Delta Poetry Review, JMWW and The Talon Review, among others.







Broke Palace

by Joe Ducato



         Skittles hurled a rock at the Snake River Bridge.  It bounced off a girder in a rousing C-sharp. Skittles had a canon for an arm.  She had even been banned from pitching in Little League because ‘her fastball was that lethal,’ they had claimed.  Skittles, though, felt her aim was true and came to doubt herself after that.  The boys walking with her swore the bridge moved. 

         ‘The abandoned always find one another,’ Skittles thought and didn’t know why.  Words were always coming to her; from where, she didn’t know.  The secret stream she called it but never told a soul.

         ‘It’s like a law,’ she finished then swept the words away.

         She had never been abandoned.  Neither had the boys. Itchy and Z.  They just felt that way sometimes, like all 16-year-olds.  Like everyone.

         “I don’t think I can do this,” Itchy confessed.

         “It’s only an hour,” Z groaned, “Everyone goes up there when they turn 16, and everyone comes back, right?”

         They walked halfway across the bridge and stopped to gaze out and over Snake River to the far hillside where Broke Palace sat alone and stoic like a dog who doesn’t know it will die.

         The massive wood structure, Broke Palace may have been broken but that didn’t diminish its greatness.  It was a true palace, and as far back as anyone could remember, had always been on the hill and had always been abandoned.  It was distinguished by a tall center gable piercing the sky with 2 shorter gables at its sides making it, from a distance, look like praying hands.  There was plenty of danger there too and enough folk lore to fill a cargo ship; stories of a faceless figure sometimes seen in a window; a figure who came to be known as The Count.  The legend of The Count fueled imaginations of the young at heart for miles.

         Skittles and the boys decided that after their hour, their rite of passage in the dark, at the Palace, they would swear forever friends.  Standing on the Snake River Bridge that day, it felt cool to be alive and more cool to be 16.

         They crossed the bridge and found the path that would lead them to the Palace.  During the steepest climb, Skittles told the boys they would spend the hour in a tiny room she’d heard about at the tip of the praying hands.  That made Itchy even itchier.  The closer they got, the more the Palace morphed into a lioness in the Land of Enormous Beasts.

         They stood at its door like ants at a pyramid.  The door was just hanging; nearly off.  A dead tree had fallen and was resting against a side wall, and the air smelled of danger. 

         Skittles tip-toed past the splintered door and into the structure.  She found herself in a huge foyer with the boys close behind.  They stopped and stood wide-eye and long-jawed.  It was a true cathedral.  They had never seen so much nothing taking up so much space.  It felt almost holy.  They had to strain their necks just to see the shadows of the upper beams.  

         Then came the flash; the white flash that happens when things turn on a dime.  It doesn’t happen to everyone, but it happened to them that day.

         There he was, standing there like a single palm tree in a desert, The Count himself.  It was the moment the needle drops on fear and the record skips, except for some reason, Skittles’ record played on.  She stood firm in the secret stream, her eyes focused on The Count.  He indeed had a face and was smaller than all the stories; not much of a count at all.  More like a favorite bus driver or a sad guy at the park.

         Itchy and Z heard a scream, although no one had screamed.  It was the scream inside your head when you’re too scared to scream on the outside.  Instincts took over and the boys turned and ran for the door, and even though Skittles wasn’t scared she found herself running too.  Six feet ran out of the Palace as if connected like the feet of a caterpillar.

         But halfway to the path Skittles stopped.  She realized that she didn’t want to be part of a caterpillar, that she couldn’t be part of a caterpillar.  The boys though, were gone, bound for Mexico, a long-distance train running through the rain.

         For Skittles, the song playing in her head played beautiful and clear.  She marched bravely back into the Palace unafraid; as unafraid as she’d ever been in her life.  She walked up to The Count.

          “You’re just a little, old man,” she mused.

         The Count turned away, then back.

         “You’re here,” he said, “Finally!  Here!”

         He rubbed his hands together.

         “I’ve tried.  It’s too strong and I’m too weak.  I’ve wasted all my long years!”

         He smiled, toothless and sincere.

         “Have you asked Him?” The Count drawled, “Have you talked with God?  Can I leave it?  Is it done – that which can never be undone?  Tell me, please.”

         Skittles noticed 2 floor boards, loosened and stacked, at the old man’s feet and empty spaces in the floor where the boards had been.

         “Did you do that?” Skittles asked.

         The Count held up bloodied hands.

          “Ask Him, please.  I’ve tried my best, but my best won’t do anymore.”

         “How long have you been here?” Skittles asked.

         “My poisoned brain won’t say.”

         He looked around.

         “Prison…”

         “Prison?” Skittles winced, “God no!”

         “God yes,” the old man countered.

         “No,” Skittles insisted, “Not a prison.  I’ve stood at my window many nights and dreamt I was here.  Not a prison.  Not a prison at all.  To me, a palace.”

         “A palace?” the old man asked.

         “Yes.”

         He rubbed the rooster skin covering his throat.

         “And shelter in the woods for the gentle,” Skittles added.

         The old man raised his hands high, shouted to the rafters.

          “I’ve tried my best!”

         Something up high fluttered its wings then settled down.

         Skittles inched closer.

         “I’ll help you put the boards back.  You can’t, not with your hands.  You’ll make them worse.”

         The old man shook his head.

         “What’s done is done.  It’s the law.”

         “No,” Skittles countered, “Not the law.”

         “How do you know the law?  So young.”

         Then they turned their heads.  The boys were back, standing in the doorway with long sticks.

         “For me, they come?” the old man asked.

         “No.  They’re my friends.”

         “Friends?”

         “Get away from him,” Itchy warned.

         “It’s ok,” Skittles held up a hand.

         The old man dropped to his knees and wept.  The boys raised their sticks.   

         “No!” Skittles shouted.

         She bent down and helped the old man up.  He started to walk and Skittles walked with him, a hand on the bottom of his elbow.   The old man stopped at a closed door, faced it like it was a lion’s den.  Skittles pushed the door open, unveiling a dark, empty room. 

         “Did something happen here?”

         She gestured to Itchy who dropped the stick, pulled a candle from his pocket, and a lighter, lit the candle and brought it to Skittles, avoiding eye contact with the old man, then shuffled back to Z and picked up the stick again.

         The Count stared into the room.

         “Heart of darkness,” was all he said.

         Skittles placed her hand over the old man’s hand.  She could feel the dried, crusted blood.

         “He’s crazy,” Z whined.

         The Count turned to Skittles, stared at her young face.

         “Love dies,” he said then lowered his head.

         “No,” Skittles said, “Nothing ever dies.”

         “How do you know, so young?”

         That was the moment.  The moment Skittles knew where the words came from.  She looked down.  Her feet were in clear water, in the stream, surrounded by large stones with words written on each stone.  Skittles read those words aloud.  She knew then, her aim was true, that it had been true all along.  Her forever friends watched in awe.

         “We build,” she said, “It’s what we do.  Sometimes the ones we build for don’t, won’t or can’t stay and we feel like our home has been abandoned, but no home is ever truly abandoned.  Someone you may never know may have placed dreams there, maybe a little one who was lost and no longer is because of what you’ve made and you never knew it, never knew what good work you did.  Leaves fall in patterns we don’t understand.  Only the One who made the woods knows why leaves fall and land how they do.”

         “Wow,” Z turned to Itchy.

         The boys lowered their sticks and joined Skittles and the old man.   

         Skittles slowly entered the room, leading with the candle.  Orange dancers leapt from the flame and onto the walls, spreading joy and light on everything it could reach.



BIO

Joe Ducato lives in Utica, NY. Publications include Santa Barbara Literary Journal, Home Planet News, Modern Literature and Metaworker, among others.







ACCOMPLICE

by Laurier Tiernan


I can take

Risks if

You burn my

Bridges

Every

Chicken

Needs an

Accomplice



WHAT AWAITS


A sunrise or

Sunset like an

Orgasm or death

Stretches a brief hole

Into the veil and

Serves a

Taste of

What awaits



BIO

Laurier Tiernan is a multifaceted queer artist currently based in Tokyo. Their songs have been broadcast by stations around the globe. Their articles are published on three continents. And, their poetry has graced both print and exhibition. They currently host the weekly “Tiernan depuis Tokyo,” on CKRP, in Alberta, Canada, and seek a publisher for their first full manuscript.

https://www.facebook.com/TiernanSongs

http://www.youtube.com/TiernanSongs

http://www.instagram.com/TiernanSongs







Ben Fox created a website for people who love to read books. It’s called Shepherd. Its primary goal is to help readers discover new books. It also helps authors find new readers. It’s the perfect setting for book lovers across the globe. I interviewed Ben recently to understand how Shepherd works and where it is heading.

For people who don’t know, tell us what Shepherd.com is all about?

Shepherd helps readers discover books in fun ways. I wanted to create something that captured the magical feeling of wandering my local bookstore but reimagined for the online world.

I’ve worked with over 10,000 authors to share five of their favorite books around a topic, theme, or mood and why they love each book. Then, we connect the books and book lists in unique ways so that readers can follow their curiosity until something sparks. It creates an enjoyable browsing experience where you get to meet books through the eyes of someone who loves that book.

How is it beneficial to readers and writers?

We give readers fun ways to meet books while helping them meet a wider array of books.

They might search for a book they love, like Andy Weir’s Project Hail Mary, and from that page, they can browse book recommendation lists that include his book or browse books like his book that humans picked. Or they can jump to topics and genres in his book.

Or they might go to our science fiction bookshelf and filter to see only the most recommended sci-fi books with AI. These are just a few fun ways we help readers find books. We have a lot more planned!

We also help authors. Authors face a massive battle to get their books in front of interested readers. We want to make that easier. We do that by helping them get their passion, expertise, and book in front of the most likely readers.

Our primary format to do that is we work with authors to share five books they love around a central topic, theme, or mood. That central topic, theme, or mood should attract an audience that will also be interested in the author’s book. Then, we feature the author and their book at the top of the list.

For example, author Spencer Wild shared a fantastic book list on the best science fiction books about survival that even non-sci-fi fans will love. We help readers to meet him and his book. Our format is designed to show off his passion/expertise and get more readers interested in him (which drives interest in his book).

Or, check out this list on the life and times of Theodore Roosevelt by author Clay Risen. Clay wrote the book The Crowded Hour and is an expert on Teddy Roosevelt. It is an excellent way for him to share other books he loves while getting in front of the best readers for his book.

I tell authors I am not Oprah. But we do provide slow and steady exposure from the most likely readers to be interested in your book. And we do that month after month and year after year. We just added a second format for authors and I am working on more as we grow.

Talk about where Shepherd is now and what your goals are for the future.

Shepherd launched in April 2021, and we turn 3 years old this year. We are bootstrapped and we are funded through affiliate revenue, display ads, and our Founding Member program. We are currently meeting about 50% of our costs and by the end of 2024 I will get that to 80%.

As you browse Shepherd, remember that we only have one part-time developer compared to Goodreads, who has 300+ people listed on LinkedIn and has done nothing new for readers or authors since Amazon bought it.

My tactical goal is to make enough money so that we can hire one full-time developer. That would allow us to continue building new features for readers and authors.

Strategically, I want to create a book discovery platform that helps readers find excellent books and widens the range of authors they bump into. The book market has shifted into a winner-takes-all market, and we need to work harder to flatten that trend. I want to help more up-and-coming authors get the exposure they deserve.

How do you attract authors to your site?

We get a lot of referrals from authors who have already taken part. And we email authors who we love or who readers ask us to reach out to.

I also work hard to improve specific categories. So, if I notice that we don’t have any recommendations around “Armenia,” I might find some authors who write about different aspects of that country and reach out to them to see if they want to recommend some books.

How do you attract readers to your site?

We had over 5 million visitors in 2023, and I am working hard to increase that number.

We attract readers through search engines, website mentions, and social media. If authors are curious, I have a big breakdown on our marketing plan here. We are working toward email as a channel now.

Who are some of your favorite authors today?

So many! I shared my favorite 3 reads of 2023 as part of the big event we launched last year, and that is probably a good place to start.

Christian Cameron is one of my favorite authors! I loved his book Killer of Men, and it hit me at a perfect time in my 30s when I needed a bit of a life reboot. His Tom Swan book series was my top read in 2023, and it was extra magical as I read it while biking through Italy on a pilgrimage route (the main character is a 15th-century Indiana Jones wandering the Mediterranean during a very interesting historical period).

Who else? Brian Klingborg for his debut crime series about a small-town Chinese police officer. And I also love Peter F. Hamilton, Michael Connelly, Richard Osman, David Baldacci, Andy Weir, John Connoly, and many more.  

What were some of your favorite books growing up?

I remember the specific moment when I started reading. I was learning to read and going word by word through The Snow Baby by Margaret Hillert. There was this magical moment when the words came alive and everything just clicked. I could read.

I loved the Hardy Boys, Boxcar children, My Side Of The Mountain, King Arthur, and Greek myth when I was little. My dream is to one day buy an old box car to fix up if I ever have the space.

As I got older some of the most powerful books that shaped my youth were Native Son, The Jungle, the Dragonlance universe, Harry Potter, Wheel of Time, Breaking Open The Head, From The Holy Mountain, Down and Out in Paris and London, Snow Crash, Catch 22, Atlas Shrugged, The Fountainhead, the the Dirk Pitt series.

I am playing with a feature that lets readers share their “Book DNA” so I’ve been thinking a lot about the books that redirected my life or shaped large aspects of my worldview.

Talk about your background, family, education. Where did you grow up?

I was born in Texas but my family moved to Fayetteville, Arkansas when I was pretty little. I had a fantastic childhood full of friends, tree forts, hole digging, and wild independence. There were some tough spots as well but I managed to get through them with only small dings due to the support of my family. Plus, my family got a lot bigger as my parents divorced and remarried. So I get twice as much as love and support!

I went to school at the University of Arkansas. I ended up with a BA in history, political science, and international relations. Plus minors in anthropology and religoius studies. I probably enjoyed taking the interesting classes with amazing professors a bit too much. Luckily it wasn’t an expensive “mistake” back then.

Where are you living now? What is the book community like there?

I live in Northern Portugal along with my wife and 7-year-old son. I am pretty introverted and with my focus being almost 100% on building Shepherd and my family I haven’t built a community. My book community is mostly just a few friends who love sci-fi and trade book recommendations via Whatsapp (plus all the amazing authors at Shepherd who consistently destroy my book budget).

How many books do you read in a year?

I read over 100 books a year, my highest was 193. I’ve been able to read really fast ever since I was a kid.

Can bookstores participate in Shepherd?

They can! I haven’t emailed any, but if they wanted to take part I can adapt the format to feature their bookstore. I’ve done similar with a few non-profits, companies, podcasters, Youtubers, and others to create really fun unique lists.

Are you interested in writing yourself – fiction, poetry, nonfiction?

I’d love to write a book one day and I jot down ideas I get from time to time. I’d want to do a middle-grade chapter book that is a bit weird, heavy on adventure, and has a lot of laughs.

Were you parents, or anyone in your family, readers and/or writers?

My parents were both huge readers and I grew up with walls of books in our house. My mom would read us books every night. My dad made a lot of great book recommendations as I grew up that heavily influenced my reading.

My brother is an amazing writer and writes movie/tv scripts right now. He is working on a nonfiction book and I am looking forward to seeing that published.

Is there a way for readers to comment or interact with authors on the site?

No, to keep our costs low we don’t even have any type of user-account setup. It is something I am starting to look at and see what the first steps in that direction might be.

How many books are on the site now? How many authors?

We have 40,000 recommended books on the website. And so far 10,000 authors have taken part.

Is advertising space available on your site?

We just added a book launch program as a perk for our Founding Members. It allows them to advertise one of their books for 60 days on the website to the most likely readers for it.

It is one of our ways we give thanks to our financial supporters. 100% of what we raise from Founding Members goes directly to new features (and improving existing ones).

What books are you looking forward to reading this year?

Treason of Sparta by Christian Cameron. It is the 7th book in the Long War series which I love! The series is historical adventure and set in Ancient Greece.

Do you collect books? If so, what are some of your most prized acquisitions?

I don’t although I have a fascination with James Bruce of Kinnaird and have a very old set of his books on “Travels to discover the source of the Nile.” He was a really interesting character and when I got my first job I saved up enough to buy the set. And I have ended up with several old maps he made.

How do comic books and graphic novels, or small independent writers and publishers, fit in with Shepherd?

We welcome all authors to take part. I think authors make great readers and I think our recommendations shows that. We have sections for comic books and graphic novels.

We do work with a few small and large publishers. They send their authors to us if they are interested in taking part in Shepherd. I have talked to a number of small and large publishers about ideas on how we could help them in other ways. But most are not comfortable in the digital world and seem stuck with the old models.

What’s the best advice you can give to new writers?

Decide if you are writing because you want to get your story into the world or if you want to be a professional author. That might not sound different, but there is a world of nuance in those two approaches. Both are equally fantastic approaches.

FOR MORE INFORMATION:

Website: https://shepherd.com/

Website For Authors: https://forauthors.shepherd.com/

Link to why I am building this: https://support.shepherd.com/hc/en-us/articles/4406512278417-Who-are-you-and-why-are-you-doing-this

Almost Here

by Kenneth Johnson


a flickering flame
desperate
to breathe
in a windstorm

waiting for
a sigh worth
a thousand words
finding none

consumed by
a flickering flame
desperate
to breathe

A touch
hovered above
circling a surface
lingering while

looking to light
hoping to find
solace in those
days and nights

when everything
hovered above
circling a surface
lingering while

lips pressed
against the skin
a polished apple
a summer of skin

lips pressed
against the skin
it’s almost here
it’s almost here



The Weight of Water


His hands formed
a cup as if to hold
a capsized ship

rudderlessly dragging
pushing the limit
of vanishing stability

His fingers tight
attempting to carry
the weight of water

seeking its level
the molecules slowly
loosening their grip

the cruel game
the complacency
the lure of pink noise

the temptation of waves
to swallow the ocean
to resist righting



Not Joined at The Hip


My therapist says we are not
            joined at the hip
my therapist is not my shadow
            but I know it’s a lie
that’s said over and over
            to sound like truth
My therapist says I need to
            get out more
I do so begrudgingly
            just for spite
not for pity but as a way
            to gain control
a way to not lose face
            to not be shamed
At least in some small way
            I must strike back
My therapist says we are not
            joined at the hip
My therapist has great ideas
            but they’re all on paper
stored in file cabinets
            with carbon steel locks
I’m sure on one page I saw
            a drawing of someone
being charged by a dog
            It looked like an attack dog
It was biting at the ankles
            pieces of pants in its teeth
splatters of saliva and blood
            all over the sidewalk
I’ve seen that dog
            I’ve been that dog



I Adopt Myself


I.

The body is weak
the mind a truck

pulling weight
up a hill
in the rain

My name means
nothing —
a response to a
sensation recall
prompt

II.

I remember
the harshness
of my father’s
words as he
berated me for
not wanting to
continue fishing
the creek
as the sun set

It’s autumn
cool again
the wind shakes
the branches
of birch trees

III.

Looking
from above
the landscape
shifts between
desert and city

city and desert

muted trapezoids
of land and stone
blocks of time
on a shelf
willing to be
called up at
a moment’s notice

to live
between worlds

IV.

The lighting perfect
I run my fingers
through my hair
sit just right
pose and smile

The flowers
of the calla lilies
planted after the
last frost are
opening midmorning
the sun converting
water droplets
formed on the lips
of the white spathes
into prisms



BIO

Kenneth Johnson is a poet, visual artist, and art teacher living in Claremont, California. His work has appeared in San Antonio Review, Talking River Review, Poetica Review, The Diaspora/UC Berkeley, and other publications. His chapbook Molten Muse is available at the usual places.

Additional information: kennethjohnsonart.wixsite.com/kennethjohnsonart





The Last Sticky Thing

by Sirong Li



A salesman knocks on my apartment door. He says he’d like to sell me my death.

“But it’s Tuesday,” I say. “Nobody wants to die on a Tuesday.”

“People die,” he says. The fern by the doorway rubs against his dark-green linen suit. “Some on Tuesdays, some not.”

“But the sun’s not out yet,” I say. “I really shouldn’t make purchases at night. Never turns out well.”

“You don’t have to decide right away,” he says.

“Okay. Come in then,” I say. “Don’t smudge my couch.”

“I like to be clean,” the salesman says, placing his black briefcase against his thigh on my couch. “You got a promotion last week, right?”

“I did, yes.”

“In that case, it’s best for you to die now.”

“But the sun’s not out yet, really,” I say, sitting down across from him. “My wife tells me that the sun suffers the same way we do – you know, we all have the same desire to excrete. The sun would also burst if it didn’t relieve itself of light.”

“You don’t have a wife.”

“I could,” I say. “If I didn’t have to die so soon.”

He gently pulls his tie to clear his throat. He has thick hands and an Adam’s apple too big for a middle-aged man – for any man. He is that kind of person who, when he sneezes, makes the metal around him resonate. I go into the kitchen to get him a glass of ice water.

“No, thanks. I burp with ice water,” he says.

“I remember I used to have stomach issues as well,” I say. “Got me into the hospital later. How old was I?”

“Four years and six months,” he says. “How do you want to die?”

“I had a near-death experience once,” I say. “One time, I was certain that there was a cut on the back of my hand, but I felt nothing. It made me feel dead. A few days later I realize it’s a piece of dried red pepper. That made me feel worse. Like a fraud.”

“Which hand was it?” he asks.

“Left hand.”

“And you used your other hand to take the pepper off?”

“No,” I say. “I didn’t need to. It just fell off. Like every non-sticky thing.”

“Are you still able to move your hands, then?” he asks.

“Yes.”

“Are you able to close your eyes?”

“Yes, I am.”

“Well then,” he says, “if you are able to close your eyes, you are able to die.”

“Sure,” I say. “But why die?”

He touches his nose, glances at the dead orchids on the coffee table, and rests his gaze on the courtyard outside the window. It is only ten-thirty. The college kids living on the top floor have just come down for their night party.

“A good death is good,” he says. “It’s good when you die your death, before death kills you. Timing is crucial.”

“I remember what it’s like to die at the wrong time,” I say. “When people die at the wrong time, they smell like moldy mushrooms. I know at least one person who did that.”

“I’m glad,” the salesman says. “That we agree on the importance of timing. And now is time for you.”

“Now?”

“It’s all done for you now, the pleasure in striving. You’ve hit the end with the promotion,” he says. “No more striving for you. You better get out before things go downhill.”

“I do feel good these days.”

“Of course you do,” he says. “But not about death. Death is bad for your health. Too unexpected. It shocks people. We can help you with that.”

“How?”

“We will help you plan the execution,” he says. “You see, there will be no surprises.”

“So I would be executed?”

“No. Not that. I’m not the Grim Reaper,” he says. “You will execute your death.”

“Right,” I say. “So you want me to kill myself, like a suicide?”

“God no.” He suddenly gets excited. I can hear noises stirring in his stomach. “Suicide brings shame, too much for one to take. We want the best thing for your well-being.”

“Are you thinking of euthanizing me?” I say. “Is it because of the way I feel things? When I was young, I woke up every day feeling like one of those wobble toys that wobbles but never falls. That feeling was replaced by another one when I grew up, that I couldn’t get rid of: now I feel like a bigger wobble toy.”

“No, no, not euthanasia,” the salesman says. “Death doesn’t end suffering. It prevents it.”

“Not suicide,” I say.

“No.”

“Not euthanasia.”

“No. You can call it exiting, if you want,” he says. “You will exit your existence, actively.”

The garbage disposal makes a brief rattling sound. I can smell the stench of rotten apples in the sink. I stand up to open the window in the living room. The college kids in the yard outside have finished eating and started dancing. One of them eyes me. I close the window and sit down.

“So, how do you want to die?” he asks.

“I know that death is bad for you,” I say.

He nods.

“I know of a person,” I say, “the one who smelled like moldy mushrooms. He was destroyed by death. Herbicide, it was. He was killed over the course of seven days and changed his mind by day two. I visited him on the fourth day, when his lung was half fibrosed. Incredible tear glands, you should’ve seen, generating tears twenty-four hours, kept going for another hour after he’s dead. He told me he could never be happy again. That’s how I know death is bad.”

The salesman neatens his wrinkle-free suit. He would never be like me, with bits of salt from dinner always stuck under the fingernails.

“So, you dislike tears?” he asks.

“Nothing to like about tears.”

“And you are not going to cry.”

“I’m not going to cry,” I say.

“At your death.”

“At my death.”

“Have you ever seen anyone cry?” he asks.

“I’ve seen people die from crying,” I say. “The person I just mentioned.”

“Have you ever cried yourself?”

“Perhaps,” I say. “But never on a Tuesday.”

“And not when you die.”

“Not when I die.”

He takes out a document from the black briefcase and writes something down. Its front page has my name on it.

“You see, I don’t cry from pain,” I say. “The most painful thing in my life is that I always itch in my clothes. Any kind of clothes, wool or nylon, it just itches, it itches all over my body. It’s the same kind of feeling when your eyes are bloodshot. Because of this, I can’t move around most of the time with my clothes on. It’s an inescapable pain, because it’s all over the body, and you only touch more clothing if you move. But I don’t cry at this.”

He puts the document back.

“That’s because life is sticky,” he says. “It sticks to you, sticks to your inside, sticks to your surface, so when your clothes touch it, the clothes become sticky and itchy.”

“Sounds about right,” I say.

“Of course it’s right.”

“It became sticky unconsciously,” I say. “Life, that is.”

“Life, it is,” he says.

Half of the college students have left. I turn on the lamp on the side table next to me. The light wets the space around my body and does not flow to him. I have all of it and he has none.

“You thirsty?” I ask. “Would you like some whiskey?”

“Neat. Thank you.”

I get us the drink. We clink glasses. The steamy shadow under his armpit jitters. He wants to return to my preferred way to die.

“I’ve been dreaming,” I say. “Dreaming of falling. First there was a storage room, and then I fell out of it into an identical storage room.”

“Is that how you want to die?” He puts down the glass. “By falling.”

“Maybe.”

“You’ve thought about it,” he says. “Tell me.”

“Once,” I say. “I only thought about my own death once.”

“Once you know about death, you can’t unknow it,” he says. “What was the thought?”

“The most disturbing thing about dying,” I say, “is becoming a corpse.”

“Where did you get that idea from?”

“Nowhere.”

“Then how do you know it’s disturbing?” he says. “I’m curious.”

“The man I just mentioned,” I say. “You should’ve seen what death did to him. He was getting more and more stiff from day one to day seven, and eventually got turned into a corpse, left with a livid face like from chronically bad digestion. He seemed like he could never have that kind of sweet and slow-rising feeling, ever again. I mean, how could he ever feel anything again, with all the stiffness?”

“Is this because of the stiff leather chair you got in your office last year?” he asks.

“What about it?”

“It’s stiff.”

“Yeah. It is quite uncomfortable,” I say.

“I see.”

The salesman writes something down again. He takes a look at his watch.

“A very important thing,” he says. “You need to take tomorrow off. When you die tomorrow, you won’t be able to go to work.”

“I don’t know how to ask for a leave at this hour,” I say. “The front desk must be closed now.”

He takes out a business card from the briefcase and hands it to me. It has the name of the company I work for and an emergency number.

“Just leave a voicemail,” the salesman says.

The salesman walks outside and makes a call. I dial the number and leave the voicemail. He comes inside when I’m done.

“You’re in good hands.” He sits down. “Why don’t you show me around your place.”

“I thought you already knew its layout.”

“Every detail of it,” he says. “But I’d still like to see it in person.”

We go through the kitchen and then the bedroom, and back to the living room. I turn off the lamp. A sparrow chirps in the empty courtyard. The salesman turns around. The tail of dawn sweeps by his eyelid.

“It’s time,” he says.

“I also prefer daytime to nighttime.”

“I almost forgot,” the salesman says. “Would you advertise for us? This could count as your payment. We want to put your case up on billboards.”

“Does that mean I need to change?” I ask.

“No,” he says. “We’ll go up.”

We go out and get in the elevator. The apartment building has ten stories. We stop at the top floor. A young man with a camera is waiting for us on the roof. Downstairs, there is a bony old man standing in the courtyard, looking up at me. All three men are wearing the same dark-green suit.

“Don’t worry,” the young man says to me. “Our company never goes wrong when it comes to planning the best decision for one’s future.”

He seems to be talking to me, but I think what he is really doing, as he has been his entire life, is trying to figure out exactly when he made the decision to never trim his nose hair again.

“We will provide you with the best service.” The old man downstairs waves and yells at me. He is so thin that he is only vaguely present. “Plus, this afternoon we’ll throw in a free funeral for you,” he adds.

Next to the old man is a big black metal box, with a brass crank on the side.

“That is an incinerator.” The young man leans over. “You will jump down from here, and you’ll jump directly into it.”

The incinerator distorts the air upon it. The salesman comes to stand beside me.

“It’s too early,” I say. “Whenever I wake up too early in the morning, my mouth tastes bitter.”

“There are things in your life that will go away,” he says, “at some point.”

“But it’s too early.”

“It’s not,” he says. “People don’t realize that most of their problems come from living for too long. Be smart and secure your happiness.”

“But is it really necessary?” I ask.

“Are all the days truly necessary?” he says. “You are a lucky man.”

“I sure don’t feel very lucky right now,” I say, looking at the incinerator. “Is that clean?”

“Don’t worry,” the young man says. “No one’s ever spit into it.”

“I never liked diving that much,” I say.

“It’s dry,” he says. “It dries things up once it’s done. So there will be no tears, no liquid.”

“But I’m concerned about the heat,” I say. “Mold and maggots…”

“Lucky for you, you won’t be a corpse,” the salesman says. “You will instantly become ashes when you land.”

“The sticky stuff inside you will come out. But it will be gone instantly,” the young man says. “So no messiness. It’s like you are jumping directly into your urn.”

The old man downstairs begins turning the brass crank slowly. The box starts to make huffing sounds.

“I still don’t feel very lucky.”

“Don’t you see yet,” the salesman says, quickly pulling his tie. “When people die, their life is simply interrupted by death at an arbitrary point. But you, you get to conclude your life when it’s at its fullest, like a story ending after reaching its climax. You get to consummate your life, while most people’s lives are formless.”

“But it’s too cold this early in the morning,” I say. “I might catch a cold shooting through the chill air.”

“It’s worth it,” he says. “And you’ll feel like a bird.”

The incinerator sits there. Its left corner seems to bear the residue of a kind of transparent fluid. I look down – it is a cleaning gel of sorts.

“I remember when I was born, my eyes felt like gobs of glue, I couldn’t see anything,” I say. “And then there’s the clothes thing, and now this gel.”

“It’s just glossy,” the salesman says, facing the incinerator.

“But still, is it going to touch my eyes?” I ask.

“Just face the other way.”

“What if it touches my spine?”

“You won’t feel a thing.” He checks his watch. “It’s about time.”

The young man holds up his camera, gesturing for me to go closer to the edge of the roof.

“This is for the billboard,” he says. “Smile big, for the last time!”

I put one of my legs up on the brick ledge and face the sky. As soon as he clicks the shutter, the sun stings my eyes.

“Why are you crying?” the young man asks.

“It’s the sun,” I say. “Corrodes my eyes like salt.”

“Alright, now, give me a smile. A big one.”

“I can’t,” I say, “the tears are making me really uncomfortable. It’s all over my face. My goodness, now snot, and my neck. God it’s uncomfortable, makes me want to cry.”

“Should we take a break?” the young man says, turning to the salesman, who shakes his head.

“Just take another one,” he says.

“But I kind of want to pee as well,” I tell him.

“There’s no need anymore, since you’ll die in a second.” He hands a napkin to me. “It’s going to be okay. Just one picture, then you won’t ever need to deal with any more goddamn stickiness.”

I wipe off my face and turn away from the sun.

“Does the light ever feel loud to you?” I ask.

“Alright, now, give me some teeth. It’s all in the teeth,” the young man says, holding up the camera again.

This is how things are done on Wednesday mornings – I try to think about a dry surface and put on the biggest smile of my life.



BIO

Sirong Li studied creative writing and philosophy at UC Berkeley. Her work has been published in The Macksey Journal. Her two short stories were double finalists for the 2022 Tobias Wolff Award. 







BIRTH DAY

by Rosie Hart



I can feel the squeaking wheels beneath me. I can feel them in my back as I’m rolled down the hallway. The white lights overhead fly by like the lines on the road do. I’m trying to pretend that I’m in my car right now, driving with the window rolled down and the breeze in my face. Maybe Dazed and Confused by Led Zeppelin is playing from my Spotify. But I’m not, instead I’m here.

 The lights above me are too bright, and the white walls are reflecting so much of it. Why can’t they paint more welcoming colours like pinks and blues, why does everything have to be so white.

I’ve been awake for over 24 hours now and I just want to sleep. I can’t sleep through this pain, I’ve been trying. Maybe a few minutes here and there over the last 10 hours, it hasn’t been enough. Even though I have a line in my back, I can feel everything on my left side still. I could probably deal with the agony much better if it weren’t for the wicked Charlie horse I’m getting in my lower back. A 14-hour Charlie horse, imagine that.

I can’t stop weeping and I don’t know why. This is what I initially wanted, and I let everyone around me talk me out of it. If only I had listened to my gut, then we wouldn’t be here right now in this situation. At least if this was scheduled I wouldn’t have had to find out that I am a failure of a person. It feels like I’m failing a test, a life test. I’m always failing those.

“You don’t want that. It’s major surgery. You want to go the natural way.”

My doctor’s words echo in my mind from months ago. I didn’t want to go the natural route, I wanted the surgery. Today, right now, was not by choice though, not like this. The one thing I am supposed to be good at as a woman, and I failed. I hate myself and I despise my body. Why can’t I do anything right?

I need to pull myself together. It’s already been two hours since the surgery was announced. That’s plenty of time to have myself collected by now. I can’t have my baby coming, into this world with a mother sobbing on the table. He’s going to need me. He needs me now and the only thing I can think of is my ego. Imagine being a little baby boy and needing his mother, only to have her indulging in self pity and obsessing over her broken body.

I was going to fight with the doctor and plead with him to let me go for another few hours. Women always go past the 24-hour mark so why can’t I? But what do I know, I’m just a labouring mother. I can always deal with my failures in a few days time. These feelings need to be wrapped up into a box and stuffed in the corner, for now.

Does every woman have thoughts like these when in this situation or am I the only one? I’ve never described myself as a selfish person before and I don’t need anyone telling me otherwise, because I know the right answer is that I’m not. I can’t help but feel this way.

As we roll closer to my final destination, my heart begins to beat out of my chest. My shallow, quick breathing is rolling into hyperventilation. I’m shaking, I’m so scared.

I am ready for all of this to be over, I’ve been bed ridden for the last 2 months with extreme pain in my pelvis that radiates into my knees. The right one would buckle from under me with every few steps that I took because of the nerve pain. I haven’t been sleeping during this time either because I can’t get comfortable, and I struggle to turn over due to the groin pain.  

The squeaking bed halts in front of two tall swinging doors. This is it, here we are. It’ll all be over soon.

“They are ready for her.”

A nurse dressed all in teal swings the doors open and motions for us into the OR. I can see only her eyes and I don’t like that. I need to see her face, her expressions. Are her lips pursed? Is she worried for me? Is she mad at me? Did I ruin their lunch break?

“Ok honey are you ready?” The nurse from behind me is upside down. Her eyes don’t show worry. She’s not mad at me.

I wish I had another minute, so that I can mentally prepare myself for the next phase. The doctor earlier didn’t give me a minute to process the surgery before he had me sign the consent forms. I needed one hour to get myself straight. To cry it out, grieve, to shut my mind down from making up all these lies about my failures. Before I can respond I am wheeled in through the swinging doors.

This is where I die.

More white. White walls, white floors, white ceiling. Why the fuck is everything so white? The table is all set up for me in the middle of the room. My son’s basket and heat lamp are in the corner, it’s too far away from my table. I want to hold him. Why are they trying to keep me from him already? I tend to get possessive over the one’s I love, and this baby is mine. I don’t want anyone touching him but me.

The back side of the room is wall to wall, ceiling to floor cabinets. The only label I can make out from over here is HYSTERECTOMY.

Fuck.

This is where I die.

“Hey uh, I have a mole on my belly that I’m quite fond of. Can you try not to remove it when you cut me open,” Good. Keep making light. Stay focused. You want this.

“Haha we don’t cut up that high,” the OR nurse doesn’t seem mad.

“Ok, well good luck guys. You got this,” the Dr and the nurses all ponder that statement. I don’t think anyone has told them good luck before. But really, I wish them all the luck.

Breathe. Deeply. Breathe. I need to quit hyperventilating because if I don’t, once they cut me open, the blood will be pumping so fast, it’ll shoot out of my body, and I’ll be waking up in front of Heavens doors. That makes sense right? Anatomy 101? Breathe and stop crying.

“Oh uh, I’m sorry, I can’t get up and move myself onto the operating table. My legs aren’t working. Do you guys mind helping me out?”

“Haha you’re funny. Of course we will, don’t worry about a thing and just relax.”

I’m trying.

“Hi, I’m the anesthesiologist and I’m going to be right here beside you the whole time, ok? So, you already have your epidural in. We are going to run the ice test to see if you can feel anything. Can you feel this?”

“No.”

“Good, can you feel this?”

“No.”

“Good, and how about this.”

“No.”

“Good. Just a few more drugs and then we are ready.”

“Can I watch please? I want to see it,” watching always calms my nerves, I wanted to be a doctor. At least I’d have something else to focus on rather than my own thoughts that are trying to trick me.

“No, we can’t allow that, we are going to hang a drape right here in front of your face. But some women say they can see the surgery through those lights above your head.”

“Ok,” breathe.

“I’m going to be right here with you,” says the anesthesiologist as he grips my hand. Sir, please don’t let go of me.

Breathe. In. Out. In. Out. Stop sobbing. There. Good. Just breathe.

“Alright so we are going to begin cutting now.”

The OB doesn’t seem worried. He sounds like he’s done this before. I hope he’s done this before. His bedside manners could use some work but that’s how you know you have a good doctor, I guess.

I can’t tell if they’ve started or not, I can only hear the clinks the instruments make against the metal table. I wish I could see what was going on because then I would know where we are at. I hate not knowing things. How many layers have they cut through already? How much time has it been? Are we there yet? I am totally and completely blind in this surgery right now.

Everything around me is becoming blurry and the tunnel vision is starting. At least if I pass out from fear I’m doing so on an operating table. The drips in my hand hurt with every tremble of my body. My stomach is so hard I think I might throw up again. This isn’t fair.   

A painless pressure the size of a small bowling ball slowly builds up inside of my belly and begins to roll around, yet contained within my very swollen abdomen. I hope the angry nurses whose lunches I ruined, aren’t washing their dishes inside of me, because that is exactly what it feels like. Maybe they are hands actually, I can’t tell because no one will let me watch. This bowling ball is alive, I know it is, it’s trying to escape out of me. It keeps pulling my belly up and I’m afraid it’s going to pull me off the table.

“Ah well would you look at that. He’s all wrapped up in his cord. See here nurse, look he’s wrapped here, around his neck and his shoulders.”

Maybe I’m not a failure after all. Maybe he didn’t have enough cord to come out. I think I can better accept that than my body not letting my baby engage. Maybe it was a good thing I didn’t fight the doctor on his medical decision. Oh my god, did I almost put my boy’s life in danger? Let’s say I did convince the doctor to let me keep labouring, and my boy didn’t make it, I would have been responsible for not being able to bring him home. I don’t think I’m cut out to be a mother anymore.

I suddenly feel so exposed on this table, why must I be naked it’s making things so much worse? I hate feeling the cold on my skin. It’s only on the surface, and it’s sinking into my bones. How much longer is this going to take? I don’t like being cold.

“How are you doing?” The anesthesiologist is still right beside me.

“I’m cold. I’m so cold.”

I am. I can’t stop shivering now. What if they can’t pull him out because I’m shaking so much? What if I’m interfering with their work? Oh my god I can not stop shaking, almost violently. The tears start trickling out of my eyes, this must be it for me.

“I’m so cold.”

I can hear footsteps behind me walking away, leaving the OR. Maybe they are leaving to grab the crash cart. I don’t know what my vitals are. I need to focus on breathing calmly. I’m ready for a nap though, I’ve been up for too long. Maybe if I close my eyes for just a second and imagine a warm blanket smothered over me, I’ll wake up when all of this is over.

And just as that thought entered my mind, a warmth did wrap itself around my body. It’s the nurses, piling hot blankets on top of my bare arms and shoulders. I can feel the warmth but it’s not working. Almost as if I’m sitting in an ice bath with a roof of hot towels overhead. The heat is there, it’s just not reaching me. I don’t know how long it’s been. I know that I’m growing colder, and there are more blankets being thrown on top of me. I’m tired and I can’t do this anymore, I can’t go any longer, help —

Whaa Whaa Whaa.

There he is. He’s here. It’s over.



BIO

Rosie Hart has been writing short stories and poetry since she was 8 years old. She studied psychology and biology in university but her love for writing has never dwindled. This is Rosie’s first publication, and she is excited to see where her writing journey takes her. Today she enjoys spending time with her spouse, son, and pug Miss Moo in the great outdoors.  







Bulk

By Michael Penny


It’s cheaper in bulk
and more than I need

except to accumulate,
the main aim of money.

I bring my own bags
and driven attitude

everything filling in both,
as knowing better

is never enough
when I’m after more.

I will never reach
a final level of full.



What’s Not Said Out Loud


My dentist says
my gums are OK
(for someone my age.)

The banks calculate
I have enough money
(for someone my age.)

The accountant says
I keep good records
(for someone my age.)

My doctor reassures
that I’m reasonably fit
(for someone my age.)

A neighbor on my daily walk
says I cover a fair distance
(for someone my age.)

Even the waste disposal guy
tells me my garbage is tidy
(for someone my age.)

I look up to the stars
still bright and persistent
(for something their age)

as they hold together galaxies
for everything they are
(for someone my age.)



Childish Song


I jammed a star
into a little box
and shook it.

Electrons scattered
helium and heat
as I sang.

At first, the sides
of the cube
held fast and dark

as I gripped it,
but the star shone on
with a light so loud

its bright banging
opened
everything.



Committee of the Whole


I am a meeting
with no set agenda
and participants who disagree.

The discussion
heats up, differences
apparent on the table

where nothing is tabled.
My committee must agree
before I can do anything.

The debate continues
with words said
exceeding facts known.

There is no Chair
for this unbalance
and it goes on

as I go on,
the time unminuted
and conclusions unreached.



About Time


I found my wild oats
in the bottom of the freezer
when spring cleaning got that deep.

The jar of seeds was sealed,
forgotten, but labelled in hope
the time would come.

The ice settled under the glass lid
suggested never, but the domesticity
that kept left-overs has merely delayed

and forty years on I will disturb
the crystal-perfect frost and let
the aging sun thaw and germinate.



BIO

Michael Penny lives on an island near Vancouver, BC. He pursues his interest in sustainable development as chair of the municipality’s Advisory Planning Commission. He has published five books and been in over forty journals.







Her Story told in Brain Fog

by Claudia M. Reder


She couldn’t remember much of the original story
and reached into her memory for clues.

In her story, a bird had something
to do with losing and finding her way.
It was late summer, almost autumn.
Winter would arrive by its end.

Once she had believed in amulets.
Now she believed the loss of them
was the impetus for her journey.

She had to tell how language failed her.
Reading, writing, creating poetry
was the life she had chosen
until the evil witch had canceled her subscription.

The witch who stole language
was spun from fairy tales and miserly notions.
Sadistic spells were her specialty.
She drove me off my land and dropped me in a desert.
I wasn’t used to plains, so there I was, no hills,
no mountains with ice-capped clouds.
as if everything good had been burned.
This drought of words, not just rain.



How Storytelling Found Me


An ombudsman calls to ask,
“Do you know anyone who can help people tell their own stories?
These people are sick of Bingo.”
I jump at the chance to gather for the love of language,
to be present in the moment,
to retrieve a memory, to laugh.
This is how storytelling found me. 

When people asked me what I did, I told them,
“I help people tell their own stories.”
On hearing that statement, one looked me in the eye,
paused, then said, “How do you do that?”
Another ignored me and discussed the weather.
The third said, “You are lucky. You know how. I have stories,
but I don’t know how to tell them.”



Earlier Portraits of my Mother


I used to write about my mother
as a cartoon-like fish, driving a car.
Her husband said she was crazy
and a terrible driver
and she believed him for a long while.

Then I portrayed her as a well-mannered crocodile
who danced on two legs and wore pearls,
stylish in her Miss Sony outfits,
and still didn’t believe in her beauty.

Yet, and yet, she never swallowed those pills
my psychiatrist had said she might.

I thought writing was safe if it stayed in a drawer.
To read these poems aloud would grant them a different life.

She persevered and lived long enough
that we could meet at 30th Street Station,
Philadelphia where I read her my poems.

I lugged a tote filled with writings.
We sat on the brown curved
wooden benches. We talked as adults
about her marriage, the divorce and her life after,
and then she took the train.

It wasn’t by chance that I showed
her these poems at a train station
when I knew she would be leaving.

Our future conversations
were orchestrated like a sonnet:
the theme and variations,
the volta near the ending, calm or tears,
usually over a meal, wielding
our visa cards as swords fighting for power.



BIO

Claudia M. Reder is the author of How to Disappear (Blue Light Press, 2019). Uncertain Earth (Finishing Line Press), and My Father & Miro (Bright Hill Press). How to Disappear was awarded first prize in the Pinnacle and Feathered Quill awards. Main Street Rag is publishing her next book, Dizzying Words. Retired from teaching at California State University Channel Islands, she recently moved to Pittsburgh, PA.







A Single Blossom

by Laura Lambie



            Doctor Emerson had said it would be her final trip. He reached across his desk and grasped her alien hand (when she looked at it now she saw knobby knuckles and thin translucent skin covered in liver spots), and said, “Kay, it doesn’t look like it will be too much longer now. I’m sorry.”

            She had packed filled with somber melancholy, knowing it was the last time she would see the turquoise water lit up by the sun, and the charming cobblestone streets she had first seen when her husband Harry had taken her to Lake Como as a young woman. Her older, mature husband who was also a mentor. He had held her hand and led her to the shore; after her eyes traveled over the glowing blue she turned to him. Sunlight touched his hair, and the illuminated strands were tousled by the breeze coming up from the water; he smiled and his eyes radiated his happiness at being the one to show it to her.

            Their last trip had been wonderful. Harry had seemed full of new vigor; Kay had seen a glimpse of his old, energetic self. But it had been short lived. They arrived home and two months later she was dressed in black, standing in front of his rain-streaked coffin, listening to the pastor talk about the inscrutable ways of God.

            And now, all these years later, she was going to see it for the last time. Before she left for the airport she spoke to her son. In his usual perfunctory manner he said, “have a good trip mom. Let us know when you get back and we’ll have you over for dinner.” He had said that about dinner many times, but she had only been there twice since Christmas. As she looked out the window at the men loading the luggage onto the plane, she tried to remember when relations with Tim had settled into glacial distance.

            When Tim and Joan had been newlyweds, all had been warmth and love. Joan, so solicitous of her widowed mother-in-law, would call her every night. Then the first grandchild came, and the second, and the calls spread farther and farther apart until they stopped altogether. A couple of months before Kay had run into Joan at the supermarket. The warmth that had been in her eyes was replaced by a distant, sad expression, and when Kay asked her about it, all Joan did was look away.

            Kay pulled on her seatbelt as the plane readied for takeoff. She was looking forward to a change of scene. Morning after morning, as she would awaken from a fitful sleep, her eyes would open and rest on Harry’s cedar chest at the foot of the bed, where he used to keep his sweaters. She would lay there, feeling the ache of arthritis in her legs, and the full emptiness would descend on her. No busyness, no calls from her friend Maureen down the street complaining about her daughter, no endless loop of Wheel of Fortune to distract her, no bridge games at the country club. Just herself, and the emptiness that had crept in over the years since her husband had died.

            She thought of those mornings at the lake, when she would wake up early and go to the window to watch the water change from pink-streaked to bright blue as the sun rose higher in the sky, until Harry came up behind her and put his arms around her. She was hoping that seeing it one last time would revive her memories of him, bring them closer to her after all these years. It was all that mattered to her now that everything was coming to a close, and she realized that there was nothing, nothing but this.

            For a long time now, she had felt numb as she sat staring at the scratched wood of the pew in front of her on Sunday mornings. The service, the words, meant nothing to her. None of it mattered. The world was the world, life was life, death was death, and that was all there was.

            But she went every week and sat with Jemma, the nice young mother who picked her up and took her home, who invited her to dinner once a month. After service she had coffee and donuts, and laughed and smiled, and nodded when people said God is good.

            Kay gripped the armrests as the plane picked up speed and took off. She swallowed one of the sleeping pills Doctor Emerson had given her, and she slipped into a peaceful rest for the remainder of the ride. When she arrived in Como, and the car went around a bend and the lake came into view—an immense monolith of cobalt blue sparkling in the mid-day sun—for a moment her spirits lifted and she saw Harry again, his kind eyes beaming into hers as he held her hand. But then she got into the room, and saw the same old pink walls, and the one wall that had a mural of grape leaves hanging from a garden trellis, and the drab grey descended over her again. She sat down near the window and looked out at the water until the sun set, then she put on her pajamas, turned out the light and went to sleep.

            Kay heard a faint, far away knock. It became louder and louder until she jolted awake. Sunlight fell across the pink floral bedspread as two bright shafts. She sighed and pushed herself up against the pillows.

            “Come in.”

             “Buongiorno,” said the young woman in a black maid’s uniform, as she pushed the tray into the room and set it next to the bed.

            “Buongiorno. Grazie.”

            “Prego.” She smiled, turned around and closed the door behind her. Kay pulled the tray over the bed, poured cream into the coffee and stirred until it turned a light brown color. She was about to sip, but then she realized, why not add sugar? Why try to be healthy now? It would all end soon, she might as well do what she wanted. She put two heaping teaspoons of sugar into her mug, stirred, then sipped the warm, sweet liquid. Now that was what coffee should taste like.

            She took a small bite of toast. It was hard to get breakfast down these days; she tried one more bite then laid it aside. Lingering over her coffee, she put off the moment when she had to get out of bed. After her second cup she pushed the tray away and slowly moved her legs to the floor. Pain shot up; she realized she had forgotten to take her aspirin first thing. She picked up the pills on the nightstand and swallowed them down with the last remnants of cold coffee.

            A half hour later she tried again. This time, the pain was muted, and she was able to get into her swimsuit and cover-up. She ran a comb through her thin, brittle hair, and remembered when she was first married, and Harry would run his fingers through her thick brown hair, when she was his girl bride, only nineteen to his thirty-five. Her mother had said a May-December romance would never work out. But they had been happy, except for the times when one of Harry’s black moods descended on him, but that hadn’t been often enough to mar the joy their love had brought them.

            Kay laid the comb down and put on her sun hat. She had put on some make-up out of habit, but these days nothing could be done for her looks. The sagging, the blotching, the intricate web of wrinkles: it was all inevitable and a dash of color here and there wasn’t going to solve anything.

            With a sigh she picked up her straw bag in one hand, and taking her cane in the other, made her way to the beach. Halfway down the trail a man asked her if she needed help. She said no thank you, and continued on at her slow pace. She reached the sand, and with each step pushed the cane firmly to steady herself. She arrived at one of the beach chairs, carefully set herself down and looked out at the water. It was as beautiful as she remembered. She stared at it, watching it undulate under the bright sunshine. She meant to take out her book, but before she knew it her eyes opened onto orange and pink streaked water, and a beach covered in lengthening shadows. She felt a pressure on her arm.

            “Signora, posso aiutarla?”

            Kay struggled to focus on two quivering pinpoints of blue that became wide-set eyes beneath a strong ridge of brow bone; an aquiline nose descended from between the eyes and led down to lips that were made of harmonious curves. Suddenly there, in her line of sight, beauty had sprung up. With a tinge Kay realized that the young man’s beauty was fleeting. It would fade. But there it was before her, and behind the manifestation of it that would fade, it felt as though there were something that would go on.

            “Posso aiutarla?”

            “Uh, si, per favore.”

            He helped her up and they began heading back to the hotel. She didn’t look at him, but his face was stamped in her mind. It seemed to flow over her thoughts, softening their edges.

            They reached the trail. “Thank you I can make it from here.” She looked at him in the dim light, and saw that he was very young. Probably no more than twenty-five.

            “No, I go with you,” he said, and he smiled. She was reminded of a piece of music she had heard with Harry years ago, when he had taken her to a concert. There had been that moment, when the orchestra had swelled, and she had felt it was beautiful. He smiled again, and there it was again, the same feeling. She smiled back but then immediately regretted it, thinking of the wrinkles and sagging and that new liver spot she found under her eye the other morning. But she was being an old fool. What did it matter what she looked like? There was nothing to be done, nothing to be gotten. It was like when she sat in her garden at home, surrounded by her roses. They were beautiful and that was all.

            When they reached the entrance of the hotel long shadows descended over the cobblestones, and the sky had dimmed considerably. Kay looked up at the young man. “Thank you.” She was embarrassed to find tears welling up in her eyes.

            “You’re welcome.” He smiled then disappeared into the shadows. As Kay made her way up the stairs into the hotel, somehow her arthritis felt more bearable. When she got to her room she set her bag down and sank into the armchair next to the window. Stars were beginning to etch into the night sky, filling it with pinpoints of light. She thought about the vastness of the space in which the stars hung, and wondered how it had all come into being. Opening the window she heard the sound of the breeze passing over the water. She closed her eyes and let the simple sound wash over her. Once again she saw the young man’s face, set against the pink and orange sky. Its beauty seemed eternal but it was fleeting; in a few short years it would be marred by the marks of time.

            She opened her eyes to a sky full of pale pink light that sent its tendrils out over the lake. What a mistake to fall asleep in the chair. Her legs were stiff and painful, and she would need to get across the room to take the aspirin. Holding onto the arm of the chair she pushed herself up. The pain and stiffness intensified. She inhaled a long deep breath, took a few steps, leaned against the bed and made her way around it. She sat down, picked up the aspirins and swallowed them.   

            Another day. She had another whole day to live, and somehow it seemed full of promise. She picked up the phone and cancelled breakfast in bed. She would eat at the hotel restaurant.

            An hour later she stood in front of the bathroom mirror. Why not put on a little eye shadow? Yes her eyelids were crepey, and had lost their firmness, but some color could only improve things, it certainly couldn’t hurt. She dabbed her lids with light brown.

            There were quite a few people in the dining room by the time Kay made her way there.  She sat near a window. The sky had become cloudy, the water was choppy gray waves, and dark clouds loomed on the horizon. But still, Kay knew the sun was above it all, radiating light and warmth. She heard a familiar voice rise up. Sitting across the room at the table near the stairway was the young man. He smiled at the young woman sitting across from him, and he laughed—a full, sonorous sound—that spread throughout the room and brightened it. The young man smiled and waved at her. With a start Kay realized she had been staring.

            She waved back as the young woman turned. Kay saw long, shiny blonde hair and large eyes. Young, as Kay had been so many years ago. The young woman’s face melted into a smile. Kay smiled back, feeling for a moment like she was a part of her own youth again. The couple exchanged a few words, then the young man got up and approached Kay’s table.  

            “Good morning. You join us?”

            “Good morning. That would be lovely, thank you.”

            He picked up her coffee cup and purse and offered his arm to her. When she sat down the young woman smiled and said, “I’m Clara. This is Franco.”

            “Nice to meet you. I’m Kay.”

            “Franco saw you sleeping in the chair, and it gets so dark at the lake at night.”

            “It was so kind of him to help me.”

            “His grandmother passed away this year. It was very hard on him. He said you remind him of her.”

            Kay thought of the sporadic, cold, phone calls of her son. She looked into Franco’s eyes; the warmth she saw in them kindled something within her, something she hadn’t felt for many years.

            “Sorry for your loss,” said Kay.

            “Thank you.” Franco turned his gaze to Clara. “We’re here on our honeymoon.”

            “Congratulations,” said Kay. “I used to come here with my husband. He passed away years ago.”

            “I’m sorry,” said Franco. “Do you have any children?”

            “I have a son and two grandchildren, but. . . but I don’t see them too often.”

            “Both of us had our grandmothers living with us,” said Clara. “But in the United States, things are different.”

            Kay nodded her head. “Yes, very different.”

            “We’re going for a bike ride today,” said Franco.

            “I used to do that with my husband.” Kay remembered the warm breeze flowing over her as she turned a corner and saw the glowing water of the lake. “You’ll enjoy it.”

            “Yes we’re looking forward to it. Tonight we’re going to eat at the Trattoria Bel Canto. Do you know it? You can sit on the balcony and watch the sunset as you eat. Would you like to join us?”

             “Oh no, I couldn’t interfere with a couple on their honeymoon.”

            “To tell you the truth, you have the same smile as my grandmother.” Something passed between Franco’s being and her own, and she felt she had to accept the invitation.

            “Of course, that would be wonderful. Thank you.”

            Kay spent the afternoon at a café, next to a large stone flowerpot overflowing with white jasmine flowers, looking out at the water, drinking coffee and remembering when she had met Harry. Harry and her father had been working on an important case together, and one Friday night he came over for dinner.  Kay had sat through many such dinners with her father’s colleagues; she had expected another boring evening as usual as she made her way down the stairs and turned the corner into the dining room, and saw Harry sitting next to her mother.  But this time, something happened. She stopped at the threshold and wondered why she had chosen to wear her old grey dress that was a little too big and hung at the shoulders in an odd way, rather than that new pink dress that had a belt and swirled out on the bottom. Too late now. She smoothed her hair and entered the room. Harry looked at her, and when her mother introduced her, a moment went by where he didn’t say anything, then he blushed and said, “it’s a pleasure to meet you.”

            She smiled. “Thank you. You too.” She sat down opposite her mother, next to her father who was at the head of the table.

            Her father cleared his throat. “Now then, let’s eat.” He began carving the meat. His face, as he carved, was impassive as always. Kay could barely remember it showing any other expression. Every day he would come home, eat dinner and go into his study. If she ever knocked on the door their conversation was short, and always ended with him saying, “are you keeping up with your schoolwork?”

            As she ate she felt Harry looking at her. Once she dropped her fork and it clattered onto her plate. Heat rose to her cheeks. She glanced up at Harry. He smiled at her, with a smile that helped her to feel calm. When the dinner was over he stood in the foyer getting his coat on. He shook her father’s hand, then her mother’s, and when he shook Kay’s she felt a firm pressure, and his hand lingered a little longer than it should and he looked into her eyes.

            She went to bed thinking about the handshake. The pressure of his hand on hers had ignited something in her; she longed to see him again. Harry came for dinner every Friday night while the case was going on. They would eat, then Harry and her father would disappear into the study until the early hours of the morning. While Kay fell asleep she knew Harry was still in the house, and she wondered exactly what he was doing at that moment and if he was thinking of her.

            When the case was over, and it was his last dinner there, Harry had looked across the table at Kay with a wistful expression.  As he stood in the entryway pulling on his gloves, for a moment it looked like he might say something to her, but then he only lowered his eyes, looked up at her one last time, put on his hat and went away.

            Kay had felt a hole in her heart. All night she couldn’t sleep, thinking of what it meant never to see Harry again. Why hadn’t he said anything to her? Why slink off into the night like that?

            She had lost hope by the time the annual firm Christmas party rolled around. She hadn’t wanted to go, but her mother had said, with a stern look on her face, “the family goes every year to support your father. Now go get ready.”

            With a heavy heart she pulled on her red velvet dress. As she sat in front of the mirror sweeping her hair up into a French twist, she paused to examine her features. What was it about her that had caused Harry to leave? All she saw were her familiar brown eyes, her upturned nose, and her thinnish lips. Maybe that was it. She looked like every other girl at her parent’s country club. What was there that could set her apart in Harry’s eyes?

            Sitting in the back seat of the car, driving through the town looking at the Christmas wreaths dotting Main Street, she wondered why she couldn’t forget him. Even when that handsome young man from her father’s office had asked her out, who everyone said looked like Montgomery Clift, she had felt nothing. She had only said yes to please her mother.

            She entered the country club between her parents, past a glittering display of white Christmas lights. Kay scanned the room full of people. Her heart sank when she realized Harry wasn’t there. Halfway through the party, when her mother started her annual Christmas conversation with her father’s secretary, she decided to go out onto the balcony that overlooked the lawn. She leaned against the railing and breathed in the cool night air.

            “Kay.”

            She turned around and felt a stab in her gut when she saw Harry. It took a moment for her to respond. “Harry, hi.”

            “How are you?”

            What should she say? She was miserable. But she couldn’t let him know that. “Fine thank you. How are you?”

            He ran his hand over his forehead. “I’ve been OK I suppose. What have you been up to?”

            “School and applying to college. I had my nineteenth birthday.”

            “Right, of course, your senior year. Happy birthday Kay.”

            “Thank you.”

            Silence descended. Harry moved closer. “Kay.” He took her hand. “I’ve missed you. I know I’m ridiculous, a thirty-five-year-old man telling that to a nineteen-year-old girl. But there it is. I’ve missed you terribly. I don’t know what to do.”

            Tears sprung to her eyes. “Harry, I missed you too. I couldn’t understand why you left like that and never came back.”

            “Kay.” He pulled her close into a hug. Before she knew what was happening he leaned down and kissed her. “I know I’m so much older. And I tried to forget you. But I just couldn’t. I know it’s foolish. You’re only nineteen and you were eighteen when I met you. But I can’t help it Kay.”

            Six months later they were married. And now here she was alone, all these years later, seeing the lake for the last time. She thought of Harry at the end, in his hospital bed, his bone thin hand reaching out to hers as he wheezed and gasped for air, then everything stopped and she knew he was gone. And she’d had no idea how to live without him.

            She finished her coffee, and was grateful to see that the sunlight was beginning to slant and mellow out. She glanced at the dainty silver watch Harry had given her for her thirtieth birthday. She had to meet Franco and Clara in a half hour. She paid her bill and made her way back to her room. When she opened her suitcase and rifled through her clothes, she realized that she hadn’t packed anything nice enough for the restaurant they were going to. She settled on a plain pink blouse and her tan skirt. It was passable. She wondered if she could do anything with her hair. She stood in front of the mirror and pulled a comb through it. It looked dryer than usual. She put in some curl cream but it didn’t help. Then she had an idea. She opened the door of her room and went down the elevator. Outside the hotel were large flowerpots full of purple bougainvillea. She used her nail scissors to cut off one of the blossoms.

            Back in her room she attached it to her hair with a bobby pin. Why hadn’t she thought of that earlier? She had to admit it looked very nice, and took attention away from her hair, which had lost all its beauty over the years. She added a touch of pink lipstick. She felt ready.

            Kay entered the restaurant, lit by a large glittering chandelier, and scanned the room. Franco and Clara were at the bar. As Kay advanced she saw that Clara had put on black eyeliner, and it suited her very well. It brought out her large, expressive eyes.

            “Kay. Good evening,” said Franco. “How was your day?”

            “Lovely, thank you. How was the bike ride?”

            They exchanged a look. “It was wonderful.”

            The happiness of the couple made her think of her honeymoon with Harry. They had gone to Venice, spending their days wandering the ancient streets, lost in conversation. Over dinners in one charming restaurant or another, Harry had shared with her the history of the place. One evening, walking hand in hand, Harry stopped beneath a huge old tree rustling with the evening breeze, and pulled her close to him, and whispered in her neck that he loved her more than anything in the world, and he never knew that he could experience such happiness.

            “A honeymoon is such a special time,” said Kay.

            A waiter came up to them and led them out onto the balcony. The lights from the buildings on the opposite shore reflected in the water, and the sky glowed with the last vestiges of dusk. The mountains rose up from the lake, shadowy and mysterious.

            “I love your flower,” said Clara, “what a good idea.”

            “Thank you.”

            They ordered drinks and the waiter brought their menus. “The fish here is very good,” said Franco. “Clara and I came here on our first night.”

            After everyone ordered Kay said, “where are you two from?”

            “We’re from Bari,” said Franco. “It’s near the heel of the boot, on the Adriatic Sea.”

            “How did you meet?”

            “Clara’s grandmother lived down the street from us. Every week Clara and her parents would go there for Sunday dinner. We used to play together. Time went on, Clara went off to college, and I went to work in the family business, and I didn’t see her for a few years. One day, after work, I went to the store a few streets away, and on the way back, when I turned onto our street, I saw this woman, dressed in black, and when she turned around I saw those eyes. And that was it for me.”

            He reached across the table and covered Clara’s hand with his own.

            “How lucky you two are to find love,” said Kay. “My husband and I were very happy too. We used to come here every year. I wanted to see it one last . . .  that is, I wanted to see it again.”

            The waiter brought their food. As they ate, Franco and Clara shared stories about their wedding, and Kay shared some memories of Harry. The dinner ended before Kay knew it. When the bill came she took it. “I insist,” she said.

            “Kay we can’t.” Franco shook his head and gently pulled the bill from under Kay’s hand. “It’s our pleasure.” He smiled at her and she knew he was thinking of his grandmother. She felt overcome. She looked down into her drink. “Thank you for this lovely evening,” she said, “you don’t know how much it’s meant to me.”

            “Thank you,” said Franco.

            “Yes,” said Clara, “we had a wonderful time. Franco, why don’t you walk Kay back to her hotel?”

            The prospect of a walk with Franco, in the cool darkness of the evening, was very welcome to Kay.

            “Yes, of course.”

            Outside the restaurant, Clara gave Kay a hug. “Goodnight.”

            “Goodnight dear.” Before letting go of Clara’s shoulders, Kay looked into her eyes. In their gentle glow was the future; Clara had a whole future ahead of her, and the thought comforted Kay. Something would go on. 

            Clara touched Franco’s shoulder. “I’ll see you back at the room.”

            “Yes, see you there.” He turned to Kay. “Shall we?” He held out his arm. Kay placed her hand through it and they began walking.

            “How much of your trip do you and Clara have left?”

            “We’re leaving for Tuscany tomorrow. We have a week there. Then we head back home.”

            “What a lovely honeymoon.”

            “Yes. I saved for a year to have this time with Clara.”

            They walked on in silence. It was a clear night, and every now and again a gentle breeze came up. As Kay walked along next to Franco, her hand on his arm, she found herself thinking about the vaulted gold ceiling of the Como Cathedral. Funny, she hadn’t thought about that place in years. She and Harry had gone in that one time. It had been very beautiful, but so was the lake.

            They turned a corner and the hotel came into view, and Kay realized that these were her last few moments with Franco. It was so hard to let him go. “Franco, there’s something I want to give you. Please, come up for a minute.”

            “You don’t have to give me anything.”

            “No please. I need to.” Her eyes filled with tears. She took a deep breath. “I need to do this.”

            “Yes, of course. I’ll come up, don’t worry.”

            “Thank you.”

            They made their way up the stairs and into the hotel. They entered the elevator; it whirred and began ascending. They reached Kay’s floor and entered her room. It was dark, and she turned on a floor lamp near the door.

            “Please sit. I’ll be right back.”

            Franco sunk into the armchair as she went into the bathroom and closed the door. She unzipped her toiletry case, opened the small side pocket, and took out a gold watch. She had given it to Harry on their twenty-fifth anniversary. On it she had inscribed: All my love always, love Kay. She had kept it with her ever since Harry had died. But now she wanted Franco to have it. But why? She closed her eyes. It was one of the last things she had of Harry. Why give it to a young man she didn’t know? She saw again the first moment she had glimpsed Franco’s face, with the fading light behind him. She wanted to give it to him because she wanted to be a part of what she saw there, in his face, a part of the beauty she had seen. Somehow that would comfort her. She took the watch and opened the bathroom door.

            She felt a jolt of shock and fear when she saw that the man sitting there wasn’t Harry. Her mind reeled and it snapped back into her head that Franco was there. She took a deep breath. It was beginning its inevitable spread to her brain, much sooner than Doctor Emerson had predicted. Taking another deep breath, she made her way to Franco. He stood up.

            “I want you to have this. Please.” She held out the watch. Franco took it and examined it.

            “You gave this to your husband didn’t you?”

            “Yes I did.”

            He shook his head. “I can’t take this from you. You’re making a mistake. I don’t think you’re thinking clearly.”

            “Please. I need you to have it.”

            “But why?”

            Her eyes welled up and she felt a catch in her throat. “Because I’m dying, and I saw you on the beach and I need you to have it.”

            “Kay please don’t cry. You’ll make yourself sick. Come here.” He led her to the bed and sat down next to her. He put his arm around her. “It’s OK.”

            She held onto his collar and cried into his shirt. After a few minutes she calmed down, and she laid her head on his shoulder. The sparkling blue of the lake seemed to enter their room, and for that brief moment, her head resting on his shoulder, she felt like she was a part of him. Outside, the lake was being ruffled by the light wind, the waves were rippling, and there was something there: something in the lake, something in Franco, something she had forgotten about for years, as she had sunk down into her pain after Harry had died.

            Kay lifted her head and held the watch out to him. He closed her hand over it and pushed it back towards her. “Kay I know something I’d like to have.”

            “What is it?”

            He pointed to her flower. “May I?”

            “Yes of course.”

            He gently pulled out the bobby pin and took the blossom. “I will always keep this to remember you by. I will cherish it.”

            Kay’s eyes welled up. “Thank you Franco. Thank you so much.”

            “Knowing you has made my trip even more special. Thank you for that. You’re a lovely woman.” He squeezed her hand. “Are you going to be OK?”

            “Yes, I think I will.”

            “Good. I’m glad to hear that.” He stood up. “I have to get back now.”

            “I know.”

            Franco helped her up from the bed and they walked to the door. He kissed both of her cheeks. “Goodbye Kay.”

            “Goodbye Franco.”

            Kay looked into his eyes one last time. He gave her a sad smile, and then he was gone. 

            Kay woke up late the next morning. She thought she would feel wretched, but instead, she felt a ray of hope. Bright sunlight filled the room, and she felt that somehow, there was something good for her that day. By that time Franco would be gone, somewhere among the olive trees of Tuscany. It made her happy to think of him, walking arm in arm with Clara, looking at some beautiful landscape, the sunshine touching his features, illuminating them with its glow.

            She took her aspirin and waited a half hour. As she got dressed she decided she wanted to see the cathedral one more time. She would eat lunch then spend the afternoon there.

            The sky was a bright, cloudless blue as she made her way across the square, and in spite of the arthritis and the aches and pains, she felt somehow young again. As though there was something more, something waiting beyond the shadows of her life.

            She stepped into the cool dimness of the cathedral. It lay before her, vast and intricate. Incense hung heavy in the air; she took in a long, deep breath. As she walked in she was conscious of an expansive feeling, a feeling that she was being enveloped within the immensity of what surrounded her. She sat down and looked up at the enormous vaulted ceiling. Her eyes were drawn to a stained-glass window; sunlight streamed through the deep purple, pink and blue panes, and splashed color onto the wall. Kay’s eyes fixated on the colored sunshine. She watched it quivering on the wall, and she began to cry. The crying turned into sobs that she couldn’t control, that made her shoulders heave.

            Someone touched her arm. “Signora, stai bene?”

            But all Kay could do was look away and continue to sob. The man stood there for a few moments more then shuffled away.

            When she woke up the light had become dim.  She looked around for Harry. Where was he? He was always right next to her. She stood up and felt pain in her legs. What had happened? Then the arthritis, the disease, Harry’s death all hit her again as if she had never felt them before. She was old now. She was dying. She was alone.  

            But what about the colored light from the stained-glass window, what about the lake sparkling in the sunshine, what about Franco’s face, the waning sunlight surrounding it like a halo—there had to be something behind all that. She sat down and looked up at a vaulted dome, etched with symmetrical gold inlays swirling up to the apex. They had built the cathedral to be so intricate, so grand, so beautiful. As she looked up at the dome, a peaceful feeling, like the faint echo of a sweet sound barely heard from far away, made gentle waves into her being. When Harry had died, she had thought that all of him, even his essence that in their most intimate moments she felt she had seen, had ceased to exist. No hope. Her Harry, who she had loved more than anyone, destroyed by death. She looked towards the altar; the face of Christ twisted in pain no longer brought her that uncomfortable, lost feeling. The pain was a part of life, but it wasn’t everything. Somehow she had lost sight of that. She sat there for a long time, until she knew night had fallen.

            Then she started back to the hotel, the peaceful feeling her companion as she walked, feeling the evening breeze caressing her skin. She passed a small restaurant that had a flowerpot filled with pink Wisterias in front of it. She remembered her rose garden at home. How many days had gone by in the last few years, when the flowers had been in glorious bloom, and she had stayed inside, always having an excuse as to why she didn’t go out and enjoy them? She had turned her back on them so many times. She had turned her back on so many things.

            She turned the corner and saw the hotel. It was such a beautiful night. She would go up, get her sweater then eat dinner at a place where she could sit outside. But as she rode up in the elevator, she felt a sudden burst of indigestion. She shouldn’t have drunk that extra cup of coffee after lunch. Back in her room she took some antacid but the pain only seemed to get worse. She laid down on the bed and looked out the window at the darkness of the night. Somehow, the darkness seemed to be overlayed with a sort of peaceful harmony, something beyond anything that could come and go, come into being and then decay. She felt it within herself, linking the old, arthritis-ridden Kay with the young girl, standing on the balcony, looking into Harry’s eyes as he told her he loved her. She felt it beckoning to her, coming off the lake, coming from everywhere; she let go and let herself merge into it, the eternal beauty.    

            The young woman in the black maid’s uniform pushing the breakfast tray found her the next morning, eyes open, face peaceful and serene. She reached over and closed Kay’s eyes.



BIO

Laura Lambie is a native New Yorker who now resides in Texas. She loves the written word more than any other art form. Her short stories can be found in The New English Review, and in issue 32 of the Ginosko Literary Journal. Her work was shortlisted in the 2023 J.F. Powers Prize for Short Fiction. She is currently working on a novel. 








Homeomorphism

by Erik Harper Klass


1

A cold wind. Rain threatening (distant fallstreaks). A two-story building of weathered bricks and arched windows. A little door on the left under a blue awning. On the awning’s scalloped valance, a single word in faint, faded, white majuscular letters: fortune.

A man, a soldier, back from a war. Walking and then stopping and then, on this day, feeling he had nothing much to lose, entering.

The room: windowless, dark, tapestries on walls. In the room’s center, a round table draped with a cloth of no apparent color. A single candle in a candleholder with a green frustum-shaped shade. Two old chairs with turnings placed on opposite sides of the table, as if set for a game of chess. And sitting on one of the chairs, facing the man, who stood motionless at the room’s threshold: a woman.

The woman: Not old, not young. Hair pulled back like (he thought, in an instant) de La Tour’s Magdalene. Bracelets on both wrists that glimmered and sounded like tiny bells. Eyes that, at a glance, seemed both everchanging and constant, like (he thought (he had a literary mind)) forge fires. And then, as if in response to his gaze (for he stood there looking), she leaned back into the darkness and he could no longer see her eyes. She spread her hands out, as if to show she were unarmed, and then her hands disappeared beneath the table. He imagined them resting in her lap, like nesting, nestling birds. She gestured with her head for him to sit. The door closed behind him. She may have been beautiful.

“You are sad,” she said.

His answer: nothing at all. There was no question. He was sitting now.

Behind the woman, and a bit to her left (his right): a tall cabinet vitrine, with two glass doors, in which the man could see the following: the back of the woman’s left shoulder, a candle flickering beneath a green frustum-shaped shade, a man staring into the two glass doors of a tall cabinet vitrine. She asked him to close his eyes and put out his hands. He heard the vitrine open, the sound of movement, the rustling of silk. And then he felt the weight of, and curled his fingers around, an object.

“An hourglass,” he said right away, as if this were a game of speed.

“Not what it is,” she replied. “What it represents. What it means.”

The man began to open his eyes but she asked him to keep them closed (it is not clear how she knew his eyes were opening). He ran his fingers over the object. Glass. Wood. Three metallic posts—spindles they are called—equally spaced circumferentially.

“An hourglass could mean time passing,” he said.

“Yes,” she said, probably nodding.

“Or time past, or sand, or a place where hourglasses are made.”

“Yes,” she said. He could hear a smile in her reply.

Filling the room: a silence. He turned the object in his hands.

“Perhaps I am out of time,” he said. “Or time is nothing at all, an illusion, merely the consequence of the chronological accretion of my memories. Or perhaps I am in prison, as is the sand within the object (I assume the object is filled with sand),” he said, shaking the hourglass and holding it up to his right ear, as one might shake a gift before opening it.

“Good,” she said.

He kept his eyes closed, again turned the object, ran his hands along its topography, its declivities and protrusions.

“Perhaps it is her,” he said, “perhaps her body.”

She did not reply.

“Perhaps the hourglass is loss.”

“You have lost her?”

“I have lost her, yes,” he said. “She has left. I don’t blame her for leaving.”

She waited. The clockwork of the universe advanced inexorably, while inexorably the clockwork of the hourglass did not. And then she invited him to open his eyes. She reached out with extremely long arms and reclaimed the object. Yes it was an hourglass: glass and wood, three vertical spindles constructed of brass. He felt strangely guilty looking at it, found himself looking away. The woman returned it to the darkness of the vitrine.

“That is all for today,” she said.

The man rose and said goodbye and, without paying, without another word, left the room and entered the wind and rain (it had indeed begun to rain). There was, it seems, an unspoken understanding that he would return.

2

She said to him on his second visit: “There is a field of mathematics called topology, which involves the exploration of the properties of objects that in fundamental ways do not change when these objects are twisted or deformed, a transformation we call homeomorphism. The most common object used to illustrate this transformation is a doughnut (a torus shape)—for convenience, please imagine an uncooked doughnut. (There is nothing new about any of this,” she said. “You have likely heard all of this before. I am not trying to impress you.) We might take this doughnut and, in the words of the mathematicians, ‘continuously deform’ the object into the shape of a coffee mug. Try to imagine this. The space within the mug’s handle was once the doughnut’s hole, and the cup itself was once the doughnut’s body (imagine forming the cup by depressing the doughnut’s dough with your thumbs—carefully, carefully). The doughnut and the coffee mug are, mathematically speaking, indistinguishable. As abstract spaces, they are topologically identical. This is sometimes called the torus and mug morphology,” she said.

3

“Freud,” she said, “described a time when an infant experiences what he called an ‘oceanic feeling,’ in which the infant has not yet developed an awareness of the shape and limits of its body, and is thus completely at one with the universe.”

She said this, among other things, on his third visit. This, this oceanic feeling, was not one the man could remember or hope for or even begin to imagine.

4

On the forth visit she once again asked the man to close his eyes, and she reached into the vitrine and pulled forth an object, set it in his hands. This was by now already a ritual of theirs. He accepted the object as the poor accept their alms.

“Can one without sight recreate an object, discovered only by touch, graphically on a white page?” she asked.

He turned the object over in his hands. A key, definitely a key, a giant key, brass perhaps, attached to . . . attached to a wooden fruit . . . a pear, yes a pear.

“Before you on the table,” she said,” is a malleable plastic surface which will be our proverbial white page.”

He nodded, he had seen this when he arrived, a flat white rectangle, his eyes remained closed. He patted the table to his right and found a kind of stylus in the exact place where he remembered seeing a kind of stylus. She did not speak. He drew. His right hand (the hand holding the stylus) moved. His left hand (the hand holding the giant key attached to a pear) moved. And while he drew, he thought of this woman before him in the darkness. He thought of her face. He thought of her eyes, which he felt in some strange way he had not yet really seen. They, these features of the woman, were but ideas of sensations, atmospheres, air. And then, as he drew this giant key attached to a wooden pear, he thought without meaning to (as was always the case) of a long straight road running unsheltered through a desert without shadows. He thought of a flash of light and sound. And then, silence. He thought of a helicopter and a bright white room and then another room and then a third room—only three rooms, but he could barely keep track—a room of incongruous congruent mirrors. When he was done drawing he put down the stylus with a hand that trembled.

She spoke: “So how do shapes and their surfaces speak to the mind? We know from past experiments that both the sighted and the blind represent the edges of surfaces—places where objects overlap, or places of meeting, of rupture, of collision—with lines, and, furthermore, we know that both the sighted and the blind take a specific vantage point to portray the objects of inquiry. Note that neither the overlap of these objects, nor these places of meeting or rupture, must be perceived with vision. Both can be experienced with the hands, by touch.”

He opened his eyes. He looked at the giant key attached to a wooden pear. Turned his head. Looked at the giant key attached to a wooden pear. His drawing was excellent.

5

Each time he came he worried that she would not be there, that she had never been there, that none of this was real, and somehow the accumulation of their meetings—they had somehow settled on weekly meetings, Fridays, just as the sun set at the very end of the street in bursts of red and orange between the silhouetted, linear array of equidistant plane trees—did nothing to dispel the uncertain nature of it all.

6

“I read somewhere,” he said to her on his sixth visit, “in an old book, when I was healing, in that room of mirrors, once I had regained the capacity for thinking, that some people, ‘whose minds are prone to mystery,’ believe that the objects of our contemplation, the objects themselves, are changed somehow when they are perceived. So when we see a painting, a monument, a tree, a lover’s face, we see not the object at all but rather a veil or membrane of forces and impressions—I believe this is how it was written—distorting the object, coloring it in some way. The pale-blue domes of a mosque encircled by white doves, the curving trace of a purple canyon, the sunlit, jagged architecture of a conquered city—all of these things are changed slightly, imperceptibly perhaps, by all the thousands and millions of people who have already seen them.” He stopped and reached for a glass of water that in fact was not there. “I suppose,” he continued, “if we consider this theory carefully, we discover that every time we see an object, we are met not with the object itself, but rather with the residue of all the eyes that have come before us.”

He played his hand over his cheeks, as if he were smoothing down a beard. She did not speak.

“Have you ever wished you did not have eyes?” he asked, apropos of everything.

Her reply: “There is a school of Ancient Greek philosophy called Eleaticism, which teaches, among other things, that the only certain science is that which places no dependence or importance whatsoever on the senses, and all to reason.”

And then she drifted back into the darkness.

7

On his seventh meeting with the woman, the man was presented with the challenge—the possibly impossible challenge—of arranging a collection of heterogeneous objects into some coherent pattern. From the vitrine, she, like a child showing off her toys, pulled out and presented to the man, his eyes closed as usual, many objects:

  1. a matryoshka doll: collapsed, smooth, rattling;
  2. a stone of course grain;
  3. an ashtray shaped like a heart;
  4. a nautilus;
  5. a bottle, globular;
  6. a huge china vase with some design—dragons? flowers?—in bas-relief (he reached his hand inside the object, a disturbingly rough surface, and felt the design approximated in reverse);
  7. a book with raised lettering on the cover (difficult to determine with fingers) marked by a heavy moiré silk ribbon (it would turn out to be an old volume of a book by Proust);
  8. after a moment: a spirit level;
  9. a mechanical lion that could walk several steps, and then, when a button was pressed, the lion’s breast would open and reveal a bouquet of flowers (lilies, for all he knew);
  10. a hobnail mustache cup (not to be confused with a shaving mug, which is a very different object);
  11. a shining metal cone, of the diameter of a die, that he found intolerably heavy;
  12. a sprig of straw or suchlike;
  13. a monocle (or a small magnifying glass with the handle broken off);
  14. an embarrassing toy coffin in which the corpse has a spring-loaded erect phallus that pops up when the lid is removed (did she smile as he touched this object, as he held, indeed even stroked, the phallus (for just a moment!) with the tips of his thumb and index finger?);
  15. a runcible spoon;
  16. a (the?) huge key attached to a wooden pear;
  17. a pop-up book created for blind children who cannot yet read braille. The book, as far as he could tell (he turned the pages with his eyes tightly closed), recounts the following story: The setting is a small village. A young man falls in love with a young woman—to be sure, an unrequited love. She is the most beautiful woman in this village: the way she laughs, the way she smiles, the way she moves her hair from her eyes when the wind blows. The young man does not imagine that the young woman could ever return his love. To put it ineloquently but succinctly: she is out of his league. The story continues. One spring day, walking forlornly down a floriferous path in the hills, the young man comes upon an old man attempting to pull a hand cart across a stream (the narrative does not explain the reasoning for the old man’s arduous path). The young man, as we can imagine (for he has been presented as a benevolent and kind young man), helps the old man pull the cart—the reader “sees” an image of the young man, up to his knees in the rushing stream, trousers rolled up, shoes tied and hanging from a shoulder, straining with the cart’s weight. After the crossing the old man reaches out with both bony hands and touches the young man’s face, running his hands down the young man’s cheeks, as if the old man were smoothing down the young man’s (nonexistent) beard. The young man is too startled to back away, to respond at all. And then the old man turns and ambles off with his cart into the shadows of trees. The young man is left bewildered by the old man’s touch. There is something extraordinary about it, something akin to the feeling of waking from a dream, or falling into one. He sits down on a rock at the edge of the stream. He picks up stones and tosses them absentmindedly. He observes the way the trees, mostly fir trees, take on the color of the sun as it sets (this is all done with textures, with differences in smoothness and roughness on the page). He listens to the songs of birds (various notes in high relief on a swirling staff), and he wonders, in a moment of digression, what aspect of these songs is most important for attracting mates: pitch or rhythm, or perhaps it is something else, some fine structure that goes beyond what human hearing can discern (and he is reminded, in this extended moment of digression, of the importance of the sound of prose; we should listen to the words, he thinks, as if we were birds (all of this—his thoughts, etc.—is made clear by the textural “images” on the page)). And then, for no apparent reason the young man can recall, he leans over and observes his reflection in the water. A miracle! A transformation! He is beautiful! Subsequent events are not hard for the well-read reader to anticipate. The young man returns to the village. One thing leads to another (one may turn the pages quickly now), and the young man and the young woman fall in love. They walk hand in hand through fields, they kiss in a floriferous park with wind-tossed trees, they hold each other’s bodies close and dance (more notes across the page), they lie together (probably naked, but concealed beneath blankets) in a room lit by candles, etc. They eventually marry. The story continues, and the reader is led to understand that time has passed. The reader (that is, the feeler) learns that the young man, over the course of events, has become rich. He is a writer, apparently a great writer, and the people of the village pay him for his craft (an outlandish thought!), and, additionally, he has received several lucrative grants from various foundations and fellowships. The reader (feeler) turns the page and now the young man is on his way to a reading of a recent short of his that had been published in a prestigious literary journal, the reading taking place at a university to which he is running late, and along the same floriferous path mentioned above he comes across the same old man with the same hand cart at the same stream (what are the odds?), the latter trying—and, once again, failing—to make a crossing. This time the young man walks quickly past. He has no time to help the old man. (By now the reader (that is, the feeler) knows where this is going. Everything is as clear as day, so to speak. These stories have been written since time immemorial. Every story tells a story already told. Even the young man on the page knows this well.) Time, once again, passes, and the young man returns from what was, in his estimation, an excellent, well-received reading, after which he had answered various questions related to the author’s “method” and “craft,” in an erudite and often agreeably enigmatic manner, much to the pleasure of all in attendance. He returns to his home and enters. He sets down his writer’s satchel. He goes to greet his wife with a kiss, as per usual. She turns to him. And as his face approaches hers, she recoils. She decides—in a flash, in a second, which is how it sometimes goes with these things—that she no longer loves him. Yes the decision is hasty, but it is as if she has felt this way for a long time, as if this seed of their dissolution had been planted long ago and only now has broken the soil and begun to blossom—rapidly, floriferously. The reader sees (feels) their hands separating. The reader sees (feels) her packing her things. The reader sees (feels) her drifting off into a rain-streaked distance. On the last page of the book the reader sees (feels) the young man—no longer, in truth, so young—standing alone, in an atmosphere of blue melancholy (the reader’s (feeler’s) fingertips seemingly convey to the reader’s (feeler’s) brain a tactile transcription of the prismatic specter). And then, as the reader closes the book, the disfigured young man folds up and collapses into the flat emptiness of his eternal imprisonment; 
  18. the carapace of a hawksbill turtle;
  19. and a dress; he imagines—he is not sure why—a floral print, with eight buttons down the front (or perhaps the back).

But how to arrange these object? Color is out of the question. Perhaps by size (small to large)? By weight (light to heavy)? By softness to hardness? By smoothness to roughness? By fragmentation to solidity? By shape (roundness to angularity)? By sound (those objects that rattle when shaken to those that do not)? The man finds that no sooner has he settled on one methodology than his criteria becomes unstable and his groupings become precarious, and he feels compelled to go back and try again, splitting up objects that are nearly the same, superimposing different criteria, frenziedly beginning all over again, becoming more and more disturbed, and teetering finally on the brink of anxiety.

If there is a lesson to the exercise, the woman has not made it clear, she will never make it clear. But there is a lesson. Of course there is a lesson.

8

And on their eighth meeting he sat before her at the table, and she explained to him about a special kind of line called a “long line” (or “Alexandroff line”), which she defined as “a topological space, something like a regular (or ‘real’) line, but much longer. (Furthermore,” she explained, parenthetically, “the long line is not a Lindelöf space, is not second countable, is not metrizable, is not paracompact, and is not normal.) We may think of a real line as having a countable number of line segments. The long line, however,” she continued, “has an uncountable number of such segments. When the distance between a man and the object of his desire is a real line, the man may traverse the line, he may—if he is diligent, if he is tireless, if he is lucky—find his prize (imagine a point on the line) waiting for him, in all her punctiform perfection. A long line, however,” she continued, “cannot be traversed. The desired object cannot be reached, cannot be touched. The man who is separated from his lover by a long line will suffer, yes, but he will eventually forget about her, for when any distance is discovered to be unbridgeable, this distance, over time—ironically perhaps—collapses and eventually disappears.”

“That all sounds very profound,” the man replied, rubbing his temples. Truth be told, his mind, around the word “metrizable,” had wandered and settled on more tangible considerations, such as the simple and strangely soothing sound of the woman’s voice (that is, form, sans content).

She leaned back, once again, as always, from darkness into deeper darkness, and, barely perceptibly, smiled. “All too often one judges something to be profound when in fact one has merely failed to grasp it. Perhaps the ‘long line’ is a figment of my imagination. Perhaps what I tell you is gibberish. Perhaps I know nothing at all.”

9

On his ninth visit she placed a Rubin’s vase, approximately the size of a human head, before him on the table and invited him to feel it with both hands, as if he were spinning pottery.

“Tell me,” she said, “do you feel the concavities and convexities of the contours of the vase, which is to say, do you feel the vase itself?”

He ran his hands over the vase’s surface.

“Or,” she continued, “do you feel the athwart faces of two lovers, peering at each other from across an empty chasm, always, forever, just a few inches apart?”

He moved his hands for a while longer, and then he placed them face down on the table, as if he were about to be interrogated, and he said, without the slightest doubt: “The latter.”

10

On his tenth visit the woman told the man the following story (this is what they would sometimes do: this, in truth, is what we all do: tell stories): “St. Brigid once, it has been said,” she said, “performed the miracle of giving a blind woman the gift of sight. But for an instant. Only an instant. The ‘blind’ woman, if I may embellish a bit, saw spreading fields of unimaginable colors—cinnabar, saffron, xanthic, celadon, cyan—upon which cattle grazed, each animal frozen in time. She saw scattered clouds in the sky, in the exact shape—she thought, in this instant—of cattle grazing upon fields. She saw the gentle outline of distant hills (puce, violescent). She saw a hawk disappearing into the sun, to become one with the sun, to never leave the sun. She saw orchards of apple and plum trees, and the long shadows of orchards of apple and plum trees. She saw St. Brigid’s face, beautiful, a framing white veil, one single unruly strand of auburn hair coming loose (could this be?), a cross hanging from a black cord below her chin. What I have described includes perhaps a millionth of a millionth of a percent of a percent of what the woman saw. The woman,” the woman continued, “found this scene so beautiful, so vivid, that this instant of sight was enough. The memory of her sensations (for memory is what, less than a second later, as she returned to blindness, these sensations had already become) lingered with the reverberations and recurrences of these colors and objects, would illuminate her mind and thoughts, for the remainder of her days.”

11

On his eleventh visit the woman said: “Some believe that we are able to remember everything that happens to us, everything, in fact, that is happening anywhere in the universe, down to the smallest detail. Each winding silver-gray arabesque of the candle smoke, each spinning fleck of dust, the sound of a mountain settling, every word spoken, even the echoes of another’s thoughts. We are that open, that permeable to sensations. So what our brains must do,” she continued, “according to this theory, is defend ourselves from the world around us. Our brains act merely as filters, keeping us from becoming entirely overwhelmed by what is essentially an endless and voluminous onslaught of mostly useless information. You are probably doing this now,” she said to the man. “Even these words will be lost to you, like yesterday’s clouds. Only that which is most important is taken in, is remembered.”

She paused, gathered up the hair from the back of her neck, let it fall.

She continued: “Scientists know that the sensory apparatus of single-celled organisms, however, are unfiltered. There is no distance between the sensation and the perception. There is no neural editing done by the brain, a brain which, of course, does not exist. This, you might agree,” she said, “is rather interesting, perhaps even sad, for the idea suggests that only the most rudimentary of organisms can perceive the universe as it really is.”

12

“But what does one see when one sees?” she asked on his twelfth visit to the windowless room. She handed him an amorphous fragment of what he would later discover to be garnet-red glass—for now, it was just an amorphous fragment of probably glass. “If you observe this object, any object, microscopically,” she continued, “you would see—or perhaps the better word is discover—that nothing is continuous, nothing is homogenous. Everything is granular. The sea, a cow, a sea cow, the amorphous fragment of glass in your hand, your hand—everything is made of collections of invisible particles, vibrating, spinning, mostly air.

“Love,” she said, “is no less tenuous.”

13

On his thirteenth visit the man said: “Someone—a nurse, with a beautiful voice that cracked at the ends of phrases—would read to me from time to time in my endless days in the room of mirrors. Once she read to me a story of a philosopher. German, I believe. I forget who exactly. A first name last name. The story, I will always remember, was about the philosopher’s socks.” The man laughed almost silently before continuing. “The philosopher recalls opening a drawer—he was just a child at the time—and discovering his socks, which his mother had rolled up in pairs and turned inside out in the usual manner. He described them as pockets. He would reach his hand into each one, as far as he could, finding great pleasure in the experience. Why would he do this? Why this pleasure? It was not for warmth or texture or feelings of possession or any sense of organizing principles or modes of production (I think the philosopher was a Marxist) or maternal love or sexual desire or whatever else we might come up with. It was simply for what he described as the ‘little present’ held within. And then, once he had established the existence of each of these little presents, held tightly in his fist, he would begin a new phase: the unfolding, the unveiling. There was a similar pleasure in this, but it also came with something he found disquieting: for each time he pulled from a rolled up sock its gift, he found that the pocket—which of course was formed of the substance of the present itself—would cease to be. And yet the philosopher remembers repeating this childhood experiment again and again.”

He sat in the room at the table before the woman, thinking about the story of the philosopher and the philosopher’s socks, but really thinking of the nurse and her voice and the room of mirrors.

He continued: “It took me a while, but I guess the story is about desire, about how the object one desires disappears at the moment of its attainment.”

After a moment of silence in the dark room, she spoke: “Desire is paradoxical, yes? The very object desire seeks to obtain, it also seeks to consume, and in the process it consumes itself. But one can imagine,” she continued, “or really imagine imagining, a perfect object, an object disentangled from all desire. The perfect object can be at once held and withheld.”

“I would like that,” he said, not at all sure what this perfect object might be, but understanding that this—this search—was why he was here.

14

She said on their fourteenth visit (but at this point who was counting?): “The story of the philosopher and his socks also exemplifies the unity of form and content, their consummation, their consubstantiation, their homoousianism.”

“You and your words,” he said, half laughing, half frowning.

15

She said: “Other examples of homeomorphism: A circle and a square. A hand and a soul. A woman’s hair spread out on your shoulder and the geometrical mapping of the shape of time. Silence and the sound of a bomb. A wounding and a healing. The loss of all love—and its commencement.”

16

And then finally: A warm wind. A red-orange sun. Equidistant plane trees. A man, a wounded soldier, back from a war. He stood before the two-story building of weathered bricks and arched windows, his long shadow stretching out to the east like a Giacometti statue. The little door. The awning flapping in a rising wind, the sound like someone lightly slapping skin. He waited to enter, on this day when he had everything to lose. The sun sank infinitesimally. Lines of clouds like whale ribs, each painted pink on one side, drifted across the darkening sky. And into mirrored rooms, into wombs of smoke, into darkness, we sometimes hasten our rebirths.

Afterword

I have, here and there, embellished, I have added words and phrases, occasionally changed the order of events, made educated guesses, filled in gaps, but the above describes, in more exactitude than the reader might believe, my first few months of meetings with the fortuneteller Gilberte. This is, to a large extent, how we spoke. The majority of the objects mentioned are genuine and are still sitting behind glass in her cabinet vitrine downstairs, or occasionally, I am sure, removed and presented to her clients. But memory, of course, is imprecise. I have done my best, but I’ve decided to call the above work fiction, if for no other reason than that the moniker has allowed me to include the pop-up book described in my seventh visit, a book that is, I admit, entirely fabricated.

I suppose one (other) aspect of my—let’s call it—“story” that is misleading is the timing of our love. I had fallen for her instantly. It was love at first sight (so to speak). Gilberte claims to have felt similarly. She told me that she knew, that she fell in love, the moment I quoted Calvino at our first meeting. I’ll take her at her word.

Gilberte was not born blind, but she lost her sight when she was so young that she now claims that she “no longer remembers what seeing ‘means.’ The idea of seeing, the whole concept of objects becoming upside down images in the eyes, turning into electrical signals, becoming reconstructed by our neurons into upside down upside down images in our brains that perhaps (or perhaps not) reflect, so to speak, the images of the objects so reflected, makes sense to me conceptually. But not practically. The images I imagine are completely divorced from those I ‘see’ with my other senses. They are entirely my own. I dream, I guess you could say, waking.”

As is often the case, her words elude me.

The bombing I’ve alluded to above occurred in the northern Parwan province of Afghanistan in the early spring of 2019. Three Marines and an Afghan contractor died in the attack: Cpl. Lex Boone, 22, of Salt Lake City, Utah; Sgt. Michael Parry, 23, of Sacramento, California; Staff Sgt. Lenny Cade, 41, of Chicago, Illinois; and Abdul Khan, 22, of Kabul. Two other trailing (obviously trailing) vehicles in the convoy survived, and I owe the nine accompanying service members with my life.

Gilberte and I are engaged to be married, as I write this. She is the answer to all of my prayers.



BIO

Erik Harper Klass has published stories and essays in a variety of journals, including New England Review, South Carolina Review, Yemassee (Cola Literary Review), Summerset Review, Slippery Elm, and Blood Orange Review, and he has been nominated for multiple Pushcart Prizes. His novella Polish Poets in Beds with Girls is now available from Buttonhook Press. He writes in Los Angeles, CA.





Notes

“An hourglass could mean time passing . . . a place where hourglasses are made”: See Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities, trans. William Weaver (New York: Harcourt Inc., 1974), 38.

‘oceanic feeling’: See Sigmund Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents (1930), trans. James Strachey (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2005), 47 and passim.

huge key attached to a wooden pear: See W.G. Sebald, The Rings of Saturn, trans. Michael Hulse (New York: New Directions, 1998), 43.

 ‘whose minds are prone to mystery’: Marcel Proust, In Search of Lost Time: Volume VI: Time Regained (1927), trans. C. K. Scott Moncrieff and Terrence Kilmartin (New York: The Modern Library, 2003), 283.

a tactile transcription of the prismatic specter: Vladimir Nabokov, Ada, Or Ardor: A Family Chronicle (1969) (New York: Vintage Books, 1990), 469.

a shining metal cone, of the diameter of a die: Jorge Luis Borges, “Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius” (1940), trans. Alastair Reid, in Ficciones (New York: Grove Wiedenfeld, 1962), 33.

superimposing different criteria . . . teetering finally on the brink of anxiety: Michel Foucault, preface to The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences (1966), trans. Alan Sheridan (New York: Vintage Books, 1994), xviii.

the philosopher’s socks: For more on Walter Benjamin’s socks, see Walter Benjamin: Selected Writings, vol. 3,ed. Marcus Bullock and Michael W. Jennings, trans. Howard Eiland (Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard Univ. Press, 1996), 374.







For Jack and the Eagle

by D.S. Liggett



OF ALL THE TIME that we spent in Alabama, very little was actually spent in Huntsville. It’s easy to forget this, considering the trip is almost exclusively called Huntsville among my family, when we think of the weekend that we spent just outside Decatur.

We drove all through the day, and arrived at a little hotel just after dark. Then began the show of unpacking the car, and repacking the bellman’s cart with our luggage, which we lugged into the elevator. The woman at the front desk was cordial and toothless, and she gave my father our keys without hassle. We thanked her quietly and shuffled up to our room, which was situated one floor up, and bordered on both sides by a dim stairwell, and the steadily chuffing elevator. 

The room was not a thing of beauty or convenience; the curtains were shredded from the middle, as though someone had extended an arm straight outward and raked the strips to the floor, and the doors were beset with scratches at their bottom lips. I was to take the fold-out bed, which sprang from the graying blue couch along the room’s furthest-right wall, and my parents were to divide the two beds in the room’s set-away bedroom between themselves, their luggage, and the dog. That night, as I tucked into my fold-out bed, I discovered that the door to the bedroom would not close if the fold-out bed was extended. Keeping silent, I rolled over and offset their unending television with a pillow to the ear. 

*

On the first day of our trip, my mother and I went to see the Space & Rocket Center, while my father left our room in Decatur for a Doubletree hotel in Huntsville proper, where he was to play in a dart tournament. This arrangement came as a result of the Huntsville hotel’s No-Dogs policy. Rather than leave our dog at home, we opted for the hotel in Decatur, although I could not yet decide, on that morning, whether the dog would really think our choice was worth it, as she was alone in the room for most of the day. 

We took turns planting kisses on her black, clefted head, and took her outside the hotel, to the fields of dead winter-grass bordered by parking lots. I slipped off her lead and gave her a signal which meant, without question, go!, at the sight of which she took off in massive circles around the fields, kicking up fistfuls of strawlike grass and little hunks of dry Earth as she ran.

On that morning, the sky was radiantly blue, and the Tennessee river was full-up nearly to the shore. With the dog packed away in the hotel, and my father gone over to Huntsville for the day, my mother and I were driving out in search of rockets. 

Just before we left for Alabama, I’d promised a friend, an English boy called Jack, who loved military history certainly more than I did, to get pictures of all the great rockets, tanks and aircraft for him. Our friendship had always been a strange one; lacking greatly in any real sense of certainty or stability, and so I was more than willing to impress — I could stand good graces.

*

The second-youngest president elected, John F. Kennedy, sometimes called Jack, was a Massachusetts Democrat. Compared to his predecessors, he was a handsome man, with a full head of hair and a presidential smile.

The other day, I stumbled across a picture of him on the campaign trail, standing outside a house in West Virginia and talking with who I take to be a young father and his daughters. Kennedy’s standing on the ground, jacketless, and looking up at the family, who stand relaxed on their patio. The father seems to have his hands in his pockets. The row of identical, small houses seems to stretch on forever, and the sky seems artificially gloomy and dark from the film decay. 

Today, I found another picture. It was almost definitely taken minutes later; Kennedy is shaking hands with an older man, likely the first man’s father. The children, now joined by a boy, appear unphased.  There’s something strange, looking at the pictures. Knowing that Kennedy won the presidency — and West Virginia itself, by a landslide — part of me wanted to exalt, to take a little joy in seeing such a tidy prelude. But there is another, far more sinister, part of me that cannot so easily examine the picture. I looked at the father, standing in his doorway, face caught by the shadow of the door, white tee-shirt dirty, presumably with coal, and I couldn’t be rid of the face of Lee Harvey Oswald; his dark hair, white shirt, unrepentant stare.  I drew a sharp breath and closed the tab. 

*

The Space & Rocket Center was ill-maintained, but, in its disrepair, it was charming. I took my mother’s picture under the Space Camp sign, and we made a quick entrance to the center itself; there were no lines. We made our way through the first dim rooms; a small minefield of shuttles, Mars-rock recreations, and displays joyfully announcing the advent of 3D-printed walls, inviting us to admire the black, wavy wall they’d fashioned from concentric plastic rings, after which, we filed into the high-ceilinged halls at the edge of the center.

The hall I remember best was a long one, fitted on all sides with large windows, and sectioned into the shape of a horseshoe by the rocket which lay lengthwise down the middle of the floor. Each wall was covered to eye-level with infographics, booths and children’s activity stations, and we wandered slowly down our aisle, taking in the place. In folding chairs, scattered throughout the hall at wide intervals, was a small gallery of white-haired, gray-suited men clutching clipboards, and fitted with lanyard IDs. I thought for a moment that they must be scientists, but we didn’t stop for long enough to ask. Secretly, I hoped that they weren’t bookending a life of scientific service providing simplified explanations of space travel to the slow procession of mothers and children passing them. 

Eventually, when we’d followed the horseshoe back to the mouth of the hall, we took a turn down a cement staircase out to the Rocket Garden. Hearing the name, a small, near-imperceptible part of me had been expecting rows of flowerbeds, giving way to the noses of rockets, poking through the mulch and dirt as though they’d grown miraculously and immaculately from the Earth. Of course, the Rocket Garden was not a garden by any literal means, but a series of cement pathways and platforms, home to hundreds of retired government vehicles, laid bare and docile as animals in a petting-zoo. I cooed their names and peered inside them; leaned forward for better pictures — Little John, Cheyenne.  

The rocket I remember best was a truly massive thing; I stood beside it, dwarfed, and looked up at a piece of long pneumatic piping, branded in tall red letters, UNITED STATES, in a hand that was unmistakably human. My mother called to me, for what must’ve been the second time, “Look over here!” I looked back and smiled. She snapped the picture on her phone, and, having had our fill, we left for Decatur. 

*

When I think of the American presidents, perhaps more often than I ought to, there is always a defining event of each presidency; something that I can point to and say, “that’s what he did.” — Lincoln won the Civil War, Washington pioneered the position, Taft did/didn’t get stuck in his bathtub, and Kennedy put a man on the moon (So I’ve been told.) 

I suppose I always did know that Kennedy himself couldn’t have been around for Apollo 11. Growing up, I was told, above all else about him, that John F. Kennedy had been assassinated in 1963. Still, his legacy of spaceflight was almost inescapable.

 I spent a week in Florida very recently, almost a year after seeing Huntsville. My parents and I came to stay with my Aunt and Uncle in Sebastian, which is a town so flat that it seems to stretch forever. We spent a day at the Kennedy Space Center, dusted by spitting rain; grumpy and displeased. It seemed to me a sort of amusement park — Each building was a similar series of rooms; we’d wait in a line to get inside, before being led through a series of rooms, all of which played similar videos, covering Kennedy, the Apollo missions, and the invention, testing and success of rockets. Then, we were released into the galleries, — the part I liked best — where displays of all varieties peered back at us through glass cases. I took my mother’s picture next to portraits of Mark and Scott Kelly, and my father pointed out the patches of missing thermal tiles on the displayed rockets. 

When I left the Kennedy Space Center, I was struck by a strange thought. Regardless of my longstanding fascination with John F. Kennedy and the minutiae of spaceflight, I had preferred the Huntsville Space & Rocket Center greatly. I wasn’t sure why. 

*

The next day, my mother and I went back to Huntsville for the dart tournament. The tournament crowd was one I had been familiar with for most of a decade; a loose and extended network of kindly men and women with a habit of clapping me on the back and saying, “Your daddy’s on a real winning streak over there!”, or “You know, I’ve still got one of your stories in my office.”

Finding a place to sit was easy; my father was loosed on a winning streak, and the trading of seats was unquestionably in favor of his family. I made myself content with a can of coke and a bag of plain Lays — a preference my father has always mocked — and watched. 

My mother and I had come to the Doubletree from a long hike on the edge of Huntsville. We had taken the dog, who, itching for adventure beyond our hotel room, had jumped eagerly into the hills. I had, ignorantly, expected that the hike would be flat and easy. Rather, it began to rain bitterly halfway through, and after a certain point, my mother suggested we cut across the remaining loop back to the parking lot. This measure only worsened things, as we climbed successive rows of wet rockface, stepping tenuously side-to-side in search of a clear footpath up, back to the parking lot. We arrived back to the car damp and unsteady on our feet, and so we climbed back into the car and sat in the lot, sipping from clinking metal water-bottles, and waiting for the dog to dry enough to return to the Decatur room, where we dropped her off on the way back to the Doubletree. It was strange, huffing back; we were seasoned hikers, competent and prepared for the hike we’d expected. And yet, somehow, we’d been bested. I didn’t want to think about it. 

My hair was still drying as we watched my father in the Doubletree ballroom; he was jolly and light on his feet, and his winning streak did not let up. The evening was drawing to a close, and pointing towards a final match. Most were finishing up their games, and the room’s crowd was thinning at a steady pace. Those who stayed were largely in the same position as my mother and I; watching their friends, family members, spouses, who had not yet been eliminated. 

My father was to finish the evening with the tournament’s penultimate event; a match against a friend. Then again, there are very few matches in a regional dart tournament that are not played between friends. The atmosphere was at once tense and slack; those of us still watching had grown hungry and restless, and the sun had gone down outside. The room’s good spirits still remained, but in smaller pockets, and in hushed tones. The movement had slowed, and then stilled near-entirely; there were no more bellowed greetings between friends, or five-man news crews wheeling cameras around to cover the event. Breath was drawn taught and shallow. My father took his place at the board beside his evening’s final opponent. They each shot for the cork, and then began. 

*

A dart moves through the air so quickly that it is near-invisible until it reaches a target. It shoots forward, embeds its needlelike tip in the felt of a board, and twangs back and forth upon impact, creaking. When I watched the tournament in Huntsville, I hadn’t seen a rocket launch in person yet, but if I had, I might’ve drawn a parallel. I might’ve thought about the sound that they both make. Almost a year after I saw Huntsville, I stood in my uncle’s backyard in Florida, and watched a rocket launch from Cape Canaveral hours after we left the Kennedy Space Center. I never believed what people told me about feeling a rocket; I was wrong. 

It was a few days after Christmas, and the sky had just fallen to full-dark. It was almost cold. I was barefoot, staring up through a sparse canopy at the little patch of sky beside the moon. My uncle pointed out the first signs of the rocket to us, and my mother oohed quietly from beside me. My father looked up silently, and my little cousin tugged at my hand, calling out in chorus with her father. The rocket cut a clear path through the sky and came to rest just beside the moon, framed between two branches of an old, leafless tree at the edge of their yard. It hung there for a moment, before the sound began — my aunt and uncle chuckled quietly, the dogs perked up their heads and cocked them, and the rest of us were silent, smiling despite our slack jaws. The sound buzzed all around us, bordered in by the tall backyard fence, and catching inside my chest. The air was alive and thrumming; I squeezed my cousin’s hand. 

For a few moments longer the rocket remained, as the sound dissipated to a quiet hum. It was a little burning circle in the sky, stripping off its boosters and piercing into the darkness. It burned for a few seconds more, and then was gone. 

*

My father won the last game. Of the three legs, he won the last two without ever seeming to lose his edge. He was calm and methodical; an unrelenting force. After the second game, he fired the chalker — a younger man entering scores on the iPad hanging beside the boards — with a fatherly pat on the shoulder and a muttered “I’ve got it, you go on and sit down.” The chalker had mistakenly marked his second leg as a loss, and took a seat to my immediate right, grumbling indistinctly, smelling of marijuana. My father’s opponent, a round man with a neat crew-cut, seemed to accept his loss well, and shook my father’s hand with a jolly smile. The game had been won quickly and decisively, and the room’s mood was that of joy and relief. My father made his rounds saying goodbye and patting the backs of his friends, and then we all loaded back into the car, and returned to Decatur. 

The next morning, my father played in a final tournament event, while my mother and I sat reading books in the Doubletree lounge with our traveling bags by our feet. The dog slept fitfully in the car, ventilated by the half-opened windows and cool weather, curled up in her traveling crate. My father got done playing in the midafternoon, and we were all glad to pack ourselves into the car once again. I spent most of the drive with my head stuck out the window, swallowed by the falling dark, and blown about happily by the wind wicking down the river. It was a joyful drive; quiet, yet underpinned by a sense of triumph. There was something very strange about riding along, late into the night, on a Sunday evening, but I didn’t mind it. I was happy to be windblown, and to watch the shadows stretch themselves out over the long, pale highway; I was very, very happy.                  

*

I asked my father, just the other day, about the presidents he grew up under — ten years too young to have seen the Kennedy administration, he told me, “Jimmy Carter was a good man. They say he was just a one-term president, but…” He trailed off and tossed a dart at his practice board, “… No president has done so much after his presidency.” 

John F. Kennedy was president for just under three years. In fact, he came in only forty-nine days short of the mark. He served less than a term in office, which continues to surprise me, although I’ve known that since elementary school. He was followed by Lyndon B. Johnson, a man I know very little about, who was followed by Richard Nixon, a man that I know mainly for his scandals and misgivings. Until only days ago, I didn’t know that Nixon had been in office during the Apollo 11 mission. That, technically speaking, he’d put a man on the moon. 

Like most people, Kennedy’s goals were not as straightforward as they are represented. By 1963, he was suggesting a joint American-Soviet space mission to the United Nations; the Soviets weren’t nearly as eager. It’s strange to imagine, Ivanov and Sixpack on the moon. To me, the Space Race was an opportunity for blind, exalting Us-vs-Them patriotism; Hell yeah, those are our guys, and they’re kicking the Russians’ asses. I’m from the same country as the men on the moon; they brought all of us up with them, when they brought our flag. It’s strange to think how easily it might have, instead, been a gesture of national unity; friendship, my usual politic.

 I think I understand, now, why it is that the Kennedy Space Center seemed so strange to me. I suppose it might have been anyone’s, but it was Kennedy’s. A living mausoleum, a testimony to the great things which came only after his death; a Pharaoh buried in wait of his riches. O, King of America, accept our offerings. O, King, O King Almighty…

*

Jack didn’t care for the pictures nearly as much as I’d hoped. His good graces were delicate. They wore thin before the summer began in earnest. Sometimes, when I look back on the last of our the good times; Huntsville, Easter Sunday, and the rest of our fun, I can’t resist looking back in anger; my current frustrations make me forget the point of remembering. I was happy then; times were good; I had a friend. For a short time, all that mattered was the joy of having a friend, of my father winning the game, of my mother and I making it back to the car, of the dog running free, kicking up clods of dirt and dead winter grass, of the handsome young president, of his black-and-white campaign trail, of his rockets launching, of his man on the moon. I tell myself that I cannot define all that comes before disaster by suffering. I tell myself that to do so would undermine all that there is to be said about living. 

For that drive, on the way home from Huntsville,  I was surrounded by whipping wind and darkness and music and a churning, frothing river and endless endless endless road. I had a friend, and I had no reason to believe that anything might ever change. There was joy in the infinite; the moving statically; the going nowhere and going quickly. There were thousands of tiny triumphs seeded in the river and mountains and cold night air; I wanted for nothing, and took as much.  

*

The ending irony of John F. Kennedy is not lost on me. When he died, the Space Race became not a living man’s passion, but a dead one’s; the moon, the world’s greatest memorial. I live now in an age in which people from 21 separate countries have visited the International Space Station, an age in which a colonized moon is not a possibility, but an inevitability. Rockets launch so frequently that my Aunt and Uncle have become accustomed to watching launches from their backyard, and retired rockets are placed in centers like the Huntsville Space & Rocket Center and the Kennedy Space Center for the public’s viewing pleasure; made docile; domesticated. 

In this age, I sometimes wonder about a world in which John F. Kennedy was never assassinated; in which Lee Harvey Oswald stayed in the USSR, and Jack Ruby never went to prison, perhaps in which the first men to walk the moon’s surface were a Soviet-American pair, forced into camaraderie by their proximity and shared goal. Would the moon be any less American, were it shared? Would I still feel as though I’d been brought with, on the backs of the toiling few, and placed upon the moon alongside the American flag? I don’t know. I don’t know whether John F. Kennedy put a man on the moon, or Lyndon B. Johnson, or Richard Nixon. I don’t know whether, had Kennedy survived his presidency, the moon would’ve been nearly as important to the American public. I don’t know whether the Soviets would’ve ever agreed to a joint space flight. No one does. I do know one thing, though. I know that, when John F. Kennedy died, his American people loved him. They still do.

On July 20th, 1969, an anonymous American left a bouquet of flowers on Kennedy’s grave with an attached note, reading ‘Mr. President, The Eagle has landed.’ 



          

BIO

D.S. Liggett is a student of creative writing at the Fine Arts Center in Greenville, South Carolina, with a vested interest in expressing the joys, hardships and little intimacies of the world through the written word. He plans to continue having great fun reading, writing and seeking publication.







Figments

by Abhishek Udaykumar



Eat the orange one at a time, she said, not realizing how little sense it made. She meant, eat each segment one after the other, it was pleasurable that way, though she wasn’t always around when we paused for the day; and the boys were trying to play cricket on the terrace again though the ball kept falling to the street. We watched them through our bay window, the old city had such structures in those years, and the balconies were circular with French grills and creepers running along their powdery pillars. Our bay window had a diwan attached to it and the view outside was a cold and narrow alley with pushcarts and shrouded figures trying to get past each other. We had worn purple all of last week and the sun had left the city white and flaky like a stiff macaroon, while its tall sandstone walls fortified the worlds at the bottom of each lane. And how deep the street felt from the diwan, the people crawled like insects along the city’s seabed, as women shook their sieves high on the rooftops and hung their elongated clothes in colourful columns along the peeling buildings. I didn’t return to the city after my uncle robbed my mother’s share of the inheritance; but I never believed her when she told me that the street had felt that way because I was still a child. The entrance to the house was barely visible – a little door on one side of the building that needed a thrashing to swing open, leading up a spiral staircase inside a minaret like tower, with little windows at intervals and no landings, as the door to each house appeared along the way – opening into big single-floored flats that instantly felt like home. Jugni lived upstairs but she was mostly with us, she spoke too much but we hardly ever spent time together without her. My parent’s room was a pastry of unraveling clothes and ancient things that hadn’t found a home in all their decades there. My mother’s dressing table stood in the middle, like it was meant to be in a museum, and the beds that clung to the walls sat lower than my father’s floor desk. The diwan was the highest seat in the room.

The central market came down when I was in college and the first mall of the city was built in its place. The traffic around the area was unimaginable for weeks – my mother told me about it over the phone for three straight days. She called me once a month because I said I wanted to be ‘independent’ like the other girls in the hostel. I came back home that summer but the mall was commonplace by then. It was the first sign of what became the ‘new town,’ beyond Park where the roads were broader than the highways that led to the airport. I sometimes longed for the train journeys home every summer, but sometimes I felt sad when I reached the cantonment and found myself back in the old steelwork’s bazaar. Jugni studied in the city and she still lived with her parents, but it didn’t change things between us till my final year. By then, she had finally given up on Mahi and had found a way to live without wishing for him while still thinking about him.

The three of us would sneak out in the afternoons when our parents were asleep, to buy ice-lollies outside the cobbler’s quarters and watch the fights that broke out by the liquor hovels. We would shuffle about the streets till the world bored us and we found ourselves in Lal Maidan, where people played cricket and ran around with kites like they were trying to fly. We would laze about on the big wide pavilion where the audience sat when the city played matches against other districts; but our parents didn’t let us go watch them so my uncle took us on his scooter, the three of us hugging each other one behind the other as he waved at passing strangers, fearing that he would topple us into the gutters, the breeze lifting us by the hair till we nearly forgot about the match and wanted to ride through the city forever and ever. We would return in the evening and Mahi would always walk back home by himself, to the end of the street and around the corner into the row of low-lying brick homes where I had never been, though it was just down the road, it had always made me imagine his lonely walk at the end of a day when we parted ways. There were sights and smells in the city that I couldn’t have talked about, because my life, like every other schoolgirl’s, was a routine, I knew what I was allowed to see, and a little more that I managed to discover on my own. Like the time that I decided to walk back home after school on a whim, it was the only time I did it, and I still didn’t know where I found the guts – to hide in the bathroom until school was out and the buses had left, and follow the lanes that cut through the city, trying to find my way back to my neighbourhood. There were times when I didn’t know where I was headed, and my legs stiffened, my throat drying till it felt like a roll of sandpaper, my eyes sweating with the fear of scary people appearing out of alleys like in the movies. But nobody did anything to me and though it had felt like an era, I eventually found myself back where I had started and followed the usual bus route instead, until a young girl accosted me at a dusty junction and held onto my uniform, pleading with me to come with her and buy her a meal, as she had grown sick of begging for money and just wanted to eat.

Jugni began to sing in the fourth-grade. Mahi’s mother ran a vocals class at her house ever since she quit teaching at school, I heard she was still teaching despite her hip replacement. I often thought about how I spent a lot of my teenage years imagining Mahi’s house and Jugni sitting in the living room with the other students, she used to tell me about it, but Mahi was a quiet boy and he didn’t speak about much besides football, becoming a pilot and living in Spain someday. We always believed that the idea emerged from something rudimentary like the kind of cars they drove in the country and that his favourite football players lived there. But Mahi wasn’t expat material and he ended up living ten kilometers away from where he grew up and worked in a multinational company. Jugni still spoke about him when we talked over the phone and I listened patiently like I had done all my life. His house was part of a colony that had once been constructed to resettle refugees from across the border, it was a long, flat structure that almost looked luxurious considering the current claustrophobia of vertical construction, with spacious gardens surrounding the houses, though they had largely turned to a wilderness of grass, save for a few patches that were looked after by families with a passion for gardening; but the interiors were small with narrow corridors and big rackety windows and washing areas and grinders made of stone installed in the backyards. There weren’t as many shops around the colony when we were children, except for an old tailor who preferred working outside his store on the elevated plaza, where a little ice-cream shop and a stationary shop stood side by side. Jugni and the students would loiter about the colony after class and then at the plaza, before they finally went back home just before dark. She would sometimes come straight home and sit next to me on the sofa while I was in the middle of a movie and tell me about how his mother had made ginger cookies for them, and how Mahi oiled his hair in the evenings.

I used to play chess by myself every time I felt sad. I would snuggle into a quilt on the diwan and watch the rain pelt the city like it had done something wrong, as my mother complained about the damp staircase and how she should have bought the week’s groceries earlier. My father had begun to talk about moving out of his ancestral house because it would get harder to climb up the staircase as the years went by. They fancied living in the ‘new town’ in an apartment with elevators and a walking track, once I was through with school and my college expenses had been sorted out. But they didn’t move till I finished college and began work in a new city in the South. By then, my parents had had enough of the old building and the colonies around it that would never change, the lack of parking in the streets and the forever mess, the noise and the growing pollution in the air, the leaky ceiling and the dull kitchen that had seen more bulbs than the store down the street had sold in a decade. They didn’t fathom themselves maintaining the house and sold it before they moved into their dream home on the other side of the city. Sometimes, towards the end of the day, when my office grew quiet and nothing moved, I would melt into the couch outside the pantry and close my eyes, and feel like I was back on my diwan, looking down at the cobbly street, the big bay window hazy in the mid-afternoon glare, a day after the thunderstorm, fiddling with the chessboard from the previous day, mulling over the precious weekend and how much I wanted to be Mahi’s special someone, but couldn’t do anything about it for Jugni’s sake, though I knew that he would never like her back, for she was superficial and ignorant about things outside her world, unlike him; because I had known her since we were born, and Mahi had come along when we were nine, we had a world before him and somehow no matter how long I lived, that period always seemed like it occupied a significant portion of my life, and I couldn’t betray the bond we shared around our first discoveries in the world. Until that day. Mahi had come home because he wanted to watch aero planes from the terrace of my building, because his colony was too low and didn’t offer him a clear view of the sky. We went up to the terrace, I took a water gun with me in case Jugni happened to come by, although I knew I would simply end up making a fool of myself, as I watched him survey the horizon with great sincerity, his grandfather’s binoculars glued to his face, despite the empty sky, waiting patiently for the mid-afternoon planes bound for the Middle-East. He always grew excited when he saw a cargo plane, though they were rather infrequent. It wasn’t just their size that intrigued him, but their lack of windows and giant wings. I stood up and strolled along the big glass walls that looked out into a lush manicured lawn and a pathway lined with lampposts and silver oak trees. The others were at the canteen but I had a meeting in half an hour and I was supposed to be preparing. It wasn’t anything that I did about Mahi that changed our relationship, but what I didn’t do. I hadn’t intended to trip on my shoelaces, while he was busy with his planes, but I fell anyway and though it hadn’t hurt much, I feigned a sprain and refused to get up, until he was forced to escort me back home, down the spiral staircase, with all his strength, as I limped along and did my best not to overact, past Jugni’s house till we were finally home, sweating as he held me and worried for the first and last time in his life about letting go of me.

My mother was the last person out of the house when my parents moved. Nothing had been left behind, even the old cabinet in the corner that had been collapsing in stages over the years had been rescued and transported across the city. I never forgot how my mother slung her handbag over her shoulder as she made her way to the door, as though she were headed out to the milk parlour like every other morning, till it hit her that it would be her last time out, and she turned back slowly to face the house she had lived in all her married life, always putting things back where they belonged and making sure the floor beneath the carpets was swept every day even if I made a fuss and had to move my things while she cleaned, all in vain – as though it had just been a game. I couldn’t watch her. I knew she was crying her silent cry; I knew this moment would come so I finished crying on the way back home, but no amount of anticipation could diminish that image of my mother standing between the door and the hallway, staring at the shell of our home, the straps of her handbag slipping down her shoulders as she held an irrelevant cushion that wouldn’t fit into the suitcases.  

Mahi usually went to play football in the evenings. And Jugni’s classes began soon after we returned from school, till it was time for him to go out and play. He would laze around in the verandah, the room with the big grilled window that overlooked the colony, before the hallway – where the students sang and held their palms out for his mother to strike them with a bamboo twig. Sometimes he would kick a ball around the yard and the stone paths that zig-zagged around the colony, waiting for his friends to come. Jugni would watch him through the hall doorway and the grilled window, singing poorly before she was rapped on her knuckles. She almost never had a chance to speak to him during her classes, in all those years that she learnt classical music; my house had always been their meeting point and I was always the spectator of their one-sided affair. It was past ten and there were bats hanging on the neem tree outside my window like pouchy fruits. I was making progress in my martial art class and I had made a friend who had promised to come home for dinner that weekend. I had begun to read again and bake once every two weeks, in the oven that I had bought over the new year in a discount sale. I remembered telling Jugni the next day about how Mahi had taken care of me after I had tripped over myself and sprained my ankle. I had rehearsed the night before as I stared at the ceiling, waiting to fall asleep, exacting the tone and pace and pronunciation of my carefully chosen words. She had come home expecting Mahi to already be there but I had asked him not to come because of my leg, though I was well enough to go downstairs that morning and buy a few packets of milk when my mother threatened to starve me if I didn’t. Jugni listened to me with big eyes, becoming still as I performed each moment with deliberation, stretching my legs across the diwan as she sat partially against the opposite corner. I could tell that she would never forget it.

I went downstairs to pick up a delivery and saw a heron perched on the compound wall between my apartment complex and the next. There were times when I spent the whole day cooking and spent the remaining hours washing up, before falling asleep with the music on. It was sunnier than it was hot and even the shadows were hesitant about stretching themselves in the afternoon sun. I was about to go back upstairs with my things when someone called. I was aware of how poorly dressed I was and I wanted to get back indoors as soon as I could, but I had a habit of picking up the phone no matter where I was. I once received a call when I was on the treadmill, and tried really hard to have a conversation despite the speed of the machine. It was an old college friend who was in town and wanted to meet, and though I wasn’t interested, I placed the delivery against a pillar and put the phone to my ear, the heron dancing along the wall and turning to me when I said hello. That night, when I returned from the restaurant, I found an old toy from the house I had grown up in, it had found its way into my bag accidentally after my parents had shifted, a buoyant rubber whale that used to sing every time it was immersed in water – in another lifetime. I had bought it for Mahi on his twelfth birthday, but I had never given it to him. I had realized how funny it was and how Jugni’s present had been a lot cooler, a mini steel fighter jet that he still kept on his office desk. I was tipsy and the house suddenly seemed lonesome and quiet, my friend from college had felt like a guest, a person who needed my entertainment but wouldn’t accept my dependence. I had a good job and made enough money to save up for the thoughtless future, I lived in a better city than I had grown up in and my parents were happier than they had hoped to be; I cooked and cleaned and exercised before work, my colleagues went out on the weekends and I went along if I had the inclination, a few of them had become my friends, and I had accepted that friendship between adults was more like an agreement and that things couldn’t be like childhood again; I went to my martial art class thrice a week and travelled to the coast with my friends in the long weekends – and tried not to call Mahi or think about how he and Jugni still lived in the same city. I sank into the sofa and switched on the news. I didn’t want to go home ever again.



BIO

Abhishek Udaykumar is a writer, filmmaker and painter from India. He graduated from Royal Holloway University of London with English and Creative Writing. He writes short stories, novels and essays and makes documentaries and fiction films. His narratives reflect the human condition of rural and urban communities. He has been published in different literary journals, and has made thirteen films and several series of paintings. 







Dark and Windows

by Luke Sawczak


I see the window! shrieks the toddler.
I see the dark, Mommy! Dark dark dark!
I think: Are dark and windows things you see?

The empty train rolls on in falling light,
and I read Lucy Maud Montgomery
on bridges over valleys she walked through,
“all lovely things beloved in days gone by.”
Here and now we ride “an arrow of light
on a ribbon of shadow,”
our lives and voices breath in iron lungs.
The two-year-old trades tunes for tickles:
each time she sings the fates of bitsy spiders
her mom rewards her with “Want to hear a secret?”
and blows a raspberry in her ear, eliciting
such howls of laughter and the incessant plea:
“T’y ’gain! T’y ’gain, Mommy! Tell me my secret!”
She tries again; the same result, and still “T’y ’gain!”

A voice says, “This train will stop at Georgetown,”
and the mom cries: “I need to go to Kitchener!”
The other passenger assures her more trains will come.
She settles down uneasily. Her toddler remarks on me:
“He innit talking!” — No, she’s told, he’s reading.
Then I am talking, like a healed mute.
Where did you go today?

Evening deepens as the toddler tells me her adventures,
all about the cows that scared her on the farm.
“She didn’t want I to leave her,” says her mom,
“she was crying everything would eat her.”
I laugh. At her size I might cry as well.
“She asked if I was going to clean their poop!”

“Tell me my secret!”
Often seeing children I think of those
whose mothers sit alone in rooms, becoming cold,
whose fathers darken, never to look up again
with the same faces. The ones who die
outnumber those whose hands we hold.
Each peal of laughter, each trying repetition’s
evidence of a miracle we’re told but can’t confirm:
that even one He is not willing should be lost is not.

The mother sighs and gazes out the window.
There was a boy of four obediently quiet
The long drive home from church, whose parents
opened the door to a little body breath had left
dressed for long sleep in his Sunday best.
There are those we buried live in Llullay-Yacu,
la doncella drunk on coca, la niña del rayo
burned by lightning, and el niño, seven, tied,
holding objects showing caravans of llamas.
Vomit, signs of struggle in the youngest only.
I draw in my breath, mind on that
native home where the water treatment men
couldn’t dig the plumbing through the yard
because of all the graves of cousins
who had cut off the universe forever.
“Earth shall be riven, and high heaven.”
In each of them the cosmos-fires burned
and were extinguished. Chesterton says:
In every child the world is once more put upon its trial.

The train sombres into the ravine.
He says, From the valleys, alleluia, we look to the hills.
The farmer doesn’t know where life can enter in.
Don’t tell me that I’ll ever understand.
All I know is à chaque jour suffit sa peine
mais aussi ses miracles. A teacher told me
that in classrooms without windows
trees still bud when spring begins.

The voice comes on from centre coach
to tell us that another train’s behind us
forging through the night to Kitchener,
as though God were listening to prayer.

We brake, snow melting on the rails.
The small girl soils her diaper laughing;
she admits it freely to her mother.
Turning from the windows, we get off.
From inside we’d seen the dark
but not these stars. They are quiet
as we disembark.



hard beads of light


Field so dotted with tiny white flowers
it could be dusted with snow or icing sugar.
Chastening rises out of shame,
correction out of chastening.
Baby blue air backdrop for golden leaves
springing red blood along vein network
like map of traffic out of city:
spilled from pump, droplet vans
muster on long motorway escapes.
After arriving we go canoeing, face inwards
to each other, before the shout to turn around.
Then we’re gliding to the island’s sandy landing,
exploring till chased off by a pup.
Campfires built on private property. No way up.
Circuit of fragmentary lake on face of Earth.

Later I go for a walk by myself,
take photos of licheny shield from waist height.
I’ll call these top-down shots my “Aerial Landscapes”:
lake of moss, forest of tiny shrubs, salt pan of long-dead scars
left by ancient flora. When your hand
finds something to do, you do it mightily.
And then, if you want to get well again, repeat.
Feel a little guilt. Come on, it’s fine.
No need to feel guilty about feeling guilty.
No one does it. Walking back on Fire Route Two-Twenty
see a massive wall, a solid arc of dirt
laced with roots of fallen tree.
Examining its base you perceive its mistake:
it built as Jesus recommended, on the rock.
But trees aren’t houses and the wind has peeled it off.
Now see it from beneath, the mouse’s view.
Awe-inspiring spider of snakes as lithe as taffy,
wood watercourses in a muddy flood.

At the cottage a start on stepping outside
after supper: that there is such a thing as black.
Our light goes only so far out and then recedes
and night hides everything I was to see.
Across the lake light fragments like a carnival
shine into the depth: cottage lanterns, moon,
stars in bunches, deck guides dance on agitated water,
rolling as though turning in and turning out of bed,
then against the shore and fading all away.

For a little time there are two of you:
one reading on the couch inside, nose under spectacles
in a book with crimson jacket, cozy now, if older,
and one sitting in the dark just on the other side
of the window. A chill runs through me.
Why are you in so much pain? What about God?
You’re the last person who could deserve this,
even if on occasion you are short with us.
Why didn’t I talk to you about the stars, too?
The last thing I want is for you to think I love less.
It’s true—you become what you think people think of you.

The stars are beautiful, you know, out here.
The moon, bright as a white flower, the awkward
source of all the light pollution at the dock.
Give me infinitesimal marks in the weave
where the thread is torn but no matter how small
the light your eye picks it up sharp and fine.

I need to stay out here until my soul grows calm.
It needs a wicked chastening. Too absorbed
in its own juices, like the basted turkey.
Funny image for a soul. I head down to the dock
with a cushion and no fewer than two blankets.
Dilemma: without shoes your socks get damp,
but then you can draw your feet into your nest.
Shoes on, I pull the deck chair to the water
and bundle up. The more I write, the more
I need the moon that sponges up the stars
from black canvas with unwanted light.

I put down the pen and my mind expands,
then contracts, like the skillful use of the embouchure
of the oboe: wavering when it is strongest,
then receding with the precision of a jet of ink.
The harder I pray, the more stars flicker on
like prayer candles without blood money.
Soon I can see the hosts of which the Lord is lord.
I’m thinking of you in an early wheelchair,
and imagining with all my force, believing, having faith
against this image, till tears arrive at my eyes.
Unfrozen water, like that lapping against the dock.
In the primitive black water I see drops of ichor,
gods’ blood, which it turns out is burning ivory,
like shining milk, fragments of the eternal snow,
tinsel-thick shards of silver from below the earth,
(no human comparison fully satisfies), anyhow ichor.
Flecks of it stream into the sand on the wave
and I watch my own meteor shower.

Is my mind growing calm?
The world is spinning.



BIO

Luke Sawczak is a teacher and writer in Toronto. His writing has appeared in more than 20 publications, including Sojourners, Acta Victoriana, Queen’s Quarterly, the Humber Literary Review, and the Spadina Literary Review. It has been nominated for Best of the Net and included in Best Canadian Poetry. His influences include Derek Walcott, Seamus Heaney, Emily Dickinson, and Jane Kenyon. In his spare time he composes for the piano.







Sleep Lab

by Joseph Bardin



Sleep lab and staged readings are two dates I cannot control and they end up falling on the same night.  The reading goes great—strong turnout, good actors, positive responses, plus some useful critiques. I’m pretty high on it all as I drive around this dark office park area looking for the sleep lab place. My GPS is confused, or I am, and I circle the block a couple times before finding the right building.

I still feel dramatic buzzing on a call box, as instructed, looking in the window of an empty office lobby in shadows, as if on some clandestine mission. A technician in scrubs appears and leads me through an unmarked door to the sleep lab, passing a heavy-set guy in a sleep gown covered in wires flowing down from his head and face over his substantial belly walking to the bathroom. He looks like a high-tech Lord of the Rings dwarf with hair and beard replaced by wires.

The creepy simulated bedroom is like a stage set with a king bed, bedside lamps, and a TV mounted on the wall opposite, and a camera in one corner of the ceiling trained on me, and I suddenly feel as if I’m staying in one of those Moscow hotels the Russians use to trap VIPs. Like the kind that likely rendered Donald Trump an asset of Russian intelligence. Except this camera is in plain view.  

Horror is not my genre, but walking that fluorescent lit hallway to this ersatz bedroom in this office park at night with high tech dwarves going to pee seems like a pretty good setup.

Still, I have to do something. My sleep has become a listing vessel, constantly tilting me overboard into unwanted wakefulness. I toss and turn, not just in the second part of the night, but an hour after turning out the light. I roll left, I roll right, waking up to pee, not once but three times, sometimes four, and in the morning I hardly feel rested, much less ready to write. 

Our most difficult times with Bernie’s breast cancer have come in the night when her emotional defenses are down. Egoless in receiving encouragement, she often slips right back into sleep, leaving me awake, my mind racing with arguments for her life.

And I grew up a bad sleeper, waking in the night as a kid and staring out at streetlights, smelling the cold, dusty glass. The night’s emptiness spoke to something missing in me, and left me scanning its depths for some kind of solace, until I was exhausted enough to give up the search and sleep. Bernie had cured me of that nocturnal searching, and remedies like melatonin, gava, and theanine had helped me receive sleep’s arrival with less resistance.

But now sleep struggle is back like a malicious companion showed up uninvited out of the past.  The internet readily serves up convincing evidence of whatever illness you suspect is creeping up on you, and sure enough, I have all the symptoms of sleep apnea. I also discovered that bruxism, which is teeth grinding, can be caused by sleep apnea. Well, I’ve been grinding my teeth and sleeping with a night guard in my mouth for years.

Apparently, no one is sleeping because I had to schedule an appointment with a sleep doctor three months out. When I finally spoke with him he prescribed a sleep lab. I thought he could just give me some gear to plug in at home in my own bed, but he said it wouldn’t be definitive, so here I am two months after that appointment, which was the next available opening. They say sleep apnea is a serious medical condition but make me wait months to find out if I have it.

The tech in scrubs is friendly enough as he wires me up. Electrodes are stuck to my scalp in several places and attached to wires that drape down my chest and back. I’m shaggy with wires, and the play reading is still thrumming through me, and I’ve forgotten my book. I read before sleep, I always read before going to sleep.

I try watching TV instead, but it’s not the same, and the commercials feel more than usually moronic, so I just turn it off and try to sleep, but a bright band of light blazes in under the door from the horror film hallway, and I’m bound up in wires. There is nothing restful about sleep lab.

I don’t feel like I’ve slept at all when the tech walks in a few hours later with a CPAP machine—a motor about the size of a shoe box, with an air hose and nose attachment. Chipper earlier, we’re both grumpy now. I protest that I’ve hardly slept, and he chuckles dismissively, saying they got plenty of data on me. I complain about the wires and the light and that I don’t have my book to help me fall asleep, but the problem is, when the CPAP starts pumping air into me, I immediately relax and fall into a much more satisfying sleep; if the cure for the condition cures you, you probably have the condition.

Apnea literally means a pause in breathing. Sleep apnea increases risk of heart disease, stroke, and diabetes, and all the bad things that come with not enough sleep, which is probably every ailment in existence. Good sleep may be the single best thing you can do for your health and longevity, and I’m not getting it.

Obstructive sleep apnea is the more common variety, which happens when the muscles in the throat relax too much, narrowing the airway until breathing is momentarily cut off; your brain wakes you up to start breathing again. Central sleep apnea, the other kind, happens when the brain fails to signal the body to breath. This can be caused by heart failure and stroke, neurological disorders and opioids and other drugs.

But I don’t do those drugs or have those conditions. I’m not overweight and I and don’t even drink much alcohol, so why the do I have sleep apnea?

I realize this is what Bernie must feel about breast cancer a thousand times over. Why the hell do I have this?  There is no definitive answer for either of us, just our own speculations. In my case, I read sleep apnea can affect people with big necks, and my neck is sort of big.

I don’t want to sleep attached to a CPAP machine every night forever, but some of the alternatives sound much worse, like a tracheostomy, which is surgically creating a wider opening in the throat to allow for breathing. I learn my former dentist, now retired, makes oral appliances for sleep apnea. I imagine some elaborate metallic gadgetry, like the old orthodontic headgear, to hold my airways open—don’t ask me how—but it sounds better than a CPAP or surgery.

The retired dentist, a talker, used to go on and on about adventurous fishing trips he’d taken and his enthusiasm for his Christian afterlife. Now he tells me how his best friend died of a sleep apnea event, and he wants to help make sure that doesn’t happen to others. How his will to save others from death jives with his blissful belief in meeting Jesus in heaven after death is a narrative I don’t have time to invite upon myself, so I try to keep it about the oral appliance.

But in reviewing the report from the sleep lab, he questions the data on some statistical grounds I don’t follow, and wants me to get a sleep evaluation from a different doc.

Another sleep lab?

The recommended sleep doctor is busy too, and schedules me for seven weeks out, and I feel myself starting to waver. I’m trying to do the responsible thing by getting myself diagnosed and treated for an apparent sleep disorder, but I may be losing interest.

I come from a long line of ailment ignorers and was raised on the assumption that discounting the problem is often the best way to make it go away, at least from your awareness. I’m trying to evolve to a more proactive posture—I have ambitious longevity goals my family doesn’t hold—but being reactive is looking better and better now.

Meanwhile, Bernie begins using this ultrasound at night that’s supposed to support her overall wellness and maybe it’s helping me sleep better too. I mean I’m asleep, so I’m not sure, but I don’t think I’m tossing and turning as much. This is how ailment ignoring works—you start to downplay the condition, not all at once, but incrementally, step by step, so that it can dwindle in your consciousness over time, as you either get used to it, and the discomfort feels less acute, or in fact, it goes away.  

But I’m not entirely committed to complacency either. I start this thing called myofunctional therapy, which works on your face, mouth and tongue, that is supposed to help with sleep apnea by keeping your airways clear. I meet with the myo therapist online, and she gives me truly strange exercises to do with my tongue and mouth, difficult to coordinate but easy to practice, if you don’t mind looking idiotic to yourself in the mirror.

I’m supposed to do like two reps of each exercise, but that hardly seems enough to me, so I repeat them over and over throughout the day, until my jaw starts popping, and I can’t bite down on food without feeling like I’m cracking something essential inside my mouth. So I have another condition to downplay or ignore, which in a weird way confirms my inclination to downplay or ignore the alleged sleep apnea, because if I engaged fully with that problem, and this jaw thing now, whatever it is, that would be a lot.

Sure enough the myo therapist helps me correct the clicking, and almost another month into not doing another sleep lab, I seem to be sleeping better. The good news is that they scheduled me so far out I’ve got plenty of time to keep downplaying what I may or may not have. But unlike my ailment ignoring forebearers, I’m living in the era of data, so I stop researching sleep apnea and start researching biometric devices to tell me how well I am sleeping.

The Apple Watch is supposedly really good, but I have enough Apple in my life, and really don’t want to get emails on my arm. So I buy this device called a Whoop. You wear it on your wrist and it collects biometric data. It knows if you’re awake or asleep, and calculates how much REM sleep you get, and deep sleep and light sleep, and your respiratory rate, blood oxygen levels, heart rate, etc.

You can’t fake sleep and you can’t force it. Begging for it like Macbeth after murdering Duncan won’t do any good either. The sleep drugs apparently add very little actual sleep per night and leave people drowsy in the morning. Michael Jackson died trying to manipulate himself to sleep with stronger stuff, a drug used for anesthesia procured from a crooked doctor,— so you can’t buy sleep either.

Truth is you don’t conquer sleep, sleep conquers you and you let it. Sleep is surrender, but consciousness won’t let go, or can’t, without the nervous system’s say so. The brain may be the interpreter of life, but however much it might seek to rationalize and reign it in, the nervous system mediates life itself washing over and through us. I suppose that’s the real sleep lab every single night. 

I start tracking my sleep. I don’t always get a perfect night’s sleep, but it hardly amounts to a sleep disorder—more like sometimes disordered sleep. But most nights my sleep stats are good. Good numbers of hours asleep. Good amount of REM and deep sleep. Good oxygen levels.

My reactive self feels more justified than ever. What should you do to address what looks like sleep apnea? Nothing, as always, may be your best bet. I realize this is not very responsible advice to share with others, but the data speaks for itself.



BIO

Joe Bardin is an essayist and playwright based in Arizona by way of Trenton, NJ, Washington DC, and Tel Aviv. He is the author of the essay collection Outlier Heart, (IFERS Press). His essays have appeared in numerous publications including Interim, Louisville Review, Superstition Review, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, and Rock & Sling, and been anthologized in the Transhumanism Handbook (Springer). His plays have been performed both domestically and abroad. A scholarship alumni of the Valley Community of Writers, he is a member of the Dramatists Guild. (http://www.josephbardin.com) / (www.josephbardin.com). @joebardin.







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