Issue 19

poetry

creative nonfiction

fiction

featured writer series

poetry

FUTURE MORE BLACK

Dee Allen

[ For aries jordan. ]

I cannot announce the future
With a detailed
Ten-point demand plan.

I cannot build the future
With a high-tech, somewhat sustainable vision
Described in a paperback novel.

I cannot see the future
With a clear crystal ball
And unfathomable power of the mind

Before it materialises.

I'm no Black Panther or Black Rider.
I'm no Science Fiction author.
I'm no clairvoyant either.

I can study to the full the past.
I can apply those lessons learned to the present.

But a “Black future”?

Excuse my uncertainty.

Comments on such a time-line
Can be said for just three things
I wish for in it:

A future where the African is not extinct,

A future where Africans have more say in everything transpiring on Earth, and

A future without racism and White supremacy.

Waiting for Remission: Soundtrack

Catherine Arra

He doesn’t abide by stillness, prefers
a rebel’s rush to beat death, cross life’s gate
a wild man swinging arms, kicking legs,

torso twisting to Sing, Sing, Sing
off to downtown, around town, the gym
job, upstairs—circle three times

descend to bed—one two three times
three to blast off—a keyboard
clicking tap dance

poems, photos, logging in/out
love letters, a romance of emails
resume, updates, DIY divorce.

Says if he stops his brain
will kill him, legs will cramp
and trip him. He will lose.

Wants forgiveness, absolution
he doesn’t think he deserves. Says he
believes in a higher power, not in God.

A rose by any other name …

I tell him
You are the rose.
Sing your red, baby, sing.

Zeroes and Ones

Scott Davidson

No system cares what you’re bringing to
the experience. Whether you’re winning, games
in progress are all that matter, the well-crafted runs
and player reveals, pieces of something resembling
winning. Predictably, system response is showing
clearly unhelpful cards, the ones most likely to
ruin scores. A small example of algorithms
actively working against us, watching and
recording while we play our games. Having
no proof I can only say I see it happening all
the time, triggers, evasions, a hundred examples
of games choosing outcomes and effects. What
machines learn by doing, they do from then on.

Migration

Jennifer Handy

Two doves groom each other and stare at us outside our open window,
sitting on a low-hanging branch, cooing, making eyes at each other,
while giving us what could only be called the stink-eye.

At any moment, I expect them to make a move, to fly inside our camper.
Instead, they fly onto the roof.  My husband shakes his fist at them.
They fly off, return, and perch in a second tree higher up, just out of view.

After sunset, I hear a hiss and draw back as a young sidewinder makes its presence known.
How well it blended into the rocky ground.  My husband chases it
with a shovel, threatening to cut its head off. 

The birds come back, day after day.  This tree we parked under for shade was theirs
long before we made it ours.  I wash their shit off of the roof.
Are we not allowed to come here?  Can no one ever move? 

A hundred miles south, a row of shipping containers stacked two high
line the Rio Grande.  Behind the walls and fences, border agents
are poised, like snakes, to strike. 

The earth belongs to the birds, the snakes, the coyotes. 
The earth belongs to whoever’s there.  The earth belongs to no one.
We all are temporary occupants, our lives, our selves, just passing through.

The Argument

Alison Hicks

The wave is coming, the seer said.
It cannot be prevented or avoided.
You must learn to read the shadows
on the sea, cracks in the land
where fire seeps through.

We set our feet down softly, spoke in whispers,
covered our heads with our arms.
The first of any drink went onto the ground,
we cut the best fruits and left them in offering.

A voice rose: The wave has not come.
The seer is wrong. We fell to arguing:
that our attentions had prevented the wave,
that they were unnecessary.

We who heeded the seer moved our shelters up the mountain.
The rest stayed by the shore.
We went about our business of knowing and not knowing.

In the mountains, we kept our learning to ourselves.
Evenings we watched ourselves the shore-dwellers dance
on smooth sand. We wondered if they might be right.

We watched as the sand grew wider and longer,
ocean backing away, we watched us running after,
calling it back, we watched it swallow us,
and only we were left.

A Church on the Hill

Veronica Hill

There was a church on the hill
and I’ve never been one for religion,
wasn’t raised that way,
but there was a church on the hill,
bathed in the blue light of dusk,
the many steps leading up to it
lit by yellowed bulbs
in the antique lamp posts,
humming in the quiet setting sun.

And I’ve never been one for religion,
a product of a father sent to Catholic school,
but there was a church on the hill
and in that moment
the weight of the centuries
set down heavy on my soul,
like those colossal oak doors,
the inner light shining through
intricate stained glass
high set in the stone walls,
and that old church bell
rang
(through me)
seven times.

There was a church on the hill
and I’ve never been one for religion,
but there,
in the new twilight,
I understood
that eternal pull towards
something bigger than what we know.

Human

Joshua Kulseth

were there ever moments between miracles
when Jesus got food in His beard,

or came down with the flu, sending Him
to the outhouse for the night, around back

puking in a hole? Did He laugh at farts,
or when told some dirty fisherman’s joke?

Sure, He didn’t need advice, but did He ever ask
Peter why the tides move, and when? Or why

seasons change, patterns of fish migrations,
or even just the quotidian particulars of casting

a net, baiting a line? You know, just to get him talking?
Like a kindness at a get-together, when the host

casts out for what he already knows,
to flatter, put everyone at ease? I hope so.

And everyone would’ve been on their best behavior,
but I wonder were there times when maybe

some drunk stumbled to the dinner for sinners,
and maybe like some drunks I know, stole the show,

wildly, incoherently, innocently cracking jokes
so you couldn’t help but smile—that there were

moments when Jesus, leaning back in a chair,
arms crossed, might eye the disruption, moments

He would have laughed, clapped even,
or shaken His head and smiled, wondering

at His silly creation; not mad or scowling like the priests
down the street, just enjoying the company

of a few drunks and crooks, whores and cowards,
poets and pornographers: just happy to be with us.

Alternate Reality

Christen Lee

My mother is unable to distinguish reality from fantasy.
She sends me AI-generated images,
commenting on the strange behaviors of cats and babies,
the exquisite features of squirrels and landscapes –
oblivious to the obvious cyber-embellishments of these images.
I try to correct, explain, exemplify, but mom persists.
Hers is a quiet stubborn, defiant of human reason and logic.
She is a woman of firm faith, and her reality has shifted
through years of deep practice.
My mom inhabits an alternate space that is soft with solitude.
In this world, there are dreams more real than flesh and blood.
More welcoming than the hearth of tradition.
Have you ever woke from a blissful sleep,
only to be confronted by the dread of deadlines, breakdowns,
panic, and loss? My mom has moved on from that world.
Last night she captured four perfect images of the December
full moon,
magnified and filtered to the finest effect, then sent my way.
In all these years of wanting, I’ve never known a greater gift.
My mother gave me the moon.

No Word in English Rhymes with Month

Amy Lerman

On occasion, our doorbell reminds me
of packing peanut butter and jelly bagels
the nights before, perhaps some string
cheese or pretzels, the mornings cold
and calm as we followed the dark,
migrant geese fading into the sky.

I could almost time your zoning out
mid-sentence once Benadryl kicked
into the drip, amazed at how quickly
swallowed your words, mid-sentence,
I envied short naps, quieting away, still
motion, you looked no different from
a summer outside Aspen’s music tent,
dozing mid-afternoon, cartoon black
notes circling the air, you would let us
roll up jeans for creek dunking, grass
sticking ours toes after when we’d pick
Indian paintbrush flowers we should not
have, at the small concession stand,
my friend’s mother offering Dixie-
cupped lemonade and plastic-wrapped
cookies for the walk home. And back

in the beige recliner, your eyes inviting,
clear again, how we giggled flipping
celebrity magazine photos, choosing
top awards-season looks, then joining
nurses’ applause when the bell ringing
signaled another’s last treatment,
our fingers entwined, only an hour
until no infusion tube, unrefrigerated air,
that driver’s horn lofting pigeons
from the crosswalk, discarded corn
and shedded hackberries a patchwork
feast for later samplers.

From the EdAdvance Adult and Continuing Education Course Catalog, Fall 2024

Ada Lowenthal

Beyond pedestrian ESL and GED, non-acronymed classes unfold enchantingly. Travel fictional geography in Fantasy Mapmaking, and, along with Medicare Basics, find Paint Your Pet, Discovering a Bowl of Matcha (New), and Intermediate Irish Tin Whistle. So many things I never thought I needed to know, but maybe I’m wrong, maybe it’s just a matter of degrees, now I see I could learn Beginning Basketry and wouldn’t that be helpful for all the times I placed all my eggs in one? And Shamanism for Personal and Collective Healing might have come in handy for my dying sister; she’s on home hospice now, painkillers paying forward the gift of sleep, but it’s good to know there’s a course, Hospice Volunteering 101, aptly followed by How to Talk with the Other Side, and in class, “Messages from the other side are geared to whomever is present.” I’m not sure I’ll want to chat. For years, I’d delay a call for another day and another, road running from her unmedicated mania, her Cartooning 101 Tazmanian Devil-ish vortex of words, turning tail on tales of falling, breaking, something botched, defeat by pain and Percocet, because why bother, she was a lemon, and she’d never see London or Paris anyway. Transforming Your Life During Challenging Times would have meant transforming a lifetime. Still, who else could plait our memories of Detroit’s bitter winters with spring’s bitter herbs? With badminton, our badinage, our beloved, departed brother? At my last visit, she barely spoke, barely moved, her body mere impediment. Now I bear witness to these sacred, unteachable moments of her final descent from fluent flesh to sediment, this blink of an eye between cognition and, Latin for Beginners, terra incognita. Too soon, when she is dead, I’ll have to register for From Memory to Memoir: Writing Your Life Story, because I have none without her.

Maybe Just

Morgan Matchuny

i imagined lies to hide my truth: it started with nibbling
at poppies, then handcuffs, and now law, our law, bondaged
by thumb in mouth and flat white sheets, borderline genius
minds holding insurance companies for ransom in locked wards,
born too soon to comprehend their reach toward paralytic
dreams under ceilings which know what i can’t know, the art
of sky-bathing beneath artless onyx, all white-spotted as though
a thousand fawns, frolicking & ignorant in the distance, feasted
on nettles and lichen, all to form a monolith of some endless
resilience, and aren’t we all like that, capable of change, of
hatred for systems, maybe it can be enough, the hatred, to breathe
again for ourselves, and look out the window, there’s an aimless
train of malady condescending itself to our power, alive in flight, too alive
for the love of streets and rage, but maybe just alive enough to survive.

My Shooting Years

James B. Nicola

I used to shoot. My scores were pretty good
for five and six and seven, maybe eight.
I bet you don’t believe that of me now
so I refer you to my older brother.

How I became a man of peace, I can’t
tell you. Maybe the Friday evening News
with weekly casualty numbers, plus the sum
so far, when I was seven, eight, and nine,

had something to do with it. Later, I
found out those totals Walter Cronkite said
did not even include the million dead
or more who were not American boys

like me. Now, if you are from Viet Nam,
I’ll squeeze your hand. Your arm. That’s how I am.

This evening I spied a coyote

Adrienne Pilon

running past my house. This coyote
has roamed our street before; I recognize
how moonlight strikes his whitish ruff.
Coyotes seem to lead a lonely life, but what do I know?
I too roam this street, in and out of the woods,
more often solo than not. A rangale of deer
come out in the evenings, too. But then:
a lone doe. Each night she visits
the birdfeeder on her own. Goes another way
from the rest. What kind of exile is this?
There are more kinds of loneliness than
I’ll ever know: my mother, in her darkening house;
the parents whose only son is forever gone;
the widow next door, who leaves a single lightbulb
burning on the porch day and night. And a moth,
perched on that light, extinguishing
itself on the only brightness it knows.

ROTTELA PANDUGA

a festival of breads

Sreekanth Kopuri

All the roads lead to Nellore
not to demolish a masjid
nor disown a temple nor
deconstruct a church
but to exchange-
the rotte of miracles.

It doesn't ask my religion,
nor saffronize, nor convert
my faith for it isn't a human.
Instead burns its self in my
neighbour's hands to make
me love him as myself, always

our faiths dissolve here
into a breaded oneness
for something that bonds
us with a hope, a child has
in a father's promised toys.

The tide of hopes rise
and stream into the 
Barah Shaheed Dargah,
take a sacred dip in 
the swarnala cheruvu,

knead more hopes and
signpost the names:
Pelli rotte, 
Soubhagya rotte
Udyoga rotte
Santhanam rotte
Nuthana gruha rotte,
Arogya rotte,
Promotion rotte

elsewhere someone
holds a placard:
Prapancha Santhi rotte.

Myth or truth
isn’t the question
but the hope we
exchange as a
prasadam or Bread
of a holy communion,

a reality not of Gaza
nor the weird silences
of Manipur nor the one
around our own clocks

but which draws you and I
to a sanctity of purpose,
for hopes above woes
and faith above despair.

Here the reasoning's
perennial like the Pulicat
that doesn't cease to draw 
the birds from everywhere. 
A quantum leap, year by year
from the unreason around
the discriminations of faith.

Rottela Panduga is an annual five-day festival of breads in Nellore of India in the month of Muharram. It commemorates 12 martyrs who fought against the British troops in 1751 during the siege of Arcot in the Carnatic wars. Their mortal remains are buried in the Bara Shaheed Dargah, a mausoleum. It draws nearly 20 lakhs of pilgrims from various parts of India as well as abroad every year. People cutting across class, caste and creed congregate near Swarnala Lake near the dargah and break bread. as thanksgiving for past wishes fulfilled, while others receive them, hoping their own wishes would be granted

Rotte means bread in Telugu
Pelli: marriage
Soubhagya: prosperity
Udyoga: job
Santhanam: having children
Nuthana gruha: new House
Aro gya: health

Hand Me Down

Peter Sagnella

Posing in the field, ridge in the background,
we were a ridgeline ourselves. Oldest to youngest,

tallest to shortest, rising, peaking, receding
into earth. And the same might be said

of our clothes: the way we shared them, passed
them down the line. Wool, corduroy, denim—

we were hemmed and patched, stitched and seamed 
into each other’s lives. That this was a way

of life is what I, in the end, take away—
that the way we’re dressed is never ours, or ours

alone. And so, when the time comes, when
the end of my line comes, carry me to that ridge.

Unseam me, strip me down. Palmful by palmful,
dress me into earth. Let my ash reseed.

Stroke

Tim Snyder

My neighbor must have struck something
deep down, the order of letters
slosh ‘round the bottom of his hull—
motatoes…motatoes…pointing to my garden.

Like a word that splashes out of shadows
and swamps a sentence—wedding
but you meant funeral—there’s no shame
or pity. Yes, the tomatoes are ripe, I say.

Can I get you some?

Apostasy

Isabella Tennant

Autumn was the last time I saw her.
The leaves were orange and brown, littering the ground.
I heard the crunch, felt them collapse under my boots as I trampled across
friends and families and lifetimes and legacies, all by staying silent.
I tasted the bite of winter drifting across the lake and felt the chill in the air.

Her white face eclipsed even the moon that was stubbornly lingering in the sky.
The wooden porch was solid beneath my feet, the glass door translucent enough
for me to see God leave as life left her eyes.

Small hearts were embroidered on my blue sweater, colorful shapes made of thread.
They didn’t pound like my heart pounded as I ran for help, as I sought solace
in sharing the awful thing I’d seen.
They didn’t break like my heart broke as I thought of my best friend’s body or
my best friend as a body.

Suicide didn’t seem like an option to me after that, but a threat,
a monster that would take my life late at night if I wasn’t vigilant.
So, I watched and I waited.
I turned to a religion I’d lost and grown to loathe all because I used to love it.
Because I wanted to return to a time when I believed a god would intervene.
A time when I believed young girls didn’t die at their own hand.

For a long time, her house loomed like a cross on a hill, threatening to crush me
if I came too close.
The memory of the way she looked that morning stalked me like a predator,
waiting for the moment I let my guard down.
I had to turn over pictures I couldn’t face.
I had to throw out the sweater and the boots.

Autumn still makes me think of her.
I see her in the red sourwood leaves and the white pumpkins wet with dew.
I hear her in old albums, her essence etched into the grooves of each record.
I feel her when I write, when I conjure her from my memory,
the only kind of afterlife any of us get.

Impending

Zac Yonko

The word "impending"
sounds like a creak in the rafters,
a slow groan of timber just before collapse,
but here in rural Appalachia,
it means snow—maybe—
a white specter lingering
on the lips of the meteorologist
as he gestures wildly at a map
like an auctioneer hawking clouds.

We don’t trust him,
though we tune in anyway,
our heads tilted like dogs
hearing the rustle of a distant treat.
50% of the time,
he’s as wrong as the groundhog,
but still, we listen,
marking his words like a pastor’s sermon,
praying that this time,
he’s right—or wrong, depending.

At the grocery store, the bread aisle
becomes a battlefield,
mothers clutching the last loaf of rye
as if it were salvation,
old men peering into the chasm
of empty shelves, shaking their heads
at the absurdity of milk.
What will we do with it, anyway,
when the roads are clear tomorrow
and the snow turns out to be
a passing thought of the sky?

But "impending" carries a weight
that logic cannot lift.
It’s not the snow we fear,
but the possibility of stillness—
a silence stretching its arms
across the mountains,
the trees heavy-laden,
the world whitewashed and waiting.

And so we gather provisions,
not for survival, but for reassurance—
a loaf of bread, a gallon of milk,
as if they might anchor us
against the storm that might
or might not
come.

Creative nonfiction

Between Walls and Waves

Lisa Jean Moore

The classroom at Bedford Hills has its own pulse. Behind the institutional beige walls and beneath the ever-present hum of fluorescent lights, twenty women in dark green uniforms sit at desks arranged in a circle. Their notebooks are open, some decorated with careful drawings in the margins, others filled with dense notes. Outside, the November wind rattles the windows, carrying the last few leaves across the prison yard. Inside, the radiator clanks and hisses, creating a strange percussion to accompany our discussion of Critical Animal Studies.

My weathered copy of "Catch and Release" lies open on the desk. The margins are filled with my own scribbled notes about horseshoe crabs, those ancient creatures who've survived multiple mass extinctions only to find themselves classified as "vulnerable" in the age of humans. I'm watching my students' faces as they engage with the text, trying to quiet the voice in my head that won't stop questioning the audacity of asking incarcerated women to care about marine arthropods.

The footnote about Our Town sits there on page 143, a small bridge between worlds. It references Emily's famous monologue about the impossibility of being fully present while also understanding the profound interconnectedness of all moments, all beings. As I wrote it, I'd thought about my own time as Mrs. Webb's understudy at fifteen, thrust onto stage to deliver lines about breakfast coffee and birthday gifts—the sacred ordinary that Wilder wanted us to see.

The classroom feels charged today, like the air before a storm. These women know something about being present while distant, about seeing the ordinary and extraordinary simultaneously. Every day, they navigate the brutal immediacy of prison life while holding onto memories of children growing up without them, of streets they can't walk, of choices that led here.

Kiana's hand goes up, and something in her posture tells me she's been waiting, holding onto her words until they're perfectly formed. "You know," she begins, her voice carrying that mixture of strength and vulnerability I've come to know, "I really want to tell you something about this book." She pauses, and I notice several other students leaning forward slightly, recognizing the tone that signals a moment of revelation is coming.

"I played Emily," she says, and my breath catches. "Right here at Bedford. In Our Town." The coincidence feels electric. I see her then, not just as my student discussing critical theory, but as Emily Webb, asking if anyone truly understands the value of life while they're living it. "And this footnote about the play, about being present and aware at the same time—it's exactly what you're saying about the horseshoe crabs."

She leans forward, her eyes intense. "I really didn't want to have to care about these animals. I really didn't." A few women nod, understanding the resistance to adding one more thing to care about in a world that already demands so much. "But I see if I don't care about animals then I am just going to never really get it. The way we make these boxes to put living things into and then get to use them however we want. We take their blood and don't think about it."

The parallel hits like a physical force—the ways we categorize and exploit, the boxes we build, both concrete and conceptual. Tears start in my eyes before I can stop them. "Don't be starting that Lisa Jean," Kiana laughs, but her own eyes are wet.

"We don't care about them. And until we do, we can't really care about ourselves," she sighs, and in that moment, the classroom feels like its own universe. The fluorescent lights, the institutional beige, the guard walking past the door—it all fades against the power of this connection being forged across species, across walls, across time. From Grover's Corners to Bedford Hills, from the ancient horseshoe crabs to this circle of women, we are all caught in the same web of becoming and being.

I sit back on the desk, shaking my head at Kiana in wonder. She has done what I've been trying to do throughout my entire book—she has shown how the exploitation of one being enables the exploitation of all, how the boxes we build to contain others ultimately contain ourselves. She has taken Wilder's message about the profound beauty and tragedy of human connection and expanded it beyond our species, beyond our moment in time.

The radiator gives another clank, and someone shifts in their chair, breaking the spell. But something has changed in the room. We are all thinking about boxes now—the ones we live in, the ones we build, the ones we can break down if we try. And somewhere on a beach, horseshoe crabs are moving in their ancient patterns, their blue blood still flowing, their existence a testament to survival in a world that too often forgets to notice the extraordinary in the ordinary.

Walking in the Dark

Jeehan Quijano

1.

I first met W.G. Sebald at a thrift store on Lincoln Boulevard in Venice Beach in Los Angeles, California.  I had just moved to the area and went for a walk to explore the neighborhood.  From the store window outside, I saw a wall of bookshelf, and without any hesitation, I stepped inside. I thought Sebald sounded familiar though I couldn’t exactly place where I had read his name.  I grabbed his book and read the first few pages.   I don’t know why the image that formed in my mind was that of a man on a solitary walk contemplating life along the way, but this appealed to me for I myself had taken longs walks, literally and figuratively.  No further deliberation about buying the book took place after I had that image, so I purchased it and went on my way.  That year when I discovered Sebald, grief over my father’s death had dominated my life. Walking was the only physical activity I was able to consistently do. I discovered every nook and cranny of my new neighborhood in no time. A hidden bush of fiery red roses. Colorful murals and street art. My seven-year-old neighbor who gave me lemons from their tree. I was reminded of the redemptive power of salty air.  Every single step I took slowly led me to rediscover life’s small wonders. Walking seemed like some kind of therapy, a form of release, and it became an essential part of how I lived my life.

Sometimes when the anxiety sets in, I find myself in a dark place, like I’m trapped inside a small room with no light and no windows, and other times it feels like I’m sitting on the floor of a massive, abandoned warehouse on an isolated street where no one can see or hear me no matter how loud I scream. Ah, here it comes, I mumble to myself, and then I fade into a state of dread, panic and sadness.  I feel the world crumbling and I am falling apart with it. I cannot see or do much in this dark place except to be still in that void until somehow, magically and eventually, the darkness dissolves. But from a distance, I can also see myself in that room, as though I am watching a movie scene, and so I am both spectator and actress. The spectator tells the actress to try to stay calm because the moment will pass, and then commands her to stand up and find the door.  You can do it, the spectator adds in a chipper voice full of encouragement. But where’s the door and where am I going? It took me many years to find that door and how it was going to liberate me.

In 1903, the artist Gwen John (along with her friend, Dorelia McNeil) walked approximately 234 kilometers from Bordeaux to Tolouse. During that time, women walking on their own to travel was unconventional and ill-advised. Some would say foolish, bold, even dangerous. But it had seemed that Gwen and Dorelia’s walk was necessary and life-affirming because nothing stopped them from embarking on their journey. Before then, in Great Britain, she had been living under the shadow of her highly celebrated brother, the artist Augustus John. This walk demonstrated how she had decidedly forged a path that would give her freedom to live her life on her own terms, and indeed, her time in France was the making of her as an artist. She became a part of the artistic circles of Paris. In 1919, her works were exhibited at the Salon d’Automne, and in the following years, they were regularly shown in Paris salons. Two years ago, I saw one of her sketches (made during her time in France) exhibited at The Huntington in San Marino, CA. I couldn’t help but think of her epic walk, how she and Dorelia had brought whatever art materials they could carry to be able to sketch and sell portraits to make money along the way. I imagine they slept on the tall grass under the moonlight. I imagine that they had to ward off dishonorable and exploitative men. I imagine that their hands cupped the flowers as they smelled their scent. I imagine their mud-covered shoes as rain fell without let-up. I imagine them laughing and singing. I do not imagine them giving up. To walk is to be brave and leave behind a constricting and unsympathetic world. To walk is to say to yourself, ‘I honor my life and I shall live it fully.’

I am, among other things, a walker, uncommon in a city where driving is a necessary aspect of daily living.  I only drove for a few years when I first lived in Los Angeles, and I did not derive much pleasure from it.  I found it stressful having to deal with parking, freeways, traffic, road rage and other drivers.  After I parted ways with my second-hand Toyota Corolla, walking became a necessity. I had driven only once since then (a favor for a cousin). This baffled many.  Is it even possible to live here without a car, they asked.  Yes, and once you get used to it, it’s delightful, I replied.  By delightful I mean liberating. I can pause and witness bees buzz above lilacs or hear the clicking sound of hummingbirds. I can smell the scent of jasmines. I can change my mind and take a different street and not vex drivers for making a split-second turn. I can decide to rest on a bench and quietly watch people pass by. I have more freedom to wander, go and leave a place without considering rush-hour traffic. I grew up in Cebu City, an island located in the central part of the Philippines, where taking walks was not part of my everyday life. The first “long walk” I ever took occurred when I was fourteen in my father’s hometown in Medellin, a three-hour drive from the city. Every summer our family went there for the annual town fiesta, but I arrived a few days earlier than my folks to spend quality time with my cousin M and enjoy the nightly festivities leading up to the fiesta. These events took place in the town square and often ended close to or past midnight, and by then, public transportation was no longer available.  My cousin and I walked about one kilometer to get home, walking past sugarcane plantations on both sides of the road and not much else. At first I was scared walking past gigantic trees standing tall as if guarding the old dusty path that we were treading. I remembered folktales told to me as a child about tree-dwelling ogres and spirits that had a habit of snatching misbehaved and stubborn children. But those fears were allayed by moonlight illuminating the vast fields, and I had never seen such brilliant stars.  I had not encountered such peace. The fear I had initially felt shifted into awe and then delight. I didn’t know it then, but it marked the beginning of my appreciation for walking, how the memory of that evening was deeply embedded in my psyche, and that many years later, the delight of my experience that evening was something I would seek as an adult. I didn’t realize how it would save me. Save sounds rather dramatic, but it felt that way a lot of times.

I didn’t have a name for “it” then, but when I was young, it had always felt like I was entering some kind of darkness. I felt its imminent arrival. As far as I can remember, I was in fourth grade when it first happened to me. I was class president, and one of my responsibilities was to write a quarterly report about how our class had fared in areas like class attendance, tardiness, cleanliness, etc. That report was to be read in front of all the fourth graders, on stage in the school auditorium with the school principal in attendance. As I write this, I can still feel my cold sweaty hands and heart palpitations as I was backstage getting ready to be called to speak. The night prior, I remember lying on my bed imagining that I was walking on a path in the middle of the woods, and all I heard was the sound of birds and rustle of leaves. It seemed like I’d quieted my anxiety by forming the image of me taking that walk, and those images helped me fall asleep. There were also days when facing and interacting with anyone felt overwhelming, and I was beset with dread and panic so there were many times I’d wished I were ill so I’d have an excuse not to attend school. My anxiety worsened at the thought that there was something wrong with me and I didn’t know what to do about it and how to make it go away. When I was growing up in the Philippines, mental health was never brought up in the household or in schools, or anywhere for that matter. I attribute this mainly to our culture, combined with our lack of access to basic healthcare. Resilience is high on our list of esteemed Filipino qualities, and indeed it is a valuable trait to possess especially when faced with adversities. Yet it also dissuades one from asking for help because there is the assumption or expectation that you are more than capable of handling life’s difficulties. There is a feeling of trepidation and embarrassment to open up about your mental and emotional struggles for fear of being judged or misunderstood, of being perceived as weak or melodramatic. When the struggles become too onerous to face on your own, you end up overwhelmed, alone, and suffer quietly. When I became an adult, the ‘darkness’ didn’t abate, it became steady and intensified on days when I was struck with inexplicable sadness.

Before our ancestors learned to do anything, they first had to learn how to walk. Walking has always been central to our human development. Some of the greatest thinkers and artists in history were devoted walkers, and they walked for various reasons. For Charles Dickens, “My walking is of two kinds: one, straight on end to a definite goal at a round pace; one, objectless, loitering, and purely vagabond.” It has been said that Erik Satie’s musical beat was influenced by his daily walks on the same landscape. I read that Patti Smith roams the streets for hours to prepare herself for a show. Cheryl Strayed hiked the Pacific Crest Trail during a low point in her life after her mother had died. Simone de Beauvoir in her early 20s started taking walks after she’d arrived in Marseilles where she took up a teaching post. She covered about forty kilometers per day, and these walks provided her bliss and pleasure and a welcoming distraction from anxieties and distresses. Modern research shows that regular walking may help improve one’s mood. To walk is to engage with life and seize the moments of profound discoveries about yourself and the world around you. To walk is to witness your strength and sublime unfolding.

The year 2020 was difficult for everyone on a personal and universal level. Fear and distress were secondary to the grief that I chiefly felt. That year, my mother died, my partner’s father died, my friend G died, one of my best friend’s father died. I was far from everyone I love, and I felt very lonely. That year and the year after, I took plenty of walks. The alternative was to stay home and go mad. No, I needed to clear my head. I needed to hear birdsongs. I was astonished to find the streets devoid of cars particularly Wilshire Blvd., notorious for its noise and traffic. I touched the flowers on the sidewalk, desperate to hold something beautiful and alive in my hands. I came across a bookshop that led me to open the pages of May Sarton’s Journal of a Solitude (a book that over the years I kept revising for comfort and inspiration).  I was struck with these lines: “. . . how complex and demanding every deep human relationship is, how much real pain, anger, and despair are concealed by most people. And this is because many feel that their own suffering is unique. It is comforting to know we are all in the same boat.” It was my first time to walk all the way to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, about four miles.  There I sat alone on one of the outdoor benches, and sometimes I sat with my grief. I remember the day I was meticulously inspecting the Urban Light installation, then I walked to the nearby park crying all sorts of tears, tears of loneliness, of fear, of wanting to find hope amidst all the despair, of how my relationship with my mother had become strained towards the end of her years and there was no more time and chance to repair it. I imagined her as a little girl standing barefoot on the green grass in San Remigio where she had first learned to walk, innocent and beautiful, her thick black hair blowing in the wild wind, in a time when the world was kind to her. I imagined both of us sitting on the beach having a conversation, thoughtful and loving words exchanged. The last thing she said to me before she disappeared from my mind was ‘It’s all going to be okay, I promise.’ It was a relief to just feel the range of my emotions surrounded by lush trees luminous under the magnificent sky, birds singing their songs of peace. Walking back home, I felt light and strangely uplifted. The inner tumult that I had previously felt dissolved into a state of calm. I no longer lived in my angst-ridden head.  Somehow the world seemed so open and forgiving and divine. The more I walked, the braver I felt.  I learned more deeply that life is fragile and sacred, that I must be kinder to myself and others. Around this time, I started writing again.

2.

How to live in the dark: Let the darkness come. Bellow or cry or be still. Then remember the words that gladden your heart. “Welcome home.” “We are all made of stars.” “I love you.” Think of beautiful things. Think of Grandma Gatewood solo-hiking the Appalachian Trail. And the paths that your eight great grandparents had walked in the land of your birth. That April evening of your childhood where you had first known peace. And that early summer you hiked the Escondido Trail to see the waterfalls. You are truly made of stardust. Take a deep breath. Wiggle your toes. Close your eyes and imagine the outside world. The welcoming sky. The majestic oak trees. The lavender bush lining up the sidewalk of Alexandria Street. Light falling on the stained-glass windows of St. Basil Church. Imagine what other enchantments you might find. The pages of a book that could save your life. The curious gaze of an innocent child. Mozart’s concerto wafting through a quiet alley. Go to that world that time and again fills your heart with elation. Find the door that will take you there. Then take that first step, and the next, and the next. Keep walking and do not turn back. 

What I Think About While Not Working at the Office

Eugénie Szwalek

I’ve been thinking a lot about the kid in the Omelas hole. I’ve been thinking a lot about working, and making money, and guilt, and how to make noodles from scratch, how to solder copper plumbing, and what my parents’ neighbourhood looks like from the peak of their roof. What my neighbourhood looks like from my twentieth-floor balcony. How it’s actually a nineteenth-floor balcony, the building old enough to be missing its thirteenth floor. I’ve been thinking a lot about the peculiarity of humans. A peculiarity that drives them to alter their architecture in the face of superstition.

I’ve been thinking a lot about where I buy my groceries. About how many things you can make with bananas. About instant matcha packets I drink in the afternoons at the office because a coworker once offered me a spare from her desk. I’ve been thinking a lot about small kindnesses, how they can alter the way we move through the world. How I found and bought those same instant matcha packets and continue to bring them to the office, though the office is different now. I’ve been thinking about all the things that have altered my architecture.

I’ve been thinking a lot about tattoos. How scared so many people still are of them. Not of the pain that comes from the needle and the ink and the healing, but the possible pain that comes from wearing the things you love on your skin, for everyone to see, always, including yourself. The possible pain of changing your mind one day. I’ve been thinking a lot about possible pain versus present pain. Whether it’s better to brace or endure.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the bus. How it moves through the city in a fixed pattern. How many people rely upon it, feel relief or annoyance or acceptance or nothing at all as it pulls up. I’ve been thinking a lot about how many people move through spaces that move people that move through places that move people. How many needs are met and lost. About how to love them all, the people around me, the strangers the neighbours the passersbys, my fellow bus companions, without being naïve enough to think I am indestructible. About how to balance self-preservation with benefit of the doubt. About the deeper implications of “benefit of the doubt.” About who benefits from my doubt.  

I’ve been thinking a lot about love, about the loneliness that is sometimes inherent in loving peopleplacesthings but never really knowing if they love you back the same. I’ve been thinking a lot about how I’m okay with this. About how the ways in which I am loved back don’t always impact the intensity or shape of my care in the day-to-day. How I want to be water in their lives, steady and present, like waves washing across pebbles on a beach. But I’ve also been thinking a lot about the pit. The one I sometimes stand at the edge of when I’m convinced no one will ever try to love me any differently than I am loved now. The storm it holds, always raging, always ready for me to fall into and out of like a pendulum through an angry ocean.

I’ve been thinking a lot about how I haven’t been thinking a lot about the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. About how the intensity and urgency with which they capture my fascination bursts suddenly to the forefront of my mind every couple years, all-consuming, only to sink back into the soup of my subconscious to simmer with all the other things I love to love. About how though something may not be at the sharp tip of every thought, it doesn’t mean the love I have for it has dulled or died.

I’ve been thinking a lot about Canada’s deep geological repository. About the inefficiency of the corporate machine. About how, despite this, it has, and will continue to, mold the world for centuries. I’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to be working on the small words, the emails, the keychain orders, the little managerial tasks that alone seem useless and trivial but that add up and add up and add up and add up and what they add up to.

I’ve been thinking a lot about time.

I’ve been thinking a lot about grapes. About bread. About meatballs bought frozen in a box and meatballs shaped by hand. About cost, but not money cost. The cost of forgoing assembling our lives by hand for the sake of convenience. I’ve been thinking a lot about who gets forced to bear that cost, who has the choice to buy fresh produce and the time to sit by the stove watching them become something to sustain them to make that choice again tomorrow.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the impermanent nature of relationships. About how we are all of us ourselves buses on a fixed route, moving through cities as people move through us and we move through people and cities. About the architecture of moving and being moved. About the consequences of valuing passengers solely by the length of time they spend on the bus.

I’ve been thinking a lot about galaxy Oreos, about their unnatural pink and blue icing and the delayed crackle of poprocks in the back of my throat. About the reason they were bought in the first place: to be eaten and experience for the first time with friends. About how silly and frivolous they are. About how they are the only important thing in the world.

I’ve been thinking a lot about responsibility and art. About the power of language. Not only out in the world, but within my own brain. That if the world around me has the ability to mold me with words alone, and I am part of the world, then I too possess that aweful power.

I’ve been thinking a lot about what it means that I am writing this at the office, on a computer that was given to me, on time that I am being paid to do something else entirely. I’m thinking about how I don’t feel as guilty about this as you want me to. I am thinking about your anger, and who you’ll choose to direct it at, and why. And why. And why.

I’ve been thinking a lot about how I don’t want to exist in this world, but how I do very much want to exist. I’ve been thinking about what my life could be if I continued to value my responsibility to art over my responsibility to capital. I’ve been thinking about how I am still too much a coward to imagine a life for myself beyond capitalism. I’ve been thinking of ways to become a person who isn’t.

I’ve been thinking a lot about you. Who you are. Why you’re reading this. If you’ll carry any of these words away with you. If they’ll alter your architecture. If it matters. Why it’s the only thing that matters. The tiny ways we weave together, the pulls and the patterns. How to exist is to shift the very fabric of reality.

I’ve been thinking a lot about those who walked away from Omelas. About where they walked to. About where I would walk to, if I walked away. About if I could walk away without actually leaving. About the things I can let go of, should let go of, and the things I’d rather die with wrapped like ocean debris around my heart. About what I would let drown me. About how maybe we’re all drowning, but if I’m bound to go under in the end, I’m damn well going to make sure the things that do me in were worth bearing at all.

Fiction

When Did the Leaves Begin to Grow?

James Marley

I have come to realise that I cannot remember how long I have been here. I remember a time when I was not, but I do not remember exactly the events that lead me to this place or precisely how long ago they happened. It’s been several years, at least.

Now the days drag and I can scarcely tell day from night. That is, until I come out here onto the balcony. Nothing gives me more peace now than coming here and seeing how the sun shines off the plain white surfaces of the two towers. However many times I see it, it is always beautiful.

The two sister buildings are positioned just far enough apart that there is always a time in the day when the sun can hit the balcony.

The building opposite is a mirror image of the one I am in now. It is a tall, rectangular tower with the only visible feature from the one side I can see being the balcony opposite ours. The balcony, too, is geometrically simple; a square-shaped indent in the side of the building. There are no objects or furnishings on the balcony, nor any sort of barrier to keep a person from falling off.

Far down below on the ground, there is naught but grass, and to the left and right, the grass extends up hills and nothing can be seen behind them.

My days consist of spending long periods of time inside, and when I get sick of that, sitting out here and watching the sky, until I get sick of that too and go back inside.

Ofttimes this monotony begins to weigh on me and I begin to hate this place. That is until a storm comes, and I become grateful for these sturdy walls.

Perhaps I ought to thank this place that protects me so well.

As I sit out on the balcony and watch the clouds, I notice that they have become long and wispy. This would be the first sign that a storm is coming.

The most potent emotion I ever feel these days is my fear at the idea of being left out here with the shutter closed tight in the middle of a storm. It is a mortal terror. Absolutely hopeless. A situation I can never allow happen.

Promptly, I leave my perch and come inside, closing the shutter behind me. No one asks any questions. Everyone knows what this means.

This is the only room I know that anyone lives in, and I have hardly seen anyone leave it, except to go out on the balcony.

It is a massive room; the size of a large field. The walls and roof and floor are all the same blank white as outside, and there are soft yellow lights in the ceiling which never turn off. Much like the balcony, it is empty, apart from the five hundred or so people.

We never talk to each other anymore, but the room has such a great echo that any slight movement is amplified, so it is never silent. There is always sound.

I sit down at the wall and listen to the wind pick up outside as the storm begins.

It sounds furious. Remorseless. It sounds like it could tear a person limb from limb. It seems to call out for me. It seems to be searching for me. The storm wants to kill me. I may not leave these walls.

They’ve gotten worse. Before I came to this place, they were less frequent and far more manageable. I remember being able to go out into the storms. I used to love doing that. At that time, they were really only periods of heavy wind and rain.

I remember we would walk out in shorts and t-shirts and let ourselves freeze and get soaked. Under the sound of the wind she would laugh and so I would laugh. And she would say something but I didn’t hear her so I would shout “what?” and she would laugh again. When we got inside again we would dry off and change and warm ourselves up again. She would shiver under her blanket so I would give her hot tea. I wonder if she remembers my name, even now.

By right I should cry now. But that time and that person are so distant now that what happened in the past no longer seems real. That is how much this place has taken from me. I feel nothing anymore. There is nothing here to be felt.

The noise of the storm outside is overwhelming me now. I’m too close to the shutter. I stand up. I’ve got to get away from it. I walk to the far end of the room, but I can still hear the storm.

I can’t be here anymore. There have to be better places than this one damn room. I just want to be away from the storm.

There is another passage leading out of this room, at the opposite side to the shutter. It leads further into the building. It is unlit and so swallowed by darkness, but I think I’ll go down there. There is nowhere else to go.

I will not be the first to walk down here, but those who have gone before haven’t ever come back. Perhaps they have found a haven far from the storms and from the dense oppression of these all-white rooms.

At a certain point down this hall I walk, I begin to lose all sense of the light and am engulfed by darkness.

A way down this hall I come to see an electric light ahead of me on the wall. It illuminates a sign, which reads “Storms’ End” with an arrow pointing further down the corridor.

Not long after, I come to another visually uninteresting room. As I walk across it, I suddenly feel myself being pulled up by some unseen force. I immediately think something had grabbed me, and I wriggle to free myself. But when I hit the roof on my back, I notice that I hadn’t been pulled, but rather I had fallen, and I was now standing on the roof, and what was up is now down and what was down is now up.

This is odd, but I don’t want to dwell on the oddities of this place. There is a doorway leading forward, and it I will follow.

Coincidentally, the doorway is also labelled “Storms’ End”.

The next room I come to is unnaturally brightly lit and it hurts my eyes at first. The floor and the bottom half of the wall are painted a luminous green and the top half of the walls and the ceiling are painted sky blue. There is an audio recording of a person walking through a forest playing and looping over some kind of speaker.

Something about this room makes me feel sick, and I can still hear the storm outside, so I quickly leave and continue on my way.

In the following room I find more paintings, three ovals of different sizes standing lengthwise, each with a circle on top. There are three recordings that play with intermittent pauses between them, which each feature a different person saying the world “Hello”. Once a woman, then a man, then a girl. There is also a marked X on the floor before them.

I cannot stand this room either and I wonder how many of these I’ll have to go through before I reach this “Storms’ End”.

I go through a great number of these rooms in my passage, each one uniquely strange and eerie.

There was one room with nothing but a book on the floor titled “Yamashita”. The book appeared at first to be the biography of a general in the Second World War, but on further inspection I noticed that the first page simply repeats itself for the entire 900-page length of the book.

In another there is just a hammer and an anvil. In another a sickle and a clump of grass.

Many of them portrayed pale imitations of everyday activities. Some of them portrayed complete fantasies.

Above all, the storm still rages outside. I can’t get my mind off it.

All of the corridors between every room have a sign pointing to “Storms’ End”. And yet, it feels as though I was getting no closer. There seems to always be another room in my way.

I can’t remember the last time I ate.

I haven’t eaten recently. In fact, now that I think about it, there is nothing for me to eat here anyway. I mustn’t have eaten at all since I first came here. How have I gotten by without eating? How am I still alive?

A massive pain erupts in my stomach. It shocks my head and makes me fell dizzy and nauseous. I have only now realised how hungry I am.

I have to ignore the hunger. There is no food to be found here. I just need to escape the storm.

It takes me a while to push through the pain and continue on.

It seems now that I am coming to the end.

The corridor has split off in two directions and each side is lined with innumerable doorways each leading to their own room.

There is only one, however, with the sign reading “Storms’ End”.

I’m hobbling now as I go down the final corridor. I don’t know how long I’ve been walking and the pain in my abdomen has only gotten sharper. I cannot wait for the sound of the storm to be over. At this point, I would be happy to die here, so long as I could not hear the storm.

I come into the final room.

This is the smallest room of all of them, only a few metres wide and long. By the entrance, there is another sign pointing inward saying “Storms’ End”. Under the sign, I see the first of the bodies.

On the far wall there is another sign saying “Storms’ End”. This one is pointing right. There are two bodies under it.

On the wall to the right, another sign, pointing right.

On the wall closest to me, there is another sign, pointing right.

The signs point in a circle around the room.

I fall against the wall and slide down to the floor. This has taken the last of my strength. I cannot pick myself up. I feel nothing.

I think I always knew there was no end to the storms. I never worried about them before I came here.

When I heard that there was a place that could provide complete protection against them, I was curious. The first time I came here was just before a storm, and after it had past, I left again.

But I eventually started coming more frequently. Not just before a storm, but at the very first sign.  After that I would become paranoid and come even without any sign of a storm but just because I was feeling anxious. The storms were getting worse. At some point I decided to stay here permanently.

There was a point when I ascended the tower for the last time. And I had no hesitation in doing it.

Now the sounds of the raging storm are all my mind can focus on. There is wind, and rain, and the occasional rumble of thunder.

I think I remembered it wrong. It wasn’t the two of us who would go out into the storm together, I would go out alone. She would disapprove of this and urge me to come back inside. And I wouldn’t listen and she would come out and pull at my arm. She felt the cold a lot more than I did and so when we got back in it was her that would shiver even though I was out longer. I wish I hadn’t done that to her.

When I come back into the present I notice that I am crying. The pain in my stomach has gone, my heart is aching, and I am crying.

I never used to fear the storms. I used to go out into them, make others come and get me. I never used to hide from them.

The storm is still raging. I get to my feet. I walk back out the way I came.

I notice that as I come back into the hall of endless doorways that the sign is no longer above the one I came in, and a different passage now reads “Storms’ End”. But I haven’t an interest anymore.

I track back through all the bizarre rooms I had seen before, and I pay them no further notice. I come back to the room where up becomes down, and I expect the switch this time.

When I arrive at the hall before the balcony, there is no longer anyone there. My footsteps echo as I cross.

I open the shutter.

The wind blows me to the ground, and the raindrops are like needles, but I get back up.

I struggle my way to the end of the balcony.

Looking down to the grass below, I consider the danger of descending. But I cannot trap myself here forever.

I put one foot over the edge, and I let myself fall forward.

The tower bears me on my axis, and my foot lands safely on the wall below the balcony. I descend the wall, crouching low and shielding my face. I find that I’m surprised at how quickly I reached the bottom.

As my feet touch the grass, I think about what to do next. I suppose if I’m going to die in this storm, it doesn’t really matter

As I walk around the other side of the opposite tower, a tree sitting on a hill in the distance comes into view. Something about it attracts me, and I begin to approach.

As I climb this hill, I notice that I no longer feel the rain stabbing into me, nor the wind jostling me about.

I look up at the tree I see it juxtaposed against a clear blue sky. I feel the sun’s warmth on my skin. I don’t know where the storm went. The tree is in full leaf. When I left to come here the trees were bare. When did the leaves begin to grow?

Celebrity Source

Christopher S. Bell

There’s a lot more dust in the air since last time. You’re unsure of its source considering a lack of lobby foot traffic. It used to swell like a madhouse, voices and limbs fidgeting past monitors, thirsty for dirt. You’d watch them get agitated or excited, basking in a singular assumption. If these people didn’t want so much attention, they wouldn’t be famous.

“So who are you here about again?” The receptionist is too young to care; a rose hidden by bleached blonde dreads, typing with one hand and swiping with the other.

“Don’t you read the profiles?” you ask.

“No point,” she jaws. “Nothing in there they really want me to see anyway.”

“That a fact?”

“Huh?”

You struggle to pull a clunky model out of your pocket and ask for the Wi-Fi password. She obliges, but it doesn’t work, so you change an eight to a B and type it in again. All the while, she doesn’t look up, scrolling and clicking, making you earn this moment.

“How’s this grab ya?” you plant your cracked screen in front of her pupils.

“Yeah, he was in that rocket movie, right?” she coughs. “Big whoop.”

“Big enough whoop to be here,” you reply.

“Here isn’t anywhere particularly worth being,” she finally looks up. “You can sit until they’re ready for you.”

“Any idea how long?”

You already know the answer. It’s a game from this point, and they’re positive they’ll break you. It’s getting harder out there; not as many trustworthy sleazebags to dilute the full truth. There used to be snacks on the glass table and highbrow magazines as if to say to the competition: “Hey, we dig what you do, even though you’ve never been all that fond of us.” It was once a pastime for quiet gentlemen, but then “middleman” became a dirty word.

You’re too high to give a shit anymore; the morning mimosas barely washing down that chalky aftertaste. You need to find a better guy but can’t remember how you found this last one, or did he come to you? That’s usually how these things happen, right? One party knows who to contact to make a transaction mutually beneficial. You don’t need to feel dirty or passively ill. Just sit calmly with a full battery and battle through the rounds, earning stars and bonuses.

62% when they finally send for you. The new girl looks like a mango daiquiri, orange moon hoops bouncing with loose thread. You scan the desks, past glazed lenses and mandatory lip rings, erratic fingertips flowing to oblivion. One of them will eventually ruin you, but only after connecting the dots. Just walking past makes you nostalgic for the early days, back before you realized people will continue to suck the marrow.

And here we have the worst of them. “Phil, so sorry about the wait out there. It’s been crazy today. Please, come in. Sit down. Can Elsie get you anything?”

She leans, nearly disgusted, as you let go of his dry hand. “I’m good, thanks.”

Damon Branson hasn’t shaved in at least three days. It used to be an electric razor in-between calls, fine-tuning his morning stubble, but it’s everywhere now. A casual cloud of naïveté; gossip-loggers spread like pox and finally Elsie’s reluctant grin as she gently shuts his office door. “So let’s cut past the bullshit since you and I have been here before.”

“Yeah, but it’s been long enough for to me to almost forget what a complete piece of garbage you are,” you glance around the room. “Gotta say, Damon, I love what you’ve done with the space. Ya know, a lot of the other offices I’ve been to this morning at least tried to look presentable. A plaque here, an award there.”

“You haven’t been anywhere today, Phil,” he calls your bluff with ease. “I’m the only one who still picks up.”

“Obviously that’s not true.”

“What do ya got for me? Everyone knows there’s trouble in paradise, so unless you’ve got the goods, I might just say good day.”

You’ve almost missed this crosstalk, even if Damon’s the worst at it. The good ones are all dead now, no doubt smirking as the bugs chew them apart. They never thought much of you but were quick to kiss your ass before an opening weekend. Anything to feed the machine: fresh or slightly spoiled.

Damon’s always been clear how little he cares but still can’t refrain from spasm at your first offer. Outrageous! No one cares that much and even if a few do, their sharing won’t make the news any less practical. You laugh at his counter before the room melts. He can’t admit how much he needs you making his life difficult; how these tiny jolts used to feed him, but now they’re all fickle and cheap. Nothing’s earned. The words write themselves but can be read numerous ways regardless of how many facts are strained past the point of recognition.

You settle, but don’t feel much when he salivates at the photograph. Your recollection’s foggy, while Damon merely nods with each bullet point, scribbling the check and reminding you to wait twenty-four hours before cashing it. Elsie’s half asleep at her desk next to his office, glancing over just long enough for you to make the mistake of speaking. “Well this just may be goodbye forever.”

“Whatever, dude. I don’t want you to buy me dinner or any of that shit.”

“Can I ask why you’re here? I mean, I know why I am, but you don’t look like the type to stay on a sinking ship.”

“Hmm…” Elsie nods. “You should heed your own advice.”

“Oh believe me, I do. Every day.”

On the elevator, you make sure the check’s still in your wallet. It’s either a nervous tick or general memory loss. Your bones ache at different intervals; that old subway stench clogging up passages before you cough and spit in a classier part of town. Here where the lights stay on and the doorman almost knows your name, where some camgirl steps out into the world for the first time all day and then quickly back in after her miniature mutt pisses in the middle.

You try not to stare as she takes a selfie then deletes it, ample cleavage for an otherwise cold day. Her leashed companion doesn’t pay you a second sniff but turns back just as the doors close as if to ask why you’re here. It’s a look you’ve been getting all day, but you never thought it would cross species.

“Weren’t you supposed to bring back something?” Sami still hasn’t showered, but the room is starting to blend.

“Was I?”

“Food or booze?”

“I don’t think I have the strength for either.” You step past and consider the best place to sit. “When did the other vultures leave?”

“It was just Kyla. She had something with her kid. I don’t know. The husband couldn’t handle it.” Sami immediately looks down at his phone.

You sit in the Neapolitan armchair. “Was she the only other one here when I left?” you ask.

“I don’t know. I was on the phone with Harland.”

“How’d that go?”

“He’s not backing off this Legacy jargon.”

“Did you read that one?”

“I thought you did,” Sami glares a moment. “Said something like I’m above this franchise shit.”

“Is there a guarantee of a franchise on that?”

“Kids love the books, but fuck if I know. Does anyone actually read anymore? Either way, I don’t think I’m ready to play a villain after everything.”

“It may be good, though, just to let it all out in front of the camera,” you suggest.

“Think that’s gonna translate, Phil?” he snaps. “How my insides are all but shredded after Joye left me for Margie Lowenstahl? How’s that gonna go over with them rural Christians do ya think?” The southern accent could use some work.

“They probably don’t even know who Margie Lowenstahl is,” you suggest.

“But they’ll Google her and tweet about how they don’t understand her art, and how I was so good in Shipwreck 2”.

“You were the hero.”

“But it doesn’t make sense for me to be anymore, right?” Sami leans against the wall and glances at his screen. “At least not with anyone who was hoping this would work out.”

“And who are those people?”

“Not you, right?” Sami says. “You’ve never been in my corner.”

“I’m in your corner right now,” you smile, raising your hands to let fingers graze both walls.

“Yeah, but you really shouldn’t be. I’m fine, and I think I want to be alone for the first time in a long while.”

“Oh yeah, how long? Hours? Days? There’s a machine that starts to malfunction if you don’t oil it properly.”

“I’m gonna take care of everybody for a little while so I can have some peace, and then I’ll come back, and they’ll all be at a loss.”

“What are you thinking, some indie bullshit?”

“Award show cocaine.”

“You’ll probably have to throw in a good chunk of change if you want it to be good.”

“You mean if I want control. I don’t think I do.”

“With this hypothetical movie that doesn’t exist, but it’s gonna bring you back from the brink of wherever you think this is gonna leave ya?” Your pulse rises to match a voice he hasn’t heard in some time.

Sami doesn’t flinch. “I’ve already thought about how a lot of people love her more than me, and that this is going to make me look bad, and that being away from everything will only make them favor her for whatever she’s doing because I know it’s going to be incredible.”

“Yeah, maybe. I don’t know. She was really terrible in that penguin movie.”

“Jesus Christ, Phil! Are you not getting any of this?”

“What’s that?”

“I don’t give a shit what the demographics think or what this means for my career or hers, or how we supposedly bounce back. I’m not as chewed up as I thought I’d be when this first happened, but maybe if I’m away from it for a while and really watch how all of these bastards turn against me for no reason other than not being in their lives… Maybe then I’ll feel something again… something close to human emotion, and then turn it into something real, but right now, I don’t have it, and it has less to do with Joye and I, and more to do with me being me right now.”

You can’t remember if you’ve read something similar, maybe right before the climax, but Sami could never memorize such an elaborate speech. “Okay, but what if it doesn’t come back after everyone turns on you?”

“Then I’ll do something else.”

“Do you just want me to leave so you can go see her?”

“What?” His reaction is a surefire tell; eyes wide, head half-shaking, just like when you were kids. “I’ve been explaining things I have no control over all day to people who depend on me for pretty much one thing. I don’t think it’s too much to ask to be alone.”

“You know if you go to her and shit gets fucked up, it’s going to be really bad.” It all plays out in that deliberately dramatic fashion you’ve learned to accept in this life. Reality-based spectacle as two people shout then laugh and cry, holding each other before letting go. Or maybe it really is a competition; a way to get above and save face with all those fatheads rebooting and fabricating until the re-run looks brand new.

“We’re not violent people by nature,” Sami says as his phone rings. “It’s Dad.”

“You think he heard something?”

“I don’t know how, considering I haven’t talked to him in a week.”

“You going to answer?”

“If I don’t, he’ll call you, right? Has he called you already?”

“Last time Dad called me, I was watching porn on my phone; it was the worst.”

 “What?” your brother smiles “When was this?”

“A couple days back.”

“Before all of my bullshit, huh?”

“I believe so.” You hear Sami’s voicemail in your head as the buzzing stops.

“Did you finish or answer?”

“I’m taking the fifth.” Standing, you consider the distance from there to home.

“Yeah, I don’t think I need much evidence on this one.”

“Guilty of perversions so profound and disgusting that decorum prohibits listing them here.” Your Neidermeyer is still spot on.

“So where are you going?”

“I’m leaving you to it, Samuel. Call Dad back, watch some TV, jerk-off, go see your soon-to-be ex-wife. Whatever it is, it isn’t my place to interfere. Now when you want some company again, feel free to give me a call, and I’ll swing on by to see how much worse the smell’s gotten.”

“I’m gonna get my shit together just as soon as you hit the sidewalk.”

Sami’s a bit unbalanced, leaning against the same wall as you step past. “Well, I certainly hope so.”

“So how much did they give you this time?”

“I thought we weren’t going to talk about that anymore.”

“Yeah, but what if this is the last time?” Sami believes it could be, and you’re not sure how to process his dysfunction.

“As long as people care, they’ll be a place for us in this world.”

“Eventually no one will, though,” he claims. “We’ll be lucky to get a day on the ticker with this one. Actors are always getting married and divorced.”

“You sure you don’t want me to hang for a bit? Maybe distract you from your head.”

“Once you leave, I’ll stop talking about all of this and just let it wash over me.”

“Okay.” You’re somehow nervous stepping out, a chill in your chest as Sami holds the door.

“So can you at least give me a ballpark on this one? I mean, didn’t I earn it by fucking all of this up?”

“It’s gonna cover Mickey’s tuition next semester, and that’s about it, I think.”

“Okay, good enough,” Sami nods. “How’s he doing?”

“I don’t know. He barely talks to me.”

“I should maybe give him a call. It’s been a while.”

“Yeah, he’ll probably tell you some shit he won’t tell me.”

“Or some shit he wants you to know about that he won’t tell you,” your brother smirks.

“But everyone will know about it eventually, right?”

“Only in this family.”

“So I’ll see ya tomorrow?”

“I’ll be here all week.” Sami closes the door as you consider your path.

Down the elevator, pop a Xanny then subway or maybe a cab. Uber will take too long, and you’ve still got some running around to do. More appointments with men wondering how to stomach whatever direction everyone’s leaning. If you all do it in unison, maybe the bus will flip over, or the sphere will go flat, and the rush will slow as people stop, look around and wonder: where did it all go right?       

Like a Dog

Alexandra Persad

The homes they entered were filled with a silence so sterile Lena’s stomach lurched. It required significant intention to ignore along with the staticky buzz of white noise in her ears, coldness spreading across her chest like a rash in the darkened space.

Around them, furniture lined the room’s perimeter in ambiguous, oblong shapes. Lena’s eyes had not yet adjusted, everything seemingly one-dimensional. There was a slickness to her hands when she turned the deadbolt, nearly losing her grip.

“Hold on.” Dimitri was ahead of her, leaving her behind as he often did, his footsteps already muted from the immediate removal of his shoes. Lena did the same, following his shadow, large and stuttering as he scrambled to uncover the elusive mechanism operating the blinds. Sometimes it was a button hidden behind the thick covering of a drape or a remote tucked neatly in a basket on a bookshelf or a simple chain corded along the pane of a window.

Locating it had become automatic, like muscle memory, the first item on an unofficial checklist learned through practice. No different from the paced braking of a bike or dodgy scrawl of amateur cursive letters. An action that Lena now categorized as common sense in the private scrabble of her thoughts, although she couldn’t string anything coherent together before the windows were sealed, no outside eyes to notice they were where they were not meant to be.

After the slats were downturned, they drew the curtains as an additional precaution, flicking only the dimmest lighting on. Spindly lamps hovering above arm chairs, unglobed bulbs illuminating oven tops, strips tucked flushly beneath the undersides of breakfast bars.

“That was easy.” Dimitri looked satisfied in the mild darkness, a sheen of sweat over the plumpness of his face. He was sunken into the couch, at home already, his arm draped across one of the many throw pillows sprinkled across it. Even in the dim lighting, all the fixtures were golden and spotless, ready to reflect riches.

This particular house had been on the market for months, troves of people touring with an interest in studying the innards worth millions, unable to afford anything even close to the price. Lena guessed it was the details they wanted to see, the moldings along the wall, the shiny backsplash encircling the basined tub, the refrigerator disguised as cabinetry.

Dimitri flicked on the TV, playing it at a low volume with the subtitles flashing along the bottom of the screen.

“Hey, it’s actually hooked up,” he said. Overly saturated frames of a game show appeared, everyone in an obscure costume, spinning colorful wheels and accepting compact silvery boxes labeled with question marks.

“Oh my god, look at that guy,” Dimitri sat up slightly, pointing to the screen with the remote. “He’s dressed up like a steak. I didn’t even know they made shit like that.”

Lena glanced in the general direction of the TV, studying the wall behind it. Framed faces of nondescript families posing in naturescapes, exuding a general aura of happiness.

The entire house had been staged with startling precision. Even the books packed tightly on the shelves were real. A compact row of Shakespeare, a leathered line of Lord of the Rings. Along the sill, Lena had pressed her fingertips into the potted plant’s soil, surprised, when they sunk in, moist and damp.

“This place feels like a real home, doesn’t it?”
“Huh?” Dimitri tore his eyes from the screen, now displaying a commercial for an antidepressant, couples holding hands and smiling gently at one another.

“There’s even food in the fridge.” She recalled the stalks of celery and kale tucked in the vegetable crisper, the chilled bottles of wine lining the door.

“There’s food?” Dimitri perked up.

Lena opened her mouth then shut it, melting into the background as he strode past her with intention in his gait.

“Oh, shit, there is food in here.” His body was half hidden by the refrigerator door, the sigh of the cold air as he rummaged inside. “Did you want anything?”

He looked at her fleetingly before swinging his gaze back to the shelves.

“No. No, that’s okay.”

He pawed through the rest of the kitchen, producing a bag of chips and a wine cork. He drank directly from the bottle, bringing it back to the same spot on the couch, still imprinted with his body weight. He refocused on the screen, the man in the steak costume jumping up and down excitedly.

Dimitri’s comfort was unmatched, reaching into his chip bag with poised consistency, laughing in spurts at the TV, while Lena watched him modestly from the room’s center.

It was a glass box with a lock that housed the keys. Dimitri’s mother was the one who showed Lena where they were, hung up on the wall in the real estate office. Lena averted her gaze when she entered the code, despite that she didn’t pose any threat. Her day was strung together by simple tasks—reformatting brochures and brightening photographs of empty homes. She made an effort to look more important than she was, dressing her teenage frame in drag as an adult. Pencil skirts with slight wrinkles, blouses that came untucked when she moved her arms too freely, a mist of body spray smeared on both wrists as if it was perfume.

The idea to visit one of the homes had seemed unserious at first, something Lena giggled girlishly at when Dimitri mentioned it, misinterpreting the frenzied excitement on his face as part of the joke. Then, stopped promptly when he didn’t return her laughter.

“I mean think about it,” he sat his phone face down beside him, a foreign stillness between them. Ordinarily, he looked for something to avert his gaze to, as if his attention needed to constantly be split. “My mom’s gone on the weekend, we could just grab some keys and go check it out, then bring them back the next day.”

“But,” Lena paused, swallowing nothing. “Why?”

His face instantly darkened, a tangible disappointment wedged between them. “I mean, if you don’t want to, I could just do it by myself,” he said, re-sidlining Lena as he opened his phone once again.

 There was a tightening of desperation within her. Dimitri, the first boy who had ever sought her out, diluting the sudden uptick in his visits to the office as an excuse to see his mother, dropping lunch off and hovering around the bulletin board Lena pinned pamphlets to. It was the regularity of his gestures that was particularly captivating. Walking her out to her car and even bringing her an iced coffee once, the flimsy plastic shining like a trophy on her desk. She hardly drank it, just ran her fingers along the cold edge, imagining the mundane inconveniences he encountered to deliver it.

Dimitri’s interest coupled with her first summer internship seemed significant, denoting a transition to her real life, away from the lockered halls of school. For the first time, she could clearly visualize what her adult life would look like, but the end of summer was already on her mind, an inevitability of the future curdling with the present. Lena imagined her being cleanly removed from her desk at the office and placed back into the cold metal of classroom chairs, the water-stained ceiling panels above her. At least, she would still have Dimitri, an inkling that she was not back to her old life completely, but enough of a person to now have someone want her.

“No, I want to,” she corrected, clearing her throat. “I’m just kind of worried, that’s all.”

He looked at her pityingly. Life was a game to him, one that Lena didn’t know how to play yet. His mere existence held an immunity to punishment, the buffer of parental wealth and boyish arrogance.

“It’ll be fine,” he palmed her leg with a firm grip. “I’ll protect you.”

Lena changed clothes twice, pulling on a skirt then replacing it with a pair of jeans that left mangled marks on her stomach. She considered wearing black, but the gesture felt embarrassingly deliberate, inviting jokes from Dimitri. Was she planning on bringing a ski mask also?

When Dimitri pulled into the driveway, Lena scurried out of the house, planning to duck into the car in one fluid motion, as if a crime had already been committed, but stopped. The seat was filled by Hunter, Lena’s least favorite of his friends. A gangly, teenage boy whose wardrobe never deviated from ill-fitting basketball shorts, regardless of the season.

He grinned at her. “This one’s taken, sweetheart.”

Surprise leaked onto her face. She felt it go slack, looking at Dimitri for direction, but he was busy on his phone, the song changing rapidly as he tapped the screen with astute quickness.

Silently, she conceded, slipping behind them. The backrest of the seat pressed against her knees, Hunter’s pimpled neck visible through the gap of the headrest.

They were boisterous in the front, Dimitri occasionally turning around to pat her knee.

“How’re we feeling back there?”

Hunter snorted under his breath. “Christ.”

“What? I have to check on my girl.”

Lena pressed her hands beneath her thighs, compacting the space she inhabited. The affection that Dimitri showed was exclusively saved for when other people were looking. When they were alone, her presence was merely a placeholder, awaiting an audience to make her matter.

Lena studied the green smear of trees through the window. “I’m fine.”

Privately, she withered. The suggestion to break and enter had never appealed to her, frightened her even, but Dimitri asking her to accompany him felt significant. The secrecy of it all seemed so intimate at first, an appreciation that would continue to burn and lengthen in the correct conditions. But she had misread it all. There was no secret, no appreciation, just her in the backseat, Hunter in the front, and the stolen keys in the cupholder. 

It was a child’s bedroom that seemed particularly specific. The quiet cream of the walls was the only part that matched the rest of the house, every other corner embroidered with femininity. Lilac sheets and a ruffled bedspread, dolls shelved in neat rows, shoeless feet dangling freely over the edge.

She caught sight of her reflection in the mirror, ghostly butterfly stickers spotting the edges, faded from sun. Lena looked out of place in the middle of it all, the grandeur of even a small space, the pitched ceiling and tulle draping above the bed. She felt a pull of sadness, the girlish innocence she had too quickly detached herself from, trampling into adulthood without even considering what pieces of herself were abandoned.

She sat on the rug, running her hand along the tufts of fuzz. Intentionally, she chose to avoid the muddle of nostalgia for the life she had when she was a girl.

Instead, she considered the other houses they entered, which were nothing like this one, always varying levels of furniture, depending on the price. Random, inanimate objects speckled different rooms, mimicking the whispers of daily choreography. An empty wooden bowl beside the door, a wire rack suspending a bundle of artificial bananas, waxy plant leaves cemented in styrofoam.

The first home they ever visited was particularly unremarkable. Her eyes glossed over it all in one quick, underwhelmed swoop, while Dimitri and Hunter explored each crevice, pointing to different rooms as they passed each other quickly in the hallway. Opening walk-in pantries and side closets, unearthing compacted ladders to attics and poking their heads in the splintery, triangled space.

Their immediate whirl of excitement subdued Lena, a sizzle of agitation underscoring her movements, hollowly following Dimitri from room to room, hovering near the doorway. Dimitri only paid her any mind once the initial luster had worn off, each space explored and Hunter removed entirely, making a run for pizza. The beer he brought was already stocked in the fridge, slightly depleted, a handful of empty cans on the table.

It was unnaturally hot in the house, the air conditioning not on, humidity swelling in each room. Collectively, they had decided to leave it that way, as if it was a test that they were certain not to fail. Lena fidgeted with her hair, moving it from one side of her neck to the other, fanning her exposed skin with a free hand.

“Come here.” Dimitri was only one cushion away from her on the couch. His hand grasped at her leg, clammy even through the denim.

His breath was replaced by the scent of cheap, muddled beer. She imagined it texturing hers, how they would converge, his lips cementing onto her own.

The sex was uncomfortable and frantic. Dimitri’s hands moved with forced quickness, requiring a fluidity he didn’t have, his fingers fumbling with the button of her jeans, shoving her bra above her breasts without attempting to unclasp it. 

Lena waited for it to be over as she typically did, less complicated than making excuses. There wasn’t anything about sex she that was particularly pleasurable other than the fact she had it with regularity, like an adult purchasing weekly groceries.

They finished in the bathroom, staring at their reflections in the mirror. The fluorescent lights washed her face clean of any color, while his hands grasped at her hips with whitened fingertips, leaving streaky red marks after he released her.

She pulled her jeans up from the puddle at her ankles, rebuttoning them away from Dimitri and facing the unevenly torn toilet paper.

“I’ll see you back out there.” Dimitri winked, leaving the door open behind him.

“And where were you?” Hunter had already returned, his voice slightly altered, a mouthful of pizza from the living room.

“I was being a good host, giving her the grand tour, you know.”

“Oh, I bet you were.”

Then, a smacking of hands, echoing loudly, even from rooms away.

Lena stared at herself. The bathroom was suddenly a very slanted, lonely place.

Dimitri was clicking around the channels absently when Lena came back downstairs.

She joined him at the opposite end of the couch, not indulging in the cushions behind her. The buckle of fabric beneath her felt slightly worn, comfortable and broken in, despite its newness. “What do you think about this place?”

Dimitri raised the wine bottle to his lips, a slight red tint to his teeth after he swallowed. He looked around briefly, assessing the vastness of the space. “It’s cool.”

Lena gnawed on the inside of her cheek, gazing at the photographs again. Were the images that came in frames always so detailed? There was an unsettling cohesion to the wall, the faces pictured within them.

“It just seems like they staged it a lot. I mean, a lot. Did you see everything upstairs?”

“I poked around.”

“Well, what did you think?”
“I mean yeah, they did a good job staging it.”

He changed the channel once again, and Jeopardy lit up the screen, bathing the room in blue. Such a vibrant wash it drowned out the blue flashes from outside, only red bleeding through the blinds, seeping in between the shut slats. Then, a violent slamming of car doors and deep voices.

“Holy shit.” Without hesitation, Dimitri’s body moved in a blur, strobing against the surge of sirens and disappearing down the hallway. The wine bottle had shattered, an open wound on the floor.

Lena felt her blood moving through her veins at an alarming pace, a thrumming in her ears so consuming she worried she would never hear another sound again. Mechanically, she followed Dimitri’s path, the lights he had flicked on, the back door thrown open and cold night air billowing in. She hurled herself into the darkness like a dog, searching for an owner that had already left her behind.

Long Time, No See

Audrey-Anna Gamache

“Do you still write?”

“Not as much as I used to.”

“I remember when you used to read me your poems.”

“Poems, ha! That’s generous. They were only ramblings from a sad little kid.”

“You were a sad little kid.”

“You weren’t much happier yourself. I remember our conversation in the cemetery.”

“The night that Jared left us in the Burger King parking lot?”

“We had to walk all the way back to your house in the rain. And your dad was so pissed at us for being out late that he threw his fist through your bedroom door and tossed all your CDS out the window.”

“Dad was always a mean bastard.”

“I regretted asking to go to your house that night. We should have walked the extra few blocks to stay at my place. My parents wouldn’t even have noticed we came home.”

“It wasn’t your fault. Besides, it was a long time ago, and he’s dead now. Heart attack.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. I’m not.”

“Shit, I can still remember the look on his face when we walked through the front door sopping wet, our ankles bleeding through our Converse sneakers, mud all through our hair. I thought he was going to kill us.”

“It wasn’t as bad as the time we found your mom with that guy, whatshisname?”

“Paul.”

“It wasn’t as bad as the time we caught your mom fucking around with that asshole Paul.”

“You thought that was worse?”

“Yeah, man. The way she burst out crying, begging you not to tell your father. She looked so desperate. I had never seen an adult act so.. vulnerable. And then Asshole Paul had the audacity to convince her to leave your dad and start a new family in South Carolina.”

“Yeah, fuck Paul.”

“Fuck Dad.”

“Shit, our childhoods were pretty fucked up.”

“That was something Dad used to say. You have to have thick skin. It isn’t easy being young. So we wrote shitty poetry and ran around in the rain to cope.”

“You seem to be doing better now.”

“So do you.”

“No thanks to them.”

“Growing up is realizing there are no heroes coming to save you.”

“Your dad was still a prick for not trying.”

“Can I tell you something, though? That night in the rain, when it was just us under the streetlights, dancing in the puddles, and you took my hand-”

“-Because you kept falling on your ass and muddying up the back of your dress-”

“-And we thought the Bicycle Man was following us-”

“-So we pretended to be zombies to scare him away-”

“-And we laid in the cemetery talking about dying and living and the moon. I remember you said the moon looked like the inside of an oreo.”

“Hey! I was hungry.”

“That night was one of the best nights of my life.”

“Mine too.”

“I don’t think I would have ever made it this far without you.”

“I don’t know what I would’ve done with you, either.”

“We were just two thin skinned kids-”

“-Keeping each other warm, despite the rain.”