Untethered
by John See
One night in early May – I remember I’d left open my apartment’s bedroom window to let in the cool Chicago air – two vines sprouted from my shoulder blades while I slept. Over the next few days, the vines grew rapidly. It seemed as if they were reaching for each other, but something told me not to let them join. I knew somehow that the vines would become more powerful if they joined, so I tried to keep them apart by tucking them under my arms. They were only a foot or so long then, and thin, so they’d slip free whenever I moved my arms. Inevitably, the two vines found each other, weaving together to form a single vine that continued to grow.
After three days, when the vine was two inches in diameter and nearly four feet long, I went to St. Bernard’s. The emergency room staff could only shrug and refer me to a doctor they said might be able to help.
Dr. Millard was bald, with muttonchops, green-brown eyes, and a snout of a nose. I saw him several times over the next few weeks, and I was encouraged when he said confidently that he’d seen something like this before. When pressed, he mentioned a middle-aged patient who had phantom pain in a third arm that had been removed at birth.
Dr. Millard’s advice, I soon came to realize, was contradictory and imprecise. One time, he spoke to me as if the vine on my back weren’t real. I felt for it then, finding reassurance in its slipperiness. It had stretched across the examination room floor, climbed the sink, and wrapped around the faucet. I tugged gently, pulling it back toward me.
It was forever seeking water, and I had an unquenchable thirst.
“There’s no indication of dehydration, no medical need for additional water,” Dr. Millard said. “The vine, such as it is, won’t shrivel up if you drink less water. It won’t be satisfied if you drink more.”
Such as it is. That’s the kind of thing he said that made me begin to question his ability and his commitment to healing me. The vine continued to grow, despite Dr. Millard’s attempts at treatment. He soaked the vine in tomato soup, which was surprisingly soothing until the thirst worsened. He trimmed the tip of the vine with a toenail clipper, or Littauer cutting forceps, as he called it. The pain was so excruciating that I passed out, and when I came to he told me that the vine, then three inches thick and at least eight feet long, had knocked him off his stool.
Dr. Millard tried other treatments, increasingly absurd and painful, and none of them worked, so I stopped seeing him. I stopped seeking medical help of any kind and resigned myself to letting the problem, the vine, run its course.
Its urgency and insistence soon began to consume me. Admittedly, I became obsessed with the vine, but I think it’s also accurate to say the vine was obsessed with me. Sometimes, the vine’s incessant seeking and reaching made it so taut that it would vibrate when I moved, sounding like a plucked guitar string. When others heard the sound, they’d look at me, then look away.
At first, in an effort to appease the vine, I ceded control of my arms and upper body to it, but that wasn’t enough. Soon it took over my lower body as well. The all-consuming desire for water, which I felt as keenly as the vine did, made it impossible for me to resist.
One of its favorite places to go – one of our favorite spaces, I suppose – was Wooded Island in Jackson Park. Frederick Olmsted had created the island and surrounding lagoon for the 1893 World’s Fair by dredging and draining what had been a swampy marshland. More than a century later, the vine was drawn to the island, seeming to prefer the lagoon to Lake Michigan, where we had gone when I still had control of my lower limbs.
Evenings, we’d take the bus to Wooded Island, the vine wrapped tightly around my torso, its prickles scraping my chest. We’d find a quiet spot close to the water, not far from the Museum of Science and Industry. I’d listen to the birds or read a magazine. The vine, after unwinding itself from me, would extend a tendril into the water and drink. We were never more calm, never more in sync, than during those quiet evenings at the water’s edge.
By September, the vine had grown to 15 feet in length, and the evenings were growing cooler. I began to wonder how we’d spend our evenings once the winter forced us inside. I could get a glimmer of the vine’s thoughts or feelings or needs sometimes, and I knew it wouldn’t want to be outside during the Chicago winter.
One afternoon that fall, when the temperature had dipped and the wind was strong, the vine led me to a spot across the street from our usual bus stop. Instead of going east to Wooded Island, we took the 63 westbound, getting off at St. Bernard’s, where Dr. Millard would be seeing the last of his patients.
The police found me leaning over the body with my hands at Dr. Millard’s neck and assumed, understandably, that I had strangled him. The vine was gone. All that was left were two sore spots on my back and the faint earthy pong like that of a weed pulled from the ground. I had no recollection of murdering him, only fleeting, dreamlike images of seeing – and feeling – the vine wrapped around his neck. Just before they pulled me away and began their unsuccessful attempts to resuscitate Dr. Millard, I noticed that, along with the bruises on his neck, there were red marks left by the vine’s prickles, just like the scars on my chest, right below my heart, from when the vine had wrapped itself around me.
John See writes fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. Publications include an investigative article, “The Union-Busting Consultant Spreading Far-Right Conspiracy Theories” (In These Times), and a poem, “Sun Salutation,” (The RavensPerch). His short story “You and Ivy” will be published in Allium in Spring 2024, and two of his poems will be published this fall in Poetry Salzburg Review. He earned an MFA in creative writing from Western Michigan University.
The Last Thanksgiving
by Sara Pauff
Whisk one can of pumpkin puree into three beaten eggs. Add sugar, salt, ginger, cinnamon, and cloves. Stir in one can of evaporated milk. Pour into a prepared pie crust and bake until set. Serve with whipped cream. Sounds marvelous, doesn’t it?
Adam grumbles, clutching his empty belly, when I read the pumpkin pie recipe aloud. “Stop. You’re making me hungry.”
My stomach growls with every word too, but reading Grandma’s recipe book is our Thanksgiving tradition, and today might be our last, so I roll over on my cot and keep perusing recipes for buttermilk rolls, Jell-O salad and honey-baked ham.
When we first moved into the shelter, Grandma spent a week going through our stock of canned and freeze-dried goods, figuring out what she could substitute to ensure our first Thanksgiving underground was a success. Cornstarch to thicken the pumpkin pie, instant potatoes and gravy from a packet, canned chicken breast, molded into the shape of a turkey. As our supplies dwindled, substitutions became more numerous and her magic in our narrow bunker kitchen became more daring: apple pie without the apples, mashed lima beans, the last can of Spam, sliced and served on saltines. She recorded every trick in the food-stained margins of her cookbook. Add maple syrup, lemon juice, she wrote underneath a maroon splotch. Cranberry sauce, perhaps?
Adam hugs his knees to his chest and his lips pucker as if he’s gotten a mouthful of the bitter berries. “How much longer?”
I glance down the cave-like hall and swallow, my mouth watering. “Soon. Ma’s in the kitchen.”
When the Lord came to save us, there would be a feast, Grandma promised; that’s why we kept the cookbook. “When Jesus comes, the war above ground will cease, and we will no longer hide in darkness,” she’d preach after dinner. “We will celebrate in the light of the Lord.”
Grandma is already feasting with the Lord. After tonight, maybe I will be too. No more canned food, no more days in stale, dungeon-like rooms. I press the tip of my tongue to the red splotch on the cookbook. It’s not cranberry sauce.
“Dinner’s ready,” Ma calls out.
Avoiding each other’s gaze, Adam and I rise from our cots and trudge through the hall to the windowless kitchen. I don’t look at the pantry shelves as we pass, remembering our rainbow of nonperishable bounty, gone now.
Grandpa and Ma hunch over the table, hands folded in prayer. Grandma’s antique silver cloche sits between them on top of its matching silver turkey platter. My brother and I take chairs opposite each other. The dome of the tarnished cloche distorts my reflection, elongating my nose, narrowing my eyes. I clasp my hands to pray, but only one word comes out. “Please.”
Ma grabs my shaking hands; her smile wobbles with tears. “It’s Thanksgiving. Let’s say what we’re thankful for, like Grandma used to.”
“O–okay.” My gut heaves, torn between hunger and nausea. “I’m–I’m thankful for my family.”
“I’m thankful for my family,” Adam whispers.
“Light.” Grandpa stares at the concrete walls. “Where’s the light? Where’s Granny? She’ll miss dinner.”
“She’s not hungry, Pa,” Ma lies, as she does every night. Standing, she hugs Adam, then me. “I’m thankful for you and your brother. You are my light.”
Adam and I watch, breath held, as Ma lifts the cloche, revealing four folded slips of paper no bigger than my thumb. We each take one; mine rests light as an empty stomach in my palm. Grandpa tries to eat his paper scrap until Adam grabs his hand.
When Ma nods, we unfold our ballots.
“It’s me,” Adam says.
“No!” With a strangled cry, Ma collapses into her chair.
“It has to be me,” my brother murmurs, tears sliding down his thin cheeks. “Dad and I settled things when it was his turn: I’m next. Grandma was sick, and it’s not fair to ask Grandpa; he doesn’t even know where he is.”
“I should be next!” Ma wails, clutching her chest. “I’m your mother!”
Adam unfolds his lanky six-foot frame from his chair. “I’m the biggest. I use the most resources. Without me, you could live for weeks longer.”
Ma cries into her hands. “I can’t. I won’t do that to my boy.”
My brother’s jaw tightens, his eyes as dark as the bunker at midnight. “It’s okay, Ma. I’ll do it myself.”
Adam hugs Grandpa and then me; his tears drip hot on my neck. “Take care of them, okay?”
He approaches Ma last. When he kisses her cheek, she grabs his arm and her face crumples into pleading sobs.
“Adam, my boy! My boy!”
Gentle as St. Jerome pulling thorns from a lion’s paw, my brother slips out of her grasp. “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain,” he whispers the Bible verse as he wipes her tears with his sleeve. “To receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!”
I don’t watch as Adam strides down the hall. Ma’s sobs soften into exhausted weeping. Grandpa mutters at the ceiling. My stomach growls, a wolf on the hunt, as the shot rings out.
###
“Bless us, oh Lord, for these thy gifts…” I murmur grace over the tarnished cloche. With Adam gone, Ma no longer feels like praying, not even when we light the Advent candles. It will be Christmas soon; Jesus is coming.
Lifting the cloche, I barely glance at the steaming roast. Leftovers again. I carve and deposit slices of glistening meat, pink in the center, onto each of our plates. Grandpa saws into his portion and chews through the gristle. After a moment, hunger overtakes Ma’s grief, and she takes tiny forkfuls, sipping water between every bite.
As I lift a chunk of meat to my lips, I touch the paper in my pocket. My Thanksgiving ballot, a sacrificial lamb drawn in the center.
I close my eyes, take a bite, and dream of pumpkin pie.
Sara Pauff is a professional communicator, part-time storyteller who primarily writes young adult fiction and is at work on her first novel. She has participated and placed high in rounds of NYC Midnight’s flash fiction and short story contests. She is also a regular participant in the #VSS365 challenge on Twitter, in which writers craft a 280-character micro story based on a one-word prompt. You can find her on Instagram, Twitter, and Threads at @spauffwrites.
Sometimes You Could See It
by Greer Ohlsson
The house faced the woods. That is how the story goes now, but once upon a time it went the house faced the street that ran the carriages to and from the train that ran through Lacombe, Louisiana. Back when the wide hallway was filled with travelers spending all their pocket change on food and board. Now you walk out the swollen wooden door, onto the flat, blue porch with no railing but four, huge columns and a white swing, reach out and touch the thick of the woods. Ninety years of woods. Woods that hold such black in their arms that fireflies can be seen during the day.
I lived in the Lacombe house with my mother, my father (usually), my two older sisters—Hilda and Genevieve, and Hilda’s son Wallace who was just a baby at the time. Wallace’s father—also Wallace, much like my father, was working out of town much of the time.
When you walked through the front door you’d see two large rooms on either side of the entryway, both covered in tall windows like a conservatory. The one to the right had a big, brick fireplace with bookshelves incased on either side, a hand-me-down sofa, and a television set with a thick, silver DVD player on top; the room on the left had a long, rectangular dining table that sometimes had a beautiful cloth draped over it where my sister would do her schoolwork.
One afternoon, my nephew Wallace and I were sitting at the table for I don’t remember how long when he got up; his little flap of dark hair like a lid opening as he ran to the window. His eyes fixated on the edge of the yard where the trees thinned off into a hollow. He pointed at nothing like it was something, “Buffalo Tooth!”
I get up. “What?”
“Buffalo Tooth on the horse!” He points and points like he’s poking holes in a fly jar. Hilda and Mom emerge from their tasks to gather behind us. “Wallace, what do you see? Vendela, what does he see?”
“A ghost,” My mom says, as though it were finite.
My nephew retreated, so I figured the ghost left. We went back to the table, leaving the grownups standing around confused.
“We’ll let you know if he comes back,” I say, dismissing them. I crouched my head down and whispered to Wallace, “Did you really see a man there?”
Wallace nods. “He’s always there, but sometimes you could see him.”
Later that week it stormed, and when it stormed Mom and Genevieve liked to go sit on the porch and dissociate on the swing until the old chains clinked loud enough to snap them out of it. I would sit on this tiny, red rocking chair that was older than me because the swing scared me the way it went past the porch when it swung back. I’d watch as they stared into the woods—eyes set and glazed like zombies. It was like they went someplace else, leaving me alone on that porch. Mom’s facial expression shifted back and forth, as if she were imagining a whole person in front of herself and they were arguing. Her own little ghost, I imagined. Eventually she caught eyes with me and jolted like I scared her by just being there. I wondered if that’s what Wallace meant when he said Buffalo Tooth was always there, but sometimes you could see him.
Greer Ohlsson is a writer and essayist from New Orleans, Louisiana with publications in Mulberry Literary and The Bangalore Review. She is currently working on a collection of creative nonfiction vignettes exploring girlhood through the post-9/11, post-Katrina South. You can follow her along on Tiktok @Theendisgreer for more literary follies.
Time of Quiet
by M.E. Walker
"You two," my father said to my sister and me, "had a quiet childhood."
We looked at each other in shock. In youth we had screamed down the street smacking one another with plastic swords; we clocked the quantity of venom in the grin of each teacher who called us "social butterflies"; we argued at a crazed pitch and then reconciled late at night by way of karaoke.
But then I recalled my father's childhood. Its long hot days in church, its hard beer bottles that emptied into weapons.
And I knew in my bones the kind of quiet he meant.
M.E. Walker is a queer writer, performer, and educator based out of Texas. His work has previously been published in The Expositor and Cathexis Northwest Press. He can be reached at mewalker199@gmail.com, and is participating in the heat death of Twitter over @texasnotranger.
At Rehearsal for Giselle
by Julie Evan Smith
The room was humid with tension. The silence deep enough to hear each individual bead of sweat cascading down the dancers’ necks. All of them frozen like figures in a museum diorama titled “At Rehearsal for Giselle, Loren Became Angry and Chastised the Company.”
Loren Ramsay was a gifted dancer, but a brilliant choreographer. He made stale story-ballets come alive with renewed splendor. He was courted by companies the world over. He was relentless, inspiring. He was not one to keep his temper in check.
The skin of the dancers in the corps de ballet was lacquered with sweat. It was the fifth time Loren had stopped them midway through the combination. Their feet, what was wrong with their feet, he demanded. Where was the swiftness? The attack? He needed their feet flitting about like so many sparrows, and here they were plodding along like honking geese.
He pulled Renee out of formation, and placed her in the center of the room.
“Demonstrate,” Loren said. “Everyone, watch this please, watch… what is your name again, pet?” Said in his lightly accented French, the word “pet” more than made up for the fact that he still didn’t know her name. She was only in the corps, after all.
He had complimented her before on the rare occasions he stopped by to observe company class. His “Lovely” in reference to her arabesque, and “Oui, bien” about her fouettés were tattooed on her heart. But he had never isolated her like this, never narrowed his attention down to a line so slender, pointy as a needle about to pierce a vein and draw blood.
“Renee” she stammered.
“Yes, Renee,” he repeated, with the emphasis on the first syllable. “Show them.”
Consistently singled out in class during her days at the Company's ballet school, Renee often seemed startled by the attention, as though the actual depth of her talent were unknown to her. The slight widening of her eyes, the touch of pink at the tops of her ears, these were the telltale signs of her surprise at being noticed. Even after becoming an apprentice, then swiftly promoted to the corps de ballet, the degree of her talent was still a mystery to her, if not to her fellow dancers.
The studio pianist began playing and Renee flew through the combination, a blur of blue leotard and pink pointe shoes, wisps of hair escaping the bun pinned tightly to her head. Nineteen years old and eager for approval. Lady Luck had given her feet with high arches; years of hard work had given her agility; and Zeus or Apollo, God or Terpsichore, the Buddha or Jesus, had given her the ineffable quality that others would never possess, no matter how many hours they spent at the barre. Scattered around the rehearsal room, those who watched her - some jealous, others admiring, a few lustful - were united in the spell she cast. She let the music in through every one of her pores, let it send her skimming across the studio floor in a series of perfect piqué turns.
She came to a stop, the flush in her cheeks due to effort and joy in equal measure. The silence again. Loren stepped toward her and she waited for the small nod of his head, or the brief hand on her shoulder, his preferred signals of praise. She waited.
“All right, again. Everyone to center,” he said.
Thirty minutes later rehearsal ended, after which the dancers collected the discarded legwarmers and sweaters littering the edges of the room. Weary but chatty, they exited the sweaty studio. Just outside the door, whispering with his assistant, stood Loren – elegant, haughty, withholding. Renee caught his eye and blushed. Just as she was about to pass him, he winked. Swiftly, subtly, without a hint of lasciviousness. Then, just as quickly, he resumed his conversation, unaware of her slightly widened eyes, the pink at the top of her ears.
Julie Evan Smith has had flash fiction published by StreetLit and poetry featured on PoetryNation.com. She has been invited to perform her original essays at storytelling shows in Los Angeles and NYC including Taboo Tales, Pinata, The Writing Pad, and Q.E.D. Astoria. She holds an MFA from the Old Globe Theatre/University of San Diego and has performed at regional theatres around the country, working with illustrious directors such as Jon Jory, Stan Wojewodski, Jack O’Brien, and the late Roger Rees. She is currently at work completing the Certificate in Creative Writing from the UCLA Writer’s Extension Program.
Joy Was Gone
by Jeff Thompson
She went away when Charlie was born. Maybe she went back into herself, becoming someone else, for a time at least. The soft humming that so often had accompanied her morning tea, the way her mouth quirked into the faint breath of a smile. The way she wrapped the gray threadbare blanket she loved so much around her shoulders and leaned against the edge of a doorway, watching the sun slowly climb to steal another day from us…all of it was gone with Charlie. And I don’t blame Charlie. I would never do that. But there are times, fleeting and private, that I miss who she was. I wonder who she might have been. But when Charlie was born, all that ended. She no longer looked out the window, gazing at everything and nothing all at once. She was just gone.
There was venom on her lips and whatever love we might have once held was now passed down into the deepest of wells, one that held no bottom nor promise of a return. The echo of loneliness raced between us with each breath and the silence stretched like mountains dividing the continent. Charlie was happy, but Joy was gone. I reached for her, looking in all the moments we had once shared, all the times we had once built. Each loving brick we had placed with infinite care and subtle precision, all crumbling. Those houses of memory had been pillaged, burned to the ground and the things they held, the hours we had spent, all of them were ash and dust. Joy was gone, and with her- so too was her namesake.
This morbidity that slowly poisoned our love and our time with each other. This will not last. It was the lie we had told ourselves, foolishly thinking it could be true. But it was the most vile and bloody of lies, a lie told with the intent of soothing the razor’s end that we knew was coming. Charlie was here now, and Joy was not.
I had hoped for a different ending, I hoped we could have our happily ever after. Sitting here in my car, watching her bounce Charlie on her hip as she waved goodbye to her husband leaving for work, I knew that what we had would never be the same again, and so today I would finally go to her door and introduce myself for the first time, and of course, for the last time. I didn’t want to kill her. I didn’t want to kill any of them. The news of course called me a serial killer, but they didn’t understand the connection Joy and I shared. It was wordless and without traditional connection, but we were connected just the same.
In the end, this Joy- like the others, would go away, but I would find her again. There is always more joy to be found, if only we know where to look.
Jeff has been published in the Bangalore Review, Write Landing, and has self-published two previous books on Amazon with a third on the way. He spends every spare moment reading or writing and attributes any success to his loving friends and family.
Road Kill
by Shirlee Jellum
As usual, long after midnight, the road was deserted—a long black ribbon stretched thin for nearly thirty miles, only a couple of slight curves and one crossroad leading to an abandoned ranch to the west and hunters’ camps in the foothills to the east. No cars, just an occasional long-haul truck, the towering silhouettes of saguaros, the slow meander of tumbleweeds, and always a pair of glimmering eyes in the headlights’ glare.
Tonight the sky was a bowl of onyx, filled with diamond chips, the full moon a pearl pendant. George rolled down his window, inhaled the hot dry air, admired the vast shadowy silence, then dared himself to close his eyes for five seconds without slowing down, to see if he could maintain a straight course. He often did this, starting with a few seconds, once managing almost a minute before he felt the pull of gravel along the road’s edge, which happened to be on a steep embankment above an arroyo. Gosh, that was close, he’d thought, his heart thudding in his throat, hands slick on the steering wheel. This time he lasted nearly thirty seconds before he heard the front end dragging a tumbleweed and stopped so he could remove it from the bumper.
Back inside, he flicked on his favorite country western station and was soon humming a few bars, cruising along at eighty. Up ahead, about a quarter mile, a jackrabbit darted into his lane, stopped and faced the speeding car. “Two points,” he mumbled, as he sped up to ninety, his smile as bright as the gleaming eyes. At the last second, it leapt into a ditch. “Well, dang it!” he said, slowing down and searching for movement. Nothing but sagebrush and the glitter of a couple beer cans tossed from car windows.
Back up to eighty, George thought about his recent kills—one ugly buzzard, a coyote pup, skunk (big mistake!) and a snake, darn near as long as my trusty Buick. He chuckled then cranked up the volume on the radio.
Halfway to the crossroads clouds obscured the moon. George turned off his headlights. Same as closing my eyes, he thought, as he raced forward into the blackness, counting the seconds.
A strong whiff of skunk wafted into the car. Fumbling for the window lever, George’s sleeve caught on the door handle, wrenching his arm backward and spinning the steering wheel out of his other hand. A sickening crash, then the tinkle of glass, was followed by a stab of pain as his head smacked against the dash. Blood tricked down his brow, but he was breathing and his arms and legs moved.
“Holy moly that hurts,” he muttered as he turned off the music and grabbed a flashlight from the glovebox, then shakily exited the door to survey the damage. The headlights were shattered, a massive saguaro crumpled under the front of the car, one wheel twisted, the other tire flat. Just ahead he could make out the lumbering shape of a skunk, its stripe as white as a beacon.
He leaned against the hood, mopping the blood from his face, when a sudden high-pitched buzz filled the silence. As he peered toward the noise, a snake with six, no eight, oh lordy ten pearly buttons inched across his foot, wrapped around his ankle then slowly spiraled up his leg. He froze.
While wondering how he’d escape this mess, a whoosh of wings enwrapped his head and several talons punctured his shoulders. The wings beat time to his heart, slapping his ears for balance while a beak skewered his neck.
George flailed his arms at the bird and stomped his feet trying to loosen the snake nearing his crotch. Blindly he ran into the road then heard barreling toward him the screech of brakes and a deafening air horn. Moments before impact the bird flew off with a large chunk of his skin, the snake dropped to the pavement, after a quick bite to his thigh, and somewhere in the hills a lone coyote howled.
Shirlee Jellum is a retired English teacher living in the middle of nowhere. When not traveling, gardening, or backpacking, she publishes poetry, fiction, and nonfiction, most recently in Gleam, Honeyguide, Flash Fiction, and Memoirist.
A Lot of Mothers
by Gordon W. Mennenga
Jenna, my wife of seventeen years, has invited thirty-three mothers to a party in our backyard. This afternoon our children are eating tons of sugar at their grandmother’s condo. It’s a “literary event” centered around women reading women. They’re all members of the largest book club in the state: Cherry Point Moms Book Club. Moms Read Books was rejected because it was too easy for some idiot to put a question mark after that name. Many of the mothers have worn dresses today, some of them hats, some heels, some sandals. Molly Starr is shoeless, a nod to her commune days. It is July, hot but breezy. No cell phones. No please about it. Name tags required. Mine reads: Brad Pitt.
There are all kinds of mothers in our yard: lactating mothers, Egyptian mothers, MBA mothers, MFA mothers, boxing mothers, stubborn mothers, philosophical mothers, Peloton mothers, laughing mothers, plumber mothers, Lutheran mothers, enhanced mothers, hyphenated mothers, and one French mother with porcelain white skin and raging red hair.
Several of the mothers get into an argument about Roe v. Wade. One of them is using the word “mother” in a crude way, the other is apparently a “bondage-loving vegan liberal bitch.” Jenna is frustrated by this fracas since several books on the reading list have focused on building a more accepting world. Punch is spilled, calm restored. My role is to give directions to the bathroom.
I’m also the photographer for the afternoon. Jenna wants “keepsake” shots so spontaneity will rule. No extreme close-ups, please. I station myself by the martinis, lemonade, Paradise Punch, and mojitos table. Marion Wambold is making the drinks as fast as she can. Before becoming a mother, she was a bartender. Before that she was a fishing guide in Montana. Two cups of Paradise Punch will numb the lips.
Some of the mothers are unhappy with the next book to be discussed: Anna Burns’ Milkman. This is what you get when you let an MFA choose the book, they say. The book is about losers acting like losers in the 1960s. Give us more books with happy endings. That would be refreshing. Sometimes the debate over the choice of the next is more passionate than the book currently under discussion. Please, please, no more 400-page novels about witches, but Ann Patchett is okay and Toni Morrison is a sure thing. What about a chef’s memoir? Or an Amish romance just for the fun of it? No more poetry, period. Sex and aging have worn out their welcome unless the characters are finding taboo-busting, sunset-driven love in Italy. Short story collections often encourage constant flipping of pages and complaints about endings.
There is a commotion near the apple tree. A zipper has broken. Dawn Redfield’s zipper on the back of her dress has come undone from her neck to her waist. Attempts are made to lower and raise the zipper, to get the teeth to bite again. The zipper must be fixed. A conference is held and the artful use of safety pins saves the day. Dawn’s tattoo is discovered under her sundress, a blue moon and three stars across her left shoulder. The stars represent her children. She is the moon. The sundress is yellow with tiny blue hummingbirds scattered about, searching for nectar. Dawn is husbandless at the moment and favors short books featuring lots of revenge sex.
Betty Santana is here. She is a local author who offered copies of her self-published novel Crude Dude to the club for free if the club would read and discuss it. Her offer did not go over well with the selection committee given the large number of typos in the text, and the fact that her female detective, Alice Trout, has something against lesbians and says “y’all” way too much and might be a thirsty vampire. The “couldn’t-put-it-down” blurb on the back jacket was written by her son Bjorn, the youth pastor at a church in Kansas. Today Betty is wearing black leggings, a purple tunic and an ankle wrap. Her sales on Amazon are very low.
A book clubber’s car is blocking the neighbor’s driveway. A blue Volvo. Bumper stickers that read STEAL THIS CAR, COOKIES ON BOARD and NUNCA MAS and LIFE IS TWEET. Plate number VRR 323. Regina Voss jingles her keys at me and I accept the task of moving the car. When I return, smelling I’m sure of rescued dog, other mothers jingle their keys at me, winking and laughing. Jenna gives me a frown. In our house this will become known as the key incident.
The hors d’oeuvres are long gone, the drink table is bare. Conversations drift in the wind: female characters in dystopian novels, the headaches of college admissions, the perils of first-person narration, the surrender of reality to magical realism, the cost of hardbound books, romance novel addiction, hot yoga, SPF, Noreen Klosterman’s handyman, the best restaurant for foccacio, the price of a writers’ workshop held in Portugal, the recipe for Jenna’s honey mustard chicken kabobs. In truth, I grilled the kabobs using my special recipe.
A small red plane with blue stripes flies low overhead, casting a fleeting shadow over the yard. All heads turn to the sky. Sherry Thurston is sure that the pilot is her husband, Rick, a jealous accountant in a Cessna. Sherry is both proud and sad, like a flower afraid to bloom.
Several mothers are asked to stay longer for safety’s sake. Yolanda Wyatt’s husband is called because she has lost feeling in her legs.
Cell phones fire up. In the distance there is thunder.
Jenna stands in our bedroom doorway, one hand clawing the wall, and I think it might be a sudden Brad Pitt moment, but her other hand is holding her empty blue wallet.
More thunder. Lightning. Then rain. Lots of rain. Angry rain.
Gordon W. Mennenga has had work featured on NPR and in the Riverside Theatre Company's "Walking the Wire" series. His publications include work in Epoch, Citron Review, Jabberwock Review, Necessary Fiction, and the New Flash Fiction Review. He earned an MFA from the Iowa Writers' Workshop and a degree in cooking from his grandmother. Contact Gordon at gordonwmennenga.com.
Where I Have Been
by Nikki Stinson
"I can't pick you up today, but someone is giving you a ride."
Raised by a single mom who was always gone, I was used to being the first kid dropped off, and the last picked up. When Donna couldn't make it, she asked another parent to drop me off at home with instructions for me to make dinner for us and finish my homework. The days I waited for her, I sat at the bus stop near my school, which offered some shelter and light to do my homework when it got dark.
My teacher drove by once and stopped.
"Where are you going, Mercedes?"
"Oh," I looked up from the textbook balanced on my lap, "just waiting for my mom."
"This late?"
"She'll be here soon," I reassured her. She nodded and drove off. Secretly I wished she would've offered to stay with me until my mom got there, but I would never admit that then.
That was the same year my mom dated the married dad of another girl who attended my school. I was in sixth grade, and she was in fifth.
None of the stay-at-home moms offered to take me home after that, saying Donna, the office assistant with her tight clothes and big blonde hair, was a homewrecker. So, my mom asked her boyfriend to take me home after school. I knew then that he was getting divorced because school kids talked about it. And sometime later, when I overheard my mom on the phone, she confirmed that she was the leading cause of said divorce.
I hesitated before getting into the souped-up silver pickup, and Willy looked down at me from the other side of the truck.
"Well, get in," he smiled, revealing a silver cap on his top left tooth, "I don't bite."
I studied the large man. Tattoos covered both arms and part of his neck, most of his face beneath a thick black beard and mustache, and eyes hidden behind sunglasses that mirrored everything around them.
From the corner of my eye, I saw his daughter, his then-to-be ex-wife, and a group of other mothers and girls, some from my class, huddled by the front office, whispering as they eyed us suspiciously. I hoped his daughter would come with us today so I wouldn't be alone with him, but she stayed with her mother.
I forced a smile and scrambled into the seat as tall as I was.
"You got it?" Willy laughed.
"Yes," I squeaked, embarrassed, and fastened my seatbelt.
Part of me was happy then because I wasn't allowed to sit in the front seat, and he had decent taste in music for a parent. He listened to the same radio stations as my classmates and even knew the words to popular songs. I fidgeted, tucking and untucking my short brown hair behind my ears. About halfway home, he grabbed a stack of CD cases and looked through them, slightly swerving. He inserted a disc and laid the case on the seat between us. The cover had a fingerprint, the number fifteen, and a silhouette of a naked woman in the corner. The base from the speakers vibrated my back as the song played.
Though I can't exactly remember them now, the lyrics seemed like an ordinary love ballad at first. But love turned to lust, and my chest tightened when the lead singer started describing dating a woman but beginning to want her young daughter.
The explicit lyrics made me freeze. My heart was pounding in my chest as Willy turned the music down; I thought because he realized it was inappropriate. But instead, he asked what I thought about it. He stopped smiling, not even moving as he watched me, and I hated that I couldn't see his eyes behind the sunglasses that only reflected my terrified expression back to me. My eyelashes brushed the ends of my bangs, and I said nothing as shame heated my face, and I shrunk into the door.
At a red light, I quickly glanced to see if he was still watching me, but Willy was looking the other way out the window. He had placed his huge hairy hand on the seat, his index finger stroking the woman's figure on the CD case. I wondered how he was able to do that without looking.
I was relieved when Willy asked but didn't insist on coming inside. When my mom got home, I told her what had happened.
"I'm too tired for this," she sighed and closed her eyes, "I'm sure he was just joking."
The next morning, she dropped me off at the empty school, and I stepped out of the car into the chilled gray air. My smokey exhale surrounded my face like the low clouds that kissed the mountains in the distance.
As I shut the door, Donna said, "I can't pick you up today, but I have someone giving you a ride."
I looked through my mother to the farmlands that rolled on until they met the pastel sky at the horizon. I felt its emptiness ready to envelop me, if not that day, then soon.
Nikki Stinson is an author and writing professor from Riverside, California, and "Where I Have Been" is her debut short story publication. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Drexel University (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) and a BA in English from California Baptist University (Riverside, California). Nikki currently lives in the Philadelphia suburbs with her husband and their three sons. You can find her on Instagram and Twitter under the handle @nikkistinson_ or visit her website, nstinson.com.
Saint Leonard of the Chaos
by Amy Cuomo
When Olivia turned the corner and saw the flashing blue lights, her heart started to race. She pulled her Honda Accord onto the lawn and quickly turned off the engine. She jumped out and smoothed her skirt without thinking. A uniformed officer ushered two paramedics out of the house. They guided a stretcher carrying a figure draped in a sheet. Olivia ran toward the body. The officer stood in her way.
“Ma’am. You can’t—”
“Is that my—”
“No, ma’am. Mr. Becksted is inside.”
She tried to move past the officer, but before she could go into what was once her home, he stopped her saying, “If you wouldn’t mind, ma’am, I have just a few questions.” He saw the anxious look in her eyes. “Mr. Becksted is fine, ma’am. She nodded and tried to compose herself. “There’s no sense standing out in the cold,” she said. “Let’s go in.”
Ten minutes later, he left. Olivia looked around the sitting room. Every place you looked, there were remnants of life. Newspapers, magazines, a chain from a bike, books on everything from ancient Egypt to mushroom farming, frames with missing photos, throw rugs, an oar, musical instruments in various states of disrepair, and roofing tiles. Yard sale ephemera climbed like kudzu in every direction.
She started down a thin path leading to the hall but stopped when she spied her once beautiful chintz sofa now collapsed under the debris of strangers’ lives. She slowed her rapid breathing and told herself there was plenty of oxygen. She stared hard at the walls falling toward her, stilling their motion with a glare. Five years ago, she had finally stopped believing that her sweet husband would free himself from his demons. It had been five years since they separated. Five years since she’d walked out that door.
She made her way to the dining room. There he sat on a step stool. Her mouth was dry. She swallowed.
“Hello, Leonard,” she said.
He looked up. That old gentle smile played on his lips.
“You came,” he replied, clearly touched.
“Of course. The police called. They said it was urgent.”
He answered her unasked question.
“They said he had been burgling houses in the neighborhood for the last six weeks. No one could catch him. He climbed in through the upstairs window in the dark and fell against – everything.” Leonard hung his head in shame. “He’s been dead for three days.”
When they were young, they had hiked through Wales, amazed at the country’s austere beauty and its desolation. Olivia remembered how carefully she packed all the essentials. The extra weight would only slow them down. They traveled for two weeks, taking in the sights they believed would become the bastion of memories that could steal them against the onslaught of old age. Now, staring at her ex-husband, his eyes wide with shock, his hands dangling between his legs, she couldn’t comprehend how their promising lives had fallen into all this rubble.
When Leonard spoke again, his voice was barely audible, “He was only twenty-three.” “I’m sorry,” she murmured, fearful that a change in tone, a shift in pitch, or a rise in volume would cause the stack of yard tools piled high against the wall to come tumbling down on her head.
Leonard looked at her, searching desperately for consolation. “He might have changed. He could have. . . reformed. If he hadn’t...”
She cut him off. “There’s no way to know. Try not to think about it.”
“Do you think they’ll arrest me?” He asked her earnestly.
“What on earth for?”
“I killed that boy,” he replied.
She answered in one breath, “You didn’t kill anyone. He wasn’t a boy; he was a burglar. He broke into your house. He had an accident and died.”
Before he could speak again, she leaned toward him and put her hands on his shoulders.
“Leonard,” she said softly. “You are not responsible for that man’s death.” Her words seemed to slip through the narrow crevices that she knew existed but couldn’t be seen in the clutter surrounding her. He stood. The streetlight glared into a corner of a window left uncovered. He looked haggard. Gaunt. He had let himself go completely.
“Olivia. I have to stop. I have to fix. . .”
She shook her head.
“Shhh...” She couldn’t hear this again, not now, not ever.”
He looked around the room. “I’m going to get rid of it. All of it.” She didn’t move. She glanced away.
“You don’t believe me.”
“No,” she replied.
Her voice held no accusation or acrimony. Even during the last years that they lived together, she knew that even though his compulsive collecting had come between them, there was no malice. It wasn’t about her, and that fact was the one that was the most difficult to bear. She wasn’t even part of the equation. If she were younger, she might have hoped that this was it. This was the miracle she had waited for. Lightning strikes. Saul falls from his horse. Paul emerges.
He spoke again.
“I’ll start right away.”
“No,” she said quietly.” He looked at her, pleading. “Please, this time, it will be different.”
This time, she was firm. “No.”
He understood. “No,” he agreed but could not stop himself from asking, “Stay? Just for tonight. Please. Stay with me.”
Olivia put her coat on and walked over, and gently kissed his forehead. Carefully, she made her way back through the hall, into the sitting room, and out of the house. As she walked down the drive, she thought that when the police called again, it would not be a stranger found dead in that house. Dry-eyed, she slipped into the car, put the key in the ignition, and drove away.
Amy Cuomo is a Professor of Theatre at the University of West Georgia, where she teaches courses in theatre, film, and women’s studies. She is also a playwright. Her short play, “Happy,” was a nominee for the Heidiman Award, and her ten-minute plays have been produced by theatre companies in New York, California, Arizona, and New Zealand. She is a member of Working Title Playwrights. "Saint Leonard of the Chaos" is her first Flash Fiction piece. Amy Cuomo can be reached at acuomo@gmail.com.
The Tipping Point
by Hayden Avery
“Why would you wear yellow and teal together?”
His eyes are fixed on his fresh white Reeboks. The brown splotch on his left toe conjures feelings of obsessive compulsion.
“Are you even listening to me?”
He winches.
“And with white runners too. You look like a Subway logo.”
“Which subway?”
She rolls her eyes between fake lashes, “Anyway, are we going to take this or not?”
“Just take it.”
She rolls her eyes again with a click of the tongue. Her arm raises above her shoulders, the phone held horizontal between her sparkled acrylic nails. The black screen opens to a photo of Taco, her seven-year-old chihuahua. His teeth poke out from his pathetic snarl, his eyes are asymmetrical. Her finger taps the camera icon on the screen and they see the image of themselves with his arm over her shoulder.
Tanned complexions.
Hairdos styled to perfection.
Their teeth white as pearls.
They’re the ideal young couple, hopelessly and forever in some kind of artificial love.
“Closer,” she says, holding her smile. He moves in tighter into the frame. Their teeth glimmer off the sunlight as their faces shine radiantly. She taps the capture button and they hear the phone’s artificial Polaroid effect.
Smiles return to scowls. She opens her gallery, her thumb moving against the screen at light speeds. The filter menu opens.
Warm? Cool? Blossom? Vignette?
No. Nope. Nah. Ugly. Passé. No way.
She groans. “Ugh, we need to take another one.”
“Why?”
“It’s just… it’s not right.”
His eyes are glued to his screen, his thumb moving exponentially slower.
“Hello?”
“What?” The irritation is apparent in his tone.
“Never mind, let’s find another spot.”
She leads the way down the paved walkway. He trails behind her, lethargic and despondent. He looks out into the vast canyon — the erosion of the valleys with steep buttes and slanted mesas. The Colorado River flows in a curved shape nearly a mile below.
They reach Mather Lookout Point, a popular destination overlooking the plateaus of the canyon. A tour guide talks to a circle of elderly in cargo shorts and sun hats. A middle-aged couple holds each other by the waist while their two young children grip the rail and joke about falling over. Two teenage girls wearing sports bras and baggy jeans approach them.
“Hey,” one of them calls out, “aren’t you that couple on Instagram?”
“You’re Carrie and Jo!” the other says.
“That’s us!” Carrie replies with enthusiasm. Jo keeps his eyes fixed on his screen —the euphoria of fame is drained out of him.
“We love your posts,” the first teenager says as they walk past. The second stops and turns.
“Can we get a photo together?”
Carrie pretends not to hear the girl and adjusts her hair in the reflection of her phone. She waits until she no longer feels the weight of their presence. She nudges Jo slightly, hoping he’ll give her just a moment of his attention.
“I miss Taco.”
“Who?”
“Taco. Our dog?!”
“Hm.”
“You can be such an idiot sometimes. You can’t even remember that we have a dog together.”
“Yes, actually I do remember!” his outburst startles her as she recoils. “And it’s not my dog, it’s your dog! I hate that stupid fucking dog!”
She clutches at invisible pearls.
“I hate that good for nothing, rat mutt, that does nothing but piss on my carpets!”
“How can you say that about Taco? I thought you loved Taco.”
“I LOATHE TACO!”
They stand silent as the tourists begin to saunter away, avoiding a potentially awkward display between the young couple. The area is soon deserted and they stand alone at the point, resting their bodies against the railing. She wants him to say anything to her.
Anything. But he doesn’t say a word.
“Let’s take another one.”
Carrie shuffles towards him and turns her back to the canyon. She runs her fingers through her hair before raising her phone above her shoulders — wide-screen orientation, above the eye-line. The black screen opens to the image of Taco.
She suddenly hears a woman scream from a great distance.
Strange.
Her finger taps the camera icon on the lower right and the reflected camera image of the canyon focuses in slowly. She moves the hair off her cheek and smiles before she realizes that he is no longer standing beside her.
Her heart stops.
She turns to see where he had previously stood just moments ago, his footprints fresh in the dirt.
He’s gone.
She scouts the area and sees nothing but the red dirt and vacated walkway. She grips the railing, too scared to look. Too horrified by what she might witness at the foot of the bluff. Her pulse races at the thought of his lifeless body, and what she knows to be true in this very moment.
Not knowing what to do, she responds in the only way she knows how. In habitual circumstance, her unshakable tendency takes control of the situation. She runs her fingers through her hair and moves her part to one side — the strands grab at her face with the wind. She sniffs back her heavy mucus, and holds the phone at shoulder level. The screen opens to Taco again before the image of her anguished expression dominates the video frame.
Perfect.
“To all my fans, this is an emergency. I think… this is Carrie by the way. I really need help right now. Please, I need help! I’m here at the Grand Canyon, and I think... I think my boyfriend just jumped off the edge! I don’t know what to do! I don’t know what to do…”
Hayden Avery writes fiction that mirrors the human condition and questions modern society. Originally from New England, Hayden emigrated to Vancouver, Canada, where he studied at the University of British Columbia. He’s been featured in a book of short stories, Seven Deadly Sins, published through Free Spirit Publishing, and currently lives in Victoria, BC, where he wrote his debut novel, Sisters Not Angels.
In Defense of Screaming Toddlers
by Bekah Black
“The grocery store is as quiet as grocery stores can be on a Monday afternoon. Cart clatters and scanner beeps drift uninterrupted through the still atmosphere. In this environment, there are several plausible sounds that could wake shoppers from their monotonies, like the clang of someone dropping objects or the exit sensors wailing to catch potential criminals. However, there is a more common, uncalculated wail, one stronger than the sirens, and more mortifying than a shattered mug. This wail is pulsing, committed, reaching everyone from aisles one to seven.”
The alien pressed a button on its clicker. Shaky footage of a grocery store aisle appeared on the screen. The watching audience of aliens murmured. Suddenly, a piercing shriek rang through the auditorium. The shoppers in the video froze. The aliens jumped. The speaker paused the video.
“I must admit,” the speaker continued, “in all my years of exploring extraterrestrial life, in that moment I struggled to understand what human invention could make such a powerful sound. I rounded the corner into the cereal aisle only to discover that it was, indeed, a human invention, just not the kind I’d expected.”
The video resumed, this time in slow-motion. As it spoke, the alien circled various elements of the footage with a laser, which shot from its pointer finger.
“This tiny beast—who, moments before, had been nothing but an angry swirl of snot and limbs on the floor—has now stilled, confronted by its mother’s blotchy face inches from its own. The response to its mother’s words clouds in its face, which bunches together like a stubborn prune, and its screams begin anew, now identifiable as an emphatic no. You can see here—this is crucial, take note—eyes and faces appear from each end of the aisle, staring in silent critique. The mother swoops in as a zookeeper to a violent amonstrothane, captures the flailing creature in her arms, and rushes away as the resounding no echoes and, eventually, fades. Soon enough, the clicking carts and scanner beeps resume and fill the empty, quivering space.”
The screen went black. The audience looked disturbed. The alien speaker took a breath to collect itself.
“In this scenario, it is difficult to stop and consider the primal thoughts of the little thing that causes so much societal disruption and noise. It’s difficult to recall that they have any thoughts. But I have learned that all human people (even little ones) have thoughts, in varying degrees of intelligence and intensity, and none of my fellow researchers would deny that thinking for humans is difficult and, occasionally, unpleasant. Processing the world through thoughts as humans do, even when one has experienced the world and knows its operations, is a difficult task.”
There were murmurs of assent.
“For toddlers in particular—which is what this breed of human creature is called, toddler—thinking is doubly difficult, for a number of reasons. Firstly, they are just experiencing and discovering what thinking is. Secondly, they have had fewer than three human years to learn how the world operates. Thus, toddlers constantly encounter as new and difficult what adults have long considered mundane and easy. In the midst of such confusion, it is natural that they, like adults when presented with a stressful situation, would revert to their old habits and respond as they are used to. These old habits, of course, learned in infancy, are to cry and scream. Toddlers, however, unlike infants, have begun to take hold of words and what they mean, often understanding more than they can communicate themselves. When they are not stressed or overwhelmed, this growing vocabulary suits them quite well, and their pronunciation flubs bring smiles to all those around them with souls.”
The alien researcher paused to take a breath and smiled a little, revealing its three rows of purple gumdrop teeth.
“However, when they are incapacitated by a negative emotion or experience, they regress to the aforementioned explosive auditory habits formed as infants. In addition, their expanding linguistic skills make an appearance usually through employment of the harshest word they know.”
The alien held its webbed, oblong hands out to the audience, who replied in unison with a series of clicks, which in their language meant “no.”
“Precisely. The ‘no’ can quickly devolve into an emotional, sometimes manipulative, tantrum, which is what you just witnessed. The toddler, however, will not know correct behavior unless they are taught. The maturity of a human generation rests on every screaming toddler and their accompanying parent to do their jobs—to learn and to teach—properly. This is a hefty responsibility for both toddler and parent to bear, especially in the necessary evil of a public space, where screams pierce the ears of an audience who look on with equal parts condescension, fear, and gratefulness that they are not the ones responsible for the little terror.
“However, what the often judgmental onlooker doesn’t remember is that they were once that toddler, wailing from the linoleum floor, learning for perhaps the first time how behavior in grocery stores works. I posit that, instead of lurking from the end of the aisle to watch the drama unfold, it would do humanity better to remember that they, too, are learning still. So, dear colleagues. I present a solution.”
The alien pressed the clicker button with pride. A new video filled the screen, showing the same aisle as before. The mother and toddler were there still, but the mother had looked up and away from the camera in bewilderment, and the toddler had started laughing—although the auditorium still rang with screams. The onlookers, who had become toddlers themselves, writhed on the linoleum, their angry, snotty faces crinkled up in rage. The researcher smiled again and bowed as the audience applauded, slapping their antennae heartily above their bulbous heads.
Bekah Black writes fiction, nonfiction, and poetry in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Her poems can be found in The Pittsburgher, UReCA, Levee Magazine, and others. She's currently writing her second novel (her first was a dystopian she wrote in high school that she swears will never see the light of day). Find her on Instagram at @bekahbwrites.
Greetings from Mr. Greenbaum
by K.L. Johnston
I was cooking supper when Mark came into the kitchen, chopping vegetables for chicken stew. He stood and watched me for a moment, and I kept chopping, waiting for him to say whatever was important. He was looking a little flushed, like he was working up the courage to say something. If he had time to pull his thoughts together, the stutter was almost non-existent.
“Mom”
“Yes, Dear One?”
“I think I just saw a ghost.”
“At five in the afternoon?” I arched my eyebrows. “What makes you think it was a ghost?”
He thought about that for a minute. “It wasn’t one of Dr. Vinckman’s full body appa… appa… apparitions. I could see him, but I could see through him too.”
Good, his sense of humor was working. I transferred the carrots and onions and celery to the pot of broth. I knew this conversation had to come sometime. We had moved here to get away from his father. After our previous life, ghosts were not that scary.
“And where did you see this ghost?”
“In the closet in the front hall.”
I frowned. “What were you looking for in the front hall closet?
He sighed. “It makes a good place to stash my soccer gear.”
We’d had this discussion before. “You mean the stinky soccer gear that you might forget to wash over the weekend?” I started chopping the chicken into chunks.
“Mmmhmmm. Mom that’s not relevant right now. He’s in the hall closet and he smells.”
“Worse than your sox?”
There it was. The eyeroll. He hadn’t perfected it yet, not like his big brother, but he’d get there with practice.
“Ok so it’s not a good thing. What’s he doing in there?”
“I don’t know. Just hanging there. Dripping.”
I smiled but said, “Ick. You know, that would be Mr. Greenbaum. He was the very first ghost I ever saw. I met him when I was just a little girl visiting Aunt Thea. Actually, that’s pretty polite for him to solidify enough for you to see him. Shut the door for now and I’ll come and check on him later.” When I got around to checking on Mr. Greenbaum, he would be gone. He always was.
“He’s dripping on my soccer bag.”
“Well, I don’t think he means anything by it. And if you put your soccer gear in your room like I’ve asked you to….”
“It’s just convenient to put it in there. Then I don’t have to carry it all the way upstairs before I get a snack and all the way back down to do the laundry.”
I could admire his logic. I suppose it was better than leaving his bag on the stairs. “Ok so put it in the laundry room. We’ll wash your uniform this evening, but for now, give Mr. Greenbaum his space and some time to go away.”
“Damn. Now my stuff’s going to smell like ghost shit.”
“Mark! Watch your mouth. Now you can do that particular load of laundry all on your own just to make sure you get my point about listening to reminders and watching your mouth. Did you ever think that Mr. Greenbaum might feel the same way about your stinky sports gear?”
‘Sorrreeee.. just shoot the messenger why don’t you. You know people at school hassle us because we live in a haunted house, right? Can I have a snack?”
“Not a very smooth change of subject boyo, but nice try. Obviously, they’re not cool enough to handle living in a haunted house. Is it a problem?” I tossed him a stalk of celery. The one thing his quick-fisted father was terrified of was the paranormal. With the ghosts that had accumulated in this house, it was like we had our own security team.
He shook his head in disgust. “Mostly they’re just making lame jokes. I’d like to see how they handle Mr. Greenbaum shi…. Dripping on their gym bags.” His face lit up. The glee was unholy. “Hey! Can I have some guys over?”
I gave him my patented Grimace of Motherly Doom. “And that wasn’t even remotely transparent. Not yet. We haven’t lived here long enough. And even though Mr. Greenbaum’s not dangerous, he’s not a performance artist.” My Aunt Thea on the back stairs was dangerous. And the guy in the basement was even more of a problem. The burned child upstairs was a little pest. But Mr. Greenbaum was an old sweetie. “He was sad enough to take his own life. You can’t do something mean like that to him or to people who you just might want for friends. Who knows how Mr. Greenbaum would react? He’s not used to teenagers. Now get some peanut butter to go with the celery and go do your homework. Maybe when your brother comes in you can introduce him to Mr. Greenbaum. He’ll eventually run into him anyway.”
“Great. Now I gotta be polite to a ghost.” But he brightened up immediately and I could tell he was planning something special for his brother.
“You just remember, Mr. Greenbaum’s basically defenseless, while your brother isn’t, so be prepared for any consequences or beat downs. No matter what scheme you’re thinking about. And I’m talking about deep cleaning and heavy yard work consequences, not just you and your brother putting on the boxing gloves.”
He grinned and crunched into the celery. Sometimes the little things in life, like sleeping safely through the night or getting one up on your big brother, were worth the consequences.
Author, poet, and photographer, K.L. Johnston received her degree in English and Communications from the University of South Carolina. Her work has appeared in literary journals, magazines, and anthologies since the 1970s. She is also the author of a photo-illustrated book of meditations. She enjoys exploring the connections of humanity with the physical, spiritual, and liminal places she has stumbled into in her travels and in her own backyard. She uses her unstructured time to indulge her curiosity about places and people. You can follow her on Facebook at “A Written World”.
Holdinghands
by Benjamin Johnson
The only important thing to come from all of Beth-Anne’s drivel is this: don’t go anywhere near the far corner of Holdinghands Park after dark. You know, the corner where no footpaths wind, where the trees drape their dark, needled branches over the ground, where the sun seems colder, where all of those odd rocks stand around.
“It’s haunted,” Beth-Anne told me. “This spot in the park is a graveyard.” She told me so while standing atop one of the rocks themselves, looking like a fool with her hands on her hips, after having dragged me out to nowhere in the middle of bleak November to look at that say-so cemetery.
Of course, this was drivel, just like everything Beth-Anne ever told me was drivel.
Drivel. That’s a word Mrs. Meyer taught us the other day. She said it about a boy in class who wouldn’t stop spouting damned nonsense, except we aren’t allowed to use the word ‘damned’, and so she taught us the word ‘drivel’ instead. I took to it like a bird to seed, especially as I’m trying to expand my vocabulary before I enter fifth grade.
But anyway, drivel’s all it ever was from Beth-Anne. She told me the scattered grey stones were actually headstones and that people were buried underneath there.
I asked, “But why not use regular headstones like in a normal graveyard?” I was thinking about the time Beth-Anne told me that all store-bought ice cream was just sweetened mashed potatoes and what a load of drivel that was.
“They didn’t want to pay money to do that,” she said. “You see that building over there? There used to be an insane asylum built on that exact spot. Some of the people had families, but a lot of them didn’t. The ones who didn’t, well, they’d just bury them wherever and didn’t even put names on the rocks.”
That didn’t sound right, but I knew better than to argue, because oh lordy, when Beth-Anne got going, she could really get going, talking about conspiracies and ghosties and, well, drivel. And she might cry, too, if you called her out, and that would make me want to punch her in her nose and make her cry even harder. “These stones are so big,” I said instead. “Seems like a lot of effort to get them here. Probably a lot of money too.”
“They rolled them down from that hill,” Beth-Anne said, pointing. “They came right out of nature for free. And they buried the bodies with the rocks right over their heads.”
I walked three paces from one of the rocks. “So, I’m standing on a dead person’s feet right now?”
“No, they were buried standing straight up.”
“Straight up?”
“Facing the sunset in the West,” she said, like I was a fool and she knew better by spouting off like this. And then she pointed down near my feet at the base of the rock, to some needleless fir twigs lying there like withered brown smiles. “That’s what the dead eat,” she said. “They strip the branches bare with their rotting tombstone teeth. And then they sit and scream and hope something or someone tastier will come to investigate.”
But I knew damned well that the twigs had simply lost their needles in the cold and that Beth-Anne was not only spouting drivel, but actual damned nonsense. That’s why I snapped the branch from a nearby trunk, stuck it beneath one of those big rocks, and levered it up, my skinny Grade Four legs straining from the effort. Lo and behold, there was nothing beneath the rock but dirt. “There, Beth-Anne,” I huffed. “I don’t see any dead mental patient.”
Beth-Anne shot me a withering look, but got down on her knees and scrambled her hands through the dirt as if she could prove her theory, as if she could dig the body up with her bare hands, as if it all wasn’t, obviously, drivel. And as she dug, I swear she muttered something rude under her breath and, really, what Grade Four student in a fight with her friend wouldn’t have pulled the branch out and let the rock go? You tell me.
It rolled back in place and Beth-Anne sure did yell when her hands got crushed, but I didn’t care. I didn’t care when I left her there either, because I knew she was just faking, that her bones weren’t actually broken or stuck, that she was being a puss and a crybaby and was only having a “wah-mburger and some French cries”. That’s what Mrs. Meyer says when one of her students throws a temper tantrum.
And I’m not wrong, no matter what the police say or what her mom told mine over the phone or what the people on the news say either, because she’s almost definitely fine and is probably sitting atop one of those big rocks pouting, waiting for me to come back and hear more drivel.
But I’m not going near Holdinghands Park anymore. I’ve decided, and that’s that.
I’m not going to let her be right.
Benjamin Johnson (he/him) lives and writes on Treaty 6 Territory in the Canadian Prairies, his work focusing on queering space through magic and camp. He holds an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts and has had work published previously in the queer horror anthology Dark Rainbow (2018). He can be contacted at ben.adam554@gmail.com.
The World As It Should Be
by Hayley Davis
I can’t bear the smugness of magicians. The air of superiority that comes from knowing something that we don’t. Yes, it’s only the knowledge of which card you chose or which number you’re thinking of, but for those few minutes, while the question hangs in the air and the audience are in the magicians’ thrall, he -inevitably he, where are the female magicians? – holds all of the power. He has absolute certainty and we do not. More than this, he is more than happy to revel in this fact, to extend the moment, delighting in an omniscience we can only observe.
It makes me uncomfortable. To being so sure of something. Anything. Even for a few moments.
I think about this as I arrange the items from the rider of this evening’s talent:
‘2 bottled water - sparkling
1 multi-pack Pickled Onion Monster Munch
1 bottle good quality Merlot’
When I took this job, three years ago, it was a filler, time to be used to get my head and my life together. I’d been certain. Until I was not. One Tuesday morning I’d placed a load of washing into the machine and grabbed the box of detergent capsules. I picked one out of the box, inhaled the scent of lavender, then placed the box on the counter, put on my shoes and walked out. I never went back. I still wonder how long it took my husband to realise that I wasn’t coming back. How he’d explained it to our daughter.
I happened to see this job advertised on Twitter. It’s within walking distance of my tiny flat and I thought it would give me the space and the time to figure something out. To be certain.
Tonight’s magician is a regular, his act is popular if a little dated. During his last visit, I worked out how he delivered his showstopper, a simple act of manipulation, but it was effective. A card trick where an audience member breaks open a piece of fruit to reveal the playing card they have chosen earlier from the magicians’ pack. The fruit is of course pre-loaded, and the magician simply manipulates the audience member into making the pre-determined choices. He had performed the trick countless times no doubt, but something about this manipulation grated on me, along with the resulting unearned adulation.
The stage had already been set by the time I arrived for my shift, so it was easy for me to quickly replace the loaded orange with an ordinary one.
Now, I just have to wait. I watch the monitor that displays a close up of his face. I witness a spectrum of human emotion flicker over his face, confusion, realisation, denial, dread, shame, anger: the things we all endure, inescapable because our existence is not rigged. Satisfied now, I slip out of the theatre, pulling my jacket on as I leave. The chaos of life has been restored. One without certitude, without guarantees. The world as it should be.
Hayley Davis is a writer and actor based in Birmingham, UK. She works across mediums including solo performance, short film, and short stories. She gained her MA Creative Writing at University of Birmingham. Her film The Get out Clause, a project in which she wrote, produced, and performed, won “Best Local Film” at the 2017 Birmingham Film Festival. The short film is a surreal story about a woman who is forced to confront her unfulfilling life. In 2023 she toured the UK with her show ‘5 Years’ about a woman who has agreed to trade five years of her life for the perfect body. Hayley’s short stories appear in various online literary magazines. You can reach Hayley at mshayleydavis@gmail.com.
Dignity Among Toads
by John Brantingham
Henry, who is meeting his father for the first time today, who has been told not to speak to his father until he has been spoken to, who listened as his grandfather told his mother that he hopes Henry’s father doesn’t come home angrier than he was before he left, who heard his mother and uncle arguing about something as he fell asleep last night, who listened as his mother read a letter his father wrote about the Nazis he killed, slips out the backdoor while they’re setting the table and putting up the balloons and banners. He can hear their voices, party voices, Christmas voices, but they’re worried voices too, he thinks. They keep telling him that he’s so lucky to have his father coming home to him when so many boys don’t have their fathers anymore, and he nods and says yes. Only, they’re scared of something. He can see that in their faces.
So he wanders out the back door and into the woods down to where the stream runs, down to where he can always find toads. He doesn’t want to play with them today. He’s not in a running kind of mood, and anyway, he has his Sunday clothes on. He just wants to watch them. But when he steps on a branch, and his shoe snaps it and sinks into the mud, the mud sucking in around it, he knows that he’s going to catch it, and he thinks of his father meeting him for the first time, his father the angry Nazi killer, seeing that Henry ruined the shine on his shoes. Henry starts to cry. He hasn’t cried for a long time. It used to be when he did, his mother and uncle and grandfather told him that his father never cried, and so he stopped, but he can’t help it now as he trudges back to the yard where he takes off his shoe and wipes it on the grass. He gets off the big clumps and finds a rag in the garage and shines it off, and it would be good, everything would be fine except there’s dirt on his hands and a little on his white shirt. The last time he got his Sunday shirt dirty, his mother told him that God was very disappointed that he’d gone to services like a grubby little monster, so he tries to wipe it off, but that only spreads it more.
He’s about to start crying again, when something moves in the corner of the garage behind the rakes, and he goes over to find that a toad has crawled back there. He reaches back and picks it up, and he wishes that his father would never come home, and then feels bad, knowing that God is disappointed in him for being a little monster. Then there is a wild cheer, everyone inside the house shouting at once, and he knows that his father is here right now, and says to the toad in his hand, “You better run and get out of here, or he’s going to kill you.” He steps into the doorway and tosses the little creature out, giving it a head start. He puts his shoe back on and fights against the tears.
When he looks up, the toad has started back toward the garage. “No,” he tells his new friend. “I’m telling you that he’ll kill you. You have to go away.” He spins the toad around with his hand and pats him on the back and the toad moves toward the woods, but not fast enough. The toad is going to catch it, he thinks. This toad is going to die unless Henry can think of a way to save him. So Henry stands straight. He will face his father. He will talk to him. He will distract him as the toad makes it out to the woods where there is peace, where there is dignity.
John Brantingham was Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks’ first poet laureate. His work has been featured in hundreds of magazines, Writers Almanac, and The Best Small Fictions 2016 and 2022. He has nineteen books of poetry, nonfiction, and fiction including Life: Orange to Pear, Kitkitdizzi, and Days of Recent Divorce. He is the founder and general editor of The Journal of Radical Wonder. He lives in Jamestown, NY.
Taco Tuesday
by Molly Giles
Carney was one of those strawberry blondes with blue eyes and pink faces so to me he looked like a sunset and I told him that one night when we’d been drinking and were sitting on the edge of the esplanade, watching the waves crash beneath our feet. Carney laughed and led me back to the bar where my husband and Carney’s wife Barb were waiting. Barb patted the stool beside her. “I hate him,” she confided, once Carney and Will had gone to the far end of the bar to play pool.
“I hate Will too,” I agreed, but then, curious, “Why?”
“Look at him,” she said.
I looked. I was too drunk to focus but in the darkness Carney still shimmered. He was chalking a cue with a cigarette between his lips, and he made Will, beside him, look young and colorless.
“He looks okay,” I said.
Barb snorted. Then she told me that Carney had taken an entire jar of Miracle Whip and poured it over the tacos she’d made for their dinner that night. “That’s how he eats,” she hissed. “He pours Miracle Whip on everything I make. Meatloaf. Spaghetti. Oatmeal. He ruins everything.” She spun on her stool. “I’m thinking of hiring a hitman.”
I believed her. Barb and Carney stole money from each other’s wallets. They let the air out of each other’s tires. Barb said Carney’s penis was the size of a pencil eraser; Carney said you could bake a turkey in Barb’s vagina. I could visualize the plate of ruined tacos on their kitchen table, with its scrubbed oilcloth and plastic flowers, and I knew their life was one I would never want. Will came up behind me then and punched my shoulder. “Time,” he said.
We drove home in silence. I didn’t know what Will was thinking about; I’d never known, never would. What I was thinking about was Carney, his hand on my wrist as he drew me back from the edge of the esplanade, his voice as he said, “Everyone’s sad. It’s not just you.”
Molly Giles' latest novel, THE HOME FOR UNWED HUSBANDS has just been published by Leapfrog Press. She is the author of a previous novel, IRON SHOES, and five award-winning collections of short stories.
Big Bad Dale’s Big Bad Day
by Liz Lydic
Dale should've thrown in the towel before lunch. He’d had a typical morning assignment: a hit for some broad mad her husband cheated on her. She had a limp and no discernable ankles, so Dale related more to the husband than to the angry woman. But his boss said the split was 20k, and the woman was organized and communicative, so Dale was grateful. He was working on being more grateful for what he had, writing in the little Moleskin he took from the start-up kid he'd burglarized last week.
"Not too much juice," he'd written in the first entry, referring to the surprisingly low amount of blood from three gunshot wounds on a guy his client caught embezzling.
He consistently wrote for the next three days ("Grateful for the rainstorm; less traffic on kidnap job." "Boyfriend of Client had X-box. I played before he came home and I lobbed him." "Nailed signature for Client forgery job.”), but was far from journaling being an out-and-out habit.
Maybe that was why the day was going so badly. After the ankles lady, driving to a strip mall robbery with a set start time, he'd gotten stuck in a traffic circle loop. He was late, obviously, and compromised the job's start time. Shortly thereafter, he'd gotten a gnarly case of diarrhea from a Chipotle burrito that rendered him physically weak during a drug pickup as a bag man, and he sharted his pants in front of the connects, who, in turn, taunted him and fired a gun in his direction. In the mid-afternoon, Dale tried to clear out a Laundromat so he could steal the change machine coins, and a guy with OCD refused to leave the premises until he'd finished folding his dress shirts.
It'd taken Dale two hours to calm his fury about the guy and his pathetic repetitive motions, so obviously born out of his own wiring, not his defiance to Dale. He planned to write 'Didn't hit the fucked-up guy' in his gratitude journal. It wasn't much to be grateful for, to have resisted the urge to hit a man doing laundry, when he himself was about to reach his arm up into a machine to steal seventy bucks.
Late that night, he was preparing for a house raid job on a vacationing family. He was to focus on jewelry, sports equipment, electronics, and cash that was in a safe in a closet. Passing his journal as he walked to and from the front room of his home to his bedroom where he was getting dressed, Dale couldn't help but see it. Normally this preparation time would create in Dale electricity, an energy he wished he could bottle for non-crime moments of his life. But on this day, he felt nervous and scared, and the scared-ness scared him more. He took several swigs of a bottle of Evan Williams he normally drank post-job, until his mind was light. In this state, he was able to finish getting ready, see the journal as less ominous, and drive to the target home in relative peace.
Typically in home invasions, Dale looked at the house with disdain, sickened by all that it was and all that it enclosed which he knew nothing about and would never have for himself. The home was the enemy, and so the intrusion of it was simple and necessary.
This home, though, seemed not to offend him. It was a two-story situation with a deck in front, one he assumed was grossly underused but which held a friendly comfort nonetheless. The lawn was near immaculate, but the abandoned soccer ball and too-tall sprinkler heads gave it a human feel.
As he touched the doorknob to enter the house, a warmth drew Dale's focus down, down from the door, the knob, the window to the right with the shades pulled tight as promised by his boss. Down past his coarse-haired middle-aged arm, farmer-tanned from the job in Key West, down past his old jeans, faded at the knee like a teenager. Down past his pathetic Reebok low tops, to the Welcome mat below him, its message simple but terrifying, for, in its audacious invitation, Dale saw his own home, twenty years from now, a home all his. He, in this moment, either hallucinatory from the bourbon- or spiritual, a result of his gratitude-culling - saw a moment of his life: stepping on to a mat like this, happily dragging his feet to spare the home's inner beauty from the soil of the outside world, the bottom-shoe stuff he could acquire but leave so smoothly behind. And then he was undoing a wristwatch that could have symbolized recognition as Employee of the Year. And then he was kissing his future wife, and from what he could tell in this vision, she was a good woman. And soon, they were lifting forks to their mouths in this someday version of him, and he and his wife were full of good, real food with which he nourished his body, and the plates were the kind that required washing. And so they were washing them, Dale and this wife he didn't recognize but appeared real and true, and he was telling her that the meal was delicious and she was smiling at him, shifting her head to and fro to get better looks at him, as if she could not believe all that he was. And he looked at her back, unable to keep himself from smiling. The next thing he'd say to her - "Thank you" - was something he said to her often.
Twenty frantic minutes later, Dale was back in his car, a nag in his arm from where he'd struggled opening the safe. His hand was bleeding from the slit his careless maneuvering of a ski had caused. But, wrapped up carefully and delicately in a box was a set of porcelain plates, the kind that required washing, which he'd bundled up separately, that he would keep.
Liz Lydic is a mom, writer, and local government employee in the Los Angeles area. She also does theatre stuff.
Cowgirl Math
by Kevin Broccoli
The cowgirl’s homework was due tomorrow.
Glancing at the bull, she wondered if there was any way she could remain on its backside for the required ninety-four seconds it would take to win the tournament.
Her father, a five-time riding champion, sucked on a peach lozenge while he glanced at the math worksheet she had brought with her to the rodeo. The hope was that he could finish most of it and she could complete the rest tomorrow at breakfast while her mother pretended not to notice.
One look at her father let her know that any equation he attempted to wrangle would wind up facing the red pen of Mrs. Pen der Slaan. His strengths were fatherhood and assessing an animal’s ferocity. His weaknesses were long division and lying to his wife. That night when Gretchen asked him if he’d allowed his only daughter to compete in yet another tournament where she could be grievously injured, he would inevitably crack under the weight of her silver eyes. She’d forgive him after a week of silent treatment provided their one and only daughter came back from the rodeo unharmed.
If it weren’t for the cowgirl’s confident assertion that she could hang on for ninety-four seconds (and perhaps a few more), he would have simply taken her for ice cream, which is the story he gave his spouse. They would, in fact, get a strawberry swirl cup, but only after the tournament and a shot at the faux gold trophy.
“Well Pop,” the cowgirl said, as she spit in her palms and sent up a prayer, “Should I walk?”
Her father pulled one last punch of that peach lozenge, looked at his daughter. He wanted to tell her that this was all a fool’s errand, and they should get out while the getting was good. The trouble was, his daughter had inherited his habit of looking back. He knew that if they turned their backs on a gamble, she’d steal a look over her shoulder on the way out, and the look would last a lifetime.
So instead, he adjusted her hat and looked her square in the eyes when he said--
“There’s no walking away from this.”
With that, she stepped onto the amarillo dirt spread out all over the Thelma E. Totten Rodeo. The crowd roared their approval.
There aren’t many dynasties in rodeo, but there was about to be one more.
Kevin Broccoli is a writer from New England. His work has appeared in Molecule, Apricity, New Plains Review, Havik, and Ponder Review. He is the George Lila Award winner for Short Fiction, and the author of "Combustion."
Mating Dance
by Randall Perry
I spot you on the subway and first thing I do is take off my shirt: I want you to admire me, I want you to want me—you in your charcoal suit, carrying a brown briefcase you put on the floor and steady between shiny black leather shoes, your only pop of colour a pair of bright patterned yellow and blue socks up your shins and matching pocket square in your jacket, your trouser hems high above the ankles, the style as of last week and likely not to last, according to the magazines; I know your kind, the guys with expensive taste and no regrets and wallets fat with high-interest no-limit cards, driving Bimmers or maybe Maserati, but not you, so sensible instead, taking transit, who knows, maybe your wife has the car or your girlfriend or maybe boyfriend number three (this year), sure, that’s more likely your type, I see you handing over the keys to the Porsche, handing them to him over the sports section, that’s nice, babe, be careful not to dint the chrome this week—don’t pout, you know how that gets Daddy going in the morning and I have a meeting first thing, I can see it now, that platinum blond goodness and sweet, sweet smile but not quite bright enough to keep the volume down beside the pool, the neighbours looking through the hole in the fence to find out where that shitty music is coming from, whispering to each other, oh, he’s got a new one on the go, but such a good, dependable boyfriend (number three, this year), and I see you look up from your paper at me, my shirt off and my bright laser whitened teeth and my sculpted six-pack on display, you looking up at me and I come closer and hang off the steel grab bar and run my hand over my chest, just a little bit, gyrating my hips, keeping time to the bump and shove rhythm of the subway car, locking my eyes to your gaze and I see a small drop of sweat at your temple and I want to lean down and lick it off—I want to taste you, to taste your salt, your essence—while you open and close your legs ever so slightly, showing me what’s at the vee where your legs become your inner thighs, and I fasten my eyes to the trouser material thinking about what’s waiting for me beyond the expensive threads and now my forehead is perspiring (goddamn it the air conditioning never works when it’s needed!) and it’s trickling slowly down the bridge of my nose, like what happened when all those housewives started reading dirty novels on the bus, something in that 50 Shades series—poor things, their husbands not taking care of their needs, not like how I would satisfy your smallest (or biggest) whim—that one I saw one day, the bead of moisture forming between her eyebrows and wandering down her nose, past her eyes, pupils dilated wide, mouthing quietly the words on the page, wetting one finger with her tongue and turning page after page after page, shifting around on the bus seat, flustered, the text working up her fantasies of being tied up, never mind being tied down, now that’s what I’d do to you, up against a pole with your wrists bound behind your back, barefoot in your suit, and have my way with you from toes to temples, or flip the scene, you pushing me into an empty operator’s cab and locking the door, whispering, Next stop, pleasure station, no need to stop, it’s time to get off, sure, or even right here on the seat in front of the entire train, our bodies cooking on the crummy fabric, adding another stain or two, nobody’s looking, or everybody’s looking, it doesn’t matter, and I wipe my face and torso with my shirt and adjust my business in the front of my tight jeans, the place where the denim is worn down just right so you can see as I move closer, pivot on my heels and jump on the seat next to you and drop my arms to the floor and it’s time for push-ups, so you can see how it would be, my muscular back, if you took me from behind, one, two, three, up and down, up, I want you to see me from all angles, down, four, five, an extra push high to clap, six, seven, eight, my arms aching and burning from the effort, and I roll away and prop myself up on one elbow, boyfriend number four (this year), with better taste in music and more careful with the Aston-Martin, a sly grin on my face in your direction, running one finger discreetly along the leather of one shoe, straying upward to the bump of an ankle bone, watching for your hand to reach and adjust down there to make more room for your growing interest, the automated announcer declaring, Arriving at terminal station, and you reach for your briefcase and you rise, you drop the newspaper on my face, you disappear out the door, off the train, the door closes and the train is out of service and yes, I saw it, I saw the wink and I saw your desire just before your sunglasses covered your eyes, the arousal in your trousers as you stepped over me, you know full well how you stopped me in my tracks and I lie on the floor, the train guard trying to get my attention over the speaker, Sir, excuse me sir, the train is out of service, please exit the train, and I lie there and clutch the newspaper close, inhaling, searching for your scent, the raw sex energy your body gave off I know it’s here, somewhere, trapped in the crumpled pages between the business section and the classifieds.
Randall Perry is a writer and editor living in Toronto, Ontario. His fiction has appeared in Islandside magazine and in the anthology, Fear from a Small Place. His non-fiction essays, columns, and reviews have appeared in Wayves, The ARC Quarterly, Outlooks, and fab. He is @randall_perry on Instagram and the416er@gmail.com on email.