Walls
by Corinne Hughes
They were looking at him because of the smell. He could smell it too. He was uncomfortable, his muscles stiff. Whispers meandered. There is so much talking in this life.
“Sir? Are you alright sir?” a young woman asked, her blond hair pulled up so tight on her head, she appeared bald.
“Don’t you think we should do something?” the young woman said, joining the group at the other end of the elevator. They murmured, squirming, their eyes sharp and narrow. He carefully pulled up his pants before he stood up.
*
John’s mother believed in perfection. She grew up with strict routines and later, at Vassar, accomplished a major presence at the daily teatime. She was curt, but soft spoken. She laughed when obliged but never told jokes. She had a tendency to walk into a room and turn it to ice. She taught John to be a Christian, a studious scholar, and, above all, a gentleman.
Chin up, shoulders back, and poise, Johnathan! Poise, poise poise! she would yell at him, clapping her hands for emphasis. She had him stand in front of a long mirror to practice his posture and the classic smile of a gentleman like other kids practiced piano or trained to be athletes. She toured with him across the country to universities, where he gave lectures on education, the arts, and sciences. He was almost sure that, at one point, he was driven by a passion for something, but he couldn’t remember what it was. She was his constant shadow, a twin, and, later, a phantom limb. They stayed in beautiful hotels, flew first class, and sipped wine amongst the elite scholars and benefactors and who knows.
He was seventy-two now, his mother dead. Her voice would wake him at night. He no longer lectured. No dining or traveling. No sneaking out to bars tucked away. No hands on him. No averting his mother’s gaze. How so much is hidden, and what it turns into after so long. Petrified. His mother’s echo was visceral. There was television and the internet, but somehow, his mother’s death meant omnipotence. She was God judging his every living hour. Every now and then, he did a Google search of his name that led to a growing Wikipedia page. John never married because of his devotion to scholarship, writing, and lectures. John never married because---
Poise now! Poise, poise, poise!
The community college approached John a week after his birthday. They needed an event. Apparently, it was the thirty-fifth anniversary of one of his lectures, “The Democracy of Education.” Somehow repeating this lecture would re-inspire our youth. He was bored. He took the job and looked through old files, thinking back on those question-and-answer sessions with those for whom the future was alive. You spoke earlier about art being humanity’s salvation. What are we going to do if we are saved?
*
The need was already urgent as he arrived. When he walked into the main building, he ran into one of the event coordinators immediately, a stunning young man in a blue suit.
“John Stomble, it is such a pleasure! I’m so glad you could make it.” His warm hands took John’s arm and led him to the elevator. “The lecture is timed to begin very soon so hurry up to the third floor. It’s okay if we’re a tiny bit off schedule, but the audience will eat me alive if they don’t see you soon! I’ll be up there in just a minute to get you set up with a mic.” The man was high spoken, and John could have sworn he saw a touch of eye make-up above his eyelids. He had a fleeting thought.
The elevator stalled just after the ding signifying the passage of the second floor. His eyebrows tucked into a deep furrow as the tiny room erupted. So much necessity to explain.
Someone suggested jumping up and down. Another suggested using the intercom, but there was no reply. Silence filled the shrinking stall. John’s urge to relieve himself was painful. For a moment, he felt the physical protrusion of soft, acrid heat and yelped. So many words taking the lives of moments.
Chin up! John almost felt himself smirk as he began to undo his belt, a wave of life, insatiable, flowing through him. A young man noticed immediately but said nothing. Johnathan! Once he began to undo the top button and unzip his fly, a few of the others began to back away, not in disgust but in some kind of curiosity. John was curious too. Johnathan, stop it this instant! He took a deep breath, shut his eyes, and, for a blissful moment, embraced absolute silence as he lowered to the floor.
*
Everyone stared in awe of John as he buckled his belt. A moment later, the elevator arrived at the third floor and the door opened. They dispersed quickly, some laughing and others solemn. A scream burst from the elevator just before the doors shut behind him. John walked into the men’s bathroom and approached a mirror. He turned on the sink faucet and splashed water onto his face. So much talking, so many endless words that will lead them nowhere at all.
The door popped open, and the young man in the blue suit entered, smiling with enthusiasm. “There you are! It’s time, it’s time.” He approached John and cupped his arm with an intimacy John savored. They walked down the hall and into the lecture hall. Every seat was filled and some spectators stood in the aisles. His mother would be proud. “You look great! Don’t worry! Now let’s get you on a mic. Just repeat, ‘Testing! 1-2-3!’” One. Two. Three. Poise, poise, poise.
John smiled, classically, lifted his chin, pulled his shoulders back and spoke. The young man in the blue suit, pleased, smiled too. “Wonderful! Just wonderful!”
Corinne Hughes is a queer poet, essayist, and fiction writer. Her work has been supported by a scholarship from Tin House and a fellowship from the National Book Foundation. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Passengers Journal, High Shelf Press, Cathexis Northwest Press, Grim & Gilded, and Warm Milk. Her essays can also be found online at Museum Studies Abroad. Born in the Texas hill country, she now resides in Portland, Oregon with her two blue Finnish gerbils. She can be reached at oleacae@gmail.com.
A Lifetime of Little Fires
by Mel Sherrer
The musty bedroom room was quiet, just two men breathing and the wet, frothy sound of Paul brushing warm, whipped, shaving cream onto Martin’s chin and cheeks.
“How’d you learn to do an old-fashioned hot shave, Paul?” Martin asked, breaking the silence.
“Well, I have always liked to keep a smooth face, I think it makes me look five years younger, don’t you? Paul asked.
“I thought you liked to do it so you can wear ladies’ makeup without any whiskers in the way.”
Paul gently wiped a dab of shaving cream from Martin’s ear with the backside of his fingers.
“Yes, that too.” Paul admitted.
He expertly worked the straight-razor blade over weeks of unkempt stubble. It occurred to Paul that this might be Martin’s last shave, and a minute consolation for the dying man. Paul lifted Martin’s face tenderly with the tips of his fingers. He angled the blade and began to remove the delicate patch of hair between his father-in-law’s chin and lip.
“Would you like to try some? After the shave?” Paul asked.
“Try what, makeup? Hell no!”
Martin made to flinch away, then remembered the razor near his cheek. He sighed, body and mind exhausted. His shoulders which had once been formidable, embellished by smart, sport coats or padded shooting jackets, rose and fell, fragile as the wings of a car-stricken city bird.
“But— I guess they’re going to put that shit on me for the casket anyway, may as well beat ‘em to it, huh?” Martin said.
“I guess that’s one way to think of it, as makeup for death.” Paul said.
“How do you think of it? Never met a Black man fine with being the way you are, let alone happy to flaunt it.” Martin’s voice was angry and pathetic, bitterness rattled his sunken chest.
“I think of it like adding a touch of salt and pepper to a steak, or a sprinkle of cinnamon over a perfectly brewed cappuccino, it’s just improving on something already great.” said Paul.
“Does Trey think I’m great?” Martin asked.
“I think, in everyone’s lifetime there are moments of greatness. Life is peppered with little fires, greatness and brightness,” Paul said.
“What are you going to tell Trey?”
“That you love him, maybe that you wanted things to be different, but that you didn’t want him to be different.”
“Why didn’t he come himself? I’m his father. It’s the reason I wanted to be at home instead of, you know, the hospital, or hospice, I just— I said that I was going home to family, and with my insurance nobody stopped me, but I assumed he would come.”
“He was worried that you wouldn’t be different, just dying.”
“I am dying.” Martin replied frankly.
“Are you different?” Paul asked.
“Yes, perhaps. I had hoped my only son would come to me on my deathbed, not send his gay lover.
“I’m the only person who would or could come. So here we are.”
For a few moments they were quiet again. Paul finished the shave and pressed a damp cloth to Martin’s neck, cleaning up stray dollops of cream.
“What are you going to tell him, really?” Martin asked, looking up at Paul smooth-cheeked and childlike in his deteriorated sate.
“I’m going to tell him that you considered the makeup.”
“Do not tell him, or anyone, that!”
“I think he would find it comforting; I think he would look at it like an acceptance of sorts.”
“Oh. Well, then— tell him I let you put a little on me.”
“Really?” Paul asked, eyebrows raised in surprise.
“It’ll mean more to him alive, than it will to me dead. Besides, it’s too late to do it right.”
Mel Sherrer (She/Her) is a writer and performer. She received her B.F.A. from Hollins University in Roanoke, Virginia, and her M.F.A. from Converse University in Spartanburg, South Carolina. Mel teaches and conducts Creative Writing and Performance Literature workshops. Her poetry was nominated for the 2021 Pushcart Prize, and Best of the Net. She currently resides in Las Vegas, Nevada. You can find her work and more information at www.MelSherrer.com, or follow her on Twitter @Heda_Mel.
The Talisman
by Francis Flavin
Burns pulled the hood of his raincoat tight around his neck against the morning chill. It was a beautiful fall day. Sunlight shimmered off the turquoise and aquamarine glacial waters. The willows and alders on the river bank glistened with the early morning dew. But the sun lay far to the south, and lacked the solar punch that it had in the short Alaskan summer. The speed of the jet boat and the Kasilof’s icy waters chilled him to the bone. Burns tried to use the broad back of Trooper Ellis as a wind break. Ellis seemed impervious to the elements. He turned around and grinned.
“Having fun yet Professor?”
Burns just shrugged. He was only an associate professor, but his chattering teeth prevented any thought of correcting the undeserved title. He managed a slight smile; fleeting and frozen. Nobody outside academia gave a crap about scholarly titles anyway. He let it go.
“We should be there in a few minutes.”
That smile again. Burns resented the fact that Ellis seemed oblivious to the cold.
Burns owed his state of near hypothermia to several dry martinis and a misplaced sense of adventure. Two days previously he participated in a forensic anthropology workshop for Alaska law enforcement officials in Anchorage. His session covered the handling of human remains with an emphasis on protocols concerning the recognition and protection of Alaska Native cultural traditions.
At the cocktail hour following the workshop Trooper Ellis asked Burns if he wanted to put his expertise to work and have a bit of an adventure to boot. A moose hunter had found a human skull near the Kasilof River and Ellis had been tasked with investigating the circumstances surrounding the remains. Ellis invited Burns to participate in the inquiry. Intrigued, Burns readily accepted. Even though he worked in the forensic end of law enforcement, he recognized that an important anthropological find would look good on his curriculum vitae.
His reflections and misery were interrupted by a shout from Ellis.
“The GPS indicates the site should be just around the next bend.”
As the trooper beached the boat, Burns pulled up his hip boots that were folded down around his ankles. There was a good deal of tall grass running up the nearby ridgeline. His crotch would still be soaked in the dew, but at least his legs would be dry, and hopefully warm.
After Ellis had tied off the boat on a large driftwood log, he reached into the bow of the boat and pulled out a shotgun.
“12 Gauge!”
“Unplugged!”
He jacked a shell into the shotgun’s chamber.
“Ready for bear,” he grinned.
Ellis handed Burns a tall can of bear spray.
“Know how to use this?”
“Oh yeah!”
Burns indeed had some experience. An incident he did not want to repeat or even think about. He never could decide which was most scared; his brain, his bladder or his bowels.”
It was less than a hundred yards to the skull site. Even so, Burns was soaked through everywhere that wasn’t covered by rubber or Gor-Tex. He hoped that the site was worth the misery he incurred getting there.
The skull was located under a bouquet of orange tape hanging from a spruce branch. Before examining it, they both donned gloves to protect the evidence and took out their cameras to record the scene.
After taking pictures of the skull from a variety of angles Ellis picked it up and handed it to Burns.
“What do you think?”
Burns grimaced.
“Shit!”
One of the few remaining molars that had survived weather and scavenging animals had a large gold filling.
“I would say this is a male Caucasian. Been here several decades or so.”
While Ellis was photographing and cataloging bones, Burns decided to investigate a small clearing in a nearby spruce grove. To his surprise the clearing contained remnants of an old settlement of some kind.
“Well, this is more like it!”
Burns took a slew of pictures to record the site. As he prepared to leave and rejoin Ellis, he noticed something glistening under a spruce root.
He got down on his hands and knees for a closer look. It was a small talisman of some type; a bear. He took several pictures, marked the location with a small flag and picked it up.
Burns wondered why this site had remained hidden for so long. He rolled the bear over in his fingers. A wave of foreboding swept over him - then a shout from Ellis – a shotgun blast – silence. The bushes parted in a rush of fur and fury. His question was answered in the shockingly familiar stench of carrion, and the crush of teeth.
Francis Flavin draws upon his experience as an educator, public interest lawyer and observer on four continents. His work has been published in Poetry Quarterly, Poets Choice, Inwood Indiana, Blueline, Pacific Review, Blue Collar Review, La Piccioletta Barca, Three Line Poetry, The Closed Eye Open and Tempered Runes, among others. He was the Winner of the 2021 Poetry Quarterly Rebecca Lard Award and has received recognition for humor and flash fiction (2), short story (2), novel excerpt (3), creative nonfiction and personal essay categories in the Soul-Making Keats Literary Competition, the social impact category of the Chicagoland Poetry Contest, the Partisan Press Working People’s Poetry Competition (winner) and the personal essay and rhymed poetry categories of the 2020 Writer’s Digest awards.
Murder at the Dew Drop Inn
by Cerys Harrison
Danny Flowers' hands trembled as he replaced the derringer in its holster beneath his sports coat. He misjudged the distance as he leaned back on the hood of his grandfather’s Ford V8 and slid off, landing hard on the gravel. He sat in a stupor, staring at a hunting knife laying in the parking lot. The sign hanging over the main door to The Dew Drop Inn illuminated the blade in pulsating red and orange neon. The pale hand clutching the knife had squeezed it erratically at first. Now, the hand was still. After a few moments, Danny reminded himself to breathe. The air he jaggedly drew in was hot, without comfort, without peace.
The stillness of the humid August night settled on his shoulders and he became aware of a fatigue deep in his bones. He desperately wanted to climb into the back seat of the sedan and let the sleep of the dead enshroud him, to sleep for all eternity. But his legs refused to budge. Danny blinked haltingly, his mind swimming in a murky creek of oblivion, slowly rising to the surface of consciousness.
Danny became aware of katydids chirping in syncopation to the rhythmic flashing of the candy colored neon, of the Ford’s grille digging into his back, of his body lifting up from the ground as if he were a marionette operated by an unseen, novice puppeteer. His feet flapped on the gravel as he made his way to the juke joint’s entrance. He yanked open the door.
“Mr. Richards?” he called out to the bartender.
Danny had no need to ask for quiet. The customers, who heard a single crackle ringing in from the parking lot, had arranged themselves in silent, small groups sitting at tables, or leaning against the far walls. Waiting, it occurred to him, like reticent parishioners at a wake, impatient for the preacher’s words to release them from their obligation to acknowledge the departed, to be set free.
“Mr. Richards,” he repeated. “I’d be obliged if you’d place a call to the sheriff.”
Cerys Harrison was born and raised in the home of the Ford Mustang, Dearborn, Michigan. Growing up she was fascinated with New York City and, after graduating from college during a recession, decided to move there, thinking it was more glamorous to be an unemployed actor than an out-of-work librarian. After a successful detour in advertising, Cerys returned to her hometown, libraries, and writing. And an occasional turn on the stage. Visit her online at http://twitter.com/parkerscorners.
It’s Okay to Say No
by Jeannette Garrett
They were walking home from a retrospective film festival, around 8:30 at night when Mary Alice saw up ahead what looked to be a homeless guy. Which was not unusual. Which was, in fact, quite usual. They were everywhere these days: in tents, under freeway overpasses, parking lots, libraries, church steps. All men. This one was sitting on a concrete block. They kept their eyes lowered. It was dark and they were careful of their footing on the cracked sidewalk.
“Good evening,” the man said as they approached. “Spare a quarter?” All the signs at the freeways, advised “It’s ok to say no to panhandlers. Give instead to agencies that help those in need” and Mary Alice tended to agree so they kept walking, not picking up their pace, but not dawdling either.
They had gone maybe 10 feet further when he called out, “It’s my birthday.”
They walked half a block more before they turned back.
“Is it really your birthday?” Arms crossed, Mary Alice was a skeptical inquisitor.
“I wouldn’t lie about a thing like that.”
“You have a driver’s license?”
“I’m car-less, man.” He half-turned and pointed to the empty parking lot behind him.
“How old are you today?”
“Thirty.”
“You’re a Pisces. Did you know that?”
“Yeah, I have a desire to escape reality and I like visual media. Also, I was born on a Saturday. ‘Saturday’s child works hard for a living.’”
“So much for that,” Mary Alice said. “Whaddaya wanna do?”
“A threesome?”
“Get real.”
“A drink and a meal? But if I have to eat another chicken nugget, it’ll be the end of me.”
“I hear ya. We’re sympatico. No chicken nuggets, I can promise you that.”
There was an Italian restaurant two blocks east and the three of them headed there.
“What’s your name, birthday boy?”
“Edward. What’s yours?”
“Mary Alice.”
“And the one who doesn’t speak? What’s yours?”
“Katie.”
“Is that short for Katharine?”
“It’s not short for anything. It’s just Katie.”
“Just Katie, what have you two been up to tonight? Belly dancing, pole vaulting, cabaret singing, telling fortunes?”
The women giggled. They were both 27, and they still giggled when they felt like it.
“We saw a Fellini. ‘La Dolce Vita.’
“Ah, the sweet life.”
“So what’s your story, Edward?”
“It’s a tale oft told of love, revenge, banishment, arrogance, greed.”
“Sounds like Shakespeare,” Mary Alice said.
“Without the royalty,” Katie added. “Your voice sounds familiar.”
When they finally saw him in the light of a street lamp, Katie recognized him as a guy she dated two years ago. “What’s with the ‘Edward’? Why’d you change your name?”
“’Bentley.’ You think that works on the streets?”
“So what’s a good day for you?”
“When there’s no rain. And the sun doesn’t blister my fair skin.”
“All well and good, but I meant, how much money do you make on a good day?”
“Five bucks is a really good day. No obvious disabilities and no claim to being a vet. It’s usually much less.”
“Remember when you told me I should smile more?”
“I said that to all the women I dated.”
“That’s my advice to you. It might help with the cash flow.”
“Does this mean there’s no birthday celebration?”
“That’s the truth,” the women said in unison before they left him under the street lamp.
A graduate of the University of Texas at Austin, Jeannette Garrett has been published in Convergence and Eclectica Magazine. She has participated in numerous writing workshops at Inprint and Writespace in Houston, Texas, where she resides. Her email address is garrettcj@comcast.net.
When the Impossible Becomes Possible
by Anne Anthony
Katherine drove past Miller’s pond where she’d learned to swim, followed the ridged mountain pass with its switchbacks and frozen edges that led to her father’s cabin where he lay breathing the shallow breaths of the dying. She’d fallen asleep on her sofa listening to acoustic guitars with fiddles, so the midnight call woke her. Two full minutes passed before she recognized the low-pitched voice of her father’s neighbor, the woman who disbelieved her own daughter’s whispered confession. Disbelieved what he’d done, the same as he’d done to Katherine.
“Come home,” the woman said, “before he’s gone.”
Returning home was something she thought impossible. Years before she promised never to go back to the girl hiding in her heart. They talked late into the night, Katherine and her younger self, reasoning why they should drive seven hours from North Carolina to Pennsylvania for a man they’d left behind. Their conversation ended tense and willful.
“You need to speak your mind, whether he can hear you or not.”
“But he’s going to…” The girl started crying before finishing her thoughts.
“He can’t hurt you, Kitty. Not anymore.”
The woman hugged her pillow against her chest as if she could squeeze out fear.
“Promise? He can’t do nothing?”
“He’s weak now. Cancer’s eating him from the inside out, Honey. It’s called karma.”
Katherine felt the girl calming; they both agreed it was possible, no, necessary now to face him. “We owe it to ourselves to watch him die.”
Anne Anthony’s gritty, tender, and amusing stories feature compelling but flawed characters. She’s been published in Brilliant Flash Fiction, Dime Store Review, Carolina Woman’s Magazine, Dead Mule School for Southern Literature, Literary Orphans, and elsewhere. Her poem, She Wants, published by Blue Heron Review, was nominated for a Pushcart Award. She recently released a short story collection, A Blue Moon & Other Murmurs of the Heart. She lives and writes in North Carolina. For more about Anne’s writing, check out bit.ly/anneanthony or discover her work-in-progress on Instagram: #roadtrippingwithMP.
Mother’s Day
by Don Niederfrank
The saddest Sunday of the year. I was really looking forward to my dogs greeting me as I came in the front door. But they didn’t. Then I saw him on the other side of the living room going through my old rolltop desk.
“What the hell? Who are you?”
He turned around, reached into a well-worn camo jacket and pulled out a small pistol.
“I’m the guy whose robbing you. Give me your billfold.”
Then I saw them, my two huskies. There was a lot of blood. Those must have been the shots I heard when I turned onto our street. They were gentle dogs. Samson was old and could hardly stand. Helena was a pup. I wanted to kill him. Only the gun kept me from it.
He was my age, mid-fifties, but lot bigger. I pulled out my billfold and took a step toward him. Let’s see if you’re as slow as you look. When he reached for my wallet, I kicked hard at the gun. Perfect. His eyes followed its upward flight. I took a quick step and pushed him. He fell. The gun landed in front me, and I picked it up.
“Sit there.” I nodded at the oak rocker. He sat. I opened the drawer of an end table. Now I was holding a familiar weapon—my dad’s old 9 mm. “You should have looked in there first.”
“I just got here.”
I fought to stay rational in my anger, but this bastard had come into my sanctuary and shot my dogs. My only companions. I wanted him dead.
“You gonna call the police?”
“After I kill you.”
“What? Wait. Why are you going to kill me?”
“Here’s why. My father told me, ‘Never be afraid to kill someone. It may save your life someday. Or someone else’s.’ We were sitting in metal chairs at a small metal table. All bolted to the floor. They weren’t going anywhere, and neither was my dad. He spoke from experience. He hadn’t been afraid to kill someone. Not a home invader, a car hijacker or someone attacking mom. It was a judge. A judge he knew was going to sentence his nephew to prison. A nephew who had harmed people but who was broken himself. Someone who would deteriorate in prison. Someone who need help not punishment.” I sat on the couch.
“What’s this have to do with me?”
“Shut up. There were three judges in our county. Two men and a woman. The woman and one of the men were from the sort of small town we lived in. These two judges were known. They had children in our schools. We knew where they lived. We trusted them. They knew the law, but also that they knew us. Their decisions were accepted. Sometimes criticized but always in the end accepted.
“The third judge we hated. He wasn’t from a small town, and he’d only been in ours eight or nine years. He never mingled. We didn’t know him. The one thing we did know was that he didn’t want to be here, didn’t want to be with us. It came out every time he sentenced one of us to jail or community service or probation. He took away our driver’s licenses, our gun permits, our property, and sent any one of us, man, woman or even child to one institution or another for as long as the law would allow. He was a real jerk and needed to be stopped.
“When my father found out the honorable Terrance R. Radcliff was going to be the one to sentence my cousin Danny, Dad had climbed into the attic and brought down this nine-millimeter pistol with its eleven-shot clip. After supper he drove over to the Radcliff residence and shot the judge as he finished mowing his lawn. A warm July evening. Didn’t tell him why. Didn’t give the judge a chance to discuss the case. I doubt Terrance R. Radcliff fully processed the reality of my father, a man twenty years his senior, walking straight across his newly mowed with a pistol in his right hand.
“He did stop mowing though. Mrs. Radcliff testified she heard the mower stop just before she heard the gunshots. Five or six. She couldn’t be sure. She came to the door and screamed and ran to her husband, prone on his back, eyes open but unseeing the darkening sky.
“In the meantime, my father walked into their house, called the police, and went and sat in his car until they came. Sometimes it makes perfect sense to kill someone who’s a jerk.”
“It don’t make sense to kill me.”
“It didn’t make sense for you to kill my dogs.”
“They scared me. You should have them tied up.”
“See? You are a real jerk. Someone needs to stop you.”
“I don’t think it’s going to be you.”
“Why’s that?”
“’Cause if you were going to shoot me, you’d have done it by now.” He stood up from the rocker. “I’m leaving.”
He started across the living room. I looked at my dogs then back to him. The first shot hit him in the right calf. He stopped didn’t but go down.
“You’re a chickenshit.” He grinned then grimaced and started limping toward the door.
The second shot hit his left knee. He went down. “Ow! Damn you!” He grabbed the wound.
I walked over and looked down at him. “My father said, ‘Never be afraid to kill someone.’”
“No, wait.” He held up his hands. “I’m sorry. I—”
I pressed the gun to his forehead. “You are a very fortunate man. You are fortunate because I was a fortunate child.”
“How— How is that?”
“I had a mother too. She told me not to be a jerk.” I straightened up. “I’m going to call the police. You move, and we go back to my dad’s wisdom, understood?”
He nodded once.
“Happy Mother’s Day.”
Don Niederfrank is a retired clergy person living in Wisconsin and delighting in the companionship of his wife, the wit of his friends, the forgiveness of his children, and often commutes to Chicago to enjoy the growth of his grandchildren. He is usually a very grateful and happy person. His writing credits include a short story “A Problem with Numbers” in Ariel Chart; flash fiction “Rug” in Open: Journal of Arts and Letters and “Transcendence” in Gay Flash Fiction; and a sonnet “Up Lights” in Prospectus. He can be reached at dniederfrank@gmail.com.
Not a Murderer
by Maryanne Knight
Janey recognized the man in her doorbell camera from the police photo. Housewives had been warned not to open the door for solicitors, and asked to report any they saw. Sightings led to manhunts, lockdowns that inconvenienced residents, while the killer remained free.
After her cousin’s murder, Janey hung a “welcome!” flag on the door, planted petunias to lure him to her house, took the weekend night shift, to be home when he hunted. Camry in the driveway, hospital parking pass hidden in the console. Surprisingly, it worked.
She buttoned the house dress over her workout clothes, stun gun in the pocket. She pressed the mic on her phone. “Yes?”
His smile was broad, charismatic. “Howdy, Miss. I’d like to show you the patented new technology from Vikingware. Our blades, which never dull or stain, will literally cut your cooking time in half.”
“You look parched. Come in out of that hot sun.” She fussed, opening the door. “I’m brewing some sweet tea. You must have a glass before you show me anything. Two minutes, then I’m yours for the afternoon.”
“Sounds divine,” he said, with a sly twist of his lips that made her shudder.
Alone in the kitchen, she scooped sugar and crushed pills into a glass and microwaved it with tea from the fridge. Ambien, Xanax, Vicodin, whatever she could get prescribed since her cousin’s death. She’d been at Charlene’s house that day with the cops, learned about the empty tea glass at each scene, with the killer’s fingerprints and DNA. His signature, a detail withheld from the press. Drugging his tea became central to Janey’s revenge fantasy after that. The rest of the plan remained to be sorted out.
She took three deep breaths. You can do this. For Charlene.
#
The killer took up the whole couch. His wide-faced smile made him seem honest, the glint in his eyes easily mistaken for charm. The knives on the coffee table, a large boning knife of a higher quality placed above the others, within easy reach.
Janey handed him the sweet tea and took the chair closest to the fireplace. The poker handy but hidden from view, her phone tucked in the cushions.
“Not many door-to-door salesmen anymore,” she said. “Gotta be tough work.”
He took a sip. “Delicious. Thank you. To be honest, and, I know it sounds corny, but, it feels like a mission to me. God’s work, if you will. Now, you might be thinking, what do knives have to do with the Good Lord?” He picked up the boning knife and rolled it in his hand. “Well, doesn’t matter what I’m selling, or if I make a sale at all.” He put the knife back down, and drummed his fingers on the table. “It’s about connecting with people, especially those who don’t get many visitors. My way of paying God back for all he’s given me.”
Janey nodded. Charlene’s blood-soaked ”God is Love” pillow flashed in her mind, along with the desire to force it down the killer’s throat. “Company is nice. I do get lonely with my husband working so much.”
That sly twist of the lip, again. “That’s why God sent me here today. Maybe you buy a knife, maybe we just talk. Doesn’t matter. This is what God wants.” He pointed at her and back at himself. “People, connecting.” His fingers drummed.
Her anger boiled. She covered it with a smile, feigning interest in his well-rehearsed story. “I hope you like that tea,” she said. “My husband thinks I over sweeten it.”
He drank some more. “No, ma’am, it’s perfect. You’re mighty kind. Remind me of my own Mother.” Another sip, and he tasted something in the dregs, sucking at his lips as he twirled the liquid, a frown pinching his eyes.
“You fuck-king...” The glass dropped. He gripped the boning knife, tried to spring from the couch, wobbled and fell back. Dazed, but conscious.
Jesus, pass out already! Janey trembled with rage, hand tight around the poker. Jerking it from the rack, the rest of the tools fell with a clatter.
“Trying to kill me?” He seemed amused. Leaning forward, he attempted to stand.
Janey lunged, swinging the poker like a club with both hands. The killer grabbed it, pulling her onto the coffee table. Cheap knives pressed into her knees. Even drugged, he was stronger, more practiced at violence. His knife slashed her left arm, blade along the bone, blood splattering everywhere.
Screaming, Janey released the poker and fell forward, face on his thigh, right hand on the floor between his legs. She knocked a steak knife off the table before he clamped on her ponytail, pulling her head back, forcing her to look at him. The glint in his eyes had dulled.
“Think ya outsmart me?” He snickered.
“Yes.” Janey surrendered to her fury, driving the steak knife straight up into the back of his leg. He howled, loosening his grip enough for her to pull away. The stun gun had slipped out of her pocket onto the table. She grabbed it, the movement sending a shockwave of pain from the deep gash in her arm. She blasted him for three seconds.
That was when she noticed the blood. Too much blood. Soaking into her couch, pooling on the floor. Her random stab must have nicked an artery.
I’m about to kill a man.
Everything she should have done ran through her mind. What Charlene would want her to do. The right things. Not this. No. Never this. She needed to fix this. For Charlene.
She pulled the house dress off and tossed it to him. “Tie this around your leg. Lie down. Elevate the wound.”
“Too…chicken…?”
“Now, or I’ll shock you again.” She backed up to the chair, left arm tight against her chest. She pulled her phone from the cushions and dialed.
“911, what is your emergency?”
“Send an ambulance,” Janey said. “The Housewife Hunter is bleeding out on my couch.”
Maryanne Knight’s short stories have appeared in the Santa Barbara Literary Journal. Born in Brooklyn and raised in Vermont, she lives and writes in Southern California. You can reach her at MaryanneKnight.com.
Augury
by Jessica Mendoza
The hare sat outside Jordan’s house again that day. Its eyes were amber and topaz and death, and when it met her gaze, it spoke:
“Not much longer now.”
She stared down at it, the little thing, its twitching nose and swiveling ears. She sighed deeply. Wrapped her scarf tighter around her neck. “You said that last week. You’re losing your edge.” Jordan finished turning the house key in her lock. She stepped carefully off her porch, avoiding the glossy patches where the dew froze over, fiddling with the keys in her coat pocket.
The hare said nothing else. Today was a quiet day, then. Jordan tried to appreciate the few times when it kept its ominous prophecies to itself. Its voice was tobacco smooth, deep and oaky and curling around Jordan’s head. Every day that the hare arrived with its portentous warnings, Jordan found it impossible to focus on her work.
It watched her every movement with a keen, emotionless eye as she threw open her car door and fidgeted with her key. She turned the ignition on and leaned over to push open the passenger’s side. The hare stared at her from the porch.
“Come on. It’s easier if you just get inside,” Jordan shouted out at it. She’d learned long ago - long, long ago - that giving the hare a lift was much easier than letting it hop all the way to her job, or her school, or wherever. It was relentless in its pursuit, and besides, she liked having something in the car with her during her commute. Even if the something in question insisted on foretelling her death.
The hare made its way down the porch, past her frozen flower beds, sure-footed in the sleet.
“Hurry up,” Jordan shouted at it. Its yellow gaze caught hers, if only for a moment. If she was generous, she might even call the blank look it gave her irritation.
Finally, the hare leapt into the passenger’s side, long back legs flicking against the upholstery.
“Comfy?” Jordan asked.
“You will bear no children,” The hare replied. Jordan took that as a yes, Jordan, I only wish it were a touch warmer in here, thank you for asking. She turned on the heated seats and pulled the car out of the driveway.
They mostly traveled in a strangely comfortable silence. The podcast she’d been listening to in the shower floated lazily out of the car speakers. It was about the history of Los Angeles’ dams, educational enough to make Jordan feel smart and pretentious without having any practical use in her day-to-day life. She glanced down at the hare in her passenger’s seat. It stared straight ahead, ears swiveling to capture every corner of her morning commute.
She wondered if the hare knew what a dam even was. She wondered if it even knew where it was. The hare had appeared by her bed one lazy Saturday morning. Jordan was only twelve, and already her death awaited her. The hare was single-minded in its goal - whatever that might be - and hardly ever strayed far from her sight. Even from the first day she knew it, it told her that she was doomed to die young, to die tragically, to die suddenly. It told her that she was awaited by no one, and that nothing lay beyond the deep valley of eternal rest. She spent her days dreading waking up to its luminescent eyes, unblinking, inhuman. Filling her childhood bedroom with its divinations. The weight of her mortality always sat cold and heavy in her mind.
Nobody else could see it or hear it. With time and practice, and despite the grim nature of its arrival, Jordan began to take its strange company in stride. Sure, it told her that she was doomed, but hey - nobody else would watch Space Jam with her on a school night. And besides. Everyone was made to die eventually. With maturity came the ability to somewhat appreciate the untimely warnings.
She turned to the hare. “Do you know what a dam is?”
“Your life will end in meaningless tragedy.”
“Yeah, didn’t think so.” She turned into the left lane, stopping at the intersection. “I feel like my seat warmers might be wasted on you.”
The hare said nothing.
“I don’t even know why I got that upgrade.” Jordan began her turn. “It would’ve been cheaper -”
The truck was barreling in the opposite direction when it slammed into the side of her Nissan. The whole structure buckled; light and sound shattered. The world stirred, and everything seemed to chime and ring all at once. Jordan clutched at nothing - her seat belt, the deployed airbag, and yet nothing - and cried out, her whole head stinging and burning and ice cold. The windows were shattered. Winter was moving in rapidly.
It was a busy intersection. There were voices, shouted commands, hands fluttering over her face, her body. She was being moved. She opened an eye, just one, and stared uncomprehendingly at the splotches of color.
She was alive. Help was coming. The hare lay beside her in the wreckage, its split-open stomach steaming in January air. Jordan knew better; it wasn’t dead, it never died, even when smashed and burned and cut up. Its topaz eye turned to Jordan.
“Not much longer now,” It said.
Jessica Mendoza is a young up-and-coming writer and tutor in Los Angeles, CA. She holds a B.A. in Screenwriting and is looking towards getting her M.F.A. in Creative Writing. She has been previously published in The Good Life Review. Jessica spends most of her time feverishly editing essays and raving about the semicolon's usefulness to her students, who kindly humor her fits of punctuation passion. She can be found on Twitter @JessMProse.
The Itch in the Mirror
by Nadine Perez Fox
My belly button itches. I try to scratch it through my shirt in the dark of the theater but the itch is too deep. It's inside now. Traveling to parts I can't scratch in a theater without causing a scene. It itches so bad I can hardly hear the actors on screen. It spreads inside my body until I am filled with it. I double over, head between my knees scratching the top half of me with the bottom. I am a skin-wrapped itch.
I get up and edge past the row of moviegoers — their bony knees are heaven against my legs, the coarse seat-backs euphoric on my backside. I want to turn myself inside out and rub my lining on the scratchy popcorn-kernelled upholstery of the seats.
In the frantic yellow light of the bathroom, I inspect my hands. Blotches bloom and fade on my skin, but in the mirror my complexion is fine.
Fine, but not my own.
It's the itch, smiling white-toothed and sharp-eyed.
I wriggle, trying to friction my bones together. The itch laughs. The fluorescent lights buzz. A toilet flushes behind me.
My throbbing hands scrabble trembling into my purse for something to scratch my insides with. A Swiss army knife from a friend's wedding — Love has many uses, Tucker and Chelsea 2018.
I flip open the nail file.
A hand on my shoulder. A woman with freshly washed hands and antihistamine eyes.
"Let me," she says. She takes tweezers from her purse, clicks them twice, then lays me over the sink. The itch in the mirror is livid and red. My throat is closing; my tongue prickles. The woman tweezes into my belly button pulling the itch from me like a clown pulls handkerchiefs from his mouth. I am turned inside out so deliciously I scream. I shrink to the size of the sink drain, then expand to fill the whole room, then back. I rush to the end of my life then whip to the beginning. The backs of my eyes prickle then soothe. The woman coils the itch around her elbow like a garden hose, loop after loop.
It is out.
The mirror cracks.
The woman yanks the last of it from me, tosses it into the toilet, and high-kicks the handle.
When the last gurgle of the flush fades, I thank her.
"No problem," she says. "Happens all the time. Us ladies got to look out for each other."
Nadine Perez Fox is a half-Mexican writer currently traveling in place in Portland, Oregon. She can be contacted on Twitter @nadineperezfox.
What's a Knife in the Throat Between Friends
by Charlotte Derrick
“Why are you so scared of change?” Georgia tries to catch Joshua’s eye, but he’s more interested in the River Rock bottle clamped between Georgia’s legs. She flicks ash her cigarette into the neck of the bottle and swirls the dying butt around to ensure that it’s snuffed out.
“I like who I am,” Joshua says. He invited her over for a quick shag. Why did she always have to be so difficult? Why did she want to know? He gives her a grin and shrugs. Although he doesn’t believe Georgia would throw a bottle at his head, he can see in her face that she’s considered it more than once.
It’s easy for Georgia. She makes twice as much a month as he does for putting a pen to paper. He writes just as much as her, but people want to be entertained. They want silly little stories that can help them take their minds off the day ahead. They didn’t want to read academic papers about cyclic adsorption separation processes.
He takes his frustration out on Georgia when they have sex. He bites her neck and feels a quiet satisfaction when her skin bruises pink-purple. He’s had enough of her bragging about her online mindfulness classes or the herbal medications she’s been taking for her low moods or her bi-weekly private therapy sessions. Seventy-five pounds per session, she had told him proudly, because she could afford it now.
Georgia sets the bottle down and moves closer to Joshua on the bed, placing a hand on either side of his face, so he has to look at her.
“What if you could be better than you are now?” she asks.
He leans in and kisses Georgia softly on the mouth. A small part of him wants to change, but he’s afraid. What if there’s nothing to change? What if he can’t? People like Joshua for a while. They think he’s funny, charming. And then they scratch the surface. ‘Who are you really?’ He pushes them away before they can find out. He calls himself a narcissist. Georgia says he’s more of a Cluster C personality type. Avoidant, she had told him. He made a mental note to look it up when she was asleep.
“This coming from the girl who can’t even cry in front of people,” Joshua laughs, because if he doesn’t laugh, he knows he’ll be the one to cry. It’s easier for him to hurt Georgia than to be honest with himself.
Georgia shakes her head at him and rolls over, pulling the duvet over her body.
Throughout the night, Joshua tries to inch closer to her. He wants to tell her, ‘I’m sorry, Georgia. I’m sorry I’m like this,’ but he can’t bring himself to do it.
Georgia shifts right to the edge of the bed and lays there, rigid, until the blinds are speckled with early morning light. She leaves without saying a word.
His alarm goes off at 8am. Joshua gets up, gets dressed, and goes to work.
Nothing changes.
Charlotte Derrick is an emerging prose writer and poet from Belfast, Northern Ireland. They were the winner of Spread the Word's Life Writing Prize 2019, and were shortlisted for the V.S Pritchett Short Story Award. Their work has been featured in The Honest Ulsterman, The Open Ear, Beyond Words, The Banyon Review, Flash Fiction Magazine, etc.
The Coop
by Gaby Harnish
I am lying on the cold, hard ground. My body aches like I just ran a marathon. A shiver runs through me. I am naked, sprawled out on my stomach. I pull myself up by my forearms. It is dawn – the sky beginning to turn from black to mauve. My stomach hurts, like I’ve been gorging all night. There is a tickle in my throat.
Ahead of me, I see what remains of Emma’s chicken coop. Some creature went to town on it last night. The pungent, copper smell of blood surrounds me. There is a mutilated chicken carcass to my left. My throat burns. I cough, and I cough, and now I am hacking up… a feather. I must have breathed it in when I passed out last night.
It’s funny but I don’t remember drinking. I quit last month after what I’ve dubbed as Hell Night. I don’t remember much of it. I remember the sound of Emma crying, the words she shouted, “I never want to see you again!” I wish I could forget that part, but I can’t. I remember stumbling out of her place and walking through the woods. I remember a pair of yellow eyes, the growl of something… but that could have been a dream. When I used to drink, I would black out, and my vivid dreams would intersect with reality.
The scar on my thigh, that was real. I couldn’t figure out how it got there. It was a big, claw-like scratch. I assumed it was Emma’s dog, Duke, protecting her after what I did. She told me the next day what I happened– I had swaggered into her house, slapped her around, screamed at her. How do you live with yourself when you turn into the one person you swore you’d never be? Even if it was one time, even if I was so drunk I can’t remember it, some things can never be erased.
A wave of terror burns through me. What did I do last night? Emma will hate me even more if she thinks I have something to do with this chicken massacre.
I stand up slowly. My head is pounding. I have all the telltale signs of a hangover, but I don’t remember touching any alcohol last night. The last thing I remember is lying in bed, reading a book. Could I have been sleepwalking?
I cross my arms around my breasts. Thankfully Emma lives in the middle of nowhere. I traipse carefully over to the old scarecrow by the barn. He doesn’t need his flannel shirt as much as I do right now. The shirt is large enough that it hits me mid-thigh. If I walk carefully, none of my more sensitive areas will be exposed to the world.
Not that there is anyone around. Emma’s house is surrounded by trees. There is a small path through the woods that will take me home. My feet are bare. I can feel every twig and rock beneath my feet. I would run but my muscles are unbearably sore. I haven’t exercised in years, so why do I feel this way?
I grit my teeth through the pain. My feet must be bleeding. There is a great gurgling noise coming from my stomach and awful cramps. I dig my fingernails into my palms, hoping I can make it home and to the bathroom on time.
When I approach my little guesthouse, I see the gardener in the distance, pruning Mrs. Calloway’s rose bushes. He is turned away from me. I make it inside, sighing with relief. When I sit on the toilet, nothing happens. My stomach is cramped, and the room is spinning, but I can’t seem to relieve myself. I trudge over to my bed and pass out.
I wake up to a pounding on my door. I peek through the window and there she is – Emma. Shit. I tear off the flannel shirt and change into my blue cotton pajamas before opening the door.
“A bear killed my chickens,” she says, running into my arms. She cries onto my shoulder, big heaving sobs. “They’re all gone! All of them!” She sits on my bed, only a foot away from where I discarded the flannel shirt. Why didn’t I hide it better? I sit on it, hoping she won’t be able to tell.
“I’m so sorry,” I say. My stomach gargles like some sort of growling beast. Emma raises her eyebrows. “Think I might have gotten food poisoning last night.”
Emma looks around the room. That’s when I notice it – the place has been torn apart, like some wild beast let loose here. The clothes I was wearing last night, and my favorite slippers, are in shreds strewn around the room. My favorite mug is broken, in shards, by the bathroom. It’s a miracle I didn’t step on it earlier.
“Your feet,” says Emma, and I look down. They are caked in dirt and bleeding from this morning. Emma shakes her head, a look of recognition on her face. “You’re drinking again. You told me you quit!”
I stumble over my words, trying to explain myself. But what is there to explain? I don’t remember anything. My stomach lurches, and I run to the bathroom.
“I can’t believe I came here,” Emma is saying, “I’m so stupid. I should have filed a restraining order. And…what is that? Beth, why do you have my scarecrow’s shirt on your bed? What the hell is going on here?”
I cower over the toilet bowl, retching. Emma throws open the bathroom door. She is furious. “And here you are, once again, puking your guts out…”
She stops, head tilted like a curious puppy, as she sees what’s in the toilet bowl. Recognition dawns on her. Neither of us knows what to say. We both just stare at the chicken beak, floating in the water.
Gaby Harnish received her BFA in Screenwriting & Directing from EICAR: The International Film School of Paris. Her work has been published in HASH Journal. She lives in Sacramento, California with her fiancé and her cute-but-troubled dog, Britta. She can be reached at gaby.harnish@gmail.com.
Stardust
by John Melendez
The punch, when it connected with Gary’s face, was not intended for him but was instead a stray blow from a Friday night parking lot brawl at an overbright diner off of I-41, between a La Quinta Inn and the UFO-shaped Sombrero Taqueria, under the cool gaze of a retro road sign, all blue zigging lines, red letters and a single yellow waffle turning on a slow swivel. It knocked his lights out, but in the tiny seconds before his head hit the cracked black pavement, all he could remember was the concerned look on the waitress’ face, a college freshman home for the summer with a front tooth gap and wavy sand-colored hair wearing her honeybee yellow uniform, and the accusing skepticism of an aged regular in a Carhartt jacket and flannel, both expressions, strangely, seeming to ask him “are you going to do something?” as two able-bodied young men brimming with unfocused rage and what smelled like a combo of watery domestic beer and malt liquor, crashed across tables and chairs, spilling greasy eggs, syruped pancakes and burnt bacon onto the carpet and crushing them into a sludge. The remark which launched them into frenzy was never properly identified but may have had, allegedly, something to do with regional winter sports. Sudden violence to which he responded by steeling his resolve, removing his green general manager apron, and intervening, pushing through a crowd of half-shocked, half-grossly curious onlookers, for just a minute of responsibility.
When he awoke, head bleeding, police officers were lazily taking statements while Willie Nelson leaked out of the tinny outdoor speakers, the scene’s electricity entirely dissipated. He sat up and the officers turned to him for a moment.
Did I get ‘em?
John Melendez is a writer living in Brooklyn. He is currently pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing at Columbia University. His work has appeared in Bluegrass Unlimited and Foreign Policy in Focus.
Copper Carcass
by Nora Marcus-Hecht
There’s a body in the break room when I go to grab my lunch. Maggots have infested its eye sockets and rats have been nibbling away at its toes. Its wrinkly bosom stares at me as I maneuver my way around it. No one questions why there is a naked body festering by the fridge but as long as it doesn’t smell none of us feel like disposing of it.
Marsha from HR is chatting my ear off one day when the body goes missing. She’s telling me about her husband’s family’s vacation home in Santa Monica when Creepy Hank from two floors down tells us there’s a blood puddle by the stapler. When I ask why he’s in our office space using our stapler he just tells us that last night he had to put his dog down and we feel sorry for him. Marsha offers him a cookie.
Two weeks go by and no one cares to ask where the body went or whose body it was to begin with. Creepy Hank is browning the walls again when I come in. We don’t ask why he makes them brown or what he uses to brown them but there’s a faint smell of copper every time I walk by and he’s going at it—scrubbing up and down with the same moldy blue sponge he’s been using since before I was hired.
A week before I saw the body for the first time, I ran into Hank on my morning run. I had made it a New Year’s Resolution to get into shape so I’d stop wanting to dry heave every time I walk up the stairs. He said how are you doing, Bessie, and I rolled my eyes because Bessie is not my name.
I said same old same old.
He laughed and his breath smelled like copper.
The body never smelled when it was living by the fridge but flies would buzz around it and then die on sight like in a cartoon. I’m drafting an email when I hear my stomach burble and realize it’s lunch time. When I open the fridge, my white rice is dark brown and the curry on the side smells like it could curdle anything it touches. I’m about to throw it away, glass container and all, when I hear Hank gargling something sour from behind me. He says his dog likes that kind of food and if I let him have it he’d repay me and give back the container later.
I give it to him so he’ll go away. I didn’t think he had two dogs.
An obituary for Bessie Abrams shows up in the paper at the end of the week. She was found dead in her apartment almost a month ago and the police have been investigating her cause of death since. Looking further down the page, I read that she was a teller at one of our local branches. I think about her when I’m in meetings and cooking dinner that night and flossing my teeth before going to bed. As I turn off the lights, I see brown creeping along the edges of my bedroom walls and the faint smell of copper spreads throughout the air.
Nora Marcus-Hecht is a junior at Ithaca College majoring in creative writing. She is a fiction writer with a strong love for dark comedic stories. Her other passions—and the focus of much of her writing—include human sexuality, strong female protagonists, and clowns. You can read more of her work and learn more about her at noramarcushecht.wordpress.com.
Snap
by Jessica Staricka
Out the window, a white Crown Vic parallel parks, and my Aunt Elle, dressed like a gothic diva, steps out. I squeeze through aunts, uncles, and cousins to escape the stuffy park building and call to her, “Hey, it’s been a few years.”
My whole life, Aunt Elle has made irregular family function appearances. Her arrival turns the whole clan into a nervous bunch of clucking chickens. In the eighties, she was charged with murdering her girlfriend, and though the jury found her innocent, our family has not.
I beckon her to join me at a picnic table. She’s tall, but wears heels anyway. Her hair and her glasses are huge. Her bulky dress reminds me of a sleeping bat wrapped in its own wings. She reaches into the black folds, pulls out a box of toothpicks, and puts one in her mouth.
“Oral fixation,” she explains, and offers me one.
“Did you quit smoking?” I ask.
“Only four times so far this year.”
I place a toothpick in my mouth and hope the family is watching from inside. Aunt Elle used to petrify me, too. But when I started dyeing my hair black, buzzing my own undercut, and showing up to each family function with a new piercing, I realized the depths of my family’s judgement, and that Aunt Elle was innocent. Theatrical, but innocent. She’d strut into Grandma’s house on holidays and smile crookedly at the nervous chill she generated. Her sisters would start squeaking, like they had to treat her delicately, or else she might break into their homes, shoot them twice in the head, and pistol whip their teeth out for good measure like the prosecution claimed she did to her cheating girlfriend in Moorhead, Minnesota in 1982.
“I like your tattoos,” Aunt Elle says.
“Guess who doesn’t?”
“The whole clan?” Aunt Elle nods toward the park building. “I bet they’re stacked on top of each other at the door trying to hear if I’m offering murder techniques.”
Her eyes twinkle with mischief, and I grin at her, because I’m in on her joke. I’ve spent years of family reunions laughing silently with Aunt Elle because she has kept our foolish family spooked for forty years.
But our alliance, our shared joke, does not yet equal closeness. I want to be more than her welcoming committee. I’d happily spend the rest of the reunion out here getting real with Aunt Elle and nobody else. So I ask the kind of question the others steer clear of.
“Did you ever date afterward?”
She laughs. The toothpick between her teeth bounces. I joke that she’s killed all subsequent partners, too. She loves it. Then she admits that, no, she never really dated afterward.
I expect her to open up about loss. Trauma.
Instead, she says, “You and I both know why romance and I shouldn’t mix.”
She pulls her toothpick from her mouth and holds it with both hands. She keeps laughing with her eyes. But I can’t join her this time. My insides feel dark. Cavernous. All these years, she and I have been laughing at different jokes.
She snaps the toothpick in half.
Jessica Staricka grew up on a family dairy farm in Minnesota. She earned her BA in Creative Writing at Minnesota State University, Mankato, and is earning her MFA in Creative Writing at the University of New Orleans. Her work has appeared in Beloit Fiction Journal, the Ninth Letter web edition, Hypertext Magazine, and elsewhere. She can be reached via Twitter @jstaricka.
Inevitable Lament on the Battlefield
by Michelle Cristiani
“I don’t look forward to killing you tomorrow."
His eyes were narrowed, foe-like. If not for lust, he wouldn’t care either way, she knew that.
Kess rolled onto her stomach and eyed her lover. Her face was serious, too, but she jokingly said, “You could switch sides, you know.”
He sighed and shook his head. “It’s not --”
“You don’t think I can best them.” She slid off the bedroll and started dressing.“You don’t find them deplorable?”
“They find me employable. That’s all that matters.”
She turned back to him, sober as death.“I won’t spare you.”
He grinned. “You won’t win, Kess. But if by some luck you do, I don’t expect to be spared.”
“Luck.” Kess spat the word back, defensive. Then she palmed her weapon, and loudly opened his makeshift tent, unafraid that anyone would hear. She mourned his lack of judgment. He didn’t know he’d already lost.
When the next day dawned, Kess crouched patiently above the camp, smoking the stubby cigarettes she’d looted off an enemy. Her lover eventually stumbled out of his tent. He was drowsy but unsettled at the quiet. There was no one in the camp but him.
Kess observed his unease as he swiftly but quietly inspected tent after tent. She watched him check the now-dimmed fire for clues. His pace quickened until he reached panic; she could track his thinking. Abandonment? Mutiny? Ambush? Was he spared? Forgotten? Where are the bodies? Once he had looked all around, she knew, next he would look up. Eventually his eyes raised, frantic.
Only then did she call out, “They’re all dead.”
He staggered away from the sunrise, squinting and shielding his eyes.“Kess?”
She nodded and hopped down from the tall stone, limber, keeping her cigarette in her non-dominant hand. She repeated, “They’re all dead.” Her tone didn’t match her words, but neither gave comfort. They both knew what would happen next.
He was defiant, rageful, but looked a little frightened now. “No one heard your battle?”
“The battle was last night. Before I came.” She circled around him, offering her cigarette half-way around. He took it, spinning with her, afraid to show his back even now that the battle was over.
He opened his mouth to speak, but she interrupted him, turning his lips to a scowl.
“You seem not to mourn for your lost compatriots. So you might be loyal to those who pay, but not to those standing beside you?”
He sneered at her, then met her eyes proudly.“Then kill me. We can do each other no good any longer.”
“Noble, now? But all right.” Kess drew her knife to his neck; to his credit, he did not flinch. Then she flipped the knife to the flat end and pushed it into his skin, lamenting what the moment had come to. But on the outside, both of them, emotionless as stone.
“You could have lived. Hadn’t I told you before: you should have trusted my skills,” she said.
“I trusted one of your skills,” he said. “I just trusted the wrong one.” He leered at her dusty, tired body, pleased to throw a barb before dying.
Kess didn’t hesitate in thought or deed. She flipped the Bowie downwards and thrust back up through his ribs, pressing their bodies as close as they’d been the night before in pleasure.
“I pity,” Kess said, bringing the knife back up to his throat, “your tunnel vision.”
The blade slid, letting him die in her arms just as he had slept there a few hours before. It looked nearly the same: his eyes glazed over, emptied of stress. And Kess closed her eyes, too -- a flickering, silent grief -- then looked up to the sky as she dropped him to the ground.
When the watchmen came, she gestured to the dead man. “Clean up,” she said, marching away, expressionless. It was only in the privacy of her own cabin, washing the blood off her breasts, that she cried.
Michelle Cristiani teaches reading and writing at Portland Community College in Portland OR and has a PhD in anthropology from the University of New Mexico. She won the Margarita Donnelly Prose Prize from Calyx Press in 2018 for her memoir of stroke recovery at age 42. She is now working on a memoir on that stroke and the brain surgeries that followed. This year, she has been published in SadGirlsClub and Apple in the Dark. Michelle has upcoming stories in the anthology Crowded House by Cleis Press and the anthology Devilish Deals by Thurston Howl Publications, and a poem in Wingless Dreamer: First Love Anthology. Previously she has been published in Awakenings Review and Verseweavers (Oregon Poetry Association). She won the OPA's 2015 Experimental Poetry contest and placed in the New Poet category also. You can find Michelle at heart-pages.com and on Twitter @heart_pages.
You Look Beautiful!
by Hannah Berman
The dressing room mirror was plastered with the words “You look beautiful” in script. Heather looked right past the message, because of course she looked beautiful. She always looked beautiful, and she wasn’t there for a pep talk. She just needed to try on the bikinis she wanted, because her stepmom had asked her to do so before buying them. Even though she already knew the bikinis would all look great, Heather didn’t want to offend Linda, who had taken off work for this.
The first bikini was red, with cherries on it. Unsurprisingly, it looked great. Heather looked so good that she took a picture of herself in the mirror, retrieving her phone from the back pocket of her jeans and angling her body just so, although it didn’t even really need angling, since she was beautiful from all angles.
Next, she tried on the high-waisted bikini. It looked great. The bows were cute, and the light blue made her skin shine. She pulled out her phone again. More selfies. She stuck out her tongue and winked in one. It felt great to look so great. She scrolled through the photos, and idly considered posting one to her story.
Before she could try on the third bikini, a calico cat appeared in the dressing room, presumably having entered through the gap between the floor and the door. She only noticed the cat when he said, “You look beautiful, Heather.”
Heather was a little puzzled as to why the cat had entered her dressing room unannounced, but she wasn’t one to refuse a compliment. She smiled. “Thank you. How do you know my name?”
The cat gave a shrug and said, “I follow you on Instagram.”
“Oh, okay.” Heather had a lot of Instagram followers. She wasn’t actually profiting off the platform, but you could still pretty much call her an influencer, so that made sense.
An awkward silence had begun to grow, and the cat would not stop staring, so Heather pointed to the swimwear and asked, “Which bikini do you like best?”
“I’m more of a cherries guy myself.” His eyes traveling up and down Heather’s legs, the cat seemed to smile. Then he startled her by jumping onto the dressing room stool. He tucked his front paws underneath his belly, wrapped his tail around his body, and sat. He announced, “I’m ready to see the next one.”
Heather didn’t really want to get naked in front of the cat, but she couldn’t think of a good reason to refuse, and anyway, he was being very nice. She turned around and took off her bikini top.
“Turn around.”
Heather rolled her eyes—typical. She pretended innocence and asked, “Why?”
“I want to really be able to see how beautiful you are.”
That made her soften a bit. Heather cupped her breasts in her palms and turned. The cat’s eyes were narrowed, and his tail was swaying back and forth excitedly, almost like a dog’s. “Purrrrfect.”
“Thank you,” said Heather. She grabbed the black and white bikini top and rushed to put it on, fumbling with the clasp in the back. The cat was silent aside from the low rumble of his approving purr. Then she said, “I’m going to turn back around to change my bottoms.”
The cat yelped, “No! You don’t have to be ashamed in front of me, Heather.”
“It’s just that I don’t usually change in front of an audience.”
“Oh, have you never done this before?”
It was technically a question, but it sounded like an accusation. Heather was embarrassed to admit it, so she looked down at the ground and answered, “No.”
The cat flicked its ears. “Yeah, I can tell.” What did that mean? Was Heather really acting like she had never done this before? And what was “this,” exactly? The cat continued, “Well, you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. I’m just here to appreciate you. You look so beautiful when you’re confused, by the way.”
Relieved, Heather turned back around to remove her bottoms, bending down slightly to step out of each leg hole. Then: “Yes, you look so beautiful when you bend over like that,” the cat hissed, his voice louder than before. Tiny goosebumps appeared on Heather’s legs. Was that a whisker she felt?
Pulling up the new pair of bottoms, she turned uneasily. The cat was still lounging on the stool—or maybe he had quickly jumped back into place. She made unsteady eye contact with his two yellow-and-black slits, and realized she was waiting for feedback.
“This one is… fine,” said the cat. “But… I just need to see one thing. Spin for me, Heather.”
Heather had just begun to spin when she heard someone enter the dressing room. “Honey, what’s taking so long?”
It was Linda. Heather felt herself go red. Instinctively, she yelled out, “Sorry, I was taking selfies. Almost done!”
“Alright, I’ll be sitting right outside,” her stepmom responded. The door to the dressing rooms closed with a thud.
When Heather turned back to the mirror, the stool was vacant. Where had the cat gone? And, not that she cared, but what was the one thing that he had said he needed to see? She spun for herself, gazing into the mirror, but couldn’t tell. What was the difference between this bikini and the other two? Was it the way it made her breasts fall away from one another? Was it her gut, bulging out more than usual?
The cat had lied. Or maybe he had just been so kind as to try to tell the truth. Heather reread the mirror’s false cheer absentmindedly, then looked back to the lines on her stomach, holding her breath.
As Heather left the dressing room, Linda raised one perfectly plucked eyebrow. “Where are the bikinis? Did none of them work?”
Heather assumed a neutral air and said, “They didn’t look good. Let’s just go home.”
Hannah Berman is a middle school teacher by day and writer by night based in Washington, D.C. Read more of her work at hannah-berman.com.
Metzgerhund
by Siena F-S
She ordered the least potent thing she could find on the menu - the most neutral - the least information.
That's all you want?
That's perfect.
Is that going to be enough?
I’ll get two then.
He ordered a pastrami sandwich, onion rings and a Pabst blue ribbon.
She thought that was inconsiderate.
It was, at best, careless.
At its worst, his order was pathetic.
So this was his true self? The sweat of overcooked onions and sweet vinegar?
It's not like she expected much more, but she forced a smile and sipped her vodka soda and pretended like she had to run pee.
She bumped into their waitress on the way to the bathroom.
Her breasts were hard.
Her face was frozen.
So sorry about that.
Oh, I’m so sorry.
She locked the stall door and pulled out her phone: I actually do want to go out tonight. I’m not busy anymore.
She waited for a response - a way out of the evening, but received nothing.
She flushed the empty toilet and washed her hands.
When she returned to her seat, he asked her if she had any siblings.
I have one brother.
Oh, I have two.
Are you close?
We weren’t when we were younger, but now we talk sometimes.
Me too.
The waitress with the ossified breasts and mulish face set her plate down in front of her.
Two white chicken breasts.
No sauce.
He asked for extra sauce and the waitress left.
He asked her if she wanted a bite of his sandwich.
She politely declined.
She checked her phone under the table.
Still nothing.
A large man with thinning hair and a mohair suit jacket entered the restaurant and stood by the door.
She didn’t know what compelled her to look up from her phone, but she did.
His face was red and his mouth was runtish.
He gripped a short black rope.
Her eyes followed its trail down to the floor where a wide-legged rottweiler stood panting in the doorframe.
The dog’s body moved with each breath.
His stomach would swell, sucking in air and compress when exhaling.
He was meat and pure muscle with legs thick and contoured
The sides of his body pulsated with each step he took.
It seemed like he could have been smiling.
The waitress sat the man and his dog at the table closest to the door.
The man sat, but the dog continued to stand.
He panted heavily.
You could hear him breathing from across the room.
He looked at her.
She noticed the dog’s penis and then quickly turned away.
Who brings their dog into a restaurant? He asked half jokingly.
His voice faded, drowned by the sound of the dog's hungry gasps for air.
It was all she could hear.
Maybe he has a disability? I shouldn’t judge.
She said nothing.
You’re insanely pretty by the way.
What?
You’re really pretty.
She looked up again at the dog.
He hadn’t moved.
He could’ve just been facing in her general direction, though she felt as if she was being watched.
Oh, thank you.
Yeah.
There was silence.
She delicately cut off a slice of chicken, skewered it with her fork, and placed it softly in between her lips.
What's your brother like?
He’s older.
Her eyes darted around the room.
She tried to stare at the man across from her, but she kept wandering.
How much older?
He used to play sports, but now he works for Amtrak.
Railroads, right?
Uh, yeah.
She felt around in her bag for her phone.
The dog’s eyes followed her hands.
He’s older, six years older.
That’s kinda a big age gap.
Yeah.
She felt the palm of her hand on the back of her phone case.
She pulled it up from her bag and held it out in front of her.
I’m sorry, I really need to head out.
Oh, already?
Yeah my friend just went through a breakup, she needs me right now.
Oh.
I’m sorry to run out on you so suddenly.
It’s okay.
I can pay for the meal.
Don’t worry about it.
Are you sure?
It’s fine. Don’t worry.
She stood up, already slipping on her coat.
I hate to run out on you, she just really needs me.
You don’t have to explain yourself. I said it was fine.
She gathered herself and picked up her bag.
I’ll see you, okay? She grimaced.
She headed towards the door.
She was leaving.
She locked her eyes on the outside.
She could see her car parked across the street.
That was where she was going.
She was going to walk to her car and drive home or drive to the bar or to her friend’s or anywhere that wasn’t here.
She suddenly felt a rush of warmth.
It spread down her body, down her spine, into her stomach. It consumed her
Her arms went numb.
Her legs floated above the ground. Her feet detached themselves from her ankles.
Her chest expanded, exploded.
She stared at the ceiling.
She could only see out of one eye.
She was lying face up.
She was scattered across the restaurant floor.
She looked into the eyes of the dog, now hovering over her.
He breathed into her.
She heard people in the background. She heard the man. The waitress. Her date.
But she only saw the dog.
She only felt the dog.
Her blood in him, his breath in her.
Siena F-S is a writer and artist residing in Los Angeles. She spends most days buried in her chaotic studio with her beloved cat, Ramy. You can find her at www.sienafostersoltis.com and reach her at sienafostersoltis@alum.calarts.edu.
Half Moon Honeymoon
by Stephen Newton
In the spring of 1965, Jake married Betsy one week after Lisa told him she was pregnant. He would have happily married them both had the law allowed it. Instead, he bought Lisa a two-way plane ticket to Mexico City, where she could have a safe abortion, and enjoy a sunny, but brief vacation, while he and his bride were on their honeymoon.
Betsy’s oil-rich Texas parents, Frank and Ladell Starr, treated them to a luxurious week at the Ritz Carlton at Half Moon Bay, less than an hour’s drive from their San Francisco apartment. It was the Starr’s way of making up for not attending the hasty justice of the peace wedding in Sausalito. There was, after all, no time for a real wedding back in San Antonio, since Betsy was nearly 2 months along. Propriety was more important to all concerned, they decided, than a lavish formal affair. Besides, in a year or two, the couple would move to Texas, and Jake would become VP of the Starr of Texas Oil Company, so Frank could have more time for golf.
The drive along the Pacific Coast reminded Jake of Italy’s Amalfi Coast, which he visited courtesy of Uncle Sam’s Army during a glorious month’s furlough in Italy. He rented a car and drove as far as Positano, where he was spotted by an Italian film producer who offered him a job as a stand-in for the male lead, whom he closely resembled. He never saw the film, but the heady experience of being in the company of other beautiful people while it was being shot, left him wanting more of the good life.
Betsy said she was famished, and joked that she was eating for two. Jake smiled, but his thoughts were with Lisa in Mexico City. They stopped for lunch at a small restaurant along the Cabrillo Highway near Mavericks Beach. While they ate, they enjoyed a spectacular view of the Pacific.
Having grown up in Malibu, Jake loved the ocean, something he would miss in Texas. Before his stint in the US Army, he had been an avid surfer. What days of splendor those were, he thought.
Betsy reached across the table and took his hand in hers. “Jake, honey? Where in the world are you?”
“Love you, babe,” he said, squeezing her hand, and letting it go. “I’m just a bit overwhelmed. I’m going to be a father. We’re going to have a baby.”
After they ate, Jake paid the bill, while Betsy went to the restroom. “Meet you at the car, sweetie,” she said.
“You got it, love-bug,” he said.
Jake left the restaurant and crossed the highway to a service station, where be bought some breath mints for Betsy, and a pack of cigarettes for himself. The attendant, a teenaged boy in grease stained overalls and a tee shirt, rang up the sale and took his money. As he handed Jake the change, he looked out the window and exclaimed, “Hot damn! There she is again.”
Jake followed the attendant outside where a red convertible was sitting next to the gas pumps. He recognized the woman sitting behind the wheel as a TV star. He turned to the boy and asked, “Is that—?”
“Sure is,” the boy said. “Stopped here a couple days ago for gas. I think she’s got a beach house around here.”
Jake tore open the cigarette pack. He could hear the surf crashing on Mavericks Beach. There was still no sign of Betsy.
“Need a light, friend?” The celebrity was walking straight for him. “At this point in our relationship,” she said with a teasing smile, “you offer me a cigarette, or ask for my autograph.”
“I’ll do both,” Jake said, beside himself. He shook a cigarette from the pack and offered it to her, and then took one and put it to his lips.
She lit a gold lighter and held it up for him, cupping his hand in hers as he leaned forward. “It gives me great pleasure to give you fire,” she said, in character as the femme fatale she played on television.
“I love your show,” he said, by way of thanks.
“So, you’re a fan?” she said, blowing smoke at her sandals before looking him up and down. “But, you’re so gorgeous, you must be in the business. An actor? An agent?”
He shook his head. “I wish, but, no such luck,” he said modestly. “Long ago, I had a small part in a film I never got to see.”
She touched his jacket, pressing her index finger into muscle, and letting it linger an extra beat, while she looked him in the eyes and said, “Italian silk, if I had to guess.”
Jack smiled and shrugged. His heart was racing. He wanted to hold her and smother her with kisses.
She looked around. Hers was the only car at the pumps. “Where’s your car?”
Jake glanced across the highway, where Betsy’s VW was parked. There was no sign of her. “While I was inside, my date drove off and left me stranded,” he said, hardly believing he had the nerve.
“She is a seriously disturbed woman to leave a hunk like you behind. But you can’t hang around here. I’m headed back to LA, and I’d love to have you along for the ride.”
Jake took the car keys from her, and together they drove south. There was talk of spending the night at the Ritz Carlton. Jake couldn’t believe his luck.
Stephen Newton is a writer based in Southern Appalachia. His most recent fiction is featured in Two Sisters, Drunk Monkeys, Cagibi, The Ice Colony’s Lo-Fed Chronicle, The Write Launch, and Litro Magazine USA. Newton also wrote and directed two feature length documentaries: “Outcasts: Surviving the Culture of Rejection” (2014) and “One Night in January: Counting the Cost of Homelessness” (2020). For more information, please visit stephenanewton.com.
Run For It
by Chester Holden
Huddled beneath a dilapidated building’s overhang situated in one of the innumerable narrow alleyways of Hanoi’s Hoang Mai District, a foreign man and Vietnamese woman found considerable shelter from a sudden and torrential downpour. They hadn’t a raincoat, umbrella, or motorbike.
It wasn’t five minutes before the man became restless. “I’m not sure its planning on letting up anytime soon,” he said.
Frowning, the woman replied, “What choice do we have?”
“We could make a run for it.”
“Yeah, and we’ll get soaking wet and probably catch a cold.”
“Better than just standing around waiting.”
“Such an American.”
The couple went back and forth a few minutes more before running the half kilometer to the man’s apartment. And immediately after getting inside, they removed their saturated clothes and hung them to dry. The woman, however, kept on her underwear. The man could see she was agitated. “Ah man,” he said, “what’d I do this time?”
“What do you think?”
“So now it’s my fault when it rains?”
“You left me behind.”
“I was holding your hand!”
“Not at the end. You ran faster than I’m able to. You left me behind.”
“No. No. No. Seeings how we were going to the same building, I figured I’d run ahead to unlock the door for you. I mean, come on. I stayed out in the rain just as long as you.”
“I’m saddened by what I’ve learned about you today.”
“And what could that possibly be?”
“When a situation becomes difficult, you will think of yourself first.”
“You’re unbelievable. Okay, what if I promise to never run ahead and unlock another door for you again?”
“I know men by their actions, not their words.”
The man tightly embraced the largely unresponsive woman before laying down on the bed. “You simply just misunderstand my actions,” he said, lifting the covers and beckoning her over. “Come on, let me warm you up.”
“I’d rather freeze,” said the woman.
Chester Holden is a 26-year-old emerging American writer. He particularly admires the works of Flannery O’Connor, J. D. Salinger, Ring Lardner, Ernest Hemingway, and William Faulkner.