Issue 12

SHORT STORIES

• Daniel Baig, Russell’s Stereo

• Louise Dolan, The Walleye

• David Alan Graham, Cigar Box

• Andrea Mauk, Slipping

• Renu Chopra, The Grocery Store

• Maggie Nerz Iribarne, Three Women, One Key

• Wilson Koewing, Donnie

• Andrea Lithgow, Waiting

• Christa Walker, Scrapbook

MICRO & FLASHFICTION

• Francis Johann Verdote, Run-On and On

• Michelle Morouse, Why am I here?

• Diane de Anda, The Perfect Environment

• Marigo Stathis, The Waving Witch

• Charles Haddox, St. Anthony’s Bazaar

• Evan Schmitt, The Good Rat

BIOGRAPHIES

EDITORIAL TEAM: Angie Barry-Florio, Bill Hicks, Sandra Kourchenko

ADVISORS: Juana Moriel-Payne, Thomas Cook

Art by Edward Michael Supranowicz

Edward Michael Supranowicz is the grandson of Irish and Russian/Ukrainian immigrants. He grew up on a small farm in Appalachia. He has a grad background in painting and printmaking. Some of his artwork has recently or will soon appear in Fish Food, Streetlight, Another Chicago Magazine, Door Is A Jar, The Phoenix, and The Harvard Advocate. Edward is also a published poet.

SHORT STORIES

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Daniel Baig, Russell’s Stereo

It made sense.

That’s what he told himself as he slammed the car door, hoping that it would echo with the finality of a chapter being closed. Then again, he hoped for that same resonance when he turned off the radio and rolled up the car window. Nor did it happen when she closed her door and made her way into the bar, not bothering to wait for him. He trudged dutifully behind her, adjusting the front of his pants due to the slight sticky discomfort caused by the residue of saliva and cum from the road-head she had given unenthusiastically, and he received almost equally unenthusiastically – at least until the moment of climax as was wired into his brain. It seemed like something to do – anything to do – because there was nothing else left for them to do. It was a distraction, and they needed a distraction.

He had been hoping for some sort of sign to let them both know that it was over, but the closest thing he got was a sign marker on the highway for Salsipuedes, which they had passed earlier on the drive back up the coast of Baja, Mexico. However, he had failed to get off at the exit. Meanwhile, the fatigue of the journey had caught up with them, but they wanted to get caught. His mind clung to that sign for Salsipuedes, but it wasn’t like they could break up in the middle of nowhere, could they?

They headed south from LA, driving across the border down to Ensenada. After a week-long bender, masquerading as a vacation, they were on their way back to El Norte. They didn’t think to bring their passports when they started driving, but they knew from experience that getting into Mexico could be facilitated with a generous tip and crossing back with a playful display of drunken ignorance. They were masters of ignorance. Neither had planned on going this far, but how much farther could they go? It turns out the answer was a bar off the highway.

The bar was one of those places far enough off the beaten path that even Google Maps would pause before coughing out some choppy directions as if the app itself were questioning whether this location was worth the time. He could always find the place by instinct, but there would always be a moment of suspense as to whether he’d taken the right exit and soon followed by the predictable but still pleasant surprise of seeing the bar, of being right. It was like entering a strange world, but that’s what made it comfortable. They had become strangers.

There were no signs or billboards advertising the bar’s location – let alone its existence – but the bar had a magnetism all its own. The story was that scenes from the movie Master and Commander were filmed in Baja. There was a movie studio, Fox Estudios, near the coastal terrain, a fitting background for the exploits of a naval vessel in the 1800s. Given those details, it made sense that Russell Crowe – “Captain Jack Aubrey” – would be in the area, and it made sense that Russell Crowe would need somewhere to go to unwind. He joined her at the bar where the bartender was placing two beers – Dos Equis Ambars – before her.

This roadside diversion could best be described as the lovechild of a Mexican tourist trap and an American dive bar that exceeded its parents’ wildest expectations. It was off-season for the cruise ships and still a few months before the college-age locusts would descend upon it. Even though the bar was empty, there was no mistaking that this was a party haven from the many patron-donated decorations. The bar’s walls and ceiling were adorned with various paper currencies with names and dates scribbled on them. George Washington looked out from every corner with a wry, knowing smile – he knew what happened here. There was also plenty of foreign currency from European countries with British notes making up the lion’s share – the Queen was not as amused as George.

Also scattered throughout the bar were bras hanging from the ceiling, cast away by its female patrons. It was a ritual – something that no one would go in planning to do, but when in Rome... Leaving a bra behind was the equivalent of a mountaineer leaving a flag at the top of Mt. Everest. It was conquered territory “I came, I saw, I partied” – in no particular order. There was also the occasional thong, which was more akin to planting a flag on the moon. There were a handful of astronauts.

But these bacchanalian decorations were not what caught his eyes as he sat next to her, dropping his keys on the bar and picking up one of the brown bottles. He stared at the wall behind the bar where sounds and lights emanated from a massive stereo system. It was flashy, but also technical – engineered for good times. The stereo system could have been the control panel of a disco spaceship. It was a fully functioning sound system, installed into the wall, still pumping out the beats. The bar was empty but the spirit of the party was still going, despite their best efforts to kill the vibe with their silence.

They sat at the bar drinking their beers, staring forward in silence as the bartender took a drag of his cigarette and watched a black-and-white television mounted in the corner. He wanted to say something, but pumping beats from the large alien sound system calling to the mothership provided adequate cover for the silence between them. They also turned their attention to the television playing an old movie about a lucha libre wrestler turned secret agent.

He backed away from his beer, taking a trip around the world via the foreign paper that lined the hall, and went to the bathroom. As he relieved himself, he thought back to that sign they passed for Salsipuedes which was known for its inhospitable terrain along the ocean. The name “Salsipuedes” roughly translated to “get out while you can.” Salsipuedes was more than a place. It was an exit, an escape –. A state of mind. He wished he’d heeded that sign sooner, knowing that it had been the sign he was looking for – the sign he wanted to see.

As he tried wiping off the road-head residue with a coarse paper towel – his fig leaf to mask the shame of his indecisiveness -- he realized that he didn’t want to know the truth about Russell Crowe’s stereo. Sure, the stereo would still play music, but it would lose its magic. It really didn’t matter, and yet, it did. Russell Crowe brought a sound system to a dive bar so he could have somewhere to hang out in between shoots and then left it behind – Never to return or give it another thought – because he could. It made sense.

As he walked back to the bar, he saw the bartender’s eyes fixed on the television. It took him a second to realize that she was gone. It took another second to realize that the keys he left on the bar were also gone. And it took him yet another to piece together that the bartender was intentionally avoiding eye contact with him while concealing the slightest smirk.

He walked over to the door and opened it. The car was gone.

They had been to this place several times, but she never so much as left a dollar behind, let alone an undergarment, as proof that she’d been there.

Instead, he was her flag.

Maybe she also saw the sign for Salsipuedes.

It made sense.

_________________________________

Louise Dolan, The Walleye

The ice remained on the surface of the lake until late spring. Underneath, the stillness imposed by the frozen cover lasted into the days when the minutes of light outweighed the dark. Deep below, the walleye swam lethargically amongst the dormant grasses and plants waiting for the first indicator that the long winter had come to a close; a shaft of light in the water from a crack in the ice along the shore. That’s where it usually began, in water that was too shallow for the walleye to swim. Sometimes a column of light might flash in deeper water only to vanish with the refreezing overnight. But once sunlight began to filter in through fissures along the shoreline, the lengthening vernal days made quick progress on the rest of the lake. Booms and piercing creaks signaled the rapid change from solid to liquid. It wasn’t unusual for the ice to shift dramatically, large pieces moving in one direction and even heaving up upon themselves in a brisk wind. This spring the sleeping lake awoke like a raging monster, bellowing and cracking, angrily resisting the rays of the sun that transformed it finally into a peaceful, serene body of water.

The sun always wins. The light penetrated down into the crevices between rocks and down into the hollows behind crisscrossed logs that carpet the floor illuminating tiny particles suspended in the water and whetting the appetite of the walleye who feels hunger for the first time since the icecap darkened the lake last fall. The walleye swam with newfound vigor and bit on anything that floated past her. Her caudal fin flicked energetically, slashing through her icy world as she dove along a beam of sunlight that lit the rocks below.

At the end of the first full day of light, the walleye found the wooden rowboat that had sunk many years before. She stole up inside the overturned hull to rest, rocking gently on the lake’s almost imperceptible currents until her nocturnal appetite woke her to forage for food.

Soon different noises signaled the return of the other species that occupied the water during the summer months. The visitors to this northern Wisconsin lake never ventured down into the depths where the walleye preferred to roam, although the man who lived near the sunken boat swam every morning, and in the late afternoon fished from the end of the dock where the floor of the lake dropped precipitously. The walleye often visited the dock while he fished.

It was the same man every year. He had pale skin and long thin appendages. He swam with a surprisingly even stroke as he slid through the water. The walleye trailed him, noting how his skin shimmered in the early morning light when he churned the water with his kicking. The walleye swam in this effervescent stream, the bubbles tickling her. When he emerged from the water, she ventured close to the surface alongside the dock and peered up at him.

As he dried himself, she flicked her caudal fin and rippled through the water very near the surface, flashing her yellow eye and silvery greenish-yellow skin at the man. Sometimes she even allowed her dorsal fin to rise above the surface of the water causing the man to point her way with his finger.

Each spring, the walleye stole up under the sunken boat and waited for the man to return. Each year, she hovered alongside his dock, trailed him as he swam in the morning, and then in the late afternoon, when the light slanted into the water at a sharp angle, watched him fish. He sat on the bench at the end of the dock and flung food bits into the water. Other fish bit these morsels, and he hurled them out of the water to join him on the dock. She wondered what it must be like for them to see him without bubbles swirling around his feet nor streaming from his nose. How soothing to be held in his hands, stroked by his fingers, warmed by his body. She dove deep, deep into the lake, wondering if she had the courage to bite his food bits?

After a series of dark days when water had streamed into the lake, the sun again sprinkled diamonds on the surface. That morning, the man dove into the water and swam at a faster pace. The walleye noticed the days were shorter, and the longer nights were cooling the water temperature. When the man emerged from the lake and stood on the dock, the walleye hovered just below the surface, waiting for him to spot her.

With a flick of her tail, she signaled to him.

He pointed, smiling and nodding.

Later that day, the man arrived before sunset. He set his tackle box and bucket on the dock, and thread a plump, wriggling earthworm onto the lure. Standing with his right arm raised above his head, he drew his fishing pole backwards then forwards in one sweeping stroke, releasing the bait into the water. It sank slowly to about ten feet where it remained suspended with an exotic purple fly fluttering around it.

The walleye peered from behind the last post of the dock, brushing her flank against the velvety algae. In the distance, she spotted an approaching northern pike, streaking silver and flashing his teeth. Knowing well this pugnacious marauder, she leaped forward, propelled by her strong caudal fin, and swallowed the bait. A sharp, piercing pain burned inside her throat. A line was connected to the food, and it pulled her up toward the surface of the water. She pulled back instinctively, trying to dive deep, but the line kept jerking her toward the dock, toward the surface, toward the man.

The man reeled the walleye in close to the end of the dock. Reaching for his net, he crouched down to scoop the fish out of the water. When he realized what he had caught, he went down on both knees and drew the fish out carefully. Once he had her in the net, he lifted her out onto the dock. The last rays of the sun glistened on her slimy, yellow-green body. She flicked her gills as she gasped for breath. The man carefully removed the hook and then stroked her long body. He smiled, gently lifted the fish, then leaned out over the water to slide her back into the lake.

The walleye was stunned. Dizzy from the lack of oxygen and still feeling pain from the hook, she swam down to colder water that would soothe her throat and slow her racing heart. In the darkness she slipped through grasses that swayed gently as she passed. She wondered why he had thrown her back when he’d never rejected any of the others?

Before long, the shortening days led to winter. The walleye rested and dreamed and waited. With spring’s arrival, the walleye rediscovered the overturned boat and nestled underneath. The man returned and swam and fished. The walleye decided to bite the food bit sooner this year. As the man baited the hook that first afternoon, she swam impatiently in and out of the dock posts. The minute that food hit the water, she charged at the bait. Again, she resisted the line instinctively, pulling furiously toward the dark water below. After a short struggle, the man pulled her into his net and lifted her from the water. He smiled, laying her out on the dock where he gently removed the hook from her throat. Stroking her side, he lifted her up into the air and gently slid her back into the dark water beneath the dock.

Swimming again, though feeling dazed, the walleye drifted off towards the overturned boat. From underneath, she watched as other fish were pulled from the water, never to return. Her throat burned and she was short of breath. She knew she should dive down to colder water, but she couldn’t make herself go. It was almost dark; she slept for several hours until hunger woke her.

The next day, the walleye swam behind the man and flicked her tail at him after he had climbed up on the dock. She saw him smile and point his finger in her direction. She lifted her fin out of the water in answer.

Later that day, when the food hit the water, the walleye charged it and swallowed it whole. The line pulled, setting the hook deep into her flesh. She struggled and gagged as the man pulled her toward the dock. Disabled from the pain, she was unable to fight. By the time the man scooped her out of the water with his net, she gasped for breath.

He laid her out on the dock and tried to remove the hook, but it had set too deep. He shook his head. She looked up at the man. Now she could see him without the water and the bubbles. The golden afternoon sun lit his sandy hair and the blond lashes that encircled his hazel eyes. She flapped her tail and flicked her dorsal fins. He stroked her body, and she heard him make a low comforting sound. She rippled her glistening gills and she tried to flap her tail.

Opening her mouth, she gasped for air and was desperately thirsty. Her eyes bulged. The sun dropped behind the roof of the dark green boat house, and the walleye dreamed that winter had returned, covering her world with an icy cap.

___________________________

David Alan Graham, Cigar Box

He doesn’t have his heart in him anymore. You can see it around his eyes, and in the tucks and lines that dig into his cheeks that play around his lips that run to the slope of his nose. His face is on television a lot these days, more than before, when he still had his heart to swing around and use at his discretion. He loses his heart and they put him on TV, but they don’t know he’s lost it. If anyone was paying any real attention, they would notice it’s not there.

Someone must have constructed a substitute, some metal contraption that pumps blood in his heart’s place. For some reason I picture it to be steam-powered. I would say he was full of hot air to justify this, but I know better, I’ve seen what’s really in him, or at least was in him. He’s on TV and no one seems to have noticed that he is a man missing a heart.

I have it. I have it in a cigar box that sits in my passenger seat while I drive to LA. I’m going to give it back to him.

…

Bolivar looks up at me from the passenger seat, a smaller, dwarfed version of him. The heart in the box seems to give Bolivar a certain life. Without it he would be a box.

“I don’t suppose I could get you to reconsider?” he says.

“No,” I reply.

He rubs his hand up and down his face feeling his sideburn. They look enormous, though he is miniature, perhaps because he is miniature. I wish I could grow sideburns like that. A person can get a lot of respect with sideburns like that, it’s no wonder he had so many followers. People pay attention to facial hair.

“I can give you some reasons, if you would like.”

“I’d prefer it if you didn’t.” His voice is high, not quite fitting to the image people give him, like Abe Lincoln. “I don’t really need to know; I’d still be against it.”

“Of course you would be, makes sense.”

We sit for a while, listening to the heart. Bolivar starts to count the beats, puts his hand over his chest and counts the heart beats.

One

Two

Three

Four

He only ever counts to four. This goes on for some time.

…

“I’m sorry officer; I didn’t realize the limit had changed.”

He’s not tall really, just appears to be. I try not to look at him; his crotch is at eye level. I also refuse to look at Bolivar. He would only make the situation worse. I attach my eyes to the road through the windshield.

“You should pay more attention,” the cop says.

“Fascist,” mumbles Bolivar and my eyes betray me and look over at him. My head snaps back and I smile at the crotch.

“I’m sorry sir.” His crotch disappears and my car is allowed to slowly pull forward and back onto the highway. My speed is greatly reduced.

…

Bolivar should grow a moustache; his sideburns would look better.

We sit in silence for a great while. Silence is underrated and is truly essential for long journeys. When there is noise, when people are talking, or music is playing it is easy to forget that you are moving. Silence makes you pay attention to your journey. You see scenery, the images of the world being thrown by you as you ride along at great speeds. If you’re the one driving you have little time to take it all in. You have to keep your eyes forward, hazy and staring far away. Sometimes something far off catches your eye and you stare it down, play a sort of game of chicken with it. A billboard, a barn, anything big enough to take notice of, standing there and staring you down. Which will give first? Which will swerve? Neither of course, you were never going to collide. I still get a great sense of achievement whenever I pass these foes, however. Sometimes there are those things on the side of the road that are hidden until you pass them and you are left trying to look back in the rearview mirror, but you never see what it was. If there is noise, all these things are missed or forgotten.

It would seem that I am the only one observing the silence, Bolivar is tapping his toe and rocking his head to a beat that only he can hear.

One

Two

Three

Four.

I turn on the radio.

“Hm,” he says and stops tapping in time to the music in his head and starts tapping to the music we both can hear.

“You’re off time,” I say, “I mean you are doing it wrong. It’s a waltz, it’s not in four-four.”

“Hm?” he replies.

“It goes one, two, three, one, two, three. You can feel it.”

He stops tapping for a few seconds and tries to feel the music. He closes his eyes and really starts to concentrate before he resumes tapping.

One

Two

Three

Four

“You’re still not right, there is no four, only three,” I say.

“But four works too.”

“No it doesn’t, you can’t feel the fourth beat.”

“I guess I just feel the music differently than you.”

“There is nothing to feel differently about. I mean that makes no sense. There is no different way to feel the music.”

“Of course there is. Look: One, two, three four, one, two, three, four,” he counts off.

“You’re just forcing that fourth beat in. It doesn’t belong there,” I say.

“I like it there.”

“Fine,” and I turn the radio off.

…

“We are not discussing this again,” I pause, “Were cars even invented when you were alive?”

“I bet I’m a good driver,” he says, “I bet it’s in my blood.”

“It’s not your blood,” I pause again, I hurt his feelings. “Look, we’re almost to LA and I don’t have time to give you a fucking driving lesson.”

“So I’m never going to get to drive? Ever?”

“No, it doesn’t look like it.”

“Come, just for a bit, a couple of miles? I’m never going to get to do it ever.”

“Can you even see over the wheel?”

I let him drive. He had no idea what did what, so I had to teach. The lesson didn’t go well. We are crawling along at 40 miles per hour while cars zoom by at 80; he says he’s afraid of going faster than God intended man to go. “It’s not natural,” he says.

I keep asking him to pull over so I can get back behind the wheel and he just keeps saying a little more, a little more. I let him drive a little more.

I look out the window; Bolivar has sped up to 60 miles per hour, so I can’t really complain about him going to slow anymore. He’s getting better and we are getting closer. I think back on where this started, images haunt my mind. I see my past-self stumble, I see scalpels pierce and I see skin and bone pulled apart. I see these images and find myself back there, drunk again, barely able to walk. I fall asleep.

One

Two

Three

Four

…

I wake up; Bolivar going faster than before, 80 or more.

“Where are we? How long was I out?”

“We’re still on the road; I didn’t even notice you were asleep.”

There is a new facet to his voice, something I can’t quite finger, something manic.

“Ok, fine, pull over.”

“No.”

“You’ve driven enough.”

He speeds up.

“Slow down,” I say.

He speeds up.

“Slow the fuck down.”

There is silence, he speeds up, the motor growls and purrs with the new speed. No one speaks, I just stare at him.

“It’s my heart now, it’s in me, and it’s mine.”

“We have to give it back,” I say.

“That’s not going to happen.”

He speeds up.

______________________________________

Andrea Mauk, Slipping

She didn’t remember the order of occurrences that put her in the hospital twice in one week. The first time, it was for surgery. Having an undesirable growth removed. It was the second time that felt foggy to her. She remembered asking if she could act in the play that weekend, and the doctors assured her it was back to normal life for her, but then – there was the outdoor movie, the unseasonable cold that bore a chill through her bones, the rave she didn’t attend though it thumped through neighborhood upon neighborhood of century-old bungalows surrounding the university. She was pretty sure it was the incessant drone of the trance music that stirred the nausea within her and gathered every iota of her transient pain into a migraine that knifed her above her right eye.

When her fever shot up like someone had hit the high striker at a carnival, she called 911, but the ambulance didn’t come because there were too many kids at the Monster Massive experimenting with cocktails of street drugs and their parents’ prescriptions, leaving no resources.

As she retraced the details in her mind, she realized none of it mattered because here she was, catheterized and bound to the bed by the pneumatic pump that applied pressure to her calves in sequence. Would somebody ever turn it off? Take all this equipment away? She watched the IV needle working its way out of her swollen arm, the blood beginning to carve a stream across her wrist onto the crumpled white sheets. Then the alarm. Blip, blip, blip. The saline bag was empty. She swore she would memorize the nurse’s sequence of moves when he came in so that she would be able to operate the annoying machine on her own, but then the lady down the hall began the incomprehensible yelling, and who could concentrate? “Aagbagbagbagbogboggoggog.”

How did she come to be on the same wing as this yelling woman? She had walked out of the house, up and down the block, a blanket thrown over her flannel nightgown. She wailed like a mourner to get someone’s attention. The young man across the street borrowed his parents’ van and drove her to the emergency room at the hospital where her surgery occurred. That was kind. As soon as he slid the door open, she puked everywhere. In the van, outside the door, on his Adidas. He was probably sorry for volunteering.

Her lunch sat untouched on the rolling tray. Dry chicken breast. Mixed vegetables. Salad with a wedge of lemon instead of dressing. “Your BMI is 33,” the doctor, possibly Jenny Craig’s brother, acted as if it was a death sentence. It had been the same inedible meal three days running. The rumbles of hunger were only outdone by the pain that arrived every evening at dusk. She concentrated on the hum of the wound vac as she watched the bloody fluid her body was producing being sucked through the hose into a cannister but even such hideousness couldn’t numb the pain that had collected in the open wound, the wound that carved a gorge across her formerly perfect abdomen.

She cried, but her sobs were so close to inaudible that they went unnoticed, especially since the woman down the hall, whom she imagined to be nearly 100 and stricken with rheumatoid arthritis and dementia, kept yelling disorganized syllables in the most grating tone. She wanted to curl into fetal position and hold her wound, sing to it, but it was buried, packed with gauze and cotton strips and tape, and it was prone to infection.

The sound of the yelling woman was angry, explosive, and ten times worse than the hypnotic techno drone that followed her from the rave to the hospital and into her nightmares. As she began to drift into a light, anguished sleep, she felt the sensation of her body parts slipping towards her feet. The wind kicked up outside, banged on her window like a banshee, and when she looked in that direction, she saw the dead from the morgue, bats with wings folded, hanging upside down, relishing in her suffering. She knew they weren’t really there, but the vision persisted.

The sight shocked her so that she screamed. “The window,” she pointed, but the nurse, when one finally came, straightened her sheets and suggested a morphine drip, “You control the medicine. That way you give yourself only what you need.”

She struggled to turn her body away from the window. She tried to ignore the thumping on the glass as she waited for the nurse to return. As she began to doze, she felt herself become small and crawl inside herself through her open wound. She remembered the feeling of the doctor scraping away the infected tissue during the second surgery, all because Cousin Dolores died from anesthesia during a DNC, and she was scared to come to the same end. Now, inside her body, there were tunnels and shoots and pulleys and conveyor belts and gears that workers, neither male or female or robots, operated in perfect synchronization. She felt herself pulled toward a gear with the intensity of a magnetic attraction. This was the gear that made her stomach churn. She tried to work against the flow, stop the forward movement, but the tiny laborers inside her body simply ran her over and stomped on her one by one as they turned the apparatus. She managed to escape being trampled but she couldn’t find the way out of herself.

The nurse returned with the morphine drip and began asking questions, but she couldn’t answer while so small and deep inside her own body. She thought of trying to make her way towards her ears, but then, “Aagbagbagbagbogboggoggog." The woman down the hall’s yell seemed to expel her from her innards. The nurse was warning her not to push the button unless she couldn’t stand the pain. Who was she kidding? She was already tripping without narcotics involved. “Who is that woman making all that noise down the hall?” The nurse looked at her, puzzled at first. “Oh, you mean 523 B.” Then she answered her walkie-talkie in Tagalog, turned and left the room.

Her pain caused the room to rock like a ship on choppy water. Whoever was banging on the window persisted. The ninth episode of Cops spilled across the TV screen. She had the button in her hand. The morphine drip. She could tap it lightly and relieve some pain, but she was afraid, no, petrified that it would magnify the situation. Then the woman yelled with such force, she jumped, and she felt her insides slipping out through her wound. She held her breath, tried not to move, but the woman continued, “Fub fub rabrabgub. Aagbagbag- bagbogboggoggog,” and every time she did, her insides slipped a little more. It wasn’t her organs and bones slipping. It was her, her essence, her “self.”

The nurse entered her room again, “I’m sorry for running out. Another nurse needed help lifting a patient.” She stared at the nurse, wondering if she could tell that her soul was slipping out of her body through the wound. “I just want to test the pump and make sure it’s dispensing properly.” The nurse’s index finger tapped the morphine drip gently, daintily, and she felt herself rejoin with her body. Her corpus mundi and animus mundi merged again followed by an immense rush of relief.

She would spend the hours between midnight and dawn with one thought on her mind that had never been more significant: hold yourself together. The wind moaned tirelessly. The thumping on the windowpane amplified. The horrendous sounds continued to erupt from the woman down the hall’s mouth just as she would begin to drift into slumber. Each time the woman’s vocalizations filled the air, she felt her being slipping from her shell. She held tight to her wound dressing, but it made no difference. With each new “aagaagaagbaggog,” everything that made her “her” slipped, and the more it separated from her body, the less effect a quick tap on the morphine pump had, until finally, all of her intelligence, her emotions, her senses, and her sensuality were lying in a gigantic yet amoebalike blob on the floor. It was useless. The slipping was inevitable. She winced as she gazed at the slithery pink sack of herself on the floor and wondered how she was still able to think… and breathe.

At 5:15 A.M. according to her cell phone, the yelling woman was drowned out by a code blue announcement that blared through the corridors. The scurry of footsteps could be heard running up and back, and voices infused with a heavy dose of stress. She wondered for whom the code was called. Was it her? Could they see the blob, the puddle of her being writhing helplessly on the linoleum?

The code wasn’t for her. No one on the floor realized that she had slipped out of herself, and now, to her dismay, she began to feel a lifting sensation in the shell of her body, her abandoned bones and organs. She held so tight to the bedrails, the call button, the IV cord, anything she could get her hands on as she fought gravity in a feeble attempt to remain in the room, or the realm. The banging on the window now reassured her even though she assumed that the dead were there, hanging upside down, coaxing her.

As the sun spread warm light across the sky, a new nurse entered the room. He erased the names on the whiteboard hanging on the wall and then stepped back to make sure his handwriting was legible. Her eyes widened and locked on the nurse’s feet that were mere centimeters from the pink sack of her core that had slipped onto the floor. He stepped back and pivoted, and as he did, she screamed in anticipation of the pain it would cause her. She began to pant until hyperventilation was assured. “Hit the pump,” he told her. “Here, I’ll do it.” His fingers landed firmly on the button, but the release of morphine didn’t calm her. “What’s wrong?” He followed her eyes to the floor. “What are you staring at? There’s nothing on the floor. Nothing’s there… oh! You’re slipping. I see what’s happening. It’s very common with open wounds.” He yanked the wound vac cord from the wall, and then walked to the window. “Who opened this? It must have been banging all night with how windy it was. What a spooky Halloween,” he pulled the window in and latched it. “Especially in this creepy old hospital.”

As he spoke, the absence of the whirring wound vac noise calmed her, but the absence of the woman’s babbling disturbed her. “I will send someone in to check the wound and change your dressing. Let me reassure you, you are 100% completely together. No part of you has slipped out. Like I said, it’s a common sensation.”

“Where’s the lady that kept yelling?” she asked Scott. He spun his head around, “Who?” She shifted her gaze. “Never mind.” Scott patted her on the shoulder and tugged her sheets tightly around her. “Try to relax. Everything’s fine.”

“Everything’s fine,” she repeated to herself, rearranging herself to face the window. There, in the chair in the corner sat the lady, even older, more hollow-eyed, craggier and bent by time than she’d imagined. “Hold yourself together, girl,” the woman laughed and then exploded into a boisterous “Aagbagbagbagbogboggoggog."

_________________________________

Renu Chopra, The Grocery Store

The blues and reds in the woman’s skirt whip back and forth in the Santa Ana winds, creating a tornado of colors while the red scarf around her head wins the fight to stay in place. I know she is old. I know she is old despite her happy colors though I cannot see her face. The white plastic bag she carries in her left hand, slightly full, pulls her down. It does not look heavy, yet the arch of the humpback seems to be in reaction to the weight of the bag. It bows toward the black cement of the street she crosses.

I reach over to the radio with my right hand and raise the volume until the Stones reverberate through the Bose surround sound of my Porsche. Caaan’t get no…

I don’t move to the music; my head doesn’t bob back and forth. It’s not that kind of day. Instead, I register the rhythm in my head. Intellectually. I remember a parfait floor while at CSUN where I got my B.S. in Business. A party on campus. My head and body danced in laughter and freedom to this beat. And then again at an office party in Glendale, years later, trying and failing to be tame in front of the bosses of the firm, smoothing out my corduroy suit at the end of the song and putting on my best work expression, hoping no one noticed my liberty on the dance floor. Mostly, I remember lying in bed on top of my pink bedcover after classes were over at Grant High School, eyes closed, Lisa next to me, both entranced, two sets of arms and hands moving in the air, laughing as we both shouted in tune every time Jagger crooned ‘saaastisfaction’ on the record player in my room on Woodman Avenue.

Today, I watch motionless through the music and my car window as the random hunched stranger crosses the road in front of me, white plastic bag in hand. I see her life like a movie reel, see her going home to a family, maybe a son or a daughter, adults. They are busy. Too busy. She opens the refrigerator, back still hunched. I can see her opening the refrigerator even though all she wants is to sit down, lie down and rest. But she knows that if she allows herself that luxury, she will not get up again to cook her food, to eat, and will go to sleep hungry.

Failing to find anything fresh, she empties a can of beans into a pot, holding on to the stove, stirring with the wooden spoon, wondering what had happened to her life, how she got here, stirring a can of beans in an empty house. The woman steps up to the curb onto the sidewalk, her colors waving like a flag in the wind. I cannot see her face. It must be wrinkled.

I feel rather than see the light turning green, press the accelerator and continue down Ventura boulevard. My eye catches the passenger seat. Papers and sunglasses, napkins from Taco Bell and Subway, used black face masks, crumpled receipts, and folded lotto tickets. The red light stops me at Reseda, and I attempt to separate the garbage and crush it into a ball, the easier to trash as soon as I get a chance. I stash it in the corner of the passenger seat to grab it once I park the car. As soon as I release my hand, the ball of trash opens merging with everything else as it had before. It looks different though but it’s really just the same. Just moved around.

I make a left turn and enter the parking lot for Vons. A man in a red checkered shirt holding a little boy’s hand walks into the store. I don’t move but watch them enter. The boy bouncy in his jeans and the man restrained. I wonder if he is a good father, I wonder how he disciplines his son. I wonder if he is kind and reassuring or strict and cold. I wonder what he says when the boy, whose name must be something with one syllable like Sam, I wonder what he will say when Sam brings home a C on his report card. I wonder if a C will be considered ok in this man’s house. He must have a strong name, the father, one like Stuart. I wonder if Stuart wants Sam to go to an Ivy league school or if a community college is what he aims for. I wonder if he has money and is cheap or if he is of modest income but is generous. I wonder if he has a wife who mothers them both or if he is divorced. I wonder what is on his grocery list today and what they will do afterward. Will he take his son to a game? Does Sam play soccer or basketball?

I suddenly envy this man. He can be rich or poor, mean or kind, clean or messy. I don’t know and in that lack of knowledge is freedom. For me, and from my perspective only, he can be any of those things. He is free. Free to be happy. Free to be sad. Free to nurture the child and ensure his legacy or create a cold human who leaves him to stir a can of beans on a stove in an empty house.

The boy reminds me of the days when my children were young and there was no time. Get up, get ready, make breakfast, make lunch, get them to eat breakfast, get them on the bus, or get them in the car. Go to work. Pick them up from school and rush them to karate or basketball or soccer. Pick them up from karate or basketball or soccer. Check backpacks. Homework. Get dinner ready, eat dinner, bathe, change, read a book with them, and kiss goodnight. Did I ever go to the grocery store while they bounced by my side?

I grab the garbage I had sorted and throw it into the trash can outside Vons feeling a slight sense of victory for cleaning the passenger seat. Stuart and Sam are in the aisle in front of me and I fight the urge to follow them, listen to their conversation, to determine which of my scenarios is correct. I decide not to follow, not to live their life, not to narrow the possibilities of what they could be into the one that they are and thereby box them out of the freedom to be so many things.

Standing in front of the vegetables, I dig inside my pocket for the list of things I have to buy and realize it’s gone into the trash bin along with the Taco Bell and Subway receipts. Typical. A little of that sense of victory withers slightly into defeat. No one saw me throw the list into the trash. If no one saw it, no one need know, and I can pretend it did not happen. Well, I know I need sea salt and navel oranges and bananas, and let me see which vegetables they have in the organic section at three times the price.

The cart is half full now and I get in line. Stuart is paying the cashier. I see hot dogs and buns sticking out of the bags he grabs. I empty my cart onto the checkout and watch as Sam stops his father, waving his hands up in the air indicating that he wants to be carried. Stuart adjusts the bag and lifts him up. Sam surrounds his father’s neck with his arms in a natural and practiced move and lays his head against Stuart’s chest. The scenarios narrow, they quickly get clipped and edited, and I feel a little bit of envy. I remember the feel of little warm arms around my neck, I remember the assurance that I could always assure my child.

My grocery needs are much less now that we are only the two of us. The bustling household of multiple generations is gone. Children have made their own lives and moved to different places. I notice refried beans in the cart. How did those get in there? I take them out. Our house has fewer people now, it looks different now, but it’s really just the same. The people have just moved around. I move a little to the beat that still echoes in my head.

I caaan’t get no…saaatisfaction.

___________________________________

Maggie Nerz Iribarne, Three Women, One Key

Lily unlocked the back door of the thrift store using a key that didn’t belong to her. Just an hour before, she’d scooped the key from the street, dangling it from its chain in the blurry early morning light. Thrift on Smith.

She’d been zigzagging, her feet clunky, aimless, from Mulroney’s to her crooked Cooper Mini. (Mulroney’s because she’d needed a drink after the lawyer’s letter came and she’d consumed all the alcohol left in the house.)

“What the hell,” she slurred, about-facing to the shop.

Inside, she inhaled the repellent “other people’s things” smell, flipped on the lights.

The gowns hung along the wall, sparkling from their hangers, heavy and impractical -prom and wedding in pastel blues and greens and pinks and blacks and of course whites. Lily pushed them along the rack, pulling them down, allowing them to fall, like fainting ladies, onto the floor.

She reached for the most beautiful dress, an off the shoulder number with floral inlay. She wiggled out of her skirt and silk blouse, poked her arms through the gown’s sleeves and fumbled with the side zipper, constricting her loose belly. Draped in the weighted fabric, she zombie-walked herself to the full length mirror, holding up the skirt’s peaks of meringue.

“Jesus.”

She deeply regretted the artificial red hue of her hair, jutting in ragged spikes. Shuffling closer to her reflection, she examined pores, smoothed wayward eyebrows, ran a finger across her lips, containing the bleeding pink stain.

“Get. This thing. Off,” she said, stripping down to her loose white panties and pilly bra. She hiccupped, her chest popping as she staggered back to her own clothing left crushed on the floor, like the Wicked Witch post-melting.

Lily exited the way she came, slamming the door behind her, pushing back on the knob to feel the lock, firmly in place.

***

Mae hoisted herself into the shop window, falling to the floor, thankful for her stretch slacks. She stood up, ungracefully, the glimmer of pride at having achieved access to her shop without a key fading at the sight of the mess before her. Ruby, the mannequin, eyed her, plastic head cocked to the left, hand jauntily on hip.

My my. What was I up to yesterday? Mae thought hard for a moment but came up with only mind dust, nothing, the usual. Familiar handwriting-her own-in small yellow squares floated at eye level around the room. Post-its. Some said Thrift on Smith, the name of the shop, her shop, of course this shop. Some said Mae Sanford, 63, 555-1264, 217 Rambly Ridge Way. One said, I, Mae Sandford, am the owner of Thrift on Smith.

“Dust myself, off and..” Mae sat heavily in her rolling desk chair, patted her ample thighs.

The clock sounded its opening alarm, slapping Mae to attention.

“Oh, sugar. Time flies.”

She wobbled across mounds of clothing to get to the door, turned the lock and flipped the closed sign to open.

“Now where…” she muttered, fighting the way back to her desk, command central, holding all the things needed to get by: calendar, post-its, pens and pencils, price tags, cashbox. Cashbox! Mae whipped open the desk drawer only to find it sitting there, peacefully in place. The post-it on its cover said, Your necklace. Mae reached inside her shirt, finding a small key around a chain. She placed it inside the lock and opened the tin box, counted the bills.

She sat quietly, her mind drifting to its status quo, an erased blackboard. She touched Cam’s picture. The key, he reminded her. Mae looked down, found it stupidly sitting on the blotter. Eureka! She chuckled, a hand on her round belly.

The door opened, producing a teenager with a blast of autumn air.

“Good morning,” Mae said.

“Hey,” the thin girl said, chin out, hands in dark pockets. “You got a backpack?”

Mae had no idea, but she was happy to help, would enjoy the distraction.

***

Sadie only had so long. As soon as her father left, she fled the sink, ran out of the house, jumped on her bike, shot down the hill, no brakes. Earlier, he gripped her upper arm, “You’ll get these dishes done in no time,” he’d said.

She opened the first shop door she saw, finding herself in the middle of a mess of clothing, pots and pans, picture frames.

“I need a backpack,” all she could think to say. The disorder of the place wracked her nerves. Her father could not handle a speck of dust, a drop of water on the floor.

A fat little woman-maybe an angel?- appeared, a halo of grey curls rising up in a bush around her head.

“Sure thing! My shop is a treasure trove of - ”

“Okay,” Sadie said, turning away. Not an angel.

The woman pointed her to a blue ink-stained backpack. Sadie unzipped it, began tossing things in. She scanned a wall of paperbacks. Flowers in the Attic, took it, threw in a hairbrush, a bathing suit, some underwear. What else would she need? Anything. A sleeping bag? Sheets? Post-it notes? Wait.

“You run this place?” she faced the dumpy woman.

“Yes. Yes. My husband and I. My late husband. I almost forget he’s-“

The lady spoke from a tippy toe stance, like she was trying to put a star on top of a Christmas tree, attempting to rehang a fancy dress.

“Can I help you?”

Sadie dropped the backpack. She had no money anyway. No time. No nothin.

The dresses rehung, she excused herself to the barf-smelling bathroom, where she noticed a hot plate, a microwave, even a tub and shower. Soap.

She turned out the light, the post-it beside the switch reminding her to do so.

“What a lovely young lady you are-“ the woman called out as Sadie slipped the key on the desk to her jeans pocket.

“Thank you, mama. I’ve got to go. My father-” she began.

“Good girl,” the woman said, a bright smile clinging to her lips.

________________________________

Wilson Koewing, Donnie

Donnie wore cargo pants with polos tucked in and showed up when he pleased because he was the boss. Every morning he roared to a stop in front of Ice Wizard and hopped out with a little white yapping poodle trailing him.

I was Donnie’s salesman. I sold flavors.

“That’s the cash cow,” Donnie said. “Re-peat business. Keep ‘em coming back, Clyde. All I ask.”

And it was.

We rarely spoke.

The Ice Wizard facility was the office, which was me and Donnie and Lois, who did the books, and Ruth who did the books. Donnie had Lois and Ruth recheck each other’s books. Then there was the warehouse where three muscular guys were hired for the season, February – October. We never had one return, in fact, never had one last a season. That was result of the heat and the tedious job, but mostly Donnie.

Donnie inherited Ice Wizard; the business having been in the family since 1910. What began as the first snowball stand in New Orleans, (or let Donnie tell it, the world) Ice Wizard sold shaved ice machines, carts, and trailers. They also mixed, bottled, and distributed exclusive syrup flavors like Tiger Blood and Blue Magic across the south.

Aside from running Ice Wizard, Donnie was a mystery. Unmarried. Parents dead. No friends. A handicapped brother who lived with him and did odd jobs at Ice Wizard like pressure wash the parking lot in a bathing suit and galoshes.

One afternoon, I hung up a sales call and felt Donnie hovering.

“Clyde,” he said. “Would you accompany me to my ranch in Mississippi this weekend.”

Donnie went to the ranch often, but never invited employees, big clients occasionally.

“Mind if I ask my wife?”

Donnie rubbed his moustache, “I do.”

We stared at each other.

“All right,” I said. “I’m in.”

***

The night before leaving, I sat with my wife, Janie.

“You know he’s damn near crazy, Clyde?” she said, handing me a beer.

“I’ve worked with the man five years, have I not?”

“What’s he want you to go all the way to Mississippi for?”

“Couldn’t say.”

“Well, didn’t you ask?”

I shook my head.

“Well, why didn’t ya?”

“Because he’s damn near crazy,” I laughed.

“Clyde Richard Landrieu,” she smiled. “I hope something terrible happens to you out there.”

Donnie arrived early. I rode in the backseat. The poodle rode shotgun. We drove to Mississippi, windows down, Elvis blaring, the poodle barking at the speakers.

The ranch rested a mile inland from the gulf coast. We drove the property in a Polaris 4x4. Swampy ponds dotted the terrain. Rows of tobacco plants. I sat in back again. Donnie lit a cigar. I hadn’t the faintest he smoked. He didn’t speak as we rode, just pointed and grunted at things. A dilapidated barn. An old tractor that grass grew up through. The rusted gate to an empty cattle field.

We sped by a small burial ground with a fresh mowed patch of grass that held four tiny headstones. I thought to ask but didn’t. Donnie wasn’t the sort who responded well to asking. Or that you’d want to ask without worrying about the answer. It was beautiful out there, though. Pure Delta. Heavy Skies. So, for a while we found peace and just rode.

That went alright until the poodle jumped out as we passed a lake. Donnie pulled to a stop and got out. The poodle drank calmly by the shore until Donnie nervously snatched it up.

When we returned to the ranch, Donnie showed me my room. It was spacious, a living room and a large bathroom, odd thing was, the walls were covered in photos and paintings of the poodle, or other poodles that came before. Like a shrine.

“Meet me out front in a half hour,” Donnie said, closing the door. “We’ll catch dinner.”

I took a few minutes, showered, and went outside. Donnie sat in the Polaris with the poodle, fishing tackle in the bed.

He took off damn near the exact second I sat down.

“You’ve been with me five years,” Donnie said, wind whipping his hair as we rode.

“Has it been five years?”

Donnie almost smiled.

We stopped at one of the lakes. Donnie grabbed the rods and we tossed out lines. He opened a couple fold outs and set up a camp table and poured martinis from a thermos.

Mississippi Gulf Coast fancy.

We watched our bobbers, and I finished my martini, and he finished his and refilled both and we did that a while, nothing biting. The whole time we fished, the poodle kept inching closer to the water and Donnie kept yelling for it to come back.

“Never had an employee I liked, Clyde,” Donnie said. “I spent a lot of time trying to dislike you.”

“Not all five years, I hope,” I laughed.

Donnie stone-faced me. It was getting dark. The bugs were starting their symphony.

“May be time I stop paying you salary and commission,” Donnie said. “Bring you in on this thing more long—”

The poodle bounded off his lap so fast he fell forward trying to catch the martini knowing the dog was gone. The poodle tiny footed toward the shore. Donnie secured his drink and sprinted after it. The poodle shivered by the shore, like it knew it made a mistake going down there. Just before Donnie got there, the water parted and an alligator surfaced, mouth open wide, and the poodle ran right inside.

Donnie leapt in after the submerging gator, had hold of the tail momentarily, then lost it.

He staggered out of the pond soaked and muddy.

He drove back to the ranch in silence. The stars crazy overhead, visible a hundred eighty-degrees out there, not just straight up.

Back at the ranch, I tried to sleep but couldn’t. The TV had one channel. A replay of a televangelist in a giant southern church. The sermon was about sacrifice and how if the sacrifice isn’t meaningful to you then the sacrifice doesn’t matter. I eventually dozed off but woke deep in the night. I wandered into the main house, expecting to see sign of Donnie, but found only a roaring fire lighting up a living room that was all gators. Gator busts on the wall. Taxidermy gators by the fireplace. A gator tooth chandelier.

There were stairs that led somewhere and a bunch of closed doors.

I went outside and walked in the direction of the pond. The sun barely teased the horizon. It was peaceful, but spooky. Shadows played between the branches of moss hung trees. I could feel the eyes of critters peering out from the darkness. I worried I might not be able to find the pond, but I couldn’t have missed it. Donnie had a dozen spotlights on poles and ladders aimed at the water. It glowed eerie, like war film lighting.

I hid behind some brush and watched.

Donnie sat shirtless, a bandana around his forehead, a rifle across his lap. A dozen whole chickens lined the bank. Donnie walked down to the bank and filled a bucket with the chickens. He sat back down and tossed one, trying to land it with a splash right by the shore. He did this over and over. Once they were all out again, he did pushups. Two hundred or more.

I thought about revealing myself but didn’t.

Day was beginning to fight the night, creating a thin white line along the horizon. Donnie transitioned to jumping jacks. Eventually he fell to the ground and laid there for a long time.

Slowly at first, then picking up speed, Donnie crawled up the bank. It was so quiet, I heard the water move. Behind Donnie, the gator surfaced, coming after him like in slow motion, mouth wide open. Donnie reached his rifle, just as the gator reached land. Donnie rolled over, sat up and shot it between the eyes.

The gator stiffened and laid still.

Donnie flipped the gator on its back, pulled out a Bowie knife, raised it above his head and buried it in soft white belly. Expertly, he carved. It was slow going, but eventually he plunged his hands inside, retrieved the poodle’s remains and held them up against the creeping morning light.

Then he wrapped the remains in a blanket and carried them to the little burial ground. A new tombstone was there along with a fresh hole. Donnie placed the blanket inside and covered it with dirt.

The sun burnt the horizon, but a thick fog rose heavy on the edges. I slipped off, hoping Donnie wouldn’t see me.

If he did, he didn’t mention it in the morning.

I sat in the front on the drive back to New Orleans. Donnie blared Elvis, but only sad, warbling songs. Janie ran out to greet me upon arrival. I spun her. Donnie watched us then drove away.

On the patio, we sat together, and Janie handed me a beer.

“Well,” she said. “Did you confirm crazy?”

_________________________________

Andrea Lithgow, Waiting

The room was big enough, I suppose, for all these people, waiting. Their feet lined up in rows. Some were out of row, and some were even. Some were crooked and some sat straight together. Rows of shoelaces, buckles, straps, and even a button. I wondered if the old hippie lady did the button herself. As more people came in, the temperature in the overly lit room changed. I took my sweater off and neatly folded it on my lap, the way I like it, with the sleeves folded in thirds, the right sleeve under the left sleeve. The way momma taught me. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed the shoelace on my left shoe looked uneven. I’d have to fix that, and soon.

“Number thirty-seven, please go to window four.” The mechanical lady-voice sounded upset and I looked down at the funny-shaped ticket in my hand and wondered who decided to make the tickets that shape. It seemed that a perfect square or rectangle would’ve been just fine and probably more comforting to all these people, waiting. Across the aisle, facing me, the rows of chairs slowly filled up as the mechanical lady slowly ticked numbers by. My number wasn’t even in sight. The back row wasn’t getting filled up as much as the front two rows, so the faces staring back at me felt top-heavy. The back row had one, two, four, six, eight, ten, twelve, thirteen chairs vacant. Thirteen. Uh oh. The next row had seven chairs empty, and the next row had only three chairs empty. And that’s three chairs less than the same number of chairs in the back row. If I count all the empty chairs in all the rows, then divide that number by three (my favorite number) then see if that’s one of my other favorite numbers, then all the numbers will feel safe. Then I realized my whole plan would fall to pieces as soon as someone got up to go to their window or someone new walked in.

“Number forty-three, please go to window eleven.” More numbers. I could keep track of all the numbers that the mechanical lady said then add all those numbers up to a final number, then keep dividing that number up until I arrive at one of my favorite numbers, hopefully. My chest contracted at the thought of having left over or unattractive numbers at the end of that process. From my left, a young lady with a baby strapped to her chest made her way down my aisle. The baby bag looked like a raggedy thing she may have picked up at Good Will. I looked at her untidy hair, and next, of course, her shoes. The laces weren’t even tied right, I could tell. This poor woman.

“Excuse me, sir. Do you mind if we get past you? It’s time to nurse.” She forced a laugh and tiredly waved to the end of my aisle where it seemed there might be a shred of privacy. The idea of naked boobies made my throat constrict, so with big eyes I could only nod. The bigness of what seemed like extra baby weight, and her slimy baby bag trying to get past me nearly slammed me in the face. My entire body shrank into the size of a peanut, and I immediately thought about my favorite number, and the moment that I knew it was my favorite number. I could see my momma staring into my face, swirling the baby food around in circles as the spoon got closer and closer, with her melodic voice singing, “one, two, three, wheee!!” At least my dadda told me it was my momma, but I never saw pictures of them together. I stared straight ahead as the mother settled herself in next to me, the slime almost creeping off her bag and onto me.

“Number fifty-one, please go to window seven.” The mechanical lady was started to feel almost like a friend. So that’s fifty-one plus seven equals fifty-eight divided by let’s say, two. And that leaves me with twenty-nine. Twenty-nine is just one away from thirty, which is exactly three times ten. I got just one away with my first calculation. Next door the baby wailed, but I forced myself to keep looking straight ahead. Across the way, and above the rows of people that kept constantly changing, there was a big corkboard with notices and signs. As I stared, the rows of silly sayings and announcements started swimming, yet when I squinted, they all merged to make a pattern that felt comfortable. When I stopped squinting, the board reverted to feeling like a jumbled mess. The saying that my eyes stuck on read, “Your lack of planning is not my emergency.” Eight words, two long, two medium, and four small. That is, if you put the words with three letters in the ‘small’ category and the words with four letters in the ‘medium’ category. Thirty-four letters in total, divided by two is seventeen. But seventeen is a strange number and I’ve never liked it.

“Number fifty-nine, please go to window thirteen.” I looked down at the now slightly wrinkled ticket in my hand. The boldly printed 66 felt entitled, like it had the right to feel like hot shit because it was the perfect number. And to think that I drew the perfect number. I should play the lottery today. But my shoelaces were uneven, so maybe I should not play the lottery today. But maybe it would still be okay because it was still morning and if I fixed my laces now, then I still had a chance at winning the lottery. I leaned down and undid the lace on my left shoe and carefully held each side next to each other. There was a ¾” different. I’d have to undo the entire lace from the very beginning. I quickly counted the number of awake hours in the day, and the hours I’d used up and the hours I had left. I figured if the percentage of hours where my shoelaces had been uneven versus the hours left in the day where they’d be even once I was able to fix them would be low enough that it would still be safe to buy a lottery ticket.

“Number sixty-six, please go to window three.” My heart started skipping and wouldn’t stop. Window number three. I simply couldn’t believe it. At that moment, I knew there was no doubt that I’d be winning the lottery. But only if there was that certain parking spot available that I parked in the last time my quick-scratcher made me twenty bucks. But maybe this time it would be okay if I parked in a different spot because all the numbers were just too good. I bent down further to quickly tie the lace, but then thought I might trip, and everyone knew tripping and falling was bad luck.

“Number sixty-six, please go to window three.” There she was again. “Number sixty-seven?” No, no, no, NO, NO!! Window three was my window, damn it! And I finished tying my lace into the fastest bow on the planet. I pushed my way over the people still left on my row, almost stumbling over myself. “Here, here, I’m right here!” I waved my crumpled ticket in my hand. My voice came out louder than I expected, and the entire room seemed to all look at me at once. I arrived at window three almost in a panic and before I could gather myself to even know why I was standing at window three, I saw stacks of cards in front of me that were uneven. A short stack of fliers and an even shorter stack of something the size of a business card. I impulsively grabbed each stack one by one and straightened them. They had to all be straightened before I could look up and tell the person behind the counter why I was there.

“Hello sir, and how are you today? Next time you come to the DMV, it might be helpful to know that more of us start coming onto shift at 9 a.m., and so the lines are not as long then. You know? Don’t show up right when we open, because that’s when everyone shows up. Nobody wants to wait, right?” The lady chuckled in an almost sadistic way.

Nine. Nine a.m. she’d just said. Nine is divided by three, which then becomes three again. At window three with ticket number sixty-six. Threes and sixes and nines were spinning around in front of me like little characters holding hands, flying around in a circle.

“Sir….? How can I help you today?”

I looked down at my shoelace and saw that it was still tied in a somewhat neat bow.

“You want to know something? I think I’m going to win the lottery today.”

She laughed again and grabbed the papers from my still-trembling hands.

__________________________________

Christa Walker, Scrapbook

“The story goes something like this: a twelve year-old girl was kidnapped by a man right outside her house and she was never seen again,” Poppy said, carefully foiling pieces of my hair. “Too much time’d gone by, so everyone figured she was dead, except that she wasn’t.”

The smell of ammonia burned my nostrils, and my eyes watered. “And then what happened?” I asked. Poppy was an encyclopedia of true crime stories. Every time I needed a color touch up or a trim, she had a story. Last month I’d heard about the disappearance of Brian Shaffer, who still hasn’t been found.

“Turns out that eighteen years later, she killed him. He had held her prisoner, brainwashed her, had like three children with her, turned her into a religious nut like himself...” Poppy paused as she wiped dye from my forehead. “And then just before a hurricane hit their town she killed him.”

“How?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Shot him, maybe? I can’t remember. This was a long time ago. I’m sure you can find it online.”

And I did. I googled “kidnapped woman with 3 children kills captor during hurricane” and the story popped up first, although I was surprised at how many stories there were related to women with three children killing people during hurricanes. I mentioned this to Poppy as she situated me under a hair dryer and she laughed and said something about how natural disasters make people crazy.

I learned more than I thought I would from the article. That the woman’s name was Mary and the captor’s name was Pastor Mike. I learned that Mary killed him with a cast iron skillet, not because she had worked up the nerve to kill him because he’d kidnapped her, but because he’d beaten one of her children. In fact, she didn’t remember that she’d been abducted, and she was never able to bond with her parents. She didn’t even want her old name back. In a strange twist of fate Mary and her kids were among only thirty survivors in their small town near Corpus Christi, but Leukemia would take Mary’s life a few years later.

Poppy brought me water and I told her that the story became sad. She said she didn’t want to know. “Imagine not knowing any of your former life!” I said. Poppy told me it was worse, because Mary had been given false memories by her captor.

Forty five minutes later, Poppy said “Voila! A whole new you” and spun me around to look at my reflection—caramel highlights and long layers framed my face. Not a whole new me, but a better looking version of me, I suppose.

It seemed funny to get my hair done before meeting my sister at our mother’s house to clean out her garage, but it was the only time Poppy had available. I knew my sister would see my new hair and look at me askance without saying anything. That’s the kind of relationship we had—small talk and passive aggressive digs. This was because of mom. Neither of us could take care of her at the end and so we blamed each other. I couldn’t take time off of work and Melissa had her young kids and a husband deployed in Afghanistan. This must be what they mean when they say that life gets in the way.

Melissa was already in the garage when I got there, and as was typical of her, she had separated boxes and suitcases into two piles: mine and hers. There was still the business of all of mom’s stuff inside the house—who would take what. Aunt Jenny had already come and taken what was left to her, and the shabby chic furniture that mom favored was now at Goodwill, or maybe even in someone’s living room by now.

“You have more stuff in here than I do,” Melissa said. It was more of an observation than anything else.

“I’m surprised she kept it all,” I said, kneeling down in front of a big cardboard box.

“Well, she wasn’t going to throw it away.”

Mary’s children ended up living with her parents. They were interviewed by Oprah, and told her that they now know the life their mother forgot and refused to remember. That her name was really Amanda, and she played volleyball and liked math. She loved animals and ate beef jerky and listened to Notorious B.I.G. Mary’s parents had kept her room exactly the same, which seemed morbid but proved helpful for her young children who wanted to be surrounded by her things, even if they weren’t familiar.

I opened the cardboard box, digging at the edge of the tape with my nail until I could tear the tape off and open the flaps. Melissa collected a few things, and then asked if I wanted the big red suitcase, which could have belonged to either of us, or even mom, we couldn’t remember. She told me she could really use it and I told her it was fine—I had enough luggage of my own. Melissa left me alone in the garage with my collection of stuff. Most of it was from high school —my cap and gown, ribbons from different science fairs, mostly blue ribbons, but one red, which is odd, because I could have sworn I’d only ever gotten first place, but then memories can be selective.

Oprah had asked Mary’s children if she accepted her family at all, for they had been kind and loving, and didn’t she want any of that? Her life with her captor had been horrible, after all. The children, now adults, explained that their mother had her reasons, but then did not give them. Mary was a good mother, and according to her children and the media she was also a hero. What good was the past to her, anyway? Did she need to be reminded of a life she could have had? It was too late to resume the life of her twelve year old self, and so she stayed who she was.

I found a manila envelope filled with notes which were passed back and forth between my best friend Liz and me during sophomore year. Liz used to dot her I’s with little circles, and looking at these notes I wondered if she still did or if she outgrew it. I scanned the notes, seeing that I had spent the bulk of spring semester wondering if Todd Field would ever break up with Sammi Reynolds. I tucked the notes back into the box and looked around. I found another box filled with mementos from middle school, including my drill team uniform and a collection of beanie babies. And school yearbooks! There were all of my yearbooks going back to first grade. I looked around at piles of clothes, books, dolls, and knick knacks and realized I was making a mess, after my mother had gone to the trouble of carefully organizing my childhood into neat cardboard boxes.

In another article I’d found online, a famous psychologist who had never treated Mary weighed in. Dr. Gunther theorized that it was likely some remnants of Amanda inside of Mary that caused her to kill her captor and save herself and her children. When asked, Mary would only say that she did what she had to do, as directed by God. She asked to be left alone so that she could go on with her life, which ended two years later.

I found a scrapbook at the bottom of the first box. It blended in with the cardboard, and so I missed it at first, but as I began to put things away I felt the bumpy leather of the scrapbook cover. I settled onto a steamer trunk and saw that my mom had put the best of everything inside a leather-bound book: baby pictures, good report cards, prom photos, concert tickets, Melissa and I hugging at birthdays, my college acceptance letter, friends, smiles, laughter.

Things missing from the scrapbook: letters from my stint in rehab, pictures of my ex- husband, pictures of me pregnant before I miscarried, and my rejection letter from Hastings College of the Law. I smiled, imagining my mother at her dining room table, the scrapbook open in front of her as she carefully curated my life.

In the end, there was much confusion as to what to put on Mary’s gravestone. Her parents knew her as Amanda, and her children knew her as Mary, but finally the children’s wishes were granted, and Mary’s parents accepted the fact that for them, their daughter died when she was twelve. And this is where the story of Mary and her children ends. The children no longer grant interviews, and have moved on with their lives. With them they carry the story of their mother that they know, and the story of their mother that their grandparents know.

By the time I’d put everything back into each of the corresponding boxes, it had grown dark. I turned on the garage light, and hummed the tune to a Matchbox 20 song as I dragged everything to the center of the otherwise empty garage. Why was I humming a Matchbox 20 song? I stood still for a moment in the middle of the garage, the boxes creating shadows along the floor. I chuckled then, remembering that the band was one of the concert ticket stubs in my scrapbook. I shook my head and looked at the boxes in front of me, trying to decide what to keep and what to throw away.

MICRO & FLASHFICTION

_____________________________________________________________________

Francis Johann Verdote, Run-On and On

God is a square frolicking in the air, flashing their flare only to stand by the seashore to stare at the sulking sun serenading people with abrasive tunes who complain to god about the excessive heat, but they’re too busy feeding the feed with tasteless eats, so they pretend to read empty books filled with cheese and mystery, and the story will please bestseller lists, so god sits in silence exercising their wrists.

___________________________

Michelle Morouse, Why am I here?

It’s been thirty years. No one will even recognize me. Hundreds of people fill the church and vestibule for Paula’s service.

This priest isn’t fire and brimstone like Father Cawthorne, a hypertensive who flushed during sermons, scaring Paula when we were twelve, “Father’s going to have a heart attack.”

He recalls a mission trip, “The Hondurans loved Paula’s stories. Her irrepressible spirit didn’t get lost in the translation.” Apparently, she made countless trips to the Soup Kitchen downtown, directed the choir, ran bingo nights. He tells a funny story about getting stuck in a snowstorm with Paula. Eulogies are like horror movies. If you don’t insert some funny scenes, people might laugh at the wrong places.

They’ve renovated the church. I stopped attending mass here after Angela Croft’s funeral, back in high school. Paula was driving her brother’s car, with only a learner’s permit the night Angela died. We saw a bicycle up ahead, braids extending from the rider’s helmet all the way to the seat.

“Hey, looks like Angela,” Paula said. No one else had hair that long. Paula beeped the horn. Angela turned her head, and lost control, the bike skidding in our path, Paula arching up, then to the side of the road.

“Stop, stop,” I yelled, while Paula could only scream, passing a 7-Eleven, a pharmacy, a grocery store, the community center, until I finally got her to pull into a gas station. She made me place the call. Her Dad was an auxiliary officer. They could have recognized her voice. It was too late when they got there, but from what we learned later, a few minutes wouldn’t have made a difference. There might have been some new scratches on the car, but it was hard to tell. It was a real clunker. Paula made me promise never to tell anyone, and I haven’t, not even my therapist, for some reason.

Paula’s friend Barbara sings Ave Maria and, as always, it makes me cry. Barbara was Paula’s golden girl—honor society, flawless soprano, lead in the school play—and Paula never gave her advice. Paula saved all her wisdom for me: “You’re the kind of person who should never use drugs, because you’re a weak person,” “No one wears green,” “Don’t laugh so loud at his jokes,”

I glom onto Barbara in the luncheon buffet line. Yes, Barbara did become a lawyer. No, she’s no longer married to perfect Richard, “I was married. He wasn’t.”

“I’m sorry I lost touch with Paula, with everyone,” I say, “When I went to Boston for grad school, it was just overwhelming. I couldn’t believe it when I heard she’d passed. Way too soon. She, of all people, so full of life. It’s not fair. My sister saw it on the alumni site.”

I don’t say that I found Paula on Facebook, even before she announced the cancer diagnosis. Something held me back from reaching out then. Too many years gone by? The way she told endless stories about people, spilling their secrets, scaring me off from confiding mine? She said that she liked that I was “quiet,” that she knew she could tell me things because “it won’t go any further.”

Barbara introduces me to Paula’s daughter Heather. She’s a genealogist, like me, and we exchange numbers. She’s quick to smile, even today, like Paula. Someday, I hope to tell her about Paula’s crush on my dad, our slacker approach to Girl Scouts, first rock concert, skinny-dipping in the reservoir, and the Case of the Disappearing Rival Mascot Uniform.

_____________________________

Diane de Anda, The Perfect Environment

They had built a dome over their city for protection, but the caustic wave that washed over it at varying intervals had begun to pit and wear down the outer surface. It was clear that they needed supplies to repair and coat the dome's surface. But getting the supplies to their location had been impossible so far.

It had seemed like the perfect location, warm and moist, with a never ending food supply for the city's residents. Besides, getting in had been easy; there were multiple orifices, some large enough to fly in all the building materials they had needed. But, once inside, they lost all communication with the mother ship, especially with the multitude of gurgling noises around them. They would have to go outside again to send a signal that more supplies were needed to shore up the dome's protective surface, but none of the teams they sent was able to make it out, and some were not even able to make it back to the city. Taking the path they used to enter the orifice didn't work. They had ridden liquid and debris laden streams into the interior, but these same streams washed the reconnaissance teams away from the entrance or caught and suffocated them in a mushy wash filled with boulders. A few had tried the southern route, but it went on endlessly in looping curves so that it was finally abandoned.

At least there was plenty of nutrition, and the perfect temperature and humidity did not require any energy supply to the residents' living spaces. The nutrition engineers suited up each day and exited with their vacuum hoses and containers. They attached the hoses to small purple streams and sucked out the red liquid that fed the population. They had recently sliced pieces off the moist, rubbery surface and used them as patches for a few small pinholes in the dome. The pieces took hold and had even begun to enlarge, giving some hope that they might eventually form a barrier that would safely seal the dome.

Recently, there had been some unusual and worrisome events in the environment beyond the dome. A strange creature, long and thin with a glowing eye, had wandered through the main orifice, explored the geography, and then left. Strange substances polluted the streams, coating the surfaces, making them white and opaque so it was harder for the nutritional engineers to find the smaller streams and clean pieces of surface to remove.

Their data analysts have been trying to decode the sounds that emanate near and are flung from the large orifice. Smaller orifices on either side of the terrain also resonate with these sounds. They have been able to copy the most recent sounds into chains, but have not yet been able to translate them. Here is a compressed sample of the last sounds they have captured, written in their language:

^^^///...)))vvv########**((((((,,,,,*<<''''''''+++++:::::::::>>>>>//////)))))#######*************

(Translation for the reader: “The results from the endoscopy show ulcerations in your stomach wall and some hemorrhaging of small blood vessels. We're going to have to try something stronger than the Mylanta you've been using.”)

___________________________

Marigo Stathis, The Waving Witch

I am punch-drunk ecstatic, having just completed a tough Zoom meeting and still reeling from too little sleep, too much coffee, and multiple hours of preparation. A storm’s wrath of papers surrounds me. Warren is giddy in a different way. It’s Wednesday evening and his billiard team is on a winning streak. The November air is crisp, as the early evening sky bleeds orange-gold. As he leaves, I run to the door, kiss him and say, “Have fun and good luck!”

“Okay, but watch out for that witch,” he nonchalantly replies.

“Witch? What witch?”

“THAT witch,” he says while bending down on the edge of the back porch to pick up one-inch straw textured doll with a green face, black hat, and raised right arm.

“Wow. I thought I heard someone shuffling around outside earlier, but couldn’t check. That’s just weird. It’s like she’s waving. I don’t like it! Can you please throw it away, on your way out?” I ask, shuddering. He tells me later that he dumped it in a trashcan across the alley.

I recall the day before. My friend Geri had just arrived to help with a de-weeding project in my garden of both native and peregrine species. Soon after and out of nowhere, a stranger speedily sauntered up the private sidewalk and climbed our stone stairs to stare through our enclosed porch glass door, while saying (without making eye contact), “Mine is leaking and has mildew. I want to see if your ceiling is made of beadboard. I’m your neighbor.”

“WTF?!” I thought. She wore a dark wool coat, hat, and fur-lined boots on a 70-degree day. No ordinary woman does that. Only after she was done porch-peering did I discern her name (Sabrina) and where she lived (three houses to the left). Geri said she liked her. I had my doubts. Geri deferred to my assessment, understanding that I was highly observant, even psychic on many occasions.

Back in the present, in my mind’s eye, I see Sabrina creeping up the side of our home and placing the witch doll under the wooden railing that faced the back door. Why a waving doll, though? I google the info but can’t find a hex specific to that gesture. Maybe, it’s meant to be friendly? What if Sabrina is testing me?! Afterall, I have green eyes and our spooky yard décor is still up, weeks after Halloween—I must be transmitting the wrong signals!

Suddenly, I remember something else, and rush to my messy desk, complete with lotions and potions situated to the left of a dusty keyboard, flanked by mini-cobwebs. Rose hydrating spray, chocolate perfume, lemon rescue butter, and, YES—the amber bottle of holy anointed oil my uber-religious sister-in-law gave me a few months prior to skipping town, in her quest to join the unvaccinated in South Carolina. Greek Orthodox by baptism, superstitious by choice, I swiftly bring the bottle outside and locate the exact area where Warren picked up the cursed object. I dab the holy oil on the concrete and repeat the gesture ten times before rubbing the mini pools until they all merge, forming a foot long, five-inch wide area of gooeyness. Finally, I softly say the Lord’s prayer before Crystal, John, and their foxhounds next door notice.

After returning inside, I pick up my cell and frantically dial Geri’s number. I know it will only take three rings before she answers.

“Girl, you are NOT going to believe this! Remember that weird neighbor yesterday who gave me the heebie-jeebies? Well earlier, Warren found a creepy mini witch doll on the back porch, hidden right under the railing and in front of my office door! I just know it was Sabrina who put it there!”

At first hesitant, Geri reluctantly says, “Oh, you know, I found a small witch doll in the soil when I was digging up weeds yesterday and placed it under the back-railing. I’m so sorry I forgot to tell you.”

She laugh-coughs an apology as I focus on the nearly empty amber bottle still in my greasy, shaking hand. I rub my eyes while reading the label, “Purely CBD Black Label”. I then gaze to the left of my keyboard. The holy anointed oil (in a slightly smaller amber bottle) is there, still intact. My heart sinks as I realize my expensive mistake in having unsuccessfully purified an already uncorrupted area.

I rasp, “Geri, I’ll call you back in a spell.” Reflectionless in a hall mirror, I then pick up a broom and sweep the rest of the night away.

______________________________

Charles Haddox, St. Anthony’s Bazaar

The rain falls with a full sack: September of ripe amaranth, shorter days and violent skies, under the stars in a cloud’s rattle, the wary smile of the cat-faced moon, and the moment itself as the form of the fiesta is born. If I could shape that time into chains or globes of palm leaf or bread, I would weave not only the fiesta but the moment of breaking an egg filled with colored paper seeds, and in those fragments the fiesta’s form would be found.

Littoral gems, Murano glass, terracotta pitchers, and articulated toys. As if the city puts on feathers, mothers and uncles buy food and aloes under the dancing lights, and sometimes it just rains sweets.

Crowds in lines like a jaguar dance. The greatest feast my people see. Beginning in the light of oranges, night smiles with red sparks and wheels. One year, someone broke an egg, releasing a dove as white as onion. The devil spat at us, and we threw rocks at him, along with bottles and green pears. Just to remind us how good the earth was that seventh day, the siren fell into her startled sea. The lotero called out winning figures: death, the drunk, and Don Ferruco—players marked their cards with beans. Pigeons fattened on tortillas.

So great is this fiesta that it stands in the year’s sempiternal winding, like a three-day Sunday or a visit from a comet. The year visits and disappears; cotton wears out, is born again in the purple flower and soiled with sky. Cardboard figures dissolve in the rain. Someday, every day will be a fiesta.

______________________________

Evan Schmitt, The Good Rat

The Rat knew he would die tomorrow, so he thought fondly about his life. It was a common fate for his kind to be born in crowded drawers and sorted based on temperament. Friendly rats get to leave the drawer, and feisty rats get to die.

“Although...” The Rat addressed an interviewer who wasn’t there. “Sometimes the babies get to die for no reason, so there’s really no predictability to it at all.”

The Rat rolled over on his side and surveyed the giant pineapple he called home these past two years. Nice. His entire family was eaten by The Snake, he assumed. The Mothers Who Breed warned each baby that their time with The Snake would come unless they were well- behaved with pretty coats and big pink ears. It was a lie, but it was an eagerly believed lie. The rats lived in perpetual grief to the point where they forgot they were sad most of the time.

The Rat’s earliest memory was sunflower seeds. Flat seeds, round seeds, seeds he could crack open to find even more seeds. The Mothers never mentioned these. The Rat felt he’d fallen into favor with The Gods. Occasionally he’d be scooped up and cradled by a five-fingered hand that looked very similar to his own.

“This must be God of the Rats,” he thought. “Whatever I did, I did it right.”

Quickly, as rats have limited time, he forgot about The Mothers and the rest of his family, but he wasn’t that attached to them anyway. Choosing between the constant fear of death and the Hand of God, he felt his choice made itself.

Then, his sister came to visit. He immediately knew it was her. “I thought you got eaten by The Snake.”

“Most of us did. We two were favored by The Gods.”

“What do you know of The Gods?”

“Same as you.”

Well, this is just great, The Rat thought. We’ve already run out of things to talk about.

His sister picked up her tail and fiddled with the end of it out of nervousness. The Rat mirrored her. It was the least he could do.

“How are The Mothers?”

“I don’t remember them.”

“Neither do I.”

“I feel The Gods watching us. Do you think they will pass judgment?” “We have done nothing wrong.”

“Perhaps we are too feisty.” “The Snake is not here.” “Are my ears big and pink?” “Yes.”

“Is my coat pretty?”

“Yes, the same as mine.”

The Rat was quickly losing his patience. His sister, even with her limited knowledge of the world and rat society past the crowded drawer, knew she was wearing thin on her brother.

“The Gods taught me something,” she inhaled, “there are legions of us out there who do extraordinary things before they die and never once see The Snake. They are out there eating cakes by moonlight with sweet cream and berries, dancing and making love on rooftops with music crashing through the air. Doesn’t that sound like paradise?”

“It sounds feisty.”

Of course. Yes. That was far too feisty. Even with all the comforts The Rat and his sister had they knew what fate awaited rats who were too feisty.

Looking back on it now, on the eve of his death, The Rat felt a twinge of guilt as he had spent the last two years eating cakes with sweet cream and berries, tomato sandwiches, peanut butter with apricot jam, and of course, sunflower seeds. Nothing bad ever happened to him, and he wished he could tell his sister, but that was the only time they ever met. Perhaps somewhere, she is dancing and making love on a rooftop. He laughed to himself and groomed his gray whiskers with pride. He never knew rats could go gray.

It was the morning of his death. Blood had started to trickle so slightly from his nose, and he knew it wouldn’t be long. The Gods gathered above him, swirling beautiful golden ribbons in the air with baskets upon baskets full of sunflower seeds spilling forth their endless bounty in thanks. The Gods cried their harmonious tears, but their grief sounded nothing like the grief of The Mothers Who Breed. This was a sweet sound: You are a good rat! You are a good rat!

His ears were no longer big and pink. His coat was not pretty, but he was good. He was so very good. The Gods wrapped him in golden ribbon; he had more sunflower seeds than he could ever need or want.

It was time to go.

Emerging from his giant pineapple like a champion gladiator into the Colosseum, laurels gleaming in the sun, he used the last of his life to leap into the Hands of the Gods and dream for the last time. The Gladiator stares down The Snake’s unholy jaw pried back with greedy hunger. Down in the dark pit of its belly, he sees His Mother and sisters playing Pick-Up Stix with bones, gambling, and making unpayable wagers. The light bounces off their beady eyes as they squint to see golden ribbon billowing in the breeze.

“Go! I am fat from eating cakes by moonlight with sweet cream and berries! I danced and made love on rooftops with music crashing through the air. I live in paradise, and I am too feisty! I am too feisty!”

Hundreds of naked tails wiggle to freedom as he plummets down in a glorious struggle. The Snake chokes, unable to swallow The Rat’s soft, round body. It chokes, heaving up golden ribbon and laurels like treasure plundered from a cave. Choke. CHOKE. The Mothers Who Breed gather their pink children, too blind to find their way. For once, they touch them out of love. Choke. CHOKE.

Nestled peacefully in the hands of The Gods, The Rat smiles and dies happy and in love, their melodious grief singing him to sleep. You are a good rat! You are a good rat!

BIOGRAPHIES

________________________________________________________________

Daniel Baig is a writer based out of San Diego, California who focuses on writing about trying to understand one's place in the world--no matter how big or small that world may be. He is currently developing short stories that draw inspiration from his past travels and time spent abroad but he is also fascinated by science and what it could mean for our future. Daniel is an avid hiker and a lifelong learner driven by his natural curiosity and willingness to try and fail at as many things as possible.

David Graham is writer and educator living in Lubbock Texas with his wife, kids, and tortoise. He teaches writing at Texas Tech University. He received his MFA from the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University. He mostly writes fiction, plays, memoir and oddball creative non-fiction. He has had plays produced in Denver, Colorado and Portland, Maine and his work has been published both online and in print, including Bombay Gin, Third Street Writers: Beach Reads, the Vegetable Lamb and EscapistMagazine.com. His short story The Ceiling Piece has been translated into Japanese and published by Kenkyusha Co.

Andrea Mauk is currently working on her MFA thesis in Creative Writing at Mount St. Mary's University. She also works in real estate and on housing and preservation issues facing the South and Central Los Angeles communities. Her writing has been published in La Bloga, Hinchas de Poesia, Mujeres de Maiz 'Zine, and in the anthologies Poetry of Resistance: Voices for Social Justice (University of Arizona Press,) Sonadores: We Came to Dream (Canto Hondo/DeepSong Books) and Our Spirit, Our Reality: Celebrating Our Stories (Wheatmark Press.)

Maggie Nerz Iribarne is 53, living her writing dream in a yellow house in Syracuse, New York. She writes about teenagers, witches, the very old, bats, cats, priests/nuns, cleaning ladies, runaways, struggling teachers, and neighborhood ghosts, among many other things. She keeps a portfolio of her published work at https://www.maggienerziribarne.com.

Wilson Koewing is a writer from South Carolina. His work has recently appeared in Pembroke Magazine, Gargoyle Magazine, Wigleaf, New World Writing, X-R-A-Y, Hobart, The Journal of Compressed Creative Arts and Maudlin House. His debut story collection "Jaded" is forthcoming from Main Street Rag/Mint Hill Books.

Andrea Lithgow is from northern Utah and since moving away over twenty years ago, has been on the hunt for the perfect town, finally settling in Asheville, NC with her adoring dog, Booda. She received her bachelor’s degree on full scholarship at UC Berkeley while running her burgeoning ceramic jewelry business, Dandy Jewelry. Now pursuing her lifelong dream of being a writer, Andrea is currently working on her master’s degree at Mount Saint Mary’s University and plans to publish her autobiographical novel shortly after graduation of December 2023.

Christa Walker recently completed the MFA program in Creative Writing at Mount Saint Mary's University. She lives in Los Angeles.

Francis Johann Verdote lives in Los Angeles, where he writes poetry. His poems have appeared in Cultural Weekly, Better Than Starbucks, Statement Magazine, and The Rush. He has earned an MFA in Creative Writing candidate at Mount St. Mary’s University in Los Angeles.

Michelle Morouse is a Detroit area pediatrician. Her flash fiction and poetry has appeared recently, or is forthcoming, in Midwest Review, Prose Online, Kestrel, Best Microfiction 2022, Touchstone Literary Magazine, Faultline Journal of Arts and Letters, Litro, Unbroken, and Paterson Literary Review. She serves on the board of Detroit Working Writers.

Diane de Anda, Ph.D., a retired UCLA professor and third generation Latina, has edited four books on multicultural populations and published numerous articles in scholarly journals, along with short stories, poetry, and essays in Rosebud, Straylight, Storyteller, Pacific Review, Bilingual Review, Frogpond, Modern Haiku, Bottle Rockets, Presence, Ruminate, Third Wednesday and others, thirteen children’s books (plus 2 in press) which have won multiple awards, satires on a regular basis in Humor Times, and a collection of 40 flash fiction stories, L.A. Flash.

Charles Haddox lives in El Paso, Texas, on the U.S.-Mexico border, and has family roots in both countries. His work has appeared in a number of journals including Chicago Quarterly Review, The Normal School, Folio, and Stonecoast Review. charleshaddox.wordpress.com

Renu Chopra is a student in an MFA program at Mount Saint Mary’s University in Los Angeles, California. Retired from the world of information technology where she worked for large corporations such as Andersen Consulting and Nestle, USA. Renu now enjoys her children and grandchildren while pursuing writing and painting. Renu was published in the Ocotillo Review in June of 2022 and in India Se, an online travel magazine.

Evan Schmitt is a writer, creative director, and instructor working in Los Angeles and Nashville. She has a background in comedy from The Second City in Chicago and holds a BA in Writing and Producing for Television from Columbia College Chicago. Her lecture, "How to Write Female Characters," has been presented at Columbia University in New York.

Marigo Stathis. Cognitive neuroscientist by day, creative disrupter by night, Marigo Stathis weaponizes the written word to excavate the controversial bones that women, families, and societies often bury. When she's not doing science or writing, she sings in spaces occupied by cats, protects vulnerable populations (elders and children), and makes concoctions from the harvests of her small elderberry orchard. Her work has appeared in 34th Parallel, Abbey, The Baltimore City Paper, The Baltimore Sun, Bear Creek Haiku, Facedown, FanStory, The Keeping Room, Lite Journal of Satire and Creativity, The Loch Raven Review, The Sometimes and several anthologies. Displaced Dolls and Oviducts (The Finishing Line Press), her first book of creative writing, will be published during the summer solstice of 2023.

Louise A. Dolan is recently retired from North Carolina State University after teaching Spanish Language and Culture for more than three decades. She is currently a candidate for the MFA in Creative Writing at Mt. St. Mary University in Los Angeles. Recent publications include creative non-fiction in Persimmon Tree, also fiction and non-fiction in the anthology Scattered Covered and Smothered; The Urban Hiker, Stories in First Voice; and several poems in “The Windover Literary and Arts Magazine,” and “The Rush Literary Magazine.” She cherishes her three children, three grandchildren, and three siblings scattered across the country, and dear friends in Raleigh and L.A.