Zuhause

She believes that life is good while he believes that life is not any particular thing. How long has she felt this way? It’s been a good fifteen years since the church thing. Fifteen years since she started waking he and his younger brothers on Sunday mornings and ten years since she stopped trying and let them make their own decisions about it. Before that there’s no telling. He assumes she’s felt this way all along and religion simply extracted it, like a nurse taking blood. But people turn to church for a reason. Hell, let’s be honest. People turn to church because something has happened or something is missing or because that’s just how it’s always been. In the end, is it going to matter? Religion or no religion, she is happy when her children are happy. It sounds conspicuous, but the degree to which she has fused her children’s lives into her own cannot be overstated. She has a most important thing, and the fact that her son knows this and believes it so unconditionally attests to her skills as a mother.

She says that she counts the days since he has been gone, and he has been gone a long time. He knows that she’s kidding but there’s something in her smile that hurts him. Pain births humor and he knows pain props up her smile. He will take bits of this pain back with him along with her smile, and maybe a hundred dollar bill. Don’t tell your father, she whispers as she slips the cash mischievously into his palm. It’s nothing less than beautiful when his father repeats the action five minutes later. Don’t tell your mother.

She says that she knows and has accepted that he’s not coming back, but he doesn’t believe her. He doesn’t believe her because he knows what that lie sounds like - he uses it all the time. She believes that he will come home. For a myriad of reasons, most having to do with family, she believes he will come home. Most of the time he knows he’s never going back. Nothing personal, it’s just not who he is. But then he remembers the night he called her and told her he was thinking about coming home. He asked her to talk to Dad about the job. She refused, acting in direct opposition to her desires. Is there a more honest representation of love? He gets older and tries not to make such declarative statements as he’s starting to suspect most of them will eventually turn on him.

And after all of it, he is selfish. Selfish as he has always been and perhaps always will be. So selfish that it became a running family gag. In typical fashion, he rushes to fix his flaws, but knows deep down that this is impossible. He believes in nothing over the power of the conscious mind and so he wants to believe that he can take control of his own personality, but goddamn, there are certain things in life that simply cannot be grasped or handled or morphed. His brain is neither Play-Dough nor Plato. Once he was too young to care, and hopefully one day he will be too old to care, but for now, he has nothing to do but care. He works to become the man he wants to be, but he’s worried he won’t recognize the final product. It’s in this context that she shines brightest. It’s in the hour-long phone calls and it’s in her honesty with him, something that he would never have expected but would never, ever trade. It’s right there on the surface, his definition of home.

They used to go to movies. He loves movies, thinks they mean more than they do, and she does not. And yet she went with him to the apocalypse movie that said the F-word over fifty times. She really does not prefer the F-word. She went with him to see the movie with the child soldiers and the drugs and the violence. She really does not prefer child soldiers or drugs or violence. The list goes on. They never saw a Meg Ryan movie or a Sandra Bullock movie or an underdog movie or a feel-good movie. And still she tells him constantly, every time, that she misses going to movies with him. But she hated those movies. He asks her if she goes to see films with her girlfriends, or her sister, or her husband. She replies that it’s not the same. What’s not the same? You don’t even talk in a movie. He thinks about her going to a movie alone, sitting there in the darkness, and he has to stop because it will make him cry and he is not in the habit of crying for no reason. He vows that eventually they will go see a movie that she wants to see. It’s the least he can do.

He wants her to know that it’s not all about his father, regardless of how it appears in his writings or songs or conversations. With his father there is ego, respect, gratefulness, stubbornness, and a whole host of other issues that he has yet to unpack. And he wants her to know that its not that those things do not apply to her, only that with her they come under a fresher and more hopeful light. Because of their soft edges, they are easier to swallow. And above all else, he wants her to know that he thinks of her often, though his actions sometimes do not align with this theory. His actions are often flippant and cruel, but never, ever malicious.

He wants her to know that when he sees a wheat field, or a picture of a wheat field, or a drawing of a wheat field, he thinks of home and he thinks of her. He wants her to know that she is home. They are one in the same. They are inseparable. And in the end, words do not do them justice.

Written by: Logan Theissen
Photograph by: Emily Blincoe

Small Things

“Where to?”

Emir’s passenger was dressed in a handsome light grey suit. It fit him well. Emir owned a suit too, but his jacket sat too broad on his shoulders and fell too far down his thighs. He only wore it on special occasions.

“Chase Manhattan Plaza,” the well-dressed man replied. “So, where are you from?”

Emir glanced at his rear-view mirror, smiled and replied, “Istanbul. Turkey.”

He enjoyed chatting with passengers, but never initiated conversations himself.

“I’ve never been to Turkey. Went to Israel a few years back, but that’s the closest I’ve ever been. You miss it?”

“Oh yes, of course.”

“I respect men like you. My grandfather came here from Italy without so much as a penny to his name, but managed to put my father through college and business school. Whenever I visited him as a kid, all he could ever talk about was how everything was better in Italy.” The man in the grey suit paused before continuing, “I can’t imagine having to leave New York City, let alone the States.”

He was looking out the window as he talked, watching Bleecker Street slowly pass by.

“What would you miss about it?” Emir asked.

“The City? Everything. The people, the sounds. But I think, most of all, I would miss having amazing pizza on every corner. I’m not even kidding. New Yorkers don’t realize how good they have it here. And believe me, I know. I’ve been all over the country and the world for business. No other city compares.”

“I think your Italian grandfather would disagree,” Emir joked.

The man laughed, “You’re right. He would’ve. What about you? What do you miss most about Turkey?”

Not a day passed that Emir didn’t think about his home country. He thought about Turkey because he was terrified of forgetting. It was only five years ago that he left Istanbul for New York City, but the haze of time was already setting in.

When is mother’s birthday? His little sister, Azra, was usually the one to remind him. What was the name of that sweets shop near his old school? He wasn’t even sure he ever knew the name of that shop, even though he had frequented it nearly every day.

Sometimes Emir closed his eyes and imagined his younger brother, Derin, working the family’s chestnut stand on the darkened, cobblestone streets of Istanbul. He imagined his father sitting by Derin’s side, reading his newspaper, making small talk with the patrons, and making sure Derin didn’t overstuff the small paper pouches that held the chestnuts.

Emir could hear their conversation.

“Go home father, I can handle the chestnut stand on my own,” Derin would plead.

His father would reply, “Home? And what will I do there? Listen to your mother scold me for leaving you here by yourself? At least here I can read my paper in peace.”

Emir would imagine this, and the sweet, nutty scent of the roasted chestnuts would fill the stale air of his apartment as if he were right there, cobblestones beneath his feet.

“Emir,” his father would say, looking up as he approached, “you know what I mean, tell your brother I would rather die than stop working.”

Derin would roll his eyes and ask, “This is working?” He’d point to his father seated next to him, newspaper open in hand. And Emir would laugh.

That’s how Emir reminded himself, “This is what life was like.”

Turkey was a part of his history now, and he often took the sadness of that fact out on his adopted city. He felt jaded by the people whom he thought too rude and the streets that he thought too crowded.

He shared a small studio apartment in Sunnyside with two others, cousins of cousins of cousins or something. They slept on mattresses strewn lazily about the studio floor and erected makeshift room dividers from salvaged garment racks and old curtains. They bonded over their shared longing for Turkey and lamented over the irony that, in a city so large, they could feel so lonely.

Emir already knew the answer to the man in the grey suit’s question, but he thought a moment before replying. “The smell of roasted chestnuts,” he responded. “My father owned a chestnut stand. I worked there with him until I was a teenager, but I never forgot the smell. My father came home smelling of it every night.”

The man chuckled, “Nostalgia’s devious isn’t it? We always long for the sweet honey of it, but we always forget about the sting of the bees. You’re here in the States for a reason right? I can’t imagine making a living off of chestnuts was easy.”

That evening, before returning home, Emir stopped at his favorite Turkish restaurant in Sunnyside.

“Emir!” Toprak, the owner, shouted as he walked in. “Where have you been my friend? Is it just you tonight? Where are your cousins?”

“I’ve already eaten, I just want to order some roasted chestnuts, to go.”

It was in Turkey that he had his last roasted chestnut. After eating them for years from his father’s stand, it felt unnatural to pay for them.

He didn’t go home right away and, instead, found an empty bench underneath the 7 train overpass just a few blocks from his apartment. As he peeled back the warm, woody shells of the chestnuts, the 7 train rumbling overhead, he took in the neighborhood. It was late, but the storefronts and food carts still illuminated the streets. The early autumn evening was still alive with activity, a chorus of traffic, conversation, and laughter hanging festively in the air. To Emir’s left, down the block, was Jeremy’s bodega where he bought coffee every morning. Just beyond that was a hookah bar where he often passed the time chatting with his two cousins, his friends, about nothing at all.

For the first time in five years, as Emir ate his roasted chestnuts, New York City was transformed. He was home.

Written by: Sam Chow
Photograph by: Becky Lee

Wheels

Robbie leaned in the passenger door, wrinkling his long nose. Trace had one tanned arm slung over the faded top of the car.

“It looks like someone died in here, Trace,” Robbie said.

Trace took in the wretched interior with a critical eye. The stuffing spewed out of the cloth seats and there was the faint reek of decay in the air. “I’ve been looking for this car for years, Rob.”

“You’ve been looking for a car somebody’s grandpa doesn’t even want?” Robbie shut the car door with a creak and folded his arms on the weathered, rusted top. “You’re going to spend the money you saved—that you worked your ass off for—on this?”

“Maybe I am.” Trace struggled to close the driver’s side door.

Robbie laughed.

                                                                                       ***

Poking around an engine with his older brother, Jack, in the driveway was one thing; overhauling an entire car was another. If it wasn’t rusted or corroded, it was rotten. The headlights seemed to be the only thing that worked. All summer, the most anyone saw of Trace were sneakered feet sticking out from under the Chrysler New Yorker. His friends laughed at his single-minded mission to resurrect the old car. Robbie kept him company for the first week, making suggestions and asking him if he’d been back to the future yet. Trace threw a wrench in his general direction, swearing as grease dripped into his eye for the thousandth time.

Trace sat on the driveway, feeling the heat of the concrete beneath his legs and the warmth of the metal door against his shoulders as he leaned against the old Chrysler. Shuffling steps caught his attention and he scrambled to his feet, wiping sweat and grease on his jeans.

“Ma, go back inside, it’s too hot out.” He gestured back to the house.

His mother cocked her head to one side and held something out to him, her hand shaking. Trace took the beer from her and swallowed past the lump in his throat. He and Jack always had a beer after a long day working on Jack’s car.

“Thanks, Ma.” He twisted the cap off, taking a long pull.

The cold liquid trickled down his throat and he felt the weight of it settle in the pit of his stomach. His mother’s mouth twitched in a parody of her old smile, her pre-breakdown smile. Jack’s smile. She fluttered a skeletal hand at him before scooting back up the driveway in her worn slippers. Trace rubbed his hand across the peeling paint on the rusted hood of the car; the condensation on his hand left a smear that quickly evaporated in the late afternoon heat. It was impossible to tell which shade of paint came first. He squinted up at the sun and drained the rest of his beer. There were still hours of light left. He crawled back under the car.

                                                                                       ***

“You have got to relax,” Robbie said, handing Trace a beer. “It’s supposed to be a goddamn party.”

Trace tried to conjure a smile, switching the beer from hand to hand without cracking the tab. He resisted the urge to check his watch.

“Well if it isn’t the grease monkey,” Carl said. “Sure is a lot better view than the undersides of a heap of junk.”

Trace followed Carl’s gaze to the girls lounging near the pool. A few of them looked up and smiled. Trace waved—he vaguely recognized one or two. He opened his beer and took a gulp to keep from answering.

“What’s with him?” Carl asked Robbie.

“What’s been up with him all summer? First time he’s been away from that damned corpse of a car.”

Trace looked down at his watch. He’d been there fifteen minutes. He took another swallow of beer; the taste of aluminum overpowered the cheap brew.

Carl turned back to Trace. “What brought you out, anyway? Get tired of looking up the same skirt?” He grinned.

“She’s getting body work done and a paint job—stuff that needs a professional,” Trace said, feeling the thin beer can flex beneath his fingers as he tightened his grip.

“Not the only one that needs a professional,” Robbie said.

“What’s that?” Trace set his beer can carefully down on the table.

“What’s with you, man?” Robbie asked. “You search junk yards like you’re on a mission from God and then you buy a rusty Chrysler for chrissakes. If I didn’t know any better I’d think you’d gone crazy like…” Robbie stopped, his freckled cheeks flushing.

“Crazy like who, Rob?” Trace felt the muscles in his jaw contract. “Crazy like my mom?”

“Robbie didn’t mean anything.” Carl sidled between them. “We just missed seeing you around is all.”

“Sure,” Trace said.

He let himself out of the back gate and walked the five miles home.

                                                                                       ***

Two weeks later, he could hardly believe his eyes. There she sat, shiny coat of red paint looking like melted candy poured over her, the upholstery inside as smooth and flawless as a Playboy centerfold. Trace slid into the seat and flipped down the visor. He looked at the picture of him and Jack, arms flung around each other’s shoulders. Growing up, Jack had pictures of cars taped all over his walls—but one predominated. The Chrysler. Trace never understood it; there’s the Mustang, the Impala, the goddamn Ferrari, he’d always say. Jack simply shrugged, and said, “She’s my favorite.”

The engine thrummed as Trace turned the key. His gaze returned to the faded photo taped to the visor. Its corners were curled from the time spent in his wallet. Ten years time. He smiled and, for a moment, he was the boy in the photo again. He felt a desire to glance over at the passenger seat so strongly that his hands froze on the steering wheel. With the windows down and Jack’s favorite cassette in the refurbished player, Trace inhaled deeply before shifting the car into drive.

“She’s all yours,” Trace said.


Written by: Hannah Sears
Photograph by: Emily Blincoe

Finders

Norah fell asleep with the tip of her nose pressed against the nape of Stacey’s neck. They spooned beneath a thin beige sheet as Manhattan’s winter chill crept in and mingled with the dry heat of the radiator in their tiny apartment. When Norah woke up the next morning, she could smell the scent of Stacey’s shampoo on the pillow. They had been dating for six months when they decided to live together. Norah was a college dropout working at a coffee shop in the East Village and Stacey was a dental student at Columbia University. They seemed an unlikely pair on paper, but laughter and wine dotted their i’s as moonlight and introversion crossed their t’s.

Norah watched the steam rise as she showered, washing away the previous night’s lovemaking. Their relationship was racing forward like the A train on a good day. Stacey’s parents invited Norah over for Thanksgiving and marriage was already a topic up for discussion. A few of their friends thought they were moving just a little too fast and some thought the educational disparity guaranteed trouble, but they were a seamless fit, not easily torn by societal norms.

However, a thin strand of insecurity hung loose and vulnerable from Norah’s ego. She stood in the doorway of their bedroom, holding a mug of peppermint tea up to her lips while staring at the stack of letters on a shelf above Stacey’s desk. Norah always wondered who they were from and what they said. She never saw Stacey touch them, but they weren’t accumulating dust either.

For the first time since moving into Stacey’s apartment, Norah was alone. She grabbed the pile and sat on the bed, starting from the bottom and slowly working her way to the top. The letters professed love, missing you’s, and I hope I see you soon’s, each signed with “L. Hines.” Every note was a dot on the timeline of a two year long relationship, the last one postmarked only two months earlier. Norah’s tea was not hot enough to melt the lump forming in her throat.

She placed the stack back on the shelf with care and noticed a blue spiral bound journal. Anger and curiosity prompted her hands to pick it up, open it, and place it on the desk. She sat down and glared at the first and only entry recounting a trip Stacey had taken to Idaho with this other lover eight months ago. She described the quaint bed and breakfast where they stayed for a week and referred to her companion by initials rather than by name. The entry ended abruptly, sandwiched between two photographs of the landscape and their accommodations.

Norah leaned back and stared up at the ceiling, conflicted by both the urge to scream and cry. She knew she should give Stacey the benefit of the doubt, to wait until she got home so they could discuss the matter like a mature and loving couple. Jealousy overrode ethics and common sense as Norah grabbed her peacoat and one of the letters from the shelf. Racing downstairs to the lobby, she disregarded the security guard’s greeting and went outside to hail a taxi. She read the return address from the envelope to the driver and they headed south, past the university toward Morningside Heights.

When the taxi pulled up in front of the apartment building, Norah looked up at the many windows of its facade, wondering which one harbored this mystery woman. She paid her fare and got out with some reluctance, shutting the door only when the driver hollered. She made her way up the steps and scanned the tenants’ names posted by the call panel. Running her tongue over her teeth, she pressed the button next to “L. Hines” and waited.

“Yes? Stacey?”

The voice belonged to a man.

Six seconds of eternity floated by before Norah cleared her throat and called back, “Uh, no. This is Norah. Stacey’s girlfriend. Is L. Hines there?”

The nausea formed heavy pools of saliva in her mouth before the man said, “This is he. What do you mean her girlfriend?”

Norah shook her head, wrought with dizziness and disbelief as she backed away from the call panel and sat down on a cold concrete step. She slumped forward and put her head between her knees, feeling the urge to vomit before she heard an all too familiar voice.

“Babe,” Stacey said, walking up from the street, her voice dripping with guilt and shame.

Norah didn’t look up. She knew she sat between two lovers as she heard the door open behind her and the shuffling of feet. She could feel his glare burn through her back and straight into Stacey’s heart, the disgust in his mouth as palpable as the vomit threatening to fill hers.

“You’re gay? All this time I’m wondering if you’re sleeping around with some asshole on Bleecker Street, but it’s worse! You’re a lesbian!”

Stacey stomped up the steps, brushing Norah with her coat and retaliated, “What difference does it make if I’m with a man or a woman? I swear, Liam, you're so insecure!"

“Insecure? Gee, I wonder why!"

Norah took her time standing up, bracing herself with the railing as she descended to the sidewalk. She didn’t bother to look back as the volume of their voices escalated. Pulling up her scarf over her face and stuffing her fists in her pockets, she walked toward nowhere, remembering the relationship she ended after meeting Stacey. He was a nice man with hazel eyes and ginger hair, who always kissed her goodnight beneath her left earlobe, who always thought they would last forever. Norah didn’t tell him that her someone else was a woman. She just said thank you for the memories and that she’ll always love him. The sob erupted from her lips as she realized her experiment was not worth leaving him.

 

Written by: Natasha Akery
Photograph by: Emily Blincoe

A Matter of Time

Phil twiddled his thumbs and waited anxiously for his name to be called. He bided his time by counting the number of clocks strewn around the stark-white office.

Forty-eight. Forty-nine. Fif…

“Phillip Warner.”

...ty.

Phil stood up and approached the reception desk.

“Third door on the right,” she instructed.

Phil nodded and proceeded down the bright corridor.

One. Two. Three.

He took a deep breath and rapped on the door with his knuckles.

“COME IN,” a voice beckoned from the other side of the barrier.

Phil grabbed the knob and slowly turned it clockwise until it came to an abrupt stop. The voice resumed its commands as he pushed the door forward.

“Mr. Warner. Please. Take a seat.”

Phil scanned the room until his eyes were drawn to a man in an all-white suit frantically waving him towards his desk.

“Quickly, Mr. Warner. You should know now more than ever that time is valuable, and limited.”

The word “time” startled Phil from his daze like the snap of a hypnotist’s fingers. He closed the door behind him and took a seat in a white chair facing the Colonel Sanders doppelgänger.

“Alright, Mr. Warner. You’re here to apply for a loan.”

“That is correct,” Phil replied, despite the lack of a question.

“So get on with it. How much time are you looking for?”

“Well,” Phil paused, caught off guard by the need to throw out an actual number. “I guess however much I would’ve had if I didn’t do that thing I did.”

“You mean kill yourself?”

“If we’re being blunt about it.”

“I don’t have time for tact, Mr. Warner.”

“Fine. Then yes, I’d like whatever time I would’ve had if I didn’t try to kill myself.”

“DID kill yourself, Mr. Warner. You are dead, and by your own volition, mind you.”

The man’s candid words hit Phil harder than the chilling waters beneath the Golden Gate Bridge.

“I know,” he conceded. “And I regret it.”

Phil looked down at his feet and began rubbing the toes of his dark leather dress shoes together, hoping to spark a bit of sympathy from his inquisitor.

“Obviously,” the man responded. “Otherwise, you would have no use for a loan, now would you?”

“I thought you didn’t want to waste time?”

“I don’t.”

“Then will you PLEASE just tell me if and how I can get my life back?”

“You mean the life you cut short?”

“YES.”

The man smirked and leaned back in his chair, settling in for further interrogation.

“Tell me something, Mr. Warner, what makes you a safe investment?”

“I’ve seen the light.”

The man threw his head back in laughter while clasping his hands.

“Everyone sees the light when they die, Mr. Warner.”

“Well, it changed my perspective on things.”

“Death tends to do that to people.”

“What do you want me to say?”

Phil’s tone prompted the man to assume a more serious posture.

“I want you to say something that makes me believe you’ll break the pattern you’ve been repeating your entire life.”

“What do you mean my entire life? This is the one, and if you’re generous enough to give me a second chance, the ONLY time I ever have or will try to kill myself.”

“Killed yourself.”

“KILLED MYSELF.”

The man gave Phil a moment to calm down before continuing his assessment.

“Do you know what suicide is, Mr. Warner?”

“Probably not in the way you’re thinking.”

“Suicide is quitting, Mr. Warner. Have you ever quit before?”

“Of course! Everybody quits from time to time.”

“And do you see anything wrong with that?”

“No! Well, I mean, it depends?”

“On what, Mr. Warner?”

“On what you lose.”

“What did you lose by quitting life, Mr. Warner?”

“EVERYTHING.”

“What’s ‘everything,’ Mr. Warner?”

“Well, I have a daughter.”

“And what will you miss about her the most?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“You don’t know yet?”

“To be honest, I haven’t really been Father of the Year. I want to change that.”

“Admirable. What else?”

“I’d like to be a better husband.”

“To which wife?”

“The most recent one, obviously. Or maybe a new one? I don’t know. I just know I’d be a better husband this time around.”

“Okay. What else?”

“Does there NEED to be something else?”

“If you want more time, yeah, there kind of does.”

“WHY?”

The man propped his elbows up on the desk and stared Phil dead in the eyes.

“Because, Mr. Warner, so far you’ve given me nothing but two massive regrets and some lofty aspirations.”

“Of course I have regrets. Doesn’t everybody?”

“Yes, Mr. Warner, everybody has regrets, but you’re lacking results.”

“I don’t understand.”

“What are you proud of, Mr. Warner? What would you CONTINUE doing with your life If I grant you this loan?”

The question swept in like a drone strike on Phil’s stockpile of rebuttals. The man could see Phil’s eyelids quiver like a final death rattle.

“Nothing,” Phil responded in his calmest tone since entering the office. “I wouldn’t want anything in my life to stay the same.”

“Then what do you really want, Mr. Warner?”

Phil laughed, finally realizing what he’s been wanting all along.

“I guess I want a new life.”

“Well, Mr. Warner, I’m afraid there’s nothing I can do about that. The best I can do is send you back to the life you no longer want, but I think we both know how that will end, don’t we?”

Phil responded with a single nod.

“So, what do I do now?” Phil asked.

“You walk out that door and enter the Great Unknown,” the man responded, pointing to Phil’s final exit.

“Will it be better than my not-so-great known?”

“You’ll see.”

Phil could tell his time had officially run out. He stood up from the chair, gave the man a hesitant wave and turned towards the door. The wall facing him was void of any pictures, color or clocks. There was only nothingness, and Phil was fine with that.


Written by: Mark Killian
Photograph by: Jaemin Riley

How to Dispose of a Dead Body

Rainey struggles trying to get the corpse out of the trunk. I mean, I get it – it’s a big corpse stuffed into a tiny trunk. No leg room whatsoever. It took us a good twenty minutes just to get the fucker in there. Hell, I’m no engineer. Rainey can’t even spell engineer. But still, it’s a dead body. How hard can it be?

“You want some help, man?”

Rainey grunts and slips and gets the thing halfway out. He goes for the torso first so the corpse’s right arm is hanging real languid-like out of the open trunk.

“Naw, bro,” Rainey says. “I got this. Been watching a bunch of Breaking Bad, lately.”

I shrug and smoke the rest of my cigarette and look up to the big MOTEL sign above us.

The sign says the joint was established in 1940 and fuck me proper if it made it to 41’. The motel is deserted, and no wonder, out here in the fucking desert – no shit nobody wants to stay out here. Might as well advertise directly to serial killers and drifter vampires.

Kill someone? Come on down! Free HBO!

The sign looks good though. Very classy. Pretty clean and not missing any letters or anything. Like they hired a drunken caretaker who said fuck it to the motel buildings but took great pride in his sign. Dude probably would sit under the sign and drink whiskey and mutter things like, “A man can only do so much.”

But why here? Why the sign? Fuck me if I know. This is all Rainey’s idea.

See, Rainey has been part of The Family much longer than I have. I’m still a newbie when it comes to disposing of bodies; in fact, this is my first trip out to the desert. Big Don Martino, the big shit of the big shits, even gave me a crucifix to celebrate the moment.

“Hold to it tight, Niño,” he said, laying the cross delicately in my hand. “Do not let it go. No matter what.”

When Don Martino speaks, you best listen, so I fingered the cross all the way out to the desert as Rainey listened to his self-help tapes, that shit bumping in the little Nissan with fake New Mexico plates.

You are worth something. Now, say it with me. You are worth something.

Fucking Rainey, playing along, mouthing that he’s “worth something.”

It’s starting to get dark by the time homeboy gets the body out of the trunk.

“Yo!” he shouts at me. “Get the flashlight out of the glove compartment. And the boombox. Get the boombox out the backseat.”

I do as I’m told. The boombox looks about as old and useless as the motel buildings surrounding their precious sign.

“What the fuck are we doing with this boombox?” I ask for not the first time. “Seriously, what’s with all the mystery?”

The mystery is why Rainey, of all fucking people, is the designated disposer of bodies. As it goes, The Family is the type of family that often has to dispose of corpses. Heavy lies the crown sort of thing. And the Don? Well, El Jefe has decided that Rainey is the man to handle this rather important job. Personally, I think it’s a bit much for a guy who takes things for granite (“Solid like stone”), but that’s why I’m here…Rise and rise and rise. A soldier’s gotta find his spot in this world and The Don has made it clear that this is an important job.

“Don’t ask so many fucking questions,” Rainey says.

He picks up the corpse, throws it over his shoulder, and starts trudging into the darkness. We pass the vacated buildings of the motel as we make our way into the desert, Rainey slightly in front, me holding the boombox on my shoulder awkwardly and pointing the flashlight forward.

And we walk. And walk. And, fuck me, we walk.

Seems like hours before the flashlight beam hits the first tombstone.

“A fucking graveyard!” I shout. “You dope motherfucker. It’s brilliant!”

“Shut up,” Rainey whispers.

The graveyard isn’t really a graveyard, there’s no fence or anything - just a collection of tombstones in the desert.

Rainey walks to the middle of the cluster of graves and drops the body before hurrying back toward me. For a big dude, he steps lightly and I shine the flashlight at him to fuck with him.

“Turn that fucking shit off,” he hisses.

A serious Rainey makes me nervous. I turn the flashlight off.

“For what happens next,” he says, “I need you to be cool.”

His voice in the darkness is displaced and disconnected. I can hear him messing with the boombox on the ground at my feet.

“And do not turn on that flashlight until I say so. Understand?”

I nod.

“Hey, I said…”

“I got it,” I say.

There’s a moment of silence as I feel him stand up from the boombox. My heart rate is jacked. I hear a dull hum from the speakers at my feet.

And then there’s music. Very, very loud music. Very, very loud rap music.

Kanye West is shouting Yeezus into the desert.

What the fuck?

The bass bumps so hard I don’t notice Rainey yelling until he grabs my arms, scares the shit out of me, and snatches the flashlight from me. Right before he flicks the beam on, I realize he’s been screaming “Now!”

What I see are hands coming out of the ground, out of the graves, grasping at air. What I see are human heads buried beneath the earth, escaping. What I see are fucking zombies coming out of graves.

It’s gotta be the noise.

Rainey is screaming, “Run!”

He takes off and I follow the flashlight in his hand as its beam dips and jumps across the desert floor, toward the Nissan and our escape.

On the horizon, the MOTEL sign lights up the darkness.

I have questions. You would have questions. I’m sure fucking Rainey has questions.

But what comes out, hastily escaping from my mouth as I run from zombies in the desert, is “Why?”

Why all this? Why not chop the bodies up and feed them to the pigs? Why, Rainey? Why?

“Because they said so,” Rainey gasps. “Who gives a fuck about why?”

Written By: Logan Theissen
Photograph By: Daniel Vidal

Wolf Girls

Condensation on the glass cascades into a wet ring on the railing; it leaves a slick smear when I wipe it. I down the sweet tea and vodka and the mix punches me hard, the taste a reminder of the first time Diane and I got drunk together, giggling in our church clothes and hoping no one would smell the liquor on our breath.

The drink settles in my stomach, but it offers no distraction. I twist one of my rings, anxious from the calm stillness of humid air. I don't know why I am worried, but I am certain that I should be.

                                                                               ***

We met when we were both broken and needed mending. I was thirteen, and my first period confronted my father with the unshakeable realization that there were some conversations only moms could have with daughters. We didn't acknowledge my womanhood, and because I knew it changed his perspective of me, I rejected it. I wore baggy clothes and my hair hung in tangled knots around my plain face.

Diane's father was the new doctor; though they weren't wealthy and her dad traded check-ups for produce, she was still ostracized for airs she didn't put on. She kept to herself, barely noticeable, like embers in a dying campfire.

Embers still burn, and like Prometheus, I saw the value of her spark. It came in math class, when a slip of paper fluttered down between us.

"Sorry," Diane mumbled, her black hair tumbling as she bent to grab the paper.

"You drew that?" I asked. I pointed to the drawing: a wolf howling, silhouetted against a full moon.

"Yeah," Diane said. "I like wolves."

"Me too," I said, and I pulled the chain out from underneath the loose shirt, an old plaid one that used to be Dad's. The pewter charm was the shape of a wolf's head, fangs bared. "I’m Sandra."

"I know," she replied with a shy smile. Mrs. Baker stepped between us and cleared her throat; we were silent for the rest of the period, but I could occasionally see Diane glance in my direction.

We didn't get another chance to talk until the end of the day, when we both lingered on the schoolyard.

"Which way?" She asked casually. I could hear the hope in her voice. "I live past the square."

"I'm the opposite, behind 7th Street," I said, "but my dad doesn't come home till past midnight so I can walk with you and cut back. It's nice enough."

We took the first of many walks together, and we learned we both favored wolves over horses, school over church, and George White to his elder brother John.

I left Diane at her front gate, watching as she glided over the walk, leaves crunching with each purposeful step. When she was halfway up the porch, she whirled back to face me.

"You know what we are? We're wolf girls."

"Wolf girls," I agreed, and I knew what she meant: different from others, but bound all the same.

                                                                               ***

The phone cuts through the hazy afternoon stillness. Its impatient ring summons me from the porch.

I needed another drink anyway.

                                                                               ***

It happened on my eighteenth birthday.

Diane came over with Jimmy right after dinner, and Ken wasn't far behind. We listened to the radio in the living room and got tipsy from lukewarm beer Ken swiped from his garage, sure his mother would think she forgot to buy more. Diane surprised me with a decadent chocolate cake, and we each ate two slices because the rich sweetness reminded us of childhood.

"I love you," Ken said when they left. "I've been wanting to tell you for years."

His lips were sweet like chocolate.

When I woke, my watch said it was just before midnight. I pulled on my shirt and jeans to raised voices. By the time I made it out of my room, the argument had escalated to a full-on brawl, my father's fist connecting solidly with Ken's nose. Thick crimson blood cascaded onto my mother's favorite rug.

"Daddy!" I shrieked. Ken fell back; my father was on him, beating him senseless.

"Stop it!" I cried out. I tried to pull him off, but he turned on me. The bruises from before had only just faded. He always won, either by my submission or his endurance.

He would have again, if not for Ken.

I shoved my father. The momentum was stronger than we expected. In an attempt to regain his balance, he stepped on Ken's leg. I watched my father fall, heard the snap of his neck against the table.

When Diane came to pick me up for school in the morning, I didn't come out. She walked in, the stale smell of blood greeting her. My face was swollen.

"Wolf girls," Diane sighed, and held me in her arms as the sobs bubbled out of me. When the salt dried on my cheeks, Diane's voice was soothing and low in my ear.

"We need to clean up."

                                                                               ***

"Sandy?" I can hear the fear and panic in Diane's voice. Oh, Diane: my worry is for you.

"What happened?" I ask. She chokes back sobs, and it must be bad if she's trying to restrain herself even with me.

"Jim had a stroke," Diane says this as calmly as she can, but there's anxiety seeping from my receiver.

"Is he going to be okay?" I stare down at my rings. I already know what the answer will be.

"No," Diane's voice is a whisper, "and he doesn't want…Sandy, I don't know what to do."

"Wolf girls," I respond, tears in my eyes. The hollowness she feels now is what I looked like decades ago, curled up between the two men I loved most, dead because they loved me too much for the other to live with.

"Wolf girls," Diane says, relief flooding her voice.

Written by: Erin Justice
Photograph by: Emily Blincoe

Product Placement

 
She didn't want to audition for the show, but then she made it on, so she figured what the hell. The producers summoned them to the lobby of a hotel that was trying too hard with its ridiculous orange paint job and bellhops wearing Converse tennis shoes. They were there for the big reveal: the moment the host would tell them they'd be moving to the house in Malibu.

They did the take twelve times: ten because of unequal enthusiasm, and twice because a contestant named Jeremy had to have his makeup re-powdered after he sweated it off.

Cora wondered what it was that made the producers pick her. Which character niche did she fit? Maybe they just needed a blonde. Bimbo, or house bitch? She imagined herself throwing a glass of pinot noir into the face of Annabelle, the overweight but artsy contestant who made all the cameramen laugh with her impression of last season's winner.

"Even though I voted him off, I know Brantley is my one true love," Annabelle cackled, and the cameramen smacked their knees with glee.

After the last take in the lobby, a girl with a clipboard told them they'd be moved to the house at four, but first they'd do interviews. Someone brought out sodas and trays of sandwiches—little turkey and brie numbers with what appeared to be pistachios sprinkled on the tops.

"Cora, we'll take you first."

It was the producer with the goatee. Danny. Davey. God, she'd better learn his name. Cora checked her lipstick with her phone camera.

"Makeup will retouch you in the interview room, don't worry," Danny-Davey said.

He led Cora down a hallway to a conference room. Don't be the shy one, Cora thought. The shy ones end up kicked off or misunderstood.

"So you'll be here," Danny-Davey said, leading Cora to a stool in front of a blue velour drape and a waxy houseplant.

"I'm going to start by asking you some questions. Sometimes I may ask you to repeat things you've already said, or to say it in a different way. I may ask you to tell me, in a story, about something that happened."

"Okay," Cora said.

"What are your thoughts on Jeremy?"

"Jeremy? Oh. We had to re-do those takes because of him."

"Cora, don't mention the film crew. Just—imagine this is all life. But within the bubble of each other. We're just here to capture it. Be comfortable. Talk to me like you'd talk to a friend," Danny-Davey said.

"Jeremy. He seems nervous to be here. I'm nervous. The only person who isn't nervous is Annabelle. Maybe she should…be interviewed first."

"So do you like Annabelle? Tell me what you think of Annabelle."

"I don't know Annabelle. She seems okay, I guess."

"Cora, you're giving me nothing, here."

"Well, I just met her this morning."

"Okay, so let's do a take where you talk about Annabelle's appearance."

"What?"

"So how do you think she feels being the biggest person in the house?"

"Is she? I don't think she minds being the biggest person in the house. I hadn't noticed. I mean, she's like, really confident. The cameramen think—"

"No cameramen, Cora."

"—everyone thinks she's hilarious."

"Okay," Danny-Davey sighed. "It's a start. Paulo, bring in the next one."

As Cora rejoined the others in the lobby , a producer handed her a plate of baby gherkins and a Fanta. She sipped the orange fizz as she imagined her mother and father in their basement, cuddled together on their double recliner, watching her, hair in hot-girl waves, makeup perfect, talking about Annabelle: I don't think she minds being the biggest person in the house...I don't know…Maybe she should.

She felt dizzy. She thought about the advice her girlfriends had given her before she left town for filming. Make alliances. Smile a lot on camera. If there's a hot tub, don't wear your strapless bathing suit or you’ll get edited to look naked.

In the van on the way to the house, the girl with the clipboard gave them the run-down. They were not to leave the property. They were to surrender their cell phones to Paulo as soon as they arrived. There was no television. No reading. No iPods. No gym equipment.

"But what if I want to work out?" sweaty Jeremy whined.

"We can do some takes in Planet Fitness next week. And there's the pool," clipboard girl said.

Hair and makeup would arrive at 6 every morning. Film crews would arrive at 7. The fridge was stocked with food. There was wine and beer, which should always be left visible.

"Product placement!" Annabelle crowed. Her voice echoed.

It had grown unbearably hot in the van. Cora pressed her forehead against the window. The palm-studded beach blurred by in fast-forward. The voices of the contestants clanged together in her ears.

When she came to, she was on a stretcher wearing an oxygen mask, and Danny-Davey's goatee leaned over her face.

"Cora! Cora! You're awake!"

She could hear the scuffle of the camera crew circling her, waving their boom mics like fishing poles.

"Oh my god," Annabelle's voice said, "I can't believe it. She's my best friend in the house..."

"And again"—Paulo's voice—“this time can you cry a little? Think of the saddest thing you can imagine? Like dead puppies?"

"Holy crap! Okay, here goes—" Annabelle started again.

"Cora, can you open your eyes?" Danny-Davey whispered. "I want you to look up at the camera and talk a bit if you can—"

Cora's stomach twisted.

"I might vomit," she mumbled.

She coiled herself on the stretcher. As the EMTs loaded her into the ambulance, Danny-Davey muttered to the cameraman.

"It's okay," he said, "just something we add to the drinks to stir things up with contestants like her. She’ll be fine in a few days, and by then, she’ll be a novelty. Makes for great TV.”

The ambulance pulled away, and Cora’s eyes locked with the EMT’s sympathetic gaze as he took her blood pressure. She felt she’d been seen for the first time.

Written by: Dot Dannenberg
Photograph by: Emily Blincoe

House of Hope

Marco woke to the sounds of his infant daughter stirring. She hadn’t cried out, but the studio apartment was small and Marco was a light sleeper. He got out of bed and tiptoed to her crib, taking care not to wake his girlfriend and the mother of his child. His daughter smiled as he approached, letting out a high-pitched squeal of delight. She kicked her small feet and shook her small fists, casting the shadows of four mischievous sprites dancing wildly against the fiery orange of the dim streetlamp outside. Marco lifted her from her crib and sang to her softly, “Duermete mi niña, duermete mi amor…”

Marco found out Gabriella, his girlfriend, was pregnant during one of his assignments. He contemplated what Gabriella’s pregnancy would mean for him as he pressed his handgun to the head of the man kneeling in front of him. They were in a narrow alleyway tucked between a shuttered pet shop and an empty bodega. The steel felt cold in Marco’s hands and the click of the hammer was deafening. The trigger resisted the weight of his finger and it took all of his strength to finally pull it. When the deed was done, he paused to catch his breath. He leaned against the stucco wall and let the weight of his body pull him down until he was level with the dead body at his feet. Marco looked away from the corpse and stared instead at the graffiti-strewn wall opposite him. He spotted a wheat-pasted poster of the Virgin Mary directly in his line of sight. It was old and was peeling away from the wall, maybe someone had tried to remove it. The Virgin Mary had been vibrant with color at some point, but was now sun-faded and looked gray in the dark of the night. There, Marco closed his eyes and prayed.

He named his daughter Esperanza, a child born amidst the chaos. Soon after, with the help of some of his friends, Marco left the Maras and found work in construction.

Marco woke again just as dawn was breaking. The world was blue-gray now, colors that signaled the start of his day. He slipped into his dusty work clothes in the bathroom so as not to wake his sleeping family. In front of the mirror, he gently ran his fingers over the scars on his bare chest, a constant reminder of a life just recently past. It all seemed so distant at that moment. Construction wasn’t anything to boast about, but it was legitimate, and he wouldn’t be ashamed to tell his daughter what her father did. It was honorable work. The Lord was a carpenter, a creator of things – who better to emulate?

He was only given a few hours of work that day, hours that had been dwindling more and more in the past year. The economy was down, they told him, and no one was building anymore.

At home, he watched Esperanza play with her toys in her crib, realizing that they had all been gifts. What kind of father couldn’t buy his own daughter toys to play with? Marco glanced around the small, unadorned apartment, his eyes landing on a stack of untouched bills which sat atop a coffee table he salvaged from a street corner. The coffee table, which doubled as a dining table, was made of particle board and had swollen where moisture had breached the paint-chipped surface. The unpaid bills bothered him, but it was the coffee table that sent him in a rage. It was falling apart. It was all falling apart.

“We’re running low on formula,” Gabriella said.

“Okay,” was all Marco could say in reply.

It was chilly outside. Marco had gone downstairs to smoke a cigarette, a habit he promised Gabriella he would kick. He only smoked because it helped calm him, but now each puff he took felt like another dollar stolen from his own daughter. He fumbled with his cellphone in his coat pocket before pulling it out. He scrolled through his contacts until he landed on one from his past.

“I need work Angel,” Marco said.

“You have work Marco,” Angel replied, “in construction.”

“You know what I mean.”

“No Marco. Have you already forgotten how hard it was to leave the Maras? You got a new start. You have a choice now.” Angel had grown up with Marco in El Salvador. They came to the United States together and joined the Maras together. After Esperanza was born, when Marco wanted out, it was Angel that convinced the Maras to leave him be.

“What choice? A choice between living like a beggar and living as a criminal? It’s the street one way or the other. You’re telling me that I can choose to be a mouse or a rat. Men like us will always be fighting for scraps, better to be feared than weak.”

“You have a family Marco.” Angel was desperate.

“Exactly.” Marco, more so.

There was a pause and a sigh. “Fine, meet me in the alleyway behind Lee’s Grocery, you remember where that is?”

“Sure, the bodega by the old pet store.” The image of the Virgin Mary flashed in Marco’s mind and for a moment he hesitated, but only for a moment.

It was late when Marco returned. He opened his apartment door as quietly as possible, but woke Esperanza anyway. She cried loudly, waking Gabriella.

“I’ve got her,” Marco said to his girlfriend, “go back to sleep.” Marco, without looking, felt the disappointment in Gabriella’s eyes, but she said nothing as she pulled the covers over her shoulders.

As Marco embraced Esperanza, bouncing her lightly against his chest, she slowly drifted back to sleep. After she had dozed off, Marco held her out in front of him as she lay flat on his forearm. She felt warm and soft against his skin.

“Everything’s going to be okay,” he whispered to her. And then he sang, “Duermete mi niña, duermete mi amor…”

Written by: Sam Chow
Photograph by: Chris Boyles

Devaluation and Bodyworks

First, just empty the overnight bag. It’s going to be put away for a little while. Or a long while. Hard to say when you’re in the heat of a losing battle with reality – a reality that steadily prods your soft parts and whispers that absolutely nothing in life is guaranteed. Not even the regular use of a trendy black bag containing replacement underwear and travel-sized shampoos. Your contract with life was written in disappearing ink.

Ha ha. Joke’s on you.

This opportunity to extract oneself should feel nothing but liberating, because at the top of your skull – the place Buddhists deem to be most sacred – this is where you always knew that your interests were never even close to marrying up with his. He of bullshit and imposter Buddhist exhortations.

But really, this is not a horrific car crash where one of us is walking away maimed.

But still.

You need to unpack. You need to be distracted from the sudden and unsavory change in your circulatory function.

Was there anything of consequence left at his house? The running joke was that you were always leaving earrings under the sofa- exactly where his kids could find them. Curse the resiliency that is the human spirit. Better off to have one’s first injury stay sliced open to fester, rather than endure what has just taken place: a tired rerun that saw you pressing ‘End’ on a conversation with a suddenly incomprehensible stranger. How do any of us hazard the chance to go through this more than once?

Is this really happening again? It’s not until particular words are spoken that you recall the heart to be housed in an elevator attached to cables that span the length of your body. This reminder only resurfaces at the moment you feel the encasement slam into your feet. A free fall triggered by a secret combination of words. A phenomenon that only ever comes when you don’t see it coming at all.

In the seconds following the one-way plummet, you begin to wonder if any effort at braking was ever applied to those supposedly reinforced cables. After all, you’ve been here before. This is not your first ride in the heart-trashing rodeo. But it would appear that the point is moot; only a Pollockian rendition of a shattered heart outline now holds court there in your heels. Sitting right there next to your Achilles tendon. It would appear that life is at least guaranteed a certain level of irony.

None of this gets any easier, the second and third time around. When you have been downsized in someone else’s world, you’ll still gravitate to places that no longer exist. It’s an impulse you’ll entertain at the expense of moving forward. You neglect yourself as your insides try to recover. Appetite, like the sense of smell, takes on a tertiary significance as hunger backs away as a vital need.

The elevator that you are certain lay splintered at your base has inexplicably regained its function – albeit imperfectly. Up and down you now feel it cycle as you step one foot in front of the other, day after day. Except every now and then you notice that it gets hung up in places where you’d rather it not linger. You wonder if your insides have gone permanently haywire. Much like the fictional contract with life, you realize that this vital organ comes with no replacement warranty in the case of eventual malfunction.

This is all for the best. On an intellectual level, you’re happy that he has decided to roll over and stare at other things. Other people. Other women who are clearly superior to you. Other women who will put up with his repellent love for 1990s Kid Rock and the canisters of Kodiak tobacco that he will leave in their cars. Your brain loves to loop through this story, but the problem is that it delivers this sermon from a place that is inaccessible to the heart. Your voice box serves a choke point impeding the elevator’s unobstructed passage, and it makes you feel as though your brain were the most useless and ineffective organ in the body. Almost as unreliable as the heart.

Like the physical need to eat and sleep, this fantastic mind of yours has ceased to appear useful in the daily conduct your new routine. The only activity commanding your attention right now radiates in that transient chamber in your chest. The heart thuds with a rumble that blocks out just about everything in your immediate surroundings. Your brain disapproves of being ignored. It continues with unpacking your toiletry bag, waiting for you to come to your senses.

It’s going to feel bad like this for a little while. The connection between the heart and the brain is the ego, and it takes some time for the two to get back in sync. Like the mediocre musician who always plucks the same three sets of chords, your heart must first have free reign to return time and time again to a sound you once interpreted as melody. This will continue until you one day discover that all of it really does sound horribly out of key. And you’ll wonder why you ever listened at all.

It will take an indeterminate and slow-moving number of days, weeks, and months before you suddenly fail to notice the jerky and irregular cadence that is now your heart’s beating norm. Slowly you’ll even forget that there’s any sort of elevator living inside your chest cavity at all – and this will be the discreet signal that you have at last recalibrated yourself. All of the stinging details will have faded.

Where did I put that stupid overnight bag? By now it’s been awhile, and life has no guarantees. It is with this dictum in mind that you return to your closet and stuff your black bag accordingly.

Get ready, tender heart, because we just might be going down again.

Written By: Megan Hallinan
Photograph By: Emily Blincoe

Yes or No

Should I still do it?

Look at her over there, seething.

Fuck! I knew this was a stupid idea. When in the course of our three years of courtship has she EVER mentioned horseback riding? When have I ever wanted to go horseback riding!?

Fucking Hollywood. Fucking Facebook. Fucking anyone who made me believe this had to be some fairytale scene.

Does she know? She has to know. She knows my palms haven’t stopped sweating since we woke up this morning. She knows I haven’t been this quiet since our first date. She knows I HAVE NO FUCKING INTEREST IN HORSEBACK RIDING.

The heat. The snakes. The minefield of shit all over these stables. HOW ROMANTIC.

JESUS. We haven’t fought like this since we thought I knocked her up.

I should wait.

Should I wait?

What if getting down on one knee is the only thing that could save this shitty day? Is a proposal powerful enough to make us look back on this string of mishaps with a sense of humor?

Maybe years from now we’ll gleefully sit our grandkids on our laps and tell them how Grandma realized she forgot to bring her special vitamin thirty minutes into our drive, leaving Grandpa no choice but to turn the car around. God knows he wasn’t going to let her do that again.

We’ll tell them how we lost phone reception and driving directions on the way, making us TWO HOURS late for our scheduled horse tour.

I’ll reenact the conversation between me and the inconvenienced cowboy who was “ten seconds from packin it in for the day.”

Grandma will take it from there, describing my total lack of horseback-riding skills, in painfully accurate details.

I’ll claim she’s exaggerating, but she won’t be.

She’ll DEFINITELY mention the look on my face when our trail guide pointed out the first of THREE rattlesnakes we saw that day.

I’ll get my revenge by telling them how she and her stubborn steed capsized while fording the creek, leaving her soaked from head to toe for the rest of the ride.

She’ll shoot me a playful glare and accuse me of spooking her horse with the high-pitched squeal I let out after seeing a very snake-like stick in the water.

I’ll insist it was a snake, but it will be too late. The laughter will already be at my expense.

We’ll find a common enemy in the catered lunch of baked beans and beef jerky, which, aside from its authenticity, added nothing to the experience or our stomachs. I’ll brag about suffering through an entire bite, and she’ll remind me how that one bite gave me violent diarrhea.

“NO,” I’ll yell before the giggle fits begin. “I just told you that so I could have a little time to myself.”

Then I’ll retell this moment. Me, hiding at the other end of the barn, working up the courage to ask for her hand in marriage. Her, staring into the wilderness, wishing we never met.

She’ll say I’m certifiably insane and rehash what was really going through her head at that moment.

I’ll listen intently, hoping to hear a genuine answer to the question I’ll have hounded her about throughout the course of our entire marriage.

She’ll either stick to her guns and give some light-hearted answer like, “I was thinking this diamond better be worth it,” or she’ll put tears in the eyes of everyone within earshot by saying something sweet like, “I was thinking how the worst thing about that day were the few times he wasn’t standing by my side.”

OR, this entire conversation will never take place because she’ll think this poor excuse for a proposal is an indication of how much I truly know her and she’ll leave me for a “better listener.”

No. That’s not possible. She’s shot down plenty of opportunities to turn me into a distant memory.

No one would’ve blamed her if she called it quits after she accepted that job offer half a state away.

She would’ve had every right to say goodbye once and for all after the way I overreacted about our pregnancy scare.

And I know of at least three members of her inner circle who would revel in the opportunity to do an I-told-you-so dance.

But she hasn’t taken the bait. She’s never even threatened it. Not once. There’s no way THIS will be the final straw.

She has to know that despite this terrible attempt at a grand gesture, my heart was in the right place.

Like that time I tried to cheer her up at her granddad’s funeral by making fun of the mortician’s makeup job.

Or that time I tried to make the distance between us easier by giving her a vibrator.

Or the card I gave her after we dodged the baby bullet, that read:

“Knock, knock.”

“Who’s there?”

“Mama.”

“Mama who?”

“I don’t know, but it’s NOT YOU!”

Damn. Why HASN’T she left me?

Wrong question.

Will you marry me?

That’s what I need to be asking. Whatever motivates her to say yes is irrelevant.

All that matters right here, right now is that I know for a fact I want to spend the rest of my life with this lovely, loving and continuously forgiving female.

I want to feel her fist bore into my shoulder when I tell her I genuinely thought she might say no. I want to hear her laugh on the way home when she teases me about my serpent intolerance. I want to smell her shampoo wafting from the shower curtain as she aggressively scrubs the creek water out of her hair. And I want to go through this entire emotional cycle a thousand times over until one of us ends up on the wrong end of a mortician’s makeup kit.

“Claire?”

“What.”

“Will you look at me?”

“No.”

“Please?”

“No.”

“WHY?”

“Because I’m still mad at you!”

“I think I may be able to cheer you up.”

“How?”

“Turn around.”

Written by: Mark Killian
Photograph by: Emily Blincoe

All That's Colored

When the shift occurred, without reason or warning, there were enough talking heads to fill a stadium – and many did. Lecterns were manned with the rapidity of automatic machine gun fire. But this was always an intellectual war, fought in city council meetings and university halls, among other places. Theories and ideas were lobbed with a casual surety that had never been reserved for bullets. They settled on calling it evolution, and when they did, the divisive nature of the human race took form in two very different but equally important questions. Which question you asked would ultimately define you in this new age of COLORBLINDNESS. I use this word in the most literal sense because over a period of 252 days from Mid-February to Late-October, mankind – the human species in its entirety – lost its collective ability to perceive color. The world through our eyes had become entirely black and white. As I said before, there were two immediate questions. The first – HOW? asked by the scientists among us. Theories were raised and dismissed until only one possibility was left standing – evolution. By a method of deduction, it was acknowledged by the scientific elite that receptors in the human eye had been somehow naturally modified. Strange it seems that, given the cavalier nature in which we use a word such as evolution, there have been no significant theories proposed regarding the so-called end game. We are evolving, but to what? There have been reports of increased audioception, gustaoception, olfacoception, and tactioception in test subjects, though the authenticity of these reports has been questioned. Regardless, they are known collectively as “The Mutation Papers,” and bring us to the next question – WHY?

***

In the days of THE BLINDING, most found themselves in their house of God. I was no different. I sat with my mother and father, brother, and little sister on wooden pews. With my hands clasped together and my elbows resting on my knees, I bowed my head and prayed. The Sunday morning televangelists coined the term THE BLINDING. They shouted into microphones chronicling our many sins and thousands fell at their feet. My father, disgusted, would turn the channel and whisper, Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things unseen. Like most everyone as time went by, we continued on. My father rested after a hard day’s work. My sister attended second grade. My mother cut fresh-grown tomatoes in the evening and sprinkled them with salt. And yet every morning I believe each of us opened our eyes, and for a brief instant, it seemed possible that the world was once again overwhelmed with color. I surely did. My mother jokingly called it the hindsight of the damned. Many believed this to be some sort of punishment, while a few others thought it an awakening. To this day, we all fail to speak of the future. There will be a time, not so far off, when the last set of eyes that recognized color will finally close - and on that day we all will have lost something and we will ask why. But my mother used to say that day would also bring our salvation, and I prefer to think of our future as such. God has taken our color because we will survive, we will persevere, but we will never be the same. I believe there is assurance in that.

***

We’ve come to this place because some need to see it and some need to feel it. Some need to remember what it meant to have these walls, these gorgeous murals with all this color smashed together. Bold and bright they sit in our memories like beacons in the sea. Of all the cultural phenomena that have taken place since the blindness, the glorification of graffiti must be the greatest. Across the globe people flock to these places like they once flocked to Roman ruins. These walls of graffiti, from California to Buenos Aires to Jerusalem and back again, have become something more powerful than simple tagging. They’ve become remnants of a lost age – like Stonehenge or the Easter Island heads – wrapped in wonder, mystery, and a bit of sadness. I suppose our mystery is that nobody does graffiti anymore. They still sell spray-paint of course, and one could still physically tag a clean wall - but nobody does. Out of some mutual desire we’ve decided that creating new pieces like the one in front of us is disrespectful, or even evil. Personally, I think everyone knows that if we create new graffiti the old pieces don’t work, don’t mean anything, and if that happens then what do we have left? Some would say we are left with a species and a world that is unexplained, and we as a civilization are afraid of nothing more than the unknown. So in some form of group therapy we’ve decided that we without color are different. We do not yet know how we’ve changed, or how we will continue to progress in this particularly shaded world, we just know that we miss our color. So we take comfort in memories like graffitied walls, and we lean on them like vibrant walking sticks. We crowd around the scribbles because there will be no others like them and because there is communion in past appreciation, even if said appreciation was not so long ago outlawed. We look because we are now black and we are now white and ultimately, we are all in this together.


Photograph by: Emily Blincoe
Written by: Logan Theissen