Flick of the Wrist

The house was empty. As Quinn walked through the garage she found that both of her parents’ vehicles were missing. Usually, by the time she walked back from school her father was already home and preparing dinner, cleaning the vegetables and ridding the meat of every ounce of fat. Her mother would then pull in the driveway 40 minutes later and review all of Quinn’s homework before stepping in to relieve her father of his cooking duties. Quinn had forgotten about the revealing of the new wing in her mother’s hospital this evening, which both parents were required to attend.

Her brother’s car was also nowhere to be seen, which meant he most likely stayed behind at school to help prep for play rehearsals. Either that, or he was busy getting high at his friend Pat’s house. He could get away with things like that.

Quinn had a reputation to uphold, a schedule to keep. Her entire life had become a dictated routine. Everything her parents expected of her, or everything she thought they expected of her, she became. Day after day she lost pieces of herself in order to fit into the mold that had been prepared for her. Her parents knew who she would be from the time she was conceived and had her every life decision mapped out in color-coordinated files.

In reality, Quinn didn’t know who she was anymore. The only thing she knew was that she needed relief from expectations – and she knew just where to find it.

Her first respite from parental pressure was an accident that occurred during her pre-bed shower – the only time that was hers alone. Quinn could wash and shave in just under ten minutes, so she used the rest of her time to remove every mask she wore throughout the day: the cheerleading captain, the Honors student, the “perfect” child. The steady beating of the water from the showerhead drowned out her sobs as she sat on the shower floor hugging her knees. As Quinn pulled herself up, she lost her footing and slipped backwards.

Once she sat up, she began to feel the tiniest ounce of relief. It started slow, the pain that ebbed through her every nerve dissipating. As she looked to the floor, she noticed a thin crimson stream weaving its way through the current to the drain. Reaching beneath her, she pulled her detached razor blade from the once supple skin of her thigh. It had embedded itself in her flesh after being knocked loose in her fall. Quinn was nervous at first, but she also felt a solace that was too sweet a drug to deny.

Instead of taking the time to write in her journal as she used to, Quinn now transformed her body into her journal; practicing calligraphy on her inner thighs and underarms as they became the alternating front and back pages, her wrists the footnotes.

Her mind was spinning, thoughts racing at a dizzying pace. Everything inside of her hurt, and the ache was more than she could bear. Quinn relished in the fact that today she had at least an hour to herself, if not more. She opened her bedroom door just enough to throw her bags from school and cheerleading inside, then headed straight for the bathroom. She turned on the shower, but not the fan. She liked the way the room filled with steam and made the air almost too thick to breathe. She stepped into the tub letting the near-boiling water scald her skin. As it cascaded around her, she let every thought she’d harbored and rejected throughout the day come rising to the surface. Every conversation in her mind that was stifled to pay attention in class, every dismissal from those around her, every emotion she had to cut off to appear normal, every twitch, tick, and anxiety attack she had to restrain; she let them all come flooding in. With every line she drew into her upper thighs she allowed it all to rise up in chaos and ooze out of her skin; her crosshatching marking every thought and feeling screaming for a way out. She shook less, she began to calm.

Finally, she could breathe.

She was able to concentrate on the sound and feeling of her lungs filling and deflating, like hearing music for the first time.

As she sat emptying herself beneath the steady shower, she felt the beauty of her etchings that followed the lines of her veins and sinews. Her body had become a braille novel, but she was the only one blind enough to read it.

By the time she pulled herself out of the shower the entire room was filled with a steamy fog. She loved walking through it, feeling high, as though she were stepping into a dream. She couldn’t help the smile as it spread across her face as she opened the door and it all came rolling out like an avalanche across the floor and down through the hall until it disappeared into the coolness of the fresh air.

The blood was still trickling down her legs as she walked to her room. She kept a drawer of fabric bandages to help the cuts clot and close. She had read up on how much blood loss was too much and how to take proper care of knife wounds. She was usually very careful, but on this rare occasion she had let herself go a little too far. She was glad to be able to let these fresh journal entries air out rather than suffocate and itch, hiding under her varsity sweatpants.

Quinn was so wrapped up in her release, she was halfway to her dresser before she noticed that her window was open. It wasn’t until she turned toward the gentle breeze that she recognized Celia sitting cross-legged on her bed. She watched her friend’s smile turn to shock.

“Quinn…What happened?”


Written by: Julia Hy
Photograph by: Jaemin Riley

Sunday Grease

On Sunday she goes to Aunt Ida’s house, a sagging, brick-crumbling relic in a neighborhood once forgotten. Brighter lights and clean, modern lines encroach, gentrification threatening in the guise of “off the beaten path” Segway tours, microbreweries, and hot yoga studios where everyone pronounces bikram differently.

Winnie vomits in the bathroom of an artisan bakery that charges too much for soft, pillowy croissants and crumbling scones with dried fruit (even though they’re delicious). That’ll show ‘em, she thinks as she uses the back of her hand to wipe her mouth. A smear of dark berry lipstick leaves a stain she manages to scrub off, with a layer or two of skin. When the counter hipster asks if she wants anything, she gives a terse smile and politely declines as she stumbles out into the cold gray morning.

Its light is unforgiving, and the truths illuminated are harsh. Winnie barely made it; had she been a block closer to Aunt Ida’s she would have been puking in someone’s meager square of yard. Dewy grass mocks her, the frosted sheen perfect and undisturbed. There’s no place to hide.

Winnie cuts through the alley and climbs the narrow staircase to the back door. She wiggles the knob and presses her hip, a careful combination of moves that she’s mastered over years of refusing to come in through the front door like she’s company. Aunt Ida’s warm smile greets Winnie and she throws her black peacoat over a chair.

The soft orange light of the kitchen feels welcoming. Winnie lets her shoulders droop a little, feels the tension of warring self-doubt and self-pity roll off her in waves. This is home, and she doesn’t have to hide.

“Bacon or sausage, Winnie?” Aunt Ida asks. Pork fat sizzles and pops on the stove. Winnie smells hot buttered toast and strong, black coffee. Sticky syrup droplets trail from the kitchen into the dining room, and a cacophony of voices alert her to the fact that she is the last one to arrive. Aunt Ida does her domestic dance from stove to oven to toaster, the stained apron swirling around her like a redneck ballgown. Kiss my grits.

“Bacon, please,” Winnie says, “I’m craving bacon this morning. Can I take anything?”

Aunt Ida glances over Winnie, her eyes sizing up the burgundy skinny jeans and beige sweater. She grimaces at the exposed bra strap and nods to a plate of pancakes. Winnie avoids the syrup spills as she takes the plate into the dining room, her cousins cheerful and already busy eating.

Winnie still looks peaked, but she blames it on residual food poisoning and declares she needs a good home-cooked meal. Never mind that when she actually had food poisoning, she couldn’t look at anything other than a box of saltines without throwing up a little in her mouth. This morning she eats two short stacks of pancakes and half a dozen slices of bacon, the grease collecting in nooks like warm tidal pools. Fat and satiated, she sips her lukewarm, bitter coffee. Conversation flows around her.

Ida corners her when she slips upstairs to use her bathroom. She swings the door open, her niece yelping in surprise.

“Are you pregnant?”

Winnie stares at her.

“Your mother got the same cravings when she was pregnant,” Ida sighs. “Bacon so oily it’d slip through your fingers.”

“I’m not pregnant,” Winnie says.

“You sure, honey?” Ida says. “You can tell me. Everything’ll be fine, Win.”

“Yes, Aunt Ida.”

“Positive?”

“I’m not pregnant. I wasn’t pregnant when you came in here, I haven’t gotten pregnant in the last thirty seconds, and you’re really freaking me out right now. Can I please pee?”

Ida stares at Winnie’s plump figure. The waistband of her niece’s skinny jeans have stretched out, and her calves look deflated. Ida nods and pulls the door closed so Winnie can finish up in peace. Ida sits on her bed. With John in it, it felt too small. Without him, it feels too big.

Winnie emerges and Ida opens her mouth to ask more questions.

“I’m hungover, okay? Jesus.” Winnie snaps before Ida can speak.

“Don’t take the Lord’s name in vain.” Ida shakes her head and pinches the girl’s waist. Her fingers are farther apart than they used to be, when she would do this as a joke and not as a test. She looks at the woman in front of her: smudged lipstick and concealer caked into wrinkles, dark circles peeking out from underneath. Her round, full cheeks are peppered with tiny freckles and fine flakes of dried mascara, detritus from a Saturday night out on the town.

Winnie will not look at her, so Ida inhales. She’s prepared to give advice when she smells the excess. Winnie’s perfume is strong, floral and fruity. It’s the too much of it that gives Winnie away; she wears more than she needs to and somehow it still isn’t enough, because Ida recognizes the smell her once-favorite niece is trying to cover.

This moment is so familiar. Ida lived it dozens of times, when her John would drag himself out of bed stinking of booze, his eyes bloodshot and his skin tinged gray. He’d spray his cologne before church but Ida could tell. The excess, the too much, would give him away.

It always does.

They say nothing to each other. Winnie cries, and Ida holds her in her arms. Ida tells the girl to take a nap, tucks her into bed, and makes her way back downstairs. Ida notices small drips of syrup, raised dots against the hardwood floors like Braille. She walks into the kitchen where towers of dishes have formed a metropolis on her counter. A tilted plate with a half-eaten stack of soggy pancakes threatens a slow, viscous slide.

Ida sighs and grabs a sponge.


Written by: Erin Justice
Photograph by: Jaemin Riley

Alive Inside

We last saw Anna as she turned to a group of rabbis to cast the spirit of Lucas into her own body. Read the whole Anna the Extractor Series--"The Extractor," "Bury Their Own," "Beloved," "A Tremor in Your Name," and "Stress in the Workplace," "Common Denominators," "Inhabit," and "Calling" (an introduction)--to learn more about Anna and her supernatural adventures.

Memory is a dark and hazy thing, full of shadows and uncertainty. We remember in the ways that serve us best, waxing ourselves heroic as our shortcomings lurk in the darkness.

What’s happening?

Why is she yelling at me?

God, I’m drunk.

Stop pushing me.

Shit, I just want to lie down.

JUST SHUT UP.

Anna feels her fist, no, someone else’s fist collide with the side of the woman’s head. She watches her hit the wall, then bounce toward the floor, neck connecting with the seat of a wooden chair on the way down. Then, nothing.

Anna wakes up on a dingy couch with the television on. But this isn’t her couch, and this isn’t her house. This isn’t her almost two hundred pound body. She sits up, only to throw up in a man’s lap, wiping the spittle away with the back of his sleeve. She stands and locks eyes with a very handsome, hungover man. But he is in a mirror.

He is her reflection.

Anna doesn’t call the shots; it’s as if she’s merely a spectator residing in his body, stepping over beer bottles toward the bathroom with a sudden urge to piss. But she feels the relief just as he does when the stream hits the water, and the refreshment of water from the faucet against his face. And she feels the confusion and the horror at once when they both notice the body on the kitchen floor.

Then, Anna remembers the rabbi blowing the shofar as a circle of men chanted in Hebrew. She remembers that they exorcised a ghost named Lucas out of a young man and cast him into her body. She remembers the damp chill of his presence within her, like a foggy November morning. Anna remembers being scared because it’s a strange thing to possess the ghost that possesses you, a being that has the power to make you bleed and make you kill.

So, Lucas is trapped inside her body, and Anna is trapped inside his spirit and locked within his memories.

Lucas crumples to the floor as he takes the woman’s body into his arms, weeping, groaning. There’s an opal on her left ring finger, and Anna realizes that he killed his fiance. She can taste his tears in the back of his throat. She can feel his heart race with dread. She feels the cold death emitting from the woman, and the presence of her ghost hovering just behind Lucas. Anna knows he does not sense her spirit, only its absence from the body he cradles.

“Dana,” Lucas groans, “Dana, Jesus Christ, Dana. Oh, God, I’m sorry.”

Memory is where Dana haunts the man who loved her, and killed her when he drank too much for the hundredth time.

“Who are you?” Dana asks, and Anna knows that she’s not talking to Lucas.

I’m trying to help him cross over.

“You can’t. I tried.”

He can be helped. We just have to figure out how.

“Love wasn’t enough. What else could change him?”

Forgiveness. He needs to be forgiven.

“Forgive him? For killing me? For killing our baby?”

Where’s the baby?

Dana’s presence wavers.

You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. Did he know? Does he know?

“Yes, he knew. Despite his addiction, he knew.”

Dana, this - all of this - won’t stop unless you forgive him. He’s gone mad in the living realm. He possesses men’s bodies and uses them to kill women they love.

“What good is my forgiveness if he can’t forgive himself? He can’t escape what he’s done.”

Anna feels Lucas crawl away from Dana’s body across the floor like a sloth, pulling himself forward with desperate fingertips. He’s in their bedroom. He reaches under the bed. His hand closes around the grip of a revolver. She feels the barrel in her mouth as he sits up and leans back against the dresser. And she’s screaming inside of him, inside a figment of himself. But it’s too late. It’s been too late for decades.

Then, nothing. Just the haze of memory, painting us prettier than we are.

What’s happening?

Why is she yelling at me?

God, I’m drunk.

Stop pushing me.

Shit, I just want to lie down.

JUST SHUT UP.
She lives through Dana’s death and Lucas’ suicide twelve times as Dana’s ghost and heartache shiver close by. Anna starts to feel herself lose it because she’s trapped. The rabbi should have cast Lucas out of her by now, and she doesn’t understand why suddenly feels damp. Wet. It’s hard to breathe.

“ANNA! ANNA, COME BACK! ANNA!”

The piercing scream of a little girl is making the realm of Lucas’ memory flicker around her. Dana fades, mouthing something Anna can’t quite make out, but she barely cares because it’s like she’s swallowing mouthfuls of water. She’s gasping for air. She feels herself detach from Lucas, but he’s still clinging to her like cement bricks pulling her into the deep.

Then Anna knows the voice, Lydia’s voice, her spectral sidekick residing in the cross against her chest, screaming for her to come back to the land of the living. Anna finally sees the sunlight streaming through the surface of the water and she kicks against his will to drown her. She breaks through and gasps with horror and relief, recognizing the city’s harbor. She forces herself to swim for shore and hits the sand coughing up water, hearing Lydia reassure.

“It’s going to be okay. We’re going to get through this.”

But the little ghost isn’t trying to comfort her. Anna may have regained control of her body, but Lucas’ spirit still trembles inside her, like a dog abandoned in a cage. Lydia speaks peace over the spirit of a man who killed the love of his life, the mother of his unborn child. She’s whispering compassion over his self-loathing and Anna wails with a grief not her own, letting Lucas use her body to mourn as only a living being can.

Written by: Natasha Akery
Photograph by: Jaemin Riley

Where Are You Going?

“Hey.”

Marshall’s right eye opens to see if the voice came from his bedside or his dreams.

“Hey.”

His ear leads his eye to the privacy curtain on his right.

“Hey.”

“Hello?” Marshall answers.

“There ya are!”

“Are you sure?”

“Am I sure, what?”

“That I’m the person you’re looking for?”

“Are you the man attached to that beeping box on the other side of the curtain?”

“Yes.”

“Then you’re exactly who I’m looking for!”

Marshall’s eyebrows dive towards his nose, both eyes wide open.

“May I ask why?”

“Course ya can! As a matter of fact, I’ll see your question and raise you one of my own.”

“Which is?”

“Where are you goin’?”

“What?”

“WHERE are you goin’?”

Marshall would pinch himself, if he could move anything beneath his collarbone.

“I am afraid you are mistaken, sir. I am bound to this bed until the moment that beep becomes a prolonged shriek.”

“Then I REALLY hope you know where you’re goin’.”

Marshall’s eyes roll towards the top of their sockets, his brows unfurling like caterpillars climbing his forehead.

“Is this an afterlife conversation?”

“Yeah buddy.”

“Then leave me out of it.”

Marshall doesn’t bother to close his eyes, perfectly aware his request will go ungranted.

“Well who else am I gonna talk to about this?” the stranger asks.

“The night nurse.”

“Come on, now. You know she ain’t ready for this talk. She’s not a day over twenty-five, and fitter than a fiddler on a treadmill.”

“She’s still probably more interested in this conversation than I am?”

“How you figure?”

“That cross that’s always bouncing off her breasts.”

The stranger laughs through his nostrils like he’s stifling a cough.

“You think I’m tryin’ to evangelize you or somethin’, don’t you?”

“Would I be wrong?”

“About as wrong as it is to judge people.”

Marshall squints his eyes and purses his lips, preparing to return fire on this unwelcomed inquisition.

“So, is that a no, because what you just said sounded like scripture?”

“Yes, Mr. Beeps. Your salvation is restin’ squarely on your own two shoulders.”

“Then why did you ask me that question?”

“Curiosity, I guess. Haven’t you ever been in a airport bar, sippin’ a overpriced beer, wonderin’ where the person sittin’ next to you is headin’?

“No.”

“Then what do you do to pass time at an airport?”

“Read.”

“About what?”

“Science.”

“Like Ender’s Game?”

“No.”

“Then what?”

“Text books. Research papers. NON-fiction.”

“Oh.”

Marshall contemplates giving sleep another try.

“Well hell, now I find you even more interestin’,” the stranger confesses.

Marshall exhales until his lungs are as thin as his necrotic limbs.

“Are you being serious right now?”

“As serious as whatever ailment’s got you laid up on the other side of this curtain.”

“Just my luck.”

“Guess so. Anyway, I’ll ask you again; where are you going?”

Marshall grunts, the jets of air from his nostrils tickling his chin before crashing into the lifeless terrain of his upper chest.

“NOWHERE,” he spat. “I am going nowhere; just like you, just like your ancestors, just like the dinosaurs, and just like every living organism that came before them.”

“Well now that’s just not true, Mr. Beeps.”

“Cite your source.”

“Pardon?”

“Where are you getting your information?”

“My own two eyes.”

“Are you being facetious?”

“I don’t think so?”

“Then what do you mean, your own two eyes?”

“Well, I don’t see no t-rexes walkin around.”

“All right, I apologize. I will be going somewhere. I will be going six feet below the surface of the Earth, three feet to the right of my grandfather, and several hundred feet above a bunch of dinosaurs that died thousands of years before me, just–like–you.”

Marshall counts each second of the stranger’s silence like a boxing referee determining a knockout.

“Nah,” the stranger responds.

“Yes.”

“Nah. That’s not where I’m going.”

“I hate to burst your ignorant bubble, sir, but yes it is.”

“Nah.”

“You can’t just say, nah."

“Sure I can! Just like you can say all that scientific stuff you just said.”

“It’s not the same.”

“How not?”

“Because you’re being a stubborn child. You’re just saying nah because you don’t like the answer. There’s no evidence to support it.”

“You’re right about the not liking your answer stuff, but I can tell you’re smart enough to recognize a grown man’s voice when you hear it.”

“And I can tell you are dumb enough to turn your back on the facts.”

“Now why you gotta get all mean about it? We’re just talkin’.”

“EXACTLY, and I’d rather be sleeping.”

“That’s what that hole next to your grandpappy is for. Humor me for a little longer.”

“Why don’t you humor me for once?”

“How do you suppose I do that?

“Tell me where YOU are going.”

Marshall mentally crosses his arms in total self-assurance.

“Well, to be honest, I don’t know what’ll happen to me once I die anymore than those wigglin’, screamin, and pissin’ little things in the nursery know what’s comin’ to them once they pop out of their mamas’ vaginas, but I like to hear other people’s opinions about it.”

“Well, you’ve heard mine.”

“I sure have.”

“And how do you like it?”

“I don’t.”

“Then I’m sorry for wasting your bar stool.”

“Bar stool?”

Marshall wishes he could throw his hands up in frustration.

“The airport bar metaphor.”

“Oh, right. No way, José Cuervo. You’ve been excellent company.”

“I doubt it.”

“Seems like you do that a lot.”

“Such is science.”

“I suppose so. Anyway, it looks like your plane is fixin to take off.”

Marshall notices the increasing speed of the beeps coming from his heart monitor.

“Fly safe,” says the stranger.

Marshall ignores his well wishes and focuses fully on the rhythm of his heart.

“And remember, every flight lands somewhere,”

The beeps meld into a constant squeal. Marshall squeezes his eyes shut like he’s plunging into a swimming pool. His breathing stops, the sound fades, and he wonders where he’s going.


Written by: Mark Killian
Photograph by: Jaemin Riley

Origins

Items confiscated from a Fairy-American arrested for fixed-gear biking under the influence of gluten-free alcohol. Jaemin Riley, The Disassociated Press

If you're not sure, think it silly, or are one of those individuals who's been rigorously tuned by scientific reason and deductive logic to dismiss those things which might be called “magic” or “mystic,” then this account may not be for you. But if you give me a chance, I may convince you that fairies do exist.

Our concept of fairies, like so many things deemed magical, has become warped and disfigured over time. The horrendous actions of fairies have been skewed by fiction writers of the past and present to conceal their true, fiendish nature. For example, Tinkaret, or Tinker Bell, the mad kidnapper of lost children; or Sióg na bhfiacla (original Gaelic), The Tooth Fairy, clepto connoisseur of human molars and bicuspids. These new characterizations were created primarily to ease the integration of dwarf folk into society after the great dwarf massacres of 1609, which is interesting because dwarves aren't necessarily magical and fairies aren't necessarily small. However, the kind portrayal has had more ill effects than good as many dwarves are forced to work demeaning holiday and birthday performance jobs. Recently, a resurgence in distrust and fear of the dwarfish folk has been fueled by Peter Dinklage's role in the television series “Game of Thrones.” Many dwarves have deemed his performance incredibly empowering. That will be the only mention of the series, hand to God.

Fairies, or “good people” as the Irish refer to them, originate from the Celtic Islands – Ireland primarily. The Irish call fairies the "good people" because they're absolutely terrified of pissing them off. Fairies are spiteful little monsters. According to Irish historical documents, fairies have been known to cripple, maim, and curse for the most insignificant of transgressions. They mock families who have lost infant children, they torture the elderly for watering their flowers too heavily, and they've even killed a few people. Fairies, the real ones, are no joke. Some believe that the confusingly adorable, sarcastic character of the Irish evolved from being forced to cope with the surreal circumstances of living every waking moment in fear of offending these action-figure-sized (though not necessarily) beings who exist beyond the realm of normal observation. Such a life would drive anyone to drink, and probably worse, but the Irish are a resilient and clever people.

In recent years, reports of fairy-caused chaos are scarce. Fairies have seemingly disappeared, and are known contemporarily as cute, miniature angels that make orphan dreams come true. Though, every so often you hear of an individual who has suffered stranger-than-fiction tragedies for no apparent reason - obvious fairy meddling (not debatable). According to some, the long time lack of fairy meddling is due to the majority of fairies attempting to assimilate into common society. I wouldn't claim to understand the how and why of it, but I suppose such is the nature of magic – unfathomable, and certainly unfalsifiable.

Before discussing fairy integration, some fairy characteristics:

C1. Fairies are extremely territorial. This includes music, culture, and geographical locations.

C2. Fairies enjoy mocking mortal culture, but one should never mock theirs - hypocrites.

C3. Fairies do not handle criticism well, i.e., “fairies are not wrong, ever.” - every fairy.

C4. Fairies dress funny. Funny hats, goofy shoes, fairies just look funny, which is why it is often difficult to take them seriously.


1958, Bobby Fischer wins the United States Chess Championship, and the robust melting pot that is the United States is beginning to find some semblance of harmony – a suitable environment for fairy integration ground zero. The first attempt, a child prodigy named Theodore Kaczynski, is accepted to Harvard at the age of 16. Ted excelled in the field of mathematics and would even go on to teach at the University of California, Berkeley. Ted, the first man-adapted fairy, was to be a success, but then things went terribly wrong. Like some inverted Frankensteinian experiment, Ted suddenly went rogue on society. Ted, or the "Unabomber" as he will be forever remembered, was eventually captured, and the inherent anti-social nature of fairies would eventually be numbed via better cultural acclimation programs, but the first fairy-humanity merging attempt was, by all accounts, a tremendous failure. Luckily, only a few people lost their lives. In response to these events, the Fairy Federal Emergency Management Agency (FFEMA), a secret sub-agency of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), was created specifically to manage fairy-caused chaos. The agency consists of two middle-aged men who write a great deal of Tolkien fan fiction.

By the 1990's, fairies were starting to find their footing. The punk/grunge “scene” provided the perfect environment for new Fairy-American citizens to begin anew. Fairy-Americans found camaraderie and comfort in the new anti-establishment movement, and they've been here ever since.

Today, we know Fairy-Americans as Hipsters. Yep, that's where they came from, and all of that Kerouac, hip cat, jazzy bullshit had nothing to do with it. Are all hipsters assimilated magical creatures? Of course not. Some of them are just posers, or remnants from that great time in the 90's, but they all fit that fairy character mold pretty snugly. Though, if you're not sure if your company is fae or mortal, try the following: Abruptly interrupt the potential candidate dressed in a vintage care bear t-shirt, suspenders, lensless specs and a unicorn stickered fedora (C4) who is probably carrying most, if not all, of the items above, and is uninformatively discussing, a place/band/activity you've never heard of (C1) by asking, "What's so great about it?" When they mock you for not knowing, and begin their tired diatribe against mainstream culture (C2), calmly claim, "That is utter horse shit." Now, right before they snap back at you with rants concerning your ignorance and irrelevant allusions to works and authors they've read about on Wikipedia (C3), yell, "Fairies don't exist!" And slam your beverage down on a hard surface three times fast. They will either shrivel up and die, or wander off in a confused state of horror. Regardless, terrible conversation ended. Cheers.

Written by: Hunter Hirsch

Photograph by: Jaemin Riley

Hoodoo

"I brought this," Tony pulls out a package and unwraps the chicken foot as though it is precious treasure. In fact, it is raw offal dangling from twine.

"Damn, man, what's that for?" Jamal reels back like the foot is the most disgusting thing he has ever seen.

"Good luck," Tony shrugs. "It means good luck, right?"

"Naw, man - that's a rabbit foot," Jamal laughs.

"What's this?" Craig emerges from the alley, and the wind wails his arrival. He fingers the twine and shakes his head. "This is some hoodoo shit, Tony-o!"

Jamal and Tony lean in close to listen to what Craig will say next. His family is old NOLA, hanging on with sheer Southern stubbornness and tracing their roots back from Craig through the Jazz Age, Reconstruction, and, if Anne Rice adaptations are to be believed, when vampires had Tom Cruise's crazy charm and Brad Pitt's bone structure.

"Gramma's big into hoodoo, you know? She told me once a chicken foot is like, a protection charm," Craig says, "Not exactly good luck, but probably better for us if shit goes down."

If shit goes down. Tony thinks about the bad reception on his mom's tv set, grainy static interspersed with satellite images and doomsday prophets in the form of news anchors and politicians.

If shit goes down. Jamal pictures Big Ray and his swagger; Jamal sees the man’s face, an unfazed mask devoid of remorse every time the police arrest him.

If shit goes down. Craig remembers Gramma's stories of the past Big Easy, how families can float without a care in the world and then spiral down the drain as quick as dirty bathwater.

"Y'all still want to do this?" Craig's voice has the unmistakable shake of nerves and fear.

"Where'm I gonna go, motherfucker?" Jamal barks. "Ain't got money to leave, ain't got another place to stay."

"Yeah," Tony chimes in, his voice a tinny echo after Jamal's baritone bravado. "I came home and Mama won't leave, says the place'll stay up. I try to tell her what the people on the TV say, but she won't listen."

Come with me, please!
No, Antonio, no. It's safe here.

"Fuckin' language barrier," Jamal says, as though it can boil down to that.

"We should go," Craig says.

                                                                                                          ***

"I should have stayed," Tony says during a moment of relative quiet. The light is dim and the air is thick with humidity. Years later, they would tell people they were in danger of slowly suffocating in the Superdome, and the only thing that ever cut through the heavy air was the stench of rot and disregard, poor planning and impossible expectations.

"You can leave if you want, Tony-o," Craig replies. He does not say it with the anger or malice Tony expected. "If you're worried about your mom, it's the right thing to do."

Tony realizes he thought less of Craig than he should, and feels bad that it took a literal disaster to recognize this.

They have been in the Superdome for three days, and something has changed among the three friends: they will always be fellow survivors, bound by the knowledge they were once refugees in their own home.

"Yeah, but can you leave?" Jamal asks. There is a slow, unhealthy wheeze in his breath that makes everyone nervous. "They say there's already looting, but you know that's ridiculous. If you're taking food and cases of water, that's not looting; that's survival."

"You don't know what's going on out there," Craig says.

"I know no one's wading out for some DVD players when there's no electricity and no black market," Jamal retorts.

"Do you think she's okay?"

Craig and Jamal stop bickering and exchange glances in the dim light. Jamal coughs and the search for an un-empty water bottle in the ration kits distracts them from answering: no, probably not.

They don't have anything to steal, so they don’t catch anyone’s interest until the fifth day.

"Diablo," the old man says to Tony, pointing a crooked finger at the chicken foot. The old man looks like he may keel over any second.

"Oh, shit," Jamal whispers.

"Why didn't he throw that thing away?" Craig says. "Maybe that's adding to the smell."

Tony tries to explain to the old man, to reason with him, but everything sounds stupid: see, I abandoned my mom because she refused to leave, but I took this chicken foot for good luck, and then it turns out that a rabbit foot is good luck, and maybe I shouldn't have thought hacking off the limbs of small animals was good, period.

The old man has the crazed, delirious look of near-death in his eyes, like Greek mythology and the Fates--Atropos grasping the old man's thread of life. She'll sever it at any moment. Craig doesn't know the words that slip from Tony's cracked lips, but he can see the same panic that Grandpa had at the end. There is no reasoning with Death.

A stout black man approaches the group. Jamal bristles; they're now attracting attention.

"What's this? You piss him off?" The man says. Jamal doesn't care that his shirt is stained with sweat; it's the dried blood that has him worried, and that look he's seen from Big Ray so often: defiance and cool cruelty. This new guy doesn't care about the old man; he wants to fight.

The tense undercurrent was bound to surface, and no one is surprised when someone falls to the ground. The surprise, at least for a moment, is that it is Tony who throws the first punch.

Craig knows they only have a temporary advantage, so he kicks the fallen man in the ribs, eliciting muffled cries.

Jamal watches the chicken foot whip through the air and connect with the man's face again and again. Blood covers the tiny claws like nail polish and scarlet stains the twine.

Shit goes down.


Written by: Erin Justice
Photograph by: Jaemin Riley

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

Fake Soldiers

With fake soldiers in fake armies, we fought over fake boundaries, rivers, mountains, and countries. Our fake generals led men on fake horses into fake battle, and the roll of the digital dice decided who stayed alive and who died on the electronic battlefield made up, at its core, of ones and zeros. On December 31st, 1999, my older brother and I, in our mid twenties, played RISK, the game of world dominance, on my Playstation 2. We retreated to our cabin at the edge of Yellowstone Park on the Idaho and Wyoming border with enough wine, beer, and potato chips to make it through the apocalypse. It was the eve of the Y2K disaster, when the world’s computers would send nuclear missiles into the air, where the World Bank and credit history of all the world’s people would crumble, and where fires would spark from the fingertips of civilized people thrown back into savagery without computers. Walls of snow, stacked five to six feet tall, surrounded the little cabin. The tops of baby trees peeked out from the snow, their lives too short to stand above the wintery ground like their elders that stretched up to the blue sky and, during the day, sliced the snow with their shadows. The sun dropped down behind the mountains before five p.m., and clouds drizzled more snow onto the already thick base that covered the ground. It was cold outside, but inside, the fire burned.

Two cigars sat on the end table near the sliding glass doors that opened up to the deck. They would be saved for midnight.

In the mid 1980s, my brother beat me at everything. It didn’t matter what we played, he had the upper hand, and as most older brothers do, he played the upper hand with a lot of weight. He bankrupted me in Monopoly — I went for the fat pigs on Wall Street -- Park Place and Boardwalk -- while he became the slumlord of the Avenues (Baltic, Mediterranean, Oriental, etc.), stacked up hotels, and made the district right after “GO” a money pit for my flying shoe. He outwitted me at UNO. He knew when to back things up, when to keep things going, and when to turn one of the wild cards I had saved up all game into my own demise.

One day, sitting on the floor of his bedroom, bored in the late days of summer when the 103-degree heat finally pushed us indoors, my brother laid RISK out on the floor. I was sick of losing, so earlier that year I vowed to never place another soldier in harm’s way. Hadn’t I killed enough men? Hadn’t I waged pointless battles on imaginary borders that never ended in peace? Countless lives of men thrown to the ground on the whims of their leaders who looked down on them from the comfort of a carpeted room in the middle of summer. Hadn’t I learned my lesson? No matter how much I fought, I would always lose it all, eventually being pushed into exile with no capital or government or land to call my own.

“Let’s play RISK,” he said. His eyebrows and lips turned upward with the vision of another imminent victory and the slaughter of my men.

“No,” I said. “I’m not playing again. I always lose.”

“Come on. What else are you going to do?” he asked. At the time, he was right. “I’ll even spot you Australia.”

My greed welled up inside of me. I could own a continent right from the start. I would own all its extra armies. I could demolish Indonesia and its people with two turns.

“I’m in,” I said, thinking he had sealed his own fate.

I owned Australia, and with much bravado, I pushed forward into Indonesia and Thailand before his Asian forces punished me on the Indian mountains and forced my troops backward. Then the onslaught came in full force, and within two turns, he had vanquished my armies, rolling the dice and his forces across the globe, pushing me out of Kansas and Ontario, cornering and conquering me on the Sahara, and, one army by one army, killing my Australian stronghold until I had one guy standing on Cape Pasley, begging for mercy. I had enough, and instead of waving my white flag with honor, I flipped the entire board upside down, tossing armies across the room, into the AC vent, onto piles of dirty clothes, and beneath my brother’s bed. I was done losing. If I couldn’t conquer the world, I couldn’t handle the thought of anyone else doing it. It was supposed to be mine, all mine.

“You cheated!” I yelled, the world upside down at my feet.

“I can’t cheat,” he said calmly, which made me even angrier. “The dice do what they do. I’m just better.”

“You cheated,” I yelled. Then I stormed out of the room and vowed to never play him again.

In 1999, some people far away from our secluded cabin partied, some sang along with Prince, some prayed, some hid in shelters, and others slept without worries — midnight in 1999 had finally come. We held our controllers in our hands and watched our armies fight on the screen. Our brains floated in a bath of wine, and our game of RISK had yet to be completed. We knew the game could stretch out for many more hours, so my brother grabbed the cigars from the table, and we walked out onto the snow-covered deck and beneath the moon. The cold surrounded us. It was quiet, very quiet, like there-wasn’t-another-soul-for-miles quiet. My brother looked at his watch and counted down to the end of the millennium, a slow methodical count that added to the feeling of seclusion. We knew that if things really did go to hell that night that we would be together out there in the wilderness.

“It’s time,” he said.

“Let’s do this,” I said. I wish I would have said something less cheesy, but none of us really believed in Y2K.

He handed me one of the cigars, lit his own in his mouth, and then handed me the lighter. I clumsily lit mine and inhaled the rich smoke into my lungs. It warmed my gut. We stood in silence for a few minutes. Snow flickered on its descent. At the end of my cigar, I saw the bright red flame that circled the cigar edges like the sun burning at the edges of a solar eclipse, bright reds sparking out from behind the curved edge, but beyond the cigar, no fires burned, no sirens screamed, and no missiles cut through the sky. We stood in the snow until the cigars burned down to the edges of our index fingers and thumbs. Then we walked back into the cabin to play a game between brothers.




Photograph by: Jaemin Riley
Written by: Kase Johnstun

Lord Guan's Altar

“Detective Li, I just got a domestic violence call over at Redemption Towers. The patrol officer in the area is busy following up on an armed robbery. Do you mind watching the front desk while I look into it?”

It was 3:00 AM. It’d been months since Li had requested the shift change, but he was still unaccustomed to his new hours. He was restless, the prospect of manning the intake desk was unappealing. “I’ll take care of it,” he replied.

The Towers were a pair of government-subsidized residential buildings in Western. They were colloquially called Redemption Towers because the aggregate criminal record of its inhabitants rivaled that of Hong Kong island’s entire population. Naturally, the Towers were a hive for triad activity, so domestic violence calls were not unusual. The sidewalks leading to the Towers were swollen and cracked with age—damaged and neglected with no prospect for repair. Li sidestepped the disrepair and ignored the wary glances he received from residents as he made his way up Tower East.

The door to apartment 5B was askew and opened into a small kitchen, where the cabinets had been emptied. A doorway on the right led to the apartment’s sole bedroom. Alice was alone, sitting hunched on a twin-sized bed amidst a sea of debris from what appeared to have been dinner plates. She stared blankly at Li as he tiptoed his way towards her. A fresh bruise was forming on the left side of her swollen face and a streak of dried blood was smeared across her upper lip. She wasn’t crying, nor was there any indication that she had been.

“Let’s get you to the hospital,” Li said. She grabbed her purse and followed him out without a word.

The drive to the hospital was a hushed one and it wasn’t until she came out of the doctor’s office, cleaned and bandaged, that she finally broke her silence in the waiting room where Li was sipping lukewarm coffee.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

Back at the precinct, Alice was cautious in her narrative. Her boyfriend, a low-ranking member of the Three Brothers Triad, had beaten her. He’d discovered that she’d been stealing from him. But that’s where her story stopped—she refused to give up his identity and had no desire to press charges. The silence that Li had previously managed to dispel now persisted.

Alice was staring at a small desktop altar that sat above an old, dusty television in Li’s office.

“Do you believe he protects you?” She was referring to the ceramic icon of Lord Guan, angry and red-faced.

After a pause, Li replied, “No, I’d given up on gods a long time ago. After losing a wife and son to the triads, there’s not much energy left over for faith. That’s why you shouldn’t protect your boyfriend.”

She ignored his admonition. “Ironic isn’t it, Lord Guan, god of war, patron saint to cops and crooks alike. My boyfriend burns incense to him every morning. I’m sure your officers do the same.”

Alice continued, “How’d they die?”

“Who?”

“Your wife and son.”

Li was silent.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t pry,” Alice said.

“No, it’s alright. It’s supposed to be healthy to talk about one’s tragedies. My wife was kidnapped and shot—the price she paid for being married to a cop. And my son, well, death isn’t the only way you can lose a loved one to the triads…”

When Li realized he wasn’t going to coax any more out of her about her boyfriend, he drove her home.

It was early afternoon by the time Li’s shift ended. He stopped for dinner at Ang’s House of Curry and a cup of tea at Harmony’s before heading home. He was a regular at both spots. Routine, the doctor said, would help.

At home, he went straight to bed but was unable to fall asleep despite his exhaustion. There was an umbra of stubborn daylight illuminating the heavy curtains he had installed in a futile effort to imitate darkness. As Li lay in the stifling heat of the Hong Kong summer, he wondered if he would ever sleep again. He had changed his work schedule because of sleeplessness, which he attributed to the unbearable silence of the night. He hoped the urban frenzy, which broadcasted itself through his walls, would comfort him by mimicking the sounds his home had lost. It did not.

In his most sleepless moments, his mind wandered. Today, it was Alice. For hours he couldn’t shake the image of her milk-white innocence and fragility and the dark bloodied stains her gangster boyfriend had defiled her with.

Soon, Li was outside Tower East, coffee in hand. It was late afternoon. Sunglasses shielded his bloodshot eyes, burning in the way fatigued eyes do, from the sun. Each time he blinked, Alice’s face flashed before him. Blink. She’s smiling at him teasingly as her loose t-shirt flutters in the breeze. Blink. She’s looking down coyly as she combs her hair back behind her left ear. Blink. Her bare legs move back and forth as she shuffles her feet. Blink.

The air in the stairwell was stagnant. Beads of sweat trickled down Li’s neck and into the collar of his shirt as he made his way up to apartment 5B. The door was unlocked. Alice’s boyfriend was in the kitchen with his back facing the front door. Li heard shuffling in the bedroom—Alice. Blink.

The pistol quivered in his trembling hands as his exhaustion began manifesting itself. He pulled the trigger, striking the boy in his lower back. Alice appeared from the bedroom, letting out a bloodcurdling scream, “NOOOOO!”

As the boy’s legs buckled beneath the weight of his distorting body, he turned, revealing himself to Li. Li’s heart shuddered as he leapt towards the boy, in Alice’s arms now.

Li cried, “Danny? Danny?!”

He had lost his son twice now and there was cold comfort in the fact that he would never lose him again.

Photograph By: Jaemin Riley
Written By: Sam Chow

Rosamund Parker

“I heard there are alligators in these swamps.”

“Bullshit,” I reply. “Maybe further east but not here. Someone would know if they were here.”

Like royalty, Big Jonny and I sit surveying our kingdom, drinking beer we are too young to buy. This is Texas and we are celebrating our country’s independence. There are parties scattered around the lake, pods of the American semi-nude, and as the sun goes down the water acts like a mirror reflecting the sky. The image is of twin suns stacked like bunk beds, one on top of the other. In this twilight, I am dreaming of Rosamund Parker.

“Fuck alligators,” I mutter. “I’ve got more important shit to deal with. She doesn’t even know my name.”

She doesn’t even know my name, Jonny sings. He sounds like a fine country singer. I love her, and she doesn’t even know my name.

“I’m serious,” I say, “It’s pathetic.”

Big Jonny nods and chugs his beer. He finishes and leans back in his orange lawn chair that’s worn out like blue jeans, and casually crushes the empty can between his big sausage fingers. Jesus, I think, those fucking hands could crush a skull.

As for Rosamund Parker, her beauty is refreshing like an oasis in the desert. She wears big, rangy glasses, and has brown eyes, and looks very serious until she smiles. She seems to have this Miles Davis cool about her, though to be honest I don’t know anything you can’t observe from a distance. I study Rosamund Parker like one would study a Great White shark. She is mildly popular at school and moves graciously among the groups that bunch the hallways. She smokes with the freaks, lunches with the nerds, and parties with the jocks. She’s the consummate lead in school plays and in third grade she punched Sally Jenkins in Social Studies, letting everyone know, even then, she was not to be trifled with. For whatever reason, she does this all with siren-like blue hair. Troll Doll hair. She has freckles that go great with anything and if I were a different person leading a different life she would be my girlfriend.

Big Jonny smashes another beer can, this time with his cowboy boot. The cicadas soundtrack the night and there are teenage shouts from the party nearby.

“Best get on with it,” Big Jonny drawls. “I suppose she will be here, big party and all.” And here he begins to sing again, passionately and embarrassingly.

I can feel it cu-ming in the air tonight…hold on!

“Nice, Phil Collins,” I mumble.

I’m nervous at the party, drinking too much and stealing glances at Rosamund Parker. I know this is my last chance as she’s soon leaving for college. The stage is set and now the requisite fright is setting in. To soothe the nerves, Big Jonny suggests a keg stand, and it’s fresh off this keg stand that I find myself surrounded like a press conference, offering explanations.

“I just kept drinking,” I say. “Nothing else to it.”

“That was the longest I’ve seen,” says a cute blonde girl, and then from the back of the crowd a muffled, “That’s what she said.”

And finally, between the laughs, “Your name is Stan, right?”

I turn to find Rosamund Parker. She’s grasped my arm. I panic.

“What?”

Slowly, she replies, “Stan. Right?”

“Right,” I say. “Stan.”

She doesn’t smile at me, but she doesn’t take her eyes from mine either. Instead, she squints at me as if I’m far away. I think she is the most beautiful, most drunk creature I’ve ever seen.

“Rosamund,” she says. “Rosamund Parker.”

That night we slept together. It was my first time, and as it turned out, her last.

As time has taken an eraser to my memories, I’ve lost many of the details. Perhaps the incredible nature of the morning that followed somehow dulled the preceding night – like trying to see in the dark after turning off the light. As it is, I remember snapshots of the nocturnal tryst that even when pieced together reveal only the corners of a puzzle.

I remember her pink bra crumpled on the ground, the feel of her hipbones to my fingers, and how she attacked my ear with her teeth. I remember the sound of sticks breaking as we rolled in the dirt, and her sweaty palms as she led me through the darkness of the woods to seclusion. Most of all, I remember her blue hair.

In the morning I’m awakened by screams. The sound leaves no time for a fuzzy adjustment period but even standing and awake I can’t believe my eyes.

Rosamund Parker is being dragged. Only her torso is visible. She is wearing my pearl snap shirt and the look on her face, years later, will keep me staring at ceilings for nights on end. There is a grating sound, like something being crunched and torn at the same time, and the sound sparks one excruciatingly obvious thought.

This is Rosamund Parker being eaten by an alligator.

Before I’ve taken a step, the gator has her in the water. There is thrashing, screaming, choking, crying, and ripping. The last I see of her is the hair, but really it’s over before it even began.

In the moments following, there is an eerie calm as I take in my surroundings. I am on the shore of a swamp and the water is low and muddy. Surprisingly there is no blood, as if nothing out of the ordinary has happened. In the coming days I know there will be questions and newspaper stories, national interviews, and a Jaws-like hunt for the killer beast. They’ll eventually find bits of her in the animal’s stomach, and remnants of a toenail will acquit me of murder.

It was my sixteenth summer. A summer of firsts. The shade fought the heat, the bugs stretched their wings, and nature laid Rosamund Parker to rest.

Photograph by: Jaemin Riley
Written by: Logan Theissen

Blue Car

Note: the author would like to dedicate this story to his aunt and uncle, Donna and Donald Creer.

It was the bane of Carl’s existence. It kept him up at night, and when he finally fell asleep, it haunted his dreams. It mocked him. It confused him. It sparked his curiosity and stole his heart.

That. Blue. Car.

Carl’s first memory was of him scaling a chair, getting on the tips of his toes, and looking at it through the kitchen window. Not once did anyone get inside, wash it, or pay it any mind. It drove him nuts.

Through the years he’d grown familiar with the unfamiliar car. He knew how long it was: 159 inches. He knew its exact color: Pantone 14-4481. He knew how the sun made the hubcaps shine like diamonds. But most of all, he knew nothing.

That was going to change tonight.

“I’m going to dinner with some of my girlfriends tonight, Carl. Do you think you’ll be fine by yourself for a couple of hours?” asked his mom.

Carl tried to hide his excitement as he coolly nodded his head. He’d been begging his mom to let him stay at home alone for a few months, and his perseverance had finally paid off. Since the divorce, she didn’t get out much anymore. To Carl, it seemed like she was always at work or at home – and he was right.

With his mom out of the house, Carl had the opportunity to stake out the blue car for longer than he ever had before. When he was younger, he used to sneak into the kitchen late at night to see what the car was up to. One time, his mom walked in on him and immediately burst into tears. He misses his dad so much that he’s looking for him out the window, she thought.

Being older and wiser, Carl was better at sneaking out of his room at night, but with one eye on the car and the other on his mom’s bedroom door, it was too stressful. Besides, other than the car, the only constant in Carl’s life was his relationship with his mom, and he didn’t want to risk making her cry again.

Carl’s mom paced the apartment. She was a tornado carrying debris of excitement, worry and anxiety.

“Don’t open the door for anyone, don’t leave the apartment and don’t stay up late watching the fuzzy channel,” she told him before she kissed him on the forehead and walked out the door. Carl wiped away the kiss residue as soon as he heard the locks click. He usually didn’t mind a good forehead kiss, but this one was a weird mix of sweat and lipstick.

He set off to gather materials.

Binoculars? Check.

Lukewarm liter of Mountain Dew? Check.

Fruity Pebbles? Check.

Go time.

--9:12 PM--

Other than witnessing someone step in the dog poop Mr. Jenkins forgot to pick up, there wasn’t anything exciting for Carl to report.

--10:08 PM--

Having so much Mountain Dew on hand proved to be a bad idea. This was never more apparent as Carl watched his pee stream create bubble islands inside the toilet bowl.

--10:44 PM--

Carl shoveled another handful of cereal into his mouth. He knew his time was running out. His mom could walk through the door at any second. He dug into the cereal box hoping to find a toy inside. The noise managed to drown out the sound of a car starting, but it couldn’t muffle the screeching tires that followed.

Carl’s head popped up just in time to see a blur head down the street. He jolted out of his chair and clumsily watched the blue car turn right on Clark St. through the wrong end of his binoculars.

“Oh-my-god-Oh-my-god-Oh-my-god-Oh-my-god-Oh-my-god-Oh-my-god-Oh-my-god!” was all he could manage to say. 

To keep up with his mind, he began to pace like his mom. The decision to chase after the car on his bike was easy once he came to terms with what would happen if his mom came home and didn’t find him. 

Just in case, he rushed into his room, balled up some clothes, and put them

under the covers to make it look like he was sleeping. If his mom was preoccupied enough to think Carl was three feet tall with a lopsided head, it just might work. He downed the rest of his Mountain Dew and took off. 

He felt boundless as he sped down Clark St. He had never been this close to solving the mystery of the blue car. He had never felt this free. The cold night air stung his eyes as he scanned the street. He was so focused, so excited, so willing to do whatever it took, that he didn’t mind the pee running down his leg and onto his bike pedals. The Mountain Dew had gotten him this far; the rest was up to him.

He stopped to rest.

He asked himself half-jokingly, “If I were a mysterious blue car, where would I go?”

A familiar noise nudged at his ear, shaking him from his personal interrogation. It was something stronger than a giggle but not quite a laugh. He stood stiff, hoping to hear it again. Then, to his right, he heard it. This time, he knew exactly what it was.

“Mom?” he whispered to himself.

Carl looked across the street and spotted her draped in the arms of some man he’d never seen before. He pulled her close and they began to kiss.

“Mom?!”

This time he screamed it. She jumped back from the man and searched for Carl. She saw him across the street. His eyes were full of tears. His shirt was drenched in sweat. And his shorts were stained with pee.

His mom took a step, but before she could utter a word, he hopped back on his bike. A cocktail of emotions surged through his body as he sped off. He had chased after a mystery only to stumble upon another, more baffling one. He pedaled faster, riding off to nowhere in particular.




Photograph by: Jaemin Riley
Written by: Justin Grady

Plump Insides

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Don't Look Up

Phil stole cautious glances beneath the desk of his boss’ secretary as he waited to see what this impromptu morning meeting was all about. She rearranged her legs, briefly exposing a floral pattern that reminded Phil of his daughter’s childhood bathing suit. Then he realized the secretary was probably the same age as his daughter. This epiphany stunned him like a cockroach caught under a kitchen light.

Phil immediately lost interest in the secretary’s undergarments, but not before she traced his gaze to her nether regions. He snapped out of his trance to find a look of disgust on her face. He did what any man would do in that situation. He stared down at his dark-leather dress shoes.

For the record, Phil has never let his bouts of lust spill into the real world. He always felt the effort was greater than the pleasure, so he satisfied his sexual needs through monthly rendezvous with his wife and the privacy of his evening shower.

Phil ran all of life’s little decisions through a similar cost-benefit analysis; affairs, meals, children, you name it, he crunched the numbers and came to a logical conclusion. This created a complacent life for he and his family. At least it did, until Pam, his wife, found Facebook.

Their marriage was quite comfortable before Pam discovered that “God-damn-mother-fuckin website,” as Phil referred to it. They had sex at least twelve times a year. They slept in the same bed. They ate breakfast together every morning. Compared to their circle of friends, they were John and Yoko. Then Pam began her virtual high school reunion.

Their nightly dinner conversation shifted from discussing current events to Pam rambling on about her long-lost friends. It was a barrage of pointless information and dangerous comparisons.

“Becky married a lawyer,” Pam would say.

“Good for her,” Phil would respond.

“The Johnstons went to Paris last Christmas,” she would say.

“Good for them.” he would respond.

It went on like that until Pam’s dissatisfaction grew too large for Phil to ignore. He ran the figures and decided it’d be better to give Pam a more enviable life than face their impending divorce. Unfortunately, he wasn’t fit to climb the corporate ladder, and that is exactly why he was summoned for the impromptu morning meeting.

--

Pam scoffed as she scrolled through Samantha, her high-school nemesis’, vacation photos. She spent last Christmas in Paris, the previous summer in Peru and the spring before that in Jerusalem. God had been good to her, and Pam hated him for it.

“How does a preacher’s wife get to travel the world like Carmen Sandiego?” Pam would ask herself, completely overlooking the fact that Samantha and her husband were doing more evangelizing than vacationing.

When she failed to gain a sense of superiority from her former frenemy, she decided to find the boys who brought her into womanhood. The first who came to mind was the captor of her virginity. His name was Ed Redfield and he checked every box of the high school heartthrob stereotype. He was athletic, charismatic and classically handsome. He embodied everything Pam had stopped looking for by the time she agreed to marry Phil, and judging by his profile picture, he still had “it.” What he didn’t have was a wife.

“Single!? That’s shocking,” Pam wrote in her first private message to Ed.

It became the first of many once Ed responded, “I know, RIGHT!? I used to be irresistible!”

Pam conveniently left out Ed when she relayed her Facebook findings to Phil. She stuck with pitting Samantha’s family against her own. She could tell by the tension in Phil’s shoulders that these passive suggestions were getting through to him, but his attempts to improve their family’s financial and social status couldn’t keep up with Pam’s Facebook Feed.

As the weeks progressed, so did Pam and Ed’s virtual flirtations. Their distance made it as harmless as Phil’s panty peeks, until a fortuitous business trip brought Ed within a $20 cab ride of Phil and Pam’s doorstep.

--

The cockroach emerged from the kitchen drain and sought shelter beneath an overturned cereal bowl. It gave a ten count before sticking its antennas out to survey the terrain. Satisfied with the noise level and lack of lighting, it began its ascent to the kitchen counter.

The roach was on a standard reconnaissance mission. Its objective, find a food source and leave a trail of pheromones for the rest of the colony to follow. Like all members of the animal kingdom, aside from humans, survival was its only concern.

The roach bounded from ceramic dish to metal utensil until it successfully breached the rim of the sink. Without a moment of hesitation, it scurried perpendicularly to the floor along the stained-wood cabinet doors.

The kitchen became illuminated by fluorescent light once the roach landed on the faux-mahogany gel mat, as if it had tripped an alarm. It remained motionless as articles of clothing began sailing through the air, sporadically covering the ceramic tiles below.

The roach darted between the shirts, pants and delicates, attempting to reach the living room undetected. It stopped beneath the thin veil of a satin thong after a pair of dark-leather dress shoes appeared in the entryway.

The roach stayed completely still until a nude middle-age woman flung herself off the equally unclothed male she was straddling. Her force sent the man and his chair crashing to the ground in front of the roach.

The roach made a final break for the carpet-lined room. It saw one of the dress shoes lift high out of sight as it passed the fallen man’s head. The roach kept its eyes down and sprinted towards its destination as fast as its legs could carry it.

The roach was lucky to be in motion after the dress shoe returned to Earth. As for the man on the floor, well, he looked up.



Photograph by: Jaemin Riley
Written by: Mark Killian

Die, My Darling: Letter From An Inmate

Dear Sophie,

I want to start off by saying thank you for your letter. I don't really receive many visitors or phone calls these days, so it's always a treat to hear from a kind stranger now and then… even though I rarely ever respond. Perhaps you caught me on a good day.

I read your letter probably 50 times - not because you asked me anything that hasn't already been asked, but just because I like to think hard about things before I write them down. I've always been that way, though - even with talking. I think hard and I talk slow. I'm just going to go down and answer all your questions in the order that you wrote them.

My childhood: Well, as you probably already heard, my family didn't have much when I was growing up. We never stayed at one place for too long, and we moved to a different apartment almost every year. (The media and DA would use this as evidentiary support for my "instability".)My parents worked very hard to support my brother and me, but they both worked fairly low-paying jobs. To this day I take more pride in being the daughter of a school teacher who delivered pizzas on the weekends than if I were the daughter of a billionaire who sat on his ass all day. Myparents’ strength taught me not to feel sorry for people. They taught me the importance of manual labor and the pride that goes into earning a dollar. My mother's gambling problem resulted in me being excellent at maintaining my finances. I would save money to go on trips to different countries - I love traveling.

Was I abused as a child? Yes. I already know where you're going with this. "Maybe if she hadn't been abused, or maybe if her parents made more money, she wouldn't be in prison for murder." I'm not sure what to tell you. I murdered someone. And the fact that I was sexually abused as a child is just a coincidence. Some people like to use their trauma and abuse as an excuse for their own lack of common sense, but the truth is, I know what I did was a crime. It's not that I don't feel bad about it, it's simply something that needed to be done.

Yes, I always did have a fascination with sex crimes and serial killers and the psychology behind it all, which I'm sure is just me subconsciously playing "detective"; symbolically trying to put the pieces together for the illnesses of my family and why I fell victim to such an unfortunate crime as a child. It's true, my upbringing is extremely similar (and in some cases worse) to that of some of the famous serial killers of the last century. Unfortunately, I will be made a stereotype for this. "If you're abused as a child, you're going to end up killing people." It's not true. I always knew better. I guess there are just some people in this world who can't cut a break.

Did I really murder my husband? Well since you asked so nicely….

I'm just going to lay it all out there for you, Sophie. I'm not crazy. There were never any voices inmy head telling me to kill this person or that person. I never fantasized about killing anyone. I simply did what I needed to do because I wanted to survive.

The whiskey took him a few years before, and the man who used to be my husband had become a monster. He was cruel and physically violent towards me. There were more than several occasions when I believed, with every part of me, that he was going to kill me. I waited for him to kill me, until I couldn't wait anymore. My husband, the love of my life, would only return when the monster would go to sleep (pass out, rather). This was the only time he was at peace. This was the only time I was stronger than him. This was when I killed him.

It was painful. I had even thought that perhaps we could die together. He looked like the man I loved, but he wasn't. The man I loved was gone.

Why wasn't the hammer ever found? Well, first of all, yes - it was a hammer. But I don't know why it was never found and I couldn't tell you what happened to it.

How does it feel to murder someone?

I should disclose that nothing I could say will ever make you understand exactly what it's like to kill someone. Sometimes I actually have to remind myself of what I did. Murdering someone… it's interesting. Once it happens, you're no longer who you were. You become a different person. It's like you're reborn. I've read some creepy shit about men murdering women one after the other so that they could "cleanse" themselves and continue to start off on a clean slate with every dead body they racked up. That's not the kind of reborn I'm talking about. I mean, when you murder someone, you're kind of murdering yourself, too. You will never again be who you were. La mort n'a peut-être pas plus de secrets à nous révéler que la vie? Hm...

How do I feel now? Everyday is a bit of a waiting game. Before, I wouldn't have known what to do with myself, and I probably wouldn't have been able to handle it. I try not to think much, and I try not to feel much. I've made a couple of friends here, I study languages, and I enjoy reading. I lift weights, too.

Well, I hope this letter was helpful to you, and I hope you do well on your presentation. It sounds like a very interesting class. Have you written any other inmates? Perhaps I know them. Ha - bad joke.

Sincerely,
Q

P.S. - No, I hate Kerouac.

Photography by: Jaemin Riley
Written by: Rebecca Lee