The Power of Water

Maddie crouched at the riverbank on a small overlook. Brown water hissed around the rocks in front of her, foaming white, choking the edges of the river heavy with recent rains. She was never leaving. She would become a hermit, fish and hunt for game; the latter would provide food as well as warmth. Never mind that she had no taste for venison or bobcat or coyote. Loners – outcasts, weirdos – did what they must.

A balmy November wind blew at her back, rustling the weeds. Dead leaves curled around her toes. Maddie’s sneakers and socks lay behind her in the grass. She hadn’t meant to take them off. Somehow, though, she felt freer without them, unafraid, like her high school self, the barefooted camp counselor who’d taught the younger kids how to start a cook fire and purify water in this very park. Confident. Admired. Self-assured.

Nothing like the idiot who ran from Kevin earlier today.

Maddie loved Thursday evenings, the only nights that she and Mason both had free. After deciding to meet at five at a local restaurant, Maddie hung up and left the student center. She would shower, change, and finish some homework before leaving. She pushed the door open; cool air rushed around her jacket. In the entryway, a few feet from the door, stood Kevin.

They’d ignored each other since the spring. Maddie pretended he was a ghost, a figment of her imagination, the fading image of a nightmare, but today, she nodded to him.

Kevin slowed. “Oh, hey, Matt.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“You’re all alone. Scared away your new boy toy already?” Kevin stopped. “Must’ve been the lesbo haircut.”

“Fuck off.”

“He’s probably undressing a real girl right now.”

Always, always, always it came back to gender with Kevin. Here at the park, Maddie could fire off a hundred replies: I am a real girl; Mason wouldn’t lower himself to your standards; even if he hurts me, you can’t have me back.

But at school, her words decayed like a dead fish washed up on shore; the noxious fume filled her mouth, her nostrils. Maddie fought a gag reflex.

Kevin laughed. Maddie didn’t stop. She passed the library and the dorms, feet pounding against the sidewalk in a steady run. What kind of god allowed Kevin to corner her like that, with no witnesses?

The same god that made her, obviously.

In the parking garage, Maddie didn’t wait for the elevator; she ran down the stairs. On one jump, she skipped two stairs. Her foot caught the edge and slipped. Her hand wrenched from the railing, and Maddie stared into the abyss -- at the eight remaining steps and the concrete landing below.

If she let herself fall, would she melt into the concrete and disappear like water through a crack?

Maybe it was good balance, from the broken, dead trees over which she crossed rivers, or maybe it was luck, but Maddie stumbled down two more stairs, banging her hip into the metal railing. Breathing hard, she paused for only a moment before hobbling to her car and driving forty minutes to her woods, her river… Home.

Clouds hung in the sky, darkening the river as it lashed against the rocks. It was a battle, the water fighting for more space while the rocks, unmoved, stood in defiance.

Gender was supposed to be easy. But Maddie had always felt more comfortable outside – hiking, swimming, mountain biking, or mowing the lawn. She couldn’t do high heels or make-up. Not a girl, not a boy, Maddie was in between, fluid.

And Kevin hated that. Especially when she’d wanted to shave half her head and trim the other to a bob. “You can’t,” he’d said from the comfort of his dorm bed, leaning against the wall, his legs crossed. “I already feel like I’m dating a lesbian.”

Maddie rocked herself side to side in his wheelie chair. “What are you talking about?”

“You used to wear all those pink, lacy shirts for me. Why did you stop? Don’t I try for you? Don’t I dress up and bring you flowers?”

“You’re not dating my clothes.”

“All of a sudden, you dress like a man, and now you want to cut your hair. It’s like you want to be a guy. I date girls, Maddie.”

“You’re supposed to love me no matter what.”

“Don’t my needs matter to you?” Kevin asked.

They did. He wouldn’t be happy with her, so Maddie broke up with him. In his taunts afterward, Kevin made sure she knew about the “real girl” he cheated with.

The current attacked the boulder before her, bearing a stick; wayward water splashed onto the bank, dribbling across the dry dirt before seeping back into the river.

Maddie’s phone vibrated in her pocket. She’d blocked Kevin months ago, right? He couldn’t harass her, not here, not when there was nothing to stop her from staring into the abyss. The river water churned below her.

It was Mason. Where are you? his text read. Call me. It was five thirty, half an hour past their date.

Ahead was a bend in the river. The water beat against the rocks, brown frothing white before mixing back into the unrecognizable bulk of the river. Maddie stood. Her hip ached, and despite the balmy weather, her bare toes had numbed. On her phone, she typed, I’m sorry. It’s a long story.

But it didn’t matter. In the battle between the water and the rocks, the water – in its everlasting crusade for space, its attacks gentle or crushing depending on the current – won in the end.



Written by: Natalie Schriefer
Photo by: Kayla King

When Nothing Counts

Gore wants to be a stuntman. Delilah wants to come with. Gore keeps telling her it’s not like that, none of the guys were bringing their girls. The policy is a strict No-Girlfriends-Allowed.

The two of them are on the Ferris wheel. It’s stuck again.

“I have to get out of here,” Delilah says, kicking the air as though it were water. “My mother’s driving me crazy. Bessie’s leaving for the convent next week and busy with her replacement sisters, so now it’s just me and Mother…you know last week, she dipped soybeans in bleach and had me hide them in every corner of the house? To kill off the critters, she said…but of course, critters don’t eat soybeans, so now they’re just sitting there, browning, these little rotten poison pills.”

Gore looks out over the fields. The line where the hills meet the horizon looks like it’s been drawn in by a paintbrush. The square red barns, haystacks singed orange, cows on trim green grass—all of it could’ve been inside a production studio. Brought to you by technicolor.

“I’ll make sundaes for us every day. You love my sundaes, Gore.” Delilah takes his arm and nuzzles it. “Sundaes with lime and coconut swirl for dinner, chocolate mousse for dessert.”

The boys in the carriage below are trying to get their attention. They’re banging against the glass with their fists. They’re making lewd signs with their hands. They’re thrusting their hips and wagging their tongues and waving their arms like monkeys.

“Oh, Gore,” Delilah says, her face now buried completely in his chest, “take me away.”

The fire department is assembled at the base of the Ferris wheel. Before the firefighters can begin their rescue, they must raise the ladder—before they raise the ladder, they must navigate the fire truck through the amusement park. Obstacles include: lake-sized patches of mud, roller coaster tracks, two adjacent tilt-a-whirls. Their biggest challenge is the crowd of booths near the entrance—inside these booths, pinstriped employees sit like puppets, looking up at the Ferris wheel as they spool cotton candy out of floss, dip hot dogs in corn batter.

Next to the firefighters stands Ms. Bristol, Gore’s teacher. Ms. Bristol recently advised Gore’s mother to hold him back until he could read at an eleventh grade level. When Gore learned of this, he walked straight to the fairground and played the high striker game until his arms went limp. It was a nice feeling, the hammer coming down. The bell shivering once it was hit. The puck rocketing up, speeding skyward, a ball of mercury in a fever-pitched thermometer.

Ms. Bristol was responsible for today’s last-day-of-school field trip. Over the years she’s chaperoned this event, she’s had to be counselor, arbitrator, nurse—now all she could do was wait, clutch her hands to the rim of her sun hat.

They should’ve closed the ride the last time this happened. The youngest Wilson boy had been alone on it, right at closing. For weeks after, he had nightmares of the circle detaching from its lateral support arms, rolling down the hill, gaining traction like some great hamster wheel. A rumor got around that, since then, the Wilson boy was sleeping with a blankie; the boys who beat him up are the same who, in the carriage below, are pounding heavier. Mouthing more aggressively.

This wasn’t the first time they’d taunted Gore, though their preferred target was his brother with the spine brace. If Gore’s father ever found out about the teasing, he’d show them. Gore’s father, a mechanic, could lift anything. One time he came home late and, arms swinging, scooped Gore in one hand and his brother in the other. Gore remembered his father’s fingers spreading under his ribcage, fitting into the trenches between the bones. When his brother started moaning about his back, and his mother begged for them to be put down, his father only raised them higher—almost to the ceiling, Gore stretched out every muscle in his body, testing his wingspan.

“We can be real adults together, Gore.”

Gore looks at Delilah, startled. Reality’s pretend, he wants to say. A real-life stuntman had once come to the auto body shop, and that’s what he’d said. Gore could tell he was a stuntman just from his muscles—the man could’ve lifted a whole Chevy if he wanted to. While Gore worked on the car, the two of them talked. The stuntman had lots of advice, about Hollywood, about agents, about executing a perfect backflip. At one point, the stuntman tossed some nuts and bolts on the ground like jacks and said, When nothing counts, might as well take a risk.

Delilah draws a heart on the corduroy of his pant leg. “Let’s have a baby, Gore.”

Gore leans forward and presses his hands against the glass. He’d done higher. The fences were around ten. The willow tree in the school ground was about this height, so was the telephone pole. The window of the silo had been even higher, though that leap had ended badly.

He looks back at Delilah—Delilah looks real pretty and plush, there, facing the sunset. They’d been an item for so long, he’d forgotten how nice her features were. Those soft creases on her lips. The rosebuds under her cheeks. Was it the light, or had she started wearing makeup?

The boys below had fogged the glass and, in the cloud, drawn two stick figures—one small Gore-boy, one small Delilah-girl—engaged in something obscene.

Gore looks out and stands. He takes a small step forward, pushing his weight against the glass door until it opens. Wind rushes against his face and neck. He reaches above to steady himself and slings one leg over the sill, then another. Positioning his feet squarely below his shoulders, he tenses his calves for impact.

Last step, Gore thinks, is to close your eyes—close them tight enough to see little stars behind your lids.

“Watch me, Delilah.”

Written by: Frani O'Toole

Photograph by: Siyan Ren

The Gum Wall

An amusement park can collect a horrifying amount of chewed gum over the course of a season. Sure, the regular cleaning crew would scrape off whatever they saw, or more likely, whatever they felt like, during their early morning shifts, but there was always more. This realization hit Dan hard when he pulled the short straw and wound up on gum duty on his last day of work for the year. Dan’s manager handed him and Antwon two long handled metal scrapers and two buckets and ushered them out of the supply closet and into the weak September sun.

“We should start on the wall,” Antwon said as he took off towards the Thunderstorm.

Dan grimaced, “Why? That’ll take forever.”

“Exactly. Better now than three o’clock when the sun will be hitting us right in the face. I had gum duty last year, trust me.”

So Dan trusted him and they went to the edge of the park where the old wooden rollercoaster sat. They hopped over the railings that normally divided riders into a twisting line and went to the front. At some point in the now distant past someone decided to stick their chewing gum to the wall that divided the line and the loading zone, and it started a trend that was still going strong. When Dan rode the coaster for the first time as a scared ten-year-old, his older brother had told him it was like a wishing well. You made a wish and then stuck your gum on the wall. Dan eagerly complied, making a wish that he wouldn’t puke from fear. Now he felt like puking at the thought of all of the chewed gum he was about to get involved with.

“Well, dig in,” Antwon said, expertly scraping the pieces on the far end so that they dropped in his bucket with a tinny plunk.

Dan joined in, trying to mimic the technique, but still having to pick some off the ground with his gloved hand.

“You know these are people’s wishes we’re throwing away, don’t you?” he asked Antwon.

“Yeah, so I’ve heard.” Plunk, plunk, right into the bucket.

“Kind of makes you feel bad, doesn’t it?”

“Nope. If they’re making me work like this, I don’t care if they don’t come true.”

Dan stopped. “Do you think they won’t come true if we scrape them off?”

Antwon rolled his eyes. “No, I think they don’t come true because it’s gum.”

“So you’ve never wished on gum?”

“No.”

“What about on a penny in a fountain?”

“Nope.”

“A shooting star?”

“Listen man, I make my own luck.” Antwon continued scraping, each piece making less and less of a sound as it hit the growing pile in his bucket.

Dan scraped too, but with less enthusiasm. He looked down to the edge of the wall. A dab of neon orange stood out, right as the wall gave way to the platform. He had put it there three months ago. That night, he hung around the park after his shift with his friend Josh. Dan managed to talk him into riding the Thunderstorm three times in a row. Most of it had to do with Marissa, the girl who worked the control booth. On the first two rides he couldn’t catch her eye. But on the third time through the line, he stuck his gum to the wall. Sure enough, when he was loaded into his seat and looked her way, she had seen him. He smiled. She smiled back.

“This stuff isn’t going to fall off by itself,” Antwon said, staring at Dan.

“Right, sorry.” Dan renewed his efforts. His body removed gum, his mind replayed the summer. He had meant to talk to her, but all he managed was an occasional “Hi, how’s it going?” She was always on her way somewhere and he never had anything to say that could keep her in the same spot.

Now his time was almost up. This was the last day for the seasonal crew. As the gum piled up in his bucket he thought up things to say to her, but none of them sounded like they would lead anywhere. He could ask her about her fall semester, or music, or he could just up and ask her out. But then again, his one piece of luck was about to be scraped into a bucket. Dan tried to maneuver his way in front of Antwon, but as the hour wore on they ended up shoulder to shoulder at the edge of the wall. He eyed his orange piece.

“Hey Antwon, how exactly do you make your own luck?” He asked, nervously eyeing his scraper.

“I dunno. Whatever it is I really want, I go after it. Maybe I have to scrape gum to get there, but that’s the price you pay for having dreams, man.” He reached in front of Dan and dislodged the last of the pieces. Dan watched as the little blob of orange fell into the bucket and disappeared among the others. “Come on, I bet we can get Kiddy-Land before lunch.”

Although Kiddy-Land seemed like it would be worse, the regular cleaning crew had obviously paid it more attention, so Dan and Antwon arrived in the staff room early. As he grabbed his lunch bag from his locker, another crew came in. Dan looked up and saw Marissa. He fumbled around for a moment, giving her time to get her things. When she walked past him, he called out to her.

“Hey, Marissa?”

She turned. “Yeah? Dan, right?”

He smiled. “Right. Hey, are you busy after work today? I was going to go out and meet some friends downtown. Do you want to come?”

She hesitated, looking over at the girls waiting for her. “Uh, no, sorry. I’ve already got plans.”

“Oh. Another time, maybe?”

“Yeah, maybe.” She turned and left, faster than she normally moved.

Dan looked down at his lunch, feeling more like puking than eating. A hand clapped him on the back.

“That was rough,” Antwon said, in a laughing kind of condolence. “Come on, let’s eat.” Dan followed him back outside. They sat at the edge of the plaza, Dan keeping his back to the rest of the crew. He sighed a lot and Antwon worked to keep him cheered up. Maybe it was his jokes, or maybe it was just the crisp early fall air, but by the end of lunch he was ready to get back to work. Maybe one morning scraping gum wasn’t enough to get the kind of luck he wanted. But just in case, he got a piece of gum out of his pocket and stuck it in his mouth, chewing it into a perfect, sticky blob.

Written by: Leslie Martin

Photograph by: Jennifer Stevens

Hunting Party

Sunset Cloud loves the way they look, all the different colored wrappers spread out in the snowy glade. You never know what you’re going to get when you pick up one of the brightly-colored coverings. Generally, the bigger containers have more good stuff inside, but not always. Sometimes they have only one human and a bunch of inedible things, but that one human is often the sweet, melt-in-your-mouth kind. Sunset Cloud stays away from the smallest containers, the cramped, only-come-up-to-your-shin ones. They’re inevitably filled with the stringy, beef-jerky humans. She hates those. Old Treebreaker likes those the most, says they keep his jaw strong, but more likely it’s his constant talking. She likes a little fat with her meals. Good for her coat. Alpenglow says her hair shines like the river in the moonlight. Maybe she'll invite him for a swim in the moonlight when the thaw hits.

Treebreaker pushes closer to her. She growls at him, showing fang as she does. "Sorry," he says, continuing past her. She grabs his arm, her claws like daggers on his dull, gray fur. She remembers when it was as bright as the leaves of the aspens before the snow, but that was a long time ago when she could still walk under her mother's legs and her feet were smaller than a human’s. Now she’s the tallest in the clan, and her footprints draw spotters from all directions.

"Don't move.”

He stops, head hung, eyes downcast. She pities him, his strength leached away by the last hundred years. She knows it will be her one day. The more cubs she bears, the more she feels the passing of time and the weight of mortality. So she fights it the only way she knows how--y ensuring that the name of the Sunrise Clan Sasquatch of the Middle Mountains will go down in legend. For too many years the Sasquatches of the Western Water Clan have been preeminent among clans. They hold records for both the closest encounter with humans and for the number of encounters. And don't think they don't brag about that at every gathering. She's getting tired of hearing how they've found the perfect time of day and lighting to show just enough to keep the humans coming back but never enough for absolute proof. And the Western Water Clan is wasteful, too. They eat almost none of the humans they find, preferring to play with them instead. They get the humans all hopped up and excited and then just let them go. Of course, they can live on loggers and bear alone. Food’s a little more scarce here.

Sunset Cloud’s expectations for tonight are sky-high. The last path she made, over rocks and through piles of fallen pine needles with the occasional enormous print just clear enough to get hopes up, was a work of art. The humans started entering the glade an hour or so ago, after a two-day walk from the nearest road. Humans walked slowly and ponderously in the snow. Nightfall forces them to stop and settle. Tomorrow, they’ll get up early to look for her. She counted eleven containers, all bright colors. She could see a few of the humans moving around, doing whatever it is humans did.

A loud shuffling from behind her announces Alpenglow’s arrival. Snow falls from the trees with a soft pitter-patter as he slides to a stop behind her. Muted as the sound is, it still attracts the attention of at least one of the humans in the clearing below.

She grabs Alpenglow, pressing him deeper into the shadows. "Quiet,” she hisses.

He peers around her shoulder. "So many. Are we going to get one tonight? I hear it's easy when they are in their dens. The bears do it all the time."

"That’s why bears get hunted," Sunset Cloud answers.

His mouth opens in an O of understanding, and he nods. He’s not the brightest squatch, but he’s strong and good-looking. She probably should have left him behind on this trip, but the nights are long and cold this time of year. A little company makes them warmer and brighter. His red hair feels silky under her hands as she pats him reassuringly. "Don't worry. We’ll get one tomorrow. After we play with them for a while."

Alpenglow hugs her, smiling, and she leans into him. He’s almost as tall as she is, his feet almost as large. Maybe he would be a good father for her cubs. If she’s lucky, they’ll have his looks and her brains. "Back to the cave," she says. "I'll meet you there after I lay some more tracks."

Alpenglow leaves with a nose nuzzle, Treebreaker with a grumble. She ignores both of them, caught up in the fantasy of knocking the Western Water clan off their high perch. As the sun slips behind the mountains, a flash of light catches her eye. Two humans are watching her from across the snow. The game is on.

From the other side of the glade, the man and he woman watch her go. The man drops his high-powered binoculars. The woman looks through her scope a little longer.

"Should we go after them?" he asks.

“There’s three of them, two of us.”

“But we have guns.” He points his rifle upslope.

“One of them is ten feet tall,” she says.

"Good point. I just can't wait to show up to the BRFO Conference with an actual capture. Screw those Washington guys and their unfocused videos."

“Tomorrow.” She smiles. What he lacks in planning, he makes up for in enthusiasm and looks. "Don't count your sasquatches before they're caught," she cautions.

They head back down to the tents. “I hate winter camping," the guy complains.

“I bet we can find a way to get warm.”

“Now you’re talking,” he grabs her arm, hurrying her.

She looks back up the hill. Tomorrow.

Written by: Amy Wasp-Wimberger
Photograph by: Michael Ken

Enough

“Shot of Patron, gorgeous.” The man cups the back of her thigh with his hand and offers his best high roller smile.

She takes the crisp twenty, leaning in to reach it. He moves his hand up, almost a caress, and inquires when her shift ends. He smells like greasy hair and the sum of the bad decisions that led him to this Blackjack table — up, but not for long. She can see in his wide, gray eyes that he doesn’t have the spine or stomach or soul for this town. Vegas’ll take from him. Whatever he came to find, he won’t.

“Shift just started. Sorry, handsome,” she slides away from his hand, which has now hit the stretchy fabric of her miniskirt. Dangerous territory: that’s what the other women call these microminis, they’re so short.

She knows the man will stare at her ass, barely concealed in black, as she glides to the bar for his shot.

The bartender turns away from her as she walks up.

“Hey,” she says to him, looking at the mirror. Their eyes meet, frigid blue on warm brown. Hers say I’m sorry and his I don’t care.

“Go away,” he says.

It isn’t the response she expects, and he turns to her with rage in his eyes. Still frigid blue, still beautiful, still not enough.

“There are a dozen bars in this building. Go to one of the other eleven.”

“But this is closest — ”

“Figure it out.”

By the time she returns with the shot, the greasy man has multiplied into three more, a hydra of middle-aged douchebaggery.

Her shift lasts another eight hours. There is nothing special about it.

She narrowly avoids all three of the customers who got so shit-faced they puked on the slot machines.

A group of bachelorettes in silk rompers and pink sashes, red-rimmed lips gnawing at the air in search of their plastic phallus straws, call her a slut when she slips into the restroom to readjust her bra straps.

She loses count at the number of hands on her ass, the number of arms that just graze some part of her breasts.

Consent is keeping that goddamned coquettish smile plastered on her face.

She is grateful for the genuine moments, when her eyes grow bright and kind and her smile slips from flirty to friendly. It doesn’t take much.

The other bartender who makes her drinks before everyone else’s, knowing she’s got to hoof it back to her section. The men who say “please” instead of “gorgeous,” “honey,” or “darlin’.” The woman who warned her her shirt was caught on the Roulette table, sparing her a loud, painful rip of separation. When anyone says “thank you” and looks her in the eyes without judgment.

When her shift ends, she walks outside, the cold bite of wind wrapping her in an icy hug. She thinks of the frigid blue eyes, the permafrost that was once her best friend.

This isn’t the life they wanted. Or maybe it is for him. Maybe he wants her away from everyone else, dependent and sullen and broken.

He said he wanted to be a Blackjack dealer, but he was too handsome, too distracting. She didn’t understand, wouldn’t that be better? He had sighed, said she didn’t get it. She shrugged her shoulders and didn’t push. He liked being a bartender. Better hours, better tips. She could try being a cocktail waitress. Wouldn’t it be fun? Wouldn’t it? She refused to sink to that, kept pursuing a dream onstage, illuminated by the house lights.

Dance auditions were brutal, harder than she anticipated. No callbacks. At the last one, her bank account nearly depleted, her teeth clenched so hard her jaw ached, her feet bleeding in her own shoes, she pulled no punches.

“Why not me?”

The men looked at her.

“I know I’m not getting this. You’ll call in a day or week or not at all and I won’t get the job. I just want to know why not.”

“You want it too much. There’s nothing effortless about you. You are weighed down by hopes and dreams and expectations. It shows, and it is distracting.”

After that last audition, one of them approached her with a time and an address. A job that might help her. A strip club. Come in for an audition, you might be good at it. You might be great.

She got as far as the club’s front door, tried to justify it. On stage. House lights. Dancing. A sliver of her dream, just the inedible rind. She turned away. She swore the bouncer out front had given her a nod, permission to say no.

Back in their tiny shared apartment, she looked her best friend in the eye and asked if he thought the cocktail waitress thing could still work out for her, because the dancer thing never would.

She shivers but doesn’t head to the bus stop. The bright gold glimmer beckons her like so many others.

When she walks the Strip, she is not a failed performer, an almost exotic dancer, a cocktail waitress. She is like all of them, seeking something and out to take it. She can be a tourist, living in a vacation from her own life.

But tonight, the illusion doesn’t take. The last part of her is gone, her best friend cleaved from her after he pulled her to him despite the rigid protest of her hands against his chest. His breath, hot and heavy against her shoulder, her neck, her ear. His words, alcohol drowsy but sharp: I want you. Let’s do this, it will be fun.

She shoved him, a hard push. Her eyes, furious. Her words, unforgivable to him: Never. You are not enough for me.

She tilts her head up, an act eclipsing prayer. She will meet her god’s gaze in the heavens and demand an answer.

The casino lights flicker and it is there: bright neon lights that say “Go.”



Written by: Erin Justice
Photograph by: Jen Stevens

Forget It

Seventeen uneven stairs lead up to my apartment. It's hazardous to try and hit them all, one stretching for miles and the next as narrow as a tightrope. I've learned there are also a precise number of steps to reach my heart. Neglect one and I can't forgive the misstep, no matter how hard I try. I blame my mother for that. She taught me to never, ever forget.

Except these days it's literally the only thing she can do.

"Don't move back in with your mother. Your life is spiraling in the wrong direction." Tabby rejects her apartment most nights in favor of mine because the man across the alley from her has started vacuuming in the nude. To salsa music, from what she can make out, and his hip gyrations turn her stomach.

She arrives just as I'm getting off of work, and she helps clean the newspaper ink from under my nails with a utilitarian brush. It's like scrubbing away dinosaur blood, because the print medium is dying and soon no one will recall what it's like to have a story inadvertently transferred to their elbow.

Right now 1950's Lonely Hearts Killer chases a girl across my wrist, but the story races off the edge of a bone, unfinished. Tabby reads the imprint, points to the faded date, and shakes her head.

"You're an archivist. These stories expired. No one cares anymore." Tabby's world view starts and ends with the moment she's living in. She's more akin to the naked cleaner than she'll ever admit.

"Not true. Cold cases, sometimes. Or classifieds that never sell." I won't admit to her that I have been lost in a maze of memories after our break-up, and I've called a few of those numbers, decades later. One man told me his father had placed an ad to sell coins but then swallowed them because it was the last thing he had left to remember his dead wife. Tabby is immune to nostalgia; she is a time capsule hurtling forward. When she takes a moment to match up our fingerprints, I swallow my sigh. It holds no value for her.

"Does your mom have an extra room?" she asks, whipping her hair into a sloppy knot on one side.

"Just the one I'm taking. Her apartment is tiny, but it's rent controlled. And there are other reasons to stay." She's etched hieroglyphics into the walls and irreparably splintered window frames. Let's see them charge my corpse, she tells me when I worry about the way she's marked her height in Sharpie on the kitchen wall because she's convinced herself she's shrinking. No apartment could ever recover from her presence.

"We could share, if you want company. I've slept on a floor before. At camp." Tabby doesn't understand that she's exhaling painful memories like cigar smoke and the rings are settling around my throat.

"I'm getting a new job, too. I can't walk all the way from Forrester Street. It's practically out in the wild," I say.

"If my neighbor weren't a perv, I'd say take my spare room. My brother doesn't stay over anymore. He and Shelly want to move now that she's pregnant. The city's bad for children."

"The city's bad for everyone...except you and my mother," I joke. Tabby and I push our shoulders together and watch the condensation on the window evaporate from the heat of our breath. It's how she snared me the first time, promising that our combined chemistry changed the atmosphere. Never once did she hint at the possibility of us being a failed experiment.

"Can I visit you at your new place?" she asks.

"You said it was a bad move. A backwards move," I taunt, pretending the words on my lips are somehow connected to hers.

"Did I?" She turns and kisses the perimeter of my cheek, and a whisper of my nostalgia infects her because when she withdraws, her face is redder than before. And we're both on the floor, a compromise, because I want her and she wants the steady wooden boards rocking against her back with me on top of her.

"I told you I was good with the floor," she says minutes later, pulling her sweater across her shoulders, returning to my left hand to scrub ink that refuses to dislodge. I feel like a relic of hers. An ancient artifact sewn into the apartment.

"This," I jar myself free of her and stamp the floor where we’ve just been. "This is the backwards move."

Tabby refuses to look at me. I envy my mother because her sickness is prying the painful memories out of the folds in her brain. And I envy Tabby, because her nature allows her to do the same. I am the only one bound to yesterday. I'll remember every word my mother forgets, and I'll remember every inch Tabby kissed.

"I'm packing tonight, if you want to help." I wave a Sharpie in the air. One I picked up from my mother's apartment last night after we finished the ritual where I reintroduced her to the faces on the wall. She still knows my name, and it's as tangible a thing as the marker to hang onto.

"I'd really stay with you at your mom’s," she offers. "I'll sleep on the floor and we can hold hands."

Tabby's heart is in the right place even though weeks ago she told me she'd taken another girl home and that only for a few moments had been in love with her the way she often said she loved me.

"I'll remind you of better days," she repeats, pretending that she’s capable of expanding out of the moment to be generous to me.

"Just help me load the boxes," I surrender, promising myself I will study the way my mother forgets. I will study, and as long as she knows my name, I will embrace each day with her, fresh.


Written by: Sarah Clayville
Photograph by: Anthony Delanoix

Cloud Painting

The day Ada and I ride up to The Lookout is transparently clear. The Lookout is a large hillside that faces and guards over the town of Southmeadow. It’s totally a make-out point, but Ada and I visit it because it’s the best place for cloud-watching and stargazing. The air is fresher and sweeter up here, and there’s a tempting sense of freedom that calls to Ada on the days when her mother is drowning in a boozy swirl.

My excuse for leaving is to accompany Ada, because the first time we came up here, she had shown up on my doorstep, soaked to the bone from a storm, and commanded, “You’re taking me away from here.” The Lookout was the place I took her, and it continues to be our escape whenever she feels her blood sing.

I park my parents’ old Volvo underneath a low-hanging tree, the only shady spot on The Lookout. When we stop a few feet from the edge of the hill, I drop to my butt and lie back, folding my arms beneath my head, but Ada lies perpendicular to me and rests her head on my belly, the weight of it warm and comforting.

There’s a patch of my stomach exposed from where my shirt has ridden up, and her hair, draped across it, tickles my skin. It’s nut-brown, short, and bobbed. I pull one arm out from under my head and card my fingers through from root to curly end. I can tell it’s been recently washed. It’s soft, softer than I thought it would be. Discretely, I pull a strand up towards my nose and take a tiny whiff. Cranberries.

The dull roar of an approaching plane brings our attention to the sky. We watch as it emits a stream of cloudy condensation.

Ada points towards the moving speck and traces its path with her finger. “Sometimes,” she says, “I like to imagine that I can paint the sky. The stars, the clouds, the sun. I hold up my finger and follow them like this, and it’s like my own creation. Makes me feel like I’m God, or something.”

She doesn’t look at me when she says this, concentrating on using her finger as a paintbrush. I move my hand from her hair, strands sifting through my fingers, and place it on top of hers. I cover her finger with my own, and the two of us trace over the plane’s flight path all the way across the sky, until it’s out of sight. When we can no longer see it, Ada intertwines her fingers in mine and kisses my knuckles. The quiet is comfortable, but after Ada’s confession (and that’s what it felt like, a confession, something secret she has been holding close to her heart), I feel like I need to share something personal of my own.

“So,” I start, “when I see planes, I think about all the people on it, about who they are, where they’re from. Sometimes, I even conjure up imaginary faces and backgrounds for them, and I just think about those many lives, all connected for one small, weightless moment. You know what I mean?”

I have her attention now, but I can’t read the expression in her eyes, and for some reason, that dries my mouth.

“Nolan?” she asks.

“Yes?”

“Have you been watching Lost again?”

It takes me a minute to realize that what she said wasn’t profound in any way, and I feel oddly relieved. “Hey, it’s not just because of Lost! I do think about that when I see planes. Sometimes. I do!” I emphasize when she shakes her head, hair drifting back and forth across my chest.

“Nolan, Nolan, Nolan,” she chants, but cuts off with a squeal when I lean down and blow a loud, wet raspberry into the crook of her neck. She tries to roll away, but I wrap her up in my arms and hold her tight to me. With her this close, the cranberry smell is so strong it almost makes me dizzy, and those curls are soft against my cheek.

Suddenly, I realize I don’t want to ever leave. I want to stay right here, with Ada, on The Lookout, forever.

“Come on,” she sighs. “Let me up.”

Begrudgingly, I loosen my grip and she stretches out, then rises to her feet. She bends over far enough to offer me a hand, and I’m overwhelmed with exhilaration, like I want to take it and launch off the ground and up, up, up into the air, catching up to that plane we drew in the sky. My veins are vibrating beneath my skin. It feels new. It feels good.

“Hey,” she asks as she pulls me up, smiling slightly. “Do you think when you’re creating stories for the people on the plane, there’s someone on the plane creating stories for all the people down here? Like, some stranger, thousands of feet above us, looking down and sketching out an imaginary life for you and me?”

She’s still smiling, but there’s an eagerness in her expression and a brightness in her eyes that tells me that whatever my answer is, it’s very important to her.

I’m still holding her hand, and I give it a small squeeze. “Yeah,” I say, smiling back at her, “I think there is.”

Written by: Allison Sobczak

Photograph by: Skyler Smith

Sixteen Years

Twelve hours earlier, James woke to find Catherine’s arm draped over his back. Lifting just his head from the pillow so as not to wake her, he turned to find her face inches from his. Early morning sunlight filtered through the blinds. Patches of light lined the end of their bed – no, her bed. In her apartment. Catherine stirred. She looked much younger when she slept.

James’s free hand found the wrinkles alongside his eyes. One, two, three of them. He knew what Catherine would say if she were awake. She would tell him she loved them – that they made him the James she knew. He knew she loved him, partly because she told him, but mainly because he felt it. He counted the lines with his fingers again.

Catherine awoke and pulled his hand down so there was no barrier between their faces. “Stop that,” she said.

James grinned. “Morning to you, too.”

She moved his arm over her head and pressed up against his body. “I like them.” Catherine laid her head on James’s chest and closed her eyes again.

He forgot her age whenever they spent time together – save for those few moments when Catherine would play with her hair while concentrating, or the way she didn’t quite know how to embrace his many compliments. But those moments were scarce. He’d watched her surpass her twenty-two years when she squared off her shoulders, walked into a room of his colleagues, and held her own in conversation. James loved their late evenings when they dissected their favorite novels, characters, relationships. He never felt their sixteen-year difference, even the night he recounted his messy divorce. Catherine’s eyes never flicked away from his face as he spoke. She was present. And he loved her for it.

James tried not to touch his smile lines, as she called them, again.

“Stop thinking about them.” Catherine was watching him.

He forced a smile and kissed her forehead. “I’m thinking about you.” And he was.

                                                                                                     ***

James was still thinking about her. He pulled the collar of his fleece tight around his neck against the cold, northern rain. With his free hand, he forced one of his suitcases into the car. Night blanketed the street outside his own apartment save for the harsh glow of the hanging lights above. They made the slick pavement sparkle beneath his boots. James’s phone vibrated in his pocket. It was Catherine, for the second time this evening. James tossed his phone into the trunk and headed back for his messenger bag. His fingers hovered over his bottom lip as he remembered their morning. His mind elsewhere, his legs carried him into his now empty apartment he’d called home for a few short months. James wanted to believe that Catherine would give him her usual disapproving look now, but he knew better. She would tell him he wasn’t being selfish, but it’s all he felt when he was alone. Catherine should be with someone who would experience things with her, not someone who had gone through the steps already.

Leaving was the best way. He needed to make it a clean break, for her. James pushed the nauseating feeling aside, shook his head, and began his final walk-through. It felt like the apartment was holding its breath along with him. The kitchen was bare. The bedroom seemed much smaller without any furniture. James poked his head in the bathroom and stopped. On the counter, next to the sink, was a lone bobby pin. James picked it up. He ran the delicate metal through his fingers as he checked his office and living room. Holding the bobby pin between his teeth, he took the last two bags and headed for the car. He angled them into the backseat.

The engine revved to life. James directed the vents at the driver’s seat and waited for the car to warm up. He never needed to use the heat in any of his previous vehicles. The weather in Arkansas didn’t allow for much short of air conditioning. It was something Catherine never understood. Even now, Catherine preferred to use a collection of fans to cool her apartment rather than purchasing an air conditioning unit. She put any additional income to paying off her student loans. James rubbed his hands together in front of the vent. Temperature aside, Catherine’s apartment was light years ahead of his first one. Ahead, even, of the one he was leaving now. James didn’t have a way with creature comforts. Catherine was more put together than James was at that age. He’d followed her around on his first visit to her place. He remembered hiding a smile while he watched her straighten a jar of honey on the microwave between a box of tissues and her collection of corks. James had wondered how many corks he’d have if he’d started collecting at twenty-one. He dismissed the thought, again. This was the right thing, for her. He was sure.

James spun the knob to defrost as fog took the edges of the windows. He knew it would only take him a full day of driving to get back home. Rather, it would only take him a full day of driving to get back. James removed the bobby pin from his teeth and slid it onto the sleeve of his jacket. Backing out of the parking space, he chanced one more look at the apartment building. He saw shadows of him and Catherine dancing in the moonlit windows of the living room and dodging flying bacon grease while they made breakfast in nothing but their skin. He remembered the flowery smell of her shampoo as she swept her hair into a bun and secured it with a few bobby pins. James touched the one on his sleeve. He was bringing a piece of home back with him.

Written by: Erin Davies

Photograph by: Daniel Charles Ross

Penumbra

I like to remember the way Camryn looked when she made creatures in the snow, arms spread wide like the wings of those honey bees she always loved. In those moments she seemed more wild than I could ever be. She seemed free.

“Kane’s party will be so beyond,” Camryn says. Her hand brushes the fabric of my pale pink skirt, which once belonged to a ballerina.

Late spring snow nestles in Camryn’s hair and eyelashes as we climb the steps to Kane’s place.

                                                                                              ***

“Did I make this weird? Did I ruin your perfect last snow day?” Camryn had asked, snow settling around her.

“What about Aislyn? She’s pretty. She goes to parties. She kind of looks like me, you know?” I’d said, because I couldn’t think of anything else to say.

And all Camryn had been able to say was,“That’s so fucked up, Len.” And it was.

I focus on that moment as Kane hands us drinks. He disappears into a group of his party goers. He doesn’t see the way Camryn brushes Aislyn’s hair over her shoulder.

“Why do you drink it like that?” Aislyn asks when I spoon the liquid into my mouth.

I smile and stir a lime around my gin fizz, trying to mask the taste of the gin.

“It’s how she drinks her tea, too,” Camryn says. She nudges Aislyn, but smiles at me, and I wonder if it’s because of all those things I’d said.

I could never love Camryn the way she needed me to.

I knew Camryn loved me before she told me. The months between that moment and today feel so full of what I feared would happen. The knowing ruined everything. It was always so much easier to pretend things didn’t have to change, that we never had to change.

“You know I can’t do change,” I say. It’s not a real response because there was never a real question.

“You’d never try,” Camryn says, between sips of her own drink. The way she says those words sounds wrong, too sharp; too much truth for this moment.

Instead of smiling and nodding my head, I tip my drink back, and swallow the rest in one gulp.

“Len, you don’t have to,” Camryn says when I take another shot of gin from some nameless guy.

“I’m trying,” I say. “Just like you wanted.”

“Don’t,” Camryn says, grabbing my hand.

I think she tries not to hold it like she loves me, but I feel it anyway. She’s gentle, but won’t let go. After everything, I know she doesn’t want me to leave her. Camryn needs us to be together, even if we’re only friends. Even if she wants us to be more.

I wonder if I’d feel different in another time or another place. Sometimes I look at my shadow and wonder if she is in love with Camryn. And if that’s true, I hope our shadow selves are happy. But I know shadows aren’t enough because I can never love Camryn that way.

When I pull away, her hand still reaches for me, but I can’t be here with her.

I grab another drink and make my way to the other side of the living room. I take one shot, and then another. The floor shifts beneath my feet, and I understand why our friends drink. Though I don’t know what weighs them down, I know they must like to feel themselves flutter; their pulse and their limbs and their wings. Maybe they need to feel free, too.

                                                                                              ***

“Are you drunk?” Kane asks. I wrap my arms around his neck and use him to anchor myself to this spot and this moment and this life.

“I know, Kane. And I just need to tell Camy, because she needs to know,” I say.

“Yeah? Why don’t we find Cam then?” he asks, helping me weave through the people as they drink and dance.

For some reason I can’t remember when we became friends with Kane. I wonder if he knows what Camryn said, what Camryn wants; all the things I’ve tried to forget. I open my mouth to tell him, but the words aren’t there because they’re not mine.

I try again, but only one word spills out, Camy. Her name sounds distant even though it leaves my mouth and my lips.

When I use her nickname, Camryn cries, but it’s not drunk crying. I’ve been to enough parties to know the difference between drunk crying and real tears.

“Let’s get you home, Len,” she says. She wraps an arm around my waist and we move through her words so slow like swimming underwater. “I’ve got her,” she says over her shoulder, and I know she does.

We’re out the door and on the street with the sidewalk beneath our feet. It moves in waves as we walk. Camryn asks, and I remember she was never the one to cry.

“I’m sure you want me to say I’m sorry. Maybe I am. Maybe I always will be,” I say.

“Let’s not do this, Len. Not when you’re like this.”

Her words float into lines trying to make themselves into hexagons. They close around us like dwelling walls, like honeycombs ready to keep us together.

“I remember growing up listening to I’m sorry, and it never made anything better. So I’m not sure saying the same thing to you would change anything.”

“And you hate change,” she says. She helps me up one step and then the next. I know we’re at her dwelling place because of the way the door creaks.

“They’ll only make me feel better.”

“You’ll feel better tomorrow,” Camryn says. She tucks her Gram’s quilt beneath my chin, and the flowered squares sway and grow over my shoulders.

“You said, I don’t know how to not be in love with you. Remember?” I ask.

“I’m sorry,” Camryn says.

“Well I don’t know how to be in love with you, can’t pretend everything’s the same anymore.”

“Don’t you know people change?” she asks from the edge of the bed.

All this time I think Camryn’s tried too hard to keep her heart untouched. I don’t think she ever meant to give so much away to me, because when she looks at me, I know she’s not all there anymore. I think we’re both scared of never being whole.

But I don’t tell her this.

I find the outline of my shadow self cast on the wall beyond us. I give my words to her, hoping she’ll know what to do with them.



Written by: Kayla King
Photograph by: Anthony Delanoix

#InstaChristmas

This is how you Instagram Christmas.

First, you need to decide what your color scheme will be. There’s the traditional red, green, and white, but that’s kind of yawn-inducing and will figure prominently in a lot of Instagram photos.

Metallic seems like a good bet, with the warm glow and cool glint of gold, silver, pewter, and copper. It picks up a lot of glare, and the glossiness of it is somehow too shiny and artificial, even for you.

Settle for bold and interesting, a modern blend of candy pink and soft mint and rich, regal purple. Plus, you know, anything can look Christmasy. Ribbon you used for your — for Jonas’s last birthday gift, a jar of sprinkles next to snowman cookies, mulled red wine and boozy, amber cocktails.

Remind yourself not to say you are “settling.” No one is settling.

You have to find those moments. The slivers of each day that are flawless, whether they are shaped by God’s hand — or, more than likely, yours.

You have to place each ornament in the perfect spot on the tree, backlit with the right color of bulb. This may require redoing your Christmas tree multiple times because each time, you think maybe you’ll wake up from the nightmare and Jonas will be next to you, Christmas tradition in progress.

Bake a lot. If you are not sleeping or taking pictures, something should be in the oven or on a cooling rack. Make cookies and tarts and brownies and cakes. Purchase more sugar than should legally be allowed in one household. Use that weird new app Boomerang to make glorified .gifs as you whisk ingredients and make light, airy clouds of powdered sugar.

Don’t forget to artfully stack the dirty, batter-rimmed mixing bowls and spatulas because life is messy, but it can still be like, peak messy. 

Christmas presents can be wrapped (and posted!) while you’re baking. Select a matte, solid wrapping paper and go crazy with curled ribbons, elaborate bows, decorative pine cones, and recently-harvested sprigs of your neighbor’s holly bush.

Arrange gifts in towers or flat lays, with handmade gift tags and ornate calligraphy. If he’s paying attention, Jonas can make out his name at least a dozen times over. Some of the boxes are empty, but most aren’t: new cufflinks, a fancy pen, a copy of The Martian on Blu-Ray.

Will he remember it was the last movie you saw together? The last experience you shared before he cleaved your life in two, the perfect half of the Before and the desperate hollowness of the After? The residual warmth of the happy Before haunts you and teases you, and you will do anything to get it, to get him, back.

Your first Christmas together you were huddled together, a shrill ice storm whipping through the neighborhood that morning. When it died down, you walked into the yard and the world shimmered and sparkled.

Just for Jonas, and not Instagram: cut off one of the branches on your Christmas tree, throw water on it, and put it in your freezer. Make sure it’s not lying on top of anything else or you will end up with branches that get stuck to like, Otter Pops and frozen peas. You can ask your best friend’s husband to construct a stand for it and then awkwardly overhear their conversation, which includes Todd saying you’re going through a rough patch and need support and his husband David replying that you’re being coddled and need a reality check before you go totally mental.

Just shake your head because you never understood what Todd saw in David, and this was for Jonas, for the perfect Before he needs to see from you again.

Be ready to spend Christmas alone, with your iPhone and the perfectly-staged photos and messes. Be ready for each moment to be exactly what you want, the only thing you can control. 

Hear the doorbell ring, feel the adrenaline surge into your veins. You are the sun in the center of his galaxy. His path may be elliptical, he may be as far from you as his orbit allows, but he is forever circling you, forever connected to you, and he will always come back around.

You open the door, ready for an embrace, an apology, a cropped square of happiness and the mess right out of frame.

It’s not Jonas, but David.

“Todd doesn’t know I’m here,” he says, “I said I was getting Starbucks.”

“Are they even open?” You ask, because it is the only reasonable response.

“I don’t know,” David rubs his left eyebrow, a nervous twitch you never realized you noticed. “You’re his best friend, Katie. You’re miserable, and you’re alone, and you and I will never be best friends.”

“Merry Christmas, David,” you begin to close the door.

“A thousand times, you could have told Todd you don’t like me. Why didn’t you?”

“I don’t see it,” you say, “but that doesn’t mean anything. It’s just not for me to see.”

“He would have listened,” David says, and his brown eyes grow bleary and distant. “He loves you more.”

“Maybe. But we’ll never find out. We don’t even need to ask,” you say.

“We’ll never be best friends,” David repeats, “but you can’t be here, miserable and alone and pretending everything is still fine. Come over. We’ll get drunk on cranberry margaritas and play an Elf drinking game.”

You do not take pictures of your Christmas sock-clad feet in front of the television, Will Ferrell’s tall frame ruling the screen.

You don’t capture the second pitcher of cranberry margaritas toppling from the kitchen counter onto the floor, sticky puddles like blood from some kind of holiday horror movie.

And you definitely don’t immortalize Todd’s absolute failure at red velvet cheesecake, a soggy mess that the three of you promptly spit into napkins.

You leave your phone in your purse, and you miss Jonas’s curt, impersonal text: a Christmas tree emoji.

This is how you have the best Christmas of your adult life.


Written by: Erin Justice
Photograph by: Sophie Stuart

Susan Takes a Husband

A re-telling of "Mo Takes a Wife"

Sticky damn fingers. Honey, powdered sugar, syrups, jams and jellies, marmalade: Susan always had fingers sticky-sweet with one thing or another. At the moment it was marshmallow-flavoured buttercream icing. She dolloped it casually onto the mini chocolate cupcakes and stood back licking the spatula. She had learned in her time owning this bakery that messy baked goods were always picked first. The crumpled pastry tart oozing burnt sugar, the bread loaf that had been slightly too large, bursting over the edge of its pan -- those were always scooped up fast, leaving her shelves lined with the most symmetrically iced cakes, and perfectly pressed pie shells.

Susan pulled two of the cupcakes off the tray and took the rest out front. The day was cold and the frost had covered the windows during the night. As the bakery warmed up with piping hot loaves and croissants filling the shelves, the frost would melt away and turn to steam instead. For now, the view of the street was hidden. She couldn’t make out the dark city that lay sleeping around her.

Susan returned to the kitchen, wiping her glazed fingers on her apron. Genna, the bakery’s one and only employee, had arrived early. She was a pleasant girl who only stopped talking when she shoved her ear buds into place and vanished into music. Her long blond hair, in thick dreads, was usually worn tucked up and wrapped in silk scarves. Today’s scarf was a bright canary yellow. Genna, was always sure to let you know it was Genna-short-for-Genesis and not Jenna-short-for-Jennifer. Susan enjoyed her company. She was teaching her how to bake.

“I brought a smoothie in for you to try today. Watermelon, yoghurt, orange juice.” She poured the pink liquid into two glasses and dropped a straw in each.

Susan brought out the plate with the two mini cupcakes on it. She placed them in front of the smoothies. “Breakfast of champions,” she laughed. “So how was last night?”

“The band was ahMahZing! You should have been there.”

“Meh, not really my thing.”

“My brother was there,” Genna said coyly.

“You have to stop pushing that. It’s never gonna happen.”

“Why not? You are both awesome, and both alone.”

“I’ve seen the girls he dates, all blonde and pale and tall. I’m not his type.”

“Maybe he needs something different.”

“Your brother is not interested in a hot mess like me.”

“Hot and spicy, my brother needs a little Caribbean flare.”

“That’s not the sort of hot I meant. Besides I’m not sure if your brother is my type.”

“What’s wrong with my brother?”

“Nothing. He’s a nice guy, but he’s too cool. He’s like one of those ‘Bro’ guys.”

“Bro guys!” Genna howled with laughter.

“You know what I mean. He’s into sports and beer and he’s cocky and tough. No offense.”

“Nah,” Genna shrugged her shoulders. “That pretty much sounds like my brother.”

“I just want a man who is nice. Someone who wants to be with me because they like me, not someone I have to convince to like me.”

The phone rang and Susan popped the last of her cupcake into her mouth while Genna answered the phone.

“That was Alice; she’s sending some guy here to pick up a cherry pie. She says to watch for the hobo wearing a million and one sweaters. His name is Mo.”

Susan pulled a cherry pie from a rack and tucked it into a white box, tying the flaps tight with string. When the bell tinkled, she called out and left the kitchen for the front of the shop.

Mo was hidden beneath layers of mismatched wool and cotton. He looked out of place standing with his hands resting against the Carrara marble counter. When he smiled at her, the first thing she noticed was his teeth. They were terrible - crooked and chipped and not particularly white, but just after the teeth she noticed the smile. It was warm and kind; it was an invitation.

“Are you Mo?”

“Muhammad. My name is Muhammad.”

“Alice told me you were coming, Muhammad. I have your order all set.”

Susan placed the pie on the counter and started to ring up the order.

“Thank you, Susan.”

He smiled at her again, eager and fully attentive to every movement she made. He watched every bop of her head and curve of her lips, taking in each flick of her round fingers, coated in sugar.

“So is that everything?” Susan asked.

He hesitated gaping around the shop, taking in the shelves of baked goods.

“Actually I need some other things.”

Susan guided the eager Muhammad through the shop, showing him all her favorite things. He nodded and smiled and took one of everything, watching her neatly package up scones, muffins, and loaves of pumpernickle bread. As he turned to leave at last, Susan saw the pie, forgotten on the counter.

“Wait, you forgot your pie.” She leaned in close to tuck the pie safely on top of a bag of dinner rolls. She could smell his skin, like curry and musky soap, and despite her shaky nerves when Muhammad asked her to join him for dinner, she agreed.

“Sure,” she laughed awkwardly. “Meet me back here at six.”

                                                                                                       ***

“Anyway,” said Genna as Susan re-entered the kitchen. “You need to find someone. I hate to think of you being alone all the time. You need a man to take you out, to show you a good time. Someone confident and good looking, someone to match you. You need a hot and spicy man.”

“I need a sweet and exotic man,” Susan said, quietly kneading bread dough. “I think I’ll make some coconut-curry buns. I have a craving for something different today.”


Written by: Sarah Scott
Photograph by: Anthony Delanoix

East

Read the rest of the "West" saga: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9

Chris reached the top of the peak and looked east. He saw clouds passing, obscuring his view, then clearing away. Trees, wild and unfettered, without the usual corridors for cell phone towers. The lake down below, for which the mountain had been named.

This was almost everything he’d had in mind.

He wished he could distract himself, think of anything but his original vision of being here with Dena. But he’d cut himself off. His usual distractions--the scrolling pictures, the flashing lights, the texts--were gone. He’d called his father from the AT&T customer service desk after having his cell phone shut off.

“I just wanted to let you know my phone got stolen,” he lied. “I know...yeah, I’ll be reachable soon, but we’re going to be in a national park in a couple of days, and I doubt there will be any service anyway...I just didn’t want you to worry…”

Lex, the AT&T employee who’d disconnected his phone, grinned at him when he hung up.

“Going off the grid, dude?”

“Just...taking a break,” Chris had said.

At first, he’d hoped that taking a break would be enough for him and Dena, too. Getting out of town. Reinventing themselves on the road. Dena had been through a lot. She’d suffered more in the past six months than he had in his life. What bad thing had ever happened to him?

His parents’ divorce, after which they both became better, happier people? Getting busted for carrying drugs one, isolated time--then getting off with a stern warning?

When your life diverges from another person’s--theirs into misery, yours into happiness--what do you have? Dena sat right beside him as they drove, but she was still miles away. He couldn’t change her. He couldn’t even heal her.

He retrieved the Chinook keys from the pocket of his corduroy jacket. Dena had given him the keychain--a flat rubber raccoon advertising Ricky’s Recycling Service, Macon, Georgia.

“Sorry, pal,” Chris said.

He hurled the keys over the side of the mountain, closing his eyes as they flew through the air so he couldn’t see where they landed.

“That was dramatic,” a voice said.

“Huh?”

Chris turned around to see a man standing behind him. He was older than Chris, maybe mid-forties, and wearing a backpack.

“How are you going to get home?” the man asked.

“I’m kind of in transition right now.”

“Oh, one of those.”

“What do you mean?”

The man unclipped a water bottle from his pack.

“You know. Finding yourself in the great outdoors, or whatever. Quarter-life crisis. I get it, I really do.”

“I don’t need to be patronized right now, okay?” Chris said.

“Nah, I didn’t mean it like that. Just--I’ve been there.”

“Are all the people in your life shit?” Chris muttered.

“We’re all shit, man,” he said.

Chris and the hiker stood in silence, looking at the lake, until the hiker’s phone buzzed. Chris reached for his pocket out of habit, then laughed as a wave of lightness washed over him.

“Sorry,” the man said. “It’s my store.”

As the hiker stepped away to talk on the phone, Chris tried to burn an image of this place into his memory.

Skinny pines. Grey rocks. Algae and reflections creeping around the borders of the lake, making it look like the flecked iris of a human eye. This place was made for Instagram. Or maybe it wasn’t. Maybe it was made for this moment only--for Chris’s deliberate efforts to really see it.

Maybe Lake Peak didn’t need the likes. Mountains are above validation. Mountains don’t give a fuck.

“I have got to get someone who can make a decision,” the hiker laughed, sliding his phone back into his pocket.

“So you have a store?” Chris asked.

“Camping supplies. Over on the other side of the National Forest. A new shipment just came in, and my assistant manager is brain dead.”

“You need a new one?”

“A brain? God, yes. Please.”

“An assistant manager.”

“Now that’s a thought,” the man said.

                                                                                                      ***

In the final montage of their story, a Bob Dylan song would play on the radio station for the brief moment before the three cars passed out of range. The first car, Drew’s old Toyota, would be the only one still headed west. He would pour a package of peanuts into a plastic bottle of Coke, and dream of a place where he could play ping-pong on his lunch break. Where his desk chair would be a stability ball.

In the second car: Chris, riding shotgun, his new boss driving east as they wound their way out of the Santa Fe National Forest.

“Let me get your number, and I’ll call to let you know what time to come in,” the hiker would say. Chris would just smile.

The last car would be the hot-wired Chinook re-routing its path back to Austin. Dena would reach for Jennifer’s hand, but she’d pull away.

“Let’s go slow, okay?”

Dena would nod.

“Yeah,” she’d say. “We’ll go slow.”

In the last moments of the story, the chorus of the Dylan song would swell, guitars jangling as the radio flickered in and out. The invisible triangle connecting the three vehicles would grow larger and larger, stretching until it was too faint to imagine, until everyone had landed on a different frequency. The sun would drop away in the west, headed for the ocean.

But this was not a story. Truly, there is no such thing.


Written by: Dot Dannenberg
Photograph by: Luke Pamer

Chewing Gum

The cold rain fell in sheets of vellum paper—thin and transparent enough to see the shapes and colors of the life it was trying to protect. We ran, like ink on a page, dripping sweat and pain and ecstasy. She had just finished working and I had just finished watching. She said she was tired and wanted to go home. I wanted to be anywhere but home. Home reminded me of my wife.

The sun had long set and slow jazz spilled from the speakers of the End Street Depot as we waited. She cried. Or maybe it was the rain, I couldn’t be sure. I hugged her close, smelling her hair—a mixture of lemon, rosemary, and artificiality. I liked it.

The train pulled into the station, slowly coming to a halt a few feet away from where we stood beneath the overhang. We held newspapers over our heads and ran into the safety of barren seats and chewed gum left to die on the metallic floor of the nearly empty car. She sat next to a window, avoiding me. I sat across the aisle, staring at her from behind the steel pole that stretched between floor and ceiling. Her sleek black hair now soft with damp waves. Her red lipstick smeared across her face—and mine.

“It’s not enough for me,” she said, watching the blurred landscape as the train sped out of the station.

“I’m sorry,” I replied, not knowing what else to say. I could feel unfamiliar eyes staring me down from a few rows up.

It started as sex. No strings. An escape from my life. She stayed with me for the money, the gifts, the things she couldn’t have as a stripper. I was fine with that.

“I can’t give you more.”

She turned to face me, her freckled nose crinkling in frustration. She was fucking beautiful.

“It’s not enough,” she repeated.

I sat up, as though correct posture might make this conversation easier. I turned to face her, my legs blocking the aisle. I no longer cared about who heard us. “Elana, I don’t know what else you want from me. This was the deal. A good fuck and a nice new dress…nothing’s changed.”

“Everything has changed,” she said turning to face me, her eyes bloodshot. “I want--”

“I already told you—there’s nothing left to keep us apart. She’s gone!”

“I know what you said,” she snapped, turning back to the window.

I thought about the day I first met her. Stubb’s Hall. She lit up the stage with her black glittered heels and wicked smile. I thought about the slow burn of the whiskey as I watched her undress to the wail of the low saxophone behind her. I knew my wife would have killed me if she knew where I had been, but the whiskey had already convinced me that I didn’t care.

Sinking back into the hard seat, I let my hands fall helplessly to my sides. “I just need more time.”

“For what?” she yelled. “I’ve given you nothing but time!”

I told Elana I would leave my wife, but I didn’t mean it. In the same breath, I promised my wife that it was over, that I was through with Elana—she was just a toy, a plaything. Something to keep in my back pocket for the days I got bored—like chewing gum. She would ask why I got bored, but I never could seem to answer that question. The sicker she got, the more I clung to Elana—coming home with glitter stuck to my groin—and the less I tried to hide it.

“I just…I don’t know. It’s complicated. My God, she hasn’t been dead a month.”

The night my wife died, my heart broke. I buried it with her and I knew I would never get it back. I didn’t deserve it back. Fuck Cancer, I thought. Fuck me for being such an asshole.

The train jarred us both as it pulled into the next station. The rain kept a steady beat on the car’s metallic roof, falling harder. The soft shapes of the world outside now hid completely behind opaque sheets.

“You’ve had enough time, Shawn,” Elana said as she stood, steadying herself on the steel pole that stood between them. “I can’t wait another six months for you to decide what you want.”

I watched her tears fall in a stream of sparkling black. There was no mistaking them for rain this time. I shoved my hands in my pockets and made no attempt to go after her. The train jerked forward to the next station. I thought about my wife. Her innocent smile. The paper skin around her gray eyes. How I chewed her up and spat her out just like I did Elana. I hated myself.

The beckoning lights of Stubb’s Hall flashed pink through the window. I hadn’t realized that the rain had stopped, once again revealing the world around me. Bracing myself for the next station, I stood and took hold of the pole. The cold stung my hand. When the car had come to a complete standstill, I made my way to the exit. Apparently, this was where I got off. Stepping from the platform to the ground, I stopped as my foot caught on something. Inspecting the underside of my shoe, I couldn’t help but laugh. A wad of gum. Freshly chewed and strung along between the bottom of my foot and the hard metal floor.

Written by: Amber E. Box
Photograph by: Matthew Wiebe

The Divorced Man

The divorced man, recovering from the social inadequacy that was a product of his recently dissolved marriage, attended an event for single lovers of literature at an Upper West Side bookstore. The gathering, organized by the latest dating app, took place in a reserved section of the shop’s second floor, in a wide row splitting memoir from fiction, where the hosts from the hot-or-not app had set up tables with finger foods and cheap wine.

First to arrive, the divorced man poured himself a plastic cup of dry white to avoid tooth stains and browsed the Zs on the last fiction shelf. He picked out a Chilean writer he’d been meaning to read and the fluorescent light reflecting off the paperback’s glossy cover made him uneasy. The place was too damn bright, surely enough to illuminate the asymmetrical tendencies of his face: the tip of a slender nose leaning left, a right ear higher than the other on the side of his head, and stubble growing only on one cheek he’d forgotten to shave before his morning commute. He knew, though, this was his best shot at landing a date in this isolating city, this island that imposed its identity on and induced a debilitating loneliness in the most unsuspecting residents.

Even in a dimly lit Brooklyn dive bar where his physical flaws wouldn’t be accentuated, the divorced man wouldn't know what to say to a cute girl confident enough to catch his attention with her fuck-me eyes. They couldn’t be meant for him—maybe she was squinting?

It was excruciatingly difficult for the divorced man to reconcile his physical desires with his decision to vacate that oath-sworn relationship. After all, a divorced body was nothing else but neglected and in dire need of affection.

The divorced man hadn’t been inside a woman in months, not since he’d tried to outrun the heartbreak of his failed union by fleeing the nation’s capital. Best-case scenario: literary conversation would be the sexual catalyst he needed it to be. At the very least, he wanted simply to feel noticed. To feel a flirtatious hand squeeze his arm, hear the sincerity of a woman’s laugh at his sorry jokes.

He read and re-read the book’s first page, but the arrival of other dating-app users prevented him from retaining any of the minimalist prose. He was facing the staircase, feigning interest in the book and nonchalance toward the women, heartbeat accelerating each time heels clicked on the hollow steps.

When men reached the top stair they would nod at the divorced man, not in solidarity, but as if to communicate their status as competitors. We are here for the same reason, their looks said, therefore we cannot be friends. They would puff out their chests and strut over to a single lady, cups filled and ready for a practiced toast to their favorite dead white writers. It looked effortless, like they picked up more women than books at these events, an easy lay for every hardcover lining the walls of their hip lofts.

The divorced man could hardly afford to fill his one flimsy bookcase, let alone the drafty room he rented from his Dominican landlady-slash-roommate in Washington Heights. She was a sweet woman with kids his age and had been married once too, but he hadn’t confided in her—or in anyone else—the emotional pain of losing his best friend and the person in the world he most loved.

The room was crowding and his wine drying up, so the divorced man poured himself another cup at the table, where a woman he hadn’t seen asked his name. She was wearing flats and thick-rimmed glasses, blouse tucked into a skirt that flowed from her hips to her ankles, a pen holding her dark hair in place.

Underneath HI! MY NAME IS, the woman wrote the divorced man’s name in cursive with a smiley face and pasted the tag on his shirt, smoothing it out over his chest. They made small talk while standing next to shelves of writers who disclosed every dirty detail of their lives; however, he had no intention of dropping the D word to a woman who lived in a city where marrying as young as he had was taboo.

While the woman shared tales of learning to hang with New Yorkers, the divorced man noticed how she talked with her hands and pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose and curled her lips when she laughed. He wanted to take her in an unoccupied aisle of the shop, between the pages of love stories, to lift the back of her skirt and pull aside her panties.

Upon her request, he recounted silly adventures like getting lost in Queens, ending up in the Bronx after falling asleep on the express train, and having a bagel so good he chewed it slowly to prolong the deliciousness. The woman took hold of his bicep, a look of surprise on her geometrically proportionate face, when she realized she’d had the same artisan lox bagel with a thick layer of cream cheese at the same Park Slope deli and had also eaten it slowly.

Two refills later and buzzed, they found themselves half-naked in the divorced man’s apartment, on the bed he’d inherited from the previous tenant, their bodies entwined beneath the covers.

                              —What’s wrong? the woman said.

She’d stopped kissing him.

                             —It’s been a while.

                             —Then this shouldn’t be a problem.

                             —I guess you have a point.

                             —Did I do something wrong?

                             —No! No, you’re perfect.

He lay beside her and slipped his hands under his head and closed his eyes and listened for a moment to the honks of Broadway taxis filtering in with the fall breeze through the open window.

                             —But you’re not my wife, the divorced man said.


Written by: Eric Zurita
Photograph by: Anthony Delanoix

Memorial Day

Nadine had foolishly decided she would join her sister down at the beach for the long weekend.

“No, no, I can leave on Friday. It’s fine,” she’d said. Her sister laughed and warned her about the apocalyptic traffic, but Nadine didn’t mind. It would be worth the hours on the Bay Bridge to see her sister and feel the sand baking the soles of her feet. It had seemed like a good idea a few days ago.

The highway leading to the bay was a parking lot. An accident was only a half mile or so away, and Nadine watched an ambulance wedge its way through the traffic. A school bus merged onto the shoulder, its windows gaping open with teenagers hanging out, watching the scene.

The air conditioning roared, but Nadine’s face still felt sticky. She stretched her hands, popping her knuckles. She had a habit of clenching the steering wheel as if her car might drive on its own and careen off a bridge. Her jaw felt tight, too, another sign of her anxiety and stress. Unlike her sister, Nadine could never be accused of having “resting bitch face”—instead she had a sort of “resting Frankenstein face”—a jutted chin, teeth clenched. When she felt her face hardening, she would wiggle her jaw until her face softened, reminding herself to loosen up.

That’s how she met Dale.

In an effort to relax a bit, Nadine went out to the karaoke bar with some co-workers. “Friends” wouldn’t be the right word for those people, but she liked them well enough, and she had hit her limit with binge-watching sitcoms. When her co-worker, Hannah, lamented how pretty and boring Nadine was, Nadine felt a twinge of agreement. She accepted the invite for drinks and karaoke, surprising both Hannah and herself.

She felt self-conscious walking into the bar, like someone might look up from their drink and shout, “Hey—she doesn’t belong here!” It’s not that Nadine was anti-social, but she preferred to be alone most of the time. Her sister—older, prettier, bossier—seemed to be the sole owner of chattiness and volume, and Nadine was happy to be the quiet, “pretty enough” sister.

When Nadine spotted Hannah and her other co-workers, she felt relief. In the back of her mind, she’d always suspected that she’d end up like Carrie: covered in pig’s blood and humiliation and friendless. She had no reason to think this other than too many hours of high school TV dramas. Hannah waved her over, sliding a beer toward Nadine. “We ordered for you. Hope that’s okay.” Nadine thanked her and took a sip of the beer. The icy bubbles tasted good, and for a moment, Nadine felt some relief from the late May heat. She reminded herself not to clench the bottle too tightly.

After the group chatted about the day at work—the boss is an asshole, those customers were rude huh?, I can’t wait for vacation—they turned their attention to the stage as the lights were dimmed. “Hey everyone, I’m Dale!” The emcee raised his beer and continued speaking,

“Welcome to Karaoke Night. If you’re new here, be sure to talk to the DJ and sign up for your song.” He pointed his beer toward a booth off to the side of the stage. “If you aren’t new, do us a favor and sing something different!” He laughed awkwardly, his breath hitting the microphone a bit too hard. He put the mic into the stand and called up the first singer. A young woman in a bachelorette sash climbed on stage and began her shout-singing rendition of “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun.”

The emcee walked over to the group and leaned onto the table. “Hey, Hannah. Can’t get enough of this place, huh?” He leaned closer to her, a dopey grin spreading across his face.

Hannah responded with an exaggerated groan. She nodded toward Nadine and introduced them. “You can have him, Nadine. I’m going to the bathroom.” She slid off her barstool, and Dale sat down, now grinning at Nadine.

“Nice to meet you, Nadine.” He shook her hand and took a long swig of his beer. “Are you new to the group? I see these guys here all the time.” Nadine immediately liked Dale. He was friendly and attentive, and Nadine didn’t understand why Hannah seemed so dismissive of him.

The rest of the night was a blur. She felt her cheeks ache from smiling and giggling with Dale, and when she’d spilled her beer on his lap, he didn’t even flinch. He laughed it off and bought her a new drink. Nadine was pleased with herself, pleased with Dale’s kindness, pleased with the evening overall. They went home together that night and settled onto her couch, Dale polite as he kissed her. They made love that night, and it was sweet, restrained, and appropriately quiet for Nadine’s liking.

They parted ways in the morning with a kiss, and Dale promised to be in touch soon. Nadine believed him. He seemed so genuine. At work that day, she fended off Hannah’s questions and criticisms of Dale. Nadine felt special—not weird, like usual—and she wanted that feeling to last. The work day dragged on, a blur of collating and stapling, and Nadine hadn’t heard from Dale. Her phone buzzed with a reminder to pack that night, but no other message appeared. She worried he would forget about her while she was gone for the holiday weekend.

She had plenty of time to obsess over Dale now that she was sitting in Memorial Day beach traffic. She kept reminding herself that it would be fun. She wanted to tell her sister about her adventure. Nadine was giddy at the idea of shocking her.

The traffic inched on slowly, and Nadine’s car was almost to a large overpass. She wanted to be out of the direct sun, and the promise of shade was only a hundred yards away. And then she saw it: the overpass and the enormous scrawled message. I <3 U. The fuzzy black letters emblazoned on the grimy concrete. The letters were so scraggly and misshapen, she imagined the painter hanging upside down to get the right angle.

She thought of Dale the night before, his slow fingers tracing lazy hearts on her shoulder, how he said he loved her serious eyes. She imagined Dale’s hands swooping together two pieces of a heart on the overpass. She imagined him standing back to survey his work, nodding to himself, and praising his work. The flutter of imagining made Nadine flush with embarrassment.

But why? Why should she be embarrassed? It was possible that a man could become infatuated with her and that he might want to share that with her and everyone else on the highway. He felt so confident that she would know this message was for her, from him. Had he pictured her sitting in her ’98 Corolla, pondering life and traffic, then her serious eyes moving upward to the declaration?

Nadine thought of taking a picture, and for a moment, she clutched her phone, angling it toward the overpass. No, she put the phone away. Free of criticism or speculation—she wanted to keep this for herself.


Written by: Whitney G. Schultz
Photograph by: Matt Crump