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

Bury Their Own

Anna sits with her legs crossed on a wrought iron bench in a cemetery, slouching forward with her elbows on her knees, smoking a cigarette. She wears a black ensemble finished with a leather jacket and high-heeled ankle boots. A silver chain hangs from her neck, bearing a cross that sways with the breeze. Her hair spills over her back and shoulders, forming a feathery frame around her face. Her lipstick stains the filter of her cigarette and Kohl eyeliner emphasizes the almond shape of her eyes. She savors her next drag, pulling the smoke between her lips and into her lungs as if it would save her life.

Cigarettes remind her of her mother who never looked or smelled like a smoker. She was an entrepreneur with a knack for palm reading and dream interpretation. Unfortunately, she wasn’t very good with finances and her relationship with the IRS was tense. She had her first stroke at the age of forty-four and then one every spring until her heart failed four years later. After she died, Anna longed for a connection, something to keep her close not only in thought, but also in body. Lighting up became a sacred ritual, an invocation of the dead, but her mother never came. Anna didn’t take it personally.

Anna crushes her cigarette with her boot on the brick path before picking it up and tossing it in the trash. She stuffs her hands into her jacket pockets and makes her way over to a tombstone nestled beneath a dogwood with tender pink blossoms. The epitaph reads: Lydia Marie Wilcox. An angel so loved by God, He took her for Himself. She was ten years old when she died in 1962. Anna looks up past the grave marker at the spectre sitting just beyond it. She is wearing a white dress with puffy short sleeves, black dress shoes, and a blue headband that holds back her blonde ringlets. The ghost is glaring at Anna, her hands crumpling fistfuls of her dress as she holds back tears.

“Hello, Lydia.”

Anna greets her with a gentle volume as if approaching an injured fawn. Lydia buries her face in her hands and sobs, her tiny shoulders shaking beneath the weight of a life unlived and a crime unsolved. No one suspected that her father drowned her in the bathtub, not even her mother. He supplied the police with a diary full of entries suggesting Lydia lost the will to live. He was smart enough to remove the pages that recounted his late night drunkenness, resulting in physical beatings that Lydia endured, but never deserved.

The sad tale floods Anna’s mind after she places her fingertips on the tombstone. She grimaces, taking back her hand. She watches Lydia’s ghost wail with a force and passion equal to her grief, but the sound is distant and goes unheard by all except Anna. She walks around the grave marker and sits down on the ground, leaning against it. The branches of the dogwood tree rustle in the wind, a natural white noise that folds over Lydia’s sobs.

The first time Anna experienced a transmission like this was six months after her mother’s death when she went to visit her grave. She knelt down on the grass and pressed her forehead against the name etched in stone. It felt like a dream sifting behind her eyes. She saw her mother sitting at the kitchen counter, staring blankly through the window. Anna felt awash with dread as her mother suddenly grasped her head, trying to stand only to lose her balance and fall to the floor. It was her mother’s first stroke, but Anna hadn’t been there. She pulled away from the tombstone, gasping for breath as sweat coated her upper lip.

The visions began happening anytime she touched an object belonging to her mother. Hidden pieces of her life unfolded before Anna’s eyes: the constant drinking, the chain smoking, the prescription painkillers. But Anna experienced more than images; she could perceive feelings, thoughts, and memories. Underneath her mother’s addictions was a thick floor of regret, which Anna chose not to explore. It’s true that knowledge is power, but ignorance is bliss.

“What can I do for you?” Anna asks Lydia’s ghost, pressing her palms together between her thighs to warm them.

Lydia lifts her head, wiping her face of snot and tears with her forearm. She licks her lips and looks at the grass, contemplating her answer.

“Do you want me to tell someone what really happened to you?” Anna suggests.

Lydia shakes her head, sniffling as she mumbles, “No, that’s not important to me.”

“What is important to you?”

“I don’t want to be alone.”

Anna folds her left arm over her chest, propping up her right elbow on her left hand as she fiddles with the cross hanging from the chain around her neck. There’s no way to help Lydia cross over to the next world, but she can show her how to make a world of her own.

“If you want, you could stay with me.”

The ghost’s eyes widen and her lips part in surprise.

“How?”

“You see my cross? If you close your eyes and imagine the most beautiful place, we can put it in there. You can live there and I’ll always be close by. I won’t be able to come inside, but you can come out whenever you want.”

Lydia clasped her hands in front of her heart and squealed, “Can it be a big white house? With a cat and a dog? I promise I’ll take good care of them! And I’ll bake cookies every day and read books all the time until I fall asleep!”

Anna smiles, nodding with approval. Lydia jumps up and down before closing her eyes and vanishing into thin air. The cross is cold and heavy now, bearing Lydia’s soul and her new world. Anna heads out of the cemetery, lighting up another cigarette.

Deep drag.

Sweet invocation.

Written by: Natasha Akery
Photo by: Whitney Ott

Plump Insides

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Los Niños

When you go to meet Antonio at the park near your grandmother’s house, you see that same family again—the dad in his baggy pants and white t-shirt pushing his two kids on the rusty swing set. The little girl shrieks as he pushes her swing higher. She points her tiny velcro shoes to the sky and flings her head back, tossing her pink sunglasses into the dirt. Her dad laughs and pushes her again. The boy is clinging on for dear life, gritting his baby teeth.

“De qué tienes miedo?” the father laughs, and slows his swing.

You sit on a picnic table. You see Antonio on the other side of the street waiting for the traffic to clear. In your pocket, you have the paper from the doctor folded small as a thimble.

“Yana!” Antonio calls, coming your way. “So what is this you want to tell me?”

Your throat tightens.

“Tonio, where do you think this is going?” you say.

“You mean us? “

“Si.”

“Did your dad call? Are you going back to the states?”

“No, not that. I mean, sometime I’ll leave. I don’t know when. But where do you think we’re going? You and me?”

Your father sent you to Nicaragua at the end of the school year as punishment. As if probation wasn’t enough—one stupid mistake, and you were slave to your PO, picking up trash and peeing in a cup. And then for a week you were free, until your dad called his mother. But Nicaragua hasn’t been so bad. You like it, except for the food. And not knowing when you’ll go back home. You had a one-way ticket.

“The truth?” Antonio says, shuffling his feet. “Don’t freak.”

“What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas,” you mutter.

“What?” Antonio says, not understanding.

“Nothing.”

“Es verdad—we’ll be like that, con los niños.” He points to the family at the swings. “I want to marry you someday. Someday when we’re not fifteen. Maybe when we’re seventeen.”

The little girl is leaning backward in her swing, reaching for the sunglasses just out of her grasp.

You pull the knot of paper from your pocket and hand it to Tonio. He unfolds it, but no flash of understanding crosses his face.

“What is this?” he asks.

“It says I’m pregnant. I took five tests. I didn’t believe it. But the doctor’s one—well, it’s true. Blood doesn’t lie,” you say.

“What are you going to do?”

“You mean we? What are we going to do.”

“Si, I mean, I’ll support you, whatever your decision,” Antonio stutters.

It had happened the day you came back from the mall, when your abuela wasn’t home. Your cousin had said, “Prima, you better watch it with that boy,” as you sneaked into your bedroom, but you just laughed. Tonio wasn’t a boy, and you weren’t a child, either.

Now you aren’t so sure.

Antonio is dragging his shoe, making shapes in the dirt. The family at the swing set has gone. You see the girl has left her sunglasses.

Tonio gives you a little pat on the knee and mumbles something about needing to get home. You watch him dart back across the busy street, then you retrieve the glasses from the hollowed out space below the swing. You turn them over in your hand, brushing off the dirt. Each lens is shaped like a heart. You hold them up to the sun, and the rosy plastic gleams in the light. You know Tonio won’t run off. He’ll do his duty, whatever you decide that might be.


                                                                         ***

Your abuela is small and wrinkled. She holds a cigarette in one hand and an orange soda in the other as you and your cousin stand on the front porch and tell her the news.

“I tried to warn this one!” your cousin says.

“Shut up,” you say. You aren’t afraid of your grandmother, and you aren’t ashamed, either. Abuela birthed eleven children, the first at only thirteen. What can she say? In comparison, you are practically ancient.

“How far along?” Abuela asks.

“Three months?” you guess. Abuela grunts.

“Have you been sick?”

“I thought it was the food. I’m not used to it.”

“Don’t insult Abuela’s cooking like that!” your cousin says.

“Shut up,” Abuela says. Your cousin rolls her eyes and chips the polish off her thumbnail with her teeth.

“How could she know? She’s skinnier than when she got here, though that’s not saying much, gorda,” your cousin says.

“This happens sometimes,” says your grandmother. “What do you want to do? And the boy? What does he want?”

“I know what I want. But I don’t have any money,” you say.

Your grandmother and cousin are quiet.

“Are you sure? This is not your America. We could call your father,” Abuela finally says. She coughs into her knobby elbow.

You are sure.


                                                                        ***

The procedure costs nearly a thousand dollars. You don’t know where your grandmother got the money. There is pain, but afterwards, you feel a lightness that lifts you above it.

You and your cousin push your twin beds together. Your cousin buys pink hair dye and hot fries. You spend the afternoon experimenting. When she goes to a movie and leaves you alone, you look at the ceiling and ignore the text messages Antonio keeps sending you. You stretch the pink sunglasses to fit your own face and stare at the exposed light bulb until you see floaters. You notice there’s a scratch on one lens at the bottom of the heart.

When Abuela appears in the doorway, you don’t move.

“Are you going to talk to that boy, Yana?” Abuela asks. “He is sad and happy, but you cannot forget the sad.”

You peer at your grandmother through the sunglasses.

“It’s not his body. And soon I’ll be back in the United States. I don’t owe him. This isn’t my life here.”

“So you are a ghost.”

“I’m something.”

“You’ll break those glasses, nieta. They are for a child.”

“Maybe I am a child,” you say.

“Not anymore,” Abuela says, closing the door.




Photograph by: Whitney Ott
Written by: Dot Dannenberg

Tragedy In Wonderland

May 09, 2013

East Village, Wonderland

Humpty Dumpty, the famous ham-handed egg, has been charged with the murder of his wife and two children by Wonderland authorities.

Humpty is known as an easy going and amicable egg by his East Village neighbors. “That’s why it’s so shocking,” explains Alice, a frequent visitor to the village and personal friend of the Dumpty family, “He was always so kind, and he never seemed to quarrel with anyone in the village.”

While the family was enjoying breakfast, an argument began between 17-year-old Hefty Lefty, Dumpty’s oldest son, and Humpty. According to neighbors, the two were having a debate concerning the origins of the Dumpty family. Hefty, known as an innovative free-thinker, claimed that the family must be able to trace its ancestral roots back to the “chicken,” a prehistoric animal that supposedly inhabited the area that is now the East Village thousands of years ago.

“He just snapped,” explains the Walrus, one of Humpty’s neighbors. The Walrus reported loud yelling coming from the house at around 9:30 a.m. this morning to East Village authorities. It was clear that this was not some common spat between father and son says the Walrus.

Another neighbor, a local carpenter and life partner of the Walrus, claims to have overheard some of the argument. According to the Carpenter, Humpty yelled the following comments at his son after listening to the young egg’s theory:

“I will not tolerate such blasphemous comments under my roof! Chickens! Evolution! Lies! Absolute lies! You are not my son! Do you understand? You are dead to me!”

In an attempt to calm the situation, 38-year-old Margaret Hatcher Dumpty, Humpty’s wife, is reported to have explained that she believed the theory to not be completely absurd, and that they should be proud as parents to have such a clever child. Following the calming attempt, 12-year-old Chiquita Bonita, Humpty’s daughter, reportedly expressed her agreement with her mother’s statement.

“Yep, that’s when he really lost it,” says the Carpenter. According to East Village authorities, Humpty used a large iron skillet to brutally massacre his wife, son, and daughter. “It wasn’t a pretty sight,” explains the Caterpillar, the first investigator on the scene, “…there was literally not a single place that you could step without getting yolk all over you. I think there’s still some on my underside.”

Quickly following the violent slaughter, Humpty was witnessed fleeing his home by neighbors. He was last seen headed west along a wall just outside of Cheshire Forest.

Before his murderous rampage, Humpty did have a reputation for being somewhat eccentric. The Hatter, a colleague of Humpty’s, recalls hearing Humpty make some strange rants of his own years ago. “Yes,” recalls the Hatter, “Humpty was yelling about creating his own vernacular of sorts… Weeehehe… Oh yes, he claimed verbs to be angry but himself to be the master of all. Words bent to his will and he willed words to mean as he pleased. Tea became time and I became late after drinking of time and woo….” The Hatter, a victim of severe mercury poisoning, fled the interview before providing further explanation. However, Alice corroborates the rant in question.

Humpty abandoned his war on semantics after a life-threatening debate with the Queen of Hearts, the ruler of Wonderland. Though he never claimed that the word “queen” actually meant servant, the Queen of Hearts believed he would, and in Wonderland, such potential for a possible offense is as illegal as making an actual transgression.

Two policies have been cited in discussion concerning the Dumpty family murder: the decree that free speech will not be tolerated and the concept of divine right. Wonderland, the most irrational and confusing of the imaginary monarchies, is governed, not surprisingly, by the most neurotic despot in contemporary politics today, the Queen of Hearts. The Queen of Hearts, characterized as a highly erratic, paranoid maniac, invokes a number of nonsensical policies to maintain her rule of Wonderland. Amongst impressive political policy innovations such as ‘pre-execution’ for possible crimes committed, the queen also invokes several tried tyrant classics to maintain ‘amicable concord’ within her kingdom.

Technically speaking, Humpty was upholding the law while brutally murdering his family. The Queen of Hearts claims that the basis for her and her ancestor’s rule is one of divine right, deriving their right to rule directly from the will of the mystical Jabberwocky, the supposed creator, or god, of Wonderland. Furthermore, Jabberanity, the Jabberwocky faith, advocates creationist ideologies. So, to speak of evolution, or a chicken coming before an egg, is technically blasphemous and illegal, and of course, is punishable by death before or after being expressed.

With regard to the Dumpty family slaughter, the Queen of Hearts made the following statement:

“Indeed, this is a tragic day for Wonderland. The Dumpty’s were a strong, hardworking family whose patriotism was beyond question. However, I cannot condemn the actions taken by Mr. Dumpty. His son, Hefty, made several blasphemous comments, and both Mrs. Dumpty and Chiquita supported those blasphemous comments. Such comments cannot be tolerated if we are to remain in the great Jabberwocky’s good graces, and it is both my and this kingdom’s opinion that the actions made by Mr. Dumpty were made in the best interest of Wonderland. Therefore, I am granting Humpty Dumpty a full pardon for his crimes.”

Following her statement, the Queen of Hearts returned to her castle, despite the objections of several aggravated citizens.

The White Rabbit, the East Village’s district attorney, was unavailable for comment due to being “late for a very important date.”

Humpty was unavailable for comment concerning the pardon due to suffering from a fatal fall while evading authorities. Humpty Dumpty died at the age of 43. All of the queen’s horses and all of the queen’s men could not put Humpty back together again.

I am currently awaiting sentencing for intending to publish this piece. The Queen is the absolute best ruler. Long live the Queen!

Tweedledum - Wonderland correspondent

Photograph by: Whitney Ott
Written by: Hunter Hirsch

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

Waiting

Harry didn’t appear worried, so I wasn’t worried. The car wasn’t moving particularly fast when it struck him, so he escaped with a just broken ribcage and some heavy bruising.

"Don’t worry kid, I’m fine. Besides, I’m so close to the end anyway, getting killed by a car would just be one more life experience for me.” Harry chuckled.

“C’mon now, Pop.”

“Look, there’s no reason to take death so seriously. People fear death for two reasons. One is regret, but regret is only something to fear if you have a future. I don’t have much of that left. And once you can accept your past, you can accept death. The other is ego and I’m far too aware of my own insignificance to believe that my dying should cause any kind of apprehension.”

This was the conversation I had with Harry a few months before the doctors diagnosed him with dementia. It was a rapid and sudden deterioration. Soon, he had lost the mental faculties to even relieve himself independently.

It had always been just Harry and me. My parents left me for unrelated but equally selfish reasons, though I was so young when they left that they existed only as unwelcome wraiths in my memory. So Harry, my grandfather, took on the burden of caring for me, but I found myself unable to return the favor when the opportunity arose.

He was angry, not at me for putting him in a home, but at Death for having deceived him. Harry had long accepted his own mortality and was prepared to go quietly with Death when the time came. Instead, Death chose to let him live, but with one foot out the door. Since Harry’s deterioration was purely of his mind – his body remained as strong as one would expect of a veteran Marine and former steelworker – he was left with the capability to live but not the capacity to do so.

The nursing home was sterile in its setting, but with the necessary facilities, the nurses impassive but effective. Paul, the man next door, was a frequent visitor, having mistaken Harry for his brother. Otherwise, the residents generally kept to themselves, though they gathered in the television room every afternoon for an hour of mandatory “community time” – all there, but none quite present.

Harry oscillated between madness and lucidity. Whenever I visited, which never seemed often enough, he assured me he knew who I was. I didn’t doubt that he recognized me as someone he knew, but I was never sure he could name me if I asked. I never asked. It was far more comforting to pretend that our bond transcended the constraints of biology.

He continued to tell stories, as he always had. In his moments of clarity, he spoke longingly of Abigail, the grandmother who passed before I was born, but whom I felt I knew intimately thanks to Harry. In those moments, it was as if nothing had changed when in fact, so much had. In his more absent states, he spoke incomprehensibly about the war to no one in particular.

“Have I ever told you about Margaret?”

“No Pop, I don’t believe you have.”

“She was the other woman. My one lasting regret. I spent my entire life trying to live without regret, so when I met her, I didn’t think I had a choice. I’d been married to your grandmother for almost ten years at that point. But, I thought that if I didn’t act on my feelings for Maggie, I would never properly love Abigail, that I would always wonder what could’ve been. I was wrong. When I realized it and came back home, your grandmother forgave me and took me back, of course. No one would’ve blamed her if she hadn’t. But she did. I never went astray after that, but I wish I had understood sooner that some desires are best left unexplored. Certain regrets are more unbearable than others.”

Harry had spoken too articulately for his story to have been a product of his dementia, but disbelief at the man to whom these types of weaknesses could not have seemed more remote was the natural reaction. As he stared out of his window, never having turned his head as he spoke, I realized Harry wasn’t looking for a response or forgiveness from me. Yet, here he was, confessing.

There was a long pause. Somehow, the buzzing of the fluorescent lights overhead enhanced the silence. They gave off an artificial white that seemed to penetrate the entirety of the nursing home. We were both sitting, facing the room’s double windows that looked out over the city park across the street. The heavy floral curtains swelled hesitantly as the air conditioning unit kicked on, letting out a grunt and whir.

“I wish you had met her, your grandmother,” he finally said, turning to me. “She would’ve doted on you like no one else could.” For the first time in a long while, Harry smiled.

Harry never mentioned Maggie again. I asked him once more about her, out of morbid curiosity, but he had no idea who I was talking about.

Soon he became more and more laconic and eventually the stories just stopped, both anecdotal and fantastical. The vast silence overwhelmed me with regret as I realized I’d already had my last conversation with him. But because of Harry, I had hope that that feeling would one day pass.

After Harry died, I spent most of my free time in the park where we had spent countless hours playing chess, neither of us having the heart to end the game. I watched the old people in their final stages of this existence, living out what remained of their lives in quiet mirth, patiently awaiting their turn to move on. I recognized their expression of contented acceptance and wondered if they’d realized, like Harry had too late, that the world was not black and white, not even in life and death.





Photograph by: Whitney Ott
Written by: James Mo

Misty Morning

At 5:23am, Helen resigned herself to the fact that she wasn’t going to go back to sleep. She sat up, swung her feet over the side of the bed, and put her hands in the air, arching her back to stretch. Through the transoms above the gauzy white curtains, she could see the purple sky promising sunrise.

Four minutes later, Helen was in shorts, a t-shirt and running shoes, striding down the pavement. She felt her limbs begin to warm, and as she crossed the street into the park she broke into a run. She was alert to every change in her body—the minute rate at which her breath quickened, the number of times her heart beat against her chest, and the mantra that always kept her rhythm:
Get there faster. Be tough. Get there faster. Be tough.

The mantra had been with her as long as she had been a runner—first as a pep talk, but now as a prayer so deeply embedded that she could repeat it in one compartment of her brain and still have plenty of thinking room left over.

She was particularly focused this morning. The mist that clung to the trees around her kept her from seeing more than fifteen yards ahead. Not that she needed to see any farther. She knew this trail by heart. Like her mantra, it was something she had cultivated to the point of automation. These morning runs were no longer something she did; they were something that happened. And while they happened, she did her best thinking.

Without missing a beat Helen lifted her shirt to wipe the sweat from her face. The morning’s humidity caused her perspiration to cling to her, rather than roll off. She began to go through her checklist, as she had on every run for the past two years. Pyramids? Check. Skydiving? Check. Studying at one of the world's most prestigious universities? Check. Incredible sex? Check. Seven-course meal? Check. Led Zeppelin reunion concert? Check. And completing all of Shakespeare's works? As of 4:47am, check.

Surely she had missed something. She was only 25! She had meant for the list to take much longer to complete, but now there was nothing left.

Get there faster. Be tough.

She had gotten here faster. And now, the tough thing to do was right in front of her, seemingly hidden in the mist ahead.

She rounded the pond and checked her watch. Right on time.

A prickly feeling in her sternum surprised her—was it fear? Doubt? Reluctance? Whatever it stemmed from, she could only view it as one thing: interference. To dissolve the prickles, she switched on a secondary mantra, which she always thought of as The Reason. Unlike the list, which had been in various stages of development for the better part of two years, The Reason was unchanging. I will never be happier than I am now. It really was remarkable, the inherent human desire for longevity. Sure, better times could be ahead, but why risk the possibility of sixty years of heartbreak, pain, and adversity? She had seen everything she wanted to see, felt everything she wanted to feel, tasted all that she wanted to taste. She wasn't smart enough to make any life-saving medical breakthroughs, patient enough to write the next Great American Novel, or maternal enough to get hitched and have a gaggle of offspring. She was amazed at the gall of most of humanity, to persist in the name of self-preservation when it made more sense to quit while the going was good. I have lived the life I wanted to live, she thought. Like any artist, Helen knew it was time to initial the bottom corner, dot the final sentence, call That's a wrap!

As that thought crossed her mind, a small smear of pink caught her eye, only a few strides ahead. As she passed over it, she saw that it was a dead baby bird, apparently flattened by some other inattentive runner. Feeling the prickles threaten to begin again, she picked up the pace.

Gettherefaster. Betough. She ran through the park's gate and started up the hill to her flat. Her t-shirt was completely soaked through, and her calves cried out for her to stop.

Gettherefasterbetoughgettherefasterbetough.

Finally, she turned into the gravel drive in front of her flat and trotted to a stop. She raised her arms over her head and walked in small circles, her chest heaving. She briefly thought of stretching to prevent soreness, but on second thought decided against it.

Inside, Helen disrobed and got in the shower. Under the water she whispered, "I will never be happier than I am now. I have lived the life I wanted to live." And it was true—she felt almost delirious with happiness. Happiness that was multiplied infinitely by the guarantee that nothing would ever dilute it.

Out of the shower, she stood wrapped in a towel in front of her closet. Black was too somber-- they'd surely think she was depressed. Floral would seem like she was taking the piss, that she wasn't taking this seriously. But her green dress, that was perfect. In the back of her mind she vaguely remembered someone telling her that geniuses pick green. It was the color of growth, of hope. While drying her hair, she looked around her room. For a moment she felt bad for the person who would discover her, but she quickly remembered the pains she'd gone to in order to make this whole ordeal as spic-and-span as possible. She curled her hair, put on her makeup, and debated whether or not to wear shoes. She turned off the thermostat and made sure the front door was unlocked, with the keys and next month's rent check on the entryway table.

It was now 7:42 am, and the sun was burning off the morning's mist. Helen sighed with satisfaction as she took one last look around. Finally, she lay down on her made bed, smoothed her hair on the pillow, folded her hands across her stomach, and closed her eyes.

And then, she waited.





Photography by: Jaemin Riley
Written by: Melody Rowell

Empty

Leigh and Tara sit on a white seersucker blanket with rainbow stripes spread across the lawn of their Aunt Mary’s backyard. Leigh wrinkles her nose to push up the bridge of her thick, black-framed glasses as she chews on the last blackberry and leans back on her hands. She wears a black Macgregor hoodie and cut off shorts, the lining of her pockets peeking out across her thighs. Tara pulls her dress over bent knees and wraps her arms around her legs, glancing at her toenails and wondering if she should paint them gray. The wind rustles the canopy of leaves above, casting shadows that sway back and forth like seaweed underwater.

“Are you okay?” Leigh typically asks Tara once a week, often prompted by a sobering Facebook status or blog post.

Tara is both appreciative and annoyed by the inquiry, not understanding why something must be wrong in order to inspire serious reflection and discussion.

“Oh yea! Why?” She sounds overly chipper.

“I dunno.”

Leigh tugs at a few strands of denim. Just five feet and four inches, her long limbs and narrow face suggest a much taller frame than her sister. Tara is the same height, but her legs are thicker and her torso shorter. Even next to each other, she seems closer to the ground than her younger sister.

“Remember when you asked me if I had an eating disorder? We were on the swings and you were upset when I threw up after lunch.”

Leigh doesn’t say anything, but looks up at Tara and meets her gaze. Her posture straightens, conveying that she’s listening.

“It’s not that I think I’m fat. And I don’t count calories,” Tara continues. “I’m really not even aware that I’ve gone for a while without eating. I just get so hung up on my thoughts that I forget I need fuel to sustain them.”

She picks at the corner of a toenail, annoyed at its length.

“So, what about throwing up?” 

Leigh remembers listening to her sister regurgitate a super expensive meal and feeling confident that her concerns about Tara’s weight were officially justified.

“I make myself vomit when something doesn’t feel right, like if I eat too much or I feel like my stomach can’t digest whatever’s in there.”

Tara’s face feels really hot, not because she’s lying, but because she feels scrutinized.

“It’s not punishment. I promise. I do it because I feel like my body needs me to do it.”

A dove coos from a powerline, a sound Tara and Leigh always mistook for an owl until today, looking up and noticing the tail feathers press down as the soft murmurs tumble out.

With a sharp intake of breath, Leigh sings, “Ooookaaay-eee,” to signal her surrender.

This is a significant difference between them; Leigh has no problem dropping a discussion if it’s causing more harm than good. Tara, on the other hand, is mildly confrontational and likes to get to the root of a problem, even if it means stalking the opposite party and hounding her with questions until she’s reduced to tears. A couple years ago when the sisters were still in high school, Leigh walked in on Tara standing in the living room gaping with confusion just as their mother was slamming her bedroom door and weeping hysterically within.

“What the hell happened?” 

Leigh dropped her purse to the floor and threw her keys on a side table as she slipped off her Birkenstocks.

Tara turned to look at her and shook her head. 

“I don’t understand why Mom gets so upset when I want to talk to her about something serious. She gets all defensive and says her blood pressure is too high and she can’t listen to me anymore. How are we supposed to work on things if she can’t even talk about them?” 

She slumped onto the sofa, propped an elbow up on the armrest and cupped her cheek in one hand.

Leigh walked to the fireplace and sat on the cold stone hearth, sneering at her older sister. 

“There’s a huge difference between having a conversation and being interrogated, Tara. You’re really stubborn and don’t let up until you get answers.”

“Well, I didn’t get any answers outta Mom. She’s in there crying and I feel like a shithead. Why should I feel bad for wanting to know the truth?” 

Tara sat erect, her hands flat on top of her thighs, staring directly into Leigh’s eyes.

“Tara, you’re immune to pain or something and as much as you preach practicing empathy, you pretty much have none. You’re a bully. You want people to be able to process stuff the way you do and honestly a lot of us can’t because we’re too busy just trying to get through our own crap. Not everyone spends all friggin’ day trying to figure out the meaning of life.” 

She leaned back against the masonry, palms together between her thighs, eyes heavy with exasperation.

“Why doesn’t anyone give a damn?” Tara asked.

Leigh closed her eyes, careful not to sound pissed after forming her reply. 

“We do, Tara. The truth is, you’re the one who doesn’t give a damn about anything other than what you think is important. And while you spend all your time looking down on other people and accusing them of living shallow lives, you end up alone. Are your deep thoughts worth it?”

Leigh never found out what Tara was hounding their mother about. As she sits on the blanket across from her now, she notices the perpetual furrow between her sister’s brows and that her shoulders are rounded forward as if she might cry, but Tara’s face is blank and her gaze without purpose.

“Is it worth being sad all the time?”

Tara looks up, blinks. 

“What?”

“All that thinking and not eating. All your truth-seeking and isolation. Is it worth it?”

Tara’s eyes close as tears stream down her cheeks and drip onto the dress stretched over her knees.

“No.”

Photograph by: Whitney Ott
Written by: Natasha Akery

Family Blood

Freddie MacNamus sat in his truck and looked down at his hands. So many stains. Blood, sweat, and tears covered those hands. And black oil that would never come out from under his thick, yellow fingernails.

But mostly blood.

His boy once told him that blood ain’t red inside you. It ain’t red ‘til it hits the air.

Well now Freddie knew a secret. The pits of hell sure ain’t black. When you walk through those places where nightmares are born, all you see is red.

It’s mostly blood.

His boy was smart. They gave him a fancy name at birth. Kissed his wrinkled, old-man head and said, “Prescott, all we gots to give you is a name. It’s your leg up. Reach high, son. Maybe you’ll make it to some other family tree.”

But blood runs thick, and old habits are hard to break. Within a year, Prescott MacNamus was just Mac. Plain and simple. But boy, was he sharp.

It damn near stopped Freddie’s heart, the night he saw all that thick, red blood pouring out of Mac, staining the pine slats of their front porch.

Freddie knows deep down he done it.

He was so mad that night. So God damn mad. And the sad thing is, he didn’t have nothing to be mad about. His boy would sit at the supper table, making his wife laugh til’ she begged him to stop, tears rollin’ down her face, sayin’ her insides hurt. They were happy. But Freddie couldn’t be happy. Just livin’ made him mad back then.

Bein’ just a mechanic. Selling just tires. It wasn’t enough. He always thought he should be doing more. His family deserved more. He felt guilty every time he looked at ‘em. So he stayed mad. And he stayed away. Always sippin’ that awful, burnin’ drink.

And the night they were killed, he wasn’t there to help.

It hurts to think about it now.

He can’t take more than three breaths without prayin’ to God they died quickly. That they didn’t see it coming. That they weren’t scared.

Freddie figures, lookin’ back, that he got home about twenty minutes too late. ‘Cause Mac was still warm when Freddie scooped him up. He ran to the truck, piercing the still September air with his screams. Pleadin’, “God. Please God. Please.”

He thought his boy might have a chance. ‘Cause he could still smell the milk and cookies on his breath, see, and lil’ Mac had his dinosaur jammies on, and Freddie was pretty sure those were his favorites. They were the ones Mac was always wearing when Freddie tip-toed through the house late at night after another bender, to peek through Mac’s cracked bedroom door and love him from afar.

He layed his boy down across the seat of the truck. He’ll never forget the way those tires squealed as he ripped out of his driveway. Surplus stock from the shop. He’d put ‘em on a few weeks ago, shooin’ Mac away when he asked to help.

He drove like his own life depended on. And it did. But after a mile or so, he couldn’t see the road. He couldn’t see Mac.

It was all blood.

He opened the door and puked. Whiskey and snot came out between wails. The putrid mixture hit the dirt road only a few seconds before Freddie did. He lay there, heaving, sobbing, covered in family blood, til a State Trooper pulled up.

Somewhere along the line, they realized Freddie wasn’t a killer. Just a worthless piece of shit.

They let him go. His penance? That the world kept turning.

He had to keep showin’ up at the shop. Keep on sellin’ tires. Every day he stepped into that place, the smell of old rubber filled his nostrils, reminding him he ain’t got nothing left to work for. He made barely enough to keep his home, but not enough to sell it.

So at night he’d come home and lie on that porch. Put his head down on that dark brown stain. If he was still enough, he could feel heat comin’ off the planks of pine. It was because the porch soaked up the western light all afternoon, but Freddie liked to think that warm spot was Mac.

And this morning was no different. Until it was.

He got out of bed. Got in the shower. Smelled his wife’s shampoo. Gently closed its cap. Then he put on his blue coveralls and went to work.

But when he got there, he couldn’t walk in the door. He walked out back, tore an old piece of tarp in half, and wrote “Closed” in clumpy motor oil on it.

He stepped back and looked at it. The shame of everything he’d done–everything he was– hit him hard. He couldn’t keep nothin’ alive.

He threw it out and started over on the other half.

He thought for a second, and wrote:

Moved to 1897
Metropolitan Park
Flea Market Plaza

Freddie didn’t have enough room to finish the word “park.” It didn’t make no difference. Something he made would live on, even if it was just for a day. Even if it was just for an hour. Even it was a lie. Soon enough, somebody would find out the truth. But that shop, the one Freddie never thought was good enough, was the only shred of worth he had left.

Sitting in his old truck, Freddie finally felt some peace. He couldn’t wash his hands of what he’d done, but maybe God would clean his soul.

He looked out the driver’s side window one last time, then put the truck into drive.

He turned onto the dusty highway, and slowly pressed the gas. He didn’t let up as he watched the speedometer reach 60, 70, 80, 100.

The pedal ground against the metal floorboard. There was nowhere else to go. Freddie jerked the steering wheel to the right.

For a second, everything was quiet, and then the deafening sound of blood rushed into his ears. And right before everything went black, he saw his wife. And his Mac. But mostly blood.






Photograph by: Jaemin Riley
Written by: Sarah Gatling

Bug Man

The best thing about his job was seeing inside all the houses. It wasn’t like house hunting, all the homes reduced to shells of themselves. It wasn’t a suburban nightmare, like when his prissy girlfriend in high school had dragged him through progressive dinners and tours of historic homes. There, the spaces are decked out in the appropriate seasonal décor—every table runner in place. No dried wax on the candlesticks. That sort of thing.

No, when he entered someone’s house, it was at its most living, breathing state. No one cleans up for the bug man. Sometimes, it’s a lesser state than that—the emergency jobs—the termites, the bed bugs. All the embarrassing intimacies are exposed, and no one cares. The bug man gets the crusted dishes in the sink. The untamed dust bunnies exploring new territories like tumbleweed on an open prairie. The beds stripped and yellowed mattresses exposed, tainted with creatures, as sheets spin in an extra-high-heat dryer, and Mrs. Scoffield or Johnson or McAlister scratches her arms and cries when he leaves.

But seeing how the mighty had fallen wasn’t what he loved most. Sure, he had grown up poor. He’d done a stint in the navy and ended up exterminating bugs when his previously undiagnosed sleep apnea got him honorably discharged. He’d only had chance encounters with the rich and famous until he took this job, but peering into their nooks and crannies didn’t do it for him. Besides, wealthy, educated people didn’t tip well.

What he really loved were the houses where people lived alone, especially Emily Conyers’ house, though he couldn’t admit that to anyone for fear of being labeled a predator.  He had never lived alone. He moved from his childhood home with his mother, four sisters, and an aunt, the lone man in a gaggle of women, to the ship, where the men at first overwhelmed him. And now he lived with Raye, who was more girl than all his family members, yet cruder than anyone he’d met at sea. She spent hundreds at a hair appointment, slept in makeup, pissed with the door open, and drank milk from the carton.

The loner-houses weren’t anything like his apartment with Raye. The men lived unapologetically—entire rooms with no furniture. And the women’s spaces, especially Emily’s, intrigued him most of all. Women alone didn’t sacrifice anything for anyone else. If Emily wanted a pastel pink dresser and intricate lace doilies on the wall, she had it, and yet it didn’t come across childish. Just true.

Emily was twenty-five, divorced, and interested in stargazing and staying fit, but he only knew this from her OKCupid profile, which he wasn’t supposed to be viewing, as he was in a loving, committed relationship with Raye. He visited Emily’s house once a month for a routine cockroach/spider/centipede spraying, and each time he found himself lingering in the corners, taking his time. He knew this was counterintuitive. She’d never call him with a brown recluse problem if he took such pains to keep her pest-free, but he couldn’t imagine her, all alone, sleeping in fear on her tiny living room loveseat because of a rogue cockroach in her bedroom at night. 

His OKCupid profile featured an unrecognizable photo of himself, ten years prior, at boot camp. He wore sunglasses and had the requisite close haircut. Raye would never discover him, as long as he cleared his computer history, and Emily wouldn’t guess that Chris, “I like to work out and live life to the fullest,” was the Chris-the-bug-man-Chris.

He was building up the courage to send her a private message.

“I hope you haven’t had any problems with those Japanese stink bugs,” he mumbled as he sprayed poison in her kitchen.

“I’m sorry?” she said.

“Stink bugs. From Japan? They came in on a boat…invasive species.”

“Oh. No. I don’t even know what they’d look like.”

“Kind of like little origami kites, actually. But, you know. Smellier.”

“I’ll be on the lookout.”

“Yes! Let me know if you see any. You can call me any time. I mean, call ExpressPest any time, and someone will come out and take care of it.”

“Thanks. I will.”

He ran the conversation over in his mind. Her voice had risen when she said thanks. Like she genuinely meant it. It was a start.  He’d send the message.

Dear Emily,

You seem like a cool girl I would like to get to know. Would you like to chat sometime?

Over his shoulder, he heard the sound of smacking gum.

“Who’s Emily?”

It was Raye.

“Um. A client with a stink bug problem.”

“That’s what she said,” Raye snorted.

“That doesn’t make any sense,” he said.

“Whatever. Oh my god, is that OKCupid? What the hell, Chris?”

It would take a trip to Jared’s Jewelers and a lot of groveling to unwind Raye from this one. Raye cried that she shouldn’t have to feel insecure because she worked so hard at being confident. That he should know how far she’s come with trust after her last boyfriend and the mess with her step-dad, and she built a home with him, right, don’t you understand that we’re a family?

He looked around at their apartment. Raye’s purple bra hung over the bathroom doorknob, drying from the laundry. There were tampons in plain sight on the toilet tank. Over the fake fireplace was the art Raye had bought from TJ Maxx, the wooden plaque that said, We didn’t realize we were making memories—we just knew we were having fun! He realized he did live in a loner-house, but that house was Raye’s loner-house. Where did he go?

He got a message back from Emily.

Do I know you? You look so familiar from your picture.

He thought of Emily sitting on her double bed, the room dark but for the twinkle lights strung above her doorway. He envisioned himself disappearing there, too, tucking his work shirts away in the bottom pink dresser drawer.

He hit reply.

Photograph by: Whitney Ott
Written by: Dot Dannenberg

Wheel

Shooting Big Sneak, he hit a hung-up sycamore that bounced the kayak toward an undercut rock. He turned just as the shoulder of fall-line granite thumped him in the temple. There was no blackout, no ringing bell in his brain – just a dull pain, skull against rock, followed by a faint buzzing like a sweat bee against a nylon tent wall. He righted himself, shaking it off, glad he’d had the spray skirt on.

At first he thought the weather had turned – the sky glowering down to the dull, horizon-wide mica-shine that meant storm. Then he saw that his bright boat (Tequila Sunrise, the sticker had said) had lost color. The river, too, was black as burned oil, the foam on the standing waves as dull and lightless as mortar mix. He was as absent of color as his granddad’s ancient television. Dashing his face with the inky river didn’t help. He closed his eyes, opened them, rubbed them. The world stayed the same flat monochrome.

What could he do but paddle through? He tried, but in grayscale the river’s eddyline disappeared: the current grounded and spun him. The dimness felt malevolent. As he passed under the first of two bridges, the span against the flat chalk sky was a long, black shadow, an underbelly alive with the chittering of bats he could perceive only as a faint, teeming seethe. He knew they must be bank swallows, not bats, but couldn’t convince himself. He saw what he saw. When two dozen swarmed from their unseen mud nests above him it was all he could do not to panic. Against a glaring patch of sky the veering wings appeared and disappeared like ghosts.

Just past the second bridge, at the take-out, he pulled the spray skirt and saw his legs, gray as a dead man’s, the hair stark as black wire. The pallid sand of the shallows made a soft sucking sound against his keel. Again he shut his eyes. He beached, got out. He slung his head side-to-side, up and down, went to his knees like a Muslim pray-er, forehead to the damp riverbank. Nothing worked. He thought of whacking himself with the paddle.

Is you hurt?

The voice came out of the yawning darkness under the end of the bridge.

Who’s there?

Nobody. Just me fishing.

Hey.

Hey. You eyes – they failing on you?

I hit my head.

You not seeing me?

You’re under the bridge. I can’t see anything under there.

A shadow moved against shadow, its edges indistinct until a pair of black rubber boots became clear, stepping down the sapped granite rip-rap that shelved down from the bridge. First he saw the knee-high boots, then knees and thighs, carrying wide, round hips. A woman. A stick or cane helped hold her up.

You seeing me now?

I see most of you. Not your face.

She came further until she stood ten feet away.

This close as I’m coming, mister.

That’s fine. I see you, ma’am. Her eyes were black as two cliff-face caves.

What ail you?

I can’t see right. Everything is black and white.

Everthing is. Sure enough.

Now that he’d said it he realized there was no white, only the bleached gray of dry bone.

Everything’s shadows. No color.

How long?

Two hours, maybe. Seems like forever.

What you hit?

A rock. In that rapid below the old ferry.

You laid down yet?

No ma’am.

You lay down, then. Lay down with that same rock as your pillow.

It was in a rapid.

Then find one like it.

What good would that do?

Rock took your sight. Rock can turn it back.

I thought of hitting myself already, if that’s what you mean.

I said what I mean. You lay down.

So he did. He was on his knees still, a flat slab of granite within reach of his head. He stretched out, putting his temple to the stone, freckled and shot with graininess – dark and light specks and every colorless gradation between from pencil lead to pen ink. Charcoal, soot, ash-tipped reed -- every medium hands had ever scribbled in. He rested his head on the hardness.

The woman’s face above him was a black hole against the sky. For the first time he feared something other than this dead world he had crossed into. He closed his eyes.

In the dream his stone pillow was brought to him on a wooden paddle. It was rounder – almost spherical, the size of a large orange – but it was his pillow. The surface, too, was like an orange’s, minutely pebbled, glossy. He lay still looking at it, his eye entering the crevices of its roundness until a translucent leathery wing was spread over his sight. He blinked. The stone had become an orange, halved -- a ruby wheel, white-spoked, its colors muted but there. His waking heart lurched at the redness and accelerated, as if a lost heat had rekindled his blood.

When he woke, a weight held his eyes shut – the woman’s warm hand, rough with dirt, smelling of snuff, earthworms, Jergen’s hand lotion. Her long middle finger spanned his eyes, her other fingers his brow and upper cheeks. The calloused ridge of her palm draped his temple, as soft on that side of his head as the rock was hard on the other.

You keep them eyes shut, she said.

She drew her hand away. He heard riprap shift as she withdrew up the bank – heard her call from under the bridge Look now. Look at old muddy first.

He cracked open his eyes. He saw first the river -- clod-colored, flowing under a still, dim reflection of the sky -- then the gray-mottled sycamore trunks of the far side, then the brown-shot, green-and-yellow spatter of their leaves. Beyond, the blue sky.

Thank you, he said, to the clouds, the trees, the water, the woman. He was too glad to cry.

Photograph by: Whitney Ott
Written by: Gordon Johnston

Connect to Charger

--100%--

This is the happiest moment of my night, and it will be ending any second now.

*Knock, knock, knock*

Speak of the Devil.

So long, chair. We will meet again.

--99%-- 

“Happy Birthday, muddahfuckah!”

It’s Brent, some of his college buddies and a group of girls who may or may not be above the age of consent.

“Brent, I told you in the text, my birthday is two weeks from now.”

“And I told YOU in the text, I don’t give a shit. It may not be your birthday, but we’re gonna party like it’s your birthday!”

Brent clearly didn’t know how I party on my birthday.

“Where do we put the keg?”

“You got a keg?”

“Hell yeah! I spare no expense for my best-work-buddy’s birthday!”

“It’s not my birthday.”

“Then why are you holding THIS?”

Brent tossed a plastic chalice, with “B-DAY PIMP” emblazoned around the rim, in my direction.

I didn’t catch it, and it cracked.

“DUDE. What the fuck? That thing cost me like, twenty bucks!”

“ONLY twenty bucks?”

--68%-- 

The number of people in my apartment has quadrupled since Brent and his entourage invaded my personal space, which is why I’m surprised William, our colleague, has decided to cling to me like the stench of fried food on my corporate-mandated apron.

“This is an epic birthday party, dude.”

“Is it?”

“Yeah, man! You’ve got a keg and everything!”

“It’s not even my birthday.”

“But Brent said…”

“Brent’s an idiot. He just needed an excuse to get wasted and I was foolish enough to let him know it’s my birth month.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

--59%-- 

Will and I broke our awkward silence by taking a sip of our drinks. As I peered down the ribs of my red-plastic cup, Angela passed through my sights. What was she doing here? If my stalker-ish calculations were correct, she should be visiting her boyfriend this weekend.

“Will, it’s been a pleasure, but I need a refill.”

“Want me to get it for you, Birthday Boy?”

“No. No I don’t.”

“Alright, man. I’ll be here.”

“Good to know.”

Note to self, avoid that area for the rest of the night.

--51%-- 

“Angela?”

“Hey!”

Oh, God. She’s going in for the hug.

“Happy Birthday!”

It feels like it.

Oh, man. She gives good hugs.

“I didn’t think I’d see you here.”

“Yeah, well, Blake had something to do this weekend, and I didn’t want to just stay home alone on a Saturday night like some kind of a loser.”

“Totally.”

Liar. 

“This is a great party!”

“I spare no expense for my birthday.”

“I can see that. You got a keg and everything.”

“YOLO.”

“Totes!”

Kill me.

“I really like your apartment.”

“Thanks. Me too.”

Another uncomfortable silence and another sip from my cup. As I lowered my drink I heard a raised voice coming from the bathroom.

--44%-- 

“EWW! GROSS, DUDE!”

“Angela, it’s been a pleasure, but I need to see what that’s about.”

“No problem. I’ll be here.”

“Glad to hear it.”

Note to self, immediately return to that area.

--42%-- 

“Oh no.”

“Jake threw up EVERYWHERE.”

“I can see that, Brent. Jake. Jake. Come in, Jake.”

“He’s out, dude.”

“I can see that, Brent. Get him out of here so I can clean all this shit up.”

“I’m sorry, dude. I really am.”

“Yeah, well, you should be.”

And just like that, Brent was gone. So was Jake. It was just me, a bucket and the second coming of our “award winning” baked potato soup.

Through the door I hear Brent persuading William to give Jake a ride home. Will was the newest addition to the wait staff, thereby making him everybody’s bitch. His sheepish demeanor wasn’t doing him any favors. I guess that’s why he flocked to me. We wear a similar wool.

--27%-- 

Things were shaping up. The puke was gone. Will was gone. And as far as I could tell, everyone assumed I was gone. My insignificance was working in my favor. Now, to keep my presence unknown while I take these vomit cloths to the dumpster.

--22%-- 

“Oh.”

Shit. It’s Karen.

“HEY!”

She “discreetly” discards her cigarette and goes in for a hug.

“Happy Birthday!”

Even in the great outdoors, her breath smells like a bowling alley.

“Still smoking, huh?”

“Come on, it was just ONE. Give me a break.”

“Hey, I’m not your oncologist. Puff away.”

I used to be more vocal about her deadly habit. Then she started mistaking my general disapproval of self-destructive behavior for genuine interest in her well-being. And now, I’m her Angela.

“Need help with those?”

“No thanks.”

“Want me to walk with you?”

No thanks.

“Sure.”

--13%-- 

Karen talked from the dumpster to my doorstep. About what, I had no idea. I put my social skills on autopilot and let my mind drift off to a happier, lonelier place.

As we came in, Brent was on his way out.

“Hey, man! I was looking for you. I think me and some peeps are going to get pancakes. You down?”

“Nah. I think I’m going to stick around and tidy up a bit.”

“Want me to help?”

“Thanks Karen, but I’ll be fine by myself. You go enjoy some breakfast food.

“I’m not really hungry.” 

“Well, I’m pretty sure they have a smoking section.”

The light in Karen’s eyes extinguished like the cigarette she smashed into the pavement.

--9%- 

The door closed with Karen, Brent and Brent’s peeps on the other side. I checked to see if Angela was still lingering around the kitchen.

She wasn’t.

It would’ve been nice to take one more swing at wooing her from Blake, but beggars can’t be choosers. All I’ve wanted to do since Brent knocked on my door was return to my lonely throne and let the solitude rejuvenate my spirits like a cold compress.

Just let me step over a few empty beer cups and…

Oh, yeah.

--Charging-- 

Photograph by: Jaemin Riley
Written by: Mark Killian