Fiction / Suzy Eynon 

          Mad­die and Chris cross the thresh­old into the first gallery room of the down­town art muse­um still blink­ing away the bright spots in their vision left by an indif­fer­ent win­ter sun. Mad­die reads the neat script on a small white note­card, a slight­ly dif­fer­ent shade of white from the wall to which it’s affixed, next to the Geor­gia O’Keeffe. A Cel­e­bra­tion, it says. She is drawn to the swirling clouds against a blue close to the pri­ma­ry shade she learned in kinder­garten. This blue is every­where that after­noon: the paint­ing, her wool coat, the unin­ter­rupt­ed Jan­u­ary sky. Chris leaves her side after only a minute to head for the rest of the Amer­i­can oils in their gild­ed frames. The cou­ple rarely remains side-by-side in pub­lic, as if wit­ness­ing or con­sum­ing some­thing togeth­er can only occur at a phys­i­cal dis­tance. If she fol­lows him, he will pro­ceed to the next paint­ing, a game of chase. She’s always in pur­suit, try­ing to catch up. She puts a hand to the spot on her low back which throbs as if to reas­sure it. Then, a high-pitched squeal inter­rupts the rooms of the sec­ond floor of the muse­um, a sound at first unplace­able to Mad­die.  

          The sharp alert is fol­lowed by a ris­ing cas­cade of voic­es and shuf­fles, bod­ies adjust­ing and on guard, a heel squelch­ing against the shined floor. A young child gig­gles then set­tles into a sob. The alarm speaks in a woman’s voice, calm but firm. There has been an emer­gency report­ed in the build­ing. Please con­tin­ue to the stair­well and evac­u­ate the build­ing. Do not use the ele­va­tors. Mad­die looks for a glow­ing red exit sign, imag­ines curl­ing fin­gers of smoke creep­ing into the room from an unknown source and becomes aware of her own breath­ing. Chris appears at her side, grab­bing her hand. She pulls away from the heavy warmth of his palm on impulse before find­ing it again. They walk toward a stair­well, where oth­ers form a line to exit. 

          “Only in the Pacif­ic North­west would peo­ple line up dur­ing an evac­u­a­tion,” some­one says behind Mad­die.   

          At the bot­tom of the stairs, a muse­um vol­un­teer holds a door open to the street. Mad­die and Chris walk away from the build­ing, then stop near a win­ter-bare Japan­ese maple plant­ed in a cement con­tain­er. Mad­die looks up at the build­ing, vague­ly hop­ing to see some­thing on the roof or a shad­ow in retreat from an upper floor win­dow, more imag­ined smoke bil­low­ing from the build­ing, even some­thing oth­er­world­ly like slime in a crawl down the mono­lith of glass and steel but sees no evi­dence of what sent them onto the side­walk. Patrons gath­er in twos or in clumps form­ing lit­tle closed cir­cles of chat­ter. The few vol­un­teers in their bright blue but­ton-up shirts and lan­yards give away noth­ing. They stand with groups of patrons or peer through the glass to the inside of the muse­um. 

          “Do you think this is far enough away, in case?” Mad­die ges­tures up at the roof of the build­ing. 

          “There’s nobody on the roof,” Chris says. But he can’t know this. 

          Mad­die search­es Seat­tle art muse­um emer­gency today on her phone. Dif­fer­ent com­bi­na­tions of words fail to bring her the nec­es­sary infor­ma­tion. It seems to her more and more late­ly that there is too much infor­ma­tion avail­able, so when she needs a spe­cif­ic piece of information—wants to know if she should run or wait, won­ders what a loud boom was in the night—she can’t find any rel­e­vant results. She con­sid­ers ask­ing a near­by vol­un­teer what hap­pened, but this feels wrong, like an admis­sion of weak­ness. She glimpses a ver­sion of her­self as an uneasy per­son, hands shak­ing as she asks with wide eyes what’s going on, too breathy, like a con­fused child. She might annoy them, a per­son too impa­tient to wait, or look like a neigh­bor­hood gos­sip while some­body might be suf­fer­ing a real emer­gency. This ver­sion of her­self sends a wave of revul­sion through her body, which she receives as a chill and pulls her coat closed over her chest. The vol­un­teers don’t seem to know much more than she does, since they wait on the side­walk with the rest of the crowd. No one makes a move to re-enter the build­ing or share fur­ther infor­ma­tion with the group. 

          A lad­der truck and small­er firetruck pull up across the street.  

          “Why are they over there?” Chris says. He pulls up the fire depart­ment live response web site and reads off the codes. Fire alarm. 

          Sev­er­al fire­fight­ers hop out of the truck and head for the build­ing across the street instead of toward the art muse­um. Some­one in a muse­um shirt approach­es the trucks. Then Mad­die sees a fig­ure through the glass front of the muse­um, some­one in repose. Injured, maybe, or bent down to retrieve some­thing. She steps clos­er and peers inside.  

          A young woman is seat­ed in a plas­tic chair by the exit, her back to the glass doors. From the side, her face appears to be at rest, nei­ther smil­ing nor frown­ing, and yet she looks pleased, some­how. Open. She sits with her legs squared, one foot firm­ly on the ground and the oth­er casu­al­ly crossed. 

          Glass sep­a­rates the two women. Mad­die can’t tell if the woman holds a walkie-talkie like she imag­ines some of the guards might. She looks as if she belongs there, like a per­son at ease with her exis­tence in the world, not clam­or­ing to occu­py any space oth­er than the inside of the muse­um, unin­ter­est­ed in the com­mo­tion out­side. It strikes Mad­die as strange that this per­son is inside of the build­ing while they all wait out­side for the emer­gency to pass, just sit­ting pas­sive­ly in the cen­ter of this sup­posed emer­gency. 

          “Should we get a cof­fee and come back?” Chris asks. “Or we can get lunch.” 

          This is a belat­ed birth­day gift to her from Chris, the muse­um out­ing, an attempt to break up the monot­o­ny of those sil­ver-skied win­ter work­days.  

          The groups of muse­um­go­ers slow­ly dis­perse, set­ting off to get food or drinks, some way to pass the time. There’s no infor­ma­tion about how long the emer­gency may take. A man asks one of the vol­un­teers if he can use his exhib­it pass­es anoth­er time and says he’ll come back lat­er for his coat from the coat check. Mad­die has nev­er used a coat check in her life and is relieved to have noth­ing to leave behind. She likes to keep things on her per­son, so she leaves no strings attached, no require­ment to return to a par­ty she might run from. Her child­hood home was crowd­ed with belong­ings: fur­ni­ture obscured by stacks of news­pa­pers, tow­ers of unla­beled box­es nev­er unpacked, all man­ner of elec­tron­ics and house­hold items bro­ken but which might have been fixed but nev­er were. She learned to squeeze through the mar­gins between piles, mem­o­rized where to step or stand in this sea of stuff. The home was filled with rooms she could no longer enter by the time she moved away with two trash bags of clothes and books.  

          They’d parked the car in the garage attached to the muse­um, teth­er­ing them to the area unless they aban­doned it and returned for it lat­er, the garage now closed for the emer­gency just like the build­ing.  

          “I don’t know where we’d go,” Mad­die says, final­ly. 

          Despite stand­ing on a side­walk down­town sur­round­ed by shin­ing build­ings, she feels this deci­sion requires too much plan­ning and research. What if they leave that moment, and the muse­um re-opens just as they walk away? They’ve already invest­ed the time to dri­ve down here, cir­cle the under­ground park­ing garage in search of a space, and walk the wind­ing garage to find an elu­sive unmarked ele­va­tor. Mad­die is com­mit­ted to the idea of a muse­um day. The blue sky is a rar­i­ty in Jan­u­ary, and the feel­ing of light­ness she car­ried in the brief moments spent inside float­ing from piece to piece had felt rare, too, a blan­ket­ing calm she hadn’t felt in months. With each pass­ing moment, Mad­die ques­tions whether they should walk away. The wind picks up, blow­ing off the water and up through the streets. It licks at the flaps of Maddie’s coat. She tight­ens the scarf around her neck. They tuck clos­er to the build­ing again as the sun shifts over­heard toward an after­noon glare which makes Maddie’s eyes tired. She has the sense of being late to some­thing, like walk­ing into a high school class already in progress after arriv­ing late from a doctor’s appoint­ment. 

          A few groups remain by the time a guard holds open the back doors, and they re-enter the build­ing. They are direct­ed in clumps to go back through the main entry to the exhibits. They walk past the tick­et scan­ner and ascend the same esca­la­tor they used pri­or to the alarm. Mad­die walks at a quick pace, eager to get back to the point at which they’d been inter­rupt­ed before, just past the O’Keeffe.  

          A cou­ple trails behind Maddie’s path through the muse­um. “I stud­ied in France,” one of the women says. The pair give off the air of a first date or arranged meet-up: one does much of the talk­ing, rat­tling through a list of col­leges attend­ed and coun­tries vis­it­ed. Places Mad­die has nev­er and will like­ly nev­er vis­it. When­ev­er at the table for a din­ner con­ver­sa­tion that veers into trav­el, she rearranges the food on her plate, nudges piles to the edge with her fork as the oth­ers vol­ley des­ti­na­tions among their cir­cle like triv­ia, the words float­ing above them with­out ref­er­ence in Maddie’s mind. Biar­ritz, Cor­si­ca, Nice. 

          The cou­ple paus­es in front of a case con­tain­ing blue and white ceram­ics, lit­tle bowls with par­rots on them. Mad­die imag­ines eat­ing stove-warmed Chick­en N’Stars soup from one of the bowls, her Ikea spoon mak­ing a pleas­ant ting as it con­tacts the hilly tex­ture of the insides. The par­rots are espe­cial­ly beau­ti­ful to her, and in that moment she imag­ines a future includ­ing fam­i­ly heir­looms she doesn’t pos­sess: her mother’s berry print crock­ery, which her broth­er had remind­ed her was promised to him before their moth­er died, or the juice glass­es with car­toon char­ac­ters on them they’d used with break­fast as chil­dren. Mad­die hadn’t been home in years but pic­tured her broth­er scoop­ing mashed pota­toes from the largest dish, pre­pared by his wife and devoured by their chil­dren, or his chil­dren let­ting a juice glass slip from sticky hands while they stared at the tele­vi­sion. It had made sense for Mad­die not to argue about the dis­tri­b­u­tion of their mother’s items, of the wealth if you could call it that. Her broth­er had chil­dren while she and Chris didn’t. Couldn’t, she had stopped explain­ing to peo­ple who asked. It was eas­i­er to make it sound like a deci­sion they’d made. 

          Mad­die dis­tances her­self from the cou­ple, mov­ing toward a tex­tile instal­la­tion, a heap of knit­ted blan­kets piled in a stud­ied non­cha­lance from their pedestal to the ceil­ing. She inspects the pile, search­ing for how they man­aged to stay in that form, stacked so high, with­out falling. There must be a cen­ter­ing force. The edge of a rust-col­ored blan­ket catch­es her eye, its loose weave giv­ing it a drape the oth­er blan­kets don’t have. She stretch­es to run her fin­gers along its edges, her arm reach­ing over a rope bar­ri­er. She wants to feel the yarn at her fin­ger­tips, but she stops short as she recalls the guards she knows are wait­ing near­by. Dur­ing oth­er vis­its, she had seen them mate­ri­al­ize next to an offend­er caught with a hand against the glass or a cam­era inside an exhib­it labeled no pho­tog­ra­phy. She pic­tures pulling the blan­ket over her out­stretched body. 

          She turns to find Chris, to call him to the pile of blan­kets, when a sec­ond wail­ing punc­tures her thoughts and a rolling door descends from one of the path­ways to the oth­er rooms, dis­con­nect­ing the gal­leries. The sight of the door rolling toward the ground pan­ics Mad­die more than the pre­vi­ous alarm because while this time has to be anoth­er false alarm, the quick­ness of their trap­ping is breath­tak­ing.  

          “I won­der why those didn’t close before,” she says as Chris returns. 

          “Maybe we just didn’t notice,” he says. They walk to the same stair­well as ear­li­er, this time with a sense of direc­tion.  

          They must leave this time. Mad­die can’t bear the thought of repeat­ing this dance every half hour, hear­ing the same emer­gency and react­ing the same way, only to begin again. At one land­ing, Mad­die pulls her gaze away from the back of the head in front of her to look ahead, to cal­cu­late how much far­ther they have to go. She thinks she sees, in the trick­ling riv­er of bod­ies ahead, the com­posed face of the woman from ear­li­er. A turn­ing sliv­er of face, of jaw, a del­i­cate neck. Was her hair this shade of brown? The woman merges into a bun­dle of move­ment, absorbed by the loose, snaking line.  

          “Keep going?” some­one ahead of Mad­die in the stair­well asks the air. At each land­ing, it isn’t obvi­ous which way to go, if they are to push through the heavy unmarked doors or descend anoth­er flight. 

          “It’s down one more lev­el,” Mad­die offers. She is now an expert at escap­ing, at least from this par­tic­u­lar emer­gency.  

          Those ahead of Mad­die and Chris on the stairs file through the street-lev­el door. Chris reach­es over Mad­die to hold it for their exit, but Mad­die dodges to the side, step­ping out of line. 

          “What are you doing?” Chris asks.  

          “I have to go to the bath­room.”  

          “Now?” asks Chris, but he fol­lows her down anoth­er lev­el. 

          “Here,” Mad­die says. The next met­al door is marked to Shop. “I remem­ber there was a restroom on this lev­el when I came years ago.” She pulls the door toward her chest and holds it for Chris, forc­ing him to pass first. 

          They enter a vestibule which leads to the muse­um gift shop, the restrooms, and an undec­o­rat­ed rest area with a sin­gle stuffed beige chair. 

          “I don’t think you should go right now,” Chris says. “We can go to a cof­fee shop. You can use the bath­room there.” 

          With­out respond­ing, Mad­die pulls the door to the gift shop. But­tery light blooms into the vestibule, a con­trast to the con­trolled, cool­ly lit envi­ron­ment of the gal­leries. A staff mem­ber remains behind the cash reg­is­ter. Some patrons gath­er out­side the large win­dows of the shop, heads craned into their phones.  

          Mad­die has always been attract­ed to gift shops. She doesn’t find them to be tourist traps ped­al­ing over­priced tchotchkes. They are an exten­sion of the expe­ri­ence, a place to obtain a phys­i­cal reminder to show she’s been there, not to oth­ers but to her­self. A part­ing gift for hav­ing lived. 

          “Mad­die?” Chris says. He doesn’t fol­low her into the shop. He stands next to a rack of tote bags near the back door. “Come on.” 

          She picks up and then places down a thick text on William Mor­ris. “Just a sec­ond,” she says. She eyes glis­ten­ing glass­ware, a bas­ket brim­ming with logoed mar­bles. Stacks of mint green hard­cov­er note­books with clean, unbro­ken spines. She can prac­ti­cal­ly hear the crack of open­ing one for the first time, the fwip-fwip of stiff pages turn­ing. Mad­die paus­es again in front of a dis­play of pol­ished stones. They look like riv­er rock, or what her mom had called riv­er rock, like the stones beneath the small foun­tain in her child­hood home which absorbed splash­es or dis­played a spray of water across their flat sur­faces. These have no dirt debris and are cool to the touch as Mad­die runs her fin­ger across their sur­face. 

          “Folks, we need you to head out­side for a few moments until we’re ready to open the reg­is­ter back up,” says a guard, sweep­ing his hand in the direc­tion of the street-side door. A woman strug­gles with sev­er­al bags as she makes her way past Mad­die. Chris looks pained as he glances at Mad­die, then at the door.  

          “Excuse me,” says anoth­er woman. It is the woman from ear­li­er, the inside woman. She walks toward Mad­die with a wide, quick stride, a look of deter­mi­na­tion on her face. Mad­die feels a wave of guilt, a red­ness bloom­ing on her face. She braces as if to be struck or yelled at though she isn’t sure why she reacts this way even as it hap­pens in her body.  

          “Me?” she says.  

          The woman has a dis­arm­ing smile. Warm. “Your scarf.” She holds it aloft. Its weave has come loose from wear, fuzzy and haloed in the light. 

          Maddie’s hand goes to her throat. It must have slipped off. 

          “Wow, thank you,” she says. “That’s so nice.” She nev­er knows how to show appre­ci­a­tion when helped and knows she relies too much on say­ing things or peo­ple are nice or kind, like she can only acknowl­edge the deed by label­ing it. 

          The woman nods by way of acknowl­edg­ment and walks toward the exit. Mad­die knows she has been too appre­cia­tive of the woman. It’s only a scarf. Chris still stands at the edge of the shop, his expres­sion bored. Mad­die moves with rare flu­id­i­ty of motion, palm­ing a gray stone before drop­ping it into the deep pock­et of her coat. For a moment, she imag­ines an out­come in which she has mis­cal­cu­lat­ed, and the stone falls to the floor with a clat­ter, draw­ing the atten­tion of Chris and secu­ri­ty. But she can feel its weight, tug­ging her coat slight­ly down, root­ing her in place. It weighs her down, this imper­cep­ti­ble shift, and she doesn’t move until Chris stands before her with an out­stretched hand. When they make it to the street, Mad­die is reas­sured by the per­sis­tent sky, the pres­ence of low clouds obstruct­ed from her view by tall build­ings. 

From the writer

:: Account ::

The pro­tag­o­nist of this sto­ry, Mad­die, grap­ples with inde­ci­sion and comes from this place where she doesn’t feel there’s room for her, not just phys­i­cal­ly but in terms of space. The title is pas­sive—there has been—which was delib­er­ate, since she is pas­sive in ways, too. I was at an art muse­um once when the alarm kept get­ting trig­gered, a false alarm, and it made me think of dif­fer­ent types and sens­es of emer­gen­cies and how we react to them, the choic­es we are forced to make even dur­ing small emer­gen­cies. In this sto­ry, I was also think­ing about an art muse­um as a blank, clean, arranged space to which view­ers bring their own mess, their own lives. The art muse­um can be a place you peer into through glass, a reflec­tive sur­face or a place you look through to some­thing else. It’s a third place, not home or work but oth­er, and I think Mad­die is look­ing for her­self in there, or look­ing for some­thing to call her own or to pos­sess.  

Suzy Eynon is the author of the forth­com­ing novel­la Ter­res­tri­al (Malarkey Books 2026), and the prose chap­books Being Seen (Ethel) and Com­mut­ing (Ghost City Press sum­mer series). Her fic­tion and non­fic­tion work has been pub­lished in Roanoke Review, Pas­sages North, Aut­o­fo­cus, X‑R-A‑Y, and else­where. Orig­i­nal­ly from Ari­zona, she lives in Seat­tle. More at http://suzyeynon.com/. 

Fiction Translation / Anita Harag  Tr. Marietta Morry and Walter Burgess 

:: The Morning Boy ::

The chair squeaks, I lean back, the floor creaks under the chair, the table makes a crack­ing sound when I put my elbow on it.  I have noticed that I loud­ly crack my knuck­les.  I do that every cou­ple of min­utes, but it could be any kind of sound.  For exam­ple, some­thing com­ing from out­side: a branch snaps against the win­dow or some­one slams a car door, or it could be a sound from inside like the wood con­tract­ing as the cool air rush­es in.  Per­haps he hasn’t even got­ten up yet.  Just after nine, why should he be awake at nine.  Maybe at ten or eleven; from then there would be only a cou­ple of hours left.  I shouldn’t try so hard not to make any noise; he won’t hear it any­way.  I can walk over to the win­dow to close it.  I’m sure the arm­chair doesn’t squeak; I just need to make it that far.  On the oth­er hand, the par­quet floor creaks and it takes at least five steps from the arm­chair to the desk.  If he wakes up and goes to the kitchen, he will need to pass by the bed­room door and hear that the win­dow is open.  The sounds change as if the gar­den moved inside the house.  The car dri­ves by in the bed­room, the bird tweets in the bed­room, the wind blows the branch­es in the bed­room.  I have to close the win­dow, but if I stand up now and walk over there, it could be the squeak­ing of the floor that wakes him.  That’s even worse.   

        I can see the pic­ture on the wall if I lean back from my lap­top.  Yet I don’t rec­og­nize any­thing in it, there’s noth­ing there to be rec­og­nized.  Col­ors and shapes swirl around each oth­er, the whole pic­ture is some­how hap­py.  The room also becomes hap­pi­er because of the pic­ture.  I wig­gle my toes; I try to move my small toe on its own, but the oth­ers move with it.  It’s an evo­lu­tion­ary regres­sion, I’m sure that mon­keys can do it, they need all of them for climb­ing.  Per­haps it would be sim­pler if we were mon­keys.  We would cud­dle each oth­er, groom each oth­er, know each other’s voic­es; it would be nat­ur­al to be close to the oth­ers and we wouldn’t be able to sleep with­out the warmth and famil­iar sound of anoth­er ani­mal.   

        I don’t know this sound, this dron­ing.  It orig­i­nates from some­where in the house, per­haps from his room; he turned on his machine, but what machine would have such a loud drone.  This house is too nice to have such a loud com­put­er.   I don’t know if it has been dron­ing before, only I didn’t notice it, or if it just start­ed now.  I lis­ten intent­ly.  There will be sounds once he gets up.  Chair squeak­ing, fur­ni­ture creak­ing, or some­thing.  The open­ing of the door, clos­ing of the door, toi­let flush­ing.  Water run­ning.  A crow starts croak­ing in the room.  I should real­ly close my  win­dow, I’m chilly, my hands are cold.  How cold your hands are, Eszter says; are you anx­ious?  The win­dow is maybe four steps from here; from there it is only two steps to the book­case.  I had ear­li­er spot­ted that book with the yel­low spine, it would be good to get it.  I would still be able to see the pic­ture from the arm­chair.  It was paint­ed by Eszter.   

        The win­dow shouldn’t be closed after all.  A closed room ampli­fies the sounds.  I make it to the book­case in three long steps.  The books lean against each oth­er hel­ter-skel­ter on the shelves.   Eszter has been talk­ing for months about want­i­ng to do some­thing with the emp­ty spaces but hasn’t found the time.  There used to be some­thing round in the cor­ner, the floor is dark­er there, per­haps a large plant with a leaky pot.  One of the pic­tures has also dis­ap­peared from the wall, a lighter square and a hole where the nail used to be.  If I opened the dress­er, one of the draw­ers would per­haps be emp­ty and the oth­er one would only be half full with Eszter’s panties.   Every­thing is as it used to be; the spaces not yet filled. There is no car­pet on the floor which would allow me to walk qui­et­ly.   He took that as well.  Accord­ing to Eszter, he also took things that she hasn’t yet noticed and will only miss lat­er.  Items she doesn’t think of because she only used them rarely, like the pota­to mash­er, that was always her husband’s job, now she uses a fork to mash the pota­toes.  The stove-top espres­so machine had the same fate.  She rarely drinks cof­fee but some­times has a han­ker­ing for it.  She thought she would not miss those things, the cof­fee machine, the pota­to mash­er and God knows what else. 

        She doesn’t under­stand how she can miss the pos­ses­sions of some­one if she doesn’t miss him.  It doesn’t mat­ter if she miss­es him, I told her.  It’s his books I miss, Eszter answered, she miss­es his plants, and she’s not alone.  Her plants also miss her husband’s plants.  The plants know; they sense it.  Her hus­band knew how to water them, or rather he still knows but no longer does it.  Eszter called him the plant whis­per­er; he could save the sad­dest look­ing plant.  Can she still call him that?  Or is that some­thing only used when they were a cou­ple?  It’s all right if you miss him, I told Eszter again.  I only miss his plants, she answered, and his books.  And the cof­fee machine.   

        She still calls him her hus­band; they are not offi­cial­ly divorced yet.  There­fore, she still has a hus­band some­where.  I still have to get used to this.  I have nev­er been with any­one before who had a hus­band – some­one who lived with a hus­band for fif­teen years, had a child, and lived here as a three­some for ten.  They slept in this room, in this bed, in this house.  The par­quet floor also creaked under the husband’s feet.  Eszter loved him.  She loved a hus­band.  They washed their clothes togeth­er; three loads, that’s a lot of laun­dry.  Their clothes had the same scent, a uni-scent.  I don’t even know where the wash­ing machine is in this house.  I could start using the same deter­gent and my clothes would also have that uni-scent, and then, per­haps, her son would accept me, would rec­og­nize my scent.   

        I can­not pay atten­tion to the book with the yel­low spine.  I start­ed read­ing it from the first sen­tence and now I am up to the for­ti­eth and don’t remem­ber a thing.  The word “wood­peck­er” appeared in it sev­er­al times.  I lay the book on my knees.  The arm­chair is com­fort­able; if the hus­band left it behind, then it belongs to Eszter.   She would sit in it the way I am sit­ting now, with my legs under me, my head against the back of the chair.  She must sit here in the morn­ings to read, lis­ten­ing to find out if her son is up yet.  She is famil­iar with his sounds.  She knows what this drone is; she doesn’t even notice it.  She looks at her watch, it tells her when her son gets up and when she needs to start wor­ry­ing if he doesn’t stir.  But Eszter prob­a­bly doesn’t sit in the room and doesn’t read; moth­ers are usu­al­ly in the kitchen prepar­ing break­fast, stir­ring cocoa; there is a rou­tine.   When her son leaves his room to pee, she’s already warm­ing the milk.  I don’t know why I think the child drinks cocoa, he’s already twelve, per­haps he has grown out of the habit of cocoa.  Although he hasn’t grad­u­at­ed to whiskey yet; last night Eszter found a bot­tle of whiskey in the freez­er.  It must have been there for so long that her hus­band for­got about it.  Although it’s pos­si­ble that it belongs to Eszter; she didn’t say any­thing about the whiskey, only showed it to me after the  boy had gone to bed.  It’s no longer cocoa, but not yet whiskey.  But what do twelve year olds drink in the morn­ing?  This is our first morn­ing togeth­er; Eszter didn’t say any­thing about what I should serve him.   She will be com­ing back around noon.  She needs to chair a pan­el dis­cus­sion this morn­ing, but will be home by noon and we can leave for our hike togeth­er.   

        I’m thirsty.  My water was fin­ished twen­ty min­utes ago; I drink a lot when ner­vous.  Despite the fact that she talked to each of us sep­a­rate­ly about what was going to hap­pen. We will go for a hike on Sat­ur­day at noon.  Eszter is at a con­fer­ence in the morn­ing.  I will sleep over; there­fore the son and I will be alone in the house for a cou­ple of hours.  Will that be OK with you, she asked her son.  OK.  Is it OK with you, she asked me.  OK.  I don’t know what her son’s OK meant.  Is it OK, indeed, or does it mean that it doesn’t mat­ter to him, which would actu­al­ly mean not OK.  This could make Eszter think that it was real­ly OK, when it sim­ply meant that it wasn’t OK and Eszter knew this, but you have to start some­where.  If it were up to her son, OK would always mean not OK.  But she didn’t tell me that, so that I wouldn’t feel uncom­fort­able.   

        After all, this is his house.  I’m not about to wake him up, the way the mail­man or a couri­er would do if they arrive unan­nounced.  Once he’s up, once I hear him stir­ring in his room, I can go fetch some water.  I won’t be drink­ing before; at least I won’t need to go to the toi­let.  If I was to wake him, first he wouldn’t know what he hears.  Mine is not the usu­al voice.  He would rec­og­nize that it is nei­ther his mother’s nor his father’s; per­haps while half asleep he would think it’s his father and then would remem­ber the divorce and real­ize that his father no longer lives here.  Their voic­es wouldn’t make him get up any­way.  It’s an unfa­mil­iar voice and he would be star­tled that there is a stranger in the house, and then would remem­ber it’s his mother’s girl­friend.  His moth­er has a girl­friend who sleeps in the house; OK. 

        OK, he answered when Eszter told him three months ago that she was in love with me and spends the night at my place when he is at his father’s.  She asked him if he want­ed to talk about this.  He didn’t.  It would have been weird, Eszter told me after­wards.  I tell him every­thing and yet he wouldn’t have known about this, that I, that we, you know; it would have been weird that I loved some­one so much, and he, of all peo­ple, wouldn’t know about it.  A few days lat­er, her son asked her how long she had been in love with me.  He didn’t say my name.  Accord­ing to Eszter he didn’t remem­ber it; after all, he only heard it once.  Five months.  You’ve been paint­ing ever since, he replied, or, ever since you’ve been paint­ing.  I don’t remem­ber exact­ly how he said it.  Since we met, Eszter keeps think­ing about paint­ing all the time; when she could paint next or if there was enough paint at home.  She enjoys dis­cov­er­ing a red or yel­low speck of paint in the most unex­pect­ed parts of her body; for exam­ple, at the back of her knee.  I have hung three of her paint­ings in my apart­ment.   Her son didn’t state it, instead he asked whether Eszter loves me because she start­ed to paint.   

        Per­haps the OK didn’t mean OK for me either.  After her son’s OK, I couldn’t have said any­thing else.  At the time, it seemed OK but it was in the after­noon, we have already spent after­noons togeth­er as a three­some.  We also spent a cou­ple of evenings togeth­er, watched movies in the liv­ing room, went for a walk after sup­per; I didn’t hold Eszter’s hand and we didn’t touch each oth­er.  Not on the street, nor in the house.  I remem­ber each time I want­ed to touch her and didn’t.  When we went to buy choco­late, it was dif­fer­ent.  We were stand­ing in line in front of the cashier, the line was mov­ing slow­ly, Eszter looked at me, smiled and gave me a peck on my lips.  After­wards, she and I talked a lot about it, and how that woman two paces behind us looked at us.  And how this wasn’t real­ly the same as it would have been kiss­ing her hus­band while stand­ing in line.   

        So, we had already got to watch­ing movies with her son.  We also go for walks togeth­er.  After a walk we return to their place and Eszter accom­pa­nies me to the bus stop.  We let three or four bus­es go by.  I find it dif­fi­cult to keep my dis­tance from Eszter, from her hands, her mouth, her shoul­ders, her hair.  We like it when Eszter sleeps over at my place.  At night, half asleep, I tell her that I dreamt about her hair, her hair was the star of my dream; I only remem­ber her hair, her curly dark brown hair.  Real­ly, she asks me.  Yet, in the morn­ing, she doesn’t remem­ber a thing.  I have told her about this dream dur­ing sev­er­al nights; I won­der when will she wake up one morn­ing and remem­ber it?   

        It was my after­noon self who replied OK to her after­noon boy.  I didn’t think about the morn­ing boy and my morn­ing self.  I didn’t check with Eszter what I need­ed to know about this boy.   What time he wakes up, should I go to him once he’s awake, should I pre­pare him break­fast; what does he eat for break­fast, or should I just leave him alone?  Is he a sound sleep­er?  Should I wait for him out­side by the table, should I take my lap­top into the kitchen and work there?  Eszter also works at the kitchen table.  Should I be like Eszter?  Par­ents have a spe­cial greet­ing when they see their child, first thing in the morn­ing.  Their voic­es change, they nev­er greet any­one the way they greet their child in the morn­ing.  Per­haps I should learn it.   

        There are more and more sounds com­ing from the street.  Chil­dren go to the play­ground shout­ing, they go down the side­walk in toy cars, their moth­ers and fathers call out to them.  Flóra, Beni, Zente and Léna have already passed by our house.  Then came anoth­er Beni, although it’s pos­si­ble that it was the same Beni as before, except on his way back.  One of the swings in the play­ground squeaks, that’s where I sat with Eszter beside me and the evening boy beside her.  The evening boy seems to be more anx­ious than the after­noon one; accord­ing to Eszter, I’m just imag­in­ing things.  The evening boy is qui­eter, more seri­ous, watch­es my every move, but if I look at him, he looks away.  Yet, I sense that he’s watch­ing me, he knows exact­ly where I am in the house, when and where I go, which way I’m head­ing, whether I’m putting my shoes on or walk­ing to the liv­ing room.  A cou­ple of weeks ago, he came back from his father’s with a fresh hair­cut.  He didn’t tell Eszter that he want­ed to have his hair cut, even though Eszter liked to tuck his hair behind his ears and pat it.  I can recall that ges­ture.  Per­haps he had it cut because I noticed this ges­ture.  He had such love­ly hair, Eszter said after­wards when we were our own; it was love­ly, was­n’t it, she asked.   

        Will you get over here this minute, I over­hear from the street.  I hope they bel­low like this to a dog.   I can’t imag­ine Eszter bel­low­ing  to her son, although she must do that some times.  And what am I going to do when she bel­lows like that in front of me; will I leave the room or pre­tend that I’m not there.  I will be the fifth chair, or a jug of lemon­ade.  I won’t make a move, won’t look at either of them, chairs don’t look.  I’m sure she will bel­low at him in front of me.  That will mean that I’m accept­ed.  Once I’m a chair, then I’m accept­ed.   

        I close the win­dow, at which point the door opens a bit.  I pre­tend that I’m look­ing at the gar­den.  A bee­tle is crawl­ing on the win­dow, that’s what I’m watch­ing.  I closed the win­dow to pre­vent the insect on the ledge from com­ing in.  I count the chil­dren going to the play­ground and let him watch me. When I’m being watched, I sense it and look back. That prompts the oth­er per­son to turn away, because it’s hard to take that look.  Almost impos­si­ble.  One of the two always looks away.   

        I turn very care­ful­ly as if that’s how I usu­al­ly turn.  There’s no one stand­ing at the door.  I don’t see fin­gers on the door either, or a hand on the door­frame.  I stay qui­et; it is qui­et.  I don’t move, nei­ther does any­one else.  I walk over to the door; there is no one stand­ing behind it.  Yes­ter­day we made crêpes and left the kitchen win­dow open; it must have been the draft that opened the door.  The hall­way is dark; his door is closed.  I lis­ten for sounds but there is noth­ing com­ing from his room.  Per­haps he’s stand­ing by the door lis­ten­ing to see if I leave the bed­room. I close the door.  When Eszter comes home and asks what we’ve been doing, I will tell her that I was work­ing and he will say that he was study­ing.  Or, what would a twelve year old do on a Sat­ur­day morn­ing.  He played games, but that I would hear, or at least the after­noon boy shouts words when play­ing the game that I don’t under­stand. He’s got his head­set on.  Eszter has to open his door to ask him to come to din­ner because he doesn’t hear.   Once when I asked Eszter what he was doing, she said he was run­ning.  He’s always run­ning in the game, she said. 

        I opened his door one day.  The door was open a crack; I knocked, he said to come in.  This “come in” sound­ed nat­ur­al.  He thought it was his moth­er; I had nev­er been in his room before.  I was sur­prised by the plants.  He was sit­ting in the mid­dle of a jun­gle, run­ning.  The small lamp in the cor­ner makes the plants cast shad­ows on the wall.  Would you like to have île flot­tante?  Your mom would like to know.  It was île flot­tante or pan­na cot­ta, some sort of dessert.  He was sur­prised to see me there.  He shook his head, didn’t real­ly under­stand what I’d asked him, he was so tak­en aback that I was in his room that he couldn’t con­cen­trate on any­thing else.  I left and closed the door behind me.  His best friend left not long before, I could sense the stale ado­les­cent air.  Accord­ing to Eszter, he hadn’t told his best friend about me yet.  That’s why she want­ed me to come lat­er, after his friend had left.  He would nev­er get used to me, I thought as I returned to the kitchen.  He doesn’t want any, I told Eszter.  He doesn’t want any, she asked.  He always wants some.  She put some on a plate and car­ried it over to his room.  He has beau­ti­ful plants, I said.  He adores them, she answered.  I hope he will turn the machine off.  His hour is up, she said.  I left soon after.   

        The leaves on Eszter’s plants are turn­ing yel­low; some already have brown stems.  I touched the soil; it’s dry and should be watered now.  We are all thirsty.  If I man­age to go to the kitchen, I’ll bring them water, too.  I’ll ask Eszter if she has liq­uid plant food, they could use it.  The plant food must have also belonged to her hus­band; anoth­er item she’ll miss when she notices it.  I’ll bring some plant food; we’ll have com­mu­nal plant food.  My plants will be beside hers on the flower stand.  My belong­ings will first be in this room.  Then slow­ly we’ll move my plants to the liv­ing room, we’ll start with a piece here and there, a cardi­gan left behind on the arm­chair, a book on the cof­fee-table, my mug on the kitchen counter.  He will slow­ly get used to my things, we’ll have joint activ­i­ties, movie Thurs­days, we’ll pop corn; I will bring over my grand­mom’s pop­corn machine, the pop­corn will be just like in the cin­e­ma.  Yes, this will be my first item here, some­thing use­ful.  He will find it less and less strange if I touch his shoul­ders or pre­pare him some­thing for break­fast. I’ll know whether to talk to him or leave him alone.  He will get used to my voice; won’t take off the head­set when he hears a weird noise from a strange woman; and won’t start lis­ten­ing when I go to the wash­room, to make sure that I’m not com­ing to his room.  What would he need anoth­er moth­er for?  Do I need a child?  When we first met, I was sur­prised by how tall he was; I even told Eszter.  Yes, she answered, it’s incred­i­ble that I once wor­ried about drop­ping him.  At least I need­n’t wor­ry about that.  

        Let’s say a year from now, Eszter will have to attend a con­fer­ence again and he and I will stay here on our own.  I have already moved in; this is my home.  We not only go for walks and watch movies, we sit togeth­er in the kitchen, have break­fast with­out say­ing a word, but it’s a com­fort­able silence.  He heard that I was in the kitchen, got up and joined me.  Good morn­ing, I said to him in a moth­er­ly tone, yet not the same way as Eszter.  I would like to tell him that this whole thing is new for me as well.  The hus­band, the child.  I don’t know who he will be to me and who I will be to him.  I will sim­ply be Pan­ni.  Anoth­er per­son who loves him.  Per­haps this will suf­fice.   

        A cou­ple of weeks ago he did­n’t want to come back from his father’s place.  The same thing hap­pened the Wednes­day before.  He want­ed to stay there.  In spite of the fact that dur­ing the first days he and Eszter were alone; I did­n’t show up until the third or fourth day.  It’s eleven-thir­ty.  Should I start wor­ry­ing about him now?  Sure­ly he’s not asleep, Eszter is due back at noon.  Per­haps he real­ly is asleep; I could go to the kitchen for a glass of water.  The put­ter­ing, the water will sure­ly wake him.   Or he’s not well and does­n’t dare to say any­thing; or he’s not well and can­not speak. I’ll  go to the door and lis­ten.  I’ll open the door and lis­ten to sounds in the hall­way.  What do I say if that’s exact­ly when he leaves his room?  I’ll say that I’m on the way to the kitchen.  Or I’ll only say good morn­ing and con­tin­ue on my way to the kitchen.  Yes, there’s no need to explain things.  He’s a very bright boy; I heard him talk to Eszter a few days ago while they were doing the dish­es, that the sis­ter of one his class­mates had leukemia.  He and this boy talked through lunch break.  And they also walked home togeth­er.  He did­n’t say a word, only lis­tened to his class­mate; he asked Eszter what he could have said.  He told Eszter that he remem­bered every sen­tence that he heard.  He does­n’t have a sis­ter and, apart from his grand­ma, nobody died yet.  He was still small when grand­ma died.  What should he have said?  Eszter replied that it was a good thing that he was qui­et.  How will I explain to Eszter that I spent the whole morn­ing in the house and did­n’t real­ize that this bright sen­si­tive boy died?  I’m halfway through the door; I even hold my breath.  I take anoth­er step, that’s when some­thing falls on the floor in his room.  I get fright­ened and step back into the bed­room.  And I’m also relieved.  I care­ful­ly close the door.  It was a thud like a copy­book falling on the floor.  I also heard a creak, as if some­one was try­ing to reach for it from the bed or the chair.  He’s awake and read­ing.  I sit back in the arm­chair, watch the pat­tern of the par­quet floor, then from there I move my glance to the pic­ture; my knap­sack is beside Eszter’s by the desk.  Hers is lilac col­ored, mine mus­tard.  I won’t be going to the par­ent-teacher inter­view, will I?  He asked Eszter. She will go with Dad, won’t she? 

        I real­ly have to leave the room now.  Per­haps that’s what he’s wait­ing for; he’ll fol­low me.  I leave the room with a glass in my hand, fill it up and make myself a sand­wich.  If he comes out, I’ll ask him if he would like some.  He’s not hun­gry, he’ll say.  That’s a prob­lem.   A twelve year old must have break­fast.  Also, we’ll be going hik­ing, he must eat some­thing.  But how can I tell him that.  Do I remind him that in an hour he’ll be hun­gry or do I ask whether I should pre­pare a sand­wich for him for lat­er.  Per­haps he’ll get to hate me for car­ing for him so ear­ly in the game.  He says he doesn’t want any, that’s all.  After that I’ll have noth­ing to say.  If I ask him how his sleep was, that’s even worse.  He sits down by the table and doesn’t talk to me, doesn’t even look at me.  I love his mom.  That’s all I need to tell him.  I sit down beside him and tell him that I love his mom.  He’ll give me a seri­ous look; I’ll then give him my most seri­ous look.  I’ll tell him in a lot of ways that I love his mom and that’s all there’s to it.  Or I will tell him only once but using my most seri­ous tone.  Maybe that’s how I should start.  I notice him in the kitchen, all I’ll say is: you know I love your mom, don’t you.  We run into each oth­er in the hall­way; I love your mom.  I’ll stand by his door and whis­per it to his door: I love your mom.  My whis­per will also be seri­ous.  When one whis­pers, it’s because one needs to tell some­thing at all cost.  Only urgent things need to be whis­pered.   

        I go to the win­dow; from here it is easy to see if Eszter is com­ing home.  I’ll see her first and only hear her after.  I’ll know that she’s com­ing, that she’s about to come in by the door.  I spot in the cor­ner of my eye some­thing white on the floor.  It’s dif­fi­cult not to look at the fence and the street.  The white some­thing is a water­ing can behind the arm­chair.  Maybe it has water in it.  It does.  I dis­trib­ute it so that each plant gets some.  Before we leave we’ll have to give them a thor­ough water­ing.  Hi there!  This is Eszter’s voice.  I didn’t hear the key or the door open­ing.  I walk over to the bed­room door and try to fig­ure out from the sounds what’s hap­pen­ing.  Eszter is tak­ing off her coat, I don’t leave the room yet.  Let the morn­ing boy go out­side first, greet his moth­er; let them be alone for a bit.  Hi there, Eszter says again while she’s remov­ing her shoes.  No one comes out from the oth­er room.  I’m wait­ing.  Is there any­one home?  Where are you?   

From the writer

:: Account ::

The gen­e­sis of the Hun­gar­i­an orig­i­nal of this sto­ry is a vol­ume of sto­ries by many authors put togeth­er to mark the thir­ti­eth anniver­sary of the Budapest Gay Pride parades.   In Hun­gary this event has a very dif­fer­ent sig­nif­i­cance than sim­i­lar ones in oth­er coun­tries (what the future will hold in the US is unclear).  The present Orbán regime in Hun­gary passed an amend­ment to the Fun­da­men­tal Law (the Hun­gar­i­an con­sti­tu­tion) which says that “a fam­i­ly is a union of a father who is a man and a moth­er who is a woman” and that each Hun­gar­i­an is either male or female.  

Even though the sto­ry stands on its own as an absurd sit­u­a­tion made more absurd by the narrator’s own inabil­i­ty to assert her­self even a tiny bit; the con­text of its ori­gin can add to the piquan­cy of her sit­u­a­tion. The epony­mous boy will have a dif­fi­cult time explain­ing his liv­ing arrange­ment to his bud­dies.  How­ev­er, through­out the narrator’s dither­ing, he is like­ly sleep­ing or play­ing video games. 

Ani­ta Harag was born in Budapest in 1988.  In 2020 she was the win­ner of the Margó Prize, award­ed to the best first time fic­tion author of the year, for her first vol­ume of short sto­ries Her sec­ond book of sto­ries came out in 2023.  This sto­ry post­dates her two books. 

Mari­et­ta Mor­ry and Wal­ter Burgess are Cana­di­an.  In addi­tion to sto­ries by Ani­ta Harag (twen­ty have been pub­lished), they also trans­late fic­tion by five oth­er authors; these trans­la­tions have appeared in lit­er­ary reviews in North Amer­i­ca and abroad, includ­ing in The New Eng­land Review, The South­ern Review and Ploughshares.  Gábor Szántó’s book “1945 and Oth­er Sto­ries”, six of its eight sto­ries trans­lat­ed by them, was pub­lished in 2024.  

Fiction / D.A. Hosek

:: The Boy Who Loved Music ::

       There once was a boy who loved music. When he was four, his grand­fa­ther bought a piano for his fam­i­ly so the boy’s old­er broth­er, the grandfather’s favorite grand­child, could take lessons. The boy watched as the piano was unloaded and set up in the liv­ing room. One of the deliv­ery­men tapped a sim­ple melody out on the tre­ble keys of the piano and gave the boy’s moth­er a form to sign for the deliv­ery of the piano. The boy was in love.

       The boy’s old­er broth­er was enrolled in piano lessons. The boy was not. This was no deter­rent for a boy in love. He was a pre­co­cious child. He had taught him­self to read from Sesame Street and Dr Seuss. He could teach him­self to mas­ter this strange new device. His brother’s piano book had pic­tures show­ing how he should posi­tion his fin­gers over the keys and which keys cor­re­spond­ed to which dots on the staff. The first song in the book was enti­tled “Swing­ing” and was a sim­ple sequence of notes: C‑D-E-F-G-F-E-D‑C, repeat­ed end­less­ly. The boy played this song over and over until his parents—either out of respect for his ded­i­ca­tion to his muse or out of a desire to pro­tect their sanity—enrolled the boy in piano lessons along­side his old­er brother.

***

       My grand­moth­er wore hear­ing aids. I had always assumed she did this because of the ordi­nary decay of hear­ing in old age, but her hear­ing loss was the result of a con­di­tion called oto­scle­ro­sis. The bones of the mid­dle ear nor­mal­ly vibrate against each oth­er to trans­mit sound between the tym­pa­num and cochlea, but in a per­son with oto­scle­ro­sis, these bones become cal­ci­fied and trans­mit lit­tle or no sound as they become fused.

       Oto­scle­ro­sis is a hered­i­tary dis­ease. My uncle and one of his sons inher­it­ed it. My moth­er did not. The dis­ease, appar­ent­ly, can skip a gen­er­a­tion. I also have otosclerosis.

***

       The boy’s skill as a pianist grew quick­ly. When the kinder­garten teacher dis­cov­ered the boy could sight-read the songs she sang with her stu­dents, she proud­ly ced­ed the piano bench to him dur­ing music time.

       Music was a kalei­do­scop­ic expe­ri­ence for the boy. He expe­ri­enced notes as col­ors, tim­bres as shapes. Har­monies tick­led dif­fer­ent parts of the inside of his nose. He learned the con­nec­tions between the col­ors he heard and the keys on the piano and was able to hear some­thing once and play it per­fect­ly on the piano.

       He trans­formed this abil­i­ty into pop­u­lar­i­ty by play­ing the pop­u­lar songs of the late 70s for his class­mates’ enter­tain­ment, although he gen­er­al­ly viewed the music of the time with dis­dain. And some of their requests, like KISS or Don­na Sum­mers didn’t trans­late well to the piano. The boy’s broth­er, mean­while, lost inter­est in the piano and turned his atten­tion to base­ball. The grand­fa­ther paid for coach­ing until the broth­er lost inter­est in that as well.

       The boy want­ed des­per­ate­ly to write music, sit­ting at the piano try­ing to cre­ate his own com­po­si­tions. His junior high music teacher told him of a com­po­si­tion con­test and he spent weeks work­ing on his piece, going through a full pad of man­u­script paper before he final­ly had some­thing ready to per­form for his teacher and classmates.

       He sat at the piano and began play­ing his piece. His class­mates snick­ered. He glanced at his teacher and saw her frown­ing, but not because of his class­mates’ behav­ior. Her reac­tion was direct­ed at him. She told him to stop before he reached the end of the sec­ond 12 bars.

       “Is this a joke?” she asked.

       “What?”

       “Your song. It’s—”

       “It’s that song from the Arthur movie,” one of the boys in the class said.

       A girl in the class sang the open­ing line, “Once in your life you find her…” and the class burst out in open laugh­ter. The boy snatched his man­u­script pages from the paper, crum­pled them and threw them in the garbage, flee­ing into the hall­way. He locked him­self in a stall of the boys’ bath­room where he remained until half an hour after the school day ended.

       His broth­er learned of the boy’s humil­i­a­tion and mocked him for months afterwards.

***

       There was nev­er real­ly any indi­ca­tion when I was young of the time bomb in my ears wait­ing to erode my hear­ing. I could hear every­thing just fine. Bet­ter than fine, even. Cal­ci­um deposits were already form­ing on the sur­faces of the malleus incus and stapes, but they did not impact the func­tion­al­i­ty of the bones of the mid­dle ear.

***

       The boy went to col­lege, but to the sur­prise of his teach­ers, he chose to study elec­tri­cal engi­neer­ing at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Illi­nois rather than music. The head of the music depart­ment at his high school told him he should apply for music pro­grams at Jul­liard or NYU or, at least, Northwestern.

       But the boy was real­is­tic about the prospects of a career in music. He had man­aged to get a gig play­ing piano with a Latin band that played out four times a week. They snuck him through the back doors of bars in Mex­i­can and Puer­to Rican neigh­bor­hoods with a claim that the boy was twen­ty-one and a promise that he wouldn’t drink any­thing stronger than Coke any­way. The trum­pet play­er occa­sion­al­ly slipped a lit­tle rum into the boy’s soda when no one was look­ing despite that promise. He could do the math and real­ized that even if he gigged every night and made triple what he did with the Latin band, he would still be liv­ing on a pover­ty income.

       But he was a boy who loved music, so in col­lege he joined a bar band start­ed by anoth­er stu­dent who heard him play­ing the piano in a col­lege prac­tice room. The boy scraped togeth­er a few hun­dred dol­lars to buy a used Roland Juno-106, ampli­fi­er and key­board stand. He liked that he could mod­i­fy the shapes of the notes from the key­board by adjust­ing the set­tings of the key­board, but if they played some­where that hap­pened to have a real piano, he always chose to play that in place of the Roland.

       He helped the band learn songs, writ­ing down chords and basslines for songs as quick­ly as he could lis­ten to them. One day, the gui­tar play­er showed up at rehearsal with a song he had writ­ten. He played the song accom­pa­nied only with his acoustic gui­tar and the boy could see all the holes in the song where the oth­er instru­ments would fit. He start­ed play­ing the miss­ing key­board parts on the sec­ond verse and direct­ed the bass play­er on what to add to the bot­tom end. The drum­mer joined in. On the sec­ond run-through, the gui­tar play­er switched to his tele­cast­er and the song trans­formed from idea to art. They all agreed that they would slip it in with their reper­toire of cov­ers at their next gig.

       After the show, sev­er­al peo­ple asked about the new song, want­i­ng to know who orig­i­nal­ly per­formed it. When they learned it was an orig­i­nal, they all said the band should record it, promis­ing to buy copies when they had them available.

       This was enough for the band mem­bers to decide to write more songs and record a four-song EP. The uni­ver­si­ty had a record­ing stu­dio but it was only avail­able to music majors. The drum­mer filed the paper­work with the reg­is­trar to change his major so they could book stu­dio time. The boy played his parts on the studio’s Stein­way grand piano, lux­u­ri­at­ing in how each chord felt in his body.

       They pooled their funds to have a com­pa­ny in St Louis man­u­fac­ture 500 CDs.

       “I hope this isn’t a big mis­take,” the boy said.

       “Hey, all we need to do is sell 60 CDs at shows to break even,” the gui­tar play­er answered.

       The first gig after the box with their new CDs arrived, it looked like the boy’s con­cerns were jus­ti­fied. They sold three CDs.

       The gui­tar play­er had a friend who DJed on WPGU and the friend added a cou­ple of the bands’ songs into his playlists. Their next gig, the bar was packed and they sold over a hun­dred CDs. The whole run of CDs was gone in a month.

       “We should make a whole album,” the drum­mer said at their next rehearsal. “You got any more songs?”

       “I’ve got a cou­ple half-fin­ished ideas,” the gui­tar play­er said. “We could work on those.”

       “I’ve got a few things we can try to build into songs,” the bass play­er says. He turns to the boy. “You got anything?”

       “Sor­ry, nope.”

       The boy was lying. He had writ­ten sev­er­al songs, but he was wary of shar­ing them with the oth­ers in the band out of fear that he had once again “writ­ten” some­one else’s song. His attempts at song­writ­ing were kept secret from everyone.

***

       My hear­ing loss in col­lege was some­thing that only became obvi­ous in ret­ro­spect. I always assumed that I had trou­ble hear­ing on the phone in my right ear because I had long hair that blocked the phone and the drum­mer was always to my right when I played gigs. I didn’t know that the cal­ci­fi­ca­tion was begin­ning to cause the bones to vibrate less, block the sound instead of trans­mit­ting it.

***

       The band record­ed their first full-length album at the begin­ning of the next semes­ter. They decid­ed to have a cou­ple thou­sand CDs man­u­fac­tured, a poten­tial­ly out­ra­geous risk. Again, they pooled their mon­ey, sup­ple­ment­ing the prof­its from the sale of their EP with funds embez­zled from the mon­ey their par­ents had des­ig­nat­ed for books (why buy text­books when they could be checked out from the library?). They ner­vous­ly await­ed the arrival of the box­es of CDs from the fac­to­ry and hand-deliv­ered a disc to the gui­tar player’s friend at WGPU as soon as they opened the first box.

       The lead track from the CD was on the radio when they drove back from the sta­tion. They sold a hun­dred copies at their next gig—every sin­gle one they had brought to the bar to sell between sets.

       “Maybe we should go on the road,” the gui­tar play­er said. “I’m sure we can expand beyond Cham­paign-Urbana, no problem.”

       The boy was reluc­tant to tour. He wor­ried he’d miss too much class. He wor­ried that the expens­es of trav­el­ing would over­whelm the income from sell­ing CDs and col­lect­ing the two-dol­lar cov­er charge in cities and towns where they were unknown. He wor­ried they’d end up fail­ing as both a band and as col­lege stu­dents. Yes, the gui­tar player’s friend had got­ten copies of their CDs out to oth­er col­lege sta­tions where it had been well-received, but just because they were get­ting air­play on oth­er col­lege sta­tions didn’t nec­es­sar­i­ly mean peo­ple would come out to see them or buy their CD.

       The band mem­bers met with­out the boy. It was obvi­ous to them that the next step for the band was to do a tour across Illi­nois, Indi­ana and Mis­souri, maybe even Wis­con­sin and Michi­gan. If they boy wasn’t up for it, they could get some­one else to play key­boards. They all agreed that the boy was the best key­boardist around, but maybe they didn’t need the best key­board play­er, just some­one good enough. Maybe a new key­board play­er would con­tribute songs of his own. They qui­et­ly approached a friend of the drum­mer and audi­tioned him one Wednes­day morn­ing while the boy was in class. The boy learned about the tour and his replace­ment on the same day.

       The boy, ashamed at being dis­missed from the band, dropped out of per­form­ing music for years. The band went on to mod­est suc­cess, sign­ing a deal with A&M Records. A few of their songs chart­ed, their biggest hit reach­ing as high as #41 before fad­ing into obscu­ri­ty. Every time one of their songs came on the radio, the boy could hear the places where the music was lack­ing, things he would have sug­gest­ed that would have filled those gaps and make the songs bet­ter, but he kept his silence. He was the band’s Pete Best, the mem­ber who didn’t make the cut and any­thing he might say about them could only appear as bit­ter­ness and jealousy.

***

       I didn’t real­ize how much hear­ing I had lost until I casu­al­ly men­tioned to a girl­friend that I heard my pulse in my ear, some­thing I assumed every­one did. I was wrong. Starved of sen­so­ry input, the brain takes what it can get and ampli­fies that. In my case, since sounds weren’t con­duct­ed to the inner ear, my brain inten­si­fied the sig­nal from the blood flow in my head that didn’t need to be trans­mit­ted through the malleus, incus and stapes.

       Lat­er that year, talk­ing with my cousin, it became appar­ent what was going on, He had the same symp­toms before his ear surgery. His father, who nev­er had the surgery, still hears his pulse if he isn’t wear­ing his hear­ing aids.

       For years after col­lege, if I had health insur­ance, it was the kind with a deductible high enough to dis­cour­age actu­al­ly seek­ing any sort of treat­ment. Only in my ear­ly thir­ties did I final­ly get insur­ance that made hav­ing my oto­scle­ro­sis treat­ed prac­ti­cal. I had a stapedec­to­my, first in my right ear and then in my left and my hear­ing was restored to nor­mal. Sud­den­ly I could hear nois­es I had for­got­ten existed.

***

       The boy’s exile from music end­ed in his ear­ly thir­ties. When he was at Mass, the usu­al piano play­er was absent and a woman was strug­gling to lead the con­gre­ga­tion a cap­pel­la. She grate­ful­ly accept­ed his offer to accom­pa­ny and the his fin­gers demon­strat­ed the dex­ter­i­ty they always had as he impro­vised an accom­pa­ni­ment from the song­book con­tain­ing only the melody line.

       This one-time instance turned into a side job replac­ing the parish’s music direc­tor who had fall­en ill and was unable to con­tin­ue in the role. It didn’t ful­ly scratch his itch, but it helped. He made friends with a few like-mind­ed musi­cians and even formed a bar band to play cov­er songs on week­ends. He wrote a few songs, but nev­er shared them.

***

       My hear­ing fad­ed after the surgery. Slow­ly enough that it wasn’t imme­di­ate­ly obvi­ous. I could still hear the notes of music, but under­stand­ing speech was a chal­lenge. I occa­sion­al­ly found myself agree­ing to do things I didn’t real­ize thanks to pre­tend­ing to be able to hear. My oto­laryn­gol­o­gist gave me the bad news. The cal­ci­fi­ca­tion that had ren­dered my mid­dle ear inef­fec­tive had migrat­ed to my cochlea. There would still be years of hear­ing and with any luck the tech­nol­o­gy would improve by the time I would need cochlear implants, but in the inter­im, I would need hear­ing aids.

       Hear­ing aids don’t work like glass­es. They don’t trans­form poor hear­ing into nor­mal hear­ing; they trans­form poor hear­ing into less poor hear­ing. What gets ampli­fied isn’t always what I want. In a restau­rant, I might hear some­one one table over bet­ter than the per­son in front of me.

       Most peo­ple lack empa­thy for the hear­ing impaired. It’s aggra­vat­ing to be asked to repeat your­self over and over. Almost as aggra­vat­ing as ask­ing some­one to repeat them­self. It’s easy to imag­ine being blind. You just close your eyes. But it’s dif­fi­cult to emu­late deaf­ness. Elim­i­nat­ing sound from your life, even tem­porar­i­ly, is not a sim­ple matter.

       And cochlear implants are not a mir­a­cle cure. The abil­i­ty to hear sub­tle vari­a­tions in sound that the thou­sands of hair cells in the cochlea pro­vide is still well beyond the abil­i­ty of mod­ern tech­nol­o­gy to pro­vide. The brain needs to re-learn how to hear post cochlear implant and being able to decode speech is enough of a chal­lenge with­out adding in being able to hear the tones and col­ors of music. Search­ing cochlear implants and music on the inter­net revealed that many musi­cians lost their abil­i­ty to enjoy music the same way after get­ting the implants that they could before.

***

       The boy’s hear­ing has an expi­ra­tion date. There will come a time in his life when there will be no more sound, no more col­ors and shapes, no more intense feel­ings from a dimin­ished chord, only silence.

       He’s aware of Beethoven’s famous deaf­ness, but he’s not Beethoven. He might have had the poten­tial to become Beethoven, but if he did, it’s too late.

From the writer

:: Account ::

This piece began life as a work of CNF, but I found my own life to be too dull to sus­tain nar­ra­tive inter­est. For­tu­nate­ly, I’m a writer of fic­tion and not non-fic­tion so giv­en the free­dom to make things up, I was able to bor­row aspects of the lives of oth­er peo­ple I’ve known as well as things that nev­er hap­pened to any­body as far as I know to come up with the sto­ry at hand. I do like steal­ing the braid­ed nar­ra­tive form that the CNF peo­ple have claimed for their own. Why should they get a great nar­ra­tive forms like braid­ed nar­ra­tives all to them­selves? While my own hear­ing has decayed some­what over the last decade, since I orig­i­nal­ly wrote this piece, the hear­ing loss has slowed to an imper­cep­ti­ble pace. I can only hope that when the time comes to give up my cochleae for a dig­i­tal proth­e­sis, the tech­nol­o­gy will be much better.

D. A. Hosek’s fic­tion has appeared in The San­ta Mon­i­ca Review, Exter­mi­nat­ing Angel, Nebo, Menis­cus, South­west Review and else­where. He earned an MFA in fic­tion from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Tam­pa. He lives and writes in Oak Park, IL and spends his days as an insignif­i­cant cog in the machin­ery of cor­po­rate Amer­i­ca. https://dahosek.com @dahosek.bsky.social

Fiction / Xincheng Liu

:: An Elephant That Never Existed ::

My life is a fuck­ing mess. 

The only solace I find is an arti­cle from a well-known film review account, bold­ly titled “Fuck Life, Fuck.” 

The piece is about An Ele­phant Sit­ting Still, the only film ever made by the late direc­tor Hu Qian. It’s said to be four hours long—pure, unfil­tered depres­sion. Hu killed him­self right after he fin­ished it. He was heart­break­ing­ly young, just twen­ty-sev­en. The film nev­er screened in main­land Chi­na. I want to watch it so bad­ly I could die, but I can’t find this film. 

My obses­sion with the film isn’t just about its sup­pos­ed­ly pro­found artis­tic value—though of course, I love art—but more because of one par­tic­u­lar sub­plot: a girl from a sin­gle-par­ent home falls in love with her school’s teacher. Even­tu­al­ly, the teacher’s wife finds out and storms into the girl’s life, humil­i­at­ing her into run­ning away. The girl joins a few oth­er mis­fits on a jour­ney to Manzhouli to find the elephant—an ele­phant that, of course, doesn’t exist. 

The moment I read that syn­op­sis, I near­ly choked from a cock­tail of shock and thrill: Holy hell, isn’t that bas­cial­ly me in anotehr life? In that moment, I for­gave every so-called trashy plot in the world. A lone­ly, father­less girl falling for an old­er man; a stu­dent and her teacher. Sud­den­ly the word melo­dra­ma had a per­fect­ly log­i­cal struc­ture. When the cliché crawled out of the screen and into my real life, all I could do was applaud the uni­verse for its twist­ed sense of humor. 

And after that? 
Well—there was no after. 
He was a pub­lic school teacher, not some sleaze­ball. I was just a reg­u­lar high school stu­dent, my head filled not with ele­phants or escape, but with the col­lege entrance exam. 

Lat­er, I mud­dled my way into uni­ver­si­ty. It wasn’t what I imag­ined. The cam­pus was small, sparse with trees, with nowhere to hide from the open sky. When the sun blazes, it still beats down on half my face; my sun­screen melts, milky tears smeared in globs across my cheeks. I don’t have many friends. The down­side is lone­li­ness, the upside is free­dom. On days with­out class, I wan­dered through the ear­ly after­noon sun­light. A drowsy haze wraps around my heart; I must look like a six-year-old child lost in thought. 

Then all of a sud­den I just stop feel­ing hap­py. Not exact­ly sad, just… not happy—a touch of wist­ful­ness, a melo­dra­mat­ic melan­choly with no real cause. I push open the glass door of the aca­d­e­m­ic build­ing. As I walk past the foun­tain, streams of peo­ple brush by my shoul­ders. That feel­ing is like burst­ing out of a swel­ter­ing street straight into an office cranked full of AC: heat clings to my skin like a sheet of flame, cold air blasts my face like a frigid dag­ger, and my body becomes the bat­tle­field. I feel a chill—not the heart-deep chill of hav­ing cold water dumped over your head, just a numb pause, stand­ing dumb­ly at the col­li­sion of hot and cold. The tem­per­a­ture leaves a blank white void on my skin. It’s so pre­ten­tious, I know. I feel emp­ty sim­ply because it’s been too long since my heart felt a spark of excite­ment. I sus­pect the sweet flut­ter of a crush is like a man’s genitals—leave it unused too long and it rusts like an old iron key, goes impo­tent. After leav­ing the teacher-filled halls of high school, love drift­ed far, far away from me, until even­tu­al­ly it wasn’t even love any­more. In this sti­fling cage of a col­lege, I lived with a dead calm heart, like a walk­ing corpse—even though I clear­ly still had a soul. 

Then, like sal­va­tion, I met Hu Yang. How my feel­ings for him developed—I’d bet the com­plex­i­ty of it could put a cat-tan­gled yarn ball to shame. I’m the type to quit when faced with a snarl of threads, so I nev­er tried to dis­en­tan­gle it. My room­mate, Meng Nai, was Hu Yang’s friend. Meet­ing him was inevitable. I don’t remem­ber how I came to like Hu Yang; the process wasn’t impor­tant. The result was nailed down sol­id, and I had no chance of pry­ing it out with my bare hands.But how much did I like him? I wasn’t sure. That damn ball of yarn comes to mind again: with Hu Yang, even one plus one equal­ing two became a cos­mic unsolved mys­tery. 

Hu Yang is like a black hole for me. Not a black hole that devours light—one that devours my shame. The more time I spend around him, the more of a brazen clown I become. Pass­ing by the giant banyan tree on cam­pus, I imag­ine see­ing myself from his per­spec­tive: strip all the bark off that thick trunk, and that’s me.  

I can only tell myself one thing: what a shame­less fool. 

Hu Yang, Hu Yang. A tree, a man. The world is a rid­dle to me, its answer hid­den on the far side of death. While I’m alive, every­thing is hazy, like flow­ers in fog; I’m a com­plete idiot. Among all the unknowns, the only thing I’m sure of is that my teacher nev­er liked me, and nei­ther does Hu Yang. My eyes are filled with love—this cin­e­mat­ic word hur­tles toward me and I throw myself at it, only to grasp noth­ing but emp­ty air. 

I haven’t seen my high school teacher in ages, long enough that I’ve embraced my iden­ti­ty as a col­lege stu­dent. The teacher is like a del­i­cate leaf book­mark pressed between pages of a book—one I’ll nev­er open again. But Hu Yang is dif­fer­ent. He’s here, around me, in this lit­tle prison of a cam­pus. I run into him con­stant­ly: in the cafe­te­ria, in big lec­ture halls, on plain unre­mark­able roads. He shows up day after day, like cease­less driz­zly weath­er in spring. But even the small­est, mist­ing rain can soak a city in damp. So I have no doubt I’ve fall­en in love with him, just as I’ve always believed that affec­tion grows over time. 

I chat with him on WeChat, get jeal­ous over things I have no right to, pick fights only a crazy per­son would start, hurt­ing both him and myself with masochis­tic enthu­si­asm. 

I’m a hol­low, nutri­tion­less typ­ing machine, send­ing him goofy one-lin­ers I’ve copy-past­ed from Inter­net. I have no grand ambitions—I’ve crushed my wild hopes and desires to dust and parked my ass on them. Plas­tered across my face, like slop­py graf­fi­ti, are four big words: “just mud­dling along.” I say “don’t love me” out loud, yet my actions car­ry me in the exact oppo­site direc­tion. When I’m typ­ing to him, my long nails jab at the screen, mak­ing the rapid clack-clack of a horny lit­tle slut’s hooves. The glass screen bounces back against my fin­ger­tips. I’m like a cat in heat scratch­ing its claws on the wall. 

“I won’t ini­ti­ate con­ver­sa­tion with him ever again”—I par­rot the same vow every lovelorn girl in the world makes. 

Am I telling a sto­ry? This isn’t a sto­ry. There’s no tidy, lit­er­ary log­ic here like a the­sis with quotes and ref­er­ences. In fact, there’s no log­ic at all. 

Hu Yang and I are friends—whether or not that damn word “for­mer” ought to be tacked in front of “friends,” we are friends. I’m per­verse­ly grate­ful that time can’t flow back­ward in our three-dimen­sion­al world, that what’s hap­pened has hap­pened. In a world that can change faces faster than a Sichuan Opera per­former, at least some things can’t be undone. We were friends once. On those wet, heavy sum­mer nights in the South, he walked with me down the most seclud­ed paths on cam­pus. We thread­ed through kiss­ing cou­ples and sway­ing car head­lights. I think back on it now—standing here today and gaz­ing back at yes­ter­day, I can almost reach out and touch those moments. My fin­ger­tips tin­gle with the mem­o­ry, and I’m near­ly moved to tears, believ­ing for a sec­ond that I was immersed in such peace back then. I remem­ber the night he, Meng Nai, and I left a bar at one in the morn­ing under a driz­zly sky, try­ing to catch a cab back to school. It was so late even the street­lights had closed their eyes to sleep. Meng Nai’s hair was thick and heavy, like the fur of a small ani­mal. The three of us walked down an emp­ty con­crete road. On one side lay a lake, a patch of ink-black water under the night sky. Hu Yang joked that he’d push me into the lake—he grabbed my arm and we tus­sled play­ful­ly among a clus­ter of small trees by the shore. There were no lamps that night, which made the moon­light as bright as white jade. The moon’s glow spilled over the tree leaves, sneak­ing through the gaps and scat­ter­ing over us in flecks of sil­ver. 

These mem­o­ries, because they are mem­o­ries, are beautiful—so beau­ti­ful. Beau­ti­ful like a scene in a movie. And pre­cise­ly because it’s like a movie, it’s laugh­ably fake. I don’t under­stand why I end­ed up ensnared in end­less fights with Hu Yang. His good man­ners weren’t a gold­en shield pro­tect­ing him from my shame­less attacks; on the con­trary, they became a soft spot I couldn’t resist hit­ting. I became increas­ing­ly aware that I’m exact­ly like that famous line from Eileen Chang: a gor­geous robe rid­dled with fleas. My looks aren’t aston­ish­ing enough to stop traf­fic, but the mal­ice inside me is singular—enough to make even a shrew step back. I hurled every curse word I knew at him. Those insults, like acid rain, cor­rod­ed not only the stat­ues on London’s streets but our rela­tion­ship as well. 

For a long time, I was distressed—distressed that in this pure­ly pla­ton­ic friend­ship, I made every pos­si­ble wrong choice. I took what could have grown into a text­book case of love blos­som­ing from friend­ship and I hacked it off in its infan­cy, chewed it up, swal­lowed it down, and then had the nerve to feel regret. I couldn’t fig­ure out why I was so stu­pid and clum­sy, liv­ing out a ridicu­lous, pathet­ic joke: How do you screw up a rela­tion­ship? Just act like your nor­mal self. 

I began to under­stand that every­thing liv­ing has an expi­ra­tion date. A rela­tion­ship, a feeling—just like a leaf on a tree, just like a per­son. They sprout in secret, flourish—like the Gold­en Age described by Wang Xiaobo, like the height of summer—and then, soon­er or lat­er, they with­er and die. Time and fate silent­ly set every lim­it. Soon­er or lat­er I had to accept that things end not with a glo­ri­ous bang but with a whimper—just as I accept that the air will always be dirty with float­ing dust that we end up breath­ing into our lungs and blink­ing into our eyes. 

In the end, Hu Yang and I still have each oth­er on WeChat. The chat win­dow just sits there, blank and harm­less, for ages. The heart­beat of that rela­tion­ship flat­lined in all the fury and tears. What’s left isn’t some words caught in my throat—there’s sim­ply noth­ing left to say. 

Then one day, Meng Nai men­tioned Hu Yang to me. The very first thing that came to mind was a tree, and only after that did I remem­ber the per­son. I real­ized that I’d final­ly, faint­ly, part­ed the fog and glimpsed a silent ending—or maybe it was a shal­low, as-yet voice­less begin­ning. 

When sum­mer break arrived, the long and use­less vaca­tion lay before me like a blank can­vas. With all the paints at my dis­pos­al, of course I had to cov­er every inch of that glar­ing white. So I decid­ed to go back to my high school—to see the grand youth I once had such high hopes for, and to see the teacher who lived in that grand youth. 

I had already fin­ished read­ing the screen­play of An Ele­phant Sit­ting Still. 

Stand­ing at the school gates, I was engulfed by throngs of stu­dents in uni­form, crash­ing over me like a ris­ing tide and sub­merg­ing me in their youth­ful fren­zy. When the tide ebbed, it left me behind on the shore of mem­o­ry, an exquis­ite lit­tle fish­bone spit out on the sand. 

Lat­er on, when Meng Nai asked me how it felt to revis­it my high school, I remem­ber I didn’t both­er to sug­ar­coat it. 

“Back then the real dog days of sum­mer hadn’t arrived yet,” I told her. “There was a good breeze, and the sun wasn’t too harsh. Can you guess what the weath­er feels like right before mid­sum­mer hits?” 

With­out wait­ing for her to answer, I smiled and said, “Cool—like a fine autumn day.” 

From the writer

:: Account ::

This sto­ry is the inevitable result of an emo­tion­al col­li­sion. Just as ris­ing tem­per­a­tures will crack ice into water, the accu­mu­la­tion of inner tension—combined with a dri­ve toward beau­ty and a com­pul­sion to articulate—made the act of writ­ing this piece feel less like a choice than a phys­i­cal cer­tain­ty. Influ­enced by the emo­tion­al core and aes­thet­ic restraint of East Asian writ­ers like Eileen Chang, Han Kang, and Lin Yi-Han, I approached this sto­ry as a scream dis­guised as form. It had to be a cry—not raw and ragged like a child’s sob, but refined, con­struct­ed, and lit­er­ar­i­ly shaped. The writ­ing is the expres­sion; the struc­ture is the scream. 

I chose a non­lin­ear struc­ture, inter­weav­ing high school and uni­ver­si­ty time­lines to reflect the frag­men­ta­tion of the protagonist’s psy­che. Through shifts in time and voice, I sought to explore the void with­in the char­ac­ter and their mar­gin­al­i­ty in the world. For me, fic­tion is nev­er sep­a­rate from lived expe­ri­ence. When a sto­ry aris­es from life, it also strikes back at it—with force. Like a ham­mer shat­ter­ing the mir­ror of the real, this sto­ry is both a reflec­tion and a blow. 

Xincheng Liu is a grad­u­ate stu­dent in busi­ness at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Illi­nois at Urbana-Cham­paign and an avid writer out­side her aca­d­e­m­ic stud­ies. She began writ­ing fic­tion in ele­men­tary school and has nev­er stopped, car­ry­ing her pas­sion from child­hood sto­ries into more com­plex explo­rations of love, mem­o­ry, and self-dis­cov­ery. Her recent work engages with themes of cross-cul­tur­al iden­ti­ty, fem­i­nist per­spec­tives, and the Asian Amer­i­can expe­ri­ence, blend­ing per­son­al imag­i­na­tion with broad­er ques­tions of belong­ing. She hopes to con­tin­ue devel­op­ing her voice through cre­ative writ­ing and to share sto­ries that speak across cul­tures. 

Fiction / Anamika M. 

:: Dogless  ::

At thir­ty-eight, Lalitha had achieved some­thing few women in her apart­ment com­plex had man­aged — she lived a dog-free life. No leash by the door. No slob­ber­ing tongue and smelly breath in her face. No Insta­gram bio that read Mama to Fur Baby. No social media feed full of dog pic­tures. And for this, she was basi­cal­ly the neigh­bour­hood vil­lain. The out­cast. 

“She doesn’t like dogs!” Mrs. Menon would gasp, clutch­ing that tiny crea­ture with the annoy­ing bark like it was her Birkin. “What kind of woman doesn’t like dogs?” 

“A ser­i­al killer,” some­one whis­pered. Prob­a­bly the broody teenag­er from 67/A who spent the whole day watch­ing dog videos on social media. 

“She must be emo­tion­al­ly repressed,” said Ananya, the Rei­ki cer­ti­fied heal­er, who believed her Labrador could sense neg­a­tive auras. 

Lalitha heard all of it. Every whis­per, every smirk, every pas­sive-aggres­sive dog pic­ture dropped into the Res­i­dents Asso­ci­a­tion What­sApp group. She wasn’t a sociopath nor anti­so­cial. She sim­ply didn’t care for dogs. And that, appar­ent­ly, was a crime against human­i­ty. 

Ananya dropped by one after­noon, unin­vit­ed. With her Labrathing in tow, unleashed. 

“Here to cheer you up! He’s super friend­ly,” Ananya chirped. 

Lalitha backed away instinc­tive­ly as the dog padded toward her and sniffed her knee. 

“Oh my god, are you scared?” Ananya laughed. “He won’t do any­thing, he’s a dar­ling. Just touch him.” 

“I’m good, thanks,” Lalitha said, polite­ly. 

“Oh come on! You are giv­ing out a dark aura, he can feel it. Your path­ways are prob­a­bly blocked. He will help you open them.” 

“I’m not a bot­tle of pick­le, Ananya. I don’t need to be opened.” 

Ananya rolled her eyes, then grabbed Lalitha’s hand and tried to place it on the dog’s head like it was some sort of ini­ti­a­tion cer­e­mo­ny. 

Lalitha yanked her hand back, smiled tight­ly, and said, “You touch your dog. I’ll keep my bound­aries.” 

Ananya sulked. The dog sneezed. Lalitha made a men­tal note to Lysol the floor. 

It wasn’t that she hat­ed dogs. She was just indif­fer­ent. To all pets for that mat­ter. She liked the idea of them, the way one might like the idea of camp­ing in the wild or rais­ing triplets: delight­ful in oth­er people’s lives, but not for her. She even dou­ble-tapped the occa­sion­al dog reel and sent the occa­sion­al thumbs-up emo­ji or a heart emo­ji when a friend post­ed a “My Baby Turned Three” update. But that was her lim­it. No kissy face or heart eye emo­jis, no baby talk. And of course, she drew the line at being referred to as Aun­ty to a mon­grel with dopey eyes. 

She had tried to be, well, “nor­mal” just to shut peo­ple up. She had  once bent down and hes­i­tant­ly put out two fin­gers, like one would test the tem­per­a­ture of bath­wa­ter, to pet a neighbour’s pup­py. It peed on her new san­dals. The neigh­bour laughed, “Naughty boy! Made susu on Aunty’s chap­pals,” and ruf­fled its fur. No apol­o­gy. Not even a flick­er of embar­rass­ment. Bitch. 

After that, when­ev­er dogs came thun­der­ing down the cor­ri­dor, leashed or not, fresh­ly bathed or filthy, she stepped aside. Point­ed­ly and polite­ly, wait­ing for them to pass. And she stepped fur­ther and fur­ther away when the ani­mals tried to sniff her up or slob­ber over her, until the pet mom­ma or dad­da called them off, dis­ap­point­ed that their fur babies were not acknowl­edged with a delight­ed shriek of wel­come. They usu­al­ly walked away shak­ing their heads in dis­be­lief, mut­ter­ing, “Is she even human?!” 

One day, some­one left a scrawny indie pup near the lift with a “Please Adopt Me” sign and a bowl of milk. It blinked up at her with wet eyes, tail thump­ing hope­ful­ly. 

She side­stepped it and took the stairs. 

From the cor­ner, some­one gasped. 

“No heart,” mut­tered the man who lived with three sad-faced dogs that peed in the stair­way every morn­ing. 

She want­ed to snap back. Kind­ness isn’t per­for­mance art, Karthik. But she didn’t. 

That week, the news was full of dog sto­ries, and not the heart­warm­ing kind. 

“Pack of strays attacks elder­ly man on morn­ing walk.” 

“Child bit­ten near school gate — third such inci­dent this month.” 

The inter­net explod­ed. Half of Twit­ter declared war on the feed­ers. The oth­er half shared fake Gand­hi quotes and crowd­fund­ing peti­tions for Parle‑G bis­cuits. 

Lalitha sipped her tea and scrolled silent­ly. She had thoughts. Oh boy, did she have thoughts! 

Peo­ple say they love dogs more than humans. Is that because dogs don’t talk back? Or because they’re eas­i­er to own? 

She pic­tured those ador­ing pet par­ents who treat­ed obe­di­ence like affec­tion. Who called the response to their dom­i­na­tion “loy­al­ty” and slob­ber­ing mess­es “uncon­di­tion­al love.” What they real­ly want­ed was a thing that wouldn’t leave them, argue with them, or grow tired of them. Some­thing to fill the void in their lives, but with­out ask­ing ques­tions. How would they behave if that love came with con­di­tions, she won­dered. 

She didn’t say any of this out loud, of course. She knew she would end up sound­ing bit­ter and hate­ful. But there was truth to it, and peo­ple didn’t want real­i­ty checks. They want­ed val­i­da­tion that their choic­es were the only right ones, uni­ver­sal­ly accept­ed. 

At work, a col­league brought her tiny dog, some import­ed breed, to the Bring Your Pet to Work Day. Peo­ple squealed and filmed Insta­gram reels with it. Lalitha blocked a meet­ing room and sat inside all day, head­phones on, wish­ing she had tak­en the day off. 

“You’re scared of dogs?” some­one asked. 

“No.” 

“Reli­gious rea­sons?” 

“No.” 

“You’re aller­gic? There are breeds that don’t shed…” 

“No.” 

“Then what is it?” 

“I just don’t want one. I don’t like them.” 

They looked at her incred­u­lous­ly like she’d said she kicks pup­pies for car­dio. 

Peo­ple didn’t want hon­esty. They didn’t believe in peace­ful coex­is­tence. They want­ed rad­i­cal con­ver­sion. They want­ed the joy­less and unloved, the hard-heart­ed mon­sters like her, to be “healed” by a wet nose and a wag­ging tail, and then to feel good about them­selves for hav­ing changed someone’s life. 

As if dog own­er­ship was the uni­ver­sal path to emo­tion­al whole­ness.  A dog, a baby, or a man. Or all three.  

A man, she had tried. 

His name was Amit. He ran a start­up that import­ed kitchen stuff from Chi­na and white labelled them. He made her laugh. He respect­ed her bound­aries, and he gave her space. For the first few months, it was easy. Long dri­ves, mean­ing­ful con­ver­sa­tions and lots of sex. He said he liked that she was clear-head­ed. Not like oth­er women, he had said. She cringed inter­nal­ly, but didn’t ask him to explain fur­ther. 

Then, eight months in, he rang her door­bell on a Sat­ur­day morn­ing with a box in his arms, grin­ning like a school­boy. 

“Sur­prise!” 

Inside was a Gold­en Retriev­er pup­py. Squirmy and fluffy with dewy eyes that looked up at her. Text­book heart melt mate­r­i­al. He stood there, look­ing at her in antic­i­pa­tion like a flop­py-haired cutesy boy from a Phal­gu­ni Pathak 90s pop video, wait­ing for her to grab it and break out into a dance. 

But she took a step back. The pup­py popped his head out and looked around curi­ous­ly. She did not melt. 

“Four weeks old, pure Gold­en,” he said proud­ly. “I thought we could raise him togeth­er.” 

“You brought me a liv­ing thing, one which I explic­it­ly told you I didn’t want,” she replied, in the same tone she used when the local gro­cery store deliv­ered green milk pack­ets instead of the orange ones. 

“You said you didn’t have a dog.” 

“I said I didn’t want a dog.” 

He laughed. “Come on. How can any­one not!” 

“I don’t want fur on my fur­ni­ture or some­thing drool­ing on my bath­mat. I don’t want a being that thinks it owns me because I feed it.” 

He blinked, try­ing to process what she was say­ing. “That’s… kind of dark.” 

“I don’t want some­thing that licks its butt and then my face,” her tone, bit­ing. 

“Come on! Dogs don’t do that. And what if it was a human baby?” 

“I don’t want one of that too.” 

He laughed ner­vous­ly, like she was being dif­fi­cult on pur­pose. “Come on, he’s adorable. You’ll fall in love. Trust me.” 

“I don’t want to fall in love with some­thing that needs me that much. I don’t want slob­ber on my floors, or some­thing scratch­ing at the door every time I leave.” 

Amit frowned. “That’s… a bit extreme, don’t you think? I mean, most peo­ple want that kind of love.” 

“I’m not most peo­ple.” 

He stood there, still hold­ing the box like it had grown heav­ier. 

“I read some­where that peo­ple who don’t like dogs often have unre­solved inti­ma­cy issues,” he said, not meet­ing her eyes. “Maybe we could talk to some­one. Togeth­er.” 

“You want me to go to ther­a­py,” she said, “because I don’t want a dog?” 

He didn’t say yes. But he didn’t say no. 

They broke up a week lat­er. She had failed his test. He said he need­ed some­one “more open.” More human.  She said she need­ed some­one who lis­tened to her. 

He post­ed pup­py pics like they were rebound rela­tion­ship flex­es. Simba’s first swim! Sim­ba stole my heart first, now he’s steal­ing my slip­pers!  Sim­ba taught me real love! Dogs over Humans any day! 

She scrolled past with­out a twitch. No rage, no regret. Just relief. Like a painful peri­od that final­ly arrived after a week of anx­ious uncer­tain­ty. 

Yes­ter­day, the neigh­bour­hood indie tried to jump on her, and she stepped aside. Not out of fear. Not out of hate. Just out of habit. Out of san­i­ty. Mus­cle mem­o­ry. 

The dog launched itself into Mrs. Menon’s arms and the woman clucked her tongue in judg­ment. 

Lalitha just walked up to her flat, took off her shoes, and basked in the glo­ri­ous silence of a home with zero liv­ing things shed­ding on her cush­ions. 

She liked her silence. Her space. Her books and old Tamil film songs and rain on win­dow­panes. She liked not trip­ping over slob­bered up toys and slip­ping on dog diar­rhoea. 

She turned on an Ila­yara­ja playlist and sipped her tea. Because some­times, choos­ing not to love some­thing that expects eter­nal devo­tion, unques­tion­ing affec­tion, and a life­long sup­ply of chick­en liv­er is also self care. 

From the writer

:: Account ::

It’s incred­i­bly dif­fi­cult for me to even attempt this account — not because I don’t have things to say, but because I’m ter­ri­fied of being judged. All my life, I’ve been asked, side-eyed, and some­times inter­ro­gat­ed about why I’m not com­fort­able around dogs. The truth is, I don’t have one dra­mat­ic rea­son.  

I wrote this because I’m tired of pre­tend­ing. 

I didn’t wake up one morn­ing and decide I wasn’t a dog per­son.  

I grew up in a town that housed the Pas­teur Insti­tute, the only rabies vac­cine man­u­fac­tur­er in the coun­try back then. Labs that housed sheep brains in formalde­hyde and the long queues of dog-bite vic­tims wait­ing for the vac­cine, which was a shot around the navel for ten days — those images nev­er left me. 

I still remem­ber my unpleas­ant neighbour’s dogs that ran loose in our yard, leav­ing poop on my hop­scotch grid. She nev­er cleaned up. 

As I grew old­er, I began notic­ing the hypocrisies around me. Peo­ple feed­ing mut­ton and ghee rice to their dogs while offer­ing three-day-old sam­bar rice to their house help. Some­thing about the pow­er dynam­ic, the mis­placed affec­tion, and the glar­ing unfair­ness of it all angers me. 

There is this the  rude man who walks two mas­sive dogs every morn­ing — unleashed. I cross the street or freeze in place, hop­ing he’ll have the basic decen­cy to rein them in. But no. Every sin­gle time, he smiles that smug, patro­n­is­ing smile and says, “They won’t do any­thing.” 

And then the man I dat­ed who spammed me with cutesy pho­tos of ran­dom dogs. Con­stant­ly. The pres­sure of hav­ing to respond with polite affec­tion every time gave me anx­i­ety. Worse, his dog watched us. Always. I hat­ed it. He thought it was fun­ny. 

So no, I’m not a dog per­son. I’m not heart­less, I’m not dam­aged, and I don’t need to be con­vert­ed by a gold­en retriever’s soul­ful eyes. I just want space to exist with­out hav­ing to explain or jus­ti­fy myself. 

I wrote this because maybe, just maybe, some­one else out there feels the same way but has stayed qui­et. I want them to know they’re not alone. 

Anami­ka M. lives in the hills of South India where life moves at a qui­eter pace. She spends her days with spread­sheets and pre­sen­ta­tion decks, and her evenings with sto­ries shaped by the peo­ple she meets, the thoughts that sur­face dur­ing long walks, and the small-town secrets woven into every­day life. Her writ­ing rests between fic­tion and reflec­tion, lin­ger­ing in the grey area where facts seem imag­ined and fic­tion feels true. 

Fiction / Christopher Stolle

:: Deconstructing Paul ::

From the writer

:: Account ::

Fiction / Jean-Baptiste Andre

:: The Miracle ::

            Under the flam­boyán tree turn­ing from mar­malade to rust, whose late sum­mer canopy dripped a slow hail of igua­nas, Joaquin con­fessed to Maria his night­mare. In it, Joaquin was suf­fo­cat­ing as the air in his room was sucked into the black hole in the cen­ter of his palm. Joaquin felt a push at the back of his head, pulling his eyes into the dark­ness. Gasp­ing, he tried to close the hole by press­ing his hands togeth­er. Instead, his hand was pulled in and when his skin crossed the bar­ri­er from air to void he felt the ori­gin of grav­i­ty and he him­self was swal­lowed and gone. Then he would wake.

             The air hung chill and sweet from bloom­ing hibis­cus. An igua­na thumped to the ground beside them and scur­ried away. Sum­mer had end­ed abrupt­ly as it had start­ed. The two twelve year-olds hud­dled togeth­er, Maria half a head taller than Joaquin. They shared choco­late eyes and olive skin, though Maria’s black hair fell straight down to her shoul­ders where Joaquin’s lazy brown ringlets bounced above his eyebrows.

            “Show me again,” Maria demanded.

            Joaquin held out his left hand. He had sausage fin­gers, and a wide palm col­ored in patch­es of peach and pink. In the cen­ter of his palm, where mus­cu­la­ture left a soft-slop­ing val­ley, there was a hole in the shape of a per­fect cir­cle. About as wide as her thumb, when Maria rotat­ed Joaquin’s hand face down, the hole was per­fect­ly see-through. Morn­ing light bore through the fleshy cylin­der onto the grass and high, thin hair of weeds at their bare feet. Maria flipped the hand again. Palm up, the hole was rimmed with shiny pale scar tis­sue, and entire­ly black. It was the same dark­ness as the far cor­ner of Maria’s room at night.

            Maria and Joaquin shared a room that sum­mer, cousins from dif­fer­ent cor­ners of the island sent to stay with their grand­fa­ther, Doc­tor Pas­cal. Maria had begged her par­ents to let her vis­it him, des­per­ate to feel new soil between her toes. Joaquin had been sent when he snuck into a cop­per mine, land­ed on rebar, and punched a hole clean through his hand. His par­ents thought it pru­dent to allow the doc­tor in the fam­i­ly to exam­ine the pecu­liar injury.

             The doc­tor con­duct­ed tests behind doors that were closed to Maria, but Joaquin told her about them just the same. Joaquin could still move the fin­gers on his left hand with rel­a­tive ease, but was stiff when try­ing to touch his pinky to his thumb. Joaquin’s grand­fa­ther found the blood clot­ted as nor­mal and smelled no dif­fer­ent than ordi­nary blood, vicious and metal­lic. When Joaquin placed his palm down, the hole appeared like injuries the doc­tor was famil­iar with, and objects could pass through it as a tun­nel. When fac­ing up, the hole was dark, as if light itself did not pass. Objects pushed through the hole did not appear at the oth­er end and could not be pulled back out.

             While the doc­tor con­duct­ed his tests, Maria con­duct­ed hers. She pushed a stick into the dark side of Joaquin’s palm with no resis­tance. It dis­ap­peared. She pushed a stick halfway in, and tried to pull it back out. The stick end­ed at the point of con­tact with the hole, cut off in a cross sec­tion. She found that if a pen­cil was held at an angle and rotat­ed, the hole would neat­ly sharp­en the pen­cil to the finest point.

            Tonight, Maria had anoth­er test planned.

            “Stay still for a moment, you’re too rest­less,” she told Joaquin.

            “Well maybe you’re too still,” he coun­tered. “What are you try­ing, anyway?”

            “I want to see what hap­pens to my nail,” she replied.

            “Try if you want to. I’m not touch­ing it after that dream.” Joaquin stuck his palm out like a fish­ing lure, invit­ing Maria to bite.

            She gin­ger­ly grasped his wrist, and as she low­ered her fin­ger to the edge of the dark hole he jos­tled his hand. The hole missed Maria’s nail by a hair.

“Care­ful! Don’t leave it hun­gry, it’s impa­tient,” Joaquin teased.

             “Oh shush, be seri­ous now. I want to see how it reacts to liv­ing things.” Maria stead­ied Joaquin’s hand and brought her left index straight down, pre­cise like a nee­dle thread­ing a bead. The nail dipped slight­ly in and Joaquin flashed a grin. Maria jerked her hand back, and she let out a cry.

             “Ouch Joaquin! I said stay still!”

             Beads of blood spot­ted the flam­boyán tree, set­tling on it like ver­mil­lion lichen. Joaquin’s smile sagged and he went pale.

             “Your fin­ger, Maria, the tip is gone! We have to go to Grand­fa­ther, but he can’t find out it was me! He already thinks I’m a freak,” Joaquin said, pac­ing around Maria while she assessed the dam­age. She clutched her fin­ger in a red-soaked hand­ker­chief as the pain pulsed from hun­dreds of nee­dles to a burn before set­tling on a throb­bing ache she could not be sure was hers.

             Tak­ing deep breaths, Maria turned to her cousin. “Joaquin, I need you to get me some tall weeds, half a lemon, and ginger.”

             “Done – you start think­ing of an excuse for Grandfather.”

             When he returned, Maria tied the weeds tight­ly around her wrapped fin­ger. “For the bleed­ing,” she mum­bled, as the ache flared back into spikes.

“For the pain,” she con­tin­ued through a mouth­ful of gin­ger root.

             “Infec­tion,” she fin­ished, squeez­ing the lemon onto the hand­ker­chief that wrapped her fin­ger. Red fad­ed pink, and pain seared as the juice reached the open wound. Maria, grown cold, broke into a sweat.

            Joaquin eyed Maria’s fin­ger as if it were the dan­ger. “Are you alright now? Why did­n’t you just go to Grand­fa­ther? It would have been faster.”

            Maria slumped. “I’ll be fine. Heal­ing is heal­ing, no mat­ter how you do it. Good things take time. But you’re right, we should go see the doctor.”

            Their clop­ping steps echoed down the coarse brick road to their grandfather’s estate. It loomed before them, white­washed arch­es grow­ing proud­ly from stone foun­da­tions. Between the slim pil­lars, blue tiles embla­zoned with red flam­boyán flow­ers dot­ted the walls. Inside the house, it smelled of med­i­cine. Sharp met­als and alco­hols threat­ened their nos­trils. Maria craned her neck to peer down the west hall­way into the room where her grand­fa­ther con­duct­ed his tests, and Joaquin looked every­where but there. A bronze voice sum­moned them to the study.

            “You are late.” Their grand­fa­ther was a large man with a thin­ning crown of steel and sil­ver hair. His skin was like dry clay, cracks and folds set as if he was always smelling an infec­tion. He spoke to both and nei­ther of them, read­ing his jour­nal. “Chil­dren should be on hand when called. Sit. Maria, your finger.”

            “An acci­dent with a fish­ing line out­side; my fault. I wrapped it and soaked it in lime juice,” she replied.

            Joaquin nudged her and mouthed a thank you. The doc­tor did not notice.

            “A peasant’s treat­ment… but effec­tive.” He cleared his throat. “No mat­ter. Sum­mer is end­ing. It is time to think of your future. Joaquin, your injury is at most a curi­ous defor­mi­ty. You can still join my prac­tice. We will estab­lish the Pas­cal Cen­ter of Med­i­cine. I have enrolled you in the board­ing school I attend­ed at your age. You leave for the main­land the first week of fall.”

            The doc­tor clipped Joaquin’s bud­ding protests. “It is done, Joaquin. Maria, you will return to your vil­lage and your par­ents will pre­pare you for a suit­or in these com­ing years.”

            “I want to study under you, Doc­tor. Can’t I learn med­i­cine?” Maria asked.

            “Med­i­cine is a man’s field, Maria.” Doc­tor Pas­cal eyed her wrapped fin­ger. “But your wits may be use­ful. I will talk to your par­ents. Per­haps you can find a suit­or here.”

            With that, their grandfather’s eyes went back to the jour­nal. They were dis­missed with­out a word.

             The last red rays of sum­mer bled out onto the cof­fee fields as Joaquin pre­pared for his depar­ture. When Maria’s fin­ger healed, she saw her left index was cut clean a cen­time­ter short­er, like a sen­tence inter­rupt­ed. Joaquin often apol­o­gized, but she cut him off.

             “Now we know. Just be care­ful,” she said.

             In those final days, Joaquin and Maria found the oth­er chil­dren in the neigh­bor­hood would pay to see Joaquin’s strange hand, though he nev­er let any­one else close to the demonstrations.

             “I don’t want to be a doc­tor, Maria,” he con­fessed after one such show.

             “And I don’t want to stay here for­ev­er,” she replied. “But things will work out, just wait.”

             Joaquin was shipped off to the main­land the next morn­ing. After his numer­ous tests, Doc­tor Pas­cal pre­scribed his grand­son a glove to cov­er his unsight­ly disfiguration.

*

            Maria built tow­ers. She stacked the jars of herbs in the back of the phar­ma­cy, and not­ed inven­to­ry in her ledger. Her grand­fa­ther had sug­gest­ed she find an alter­na­tive when she pressed him on start­ing her own stud­ies in med­i­cine. Instead, she became an apothe­cary. Few could afford med­ical ser­vices out­side of emer­gen­cies, but knowl­edge of native plants and poul­tices were in high demand across the island. If it made enough prof­it, he would spon­sor her trip to the mainland.

            The glass jars reflect­ed back the warped light of a young woman of nine­teen, changed from the day she had first begged to work in the phar­ma­cy. Her jaw was sharp­er and she stood half a head high­er than before, but her cut fin­ger had not grown back a mil­lime­ter. Her reflec­tions stood straight for a moment, before a thump brought them falling at all angles. Maria quick­ly caught the tum­bling flasks in the hem of her dress. One slipped through the gap in her grip and the glass cracked in a spi­der­web. She whipped around to see who had slammed the door. Her eyes slid over the dusty wood shelves and found him. Sebas­t­ian, the phar­ma­cist who often stole looks at her and made promis­es to whisk her to dis­tant lands stood dumb, arms at his sides star­ing straight at Maria.

            Maria cursed the unsteady jars and her hand.

            “What is it, Sebastian?”

            “Joaquin is back. He brought a woman. You should go see him; I will cov­er the phar­ma­cy. He’s in the town square.”

            Maria set her jaw and marched out. Her steps echoed down the dusty cob­ble­stone and ruf­fled a pan­de­mo­ni­um of par­rots. Green and red crests flashed up out of sight. The white spire of the church stared down the town square, framed by col­or­ful geo­met­ric build­ings. Trees dot­ted the court­yard, and this evening the fall breeze brought chil­dren who claimed the space as theirs. Through the whirling flock of chil­dren chas­ing their ball, the smell of charred tobac­co and leather waft­ed to Maria. At the end of the trail stood Joaquin, fin­ish­ing a cig­ar with the may­or. As she approached, Maria heard Joaquin’s part­ing words.

            “And I thank God to have been blessed with this gift. I hope to share it…” He trailed off when he saw his cousin approach­ing. “Maria! How have you been? I hear the old man tricked you into fol­low­ing his practice.”

            “Joaquin, you look well.”

            Though she had grown, her head only reached his shoul­der now. Where the island years had sharp­ened her fea­tures, Joaquin had round­ed out on the main­land, his skin stretched shiny and elas­tic. His fuller fig­ure was hugged in a dark embroi­dered coat with sil­ver cuff but­tons which matched the sil­ver white glove on his left hand.

            “You seem to have hit suc­cess after aban­don­ing us,” she said.

            “I didn’t aban­don any­one. I took a chance instead of wait­ing around for one.” Joaquin picked at a thread on his coat.

Maria tried anoth­er approach. “So, who is this woman I hear you came with?”

            Joaquin smiled and his eyes glint­ed. “You must be talk­ing about my busi­ness part­ner, Elle.” The fine­ly dressed woman stood off to the side of the square, ges­tur­ing at a crowd and shak­ing her gold­en hair. The chil­dren had aban­doned their soc­cer game, rapt, and a small hand­ful of adults observed at a cau­tious dis­tance like cats around a fire.

            “We found each oth­er at board­ing school. Just like when we were chil­dren, Maria, peo­ple pay to see what I can do. We trav­el, she gath­ers the crowds, and I per­form.” Joaquin beamed.

            Maria tried to scratch an itch on her miss­ing fin­ger­tip. Joaquin went on.

            “No wed­ding ring yet? You must be near­ly twen­ty, not get­ting any younger.”

            “And you’ve got­ten fat­ter, but I’m not try­ing to make lard out of you,” she replied.

“I’ve missed your wit.” Joaquin chor­tled. “I need to speak with Grand­fa­ther, will you walk with me?”

            The two retraced famil­iar steps to their grandfather’s estate. They passed worn hous­es with tiles cracked like chipped teeth, and Maria recount­ed the fate of neigh­bors and friends well into the final chirps of the evening. Joaquin told of dif­fer­ent trees and peo­ple who talked from the back of their throat. He spoke of cities with cathe­dral libraries and hid­den gam­bling hous­es where wish­es were grant­ed. He shared his plans to take his act across the mainland.

             Steel­ing her­self, Maria turned to Joaquin. “When you go back, take me with you?” In years past it would have been an order.

            “I will, sweet cousin,” he said. “But my act needs some sup­port before it can go across the coun­try. I need your help con­vinc­ing the old man. If he invests in us we can make some real money.”

            “Won’t the show grow on its own?”

            “You won’t get where you want by wait­ing, Maria.”

            They arrived at the white­washed arch­es of their grandfather’s estate. Maria kept it tidy. Despite some stained paint and a few pil­lars that had bloat­ed with soft wood dur­ing the last hur­ri­cane sea­son, the struc­ture was near­ly unchanged. The thick canopy of the flam­boyán tree still shad­ed the rear walls of the house. They stepped in, and Maria crossed to the west hall­way to deposit her inven­to­ry list.

            “You use his exam­i­na­tion room?” Joaquin stayed a few feet out­side the entrance and gave it a sus­pi­cious glance.

            “It’s my apothe­cary office. The doc­tor doesn’t prac­tice any­more, he just over­sees the pharmacy.”

Maria led Joaquin to the study. The doc­tor sat in his chair like they had been cut from the same stone.

            “Sweet Grand­fa­ther, it makes me hap­py to see you in good health,” Joaquin said as the two entered the study.

            “Why are you here, Joaquin?” The scowl lines around his mouth cement­ed. “The last time you wrote was to aban­don my practice.”

            “It hurt me to do so, Grand­fa­ther. But I’m here to make it up with an invest­ment for the future. Just like you were fas­ci­nat­ed by my injury, so are peo­ple all around the world. I have a show, and it’s mak­ing good mon­ey. My part­ner and I want to take it across the main­land. As our main investor, you’d make a return many times over.”

            “No.” The reply came immediately.

            “You–” Joaquin choked on his words.

            “Why not?” Maria asked.

            “I am a man of med­i­cine. I will not spon­sor a freak show,” the doc­tor replied.

            “You would be miss­ing out on a big oppor­tu­ni­ty,” respond­ed Joaquin.

            “My deci­sion is made.” The doc­tor looked down at his jour­nals. The con­ver­sa­tion was over.

            Maria broke the silence. “The apothe­cary was my idea, and a good invest­ment. If this is suc­cess­ful we could still expand to estab­lish the Pas­cal Cen­ter of Medicine.”

            The doc­tor held Maria’s gaze. She pressed on.

            “At least go see the show.”

            And so it was that the doc­tor and Maria pressed against a throng of whis­per­ing adults and chat­ter­ing chil­dren lat­er that night. They sat on hay bales that poked through seams in uncom­fort­able places, so the shift­ing audi­ence was like a rest­less sea. Lanterns lit an emp­ty stage.

            “BE-HOLD,” a woman’s voice boomed off­stage. “The eleventh won­der of the world, the hand of dark­ness, the man who wields the black hole!”

            With a flour­ish, Joaquin and Elle stepped onto the stage. They both wore capes that punc­tu­at­ed their every move.

            “The HAND!” she announced, draw­ing everyone’s eyes to Joaquin. He care­ful­ly removed his sil­ver glove. “The back, a tun­nel straight through!” As she spoke, she scanned the audi­ence as if search­ing for some­one, and undid her cape. She fold­ed the thin fab­ric diag­o­nal­ly along one cor­ner, and thread­ed it through Joaquin’s palm. The audi­ence mur­mured, rapt.

            “The front, an abyss!” The heads around Maria bobbed for a bet­ter view as the woman pulled out a thin stick the length of her hand and thread­ed it into the hole. The woman’s eyes pierced the audi­ence as she pushed the stick in, her fin­gers an inch away from the hole, before she let go and the last knuck­le of the stick fell back and bounced off the stage. The crowd whooped and clapped. Maria’s short­ened fin­ger throbbed, and as the lights dimmed time seemed to warp.

            In a fever dream of déjà vu, Maria watched Joaquin and his part­ner per­form a dis­tor­tion of the tests that she and Joaquin had con­duct­ed as chil­dren. Joaquin gave a hair­cut and drained a glass of water. He passed a mouse through one side of his hand, and bisect­ed it with the oth­er. Maria watched the tail drop to the floor con­nect­ed to a stump of a stom­ach.  The hind legs twitched, scoot­ing the corpse a cen­time­ter before stop­ping, leav­ing a wet, dark pud­dle. Joaquin sharp­ened a dart by rotat­ing it at an angle on the hole’s edge, and Elle threw it into an apple an audi­ence mem­ber held aloft. The peo­ple pulsed with each act, and the doc­tor sat trans­fixed next to Maria.

            Maria shout­ed with the rest of the crowd when Elle brought a rifle onto the stage.

            “Armed!” she cried. She aimed at the sky behind her and a shot echoed around the square. She reloaded the rifle as Joaquin spoke for the first time in the show. All voic­es ceased.

            “And, you can see, my gift can also stop death.” He care­ful­ly grabbed the bar­rel and aimed it at his heart, plac­ing his palm against the muzzle.

            “Armed!” cried his assistant.

            Maria closed her eyes.

             The shot rang out, and smoke drift­ed lazi­ly from the bar­rel, unaware of the mir­a­cle stand­ing unscathed before it. Joaquin took a bow, and the audi­ence erupt­ed. Even the doc­tor clapped at a mea­sured beat. Maria sensed that some­thing was try­ing to claw its way up her stomach.

            Joaquin wait­ed for the uproar to set­tle before address­ing the crowd again. “Now, for a quar­ter, any of you can be part of this act.” Mur­murs pooled in the audi­ence; some­one not­ed that it had already cost a nick­el to watch. Joaquin pressed on. “For a quar­ter, any one of you can come up, and with this mir­a­cle to stop death, I will shave your beard, I will cut your warts, I will trim your nails!” Joaquin beamed, and sud­den­ly peo­ple pushed to get in line. Maria and the doc­tor stood aside, though Maria noticed the crease that appeared in his brow when he made cal­cu­la­tions or busi­ness decisions.

            “You were right, Maria. It is a sound invest­ment,” the doc­tor would lat­er tell her. “Peo­ple pay to see miracles.”

*

            When Joaquin had per­formed his final show on the island and board­ed a ship for the main­land, Maria felt a sink­ing dread that he was already lost at sea. He did write, how­ev­er, to con­firm once he had safe­ly made it, and to inform her that his show was almost ready to take across the coun­try. He wrote two more times in as many years, once to ask for a lit­tle more mon­ey, and once to apol­o­gize. His part­ner had left the show when busi­ness was good, and the show had devolved ever since. He was sin­cere­ly sor­ry. He did not have enough mon­ey to bring Maria with him to see the main­land. He did not have enough mon­ey to pay back his grandfather.

            Soon after, her name seemed to become Poor Maria. “That Poor Maria, all of that debt and her ail­ing grand­fa­ther.” Not three years lat­er still it would become, “Poor Maria, her grand­fa­ther gone and her all alone. And the Pas­cal estate snapped up by debtors.” The apothe­cary had been her sanc­tu­ary, and even there the soft fra­grance of dried herbs was taint­ed with pity. Sebas­t­ian had become a kind com­pan­ion in the months fol­low­ing Doc­tor Pascal’s death, some­one to work along­side who saw her grit as a choice, not just as an accep­tance of hard­ship. He made gen­tle advances and helped her run the phar­ma­cy as she ran the apothe­cary. He brought her fresh Sat­ur­day ros­es and cooked her his mother’s Pal­lela. One day, he vowed, they would sell the phar­ma­cy and tour the main­land. “Mar­ry me,” he said. She did. Maria wore her wed­ding band on her right hand; she did not want a reminder of what was missing.

            Soon after the mar­riage, the promis­es of trav­el fell to hard busi­ness deci­sions. “In a few years,” Sebas­t­ian coaxed, “the phar­ma­cy will be prof­itable enough again, and we will be free of this place.” But then Sebastian’s niece was born, and a nephew, and new blood pooled and pushed the con­ver­sa­tions of leav­ing far­ther apart.

            Sebas­t­ian still brought Maria her Sat­ur­day ros­es. When Maria asked for lilies, he laughed. “Lilies couldn’t hold the depth of my love.” They danced, and made love. They set­tled into lives around each other.

            It was around that time that Maria heard again of Joaquin. He did not write, but news from the main­land spread like fleas. Cus­tomers who came in said he was found by a her­mit who had prac­ticed every reli­gion to ensure his sal­va­tion. This man believed Joaquin’s gift was the final one wor­thy of wor­ship. When the her­mit had Joaquin’s mir­a­cle fed­er­al­ly rec­og­nized, Joaquin became a mat­ter of great con­tention in the church. One Sun­day, Maria was prepar­ing plan­tains for mofon­go when Sebas­t­ian sur­prised her by get­ting up to mince the gar­lic. A raw, angry sweet­ness stung her nose as his knife thumped into the soft wood of the cut­ting board.

            “Thank you, love,” she mur­mured as she turned back to her plan­tains. She lopped the stem and head off of a plan­tain, hard green skin giv­ing way to a soft cream center.

            “What do you make of this news of Joaquin?” Sebas­t­ian asked.

            Maria cupped a plan­tain in her left hand, and ran her knife down its spine. “He only sent three let­ters. None since grandfather’s mon­ey ran out.”

            The thud­ding stopped. Sebas­t­ian scraped the gar­lic off the cut­ting board into a clay bowl with a blue glaze. He float­ed the gar­lic in olive oil, she watched it cir­cle and weave like eels.

            “What about his mir­a­cle?” he asked.

            “What about it?”

            Maria gripped the plan­tain until the peel popped, and she pried off the tough skin. The body of the plan­tain was bare, half of the flesh out, half of it still stuck in its shell.

            Sebas­t­ian began prepar­ing the onions, soak­ing them in vine­gar and salt. “Do you think he will come back here? He may have enough mon­ey to pay us,” Maria slowed beside him. “To pay you back. He owes you that much.”

             Maria ran the knife again down the plan­tain, this time down the abdomen. Along the inci­sion, she wedged her fin­ger­nail to peel back the hybrid of car­ti­lage and bark. Rigid, it dropped to the coarse cloth beneath it. She chopped the plan­tain in deci­sive strokes.

            “Joaquin owes me a fin­ger­tip,” she count­ed up the knuck­les on her short­ened fin­ger. “He could not pay me back if he want­ed to.”

            Sebas­t­ian chuck­led and hand­ed her his ingre­di­ents. “You could reach out. Just con­sid­er it.”

            Chunks spilled from the pes­tle as she mashed the plan­tains in with the gar­lic and left­over pork. They ate in silence.

            The next month, a local priest deemed it unac­cept­able that Joaquin should found a reli­gion out­side of Christ, and declared that if God grant­ed Joaquin a mir­a­cle, He could grant anoth­er. To prove him­self wor­thy, the priest stuck his palm with a tack. When no mir­a­cle ensued, the priest excom­mu­ni­cat­ed Joaquin from the con­gre­ga­tion. Con­ver­sa­tion about Joaquin was deemed blasphemous.

            This sig­naled the shift of chat­ter away from the church pews and into the rows of the phar­ma­cy. As peo­ple drift­ed to and from the apothe­cary in the back, rumors col­lect­ed around Maria like dust on the shelves. She gave more mind to the dust, but could not close her ears to the chat­ter. On the main­land, it was said, Joaquin was per­form­ing bless­ings and mak­ing holy water. Peo­ple absolved them­selves by whis­per­ing their sins into his palm, or offer­ing writ­ten accounts to be con­sumed by the void. Spir­i­tu­al men claimed his was the palm that held the tur­tle with the world atop its back, and Joaquin after was said to trav­el with a tur­tle, though some accounts said it was a tor­toise. Each sto­ry made her fin­ger flare with pain; she was sure the stump was get­ting short­er still. The tales echoed from the apothe­cary to the phar­ma­cy, and would often worm their way home in Sebastian’s ear. Sebas­t­ian would recount a rumor, and when Maria asked him to stop he claimed his faith pre­vent­ed him from engag­ing fur­ther any­ways. In their few years of mar­riage Sebastian’s piety had solid­i­fied as much as his prag­ma­tism. He now also claimed that Maria’s fan­tasies of sail­ing away were just dreams, child­ish in the face of their bud­ding family.

            Maria’s abdomen had begun to grow, and Sebas­t­ian start­ed to call the bud “their mir­a­cle.” She hat­ed the pet name, but came to believe its truth as she watched her body wage war on itself. She devoured rasp­ber­ries by moon­light but could not keep them down in the morn­ing. Her legs cramped, and her skin pol­ished from ochre to bronze.

            “I will see you at the phar­ma­cy, my love,” Sebas­t­ian said as Maria accept­ed the kiss he plant­ed on her cheek. “And I will see you not a moment too soon, my mir­a­cle,” Sebas­t­ian added as he cupped Maria’s stomach.

            “Don’t call it that,” Maria snapped.

            “Aye, all of this busi­ness with your cousin is passed, love. Let’s not talk about him any­more, it’s unholy.”

            “When our mir­a­cle is born,” Sebas­t­ian sug­gest­ed the next day, mas­sag­ing Maria’s feet, “We should close the apothe­cary. You will want to stay home with the child.”

            Maria stood up, winc­ing. “How do you know what I want?” She left him, bare­foot, col­lect­ing dirt on her soles.

*

            When Maria’s womb had grown to the size of a coconut, a hur­ri­cane and a bout of flu shook the island. Hous­es sunk like deflat­ed cakes. Wood­en pil­lars stood bare, snapped like bro­ken bones, and the flat­tened flam­boyán tree of the for­mer Pas­cal estate held its roots up in sur­ren­der to the sky. Gulls flew in an emp­ty blue while chil­dren wad­ed through islands of debris, call­ing when they found lost trea­sures. Maria walked trench­es through soft mud attend­ing the ail­ing town. The sick, clutch­ing to their mir­a­cles, made a spe­cial effort to share their news of Joaquin, and con­grat­u­late Maria on her com­ing child.

            She eased the fever of a short, bald­ing man, who promised he would build Maria a wood­en crib. He boast­ed that Joaquin had once cut his hair to the quick, and showed her the spot where hair had nev­er grown back. She mend­ed twin sis­ters, one with a bro­ken ankle and one with a sprain, who claimed Joaquin had break­fast­ed with the pope. The oth­er twin asked who would bap­tize Maria’s child. An old­er woman, whose skin was stiff and wet like she had drowned, stared at Maria with hol­low eyes. Through wheez­ing breaths, she told Maria how she had heard Joaquin was vis­it­ed by a Bud­dhist monk who believed he could achieve Nir­vana inside the void. Maria’s fin­gers flailed to make a heal­ing poul­tice as the woman con­tin­ued with her sto­ry. The monk had stuck his whole fin­ger inside the hole, and Maria nev­er heard the rest. The woman died, inter­rupt­ed. Maria returned home and held back a sob.

            “You should not do so much, my love,” Sebas­t­ian said lat­er that night. “Our mir­a­cle needs your health. We both need you.”

            “The hur­ri­cane, the flu… I don’t want to die here,” Maria replied.

            “We don’t get to choose where or when,” Sebas­t­ian said, “but you can try to avoid run­ning into it head first. You should rest.”

            “Bet­ter to run; I’m tired of being root­ed here.”

            “Non­sense, Maria. We are home.”

            Over the last months of her preg­nan­cy, Maria began squir­rel­ing away a small for­tune. She sold her jew­el­ry one piece at a time, and as her apothe­cary stores were sold she filled the jars with mon­ey. She told none of this to Sebas­t­ian, though she was sure he would not hear her if she did. She told him instead she was see­ing a doc­tor to check the health of the baby, and vis­it­ed the island’s largest port town to secure pas­sage to the main­land. Out­side the tick­et master’s office, the smell of sea spray and palms swirled in lazy loops with the frigate birds.

            Sailors near­by pre­pared a large ship for pas­sage to the main­land under an open blue sky. She watched them scur­ry like ants find­ing sug­ar as they inspect­ed sails and secured car­go. Her stom­ach kicked her rest­ing hand, and she was flushed with warmth. Over the gen­tle lap­ping of the waves, she heard them plan their brief stay in the main­land. With each inn and meal sug­gest­ed Maria’s heart reared in antic­i­pa­tion. They drift­ed in and out of gos­sip, and it did­n’t take long for the sto­ries of a strange reli­gious icon with a hole in his hand to crop up.

            Maria, used to the rumors, lis­tened with half a mind as she watched the sailors scut­tling about. Quick­ly, she real­ized these rumors were unlike those she had heard previously.

            “On the run!” one sailor shout­ed. “Peo­ple lookin’ to get their debts paid!”

            Anoth­er quick­ly jumped in. “How’d a Mes­si­ah owe mon­ey? Ain’t it con­sid­ered charity?”

         ” I ‘eard his hand been known to erase some impor­tant papers. Could be the state or big mon­ey types after ‘im,” replied the first sailor. “Either way he’s just up and disappeared.”

            The con­ver­sa­tion waned and waxed again to the tides, and Maria released a breath she hadn’t known she was hold­ing. She felt uncorked, hope and envy and rage bub­bling inside of her, foam­ing up and spilling out. She sat, count­ing her breaths, wait­ing for anoth­er sailor to dis­count the sto­ry. No objec­tion came.

*

            Maria gave birth to an earth­quake. Her daugh­ter shook bones and cracked the sky with her first cry. Maria took the shak­ing bun­dle in her arms and named her Gen­e­sis. Maria said silent good­byes to the ones that came to vis­it. In a week or two, when Maria and Gen­e­sis were strong enough to trav­el, they would leave for the mainland.

            The morn­ing of her depar­ture, Maria pre­pared bread and clothes and gath­ered her hid­den stash of mon­ey. She was cut­ting slices of cheese when there came a knock at the door. She jumped. Sebas­t­ian was not sup­posed to be home until that after­noon, by which time she would already be board­ing a ship to the main­land. She con­tin­ued slic­ing, hop­ing it was a mis­take. Any­way, Sebas­t­ian would not knock. Gen­e­sis began wail­ing from her crib as the knocks came a sec­ond time. Maria gath­ered her daugh­ter in her arms, gray eyes and an angry pink mouth star­ing at her. She answered the door.

            A deflat­ed man with blotchy skin stood out­side. Maria bare­ly rec­og­nized him, but her fin­ger flashed with pain when he spoke. “Maria, I heard you’d set­tled down here. It’s been so long. I need help.”

            “Joaquin.” His face sagged but his choco­late eyes and tou­sled hair were the same. Each indi­vid­ual fea­ture could be traced back to the Joaquin who had vis­it­ed the island near­ly a decade ago, but put togeth­er he looked dis­col­ored and worn thin. 

            “I can’t help you,” she said.

            “Maria, please. I am sor­ry I left with­out you. I am in debt and in danger.”

            Gen­e­sis con­tin­ued to cry, and Maria wor­ried peo­ple would come check in on her. She need­ed to fin­ish prepar­ing before she could leave. “Come in.”

            Joaquin was in the kitchen before Maria could close the door, eat­ing a slice of the cheese she had been cutting.

            “Leave that,” she said, and Joaquin slith­ered to the oth­er end of the kitchen. His hun­gry eyes lin­gered on her pack. Maria wrapped Gen­e­sis against her chest.

            “I need mon­ey, Maria. I’m sor­ry I have to ask.” Joaquin extend­ed a bony hand. His oth­er hand hung limp at his side, but the glove pulled her eyes.

            “No. I’ve giv­en you enough.” Maria turned and con­tin­ued to cut slices of cheese. “But for the boy you once were, I can spare a meal. Sit.”

            Maria passed him a cov­ered plate of arepas and Joaquin devoured them silent­ly. After his third arepa, Joaquin lift­ed his choco­late eyes. “What is the lit­tle one’s name?”

            “Gen­e­sis.”

            Joaquin laughed. “Maria and Gen­e­sis, a divine fam­i­ly – the father must be Joseph. Where are you head­ed with that pack?”

            Maria stiff­ened. “Sebas­t­ian is hard­ly divine. You were wor­shiped.” She paused. “You aban­doned me.”

           “I was a God and a fool.”

            “You were self­ish. At my expense.” She trailed off as Gen­e­sis squealed.

            “I won’t apol­o­gize for liv­ing the life I was giv­en.” Joaquin’s brown eyes hard­ened and he stared at Maria cold­ly. “There are debtors fol­low­ing me, who will find me here. I’m ask­ing for your help but they’ll just as soon col­lect my debt from fam­i­ly with­out asking.”

            Maria could her­self sink­ing fur­ther into the soil she had been stuck in her whole life. She had been born one foot in the island’s maw, and every time she had come close to leav­ing it tried to swal­low her whole. She braced her hand against the counter to cut through the dizzy­ing sen­sa­tion. She fin­ished slic­ing the cheese and stored it in the pack. Her last prepa­ra­tion done, she turned to Joaquin. “I won’t be trapped here. I’m leav­ing the island, and your debt will stay your own.”

            “So you are sneak­ing away? Genesis’s father might be very grate­ful towards the per­son who warned him…”

            “We will be long gone.”

            “Will you?” Joaquin stood and stalked a step towards Maria. The swal­low­ing sen­sa­tion was back. This time it seemed the air was being pulled down around her. “Stop,” she whispered.

Joaquin took anoth­er step.

            “Yes, cousin?” he asked, his voice drip­ping in hon­ey. “You’ve thought of anoth­er way to help me?”

            Maria paused for a long sec­ond. One arm gen­tly bounced Gen­e­sis, snug against Maria in her ban­deau. In her oth­er hand Maria clutched the cheese knife. “Please leave.”

            “What are you going to do with that? You won’t do any­thing. You think so high­ly of your­self because you suf­fer in silence. We want the same things, you know. The only dif­fer­ence is while you sit around and hope to get reward­ed for good behav­ior, I’ve nev­er stopped scrap­ping until I get what I want.”

            Joaquin lunged and reached. Frayed sil­ver threads became the last bar­ri­er between skin and obliv­ion as Joaquin’s glove closed around Maria’s arm.

“Let go!” Maria writhed, jostling Gen­e­sis in her wrap and set­ting her to wail. Joaquin held fast and tight­ened his grip.

            Maria swung her knife down, and caught the flesh below his wrist. A brack­ish red spring bub­bled up and stained the fad­ed sil­ver. Joaquin screamed, clutch­ing his mirac­u­lous hand to his chest.

            “I’m leav­ing, and you have a choice. The knife is lodged between your radius and ulna. It like­ly nicked an artery. You can take the knife out and try to catch me but you’ll cause per­ma­nent dam­age, maybe need an ampu­ta­tion. Be rid of your curse. And maybe Sebas­t­ian will pay your debt.”

            Joaquin’s eyes swelled with fear and venom.

            “Or,” Maria con­tin­ued, “choose your hand. Wait here for Sebas­t­ian, don’t move, and he will like­ly save it. Stay stuck in your past and your debt. I’m choos­ing my future.” Maria grabbed her pack and left with Gen­e­sis, Joaquin’s plead­ing sobs fad­ing behind her. She mouthed a final good­bye to her cousin and the wav­ing palms that shad­ed the streets. She spared a final glance to the cob­ble­stone square and the church that watched it. From the back of a cart she watched the town sink into the val­ley around it.

            Maria’s soft padding steps gave way to a sat­is­fy­ing clop as she walked up the gang­plank. She had not been chased or fol­lowed. The tick­et mas­ter had accept­ed her pas­sage with­out a blink. As the island reced­ed into the salty spray, Maria held Gen­e­sis close to her breast and spoke soft­ly of the trees they would see, the libraries like cathe­drals, and the lives they would live, self­ish­ly theirs.

From the writer

:: Account ::

When I was in third grade, I sharp­ened pen­cils by push­ing them into the elec­tric sharp­en­er with the palm of my hand. The spin­ning eras­er tick­led; it was my favorite class­room job. One day, I tried the trick with a pen­cil whose eras­er had been pulled or picked out, leav­ing only the thin met­al frame of the eras­er. It cut a per­fect cir­cle into my hand, and, being the dra­mat­ic lit­tle boy I was (and like­ly still am), I thought the skin in the cen­ter of my palm would uncork, spilling all of my blood until I died. I still have a scar in the cen­ter of my palm in the shape of a per­fect cir­cle. I prob­a­bly shed more tears than blood that day, but in this sto­ry I tried to tap into the feel­ing before I knew I would be fine, where the con­se­quence of injury was only lim­it­ed by my imag­i­na­tion. This sto­ry began with the ques­tion: what if I had “uncorked?”

Once I had iso­lat­ed my premise – an injury cre­ates a mag­i­cal hole in a boy’s hand – I strug­gled to find the point of view for my sto­ry. I knew I want­ed the boy to grap­ple with the allure of his gift, but I wasn’t sure where to go from there. Would it be a sto­ry of cor­rup­tion? If so, how could I show his trans­for­ma­tion over a long peri­od of time? Where I want­ed to focus on the expe­ri­ence of some­thing seem­ing simul­ta­ne­ous­ly impos­si­ble yet real, answer­ing these ques­tions and stick­ing to the boy’s char­ac­ter felt like it would force me to explain the impos­si­ble. These prob­lems ques­tions led me to find the final struc­ture of the sto­ry, where­in the sto­ry focus­es on an observ­er, the boy’s cousin, and their life as periph­er­al to this impos­si­ble event. The shap­ing of this sto­ry often forced me to reassess the divide between the events I want­ed to occur on paper and the feel­ings I want­ed to gen­er­ate for the read­er. Posi­tion­ing the pro­tag­o­nist as a wit­ness but not as much of an actor in the impos­si­ble ele­ments in the sto­ry allowed me to pre­serve the feel­ings that orig­i­nal­ly inspired the sto­ry: pain, fear, awe, and the uncer­tain­ty in the lim­its of reality.

Jean-Bap­tiste Andre holds a Bach­e­lors in neu­ro­science from Bow­doin Col­lege, a teach­ing degree from Relay Grad­u­ate School of Edu­ca­tion, and is cur­rent­ly pur­su­ing his MFA in Fic­tion at the War­ren Wil­son Pro­gram for Writ­ers. He works as an admis­sions coun­selor and lives in Las Cruces, New Mex­i­co, where his part­ner is study­ing medicine.

Fiction / Lisa Lang

:: About Graham ::

            Klee’s phone rang just as she stepped from the car. It was her moth­er, want­i­ng to know did she buy bis­cuits from the supermarket?

            “No,” she told her. “Remem­ber, no more sugar?”

            “What did that doc­tor know?” she replied in Greek. “He should do some­thing about that breath.”

            By the time she fin­ished the call, Dami­an had tak­en their bags into the cot­tage. She gazed around at the Moon­ah trees, the grassy slope and the sand­stone cliffs, the gold­en after­noon sun pour­ing like syrup over it all. There was anoth­er cot­tage next to theirs, with the same white weath­er­board, sash win­dows and cream trim. They were coun­cil-owned, rent­ed out at low cost to artists. Soli­tude, peace, nat­ur­al beau­ty – it was every­thing you expect­ed from an artists’ retreat. But walk­ing the neat gar­den path, she felt a shim­mer of doubt. Was retreat real­ly the solu­tion to a cre­ative rut? Weren’t you just retreat­ing fur­ther into your­self, when you, in fact, were the problem?

            She found Dami­an in the first room off the cor­ri­dor, set­ting up his com­put­er mon­i­tor on a heavy­set, wood­en desk. There was a modem, twin­kling in the cor­ner, and thin­ning car­pet which smelled vague­ly of rice. Through the win­dow she could see a spindly rhodo­den­dron, and the win­dow of the sec­ond cottage.

            “Let’s hope they’re not nud­ists,” she said.

            Dami­an grunt­ed as he bent towards the pow­er socket.

            “Speak for your­self,” he said. 

            Klee found flo­ral sheets in a linen clos­et. They were vel­vety from wear, vio­lets fad­ed to mauve. Dami­an found an assort­ment of cups and glass­es in the kitchen cup­board. He poured two large gins and topped them up with warm tonic.

            “We haven’t even unpacked,” said Klee.

            “I want to go see the water, before it gets dark.”

            They set off across the grass, gin slosh­ing. From the cliff edge they saw the calm, indi­go bay, the water turn­ing clear at the shore­line. There were coloured boats with white sails, like Italy, she thought, though she’d nev­er been. She sipped her gin, tast­ed salt. Rest­ed her glass on the wood­en rail.

            A large fer­ry cut a dot­ted line, white as chalk, motor­ing toward the pier.

            Klee inhaled the sea air, its briny fresh­ness like a promise of renew­al. Dami­an looked towards the horizon.

            “Are you think­ing about Gra­ham?” she said.

            “Why do you think I’m always think­ing about Graham?”

            “Because that would be a total­ly nor­mal reaction.”

            “So if I say no, I’m not normal?”

            “Yeah, that’s exact­ly what I said.”

            They both turned at the sound of tyres on gravel. 

            “It’s the nud­ists,” he said.

            A woman dragged a roller case up the path towards the door of the sec­ond cottage.

            “Hi,” said Klee. “We’re from next door.”

            “I could hap­pi­ly die here,” said the woman. “It’s heav­en, isn’t it?” She spread her arms wide. “I’m Pamela. And that’s my son, Byron.” She ges­tured to the young man lean­ing into the boot of their car. She was around six­ty: dark curls grey­ing at the tem­ples, a large medal­lion worn over her loose, black linen smock.

            “Are you poets?” she con­tin­ued. “I indulged rather heav­i­ly dur­ing my preg­nan­cy with Byron.”

            “No, we’re – Dami­an makes video games, and I –

            “Which games?” Byron hur­ried towards them, swing­ing a duf­fel bag. “Any­thing I’d know?”

            Dami­an, of course, said nothing.

            “Heard of RTW?” said Klee, and watched his eyes grow wide. He was younger than she’d first thought, mid-twen­ties at most.

            “Are you kid­ding me? I frig­ging love RTW!”

            “And what one earth is Arty W?” Pamela tossed her head.

            “No Mum, it’s the let­ters: RTW. Round the World. It’s only like, the biggest game of the last two years.” He then explained, with a ten­der­ness and patience that sur­prised Klee, how it worked. You trav­elled round Asia and Europe col­lect­ing expe­ri­ences. Full Moon Par­ties, Glas­ton­bury, a glimpse of the Mona Lisa. You col­lect­ed as many as you could before the mon­ey ran out. If you got robbed or ripped off, the mon­ey went quick­er. But you could also top up by busk­ing or pick­ing fruit.

            His face was soft, almost yearn­ing. Pamela looked from Byron to Damian.

            “And you – what did you say – pro­grammed it?”

            “He did it all,” said Klee. “The nar­ra­tive, the pro­gram­ming – all of it.”

            “Well, that’s real­ly some­thing. I’d love to hear more, maybe over a drink?”

            “Prob­a­bly they’re here to work,’ said Byron.

            “We should let you unpack,” said Klee.

            “I have a some­what lack­lus­tre Neb­bi­o­lo,” said Pamela.

            “Come by tomor­row at eight.”

            “You can go,” said Damian.

            Klee float­ed the sheet above the mat­tress, before bend­ing to tuck it in. Dami­an opened one bed­side draw­er, then another.

             “The last thing I need is some RTW fanboy.”

            Dami­an had not made a game in over two years. Before that, he’d spent years try­ing to cre­ate a hit, some­thing to be played in lounge­rooms the world over. But he’d made RTW almost on a whim – a game of nos­tal­gia, for age­ing Gen Xers who stilled pined for a thump­ing Lon­don club, a sexy night on the beach in Barcelona, while they queued for sausages at Bun­nings. And it prob­a­bly would have been anoth­er niche game, if it wasn’t for the pan­dem­ic. The game was released just as nineties nos­tal­gia began to surge, along with case num­bers and restric­tions, its wild suc­cess sur­pris­ing everyone.

            Dami­an opened the last of the draw­ers. Klee picked up a lumpy, syn­thet­ic pillow.

            “Pamela seemed inter­est­ing. Did you see her necklace?”

            Dami­an shrugged. Klee stuffed the pil­low into a flo­ral case.

            “It was real­ly unusu­al. It had these blues and greens sort of flick­er­ing over the metal.”

            “You wan­na get drunk?” he said, clos­ing the draw­ers. “Go look at the stars?”

            Oh yes. Get drunk, look at stars and could they please talk about Graham?

            Klee slept late and rose a lit­tle worse for wear. The sun was cloud-fil­tered, pale where it seeped beneath the blinds. She wait­ed for the cof­fee to boil, savour­ing her dry mouth and wool­ly head. Maybe it’s just what they’d need­ed, a lit­tle fun. She car­ried Damian’s mug into the room where he was already at work.

            “Thanks,” he said, face blank with concentration.

            She returned to the kitchen and perched at the wood­en bench with a note­book, a pen and a glass of water. She had all the time in the world. All she had to do was cre­ate a char­ac­ter, a role that could be played by a short, olive-skinned, forty-year old woman. Not the kid sis­ter and best friend roles she’d set­tled for in her twen­ties. Not the moth­er roles of her thir­ties: serv­ing up chick­en and clean­ing toi­lets in cheesy ads. The role of a woman – sub­stan­tial and experienced.

            She felt the press­ing, almost-phys­i­cal need to check the news.

            To phone her moth­er, who may have for­got­ten to take her medication. 

            She remem­bered a swarm of ants on their back veran­da – she’d meant to lay poi­son before they left. Would they be gath­er­ing strength, march­ing into the house, embold­ened by their absence?

            What, she won­dered, made borscht taste like borscht? Was it dill? And why was she think­ing of the Rus­sians, was it because of Chekhov? If only she could chan­nel Chekhov, write one char­ac­ter as ful­ly alive as his.

            She need­ed anoth­er cof­fee. Writ­ing was exhausting.

            When she went into Damian’s room, he was star­ing out the win­dow, where Byron was cir­cling his cot­tage, arms behind his back.

            “How am I sup­posed to think, with Lord Byron out there, act­ing all Byron­ic? What’s he doing, com­pos­ing sonnets?”

            “You can ask him at our drinks tonight.” She car­ried the per­co­la­tor over to his desk and tipped cof­fee into his mug.

            “Did you write?” he said.

            “I wrote a list. Phone Mum, buy ant poi­son, look up recipe for borscht.”

            “So you already have your nar­ra­tive. Daugh­ter feeds poi­soned borscht to unsus­pect­ing Mum.”

            “I’m not sure I’m cut out for this writ­ing caper.”

            “You gave it a morn­ing. No-one can say you didn’t try.”

            “Speak­ing of try­ing, how’s the new game?”

            “It’s – lack­lus­tre. Now shut the door on your way out.”

            Klee phoned her moth­er, who com­plained about her new care worker.

            “He smells like a he-goat.”

            “Mum.”

            “I’m not say­ing he’s not nice.”

            “Well, nice is something.”

            “What am I sup­posed to do, put a peg on my nose?”

            Her Muma was a chain smok­er; she doubt­ed she could smell much at all.

            From the win­dow, she watched Pamela strid­ing down the path in bathers and a sarong. It was on the cool side for swim­ming. She had a plush tow­el thrown over one shoul­der like a jaun­ty cape.

            “You could always have anoth­er cigarette.”

            “What?”

            “Noth­ing.” 

            At quar­ter past eight they knocked on the cot­tage door. Klee held a bowl of cashews. Byron answered bare­foot, in jeans and a fad­ed t‑shirt.

            “Hi,” said Klee. “We brought snacks!”

            He ush­ered them through, his ges­tures and nod­ding head like an impres­sion of hos­pi­tal­i­ty he’d gleaned from TV.

            “Um, so here’s the couch. I think Pam’s get­ting the wine.”

            The couch was the same beige fab­ric as theirs, but draped with a soft, green throw. They sat, with Byron tak­ing the wood­en, lad­der-backed chair. Dami­an reached for a fist­ful of nuts.

            “So, are you both artists?” said Klee.

            “No, Pam’s the artist, a jew­eller, actu­al­ly. I just study pro­gram­ming. I’m pret­ty much the family’s black sheep. They’re all super into the arts.”
            “Damian’s a black sheep, too,” offered Klee. “His family’s basi­cal­ly all lawyers.”

            “Com­put­ers aren’t not the arts,” said Dami­an.  “They’re just anoth­er medium.”

            “Exact­ly!” Byron half-lift­ed out of his seat. “Like your game, RTW, that’s real­ly cre­ative. I love it how in the Barcelona sec­tion, you go up the hill to the park to see all those Gaudi’s. It’s real­ly cool how you have to dodge the bag-snatch­ing dudes on motor­bikes. But those Gaudi’s – they’re so beautiful.”

            “You like the art?” said Dami­an. He wiped the salt from his hands onto the thigh of his jeans.

            “Yeah, some­times I don’t play to win, but to see what there is to see. Like that Gau­di Park, there’s all these hid­den mosaics, and the birds’ nests built into the wall.” He laughed, touched his face with his hand. “Which obvi­ous­ly you know all about. Sor­ry.”

            “No.” Dami­an was lean­ing for­ward. “That’s actu­al­ly inter­est­ing. I cre­at­ed those places to be, like, intrin­si­cal­ly reward­ing. You don’t get more points by explor­ing more – I want­ed peo­ple to hang out there because they were beau­ti­ful or what­ev­er. Sort of despite the game. But I’m not sure it worked that way.”
            “No, it total­ly does! Well, for me it does.” Byron shrugged and looked down at his feet. “For what it’s worth.”

            “I was just tan­go­ing with a very stub­born cork,” Pamela swished into the room. She wore anoth­er linen dress – pale this time – and a dif­fer­ent neck­lace, damp hair falling to her shoul­ders. She placed the bot­tle and glass­es on the side table.

            “Drinks?”

            Pam poured then sat back in the deep armchair.

            “So how did you come up with the idea for your game?”

            “Mum,” said Byron. “He prob­a­bly gets sick of talk­ing about it. It’s like if you met Leonard Cohen, and only want­ed to talk about ‘Hal­lelu­jah’.”

            “You know, I actu­al­ly did meet Leonard once?” She reached over for a hand­ful of nuts. “It was back in the eight­ies, when I was trav­el­ling around the Greek Islands. His aura was tremen­dous­ly pow­er­ful. After­ward, I could work with no stone but onyx for a whole year.” She bit down on a cashew. “I was won­der­ing if you were Greek – but the name Klee threw me off.”

            “Yes, it’s short for Kleio.”

            Pamela’s face opened into a grin.

            “I knew it! Didn’t I say she was Greek, Byron?”

            “Mm,” said Klee, rais­ing her glass to her mouth. “But Leonard Cohen – tell us more.”

            Pamela raised a sin­gle eyebrow.

            “Oh, we just sort of crossed paths for a time, you know how it is, when you travel.”

            “No,” said Byron. “My trip was can­celled when the bor­der closed, remember?”

            “Maybe if Byron blocks his ears, we’ll find out a bit more,” sug­gest­ed Dami­an, and Pamela threw back her head, her laugh rock­ing the old arm­chair on its feet.

            “Oh, she’s not hold­ing back on account of me,” said Byron, cross­ing his arms.

            “He’s right,” Pamela sat up. She poured more wine into their glass­es. “Chil­dren need to see their par­ents as ful­ly human. Do you have kids?” She placed the emp­ty bot­tle back onto the table with a sol­id clink.

            “Dami­an has a son,” said Klee. In the dis­tance, a car­go ship blew its horn, long and deep. “He hasn’t met him though.”

            “Because I didn’t know about him,” said Dami­an. “I’m going to meet him, at some point.”

            “A secret son! Tonight’s tak­ing a bit of a Poldark turn, isn’t it?” Pamela tossed the remain­ing nuts into her mouth, picked up her glass and leaned her elbows on her knees. “Do tell.”

            Dami­an frowned. He took a long swal­low of his wine. Klee cleared her throat.

            “Well, about a month ago, an old girl­friend of Damian’s got in touch and told him he has a son, and the son wants to meet him. Gra­ham.” Klee opened her palms and shrugged. “Graham’s twenty-two.”

            “That’s an awful­ly long time to keep a secret,” said Pamela. “No one noticed a lit­tle Gra­ham run­ning around, and thought to men­tion him?”

            “She moved to Hong Kong before the birth to stay with her moth­er, who’s Chi­nese. I guess she need­ed the help. When she moved back, every­one just assumed the father lived overseas.”

            Pamela laughed.

            “So you have a ful­ly-grown, Chi­nese son called Gra­ham. Isn’t that rather marvellous?”

            “But that’s messed up!” blurt­ed Byron. “To keep his own son from him.”

            “I expect she would have been fright­ened,” said Pam. “Dami­an could have stopped her going to Hong Kong, if he’d known. Legal­ly, I mean,”

            “That’s part of it,” said Klee. “She also says his fam­i­ly looked down on her for being Chi­nese, and she didn’t want her son to have the same experience.”

            “That’s not true,” said Dami­an. “They looked down on all my girl­friends equal­ly. It had noth­ing to do with Jade being Chinese.”

            Pamela brought her fin­gers to her lips and turned to her son.

            “Byron, will you go fetch the good chi­anti? I think they could use anoth­er drink.”

            “I’ll just go use the bath­room,” said Klee.

            When she stood, she felt a slight rip­ple of intox­i­ca­tion. She took a breath and made her way toward the rear of the cot­tage. She sat on the pink toi­let, star­ing at the same pink tiles and grey­ing grout as the bath­room in their cot­tage. They’d told very few peo­ple about Gra­ham, only her moth­er and Damian’s parents.

            It wasn’t so long ago they’d decid­ed against becom­ing par­ents. When Klee hit the crunch time of her late thir­ties, they’d debat­ed the pros and cons of par­ent­hood, land­ing firm­ly on the side of the cons. Then came the bush­fires. Images of black skies and flam­ing kan­ga­roos, grey-faced hol­i­day mak­ers shel­tered beneath their beach tow­els. The smoke had bare­ly cleared when the pan­dem­ic struck. It all seemed to affirm their deci­sion. Cli­mate change! Plague! Home learn­ing! And now Dami­an had become a par­ent with­out her, while insist­ing that noth­ing would change.

            Klee flushed, wor­ried she’d been gone too long.

            In the lounge, Byron had moved to the couch, where he and Dami­an peered at some­thing on Damian’s phone.

            “What is it?” She pic­tured the pho­to­graph of Gra­ham that Jade had sent: a gen­uine baby-face, smooth, round cheeks, with Damian’s crooked smile.

            “It’s a pro­to­type of my new game,” said Dami­an, with­out look­ing up. “I want Byron’s opin­ion on something.”

            Their heads were near­ly touch­ing. Byron mur­mured some­thing, and Dami­an laughed. They could have been boys, the same age, hang­ing out after school. Klee picked up a full wine glass from the table and sat in the hard-backed chair.

            “So Dami­an says you’re an actor?” Pam was stroking the pen­dant with her thumb, dark sil­ver speck­led with green and bronze, like leaves on a pond. Klee want­ed to feel its sur­face, to rub her thumb over the tex­tured metal.

            “I was. Now I most­ly work in my friend’s bookshop.”

            “Why stop?” Pamela tilt­ed her head.

            “Well, there’s only so many sequels they can make of My big fat Greek wed­ding.”

            Pamela smiled.

            “So you gave up. You’re the prac­ti­cal one, he’s the dreamer.”

            “No, I – dream.”

            “And then you wake up.” She shift­ed the cross of her legs.

            “You don’t even know me.” She imme­di­ate­ly wor­ried it was rude.

            “I know peo­ple.” She waived her hand at the couch. “I know Byron could nev­er be an artist because he wants to please every­one. I hope you’re not a peo­ple pleaser?”

            “I think – there’s a dif­fer­ence between car­ing and pleasing.”

            “Hmm.” She looked right into Klee’s eyes. Who did that? Nobody. Cer­tain­ly not now, after two years of social dis­tanc­ing. But for the first time in a long time, Klee felt entire­ly vis­i­ble. All her sad­ness and desire and wor­ry. Her fears for her mar­riage, her hopes for her work, and the enor­mous, indi­gestible fact of Gra­ham. And she knew exact­ly the kind of char­ac­ter she want­ed to write.

            Dami­an laughed again, and Byron looked like he’d won the lottery.

            “That’s it!” said Pam, bring­ing her palms togeth­er beneath her chin. She point­ed her steepled hands at Klee. “I knew it. You were in that ad. Chick­en in a tick­en, bok bok!”

            It was a small gath­er­ing, in the pri­vate room of Klee’s local bar. Dim and woody, with an open fire in one cor­ner, and a sleek white machine silent­ly fil­ter­ing the air in anoth­er. Her Mum sat in the sole, vel­veteen arm­chair, stout and smil­ing in her best jack­et. A table was laid out with mini pies and quich­es, where two of her old friends were laugh­ing with a young actor from the show. The bar­tender hand­ed her a negroni, a glow­ing orange orb to match the fire.

            “Um, sor­ry, but could I get a self­ie? For my Mum? She’s a huge fan.”

            She turned to the bar­tender in sur­prise. She’d been com­ing here for years, long before the show first aired, but he wasn’t one of the regulars.

            “Sure, OK.”

            She smiled into the phone, angling her face to the right.

            “Klee, you’re like, actu­al­ly famous!” Gra­ham bound­ed toward her, then turned his crooked grin on the bartender.

            “She’s not that glam­orous, you know. Not when you’ve seen her in uggies and pyja­ma shorts.” The bar­tender laughed, and Klee felt the rum­ble of inter­est between them, before the bar­tender began to clear emp­ty glass­es from a near­by table.

            “Oh my god, you didn’t tell me YiaYia was here!” He fold­ed him­self in half so that he could hug her Mum where she sat. YiaYia stroked the sleeve of his for­est green blaz­er with approval.

            “You look very nice,” she told him. “Very handsome.”

            “You do,” he said. “What’s this jack­et, Chanel?”

            “This very, very old. Like me,” she replied, beaming.

            “Come on! You’ve been shop­ping online again, haven’t you?”

            “No!” She gig­gled. “I wait for you.”

            Gra­ham some­times used his phone to order her things: plants and kitchen­ware most­ly, and then refused to let Klee pay him back. She reminds me of my PoPo, he would say, mean­ing his grand­ma in Hong Kong. He still couldn’t go see her – not with flights priced through the roof.

            “What are you drink­ing?” said Klee. “Order what you want, there’s mon­ey on the bar.

            “I’ll have an ouzo with YiaYia.”

            “You do know you’re not Greek, don’t you?”

            “Oh my god, you’re so annoy­ing! You’re my step-mum, and you’re Greek, so I prac­ti­cal­ly am.”

            “For­mer step-mum,” she said, soft­ly enough that it dropped beneath the oth­er bar sounds. She could final­ly think of Dami­an with­out the heart-bruis­ing pain of that first year apart, when she’d some­times sobbed into her mother’s lap like a child. It was also the first year of her TV show, Step­ping In. The one she’d writ­ten to give her­self a decent role to play, and then she’d had to play it – the hap­pi­ly mar­ried woman com­ing to terms with her husband’s new­ly dis­cov­ered adult son.

            She watched Gra­ham talk­ing to the bar­tender, their easy flir­ta­tion. Graham’s elbows on the bar, the bar­tender touch­ing bot­tles on a shelf.

            “Klee! Hap­py birthday!”

            Her friend Rose, squeez­ing her in a bearhug. She’d brought a date, and there were intro­duc­tions, and then a quick roam around to make sure every­one was com­fort­able. She didn’t have to wor­ry about the actors, those born extro­verts. But some of her friends were less outgoing.

            “Wowowow, is that me?” said Gra­ham. He was hold­ing a beer with a fan­cy label, tip­ping it toward the actor who played her step­son on the show. “I mean, I’m even hot­ter in real life than I am on screen!”

            “I can intro­duce you, if you like.”

            “No thanks.” He took a sip of his beer and pulled a face. “Even nar­cis­sists have their limits.”

            “I said meet him, you don’t have to snog him.”

            “Like he could resist.”

            They watched the actor talk­ing to Rose, his charm and self-dep­re­ca­tion evi­dent even from across the room.

            “How’s Dami­an?” she asked. She resist­ed the urge to ask about his new wife and daugh­ter. Gra­ham screwed up his face.

            “Ugh, his mid-life cri­sis is just so het­ero­nor­ma­tive, it’s embar­rass­ing. But who cares – tonight’s about you.” He reached into the pock­et of his blaz­er and pulled out a small box of cor­ru­gat­ed black card­board. “Hap­py birthday.”

            She took off the lid and saw, nes­tled in black tis­sue paper, a pen­dant. Dark sil­ver, dap­pled with green and bronze.

            “This was sooo expen­sive, you bet­ter like it,” he said. “But you can change it if you want, I kept the receipt.”

            “No.” She ran her fin­ger over the met­al. It was rougher than she’d imag­ined, almost grit­ty. An arte­fact from anoth­er life. The one where she thought her career was over and her mar­riage was strong. “It’s perfect.”

            Gra­ham touched her sleeve.

            “He actu­al­ly looks real­ly ter­ri­ble. Kind of squidgy and middle-aged.”

            “Thanks,” she said, and drew him into a hug. Then the lights went out, and Rose was walk­ing towards her with a cake, and a sin­gle, fizzing sparkler. Like a bril­liant star, or a car­toon dia­mond. If they renewed Step­ping In for a sec­ond sea­son, she could wear the pen­dant on the show. It was all still up in the air. The net­work peo­ple want­ed her on-screen hus­band to leave her for a younger woman.

           Too cliched, she’d argued. She knew what they real­ly want­ed: to bring in a hot twen­ty-some­thing to boost the rat­ings. We need a com­pli­cat­ing fac­tor, they said. Sea­son one, the com­pli­ca­tion was the son, George, but by season’s end the Step-Mum and George are get­ting along, so we need a new complication.

            Did they think she would just give in, that she was some kind of peo­ple pleas­er? That she’d sur­vived a pan­dem­ic, a divorce and her own use-by date, just to be pushed around by a bunch of suits?

            “They sold out of gluten free,” whis­pered Rose, set­ting down the glis­ten­ing choco­late cake. “Sor­ry.”

            They sang hap­py birth­day, the actors mak­ing it sound half-decent with­out quite drown­ing out her Mum’s tune­less shout. She would deal with the net­work on Mon­day. Tonight was a time to cel­e­brate, to drink negro­nis, to watch flirts in their nat­ur­al habi­tat. Who knows, she might even eat some gluten.

            Klee met with Dan and Sam from the net­work in a light-filled tim­ber café, the walls hung with hes­s­ian cof­fee sacks. It was lull time – after the morn­ing rush, but still too ear­ly for lunch. Sam was eat­ing a muf­fin, a cumu­lous of flour and berries over­spilling its paper cup. He was maybe Graham’s age, the colours of a bicep tat­too show­ing through the sheer white of his shirt. Dan was old­er than Klee, shrewd, blue eyes emerg­ing from some seri­ous under-eye bag­gage. Klee was ide­al­ly caf­feinat­ed: her words pep­py and bright, but not gushy.

            “So get this. The com­pli­cat­ing fac­tor isn’t a young woman. It’s not a love inter­est at all.” She paused to smile, hop­ing there were no lin­seeds stuck in her teeth. “No, it’s an old­er woman. Forth­right, opin­ion­at­ed, blunt. Some­one whose words can poke at the fab­ric of their mar­riage, all the fray­ing bits. But also, a per­son inter­est­ing in her own right. An artist. Maybe the one-time lover of Brett Whitely.”

            She saw the slight dim­ming of Sam’s lumi­nous face. He had no idea who Brett White­ly was.

            “Or maybe, um, Hugh Jack­man.” Which made no sense, age-wise. “I mean, a Hugh Jack­man type.”

            “I don’t mind that,” said Dan. His large fin­ger tapped the rim of his cof­fee cup. “I don’t mind that at all.”

            Klee swelled with the sense of her own com­pe­tence. She could do this, this busi­ness stuff. Not only could she act, and write, she could speak net­work speak with the best of them, too! Dan raised a fin­ger at the pass­ing wait­ress, point­ed to his emp­ty cup.

“The prob­lem isn’t the char­ac­ters,” he said. “It’s the fact you’re being sued by your ex-husband.”

            “What did you say?” She felt the curved gloss of a lin­seed, wedged against her incisor.

            “You’re ex-hus­band. Dami­an. He’s suing for a share of the prof­its. Says you col­lab­o­rat­ed togeth­er on the show’s concept.”

            “No, that can’t be right. It doesn’t even sound like Damian.”

            Dan slid his phone across the table­top. Klee reluc­tant­ly picked it up. On the screen was a legal doc­u­ment. As she scrolled through the pages of legalese, she spot­ted a famil­iar name, the best friend of Damian’s Dad, a fel­low lawyer. Of course, it wasn’t like Dami­an, it was just like Damian’s fam­i­ly. She remem­bered how her for­mer father-in-law had refused to meet Gra­ham until he’d tak­en a pater­ni­ty test. Dan coughed into his hand. She watched a dol­lop of phlegm land near his thumb, and forced her­self not to recoil.

            “I can sort this out, leave it with me. It won’t be a problem.”

            She drove straight to Damian’s house. It was the same sin­gle-front­ed Vic­to­ri­an they’d lived in through­out their mar­riage, only with a clam-shell sand pit in the front yard. She stared at the bright blue plas­tic and rang the bell.

            When Dami­an came to the door, he looked much like he always had. Gra­ham had called him squidgy, and there was a cer­tain soft­ness to him, most­ly around the hips. He stood unshaven, in track­suit pants.

            “Has some­thing hap­pened?”
            “You mean, apart from you suing me?”                                                                                “Oh, that. Yeah.” He turned and she fol­lowed him down the nar­row cor­ri­dor. The bed­room door was closed, and while the house still had the musty breath of hid­den damp­ness, it was over­laid with some­thing sweet. Baby pow­der, or youth. But it was still cramped and gloomy, at least until they reached the back end, which had been trans­formed into some­thing impos­si­bly love­ly and bright. Open-plan every­thing, flow­ing seam­less­ly into a court­yard froth­ing with jas­mine. All the sev­en­ties pok­i­ness and dark nook­i­ness was gone. Gone too, was the dan­ger­ous oven that occa­sion­al­ly burst into flame, the lou­vered tim­ber pantry and orange tiling. There was an island bench, a daz­zling cof­fee machine.

            “Mac­chi­a­to?” he said.

            He picked an emp­ty pack­et of pods off the bench, then flat­tened it with his hand.

            “The thing is, Becky can’t work right now. She has post-natal depres­sion. And my last game didn’t sell. We’re in a pret­ty tight spot, to be hon­est, with the kid and all.”

            So maybe get a job? Wasn’t that the solu­tion cho­sen by mil­lions of peo­ple who also need­ed mon­ey to live?

            She thought of the sev­en years she’d worked in Rose’s book­shop. The end­less, sleepy bore­dom of Mon­day after­noon. The brood­ing boys in cardi­gans who bought Sartre and Camus. The con­de­scen­sion of mid­dle-aged men. The tantrum throw­ing chil­dren with their ner­vous, appeas­ing grand­mas. She’d thought she’d be there for­ev­er, that one day she’d be sell­ing those Camus boys Good­night Moon.

           “Let me get this right,” she said. She placed her palm on the cool, mar­ble bench­top.  “You left me for a younger woman, who you then got preg­nant. And now you’re suing me because you can’t afford to pay for the kid?”

            “Well, it sounds bad when you put it like that.”

            He rubbed a hand across his eyes, his shoul­ders slumped.
            “I bor­rowed mon­ey from my par­ents to fix this place up. Before the baby came. Becky said it wasn’t safe, and I thought I could pay it back once the game sold.” He glanced at the clock, it had just gone mid­day. “Lis­ten, do you want a beer?”

They sat in the court­yard, on stripy, padded lounge chairs. The mild air was tinged with the jas­mine that cov­ered the whole back fence. She placed her emp­ty bot­tle on the paving where it teetered on the uneven brick. They had talked, through one beer, then anoth­er, most­ly about Gra­ham. He was bare­ly talk­ing to Dami­an, had shown lit­tle inter­est in his new sister.

            “Don’t you think it’s weird that he prefers to hang out with your moth­er than me?” Damian’s fin­ger traced the ridge of moss grow­ing between two bricks.

            “Don’t wor­ry about Gra­ham. Graham’s a top kid. He’s the best.”

            “He thinks I’m a douche bag.”

            “And he doesn’t even know you’re suing me.” She smiled. “Yet.”

            She clocked the look of dry amuse­ment on his face. It was so famil­iar, so Dami­an. They’d been the best of friends.

“Tell me some­thing.” She tapped the arm of his lounger. “What’s it like being with some­one who doesn’t remem­ber the nineties?”

            An ant wan­dered onto his hand and began to climb his knuckle.

            “Fan­tas­tic. Nostalgia’s overrated.”

            She knew then that his mar­riage was in trou­ble. It was intu­ition, or the way he couldn’t joke about Becky, even for a sec­ond. She looked back into the house, at the gleam­ing oven and stove­top. It was too clean, like a film set. She shift­ed in her chair.

            “They won’t green­light the sec­ond sea­son with a law­suit hang­ing over the show. They might even can­cel it, decide it’s too hard.”

            “You could lose the show?” He frowned and picked at the label on his beer.

            “Maybe.” She shrugged. “I hope not. I’m not sure I can start again, again.”

            In the silence, she could hear a dog howl­ing. It sound­ed tru­ly bereft. Would she real­ly not be able to start again? She was only 44. But you didn’t get too many chances in tele­vi­sion. She thought about being on set, the intense cama­raderie of the actors. The sin­gu­lar, grat­i­fy­ing pride of hav­ing her very own show. And there was some­thing else, too, the way her late suc­cess made sense of her life, gave it nar­ra­tive cohe­sion, all her fail­ures mere steps on the long road to tri­umph. She reached for the strap of her hand­bag and stood. She would not cry in front of Damian.

            “I bet­ter be off,” she said. “I have to take Mum to the fruit shop.”

            “She still refus­es to buy her veg from Coles?”

            “What for I give Mr Coles all my mon­ey?”
            He laughed, and there it was, a tiny catch in the fab­ric of her heart.

            “You know, I’m not going to sue you,” he said. “But I did give you the show’s con­cept. Remem­ber that weird artist’s retreat we went on, with that kid Byron, and his Mum?”

            She wedged her bag beneath her arm and nodded.

            “You were freak­ing out about Gra­ham,” he con­tin­ued. “About being a step-Mum to a grown-up, and I said, that’s what you should write about.”

            Is that how it hap­pened? She actu­al­ly couldn’t remem­ber. Was it real­ly his idea, after all?

            “What will your par­ents say?”

            He waved a mag­nan­i­mous hand in the air.

            “They can sue Becky’s doc­tors. They gave her the wrong med­ica­tion when she went in for rhinoplasty.”

            “Ok, then. Thanks, I guess.” She stepped over the emp­ty bot­tles. “Take care.”

            “Could you um, do me a favour, though?”

            She stopped, sure he would ask her to speak to Gra­ham, to put in a good word on his behalf.

            “Becky real­ly wants a Becky char­ac­ter on the show.”

            “You want me to write Becky into my show?” She shift­ed her bag to the oth­er arm.

            “Yeah. She doesn’t like that your char­ac­ter and mine are still married.”

            She resist­ed the urge to laugh out loud.

            “Tell her it hap­pens in sea­son three.”

            She turned and walked quick­ly back through the kitchen. Only when she got to the hall­way did she allow her­self a grin. She opened the front door. The plum tree across the street was so full of blos­som it looked like a cush­ion had burst. She walked towards the car. The nud­ists, she thought. That’s what we called them. But she couldn’t for the life of her remem­ber why.

From the writer

:: Account ::

This sto­ry was writ­ten dur­ing a res­i­den­cy at the Point Nepean Nation­al Park on the south­ern tip on the Morn­ing Penin­su­la, Vic­to­ria, Aus­tralia. It was the first time I’d trav­elled since the lock­downs of 2020 and 2021. I swam with wild dol­phins and found the odd echid­na trundling across my front yard and enjoyed sun­set drinks with oth­er artists. But I was also check­ing in on my Mum, who I’m a car­er for, and every taste of free­dom was tinged with wor­ry for what she was doing and how she was cop­ing. The sto­ry was writ­ten with this dual mind­set. I was con­scious that while care­giv­ing might fea­ture in sto­ries, it wasn’t often in the back­ground, the way oth­er types of work is. I want­ed the care­giv­ing there, infus­ing the sto­ry with its anx­i­eties and plea­sures and insights, with­out being the actu­al story.

Lisa Lang is a writer from Naarm (Mel­bourne). Her nov­el, Utopi­an Man, was a win­ner of the Australian/Vogel Lit­er­ary Award. Recent sto­ries have appeared in Jake and the Four Faced Liar. She works in a library to keep her toy poo­dle, Sap­pho, rolling in mackerel.

Fiction / Sandra Marchetti

:: It’s Time for Dodger Baseball ::

            At the top of the cement steps, Rita froze. She rec­og­nized him from the poster out­side the sta­di­um. It was the man with the voice.

            “What’s wrong, Mam­ma?” Max asked.

            Rita stood with mouth agape watch­ing the man flash a smile as he hus­tled along. He was the first “offi­cial” Dodger she saw that day—after all, Rita and Max had arrived right when the gates opened. He gave a few kids’ hair a quick ruf­fle as he walked—it seemed as if his arms were per­pet­u­al­ly wav­ing. But as he was about to shoot off down the con­course, Rita locked eyes with him. She rose out of her seat, point­ing and even­tu­al­ly screech­ing. She heard her­self and real­ized she sound­ed as if she had seen a phan­tom. He looked down at her shirt and back at her eyes—it was the yel­low she and Max were wear­ing. As soon he laid eyes on them, she knew they had made a huge mis­take. Two bum­ble bees in a sea of blue. She crossed her arms over her chest. He acknowl­edged her with what seemed like an uncom­fort­able nod then picked up his already hur­ried pace, head­ing in the oppo­site direc­tion toward a secu­ri­ty guard and a con­crete col­umn back by the con­ces­sion stands—he was head­ing up to the booth.

*

            The first time she heard that voice Rita was work­ing the dial in her old ’55 Mer­cury just look­ing for a sooth­ing tune. Clean­ing rooms at the Inter­Con­ti­nen­tal was tough work and she was spent—the com­mute only added to it. It was amaz­ing how peo­ple treat­ed the suites like their own per­son­al garbage can, dumps she had to flip in under an hour for the next “four star” guest. Maybe she could find out what the weath­er would be like on Monday—her reg­u­lar day off—but instead a dull crin­kling came from the speak­ers. Rita stayed with the sta­tion as she crawled to a red light. When the coupe ahead of her stopped short, near­ly ram­ming the lead car’s bumper, she snapped alert and heard a voice say slow­ly, “Now up for the Dodgers…” It was the first Eng­lish sen­tence she real­ly under­stood all day. At the hotel, every­one talked so fast she couldn’t process it all. Rita had picked up on some words that sound­ed sim­i­lar in Ital­ian and Eng­lish, like “city,” “accept­able,” and the dread­ed “traf­fic,” but sen­tences were hard. This voice spoke so slow­ly she could almost keep pace, and best of all, only one per­son was talking.

            Rita knew about the Dodgers. Her six-year-old loved base­ball ever since com­ing to the States a year and a half ago, and he want­ed to be on the Dodger grounds crew. When he went out to help his uncle with the yard­work, he trailed the rake behind him, pre­tend­ing to redis­trib­ute dirt on the infield.

            “You’re not old enough to get a job at the sta­di­um,” she teased.

            I will be soon!” Max said. “I’m going to water green­est grass in Los Angeles.”

            Max had been to one ball­game with Uncle Ray, and after that he was a goner. The TV didn’t always work, but Max checked the box scores every morn­ing, sneak­ing in under Ray’s legs, scrap­ing his long lash­es against the paper. The neigh­bor­hood sand­lot group had adopt­ed him and some of the big­ger kids gave Max an old yel­low Pirates’ jer­sey to wear. It wasn’t exact­ly Dodger blue, but it was bet­ter than nothing.

            When the TV wasn’t on the fritz, he’d yell into the kitchen, “Mam­ma! I gio­ca­tori stan­no gio­can­do a base­ball! Drys­dale is pitch­ing!” and gig­gle. She mar­veled at his abil­i­ty to trans­late seam­less­ly between the two languages—the advan­tage of learn­ing the words as a child. 

            Rita tried repeat­ing what the man on the radio said: “Now bat­ting for the Dodgers.” Now…bat-ting for the Dodge-rrs…” It didn’t come out quite right—that “r” was hard to say—but she was able to stam­mer through it before he con­tin­ued. She couldn’t make out all the names he rat­tled off after that, though one sound­ed like her boss’, Mr. Davis. She repeat­ed it. Rita under­stood when the voice said, “Out at first!” Davis had to walk back to the bench. She loved that. 

            Rita would turn the dial toward the sta­tion to find the voice day after day. “It’s time for Dodger base­ball!” She felt a rush just hear­ing the phrase. He seemed to have a grand way of speak­ing. She liked the silences too—more time to repeat words aloud as she drove the car. She tried, “two outs in the inning,” “the sky is a beau­ti­ful deep shade of blue,” and “recov­er­ing from an arm injury.”  It was a long dri­ve on the sky-high free­way, and his voice calmed her as she gripped the wheel.

            When Rita got home, Max would ask her about the game. “I lis­tened up to the bot­tom of the fourth inning,” she would tell him. The look on his face! Rita had to laugh. Koufax had a “knee-buck­ling curve­ball” Rita report­ed. She tried to repeat the words the man had said, slow and clear, though her tongue rolled over “knee-buck­ling” a cou­ple of times.

            “You passed my test!” Max said, and laughed pulling Uncle Ray’s tran­sis­tor out from behind his back. He had been lis­ten­ing too.

In bed that night, star­ing up at the ceil­ing, she rehearsed “knee-buck­ling” and vowed to use it at work.

            The next day, Davis laughed right in Rita’s face when she remarked that the Pres­i­den­tial Suite was so dirty it was “knee-buck­ling.” He shook his head as she pushed her cart past him. Even­tu­al­ly Rita would dis­cov­er the mys­tery narrator’s name. It was an odd one. Vin. Vin Scul­ly. Like Vin­cent? She said the name out loud. Was he Catholic too? As she was sound­ing it out, a man in the next car caught her eye. He gave her a con­fused look, and Rita imme­di­ate­ly cast her eyes down­ward. She pressed the gas to inch ahead and con­tin­ued, “I’m Vin Scully…”

            His name didn’t sound like any oth­er Angeli­no, and his voice didn’t match what peo­ple from LA sound­ed like. His words were so slow, and some of the words came out dif­fer­ent­ly than how Max or Mr. Davis pro­nounced them, but she want­ed to lis­ten. Even when the game seemed to speed up, Vin was clear and direct with his sen­tences, rais­ing his tone and quick­en­ing his pace just a bit for the occa­sion. She learned “out at the plate!” was a big deal. Rita was pleased with her­self, know­ing that lis­ten­ing to base­ball was bring­ing her clos­er to Max too. 

            Rita had want­ed to be the one to take Max to his next game. Maybe if they went togeth­er, she could play the part of Mr. Scul­ly, and nar­rate the game with Max’s “col­or com­men­tary.” She need­ed to work on her Eng­lish to move up at the hotel and despite Davis’ cru­el­ty, lis­ten­ing to the games was help­ing. She flashed back to the time, sev­er­al months ago, when some cowork­ers threw her clothes out of her lock­er and stacked phone books inside, telling her to mem­o­rize them. No more. Rita’s new phras­es includ­ed: “crowd­ed park­ing lots” and “it nev­er rains here.” She used these to great effect when com­ment­ing on the weath­er and traf­fic jams near her work. Davis even noticed, say­ing “you’ve picked up a few new lines.” The night­time front desk clerk told Rita she was going to be leav­ing soon—about to get married—and Rita fig­ured that if she could start string­ing sen­tences togeth­er she might be able to inter­view for the job.

            Ray had lucked into the tick­ets for the game he brought Max to—a gift from one of his land­scap­ing cus­tomers who wasn’t going to use them. When Rita asked her broth­er how to buy a pair, he raised his eye­brows and chuck­led, “I’ve nev­er bought tick­ets before and with your Eng­lish? Good luck.” They were lucky to stay with Ray after Joe died, and she didn’t want to press him. She asked one of the bell­men at work where she need­ed to go and he told her “The box office, of course!” Rita heard about the box office on broad­casts. It was at the ballpark—1000 Elysian Park Avenue. She knew the exit for Dodger Sta­di­um, but she had nev­er got­ten off the free­way there. 

            The fol­low­ing Mon­day, she creaked the Merc off the exit ramp and parked in a lot so big she couldn’t see the end of the asphalt. After fol­low­ing a series of con­fus­ing signs, she found where tick­ets were sold. The sta­di­um looked aban­doned so ear­ly in the day. She walked up to the con­crete fortress and saw a pic­ture of a red­head­ed man with a micro­phone next to him plas­tered on one of the gigan­tic walls. Under the micro­phone was a cap­tion, “Vin Scul­ly, Dodger Broad­cast­er.” She couldn’t believe it. See­ing the red hair and blue suit—he was not as she expect­ed. His huge white teeth and grin­ning smile must have been a foot tall! Rita kept walk­ing toward the sign that said “Box Office.” The first five win­dow shades were pulled down, but the last one was half open, a slash against the mid­day sun. She gird­ed her­self to speak and with a smile announced to no one in par­tic­u­lar, “Two Dodgers tick­ets please!” and began to release the ten­sion in her shoul­ders. A hunched man in the booth pushed his head into view and looked at her quizzi­cal­ly. Rita repeat­ed, “Two Dodger tick­ets, per favore!”

            “What game, lady?” the man asked, his eyes squinting.

            She knew this feeling—she’d had enough of these con­ver­sa­tions, end­ing in total con­fu­sion and defeat. Rita looked at her Keds on the hot cement. She stum­bled and said, “I…I don’t…” He turned away, but then reap­peared and slid a lit­tle fold­ed paper under the win­dow. It had a checker­board of games list­ed on it. She looked for a game on a Mon­day, but there were bare­ly any. Going month by month, she kept look­ing and final­ly found one. She point­ed to the date on the sched­ule, and the man peered down. He pulled the tail end of the paper clos­er to his glass­es. He said “You’re gonna have to tell me—I can’t read that!” Rita balled her left fist around her purse strap and told her­self —just say it! She had heard Vin say “upcom­ing games for the Dodgers…on Tues­day the 17^th the Dodgers start a series with the Giants here at Dodger Sta­di­um at 7:15 p.m.” In his voice, it sound­ed so nat­ur­al and easy.

            Slow­ly she said, “Reds. August fif­teen. Two tickets.”

            The man laughed, “Plen­ty of good seats for that one! Where do you want to sit?”

            She hand­ed over a five-dol­lar bill, hop­ing to avoid fur­ther conversation.

            “The best that will buy you is two down the left field line,” the clerk said.

            Rita replied, “Ok,” and he reached down into his drawer.

            She slid the tick­ets in her purse and with a nod swift­ly walked away. 

*

            After Vin dis­ap­peared around the cor­ner, Rita sat back down. She couldn’t help replay­ing the encounter in her head. She had fan­ta­sized about meet­ing Mr. Scul­ly and her laugh­ing at one of his sig­na­ture lines, an exchange she could impress Davis with lat­er. That was nev­er going to hap­pen now. She tried to lis­ten to the music fill­ing the seat­ing bowl. It sound­ed like a fun­ny sort of piano. Max called it an “organ,” but she wasn’t sure if that was the right word. She knew organs were inside your body—a kid­ney, liv­er. Still, she appre­ci­at­ed the dis­trac­tion. By the end of one of the songs she could make out the cho­rus “It’s a beau­ti­ful day for a ballgame…”—and it was. Warm and breezy in the shade. She sang along under her breath. Max gig­gled while rac­ing the chalk cart that paint­ed the foul line all the way to the out­field wall. He yelled, “Jim­my! Ron! Don­ny!” when his favorites came out to take ground balls or stretch, and made sure to point each one out to Rita so she knew who was who. It was as if the sounds she had been lis­ten­ing to for weeks stirred and took on color—the bright green of the field, and the white, blue, and red of the uni­forms were crisper than Vista Vision. All the sounds had shapes teth­ered to them now. Despite tens of thou­sands of peo­ple in the seats, this place felt serene. She turned around in her seat and saw a man falling asleep, his wife fill­ing out a score­card next to him. 

            The lull end­ed when she heard some­one roar, “Does any­one here speak Ital­ian?!” The secu­ri­ty guard she saw ear­li­er was scream­ing the phrase as he charged down the third base line toward her. Huff­ing and wip­ing his brow, he kept it up: “Ital­iano? Any­one here speak Ital­ian?” Rita’s moth­er told her sto­ries about Ital­ians being tar­get­ed dur­ing the war. She got scared and sunk into her seat. Despite her best efforts to wrap up Max’s hands and keep him qui­et, he squirmed in his seat and wig­gled his arms, “Si! Si!!!” Rita squeezed her eyes shut.

            Max got the guard’s atten­tion and he start­ed climb­ing up the aisle. The guard looked at Rita and asked, “You! Do you speak Ital­ian?” He might as well have had a flash­light and a pistol.

            Rita stam­mered, “…Si… yes.”

            The lum­ber­ing man said, “Come with me! The name’s Jack—I work secu­ri­ty here at Dodger Stadium.”

            Max ran out ahead as Rita began to stand. Her brain screamed at her to sit back down.

            Jack looked at Max’s Pirate jer­sey and said, “Too bad you’re not a Dodger fan. You could be a real hero today!”

            Max piped up, “Oh we are!”

            “The boys…it was a gift…the neighborhood?”—Rita stam­mered in Jack’s direction.

            “Yeah, this is my only jer­sey, but I love Sandy, Mousey, all of ’em!” Max cried.

            Why was he look­ing for Ital­ians? Why did Max raise his hand? The best-case sce­nario was that she’d be the butt of a joke, bal­anc­ing a meat­ball on her nose. Still, the guard looked des­per­ate and grate­ful, so she con­tin­ued behind him until they approached the elevator.

            Jack asked her, “Do you know who Vin Scul­ly is?”

            Rita said, “Yes, I lis­ten to Dodger games on KFI,” repeat­ing a phrase she had heard Vin him­self say one hun­dred times and at each sta­tion break.

            “Good, good!” Jack said. “Look, Vin is stuck in there.” He point­ed at the elevator.

            “It was repaired ear­li­er today and some­thing went wrong. He’s got to broad­cast the game…” he looked down at his watch, “in less than 45 minutes!”

            She looked at him puz­zled. Jack’s words ran togeth­er like pas­sen­gers jammed into a bus, but Max saw Jack’s pan­icked expression.

            Max translated—“è bloc­ca­to nel­l’as­cen­sore e ha bisog­no del nos­tro aiu­to! Vin needs our help!”

            “Vin is trapped?” She couldn’t imag­ine the game with­out him.

            Jack spurt­ed, “If Jer­ry has to do play-by-play…the fans won’t even know who’s up to bat!”

            “But we can’t repair it…?” Rita stat­ed with a befud­dled look on her face.

            She turned around and looked back at her seat. This was total­ly bat­ty! Work on her Eng­lish, she thought. Get a pro­mo­tion, she thought. Help a stuck broad­cast­er out of an elevator?

            Jack said to Rita and Max, “He already tried pry­ing it open with his hands. And he called the shop—all the repair crews are out and won’t be able to come for hours. ‘Fino a stan­otte,’ they said. We think the kid answer­ing the emer­gency phone only speaks Italiano.”

            Jack mimed a tele­phone receiv­er when he said, “Ital­iano” and looked direct­ly at Rita.

            Max said, “L’as­sis­tente par­la solo ital­iano!” Rita got it, and nod­ded slow­ly. Vin need­ed a trans­la­tor. Maybe Max could help, she thought.

            Jack banged on the ele­va­tor door: “Vin, I got a cou­ple I‑talians out here. Ring up the ele­va­tor com­pa­ny again. Just tell them what you want to say and they’ll trans­late for the kid!” 

            “I don’t think that’s gonna work, Jack…” Vin used that same tone when he described the Dodgers ground­ing into a dou­ble play, but his voice was only a faint echo sur­round­ed by the white noise of the stadium. 

            “Just call them, Vin!” the guard pleaded.

            “Okay, fine.”

            After a peri­od of silence, Rita heard Vin on the phone. He was try­ing hard to sound patient. It was tough to make out what was hap­pen­ing, hear­ing only one gar­bled end of the con­ver­sa­tion in a lan­guage she bare­ly under­stood. Streams of peo­ple con­tin­ued to enter the park and the crowd noise thickened.

            They pressed their ears against the ele­va­tor doors. The cold met­al was actu­al­ly pleas­ant on the warm day.

            “I am Vin. Your name?” There was a silence as Vin lis­tened to the boy on the oth­er end. Then he spoke again, “Gio. OK, Gio, look. I’ve got a cou­ple of folks here who speak Italiano.”

            “You ready?” Jack asked her. She nod­ded but her flip­ping stom­ach disagreed.

            “Jack, this plan is ridicu­lous!” Vin griped from the ele­va­tor. Rita sti­fled her sigh as Jack motioned him on, even though Vin couldn’t see. They waited.

            “ I am going to speak to you in Ital­ian, Gio,” Rita heard Vin say. “Je par­le Ital­ian. I am stuck. Hold on.” he said.

            Rita thought—French? What’s he doing? Then she thought about the “Ital­ish” that got her through the first few months at the hotel. Maybe he knew some French from school or some­thing. Why not? she decided. 

            “Jack, ask them how to say ‘how do…open…doors?’” Rita heard faintly.

            “I can’t hear you Vin! Can you say that again?” Jack said.

            Vin pound­ed on the met­al and yelled, “TRANSLATE: how do I open the ele­va­tor doors?” This time, they jumped back from their lis­ten­ing perches.

            “Can you tell him how to say that?” Jack asked Rita.

            Max was sup­posed to do this, but he was look­ing off at the field instead. A long bat­ting prac­tice home run cracked in the dis­tance. So, in a soft, stac­ca­to rhythm Rita began.

            “Aiutami—ad—aprire—l’ascensore?” she said, and looked over to Jack. 

            Once Max heard her voice, he nod­ded his approval. Jack bel­lowed the line up to Vin best he could, lock­ing eyes with Rita the entire time. They heard the broad­cast­er repeat parts of the ques­tion over the phone. Jack looked on, mouth gaped in antic­i­pa­tion. Rita’s face tightened. 

            Silence for anoth­er minute. Rita thought about what she was doing there. Couldn’t Jack just call his boss? Maybe the fire depart­ment could get him out. Where was the shop’s fore­man? Her spi­ral was halt­ed by the worst sound­ing sen­tence she had ever heard Vin Scul­ly say. The first phrase sound­ed like mas­sa­cred ver­sion of “Salire sul­la ringhiera?”—the only thing that real­ly made sense. Despite his chop job, she knew its mean­ing. Gio told him that the first step was to climb up on the rail­ing around the edge of the car. 

            Rita knew what Gio want­ed Vin to do, but she need­ed Max to explain it. She called him over, but he was long gone, eyes big as lol­lipops watch­ing Lefeb­vre hit the last pitch of bat­ting prac­tice deep into the left­field bleachers.

            “What did he say?” Jack asked Rita, urgency rush­ing his words.

            “He’s going to have to climb up the rail­ing!” she blurt­ed. “You need to get up to the ceiling!”

            Ears back in posi­tion, they heard a shift in weight above, and sev­er­al groans. Vin had to try but was clear­ly still look­ing for a res­cue. Rita did her best to mim­ic the loud voice she used when call­ing Max in for dinner.

            “You have to move to the top!” She felt a bit like Vin herself—narrating the action for some­one else, paint­ing a pic­ture so they could see. Look­ing at her watch, it was past 6:30. She knew he need­ed to start the broad­cast in just a few minutes—it was now or nev­er. Rita heard an exhaust­ed sound­ing, “Gra­zie, Gio” and a dull ring, pre­sum­ably Vin hang­ing up the phone.

            Vin shout­ed, “I’m going for the rail!” but the sen­tence came out halted—a click­ing sound echoed from his mouth. Rita looked over at Jack, con­fused. He mimed drop­ping some­thing down his throat. “Luden’s Wild Cher­ry. He’s got­ta have them for his voice. Espe­cial­ly with this—today…” ges­tur­ing at the ele­va­tor. They heard Vin push his weight against the front walls of the lift and then pull his feet up with a swing­ing clunk. Rita imag­ined he might be using the crook of the phone box to get up off the floor. He slipped and they heard his weight land square on the base of the car. Rita winced. After 30 sec­onds or so, Vin tried again, and some­thing hit the ground and land­ed with a bounce, ring­ing. The phone receiv­er? That would con­firm her the­o­ry about him using emer­gency box as a step­ping stone.

            Rita thought about the ele­va­tors at the hotel. They had thin met­al handrails all along the sides of the car. She knew it would be tough to bal­ance on that. Her mind cranked on the pos­si­bil­i­ties, but it was going to be a strug­gle for one per­son to do all of this. When this hap­pened on The Dick Van Dyke Show, anoth­er man lift­ed Rob up, and he got on his shoul­ders. As the clanks died down, Rita thought about what Gio had said next. “Rimuo­vere il pan­el­lo del sof­fit­to,” per­haps? Vin had run through the words so fast, repeat­ing them right after Gio, but that seemed log­i­cal to Rita.

            She screamed at the slit between the doors, “Now you’ve got to remove the ceil­ing tile!”

            More grunt­ing from inside. They heard shuf­fling and then anoth­er crash to the floor, but this one seemed lighter.

            Vin yelled out “I knocked it out! There’s dust every­where, but I can see cables! What do I do now?”

            Rita had to tell him. “Mr. Scul­ly?” she asked. “You have to reach up in there, find the lever, and pull it!” Gio’s last instruction.

            All she heard was cough­ing. Anoth­er loud thud on the ground and pant­i­ng fol­lowed. At this point, Rita wor­ried that the cables would begin to fray. “There’s no way I can get any fur­ther!” the echo cried. “Jack, what about that crow­bar, hey?”

            He yelled between labored breaths, “I can’t get all the way up there, Jack. I need some help!” 

            Jack sighed and said, “Is there any­thing in there you can use to push through the ceiling?”

            “I can’t even get to the ceiling!”

            Jack said, “Well, you got the tile down, that’s something!”

            Rita clenched her fists. She thought about how Vin would describe this sce­nario in a game: “He reached out across his body and snagged it on a line…” She braced her­self. Vin could work alone.

            “The only oth­er thing in here is the sign, Jack. But it’s mount­ed on the wall, you know?” If it was any­thing like the one out­side the ele­va­tor on the wall next to her, Rita thought it could maybe be of use. In sig­na­ture blue script on a sin­gle piece of heavy alu­minum, “Dodgers” was engraved and behind that the logo—a base­ball shoot­ing sky­ward with a long trail of red sparks. “Sopra il offit­to tiare la leva! Use it like a bat, Vin!” As soon as the words escaped Rita, she cov­ered her mouth with her hands. She couldn’t believe she was advo­cat­ing the destruc­tion of prop­er­ty! Still, it was an emer­gency and she was asked to help. Jack looked at her and shout­ed up, “Rip it off. Go for it, man!”

            They heard Vin get on his feet and again the car start­ed to swing. Max said, “He’s try­ing to pry off the sign!” This whole thing felt wrong. Vin screamed, “Jack, tell O’Malley I’m gonna pay for this!” Jack said under his breath, “You sure will…” Only Rita heard it. The tug­ging con­tin­ued. They could tell when the met­al tangs released from the wall by the sound of Vin’s impact against the doors and the result­ing: “Ahhh!” Rita could envi­sion Vin career­ing back­ward with a wicked force, clutch­ing the sign. Jack shout­ed, “Is every­thing alright in there?” What a line! All they could hear were a few loud grunts and a thud. With their ears tuned to the doors, Rita and Max’s con­cerned looks focused on gapers who walked by slow­ly, shov­ing ker­nels of pop­corn into their open mouths. Anoth­er guard had showed up to shoo patrons away, but Rita saw he was hav­ing lit­tle suc­cess. She looked back at the sign behind her. It was a two-foot-long “X.” There must have been dozens of them around the new ball­park. They heard Vin’s ver­sion drop to the ground. At this point he need­ed to catch his breath any­way. From the pho­to in front out by the gates, he was approach­ing mid­dle age. Did he have it in him to fin­ish the job?

            “Did he say what side the lever was on?” Vin asked.

            Rita snapped alert. With her hands clasped around her mouth, she shout­ed, “To the right!” before she could even think about it. Is that what Gio said? It had become a game of tele­phone at this point, and she wasn’t sure. Peo­ple were always telling Rita that the key to learn­ing Eng­lish was con­fi­dence. Vin said that about ballplay­ers look­ing to improve their bat­ting aver­age as well. This was the time to try. 

            “OK, I’m going back up!”

            They heard grunt­ing again. At this point, it was ten min­utes until first pitch.

            Jack got on the walkie-talkie and told some­one, “We’re work­ing on get­ting him out. Get Jer­ry ready to go on!”

            Once they heard a bewil­dered “10/4,” Jack pushed the radio back onto his belt. Jack could envi­sion sweaty Jer­ry, pac­ing upstairs.

            Rita whis­pered to Jack while mim­ing, “He should hold the ‘s’ at the end of ‘Dodgers’ like a knob and use the rest to swing with!”

            Jack called up, “Why don’t you try hold­ing the nar­row end of the sign like a bat, Vin? Just swing the hell out of it!”

            The trio could make out a pant­i­ng consent.

            They lis­tened to the famil­iar sounds of Vin start­ing the whole pro­ce­dure over again. Rita could envi­sion Vin hold­ing the Dodger plac­ard in his right hand, its comet trail dan­gling. The scene remind­ed her of a James Bond movie. He yelled “I’m going for it!!” Then came the bashing—the unmis­tak­able sound of a long met­al plate hit­ting any­thing and every­thing above the tiles. They felt the sides of the car knock­ing into the shaft and debris falling.

            Vin screamed, “I haven’t hit any­thing yet!” He seemed to be search­ing for his bal­ance. They braced for a thud but it didn’t come.

            Rita encour­aged, “un’al­tra vol­ta!” and then quick­ly the trans­la­tion, hit­ting her­self on the fore­head as she yelled up: “One more go!” She remem­bered her hus­band Joe whis­per­ing that to her right before her final inhale and push at Max’s birth.

            “I’m going in!” Vin shout­ed. Sud­den­ly, they heard that Vin had made contact—the clash of two met­als meet­ing. Max and Rita locked widened eyes and then looked over to Jack. She said a prayer that the sign wouldn’t snap. They heard a grunt through clenched teeth. The alu­minum whizzed off the iron bar and land­ed with a clunk. Did the sign fall into the shaft? Had the lever moved at all? If not, Vin was cooked. Rita thought about her tiny cab­in with Max and Joe on the boat. Stuffy and hot, Vin must have been exhaust­ed in there. Just then they heard a slide and a squeal. Final­ly, “krr-shunk.” The car jerked and began what sound­ed like a slow sink. “It’s hap­pen­ing!” she thought. But the doors didn’t crack imme­di­ate­ly. Was it a false alarm? In her pan­icked hope, she got up from the ground and smoothed her hair and skirt. The doors opened into the set­ting sun. Vin flashed a smile and she smiled right back.

 * 

            In the shade down the third base line, she felt the breeze in her hair and adjust­ed her well-worn blue cap. It was a long game, but the Dodgers were good this year and she was ready for anoth­er stretch run. Gib­son had just made his Dodger debut and Her­shis­er was hav­ing a sea­son for the ages. Cy Young-wor­thy. She put aside her score­card and looked down on the field for Max. If she wasn’t quick, she’d miss him. The grounds crew was an ever-present abstrac­tion mark­ing time in a base­ball game—appearing at planned inter­vals, trawl­ing their rakes behind, then sud­den­ly gone. She rose out of her seat and waved, but he didn’t see her. Rita turned to Ray and smiled. She hadn’t seen her broth­er since she’d got­ten the posi­tion at the con­sulate, but was glad they were able to cel­e­brate his 50^th togeth­er. As the sev­enth inning began, she raised the radio to her ear. Rita heard the famil­iar voice men­tion St. Joseph’s Day, and her sens­es perked. “Jeff Hamil­ton was born on March 19^th,” Vin said. He went on, “You know, I owe a debt to the Ital­ian peo­ple…” She straight­ened up a bit and thought back to before she got her dream job, before Max grad­u­at­ed from high school, before she even got her pro­mo­tion at the hotel, to when a few yards from here, she had saved the day. Vin con­tin­ued, “Did I tell you about the time…?” She closed her eyes in the fad­ing sun­light to lis­ten to the sto­ry one more time.

From the writer

:: Account ::

“It’s Time for Dodger Base­ball” was writ­ten on a dare. As a poet, I had nev­er writ­ten a full-length short sto­ry and an edi­tor asked me to try it. This was such a chal­lenge for me because my full-length col­lec­tions of poet­ry are about the same length as this one sto­ry. I wrote a piece that reflect­ed my family’s immi­grant expe­ri­ence, the expe­ri­ence of the stu­dents I tutored in Eng­lish lan­guage con­ver­sa­tion cir­cles in my day job work­ing at a com­mu­ni­ty col­lege, and the sus­pense­ful Alfred Hitch­cock thrillers I loved. Still, it wasn’t quite right upon my hun­dreds of “read alouds.” I met up with a fic­tion writer I admired, Matthew Thomas Meade, who taught me how to write dia­log and a thing or two about “in medias res” plot chronol­o­gy, which helped the whole thing click into place. Thanks to him for doing a favor for this poet.

San­dra Mar­che­t­ti is the 2023 win­ner of The Twin Bill Book Prize for Best Base­ball Poet­ry Book of the Year. She is the author of three full-length col­lec­tions of poet­ry, DIORAMA, forth­com­ing from Stephen F. Austin State Uni­ver­si­ty Press (2025), Aisle 228 (SFA Press, 2023), and Con­flu­ence (Sun­dress Pub­li­ca­tions, 2015). Sandy is also the author of four chap­books of poet­ry and lyric essays. Her poet­ry and essays appear wide­ly in Mid-Amer­i­can Review, Black­bird, Eco­tone, South­west Review, Sub­trop­ics, and else­where. She is Poet­ry Edi­tor Emeri­ta at Riv­er Styx Mag­a­zine. Sandy earned an MFA in Cre­ative Writing—Poetry from George Mason Uni­ver­si­ty and now serves as the Assis­tant Direc­tor of Aca­d­e­m­ic Sup­port at Harp­er Col­lege in Chicagoland. This is her first pub­lished short story.

Fiction / Ben Nunn

:: I Need To Write, So Here Goes. ::

            I have always lived in a box. And so has she. Our box­es are made of wood and they aren’t tall enough for us to stand in, but we can sit criss-cross-apple­sauce or lie on our sides. In the win­ter, spi­ders will often tuck them­selves into the cor­ners. They sit in their lit­tle webs and wait out the cold. On the wood­en floor, I can see the sub­tle impres­sion of where I sleep. It’s a small, faint oval.

            There is a rec­tan­gu­lar slit in both of our box­es, about the size of my two fists. Through it, I can see her box and she can see mine. It’s always been that way.

            The chasm between our box­es is just a bit longer than two out­stretched, reach­ing arms. In the spring, lush grass­es and tiny pur­ple flow­ers spread across it. It’s a tan waste­land of dead grass in the sum­mer, an ocean of orange and brown leaves in the autumn, and a gen­tle storm of snow in the win­ter until the spring melts it away. Every cycle of sea­sons it is like this.

            Food grows from our box­es’ wood­en ceil­ings. It begins each morn­ing as lit­tle green hairs, wisps of vines sprout­ing above our heads, always a mys­tery what it will grow into. And grow it does, excep­tion­al­ly quick. By the time the sun is halfway through the sky, fruits or pota­toes or sliv­ers of bread are dan­gling at our eyes. She likes to show off what­ev­er she gets. Her eyes will bright­en, and she’ll stick out her pear, or a hand­ful of dough­nut holes through her slit. I’ll laugh and show her mine.

            Along with new food, every morn­ing a new object appears in our box. Always in the back-left cor­ner. What­ev­er I get that day (a hand­bag, a heart pin, alu­minum foil, an emp­ty pill bot­tle) I will place in the cor­ner at night and the next morn­ing a new item replaces it. Same for her, of course. The stick of coal I’m using now came today, and I’m hunched over using my wood­en walls to write this on. I am thank­ful for this lit­tle piece of coal. I need to explain this strange feel­ing to myself, to wrap my head around every­thing. I’ll get there.

            I’m not sure what she’s doing as I’m writ­ing this; I chose the wall left of the slit so that I couldn’t see her and she couldn’t see me. Most days (most days before Yes­ter­day that is) we would just stare at each oth­er. Her eyes are wide and brown and full of curios­i­ty, always glis­ten­ing in the sun (even in cloudy weath­er, there is a mag­ic there). The slit frames them so per­fect­ly, two brown plan­ets trapped in that lit­tle win­dow. When I look at her she doesn’t look away; when she looks, I can’t.

            In the days before Yes­ter­day, I would imag­ine what her shoul­ders or her knees were like beyond that slit win­dow. Were her legs scrunched up like mine were? Her hair was often what I thought about more than any­thing else. She had shown me once, on the Per­fect Day.

            It was weeks ago, in the begin­ning of win­ter. It had been snowing.

            The box had giv­en us both coats to wear that day. That moment alone makes me want to believe in some­thing divine. We were cozy, pulling tight­ly on our coats, just lazi­ly observ­ing each oth­er’s eyes. Then, and I still don’t know why, she had moved a brown stream of her hair through her fin­gers and let it tum­ble out of the slit. It fell in a wavy sort of way, loose yet com­posed. It had a shine of oil. Snowflakes would land in it, and melt into brown lushness.

            She could only fit one eye through the open­ing along with her hair. I crossed my legs, rest­ed my fore­head against the wall, and just stared out. I felt com­plete. It’s dis­tress­ing to think about this now, but it was Per­fect then.

            That was a while ago. We would look out towards each oth­er, find­ing the other’s eyes through the snow, but less often after that day. It had only got­ten cold­er, and we didn’t get any more coats. I had only enough ener­gy to shiv­er in the far cor­ner of my box, mess­ing idly with what­ev­er object I received that day. I’m a bit ashamed but while wait­ing the cold days away I thought about lit­tle else but her. I wish I knew what she was think­ing right now.

            It was snow­ing Yes­ter­day when every­thing changed, but I can’t talk about that yet.

            I think I have to explain the Crea­ture Day. There is a con­nec­tion there that I have to understand.

            The Crea­ture Day was months ago, dur­ing autumn. I had wok­en up to a new sound. It was a sub­tle crunch­ing of leaves, soft­er than hail, loud­er than a squir­rel. We had seen plen­ty of squir­rels in our time, me and her. We’d watch them find an acorn and gal­lant­ly hop away to hide it. They were too qui­et to ever wake me like this.

            I peeked through my slit. The morn­ing out­side was still blue, bare­ly warm­ing up. She was already awake, star­ing intense­ly at our new com­pan­ion. Birds would land, squawk, and fly away. A whole world of insects and bugs would accom­pa­ny us through­out the sea­sons. We even saw a fox once. This thing, this hulk­ing crea­ture, was noth­ing like that. It was mas­sive and yet had a frail majesty to it. Atop its head was a crown of antlers much larg­er than any deer we had seen before. I had to get on my stom­ach and peer up through the slit just to see the top of it. It had come from the for­est to our right and was in our clear­ing nestling its head through the leaves.

            She stared at it and I did too. It didn’t care about our box­es or our stares. It just brushed its way around the leaves, care­ful­ly bend­ing its giant frame down to nib­ble at the grass under­neath. I snuck my eyes away from the crea­ture for a moment and focused on hers. She did the same. We were both in this realm of pure won­der togeth­er. It was just the two of us, com­plete­ly ensnared by this beau­ti­ful creature.

            That was the Crea­ture Day. I think it’s impor­tant to what hap­pened Yes­ter­day because it was the com­plete oppo­site feel­ing. Yes­ter­day we were again ensnared, but it was by hor­ror instead of won­der, a red rope instead of a creature.

            Yes­ter­day, it was snow­ing, but it was warmer than usu­al. That morn­ing my new object appeared; it looked like a toy. There was an orange han­dle that you could squeeze and at the end of a short rod was the head of a green ani­mal that I did­n’t rec­og­nize. When I squeezed the han­dle, the ani­mal’s mouth shut. Open, shut, open, shut. I care­ful­ly maneu­vered it through the slit to show her. We’d often do this, mere­ly out of curios­i­ty. Open, shut, open, shut. Her eyes were amused, watch­ing. I don’t think she knew the ani­mal either.

            I was ner­vous to do it; I didn’t often play the fool. Yet, when some lazy snowflakes float­ed down between us, I swooped my lit­tle green ani­mal at them. I squeezed the han­dle and the ani­mal ate a snowflake. Quick­ly I looked over to see, and thank­ful­ly, I saw her eyes full of excite­ment. I did it again. Then again, swing­ing my lit­tle ani­mal all over the sky between us, catch­ing snow to her amusement.

            I didn’t want to push my luck so I even­tu­al­ly tucked my toy back inside my box. When I did, her eyes dis­ap­peared for a moment before return­ing. Then, from her box’s slit, her fin­gers dan­gled out her object of the day: a thin red rope. It is because of this rope that I am writ­ing, it is why I feel this strange way.

            It was long and apple-red. It was prob­a­bly as long as I am tall, maybe longer.

            I think because I was so play­ful, she want­ed to rec­i­p­ro­cate. Her wrists were bare­ly able to fit through the slit, yet, in that same jol­ly spir­it, she was able to sling that rope around and around and around. It flung snow from the ground and smacked snowflakes in the air. I gig­gled. It was­n’t fun­ny per se, but I don’t think some­thing needs to be fun­ny to laugh.

            It felt like anoth­er Per­fect Day.

            Then it hap­pened. She swung the rope in such a way, with such force, that the tip of it, the frayed red hairs, touched the out­side of my box. It stayed there, in the snow, limp. Some­thing in my stom­ach began to churn. It took me only a few sec­onds to under­stand, star­ing at the red rope that was graz­ing my box, the rope that began way over in her fin­gers: we were touch­ing! We were touching.

            There had always been a chasm between us and now there was a bridge.

            All the time I spent imag­in­ing her, shiv­er­ing in my box, star­ing at the spi­ders in my cor­ners, seemed to lead to this. I think that’s why I have this feel­ing. It’s in my chest. It’s some­thing angry, some­thing frag­ile. It’s her.

            I’m not sure what that means, but it felt right to write. I have to keep going.

            It got worse, and it’s my fault. It’s entire­ly my fault.

            My arms are much thin­ner than hers and can reach through the slit fur­ther, almost until my shoul­der.  I could reach the rope down on the snow if I want­ed to.

            I had want­ed to and I wish I hadn’t.

            I stuck my fin­gers out first. I avoid­ed her eyes. My fore­arm was then out into the frigid air. My shoul­der was jam­ming against the slit, my out­stretched fin­gers twirling around the frayed ends of the rope below. But I was able to grab it, and with a sud­den ter­ror, I lift­ed the red rope off the snow and into the air.

            My heart is nor­mal­ly quite calm in my chest, but I remem­ber it slam­ming, rup­tur­ing with a for­eign feel­ing as I stared down the length of the rope. My fin­gers, our fin­gers, hold­ing up the long red rope in a taut line. I fol­lowed it with my eyes until I met hers. Her beau­ti­ful brown eyes were full of fear. Where the Crea­ture was a mag­i­cal con­nec­tion between us, that rope was a hor­rid, all-too-real one.

            I remem­ber think­ing: I could pull on the rope. This red-hot feel­ing want­ed to pull, to get clos­er, to see how the brown of her eyes melt­ed into the black of her pupils, to see if she had the same lit­tle rash­es across her skin as I do, to reach out and feel her hair…

            At the same moment, I want­ed to cry. I felt it change. The mag­ic of our lit­tle world was gone; I could pull her and she could pull me.

            What was she think­ing at that moment? I would have giv­en up my dai­ly objects for­ev­er just to know. But I think I know, and that’s why I feel this way right now.

            She dropped the rope first, and I imme­di­ate­ly fol­lowed. It fell onto the snow, dead, and out of reach from both of us. She van­ished inside of her box.

            I felt child­ish. Every­thing before that moment was igno­rant inno­cence. Of course, we would nev­er live our whole lives with­out fac­ing each oth­er, real­ly fac­ing each oth­er. But that bridge has been burned for­ev­er and I’m going to rot. I’m going to rot away alone! I’m going crazy. Why did it feel so hor­ren­dous­ly wrong to hold that rope, to think about pulling her closer?

            I’m los­ing my con­trol, my lan­guage. Spew­ing like this doesn’t help me any. Let me regain composure.

            That was Yes­ter­day and that feel­ing has­n’t left me. Nei­ther has the rope. It didn’t dis­ap­pear this morn­ing like the objects always do; that scar­let line across the snow was still there when I woke up. My ani­mal toy, care­ful­ly placed in the back left cor­ner, was gone and this coal had arrived.

            The morn­ing had just become orange when I looked out­side; the slit in her box was dark and vacant. Her box seemed some­how clos­er than it had been.

            I say ‘woke up’ but I nev­er real­ly went to sleep. I kept imag­in­ing all night what it would be like if we didn’t let go, if we pulled each oth­er togeth­er. Per­haps I would have pulled a lit­tle clos­er, then she would have, then me, then her until our box­es were pressed against each other.

            Would she have hat­ed me once she real­ly saw my eyes, my face? Would she shrink away into the cor­ner of her box and I into mine?

            Or would we have, I don’t know. I won­der what her fin­gers feel like. That’s a thought I’ve nev­er had before and now I can’t get it out of my mind. She got a lit­tle bot­tle of skin cream a few sea­sons ago. I think she used it. I bet her fin­gers would feel soft.

            I’m on my stom­ach right now, writ­ing in the final mar­gin of this wall. I hope she can’t see me. I need to take a break and switch walls, my wrist hurts, my chest hurts. I’ll start again soon

.

*

            She still has not shown her eyes today. I look after almost every sen­tence, and each time I regret it. My chest feels like an emp­ty box. I keep say­ing chest but I mean heart, I think. She has a box in my heart and it’s vacant and full of cold spiders.

            The world taunts me. A blue­ber­ry muf­fin has grown for me today. I plucked it from the ceil­ing vines and its sweet smell was nau­se­at­ing. She nev­er told me those were her favorites but I knew. I know what the sparkle in her eyes meant on the days when she showed me a blue­ber­ry muf­fin out of her lit­tle win­dow. I don’t want to eat it.

            I began writ­ing so that I may hope­ful­ly under­stand myself bet­ter, to put words to this swirling feel­ing. And I know what it is. It’s just her. It always has been. It’s half of my heart, my soul writhing in regret for not pulling on that rope, to get clos­er. It’s the oth­er half in a com­plete spi­ral of ter­ror and anger over what I have ruined, of what could have been.  I thought under­stand­ing would give me peace, but I, wait-

            There she is!

            What I just watched has made this wal­low­ing despair worse. Her wide wrist, moments ago, stuck out through her slit, her fin­gers reach­ing for the rope below. She was painful­ly far away. She could not reach the rope as I had done ear­li­er. Her wrist snaked back inside her box, defeated.

            I feel defeat­ed! I’m scratch­ing my skin with my left hand as I write with my right. It’s a ter­ri­ble habit that I thought I left behind. She will nev­er get anoth­er item as long as the rope lays out­side her box. And that is because of me.

            I just tried to reach for it too. My fin­gers could scrape the snow, but the rope had bent away from me when I dropped it. Anoth­er inch and maybe I could have grabbed it, then some­how tossed it back to her.

But I couldn’t and she didn’t look.

            I miss the days, the beau­ti­ful days of just watch­ing each oth­er. I’m hun­gry, I’m starv­ing but I will not eat this cursed muf­fin. I don’t even know why I am writ­ing this; it will all be gone by tomor­row morn­ing. I don’t have the ener­gy any­more to write or think and I’m tear­ing at my skin and my chest is shak­ing in piti­ful breaths.

             The Crea­ture and her hair on Per­fect day is all I want to think about, but it feels wrong to, it feels gross. It’s near­ly night­fall now and the coal is just a peb­ble between my thumb and fin­ger. I think I feel worse than before. This has not helped me. Per­haps what­ev­er I get tomor­row will.

From the writer

:: Account ::

            I love love. It’s a beau­ti­ful­ly human thing and impos­si­ble to prop­er­ly define. As I began to write this sto­ry, I was begin­ning a new rela­tion­ship, and strug­gling with what love feels like. Should love be an obses­sion? At what cost, then? Is it wrong for love to be so man­ic and with­out rea­son? And what does it feel like to not be feel­ing the right things? I didn’t find these answers, but the man in the box is my explo­ration. I want­ed to block out every­thing in our world and put this man and his feel­ings in the sim­plest set­ting pos­si­ble. Per­haps then his inse­cu­ri­ties (which of course were my own) could find space to feel them­selves out.

            I didn’t want to “solve” this prob­lem with­in this sto­ry. Being in a rela­tion­ship is not always a table on four steady legs, but is more a long and uncer­tain process. I wished to cap­ture just a glimpse of that process between the man and woman and no more!

Ben Nunn is a stu­dent at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Texas at Austin, study­ing film and cre­ative writ­ing. He’s worked under best­selling authors who’ve taught him to write suc­cinct­ly and pow­er­ful­ly. He enjoys focus­ing his sto­ries on the absurd and the outcast.

Fiction / Ada Pelonia

:: The Dead Talks ::

It’s a sui­cide, the whis­pers say. Bystanders mur­mur, ‘What a waste—’ of tal­ent, of intel­lect, of a son. The eldest of five sib­lings, he is the fam­i­ly’s pride. The rope wrapped around the tree’s branch by the back­yard sets a tell­tale sign. The police think it’s a sui­cide, too. But the signs of bruis­ing on his arms and grip marks on his face per­mit a deep­er probe.

The offi­cer says he’d been dead for six hours. The roost­ers have crowed ear­li­er, now squawk­ing relent­less­ly by their feet. His moth­er says noth­ing but sobs at the confirmation.

“My son would nev­er do that, offi­cer,” his father says in a brood­ing voice before tak­ing a puff from his cig­a­rette and spit­ting his phlegm on the ground. “My son’s an archi­tect, you know? Peo­ple can get jeal­ous. Some­one else must have done this.”

The police stay mum, mere­ly nod­ding. They ask per­mis­sion to check the house, and his father leads them in.

“My son’s room is on the left.” His father points at a door. Out­side are his sib­lings, their sullen eyes blood­shot red. His father notices and clench­es his fists.

“Get them out of here,” his father orders. His moth­er scram­bles from behind, stag­ger­ing as she holds their clam­my hands and leads them to the kitchen.

The offi­cer enters, ask­ing the oth­er to take pho­tographs. A draft­ing table sits in the cor­ner of his room with blank trac­ing papers strewn on top. Crum­pled Post-it notes brim­ming on his trash bin with rigid let­ter­ing of the word “ideas” fol­lowed by ellipses. Emp­ty draw­ing stor­age tubes are stacked beside it.

His lug­gage has been left open on his bed with a few fold­ed shirts inside and heaps of clothes around it. Under­neath are two torn air­line tick­ets. The offi­cer takes them, soot cin­ders leav­ing traces on his gloved hands. He jots these in his pock­et note­book and places them in plastic.

They check his cab­i­nets: pen­cils, tri­an­gu­lar scales, Cop­ic mark­ers, lin­er pens, and a pile of sketch­books. The offi­cer asks the oth­er to flip through the pages, seek­ing a let­ter. They find noth­ing but house and infra­struc­ture sketch­es, cutouts of hous­es from mag­a­zines on the right with his ver­sion on the left. His draw­ings had scrib­bles on them, the traces of ball­point pen leav­ing marks from behind.

The police leaf through the pages of his sketch­books until they open the last one from years back. A suite of poems penned in flow­ing cal­lig­ra­phy swirls on the paper. Every page offers stan­za after stan­za of poet­ry, all with “For David” inscribed under each title. Wedged between the last few pages was a filled-out MFA appli­ca­tion form from a uni­ver­si­ty abroad.

They take the sketch­book inside anoth­er plas­tic evi­dence bag. The offi­cer paus­es, note­book and pen in hand, and asks who David is, this person’s rela­tion­ship with him, and if his father thinks this cer­tain David may know some­thing behind his death.

“He’s just a friend, offi­cer. I can assure you that lad can’t hit any­one to save his life.”

His father snorts, shak­ing his head. The police exchange glances, their eyes prob­ing for more. But the offi­cers set­tle with assur­ing his father that they’ll give him the autop­sy report when it’s done. They say they’ll return after a few days before tak­ing their leave.

Upon sit­ting, a cup of black cof­fee has already been served at the table. His father is about to drink it when thun­der­ing knocks clash at their door.

“It’s prob­a­bly David—” his sis­ter tries to stand, but the scald­ing cof­fee drench­es her first. She stum­bles, her lips quiv­er­ing. His moth­er grabs a tow­el, her shak­ing hands wip­ing the spillage. His father heaves, fists clenched on the table’s edges. Like gears click­ing in their respec­tive places, the table turns qui­et, and they let the inces­sant knock­ing rever­ber­ate in their ears.

From the writer

:: Account ::

 This sto­ry takes cues from a scene in “Move to Heav­en” where one of the char­ac­ters said: “There comes a moment when you begin to see what the deceased want­ed to say and the thoughts they want­ed to share.” It comes with com­mon sense that the dead don’t talk and they nev­er will. But I firm­ly believe in humans’ capac­i­ty to present their lives, the way they’ve lived (or not), which tran­scends beyond death and speaks to the liv­ing. Be it the pile of jour­nals on their bed­side table, a jar of pen­nies in every cup­board, their wal­lets filled with bus tick­ets and can­dy wrap­pers, or the trin­kets they left behind in the nook and cran­ny of the house—every nuance brings the deceased back to the liv­ing, shar­ing a sto­ry or two that’d elic­it stom­ach-turn­ing laughs or wrench­ing pain of woes, a kind of after­life that begs to be understood.

Ada Pelo­nia (she/her) is a jour­nal­ism grad­u­ate of the Uni­ver­si­ty of San­to Tomas. Her work has appeared or is forth­com­ing in HAD, Eunoia Review, Gone Lawn, and The Account, among oth­ers. She has been nom­i­nat­ed for Best Microfic­tion 2021. Find her at adapelonia.weebly.com or on Insta­gram @_adawrites.

Fiction / Bryan Price

:: I’d rather be hang gliding::

I’m on a bus between Mexico City and Puebla. It smells like rain. Everything’s green and I
wonder what it’s like to deliver ice. I try to imagine a great many things on this long stretch of 
highway. I try to imagine, for instance, what it’s like to live in each house I see. I spend hours 
in each one. I go through their cookware and eating utensils. I turn on their televisions and
watch the news. I realize that newscasters are the same everywhere. I try on all the shoes that 
fit me and wear interestingly patterned shirts. Shirts I would never wear in real life. I wear a 
woman’s corduroy dress that maroon color of a bloodstain and look at the world from a 
balcony. I look down at my hands and someone has painted my fingernails blue. I touch fabric 
and record albums, try on a multitude of jewelry (including tiaras), enter a closet where there 
are only skeins of yarn. I find a store of knives and instead of thinking about butchery or the 
 slaughterhouse I imagine someone fashioning windchimes out of wood. Not a master 
craftsman but someone just curious about the physics of sound. I peer into children’s rooms 
and marvel at the toys. I touch their bedspreads and look for shirts with frogs on them. I water 
potted geraniums and touch (very lightly) the spines of a cactus, which I don’t know the name 
of. I think of all the things I don’t know the names of. All the plants and insects and animals 
and chemicals, like the ones used to treat diaper rash. I look at cars, into their engines, and
inhale the smell of gasoline and motor oil. I run my finger along bicycle chains and chainsaw 
chains and tractor tires. I handle hammers, screwdrivers, hacksaws, chisels, planes, and 
monkey wrenches, but only to test their heft. I sleep in their beds and smell sweetness on every 
pillow. It’s the fabric softener, isn’t it, I say to the woman lying next to me. She nods and I
kiss her forehead. I don’t know who she is but I want to live in her gaze forever. I sit at their 
tables reading their newspapers and magazines, impressed with how quickly I’ve picked up the 
Spanish language. I light their cigarettes with a lighter that someone has covered in aquamarine
sequins. I could have chosen a zippo with a boot embossed on it or a plain yellow one more 
the color of butter than egg yolk. I smoke with my hand out the window so as not to stain 
their existence. There is ice cold beer in the refrigerator and a cake with pink frosting. I help
myself to these things and leave a note that says, I owe everything to you, including my life. 
Thank you for sustaining me in such trying times. May God bless this house forever. After an 
hour or so of reading, I say the words jaguar, cricket, butterfly. I touch a finger to my lips to 
shush myself. There is a movie playing on the bus that is unfamiliar to me. It concerns children 
and animals. It takes place in the jungle. The man in front of us wears a purple cowboy hat. 
Affixed in its black band is a yellow and gray feather with a spray of red. He tells us he works
as a jukebox repairman in and around the city of Amarillo, Texas. I tell him I didn’t know 
there were still juke boxes and he says, you just don’t know where to look. I feel wounded by 
this comment, or at the very least reproached for my ignorance. I look at his hands and think 
about all the intricate work those hands are responsible for, the electronic housings they have 
entered into so that the people in and around Amarillo, Texas may continue to dance. His wife
is from Puebla and they are visiting her family who continue to keep horses. They have two 
young children who, for some reason, remind me of the ocean. Of looking at the ocean. The
ocean is not something that should be taken lightly. For some uncountable number of years 
the ocean portended death. Not just random death, but certain death. If you look at maps of 
the world from these times they are unconscionably small and over the oceans you see Hades
and his three-headed dog depicted. These children though have nothing to do with that. It’s
all in my head. I beat myself up for having seen no ruins. I saw no ancient cities and my spirit
won’t forgive me. I saw no temples to the God of War or the God of Water. I saw no amount 
of stone smoothed by thousands of years of worshipful touch. My spirit will never forgive me
until I let time lay its hands on me, until I see something at least twice as old as The Hall of 
Bulls. Later in another life or a future life (a life that is behind me now) I will tour other ruins 
with other women and attend different churches. Ones not as concerned with the spectacle 
of Christ’s return. In the halls of these other churches (if I can call them halls) I’ll be able to 
swear off hard drugs and see no more levitating cats. I’ll manage to placate what others (though 
not me) call their demons. My life will become as smooth as a piece of paper and I will drink 
green tea with my meals. When I learn to drive again I will follow a car with a bumper sticker 
that reads, I’d Rather be Hang Gliding, and think about how this means that driving is tedious 
but necessary. But now I’m on a bus between Mexico City and Puebla. I’ve seen no ruins and 
have imagined the interiors of a thousand houses. There is a black Nissan waiting for us. I 
share a cigarette with the driver whose name is Eric. He takes us to a hotel right off the Zócalo 
where there is a truck driving around with a caged tiger on its trailer. It must be, I say to you, 
an advertisement for the zoo.

From the writer

:: Account ::

Some­times it’s hard for me to dis­tin­guish between dreams and mem­o­ries. I do remem­ber tak­ing a bus from Mex­i­co City to Puebla. This must have been 2006 or 2007. We flew into Mex­i­co City and hung around for a while and then took a bus to Puebla and then took a bus back to Mex­i­co City to fly home. There was a film being shown on that bus but I don’t recall it being about chil­dren or a jun­gle (maybe I was think­ing of Juman­ji, but who knows). I think I was try­ing to get at the idea of a per­son chang­ing over time (in terms of reli­gious con­ver­sion or reli­gious con­ver­sion as metaphor). That per­son on that bus is no longer me. That per­son who rode that bus with anoth­er per­son no longer lives with that per­son; doesn’t share dreams or expe­ri­ences with that per­son. And that per­son who didn’t see ruins no longer exists. The thing about juke­box­es is there because I like old media and old tech­nol­o­gy. I like the idea that some of us cast away old things and oth­er peo­ple keep try­ing to make them work. There was a caged tiger on the back of a flatbed truck and a black Nis­san taxi. The idea of the title came from see­ing a license plate hold­er that said I’d Rather be Bowhunt­ing, but I changed it to hang glid­ing because hang glid­ing seems nicer, more ano­dyne, less vio­lent. All the stuff about imag­in­ing what people’s hous­es are like is my attempt to dis­ap­pear which I guess is what writ­ing is sometimes.

Bryan D. Price is the author of A Plea for Sec­u­lar Gods: Ele­gies (What Books, 2023) His sto­ries and poems have appeared or are forth­com­ing in Noon Annu­al, New Let­ters, The Glac­i­er, Boule­vard, and else­where. He lives in San Diego, California.

Fiction / Enit’ayanfe Ayosojumi Akinsanya

:: A Boy Free on Christmas Morning ::

            It was a day in Octo­ber, 2005. And like all days in Octo­ber in a prop­er aca­d­e­m­ic year, the term had just begun, new schemes of work writ­ten in chalk on the boards, old friends recon­nect­ing, and new bonds get­ting fas­tened. Old class­mates embraced and shook hands and clapped backs and shared sto­ries from the hol­i­day. They paused in their high laugh­ter and plo­sives only to dust out their lock­ers, clear the walls of cob­webs and the floors of lit­ter, and copy down the new timetable. It was a glit­ter­ing, unbro­ken air.

            “Tomi­wa!”

            The call had pierced through the stac­ca­to din—behind which he had grate­ful­ly slipped—through the thick­ness of his thoughts, and reached him like an arrow. He whirled around, his heart bad­aboom­ing like drums. It was Christo­pher Ayomikun. Of course, it was Christo­pher Ayomikun. Only Christo­pher Ayomikun barked out his name like that. Only Christo­pher Ayomikun cared enough to see him. He wait­ed in his seat. Christo­pher Ayomikun swag­gered up, one cor­ner of his mouth lift­ed as usu­al in a sneer. Tomi­wa wait­ed, his arm rest­ing on the slight swell of his well-worn duf­fel bag, which slouched almost weight­less­ly into his lock­er. Run­ning to the bus stop every morn­ing and every after­noon with it on his back posed no prob­lems for him. He had so few books.

            “Hey, Tomi­wa.” Christo­pher Ayomikun final­ly stopped by his desk, stand­ing too close for com­fort, stretch­ing out his hand. “How are you?”

            Tomiwa’s eyes slid down to the prof­fered hand. He gaped. It was sur­pris­ing enough that Ayomikun had  called him “Fagstard” as usual—Christopher Ayomikun had an ani­mat­ed imagination—but what was even more aston­ish­ing was Christo­pher Ayomikun offer­ing him—him—a hand­shake.

            “Well, well, well, are you going to shake my hand, or are you going to dis­grace me in front of the whole class?” Ayomikun asked. The nois­es in the class­room had dimin­ished into a steady, sin­gle thrum­ming; peo­ple were already begin­ning to watch. The boy cradling his old bag dared not look around to see, but he felt the hun­gry eyes, as strong­ly as he did each time Christo­pher Ayomikun engaged him inside or out­side the class­room. Christo­pher Ayomikun spoke again, “Come on, pal, this is a new term. Old things are gone. I’ve real­ized how child­ish I have been. Let’s start afresh.”

            His voice had tak­en on a soft­ness; his eyes, too. His sneer was also stretch­ing into a smile that looked sin­cere. And, as if “Tomi­wa” had not been enough, he had called him “pal”. Tomiwa’s mud walls were crum­bling. His heart lift­ed. He took Ayomikun’s hand, care­ful­ly at first, and then more con­fi­dent­ly, his fin­gers curled around Ayomikun’s firm palm. “Good morn­ing,” he mum­bled, feel­ing stu­pid; he wasn’t sure that was what he was sup­posed to say. He felt as in a dream. Some­thing ice-cool and sweet, like glu­cose, was spread­ing inside his chest. He won­dered if he should look around the class and smile tri­umphant­ly at the increduli­ty that must be past­ed on those faces. He stopped won­der­ing and looked around. They were all gaw­ping at the scene: his hand in Ayomikun’s, Ayomikun’s cov­er­ing his in a full firm clasp. A mir­a­cle kin­ship. He felt like scream­ing. He part­ed his lips, not sure what it was he would utter, but just then Christo­pher Ayomikun screeched and, with a vio­lent jerk, flung Tomi­wa’s hand off. It smacked against the desk. He spread out his arms like an actor and addressed the class.

            “See? I told you. Fagstard is not a mon­ster. You can actu­al­ly shake his hand and he will not rape you senseless!”

            Then he burst into gales of laugh­ter; some boys joined in. Tomi­wa rec­og­nized them as the ones who had way­laid him on his way home from school, once, twice, three times, and beat­en him up for walk­ing like a girl. They were like Christo­pher Ayomikun—tall, big, mus­cu­lar, things he was not. Because of them, he now ran instead of walk­ing. Because of them, he had stopped going out to the can­teen dur­ing break, just so they couldn’t see him walk­ing and have cause to beat him again. Not that he had the lux­u­ry of fre­quent­ing the can­teen any­way; his pock­et mon­ey was N20, every day. Includ­ing those days they had Junior WASSCE lessons and closed at 6 pm.

            Christo­pher Ayomikun’s laugh­ter slowed and lowed to spo­radic hic­cups, but the rest of the class—even the twin girls that were vot­ed “Most Qui­et” last term—had tak­en up the mirth and were all dou­bled over. Tomiwa’s heart sank. His palm stung. Sweat broke down his back and tem­ples, despite the sun­less­ness of the morn­ing. Goose pim­ples rose on his skin, as if some­one had splashed water on him and pushed him into a basin filled with raw rice. His eyes welled up.

            This was indeed a new term. He might not sur­vive it. Some­body shook the bell for assem­bly time. The class made for the door, girls and boys press­ing against him, push­ing past him, some scream­ing when they came in con­tact with him, the girls look­ing as if they want­ed to spit, some of the boys hold­ing their hands over their behinds, their eyes dis­tend­ed in mock ter­ror. He tried to slip past them but in his haste, his already squig­gly zip­per ripped open and his rat-eat­en books spilled out to the floor. His class­mates watch­ing from the cor­ri­dor erupt­ed in loud laugh­ter. He sank to the floor, will­ing it to yawn open and take him.

            “Clum­sy homo,” they chant­ed and dart­ed their eyes around in case a teacher or a pre­fect was coming.

            Where he sat on the floor, the boy hugged his split bag to his chest and wept.

*                                      *                                    *

            Tomi­wa was the first of two sons. Born to a gar­den­er in the rus­tic town of Ije­bu-Ode, he learned ear­ly enough to occu­py spaces like a thin shad­ow. His father raked lawns, plant­ed alla­man­da bush­es, trimmed sun-bleached flow­ers for a stingy rich fam­i­ly, and col­lect­ed N4,000 pay at the end of the month. Some­times, the salary would come. Some­times, it would come late. And then there were times it would not come at all. Dur­ing these times, it was hell for Tomi­wa, his lit­tle sick­le-celled broth­er, Eni­tan, and their moth­er. She had a makeshift kiosk in front of a weath­er-beat­en bun­ga­low, where she sold soap and sweets and match­es and cig­a­rettes. There, they had rent­ed a one-room apart­ment, and they owed the can­tan­ker­ous land­lord N15,500.

            Tomi­wa’s father, on those days of no pay, would arrive home in the dead of night and in a sog­gy whiff of alco­hol stench, his shirt front stained with beer vom­it, his face grotesque, his lips loose and his eyes bulging. When Tomiwa’s moth­er con­front­ed him about where he had been and what he had been up to, he beat her up. His stag­ger­ing and sway­ing did not dull his punch­es; they could have smacked holes in any liv­ing body. His words slur­ry, his artic­u­la­tions blur­ry, he would rain curs­es on his wife, his chil­dren, his rich employ­ees and the poor coun­try as a whole. Then he would resume beat­ing his wife, hold her by the neck, yank and tou­sle her hair, and force her down to her knees. Where is my food? No food! Why did­n’t you cook? No mon­ey! Must you wait for me before you cook? You have too many debts? No sales? Unfor­tu­nate woman! Oloribu­ruku obin­rin! Your legs are bad! My life scat­tered the day I mar­ried you! These played out in front of Tomi­wa and his lit­tle broth­er, who always burst into loud cry­ing and so stopped Tomi­wa from cry­ing loud­ly as well, for he would have to hold his broth­er close and con­sole him.

            Then, a Sat­ur­day came. His broth­er had a crisis—the fourth that month—and his moth­er had to rush him to a small, unreg­is­tered clin­ic. Tomi­wa watched her clam­ber onto the pil­lion of an oka­da, his heart pal­pi­tat­ing where he sat wash­ing his over-patched school uni­form beside the house. He had just wrung the soap out of his shorts when his father called him in and told him he would have to drop out of school. Tomi­wa stood and stared, the foam dry­ing on his hands.

            “Baba, what did you say, sir?”

            His father coughed. Tomi­wa noticed the new drawn shade in his eyes, the new­er unsight­ly criss­cross of veins on his fore­head. He had always looked sick, from exces­sive drink­ing and work­ing in the sun, but not this much. Tomi­wa wished things were dif­fer­ent for his father, for them all.

            “E pele, sa,” he said in concern.

            “Do you have owu ele­po in your ears?” his father shot at him. “I said you will have to stop going to school. I don’t have the strength to send you again.”

            The world spun rapid­ly inside Tomi­wa’s head; all of his life gath­ered up in his throat. He propped his wrist against his lips, sur­prised by the sud­den­ness of his own cry­ing. Per­haps it was the way his father had shout­ed it. With­out think­ing, with­out choos­ing to be dra­mat­ic, he sank to his knees and start­ed wring­ing his hands in plea. He thought lit­tle of his actions, of what his father would see. All he knew was that he was plead­ing to be allowed to con­tin­ue in school.

            His father sneered at him, a cold sneer that froze Tomi­wa in his move­ments. His father’s blood­shot eyes ran up and down him, until he thought he was about to spit on him.

            “How did I end up with a son like you sef?” his father said, and start­ed hack­ing again. His cough­ing shook his body.

            “E pele, sa.”

            “Kneel­ing and mov­ing your hands like a girl.” He spat the phlegm in Tomi­wa’s direc­tion. Anoth­er fit seized his wil­lowy frame.

            Tomi­wa scram­bled up to get him some water.

            “Stop there, my friend!” his father barked. “Where you think say you dey go?”

            “Nowhere, sir.” Tomi­wa shiv­ered, stuck, con­fused, afraid to use his hands lest he did some­thing to fur­ther enrage his father.

            “My ears are full. I hear how you laugh like an idiot when those home­less boys on our street touch your body. I am warn­ing you. No child of mine will bring abom­i­na­tion into this house. E bet­ter make I kill that son with my bare hands than let him see that day.” He launched into anoth­er raspy paroxysm.

            Tears bloomed into Tomiwa’s eyes again, but he fought it. He had to kill vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty. Boys didn’t cry, his father once said. “E pele, sa,” he said again. This time, he felt the sym­pa­thy for his father more keen­ly. He moved uncer­tain­ly towards him, his hand stretched.

            “Get out of my sight!” his father blared, eyes flashing.

            Tomi­wa ran out, his eyes sting­ing, and for a while he couldn’t see his white vest as he washed it.

            His father left work and took ful­ly to drink­ing and owing a pile of mon­ey at the local bar in town. Often, in the mid­dle of the day, furi­ous ser­vice girls would drag him home and demand pay­ment from Tomi­wa’s moth­er. There were after­noons Tomi­wa and his moth­er found him crum­pled in the gut­ter, bab­bling old hymns. How his moth­er stood alone and Eni­tan did not die of his crises, and how Tomi­wa did not drop out of school, Tomi­wa could not say. But he wished he had dropped out anyway.

*                                      *                                    *

            Drop­ping out dan­gled in his mind—a fresh offer at escape—that day in Octo­ber. The day he prayed the floor of his class­room should open and gulp him in. The same day Abdul came into his life. Abdul was a youth ser­vice corps mem­ber new­ly post­ed to the com­mu­ni­ty school. Tall, firm-jawed Abdul, with a wide fore­head and wider shoul­ders and a lit­tle stut­ter that made the stu­dents find his every word even more pre­cious. When he stepped into their class that morn­ing, after the first three teach­ers had taught and left, he told them he came to teach Math­e­mat­ics and Math­e­mat­ics only.

            “I can solve all prob­lems. Care­ful—all arith­meti­cal prob­lems. Don’t bring your life’s prob­lems to me. Don’t bring your boyfriend-and-girl­friend issues to me.”

            A rip­ple went through the class.

            “Those ones are prob­lems I can’t solve. I have those prob­lems, too, you hear?  So make every­one go solve their prob­lems on their own, abeg. Gov­ern­ment no dey pay me allowee for that one.”

            The class burst into laugh­ter. Except Tomi­wa, who was still mop­ing over his ruined school bag. Abdul smiled and turned to the board.

            After school, a school pre­fect accost­ed Tomi­wa and told him Abdul want­ed to see him in the staff room. Stiffly, his mind blank, he made for the detached build­ing. Abdul sat, a Pace­set­ters nov­el held open with his thumb, and asked Tomi­wa his name. “And also tell me why you were look­ing moody dur­ing his class in the morning.”

            Tomi­wa part­ed his lips to speak, but it was tears, not words, that broke free. It annoyed him, that he was cry­ing before this stranger-teacher in tight white vest and green kha­ki pants. It was like a scene from all those TV melo­dra­mas his class­mates always chirped about dur­ing Free Peri­od. He pressed his hands to his face. He felt like scream­ing at him: Leave me alone!

            “Noth­ing, sir,” he mum­bled. “My head was aching. My name is Tomi­wa Arogundade.”

            The cor­p­er gawped.

            Lat­er, as Tomi­wa walked home through the bush­es flank­ing a lone­ly path, Christo­pher Ayomikun and his boys leaped out at him, their check­ered shirts undone and tied around their waists to reveal off-white sin­glets, long lithe canes swish­ing to and fro in their hands. Tomi­wa stag­gered back­ward. They had nev­er brought canes before. He wished he knew any oth­er route home, but this was the only lane. The boys sur­round­ed him, leer­ing and sneer­ing and whistling. He thought of his moth­er pray­ing into the night on her knees, reel­ing out psalms after psalms for divine pro­tec­tion from evil and its doers. Tomi­wa had man­aged to mem­o­rize only Psalm 23 com­plete­ly. He reached for it now like a tal­is­man. He mut­tered it earnestly.

            Christo­pher Ayomikun detached him­self from the cir­cle and neared Tomi­wa with his cock­sure swag­ger. Tomi­wa stared. He should run. These were peo­ple with height­ened preda­to­ry skills. These were peo­ple who grew up watch­ing too many Amer­i­can and Chi­nese films. The silence, punc­tu­at­ed by the twit­ter­ing of bush birds, stretched on for too long. They lolled the canes in their hands and peered at him thin­ly, like lizards. Tomiwa’s heart start­ed throb­bing again, and when Christo­pher final­ly spoke, it was like some­one splashed a buck­et of ice cubes down his shoulders.

            “Hey, Fagstard, how about we get your dis­gust­ing rosy ass pro-per-ly whipped?”

            Tomi­wa held onto his loose bag. “Please. E jo. I don’t want any more trou­ble. Let me just go home.”

            “Hey, hey!” Christo­pher Ayomikun threw his hands about in that the­atri­cal way com­mon with pul­pit clowns. “The sis­sy pleads!” He made a face and aped Tomiwa’s words.

            “Come on, Chief CA!” one of the oth­er boys screeched. “Why we dey waste time?” Some­body fit come and inter­rupt na. Make we naked this girlie and see wetin him been dey cover!”

            Tomi­wa went numb.

            “Well, well, well,” Christo­pher Ayomikun starred his role again, hands on hips, “you are about to regret ever being born into this world, you abom­i­na­tion.” He revolved on his heels. “He’s all yours!”

            They yelled in uni­son, their canes raised high, and raced toward Tomi­wa, who stood trans­fixed in the mid­dle of the path. It was over. It was beyond him what atroc­i­ty it was they were going to do to him this time. He closed his eyes, like when the lights of the world go out, slumped to the ground, and wait­ed for the onslaught.

            He could not see any­thing, but he heard a sud­den silence. Some­one had bound­ed into the road. They all stiff­ened in their tracks. The fig­ure approached steadi­ly, unflinch­ing­ly. A tall broad fig­ure. White vest. Green pants. A green cap.

            “It’s Cor­p­er Abdul!” some­one screamed.

            Tomiwa’s ear­lobes thud­ded with feet. They all melt­ed into the bush, leav­ing behind their weapons and a few san­dals. Tomi­wa opened his eyes and looked hard through the wink­ing green of his vision. It was Cor­p­er Abdul. The man pulled him up. Tomi­wa glanced up through the trees to send his thanks to what­ev­er god was there. He watched his sav­ior van­ish in a blur of white and green, and he didn’t know what next to feel, to do.

*                                      *                                    *

            Abdul gave chase, briefly. He caught none of the boys. They had moved through the for­est like light­ning through slip­pery clouds.

*                                      *                                    *

            “Are you hurt?”

            Tomi­wa shook his head no.

            “Are you not that boy in JSS3 A?”

            Tomi­wa nod­ded, feel­ing self-pity­ing­ly young and helpless.

            “Where do you live?”

            “Just before the busy road.” He point­ed vague­ly. The numb­ness was begin­ning to clear.

            “Hmm. The Cor­pers’ Lodge is not too far from there. Let’s walk together.”

            He nod­ded, his tongue glu­ing itself back to the roof of his mouth.

            They start­ed walk­ing; their foot­falls crunched the crisp Octo­ber-dried leaves under­foot and echoed in the trees. The silence grew too loud.

            “Hey, broth­er, I don’t know you much.”

            The man sound­ed a lit­tle force­ful, as if he had rum­maged and rum­maged around in his brain to find the least embar­rass­ing way to con­tin­ue the con­ver­sa­tion, and so wouldn’t con­done anoth­er list­less response. Per­haps it was his bari­tone. Per­haps it was his broad shoul­ders. Per­haps it was his clear open face, which gave the sen­sa­tion of star­ing into a cloud­less sky. Or per­haps it was sim­ply that the man had called him “broth­er”, but Tomi­wa sud­den­ly found his tongue uncling­ing from the roof of his mouth, like a weight in flight.

            “I real­ly don’t know much about you either, sir,” he said.

            Abdul smiled, appar­ent­ly encouraged.

            “I fin­ished from Obafe­mi Awolowo Uni­ver­si­ty. Depart­ment of Math­e­mat­ics. I am Yoru­ba, from Lagos, and serv­ing in a Yoru­ba town. I am one of the luck­i­est, I guess.”

            Tomi­wa gig­gled, a lit­tle amused, a lit­tle stunned by himself.

            “Okay, sir.”

            A bird cried.

            “So…when did all this rub­bish start?”

            Tomi­wa watched a lone lizard slith­er through a clump of bit­ter leaves. “Since I came into the school, sir. Three years ago.”

            “Ya Allah!”

            Tomi­wa smiled, wry­ly amused, think­ing of what his moth­er was most like­ly to say if he ever told her about this part of the con­ver­sa­tion: she would snap her fin­gers and quote “do not be unequal­ly yoked with unbe­liev­ers”. His moth­er, he had often guilti­ly thought, was an incu­ri­ous, unin­tel­li­gent, faith­less worshipper.

            “But why did­n’t you report them to the school authorities?”

            “I did, sir. I did. The vice-prin­ci­pal him­self has pun­ished them over this issue. But they way­laid me again and beat the day­lights out of me and swore to kill me if I report­ed them again.”

            Abdul stopped. “And you believed them?”

            Tomi­wa nod­ded, his eyes heavy and shadowed.

            “This is unac­cept­able!” Abdul bawled. Then he caught him­self, as if he would have said more. He inhaled deeply. “Your parents—what about them?”

            Tomi­wa thought about his father’s beer-dark face, his moth­er’s blank exhaust­ed stare and his broth­er’s pained breath­less look.

            “I…um…couldn’t approach them. I did­n’t want them involved.”

            “To your own detriment?”

            For a while, Tomi­wa thought Abdul was going to slap him. He had raised his voice and a new ener­gy had entered him. But he only walked on, his face turned away.

            “I over­heard one of those imps call­ing you some­thing,” Abdul said. “I could­n’t hear it clear­ly. What was it?”

            A new, heavy silence fell.

            “They…call…me…Fagstard.” Tomi­wa’s voice trembled.

            “Fag-what?” Abdul’s face crum­pled into lines of utter confusion.

            “Fagstard, sir.”

            Abdul scratched his head. “Well, my broth­er, help your big broth­er out o. ‘Fang’ I know. ‘Cus­tard’ I know. But which one is ‘Fagstard’? They did not teach us this in school o.”

            Tomi­wa smiled sad­ly, touched by Abdul’s dis­cre­tion, his delib­er­ate avoid­ance of words that hurt like knives, but he also wished Abdul had hurled those words anyway.

            “Sir, I use the dic­tio­nary a lot. I am sure Ayomikun formed the word out of a join­ing of the words ‘fag’ and ‘bas­tard’.”

            A shad­ow fell between Abdul’s thick eye­brows. “No, Tomi­wa. You can’t be so sure about that.”

            Tomi­wa took a deep calm­ing breath before he spoke. “It’s okay, sir. I know what I saw in the dic­tio­nary, and I also know what I saw in Christo­pher Ayomikun’s eyes each time he called me by the name.”

            “Well, that’s not your name. It is foul. Christo­pher has to know that. You don’t deserve it. No one deserves to be called such non­sense.” Abdul kicked at a stone; his feet moved more quick­ly. He seemed to be gulp­ing air. After a while, he spoke again. “At least you know what they call you. Some of us, we don’t know the name of what we are. Even Ayomikun does not know yet what he is. The day he finds out, he will see that he is some­thing much worse than he could ever imagine.”

            Tomi­wa tugged at a tall stalk over­hang­ing the path. He won­dered what Abdul meant by that. He want­ed to ask for elab­o­ra­tion but Abdul was still speaking.

            “Back then on cam­pus, we had this room­mate. A fun­ny, gen­er­ous chap like that. He walked sway­ing his hips. He had a high-pitched voice and if you were not care­ful while lis­ten­ing to him from a dis­tance, you would con­clude it was a girl speak­ing. He hard­ly ever spoke with­out twirling his fin­gers and mak­ing dra­mat­ic faces. We called him ‘Mr. Pep­per’. He would cook and all of us would eat even more por­tions than he, the own­er of the food, would eat. He always left his cup­board open. You could pick any food item you want­ed from it. He always smiled and made us laugh by exag­ger­at­ing his walk. He said the only rea­son he did that to cre­ate laugh­ter was because we didn’t see him as mere enter­tain­ment. There was a time like that when peo­ple tried to talk him down because of his girli­ness. See eh. We all rose to defend him o. Very bril­liant boy. Grad­u­at­ed with a first-class. And he was a musi­cian, too. Would play this love­ly black gui­tar on rainy nights.”

            “Wow,” Tomi­wa said, gen­uine­ly wowed. Hear­ing about some­body that was almost exact­ly like him felt like redemp­tion itself.

            “Yes. Wow.”

            But Tomi­wa won­dered, “Cor­p­er Abdul.”

            “Yes?”

            “Would you have defend­ed him like that if he had been stingy, dumb and unfriendly?”

            Abdul cocked his head side­ways and scratched it again. Then he con­fessed, “I’m not sure oth­ers would have defend­ed him. They were like, ‘Who will now cook for us?’ But I would. I know would. I just liked him. No reason.”

            Tomi­wa plunged into ques­tions. “So how did he end up? Was he your set? Where was he post­ed to?”

            Abdul smiled, and Tomi­wa thought he saw a hint of sad­ness in the smile.

            “What, sir?” he asked.

            “Ismail is dead.”

            Tomi­wa stopped walk­ing. Abdul also stopped walk­ing. The trees sighed.

            “How… How did he die?” Get­ting those words out was like self-torturing.

            “There are some things that can’t be explained to you now.” Abdul spoke briskly. He looked rue­ful, as if he thought he had said way too much.

            Tomi­wa gazed at the foot­path. “Did he die because he was like me?”

            Abdul slipped into silence, a long, long silence. Final­ly, he said, “You are not ripe to know some things, my dear. But one day, I promise, you will know.”

            He looked like he want­ed to add some­thing, but they had got to the busy road, mar­ket and vehic­u­lar nois­es spoil­ing the air. And Tomi­wa thought about all the times he had tried to drink up his mother’s kerosene or chew up her bar soaps, and how on each attempt his lit­tle brother’s face had flashed into his mind, thin and sal­low, and he won­dered just how much was left to know. Abdul wait­ed and watched him cross to the oth­er side and dis­ap­pear into a corner.

*                                      *                                    *

            After that after­noon, Christo­pher Ayomikun and his boys were locked into inter­minable coun­sel­ing ses­sions with Abdul in the staff room, after school, repeat­ed­ly, and they no longer ambushed Tomi­wa on the path home­ward, nor harassed him as fierce­ly as before in school. After that after­noon, Abdul start­ed send­ing him a flask of food every lunch break and, after clos­ing, they walked the lone­ly path togeth­er and talked freely about all of Abdul’s past girl­friends and the cur­rent one who was in her final year at the Ogun State Uni­ver­si­ty and who vis­it­ed Ije­bu-Ode twice in a fort­night. But it was this first after­noon, this first walk, this first con­ver­sa­tion, this day in Octo­ber, that Tomi­wa would always remem­ber. The moment Abdul, a young man with no illic­it inten­tions, held him by the hand and picked him up from the dust. He won­dered what Abdul had seen. Abdul had cer­tain­ly not seen just a boy who liked boys. He had not seen just a boy being bul­lied and who need­ed his help. He had not seen just a help­less boy. Abdul had seen a broth­er. A full human.

            And from that episode, Tomi­wa was strength­ened. Ele­vat­ed. Human­ized and for­ti­fied. One day, it slipped out of his mouth, that famous­ly await­ed ques­tion of: “Where do you live in Lagos, sir?” And Abdul had hur­ried­ly told him where, his lips stop­ping soon­er than the words had come out, as if it had slipped out of him, too.

            Months lat­er, as the year wound down into Decem­ber and the har­mat­tan descend­ed in all its cold and dry­ness, Tomi­wa would still remem­ber that day in Octo­ber. He would see girls rub­bing an extra sheen of gloss on their lips and think of the first time he had rubbed on lip­stick. It was his mother’s. A pur­ple shade. And it was, like this, Christ­mas­time. His moth­er had seen it on him, and he had won­dered what she was going to do to him. But she had mere­ly laughed and asked him not to use that shade of lip­stick any­more because it didn’t suit his skin col­or. He had been sur­prised, but his sur­prise had been faint and fibre­less; his moth­er had always regard­ed his dif­fer­ence with the calm­ness of a wise silence. She had nev­er judged him, nev­er react­ed to his authen­tic being with the hor­ror of oth­er peo­ple. He would take this mem­o­ry, this lack of hor­ror, and with it go and vis­it Abdul in his home in Lagos to spend Christ­mas. Abdul, shocked to see him, would ask him—How!—and Tomi­wa would laugh a bel­ly laugh and slump against him in the weak­ness of that laugh­ter and tell him that he had lied to his par­ents and broth­er that he want­ed to spend Christ­mas with his mater­nal aunt in Lagos, a staunch Deep­er Lif­er who detest­ed phones and com­mu­ni­cat­ed only by let­ters. And Abdul would laugh deeply, shoul­ders shak­ing, and smack the boy’s head and call him, “Omo kata”—mis­chie­vous child—and wel­come him “into my hum­ble abode”. Tomi­wa would look around the siz­able room, the walls bare of pho­tographs, the air full of a dis­tinct­ly sin­gle scent, and would won­der about ask­ing whether Abdul lived alone and his girl­friend now vis­it­ed him often, whether she lived in Lagos as well. Then he would look at Abdul in his sin­glet, his broad chest taper­ing down to a small, dim­pled waist, his mus­cles step­ping out more obvi­ous­ly than they did in his NYSC shirt, and decide not to ask any­thing at all.

            Abdul would cook spaghet­ti and fried eggs, which Tomi­wa would find delight­ful­ly deli­cious, and they would sit on the mat­tress and eat it togeth­er. Over the meal, while the street chil­dren fired their bangers past the open win­dow, they would remem­ber Christo­pher Ayomikun and the rest of the class, and cack­le away into the night. After many hours of talk­ing and laugh­ing and yawn­ing, while in bed with him, Tomi­wa would think of sleep­ing and fac­ing him. He would imag­ine Abdul breath­ing into his face. He would shut his eyes and savor the sen­sa­tion. After a while, he would open them and lie in the oppo­site direc­tion of the bed, so that his face nes­tled close to Abdul’s warm feet. Abdul’s feet were always warm. Abdul would stir awake, look at him and give a faint smile of reas­sur­ance. In that smile was You are safe with me.Tomi­wa would mar­vel, once again, at this unshift­ing open­ness. He would wrap an arm grate­ful­ly around Abdul’s right foot and hold it close to his cheek.

            And sleep hap­pi­ly into Christ­mas morning.

From the writer

:: Account ::

HISTORY: There is homo­pho­bia in Nige­ria and there are severe cas­es of queer people—especially the young—getting bul­lied, dis­pos­sessed and, in extreme sit­u­a­tions, killed. It is crim­i­nal to be homo­sex­u­al or bisex­u­al in Nige­ria. Most queer peo­ple can­not come out to their loved ones as who they real­ly are. And it is hard­er for chil­dren whose sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion is already assumed because of how they present, for instance, effem­i­na­cy. Such kids are often lone­ly and mis­un­der­stood, and it takes only a mir­a­cle to find a friend out there.

SKETCH: I drew out this sto­ry around a sit­u­a­tion I had in ear­ly sec­ondary school (or what is called “high school”). I was bul­lied by school­mates who thought my effem­i­na­cy was an excuse for them to ridicule and malign me. To fur­ther sat­i­rize homo­pho­bic slurs and attacks, I thick­ened the main char­ac­ter with oth­er nuances going on in his life that con­tribute to his dis­il­lu­sion­ment in human kind­ness. I delib­er­ate­ly sketched it around a rare friend­ship curve, an avun­cu­lar guid­ance that is high­ly con­tro­ver­sial espe­cial­ly in a world still uncom­fort­able with, and igno­rant about, homo­sex­u­al­i­ty. But the old­er man in this sto­ry is straight and not abu­sive; I only want­ed to show the grit­ti­ness of an asex­u­al pup­py crush.

MARKER: I set the sto­ry in Nige­ria, where homo­pho­bia and the bul­ly­ing of effem­i­nate men still rage on. But it is such a uni­ver­sal­ly rel­e­vant con­flict that I have had most of my for­eign beta read­ers say they could relate to every emo­tion. I set it in the years pre­ced­ing the pass­ing of the anti-gay law by the Niger­ian gov­er­ment (mean­ing the years before 2014). I did this to min­i­mize the exces­sive hor­ror val­ue of the sto­ry. I wrote the sto­ry using a third-per­son point of view, osten­si­bly to make the read­er watch with a safe detach­ment but actu­al­ly to mag­ni­fy the sheer hor­ror of bul­ly­ing and lone­li­ness. The only  grave trig­gers in the sto­ry are homo­pho­bic slurs used by the antag­o­nists. The rest is a beau­ti­ful sto­ry of friend­ship and redemp­tion. I did my best to use plain Eng­lish throughout.

REPOSITORY OF INFLUENCES: I did not use exten­sive mate­ri­als for research for this sto­ry. All I had to do was take a look into my own ear­ly teenage, the strug­gles as an effem­i­nate Niger­ian child, my expe­ri­ences. The sto­ry is also heav­i­ly influ­enced by my deep, eager hunger to see some jus­tice hap­pen to the lone­ly, bruised queer child out there. I hope the sto­ry gives some kind of light to some­one out there.

Enit’ayanfe Ayoso­ju­mi Akin­sanya was born and raised in Nige­ria. He is the first-place win­ner of the 2022 Arts Lounge Inter­con­ti­nen­tal Lit­er­ary Award for Non-fic­tion, first-place win­ner of the 2022 inter­na­tion­al Itanile Sto­ry Award, a major final­ist for the 2018 Nation­al GTB Dusty Man­u­script New Nov­el­ist Award, and a top final­ist for the 2023 Afriton­doShort Sto­ry Prize. He is twen­ty-eight years old and the author of “How to Catch a Sto­ry That Does­n’t Exist”, a col­lec­tion of queer sto­ries pub­lished in 2022. He lives in Nige­ria. He tweets at @OsumareAy­o­mi.

Fiction / Nicola Koh

:: Houses in the Sky ::

Okay, sure, fourteen’s a bit old to be build­ing tree­hous­es. But a) I’d nev­er had one and Sal­ly Long said I’d been deprived, and b) this wasn’t going to be just a few rot­ting planks nailed to a branch, this was going to be the best god­damn tree­house east of the Mis­sis­sip­pi. After all, our par­ents were archi­tects at the best firm in Min­neso­ta, and we researched for months, trad­ing design ideas and learn­ing to sketch.

            It was code­named Oper­a­tion House in the Sky and kept strict­ly clas­si­fied. It was going to take a lot to con­vince said par­ents; specif­i­cal­ly, my mother.

            The Mater­nal­ly Ori­ent­ed Parental Unit came from Malaysia, a coun­try where kids appar­ent­ly had no rights. There were zero dis­cus­sion about eight pm cur­fews, the two hours a week allot­ted for video games (pend­ing good behav­ior), or the list of chores which could have tak­en a whole toi­let paper role. We got top grades and won awards, or else. Any sniff of dis­si­dence result­ed in hours-long lec­tures on ingrat­i­tude, self­ish­ness, and my-house-my-rules.

            When I’d point out my moth­er nev­er pushed her sub­or­di­nates half this hard, she’d say, “With them, there’s too much to fix. You’re like a pot with only a few cracks, so of course I want to fix the ones that are there.

Sal­ly thought the best time for me to bring up H.I.T.S was around my birth­day in late July, when she’d be more amenable to requests. I said she’d just think it imper­ti­nent to ask a favor on the anniver­sary of the twen­ty-three hours it took to pop me out. It turned out to be moot either way when ear­ly in the month, the moth­er yelled at me and my broth­er to come to the liv­ing room. We assem­bled, exchang­ing the uni­ver­sal look for what the hell did you do this time.

            My moth­er hat­ed that liv­ing room: trape­zoid with a ten-inch depres­sion that pro­vid­ed less sep­a­ra­tion than a place to trip and a faux-mar­ble fire­place with Gre­co columns designed pre­sum­ably by some­one who’d only watched Disney’s Her­cules. When she sum­moned me and my broth­er there, it was almost cer­tain­ly sit­u­a­tion critical.

            “You two are los­ing touch with your roots.”

            Shit.

            “We’re tak­ing a trip back to Malaysia.”

            Shit, shit, shit.

            The H.I.T.S timetable was offi­cial­ly in tat­ters. For that mat­ter, so was sum­mer. Hell, my life might be at risk—no exag­ger­a­tion. I’ve been chased by packs of mon­keys, twice, and the last vis­it I’d spent three days in the hos­pi­tal with food poi­son­ing where the nurs­es poked me five times look­ing for a vein. We were also warned to be care­ful to wear our bags away from the street because peo­ple on motor­cy­cles might snatch it while you were walking.

            Even sans out­right tragedy, the prog­no­sis was grim. Flights so long we’d be at gen­uine risk of deep vein throm­bo­sis. Days of shit­ty-long jet­lag, the first in the mid­dle of an eight-hour-min­i­mum wel­come by the fam­i­ly (which for Eurasians means cousins, aunts, uncles, sec­ond cousins, and some­times den­tists), where we’ll be con­stant­ly told we look tired and should get some rest, but won’t actu­al­ly be allowed to, and receive the mul­ti­ple ver­dicts on whether we need­ed to eat more or less. Then it’s sweat­ing non­stop for weeks while eat­ing gameshow-weird food and vis­it­ing one site after anoth­er full of great cul­tur­al rel­e­vance and noth­ing actu­al­ly inter­est­ing. Not to men­tion at least ten giant fam­i­ly din­ners and the days-long marathon of goodbyes.

            But Sally’s voice float­ed into my head. Lose the bat­tle, win the war. She’d said that when the moth­er vetoed an Ari­ana Grande con­cert in May and again when I was for­bid­den from pierc­ing my ears. It was attrib­uted to Sun Tzu the first time and Aris­to­tle the sec­ond, but it was almost cer­tain­ly from a meme. It did make sense, though, not that I’d tell her. So I just nod­ded and asked when we were going and what I should pack. My father and broth­er may have stared like I’d gone cer­ti­fi­able, but my mother’s lips curled ever so slight­ly in surprise.

            Three cul­tur­al-hori­zons-broad­en­ing expe­di­tions in, how­ev­er, I was start­ing to won­der if the war was real­ly worth it. By the fifth, I was ready to dump Sal­ly in one of the many mud­dy rivers, prefer­ably one espe­cial­ly full of snakes and eels.

            The trip in ques­tion was a vis­it to my mother’s child­hood home in some rail­road vil­lage a thou­sand miles from moder­ni­ty. Every­thing smelled like mud and cow dung and was sur­round­ed by sprawl­ing bush­es and trees with leaves so green they shone. My moth­er didn’t know who was liv­ing there in her old house, so we just walked around it. It was bare­ly more than a hut raised on con­crete stilts in a dirt clearing.

            “Don’t get too close, cobras like to nest under these hous­es,” she said, like it was a per­fect­ly nor­mal thing to say.

            There were two bed­rooms, a liv­ing room, and a kitchen, with a table out back on a slab of con­crete serv­ing as a din­ing room, shel­tered by walls and a roof made of rust­ing tin sheet. My moth­er often told us how my grand­moth­er favoured my uncle. She’d make her and my aun­ty mop while he sat and read the news­pa­per, only mov­ing to raise his legs for them to get under him. She espe­cial­ly brought this up when we com­plained about our hours-long sets of chores. She’d nev­er men­tioned how lit­tle there was to mop.

            “How come the gov­ern­ment didn’t let Grandad have a bet­ter house?” my broth­er asked.

            My moth­er shrugged. “He was just a rail­road con­duc­tor. They didn’t get paid much. He would fight with Grand­ma a lot because she was care­less with the money.”

            In a house that small, where did you hide from yelling?

            “Can we go?” I asked.

            “Look at those vents,” my moth­er said, point­ing to slits about three-quar­ters of the way up the house. “Such a sim­ple and effi­cient way to keep a house cool.”

            My moth­er loved shit like that. She paid her way through col­lege and then got a full ride to Cor­nell for her Mas­ters in Archi­tec­ture. After my father joined her in Min­neso­ta, peo­ple often asked him how he could leave his home and fam­i­ly to be with a new wife.

            He’d say, “Have you met her?” My mother’s will is tsunamic.

            It was hours before we final­ly got back to my aunty’s house in Kuala Lumpur. I flopped on the bed, got out my iPad, and Face­timed Sal­ly. “How’s civilization?”

            Sal­ly snort­ed. “It’s not like you’re liv­ing in the jungle.”

            “It’s prob­a­bly less swel­ter­ing in the jun­gle,” I said, jab­bing at the tem­per­a­ture but­ton for the A.C. “My par­ents tried to make me eat chick­en feet.”

            “Ew,” Sal­ly said.

            “They already made me eat the fish head curry.”

            “Fish head??”

            “It was huge, too. I tried to make it talk, but my moth­er told me not to ‘act the child’.”

            “You should have tak­en a picture.”

            I snort­ed. “With what? They gave me a flip phone to use.”

            “Oh, gross. That’s worse than chick­en feet.” Sal­ly sighed. “Still, I wish I was some­where cool like Malaysia.”

            “Trust me, cool it is not,” I said. “In any sense.”

            The moth­er start­ed yelling from downstairs.

            “More famil­ial oblig­a­tions?” Sal­ly asked.

            I shrugged. “Probs screwed up the homework.”

            “Home­work?” Sal­ly said. “Gab­by. You’re. On. Vacation.”

            “Tell that to Drill Sargeant Chili Padi,” I said. “We’re writ­ing reports on Malaysian life.”

            “Good lordy, have fun with that,” Sal­ly said. “And keep but­ter­ing up your mother.”

            “I still say we just plant a tree in your yard. It’ll be faster.”

            The mother’s yells were grow­ing loud­er and decid­ed­ly less patient.

            “Get out of here,” Sal­ly said and hung up.

            Turned out the Por­tuguese col­o­nized Mela­ka not Penang; Malaysia’s inde­pen­dence date was 1957, not some long-ass time ago; and the Dutch and British East India com­pa­nies did not trade ter­ri­to­ries like Poké­mon.

            “Even your gram­mar is atro­cious,” my moth­er said, whip­ping out one of the dozens of red pens she seemed to have sequestered in every bag, pock­et, prob­a­bly the lin­ings of her clothes. After ten min­utes, the pages were more red than black.

            “You might as well rewrite it,” I noted.

            “I’m not doing your work for you.”

            “You did that audi­to­ri­um project.”

            Last Spring our class had tak­en part in a city­wide con­test to design a mod­el auditorium.

            “You know all the par­ents did it,” she mut­tered. “Espe­cial­ly Mr. Long.”

            The last, at least, was true.

            After anoth­er five min­utes, I said, “Can we go to 1‑Utama again?”

            “We didn’t come here to go to malls.”

            “Did you know it’s twice the size of the Mall of America?”

            “You looked that up, but you can’t spell Tereng­ganu properly.”

            “Maaaa.”

            “No means no.”

            Sal­ly nev­er had this prob­lem. When I wasn’t allowed to watch Hunger Games until my moth­er vet­ted it, Sal­ly told me dri­ly that Mr. Long wouldn’t have cared if she’d watched Saw. When I was ground­ed for get­ting a B‑plus on midterms, she informed me air­i­ly she got thir­ty dol­lars for an A and twen­ty for a B.

            “Do you get twen­ty-five for an A‑minus?” I asked.

            She sniffed. “Dad­dy says minus­es are just what teach­ers use to annoy their students.”

            When I final­ly returned State­side, Sal­ly and I went to the Coney’s Cones road­side shack to get ice-cream.

            “You have no idea how good this tastes,” I said.

            “It’s just a reg­u­lar old twist.”

            “Malaysian ice-cream sucks,” I said. “Their cows must be deficient.”

            “Aren’t Asians lac­tose intol­er­ant?” Sal­ly said. “Maybe that’s why you fart up a storm every time we come here.”

            “I do not.”

            “It’s the worst.”

            I shoved her almost off the rail­ing, but she stead­ied her­self and stuck out a straw­ber­ry cov­ered tongue.

            “Also, how are you not the slight­est bit dark­er?” she said.

            “The moth­er made us wear buck­ets of sun tan lotion.”

            “One day on the lake, and I still got burnt,” she said, turn­ing her back to show me.

            I traced the burn. “Ouch.”

            “Also, we’re in trou­ble,” Sal­ly said after a moment, strange­ly breathily.

            “Hmm?”

            “Our audi­to­ri­ums made the finals.”

            The burn was the shape of a bird, I decid­ed. It tin­gled on the sticky tips of my fin­gers as if it were electric.

            “So what do we do when our par­ents find out we chucked theirs?” Sal­ly said eventually.

            I shrugged. “Ours were better.”

            Sal­ly gig­gled. “Daddy’s was sooo bor­ing. How is he even a real architect?”

            “The big­ger thing to wor­ry about is H.I.T.S.”

            “You’ve got to talk to your mom. Today.”

            “Dude, I just got back.”

            “To. Day.” Sal­ly turned around and wiped my cheek. “You’re such a slob.”

            She jumped down from the rail­ing. At the traf­fic light, she turned to salute me. When she dis­ap­peared around the cor­ner, I touched the place where she’d smeared ice-cream on my cheek.

            At nine-thir­ty, I found my moth­er fold­ing clothes in the kitchen. “Hey, Ma?”

            “What?” my moth­er said, not look­ing up.

            “Can Sal­ly and I build a tree­house in the oak?”

            She stared at me. “Are you mon­keys? Decent peo­ple live on the ground.”

            “It’s basi­cal­ly a req­ui­site for a sub­ur­ban Amer­i­can childhood.”

            “If Amer­i­cans walked on their hands, would you do it too?”

            I chose not to point out that I was, de fac­to, Amer­i­can. “We’d make it real­ly cool.”

            She huffed. “Every­thing with the Amer­i­cans is cool this, cool that.”

            “I mean sophis­ti­cat­ed,” I said. “Like a mod­el house. All our own design.”

            My moth­er paused with a t‑shirt in her hand. For all the ser­mons on grat­i­tude, I knew she hat­ed our house. The lay­out wast­ed space, it couldn’t hold heat for shit, the walls were paper thin, and the exte­ri­or was a 50s cook­ie cut­ter sub­ur­ban style that was out­dat­ed before the hous­es were fin­ished. And the liv­ing room: the way she glared at it when she thought I wasn’t looking.

            “It could be the best tree­house in the Mid­west. They’d prob­a­bly talk about it on MPR.”

            “Why must every­thing in this coun­try be best, great­est, most,” she muttered.

            But I could see it work­ing behind her eyes. After fold­ing a pair of jeans and two shirts, she said, “I’ll think about it.”

            The next morn­ing, I patient­ly chased corn flakes around my bowl until they start­ed to break while my moth­er was on the phone for almost an hour. When she sat down and start­ed but­ter­ing slices of toast with infu­ri­at­ing­ly care­ful strokes, still I kept grave­yard quiet.

            “About this tree­house,” she said, finally.

            “Hmm,” I said with a non­cha­lance I def­i­nite­ly hadn’t prac­ticed for an hour.

            “We can build it.”

            “Oh, cool.”

            I washed my bowl with ago­niz­ing delib­er­ate­ness, then went to fetch our design. It was a thing of beau­ty, print­ed with actu­al blue­print on pro­fes­sion­al 36-by-24 inch sheet, dia­grams and exten­sive notes.

            “What is this?” my moth­er said. She looked at it for a sec­ond, then frowned. “No, that won’t work.”

            She flipped it over and start­ed sketch­ing. It looked noth­ing like our design.

            My throat clenched. “Why not?”

            “Too com­pli­cat­ed to explain.”

            “Can we at least try?” I asked.

            “Why set your­self up for fail­ure?” my moth­er muttered.

            I real­ized then our fatal error. We’d been so focused on the need to con­vince my moth­er to build the tree­house, we for­got we had to also con­vince her to let us build the damn thing.

            And just like that it was all in smoke. H.I.T.S mis­sion report: failure.

            My moth­er went through four drafts and ten revi­sions to her final design. Twice we had to build the imposter tree­house then tear it down because of some triv­ial flaw or another.

            “Still work­ing on that?” Sal­ly asked, nod­ding at the bones of the lat­est attempt.

            We were sit­ting on the lawn, which was grow­ing unruly because no one had time to mow it. I plucked dan­de­lions and blew their spores out.

            “We’ll prob­a­bly be going at the stu­pid thing until the zom­bie apocalypse.”.

            “At least you’ll have a place to hide. Dad­dy refus­es to build a bunker.”

            “You can chill with us,” I said. “My broth­er will want to fight the zom­bies anyway.”

            She start­ed mak­ing a chain of dan­de­lion stems. “I don’t know. Your mom would get on my case about how I shoot them.”

            “Right between the eyes. Or no dessert.”

            “She’d even nag the zom­bies,” Sal­ly said. Her voice went low and stac­ca­to. “Backs straight! Stop limp­ing! Chew the brains before swallowing!”

            I fell over laugh­ing. “Oh my god, don’t let her hear you,” I wheezed. “I’ll be ground­ed for a year.”

            “You got spores,” Sal­ly said when I got up. She start­ed comb­ing my hair.

            My spine shiv­ered. “At least it adds color.”

            “Dude, your hair’s gor­geous. It’s so black and shiny.”

            “But you have the best hair,” I said.

            Sal­ly fin­gered one of her locks, so pale it snatched the reds of the set­ting sun.

            “Yours is bet­ter,” she said.

            I start­ed to protest, but Sal­ly point­ed to the tree­house. “Your mom’s calling.”

            “What, Ma?” I shouted.

            “Come hand me the lev­el,” my moth­er yelled.

            “Give me a minute.”

            “Now.”

            Sal­ly looped the dan­de­lion neck­lace over my head.

            “You’d bet­ter go. Got­ta fin­ish that thing before the zom­bies get here,” she said, wink­ing as she got up.

            “Gabrielle!”

            “O.K, Ma!”

            When I brought her the lev­el, my moth­er looked at me quizzi­cal­ly. “What are you wearing?”

            “Noth­ing,” I said.

            I tried to take the neck­lace off gen­tly, but it broke.

            It was two more months before the moth­er was sat­is­fied. Two half-lev­els, a sloped roof, gen­tly pol­ished wood. And as much as I hat­ed to admit, it was a vir­tu­oso in Amer­i­can tra­di­tion­al minimalism.

            Sal­ly and I vol­un­teered to be the tri­al mon­keys. She said she was only com­ing along to indulge me, but I could tell she was just as gid­dy. Sur­round­ed by all that red and amber and gold, it was like being cocooned by fire.

            “I don’t know why more peo­ple don’t sleep in trees in the Fall,” I said.

            “Because it’s freez­ing?” Sal­ly said. “How are you only wear­ing one sweater?”

            “It’s not that bad. Must be my trop­i­cal blood.”

            “You’ve been to Malaysia like what, four times?”

            “Blood doesn’t for­get,” I said, solemn­ly. “Or so the moth­er claims.”

            “I’ll nev­er under­stand her,” she said. “No won­der you’re so weird.”

            “Says the girl who eats every­thing in her sand­wich one-by-one.”

            “It tastes bet­ter that way,” she said. “Also, we should be tak­ing pictures.”

            “Why live life through a camera?”

            “Wow, now you’re even sound­ing like her,” Sal­ly said. “And the point of pic­tures is to make oth­ers jealous?”

            She bus­ied her­self choos­ing the right fil­ter and cap­tion. “You see the way Carl’s been look­ing at you?” she said, peer­ing at me from the cor­ner of her eyes.

            I shrugged “He’s got the yel­low fever bad.”

            “I mean three Asian girls in a row. But he is on the bas­ket­ball team.”

            “That’s because he’s already six feet. He can bare­ly toss a ball into a canyon.”

            Sal­ly snort­ed. “So you’re not inter­est­ed in him?”

            “No dat­ing until I’m out of col­lege with a job, remem­ber,” I said. “Prefer­ably with a doc­tor­ate or two.”

            Sal­ly snort­ed. “Yeah, but if you could date him, would you?”

            “No.”

            Sal­ly nod­ded. “Yeah, I wouldn’t date him either.”

            There seemed to be an empha­sis on him. My stom­ach clenched unpleasantly

Around eight, my moth­er came by to tell us to go to sleep.

            “Oooh, bed­time for the baby?” Sal­ly gig­gled until I shoved her over.

            We got out our sleep­ing bags. “This thing smells like hot dogs,” I said.

            “Tell your mom not to shop at Good­will,” Sal­ly said.

            We talked for bare­ly ten min­utes before Sal­ly fell into inco­her­ence. But I couldn’t get myself to sleep. My breaths mist­ed above me, but I some­how felt uncom­fort­ably warm, like there was a heat gnaw­ing through my chest. I wres­tled my way out of the sleep­ing bag.

            Sally’s face was a pale glow, cheeks trem­bling with every snore.

            I nudged her awake.

            “Move over,” I mumbled.

            I crawled in and set­tled on my side, face-to-face with her, the bag squeez­ing us tight enough that our breasts just bare­ly shift­ed against each oth­er with every breath. When I opened my eyes, hers were fixed on me, almost emer­ald in the dark.

            “Hi,” Sal­ly said. Her voice was quavering.

            It felt like hours before I leaned clos­er. I could smell the gar­lic from spaghet­ti din­ner on her breath.

            The only time I’d ever kissed some­one it was rough and wet and gross. Some cousin of a girl from school at spin the bot­tle. I left the game mak­ing a face.

            These kiss­es were rough, and wet, and beautiful.

            In the morn­ing, after we’d dropped Sal­ly off, my moth­er asked, “Did some­thing hap­pen last night?”

            “No,” I said.

            “I’ve nev­er heard you two be so quiet.”

            “Why do you always have to inter­ro­gate me?” I said, foolishly.

            She pulled over. “You’re hid­ing some­thing, and I do not like it.”

            “Noth­ing happened.”

            “Gabrielle.”

            “Oh my god. We kissed, okay?”

            “Oh,” my moth­er said, start­ing the car again. “I was wor­ried it was drugs.”

            I couldn’t believe it. I texted Sal­ly—my mom guessed and shes not flipping?

            —holy shit. maybe the zom­bies got her

I start­ed plas­ter­ing the reply box with laugh­ing emojis.

            “Of course, you can’t date.”

            The words didn’t reg­is­ter for a moment. “What?”

            “You know the rule, no dat­ing till after college.”

            My blood turned ice even as my skull felt like it was on fire. “That’s bullshit.”

            “Watch your language.”

            When we got back home, I lay on my bed and stared at the ceil­ing. I was so numb. I stared at the line of laugh­ing faces on the unsent text, then delet­ed them one by one.

            The next day, Sal­ly found me at my lock­er. When she leaned into me, I backed away.

            Sal­ly flinched. “What the hell?”

            “It’s…” I said. “I mean…”

            Sal­ly bit the cor­ner of her lip. “It’s your moth­er isn’t it.”

            I couldn’t look at her.

            “Oh my god, Gab­by, stand up to her for once in your life!”

            “You don’t under­stand,” I said.

            “Yeah, I don’t,” Sal­ly said. “It’s the twen­ty-first fuck­ing cen­tu­ry. What kind of fas­cist bans a teenag­er from dating?”

            My head snapped up. “Look, I’m sor­ry my moth­er isn’t some pushover you can bat your eyes at and get what­ev­er the hell you want!”

            Sal­ly blinked slow­ly, like a lizard. “My dad’s not a pushover. He’s just not certifiable.”

            “My moth­er only wants what’s best for me.”

            “That umbil­i­cal cord looks real good on you,” she said, turn­ing to leave.

            “God help us all if you don’t get your way for once!”

            Sal­ly stiff­ened, then kept walking.

            The silence between our two desks start­ed to grow thick­er than smog, then spread through the whole class­room as every­one ner­vous­ly gauged the sit­u­a­tion. Halfway through Wednes­day, Ms. Walk­er asked Sal­ly to switch to a dif­fer­ent desk. She moved with­out a word.

            If school was a cold war, home was full nuclear. My moth­er and I screamed our throats ragged as the bat­tle­fronts mul­ti­plied. My ridicu­lous extra home­work. How Amer­i­can­ized I was. How many times I’d been ground­ed for miss­ing a smudge of dust. How, when peo­ple at church asked me how I was, I would respond, “You know, just sur­viv­ing the slave­mas­ter. Wa-pish.”

            When I called her a bitch, my mother’s eyes widened far enough for her eye­balls to roll out. Pass­ing my brother’s room on the way to storm­ing to mine, he was cow­er­ing on his bed.
            “What the hell are you look­ing at?” I snapped.

            The only time my moth­er and I paused hos­til­i­ties was when my father gin­ger­ly brought up fam­i­ly ther­a­py, and we con­cur­rent­ly let him know our shared pieces of mind.

            Mean­while at school, I’d tak­en to wear­ing gobs of con­ceal­er so no one could tell how much I was cry­ing. I laughed loud­ly at the weak­est jokes. Sal­ly still wouldn’t look at me.

            When my moth­er con­front­ed me about my plum­met­ing grades, some­thing broke.

            “I hate you,” I said.

            Her head snapped back, like she’d been elec­tro­cut­ed. “What?” she stammered.

            “You’ve ruined my life.” My voice was as monot­o­nous as an answer­ing machine. Press “1” for How Gab­by Real­ly Feels. “I. Fuck­ing. Hate you.”

            When I passed my parent’s bed­room that night, my moth­er was sob­bing on my father’s shoul­der. He was plead­ing silent­ly for me to say some­thing. I rolled my eyes and went to bed.

            Then a few days lat­er, at lunch in the cafe­te­ria, an announce­ment on the P.A from Vice-Prin­ci­pal Colne. Our mod­el audi­to­ri­ums had won prizes for the city com­pe­ti­tion. My chest clenched. Build­ing those with Sal­ly felt like an episode from some show we’d watched obses­sive­ly then abrupt­ly for­got about.

            “Our own Sal­ly Long’s placed third, and Gabrielle Deli­ma placed second!”

            I glanced at Sal­ly, two tables away, but she didn’t turn around.

            “Please give them a big round of applause.”

            The cafe­te­ria clapped awk­ward­ly. Sally’s voice sliced through the silence that followed.

            “It’s because she’s Asian,” she was say­ing. “Affir­ma­tive Action bullshit.”

            A meat­ball sailed through the air and splat­tered on the back of her head. It took me a moment to real­ize I’d been the one who’d thrown it. Sal­ly whipped around just in time for mari­nara sauce to explode all over her face.

            “Don’t you dare talk about me that way!” I screamed.

            Sal­ly grabbed a glob of spaghet­ti and hurled it back. Sal­ly, per­fect in every way but this: the noo­dles missed me by a mile and struck the the­ater kids.

            “It’s called free speech!” she screamed. “Look it up!”

            Any­thing else she might have said was lost in the ensu­ing mael­strom of food. We stood unmov­ing through it all even as pieces of boiled broc­coli and dis­in­te­grat­ing meat­balls splat­tered on us, and milk and pop soaked our clothes. Nei­ther of us would be the one to look away as fury redou­bled between our eyes like micro­phone feedback.

            “What the hell was that?” Vice-Prin­ci­pal Colne said, nine­ty min­utes lat­er, furi­ous­ly dab­bing an orangey grease spot on his shirt.

            “She start­ed it,” Sal­ly said.

            “She insult­ed me,” I shot back.

            “I don’t care,” Colne said. “Who start­ed what. Who said what. Deten­tion, two weeks.”

            He silenced our protest with a slash of his hand, then ges­tured toward the door. Mrs. Long and my moth­er walked in. They sat on either side of us, avoid­ing our eyes as they gave the stan­dard words of con­tri­tion and promis­es of good behavior.

            “Now apol­o­gize,” Colne said to us.

            “Sor­ry,” we muttered.

            “Not to me,” Colne said. “To one another.”

            Sal­ly froze too.

            “Look at each oth­er,” he said.

            It was the first time in weeks that I’d been this close to her. I’d for­got­ten how green her eyes were. Con­ceal­er was flak­ing beneath them.

            “Sor­ry.”

            I was sur­prised how much it sound­ed like we meant it.

            Sal­ly looked away. “Good aim. You should try­out for softball.”

            My lip twitched. “Maybe if they got bet­ter uniforms.”

            When we got home, I start­ed toward my bedroom.

            “Wait,” my moth­er said.

            “Can I at least take a nap?” I said.

            “Please?” she said softly.

            I froze mid-step. I couldn’t remem­ber my moth­er ever say­ing that to me. When she col­lapsed into the sofa in the liv­ing room, I approached war­i­ly and sat down on the arm on the oppo­site side.

            “I want­ed to nur­ture you. Pro­tect you. Push you,” my moth­er said. Her eyes were spi­der-webbed with blood lines. “I thought that’s what a moth­er is sup­posed to do.”

            She leaned for­ward, star­ing at the fire­place, clasp­ing her hands on her knees, as if pray­ing. “Grow­ing up, I felt so alone. Grand­pa was always gone for work and Grand­ma bare­ly paid atten­tion to me.” She looked at me again. “I nev­er want­ed you to feel that way.”

            “What’s that sup­posed to mean?”

            “I just want you to under­stand. I get so caught up in it. You and your broth­er are my joys. You’re the best things I ever made.”

            “Destroyed, more like.”

            “Some­times I want to shield you so much I for­get you have to breathe,” she said. “But I’m try­ing, Gabrielle. I’m try­ing to be better.”

            I stood up. “Too late.”

            In my bed­room, I looked up Sally’s Insta­gram. Only five pic­tures down, there we were, in the tree­house, Sal­ly grin­ning like it was her birth­day and me look­ing like some­one who hadn’t quite fig­ured out smil­ing. The cap­tion said: #BFFs <3

I texted Sal­ly. —can I call?

            A minute lat­er the phone buzzed. —yeah

“Hey,” she said. “How much trou­ble you in?”

            “Not sure. The moth­er bot didn’t even yell at me. Must be out of juice.”

            “Mine went full soap opera. What are peo­ple going to think about us?”

            I gig­gled. “I miss you.”

            “Me too.”

            “I want to be with you. No mat­ter what my moth­er says.”

            There was silence on the oth­er line.

            “Sal­ly?”

            “It’s just…” Sal­ly said. “I don’t know. You real­ly hurt me.”

            “I’m sor­ry,” I said. “We hurt each other.”

            “Yeah,” Sal­ly said.

            After a minute I said, “You still there?”

            She exhaled. “My dad’s tak­ing a posi­tion in Chicago.”

            My throat shrank. I could bare­ly whis­per an oh.

            “Yeah,” she said. She paused for a minute. Her breaths came soft and shal­low. “Maybe it’s best… Maybe we just shouldn’t let any­thing happen.”

            “Oh.”

            “I’ll…” Sal­ly said, “See you around, I guess.”

            I didn’t let the phone drop from my ear even when the two beeps of the hang-up tone came, like the last beats of a heart.

            Any­time now she’ll call back and say it was a mis­take. We were BFFs.

            The snow-coat­ed roof of the tree­house turned gray, then red, then a bruised pur­ple. Best friends for­ev­er. She had to call back.

            How could for­ev­er end like this?

            The tree­house was glow­ing in street­light amber when my moth­er came to sit on the edge of the bed.

            “You win,” I said. “Con­trol my life all you want. I don’t care. Noth­ing mat­ters any­more. Not a sin­gle god­dam thing.”

            “I’m sor­ry,” she said.

            It took me a moment to com­pre­hend what she’d said. That impos­si­ble word had pulled some kind of plug in me, and the rage build­ing in my chest drained in a rush.

            “I’m going to make din­ner,” my moth­er said. “I’ll leave some in the fridge.”

            It was past mid­night when I final­ly crawled out of bed. My moth­er was work­ing at the din­ing table.

            “What’s that?” I asked.

            “We’re redis­trib­ut­ing Mr. Long’s remain­ing projects.”

            “Oh,” I said, sit­ting down. The tree­house looked gray and dead. I tried to pic­ture the red and gold of that autumn day back onto it, but I couldn’t. I start­ed cry­ing. Her lips had been so warm.

            “That damn tree­house,” my moth­er said suddenly.

            “Huh?” I said, rub­bing my eyes.

            “It’s crooked.”

            “Doesn’t look it,” I said.

            “A seri­ous struc­tur­al flaw.” She sighed. “Too com­pli­cat­ed to explain. We will have to tear it down.”

            She glanced at me as she said it. “Ah,” I said. “Guess so.”

            The next day, wrapped in a dozen blan­kets, we shiv­ered in front of the fire­place, our coats pool­ing water by the door, nei­ther of us say­ing any­thing. When­ev­er the fire start­ed to fade, I grabbed anoth­er piece of the tree­house and shoved it into the flames. Each piece glowed brighter and brighter, then crum­bled. Like a promise, like a dream.

From the writer

:: Account ::

The germ of this sto­ry was the phrase start over bounc­ing around my head which had me won­der­ing what kind of sto­ry would revolve around that. It was while tak­ing my first MFA class, almost a decade ago, taught by the ines­timably bril­liant and nur­tur­ing Deb­o­rah Keenan, who pro­vid­ed more prompts in a class than you could work through in a year, so many that I was now mak­ing one up on my own. And maybe it was because, while severe­ly depressed and on an ill-fat­ed jour­ney with hor­mone replace­ment ther­a­py, I found myself exor­cis­ing demons around my rela­tion­ship with my moth­er, but the sto­ry I imme­di­ate­ly fell into was about deal­ing with a per­fec­tion­ist father who kept scrap­ping any­thing his kids did that wasn’t up to stan­dards and telling them to start over.

     But as much as the heart of the sto­ry was drawn from my own life, the details weren’t. And in a way it prob­a­bly felt like when a friend tells a sto­ry that you sus­pect has all the impor­tant bits obscured.

     Some­one once told me that writ­ers have to ask them­selves: where’s their skin in the game? Because there are some sto­ries you can’t tell by wad­ing in the shal­lows. So the gener­ic Asian father became a Malaysian Eurasian moth­er, the trip to Malaysia was stuffed with details that could be auto­bi­o­graph­ic, and the con­flict between par­ent and child became the embod­i­ment of all the anger and hurt that I felt grow­ing up. What remained fic­tion­al, such as grow­ing up in the U.S. for exam­ple, did so as a vehi­cle for the sto­ry, not a way to hide.

     One mys­te­ri­ous thing is how I masked my moth­er at a time when our rela­tion­ship was strained. But in the months that fol­lowed, maybe after hav­ing got­ten all that out in that class, I found myself able to move past the hurt she caused by her mis­takes to appre­ci­ate the love that was behind it, and some­how freer to be hon­est about the hard truths of our rela­tion­ship. In the orig­i­nal, the end­ing involves Sal­ly dying and Gabby’s father dis­man­tling the tree­house and ask­ing if they can start over with the plans the girls made, per­haps some kind of wish ful­fill­ment on my part. The new end­ing feels a lot clos­er to the nature of my own accep­tance of my mother.

     And maybe that’s a les­son: art imi­tates life, but some­times as writ­ers we have to let it.

Fiction / Wayne Mok

:: Oblation ::

            I would often dream about John Calvin. That might be a weird thing to dream about, but I had just returned from sem­i­nary abroad after fin­ish­ing a the­sis on John Calvin’s Chris­tol­ogy. In my dreams, I would see him stand­ing behind the pul­pit of the church in Gene­va, arms high, nose in the Bible, preach­ing to a crowd­ed room of peo­ple trans­fixed on him. He wasn’t a tall man, but there was a sense of urgency, almost anx­i­ety, in the tone of his gut­tur­al voice. In those dreams, I would be in the front pew look­ing up, tak­ing in every last word that came out of his mouth like I was sip­ping on pure water from an ancient spring. Occa­sion­al­ly, the dream would turn into a night­mare. One moment, I’d be sit­ting in the front pew, but the next, I’d feel out of place, con­scious that I didn’t belong—my black hair, yel­low skin, flat nose, Asian eyes—and I’d be dragged out of the church by the con­gre­ga­tion, thrown out onto the street. Calvin him­self would close the church doors, say­ing some­thing to me in a lan­guage he knew I did not under­stand. It didn’t hap­pen often, but when it did, I couldn’t help but be dis­turbed by what it might’ve meant.

            The the­sis on Calvin won the Bavinck Prize that year. The pan­el praised the piece and espe­cial­ly applaud­ed the appli­ca­tion I drew out for the church and social jus­tice. One pro­fes­sor said he would talk to an edi­tor he knew to see if they would be inter­est­ed in it. The same week the prize was announced, the vic­ar from my church in Hong Kong called. He heard the news and asked if I was inter­est­ed in a job. He was plan­ning to retire in a few years and was look­ing for some­one who could replace him then. It seemed like a sign from God and I accept­ed the posi­tion on the spot.

            I first encoun­tered the home­less man a few months after I returned to Hong Kong. The Christ­mas Eve ser­vice just end­ed. I had preached on the birth nar­ra­tive in the Gospel of Luke and talked about Calvin’s con­cept of the accom­mo­da­tion of God; it was my best ser­mon yet. At the end of the ser­vice, a mem­ber of the con­gre­ga­tion came up and said that he saw Jesus descend­ing into the sanc­tu­ary as I was preaching.

            As a year­ly tra­di­tion, the church gave out gifts to every­one who attend­ed the ser­vice. The box was wrapped with a fes­tive print of baby Jesus in the manger. Inside was a mug with a Bible verse print­ed on it. On my way out, the vic­ar hand­ed me one with a sly smirk on his face, “We need to get rid of these—the sex­ton needs space in the store­room for the new nativ­i­ty scene.”

            I took it.

            “Want another?”

            I shook my head, “I don’t know what I’d do with it.”

            The night sky was bright, illu­mi­nat­ed by the lights of Hong Kong push­ing against the dark­ness long for­got­ten. A large crowd streamed past the church towards the MTR Sta­tion on their way to the fes­tiv­i­ties that would run late into the night. I straight­ened my cler­i­cal col­lar and head­ed towards home.

            Halfway across a desert­ed foot­bridge on my usu­al route home, I saw him. A pair of feet with frayed socks stuck out from under­neath a flat­tened card­board box. A damp T‑shirt was draped over the rail­ing. As I walked clos­er, I was struck by a sour stench—like that of urine mixed with beer. I cov­ered my nose. An emp­ty take­out box lay open reveal­ing a used pair of chop­sticks, some chewed up meat, and a few tooth­picks. The man’s head rest­ed on a pair of old shoes.

            My ini­tial instinct was to walk past the man, but as he twist­ed and turned under his card­board box, try­ing to find his way into sleep, I felt some­thing. It was dif­fi­cult to name it at the time, but I deduced it was prob­a­bly some­thing like com­pas­sion, or char­i­ty, or maybe even love. It was Christ­mas after all.

            I tip toed over, bent down, and lay the gift next to his feet, care­ful not to touch him. Just before walk­ing down the steps at the end of the bridge, I looked back. The neat­ly wrapped gift stood in stark con­trast to the filth that cov­ered every­thing about the man. The Apos­tle Paul had once said, “A man reap what he sows,” and I couldn’t help but won­der what the man did in the past to deserve his present life. The roar of the street and the chat­ter of the crowd below was almost deaf­en­ing. A tram passed by under­neath with Christ­mas car­ols blast­ing on its speakers.

            That night, I had a night­mare. I was sit­ting in the church at Gene­va in my cas­sock, man­u­script in my hands, ready to preach on the Beat­i­tudes from the Gospel of Matthew. At some point dur­ing the first hymn, I looked down at my man­u­script and real­ized that it was all in Latin—I didn’t read Latin. The next moment, the pul­pit was emp­ty and the con­gre­ga­tion, includ­ing Calvin him­self were all look­ing in my direc­tion. I start­ed to pan­ic. An uncom­fort­able heat rose with­in my chest and ascend­ed into my neck. My cheeks took on a red flush, my hands start­ed to trem­ble, and my abdomen tight­ened. I man­aged to stand up and pro­ceed­ed to walk towards the pul­pit, but before I arrived, some­one was already there. I couldn’t make out his face, but I some­how knew exact­ly who it was—it was the home­less man. He wore the same damp T‑shirt and pair of old socks that I saw on the bridge.

            The man then opened his mouth to preach in Latin, with a voice far deep­er and more force­ful than that of Calvin’s, “Beati pau­peres spir­i­tu quo­ni­am …” As his deaf­en­ing voice echoed through­out the church, I felt an urge to run. I gath­ered my strength and ran down the cen­ter aisle towards the exit, but just before I could reach the doors, I felt my abdomen and groin give way. I woke up drenched in sweat. I pulled off my blan­ket and got out of bed, but my pants were so wet it felt like I just got out of the pool. Half-con­scious, I stood there try­ing to fig­ure out what had hap­pened before I caught a whiff of an odor and glanced at my bed—I had peed my pants.

            As I was in the show­er clean­ing myself off, I thought about the dream and what just happened—was God angry that I gave the home­less man a cheap gift? Was there some­thing spir­i­tu­al going on with the man—demonic pos­ses­sion? Did he need my help? Was God speak­ing to me? I had no clue, but the more I thought about it, the more I knew I need­ed to vis­it him again. I need­ed to find out. I put on a set of fresh­ly ironed cler­i­cal clothes and went to see the man, with a hunch that the vis­it would make things right, somehow.

            He was sit­ting on his card­board box, cross-legged, sip­ping on a bot­tle of beer while eat­ing a steamed pork bun. A Chi­nese man with a big face, dark skinned with unkempt greasy hair, he was dressed in the same red­dish-brown T‑shirt, car­go shorts, with a dif­fer­ent pair of socks this time, but the same hor­rid stench. The mug from the church was at his side, full of cig­a­rette butts emit­ting a con­stant stream of smoke like incense in a censer. The Bible verse print­ed on it felt odd­ly out of place.

            I point­ed at the mug, “I left that there for you.”

            He turned his head, “What?”

            “It was a gift.”

            He looked at it, before tak­ing a sip of his beer. “What about it? You want it back?”

            “No, but you shouldn’t be using it for cigarettes.”

            He shook his head and downed the rest of his beer. In a swift motion, he whacked the mug with the emp­ty beer bot­tle. The mug skid­ded on the con­crete floor before hit­ting a met­al rail. Upon impact, the mug shat­tered into pieces, send­ing cig­a­rette butts fly­ing across the rest of the bridge.

            “Get lost,” he yelled.

              Stunned by his response, I ran as fast as I could in my cas­sock to the oth­er side of the bridge and felt a shard of the bro­ken mug crack beneath my foot.

            At staff meet­ing lat­er in the week, I shared about the man. The vic­ar nod­ded in approval. “It is our call­ing as min­is­ters to rep­re­sent Christ to the poor,” he said, sip­ping instant cof­fee from anoth­er Christ­mas mug. Though his com­ment affirmed my intu­ition that I did the right thing, the more I thought about the man, the more dis­gust­ed I felt—the way the man dressed, the way he spoke, his lack of man­ners and respect, not just for me, but for God, even his stink. I knew that it was wrong to not help some­one in need, but I couldn’t help but think the man didn’t want my help, in which case, there prob­a­bly wasn’t any rea­son to vis­it him again. 

            In the fol­low­ing weeks, mirages, or per­haps you can call them visions, of the man, began to appear wher­ev­er I would go. He would be out­side the super­mar­ket beg­ging for loose change. He would be sprawled out on the bot­tom deck of the tram. He would be smok­ing in the park, loud­ly com­ment­ing on the play of casu­al foot­ball teams. These visions became more and more fre­quent, and I kept try­ing to ignore them, until one day after work as I was leav­ing the church, I had a vision of him there at the front of the chapel, ine­bri­at­ed, loung­ing by the altar, burp­ing after tak­ing a swig of wine out of the chal­ice. God was sure­ly say­ing some­thing, like he spoke to Samuel in the night. I wasn’t sure what it was, but I knew that the only way to find out was to see the man again.

            The man was there lying on flat­tened box­es. A blan­ket was pushed to the side, soak­ing up runoff from the rail­ings. A bro­ken umbrel­la faced the street, shield­ing off the mild rain. Neon signs illu­mi­nat­ing the bridge gave the night a red­dish-green glow. His stink seemed to be inten­si­fied by the humid­i­ty, mak­ing each breath that much hard­er to bear.

            He sat up and wiped his face with the sleeve of his shirt, “What do you want?”

            I point­ed towards the church, “I’m a min­is­ter there. I want to help.”

            He ignored me and reached for a pack of cigarettes.

            I pulled out a paper bag from my brief­case and put it on the ground in front of him. He took the bag, pulled out a bot­tle of water, and then a chick­en avo­ca­do sour­dough sand­wich I picked up from an expen­sive sand­wich place down the street. He held the sand­wich close to his face, and then sniffed it, like an animal.

             “I don’t eat gwei­lo food,” he said, set­ting it down on the floor.

            “Sir,” I said, try­ing my best to con­vey respect, “I’m try­ing to help.”

            He shook his head and chuck­led, “I know your type; you don’t want to help.” He tossed the sand­wich at my feet. “You know what will help? Tsing Tao, cig­a­rettes, fried rice …” he paused for a moment, “and a Mark Six tick­et.” He roared with laugh­ter and pro­ceed­ed to pick up the water bot­tle, “I’ll take this though.” I walked away, annoyed at the man, and if I was being hon­est, at God.

            That week, the mild rain strength­ened into a typhoon. Streets start­ed to flood and there were land­slides in rur­al areas. Schools were closed, work halt­ed, peo­ple stayed home. The news report­ed that it was the strongest typhoon record­ed in half a cen­tu­ry. Per­haps it was cab­in fever, but a week into the storm, my apart­ment began to smell like the home­less man. That same nasty stink. At first, I thought it was a clogged drain or a plumb­ing issue caused by the rain. I plumbed the toi­lets, snaked every drain, checked for leaks, but to no avail. I took out the trash, cleaned out the fridge. I spent the rest of the day clean­ing and san­i­tiz­ing the entire apartment—I vac­u­umed and mopped, wiped down every sur­face, cleaned the mold out of the grout in the bath­room, scrubbed the kitchen down along with all the grime from the past year. I even threw out any­thing remote­ly close to old into large garbage bags and resealed my win­dows and doors to ensure noth­ing could get in. Still, the scent lin­gered. It was as if his pres­ence infil­trat­ed every cor­ner of the apart­ment, not want­i­ng to leave.

            That night, exhaust­ed from the clean­ing, I fell into a deep sleep. It was the same dream. I was sit­ting in the first row of the chapel as usu­al, lis­ten­ing to Calvin as he preached, but this time, Theodore Beza, John Knox, and younger the­olo­gians like Charles Hodge and Abra­ham Kuyper were there was well. The greats. Con­scious of their pres­ence, I was ner­vous, but also excit­ed about being there, when the stench hit me. That God-awful stench. I looked around. Oth­er peo­ple smelled it too. Peo­ple pulled out hand­ker­chiefs and cov­ered their faces; oth­ers tried to fan the smell away with their hands. The stench con­tin­ued to inten­si­fy. An old­er mem­ber of the church faint­ed in her seat, and moments lat­er, a young child vom­it­ed on a pew. A few peo­ple in the back tried to open the doors, but they were locked. No one could get out. The crowd start­ed to rush towards the door, ram­ming them­selves against it, try­ing to break the lock. The church Fathers stood in hor­ror at what was going on, bewil­dered at the situation.

            I, too, made a run for the door, but stopped when I real­ized that the stench was com­ing out of my mouth. Every breath I exhaled emanat­ed a smell so sick­en­ing that it trig­gered my gag reflex. I tried to hold it in, but my abdom­i­nal mus­cles and diaphragm con­tract­ed vio­lent­ly, send­ing a burn­ing sen­sa­tion up my chest and into my throat. Expect­ing food or bile to come out, I knelt on the ground and bent over, but instead, all that came out was more of the smell, an end­less stream of putrid odor that smelled like skunk mixed with rot­ten cabbage.

            At some point, the chapel cleared out. I was on my knees in the mid­dle of the aisle, alone, when I heard some­one walk­ing towards me. I looked up—it was the home­less man. It was him. He was behind all of this, that damned human being. My imme­di­ate reac­tion was to get up and tack­le him to the ground, but my body ached so much I couldn’t move. As he moved towards me, the stench strange­ly began to fade, and instead, there was a faint trace of anoth­er scent. I wasn’t sure exact­ly what it was, but it was an allur­ing scent—not just a scent you appre­ci­at­ed like that of a rose or lily, but an aro­ma that whet­ted your appetite and made you hun­gry. Not before long, he was stand­ing over me. The stench had van­ished and the fra­grant scent by that point was over­whelm­ing. The nau­sea was gone and I felt famished—stomach growl­ing, mouth drool­ing, dying for food with a hunger that peo­ple prob­a­bly only expe­ri­enced in a famine, and I woke up, starving.

            I checked the time, got dressed, and went down to the restau­rant down­stairs. It was Thurs­day after­noon. The wind and rain seemed be let­ting up. Shops had reopened and peo­ple returned to the streets just in time for the East­er week­end ahead. I opened the door and entered the fra­grance that filled the restaurant—Yangzhou friend rice—the tra­di­tion­al Can­tonese type with eggs, peas, bits of char siu, prawn, and scal­lions. I placed an order. As I wait­ed, I stood at the counter of the restau­rant watch­ing as the chef stirred the rice in his wok, I thought about the ser­mon I was prepar­ing for the week­end on the Para­ble of the Ban­quet. I won­dered what that feast would be like, and whether it’d be any­thing like a Chi­nese ban­quet. Who would be there? Would I? What about the home­less man? Per­haps it was guilt, or maybe the voice of the Spir­it, I placed a sec­ond order.

            I stepped out onto the street, when the sky began to crack, releas­ing buck­ets of water splash­ing onto the side­walk. Fall­en leaves, branch­es, and lit­ter were scat­tered all over. I held onto the bag of food with one hand. With the oth­er, I opened my umbrel­la, shield­ing myself from the skies that roared above.

            There were two umbrel­las this time, both bro­ken, posi­tioned against the rails. The thun­der­ing rain, the neon signs, the fra­grance from the restau­rants, and exhaust from the busses and trucks all seemed to cur­tain the space around us.

            He lift­ed his head. “You again. What do you want?” he asked, rub­bing his eyes with both hands.

            “I’m hun­gry,” I said, “Want to eat?”

            Unex­pect­ed­ly, he sighed, in the way old Chi­nese men do and said, “Come sit.” He shift­ed his belong­ings aside and made space on the cardboard.

            I hesitated—reasons not to flood­ed my mind—but in the moment, it was the only thing that felt right. The card­board was cold and wet. I took out a box of food and set it in front of him, “What you asked for.” He popped off the lid. The aro­ma of the rice filled the space between us. He smiled, show­ing his stained teeth before tak­ing a spoon to dig in. He scooped each por­tion of rice with a gen­tle swoop; rais­ing the spoon up to his mouth, he closed his mouth around the spoon, mak­ing sure to catch every grain, then chewed.

            I opened my box and began to eat, spoon after spoon of fried rice. The aro­ma of the scal­lions and heat from the oil filled my nos­trils, the bits of bar­be­qued pork and chopped up bits of prawn tick­led my tongue. I chewed metic­u­lous­ly after each bite, slow­ly fill­ing the deep recess­es of my stom­ach. The rain con­tin­ued to drown out all that was around us. After what felt like a long time, I was stuffed. I thought I had eat­en a lot, but there was still food left in the box.

            “You want that?” he asked. I shook my head. He took my box, closed its lid, and put it by his bags.

            By this point, I was tired. I need­ed to work on my ser­mon so I decid­ed to leave. But as I attempt­ed to push myself off the ground, I felt a deep sense of exhaus­tion as you would after run­ning a marathon. Even the act of try­ing to get off the ground felt like an impos­si­ble task. I leaned back against the rail­ing and tilt­ed my head towards the sky. The rain splat­tered on my face, sting­ing my eyes. I opened my mouth, hop­ing to catch a few drops of rain to alle­vi­ate my thirst.

            I heard the man crack open a bot­tle of water. “Drink,” he said, hold­ing out the bot­tle to me.

            I took the bot­tle. The first sip was bit­ter, remind­ing me of the first time I tast­ed wine at the Eucharist. I spit it out onto the floor. I scraped my tongue against my molars, hop­ing to get rid of the taste. The bit­ter­ness sunk in, burn­ing my tongue and the walls of my mouth. “It’s bit­ter,” I point­ed to the bottle.

            “Just drink it.”

            “You’re mad,” I set the bot­tle down on the floor. The bit­ter­ness trig­gered the mus­cles in my throat, which con­tract­ed, and I start­ed to cough violently.

            The man picked up the bot­tle. It had now accu­mu­lat­ed a lay­er of con­den­sa­tion, mak­ing the bot­tle glow as it refract­ed light from the ceil­ing pass­ing through it. He gazed into my eyes intent­ly, and hold­ing out the bot­tle, he repeat­ed, “Drink it.” In that moment, as I was chok­ing on my sali­va and regur­gi­tat­ed food, cough­ing vio­lent­ly to the point where it felt like my lungs would come right out of my mouth, I had a moment of insight: if I didn’t drink this, I was going to die here on this bridge. I took the bot­tle from the man and began to drink, swal­low­ing large gulps. The liq­uid tore at every tis­sue in my mouth and esoph­a­gus, claw­ing like scorpions.

            The taste of the water grad­u­al­ly trans­formed. Each sip seemed less bit­ter, but also eased the sting. I con­tin­ued to drink. Three-quar­ters way through the bot­tle, the water had not only regained its neu­tral fla­vor, but acquired a sur­pris­ing sweet­ness to it. I felt my body regain strength, absorb­ing the water one mol­e­cule at a time. I set the emp­ty bot­tle down, the sweet taste lin­ger­ing in my mouth.

            As I sat there next to the man, silent, watch­ing the last drops of rain waver before find­ing their way off the edges of the rail­ings, I thought about the gift—what hap­pened to the pieces of the shat­tered mug? Did they remain there, ignored by pedes­tri­ans? Where they cleaned up and dis­card­ed? Were they washed away, bit by bit, by the thun­der­ing rain? At that point, over­come with a sense of release, I couldn’t help but close my eyes, stretch my arms wide as if I were reach­ing for the ends of the uni­verse, and yell at the top my lungs.

            The rum­ble of the sky eased into a gen­tle growl. The veils of rain lift­ed, reveal­ing rays of light from the build­ings, shop signs, and street­lights. A dou­ble-deck­er bus hummed past, its sus­pen­sion squeak­ing. The clat­ter of pedes­tri­ans, chil­dren, and shop­keep­ers res­onat­ed, accent­ed by clang­ing dish­es and cups, gen­tle gusts of kitchen exhaust, and the faint clicks of cross­walk signals.

            I stood up and looked down at the man. His eyes were closed and his body inclined against the rails. The rise and fall of his chest pro­duced a gen­tle snort. Every so often, he’d wake him­self up with his own snor­ing, but then he’d catch his breath and fall back into a lull. I noticed the wrin­kles that lined his face, the streaks of white in his greasy disheveled hair, the cracked skin on his hands. He seemed old­er, frail­er, more worn out than when I first met him. As I walked down from the bridge into the night, I looked up at the sky. It had cleared up, reveal­ing a vast black can­vas glis­ten­ing with specks of shim­mer­ing dust. A thin film of water glazed the street, reflect­ing the bright sky above.

            I nev­er saw the man after that. The next time I crossed the bridge, it was clean as a whis­tle, no trace that any­one was ever there. Some­times I’m not even sure what happened—it felt like it was all just a dream. Even to this day, I’m not sure where he came from or who exact­ly he was. Nei­ther do I know whether there was any­thing I could’ve done to help him except bring him a box of fried rice. But I do know, now, that he had done for me some­thing that I could’ve nev­er done for myself.

From the writer

:: Account ::

I wrote this sto­ry short­ly after work­ing for a faith-based home­less ser­vice in Hong Kong. Dur­ing that time, I was exposed to the long-last­ing socio-eco­nom­ic rem­nants of British colo­nial­ism, the per­pet­u­a­tion of sys­temic injus­tice often through reli­gion, and the imbal­ance of pow­er between the rich and the poor in the city. At the same time, I saw great wealth in a com­mu­ni­ty of peo­ple who did not have much, and beau­ty as they reclaimed the faith of the gwei­lo as their own. The expe­ri­ence forced me to con­sid­er my own faith and iden­ti­ty, so shaped by my life in the West, yet felt in many ways bank­rupt com­pared to those whom many of us would want noth­ing to do with—poor, old, for­eign, out­siders, neu­ro­di­ver­gent. Even though it’s all too easy for many to ide­al­ize pover­ty from a com­fort­able dis­tance, I think some­times, it’s that ini­tial gaze that makes us won­der whether what we need is often found in the places we least expect.

Wayne Mok is orig­i­nal­ly from Hong Kong and now lives in Syd­ney, Australia.

Fiction / Stephen Short

:: The Toaster ::

            Pegatha Bur­roughs didn’t trust her toast­er any­more. She only had it for three days and it dis­played only dubi­ous intent. She brought it home from the South­way Sec­ond­hand Store for four dol­lars. Her pre­vi­ous Toast­mas­ter had final­ly bit the bul­let after twelve years of devot­ed ser­vice. Every morn­ing, two slices of plain white bread dropped to the glow­ing grills, and every morn­ing, two slices of crisp toast jumped over the thresh­old and wait­ed for her but­ter knife. But ear­li­er in the week the Toast­mas­ter made a bark­ing sound and nev­er baked the bread.

            Peg hung her head low through the entrance to the Sec­ond­hand Store. She was ashamed that she had to come here. She tried not to look any­one in the eye, lest they rec­og­nize her from out in the world. It smelled like old paint and plas­tic. Peg tried not to touch any­thing if she could help it and hoped to bee­line direct­ly to the kitchen appli­ances. After a brief dal­liance around the tele­vi­sions she found them; waf­fle irons, cracked blenders, and the only toast­er on the shelf; A tiny black num­ber, two slots on top, and the depres­sor cocked at a slight angle. Four dol­lars showed the hand­writ­ten tag draped off the but­ton. She slid it off the shelf and clutched it under her arm like a foot­ball. She pulled her hood low­er. As she shuf­fled to the front counter, she heard crumbs spilling from the bot­tom of the toast­er and they bounced off her coat. She set the toast­er down to the scratched counter and saw a bot­tle of hand san­i­tiz­er near the reg­is­ter. She pumped a glob into her palm and slathered it over her ringed fin­gers, spat­ter­ing. The cashier told her an amount that was slight­ly more than four dol­lars and Peg gave her a five to break, then pock­et­ed the change and dashed out the glass doors.

            On her counter she exam­ined it ful­ly. A black plas­tic cov­er­ing with buff marks all over. Well used. It didn’t have a name. The depres­sor rest­ed at its angle but would wob­ble to the exact oppo­site angle if tweaked. It made a scrap­ing sound when pressed down. There was a spin­ning dial that was num­bered from one to five, most like­ly indi­cat­ing desired dark­ness of prod­uct, and cur­rent­ly set to four. Peg took a risk and set the dial to three. The crumb tray would not open. She flipped the toast­er upside down over her trash can and jos­tled it the way unpaid musi­cians rat­tle mara­cas. Crumbs spilled every­where but her trash can. She set it down on the counter where the old Toast­mas­ter had gone and plugged the crin­kled black cord into the wall. It sat there, unsus­pect­ing, the rest of the evening.

            In the morn­ing Peg stum­bled from her bed in her flow­ing night­shirt and wob­bled out to the kitchen. She was a gar­bled mess of nerves. She smushed her glass­es up her nose, unspun the loaf of plain white bread, and dropped them into the lit­tle black toast­er. She pushed down on the depres­sor and the bread slipped inside with a screech. A slow orange glow sung out from the slits and Peg wrung her dry hands. The toast­er gave a sub­tle buzz, let­ting her know it would be okay. “Yes,” she said only to her­self. “I think so.” With con­fi­dence, she cracked the lid on her cof­fee pot and poured grounds into a fil­ter, added water, and flipped the switch. She pulled a sil­ver mug from the cup­board. She opened her sug­ar jar and uncapped a half gal­lon of milk. She clanked down a small orange ceram­ic plate and laid it next to the new toast­er. It was emp­ty. Com­plete­ly breadless.

            Peg stared down at the toast­er. The depres­sor was up. There was no glow. There was no heat. She poked it. It shuf­fled a cen­time­ter on her rough counter. The cof­fee pot was bur­bling and hot. Peg licked her chapped lips and picked at her knuck­les. She unspun the loaf of plain white bread and dropped two slices into the new toast­er. She turned the dial down to two. She plunged the depres­sor down with a squeal. The slow orange glow lit up her white bread and the mel­low buzzing calmed her just so. She stood her ground and crossed her arms, her night­shirt crum­pling wild and her shoul­ders tick­ling her ears. Peg locked her eyes on her bread and watched every pore brown over until it popped out of the toast­er, a lit­tle less done than she’d pre­fer. She turned the knob back to three. She pulled the warm toast from the slots and but­tered them near her cof­fee sta­tion. Sug­ar and milk in the cof­fee, toast in the mouth, Peg was happy.

            She got a mes­sage from her daugh­ter, Sheila. She need­ed more mon­ey trans­ferred over. Sheila was a sopho­more at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Alaba­ma. She was study­ing Latin. She scraped Peg for every dol­lar she could spare and hur­ried off the phone before Peg could ini­ti­ate any real con­ver­sa­tion. But chil­dren need­ed to be cared for. Peg opened her phone to her bank­ing app and trans­ferred one hun­dred dol­lars to Sheila. Peg had twen­ty sev­en dol­lars left for the next week and a half.

            Peg got to work exact­ly at 8am and left just after 5pm, mak­ing sure the day’s tasks were all com­plet­ed. Her cowork­ers had left prompt­ly at 5pm, if not ear­li­er. She sched­uled her doctor’s appoint­ment at 5:45pm, know­ing she would leave late. She had hip and back pain for sev­er­al weeks now, and it took sev­er­al weeks to get in with Dr. Kramer. She uri­nat­ed far too much in her cup (“Just to the line,” the nurse had said) but she want­ed to be sure. Giv­en her age, Dr. Kramer sug­gest­ed it was like­ly pain from sit­ting at skewed angles or strain from stress, and rec­om­mend­ed a series of exer­cis­es and stretch­es for Peg to do at home. She sug­gest­ed a yoga class or that she could do them at home with online instruc­tion tar­get­ing her hips and low back, and to move to full body indef­i­nite­ly. Alter­na­tive­ly, a chi­ro­prac­tor may prove effec­tive but may not be cov­ered by insur­ance. Peg had a din­ner of peanut but­ter and grape jel­ly on white bread and a glass of milk and sat in front of the tele­vi­sion to watch game shows. She thought about call­ing Sheila but talked her­self out of it. Dur­ing the next com­mer­cial break she talked her­self back into it and poked her name on the phone screen. It rang once and went to voice­mail. Peg turned the vol­ume up on the tele­vi­sion and fin­ished her milk.

            The next morn­ing Peg crawled out of bed and slipped on her skin­ny robe and hob­bled to the kitchen. She unspun the loaf of white bread and placed two slices in the slots of the new black toast­er. She pushed the depres­sor down and it screamed in met­al. A slow orange glow hugged her bread and the buzzing noise bounced off the kitchen walls and made Peg grin. She dumped yesterday’s cof­fee fil­ter in the trash and added a new one, with cof­fee grounds and dumped water in the tank. She pulled a white mug from the cup­board, uncapped the sug­ar jar, and pre­pared the milk. She clanked a ceram­ic plate down to set near the new toast­er and she gasped see­ing that it was emp­ty once more. Depres­sor up. No heat. Absolute­ly bread­less. She lift­ed the new toast­er and scrunched her face to peer inside the slits, shift­ing it so the kitchen light bled in. Peg jos­tled it about and crumbs sift­ed through the cracks but the draw­er would still not open. She set it down and turned the dark­ness dial to four, then slipped in two pieces of bread to the slots and plunged the depres­sor down as it scraped. A slow orange glow rose about and a pleas­ant heat crept over her arms. Peg stared, unblink­ing, at the toast­er, crisp­ing her bread dark­er and dark­er. The cof­fee pot seared. The toast burst out of the slits and Peg shuf­fled a step for­ward and plucked her black­ened slices to the plate. She turned the dial back to three. She but­tered them and let it melt as she pulled her phone out. Sheila post­ed on social media that she was bored in her dorm. Peg dialed her num­ber and it rang once before going to voicemail.

            Peg got to work at exact­ly 8am and stayed just past 5pm once again, just like she always did. She made sure all the tasks were done despite her cowork­ers’ time­ly exits. On her way out of the glass doors her phone buzzed. Peg jug­gled it out of her coat pock­et hop­ing to hear from Sheila, but it was just a text mes­sage from her bank inform­ing her of her sad balance.

            Peg drove straight home and set her bag and keys over the back of her chair at the kitchen table. She unspun the bread bag and slathered peanut but­ter on one slice and grape jel­ly on anoth­er. She filled a cof­fee mug halfway with milk and dropped into her old chair in the liv­ing room and put on game shows. Her phone buzzed and she snatched it from her thigh. It was a text from the phone com­pa­ny remind­ing her of her pend­ing with­draw­al for more than she had in her account.

            Her hip stung and boiled pain to her leg and spine. Reluc­tant­ly, she turned off the game shows and dialed up begin­ner yoga videos just like Dr. Kramer had rec­om­mend­ed. Peg fol­lowed the direc­tions and heaved into posi­tions she had nev­er vol­un­tar­i­ly entered. Arms splayed, legs askew. Her wrin­kled face was con­tort­ed and strained. The voice on the tele­vi­sion told her to breathe. She gasped and winced.

            Peg woke the next morn­ing and shuf­fled to the kitchen in her night­shirt. She unspun the bread bag and dropped two slices into the slits of the new toast­er and pressed the plunger with a screech. She stared at the toast­er while its care­ful buzz echoed. A slow orange glow calmed her and she adjust­ed her hip, remem­ber­ing to breathe. Peg stepped back from the toast­er towards the cof­fee pot on the oppo­site counter but didn’t look away. The dial was on three. The glow was still orange. Sat­is­fied, she dumped yesterday’s grounds to the trash, filled a new fil­ter with dry, and added water to the bin. Peg flipped the switch and it slurped to life. She pulled a white mug from the cab­i­net, unlid­ded the sug­ar jar, and placed the half-gal­lon of milk on the counter. She slipped a ceram­ic plate from the cup­board and walked to the new toast­er to find it ful­ly emp­ty. Absolute­ly bread­less. Peg felt a burn­ing fury spilling from her fore­head and she smacked the new toast­er. It slid a few cen­time­ters and some crumbs drib­bled to the coun­ter­top. She hat­ed to admit it but her hand was sting­ing from the hit. The cof­fee pot bur­bled. Peg unspun the bread loaf, which was dis­ap­pear­ing faster than usu­al, and dropped one slice into a slot. She did not change the dial. She round­ed her shoul­ders and clenched her teeth and stabbed the plunger down to a wail. A slow orange glow breathed from the wiring and Peg melt­ed. She snapped back, remem­ber­ing to be angry at the toast­er, and stood clenched and hud­dled over the top of it, lis­ten­ing to the buzz. Her hip ached and she decid­ed that part could unclench, but the shoul­ders, no way. Peg remem­bered the voice on the tele­vi­sion telling her to relax and to breathe. She shut her eyes and heaved a strained breath past her lips. She noticed the heat left and the buzzing stopped. Peg burst her eye­lids open to see the bread­less toast­er in front of her. She unplugged it. She plugged it back in, and dropped half a piece of bread into the oth­er slot and dropped the plunger to a wiry wail. The glow didn’t calm her. She saw the bread crisp­ing up then took a step back­wards and stepped in a cir­cle, turn­ing away. The new toast­er was emp­ty when she spun back around. The oth­er half of the bread went in a slot and the plunger went down to a screech. She closed her eyes before the slow glow could win and when she opened them back up the bread was gone.

            Peg hob­bled over to the kitchen table, spilling over with torn envelopes and receipts. She grabbed a bill and fold­ed it down and stuffed it in a toast­er slot. She pressed it down screech­ing. The slow orange glow pleased her as she saw smoke ris­ing from the grills. She closed her eyes. The new toast­er was emp­ty. Absolute­ly bil­less. Peg poured out her cof­fee and added extra sug­ar and slurped it, star­ing at the toaster.

            Pegatha Bur­roughs didn’t trust her toast­er any­more. She unplugged it and scooped it in both hands and moved it to the oth­er counter. She picked it back up and set it on the kitchen table. She stepped back.

            She did not arrive at work at 8am. She drove to the South­way Sec­ond­hand Store with the black toast­er buck­led into the pas­sen­ger seat. Peg held it out like a bomb and wad­dled to the front glass doors and rat­tled them; closed until 11.

            Peg re-buck­led the toast­er and wait­ed on the side of the street. Her phone buzzed and she fum­bled the screen on. Sheila texted ask­ing for more mon­ey. Peg called her. The phone rang once and went to voice­mail. Peg opened her bank­ing app and trans­ferred fif­teen dol­lars to Sheila. She got a noti­fi­ca­tion from the bank about the sad bal­ance she had remain­ing. Sheila mes­saged again com­plain­ing about the mea­ger trans­fer. Peg called her. The phone rang once and went to voice­mail. She set her phone down next to the toast­er. It buzzed. The pow­er com­pa­ny was inform­ing her of the pend­ing with­draw­al which was much more than she had in her account.

            South­way Sec­ond­hand Store would not open for sev­er­al hours. She drove to work and clocked in late. On her lunch break she went back to the store and hauled the toast­er in under­neath one arm, slid­ing her hood for­ward over her hair.

            “I need to return this.” She set the toast­er down. Crumbs fell to the blue plas­tic counter.

            “We don’t take returns.” Peg didn’t look her in the eye.

            “It was four dollars.”

            “We don’t take returns,” the teen repeated.

            Peg couldn’t look her in the eyes but lift­ed her head and focused on the ceil­ing fan. “Please,” she said.

            “I can’t give you your mon­ey back, ma’am. I’m sorry.”

            Peg dropped her head back down and crossed her arms. She tried not to lean on her hip. “Just take it back then. I’ll donate it.” She spun around and burst out the door.

            Peg stayed lat­er at work to make up for the time missed in the morn­ing. At home she made her­self a din­ner of a peanut but­ter and grape jel­ly sand­wich, fold­ed over on one piece of bread. She called Sheila. The phone rang once and went to voice­mail. A mes­sage from the water com­pa­ny noti­fied her of a pend­ing with­draw­al which was much more than she had in her account. She threw her phone across the room to the couch and it bounced off to the floor. Her jaw clenched, her hip burned, her back stilted.

            Peg crawled to her flat­tened car­pet and pulled up the next yoga video in line. She tugged off her socks and spread her bent toes at hip dis­tance. The voice on the tele­vi­sion told her to breathe. She heaved. The voice told her to breathe in light and breathe out dark­ness, weight, unneed­ed things. A rat­tle of air wheezed out of her throat while she fold­ed her body upside over. Close your eyes, the voice said. Breathe.

            Peg bum­bled out of bed in her skin­ny robe and stalked to the counter that didn’t have a toast­er on it. She closed her eyes and breathed. She heeled to the cof­fee pot and dumped yesterday’s grounds, then filled a new fil­ter and the tank at the back. It growled water up. She pulled a black mug from the cup­board, uncapped her sug­ar jar, and prepped the half-gal­lon of milk. She dug a small ceram­ic plate out. Peg unspun the loaf of plain white bread and stared at the crum­by sec­tion where no toast­er wait­ed. She but­tered a limp piece while her cof­fee pot hissed. Peg didn’t know how to eat plain­ly but­tered bread. She resort­ed to tear­ing hunks off and pop­ping them in her mouth. She even dunked some into her cof­fee, just to try it.

            She limped into work five min­utes ear­ly, as usu­al, and cleaned up what the oth­ers left behind to leave at 5:15pm. Her keys and bag slung over the kitchen chair, she unspun the emp­ty­ing bag of bread and made a fold­ed peanut but­ter and grape jel­ly sand­wich with a cold glass of milk. Her phone buzzed and she scram­bled across the counter to her bag. It was Sheila, send­ing a text in all caps. Peg dialed her num­ber and the phone rang once and went to voice­mail. She asked her phone to remind her to respond in an hour. Her phone buzzed again with a noti­fi­ca­tion from the phone com­pa­ny that her pay­ment was unsuc­cess­ful. To her sur­prise, anoth­er noti­fi­ca­tion came from the pow­er com­pa­ny that her pay­ment was, too, unsuc­cess­ful. Peg cool­ly observed her phone receiv­ing the mes­sages and her lights still on. She stretched to the left and to the right, with each oppo­site hip jut­ting out, burn­ing a strip down her leg.

            The voice on the tele­vi­sion told her to breathe. Inhale light. Exhale dark­ness, weight, unneed­ed things. The voice told her to thank her­self for com­mit­ting to her prac­tice. Peg was press­ing her pelvis into the car­pet and her shoul­ders and back screamed. She unpret­zeled and flipped over to game shows. The reminder on her phone told her to respond to Sheila. Her bank­ing app issued her a warn­ing when she logged in. She trans­ferred five dol­lars to Sheila and gri­maced at her sin­gle-dig­it bal­ance. Peg shut off the tele­vi­sion and went to bed ear­li­er than usual.

            Peg slipped out of bed in her gray night­shirt and sneered at the toast­er­less coun­ter­top. She dumped grounds, added more in a fil­ter, filled the back with water, and flipped the pot on. She unspun the plain loaf of white bread and dug two pieces out and slathered togeth­er a peanut but­ter and grape jel­ly sand­wich for break­fast. It didn’t pair well with her cof­fee. Her hip and back burned.

            She made it to work five min­utes ear­ly and left alone late. She drove to the oppo­site end of town to the depart­ment store and shuf­fled through throngs of tired shop­pers to house­wares. Peg eyed a new Toast­mas­ter but not­ed its price. She checked for any oth­er toast­er but none were in the sin­gle-dig­it range. There in the aisle, she bent at the waist and her back creaked as she dragged her fin­ger­tips on the tongues of her shoes. Breathe, she heard the voice on the tele­vi­sion say.

            Peg arrived at the South­way Sec­ond­hand Store before they closed and didn’t both­er putting her hood up. She found the toast­er. It was the only one on the shelves. Black plas­tic with two slits on top and a radi­al dial that went from one to five. It was point­ed to three. The plunger was tilt­ed at a slight angle. The price tag dan­gling from the plunger read three dol­lars. She heard the voice on the tele­vi­sion telling her to exhale unneed­ed things. She closed her eyes and exhaled.

            She paid three dol­lars and tax at the counter, buck­led the toast­er into her pas­sen­ger seat, and plunked it down on the crum­by coun­ter­top at home. She plugged it into the wall. Peg walked to the liv­ing room and put on the next video in the yoga series. Her bony ankles kissed and the voice on the tele­vi­sion told her to inhale light, more than she would nor­mal­ly breathe com­fort­ably. Exhale dark­ness, the voice told her, and all unneed­ed things. Her phone rang and buzzed around the table. Peg saw it was Sheila call­ing. She closed her eyes. Inhale, the voice said, exhale deeply, the voice said. Peg creaked her body over itself, exhal­ing, inhal­ing. The phone buzzed again and Peg blew air through round­ed lips. She felt light and faint as smoke. The voice on the tele­vi­sion told her to thank her­self for her com­mit­ment today. With­out any air of pre­tense, Peg thanked her­self fully.

            Peg rolled to her feet. She felt a long twang down her hip, dif­fer­ent than before, as if blood found new cor­ners to paint in her ves­sels. She toed to the kitchen and stared at the new toast­er. Plas­tic black, scuffed, tilt­ed plunger, dial point­ed to three.

            She unspun the loaf of plain white bread and dunked things into the slits.

            She pressed the plunger and met­al screeched. A slow orange glow lit up the grills and crisped the bread and warmed her fin­ger­tips. Inhale light, she heard the voice on the tele­vi­sion say. Exhale dark­ness, and all unneed­ed things. Peg’s atten­tion turned to her pock­et which was miss­ing her phone. She stared at the toast­er with rabid intent. Inhale, the voice said, exhale. Peg opened her lungs to fill her chest, and dragged in deep­er when she thought it was at max­i­mum. She saw the bread becom­ing toast sur­round­ed by the glow. Peg antic­i­pat­ed the voice ring­ing in her brain, to exhale, and she closed her eyes and felt the glow on her face and let the air drift out of her lungs. Her body was warm, her face was warm. She couldn’t hear her phone buzz, and she didn’t care it wasn’t in her pock­et. When she was out of air, she clenched and heaved just a lit­tle bit more out, still warm. Peg opened her eyes and the plunger of the toast­er screamed back up. Her toast came out to a small ceram­ic plate and she but­tered it with the room tem­per­a­ture stick on the counter. It didn’t pair well with her milk, but bet­ter than her peanut but­ter and grape jel­ly sand­wich did with her coffee.

            Peg woke the next morn­ing and had cof­fee and toast, like she always did. She arrived at work a few min­utes after 8am to lit­tle fan­fare and left pre­cise­ly on time.

From the writer

:: Account ::

The Toast­er is a short fic­tion piece that puts a spin on the “try/fail” cycle. Ini­tial­ly con­ceived to be a pseu­do-hor­ror piece, it end­ed up pulling me in a dif­fer­ent direc­tion to address ideas of anx­i­ety, self-worth, and the L‑word. I often write of char­ac­ters strug­gling to go about their day-to-day or at least get back to it despite out­side influ­ences. While writ­ing this piece I was think­ing of Jeff Van­der­Meer, who is loose and eccen­tric with his descrip­tions and word choice. A remark­able oppo­site to that is my always-influ­ence, Ray­mond Carv­er, who com­mu­ni­cates so much with so lit­tle. I don’t think I’ll ever for­get, “I did the drinks,” in Cathe­dral. This piece isn’t quite so min­i­mal but doesn’t strive to be over­ly com­plex or include unnec­es­sary infor­ma­tion. I trust the read­er to form the image I’m try­ing to con­vey as my ideas are less about the read­er see­ing a clear pic­ture and more about the read­er feel­ing a neb­u­lous weight. I think say­ing too much more may spoil the expe­ri­ence of the sto­ry, so I thank you for your time and I hope you enjoy it.

Stephen Short is a native of the win­try Pacif­ic North­west and a non-tra­di­tion­al stu­dent at Wash­ing­ton State Uni­ver­si­ty. He writes fic­tion, cre­ative non­fic­tion, and poet­ry. His work is influ­enced by the pared down selec­tions of Ray­mond Carv­er and the ver­bose eccen­tric­i­ty of Jeff Van­der­Meer. Stephen sin­cere­ly wish­es you a fan­tas­tic day and life.

Fiction / Allegra Solomon

:: There’s Nothing Left For You Here ::

            I real­ized my neigh­bor was see­ing the guy across the hall around the time things were get­ting rocky for them. Some­one more astute may have put the puz­zle togeth­er soon­er; may have cor­re­lat­ed the unvar­ied echo of the two doors clos­ing. His, hav­ing fresh­ly left her. Hers, after hav­ing watched him go. How one day their ani­mal­is­tic, gut­tur­al moans came croon­ing from my left, then direct­ly across from me. It was elec­tric the way their con­nec­tion pre­sent­ed itself to me. The pre­sen­ta­tion itself was a slow crawl, but when it came, it was gleaming.

            Ear­li­er that year, I heard them argu­ing through the thin wall that sep­a­rat­ed my neighbor’s unit from mine. My ear was cold against the plas­ter. I was addict­ed to this cold­ness; it was sooth­ing, med­i­c­i­nal even. The argu­ment wasn’t a shout­ing match. It was coat­ed in subtext—it was some­thing qui­et and brew­ing. Glim­mers of the spat echoed to me—my neighbor’s pup­py­ish prod­ding, her boyfriend’s sto­ic, male indif­fer­ence— and then I heard the sound of her front door closing.

            We’re okay right? He said.

           She said, Of course.

            The inter­ac­tion was almost lost to the white noise of my heater. It was in that moment I decid­ed to take out my trash.

            In the hall­way, I saw him push­ing her against her door with his hands in her hair as they fever­ish­ly kissed. A pink mess of lips and skin, miss­ing the mouth more than mak­ing it. I made a note not to look at any­one too directly—to bee­line for the trash room—but I have nev­er been good at resist­ing temptation.

            There it was: His black nails. Her shut eyes. I drank it up quick­ly, in one pas­sive blink and the after­im­age of them burned behind my eye­lids in a crisp orange out­line. When the girl saw me com­ing, she squeaked a non­com­mit­tal plea of resis­tance that dis­si­pat­ed as soon as it appeared I didn’t care.

           It was quite the oppo­site; the two of them com­pelled me beyond belief. There isn’t much else to it than this: I was awful­ly bored back then.

            All of my clos­est friends had moved out of state the year before and none of us were good at main­tain­ing emo­tion­al close­ness over that much of a dis­tance. My child­hood best friend and simul­ta­ne­ous ex-boyfriend of five years decid­ed that what we had was not a roman­tic love and nev­er was. There were no good shows on TV and the mid­west­ern win­ter was a force. What else was there to do? I let my home swal­low me whole.

            In my bore­dom, I’d start­ed to toy with the con­cept of rein­vent­ing myself. This was orig­i­nal­ly out of enter­tain­ment. Not appear­ance-wise. I more­so won­dered what would hap­pen if I went against all my nat­ur­al instincts and did what was thrilling rather than what I usu­al­ly did, which was what was right. Act on impulse for any lev­el of grat­i­fi­ca­tion with­out think­ing of the effects, just to move my blood around. It wasn’t always any­thing big. Some­times I would steal can­dy from Wal­greens and then throw it away because I could. Eaves­drop on my neigh­bors. Stare at peo­ple real long in pub­lic and watch them unrav­el before me. When I got deliv­ery food I would either tip entire­ly too well or not at all, depend­ing on the day and my mer­cu­r­ial tem­pera­ment. It felt like I was grab­bing my life by the neck and chok­ing it out, deadpan.

           Work had become the only social aspect of my life. I worked at Best Buy, rec­om­mend­ing print­ers and tele­vi­sions to fill the dead air. There was a guy I worked with named Josi­ah who would flirt with me in the breakroom—call me cute, short ver­sions of my name while every­one else addressed me by every let­ter. Run his fin­gers up and down my fore­arms while we sat in the Nin­ten­do aisle and argued about the most effec­tive char­ac­ter to use in what game. His girl­friend was a near­ly six-foot brunette. She lift­ed reg­u­lar­ly at the gym and could kill me if she want­ed, but—to her dis­ad­van­tage— had the sweet, sopra­no voice of a Sesame Street char­ac­ter. She always picked him up at the end of the day or brought him lunch when her law school sched­ule allowed. I went out of my way to strike up a cor­dial friend­ship with her; ask her how the first year was going, make sub­tle jabs at Josi­ah to seem like a non-enti­ty. Some days we would sit and talk for half an hour alone before she went over to him. On my birth­day in Jan­u­ary, she brought me a cook­ie with my first ini­tial on it in icing. My com­plex rela­tion­ship with her was one of my main sources of enter­tain­ment. The rush it gave me was too addict­ing to stop.

            At home I would usu­al­ly watch old episodes of New Girl or Every­body Hates Chris until my neigh­bors start­ed up again. Some days my ex-boyfriend would stop by to col­lect some of his old things, but he always left quick­ly, with­out much word or touch.

           Things with my neigh­bors became most entic­ing in Feb­ru­ary. There was a night where I heard the front door slam hard as they walked in the house; com­ing from—what I’d decid­ed was—a din­ner. I heard the bass in his voice, fol­lowed by the hard, undu­lat­ing tre­ble of hers.

            I turned down New Girl and returned my ear to it’s home on that cold wall.

            What about Christ­mas? She said. You wouldn’t want to spend it with my family?

            That’s ten months from now, the guy said.

            And?

            And so, we don’t have to wor­ry about that right now.

            You don’t think we’ll be togeth­er in ten months?

            I didn’t say that.

            There was a soft, bare­ly dis­cern­able whim­per and then things were qui­et again. I went back to my show and turned the sound all the way up.

            I nev­er heard the guy leave her house that night, or if he had, I missed it because my ex-boyfriend had called and asked if I still had his Cavs jersey.

            Yes, I said, because you gave it to me.

            He asked for it back calm­ly, and when I didn’t say any­thing, he said, I’m kind of wor­ried about you, by the way.

           I laughed. Why?

           Because you seem very lone­ly. Who do you talk to all day?

            My neighbor.

            Any­one else? he asked. You’re not being self-destruc­tive, are you?

           Not yet, I said. Maybe it would be good for me.

            I don’t think that’s true. You’re a very log­i­cal and empa­thet­ic girl.

            You wor­ry about me a lot for some­one who end­ed things.

           He sighed.

             Love is not exclu­sive­ly roman­tic. I can still care about you. Quit iso­lat­ing yourself—the pity par­ty is get­ting bor­ing. Then, he hung up.

            The next day at work I real­ized I didn’t real­ly know what my neigh­bors’ faces looked like, and I didn’t know their names. This was exciting—it still is, remem­ber­ing that mys­tery and what was pos­si­ble inside of it. How my impo­si­tions still held water. I had just learned the girl had orange hair—I caught a glimpse in the hall­way the night before. I knew the guy had jet black hair and pale skin, but that was all. Before I’d seen them, I had imag­ined them to both be blondes—that maybe they’d look eeri­ly sim­i­lar. They seemed like the type of white peo­ple to be attract­ed to a ver­sion of them­selves. I imag­ined her apart­ment had pas­tel mono­grams of her ini­tials on any bare wall space and a tank for ill cared for gold­fish. Through the wall my neigh­bor had the muf­fled voice of a petite, five foot, stick thin soror­i­ty girl. In real­i­ty she was this tall, round, red­head with freck­les. In terms of stature, the two of them looked each oth­er square in the eyes.

            Where’s your mind at, Josi­ah asked. He was lean­ing back against a row of Mario games that avalanched onto the floor while he played with the hem of my polo. I was stand­ing in front of him, spac­ing out into the open air over his shoulder.

            I’m just think­ing about my neigh­bor, I said, as though I was far away. She’s dat­ing the guy across the hall. I think they’re fighting.

            She your friend?

           I nodded.

            Rela­tion­ships are com­pli­cat­ed, he said. My girl and I fight all the time.

            Because you’re a cheater?

            I’m not a cheater, he laughed. If I was a cheater, we wouldn’t be stand­ing out on this floor right now.

            Josi­ah held my eyes for a long time before I broke the gaze and poked his chest.

            I like your girl­friend, anyways.

            Right. You two are all bud­dy bud­dy now. What’s that about?

            I don’t know, I said. I could feel him affec­tion­ate­ly tug­ging on my shirt as I began to dis­ap­pear into my mind. I think it makes me feel powerful.

            He flashed his teeth, laughed, then said with a mix of edge and intrigue, Most peo­ple wouldn’t admit that.

            I came home lat­er than usu­al that night, hav­ing been stuck in traf­fic. The guy across the hall usu­al­ly went to my neighbor’s place around eight, and I was afraid if I was late I would miss an essen­tial sto­ry­line. There had been many. I’d count­ed about three. A preg­nan­cy scare, a for­got­ten birth­day, unmatched love lan­guages. (I wish you would com­pli­ment me more, she’d said once. I just told you that your ear­rings look cool, he said.) The preg­nan­cy scare made me celi­bate for weeks, though, I sup­pose that had less to do with agency and more to do with the way things just were. When she for­got his birth­day it wasn’t a big deal, but it was obvi­ous to me, a room away, that he was down­play­ing it. One time he wait­ed in her house while she was gone to the store and he talked on the phone to one of his friends about it. (Yeah, we didn’t do any­thing, he said. No, no, it’s not a big deal. You know I’m not big on birth­days any­ways. Yeah, it would have been nice but, you know.)

            It was cer­tain­ly a rela­tion­ship forged by attrac­tion alone, and the mess of this real­i­ty began to creep up behind them. Though, none of this was impor­tant. This was a mat­ter of self; I did not want them to break up.

             When I got to my floor, I could already hear them as I passed by her door to get to mine. Des­per­ate sobs. Akin to the preg­nan­cy scare sobs, but less existential—more heart­bro­ken. Long, deep, drawn out—like being pushed out of a brass instru­ment. Under­neath those sobs was the guy say­ing, Come on. Are you seri­ous? You knew this!

           I stopped in front of her door and pressed my ear to it—a high-risk urge much eas­i­er to suc­cumb to than you might expect. I could hear much bet­ter out there; the sounds were crisp and alive, like I was stand­ing in the liv­ing room with them.

            You knew this. Like—I told you that at the start, the guy said.

            I didn’t know you were still see­ing oth­er peo­ple, though. I thought we were past that.

           Her sobs got caught in her throat.

            I am. I am, but I like you both. That doesn’t take any­thing away from you.

            I can’t believe this.

            Come on.

            I can’t believe this.

            To be fair, I had assumed she knew. Occa­sion­al­ly when she wasn’t home, I would hear him walk into his place, laugh­ing along with a voice that wasn’t hers. It was always so con­ve­nient­ly timed that I assumed it was an arrange­ment. Her heav­ing proved oth­er­wise, but it was enter­tain­ing, nonetheless.

            There was an abrupt sound of heavy foot­steps and the tell­tale sign of a lock being undone. I slow­ly and as unpan­icked as pos­si­ble, walked to my door and began to put the key in.

            The two of them were sud­den­ly out­side with me. It felt famil­ial, though nei­ther of them noticed my presence.

            Go. She point­ed to his door.

            Oh my God.

            I’m seri­ous. Go play with your oth­er toy.

            At this, I went into my apart­ment, only to get a bet­ter visu­al through my peep­hole. That was the mon­ey shot. At first, I could only see him—his back pressed against his front door, and his arms spread eagle, grasp­ing for a way out.

            We talked about this. You know monogamy isn’t for me.

            Then go—be free.

            She walked so she was stand­ing in his face, fore­head to fore­head with him. They yelled at each oth­er for anoth­er five min­utes before she said, I’m done, and walked back into her apart­ment. There were her foot­steps; the click of the door open­ing; the slam; and then nothing.

            The silence that fol­lowed was the qui­etest it had been in a month or two. I laid in bed and watched the ceil­ing fan turn until the arms of it liqui­fied into one sol­id cir­cle around the lights. I stared at the lights until it hurt my eyes; the bright cir­cles, blink­ing resid­u­al­ly in my view as I assessed my room. I had already been through both New Girl and Every­body Hates Chris’ entire series respec­tive­ly five and four times; there were no sur­pris­es left. There was noth­ing. Not even a drone of white noise or leak­ing faucet water. I checked my phone and I had no texts. Insta­gram was most­ly peo­ple I didn’t talk to any­more. One of my friends that moved away slid up on a sto­ry I post­ed about Inse­cure end­ing and said: I guess Lawrence can stay. I liked it and said: Girl, I guess. I scrolled through the rest of our mes­sages since she moved away. They were all about as incon­se­quen­tial as that. YouTube proved to be tem­porar­i­ly mind numb­ing and I watched a video essay about Mark Rothko. When that video end­ed, I stared at my reflec­tion in the black screen and traced the out­line of myself in the col­lect­ed dust.

            I found myself knock­ing on my neighbor’s door before I could think bet­ter of it. Like a quick flash—my knuck­les were against the hard­wood, and then she was twist­ing the knob.

            Her face was all red—freckles dis­ap­peared in the tear stained, inflamed skin. A mane of curls cas­cad­ing down to her shoulders.

            Yeah?  She looked me up and down.

            Hey. I live over there.

            She just nod­ded, prod­ding me for the point.

            I’m sor­ry, I began again. I just want­ed to know if I could bor­row a tampon.

            She broke an apolo­getic smile that was crooked on its left side. Her face fell in a way that seemed she was embar­rassed of her brashness.

            God. Yeah, sor­ry. Here, just, um— She opened her door and motioned for me to come in. What do you want—light? Super?

            She lived in a one bed­room that mir­rored mine. The bath­room was in that first hall­way, and I scanned her place as she dis­ap­peared into it. There was none of the per­son­al­ized mono­grammed art I’d expect­ed. No gold­fish. In fact, the walls were most­ly emp­ty aside from a few stock Ikea paint­ings and one lone, prac­ti­cal­ly vin­tage One Direc­tion poster right above her bed. The apart­ment smelled of nothing—no can­dles, no sprays, no oil dif­fusers, which was so un-twen­ty-some­thing-year-old-girl like of her I won­dered if there was some­thing wrong with her. There was one with­er­ing set of flow­ers on the kitchen island, but that was all. I decid­ed I liked my ver­sion of her place more—it felt truer.

            I’ll take what I can get, I said.

            What’s your name?

            She was rum­mag­ing through the cab­i­net under the sink, pulling out hair straight­en­ers and hair ties alike. I told her what it was.

            That’s fun­ny, she said. You look like one.

            Then she told me her name was Dar­leen, and I told her she looked like one too.

            It’s sup­posed to mean Darling—loved one, she said.  Which, I don’t feel much like right now.

            Mine means “Filled heart,” I said with air quotes.

            Accurate?

            I shook my head. No. Not right now.

            She walked out of the bath­room with three tampons—two light, one super. Her body was swim­ming in an over­sized Mets t‑shirt, as if it was night­gown. As she placed them in my hand, she said, I know you can prob­a­bly hear us. Sor­ry about that.

            Don’t wor­ry about it. Seri­ous­ly. I put the tam­pons in my pocket.

            I used to hear you, too, actu­al­ly. That guy.

            Ah. I nod­ded my head. Sorry.

            No, it’s okay. I thought about you, actu­al­ly. I hoped you were alright when I noticed he stopped com­ing around.

            There was a moment of silence that sat a bit too long, but it main­tained a soft­ness I felt could be use­ful to me.

            It’s that guy right? The one that lives across from me?

            She smiled and nod­ded her head—still fond at the thought of him, despite every­thing that had just happened.

            Yeah. It’s a fun­ny sto­ry, actu­al­ly. Maybe I’ll tell you sometime.

            Sure. Thanks for these.

            I walked back into my apart­ment and put the tam­pons in the box with the oth­ers I had.

            For a while, it did not seem like they were going to get back togeth­er. Because of this, it was silent in my apart­ment for three weeks. This was bad for me—I need­ed them to occu­py my mind while home. I start­ed tak­ing extra shifts at work just to stay out the house. I would hope to come home and hear anything—them laugh­ing, talk­ing, fight­ing, fuck­ing. But there was noth­ing. My ex-boyfriend had stopped com­ing by because he’d effec­tive­ly got­ten back every­thing that he wanted—excluding the Cavs jersey—but would call occa­sion­al­ly. It was always out of con­cern; out of the pla­ton­ic love we’d built since we were chil­dren. At some point I stopped answer­ing him. It felt like the wrong deci­sion to make, so I made it. The resid­ual high sati­at­ed me for a while. I called some of my old friends a time or two, but it was always brief and most­ly unex­cit­ing in the way things nev­er were when they still lived in town. Pod­casts became impor­tant to me quick­ly. After work, I would sit out­side the store and watch the cars go by.

            Dur­ing the third week of silence, I burned my hand bad­ly at work. I was heat­ing up water in a mug to make tea, and while tak­ing it out of the microwave, I spilled it all over me. The skin tem­porar­i­ly became flim­sy and loose, and the pain reduced me to a child. Whim­per­ing and jump­ing as I shook my hand, like I’d fall­en off my bike and need­ed a kiss. A few of my co-work­ers helped me get ice until Josi­ah came in and said, You’re not sup­posed to ice it. Here, run it under room tem­per­a­ture water. He took my hand in his and ran the water over both of ours like it was his pain too. We stood there like that—his thumb glid­ing over the inside of my hand, sooth­ing it— until I told him I felt okay. He then sat me down and rubbed Neosporin on my palm. Nice and slow, to savor the moment. We didn’t talk much. I sat still and let him take care of me. It was then that I real­ized I had not touched any­one in a long time. I had not kissed any­one, hugged any­one, had my hand del­i­cate­ly loved on. It was a sud­den but alarm­ing rev­e­la­tion— dis­cov­er­ing I was will­ing to do any­thing for it. 

            There was not much else. I attempt­ed to build a book­shelf. Picked up a poet­ry book an old friend post­ed on her Insta­gram sto­ry. I start­ed going for walks. Any con­trol I felt I had dwin­dled into a thin string I could hard­ly tie. I had a close call steal­ing a can­dle from Bath & Body Works. I wasn’t able to sleep all the way through the night, even with mela­tonin. I laid in bed most nights and filled the absence with my mind. I imag­ined they were talk­ing on the oth­er side of that wall, or per­haps, they were talk­ing to me. Those moments felt awful­ly normal.

            In that forth week, Dar­leen knocked on my door. Her face was hard­ly vis­i­ble in the over­growth of her hair. When I opened the door she had a bot­tle of Caber­net in her hand, dan­gling like a weight. Before I could speak, she just said:

            I’m kin­da drunk, so kick me out if you want— but I need to talk to some­one and no one is answer­ing my calls.

            I would have been more offend­ed under dif­fer­ent cir­cum­stances, but my need for com­pa­ny was stronger than my pride.

            The girl scanned my walls inquis­i­tive­ly, walked right up to a can­dle I had burn­ing and took a strong whiff—told me the can­dle smelled like “man.”

            It’s fen­nel and pine, I said.

            Fen­nel and pine, she repeat­ed absent­ly. Her voice was soft­er, and raspi­er than I remem­bered. She took her free hand to scratch her fore­head and began to lazi­ly walk through the room, pick­ing up note­books before putting them down—opening and clos­ing the blinds like they were some kind of puz­zle. She thumbed at the tape hold­ing up a Sade poster over the couch and I fought the urge to tell her to stop.

            You’re not busy? she asked, rolling one of my pens around the inside of her wine-stained fin­gers. I shook my head. Can I just vent to you? She asked.

            Of course. I repressed my excitement.

            Lit­er­al­ly stop me any­time. She then sat down at the kitchen table and began tear­ing up.

            She and the guy start­ed see­ing each oth­er in Novem­ber. He had knocked on her door to see if she had a bot­tle open­er. He nev­er gave it back to her, so a week lat­er she went over to get it—I had bot­tles to open too, you know—and he was like, I can’t find it. Here, come in. She sat at his counter, and they talked for two hours. I remem­ber think­ing he smelled like a for­est, she said. Right after rain.

            The open­er was in the kitchen draw­er the entire time. And then they fell into a rou­tine. She said at the begin­ning he did men­tion he was see­ing oth­er peo­ple, though, of course, she assumed it was for the time being. When they start­ed see­ing each oth­er every day she assumed she was the only one, and all those nights he didn’t come home she thought he was out being a drunk­en man with his friends at bars.

            He’s been tex­ting me, but I haven’t texted him back, yet.

            Yet? I sat up.

            I know it’s bad. I like him, but I don’t love him. We aren’t entire­ly good for each oth­er but, some­times you just take what you can get. You know?

            I do, I said.  I looked at her; body perched in one of my kitchen chairs, sip­ping direct­ly from the bottle.

            You seem to be cop­ing with your breakup well, though.

            I shrugged.  I won­dered how she would feel know­ing how much I knew about their rela­tion­ship, or the role she played in the coping.

            He was the last per­son close to me that still lived in town, I added, rock­ing back on the hind legs of my chair. All our oth­er friends slow­ly got city jobs and moved away one by one.

            So, what do you get up to now?

           Noth­ing. I’m very bored these days. I try to find ways to enter­tain myself.

            What’s that thing? She said, in a bub­bly, bur­py gig­gle. The idle mind being the devil’s playground?

            She drank more of her wine, and I watched it fall down her throat in car­toon-like gulps. It occurred to me that this inter­ac­tion might not be sig­nif­i­cant to her. Just a drunk­en ther­a­py to exor­cise her thoughts on her boyfriend—I, the only per­son present enough to help her do so—and in the morn­ing, this would all be a hazy half mem­o­ry, which could be qual­i­fied as a dream.

           I was a place hold­er. She was white noise. I sup­pose we all do what we must to get by.

           I have this idea of hit­ting rock bot­tom and becom­ing a worse ver­sion of myself, to then come back refined, I said.

            She stared at me blankly. Why would you do that?

            It might be fun. Keep me busy. It’s like play­ing a video game. Mak­ing all these bad deci­sions, but they’re mine to make.

            Okay.

            It was said as a half thought—her mind was else­where. She set the wine bot­tle down on the kitchen table. It was most­ly emp­ty and left a nice red ring on my white table­cloth. Then she said, I think I’m going to take him back soon.

            Even if he’s still see­ing that oth­er girl.

            She nodded.

            I’ll just deal with it. I’m not good at being alone. Does that make me a bad person?

            I’m not the best per­son right now, so you’re ask­ing the wrong one.

            You keep say­ing that. She drunk­en­ly tilt­ed her head to the right, and it made her whole body sag a lit­tle. What do you mean? She asked smal­ly. Like, what are you doing?

            I mean, I sighed. I might fuck my co-worker.

            That’s not bad.

            He has a girl­friend, though. And she’s real­ly nice. I like her.

            Oh.

            She squirmed a bit in her chair and avert­ed eye con­tact. I real­ized that maybe her ver­sion of a bad per­son and mine weren’t exact­ly mir­rored def­i­n­i­tions, but we were oper­at­ing from the same core.

            After a moment of silence, I saw her face tight­en. She said, Please don’t remind me of any of this in the morn­ing, okay? Then stood up to throw up in the bath­room toi­let. I could hear it echo­ing and splat­ter­ing against the porce­lain sides all the way from the liv­ing room. The retch­ing was vio­lent. I knew she would remem­ber none of this the next morning.

            I joined her on my knees, gath­er­ing her hair in my once burned hand like rope, and held her as her body lurched for­ward. After, I wiped her face soft­ly with a tow­el, gave her water, and walked her back to her apart­ment. Inside, she climbed into a big sweatshirt—It doesn’t even smell like him any­more, she said— and I laid her down in bed, push­ing a trash­can to her bedside.

            Lock the door, I called back. She said nothing.

            Once back in my apart­ment, I wrote on a piece of paper: BUY HER FLOWERS. SHE WILL TAKE YOU BACK and slid it under the guy’s door.

            Work was slow the next day because there had been an ice storm. The roads were slick and emp­ty, which gave us all free reign to be on our phones or take turns play­ing dif­fer­ent con­soles when our man­agers weren’t look­ing. Josi­ah and I hung at the back of the store, stand­ing as close as pos­si­ble to the HD screens to see what it did to our eyes.

            The thing is, I gen­uine­ly liked him as a per­son. He was dark skinned, had a head full of hair, and was twice my size—which was just my type. Our humors aligned in a way he often told me him and his girlfriend’s did not. I’m sure it was an inten­tion­al manip­u­la­tion, but I didn’t mind—it felt warm.

            There was an HQ replay of a Steel­ers game unfold­ing before us. I was mak­ing a com­ment about how it felt like 4‑D Smell-o-vision when he took my hand and used it to touch my hair.

            You do it your­self? He asked, eyes not leav­ing mine once.

            I smacked my teeth. Come on now.

            He smiled. You know how do to cornrows?

            Obviously.

            He then took the hand and touched it to his head. I could feel the minute coils on my fin­ger­tips, already work­ing them­selves to bur­row under my hangnails.

            You think you can do mine? My girl’s out of town.

            I paused.

            When? I asked.

            Tonight.

            Around that time, I often felt like I was sus­pend­ed some­where in the air, watch­ing myself live and act and breathe. Observ­ing my body move around pow­er­ful­ly from out­side my body, like a video game—removed from my actions, my con­se­quences. In that moment, I returned to my bones.

            Except for Dar­leen, no one new had been to my apart­ment in a long time. When we walked in, I become hyper aware of the rolled up, dirty white moun­tain of socks in the cor­ner by my vinyl—the way the couch frayed white where leather should have been. Where it once was.

            Josi­ah walked to the front of the room and thumbed through a poet­ry book that was sit­ting on the TV stand, skim­ming page seventy.

           Are you gonna show me around? He asked.

            There’s only two rooms, I said, more soft and less assured than any­thing else I’d ever said to him. 

            So, show me them.

            He motioned me towards him. When I was stand­ing in front of him he play­ful­ly turned me around by my shoul­ders and point­ed to the paint­ing above the couch. What’s this?

            I showed him the black and white Pol­lock imitation—left out that it was some­thing my ex-boyfriend and I had worked on togeth­er, long before we’d even dat­ed. I showed him the can­dles I hoard­ed and how they lived in the box under the TV stand, because I don’t burn them faster than I buy them.

            And this? he asked, pick­ing up a golf ball sit­ting on my desk.

            An old friend and I found it on a walk a long time ago.

            You seem like a sen­ti­men­tal per­son, he said, earnest­ly in a breath. I shrugged and became very hot suddenly.

            I have been one at times.

            We walked onto my bal­cony and spit off of it onto the cement—it was his idea. He said he used to do that a lot in the place he grew up. A small apart­ment not too dif­fer­ent from mine.

            I felt it again then— a pinch of con­trol while up there wield­ing our agency like gods. The pinch felt too much a moment lat­er when his hand touched my back and asked if we should wash his hair.

            Yes, I heard myself say. There was an elec­tric­i­ty in the air. A shift had occurred. I didn’t have time to dwell on it. I was still try­ing to decide what kind of per­son I was.

            We stood in the kitchen—he in front of me, back bent, head under the sink faucet. The room smelled like argon oil and mint—strongly grip­ping at the nose.

            I used to love when my mom washed my hair like this, he said. And then, in the most airy, sin­cere voice I’d ever heard from him, I think this just brought back a for­ma­tive memory.

            I’ve nev­er done this to some­one before, actually.

            I feel lucky, he laughed. To be your first.

            My fin­gers were tan­gled in sham­poo, wash­ing and lath­er­ing his hair from the back, hard­ly able to reach over his tall frame. He laughed when I used my nails to real­ly get in there. We were so close. I could see the open brown skin of his scalp and the way his hair sponged and soaked up the prod­uct. Some­thing about see­ing the top of his head, vul­ner­a­bly car­ing for him in this way, human­ized him to me. Proved he was breath­ing, warm to the touch, with blood inside. A per­son, with aches, hungers, mem­o­ries. When he was a kid his moth­er washed his hair over the sink, and he used to spit off bal­conies— the facts of a real per­son with a real life. He was him­self, and a son, and boyfriend. He was a boyfriend, and I was cradling his head soft­ly in my hands.

           When I asked if he okay he said, Yes—please, keep going. This feels good.

            It had been more inti­mate that I had expect­ed; the act of wash­ing his hair and feel­ing the heat of his body alone in my home as opposed to the open exhi­bi­tion of our job. It felt con­crete, not just a play­ful, casu­al tee­ter­ing on an awful edge for our own plea­sure. It was clear that this could be the begin­ning of a con­sis­tent complication.

            When we fin­ished, I sat in a chair—he sat on the floor at my feet, fac­ing the tele­vi­sion. As time went on, I became qui­eter. Tread­ing cau­tious­ly. I blow dried his hair as slow­ly as pos­si­ble, attempt­ing to find out if I was more moral than des­per­ate, more self­ish than kind, all while watch­ing his hair go smooth in my hands.

           When I clicked the blow dry­er off, behind the sound of the tele­vi­sion was my neigh­bor talk­ing. There were two voic­es, drip­ping with the spe­cif­ic affec­tion that comes post-rec­on­cil­i­a­tion. She cooed and the guy laughed. I love them, I love them, she said loud­ly, and I won­dered if she want­ed me to hear. Yeah? He replied.

            They don’t sound like they’re fight­ing any­more, Josi­ah said.

            Yeah, I guess they’re not. She’s weak for him. I ran the end of a rat­tail comb down the mid­dle of his head to form a part. They prob­a­bly shouldn’t be togeth­er if I’m being honest.

            Who cares? Everyone’s just doing what feels best to them, he said stand­ing up.

            He turned towards me and asked if the part looked straight, extend­ing a hand so I would stand up too. His eyes scanned me as I stood in front of him re-draw­ing the part, push­ing some hairs to the side, avoid­ing the warmth on my face and what I’d like to do about it if I was, in fact, more des­per­ate than moral. His shoul­ders and my fore­head were lev­el with each oth­er. Sud­den­ly, my face was being held in his rough hands, pulling my gaze up so we were look­ing at each oth­er. I took the comb and adjust­ed all the zig-zag­ging parts, mak­ing it as straight as pos­si­ble. He licked his lips.

            Remem­ber what you told me you weren’t, I said, qui­et­ly. At work that day.

            I do.

            What are you now?

            In this moment? He laughed. I’m still not.

            It just seemed like in that moment, us being out on the floor was the decid­ing variable.

            I sup­pose you’re right.

            Josi­ah and I stood in a charged silence, and then he added, You don’t have any room­mates that are gonna come knock­ing, right? I shook my head. Any friends that just show up?

            No, I said. No friends that show up.

            Boyfriend?

            No, I said. No boyfriend.

            He nod­ded as his hands trav­elled cau­tious­ly to my low­er back. Josiah’s lips brushed against my neck as he leaned down to my ear.

            That pow­er you felt, he whis­pered. Do you still feel it?

            His fin­gers pressed into my back slow and soft, as if play­ing a chord. My body knew that move­ment. It hummed. I exhaled as he inhaled, and I felt it as one.

            To be hon­est, it all hap­pened very quick­ly. I couldn’t bring myself to speak—I just leaned into the touch.

From the writer

:: Account ::

This sto­ry came to me in 2021 as the pan­dem­ic was still present, but the cul­ture and pre­cau­tions were not the same as they’d been the year before. I’d become hyper aware of my iso­la­tion and all the futile ways I’d attempt to feel con­nect­ed to oth­ers. Escapism at the time seemed to be the only bit of refuge—whether that be escap­ing online, in media, books, or my own imag­i­na­tion. I could often hear my neigh­bors through our adjoined wall, and I would won­der about them. 

I’d spo­ken to many peo­ple about how they’d dealt with their lone­li­ness at that time, and it became clear to me that des­per­a­tion lived with many peo­ple. I am always inter­est­ed in what des­per­a­tion leads a per­son to, and after the lone­ly peri­od that fol­lowed 2020, this felt like a sto­ry I need­ed to write. 

Alle­gra Solomon is a Black fic­tion writer from Colum­bus, Ohio. She received her MFA from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Ken­tucky and her B.A. in Cre­ative Writ­ing from Ohio Uni­ver­si­ty. Her work has appeared or is forth­com­ing in Tri­Quar­ter­ly, New Ohio Review, Amer­i­can Lit­er­ary Review, Lol­we and more. She was the Uni­ver­si­ty of Kentucky’s 2022 recip­i­ent of the Fic­tion MFA award. She lives in Lex­ing­ton, Kentucky

Fiction / Brodie Gress 

:: Mother Gosling ::

      Around the time I became twen­ty-sev­en, half as old as my moth­er, I was irri­tat­ed to learn that life was exact­ly what she had warned me it would be.

          “What­ev­er you study, make mon­ey with it,” I remem­ber her telling me, dur­ing the first of our many calls, when I asked her what my col­lege degree should be. I’d just fin­ished my first semes­ter of col­lege, still unde­clared. I was lean­ing toward music, unwill­ing to let it go, but my moth­er pushed me oth­er­wise. She was end­less­ly prac­ti­cal, like when she bought me a Dave Ram­sey book for my high school grad­u­a­tion or emailed me a list of mechan­ics as her first cor­re­spon­dence with me after col­lege began. Despite that, I real­ized that I did in fact like my family—even my annoy­ing younger sib­lings, even my down-to-earth mother.

          As grat­ing as her val­ues were, I fol­lowed them. As a com­pro­mise, I dou­ble majored in music and busi­ness, the sec­ond of which made of cours­es I found sti­fling to sit through but which also led to a paid intern­ship qua bud­ding career in the non­prof­it sec­tor. I thanked my moth­er for her advice, dur­ing the first time I called her after I got my job.

          My father was there, too, dur­ing our calls, in the back­ground cheer­ful­ly yelling greet­ings to me over my mother’s shoul­der: How was the non­prof­it, was I enjoy­ing my non-rais­es and no-perks yet, and I’d laugh and tell him to bug off. I knew he had his issues with his fam­i­ly, but he had the ears of my broth­ers and sis­ter. I gave mine to my moth­er. Us two eldest daugh­ters. The more I called my moth­er, the more I learned about her. She had her own ordeals, with her orig­i­nal fam­i­ly, whom I’d only ever seen dur­ing hol­i­days grow­ing up.

          As our calls and vis­its rolled on, I learned that my Grampa—my sweet, fun­ny Gram­pa who car­ried me on his shoul­ders and made me my first violin—had been a shit­hole father.

          “She’s stay­ing home again,” my moth­er said, annoyed with her mid­dle sis­ter, over the first phone call we had when I’d start­ed my job. “Twila said she’d come this time, she swore, but you know she always backs out last minute. Gigi—your cousin Lorraine’s youngest, you remember—came down with the flu, and Lor­raine called her moth­er like always. I told Twila she couldn’t always swoop in and help Lor­raine every time, or Lor­raine would nev­er be a con­fi­dent mother.”

          “Oh, Mom,” I said, my con­stant inter­lude upon her sto­ries, to let her know I was lis­ten­ing, that she was heard, even if I didn’t under­stand all of it. All I could real­ly under­stand, dur­ing her many sto­ries, was that moth­er­hood was some­thing I wasn’t sure I would ever want.

          “And I remind­ed Twila we were sup­posed to decide what to do with Grampa’s old scrap­yard art today, that Mom—Gramma—had request­ed she be there, but Twila just waved me off. You decide, Geor­gia, you’re the eldest, she said, but you know she’s just going to crit­i­cize what­ev­er I decide to do … Oh, but I’m just let­ting off steam. She’s busy, like Ulyssa. We all are. I have the most time out of any of us, I’m sure, even with babysit­ting Ned.”

          My moth­er often spoke like that. She’d snow­ball her mem­o­ries and thoughts into a long and detailed dia­tribe against her sis­ters, but then she’d catch her­self and find a gra­cious con­clu­sion, as if pen­i­tent. But I was always dis­ap­point­ed when the grace came. My moth­er sound­ed human when she com­plained, so very human. I felt like I could tell her my prob­lems, too, air my own griev­ances with my job, the guy I was sort of dat­ing now, the way the world was going, and over the phone I’d hear her mm hmm, to let me know, in turn, that even if she didn’t under­stand all my frus­tra­tions, that she lis­tened. That I was heard. 

          I have a strong mem­o­ry, once—when I was a child, I raid­ed my mother’s dress­er and tried a pair of gleam­ing red flats I nev­er saw her wear. I thought they were the most beau­ti­ful shoes, with lit­tle rhine­stones gleam­ing from the shoe’s tongue. When I put them on, I found them ill-fit­ting, but I walked around my mother’s room, then down the hall, and then to my room, where I chas­tised my dolls for loaf­ing around on the shelf doing noth­ing. I heard my broth­er, a baby then, wail, and I turned to find my moth­er glar­ing dag­gers at me. She wrenched my hand.

          “Take those off,” she said with the warmth of ice­berg let­tuce. I hur­ried my feet out of them. “Don’t go through my dress­er again. That was so thought­less of you, Ann.”

          Despite the decades, the expe­ri­ences, and any oth­er gulfs that dis­tanced us, I still try to put on my mother’s shoes. I still try to wear my moth­er, try to walk how she would walk, talk how she would talk, feel how she would feel. An impos­si­ble task.

***

          A few nights before her father died, Geor­gia was stir­ring beans in a bub­bling pot, sea­son­ing them with salt and pep­per, adding a lit­tle brown sug­ar and sharp ched­dar for her grand­son Ned, when her phone rang.

          “Dad’s not well,” her sis­ter Twila said over the phone.

          “He’s been unwell for a while now.”

          “No. It’s bad this time.”

          Her father died in the hos­pi­tal, at last of his liv­er can­cer. The doc­tor tried to explain it sci­en­tif­i­cal­ly, that the can­cer had metas­ta­sized and made short work of its dwellings, but Geor­gia couldn’t help but notice the tim­ing. A week before, she and her sis­ters had final­ly con­vinced him to enter assist­ed liv­ing. Their mom couldn’t take care of him on her own, and his daugh­ters couldn’t make the time for him. He had fought for the longest time—how he clung to that dying light—and this rapid death of his felt to Geor­gia like a final spite.

          She’d been jilt­ed. At last, her father and moth­er would have been sep­a­rate. Geor­gia would have final­ly had the chance to vis­it her father alone, under the pre­tense of a lov­ing daugh­ter. The nurs­es would have admit­ted her. She would have walked into his room, exchanged pleas­ant hel­los. He would have invit­ed her to sit down, stare out the win­dow at him. And just when he start­ed to ask her if she remem­bered jar­ring straw­ber­ry jam with him and her broth­er, or the time he pranked her prom date with his gun, that’s when she would have told him exact­ly what she remem­bered. What her broth­er had bab­bled to her, before he’d died. Her moth­er no longer there to medi­ate her vol­canic rage. No. At last, she and her father would have had words.

          But he’d tak­en that from her, too, sneak­ing out the back door toward death. He left his fam­i­ly with noth­ing but a body to get rid of. He had a barn full of junk, an unruly plot of land, and no sav­ings for a funer­al. Her, Ulyssa, and Twila were left to cov­er much of their mother’s health­care. Geor­gia and her sis­ters decid­ed on cre­ma­tion. Her moth­er didn’t protest, though she did ask whether they couldn’t put some of her life insur­ance toward his funer­al. Geor­gia told her she’d look into it, and she didn’t.

        Only a few of the fam­i­ly arrived for his inurn­ment: Geor­gia, her sis­ters and moth­er, and Ulyssa’s chil­dren. Ulyssa had made hers come, while Geor­gia had let her own chil­dren decide.

***

          “Do you want to come to Grampa’s funer­al?” My moth­er called me to ask.

          I had loose mem­o­ries of my grand­fa­ther, dis­joint­ed but hap­py ones. I was one of his first grand­chil­dren. He’d been a farmer and car­pen­ter, I knew. He had shown his work at some of the local fairs near where I grew up, I remem­ber. One of my ear­li­er mem­o­ries involved him. 

          When my moth­er was hav­ing my baby broth­er, Dad at the hos­pi­tal with her, Gram­pa and Gram­ma came to babysit us. Gram­pa took us out for a stroll, walk­ing down our dri­ve­way until we got near the lake, answer­ing ques­tions from my broth­ers and sis­ter and me about child­birth. Then I saw the geese and pulled Gram­pa back with my lit­tle hand.

          “No, Gram­pa!” I told him. “Geese are awful. They always chase me.”

          “Annie, dearie, look closer.”

          He put me on his shoulders—Grampa still took care of a small farm, his body sinewy and tough—and from his shoul­ders I could see the geese a lit­tle eas­i­er. They seemed less threat­en­ing. I real­ized they were hud­dled around a nest full of cheep­ing goslings.

          “Fam­i­ly always looks out for its own,” he’d told me when he gave it to me. “Did I ever tell you about the time I got into a star­ing match with a goose in my toma­to garden …”

          And look­ing back now I can see where my moth­er had got­ten her tal­ent for weav­ing sto­ries. Gram­pa did voic­es, spread his hands wide, and con­stant­ly winked while telling his sto­ries, so much you weren’t sure how much he was fab­ri­cat­ing, whether it even mat­tered, his sto­ries were always that good. He would tick­le me and make me laugh, and I remem­ber now—it’s so obvi­ous to me now, the mem­o­ry like an opti­cal illu­sion, where your eyes final­ly see the trick and you can’t unsee it once you do. I remem­ber that Mom would always decide then that she need­ed to tuck my shirt in more, or comb my hair, has­ten­ing Gram­pa to end his sto­ry. I had liked Gram­pa, back then, and years lat­er when my moth­er told me about her father, I found it unset­tling to square my Gram­pa and her father as one and the same.

          “I wish I could,” I told my moth­er over the phone, “but we have this big fundrais­er com­ing up at my work, and I can’t take time off for it. Could I send a card instead?”

          “That’d be fine. I’m sor­ry you’ll be busy,” she said, not push­ing the mat­ter fur­ther. When I put down my phone, I couldn’t help look­ing to my wall, where a vio­lin hung. My welling grief pricked of hot shame.

***

          But Ulyssa’s chil­dren did attend the funer­al. They all took time off, each of them flew in, every one of them suc­cess­ful, at least by rudi­men­ta­ry mea­sures. One of them worked as an inter­na­tion­al con­sul­tant for tech com­pa­nies. Anoth­er worked for a law firm in Chica­go, had recent­ly scored a clerk­ship with a dis­trict court judge. The third had mar­ried an indie filmmaker—cineaste auteur, as he called him­self over Thanks­giv­ing dinner—after his first divorce. Each of them eulo­gized their Gram­pa, and Ulyssa cried. Geor­gia did, too, though not as much.

          Back at her mother’s house, in the liv­ing room where they’d always held hol­i­day par­ties, Geor­gia passed along a tray of pigs in a blan­ket, not par­tic­u­lar­ly hun­gry. Ulyssa’s chil­dren excused them­selves with their jobs and fam­i­lies, and Gram­ma announced she was exhaust­ed and turned in for her after­noon nap, leav­ing the three sis­ters to clean up the food they’d put out.

          “Mom can come live with me,” Ulyssa said. “She’s always want­ed to live in the city, and Dick and I have more than enough space now that Nash has his own place.”

          “That sounds fine to me,” Twila said. “Why don’t we all go out to McFee’s? It’s been a day; let’s go let off steam.”

          She just want­ed a drink, Geor­gia knew, though nei­ther Geor­gia nor Ulyssa could under­stand how Twila could even stand the smell of alco­hol. Rather than say any­thing, Geor­gia got up and col­lect­ed everyone’s plates to wash them in the sink, not wish­ing to stay in the liv­ing room any longer. She knew Ulyssa was right.

          The next week, Geor­gia sat in her car, clean­ing cad­dy in the pas­sen­ger seat, lock­ing her eyes on the front door to her mother’s home, pro­ject­ing her wor­ries and angers onto its pan­eled face. It was fun­ny how much eas­i­er sit­ting still became, the more she aged. An hour, two hours, four, ten, a hun­dred: how­ev­er long she sat didn’t mat­ter much. Her mind was over­flow­ing with thoughts now, and she was grate­ful for any time she got to rest and relin­quish them. She’d unscrew the cap to them, pour them out on the ground, feed the grass with them, pol­lute the riv­er with them, toss them care­less­ly out an open win­dow. She refused to hoard them, like her moth­er. Some thoughts were non­sense, some unpleas­ant, some repet­i­tive. At times, she might wet her hands with a thought and mark a tree, curse it for­ev­er, no mat­ter, she would do it. What­ev­er it took, to free a thought of its words, dis­solve it into some sense­less state she no longer had to deal with.

          Her thoughts crys­tal­ized and meta­mor­phosed, and Geor­gia shook her head to send them fly­ing away. She climbed out of her van and entered the house.

          Inside she found Ulyssa, stand­ing in the cor­ner, exam­in­ing a por­trait of their moth­er with her sis­ter and broth­er, in front of their old home in Ken­tucky. Ulyssa held it in her hand, exam­in­ing every cor­ner of it. She wasn’t dust­ing it, wasn’t check­ing the frame for loose screws, and when she hung it back up it was slight­ly askew. Ulyssa wouldn’t be able to spot askew things, of course, Geor­gia thought. Her work at the con­sul­tan­cy firm filled her head so much she couldn’t remem­ber how to man­age her own home, which is why Geor­gia was there every week, to clean out the oven, scrub out the dish­wash­er, step into the dark cor­ners of homes few oth­ers would think of when there, and with time spent so long in such cor­ners. Geor­gia knew how clean­ing a home could reveal it to be a fam­i­ly archaeology.

          “Didn’t think you were com­ing today.”

          Ulyssa smiled at her old­er sis­ter, and the two embraced.

          “I took a per­son­al day,” Ulyssa said. “Got some work done early.”

          In their mother’s room, their moth­er lay in her bed, threw a weak smile at her daugh­ters. Grand­ma wasn’t sick, but rather tired. Geor­gia imag­ined the mat­tress call­ing to her, embrac­ing her, encour­ag­ing her to lie still, sink. 

          “There’s no need to clean,” their moth­er said, like she always did, since Geor­gia had been a child. “I’ll get to it later.”

          When their moth­er fell asleep, Geor­gia start­ed sweep­ing the kitchen of crumbs and chas­ing the ants away, while Ulyssa retched and retreat­ed to the liv­ing room to pore over their mother’s med­ical records. Ulyssa had always been book­ish that way, Geor­gia recalled, com­fort­able in her bed­room get­ting lost in her fan­ta­sy nov­els, or the Bible. Geor­gia won­dered if she, too, would have been book­ish, had she not been sad­dled with chores. Their moth­er had tried to get Ulyssa to han­dle the laun­dry, at least, but Ulyssa proved so for­get­ful that their moth­er quit ask­ing and went to bed instead.

          “Do you think we did it right?” Ulyssa called out from the silence.

          “Did what right?”

          “His funeral.”

          Geor­gia swept the last of the debris and emp­tied it into the trash can, refus­ing to notice the spare crumb or two under­neath the bot­tom cab­i­nets. Clean­ing was nev­er over. She sim­ply tam­pered and fend­ed off every room’s unend­ing yearn­ing to rot back into the dirt.

          “It was what he deserved.”

          Their phones rang, Twila tex­ting them to ask how the clean­ing was going. Ulyssa thumbed a response before slid­ing her smart­phone back into her purse, scan­ning the bills from the nurs­ing home for incon­sis­ten­cies, Geor­gia figured.

          “Would you be mad if I said I miss him?”

          “No,” Geor­gia lied. She knew Ulyssa could tell. They both remem­bered what he’d been like. Yet, despite that their father had soft­ened over the years and giv­en Ulyssa an eas­i­er child­hood, despite their diver­gent paths in adult­hood, despite how she envied and maligned them under her breath, Geor­gia would not deny her sis­ters their grief.

***

          “Why don’t you spend more time with your sis­ter?” Mom used to egg my lit­tle sis­ter and me. We would throw each oth­er shrugs then go back to our rooms, Jen­na talk­ing with her friends over the cord­ed phone we still had, me prac­tic­ing the vio­lin. One Fri­day, Mom quit ask­ing and sent us both out to get bags of ice from the gro­cery store. She gave us fifty dol­lars and remind­ed us about the JCPen­ney in the town square. We tried to bring up that we had plans.

          “Can­cel your plans,” she told us. “You need new clothes, the both of you, and those fifty dol­lars are your allowance.”

          We didn’t get an allowance, typ­i­cal­ly, so we sul­len­ly let our friends know, me call­ing them and Jen­na log­ging onto the fam­i­ly com­put­er to mes­sage them—calling on the phone is lame, she loved to tell Mom and me. I drove us both downtown.

          At the JCPen­ney, we flicked through the racks, most of the clothes we liked priced well into the for­ties and fifties, more than Mom had fig­ured. We could either each get some under­gar­ments or a few t‑shirts. Jen­na groaned.

        “All the clothes here are lame,” she said from the oth­er side of the dis­count rack. “Per­fect for you. Buy your­self a lame out­fit. Just tell Mom we had a won­der­ful time and told each oth­er our secret crush­es or whatever.”

          “Who is your secret crush?”

          “No one.”

          “You sure it’s not Cory Anheuser?”

          “What?” Jen­na squeaked.

          “You for­got to log out. Saw some mes­sages that would get you grounded …”

          “He’s just a friend.” She blushed. “Mind your own business.”

          I poked Jen­na through the rack, mak­ing her jump. While I laughed, she unracked a pair of ripped jeans and threw them at me, and I retal­i­at­ed, both of us rel­ish­ing this oppor­tu­ni­ty. Mom nev­er let us brawl at home; she yelled for us to keep it down, that we were giv­ing her a headache. Jen­na threw one shirt too far and pelt­ed anoth­er cus­tomer, who scowled and told an asso­ciate. The asso­ciate came by to tell us we would have to leave, berat­ing us to learn some man­ners before we could shop at JCPenney’s again. We exit­ed in snick­ers, and out­side I showed Jen­na the shirt I’d shoplifted.

          “Didn’t know you had it in you, nerd,” my sis­ter punched me. “But ugh, the goose shirt? You would pick the lamest one, throw that in the trash.”

          “It reminds me of Grampa’s sto­ry about the geese,” I said. “I’m get­ting a goose tat­too on my shoul­der one day. A goose play­ing a vio­lin, and under­neath it the words, Did I ever tell you the one …Like what Gram­pa always says.”

          “You can’t do that. Mom will kill you.”

          “No, she wouldn’t, she has a tattoo.”

          “Not the tat­too, idiot. She hates Grampa.”

          “What?”

          I stopped, and Jen­na stopped, too, like I was anchor­ing her in place. What she said didn’t make sense, like she’d told me the sky was green.

          “She hates him. Duh.”

          “No, she doesn’t. He’s her dad. He annoys her, sure, but she can’t hate him.”

          “She does, though.”

          “How do you know?”

          “It’s obvi­ous. She always shoots Gram­pa glares, and not like her usu­al glares, but mean glares, like when that guy cat­called you and me at the mall and she cussed him out. She shoots Gram­pa the same kind of glare, and she always grabs my shoul­der before she lets me hug him. Doesn’t she grab at you, too?”

          “That’s ridicu­lous. Why would she take us to his and Gramma’s every Christmas?”

          “I don’t know. Appearances.”

          “You’re stu­pid,” I said. “You’re a child. You don’t know what you’re talk­ing about.”

          Jen­na gri­maced and turned back toward the car, leav­ing the dis­cus­sion flat. We drove all the way back home in our usu­al silence, bag of ice in the back shim­mer­ing. When we got back, Jen­na went to her room, and I told Mom we’d had a won­der­ful time, that we’d learned a lot about each oth­er. Mom was hap­py, until in the com­ing weeks when she noticed us pass­ing each oth­er silent­ly in the hall­way again. I could feel her watch­ing my back.

        “You’re ground­ed,” she told me dri­ly one day. “I’ve told you to clean your room a thou­sand times, sick of pick­ing up after you.”

          “I was lit­er­al­ly going to do it tonight!” I yelled back.

          “Do it now.”

          The next Christ­mas, I couldn’t shake what my sis­ter had said. I close­ly watched my grand­fa­ther, dressed up in a San­ta hat and suit, as he roamed around, giv­ing all my lit­tle cousins hugs, presents, and stories.

          “Hi there, Annie Dearie,” Gram­pa laughed when he approached me, and my mem­o­ry nev­er burned hot­ter than when my mom’s fin­gers dug into my palm, leav­ing deep imprints before let­ting go.

          Gram­pa held out a gift to me, watch­ing me unwrap it with that San­ta Claus twin­kle he could muster. It was a vio­lin, one with birds carved into the tail­piece, one he’d made him­self. “Give ‘ole San­ta a hug.” 

          “Tell Gram­pa thanks, Anna,” Mom said, and I hugged Gram­pa. The cozy warmth I used to feel so eas­i­ly around him felt too hot, almost des­per­ate. I resent­ed my sis­ter for her words.

          “Thank you,” I told him, and he winked at me. I watched the whole par­ty and real­ized he and Mom rarely spoke direct­ly to each oth­er, real­ly only through my sib­lings and I. Mom spent most of the par­ty in the kitchen with Gram­ma, or her sis­ters. I saw Jen­na busy with her new disc play­er, and I thought I caught a smug smirk on her down­turned face.

          Every Christ­mas after, I couldn’t help star­ing at the accent wall at moments, feel­ing the past alight on my shoul­ders, dig­ging its talons in, draw­ing blood.

***

          Some long time after her father’s funer­al, alone at her mother’s house, halfway through giv­ing the liv­ing room a quick dust­ing, Geor­gia paused to exam­ine the accent wall. She must have seen it a thou­sand times, the book­shelves dot­ted with plants and col­lec­tions of strange books: a pho­to album of old gas sta­tions, yel­lowed pen­ny dread­fuls, mis­shapen pur­chas­es from a local book­mo­bile. But she thought of the news she’d seen ear­li­er. Israel and Pales­tine, old ten­sions flar­ing up into bombs and bul­lets, why his­to­ry could nev­er rest in peace, she didn’t know.

          She remem­bered a pho­to of the sole pink crib among the wreck­age, and then she imag­ined this wall, also cracked and splin­tered. She imag­ined her old dolls behead­ed and ampu­tat­ed, their stuff­ing splat­tered across the lawn. The high­way out­side fis­sured, blast­ed, sunken under the weight of war. Her old high school bell bot­toms and turtle­necks, untouched among the smell of burn­ing cloth and poly­ester poi­son­ing the air. The insan­i­ty of it all.

          “Mom,” she called to her moth­er, “Did you see the news about Pales­tine and Israel?”

          “What news?”

          “The mis­sile strikes.”

          “There was a mis­sile strike? Where?” Gram­ma walked into the room, look­ing about it fear­ful­ly. Mom—Georgia sighed.

          “Nev­er mind.”

          She set about tak­ing the books off, final­ly giv­ing them a long over­due dust­ing. Her moth­er set­tled into the old reclin­er in the cor­ner, the wide one with the lamp hang­ing over it. Geor­gia had always thought all the fur­ni­ture in this house gave too much. None of it was firm; sit­ting any­where in the house was as if a sink­hole threat­ened to swal­low her up.

          “Israel and Pales­tine. They’ve always been at war,” her mom said, “as long as I can remem­ber. Gram­pa used to joke that they could set­tle their fights with corn­hole and a tobac­co pipe to pass around.”

          “Sure,” Geor­gia said. She couldn’t imag­ine her father paci­fy­ing any­one, and she wished her moth­er would quit call­ing him Gram­pa around her.

          “I miss him.”

          The books on the top shelf were coat­ed in dust, and Geor­gia leaned up to wipe their spines off, one by one.

          “It was heart­break­ing to see you cry, Geor­gia,” her moth­er con­tin­ued. “I know you and he had dif­fer­ences, but he loved you in his own way.”

          “I wasn’t cry­ing for him. I would nev­er shed a tear over him.” 

          Her moth­er recoiled from Geor­gia, like she was a snake, and it angered her so much, that her moth­er could despise her for this, but she wouldn’t pre­tend noth­ing had been swept under the car­pet. She wouldn’t let her feel­ings go to the grave with her father.  She did know why it couldn’t rest.

          “You both act­ed like it’s Ernie’s fault he drank him­self to death, but what Dad did to us—to him!—followed him. Admit it, you know it.” Geor­gia shot her moth­er a look of revul­sion. “And you stayed mar­ried to him, all these years. You made me let him walk me down the aisle. You made my chil­dren meet him every holiday.”

          “Geor­gia,” her moth­er ceased being a grand­moth­er. Time rolled back, and Geor­gia was a teenag­er, her moth­er try­ing to cow her. “Your father did his best. Farm­ing was thank­less work, and you and your broth­er were hard­ly angels. Ernie always stayed out late at the riv­er with friends, and he crashed the trac­tor. The cost of repairs and lost crops set us back for months. And you, screw­ing that hip­pie every week­end, for God’s sake he could have knocked you up—”

          “You sad­dled us with all the chores while Ulyssa and Twila did jack shit around the house, of course we act­ed out. That doesn’t excuse—”

          “I don’t want to hear this.”

          Her moth­er walked down the hall, stonewalling any fur­ther con­ver­sa­tion. Georgia’s anger shook through all her bones, and she wrung her dust rag as if break­ing a neck, before she stormed out of the house. Furi­ous that her moth­er still act­ed that way, that she couldn’t roll time for­ward to the present. She wasn’t a child anymore.

          Nei­ther was I.

***

          “I’m sor­ry!” I tried to say, for the thou­sandth time in that house­hold, felt like, when I was ten.

          “Drop­ping your baby broth­er on his head, how care­less could you be?” My moth­er snapped at me, tow­er­ing over me in rage as she held my sob­bing baby broth­er, the third of my younger broth­ers. “You could have hurt him, could have caused head trau­ma. I hope you’re nev­er a mother.”

          I said some­thing back to her, but I don’t remem­ber the rest. Nev­er a moth­er. Never.

          She told me to go to my room, and I oblig­ed her, while she tend­ed to Nathan, feel­ing his head for bumps and bruis­es, hold­ing him and bounc­ing him while he squalled.

          She did apol­o­gize, lat­er that night. Or, she apol­o­gized in her own way. She told me she had trou­ble rein­ing her words in some­times, that she didn’t mean half of what she meant, she was just vent­ing. She said she was sure I could be a won­der­ful moth­er, if I want­ed. I told her it was okay, that I knew she didn’t mean it.

          “So why can’t I for­get it?” I told my ther­a­pist two decades lat­er. “Nathan turned out fine. It’s just, when he had a speech delay, or when he kept get­ting lost in the store when we went with Mom, I thought … I couldn’t help think­ing it was because I dropped him. That I cracked his head like an egg.”

          That sto­ry, like a switch, made me cry every time I told it to myself. I was so used to blam­ing myself for what hap­pened to oth­er peo­ple, I told my ther­a­pist, like I was con­stant­ly fail­ing them.

          My ther­a­pist would wait, offer me a tis­sue, and once more tell me, with unbe­liev­able patience, that I’d been the child, not the par­ent. I wasn’t to blame. She’d remind me that my moth­er, too, couldn’t help revert­ing to child­hood, some­times. We all cling to these old pat­terns we learned, despite our best efforts, she said. She tried to say it, over and over again, like she was call­ing out to me as I let a storm blow me every which way.

          “You’re right,” I’d tell her, before we start­ed our breath­ing exer­cis­es. And I would cling to what my ther­a­pist said, for as long as I could, while ward­ing off those deeply root­ed rots, threat­en­ing to sup­plant every kind word ever spo­ken to me.

          Bruis­es, lash­ings, break­ing, curs­es, regrets.

***

          Bruis­es, lash­ings, break­ing, curs­es, regrets.

          I pic­ture lash­ings. Belt­ings. Beer bot­tles break­ing. The scenes I’ve seen on TV, the sounds I’ve heard over pod­casts, the scarce hints my moth­er gave me—I stitch them, com­pos­ite them, con­coct them, into what I imag­ined hap­pened to my mother.

          I pic­ture Gram­pa, not as a grand­fa­ther but a father, few­er wrin­kles but stained with dirt on his brow, his face nev­er smil­ing. I pic­ture his hands cal­loused from the fields, his legs threat­en­ing to buck­le under­neath him, his skin burn­ing with the heat of the sun. I pic­ture him walk­ing back to the house and see­ing his truck’s bumper dent­ed, damaged—why, he could eas­i­ly guess. I pic­ture him think­ing of his own child­hood, what his par­ents had said to him, done to him, and what their par­ents had said to him, and so on and so forth, words, ges­tures, par­ent­ing reach­ing back through the ages.

          I pic­ture him growl­ing, then hear­ing through the win­dow his old­est jab­ber­ing over her phone, his son pick­ing at a gui­tar, his two lit­tlest scream­ing at each oth­er in the back­yard. All of them so fuck­ing loud.

          I can nev­er fol­low him inside.

***

          It was some time before I told her, years after my moth­er con­fessed her child­hood to me. I didn’t tell her through a call but a vis­it, my first since Grampa’s funer­al. She was shar­ing with me, late one night over the kitchen table, how the funer­al went. A quick and qui­et affair. A few things Ulyssa and her chil­dren had said. Some food they shared at Gramma’s. Mom talked about the pigs in the blan­ket that were passed around, describ­ing them in ful­some detail. How good they tast­ed, how she hadn’t had any in years, how Twila had added a strange pick­le rel­ish to them that some­how worked.

          “She’s real­ly learned some­thing from those cook­ing class­es, I sup­pose,” Mom told me. “Maybe I’ll take her up on her invi­ta­tion sometime.”

          She stared at the table for a bit before pick­ing up her book, lick­ing her fin­ger and turn­ing the page. How eas­i­ly she could enter a book, as the TV news blared mute beside us. I remained at the table with her, until I aired what I’d come home to say.

          “Mom.”

          She looked up from her book.

          “I’m sor­ry Gram­pa hurt you,” I told her. “I can’t imag­ine how you car­ried that all this time.”

          Like how “I love you” car­ries so many mean­ings and con­no­ta­tions, “I’m sor­ry” does, too. This wasn’t one of my usu­al apolo­gies. Not the polite ones I told strangers I bumped, nor the frus­trat­ed ones I told my ex-boyfriend for for­get­ting he was cel­e­brat­ing May 4th with his friends,  when I asked him to pick up some milk and but­ter, nor even the guilt-rid­den one I told my friend when she told me not to ask her to touch her hair,.

          No. I didn’t say this sor­ry out of man­ners. This sor­ry was the one you screwed up courage for.

          In the sec­onds after, Mom took a sharp breath before piv­ot­ing. She told me it was noth­ing, I shouldn’t both­er myself over it. It was years ago, old his­to­ry. She start­ed a sto­ry about Twila and Ulyssa com­ing over for East­er, bring­ing their grand­chil­dren for a play date with Ned. Gram­ma would come, too, wouldn’t that be some­thing, four gen­er­a­tions in one house­hold, a small mir­a­cle. Mom said every­thing but what I want­ed her to say. She didn’t say how much it meant to her, that I rec­og­nized her pain.

          And she didn’t, as my heart of hearts want­ed, in turn say sor­ry to me.

          But I think I’ll always be dis­ap­point­ed by my moth­er, that way, if I pic­ture her as nobody but my moth­er. So, I tell myself the sto­ry of Geor­gia, as a balm for those wounds. Per­haps I could brave more ques­tions with her, rather than stitch­ing her sto­ry out of scraps, but I don’t wish to pry her open. She’ll always be my moth­er; the real Geor­gia is hers.

          I rose from my chair, telling my moth­er good night.

          “I love you, Mom.”

          “Good night, Anna.”

***

          I pic­ture my moth­er, unsure why she couldn’t return such a sen­ti­ment into three tidy words that night. Maybe the con­fines of those words angered her. Of course she loved me. She would throw her­self in front of a car for me, for all her chil­dren. The end­less root­ing for pock­ets of cash, the slights she and her hus­band suf­fered end­less­ly at their jobs, the back pain they’d endured, the surg­eries they’d put off, vaca­tions can­celled, dreams dis­in­te­grat­ed … When she thought of the pay­less work she’d done, the weeds he’d hacked and toi­lets he’d scrubbed, she want­ed to think of how they’d toiled to do bet­ter by their chil­dren, her and Tim both. But my mother’s imag­i­na­tion could trick her.

          She some­times thought of my father, her hus­band, hack­ing weeds by the creek, his back to her, and when the man turned around, she saw her father, my grand­fa­ther. My moth­er Geor­gia would yelp, angry with her­self. Why would her mind play this trick on her? she’d ask, in a cru­ci­fy­ing tone. Tim was qui­et, sen­si­tive, fac­tu­al. He didn’t rise to her lev­el in her angri­er moments, because he knew she’d inher­it­ed the worst thing from her father, a tem­per she failed to rein in most days, so why, why, why would her mind do this to her, what was it try­ing to tell her, and she couldn’t help smack­ing her head with her book before head­ing to the liv­ing room to read from it, some emp­ty-head­ed mys­tery she fig­ured out halfway through, bad­ly edit­ed copy she couldn’t help ink­ing over, some inan­i­mate object she could poke and prod with­out any guilt over the consequences.

***

          My moth­er was right about what life was like, among many things. Life was long. Life was repet­i­tive. Life was chas­ing after mon­ey you’d nev­er have enough of, work­ing jobs you’d grow to hate just to get more of it. Life was geese mak­ing you late for work.

          Even in the city, per­haps espe­cial­ly so, I see geese. The geese wad­dle around the grass strips between busy roads, haughty toward the human traf­fic honk­ing around them, beg­ging them to get on with their day. They trav­el in flocks, peck­ing the grass for worms, left­over food, what­ev­er suits their appetite. I see them con­stant­ly, and I usu­al­ly ignore them. All my mem­o­ries of them blur togeth­er. All but one.

          It was a hot August day. I was already run­ning late to work, impro­vis­ing a pre­sen­ta­tion about bud­get num­bers, idling before my office at the last traf­fic light, per­sis­tent­ly red. And just before it turned green, a goose and its fledg­ling began cross­ing the street in front of me. I almost slammed my horn with my fist before I looked clos­er and saw.

          The goose was rush­ing its child along, peck­ing at its lit­tle head with fury, like the poor thing couldn’t walk fast enough for its moth­er. The gosling ran and stum­bled, and the parent’s ire grew. It jabbed again, so sharply I touched my own head. I sat still, obliv­i­ous to the cars behind me. I was lost and out of body—what did it mean, what did it mean, what did I mean—my work for­got­ten, the time no more a num­ber on my dash­board but sum­mer grass, crick­et har­mo­ny, soft arms squeez­ing me.

          The geese dis­ap­peared behind the hedge, and I was late to work.

From the writer

:: Account ::

After my dad’s moth­er had passed away, we were tour­ing his fam­i­ly home­stead. There, he shared with my broth­ers and I all the chores he and his sib­lings woke up each day to do, what all the dif­fer­ent machin­ery was for, and the pranks and hijinks they inflict­ed on each oth­er. After I drove home, I sat with my mom at the kitchen table and told her I want­ed to record my dad nar­rat­ing his mem­o­ries, and I had the good sen­si­tiv­i­ty to offer her the same. She said she had no desire to revis­it her past, and that’s when she told me, for the first and only time.

That sum­mer, when my grandmother’s funer­al took place, the first sum­mer of COVID-19, I was part of a vir­tu­al work­shop that had formed dur­ing the pan­dem­ic. I lat­er found myself at a cof­fee shop try­ing to write a sto­ry for them to read, as good as the last one we’d read. Like many of my sto­ries, this one slipped out through my fin­gers, demand­ing to be told. I can tell I care about a sto­ry when the first draft pours out of me like molten gold, how­ev­er much tam­per­ing it needs lat­er in revision.

This semi­au­to­bi­o­graph­i­cal sto­ry is my way of explor­ing gen­er­a­tional trau­ma; it’s in no way non­fic­tion. I’ve nev­er asked my moth­er again about the vio­lence she suf­fered from her father, but fic­tion lets me make up answers to the inces­sant ques­tions I have, with­out both­er­ing my moth­er over it. I have my own com­pli­cat­ed mem­o­ries of my par­ents, and this sto­ry start­ed out with a pro­tag­o­nist like myself. Yet as I wrote, I grew inter­est­ed in the sto­ries and tri­als of eldest daugh­ters like my moth­er, and I changed the nar­ra­tor into one like my old­er sister.

My moth­er wouldn’t like me writ­ing this sto­ry, and like many writ­ers, I feared I was appro­pri­at­ing mate­r­i­al which wasn’t mine. Yet, I’ll put my name on this any­ways. I doubt many fam­i­lies appre­ci­ate hav­ing a writer amidst their ranks, but writ­ers have got to write. It’s my hope who­ev­er reads this sto­ry will say I’ve craft­ed it justly.

I’d like to acknowl­edge my fel­low writ­ers in my work­shop for chal­leng­ing me to write my very best, and I’d like to acknowl­edge my fam­i­ly, too, par­tic­u­lar­ly my old­er sis­ter and mother.

Brodie Gress is a gay writer based in Louisville, Ken­tucky. He has pub­lished fic­tion and poet­ry with Polaris, Chelsea Sta­tion Mag­a­zine, The Rotary Dial, The Rain­town Review, and Forces. He works as a tec­ni­cal writer at a med­ical dis­tri­b­u­tion facil­i­ty, and he for­mer­ly taught and tutored writ­ing and com­po­si­tion at the local com­mu­ni­ty col­lege. He is work­ing on a novel.

Fiction / Ben Briggs

:: Laugh Track ::

            I just need him gone.

            See­ing him makes me think about the girl. I don’t want to think about the girl.

            I brought it up to my ther­a­pist, Emi­ly, and she agreed. It’s my per­son­al space. It’s my home. The week­end was one thing. Now it’s Sun­day night. Now I need him gone.

            He’s watch­ing Sein­feld in my liv­ing room, still drink­ing beer, still not using a coast­er even though I encour­aged him to use one. I don’t care that he’s my cousin. I don’t care that he’s try­ing to help me. I like to read on Sun­day nights so I can get my mind ready for work in the morning.

            Even from my room I’m unable to do this because he has the vol­ume turned above 40 on the TV. It sounds like it’s at lev­el 45. I put down my copy of The Dance with Anger and walk back into the liv­ing room so I can find out when he’s leaving.

            Adam’s lying down on my couch as if he owns it. The shreds in his jeans were cool when we were kids, but he’s thir­ty now. And his hair? Christ. I would tell him to cut it, but if he won’t lis­ten to me about using a coast­er, he cer­tain­ly won’t lis­ten to me about that.

            To think he’s a father.

            He has to move his feet, leav­ing only inch­es for me to sit down. Both hands are behind his head like he’s loung­ing on a hammock.

            “My guy,” Adam says. “You hid­ing in a cave back there? Thought we were gonna crush a cou­ple movies together.”

            I only par­tial­ly agreed to that. Nev­er actu­al­ly confirmed.

            “I have work tomor­row. I’m get­ting men­tal­ly prepared.”

            “Pssst. Feel you on that. The Scaries are no joke. I fig­ured I’d take a few days off myself. Too much going on at home, with all the remod­el­ing and Aria start­ing school.”

            It’s hard to con­cen­trate on what he’s say­ing because the vol­ume on the TV is so high.

            “Have you heard from Lil­lian yet?”

            This makes him sit up straight.

            “I was just gonna tell you. She’s gonna stay at her Dad’s for anoth­er cou­ple days. It’s good for them to get away.” He paus­es. “Any­way, cool if I crash here one more night? Con­struc­tion guys are gonna be at it in the morn­ing. Too much riff raff.”

            He again puts his hands behind his head and leans back on the couch.

            “I have work in the morning.”

            “It’s no stress on me. I know you’re get­ting back on the horse, and believe me, by the time you get home tomor­row, I’m gone. Promise you that.”

           I nod and take a deep breath. Inhale and exhale, just like I do in my ses­sions with Emi­ly. I feel my feet on the ground, my back press­ing against the couch. If he’s going to leave tomor­row, that should be okay.

            “Could you please keep the vol­ume to a minimum?”

            Adam looks at me with a sly grin. “It’s the least I can do.”

            As I walk back to my room, I can hear the laugh track play­ing on the TV. Before Emi­ly, I used to think the laugh track was about me. That these peo­ple were mock­ing me. Laugh­ing at me, not with me. Now I imag­ine it dif­fer­ent­ly. I imag­ine a group of peo­ple locked in a room with seat­belts on their chairs. All of a sud­den, a bright light shines in front of them. “LAUGH” the light tells them. So they laugh. They don’t know what they’re laugh­ing at, or about, but they do it any­way. Until it becomes a call­ing. A way of life for these peo­ple. They laugh and laugh until they can’t laugh anymore.

***

            I’m dri­ving to work and it’s raining.

            It’s very impor­tant I’m on time today, as it’s my first day back in over two months. After the inci­dent, Emi­ly rec­om­mend­ed I take time to decom­press. But it’s been too long.

            Very rarely does it rain in the Bay Area and I didn’t account for this. I’m going to be late because of it. Adam kept the vol­ume above 40 all night. At 1:13am, I went into the liv­ing room to tell him to turn the vol­ume down. Of course he was already sleep­ing. Of course he was. For­tu­nate­ly, he’ll be gone by the time I get back.

            The rain will make me late, but as Emi­ly says, that’s out of my con­trol. She tells me to height­en my sens­es when I’m stressed. So I start with the rain, know­ing I should appre­ci­ate the sound it makes against my wind­shield. It’s a pat­ter­ing sound. Rhyth­mic. It lets me absorb every­thing around me. I feel my feet on the ped­al of my Hon­da Civic. I feel my back against the leather chair. One hand on the wheel, the oth­er rest­ing on my lap. I can taste the banana I had this morn­ing. Deep breaths in. Deep breaths out. There are beau­ti­ful things in the world, real­ly. I just have to notice them.

            I see the cars around me as I merge off the high­way and into the city. There’s a cross­walk up ahead so I slow down. Com­muters are still out, even in the rain. Someone’s walk­ing very slow­ly through a cross­walk so I ease my breaks. They have rain boots on, a blue wind­break­er and a black umbrel­la. I see each step the per­son is tak­ing. Right. Left. Right. He’s about to pass my car so I put my foot back on the gas. My car starts to move for­ward, but then he slips. I slam on the breaks. Slips. He’s on his knees, try­ing to re-bal­ance. He slipped. No one pushed him. Slipped. I didn’t push him. My breaths are fast. Stop it. Deep breaths in, deep breaths out.

            The per­son gets up and waves at me for stop­ping. I fin­ish my com­mute to work.

***

            Even with the rain, I’m the first one in the office so I take a seat in my cube. My screens. I missed them. Breath­ing is easy here.

            When peo­ple ask what I do for a liv­ing, I tell them it will be too com­plex for them to under­stand. All they need to know is I’m at a com­pa­ny that val­ues me great­ly. It’s also a com­pa­ny I own, as I am a shareholder.

            My man­ag­er Angela tells me I’m on the fast track for promotion.

            I’m an Inven­to­ry Con­trol Ana­lyst now, and assum­ing my per­for­mance stays in line, which it will, I’ll become a Senior Inven­to­ry Con­trol Ana­lyst in two years. More plants, more dol­lars. After that, it would like­ly be anoth­er three years before I’m eli­gi­ble for anoth­er pro­mo­tion. But then, the pos­si­bil­i­ties are end­less. I could become an Inven­to­ry Con­trol Project Lead, or I could do a lat­er­al move and become a Senior Pro­duc­tion Con­trol Ana­lyst. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, the Senior Pro­duc­tion Con­trol Ana­lyst role has to line up with East Coast hours with our plant in Mass­a­chu­setts. So I’d either have to relo­cate to Mass­a­chu­setts or be at work by 5:00am each morn­ing. Nei­ther of which I’d be will­ing to do.

            After a few moments of check­ing email, Angela walks by and stands out­side my cube. My col­leagues are fil­ing in.

            “Well. Hel­lo there, Richard. Wel­come back.”

            Angela’s lean­ing against the wall with her left hand on her hip. I don’t know why she stands like that. She’s chew­ing baby blue gum, just like she always does. It match­es her baby blue dyed hair. When she chews, she looks like a dog gnaw­ing at a bone. Which is okay. I can acknowl­edge this, but not let it both­er me.

            But, even if it doesn’t both­er me, it does impact my per­for­mance. I don’t know how to address the issue because the cor­po­rate pol­i­cy states I should dis­cuss dis­tur­bances like this with my man­ag­er. I plan to re-read the pol­i­cy for a loop­hole one evening. Maybe tonight as Adam will be gone.

            “Thank you,” I say.

            She glances around and low­ers her voice. “Did you have any issues with HR, you know, get­ting paid or… Any­thing like that?”

            I have a lot of work to catch up on, and don’t have time for small talk.

            “Nope. All seamless.”

             Our team meet­ing starts in five min­utes which will derail my pro­duc­tiv­i­ty. She’s still stand­ing there though, smil­ing at me awkwardly.

            “I know you like your space, so I’ll leave you be. But remem­ber, my door’s always open if you ever want to talk about your… break, or any­thing real­ly. Hap­py to have our num­ber one work­er bee back.”

            I tight­en up for a sec­ond, but I have to keep my com­po­sure. I have to remem­ber com­ments like this come from a good place.

            “It’s great to be back,” I say.

            And it is. This is why, gum chew­ing aside, I like Angela. She real­izes the worth I pro­vide to the com­pa­ny. She can spot tal­ent a mile away.

***

            The team meet­ing was pointless.

            The more time I talk about what I do, the less time I can actu­al­ly do it. I’m back at my desk now. This is where all the mon­ey is saved. I open up my doc­u­ments and look at all the part num­bers. I imag­ine the dol­lar sav­ings I’ll be able to generate.

            I copy a part num­ber from Excel that’s no longer going to be pro­duced by our com­pa­ny and paste it into the Inven­to­ry Man­age­ment Sys­tem. I check the inven­to­ry lev­els in all of our plants. I have all the pow­er. 37 units on hand in Tecate, MX, 45 units on hand in Shang­hai, CN and 172 units on hand in Cham­paign, IL. I email the plan­ners for each facil­i­ty and inform them the parts are going to be dis­con­tin­ued. We won’t be mak­ing them any­more, so they need to bleed off the inven­to­ry. I’m doing good by the com­pa­ny. Brick by brick. Part by part. I repeat the process for the next part num­ber, and the next one, and the next one.

            Before I can blink it’s 5:42pm. I skipped lunch, it appears, but I for­give myself because it was such a pro­duc­tive day. My breaths were con­trolled. I was present and in the moment. Adam is gone now, so I’ll have my space. I can read, I can make din­ner. I can do what­ev­er I want.

***

            I’m in the hall­way of my unit, about to open the door when I hear noise from my kitchen. I must be hear­ing things. It’s impos­si­ble for me to be hear­ing noise from my kitchen as Adam is gone. But when I open the door, it hits me like a tidal wave. Clang­ing pots and pans, the siz­zling of bacon, eggs being bat­tered. Adam is mov­ing through­out the kitchen, play­ing music on his phone, lin­ing up plates and mak­ing a mess. He’s in the kitchen. He’s not gone.

            “Ricar­do! Wel­come back amigo.”

            He’s wear­ing an apron. I had it tucked away above the oven. He must have searched the whole kitchen. Each and every drawer.

            “What are you doing here?”

            “Your shelves are thin, my broth­er. For­tu­nate­ly a lit­tle break­fast for din­ner nev­er hurt any­one. Want any?”

            It’s a mess. Every­thing is a mess. Why is he not gone?

            “I thought you were leav­ing today.”

            “You won’t believe it,” he says, paus­ing his oper­a­tion. “Pow­ers out at our unit. Some­thing the con­trac­tors did. Maybe a snip where there shouldn’t have been a snip?” He laughs. “I’m no expert though.”

            He puts his hand up in mock defense, as if I would ever insin­u­ate him to be an expert in any­thing. I start to shake when I real­ize what this means. Not only is he not gone. He’s not leaving.

            “Wouldn’t our Mom’s love this? Just me and you, bunk­ing just like old times!” He grabs the skil­let and starts pour­ing eggs on his plate. “Say… Why don’t we just chat tonight? You could tell me about work, how you’re feeling…”

            I can tell he wants me to nod my head or to give him some sort of cue that it’s okay he’s still here. Like I can’t read through these lit­tle “check ins”. Like I don’t know he’s just the mer­ce­nary my fam­i­ly puts on the front line with me. Years ago they were more fre­quent. But it’s been a while.

            I feel like my body is frozen in time. Breath­ing is get­ting hard­er, and I real­ize it’s inevitable. The longer he’s here, the more I have to think about the girl.

            “All the stuff you’re doing with Emi­ly,” he says. “Seems pret­ty chill. I’m sure I could learn a trick or two myself.”

            “Great,” I blurt out.

            But I imme­di­ate­ly go to my room. I lay with my back on my bed and stare at the ceil­ing fan. The spin­ning usu­al­ly calms me. Should I call Emi­ly? I inhale. No, I can’t. Not right now. I exhale. I can’t let her down. Besides my fam­i­ly, who have no choice, it’s typ­i­cal­ly two min­utes before some­one becomes dis­in­ter­est­ed in me. They turn their head. They change the sub­ject. Emi­ly gives me fifty five min­utes. No mat­ter what.

            She deserves my best.

            For her to see me like this? Not com­posed? No. She was the only one that believed me. Of course the fam­i­ly didn’t. Why would they?

            But the girl. We talked at the social. The girl, with her tight jean jack­et. The girl, with her freck­les. She should have remembered.

            “Are you going to apol­o­gize now?” I said to her.

            I shouldn’t have said it like that, but I did. It was lat­er in the night. On the dock. It was fog­gy. It was crowd­ed. It was right before she slipped.

            She looked up, then back at her phone. Like I wasn’t there.

            “Hey,” I pressed. “What’s wrong with you?”

            How could she not have remem­bered? What hap­pened next was an acci­dent. I know I moved clos­er. Too close, prob­a­bly. But push her? No. I didn’t do that. I didn’t.

            The ceil­ing fan is giv­ing me clarity.

            Adam’s done this in the past. Stayed at my place, “kept” an eye on me. So why does it feel dif­fer­ent this time? Yes, his house is under con­struc­tion. Yes, Lillian’s par­ents don’t like him. Yes, he can be a job­less dead­beat. But maybe it’s some­thing more.

            Maybe this is all… A set up? Yes. That’s it. Adam sup­pos­ed­ly saw every­thing. Or so he claims. He was only ten feet away from us on the dock. Tops.

            But not only that night. A few days lat­er, when it was all set­tled, when the girl final­ly got “clar­i­ty” and false­ly accused me — Adam stepped in and talked to the police, to the girl’s fam­i­ly. I assumed he was help­ing me. But what if he was doing the oppo­site? A set up. How did I not think of that? A set up, yes. Is he try­ing to lure some­one here to trap me? It was only a mat­ter of time before some­one tried it. Something’s been off. That sly grin on his face. I know he’s work­ing with them.

            Stop it. Adam’s my cousin. Deep breath in. We were born in the same town. Deep breath out. The same month. Deep breath in. Our Moms would take us school shop­ping togeth­er. He helped me move in here when I couldn’t afford it myself. Deep breath out. He’s here to help me. Even if I just want to be alone.

            I grab a remote from my bed­side and turn up the ceil­ing fan pow­er. It spins faster, but I can still hear the TV vol­ume. It’s above 40. Prob­a­bly close to 50 now.

            Order. Clean­li­ness. Rules. Emi­ly told me to estab­lish them. They will calm me.

            I take more deep breaths and feel the oxy­gen flow through my body.

            No one’s accus­ing any­one of any­thing. But, if Adam is going to be here, in my home, I need to address the rules with him. If the house is order­ly, there won’t be any problems.

            I walk out of my bed­room and into the liv­ing room where he’s already stretched back onto the couch. He left his half-eat­en plate of bacon and eggs on the floor, not the side table where it should be. I pick up it up stare at the TV. It’s the Sein­feld episode where George, Jer­ry and Elaine are at the car deal­er­ship. Kramer is out test-dri­ving a car.

            I turn to Adam.

            “Okay, so a cou­ple rules if you’re going to be stay­ing here for a few more days. Over the week­end we were going out. Now it’s the week. Now I have work.”

            “Of course.” He perks up.

            The TV is blar­ing. George can’t get food out of the vend­ing machine. The laugh track plays. That laugh track.

            “Would it be okay? Could you just turn the vol­ume down?”

            Adam flips the vol­ume from lev­el 47 to 42.

            “So a cou­ple of rules.”

            George is yelling at the deal­er­ship own­er now. He’s demand­ing his mon­ey back from the vend­ing machine. More laugh tracks. LAUGH.

            “Actu­al­ly could you turn it off?”

            I see Adam try­ing to be patient with me. But I know he’s get­ting irri­tat­ed. He doesn’t respect my rules. Inhale, exhale.

            “Okay, so just a cou­ple rules. This is a pro-coast­er house­hold. I’ve put them on all the counter sur­faces for you to use. If you’re drink­ing beer, which you’ve been drink­ing a lot of, and I get it, it was the week­end, there’s no prob­lem there. But now… There’s only a few left. For those last few beers, it’s best to use a Koozie. Trash goes in the grey bin. Recy­cling in the blue bin. I try to recy­cle as much as I can to elim­i­nate trips to the garbage room. Appar­ent­ly, there are rats in the garbage room at night. I nev­er go in at night. From 7:00am to 3:00pm is fine in my expe­ri­ence. So if you’re mak­ing a trash run, that’s when you make it.”

            He nods his head a few times.

            “All clear?” I say. “Okay, one last thing. Dur­ing the week, I’m typ­i­cal­ly lights out by 9:30pm. 40 is the mag­ic num­ber for the TV vol­ume. You can watch TV all night as long as it doesn’t go over 40.”

            “All good bro.” Adam says. “Did you feel bet­ter being in the office?”

            I shouldn’t have agreed to talk­ing with him.

            “I always do.”

            “For sure, for sure. You men­tioned look­ing at num­bers relax­es you. How was all that?”

            Emi­ly is the only per­son I want to dis­cuss this with. Not Adam. Not now.

            “I’m going to read in my room. I’ll see you in the morning.”

            Emi­ly would be very sat­is­fied. Expec­ta­tions have been set. I made rules that every­one, myself includ­ed, can fol­low. I com­mu­ni­cat­ed calm­ly and effec­tive­ly. And now that I’ve made myself abun­dant­ly clear, there shouldn’t be any more issues.

***

            It’s Thurs­day now. Adam has re-pro­grammed the TV. The vol­ume says it’s at 34. I checked it. But it’s over 40. I know it is. The laugh track plays and plays and Adam joins in as well. He’s laugh­ing at the same pitch. It’s an end­less loop of laugh­ter that plays in my head. It won’t go away. It’s been three more days.

            I’m trapped in my room, where I’ve been trapped all week. There’s no sign of Lil­lian or Aria. Adam says Lil­lian is pick­ing him up tonight, and he’s leav­ing. But I don’t believe him. I’m run­ning on emp­ty. Every time he starts to fol­low one rule, he breaks three or four more. Rules I didn’t even know existed.

            On Tues­day he was singing in the show­er. Loud­ly. I could hear him from my bed­room. Singing in the show­er, that loud, is worse than the vol­ume being over 40. Then lat­er, he left the win­dow open all night. It’s an ice­box in here bro, he said Wednes­day morn­ing. I won­der why? And then last night, he fell asleep on the couch after order­ing deliv­ery. Some­one rang the door­bell. Three times. Past 10:00pm. I was already in bed, and not to men­tion the unit doesn’t allow vis­i­tors that late.

            Now I can hear the laugh track again.

            I look at the clock and see it’s past 7:00pm. It’s offi­cial­ly night­time. He knows the rules and he’s not fol­low­ing them. I open the door to my bed­room. His bags are packed. He’s real­ly play­ing the part, pre­tend­ing that he’s actu­al­ly going to leave.

            I’m pant­i­ng as I walk up to him on the couch and snatch the remote out of his hands.

            “It’s past 7:00pm. The vol­ume is over 40.”

            Of course it comes to this. After it hap­pened, after the girl slipped and fell four­teen feet and every­one was shout­ing and throw­ing her a life jack­et, and every­one was focus­ing on the girl and only the girl, Adam was look­ing straight at me. From the oth­er side of the dock. He wasn’t look­ing at her. He was already accus­ing me.

            “Easy my guy. Are you okay?”

            I’m more than okay. I final­ly understand.

            “It’s you. That’s why you’re here.”

            Final­ly, I can hear them. The sirens. They’re com­ing for me. They want­ed to lull me to sleep. It’s been two months since the girl slipped. Just enough time for me to final­ly become hap­py again. To get back to the job I love, to find some­one like Emi­ly who believes in me, and now it comes crash­ing down. The only good thing is that the laugh­ter is drowned out, but it’s replaced with the sirens which are get­ting clos­er. And loud­er. I’ll take the laugh­ter over this. Any­thing but this.

            “How long have you been plan­ning this?” I press.

            It’s his fault I was even there in the first place. His Mom’s dumb “social” gath­er­ing with her col­lege friends. An annu­al din­ner and cruise for the Beta Kap­pa class of 87. What a scam. I shouldn’t have let him drag me there.

            I was out­side the restau­rant, play­ing Tetris on my phone, when I met the girl.

            “Why are you out here by your­self?” she asked.

            When I told her I had work in the morn­ing, and that it was an impor­tant call, and my voice couldn’t be raspy, she rolled her eyes.

            “It’s not like you’re the CEO,” she said.

            “Well, I do own the com­pa­ny,” I said. “I’m a shareholder.”

            And then she laughed. Right at me. All night she was laugh­ing, walk­ing around the social, telling oth­er strangers how ridicu­lous I was for think­ing the truth. Laugh­ing. What if some­one there worked for my com­pa­ny? She had no right.

            I’m stand­ing firm­ly over Adam now, and that’s when I see the girl on the dock, back­ing away from me. Adam’s scared of me. Just like she was.

            “Hold on dude,” Adam says. “What are you talk­ing about?”

            The stu­pid grin is off his face. It’s about time. I knew he was up to something.

            “Answer the question.”

            “Easy bro.” He puts his hand up. “Can you back up just a little?”

            I take one step closer.

            “I let you into my house. And you treat me like this? I thought we were family.”

            There are more sirens. Fire-trucks too. The whole city is com­ing. There’s no crowd­ed dock this time. Just me and Adam.

            “Bro, we are fam­i­ly. Why don’t you sit down. Have you called Emily?”

            I clench both my fists and I’m shak­ing. He can see it and I don’t care.

            “How long have you been plan­ning this? When you called me to stay here, was this the plan all along? I bet it was! I’m sure Lil­lian and Aria are just laugh­ing their ass­es off. What about the police? What did they have to say about me?”

            His expres­sion flips again. He looks at me with clar­i­ty, like he’s final­ly going to spill it. That it’s all a set up. That he made a mistake.

            “You did it… Didn’t you?” He paus­es for a few sec­onds. “You pushed that girl off the dock.”

            My heart is rac­ing. The sirens are get­ting loud­er. They’ll be here any second.

            “No. She slipped. I didn’t push her.”

            I’m clos­er now to Adam. I could reach him if I want­ed to.

            He wags his fin­ger and stands up. “You know what? I don’t need this. Lillian’s gonna be here any minute. Here’s to think­ing you actu­al­ly want­ed my help.”

            “Wait. I didn’t push her.”

            “Yeah. Tell it to your shrink.” He grabs his bag and walks to the door. He’s shak­ing his head, refus­ing to look at me. “Fuck­ing lunatic,” he mutters.

            Once he leaves, I walk over to the win­dow and know I’ll see the police, the ambu­lance, the fire-depart­ment, every­one. They’re all here to arrest me for some­thing I didn’t do. But when I look out the win­dow, I see a car I recognize.

            It’s Lillian.

            She’s stand­ing out­side her car on the side­walk. Aria is in the back seat. Adam walks up to Lil­lian and whis­pers some­thing, which makes her look up at the win­dow. I duck and sit down on the floor now. They can’t see me. The laugh­ter is gone. The sirens are gone. So I close my eyes.

***

            But I open them back up imme­di­ate­ly. I can’t rest. I start pac­ing and feel it com­ing through me again. Like a lion, ready to pounce. My apart­ment is spin­ning and wind­ing in every direc­tion. I walk to the kitchen and grab a ham­mer. Do I hear the laugh track again? I don’t know. The breath­ing meth­ods, my rules – they’re all use­less. Espe­cial­ly to a piece of shit like me. A piece of shit that scared a girl off the side of a dock. I pick up my phone to call Emi­ly. My heart’s pound­ing so hard it hurts.

            “Richard,” Emi­ly answers. “Are you okay?”

            I’m dizzy. I can’t say it but know I need to. I’ll spend a whole life­time like this if I don’t.

            “It’s just… How come I’m not bet­ter?! You said I would be!”

            The line is silent. I’m grip­ping the ham­mer tight.

            “I admit it, okay?” I point my fin­ger at my chest “I scared her, and she slipped! But why? Why aren’t I fixed yet?”

            I glance out the win­dow. Adam and Lil­lian are gone. The police aren’t here. No one is. Emi­ly final­ly answers. “I want you to take a deep breath in.”

            So I do. I slouch on the wall and fall back to the floor. The ham­mer slips out of my hand.

            “Now take a deep breath out.”

            I do that too. Deep breaths in, deep breaths out.

            “This is a process,” she says. “A slow one. But you can’t give up now.”

            My breaths are slow­ing down. The room’s no longer spin­ning. I want to start every­thing over. Go back to that night and change it all. But I can’t.

            “Let’s do an exer­cise,” she says. “I want you to think of a time when you were hap­py. It doesn’t mat­ter when. Let’s go to that moment.”

            Hap­py? I can do that. Just one time. I close my eyes and think of how I’ll answer.

From the writer

:: Account ::