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 ::

Fiction / Oluseye Fakinlede

:: Something happened in Udanre :: 

1.

The day Tola Tubo­sun was down­sized was a Tues­day. The day before, he spent what he described as qual­i­ty time with the branch man­ag­er, whom he took as an Egbon. Wole Thomp­son, his Egbon by choice, had assured him not to wor­ry that day before. But on that Tues­day, he went berserk when he could not log into his por­tal, and sub­se­quent­ly was called into the HR office that he had some­thing wait­ing for him. Some­thing or a let­ter? He scoffed, as he wiped a tear trick­ling down his cheru­bic face with the back of his palms before drop­ping the inter­com, out­right­ly ignor­ing the pity faces of his col­leagues in the mar­ket­ing sec­tion, even that of Sub­o­mi who sprawled on his chair cast­ing rue­ful eyes on his friend. 

He had always had pre­sen­ti­ments about Tues­days, espe­cial­ly if an event, a promise, an inter­view, a meet­ing, a date, an appoint­ment, just name it, falls on that day. So, he was not sur­prised but wound­ed up sad despite the spir­i­tu­al for­ti­fi­ca­tions he had received from his moth­er when he told her about con­clu­sions at the bank for down­siz­ing that month after their branch had been debriefed three months ago due to the loss accrued, espe­cial­ly that of Mar­keters who were not meet­ing their targets.

 He also had per­son­al­ly prayed against the hunch he felt, a rea­son why he went to see Mr. Wole, because he feared the pos­si­bil­i­ty of being retrenched from the bank since the deci­sion was to be tak­en on a Tuesday.

 “Egbon”, why must the deci­sions be tak­en tomor­row, Tues­day? Ha, Tues­day, he roared. 

“Tola, well, some things are super­sti­tious. Besides, if you believe them, you fuel the fears. And I can assure you that it might just be a threat for us to sit tight,” He said rolling his big body over plac­ing his arm on his shoul­der, while he gen­tly part­ed his soaked blue shirt. He smiled, straight­ened his gray check­ered tie, and hurled him to get to work, and stop being a worrywart. 

Five years ago, Tola came to Lagos just like most Niger­ian youths after their Nation­al Youth Ser­vice Corp Pro­gram in search of a green­er pas­ture. And after being on sev­er­al jobs; he became a con­tract staff at Eagle’s Bank 3 months ago, and had been on pro­ba­tion since as well as three of his colleagues. 

In his case, he had come from Eki­ti State, Erin-Ije­sha Eki­ti, and attend­ed the Uni­ver­si­ty of Ado Eki­ti, where he stud­ied Busi­ness Admin­is­tra­tion, and served at Okig­we, in Imo State. Hav­ing had a rough slice of life, he resolved one morn­ing, telling his aged moth­er, and his sis­ter that he would be going to Lagos, to look for bet­ter oppor­tu­ni­ties as none was forth­com­ing in Eki­ti. He added that he would be stay­ing with Lekan, a guy he met dur­ing the NYSC, and who was the Home Cell Coor­di­na­tor of their lodge. His moth­er could not dis­suade him from trav­el­ing to Lagos, nor the thought of putting up with the Lekan whom he had not seen for three years. She said, peo­ple change and most times, they change from bad to worse. Yet, this fell on deaf ears. 

Short stay­ing with Lekan had its rough edges, yet, it was a pro­peller of the good things to come for him. At his house, he was clothed, fed, and nur­tured. Three months after they lived togeth­er, Tola’s moth­er had a change of thought that there was still good­ness in the depraved world. It was Lekan that shared with him the Bank’s link, just like he helped him secure a job as a Sec­re­tary at a Neo­life, just like he helped him sub­mit his CV with the Chi­nese shoe fac­to­ry that had a strict rule of strip­ping up to one pant before entry or exit. And when the real­i­ties of his dream job seemed to fall apart like a two-dol­lar suit­case, he knew he rather runs home to Lekan who had not only become a true friend but his bur­den bearer. 

 Like a drenched foul, he dragged his feet along the busy Ogba Street, took some cut inside Ifako-Ogba, till he got to Pen cin­e­ma Agege, and sat at the front seat of the Keke Maruwa, head­ing towards Abule Egba to the two-bed­room apart­ment he shared with Lekan. Noth­ing made sense to him now, he felt a com­plete empti­ness, and his own body vivid­ly sticks. Wob­bled through the stairs, as if count­ing their num­bers, gave a cold smile to their smil­ing neigh­bor who always had an opin­ion about every mat­ter, and ignored her ques­tion of why he was home so soon and began telling the tale of their soon-to-fin­ish pre­paid meter unit. He unlocked the door and col­lapsed on the couch like a sawed tree. 

He checked his buzzing phone, swiped delete at a pop-up mes­sage from his office Egbon, swiped down the screen, and clicked on flight mood after he reject­ed two incom­ing calls. It was on the couch he curled up, till he fell asleep, and was awok­en by Lekan who took his head on his lap, and lis­tened as he whim­pered telling him all that hap­pened over and over again. Lekan on the oth­er hand, part­ed his back gen­tly, assur­ing him that all would be well. 

In the fol­low­ing weeks dis­card­ing his sui­ci­dal thoughts, he casu­al­ly began writ­ing, to avoid slid­ing into depres­sion. He first began shar­ing dai­ly quotes on Twit­ter, then it blos­somed into the cre­ation of a blog where he for the very first time decid­ed to write about places, the epi­cure­an places in Lagos he had vis­it­ed when he still had enough, and luck­i­ly, he still had the pic­tures he took with his DSLR Canon cam­era he bought on Konga. 

He wrote about the Ele­gushi beach as he vis­it­ed there yes­ter­day, and wrote about the Whis­per­ing Badal­gry palms, and all oth­er places of inter­est. Lekan also tried to light­en his mood by offer­ing to do his month­ly sub­scrip­tion, and he also promised to foot the house rent, believ­ing that the soon­est he would refund he like had always done. 

You are a good writer o, Tola. Lekan said one night read­ing through some­thing on his phone from his room. 

That’s flat­tery. Tola replied from the kitchen, with a mouth­ful of citrus. 

I am seri­ous. Lekan paused, wheeled the cur­tain open, stick­ing out his head, and showed him his phone rapid­ly scrolling till he got to the end of a page he was reading. 

Hey, you have been read­ing my blog. Tola replied with a shy smile point­ing the cit­rus at him, like an invi­ta­tion to suck on it. 

Yes…

See, see these comments…

Wow, I have got 16 already? 

Not just that, you also have 22 in another. 

You need to go pro­fes­sion­al with this, and launch your blog… Hmmm, buy a domain. And always reply to these bud­ding read­ers of yours. This also means you have to pro­vide them with gen­uine con­tent all the time. Lekan said. 

Well, I know a friend that can help with the domain thing. He con­tin­ued, though it will cost some mon­ey. But that’s not a bother. 

Why are you always doing this Lekan? Drop­ping the sliced orange on a tray and stood affixed with his head tilt­ed to the back like a non­plussed child. 

Do not resist help bro, you have stood for me back then, dur­ing ser­vice year remem­ber? He wrapped his hands around him, con­tort­ed his lips, and made a smack­ing sound on his cheek. 

You can write about most tourist sites in West­ern Nige­ria, begin­ning from Eki­ti, since you lived all your life there and you told me that you have gone to some sites there. You can also write about Ondo State. 

Ha! That state, I have nev­er been there o. Tola interjected. 

No way! Then you must. They have nice places, for exam­ple, the Idanre hills. 

By the way, it is my State. And I am trav­el­ing in a few weeks to Owo, to see Mama. You should come along, and tour. 

Short­ly after the kind words from Lekan, and after read­ing a pletho­ra of com­ments on his entire 12 blog posts, Tola began to sense a new­ness of pur­pose thus tripling his writ­ing efforts. He would sit on their din­ing set that only had two sets of chairs for hours punch­ing the keys of his key­board till mid­night doing noth­ing but writ­ing and cre­at­ing new posts or re-edit­ing his writ­ing plans. And when­ev­er he felt a writer’s block, he would slouch on the wood­en chair after he had placed a pil­low on it and fell asleep. Most times, it was Lekan’s soft touch that woke him up, plac­ing a cof­fee on the table or at times, ask­ing him to go to bed to stretch properly. 

2.    

The set day arrived for the duo’s trip to Owo. The two friends packed their belong­ings inside sep­a­rate trav­el box­es and hit the road to Osho­di, where some Ondo State bus­es await­ed. They sat on the pas­sen­gers’ seats very close to the trib­al-faced dri­ver who con­sis­tent­ly and irri­ta­bly told Lekan to remove his thigh that curved like a female’s from the gear until the two end­ed up in a hot ver­bal exchange. 

On get­ting to Owo, they found a bike man that took them straight to the com­pound of Lekan, and his mom wel­comed his friend whom she had only spo­ken to on phone with Pound­ed yam and a bowl of steam­ing egusi soup pre­pared by one of the young girls that always attend­ed to her. And at night, she spoke about her desire for Lekan to get mar­ried soon because age and health were no longer on her side; I want to car­ry your child, like your oth­er sis­ters. She said, end­ing the dis­cus­sion with a 30 min­utes prayer ses­sion thank­ing God for health, jour­ney mer­cies, and peti­tion­ing his ears to soft­en the mind of her son and bring him his life partner

Tola and Lekan on the oth­er while they were alone, alone in the room, real­ly could not sleep but were starred bla­tant­ly on the moon peep­ing through the cur­tains, and then on each oth­er before they were knocked out by heavy snores.

After three days in Owo, Tola began to surf the net for tourist sites in Ondo, after he had toured major land­marks in Owo and had writ­ten about them. He felt the hunch to vis­it Idanre hills since it is about an hour’s dri­ve from Owo town. He told Lekan about his solo plans to Idanre as and he hoped to spend two days in Idanre. Lekan did not both­er to dis­suade his solo plan nor did he attempt to sug­gest being his trav­el bud­dy, as he was sad­dled with the respon­si­bil­i­ty of tak­ing care of his moth­er whose nurse had an ear­li­er morn­ing and after­noon appoint­ment, while he had promised to watch over her till the fol­low­ing week. 

On Mon­day morn­ing, he left Iyere Owo, in a red salon car sit­ting in the passenger’s seat, his favorite trav­el spot. The dri­ver of this car had all the sto­ries, but his eyes were fixed on the rub­ber semi-clad ecce homo that kept dan­gling its head all through the jour­ney, and no soon­er did they arrive at Akure, the Cap­i­tal City of Ondo State. 

Since it was the first time vis­it­ing the State, he did put sev­er­al calls to Lekan who kept send­ing him inter­mit­tent texts and voice notes on where to take the next cab and final­ly told him joc­u­lar­ly to ask any­body since it was not Lagos where peo­ple hard­ly talk to strangers. 

He soon found his way to Idanre Garage, and after wait­ing for about some min­utes, the car was filled. 

They got to Idanre town, and when they alight­ed he hailed a bike man who on the jour­ney to the tourist site, told him he was ini­tial­ly from the East­ern Part of Nige­ria but had since been liv­ing in the town after his NYSC because he nev­er want­ed to return home since noth­ing was wait­ing for him. Short­ly after he dropped him at the foot of the hills’ rusty gate, they both exchanged con­tacts with the promise to call and saved his name as “John Idanre”, and wait­ed to see him ride away. 

3.    

The sur­round­ings of the hill were quite a big one despite its signs of sheer aban­don­ment. There was a mini-open bar built like a gaze­bo hous­ing six plas­tic chairs that were placed dis­joint­ed­ly. Besides this bar, were two lit­tle boys wear­ing only briefs, pick­ing up plas­tic cov­ers and bot­tles under­neath a tree. They moved up, and down, mut­ter­ing some dialec­tal ver­sion of the Yoru­ba lan­guage. And when they raised their heads, like preys who felt the hunch of an approach­ing preda­tor, Tola moved for­ward to calm the children’s ner­vous­ness or anx­i­ety with a wave of hands, and they glad­ly returned a sim­i­lar ges­ture with their bot­tle trea­sures clenched fists. And as he walked towards a cir­cu­lar shaped build­ing in front of him, the lit­tlest boy who had a rosary around his chub­by neck and a wide grin on his cheeks, took small steps for­wards, while scratch­ing his groins with his clenched fist of plas­tic trea­sures, and con­tin­ued to grin until it fad­ed away. 

As he made his way into the cir­cu­lar thatched-roof build­ing, he cleared his throat that had become dried, call­ing out hel­lo before a man rose from a camp bed, yawn­ing, and asked him how he would love to be helped. 

Good after­noon, Tola checked his wrist­watch, paused, and resumed again the greet­ings. Good morn­ing, he said again, rais­ing his eyes and meet­ing this man with the rarest blue eye he had ever seen. 

The man stretched his body again, plac­ing an arm on the door frame, yawned now but with the cov­er­ing of his back palm, and retort­ed morn­ing.  

Tola con­tin­ued. I was won­der­ing whom I can talk to. I would like to tour the hills, and… inter­rupt­ed by the sleepy man who had now adjust­ed his shirts, and offered him a seat. 

Sor­ry bros, you know that body no is fire­wood, hence why I dey sleep. He said. 

“My name is Oba, he stretched forth his arm for a hand­shake. I will be the tour guide here and the bar man­ag­er. So, you said you wan tour the hill? Well, I am the per­son, you can talk to and the mon­ey varies depend­ing on what exact­ly you wan do for this hill.” He said with­out a pause. 

How much is to tour? Tola asked, flip­ping his pause open, and wait­ing on a reply before bring­ing what­ev­er charges he might be billed. 

Na shiki­ni mon­ey, na 1k! Oba said laughing… 

Oh, a thou­sand naira. Tola retort­ed like a reecho. 

But I would like to spend some days in Idanre, at least to have a con­crete write-up for my blog. By the way, I am Tola, a blog­ger. He said, stand­ing up and stretch­ing forth his hands in a phat­ic way to Oba who was smil­ing all through as he was speaking. 

Nice meet­ing you, Mr. Tola. I guess you came from Lagos, and be rest assured that you would have a nice short stay in Idanre, but spend­ing time on the hills would cost you more, and the chalets are not in good con­di­tion. Oba replied now, no longer speak­ing in Pid­gin English. 

Tola burst into a peal of ran­corous laugh­ter that made him look embar­rassed after­ward. He had to be stu­pe­fied by the stand­ing fig­ure who had sud­den­ly switched from a usu­al street man­ner­ism to some curtsies. 

Par­don me. I should nev­er have done that, he said stand­ing up and wear­ing an apolo­getic face. I was just amazed that a while ago, you were speak­ing some pid­gin, and nev­er could have thought that you have some pol­ish tongue for Eng­lish. He said, wait­ing for a response. 

Well, that’s just the error most west­ern Nige­ri­ans make. Too many assump­tions that every­body under­stands this Eng­lish thing, so they blare it on anyone’s face, and that is com­mon with those bank people. 

Oba replied. 

Bank peo­ple? Did you know I used to work in a bank? Tola asked in a sur­prised tone. 

Haha, I would have guessed right, your Eng­lish will give you away, he said flir­ta­tious­ly. Shall we pro­ceed, we have got 682 steps to climb Mr. Tola. 

Please drop the Mr. I am sim­ple Tola. 

Okay, sim­ple Tola. He said joc­u­lar­ly, and Tola raised his eye­brow in a shy way, too dazed for a reply. 

The two end­ed up chok­ing on laugh­ter as they pro­ceed­ed to the end of a small rock, and began their jour­ney to the ancient city climb­ing the hued stone steps. 

At each rest­ing point, Oba told him sev­er­al sto­ries about the hills, act­ed some one-man cast dra­ma, and helped him to car­ry his waist back, so he could get some good shots of the hills, land­scape, and some of the left build­ings on the hills. 

You know, I would have loved you to wit­ness the Oro­sun fes­ti­val com­ing up next week in Idanre, and for­tu­nate­ly, it is done on this hill. Oba said to break an awk­ward silence that seemed to be exceed­ing for too long. 

Real­ly? Tell me about the Oro­sun fes­ti­val. Tola replied elatedly. 

It is a tra­di­tion­al fes­ti­val, a fes­ti­val of requests like I like to call, where the god­dess Oro­sun grants requests, and the tes­ti­monies prove that the god­dess Oro­sun, answers heart cries. See, point­ing to some small huts aloof. Those are the huts the chiefs camp in days before the fes­ti­val. See, they have start­ed clear­ing the thick­ets… He said. 

They stopped inside the old palace, where unclad effi­gies stood. This is a palace court­yard. Oba said, sit­ting on a block, and motioned that he writes on the walls like many vis­i­tors on the hills. 

Ummh, Oba, Tola asked after a short pause, could you take me to the Oro­sun shrine on this hill? I feel I will have a request to ask the goddess. 

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, Oba Replied, the Oro­sun does not have a shrine on top of the hill, except the Aworo’s hut, the Orosun’s priest’s hut, where he prays that the peti­tions of Oso­los and any oth­er wor­shipers are grant­ed sits and per­forms the rituals. 

I feel that is all I need­ed, the Aworo’s spot, and what else? Tola asked. 

Some kola nuts, some gin, and a pure heart I sup­posed. Oba replied. 

The Oro­sun is pow­er­ful but does not answer any­one with anger or filth. He added. 

I have no resent­ment in my heart, well they have spurred me to where I am today, and for filth, what does Oro­sun see as filth? He asked slur­ring his ques­tions like one struck with a revelation. 

See bros, he switched to his jerk­ing pid­gin. I no be a wor­ship­per. Paused and raised his head, eyes affixed at him. But I think if I were a child­less god­dess that now answers requests from the mun­dane whose taunts were what drove me away in anger? I will be biased to con­sid­er only the inge­nu­ity of the requests com­ing from peo­ple whose inter­nal lives have been a mess, and those who seek hap­pi­ness because they may not find it. 

“I will take you to the priest hut, you go make your requests.” He stood up, dust­ing his buttocks. 

Where we can get those items? Tola asked as they moved away from the old palace sites. 

You might just be lucky to see them there. Oba replied with a chuckle. 

4.    

It was now mid-day when they returned to the huts belong­ing to the chiefs mov­ing in quick short quick steps and stopped at the hut belong­ing to the Aworo, the priest of Orosun. 

Well, we have got to your spot man, enter, and make your wish. Oba snickered.

You know I should charge you more for this, he said affec­tion­ate­ly, rest­ing an arm on his left shoulder. 

There was a strange qui­et between the two men, but Tola jerked his shoul­der free­ing him­self from the man’s touch, and gen­tly pushed the wood­en door which squealed giv­ing them a free entry. 

Inside the hut was a small alter hav­ing a mir­ror direct­ly fac­ing the entry point. Besides the mir­ror were dif­fer­ent effi­gies and a very unique one which was the biggest, hav­ing a shape of a woman with point­ed breasts. At the foot of this altar was a tied cock with a col­lapsed comb. On the wall were stains of ani­mal blood smeared the walls, aside from the emp­ty bot­tles of gin, and a pack of gins bot­tles placed on a small pes­tle. Beside the pes­tle, was a bas­ket full of kola nuts, cov­ered by a fold­ed cane mat. 

Clears throat… Oba final­ly said, it seems you have got all your items here, say your prayers as I am run­ning out of time to return to the bar. After this, the quiet­ness in the room was restored but was dis­turbed by the mut­ter­ings of Tola, who had now stooped down, bit­ing on a kola nut he had bro­ken, and pour­ing some gin on the head of the biggest effi­gy with point­ed breasts. As it pour the gin, the liq­uid trick­led down till a por­tion of it touched the breasts and it looked like a lactation. 

The scene befud­dled Oba, as he knelt too, broke a kola, poured some more gin, prayed aloud, let my emp­ty heart find love, and laughed. 

The rum­ble of the thun­der made them shud­der and like the clouds angri­ly poured down rain like bust­ed pipes. 

Was this a sign of an answered prayer? Tola asked.

I don’t know, I am only a tour guide here and not the Aworo. He laughed. 

The tor­rent of the wind, made the wood­en small win­dow flut­ter as if it would break. Tola stood up and pulled it clos­er to its hook. He picked up the mat, and laid it on the floor, while sprawl­ing on it, and buried his head in his thighs. 

The steps would be slip­pery now even if it stops ‘Oba inter­rupt­ing the silence that now hov­ered in the air. 

Sat close to him on the mat, shoul­der to shoul­der, and occa­sion­al­ly raps his shoul­der with his, until the two gave each oth­er a steal­ing glance. 

“You said you used to be a banker, how long have you worked here” were ques­tions from the duo like a knock wood. Then laugh­ter, and silence, and an awk­ward silence. They looked at each other’s eyes, and like indi­vid­u­als who had been pas­sion­ate­ly burn­ing and desirous, grasped each other’s heads, and began an in-depth con­sum­ma­tion of their lips. The two fell supine on the mat and were com­plete­ly over­pow­ered by this deep­est passion.

Ewo! Awon won leleyi (Abom­i­na­tion, who are these?) said a man stand­ing at the entrance with hands filled with all types of leafy things? 

Ha! Oba, you dey mad? You bring peo­ple to come here to defile this place?  Oke Udane ma ri aba mo e, roared in a dialec­tal sim­i­lar to what Tola heard from the chil­dren when he came in the morning. 

Oba clam­bered from the mat and head­ed to the door for a chase, but the stand­ing man floored him with a blow. The man called again, and two oth­er men, who were approach­ing ran inside the build­ing and got their ears filled with what they had seen. 

Aworo, must hear this, one said. 

Before nko. He needs to see what had become his hut, and what kind of sac­ri­lege is committed. 

Not even you, Oba. Aja! (Dog!) 

Where is Aworo, he should have been here, the rain must have inter­cept­ed his movement. 

Good, it is here we will wait for him. 

Please, Tola final­ly mus­tered the strength to plea for their lives. 

You sil­ly dog wey man dey touch touch for hill. 

5.    

It was evening, and the sun seemed to have cast its full­ness on the hills, long after the rain had stopped, and much longer after the men were caught. 

The men in some cor­ners, tak­ing turns to crack jokes, and a few times, taunt the caught men on who was play­ing the woman, and who was play­ing the man. At some points, the man that looked at the eldest, who had ini­tial­ly seen them, smack their heads and whip them with the leafy cut branch he car­ried. Then they heard a whis­tle, a famil­iar one, and as it drew near­er, they stood up from their makeshift seats, stoop­ing to wel­come the Aworo, who had come to super­vise the men who were on the hills to pre­pare the huts and clear the vicin­i­ty with the for the forth­com­ing fes­ti­val ritual. 

Ba le o, greet­ing the aworo. 

Enh, he jerked his head up motion­ing to why Oba , and the oth­er man were sweaty and ter­ri­fied on the floor.

E ba, .. na so we see am. Wetin we see, we no fit talk. 

Na Oga Ajayi here catch them o. they were togeth­er, and about to, cupped his left-hand fin­gers and at inter­val thrust his right mid­dle finger. 

Oba, na true? Aworo queried? 

Ha, bami… No, that was not what hap­pened. We were… Oba inter­ject­ed but was slapped with a back­hand by the man who had seen them, Oga Ajayi. 

Ajayi stopped, and the Aworo’s com­mand­ed halt­ed fur­ther slap. 

He looked at his men, and then cast a help­less look on both men who were already kneel­ing ram­ming their hands togeth­er, soaked with tears and expect­ing the inevitable dis­grace, and most like­ly the beatings. 

Well, he began, “Let’s not cru­ci­fy these men or fight for the god­dess whose pres­ence this all hap­pened. Besides, it is get­ting late, and you too need rest after the long work. And in as much as this is a sac­ri­lege, let’s be care­ful to decide for the god­dess what he must see as an aber­ra­tion. So, this is what we will do. We will keep them here, in the pres­ence of the god­dess they have defiled, and see what becomes of their flesh while we return tomor­row, that’s Tuesday. 

And I am sure, by the time we return tomor­row, Oro­sun would have killed them or have struck them with lep­rosy.” He said. 

Ha, Tues­day! Tola protest­ed, strug­gling to stand up, but received per­sis­tent kicks from the men before the next com­mand of the Aworo could stop them. 

Okay, that’s right. Baba has spo­ken well. Oga Ajayi said, and the oth­er men took turns leav­ing the hut, and after they had ham­mered the win­dows with nails from the back, they bolt­ed its door with an iron rod picked from the floor. 

Tomor­row is here already, Oga Ajayi said to the oth­er two men. 

Yes, Tues­day, Aworo replied.

From the writer

:: Account ::

Olus­eye Fakin­lede is a Niger­ian writer and free­lance jour­nal­ist. He is a grad­u­ate of Eng­lish and Lit­er­a­ture. ‘Seye is inter­est­ed in African lit­er­a­ture with sub­jects around men­tal health, migra­tion, cul­ture, reli­gion, sex­u­al­i­ty, and Afro­fu­tur­ism. He has also been pub­lished on Afro Rep, Scrawl Place, New Note Poet­ry, Art Lounge Jour­nal, Brit­tle Paper, Afr­o­critik, and else­where. Find him on Twit­ter @ohxeye.

Fiction / EIisa Subin

:: Her Name Was Tamar ::

I only recent­ly learned to enjoy silan, a date syrup that could be poured into near­ly any­thing. It wasn’t just the taste that I enjoyed. I loved the way silan’s thick­ness demand­ed absolute patience. Pour­ing silan into a sim­ple cup of tea was a com­mit­ment of time that felt to me just a bit luxurious. 

Ben­ny and I final­ly had an after­noon free. Exhaust­ing days spent unpack­ing box after box had left them both tense, but eager to stretch our legs and explore. It was Ben­ny who’d said it first.

“Let’s get out of here. Let’s just go some­where, anywhere.”

“For lunch, you mean?” I asked, smil­ing, sit­ting on the floor of the new apart­ment sur­round­ed by crushed box­es and pack­ing peanuts, my fin­gers red and rid­dled with paper cuts. 

“Sure,” he answered casu­al­ly, “for lunch. You pick the place.” I knew there was a rea­son I loved Benny.

I wasn’t sur­prised Ben­ny didn’t want to decide. He relied on me for deci­sions. I’d pick the place, check for the direc­tions on my phone, and Ben­ny wouldn’t even ask for details. He’d just drive. 

“You tell me where to go,” he’d always say. 

Once we got the Hon­da out of the city, and reached High­way 4, we drove north along­side the train tracks. We opened the win­dows and turned up the radio. Stand by Me was play­ing on Gal­galatz. Laugh­ing and singing along, I pon­dered the uni­verse and the chances of an Israeli radio sta­tion play­ing my favorite song at just the moment I didn’t know I need­ed it.

With the win­dows down and the music turned up, every­thing felt so famil­iar. Dri­ving on open roads is like that. We could be every­where, nowhere, and any­where all at the same time. As we con­tin­ued north, the rhythm of the road helped mefor­get the stack of box­es still wait­ing to be unpacked, while Ben­ny smiled and half raced the train com­ing up beside us. 

“Just a bit fur­ther north on 4 and then a left onto 57,” I said. 

“You got it,” replied Benny.

We would dri­ve into the city through the old indus­tri­al zone. Then, a few lefts and rights to find a park­ing spot. That part was a bit more com­pli­cat­ed than we’d antic­i­pat­ed. But Ben­ny was in a good mood and up to the chal­lenge. After only a few min­utes, he’d rid­den the waves of traf­fic into a good spot. “Not quite per­fect,” he said, maneu­ver­ing the car in, “but I’d count it as a suc­cess.” He gave a sat­is­fied smile, and we exchanged high fives before get­ting out of the car.

By now, I real­ized just how hun­gry I was, and I guessed Ben­ny must have been fam­ished too.  Now was prob­a­bly as good a time as any to con­fess to Ben­ny that I didn’t know pre­cise­ly where we were head­ed. The restau­rant – a Geor­gian hole in the wall – didn’t actu­al­ly have an address. But the rec­om­men­da­tion had come from a local friend, and she’d assured me that I’d find it no problem.

“Its in the shuk,” her friend had said. “No name, but you can’t miss it. Best katchipurri in the city. The woman who owns it is a fab­u­lous cook.”

We walked the short dis­tance from the park­ing spot to the shuk.

The shuk itself was not the kind of place a tourist would think to vis­it. Of course, Ben­ny and I weren’t tourists. But the trans­for­ma­tion from vis­i­tor to local hadn’t tak­en hold, at least not yet. We strolled thru the shuk, Ben­ny soak­ing in the atmos­phere while I tried to locate the restau­rant. The shops, tin-roofed and ram­shackle at best, were teem­ing with ven­dors hawk­ing per­sim­mons, turmer­ic, col­or­ful scarves, and every house­hold good imaginable. 

Ben­ny was trans­fixed by the scene, and I had to take him by the hand and pull him along.

As we wan­dered fur­ther into the shuk look­ing for the restau­rant, I tried my best to bal­ance hunger with a now press­ing need to find a bath­room. Sens­ing that we’d lost track of time and unsure how far we’d walked, I knew Ben­ny had a short fuse when he was hun­gry. I was actu­al­ly sur­prised that Ben­ny wasn’t vis­i­bly frus­trat­ed at this point. But when he motioned toward a sign indi­cat­ing a pub­lic bath­room with an arrow point­ing down an alley­way, I smiled and  knew that I’d mar­ried the right man. 

“Yes,” I said. “I’m dying for the bathroom.”

“Me too,” Ben­ny said. “Let’s hit the bath­room, and then we’ll just find some­place to eat even if it’s not the Geor­gian restaurant.” 

It’s a hind­sight kind of thing. Walk­ing by a table of old men play­ing backgam­mon in an alley­way can be unre­mark­able. In fact, it should be unre­mark­able. Oth­er times, though, it can be some­thing else — but only in hind­sight. And hind­sight is born only after some­thing – a par­a­digm shift of sorts — occurs. Obvi­ous­ly. For now, though, nei­ther Ben­ny nor I paid the old men sit­ting around the backgam­mon board any mind.

At the end of the alley­way, past the backgam­mon game, the bath­rooms were what one would expect of bath­rooms in a shuk. That is, if you are using the bath­room in a shuk then you are just hap­py that there is a bath­room in the shuk. Ben­ny went into the men’s room, and I turned right into the women’s room.

It looked as if no one had been in the woman’s room for weeks. There were two stalls. The first one closed and locked, as if it was used as stor­age. The door to the sec­ond stall was ajar. Absent­ly, I pushed on the door, but it took only an instant for me to sense that it was blocked. Peek­ing in, I drew a breath, closed my eyes tight, and opened them again, as if that car­toon-like action might some­how remove the dead woman from my sight. 

I was sur­prised that I didn’t scream. Instead, I care­ful­ly – why care­ful­ly, I nev­er knew – stepped out of the women’s bath­room and leaned in to the men’s room. I spoke in a voice that I didn’t rec­og­nize and asked Ben­ny to come out. Delib­er­ate­ly vague, I told him to go in to the women’s room and take a look inside the sec­ond stall.

“You want me to…what?” Ben­ny asked, incredulous. 

“Just do it. Please. Go in there and tell me what you see.”

Ben­ny was in and out quick­ly, and from the look on his face, there was no doubt what he had seen. I went back in, again care­ful­ly. I wasn’t sure why. Habit had me close and lock the stall door. I half chuck­led at the futil­i­ty of my actions and mum­bled baruch dayan emet. Blessed is the true judge. I wasn’t cer­tain that there was a true judge, and if there was, why then was a name­less woman lying dead in front of me on the floor of a bath­room stall.  But I said it any­way, more out of habit than belief. 

I remem­bered peo­ple I’d loved who’d died. Grand­par­ents and elder­ly aunts and uncles, most­ly. They’d died in hos­pi­tals, sur­round­ed by fam­i­ly. Their bod­ies care­ful­ly pre­pared in accor­dance with tra­di­tion. Funer­als well attend­ed. Shi­va hous­es over­flow­ing with food and guests. After the mourn­ing peri­od, well mean­ing fam­i­ly and friends care­ful to men­tion the deceased’s name at every oppor­tu­ni­ty, believ­ing that each men­tion ele­vat­ed the dead’s soul to a high­er lev­el. Yet some­one had died right here, alone in the woman’s bathroom. 

“Who was she?” I won­dered aloud. “How did she end up here?” A name would help me under­stand that emp­ty feel­ing grow­ing in my chest. I was aware of my breath­ing and was look­ing for some­thing I could grab on to, both real and metaphor­ic. As I leaned back on the stall door, I noticed that my shirt was now snagged on the latch. Try­ing to free it, the fab­ric tore. The sound of rip­ping fab­ric star­tled me, and I real­ized that time had some­how shifted.

The stall was start­ing to feel tight and I had no rea­son to be in there. Star­ing over a dead woman’s body in a pub­lic bath­room is nei­ther nec­es­sary nor a good look. I opened the stall door and saw Ben­ny, trem­bling and pale. “What do we do now,” he asked. “If we were back home, I’d call the police, but here? I just don’t know. Please can you just tell me what to do,” he asked, and I was sud­den­ly aware of how des­per­ate­ly frag­ile he was. This morn­ing poor Ben­ny didn’t even want to pick a restau­rant. And now? 

I didn’t know where the thought came from. Some part of my brain that hadn’t been called upon until now, but I again took Ben­ny by the hand, and togeth­er we walked out of the bath­room, leav­ing the name­less dead woman behind. 

“Are we going to the police?” he asked. “No,” I replied. “We are going over there,” I said, point­ing to the men play­ing backgammon. 

As I approached the men, I could see they’d been sit­ting around that table for hours and for years. Time required patience in this alley­way, and I was caught in its cur­rent. That tired bowl of sun­flower seeds next to the backgam­mon board, it was always full. Their tea was always hot, and the game of backgam­mon, it nev­er end­ed. The smoke from their hookah hung as a cloud just above, shield­ing them from both the day’s sun and the night’s cool­er tem­per­a­tures. I stood to the side unsure of how to begin. But in a moment, one of the men caught my eye and asked if I was okay. I said that yes, I was okay, but the hes­i­tan­cy in my voice was hard to over­look. The man who spoke sensed some­thing was amiss and brought me a chair. 

“My hus­band and I,” I began. “Wait, where did he go?” I asked, as I turned my head to each side in con­fu­sion. “He’ll get lost here with­out me. Where did he go?” I must have been a bit of a sight, torn shirt and all. 

The man intro­duced him­self. He said his name was Yaakov, and he brought me a cup of tea. I told him my name. The oth­er men remained silent, but I was odd­ly com­fort­ed to have learned Yaakov’s name. 

Yaakov asked if I want­ed silan in my tea, but I sus­pect­ed he already knew the answer. I told Yaakov my sto­ry. It all came out too fast and jum­bled, like a child recount­ing a sto­ry in every painful dis­or­ga­nized detail. Yaakov lis­tened, yet he didn’t seem sur­prised at all. He even smiled as I told him of look­ing for the Geor­gian restau­rant. He said he knew where the restau­rant was, but that it had closed ear­ly that day. That’s prob­a­bly why I couldn’t find it. Some­thing about the own­er feel­ing dizzy. When I told him about the woman’s body in the bath­room, he spoke sooth­ing­ly, reas­sur­ing me that he’d see to every­thing. The oth­ers paid no atten­tion at all as they sat spit­ting sun­flower seeds and drink­ing their silan spiked tea, argu­ing backgam­mon tactics. 

Lis­ten­ing to the men debate the fin­er points of backgam­mon strat­e­gy helped me focus on my still hot tea, and filled the silence after I’d fin­ished telling Ya’akov my sto­ry. But the sun was set­ting as the backgam­mon strat­e­gy debate neared an end, with agree­ment that a com­bi­na­tion blitz and prim­ing strat­e­gy – “the essen­tial, two-pronged win­ning strat­e­gy” — was far supe­ri­or to a run­ning game – “non­sense, based only on luck.” Yaakov smiled as he tried to explain away the friend­ly debate with a know­ing nod about rolls of the dice, life, and the like. But the day had caught up with me, and I began to feel that Ben­ny and I were the dice. 

I even­tu­al­ly found the right moment to extract myself from my new friends. As I made my way toward the bath­room I thought I saw Ben­ny in the distance. 

“Let me just go to the bath­room quick,” I said to myself, “and then I’ll catch up with Ben­ny and we’ll make our way home.” I entered the women’s room and found the door to the sec­ond stall easy to open. Yet, the dizzi­ness caught up with me, and the floor tiles rose to hit me in the head. 

From the writer

:: Account ::

My hus­band and I had recent­ly moved over­seas. Long days spent unpack­ing an end­less sea of box­es were punc­tu­at­ed by lunch time trips to any num­ber of hole in the wall restau­rants in search of some authen­tic cui­sine. The events in this sto­ry hap­pened dur­ing one such lunch-time foray.

I remem­ber being struck not just by how help­less I felt as the events unfold­ed, but also by the very fact that I was shar­ing an inti­mate moment with some­one whose sto­ry I would nev­er know. In my mind I named her Tamar, the Hebrew word for date. But I won­dered who would mourn this woman? Who would say kad­dish for her? Was some­one wait­ing for her to come home that evening? I stopped think­ing of these ques­tions because the answers were just so painful­ly sad.

It was all I could do to write her sto­ry in the hope that peo­ple will read it and pause for a moment to think of the stranger who pass­es through their lives if only briefly. Even if it is too late to save them.

EIisa Subin is a poet whose work has appeared or is forth­com­ing in the Inflec­tion­ist Review, Not One of Us, 34 Orchard Lit­er­ary Jour­nal, CCAR Jour­nal: The Reform Jew­ish Quar­ter­ly, Thim­ble Mag­a­zine, Jam & Sand and Nebo: A Lit­er­ary Jour­nal, among oth­ers. She won an Hon­or­able Men­tion in the Reuben Rose Poet­ry Com­pe­ti­tion and was longlist­ed for the Geminga Prize. 

Fiction / Monica Kim

:: What the Crow Knows ::

We found the dead crow before my old­er sis­ter got into David Moon’s car but after the pow­er went out. 

We didn’t know why the pow­er went out, and if we did know, I don’t remem­ber now. It’s been ten years since that day. My sis­ter once claimed it was because of all the elec­tron­ics run­ning at the same time, com­pet­ing with the heat—the air­con, the Game­Cube, the desk­top com­put­er where she was mes­sag­ing David Moon on AIM—though she didn’t tell me this last fact until now. Andrew, at the time, said it was because of the apart­ment com­plex­es we all lived in, since every­one else’s pow­er went out too. And Hen­ry, of course, said he didn’t care what caused the pow­er out­age, he just want­ed to find some­thing to damn do. His voice cracked at the word damn, and he looked around the room as if his par­ents were there to gasp and pray over the words of an eleven-year-old boy. All I know is that we were play­ing Mario Kart on Andrew’s Game­Cube, with Andrew in third, Hen­ry in sixth, and me in eleventh, and just as I’d got­ten an item box with a black bul­let to rush past every­one else, the game cut and the tele­vi­sion turned black. 

We groaned. Hen­ry threw his con­troller onto the ground, even though it wasn’t his. Andrew got up and start­ed shak­ing the small square tele­vi­sion, then kicked the Game­Cube, which he could do, since it was his and he was the only one of us who owned one. I stretched my arms above my head, feel­ing the sweat already start to bead on the back of my neck. 

It was some­time in ear­ly June, a day that felt unusu­al­ly like the mid­dle of July, and we com­plained about the air­con that was now sud­den­ly shut off. Andrew scrounged around the liv­ing room and found the del­i­cate paper fans his mom brought from Korea and kept tucked away in a wood­en box under­neath the fad­ed tan couch. We slumped onto the floor, fan­ning our­selves with the pink and red and white fans lined with hangul and han­ja cal­lig­ra­phy. 

“What do we do now,” Hen­ry whined, flick­ing the controller’s but­tons uselessly. 

“Caleb,” Andrew said, turn­ing to me, fan­ning him­self so furi­ous­ly I thought his wrist might fall off. “Ask your noona what to do.” 

It was an unar­tic­u­lat­ed fact that Andrew was our ring­leader. It wasn’t just that Andrew’s fam­i­ly had more mon­ey than mine and Henry’s, that he was an only child, that he seemed to have friends out­side the two of us, where­as Hen­ry was pret­ty much indif­fer­ent to most peo­ple he met and I was too tongue-tied to ever start a con­ver­sa­tion with any­one. It was also that Andrew had a face most peo­ple, chil­dren and adults alike, but espe­cial­ly me, couldn’t say no to: uneven bangs that some­how endeared him to every­one despite every oth­er Kore­an Amer­i­can boy hav­ing the same hair­cut, the small dim­ple on his left cheek that widened when he smiled. 

“Okay,” I said, get­ting up and walk­ing to Andrew’s par­ents’ room, where the shared desk­top com­put­er was. My old­er sis­ter, Jen­nie, was sit­ting at the desk, elbows on the wood-worn table. In front of her was the black screen of the dead com­put­er and her sketch­book with a new draw­ing I couldn’t see. 

All of our par­ents worked and fig­ured hav­ing Jen­nie babysit the three of us was much more ide­al than enrolling us in the only after-school pro­gram that catered to Kore­an Amer­i­cans in this tiny town. So, Jen­nie often sat at this com­put­er, sketch­book near­by, prob­a­bly wish­ing she was with her friends doing what­ev­er four­teen-year-old girls did. But instead, she was stuck look­ing after her younger broth­er and his two idiot friends. Some­times she bribed us with some of her babysit­ting mon­ey and left us by our­selves, mak­ing us swear that if we didn’t tell our par­ents she was going off to watch the high school soc­cer game because David Moon was play­ing, she’d let us have fif­teen bucks to order Bon­Chon Chick­en or buy Poké­mon cards or what­ev­er else nerds like us did these days. Andrew would mere­ly raise an eye­brow, ask­ing why we shouldn’t just take her mon­ey and tell our par­ents any­ways, while Hen­ry would widen his stance and cross his arms, and I’d look at my sis­ter with her hair curled and black eye­lin­er smudged around her eyes and won­der what hap­pened to the girl who used to play Game­Cube with us. 

Because you’ll get the Game­Cube tak­en away if you tell, she’d say to us, most­ly to Andrew, and then leave, tuck­ing how­ev­er many bills she had into my palm. 

“Noona?” I asked, and she turned around, still hold­ing her pen­cil. “The power’s out. What do we do?” 

She looked out the win­dow; we both star­tled as a bird flew past, a black blur against the clear pane. 

“I don’t know, go out­side or some­thing.” She waved a hand dis­mis­sive­ly, and made to turn back around, when I stepped forward. 

“But what would we do out­side? It’s too hot to play Man­hunt or pre­tend to be Naru­to char­ac­ters or any­thing.”  

My old­er sis­ter rolled her eyes. “Well, duh. I don’t know, find a card game or board game or whatever.” 

She began to turn again, when I tugged on her pony­tail.  

“Caleb‑a,” she hissed, using the Kore­an pro­nun­ci­a­tion of my name, which meant that she was real­ly, real­ly annoyed with me. 

“Noona,” I said, cross­ing my arms, try­ing to copy Andrew. “If you hang out with us, I promise I’ll leave you alone for the rest of the week.” 

She closed her eyes, rest­ing her fin­ger­tips on her tem­ple. She looked like our mom in that moment, when Jen­nie and I would fight over who should set the table for din­ner. Why can’t Caleb do it for once, omma? Jen­nie would ask. Why does it always have to be the girl? 

Jen­nie opened her eyes, glanc­ing at the win­dow, and I won­dered if she was wait­ing for some­thing. Maybe anoth­er bird to fly by. 

“Fine,” she final­ly said, tak­ing one last look at the dead com­put­er before stand­ing up. She ripped a page she was work­ing on from her sketch­book, then shoved it into her shorts pock­et. “But this is gonna take twen­ty min­utes, tops.” 

~  

We brought our fans with us out­side, swap­ping hot air for hot air. 

“Aren’t you afraid some­one will see us with these?” Hen­ry asked, as Jen­nie closed and locked the door behind us. “They look kin­da girly.” 

Andrew con­tin­ued to fan him­self. “Do you wan­na be super hot with­out one?” 

Hen­ry grum­bled some­thing but didn’t say any­thing more. Andrew’s word was Andrew’s word.  

Jen­nie shield­ed her eyes with a hand. “Alright, where to?” She didn’t look at any­one when she asked this, but we all knew she was talk­ing to Andrew. 

He shrugged. “We can just walk around.” 

Jen­nie sighed but led the way, walk­ing a few paces ahead of us, as if she couldn’t wait to be rid of us—which was prob­a­bly, most def­i­nite­ly true.  

There isn’t much of the walk I remem­ber, because we’d walked around the neigh­bor­hood prob­a­bly hun­dreds of times, scop­ing out the best places to hide for Man­hunt, the best patch of grass to kick a soc­cer ball back and forth, the best stretch of asphalt for races. I don’t know if the images stored in my head from this day’s walk are a col­lec­tion of images patched togeth­er into a mis­matched kalei­do­scope, or if their source is tru­ly from this odd ear­ly June day. But Jen­nie tells me these are the images she remem­bers, or at least the ones she draws, when she finds her­self obses­sive­ly replay­ing the day’s events, unable to cut her­self from the loop: the three of us, Andrew, Hen­ry, and I, kick­ing tiny dis­lodged chunks of asphalt against the backs of her bare legs—the open doors of neigh­bors’ apartment-houses—a glimpse of fur­ni­ture, the tat­tered flo­ral ottoman with a rip on the seam, per­haps from a cat, per­haps from some­thing else—up a set of neu­tral gray con­crete stairs, no rail­ing, to more looka­like apartment-houses—the same fad­ed yel­low, fad­ed tan, fad­ed blue—cutting across someone’s grass—running when we heard a dog bark—down a dif­fer­ent set of neu­tral gray con­crete stairs, return­ing a dif­fer­ent, back­ward way to Andrew’s place—coming across the dead crow splayed at the foot of the black dumpster. 

Every­one remem­bers find­ing the crow in a dif­fer­ent place. Jen­nie says it was at the foot of the black dump­ster. Hen­ry told me, ear­li­er today––before I talked to Jennie––that it was on Andrew’s doorstep. What Andrew remem­bers, I don’t know, because I haven’t talked to him in years. I don’t know if this is a blip in his mem­o­ry, if he thinks about this day as much as Jen­nie does and I now do, or if he doesn’t remem­ber it at all, if it’s like the day nev­er exist­ed for him. 

But this I know for sure: we all remem­ber who touched the crow. 

~ 

It wasn’t the first time I’d seen a dead ani­mal. Road­kill was com­mon on these sub­ur­ban roads. But there was some­thing about this crow—its bent wing, its blood­less­ness, the open eye—that unnerved me. 

“I don’t like this,” Hen­ry mut­tered, even as Andrew bent down. 

“Hey,” Jen­nie said sharply, and Andrew’s head snapped in her direc­tion. “It might have the plague.” 

“I thought that was a long time ago,” he replied. 

“It was,” she agreed, arms now around her­self, as if she was cold. “But that doesn’t mean it isn’t cursed or any­thing.” She looked at me, and I knew what she was thinking. 

The crow had to be a bad omen. Kore­ans are, if not any­thing else, very super­sti­tious peo­ple, and Jen­nie and I were no excep­tion. We made sure all the doors were closed at night. We nev­er turned the fan on while we were sleep­ing, not even in the sum­mer months. When we had a bad dream, we made sure to wait at least twen­ty-four hours before telling all the details to our mom, and if we had a good dream, we made sure to tell her right away. We made sure our beds in the room we shared weren’t fac­ing the door. Even to this day, when I catch myself whistling at night, I’ll stop, afraid of see­ing the death­ly spir­it my mom said would sure­ly come, whom I always imag­ined as a kind of ghost girl ver­sion of Jen­nie, long black hair hang­ing in front of her face like a curtain. 

“Well, we can’t just leave it here,” Andrew said, nudg­ing the crow with his sneaker. 

“Sure we can,” Jen­nie said. “It’s real­ly easy. Here, watch this.” She start­ed walk­ing away, hands in pock­ets. “Easy!” she called back to us.  

“Maybe we can put it in a shoe­box,” I sug­gest­ed, not want­i­ng to aban­don it, but also not want­i­ng to do any­thing sub­stan­tial about it, not want­i­ng to take sides between the two of them. 

Andrew point­ed in my direc­tion. Some­thing like pride welled in me. “Yes! Good one, Caleb. Your donsaeng’s smarter than you, Jennie.” 

“Show some respect for your elders, Andrew.” 

He stuck his tongue out at her. 

“We can use my shoe­box,” Hen­ry piped up, say­ing it in a rush, like he didn’t want to be left out. “I have it in my backpack.” 

“Isn’t that for our class shoe­box project?” I asked. 

He shrugged. “I haven’t start­ed it yet, so it’s emp­ty. And I can always find anoth­er one at home.” Hen­ry only owned one pair of shoes, so I wasn’t sure how he was going to do that, but let it go. 

“Okay, let’s do this.” Andrew fist-bumped the both of us. 

When Hen­ry returned with the emp­ty shoe­box, he bent down and placed it next to the crow. The four of us stared at it, its black feath­ers not quite blend­ing in with the black asphalt. 

“So,” Jen­nie crossed her arms. “Before one of you idiots even thinks about touch­ing this, you can’t use just your hands. God knows what kinds of things are on it.” 

Andrew rolled his eyes. “Duh. We’re not dumb.” 

Jen­nie blew the wisps of hair out of her eyes. “Are you gonna do it, then?” 

Andrew shift­ed his weight from foot to foot, fid­get­ing with the hem of his t‑shirt. I real­ized, then, that Andrew was feel­ing some­thing I thought he didn’t have: fear. 

The next thing I knew, I took off my t‑shirt, feel­ing the sun against my bony, sticky, eleven-year-old back, wrapped my hands around the fab­ric, and picked up the crow. 

“Caleb!” Jen­nie yelped, tak­ing a step back as I held it by the tips of my fin­gers. I thought it would smell––don’t dead ani­mals usu­al­ly? espe­cial­ly in the heat?––but the crow emanat­ed nothing. 

Both Andrew and Hen­ry gaped at me. I didn’t look at either of them as I placed the crow, gen­tly, into Henry’s emp­ty shoe­box. When I did look up, at Andrew—hoping to see, I don’t know, admi­ra­tion, maybe—he was look­ing else­where. In fact, Hen­ry and Jen­nie, too, were look­ing in the same direc­tion. At the same person. 

It was David Moon, senior star of the high school soc­cer team, Ivy League bound, beloved of all ajum­mas at church. His car idled as he got out, walk­ing, for some rea­son, toward us. 

“What you guys got there?” David pushed his sun­glass­es to the top of his head. “And why’s your lit­tle broth­er got no shirt on, Jennie?” 

“David?” Jennie’s voice squeaked. She coughed, clear­ing her throat. “Er—well—” 

He looked at her, up and down, eyes lin­ger­ing. We could all see her blush­ing. Then he turned to the three of us. “Is that a dead crow?” 

“Andrew found it,” Hen­ry said imme­di­ate­ly, and Andrew glared at him. 

“Cool,” David said, and Hen­ry looked like he wished he hadn’t giv­en Andrew cred­it. “Why’s it in a shoebox?” 

I lift­ed a fin­ger, as if to say it was me, but the words nev­er came out. David noticed the move­ment, and he smirked—though not at me, at Jen­nie.  

“Cool. Like your sis­ter.”  

Hen­ry and Andrew both looked at me, as if to say, Jen­nie? Cool? But no one dis­agreed with David. 

Jen­nie shrugged in response. “Not that cool.” 

“What are you guys gonna do with it then?” David asked. 

Hen­ry shrugged. “Should we throw it out?” 

“No,” Andrew and I both said. Jen­nie opened her mouth as if to agree with Hen­ry, but closed it. 

“Fine, fine, fine.” Hen­ry pushed the box into David’s hands. “Do you have any ideas?” 

He looked away, at Jen­nie, away again. “Yeah, I’ve got one, actu­al­ly. I’ll take care of it for you guys.” 

Andrew frowned, as if he couldn’t believe that David Moon, of all peo­ple, would be will­ing to take a dead crow from three eleven-year-old boys. “You sure?” 

“Oh yeah,” he ruf­fled Andrew’s head, which might’ve made him mad had it been any­one else, but it was David Moon. “Your crow’s in trust­ed hands.” 

“But what are you gonna do with it?” I asked. 

He clapped my shoul­der. “Don’t wor­ry, lit­tle Park. We’ll leave it up to God, right?” He fist-bumped all of us before head­ing to his car. 

At the driver’s side door, sun­glass­es back on his face, David turned back to us. “Hey, big Park, wan­na help me with this?” 

Jen­nie looked at me, at Hen­ry and Andrew, back at David. “Me?” 

“Yeah, you, Jennie.” 

“But I—” she cleared her throat. “I have to babysit them. You know how our par­ents are …” she trailed off as David turned his gaze on us. 

“You guys are gonna be in what, sixth grade soon?” he said. “Aren’t you old enough to look after yourselves?” 

Both Andrew and Hen­ry puffed up their chests; yes, they were, indeed, actu­al­ly old enough to look after themselves—there were plen­ty of times when Jen­nie left us alone, after all. She was unwrap­ping and wrap­ping that draw­ing from ear­li­er. I couldn’t see the whole thing, but there was a cor­ner of a face, a boy’s face, I thought. 

Jen­nie didn’t have any babysit­ting mon­ey on her yet to bribe us with let­ting her go. But Andrew didn’t care that we weren’t get­ting any mon­ey from Jen­nie, at least not this time. He nod­ded at David. “Yeah, duh, we are.” 

“Alright, then it’s set­tled.” He opened the door. “Jen, you coming?” 

No one ever called Jen­nie Jen. I frowned, but when she looked back at me, head tilt­ed to the side—is this okay?—I waved at her. She fist­ed the paper back into her pock­et and got into the pas­sen­ger side of David Moon’s car. 

~ 

Ear­li­er today, Hen­ry and I met at our local Paris Baguette for our once-a-year check-in. When we meet, it’s usu­al­ly to catch up on the details of our lives any stranger could find on our Face­book pro­files. It’s also to exchange any new infor­ma­tion we have on our old friend Andrew, who’d slow­ly dropped out of our lives in the way friends do, after he moved away before we all start­ed high school. Henry’s friends with him on Face­book, where­as I occa­sion­al­ly check his pro­file now and again, most­ly to see if he has a new girl­friend or not. Usu­al­ly, we leave after thir­ty min­utes of chat­ting over mediocre cof­fee and red bean filled breads. 

But this after­noon, after we asked each oth­er how we were, if I still had a boyfriend (no), if Hen­ry was still lead­ing youth groups at our old church (yes), if I would ever go back to church (no), if Hen­ry knew whether Andrew was still dat­ing a white girl and whether his par­ents dis­ap­proved (yes), I was expect­ing us to shake hands and walk our sep­a­rate ways, when Hen­ry ordered a sec­ond cup of cof­fee. It was unheard of. 

“Caleb,” he said, after return­ing to our table. “Did you hear about David Moon?”  

I blinked. I hadn’t thought about David Moon since that day we found the dead crow. “No.” 

“Well, you won’t believe this.” Hen­ry leaned for­ward, so I did, too. He looked around, eyes flit­ting from face to face—probably try­ing to make sure he didn’t rec­og­nize any­one, and that no one rec­og­nized him. “There’s alle­ga­tions against him. You know, sex­u­al assault allegations.” 

I blinked again, lean­ing back. “What?” 

“Yeah. Sun­min Jeon, you know, the one who played piano for the church orchestra?” 

I shook my head. I hadn’t been to church since junior year of high school, and even back then, I only ever talked to Hen­ry. If Andrew had still been there, maybe I’d have talked to him too. 

“Okay, well, she came back for the Class of 2010 Reunion, she was in the same grade as David, they were both in the church orches­tra. But appar­ent­ly she react­ed pret­ty bad­ly when she saw him, ’cause it’d been years—” Hen­ry was now ges­tur­ing with his hands, “—and then peo­ple noticed and asked what was wrong, and she told them. It hap­pened the first or sec­ond year in col­lege, when they were back home for the sum­mer and help­ing out with the orchestra.” 

It felt like there was some­thing stuck in my chest. “Shit,” I mur­mured. All I could think about was that image of Jen­nie get­ting into his car, play­ing on loop over and over again. 

“Yeah. But that’s not even the whole thing.” Hen­ry leaned in even more. I start­ed to feel sick over the prospect of anoth­er woman—could it have been Jennie?—and it didn’t help that Hen­ry seemed to enjoy telling me about these women as if it were just anoth­er piece of the lat­est Kore­an church gossip. 

“The oth­er day,” Hen­ry con­tin­ued. “After mass, I heard one of the ajum­mas talk to anoth­er ajum­ma about what a shame it was that David had hurt anoth­er girl. She was a lit­tle younger than Sun­min, maybe clos­er to your noona’s age?—” my leg start­ed shak­ing under the table at the men­tion of my old­er sis­ter “—and told some peo­ple a week or so after the reunion. Can you believe it?” 

I could. Hen­ry didn’t give me time to respond, though, before he leaned back in his chair, sigh­ing. “David Moon. It’s too bad—I always thought he was one of the good guys.” 

And what about the women? I want­ed to ask him. Do you feel bad for them too? How are they doing now? But he prob­a­bly didn’t have the answers, and even if he did, I wasn’t sure he’d tell me in a way that would stop my leg from shaking. 

Instead, I asked, “Do you remem­ber that day we found the dead crow?”  

~ 

Hours after I met with Hen­ry, I get ahold of Jennie. 

“Caleb,” she answers on the fourth ring. “What’s up? I thought we weren’t gonna talk until lat­er?” Jen­nie lives in Cal­i­for­nia, work­ing on graph­ic design for some media com­pa­ny, while I’m still in New Jer­sey fin­ish­ing up col­lege, and we call each oth­er exact­ly on the fif­teenth of each month. 

“Hi, noona,” I reply, wish­ing we still used old ana­log phones so I could fid­get with the cord. Instead, I keep tap­ping my fin­gers on my knee. “There’s some­thing I need to ask you about.” 

“What is it?” There’s some sort of back­ground noise on her end—is she stuck in L.A. traf­fic? Eat­ing at the food court in Koreatown? 

I take a breath, curl­ing my fin­gers into a fist. “I talked to Hen­ry the oth­er day. He—he told me some­thing about David Moon.” 

Silence on the oth­er end. 

“He, uh … at church … there are two women …” I stam­mer. Clear my throat. I start over. “I keep think­ing about that day we found the dead crow. Do you remember?” 

“I remem­ber,” Jennie’s voice, though I can bare­ly hear it. 

“Did … did some­thing—” I cough. “Did something—” 

I can’t fin­ish my ques­tion, but Jennie’s silence gives me the answer.  

~ 

While Jen­nie was sit­ting shot­gun in David Moon’s car, going who knows where, Andrew, Hen­ry, and I returned to Andrew’s. The pow­er was still out, so we found our­selves lying on the hard­wood floors again, splayed out as far as we could, hop­ing they could cool us down. 

“What do we do now?” Hen­ry asked. 

My eyes were on the ceil­ing, but I could almost feel Andrew’s shrug from across the room. “Wait until the pow­er comes back.” 

“But that could be hours.” 

“You got any bet­ter ideas?” 

Instead of lis­ten­ing to them argue—or until their argu­ment could reach me, and I’d have to be the one respon­si­ble for com­ing up with some­thing fun to do—I got up and walked to Andrew’s par­ents’ room, where Jen­nie had been sit­ting in front of the desk­top com­put­er, sketch­ing something. 

I sat down in the chair, imag­in­ing her here. Scrolling through Myspace or Face­book and talk­ing to her friends, prob­a­bly com­plain­ing about us. What were she and David Moon doing togeth­er now? What was hap­pen­ing to the crow? 

Next to the key­board was Jennie’s sketch­book. It was closed, and my fin­gers hov­ered over the cov­er, hes­i­tant. DON’T TOUCH ANY OF MY STUFF Jen­nie would often say to me. I could imag­ine her rip­ping the sketch­book from my hands as soon as I touched it; but Jen­nie wasn’t here right now, to watch as I opened the sketch­book, flip­ping from one draw­ing to the next. 

There were a bunch of por­traits of her friends at school, in the cafe­te­ria, in class. One or two of David. One of Andrew, Hen­ry, and I with the Game­Cube. One of our par­ents. None of her­self. In the mid­dle of the sketch­pad was a torn-off page, hasti­ly ripped on the side. 

I touched the edges, care­ful not to give myself a paper­cut. Was this the draw­ing Jen­nie had in her pocket? 

I heard foot­steps in the hall­way and quick­ly closed the sketch­book, turn­ing around to find Andrew in the doorway. 

“Your omma’s here,” he said, sim­ply, then walked away. 

When I got home that night and went to my bed­room, the one I shared with Jennie—hoping to give back her sketch­book with­out her dis­cov­er­ing that I’d looked through it—I found her lying on her bed, her back fac­ing me. 

“Noona?” I asked, qui­et­ly.  

She didn’t say any­thing; I tried again, then a sec­ond, and then a third time. After the third time, I fig­ured she was asleep, and that’s when I noticed the draw­ings on the wall on her side of the room. 

They were all crows. Doo­dles, sketch­es, scrib­bles. Tiny ones, big ones, medi­um-sized. Vary­ing shades of black and gray. If I looked away, I swore I thought I saw their wings flap out of the cor­ner of my eye. It couldn’t have been a breeze, because the win­dow was closed. But when I looked at them head-on, they were still. 

~ 

“Where do I even start?” Jen­nie asks, exhal­ing. I don’t hear any back­ground nois­es on her end of the phone anymore—she must’ve found some­where qui­et to talk. 

“What do you remem­ber?” I whis­per, my voice so qui­et I’m afraid she hasn’t heard me—but Jen­nie starts talking. 

“The pow­er went out that day. Do you remem­ber that?” I nod, though she can’t see me. “I was mes­sag­ing David on AIM, ask­ing him for help with geom­e­try home­work, ’cause he was one of the tutors my teacher put on a list, and I thought he was cute and liked watch­ing him play soc­cer, so I thought, I don’t know, why the hell not?” 

She says every­thing in a rush. My leg keeps shak­ing up and down, wait­ing for the moment her sto­ry turns. 

“I told him I was babysit­ting you and Andrew and Hen­ry, then he asked for Andrew’s address, I gave it to him, the pow­er went out. I didn’t actu­al­ly expect him to show up. I real­ly didn’t. David Moon, a senior, and me, a fresh­man? God, every­one was in love with him.” 

“You had a crush on him,” I say, a state­ment more than a question. 

Jen­nie exhales again, a bit shak­i­ly this time. “I did. I thought he was––I don’t know. But then, who would’ve believed me, right? He asked me to come with him, when he took that dead crow for us. And I said yes. I said yes, think­ing we’d just work on geom­e­try after. And, you know—part of me—” she paus­es, takes a breath, starts again. “Part of me, I know, was hop­ing for some­thing. A kiss, maybe. Some­thing small. But not that. Not what happened.” 

My hand is curled into a fist, fin­ger­nails dig­ging into skin. If only I had—what? Asked Jen­nie not to get into the car with David? Fol­lowed them, impos­si­bly? Asked why she was spend­ing longer times in the bath­room after that day? 

“Caleb? Are you still there?” Jen­nie asks. 

I close my eyes. “Still here. Sor­ry. Just—a lot to process. There’s so much I didn’t know, or didn’t remem­ber, but think­ing back on every­thing now, it—it—some of it—” 

“Is start­ing to make sense?” she fin­ish­es. “You were eleven, Caleb. I was your annoy­ing noona. You were my insuf­fer­able don­saeng.” 

“I’m still your insuf­fer­able don­saeng.” 

She laughs, but it comes out gar­bled. “Then I guess I’m still your annoy­ing noona.” A pause. Sec­onds of silence pass. “You know—I’ve nev­er actu­al­ly real­ly told any­one what hap­pened next. I think a lot of peo­ple thought I was a prude ’cause I didn’t have my first boyfriend until after col­lege, but … well––” Anoth­er breath. I wish I was there, in Los Ange­les, to put my hand on her shoul­der, or give her a tis­sue, any­thing. But there’s a part of me that’s glad I’m not, so I don’t have to see her face crum­ple when she starts talk­ing again. 

“He took me to the church park­ing lot,” she says. I can see it in my mind so clear­ly, years lat­er: the main lot, with its clean white lines. And sev­er­al hun­dred feet away, in a spot over­run with grass: the place of my first kiss. I’d snuck off at night to meet up with anoth­er clos­et­ed guy from a dif­fer­ent high school. We thought we were being hilar­i­ous­ly iron­ic, trans­gres­sive. But this was a dif­fer­ent place for Jennie. 

“None of the ajum­mas or ajusshis knew about that spot, you know. So he knew there was no way any­one would see us.” She takes anoth­er breath. “So—yeah. That’s it. I don’t—I don’t want to get into the details.” 

“I don’t need to know them,” I say, hop­ing it’s enough. 

There’s a sound on the oth­er end, like she’s blow­ing her nose. “I thought we were gonna bury the crow in the trees behind the park­ing lot. But he start­ed kiss­ing me—which, you know, I thought I want­ed, but then—it didn’t stop there. Even though I want­ed it to. To stop, I mean.” 

What do you say to your old­er sis­ter who’s just told you a ter­ri­ble secret? What do you do when she’s reliv­ing the trau­ma, when that day for you meant find­ing a dead crow and try­ing to impress your friend you had a crush on and for her meant some­thing com­plete­ly, utter­ly different? 

“God,” she laughs, or cries, I can’t tell which. “It’s just so—I’ve spent so long replay­ing this day in my head. And now I’m final­ly telling someone.” 

“You don’t have to keep going,” I say, gently. 

“No, I—” she stops. “God, Caleb. What if I’d told some­one ear­li­er? You think the same thing wouldn’t have hap­pened to those girls?” 

I’m about to answer, when she con­tin­ues in a rush of words. 

“There’s one part of me that says, You couldn’t have known. No one would’ve believed you any­ways. And then there’s the side that says, What if they did? What if one of them did? And then the oth­er side says, Look how they’re react­ing to them now. All the ajusshis and ajum­mas can talk about is David this, David that, how he was so suc­cess­ful and now it’s all col­laps­ing. They would’ve done the same to you ten years ago. They wouldn’t have cared about you. They would’ve told you to keep qui­et because no one can know that some­thing ter­ri­ble like this hap­pened to us, us upstand­ing church-going God-lov­ing Kore­ans. But then, what if one of the girls had heard about you, and decid­ed to stay away? What if it made all that dif­fer­ence? And then I come back with—but it shouldn’t have rest­ed on them, on us. It should’ve been on David.” 

There are half-moon cir­cles imprint­ed on my palm from where I’ve been dig­ging my nails into the skin. “You can’t blame it on yourself.” 

“I know I can’t.” She laughs. “I know. I fuck­ing know. But I spi­ral some­times, Caleb, I spi­ral. But you know what some of the weird­est, creepi­est shit out of all of this was?” 

“No.” 

“I don’t know what he ever did with the crow, but when I got home, I couldn’t stop draw­ing them.” 

I blink, remem­ber­ing the crows on the wall. “But you hate birds.” 

“I do. But when I picked up my pen­cil, it was like my hand took over me. I think I went through an entire note­book. And then at school the next day, when David Moon opened his lock­er, a bunch of post-it notes flood­ed out.” 

My mouth hangs open. “Did you—”  

“No, I didn’t even go near his lock­er that day. But I sure as hell hope he got a ton of paper cuts.” 

Wit­ness­es, I think. But I don’t say this out loud to Jen­nie. She might’ve been silenced, but they were try­ing to say something. 

“When I got home,” Jen­nie con­tin­ues, dis­rupt­ing my thoughts, “all my draw­ings of the crows from last night were gone. All that was left was the tape on the walls.” 

Chills run down my arm. “Sounds like one of omma’s super­sti­tions.” 

Jen­nie laughs. “I know.” 

When we get off the phone, I lie down in my bed, star­ing up at the ceil­ing. Through the closed door, I hear one of my house­mates come in, rum­mag­ing through the pots and pans in the kitchen. For him, it’s a nor­mal day: class­es, work, stu­dent org stuff. For me, I can’t stop think­ing. Can’t stop the images swirling behind my closed eyes, dead crows and silence and Andrew and Hen­ry and David and Jen­nie and that hot June day that used to mean some­thing dif­fer­ent for me but now—now moves beyond that dead crow I picked up with my t‑shirt, sun beat­ing down on my bare skin and won­der­ing what would hap­pen next. 

From the writer

:: Account ::

“What the Crow Knows” began as an inquiry into a memory. 

When I was in third grade, my friends and I found a dead bird on the side of the road. Unsure of what to do, my friends’ old­er sib­lings took charge—I remem­ber there being a shoe­box, a strange man who approached the sib­lings, and I remem­ber myself, my cousin, and my friend going back to his house and dis­tract­ing our­selves by watch­ing TV. I remem­ber being vague­ly wor­ried about the old­er sib­lings, but in the end they returned just fine, the dead bird hav­ing been tak­en care of.  

Part of this inquiry is a “what if”—what if this stranger wasn’t a stranger but an acquain­tance of a mot­ley crew of kids? What if the old­er siblings—just one old­er sib­ling in the sto­ry, Jennie—doesn’t turn out fine? What if the younger kids, who might not be ful­ly aware of the under­ly­ing pow­er dynam­ics between those old­er than them, remem­ber this day dif­fer­ent­ly than them? 

Part of this inquiry is also rumi­nat­ing on what hap­pens when we real­ize more sin­is­ter things had hap­pened retroac­tive­ly, and when our mem­o­ries of a cer­tain day or event don’t match up with the mem­o­ries of some­one else. It is also about, of course, con­fronting sex­u­al assault and trau­ma, and the lin­ger­ing con­se­quences of trau­ma of that assault and abuse––on the sur­vivor, on the survivor’s fam­i­ly, on the survivor’s com­mu­ni­ty; and what that means for a spe­cif­ic cul­tur­al com­mu­ni­ty. Part of that con­fronta­tion asks––what if there is no wit­ness? What if the only wit­ness is a dead crow?

Mon­i­ca Kim is a queer writer and orga­niz­er. Born in Korea, she now lives in Brook­lyn, New York. She won the inau­gur­al Jane Keny­on Chap­book Prize Award for her series of mul­ti­verse poems and her writ­ing has been pub­lished in the lickety~split, Pol­lux Jour­nal, Pine Hills Review, and oth­ers. You can find her on Twit­ter at @kimmonjoo.

Fiction / Carly Brown

:: The Window Bride ::

The day my sis­ter Anto­nia turned fif­teen, we took her to the win­dow. It was late June and the street out­side my uncle’s store smelled of veg­eta­bles gone mushy in the sun. Tin cans shone on the side­walk by my feet, shiny as locust wings. I kicked one with my shoe, watch­ing it bounce off a fire hydrant and roll under­neath a black auto­mo­bile parked near­by. Mam­ma would usu­al­ly have scold­ed me for that, but she was busy rety­ing the rib­bon around Antonia’s braid and smooth­ing down her new dress. The dress was a lacy thing that remind­ed me of our nice table­cloth, the one Mam­ma only brought out at East­er. It looked like you could rip it apart easily. 

There were sev­er­al women com­ing out of Uncle’s store, car­ry­ing bags of let­tuce and loaves of bread tucked under their arms, dab­bing their brows with hand­ker­chiefs and squint­ing in the sun­light. We pushed open the door and Uncle Sal­va­tore came out from behind the counter to greet us, dressed smart­ly as ever in a white coat and stiff collar. 

“Buon­giorno, ladies,” he said, bow­ing to my sis­ter and me, as though we were fine women out for an after­noon stroll. Anto­nia and I gig­gled at being called ladies, although I sup­posed she was one now. 

He led us over to the store­front win­dow where he kept box­es of panet­tone at Christ­mas and crates of squash in the fall. There was a sin­gle chair there now, on a lit­tle raised plat­form, next to a bas­ket of lemons. Uncle’s store smelled like lemons that day, so he’d prob­a­bly cut some open already to make lemon­ade. I liked his store: you could spin on the high stools or get Coca-Cola in a tall glass and drink it with a straw, or you could order a Root Beer Float instead and watch vanil­la ice cream bob­bing in dark liq­uid until it dissolved. 

Anto­nia climbed up and sat down in the chair. She had her back to us so I could see drops of sweat slid­ing down her neck and dis­ap­pear­ing into the lace. Mam­ma thanked Uncle again for let­ting us do this. 

“Fig­u­rati,” my uncle said. It’s noth­ing. Then he smiled at me and point­ed to a jar of can­dies wrapped in sil­ver foil. “Seems like I ordered too many caramels this week, Ros­alia. Can you help me with that?” 

I plunged my hand into the jar. The foil squeaked as I plucked one out and popped it in my mouth, let­ting the sug­ar sparkle on my tongue. 

Then I looked out the win­dow and saw that, out­side on the street, an old­er woman with a lit­tle boy in tow had stopped to stare at my sis­ter through the glass. Her skin was wrin­kled and browned like the inside of a wal­nut, like non­na before she died, and she had a blue silk scarf knot­ted under her chin. She looked Anto­nia up and down, per­haps with a grand­son or nephew in mind. 

My sis­ter wasn’t pret­ty like the women in mag­a­zines, with their cloche hats stuffed with flow­ers. They all looked sky­scraper tall and thin. My sis­ter was short, with plump elbows and a round face. She was shy, unlike me, and get­ting her to talk was often like pry­ing open an oys­ter shell. But she nev­er com­plained about any­thing and, of the two of us, she was the best at cook­ing lasagna, not to men­tion the fact that, to my extreme envy, she had also recent­ly mem­o­rized all the state cap­i­tals. But the old woman look­ing at Anto­nia now could see none of these things. 

I watched her nod polite­ly to my sis­ter and car­ry on down the street. 

Next came a man who looked a lit­tle younger than Father, maybe Uncle Salvatore’s age, with a nice suit and slicked-back hair glis­ten­ing in the sun. He stopped in front of the win­dow. I don’t know if Anto­nia was smil­ing at him, but he smiled at her before he walked away with his hands shoved in his pock­ets and his lips pursed togeth­er like he was whistling. 

It was then that I real­ized my sis­ter wasn’t going to sleep beside me any­more. Soon, I would walk to school on my own, brush my teeth on my own, sit in front of the radio, fid­dling with the dial as it gur­gled out sta­t­ic, on my own. Anto­nia would go live with a man like that slick-haired fel­low. I would only see her at St Leo’s on Sun­days. That was what hap­pened when Lena Maggiore’s sis­ter got married—Lena only saw her on Sun­days now. 

I turned away from the win­dow and walked over to the shelf, notic­ing peach­es piled up in a wick­er bas­ket. Two cents apiece, said a chalk sign in Uncle’s neat hand­writ­ing. I did some quick mul­ti­pli­ca­tion in my head. Two cents meant you could buy fifty peach­es for one dol­lar. Or you could buy two hun­dred and fifty peach­es for five dol­lars. Or you could buy one thou­sand peach­es for twen­ty dol­lars. But nobody would waste twen­ty whole dol­lars on that many peaches. 

I took one—its fur­ry skin in my palm felt like a liv­ing thing. There were dents in the flesh where my fin­gers had grabbed it. Then, with­out think­ing, I start­ed squeez­ing. I squeezed and squeezed it until its juices ran down my knuck­les, drip­ping down onto the wood­en floor. 

It wasn’t until I was squeez­ing so hard I could feel the seed in the mid­dle start­ing to press into my palm that Mam­ma turned round—”Rosalia!” She star­tled me by cry­ing out. “What are you doing? What are you doing?!” She swept over, swat­ting the seed out of my hand. It clat­tered to the ground. “Look at your dress,” she said, point­ing to the sticky stains on the hem of it. “What were you think­ing?” She turned to Uncle. “I am so sor­ry.” He waved away her apol­o­gy, but she fished into her purse and pulled out three cents. The coins clinked as she laid them on the counter. 

“That’s too much,” I mur­mured, but nobody seemed to hear.  

~  

The next morn­ing, Anto­nia said she felt sick and didn’t want to go to school. Mam­ma didn’t mind, espe­cial­ly since Anto­nia had done so well yes­ter­day and would be leav­ing school soon any­way. The fam­i­lies of two men had already vis­it­ed, ask­ing about my sis­ter, but most like­ly it would be nei­ther of them. Mam­ma said Anto­nia would mar­ry a young man called Giuseppe Sun­day who worked at Uncle’s in the storeroom. 

I knew this boy. He always had pow­dered sug­ar on his nose because his fam­i­ly had a bak­ery, and he brought over trays of can­no­li to sell at Uncle’s. They were not the best can­no­li in town, but they were good. My mouth watered think­ing of their crunchy gold shells filled with ricot­ta and choco­late chips. Giuseppe Sun­day was shy like Anto­nia. Nev­er spoke a word to me. I pic­tured them sit­ting across from each oth­er, silent, sweat­ing in the heat and star­ing at a tray of lasagna, gooey cheese bub­bling like the lava that I had recent­ly learned poured out of volcanoes. 

Since Anto­nia was sick, I was sent to school on my own. I car­ried my books pressed against my chest, enjoy­ing the stur­di­ness of my chalk­board and how the pages of the arith­metic book rip­pled in the wind. My teacher Mrs. Rag­gun­ti said I was quick with num­bers and some­times she called me up to demon­strate addi­tion and sub­trac­tion on the chalk­board in front of the whole class. I took pride in my care­ful hand­writ­ing: my 3s all pret­ty and curled like the lacy hem of a dress. I took pride, too, in how quick­ly the answers bloomed in my head. But, in six years, I wouldn’t go to school any­more. In six years, I would be fif­teen like Anto­nia and that meant sit­ting in Uncle Salvatore’s win­dow and agree­ing to mar­ry some­one like pow­dered-sug­ar nosed Giuseppe Sun­day. I told myself that six years was a long time, but I wasn’t sure about that. 

The wind picked up, car­ry­ing with it the sting of salt from the har­bor, and I hugged my school­books tighter into my chest. I tried to think of what my life would be like when I got mar­ried, but noth­ing came to mind. Oth­er girls at school mused about what they might wear on their wed­ding day or what they hoped their hus­band would look like. Giu­lia Messi­na said that she hoped her hus­band would look just like Dou­glas Fair­banks, the star of Robin Hood we’d seen at the pic­tures last year. It’s not that I was opposed to get­ting mar­ried, exact­ly. You don’t oppose the sun­set or the moon. They just are. They just hap­pen. But I didn’t want to leave school. 

I loved learn­ing about num­bers. And I loved count­ing up things in Uncle’s shop—cans of sar­dines, bags of flour. But the real­ly neat thing about num­bers was that, some­times, you could use them to count up noth­ing. I asked Mrs. Rag­gun­ti in class once, when she’d made me divide thir­ty by five on the chalk­board, what the thir­ty stood for. “Thir­ty of what?” I had asked. At first she was con­fused, but then she said that it was just thir­ty, just a num­ber. It could be thir­ty of any­thing: thir­ty dol­lars, or thir­ty girls, or thir­ty chick­en eggs. The class laughed at this, but I thought it was swell. When you’re doing arith­metic, you’re count­ing up any­thing and noth­ing at the same time. 

The breeze lift­ed my hair as I walked past Uncle’s store and gazed at it from the oth­er side of the road. I saw the sign hung on the door in Eng­lish and Ital­ian. Chiuso/Closed. I looked at the place where Anto­nia sat yes­ter­day, expect­ing an emp­ty chair. But it was not emp­ty. There was some­one there. 

A girl was sit­ting with her hands fold­ed neat­ly in her lap. Her white dress looked like Antonia’s, only the lace went all the way up to her chin. She had dark hair too, yanked back in a braid. I couldn’t see her face very well. Was it some­one I knew? 

I ran into the street to get a bet­ter look at her, and heard the screech and honk of an auto­mo­bile. I leapt out of the road as the dri­ver shout­ed curs­es at me. 

“Mi scusi, sig­nore!” I called, but he was already off, smoke tun­nel­ing out of his exhaust pipe. 

When I turned back to the win­dow, there was nobody there. I pressed my fin­gers on the cold glass, peer­ing inside for some sight of the girl, but she was gone. The taps of the soda foun­tain shone like jewelry. 

~

“I saw a girl today in the win­dow of Uncle’s store,” I said at dinnertime. 

Mam­ma looked up from her frit­ta­ta. “Who?”  

“I didn’t rec­og­nize her,” I said. 

My sis­ter looked curi­ous but not threat­ened. Anoth­er girl in the same win­dow could be com­pe­ti­tion for the same eli­gi­ble young men, but Anto­nia didn’t seem to care. 

“That can’t be true,” said Papa, but­ter­ing a roll. “Your Zio told me that only Anto­nia would sit in his win­dow this week. Gius­to, Anto­nia?”  

Anto­nia looked down at the veg­eta­bles jig­gling inside the frit­ta­ta. She shrugged. 

“I will ask him,” Papa said, and the mat­ter was settled. 

“It’s too hot for frit­ta­ta,” said Mam­ma, push­ing her plate away. “I should have made salad.” 

~

Uncle Sal­va­tore said he knew noth­ing of this girl. He said that unless some lit­tle girl broke into his shop to go sit in the win­dow, he had no idea what we were talk­ing about. I must have made a mistake. 

“Un fan­tas­ma, eh?” He asked, nudg­ing me. 

At first I couldn’t remem­ber what the word meant, but then it occurred to me and I tried to laugh. Fan­tas­ma. Ghost. 

We bought a bag of toma­toes that Anto­nia would stuff with rice tonight when her new fiancé Giuseppe Sun­day and his fam­i­ly came for din­ner. As Mam­ma passed the bag of toma­toes to me to car­ry, I knew I’d spend all after­noon scoop­ing out toma­to guts in our hot kitchen. 

When we left the store, I glanced back at the win­dow and saw the girl again. There she was, sit­ting calm­ly in the chair, her hands laid across her knees. She didn’t look like any ghosts I’d heard of. She wasn’t trans­par­ent, but sol­id. And there was a faint hum of light around her. 

“Mam­ma, there she is!” I shout­ed, drop­ping the sack of toma­toes and rush­ing towards the win­dow. But, by the time I reached it, she was gone again. 

Mam­ma stared at me with her hands on her hips, and then she jerked her head towards the toma­toes. I picked them up one by one, putting them back in the brown sack, feel­ing dizzy from the heat and what I had just seen. 

“Enough non­sense, Ros­alia. After you help your sis­ter with din­ner, you should have a nap in your room,” said Mam­ma, as she pressed a palm onto my fore­head. “You don’t have a tem­per­a­ture, but I don’t want you to fall ill too.” 

I nod­ded, plac­ing the last of the toma­toes in the bag. It wasn’t non­sense. I had seen some­one there and, this time, I had rec­og­nized her. 

I still did not know what she was—a fan­tas­ma? A ghost? Or maybe an angel, like those that vis­it saints? But though I didn’t know what she was, I was cer­tain now who she was. 

The girl in the win­dow was me.  

~

At din­ner with Giuseppe Sunday’s fam­i­ly, I didn’t eat any­thing. I pushed Brus­sels sprouts across my plate and watched them knock into each oth­er like mar­bles. I mashed up the toma­to under my fork until it was prac­ti­cal­ly pas­ta sauce. My par­ents fawned over his par­ents, who frowned at our lit­tle apart­ment near the water­front. My father asked Giuseppe Sun­day ques­tions about how he would take over his father’s bak­ery one day. 

Giuseppe Sun­day seemed to enjoy bak­ing and talked for a quar­ter of an hour about why he pre­ferred to fry can­no­li in peanut oil, rather than short­en­ing. “It’s a bet­ter fla­vor in the end,” he said. His voice was qui­et, bare­ly audi­ble over the honk of horns out­side and the occa­sion­al screech of the seag­ulls. “And I think it makes bet­ter bub­bles in the dough.” But he admit­ted that he did not much like account­ing. He hoped to one day hire some­one “to help with the books.” 

“Ros­alia is good at arith­metic,” said Antonia. 

The sound of my own name fright­ened me. But I felt flat­tered that Anto­nia had said this. I imag­ined sit­ting at the bak­ery counter with a pen­cil in my hand. Per­haps this bak­ery was my future: adding up how much we’d spent that week on sug­ar, how many can­no­li we’d sold. All that arith­metic I’d been doing at school—twenty-five divid­ed by five, thir­ty-two divid­ed by eight. Had it been prac­tice for this? All those noth­ings trans­formed into some­things in my head. Twen­ty-five bis­cot­ti. Thir­ty-two slices of black­ber­ry crosta­ta. I imag­ined spear­ing receipts in a row on a lit­tle spike at the end of each day. I thought of the door jin­gling as I called out to cus­tomers, “Come again!” 

“Yes,” I said. “Yes, I could help.” 

Giuseppe gave me a small, encour­ag­ing smile, but then Papa burst out laugh­ing, Mam­ma fol­low­ing suit. 

“Anto­nia, Giuseppe is speak­ing of run­ning his busi­ness, not school arith­metic,” Papa said and pat­ted Giuseppe Sun­day on the shoul­ders with such force that the small boy winced. 

My cheeks burned and I did not say anoth­er word for the rest of the meal. 

~

After din­ner we went to the liv­ing room. Mam­ma poured tea from her beau­ti­ful black pot with red ros­es, the one she brought over from Sici­ly. Giuseppe Sunday’s moth­er brought bis­cot­ti but they were hard as flint. Aren’t they sup­posed to be good bak­ers, I thought, suck­ing at a piece until it went gum­my in my mouth. 

When they start­ed drink­ing Marsala, I stood up. I said I had to use the bath­room, but nobody noticed when I kept going down the hall, towards the front door, down the stairs, into the orange and pink of ear­ly evening. There was a light, cool­ing breeze from the har­bor. Moth­er had tied a yel­low rib­bon into a bow at my col­lar and the wind made the loose ends rise up and flut­ter in my face. I swat­ted it away. 

Uncle’s shop was just around the cor­ner. I had to make sure of what I had seen. The girl’s face was nar­row­er than mine and she had more of a swell at her chest. But it was me. I knew it. 

Uncle once told me that we nev­er meet our­selves in dreams. If we do, it’s a sign that we will die. In dreams, we can meet kings, pres­i­dents, and cir­cus per­form­ers, long dead rel­a­tives, and famous base­ball play­ers. But we can nev­er meet ourselves. 

I round­ed the cor­ner and looked at the chair in the win­dow. Emp­ty. I was both relieved and dis­ap­point­ed to find nobody there. I stood in front of the shop for a few min­utes star­ing at the win­dow, but it was only when I turned to walk away that I heard mut­ed scream­ing and spun back around. There she was: the girl. And she was pound­ing on the glass. Her dark hair was wild around her shoul­ders and there were rib­bons on the floor, along with scat­tered lemons. She kept look­ing behind her, ter­ri­fied, like some mon­ster was about to charge out of the store­room and eat her. 

I rushed towards the front door and tried to tug it open. It was locked. 

I searched the ground for any­thing use­ful. I saw a sin­gle tin can, an apple core, and at the base of the fire hydrant—a smooth, flat stone. I grabbed it, wind­ing back my hand, like I’d seen boys in alley­ways do with their base­balls. Then I let it fly. 

The glass shat­tered, all of the shards tum­bling down like rain. Through the hole in the win­dow, the girl stepped out, glass crunch­ing underfoot. 

She didn’t look at me but ran right past, up the street, gath­er­ing her skirt in one hand so her ankles were show­ing. Then she turned a cor­ner and dis­ap­peared. I lis­tened for her foot­steps, but couldn’t hear them any­more. I could only hear sirens gath­er­ing, some­where far away. 

From the writer

:: Account ::

This sto­ry began with anoth­er sto­ry. One Christ­mas, my Uncle men­tioned, in pass­ing, that my Ital­ian-Amer­i­can great-grand­moth­er got engaged after her future moth­er-in-law saw her in a shop win­dow and liked the look of her. “That was the cus­tom,” my Uncle told me. “To put eli­gi­ble daugh­ters in win­dows.” My mind con­jured up an image of my great-grand­moth­er on dis­play in a store­front win­dow, next to tin cans and fruits and cakes. This idea, of stick­ing would-be brides in win­dows, was star­tling and unsettling—how it took objec­ti­fi­ca­tion to (almost) com­i­cal heights and made the mar­riage “mar­ket” literal. 

Sev­er­al months lat­er, when I went to write a sto­ry inspired by this anec­dote, I dis­cov­ered that it prob­a­bly wasn’t true. Nobody else in my fam­i­ly had heard of it. Indeed, nobody could even remem­ber my Uncle say­ing it that Christ­mas. I couldn’t find a record of this “cus­tom” in any books on Ital­ian-Amer­i­can com­mu­ni­ties, and my part­ner, who is from north­ern Italy, knew noth­ing about it either. My Uncle, sad­ly, has passed away, so I can­not ask him where he first heard the sto­ry. Per­haps he made it up. Per­haps I made it up. Or mis­heard him, or mis­un­der­stood. But it is just strange enough that it could have happened. 

What is true is that my great-grand­moth­er, Lena, lived in Bal­ti­more in the ear­ly 1900s. She had a bad, arranged mar­riage. Appar­ent­ly I met her, once, when I was very young, but I can’t remem­ber it. Just as my char­ac­ter Ros­alia is haunt­ed by the mys­te­ri­ous girl in the win­dow, I am haunt­ed by Lena and by the image of her behind glass, look­ing out at passers­by. This image feels very pos­si­ble, indeed very real, to me, whether or not it actu­al­ly happened. 

Car­ly Brown is a writer and aca­d­e­m­ic based in Edin­burgh. Her sec­ond poet­ry pam­phlet, Anas­ta­sia, Look in the Mir­ror (Stewed Rhubarb Press), was released in 2020. She holds a Doc­tor­ate of Fine Arts in Cre­ative Writ­ing from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Glas­gow and is cur­rent­ly work­ing on a his­tor­i­cal nov­el. Her web­site is carlyjbrown.com.

Fiction / Annalise Burnett

:: Bristlecone Pines ::

Aaron’s father used to tell him the sto­ry of his birth, in the mid­dle of a bliz­zard on the cold­est day of the year. Five and a half weeks ear­ly, he was born blue and shriv­eled, strug­gling to breathe. His par­ents watched him from the oth­er side of a glass wall as his weak lungs tried to cry, watch­ing his chest fall, not sure if it would rise again. Over and over again, the col­lapse of tiny ribs fol­lowed by the unex­pect­ed, habit­u­al inhale.

While his moth­er wait­ed in the hos­pi­tal, his father went home to care for his oth­er two sons and con­tin­ue the long fam­i­ly tra­di­tion of plant­i­ng trees on the moun­tain­side for each new mem­ber born. The land was cold and dark, but he hiked deep into the moun­tains, car­ry­ing a sapling, lit­tle more than a twig. When he arrived at the fam­i­ly grove, where the oth­er trees stood wait­ing for him, white with snow, he dug. He dug through the ice until he found the rocky ground beneath, and plant­ed Aaron’s tree there in the frozen ground.

“And when I came back to that place and the tree was still alive, I knew you’d be okay,” Aaron’s father used to say.

“Why those trees?” Aaron asked, because he liked lis­ten­ing to his father’s answer.

“Because they live in life­less places,” he said. “Some of the old­est liv­ing things on earth are bristle­cone pines.”

Fall burns deep in the Col­orado moun­tains. The slopes turn amber with dead grass, and the ferns and shrubs fol­low in reds and browns. The only thing that does not change are the ever­greens, which dot the sides of hills, wait­ing to bear snow.

Aaron dri­ves home in his com­pa­ny car. He watch­es the moun­tains slow­ly rise above him, back­lit by stars. The emp­ty seat next to him is filled with fast food trash and emp­ty ener­gy drink cans. The back seat is filled with one over-packed suit­case and anoth­er case filled with phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal sam­ples. In this car, he refus­es to dri­ve above the speed lim­it. He goes from place to place, sell­ing med­ica­tion to doctor’s offices with­out any rush. Liv­ing on the road suits him—he nev­er has to be the same per­son for very long.

Since the last time he has been home, Aaron has had a year of low sales num­bers and tak­ing his own sam­ples in half-rate hotel rooms, feel­ing dizzy as he watch­es reruns of ’90s sit­coms. He keeps wait­ing for a phone call or an email that says he’s just not cut for this. Find a new job, best of luck. Every morn­ing he wakes up and doesn’t have to turn in his car, his sam­ple case, and his move home is a relief.

As he enters his home­town, every­thing is remark­ably dif­fer­ent and uncom­fort­ably the same. In his mind, the town and every­one in it exists as it did when he was a child. There are still the same stores and peo­ple work­ing in them, the same eb and flow of trav­el­ers. At the house, his father is still com­ing through the door, kick­ing off his hik­ing boots, a hint of smoke on his breath. He smells like the wilder­ness; he looks like it too with his hair that’s gone white ear­ly and his sun-cracked cheeks. His mom is cook­ing din­ner, healthy and hardy, and Emer­son and Jack are argu­ing over who gets to watch the TV, who gets to dri­ve to school the next morn­ing. Some past ver­sion of him­self is still wait­ing to be told that din­ner is ready in his room, read­ing old comics and ski mag­a­zines. He used to sit on the floor, pressed into the far cor­ner of the room, and wait for his father to open the door—he’d know him by his dark socks and fad­ed jeans—and call him in. Come on son, how was your day?

As Aaron pulls into his mother’s dri­ve­way, he reminds him­self. His father is cast across the moun­tains as ash; he has become gray snow. His sons have scat­tered with him.

A year ago, Aaron drove home with­out plan­ning to after ignor­ing phone calls from his father. He remem­bers watch­ing his father’s caller ID light up his phone as he sat in a meet­ing try­ing to sell an exper­i­men­tal treat­ment for nico­tine addic­tion. When he final­ly answered, it was his moth­er cry­ing on the oth­er end, and then his brother’s voice cut in.

“Where the hell are you?”

He broke his rule. He drove as fast as he could, and still didn’t make it in time. Aaron remem­bers think­ing that his father didn’t end as he should have. He thought the man would hike for anoth­er twen­ty years, and then one day hik­ers would find him three days frozen in a snow drift, final­ly defeat­ed by the ele­ments he faced so often.

With­er­ing in the hos­pi­tal, refus­ing any kind of life-length­en­ing treat­ment, when there was no life­sav­ing avail­able, that is unimag­i­na­tive, unfit­ting, bor­ing. That is how oth­er peo­ple die, not his father.

Aaron learned after his death that his father had been two men. There was the Emmitt he knew, the man built of tall tales, who knew the hills and val­leys, who hat­ed maps, who named every peak, pass, and star. And there was the Emmitt who came back from the moun­tains and smoked and drank until he was kicked out of one bar and then went to anoth­er, until he couldn’t remem­ber his own name, much less his son’s.

Aaron learned that his father went to the doc­tor alone—received test results which were so def­i­nite they were shock­ing. He refused every treat­ment, remained him­self, or the two ver­sions of him­self. He didn’t tell any­one, didn’t think it mattered.

When their moth­er found him cough­ing up blood, that’s when she found out. From a white-coat­ed doc­tor, and by then she wouldn’t tell his sons for him.

Aaron received a call from his father, bare­ly strong enough to speak, five hours before he passed.

He had let them all go to voice­mail. One day he was huge, too huge to be real, the next day he was ash­es in an urn. That is what the three Beck­er sons said good­bye to.

There is noth­ing like the dri­ve home after a long absence, where you see every­thing for the first time, because the habit of ignor­ing it has gone away. The town looked small­er than he remem­bered, and so did the moun­tains, like it was all shrink­ing under­neath his feet. The house was the same when he stepped inside. The only change was more space, few­er clothes, box­es of old flan­nels and worn-out hik­ing boots wait­ing by the door. How long had his moth­er known?

Emmitt hadn’t want­ed the fuss of a funer­al, but they gave him one any­way. There was an annoy­ing num­ber of peo­ple there, to say good­bye to a man that had told no one he was dying. But what did they want, for no one to come? Every guest said the same thing, about what a shock it all was. They give timid hugs and eat cheese off of tooth­picks. Then they leave, and the house is just as emp­ty as it was before, scat­tered card­board box­es and emp­ty bot­tles that their moth­er had stopped throw­ing away.

That after­noon, as a fam­i­ly, they hiked up the moun­tains to that place there deep in the hills that only the fam­i­ly knows where the fam­i­ly is plant­ed. There is the Emer­son tree, the Jack­son Tree, the Aaron tree, and tow­er­ing over them all, the Emmitt tree. The fam­i­ly has cho­sen bristle­cone pines to plant in the name of each child for their har­di­ness. They exist in con­tra­dic­tion: to give them too much water, warm air, or lush soil would be to suf­fo­cate them. Here and only here, on the south­ern slope where wind cuts into stone, is where they have learned to endure. The Emmitt tree is its own incon­sis­ten­cy, taller than all the oth­ers. It looks like wis­dom and growth. They spread his ash­es at its base, and this is their only goodbye.

Home for the first time since the funer­al, Aaron rings the door­bell of his old house. His moth­er answers, and she hugs him in the foy­er. He catch­es the scent of flo­ral per­fume. That is new, not con­nect­ed to any mem­o­ry of her. He feels as though he is a din­ner guest and that he should have brought a bot­tle of wine or side sal­ad with him.

“How long has it been?” she asks, and nei­ther of them answers. Even though it’s a Sat­ur­day, her eyes are lined with choco­late-col­ored lin­er. She’s wear­ing a pink sweater with a match­ing puffer vest over it. Warm but lay­ered, that is the rule of this place. He tries to remem­ber if her hair was that gray the last time, he saw her or if her face had so many lines. He thinks of how her skin looks like tis­sue paper, wait­ing to rip.

“I’m glad you’re home.” A sin­gle look past her tells him that the house has been gut­ted. All that is left of the place is blank white walls and emp­ty rooms. “I’m mov­ing, and I need you to fig­ure out what to do with some stuff for me.”

Aaron doesn’t under­stand. For the sec­ond time, he has come home only to find that there is no home left. The place has moved out from under him. The white walls of their small moun­tain house have been scrubbed clean. Pic­tures of the fam­i­ly on skis, of scenic views, and fam­i­ly reunions have been loaded into unmarked box­es. The books have been stripped from the shelves, and all fur­ni­ture is miss­ing. Aaron has set his foot down into emp­ty space. He shouldn’t be sur­prised, but he is.

He sits at the kitchen table, across from his two broth­ers who have already arrived. Emer­son, a stiff pilot with red eyes, greets him with a loud “what’s up.” He gives Aaron a bone-crush­ing hand­shake, as if he wants Aaron to hire him for a job he’s not qual­i­fied for. The oth­er, the climber, looks up at him from under his over­sized beanie, nods. Jack, who wears drug rugs and lives out of a van, blog­ging and pick­ing his way up sheer rock for a liv­ing. He is sport­ing a scrag­gly beard. His fin­gers are hard­ened and swat with thin chip­ping nails.

There is a moment before they eat when they look at each oth­er and try to remem­ber. Aaron imag­ines his moth­er with­out gray on her hair, Emer­son smil­ing, Jack with­out a beard. He remem­bers fol­low­ing down the ski slopes in win­ter, claw­ing to catch up with them. Now they are strangers, meet­ing for the first time, sup­posed to know each oth­er from some­where else.

As he eats, Aaron looks at the last pic­ture on the wall. It is a pic­ture of his father Emmitt in full ski gear, with two poles in one hand, a cig­a­rette in anoth­er. He isn’t smil­ing, he’s just look­ing for­ward through his mir­rored snow gog­gles, about to throw the cig­a­rette into the snow, pull a mask over his face, and plunge down the moun­tain. Ski­ing always feels like falling, like the world is slip­ping out from under you, he used to tell Aaron when they stood togeth­er at the top of a slope. The more you fight it, the more you’ll lose your bal­ance, tum­ble into the snow.

“I’ve already bought a con­do in south­ern Cal­i­for­nia,” their mom says, smil­ing like she has prac­ticed it in the mir­ror. “It’s right near the beach, sun­ny all year long, no snow blow­ers needed.”

“Mom, this is our only home,” Jack tells her.

“Look, here’s what you should do, Mom. You should take a lit­tle bit of mon­ey out of your retire­ment, just a lit­tle, and you should use that to buy a lit­tle con­do in, and then rent it out half the year,” says Emer­son, lean­ing over the table.

“Already bought it,” she mut­ters, rolls her eyes.

“And you live there in the win­ter. That way you can make nice new friends in a dif­fer­ent place, you don’t have to wor­ry about get­ting snowed in. And then in the sum­mer, you come back here. Rent the oth­er place out, make your mon­ey back.”

“What’s the point of that if tourists would always be here?” Aaron asks Emer­son, accus­ing with­out mean­ing to. “We should just keep it.”

The three sons argue by nature of who they are like beta fish dropped in the same tank. Aaron can­not remem­ber the last time they all want­ed the same thing. They go back and forth, mak­ing grand plans for their moth­er, and talk­ing of how they will either rent the place, or that she could give it to Jack, how he would pay her back. Aaron tries to imag­ine him­self mov­ing back only to pay rent to his younger broth­er. He bites the inside of his cheek and argues for some­thing bet­ter. Just keep the house.

“Dad would have kept it,” says Aaron.

She purs­es her lips, exhales hard. This is the right thing to say. “Your father would also leave emp­ty beer bot­tles and cig­a­rette pack­ages all over the house when he came home, and leave me to clean it all up, to stuff it in my purse so you boys wouldn’t see when you woke up.”

Aaron has nev­er imag­ined this ver­sion of his mom, the exas­per­at­ed wife she forced her­self to become. He tries to make his breath qui­et, so it doesn’t break the cur­tain of silence.

“Your father was like that, wasn’t he. A year dead, and it’s still all about what he wants.”

“The three of you don’t have any­where else, I know that. But don’t blame me for it. I’m choos­ing my own place now.” Her paint­ed on façade has melt­ed, and now her back is stiff, and her hair pulls itself out of its pins. Emer­son and Jack both lean onto their hunched arms, star­ing into their emp­ty bowls of chili.

Aaron mut­ters, so qui­et almost no one hears him, “What else will we have of him?”

“What else will we—” she echoes in a breath voice, looks up at the ceil­ing. “What can we still want from him? He didn’t exist in the first place.”

Aaron knows that you become the place you live. He imag­ines his mom every night call­ing bars and hos­pi­tals, wor­ry­ing, relieved when he comes home, angry when he wakes up hun­gover. He imag­ines her wait­ing patient­ly by lamp­light, read­ing a book she can’t focus on. These habits would not be part of her fam­i­ly, it would not be some­thing that was acknowl­edged. To her sons, it was all vague and far away. They only knew it was some­thing their dad did over there, like golf or play­ing cards with friends.

She has been in this fam­i­ly longer than her sons, and there is no tree plant­ed for her, because she was not born into it.

She takes a deep breath. She has pushed her gray hair from her cheeks, and her voice returns to nor­mal. “If you love this place so much, buy it your­selves. I’m not com­ing back.”

There is noth­ing they can say to that. This is the place they fall back on in the qui­et of their minds. It has made and unmade them, and they have nev­er real­ly left.

She walks away with­out clean­ing the table and goes into her bed­room and clos­es the door. She isn’t mad, she is final, and that is worse. There is noth­ing left for them to do but move on.

They go to vis­it their father in the morn­ing, though there is noth­ing left of him. He is blown into the wind, dis­solved into the ground. All the remains are the trees that grew him, the bristle­cone pines. The tree plant­ed for him is taller than the oth­ers. It looks ancient and tired, but in its whole lifes­pan it is still young. It will out­live all mem­o­ry of Emmitt, the father, the drinker, the moun­tain man. When the town in the val­ley below is aban­doned and the moun­tains sink into the earth, in by inch, sliced by wind and rain, these trees will be here, enduring.

Of the six trees in the grove, three are plant­ed for peo­ple who are still liv­ing. They refuse to look like trees. They look like cer­tain­ty, sit­ting squat and stur­dy. They patient­ly inch their way toward heav­en, one cen­tu­ry at a time. They do not grow many nee­dles because they do not need them. The bark wraps around itself in coils. As Aaron watch­es them, he thinks of the cold­est day of the year on which his was plant­ed, when rocks and frozen ground were enough.

Aaron packs what is left of his life into card­board box­es. His room is stripped down only to the bed­frame. Book­shelves, the chair, night­stand, have all been sold away to pay for new con­do fur­ni­ture. Aaron holds a black trash bag in one hand and piles Pow­er Rangers fig­ures and Legos into it.

“We could give those to some­one,” his moth­er says, stand­ing in the doorway.

“Who would want them?” He knots the top of the bag and puts it in the hallway.

“Have you sold it yet?”

“No.”

There are some things which seem too hard to throw away. Old year­books and pic­tures of him on

the moun­tain, posters and old com­ic books. He buries his child­hood self into these box­es, which he will put in the back of his car and not think about, not unload until he finds some­place to put them.

“You know you’re wel­come when­ev­er you want to come to Cal­i­for­nia, right?”

He smiles and thanks her, he gives her a hug as he looks at the naked walls of the room. It has become just anoth­er place he once lived. It looks like every hotel he has ever stayed in. He places each box in his car over the case of sam­ples. He lets them go unmarked, and the rest he places on the curb. He purges him­self of his­to­ry and feels guilty as he does it. Just before Aaron leaves, he says good­bye to his broth­ers. They nod at each oth­er, and they take one last long look at the house. Aaron loves the place and resents it.

“For Christ­mas this year, we’ll have to all meet at Mom’s,” says Emerson.

“I’m busy Christ­mas,” says Jack.

“New Year’s then,” says Aaron.

“I can make that work,” Emer­son agrees.

Aaron gets into his car and dri­ves out to his next sales pitch. He can­not endure any longer, but he is giv­en no oth­er choice.

From the writer

:: Account ::

The idea for this short sto­ry came about when my good friend told me about how in her fam­i­ly, they plant a tree for each new fam­i­ly mem­ber. She also told me that she had just learned about bristle­cone pine trees, which are some of the longest liv­ing trees on earth. I was fas­ci­nat­ed both by the idea of the endurance of the pine trees and the tra­di­tion of plant­i­ng a tree in the hon­or of each new fam­i­ly mem­ber. As I com­bined these two ideas in the sto­ry, I real­ized that it became a space to process the feel­ing of what it means to leave home and come back, as I have moved recent­ly from one place to anoth­er. I want­ed to explore a person’s com­pli­cat­ed rela­tion­ship with their fam­i­ly after becom­ing an adult, see­ing how par­ents aren’t per­fect, and how your child­hood might be nos­tal­gic, but you can nev­er return to it. I also want­ed to explore the anx­i­ety of not know­ing what’s next in your life and the root­less feel­ing of ear­ly adulthood.

In ear­li­er drafts of this sto­ry, I thought that the pine trees were a sort of rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the fam­i­ly, which endures in spite of every dif­fi­cul­ty. Then I real­ized that the pine trees are not reflec­tive of the fam­i­ly mem­bers at all; rather, the pine trees func­tion as a sort of promise—that endurance and life can be found in all places.

Annalise Bur­nett is a writer and stu­dent cur­rent­ly liv­ing in the Atlanta area. She works with a small non­prof­it pub­lish­ing house.

Fiction / T. E. Wilderson

:: Telling Stories ::

Every­thing is all my fault. Because she got yelled at by her boss yes­ter­day for being late, today––since she’s decid­ed to be on time––she wants to yell at me like I’m keep­ing her behind. What­ev­er. She makes me sick. I’m try­ing to curl my bangs, and I’ve got to lis­ten to her yelling up the stairs. So, I close the bath­room door. I hear her stomp­ing up the stairs, still yelling. That’s okay. I lock the bath­room door before she can get to me. Now she’s bang­ing on the door. So, I hur­ry up. A bit. But first, I take her tooth­brush from the hold­er, and swirl it around in the toi­let a few times before I put it back. Now I’m ready to unlock the door and go to school. 

“P’Mona,” she says. “Are you try­ing to make me lose my job?” Then she pinch­es me all hard on the arm as I’m going down the stairs. 

I say “Ouch,” and remind her that I’ve got the num­ber to Child Pro­tec­tive Ser­vices writ­ten inside my shoe. 

“You need to take those damn tap shoes off!” She spits as she’s talk­ing. “I don’t know why you got­ta wear them all over every­where, anyway.” 

I make a point of dra­mat­i­cal­ly wip­ing her spit spray from my cheek. “My tap teacher says I have poten­tial, and that I should let the shoes become a nat­ur­al exten­sion of myself.” I pick up my knap­sack and wait patient­ly by the door for Mama to find her house keys. 

“That’s bull­shit, P’Mona. That woman ain’t nev­er said that. What have I told you about always telling sto­ries?” Now she’s dumped out her entire purse on the hall table. I open the door, and step out­side, to empha­size who’s exact­ly wait­ing for who. “Besides, that tap­ping is annoy­ing as shit.” Besides, her house keys are sit­ting on the kitchen counter next to the cof­fee pot. She keeps yap­ping on and on, until she final­ly fig­ures out where she left her keys. When she comes out and locks the door, she wants to look at me like it’s still my fault. 

“Shot­gun!” I say, as we head for the car. 

“P’Mona, I don’t know why you always insist on yelling ‘Shot­gun’ when there ain’t nev­er but the two of us,” Mama says. 

“It’s called sar­casm,” I say. When I climb into the car, she pops me one in the mouth. 

“It’s called smart­ing off, and you need to watch your­self,” she says. It’s not my fault she doesn’t have even a basic sense of humor. It’s not my fault I’m already smarter in the eighth grade than she is, and it’s not my fault she knows a eighth grad­er is smarter than her. She choos­es to be bit­ter about it, and that leaves me no choice but to write her off as a sim­ple­ton. Besides. She’s bit­ter about a lot of stuff, and I’m not the only one who thinks so. Most of the rest of the world is on my side. So, if her boss cussed her out, my guess––she had it com­ing. My dad had the right idea slip­ping out on her first chance he got. I don’t blame him for not being here. Real­ly, I don’t. I’m glad he nev­er came back around. It shows good judg­ment, and I admire that. How could he know whether or not I’d be just like Mama? Or, the polar oppo­site, which I am. He wouldn’t, so why take the chance? If I ever do meet him––or not even meet him, just if I come across him in life––like if I’m a check-in clerk at a hotel, and he shows up at the desk to reg­is­ter. I wouldn’t even tell him who I was, I’d just ask him if I could shake his hand. Mama says I’m a lot like him. Some­times she says too much like him. I don’t care when she says that. Actu­al­ly, I take it as a compliment. 

When she drops me off in front of school, I don’t say good-bye to her when I get out. I just close the door smooth­ly, to empha­size that I’m not the emo­tion­al­ly out of con­trol one. Then she yells through the car win­dow, “Don’t for­get I bowl tonight. Remind Mrs. Hick­man I’ll be late. You hear?” I just flash her the peace sign, and nev­er look back. But now, I’ve got to make a quick detour to catch a smoke before first peri­od. That’s how much she got on my nerves. 

Vicky and Kim are hud­dled at the bot­tom of the stairs behind the lunch­room, puff­ing away. They have their backs to me. As I go down the steps, they don’t even turn around. So when I get to them I say, “Damn, you guys. I coul­da been a teacher or some­thing, and you guys would be so busted.” 

Vicky turns around first. “Hey, P’Mona,” she says. “We knew it was you.” She reach­es out her pack of smokes, so I can take one. That’s what I like about Vicky and Kim. We all share our smokes auto­mat­i­cal­ly with­out keep­ing tabs. Kim’s mom is always find­ing her stash and throw­ing them out. So, she prob­a­bly bums more than Vicky or me. But I guess, in the end, it evens out. 

“I so could’ve been the prin­ci­pal,” I say. “Not like any of us can afford to get bust­ed again this semester.” 

“How could we not know it was you,” Vicky says. “Not like the whole world can’t hear you in those shoes from a mile away.” Vicky is the first one of us to get her peri­od. So now, she gets to be bitchy and blame it on PMS. “Why do you wear those all the time, anyway?” 

“It’s total­ly my mom’s idea,” I say. “She thinks I’ll be, like, dis­cov­ered or some­thing, so she can become a stage mom and total­ly live off my danc­ing mon­ey. Or some­thing. Like Brooke Shields and her mom.” 

“Brooke Shields is a mod­el. They earn way more than dancers,” Vicky says. 

“I know,” I say. 

“That’s so lame,” Kim adds. 

“I know. My mom’s so lazy, she’ll find any way not to have to, like, work her­self,” I say, and roll my eyes for emphasis. 

“She should be like my mom,” Kim says, “and just keep dat­ing men with mon­ey who take care of every­thing for her.” Kim’s mom looks like a Vogue mod­el. Plus, she looks like she could be in high school, and her hair is super long. I think Vicky’s just jeal­ous. My mom looks like an amphib­ian. She’s got these bug eyes, and on top of it she has these real­ly thick glass­es. And these big weird lips. I made a joke one day, when she had on this head-to-toe lime green out­fit, that she looked like Ker­mit the Frog on crack. She popped me in the mouth and told me she had plen­ty more of that crack if I didn’t watch out. Either way, count­ing on her to snag a man to set us up is a major waste of time. I don’t even know how she snagged my dad. The last time I asked her about him, she said he didn’t want to know shit about me, so what do I care about him for? I nev­er said I cared. I just want­ed to see what she’d say. Besides, I found out his name any­way, and I wrote it down. It’s Wayne Hen­ry Turn­er. And he lives at 1717 Live Oak Dri­ve in Sil­ver Spring, Mary­land. One day, when I was look­ing in Mama’s purse for smokes, I found a check fold­ed in her wal­let. It was for three hun­dred and six­ty-six dol­lars and fifty cents. And, it was super big––bigger than Mama’s checks, and it was all typed except for the sig­na­ture. It said, “Pay to the order of P’Mona Denise Turn­er Trust.” At the bot­tom on the “Memo” line, it said “By Court Order.” I wrote down every­thing that I could, before I heard Mama com­ing down the stairs. The next time I looked for the check, it was gone. 

~

The home­room bell rings, so we have to fin­ish our smokes real quick so we’re not late. Kim and Vicky both have home­room with Mrs. Anderson––skinny Anderson––that every­body likes. I’ve got Fat Ander­son, who nobody likes. She’s always smirk­ing at peo­ple, like she knows some­thing fun­ny. The only thing fun­ny about her is her breath, which always stinks. So today, after she calls roll, how come she has to say, “P’Mona, come up to my desk, please.” She gives me that dumb smirk of hers the whole way I’m walk­ing up to her desk. Then she hands me a note from the office. I don’t give her the plea­sure of look­ing at the slip right then. I don’t even look at it at all dur­ing home­room. She calls my name when the bell rings, but I total­ly make it out the back door before she can catch me. And, once I’m in the hall, I nev­er look back. I showed her. I look at the slip dur­ing my first peri­od Social Stud­ies class. It says I have to see the guid­ance coun­selor dur­ing my study hall. I’m think­ing it could have been worse. Besides, my study hall is right after lunch, so I can go have a quick smoke to cool my nerves before I go and meet The Freak. My guid­ance coun­selor, Mr. Piekars­ki, is such a freak. He thinks he’s all hip and cool and tries to talk and act like he’s everybody’s friend, but he’s not. He’s just a freak. Like when he’s try­ing to talk to you all seri­ous, it’s hard not to laugh. He’s got these huge Mr. Ed buck teeth, and glass­es with a fade tint that are twice the size of his face. Like some mad sci­en­tist who thinks he’s a rock star. And as obvi­ous­ly dam­aged as he is, if he had an eye patch, a wood­en leg, and a kick­stand, my mom still wouldn’t be able to snag him. So now you see what my life is like. And why, even if it wasn’t Thurs­day and I had to stay late at Mrs. Hickman’s, I’d be hat­ing this day. 

So, all through first and sec­ond peri­ods, I’m try­ing not to sweat it. There ain’t noth­ing I’ve done late­ly to get me called into the guid­ance office. But by third peri­od music class, it’s start­ing to bug me. We’ve been prac­tic­ing “Thriller” by Michael Jack­son, and I can play my part in my sleep. But today, I keep mess­ing up, and it’s piss­ing me off because I know I know it. Then, Mrs. Bigelow has to go and rub it in, say­ing, “Con­cen­trate, P’Mona. You know this piece.” I know I do, ya heifer. Why’d she have to call me out in front of the whole class like that? Then I made the mis­take of look­ing over at Claude. Some­times I think he’s secret­ly in love with me. For the most part I just ignore him when he looks all goo­gly at me. He’s not so bad, he’s just not super cool. Any­way, when I look over at Claude, he’s all bugged out like I just stripped naked and danced a jig. I don’t look at him again for the whole class. 

Final­ly, the stu­pid bell rings, and I bolt. I can hear Claude run­ning to catch up to me. “P’Mona. Hey, P’Mona, wait up!” he calls. 

“Hey Claude,” I say, cut­ting my way through the hall to my lock­er. “What’s up?” 

“Man, I can’t believe Mrs. Bigelow cracked on you in class.” His eyes are so big, I’m afraid he might be hav­ing some kin­da attack. Claude’s body is always let­ting him down over sim­ple things, so I’m not mak­ing this up. Like, he’s aller­gic to wool. And grass. Which makes win­ter and sum­mer two of his worst sea­sons. Plus, he has asthma. 

“Don’t sweat it, Claude,” I say. “Even Monk had his off days.” 

“Who?” 

“Skip it,” I say. Like I said, Claude’s not super cool. “If you don’t know, you’ll have to wait until you’re ready to learn.” He just stands there, star­ing at me like a gup­py, while I spin the com­bi­na­tion on my lock. I open the lock­er door wide enough to dig in my knap­sack for a smoke, which I tuck up the sleeve of my shirt. I shut the lock­er, and Claude is still stand­ing there. 

“Lis­ten,” I say. “No big whoop, alright. Thurs­days always suck. Why should today be any different?” 

“Ohhh, yeah. Thurs­day.” Claude starts shak­ing his head, like I’ve just explained how the world almost came to an end but missed. Now I’m beel­in­ing to the lunch­room, ’cause if I’m gonna have a real good smoke before study hall, I can’t get stuck at the end of the lunch line. This means Claude, who is like a foot short­er than me, is near­ly run­ning to keep up. 

“Hey,” he says. “I brought Scrab­ble with me today, because I was going to play at the library after school. But I could play with you over at Mrs. Hickman’s. Okay?”

Claude lives only a cou­ple of blocks from Mrs. Hickman. 

“Lis­ten, Claude.” I stop just inside the lunch­room. “I so can’t think about that right now, okay? I’ll total­ly see you after school.” Claude says that I can think about it, so I flash him the peace sign, and make it to be twelfth in line. Claude is smart enough to be pres­i­dent one day. He has these com­plete hip­py par­ents who don’t believe in TV, so he reads all the time. He’ll read any­thing, includ­ing the dic­tio­nary. The library near his house has a Scrab­ble club that meets once a week, and he is like the undis­put­ed champ. So, the fact that he’d offer to give up the one day of the week where he’s like a rock star to ease my hell is total­ly cool. So when I say I think he’s in love with me, you know I’m for real. 

Lunch today is chipped beef, which means Thursday’s also crap­py food day, since Mrs. Hick­man gives me frozen pot pies on Thurs­days. At least I get my pick between chick­en, turkey, and beef. She always makes sure I have a choice, and she carves P, apos­tro­phe, M in the crust on top. So more or less she’s not the worst. Aside from the fact that her house smells like dead rodent. And, she’s always fart­ing, and blam­ing it on the dog. And, she doesn’t have a col­or TV, just this tiny black-and-white one you have to be almost on top of to see, so what’s the point? Basi­cal­ly her house is bor­ing as shit, and smells like it, too. She smokes Salems, though, and has like ten packs lying around the house ’cause she for­gets where she puts them once she opens them. So, I can palm as many as I want when I’m there, and she nev­er knows the difference. 

I sit next to Mis­sy and Muffy, ’cause they’re the least stuck up of the girls in my lunch peri­od. If I could be any­body else in the world, it would be Muffy. First of all, she can wear make­up to school. Not only that, her mom buys her make­up for her––and I mean the super expen­sive stuff at the depart­ment store. One day, she was touch­ing up her eye shad­ow in the bath­room, and she told me her mom bought it for her one day when they got makeovers togeth­er down­town. It was a kin­da shim­mery, princess blue col­or, and it came in a lit­tle case that looked like a gold clamshell. She even let me put some on. The col­or was Desert Twi­light, and on Muffy it looked just like it did on the mod­el in the ad in Cos­mo. I wouldn’t call Muffy pret­ty, but she’s tall, and kin­da exot­ic look­ing. She could total­ly make it as a mod­el, except for the fact that she wears her hair in a ’fro. Her mom has her enrolled in this mod­el­ing school uptown, and one day she brought her “test pho­tos” in to show every­body. She explained that these were the pic­tures she was going to put in her port­fo­lio, for when she was ready to go on “go sees,” which are basi­cal­ly what you call mod­el audi­tions. Mama said no way in hell was she was gonna pay for mod­el­ing lessons––even if I grew a foot overnight and woke up pret­ty. Mama also says that the only rea­son Muffy’s in mod­el­ing school is because she’s adopt­ed by these white folks that wouldn’t know black beau­ty if it slapped them in the face. Maybe so, but last sum­mer Muffy and her mom went to New York with some of her pic­tures and met with a bunch of agents. Muffy said that the lady at the top agency in New York said to call her when she grew to be five-nine, because she might be able to start in their run­way divi­sion. Mama didn’t have noth­ing to say after that. Any­way, I decid­ed to take mat­ters in my own hands. I went down­town to this funky store that has one of those pho­to booths in it. I took a bunch of pic­tures of myself, pos­ing like they do in fash­ion mag­a­zines. I had to go a few times before I had enough pic­tures that I thought were as good as Muffy’s, but the good thing is you get six to a strip. So, I had enough to choose from. I cut the best ones out and sent them to these mod­el­ing agen­cies I read about in Sev­en­teen. That was a few weeks ago, so I’m still wait­ing to hear. I fig­ure I can mod­el dur­ing sum­mer vaca­tions until I’m out of high school. Then, who knows? 

Mis­sy reach­es into her purse, and hands these Avon cat­a­logs to Muffy and me, announc­ing she’s now an Avon lady. I can­not believe I didn’t think of that shit first. Missy’s going on and on about all the sam­ples she’s ordered, and how much she’s already sold, but I’m stuck on the nail pol­ish page. I’m try­ing to fig­ure if I have enough mon­ey for the Cot­ton Can­dy and the Can­dy Apple. But more than that, I’m think­ing how much I could make if I sold my own damn Avon. 

“I was gonna sell Avon,” I say. “But I heard it was run by the Hare Krishna.” 

“No way,” says Mis­sy. “You’re total­ly mak­ing that up.” 

“I’m not,” I say. “It was on 60 Min­utes, and they showed how they have like all of the Krish­na kids work­ing in the fac­to­ry.” Now both of them are look­ing at me instead of the cat­a­log. “Plus, they all have to work like twen­ty hours a day, and sleep in one room about the size of this lunch room, and sleep two to a sleep­ing bag.” I look up from them to see my freak of a guid­ance coun­selor pass by, and I real­ize I bet­ter smoke while the smok­ing was good. I gath­er all of my trash on my tray and get up to leave. But not before adding that if a new prod­uct doesn’t make it to stores, it’s because some Hare Krish­na babies went blind from the prod­uct test­ing done on them. 

“No way,” Mis­sy says again. “I’m gonna ask my mom.” 

“That sounds so sad,” adds Muffy. 

“Okay,” I say, as I get ready to leave. “It may not be the Hare Krish­nas, but it was some­body just like them. I mean, it was on TV. Not like a bazil­lion oth­er peo­ple didn’t see it, too. Any­way, I’ll catch you guys lat­er.” As I walk away, I hear Mis­sy say, “No way. Hare Krish­na peo­ple don’t even wear make­up.” But, I nev­er look back to let her know I heard her. 

~

By the coat clos­et in the band room is a fire door with a dis­con­nect­ed alarm, so I head there for a smoke before my guid­ance coun­sel­ing freak­fest. I’m halfway to the coat clos­et, when I see Belin­da Buck­n­er dig­ging around in a knap­sack. It total­ly looks like a theft-in-progress, but like I care. When she looks up at me, I just give her a silent nod, and keep step­ping. I’m light­ing up, sit­ting with my back to the door, when it busts open and almost knocks me over. 

“Damn,” I say, when I real­ize Belin­da has fol­lowed me. I fin­ish light­ing my cig­a­rette and scoot onto a step clear of the door­way. Belin­da leans toward me, point­ing her crooked fin­ger close to my face. 

“If you tell any­body you saw me up in here, I’ma kick your skin­ny ass,” she says. I just roll my eyes. So, she steps clos­er and says, “I’ma kick your ass after school, you lit­tle cross-eyed snot. Don’t let me catch you after school, I swear!” And then she lets the door slam shut behind her. I don’t know who she’s call­ing cross-eyed, with those bowlegs of hers. Now my knee is bounc­ing up and down a mile a minute. Plus, this cig­a­rette is old and tastes like the bot­tom of my shoe. So, my plan to cool out a bit is shot, plus I’ve got to dodge Belin­da after school, because she is known to keep her butt-kick­ing word. I decide to cut my loss­es, and just head for the guid­ance office. 

~

I’m wait­ing for my guid­ance coun­selor to go over my file and get to the point of this moment in hell, when I real­ize he’s an even big­ger freak than I remem­ber. He’s wear­ing this gold chain around his neck, and this pol­ka dot shirt––which looks just as ridicu­lous as it sounds. It’s like this morn­ing he got dressed to go to the roller rink, and instead came to work. He hasn’t said a word since he told me to make myself com­fort­able when I came in about for­ev­er ago. As if mak­ing myself com­fort­able was pos­si­ble. I’m hop­ing I’m here because he has to check in with all of his new trans­fer stu­dents, to see how we’re adjust­ing. He’s look­ing through my file, eat­ing a Whop­per and some onion rings, and his eye­brows are mov­ing almost as much as his jaw. I kin­da think he might be try­ing to hyp­no­tize me. This goes on like for­ev­er. Any­way, he final­ly stops read­ing and puts his elbows on the edge of his desk with his two fin­gers point­ed up like a steeple. So, I’m guess­ing he’s being seri­ous with me. 

“Well, I see here that your grades are okay––they could be better––but they’re pass­ing.” He stops to suck his teeth a cou­pla times. “What con­cerns me, is that your teachers––every last one of them––says that you could do bet­ter if you didn’t spend so much time in class flirt­ing with the boys.” 

His eye­brows go up, and he just holds them there. Which I guess means he’s wait­ing for a response, but I can’t move. I think I’m not old enough to have a heart attack, but I’m sure that right now I’m dying. I want to tell him that I need to go to the hos­pi­tal, real­ly, but I can’t move. At all. I can see that he’s talk­ing to me. But all I can hear is this whoosh noise in my head like when I swim under­wa­ter in the pool at the Y. I’m think­ing about what Mama is gonna do when she hears this, and I start to feel a lit­tle shaky. My eyes fill up with hot water. Mr. Piekars­ki folds his hands on the desk and leans over his Whopper. 

“Andrea, is there any­thing you’d like to say about this?” he asks. 

I know my lips are mov­ing, but it takes a few sec­onds before I hear myself say “I’m P’Mona.” 

“Oh. Oh! Excuse me,” he says, look­ing down at the file. “Let’s see now. Just one sec­ond.” He licks his fin­gers, clos­es the file, then pulls mine from the heap under his ham­burg­er. He opens it, and his eye­brows do their thing. Then he starts over. 

“Okay, P’Mona. Sor­ry ’bout that. Here’s what we’ve real­ly got.” I can bare­ly hear him over the whoosh­ing and Mama’s cussing in my head. “So, while your grades are admirable, there are still some issues.” He rais­es one eye­brow, then the oth­er. “The feel­ing is, P’Mona, that expec­ta­tions of enrolling you in a Mag­net arts school where there is an empha­sis on cre­ative out­put would alle­vi­ate your need to express your­self by …” He paus­es for a long time, mak­ing these rolling ges­tures with his hands, like he’s for­got­ten what he was going to say. I just look at him. I’m not a mind read­er. “There were hopes that you would, you know, that it would alle­vi­ate, you know, your need for … fib­bing.” He folds his hands into a steeple again. “How do you feel about that?” 

I just shrug at him. 

“Is there some­thing about the tran­si­tion that’s been par­tic­u­lar­ly dif­fi­cult for you, P’Mona?” This time I don’t even both­er to shrug. “The feel­ing, P’Mona, is that if you can’t get this … tale-telling … under con­trol, well …” Now his eye­brows shrug at me. “The feel­ing is that, per­haps, you should start to talk to some­one on a reg­u­lar basis. To kind of sort this out, you know? Get to the bot­tom of this … need to fib.” 

I don’t know what my face did, but it must have been some­thing, because he adds all quick, “Oh, not me. The sug­ges­tion has been made that, per­haps, see­ing a coun­selor out­side of school might be a next step. As opposed to trans­fer­ring you to anoth­er school again.” He licks his thumb, sticks them in onion ring crumbs, then licks them off before he focus­es back on me. “What do you think, P’Mona?” 

I think I’d like to break his big, buck teeth and watch him swal­low them. But, I’m also think­ing I can’t say that. 

“Is there any­one that maybe you might be com­fort­able enough to talk to about things?” he con­tin­ues. “A favorite teacher maybe? Or a rel­a­tive? Any­one? I’m just think­ing if you test it out with some­one you trust first, it might help. Just see if open­ing up a lit­tle bit seems help­ful to you. Would that be, you know, cool with you?” 

Now I’m think­ing he’s not try­ing to put me on about any­thing. They’re real­ly think­ing about sign­ing me up with a shrink. Then I’m think­ing Mama must know all about this, and that it was prob­a­bly even her idea. I’ve been framed. 

Mr. Piekars­ki is still look­ing at me all hope­ful, and I feel kin­da sor­ry for him, so I say, “Well, there’s Mrs. Hick­man, I guess.” 

He kin­da leaps up in his seat a bit, and he claps his hands togeth­er. “Great! Mrs. Hickman!” 

“She’s kin­da my adopt­ed grand­moth­er,” I add. 

“Alright. Alright!” His eye­brows are doing the Mex­i­can hat dance. “And how often do you see Mrs. Hickman?” 

“I usu­al­ly see her once a week. She lives alone, so I usu­al­ly go and see how she’s doing. Kin­da keep her com­pa­ny and stuff. Maybe help her around the house if she needs it … That kin­da stuff.” 

“Well, excel­lent, P’Mona. That’s just great. Just great. You see––this is progress.” He points his steeple fin­gers at me. “It’s won­der­ful to know that there is some­body you feel you can con­nect with. This is good. Real­ly good.” He pulls the fold­ers out from under his Whop­per and straight­ens them up while he’s talk­ing. I’m think­ing that for all of my trau­ma, I should get the rest of the day free. 

“P’Mona, can we agree that the next time you’re with Mrs. Hick­man, you’ll try and share one thing with her? Just one thing that you might have oth­er­wise kept to your­self.” My foot starts to kick the leg of his desk out of reflex. 

“It doesn’t have to be any­thing big, mind you. A dis­ap­point­ing grade, or even just how your day went at school. Can you do that? Just to see how it feels?” I tell him that I guess I could, but I don’t men­tion that hell’s got­ta freeze over first. Final­ly, the bell rings, which means I can bolt. 

“Alright, P’Mona,” he says, walk­ing me to the door. “I look for­ward to our next meet­ing. We’ve made some real progress today. Real progress.” I slip free into the hall­way. I’m bare­ly ten feet away, when he calls my name. I don’t look at first, but then he calls my name again. I stop, and turn to look at him stand­ing in his office door. He’s kin­da bounc­ing on his heels, and when I look at him, he smiles and rais­es his hands high to give me a dou­ble thumbs up. I dis­ap­pear into the crowd, but I look back quick and see his thumbs still high above everyone’s heads. 

I don’t remem­ber plan­ning on going to the nurse’s office. But, when I get there, and the nurse comes from behind the desk to ask me how I’m feel­ing instead of rolling her eyes like she usu­al­ly does, I know I’ve done the right thing. I tell her I didn’t know what for sure was wrong, but I feel a lit­tle light­head­ed, and my stom­ach kin­da hurts. She brings me back to lie on one of those cots they’ve got for sick kids, and she puts a blan­ket over me. She shakes the ther­mome­ter a few times, then takes my temperature. 

“You’ll be alright,” she says, then touch­es my shoul­der before she goes back to her desk. The fact that she’s being super-nice to me means I must real­ly be sick. 

The fifth peri­od bell rings, and I real­ize I’d fall­en asleep. I don’t open my eyes. I just lis­ten to the noise in the hall­way of every­body chang­ing class­es, won­der­ing when the nurse is gonna come and make me go to Alge­bra. Final­ly, I hear her foot­steps com­ing close. But then they stop and make a lit­tle squeak when she turns to go back to her desk. 

I’d almost fall­en back asleep when I hear some­one sneeze, and the nurse lets out a kin­da dis­gust­ed shriek. Then I hear Claude say, “I must be aller­gic to gauze.” I almost laugh out loud. The nurse tells him he can lie down with his head tilt­ed back until his nose­bleed stops. 

Last peri­od goes by quick, and I’m try­ing to fig­ure out how to dodge Belin­da after school. I’m won­der­ing if there’s any way to incor­po­rate Claude in my get­away plans, when the nurse comes and touch­es me again on the shoul­der. “P’Mona, the bell’s going to ring in a few min­utes. Time to get up.” I look over at Claude’s cot, and he’s adjust­ing his glass­es. “It’s close enough to the bell that you can go when you’re ready.” And she dis­ap­pears back out front. This is the break of a life­time, as far as I’m con­cerned, and I whis­per to Claude that I’ll see him on the bus. Then I make for the door, wav­ing to the nurse as I go. 

“You feel­ing bet­ter, P’Mona?” she asks. 

“Yeah, I think so,” I say, hand on the doorknob. 

“Well, good. You’re look­ing a lit­tle better.” 

~

As I’m stand­ing at my lock­er, I decide that I’m not going to Mrs. Hickman’s. I’m just gonna go home. I can watch TV. And I’m gonna watch some­thing oth­er than old peo­ple TV. And make pud­ding. They’ve got a recipe for vanil­la pud­ding on the side of the corn­starch box. It’s easy to make, too. 

Claude and I are head­ing out, when I say, “Here’s the deal, Claude––I’m not going to Mrs. Hickman’s.” Claude looks at me like I just slapped him. “I’m gonna call her when I get home, and tell her that Mama got sick, and came home ear­ly from work. So you should total­ly go to Scrab­ble club.” 

“Okay,” says Claude. “How are you gonna get home?” 

“I’m just gonna walk.” It takes about a half an hour to walk home, which is why tak­ing the bus to Mrs. Hickman’s doesn’t com­plete­ly suck. “Besides, if I get on the bus, Belin­da might catch me.” Claude nods his head in agreement. 

“Good plan,” he says. 

I wave good­bye to Claude as he heads for the bus, then I start home. 

~

When I get home, I call Mrs. Hick­man. I tell her Mama’s lying down, ’cause she came home ear­ly from work feel­ing sick, and I’ll see her tomor­row. I don’t know why Mama won’t let me stay home alone for more than an hour. I’m in the eighth grade, and it’s not like I’m scared. But she says she doesn’t like me being home alone. Whatever. 

The first thing I do is turn on the TV. My favorite game show––Match Game––is on, so I lie across the sofa and watch the end. Then I make pud­ding. I watch TV while it cools. Then the mail­man comes, and my Sev­en­teen came! Plus the cat cal­en­dar I saved up pur­chase seals from the cat food box to get! Plus the mini Bonne Bell Lip Smack­ers that I ordered! I nev­er get mail. Nev­er. Final­ly, the pud­ding is cool enough. I eat almost all of it, then I go back to read­ing Sev­en­teen. The last thing that I remem­ber, I’d fin­ished, and was look­ing for some­thing oth­er than news on the TV. 

~

I wake up to Mama shout­ing. “P’Mona! What in the hell? Have you lost your mind? You bet­ter have a good rea­son for not being at Mrs. Hickman’s. Well? What do you have to say?” 

“I went to her house, and nobody was home … Maybe the door­bell is broke …” 

“That’s bull­shit, P’Mona. That woman told me you called her.” 

“I wasn’t feel­ing well. I even spent the last three peri­ods in the nurse’s office. You can check.” 

“P’Mona, I can’t believe a word that comes out of your mouth.” 

“I’m telling the truth …” 

“You don’t know noth­ing ’bout the truth.” Mama said. She just stands there star­ing at me hard all hard, with her hands on her hips. I guess I hadn’t thought my plan all the way through. “Go to your room. And don’t come back down,” Mama says. 

So I do, and lie down on my bed. I’ve almost for­got about the pud­ding, the Sev­en­teen, the cat cal­en­dar, and the Lip Smack­ers. Now my eyes are fill­ing up, so I grab on tight to my pil­low. She’ll see. I’m gonna be rich and famous, and she’ll be lucky if I ever even talk to her. And, I’m gonna find my dad. He should know how suc­cess­ful his daugh­ter turned out to be. She’ll see. They’ll all see. I’m gonna make it. 

And this time––this time––I’m for real. 

From the writer

:: Account ::

As a child, I nev­er could tell a good lie. My face is one of those that gives away all my secrets. I had fan­tasies about “telling sto­ries,” whether it be about going to a friend’s house to real­ly skip out and meet a boy (nev­er hap­pened) or who I was talk­ing to on the phone (invari­ably, a boy I liked). I’d form my mouth to tell a cov­er sto­ry, but only truth would spill out. 

As I grew old­er and start­ed writ­ing, I thought many times about how I mar­veled at peo­ple who could lie with ease—including a very dear (patho­log­i­cal) friend. She’d con­coct whole fairy tales and I nev­er once called her on it. Then I began think­ing about what a bur­den it must be, keep­ing all those lies straight. That’s when I came up with my pro­tag­o­nist and wrote the bones of this sto­ry. I decid­ed that she’d lie as a defense mech­a­nism, as a way to inoc­u­late her­self from real­i­ty. She felt like a bur­den to her moth­er, which made her resent­ful, and that is why she act­ed out. Then I decid­ed to top off her mis­ery by giv­ing her a name that was a burden—P’Mona. Unnec­es­sar­i­ly dif­fi­cult for peo­ple to get straight and one that could nev­er be spelled with­out being told how.  

The one thing I con­tin­ue to won­der is if the liars among us believe their lies … or if they just don’t give a damn about their deceit­ful­ness. I want to think they have a rea­son, like P’Mona. Deep inside, I’m not so sure. 

T. E. Wilder­son is a New Orleans-born writer cur­rent­ly liv­ing in the Mid­west. By day, she is an edi­tor and graph­ic design­er. Her short sto­ries have appeared in Crack the Spine Anthol­o­gy XVII, The Louisville Review, Tish­man Review, The Notre Dame Review, and F(r)iction, among oth­ers. She holds an MFA in writ­ing from Spald­ing Uni­ver­si­ty, and is a 2019 McK­night Foun­da­tion Writ­ing Fellow.