X-R-A-Y Literary Magazine | Fiction

SHARP PAIN by Andrew Ciaccio

March 31, 2019 · Fiction

You can get by just fine being dull. You can actually do very well for yourself.

My husband was an accountant in suburban Oklahoma at an office above an Applebee’s. He made six figures and drank from a coffee mug with Mount Rushmore engraved on it. He did this every day for 20-some years. Then on a snowy Tuesday, standing at the microwave in his windswept khakis, watching his leftover casserole go round-and-round, he lost his edge. Out the window, kids skated on a makeshift ice rink in the strip mall parking lot. The casserole boiled over then exploded as he walked out of the building, leaving the dead hum of fluorescents behind.

I was in the kitchen chopping onions for goulash when he walked in and took the knife out of my hand. He threw it in a 50-gallon black trash bag where it clanked against the other serrated knives already at the bottom. He moved down the granite counter, throwing in a butcher knife and paring knife. “Anything sharp has to go,” he said tossing in a peeler. I sat down at the table with tears in my eyes. “Damn onions!” he shouted back, disappearing into the garage with the bag slung over his shoulder.

He emptied the fishing hooks from his tackle box. He tossed in drill bits, needle nose pliers and a putty knife from his workbench. He dismantled the lawn mower and bagged the blades. Then up the stairs to my office. He riffled through my desk, took out a pair of scissors and emptied the stapler. He examined two pencils, threw the sharpest one in. He moved through dressers and drawers, shelves and crawl spaces. When he came to the last closet at the end of the hallway, he stopped. I watched the blood drain from his face like he’d been cut lengthwise. Out of a plastic bin, he brought up a pair of little pink ice skates. He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. The blades went out of focus as the sharp realization of what was really lost came clear.

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HUSK by James Nulick

March 29, 2019 · Fiction

I like them really young. She’s out there scraping the sidewalk like an old idiot. She’s going to wake them up and that would be bad, the young ones like their sleep. I feed off them during sleep. She’s old and she has old ideas and I honestly don’t know why I keep her on. Maybe because she knows my real age, though she’d never say. If Esmeralda were asked by the press about my age she’d say she was born in when she was born, that’s all.

###

My wiki page states I was born in 1968, but we both know that isn’t true. My manager set that up for me in 1996 – you start off with a lie in one magazine and it continues in another. We both know I was born in 1958. The old actresses used to lose ten years all the time, but that’s gotten more difficult now, high definition tells the truth. It flattens everything and cheapens it, even though the manufacturers’ claim the opposite. There is no magic in it anymore, only junkets and press and interviews and lonely hotel rooms where the boys aren’t with me. When I’m not near the boys, my skin starts changing, returns to its natural state. You’re changing again, Esmeralda says, a lighthouse reminding me of the inevitable. Shut up and act like I pay you, and she does, she returns to her old ways, but she is my constant companion and my watchdog. The press doesn’t get near me without first going through her. She has tighter access than my manager, who perhaps suspects but has no knowledge. The only ones who know for sure are the ones I sleep with, the dancers with forgettable Latin names. Maybe everything’s different this time, Esmeralda says. Shut up and get out of my face. Sometimes I’ll slap her if she gets too familiar. Puta, don’t forget where you come from.

###

I’m sixty now, my last boy before Carlos was twenty-four. I love it when they’re half my age or younger. Esmeralda finds them at dance clubs. They have to look the part, and she knows my part. Mexican, Cuban, Rican, keep them dark and young. You have new world tastes, Esmeralda jokes, too familiar. Shut up and keep in the dark, like I pay you. I need a new boy, so go out and find one, my skin hurts. Ay ay ay, she says. I should just leave here. If you leave you will die, I tell her, and she knows it’s true. I have a housekeeper but I keep her away from the master bedroom, and she’s not allowed to speak to the boys. I took her on after Esmeralda started complaining of lack of sleep. I never sleep, I told her. Yes but I don’t have your gift, she said, and it’s true. She’s an old fool and she looks it, though in truth she is younger than me, born the year Kennedy’s head exploded on television, pieces of him still on the bench seat as she was being delivered. Where were you when blah blah blah? Mi madre was pushing me into the world. You are mine and you always will be, you stupid old fool.

###

My first album, You Know Me, was a crossover hit, and I earned a million dollars from it. I knew I wouldn’t have to worry about money after that. The record label exec was an old Jewish pedophile. We understood each other. You look different in the light, he said. So do you. He knew I knew him. How many Jacobs and Justins and Jasons had he made? In his office, so many years ago, he’d said I’d like to aim for the Latin audience. You’ve got the look for it. Looks are all I’ve got. Keep that attitude up and you’ll have all the boys you’ll ever need. I don’t need anything Lou – only your silence.

###

I’m not sure when I learned I had the gift – maybe eleven or twelve. A boy from the neighborhood came to our ratty apartment after school, a friend of my brother. He came into the bedroom I shared with my younger sister, born in 1961. He sat beside me in a hand-me-down tiger striped t-shirt that smelled of an older brother. The shirt drooped off his neck, stretched over his head a thousand times. Your skull and your brother’s, housed in the same fabric. I bent over and bit him on the shoulder, my teeth puncturing his skin. He screamed like a girl and ran from the room. The feeling in my mouth was exquisite, as if I had been reborn. I looked in the mirror, beautiful and radiant, my behind already gathering attention from neighborhood boys, attention eventually converted into money, a singing and acting career. Callipygian, Lou’d once said, in his office, framed gold records reflecting my face. Lou titled my second album Hover to Zoom, I got the idea, well, nevermind. The Jews are good with words – they created the world, after all.

###

When I was thirteen I brought a boy into my bedroom. My sister was at school, my parents not around. Show me, I told him, and he unbuckled his belt and dropped his pants, corduroy gathered round his ankles, his legs peach. I hooked my thumbs on the band of his briefs and grew younger as he collapsed onto the floor, his face a pinched walnut. What are you? Shut up, my hand over his throat, and he left the room, his pants pulled quickly over broomstick legs as he fled the apartment looking twenty years older. They never came back, never bothered learning my last name. It didn’t matter. I grew younger as they grew older, I signed contracts and they worked in hardware stores and 7-Eleven’s, claiming to not know me. But didn’t you… the timzy reporter asked. They would know me soon enough.

###

My last boy was Carlos Moncebáez. Esmeralda found him decorating the wall at Boulevard. He was twenty-three. She lured him with three C-notes. He was relieved when I walked into the room. I know you, he said. You’ll be good for me, two plus three is five. Que? It’s alright, just shut up and look pretty. The press was harsh, who does she think she is, dating someone twenty-seven years younger than her? If they only knew. Men have arm candy, why can’t women? And he was strong, his legs pistons pushing his desire into me. He could maintain a forty-five degree angle for hours, so much so my skin slippage would create dark pools on the bed. He was advised to never turn on the lights during, due to my beliefs. Dumb and handsome, he always obliged – good for him. I kept him longer than usual because he was beautiful and didn’t talk, which the press find mysterious.

###

I don’t like being like this, he said, like I’m some young and dumb thing that follows you around everywhere, like I’m a puppy or something. Aren’t you happy? Aren’t you taken care of? Isn’t your allowance enough? Yes but a man has to be a man, baby, and I wanna try something different, Carlos said.

###

The darkness of the house closed over them. Expensive cars on Sunset winked and flickered like rare jewels.

###

Come to bed, I told him, after Esmeralda turned off all the lights. I was growing bored with him, and my skin was hurting again. The pain was coming on, each new hour nearly unbearable. What was it you wanted to try, baby, I whispered to him, as a mother might whisper to her child. He took me into the bedroom, the green glow of an alarm clock illuminating the records on the wall, pressed gold reminding me who I am and who I was.

###

Officer Javier Linares

One of the virtues of being old is knowing when to disappear. If you’re a pop star, even more so – the public doesn’t want to see its pop stars old, skeletal, and reminiscent of death. She dated a young man and then disappeared. Her wiki page claims she was born in 1968. We all thought she was fifty. That was the official story, anyway.

###

It had been three weeks since anyone had seen her, and the press was getting antsy. Maybe they’re living in Greece or somewhere, my partner said. Who cares? Stop complaining – I’ll go in. I pulled on a pair of black nitrile gloves. My partner stayed in the car. It was only a wellness check, after all.

###

There was a door key hidden on the sconce light, tucked between brass and stucco. She’d clawed her way out of the ghetto but still had ghetto ways. It was funny but I didn’t mind – she had a nice butt for her age.

###

Despite the air conditioning, the smell was overpowering. Lights were on, a microwave door left mysteriously open. I called out her name – Miss Romero? But there was no answer. I sensed there wasn’t any staff in the house. You get a feel for these things. I moved slowly down the hall, my gloves invisible, my weapon drawn. You get wrapped up in it, the fear. I am thin but my partner isn’t – he’s not a good runner. I laugh at his heavy breathing, running down an alley after a suspect. You’re gonna have a heart attack one of these days. Go to hell, he says. But those are the good days. Some days aren’t so good, days when you can’t figure people out, when you wonder if this one will finally be the death of you.

###

The bedroom door was partially cracked, yellow light illuminating the deep white carpet. The pile was peppered with black spots, the negative of white spots on an X-ray. Death. I wasn’t looking forward to it. I quickly toed the bedroom door open.

###

In the room, five or six mummified corpses, their teeth removed. Desiccation would make identification nearly impossible. I radioed my partner in the car. You’re not going to believe this. You want me in there? Yeah, I need you in here.

###

There’s something under the comforter. Dave had his weapon drawn. I moved closer to the bed, my gloved fingers near the mound. Dave nodded. I quickly drew the comforter away. On the mattress lay a black mass, its wrists and feet bound by a ligature. Is it human? I can’t tell. Does it have teeth? The open mouth reminded me of the victims at Pompeii. I felt drawn to the darkness of it. There’s a ring on its finger. Let’s get the hell out of here, man. My face was partially reflected in the framed gold records on the wall. I recognized one of them. Damn, it’s her, man. As we moved back toward the hall a soft garbled voice came from the direction of the comforter. Wait, it said.

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IDROT by Levi Rumata

March 28, 2019 · Fiction

[ WALL LIFE ]

In the new curved shapes to come, how we’d imagined the arrival at a monument – something we’d rehearsed many times in anticipation of a disillusionment we’d known then only as some vague, signless desire – it was not as we could have guessed. There weren’t accompanying gestures or sightings of ectoplasm at the old cement factory. It turns out that, for much of our searching, it had been around. Like a landscape pulling apart stretched seethrough thin, so much so we were passing right with it. Screenprinting. On the house that still had its xmas lites up, we noticed how the bulbs that had for two seasons been flashing closed faulty lengths of its strand into a nitely eyesore was signaling just fine now. You were saying how you’d crashed your dad’s car and how it was no big deal. It’s been years. And so there was plenty of time to get to know the inside of the monument, standing in the same spot. Timeshare. There had been furniture. We’d hauled the furniture out to the curb. We went a while without furniture and then eventually in increments we’d accumulated other furniture. New and different furniture from the furniture we’d hauled to the curb, but not so different that it wasn’t furniture. And all this time we’d covered up our nakedness with cloth.

[ CIRCLE ]

At the identification olympics our source says he’s pioneered backward modular projection. There have, he says, been offers from sponsors. Patrons they used to be called. Grants as well they say sometimes. Something done presumably to mutual benefit. An agreement to enter into that form of social engineering, the business of presenting new linkages. Strategically. Gracefully imprinting an action with the flourish of signature. One’s mark at once removal and a making real. When you cut out a piece of wall to make a door you’ve created both the passage and the door itself. A hoof is half ground. An idea is born and dies if it can’t get its jigsaw wet enough with what’s at hand. Institutional codes. But at the other end there’s the quota of inner bridges. I live, says our source, above the reptile shop on Division Street, and some mornings I like to wake up early and buy flowers at the little place next door. I take them back upstairs to my apartment and I burn them to keep warm.

[ COMMUNION ]

Is this where I sign up for enlightenment? asked the false orphan. All around him the other patrons of the tavern glared. They knew who his father was and they liked him. He was nothing like his father. Unlike his father he’d fathered no children. Even in strange places, places he’d never been, like this one, the townsfolk seemed to know. Word travelled as fast, at least, as he did. Finally he’d arrived at the exact place, now, that he wasn’t, and as such felt should be able to sleep the sleep of a destroyed god. He makes his way over to an open table in the middle of the room amid the rising murmurs. He takes from his rucksack the sack of dead batteries he uses as a pillow. In his condition, there’s the cheapest thing on the menu and then there’s how much he’ll pay for it.

[ LOCUS ]

A basement or a garage is no place for modesty. The best decisions are left out in the street the way you might remove your shoes in a home with nice rugs. Even the consciousness of choice as such, the casual wielding of one’s sword to separate according to taste or inclination one thing from another. Even that demands forgetting. It hardly matters whether the space in question is under the house or adjacent to it. Fundamentally, it’s both, the prefixes of designation loosening their hold, slipping. Stripped to the root of being thrown, the arc describes our narrowing orbit. The resulting convergence sans intention is what gives birth to the room. It’s base age, and also it’s garment.

[ EXHIBITION ]

Our sciences were on display. Laid out across the gymnasium in a great tangle, its hallways and staircases indifferent to where they deadended. We give the order to seal up the cul-de-sacs, domed underwater cities, a lock-in at the skating rink. On this particular screen you can observe live in real time the activities of those most distant from you. You provide commentary. In order to succeed, it needs to breed more of the same. And perhaps one day it will, all dressed up in ribbons and recited. For now we stack the chairs. We fold the tables. We polish up our silence and the lock on its box. We take off our clothes at the block party and meditate in the center of the parking lot. We stack the parking lots. We feed mistakes into the apparatus, prep the disquisition. The vivisected image nostalgic for the defiance of form.

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RELATIONSHIP MONTAGE by Derek Andersen

March 25, 2019 · Fiction

Just as the conventionally attractive couple locks eyes, igniting a passion that burns with the fury of a thousand supernovas, “I’m a Believer” begins to play. / Cut to a long shot of the conventionally attractive couple skipping through an idyllic meadow, chuckling as they pursue a yellow butterfly. / Cut to the conventionally attractive woman massaging the man’s shoulders as he steps up to a carnival booth. / Cut to the conventionally attractive man ensnaring a bottle and bestowing a massive plush bear upon the woman. / Cut to a crane shot of the conventionally attractive couple breaking out in a meticulously choreographed dance routine in a public square, compelling onlookers to toss aside their belongings and join in. / Cut to the couple locking lips in the eye of a hurricane, too absorbed in one another to notice the debris swirling around them. / Cut to the conventionally attractive woman helping the man’s mother plant a row of tiger lilies in her garden. / Cut to the man toasting a beer with his father, who nods approvingly from his lawn chair. / Cut to a tracking shot of the conventionally attractive couple trailing a real estate agent through a cozy, cottage-style home. / Cut to the couple assuming the missionary position in their new bedroom. / Cut to the conventionally attractive man balanced atop a two-story ladder, hanging Christmas lights. The backing track skips as the conventionally attractive woman rocks the ladder, cackling maniacally. / Cut to a close-up of the man cautiously climbing down, pale-faced. / Cut to the conventionally attractive woman ambling into the man’s study. Even as she insistently kisses the back of his neck, he remains fixated on pinning a green butterfly. Zoom out and pan over his boundless menagerie—wings of magenta, indigo, chartreuse, fuchsia, etc.—trapped in eternal flight. / Cut to a reaction shot of the woman rolling her eyes and tossing a baby blue specimen to the floor. / Cut to the conventionally attractive couple holding hands atop a white tablecloth. The candlelight throws shadows into the woman’s cavernous eye sockets. / Cut to the man strolling to the bathroom, leaving his phone facedown on the table. / Cut to a closeup of the phone, faceup, as he returns to his seat. / Cut to the conventionally attractive couple locked in unremarkable coitus. / Cut to a Dutch angle shot of the conventionally attractive woman placing a box cutter in the man’s hand. Zoom in on her blissful expression as she guides the blade into the tender flesh of her ribcage. The backing vocals in “I’m a Believer” erupt into shrieks as a single drop of blood crashes onto their pristine, white bedsheets. / Cut to the conventionally attractive man gagging as his father carves the Thanksgiving turkey. Pan to the woman passed out, a pair of empty wine bottles before her. / Cut to a shadowy shot of the conventionally attractive man drawing the blinds of his study, plugging earbuds into his phone, and dipping his hand in Vaseline. / Cut to a low angle shot of the woman slamming her fist against the door, nostrils flaring. / Cut to a high angle shot of the man fumbling to wipe the Vaseline from his fingertips, frantic expression illuminated by his phone screen. / Cut to a Dutch angle shot of the conventionally attractive man, again, pressing the box cutter to the conventionally attractive woman’s ribcage. / Cut to a closeup of the woman grasping his trembling hand and hungrily forcing the blade deeper. A crimson rivulet oozes forth, gleaming in a flash of lightning. The backing track slows to half-speed, perverting the singer’s voice into a nightmarish baritone. / Cut to a closeup of the woman’s eyes rolling back into her skull like a euphoric junkie. Pan over the legion of purple scars, crisscrossing her abdomen. / Cut to the conventionally attractive man answering his phone and making a “whoa, slow down” hand gesture. / Cut to the man’s mother, on the other end of the line, breaking down into sobs. Zoom out over her garden, viciously choked out by the tiger lilies. Continue zooming out until the mother is a pixilated speck in a fiery orange jungle. / Cut to a long shot of the conventionally attractive man writing in the jaundiced glow of the moon. The wings of his specimens drench the room in mournful shadows. / Cut to a quick closeup of the phrases “something missing,” and “dying spark” penned in impeccable cursive. / Cut to a longer-lasting closeup of “what is broken is broken.” / Cut to the conventionally attractive woman slumbering in their bedroom. The man tiptoes into the shot. He sets the letter on her nightstand, looking her over. Her chest rises and falls in a delicate rhythm, expression lost in some blissful dreamscape. Grimacing, the man snatches the letter and tucks it back into his pocket. / Cut to a closeup of the woman shooting one eye open as he slinks out of the room. / Cut to the conventionally attractive man cinched in the woman’s embrace. Pan behind his back to reveal a pregnancy test clasped in the woman’s hand. / Cut to a nurse lathering gel on the woman’s stomach. Pan to the man and zoom in on his bloodless face, as the backing track’s vocals skip “I couldn’t leave her—I couldn’t leave her—I couldn’t leave her—” / Cut to the conventionally attractive man stumbling into the house late one night, visibly drunk. As he chucks leftovers into the microwave, he spots his office door ajar. / Cut to a high angle shot of the man collapsing to his knees. Pan over the man’s butterflies strewn across the office floor, mutilated beyond recognition. Keep panning to convey the sheer scale of the decimation—several carcasses have been decapitated, others de-winged, and a choice few stomped into a pulp. The man’s letter lies at the center of it all, ripped to shreds. “I’m a Believer” cuts off. / Now, in silence, cut to the man slamming his fists against the bathroom door. / Cut to the conventionally attractive woman slumped naked in the bathtub, legs spread. / Cut back to the man repeatedly throwing his shoulder into the door, until he collapses. / Cut to a closeup of the woman unraveling a coat hanger. / Cut back to a closeup of the man, unleashing an anguished shriek that causes the projector to sputter maniacally, machine-gunning an incomprehensible blur of frames. / Wait for a moment as white engulfs the screen—an immaculate, all-consuming white, like the first glimpse of daylight from the womb. / Pan across a wine-dark sea, catching faint glimmers of moonlight. / Continue panning until the beach comes into view. And then the crackling tongues of flame. / Zoom out slowly, deliberately over the flames. Give the viewer a sense of their breadth—their sprawling, football-field breadth. / Stop zooming when the conventionally attractive man and the conventionally attractive woman come into view on the left and right side of the flames, respectively. The woman’s stomach is flat. / Cut to a medium shot of the man, face contorted in a constipated grimace. Several other conventionally attractive couples line the frame behind him, doling out shoulder rubs, we’re-here-for-you’s, and other gestures of support. / Cut to a closeup of the woman, shot through the fire. Between red and orange undulations she can be seen gritting her teeth, the cords in her neck springing forth. A single tear trickles from her left eye as she charges forward. / Alternate between closeups of the conventionally attractive woman and man. In each of these shots, the woman grows more agonized, her shrieks of pain piercing the night like daggers, growing incrementally sharper. The man, meanwhile, becomes increasingly distraught, until the couples must band together and restrain him from dashing headlong into the flames. / Cut to a long shot of the conventionally attractive woman emerging before the conventionally attractive man, unscathed. The couples release the man from their grasp. He doesn’t say anything. He stares teary-eyed at the woman, nostrils oozing discharge, lower lip trembling like a child’s. The woman bows her head, awaiting his judgment. Let the shot marinate for several moments. / Pan across the faces of the crowd, each more spellbound than the last. / Cut back to that same long shot of the conventionally attractive man and woman. At last, the man rushes forward. The instant he embraces the woman, “I’m a Believer” comes crashing back through the speakers, undistorted, in a triumphant tidal wave. / Cut back to the crowd, hysterically applauding and hooting and whistling (with one man even pantomiming ass slapping). / Cut to a long shot of the sugary beach, the conquered flames, the jubilant crowd, the man hoisting the woman above his head and twirling her in a spasm of joy—capture it all. Hold that same long shot as fireworks crackle through the sky, their blue and yellow shrapnel cascading down in the shape of butterfly wings. / Roll the credits. / At the conclusion of the credits, cut back to the conventionally attractive man, still twirling the woman counterclockwise. / Zoom in on the woman’s back pocket, until a slender white tube comes into view. Draw into focus the words emblazoned on the tube: Lidocaine Topical Numbing Cream.

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A BIRDWATCHER’S JOURNAL by Alexander Perez

March 24, 2019 · Fiction

Snowy egret overhead. First sighting of spring. A circular flight performed for a mate hidden deep in dead river reeds. He drops out of sight. Nothing except gray sky.

(My script walks across the page like sandpiper prints in wet sand.)

A fisherman floats by in his canoe, through the thin ice floes. (Floating mosaic of ice, geometry of winter’s disrepair.) He’s spectacled, black bearded. Mid-thirties? Despite the cool morning, he takes off his blue flannel overshirt. Strong arms. He casts a shining lure.

A northern pike! The fisherman holds it up. I wave.

We see a female mallard appear out of the muddy bank of reeds and dive into the river. Seven ducklings follow behind. Small, downy bodies. They swim rings around their mother. I count seven, six. So hard to count! Playfully they dodge each other, making slight chirping sounds. Then one disappears underwater. I think it’s learned to dive. But it comes up injured, flapping. My god. The mallard and her remaining babies disappear quickly back into the reeds.

I call out “Help!” The fisherman scoops the injured duck into his net, right before a pike surfaces, then he paddles to me.

“It’s going to die,” he says. But I pick it up off the floor of the canoe with his shirt and examine it. I hold it gently like I would another man’s hand. (I recall those nights that winter I held my husband’s hand.)

“I could bring it to the shelter” I say.

“Don’t bother. Let me take care of it.”

Then I push him away. He almost falls, grabs and pulls me towards him. We’re locked in a sort of embrace. I look down at the duck and it’s dead.

“You’ve killed it.”

He takes it from me and walks back to the riverbank. He places it on the icy waves.

It floats on fledgling feathers. It will never fly.

A red-winged black bird bounds off a cat-o’-nine tails. Show off.

Yet, it had taken my husband how many hours to die. I will never forget the anonymous hospital room: worn linoleum, walls a faded aquamarine. A cooing pigeon on the window ledge.

Today I saw death’s mouth rising out of the dark. Death’s mouth swallowing all. Weightless feathers the color of mud. The fisherman holding me close. In between us, a tiny bird heart.

The night of my husband’s overdose, he’d played the Van Dyke. His fans sent flowers to the hospital. I took the white calla lilies, the small fragrant saxophones, home, and spread them out over the bed.

Nightmare: a flock of ducks, their webbed feet encased in ice, frozen in flight, squawk like a section of saxes out of tune.

I go to The Pink Triangle. Sit at the bar and order A Crazy Lady. The glittered twinks pay me no mind. The mustachioed hipsters in rolled-up jeans and suspenders strut by.

I imagine the dance floor is a lake covered in lily pads and lotus flowers. Hummingbirds and dragonflies flash. There in the middle the fisherman floats in his canoe. His pole extends out over the side. I dive down. Creatures rare, common, foolhardy swim in the lake. We’re all darting for the bait.

Then the vision dissolves and the dance floor forms just a single shadow that breaks apart and rejoins itself.

(The music stops, the lights go up, and I’m drunk.)

Nightmare: I fly over the river at night – hunting ground of the screech owl. Bones of mice crack in my bill. Moonlight bandages the bay. Then I’m submerged and grow fins that carry me deep. I drop down into the weeds to escape the hanging hooks. I watch the bottom of a canoe loom overhead. Surfacing suddenly, I lose oxygen. My gills harden into razor blades. Every move cuts.

I go to a psychiatrist. She puts me on antidepressants. Now I’m happy and miss my one companion, my migratory sadness.

Black-crowned night heron. He danced for me. In his mouth, he carried fresh reeds, an offering. When we made love, we were covered in black feathers. Nested in mist, singing, our notes learned to fly.

I imagine it differently: we take the duckling to the wildlife shelter. They fix its wing. We go back to his house. I tell him he is a hero. He pecks me on the cheek, clutches me.

How do I molt grief? A soft falling of feathers. Birdcalls. Pain mimicking the call of love, love mimicking pain.

I return to the Van Dyke one last time. A bass soloist beats the rhythm. The piano fights a familiar melody. Where’s the sax, the victim’s cry? It sits in the corner of my bedroom, silent.

A red-winged black bird bounds off a cat-o’-nine tails.

He comes back and says, “Take my hand.”

I hold the hand, the hand that held the bird that died, the bird that died in my hand, the hand that held the hand of him who died holding my hand.

I do not want to hold anymore hands that hold the dead.

So I let go.

Lake, river, ocean, inlet, estuary, bay. I am searching for the fisherman. I have my binoculars. I ask around. He’s spectacled with handsome black beard. Mid-thirties? Despite the cool morning, he takes off his blue flannel overshirt. Strong arms. He casts a shining lure.

My psychiatrist tells me to attend a grief group. I am too distracted to listen to the stories. Instead a middle-aged woman looks like an ostrich; a young man with mohawk, a red breasted merganser; a petite young girl, a zebra finch; a quiet elderly woman, a mute swan; the loud moderator, a Canada goose; me, a mockingbird.

Jazz composition for a dying husband: monitors beep, nurses buzz, bass of sobs.

Husband in the afterlife. First sighting of eternal winter. A broken flight performed for souls hovering like mist in these dead river reeds. He drops out of sight. Nothing except souls frozen in state.

(My script walks across the page like carvings on gravestone.)

A ferryman rows across a single flowing river. The river runs between walls built from a static mosaic of bones, a geometry of winter’s despair.

The ferryman’s angelic. Ageless. Despite the cold, his bare skin steams.

He holds a pike for stabbing at the souls.

Appearing out of the reeds, angels dive into the river. Small, downy bodies. They swim rings around each other. Then one disappears underwater and doesn’t resurface. God!

I call out. The ferryman stabs at the water with his pike.

“It’s going to die,” I say. But it rises from the water impaled on the tip of the ferryman’s pike. I want to hold it gently like I would another man. (I recall those nights I held my husband.)

“I could bring it to shelter,” I say.

He pushes me away. I almost fall but grab him and pull him towards me. We’re locked in a sort of embrace. I look down at the angel.

My husband floats on fledgling feathers. He never could fly.

A red-winged devil bounds off a cat-o’-nine tails.

Birds that haven’t flown. Fish that haven’t swam. I am writing to you. Nameless when you are born, your hollow wings may not carry weight, your bony scales not give you speed, however, when we, your divine predators, are extinct (as our element carries the judgment of unnatural laws), you may still be free.

(A story can retrace itself like the flightpath of a barn swallow.)

A fisherman paddles his canoe. He watches his line with iridescent green eyes framed by square, stainless steel glasses. He’s turned forty-four this summer, shaved his greying beard, but despite his age, some think he is still in his mid-thirties. (The paddling keeps him young!)

I sit in the stern with my binoculars and journal. I forget to watch for rare birds. Deep in my memory, a snowy egret flies overhead. He performs a circular flight in gray spring skies for a mate hidden deep in river reeds.

But I choose to remember, not that first day I saw the fisherman, but the second day, in grief group, a year later, when I saw him again.

He looked smaller, as if the moment his son died, that moment when a life story is shortened to a singular event, compressed his body down as well. And although I was glad to see him, I knew that his grief would become mine, as all our griefs in the group had been shared and our burdens divided.

“My son died in a boating accident,” he disclosed that first meeting. (I later learned that seventeen-year-old Slate Jr. had been drunk on the river with his friends that Memorial Day when it collided into another boat.)

After the meeting, Slate Sr. came up and said he recognized me from the spring incident the previous year.

“Birdie, I’m sorry for what happened…”

I laughed at the nickname.

“…Well, you know, I didn’t mean to crush the poor duck. It was an accident. And I want to make it up to you…”

So, while driving to dinner, we tried to agree on a restaurant, but because I don’t eat meat (I am a vegetarian) we decided to stop at Whole Foods, and, on the way, I showed him the animal shelter where I had wanted to bring the injured duck, and he laughed and said that I needed to forget that duck, or bring it up in grief group, which I thought was funny, so I kissed him, and he had to stop so we could make out, even though were both starving, and afterwards, we skipped Whole Foods, and ended up eating cereal in bed.

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CHANCES by Conor McNamara

March 22, 2019 · Fiction

I’ve been exchanging letters with an inmate at Downstate Correctional Facility, the friend of a friend. In my letters I talk about my work, the woods and the hours. Even though I scoff at Lena's "attracting happiness" theories, I encourage my friend's friend to "keep his head up" and I assure him that he is loved. I decided that when I got laid off, I would drive to Fishkill, New York and visit him. Leaving my cellphone and wallet in a drab locker room that smells like puke, I cross the metal detector. And then I'm in the visitors’ center at table 5-3, waiting. A young man plays dominoes with his mother. Another eats M&M's with his girlfriend. In a play area for parents, a laminated sign taped to a kiddie slide reminds inmates to "clean up after your children." My friend's friend doesn't know that I'm coming. I feel anxious, but not really in a bad way. I'm just unsure of where to rest my eyes. I've made money and I've pawned X-Box games. I've gone months without a decent meal and Pablo and I have made ourselves sick at the Brazilian steakhouse on Lehigh Street. I’ve brushed up against a lot of strange that eventually became comfortable. But rarely have I felt so out of place. Do I look at the correctional officers? Will my gaze interrupt the few minutes of peace a young couple gets to spend in each other’s company? Should I just stare at the floor? My friend's friend walks past me. Neither of us knows what the other looks like. The correctional officers point him in my direction. He’s tall and moves with athletic grace. He tells me about his job working in the prison's kitchen. His cellmate doesn't shower. I buy him a soda and some boneless wings from a vending machine. I microwave the wings. He doesn't have the freedom to do that. On the floor, red electrical tape indicates to the inmates where they can walk and where they can't. He tells me about his daughter and how she’s learning the alphabet. When he talks to her on the phone, he plays dumb, stumbling over the order of letters so that she can correct him. I know once I leave the prison, I'll be rushed back into the grittiness of my own life. Loneliness broken up by sports podcasts, strip malls, half-read collections of poetry in my glove box, and laughs with Pablo. But at table 5-3, I'm humbled and I can't escape the overwhelming reality that my life is as good as any. I rest my eyes on my friend's friend. I do my best to listen. Suddenly our time is interrupted by an alarm. Visiting hours are over. We shake hands and hug, and I'm shuffled out of the visitors’ center with crying loved ones and loved ones hardened by years of this routine.

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TIME PASSES FASTER AT SEA by Graham Irvin

March 21, 2019 · Fiction

In Korea everyone called my grandfather Pete because they didn’t know he was going to be a grandfather some day.

When my parents got married Pete punched me in the face. He wanted me to grow up tough.

My mom won’t forget the stories Pete told her about working radar in the belly of a battleship, seeing big green blips of terror appear and disappear. He told her they were bigger than the ship, by two or three times.

My mom says, ‘What could that have been?’

When there was a big green blip approaching on the radar Pete thought, ‘I’m dead.’ And when that big green blip disappeared Pete thought, ‘I’m not dead.’

When Pete was my grandfather he told me to never grab myself when I jump off a battleship. It’s the one sure thing he learned in the Navy.

He said, ‘It will rip your stuff right off.’

He asked me to paint his red weathervane like a confederate flag. I said, ‘I don’t feel like it.’ Then he died.

Pete’s battleship crossed the international date line in the Pacific Ocean every few weeks. He wrote in his diary, ‘There is no tomorrow.’

He wrote a poem about being the world’s loneliest soldier.

He wrote his girl Jen and asked if she was seeing any of the neighborhood men when he was out of town.

Jen was what people called my grandmother before they knew she was going to be a grandmother.

When Pete was in Japan he met a woman called Mitchi.

When he was in San Francisco he met a woman called Ilene.

When he was docked in Alaska he saw a seal carcass with blubber that moved like hair.

He wrote a story longhand about a girl who put a garden hose inside of herself before having sex with her brother. Then the girl had sex with her aunt. And then her brother and aunt at the same time. Pete bought a manual Underwood to type a second draft.

My grandfather lived in the hospital with cancer for a week. I sat in the backseat of my mom’s car and listened to Death Cab for Cutie on a portable CD player on the ride there.

When he died my grandmother gave me his old guitar. I learned to play Title and Registration and then gave up.

Pete played mandolin in a gospel band with his brother and sister. They even recorded a song for the radio once.

Then Pete joined the Navy.

Pete wrote in his diary, ‘Some days are Monday and other days are Tuesday.’

And, ‘Everything written is written in blood.’

When Marines from Busen left bags around the ship, Pete stole their guns and boots and sent them to his brother.

After kissing Ilene in San Francisco, Pete called Jen and asked, ‘Have you been faithful?’

And Jen said, ‘Yes.’

The next time he could afford a train to China Grove, they got married.

Pete wrote in his diary about their wedding night, ‘Four times.’

In Florida Pete and Jen took a canoe through the everglades. Alligators rocked their boat.

They had a kid and had a kid and had a kid and had a kid. One of them found Pete’s diary in a barn and wrote their name on a page that said, ‘Time passes faster at sea.’

Pete hid the diary until he died. His stomach turned into a garbage disposal and took him with it.

It was quick.

Jen lived forgetting until she forgot the final thing.

It was two days after my birthday. We celebrated with pulled pork and potato salad.

No one called her Jen.

No one cried about it.

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THE VAMPIRE BOYFRIEND by Jessica Drake-Thomas

March 20, 2019 · Fiction

I started ghost writing romance because it was under the table. I make good money, people are reading my work, and best of all, no one has to know where I am. These days, paranormal romance seems to be the big thing with humans. Specifically, Vampire Boyfriends. I don’t mind werewolves, aliens, or even dragon shifters. They’re all harmless enough. But I refuse to write about Vampire Boyfriends. When you live in the shadows, some things just hit too close to the truth. Anton Chekhov had a theory about guns in stories — if a gun is placed into a narrative, then it will go off, sooner or later. Like Chekhov's Gun, the Vampire Boyfriend has a timer, as well — once he’s in your life, it’s only a matter of time before the trigger is pulled and he loses control. He’s hardwired to desire you. Your blood sings to him, and he’d like you to believe that it is only he, and he alone, who desires you to the exclusion of all else. But what calls to him is his hunger. Do not be fooled. The way to the Vampire Boyfriend’s little dead heart is his stomach.

The Vampire Boyfriend is the ultimate apex predator. His physical beauty is staggering — he reminds you of all of the greatest sculptures — every feature has been polished to perfection by immortality. He has it all — the face of an angel, the mane of a wild stallion, the six pack of the Gods, the bone structure of Khal Drogo. You can barely contain your desire for him, and it sparkles through your eyes, seeps out of your pores. It’s like perfume to him— almost primed to perfection. He’s studied all of the great romances. He was alive to see them for himself — Antony and Cleopatra, Tristan and Iseult, Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn. He is able to mimic the correct movements and brings out all of the trappings of the perfect romance—perfectly aged wines he bottled himself, bouquets of roses like blood splatter, his hand placed just so on your lower back. He makes you wait just long enough to move on to the next step, until your need for him is so great, it’s consuming you like wild fire. He’s had centuries to practice, and his timing is on point. He wants you to be intoxicated, so you miss the red flags. He wants to own you, to possess you, wholly. You are the queen of his heart, and he will tell you: you are his.

The Vampire Boyfriend, despite living in a world that contains feminism and women’s rights, has still retained his antiquated notion that the object of his affections requires around the clock protection. He will call it “old-fashioned.” He will call it “chivalry.” You will not have to lift a finger, pay for a thing, or worry about other males ogling you. He moves faster than physics can explain, he has more money than a dragon, and he can easily hold all weaker males in check. Despite your claims that you are a modern woman and wish to be treated as such, he will gnash his fangs and turn a deaf ear in your direction. He’s stuck in the Dark Ages, when women were thought of as property. When women existed only to please men. When women were too delicate to stand alone. Let’s call it what it is: defending his food source. He’s trying to put you in a box. Literally.

You’ll stay, despite your misgivings. Despite the little slips, here and there. You will always stay, because you believe in the façade that he has created. After all, he looks so human. And he cares for you, as if you are a garden. Heed this—Dead things cannot nurture. They can only support growth through rot. The Vampire Boyfriend is incapable of decomposition. He is like a stone. He’s just so good at playing the loving partner. You’ll stay, of course. You’ll stay despite the fact that time, for you, is running out.

You’ll fight, naturally, because you’ll feel strangled by his over-attention. He’ll say that he’s trying to protect you. That he’s afraid of losing you. That the world is a dangerous place for humans. Chances are, he’ll be proven right because if one Vampire Boyfriend exists, then there are others who think and act just like him. Chances are, another Vampire Boyfriend will smell the combination of your blood mixed with desire, and come hunting. Or, perhaps, he has a long-standing grudge with your Vampire Boyfriend, as they do. Chances are, he’ll attack you, leaving your current Vampire Boyfriend the opportunity to become your hero.

You will become comforted by his attentions whilst you are healing after the attack from the rival vampire. Your Vampire Boyfriend will care for you in every way. He’ll blind you to his faults with his displays of goodness, snuggle you with his ice-cold arms. Stroke your hair with long-nailed fingers. He’ll make you forget everything — like his recent tantrum, your fight last week, that guy from the bar who he murdered for looking at you. He’ll whisper sweet things into your ear, nuzzle his ice-chunk nose over your carotid artery. He’s not really thinking about you, but the delicious river, oozing beneath your skin. How the scent of your blood seeps through the bandages. Now that he’s fought another vampire, he’s starving. Everything he says and does will lull you into a stupor, so that you will not fight back. He will make you forget everything, who you are, who you were, and the gaping wound of his tooth-filled mouth as he finally loses control.

There is a door that I could open, in order to tie this up with a neat bow. But I won’t, because he might be lurking on the other side, waiting to be invited back in. I have run too far for him to find me now. The scars where his teeth tore open my throat have not been smoothed away by time or immortality. But know this: a story about a man who wants to possess you isn’t a romantic story. It’s a story about a beautiful, cold monster and lengths he will go to satisfy his hunger.

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DAY JOB by Jon Conley

March 19, 2019 · Fiction

She was a big rottweiler who had had cancer for a time now. She was very big and sad and unable to move well so I went with Dr. Highmore to the house. I brought along a large contractor's garbage bag and I don't think I said anything the whole time. I never said a word in these situations though I had done this many times, been a pallbearer. Although, I would assist in assisted canicides before carrying the bodies away and I don't know that a pallbearer ever assists assisted homicides. Anyway, I’m not a shy person.

With the bag rolled up in my back pocket, I reached my left arm under her neck to put her in a headlock. I put my right arm over her shoulders like a good old pal and she did not care and I grabbed what I guess you would call her elbow, making a tight ring around it with my middle finger and thumb before twisting slightly to make the vein visible. She still did not care. The family cried along and stayed in the room until well after she was dead. I want to say that there was a candle burning but that would be very hopeful of memory. I waited and put my head down but inside I wondered when they were going to move. One of them would eventually take charge and usher the other out of the room to continue grieving somewhere else.

And when they finally did leave I lifted the now piss-soaked towel she lay on top of and I slid the garbage bag under the haunches. If a dog sat long enough that the piss soaked through the towel, the outside of the garbage bag would always get piss on it. And in the struggle to move the body around, the piss would end up on my scrubs, which was common enough for the job but bothered me still.

I tried to lift her with my knees and not my back. She was heavy and Dr. Highmore was built like a reed so I would do it alone. If you lift a body and can't keep her level, there are plenty of fluids beyond piss that would love to take the opportunity to slosh around in the bag. And depending on how well you tie her up, there could be leaks. But eventually I did put her in the van and back to the practice and into a freezer. In Cleveland I would have burned it myself and prepared the ashes but here someone came once a week to retrieve the frozen bodies.

For dinner that night I made spaghetti with a meat and tomato sauce and I washed all of the dishes instead of leaving them to soak until the morning. When I took out the garbage that night I was as scared as I always am taking out the garbage, imagining something or someone coming from behind me as I make my way back.

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DRIVING THROUGH by Bojana Stojcic

March 18, 2019 · Fiction

We drove through the city today. We didn’t stop. We just drove through. We didn’t want to get out of the truck and grabbed take-away coffee with ground cinnamon in a drive-thru shared by a coffee shop and a bank, which was super convenient so while sipping it we made some transfers and paid bills. In the meantime, it started to drizzle, which was a drag and one more reason not to leave the truck. Besides, we got hungry, and decided to order low-carb turkey club lettuce wraps to go at a drive-thru diner. While listening to the live traffic news, we watched cars creating a line and moving in one direction. After that, we dropped some Xmas cards in a drive-thru mailbox and had our car washed in a two-lane drive-thru car wash. We both find high-pressure water jets ideal for our truck as it looks all shiny and new without anyone touching it, which we hate. B.J. gulped down his food in a split second and pulled into a Sweet Inspirations drive-in for some yummy donuts.

Hiiiiii, the female voice shrieked enthusiastically. What can I get you, Sir?

I’d like two donuts with dark chocolate and coconut, replied B.J. leaning toward the mic.

Got it. Anything to drink, Sir?

Yes, a strawberry-flavored still water and a diet Coke, please.

We had to wait some since it was crowded at the pick-up window, which sucked.

Did you know, B.J. tried to cheer me up, they had an EOTF service in McDonald’s in the UK.

What’s EOTF?

Experience of the Future, obviously. The thing is, there’s a third window.

Third window? For real?

Yes, the person at the second window tells you to pull up to the third one if you have a larger order and have to wait longer than usual. Basically, this fast-forward window cuts down on wait times significantly.

That’s kewl.

Right?

Totally.

Anyway, we didn’t wait too long after all. I was happy we chose a drive-in restaurant this time because it allows cars to park next to each other. We really enjoyed our dessert, watching other cars parking and driving by and the sky turning red. We couldn’t actually see the sunset because of the skyscrapers, but I bet it was amazing. I reminded B.J. of a drive-thru grocery store as our fridge’s chronically empty but we eventually had a change of heart, figuring we’d be better off without as we hadn’t perused Easy Breakfast Recipes yet. So we picked up something light for the following morning: a skinny high-protein Oreo milkshake for me and a peanut butter and jelly protein smoothie for him. B.J. said we mustn’t forget a drive-thru liquor store to buy some beer for later in the evening. It would have been a bummer if we had. We also stopped by a drive-thru pharmacy to get a lavender-based sleep remedy since we have both had trouble falling asleep lately.

Have we mentioned we met at a drive-in movie theater? No? Do you know we got married a couple of weeks later in Vegas? We so did, interestingly at a special drive-thru chapel. Those were the days.

As we’re growing old, we normally talk about death and such. When you die, I told B.J. the other day, I’ll go to the drive-thru funeral home to get your remains and scatter you all over our favorite drive-thru joints.

Don’t you sometimes wish there was a drive-thru hug station, B.J. uttered, melancholically staring into space on our way back home.

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