X-R-A-Y Literary Magazine | Fiction

PAYCHECK by Joseph Grantham

June 10, 2018 · Fiction

Scott had a reading in St. Louis and Julia couldn’t go with him because she had to teach, so I went with him because I lived in their house and was unemployed and Scott needed company.

We drove to a gas station and Scott bought cigarettes and then we drove halfway to St. Louis and while we were driving Scott showed me his favorite albums by Nick Cave and we smoked a lot of cigarettes and then we got a room in a hotel in a place called Santa Claus, Indiana.

It was late at night and we were hungry and we drove past a Taco Bell but I didn’t want Taco Bell because once, when I was eighteen, I ate a chalupa from Taco Bell and it made me shit water while vomiting for an entire night and on into the morning.

But we found another Mexican restaurant that was open and that was where we ate.

I ordered chicken flautas and the chicken inside of the flautas was blackened and tough like beef jerky but with less flavor than beef jerky and Scott ordered tacos and he said they weren’t any good.

I asked Scott about Finnegan’s Wake and if he’d read it and, if he had, if he’d liked it.

He said he had read it and he said oh yeah he liked it.

I pointed a flauta at Scott and asked him if he could explain Finnegan’s Wake to me so that I didn’t have to read it.

Scott explained Finnegan’s Wake to me while I chewed on a charred chicken flauta and I was tired but the way he explained it to me made sense and then we got the check and I paid the bill because I felt bad for making us choose that particular Mexican restaurant over the Taco Bell, where Scott had wanted to eat, and Scott thanked me and we left and went back to our hotel.

The hotel lobby smelled like body odor and the girl behind the front desk smiled at us as we walked past her and to our room.

There were two beds in the hotel room and a television on a table and a desk.

Scott sat on a bed and looked at his laptop and I sat on a bed and looked at my laptop and on the television Willem Dafoe was interviewed by someone.

We listened to Willem Dafoe for a while and then the interview ended and another episode of the same interview program with the same interviewer came on, except that this time the interviewer was interviewing former professional baseball player Alex Rodriguez.

Alex Rodriguez was less interesting than Willem Dafoe and Scott turned off the television.

He closed his laptop and said he was going to bed but that I could stay up as late as I wanted.

He turned off his light and I closed my laptop and turned off my light.

The next morning we drove to St. Louis.

Scott’s publisher paid for our hotel room and Scott made sure they got us one near the bookstore where Scott was going to read.

We checked into the hotel and my pants were loose and I remembered that I forgot to bring my belt with me.

I asked the woman at the front desk if she knew where I could find a belt in St. Louis and she laughed and thought about it for a little while and then she told me about a Target that was far away from the hotel and the bookstore and so I decided I wouldn’t get a belt and would just pull up my pants whenever I had to.

Scott and I went to our room and set our things down and sat down on our beds and Scott looked at his laptop and I looked at my laptop and then I asked Scott if he wanted to go get a cup of coffee because I looked up a list of the best coffee places in St. Louis and I felt like having a good cup of coffee.

He laughed at me and said sure, he’d go get a cup of coffee with me if I wanted to go get a cup of coffee, and I said something about how I thought it’d be a nice way to see some of St. Louis.

I used an app on my phone to call us a car and we waited in front of the hotel and I pulled up my pants and the car pulled up in front of us.

I told Scott that we were going to the highest ranked coffee place in St. Louis and he smiled and nodded and I know he didn’t care and our driver kept driving and I noticed we were leaving the city.

Our driver drove us out of the interesting looking part of St. Louis and down a long road and finally stopped in front of a nondescript office building.

I was confused but when I looked at my phone it said that we were at the right place and I noticed that the coffee place was on the first floor of the nondescript office building.

We went inside the coffee shop and there were men wearing polo shirts tucked into khaki pants and belts with holsters on them for their cellphones and they were all sitting at tables looking at their laptops.

I ordered a coffee and asked Scott if he wanted one and he said okay, and I bought the coffees because I felt bad for dragging Scott all the way out to this boring building and we waited for ten minutes while the barista ground our beans and made us individual pour over coffees.

The coffee was okay and we went outside with it and smoked cigarettes while I called us another car.

We went back to the hotel and from the hotel we walked a few blocks to the bookstore and we decided to look around at the books in the bookstore before the reading.

In the bookstore we didn’t see much but Scott convinced me to buy a couple of Milan Kundera novels and for some reason I was surprised that Scott liked Milan Kundera.

After I bought the books we walked outside and decided to get dinner and Scott seemed nervous and like he wasn’t hungry, so we chose the first place we saw.

The first place we saw was across the street from the bookstore and it was a Mexican restaurant.

I ordered a burrito and Scott ordered a couple of tacos.

I ordered chips and salsa to share with Scott but he didn’t want any of the chips and salsa so I ate all of it and, with the burrito, it was a lot of food compared to Scott’s two tacos.

Scott and I split the bill and then we walked back across the street to the bookstore and they were setting up the reading in the children’s section.

Scott seemed unsure about the whole thing and a bookseller whose name I can’t remember greeted us and shook Scott’s hand and told Scott that he thought the prose in his new book was beautiful and Scott nodded and told the bookseller thank you.

The bookseller nodded and reemphasized how beautiful he thought the prose was in Scott’s new book and Scott smiled and said thank you.

The bookseller asked Scott if he needed a drink or anything and Scott said no but I asked the bookseller if I could have a bottle of water and he went into a closet and found one for me.

I thanked the bookseller and then he told us we should probably get things started so we followed him into the children’s section where a small group of people were gathered.

Everyone was sitting on the floor and there was a table with a tub of beer on it and Scott told me I should go get a beer and I wanted a beer and so I went to go get one.

I asked the man behind the tub of beers if the beers were free and he said of course and I took one and went back to where Scott now sat, crosslegged on the carpet.

The carpet was bright and colorful, neon greens and pinks, and covered with letters from the alphabet and trains and train tracks and places where you could play hopscotch if you wanted to play hopscotch but no one was playing hopscotch.

A couple of poets were supposed to read with Scott but one of them didn’t show up because her flight got canceled or because she said her flight got canceled and the bookseller asked Scott if he would read one of her poems to start the reading.

For some reason I thought Scott would say no but he didn’t hesitate and he said yes of course.

And then everyone quieted down and clutched their shins and Scott stood up and walked into the center of the children’s section and read the poem by the poet who didn’t show up.

I almost burst out laughing while Scott read the poem but not because the poem was bad or because Scott did a bad job reading it but because it was clear Scott didn’t write the words and they didn’t mean anything to him.

Scott finished reading the poem by the poet who wasn’t there and then he sat back down next to me and I told him good job and I drank from my can of beer.

The poet who was there stood up and walked into the center of the children’s section and introduced himself and then he told a story about the poem he was going to read and how it was about something horrible that had happened to him when he was a little boy and the story he told was a lot more interesting than the poem he read.

He did this a few more times, telling the story behind the poem that happened to be a lot more interesting than the poem and then reading the poem that seemed to be a vague, lifeless rendering of the story he’d just told.

I drank from my can of beer.

The poet finished reading and everyone clapped and I stood up and went over to the tub of beers and grabbed another beer and then went and sat back down.

Scott stood up and walked into the center of the children’s section and he read a part from his new book that I’d told him to read because I was sick of hearing him read the same part he always read at the other readings I’d seen him do.

And while he read, people laughed and cringed and suddenly got very quiet and then laughed again and shook their heads and then Scott was done reading the section from his new book.

And then he recited a poem called “Little Orphant Annie” by James Whitcomb Riley and he put my name in the poem in the part where Riley mentions a little boy who won’t say his prayers and it made me laugh so hard that I teared up and I drank from my can of beer and stood up and walked to the back of the bookstore because I was laughing so hard.

I had a buzz from the two beers because I hadn’t had any alcohol since I’d lived with Scott and Julia and it seemed like it’d been a while.

And then the reading was over and I told Scott good job and he said thanks and that he’d recited that “Little Orphant Annie” poem so many times and that people were probably so tired of hearing him doing that.

He said that this was the last reading he was ever going to do.

He was done.

Before we left the bookstore, the bookseller stopped us and told Scott how wonderful his reading was and how he thought that Scott’s new book was beautiful and Scott thanked him for everything and we said goodnight.

Outside, a woman closer to my age than Scott’s stopped Scott and told him how much she loved his work and Scott said thank you and introduced her to me and told her that I was a writer too and I laughed and pulled up my pants and shook her hand.

She asked us what we were doing for the rest of the night and Scott looked at me and then at her and said that we were probably just going to go back to the hotel and go to sleep because we had a long drive back to West Virginia the next day.

She gave me her phone number and said that if we wanted to get breakfast the next morning before our drive, we should text her and she’d take us to a good place.

We thanked her and said goodnight and started walking back to the hotel.

Scott told me he was sorry about wanting to go back to the hotel and that if I wanted to go out drinking with the woman I should.

I laughed and said it was okay and that I wanted to go back to the hotel too but that I wanted to get a cup of coffee and maybe a snack to bring back to the room.

We walked to a Starbucks but it was closed and we walked to a cookie store but they didn’t sell coffee and then a man approached us and told us about how St. Louis was a racist city and how he was just visiting from Ohio and he had cancer and all of the white people he’d talked to seemed afraid of him but not us.

We told him we were sorry about that, about the racism, and he told us again that he had cancer and could we spare some change.

But we didn’t have any cash or change in our pockets and we told him that and he looked annoyed and walked away and said something to himself about how this cancer wasn’t going to cure itself.

And then we found a Whole Foods behind our hotel.

I got a coffee and then we browsed the snacks for a while and Scott picked out a big bag of chips and I was picking out a bunch of individual cookies to put in a box but then Scott suggested that I pick a box of cookies that was already prepackaged, so I put back all of the individual cookies and threw the box in the garbage and then grabbed a box of the prepackaged cookies and we paid and brought everything back to the hotel room.

Scott sat on his bed and I sat on my bed and he shared his chips with me and I shared the box of cookies with him.

He asked if I wanted to watch a short animated documentary about the country singer Johnny Paycheck and I did so he brought his laptop over to my bed and we sat there on the bed with the laptop between us and we ate chips and cookies and I learned about how Johnny Paycheck once shot a guy in the face and how if you wanted to quit your job the best way to do it was to tell your boss to take the job and shove it.

Then we got into our beds and went to sleep and at seven in the morning we left the hotel.

We drove back to Beckley, stopping only for gas and cigarettes and crackers and chips and beef jerky and candy and cigarettes and for most of the drive we listened to country music and Scott told me about each singer and each band and each song.

When we got back to the house Julia was making dinner and we sat down at the table in the kitchen and then we all ate dinner and told Julia about the trip.

And Scott and I thought about it and decided that the trip probably wasn’t worth it for Scott’s publisher or for Scott but that we still managed to have a good time.

And Scott said it was the last time he was going to do something like that and then he gathered everyone’s plates and cups and rinsed off all of the dishes in the sink and put them in the dishwasher.

Joseph Grantham

THE RAZOR by Kevin Sampsell

June 8, 2018 · Fiction

This is the black shirt my ex-wife gave me before the divorce. The one her father used to wear. I have another one just like it, but it has long sleeves. These short sleeves fit me better. I imagine her dad wearing it. Standing outside, on the roof of his house, a cool breeze blowing through the looseness of the cloth, against his sloping shoulders. His arms, freckled and tired at the end. Patches of gray hair, waving.

I wonder if he died in this shirt. Probably not. You don’t pick a black shirt to die in. I look in my closet and wonder what shirt I would pick if I knew I was going to die. Maybe something sturdy and tough, like denim. Perhaps a brown t-shirt, the color of camouflage or dirt. I think it would be uncomfortable to wear a tie. Too much like a circle closing, choking, squeezing me.

I’ve seen so many dead people wearing ties. How do you get a tie on a dead person?

Once, a friend of mine had acquired a bunch of mannequins. He took the old clothes of his dead brother and dressed them all. These statue-like objects were easy to care for. He’d use a cat hair remover on them. He’d roll it over the shoulders and down the arms, and then smooth any wrinkles with an iron. He’d look into their flat eyes and talk to them.

Humans have to stay presentable when they’re alive and also when they’re dead. My friend didn’t believe these mannequins to be alive or dead, but rather in a state of limbo.

Sometimes, I catch a glimpse of myself in a mirror and wonder if I even look human. Last year was the most depressing year. Last year, her father died. That’s how I got this shirt. Her and her siblings went through his stuff and divided it up.

Last year was when we got divorced. Last year was when we stopped talking. Last year was when we tried to replace each other.

As I shave my face in the bathroom mirror, I realize the electric razor I’m using also belonged to her father’s. I’m touching my face with it, pushing it into my skin. I never have understood how these razors work. Something rotating under the surface, grabbing a hold of my whiskers, pulling them out quickly with a slight burn. This razor also touched her father’s face, made it smooth and presentable. It vibrated in his hand when he was looking into his own eyes in a mirror, thinking about his life.

Maybe while wearing this black shirt.

One of my earliest memories is walking by a fancy new department store with my mother when I was probably four. One of the giant display windows had two mannequins in it, wearing bright polka-dot shirts and flared jeans, posed in front of a wall of pulsing multi-colored lights. There were about ten other people standing there, smiling and enjoying the lights and the strangeness of the mannequins’ poses, as if they were in mid-dance. There was a murmur of thumping disco behind the glass, but I could be imaging that part. Right before we started to walk away, one of the mannequins moved. People gasped. And then the other one moved, and people laughed. They were doing small silly dance moves. I smiled too, though I was confused. Sometimes mannequins are real, my mother said.

We stayed and watched the dancing mannequins, like an animal you’d watch at a zoo. Another little boy and his mother walked up and the mannequins suddenly stopped moving. The people laughed again, knowing it was because of the new spectators. The magic of them stopping, being completely still, statue-like, statuesque, not human but wearing human clothes, looking better than most humans, but also pretending not to be human, was something I didn’t really want to think about but ended up pondering a lot when I was a kid.

I watched the two mannequins and also the faces of the mother and son watching them, waiting for them to witness that surprising moment of movement. The silly dance. Everyone laughing. The very second when something dead comes to life.

Kevin Sampsell

DUETS AND THE CRACK IN EVERYTHING by Nayt Rundquist

June 6, 2018 · Fiction

She’ll break open the world, just a bit, and tell them how they’ll end, how they’ll get there, who’ll wrong them along the way. They’ll drown in it, their fates, choking to take it all in, no matter how certain they’d been they could swim. But she’ll be there, on the shore, waiting to pull them sputtering back to present, steaming stew to fend off the chill.

Creaking floorboards in her age-shriveling hut groan as she grunts across them, fists stabbing her curving spine. Her clawhand brandishes her knife, her only artifact that still carries a sheen. The blade slices into its aria she dances to through arthritic muscle memory reinforced by years, decades, centuries? of their duets. But it’s imperfect—a jagged slice through one molecule, split in lopsided halves.

Crack in everything as she punctures a hole in the universe—just a little one, barely big enough to see through—with a finger gnarled and knotted as a tree root. And it pulls at her soulstuffs, tears at it, whipping it like her hair when she walked alone through that hurricane. But she’s used to this vacuum; she knows it and can stand it. And she folds the knife back on itself, back through the years, back through its own past, sharpening it ’til it’s like brand new, ’til it is brand new, ’til it’s sharper than when He’d plunged it into her heart.

Flawless melody this time, and she harmonizes—humming just soft enough of a hoarse to match the vibrations in her chest to those of her instrument. Carrots, ugly and gnarled as her fingers, are first for the cauldron. The knife breezes through, whispering so quiet only the carrot can hear.

She stitches up that crack in everything with a hasty swipe of a clawhand, smearing ethereal sludge through the air, through spacetime. She’ll find that blood last Tuesday and three months in the future. The crack would have self-sealed eventually, but best not to chance it. He’d left them open, slathering gashes—pus-oozing wounds in the flesh of existence. The lesions still find her, dragging behind them slathering reminders of Him, of how He’d haunted her, hunted her, made love to her, whispering so softly only her heart could hear.

Her door will moan open, as He had moaned. A visitor will arrive. She’ll stumble to add more vegetables to the cauldron. She’ll be so off her time, this guest will have a long wait, a longer reading—a deeper well to surface from.

But its bones will creak as it shambles over the threshold. Its claws rasp off the knob, still enough left alive, nearly alive, within to confuse its way through old habits. Heelbones will click ’cross warped floorboards, worn through leather skin from such shambling—stalking. Wisps of remnant hair drift in the gasps of wind it’ll welcome into her home, a jaundiced, shriveled husk drowning in the breeze.

She could shriek a thousand spells, infinite curses, wards, hexes, repellents, but it’s heard those excuses before. Instead, she’ll watch. Cast her eyes into the abyssal pools sunken into its blanched, parchment skull. There, within those swirling pools of nothing, of absolute absence, she’ll find the one thing she dares not search for—the one crack that can’t be mended, that would tear existence from itself, and the universe and everything that ever was and will be and might be and shouldn’t be but will be anyway will whisper out of existence—softer than His nothings, softer than her knife through carrots. Oblivion will be silent. It shows her her own future in this where without a when.

And it’ll sway there, three steps into her home. Creak as what remains of its leathery skin twitches and shifts over shredded muscle. Creak as its eyes clutch hers as tightly as He had, as tightly as she’d grasped his shirt. And her eyes will ask its the same question they’d asked His.

And she’ll get the same answer as it shudders, turns, and slouches back out the door, as though forgetting its reason for stabbing back into her home.

Her breath shivers back into her brittle ribcage, and she digs free the roots that held her in place. She gropes her way to the table and crumples back into her seat, into her stupor, into her waiting.

Still clutched in her clawhand, the knife sings her a solo, so soft it isn’t sure she can hear.

x-r-a-y magazine

ALTOIDS BURN SO GOOD by Jennifer Greidus

June 4, 2018 · Fiction

Cheetah’s mom is dead. So’s his dad. He lives with his almost-deaf uncle Grant. His uncle plays a lot of solitaire and has a lot of different girlfriends. When Cheetah was in fourth grade, Uncle Grant was a volunteer fireman. He laughed a lot. He made casseroles and brought them over on Sundays. Now, Uncle Grant doesn’t put out fires, cook, or even laugh. For three months, he hasn’t left the apartment. Uncle Grant made Cheetah change the locks because the rent’s been overdue since June.

Cheetah would like to be a volunteer fireman, but he can’t until he’s eighteen. That’s three years from now. He might have to have a GED, too. He can’t remember and doesn’t know if he’ll bother if that’s the case.

Uncle Grant sleeps hard, and his girlfriends come and go. They bring him Wendy’s, wake him, feed him, fuck, and leave. When they forget to bring extra salt packets for his fries, Cheetah knows it. The girlfriends get apologetic, and they’re loud about it so Uncle Grant can hear their remorse, how they know they’re stupid.

Most of the girlfriends think Cheetah is cute, almost handsome. They flirt with him. He thinks they think statutory rape accusations are only for men.

One girlfriend, Jeanette, is especially frisky. Tonight, she seeks him out. After the fast food and the fucking, she leaves Uncle Grant’s bedroom and joins Cheetah in the living room. He was just thinking about jerking off again into one of the hundred fast food napkins Uncle Grant left on the floor next to the recliner.

Jeanette touches his shoulder. “Aren’t you bored here alone all day?”

“Nope.”

“Do you have a girlfriend?”

“Nope.”

“Do you want one?” She lights a cigarette and plops down on the coffee table, next to where Cheetah’s propped his feet. She pinches his big toe and blows smoke in front of his face. She nods at the TV. “How about we watch something more upbeat.”

She squeezes the arch of his foot. Her pink nails--homemade manicure--dig into his sock. He yanks his foot free because it tickles. For the first time, he takes his eyes off the Cops marathon and looks in her eyes. “I like this show. I like it a lot.”

“Looks like you like it a little too much.” She nods at the mound of crumpled paper products next to the chair, all sticky with Cheetah’s jizz. The one on top is from just fifteen minutes ago, and it crowns the lot of at least fifty others like it.

“Whatever. Can I have a cigarette?”

“You’re too young,” she says, although she’s retrieving one from the pack.

Just as she pulls it out, Cheetah says, “Just kidding. You were gonna give me one, weren’t you? Pathetic.”

Jeanette glares at him, but after a lifetime’s vying for men’s attention and approval, she seems used to this cruelty. Her eyes widen as if she expects an apology. Cheetah sees the same eyes on every one of Uncle Grant’s girlfriends: searching for the next person who’ll give them the feeling that they matter in some way.

“Why do you come here?” Cheetah says. “To be treated like shit? Used. It’s kinda disgusting.”

“We like each other. It’s just some fun.” She lights up and cocks her head to the left. “It’d be nice to leave the house sometime, though.”

Cheetah snorts. “Good luck with that.”

“He’s a homebody.”

Cheetah sits up and turns down the volume on Cops. He leans forward, elbows on his knees. He puts his face nearer hers. “You know he’s fucking, like, twelve other chicks, right? You don’t see all those fast food bags in the trash? You don’t ever go to Burger King, do you? No. You’re a Wendy’s chick. Fridays. Nine o’clock. Wendy’s.”

Jeanette frowns and looks down. She fingers the chipped glass of the coffee table surface. Cheetah feels like shit about what he said. He can’t take it back, though; she’ll be here all night, thinking she has a friend.

He picks at one of the coffee table’s legs, bitten up from a Shih Tzu they had last year but who died. Cheetah had locked the dog in the bathroom before school because the dog always chewed Cheetah’s cum-crusty underwear. The dog clawed and ripped at the chipboard bathroom door all day. When Cheetah got home, he found the dog’s tongue impaled with a thick dagger of wood. The floor and the dog were slick with vomit. With his fingers, Cheetah pushed past the vomitus in the dog’s mouth and tugged a five-inch piece from its throat.

Jeanette squeezes Cheetah’s knee. “Anyway, no girlfriend for you?”

“What’s your spirit animal?”

“What?”

“Spirit animal,” Cheetah says, sitting back in the recliner and turning up the volume a little. “You know. Native Americans. Those totem pole things?”

Jeanette slides her ass across the table, so Cheetah’s thigh is within reach. She squeezes that. “I don’t know. I’ve always felt special about jellyfish.”

Cheetah mutes the TV again and sneers at her. “You think the Native Americans gave a fuck about jellyfish?”

He feels a pull in his groin. He checks the time on his phone. It’s been about a half-hour since he came. He needs to do it again soon, or he’ll start to think about the Shih Tzu, dropping out of high school, and his parents, who were shot by a disgruntled bus driver on their way home from a Revival meeting in Pittsburgh. If Cheetah keeps ejaculating, he’ll never be sad again.

He stands and tosses the remote on the chair. “I know you know where the door is. I’m going to bed.” He’s not going to bed. He’s going to the bathroom to come in the toilet. Maybe the sink. Sometimes Uncle Grant leaves piss unflushed, and it creeps Cheetah out for a little while.

His dick is sore, as usual, and his hand is rough. This is the seventh time he’s come today. At this point in the day, the callouses make it better. He shoots in the sink and rinses the dime-sized glop down the drain. He’s surprised when much of anything comes out of him at all.

He stands in front of the bathroom mirror and pops an Altoid. He hates the mints. Loves to hate them. They burn the fuck out of his cheek, and he knows they’re supposed to, that someone made them this way. The mints must be meant to burn the fuck out of your cheek, and the world knows nothing bad is going to happen if you like that burn, because they’ve done tests on bunnies or whatever. The bunnies thought Altoids burned so good.

Jennifer Greidus

A SILENT MOVIE by Chris Dankland

June 3, 2018 · Fiction

On the sixth day, Victor started staring at Antoine's feet. A pang shot through him every time he saw Antoine's plump toes wiggle. They were soft, pampered feet that had only walked on the prostrate backs of others. I bet they're tender, thought Victor, licking his cracked and bleeding lips. Like the winged feet of Mercury, Antoine's feet had only trod the most rarefied of airs. He didn't even carry his fucking camera onto the boat, thought Victor, snarling. The chauffeur had done it.

Antoine appeared to be passed out. Not dead yet, his chest was still moving. But how close was he? Victor wondered. Close enough to not put up a fight when his foot got chopped off with an axe?

It was the sixth day that they'd been floating in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico with no gas, no food, and no water. Water water everywhere and not a drop to drink, like the fucking piece of shit junkie poet had said. Victor curled his bloody hateful lips. I oughta chop that cocksucker’s foot off on principle, he thought.

Antoine said he'd been inspired by Victor's red cringing face in the mirror when he was fucking his ass. You looked poetic back there, he'd said. So wild. And so lost. Can I make a film of you?

Will there be drugs? asked Victor. Antoine nodded. Will you suck my dick? asked Victor. Antoine nodded faster. Do I have to memorize a bunch of shit?

It'll be a silent movie, said Antoine. I'll make my own version of The Rime Of The Ancient Mariner. On my dad's fishing boat. I'll give you some mushrooms and we'll have it done before you start to come down.

That cocksucker didn't say he'd be taking mushrooms too, thought Victor. I thought he knew something about being in a boat. I thought he was used to it or something. I trusted him. When the sun started going down the first night, they decided to stay on the boat and fuck all night and watch the sunrise in the morning.

You killed me, Victor moaned. He was surprised by the sound of his own voice. It barely sounded human. It sounded like the whistling wind. You killed me, he moaned. Victor crawled under a tarp to keep the burning sun off his face. He drifted into utter darkness and void.

///

Six hours later, Victor started staring at the axe. The sun had gotten into his bones now, moving through the marrow like underground lava. He wasn't hungry anymore. He wasn't thirsty. He couldn't tell if Antoine was breathing anymore, or if he was dead. Victor sat up and the bright reflection of the sun slid across the axe's curve like a snake's tongue. He crawled over to the axe and grabbed the handle. It weighed much more than he'd expected.

///

Ten minutes later, Victor started staring at the foot. What the fuck am I gonna do with this, he wondered. He wasn't hungry. There wasn't any way to cook the foot. Antoine had rich boy toes, but it must be tough to bite into a human foot. The foot is not the part that a starving person should be eating anyway. Blood gushed from Antoine's stump. Well, he was dead for sure. Good fucking riddance. What a stupid idea this whole thing was. I can't even remember what the fuck happens in that poem, I was stoned when we covered it in high school.

Out of the corner of his eye, Victor spotted a giant fishing pole. I know what I'll do, he thought. He pulled back the skin on the foot and used the tip of the fishing hook to make a small hole in it, big enough to pull the line through. He snipped the end of the line with some pliers and tied it together.

He held the severed foot necklace up high, as though he was presenting it as some kind of sacred offering to the Gods. He slipped the necklace over his head. Victor's tragic death was completely pointless and insane. Why not embrace it.

FUCK YOU! he screamed, flipping off the sky.

///

Three hours later, Victor started staring at the sun. He couldn't move anymore. Flat on his back in the boat. Could barely breathe. Looking up. The severed foot necklace had oozed blood all over his body. Some thin worm-looking tendon had slipped out of the foot and fallen into his lap. Victor was waiting. The longer he stared at the sun, the blacker it got.

He'd dumped Antoine's body over the railing a few hours ago. He was tired of looking at it. What was the point of this idiotic death trip they'd taken? Did it mean something? Did it say something about Victor? About Antoine? About this miserable idiot universe? Was it...did it mean something, that ancient mariner bullshit? Was there a significance?

When you slowly die over a week, this is how you start to think. This is the train of thought that consumes you, chasing everything else away. What does it mean? What does it mean? What does it mean?

The big black sky started to pulse and turn slowly. Windy tentacles stretched out from its perimeter, slowly spinning. The sun was turning into some kind of whirlpool, some kind of gate. The ocean coiled into long spinning strings that were sucked up into the sky, down the black sun's devouring hole. Victor could feel the sun pulling at him too.

What's the symbolism? he moaned.

The boat slowly lifted up into the sky off the face of the waters. Caught in the whirlpool.

Is this it? thought Victor, panting. And nothing else answered? Nothing revealed, nothing shown? Nothing? Nothing? Nothing else answered. Just sucked up by the sun. What does it mean? Just nothing? Nothing? It's all just a big nothing? It's nothing?

Chris Dankland

THE DAY THE WORLD ENDED by Anastasia Jill

May 31, 2018 · Fiction

THE DAY THE WORLD ENDED, we lost our power first as lights and machines shut down like stale organs folding into their lives without blood. Mucus membranes settled in the trenches of my eyelid and produced chemical tears.

“It’s okay,” we told ourselves. “I am not afraid.”

After a few hours, lungs couldn’t take it, clawed their way out of our rib and sacrificed themselves to the noxious gasses. My nuke tipped fingers counted the columns remaining down our spine. We only got to three before the vapor consumed us.

“It’s okay,” we said again. “I am not afraid.”

Other bodies collapsed around us -- metal bodies, furry bodies, red meat bodies were starved by lasers and flooded out with a mix of water and dust from monuments collapsing. We do not shut down alongside them because we have to be strong, we have to eat their remains to sustain the infrastructure of our being. Our skin shed like orange peels and left a sweaty smell.

“That’s not any smell,” we said. “That’s explosive pixie dust and sweat.”

Lumps filled with sewage make tumors on what remains of our flesh, satellites to monitor bones for any sign of decay. Our bellies swell with water, and fish take shelter in the tissue until we are of egg and fetus, ready to repopulate once the disaster ends.

The building around us begins to fall in plastic sheets, like it were never reinforced with brick or mortar or the human hand. We watch the sun safe in the sky, mocking our imminent downfall.

“It’s okay,” we tell the sun. “I would mock us too.”

Everything stops and we are quiet until the Earth puts its head in an astral lap, throwing the continents and all its inhabitants like toys into a bright pink bin. Of course, at the point, we are mostly zombie, clung to life only by the stem of brain. China and Seychelles, France and Timor-Lest, the Koreas, Eritrea, Maldives, the States are names in a ground mouth housing us all like cars in a parking lot. We are all displaced. We have no home now because today, the world decided to pack us in its bags and end. Land is chipped at the corners, chemicals nibbling at their corners like rats. Like the rats that are, somehow, surviving, that we have to eat until everyone else dies.

The Earth continues to rotate while explosions liter its back. A dusty hand the size of a globe reaches up, and counts its spine the way I did. It gets further than three, but no further than five. The hand eroded off, and any second now, we know that we are next and will die alone.

Because God is alone the day he makes the universe out of nothing at all.

And there is nothing left when the planet implodes -- at the end, there is only us and light, cowering behind a pyramid snapped in the middle like a twig. Earth is formless and empty, fat lumps of sand and warm water and no life, no sign we were ever here.

When we want to forget it, succumb to the apocalypse and lay ourselves out for the horses to dine on, our guts twitch and jerk. Our navels implode, and suddenly, the ocean is full of baby fishes.

The sea lights up again and becomes alive, a vault of blue and golden stars to fall into at night. With this vision, we step out from the wreckage. We see the world; it’s beautiful. It is over, but able to be rebuilt.

“That’s something,” we say. “Really something.”

We pick up the countries like puzzle pieces and put them back in place around the fishes. We look around at the new world, and rest in the knowledge that it may be good, someday.

The day the world ended was the day it began again. The toxins were flushed and we woke up in a hospital bed, ready to work and rebuild.

Anastasia Jill

SATURDAY NIGHT BLUES, OR THAT ONE TIME FRANNY TOOK PATRICE OUT by Bob Raymonda

May 30, 2018 · Fiction

Patrice walks into her kitchen, opens the cupboard, pulls out a box of Kraft macaroni and cheese, and sighs. She’s wearing a matching set of duck pajamas with a thinly rolled joint clamped between the corner of her lips. She runs the tap to fill a half-washed pot and lights the joint on the stovetop before setting the water to boil.

The clock on her microwave flashes twelve. The power went out last Wednesday and she just can’t bring herself to reset it. Her anxiety calms as she smokes and watches the bubbles start to collect at the bottom of the pot.

What the hell do you think you’re doing? The voice comes from nowhere and is husky like it’s had one too many Virginia Slims.

Patrice brushes a stray hair back around her ear and mumbles, “Making dinner.”

A stray tentacle creeps out from behind her back. It’s slimy and has thick black hair covering it. It’s wearing a gaudy wristwatch, which it holds unnecessarily close to her face.

Bitch, it’s 7 o’clock.

Patrice dumps the bag of noodles into the boiling water and turns down the heat. She takes another drag of her joint and grabs a can of beer from the fridge. “And your point is?”

My point is that we told Jessie that we’d meet her for tacos and tequila at 7:45 and you haven’t even taken a shower today.

In the blink of an eye, another tentacle appears and pulls the joint out of her lips, stubbing it out in an ashtray on the counter. A third removes the boiling macaroni from the burner and a fourth smacks Patrice directly in the cheek.

Get your game face on, girl. We’re gonna get it in tonight.

Patrice grimaces, trying her best to overcome the beast on her back.

“God dammit, Franny, stop that.”

She manages to strain the macaroni and dump in a pad of butter and the packet of Nickelodeon-orange powdered cheese into the pot. She dodges another smack from the fourth tentacle and gets her pathetic dinner into a chipped ceramic bowl. She gathers the bowl, ashtray, and the beer and brings them with her into her living room.

Franny is a gigantic parasite that latches onto Patrice with hundreds of tiny suction cups. Patrice has to cut holes in all of her clothing so she doesn’t suffocate, which has proven awkward in professional settings but works alright otherwise. Franny’s been around for as long as she can remember, but the two still can’t manage to agree on anything.

Patrice, it’s fucking depressing in here. We’ve gotta get out.

Franny and Patrice’s living room is covered in unopened mail and discarded takeout containers. There’s a Trainspotting poster on one wall and a shelf full of books on the other that were all Randy’s, but he hasn’t lived here in months and never came back for his stuff.

Patrice turns a Making a Murderer on Netflix. She settles into the pleather couch after kicking aside her electric blanket and says, “Franny, I don’t care what you or Jessie or that guy Chet you made us bring home last week have to say about it. Nothing is getting in between me and that murderer tonight.”

I’m not so sure about that.

Patrice snorts and grabs a throw pillow, putting it behind her head and muffling Franny’s voice. One of Franny’s tentacles starts to slither out from underneath her, but she bats at it with her fork before taking her first bite, followed immediately by a huge swig of beer.

“Ahhhh,” she moans, burping, “that hits the spot.”

Come on, Patty, you’re not gonna really live until you get outta those ducky pajamas and into something much less comfortable.

“Fat chance,” Patrice says, relighting the roach and turning the volume up on the TV.

Franny gives Patrice a few minutes. Even lets her think that she’s going to get her way, letting those sweet-talking Wisconsin lawyers lull her into a false sense of security. The minute Patrice’s guard is down, all of Franny’s tentacles are on deck.

With the first, she knocks Patrice’s beer into the bowl of macaroni and cheese, ruining it.

With the second, she throws the remote at the television, cracking the glass, and knocking it off the wall.

“What the fuck!” Patrice shouts.

Franny, laughing, takes her third and fourth tentacles and inserts both of them into Patrice’s ears. The woman’s eyes glaze over with a milky white film and she stops resisting. She stands and walks like a zombie to the bedroom; Franny chuckling the whole way there.

When Patrice comes to, they’re in front of the mirror and Franny is putting the finishing touches on her make-up. The tentacles on the left tending to her foundation and lipstick while those on the right do their best to do anything with her hair.

“Come on, Franny, next week. I promise”

Jessie’s been blowing your phone up. We’re already late. Let’s go.

Patrice glances down and notices the hideous dress that Franny has them in. Bright turquoise and covered in hideous sequins and low cut in the back, so the parasite can be the center of every conversation like she always is. “I look like a fucking clown.”

Mmm mmm mmm, girl. You look good.

Patrice tries to seize control for a second, grabbing a bottle of rubbing alcohol and makeup wipes out of the medicine cabinet, but Franny notices and slides two her tentacles back into Patrice’s ears.

After what feels like moments, the two of them are walking into Harry’s Burritos. The Weeknd is playing over the loudspeakers and Jessie is sitting by herself, a plate of half-finished-half-congealed nachos in front of her.

“Where the hell were you two?” she spits.

Patrice goes to speak, but Franny pipes up, pulling out the tentacle with the watch and pointing at her heavily rouged cheeks: Someone tried to bail on you.

Jessie rolls her eyes and slurs, “I ordered us margaritas, but you took so long that I had to drink them both.”

“That’s alright,” she says. Patrice’s voice is so soft compared to Franny’s that she isn’t even sure if Jessie hears her.

This is my song, Franny says, her tentacles waving in the air. Patrice takes a sip of water and glances around the room. She catches the bartender’s glare as he’s staring at them. It’s Chet. She’s had a crush on him for months, and she really should thank Franny for helping her seal the deal, but she has a hard time thanking Franny for just about anything when she’d usually rather be at home sleeping.

Chet grabs a bottle of mezcal and four shot glasses. He fills them up and sets them on a tray, abandoning his post to join them.

“What’s up girls, how’re you doing tonight?”

Chet! My favorite man in the world.

Jessie gives Patrice a little wink, “Oh, we’re good honey, how’re you?”

Chet smiles at the three of them as he passes out the shots, saving Patrice’s for last. He grazes her hand as he says, “I’m doing great. Shift’s just starting, but I’m taking this one with you anyway.”

Patrice’s face goes flush, but she raises her glass with the rest of them and whispers, “Good to see you too, Chet.”

I’ll bet it is, Patty.

Franny and Jessie cackle and one of Franny’s tentacles reaches out and smacks Chet on the ass. Now it's his turn to blush.

“Look, ladies, I’ve gotta go get back to the bar, but don’t you go anywhere on me,” he says, stacking the glasses and throwing a towel over his perfectly lanky shoulder, “stick around long enough, Franny, and I’ll let you eat the worm.”

I’ll bet you will, she whispers, Jessie cackling even louder this time.

“Be careful what you wish for,” Patty says, speaking up, “you keep talking like that and Franny’s got a worm of her own to show you.”

Chet shoots her another glance as he walks away, smiling with only half of his mouth. Patrice fucking hates how right Franny is; Steven Avery’s got nothing on Chet and she knows it.

For the next hour and a half, Jessie and Franny inhale twelve tacos between the two of them. Patrice enjoys two. Chet keeps sending them drinks and they keep drinking them, and before any of them know it, Harry’s is closing. Jessie stumbles outside to call a cab and Franny, for the first time all night, keeps quiet and lets Patrice do the talking.

“You wanna come by tonight?” she says, looking up into those big grey eyes of his and biting her lower lip.

Chet doesn’t say anything. He just turns the lights off in the bar and grabs Patrice by the wrist, leading her out to his car. He doesn’t even make a face as Franny slides her hairy tentacles all over his hips. He’s got one thing on his mind and one thing only: Patrice.

Back at home, Patrice is nervous for a minute that Chet’ll say something about the mess, even though it looks exactly the same as it did last week, give or take a room temperature pot of mac’n’cheese. Netflix asks if she’s still watching Making a Murderer, but she pushes Chet into her room and leaves the lights off. Franny hasn’t made a peep since they left the bar, only occasionally groping Chet, but still letting Patrice stay in control.

The three tumble around in the dark in her bed and Patrice wonders, for a minute, if it’s the part of Franny that’s snuck her way inside of Chet that gets him off, but she doesn’t mention it. Just lets the two of them pass out in a tangle of limbs and tentacles and sweat and condom wrappers and grabs her phone. It’s three o’clock in the morning on a Wednesday and she’s gotta work in a few hours, but she’s wide awake. She lights up another joint from her bedside table and looks at Instagram, immediately finding her way to Randy’s profile. She can’t stop obsessing over the new girl in all of his photos, even though Chet is still ass naked and only two feet away from her.

Franny, who Patrice is convinced is sated for the night, mumbles one last time before snoring: Aren’t you glad we went out?

Patrice, still scrolling through pictures of Randy’s new, slightly younger, slightly thinner, definitely more blonde version of her, answers: Yes.

Bob Raymonda

FRIENDSHIP WOLFCHEESE by Jonathan Cardew

May 29, 2018 · Fiction

Slide through the doors of the convenience store. Live a little in your skin. This skin was given to you in about 1975. Friendship Wolfcheese made sure you got the kind of skin that earned you favor. Ask for cigarettes. Carefully enunciate the vowels and the consonants. Friendship Wolfcheese was very particular about sounds.

Marlllllborooooo Liiiiiights.

Feel the heat in your cheeks. Why the heat in your cheeks?

Marllllllborooooo Liiiights.

He doesn’t understand you. This boy of fifteen, with the fresh coat of paint on his face. Squints in your direction. He’s speaking, but the speaking isn’t happening in your ears.

Friendship Wolfcheese lived on a boat. He hunted for fish with a stick and string, and then he fried the fish in a sea of butter. Fish eyes popped because of the heat. Because of the way they were being cooked.

Marllllllboroooooo Liiiiights.

This boy of fifteen. He doesn’t know you. He doesn’t care for you. He’s got the phone to worry about and the hair to worry about and he doesn’t know you.

Point.

Marlllllborooooooo Liiiiiiiiights.

Point again, hitting the plastic separating you and the boy.

Marlllllborooooooo Liiiiiiights.

Fish eyes popping. More of a melt, really. Friendship Wolfcheese could melt a fish in butter whole. A whole melt.

Marlllllboroooooo Liiiiiiights.

Until the fish was just butter.

Marlllllboroooooo Liiiiiiights.

You could live without. Friendship Wolfcheese could live without. Fish could live without water for nine days. Flipping and flipping. On a chopping block.

You walk back.

Jonathan Cardew

CORPORATE CLIMATE by Benjamin Niespodziany

May 28, 2018 · Fiction

Corporate encourages that we ride to work on company pogo sticks. Company bicycles and unicycles are also okay, but everything else is frowned upon. “We can't force anyone,” the CEO laughs. Sheryl hates to bounce, rides in on a skateboard every morning. Everyone used to adore Sheryl, used to throw morning glories at her in the staff parking lot. Now co-workers spit on her as they pass her new office in the broken elevator full of fax machines. I remain a loyal employee, a pogo commuter covered head to toe in Band-Aids. My bruises and scabs are the only things that make my wife laugh. I take a pogo stick to work every morning and my poor balance never wins. I fall four of five times before sunrise and my work is only two blocks from my bed. My boss loves the commitment, adores the blood. Can't stop giving me raises.

Ben Niespodziany

95 IN QUEENS by KRISTIN GARTH

May 22, 2018 · Fiction

JONATHANIt’s five past. The bookstore owner with the crooked back eyes me as if I’m a suspicious character. Sinister I wear like a Brooks Brothers suit. Not suspicious.Six past. If I’d been thinking, I’d have sent these things UPS. If I’d been thinking, I would have dumped her majestic, manipulative ass a year ago. If I’d been … with Lauren, there’s never been a lot of …Nine past. There’s little worse in the world than a three-piece suit and a tie in the middle of a July heat wave in Queens. And women with crooked backs.Ten past.LAURENI’m wearing a pleated black skirt, Mary Jane heels, a white turtleneck because Jonathan likes a girl in a turtleneck. He likes his girls in white.I’m running, in heels, down a street I hope is Tyrell. I’ve asked three people for help. None even stop to hear my question.Something drips down my cheek. Not sure if it’s sweat or tears or both. It hits my mouth. It’s salty. I lick my lips.It’s fifteen past. He will not wait.TRICIA“Coffee, blackI rest my fingers on a spoon centered on a violet linen napkin, take a New York City breath. I’m here, but she’s here too. And, right now, she’s with him.IRENE WESTER, PROPRIETER, WESTERDAY, 13 TYRELL STREETI’m an old widow who sells old things: books mostly, furniture, clothes. I know things. Like this thing stalking outside my store for 20 full minutes scaring off customers, a gargoyle.Comes inside. Pulls out a silk hanky, wipes his forehead with it all dainty-like.Wanders here and there, touches everything, careful. Uses the smallest surface area of skin contact possible, like it’s all infected with the plague. Keeps eyeing the door. Has some smart-ass ideas of not putting books back where they go.I eyeball him then. “No, sir. We do not.”Grimaces. Brings a stack of books, a money clip, on top, with a devil creature face, pulls a hundred dollar bill. Goes right back outside to stalk my front door.JONATHAN“It’s twelve fucking thirty.”Her hair is hanging against her red cheeks like thin, wet snakes.“Lauren?”Pants turn to sobs. On a public sidewalk, she throws herself at my feet. Screams a word I do understand: Daddy.Through the glass, I make unfortunate eye contact with the scowling old bookstore owner. I look away, to the voluptuous 33-year-old howling at my feet on a sidewalk in broad daylight.“Hello, Hannah.”I hail us a cab.TRICIAThree cups of coffee and five chapters later, I pull out my phone. An hour. He told me half that, tops.The blonde 20-something waiter hovers, faithfully attentive to my coffee cup covered now with my palm. I offer him a sweet tea southern smile. Any more caffeine, and that smile’s going full-on smirk.I’m the good girl. I cannot risk a smirk.JONATHAN“Little one, I’m going to require some patience. Been a bit of a snag.”I hear the ache in her breath.“At the end of the block, there’s a vintage toy store with a carousel. Pick out a doll. Daddy will buy it in half an hour.”LAUREN“Daddy, I don’t feel well.”He’s got a frown.“Where’s my pink sheets, Daddy?”Daddy used to wrap me in pink sheets, tell me bedtime stories. He slept inside with me.“I’m going to lie down on the couch.”I feel all bad inside.“Wrap me up in the pink sheets, Daddy.”JONATHAN“You’ve done your best,” Tricia tells me, holding her Little Red Riding Hood doll bribe in the kitchen. “She’s faking.”I nod. “I know.”“I don’t think you really believe she’s faking. We both know that you’ve derived a lot of,” Tricia’s choosing her words, “pleasure from this idea of her multiple personalities.”I contemplate an argument, but Tricia deserves the truth.“You’re right. Part of me still wants to believe. Part of me has this,” I cringe, “weakness.”I hear Hannah crying. Not Lauren. Hannah. I have an impulse to find her pink sheets and wrap her in them. Pink sheets I threw out three weeks ago.TRICIA“She’s in there talking to someone,” I’m realizing I am trapped in an apartment with a crazy person.“She’s just babbling,” he says casually. “She does this.”Maybe more than one.“It really does sound like she’s talking to somebody.”“Tricia, who in the hell would she be talking to?”That’s a very good question, I think. Say nothing.“I don’t think she’s talking to anybody.” He goes to check though. Just in case.ROSCOE PATTERSON, EMT, QUEENS EMERGENCY MEDICAL SERVICESWe receive a dispatch at 3:59 p.m., 225 Andrus #14, woman caller. Report is not unusual: “They’re killing me.” An unidentified male intercepted the call, said the woman is delirious. Police are inside when we arrive.A woman’s on the floor, kicking, screaming. If she were a child, I would say “having a temper tantrum.” Most definitely adult though. Early to mid 30’s, guess.Mr. Jonathan Braxton (the resident) tells us that Ms. Hawthorne (the screamer) is his confused guest. Complained of dizziness, exhaustion after moving some items.We discuss options. Ms. Hawthorne quiets herself. She’s sits up, criss-cross-apple-sauce, wide-eyed, like a little girl watching adult making decisions.“Do you need to go to the hospital?”One of the two officers speaks to her. Mr. Braxton fidgets.“Tricia get her some water. I think she’ll drink it now.”Ms. Hawthorne nods.The officers look at us with a shrug. Whole bunch of nothing.“Kinky fuckery of the beautiful and the demented,” my analysis to Ray on the way out the door, off to more craziness with an uglier view.TRICIAI’m in the kitchen. Refrigerator door’s open. Close to the living room as I can be -- with an excuse. He’s screaming at her. This anger sounds delicious. I want a taste. If he surprises me while I’m standing here spying, I’ll reach for the red and white paper boxes of Chinese food. We haven’t had dinner. I’m being thoughtful. He’ll kiss me on the forehead.JONATHANHannah’s asleep. Tricia’s asleep. I’m awake contemplating hanging myself from pink sheets.LAURENI wake up in half light/half dark, unsure where I am. I remember, soft and slow, walking, getting lost, Daddy. Hannah? Oh, Hannah.JONATHANTricia wakes me, breakfast in bed. "Did I burn the toast too much?”“Tricia, you know, I like it burnt.”Any other day, I would punish this amateur-hour incitement of praise. She’s been through a lot, though, little one. I feel compassionate. Write down the date.“Now, get dressed because we have a special date this morning.”It’s Alice in Wonderland, Queens Theatre in the Park.TRICIAThe bathroom door is stuck. I push. It doesn’t move.“Jonathan?”He appears in the hallway.“The bathroom door is stuck.”“What?”He tries.“It –is- stuck. What in the hell?”He kicks the door. It budges. We hear a groan. He kicks again. It opens enough I work my way inside. Lauren is on the bathroom floor, her body lodged against the door.JONATHAN“How were we to know we were hurting you, Lauren? You’re not even supposed to be here. Tricia and I will be out. When we return, we expect you and your things to be gone. Is that clear?She bats big blue eyes at me, Hannah’s eyes. Though this is not Hannah. This person I want to slap. She pouts, Hannah’s lips. I want to do it twice.“I’m sorry,” she whines, “to mess up your plans by passing out in my weakened condition.”This is Lauren. I want no part of this person. Not sure I ever did. She was the cost of Hannah.MONICA WRIGHT, TICKET TAKER, QUEEN’S THEATER IN THE PARKIn line, there’s this man. You can’t help but notice him.It’s his hands, toying with two tickets. Rubbing them rhythmically between mesmerizer’s digits as he talks quietly to a miniature woman in white with braids.His hands are massive, broad across the palms, twice the size of mine. Delicate, long fingers, powder pale, absolutely blank, as unmarked as a newborn. Nails protrude past the fingertips. They’re shaped into points.I’m holding myself back from stepping forward, towards those fingertips brushing stray hairs out of my eyes while I smile – the way the woman with the braids does. She isn’t even that good looking.His eyes fix on me, the smallest fraction of time I can imagine. They hold me still like an enchantment until I’m dropped, and he returns to his clueless companion.Do you remember cornflower blue, from the 48 crayon box? His eyes are cornflower blue.“Tricia, I don’t want her anymore. She’s dead to me. Do you understand? Lauren, Hannah, everybody. I don’t want any of it anymore.”The woman with the braids looks at the ground. She doesn’t seem happy. He hasn’t said he wants her.“This is your weekend, Tricia. The rest will go as planned.” He touches her on the nose. My nose tingles in sympathy with the current of that touch. He turns to me with the tickets. I take them. A shy peek into cornflowers makes my cheeks burn.“Thank you, child.”Our fingers touch.Thank you, child. Huh.TRICIAKey in the lock, Jonathan pauses. As the door opens, I hear wet words, blubbers and gurgles.Lauren left at noon. Hannah took her place.JONATHANI’m hiding in my own kitchen.“Shhhhhh, Tricia.”Rubbing fingers over that alabaster babydoll wrist, I raise it to my lips and kiss the delta of veins that meet at her wrist.“We’re not going to do a thing. We’re going to sit here and let her rot on a couch. When we’re tired of sitting here, we’re going to go on about our day as if that rotten corpse has been carted away, and we never even noticed it was there.”I speak it theatrically. Little Hannah, in the living room, knows where she stands.LAURENMean. Why’s he so mean? He said forever. He said, “I will love Hannah, forever.” He wants me to die here. I won’t die here. He’s a bad Daddy. He tells lies. He said forever. He said it inside the pink sheets.TRICIAHe’s making dinner reservations. Looking across the kitchen at me, I see, for the first time since Lauren arrived, a smile.Then his eyes change. It’s Hannah. Running at him, fists in the air, drool on the side of her face, like some large, round dog. Gone mad. He drops the phone.LAURENAaaaaahhh’m noooot gunna duh ayeDuh aye.JONATHANI kick her in the stomach, gut reaction of a student of the marital arts. Attack what is attackable; defend what is defendable. She folds in two, falls, a thud of bones and flesh against kitchen tile. Out of some strange sympathy, I fall, too.LAURENI’m wearing a shapeless blue knit shift, comfortable shoes, sitting in a waiting room of a health clinic in Atlanta. Near me are a few crying children, a teenage girl in a miniscule spandex dress, a couple of women who look like me. My name is called. ALICE WAYNE, OB-GYN, EAST ATLANTA HEALTH SERVICES33 year old female, Caucasian. Black hair. 5’5”, 140 pounds, Lauren Hawthorne.Gynecological examination following a miscarriage after a fall down some stairs. I notice substantial bruising on thighs, upper arms, abdominal region of the patient.I inquire about support regarding her loss. Informed partner does not know that she was pregnant.Too many falls down stairs you hear, in my occupation, to be statistically viable.“Ms. Hawthorne, for what it’s worth, you and stairs don’t seem to do each other much good. The stairs don’t care either way; you should.”LAUREN95 in Queens. A lot can depend on things like weather. Sometimes it’s the biggest, baddest wolf of all.

Kristin Garth

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