Fiction

NOT EVERYTHING DIES IN THE DARK by M.M. Kaufman

For BenThere reality was, being all realistic, when it blinked out. One second I’m looking at Sammy and Joe sitting on the stoop in their church clothes eating deviled eggs and rice casserole off styrofoam plates, when suddenly they’re—not. They’re still there, but they’re in sweatpants and pretending to eat plastic corn on the cob. Then boom: Easter clothes and eggs again.I ask, Did anyone see that? All I get is shrugs. That’s the only answer they ever give me anyway. How’s ya’ day? Shrug. Wanna watch the game? Shrug. Whatcha wanna do with your life? Shrug. The youth don’t waste words on an old man like me.It happened again the next day. Sammy came over to fix my TV, and one second she’s putting new batteries in the remote, still wearing her uniform from the market, and the next second–boom! She’s in a dressing robe with her hair wrapped up in a towel and holding what looks like a script in her hands. I say script because it was just a bunch of white paper stapled together. Then she said to someone I couldn’t see, I feel like we’ve shot this scene a million times.Bing bada boom—she’s back in her uniform, handing me the remote, kissing me on the forehead, and out the door.It’s not just my grandchildren flickering around on me. I walked to the bodega last week and as I’m reaching for a bag of pork rinds the whole snack stand becomes a two-dimensional poster board with pictures of chips glued on. Whole thing falls over flat like a pancake. I look to Eugene to ask what kind of prank is this, and there he is shaking his head (a different kind of shrug if you ask me). He comes out of his big plastic box where he sits with the cash register. I think he’s gonna show me where the pork rinds actually are, but instead he kneels down and picks up snack bags scattered all over the ground by my feet.After the bodega episode, it happens more and more. People go from looking all normal in their normal clothes and saying normal things to wearing totally different things, holding props, doing voice exercises, going blank and yelling LINE?—the whole nine yards.After a few weeks of this, I stopped freaking out so bad each time it happened. I did give a little gasp at the Met when Sargent’s The Portrait of Madame X went from being a big oil canvas of this hot broad to a stick figure with Xs for eyes drawn on a piece of notebook paper and stuck to the wall with gum. A few people stared at me, then the art. Maybe they thought I was moved or some shit. Then Madame X was back, staring over her shoulder, avoiding my eyes just like the strangers around me.Truly, I was willing to let it all go. What’s it matter if I see things a little funny sometimes, right? I could use some excitement in my life. No one was ever gonna believe me anyway. But you see, when it happened to Leche, that’s when I couldn’t take it anymore.Leche is a free spirit; I mean obviously, she’s a cat, what else is she gonna be. I’m a fresh-air kinda guy, so I leave the window to the fire escape open and Leche comes and goes as she pleases. She’s walking the railing of the balcony like an Olympic gymnast on a balance beam, and the next second she’s a stuffed animal with those beads for eyes and plastic whiskers and she’s fucking falling, excuse my language, to her death. Only how can it be her death when she’s a stuffed animal? But maybe she won’t be a stuffed animal by the time she hits the ground. We’re four stories up, after all.I don’t move as fast as I used to. As I’m making my way from the couch to the window, just waiting for the screams from the sidewalk, my old ticker racing, imagining my poor baby Leche down there on the street dying alone, without me by her side, I hear a little meow. Not like a dying meow but like that little hey-what’s-up-whatcha-doing-oh-me-not-much kinda meow. I get to the window to see Leche climbing back up the stairs like nothing weird happened. And maybe it hadn’t? Or I’m the only one it’s happening to.But I can’t ignore it if my sweet baby Leche is in danger. She’s my closest—verging on only—companion these days. What if it happens while she’s crossing the street or something? Even a plushie looks like road kill when it gets run over.I make a firm decision to tell Joe the next time he comes over. Sammy won’t take it well. She doesn’t take anything well; or rather, she takes things too well, too close to heart. She’s got a lot on her plate, work and school and all, but Joe is my tough one. He’ll sort this out. He always fixes my computer, no matter what virus I download.I start to tell him about the plastic food, the scripts, the furniture becoming empty like that time my bed became a group of cardboard boxes covered with a blanket. Then his eyes do that thing where they glaze over. When they do that, I know he wants to look like he’s listening, but really he’s off in dreamland.I’m trying to tell him, my only grandson, that sometimes it’s like he’s not here when he is, that he’s an actor in the movie of his life, or maybe the movie of my life. I’m thinking maybe he is listening after all when he puts his hand on my arm in that real nice way and says, Pop, have you been reading things on the internet? There’s this conspiracy theory about the simulation. Maybe you’ve been reading about that. Maybe you should spend less time on the internet too.I wanna say fuck ya stimulations, but I can’t say that to my own grandson. I wanna say what else am I supposed to do with my time; you hardly visit me anymore. He looks tired with those dark circles under his eyes like he’s just waiting for something, for someone, to make his day harder. I don’t wanna be that someone. So I say, You’re probably right, Joe.For a while I hoped things were gonna change back to normal. Or rather, that they’ll stop being not-normal. Be patient, I tell myself. Keep the window closed and Leche close. Have the groceries delivered. No more rides on the subway. Bye-bye, bodega.Then one day, I’m watching the sunset on the balcony. Leche curls up in my lap, and the fading light turns the clouds into pink cotton candy. Then actual cotton candy floats down onto my shoulder and I put it in my mouth and it melts as sweet and fast as the scent of jasmine flowers on a breeze. And I think: Why fight this?And I’m not gonna fight it. I don’t mind going out the way that Truman Show guy came in. I’ll walk into the afterlife like I’m strutting onto a sound stage. I’m gonna go out with those big, bright movie set lights on me and the full studio audience laughing and applauding along with the sign. No one will shrug when they talk to me now. ‘Cause me, I’m not gonna die in the dark.
December 29, 2025
Fiction

THE ANSWER by Maxfield Francis Goldman

“This is the last time I am ever going to do something like this to you,” Casper says as he takes his mom’s hand and kisses it. It tastes like cardboard, and smells like sheetrock. It’s rough on his lips and has this unbearable consistency he can only compare to dried dates. But she is beautiful, and everything about her is disgusting. Per usual, she is really not here, but she’s smiling this kind of absent-minded smile, but not really at him. Not really at anything. He lets his lips linger just a little too long. Hears ambiguous beeping sounds of machines he doesn’t know exactly what they do, and the weird creaking sounds of other people like his mom being wheeled about the hallways. The scratching of his keys in his back pocket against the grainy plastic chair. The hallways make it worse. This pale green linoleum that squawks as the nurses dawdle from one room to another. At home, there is parquet, a thick lacquered maple-syrup-colored wood. A very nice floor, in a very empty home. He closes his eyes now, lips moving about the dorsal side of his mother’s hand, and begins to think: “How can it be empty if I'm there?” and then stops as the answer begins to build like a burp or a hiccup.He pulls away, looks down at his mother. Her salt-peter hair. Her collar bones, almost elegant sticking out of the gray-blue robe they put her in. Looking at her now, as she’s spent all this time on earth without even moving a muscle, it is as though she’s back to being innocent. Like all the times she yelled or lost her temper had simply atrophied, and now, she is just here again, like a brand new being, only different in the fact that she has no more future to receive beyond this. But he doesn’t really have the words for this. And so he stares at her, says one more thing.“I am not a bad person.”The smile persists.“Excuse me?” this little voice says.He feels his heart get big against his chest, like he’d been seen, like the voice knows exactly what he’s done and exactly what he will do. The panicking feeling that she'd been there this whole time. But then there’s squeaking, and he turns around, and this fat little nurse is standing beside him with a clipboard, kind of pushing by him.“Excuse me," she says, as she makes her way over to the ambiguous life machines and writes stuff down. Numbers. He feels through his pockets and feels them filled with numbers. Paper with numbers. Unlucky paper filled with unlucky numbers. The nurse writes quickly, then looks back at him, and says, “You know, she’s not as happy when you’re not around.”Casper stares at her, then at Mom. His vision goes a little out of focus, and then he is staring at the parking lot. The sun is setting, and it's snowing. He takes a deep breath and says, “Okay,” then walks out. A lot of people are in the hallway, in wheelchairs, in blankets. ‘Sleeping’ in that half-state. He begins to smile at the woman at the desk, who is real pretty, but it doesn’t really work. His mom liked this place. Or more so, it had treated her well, and it made him happy. He doesn’t like leaving because he knows what he’s done, and he knows what he’s doing and feels like everyone can almost smell it on him as he walks out to the parking lot. Outside, the snow falls lightly, slowly onto the frozen black asphalt. Some of it seems suspended in the air. The sunset is yellow, then orange, then red. It has freckles, he thinks, then laughs to himself, almost like he’s at the beginning of beginning to cry. He laughs to himself that right now, the sun is like a really cute girl, who’s looking at him with all this brightness and all these freckles. And she’s so there, and she’s so watching over him. And he walks through the snow towards his car, and as he gets in, a pile of unlucky paper falls out the side door and onto the parking lot. He doesn’t pick it up, just sits down. He looks back at the big concrete building into his mom's window, but can’t see that much because of the glare. But he keeps trying to look until he gives up. His feet are cramped because there is too much unlucky paper on the ground. It’s everywhere, and he doesn’t like it, and it feels overwhelming because he thought that it’d work. He thought that instead of using the rest of the money to pay for a  little more time, he could turn it around and pay for a lot more time. He knows he’s never been really all that bright, but he thought that the feeling was good enough for it to work anyway.And then he’s staring at the glove box. And he’s thinking that he has to open it because he knows what's inside, and he knows what to do. He’s thinking it won't be too bad because Mom will be there at some point soon. But he’s also scared because not that soon, like it could still be another year or two.And he thinks of all that time of both of them alone in very weird places.And the feeling of beginning to begin to cry turns into the feeling of trying. And with trying comes failing and he just goes back to staring at the sunset.And he reaches over for the glovebox without averting his gaze. Because it is too beautiful, and the snow is so light and kind. And he's feeling around for the handle, and pulls it open. And he's staring into the yellow part because it is his favorite. And he’s thinking to himself to not think about anything he’s done or done wrong. The thoughts just get suggested, then shut down as he feels it, all cold and harsh feeling, waiting there for him. But he doesn’t take it out, just wraps his hand around the part he thinks he’s supposed to and stares at the sun, until the tears come for one reason or another. But they are there, and his eyes get filled with a whole bunch of shining, right when he starts really crying, right to the sun. Then he hears knocking. Repeated fast knocking. And he’s not really looking at anything but the sun because he doesn’t want to and because he’s grateful it’s there. Like he couldn't even begin to think about looking away. But it keeps happening, and eventually, there is talking.“Excuse me,” it says,Then again.And again.Until eventually, it yells.“EXCUSE ME.”And without looking away from the sun, he yells, “WHAT?”And the banging keeps up louder and says, “YOU LEFT YOUR KEYS IN YOUR MOM'S.”And he remembers his mom. And he remembers the nurse, and he realizes it’s her. Because in some weird way, he wasn’t even really thinking about any of that. He was just sort of feeling. Feeling the sun, feeling the thing in the glovebox.And he looks away, over at the nurse, standing at his window, looking real cold, holding his keys in his hand.He didn't really think he’d need them. He looks at her, and there are all these spots in his vision, and she looks a lot bluer than she should be. But nothing is really processing, and he doesn’t really know what to say. And he’s still got his hand just fully in the glove box, wrapped around the thing. And so he looks at her, like as much as another person is capable of really truly looking at another, and says. “I’m sorry.”She scurries and moves the passenger side door, and says, “SIR, I’M TRYING TO GIVE YOU YOUR KEYS.” Then he takes the thing into his hand and goes back to the sun. And he tells himself, staring into the beautiful picture in front of him, “that all my sadness will always end here.” And she gets in, and she’s sitting beside him. And he feels her touching him, and he’s still not looking.But he feels the thing become a different type of thing and he hears it rattle and then a loud sound. And a jangly one right after. And he can feel that the glove box is closed.And he knows she’s there, and she’s so big and she's here for him right now. And he’s really grateful for it, but is really far from beginning to begin how to know how to say it, because maybe there is no way to say something like that. But she takes his hand and brings it to the ignition. And together, they kinda turn it over, going through all the clanking of the gears and that weird feeling so specific to starting a car. And she says, “Are you cold? It’s cold in here.”And he says, “Yes.” Slowly, the heat comes on. And as the car begins to fill with that feeling of artificial warmth, he looks over at her, and she is smiling, and whether he is aware of it or not, he is too. This is what he sees. 
December 10, 2025
Interviews & Reviews

STUFF YOUR FACE WITH SCOTT LAUDATI by Scott Laudati

A special offshoot of our Recommends series, where Scott Laudati enjoys the planet’s best foodstuffs and eateries. 

The Title Fight: Frank Pepe’s VS. Sally’s. New Haven, CT

Once upon a time, back in the closed society that was 1990’s Staten Island, there was a wholesome order. Our fathers grew up in our houses before us and so we ate the same pizza on Friday nights they’d always eaten, because we were still Catholics then, and we didn’t consume meat on Fridays to honor Jesus’ sacrifice of his own flesh. You knew your local pizza guys by name, and if you’d done good in school they’d send you home with a ball of dough to play with, and when it was time for a birthday party you’d order ten pies from them, not the new place down the street with coupons, and you’d sign your tab with a handshake, because trust maintains loyalty, and that kind of thing was really important in those days. But sometimes you had basketball practice across town. And if another father was driving you home you’d stop at his favorite joint, which he’d swear was the best on earth, and you’d be introduced to something totally new. If you went northeast (where the Brooklyn escapees landed), you might end up with a Sicilian pie. If you went closer to Bayonne (Denino’s), no matter who you were with you got the garbage pie (this was an Island favorite). Each neighborhood had something they specialized in, from stromboli to rice balls. There was one constant no matter where you went, though: it was always good. It had to be. The law of the land demanded it.Our fathers were all cops, firefighters, or sanitation workers. Each morning and night they would leave their Alamos and venture to the alien worlds of the other boroughs. I didn’t understand them as separate entities back then, and they were as relevant to me as Nicaragua and Ohio. My dad, like the other dads, had gone to battle in New York City in the ’70s and ’80s, so there was no way they were bringing their families there for a day trip. But, like archeologists going out into the jungle, sometimes they’d return with artifacts. My father was stationed in Little Italy, and every now and then he’d come home with a Lombardi’s pie. Or Tommy The Tank down the street, his dad was up on 125th in East Harlem, and he’d bring home Patsy’s three days a week. So I was always curious about the pizza world beyond my own, because those ovens they used out there in the foreign lands of the City, they were already ancient by 1990, and they did something to a sheet of mozzarella and a thin crust of dough no modern ovens could. I wanted to find the best. And in a world before the internet, word of mouth was the only way to map a trail.

Pizza is one of those things that can immediately bond two people that otherwise have nothing in common. More so than even a sports team, because you both know you’re part of the smallest fraternity on earth. I got invited to the birthday party of a painter my age who lived in the backroom of a third story art gallery above a Crown Fried Chicken on the worst block in Newark, NJ. We’d never met before. His girlfriend’s dad was smoking crack out the window and his cat had just stolen one of my cousin’s chicken wings and was growling at anyone who got close. The painter put on a Spumoni Gardens hat, which is like throwing up a gang sign to the right person, and then we teleported to the roof and geeked out about all the legendary slices we’d had over a pack of cigarettes. I had a BA in pizza but this dude was a Doctor. He knew where the basil came from that Di Fara’s used. He had the secret Spumoni Gardens recipe many had died for. And he said something I’d never heard before. He said, “The best pizza comes from New Haven.”

 FRANK PEPE PIZZERIA NAPOLETANA New Haven, CTThe lists get longer every year, but the top spots never change. Frank Pepe’s is always first or second. Frank and his wife, Filomena, came to New Haven from Italy in 1920. They spent a few years walking around the Little Italy of Wooster Street selling tomato pies until they could afford a store. In 1925, history was made as Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana opened its doors. It’s hopped back and forth a few times between its current 163 Wooster Street location and the place next door (157 Wooster Street), but the same oven’s been used since 1925. And it’s a beauty. It’s a white tiled coal oven that stretches almost wall to wall, making it more than double what a New York oven could ever be. The original pies didn’t have cheese because there was no refrigeration, so you either got a tomato pie or tomato pie with anchovies. In the 1960s Frank Pepe secured his name in the history books when he invented the clam pie. When I was a kid this specialty was only found in a few restaurants, but now the clam pie is available everywhere, and exists in the cannon up there with pepperoni as one of the few acceptable toppings. The same guy’s been shucking the clams for 40 years. The turnover rate is small. Most of the staff shares the family name.  SALLY’S APIZZA New Haven, CTSally’s is the other top spot and they jockey back and forth with Pepe’s. They’re only a few feet away from each other and I guess Sally’s main advantage is that on the one-way street you pass it first. The sign that greets you hanging above the front door immediately pulls you into the family-style tavern. Where Frank Pepe’s clean white pizza oven and kitchen make you feel like you’re going to your Grandparents’ house for a Sunday dinner, Sally’s reminds you of the local bar you’d stop at when you go back to your hometown. The walls are the wood panel of your childhood basement. The floor is a dull brown tile like your friend’s house whose parents still smoked inside. It’s almost as old as Frank Pepe’s but it doesn’t look classic. And it’s still lit by the same stained glass lampshades that hang above pool tables in midwest bars. You can’t ask for a better setting to melt the roof of your mouth and extinguish it with a fountain soda. No one who’s ever sat there has asked for more. There is no more.  

The Verdict

It would be stupid to declare a winner here. The two best pies on earth exist within half-a-block of each other. They have the same oblong oval shape. They have the same thin crust—well charred but not burnt. The interior of each restaurant feels like two sides of the same home. And the same family is behind both of them (sisters, daughters, and sons bleed through both family trees)! It’s like deciding between your favorite dog or your favorite band. I like Sally’s better, but only by the smallest margin in voting history. And it could just be the novelty. The first few times I went to New Haven, Sally’s had weird hours and it was never open, so I ate a lot of Frank Pepe’s, which blew everything else I’d ever eaten out of the water. But when I finally got ahold of a Sally’s tomato and cheese pie, I felt like I’d bitten into the main conductor of the Universe. It was almost spiritual, a realization that as men we didn't deserve something this good, and yet, whatever’s in charge still decided to give it to us. It was The Holy Grail. Now that you know you’re in good hands at either Pepe’s or Sally’s, I’ll give you some advice. Back when I started going to New Haven you could get a table and eat inside. If you attempt to do this now you will ruin the experience, because you’ll be waiting and starving for hours. Call ahead and order your pie at least an hour early. You’ll see the word APIZZA everywhere, it’s pronounced “ah-beetz,” but if like me, you feel stupid saying that, you can tell the nice lady on the phone you want a “Large tomato and cheese pie.” When you arrive you’ll see a line in front (this goes for both Sally’s and Pepe’s). These are the people waiting to dine inside and they’ll be there forever. Walk right past them (they’ll be mad), and enter. A kid will be sitting at a table. Tell him you want to pay cash. He’ll send you inside the restaurant and you’ll have a minute or two to look around, take a quick picture, marvel at that ancient wonder of a pizza oven, and then you’ll get your pizza. On the way out that kid who sent you in will have a bucket of plates, cutlery, and napkins. Give him a small tip, take what you need, and then head back out. There’s a great little park in-between Sally’s and Pepe’s with a bench you can sit and eat. Or, you can go one block north to Wooster Square Park, a beautiful brownstone-lined patch of grass no one is ever at and eat your pizza in peace, looking up between bites at some of the only original architecture left in a city that used to be known for its elegance and gentry. The real winner of the pizza wars is New Haven. My head still shakes every time I say that.  Follow Scott’s international adventures, food-based and otherwise, on his YouTube channel.
December 9, 2025
Fiction

XMAS STORIES FOR X-R-A-Y by Kevin Sampsell

These stories are from Kevin Sampsell's new zine, The 24 Days of Xmas. 

New Smooth Santa

Christmas was approaching, but Santa had no beard. He’d shaved it off that summer after his dog, Carol, gave him fleas. He thought he would be able to grow it back by the holiday season, but his face was still smooth as a baby. He couldn’t understand it. Long white beards ran in the family, from his father, Nick Sr., to his uncle, Walt, and brother, Richard. Even his sister, Nicolette, had a glorious white beard, which she often braided with garlic to keep vampires away (as a child, she was traumatized by the 1922 film, Nosferatu). Santa looked in the bathroom mirror hopelessly, rubbing his sleek features. He had to resort to fake beards when greeting children at the mall. Some of the kids even tugged at the false hair rubber banded around his ears and looked disappointed. He’s not the real Santa, they would tell their parents. Santa would try to dispel the rumors by casually showing everyone his driver’s license. Deep down in his gut, though, he was warming up to life without the beard. He felt more youthful, lighter, and aerodynamic. He wondered if he could somehow “rebrand” his Santa Claus image. It would likely require a strategic marketing campaign. But he knew it probably wouldn’t work. Maybe the fake beard was the way to go. His new smooth look would make the rest of the year easier for him; he could finally be incognito. He liked the idea of a new image for Santas of the future. One that looked like a chubby Ryan Gosling. Honestly, it would give his confidence a little boost when applying for jobs in the spring.          

The Christmas Banana

The Christmas banana went to the staff party. There were mocktails and gingerbread cookies on a long table. People danced to music that was popular on the radio twenty years ago. They jerked their limbs, seizure-like, and squirmed joyfully on the floor. The DJ wore an elf’s hat that made him look like a child. The staff party started at 3:00 in the afternoon so people could still leave the office at 5:00. After 5:00, people were allowed to drink alcohol and do drugs. Some people took off their clothes and abused the photocopy machines. Christmas tree ornaments dangled inappropriately on body parts. Candy canes were licked, then discarded into filing cabinets.The Christmas banana was only a banana on this one day every year. It was the highlight of the year for him. Something about the snazzy shade of yellow and the way his skin peeled away from his body. It felt like his truest essence. In his prayers, he wished he could die this way. In his dreams, he was a banana everyday and forever.
December 8, 2025
Fiction

LOOKING AT YOU, LUCIEN by Isabelle Yang

It's not fair that I get to be sick while my boyfriend gets to be healthy. Gets to live life horizontally—flat, always lying, perpetually still—bent in an angle like that of a slant. Like the longest side of a pudgy triangle, the hypotenuse, sinking slowly. Centimeters of neck crouching inwards—up and down—as he swipes his fickle dickle sucky whucky thumb—up and down—as he fries his brain—up and down. Tweet and twit and twat. Stick and root and rat. The kinds of sounds he watches, the kinds of sounds he makes from the other room. Our only room in our only bed that only stores his body. A body that is writhing without putting up fights. My boyfriend will die soon. I know it.“Lucien,” I say. “Lucien.” Always in that tone that swings between concern and entire holes of it.Sometimes, when I stare into his eyes, the nothingness is so nothing it becomes something. Something like ignition or excitement or shock from an unwarranted stab. It’s usually just a reflection of me in those black nothing pupils, and suddenly I remember how thin and sick and close to dying I am—dying in a different way than his eventual death. My death will be quick and pleasant because I would have lived a life full of suffering while he would have lived one of instant pleasure.My boyfriend’s name is Lucien. Or Luth-ien, because he has a lisp. My boyfriend says dating me is like having a full-time job. If he had a full-time job, he would know how inaccurate that is. His days involve watching acres and acres of green turf across screens. He watches games all day. Games that require consistency and power and stamina. Also ambition because how can my boyfriend forget ambition. Wowee wow wow. Wishy wish woosh. Sounds his willy whoopy body makes while mimicking a golfer’s swing, panting, getting tired, lying down again. I have a full-time job, so I can’t lie down. I can’t stretch time or take multiple showers or learn how to whistle. My days are dictated for me, albeit short days, days closed multiple times because no gallery is open all week. “Why are the walls so white?” he asks when he visits, scratching his face. It’s not fair that Lucien’s skin mimics porcelain while mine mimics concrete. Cracking in the middle of day, in broad daylight, for everyone to see. When I rush to the bathroom, I don’t wonder if any art will get touched or stolen or lit on fire at the cost of my absence. Every day is a secret wish to get fired, to kick-start my life in a new way. When I’m at the gallery, I can’t wait to go home to Lucien. And when I get home, I can’t wait to die.At home, I look at his face—his porcelain face—and find new ways to improve it. Lucien’s nose bends like a Bastard sword recently retired from battle, swooshing away at anything nearby. Sometimes, I panic in the middle of the night, because I think he’s stopped breathing, stopped swooshing. When I look at his face in the darkness, I don’t think it can improve any more, because his is the kind that will leather beautifully as he grows older. The kind that will get glances from twenty-five-year-olds ten years from now, and ten years after that, and ten years after that. Now, if he could only grow up. When my boyfriend hears these complaints, he says I should write about things I love instead. But I love to complain—it might be the only thing I love—so I, technically, am doing what he says. I make him so happy.“How can I make you happy,” he asks me again and again. Something my last boyfriend would say. So would the one before. I don’t know how I keep finding the same person again and again. They are all chunks of flesh from one body, regurgitated at different points in my life. Each one hoping to endure a little longer than the last. It’s a race to nowhere, especially if none of them qualify.Qualifying only for dates to dinners where everyone stares. Probably because Lucien is over six feet tall, and I hide perfectly in his shadows. In the cusps of his shoulders where no one can touch me. I grab his deltoids as if they’re soft grenades and wait until he asks to be seated. I feel the closest to God, like God, against his cashmere back.Cherry cheesecake, napoleon shake, small sirloin steak. A floating coke, a perfect sundae, a sticky toffee pudding. Cutie patootie, loopy canoopy, woffee toffee coffee, cherry berry cheesecake. My boyfriend and I don’t have these kinds of nicknames. He has a name. I say it the way you’re supposed to. “Stop.”“Stop what?” “Stop fidgeting. You’re making the table shake,” I say and point to his leg. “I have ADHD, iths not my fault that—”“It’s.”“What?” “It’s pronounced it’s. Is being dyslexic also a symptom of ADHD?”  Sometimes I wonder if I create these fights so we can drone on in silence. Cruise through whole dinners, whole days, whole lives together like this. I used to think eternity was short until I met Lucien who makes everything feel long and useless and almost even redundant. Whenever I get overwhelmed with the feeling of spending forever with him, I imagine what would happen if he got in a car crash. Immediate relief gets immediately replaced with fear and regret and eventually remorse. The amount of remorse depends on when the crash happens. Tomorrow, I will still be young and gorgeous and can start over. Twenty years from now, I can’t say the same. Maybe Lucien is my lesson, my meditation in life. His mouth is often half-open, equally ready and not ready to stutter something life-changing, something that will completely slice my heart in half. “I just…I…” “Your words, Lucien,” I say. “Use your words.” A waiter watches us complete each other’s sentences. Lucien likes to collect commas, showing them off whenever he talks. “I, I find you, like, impossible,” he manages. True! I think, but I am trying to focus on things that won’t shatter my heart. A futile attempt when I can still feel the waiter’s presence hovering nearby, secretly taking Lucien’s side of the matter. “You don’t even know him,” I want to spit out to her. You don’t even know how I color-coordinate his life, how I spend hours rearranging shades of taupe and gray to match his complexion. How he’s everything because of me and nothing without. Outside, autumn is crinkling into layers of ice. I think of how it will take Lucien every inch of his brain to not want to slip. There is never a moment I don’t think about him. Phee hooo weee. Whooo whooo. Phee hooo weee. Whooo whooo. Practice makes perfect, and my boyfriend loves practicing his whistle. All of Tribeca and all of Manhattan and all of New York can hear him. The children on Crosby poke their heads out, trying to smell out the tune. My boyfriend waves at them like Elvis or Kennedy, and the children cheer back. Their toothed smiles will be engrained inside our memories forever, remembered as the time we saved lives. We pretend to be united, hand in hand, and continue to walk in leisure until my boyfriend grabs at the chance to sit down. If there is something he’s good at, it’s whistling for a cab.One or two or three hours later, my boyfriend is ready to go into bed. He can synchronize with nature like this in ways he can’t with himself. But reaching unconsciousness can sometimes be an entirely separate effort, so yes, sometimes even he needs help falling asleep. Won’t do so unless I sing him a lullaby. One abundant with rhymes and sounds that can be diced into cubes. And because this is my boyfriend, because I love him, I wedge between him and his pillows and begin singing, watching him drift, as he digs deeper and deeper into a dreamscape, as he finally rests in peace.  

Lucien, Lucien, a love I invent,

Lucien, Lucien, wrapped in linen and light, tucked deep in cement,

Lucien who loves little white cries and custard-filled pies and whom I despise,

Last quickly like lust,

Persevere alone if you must,

Lucien, Lucien, a boy I deny,

Lucien, my Lucien, 

I lie lie lie.

December 5, 2025
Fiction

EARTHBOUND by Uma Payne

No one ever found him. Worms turned his whole body into the nutrient shit that plants need to grow. The plastic that had shared space with his flesh stayed. It sat still or traveled elsewhere. Where he had long since become indiscernible, it remained itself. It was outside of natural time, being that nature had exiled. Plastic was what had been severed from life, transmuted into another phase of existence beyond the metabolic processes that meant living. The accreting mass of plastic was nature’s obliterative tendency beginning to outweigh its reproductive one. Nature was poisoned by its own urges. Asphyxiated under the weight of desire. Life fumbled the bag hugely when it incidentally or maybe inevitably made those configurations of organs wants and needs that it was totally unprepared for. 
December 4, 2025

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American Air

by Mike Topp

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Mike Topp’s poems defy categorization. That’s why they are beloved by seamstresses, pathologists, blackmailers and art collectors.

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