
AT THE VERY CENTER OF YOU IS NOTHING by Alice M.
The masks were thin, pliable. They attached to her skin, seamless. They emoted for her, always appropriate, guaranteed to fetch the reaction she wanted.

The masks were thin, pliable. They attached to her skin, seamless. They emoted for her, always appropriate, guaranteed to fetch the reaction she wanted.

The Weatherman describes the snow as dumping. Feathery bundles fall against all things and accumulate against all things, and besides that: the grey, and the cawing of invisible birds.

It was exciting and sad and over too fast and underwhelming and amazing, all at the same. It was all of it. It was beautiful.

Like anything, Hot Wheels has a language. Like any language you encounter, you want to make this one your own.

The parrot needed quietude and a sense of security in order to come down. My neighbors must’ve pegged me as mad.

“It’s not that it disappears,” he said. “It’s just deep. It’s like a cliff. It goes all the way down. But it’s something new, Rico.”

Men. A constant desire, sometimes simmering, often burning. Never sated. And for him, I knew, it had been even longer.

A year and three months ago a stray bullet caught Mina in the face, just grazing it. She has a scar that trails down her left eye, back to her left ear. The scar looks like one tear crying. Sometimes, lightning strikes twice.

The world felt like something awful impending. June gloom had set in early; Mercury was back in retrograde. Everyone was jittery, uncertain, a little gun shy.

It was an easy thing, that winter, to realize that you were not, in fact, you—rather you were the untitled, draft email of yourself, addressed to no one.