THE DAY THE MUSIC DIED by Sandra Arnold

We called him the Music Man because while he cleaned the headstones he liked singing along to the opera playing on his radio. Sometimes he threw his head back and let his voice soar to the sky, scattering the crows. His singing was so beautiful it softened the fears that lay hard in my heart. It brought Nettle close to tears and closer to remembering. Even Stuck Boy stopped his monologues long enough to listen. The three of us loved watching him at work though he rarely spoke to us except to tell us to bugger off if we got too close.

I’m not sure why the bad thing happened. Maybe he got sick of us hanging around him all the time. Admittedly, it would do anyone’s head in listening to Stuck Boy going on hour after hour about solving iodic evaluations. Nettle and I were used to it, but you could see that it really got on Music Man’s nerves. To be honest, it bothered me far more having to listen to the weirdos that frequented this place, but Music Man didn’t even look up from his cleaning when they drifted past.

By lying in the newly dug grave next to the one Music Man was working on I could enjoy his singing and the songs on his radio and tune out most of the complaints from the weirdos as they completed their circuit of the cemetery. Only a few of their grievances stuck to my ears like tattered cobwebs.

“I don’t know who my hands belong to anymore.”

“Why do they say he is ‘obligated’. It makes him sound like a rectangle.”

“A slatternly slut slithering in slime.”

“Avoid drawing attention to yourself.”

“Okay so I was drinking meths, but those two women had no right to refuse my entry into the cathedral. I said ‘How dare you judge me? Only one person can judge me and that’s not you.”

“Even the sky was struggling to hold up the clouds that day.”

Given everything we had to contend with, listening to Music Man singing along to his radio was an interlude of happiness for Stuck Boy, Nettle and me. Unfortunately, on this particular day, Nettle was going on even more than usual about the names on the headstone that Music Man was cleaning. She was always interested in watching him prise the grime out of the names he was working on even though he always ignored her questions. Eventually she would give up and move away to read other inscriptions. This time, however, she didn’t. Music Man heaved an exasperated sigh. He turned off his radio. I felt the molecules in the air shiver as I peered over the edge of the grave and saw Music Man toss his cleaning rag on the ground. He turned to stare directly at Nettle. He looked back at the headstone and jabbed a finger at the three names etched into the stone and then turned back to stare at each of us in turn. Stuck Boy immediately stopped spouting iodic evaluations. Nettle covered her face with her hands and began to cry. Music Man’s attitude felt like a punch to my gut. He of all people should have understood that there are some things you simply don’t rub in people’s faces. To get this point across I reached up, grabbed his ankle and dragged him into the grave. He lay there yelling blue murder while I climbed out and the three of us stood at the grave’s edge staring down at him. We told him we’d leave him there for a bit so he’d know how we felt and then we’d pull him out and forgive him.

After a couple of minutes four other workers in different parts of the cemetery heard Music Man’s shouts. They came charging over as if the devil himself was after them. Between sobs, Nettle tried to explain that it was an accident, that we didn’t mean to hurt him, that we just wanted to teach him a lesson. They ignored us and called an ambulance. The ambos ignored us too as they loaded Music Man onto a stretcher. We watched them carry him out the cemetery gate and into the ambulance. We watched the ambulance speed away down the road, siren blaring. 

As the noise of the siren died away in the distance the crows settled back on the trees. Nettle cried louder and said she would really miss him. Stuck Boy gave her a hug then swiveled her around and pointed at the headstone. Music Man was kneeling there carrying on with his cleaning as if nothing had happened. Without looking at us he reached down to turn his radio on. Old habits die hard in some people, I suppose.

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COVER by Benjamin Kessler

The father is accompanying the daughter to the mall. The daughter wants very much to get her ears pierced, and while the father thinks she is too young, he has consented. Though only after making the daughter pull weeds from between the spaces in the driveway concrete. The father doesn’t simply give the daughter everything she wants. He makes her earn it, and this makes him feel like a good parent. He enjoys very much feeling like a good parent, especially in front of the mother.  

The daughter wants candy from one of the turnstile vending machines and the father gives her a quarter on the condition that she promises not to eat the candy all at once. The daughter says she won’t and runs off to the island where all of the machines sit, their scratched domes filled with stale sweets in muted primary colors. 

The father sits on a concrete bench and watches as the daughter inspects each machine, stooping over and choosing carefully the candy she wants. The daughter insisted on wearing her favorite green jacket, even though it is permanently stained by grape juice and the mother has labeled it “home only.” But the father isn’t concerned. When he saw the daughter bound down the stairs and reach for it off the hook he gave her a sly wink, as if to say our little secret

People mill in and out of stores. Teenagers laugh inside a photo booth. There’s so much to see. Another little girl in a green jacket runs laps around the candy machines. The father hasn’t had his driver's license back for very long and he’s excited to be out of the house. He wouldn’t tell the daughter this, but the father would have taken her to the mall regardless of whether or not she picked out the weeds to his specification. They may even go get fried chicken after, or see a movie. The father doesn’t have a job anymore. The father and the daughter could stay out all day long.

Being at home is just so difficult. It has become tremendously boring. The father feels as though he has read every book he owns, twice. Then there are of course the reminders: the now empty cabinet above the sink, the lowball glasses sealed away in the Goodwill box in the basement, the car with the busted front end sitting for months untouched in the garage. To get to the mall the father borrowed the mother’s car, though not without subject to that admonishing look she gave while handing him the keys. But everything is better now. Just look, the father says, holding his hand before him and spreading his fingers. No shakes. 

The daughter has made her decision: chalky sour candy shaped like tropical fruit. She slides the quarter into the slot and turns the metal dial, the father watching, anticipating the sound of gear teeth in conversation. But there is instead another noise. A familiar sound, though not one the father has ever heard personally. He knows it only by reputation. The other mall shoppers must know it as well, because in an instant everyone is frenzied, running and screaming toward the array of double doors, overlarge glossy shopping bags swinging wildly from their hands. 

But the father is smarter than them. Though he’s never been in this situation before he knows from evening news that the danger may well be waiting at the exits. So he launches himself toward the candy machines with speed he wasn’t aware he had, scoops the daughter up by the waist, and sprints into the nearest store. Once inside, soft music piping in over the speakers, he ferrets out a hiding space within a circular rack of blue jeans. He then pulls the denim closed like a curtain and holds the daughter close. They are safe, and the father again feels like a good parent. In the main hallway many are still in a panic, calling out. A fire alarm has been pulled and it wails.   

The father tells the daughter that everything is going to be okay, then turns her around. But as he does so he discovers it is not the daughter. No, it is the other little girl with the other green jacket. She has fair skin and braided blonde pigtails. She looks nothing like the daughter, really, and to the father’s surprise his first thought isn’t for the daughter’s safety, but rather how the mother will react when she learns what has happened. She will assume the father had been drinking. How else could he make such a mistake? How else could he be so foolish and irresponsible?  

And what has happened? Nothing so sinister. What the father, and everyone else, don’t know is that the sound, like a director’s clapboard inciting a hectic scene, was simply a sandwich board falling onto its face.

The father stares at the little girl who is not the daughter. The little girl is about to speak but the father puts a single finger to his lips. The father thinks about the daughter. He wonders if, in another store, in some makeshift shelter-in place much like his own, another father is staring at the daughter. The father takes out his cell phone, thinks about calling the mother, telling her that he is okay. And the daughter, she will ask? Fine, the father will respond, because he doesn’t know she isn’t.

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THE PUDDLE BOYS AT NIGHT by Hadiyyah Kuma

Though dripping a little, the puddle boys are no longer melting. It is late nighttime. They don’t have to sleep because there is nowhere they have to be for now. They hope they never have to sleep again, but of course this is idealistic. The puddle boys know this too, but it is nice to ignore, it is nice to be fully conscious and in love. Crossing the street is the best excuse for holding hands. Cars echo away from them; some move through and splash people’s face. Everyone forgives them. The puddle boys' backs become green then red. Their hair moves with the wind, so moved, it sheds a tear. 

*

The puddle boys drip into a cookie dough shop and practice spelling each other’s names. 

“Devonte.”

“Rehan.”

“De-von-tay,” blows Rehan. 

“Ray-han,” giggles Devonte. 

The puddle boys tingle as their spirits align and their skins connect. They pass breath between each other. Devonte is excited about mint-chocolate cookie dough and he peruses the menu for a price. Rehan waits patiently behind him with a strawberry sharpie. As Devonte orders for the both of them, Rehan sneaks the marker under Devonte’s shirt and writes, “sanctuary.” Devonte ripples and shimmers. 

The server says the cookie dough will take a few minutes; there was not enough mint left, and she has to get some more from storage. 

“Can I hold the bags under your eyes?”

Devonte considers this and sees a horse outside, muddling through the street with a police officer on his back. “I could never draw a horse.” 

“I never cared for horses very much. I like seashells.” Rehan knows that to be an artist one does not have to know how to draw horses. He reminds Devonte of his beach painting, of the way the seashells seemed to be sharp, yet malleable. How it seemed like a prize just to kiss the hand of the artist who made the world look soft again. 

Devonte describes the feeling of being artistically inadequate as building a house with smaller bricks than everyone else, but the house has to be even bigger than every other builder. “It’s okay if you don’t understand what I’m saying.” 

Rehan sits on the floor because he understands perfectly. The tiles are a jade-blue and white checkered pattern. They’re not innovative, but their simplicity gives the puddle boys a place for standing water. Delicate in their way, the puddle boys hug the grooves of the floor and change the subject. They are masters at subject-changing. They tell each other all kinds of things about shoe sizes and pony rides and simulated car rides at their respective local malls. There is always something new to talk to about. Water accumulates behind Rehan’s nose each time Devonte says the word, “probably.”

The puddle boys talk big, and soon they are shouting but not at each other, as the woman who entered the cookie dough shop would like. She has a son, he is young and smiles at the puddle boys. The woman’s thumb is ready on the record button of her phone. There is no drama to see. The puddle boys shout different animals’ names, but it’s not a spectacle; it’s two boys shouting about animals. Rehan touches Devonte’s laugh and there is no obstacle. Rehan likes donkeys and Devonte likes cows. These are their favourite animals. 

*

From the outside the store glows white, and an accountant in his office across the street sips his coffee, rubs his eyes, checks his phone for missed calls and finds none. There is a text message that reads: have you eaten today behta? He texts, yes Ma, and puts the phone out of sight. He sees two boys yelling without making a sound. It’s not a dream. He would like to watch them forever but knows this will always be impossible.

*

Rehan has Devonte’s dark circles in his palms as he licks the cookie dough. A park bench at night becomes a test site of resilience because it’s not clear or dirty; it’s just somewhere to spread and spill. The puddle boys are even darker than before, their calves resting on each other like no simile can describe. It takes forever for a streetlight to come on, but it does. “Your tongue is my fire,” exclaims Rehan. 

Devonte chews slowly, watching a man pee behind a tree. “I’m so glad I’m not that tree,” says Devonte. “I’m so glad I’m not that man,” says Rehan, “Alhamdulillah.” “Thank you, Jesus,” says Devonte. The puddle boys unlearn all the rules and discuss how trees can grow both up and down, but also side to side. They can break through and out of the earth, but they can extend as far as they want to go. It is hard to see the trees in this light. The puddle boys’ eyes are glinting, illuminated the worn skin around their cuticles. 

Devonte sucks in the air to feel the mint aftertaste cool his mouth. “You can give them back now.”

Rehan places his palms on Devonte’s eyes and returns to him the dark circles. 

*

The streets flex upward and back down again as Devonte and Rehan flood them. Love is big, and there are not a lot of places to hide it. An avenue opens into an alleyway, and the puddle boys crouch behind a crate of onions. They breath droplets and exhaust are the friction in each other’s collarbones. The world’s heat is turning thick and orange. It is not a good sign. 

Devonte notices something behind Rehan’s hair. It is a carving made by a key or sharp fingernail. It reads, “Baby Boy and Baby Girl for life babyyyyyyy.” The many Ys lump in Devonte’s throat because he has too many wordless questions. “I wish I could last a day,” he says. 

Rehan agrees. “I wish I could own a body.”

“It’s not the same as having,” says Devonte. “I’d build a city of Lego for you.”

“Build me legs and arms too, so that I have the strength to build you a better one.”

*

A tall man arrives. He smells like Vicks medicine, and he sweats out violence and cuss words. He mumbles, “goddamn” and “motherfucker of Jesus.” Tightening the grip beneath his shoes, he lifts the crate of onions onto his right shoulder and carries it away as if it were light. 

“I don’t like men who say ‘goddamn’,” says Rehan. 

“I don’t like men who make heavy things look light,” says Devonte. 

“You are the best.”

“No, I feel myself giving up.”

The cement is a lighter shade. The avenue closes again, and there is nowhere to be but in the bright. Car windshields flash fire into everyone’s eyes. A cellphone reflects the light, piercing Rehan’s chest. He wobbles but is still breathing. “I feel myself giving up.” Devonte holds him by the waist.  It is not easy to keep going when the dawn is so violent.

*

The sun becomes hotter and people pour into the street. Devonte and Rehan are smaller than they’ve ever been. They share memories of the night so as not to lose its darkness. They subject change to the red lights into green lights and green lights into yellow and then back again, and there are cows, but they are all sick and no milk can be obtained from them. The city is thirsty, and so it becomes careless. The puddle boys grow angry, but never at each other because they have hope and that deflects rays, sometimes. They start to yell again, but no one hears them. They try to laugh, but it is difficult with disappearing chests. There is another police horse, and the puddle boys hide under a car to avoid his hammering hoofs. Weight like that is definitive destruction. The streets flex downward and there is no stopping them. 

“There is nowhere to hold you anymore.” The puddle boys’ backs are missing. All that’s left is the beginning of a name.

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PICTURES by Andrew C. Miller

Lauren watched her father saw through the apple pie with a butter knife. 

“Want a piece?” He scooped out a chunk, slid it into a cereal bowl. “Got eggs if you’d rather, but no bacon.” He poured coffee into a brown mug, dribbling on the counter. Lauren shook her head, glanced at the half open door to the canning room. 

During Christmas they agreed that mother would be more comfortable on the first floor. So they converted the canning room into a bedroom and carried down her things—loose fitting clothes, toiletries, framed pictures of the family and relatives, watercolors from the community college art classes. Her father rolled in an oxygen tank, dragged in a small dresser from the garage. Lauren scooped up a handful of math and logic puzzles from the front closet.

Her father didn’t bother to set sponge up the coffee. He set his bowl and mug on the table, sat down hard.

Lauren frowned. Without her mother in the kitchen, the house didn’t feel like theirs anymore. It was as though someone else had moved in, rearranged the furniture, changed the lights, didn’t bother to pick up.

“Where’re the hospice people?” 

 “Got them on the phone yesterday. Seemed real nice.” 

He set the spoon down, slid a tattered shoebox to the center of the table.

“They haven’t been here yet?”

He shook his head. “Now your Mother—"

Lauren’s eyes narrowed. “You just talked to them?” She opened and closed her fists. “Mom’s in pain, losing weight...”

“Got your Mother on a special diet. Florence—from the church—told us about it.”

“Oh, for God’s sake.”

He swept his arm overhead. “She didn’t want other women in her kitchen.”

“So, nothing’s been set up?”

He explained that they wanted to give the diet a chance. And, she was starting breathing exercises. They read about them in a health magazine that came in the mail. He jabbed the pie with his spoon.

“What about the pain?”

“All this addiction scares her.” He held up a spoonful, mostly crust. “Have a cup of coffee.” 

“You were supposed to get hospice started.” 

She walked to the counter, picked up the coffee pot. At Christmas she had downloaded the hospice information, stuck their telephone number on the refrigerator with a magnet shaped like a rabbit. 

He looked up. “There’s no cream.”

“No matter.” She poured a cup, leaned back against the sink. His shoulders seemed more hunched; his face thinner than she remembered. She wanted to yell, what’s going on here? Instead she asked, “Why’d you call?”

She was almost asleep when he called, asked her to come home. She got up at four, drove the 200 miles in under three hours. 

He slid the bowl to one side, flipped open the shoebox. 

“It’s the pictures.”

He pulled out a fat envelope, legal-sized, rumpled and stained. He slid out a handful of pictures, began to snap them on the table like he was dealing cards. 

“We couldn’t figure out these people.” He glanced at the door to the canning room, then back at Lauren. “It was at the reunion right after your 16th birthday.” 

Pictures. A long line of pictures.  

At Christmas they had talked on and on about hospice. On their first visit, Lauren would come back home to meet them. They’d discuss everything. As a family. Pain management. Comfort food. Her mother’s wishes. Lauren had told her parents about Dr. Kaminsky, one of her university profs that had just died. Dr. Kaminsky’s wife had said the hospice people were a blessing. A blessing to have them in their home while he weakened, when he passed. 

She stared at the pictures, didn’t say anything for a long time. Then she touched one. 

“This is Cousin Freda’s daughter. She lives in Arizona.”

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MOLD ON THE CEILING by Katherine Tweedle

Sophie had never thought twice about the décor in her mind palace. That was, until her counselor barged into her secret space and perched in her favorite armchair. 

One moment, the women sat in an office tinted a chi-centering blue; the next, the room had transformed into a dim sitting room. Sophie blanched, her private life now public. Dr. Erwin seemed unabashed, if not actually bored, continuing to pull on a fountain soda the size of a prize pumpkin. 

The room was Yin and Yang: clutter and cleanliness; one half as immaculate as a museum, the other half, a virtual kaleidoscope of crap. A thick, musty smell crawled through the air.

Dr. Erwin’s eyes roved over their new surroundings and settled on a shaggy patch of mold inching across the ceiling. She spoke in a lazy drawl, the straw wedged between her lips. “I like what you’ve done with the place.” 

Sophie flinched at the quip. “Could we maybe—? Go back to your office?”

“You don’t like how I work?” The counselor’s tired eyes froze her. 

A flush rose up Sophie’s neck as her eyes slid from the pristine gallery on one wall to the other half of the room. Crowding around them lay piles of books like fallen avalanches, crumbling cardboard boxes of corroded spectacles, and ragged grocery bags bulging with splinters of previously-fine china.  

“Do you collect anything, Doctor?” Sophie asked, plumping a pillow beside her. A puff of dust exploded in her face.  

“Everyone’s got junk.” 

“I don’t know about junk. Lots of hobbies, maybe.” Sophie swept her arms wide, elbowing a stack of magazines that flapped to the floor.

Dr. Erwin waved a dismissive hand. “Baggage is normal,” she finally said. Then she pulled a face, her cheeks bulging, and Sophie realized with revulsion the woman was trying to smile.

Sophie reflexively perused the wall around them for the expected credential frames, but of course, if they’d been in Dr. Erwin’s office, she couldn’t see them now.

“Your room’s really something.” Dr. Erwin slid the straw from her drink and pointed it at the musty patch overhead. “Why do you figure that’s here?”  

Sophie frowned at the intrusive straw, but quickly recovered. “Beautiful plasterwork, isn’t it?” 

Dr. Erwin’s caterpillar eyebrows rose. “Is the plasterwork under the mold?”

“Mold? Oh that’s just—that’s been here forever. How about this?” Sophie scurried over to remove a glass box from the gleaming mantel and drew up a chair next to the counselor. The gold inlay gleamed when she lifted the lid. 

“Naughty Box?” the counselor asked, reading the inscription.

“Yes. It has...reminders.” 

“For?” 

Sophie paused. “Anyone ever insult you?” she said. She didn’t wait for an answer. “Everyone’s flawed. Even those people.” Sophie reached in, lifting a pink note from the well-thumbed stack inside. “This one’s Marjorie,” she said, waggling the note in the air, “who seems to find other people more interesting lately.” Sophie flipped the paper onto the coffee table.  

“Charles,” she said, extracting another note. “My cat passed away this year. I was devastated. Folks offer condolences, right? Not Charles. He didn’t care.” Sophie flicked through the pile and tugged another slip. 

Dr. Erwin interrupted. “I assume you drew up some contract with him about friendship etiquette?” 

Sophie snapped the lid shut. She rose to replace the box, taking care to ensure it was centered.  

“Did you confront these people?”

“I’d be wasting my time.” Sophie returned to the couch and stretched out. Her foot nudged a box beneath the coffee table. She stiffened, looking like she’d just swallowed an ice cube. 

Dr. Erwin leaned forward and squinted. “What’s that?”

Sophie shrugged. “That’s nothing. Not very pretty.”

Dr. Erwin’s eyes met Sophie’s, a controlled softness in her gaze. “Neither is mine.” The counselor’s exhaustion was radiating. It was a little sad; Sophie felt it too.

Sophie reluctantly lifted the box. It was glass like the first, but the panels were foggy with dust, the fastenings dark with rust. 

“I keep throwing this nasty thing out, but it keeps coming back.” 

“That’s your Oopsie Box?”

Sophie blinked away the juvenile term. 

Inside the box lay a stack of crisp yellow notes like citations. 

“These show up a lot,” Sophie said in a low voice. Her eyes scanned the first. “Sometimes I leave my shopping cart in the lot.” She flicked her shoulders as if shrugging off a fly. 

“You feel some type of way about it?” 

“Not really,” Sophie said, and that was that. “Mary. Once, I—this was just after my cat died—intimated to a coworker that Mary’d been withdrawn lately because of her husband’s affair. Apparently there were others in the breakroom, and by day’s end, those idiots spread it to everyone on the fourth floor.” Sophie rolled her eyes into her hairline. “It was...traumatizing.”

“I know what you mean,” Dr. Erwin said. Her eyes went vacant, as if she’d left her whole body sitting there, empty, to run some errand.

“I meant difficult for Mary. She was betrayed by everyone.” 

Dr. Erwin took a disinterested pull from her soda. “Next?” 

Sophie stared at this new note as if seeing it for the first time. Her face fell. “My sister’s blind in one eye.”

“How’d it happen?” 

“You know the thing that always happens to kids who play with sticks?”

They sat in silence a while. 

Finally, Sophie blurted: “She’s forgiven me, of course.” She squeezed the papers back in the decrepit box and stuffed it under the table. 

Something shifted in the room, like a breeze, and they both looked up to see the mold above them grow. Sophie scowled.

“That’s no normal fungus,” Dr. Erwin said. 

Sophie snapped her head back down to face her. “What isn’t?”  

Dr. Erwin’s caterpillars climbed up her forehead. 

“I don’t know what that is,” Sophie insisted.

“Then I’ll tell you; you don’t wanna let it sit.” 

Sophie set her jaw. “Just leave it.”

Dr. Erwin tapped the plastic lid of her cup. “You want warm fuzzy feelings, or help?”

Without a word, Sophie rose. She crossed the room and opened the door, temporarily forgetting which way to turn the knob. 

“I’m glad you came,” Dr. Erwin called. 

Sophie pivoted. Her eyes lingered on the mold looming heavy and low. The flesh on her face hung limp as if it too were tired now. She nodded and crossed the threshold.

In the room she left behind, the mold on the ceiling flickered.

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CRY BUG by Gregg Williard

CRYBUG!!!

CRYBUG SAY WE IN DANGER AGAIN!!!

CRYBUG SPEAK FOR WHITE RACE PEOPLE, ‘CAUSE THEY IN DANGER AGAIN!!!

CRYBUG CRY, WE IN DANGER AGAIN!!!! AGAIN!!!!!!

CRYBUG GOT HOT BLACK TEARS AND SUCK CUP FEET!!!!!

CRYBUG CRY, WHITE PEEPS, WE IN DANGER AGAIN!!!!!!!

HOT BLACK TEARS CRY COLD WHITE FEARS, SAY,

WE IN DANGER, AGAIN!!!!!!

CRYBUG LIKE PAUL REVERE, ONLY WITH SUCK CUP FEET TO STICK TO CEILING UPSIDE DOWN!

THIS ALLOW HOT BLACK TEARS TO FALL INTO BEER IN SPORTSBAR ALL OVER AMERICA!!!!!

ALL OVER AMERICA, BEER TURN BLACK WITH CRYBUG TEARS!!!!!

WHITE PEEPS, WE IN DANGER AGAIN!!!!!!!!

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THE OLD LADY WITH THE GOLD LAMÉ PUMPS by Kerry Rawlinson

I wonder if you remember her? Whenever we’d pop into the pub, the Old Cock and Bull, she was always sitting up at the bar. Because you loved that place, (not to mention their beer), we popped in pretty much every night. Beautifully dressed, always alone, the old lady would be perched on the high stool, sipping one of her limit of two glasses of beer. Nobody even talked to her, which I found odd. Occasionally her wig would be squiffy; her crimson lipstick slipping sideways. She’d look up into the bar mirror and fix it with a tissue. But the thing is this: whatever her outfit, she always wore the same pair of golden shoes. Do you remember how I’d concoct outrageous histories for her? I’d talk myself into fits of giggles. Like, she was a filthy-rich New York Madam, retired on five-hundred cums a day! She was the heiress of a tycoon who’d made his fortune producing gold shoes. She was a transgendered Air-force General! A futuristic Hologram, beaming her image back through space and time? A naughty Fairy, banished to human mortality? Well, I was a bit bored, wasn’t I, going to the same pub every day, and I always felt that I was the one who had to entertain us. You laughed. You used to think I was so amusing, in those days. It isn’t that funny now, is it, trashing a poor old lady? But we’d laugh at the same things, back then. And we’d drink and laugh and stumble happily back to our teeny-tiny flat for a scrappy-quick supper and a long, glorious fuck. Regular as clockwork...

Then one night, she wasn’t there. And when we went in the next, she was still missing. We asked around, but couldn’t get through to anybody who we were talking about – not even Pete, the bartender. I wondered in disbelief how a human being could be so unseen, even by those who served her daily. But Pete was adamant. He had no clue who we were talking about. It was very odd… So we forgot about her. Well, I know you did. You were always good at forgetting. But somehow, that lonely image of her stayed lodged in my head all this time. I hoped, if she was dead, that someone mourned her. Missed her golden shoes. I would have told her, if I could have, that I missed her.

And then I got pregnant. Just like that, our rollicking pub days were over. Responsibility set in, and with it, the thorny overgrowth and grown-up roadblocks of reality. We tried to make a good go of it, at first. But we really weren’t compatible, were we? Our relationship was based on drinking and nightly sex, not nurseries and nappy-changing. You stopped laughing at me. I stopped finding your drunken antics amusing. Though you could never get through your head the part about quitting, for the family’s sake. We started fighting more. Then we were fighting always. I was so exhausted by the fighting! You took off on "business trips," as you called them, which were actually just extended into long, single holidays. And my days, working at the Safeway daily and raising the two boys, seemed to roll together into one endless ache of sadness, then disappear into thin air like smoke. Where did the time actually go? Feels like it got sucked into some futuristic vacuum… The problem was this: you were in my heart like a thorn. I couldn’t love you, and I couldn’t stop loving you. The more I wriggled against you, the deeper the thorn dug. I was trapped in this schism like a pebble between two sides of a cliff. My hair fell out in clumps. Stress, the doctor said. So I practiced a little retail therapy. Shoes became my passion – but my hair never recovered its fullness. I actually had to buy myself a wig; the final blow to the chafing of my self-esteem.

Years and years later, after the kids had grown and we’d finally managed to split and go our separate ways for good, I visited the Cock & Bull again. Just to see how it would be to sip on a drink there, without you. And just so you know, everything in it is exactly the same now as it had been, way back then, in those carefree days. Even Pete still works behind the bar, if you can believe it! Though he didn’t recognize me, and I didn’t enlighten him. He’s an old codger now. Well, aren’t we all? I perched up at the bar on a stool, feeling beside myself, somehow. Thinking about fracture, and what we’d lost. My scalp itched. I faced down so that the tears would plop into my beer, not onto my dress, and I got out a tissue. I looked up into the bar mirror to fix my lipstick.

And then, everything became clear.

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AT HOME WITH THE MARTINIS by Joel Allegretti

4 p.m., Sunday, July 16, 1978

The white house with the gray trim at 33 Harper Road is the home of Elizabeth and Edward Martini. They were newlyweds when they moved to East Bedford, a Central New Jersey township, in 1957. They are both forty-four years old. Liz Martini, née Sprezzante, is a homemaker. Ed is an attorney in private practice. Liz is an accomplished cook. She makes homemade pasta. Last week, her skilled hands produced two pounds of pappardelle. Ed likes to work outdoors. He planted the juniper bushes on either end of the driveway and the impatiens and tulips along the front of the house. Liz and Ed have two children. Their son, twenty-year-old Jerry, is spending the summer backpacking through Italy and Switzerland with three Rutgers University friends. He has sent Mom and Dad postcards from Milan, Venice, and Geneva. Jerry called collect from Zurich and promised to call when he arrived in Montreux. Their daughter, eighteen-year-old Deb, is spending the weekend in a Sandy Hook beach house. Deb will begin her freshman year at Oberlin College in September.

The woman in the green culottes and yellow halter top at the kitchen counter is Liz. She is tenderizing six veal cutlets for saltimbocca alla Romana. The stainless-steel mallet hits the pink slices again and again. A glass pitcher, half-full, is also on the counter. Liz pauses to pour herself another gin and tonic.

Ed enters the kitchen. He is wearing a blue bathing suit and a short-sleeve button-down paisley shirt. He watches his wife for a few moments. He doesn’t say anything. Liz doesn’t say anything, either. Ed takes a can of beer to the backyard. He stretches out on the cedarwood chaise longue by the built-in pool. A squirrel loiters on the diving board. Pine needles float on the water.

Although it is a hot day and the central air conditioning is running, the kitchen window is open. Ed hears Liz’s meat tenderizer. 

Although he is right-handed, Ed holds the beer can in his left hand because of the metal splint on his broken right forefinger.

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FOR A MOMENT by Dixon Speaker

Noelle was a response to Sophia. He learned relationships in a high school science class, each action creating an opposite reaction. 

He peeked at the Yankees score while having sex with Sophia and it changed the atomic properties of rooms they shared going forward. Hives appeared on his back like islands of the Solomon Sea and he had to shit in a plastic hat for a month so they could run tests, which came back inconclusive. She hated his friends. He had visions of their wedding in an empty room made of wood.

Noelle smelled more than Sophia because she was heavier and had a worse diet, but he inhaled deeply under the covers while laying in bed all day, all night, on Sundays, ordering Ruebens from the deli up the street. They drank wine she stole from her dad and smoked weed she bought from her ex who she said was just like her dad. He asked her to consider a deeper meaning to that statement and she plunged her head down through the smoke and screamed into his face, don’t tell me what to do! He ignored it because he convinced himself she was attracted to confidence. 

Noelle also had no interest in his friends, but would see them if they came to her. 

She had an African Grey that knew party tricks, of course, like how it would say hello in Noelle’s mother’s voice whenever a phone would ring, or how it would bob its little head to the right kind of dance music. She left the cage open during the day so the bird could climb out and enjoy the sun. It had a murderous, unfiled beak which it smacked on the metal when your back was turned. She brought it into the shower and let it drink from the water rushing off her fingers.

That summer she just stopped showing up to work. She wore the same cotton bra every day for a month. She tore her ACL jumping on a trampoline and instead of going to see a doctor she pulled all of the blankets and pillows off of her bed onto the floor. But she never stopped caring for the bird, as if the care and passion draining from everything else was pooled and collected between her and this little squawking thing. 

This was important because there are many, many ways to kill your bird. Avocados are number one on all the lists. Even a nibble at the skin or leaf can kill your bird. Guacamole can kill your bird. Caffeine will speed the beat of its miniature heart until it explodes in its chest, so don’t leave coffee out. Salt will unsettle the electrolyte ecosystem in its tiny bird body causing it to become dehydrated and die painfully while you’re at work. Non-stick pots and pans release toxic fumes, so don’t boil water in the winter to release humidity or this will suffocate the bird in your home. Smoke obviously kills your bird, so when she hit her surface-to-air-missile sized bong in the morning, after lunch, and right before bed, she tucked the bird behind a decorative sheet. And while not on any of the lists, the most common way to kill your bird is to bring it to bed, roll over on it, and crush it while you sleep.The bird makes no sounds while it happens so you wake up well rested before discovering your mistake. He almost did this once in Noelle’s childhood bed, but she had her hands locked around the bird like a shark cage. She thought of everything. 

But what she didn’t think of was that having his friends at her apartment would make him approach the cage. Or that the prospect of creating a moment, something that could be referenced down the line in a speech at their wedding, laughter all around, would cause him to forget that only she could handle the bird. Or that he looked into empty cups of coffee wishing he could CTRL+A+Delete parts of his life like bad writing. Or that getting into relationships was much easier than getting out of them. Or that he would attempt to forge ahead, determined to make new memories, better memories, memories that would fit the picture of his life he kept in a trick drawer in his chest. Or that bird would step out onto his fingers to give life to that moment, for a moment, before creating a river between his knuckles. Or that he would jerk his hand so quickly. Or that the bird would hold on too long instead of getting go, and hit the wooden floor with such force, such violence, snapping its neck on contact. 

Noelle may have never left the couch had their reactions not betrayed them. The friends vanished. She picked up the bird and held it out to him like she was serving a hot dish. Her face looked like someone had taken it off and put it back on. 

He left the apartment after she locked herself inside the bathroom. She was going to wake up the neighbors. Around the corner he realized he had left his phone on her couch. Keep it, he thought, and smiled, thinking all this time how easy it was to start a new life. 

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MY PERSONAL BRAND by Matt Leibel

My personal brand is integrity. My personal brand is fresh, innovative thinking, and a commitment to excellence. My personal brand sets me apart, in the sense that many people refuse to stand within 50 feet of me, as if my personal brand stinks or something; my personal brand does not stink. If anything, my personal brand exudes a fresh, clean scent, evocative of wintergreen, or a cool spring breeze. My personal brand does not harm the skin. My personal brand contains no known carcinogens and has been extensively tested on laboratory rats. Unfortunately, one of the rats has recently escaped his cage. If you happen to see him, do not panic, do not subject him to an inhumane trap, for this is no ordinary rat, but a spectacular rat, one infused with my own personal brand, and all that this entails. You can find out more about my personal brand on my website, mypersonalbrand.ki. All of the other internet domain extensions for mypersonalbrandhave been taken, by the way, so I had to use.ki, the extension designated for the tiny Pacific Ocean island Republic of Kiribati. I even traveled to Kiribatis main atoll to set up my personal brands website. Thats how new and fresh my personal brand is. In Gilbertese, incidentally (the official language of the I-Kiribati people), the word for dog is Kamea. Apparently the etymology of this is that European invaders used to say to their dogs, Come here, come here!I didnt learn that on KiribatiI discovered it on the internet. But the internet is only the tip of the iceberg so far as my personal brand goes. Speaking of icebergs, Ive projected my personal brand onto the face of several massive ones spanning Greenland, Siberia, and Antarctica. You can see videos of these projections on my YouTube channel; they are rather spectacular. Ive done all this, by the way, at enormous personal cost and am beginning to wonder if the payoff justifies the expense Ive gone to to get my name out there. My personal brand has destroyed both of my marriages and has deeply strained my relationship with my teenaged son Zeke, whom I enlisted in my scheme to light up the endarkened, icy ends of the Earth with a gigantic symbol of myself. This involved, among other challenges, taking Zeke out of school for an entire year, and hiring an instructor to train him in the driving and care of sled dogs. Zeke now vows that he will never forgive me, but he is still young and as yet lacks the perspective on what really was a truly unique once-in-a-lifetime experience he will one day thank me for (which other of his friends have had the chance to enjoy the meaty tang of fresh-killed whale meat?)and that thanks will come, in part, via a full-throated endorsement of my personal brand, once he himself is in position to become an influencer/thought leader/social media superstar on his own. My personal brand is all about providing unconventional and memorable branded experiences. My personal brand is stickylike that. My personal brand isand lets just be honest about thismy last real chance at this point. Its a shot in the dark, a rabbit Im trying to pull out of a hat, and, in fact, Ive had some hats created for my personal brand including these premium models made out of genuine rabbit fur, and take it from me (and Zeke!), these hats will help you get through even the most brutal of winters. My personal brand still hasnt gotten the recognition it deservesbut now is the time to change that. Im coming to you with an opportunity, in other words, to get in on the ground floor and see your own personal brand piggyback on mine and take flight (not literally, as pigs cant fly!). My personal brand has now been certified 100% rat-free, and will focus henceforth only on areas reachable without access to sled or snowmobile. Think about it like this: in the end all things will die. Penguins will die, whales will die, rats will die, icebergs will die, the I-Kiribati will die. I will die, my ex-wives will die, my ungrateful but only son will die, and you will die, too. But our personal brands will live on long after were gone. Our personal brands are, in many ways, the ghosts of our lives, and if you dont want to have your own personal ghostwell, youre missing out on a chance to reach the coveted 18-45s, as personal ghosting is all the rage right now, according to my influencer friends in the know. But if youd rather not join forces, beware: my personal brand is not fucking around. It will win out in the end, because it is desperate, it has no other choice. My personal brand is no longer merely an extension of me. It has become an independent organism, a lab creature on the loose, a monster that I can no longer contain nor control. It will not be forgotten. It will not be denied. It will flutter under your floorboards and creep into your brain. It will achieve maximum stickiness. It will make its mark upon you. 

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